A Comparison and Contrast of the Mughal Empire and the Safavid Empire
I chose the Mughal Empire and the Safavid Empire mainly because they practiced different forms of the Islamic religion. Like the Mughal Empire, most Muslims are Sunnis. The conflict between Sunnis and Shiites began after the Prophet Muhammad’s death. Sunnis wanted the followers of the religion to choose his successor. They chose a man named Abu Bakr. The Shiites wanted a member of the Prophet Muhammad’s family to be his successor. They chose a man named Ali who was Muhammad’s cousin and son-in-law. Unlike most Muslim Empires, the Safavid Empire was Shiite. As you will see in this essay, despite their differences over whom should assume power
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Babur’s grandson, Akbar or Akbar the Great is considered the greatest of all the Mughal rulers (1556 to 1605). He was an excellent military and bureaucratic strategist. Previous Muslim leaders were cruel to Hindus; therefore, Hindus did not like or trust Muslims. As a bureaucrat, Akbar sought to strengthen his position by incorporating Hindus into his empire. He encouraged intermarriage between Mughals and Hindus. He promoted Hindus to high-ranking positions. Of even greater importance, Akbar tolerated Hindu religious beliefs, including making cows sacred. At one point, Akbar tried to merge Islam and Hinduism into one religion. Merging the religions was unsuccessful. His military genius is evident by the territory he gained through military conquests. By the time he died in 1605, his empire had expanded farther north and farther south. The new territory included Bombay on the west coast of India and Calcutta on the east coast of India. However, at that time in history, India was not trading with England. Like Akbar the Great, Shah Abbas I is the most significant ruler of the Safavid Empire (1571-1629). Shah Abbas I became the ruler of the Safavid Empire when he was only sixteen-years-of-age. Despite his age, Shah Abbas I was an excellent military commander. Since the mighty Ottoman Empire and the …show more content…
Most of the people of Iran were tribal, nomadic people of Turkish descent who often tried to overthrow Shah Abbas I. He persuaded the Turkish warriors to fight for him. (This reminds me of Akbar the Great befriending the Hindus to strengthen his empire.) In return, the best warriors were treated like noblemen. As noblemen, they were granted land and peasant labor. The mightiest of warriors received high-ranking positions in his administration. However, Shah Abbas I never trusted the Turkish people. Therefore, he needed additional warriors. Shah Abbas I was responsible for kidnapping boys from Russia, placing them in foster families, and training them to be warriors. In fact, there were more slave warriors than Turkish warriors in the Safavid military. Eventually, Shah Abbas I became known as Abbas the Great. He was tolerant of Christians and sought military advice from an Englishman named Robert Shirley. (This reminds me of Akbar the Great being tolerant of Hindus.) After consulting Shirley, Akbar the Great reconfigured his military using the English military as a model. He was the first to use gunpowder extensively. I feel that one of Akbar the Great’s most important achievements was seizing control of trading in the Persian Gulf from the Portuguese. This transformed the empire. Trading with the English and the Dutch made the Safavid Empire wealthy and
The political structure of the Arabian and Byzantine empires greatly differed from each other. The Arabian empire was ruled over by a Caliphate. The Caliphate was the successor to the great prophet Muhammad. Politically, the Caliphate sometimes caused trouble for the stability of the empire. With multiple groups such as the Umayyad and the Abbasid believing the were in charge of the Caliphate led to conflicts and violence. An example of conflict would be towards the end of the Abbasid empire when the death of Harun al-Rashid brought several full scale revolutions. Another example would be at the beginning of Abbasid empire when they went as far as too kill off all of the remaining Umayyad leaders to sustain full control with little to no interference. Politically, the Arab/Muslim empire stretched from India and the Middle East into the Africa, the Mediterranean, and Iberia. They also had a large influence in Southeast Asia. When they conquered these areas, there was no forced conversion. On the other hand, they did enforce a higher tax for non-Muslims which prompted people to convert. Only later were there violently forced conversions. A testimony to this would be when the Muslims invaded India and did not touch the Buddhist or Hindus already there. They even respected the Hindu leadership and allowed them to continue. The Muslim empire was successful in other parts of the world due to tolerance, and continued to operate in the face of power struggles.
...nt power. As for the Gupta/Mauryan Empire they had the religions of Hinduism and Buddhism in their Empire. For all of the Empires since their religions had become a huge part of their beliefs the administrative government for each Empire had persuaded the beliefs as well. The administrative governments was the based of orders for the kingdom that is where the leaders were at and where the majority of their currency was going, for each Empire. Since Rome had overextended in military and economic wealth there were rebellions against their Empire and over time the Roman Empire came to an end. As for the Gupta/Mauryan Empires they decided on giving more of there political power toward the government that had been based on family lineage. When family members in the government died they became weaker and eventually their Empires came to an end.
Three Muslim empires rose during the spread of Islam. These empires are different, yet also similar. They are the Ottomans, Safavids, and Mughals. They united other Muslims but also conquered other territories to form their own empires.
