Deck 27: The Islamic Empires

Question 1

Which of the following empires began as an Islamic frontier state on the border of the Christian world?

A) Ottoman
B) Safavid
C) Mughal
D) Yuan
E) Umayyad

Answer 1

A

Question 2

The Ottoman ruler who captured Constantinople was

A) Babur.
B) Süleyman the Magnificent.
C) Selim the Grim.
D) Osman Bey.
E) Mehmed II.

Answer 2

E

Question 3

Süleyman the Magnificent in 1529 inflicted a brief and terrifying siege on the Habsburgs' prized city of

A) Vienna.
B) Mohács.
C) Belgrade.
D) Chaldiran.
E) Otranto.

Answer 3

A

Question 4

Central to the belief of Twelver Shiism was the idea that

A) any true believer could be the leader of the Islamic world.
B) the twelfth infallible imam was still alive and would return to spread his faith.
C) Ali had betrayed the prophet Muhammad and therefore his descendants could not rule.
D) there were twelve principle manifestations of Allah.
E) there were Twelve Commandments.

Question 5

Khayr al-Din Barbarossa Pasha was the

A) architect who helped Süleyman rebuild Istanbul.
B) founder of the Safavid dynasty.
C) slave who helped Süleyman create his famed law codes.
D) greatest Ottoman poet.
E) admiral who carried Ottoman naval power into the Mediterranean Sea and Indian Ocean.

Question 6

The Islamic leader who converted to Twelver Shiism was

A) Zahir al-Din Muhammad.
B) Akbar.
C) Selim the Grim.
D) Shah Ismail.
E) Shah Abbas.

Question 7

The leader of the fully revitalized Safavid empire,who moved the capital to the central location of Isfahan,was

A) Shah Ismail.
B) Aurangzeb.
C) Akbar.
D) Ibrahim the Crazy.
E) Shah Abbas.

Question 8

The Ottoman institution that provided Balkan slaves for the formation of the Janissaries was the

A) jizya.
B) devshirme.
C) dhimmi.
D) sharia.
E) millet.

Question 9

The Safavids traced their ancestry back to the leader Safi al-Din,who observed what religion?

A) Buddhism
B) Hinduism
C) Sufism
D) Christianity
E) Judaism

Question 10

The word ghazi refers to

A) the tax that non-Muslims paid in Islamic countries.
B) Islamic merchants with protected social status in Ottoman society.
C) the law codes of Süleyman.
D) Muslim religious warriors.
E) Akbar's universal religion.

Question 11

Shah Ismail received the greatest support for his conversion to Twelver Shiism from the

A) qizilbash.
B) Sunnis.
C) Abbasids.
D) Ottomans.
E) Mughals.

Question 12

The founder of the Mughal dynasty,who claimed descent from Chinggis Khan and Tamerlane,was

A) Safi al-Din.
B) Shah Ismail.
C) Akbar.
D) Osman Bey.
E) Zahir al-Din Muhammad.

Question 13

Zahir al-Din Muhammad's main inspiration for conquering India was likely to

A) be recognized as a ghazi.
B) act as a champion of Shiism.
C) use India's wealth to build a vast empire.
D) win converts for his own dream of a universal world religion.
E) form a united Indian and Chinese trading network.

Question 14

Which of the following rulers displayed the greatest amount of religious toleration?

A) Aurangzeb
B) Akbar
C) Shah Ismail
D) Süleyman the Magnificent
E) Charles V

Question 15

The Ottoman,Safavid,and Mughal empires all originally came from

A) descendants of the prophet Muhammad.
B) renegade Byzantine generals.
C) offshoots of the older Mongol empires.
D) nomadic,Turkish-speaking tribes.
E) direct descendants of the powerful Indian conqueror Chandragupta Maurya.

Question 16

In the sixteenth century,the Ottomans captured

A) Constantinople and Otranto.
B) Isfahan and Delhi.
C) Greece and Italy.
D) Egypt and Syria.
E) Turkey and Persia.

Question 17

The founder of the Ottoman dynasty was

A) Süleyman the Magnificent.
B) Osman Bey.
C) Selim the Grim.
D) Mehmed II.
E) Shah Ismail.

Question 18

The Ottoman,Safavid,and Mughal empires were all

A) Christian.
B) animistic.
C) Zoroastrian.
D) Buddhist.
E) Islamic.

Question 19

The Mughal ruler who constructed the Taj Mahal was

A) Shah Jahan.
B) Akbar.
C) Zahir al-Din Muhammad.
D) Osman Bey.
E) Aurangzeb.

Question 20

At the battle of Chaldiran in 1514,

A) the Byzantines temporarily captured Constantinople.
B) Mehmed II captured the southern Italian port of Otranto.
C) Zahir al-Din Muhammad conquered the leading Indian princes and unified India.
D) the Ottomans defeated the Safavids.
E) the Ottomans suffered a devastating defeat to the Spanish navy.

