THE GLORIOUS LEGACY OF THE OTTOMANSAND TODAY’S TURKEY

A SOCIO-POLITICAL COMPARISON

Muzaffer KatarAbant Izzet Baysal University,

Bolu, Turkey2007

"In the name of Allah who is Rahman and Rahymm"(1) would utter the Ottoman King on the Throne, the traditional starting key of Quran readings, which passes only once and belongs to the heir of King David, Solomon in Quran, and which is the foretold messianic salvation.(2)

 

Introduction: A General View of the Study

To succeed of an objective study on such a sophisticated and often misinterpreted case like the Ottomans necessitates having not only knowledge, but also insight and ability in philosophy. Another necessity is to overcome the typical conditionings about the case, and the emotional approaches peculiar to most of the Islamic countries like Turkey. Objective propositions should be voiced regardless of conventional studies, which are generally populist and practical for self-seeking ethnic, religious and political ideologies. Blessing of inspiration by God for one's wisdom and virtue always has its supreme and respected place all in thankfulness though.

Turkey (3) was the successor of the great Ottoman Empire in the head and heartland of the Empire. Therefore, there is no chance to think of the two states of having very different possessions and diverse characteristics of values, institutions and culture. Haim Gerber explains this as "The past was not simply swept away with the fall of the Ottoman Empire but remained hidden and potent in all sorts of niches, institutions and memories, many of which still elude us"(4). Diversities of the two states would generally be due to changing standards of human life and society in course of the time in general. However, we must say that Gerber's theses could be proved only from a negative point since we, as the inheritors of the Ottomans, have great doubts and heavy sighs about the situation of today's Turkey in all aspects.

The legacy for today's Turkey of the Ottomans who executed a detailed mission in the history despite all its polygenetic and multi-disciplined order has great potent to study in a very wide range of scientific categories. This great potent may inevitably turn the study into ‘the high Ottoman legacy that the new State has not been able to inherit, and criticizing today's Turkey as a modern state from the perspective of the Ottoman legacy'. Therefore, what aimed in this small but very precious article is to discuss the most crucial concepts from a possible comparative point of view, and to make any new contribution to the readers with their insight of the issue of the Ottomans, Turks, Turkish Republic, and their interrelated roles played in the history and today.

 

How to Understand the Ottoman Case First of all, who were the Ottomans, appeared all of a sudden just in the junction of the east and the west, developed such a great civilization on a seemingly Islamic fundamentalist structure behind of which all a human virtue and wisdom lied, and survived so long in spite of its complex structure? Within its heterogeneous character, where does the name ‘Ottoman' belong to or come from? Is it an ‘Osman', if ever of original Turkish, an ‘Ottoman', or a German ‘Otto-man', or an ‘Othman'? Did they implement a cryptic or occult office with the fate of "circumcised Turks"(5) "who were almost to perish"(6) in the course of the history; or with the holy land, Anatolia, home of the promised peace? Since they were obedient believers of the Islamic religion, appeared in Holy Mecca, why did they not ride over the Arabian Peninsula, but ride over Europe and make the Byzantine Constantinople the center of the Islamic Empire? Whose agents were these glorious but humble people: of the west or the east, of the Turks or the Rome, or of a unique divine mission?

Alternatively, at the crossroads of the east and the west, and on the headland of the Asia, did the Ottomans stop the era of "savage invasions"(7) and save the west from the invasions of eastern vandals? Otherwise, as a cryptic mission, did they change the quality of the barbaric methods of production of life, soften them slowly slowly, and introduce peace and beauty of the settled life to the last vandals of the east who were driven, or rode away to the west?

This brainstorming does not initiate to be negative with the any of the sides. It is sure that Ottomans did not spoil the law of the enlightenment of the heavens under the flag of Salem/Islam religion; the scepter had not been departed from brave Turks over all Asia for a couple of millenniums; Islam had been the lawgiver for many centuries since Muhammad(8)/Machammaddim(9) of the Holy Salem religion, and the seal of the prophets has arrived; and many Judaic and Christian people around the Ottoman territories happily hurried up to gather under the peace flag of Islam, which were composed of ‘three crescents' together symbolizing Holy Islam/Salem religion.

It was a great success that we Turkish nomads, having ridden from the Mongolian steps, established one great Ottoman Empire and civilization in the 13th century AD on the eastern lands of the wild Romans a hobby of whom was to give alive men to lions; and also "developed a powerful fleet in Aydin"(10), a city on the coast of the Aegean Sea.

Many popular conventional writers have assumed the Turkish and the Ottoman concepts of being the same and always put forward subjective, populist, shallow and conventional propositions within ‘Turk and Ottoman' studies as the case is hardly ever so easy but some misinterpreted from this perspective. Therefore, instead of a couple of populist, shallow, and practical theories, which generally deny the virtue and heritage of Ottomans on ‘the foundation of Turkey'; or of those which exalt the Ottomans blindly without realizing any of their real meaning, we must be able to make some new, meaningful, and perceiving references about the identity of the Ottomans and their impacts on modern Turkey.

