Historical Developments

Imperial expansion relied on the increased use of gunpowder, cannons, and armed trade to establish large empires in both hemispheres. Land empires included the Manchu in Central and East Asia; the Mughal in South and Central Asia; the Ottoman in Southern Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa; and the Safavids in the Middle East.

State rivalries:

• Safavid–Mughal conflict

• Songhai Empire’s conflict with Morocco

Recruitment and use of bureaucratic elites**,** as well as the development of military professionals, became more common among rulers who wanted to maintain centralized control over their populations and resources

Bureaucratic elites or military professionals:

• Ottoman devshirme

• Salaried samurai

Rulers continued to use religious ideas, art, and monumental architecture to legitimize their rule.

Religious ideas:

• Mexica practice of human sacrifice

• European notions of divine right

• Songhai promotion of Islam

Art and monumental architecture:

• Qing imperial portraits

• Incan sun temple of Cuzco

• Mughal mausolea and mosques

• European palaces, such as Versailles

Rulers used tribute collection, tax farming, and innovative tax-collection systems to generate revenue in order to forward state power and expansion.

Tax-collection systems:

• Mughal zamindar tax collection

• Ottoman tax farming

• Mexica tribute lists

• Ming practice of collecting taxes in hard currency

Land-based vs. Sea-based

• Sea-based empires as one major theme but also traditional land-based empires that continued to dominate the Middle East and Asia (and a new land-based empire: Russia)

• The era after 1450 is commonly called the Age of Gunpowder Empires due to the use of guns to subjugate enemies and build control

  • Land-based empires continued to rely on armies, roads, and inland urban areas

  • Both sea-based and land-based  powers made use of guns, cannons, and musket

Ottoman, Safavid, and the Mughal Empires

• Islamic

• Represent the height of Muslim political and military power in world history

• Countered the growing European global influence

• All three on decline by 1750; sea-based powers were still on the rise

• Were not competing for overseas territories like the Europeans

The Ottoman Empire

• Began as small Turkic warrior group that slowly migrated into Anatolia

  • Named for Osman

  • Lasted from the 14th to early 20th century

• Ottomans successfully conquered territory in eastern Europe, stopped at the gates of Vienna

• Very diverse, culturally and politically sophisticated empire

• One of the most powerful empires of its time along with the Inca and Qing China

Rise of the Ottomans

• Ottomans Captured Constantinople in 1453

  • Ended the Christian Byzantine Empire

• Hagia Sophia became a mosque

• Reached its height under Suleiman the Magnificent

  • Conquered Belgrade

  • Controlled the water traffic between the Black and Mediterranean Seas

  • Venice as a tributary state

  • Ottoman army continued to expand and defend frontiers

• Ottoman sultans had large bureaucracies centered in Istanbul

• Ottomans plagued by problems of succession

  • Common for sons to go to war with each other

• The empire was diverse (cosmopolitan)

• The rulers (sultans) combined roles of Turkic warrior prince, Muslim caliph, and conquering emperor

• Referred to as the “sword of Islam”

Women in the Ottoman Empire

• Initially Turkic women had more rights (because they were pastoral) but gradually adopted Islam and were then veiled and secluded

• Official census did not count women

• However, women in the royal court maintained power and influence in politics

• Women had property rights

• Could protect legal rights in matters of marriage, divorce, and inheritance

• Roxelana (seen to the right) was the wife of Suleiman the Magnificent

• Was a controversial member of the “Sultanate of Women”

  • A time when the wives and mothers of the sultan exercised power of the Sultan and made decisions for the empire

• Known as the most powerful and influential women in Ottoman history

Military Elites: Janissaries

• New elite military group, Janissaries, checked their power

• System known as devshirme required Christian boys to become slaves of sultan

• Given guns and heavy artillery (too heavy for cavalry)

• Came to control the weapons that ensured the Ottomans continuing military success

• Gave them political and economic power

• Old aristocrats found themselves out of military power just as economic weaknesses greatly reduced incomes from their lands

• Janissaries had a say in the sultan’s decisions by the mid-16th century

• The Janissaries were a salaried elite fighting force of the Ottoman Empire. They utilized muskets, grenades, and small canons. They brought strength and power to the Ottoman Empire.

