professed new loyalties and proclaimed himself in the Umayyad Mosque an independent sovereign, struck coins in his own name and tried to induce his former colleague Khair Bey, whom Selim had rewarded with the vice- royalty of Egypt, to follow his example. But Aleppo did not openly support al-Ghazali and Sulayman sent against him an army which, on January 27, 1521, destroyed the Syrian rebels and killed al-Ghazali. The punishment which Damascus and its environs received was even more severe than that meted out earlier by Timur. About a third of the city and its villages was utterly destroyed. Ever since then the name of the Janissaries has been associated in the Syrian mind with destruction and terror.
Ottoman political theory considered the conquered peoples, especially the non-Moslems, human flocks to be shepherded for the benefit of the conquerors, the descendants of Central Asian nomads. As such they were to be milked, fleeced and allowed to live their own lives so long as they gave no trouble. Mostly peasants, artisans and merchants, they could not aspire to military or civil careers. But the herd needs watchdogs. These were recruited mainly from war prisoners, purchased slaves and Christian children levied as a tribute and then trained and brought up as Moslems. All recruits were put through a rigorous system of training in the capital covering many years. They were subjected to keen competition and careful screening ; the mentally bright among them were further prepared for governmental posi- tions and the physically strong for military service. The toughest were drafted into the infantry corps termed Janis- sary. The governing and the military class in the empire came at first almost exclusively from this source. Grand vizirs, vizirs, admirals, generals, provincial governors were once slaves and so remained. Their lives and property were always at the disposal of their sultan master, who never hesitated to exercise his right of ownership. This left the Ottoman house as the only aristocracy in the empire,
