The Ottoman Empire

The Ottomans were initially nomads who migrated from the central Asian steppe to the Anatolian region and practiced a primitive shamanistic tradition. As they came into contact with more developed Islamic cultures, the Ottomans eventually converted to Islam as well.

As the Selcuk empire fell, Turkish Anatolia was divided into a collection of emirates (lands ruled by an emir, an Islamic ruler), called the Ghazi emirates. One of these emirates was led by Osman I, from which the name Ottoman is derived, and he extended the frontiers of Ottoman settlements towards the borders of the Byzantine Empire.

At this point, the Byzantine Empire was on the verge of collapse. The Byzantines were begging the Pope in Rome for help, but he refused aid unless the Eastern Orthodox religion reunited with the See of Rome. Though a reunion was considered, Eastern Orthodox clerics were too bitter about the reunion to allow it, and the Byzantine Empire continued to flounder. Osman I moved the capitol of the burgeoning Ottoman Empire to Bursa--a stone's throw from Constantinople--and continually loomed over the Byzantines, waiting for the right moment to attack. As the Ottoman Empire began to expand into the Mediterranean and Balkans, the Ottomans took over almost all of the Byzantine lands in Anatolia, except Constantinople.

In 1453, Mehmet II (later known as Mehmet the Conqueror) reorganized a flailing military and state and made major history when he breached Constantinople's walls on May 29th. He established the city as the new capitol of the Ottoman Empire and is considered one of the great heroes in Turkey--his name is still one of the most popular male names in the country. The Hagia Sophia--one of the most popular tourist detinations in Turkey--was instantly converted from a cathedral into a mosque, and all the religious instruments removed and mosaics painted over. Constantinople's name was changed to Istanbul, and a new era began.

The conquest of Constantinople established the Ottoman Empire as the preeminent powers in the Mediterranean and southeastern Europe. While there's too much to say about the Ottomans for a simple blog post, I'll share some highlights about the Ottomans here:

• The Ottomans were ruled by a Sultanate until the fall of the Empire in 1922. 
• The Ottomans were able to acquire enormous wealth and power partly because they controlled many of the most used trade routes (most notably the spice trade routes and the Silk Road) as you can see from this map (Silk Road in red, spice routes in blue). The Ottomans charged a huge amount in taxes for passage through their lands.

• The Ottomans were quite tolerant of all religious groups living within their borders, including Byzantine Greeks, Armenians, Jews, and Assyrians, and allowed them to practice their own religions and maintain their own legal practices alongside those of the Ottoman empire.
• The Ottomans conquered the Greeks in 1456, and Serbia, Bosnia, and several other territories were under Ottoman rule by 1478. The Turks commanded the Black Sea and the Aegean trade routes, and even threatened Italy and besieged Vienna in 1529. The siege was unsuccessful, and the Turks retreated out of the region. Basically the Ottomans struck fear into most of Europe until the end of the 16th century and beginning of the 17th, when Europeans began to win battles against the Ottomans as internal struggles in the empire weakened their prowess.  

• The Ottomans developed a rich culture over its reign, making contributions to poetry, architecture, calligraphy, carpet weaving, jewelry, music, dance, and minature paintings. Here is a miniature of miniaturists.
• They also developed a rich cuisine during this period, consisting of drinks and food that are still popular today: Turkish delight (lokum), Turkish coffee, salep (a milky drink made of orchid flour), baklava, shish kepab, doner (a popular meat dish cut from cones of rotating meat, see picture), raki alcohol, and ayran, a yogurt drink. 

• Some reasons why the Ottomans were so successful were because of their state-run education and judicial systems; their centralization of power; a transferrence of ruling power that transferred to one person, not two people; unity through Islamic ideology; a pragmatism that took what was best from other cultures and integrated it into their own; unity through the Islamic warrior code, which increased Muslim lands through jihad; a very strong military (primarily based on slaves); and alliances created across many different ethnic and religious groups. 

You can read a nice, concise history about the Ottoman Empire here, on a BBC website. Finally, we'll answer another very important question: Why did the Ottoman Empire fall?