How to Identify the Ottoman Ancestors of the TurksTurks were one subject of the heterogeneous Ottoman structure, but what was the dominant character of the Ottomans? Before writing about the Ottoman legacy for today's Turkey, we are first to try an attempt to understand ‘whose heritage were the Ottomans' to mean a sense with both the owners of the Ottoman civilization and the study.

That the most people, learned or not, propose that ‘"the state language was Turkish"(11), so were the Ottomans' is not true, or they do not know any language because nobody can say that the language the Ottomans used was Turkish, nor was half of it. In spite of the fact that there was a frame of Turkish grammar in use, most of the means, words, groups etc. of the Ottoman language were not Turkish, but Persian and Arabic, the sister of Hebrew whereas the original Turkish language never developed and lost its power. It is interesting that the Ottomans, whose intellectuality was formed by Hebrew and Greek culture, used a Turkish sentence frame within their language. Thus, the circumstance leads us to ask another question: What was the reason of Ottomans to use Turkish sentence frame(12)?

To have a clue about the origin of the Ottoman dynasty, we may first try a simple onomastic study of the first four names of the Dynasty, that anyone who has some awareness in Turkish and languages in general can easily notice that the origins of these so-called Turkish names are not originally Turkish at all.

The origin of the name of the founder of the Ottoman Empire, ‘Osman' must be a very Germanic, Christian name: ‘Osmond' or ‘Osmund', which means ‘god protector' from old English os ‘god' and mund ‘protector'(13). The origin of ‘Ertugrul', Osman's father must be the very Roman, Germanic, European, and Christian name: "Arthur, Artur, Arturius, Artio"(14). The origin of ‘Hayme', the mother of Osman is a certain Hebrew name of which origin is ‘Hayim/Haim', which means "life"(15). And, the origin of ‘Orhan', son of Osman must be "Or-khan" or "Or-Cohen" as the most possible variants (16).

Besides these traditionally Judao-Christian names, none of the names of the later Sultans were of original Turkish. It is also known that almost all their friends, the ranked officials like pashas, commanders, and high ulema/the learned scholars of the Empire were not Turkish, but converted, or seemed so, from Christianity or Judaism into Islam. They whether wanted to be honored by being Turk, or burdened and realized a cryptic mission with Turks.

Also, both the Islamic flag of Ottomans, which has three crescents, as the symbol of ‘Papa, The Holy Spirit and the Son', and the flag of Turkey, the legacy of Ottomans, composed of a five-ended star and a crescent on red background are designs of Judao-Christian teaching.(17) You can see many examples like these within the world of the Ottomans.(18) ‘Roman' Mawlana Jalaladdin was the world-wide famous philosopher of the Empire who gave beautiful samples of mystics with his ufo-like ‘whirling dervishes', while the worldwide famous architect of the Empire was originally a "Christian Greek"(19) ; Architect Sinan, beauty of whose also ufo-like Islamic mosque tombs were as fabulous as the Christian Church tomb of the Hagia Sophia built by Christian architects.

Millions of Jews have been transferred to Anatolia from all Eurasia during both the Ottomans and the Republic.(20) According to Yalçin Kucuk, "Jews were the natives of this land."(21) It also calls our attention that Ottoman Sultans never got married to ethnically Turkish brides to have heirs from for the throne.(22) Another debate about the identity of our Ottoman ancestors may be: "The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler's staff from between his feet, Until Shiloh comes, and to him shall be the obedience of the peoples."(23)

In addition, some ‘privileges' for Turks do not elude us such as the "duty of being soldiers"(24) while non-Moslems were not taken for military service, whereas the bureaucrats were all chosen from non-Moslems; what give us clues about the Ottoman Empire. We also find, as in the sample miniature on the cover of ‘The Ottoman Empire (2002) by Colin Imber',

that artists also characterized in detail the human identity of the Sultans, and the ethnicity of the devoted subjects.

Nevertheless, that ‘the origin of the Ottomans was doubtful in terms of Turkishness does not intend to blame them by any way. The purpose of the discussion is to provide the readers with a new perspective about ‘who really Turkey and its people have inherited the legacy from'. Under the enlightenment of all this clear data given above, ‘the legacy of Ottomans for today's Turkey' can now be discussed in a more meaningful ambient.

The High Legacy of the Ottomans, and Turkey as the Inheritor The case has varied characteristics depending on many vertical and horizontal factors like time, ethnicity, religion, area and conditionings. The same circumstance has different meanings for different people. For instance, the Ottomans do not appeal a Turk, while it appeals a crypto Greek because Turks were of a degraded subject of the Ottomans, and Greeks were more effective. On the other hand, a Moslem Turkish citizen loves Ottomans because he finds the Empire to be Moslem even without knowing the meaning of ‘three crescents' and that Turks were almost lost from the Earth on long lasted Jihads. Today there are thousands of debate matters like these in Turkey. For this reason, the legacy will be studied concentrating on the most objective and crucial aspects of the case beyond the local matters.

