ABSTRACT
Diversity in the Ottoman Empire, from Tunis to Baghdad and from Sarajevo to Mecca, was part of the basic features of the organization of social life. Not only were provinces of very different cultures part of this political construction, with populations of very different ethnic and religious backgrounds, but also at the local scale diversity was very often an important characteristic, with cities and villages assembling very different groups. Almost nowhere in the Empire was there what could be seen as a situation of homogeneity. Diversity was everywhere, at every scale, and this diversity of the population has been part of the very nature of the Empire since its beginning. The Ottoman Empire has been built progressively upon a heritage of diversity, with some elements taken from the Byzantine tradition and others from the Medieval Islamic, for example the Persian tradition. Coexistence was a condition necessary for the very existence of the Empire, and ethnic and religious diversity was dealt with as part of the basic elements of governance. There were in the Empire dozens of groups, like the Greeks, the Turks, the Arabs, among which a strong Christian element, the Jews, the Armenians, the Europeans in the cities of North Africa, the Maltese, the Serbs, the Bulgars, the Black Africans, the Roma, the Berbers, the Kurds, the Tuareg, the Causasians (like the Georgians or the Abkhazians), the Mongols . . . . Within these categories, of which one should not have a too static vision as identities were ductile, diversity also existed, such as between Coptic and Levantine Christians, Arab, Andalusian, Berber and Eastern European Jews, or even Greeks from the different parts of the Mediterranean. The Ottoman Empire was in no way a Turkish empire, and the notion of Turk itself was quite vague, covering both the descendants of migrants from Central Asia and myriad people from Anatolia. Very often someone could be perceived and described as a Turk, as he was representing the Ottoman Empire in a province, but would himself have a more complex identity, like in the case of Georgian, Circassian, Serb or even Greek governors or offi cers. There were also the classes of imperial servants, generally orphans or cadets from the Caucasus, who have long embodied, like the Janissaries, the Empire in the provinces. With the system of the Devshirme boarding schools, pupils from everywhere in the Empire and beyond were given an Ottoman
education. Identities were also quite complex among those who converted, with religion and ethnicity not always matching automatically, for example in the case of Greek, Georgian, Armenian or Serb Muslim imperial offi cers. In many provinces inter-marriage also brought more complexity in diversity, with for example the Kuluglis of Algiers or Tripoli, the sons of marriages between Ottoman offi cers and women from local families.
