Sublime

Until well into the seventeenth century, the Ottoman sultans balanced their dependence on the political and military service of the Turkish aristocracy by recruiting a slave army of Muslim converts (perhaps seven or eight thousand a year) separated in childhood from their Christian parents. Devshirme recruitment obliterated the ties of kinship and

Islamic rule under the early khalifas (caliphs) depended on tribal garrisons watching over the unreliable townsmen. It was not a lasting solution. Under urban conditions, tribal unity weakened. There was no aristocracy to apply a feudal remedy, and the problem of government was control of the towns. The answer was found in recruiting military slave

Muhammad Imin…

Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.

[Was Zafar] the original mover, the head and front of the undertaking, or but the consenting tool…the forward, unscrupulous, but still pliant puppet, tutored by priestly craft for the advancement of religious bigotry? Many persons, I believe, will incline to the latter. The known restless spirit of Mahommedan fanaticism has been the first aggressor