First of all, it must honestly been accepted that Turkish State itself is a strategic and political heritage from the Ottomans. The Ottomans, yet who had a huge and complex body, showed great resistance for one or two centuries against the open and secret aggressions of global states of the time. Despite some judas kisses, an issue stemming from its multi ethnic structure, the Ottomans always had consciousness to defend the Empire and their nation whereat resulted in the foundation of Turkish State at the end as an Ottoman gift for Turkish People. It must be assessed that Turks would not have been able to found the Republic of Turkey out of the initiation of the Ottoman Empire; and being in the same context, institutionalization of values of Turkishness has also been an Ottoman legacy for the nation.

The founding leader of the Turkish Republic, Mustafa Kemal was a commander and pasha of the Ottoman State. His colleagues, the other distinguished pioneers of the independence war of Turks and foundation of the Turkish Republic, formally or not, came from the Ottoman school. Even if there is no document proving the initiation of the Ottoman Empire within the establishment of the Turkish Republic, it should nonetheless be accepted that it was the Ottoman consciousness, decision and faith that initiated the foundation of the Republic. First of all, how would unorganized Turks be successful in creating a state in Anatolia if it was not controlled by the Ottomans? Therefore, it can be said that the Ottomans did not defraud their degraded but most devoted subject-Turks, who had given their blood for centuries for the bright Ottoman light, and stood for and with Turks during the collapse, gifting them a blessed opportunity for their surviving. This gift by Ottomans, and of heavens, not only gave Turks a chance to change their damned fate of destruction and exhaustion, and almost being lost in nearly 2000 year-lasted wars, one of which was the biggest ‘war trap' at Canakkale in 1915(25), but also presented them the beauties of the modern life and society by the policy of the new Republic.

On the other hand, the legacy of the Republic of Turkey by the Ottomans, has its political and strategic subordinates for the Turkish State as well on the territories of the Empire, namely Anatolia, Balkans, Caucasus and the Middle East, which may be said to be inherited from the

long-lasted, and still dreamed ‘Caliphal' structure of the Empire. The action of Turkey on the former Ottoman territories improves or decreases depending on the strength of Turkey. If Turkey does not have power to control these territories, its existence and sovereignty might even be in danger.

The claim that the Turkish Republic and people reject the Ottomans cannot be true. It must be reasoned as the rejection of being lost with the formal end and collapse of the Ottoman Empire rather than the total rejection of the Ottomans including their high existence, virtue and civilization. Furthermore, the rejection of the dying body of the Ottoman Empire after the collapse and the accreditation of Turks, the formerly degraded subject, as the heirs of the Empire, was even interestingly an initiation of ‘the high Ottoman faith and mind'. It was the end of the legend of the glorious and humble Ottomans with the rise of nation states, and introduction of Turkishness and Turks as the inheritors of the legacy of the Ottoman country: The constancy of Constantine city. It is sure that the continuation of the Ottomanism instead of replaced Turkishness would have been the end of Turkishness in the Asia Minor.

However, as the live witnesses, can we say that the State of Turkey has been worthy of this high legacy of the Ottomans, and also Ataturk's as the last Ottoman, including their virtue and wisdom? Has the new State fulfilled the state and public essentials in any field relatively better than the Ottomans, and been able to create a nation out of the subjects of the Empire of diverse roots by building a correct state structure? All this chaos and seduced psychologies of the good citizens of the country of any category from Jewry to Sunnis, or from the rich to the poor for many decades, since the foundation of the Republic, drives you to deep thinking about the state.(26) While quite a big lot of the nation of any category experience, complain and are convinced about the despotism of the new State today, there are also ideas that the Ottoman state structure was a "centric-despotic one"(27) whereas there are other scientists who claim counter ideas that the "Ottoman State was not a despotic country"(28). "Amy Singer makes a convincing argument that the Ottoman state was a paper lion rather than a real form of despotism".(29) Anyway, it must be reasoned that despotic actions at the Ottoman era were just against the developing Turks here and there, generally by non-Moslem natives of the land, who did not like Turks to improve themselves as a community in time. Despotism was no way an aspect of the Ottomans or the Ottomanism.(30) Even the Sultans would complain and stand against the occasional oppressions of the state bureaucracy.(31) But in today's Turkey, normal and innocent citizens of this country are scared to tell what they are, what they believe in, even what color they like in fear of the despotic system guarded on so-called a law which does not generally bear any meaningful human and social aspects, and seduces the logic and psychology both because of its content and the unjust applications by using police force. The modern Turkey is beyond the range of understanding that it is impossible to produce justice by unjust and lawless, so-called laws.

Though the Ottoman Sultans ruled the country under the sacred Islamic law of God, the Shari'a, they always acted in faith, virtue and just in fear of God, as well understood from documents and their biographies, and did not frustrate their people in their trust of the Ottoman ruling. Even the Judaic and Christian elements of the Empire even trusted the the Ottoman ruling and the so-called Islamic law because their natural human rights of any category were guaranteed by the law; whereas today, from Moslem to Alevis and to Judaist, or from the rich to the poor are suffering due to the lawless laws and the chaotic state the Republic. Non-Moslem subjects were so pleased with the Ottoman Islamic law that they always contributed to the Empire by presenting her their most successful children and works in every field from music, or poetry to the beautiful ‘ebru-ebrew' art, or architecture; such as

magnificent ‘Divan Literature' or the originally Christian, Hiram-like architect Mimar Sinan who built world-wide famous great works over all the Ottoman country. How a man of the good would serve an order of all corrupt, injustice, darkness, oppression and degradation.

