Horses and Ritual Slaughter in the Early Ottoman Empire




Ottoman History Podcast show

Summary: Historians have used accounts of the ritual slaughter of horses as evidence of non-Islamic and Central Asian elements within early Ottoman identity. However, such an interpretation may miss the real significance of these historical accounts and the practice of horse sacrifice for Ottoman warriors. In this podcast, Oscar Aguirre-Mandujano explores this debate and highlights some new ways of a looking at horse sacrifice and the texts that discuss the topic within the proper historical context.