The Ottoman Empire lasted 600 years, spreading from what is now Turkey to span three continents.
Under Suleiman the Magnificent (1520-1566) it stretched across most of the Middle East and North Africa, as well as the Balkans,
the Black Sea, and Eastern Europe :
and came close to capturing the Austrian capital, Vienna.
The scale of the Ottoman empire's achievements was made possible by reconciling :
secular politics with Islam - balancing the demands of the religious establishment
with the ambitions of the sultans and the army.
For the Ottomans this was the Kanun :
a secular legal system that co-existed with religious law or Sharia.
Borrowed from the Arabic qÄnÅ«n; the word originated from the ancient Greek kanôn (κανών),
describing a measure, a norm, a standard, a rule, and by extension a law.
In English, the same word is used to describe a high standard, as in a "canon of beauty";
it is also used to describe "canon law," or the body of laws upheld by the Church.
Sharia is derived directly from the Koran and the Sunnah, or path, of the Prophet Muhammad.
Originally designed to regulate a relatively small community of believers, as Islam spread
and matured under increasingly complex state structures and ever growing diverse populations,
it became difficult to address certain matters based on Sharia alone.
interesting. give us some more! 8)
Sharia was simply not sufficient to deal with needs such as taxation, administration,
financial matters, or penal law.
The basic idea was to complement Sharia with a number of rules and decrees
enforced by the secular authority.
Another disadvantage of Sharia was that its application depended greatly on the interpretation
of sources by the ulema (scholars) ...making standardisation difficult.
This was particularly true of the Sunnah, the path of the Prophet,
best described as the way of life and deeds that he himself followed, advocated, or approved of,
and which was recorded by his followers in a series of hadiths (traditions).
Having embraced Islam relatively late, and surrounded by a number of other Muslim states,
stressing their own distinctive ideology acquired even greater importance.
The initial Ottoman expansion had also taken place at the expense of Christian lands
in western Anatolia and the Balkans, particularly the Byzantine Empire,
which was reduced to a mere shadow of its past glory.
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