By Lea Kahn, Staff Writer
A country that is about the size of Texas, Turkey has been called the crossroads of civilization and the heart of the Ottoman Empire, which ruled large swaths of Asia and Europe for more than 600 years.
Turkey also is a place where Christians, Jews and Muslims lived together in peace for hundreds of years under the Ottoman Empire, which lasted from 1299 to 1923, said Yesim Acikel, who outlined the country’s history to about 60 people at the Presbyterian Church of Lawrenceville,
Ms. Acikel was invited to speak to the congregation Sunday afternoon by the church’s Peacemaking Committee. She is a member of the Turkish Cultural Center and the Peace Islands Institute, formerly known as the Interfaith Dialog Center.
Turkey, which was formerly known as Anatolia, straddles Europe and Asia, Ms. Acikel said. The largest part of the country, however, is in Asia. Neighboring countries include Syria, Bulgaria, Greece, Georgia and Armenia, she said.
Turkey is a democratic, secular and social state, governed by a parliamentary system that provides for a separation of powers the legislative branch, the executive branch and the judicial branch, Ms. Acikel said.
There are many religious sites associated with Christianity inside Turkey’s borders from the House of the Virgin Mary, where she lived her last days, to the Hagia Sophia built by the Roman Emperor Justinian in 537 and which was the largest church in the Christian world for 1,000 years, she said.
”I remember going to the site (the House of the Virgin Mary) and feeling the presence of Mary,” said Ms. Acikel, who is a Muslim.
Modern-day Turkey is an offspring of the Ottoman Empire, which lasted for more than 600 years, Ms. Acikel said. It had its beginnings when leader Osman Bey saw the weakness of the Byzantine Empire and began the empire’s conquest of neighboring countries.
As the Ottoman Empire expanded, it brought Islam with it. “Islam” means peace, submission and obedience, Ms. Acikel said. Muslims believe in only one God, who is the same god for Christians and Jews. In fact, the Koran which is the word of God for Muslims, just as the Torah is for Jews refers to Christians and Jews as “the people of the book,” she said.
Ms. Acikel said the leaders of the Ottoman Empire accepted the differences of the Christians and the Jews, and wanted them to integrate into society but not necessarily to assimilate, although some Muslim men married Christian women. They recognized the “authenticity” of the two faiths and did not try to crush them, she said.
The leaders of the Ottoman Empire told their new subjects that they wanted peace, progress and to build the economy, Ms. Acikel said. The leaders told them they could live in peace, and they were expected to help grow the economy and to pay taxes to help support the empire.
The Ottoman Empire also gave much freedom to its newly conquered subjects because there were too few Turks to control all of its lands, which stretched from the Crimea in the north to Yemen and Sudan in the south, and from Iran and the Caspian Sea in the east to the Vienna in the northwest and Spain in the southwest, she said.
Nevertheless, it was made clear to Christians and Jews that within the legal system and the public realm, the superiority of Islam was to be recognized, Ms. Acikel said. A kadi, or local magistrate, was sent to the countries under the Ottoman Empire’s rule to work with the local population to maintain balance and order, she said.
But things began to change in the 1800s and 1900s in the Ottoman Empire, Ms. Acikel said. As Europe gained economic and ideological power, the Ottomans were attacked physically, through wars, and ideologically by the concept of nation-states. There were too many states and ethnic groups in the Ottoman Empire.
Many of the Ottoman states such as Greece, Bulgaria and Egypt sought to separate from the Ottoman Empire and waged wars for their independence, she said. As the empire began to lose land, Muslims and Turks who had settled in Bulgaria, Romania and Greece, for example, emigrated back to Anatolia, or modern-day Turkey.
Out of that process emerged the modern country of Turkey, which was formed in 1923, Ms. Acikel said. Turkey, which is 99 percent Muslim, is not a diverse country in terms of religion. It is a Western, secular and democratic country. Turkey is a member of the European Union.
”Some people say that East and West cannot live together, but (Muslim) origins and traditions disagree. We lived together for hundreds of years,” Ms. Acikel said of the Muslims, Christians and Jews.
