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Bailey, John C.
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Spring 2025
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2025
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9732_Jack_Dennis.pdf
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This study investigates the formative period of the Ottoman Empire between 1301 and 1453, tracing its transformation from a frontier principality into a powerful imperial force. Centering on a critical reassessment of long-standing historical narratives, most notably Paul Wittek's "Ghaza Thesis," which casts early Ottoman expansion as primarily driven by Islamic holy war. The paper argues that the Ottomans operated within a dynamic, pragmatic spectrum of motivations. Drawing from recent scholarship by Cemal Kafadar, Rudi Lindner, Caroline Finkel, and others, it emphasizes the fluid and adaptive strategies that defined Ottoman political and military behavior.
Rather than being exclusively ideological or religious, early Ottoman conquests were shaped by a blend of tribal politics, strategic alliances, economic incentives, and localized power struggles. This project analyzes primary inscriptions, diplomatic marriages, and military campaigns to reveal how the Ottomans balanced cooperation with Christian powers, warfare against fellow Muslims, and the symbolic use of Islamic identity to legitimize rule. The inclusion of Christians in court, interfaith marriages with Byzantine nobility, and the flexible use of terms like "ghazi" illustrate the performative nature of religious identity in the frontier context.
The paper also examines the internal mechanisms that sustained imperial expansion, such as the dev?irme system, the rise of the Janissaries, and the construction of a hybrid legal-administrative model influenced by both Islamic and Byzantine traditions. The Ottoman approach to governance was marked by tolerance, and incorporation allowed for remarkable stability even in the face of civil war and external threats, such as the crisis following the Battle of Ankara in 1402. Ultimately, this study refutes monolithic explanations of the formation of the Ottoman State and argues that its imperial success was built on strategic pluralism, frontier adaptability, and an evolving sense of legitimacy that drew from, but was not bound by, religious ideology.
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