ottoman empire

ottoman empire

The ottomans create a muslim empire that lasts more than 600 years

Why is does that matter?

Many modern societies from Algeria to Turkey had their origins in the Ottoman empire.

Ghazzi

Many Anatolian Turks saw themselves as Ghazzi or warriors for Islam. They raided frontier

Where did the Ottoman empire begin?

The Ottoman Empire was founded in Anatolia, the location of modern-day Turkey. The Ottoman dynasty expanded its reign enabled by the decline of the Seljuq dynasty, the previous rulers of Anatolia, who were suffering defeat from Mongol invasion.

How did the Ottoman Empire start?

The Ottoman Empire began at the very end of the 13th century with a series of raids from Turkic warriors led by Osman I. Osman took advantage of a Seljuq dynasty, weakened by the Mongol invasions. The Ottoman dynasty expanded for several generations, controlling much of southeastern Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa at its peak.  Murad I laid the foundation for an institutionalized Ottoman state, continued by Murad’s son Bayezid

Why was the Ottoman Empire called “the sick man of Europe”?

After the peak of Ottoman rule under Süleyman in the 16th century, the Empire struggled to maintain its bloated political structure. Attempts at reform kept the empire afloat but success was short-lived.  Tanzimat, contributed to a debt crisis in the 1870s. Its fragile state left it unable to withstand defeat in World War I, and most of its territories were divided as spoils as the empire disintegrated

How did the Ottoman Empire end?

The Ottoman Empire disintegrated and was partitioned after its defeat in World War I. The empire had been in decline for centuries, struggling to maintain a centralized administrative structure after various attempts at reform. Upon the Ottomans’ defeat in World War I, nationalist movements and partition agreements among the Allied powers forced its disintegration into numerous territories, with Turkey as the empire’s immediate successor

The Ottoman State To 1481: The Age Of Expansion

The first period of Ottoman history was characterized by almost continuous territorial expansion, from a small Anatolian principality to cover most of southeastern Europe and Anatolia. The institutions of Islamic empires were amalgamated with Byzantium and the great Turkish empires of Central Asia and were reestablished in new forms that were to characterize the area into modern times.

Origins and expansion of the Ottoman state, c. 1300–1402

In their initial stages of expansion, the Ottomans were leaders of the ghāzī (Arabic: “raider”), who fought against the Christian Byzantine state. The ancestors of Osman I, the founder of the dynasty, were members of the Kayı tribe who had entered Anatolia along with a mass of Turkmen Oğuz nomads. The ghazis fought against the Byzantines and then the Mongols.

Osman and Orhan

Following the final Mongol defeat of the Seljuqs in 1293, Osman emerged as prince over Byzantine Bithynia. Osman and his immediate successors concentrated their attacks on Byzantine territories bordering the Bosporus and the Sea of Marmara to the west. The Ottomans, left as the major Muslim rivals of Byzantium, were able to take advantage of the decay of the Byzantine economic, religious, and social discontent. Osman and his successors Orhan (Orkhan, ruled 1324–60) and Murad I (1360–89), took over Byzantine territories. It was only under Bayezid I (1389–1402) that the wealth and power gained by that initial expansion were used to assimilate the Anatolian Turkish principalities to the east.

Orhan

Osman

By 1300 Osman ruled an area in Anatolia stretching from Eskişehir (Dorylaeum) to the plains of İznik (Nicaea). Byzantine attempts to secure Il-Khanid support were unsuccessful, and the Byzantine emperor’s use of mercenary troops from western Europe caused more damage to his own territory than to that of the Turks. The Ottomans lacked effective siege equipment, however, and were unable to take the major cities of Bithynia. Nor could they move against their increasingly powerful Turkmen neighbours, the Aydın and Karası dynasties, which had taken southwestern Anatolia. Orhan’s capture of Bursa in 1324 provided the economic, and military power necessary to make the principality into a real state and to create an army. Orhan began the military policy, expanded by his successors, of employing Christian mercenary troops, thus lessening his dependence on the nomads.

Orhan

Orhan soon was able to capture the remaining Byzantine towns in northwestern Anatolia:by (1337), and Üsküdar (1338). He then moved against Turkmen neighbours to the south. Orhan annexed Karası in 1345 and gained the area between the Gulf of Edremit and Kapıdağı (Cyzicus), reaching the Sea of Marmara.The expansion also enabled the Ottomans to replace Aydın as the principal ally of the Byzantine emperor John VI Cantacuzenus. The entry of Ottoman troops into Europe gave them a direct opportunity to see the possibilities for conquest offered by Byzantine decadence. The collapse of Aydın following the death of its ruler, Umur Bey, left the Ottomans alone as the leaders of the ghazis against the Byzantines. Orhan helped Cantacuzenus take the throne of Byzantium from John V Palaeologus and as a reward secured the right to ravage Thrace and to marry the emperor’s daughter Theodora.

Information Courtesy of Encyclopedia Britannica

https://www.britannica.com/place/Ottoman-Empire