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Islamic Empires
Theme: The historical origins of today’s
Islamic world
Lesson 14
Ottoman Empire
• Begun by Osman Bey in 1289
• Osman and his followers above
all sought to become ghazi
– “the instrument of the religion of
Allah, a servant of God who
purifies the earth from the filth of
polytheism; the Ghazi is the sword
of God, he is the protector and the
refuge of the believers. If he
becomes a martyr in the ways of
God, do not believe that he has
died– he lives in beatitude with
Allah, he has eternal life”
• Ahmadi
Ottoman Empire
• The Ottoman’s location on the borders of the Byzantine
Empire gave them ample opportunity for holy war
Mehmed II
• Ruled the Ottoman Empire
from 1451 to 1481
• In 1453, he toppled the
Byzantine Empire,
capturing Constantinople,
renaming it Istanbul, and
making it the new Ottoman
capital
• Expanded the empire to
become the ruler of “two
lands” (Europe and Asia)
and “two seas” (the
Mediterranean and the
Black)
Scene from the battle
defending Constantinople
from a 1499 painting
Ottoman Empire under Mehmed II
Suleyman the Magnificent
• Reigned from 1520 to
1566 and continued
the expansion
• Conquered Baghdad
in 1534
• Like the other
Ottomans, Suleyman
was a Sunni
Turkey
• Turkey is about 97% Moslem and about 80%
of these Moslems are Sunni
Iraq
• Under Saddam
Hussein, Iraq was 6065% Shia and 3237% Sunni but Sunnis
dominated the
government and
economy
The Sunni Triangle
Safavid Empire
• Founded by Shah Ismail in
1501 and lasted until 1722
• Shah Ismail reigned to 1524
and proclaimed his realm’s
official religion would be
Shiism
– Would impose Shiism by
force if necessary over the
formerly Sunni population
• Seized control of the Iranian
plateau and centered his
empire around the capital of
Istahan
Iran
Today Iran is 89% Shia and 9% Sunni
Differences Between Shia and
Sunni
• Shiites
– About 15% of all
Muslims
– Islam’s leader should
be a descendant of
Mohammad
– Qualified religious
leaders have the
authority to interpret
the sharia (Islamic
law)
• Sunnis
– About 85% of all
Muslims
– Leaders should be
chosen through ijma,
or consensus
– The sharia was
codified and closed by
the 10th century
Selim the Grim
• The Sunni Ottomans
under Selim the Grim
(reigned 1512-1520)
detested the Shiite
Safavids and
launched a full-scale
invasion of Safavid
territory
Battle of Chaldiran
• The critical battle in
this campaign was the
battle of Chaldiran in
1514
• The Ottomans won
and temporarily
occupied the Safavid
capital of Tabriz but
could not completely
destroy the Safavid
state
• The Ottomans and
Safavids continued to
fight intermittingly for
the next two centuries
Modern Iran
• The US helped bring Shah Mohammed
Reza Pahlavi to power in 1953
• Iran’s Shia Moslems despised the Shah’s
secular rule and western influence
• In 1979 revolutionaries led by Ayatollah
Khomeini seized power
• Shia militants captured 69 US hostages at
the US Embassy in Tehran, 55 of which
remained captive until 1981
Alternatives in Iran
Shah Mohammed
Reza Pahlavi and
Empress Farah
Ayatollah Khomeini:
“[Americans] are the
great Satan, the
wounded snake.”
Revolution
US Hostages in Iran, 1980
Failed Rescue Attempt
Iraq
• Saddam Hussein became president of Iraq
in 1979
– Sunnis held power
• Iraq saw the revolution in Iran as an
opportunity to invade
• The Iran-Iraq War lasted from 1980 to
1988 and killed as many as one million
soldiers
Iran-Iraq War
• Saddam used
poisonous gas
against Iraqi
Kurds who he
considered
sympathetic
toward Iran
Back to the Ottomans….
• By the late 17th Century the Ottoman
expansion had reached its limits
– The Ottomans had neglected military training
and technological advances and fell behind
the European armies in strategy, tactics,
weapons, and training
– They suffered a series of military defeats
Ottoman Decline
• The loss of military power translated to
declining effectiveness of the central
government
• By the early 19th Century, semiindependent governors and local notables
became increasingly autonomous
Ottoman Decline
• The Ottoman government maintained its
authority in Anatolia and Iraq, but it lost
territory elsewhere
– Russia gained territory in the Caucasus and
central Asia
– Austria gained territory on the western frontier
– After an unsuccessful invasion by the French,
Egypt became an essentially autonomous
region within the Ottoman Empire under the
rule of Muhammad Ali
Ottoman Decline
• In addition to military and territorial losses, the
Ottomans suffered economically as merchants
began to circumvent Ottoman intermediaries
and trade directly with their counterparts in India
and China
• The Ottoman Empire had little to export and
became heavily dependent on foreign loans
• “Capitulation”– agreements exempting European
visitors from Ottoman law and providing
European powers the right to exercise
jurisdiction over their own citizens in Ottoman
territory– threatened Ottoman sovereignty
“The Sick Man of Europe”
• “We have on
our hands a
sick man, a
very sick
man.”
