Why The Gunpowder Empires Fell

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The Gunpowder Empires. More specifically, the Muslim Gunpowder Empires: Ottoman, Mughal, and Safavid. All three existed during roughly the same time period, from 1500-1800 (though there is an exception with the Ottoman Empire); and they all existed around the same place in the world. They all used gunpowder for war and expansion. They were all predominantly Muslim, or at least ruled by such. They all had extremely powerful armies. And they all fell into decline, the last of them dissolving by 1922. Although all three empires eventually fell for a multitude of reasons… what gave them the strength that allowed them to stay so powerful for so long? What eventually brought their end?

Beginning with the Ottoman Empire, it was located in …show more content…

Why? Well, technically speaking, it fell for several reasons. Many battles were fought and lost, which led to strategically important territories being lost; soldiers were restless and ready for rebellion, and meanwhile, the treasury was suffering deeply from all the lost battles. But what caused this? What were its weaknesses? Despite the fact that they were open to European trade, they still couldn’t keep up with their neighbours to the west. This left them fairly vulnerable. As well as that, the entire population was very unstable by the time they fell.(A r t i c l …show more content…

It’s dominant religion will be touched on later, as it was one of its weaknesses. The Mughals had, as did the other Muslim empires, a very strong military. This was obviously one thing that made it so powerful. They used gunpowder mostly to create “rockets”, which were essentially just rocket-powdered arrows; but they were an upgrade from regular arrows, undoubtedly. They also produced high-quality swords and cannons which were likely used in trade (though they had fairly limited trade). (ARTTICLESSSS)

As stated previously, religion was an issue in the Mughal Empire. It was a Hindu population ruled by Muslims- eventually, a new religion was created called Sikhism, which was a cross between Hinduism and Islam, but this did not soothe the religious unrest. There were actually a few cases of Hindu rebellions. Another weakness of the Mughal Empire would have to be that the taxes had to be very high in order to pay for the military. Most citizens overall were not very happy. (ARTICLES