Unit 3: Land-Based Empires (1450–1750)

Vocabulary flashcards covering the political structures, religious transformations, military institutions, and key concepts of early modern Eurasian land-based empires between 1450 and 1750.

Red Turban Movement

A Daoist rebel movement in China led by Zhu Yuanzhang that overthrew the Mongol Yuan Dynasty in 1368 and established the Ming Dynasty.

Gunpowder Empires

Large, centralized early modern Eurasian empires—specifically including the Ottoman, Safavid, and Mughal states—that used large cannons and firearms to conquer territory and neutralize local aristocratic resistance.

Mansabdars

Military commanders and imperial nobility in the Mughal Empire recruited from diverse backgrounds (including Muslim, Hindu, and Sikh) to administer territory and provide troops in exchange for pay.

Sîpahîs

Land-owning cavalrymen and military commanders in the Ottoman Empire who operated similar to knights and helped consolidate imperial control.

Ulamâ

Muslim scholars and judges who interpreted Islamic law and served as essential religious administrators in empires like the Ottoman and Mughal states.

Millet Laws

An Ottoman legal arrangement that recognized special legal status and a degree of self-governance for specific religious minority communities, such as Christians and Jews, provided they paid taxes and remained loyal.

Precious Metal Sink

An economic region, such as India or China, into which more gold and silver flowed through global trade than exited.

Silver Rupee

A coin with a high degree of metallic purity utilized by the Mughal Emperor Akbar that fostered trade connections and provided a widely trusted shared currency.

Sulh-i Kul

A policy of 'universal toleration' formalized by Mughal Emperor Akbar mandating that non-Muslim subjects be accorded the same legal rights as Muslims under the imperial system.

Shahjahanabad

The grand imperial capital in Delhi constructed during the reign of Mughal Emperor Shahjahan.

Thirty Years' War

A major conflict (1618–1648) triggered by efforts of Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II to suppress Protestant dissidents, intertwining religious conflict with monarchical rivalries and leaving the Habsburg Empire weakened.

Devshirme

The Ottoman system of forcibly taking Christian boys from the Balkans, converting them to Islam, and training them to serve as elite government bureaucrats or janissary soldiers.

Janissaries

The Ottoman sultan's elite corps of soldiers, originally recruited through the devshirme system and trained with firearms, who later grew into a powerful political force capable of mounting revolts.

Caliph

The title denoting the spiritual and political successor to the Prophet Muhammad as leader of the Sunni Muslim world, formally claimed by Ottoman sultans beginning with Selim I after conquering Egypt, Mecca, and Medina in 1517.

Qezilbash

Red-turbaned, saber- and firearm-wielding semi-nomadic cavalry fighters who served as the core military force behind Shah Ismail I during the conquest and founding of the Safavid Empire.

Mahdi

A prophesied messianic Islamic leader and successor of Ali in Shi'ite belief whose return the faithful await and for whom the Safavid Shah acted as an earthly bridge.

China's Turn Inland

The post-1433 Ming Dynasty policy of ending state-sponsored maritime expeditions led by Zheng He to redirect empire resources toward domestic agriculture and defending overland northern frontiers.

Kangxi Emperor

A Qing dynasty ruler (r. 1661–1722) who stabilized Manchu rule, reduced the military to freeze taxes, sponsored the compilation of a Chinese character dictionary, and showed interest in European technology like clocks.

Boyars

The class of traditional landowning nobles in Russia who exchanged military service and loyalty to the Romanov Czars for complete legal control over peasant serfs.

Serfs

Russian peasant agricultural laborers legally bound to their noble landlords' land, subjected to heavy taxation, and classified as fugitives liable to capture if they fled.

Stroganov Family

A prominent Russian merchant family granted regional trade rights by the Romanov Tsars in exchange for financing mercenaries and supporting Russian imperial expansion across Siberia.

Timars

Agricultural landed estates granted by Ottoman sultans to military officers, on which resident peasant farmers paid 15 to 25 percent of their harvest as taxes.

Indulgences

Certificates sold by the Catholic Church that allowed individuals to pay money in order to reduce temporal punishment for sins, a practice contested by Martin Luther in his Ninety-Five Theses in 1517.

Society of Jesus

A Catholic religious order founded in 1540 by Ignatius of Loyola whose members, the Jesuits, took vows of obedience to the Pope and worked as international missionaries across Asia and the Americas.

Council of Trent

A Catholic council held between 1545 and 1563 as part of the Catholic Reformation to define official doctrine, clarify the interpretation of faith, and establish criteria for heresy.

Sikhism

A syncretic religious tradition founded in Punjab by Guru Nanak in the early sixteenth century that rejected caste barriers, emphasized the inner divine in daily life, and wrote scriptures in vernacular languages.

Khalsa

An order of devoted male Sikhs established in 1699 by the tenth guru, Gobind Singh, characterized by distinct dress, eating, and marriage practices, reflecting a shift toward armed defense against Mughal authority.