The Muslim World

The Muslim world was, without question, the most powerful civilization on the planet by the sixteenth century after the birth of Christ.  Though Islam had been pushed entirely out of Spain, the religion founded in the seventh century could now be found as far West as Morocco, as far South as Mozambique, as far East as Indonesia and as far North as the Caucasus.  And the greatest of all Muslim empires, that of the Ottomans, was now trying to expand into Central Europe.

            In 1453, the Ottoman Empire had made it’s greatest gain: Muslim warriors sacked Constantinople, murdering all the men inside it’s walls, raping all it’s women and selling all the surviving children into slavery.  The Ottomans now controlled the gateway between Europe and Asia.  This great city, called Istanbul by it’s conquerors, was also the gateway between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean.  They were in position to control, and tax, all the world’s most important commercial traffic.  If a European wanted something from India or China, or vice versa, then it was usually necessary to go through Constantinople.

            As with all empires, growth, through alliance or conquest, was seemingly necessary and even addictive.  Ancient Rome had also struggled with the tension between the need to expand it’s borders and the difficulty of trying to manage all the territory it held.  The Ottomans thought the easiest place to expand would be in Central Europe.

            By AD 1500, the Ottoman Empire controlled much of southeastern Europe already - what we now call Greece, Bosnia, Serbia, Croatia, Bulgaria and much of Romania, Hungary and even portions of southern Russia were under Ottoman domination.  In 1521, the Sultan Suleiman led forces that conquered Belgrade, opening a road straight for the center of Europe.  In 1522, his navy seized the Island of Rhodes, driving out the Knights of Saint John.  Four years later, Suleiman led an Ottoman army into Budapest, after slaying 20,000 Hungarians in battle.  Finally, in 1529, his army besieged Vienna, one of the great cities of the Holy Roman Empire.  But they could not take the city and, after slaughtering thousands of Christian prisoners, they retreated.  This victory marked the first time that the Ottomans had been turned back in centuries.  A solemn Te Deum was sung at St. Stephen’s Cathedral to celebrate the victory.

            In the 1530's Suleiman tried a new tactic and employed a pirate named Barbarossa to harass Christians in the Mediterranean area.  Due to his efforts, the Ottomans were able to reclaim much lost territory in the Mediterranean and in North Africa.  During this same period, the Sultan allied with the French, who spied for him against Carlos V.  The French even cooperated with Barbarossa in attacking Christian coastal towns such as Barcelona, Nice and Naples.

            In occupied lands, non-Muslims, who made up the majority of the citizens of the Ottoman Empire, paid a special tax to the Sultan.  The wealth gained from this onerous tax allowed the Sultan to build many bridges and aqueducts throughout his Empire.  Ottoman architecture flourished.

            Suleiman died in 1566.  His son, Selim II, became Sultan.  Selim was a drunkard who spent all his time in the palace with his harem.  Fortunately for the Ottomans, his vizier was Sokollu Mehmed Pasha. This man was a very capable administrator who maintained the strength of the Empire while the Sultan played and relaxed.

            In 1571, under Pasha’s guidance, the Ottoman fleet seized the island of Cyprus, driving out Venetian forces.  Venice then allied itself with Spain and the Pope’s navy.  In battle at Lepanto, this Holy Alliance defeated the Ottomans soundly, destroying their entire fleet.  Among the warriors aboard the Christian ships was Miguel Cervantes, who later declared that this battle, in which he was gravely wounded and lost the use of one arm, was the greatest moment of his life.  Once again, the Ottomans had been turned back.  But they were far from defeated.  The next year they rebuilt the Turkish fleet.  As Mehmed Pasha said to the Christians afterward,

In losing Cyprus you have lost an arm, which can never grow back.  In defeating our fleet, you have merely shaved off our beard, which does grow back.

            In 1574, Selim II died in a drunken fall.  His son, Murad III, became the new Sultan, but kept Mehmed Pasha on as his vizier.  It was at this time that Elizabeth I, Queen of England, made an alliance with the Ottoman Empire, even claiming in a letter to the Sultan that there was great similarity between Islam and Protestantism.  When the Spanish tried to invade England in 1588, Elizabeth asked the Ottomans for military aid, but it was never needed because the Spanish fleet was first defeated and then destroyed in bad weather.

            Murad III died in 1595.  His son, Mehmed III, strangled his 19 brothers to death, killed the 15 slaves that were pregnant with his father’s children and imprisoned his 27 sisters in the Old Palace.  These latter were not allowed to marry or even leave the grounds of the palace for the rest of their lives.  This, unfortunately, was a typical series of events that happened each time a new Sultan came to power.