DBQ1

Source: Karen Barkey, Turkish-American historian and sociologist, Empire of Difference: The Ottomans in Comparative Perspective, published in 2008.

“In the context of the Ottoman Empire, toleration [ensured] that, as a rule, non-Muslims would not be persecuted. No doubt, as dhimmis,* according to Islam, they were second-class citizens . . . who endured a healthy dose of daily prejudice. [Nevertheless, the Ottomans tolerated religious and ethnic difference] because it had something to contribute. That is, difference added to the empire; it did not detract from it and, therefore, it was commended. Toleration had a [beneficial] quality; maintaining peace and order was good for imperial life, diversity contributed to imperial welfare. . . .

The Ottoman Empire fared better than did its predecessors or contemporaries [in tolerating religious and ethnic difference] until the beginning of the eighteenth century, largely as a result of its understanding of difference and its resourcefulness in [administrative organization]. It maintained relative peace with its various communities and also ensured that interethnic strife would not occur.”

*Islamic law defines dhimmis as non-Muslim communities living under Muslim political rule

Source: Decree issued by the newly established Tokugawa Shogunate concerning the regulation of warrior households, Japan, 1615.

“The greater and lesser daimyo [lords] of the provinces and all their salaried officials must speedily expel any soldiers in their service who have been accused of rebellion or murder. . . . Any repairs to castles in the provinces must be reported to the government of the shogun [ruler of Japan], as well as any new construction, which is strictly forbidden. Walls extending more than a certain distance are a peril to the state. High fortresses and well-dredged moats are the origins of great turmoil. . . . [When reporting for duty] daimyo with larger estates should not be escorted by more than twenty mounted warriors. Daimyo with smaller estates should reduce their escort proportionally.”

Source: Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq, Flemish Ambassador of the Holy Roman Emperor to the Turkish Sultan’s court in Istanbul during the reign of Suleyman the Magnificent, from The Turkish Letters, 1554.

“At Buda I made my first acquaintance with the Janissaries; this is the name by which the Turks call the infantry of the royal guard. The Turkish state has 12,000 of these troops when the corps is at its full strength. They are scattered through every part of the empire, either to garrison the forts against the enemy, or to protect the Christians and Jews from the violence of the mob. There is no district with any considerable amount of population, no borough or city, which has not a detachment of Janissaries to protect the Christians, Jews, and other helpless people from outrage and wrong.”

Source: King James I, English monarch, Speech to Parliament, 1609.

“The state of the monarchy is the supremest thing upon the earth. For kings are not only God’s lieutenants upon earth, and sit upon God’s throne, but even by God himself they are called gods. . . . Kings are justly called gods for that they exercise a manner or resemblance of divine power upon earth. For if you will consider the attributes to God, you shall see how they agree in the person of a king. God has power to create, or destroy, make, or unmake at his pleasure, to give life, or send death, to judge all, and to be judged nor accountable to none; to raise low things, and to make high things low at his pleasure, and to God are both soul and body due. And the like power have kings: they make and unmake their subjects; they have the power of raising and casting down, of life and of death; judges over all their subjects, and in all cases, and yet accountable to none but God only. They have the power to exalt low things and abase high things, and make of their subjects like men at chess: a pawn to take a bishop or a knight, and to cry up or down any of their subjects, as they do their money. And to the king is due both the affection of the soul and the service of the body of his subjects . . . .”

Source: Jacques Benigne Bossuet, a French bishop and theologian to Louis XIV of France, Politics Derived from Holy Writ, 1679 – published 1709.

“It appears from all this that the person of the king is sacred, and that to attack him in any way is sacrilege. God has the kings anointed by his prophets with the holy function in like manner as he has bishops and altars anointed. But even without the external application in thus being anointed, they are by their very office the representatives of the divine majesty deputed by Providence for the execution of his purposes. Accordingly God calls Cyrus his anointed. “Thus saith the Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden, to subdue nations before him.” Kings should be guarded as holy things, and whosoever neglects to protect them is worthy of death. . . . The royal power is absolute. With the aim of making this truth hateful and insufferable, many writers have tried to confound absolute government with arbitrary government. But no two things could be more unlike, as we shall show when we come to speak of justice.”

Evaluate the extent to which rulers used a variety of methods to legitimize and consolidate their power in the period circa 1450 to 1750 CE.