Article snapshot taken from Wikipedia with creative commons attribution-sharealike license.
Give it a read and then ask your questions in the chat.
We can research this topic together.
This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Citation bot (talk | contribs) at 00:02, 11 April 2021 (Add: year. Removed parameters. Some additions/deletions were parameter name changes. | Use this bot. Report bugs. | Suggested by AManWithNoPlan | Pages linked from cached User:AManWithNoPlan/sandbox3 | via #UCB_webform_linked 741/1238). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.
There is considerable controversy regarding social status in the Ottoman Empire. Social scientists have developed class models on the socio-economic stratification of Ottoman society which feature more or less congruent theories. Albert Hourani described the Ottoman Empire as "a bureaucratic state, holding different regions within a single administrative and fiscal system".
The Ottoman Empire lasted for over six hundred years (1299–1923) and encompassed present-day Turkey, the Balkans and the Fertile Crescent. Thus the Empire included an extremely diverse population ranging from the Muslim majority (Turks, Arabs, Bosniaks, Albanians, etc) to various minority populations, specifically Christians and Jews, whom Muslims referred to as "People of the Book". As an imperial/colonial enterprise, the Ottoman system allowed some Greeks, Tatars, Italians, Albanians, Serbians, Hungarians, Georgians, Bulgarians, Ruthenians and Circassians, slave and free, to attain high office as soldiers, viziers or members of the imperial family.
References
Hourani, Albert Habib (1991). A History of the Arab Peoples (revised ed.). Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press (published 2002). p. 207. ISBN9780674010178. Retrieved 29 July 2020. The empire was a bureaucratic state, holding different regions within a single administrative and fiscal system. It was also, however, the last great expression of the universality of the world of Islam. It was also a multi-religious state, giving a recognized status to christian and Jewish communities.