Durants' S o C
Vol. VI THE REFORMATION
Pgs. 707 - 711
OTTOMAN MORALS
The diversity of Ottoman from Christian ways flagrantly illustrated the geographical and temporal variation of moral codes. Polygamy reigned quietly where Byzantine Christianity had so recently exacted formal monogamy; women hid themselves in seraglios, or behind veils, where once they had mounted the throne of the Caesars; and Suleiman attended dutifully to the needs of his harem with none of the qualms of conscience that might have disturbed or enhanced the sexual escapades of Francis I, Charles V, Henry VIII, or Alexander VI. Turkish civilization, like that of ancient Greece, kept women in the background, and allowed considerable freedom to sexual deviations. Ottoman homosexuality flourished where “Greek Friendship” had once won battles and inspired philosophers.
The Turks were allowed by the Koran four wives and some concubines, but only a minority could afford the extravagance. The warring Ottomans, often far removed from their wanted women, took as wives or concubines, “currente thalamo,” the widows or daughters of the Christians they had conquered. No racial prejudice intervened: Greek, Mongol, Bulgarian, Serbian, Hungarian, German, Italian, Russian, Persian, and Arab women were welcomed with open arms, and became the mothers of children, who were all alike accepted as legitimate and Ottoman. Adultery was hardly necessary under the circumstances, and when it occurred it was severely punished: the woman was obliged to buy an ass and ride it through the city; a man was flogged with one hundred strokes, and was required to kiss and reward the executioner who dealt them. A husband could secure a divorce by a mere declaration of intent, but a wife could free herself only by complex and deterrent litigation.
Suleiman remained a bachelor till his fortieth year. Since the wife Bajazet had been captured and allegedly abused by Timur and his Tatars, the Ottoman sultans, to forestall another such indignity, had made it a rule not to marry, and admit none but slaves to their bed. Suleiman’s seraglio contained some 300 concubines, all bought in the market or captured in war, and nearly all of Christian origin. When they expected a visit from the sultan they attired themselves in their finest robes and stood in line to greet him; he saluted courteously as many as time allowed, and placed his handkerchief on the shoulder of one who especially pleased him. That evening, on retiring, he asked that the recipient should return his handkerchief. The next morning she would be presented with a dress of cloth of gold, and her allowance would be increased. The sultan might remain in the harem two or three nights, spreading his bounty; then he would return to his own palace to live day and night with men. Women rarely appeared in his palace, and took no part in state dinners or ceremonies. Nevertheless it was considered a great honour to be assigned to the seraglio. Any inmate of it who reached the age of twenty-five without earning a handkerchief was freed, and usually found a husband of high estate. In Suleiman’s case the institution did not lead to physical degradation, for in most matters he was a man of signal moderation.
Social life among the Ottomans was unisexual, and lacked the gay stimulation of women’s charms and laughing chatter. Yet manners were as refined as in Christendom, probably more refined than in any lands except China, India, Italy, and France. Domestic slaves were numerous, but they were humanely treated, many laws protected them, and manumission was easy. Though public sanitation was poor, personal cleanliness was common. The institution of public baths, which the Persians seem to have taken from Hellenistic Syria, was transmitted to the Turks. In Constantinople and other large cities of the Ottoman Empire the public baths were built of marble and attractively decorated. Some Christian saints had prided themselves on avoiding water; the Moslem was required to make his ablutions before entering the mosque or saying his prayers; in Islam cleanliness was really next to Godliness. Table manners were no better than in Christendom; meals were eaten with the fingers off wooden plates; there were no forks. Wine was never drunk in the house; there was much drinking of it in taverns, but there was less drunkenness than in Western lands. Coffee came into use among the Moslems in the fourteenth century; we hear of it first in Abyssinia; then it appears to have passed into Arabia. The Moslems, we are told, used it originally to keep themselves awake during religious services. We find no mention of it by a European writer until 1592.
