The Evolution of the Ottoman Seaborne Empire in the Age of the Oceanic Discoveries, 1453-1525

Abstract

would encompass the world. In the same period Ottoman sultans, entering upon a century of major expansion, created an Islamic seaborne empire. Corresponding in time but different in character, these two imperial maritime ventures came together along the northern coastline of the Indian Ocean to create a new frontier that firmly separated two different societies. Until recently the study of joint Ottoman and Iberian naval expansion during the years when Christian Europe rose to the position of a world power on the oceans has not attracted attention. European historians, preoccupied with the identification of their own history, first unraveled the dramatic story of the oceanic voyages, the discoveries, and the European commercial and colonial empires, only stopping to consider how Muslim actions influenced the course of European history: Did the Ottoman Turks cause the oceanic explorations? Did the Portuguese discovery of the new route to India divert Asian trade from Mediterranean to Atlantic ports?1 Once these questions were answered, the study of Islamic history became the work of small, specialized disciplines, such as Oriental studies, which occupied a position on the periphery of the Western historical profession. Finally the successful imperial expansion of Western states in Islamic territories during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries confirmed for most Europeans the idea that the history of Islam, let alone the deeds of Ottoman sultans, had little influence on the expansion of the West. In the long run, however, the forces that stimulated Western imperialism led to a greater interest in Islamic history. The voyages of discovery, as revolutionary leaps in the technology of communication, reduced the distance between the world's societies and, therefore, brought Muslims and Christians together as - An assistant pr-ofessor of history at Temple University, Mr. Hess, who specializes in Ottoman history, received his Ph.D. from Harvard in 1966, having studied with Stanford Shaw. An earlier ar