The rise of the Ottoman empire and the reemergence of Muslims

The Ottoman Empire was created by Turkish tribes in Anatolia Asia minor. It grew to be one of the most influential states in the world throughout the 15th and 16th centuries. The Ottoman period is more than 600 years and came to an end only in 1922 when it was replaced by the Turkish Republic. At its peak, the empire included a major portion of southeastern Europe to the gates of Vienna, including present-day Hungary, the Balkan region, Greece, and parts of Ukraine; portions of the Middle East now consisted of Iraq, Syria, Israel, and Egypt; North Africa as far west as Algeria, and large parts of the Arabian Peninsula.

The term Ottoman is a dynastic term derived from Osman, the roaming Turkmen chief who founded both the dynasty and the empire about 1300.

The Ottoman Empire and caliphate

The religion of the Ottoman Empire was Islam. The main
position in Islam, the caliphate, was maintained by the Abbasi sultan, following the defeat of the Mamluks. Sultan Salem declared himself as the caliph of Muslims. So the caliphate was recognized as the Ottoman caliphate. The sultan was a committed Muslim and was given the authority of the caliph. Moreover, Sunni clerics had remarkable power over the government and their power was vital to the regulation of the economy. Despite all, the Sultan also had a right to the decree(Fu’twa), imposing a system called Kanun (law) in Turkish.

Furthermore, there was a supreme clerical place called the “Sheykhulislam”. Sheykhulislam was in a powerful position; he also had the power of decree. Minorities, particularly Christians and Jews also some others have to pay the jizya, the tax imposed by Islam.

The remarkable history of the Ottoman empire

Nobody thought that this small tribal principality would develop into an intercontinental. The ottoman empire emerged at the end of the 13th century. The Ottomans appeared out of Anatolia in the West of Turkey. At that time, the Byzantine Empire was near to rupture? The Roman Empire had controlled the region for centuries, but their power was soaking and dismantling.

The fall of the Seljuk empire

The Seljuk Turks occupied and controlled the majority of modern-day Turkey and the Middle East at the time, far more area than the Ottomans. But the Seljuk Sultanate was destroyed by the attack of Mongols. Now in the thirteen century, there were a lot of independent territories and small tribal states in the Anatolian region of modern-day Turkey.

The founder of the Ottoman Empire

After the concluding Mongol defeat of the Seljuqs in 1293, Osman emerged as a tribal leader of the border principality that took over Byzantine Bithynia in northwestern Anatolia around Bursa. He was commanding and influencing the ghazis against the Byzantines in that area.

Osman created self-belief in Turks that they can overthrow the Byzantine from Anatolia. All the border tribes gradually gathered under his flag, he was had become their hero. He was guided by a Sufi Muslim scholar Shiekh Adabali. Osman later married his daughter Bala Khatoon. 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 opponent of Byzantium. Osman attracted a lot of nomads and urban unemployed who were wandering through the Middle East searching for resources to gain their livelihoods and seeking to fulfill their religious aspiration to enlarge the territory of Islam.Byzantine empire facing issues in the economic, religious, and social discontent in Byzantine Empire.The Byzantine conflict against the ottoman beginning under Osman and continuing under his successors Orhan ( ruled 1324–60) and Murad I(1360–89), seized over Byzantine territories, first in western Anatolia and then in southeastern Europe. It was only under Bayezid I (1389–1402) that the wealth and power added by that initial extension were used to assimilate the Anatolian Turkish principalities to the east.

The fall of Constantinople

The Fall of Constantinople marked the end of the Byzantine Empire, and effectively the end of the Roman Empire, a state which dated back to 27 BC and lasted nearly 1,500 years. The capture of Constantinople, a city that marked the divide between Europe and Asia Minor, also allowed the Ottomans to more effectively invade mainland Europe, eventually leading to Ottoman control of much of the Balkan peninsula.

The conquest of Constantinople and the fall of the Byzantine Empire was a key event of the Late Middle Ages and is sometimes considered the end of the Medieval period. The city’s fall also stood as a turning point in military history. Since ancient times, cities and castles had depended upon ramparts and walls to repel invaders. However, Constantinople’s substantial fortifications were overcome with the use of gunpowder, specifically in the form of large cannons and bombards.

According to George Sphrantzes “On the third day after the fall of our city, the Sultan celebrated his victory with a great, joyful triumph. He issued a proclamation: the citizens of all ages who had managed to escape detection were to leave their hiding places throughout the city and come out into the open, as they were to remain free and no question would be asked. He further declared the restoration of houses and property to those who had abandoned our city before the siege. If they returned home, they would be treated according to their rank and religion, as if nothing had changed”.

The Ottoman Empire decline

The Ottoman Empire was one of the largest and longest-lasting Empires in history. It was an empire inspired and sustained by Islam, and Islamic institutions. It replaced the Byzantine Empire as the major power in the Eastern Mediterranean. The Ottoman Empire reached its height under Suleiman the Magnificent (reigned 1520-66) when it expanded to cover the Balkans and Hungary, and reached the gates of Vienna.

At the beginning of the 20th century, the Ottoman Empire had a reputation as the “sick man of Europe”, after a century of slow relative decline. The empire was weakened by political instability, military defeat, civil strife, and uprisings by national minorities. The collapse of the empire happened after the defeat of the Sultanate at the hands of the Allied forces.