The Ottoman Empire • 151the sultan himself or by his authorized deputy, the grand vizier. Under
these conditions, the army could fight only one campaign at a time, and
never farther from Istanbul than it could march during the campaign sea¬
son (April to October), because the sipahis went home in the autumn to su¬
pervise their timars and the janissaries wintered in Istanbul. If two states
could coordinate an attack on the Ottoman Empire from different sides,
the army might well be defeated. By the end of the sixteenth century, the
Ottomans lagged behind the West in weaponry and fighting techniques.
Officers and troops liked the old ways; learning new ones would require
more work and might threaten their power.
Economic conditions, too, deteriorated. Europe's discovery and ex¬
ploitation of the New World and of sea routes around Africa to the Asia's
riches weakened the role of the Muslim countries as intermediaries con¬
trolling the main trade routes. Cheap American silver flooded Europe and
the Middle East, inflating prices generally in the late sixteenth century.
Some states, such as England and Holland, had ambitious merchants and
manufacturers who were ready to expand their business activities; other
countries, including Spain as well as the Ottoman Empire, suffered severe
economic disruption because of the inflation. Many Ottoman merchants
and artisans were ruined by foreign competitors sheltered by the Capitula¬
tions. Besides, extortionate taxation by the multezims and rural overpopu¬
lation caused many peasants to leave their farms and flock to the cities.
When they found no work, they became vagabonds and brigands, further
impoverishing the economy.
Many Westerners think that Islam engenders fatalism and dampens in¬
dividual initiative. If this were universally true of Muslims, it would be
hard to account for their successes under the High Caliphate, the early
Mamluks, or the Ottomans up to 1566. But the Ottoman ulama became
too conservative. To uphold Muslim law, the Shari'a, they guarded against
blameworthy innovations. They carried this caution to absurd lengths
when they forbade the importation of Arabic and Turkish printing presses
into the empire until the eighteenth century, lest a printed Quran violate
the principle that God's word was written, and (in a more practical vein)
lest Muslim scribes be thrown out of work. The ulama also wielded power
as interpreters of the laws, managers of the waqfs, and local administrators
and resisted any threat to their position.
The basic reason for the Ottoman loss of power, though, was the disap¬
pearance of the balance among the various forces within the ruling class.
English-speaking peoples often call for a balance of power within their gov¬
ernment, for an equilibrium among its branches or special-interest groups