Intellectual Change from the 15th to 17th Century

Units/Unit 2/Middle East and India.html

2: Intellectual Change from the 15th to 17th Century

The Middle East and India

The Ottoman, Safavid, and Mughal Empires all reached their peaks between the 16th and 17th centuries. Combined, the empires spanned from Egypt, across the Middle East and Persia, all the way to India. Each empire controlled areas with distinct physical, ethnic, and religious environments, yet were similar in many ways. The leaders of each of the empires had Turkic ethnic backgrounds and Islamic roots, and all of the empires developed strong military forces (because of this, they are collectively referred to as the Gunpowder Empires). Each of the empires had to contend with religious divisions within their empires, and were able to overcome these differences and please the various groups within their empires. I will focus on the similar way that each of the empires dealt with religious divisions, as well as the status of women in each of the Gunpowder Empires.The following pages describe these changes in the Ottoman, Safavid, and Mughal Empires.