How did Turkey become Muslim?

Islam and the Turkish State

The Mongol invasion and the conquest of its capital, Baghdad, in 1258 essentially destroyed the Abbásid Caliphate, the direct successor of the Umayyad State and the first four so-called Rightly Guided, Orthodox Caliphs who had been ruling the Muslim community since the Prophet’s death in 632. Even though the cAbbásid caliphs ruled in name from their Egyptian exile, their days of power were over. Thus, it seemed that the Islamic state needed a Muslim leader who could assume the responsibilities of the real head of the state. The Ottoman sultan claimed this role and carried it out until the Caliphate was abolished in 1924.

The Turkic peoples, whose political and religious heritage they later claimed, also contributed significantly to the fall of the Arab caliphate. First of all, while the Mongols themselves made up a small, albeit elite, minority within the Mongol empire, Turk tribesmen made up the bulk of the population. The Mongol policy of enlisting semi-nomadic or nomadic tribesmen from conquered regions into the Mongol army was the cause of this phenomenon. An increasing number of Turk fighting units were used in the Mongol campaigns as Turks began to inhabit large areas they had conquered under the Mongols. The Turkic element was so strong by the time the Golden Horde arrived in Russia, Poland, and Hungary that the Mongol invaders were referred to as Tatars, after one of their Turkic units. Some Turkic groups played a role even more important than that of the warriors. The most important of them are the Uygurs, who gave the Mongols their writing system and advisors, including Chinghis Khan himself. Given this, it can be proven that certain Turkic elements took a direct part in overthrowing the Arab caliphate and leaving a gap in the Muslim world. By doing this, they allowed other Turks who had become Islamized to usurp the Arabs’ positions of political and religious authority and rebuild the Islamic empire, which now has Istanbul as its capital.

Some Muslim scholars held that God’s increasing concern over the state of Islam and the Muslims at the hands of the Arabs was the reason why the Turks achieved universal supremacy. The Muslim Caliphate began to decline politically and militarily during the Abbásid era, and it was unable to repel non-Muslim invaders from the Islamic lands (like the Mongols). Thus, God, who is always wise and kind, removed the Arabs from power and designated the Turks as the new guardians of Islamic customs and the religion’s saviors. His decision was thought to have been influenced by the virtues of the semi-nomadic Turkic tribesmen, who were pure and honorable and somewhat reminiscent of the Arabs who had originally been selected to receive Muhammad, the Prophet of Islam. The Turks proceeded to bring back the glory and dignity of the Muslim state, as well as the unity and strength of Islam. 2.

The Ottoman Turks’ determination to eradicate adultery from the world and advance Islam to global dominance only grew stronger after they overran Constantinople in 1453. From 1444 to 1446, Mehmet II the Conqueror Fueled by religious fervor, these imperial ambitions led Mehmet II and his successors to wage a holy war against disbelieving regions of Europe. As a result, the Ottoman Empire swept south to conquer North Africa and the holy sites of Arabia in addition to capturing the Balkans and Central Europe. It also extended eastward, absorbing the Arab provinces of the Middle East. The Ottoman Empire ruled over Mecca and Medina, which gave birth to Islam, Cairo, the center of Islamic culture, Damascus, the former capital of the Umayyads, and Damascus itself. At that point, the Sultan adopted the titles “Defender of the Sharíca” and “Servitor of the Two Holy Sanctuaries.”

The structure and operations of government as they had existed during the Caliphate were altered when the Turks assumed power in the Islamic state. They reinforced the government’s political power and the state became more stable and more enduring. Dynasties no longer came and went within the span of one century as had often happened before. A strong, centralised government became the distinguishing feature of the Ottoman Sultanate. The institutions that supported the state’s authority were well-established, well-functioning, and far more clearly defined than those of the Arab Caliphate. There were distinct social classes, and there was a well-defined system of regular recruitment and promotion guidelines, as well as powers and functions for the army, bureaucracy, clergy, and judiciary. The Turks significantly enhanced the structure of the Islamic state, presumably by extending their knowledge gained from interactions with the governments of China, Mongolia, Byzantium, and other countries over the ages.

Islam was the traditional basis of the Ottoman state. Islam established the political and social cohesiveness principle, the framework of authority, and the inspiration for subject loyalty within this Muslim community that made up the state. The head of state was committed to upholding the Islamic faith and expanding the Islamic realm, and was viewed as the Community of the Muslims. From a religious perspective, the sultan’s authority as head of state stemmed from his role as the executor of Sharíca, or Islamic law. According to Islamic theory, he was accountable to Islamic law and his subjects were answerable to him. A government could only be considered legitimate if it acknowledged the Sharíca’s sovereignty and upheld the fundamental rights of the Muslim community, which it had guaranteed. Ottoman Turkey itself was conceived of as the leader and defender of all Muslims. It was, therefore, responsible for a greater Islamic unity that extended beyond the Turk-inhabited regions. In this realm all Muslims were equal, at least theoretically, irrespective of their origins. In order to maintain unity, the government controlled the state not only by strict organization but also by coercion and mental manipulation.

The Muslim scholars employed by the recently founded educational institutions brought the fruits of high Islamic culture to the previously ignorant and largely illiterate Turks. Hundreds of other Ottoman medreses (schools) were to be established throughout the empire after the first one, which opened in Iznik in 1331. Through the Arabic language, which is the language of the Qur’an, Turkish students from all backgrounds were able to become familiar not only with the Islamic religious sciences but also with the richness of Greek and Persian philosophy, theoretical rational sciences (like mathematics and natural sciences), practical rational sciences (like ethics and political science), and many other subjects.

The Conversion of the Turks to Islam

When Islam was initially introduced to the Turks, it was as the religion of a conqueror who was gradually encroaching on historically Turk-controlled areas and endangering Turk political and economic interests. Given that the Turkic peoples had always been receptive to religious influences from other countries, it is possible to interpret their early resistance to the Muslim conquest as defending their income sources rather than their right to practice their religion freely. The Eastern Karatau Mountains to Jungaria formed the boundaries of the Western Türk Qaganate, which also included the Iranian oasis city-states of Central Asia. Around the end of the seventh century, the advancing forces of Islam first threatened Türk authority there. Umayyad Commander Qutayba ibn Muslim’s forces established Islamic rule in lower Tukháristán and conquered most of Soghdiana in the first decade of the eighth century. Transoxania was ruled by Muslims by 715 after the Turkic and Soghdian peoples of Central Asia were compelled to submit to Umayyad rule. To get away from Muslim rule, the Khazars were forced to relocate their capital to Etil on the lower Volga. But the Khazar qagan could not hold out against Islam for long, and in 737 they became Muslims for the first time. Even though this misguided conversion was short-lived, Khazaria had been fully Islamized and irreversibly absorbed into the Muslim world by the late tenth century. After the Iranian peoples were converted, Arabo-Iranian forces jointly ventured into Turkish territory, capturing a sizable number of Turkic tribesmen to be used as slave soldiers in Muslim armies. Some of these slave soldiers, also known as ghuláms or mamlúks, went on to establish their own ruling dynasties, including the Tźlúnid (868-905) and Ikhshídid (935-969) dynasties in Egypt, the Ghaznavids (962-1186) in Afghanistan and Punjab, and the Mamlúks (1250-1517) in Egypt and Syria.

How the Turks became Muslim