Islamic Empires
Interactive Map –
Islamic Empires
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http://highered.mcgrawhill.com/sites/0072957549/student_view0/chapter2
8/interactive_map_quiz.html
CCOT – Your Task
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OTTOMAN EMPIRE (1300 – 1750)
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MUGHAL EMPIRE (1530 – 1750)
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Describe at beginning of time period
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Identify three changes and ANALYZE these changes – why did this
change occur and how did that impact society? (make sure to
include dates for periodization)
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Identify at least one continuity
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Describe at end of time period
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Attempt a thesis statement
Islamic Gunpowder Empires:
Ottoman, Safavid and Mughal
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History of Ottoman Empire actually extends before 1450
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As the Mongol Empire fell, the Muslim Ottoman Empire (founded by
Osman Bey) rose in Anatolia to unify the region and challenge the
Byzantine Empire
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However, collapse of the Byzantine Empire in 1453 makes 1450 a good
starting point for the Islamic Empires
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Ottomans made Constantinople their capital city, renamed it Istanbul and
converted cathedrals (i.e. Hagia Sophia) into mosques
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Christians and Jews were allowed to practice their religions
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Within 100 years, the Ottomans conquered most of the regions previously
held by the ancient Roman Empire, except for Italy westward
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As the empire grew, so did religious persecution
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To conquer large territories, Ottomans used Janissaries*
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Much of this expansion occurred during the reign of Selim I, who
came to power in 1512
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Claimed that he was the rightful heir to Islamic tradition under the
Arab caliphs
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Eight years later, Suleiman I (the Magnificent) rose to power and built
up the Ottoman military and encouraged the development of the arts
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Experienced a golden age under his reign (1520 – 1566)
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Ottomans pushed through Hungary and tried to move into Austria
(taking advantage of the weakening of the Roman Empire during
the Protestant Reformation)
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In 1529, the empire laid siege on Vienna, a significant cultural center
for Europe
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If they had been successful here, the Turks could have easily moved
into the unstable Holy Roman Empire
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Although Austrian princes and the Ottomans battled continually for
the next century, Vienna was as far as the Ottomans got
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Still, the Ottoman Empire lasted until 1922, making it one of the
world’s most significant empires.
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It greatly expanded the reach of Islam, and kept the powers of
Eastern Europe unstable
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Impact? Western European powers were allowed to dominate.
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Western Europeans were able to circumnavigate their Eastern
neighbors and trade directly with India, China and their American
colonies
Safavids
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Chief rivals of the Ottomans were their eastern neighbors, the
Safavids
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Savafids were a centralized state based on military conquest and
dominated by Shia Islam
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Location between the Ottomans and the Mughals, in what is
modern-day Iran resulted in:
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Contentious relationships between the Muslim states
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Alliances with Europeans against the Ottomans
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Continuation of the rift between the Sunni and Shia sects
Mughals
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In 1526, Babur, a leader who claimed to be descended from Genghis
Khan but was very much Muslim, invaded northern India and
defeated the Delhi Sultanate (also Muslim)
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Babur established a new empire, which dominated the Indian
subcontinent for the next 300 years
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Mughal Empire united northern and southern India for the first time
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Hinduism had been firmly established in southern India
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Babur’s grandson, Akbar, who ruled from 1556-1605 was able to
unify much of India by governing under a policy of religious
toleration
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Eliminated the jizya, the head tax on Hindus and tried to improve the
position of women by attempting to eliminate sati, the practice in which
high-caste Hindu women would thrown themselves on their husbands’
funeral pyres
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Akbar even married a Hindu woman and accepted Hindus into
government positions
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For nearly 100 years, Hindus and Muslims lived side-by-side and become
more geographically mixed
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Result: golden age of art, architecture and thought
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Under Shah Jahan, Akbar’s grandson, the Taj Mahal was built (as a
memorial to his favorite wife, Mumtaz Mahal)
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However, after Akbar, two developments forever changed India
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First – religious toleration ended
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Muslim government reinstated the jizya and Hindu temples were
destroyed.
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By 1700, Muslims began to persecute Hindus and Hindus were organizing
against her Muslim rulers and neighbors
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Second – arrival of Europeans
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In the early 17th Century, the Portuguese and British were fighting each
other for Indian Ocean trade routes
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In the beginning, Portugal had established trade with the city of Goa,
where it also sent Christian missionaries
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By 1661, the British East India Company had control of trade in
Bombay
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By 1691, the British founded Calcutta as a trading outpost
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Mughal emperors regarded Europeans as relatively harmless and
tolerated trade
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However, the Industrial Revolution turned Britain into an imperial
superpower
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Indians had little idea that within a century, a British woman named
Victoria would be crowned Empress of India
Gunpowder Empires
Reading
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Pages 484-485 Stearns Book
Ottoman Empire Map
Mughal India Map
Suleyman & Akbar
Comparison
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Suleyman – McKay p. 683-686
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Akbar – McKay p. 692-695
Suleyman
Both
Akbar
-Jitza toward Orthodox
Christians
-The Magnificent
-Court Grandeur
-$80 million revenues
-Water systems
-Golden Age - Creativity
in carpet weaving,
ceramics, architecture,
poetry, geography, math,
medicine, astronomy
-Sinan (architecture)
-Medicine
-Code of laws
-Religious Toleration
-Akbar staffed his
bureaucracy with
Muslim and nonMuslim well trained
officials (Hindu, Spanish
Jesuit)
-Expanded Empire
-Golden Age
-Jizya repealed for
Hindus
-The Great
-Royal mint
-Persian Language
-24,000 books in his
library
-Rights of women
Rights of Women
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Lady Montague (British woman in the Ottoman
Empire) – from Akbar reading (p. 685-686)
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How did she describe the use of the veil?
