Sekban

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A Sekban from Hans Sloane's costume book from around 1620

The Sekban ( Ottoman سگبان 'Hundewärter' , also sekbān , seğmen or seyman ) were mercenaries of the Ottoman army with a peasant background. The term Sekban initially referred to irregular troops who did not have firearms, but was then expanded to include fighters in other units outside the regular army. The Sekban, like all mercenaries, could be recruited by anyone with enough money. In order to be able to pay the Sekban, a special tax, the Sekban Akçesi , was levied by the Ottoman state . Over time, the Sekbans became the most numerically strong part of the Ottoman armies and in peacetime without employment represented a threat to the state. With the end of the Ottoman-Safavid War in 1590 and the Long Turkish War in 1606 , a large number of the Sekbans were unemployed and thus without a livelihood . As a result, many of them went into robbery and revolt, and sacked Anatolia between 1596 and 1610.

The heart of the Ottoman army, the Janissaries , who became rebellious over the military failures, openly rebelled against the Sultan. After some of the Janissaries in Rumelia had been defeated, other Janissaries marched towards the palace in Istanbul in 1687 to depose Sultan Mehmed IV . The Sultan appointed the Sekbank commander Yeğen Osman Aga. This should fight against the Janissaries, but failed, and Mehmed IV had to abdicate. His successor, Suleyman II , appointed Yeğen Osman Aga as governor general of Rumelia. When he strove for the office of Grand Vizier, the incumbent Grand Vizier reacted by declaring the secbans illegal and threatening those secbans who did not disperse with execution . This led to a civil war. Initially, the secbans had the upper hand, but eventually the government captured and executed Yeğen Osman Aga. But this did not end the uprising of the secbans, which despite a brief agreement in 1698 revolted again and again until the 18th century.

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e Halil İnalcık, Donald Quataert: An Economic and Social History of the Ottoman Empire . Cambridge University Press, April 28, 1997, ISBN 978-0-521-57455-6 , p. 419 (accessed June 7, 2013).
  2. ↑ Sam White: The Climate of Rebellion in the Early Modern Ottoman Empire . Cambridge University Press, August 15, 2011, ISBN 978-1-139-49949-1 , p. 170 (accessed June 7, 2013).
  3. ^ Karen Barkey: Bandits and Bureaucrats: The Ottoman Route to State Centralization . Cornell University Press, December 1, 1996, ISBN 978-0-8014-8419-3 , p. 174, (accessed June 7, 2013).
  4. ^ A b c V. J. Parry: A History of the Ottoman Empire to 1730 . CUP Archive, 1976, p. 141 (Retrieved June 7, 2013).