Chapter 27: Study Guide (The Islamic Empires)

Akbar

1. Akbar (r. 1556-1605): The real architect of the Mughal empire, who was brilliant and charismatic; Babur's grandson. He created a centralized administrative structure; consolidated Mughal power in Gujarat and Bengal; also began to absorb defeated Hindu kingdom of Viayanagar, laying foundation for later Mughal expansion in southern India. -Pursued a policy of religious toleration hoping to reduce tensions between Hindu and Muslim. -Encouraged syncretic religion called "divine faith" that focused attention on the emperor as a ruler common to all the religious, ethnic, and social groups of India.

Aurangzeb

1. Aurangzeb (r. 1659-1707): Muslim Mughal emperor who allowed Mughal empire to reach greatest extent; pushed relentless campaign to push Mughal authority into southern India, ruling most of the entire subcontinent except for a small tip in the south. -He faced religious tensions between Hindus and Muslims. As a Muslim, he broke with Akbar's policy of religious toleration and demolished Hindus temples and replaced them with mosques, imposed tax to forces converstion to Islam, ultimately generated hostility among Hindus. This led to local leaders organizing movements to rebel against Mughal authority.

Babur

1. Babur (Zahir al-Din; "The tiger") (1483-1530): Chaghatai Turk who founded the Mughal (Persian term for Mongol) dynasty, which expanded to embrace almost all the Indian subcontinent. -Ambition: Transform inheritance into a glorious central Asian empire, which he achieved with gunpowder weapons -Cared little about his land -1526: Took Delhi

Chaldiran

1. Battle of Chaldiran (1514): Battle between Ottomans and Safavid Persians that began when Selim the Grim became sultan and launched a persecution of Shiites in the Ottoman empire and prepared for a full-scale invasion of Safavid territory. Safavids were severely defeated, checked their Western expansion. -Starts long period of warfare and rivalry between these two Muslim empires, sets stage for ongoing conflict between Sunnis and Shiites. Connections to Iran Iraq War of 1980's. -Ottoman victory demonstrated the importance of firearms and checked the western advance of their Shiite state.

Devshirme

1. Devshirme: At Ottoman institution that required the Christian population of the Balkans to contribute young boys to become slaves of the sultan. They boys received special training, learned Turkish, and converted to Islam. According to individual ability, they entered either the Ottoman civilian administration or the military. Those who became soldiers were known as Janissaries.

Dhimmi

1. Dhimmi: Islamic concept of a protected people that was symbolic of Islamic toleration during the Mughal and Ottoman empires. -The Islamic empires relied on a long-established model to deal with subjects who were not Muslims. They did not require conquered peoples to convert to Islam but extended to them the status of dhimmi ("protected people"). In return for their loyalty and payment of a special tax known as jizya, dhimmi communities retained their personal freedom, kept their property, practiced their religion, and handled their legal affairs.

Jahangir

1. Jahangir (r. 1605-1627): Mughal emperor who was content to let his wife Nur Jahan run the government

Janissaries

1. Janissaries (from Turkish yeni cheri "new troops"): The young Christian boys of the Balkans who became soldiers through the devshirme institution. The Janissaries quickly gained a reputation for esprit de corps, loyalty to the sultan, and readiness to employ new military technology

Mehmed the Conqueror

1. Mehmed the Conqueror/II (r. 1451-1481) Ottoman conqueror best known for his capture of Constantinople (renamed Istanbul), which he opened as a commercial center to new citizens of many religions and backgrounds. -He was the ruler of the "two lands" (Europe and Asia) and the "two seas" (The Black Sea and the Mediterranean) -He laid the foundations for a tightly centralized, absolute monarchy, and his army faced no serious rival. -He completed the conquest of Serbia, moved into southern Greece and Albania, eliminated the last Byzantine outpost at Trebizond, captured Genoese ports in the Crimea, initiated a naval war with Venice in the Mediterranean, and reportedly hoped to cross the Strait of Otranto, march on Rome, and capture the pope himself. -Toward the end of his life, he launched an invasion of Italy and briefly occupied Otranto, but his successors abandoned Mehmed's plans for expansion in western Europe.

