The Ottoman Empire

Rise of the Ottoman Turks

• In the late thirteenth century, a new group of Turks under their leader Osman began to build power in the northwest corner of the Anatolian Peninsula

  • At first, the Osman Turks were relatively peaceful and engaged in pastoral activities.

• From their location in the northwestern corner of the peninsula, the Ottomans expanded westward and eventually controlled the Bosporus and the Dardanelles.

• These two straits (narrow passageways), separated by the Sea of Marmara, connect the Black Sea and the Aegean Sea, which leads to the Mediterranean.

• The Byzantine Empire had controlled this area for centuries.

• In the fourteenth century, the Ottoman Turks expanded into the Balkans.

  • Ottoman rulers claimed the title of sultan and began to build a strong military by developing an elite guard called janissaries.

  • As knowledge of firearms spread in the late four- teenth century, the Ottomans began to master the new technology.

Expansion of the Empire

• Over the next three hundred years, Ottoman rule expanded to include large areas of Western Asia, as well as North Africa and additional lands in Europe.

• Under the leadership of Mehmet II, the Ottomans moved to end the Byzantine Empire.

  • The attack began on April 6, 1453, with an Ottoman bombardmen

  • The Byzantine emperor died in the final battle, and a great three-day sack of the city began.

• With their new capital at Constantinople (later renamed Istanbul), the Ottoman Turks now dominated the Balkans and the Anatolian Peninsula.

• From approximately 1514 to 1517, Sultan Selim I took control of Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Arabia—the original heartland of Islam.

  • Controlling several of the holy cities of Islam, including Jerusalem, Makkah (Mecca), and Madinah, Selim declared himself to be the new caliph, defender of the faith and successor to Muhammad.

• After their victories in the east, Ottoman forces spent the next few years advancing westward along the African coast, eventually almost reaching the Strait of Gilbraltar.

• Like their predecessors, the Ottomans were Muslims.

• Where possible, they preferred to administer their conquered regions through local rulers.

• The central government appointed officials, called pashas, who collected taxes, maintained law and order, and were directly responsible to the sultan’s court in Constantinople.

• After their conquest of Constantinople in 1453, the Ottoman Turks tried to complete their conquest of the Balkans.

• The reign of Süleyman I, beginning in 1520, led to new Ottoman attacks on Europe.

• The Ottomans then conquered most of Hungary, moved into Austria, and advanced as far as Vienna, where they were finally defeated in 1529.

• During the first half of the seventeenth century, the Ottoman Empire in eastern Europe remained a “sleeping giant.”

• By mid-1683, the Ottomans had marched through the Hungarian plain and laid siege to Vienna.

The Nature of Ottoman Rule

• Like the other Muslim empires in Persia and India, the Ottoman Empire is often labeled a “gunpowder empire.”

  • Gunpowder empires were formed by outside conquerors who unified the regions that they conquered.

  • As the name suggests, such an empire’s success was largely based on its mastery of the technology of firearms.

• At the head of the Ottoman system was the sultan, who was the supreme authority in both a political and a military sense.

• As the empire expanded, the status and prestige of the sultan increased, and the position took on the trappings of imperial rule.

• The private domain of the sultan was called the harem (“sacred place”).

  • When a son became a sultan, his mother became known as the queen mother and acted as a major adviser to the throne.

  • The sultan controlled his bureaucracy through an imperial council that met four days a week.

  • A chief minister, known as the grand vizier, led the meetings of the council.

• The empire was divided into provinces and districts, each governed by officials.

Religion in the Ottoman World

• In practice, the sultans gave their religious duties to a group of religious advisers known as the ulema.

• This group administered the legal system and schools for educating Muslims.

• Islamic law and customs were applied to all Muslims in the empire.

• The Ottoman system was generally tolerant of non-Muslims, who made up a significant minority within the empire.

Ottoman Society

• The subjects of the Ottoman Empire were divided by occupation.

  • In addition to the ruling class, there were four main occupational groups: peasants, artisans, merchants, and pastoral peoples.

• Technically, women in the Ottoman Empire were subject to the same restrictions as women in other Muslim societies, but their position was somewhat better.

  • Women were allowed to own and inherit property.

  • They could not be forced into marriage and, in certain cases, were permitted to seek divorce.

Problems in the Ottoman Empire

• The Ottoman Empire reached its high point under Süleyman the Magnificent, who ruled from 1520 to 1566.

  • The problems of the Ottoman Empire did not become visible until 1699, when the empire began to lose some of its territory.

  • After the death of Süleyman, sultans became less involved in government and allowed their ministers to exercise more power.

