What was the Ottoman Empire?

It began to be born in the 11th century, when nomadic Turkic tribes settled in Anatolia, a region that is now part of Turkey. Such tribes helped spread the Muslim religion in lands that until then were under the rule of another empire, the Byzantine. “The term Ottoman derives from the name Osman, or, in Arabic, Uthman,” says English historian Malcolm Yapp of the University of London. Osman, or Othman I (1258-1324), was a Turkish chief who turned these nomadic tribes into an imperial dynasty. During the 15th and 16th centuries, the Ottoman Empire became one of the strongest states in the world, encompassing much of the Middle East, Eastern Europe and North Africa. In addition to military might, what helped to ensure this expansion was the Ottomans’ tolerance of the traditions and religions of the conquered peoples.

“The Christian Orthodox Church, which predominated in the Byzantine lands, was maintained. The Jews persecuted by the Christians in the Iberian Peninsula also found refuge in the Ottoman territories”, says historian Giulia Crippa, from the University of São Paulo (USP), in Ribeirão Preto (SP). The empire began to decline in the 17th century. The economic activities of the conquered peoples were conducted on their own initiative, which caused the general economy of the empire to slowly disintegrate. Political instability increased more and more until, in 1909, the sultan – as the Ottoman leaders were called – Abdul Hamid II was deposed by a rebellion. This change started the modernization of the empire, greatly influenced by Germany, alongside which the Turks fought in the First World War (1914-1918). The defeat in the confrontation further tumultuous the already torn apart empire, which was abolished shortly afterwards, in 1923, when the Republic of Turkey was proclaimed.