Essay On The Ottoman Empire

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The Ottoman state was a small Turkic state in northwestern Anatolia founded in 1289 by Osman Bey. The Ottomans fought for their faith and quickly expanded into the Balkans and Anatolia with their strong military. In 1453, the Ottoman sultan Mehmed the Conqueror captured Constantinople and renamed it as Istanbul, declaring the city as its capital. Mehmed expanded the empire into Eastern Europe and conquered Crimea before his death. The Ottoman Empire continued its success over the sixteenth century, expanding into Arabia and Africa and controlling most of the land trade routes. But by end of the seventeenth century, Europe rose to power and the Ottoman Empire started to decline. The Ottoman Empire declined because it did not follow the scientific,…show more content…
The Ottomans were not open to new inventions and ideas, they kept their level of industry and agriculture at the same level of their medieval ancestors. The Ottomans failed to invent, and responded to the European inventions tardily and ineffectively. One of the possible reasons for this backwardness was the lack of renegades and adventurers in the Ottoman Empire, according to historian Bernard Lewis. It is unknown as to why these people were not attracted by the Ottoman Empire. Another reason was the change in the education system. Unlike the Europeans, the Ottomans stuck with a more religious education system that encouraged science less, which is a possible reason for the failure of…show more content…
On the Eastern front, the Ottomans were not able to advance into Persia despite the victories they had achieved during the reign of Süleyman the Magnificent. This was because of the high plateau of Iran and the new centralized monarchy of the Safavids. The Ottoman Empire was also not able to expand East through the Indian Ocean because of the Portuguese, who had more experience in the oceans than the Ottomans. The Portuguese navy was more advanced compared to the Ottoman navy, which allowed them to defeat any Ottoman ships that tried to pass the Indian ocean into
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