The Islamic World to 1600
The siege of Constantinople began on April 6, 1453, with 50,000 Ottoman troops facing off against only 8,500 Byzantine troops. Since their introduction to firearms 30 years earlier, the Ottomans had drastically improved their artillery, and now possessed among the strongest weapons in the world at the time. The Ottomans used the largest cannons yet seen in Europe, and Constantinople's city walls, although the strongest of the Middle Ages, were no match for the Ottomans' modern weaponry.
On May 29, 1453, after 54 days of battle, Sultan Mehmed II entered Constantinople and prayed at Hagia Sophia, which was built by the Emperor Constantine, and was the oldest Byzantine church in the city. He then ordered it turned into a mosque, and renamed the city Islambol - "Islam abounds" - or Istanbul. With the capital firmly in Ottoman hands, the rest of the Byzantine Empire quickly crumbled. The Ottomans absorbed the territory, and the Empire of Orthodox Christianity, after ruling for over a millennium, was gone.
Mehmed realised the strategic value of controlling a city that represented the junction between Europe and Asia, and he therefore spent much time transforming Istanbul into his empire's capital. He guided its repopulation, for example, and the city grew from 30,000 people before the conquest to 100,000 by the 1478 census. By 1600, there were 700,000 people living in Istanbul, making it the most populous city in Europe at that time. Mehmed also had a number of mosques, baths, public buildings, inns, and marketplaces constructed in Istanbul, many of which remain today.
One of the most important buildings Mehmed ordered to be constructed following the conquest of Istanbul was Topkapi Palace. Built over 12 years, from 1466 to 1478, it became the home of the Ottoman sultans for nearly 400 years. After Sultan Abdulmecid I moved to a new palace in 1839, Topkapi was neglected until 1924, when the government of the new country of Turkey restored it as a museum. The Topkapi Palace Library today houses one of the oldest and largest collections of medieval Qur'ans in the world.
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The Qur'an Collection at the Topkapi Palace Library |
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Return to Ottoman Empire: Recovery and Renewed Conquest, 1402-1480 |