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This covers the lifestyle of society within the Ottoman Empire, which is part of the requirement for the students to research as part of their task. This site gives information to student that cover some of the curriculum requirements.

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The Ottoman Empire was organized into a very complicated social structure because it was a large, multi-ethnic and multi-religious empire. Ottoman society was divided between Muslims and non-Muslims, with Muslims theoretically having a higher standing than Christians or Jews. During the early years of Ottoman rule, a Sunni Turkish minority ruled over a Christian majority, as well as a sizable Jewish minority. Key Christian ethnic groups included the Greeks, Armenians, and Assyrians, as well as Coptic Egyptians.

As "people of the Book," other monotheists were treated with respect. Under the millet system, the people of each faith were ruled and judged under their own laws: for Muslims, canon law for Christians, and halakha for Jewish citizens.

Although non-Muslims sometimes paid higher taxes, and Christians were subject to the blood tax, a tax paid in male children, there was not a lot of day-to-day differentiation between people of different faiths. In theory, non-Muslims were barred from holding high office, but enforcement of that regulation was lax during much of the Ottoman period.

During the later years, non-Muslims became the minority due to secession and out-migration, but they were still treated quite equitably. By the time the Ottoman Empire collapsed after World War I, its population was 81% Muslim.

Another important social distinction was that between people who worked for the government versus people who did not. Again, theoretically, only Muslims could be part of the sultan's government, although they could be converts from Christianity or Judaism. It did not matter if a person was born free or was a slave; either could rise to a position of power.

People associated with the Ottoman court or divan were considered higher status than those who were not. They included members of the sultan's household, army and navy officers and enlisted men, central and regional bureaucrats, scribes, teachers, judges, and lawyers, as well as members of the other professions. This entire bureaucratic machinery made up only about 10% of the population, and was overwhelmingly Turkish, although some minority groups were represented in the bureaucracy and the military through the devshirme system.

Members of the governing class ranged from the sultan and his grand vizier, through regional governors and officers of the Janissary corps, down to nisanci or court calligrapher. The government became known collectively as the Sublime Porte, after the gate to the administrative building complex.

The remaining 90% of the population were the tax-payers who supported the elaborate Ottoman bureaucracy. They included skilled and unskilled laborers, such as farmers, tailors, merchants, carpet-makers, mechanics, etc. The vast majority of the sultan's Christian and Jewish subjects fell into this category.

According to Muslim tradition, the government should welcome the conversion of any subject who was willing to become Muslim. However, since Muslims paid lower taxes than members of other religions, ironically it was in the Ottoman divan's interests to have the largest possible number of non-Muslim subjects. A mass conversion would have spelled economic disaster for the Ottoman Empire.

Essentially, then, the Ottoman Empire had a small but elaborate government bureaucracy, made up almost entirely of Muslims, most of them of Turkish origin. This divan was supported by a large cohort of mixed religion and ethnicity, mostly farmers, who paid taxes to the central government.

Sugar, Peter. "Ottoman Social and State Structure." Southeastern Europe Under Ottoman Rule, 1354 - 1804. University of Washington Press, 1977.

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The Ottoman Empire was organized into a very complicated social structure because it was a large, multi-ethnic and multi-religious empire. Ottoman society was divided between Muslims and non-Muslims, with Muslims theoretically having a higher standing than Christians or Jews.

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This resource is a great device to create a virtual museum for a particular subject area. I would be using this resource if I was to teach the mini-unit I have created. The site allows a massive amount of data and users securely. You can also embed your virtual museum to any website for easy access.

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ThingLink: Create unique experiences with interactive images, videos & 360° media

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Easily create interactive and immersive visual experiences for online communication and learning. Start a free trial!

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This resource covers the formation of the Ottoman Empire through to the collapse, it also has links to different knowledge points. this site would be a good starting point for students completing the mini-unit task.

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Constantinople

Constantinople

Constantinople was the heart of the Byzantine Empire. It became the capital of the Ottoman Empire when it was conquered in 1453 by the Ottoman Sultan Mehmet II.

