The Oghuz Turks arrived in Anatolia (the peninsula of land between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean Sea) between about 1100 and 1300 AD. They came either as settlers from the Balkans or as frontier warriors extending the rule of Islam by jihad or holy war. After founding some local kingdoms in western Anatolia, they extended their domain into central Anatolia in the 14th century. The Ottomans, one of these states, gradually acquired power of the other Oghuz Turks and exchanged grants of land for military service. They built a formidable fighting force and a loyal military aristocracy. By 1402, the Ottomans controlled most of the Anatolian Peninsula and most of the Balkins as far north as the Danube River. Only the completely encircled pocket surrounding Constantinople, the capital of the ancient eastern Roman Empire remainded. Constantinople finally fell to Sultan Mehmed II, the "Conquerer" (1451-1481) in 1453 and was renamed Istanbul.
By 1512, the Ottoman Empire was secure in Anatolia and the Balkins. Under Selim I and Suleyman the Magnificent, the area under control was greatly expanded. Selim conquered the Levantine (the eastern cost of the Mediterranean including the modern states of Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Palestine and Jordan), Eqypt and much of North Africa. Suleyman conquered Iraq, Kurdistan, Georgia and most of the rest of Mesopotamia. Suleyman also pushed the Ottoman Empire to the western borders of Hungary and almost conquered Vienna, capital of Austria. By 1566, the Ottomans were the second most powerful state in the world (following that of China).
The founder of the Ottoman state, Mehmed, had broken the power of the tribal chieftains and replaced them with loyal servants of the crown. He created a 'Lawbook' and organized the religious scholars (ulama) under a single 'Sheikh of Islam'. A century later, Suleyman reconciled the Shari'a (the Kuran based set of civil laws) with customary law and regularized both the law and the bureaucracy.
The foundation of the Ottoman State was a standing army under the hereditary leadership of the Sultan. This army was supported by the economy of the empire. The ruling classes all were Muslims but religious diversity was tolerated much more than in the Europe of the same time. One of the nastier aspects of Ottoman rule was the practice of fratricide wherein the successful candidate of the royal family for the vacant position of Sultan murdered all of his brothers thus eliminating all legitimate heirs to the throne who were not his sons. The Grand Mufti or "Shakh of Islam" organized hierarchical branches of the ulama into an entire system of courts and judges. This was a second pillar of the state in addition to the army because it provided a more or less predictable system of justice to the citizens that enabled most of them to enjoy security in the tenure of their families, businesses and homes. This, in turn, allowed free enterprise and free trade within the empire to flourish. So, the Ottoman Empire of Suleyman the Magnificent rested upon the army, the ulama and the economy for peace, prosperity and security.
The Sultans kept control of the military by two means. The first was a careful registry of timar lands (hereditary feudal lands). The second was the presence of devshirme who were Christian and Jewish boys most of whom came from Balkan peasantry. They were converted to Islam at a very early age and were slaves owing allegiance only to the Sultan. They served at all levels from provincial officers to the grand vizier (overseer). The Janissaries were the elite infantry troops of the Empire. The slaves were forbidden to marry (at least until 1572) which further ensured loyalty and prevented hereditary claims on Imperial offices. So, the military for the most part were foreigners in the lands in which they were billeted, came from infidels or unbelievers of Islam and so were alienated from the populations in which they resided. This created a professional military force of immense power and loyalty to the Ottomans.
The Ottomans were cursed by nearly continual warfare on both their northern (European) frontier and their eastern frontier (the Safavid Rulers of Persia). Gradually, the Janissaries became independent of the monarchy and so disruptive. Due to changes in military technology, the cavalry based on the feudal nobility of the Oghuz Turkish homelands lost their military edge and the infantry increasingly armed with firearms became supreme. The Europeans gradually attained naval superiority in the 1500's and 1600's and this opened up a western front which disrupted Ottoman communication with north Africa and weakened their control over Egypt.
Gradually but steadily, the Janissaries inter-married with local leaders and wealthy individuals and their children and grandchildren began to identify with local regions --- exactly the threat feared by the Sultans when they created the Janissaries in the first place. Finally, corruption sapped the loyalty of both the population, the courts and the army and fatally weakened the state. Murad IV (1623 to 1676) ruled with an iron hand and introduced various reforms designed to halt the decay using two viziers (father and son) to reinvigorate the administration. In the end, the corruption proved deadly. The state weakened perceptibly when Murad died in 1676. During the height of the Empire, the population doubled which was fine as long as the economy was healthy. When the economy soured, this enlarged population created great pressures on the land. Estates began to be tax farmed. That is, in return for a fixed amount of taxes paid by the tax farmer to the state, the tax farmer was given a nearly free hand in raising as much revenue as possible from the population. This was legalized theft and led to the ruin of many business and to much misery.
