Ottoman History

Istanbul, 1683: Mehmed IV, sultan of the Ottoman Empire, is preparing to lay siege to Vienna, capital of the Holy Roman Empire, when a mysterious visitor arrives in his bedroom - naked, covered in strange tattoos - to deliver a dangerous, world-changing message. Paris, 2017: Ottoman flags have been flying over the great city for 300 years, ever since its fall - along with all of Europe - to the empire’s all-conquering army. Notre Dame has been renamed the Fatih Mosque. Public spaces are segregated by gender.

The Byzantine Empire survived as a self-contained political entity longer than any other in the history of Christianity. This history by Charles Oman is a catalog of good, bad, and indifferent emperors who either pushed Byzantine Civilization to new heights or savagely drove it to defeat and dissolution. It is a strange tale populated by some of the most interesting men and women who have ever lived.

In the wake of taking Constantinople, the Ottoman Empire would spend the next few centuries expanding its size, power, and influence, bumping up against Eastern Europe and becoming one of the world’s most important geopolitical players. It would take repeated efforts by various European coalitions to prevent a complete Ottoman takeover of the continent, and one of the most important battles among those efforts took place at Vienna in 1529.

Suleiman the Magnificent is the story of the Ottoman Turks' greatest leader. He came to power at the early age of 25 in 1520. Before his death in 1566, he had altered the power structure and geography of Eastern Europe, and Turkey had become the dominant naval power in the Mediterranean. Suleiman's reign would mark the high tide of Turkish power in Asia Minor and Europe.

Over the course of just 200 years, the Ottoman Empire grew from a small, obscure Anatolian state into the most powerful Muslim nation in the world, controlling vast swathes of the Middle East, Eastern Europe, and North Africa. Within the empire, science, medicine, technology, and art flourished, and the Ottoman army became one of the most feared and efficient fighting forces in existence. Then came a period of gradual decline.

When Queen Elizabeth was excommunicated by the Pope in 1570, she found herself in an awkward predicament. Now England's key markets would be closed to her Protestant merchants. To complicate matters, the staunchly Catholic king of Spain was determined to destroy her, bolstered by the gold pouring in from the New World. In a bold decision with far-reaching consequences, Elizabeth set her sights on the East.

In the heart of the Ottoman Empire as World War I rages, Stepan Miskjian's world becomes undone. He is separated from his family as they are swept up in the government's mass deportation of Armenians into internment camps. Gradually realizing the unthinkable - that they are all being driven to their deaths - he fights, through starvation and thirst, not to lose hope.

From the fall of Constantinople in 1453 until the 18th century, many Western European writers viewed the Ottoman Empire with almost obsessive interest. In this path-breaking audiobook, Noel Malcolm ranges through these vital centuries of East-West interaction, studying all the ways in which thinkers in the West interpreted the Ottoman Empire as a political phenomenon - and Islam as a political religion.

Among those who were responsible for the projection of Ottoman power, few deserve as much credit as the Sipahi. Civilizations across the steppes and the Middle East relied heavily on cavalry, and the Sipahi were elite cavalry units during medieval times for a couple of powers. That said, they were a massive contributor to the success of Ottoman warfare, and during good times for the empire, the Sipahi were rewarded, to the extent that they became their own social class, much like the Janissaries.

In terms of geopolitics, perhaps the most seminal event of the Middle Ages was the successful Ottoman siege of Constantinople in 1453. The city had been an imperial capital as far back as the fourth century, when Constantine the Great shifted the power center of the Roman Empire there, effectively establishing two almost equally powerful halves of antiquity’s greatest empire. Constantinople would continue to serve as the capital of the Byzantine Empire even after the Western half of the Roman Empire collapsed in the late fifth century.

The Ottoman world was nothing like an exotic fairy tale featuring tyrant sultans, mean pashas, and ill-fated harem women. The true stories of genuine sultans and princes are a bit more complicated and no less exciting. Incredible facts about this empire still surprise anyone who starts discovering those stories. You’ll find out that, for quite a while, this Islamic state was effectively ruled by women, and that’s just the beginning.