• Another sign of change within the empire was the exchange of Western and Ottoman ideas and customs.

• Some sultans attempted to counter these trends.

• One sultan in the early seventeenth century issued a decree outlawing both coffee and tobacco.

Ottoman Art

• The Ottoman sultans were enthusiastic patrons of the arts.

• The period from Mehmet II to the early eighteenth century witnessed a flourishing production of pottery; rugs, silk, and other textiles; jewelry; and arms and armor.

• By far the greatest contribution of the Ottoman Empire to world art was in architecture, especially the magnificent mosques of the last half of the sixteenth century.

• In the mid-sixteenth century, the greatest of all Ottoman architects, Sinan, began building the first of his 81 mosques.

• The sixteenth century also witnessed the flourishing of textiles and rugs.

The Rule of the Safavids

Rise of the Safavid Dynasty

• After the collapse of the empire of Timur Lenk (Tamerlane) in the early fifteenth century, the area extending from Persia into central Asia fell into anarchy.

  • At the beginning of the sixteenth century, however, a new dynasty known as the Safavids took control.

  • The Safavid dynasty was founded by Shah Ismail, the descendant of Safi al-Din (thus the name Safavid).

• In the early fourteenth century, Safi al-Din had been the leader of a community of Turkish ethnic groups in Azerbaijan, near the Caspian Sea.

  • In 1501, Ismail used his forces to seize much of Iran and Iraq.

  • He then called himself the shah, or king, of a new Persian state.

• Alarmed by these activities, the Ottoman sultan, Selim I, advanced against the Safavids in Persia and won a major battle near Tabriz.

• During the following decades, the Safavids tried to consolidate their rule throughout Persia and in areas to the west.

• In the 1580s, the Ottomans went on the attack.

• They placed Azerbaijan under Ottoman rule and controlled the Caspian Sea with their fleet.

Glory and Decline

• Under Shah Abbas, who ruled from 1588 to 1629, the Safavids reached the high point of their glory

  • In the early seventeenth century, Shah Abbas moved against the Ottomans to regain lost territories.

  • After the death of Shah Abbas in 1629, the Safavid dynasty gradually lost its vigor.

• While intellectual freedom had marked the height of the empire, the pressure to conform to traditional religious beliefs, called religious orthodoxy, increased.

• In the early eighteenth century, during the reign of Shah Hussein, Afghan peoples invaded and seized the capital of Isfahan.

• The Turks took advantage of the situation to seize territories along the western border.

• Persia sank into a long period of political and social anarchy (lawlessness and disorder).

Political and Social Structures

• Persia under the Safavids was a mixed society.

• The Safavids had come to power with the support of nomadic Turkish groups, but the majority of the people were Persian.

  • The Safavid political system, like that in most empires, was organized in the shape of a pyramid

  • The Safavid rulers were eagerly supported by Shiites, who believed that the founder of the empire (Shah Ismail) was a direct successor of the prophet Muhammad.

• Visitors reported that the shahs were more avail- able to their subjects than were rulers elsewhere.

• Strong-minded shahs firmly controlled the power of the landed aristocracy.

• The Safavid shahs played an active part in trade and manufacturing activity.

• Most goods in the empire traveled by horse or camel caravans.

• At its height, Safavid Persia was a worthy succes- sor to the great Persian empires of the past

Safavid Culture

• Knowledge of science, medicine, and mathematics under the Safavids was equal to that of other societies in the region.

  • In addition, Persia witnessed an extraordinary flowering of the arts during the reign of Shah Abbas from 1588 to 1629.

• The capital of Isfahan, built by Shah Abbas, was a grandiose planned city with wide spaces and a sense of order.

• Silk weaving based on new techniques flourished throughout the empire.

  • Above all, carpet weaving flourished, stimulated by the great demand for Persian carpets in the West.

• Made primarily of wool, these carpets are still highly prized all over the world.

• Persian painting enjoyed a long tradition, which continued in the Safavid Era.

• Riza-i-Abbasi, the most famous artist of this period, created exquisite works on simple subjects, such as oxen plowing, hunters, and lovers.

The Grandeur of the Moguls

The Mogul Dynasty

• In 1500, the Indian subcontinent was still divided into a number of Hindu and Muslim kingdoms.

  • The founder of the Mogul dynasty was Babur.

  • His father was descended from the great Asian conqueror Timur Lenk, and his mother, from the Mongol conqueror Genghis Khan.

• Thirteen years later, his forces crossed the Khyber Pass to India.

• Babur’s forces were far smaller than those of his enemies, but they had advanced weapons, including artillery, and used them to great effect.

