Daily Life In The Ottoman Empire Read Online Free

the two powers agreed to sign a peace treaty.
    Meanwhile, a new and far more threatening menace was
emerging in the east. The rise of the Shia Safavid dynasty in Iran forced the
Ottomans to shift their focus to eastern Anatolia where the power and
popularity of the Iranian dynast Shah Ismail (1501–1524) posed a direct threat
to the authority of the sultan. Under the charismatic leadership of their shah,
the Safavid forces occupied Baghdad in 1504 and pushed into southeastern
Anatolia. The failure of the aging and ailing Bayezid II to organize an
effective response to the threat posed by the Safavids allowed one of his sons,
Selim, to seize power in 1512.
    It was during the reign of Selim I (1512–1520) that the
Ottoman Empire emerged as the most powerful state in the Middle East and North
Africa. First, Selim I defeated the Safavids at the battle of Chaldiran in
August 1514 and occupied the strategically important province of Azerbaijan. He
then attacked and defeated the Mamluk armies, first in Syria in 1516, and then
in Egypt in 1517, thus bringing the Arab lands of the Middle East, including
the two holy cities of Mecca and Medina, under Ottoman rule.
    Egypt emerged as the largest and the most lucrative
province of the Ottoman Empire, sending the largest amount of taxes to the
central treasury in Istanbul. The conquest of Egypt allowed the Ottomans “to
participate in the traffic in African gold, which passed through Ethiopia and
the Sudan, and in the spice trade with Christian countries.” The Ottomans also
used their military and naval presence in Egypt to impose their hegemony over
the greater Red Sea region and annex Abyssinia that “extended from the southern
border of Egypt all the way to the Horn of Africa, encompassing most of
present-day Sudan, Djibouti on the horn of Africa, and coastal Ethiopia.”
    When Selim I’s son, Süleyman (1520–1566), succeeded his
father, the territorial expansion of the empire continued. The new sultan
attacked and captured Belgrade in 1521, using the conflict and personal
jealousies between the Habsburg King, Charles V, and the French monarch,
Francis I, to his advantage. A year later, the Ottomans occupied Rhodes despite
fierce resistance from the Knights of St. John, who had ruled the island since
the 13th century. Using Belgrade as a territorial base, Süleyman invaded and
occupied Hungary after defeating King Louis II at the battle of Mohács in 1526.
With the disappearance of the Hungarian state, the Habsburgs emerged as the
northern neighbors of the Ottoman Empire and the power most threatened by
Turkish expansionism. The expected attack on the Habsburg capital, Vienna, came
in September 1529, but the arrival of the rainy season made the roads
impassable for the Ottomans, forcing Süleyman to abandon the siege.
    Meanwhile, to the east, the sultan pushed the frontiers of
his empire by attacking Iran in 1535 and occupying Iraq and the Iranian cities
of Tabriz and Hamedan. After several successful campaigns against Iran, the
Ottomans forced the Safavid dynasty to sign the Treaty of Amasya in May 1555,
ceding much of Azerbaijan and the southern Caucasus to the Ottoman Empire.
Meanwhile, Süleyman ordered the construction of a naval force and appointed the
legendary Hayreddin Paşa as his chief admiral ( kapudan-i derya ).
Hayreddin Paşa captured Tunis in 1533 and established Ottoman hegemony on
the southern shores of the Mediterranean. Finally, to the south, the Ottomans
extended their rule in the Arab world by occupying Sana’a, the capital of Yemen
in 1547.
    Some historians have identified the reign of Süleyman’s
son, Selim II (1566–1574), as the beginning of the long process of decline,
which culminated with the defeat of Ottoman forces outside Vienna in 1683 and
the gradual retreat of the Ottoman state from southeast Europe. The decline of
the empire did not, however, happen overnight. The process was already under
way during the reign of Süleyman the Magnificent,