Nevertheless, most scholars of Ottoman or oriental history were critical of Gibbons, while some notable cases like Babinger and Grousset were inclined to accept that Osman converted to Islam at a later stage of his chiefdom. These were no more than exceptions however. Giese, for instance, criticized Gibbons's theories and use of evidence, particularly the construction of an argument around the dream legend, and suggested a new catalyst to the Ottoman conquests: Osman's relations with, or rather support among, the a
s from the Paphlagonian town of Osmancik—whence he supposedly drew his sobriquet.
16 Several prominent Orientalists such as Houtsma, Huart, Marquart, Massignon, and Mordtmann were eager to comment on issues related to Osman's ethnic or religious identity in those years. And identity–in a combination of ethnic, national, racial, and religious categories –was held to have a major explanatory value in historical understanding, especially in locating the rightful place of individuals and nations in the linear progression of civilization. While the minute differences of the arguments and speculations advanced by all these scholars need not be reproduced here in detail, it should be noted that a common underlying assumption characterized their positions and differentiated them from that of Gibbons; in one way or the other, they all tended to emphasize the “oriental” nature of the Ottomans and accepted the essentially Turco-Muslim identity of the founders of the state.
There was soon an attempt at synthesis by Langer and Blake, who breathed a new historiographic spirit into the debate by bringing in material and sociological factors, such as geography, changing trade patterns, and social organization of religious orders or artisanal associations. Though unable to use the primary sources in Middle Eastern languages, the two coauthors anticipated many of the points and perspectives that were soon to be taken up by two of the most prominent specialists in the field: K
; organizations as well, they reached the conclusion that “the first sultans had more than a mere horde of nomads to rely upon.”
17
THE K
PR
L
-WITTEK CONSOLIDATION
The elaboration of that last point, as well as the most direct and detailed criticism of Gibbons's views, had to wait until 1934 when Mehmet Fuat K
pr
;pr
l
argued that the foundations of the Ottoman state could not be studied as an isolated Bithynian phenomenon, and that historians ought to concentrate not on detached politico-military incidents but on the social morphology, cultural traditions, and institutional structures of Anatolian Turks in general and of the late-thirteenth-century frontiers in particular. His primary conclusion after applying that method to a broad range of sources was that the material and cultural dynamics of Anatolian Turkish society were sufficiendy developed to nurture the growth of a state like that of the Ottomans. A demographic push into western Anatolia in the latter part of the thirteenth century mobilized these dynamics. Even though various forces competed for control over these groups—and it is only here, in the last few pages of his book, that Köprülü turns his attention to the Ottomans specifically—Osman's beglik was favored due, primarily, to its strategic location and then to various other factors (to be discussed in
Chapter 3). In short, the Ottoman state was simply the culmination of certain dynamics, skills, and organizational principles that had been imported to or had developed in Anatolian Turkish society over more than two centuries. Osman just happened to be in the right place at the right time.
In the meantime, Paul Wittek (1894-1978), who had been to the Ottoman Empire as an officer of its Austrian ally during World War I and then moved on to a scholarly career, was working on the same period and asking similar questions. He published some of his findings in a 1934 monograph on the emergence and activities of another emirate, the Mente
pr
l
, Wittek oudined his own ideas on the rise of the Ottoman state in a series of lectures delivered at the University of London in
1937 and published in
1938.20 There were some significant differences between the views of the two scholars; in fact Wittek's work was partially intended to be a critique of Köprülü, as we shall see below. Yet on one basic point they were in agreement: the rise of the Ottoman state had to be studied against the background of centuries of warfare, cultural transformation, acculturation, and settlement of Muslims and Turks in medieval Anatolia.
K
pr
l
and Wittek did not always see the same things in the Anatolian-Turkish background. Yet again they were in agreement on another significant point: one had to distinguish between the hinterland and the frontiers in terms of both their social structure and their cultural characteristics. The two scholars also more or less concurred on the nature of this dichotomy; both of them found the hinterland to be composed of Persianate court circles and settled producers who essentially preferred peaceful relations (cohabitation) with the Byzantines or at least were not pleased to be in a state of continual hostilities, while the marches consisted of nomads, warriors, adventurers, and dervishes who were driven by their search