Physically, the Turk was tough and strong, and famed for endurance. Even the ordinary Turk carried himself with dignity, helped by robes that concealed the absurdities of the well fed form. Commoners donned a simple fez, which dressy persons enveloped in a turban. Both sexes had a passion for flowers; Turkish gardens were famous for their colour; thence, apparently, came into Western Europe the lilac, tulip, mimosa, cherry laurel, and ranunculus. There was an aesthetic side to the Turks which their wars hardly revealed. We are surprised to be told by Christian travellers that except in war they were “not by nature cruel,” but “docile, tractable, gentle . . . lovable, and generally kind.” Francis Bacon complained that they seemed kinder to animals than to men. Cruelty emerged when security of the faith was threatened; then the wildest passion was let loose.
The Turkish code was especially hard in war. No foe was entitled to quarter; women and children were spared, but able bodied enemies, even if unarmed and unresisting, might be slaughtered without sin. And yet many cities captured by Turks fared better than Turkish cities captured by Christians. When Ibrahim Pasha took Tabriz and Baghdad (1534) he forbade his soldiers to pillage them or harm the inhabitants; when Suleiman again took Tabriz ( 1548) he too preserved it from plunder or massacre, but when Charles V took Tunis (1535) he could pay his army only by letting it loot. Turkish law however, rivalled the Christian in barbarous penalties. Thieves had a hand cut off to shorten their grasp.
Most of the administrative offices of the central government were located in the ‘serai’ or imperial quarters. To this enclosure, three miles in circuit, admission was by a single gate, highly ornamented and called by the French the Sublime Porte -- a term which, by a whimsy of speech, came to mean the Ottoman government itself. Second only to the sultan in this centralized organization was the Grand Vizier. The word came from the Arabic ‘wazir’, bearer of burdens. He bore many, for he was the head of the Diwan, the bureaucracy, the judiciary, the army, and the diplomatic corps.The heaviest obligation was to please the sultan in all matters, for the vizier was usually an ex-Christian, technically a slave, and could be executed without trial at a word from his master. Suleiman proved his own good judgment in choosing Ibrahim Pasha, a Greek who had been captured by Moslem corsairs and brought to Suleiman as a promising slave. The Sultan found him so diversely competent that he entrusted him with more and more power, paid him 60,000 ducats a year, gave him a sister in marriage, regularly ate with him, and enjoyed his conversation. This was one of the great friendships of history, almost in the tradition of Classic Greece.
One wisdom Ibrahim lacked-- to conceal with external modesty his internal pride. He had many reasons to be proud: it was he who raised the Turkish government to its highest efficiency, whose diplomacy divided the West by arranging the alliance with France, he who, while Suleiman marched into Hungary, pacified Asia Minor, Syria, and Egypt by reforming abuses and dealing justly and affably with all. However, he angered the army by forbidding it to sack Tabriz and Baghdad, and trying to prevent its sack of Buda. In that pillage he rescued part of Matthias library, and three bronze statues of Hermes, Apollo, and Artemis; these he set up before his palace in Constantinople, and even his liberal master was disturbed by this flouting of the Semitic commandment against graven images. Gossip charged him with despising the Koran. Roxelana, favourite of the harem, resented Ibrahims influence, and day by day, with feminine persistence, filled the imperial ear with suspicions and complaints. The Sultan was finally convinced. On March 31 1536 Ibrahim was found strangled in his bed., presumably as a result of royal command. It was a deed whose barbarism matched the burning of Servetus and Berquin.
Official morals were as in Christendom. The Turks were proud of their fidelity to their word, and they usually kept the terms of capitulation offered to surrendering foes. But Turkish casuists, like such Christian counterparts as St. John Capistrano, held that no promise could bind the faithful against the interest or duties of their religion, and that the sultan might abrogate his own treaties, as well as those of his predecessors. Christian travellers reported “honesty, a sense of justice . . benevolence, integrity, and charity” in the average Turk, “ but practically all Turkish office holders were open to bribery”; a Christian historian adds that “most Turkish officials were ex-Christians,” but we should further add that they had been brought up as Moslems. In the provinces the Turkish pasha, like the Roman proconsul, hastened to amass a fortune before the whim of the ruler replaced him; he exacted from his subjects the full price that he had paid for his appointment. The sale of offices was as common in Constantinople or Cairo as in Paris or Rome.
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