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The Janissaries (or janizaries; in Turkish: Yeniçeri, meaning New Troops) comprised infantry units that formed the Ottoman sultan's household troops and bodyguard. The force originated in the 14th century; it was abolished (and massacred) by Sultan Mahmud II in 1826.

The first janissary units comprised war captives and slaves. After the 1380s Sultan Selim I filled their ranks with the results of taxation in human form called devshirmeh. The sultan’s men would conscript a number of non-Muslim, usually Christian, boys – at first at random, later by strict selection – and take them to be trained. In later centuries they seem to have preferred Greeks, Serbs and Bulgarians. Usually they would select about 1 in 5 boys of ages 7-14 but the numbers could be changed to correspond with the need for soldiers. Later they would extend the devshirmeh to Greece and Hungary. Of course, residents could hardly appreciate the custom.

Janissaries trained under strict discipline with hard labour and in practically monastic conditions in acemi oglan schools, where they were expected to remain celibate and were at least encouraged to convert to Islam. Most did. For all practical purposes, janissaries belonged to the sultan. Unlike free Muslims, they were expressly forbidden to wear beards, only a moustache. Janissaries were taught to consider the corps as their home and family and the sultan as their de facto father. Only those who proved strong enough earned the rank of a true janissary at the age of 24 - 25. The regiment inherited the property of dead janissaries.

Janissaries also learned to follow the dictates of the dervish saint Haji Bektash who had blessed the first troops. Bektashi served as a kind of chaplain for janissaries. In this and in their secluded life, janissaries resembled Christian knightly orders like the Johannites of Rhodes.

I am reading a book involving them.