Chapter 2: The Muslim World Expands

The Ottoman Empire ExpandsBy 1300 the Byzantine Empire was in

decline and the Mongols had destroyed the Seljuk kingdom of Rum.

Anatolia was occupied mostly by descendants of nomadic Turks.

i.They were militaristic and had a history of invading other countriesii.They weren’t united by any central power

Many Anatolian Turks saw themselves as Ghazis

Raided the territories of people who lived on the frontiers of the Byzantine Empire

A ghazi is a warrior for Islam

They formed military societies under the leadership of an emir and followed a strict Islamic code of conduct.

Cannons could destroy even heavily walled cities

Osman was the most successful ghaziWesterners called him Othman and called his followers Ottomans

He built a small Muslim state in Anatolia between 1300 and 1326

He was successful largely because of his use of gunpowder and musket carrying foot soldiers instead of archers on horseback

Also used cannon as a means of attack

The second Ottoman was Orkhan I, Osman’s son.

He gave himself the title Sultan or “one with power”

He captured Adrianople in 1361 This was the 2nd most important city in the Byzantine Empire

Muslims in these areas were required to serve in the Turkish armies and make the contributions required by their faith

Non Muslims were exempted from military service and had to pay a small tax called the Jizyah

Timur the LameAlso known as Tamerlane

Halted Ottoman expansion by crushing the Ottomans at the Battle of Ankara in 1402

He was from Samarkand.

He burned Baghdad to the ground.

He was known for making pyramids of human skulls outside the areas he conquered so people would know his strength

As soon as Timur the lame turned his attention to China, the sons of the Ottoman sultan went to war with each other

Mehmed I

He won and took the throne

His son Murad II defeated the Venetians, invaded Hungary and defeated the Italian Crusaders in the Balkans

Murad II

Mehmed IIAlso known as Mehmed the Conqueror

took power in 1451

Mehmed attacked Constantinople in 1453 with cannons but they were kept to one side of the attack by a chain across the Golden Horn from the Bosporus to the Sea of Marmara

Rebuilt and renamed the city Istanbul

Mehmed dragged his ships over a hill to the harbor and now could attack Constantinople from two sides

The siege continued for 7 weeks until the Turks found and opening in the walls and invaded the city

He opened the city to new citizens from all over including Jews, Christians, and Muslims

Ottomans take Islam’s Holy Cities

Selim the GrimCame to power in 1512

He defeated the Safavids of Persia in the Battle of Chaldiran then took Syria, Palestine, and areas in N. Africa

He took the holy cities of Mecca Medina

And the intellectual capitol of Cairo

Suleiman the Lawgiver(AKA Suleiman the

Magnificent)Suleiman was an awesome military leader

He came to power in 1521 and in 1522 his forces captured the Island of Rhodes and they now controlled the Mediterranean

He then captured Tripoli on the coast of N. Africa

This gave the Ottomans control of the trade routes to the interior of Africa

In 1526 Suleiman took his troops into Hungary and Austria and moved into Vienna

Suleiman created a law code to handle both civil and criminal actions

He simplified and limited taxes

He reduced government bureaucracy

This got him the title Lawgiver

He had 20,000 personal slaves that staffed the palace

They were part of the Devshirme system

They were then educated, converted to Islam, and trained as soldiers

The Sultan’s army took boys from the people in the conquered Christian territories

Janissaries

The Sultan also had an elite force of soldiers known as Janissaries that were trained to be loyal to the sultan only

Suleiman was required to follow Islamic law

He granted freedom of Worship to Christians and Jews and treated those groups as millets or nations

Each millet was allowed to follow its own religious laws and practices as long as they didn’t try to convert Muslims away from Islam

The head of the millet reported to the sultan and his staff to keep conflict to a minimum

Suleiman studied poetry, history, geography, astronomy, math, and architecture

He employed a slave named Sinan to build the Mosque of Suleiman

Sinan Mosque of Suleiman

The Empire declines slowly

Suleiman killed his ablest, favorite son. Another son committed suicide and a third was driven into exile.