The Turkish State could not pitifully develop a really human and modern order, which meets the needs of its citizens, and necessities of the modern state as in the western terms like the one which Ataturk had intended. For example, the Ottoman state organs did not practice open and hidden sick operations and sanctions with one of its subjects, who would later be the sole supporting and sister people of Turks, like changing their names of their own culture, prohibiting them of speaking their own mother tongue, and obliging them to migrate by purposefully created bad conditions against them.

The circumstance was quite positive for Christian, Jewish and Roman communities during the Ottoman times, which lived better than the degraded subjects of the Empire. The "Christian and Jewish communities enjoyed legal autonomy in intra-communal matters, under the aegis of their own religious leaders".(32) At the time of the Ottomans, non-Moslems were free to divulge what they are, not killed or blamed for they were non-Moslem, and the Empire Inzibats/disciplinary offices most probably would not welcome the murderers in cheerful hugs. In our opinion, the Ottoman Kingdom would not itself found and approve provocation organizations to kill any innocent member of the nation; and the unknown provocations would not be the source of all of the contradictions and problems among the ethnic, religion, or political groups. But "the Ottoman State was the only political organization of the middle ages and the modern era, which recognized different religions and guaranteed a common and harmonized life together with its ethnic groups".(33) As well as understood from the long lasted multi religious and national structure of the Ottomans that secular life practice was a legacy for Turkey of the Ottoman culture of the middle ages. Witnessing Turkey of hostilities, fights, murders etc., it is possible to say that State of Turkey have not been able to inherit the secular consciousness of the Ottomans as a republic and public policy and principle.

Judaic and Christian subjects, or rather lords of the Ottoman Empire were socio-economically much better and civilized than Moslems and Turks, which may be due to that non-Moslems started ‘settled life' long before Turks who whereat have not been able to develop abilities needed for an urban life and community. Turks were only villagers, nomads, and soldiers who went on wars, and died for the Islamic jihad for centuries, which were almost being the end of Turks. With the Turkish revolution as a legacy of the Ottomans under the leadership of Ataturk and his colleagues, among distinguished leaders of which there were also many non-Moslems, the new state started to improve Turks together with the all nation for all good values and gifts of human being and civil society. But just after Ataturk died, the political leaders, or rather state organs of Turkey have not been able to create a logical and acceptable state structure and social system for the nation and country, but have led to a non-human, corrupted and illogical structure. This blasphemy of the state caused the distinguished dominant groups of the Ottomans and the feverish pioneers of the new state to feel of deception, disappointment and alienation about the new state. Having driven alienated, their concentration went away from the country, and turned into themselves; that but resulted in having the leading socio-economic place naturally in the corrupted system of Turkey.

In the contemporary Turkey, as a social case not formally practiced with the Ottomans of the old times, members of other ethnics or religions, even of politics would be more beyond stress and pressure in today's Turkey as long as they have the standard behaviors the State and fundamentalists expect them to exhibit. Therefore, what expected, for the rose garden, of non-

Moslems and other ethnic, religious or political groups to do is just to behave in the fixed standards of the perception of Turkishness, or ‘the citizen'; not to disturb the nationalist feelings and psychology of ‘the people'; and obey the ‘law of Turkey'.

As well as the practice shows, the law of the Ottomans, when compared in their self-standards, can be said to have presented more justice and had more empathy with its citizens, and did not produce more doubt, frustration, fear and suffer than today's Turkey that even non-Moslems were happy with the Ottoman law. It is subject to questioning today if prosecutors work on a logical base within a correct philosophy of the ‘state, people, the individual, and the rights'. On a witnessed case, the judge of Turkey would ask the prosecutor and she would sentence a judgement together with him.

The judge presides the court ‘formally'. Both prosecutors and the judges operate under the same board: ‘The Board of Judges and Prosecutors'; and they are selected by the government from ‘the bar of lawyers'. The bar and the board altogether produce very nice justice: ‘Seduction of Justice'. Erdo?an Saracoglu defines the language "as each tribe is a system of secret agreements, there are as many languages as tribes upon the earth".(34) In the Ottoman Empire, except for the Sultan's occasional interventions as the king and the ‘faithful successor of the order of God', "the judge did not depend on the government".(35) How interesting it is that judges, prosecutors, and lawyers of modern Turkey are so happy with such an unjust law and do not take a stand, brave or not, against the law of the corrupt in every field, and are judging through such a law.(36) The other elements of the Trinitarian system sustain the Turkish nation in prosperity are the army and the intelligence.

