Selim I had a great impact on the Ottoman Empire. He continued the conquest of his forefathers and conquered many areas, such as the Hejaz, Egypt, and Syria. He opened up new trade networks, and was born into a civil war. He personally dethroned his father Bayezid II. Selim’s rule was mostly conquest. He addressed the rivalry between Sunni and Shi’a Muslims. Selim led an eventful life and was a great Sultan of the Ottomans.
Selim I was born on October 10, between 1465-70. He was born in Amasya, Turkey. Selim was the son of Bayezid II, an Ottoman Sultan. As a child, Selim was well-educated. He learned many things, but his personal favorites were science, and governmental theology. Selim learned from the well-known scholar Mevlana Abdulhalim. This tutorship can be compared to Aristotle’s teaching of Alexander the Great. In Selim’s teenage years, he was known to be quite fond of fighting, and was a brave soldier. Physically, he was tall and strong, with very broad shoulders. Selim had a trademark mustache that stood out. Selim had the normal upbringing of a prince.
During the sultanate of Bayezid, Selim was appointed as the Governor of Trabizon (Black Sea Anatolia). This is where he began to acquire his reputation. Selim had a very short temper, and expected a lot of his inferiors. Often, viziers of Selim were found dead. Comically, one of Selim’s viziers asked him if he could be notified in advance of his death, so he could place his affairs in order. Eventually, he attained the name “The Grim”, for his countless executions. It became an Ottoman joke where people were cursed to be a vizier of Selim. Selim had a lighter side, often reading about politics, and writing poetry. Selim’s time as Governor would not last, he had bigger a...
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...thrax. His son, Suleiman rose to the throne.
Although his efforts were cut short, Selim was seen as a quintessential Sultan. He had conquered Persia, the Levant, and the Hejaz in a span of 9 years. On the day of his death, the Ottoman Empire was about 1 billion acres wide, he had tripled it in size in just 9 years. Selim’s accomplishments are what allowed Suleiman to lead the Ottoman Empire to it’s peak. Today, a bridge in Istanbul is being built in his honor. Selim I is seen as a great Sultan, whose reign was cut short.
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The men at the forefront of the Young Turk’s rebellion were Mehmed Talaat, Ismail Enver and Ahmed Djemal. Eventually, they came to have more of a dictatorial sort of rule on their people, with their own visions of what they wanted for the Turkic people. They all wanted to unite their people and expand ...
5) Safavid Empire-The Safavid Empire was important because, they were the force who stopped Turks advancing the east. They also brought central authority to region a...
Shahîd, Irfan. Byzantium and the Arabs in the Fourth Century. Washington, D.C: Dumbarton Oaks, 1984.
Timur, or Tamerlane, is a very important figure in Islam, not only because of his personal achievements, but also because his deeds are told in fictional stories venerating him in addition to explaining very important themes. In the article “Timur’s Legendary Biographies” by Scott Levi and Ron Sela, the authors tell the story of young Timur and his adventures through his youth. Before telling the story, the authors give information about the background of these stories and why they arose. They also describe certain themes the stories contain such as, how people should act during times of peril.
Lewis, Bernard. The Middle East: A Brief History of the Last 2,000 Years. New York: Scribner,
Historical record is not always an accurate representation of fact. An example of this would be the long reign of the Dowager Empress Tz’u-hsi, in which there were hundreds of documents written about her life. These documents have been taken and used in the production of numerous books, especially among Western historians. It was these early historians who have established the widely accepted perspective that Tz’u-hsi hungered for power, abused it, and retained it using any means necessary. This understanding is echoed today by authors such as W.G. Sebald, author of The Rings of Saturn. There are many differences between the accounts of the Western perspective and that of Sebald’s, but the overall idea of Tz’u-Hsi as a conniving and unworthy Empress is intact between the two. Still, the investigation is not over. There happens to be an abundance of historical documentation and opinion that contradicts the Western view on Tz’u-hsi. First, Western accounts of the major issues in Tz’u-hsi’s reign will be examined; following this will be a look at how unreliable these sources are by showing their inconsistencies, where the arguments came from, and the all the other evidence supporting a different perspective on the great Empress. It is possible the Empress was everything that her enemies said she was, but the evidence at hand does not support image of a sinister Tz’u-hsi.
