Ottoman-Safavids-mughals

Welcome to the Gunpowder Empires Webquest!!!

For more than six centuries, from about 1290 until 1922, the Ottoman Empire was one of the world's great powers. The center of the empire was located in Anatolia, in the region of modern day Turkey. At the height of its influence in the 1500's, it was the mightiest empire on earth. It nearly surrounded the Mediterranean Sea, covering much of southeastern Europe, northern Africa, and the Arab Middle East.

The Safavids became a ruling dynasty that dominated Persia, known as Iran today, in the 1500’s and 1600’s. Named for an ancestor by the name of Safi Al-din, who ruled in the late 13th Century, the Safavid family became the spiritual leaders among a number of Turkish tribes east of Asia Minor establishing their empire near the Caspian Sea.

The Mughal’s were a Muslim dynasty in India founded in the 16th Century by a descendant of both Genghis Khan and Timur-i Lang who was called Babur. The dynasty ruled most of the Northern Indian subcontinent until the mid-18th century. The word Mogul is the Arabic and Persian version of Mongol.

All three of these empires became known as the gunpowder empires because guns were critical to the rise of the empire.

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