The Non-Muslin Merchant Groups In The Ottoman Empire

As an Islamic country, the Ottoman Empire has inherited an attitude of tolerance towards non-Muslim communities from Arab Empire, and developed a system named the Millet System. Under this system if only the Sultan and Empire government's authority were accepted, any nations or communities that lives in Ottoman Empire was allowed keeping their own national culture and religious beliefs at the cost of paying certain taxes. The Millet System had successfully contributed to Ottoman Empire ruling many non-Islamic belief nations. Therefore, Millet system has draw many nations immigrant in Ottoman Empire and lived there for several centuries, such as Jews and other Christian sects, including the Orthodox and Gregorian Armenians which had been persecuted in Europe or to be regarded as heresy from Roma Curia. This groups are active in commerce and played an important role in the economy of the Ottoman Empire. Both the significant geographic place and exist of interior merchants, the Balkan, Western Asia and Northern Africa under the reign of the Ottoman Empire had become a transfer station between the East and West trade as well as the significant link into the world trading system.Jews, Greeks and Armenians, three largest ethnic groups in Ottoman Empire, had played a significant role in the Empire's economy and commercial activity. On the one hand, those groups had the tradition of engaging trade since ancient times, they established a broad trade network, especially in the opening of new sea routes, which range in Europe and Asia, as well as rely on strong power of the Ottoman Empire, this situation made those groups taking their advantage in trade. On the other hand, due to the conflicts of political and religious factors, the European Catholic countries had banned Muslim merchants to enter, at the same time Ottoman Empire and Persian Empire still in hostile, in which the former belong to Sunni belief, but latter belong to Shiite belief. Therefore, only non-Muslim merchants could travel into the Western Europe, the Ottoman Empire and Persian Empire freely. Thus, Jews, Greeks and Armenians had stayed in a dominate position fo the cross-border and export trade in Ottoman Empire.On the whole, the vicissitude of those three ethnic groups had experienced several phases. At the beginning of the Ottoman Empire history, Jews had rised in commercial activities, but in the late seventeenth century, the Greeks dominated the Mediterranean trade of Ottoman Empire, and gradually replaced Jews'status in commerce. During the same time, Armenian merchants had set up a huge trade network of their own, especially obtained the monopoly position in Persian's silk export. In the earlier stage of nineteenth century, Armenians in the Ottoman Empire became the most important international merchants groups, their contribute not only are limited in commerce activities but also acted as a bridge which linked the East and West. Nonetheless, as soon as the decline of the Ottoman Empire, the Western powers had controlled the economy of the Ottoman Empire by their political strategy and military power step by step, hence the status of non-Muslim merchants was gradually replaced by Western merchants.This study shows that the non-Muslim merchant groups had played a significant role in economy of the Ottoman Empire, and promoted communication between Ottoman Empire and Europe society. Besides this,vicissitude of non-Muslim merchant groups was influenced by the power of the Ottoman Empire itself, as well as restricted by changing of international political and economic situation.