ABSTRACT
Products of the printing press had been seen by Ottomans in the literary gifts presented by European ambassadors to the sultan over the years. In retrospect, the Tulip Period might be seen as the last best chance for the Ottomans to have wrenched destiny from its tracks and to have avoided the horror and humiliation that has been most of the Muslim world's condition for over a century. After the Tulip Period, Westernized reform was vilified by its elitist and populist opponents as being anti-religious, socially subversive and serving the interests of the West, whose hired lackeys were traitors posing as reformers. Specially cultivated tulips were grown in abundance, gardens and gardens of them. So serious a business did tulip cultivation become that appointment to high office was on occasion awarded to a horticulturist who produced a strain of exceptional beauty.