Mehmet slaughtered many of the population and forced the rest into exile, later repopulating the city by importing people from elsewhere in Ottoman territory.

Mehmet renamed Constantinople Istanbul - the 'city of Islam' - and set about rebuilding it, both physically and politically, as his capital.

Economics

Istanbul became not only a political and military capital, but because of its position at the junction of Europe, Africa, and Asia, one of the great trade centres of the world. Another important city was Bursa, which was a centre of the silk trade.

Some of the later Ottoman conquests were clearly intended to give them control of other trade routes.

Among the goods traded were:

Silk and other cloth

Musk

Rhubarb

Porcelain from China

Spices such as pepper

Dyestuffs such as indigo

The economic strength of the Empire also owed much to Mehmet's policy of increasing the number of traders and artisans in the Empire.

He first encouraged merchants to move to Istanbul, and later forcibly resettled merchants from captured territories such as Caffa.

He also encouraged Jewish traders from Europe to migrate to Istanbul and set up in business there. Later rulers continued these policies.

The siege of Constantinople

When Sultan Mehmet II rode into the city of Constantinople on a white horse in 1453, it marked the end of a thousand years of the Byzantine Empire. Earlier attempts to capture the city had largely failed - so why did the Ottomans succeed this time? What effect did the fall of Constantinople have on the rest of the Christian world?

Roger Crowley, author and historian; Judith Herrin, Professor of Late Antique and Byzantine Studies at King's College London; and Colin Imber, formerly Reader in Turkish at Manchester University discuss these questions.

Effects of the fall of Constantinople

The capture of Constantinople ended the Byzantine Empire after 1100 years. The effect of this on Christian Europe was enormous.

One unexpected effect was that many scholars fled from the new empire and went to Italy, where they were influential in sparking off the Renaissance, and increasing trade with the east.

Although the Pope demanded a crusade to recapture Istanbul from the Muslims, the Christian nations failed to produce an army for him, and no attempt to retake the city was made.

The Muslim dominance of the trading centre of the former Constantinople increased the pressure on Western nations to find new ways to the East by going westwards. This eventually led to the expeditions of Columbus, Magellan, and Drake.

Other religions

The millet system

Non-Muslim communities were organised according to the millet system, which gave minority religious/ethnic/geographical communities a limited amount of power to regulate their own affairs - under the overall supremacy of the Ottoman administration.

The first Orthodox Christian millet was established in 1454. This brought Orthodox Christians into a single community under the leadership of the Patriarch who had considerable authority given to him by the Sultan. Armenian Christian, Jewish and other millets followed in due course.

Some millets paid tax to the state as dhimmis, while others were exempted because they were seen to be performing services of value to the state.

The devshirme system

Non-Muslims in parts of the empire had to hand over some of their children as a tax under the devshirme ('gathering') system introduced in the 14th century. Conquered Christian communities, especially in the Balkans, had to surrender twenty percent of their male children to the state.

To the horror of their parents, and Western commentators, these children were converted to Islam and served as slaves.

Although the forced removal from their families and conversion was certainly traumatic and out of line with modern ideas of human rights, the devshirme system was a rather privileged form of slavery for some (although others were undoubtedly ill-used).

Some of the youngsters were trained for government service, where they were able to reach very high ranks, even that of Grand Vezir. Many of the others served in the elite military corps of the Ottoman Empire, called the Janissaries, which was almost exclusively made up of forced converts from Christianity.

The devshirme played a key role in Mehmet's conquest of Constantinople, and from then on regularly held very senior posts in the imperial administration.

Although members of the devshirme class were technically slaves, they were of great importance to the Sultan because they owed him their absolute loyalty and became vital to his power. This status enabled some of the 'slaves' to become both powerful and wealthy. Their status remained restricted, and their children were not permitted to inherit their wealth or follow in their footsteps.

The devshirme system continued until the end of the seventeenth century.

Life under Mehmet

After battles between Muslims and Christians, churches were converted into mosques and mosques into churches according to who was the winner.