لذا يحاول هذا الكتاب تسليط الضوء على الفترة الواقعة بين مطلع القرن السادس عشر الميلادي، وقيام الحرب العالميّة الأولى، ويقدم صورةمن المعروف أنّ موضوع الأكراد الأيزيديين لم يولّ الاهتمام المطلوب من قبل الدارسين، كما لم تقدم دراسات حقيقيّة عن أوضاعهم، ولا سيما في بلاد الرافدين بشكل شامل تاريخيّة شاملة للأكراد في العهد العثماني، على قاعدة أن التاريخ المجزأ، لا يفهم ولا يعطي الرؤيّة المناسبة، في إطار عدم الفصل بين الأحداث السياسيّة والعسكريّة والحالة الفكريّة والاجتماعيّة، والمؤثرات الدوليّة والإقليميّة، وانعكاساتها على الواقع الكُردي الأيزيدي كجزء لا يتجزأ من التاريخ الكُردي الحديث في المنطقة.

In 1393, the Tsar of Bulgaria, Ivan Shishman, defended Nicopolis in a last stand against the invading Ottoman Empire, but the well-known battle named after the town occurred in 1396, when an army of knights from all over Europe faced an Ottoman army. This battle is famous for representing the last time that Christian Europe (or, at least, most of it) united under a single banner to fight a common foe, and the military venture is often called the Last Crusade.

In the best-selling Warriors of God and Dogs of God, James Reston Jr. limned two epochal conflicts between Islam and Christendom. Here he examines the ultimate battle in that centuries-long war, which found Europe at its most vulnerable and Islam on the attack. This drama was propelled by two astonishing young sovereigns: Holy Roman Emperor Charles V and Turkish sultan Suleyman the Magnificent. Though they represented two colliding worlds, they were remarkably similar.

From a small Turkish principality to a global superpower, the Ottoman Empire’s role in world history is certainly undeniable. For over six centuries, the empire was arguably the world’s strongest Muslim empire, dominating its rivals in Europe and Asia for many years.

In terms of geopolitics, perhaps the most seminal event of the Middle Ages was the successful Ottoman siege of Constantinople in 1453. The city had been an imperial capital as far back as the 4th century, when Constantine the Great shifted the power center of the Roman Empire there, effectively establishing two almost equally powerful halves of antiquity’s greatest empire. Constantinople would continue to serve as the capital of the Byzantine Empire even after the Western half of the Roman Empire collapsed in the late 5th century.

Spanning three continents and controlling lands in the Balkans, the Caucasus, Crimea, Anatolia, the Middle East, the Levant, Egypt, and North Africa, the Ottoman Empire was one of the most menacing powers at the height of its power in the 16th century. It was feared by other great empires of Europe. But how exactly did the Ottomans achieve this great power, and how did they lose it by the early 20th century?

Crescent Dawn features some of the legendary figures of the era – from Mehmet the Conqueror, and Suleiman the Magnificent on the Ottoman side, to Charles V and Vasco de Gama on the other – and some of the most exotic locales on Earth – from the sumptuous palaces of Constantinople to the bloody battlefields of the Balkans to the awe-inspiring mountains of Ethiopia. This is a colorful history that brings the great battles of the age to life and clearly shows how the western struggle against the Ottomans constituted the first truly world war.

Frémeaux & Associés et la Grande Mosquée de Paris s’associent afin de faire connaître l’histoire, la philosophie, les cultures et les savoirs du monde musulman. Edhem Eldem est professeur au département d’histoire de l’université de Bog˘azici à Istanbul, il a aussi enseigné à Berkeley, Harvard, Columbia, à l’EHESS, à l’EPHE, à l’ENS et a été titulaire de la chaire internationale d’histoire turque et ottomane au Collège de France. Dans cette conférence, il retrace l’histoire de l’Empire ottoman depuis son apparition au XIVe siècle à sa chute au lendemain de la Première Guerre mondiale.

Suleiman was the most famous sultan of the Ottoman Empire in the 16th century. His reign meant an increase of interest in art, expanded regions under Muslim law, and hundreds of thousands of men employed in the army, ready to fight wars against surrounding nations. Political and law reforms took place, and in the matter of a short time span, much of the culture and society in the region had been changed.