Educator's Name:                               Brian Baughman

School:                                                Forest Hill High School

School District:                                  Jackson Public

Student Grade Level:                        10

Subject:                                               World History Social Studies

Title of Lesson Plan:                           Ottoman Empire Chapter 2 Section 1

Unit/Theme:                                         Ottoman Empire

Objectives:

1.            Describe the origins of the Ottoman Empire.

2.         Trace the expansion of Ottoman power under Mehmet II and Selim the Grim.

3.         Identify the cultural and political achievements of Suleiman the Lawgiver.

4.            Summarize the causes of the slow decline of the Ottoman Empire.

Instructional Format:            Lecture; independent study; small groups; class discussion.

Materials Needed:

Primary source reading - Suleiman the Magnificent

Timeline of the Ottoman Empire for skill building

Wall maps of Southwest Asia, North Africa, and Southern Europe

MAGNOLIA

Internet access

Duration of Activity:                                  1-2 days

Overview of Activity:                     

By 1300, the old Byzantine had begun to collapse.  The area of modern day Turkey was called Anatolia.  It was here nomadic groups of Ghazis, or Islamic warriors, began to establish residence and raid southern Europe's Christian villages.

I.          Turks Settle in Christian Byzantium

            A.            Osman Establishes a State

·        The most successful Ghazis was Osman.

·        The European's called him Othman and his follower Ottoman's.

·        Between 1300-1326, Osman built a small but powerful Anatolia.

·        The Ottomans were the first to use large numbers of cannons and muskets.

·        The second Ottoman leader was called Orkhan I; he gave himself the title "Sultan," or ones with power.

·        The Ottomans allowed non-Muslim citizens to pay a tax, but they could not serve in the army.

B.            Timar the Lame Rebels

·        The growth of the Ottomans was briefly interrupted by a rebellion of one warrior from Samarkand in central Asia named Timar the Lame or Tamerlan as Europeans called him.

·        Timar the Lame conquered much of Russia and Persia by 1402 when he defeated the Ottomans and captured their sultan.

·        He died in 1405 on his way to conquer China.  The growth of the Ottomans began again.

 

 

 

II.            Powerful Sultans Spur Dramatic Expansion

·        The Ottomans began to fight amongst themselves to replace the Sultan.  Mehmet the I succeeded the Sultan after killing his brother.  Mehmet's son, Murad II, took control and attacked Europe.

A.            Mehmet II Conquers Constantinople

·        Mehmet II, the son of Murad, took power in 1451.

·        In 1453, he attacked and captured the city of Constantinople in Turkey, the last Christian city in the region.  He was given the title of

"Mehmet theConqueror."

·        The city of Constantinople was renamed as Istanbul.

B.            Selim the Grim Takes Islam's Holy Cities

·        Selim the Grim came to power in 1512 after murdering his father and brothers.

·        Selim was an effective Sultan and General.

·        He captured Arabia, Palestine, Persia, Syria, and sections of Egypt.  He captured the Islamic holy cities of Mecca and Medina.

III.            Suleiman the Lawgiver

·        The Ottoman Empire reached its greatest size and grandeur under Selim's son, Suleiman I.

·        Suleiman I came to power in 1520 and ruled for 46 years.

·        His title was Suleiman the Lawgiver or Suleiman the Magnificent.

A.            The Empire Reaches its Limits

·        Under Suleiman, the Turks invaded and conquered the Balkan region of Europe, including the city of Belgrade.

·        The Ottoman Empire covered the eastern Mediterranean and North Africa.

·        In 1525, Suleiman's army invaded Austria and Hungary and laid siege to the city of Vienna, but failed to capture it.

·        Suleiman I had become the most powerful monarch on earth.

B.            Highly Structured Social Organization

·        The empire required an efficient government structure and social organization.

·        The Sultan or Ottoman family held the power in the empire.

·        The Palace bureaucracy was made up of 20,000 slaves. 

·        Janissaries were the elite force for the Sultan.  They were made up of 30,000 Christian slaves.

·        Christian slaves were taken as a part of the devshirme policy in the empire.

·        Christian children were taken and educated by the Ottomans.  The Janissaries made up the heart of the Ottoman bureaucracy.

·        Conflict between different cultures and people were kept at a minimum by the millet system.

C.            Cultural Achievements

·        Suleiman earns the title of Lawgiver because he simplified the laws of the empire, reduced the size of the bureaucracy, and his broad interest in science, architecture, and other disciplines led him to construct schools, libraries, and mosques.

IV.       The Empire Begins to Decline

·        Suleiman himself helped start the decline of his empire.

·        He killed his ablest son and drove another into exile.

·        His last son, Selim II, was totally incompetent and lost key battles to European powers in 1571.

·        Selim II allowed the bureaucracy to become corrupt.

·        The empire took another 420 years to completely collapse in 1920.

Activity:

• Give students background information. 
• Point out Anatolia as modern day Turkey on the map. 
• Point out the regions that Tamerlan conquered by 1405. 
• Make specific reference to why Mehmet became conqueror. 
• Point out how Selim the Grim captured the Islamic holy cities of Mecca and Medina.  Hand out the timeline for all students to fill out as given events are discussed regarding Suleiman the Lawgiver. 
• Illustrate the area of the Balkan region on a wall map. 
• The Ottoman Empire covered the eastern Mediterranean and North Africa.  Explain to students that this is the reason for the modern day conflicts in the Balkans. 
• The empire required an efficient government structure and social organization.  Lead a short discussion on how it may feel to be forced to adopt a different way of life.  For relevance, use the Native Americans as an example in this country.
• Discuss in depth why Suleiman earned the title of Lawgiver.
• Assign primary source reading of Suleiman the Magnificent from the ancillary set.
• Have students create overlapping timelines of European Monarchs during the time of the reign of Suleiman the Lawgiver to illustrate the length of his reign compared to theirs.

Explore Activity:

Let each student access MAGNOLIA.  Go to New Book of Knowledge, Grolier Online.  Type in under search, "Ottoman Empire" (Encyclopedia article).  Click on "Map."  Read article.  Click on "More Art" to get pictures of maps from the Ottoman Empire.  Type in "Ottoman Empire Sultans".  Type in "Suleiman I, Sultan of the Ottoman Empire."  Have students answer the question in essay form: "Why did the Ottoman Empire finally break up at the end of World War I?"  Answer:  Because its heartland of Anatolia became the Republic of Turkey.  There were a myriad of interdependent factors, among the most important: triumph of the devshirme class, the flight of the Turko-Islamic aristocracy, and the degeneration in the ability and honesty both of the sultans and their ruling class.  Corruption, nepotism, inefficiency, and misrule spread.  The empire, however, survived for three centuries longer because Europe was unaware of the extent of its weakness, and the mass of Ottoman subjects were protected from the worst results of the decay by their millets and guilds.  In 1908, a revolution led by the Young Turks forced Abd al-Hamid to restore the parliament and constitution.  After a few months of constitutional rule, however, a counterrevolutionary effort to restore the Sultan's autocracy led the Young Turks to dethrone Abd al-Hamid completely in 1909.

Formal Assessment:  

Test, class participation, and essay.