Why was the Empire successful?

The recipe for success

There were many reasons why the Ottoman Empire was so successful:

• Highly centralised
• Power was always transferred to a single person, and not split between rival princes
  • The Ottoman Empire was successfully ruled by a single family for 7 centuries.
• State-run education system
• Religion was incorporated in the state structure, and the Sultan was regarded as "the protector of Islam".
• State-run judicial system
• Ruthless in dealing with local leaders
• Promotion to positions of power largely depended on merit
• Created alliances across political and racial groups
• United by Islamic ideology
• United by Islamic warrior code with ideal of increasing Muslim territory through Jihad
• United by Islamic organisational and administrative structures
• Highly pragmatic, taking the best ideas from other cultures and making them their own
• Encouraged loyalty from other faith groups
• Private power and wealth were controlled
• Very strong military
  • Strong slave-based army
  • Expert in developing gunpowder as a military tool
  • Military ethos pervaded whole administration

Origin

After Baghdad fell to the Mongols, the Seljuks declared an independent Sultanate in east and central Asia Minor.

In 1301, Uthman, an Uzbek of the Ottoman clan, overthrew the Seljuk aristocracy and proclaimed himself the Sultan of Asia Minor.

Rule of force

At first the rule of the Ottoman Sultans was insecure. To consolidate their Empire the Ottoman Sultans formed groups of fanatical fighters - the orders of the Janissaries, a crack infantry group of slaves and Christian converts to Islam.

The Ottomans inflicted a series of defeats on the declining Christian Byzantine Empire and then quickly expanded westward.

source:bbc.co.uk

The Seljuks

The Seljuks (SELÇUKLULAR)

The first Turks to invade Anatolia in force were the Seljuks under Sultan Alp Aslan, who in 1071 defeated a Byzantine army under the emperor Romanus IV at Manzikert, north of Lake Van near what is now the eastern border of Turkey. The Seljuks overran Anatolia and reached the Sea of Marmara before establishing their capital at Nicaea. They were driven out of Nicaea in 1097 by the emperor Alexius I Comnenus and the knights of the First Crusade. The Seljuks then regrouped at Konya (Iconium), which became the capital of the Sultanate of Rum, a realm that comprised most of central and eastern Anatolia.

The Sultanate of Rum reached its peak under sultan Alaeddin Keykubad I (r. 1220–37), who built caravansarais along the highways of central and eastern Anatolia to handle its greatly increased trade, while he and his vezirs adorned Konya and the other cities of the empire with beautiful mosques, medreses (colleges), hospitals, tombs, palaces and bridges, as well as mighty fortresses But the year after Keykubad’s death the Mongols invaded Anatolia, and in 1243 they defeated a Seljuk army at Kösedağ in eastern Anatolia,
breaking the power of the Sultanate of Rum. 

The Seljuk sultanate lasted until the beginning of the fourteenth century, though in name only after Kösedağ, when all of central and eastern Anatolia became a Mongol protectorate. But then the Mongols were defeated in 1277 by the Mamluks of Egypt under Sultan Baibars, breaking their power in Anatolia. Baibars himself died later that year, leaving a power vacuum in Anatolia.