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The Ottomans - PBS documentary | New Horizon | YouTubeToText
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Summary
Core Theme
The Ottoman Empire, originating from nomadic Turkic tribes, evolved into a vast, sophisticated, and powerful dynasty that significantly shaped the course of history, particularly through its military prowess, administrative innovations, and cultural synthesis, culminating in its peak under Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent.
The Ottoman Turks began as an Amadic
people from the step beyond the Arrol Sea.
Sea.
For centuries, they had wandered
present-day Turkey looking for new
pasture lands. [Music]
[Music]
Muslim sultans had enlisted them as
mercenaries to fight off the Mongol hordes.
hordes.
But in the upheaval following the Mongol
invasion, the Turks began to stake out
From their ranks emerged a warlord of
legendary ambition.
It's said that Osman had a miraculous
dream of a magical tree whose many
branches foretold his saring a powerful lineage.
lineage.
One wonders how much of it is truth, how
much of it is legend. It makes a lovely
story and miracles are always more easy
to digest than reality. I don't think he
realized that he was setting up such a
fantastic dynasty, a dynasty that was to
rule the crucial link between three continents.
The followers of Osman became known as Ottomans.
Ottomans.
They considered themselves warriors for
the faith or gazis whose destiny was to
bring Islam to the world.
Gazis were somewhat like freelancers
who moved the empire forward either for
ideology, theology or for the sake of
pure conquest.
They were probably very brave, never uh
thought about uh themselves or any harm
that could come to the group uh by going
into dangerous conditions. But it made
the Ottoman Empire almost fearless,
going into regions that nobody had been
there before. [Music]
[Music]
For the early Ottomans, the direction of
expansion would always be to the west.
For good reason.
They could not expand to the east or to
the south because those were controlled
by their brothers, the Turkmen Emirs,
the Muslims. And a Muslim should not be
fighting against a Muslim. So they said
at the time. So the only place he could
expand was towards the Christian
territories westward. [Music]
[Music]
Osman's warriors moved to the north and
west across the Anatolian plateau into
territory controlled by the traditional
Christian power in the area, the aging
Baantine Empire. [Music]
By Osman's time, the thousand-year-old
Baantine Empire was reaching the end of
its age, dwindling to an isolated
The crusaders had already wreaked havoc
across the region on their way to Jerusalem,
Jerusalem,
sacking the capital city and helping to
reduce the once proud by Zantine Empire
The Ottomans quickly overran these
splintered Baantine factions,
uniting northwestern Anatolia into a
In 1326, the Ottomans took the powerful
Bzantine city of Bersa.
A victory that would change the
[Music]
The most important part of Bersa was
that it enabled Osman and his uh
descendants to establish a seat of the government.
government.
The restless nomads of the step would
What we're witnessing is this huge
the movement of a whole civilization
from a nomadic way of life to a settled
Now when the Ottomans took Borsa and set
it up as their capital, they were very
concerned to establish themselves
as the rightful
Civilization meant organization, and the
Ottomans set out to manage the vast
Leaving the Bazantine clerks in place,
First and foremost, taxation and recordkeeping.
The word bureaucracy has since lost its
noble connotations. Yet, this was a
great innovation, as ambitious as any
triumph in battle.
The Ottomans are known for including and
synthesizing the cultural elements
through the lands that they passed.
They are known for creating structures
by which the peoples who lived there
before could carry on their lives and
their beliefs in the way that they chose.
chose.
In fact, the Ottomans had fewer
conflicts with their Christian subjects
than those of their own faith. Muslim
adversaries intent on challenging
Ottoman rule.
One of the bureaucratic or let us say
management problems facing the Ottomans
was that there were still
rival Muslim sort of proto kingdoms
around them. I mean, they were conquered
by the Ottomans, but they had old
grudges to bear, and they had certain
claims to dynastic glory of their own,
and they were constantly worried about
these old Muslim families rising up and
creating a rebellion. And so, the story
goes that they felt it would be
imprudent to have the army made up of
[Music]
And so they wanted to recruit
children who were not connected with any
rival Muslim family.
And so they went into the Balkans and
they recruited primarily Christian children.
The young boys were technically slaves
of the Sultan, but they weren't treated
First, they were brought into the Muslim
faith, taught rituals of washing and
prayer in the Arabic and Ottoman languages.
languages. [Music]
[Music]
This served a political as well as a
religious purpose. Through the devsh
system, the Ottomans could create a cast
without any conflicting loyalties to
The children had such great future that
a lot of the times Turks or even Muslims
pretended that their children were
Christian-born and would register them
with the deer officials. The system was
so beautiful in that they only had one
allegiance to the Sultan. no family, no
region, no other ties.