Although Mehmet converted many churches into mosques, he did not suppress the Christian faith itself. There were practical reasons for this:

Christians were the largest group of the population and coexistence was likely to be more efficient than conflict

The institutions of the church provided a machine for implementing Mehmet's rule

But Mehmet was also influenced by the Islamic rule that Muslims should show respect to all religions.

Mehmet not only tolerated the Christians, he made special efforts to attract Jews to Istanbul. This was attractive to the Jews, who had previously been persecuted by the Orthodox Christian Church.

The non-Muslim communities (millets) were controlled by the Sultan acting through their religious leaders. These communities were given their own parts of towns in which to live and worship. They were given a great deal of freedom to lead their lives according to their particular faiths, and so were largely supportive of their Muslim overlords.

After Mehmet

Mehmet II died in 1481, and he nominated his eldest son Bayezid as the new Sultan. The Shi'a Muslims in the Ottoman Empire revolted in favour of Bayezid's brother Jem. The Janissaries suppressed the revolt and from then on became very important in Ottoman politics.

With Janissary support Bayezid's son Selim laid the foundations for a world Ottoman Empire based entirely on the despotism of the Sultan. The Shi'as were ruthlessly suppressed and they retreated to Persia, joining with the local groups of Shi'a and eventually forming their own state under the Safavid Shahs.

Fratricide

Sultan Selim introduced the policy of fratricide (the murder of brothers).

Under this system whenever a new Sultan ascended to the throne his brothers would be locked up. As soon as the Sultan had produced his first son the brothers (and their sons) would be killed. The new Sultan's sons would be then confined until their father's death and the whole system would start again.

This often meant that dozens of sons would be killed while only one would become Sultan.

In the later centuries of Ottoman rule, the brothers were imprisoned rather than executed.

Sultan and court

The Sultan's life

The Sultans lived in the Topkapi Palace in Istanbul.

The Sultan's life was run by rituals copied from the Byzantine court. For example, the Sultan wore his silk robes once and then they were discarded. (Many now are preserved in the Topkapi Musuem.)

The Topkapi Palace held many objects which were used to give legitimacy to the Ottomans and reinforce the Sultan's claim to be leader of all Muslims. The most important of these was the mantle of the Prophet Muhammad and his standard and footprint. These were brought from Egypt when Cairo fell to the Ottomans.

It was in the Harem that the Sultan spent his life. Every inhabitant of the 230 small dark rooms in the Topkapi palace was his to command. The number of concubines often exceeded a thousand and came from all over the world. The only permanent male staff consisted of eunuchs.

Access to the Sultan meant power. But no one was to be trusted. The Sultan moved every night to avoid assassination. Favoured males were promoted to rule places far away like Syria; males not in favour could be locked up inside the palace.

The harem was a paradox, since it was a feature of the Ottoman Empire (and other Islamic states) yet contained much that was not permissible in Islam. The harem was extravagant, decadent, and vulgar. The concentration of wealth, suffering and injustice toward women was far from the ideals of marriage and married life in Islam.

Despite this, the harem could bring benefits to a family who had a woman in the harem. It meant patronage, wealth and power; it meant access to the most powerful man in the Empire - the Sultan.

Influences and Structure

Although the Ottoman Empire was widely influenced by the faiths and customs of the peoples it incorporated, the most significant influences came from Islam.

The ruling elite worked their way up the hierarchy of the state madrassahs (religious schools) and the palace schools. They were trained to be concerned with the needs of government and to be mindful of the restrictions of Islamic law.

In its structure the ruling elite reflected a world of order and hierarchy in which promotion and status were rewarded on merit. Thus birth and genealogy, aristocracy or tribe became almost irrelevant to success in the system. Only one post, that of the Sultan, was determined by birth.

Suleiman - a golden age

The Golden Age of Suleiman

The Ottoman Empire reached the peak of its power during the rule of Selim's son, Suleiman the Magnificent (ruled 1520 -66) and his grandson Selim II (1566 - 74).

Suleiman came to the throne as one of the wealthiest rulers in the world. His strength owed much to the work his father Selim had done in stabilising government, removing opposition, frightening (but not succesfully conquering) the Safavid Empire of Iran into adopting a non-aggression policy, and conquering the Mamluk empire of Egypt and Syria.

