The Muslim Empires Essay Example

an empire in the eastern Mediterranean. But the collapse of the Seljuk Turkic kingdom of Rum in eastern Anatolia in Asia Minor, after the invasion by the Mongols in 1243, opened the way for the Ottomans to seize power in their own right.

6. Following the Timurid invasions, the Ottoman Empire was restored under what leader? Mehmed I.

7. The Ottomans conquered Constantinople and ended the Byzantine Empire in what year? For seven weeks in the spring of 1453, the army of the Ottoman sultan, Mehmed II, “The Conqueror,” which numbered well over 100,000, assaulted the triple ring of land walls that had protected the city for centuries. The outnumbered forces of the defenders repulsed attack after attack until the sultan ordered his gunners to batter a portion of the walls with their massive siege cannon. Wave after wave of Ottoman troops struck at the gaps in the defenses that had been cut by the guns, quickly overwhelmed the defenders, and raced into the city to loot and pillage for the three days that Mehmed had promised as their reward for victory.

8. Describe Ottoman naval power. In the two centuries after the conquest of Constantinople, the armies of a succession of able Ottoman rulers extended the empire into Syria and Egypt and across north Africa, thus bringing under their rule the bulk of the Arab world. The empire also spread through the Balkans into Hungary in Europe and around the Black and Red seas. The Ottomans became a tough naval power in the Mediterranean Sea. Powerful Ottoman galley fleets made possible the capture of major island bases on Rhodes, Crete, and

Cyprus.

9. Who were the Janissaries? Military leaders played a dominant role in the Ottoman state, and the economy of the empire was geared to warfare and expansion. The Turkic cavalry, chiefly responsible for the Ottomans’ early conquests from the 13th to the 16th centuries, gradually developed into a warrior aristocracy. They were granted control over land and peasant producers in annexed areas for the support of their households and military retainers.

From the 15th century onward, members of the warrior class also vied with religious leaders and administrators drawn from other social groups for control of the expanding Ottoman bureaucracy. As the power of the warrior aristocracy shrank at the center, they built up regional and local bases of support. These inevitably competed with the sultans and the central bureaucracy for revenue and labor control. From the mid-15th century, the imperial armies were increasingly dominated by infantry divisions made up of troops called Janisssaries. Most of the Janissaries had been forcibly conscripted as teenage boys in conquered areas, such as the Balkans, where the majority of the population retained its Christian faith. Sometimes the boys’ parents willingly turned their sons over to the Ottoman recruiters because of the opportunities for advancement that came with service to the Ottoman sultans.

Though legally slaves, the youths were given fairly extensive schooling for the time and converted to Islam. Some of them went on to serve in the palace or bureaucracy, but most became Janissaries. Because the Janissaries controlled the artillery and firearms that became increasingly vital to Ottoman success in warfare with Christian and Muslim adversaries, they rapidly became the most powerful component

in the Ottoman military machine. Their growing importance was another factor contributing to the steady decline of the role of the aristocratic cavalry. Just like the mercenary forces that had earlier served the caliphs of Baghdad, the Janissaries eventually tried to translate military service into political influence. By the late 15th century they were deeply involved in court politics; by the mid-16th century they had the power to overthrow sultans and decide which one of a dying ruler’s sons would take the throne.

10. What permitted the Janissaries to gain a position of prominence in the Ottoman Empire? Please see number 9.

11. The head of the Ottoman central bureaucracy was the…From the 15th century onward, members of the warrior class also vied with religious leaders and administrators drawn from other social groups for control of the expanding Ottoman bureaucracy. As the power of the warrior aristocracy shrank at the center, they built up regional and local bases of support. These inevitably competed with the sultans and the central bureaucracy for revenue and labor control. Day-to-day administration was carried out by a large bureaucracy headed by a grand vizier. The vizier was the overall head of the imperial administration, and he often held more real power than the sultan himself. Early sultans took an active role in political decisions and often personally led their armies into battle.

12. What was the principle of succession within the Ottoman Empire? Like earlier Muslim dynasties, however, the Ottomans suffered greatly because they inherited Islamic principles of political succession that remained vague and contested. The existence of many talented and experienced claimants to the throne meant

constant danger of civil strife. The death of a sultan could, and increasingly did, lead to protracted warfare among his sons. Defeated claimants sometimes fled to the domains of Christian or Muslim rulers hostile to the Ottomans, thereby becoming rallying points for military campaigns against the son who had gained the throne.

13. One of the most beautiful of the Ottoman mosques of Constantinople was the…Suleymaniye. It was built at the behest of the most successful of the sultans, Suleyman the Magnificent.

