IB History Exam Prep

Answer - C - The millet was the basic unit of religious categorization in the Ottoman Empire.

Key Takeaway: Millet is an Ottoman Turkish term for a confessional community in the Ottoman Empire. In the 19th century the term started to refer to legally protected religious minority groups, other than the ruling Sunni. According to the millet concept, people were bound to their groups by their religious affiliations, rather than their ethnic origins. The head of a millet was most often a religious official, such as the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Constantinople, and he reported directly to the Ottoman Sultan.