Ottoman Empire

The Ottoman Empire arose in the beginning of the 14th century and ended with the abolition of the Sultanate in 1922 by the founders of modern Turkey. The establishment of the Ottoman state coincided with the collapse of the Seljukid Empire around 1300 following the Mongolian invasion of Anatolia. The Ottoman state began as a frontier principality of the Turks of Anatolia and became an empire one and a half centuries later with the conquest of Constantinople by the armies of Sultan Mehmed II. The founders, Osman and his son Orhan, and the ruling elite of the state were Muslims, and the state adopted the Seljukid Islamic traditions and cultures in the beginning and used the services of the men of religion in the Seljukid mosques, madrasas (schools), and evqafs (religious endowments) for the unification of the people of Anatolia around the Ottoman state. Religious matters were carried out by the Islamic scholars (ulema) who were trained in the high cultural centers of the Seljukids. The first viziers of the state were also from among the Ottoman ulema.

Although, owing to a paucity of primary sources, there is ongoing debate among scholars about the foundation philosophy of the Ottoman Empire, most historians claim that a holy war (gaza) spirit moved the Ottomans to expand their domain toward the Byzantine Empire, the center of Orthodox Christianity. The gaza, the war for the expansion of Islam, outlined the foundations of legitimacy of the Ottoman sovereignty in the Balkans. Therefore, it was ultimately natural for the Ottomans to implement Shari'a (divinely ordained Muslim law) in their legal affairs, since the expansion of Islam was the basic ideology of the state. The Ottoman Turks identified themselves as Muslims, and their Muslimness became more powerful than in the previous Islamic empires, especially as the sword was unified with faith when the Ottoman sultans acquired the Caliphate. The Ottoman expansion toward the west provided them with the title of Turks, the sword of Islam. As the Ottoman rulers adopted the term sultan from the ‘Abbāsids and the terms padishah, shah, and hudavendigar from the Persians, they established the sultan's sovereignty over the Caliphate's domain after the conquest of Egypt and the capture of Caliph Mutawakkil in 1517.