124 | Making Jerusalem Ottoman
The Ottoman Frontiers
The idea of the frontier (uç) has long been a focus of discussion in Ottoman his-
tory. For the most part, Ottoman frontiers have been imagined as the territorial
margins of the state. However, some scholars have also considered the internal
conquests of the Ottomans, the slower processes of social and cultural incorpora-
tion and Ottomanization. These were negotiated over a span of years, even de-
cades, and were mostly less complete than the territorial, political, and economic
conquest might imply.
Frontiers generally indicate changes, be they political, linguistic, economic,
geographic, climatic, ethnic, or cultural. In the context of Ottoman history, the
uç was the frontier par excellence in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. This
continually advancing zone marked the limits of conquest at any particular time,
usually on the western edge of the Ottoman domains. In the classic accounts,
warriors on both sides shared the mobile lifestyle of raiding and conquest. Their
religious identifications were mediated by the charismatic mystics or preachers
who attached themselves to the fighting bands. While a Muslim or Christian
identity might have adhered to the state on either side of the frontier, individuals
shifted sides and identities, depending in part on the successes and failures of
their leaders.
The uç also described an entire syncretic culture of evolving Ottomanism
and, for a long while, the retreating cultures of surrounding states. These latter
did not simply submit before the Ottomans but rather were incorporated into
several permutations of Ottoman culture and rule. The uç was gradually trans-
formed, over centuries, into more defined international political boundaries, fis-
cal and commercial zones, and quarantines, hardened with the consolidation of
states and empires. Domestic administrative forms became more articulated and
encompassing, marginalizing the more fluid frontier culture and the individuals
who defined it. By the early sixteenth century, Ottoman boundaries had consoli-
dated on all sides. Unlike the principalities or weakened empires of their earlier
neighbors and enemies, later Ottoman rivals were mostly flourishing and stable
states, each able to field a serious military force against the Ottomans.
Frontiers are most easily conceived in linear terms. At the same time, they
can exist in multiple dimensions and in noncontiguous space. Such frontiers
were a challenge to the Ottomans as were those that defined its external perim-
eter. They existed in Jerusalem, gradually pushed back as Ottoman rule became
more completely institutionalized. Conquest, thus, was an extended process
much more than a single event. Numerous other examples illustrate the point.
For example, as they took over the Balkans and Anatolia, the Ottomans forcibly
transferred people (an action they called sürgün) from one part of the empire
to another in order to colonize new areas or diffuse the power of problematic