=XVIII. The Government of the Ottoman Empire in the Time of Suleiman the Magnificent.= By ALBERT HOWE LYBYER, Professor of European History in Oberlin College. 8vo. $2.00 net. HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS CAMBRIDGE, MASS., U. S. A. THE GOVERNMENT OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE IN THE TIME OF SULEIMAN THE MAGNIFICENT BY ALBERT HOWE LYBYER, PH.D. PROFESSOR OF EUROPEAN HISTORY, OBERLIN COLLEGE “Our empire is the home of Islam; from father to son the lamp of our empire is kept burning with oil from the hearts of the infidels.” MOHAMMED II, THE CONQUEROR. “A lord and his bondsmen.” RANKE. “Les Turcs ... nées de la guerre et organisées pour la conquête.” CAHUN. “The Ottoman government ... seems to have attained during the sixteenth century the highest degree of perfection of which its constitution was capable.” ROBERTSON. [Illustration] CAMBRIDGE HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS LONDON: HENRY FROWDE OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS 1913 COPYRIGHT, 1913 BY HARVARD UNIVERSITY PREFACE The Ottoman Turks, after the world had long despaired of them, have in these last years shown signs of renewed vigor. The time is, then, perhaps not inauspicious for an examination of the structure of their organization in the period of its greatest power and prestige. It is not easy for the present age to realize how large the empire of Suleiman bulked in the eyes of contemporaneous Europe. Amid the vast energies and activities, the magnificent undertakings and achievements, of the marvellous sixteenth century, nothing surpassed the manifestations of power that swept forth from Constantinople. The following pages will have been worth while if their incomplete presentation shadows forth, however dimly, the secrets of Ottoman greatness and success.