Primary Source Ottoman Empire

Sitting between Africa and Persia is the Arabian Peninsula, which is also called Arabia. It is home to some of the hottest and driest places on Earth. Because the climate is so harsh, farming is very hard, so most people in Arabia were nomadic herders. These herders lived in groups called tribes, which were made up of clans or families that were related and believed they had common ancestors. People were very loyal to their clan and would protect their people and land at all costs. Because of this, clan members were skilled warriors.

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On the peninsula, life was able to grow around oases or small bodies of water in a desert. Oases naturally attracted people, especially traveling merchants. Because Arabia is located in the middle of Asia, Africa, and Europe, oases became busy trade cities. One of the largest and most important cities was Mecca. In a cave near Mecca, a merchant named Muhammad said he heard messages from the angel Gabriel. Muhammad began to share these messages. This is how Islam, one of the world's major religions, started. Because of these messages, many people converted to Islam, and Muhammad brought Arabia together under one religion. Mecca became a center for both trade and religion.

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​In 632, muhammad died causing disagreements over how the next leader would be chosen. Eventually Muhannad’s father-in-law, Abu Bakr, was chosen to be the caliph (successor). Under his rule, he was able to crush rebellions and was able to keep all of Arabia under Lism. Through the rule of Abu Bakr and following caliph’s they they were able to establish a large Muslim empire. While they faced two large powers, The Byzantine and the Persian Empire, those two had fought many wars and were drained.

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​The Abbasids ruled during a time that is known as the golden age in Muslim history. The capital city was moved again, this time to Baghdad. The government was run by advisors who used force to keep control. They had a large army made up of Turkish mercenaries, which are soldiers that are hired to fight. When the Abbasids took over from the Umayyads, they also searched for and killed members of the Umayyad family. However, one prince managed to escape to Spain. There, he started a new Umayyad dynasty and created an independent state called Al-Andalus, which was separate from the rest of the Muslim Empire. This state and its capital, Cordoba, did very well for many years. Over time, a group called the Seljuk Turks took control of the Muslim Empire. Eventually, they were also overthrown by the Mongols around the year 1250.

​When Al-Andalus was getting weaker, a new group of Turkish Muslims called the Ottomans was becoming powerful in the east. They took over many cities from the Byzantine Empire, which helped them grow their empire. In the 1450s, they captured the capital city of the Byzantine Empire, which was called Constantinople, and they changed its name to Istanbul. The Ottoman Empire became one of the largest Muslim empires during that time and lasted until the early 1900s.