1. Today:
• The Enlightenment
• Chapter 17: The Islamic World
• Next Time:
• Africa and the Slave Trade
Who is this?

2. The Enlightenment
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NnoFj2cMRLY

3. Mary Wollstonecraft
• Proto-feminist, pro-women’s rights
• A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792)
Consider, sir, dispassionately these observations, for a glimpse of this truth
seemed to open before you when you observed, "that to see one-half of the human
race excluded by the other from all participation of government was a political
phenomenon that, according to abstract principles, it was impossible to explain."
If so, on what does your constitution rest? If the abstract rights of man will bear
discussion and explanation, those of woman, by a parity of reasoning, will not
shrink from the same test; though a different opinion prevails in this country, built
on the very arguments which you use to justify the oppression of woman--
prescription. – Mary Wollstonecraft (from the dedication of the above text)

4. The Islamic World (1300-1800)
• The Ottoman Empire
• Centered in present day Turkey
• The Safavid Empire
• Ancient Persia, present day Iran
• The Mughal Empire
• Present day India and Pakistan
• Culture and Life
• European Powers and Political Decline

5. The Ottoman Empire
• Took their name from Osman (1299-1326) the leader of Turkish people
that moved into Anatolia (Turkey) as the Mongols spread west
• Gradually took land from the declining Byzantine Empire, and other
Muslim groups throughout the Middle East
• Made efforts to absorb the people, rather than destroy them
• Expanded into the Balkans in the mid-1300s (bypassing Constantinople)
• Mehmet II (the Conqueror) took Constantinople in 1453, renamed it
Istanbul
• Converted major churches to mosques, built new mosques, encouraged
wealthy inhabitants to build public facilities
• Moved populations into the city to make it more Ottoman

6. Expanded with the use of
gunpowder (invented in
China)
Reached well into Europe,
and at one point even
besieged Vienna and
allied with France to
counter the Austrian
Habsburgs
Used the devshirme
system of slavery to train
civil servants, soldiers
(janisaries), and to use as
concubines

7. The Safavid Empire
• A short-lived empire unified the area of Persia under Timur (aka
Tamerlane) beginning in 1370, but declined after his death and
disintegrated by 1450
• In 1501 the Safavid Empire begins with Ismail conquering the Timurid
city of Tabriz and declaring himself Shah (king)
• United Turkish people who had lived under Mongol rule
• Practiced Shia Islam and exiled Sunni leaders/teachers
• Often clashed with the Ottomans in the Caucasus and present day Iraq
• Reached its largest extent under Shah Abbas, who captured Mosul, and
Diarbakr (eastern Anatolia)
• Allied with Austrian Habsburgs after the Ottomans allied with France
• Used a similar system of slavery to build armies, with most coming from
the Caucasus

9. The Mughal Empire
• Babur, a Turkish Muslim descendant of Tamerlane (see Safavid
Empire slide), and supposed descendant of Genghis Khan, was
forced out of Central Asia
• He went to, and conquered, Kabul, and set up a kingdom
• From there he spread east, taking Agra and Delhi.
• His son, Humayun, lost most of the territory in Afghanistan, but
expanded some in India and spent time in Persia
• Babur’s grandson, Akbar, expanded even further into present day
Bangladesh, and central India (he also changed the official language
to Persian from Turkish)
• For three more rulers (until 1707) the Mughals would continue to
expand down the subcontinent, taking all but the far south

11. What languages did these
three empires share?
How might that connect
them culturally?
How might that influence
commerce?

12. Culture and Life
• All three empires had a developed rug-making culture, inherited
from the Turkic tribes that they had descended from
• Book illustration was also a shared culture between the three
• Book making and library culture was particularly valued
• Gardens were lavish, especially around palaces
• Advances in medicine, math, geography, astronomy, and navigation
• Observatories were built, cartographic books produced, and even kidney
and bladder stones were investigated
• Never quite reached the extent of the Scientific Revolution in
Europe
• Coffeehouse culture develops (after being imported from Yemen to
the Ottoman Empire, then spreading with trade)

13. Architecture
The Mughal capital built in Delhi
What is this place?
Shah Mosque
in Isfahan,
Iran
The Blue Mosque in Istanbul

14. Non-Muslims under Muslim Rule
• Ottoman Empire
• Jews and Christians kept property and religious rights, but payed a special tax
• When Jews were expelled from Spain in 1492, many moved here
• Central European Jews were encouraged to relocate to Ottoman lands
• The Safavids actively sought to convert the Christians in the Caucasus
(Armenian)
• Mughal leaders ruled many non-Muslims
• Hindus, Jains, Zoroastrians, Christians, and Sikhs
• Initially were very tolerant, and never forced conversion
• After 1605, Mughal rulers became less tolerant and more inclined to force
Islamic norms on non-Muslims

15. European Powers
• The bypassing of the Ottoman trade routes by Portuguese (then
Dutch and British) traders decreased the importance of the Ottomans
and the Safavids.
• Europeans were able to gain footholds along the coastline of present-
day India around the same time that the Mughals were extending
down the sub-continent
• Smaller kingdoms fell to the Mughals, while the sea-trade routes were
taken over by the Portuguese, then Dutch, then British
• Individual traders found ways to adapt, but state-run trade was
severely diminished, weakening the three Islamic empires

16. Decline
• The Ottoman Empire would begin to lose territory in Europe (to
the Habsburgs) and in the Caucasus (the the Russian Empire) and
continue to decline until WWI
• The Safavid Empire was taken over by Afghan Shahs in 1726 and
the territory fragmented
• The Mughal Empire lost territory to local groups sponsored and
reinforced with soldiers from the British East India Company, and
eventually came under British rule outright.
• This was exacerbated by succession struggles among the Mughal
leadership

17. For next time:
• For next time:
• Be sure to finish Chapters 20 and 21.