Economic Challenges

• Istanbul

  • Wealthy

  • Cosmopolitan, Controlled trade routes, Primary seaport, Bazaars

• Economic decline set in by the mid 17th century

  • Empire probably reached the limits of expansion

• Empire too large to be maintained

  • Corruption among local governments

• High taxes for peasants

  • Peasants revolts

• Succession issues –sons of sultans held as hostages to prevent coups

  • Led to sheltered, pleasure loving less competent rulers

• Demands by Janissaries not only for political power but also for high salaries

  • Sultan began to reduce number of landholding cavalrymen, causing unrest among displaced cavalrymen

• Inflation caused by increasing amount of New World silver – negative global effect

• Ottoman sultan collected taxes according to legally fixed rates

  • as value of silver declined, tax revenues stayed the same

• Ottomans were at a disadvantage when trading in the world market

  • Religious law limited the government ability to reform tax laws

  • When bureaucrats came up with special surtaxes, met with resistance

Ottoman Tax Farming

from Wikipedia

An Iltizam was a form of tax farm that appeared in the 15th century in the Ottoman Empire. The system began under Mehmed the Conqueror and was abolished during the Tanzimat reforms in 1856.

Iltizams were sold off by the government to wealthy notables, who would then reap up to five times the amount they had paid by taxing the peasants and extracting agricultural production. It was a system that was very profitable and was of great benefit to the Egyptian aristocracy under the Mameluks, and helped create a large and powerful elite.

Cultural and Social Characteristics

• Majority Sunni Muslims

  • As a result of expansion; large numbers of Christians and Jews

  • Also, remember they conquered the Byzantines who had been Greek Orthodox Christians

• Istanbul was cosmopolitan

  • Crossroads of trade & sultans supported public works

• Invited religious scholars, artists, poets, and architects

  • Hagia Sophia restored as a mosque, aqueducts built, city walls repaired

• Suleymaniye Mosque with impressive domes

• Social structure

  • Large numbers of merchants and artisans

  • Artisans organized into guilds

The Fall Behind

• Conservative religious leaders in the empire insulated the empire from new cultural and technological developments in Europe

  • Saw European societies as backwards and own civilization as superior

  • Similar to China’s attitude about the West

• Prevented the Ottomans from adopting western technology and ideas

  • Printing press brought by Jews after being expelled from Spain; not allowed to print anything in Turkish or Arabic

  • As a result, the empire virtually untouched by the print revolution

The Safavids

• Grew from Turkish nomadic group (similar to Ottomans)

• Shi’ite Muslims

  • True heirs of Islam were the descendants of Ali

• Ismail led army who united large area south of the Caspian Sea

• As Safavids expanded they came into conflict with Ottomans

• Hostilities intensified by Shi’ite Sunni split

• Met at Chaldiran in NW Persia

  • Religious conflict at the heart

  • Illustrated the importance of the new gunpowder technology

  • Ismail sent cavalry armed with sword and knives to fight Janissaries with their cannons and muskets

• Safavids slaughtered, Ottomans won decisive victory but didn’t follow up due to approaching winter

• Safavids recovered, built up artillery, and continued to fight Ottomans for two centuries

• Battle at Chaldiran a marker event

  • Set the limits for Shi’ite expansion with consequences still apparent today

  • Iran is in the midst of predominantly Sunni countries conflicts continue

• Shah Abbas I – Safavids at peak

  • Captures boys in Russia and educated to be soldiers; converted to Islam  (similar to Janissaries)

  • Slave infantrymen trained to use firearms

  • Gave increasing power at the expense of the traditional qizilbash

• Abbas brought in European advisors to assist in wars with Ottomans

  • Improved cannons and musket

  • Army swelled in size and efficiency, but no Safavid navy built to compete with the sea-based trade that was transforming the world

