How Did the Ottomans Become Ottoman?

The Construction of an Imperial Brand Name

الملخص

Many hypotheses have been proposed in scholarly literature about how and why a small political entity became the vast Ottoman Empire. This article suggests that one of the reasons for this success was in the marketing choice of the name Osman as the brand name for the emerging empire. This name, which was also the name of the third caliph of Islam, ‘Uthman b. ‘Affan (644-656), was adopted sometime during the 14th century, and dominated Ottoman historical writing in the 15th century. It conveyed many symbolic meanings that became well integrated into the rhetoric of the mounting Sunni-Shi‘ite (Ottoman-Safavid) confrontation, and the rhetoric of the intra-Sunni (Ottoman-Mamluk) struggle for hegemony. This article suggests, for the first time, that the name of the Ottoman state stems from the anti-Shi‘ite composition of al-Jahiz (776-868/9), Al-‘Uthmaniyya, and as such should be seen as a reaction to the 10th Century Shi‘ites’ choice of “Fatimid” as their imperial name. The astute use of the religious and historical connotations in the name ‘Uthman helped define the boundaries of Ottoman consciousness, shape Ottoman struggles and decisions, and outline the empire’s borders in later centuries.