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From its origins to 1683 15 and its successor state in the Eastern Mediterranean world, the Byzantine Empire, ruled from Constantinople. Byzantium had once ruled over virtually all of today’s Middle East (except Iran) – the region of modern-day Egypt, Israel, Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Turkey, and parts of Iraq, as well as parts of southeast Europe, north Africa, and Italy. In the seventh century CE, however, it had lost many of those areas, mostly to the expanding new states based in Mecca, Damascus, and Baghdad.

Jewish merchants, because of the principle of not charging interest to coreligionists, preferred to lend money to non-Jews. Similarly, the Ottomans found trained soldiers and administrators in the same manner as had the Christian slavers and Jewish merchants, by reaching outside their own religious constituencies. 32 The Ottoman Empire, 1700–1922 Evolution of the state until the late seventeenth century Between c. 1300 and the end of the seventeenth century, the state underwent a quite radical evolution both in its form and in the concentration of power within the administrative apparatus.

These recruits then were taken from their village homes to the Ottoman capital or other From its origins to 1683 31 administrative centers. There, in the so-called palace school system, they received the best years-long mental and physical education that the state could provide, including religious training and, as a matter of course, conversion to Islam. The cr`eme de la cr`eme of this group entered the state elites, becoming officers and administrators. Many rose to become commanders and grand viziers and played a distinguished role in Ottoman history.