Question 21

Hürrem Sultana was

A) the founder of the Mughal dynasty.
B) the Turkish law codes of Süleyman the Magnificent.
C) the most powerful ruler of the Safavid empire.
D) the magnificent mosque built in Istanbul by Süleyman the Magnificent.
E) a concubine who had tremendous influence over Süleyman the Magnificent.

Question 22

Constantinople was captured by Mehmed II in 1453 and became the Ottoman capital,subsequently known as Istanbul.

Question 23

The Islamic leader who abolished the jizya was

A) Akbar.
B) Shah Ismail.
C) Süleyman the Magnificent.
D) Shah Abbas.
E) Abu Bakr.

Question 24

Akbar's answer to the religious diversity and tension of India was to

A) declare India an atheistic state.
B) push Christianity in return for European-supplied advanced weapons.
C) attempt to crush all Hindu resistance.
D) encourage a syncretic religion called the "divine faith" that all could embrace.
E) convert to Twelver Shiism as a means of inspiring a sense of divine leadership.

Question 25

The term Ottoman derived from Osman Bey,a chief of a band of seminomadic Turks who migrated to northwestern Anatolia in the thirteenth century.

Question 26

The Mughal emperor Aurangzeb

A) carried on the policy of religious toleration established by Akbar.
B) built the magnificent Taj Mahal to honor his wife Mumtaz Mahal.
C) converted to Hinduism.
D) was victorious in the battle of Chaldiran against the Safavids.
E) reversed the religious toleration of Akbar and began to tax the Hindus.

Question 27

Fatehpur Sikri was

A) the garden tomb that Shah Jahan built to honor his favorite wife.
B) the Sufi guru who served as Akbar's advisor.
C) the capital city that Akbar built.
D) the former pirate who served as Süleyman the Magnificent's leading admiral.
E) Süleyman the Magnificent's favorite mistress.

Question 28

Piri Reis was responsible for

A) losing the battle of Chaldiran.
B) preparing the Book of Seafaring.
C) building the first astronomical observatory in Istanbul.
D) overthrowing and jailing his father Shah Jahan.
E) writing a famous Rubaiyat.

Question 29

What Islamic city was one of the most precious jewels in terms of urban architectural development,still referred to by its inhabitants as "half the world"?

A) Istanbul
B) Delhi
C) Alexandria
D) Bursa
E) Isfahan

Question 30

Shah Jahan was unable to finish the construction of the Taj Mahal because

A) he was overthrown by his son Aurangzeb.
B) he died of smallpox.
C) he was captured by the Ottomans while on a hunting trip.
D) his country was invaded by Afghan tribesmen.
E) his Mughal rule was interrupted by a Safavid invasion.

Question 31

Süleyman the Magnificent called on Sinan Pasha to

A) reorganize the Ottoman navy and conquer the eastern Mediterranean.
B) create the religious complex known as the Süleymaniye.
C) defeat the growing threat of the Safavids.
D) launch an invasion of Isfahan.
E) help him create a sophisticated law code.

Question 32

By 1530 when Babur died he had built an empire from Kabul to the borders of Bengal and founded the Mughal dynasty.

Question 33

The jizya was the tax paid by

A) Muslims to Hindus as a means of fostering better relations between the two faiths.
B) European merchants for access to trade through the Indian Ocean.
C) Chinese merchants as a sort of bribe to allow them access to Indian markets.
D) non-Muslims as the price for retaining their religion in an Islamic country.
E) the Safavids to the Ottomans after their disastrous defeat at Chaldiran.

Question 34

In the three hundred years after 1500,the population of India grew from 105 million to

A) 115 million.
B) 125 million.
C) 190 million.
D) 230 million.
E) 285 million.

Question 35

Because of protests from moralists,the Ottoman sultan Murad IV

A) outlawed coffee and tobacco.
B) reinstituted the jizya.
C) forbade women to play an active role in the marketplace.
D) introduced a code of conduct for the Janissaries.
E) burned every available copy of A Thousand and One Nights.

Question 36

Sikhism was a syncretic combination of

A) Hinduism and Buddhism.
B) Christianity and Hinduism.
C) Hinduism and Islam.
D) Islam and Buddhism.
E) Buddhism and Christianity.

Question 37

The steppe tradition that caused the greatest problem for the Islamic empires was the

A) devotion to Twelver Shiism.
B) symbolic blood sacrifice.
C) bloody competition among heirs to the throne.
D) insistence on a particularly brutal form of slavery.
E) practice of dividing up the land equally among all the sons of the nobles.

Question 38

Which of the following was NOT among the factors in the decline of the Islamic empires?

