The Rise of the Ottoman Empire

CORNELL WORDS

Using your student notebook, provided in Google Classroom, attempt to define at least three highlighted words and names in the reading in no less than one complete sentence.

Centuries after the early Arab Muslim conquests, Muslims ruled several powerful empires containing various peoples. Rulers and military leaders in Persia empires, spoke Persian, Turkish leaders spoke Turkish, while Arabic continued as a language of religion and scholarship. One of these empires was the Ottoman Empire, which controlled much of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Built through conquest, the Ottoman Empire was a political and cultural force.

The Rise of the Ottoman Empire

In the mid-1200s, Muslim Turkish warriors known as Ottomans began to take land from the Christian Byzantine Empire. They eventually ruled lands from eastern Europe to North Africa and Arabia.

The key to the empire’s expansion was the Ottoman army. The Ottomans trained Christian boys from conquered towns to be soldiers. These slave soldiers, called Janissaries, converted to Islam and became fierce fighters. Besides these slave troops, the Ottomans were aided by new gunpowder weapons—especially cannons.

In 1453, Ottomans led by Mehmed II used huge cannons to conquer Constantinople. With the city’s capture, Mehmed defeated the Byzantine Empire. He became known as “the Conqueror.” Mehmed made Constantinople, which the Ottomans called Istanbul, his new capital. He also turned the Byzantines’ great church, Hagia Sophia, into a mosque.

Istanbul continued to grow as a commercial and cultural center. Mehmed II lowered taxes to attract merchants and artisans to the city. This encouraged industry and trade. The Ottoman Empire as a whole flourished along trade routes throughout the Mediterranean region. The Ottomans controlled much of the Mediterranean coast as well as ports along major inland rivers such as the Danube.

A later sultan continued Mehmed’s conquests. He expanded the empire to the east through the rest of Anatolia, another name for Asia Minor. His armies also conquered Syria and Egypt. Soon afterward the holy cities of Mecca and Medina accepted Ottoman rule as well. These triumphs made the Ottoman Empire a major world power.

The Ottoman Empire reached its height under Suleyman I (soo-lay-MAHN), “the Magnificent.” During Suleyman’s rule, from 1520 to 1566, the Ottomans took control of the eastern Mediterranean and pushed farther into Europe, areas they would control until the early 1900s.

Also during Suleyman’s rule, the Ottoman Empire reached its cultural peak. Muslim poets wrote beautiful works, and architects worked to turn Istanbul from a Byzantine city into a Muslim one.

​The Ottoman Empire spanned much of Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and coastal Africa.

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The sultan issued laws and made all major decisions in the empire. Most Ottoman law was based on Shariah, or Islamic law, but sultans also made laws of their own.

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Ottoman Government & Society

Ottoman society was divided into two classes. Judges and other people who advised the sultan on legal and military matters were part of the ruling class. Members of the ruling class had to be loyal to the sultan, practice Islam, and understand Ottoman customs.

People who didn’t fit these requirements made up the other class, known as Raya. Many of them were Christians or Jews from lands the Ottomans had conquered. Christians and Jews formed religious communities, or millets, within the empire. Each millet had its own leaders and religious laws.

Ottoman society limited the freedom that women enjoyed, especially women in the ruling class. These women usually had to live apart from men in an area of a household called a harem. By separating women from men, harems kept women out of public life. However, wealthy women could still own property or businesses. Some women used their money to build schools, mosques, and hospitals.

CORNELL QUESTIONS

Using your student notebook, provided in Google Classroom, answer at least one of the major short answer questions in no less than 2-3 sentences.

​Who were the Janissaires?

Question One

​In what ways was the Ottoman society tolerant and in what ways was it not?

Question Two

What was life like for women in Ottoman society?

Question Three