Editing Ottoman Empire (section)

== Economy ==
{{Main|Economic history of the Ottoman Empire}}

[[File:AydınArchaeologicalMuseum (117).JPG|thumb|Coins of the Sultanate of Rûm and the Ottoman Empire at [[Aydın Archaeological Museum]]|upright=.75]]
Ottoman government deliberately pursued a policy for the development of Bursa, Edirne, and Istanbul, successive Ottoman capitals, into major commercial and industrial centers, considering that merchants and artisans were indispensable in creating a new metropolis.<ref name="Inalcik1970209">{{Cite book |last=İnalcık |first=Halil |title=Studies in the Economic History of the Middle East: from the Rise of Islam to the Present Day |publisher=Oxford University Press |date=1970 |isbn=978-0-19-713561-7 |editor-last=Cook |editor-first=M. A. |page=209 |chapter=The Ottoman Economic Mind and Aspects of the Ottoman Economy |author-link=Halil İnalcık}}</ref> To this end, Mehmed and his successor Bayezid, also encouraged and welcomed migration of the Jews from different parts of Europe, who were settled in Istanbul and other port cities like Salonica. In many places in Europe, Jews were suffering persecution at the hands of their Christian counterparts, such as in Spain, after the conclusion of the [[Reconquista]]. The tolerance displayed by the Turks was welcomed by the immigrants.

[[File:Mehmed the Conqueror (1432 –1481).jpg|thumb|A European bronze medal from the period of [[Mehmed II|Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror]], 1481|upright=.75]]

The Ottoman economic mind was closely related to the basic concepts of state and society in the Middle East in which the ultimate goal of a state was consolidation and extension of the ruler's power, and the way to reach it was to get rich resources of revenues by making the productive classes prosperous.<ref name="Inalcik1970217">{{Cite book |last=İnalcık |first=Halil |title=Studies in the Economic History of the Middle East: from the Rise of Islam to the Present Day |publisher=Oxford University Press |date=1970 |isbn=978-0-19-713561-7 |editor-last=Cook |editor-first=M. A. |page=217 |chapter=The Ottoman Economic Mind and Aspects of the Ottoman Economy |author-link=Halil İnalcık}}</ref> The ultimate aim was to increase the state revenues without damaging the prosperity of subjects to prevent the emergence of social disorder and to keep the traditional organization of the society intact. The Ottoman economy greatly expanded during the early modern period, with particularly high growth rates during the first half of the eighteenth century. The empire's annual income quadrupled between 1523 and 1748, adjusted for inflation.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Darling |first=Linda |title=Revenue-Raising and Legitimacy: Tax Collection and Finance Administration in the Ottoman Empire, 1560–1660. |publisher=E.J. Brill |date=1996 |isbn=978-90-04-10289-7 |pages=238–239}}</ref>

The organization of the treasury and chancery were developed under the Ottoman Empire more than any other Islamic government and, until the 17th century, they were the leading organization among all their contemporaries.<ref name="Black-2001">{{Cite book |last=Black |first=Antony |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nspmqLKPU-wC&pg=PA197 |title=The History of Islamic Political Thought: From the Prophet to the Present |publisher=Psychology Press |date=2001 |isbn=978-0-415-93243-1 |page=197 |access-date=20 June 2015 |archive-date=14 January 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230114151700/https://books.google.com/books?id=nspmqLKPU-wC&pg=PA197 |url-status=live }}</ref> This organisation developed a scribal bureaucracy (known as "men of the pen") as a distinct group, partly highly trained ulama, which developed into a professional body.<ref name="Black-2001"/> The effectiveness of this professional financial body stands behind the success of many great Ottoman statesmen.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=İnalcık |first1=Halil |title=An Economic and Social History of the Ottoman Empire, 1300–1914 |last2=Quataert |first2=Donald |date=1971 |page=120}}</ref>

[[File:Ottoman_Banks_Archives_and_Research_Centre.jpg|thumb|The [[Ottoman Bank]] was founded in 1856 in Constantinople. On 26 August 1896, the bank was [[Occupation of the Ottoman Bank|occupied]] by members of the [[Armenian Revolutionary Federation]].|upright=.75]]

Modern Ottoman studies indicate that the change in relations between the Ottoman Turks and central Europe was caused by the opening of the new sea routes. It is possible to see the decline in the significance of the land routes to the East as Western Europe opened the ocean routes that bypassed the Middle East and the Mediterranean as parallel to the decline of the Ottoman Empire itself.<ref>Donald Quataert, ''The Ottoman Empire 1700–1922'' (2005) p 24</ref>{{Failed verification|date=September 2016}} The [[Anglo-Ottoman Treaty]], also known as the [[Treaty of Balta Liman]] that opened the Ottoman markets directly to English and French competitors, can be seen as one of the staging posts along with this development.

By developing commercial centers and routes, encouraging people to extend the area of cultivated land in the country and international trade through its dominions, the state performed basic economic functions in the Empire. But in all this, the financial and political interests of the state were dominant. Within the social and political system they were living in, Ottoman administrators could not see the desirability of the dynamics and principles of the capitalist and mercantile economies developing in Western Europe.<ref name="Inalcik1970218">{{Cite book |last=İnalcık |first=Halil |title=Studies in the Economic History of the Middle East: from the Rise of Islam to the Present Day |publisher=Oxford University Press |date=1970 |isbn=978-0-19-713561-7 |editor-last=Cook |editor-first=M. A. |page=218 |chapter=The Ottoman Economic Mind and Aspects of the Ottoman Economy |author-link=Halil İnalcık}}</ref>

Economic historian [[Paul Bairoch]] argues that [[free trade]] contributed to [[deindustrialisation]] in the Ottoman Empire. In contrast to the [[protectionism]] of China, Japan, and Spain, the Ottoman Empire had a [[Economic liberalism|liberal trade]] policy, open to foreign imports. This has origins in [[capitulations of the Ottoman Empire]], dating back to the first commercial treaties signed with France in 1536 and taken further with [[Capitulation (treaty)|capitulations]] in 1673 and 1740, which lowered [[Duty (economics)|duties]] to 3% for imports and exports. The liberal Ottoman policies were praised by British economists, such as [[John Ramsay McCulloch]] in his ''Dictionary of Commerce'' (1834), but later criticized by British politicians such as Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli, who cited the Ottoman Empire as "an instance of the injury done by unrestrained competition" in the 1846 [[Corn Laws]] debate.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Paul Bairoch |title=Economics and World History: Myths and Paradoxes |publisher=[[University of Chicago Press]] |date=1995 |pages=31–32 |author-link=Paul Bairoch}}</ref>