Until the second half of the 15th century, the empire had a Christian majority under the rule of a Muslim minority. [176] In the late 19th century, the empire`s non-Muslim population began to decline significantly, not only due to secession, but also due to migration. [214] The proportion of Muslims was 60% in the 1820s, gradually increasing to 69% in the 1870s and 76% in the 1890s. [214] Until 1914, only 19.1% of the empire`s population was non-Muslim, consisting mainly of Jews and Greek Christians, Assyrians, and Armenians. [214] But today, the Islamic State is rolling again. Its scope is not limited to fascinating anomalies like Saudi Arabia, which claims to adhere to the ancient Islamic constitution in its purest form. Through revolution, as in Iran, or through constitutional referendums, as in Iraq and Afghanistan, the governments of Muslim-majority countries are declaring themselves increasingly Islamic. Their new constitutional regimes replace the secular regulations adopted in the last century by a government based in some way on Sharia law. The trend goes with it. In Muslim countries that cover the geographical area from Morocco to Indonesia, significant majorities say that Sharia law should be a source of law for their states; and in large and populous countries like Egypt and Pakistan, large majorities say Islamic law should be the only source of legislation. Wherever democratic elections are held in Muslim countries, many citizens vote for Sharia-oriented political parties that can be described as Islamist. The programmes of these parties do not differ much from place to place.

They are in favour of democratic elections and fundamental rights. They promise economic reforms, an end to corruption and, above all, the adoption of Sharia law as a source of law. The Ottoman state emerged as a beylik within the Seljuk Empire in the thirteenth century. In 1299, Osman I declared the independence of the Ottoman principality. Murad I was the first Ottoman to claim the title of sultan (king/deputy). With the capture of Constantinople in 1453, the state was on its way to becoming a powerful empire with Mehmed II as emperor or padishah. The empire reached its peak under Suleiman I in the sixteenth century, when it stretched from the Persian Gulf in the east to Hungary in the northwest and from Egypt in the south to the Caucasus in the north. Located in the middle of East and West, the empire has interacted with Eastern and Western culture throughout its six hundred years of history. In 1353, the Ottomans gained a foothold in Europe for the first time with the capture of Gallipoli and blocked the Dardanelles Strait. The Ottoman economic spirit was closely linked to the basic concepts of state and society in the Middle East, in which the ultimate goal of a state was to consolidate and extend the power of the ruler, and the way to achieve this was to obtain rich sources of income by making the productive classes prosper.

[191] The ultimate goal was to increase state revenues without harming the prosperity of the subjects, in order to prevent the emergence of social unrest and to keep intact the traditional organization of society. The Ottoman economy developed strongly in the early modern period, with particularly high growth rates in the first half of the eighteenth century. The empire`s annual income quadrupled between 1523 and 1748, adjusted for inflation. [192] The defeat and dissolution of the Ottoman Empire (1908-1922) began with the second constitutional era, a moment of hope and promise founded by the Young Turk revolution. He restored the Ottoman constitution of 1876 and introduced multi-party politics with a two-tier electoral system (electoral law) under the Ottoman parliament. The constitution offered hope by giving the citizens of the empire the freedom to modernize the institutions of the state, rejuvenate its strength, and allow it to assert itself against external powers. His guarantee of freedom promised to dissolve tensions between communities and transform the empire into a more harmonious place. [143] Instead, this period became the history of the Empire`s twilight struggle. Economic and political migrations affected the entire empire.

For example, during the annexation of the Crimean and Balkan regions by Russia and the Austrian Habsburgs, there was a large influx of Muslim refugees – 200,000 Crimean Tatars fled to Dobruja. [205] Between 1783 and 1913, an estimated 5 to 7 million refugees poured into the Ottoman Empire, of whom at least 3.8 million came from Russia. Some migrations left indelible traces such as political tensions between parts of the empire (e.g. Turkey and Bulgaria), while centrifugal effects were observed in other regions, with simpler demographic characteristics emerging from different population groups. The economy has also been affected by the loss of artisans, traders, manufacturers and farmers. [206] Since the 19th century, a large part of Muslim peoples have migrated from the Balkans to present-day Turkey. These people are called Muhacir. [207] When the Ottoman Empire ended in 1922, half of Turkey`s urban population was descended from Muslim refugees from Russia. [118] Locals also played an important role in the proceedings of the Ottoman court, where many lines of authority converged. The Kadi or judge regularly called on local experts to help him investigate cases before him, such as tax disputes. Impressed by the neat categories in the Ottoman voting registers, we did not sufficiently realize that taxation was a complicated matter. Palestinian olive trees, for example, were taxed differently based on their age, which affected their fertility.

It was unlikely that someone from Istanbul could have determined the age of these trees.5 In Islamic legal theory, there was no law other than Sharia. In early Islamic states, however, practical concessions had to be made to customs, time and place requirements, and the will of the ruler and enforced in separate administrative courts. Under the Ottomans, who developed an elaborate administrative system, distinctions between Sharia and administrative law, which was codified as Kanuns and Kanunnames (collection of kanuns), disappeared. Theoretically, the canons should harmonize with Sharia rule and give ulema (men of religious education) the right to declare invalid any regulation that contradicts Islamic law. In practice, however, the ulema, organized in hierarchy under the authority of the sultan, rarely rejected his kanuns, thus giving the sultan the freedom to make laws.