It was due to the high consciousness and faith of Ottomans that the policy of the Empire was to avoid from unjust laws which would otherwise have restricted the most natural human rights of individuals and communities (as well as standard civilization and tradition sufficed). This consciousness led so many different groups lived together in peace for many years,(37) whereas today's modern Turkey has not been able to inherit and practice any of the approach. In today's modern Turkey, self-conditioned and self-approved approaches of any kind, which you are not to make any negative, and cannot make any positive comment on, is accepted to be good, and imposed to be made the norm for all. People of any upper or lower category suffer in this country. The oligarchs of Turkey are not only disable to understand the problems and to lead to a really modern, collectivist and happy country but also shush the most advanced children of the country since Ataturk died. Being unable in successfully inheriting the legacy of the high wisdom and virtue of the Ottomans; behaving some other group as secondary citizens, thereby seducing the people's and individuals' psychologies; and primitiveness and injustice have inevitably caused great pains, conflicts, and chaos in the country.

It is certain that the Ottoman perception of individuals' freedom is not like that of today's. "It was rather a concept of ‘justice' beyond the individual freedom"(38), whereat "the basic element of the Ottoman state ideology was the concept of justice"(39), and as the Ottoman historians stated "the state cannot be without justice".(40) "Justice was the base of the ‘mülk'/ruling"(41) for the Ottomans.

The Ottomans, a monarchy of old times, succeeded such a state system that accomplished the missions of legislation, jurisdiction, economy, army, public services, etc., which functioned as one unified power codified and defined by the sacred law of God, called the ‘Shari'a' of which sanctions were equal for all; but which were controlled by the wisdom, virtue and deep faith

of the prophetic Ottoman Sultans. That there was no separation of power resulted in more sensible and stronger governance, whereas today's modern Turkey succeeded ‘great democratic attacks', failed in all its state office of very important affairs, the law as the most important, separated all its power of the country: An occasion causing very important disunity in decision making and governing processes of the state.

Among the nation, secular culture was one of the most crucial cultural aspects of the Ottomans of the medieval ages, whereas people in Turkey have not been able to establish a secular life among them in the later process. Most people of different faith groups today judge others who are naturally different from them. Even in many recent times, it is known that some organized groups have murdered many people of some other category. There are also so many events witnessed that even the state officials themselves behave in very unfair and hostile ways to members of some certain groups of any category, ethnic or political. As it is very pitifully seen, both civil people and the state of Turkey lack of most general human values and rights which the Ottomans had both as the state and the nation.

The Ottoman monarchic state was also very positive to support the nation's economic and social necessities. People were allowed to establish many social associations for their social or group needs and for improving themselves, most of which had a religious base in correlation with the standard civilization, whereas today people are afraid of grouping on any human or social need. The Ottoman State was able to manage its foreign affairs all on a positive base, and its domestic affairs all in empathy for people. The Empire did not of course stand for centuries on an Islamic Jihad. Today Turkish people are still conditioned that ‘Turks has no friends other than Turks'. It is a pity that many of the good intentions, practices, and the bright apostolic light of the Ottomans have all died after Ataturk because uneducated, bad-spirited, weak and incapable governors have been entrusted with the State that did not have any slight bit of high wisdom and faith of Ottomans and Ataturk. A failure that has resulted only in chaos and tribulation with both domestic and foreign affairs of the State, and in seduction of the psychology and civil, social and economic lives of the people.

The Ottomans successfully sustained the standard civilization of the era, and then passed it to the West that has developed and brightened the light of civilization; whereas today's modern Turkey has not been able to convey of any. Instead, the State has established a wild capitalist, all speculative and oligarchic system under the mask of ‘a secular and democratic republic': A system which was designed to serve only for some capitalists and their servants holding the system who possess the most of the national production and income as well as having the fruit of modernity, welfare and the law. Today's so called modern Turkey has left its poor people to the elite or rich people's feelings of compassion instead of promulgating the most basic, contemporary, human and collectivist approaches needed in the modern era, whereas the Ottoman ruling always had empathy with people of any category and acted to provide means to solve the possible problems of the nation as a state approach.

Failure of the modern Turkey in establishing an auspicious order, and exploitation of the good virtues, values and wisdom of the Republic would have normally caused vexation and reaction of the most commonsensical and enlightened children of the nation, against the strong State, who would all be demolished and destroyed afterwards

Despite any possible human mistakes of them, all of the Ottoman sultans were higher people of virtue, wisdom, divine discipline and a prophetic faith. They always behaved in fear of God, and in a divine discipline in state and public affairs. They always had an effort for and

recognized the rights of others coming from their high human creation and nature. The highest virtue and wisdom owned by the sultans were gradually being distributed into all state and civil staff and affairs affecting the state and people positively. After Ataturk, whose deed was also prophetic, the leaders of the state have somehow not been of the same high capacity in state and public affairs so the state and people had very important problems and degraded in every field of state and human life, and Modern Turkia could not have reached the highest ideals it had during its foundation.

In spite of some ideas, we do not agree that resolving problems of Turkey "requires reconciliation with the Ottomans"(42), nor the problems of Turkey have arisen because Turkey did not accept the formal inheritance of the Ottomanism. The agony of the Republic of Turkey has not arisen from the reason that Ottomanism was left, but rather because faithful and learned leaders, like the ones in the era of the Ottomans, have not been grown and charged with the state departments like army, intelligence, and the judiciary as the most important, after Ataturk. Hence, the state has not been able to establish a good, right and peaceful system for the people and the country. The Ottomans, under the leadership of the Sultans did the best of the time with their unique civilization, culture, institutions, virtue and wisdom, which the successors unfortunately have not been able to be worthy of, inherit, and continue.

