The Islamic Empires

Osman Bey: The founder of the dynasty that continued in unbroken succession until the dissolution of the empire. He was chief of a band of semi-nomadic Turks who migrated to northwestern Anatolia.

Ghazi: What all Osman followers wanted to become, otherwise known as Muslim religious warriors.

Ottomans: Those who were located on the borders of the Byzantine empire and followed Osman Bey. They captured the Anatolian city of Bursa and made it their capital. Their formidable military machine drove them to expansion.

Devshirme: Required by the Ottomans for the Christian population of the Balkans to contribute young boys to become slaves of the sultan. Those boys received special training, learned Turkish, and converted to Islam.

Janissaries: Those who became soldiers. They quickly gained a reputations for esprit de corps, loyalty to the sultan, and readiness to employ new military technology.

Mehmed the Conqueror: He worked energetically to stimulate his lands role as a commercial center. He presented himself not just as a warrior-sultan but as a true emperor, ruler of the Europe and Asia along with the Black sea and Mediterranean. Laying foundations for a rightly centralized, absolute monarchy.

Hagia Sophia: Hagia Sophia is a former Orthodox patriarchal basilica, later a mosque, and now a museum in Istanbul, Turkey.

Istanbul: The new Ottoman capital, where Mehmed worked energetically to stimulate its role as a commercial center.

Suleyman the Magnificent: He vigorously promoted Ottoman expansion. He conquered Baghdad and added the Tigris and Euphrates valleys to the Ottoman domain. Under his power the Ottomans became a major naval power.

Safavids: Shah Ismail’s family, they changed their religious preferences several times in the hope of gaining popular support before settling on Shiism.

Babur: A Chaghatai Turk who claimed descent from both Chinggis Khan and Tamerlane. They made little pretense to be anything more than an adventurer and a soldier of fortune in the manner of his illustrious ancestors. He sought to transform his inheritance into a glorious central Asian empire.

Akbar: Babur’s grandson who was a brilliant charismatic ruler. He took personal control of the Mughal government and did not tolerate challenges to this rule. Creating a centralized administrative structure with ministries regulating the various provinces of the empire. Pursuing a policy of religious toleration that he had hoped would reduce tensions between the Hindu and Muslim communities in India.

Aurangzeb: Another Mughal ruler who waged a relentless campaign to push Mughal authority deep into southern India. He greatly expanded their empire but faced many rebellions throughout his reign, and religious tensions. He was a devout Muslim, breaking Akbar’s policy of religious toleration.

Rule of women: They played many important roles in managing the Islamic empires. In these Islamic empires the ruler’s mother and his wife enjoyed special privileges and authority. Playing a prominent political role in many empires.

Taj Mahal: One of the most famous monuments and most prominent of all the Islamic efifices.

Coffee: Encouraged strongly by the Columbian exchange. It traveled to Europe and from there to the Americas, where plantations specialized in the production of tropical crops. Many Muslim markets were supplied with coffee.

Dhimmi: The “protected people” their communities retained their personal freedom, kept their property, practiced their religion, and handled their legal affairs.

BAT’s

1. The earlier Mongols controlled a larger expanse of Asia, not including India; the later Mughals only controlled India. Furthermore, although Persian Mongols had adopted Islam, the Mughals were Muslim who reigned over a large population of Hindus as well as Muslims.

2. In the Islamic Empire, many Muslims were traders; therefore, they traveled in the empire and explored distant lands. Because of the need for navigation advancements, Muslims took interest in astronomy, navigation, and maps and developed advancements. Muslims in the Islamic Empire first used and studied maps drafted by the Greeks and later, as they learned more about the land they conquered, they added improvements and constructed more maps. The Muslim geographers were they first to use measurements and scales to make the most accurate maps.

3. The Mughal and the Ottoman Empires were two of the greatest and most powerful civilizations of the ancient period. Their fame and glory in the sixteenth century represented the zenith of art, architecture, and human creativity. These eminent empires were the largest and the most influential civilizations of the Muslim world, and their splendor reached as far as Europe. The two most important rulers of these empires were Akbar the Great and Suleiman the Magnificent, under whose reign the empire reached its triumphant moments. Just as the reign of Akbar and Suleiman marked the Golden age, their deaths resulted in the slow downfall of the empires. Both the Ottoman and Mughal empires were distinctive civilizations of their time due to the local culture forces and the Islamic culture that impacted them in the areas of art, government, and social structure. However, out of the two, the Mughal Empire was more successful than the Ottoman Empire, because of its consolidated rule, its hierarchy of power, and its tolerance for women.

4. Women within the imperial households played an important role in managing the Islamic empires. In the empires the ruler’s mother and his chief wife had special privileges and authority. Many of the women in these households had plenty of say when it came to government talk.

5. The men dominated the Ottoman empire, they would be the family member that would travel around the city or town, they would be the role model for the family. During the Mughal empire, the women could go out and walk around the city.The ratio was male dominate at first, then evened out.

7. The Islamic people did not expand or travel far from the Mediterranean region, they would stay, this was influenced because the only way out the Mediterranean was through the Strait of Gibraltar, and the British controlled that. They hated the Christians and would never trade with them, so they never got the new world materials and special products.

8. The Ottomans were the biggest empire of their time, they dominated the Mediterranean region, they controlled northern Africa, the Middle East,and the Balkan region, they were halted by the ever expanding European empires. They never went far from the coast line, besides in Turkey and the Middle east.