History and Geography
The Ottomans.
Istanbul on the Bosporus Straits in Turkey was formerly known as Byzantium and as Constantinople. It now has ca. 15 million inhabitants whereas Ankara the official capital on the other hand has only 5 million. Constantinople was built on the site of the existing city of Byzantium, It had been designated as the "New Rome" on May 11, 330 CE, by Roman Emperor Constantine the Great. For about 800 years it was to become the largest and wealthiest city in Europe. Constantinople was originally intended to replace Rome or rather to continue Roman civilization in a new venue. In the 400s CE Rome in the west had been overrun by the Barbarians. The importance of Constantinople grew but Rome also recovered at least partially. Christianity was also divided into two main sections. In the west you had Roman Catholicism. In the east Greek Orthodoxy. In the West they used Latin and were ruled by the Pope. In the east the Church used Greek and had its own governance. With the appearance of Islam Christian Constantinople turned into a bastion against Arab encroachments. Ultimately howerver the Oghus (Slejuk) Turks from Central Asia entered the area via Persia. They converted to Isalm in the late 900s CE. In 1071 CE the Seljuks defeated the Byzantines at the battled of Manziket in Eastern Turkey. Byzantium never fully recovered from this. After this battle Turkish Tribes who had adopted Islam continued to enter the region of Turkey in stages and began to Turkify the inhabitants. They imposed their language and custom and Islam. Despite this the total contribution of Turkish Genes from Central Asia is estimated at only 9% to 20%. The Ottomans were named after their first known chieftain Osman-1. Initially they had formed only a a principality of the Seljuks but progressed to control all of them.
On May 29, 1453, Constantinople was conquered by Ottoman Sultan Mehmed-2 after a historic siege using massive cannons.
Constantinople was transformed into the capital of the Islamic Ottoman Empire. Churches like the Hagia Sophia were converted into mosques. Constantinople was only officially renamed Istanbul by the Republic of Turkey in 1930 after the Ottoman sultanate had been abolished in 1922.
Massacres of Christians.
Armenian Christians and Christians belonging to the Assyrian Church were brutally persecuted and massacred over the centuries by Turks especially towards the end of Ottoman rule. For much of its history the manpower of the Ottoman armies was comprised of Janissaries. These were children taken from their Christian parents and brought up as Muslims. The ruling sultan was often the offspring of a Turkish Prince and a captured Ukrainian or other slave girl.
At the beginning of World War 2 the Turkish Government had intented to exterminate its Jewish community but was warned against it by the USA. Nevertheless many Jews suffered from discrimination and deprivation. Prior to that, the Jews of Jerusalem had also been marked for extermination in WW1 by the Ottomans but the German allies and advisors of the Turks intervened to save the Jews. Perhaps the Germans feared world condemnation?
Wikipedia. Historiographical debate on the Ottoman state
Several historians, such as British historian Edward Gibbon and the Greek historian Dimitri Kitsikis, have argued that after the fall of Constantinople, the Ottoman state took over the machinery of the Byzantine (Roman) state and that the Ottoman Empire was in essence a continuation of the Byzantine Empire under a Turkish Muslim guise. Other authorities disagree with this and consider the Ottoman Empire just another instrument of Islamic Jihad.
The Ottomans periodically persecuted their Christian subjects.
Towards the end when the Ottoman Empire began to decline. About 5 million Turks were killed by wars against the Christians in the Balks, etc. Another 5 to 9 million Muslims moved from other parts of the Empire into the Turkish regions of Thrace and Anatolia. The Ottoman state also encouraged transnational migration. This included Circassians from the Caucasus, Bosnians from the Balkans, North Africans from Africa, Afghans from Afghanistan, Egyptians from Egypt, Arabs from Syria, and others all of whom were encouraged to move to the area of Palestine.
Joan Peters "From Time Immemorial", 1984, and others have thoroughly documented these movements. Peters demonstrated that most of the so-called Palestinians are not indigenous to the area of modern Israel.
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