I. Balance of Power in the Ruling Class: each province in
the empire had a separate military, civil, and financial administrator who reported
separately to the sultan.
II. Tolerance of Different Religious Groups Under a Muslim-Majority
Government: each religious group (Jews and Christians) were allowed
to live according to their own laws and police their own people as long as they
paid the extra taxes put on their groups.
III. Emphasis on Education: As Muslims, the Ottomans supported
religious schools run by the ulamas (Muslim religious leaders), which taught
the Koran and math up to trigonometry.
IV. Emphasis on Religious Law: All Muslims in the empire,
including the sultan, were viewed as equal under Islamic law, so social order
was easy to maintain across many different cultures in the empire