The Islamic World to 1600
Recovery and Renewed Conquest, 1402-80
After Timur's death in 1405, his weak successors were unable to hold his vast empire together, and the Ottomans were able to reassert themselves and begin the process of rebuilding their empire. In one of the most remarkable recoveries in history, the Ottoman Empire went from complete ruin in 1402 to bringing down the Byzantine Empire with the sacking of Constantinople in 1453. A central question of Ottoman scholarship is how they managed to recover so completely in such a short period of time.
The short answer is that a series of strong rulers, combined with the traditional Turkish gazi thirst for conquest, allowed the Ottoman Empire to rebuild so quickly. Although Asia Minor was divided among all of Bayazid's sons after the Timurid victory, the youngest son, Mehmed, soon asserted authority over the others, and by 1416, he had reunited Asia Minor under his rule. In order to subdue his brothers, Mehmed even concluded a peace treaty with the neighbouring Byzantine Empire, which agreed to imprison Mehmed's brothers while he focused on reconquering the Balkans. Despite Mehmed's leadership, however, the first decades of the 15th century essentially featured a series of small civil wars within the Ottoman lands. During the wars of reconquest in the Balkans under Mehmed's son, Murad II, the Ottomans were introduced to new weapons from Europe, including cannons and muskets, which they then improved upon and used to their great advantage in battle. While their use of firearms increased, so did their naval capabilities. A war with Venice, a naval power, in the 1440s led to the development of an Ottoman navy, and by 1442 the Ottoman Empire had 60 ships at Gallipoli and 100 river vessels on the Danube. The rapid growth of the Ottoman navy in fact forced the Venetians to strengthen their own fleet.
 Mehmed II Courtesy of Bilkent University's Department of History www.bilkent.edu.tr/~history/ottoman/index.htm |
The Ottoman Empire reached its full recovery under Murad II's son, Mehmed II, known as Fatih, or "the Conqueror." He was determined not only to restore the Ottoman Empire to its pre-Timurid glory, but to build on it as well. After centuries of Muslim raids on Constantinople, the Byzantine capital, Mehmed decided it was time for the Muslims to take the city once and for all. After a 54-day siege, Constantinople fell to the Ottomans, who promptly renamed the city, Istanbul.
 |
The Fall of Constantinople |
Mehmed II was known as the Conqueror for more reasons that just his conquest of Constantinople. In 1454 he demanded that all territories surrounding the Black Sea recognise Ottoman rule, including several Genoese colonies, and the Kingdom of Moldavia. In 1463, Mehmed gained control of the Dardanelles, a strategic waterway separating Asia Minor from Europe, by building a fortress on either side of it. Also in 1463, after years of struggle in the Balkans, Mehmed succeeded in annexing Bosnia to the Ottoman Empire, a move that led to the Islamicisation of Bosnia, and which has had repercussions for the entire Balkan region to this day.
|
The Islamicisation of Bosnia |
Meanwhile, in the east, Mehmed faced a challenge in the 1470s from Uzun Hasan, ruler of the Turkish Aq-Qoyunlu confederation in eastern Asia Minor and northern Persia, who had allied with Venice and Cyprus against the Ottomans. Mehmed defeated Uzun Hasan at the Battle of Baskent on the Euphrates, then turned against Venice. In 1478, Mehmed cut Venice's communication lines to the sea, and forced it to cede some of its Albanian territories to the Ottomans. Mehmed was en route to invade Italy and the Papacy in 1480 when he died. The Pope was even preparing to flee Rome for France out of fear of the impending Ottoman invasion.
Most Ottoman historians agree that Mehmed II was the true founder of the Ottoman Empire, not only for his military conquests, but for his work on the internal structure of the empire as well. He took for himself the title, "Sovereign of the Two Lands and of the Two Seas," for his establishment of the empire in both Europe and Asia, and both the Mediterranean and Black Seas. By Mehmed's time, the Ottoman Empire had developed into an absolute monarchy, with the sultan assuming all powers over the realm. The Ottomans rationalised their absolutism by arguing that the sultan needed sweeping powers over the empire and state in order to protect his people from the corruption of government. In the first centuries of the Ottoman Empire, the sultans were indeed very intolerant of corrupt officials, believing that corruption weakened their power in the eyes of the people, and the Ottoman Empire had an interest in positive public opinion of them. For this reason, they forbade soldiers to pillage conquered villages, and they even conducted a sort of opinion poll: by monitoring mosques to see which ones included the sultan's name in their Friday prayers - which was optional - authorities could discern which regions supported the sultan and which did not.
| Proceed to Ottoman Empire: Relations with the Islamic World, 1480-1520 |  |