Ottoman Empire |
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The Ottoman Empire (1299 to 1922) was a Turkish state which, at the height of its power (16th – 17th centuries), spanned three continents, controlling much of Southeastern Europe, the Middle East and North Africa, stretching from the Strait of Gibraltar (and in 1553 the Atlantic coast of North Africa beyond Gibraltar) in the west to the Caspian Sea and Persian Gulf in the east, from the edge of Austria and Slovenia and beyond Ukraine in the north to Sudan and Yemen in the south.
 Mehmed II conquered Constantinople and made it the new Ottoman capital in 1453. The empire was at the center of interactions between the Eastern and Western worlds for six centuries. In the course of its lifespan, it undertook, more than once, programs of both Islamization and modernization (reform), blurring the difference between the West and the East.The "golden age" of the Ottoman Empire is during the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent in the 16th Century. In different fields, this can be seen both in the architecture of Koca Mimar Sinan Ağa, and in the domination of the Mediterranean by the Ottoman navy, led by Barbarossa Hayreddin Pasha. The Ottoman Empire reached its territorial peak in the 17th century. Culturally, the Empire portrayed itself as the Islamic successor of earlier Mediterranean empires (the Roman and Byzantine empires). From a diverse system of Millets, to a multi-ethnic state (Ottomanism), it developed its own distinctive culture, influential both in the European and Islamic worlds. The Empire was the only Islamic power to seriously challenge the rising power of Western Europe between the 15th and 19th centuries. It steadily declined during the 19th century and met its demise after its defeat in World War I in the Middle Eastern theatre. In the aftermath of the war, the Ottoman government collapsed and the empire's lands were partitioned.
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