Mughal Empire

1. Mughal Empire (1526-1857): Islamic dynasty that ruled India from the 16th century through the 18th; construction of Taj Mahal representative of their splendor; with the exception of the enlightened reign of Akbar, the increasing conflict between Hindus and Muslims was another one of their legacies -Founded by Babur in 1526

Mumtaz Mahal

1. Mumtaz Mahal: The wife of Shah Jahan who had the Taj Mahal (1632-1649) built as her tomb.

Osman Bey

1. Osman Bey (1258-1326): Founder of the Ottoman dynasty; He was bey (chief) of a band of seminomadic Turks who migrated to northwestern Anatolia in thr 13th century -Aimed to become ghazi (Muslim religious warriors who is the instrument of the religion of Allah)

Ottoman Empire

1. Ottoman Empire (derived from Osman Bey) (1453-1918): A frontier state centered in Constantinople, the Turkish imperial state that conquered large amounts of land in the Middle East, North Africa, and the Balkans, and fell after World War I; Powerful Turkish empire that lasted from the conquest of Constantinople in 1453 until 1918 and reached its peak during the reign of Suleyman the Magnificent -In addition to building powerful military forces, the Ottomans outfitted their forces with gunpowder weapons and used them effectively in battles and sieges.

Safavid Empire

1. Safavid Empire (1501-1722): Later Persian empire that was founded by Shah Ismail and became a center for Shiism; the empire reached its peak under Shah Abbas the Great and was centered on the capital of Isfahan. The state never expanded far beyond its heartland of present-day Iran, but its Shiite rulers challenged the Sunni Ottomans for dominance in southwest Asia. The Safavid realm prospered from its place in trade networks linking China, India, Russia, southwest Asia, and the Mediterranean basin.

Shah Abas the Great

1. Shah Abbas the Great (r. 1588-1629) Safavid emperor who fully revitalized the Safavid empire; moved capital to Isfahan, encouraged trade with other lands, and reformed the administrative and military insitutions of the empire. -He also incorporated "slaves of the household" into the army, increased use of gunpowder weapons, and sought European assistance against the Ottomans and the Portuguese in the Persian gulf. -Brought most of northwestern Iran, the Caucasus, and Mesopotamia under Safavid rule.

Shah Jahan

1. Shah Jahan (r. 1628-1658): Fifth emperor of Mughal India who is best known for his design work on the Peacock Throne and the Taj Mahal (which was built to honor his wife)

Sufis

1. Sufism: A mystical belief and practice that formed an important Islamic tradition which the Safavids traced their ancestry back to. -The goal of a Sufi mystic, such as Safi al-Din, was to recover the lost intimacy between God and the human soul, and to fi nd the truth of divine knowledge and love through a direct personal experience of God. The Safavids changed their religious preferences several times in the hope of gaining popular support before settling on a form of Shiism that appealed to the nomadic Turkish tribes moving into the area in the post-Mongol era.

Suleyman the Magnificent

1. Suleyman the Magnificent (r. 1520-1566): Ottoman emperor who vigorously promoted Ottoman expansion both in southwest Asia and in Europe. He is considered to be the peak emperor of the Ottoman empire because he led serious Southwest Asia and European conquests; kept a strong navy presence against the Christians and Portuguese in the Mediteranean,,Red Sea, and Indian Sea

Sunni

1. Sunni: The former Islamic population of the Ottoman who detested the Shiite Safavids and feared the spread of Safavid propaganda among the nomadic turks in their territory As soon as Selim the Grim became sultan, he launched a persecution of Shiite Safavid territory. -1514: Battle of Chaldiran: Ottomans badly damaged the Safavid state but lacked the resources to destroy it, and the two empires remained locked in intermittent conflict for the next two centuries

Shiism

1. Twelver Shiism: The official religion of Shah Ismail's Safavid realm; held that there had been twelve infallible imams (or religious leaders) after Muhammad, beginning with the prophet's cousin and son-inlaw Ali. The twelfth, "hidden," imam had gone into hiding around 874 to escape persecution, but the Twelver Shiites believed he was still a Süleyman (SOO-lee-mahn) live and would one day return to take the throne. -Some propaganda suggested Ismail was the hidden imam, but most Shiites thought this was blasphemous -At the end of the Battle of Chaldiran, Safavid ideology that associated the emperor with Allah in favor of more conventional Twelver Shiism, from which they still derived legitimacy as descendants and representatives of the imams