Universal History and Imperial Identity in the Ottoman Empire

My paper examines the uses of universal history in defining imperial identity among the Ottoman ruling elite of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Prompted by a series of political achievements that turned the Ottoman State into the largest territorial entity of its time, writing universal histories became a way of comparing the Ottoman Empire to the legendary empires of the past and demonstrate its unique features that made it the greatest Empire of all history. My paper argues that the differences between the Ottomans and other past and contemporary peoples elaborated in universal histories came to be the most defining elements of imperial identity among the ruling elite. Thus a comparative historical imagination and the quest to place the Ottoman history to a unique place in the flow of history formed the basis of Ottoman imperial identity.