This left Selim II or Selim the Sot to take over when Suleiman died.

Selim wasn’t very good at leading

Unfortunately this set a tradition for gaining power

The eldest son would have his brothers strangled and would keep his sons locked away from the world in the harems.

This leads to weak, uneducated sultans that will destroy the empire.

Cultural BlendingPatterns of Cultural Blending

Each time a culture interacts with another it is exposed to new ideas, technologies, food and ways of life

Causes of cultural blendingMigration

Religious Freedom or Conversion

Trade

Conquest

The blending that contributed to the culture of the Ottomans depended on some of these activities

The Turks made war to gain territory

The Ottomans were located on major trade routes

Suleiman’s interest in culture and learning encouraged him to bring foreign artists and intellectuals to the Ottoman Empire

Results of Cultural BlendingCultural blending may lead to changes in language, religion, government, technology, and military tactics

Language: Sometimes written characters of one language show up in another, sometimes words do

Religion and ethical systems – Buddhism exist in both Tibet and Japan but they are different

Styles of Government – The idea of democracy spread to many areas of the world and though the practices may be different, the principles are similar

Racial or Ethnic blending

Arts and Architecture

The Safavids Build an EmpireIsma’il conquers Persia

1499 Isma’il (he was 12) began to seize most of what is now Iran

He completed this task in 1501

He took the title of Shah, or King to celebrate his achievement

He established Shi’a Islam as the state religion and became a religious tyrant

He killed any citizen that didn’t convert to Shi’ism

He destroyed the Sunni population in Baghdad

In response Selim the Grim later ordered the execution of all Shi’a in the Ottoman Empire

As many as were killed40,000

The final confrontation took place at the Battle of Chaldiran in 1514

The Ottomans defeated the Safavids using artillery

This set the border between the two nations and it still remains the border between Iraq and Iran today

Isma’il’s son Tahmasp adopted the use of artillery in his military forces

He expanded the Safavid empire up the Caucasus Mountains northeast of Turkey, and brought Christians under his control

The Safavid Golden AgeShah Abbas (Abbas the Great) took power in 1587 and made several reforms to both military and civilian life

•One was Persian•The other was like the Janissaries and taken from the Christian population

Limited the Power of the Military and made an army that would be

loyal only to him

•Punished corruption•Promoted competent, loyal officials•Hired foreigners to fill positions in the government

Reformed Government

•Brought more Christians into his Empire•Encouraged Europeans to move into his empireTolerant

As a result, trade and art exchange with Europe grew

Abbas built a new capitol at Esfahan

The city was 4 ½ miles across and considered one of the most beautiful in the world

Abbas also brought hundreds of Chinese artisans to work in Esfahan

Carpet weavers from Armenia also blended into Esfahan and carpet weaving became a national industry

As time went on the rugs began to take on more European themes after Abbas sent some weavers to Italy to study under Raphael

The Dynasty Declines SwiftlyLike Suleiman, Abbas either killed or blinded his most able sons which left his incompetent grandson Safi in charge

In 1736 Nadir Shah Afshar temporarily expanded the Safavid Empire all the way to India, but after his death it fell apart

The Mughal Empire in IndiaBACKGROUND

Led by Sultan Mahmud of Ghazni

The Gupta empire fell in the 400s and India was invaded by Huns, Turks, and AfghansThe leader was related to Tamerlane and Genghis Khan

Called themselves Mughal which means MongolFor almost 300 years there was fighting between the Muslims and the Hindus in this region but the Muslims couldn’t advance farther than the Indus River

Around the year 1000 the Turkish Army devastated the Hindu Army and India

BABUR FOUNDS AN EMPIREIn 1494 an 11 year old boy named Babur inherited Uzbekistan and Tajikistan

His land was taken away and he was driven out of the area by his elders so he built up an army and came back

In 1526 he led 12,000 troops to victory against 100,000 men led by the Sultan of Delhi