– Tsar
Nicholas I
of Russia,
1853
Mahmud II
• Reigned from 1808 to 1839 and
launched a reform program
designed to restore the traditional
Ottoman military
• The elite and powerful
Janissaries opposed the reforms,
but Mahmud massacred them
• He remodeled his institutions,
especially his military, along
European lines
– European-style uniforms
– European tactics and
weaponry
– European education
Janissaries
Other Reforms of Mahmud
• Created a system of secondary education for
boys to facilitate the transition from mosque
schools to newly established scientific, technical,
and military academies
• Established European style ministries, built new
roads and telegraph lines, and started a postal
service
• Transferred authority to the sultan from
traditional elites by
– Taxing rural landlords
– Abolishing the system of military land grants
– Undermining the ulama (the Islamic leadership)
Ottoman Empire under Mahmud II
• The empire
was smaller,
but it was more
consolidated
and powerful
than it had
been since the
early 17th
Century
Tanzimat
• The tempo of reform increased after
Mahmud during the Tanzimat
(“reorganization”) era from 1839-1876
• Reformers drew inspiration from the
Enlightenment thought and the
constitutional foundations of western
European states
• Principal target was the army, but other
reforms involved law and education
Tanzimat
• The legal reforms were designed to make Ottoman law
acceptable to Europeans so the Ottomans could have
the capitulations lifted and recover sovereignty
• Safeguarded the rights of subjects through guaranteed
public trials, rights of privacy, and equality before the law
• Educational reforms resulted in a complete system of
primary, secondary, and university education under the
supervision of the state ministry of education
• Legal and educational reforms both undermined the
ulama and there was opposition from religious
conservatives and others
Abd al-Hamid II
• An opposition group
of radical dissidents
from the Ottoman
bureaucracy staged a
coup in 1876 and
installed Abd alHamid II as sultan
• Abd al-Hamid
imposed a despotic
regime and generated
much opposition
Young Turks
• The Ottoman Society for Union and
Progress (better known as the Young
Turks) was founded in 1889 by exiled
Ottomans
• In 1908 they inspired an army coup and in
1909 they dethroned Abd al-Hamid and
established a puppet sultan
– Ottoman sultans would now reign but not rule
Agenda of the Young Turks
• Universal suffrage
• Equality before the
law
• Freedom of religion
• Free public education
• Secularization of the
state
• Emancipation of
women
Enver Pasha, one of
the army leaders of
the Young Turks
Still the Sick Man
• The Young Turks sought to maintain Turkish
hegemony within the larger Ottoman Empire
which caused opposition from subject peoples
outside the Anatolian heartland such as in Syria
and Iraq
• The Ottoman Empire was crumbling and
survived principally because the European
powers could not decide how to dispose of it
without upsetting the European balance of
power
World War I
• In 1914, the
Ottomans became
aligned with the
Central Powers
(Germany and
Austria-Hungary)
• Successfully fended
off the Allied landing
at Gallipoli in 1915
and Mesopotamia in
1916, but then began
retreating on all fronts
– Mustafa Kemal
emerged as a great
war hero
World War I
• Arabs, assisted by the
British and T. E.
Lawrence (“Lawrence
of Arabia”), revolted
against Turkish rule in
Syria, Palestine, and
Arabia
• The Central Powers
sued for peace in
November 1918
Treaty of Sevres (1920) and Treaty
of Lausanne (1923)
• The Treaty of Sevres effectively dissolved
the Ottoman Empire, calling for the
surrender of Ottoman Balkan and Arab
provinces and the occupation of eastern
and southern Anatolia by foreign powers
• Turks led by wartime hero Mustafa Kemal
successfully resisted the occupation
• The Republic of Turkey was officially
recognized by the Treaty of Lausanne
Mustafa Kemal
• Mustafa Kemal
served as
president of Turkey
for 15 years until
his death in 1938
• Known as Ataturk
or “Father Turk”
• “Westernized”
Turkey
Turkey under Ataturk
• New ideology of Kemalism stressed
– the republican form of government
representing the power of the electorate,
– secular administration,
– nationalism,
– mixed economy with state participation in
many of the vital sectors,
– the process of parliamentary and
participatory democracy,
– modernization.
Legacy of Ataturk
• Turkey became the first Moslem nation to
become a republic
• Left Turkey with a divided identity —
Europeanized but not quite European,
alienated from the Islamic world but still a
Muslim country
• The Turkish military still sees itself as the
guardian of Turkish independence,
nationalism, and secularism
Turkey at the Crossroads
Europe
Middle East
Next
• Building of American States