On Ottoman Early Modernity: Scattered Thoughts Pretending to be a Position Statement Boğaç Ergene (bio) Keywords Early Modern, Modernity, Ottoman Empire, Periodization Ottoman historians who are inclined to use “early modern” as a periodizing label tend to justify this choice with reference to a number of developments between the late sixteenth and early nineteenth centuries. In the realm of politics, for example, they cite the transformation of the state into a centralized, bureaucratic organization; appearance of oligarchic networks in the government; limitations imposed upon royal authority; and expansion of the political realm to include more segments of the society. In the economic sphere, they point to the monetization of transactions; unification of Ottoman monetary zones; rise of an increasingly integrated market economy; and processes of capital accumulation. In the legal realm, some have argued, such economic changes led to the decline of the kanun, associated with the feudal origins of the Ottoman socio-economic order, and the emergence of quasi-private land ownership. In the military realm, the Ottomans’ ability to adopt new tactics and technologies kept them among the most advanced European polities, at least until the end of the seventeenth century. Other examples from these and other realms (most recently, science and religion) abound. I am not convinced, however, that these observations are responsible for the popularization of the notion of the empire as an early modern polity. In fact, I suspect that the appeal of the label pre-dates such findings and is based, rather, on recent historiographical developments. For one, the overwhelming rejection of the once-dominant decline paradigm since the early 1990s forced the field to seek alternative models of periodization. Edward Said’s critique of orientalism in Western research on Islam and Muslims and the growing popularity of comparative historical approaches since the 1980s have also motivated Ottomanists to seek new conceptual tools in order both to avoid assumptions [End Page 24] of Western superiority and make their work accessible to non-specialist colleagues. Thus, historians’ current interest in Ottoman early modernity has been largely instrumental in nature: this periodization both accommodates (the possibility of) positive, transformative changes in Ottoman lands in the post-Süleymanic era and also enables comparisons between the Ottoman Empire and its European and Asian counterparts. Yet, Ottomanists resorting to the label entails at least one methodological problem. In fact, those of us who use it liberally in our work rarely, if ever, define what we mean by “modernity.” As Jack Goldstone has argued, the suggestion of early modernity presupposes a definition of modernity, one that the “early modern” condition is assumed to have foreshadowed. And there are multiple, not necessarily consistent, definitions of modernity. For example, Goldstone identifies two different conceptualizations. According to the “functionalist” definition (associated with Talcott Parsons’ sociology), modernity refers to the circumstances in which religion is a lifestyle choice … and in which belief in science has largely supplanted belief in spirits and miracles. It is one in which most consumer goods are produced by mass-production facilities powered … by fossil fuels or electricity, and in which transportation is powered by engines. In this state government is designed by men to meet their needs, rather than accepted as sanctified by immemorial tradition. Parliamentary bodies and constitutions are entities common in this state.1 In the “Marxist” definition, however, modernity is associated with capitalism and the emergence of wage labor as a means of surplus extraction. The transition from feudalism to capitalism involved the emergence of “merchant capitalism and the growth of proto-industrial production.” “Early modern,” was then “a form of society in which markets were an active source of profits to merchants, who ordered their affairs rationally in order to pursue profits. . . Moreover, governance … (if still not fully modern) was centralized and partly bureaucratized, albeit under the direction of traditionally-sanctified monarchies and their noble ministers and officers.”2 I do not think that all features of Ottoman early modernity as identified in the literature are consistent with all extant conceptualizations of modernity. For example, while state consolidation might better fit the Marxist model, the emergence of oligarchic networks and the expansion of the political field, which is supposed to have limited...
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Jul 2, 2020
Kai-Qian Kam + 2
Open Access