Ottomans succeeded in such a successful synthesis of the qualities of different poles of many groups and from many social categories, thereby who lived, even growing, in peace for many years until Turks also naturally showed a little bit socio-economic development in its last centuries what Greco-Roman elements did not like, and thus prepared the end of the Empire. It can be said that Turkey has had this legacy from the Ottoman times of treacherous Greco-Roman agents by realizing their important contribution to the chaos since the foundation of Turkey. It must be confessed that most of the Turks still have their Islamic Jihad spirit they have as a legacy of the Ottomans, by the effect of which Turks lied to Greco-roman lands under the leadership the Ottomans.

Nevertheless, the collapse of the Ottoman Empire by its enemies could not prevent the foundation of Turkish Republic and institutionalization of Turkishness as a nation; by the time sooner when incapable and bad state staff that drove both the state and the nation into great tribulation took the young Turkish Republic. In this process, the unreasonable and corrupted practices, which were never seen with the Ottomans, of the incapable so-called ‘democratic' state of Turkey offended, frustrated and drove into rebellion not only the successors of the crypto pioneers, who founded the Republic by the inspiration they inherited from the high Ottoman faith, but also the logical people of the country regardless of whatever category they are from. What engrossing is that the corruption has been based on a law and got a ‘forcing' character and that the people of ‘the low' and ‘the lie' are so happy with ‘the law' of the corrupt. Moreover, evil state executives of the multi-party democratic system are so foible to realize the simplest wrongs. The system killed not only many of human and social ideals, but also national values of Turkishness, which never means a racist sense.

Modern Turkey almost loses every kind of the legacy of the Ottomans from abstract to concrete. Few people realize neither the meaning of the spirituality nor the concrete values of the Ottomans. Today some people censure the high works of Divine music of the Ottomans while they do not see the great prosody mistakes within the Turkey's national anthem Turkey.

The State of Turkey has pitifully not been able to solve the potential problems of the Turkish people and the beautiful country inherited from the Ottoman times. That one accepts ‘the state is still up is a success' is another idea.

Conclusion: The legacy of the humble but all glorious Ottomans is great for not only Turks but also the humanity. From the most advanced groups to the underdeveloped ones, people were introduced and developed a way of life in peace under their just reign fully in their supreme faith of God, the Light, and the Turkish Sultan on the throne, who fought like a lion with his head under his arm on his white horse.

When the Empire wounded severely in the 1800s, and when Turks were almost destroyed in the early1900s, the Ottomans healed them by initiating the foundation of the Turkish Republic on the account of the blood of Unknown Soldier of the Turks under the leadership of the great Ottoman Pasha, Mustafa Kemal of Thessalonica. The Ottomans, when burned left alone, erected Turks and the Republic of Turkey from their own ashes as their legacy for their most devoted subject, which presented Turks of surviving, a beautiful country, and the latest gifts of the modern human civilization altogether with the whole nation. Ottomans who adopted, accredited, and thereby became ancestors of, the Turks. Together with the Turks from the east, facing to the west, Ottomans, whose funny white tiaras on their heads were as clean as the Black Sea, also led a holy mission with not only Turks but also non-Moslems by introducing them to each other for a heterogeneous togetherness.

Nevertheless, after the death of Ataturk, the state has been captured by incapable, uncivilized, and undeserving oligarchs, who were not able to inherit the high wisdom, virtue and merit of Ottomans, and who corrupted the state, seduced the existence and psychology of the people including that of Recep Tayyip Erdogan's, one of the most beloved sons of the nation: and drove the Republic into such an agony, chaos and unhappiness.

It is a great pity that some ‘devoted' Kemalist thinkers slander the Ottomans of being corrupt and the last Sultans to have been disloyal to the country, whereas on the other hand, some ‘devoted' Moslem ideologists, without being able to realize the real merit of the Ottomans and that the Turkish Republic itself is a legacy of the Ottomans, slander that Turkish Republic is a blasphemy. Neither groups are able to see their fruit, nor recognize them at all.

The principles, ideals and the actions of the founding leaders of the Turkish Republic, who had grown at the Ottoman school, were all just of virtue and wisdom. In a very short time, they provided the Republic and the nation with great development in every field by the time when, all of a sudden, the State started a corruption called ‘multi party democratic system', which later on would be the reason of every harm in every field: separation of the unity of the country, people and power of the state. The unworthy, if not treacherous, state officials were not able to read the role models in the west as a state system, and has caused the country to be degraded, and many decades wasted and the nation suffered a lot.

The legacy of Ottomans was not a corrupt order, degradation and exploitation; provocations with its own people, separating people into pieces through complots, and forcing people upon primitive and non-human laws that seduce people's good feelings and psychology. It was not building people some deliriums of any kind, and mines bedded under some group of her own citizens feet; thereby causing the most devoted children of the nation to wish a mandate in feelings of revenge for their sufferings and hopelessness of their state. It was not also the

legacy of Ataturk and his colleagues who founded The Turkish Republic. The legacy was not of the grail turning to the grave, and the crown to the clown.

