1 the ottomans in contrast projected an unabashedly

1
The Ottomans, in contrast, projected an
unabashedly pluralistic and multiethnic identity which was very much
based around the project of accommodating diversity and incorporating it
into the collective.
2
As we shall see below, such a difference was to have
profound implications for the development of relations between the two
powers, for in the end, it was precisely this marked divergence in the
conceptualization of self which made the Ottomans seem so dangerous to
their Lusitanian rivals. Since the Ottomans, unlike any of the indigenous
peoples of the Indian Ocean, were so obviously racially and ethnically
similar to the Portuguese, their self-confident cosmopolitanism posed a
threat to the underpinnings of Portuguese ethnic solidarity, just as the
strength of their navy posed a threat to Portuguese hegemony at sea.
In their more reflective moments, Portuguese authors of the sixteenth
century sometimes expressed their fears about such a challenge quite
explicitly. Unfortunately, their views have tended to be overlooked by later
scholars working within a conceptual framework steeped in nationalist
notions of ethnicity wholly inappropriate to the early modern Ottoman
state. Alongside a discussion of the actual ethnic composition of Ottoman
ship crews in the Indian Ocean, therefore, the present work will seek to
address the problems associated with even asking questions about “ethnicity”
in an Ottoman context.
1
See Charles Boxer’s classic Race Relations in the Portuguese Colonial Empire, 1415-1825
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1963), 41-85.
2
On the Ottoman Empire’s mechanisms for incorporating religious and ethnic diversity,
especially for earlier periods of Ottoman history, see, in addition to the numerous works
cited below, Heath Lowry, The Nature of the Early Ottoman State (Albany: State University
of New York Press, 2003).
G. Casale / Medieval Encounters 13 (2007) 122-144
123
ME 13,1_f8_122-144.indd 123 ME 13,1_f8_122-144.indd 123 3/29/07 4:53:03 PM 3/29/07 4:53:03 PM

124
G. Casale / Medieval Encounters 13 (2007) 122-144
The Semantics of Ottoman Ethnicity
Th e most basic obstacle to any discussion of ethnic identity in the Ottoman
world is one of simple terminology. With relentless consistency, the vocabu-
lary found in historical sources is not only problematic in itself but also
seriously at odds with that employed in more recent scholarly works—even
in cases where the very same word is being used.
3
For example, European
authors of the sixteenth century, in common with most historians today,
habitually referred to the Ottomans as “Turks.” If pressed, they might even
have defined this term more specifically as “Turkish-speaking Muslims
from Anatolia,” which corresponds more or less to its modern definition
both in Turkish and in Western languages. But in practice, “Turk” was
employed by Europeans quite differently, as an indiscriminate blanket
term for a Muslim of any ethnic origin. Even Western Europeans who
converted to Islam could be referred to as “Turks”—as in the English phrase