Daily Life In The Ottoman Empire (38 page)

Outside the ruling elite, the Bektaşi
dervişes,
who believed that their spiritual status absolved them from the
prohibitions of Islamic law, consumed wine and
arak.
At some of their
convents in the 19th century, they had their own vineyards and produced their
own wine. The traveler Evliya Çelebi also mentioned the consumption of wine and
arak,
a clear, colorless, unsweetened, aniseed-flavored distilled
alcoholic drink, known as “lion’s milk,” in the port city of Izmir, which had a
large Greek population.
Arak
was used not only in various parts of
Anatolia but also throughout the Balkans and the Arab provinces of the empire.
Katib Çelebi also made note of wine consumption when he visited a Christian
monastery on the island of Chios, where an annual fair and a popular festival
organized by the local church allowed the Christian population to enjoy a
variety of local wines.

Though allowed to drink at home or private parties,
non-Muslims were prohibited from consuming wine in public. Periodically, the
central government imposed severe restrictions on consumption of wine as a
means of displaying its power and authority and as a preemptive measure against
social disorder. The severity of restrictive measures seems to have also been
affected by the degree of pressure from hard-line religious groups, and the
level of willingness on the part of the reigning sultan to appease them. Thus,
during the reign of Süleyman the Magnificent, and yet again under Murad IV, the
Ottoman authorities imposed rigid restrictions on the consumption of wine.

Besides wine and
arak,
another popular beverage
among the Ottomans was a drink called Arab sherbet, made from a mixture of
pounded raisins and hot water that were left in a wooden tub to ferment for
several days. If the “process of fermentation was too slow, lees of wine were
added.” In the beginning, “the liquid tasted excessively sweet, but then it
became more acid and for three or four days was delicious, especially if cooled
with ice, which was always obtainable” in Istanbul; “but it did not keep well
for longer as it quickly became too sour.” In its later state, the effects of
the Arab sherbet “were as strong as those of wine,” so it is not surprising
that “it came under the religious ban on alcoholic drinks.”

Tobacco

The consumption of coffee, tea, and even
boza
went
hand in hand with smoking tobacco, which was introduced to the Ottoman Empire
in the early 17th century. Some have attributed the introduction of tobacco to
Dutch merchants, while others have blamed the English. Yet others have
maintained that because it had originated in the New World, tobacco “must have
reached the Ottoman Empire via Europe, either from Italy or over the
Habsburg-Ottoman border,” where janissaries “who often fought in that area”
came into contact with the new product and contributed to its spread and
popular use. Regardless of the route it took to enter the Ottoman domains, the
introduction of tobacco was immediately denounced by religious classes. The
şeyhülislam
issued a strongly worded
fetva
that denounced smoking as “a hideous
and abominable practice” contrary to the precepts of the Quran. The proponents,
however, refused to back down and argued that smoking was not mentioned in the
Quran, and there was, therefore, no legal ground for its prohibition.

The historian Peçevi, who had expressed his vehement
opposition to coffee, joined the conservatives in attacking “the fetid and
nauseating smoke of tobacco.” He wrote that the English infidels had brought
tobacco:

in the year 1009 (1600–01), and sold it as a remedy for
certain diseases of humidity. Some companions from among the pleasure seekers
and sensualists said: “Here is an occasion for pleasure” and they became
addicted. Soon those who were not mere pleasure-seekers also began to use it.
Many even of the great ulema and the mighty fell into this addiction. From the
ceaseless smoking of the coffeehouse riff-raff the coffeehouses were filled
with blue smoke, to such a point that those who were in them could not see one
another. In the markets and the bazaars too their pipes never left their hands.
Puff-puffing in each other’s faces and eyes, they made the streets and markets
stink. In its honour they composed silly verses, and declaimed them without
occasion.

