The Islamic World to 1600
Relations with the Islamic World, 1480-1520
Mehmed's son and successor, Bayazid II, shifted the Empire's military focus from Christian Europe to the fellow Islamic empires in Egypt and Persia, thus eroding much of the gazi warrior foundations of waging war only on non-Muslims, on which the Ottoman Empire was built. In 1485, the Mamluk Sultanate in Egypt was the oldest major dynasty in the Islamic world, and its leader was the most respected sovereign in that world. The Mamluks earned Bayazid's wrath, however, by siding with his brother, Cem, whom Bayazid defeated for the Ottoman crown. Although no significant battles would occur between the two empires until the reign of Bayazid's son, Selim (1512-20), the antagonism sparked during Bayazid's reign showcased the potential for animosity between Muslim empires.
A more significant development in the Islamic world during Bayazid's rule came in 1501, with the establishment of the Safavid Empire in Persia by Shah Ismail I. As a Shi'ite empire, the Safavids immediately declared their hostility towards the Sunni Ottomans, who retaliated just as vigorously. Bayazid's refusal to directly challenge the Safavids, however, in part led to his forced abdication by his son, Selim, in 1512.
 Selim II receives the Safavid ambassador in 1567 Courtesy of Bilkent University's Department of History www.bilkent.edu.tr/~history/ottoman/index.htm |
Selim embarked on a fierce campaign against the Safavids, and he soon extended his animosity to the Mamluks as well. His mind for conquest earned him the name, Selim the Grim. Selim felt he needed to wage war with the Safavids not only because of their religious differences, but also because of the constant military threat of having an expansionist state on the Ottoman Empire's eastern frontier. The fact that both empires adhered to Islam, in one form or another, does not appear to have deterred either side from fighting each other. A parallel situation existed in Europe, where Christian states, despite sharing a religion, did not hesitate to go to war against each other for political reasons. Similarly, for as long as the Safavid state existed, which was a shorter period of time than the Ottoman, the two empires were often at war, for both political and religious reasons - since each believed that the other adhered to a heretical form of Islam. As they prepared for their first confrontation, Selim began a campaign against the Shi'ites in the Ottoman Empire, killing as many as 40,000 people by 1514. Later that year, Ottoman forces met the Safavids at the Battle of Chaldiran in eastern Asia Minor, where superior Ottoman artillery led them to victory over the Safavids. Selim even continued east to Tabriz, the Safavid capital, but the weary Janissaries forced him to return to Istanbul before winter set in.
Selim's next campaign was conducted against the Mamluks to the south. Although the Mamluks were Sunni Muslims, like the Ottomans, and although the Mamluks were not threatening expansion into Ottoman lands the way the Safavids were, Selim opted to invade anyway. The reason he gave for the invasion was that the Mamluks - weakened by the plague and a poor economy - were no longer strong enough to defend the Islamic world against the new threats it faced. Premier among these threats was the new naval capabilities of the Portuguese, who had succeeded in circumnavigating Africa under Vasco da Gama in 1498. The resulting Portuguese ability to trade in the Indian Ocean and the Red Sea threatened the Islamic lands bordering these bodies of water. The Ottomans argued that the Mamluks - lacking both a navy and modern firearms - were ill-equipped to defend Islamic lands from the Portuguese. Particularly worrisome for the Ottomans was the threat to the Mamluk-controlled holy cities of Mecca and Medina that the Portuguese posed in the Red Sea. For that reason, the Ottomans felt that they were the only Islamic empire sufficiently powerful to defend Islam's holiest cities from the Portuguese.
Selim began his Mamluk campaign in Syria, taking Aleppo, Damascus, and Jerusalem from the Mamluks in 1516. He then crossed the Sinai Peninsula into Egypt, killed the Mamluk sultan, and declared Egypt to be under Ottoman control. From there, the Ottomans moved south down the Arabian Peninsula to Mecca, but no battle was needed there. The Sherif of Mecca, a descendant of the Prophet Muhammad, gave Selim the keys to the city for both Mecca and Medina. After he gained control of the holy cities, Selim added the title of caliph, or supreme leader of Islam, to the title carried by all Ottoman sultans. The Mamluk Sultanate thus came to an end after 250 years, and in absorbing its lands, the Ottoman Empire became the most powerful of the Islamic empires. Not only did it gain control of some of the wealthiest overland trade routes, through Cairo and Damascus, but its control of Mecca and Medina gave it special status as protectors of the entire Islamic world.
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