Ottoman Empire Research Paper

Lake Brantley High School

The Ottoman Empire

A Journey Through Ancient Turkey

Jonathan Landa

Joanna Marino

1-4-16

The Ottoman Empire was probably the largest, richest and longest Turkish Muslim empires in history. At the peak of the empire, Constantinople was its capital city. It became a hub for trade and culture in the empire.

It was nestled between The Black Sea and The Mediterranean Sea so they were able to control trade routes and make money through trade all around the mediterranean. By the 16th century, The Ottoman Empire stretched all the way from Central Europe all the way into Arabia.

To truly understand how The Ottoman Empire became so large and powerful, one needs to go back to the tail end of the 13th century. This

One of the many reasons why the Ottoman culture became a well-organized empire was its social hierarchy system. The Ottoman social class had the commander on top (sultan) and the slaves on the bottom (rayyah) but however, a person’s social level could change anytime, unlike other caste systems in Japan or Britain where people stayed at the same level for the duration of their lives. The Sultan dealt with politics and state wealth. Under the Sultan were the wealthy leaders that defended the empire and ran the military and other offensive expansion

The architecture of the Ottoman Empire drew inspiration from the Arab world and Europe. The Orthodox catholic structures in the Byzantine Empire were very similar to the Ottoman structures.

The Ottomans were very into their architecture. Their artistic designs of windows, gates and roofs share characteristics with the Italian architecture and their basic structures found in mosques were adopted from the people of Anatolia. The Ottomans collected many different ideas from other countries and made them into one magnificent piece. This is why architecture was such a major aspect of Ottoman culture.

The third reason why the Ottoman culture led to a strong empire was because of the Ottoman toleration. The Ottoman Empire enforced the practice of Islam and an extra tax was paid to be a non-Muslim in return for tolerance of religious practice and protection of the Islam state. Christians and Jews prayed in their own churches and trained their religion in their own schools. Each religious community had its own court, school and welfare system and the Ottoman government was relieved that they didn’t have to provide these services and could focus on other more important things. Rulers had to be Muslim and were not allowed to convert to other religions, nor could non-Muslims attempt to convert Muslims. Religion