Deck 3: The Ottoman and Safavid Empires: a New Imperial Synthesis

Question 1

Which of the following empires did not emerge in the sixteenth century as Islamic lands recovered their political unity and cultural vitality?

A) the Mughal Empire of Delhi
B) the Abbasid Empire
C) the Safavid Empire of Iran
D) the Ottoman Empire

Answer 1

B

Question 2

Which of the following is a reason given for Ottoman military success?

A) Ottoman armies used superior weapons technology
B) Ottoman soldiers had superior combat training
C) Ottoman armies were better and more regularly fed than other armies
D) All of these answers are correct

Answer 2

D

Question 3

Which of the following is NOT true of the "true Ottomans"?

A) They were a special group of educated individuals within the Ottoman ruling elite
B) They had knowledge of Ottoman Turkish
C) They all participated in the Janissary infantry
D) They were familiar with Islamic cultural tradition and could read the Quran in Arabic

Answer 3

C

Question 4

Who made up the ranks of the devshirme (collecting) system?

A) Freeborn Muslims
B) Sons of high-ranking officials
C) Converted European Christians (male and female)
D) Converted European Christians (only male)

Question 5

In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, what was the outstanding military unit in Europe?

A) Janissaries
B) Sipahis
C) Gazis
D) Safavid standing armies

Question 6

How were the Ottomans able to administer their diverse peoples with a minimum of resistance?

A) They never allowed local or communal-level religious systems to emerge within the Ottoman Empire
B) They strongly restricted religious freedom for non-Muslim subjects
C) They permitted non-Muslim subjects to retain their religious laws, education systems, and communal leadership
D) They threatened to implement harsh economic sanctions on entire groups, thus acquiring the begrudging support of those groups

Question 7

Which of the following statements is the most accurate regarding the standing of the entire religious establishment within the Ottoman Empire?

A) All offices within the religious establishment operated autonomously of the bureaucratic and military arms of the empire
B) The entire religious establishment held office at the pleasure of the sultan
C) Most offices-the shaykh al-Islam and qadis-within the religious establishment enjoyed broad authority and independence
D) The ulama did not inhabit a respected place in Ottoman society

Question 8

Which of the following was not an accomplishment of Shah Abbas I (1587-1629), upon his ascension to the Safavid throne?

A) Abbas recovered lost territories-including Baghdad
B) Abbas built a standing royal army of some 37,000 troops
C) Abbas designated Tabriz as the new imperial capital
D) Abbas implemented a land transfer policy that reassigned lands from tribal leaders to his own royal estates

Question 9

Which of the following was not true for French merchants after the Ottoman Empire signed the first Capitulation agreement with France in 1536?

A) French merchants were granted permission to trade freely in Ottoman ports
B) French merchants were exempted from Ottoman taxes
C) French merchants were charged low tariff rates for import and export goods.
D) French merchants were subject to Ottoman-Islamic law

Question 10

The penetration of European merchant capital into the Ottoman Empire-specifically, the exchange of Ottoman raw materials to Europe for manufactured products-resulted in a shortage of raw materials for domestic consumption and ___________.

A) inflation
B) increased state revenues
C) severed trade deals with regional neighbors
D) None of these answers is correct

Question 11

Which of the following does NOT describe the Capitulations?

A) A series of agreements that facilitated the penetration of European goods into the Ottoman Empire
B) A series of agreements that allowed European merchants to freely trade in the Ottoman Empire and be exempt from Ottoman taxes
C) A series of agreements that granted Europeans extraterritorial legal privileges in Ottoman territories
D) A series of agreements that granted Europeans exclusive rights to prospect oil in the Ottoman Empire

Question 12

Which of the following most accurately describes gaza?

A) The Muslim obligation to give charity (alms) to the less fortunate
B) Warfare against non-Muslims for the purpose of extending domains of Islam
C) A system through which non-Muslims were allowed to practice their own religions, but were forced to pay a tax
D) The mechanism through which future Ottoman soldiers and bureaucrats were levied from European provinces of the Empire

Question 13

Despite the remarkable successes of the Ottoman expansion of the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries, which of the following remained outside of the empire's reach?

A) The holy cities of Mecca and Medina in the Hijaz
B) Baghdad and the Persian Gulf
C) The Iberian Peninsula
D) All of the answers are correct

Question 14

Which of the following most accurately describes the Janissaries?

