Özay Mehmet in his book
Islamic Identity and Development: Studies of the Islamic Periphery mentions:
[29]
“The ordinary Turks (
Turkmen) did not have a sense of belonging to a ruling ethnic group. In particular, they had a confused sense of self-image. Who were they: Turks, Muslims or Ottomans? Their literature was sometimes
Persian, sometimes
Arabic, but always courtly and elitist. There was always a huge social and cultural distance between the Imperial centre and the Anatolian periphery. As
Bernard Lewis expressed it: "
in the Imperial society of the Ottomans the ethnic term Turk was little used, and then chiefly in a rather derogatory sense, to designate the Turcoman nomads or, later, the ignorant and uncouth Turkish-speaking peasants of the Anatolian villages." (Lewis 1968: 1)
In the words of a British observer of the Ottoman values and institutions at the start of the twentieth century:
"The surest way to insult an Ottoman gentleman is to call him a 'Turk'. His face will straightway wear the expression a Londoner's assumes, when he hears himself frankly styled a Cockney. He is no Turk, no savage, he will assure you, but an Ottoman subject of the Sultan, by no means to be confounded with certain barbarians styled Turcomans, and from whom indeed, on the male side, he may possibly be descended."(Davey 1907: 209)
Bishop Fabri of Vienna (1536–41) claimed that:
"There are no crueler and more audacious villains under the heavens than the Turks who spare no age or sex and mercilessly cut down young and old alike and pluck unripe fruit from the wombs of mothers".[14]
The term "Turk" has acquired the a meaning similar to "barbarian" or "heathen" in various European languages,[14][36][37][38][39] or use "Turk" as a slur or curse.[14][40] Due to that negative influence, it had instances of negative use and image in the U.S.[41]
Hilarious is it not?
I have not even commented on your Mongol cousins since we all know about their barbarianism.
Just ask the Chinese, Indian, Arab, Iranian etc. users here.
@Doritos11 is obviously a Safavid so he does not count.
