The Ottoman
Empire!
Common Characteristics
of ALL Muslim Empires
• land empires oriented toward military
conquest
• inward orientation (trading within
cultural areas)
• dominant religion – Islam
• multilinguistic and multicultural
• traditional military reliance on cavalry
Factors in Rise of
Ottoman Empire
• control of link between Europe and
Asia on the Dardanelles strait
• military power
-Janissaries
• growth primarily by land conquest
Key Ottoman Rulers
• Osman(1258-1324) and his descendants
-founder of the Ottoman dynasty
-Turkish leader
-His descendants built the Ottoman Empire.
• Mehmet II (the Conqueror)(1451-81)
-Constantinople (Istanbul)
• Suleyman (the Magnificent) (1520-66)
Famous Leaders
• Osman
Suleiman the Mag
Mehmet II
Progress in the Rise and
Expansion of the Ottoman
Empire
• crystallization of the empire at the end of the 13th century in
a crucible of Mongol warfare
• expansion into southeastern Europe, particularly the Balkans
and Greece
• conquest of Constantinople in 1453
• Selim I’s expansion into northern Africa and against the Safavid
Empire
• high point of the empire during the reign of Suleyman the
Magnificent (r. 1520-66)
• empire’s extension into: southern and eastern Europe, the
Middle East, and northern Africa
• Ottoman efforts to dominate the Mediterranean Sea
• unsuccessful Ottoman sieges of Vienna (Central Europe) in
1529 and 1683
Factors in the Decline
of the Ottoman Empire
• slow decline from 1566 (loss of
territory)
• series of incompetent sultans
• corrupt members of elite (Janissaries)
• Western ideas and customs
Characteristics of the
Safavid Empire
• Persian cultural foundation (present
day Iran)
• predominantly Shi’ite (descendants of
Muhammad rule)
Key Events in the Rise
and Fall of the Empire
• empire formed by Shah Ismail in 1501
• 1514 Battle of Chaldiran – inconclusive
Ottoman victory
• collapsed in 1722 in the face of
invading Afghans
• briefly revived by Nader Shah(r. 173647), but too much pressure from
outside forces and internal forces.
Key Rulers of the Safavid
Empire
• Shah Ismail (r. 1501-1524)
-Kurdish, Iranian, and Greek ancestry
-hereditary leader of a militant Sufi
-brotherhood called Safaviya
• Shah Abbas "the Great"(1588-1629)
-Persian version of Suleyman
-built Persia’s first standing army
-regained territory formerly lost to the
Ottoman Empire
-after Abbas’s rule, Empire collapses
(invading Afghan tribesmen)