How the Sultans Ruled
1In 1453 the Ottoman Turks captured Constantinople, the old Byzantine capital, and made it their own capital, later known as Istanbul. Under Sultan Suleiman, who ruled from 1520 to 1566, the empire reached across parts of three continents: southeastern Europe, western Asia and North Africa. Its people spoke Turkish, Arabic, Greek, Armenian, Serbian and many other languages, and they followed several religions. Holding such an empire together took more than an army.
2Suleiman issued many kanun, laws made by the sultan, on matters such as taxes, land and crime. Judges called kadis applied both these laws and Islamic law in courts across the provinces. In Turkish, Suleiman is remembered as Kanuni, "the Lawgiver." Christian and Jewish communities kept their own religious leaders, who ran their schools and handled matters such as marriage. In return, these communities paid a special tax and accepted the sultan's rule. Historians later called such communities millets.
3To staff the army and the government, the sultans relied on the devshirme, a system of recruiting boys. Every few years, officials took boys, mostly from Christian farming families in the Balkans, away from their homes. The boys were converted to Islam and trained. Most became Janissaries, the sultan's foot soldiers. The most promising studied at the palace school in Istanbul, learning languages, law, writing and horsemanship, and some later became provincial governors or even grand vizier, the sultan's chief minister. Because these men had been cut off from their families and were legally the sultan's servants, they owed their rank to him alone. For many families, losing a son was a heavy burden, though some hoped he might rise to power.
4In the provinces, the sultan gave cavalry soldiers the right to collect taxes from a piece of land, called a timar, in return for fighting in his campaigns. A timar did not automatically pass to a soldier's son, and the government could take it back and grant it to someone else. Over the next century the system changed. By the 1600s, the devshirme was used less often, and Janissaries began to marry and enroll their own sons in the corps. The government also relied more on tax farmers, who paid in advance for the right to collect taxes in an area.