The Ottoman history has been subjected to a great distortion and prpaganda by certain Western orientalists who portrayed the Caliphate as just an empire with salacious Sultans and obscurantist Ulama. They spread the wrong notion that it was an evil Caliphate which did not deserve a deeper research or study. And they purposely spread great lies so much that the people started to believe them because there was sadly none to counter this propaganda as the Turkish state under republicans was actually enslaved by the West and a huge brainwashing of Turks was being done. However if we read authentic Western historians and scholars. We see that they have greatly praised the Ottoman institution for its administration, institutions, justice, tolerance, diplomacy, and military might. I shall quote a number of historians who cleared up Western propaganda by stating the real facts which show the glory of the Ottoman Caliphate. Please read and understand these facts so we can counter the ignorance of many Muslims and non-Muslims who still are ignorant of the real history.
“It is an undeniable historical fact that the Turkish armies have never interfered with the religious and cultural affairs in the areas they conquered. (J. W. Arnold)
“Jewish people must always recall the Ottoman Empire with gratitude who, at one of Judaism’s darkest hours flung open its door widely and kept them open” (Cecil Roth Historian)
“An important testimony to the toleration of Muslim rule is the fact that even persecuted Christian and other sects took refuge in Mohammedan land to enjoy there the undisturbed exercise of their several cults.” (Felix Valvi, London 925)
“The Ottoman Empire would not have lasted for six hundred years… You cannot for six hundred years suppress, subdue or bully a lot of people of different ethnic groups. And in any case, if you ill treat your subjects, then the tax is not collected from them.” (Prof. Jeffrey Lewis of Oxford University)
“The Ottomans had one of the most tolerant policies towards non-Turks of any empire of its day. The three communities of Jews, Greeks and Armenians were virtually autonomous within the empire.” (P.F. Peters, The Australian, June 9th 1994)
“It is well to remember that when the Crusaders were butchering their Muslim prisoners in Palestine, when the horrors of the Spanish Inquisition were in full swing, when Cromwell’s troopers were massacring the Catholics of Ireland……when Protestants in France were being exterminated by order of the French king, when Jews were being subjected to countless persecutions and barbarities in every European country……Muslims, Christians and Jews were dwelling side by side, in perfect amity in Asia Minor. (E Alexander Powell, The Struggle for Power in Muslim Asia, N.Y., 1925, p.120)”
“The Turks, as a nation, are almost ludicrously innocent of the propagandist’s art… The Ottoman institution came perhaps as near as anything in real life could to realizing the ideal of Plato’s Republic.” (Arnold Toynbe)
“There was emigration from independent Greece into the Ottoman Empire, since some Greeks found the Ottoman government more indulgent master than their own Greek government. (Roderic H- Davison, a prominent Western historian of the Ottoman Empire)”.
“The religious toleration of the Ottoman Government was complete and the state never interfered in anyway with what the Christians did or taught in their schools or the churches…” …It was impossible to desire more absolute liberty of worship or teaching.” (Gratan Geary, Through Asiatic Turkey, London, M.S. and R. Sampson, 1878)”.
“The tolerance shown to foreign beliefs and hostile faiths by the Ottoman law and Ottoman officials which enabled them to establish their own religious institutions and to shape their own education was such that…”…the thousand year old Liberty reigning in France in the field of sects and beliefs, dating from the times of the ancient Gaul, could not be compared with it.” (Talcot Williams, Turkey, A World. Problem of Today, New York, 1922, p 194)”.
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