last class notes!

Lesson 22: Ottoman Turks: Conquest and Conflict

Janissaries were the elite of the elite of the Ottoman (Muslim) Turks (Turkey was Byzantine). They were the blood taxes capture from Europe at early ages, usually being the firstborns.

There has always been a conflict between Islam and a hope for the future. There was a continued motive and theme throughout the literature; Western Literary Leitmotif from Dante, Milton, Chaucer, Cervantes, Shakespeare, Scott, Bunyan, and Buchan. Those fictions are more true then historical backgrounds of our modern writers. The fiction held through the morals and ethics (including the Chivalric Code). The whole culture becomes one. Examples of fiction then were Chansons de Geste, the Qu'ran, the Iliad, the Odyssey, and Song of Roland.

Islamism didn't have to make sense under a microscope as long as you can believe the general idea without digging much deeper. Islamism teaches to not have a care about the present or the future. As such, you can easily strap bombs to yourself and blow other people up too.

Muslim - We are a part of the chain of being. One ontological and continual line of being carried down from Allah. You have a pantheistic type of view there. There is a little bit of "god" in all of us. We must make our way up the chain through revelation to full consciousness.

Christianity - we make the distinction between creature and Creator. We are fallen, dead, hopeless, and without any salvation. There is nothing we can do, no where to advance. God would be the one pushing us up the chain of being through the works of righteousness or Christ's work.

Muslim - God is totally impersonal and aloof. He has no pity, mercy, or affection. You either get what you deserve or you don't. You are judged by how far you get up the chain of being.

Christianity - Love of God is unconditional. Nothing you do will change His love towards you. He can't love you more or less. He loves without condition and not based on our works.

Muslim - Hope is because of meritorious obedience. It fluxuates from one day to the next. It depends on us and our works. The holier you are the better off you are.

Christianity - Hope is by the grace of God. We are gifted it, and we cannot attain it. It is only given through Christ.

Muslim - Works righteousness, good works, and people killed is all what gains you paradise. The better works the better off you are.

Christianity - God gives salvation by grace and you can't keep salvation by works (except works by fear and trembling or gratitude). We do it not to keep salvation, but out of thankfulness.

After Muhammad was exiled, he began to build an army leading to the cleansing: the slaughtering of the Jews.

North Africa (in the whole Middle East) was Christian from the middle of the 2nd century to the 8th century (600 years).

No country ever fell to the Muslims willingly and without a fight.

The Arabs and the Turks (Persian): they were both Muslim, but they were also different ethnicities.