Militarily, the immense pressures of fighting on three fronts caused the Emperors to increase the Janissary Force from 12,000 to 36,000 men. This drained state coffers and caused the Sultans to raise tax rates. The increase in taxes caused a decline in investments and a slowing down of economic growth. Adding to this misery, the region was flooded with gold and silver from the New World thanks to the Spanish and inflation was rampant. To combat the inflation, the Sultan discouraged exports and encouraged imports. Of course, this also led to ruin for many business firms throughout the Empire and tended to create monetary shortages in particular places. Gradually, all of this led to a decentralization of authority and a strengthening of local authorities who tried to save their regions from utter ruin. It became, in short, a real economic mess.
The Ottoman Empire in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was a world center of learning and culture. The architecture was magnificent under the leadership and example if Sinan. The greatest Ottoman poet, Nedim, was one of the great poets of all time. Christians and Jews were treated with tolerance and, often, kindness and acceptance. Jews in particular did very well in the Ottoman Empire and established many centers of culture. For example, the first publishing houses for Jewish texts. However, gradually, the position of both Christians and Jews even as the empire itself decayed. One of habits established by the Ottomans gradually spread to Europe and, from there, to the Americas was the coffee house. It was used in much the same ways as Starbucks is used today.
After the failure of the second siege of Vienna, the Ottomans were driven out of Hungary and out of the northern Balkans past Belgrade, the capital of Serbia. The Habsburgs of Austria delivered the next blow in 1718. After a brief revival of military fortunes under Mahmud I during 1730-1754, his successor suffered an immense defeat at the hand of the Russians and lost the Crimea as a result. After that, loss of control of the Black Sea, vital to the security of Anatolia itself became inevitable. Thereafter, the Ottomans gradually lost power and control until their final defeat in 1918 after having sided with Germany in World War I. Basically, it came down to the fact that the Ottomans could not sustain over century after century the implacable hatred of the Europeans and the Persians.
The Safavid dynasty began in the fourteenth century in Azerbaijan, the northwestern province of modern Iran. Over the next one hundred years, the Safavid Order evolved and new and militant Shi'ite ideology and were operating as border raiders on the Christians of the southern Caucasus mountains. The Safavid spiritual masters or Shaykh's of the order claimed to be descended from the seventh imam of the Twelver Shia. This made them the focus of Shi'ite religious adherence. This Turkish group gradually attracted adherents emerged victorious around 1501 under a 'hidden' imam called Isma'il. He extended Safavid control over the southern Caucasus, Azerbaijan, the Tigris-Euphrates River valley and all of western Iran by 1506. On their eastern frontier, the Safavids in league with Babur, the Timurid rule of Kabul, seized all of eastern Iran from the Oxus River to the Arabian Sea. In short, a country about the size of Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan put together.
Shah Isma'il enforced Shi'ite conformity on the Sunni minority in the new Empire. His efforts proved successful and greatly extended the Shi'ite version of Islam. Along with the fact that the Shi'ites of the Safavid Empire were entirely surrounded by the Sunni Muslim majorities of Ottomans, Arabs, Uzbeks and Mughals, this proselytizing effort also led to greater self-awareness of the Persians as a people. Isma'il's efforts to push his frontier westwards were frustrated by military defeats at the hands of the Ottoman Turks in 1514. This defeat let the Turks to expand their control over what is now modern Iraq and forced them to move the capital to Isfahan which is much further east than the old Azerbaijan capital of Tabriz.
Shah Abbas, Isma'il grandson became the greatest monarch of the Safavid Dynasty. He pushed the Ottoman Turks back out of Azerbaijan and Iraq and repulsed attacks from the Caucasus regaining territory there as well. He, like the Ottomans, recruited infantry from the multitude of tribes in the Caucasus and gradually reduced the role of his hereditary, feudal cavalry. Shah Abbas brought prosperity and long periods of peace to the territory of modern Iran.
Shah Abbas's son and grandson were weak rulers and the Safavid Empire gradually fell apart. The reasons were similar to those for the decline of the Ottomans. The first was the constant wars with the Ottomans to the west and Uzbeks to the north. The second was the consequent rapid clime in taxes that slowed economic growth and concentrated wealth in few hands. Finally, the growing conservatism of the Shi'ite ulama together with their increasing power and religious bigotry created great dissatisfaction among the citizens. Finally, revolts broke out that toppled the dynasty and led, eventually, to the rise of a Sunni tribal leader, Nadir Shah. Shah vigorously restored the old empire's boundaries but the effort bankrupted the state. After he died, Iran could not regain economic and political stability for a half a century. The Safavids, even more than the Ottoman Turks, supported an enormous expansion of culture and the arts. One of the outstanding features of this culture were the development of some the world's outstanding examples of craftsmanship in procelin, textiles and carpet design. Another outstanding achievement were the theological-philosophical school of Ishraqi. It brought together the Aristotelian and Platonic traditions of Greek logic together with the concept of transcendence and the noation of a 'realm of images'.
