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 60-65% Shia and 32-37% 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

Ayatollah Khomeini: “[Americans] are the great Satan, the wounded snake.”

Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi and Empress Farah

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, semi-independent 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 al-Hamid 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

Middle East

Europe

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