• With twelve thousand troops against an enemy force nearly ten times that size, Babur captured Delhi and established his power in the plains of North India.

The Reign of Akbar

• Babur’s grandson Akbar was only 14 when he came to the throne.

  • By using heavy artillery, Akbar’s armies were able to overpower the stone fortresses of their rivals.

• The Moguls were also successful negotiators.

• Akbar’s conquests created the greatest Indian empire since the Mauryan dynasty nearly two thousand years earlier.

• Akbar was probably the greatest of the conquering Mogul monarchs, but he is best known for the humane character of his rule.

• Akbar was also tolerant in his administration of the government

• It became common practice to give the lower- ranking officials plots of farmland for their temporary use.

• These local officials, known as zamindars, kept a portion of the taxes paid by the peasants in lieu of a salary.

• Overall, the Akbar Era was a time of progress, at least by the standards of the day.

• The era was an especially prosperous one in the area of foreign trade

Decline of the Moguls

• Akbar died in 1605 and was succeeded by his son Jahangir.

  • Jahangir was able and ambitious.

• During the early years of his reign, he continued to strengthen the central government’s control over his vast empire.

• Eventually, however, his grip began to weaken when he fell under the influence of one of his wives, Persian-born Nur Jahan.

  • The empress used her position to enrich her own family.

  • She arranged the marriage of her niece to her husband’s third son and ultimate successor, Shah Jahan.

• During his reign from 1628 to 1658, Shah Jahan maintained the political system established by earlier Mogul rulers.

  • He also expanded the boundaries of the empire through successful campaigns in the Deccan Plateau and against the city of Samarkand, north of the Hindu Kush.

  • Shah Jahan’s rule was marred by his failure to deal with growing domestic problems, however.

• Shah Jahan’s troubles worsened with his illness in the mid-1650s, which led to a struggle for power between two of his sons.

• One of Shah Jahan’s sons, Aurangzeb, had his brother put to death and imprisoned his father.

  • Aurangzeb then had himself crowned emperor in 1658.

  • Aurangzeb is one of the most controversial rulers in the history of India.

• He forbade both the Hindu custom of suttee (cremating a widow on her hus- band’s funeral pyre) and the levying of illegal taxes.

• He tried to forbid gambling and drinking as well.

• Aurangzeb was a devout Muslim and adopted a number of measures that reversed the Mogul policies of religious tolerance.

• Aurangzeb’s policies led to Hindu outcries and domestic unrest.

The British in India

• The arrival of the British hastened the decline of the Mogul Empire.

• By 1650, British trading forts had been established at Surat, Fort William (now the city of Calcutta), and Chennai (Madras)

• British success in India attracted rivals, especially the French.

• The British were saved by the military genius of Sir Robert Clive, an aggressive British empire builder.

  • Clive eventually became the chief represen- tative in India of the East India Company, a private company empowered by the British Crown to act on its behalf

• While fighting the French, Clive was also consoli- dating British control in Bengal, the state in which Fort William was located.

  • In 1757, Clive led a small British force numbering about three thousand to victory over a Mogul-led army more than ten times its size in the Battle of Plassey in Bengal.

• Britain’s rise to power in India, however, was not a story of constant success.

• In the late eighteenth century, the East India Company moved inland from the great coastal cities.

Society and Daily Life in Mogul India

• The Moguls were foreigners in India. In addition, they were Muslims ruling a largely Hindu population.

• Women had long played an active role in Mogul tribal society, and some actually fought on the battlefield alongside the men.

• To a degree, these Mogul attitudes toward women affected Indian society.

• At the same time, the Moguls placed certain restrictions on women under their interpretations of Islamic law.

  • In other ways, however, Hindu practices remained unchanged by Mogul rule.

• The Mogul era saw the emergence of a wealthy landed nobility and a prosperous merchant class.

• Most of what we know about the daily lives of ordinary Indians outside of the cities comes from the observations of foreign visitors.

Mogul Culture

• The Moguls brought together Persian and Indian influences in a new and beautiful architectural style.

• This style is best symbolized by the Taj Mahal, which was built in Agra by the emperor Shah Jahan in the mid-seventeenth century.

  • The Taj Mahal is widely considered to be the most beautiful building in India, if not in the entire world.

  • All the exterior and interior surfaces are decorated with cut-stone geometric patterns, delicate black stone tracery, or intricate inlays of colored precious stones in floral mosaics.

• Another major artistic achievement of the Mogul period was in painting.

• The Mogul emperors were dedicated patrons of the arts, and going to India was the goal of painters, poets, and artisans from as far away as the Mediterranean.