Islamic Empires

Interactive Map – Interactive Map – Islamic EmpiresIslamic Empires

http://highered.mcgraw-hill.com/sites/0072957549/student_view0/chapter28/interactive_map_quiz.html

CCOT – Your TaskCCOT – Your Task OTTOMAN EMPIRE (1300 – 1750)

MUGHAL EMPIRE (1530 – 1750)

Describe at beginning of time period

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)

Identify at least one continuity

Describe at end of time period

Attempt a thesis statement

Islamic Gunpowder Empires: Islamic Gunpowder Empires: Ottoman, Safavid and MughalOttoman, Safavid and Mughal

History of Ottoman Empire actually extends before 1450

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

However, collapse of the Byzantine Empire in 1453 makes 1450 a good starting point for the Islamic Empires

Ottomans made Constantinople their capital city, renamed it Istanbul and converted cathedrals (i.e. Hagia Sophia) into mosques

Christians and Jews were allowed to practice their religions

Within 100 years, the Ottomans conquered most of the regions previously held by the ancient Roman Empire, except for Italy westward

As the empire grew, so did religious persecution

To conquer large territories, Ottomans used Janissaries*

Much of this expansion occurred during the reign of Selim I, who came to power in 1512

Claimed that he was the rightful heir to Islamic tradition under the Arab caliphs

Eight years later, Suleiman I (the Magnificent) rose to power and built up the Ottoman military and encouraged the development of the arts

Experienced a golden age under his reign (1520 – 1566)

Ottomans pushed through Hungary and tried to move into Austria (taking advantage of the weakening of the Roman Empire during the Protestant Reformation)

In 1529, the empire laid siege on Vienna, a significant cultural center for Europe

If they had been successful here, the Turks could have easily moved into the unstable Holy Roman Empire

Although Austrian princes and the Ottomans battled continually for the next century, Vienna was as far as the Ottomans got

Still, the Ottoman Empire lasted until 1922, making it one of the world’s most significant empires.

It greatly expanded the reach of Islam, and kept the powers of Eastern Europe unstable

Impact? Western European powers were allowed to dominate.

Western Europeans were able to circumnavigate their Eastern neighbors and trade directly with India, China and their American colonies

SafavidsSafavids Chief rivals of the Ottomans were their eastern

neighbors, the Safavids

Savafids were a centralized state based on military conquest and dominated by Shia Islam

Location between the Ottomans and the Mughals, in what is modern-day Iran resulted in:

Contentious relationships between the Muslim states

Alliances with Europeans against the Ottomans

Continuation of the rift between the Sunni and Shia sects

MughalsMughals 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)

Babur established a new empire, which dominated the Indian subcontinent for the next 300 years

Mughal Empire united northern and southern India for the first time

Hinduism had been firmly established in southern India

Babur’s grandson, Akbar, who ruled from 1556-1605 was able to unify much of India by governing under a policy of religious toleration

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

Akbar even married a Hindu woman and accepted Hindus into government positions

For nearly 100 years, Hindus and Muslims lived side-by-side and become more geographically mixed

Result: golden age of art, architecture and thought

Under Shah Jahan, Akbar’s grandson, the Taj Mahal was built (as a memorial to his favorite wife, Mumtaz Mahal)

However, after Akbar, two developments forever changed India

First – religious toleration ended

Muslim government reinstated the jizya and Hindu temples were destroyed.

By 1700, Muslims began to persecute Hindus and Hindus were organizing against her Muslim rulers and neighbors

Second – arrival of Europeans

In the early 17th Century, the Portuguese and British were fighting each other for Indian Ocean trade routes

In the beginning, Portugal had established trade with the city of Goa, where it also sent Christian missionaries

By 1661, the British East India Company had control of trade in Bombay

By 1691, the British founded Calcutta as a trading outpost

Mughal emperors regarded Europeans as relatively harmless and tolerated trade

However, the Industrial Revolution turned Britain into an imperial superpower

Indians had little idea that within a century, a British woman named Victoria would be crowned Empress of India

Gunpowder Empires Gunpowder Empires ReadingReading

Pages 484-485 Stearns Book

Ottoman Empire MapOttoman Empire Map

Mughal India MapMughal India Map

Suleyman & Akbar Suleyman & Akbar ComparisonComparison

Suleyman – McKay p. 683-686

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 non-Muslim 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 WomenRights of Women Lady Montague (British woman in the

Ottoman Empire) – from Akbar reading (p. 685-686)

How did she describe the use of the veil?

What is her POV?

Culture Shock ReadingCulture Shock Reading McKay – p. 704

1. What does the document reveal about the Jesuits’ relations with Akbar?

2. Consider the Jesuits’ reactions to the Hindu practice of suttee Should they have interfered?

3. Contrast the Jesuits’ reaction to suttee and to the transvestite prostitutes.

Decline of the Decline of the OttomanOttoman

Ottoman Empire had reached its height in the 1500s

By 1512, was the leading naval power in the Mediterranean regions

Conquered Syria in 1516 and Egypt in 1517

1526 – conquered much of Hungary in the Battle of Mohaca

After this battle, European powers feared the Turks would overrun Europe

However, the Turks failed to capture Vienna in 1683

Austrian Increase MapAustrian Increase Map

Ottoman Decline MapOttoman Decline Map

Causes for the DeclineCauses for the Decline Too large to maintain

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

Squeezed the peasants for more taxes and they rebelled

Corruption of officials

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 The Twentieth Wife ReadingReading

Are all the women in the harem “equal” in power? If not, how is power distributed?

What role do the eunichs, especially Hoshiyar Khan, play?

Cage System ReadingCage System Reading Originally, the Ottoman ruler had been a tribal chief

As the Ottomans began to build a complex state, the sultan emerged

Sultan became padishah (emperor, “Shadow of the Provider”) after conquest of Constantinople and the Balkans

After the death of Suleyman, the quality of rulers declined

Due, in part, to the manner of succession to the throne (could lead to bloody struggles between rival brothers)

Mehmet II decreed the new sultan could execute his brothers in the interest of political stability

When Mehmet III took the throne in 1595, all 19 of his brothers were strangled

After Ahmed (Mehmet III’s successor), the practice stopped and the “cage system” began

All Ottoman princes were kept in a “cage” within the palace along with their entourage

Princes emerged from the cage once – to reign or to die

Few sultans raised in this system were capable, since they had no prior experience in political office

They did not keep pace with They did not keep pace with

European advancements:European advancements: Failed to recognize that Europeans had much of worth to

offer/were a threat (when has this happened before??)

Portuguese (followed by Dutch, British, French…) trade in the Indian Ocean bypassed the Ottoman controlled Silk Roads and Arab ports reducing profits

Fell behind the Europeans in the critical art of waging war: Relied on older military technology (siege guns: cannons) but

the Europeans advanced beyond this to handguns, etc. In areas that did have advanced weaponry, they lacked the

transportation and communication infrastructure to get it where they needed it QUICKLY

“Gunpowder Empires” shifted global power from China, Japan, Ottoman, to Europeans!

CapitulationsCapitulations 1536+ French merchants (later British, Austria…) could

go anywhere buying and selling in the empire

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

Europe sold finished goods back to the Turks, contributing to the financial crisis

By the mid-1800s, the empire is nicknamed: “the sick man of Europe” to its end at the conclusion of WWI

Capitulations - From Capitulations - From McKayMcKay

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.”