Ottoman Empire

The Ottoman Empire was a long-lived Islamic caliphate (state), whose capital was Istanbul. It ruled over the Eastern Mediterranean, parts of eastern Europe, and eastern North Africa from the fall of Constantinople (Christian name of Istanbul) in 1453, until its dissolution at the end of World War I (they foolishly having chosen to side with the Germans).

The Ottoman Empire constituted the biggest threat to Europe. Turks turned the great St. Sophia church into a mosque. They conquered the Balkans and reached, but did not conquer, Vienna. Shipping or traveling by ship was, because of the Ottomans, dangerous.

Though the Ottoman Empire was "an Islamic threat" to Europe, the main issue was not religion, but security. In fact religion per se was not the issue at all. For over 200 years the Ottoman Empire was a military threat to Eastern Europe. It either openly endorsed or took no action against the pirates and coastal raiders, who stole shiploads of merchandise and sold off many Christians as slaves, holding the well-to-do ones for ransom.

Many of the biggest troubled spots of today's world -- the Balkans, Palestine/Israel, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq -- are former parts of the Ottoman empire. Its dissolution, at the Sèvres Conference of 1920, could have, with hindsight, been better handled.

The Ottoman Empire should not be confused with modern Turkey. It did not view itself as Turkish (though Turkish was the language of empire, and it was definitely centered in its capitol and largest city, Istanbul). Turkey has rejected its Ottoman past, moving its capital from Istanbul to the new Ankara, and changing from the Arabic to the roman alphabet (thus making all prior books published in Turkish unintelligible to modern readers without special training). Also, the Ottoman Empire was much larger than Turkey.

At its peak, the sixteenth century, the Ottoman Empire was sophisticated and cosmopolitan. Many educated Spanish Jews chose to go to Istanbul, by way of Italy, after their expulsion from Spain in 1492. the sultan received them with open arms, commenting, with happy astonishment, that Spain was sendung him "its best citizens".

The empire was sensual and hedonistic. As part of this, recreational drug use was perfectly O.K. While avoiding wine, which the Koran prohibited, hashish, opium, and coffee were freely indulged in. All reached Europe via the Ottoman Empire. (Coffee was briefly prohibited in Europe; thus the association of leftish, Bohemian, rebellious types with coffeehouses. See Mozart's Coffee Cantata.)

The Ottoman Empire was Europe's most important contact with the "East", the exotic "other". The clothing was strikingly different and more artistic. The markets were full of merchandise -- spices, fabrics -- unavailable in Christian Europe.Those running from the law in the Christian world could safely take refuge there. Men could have up to four wives, as long as they were treated equally (which seldom happened, in practice). Even more important, a man could divorce any or all of his wives whenever he wanted to, and take new ones. Since Mohammed married a girl of nine, pre-pubescent girls were not off-limits.

Swx

Sex, in Islam, is viewed as a natural appetite like hunger; if one is hungry, one needs to eat. Like most of the Muslim world before it was influenced by colonializing, prudish Christians, no one cared about sexual behavior as long as it did not threaten public order. A man was expected to marry, to produce and support children. Aside from that requirement, a man could do sexually pretty much what he wanted, and there wasn't even a need for secrecy. Prostitution was openly tolerated, if confined to designated areas. Nothing was wrong about sex with boys, a peccadillo at worst, and there were boy houses of prostitution and "peg houses" where boys' anuses were systematically stretched.

The modern Western distinction between love (always good) and sex (only good within specified limits) did not exist.

One could not be a homosexual as that is understood in the West today. A man willingly receiving the penis of another man was (at least publicly) inconceivable, disgusting, as it is today in, for example, Morocco. But having sex with whoever was never a problem if done with a minimum of discretion. The elite openly indulged, and as in all cultures, set the model for others to follow.

Sexual slavery was common. Christian shipping on the Mediterranean was hazardous, as officially sponsored pirates would seize ships and sell as sex slaves all the boys and girls, and the pretty women (the "fate worse than death", as European women put it). Regular, forced imports of young slaves from eastern Europe were common. Muslims could not enslave other Muslims (as contemporaneous Christians could not enslave other Christians, only "heathens"). Using Non-Muslims for one's sexual pleasure was acceptable, and even viewed as "hotter" than sex with another Muslim.

The very first, and successful, mission of the newly-constituted U.S. Navy was to sail to Algiers (ruled loosely by the Ottomans), to stop pirate raids on American ships.

Boylove in the Ottoman empire

Boylove -- which was understood to mean sex with boys -- was seen in the Ottoman empire as especially enjoyable. "The Gauls and those living in the northern countries are [as seen by the Turks] insensible of pleasure; it is only them that have the true smack of voluptuousness" (i.e., from sex with boys). In sixteenth-century Algiers, according to Spanish historian Diego de Haedo (our only source), "Sodomy is honorable, because he who supports more boys (garzones) has more status ("es más honrado"). Men like them more than their own wives and daughters. Many of the Turks and renegades [converted, European Christians], even senior, influential men ("hombres grandes y viejos"), only want boys for wives, and boast of having had nothing to do with women their whole lives. They despise females and want nothing to do with them."