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Sunni Islam was the official religion of the Ottoman Empire. The highest position in Islam, caliphate, was claimed by the sultan, after the defeat of the Mamluks which was established as Ottoman Caliphate. The sultan was to be a devout Muslim and was given the literal authority of the caliph.
- The Millet System
- The Devshirme System
- Life Under Mehmet
- After Mehmet
- Fratricide
Non-Muslim communities were organised according to the milletsystem, which gave minority religious/ethnic/geographical communities a limited amount of power to regulate their own affairs - under the overall supremacy of the Ottoman administration. The first Orthodox Christianmillet was established in 1454. This brought Orthodox Christians into a si...
Non-Muslims in parts of the empire had to hand over some of their children as a tax under the devshirme('gathering') system introduced in the 14th century. Conquered Christian communities, especially in the Balkans, had to surrender twenty percent of their male children to the state. To the horror of their parents, and Western commentators, these c...
After battles between Muslims and Christians, churches were converted into mosques and mosques into churches according to who was the winner. Although Mehmet converted many churches into mosques, he did not suppress the Christian faith itself. There were practical reasons for this: 1. Christians were the largest group of the population and coexiste...
Mehmet II died in 1481, and he nominated his eldest son Bayezid as the new Sultan. The Shi'aMuslims in the Ottoman Empire revolted in favour of Bayezid's brother Jem. The Janissaries suppressed the revolt and from then on became very important in Ottoman politics. With Janissary support Bayezid's son Selim laid the foundations for a world Ottoman E...
Sultan Selim introduced the policy of fratricide (the murder of brothers). Under this system whenever a new Sultan ascended to the throne his brothers would be locked up. As soon as the Sultan had produced his first son the brothers (and their sons) would be killed. The new Sultan's sons would be then confined until their father's death and the who...
Islam had been established in Anatolia before the emergence of the empire, but between the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries the religion spread with Ottoman conquest to the Balkan Peninsula and central Hungary. This does not mean that the population was uniformly Muslim.
May 25, 2011 · Among the main opponents of the Ottoman state was the Safavid Empire, a Shiʿi Muslim empire to the east of the Ottoman lands. Shiʿism and so-called Islamic heresies were major internal issues as well as an external threat for the Sunni Ottomans.
Sunni Islam was the prevailing Dīn (customs, legal traditions, and religion) of the Ottoman Empire; the official Madh'hab (school of Islamic jurisprudence) was Hanafi. From the early 16th century until the early 20th century, the Ottoman sultan also served as the caliph, or politico-religious leader, of the Muslim world.
Nov 3, 2017 · Many Muslims considered Suleiman a religious leader as well as a political ruler. Throughout Sultan Suleiman’s rule, the empire expanded and included areas of Eastern Europe. What Countries...
Islamic world - Ottomans, Expansion, Legacy: After the Ottoman state’s devastating defeat by Timur, its leaders had to retain the vitality of the warrior spirit (without its unruliness and intolerance) and the validation of the Sharīʿah (without its confining independence).
