Analysis of information sources in references of the Wikipedia article "Devşirmə" in Azerbaijani language version.
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Politically, it meant that the devshirme class, composed primarily of descendants of the Balkan noble and rayah classes
Lowry shows that not only Christian peasants but large numbers of the Byzantine-Balkan aristocracy were recruited into the Ottoman ruling elite
The disappearance of this dynasty [ Çandarlı family ] was symptomatic with the rise of the class of slave administrators, who were much easier for the sultan to control than free administrators of noble origin.
Dikici, 'Making of Ottoman court eunuchs', makes clear that white eunuchs could be recruited among devshirme boys, with the pages and their eunuch supervisors coming from the same background. They were sometimes castrated in the palace, whereas the harem's black eunuchs were more often castrated in their region of origin.
This effectively enslaved some of the sultan's own non-Islamic subjects and was therefore illegal under Islamic law, which stipulated that conquered non-Muslims should be demilitarized and protected
Sehabeddin Pasa, devshirme conscript.
Dikici, 'Making of Ottoman court eunuchs', makes clear that white eunuchs could be recruited among devshirme boys, with the pages and their eunuch supervisors coming from the same background. They were sometimes castrated in the palace, whereas the harem's black eunuchs were more often castrated in their region of origin.
