Reading Ottoman administrative records requires deep knowledge of the empire’s institutions

Evidence

Documents of an administrative rather than a diplomatic character—such as orders to provincial governors, qadis, etc.—are usually free from the worst ex­ cesses of the chancery scribes and deal briefly and clearly with the topics to which they refer. They present, however, a major difficulty of another sort— their technical vocabulary. The Ottoman sultans ruled over a vast empire, with an elaborately organized system of civil, military, and religious government. The recent rapid development of Ottoman historical studies in Turkey and elsewhere has shown us how little we have really known of this system. The effective use, for historical research, of Ottoman documents presupposes a knowledge of the administrative background to which they relate, and of the significance, at dif­ ferent times and in different places and contexts, of the technical terms they contain. — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 1995