Efendi

I haven't said there were nothing before Ottomans.

Efendi

Yes they spread then?

In this mentality British are not European. Because they had more land away from Britania.

It is obvious where the center of the empire is.

leakbrewergator

Both the British Empire and the Ottoman Empire were more than European empires. I think it's unfair to the both of them to classify them as such.

Qymaen

But then wouldn't the empire be more Middle Eastern than European?

Efendi

It depend on where the center of the empire is.

When you apply your aproach, it arise that Britain, Spanish are not European empire.

Center of the empire is undoubtedly clear. Center of the empire was not the mideast.

Efendi

Actually majority of the empires spread more than one continent, British, Spanish, Roma, Byzantine.

I think Empires should be categorized with their centers.

Reis

It is neither.It is a Eurasian one.A mixture of the east and the west.It has been called the Islamic Roman Empire or the heir of the Eastern Roman Empire.And I would agree.

scholar

Yes, it was an Asian, African, and European Empire. The people subjugated to their rule included Tartars, Greeks, Albanians, Bulgarians, Serbians, Slavs, Hungarians, Croatians, etc. Constantinople is located on the edge of Europe, and once it was captured and renamed Istanbul it remained in Europe. It did not magically transport to Asia or the Middle East or Africa because *gasp* Turks took over the city from the Byzantines.

sylla1

At least from the conquest of Kallipolis by the Ottomans in 1354 to this very date, Turkey has been indeed a relevant actor in the political, economic and military balance of Europe.

BTW, any European colonial power, from Courland to Genoa, has been an "imperial power" out of Europe; the Medieval Roman Empire, the Golden Horde & Russia actually even in a contiguous way (to some extent also some states in Sicily and the Iberian Peninsula, either Christian or Muslim).

sturm

Yes but the question here isn't exactly geography, but culturally.
As i said for example Russia from before Peter I "the Great" reforms was in my opinion not European. The army, the nobility the cities are a clear example of it. However his reforms westernized it, the same way reforms in the Ottoman empire at the end of 18th and the first half of 19th century westernized the Ottoman empire, and from that day, from the day of the reforms in the Ottoman empire, i believe there is no reason (except geographical arguments) to consider the empire non-european, because it was European, the arts, the fashion in the empire, the way the army was restructiored, the freedom's that were given to the citizens after 1856 and so on.