The Mughal, Ottoman, and Safavid Empires - Historum

shadowfiles · March 9th, 2010, 04:40 PM

They were three great Islamic empires from around the same time period. What would you guys say were the greatest lasting impacts/influences of each of these three empires? Also, what made these empires different?

**Salah** · March 9th, 2010, 04:41 PM

The Ottomans were pretty awesome, even if they did extinguish the final flame of what had been the Glory of Rome...

**Lord_of_Gauda** · March 10th, 2010, 12:04 AM

Ottoman empire has been debated to death here, so i will pass on it.
As far as the Safavids go, their greatest contribution would be the emergence of Shi'ism as an official and established branch of Islam. Till the Safavids, shi'ism was a non-sponsored, fringe viewpoint which enjoyed no centralized sponsorship and official religion status.

The Ottoman-Safavid wars were a major factor in defining the middle-eastern boundaries today: the Turkey-Iran boundary was fixed during the Ottoman-Safavid times, Iran and Iraq boundary was also fixed during the same timeframe(though the Safavids did regain iraq but the Ottomans regained it later and imposed the previous border conditions).
The Safavid empire was essentially a cultural behemoth, with flourishing art,literature and architecture- this is the culturally richest period of Iranian history since the Sassanid times and the essence of Iranian culture today is drawn from Safavid times.

The Mughals on the other hand were an interesting case: they arrived in India when Afghanistan was in the indo-sphere (during Mughal times, eastern Afghanistan was considered part of India and Afghan dynasties had ruled over north India with varying degree of success for over 300 years).
After initial resitance, the mughals were successful in conquring Afghanistan and Northern India with the notable exception of Rajputana(Rajasthan state), which remained as Rajput fiefdoms.
Akbar,in a stroke of political genius, married a Rajput princess and was essentially the 'conqueror of Rajputana',with only a couple of Rajput fiefdoms holding out against the Mughals at the time of Akbar's death.
His son(Jahangir) expanded the empire into peninsular India(till then, the mughal empire was restricted to Northern India, with peninsular India being dominated by the Vijayanagara empire and the Bahamani sultanate).

His viewpoints were in accordance with mutual religious tolerance that his father fostered but during his reign, finance and culture were valued extremely highly while education was, strangely enough, demoted in status and state-involvement.

Jahangir also kept in line with this and it was during his reign that the Mughal empire entered its high point.
However, his illness near the end of his life saw the first civil war for succession in almost 150 years, when Aurangzeb, the youngest of his four sons, emerged victor and emperor.
Unfortunately, Aurangzeb was a hardline Islamic fanatic and is often noted as the 'hitler of India' for his particularly brutal treatment of Sikhs and desecration of non-islamic shrines.
He vigorously campaigned(Aurangzeb spent 40 of his 50 year reign campaigning) to extend his empire to the southernmost tip of the subcontinent and he succeeded- though briefly after his conquest, the Marathas rose up in revolt and kept Aurangzeb busy for the last 25 years of his life. Eventually, court intrigue led to a string of Mughal emperors after Aurangzeb(he lived to be over 90, so many of his sons and claimants to the throne were already quite old). This weakened the mughal empire severely and the Mughals lost control of Afghanistan to the Safavids.
The Marathas eventually established their own empire and ruled directly over most of central and southern India, with eastern India becoming defacto independent provinces.
This is the scene when European powers enter the political dynamics of Indian history,with the British ultimately prevailing.

The legacy of the Mughal empire is hard to judge- the first half of the empire was tolerant,multi-faith and progressive while the latter half was extremely fascistic Islamic. The significant majority of hindu-muslim/muslim-sikh tensions that are apparent in the subcontinent today rise from the latter half of the mughal empire.

**sturm** · March 10th, 2010, 12:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Salah ad-Din

The Ottomans were pretty awesome, even if they did extinguish the final flame of what had been the Glory of Rome...

Even dough your right and what you say is a fact (the Ottomans destroying the Byzantine empire which would never be restored after that) i cannot exactly agree that the Ottomans extinguished the flame of the Roman Glory.
The Byzantine empire after the crusaders destroying it (1204) was never ever as powerful as it was before that. When the empire was restored and the Nicaean Empire took back Constantinople at 1261 the Byzantine empire was nothing more then a small local empire.
The last good emperor was exactly Michael VIII Palaiologos, after him the empire was a former shadow of its former glory.
But don't think that the crusaders put an end to this great empire, it was people like Andronikos I Komnenos, and Angelos dynasty which were responsible for the downfall of the Empire.