On the other Side of Power

Abstract

Victory over the Mamluks in Syria in 1516 and Egypt in 1517 brought the Ottomans into the Arab world. Up to this point, Ottoman conquests outside their heartland of Anatolia (modern-day Turkey) were largely in Christian Europe: Bulgaria, Bosnia, Serbia, and Greece were satellite provinces of the sultan’s realm.¹ And in 1453, the Ottoman sultan Mehmed the Conqueror (r. 1444–46 and 1451–81) had claimed one of the biggest prizes of all: the bastion of Byzantine power and the home of Orthodox Christianity, Constantinople. The city of the Caesars was reborn as Istanbul, and the Ottoman sultanate became the Ottoman Empire. Such extensive political control of southeastern Europe left the Ottomans, as Muslim rulers, in the unusual position of ruling an empire that was predominantly non-Muslim.