In 1527 he defeated a large Rajput army as well

His son Humayun was not as able and lost most of the empire that Babur had gained

Humayun inherited a new empire with lots of warring groups and three brothers who wanted to do him in

His son, Akbar, took over when he was 13

He appointed some of his captured peoples as advisors and keeping them from becoming enemies of the state

AKBAR’S GOLDEN AGEAkbar was a military conqueror who realized the only way to be powerful is through a strong military

He felt that a king should be aggressive so that no one would try to take over his kingdom

He used heavy artillery (Cannons) which allowed him to destroy cities and extend his reign over the Deccan Plateau

As far as land went it was a bit different

He granted land to bureaucrats, but when they died he took it back and redistributed it

Kept a feudal society from forming

BUT also discouraged hard work and expansion because people couldn’t hand down their land to their sons

Akbar was a liberal ruler who practiced religious freedom

He allowed the Hindus to practice their religion, allowed his Hindu wives to continue to be Hindu instead of forcing them to convert, and hired a Jesuit tutor for his son

He did away with the Jizyah and the tax on Hindu pilgrims

Because of their contact with many different people and the fact that Akbar was fairly tolerant, culture flourished in India

Language:

Akbar and his court spoke Persian, the Hindus spoke Hindi, and the soldiers created their own language as a blend of different ethnic groups, this language is called Urdu

A flowering culture

Arts and Literature:

Arts flourished especially as illustrations in books

These were called miniatures

Humayun brought Renaissance painters to India to teach the Mughals

The most famous miniatures are in the book Akbarnama

The poet Tulsi Das retold the love story of the gods Rama and Sita based on the 4th century poem Ramayana

Indian literature also flourishedRetellings of old folk tales and religious stories predominated

His retelling, the Ramcaritmanas, is even more popular than the first.

Akbar also devoted himself to architecture and the style became known as the Akbar Period

Akbar’s son called himself Jahangir or Grasper of the World but mostly he left the rule of the country to his wife Nur Jahan

Akbar’s SuccessorsAkbar died in 1605

JahangirNur Jahan

She made her father prime minister and figured she could use Jahangir’s son Khusrau as her ticket to power

Khusrau rebelled so Nur Jahan had him removed and shifted her favor to another son

The problem was that Jahangir was relatively tolerant but Khusrau wasn’t

He left and turned to the Sikhs for help

The Sikhs were a nonviolent religious group similar to Sufism and Hinduism

Their leader, Guru Arjun

Sheltered Khusrau and defended him

He was tortured to death for this an his people became the target of Mughal hatred

She died in 1631 at the age of 39 giving birth to her 14th child

To memorialize her, he built the Taj Mahal

The people of India were taxed to pay for it.

When he got sick, his sons fought for the empire

Aurangzeb won and killed his older brother and imprisoned his father

Shah JahanAssassinated all of his rivals

Only cared about two things: beautiful buildings and his wife Mumtaz Mahal

Mumtaz Mahal

Aurangzeb levied heavy taxes on Hindu merchants

AurangzebRuled from 1658 to 1707Expanded Mughal holdings to their greatest size

Empire lost the most power now too

Strictly enforced Islamic law and appointed censors to make sure the people were following the law

He brought back the jizyah (tax) and fired Hindus from government jobs

He banned construction of new temples and had monuments destroyed

1.The Rajputs, who had been allies, now rebelleda. They were defeated repeatedly but not

completely

2.Marathas (Hindu Warriors) founded their own state in south west India

3. The Sikhs turned themselves into a brotherhood of warriors and built up a state in the Punjab region of Northwest India

The Empire’s Decline and DecayBy the end of Aurangzeb’s reign, the empire was drained of people and money

2,000,000 people had died due to famine and people felt little or no loyalty to him

The power of the state was weakened further when Aurangzeb died and his son’s fought a civil war over the throne

The Mughal Emperor became a figurehead that ruled over a group of small independent states instead of a united empire