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media type="custom" key="29537765" align="right" =Describe the expansion of the Ottoman Empire in the 15th and 16th centuries into North Africa, Eastern Europe, and throughout the Middle East. =
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** Topics on the Page **

 * The Ottoman Empire **
 * **Location**
 * **Rise to Power**
 * **A Gunpowder Empire**
 * **Governmental Structure**
 * **Sultanate of Women**
 * Suleiman the Magnificent **
 * ** Roxelana **
 * Decline in the 17th Century **

//**Focus Question: What factors propelled the expansion of the Ottoman Empire in the 15th and 16th centuries?**//
See an Interactive timeline of Islam from PBS

Developments in Major Periods of Islamic History


 * The Ottoman Empire** is the name given to a political and geographical entity governed by the Muslim Ottoman Turks.
 * It is one of three notable Muslim empires grounded in the Islamic faith that arose during the time of Europe’s Age of Exploration and maintained considerable control of trade and economics in the Middle East
 * In so doing, was a force of resistance to European efforts to control global trade markets.


 * Location.** The Ottoman Empire was centered in present-day Turkey (formerly referred to as Anatolia) and extended its influence into southeastern Europe as well as the Middle East.
 * It began in the late thirteenth century (1280) when a tribal leader named Osman began consolidating power in the northwestern part of the Turkish peninsula.
 * It lasted until 1918, when it fell apart in the wake of the First World War and was replaced by the Turkish Republic.

View this interactive map of the Ottoman Empire, from the University of Chicago.

Read here about the Ottoman Empire in Europe, including the extent of its conquest, and its influence on the Holy Roman Empire, Venice, Spain, and more.

Read about the Ottomans in Africa, from this lecture about Islam in North Africa, which places Ottoman conquest within a larger narrative of interactions between North Africa and the Middle East.


 * 3) Rise to Power.** The Ottoman’s rise to power began in an area that had been part of the Byzantine Empire which itself was an extension of the Roman Empire The Rise of the Turks and the Ottoman Empire.
 * The Byzantine Empire had served as a buffer between the “Muslim Middle East and the Latin West” until the sacking of Constantinople by the Fourth Crusade in 1204 (Duiker & Spielvogel, 2002, p. 361).
 * [|Mehmed II], known as "Mehmed the Conqueror" led the attack on Constantinople and for this and other successful campaigns of conquest was given his nickname.
 * Into this power vacuum, the Ottomans began expanding their control westward to the Black Sea, thus gaining dominance over key trade routes. In the mid-1300s, the Ottomans expanded into the Balkans and began asserting control over the waning Byzantine emperor in Constantinople.
 * The city fell to the Ottoman forces in 1453 and was renamed Istanbul. In the next 100 years, Ottoman power expanded further into Europe, the Middle East, and Northern Africa.
 * For more information: The Ottomans in Europe
 * Read more about Constantinople (Istanbul) after the 13th century here
 * The Ottomans profited from trading textiles in European markets. Read more about this, and the development of the contemporary "Ottoman style" here.

Read and listen to a history of the Ottomans as explored by the University of Texas-Austin. Part I available here and Part II available here.

[|Diary of the Siege of Constantinople, 1453] by Nicolo Barbaro. A Venetian surgeon's eyewitness account.


 * 4) A Gunpowder Empire.** Ottoman control has been called a “gunpowder empire” (Duiker & Spielvogel, 2002, p. 364). (See [|here] ). The Ottomans mastered the art of warfare using firearms. This is part of the answer to why the empire was able to expand during the 15th and 16th centuries.

* The Turkish Ottoman Empire was one of the earliest and longest-lasting of the gunpowder empires promoted by the spread of cannon and other firearms.
 * The Turks had been pushed into the Near East from the eighth century onward by Mughal expansion in their original territory, around what is now Turkestan.
 * At the beginning of the fourteenth century, the Turkish leader Osman I (c. 1258-1326) declared himself sultan, founding the Ottoman Empire. The Ottomans spread their control over the area formerly held by the Eastern Roman Empire, also known as the Byzantine Empire.
 * In 1453, Sultan Mehmed II (r. 1444-1446 and 1451-1481) conquered Constantinople, bringing the Byzantine Empire to an end.


