Sistema de gestión ambiental

The group which formed the ruling class, at the time of the Ottoman Empire's establishment in the fourteenth century,® was composed of Muslim Turks who had - and whose forebears had - served in the armed forces of the early sultans. As the empire expanded, leading members of this martial class were given the right to collect and retain tax revenues from the areas which they had been assigned to rule in exchange for military service to the sultan. These regional chieftains, transformed from soldiers to landowners, decayed as a military force. As their charters lapsed, they were replaced by tax-farmers, who became an

® Hourani, Arabic Thought, p. 11. See also T. Sonn, Between Qur'an and Crown: The Challenge of Political Legitimacy in the Arab World (Oxford: Westview Press, 1990)(hereinafter "Sonn"), p p . 61-63.

Hourani, Arabic Thought, p. 11. See also Sonn, p. 63. ® S o n n , p . 6 1 .

hereditary landholding class; and although members of this class were granted the authority to rule, they were given no intrinsic power.®

The military caste which replaced it was composed of members of the slave-corps, a group which had served in the army since Islam's earliest days. The slaves had originated in the Balkans and the Caucasus Mountains. They had either been bought or

acquired through periodic levy and educated in the military or palace schools. They eventually became either commanders in the

sultan's army or high officials in his government.

C. The Ottoman Legal System

Although the sultan did not claim to be a caliph in the same sense that the Prophet Muhammad's immediate successors were

caliphs, he nevertheless based his religious authority ". . . o n the divine right of those who had established their effective power and used it in the interests of I s l a m . A l l of the sultan's acts and proclamations were officially subject to the Sunni interpretation of the shari'a h , or the Islamic legal

c o d e . He was additionally responsible for protecting the

® Hourani, Arabic Thought. pp. 25-26. See also Sonn, pp. 67-68.

10 _{Hourani, Arabic Thought. p. 26. See Sonn, p. 66.}

11 Hourani, Arabic Thought, p. 27. See also Hourani, History of the Arab Peoples, p. 221.

12 According to Sonn, the Ottoman rulers, rather than

consulting the shari'ah to ensure that their acts comported with its provisions, " . . . elicited legal justifications (fetva; in Arabic, fatwa) from the religious scholars for their actions." p.

Islamic holy places and defending Ottoman frontiers against the Christian and Shi'i states."

Under the sultan was a religious legal hierarchy headed by the chief interpreter of Islamic law, al-shaikh al-Islam. who was empowered to disapprove of government actions for being contrary to the law. In practical terms however, the sultan held final authority. Under the Ottoman legal system, it was the task of the judges (cadis) to dispense the law. At the next lower level, the jurisconsults (muftis) interpreted the law, while instructors taught it in schools. Together with mosque officials, these

elements formed ". . . a n official corps, with regular grades and a system of promotion . . . ", which served as a communications channel between the sultan and his subjects. It was through this hierarchy that the sultan issued his decrees and through it that the rank-and-file expressed their grievances to him.

D, The Role of Minority Religious Communities

The sultan did not attempt to impose a homogeneous belief system on his subjects, but rather, regulated the empire's various elements and classes in such a way as to ensure

harmonious coexistence among them. They formed a collection of communities, whose members owed immediate loyalty to their

leaders, who, in turn, were responsible to the central

Hourani, Arabic Thought. p. 27. See also Sonn, pp. 62 63 .

" Hourani, Arabic Thought, p. 28. See also Hourani, History of the Arab Peoples, pp. 224-225.

government. These communities were divided along regional, religious, or functional lines, and often all three.

Communities of the empire's recognized religious minorities (Christians and Jews) were organized into the millet system, under which they were subject to Ottoman jurisdiction in civil legal matters, but were permitted to administer their own court system in family law concerns." In exchange, they owed the sultan loyalty and good behavior, and were required to pay personal taxes (iizivah) not demanded of their Muslim

counterparts."

The empire's Christian communities would play a dual role in the region's historical development from the sixteenth century onwards; first, as the willing absorbers of European languages and cultural values, and later, as leading elements in the

revival of Arabic as a means of popular expression and ideologues of the Arab nationalist movement. Although both the Christian and Jewish communities felt alienated in a predominantly Muslim society, each responded differently to their respective feelings of isolation. Jews felt both religiously and culturally

estranged, since a significant portion of Jewish doctrine

maintained that they were a community in exile and aspired to the " Hourani, Arabic Thought, p. 29.

Sonn, p . 78.

Hourani, A History of the Arab Peoples, p. 217. See also E. Mortimer, Faith and Power; The Politics of Islam (New York: Vintage Books, 1982), p. 127. Faith and Power: The Politics of

Islam is a survey of modern Islamic trends (nineteenth century and beyond), which also reviews Islam's early history.

re-establishment of a Jewish commonwealth in the Land of Israel. Christians, on the other hand, considered themselves Arabs culturally, speaking Arabic as their primary language and

practicing Arab customs in much the same way as their Muslim neighbors. Their existence as a separate community within

Ottoman society led them to look to the West for protection and guidance. In the twelfth century, the Maronite Christians of Lebanon adopted Roman Catholicism and accepted papal

authority. By the late sixteenth century, the Catholic Church had established a number of colleges in Rome to train Arab

Christian priests for service in the Levant."

Hourani, A History of the Arab Peoples, p. 97. See also Hourani, Arabic Thought, p. 55.

Hourani, A History of the Arab Peoples, p. 242. Hourani, Arabic Thought, p p . 55-56.