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This study is an attempt to challenge the conventional decline-irrationality literature in the Ottoman historiography. Conventional view presented a way of thinking that is unfavorable to the rational economic behavior as the explanatory factor for the so-called decline of Ottoman Empire. Using an explicitly comparative approach, main aim of the study is to account for the specific trajectory of the Ottoman transformation without recourse to the conventional view. Juxtaposing the Ottoman and Western experience, the traditional explanation runs through the specific trajectory of Ottoman transformation in terms of its mental inferiority with respect to the so-called Western rationale. In contradistinction, this study aims to demonstrate that the Ottoman and Spanish experiences can be analyzed within the same comparative framework without an eye to such factors as &lsquo / irrationality&rsquo / .