The Persian Empire and the Roman Empire are among the greatest empires the world has ever seen. The Persian Empire dynasties that were centered in Persia. The dynasties were formed as a result of conquest by ancient rulers such as the conquest of Babylonia, Lydia and Medina and later other dynasties followed to form the great Persian Empire. The vast empire spanned large geographical area which featured Turkey to its northern side and Egypt to its west and also ran through Mesopotamia. The Roman Empire was also a large empire that featured governance that was led by emperors. The Empire had large territories in places like Europe, Asia, and Africa. This paper is going to compare the Roman and Persian empires in relation to highlighting their successes and the assimilation of their conquered subjects into a centralized
5) Safavid Empire-The Safavid Empire was important because, they were the force who stopped Turks advancing the east. They also brought central authority to region a...
Like several dynasties throughout history, power and the art of war have always been prominent. Both empires started off with unifying their government and military structure in order to be source of power. Their next step was to invade their surrounding areas in order to spread their own power and to have a greater influence. The conquest of Constantinople was the big accomplishment for the Ottomans, since Constantinople was Christian-based and it had proven to be difficult to conquer in the past. This not only was a conquest for power, but also for religion since they transformed the Orthodox cathedral into a Muslim mosque. The big conquest for the Mughals was north India, “Babur conquered India simply because he had lost the hope of establishing an empire in Mawarannahr or anywhere else, and so he turn his mulkgirlq, his “kingdom-seizing” ambitions, to India…” (Dale 73). Babur was more power driven since he had “kingdom-seizing” ambitions and the religious elements came in second for
In the distant land known as Sumeria, there were four empires that wanted to control all of Mesopotamia. They fought over water food land and many more things to fight about. All the civilization that lived in Mesopotamia rose and fell like the sun.
Throughout the 1400-1600 there were many different Empires. Today we still talk about them. The Mughal Empire and the Mali Empire have some similarities and differences between this time period. They all the culture, religion and government. They both had different governments and they both believed in different gods and worshiped different people. They both would pray multiple times a day. They Mughal Empire and the Mali empire both had leaders that they worshiped.
A great deal of the world's history is the history of empires. Different people ruled the countries of the world at different points of time. The Roman Empire and the Ottoman Empire were two of the greatest empires. It is essential for people to have knowledge about the history of empires, how they lived, their languages, their religions, and government systems in order to learn from their cultures, accomplishments, and blunders. Although the Roman and Ottoman Empire were ruled at distinctive places and times, they had a lot of similarities and differences.
C. Both the Safavid and Ming Dynasties had distinguished and powerful rulers who, influenced by their respective society and customs, built military and trade powerhouses.
Iran was included in the territory of what was then the ancient Persian Empire. For centuries Iran (land of the Aryans) was also referred to as Persia, which was the official name until 1935. Fourteen years had passed before the Iranian government allowed the use of both names. Few groups of people today have significant history like the Iranians, descending from the ancient Persians, who possess one of the world’s richest and oldest cultures. Historically, a variety of other cultures and groups had once occupied the ancient Iranian plateau as early as 4,000 B.C.E, with little importance. Beginning by the third millennium, Persia was ruled by some of the greatest kings of all time, from Cyrus the Great to Darius the III, who turned the Persian Empire into one of the world’s greatest civilizations.
Apart from Persian and Neo-Assyrian empires being good or bad based on the way they ruled their empire, it more about which empire had smarter leaders. The Neo-Assyrian empire fell before the Persian not only because of their oppressive way of ruling but also because they weren't smart about the ways that they could help their empire prolong. They put more importance to military and to showing off their power through propaganda (Pollard, 2014, p.130). Consequently, the empire fell to the hands of Nineveh along with forces from Medes and Neo-Babylonians. Unlike the Neo-Assyrians, the Persians lasted longer because had a good initiative towards their empire's rise. They not only had a better administration of the empire and treated
Throughout time, many civilizations have been noted as ‘great’ pertaining to not only the characteristics of their leaders, but also by how well they spread and influence other nations. The Mongol and Achaemenid (Early Persian) empire are two empires that held a significant amount of power during their time period. There were many different religions practiced in the civilizations, and the practice and tolerance of religion is an important aspect to the power of a nation. The Mongol empire and the Achaemenid empire are two empires that are considerably different in regards to their belief systems that were practiced and the motivation behind their religious tolerance, but share a similarity in the the influence and power that they had over surrounding nations.
Streusand, Douglas E. Islamic Gunpowder Empires Ottomans, Safavids, and Mughals. Boulder, Colo: Westveiw Press, 2011.
The Fatimid Caliphates were a 10th century Ismacili Shici dynasty that conquered the Ikhshidid dynasty in Egypt. The Fatimids claimed lineage rights from the Prophet Muhammad’s daughter Fatima; and, existed during the Golden Age of Islam. “Unlike the cAbbasids or Umayyads, who were led by a caliph approved by the community, the Shica espoused the concept of designation, in which the Prophet Muhammad chose Ali as his successor and in which each subsequent religious leader was a divinely ordained, supreme, infallible Imam who had the final authority in both religious and social affairs.” In 909, the Fatimid was established by the self-proclaimed Imam, Ubayd Allah al-Mahdi, who migrated his missionary work through the Palestine and Egypt before he finally came to settle in North Africa in the city of Raqqada. Throughout history, there have been differing views towards the establishment and core objectives of the Fatimid dynasty being established for economic or for Islamic progression during the Golden Age of Islam; and further, many claimed there was no separation of religion and government within the Fatimid.