Shamshir: Turkish or Syrian?

Rivkin · 23rd March 2006, 12:11 AM

All things below are imho:

The question of turkish-ottoman identity is probably as explosive as you can find. In Ottoman empire you have supposedly a turkish-dominated country, however most of the time most of important officies were not held by turks. You have sultans-khalifas who do not make haj, but often described as wine-drinkers (for example Ibn-Iyas on a contrast between mamluks and turks). You have almost every language and nationality present in the country, but the tribalism is such that the national identity does not develop until 1920 or so, and even this after numerours failed attempts to establish a "no christian, no jew, no muslim, but all ottoman" identity of ittihad ve terraki. You have turkish nationalists and pan-turkists whose origins are almost everything - bolgarians, greeks, circassians, albanians, georgians, jews and etc.

With respect to weapons it makes a lot of labels like "arab" or "turkish" relatively useless, and more local, tribal identity - wahhabi, laz, pomak, bosnian etc. to be more important, with some geographical entities, such as balkans, syria etc. being more prominent than others.

One more thing - I always thought that "abd" more relates to slave, rather than servant ? So AbdAllah is more of a "slave of Allah", rather than servant ?
Just like what usually translated from the bible as "manservant" - avod, is usually a slave, distinctively different from "worker hired for money", which is servant per se. I also somehow thought that in many areas "Abdallah" was one of the most favorite names taken by converts to Islam.

23rd March 2006, 12:11 AM	#4
Rivkin Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Posts: 655	All things below are imho: The question of turkish-ottoman identity is probably as explosive as you can find. In Ottoman empire you have supposedly a turkish-dominated country, however most of the time most of important officies were not held by turks. You have sultans-khalifas who do not make haj, but often described as wine-drinkers (for example Ibn-Iyas on a contrast between mamluks and turks). You have almost every language and nationality present in the country, but the tribalism is such that the national identity does not develop until 1920 or so, and even this after numerours failed attempts to establish a "no christian, no jew, no muslim, but all ottoman" identity of ittihad ve terraki. You have turkish nationalists and pan-turkists whose origins are almost everything - bolgarians, greeks, circassians, albanians, georgians, jews and etc. With respect to weapons it makes a lot of labels like "arab" or "turkish" relatively useless, and more local, tribal identity - wahhabi, laz, pomak, bosnian etc. to be more important, with some geographical entities, such as balkans, syria etc. being more prominent than others. One more thing - I always thought that "abd" more relates to slave, rather than servant ? So AbdAllah is more of a "slave of Allah", rather than servant ? Just like what usually translated from the bible as "manservant" - avod, is usually a slave, distinctively different from "worker hired for money", which is servant per se. I also somehow thought that in many areas "Abdallah" was one of the most favorite names taken by converts to Islam.