"What the Sultan Saw
Practicing a tolerant strain of Islam, the Ottomans clashed with fundamentalists.
BY MATTHEW KAMINSKI
Tuesday, April 11, 2006 12:01 a.m. EDT
The Ottoman Empire passed into history in 1922, a mere lifetime ago. Yet in a certain way it feels as distant as ancient Athens or Rome, known to us mostly through architectural relics, a few striking events and a mythical aura. Kemal Atatürk's secular Turkish republic, the empire's successor state, consciously rejected much of the Ottoman heritage and most of its traditions, while the empire's colonial outposts have reverted to the imperatives of their local identities."
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