Peçevi admitted that he had “arguments with friends” about
tobacco and smoking; “I said: Its abominable smell taints a man’s beard and
turban, the garment on his back and the room where it is used; sometimes it
sets fire to carpets and felts and bedding, and soils them from end to end with
ash and cinders; after sleep its vapour rises to the brain; and not content
with this, its ceaseless use withholds men from toil and gain and keeps hands
from work. In view of this and other similar harmful and abominable effects,
what pleasure or profit can there be in it?” To these questions, his friends
responded that smoking was “an amusement” and “a pleasure of aesthetic taste,”
to which he fired back that there was “no possibility of spiritual pleasure”
from smoking, and his friends’ answer was “no answer” but “pure pretension.” He
further argued that tobacco had been on several occasions “the cause of great
fires” in Istanbul, and “several hundred thousand people” had suffered from
these fires. Peçevi conceded that tobacco could have limited benefits such as
keeping the night guards on various ships awake during the night, but “to
perpetuate such great damage for such small benefits” was neither rational nor
justifiable.

The government imposed a ban on smoking during the reign of
Murad IV, but the authorities could not enforce it. The sultan’s prohibition “served
only to drive smokers underground.” As in the case of coffee, the conservatives
were forced to accept defeat. After numerous arguments and reversals, tobacco
was finally declared legal in a
fetva
issued by the chief mufti Mehmed
Baha’i Effendi, “himself a heavy smoker who had been dismissed and exiled for
smoking in 1634.” Evliya Çelebi, who was a contemporary of the mufti, rushed to
his defense and argued that the ruling was not prompted by the religious
leader’s own addiction, but “by a concern for what was best suited to the
condition of the people, and a belief in the legal principle that all that is
not explicitly forbidden is permitted.”

Production of tobacco was legalized in 1646, and in a few
years the crop was cultivated on large scale across the empire, where climatic
conditions permitted. The introduction of tobacco contributed to
diversification in agricultural production. It also reinforced family farming,
since it required a large concentration of manual labor and individual care. Unlike
wine, both production and export of tobacco were taxed. Once legalized, “the
combination of coffee and tobacco” became “the hallmarks of Ottoman culture,
inseparable from hospitality and socialization,” and the two quickly emerged as
the first “truly mass consumption commodities in the Ottoman world.”

During the second half of the 19th century, Ottoman tobacco
exports from most production centers increased dramatically. With the invention
of mechanically rolled cigarettes, Ottoman tobacco became highly prized for
blending, especially by American manufacturers. With the rise of nationalist
revolts among the sultan’s Christian subjects, however, the empire began to
lose the best tobacco growing lands in the Balkans. The newly independent
states, particularly Bulgaria, profited from the acquisition of these
profitable lands that increased significantly during the Balkan Wars of
1912–1913. Regardless, by the beginning of the First World War in 1914, tobacco
had emerged as the leading export item from Anatolia.

Opium

In sharp contrast to the harsh and repressive measures
adopted against wine, coffee, and tobacco, the Ottoman state was unusually
tolerant of opium consumption, which was produced “in the form of pastes” that
contained the drug. Several European visitors to the Ottoman Empire observed
that consumption of drugs “was widespread among the Turks,” and at least one
attributed the love and fascination for opium and other drugs to the fact that
the Ottomans “did not drink wine, or at least not in public, and the punishments
for being found drunk were very severe.” Many Ottoman sultans were fond of the
popular narcotic, and we know that it was also frequently used by members of
various Sufi orders in their rituals and ceremonies. This may explain why the
opium produced in Anatolia and Arabia was widely available in Istanbul and
other major urban centers of the empire.

The 17th-century traveler Evliya Çelebi wrote that in the
town of Afyon-Karahisar, in southwestern Anatolia, where poppy was cultivated,
many artisans and their wives took opium. He also claimed that in some places,
males spent much of their time in coffeehouses because the use of narcotics by
both men and women caused frequent “domestic disputes.” Another observer living
in 19th-century Egypt reported that though the use of opium and other narcotics
was not very common in the country, some took it in the dose of three or four
grains. Many Egyptians also made “several conserves composed of hellebore,
hemp, and opium, and several aromatic drugs,” which were “more commonly taken
than the simple opium.” By 1878–1880, opium was listed as one of the eight most
important export commodities next to wheat, barley, raisins, figs, raw silk,
raw wool, and tobacco. The state regularly drew revenue from taxing the sale of
opium pastes.