In the end, one the most lasting achievements of Safavid Persia was the distinctively Shi'ite ulama with its knowledge of the Quran and the traditions from Muhammed and the worldly embodiment of the hidden Imam in the forms of personal imams or leaders.
The three central empires of Islam in the three centuries between 1500 and 1800 were the Ottoman, the Safavid and the Mughal. All three of these empires were dominated by Turkish peoples but largely populated by non-Turkish people such as Arabs and Indians. North of these empires were lands occupied mostly by independent Turkish tribes who were divided into ethnic groups. Two of the dominant ethnic groups were Uzbeks and Chaghatays. Before 1500, the area while populated by Turks, was ruled by descendents of the eastern peoples of Mongolia (the most famous of whom was Genghis Khan). About 1428, a group of assorted clans of Turks and Mongols were unified and became known as Uzbeks. About 1500, Muhammed Shaybani invaded Transoxiana and founded a new dynasty that replaced the Timurid rule (the Timurs then moved southeast and conquered India). Muhammed's line continued to rule the peoples of the Transoxiana River basin while another line of the same peoples established a separate khanate of Khiva in western Turkestan. This was to last from 1512 to 1872 when it was conquered by the Russians.
The most significant of the other central Asian Islamic states was created by Chaghatay Turks. They were descendents of the invading hordes under Genghis Khan. Their history is complex and we do not have the time to discuss this group in much detail in this survey course. Basically, the Chaghatays ruled an area in eastern Turkestan between Tashkent in the west and the Turfan oasis in the east. They were border raiders of ghazis much like the early Ottoman (Oghuz) Turks.
The creation of Shi'ism in Persia created a nearly impenetrable barrier to contact between the main cultural currents of the heartland of Islam and the peoples of central Asian. While the Persians could and did prevent much political and social and economic interchange between Arabia, Turkey and central Asian, they could not conquer central Asia. Thus, these peoples ended up as the last in line to receive currents of change from the south. On the other hand, they could be reached by cultural change in India due to the barrier of the Himalayas nor could they be easily reached by Chinese culture due to the barrier of huge central deserts in the heartland of Eurasia. In a real sense, central Asia became the end of the earth in Eurasian terms.
From 1000 to 1500 AD, Islamic religion, culture and politics spread gradually over the sea routes of the Indian Ocean and the great archipelago of Indonesia. In Indonesia, small Muslim kingdoms appeared and spread by conquest inland. Before 1200, the sea routes to the spice islands were dominated by Hindu or Buddhist traders. The Muslims gradually replaced them and their client kingdoms over the next 300 years and, indeed, kept spreading inland for centuries thereafter.
The Portuguese finally attained their goal of reaching the East Indies in 1498. Backed by the rising power of European states, the Portuguese and, later, the Dutch gradually displaced Muslim sea power by force. However, the Europeans looked down upon the "natives" whereas the Muslim traders and ulama never kept aloof and rapidly intermarried and merged into the population while keeping their faith. So, the population became devotedly Muslim even as the Europeans dominated the sea lanes by brute force. In what is now Malaya and the island of Sumatra an Islamic state called Acheh arose in the 1500's and challenged the Portuguese. While Acheh could not conquer the better armed Portuguese neither could the Portuguese destroy them.
By the seventeenth century, The Dutch replaced the Portuguese and dominated the spice trade. The Dutch finally won control over and destroyed Acheh in a war that went on from 1873 to 1910.
The world of Islam gradually lost the ability to resist European military incursions largely because they did not undergo an industrial revolution. Even though science and crafts were very highly developed in the Islamic states, they did not connect these to engineering and mass industrial production. A critical weakness was that the Islamic states did not create a form of aggressive nationalism. Nor did they tie that imperialism to economic development and industrialization. Finally, the fatal blow was the nearly total loss of mastery at sea. The western European navies were unchallenged in the world until they were replaced by American dominance that began during World War II. We are the inheritors of those Europeans at sea.
However, Christianity prevailed only in the northern Philippines and most parts of the Balkans. Everywhere else, the people remained predominantly Muslim. Politically, the Islamic states remained profoundly conservative and were untouched during the three hundred years between 1500 and 1800 by the political currents that caused the American and French revolutions and rocked the political foundations of the rest of Europe in the 1800's.
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