Islamic Gunpowder Empires: 1450 – 1750

I.  Dynastic States

  1. The Ottoman, Safavid, Mughal rulers and Islam
  2. All three Islamic empires were military creations
  3. Called Gunpowder empires as guns were critical to rise of empire
  4. Military prowess of rulers, elite units critical
  5. Authority of dynasty derived from personal piety
  6. Devotion to Islam led rulers to extend faith to new lands

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II.  Steppe traditions

  1. All three were Turkish in origin; two were Shia
  2. Autocratic: emperors imposed their will on the state
  3. Ongoing problems with royal succession
  4. Ottoman rulers legally killed brothers after taking the throne
  5. Royal women often wielded great influence on politics
  6. Wives, sisters, daughters, aunts, mother of sultan lived in harem
  7. Eunuchs protected women; both eunuchs, women had influence
  8. Children raised in harem; often not allowed out until teenager
  9. Harem politics: women often influenced policies, selections

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III.  Rise of the Ottoman State

  1. Anatolian clan of the Seljuk Turks
  2. Frontier Emirate Founded 1289

a.  Founder was Osman Bey

b.  Led Muslim religious warriors (ghazi)

  1. Mehmed the Conqueror (reigned 1451-1481)

a.  Captured Constantinople in 1453

b.  Renamed city Istanbul, the Ottoman capital

c.  Absolute monarchy; centralized state

d.  Expanded to Serbia, Greece, Albania

e.  Attacked Italy

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  1. Turkish Social Structure
  2. Four social groupings in settled, urban environment

a.  The men of the pen

b.  Judges, imams (prayer leaders), other intellectuals

c.  Men of the sword: military

d.  Men of negotiations, such as merchants

  1. Men of husbandry: farmers, livestock raisers

a.  Life on the frontier was far less structured

b.  Society there was divided into two groups

  1. Askeri (the military)
  2. Consisted of the men of pen, religion, sword
  3. Protected the realm, raya
  4. Conquered new territories
  5. Raya (the subjects)
  6. In the early days
  7. Possible for raya to cross over, become askeri
  8. Through outstanding military service
  9. Over time
  10. Separation between askeri and raya became more rigid
  11. Military became almost hereditary
  12. Women had no rights aside from tradition, class, husbands’ wishes

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  1. Timur and the Land Survey
  2. Timar system

a.  Askeri was given a share of the agricultural taxes of a designated region

  1. Usually consisting of several villages
  2. In return for military service as cavalryman, assisted in provincial government
  3. At height Ottomans put more than 100,000 cavalrymen into the field
  4. Gradually became hereditary
  5. Timar was not feudalism

b.  Timar-holder did not dispense justice

  1. Justice was the sultan’s prerogative

c.  European feudalism: government on local level in absence of central government

d.  Ottoman Empire: Central government was active and crucial

  1. Timar more like Japanese shogun fief system

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  1. Suleiman the Magnificent
  2. Empire at its height under Suleyman

a.  Reigned 1520-1566

b.  Conquered lands in Europe, Asia, Africa

c.  Built powerful navy to rule Mediterranean

d.  Encouraged development of arts

e.  Beautified Constantinople with mosques

  1. Empire began a slow decline after Suleiman

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  1. The Turkish Millet
  2. Each millet

a.  Was headed by its own religious dignitary

b.  Chief rabbi in the case of the Jews

c.  Patriarchs for the Greek Orthodox, Armenian communities

  1. Heads of millet were responsible to Turkish sultan

a.  Advised sultan on affairs in the community

b.  Was punished by sultan for problems of the community

  1. Later expanded to other ethnic communities
  2. Muslims had no millet

a.  Muslims ruled by Quran, sharia

  1. In the millet system

a.  Each community was responsible for

  1. The allocation and collection of its taxes
  2. Its educational arrangements
  3. Internal legal matters pertaining to marriage, divorce, inheritance
  4. In the pre-modern Middle East
  5. Identity was largely based on religion
  6. System functioned well until rise of European nationalism
  7. Most cities were divided into quarters based on religion, language

IV.  ______

V.  Safavid Persia

  1. Turkish conquerors of Persia and Mesopotamia
  2. Founder Shah Ismail (reigned 1501-1524)
  3. Claimed ancient Persian title of shah.
  4. Proclaimed Twelver Shiism official religion
  5. Imposed it on Sunni population
  6. Twelver Shiism
  7. Traced origins to 12 ancient Shiite imams
  8. Ismail believed to be twelfth, or "hidden," imam
  9. Shah Abbas the Great (1588-1629)
  10. Revitalized the Safavid empire
  11. Modernized military
  12. Sought European alliances
  13. Permitted European merchants, missionaries
  14. New capital at Isfahan
  15. Centralized administration

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VI.  Mughal Empire

  1. Commerce and Demography
  2. Food crops

a.  Agriculture: the basis of all three empires

  1. Major crops: wheat, rice

a.  Little impacted by new American crops

b.  Imports of coffee, tobacco very popular

  1. Coffee discovered in Jaffa Province (Ethiopia)
  2. Coffee houses developed, a major social tradition
  1. Peasants

a.  Tended to be overtaxed, overworked by nobles

b.  Many so mistreated that they abandoned their lands

  1. Demographics

a.  Population growth less dramatic than in China, Europe

b.  India: significant growth due to intense agriculture

c.  Less dramatic growth in Safavid and Ottoman realms

d.  All empires were multi-national, multi-religious

  1. Commerce

a.  Long-distance trade important to all three empires

  1. Minorities controlled trade in all three states in trade diasporas
  2. Trade goods tended to be traditional arts, crafts; little manufacturing
  3. Ottomans, Safavids shared parts of east-west trade routes
  4. Safavids offered silk, carpets, ceramics to Europeans
  5. Mughal empires less attentive to foreign or maritime trading

