Sectarianism in the Ottoman Empire

Sectarianism and the Ottoman Empire have a long-term relationship.
The confessional identities were playing a significant role in the classical Ottoman social structure. Alongside other possible cross-cutting divisions, the sectarian lines were varying in their precisions. Yet, as a modern phenomenon that appeared in the 19 century concomitantly with other inter-group conflicts in other parts of the world, sectarianism penetrated every aspect of social life, deeply influenced the whole web of human relations and shaped individual self-perceptions.
History and overview
Before the 19th Century
A large number of non-Muslims inhabited the Ottoman empire since the first territorial gains. As it had expanded its territories, it included more and more Christians, Jews, Armenians, Arabs and Kurds from different beliefs. In line with the previous Islamic tradition, Ottomans granted dhimmi status to Christians and Muslims, and thereby allowed the existence of different ethnic, cultural and religious groups. Yet, this tolerant approach included also discriminative policies which were giving to non-Muslims a second-class position.
Although they were “annoying rather than life-threatening” as put by historian Bruce Master, the Ottomans had discriminative policies and practices against non-Muslims.
The Empire’s judicial system, which was based on the Islamic law, was also another factor that was separating Muslims and non-Muslims. The Islamic law imposed some restrictions on non-Muslims although interpretation and implementation of those restrictions varied tremendously contingent upon time and place. Its main consequence for non-Muslims was the obligation to pay jizya, poll tax. The non-Muslims had to pay this tax in return for the protection and limited freedom that the state was providing. Nevertheless, since the amount of jizya was decided according to people’s ability to pay, only small amount of non-Muslims were qualified to pay jizya.
Most observable discriminatory practice was sultan’s sartorial rules. Accordingly, non-Muslims had to wear blue or black clothes (or red shoes in some instances). Although this rule was rarely enforced, wearing Muslim-style clothes were prohibited to non-Muslims. This strict sectarian divisions were preventing the integration of the population.
The Ottomans allowed various non-Muslim groups to practice their religion, live their culture and regulate their own communities. The millet system which went into practice in the 18 Century, was recognizing Greek Orthodox’, Armenians’ and Jews’ right to carry out their own civil rules. As this system was designating religion as a main parameter for deciding an individual’s political and legal status, the millet system was causing a segregation between different religions.
For religious leaderships, this segregation provided an opportunity to freely govern their internal communitarian relationship. In the same manner, the Ottomans were believing the righteousness of the religious separation of the communities.
In this respect, the Ottoman Empire had classified its subjects based on religious categories and discriminated against non-Muslims. Yet, the intensity of this classification and discrimination was not monolithic and homogenous. It varies from place to place and time to time. For instance, the segregation was much more thinner in Arab regions where shared Arab language enabled different groups to share a similar culture, compared to other parts of the empire. So much so that, different religious groups’ similarities in their manners, dress and habits were disturbing for some contemporary European travelers. Moreover, as Masters pointed out in his book, titled ‘Christians and Jews in the Ottoman World,’ ‘Religious identities in the Ottoman period did not exclude the “imagining” of community along something other than sectarian lines.’
Sectarianism in the 19th Century
19 Century was an age of reform and modernism for Ottomans as they were shaken by series of shocking events, like Napoleon’s invasion of Egyp<nowiki/>t, Muhammed Ali Pasha incident, Greek and Serbian rebellions. Embodied in the Tanzimat reforms, Ottomans understood this modernism as eliminating social segregation and hierarchy, achieving equality among its subjects, forestalling further interventions of foreign powers and strengthening central authority. The idea was preventing the dissolution of the empire by uniting different groups under common ‘Ottoman’ identity.
Nevertheless, the changing economic, social and political nature of the world had driven a wedge between different groups as of the 19 Century - a wedge which triggered several episodes of inter-communal violence in the Ottoman territories.
The empire’s integration to the global economic system, thanks to the Ottoman economic privileges to the European states, caused disparities between different groups. Ottoman economy exported raw agricultural materials and imported manufactured goods from European states. While this trade imbalance was giving way to economic hardships for Muslim as well as Jewish and Christian masses, beneficiaries were almost exclusively non-Muslim elites.
This economic alienation put extra pressure on Muslims who were already annoyed with European military expansionism and interventionism. Although Europeans were not the ones that caused sectarianism in the region, they read the region through a sectarian perspective and felt an obligation to save their fellow Christians from Muslim dominion.
On the other hand, Muslim reaction to Ottoman modernism was another factor that reinforced the sectarianism in the 19 century. The Ottoman religious elite embraced the Tanzimat reforms, or even inspired them according to some studies. But, the reforms’ repercussions differed in different layers of the society. Judicial/political equality was meant a regression in Muslims’ position in the social hierarchy. From being paramount piece of the empire, the Muslims were downgraded to one of equals among the sultan’s subjects. As Ussama Makdisi put it, “Many Muslim subjects in the empire viewed the ending of Islamic privilege as a concession at a time of aggressive Western military and missionary assault on Islam itself.”
These sectarian self-perception and growing animosities stirred up inter-communal violence in different parts of the empire in the 19 century. Aleppo in 1850, Mosul 1854, Nablus 1856, Jeddah 1858, Mount Lebanon and Damascus in 1860, Egypt in 1882 and Baghdad and Mosul in 1889 witnessed different episodes of this phenomenon.
Having said that, sectarianism was not an unchallenged and homogenous perception in the 19 century Ottoman Empire. Some intellectuals of the era realized that sectarianism was not primordial and inherent in the nature of the region. Instead, they supported the egalitarian and secular nature of the Tanzimat reforms, while denouncing ‘religious fanaticism’ and Ottoman authoritarianism.
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