Education and Learning in Ottoman Society

The Ottoman principality formed in northwestern Anatolia in the late thirteenth century, and the empire dissolved in 1922. People learned in family homes, neighborhood schools, madrasas, schools for advanced Islamic learning, workshops, community institutions and the palace. Istanbul, in present-day Turkey, became the capital in 1453. Children learned recitation and literacy, scholars advanced through books, craft apprentices trained through work, and selected recruits entered state service.

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Neighborhood schools and children’s lessons

An Ottoman sıbyan mektebi was an elementary school, often attached to a mosque or supported by a charitable endowment. Young children, commonly beginning between four and six, learned to recite the Qur’an, Islam’s sacred scripture, and studied basic religious knowledge. Depending on the teacher and school, lessons also included reading, writing, handwriting or elementary arithmetic. Pupils sat on the floor, and memorization was a central method. Boys and girls could attend together or in separate schools. Before the Tanzimat, the nineteenth-century Ottoman reform period, girls had little formal schooling beyond the elementary level; some wealthier families arranged private lessons.

Teachers commonly had madrasa training or served as mosque officials. In class, a child could repeat passages aloud, learn letters and practice writing under the teacher’s guidance. A school’s waqf, a charitable endowment that dedicated property or income to a service, could support the teacher and continuing costs. The 1869 regulation planned a more centralized elementary system, with new schools, prescribed curricula and trained teachers.

Madrasas and scholarly careers

The first Ottoman madrasa is conventionally dated to 1331, when Orhan, an early Ottoman ruler, founded one at İznik in northwestern Anatolia. These schools prepared students for learned work in law, teaching, religious administration and the judiciary. Their endowments supported teachers and students, and a madrasa’s place in a hierarchy could affect later appointments.

Study advanced through individual books rather than a single year-by-year class system. Students prepared a lesson, then listened as a teacher explained the text; recitation, memorization, repetition and discussion helped them work through it. From 1525 to 1545, the scholar Taşköprizâde taught at Ottoman madrasas, covering theology, law, legal method, hadith (reports of the Prophet Muhammad’s words and actions), Qur’anic interpretation and rhetoric. Accounts from the eighteenth century describe courses at introductory, intermediate and advanced levels, with students progressing through books in each discipline. Arabic was the main language of many textbooks, while teachers and students discussed difficult points in Turkish. The texts and books used in Ottoman learning could be copied, annotated and circulated beyond the classroom.

Household lessons and apprenticeship

Private instruction supplemented formal schools. Historian Mustafa Gündüz describes scholars and officials holding lessons in their homes, and some teachers’ homes also served as elementary schools. Elite women could join scholarly gatherings in homes even when madrasas did not offer them teaching posts.

Craft knowledge passed from master to apprentice through daily work. A young apprentice entered a trade under a master, obeyed the workshop’s rules and learned by handling materials and tools. An apprentice could not change masters without the guild’s permission. After gaining experience, an apprentice could become a kalfa, a more skilled journeyman who earned higher pay, produced goods under the master’s direction and supervised junior apprentices. A kalfa who had mastered the craft presented finished work to senior craftsmen. At a promotion ceremony, a guild officer wrapped a sash or apron around the new master; senior craftsmen could buy the work on display, giving the new master starting capital.

Guilds organized people in the same trade and helped regulate quality and conduct. The kethüda, a guild leader, handled administrative and financial matters and could resolve disputes or refer them to a judge. A workshop supervisor checked technical quality and could stop defective goods from reaching the market.

Palace service and recruited boys

A separate route into state service was the devşirme, a coercive levy that recruited selected Christian boys from Ottoman territories, especially in the Balkans, for military and palace service. The practice is documented in the early fifteenth century and was formalized under Sultan Murad II. Officials announced a collection in selected districts and gathered boys aged eight to twenty, most often fourteen to eighteen. They checked ages and baptismal records with families and priests, then entered names and identifying details in registers. It separated children from their homes and communities.

After being brought to Istanbul, boys were examined and assigned different paths. Some were sent temporarily to Turkish-speaking households in Anatolia or Rumelia, the Ottoman lands in southeastern Europe. There they worked in agriculture while learning Turkish and local customs before returning to Istanbul for registration in the Acemi Ocağı, the corps for military recruits. Some went to the palaces at Edirne, Galata or Ibrahim Pasha for further training; the most able could advance to Topkapı Palace, while others entered military units.

Greek Orthodox community schools

In nineteenth-century Istanbul, Greek Orthodox communities maintained their own schools. Historian Maria Galazoula’s study of the 1860s, based on contemporary reports from 1862 and 1865, describes efforts by the Greek Orthodox patriarchate, the church leadership, to standardize school programs, approve textbooks and oversee teacher appointments. The policy did not operate uniformly: teachers’ pay was low in some cases, dismissals could occur during the school year, and annual examinations varied.

New schools and women teachers

A rüşdiye was an intermediate school beyond elementary instruction. Istanbul’s Cevri Kalfa girls’ rüşdiye opened in January 1859, offering girls a route to further study, but the new schools also needed women teachers. The 1869 education regulation provided for a teacher-training school, the Darülmuallimat, in Istanbul. Thirty-two candidates sat its entrance examination in February 1870, tested in subjects including basic arithmetic, geography, dictation, handwriting, drawing and needlework. The school opened on 26 April 1870 to prepare women to teach in girls’ elementary and intermediate schools.