Editing Ottoman Empire (section)

== Historiographical debate on the Ottoman state ==
{{See also|Ghaza thesis}}{{History of Turkey}}
Several historians, such as British historian [[Edward Gibbon]] and the Greek historian [[Dimitri Kitsikis]], have argued that after the fall of Constantinople, the Ottoman state took over the machinery of the Byzantine (Roman) state and that the Ottoman Empire was in essence a continuation of the Byzantine Empire under a [[Turkish people|Turkish]] [[Muslims|Muslim]] guise.<ref>Norman Stone, "Turkey in the Russian Mirror", pp. 86–100 from ''Russia War, Peace and Diplomacy'' edited by Mark & Ljubica Erickson, Weidenfeld & Nicolson: London, 2004 pp. 92–93</ref> The American historian [[Speros Vryonis]] writes that the Ottoman state centered on "a Byzantine-Balkan base with a veneer of the Turkish language and the Islamic religion".<ref name="Stone, pp. 86-100">Stone, pp. 86–100</ref> Kitsikis and the American historian [[Heath Lowry]] posit that the early Ottoman state was a predatory confederacy open to both Byzantine Christians and Turkish Muslims whose primary goal was attaining booty and slaves, rather than spreading Islam, and that Islam only later became the empire's primary characteristic.<ref>{{cite book |last=Lowry |first=Heath W. |title=The nature of the early Ottoman state |publisher=SUNY Press |date=2003}}</ref><ref>Dariusz Kołodziejczyk, "Khan, caliph, tsar and imperator: the multiple identities of the Ottoman sultan" in Peter Fibiger Bang, and Dariusz Kolodziejczyk, eds. ''Universal Empire: A Comparative Approach to Imperial Culture and Representation in Eurasian History'' (Cambridge University Press, 2012) pp. 175–193.</ref><ref>Sinan Ed Kuneralp, ed. ''A Bridge Between Cultures'' (2006) p. 9.</ref> Other historians have followed the lead of the Austrian historian [[Paul Wittek]], who emphasizes the early Ottoman state's Islamic character, seeing it as a "[[jihad]] state" dedicated to expanding the [[Muslim world]].<ref name="Stone, pp. 86-100"/> Many historians led in 1937 by the Turkish historian [[Mehmet Fuat Köprülü]] championed the [[Ghaza thesis]], according to which the early Ottoman state was a continuation of the way of life of the nomadic [[Turkic peoples|Turkic tribes]] who had come from East Asia to Anatolia via Central Asia and the Middle East on a much larger scale. They argued that the most important cultural influences on the Ottoman state came from [[Iran|Persia]].<ref>Ronald C. Jennings, "Some thoughts on the Gazi-thesis." ''Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes'' 76 (1986): 151–161 [https://www.jstor.org/stable/23868782 online] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200328042350/https://www.jstor.org/stable/23868782 |date=28 March 2020 }}.</ref>

The British historian [[Norman Stone]] suggests many continuities between the Byzantine and Ottoman empires, such as that the ''zeugarion'' tax of Byzantium became the Ottoman ''[[Resm-i çift]]'' tax, that the ''[[pronoia]]'' land-holding system that linked the amount of land one owned with one's ability to raise cavalry became the Ottoman ''[[timar]]'' system, and that the Ottoman land measurement the ''[[dönüm]]'' was the same as the Byzantine ''[[stremma]]''. Stone also argues that although Sunni Islam was the state religion, the Ottoman state supported and controlled the [[Eastern Orthodox Church]], which in return for accepting that control became the Ottoman Empire's largest land-holder. Despite the similarities, Stone argues that a crucial difference is that the land grants under the ''timar'' system were not hereditary at first. Even after they became inheritable, land ownership in the Ottoman Empire remained highly insecure, and the sultan revoked land grants whenever he wished. Stone argued this insecurity in land tenure strongly discouraged ''[[Timariot]]s'' from seeking long-term development of their land, and instead led them to adopt a strategy of short-term exploitation, which had deleterious effects on the Ottoman economy.<ref>Stone, pp. 94–95.</ref>