A Moveable Empire: Ottoman Nomads, Migrants, and Refugees

2. A Moveable Empire

13 2 A Moveable Empire T he Ottoman Empire became one of the largest and most powerful political structures in the world between the closing years of the thirteenth century and the turn of the seventeenth. By the latter date, the Black Sea basin, the Anatolian plateau, the Fertile Crescent of the Middle East, and North Africa had all become parts of the empire, putting the Ottomans in full control of all the important routes that had linked Europe, Asia, and Africa for several millennia. The speed with which the Ottomans swept these lands and the effective control they established over them continues to fascinate historians. The arrival of the Ottomans ushered in a reversal in the history of the Near East, which had been going through a lengthy period of conflicts and crises that had all but destroyed its major centers and impoverished its economy. The Crusaders devastated some of the wealthiest cities and trade routes around the Mediterranean between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries. Originating in central Asia, Mongols spread in waves, attacking, burning, and pillaging much of what they encountered during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Millennial movements that challenged both Islamic orthodoxy and orthodox rulers undermined the social order in Anatolia, causing massive and continuous displacements. Several 14 A Moveable Empire empires, such as the Byzantine, Seljuk, and Abbasid, succumbed to these internal and external pressures and either lost much of their grandeur or collapsed completely. It is true that the retreat of these empires in quick succession left a vast void into which the Ottomans moved. But how exactly the Ottomans managed to rein in these unraveling social structures and relationships and mold them to serve as the foundation of a powerful and prosperous empire remains shrouded in mystery.1 It is unlikely that scholars will ever demystify this history entirely, because doing so would require the use not only of conventional historical records but also of written and oral literary sources along with exegesis and related discussions by Islamic scholars, Sufi sheikhs, and their disciples . Even if all these sources were available and accessible, it might well be beyond the capacity of any one scholar to use all of them to address fundamental questions about the early years of the Ottoman Empire.2 One historian says that for most of this period, “and especially for the fourteenth century, the materials are usually non-existent. Where they exist they are fragmentary, problematic, and usually contradictory. For this period, to establish an event and, even more, to fix a secure date to an event is already an achievement. In these circumstances where almost any statement of fact needs a qualifying ‘perhaps’ or ‘on balance, therefore,’ no attempt to establish an explanatory framework can be more than an educated guess.”3 In this chapter I focus on one aspect of the early history of the Ottoman Empire that, although well known, has not received the attention it deserves. This is the central role played by nomadic and other mobile groups in not only the expansion but also the organization and administration of the Ottoman Empire. In the first part of the chapter I describe the symbiosis that developed between nomadic tribes and other mobile groups, on the one hand, and the burgeoning Ottoman imperial institutions, on the other. The second part is an examination of how the integration of a large number of mobile groups into the empire influenced its borders and identities. encountering mobility The territories of the Ottoman Empire intersected with what geographers refer to as the “sub-Arctic nomadic zone,” which extended from the Mediterranean littoral through the Anatolian peninsula and the Iranian plateau into the mountains of central Asia.4 Tens of thousands of tribes moved A Moveable Empire 15 constantly across this belt of high mountains and dry steppes and deserts for millennia. Starting in the eleventh century, in addition to ongoing seasonal migrations within this zone, nomadic tribes steadily moved westward from Asia. Turkic and Mongolian tribes arrived in the eastern Mediterranean and Anatolia as parts of this movement, altering the social and political makeup and the history of these regions forever. As they passed through this geography, the tribes interacted with local communities . Some melded into local relations and networks and abandoned their journey; others continued to move. Some of the indigenous communities themselves were nomadic, moving over shorter distances with their own complex interactions and relations with...