Politics and Religion

• Safavid rulers based authority on military prowess and religious authority

  • Traced authority to Sufi religious order

  • Expansion seen as extension of Islam to new lands

• Saw the Europeans as infidels

  • Also believe that defeating the Sunni was an act of faith

• Persian traditions shaped by Safavid political system

  • Sumptuous palaces

  • Highly ritualized court

• Local mosque officials, mullahs, supervised and supported by state

  • Gave government the upper hand

Social

• Turkish chiefs challenged early shahs

  • Chiefs gradually transformed into warrior elite (similar to cavalry elite in Ottoman Empire)

  • Supervised farms, asserted political power, captured powerful positions in the imperial bureaucracy

• Shahs appointed Persians to fill other bureaucratic positions

  • Gave authority to slave infantrymen

Economic and Social Organization

Economic

• Shahs supported trade

• Isfahan (capital) major center of international trade

  • Network of road and workshops to manufacture textiles and rugs

  • Inland – not as many traders as Istanbul (why?)

  • Guilds

    • Silk production

    • Carpets – signature business

• Also negatively impacted by inflation caused by flood of silver

Social

• Not cosmopolitan

• Armenians kept in suburbs across river; most people in city were Shi'ite

• Majority of people lived in rural areas, farming

• Nomadic groups

Cultural

• Mixture of Turkish and Persian

  • Iranians scholars more likely to use  Persian

    • In other Islamic lands more likely to read and write in Arabic

• Cultural traditions like poetry, history, drama, and fiction kept Persian identify strong

  • Gradually separate identities  seen by the time the Mongols invaded

  • When Ismail created Iran as a Shi’ite state reinforced differences

• Architecture

  • Mosques in Islamic world relied on domes

    • Safavid domes decorated in brightly colored floral patterns that resemble Persian carpets

    • Istanbul known for massive simplicity

Cultural Characteristics

• Blended Sufi mysticism with militant political objectives

• Safavids traced ancestry to Safi al-Din, leader of Sufi religious order in NW Persia; empire founded on Sufi beliefs

• Ismail deployed armies to spread Shi’ism w/an emphasis on mystic union w/God

  • Later Safavid shahs banned Sufi orders from the empire but Sufism continued to thrive

• Like the Ottomans, Safavids gradually lost vigor

  • Collapsed in the 1720s

  • Victim of

    • Islamic infighting

    • Ever-growing dominance of sea-based powers

The Mughal Empire

• 1450 – much of Indian subcontinent tenuously controlled by the Delhi Sultanate

  • Muslim leaders presided over a  population that remained primarily Hindu – religious frictions (continues today)

• 1523 Babur founded Mughal Empire

  • Descendant of Timur and Genghis Khan

• Dominated until the early 1700s (continued to rule in name until 1858 when the British were establishing greater colonial control over the subcontinent)

• Babur’s invasion motivated by

  • Loss of ancestral homeland through inter-tribal warfare

  • Dreams of living up to reputation of ancestors

• Military strategies responsible for success in capturing Delhi

  • Family’s control challenged after his death but son Humayan recaptured northern India and expanded the empire

• The empire reached its height in power and influence under Babur’s grandson Akbar

Politcal Organization

• Autocratic (like Ottoman and Safavid)

  • Power based on military might and religious authority

  • No navy (like Safavids), relied on army

• Fought the infidels (the Hindu) spreading Islam

  • Some more tolerant (Akbar)

• Succession issues (like Ottomans and Safavids); Mughal princes fought each other to become heir

• Akbar incorporated rajas (regional Hindu leaders) into military and bureaucratic positions to alleviate tensions

  • Policy of cooperation and encouraged intermarriage

  • Abolished jizya

  • Ended ban on the building of new Hindu temples

  • Ordered Muslims to respect cows

  • Built strong bureaucracy modeled on a military hierarchy for collecting taxes

• Each region surveyed and tax rates based on the region's potential for wealth

• Most local officials (usually Hindu) kept positions if swore allegiance to Mughals and paid taxes