These children were then given the best
possible education available in the
world perhaps at the time and they were
then able to move into the highest
Those who were brainy went to the palace
schools and graduated into different
levels of vazers and governors.
They even became uh grand visiers.
Those who were broadly went to the
janiser corps. [Music]
[Music]
The janiseries were the sultan's elite infantry.
infantry.
It was an army that would set the
They were the strongest,
trained as military machines,
no fear of dying, totally fearless, and
their only love was to serve the Sultan.
They were trained with all the precision
and discipline, pomp and circumstance of
a modern army. For the first time, an
army wore uniforms and went into battle
The Janiseries were the most feared
troops in the Western world, a force
that was worthy of this new Islamic
Empire and its restless visions of conquest.
By the middle of the 15th century, the
Ottoman Empire spread from present-day
Turkey, known as Anatolia, deep into the Balkans,
Balkans,
It must have g the Ottoman Sultan that
with his domains now stretching all the
way into Asia and far far into Europe in
the west. They remained right in the
center of his domains, the greatest
prize of all, the capital city of
Constantinople, the most powerful, the
richest, the most magnetic city in the
entire world, still in the hands of the
To the Ottomans, Constantinople's
strategic and economic importance was considerable.
considerable.
Its symbolic significance was even greater.
greater.
It was the city. There was no other
city. If you were going to rule that
area, obviously you would rule it from
It's said that the goal of laying claim
to Constantinople was decreed by
Every Ottoman ruler since Osman had
wanted to seize the city, but it had
always remained firmly in Christian hands.
hands. [Music]
[Music]
Then a Sultan came to power whose dreams
of conquest would not be denied. [Music]
[Music]
History would honor him as Mmet, the conqueror.
conqueror. [Music]
[Music]
When he assumed the Sultenate, he was
only 12 years old, but he was already
well-versed in Ottoman politics.
To remove any threat of competition for
power, he had his half-brother strangled.
The empire always meant everything more
so than the family. In order to stop the
empire from splitting, as had happened
to other Turkish uh dynasties uh ruling
the Islamic world, when a young man
became Sultan upon the death of his
father, all the other brothers had to be
eliminated. This prevented segmentation
of the empire. It may have been cruel,
but it worked for the Ottomans.
When on the death of his father, he
finally then took over. It meant an
enormous change in the policy and
direction of the Ottoman Empire in the
direction of a much greater energy. [Music]
[Music]
Memed met immediately set his sights on
the one prize as grand as his ambitions.
Mamemed had to conquer Constantinople.
There was no other choice.
Gonzatol was sitting like a perfect gem
By the middle of the 15th century, the
city was a shadow of its former self.
The population had plummeted from
400,000 to a mere 50,000. [Music]
[Music]
But a besieging army would still be at a
Constantinople was surrounded on three
[Music]
It was encircled by a triple ring of
walls nearly 100 ft high and 30 ft thick.
thick. [Music]
[Music]
And they had already stood for a
But Mmet had an answer for these walls.
And part of the military superiority of
the Ottomans came from their
sophisticated and diverse use of the
possibilities of gunpowder.
The siege of Constantinople in 1453
under Mahmed. The conqueror saw the
first dramatic application of this in
the form of huge cannons that had not
been seen before, which Muhammmed had
Earlier cannons had been assembled with
strips of forged metal bound with hoops.
They fired stone projectiles with little
A new breed of cannons could be cast of
solid bronze and packed with enough
gunpowder to propel metal cannonballs
But Memet was not staking his hopes on
The mile wide channel of the Bosphorus
Strait was all that connected the city
to the Black Sea.
If he could cut it off, Constantinople
Memed met needed to construct a
strategically positioned fortress to
close the strait.
He built it right in the shadow of the
It took less than 4 months to build a
massive seven towered citadel called
Memed himself is said to have carried
No sooner was it completed than he
tightened his noose around the neck of
The first ship to defy his orders to
stop was sunk. Its crew decapitated and
To stop Memed's ships from approaching,
the Bazantine strung a massive chain
On April 22nd, 1453,
the besieged city watched in horror as
Meett's troops hoisted 70 of his ships
ashore, sliding them over land on
greased planks past the barrier chain. [Music]
[Music]
More than a 100,000 Ottoman soldiers now
stood before the walls of Constantinople,
Constantinople,
braced for the greatest bombardment the
history of warfare had ever known. [Music]
[Music]
Under relentless fire, the city's 7,000
Christian defenders held out for nearly
a month.
