2 OF 3

At the beginning of the seventeenth century, the Ottoman Empire was still the most powerful state in the world both in wealth and military capability. The personal style of government, however, cultivated among the earlier Sultans had gone away completely. In place of Sultanic government, the bureaucracy pretty much ran the show. Power struggles among the various elements of the bureaucracy: the grand Vezir , the Diwan , or supreme court, and especially the military, the Janissaries, led to a constant shifting of government power. Islamic historians point out that the growth of bureaucratic power and the disinterest of the Sultans led to corrupt and predatory local government which eroded popular support. Western historians point to internal decline in the bureaucracy along with increased military efficiency of European powers as the principle reason for the decline of the Empire. However it may be, the decline of the Ottomans was a staggered affair lasting over two centuries. The Empire itself would exist until World War I, at which point it was finally erased from the maps by European powers.

Perhaps the most significant innovation in Sultanic government was the preservation of the brothers of the Sultan. While Sultanic succession is hotly disputed among both Islamic and Western historians, it seems clear that the Ottomans believed that the Sultan was selected primarily through divine kut , which in Turkish means "favor." All the members of the ruling family, according to some historians, had an equal claim to the throne. This explains the Ottoman practice of killing the brothers of the Sultan and their sons; the purpose of this practice was to obviate rebellion or rival claims to the throne. In the late sixteenth century, the Ottoman Sultans abandoned this practice, yet still distrusted filial loyalty. So the brothers of the Sultan were locked away in the harem in the palace. While they lived in luxury, they were still forced to live in small rooms and often in isolated conditions. the Sultans abandoned the practice of training their sons to assume the Sultanate by having them serve in the government and the military. In both Islamic and Western histories of the Ottomans, this decline in the Sultanate is regarded as one of the prime causes of its decline.

As a result of the disintegration of the instituion of the Sultanate, power had to go somewhere. It principally went to the Janissaries, the military arm of the government. Throughout the seventeenth, the Janissaries slowly took over the military and administrative posts in the government and passed these offices on to their sons, mainly by bribing officials. Because of this practice, Ottoman government soon began to be ruled by a military feudal class. Under the early Ottomans, position in the government was determined solely through merit. After the sixteenth century, position in government was largely determined by hereditary. The quality of the administration and bureaucracy declined precipitiously.

2 OF 3