A) Provincial cavalrymen who were freeborn Muslims that performed administrative as well as military functions
B) A slave army that was paid a regular salary and expected to be ready for military duty at all times
C) A mercenary force of North Africans who "followed the Ottoman standard not for God, but for gold and glory"
D) A force of Christians who were procured as children from European provinces of the empire

Question 15

Isma'il made which religion the official religion of the Safavid Empire?

A) Shi'a Islam
B) Sunni Islam
C) Zoroastrianism
D) Christianity

Question 16

Who were known as the "Red-headed ones?"

A) The Safavid Shi'a Imams, who donned red skull caps to signify reverence to God
B) The Sunni Turkish tribal forces who began the Safavid Empire's first military conquests
C) Followers of the Sufi Sunni brotherhood founded in Azerbaijan
D) They were both Turkish tribal forces and followers of the Sufi Sunni brotherhood founded in Azerbaijan

Question 17

Which of the following were sources of tension between Isma'il and the Qizilbash?

A) Tribal-state divide in which Isma'il favored urban Iranians for key bureaucratic positions over the tribal leaders
B) Dissolution and outlawing of Sunni brotherhoods
C) Qizilbash resistance to centralized state control
D) All of the answers are correct

Question 18

Which of the following were the two dominant cosmopolitan centers of commerce, art, and intellect in the Middle East in the late 1500s and late 1600s, respectively?

A) Istanbul and Isfahan
B) Isfahan and Istanbul
C) Istanbul and Cairo
D) Istanbul and Baghdad

Question 19

Which of the following were most comparable as a military unit to the Ottoman Janissaries?

A) Qizilbash tribal leaders
B) gunpowder-wielding ghulam military slave army
C) Urban Iranian bureaucratic leaders introduced by Isma'il
D) No unit was ever comparable to the Ottoman Janissaries

Question 20

Which of the following best characterizes the causes of the Ottoman Empire's relative demise?

A) Weak military
B) Disloyal military
C) Inability to continue to contain the ever-looming threat of a politically and militarily superior Europe
D) A combination of rising external economic pressures stemming from previously beneficial trade agreements with Europe and domestic political problems

Question 21

Islam reached the limit of its expansion during the classical Abbasid Empire.

Question 22

Before its collapse in 1736, the Safavid Empire of Iran established Sunni Islam as the state religion.

Question 23

Karbala, the site of the martyrdom of Imam Husayn, made Iraq an important place for Sunni Muslims.

Question 24

Though an early and integral part of Ottoman expansion, gaza was not the sole motivating element.

Question 25

One of the reasons for the Ottomans' success was their single, unchanging system of administration over all of the diverse territories they ruled.

Question 26

The lands of __________________ became the center of a contest for supremacy between Ottoman Sunnism and Safavid Shi'ism.

Question 27

During the reigns of a weak sultan, the __________, as the most powerful government official, sometimes assumed extensive powers and made decisions without consulting the monarch.

Question 28

The __________________ state was established by the military prowess of the Qizilbash tribesmen.

Question 29

As the Ottoman state evolved from a gazi principality to a bureaucratic world empire, the sultans instituted an imperial council, or ________

Question 30

From 1638 until World War I, the land of Iraq was under __________________ control.

Question 31

Describe the three successful military campaigns that transformed the Ottoman state into a world power.

Question 32

Describe where the principles that guided the Ottoman ruling elite and shaped their attitude toward state and society came from.

Question 33

Why was Iraq the center of contested supremacy between Ottoman Sunnism and Safavid Shi'ism?

Question 34

How did the penetration of European manufactured goods impact the Ottoman Empire?

Question 35

Describe the "gazi spirit" and how it shaped the Ottoman Empire.

Question 36

In what ways was Ottoman rule adaptable and pragmatic?

Question 37

Briefly describe the devshirme (collecting) system.

Question 38

Describe the practice that was justified by the following political statement: "the death of a prince is less regrettable than the loss of a province."

Question 39

Briefly describe the millet system.

Question 40

What factor(s) contributed to Ottoman Empire military superiority in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries?

Question 41

Does "decline" accurately describe the process through which the Ottoman Empire lost its dominant position? Explain.

Question 42

Marshall Hodgson has written that a visitor from Mars who arrived on earth during the sixteenth century would probably have concluded that the world was on the verge of becoming Muslim. What factors would have contributed to this perception?