In desperation, the Baantine who
occupied the city appealed to their
fellow Christians across the continent
But of course, Europe in the 15th
century was completely incapable of
mounting any kind of a concerted
opposition to the rising Turkish threat
in the east. [Music]
[Music]
At that time, the kings of Europe had
military and political problems of their own.
own.
Constantinople would have to fend for itself.
Shortly before dawn on May 29th, 1453,
the Turkish army breached the walls of
the city. Within hours, Constantinople
was in the hands of the Ottomans.
Memmet rode into the city and went
straight to its most celebrated prize.
built by the emperor Justinian in the
sixth century. Its name meant the church
of holy wisdom.
It was the largest enclosed space in the world.
world.
Surely other groups of Muslims and the
Ottomans themselves had come across many
many churches. They had seen churches before.
But they had never seen anything. Nobody
had ever seen anything like Sophia. [Music]
The Hayas Sophia or Sophia as it's
called in Turkish was one of the marvels
of architecture, marvels of the world.
It had the largest and highest dome in
history and it was beautifully uh
embellished with gold mosaics and uh the
Inside the church, a Turkish voice rose
proclaiming in Arabic the first pillar
of Islam. There is no God but God.
Muhammad is his messenger. [Music]
The single greatest church in
The higher Sophia became the inspiration
for all Ottoman domed mosques to come,
but none would ever match its size and
scope. and it belonged to MeT the conqueror.
News of his triumph sent shock waves
around the world. For Europeans, it was
a conccommittent disaster.
Constantinople was, after all, the new
Rome. It was Constantine's capital city.
It was the symbol of Christian dominance
The Ottoman rulers had long stacked up
titles for themselves.
Khn, which is Turkish for emperor.
Shahisha, Persian for king of kings,
But now with all the former Baantine
Empire under their command, Memet and
his successors claimed yet another
title, Holy Roman Emperor.
The Ottomans had reached the gates of
the West and were poised to push on
towards what they now claimed as their
ultimate destiny, the conquest of Europe.
Europe.
That quest would fall to the most
He was born at the beginning of the 10th
century by the Muslim calendar and he
was the 10th Sultan descented from
Osman. He was a child of destiny whose
greatness was expected
in the parliament of the day. He was the
sahib Kuran, the universal ruler, the
master of an auspicious conjunction
whose coming has been foretold, whose
identity is confirmed astrologically.
His name was Sulleon after Solomon, the
wise king of the Old Testament.
The Ottoman Empire had reached its apex
under Sulleon's reign.
Sleman was extremely well educated. He
was trained to the sultenate uh from the
day he was born.
As a young prince, he formed a
relationship that would have a
tremendous impact on his life and on the
empire as well.
When he was still a crown prince, he
also developed a great friendship with
uh a convert, a Greek convert who took
the name Ibraim.
The two were very close in age and
apparently very close in other ways
personally, intellectually uh educated
together to uh to a certain extent.
And as was common practice when Sullean
exceeded to the throne on the death of
his father, he took his faithful Ibraim
Solomon was 26 when he took the throne,
determined to make his mark on the world.
world.
as soon as his ministers would let him.
In his early years, Sullean had to
contend, for example, with grand
visitors and generals who simply refused
to obey him, feeling apparently that
here was a 26-year-old kid uh who had
never seen very much in the way of
action and hadn't done very much to show
that people ought to in fact obey him. [Music]
[Music]
The way to prove his metal was on the battlefield.
battlefield.
Every new Sultan was expected to begin
Ottomans now controlled Kurdistan,
Egypt, and the holiest cities of Islam,
Mecca and Medina.
Sulleon set his sights on Belgrade in
He was the head of the Ottoman dynasty
and he had certain duties to perform.
One was conquest
and the first task Sullema took upon
himself a year after he ascended the
Ottoman throne was to head towards
Belgrade and capture it. Belgrade was
very important strategically because it
was from there the army could move
A year later, he turned his ambitions on
the island of roads. [Music]
[Music]
The tiny island was a troublesome
outpost of Christianity in an otherwise
Ottoman sea.
It was also a haven for pirates preying
on Muslim trade ships. [Music]
[Music]
The 50,000 defenders of roads manned one
Sulleon decided on a tactic other than
relying on gunfire from his huge
cannons. A new tactic seldom used until
that time.
