

Pardon me? Your ignorance cramps my conversation. Although the administrative 
mechanism was a strictly centralized one, the Ottoman Empire 'was a classical 
example of a pluralist social order.' The 'millet system' was the mechanism 
which shaped the social order of the multi-national Ottoman Empire and stood 
behind its continuity. As a matter of fact, because Islamic principles 
were in force in the Ottoman Empire, it was natural to use religious 
criteria to differentiate among the various communities which constituted 
the Empire. The 'millet' system began to be based on ethnicity in the 
19th century under the influence of nationalism. Sousa writes of the 
existence of thirteen communities in the Ottoman Empire in addition to 
the Muslim 'millet' in 1914. These were: (1) Greeks attached to the 
Orthodox Patriarchate in Istanbul; (2) Catholics or Latins who were 
remnants of Genoese and Venetian merchants; (3) Gregorian Armenians 
attached to a Patriarchate in Istanbul; (4) Catholic Armenians; (5) Syrian 
Catholics attached to a Patriarchate in Mardin; (6) Chaldean Catholics 
attached to a Patriarchate in Mosul; (7) Syrian Jacobites attached to a 
Patriarchate in Mardin; (8) Protestants; (9) Melchites attached to a 
Patriarchate in Damascus; (10) Hebrews of two rites; (11) Bulgarian 
Catholics attached to the Bulgarian Exarch; (12) Maronites; and (13) 
Nestorians.[1] Scholars who studied the pluralistic social structure 
outlined briefly above, concluded that the social order of the Ottoman 
Empire fit the framework of the 'Mosaics Theory.'[2] 

[1] N. Sousa, "The Capitulatory Regime of Turkey, its History, Origin and
    Nature," (Baltimore, 1933).
[2] C. S. Coon, Caravan: "The Story of the Middle East," (New York, 1951),
    p. 162 and H. A. R. Gibb/H. Bowen, "Islamic Society and the West: A
    Study of the Impact of Western Civilization on Moslem Culture in the
    Near East," (Oxford, 1951).


Serdar Argic