Ottoman perceptions of the Americas

Originally posted by erkut Al Jassas my proffesor says killing ''infidels'' and spreading Islam was the main idea of jihad. But mostly all rulers prefered to keep ''infidels'' alive, to use them as slaves or make them pay taxes.

Maybe your professor has a certain bias, too.

I'll read pages 2-6 some other time, first I will answer some of the questions from the first page.

First off, the 'Ottomans' did make contact with the Americas via the Greek migrants to Brazil and the American South as indentured servants in states like Georgia and South Carolina. As a subject people, the was their 'nationality' or label, whatever you want to call it. No Greek even out of his right mind would ever call himself a Turk, but there were Greek Ottomans.

Second, there is a Turkish colony in Ecador. I was told this by a Turk I know up in Alaska, he said it was the largest population of Turks outside of Turkey (I didn't bring up the Cyprus issue, so maybe, maybe not).

Third, as a stratified and highly structured militaristic society,  I think they were more interested in the concerns of the present borders, the border wars of the 16th century. The capture of Iraq and south eastern europe was going quite well.... so what if the fringes of Christianity  begin to convert others, Ottoman expansion was making good pace, and would eventually be at the British Channel. Any advances would be shaky at best, and any converts would be followers of the book, the rest could be dealt with in time.

Of course, if they slowed thier European and North African advance, foreign colonies could really hinder any Ottoman in the long term because of radical increases of populations, units, and war material, as well as new techniques and approaches that could spell doom on both Western and the Southern fronts, given navies would allow the Christians to counter-react where ever they wanted to..... and as they eventually did.

One must wonder why the Ottomans never sent missionaries to the new world. Well, first off is logistics.... to ship a missionary from, say, any random greek island would require a sea going vessel at some point prior to the Rock of Gibraltar and Ceuta. Neither England or Spain or Portugal would  let that ship through unmolested.... that's if they even made it past the Knights of Malta. The Ottomans did not control very much of the Maghrib then, and even when the time came when they ruled in name..... it was ONLY in name. Perhaps a missionary or two could of been sent udercover, or on another's nationality's ship? How sustainable would these operations be in the long run? You arrive to the coast of Meso-America with a sack of gold, a few tents, machetes and shovels, and HOPE for more tricksters to make it through the Christian blockade of Gibraltar? This missionary has better have the Charisma of Hitler, the engineering capabilities of Caesar, and the force of will of Mao Tse Tung to convince anyone long term that his god wasn't some silly passing fad.... especially since christian missionaries and colonial mercenaries continually prowled the coastline, looking to kill Christian settles of the same faith/wrong nationality.

The Ottoman currency was based on Silver, not gold, which was the aim of most colonial nations...... not to say Ottomans disliked gold, or the colonials didn't value silver.... but you gotta admit, there wasn't a whole lot of motivation for the Ottomans to jump on the gold bandwagon if they got what they really wanted, silver, rather easily just by occupying the rump end of the silk trail and the trade routes into the black sea.

The Ottomans were NOT a jungle people..... conditioned to intense heat.... yes. Conditioned to Jungle fighting tactics where horse was of minimal use, and visibility didn't extend beyond 15 feet on a low steam day..... hell no! I think the ritual fighting to please the gods would of been a good point of syncritism between any Ottomans and Natives, but I think the MesoAmericans would of just incorporated Jihad into their religious wars, making it a fight to bring on the mystical land of Mecca, where Quetzalcoatl lived and the Muhammads ripped the beating hearts of their enemies out..... in other words, they would of missed most of the point of Islam, and interpreted what they heard to the extent of what they understood.

I wonder about Ottoman embassies in the Americas, such as for the US or the Portugese during Napoleons reign (if that was possibly with the French marching around in Egypt). Did they ever send out missionaries? A son or daughter of the embassy marry local? Did any muslims arrive under the Greek flag immediately after Greek independence?
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Was Islam capatible with native beliefs? Well, pagan beliefs managed to get transplanted from Africa. A few slaves were Islamic. There are some populations in the Caribbean.... hot tempered, but civil from what I hear, getting along surprisingly well down there.


I think the scenario of Malaysia and Indonesia to have a look, perhaps if the Turks could pull off some sort of trade, perhaps they would of converted voluntarily.... but the likelihood of a sustainable trade route would of been super small.

Byzantion Emperor;

The process of dealing with non-Islamic civilians in and outside of the Ottoman empire did change over time. During its infancy and initial growth, Anatolia had diverse emirates (statelets/beyliks). Sufi hodjas and Persian style Tekkes were in abundance. Fringe element Baba's and orthodox Sunni were also prevalent. As followers of Osman (Osmanli/Ottoman) Turks, Greeks and other variants made up one of the many statelets. Initially with the Arab conquests of Transnoxiana muslims had jihads against Iranians and Turks for instance. Then muslim Turk versus polytheist Turk. Eventually this dynamic use of reason with newfound motivation to attack and gain booty from tribes of any ilk spread to Asia Minor.

Originally posted by Al Jassas I will try to look in the books about the early perceptions of the Americas and will tell you what i found later.

Thank you for the review of tekkes, Al Jassas. 

Originally posted by Al Jassas Hidus and Buddists are not people of the book, neither were Yazidis or Zoroastrians.

Edited by Byzantine Emperor - 29-Nov-2007 at 02:15

Dear Bulldog,

Hello to you all, sorry for the angry post earlier. 

Edited by Al Jassas - 24-Nov-2007 at 20:02