Nick M said...12/2-12/3

Hey guys, I guess tonight was my night to blog so let me cut straight to the point. I don’t exactly like to include all the petty details like who sneezed in class, who couldn't pay attention or who in interrupted the class excessively.


Anywho, the last two days of class have been mainly focused around taking notes and discussing multicultural societies, specifically the Safavid and Ottoman. The main objective of the class was to compare the different cultural values and conflicts of each Empire.

Now the Safavid were mainly Muslim but the ottoman were more of a mix of Muslim and Christian. We’ve also established that the Islamic population in the Safavid Empire was Shiite and the Islamic population in the Ottoman Empire was mostly Sunni. The two however shared origins in the Turkish nomadic cultures of the central Asian steppe. They both reached their climax between the 16th and 17th century and were able to maintain their societies with their strong government and outlook on conquest.

W e also discussed how the Janissaries and Devshirme aided the expansion in the Ottoman Empire and how Suleiman pushed west, taking down the Byzantine Empire, built a strong naval power, and conquered Baghdad (which was prospering at the time).

After we discussed their rise to power and expansion, we learned of their ongoing conflict between the Shiite and Safavid which we know as the Battle of Chaldiran in 1514. The consequences were much causality especially for the Safavid who were refusing to use gun powder as they had no knowledge of its workings and were generally afraid of it. After the Ottoman effortlessly defeated the Safavid, they took over a good part of Iran.

We stopped there pretty much for the day and I assume will continue on from there. Again, tried to keep this short and simple, one can only take notes on so much in one setting.