These conquests, which united the lands of Eastern Europe and the Eastern Mediterranean under a single ruler, brought a time of peace and stability, under which the Empire flourished.

Suleiman had no internal rivals for power. His father had seen to that by executing his own brothers and their sons, and all 4 of Suleiman's brothers.

The Ottoman Empire now included so much of the territory where Islam was practiced, and so many of the Islamic holy places, that Suleiman was widely regarded as the religious leader of Islam, as well as the earthly ruler of most Muslims.

The wealth and stability of the Empire at this time attracted the top Muslim brains of the period, and craftsmen, artists, intellectuals and writers were eager to move to Istanbul.

Suleiman was named 'The Magnificent' by the Europeans, but his own people called him 'The Lawgiver'.

Short-termism

Ottoman rulers had a very short-term policy. They rejected the idea of developing territory and investing in it for gain at some time in the future; land and peoples were exploited to the point of exhaustion and then more or less abandoned in favour of new ground.

This policy meant that the Ottoman Empire relied on continuous expansion for stability. If it did not grow, it was likely to collapse.

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The Ottoman Empire was an empire inspired and sustained by Islam.

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This site is a good starting point to find some information, before getting too specific in the learning task.

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Thousands of historical articles on both British and world history for all levels of knowledge and interest.

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This resource has information on all Australian curriculum subjects. Again a good starting point to bounce off and investigate further. It has information for everyone involved in the learning journey.

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Meet Ollie. He's a genius inventor. Or at least, he wants to be. That's if his inventions actually worked. Instead of getting him into trouble. But one day, everything changes when he discovers a pair of glasses that allow him to see the power of unwanted items and transform them into incredible inventions - that work.

This hilarious book from well known Australian entertainer Jimmy Rees (Jimmy Giggle on Giggle and Hoot) is all about creative thinking and caring for the environment.

In this lesson, you'll become an inventor just like Ollie, designing your own inventions using old, unused and unwanted items from around your house, while thinking about how much we send to landfill that could be reused or repurposed using forums such as Gumtree.

The Leadership

Heart Foundation

Lord Howe Island

Global Problem Solvers

Bluey

HASS
Years 5 & 6

Students will have the opportunity to deep dive into the concepts of workplace diversity and sexism and harassment in the workplace. The lessons in this unit encourage students to take a proactive approach to creating a better world, both in and outside of work.

Jump Rope for Heart can help primary schools meet the mandatory weekly requirements for student participation in sport and physical activity. It also encourages students to build a positive attitude towards exercise, healthy eating and heart health.

Cool Australia is proud to announce its collaboration with one of Australia's most loved and honoured landscape artists Joshua Yeldham. Joshua Yeldham is an award-winning Australian artist that has held collections and exhibited all around the world. His spiritual connection with land and nature is ever so clear in his detailed artworks and how he interacts with his environment to create and build on his art.

This shows students how social innovation can benefit even the most developed areas. The lessons guide students through the process of finding and understanding a problem, designing a solution for this problem, thinking about the opportunities and challenges associated with their solution.

Cool Australia has partnered with Ludo Studio to create a range of Bluey educational resources. Each resource showcases an episode from Bluey and contains all the intentional teaching strategies, NQF mapping and activities needed to bring Bluey to life in your centre.

Cool Australia is a registered charity. All donations are tax deductible and assist us in expanding our environmental education resources available at
www.coolaustralia.org for teachers, parents/caregivers and students. You can donate here.

Our Partners

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Cool Australia - FREE Teacher Curriculum Resources

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Meet Ollie. He's a genius inventor. Or at least, he wants to be. That's if his inventions actually worked. Instead of getting him into trouble. But one day, everything changes when he discovers a pair of glasses that allow him to see the power of unwanted items and transform them into incredible inventions - that work.

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This is a popular school program. the student can access pre-loaded information posted by the educator (teacher) as well as keep there own notes. 

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This suite of programs, commonly used in QLD schools enables collaboration and collection of information to be store and used in one access area. i intend to use this as my Curators insight to complete a history task.