Güneydoğu Avrupa Araştırmaları Dergisi, no.16, pp.71-86, 2010 (Peer-Reviewed Journal)
This paper explores the main tenets of the millet system. Millet is an Arabic word that tran slated into English as nation. This term was not used 0nly for non-Muslims, but also for any nation. However, in the terminology of the Ottoman historians, it is mostly used to define non-Muslim communities. People were seen in the eyes of State not 0n the basis of ethnicity or language, but religion. "Religion, language, community, ethnicity, and family made up the socio-cultural fabric of the millet." For the period of the Ottoman, the most important thing was religion and supremacy of family: in other words, the millet system was in favour of "fusion of family and the community.