Hooker, Richard. "The Ottomans: The 17th and 18th Centuries." Washington State University - Pullman, Washington. 1996. Web. 06 Apr. 2011. .
The Ottoman Empire was one of the most powerful empires in history, spanning from the 13th century in Northwestern Anatolia, to the late 19th century having reached Europe, Africa, and Asia respectively. As the rest of the world advanced and modernized, though, the Ottoman Empire struggled to maintain power and territory, and it began to implement a series of reforms to try to keep up with the likes of Europe. This is where we eventually see the once-prosperous empire struggle against the rest of the modern world, which eventually led to its downfall.
...vided and chaotic. The Ottoman Turks took advantage of the declining empire during a war often referred to as the Turkish War. During this time, the Ottomans, which were mostly composed of Sunni Muslims, conquered the Byzantine Empire through a series of battles, and expanded the territory into Balkan. The new Ottoman Empire peaked under the leadership of Emperor Süleyman I. While the Ottoman Empire reached its highest point due to it’s military and governmental strengths, the Byzantine Empire fell in 1265.
Located in the province of Xianjing, the Uyghurs are isolated by massive mountains, deserts, Communist China, and extreme poverty. The Uyghurs are of Turkic origin, and were one of the 9 original tribes. One of these tribes, the Ottomans, sacked Constantinople in 1459, starting the rein of the Sultans for 400 years. The superpower carved a massive empire, from its roots in Turkey, to spread from the Russian steppes to the Alps to India, and stamping their name on history in blood. European history in the 1400‘s, 1500‘s, and 1600‘s centered on the Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman Empire and the Arabic people carved two massive empires in an extremely short time. They crushed the medieval christian kingdoms around Jerusalem, and quickly started attacking Christian kingdoms in Spain, Greece, and the Balkans. These conflicts between Muslims and Christians have been the longest and bloodiest in the history of the world, and still persist today. These Ottomans are, understandably, the most wel...
...mplementation of Islamic law for the entire Ottoman Empire. When this occurred it was a transformation that no one saw coming and was truly unprecedented.
Islamic civilization began in Arabia, but it spread to many areas in the proximity of the peninsula. It spread as far as Spain, as well as many areas between the two locations. The civilization reached the Eastern Roman Empire, Persia, Egypt, and Africa. The Muslim warriors were extremely courageous, and their religious zeal aided in the conquests of many empires surrounding Arabia. However, the weakn...
The political plus military factors of fall, it is often hard to isolate one exact element as the main reason of decline. But as the Ottoman Empire’s system was so reliant on the sultan for stimulating and guide it as well as keep it as one and since collapse was, indeed, accompanied with serious elements of corruption within the organization of the sultanate and the persons holding the sultanate office, one can suppose that this was, certainly, the key to fall. Even during the glorious days of the rule of Suleyman there was decline. Maybe it was a lot to expect that the Ottoman Empire or any empire could maintain a constant series of able sultans such as the sultans who had made the empire. Conversely, because so much reliant on the personality of the sultan, a single weak sultan was enough for opening the doors to a sequence of nonentities and incompetents. The majority members of the feudal Sipahis and the Kapikulu corps married, left the garrisons, became estate owners, artisans, or merchants, abandoned military training jointly, and kept their groups memberships just for the pri...
The Ottoman Empire had humble roots. Beginning as an Ottoman state, it progressively rose to power to become an empire. As a state, the Ottoman state started as a small state in current-day western Turkey. Based on Muslim beliefs and rule, the Ottoman State began to dissolve surrounding Muslim states, which were absorbed into the future empire. This move thereby ended all the other Turkish dynasties. The Ottoman Empire was marked as one of the largest, longest lasting empires. The Ottoman Empire lasted from the late 13th century to 1923. Throughout it’s time, the Ottoman Empire was remarked as highly successful and progressive. But like all empires, the Ottoman Empire had to make its end. The Ottoman Empire, like all dynasties, went through its rise, peak, and falling periods. This essay assesses each period in the Ottoman Empire's history.
Al Ghazali, Zainab. Return of the Pharaoh: Memoir in Nasir’s Prison. The Islamic Foundation, 2006. Pp. vii, 188.