I. METIN KUNT

My subject is the transformation of members of non-Muslim communities of the Ottoman realm into full-fledged members of the ruling group. The mechanisms of such transformation, principally the devșirme method of recruiting hand-picked non-Muslim youths to be trained as military administrative officers, have been fairly well-studied. Fresh evidence from archival sources, however, provides better understanding of how such mechanisms worked in reality. Documents have recently come to light suggesting an element of personal recommendation in devșirme recruitment and indicating the presence of non-Muslim subjects of the state in private households as slaves (bende, gulâm). A review of these findings may culminate in a major change in our perception of the nature of the devșirme phenomenon.

Zimmis also gained askerî status through a second channel, in this instance retaining their religious affiliation unlike devșirme recruits who converted to Islam. As Professor Inalcik has shown, the Ottomans directly incorporated into the ranks of their provincial cavalry (i.e., timar-holders) especially such members of the military groups or feudal forces as cooperated with them in the Balkan states they conquered. ¹ Again new evidence, briefly noted earlier but now published in greater detail, shows that such direct entry by Christians into Ottoman provincial cavalry obtained also in Anatolia, and as late as the mid-sixteenth century. ²

The two typically Ottoman socio-political mechanisms, allowing conquered military groups into their own askerî without first classifying them as zimmi, and levying zimmi youths through the devșirme, should be studied against the backdrop of Ottoman views of society as these views developed through the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Only against such a backdrop can these typical Ottoman mechanisms of inducting zimmis into the military and administrative groups be properly appreciated. What seems anomalous in a

-55-