The Ottoman Empire

The complexity of the Ottoman Empire's social, economic, and governmental systems is amazing to me. What is more amazing is that a relatively new religion at the time (Islam) provided the standards for one of the most powerful empires in the world. This is evidence to how powerful Islam became immediately. The  prejudice against other religions is surprising. The fact that they would kidnap young Christian boys and make them into slaves is something I find very surprising, especially because the two religions aren't so different. Once they kidnaped these Christians they also converted them . These must have been very convincing conversions because it seems that the slaves rarely revolted (at least not at first ), even though they were often in places of power ( they were given weapons, and made leaders in the military ). Perhaps the peacefulness was also due to education that the kidnaped Christians received. The Ottoman Empire reminds me of modern economies in many ways: little or no taxation of the rich, companies having a large influence over the governments decisions, taxation of the poor, government aid to companies that serve the public, and so on. The coolest thing I find about Ottoman society is that even though neighborhoods were often segregated, the markets and other public spaces were located where every culture met. I could just imagine the immense amount of cultural mixing that could have gone on in such places.