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> comparing them to black African slaves completely misses how influential the Jannisaries ended up becoming inside the Ottoman empire. So, boys 8-10 years old

by acqq 8y ago

> comparing them to black African slaves completely misses how influential the Jannisaries ended up becoming inside the Ottoman empire. So, boys 8-10 years old, forcefully taken away from their Christian families by the Muslims to be the Muslim soldiers eventually "get influential" to "demand higher wages" should somehow make the fact that they were taken away "as a tax" less bad? Or that the eventually "recruitment" was allowed "from the Muslims" too and that the structure changed in the army that counted hundreds of thousands? Of course it's not comparable to the black African slaves, but only because the black African slaves weren't taken away to be the soldiers. That's the major difference, and there's nothing less revolting there. The whole logic of having the soldiers made from the 8-10 year enslaved children was to have the the "pure soldiers" with no "real past" (they were "educated" so) and no "family to care about." Eventually those who organized that army managed to use them for some political influences, so the structure of that army was changed through the history to reduce the chances of them being used for the political influences. But these happened still from time to time, by the very position of being the top army force in the whole system. But the enslaved were enslaved, that didn't change that fact. That's the whole story there.

mda 8y ago
Did you read the article? Most of your points are already refuted there.
- watwut 8y ago
  None of it is refuted in article.
freeflight 8y ago
> So, boys 8-10 years old, forcefully taken away from their Christian families by the Muslims to be the Muslim soldiers eventually "get influential" to "demand higher wages" should somehow make the fact that they were taken away "as a tax" less bad? You are still generalizing whole centuries like it's all the same, and nothing ever changed. Even tho I already presented you with plenty of evidence to the contrary, even the fact that the devşirme system for recruitment was largely abandoned as a recruitment method by the middle of the seventeenth century. Why you are doing that? I really don't know. At this point, it rather feels like you've just got some ax to grind with Islam, completely independent of the actual history of the Janissaries. As a Slav myself, I think their story has a tad bit more to learn from than just "Evil Muslims stealing Christian children". It also tells the story how these "children", many of which at that point have lived for generations in the Empire, then proceeded to "destroy the enemy from within". I'm also pretty sure the Ottoman Empire wasn't the only faction at that time that used "slave soldiers" or forced conscripts. At the end of the 18th, the British empire was the single biggest purchaser of slaves to be used as soldiers [0]. Yet I don't know about any units out of that with a similarly complex history, and influence, like the Janissaries, ended up having on the Ottoman Empire. If you know any, I'd be glad if you could share. [0] https://www.nam.ac.uk/explore/slaves-red-coats-west-india-regiment https://www.nam.ac.uk/explore/slaves-red-coats-west-india-re...
- nec4b 8y ago
  Please don't use thought killing cliches, like that he has an axe to grind with islam, because it is not PC to criticize Islam these days. I didn't read anything anti islam in his post. In my opinion he is strongly against you normalizing a kind of slavery.
  - freeflight 8y ago
    > I didn't read anything anti islam in his post. The Janissaries had been around for nearly 5 centuries, 463 years of history. Yet he chooses to only talk about the devşirme system and only that. Completely ignoring that at one point it got phased out, and over the course of these nearly 5 centuries, the Janissaries evolved from "slave soldiers" to become the most influential political caste in the Ottoman Empire, dominating the Ottoman government. We are talking about people who, at that point, already lived in the Ottoman Empire for generations, not 8-year-olds who just got abducted from their families. > In my opinion he is strongly against you normalizing a kind of slavery. So much about "thought killing cliches". Nowhere did I normalize anything, I'm merely pointing out how these practices changed, turning the Janissaries into something completely different than slaves. While acqq keeps on insisting all the Janissaries had been forced converts, always living in servitude, which is factually wrong, as recruiting practices heavily changed over the centuries. So all that remains from his comments is pretty much just an appeal to emotion along the lines of "They abducted Christian children!" ignoring pretty much all other content from the submission, and every other angle on the Janissaries, like that's their most defining factor, but it isn't.
    - nec4b 8y ago
      I'm sorry i don't understand in what way your reply where your point is that things changed through time in any way invalidates what acqq and I wrote. Maybe we are just talking past each other and we don't see it. I also don't get it why are you hang up on the fact that the ottomans were muslim and the children were christian, it could be any other combination of religions or other ideologies and would still be very bad.
- acqq 8y ago

by acqq 8y ago

mda 8y ago

Did you read the article? Most of your points are already refuted there.

watwut 8y ago
None of it is refuted in article.

freeflight 8y ago

> So, boys 8-10 years old, forcefully taken away from their Christian families by the Muslims to be the Muslim soldiers eventually "get influential" to "demand higher wages" should somehow make the fact that they were taken away "as a tax" less bad? You are still generalizing whole centuries like it's all the same, and nothing ever changed. Even tho I already presented you with plenty of evidence to the contrary, even the fact that the devşirme system for recruitment was largely abandoned as a recruitment method by the middle of the seventeenth century. Why you are doing that? I really don't know. At this point, it rather feels like you've just got some ax to grind with Islam, completely independent of the actual history of the Janissaries. As a Slav myself, I think their story has a tad bit more to learn from than just "Evil Muslims stealing Christian children". It also tells the story how these "children", many of which at that point have lived for generations in the Empire, then proceeded to "destroy the enemy from within". I'm also pretty sure the Ottoman Empire wasn't the only faction at that time that used "slave soldiers" or forced conscripts. At the end of the 18th, the British empire was the single biggest purchaser of slaves to be used as soldiers [0]. Yet I don't know about any units out of that with a similarly complex history, and influence, like the Janissaries, ended up having on the Ottoman Empire. If you know any, I'd be glad if you could share. [0] https://www.nam.ac.uk/explore/slaves-red-coats-west-india-regiment https://www.nam.ac.uk/explore/slaves-red-coats-west-india-re...

nec4b 8y ago
Please don't use thought killing cliches, like that he has an axe to grind with islam, because it is not PC to criticize Islam these days. I didn't read anything anti islam in his post. In my opinion he is strongly against you normalizing a kind of slavery.
- freeflight 8y ago
  > I didn't read anything anti islam in his post. The Janissaries had been around for nearly 5 centuries, 463 years of history. Yet he chooses to only talk about the devşirme system and only that. Completely ignoring that at one point it got phased out, and over the course of these nearly 5 centuries, the Janissaries evolved from "slave soldiers" to become the most influential political caste in the Ottoman Empire, dominating the Ottoman government. We are talking about people who, at that point, already lived in the Ottoman Empire for generations, not 8-year-olds who just got abducted from their families. > In my opinion he is strongly against you normalizing a kind of slavery. So much about "thought killing cliches". Nowhere did I normalize anything, I'm merely pointing out how these practices changed, turning the Janissaries into something completely different than slaves. While acqq keeps on insisting all the Janissaries had been forced converts, always living in servitude, which is factually wrong, as recruiting practices heavily changed over the centuries. So all that remains from his comments is pretty much just an appeal to emotion along the lines of "They abducted Christian children!" ignoring pretty much all other content from the submission, and every other angle on the Janissaries, like that's their most defining factor, but it isn't.
  - nec4b 8y ago
    I'm sorry i don't understand in what way your reply where your point is that things changed through time in any way invalidates what acqq and I wrote. Maybe we are just talking past each other and we don't see it. I also don't get it why are you hang up on the fact that the ottomans were muslim and the children were christian, it could be any other combination of religions or other ideologies and would still be very bad.
acqq 8y ago