14. What did the Ottomans do to Constantinople following its fall in 1453? Like the Byzantine Empire as a whole, Constantinople had fallen on hard times in the centuries before the Ottoman conquest in 1453. Soon after Mehmed II’s armies had captured and sacked the city, however, the Ottoman ruler set about restoring its ancient glory. H had the cathedral of Saint Sophia converted into one of the grandest mosques in the Islamic world, and new mosques and palaces were built throughout the city. This construction benefited greatly from architectural advances the Ottomans derived from the Byzantine heritage. Aqueducts weer built from the surrounding hills to supply the growing population with water, markets were reopened, and the city’s defenses were repaired. Each sultan who ruled in the centuries after Mehmed strove to be remembered for his efforts to beautify the capital. In addition to the mosques, sultans and powerful administrators built mansions, rest houses, religious schools, and hospitals throughout the city.

15. In what way were the artists in Constantinople similar to their counterparts in the West? Like their counterparts in medieval European towns, the artisans were organized into guilds.

Guild officers set craft standards, arbitrated disputes between their members, and provided financial assistance for needy members. They even arranged popular entertainments, often linked to religious festivals.

16. What was the chosen language of the Ottoman court? By the 17th century, the Turkish language of the Ottoman court had become the preferred mode of expression for poets and historians as well as the language of the Ottoman bureaucracy.

17. How did the Ottoman dynasty compare to other ruling families? Like earlier Muslim dynasties, however, the Ottomans suffered greatly because they inherited Islamic principles of political succession that remained vague and contested. The existence of many talented and experienced claimants to the throne meant constant danger of civil strife. The death of a sultan could, and increasingly did, lead to protracted warfare among his sons. Defeated claimants sometimes fled to the domains of Christian or Muslim rulers hostile to the Ottomans, thereby becoming rallying points for military campaigns against the son who had gained the throne.

18. What were the causes for the decline of the Ottoman Empire? From one perspective, the long Ottoman decline, which officials and court historians actively discussed from the mid-17th century onward, reflects the great strength of the institutions on which the empire was built. Despite internal revolts and periodic conflicts with such powerful foreign rivals as the Russian, Austrian, Spanish and Safavid empires, the Ottomans ruled into the 20th century. Yet the empire had reached the limits of its expansive power centuries earlier, and by the late 17th century the long retreat from Russia, Europe, and the Arab lands had begun. In a sense, some contraction was

inevitable. Even when it was at the height of its power, the empire was too large to be maintained, given the resource base that the Sultans had at their disposal and the primitive state of transport and communications in the preindustrial era. The Ottoman state had been built on war and steady territorial expansion. As possibilities for new conquests ran out and lands began to be lost to the Ottomans’ Christian and Muslim enemies, the means of maintaining the oversized bureaucracy and army shrank.

This decline in the effectiveness of the administrative system that held the empire together was signaled by the rampant growth of corruption among Ottoman officials. The venality and incompetence of state bureaucrats prompted regional and local officials to retain more revenue for their own purposes. Poorly regulated by the central government, many local officials, who also controlled large landed estates, squeezed the peasants and the laborers who worked their lands for additional taxes and services. At times the oppressive demands of local officials and estate owners sparked rebellions. Peasant uprisings and flight resulted in the abandonment of cultivated lands and in social dislocations that further drained the resources of the empire. From the 17th century onward, the forces that undermined the empire from below were compounded by growing problems at the center of imperial administration

. The early practice of assigning the royal princes administrative or military positions, to prepare them to rule, died out. Instead, possible successors to the throne were kept like hostages in special sections of the palace, where they stayed until one of them ascended the throne. The other princes and potential rivals were also,

in effect, imprisoned for life in the palace. Although it might have made the reigning sultan more secure, this solution to the problem of contested succession produced monarchs far less prepared to rule than those in the formative centuries of the dynasty.

The great warrior-emperors of the early Ottoman history gave way, with some important exceptions, to weak and indolent rulers, addicted to drink, drugs, and the pleasures of the harem. In many instances, the later sultans were little more than pawns in the power struggles of the viziers and other powerful officials with the leaders of the increasingly influential Janissary corps. Because the imperial apparatus had been geared to strong and absolute rulers, the decline in the caliber of Ottoman emperors had devastating effects on the empire as a whole. Civil strife increased, and the discipline and leadership of the armies on which the empire depended for survival deteriorated.

19. On the sea, the Ottoman galleys were eclipsed by Western power as early as…the 16th century.

20. What European nation first threatened the Ottoman monopoly of trade with East Africa and India? Portuguese.

21. What were the results of the Ottoman loss of monopoly over the Indian trade? Direct carriage of eastern goods to ports in the West implied loss of revenues in taxes in Muslim trading centers. The trading goods, particularly spices, that the Portuguese carried around Africa and back to Europe enriched the Ottomans’ Christian rivals. In addition, the fact that a large part of the flow of these product was no longer transmitted to European ports through Muslim tradin centers in the eastern Mediterranean meant that merchants

and tax collectors in the Ottoman Empire lost critical revenues.

22. Which group represented such extreme conservatism within the Ottoman Empire that reform was frustrated? The intense conservatism of powerful groups such as the Janissaries, and to a lesser extent the religious scholars, reinforced this fatal attitude. Through much of the 17th and 18th centuries, these groups blocked most of the Western-inspired innovations that reform-minded sultans and their advisors tried to introduce.

