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The Rise of the Ottoman Empire Essay

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The Rise of The Ottoman Empire By: Hunter Starr HIST 130: Muslim History From the Rise of Islam to 1500 CE Professor Matthee November 27, 2007. The Ottoman Turks emerged on the periphery of the Byzantine Empire and the Saljuk Turks. Under a Turkish Muslim warrior named Osman, raids were conducted in western Anatolia on Byzantine settlements and a vast number of Turks were united under his banner. Those Turks who flocked to Osman's banner and followed him into the history books came to be called the Ottomans. The word Ottoman, fits these Turks well as it roughly translates from Turkish as "those associated with Oman." At its outset, the Ottoman emirate was comparatively weak and of little consequence to its much larger and …show more content…

Those associated with Osman, more than any other Turkish state had as their guiding principle the concept of being a gazi, gearing the emirate for conquest. As mentioned earlier, a gazi was a Muslim warrior who inhabited the military borderland between Byzantium and Islam; he was a warrior of the faith. A gazi held the sacred duty to extend and expand Islamic territory at the expense of the non-Muslim's who inhabited the land. The gazi performed his duty to the Umma by means of the gaza, or raid. These raids evolved into perpetual warfare carried out against the nonbelievers, especially the Christians, in the interests of Islam. Because of the Ottomans beneficial location, and their guiding principle, the early Ottoman state did not disintegrate under pressure from internal feuds that plagued other rival emirates because it constantly expanded, gained new territory and relentlessly provided new outlets for the energies of the gazi warriors. Under Osman, the Ottomans took advantage of the bloody and deadly rivalries that existed between the Byzantines, the Bulgars, Serbs, Venetians, Genoans, and other Christian powers in Eastern Europe, laying siege to, and capturing the main Byzantine strongholds between Soghut and Nicaea. After Osman died in 1326, his son and successor Orhan came to power, reigning from 1326 to 1362; he continued the extended siege of Bursa and took the city in

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