The Ottomans are the first major force
to actually develop new ways of
harnessing gunpowder to the cause of
military expansion in creative ways.
Ottoman sappers dug out a series of 50
tunnels near the base of the fort so
Performing this dangerous work were
expendable Christian conscripts from the Balkans.
Balkans. [Music]
The resulting explosion signaled a
furious 6-hour Ottoman assault, but the
Turks were beaten back.
Then after 145 days of siege, the
exhausted Christian defenders finally
negotiated a truce. The Ottomans had won.
[Music]
Victory did more than deliver roads to
the empire.
Sulleon was now a Sultan to be taken seriously.
seriously.
His march of conquest had begun. [Music]
[Music]
But within his own borders, he had
another reputation. [Music]
[Music]
Islamic history remembers him as
Kunanan, the lawgiver.
Ottomans were really uh bureaucrats
in full sense of the word. They kept
every single record and in order to
control the different peoples who
participated in the world of the
Ottomans, they had to have very
Under Sulleon, a single legal system was
defined for the sprawling empire.
His laws would later become the basis of
constitutions for several other nations.
Well, Sulleon was the supreme monarch of
the area. He was the center of the world.
[Music]
He inaugurated a classical age in
Ottoman architecture, commissioning some
of the most spectacular buildings the
world has ever seen. [Music]
Sulleman was in a unique position of
wealth and and of consolidation and he
focused his attention on developing
monumental architecture to commemorate
his great dynasty and himself.
Great religious architecture
can really give people a sense of what
is at the heart of the faith. Grandeur
and majesty are the things that come to
mind when Muslims think about God. A
building that is grand and maj majestic
can immediately remind people of the
Sudamon's chief architect Son was a man
whose vision perfectly complemented the
empire builder.
Sinon perfected the signature structure
His career spanned half a century and
produced well over 300 buildings,
including the refurbishment of one of
the most important monuments in Islam,
But for the Sultan, of course, he built
his masterpiece, the Slemania mosque in Istanbul.
Istanbul.
It is truly befitting Sinan who's called
the great master.
These buildings were horrendously
expensive, huge things that took many,
many years to build and a great deal of
architectural talent and engineering
skill and engineering experience.
When they built a mosque like the
Sullemania, they were doing it to say,
"Yeah, I've got the power. I've got the
money. I am the Sultan. I'm the king of
kings." But at the same time, there was
also tremendous spiritual value in these
things. The symbolism is not only that
In the spirit of Muhammad's teaching,
the great mosque was a center of social
services complete with a hospital,
school, and library.
At its inauguration, it said Sulleon
gazed at it with awe and exclaimed, "Oh
No less impressive was Sulleon's palace.
Top Copy was both the seat of government
Sleman was also a great patron of the arts
and since the empire was very rich, the
best artisans were there.
So everything started flourishing. [Music]
[Music]
The architecture uh or the arts of his
period uh show the first golden age of
[Music]
Everything that came out of his palace
was exquisite. [Music]
[Music]
Suleman himself was a goldsmith.
Ottomans believe that every sultan had
to have a tangible trade. Being a sultan
was not considered a practical or a
And he was a very demanding patron,
insisted on checking the work, even
commissioned few things. And I think
each artisan group or each core uh
working for the palace tried to outdo
one another to please the sultan because
And the Ottomans of course exercised
quite a lot of influence on the European
imagination. And the royal and the
political, if you will, ceremony and
pump of the Ottomans was such that it
would have humbled um any citizen of the
known world then. Uh this was arguably
one of the greatest uh world empires and
European observers could not walk away
without feeling of respect for the sheer
power of the Ottomans. [Music]
In public, Sulleon required that all
those around him remain completely
silent while he made his wishes known
with the slightest nod or gesture.
It must have been a tremendously
impressive site to see the courtyard of
the palace filled with some 6 or 7,000
janiseries and other functionaries.
No one saying a word.
Was going on here was the creation of a
sovereignty so mysterious and yet so farreaching
farreaching
As Sulamon's power grew, his lifelong
friend Ibrahim rose in the court structure
and Ibrahim Pasha who became a Pasha
later on became his devoted grand
vazier. In fact, Ibrahim married his
sister. So they were not only good
[Applause]
Ibrahim campaigned with his own army,
growing in influence and ambition till
his power was second only to Sulleman's. [Music]
[Music]
But for power and ambition, the secret
world of the Sultan's Harim had no equal.
Contrary [Music]
[Music]
to the western stereotype, it was not
the Sultan's play pen, but lay at the
The herum was the private quarters of
the Sultan. We tend to think of the
herum as where the women live, but what
it means is the place where you're not
on display.
