Muslim Empires

1
Muslim Empires

• Who did this to us?
• Islam
• Mongols
• Ottoman Empire
• Suleiman and Golden Age
• Mughal Dynasty
• Strengths and Weaknesses
• Consequences

2
Bernard Lewis on problems within Islam

• Who did this to us? is a common response when
  things are going badly
• Answers
• Mongols
• Turks
• British and French colonialism
• Jews
• United States

3
Some argue that the cause of the changed
relationship between East and West is not a
Middle Eastern decline but a Western upsurgethe
discoveries and the scientific, technological,
industrial, and political revolutions that
transformed the West and vastly increased its
wealth and power. But this is merely to restate
the question Why did the discoverers of America
sail from Spain rather than from a Muslim
Atlantic port? Why did the great scientific
breakthrough occur in Europe and not, as one
might reasonably have expected, in the richer,
more advanced, and in most respects more
enlightened realm of Islam?
4
It is precisely the lack of freedomfreedom of
the mind from constraint and indoctrination, to
question and inquire and speak freedom of the
economy from corrupt and pervasive mismanagement
freedom of women from male oppression freedom of
citizens from tyranny that underlies so many of
the troubles of the Muslim world.
5
Islam

• Muhammad (570-632)
• Visions of Angel Gabriel in 610
• Message There is no God but God (Allah) and
  Muhammad is his messenger
• Relationship to Judaism, Christianity
• Succession crisis
• Sunni and Shiite Muslims
• Unification of Middle East
• Arabs and Persians

6
Mongol Empire(1200s - mid-1300s)

• Chinghis (Genghis) Khan
• Largest land empire ever
• Pax mongolica
• Civilizations absorbed their conquerors
• Division of Empire

7
Mongol Empire
8
Ottoman Empire (1299-1924)

• Osman
• Turks from Central Asia
• Muslims
• NW corner of Anatolia (modern Turkey)
• Conquest of Constantinople
• Renamed Istanbul
• Hagia Sophia converted to a Muslim mosque

9
Ottoman Empire
10
Ottoman Golden Age

• Suleiman the Magnificent (1494-1566)
• Professional army
• Janissaries
• Ulema
• Multi-ethnic and multi-
• religious state

artistic sensitivity in literature,
architecture, and symbolic imagery a commitment
to justice for all, no matter how weak a
tolerance for nonbelievers that was unusual for
its time, and a literary language that was truly
an international bond as well as the channel of a
rich literature. Adler, 380
11
Strengths of Muslim Empires

• Military
• Government
• Tolerance
• Learning
• Artistic sensitivities

12
Weaknesses of Islamic Empires

• Overdependence on qualities of leader
• Dependence on military
• Inflexibility of Sharia (Muslim legal code)
• Overreverance for tradition, including
  traditional education

13
Consequences

• Ottoman Empire
• Sick man of Europe
• Mughal Empire
• British East India Co.
• Parliamentary oversight of India begins 1773
• Jewel of the Empire