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Concept
Armenians in the Ottoman Empire
Summary
Ottoman Armenians were a significant ethnic population within the Ottoman Empire. Armenians in the empire mostly belonged to either the Armenian Apostolic Church or the Armenian Catholic Church. They were part of the Armenian millet until the Tanzimat reforms in the nineteenth century equalized all Ottoman citizens before the law. Armenians were a significant minority in the Empire. They played a crucial role in Ottoman industry and commerce, and Armenian communities existed in almost every major city of the empire. Despite their importance, Armenians were heavily persecuted by the Ottoman authorities especially from the latter half of the 19th century, culminating in the Armenian Genocide.
State organisation of the Ottoman Empire
The Ottomans introduced a number of unique approaches to governing into the traditions of Islam. Islamic culture did not separate religious and secular matters. At first, the Sultan was the highest power in the land and had control over almost everything. However, a state organization began to take a more definite shape in the first half of the sixteenth century under Suleyman I, also known as "Lawgiver". The Ottomans visualized two separate "establishments" to share state power, one responsible for governing a nation's citizens and the other its military. "The Ottomans left civic control to the civic institutions. Historians often label the Ottoman sociopolitical construct the "Ottoman System". Noteworthy, however, the term "Ottoman System" conveys a sense of structural rigidity that probably was nonexistent throughout the Ottoman period.
The Armenian population's integration was partly due to the nonexistent structural rigidity throughout the initial period. Armenian people, related to the issues of their own internal affairs were administered by the civil administration. Townspeople, villagers and farmers formed a class called the flock/reaya, including Armenian reaya. Civil and judicial administration was carried out under a separate parallel system of small municipal or rural units called kazas.
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