preview

Compare And Contrast Gunpowder Empires

Decent Essays

Gunpowder empires were one of the most successful empires in the Middle East thanks to an innovative war technology: gun powder. The Safavids and the Ottomans belonged to the category of “gun-powder empires” since their use of gunpowder weaponry prolonged their reign in the Middle East. Both of the empires’ success was occasioned by their centralization of power and reliance on elite groups of “outsiders” as a form of unifying their unconditional rule. Thus in the process of centralization, both the Ottomans and Safavids displayed similar patterns that paralleled their monarchy (Aslanian). In other words, the Safavids and the Ottomans displayed similarities through the consolidation of their government via recruitment methods and counteractions of power. In the early modern and modern periods, the Ottoman Empire had been viewed as an accomplished and robust Muslim dynasty (P.159, Fisher and Oschenwald). With the introduction of gun-powdered weaponry, the Ottomans maintained control over large parts of land. …show more content…

In other words, the young boys have been kidnapped or taken by force from their homelands and later dispersed among court officers, the sipahlis, and the sultan. According to Professor Aslanian, the young Christian boys were re-educated, trained in military combat, and assimilated within the Muslim system. Consequently, some of the youth were employed through the ranks of a janissary while others gained the ability to attain any position available in the state. Essentially, the devshirme helped centralize the Ottoman Empire because it avoided individuals to come together and cause fragmentations within the dynasty. “Some observers remarked that this policy helped to keep the Christian population in subjection by drawing away future leaders (P.177, Fisher and

Get Access