The Ottoman State and administration
The Ottomans inherited a rich mixture of political traditions from vastly disparate ethnic groups: Turks, Persians, Mongols, Mesopotamian and, of course, Islam. The Ottoman state, like the Turkish, Mongol, and Mesopotamian states rested on a principle of absolute authority in the monarch. The nature of Ottoman autocracy, however, is greatly misunderstood and misinterpreted in the West, particularly in world history textbooks.
The central function of the ruler or Sultan in Ottoman political theory was to guarantee justice ('adala in Arabic) in the land. All authority hinges on the ruler's personal commitment to justice. This idea has both Turco-Persian and Islamic aspects. In Islamic political theory, the model of the just ruler was Solomon in the Hebrew histories (Suleyman is named after Solomon). The justice represented by the Solomonic ruler is a distributive justice; this is a justice of fairness and equity that comes closer to the Western notion of justice. In addition, however, 'adale has Turco-Persian coordinates; in this tradition, 'adale, or justice, is the protection of the helpless from the rapacity of corrupt and predatory government. In this sense, justice involves protecting the lowest members of society, the peasantry, from unfair taxation, corrupt magistracy, and inequitable courts. This, in Ottoman political theory, was the primary task of the Sultan. He personally protected his people from the excesses of government, such as predatory taxation and the corruption of local officials. For the Ottomans, the ruler could only guarantee this justice if he had absolute power. For if he was not an absolute ruler, that meant that he would be dependent on others and so subject to corruption. Absolute authority, then, was at the service of building a just government and laws rather than elevating the ruler above the law as Europeans have interpreted the Sultanate.
The Structure of Government
Officially, the Sultan was the government. He enjoyed absolute power and, in theory at least, was personally involved in every governmental decision. In the Ottoman experience of government, everything representing the state government issued from the hands of the Sultan himself.
The Sultan also assumed the title of Caliph, or supreme temporal leader, of Islam. The Ottomans claimed this title for several reasons: the two major holy sites, Mecca and Medina, were part of the Empire, and the primary goal of the government was the security of Muslims around the world, particularly the security of the Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca. As Caliph, the Sultan was responsible for Islamic orthodoxy. Almost all of the military conquests and annexations of other countries were done for one of two reasons: to guarantee the safe passage of Muslims to Mecca (the justification for invading non-Muslim territories) and the rooting out of heterodox or heretical Islamic practices and beliefs (the justification for invading or annexing Muslim territories).
Historians simply can't agree on how the Sultanate was passed from generation to generation among the Ottomans. In the early history of the Empire, the Sultanate clearly passes from father to eldest son; in 1603, at the death of Ahmed I (1603-1617), the Sultanate passed to the brother of the Sultan. Still, the Ottomans did not seem to have a hereditary system based on primogeniture (crown passes to the eldest son) or seniority (crown passes to the next oldest brother). In both Turkish and Mongol monarchical systems, the passing of the crown is a haphazard affair. Both the Turkish and Mongol peoples believed that the crown fell to the most worthy inheritor. Each individual in the hereditary line, brothers and sons, were equally entitled to the crown. This meant that successions were almost always major struggles among contending parties. The Ottomans seem to have operated in a similar system. When a Sultan passed away, the crown, it was believed, fell to the most worthy successor (almost always the eldest son). Selim I had to fight for the Sultanate, but Suleyman was the only son of Selim and so inherited the crown without a struggle. Once a Sultan had assumed the throne, all his brothers were executed as well as all their sons—had Selim I lost his bid for the crown, Suleyman would have been killed. These executions guaranteed that there would be no future wars or struggles between claimants to the throne since all the contenders but one were out of the picture.
In the seventeenth century, Ottoman Sultans began to revise this practice and simply imprisoned their brothers—this is what permitted Ahmed I to be succeeded by his brother. Western historians point to this practice as one of the central reasons why the Sultanic government failed. Since the crown was falling to individuals that had been imprisoned much if not most of their lives, the Ottoman state saw a succession of mad Sultans and the corresponding increase in power of a corrupt bureaucracy.
The fundamental qualification for the Sultanate was the individual's worthiness to fill the position. The Ottomans believed that simple succession proved that the Sultan was worthy of the crown; however, the Sultan may grow old, feeble, or corrupt and thus lose his worthiness to serve as Sultan. Selim I came to the throne by deposing his old father, Bayezid II (1481-1512), who was too old to lead the army against external threats. When Suleyman had become an old man, his two sons, Bayezid and Mustafa, his favorite son, plotted to overthrow him. Faced with this treason, the old Suleyman had to execute them both and this seems to have broken his spirit completely.
The Ottomans followed the old Turkish and Mongol tradition of considering the Sultan's lands to be a joint possession of the Sultan's family. Accordingly, the Ottoman lands were parceled out to members of the royal family when each Sultan came to power. Conquered lands were considered the private property of the Sultan.
Although the Sultan was regarded as personally responsible for every government decision, in reality the government was run by a large bureaucracy. This bureaucracy was controlled by a rigid and complex set of rules, and the Sultan himself was constrained by these rules. At the top of the bureaucracy was the Diwan ("couch"), which served as a cabinet to the Sultan for making decisions. The most powerful member of the Sultan's government was the Grand Vizier who largely oversaw all the executive functions of the government. Appointments to these positions were not arbitrary but followed strict rules.
