Is the Early Ottoman History “A Black Hole?” : Discuession about the Foundation of the Ottoman Empire and Gazi/Gaza Concepts

‘The show of the people’ against the cultural elites: Populism, media and popular culture in Turkey

“…İnalcık (1994), for instance, noted that ‘the Ottoman state came into existence around 1300 as a small frontier principality which devoted itself to the gaza , Holy War, on the frontiers of the Seljukid Sultanate in Asia Minor and of the Byzantine Empire’ (p. 11). Critics such as Colin Imber and Colin Heywood reject the gaza thesis as lacking sufficient historical documentation and proof, and for projecting a romanticist nationalist essence to Ottoman history in an ahistorical manner (Demirci, 2013). Not ruling out the importance of gaza in the making of the Ottoman state, Kafadar notes that the concept of gaza had different meanings in different periods depending on the social, political, economic, demographic and diplomatic requirements and relations of a given conjuncture (Kafadar, 1996).…”