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Jun 25, 2023

Book Review: The Memoir of an Ottoman Muslim

This article reviews the book "Prisoner of the Infidels: The Memoir of an Ottoman Muslim in Seventeenth Century Europe: Osman of Timişoara." Giancarlo Casale, an expert on Ottoman Studies, translated

This article reviews the book "Prisoner of the Infidels: The Memoir of an Ottoman Muslim in Seventeenth Century Europe: Osman of Timişoara."

Giancarlo Casale, an expert on Ottoman Studies, translated this book into English from Ottoman Turkish and the University of California Press published it in 2021. This memoir contains a Muslim slave narrative and serves as an excellent example of Ottoman autobiographies in the seventeenth century. Not only did Osman write the first book-length autobiography in Ottoman Turkish, but he also penned a new genre from scratch. Osman’s prose contains short, poignant sentences, makes good use of speeches in the first person, (though he speaks of himself as “we” (biz in Turkish), and serves as a paragon of both clarity and simplicity.

Giancarlo Casale, penned the Introduction to this book that puts Osman’s life in the context of Ottoman and seventeenth-century Europe. Professor Casale, an expert in Ottoman studies, spent a decade translating and editing this book. The main character in this book, Osman, was an adventurer, slave, and diplomat, who gives readers a birds-eye view of seventeenth-century Europe form the perspective of a Muslim insider. In this translation Giancarlo Casale makes Osman’s life come alive.

Though Osman had only a basic formal education, he became an excellent linguist. He wrote mainly in Ottoman Turkish, knew Romanian (Vlach), prayed in Arabic, was conversive in the Serbo-Croatian (Serb) language, had almost native fluency in German, and knew some Hungarian. Translating Osman’s Ottoman Turkish into English proved to be a translator’s nightmare. Why So? The only manuscript we possess today has no chapter titles, chapter divisions, quotation marks, exclamation points or subheadings of any kind. Osman did not even suggest a title for his manuscript.

As far as we can ascertain, Osman first saw the light of day in 1658. Osman lived in Timişoara, a town located today in the western part of Romania. In its day, Timişoara was an administrative and economic center in the Ottoman Balkans. Osman’s parents died before he was ten years old, yet providentially, his father left him and his siblings an excellent inheritance. Historians speak of the seventeenth century as a time of religious wars, political unrest, economic malaise, and sectarian conflicts between the Ottoman Empire and Christian Europe. Surprisingly, Osman and the people residing in the Balkans in the seventeenth century enjoyed a “silver age” of stability, relative prosperity, in addition to peaceful harmony.

Osman, a young Muslim soldier, became a prisoner of the Hapsburg army after the siege of Vienna failed in 1688. Thrown into prison by a large Hapsburg army, Osman became the slave of a Venetian merchant. He became sick and almost died of dysentery. Osman then became the slave of Lieutenant Fisher, a sadistic person who tortured his prisoners, including Osman. For several years after 1691, the Hapsburgs and their allies focused on the war in western Europe. The Ottomans, for their part, hoped events would increase their bargaining power with the Hapsburgs. Osman worked as a laborer for General Otto von Stubenburg who offered him a position as a private groom for his horses. Soon after, Osman went with the General to Graz, Austria, and Kapfenberg. Meanwhile, Countess von Lamberg, the general’s wife took a shine to Osman and pushed him to become a Christian. Osman refused the offer of the countess, knowing that if he converted to Christianity he would never return to his home in the Balkans.

After General von Stubenburg died, his wife and her staff begged Osman, a Muslim slave, to stay with them. He refused and insisted that the countess send him to General Georg von Stubenburg in Vienna. The countess wrote letters to the General von Stubenburg that spoke highly of Osman and she arranged to have a coach take Osman to Vienna. She gave him all of his clothes and twenty zalota (a large Ottoman silver coin) that would hold him over until his next job. Osman tells us that God preordained so that all of the staff, both men and women, clapped their hands and broke down in tears as he left for Vienna. This speaks volumes about the kind of person Osman was.

Osman had an extremely difficult life. Osman faced a horrific confinement in a dungeon for six months. While in prison, Osman and other prisoners had an iron belt tied around their necks that kept their heads in place, tightly fastened with a lock. Similarly, their feet were put into foot-holes and locked in place. Once fastened, the prisoners laid on their backs and cuffs were put on their wrists, so that they could not move. Osman and other fugitives lived on bread and drank bitter well-water. Luckily, he crossed the border in a daring escape that could have cost him his life.

What kept Osman going when things got tough was his faith in God. In Osman’s own words, “Forbearance is the key to paradise, and wisdom belongs to God. Whatever happens is by God’s decree, and beyond God’s curtain there is light.” These words of wisdom by Osman have relevance today when we face the invasion of Ukraine by Russia troops, the global crisis in regard to global climate change, and the economic war between the US and China. In sum, it’s not dangerous to hold on by a thread when God is at the other end holding up the Planet Earth.

Richard Penaskovic is an Emeritus Professor at Auburn University. His writings have appeared in the Birmingham News, Columbus-Ledger Enquirer, Montgomery Advertiser and online by Informed Comment and Politurco.

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