The Dawla Uthmaniyya was always very cosmopolitan in nature, even if Turks played a dominant role.

In retrospect, replacing it with a Turkish ethno-nationalist state was a clever way to ensure that the empire could never, ever be rebuilt. In spite of all its faults, the Dawla Uthmaniyya always relied on Islam for its legitimacy and to define its identity.

A state whose character is defined by Turkish ethnicity on a fundamental level is doomed to fail for at least two reasons.

First, explicit preference for the Turkish ethnicity will leave other ethnicities feeling disenfranchised and not identifying strongly with the state.

Second, the actual Turkish ethnicity itself is fairly weak as an ethnicity.

I don’t mean Turks are weak (obviously that’s not the case), but I mean that the vast majority of the genetic makeup of Turkish citizens today is not Turkic, and this is precisely because of the cosmopolitan and Islamic character of the Dawla Uthmaniyya.

This means that the bond of blood that ties the nation together is not especially strong. It’s more linguistic and cultural, yet the identity of the state is still defined in ethnic terms.

Imagine if America were to redefine its national identity in ethnic terms.

What would happen if the US changed its name from the United States of America to “Anglo-Saxonia” to reflect the dominant position of English culture and the English language, although the English genetics account for a minority of the genetic background of the population?

This would cause a huge number of people to stop identifying with the state, be less willing to make sacrifices for it, and empower separatist movements.

Turkish nationalism is horrifically strong, but ultimately shallow.

By contrast, a state like Uzbekistan is actually mostly Turkic in terms of genetics, so they have a better basis for ethno-nationalism. This is probably why the Soviets cut up Turkestan and created the Kyrgyz, Turkmen, Uzbek, and Kazakh national identities out of nothing.

Building states on the basis of Islam is much more challenging, because bonds based on genetic ties don’t require faith, and because there is a constant struggle to transcend the animalistic instinct toward tribalism and ensure it remains in submission to Islam.