The devshirme was the Ottoman practice of conscripting Christian boys from Balkan territories, converting them to Islam, and training them for elite administrative and military roles.

The paradox: these men — legally slaves, torn from their families, converted — became the most powerful people in the empire. The Janissaries (elite infantry) and many grand viziers came from this system.

The rationale: they had no family networks, no tribal loyalties, no prior claims. Their entire careers depended on the sultan. Loyalty by dependency rather than by birth.

The system worked until the Janissaries became powerful enough to make and break sultans, at which point it backfired catastrophically.