The State of Turkey is no way, pessimistic. Today thousands of promising assistant researchers and assistant professors, most of whom are young and successful ladies, are transforming Turkey into a faculty and scientifically analyzing Turkey from every point; by whom we believe that the country will solve most of its problems of a couple of centuries.

(katar_m@ibu.edu.tr)

FOOTNOTES

(1)The Qoran, (Neml, 27:30)(2)*The key phrase, ‘In the name of Allah, who is Rahman and Rahymm' is in fact the statement of a very famous theme of all theologies: The evangel and peace of the ‘sacred wedding' of Ra-Amon (Rahman, the Sun God) and Ra-Hymm (Rahim, the Goddess of the Hymm); ‘Hieros Gamos' and ‘Hiero Salem'. This note is given to explain that the basic key of Quran correlates the basic theme of religions, which Moslems do not know.**While the Lord and Qoran order the prophet to start with this starting key, "Read in the name of thy Lord who createth" (Alak, 01:01 in the original revelation order), Moslems use the messianic evangelic verse of Solomon in Qoran.**The Turkish flag, which was composed of a five-ended star and a crescent on red, a legacy of the Ottomans, is the symbol of the same promised messianic evangel.(3)The correct name is ‘Turkia' as in Bolivia, Namibia, Arabia, Serbia, Mongolia, and Australia.(4)Haim Gerber, (Ed. by Kemal Karpat), Ottoman Past and Today's Turkey, (Netherlands, 2000), p. 133(5)Saint Paulus sharply warns against circumcisiton, which is so-called a religious rituel practiced by Moslems and Turks, though there does not exist such a rituel in Qoran.(6)*Thomsen Wilh., Çözülmü? Orhon Yaz?tlar?, ?lk Bildiri, ‘North Face-IN10', (Translated by Vedat Köken, Ankara, 1993), p. 121. (Great Danish philologist who solved the Orkhon Inscriptions).(7)*Taner Timur, Osmanli Toplumsal Düzeni, (Ankara, 2001), p. 12.**Timur, quoted from the prominent French Historian J. Michelet: "Turkish migrations are the final of the barbaric invasions", ibid., 13.(8)The Quran Prophet of the Salem/Islam religion, the name used for the seal of the prophets of the evangel and salvation.(9)The Old Testament, (Shir Ha-shirim 5:16), the word used for the seal of the prophets, of the evangel and the salvation.(10)Justin McCarthy, The Ottoman Turks, (Longman Publications, New York, 1998), p. 36.(11)Such as McCarthy, ibid., 106.(12)*Many academicians get their Ph.D.s just for they ‘read, and translate' the Ottoman pages into Turkish. An average Turk does not even understand a tenth of a sentence in the Ottoman language.**We accept nomadic Turkish language was limited to meet the needs of the world of the Ottomans.(13)http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/osmond, http://www.catholicdoors.com/misc/names.htm, http://www.behindthename.com/name/osmond.(14)‘?' (soft g) in Turkish is zero value in phonetics and always drops in pronunciation and