a.  Mughals permitted stations for English, French, Dutch

b.  Europeans gradually exclude Indian influence

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  1. Religious Affairs
  2. Religious diversity

a.  Created challenges to rule of empires

b.  Uniformity hard with religious differences

  1. Religious minorities

a.  Generally tolerated in Islamic states

  1. In Ottoman empire

a.  Conquered peoples protected, granted religious, civil autonomy

b.  Organized into quasi-legal millets to regulate own affairs

c.  Much of population was Christian, Jewish

d.  Each communities had own millet which handled judicial affairs

  1. In India

a.  Majority of population was Hindu

b.  Early Muslim rulers closely cooperated with Hindu majority

c.  Under Aurangzeb: Islam proclaimed state religion, nonbelievers taxed

  1. In Persia

a.  Shia were fanatical

b.  Enforced articles of faith

  1. Religious diversity in India under the rule of Akbar

a.  Akbar encouraged religious tolerance

b.  Advocated syncretic "divine faith“ called Din i-ilahi

  1. Emphasizing loyalty to emperor

c.  Catholic missionaries welcomed at court of Akbar

d.  Tolerated Sikhism

e.  A new faith arose by combing elements of Islam, Hinduism

  1. Egalitarian faith whose members were soldiers, merchants

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VII.  Cultural Patronage of the Islamic Gunpowder Empires

  1. Sponsored arts and public works
  2. Golden Age of Islamic art, architecture
  3. Mosques, palaces, schools, hospitals, caravanserais
  4. Miniature painting flourished in Iran, Mughals
  5. Istanbul
  6. Ottoman capital, a bustling city of a million people
  7. Topkapi palace housed government, sultan's residence
  8. Suleymaniye blended Islamic, Byzantine architecture
  9. Isfahan
  10. Safavid capital
  11. The "queen of Persian cities“
  12. The central mosque is a wonder of architecture
  13. Fatehpur Sikri, Mughal capital, created by Akbar
  14. Combined Islamic style with Indian elements
  15. Site abandoned because of bad water supply
  16. Taj Mahal, exquisite example of Mughal architecture

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VIII.  Deterioration

  1. Dynastic decline
  2. Caused by negligent rulers, factions
  3. Constant competition between factions within government
  4. Former elite military units often became threats
  5. Government corruption

a.  Bribery became way of doing business

b.  Many officials pocketed taxes, overtaxed, etc.

  1. Harem politics

a.  Rulers raised in harems let sex carry them away

b.  Rulers took to drinking, partying too much

c.  Rulers’ mothers, wives jockeyed for position, sons

  1. Tensions increased

a.  Religious conservatives abandoned tolerance

  1. Ottoman conservatives

a.  Resisted innovations like the telescope, printing press

b.  Resisted western military innovations, industrialization

c.  Discouraged merchants, commercialism

  1. Safavid Empire

a.  Shiite leaders urged shahs to persecute Sunnis, Sufis

b.  Non-Muslims lost many protections

  1. Mughal India

a.  Aurangzeb's policies provoked deep animosity of Hindus

b.  Rise of Sikhs

c.  Rise of Christians with coming of Europeans

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IX.  Reasons for Decline

  1. Economy and Military Expansion
  2. Each conquest provided booty to state to help development
  3. End of territorial expansion meant no booty
  4. Difficult to support armies and bureaucrats

a.  Series of long and costly wars with no financial support

  1. Economy Stagnated by eighteenth century
  2. Officials resorted to raising taxes to deal with financial problems
  3. Official, unofficial corruption lost millions in revenue to state
  4. Failure to develop trade and industry
  5. Commerce had always been in hands of Jews, Armenians
  6. Lost initiative to European merchants
  7. Military decline
  8. Imported European weapons but never made their own
  9. Arsenals outdated; tactics outdated; systems outdated
  10. Ottoman Empire
  11. Even purchased military vessels from abroad
  12. Europeans developed extremely modern militaries
  13. 1689: Austrians raise 2nd siege of Vienna, liberate Hungary
  14. India
  15. Rise of Marhattas, Rajputs in India
  16. Mughals refused to build a navy, let Europeans rule seas
  17. Led to loss of Mughal provinces

a.  Local princes, rulers assumed control, defied Mughals

  1. Rise of Banditry, Piracy

a.  In countryside, many poor peasants took to banditry

b.  On seas, many ports and merchants too to piracy

c.  Trade disrupted, made Europeans mad who often retaliated

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X.  Cultural Insularity

  1. Cultural conservatism
  2. Ottoman cartographer, Piri Reis, gathered together European maps
  3. Muslims seldom traveled to the West, confident of their superiority
  4. Science, technology ignored as it is western, threat
  5. Ignorant of European technological developments

a.  Hostile to European, Christian inventions, institutions

  1. Social conservatism
  2. Middle classes failed to develop in Muslim states

a.  Growing gap between ruling elite, peasants/slaves

  1. Growing antagonism between religious elites, ruling elites
  2. Resistance to printing press

a.  Introduced by Jewish, late fifteenth century

b.  At first, Ottomans banned printing in Turkish, Arabic

c.  Ban lifted in 1729; conservatives closed Turkish press in 1742

d.  In India, Mughals showed little interest in printing technology

  1. Xenophobia becomes a cultural trait of Islam

a.  Foreign cultural innovations seen as a threat to political stability

b.  Inability to grasp aspects of modern politics, state structures

  1. Muslims cannot believe what is happening to them
  2. More irritating that it is the Christian Europeans who are ruling

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