A) a series of weak and incompetent rulers
B) a collapse in the centuries-old civil service examination system
C) rising tensions between different religious groups
D) changing trade routes that bypassed the empires and hurt them financially
E) increasing religious conservatism and intolerance among the Islamic leaders

Question 39

The Mughal empire reached its greatest geographic extent during the reign of

A) Akbar.
B) Shah Jahan.
C) Aurangzeb.
D) Shah Abbas.
E) Zahir al-Din Muhammad.

Question 40

The Ottomans took the Byzantine cathedral Hagia Sofia and

A) burned it to the ground as part of the looting after Mehmed II's conquest.
B) turned it into a special university for Janissaries.
C) restructured its configuration to become the great palace of the sultans.
D) converted it into the mosque of Aya Sofya.
E) used it as an astronomical observatory.

Question 41

The most famous of the Mughal monuments,and one of the most prominent of all Islamic edifices,was the Süleymaniye mosque.

Question 42

Examine the rise of the Mughal empire.What leaders were influential in this process? What were the main problems that the Mughals faced in ruling India? What would be the long-term consequences of Mughal rule?

Question 43

Examine the role of trade in the success of the Ottoman and Safavid empires.How wealthy were these empires? How did this reliance on trade leave them susceptible?

Question 44

The ideal of spreading Islam by fighting infidels resonated with the traditions of the Turkish and Mongolian people; on the steppes,fighting was routine,and successful warriors became charismatic leaders.

Question 45

Examine Map 27.1,The Islamic empires,1500-1800.Why would these empires be so wealthy and powerful? How could a change in the trade routes hurt them?

Question 46

What factors led to the decline and eventual collapse of the Islamic states? Did they have any problems in common that would help explain their fall?

Question 47

Compare and contrast the reigns of Süleyman the Magnificent,Akbar,Aurangzeb,Shah Ismail,and Shah Abbas.What made them successful?

Question 48

Examine the foundations of the Safavid empire.What made it unique? What role did Shah Ismail play in the rise of the empire? What were the religious implications and influence of the Safavids?

Question 49

Muslim leaders had considerable influence in the Islamic empires because of their monopoly on education and their deep involvement in the everyday lives and legal affairs of ordinary people.

Question 50

The Islamic empires experienced military decline because they did not seek actively to improve their military technologies.

Question 51

Examine the reign of Akbar.What sets his reign apart from other rulers of his age,both Islamic and non-Islamic? Did he go too far and too fast?

Question 52

Muslim leaders were confident in their superiority over Europeans,but they did embrace European cultural and technological developments during the sixteenth century.

Question 53

Examine the reign of Süleyman the Magnificent.How large of an empire did he conquer? How was he able to build an empire that large? How powerful and wealthy was he? Discuss the magnificence of his court.

Question 54

The Mughal conqueror Babur wrote that "India is a country of few charms." If this is so,why did Babur conquer it? Compare and contrast the motives for conquest of the Ottomans,Safavids,and Mughals.Do states need a driving force? What happens if they lose it? Think back to other societies in the class-did they have a driving motivation?

Question 55

Examine the military power of the Ottoman empire.What factors allowed for its success? What would later lead to its decline?

Question 56

Examine the rise and spread of the Ottoman empire.Who were the important leaders in this process? What role did the sense of holy war play in this expansion?

Question 57

Most Islamic empires relied on potatoes and maize,which had flourished for centuries in the lands they ruled.

Question 58

The Mughal emperor Akbar was a devout Muslim who was not tolerant of other religions.

Question 59

Examine the concept of society held by the Islamic states.How were they influenced by their steppe traditions and the new areas that they conquered?

Question 60

What role did religious conservatism play in the decline of the Islamic states? Have we seen similar problems in other societies studied so far?

Question 61

What were some of the principal commodities traded in and out of the Islamic states? Which state had the most to offer western merchants?

Question 62

Identify and compare the status of religious minorities within the three Islamic empires.Which empire faced the greatest challenges in this regard?

Question 63

In the section from Babur (see Textbook: Sources from the Past: A Conqueror and His Conquests: Babur on India),what is Babur's opinion of India? How does this view relate to some of the problems that would haunt India later during the Mughal rule? Compare Babur's view of India to that of Akbar.

Question 64

Discuss the religious and political issues that separated the Ottoman Turks and the Safavid Turks,two neighboring Islamic states,in the sixteenth century.

Question 65

How did the Ottoman Turks defeat the Byzantine empire? What was the basis of their military strength?

Question 66

By what steps did Shah Abbas achieve a strong and unified Safavid state?

Question 67

Compare Akbar's policies with those of Aurangzeb.

Question 68

What aspects of the Islamic empires made political succession so uncertain? What often happened when the ruler died?

Question 69

How did the Islamic empires lose their leadership in technology? Why did they allow cultural conservatism to convince them of their own superiority?

Question 70

What factors led to the economic and military decline of the Islamic empires?