The Rise and Fall of Ottoman Empire and How It Fits Ibnu Khaldun’s Theory

Abstract

In this article the author wants to discuss the development of the Ottoman Empire and its compatibility with the theory of the 5 phases of a country's development by Ibnu Khaldun, the first phase, namely the formation phase, the second phase, namely the phase of maintaining power and eliminating rivals, the third phase, namely the phase of achieving glory and collecting wealth, the fourth phase namely the phase of imitating the footsteps of the past rulers, and the fifth phase is the phase of immersing in pleasure and destroying what the past rulers built. The writer found that there is a match between the theory of Ibn Khaldun and the development of the Ottoman Turks. Even though the Ottoman Turks were successful in doing a lot of reforms, so they retreated from phase four to phase three, by making reforms that their predecessors had never done. This study answered the question of British historian Malcolm Yapp (1988) who asked why the Ottoman Turks were able to survive so long. The author also supports Yapp's statement, against many western orientalists that the phrase “The Sickman of Europe” which was associated with the Ottoman Turks is only the imagination of Western orientalists and historians because in reality in the 18th and 19th centuries the Ottoman Turks were doing reform and the Ottoman Empire were still a strong state.