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What is her POV?
Culture Shock Reading
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McKay – p. 704
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1. What does the document reveal about the Jesuits’
relations with Akbar?
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2. Consider the Jesuits’ reactions to the Hindu
practice of suttee Should they have interfered?
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3. Contrast the Jesuits’ reaction to suttee and to the
transvestite prostitutes.
Decline of the Ottoman
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Ottoman Empire had reached its height in the 1500s
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By 1512, was the leading naval power in the Mediterranean regions
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Conquered Syria in 1516 and Egypt in 1517
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1526 – conquered much of Hungary in the Battle of Mohaca
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After this battle, European powers feared the Turks would overrun
Europe
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However, the Turks failed to capture Vienna in 1683
Austrian Increase Map
Ottoman Decline Map
Causes for the Decline
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Too large to maintain
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Had been built upon war and adding territory but when new lands
were unavailable, they had less of a tax base (no one else will have
the wealth of Suleyman) but they didn’t reduce the bureaucracy or
army as a result
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Squeezed the peasants for more taxes and they rebelled
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Corruption of officials
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Switch from princes who were given experience in ruling to possible
successors kept in confinement, who spent their time with drinking,
drugs and sex
The Twentieth Wife Reading
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Are all the women in the harem “equal” in power? If not, how is
power distributed?
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What role do the eunichs, especially Hoshiyar Khan, play?
Cage System Reading
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Originally, the Ottoman ruler had been a tribal chief
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As the Ottomans began to build a complex state, the sultan emerged
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Sultan became padishah (emperor, “Shadow of the Provider”) after
conquest of Constantinople and the Balkans
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After the death of Suleyman, the quality of rulers declined
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Due, in part, to the manner of succession to the throne (could lead
to bloody struggles between rival brothers)
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Mehmet II decreed the new sultan could execute his brothers in the
interest of political stability
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When Mehmet III took the throne in 1595, all 19 of his brothers
were strangled
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After Ahmed (Mehmet III’s successor), the practice stopped and the
“cage system” began
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All Ottoman princes were kept in a “cage” within the palace along
with their entourage
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Princes emerged from the cage once – to reign or to die
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Few sultans raised in this system were capable, since they had no
prior experience in political office
They did not keep pace with European
advancements:
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Failed to recognize that Europeans had much of worth to offer/were a
threat (when has this happened before??)
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Portuguese (followed by Dutch, British, French…) trade in the Indian
Ocean bypassed the Ottoman controlled Silk Roads and Arab ports
reducing profits
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Fell behind the Europeans in the critical art of waging war:
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Relied on older military technology (siege guns: cannons) but the
Europeans advanced beyond this to handguns, etc.
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In areas that did have advanced weaponry, they lacked the transportation
and communication infrastructure to get it where they needed it QUICKLY
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“Gunpowder Empires” shifted global power from China, Japan, Ottoman,
to Europeans!
Capitulations
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1536+ French merchants (later British, Austria…) could go
anywhere buying and selling in the empire
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Europe flooded the empire with silver (from the Americas) to buy
raw materials (wheat, wool, copper, precious metals) causing
inflation AND leaving too few of these materials available for
Ottoman craft industries
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Europe sold finished goods back to the Turks, contributing to the
financial crisis
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By the mid-1800s, the empire is nicknamed: “the sick man of
Europe” to its end at the conclusion of WWI
Capitulations - From McKay
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More than any other single factor, a series of agreements known as capitulations,
which the Ottoman government signed with European powers, contributed to the
Ottoman decline. A trade compact signed in 1536 and renewed in 1569 virtually
exempted French merchants from Ottoman law and allowed them to travel and
buy and sell throughout the sultan’s dominions and to pay low customs duties on
French imports and exports. In 1590, in spite of strong French opposition, a
group of English merchants gained the right to trade in Ottoman territory in
return for supplying the sultan with iron, steel, brass, and tin for his war with
Persia. In 1615, as part of a twenty-year peace treaty, the capitulation rights
already given to French and English businessmen were extended to the
Hapsburgs. These capitulations progressively gave European merchants an
economic stranglehold on Ottoman trade and commerce. In the nineteenth
century, the Ottoman empire was beset by the loss of territory, the pressures of
European capitalistic imperialism, and unresolved internal problems; Tsar
Nicholas I of Russia (1825-1855) called it “the sick man of Europe.”