Home is what it means. [Applause]
[Applause]
Islam allowed the Sultan four wives and
many concubines.
It was a system designed to produce
heirs is what it was. When you look into
the actual details of how these things
were carried out,
it was hardly anything terribly erotic.
I mean, the Sultan did not have much
choice in his selection of female companions.
companions.
The sultan was not in a position to look
around and say, "I want her." You know,
because his mother would have a lot to
With his first wife, Sulleon had a son
and heir, Mustafa.
But while he was in his mid30s, the
Sultan fell deeply in love with a Slavic
slave girl named Herm. In the west, we
know her by a different name. Rox Salana.
Rox Salana would bear him a rival heir
and becomes Sulleon's most trusted confidant.
confidant.
The Sultan was supposed to be protected
from any undue influences.
He was supposed to be protected from any rivals.
rivals.
And in a way this creates a vacuum
around his person into which the haram
life can enter.
And so the fact that he was so protected
worked in a funny way to expose him to
the influence of his female companions
with whom he spent so much time.
And there were tremendously intelligent
and ambitious women around him. Roxalana
being the most famous of all. [Music]
[Music]
Sulaman is a complex character. A man
that we know from his own life was
capable of the tenderest emotions both
toward his male friends and especially
toward his uh his the great love of his
life, his wife Huram Sultan, and toward
his family as well. He had a number of
extremely talented sons uh on whom he
lavished a great deal of affection. [Music]
[Music]
Sulleman groomed his firstborn son
Mustafa for power. In the Ottoman
tradition, the young prince entered the
military and quickly won recognition as
a talented general. [Music]
[Music]
Mustafa was clearly the heir apparent.
For Sulleon, the future of his empire
I am God's slave and sultan of this
world. Sulleon would carve on a
conquered fortress.
I am Sulamon in whose name the Friday
sermon is read in Mecca and Medina. In
Baghdad, I am the Sha. In the Bazantine
realms, I am the Caesar. And in Egypt,
the Sultan.
He of course at the height of his powers
clearly saw himself as dwarfing all his
One of Sulamon's greatest rivals was to
the east the empire of the Persian Safavidids.
Safavidids.
This was a Muslim enemy whose rival
creed made them fierce antagonists of
The Safavidids were also Turk in their
ethnic origins and indeed spoke Turkish
as a language of daily life.
But they were moving into the Muslim
world unlike the Ottomans who were
So for the Ottoman Empire they formed
sort of the boundaries uh the eastern
[Music]
The Safavid dynasty was Shiite Muslims,
According to the Shiites,
a leader had to be designated by his
predecessor and had to be of the family
of Muhammad. According
According
to the Sunni view, it was not
designation that was necessary and a
person could be a leader of the
community without being a direct
This challenge to legitimacy is the
basis of the Shiite Sunni split,
a bitter division that still separates
the Muslim world to this day.
And I would say the Ottomans never
really thought of themselves so much as Sunni
Sunni
until the Safavidids came forth as this
So the Saves developed a rival ideology
to the Ottomans
which then became an occasion for war
over of course what wars are usually
fought over.
Wars are fought over land, over wealth,
over territory, over prestige.
And the Safes waged a war of ideology in
eastern Anatolia which was always for
the Ottomans the most worrisome part.
The terrain is difficult to conquer,
The Safavidid military was formidable
but they were cultural rivals to the
Ottomans as well.
They were great patrons of the arts. I
think we know them more for their
artistic patronage than of their great
conquests and laws and systems and administration.
When you look at Isvahan, it is the most
beautiful city in the world and that is
the Safavidit city. It's the Safavidit
capital. But it doesn't give you the
same sense of power that the Ottoman uh
empire had or the Ottoman capital had.
It's a different sense of power. It's
more eloquent perhaps more uh precious
in its decoration and its ceremonial
spaces. It's a totally different aspect
of Islam.
Zafi art and architecture is is on a
finer scale. It's known it's known for
its filigree.
It's known for its intricate
brush work, you know, uh rather than for
In the soaring palaces of the Safavidid
shars, murderous intrigues against
Solomon and his dynasty were hatched
that would reach into his very household.
But Sulleon's eyes were on the west
where a fragmented and vulnerable Europe
awaited his conquest.