 * 5) Governmental Structure**. The governmental structure of the Ottoman Empire was another reason for its expansion. The leader of the empire was the Sultan who was the political and military leader. Local tribal leaders ran different sections of the empire, collecting taxes and administering justice according to tribal traditions. This led to a relatively benign form of control that did not create lasting discontent among the peoples who were made part of the empire during its expansion.
 * An important lynchpin of the Ottoman government and military were captured slaves of Christian origin, trained as children to be loyal only to the Sultan. A history of the Ottoman's use of slaves in both military and civil roles can be read in [|this article.]
 * For a look at how slave armies and bureaucrats functioned in the empire, as well as how the Ottoman Empire dealt with European countries like Venice, see [|Crash Course: World History.]


 * 6) The Weakening of the Empire**. Over time, the Sultan’s court took on the trappings of imperial rule, but this led to the isolation of the leader from the realities of the empire. Succession was hereditary and there was considerable infighting among heirs when a sultan died. The effect over time was to weaken the power of the central government of the empire. * For the in-depth look at the various political, economic, and military reasons why the Ottoman Empire fell, see [|this three part article.]


 * [[image:Female_Rose.png]] 7) Sultanate of Women.** Another important political reality was the importance of women in the operation of the sultan’s court. The Queen Mother not only administered the imperial household, but also conducted diplomatic relationships with other countries and arranged marital alliances. This has been called the “sultanate of women” (further explanation of their influence can be seen in this [|video]).

Among women in the population, the restrictions of Islam were less strictly enforced in the Ottoman Empire. Women could own and inherit property, could not be forced into marriage, and some held local governmental offices (Duiker & Spielvogel, 2002, p. 365).

Read this essay from Clark University about the extent of and limitations to women's autonomy in the Ottoman Empire, in politics, economics, and at home. The essay discusses Ottoman society from the 16th century onwards.

Read this essay from Binghamton University about how women in the Ottoman Empire used their role in harems as a channel for political agency, as well as misconceptions about Muslim women in the Western world.

Several of the Ottoman Empire's best poets were women.
 * Fitnat Hanim is largely considered one of the best of these poets.
 * The book [|Women in the Ottoman Empire: Middle Eastern Women in the Early Modern Era by Madeline C. Zilfi] contains information on Hanim and several other Ottoman female poets, along with selections of their work.
 * Click here for more information on women in the Ottoman Empire (Use the links on the left and top of the page to navigate around the site.)

[|Family Structures]
 * Rural women worked, while urban women were contained to the home.
 * Visits to cemeteries and public baths were frequent and regarded as a woman's right.
 * Young men and women were not allowed to get to know one another and were not allowed to choose who they were to marry.
 * The man's family choose who he was to marry and if the woman's parents agreed, the parents would handle the details.
 * If women would not be in contact with men, they were allowed to work. They usually made money through weaving and embroidering.
 * Women worked as midwives as a moral obligation. Women were usually illiterate and therefore had to learn the skill through training or practice.


 * 8) The height of Ottoman power came under Suleiman the Magnificent**.

The Ottomans continued to expand geographically during Suleiman's rule, conquering new land in Europe and reaching as far as Vienna. Read more about this, and works of art and architecture created during this era, here

History in Artifacts: Tughra of Suleiman I from the British Museum.

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 * Watch this video about Suleiman's official signature, which explains its political and artistic significance. The link also contains an interactive activity, teaching you how to read the complex calligraphy.
 * Video on Suleiman the Magnificent
 * [[image:Female_Rose.png]]Roxelana**

A Woman with Power in the Ottoman Empire

Hurrem Sultan or Roxelana: Empress of the East

Decline of the Empire
The decline in the empire began in the 17th century and continued for the next two centuries.

Ottoman Empire Timeline View "Orientalism and the Ottoman Empire in Star Wars," a diagram and article about the representation of Eastern societies in Western pop culture, specifically discussing the portrayal of Jabba the Hutt in the //Star Wars// films, and what similar forms of representation tell us about stereotyping.

The Mirror of Countries (1557) by Sidi Ali Reis. An account of the author's travels in the Middle East. Videos on the [|Rise of the Ottoman Empire] and the [|Fall of the Ottoman Empire]

Read Ahead to Post-Ottoman Empire and the founding of Modern Turkey Kemal Atatürk (1881-1938) Read more: http://www.historyworld.net/wrldhis/PlainTextHistories.asp?historyid=ab37#ixzz1Du3ewSEg
 * Documents and Sources** Web Resources The End of Europe's Middle Ages: Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries **[]** 15th-16th Century Map of the Ottoman Empire []. = =