  • Reforms encouraged cooperation; great grandson Aurangzeb reinstituted many restrictions on the Hindus

Economic

• Land revenue granted to military and government officials in exchange for service (also in the Ottoman and Safavid)

  • Grew wealthy

• As Mughal empire expanded, controlled commercial networks based on cotton, indigo, and silk

  • By 17th c overland trade with Europe going strong

• Indian merchant ships were privately owned; many Indian goods carried into the Indian Ocean trade circuit were on Dutch and English vessels

  • Europeans brought trade goods from throughout Asia to trade for Indian cotton cloth and clothing due to growing demand in Europe

Social

• Patriarchal (same as Ottoman and Safavid)

• Wives of rulers played key roles in all three empires

  • Suleiman the Magnificent’s wife convinced him to execute his eldest son so her son could succeed to the throne (Ottoman)

  • One Safavid ruler’s wife so enraged the qizilbash that they murdered her

  • Mumtaz Mahal, wife of Mughal Shah Jahan also amassed power. Taj Mahal built for her but plans for a black marble monument ended when Shah was imprisoned by his sons in a struggle for succession

Women in the Mughal Empire

• Status of women overall low in Indian society

• Child marriage common (brides as young as nine)

• Sati spread even though outlawed

• Seclusion (purdah) strictly enforced for upper class women

• Women veiled

Mughal Culture

• Jahangir and Shah Jahan followed Akbar but less interest in military conquests and politics

  • Patrons of the arts

  • Promoted paintings of miniatures depicting life at court, battles, animals, and plants

  • Built public buildings

    • Blend of Persian and Hindu influence with lavish ornamentation

      • Ornamented tiles with semiprecious stones in lavish patterns (Ex: Taj Mahal)

      • Fatehpur Sikri – Akbar built an entirely new capital city

  • Abandoned after his death

  • Beauty famous throughout Islamic world

  • Library contained largest collection of books in the world

  • Scholars of all religions came

  • Akbar illiterate but loved to be read to

• Akbar’s reputation as an important leader is based partly on his ability to revive a sense of political and cultural unity in the subcontinent (since Gupta)

• Jahangir and Shah Jahan neglected political, economic, and military issues; loved pleasure

• Aurangzeb tried to restore the empire but also to rid India of Hinduism; stirred up resentment

  • Conquered more land but the expenses of war left treasury empty

  • Local leaders plotted against him

  • Rolling back Akbar’s reforms undermined his government

  • After he died the empire was larger than ever but unstable

• Europeans took advantage

  • Dutch, British, and French joint-stock companies eagerly sought to expand profitable trade in India

The Songhai Empire

• Began in West Africa in the 15th century

• Mali began to collapse in the 1460s

  • Civil wars and competing trade routes caused decline

• Songhay took over from the Mali Empire

• Gained access to gold mines

• Capital at Gao

• Ruler was an absolutist authority over a centralized state

• Lots of political violence as kings were overthrown by relatives

• Important location on the trans-Saharan trade routes

  • Took over key trade cities: Timbuktu and Jenne

• Major Islamic center of learning and commerce

• Islam was only popular in the cities with rural areas keeping their traditional animist beliefs

Songhai Conflicts with Morocco

• The Songhay Empire was invaded by fellow Islamic state of Morocco in the 16th century

• Morocco was in need of resources and money after fighting (and winning) wars against the Portuguese

• Morocco was on the verge of bankruptcy and was looking for money

• Morocco decided to invade the Songhay Empire because they believed gold mines were located there

• Broke laws by attacking a fellow Muslim state

• Songhay army outnumbered the Moroccans, but the Moroccans had superior gunpowder weapons and won the battle

• Goa, Timbuktu, and Djenne were sacked by the Moroccans seeking treasure

• Weakened the Songhay Empire which never recovered and eventually collapsed