ethnicity of mimar sinan(ottoman architect)?

I was rather talking about Turkish or Western sources.

Whatever sources. Racist Turks don't like the Ottoman Empire either.

Ottoman millet system is now (obviously) invalid.

It is more valid than you'd believe. Ask the Bosniaks around here. But Sinan is rather obviously dead for a few centuries, you know, adn it was damn valid when he was around. Don't fool yourself, he would have killed Christians in battle as a Janissary without batting an eyelid, and possibly did so. 

People would prefer to know his ethnic origin, rather than his religion, because that's how people identify themselves today.

Was a Roman Emperor from North Africa an Algerian or an Italian or a Roman?

Ethnicities are defined by religion to some degree. In the Ottoman Empire, they were almost completely based on religion. Besides, there is an ethnicity called Ottoman, defined as a member of the Muslim ruling class of the Ottoman Empire and Sinan is an Ottoman Muslim like many others. Only racists (including Turks) would claim Sinan is something other than an Ottoman Muslim.

Besides, there is a general rule, when talking history it is a big mistake to judge the past by today's values. Sorry if I am harsh, but I have little patience left for the imbeciles (again including Turks- there are many Turks like this) who come up with crap like 'this Ottoman Sultan had a Serb mother, so he is Serb, this Vizier comes from a Greek village, so he is a Greek' etc. Another testimony to the imbecility of these people is the fact that the Ottoman Empire made Sinan what he was, since he would have become a smelly peasant if he had grown up as a Caeserian Christian.

Edited by Beylerbeyi

Is it really that offensive if I call him an Islamicized Armenian?

Was Pushkin a 'Christianised African'? No, he was a Russian. Sinan's conversion was beyond a religion change.

As I wrote above, it makes you sound like a nationalist/racist and I really had enough of such people. What gain are you expecting from this claim? Only thing you can claim is that Armenian genes make good architects/engineers, since that's the only Armenian (or whatever) feature of Sinan. This is a racist claim, which gets on my nerves. It is bullsh*t anyway, since 'Armenian genes' are the same as other peoples' genes from the same area.

Conversion was/is a serious event, mate, especially when it is at a young age. It changes the person's identity completely when coupled with cultural difference and change in language. When Sinan was born, modern racism/ethno-cultural nationalism was unknown, so it was even more important than today.  

If you don't believe me go to Hemshin in Turkey. There you'll find Armenian speaking Muslims, with similar culture to Armenians (all in all Muslim Armenians), but they don't call themselves Armenians, because Armenian means Christian. If you call them Armenians, they'll shoot you. Ottoman Muslims are even more different from Armenians than those people, because their culture was more different from Armenians, and they spoke Turkish (converts had to learn it first, of course).

If you insist on being a racist/nationalist, think this way: be proud of your real ancestors, not those who refused being Armenians, and became Ottomans, and today, Turks. Sinan killed Armenians, his sons killed Armenians, his grandsons killed Armenians, and so on and so forth, and you are trying to be proud by making him an Armenian.

Be proud of the Balyans, they were real Ottoman Armenians. Sinan simply wasn't.

Originally posted by nemesia    i want to learn the roots of mimar sinan (ottoman architect) . i heard that  he was rum(greek) origin, is it true? He was of Greek descent,that is right

Today in the Brittish football team

     No one in this thread has denied he was an Ottoman (or that he was proud of his country)....the person who started the thread was simply curious which ethnicity he belonged to (since in the modern era we distinguish people based on ethnicity, as opposed to religion as it was under the Ottoman system). This doesn't mean we're saying "he had loyalty for his people moreso than for the Ottomans"....no. We just want to find out his origins. There's no supremacy issue going on here.

Originally posted by azimuth you didnt prove anything, this name is Arabic and islam isn't a language its a religion for all people. this name and other names were used before islam by Arabs and you can find many non-muslims arabs and not arabs having arabic names that doesn't mean they are Muslims using "islamic names". iam not arguing people who converted to islam usually change their names to names muslims use, this is a part where the person coverting changing his name from the non-bliever name to a name muslims use. and not all muslims has arabic names, and they are muslims.