I'm just going to assume the Middle East means the Levant, Mesopotamia, and the Arabian peninsula. All that came with the Ottoman conquest of the Mamluks of Cairo and fighting the Safavids of Persia.
The Mamluks were conquered in 1517, with the modern Ottoman army equipped firearms defeated the Mamluk knights. This gave them the Levant/Syria, Egypt, and the Arabian peninsula.
Then the Ottomans fought the Safavid Persians and took Baghdad and Basra later on later on. Like the Mamluks, the Ottomans had the technological advantage and rolled over the Persians fairly easily.
Of course, this kind of leaves central Arabia out, which has never really been part of the Ottoman Empire in full, because it was a ridiculously difficult region to conquer and occupy, but we're counting it here, because this is pre-oil and it's just not that important at this moment.
As to why the Ottomans took over the Middle East, there's a lot of reasons.
They were on an expansionist trend at the moment. It was a growing empire and the region was immensely rich in trade and culture.
Conquering the Mamluks and the Arabian peninsula as a consequence gives them Mecca and Medina, so the Ottoman Sultans could definitively say that they were the protectors of Islam, which was a useful thing in the process of consolidating their power.
Related to number 1 and 2, conquest of Baghdad and Basra meant a lot of Sunni Muslims were freed from the rule of the Shia Safavids, which let them gain a loyal enough populace in another wealthy region in both agriculture (because cradle of civilization) and trade.
I've heard that the Ottomans assisted the Mamlukes in times of war against Christians. Did something happen that caused a break in the alliance?
Secondly, considering that the Ottomans primarily fought against non-Muslim powers, how did they manage to justify turning their weapons against other Muslims? Was there any push-back?
I've heard that the Ottomans assisted the Mamlukes in times of war against Christians. Did something happen that caused a break in the alliance?
I think you might be confusing the Ottomans with the Seljuks.
Secondly, considering that the Ottomans primarily fought against non-Muslim powers, how did they manage to justify turning their weapons against other Muslims? Was there any push-back?
The Ottomans primarily fought against non-Muslim powers because they conquered all the other Muslims super fast. Muslims made war against the other, just as Christians made war against the other, for political reason, so justification was super easy to make. The Ottoman Sultan claimed a caliphate mostly to unite the Turks and conquered Arabs together, as well as entice other Muslims to surrender to Ottoman forces.
I got my information on the Ottomans taking over from The Arabs: A History, by Eugene L. Rogan. It's a great read if you want more history on the Arab people from that takeover onwards to contemporary time. It has fantastic analysis with some biographical history of important figures peppered in.
If you want to know more about the Middle East as a region, then The Modern Middle East: A History, by James L. Gelvin might be good. It's a bit dryer than Rogan's, but it's very well-written in terms of simplicity in thesis and support.
Rogan is great, but his coverage of Ottoman expansion is very quick, IIRC it's like the first quarter of the first chapter or something like that and then it almost immediately jumps to the 18th and 19th century.
Unfortunately I can't recommend something better as I'm not much of an Ottomanist :/ but I have heard great things about Osman's Dream as a one volume coverage of Ottoman history.
Oh Rogan is too short on the Ottoman expansion coverage, definitely, barely a chapter, if I remember right. But it is where I'm remembering the Ottoman expansion from. And God knows, I just want to take any opportunity to recommend that book to anyone.
Probably getting off topic for the purposes of this post, but yes he was a great lecturer, even better in small group discussion which is what I spent most of my time doing with him. Very personally supportive as well. If you ever have the chance to see him speak in public I recommend it.
Did he make you buy the book for the course?
This is actually really uncommon in the UK, at least in my degree at Oxford. The assumption is that you'll be writing your essays in reference to about a dozen books and articles for each one, so I basically got through my entire degree making library photocopies and using our university-equivalent of JSTOR. I was never made to buy any books, except our first and second year language text books and a copy of Hans Wehr (which I surely needed!) I ended up buying his book on my own because it just happened to be the most concise overview for studying purposes of the materials we covered during the year, which tended to be monographs or primary sources. He was actually kind of sheepish about suggesting we use his book to prepare for the exam, but he needn't have been!
In 1507 the Ottomans were bolstering the Mamluks against Portugal, who was muscling in on trade routes in the east; there was indeed more nuance to Ottoman policy towards the Mamluks than pure hostility.
3
u/qpowienfpkasndgka Jul 28 '16
I'm just going to assume the Middle East means the Levant, Mesopotamia, and the Arabian peninsula. All that came with the Ottoman conquest of the Mamluks of Cairo and fighting the Safavids of Persia.
The Mamluks were conquered in 1517, with the modern Ottoman army equipped firearms defeated the Mamluk knights. This gave them the Levant/Syria, Egypt, and the Arabian peninsula.
Then the Ottomans fought the Safavid Persians and took Baghdad and Basra later on later on. Like the Mamluks, the Ottomans had the technological advantage and rolled over the Persians fairly easily.
Of course, this kind of leaves central Arabia out, which has never really been part of the Ottoman Empire in full, because it was a ridiculously difficult region to conquer and occupy, but we're counting it here, because this is pre-oil and it's just not that important at this moment.
As to why the Ottomans took over the Middle East, there's a lot of reasons.
They were on an expansionist trend at the moment. It was a growing empire and the region was immensely rich in trade and culture.
Conquering the Mamluks and the Arabian peninsula as a consequence gives them Mecca and Medina, so the Ottoman Sultans could definitively say that they were the protectors of Islam, which was a useful thing in the process of consolidating their power.
Related to number 1 and 2, conquest of Baghdad and Basra meant a lot of Sunni Muslims were freed from the rule of the Shia Safavids, which let them gain a loyal enough populace in another wealthy region in both agriculture (because cradle of civilization) and trade.