The Millet System
Learn about the millet system — the Ottoman model of governing diverse religious communities through internal self-governance that maintained imperial unity for centuries.
The millet system was the Ottoman Empire's method of governing its remarkably diverse population by organizing non-Muslim religious communities — Greek Orthodox, Armenian, Jewish — into semi-autonomous administrative units (millets), each governed by its own religious leaders according to its own laws in matters of personal status, education, and community affairs.
Under the millet system, non-Muslim communities (dhimmis) paid special taxes (the jizya) and accepted certain social restrictions (they could not bear arms, had to wear distinctive clothing, and could not proselytize). In return, they received protection, religious freedom, and the right to manage their own affairs. The Greek Orthodox patriarch in Constantinople, for example, exercised broad authority over Orthodox Christians throughout the empire, including jurisdiction over marriage, divorce, inheritance, and education.
The system was not religious equality in the modern sense — Muslims held clear legal and social advantages — but it represented a pragmatic model of managing diversity that was more tolerant than most contemporary European societies, where religious minorities were often persecuted or expelled. The millet system allowed the Ottoman Empire to maintain a functioning multi-ethnic, multi-religious state for centuries and is often cited as an early model of religious pluralism, though one embedded within an explicitly hierarchical framework.