Aside from opium, Ottoman Turks “smoked a green powder made
from the dried leaves of wild hemp,” which “was sold freely everywhere in
Istanbul,” and the “noisier and rougher types of men found pleasure in meeting
together and smoking” it “in hookahs, the Turkish pipe with the smoke inhaled
through water.” 153 Another popular narcotic was
tatula,
or “Satan’s
herb,” a “yellow seed resembling Spanish pepper and about as big as a lentil.”
154 Since it was a highly potent and dangerous drug,
tatula,
which was
smuggled in to Istanbul and other large urban centers of the empire by Jewish
merchants, was usually bought from a trusted pharmacist. Ottomans believed that
the most dangerous form of drug use was “to smoke a mixture of opium and
tatula.
”

12 - GAMES AND POPULAR SPORTS

Ottoman
Turks were fond of various games and sports. As warriors who migrated from the
steppes of Central Asia, they brought their ancient sporting tradition to
Anatolia, the Balkans, and the Middle East. They were superb riders, archers,
and javelin throwers. Hunting and wrestling also numbered among their favorite
pastimes. In addition to learning how to read and write and studying various
sciences, the
iç oğlans,
or the pages of the palace, and
particularly the
acemi oğlans,
or those novices who were trained as
janissaries, received physical training and gained skills in horseback riding,
weightlifting, wrestling, archery, sword training,
tomak
(a game played
with wooden swords), and javelin throwing, or
cereed
(
cirit/jerid
).

CEREED

One of the most popular sports among the Turkic peoples of
Central Asia was polo, which had originated in ancient Iran as a form of
training for Persian cavalry units. The game took the form of a miniature
battle, and both men and women of the Persian nobility participated in it. From
Iran, polo travelled to India, Central Asia, China, and Japan. Among the Turks,
polo gradually transformed itself into a new game. Also played on horseback,
cereed
was a javelin chase and an outdoor equestrian team sport. The objective of
the game was to score points by throwing a blunt wooden javelin at an opposing
team’s horseman. In the Arabic of Egypt, where it was popular among the Mamluk
ruling elite and Ottoman military units stationed in the main urban centers of
the country, the game was called “
La’b al-Djerid.
” The actual form of
the
cereed,
and the length of the wooden javelin that was used during
the game, varied from one region of the empire to another. In Egypt, the
cereed
“consisted of a palm branch stripped bare of its leaves.”

Two teams of horsemen—numbering 6, 8, 12, 20, or even 30,
on each side—faced each other across an open field perhaps 50 yards wide, the
flag of their team flying above them. Dressed in traditional costumes, they armed
themselves with long, heavy wooden sticks. The game began with the youngest
rider galloping towards the opposing team, calling the name of a player, and
tossing a
cereed
at him, challenging the man to enter the game. As he
trotted back to his side, the challenged rider pursued him and threw a
cereed
in his direction. Another player from the first team rode out and met the
rider who had just thrown his
cereed
and was retreating, chasing the man
and trying to intercept him as he threw a
cereed
at his body. Many could
throw the blunt wooden javelin over a great distance, and some caught the
cereed
thrown at them. Chasing, fleeing, and all the while trying to hit an
opponent with the long wooden stick and avoiding a hit from a rider on the
opposite team, was the essence of this game that required exceptional
equestrian skills and afforded opportunities for the display of all the tricks
and maneuvers of horsemanship, on which the Ottoman youth prided themselves. At
times, a player riding a swift horse created a diversion and, instead of
returning to his place, rode off to a distance after making his throw, thus
encouraging several horsemen from the other side to pursue and overtake him.