Turkish people almost never pronounce ‘?' in speaking. Thereby ‘Ertu?rul' is equal to ‘Erturul' and then, to ‘Arturul' in phonetics. Arthur is a very familiar Christian name. There are at least two types of ‘-ul' and two types of ‘-l' suffix in Turkish used after nouns and verbs. We must accept that it is a bilingual name converted from Christianity.(15)*Remember the name of former Israeli president ‘Hayim' Herzog.**Many names in Turkish is turned out to a female name by adding the suffix ‘-e' at the end of the name such as in Nadir (male)-Nadire (female). The relative female form of Hayim thereby is ‘Hayime'. That the ‘i' vowel in the middle syllable of Ha-yi-me falls and the name is pronounced as in ‘Hayme' is due to a very general phonetic sound event in Turkish language. It is also very interesting that in the Turkish names and dictionaries we cannot find any Turkish ‘Hayme' name, nor in the society.(16)*See the site for the related Hebrew name: http://phelafel.technion.ac.il/~orcohen/cv_orcohen.pdf.**‘Or' means ‘light'; and "Khan", which is a variant of ‘Cohen' in Hebrew and ‘Kagan' in Turkish, means ‘king' in Turkish, and ‘priest' in Hebrew. Therefore, as a variant of the name ‘Orhan', ‘Orkhan' means ‘Light-King' or ‘Or-Cohen' means ‘Priest of light'. It can also be related to ‘Oran' in Hebrew in a phonetic and onomastic study.(17)For further information about the flag of Turkey, study about the Sun God and Moon Goddess, Hieros Gamos, Sacred Wedding, Solomon and Sheba Queen stories of Judaic mythology.(18)See Sultan Solomon's tomb, or visit the site: http://www.sinanasaygi.com/i/eserler/b/77_2004.jpg(19)Dennis Sharp, The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Architects and Architecture, ( Quatro Publishing, New York, 1991) p. 141(20)*Yalcin Küçük, Tekeliyet 2, Ikinci Cilt, (Istanbul, 2003)**H. Kemal Karpat, Studies On Ottoman Social and Political History, (Netherlands, 2002), pp. 146-168***Yalcin Küçük presents very comprehensive books about crypto Judaism and Christians from Ottoman times to today. His general idea cannot be shared that Jews in Turkey, who also pioneered the foundation of the Republic, have been turning Turkey into a monopoly of theirs and betraying the Republic. Though some Greek, so-called Jewish, elements are betraying the Republic, as they did during the collapse of the Empire, the real sociology of the case is that the Jews are also losing all their good expectations of the State; and that they would also be lost in the corrupt and primitiveness otherwise.(21)*Kücük, Ibid., 431.(22)*"Thou shalt not take a wife of the daughters of Canaan" (Genesis 28:1).**"Every daughter who possesses an inheritance in any tribe of the Israelites shall marry one from the clan of her father's tribe, so that all Israelites may continue to possess their ancestral inheritance. No inheritance shall be transferred from one tribe to another; for each of the tribes of the Israelites shall retain its own inheritance." (Numbers 36:8,9)(23)*Genesis 49:10. The correlation of Shiloh is the promised Messiah, to whom the Holy Spirit is seen at Ararat and of whom Islamic variant is the long awaited Muhammad/Mahdi, Machammadim(Note 8). Of course, it depends on the readers' acceptation whether or not to share the idea that anyone other than children of Jacob would hold the scepter as the Qoran and the Bible are all in consensus that Shiloh has not arrived yet. Not mentioning the high enlightenment of the children of Jacob would of course be a lacking within a study on the Ottomans.(24)Ufuk Gülsoy, Tarih ve Düsünce Dergisi, No: 2003/11, "Osmanli gayrimüslimleri askerlikten hoslanmadilar/Ottoman Non-Moslems Did not Like Being Soldiers", p. 23.(25)Who would know that mythological fight treachery of the legendary Troy is in fact the

biggest treachery and plot of the world history that plotted against Turks at Canakkale in 1915, where Turks gave most of their losses in the Turkish independence war. Greek kohen-poet, Homeros who sang the Troy legends to people could not have revealed that one day Turks would have been settled around Troy/Canakkale.(26)The different root subjects and the citizens of the Ottomans relatively lived more in harmony and peace; and would not be provoked and discriminated through an office and agenda of the Empire.(27)*Timur, 142.**Gerber, 135, quoted from Halil Inalcik.(28)*Gerber, 137, quoted from Amy Singer.**Ortayli, Ilber, Tarihin Sinirlarina Yolculuk, (Istanbul, 2007), p. 17(29)Different acceptations of the same case of Ottomans and modern Turkey are generally due to the identity and social or ethnic characteristics of the ideologist, and due to assessing the events from different categorical points. For example from a sociological point, you can judge and criticize a state to be ‘centric', but from the political point of view, one should not criticize a state to be "centric" because a state must be centric.(30)What is understood of the sister terms ‘Ottoman', ‘the Ottomans', and ‘the Ottomanism' is only the Sultans together with their virtue and wisdom, that is generally thought to come from Islam and Turkishness, whereas Hebrew essence of them is not taken into account.(31)Bülent Tanör, Osmanli-Türk Anayasal Gelismeleri (1789-1980) (Istanbul, 2006), p. 28(32)Colin Imber, The Ottoman Empire (Great Britain, 2002), p. 216(33)Nazmi Eroglu, Tarih ve Düsünce, 2003/11, p. 80, quoted from ‘Osmanli ve Dünya' by Kemal Karpat, (Istanbul, 2001).(34)http://nec.neu.edu.tr/english/news03_04/erdogansaracoglu.htm(35)Feridun Emecen, et al, Osmanli Devleti Tarihi, 2. cilt, (Istanbul, 1999), p. 393.(36)E.g., the law of corrupt judges that ‘one's own culture or belief' is an ‘extenuating circumstance' for one who killed his sister or daughter because she was seen, or told to be with a man. Some other accustomed lowness of the law is that innocent people would be followed just for they would be, or were said ‘would sleep together', then these innocent people would be arrested by the order of the state prosecutor as if they had committed a crime; their photos and videos would be taken and shown on the media, and they would be blamed of committing a shameful crime.(37)What wanted to be meant is not that the Empire was a rose garden. It is sure that there were also problems but arising away from the Sultans' disposal. The case rather should be studied from the point of the Sultans' virtue, view and initiation in the direction that what is understood of the concept ‘the Ottomans' is ‘the Sultans' and ‘the virtue, culture and wisdom they had'.(38)Tanör, Ibid., p. 26(39)Ibid., 26(40)Ibid., 26(41)*Timur, ibid., p. 242. Taner Timur has very good ascriptions relating the Ottoman case to the Byzantine aspects including Turkic arguments.**‘mülk' has a very diverse range of interpretation like from ‘kingdom' or ‘every thing' to ‘possessing' or ‘power'.(42)Karpat, Ibid., p. viii