The Ottomans: Faith, Law, Empire

This course explores the rise and fall of the longest-lived Muslim dynasty in history, the Ottoman Empire (1299-1923). From Turkish nomads in Asia Minor to multiethnic empire spanning three continents, the Ottomans were the premier power of southern Europe, northern Africa, and the eastern Mediterranean in the early modern world. From medieval “Turko-Persia” to the catastrophes of World War I, we shall engage difficult historical questions surrounding law and empire, religion and secularism, nationalism and statebuilding, and the legacy of Ottoman rule in and outside today’s Turkey—from Sarajevo to Baghdad, Crimea to Mecca, and “where East meets West”: Constantinople/Istanbul.