23. What were the differences between the declines of the Abbasids and the Ottomans? Part of the reason for Abbasid decline was that it wasn’t able to acquire new territory anymore, because it was a conquest state. However, this wasn’t one of the reasons for decline in the Abbasid empire. Also, the position of women declined in the Abbasid empire because of the belief that they had to be secluded, and did not in the Ottoman empire.

24. What were the differences between the origins of the Ottomans and the Safavids? The Ottomans were a mixture of Muslims and Christians, and the Safavids were Shi’a Muslims.

25. The center of the Safavid Empire was the modern-day state of…Iran.

26. The Safavid dynasty had its origins in the fourteenth century in a family devoted to what variant of Islam? Shiite/Sufi.

27. In what year was the first Safavid declared Shah? The first Safavid, Isma’il, was declared Shah in 1501.

28. Followers of the Safavids’ followers were called…“Red Heads”. They were called this because of their distinctive headgear.

29. The first Safavid Shah was…Isma’il, a Sufi commander who conquered the city of Tabriz in 1501.

30.

Why was the battle of Chaldiran so important? Following the Battle of Chaldiran, fought against the Ottoman Turks in 1514, the Safavid family consolidated their control over modern-day Iran and ruled until 1736.

31. The Safavid Empire reached its greatest extent of strength under Shah…Abbas the Great.

32. What was the status of the Turkic chiefs under the Safavid Shahs? The Safavid family was originally of Turkic stock, and early shahs such as Isma’il wrote in Turkish, unlike their Ottoman rivals, who preferred to write in Persian. After Chaldiran, however, Persian gradually replaced Turkish as the language of the court and bureaucracy.

33. After Chaldrian, the official language of the Safavid empire became…Persian. The Safavid family was originally of Turkic stock, and early shahs such as Isma’il wrote in Turkish, unlike their Ottoman rivals, who preferred to write in Persian. After Chaldiran, however, Persian gradually replaced Turkish as the language of the court and bureaucracy.

34. The capital of the Safavid Empire under Abbas the Great was… Isfahan was the capital of the Safavid under Abbas the Great. It was a planned city laid out according to shahos plan. It was an example of Safavid architecture.

35. How did the Safavids economy compare to that of the Ottomans? The early rulers of both the Ottoman and the Safavid empires encouraged the growth of handicraft production and trade in their realms. Both dynasties established imperial workshops where products ranging from miniature paintings and rugs to weapons and metal utensils were manufactured. The rulers of each empire lavishly patronized public works projects that provided reasonably well-paid work for engineers, stonemasons, carpenters, and

other sorts of artisans. Some of the more able emperors of these dynasties also pursued politics that they believed would increase both internal and international trade. In these endeavors, the Ottomans gained in the short run from the fact that large-scale traders in their empire often were from minority groups, such as Christians and Jews, who had extensive contacts with overseas traders that the bazaar merchants of the Safavid realm normally lacked. Although Safavid cooperation with Portuguese traders remedied this shortening to some extent, the Safavid economy remained much more constricted, less market oriented, and more technically backward than that of their Ottoman rivals.

36. What led to the rapid demise of the Safavid Empire? Abbas I, fearing plots, had removed all suitable heirs. The succession of a weak grandson began a process of dynastic decline. Internal strife and foreign invasions shook the state. In 1772, Isfahan fell to Afghani invaders. An adventurer, Nadir Khan Afshar, emerged from the following turmoil as shah in 1736, but his dynasty and its successors were unable to restore imperial authority.

37. The immediate successor of the Safavid dynasty in Persia was…Nadir Khan Afshar

38. Who was the founder of the Mughal dynasty? The founder of the Mughal dynasty was Babur.

39. The first Mughal emperor successfully defeated the Muslim ruler of the Lodi dynasty in 1526 at the battle of…Panipat.

40. Describe the accomplishments/life of Babur. Babur was the founder of the Mughal dynasty in India. He descended from Turkic warriors. In 1530 Babur fist led invasions of India. After his father’s death in 1498, Babur, then only a boy of 16, was

thrown into a fierce struggle with the Ozbeg tribes for control of his ancestral realm. In 1526, Babur – by then a seasoned military commander – entered India at the head of an experienced and well-organized army. At Panipat, north of Delhi, his army of 12,000 met the huge force of more than 100,000 sent to crush it by the last ruler of the Muslim Lodi dynasty, which then ruled much of northern India.

Using gun carts, movable artillery, and cavalry tactics similar to those that had brought the Ottomans victory at Chaldiran, Babur routed the Lodi army. In addition to the superior firepower and mobility of his forces, their victory owed a great deal to the tactic of frightening the hundreds of war elephants that led the Lodi army into battle. The elephants stampeded, trampling thousands of Lodi infantrymen of sending them into flight. A year later, Babur’s forces, again vastly outnumbered, defeated a confederation of Hindu warrior-kings at Khanua, a small village near Agra. Within two years, he had conquered large portions of the Indus and Ganges plains and established a dynasty that would last over 300 years.