The Ottoman Empire encompassed
everything from Egypt to Kurdistan and
But he had ambitions of going beyond
that and actually bringing the larger
portions of the world known to him if
Sulleon's next step would be Vienna. Its
conquest would drive a dagger into the
heart of the European Hapsburg Empire
But as the heavily armed Ottomans set
out for Vienna, the weather turned
The heavy cannon that had swept the
Ottomans to victory after victory bogged
Sulleon had to move on without them. [Music]
With only light artillery, the Ottomans
relentlessly shelled the city,
but the smallest breach was ferociously defended.
After a lengthy siege with winter fast
approaching, Sullean withdrew his forces.
forces.
He was not concerned. He was sure he
would return soon enough.
He never did.
Sulleman's failure to take Vienna was
pivotal for Europe. It was the first
major defeat. After a long time, the
Europeans had been losing and losing and
losing. And this was the dawn of a new
But Sulleon had little to fear from Europe.
Rival Muslim Safavidids and his own
family would bring the crulest of
sorrows to the Sultan and ultimately to
Sullean in some ways serves as a sort of
epitome of the 16th century idea of the
wise and just ruler who was at the same
in the powerladen world of the sultan's
household. The intrigues never ceased.
The Topka Palace as it was originally
conceived had no quarters for the
ladies. The women lived in what was
called the old palace.
But Huram always complained about her
husband as most wives would spending too
many days and months campaigning outside
the capital.
She kept saying she feels very lonely
and the children miss him. Well,
surprisingly, there was a fire in the
old palace. fire in Heram's quarters.
So, she had to be moved to the top
copper palace temporarily while her old
quarters were being renovated. Well, she
Now, Horem was at the center of power,
promoting her own son as heir apparent
and immersing herself in a web of deadly
She was incredibly devoted to her
husband and any threat to Sulleon was a
threat to her and she had to get rid of
it. The first uh threat came from
Ibrahim Pasha who assumed titles that
were only given to sultans. So I am knew
something was going to happen eventually
and uh to protect the empire and the
On March 15th, 1536,
Sullean and Ibraim Pasha dined together
In the morning, Ibraim's body was found strangled.
But Sullean's desolation and loss had
only begun. [Music]
[Music]
A few years after Ibrahim's death, Hurm
claimed to have uncovered a plot to
overthrow Sulleon devised with Safavidid
help by his beloved firstborn son and
This is a continuous problem in Ottoman
history. Sons trying to eventually
replace their father. And this happens
in monarch monarchies. Succession could
become a problem. And it was an acute
problem and Sulleon had his share of it
and perhaps did not always play his
hands right.
Without hesitation, Solomon ordered
Mustafa's execution,
then sat by the young man's body for
days, refusing to allow anyone to touch him.
him.
The best hope for the empire's future
When Hurm herself died the following
year, Sulleon fell deeper into despair,
finding solace in his poetry.
Most of the poetry, I think, was written
after he lost his wife since he talks
about the loneliness of being in office
that he has nobody left anymore and he's
Even if your reign on the imperial
throne seems everlasting,
don't be taken in.
One day, a hostile wind will blow and
bring to your land of beauty heaven's
In all his loneliness, there was only
one refuge for the Sultan whose power,
He returned to the field of battle to
He personally led 13 campaigns. The last
one was uh at Zigetvar uh which is in
I think he knew that this was going to
be his last campaign.
He personally led it knowing that he
would not come back alive.
In 1561,
the man who had ruled the empire longer
than any other died in his grand war
pavilion surrounded by his generals.
He was 67.
No Ottoman Sultan would ever achieve his
greatness again.
The nexus of world power would move from
the Mediterranean Sea to the Atlantic
Ocean and the New World, slowly leaving
[Music]
in Istanbul. Of all today, the Sufi
dervishes still turn with the same
prayerful pirouetses they danced in
Sulamon's day. It is a meditation in
motion whose mystic origins go back even
further to the time of the prophet Muhammad.
You have become the best community ever
raised up in mankind. The Quran assures
all believers
enjoining the right and forbidding the
Islamic and Western civilization have
the same roots.
their dawning in the fertile cresant.
The monotheism of the Jews and Christians,
Christians, [Music]
[Music]
the classical intellectual culture of
The two traditions are kindred spirits,
Islam's legacy is intertwined with the
West's and to the billions of Muslims
who make it the second largest religion
in the world. It is a living legacy, [Music]
[Music]
an elemental part of the great human
[Music]
Islam Empire of Faith continues at PBS
online. Click through our interactive
timeline to learn more about the history
and culture of Islam or take a virtual
tour of the Dome of the Rock and other
extraordinary sites. It's all online at
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