Early Modern Islam Research Paper

The three major early modern Islamic Empires, The Ottomans, Safavids, and Mughal, ruled vast territories and people with diverse ethnic backgrounds, and myriad of different sectarian faiths. As one would expect, the Muslim subject of theses empires were treated as privileged citizen compared to their non-Muslim counterparts. Muslims comprised the majority of imperial courts for the Safavids, Ottomans, and Mughal Empire, and held high bureaucratic offices, such as mayors, governors, and viziers. For the majority non-Muslim subjects and those Muslims who did not belong to the same sect of Islam as their empire, such as the Ottoman Alawis, where dealt with extreme prejudice when they rose to power. From my perspective, after reading the reading …show more content…
Jews were seen as useful for their experience and abilities in trade, crafts, and bureaucratic offices, such as accounting. Despite the fruitfulness of the Jewish people, they were still treated as second class citizens. The Ottomans were wary of the Jewish people. I believe the ottomans were tolerant of the Jewish people, but they did not want the Jews to completely assimilate the Jewish people in Ottoman society, and rise to power. Jews had to wear clothes were marked, so they could be set apart from Muslims. They could not carry weapons, or ride horses and camels. They had to acknowledge the supremacy of the Muslims. The Ottomans knew that Jews skilled in trade, and bureaucratic offices, which would lead them to powerful positions, so they were tolerant as long as they were not rising in power, in which case they would have to be dealt with.
Similarly, Shah Abbas of the Safavid took a similar approach to Non-Muslim Minority in the Safavid Iran. Shah Abbas force Armenian to migrate to Isfahan to better trade in the Safavid Empire. Armenians were given special privileges that other dhimmi did not receive, such as tax exceptions and compensation for their forced immigration. I believe that had Non-Muslims were treated quite well as long as the Non-Muslims were cooperative, acknowledge the superiority of Muslims, and paid their …show more content…
For instance, Akbar, who invited religious scholars to his court, would be more tolerant of Sikhs than his son Jahangir, who killed the Sikh Guru Arjun. Shah Ismail killed and more forced Sunnis to convert to Shiism. Shah Abbas the Great forced Armenians to convert to Islam after overhearing Armenian girls speaking ill of him. Armenian, who believed that Abbas was not being that great (joke), went to Abbas, and told him to stop the forced conversion or else they would leave Isfahan. Abbas stopped the force conversion, and even allowed the Armenians who were forced to convert to Islam to go back to their previous religion, if they chose to. Abbas’s temperament is an excellent example of the how the life of a Non-Muslim could be perfectly fine one day, and then in the next day they were forced to convert to Islam (ironically Islam means surrender, so they’re surrendering to surrendering). They’re lives depend on the piety, generosity, and temperament of their ruler.
From my interpretation of the reading, I believe that Non-Muslim subjects’ life in the Early Modern Ottoman, Safavid, and Mughal Empire was fine as long as they followed the laws, and paid taxes, but depending on the Shah or Sultan the difficultly of their lives could change. I believe the Ottomans were the most tolerant of the three Early Modern Islamic