The+Empires+in+Transition;+Deterioration+of+Imperial+Leadership,+Economic+and+Military+Decline,+and+Cultural+Conservatism+(770-775)

=The Empires in Transition; Deterioration of Imperial Leadership, Economic and Military Decline, and Cultural Conservatism (770-775)=

The Deterioration of Imperial Leadership(WN)

 * having a strong and effective central authority was required to the Islamic empires
 * the Ottomans were lucky to have a series of talented sultans for three centuries
 * the Safavids and Mughals also share their effective rulers as well
 * eventually the three dynasties had rulers who were really greedy and spent a lot of money on personal pleasures than in tending to affairs of state
 * infamous rulers like Süleyman's successor Selim the Sot(reigned 1566-1574) and Ibrahim the Crazy(reigned 1640-1648), who demanded and spent to their limit that government officials overflowed and murdered him
 * political troubles often arose from religious tension
 * this was mostly from conservative muslims who were strongly opposed to any policies and practices that they considered affronts to Islam BS
 * they had a lot of influence in society because of their monopoly of education and involvement in the everyday lives and legal affairs of ordinary subjects BS

Economic and Military Decline (EJC start)
__Economic Difficulties__ __Military Decline__
 * In the sixteenth century, all the Islamic empires had strong domestic economies and played good role in global trade networks.
 * By the eighteenth century, however, domestic economies were under great stress and foreign trade had declined dramatically.
 * The high cost of maintaining an expensive military helped to bring about economic decline in the Islamic empires.
 * As long as the empires were expanding, they were able to finance their military source with limited resources.
 * But, an expansion slowed and the empires lost control over remote provinces, selling public offices, accepting bribes, or resorting to simple extortion.
 * None of the Imperial authorities made serious efforts to establish commercial stations abroad.
 * The Islamic empires did not seek actively to improve their military technologies.
 * In the fifteenth century, the Ottomans had relied heavily on European technology in gunnery.
 * During the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, the Islamic empires were able to purchase European weapons in large numbers.
 * But, about the mid-seventeenth century, European military technology was advancing so rapidly that the Islamic empires could not keep pace.
 * The Islamic empires still were able to purchase European weapons and expertise, but their arsenals became increasingly dated, since they depended on technologies that European peoples had already replace. **(EJC end)**

Cultural Conservatism (SK)
-an Ottoman admiral and cartographer, produced several large-scale maps and a major navigational text called "The Book of Seafaring" which drew on reports and maps from European mariners and explorers -Muslims were confident of their superiority and believed that they had nothing to learn from European (thus remaining mostly oblivious to European cultural and technological developments- SG) -Muslim clerics believed that foreign implements were impious and unnecessary -Jewish refugees from Spain introduced the first printing presses to Anatolia in the late fifteenth century. -they were allowed to operate presses as long as you did not print books in Turkish or Arabic; this ban was lifted in 1729 -printing presses caught on slowly in Mughal India, translated the Bible, rulers displayed little interest, not prominent until British colonial rule was established in Bengal in the eighteeth century. -some liked the elegant handwritten books, better, and others (Muslim conservative leaders) worried about the spread of unfaithful or challenging ideas -Islamic authorities actively discouraged the circulation of ideas that might pose unsettling challenges to the social and cultural order of the Islamic emperors (SG) -The Ottoman, Safavid, and Mughal emperors preferred political and social stability to the risks that foreign cultural innovation might bring (SG)
 * The Islamic empires also neglected thier cultural developmets
 * Piri Reis:
 * Cultural Conservatism:
 * The Printing Press: