A sociological analysis on the opinions of Turkish sociologists about the structure of ottoman society

This study focuses on the analyses of sociologists on the structure of Ottoman-Turkish society, giving wide coverage to the opinions of historians and economists on the subject as well. The sociologists thinking Turkey lagged behind and could not get modernized especially in 1960's, made economic, political and sociological analyses of this structure from a historical point of view. The first chapter presents the research on the relationship between ruler-ruled, civil society, the notables, and political-economical facts. The same chapter explains the studies evaluating the Ottoman social structure within the framework of Asian type production styles, feudalism, pre-capitalism and nationalist conservative mentality. The second chapter analyzes Ottoman social structure in line with the concepts and phenomena studied by sociologists like Behice Boran, Cahit Tanyol, Şerif Mardin, Niyazi Berkes and Baykan Sezer. The same chapter addresses the Ottoman administration style, production style, political and economic perception of these sociologists in detail. The third chapter discusses that besides the concerns about converging the Ottoman social structure with a certain ideology or positioning it in some stereotypes, whether it had an essential identity from economic ethics to cultural political structure of the society. Furthermore, Ottoman's peculiar structure is analyzed taking the historical mentality difference between the West and Ottoman as a basis. And how sense of distance, Islamic philosophy and faith bring benefit to the analysis is explained in detail.