The Ottoman & Safavid Empires

Key Dates
1453: Constantinople -> Istanbul (fall of the Christianity in Europe)
1529: the fail during Seize of Vienna sets the boundaries between Europe and the Middle East
#1 The Ottoman Empire (1300-1923)
Origins and Expansions
o Turkish speaking tribes that settled in Anatolia area and began to expand
o within 100 years they conquered Istanbul (formerly known as Constantinople)
o 17th century they occupy Middle East and much of Christian Europe
o can't get through Vienna because of the rain
extremely rainy causing cannons (big resource) to get stuck in muds and left
behind
Ottoman couldn't defeat the Austrians because they weren't good without
gunpowder
why so successful?
o gunpowder (military superiority)
o structure of the government
absolute king (Sultan)
ministers (control finance, army, etc)
bureaucracy (meritocracy) <- school + exams - connections
very efficient and strong military
Devshirme (1. go to Balkans 2. recruit/kidnap young boys 3. convert them all to
Islam 4. make them undergo rigorous schooling and training 5. send the smart
ones to join the bureaucracy and the others but still elite to the most elite army
infantry the Janisseries (the Sultan's guards/men))
o taxation
obsessed with taxation (kept very little record about it)
allowed them to possess a very wealthy treasury
tax farming (regional leaders farm taxes, get a cut and then sends it to the Sultan)
tax religious minorities
o protection of religious minorities
the sultans organized their non-Muslim subjects into religious communities called
millets
reduces the chances of rebellion and distablishment of the empire
o flexibility
flexible in religion, culture, and language
Turkish language was not imposed; everyone spoke their own language
o Suleyman the Magnificent/Lawyer (1520-1566)
everyone is clearly in awe
to the king of France (I rule the world and you rule nothing)
what happened?
o internal factors
nepotism (corruption is inevitable)
Devshireme collapses (Greek stopped accepting it after awhile)
janissaries refuse to serve the Sultan, and the military collapses
a series of incompetent Sultans (also very crazy)
tax farmers get greedier while there are no janissaries to stop them
o European economic encroachment
industrial revolution
England needed raw maters (beings with the textile industry)
o need cotton (to achieve they set up colonies)

o the European occupation in Egypt (Egyptian cotton)

o couldn't colonize the Ottoman Empire because the Middle East was
already used to and exposed to small pox
o had to engage in trade instead
capitulations
o sultans signed contracts that allowed free trade
o Europeans took advantage (thousands of merchants)
o the Ottoman merchants still had to pay taxes while the foreigners
didn't
o this encouraged Europeans to come in and trade
o so, why doesn't the Sultan take back the contract? (Europeans are
far more militarily superior <- machine guns are invented)
o European military challenge
produces machine guns and other high grade weapons that the Ottoman's have no
been exposed to
Napoleon in Egypt
#2. The Safavid Empire (1501-1722)
origins
o converted to Shia to offer something else (sandwiched between Sunni/Mughal)
o two main shrines for Ali and Huseyn are in Iraq (Karbala)
o everyone who hates the Ottoman converted to the Safavid Empire
o patronage with the arts
o Isfahan <- the capital (known as "half the world")
expansion and clash w/Ottomans
o various wars and disputes over territory
o one of the main ones was the water source of Mesopotamia
the struggle for Iraq
o the Safavid Empire fought for Iraq to gain control over the Iraq Shia shrines
end of the Safavid Empire (Qajads come to power 1797-1923)