Editing Palestine (section)

=====Ottoman Empire=====
The Ottoman Empire was founded by Osman I in 1299. He was the son of Ertugrul Gazi, who assisted the Rum Seljuks in their fight against the Byzantine empire. Some of the Turks who fled Mongol invasion settled in Anatolia and embraced Islam. Osman united the Turkic Anatolians into the Ottoman confederation, which had conquered much of modern-day Greece and Turkey and encroached upon Constantinople by the latter half of the 14th century. Between 1326 and 1453, the Ottomans besieged Constantinople once, fought against Timur and the Mongols, attempted (and failed) to destroy Constantinople a second time, and finally, via mobilization through Greece and Albania, cut off Constantinople from its allies. On May 29th, 1453, "The Conqueror" Mehmed II's forces breached the walls of Byzantium, destroying the Byzantine empire. The city would eventually become Istanbul, capital of the Ottoman empire.

During the 16th century (until the mid-17th century), the Ottomans and Safavids warred over both religion and land in Mesopotamia. The Ottomans were staunchly Sunni and the Safavids staunchly Shia. After a handful of wars spanning 1514 to 1639, the Treaty of Zuhab was signed. This treaty was notable for its agreement on the modern borders of Turkey and Iran, on the one hand, and Iran and Iraq on the other. Later treaties between the Ottoman and Persian empires make extensive reference to the Treaty of Zuhab.

Between 1633 and 1634, the Ottomans were at war with the Poles (supported by Lithuania) as well in modern Ukraine. Ultimately the war ended in stalemate in 1634. The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth controlled the territory for three centuries, and their battles utilizing the Cossacks against the Ottoman Turks and Tatars eventually led to the overthrow of Polish rule in the region. 

What later turned into a bureaucratic disaster was at first a model empire, combining strong leadership with efficient administration. One could argue the Ottoman empire, like the Mongols', was a civilization state-- under it were 30 million Turkic, Persian, Levantine, Caucasian, Egyptian, and southeastern European peoples previously under the yoke of Byzantines and other imperialist nations. Also similar to the Mongols, the state was adaptive to the needs and wants of its multiethnic, multicultural population, treating all as equals under its religious and administrative systems throughout its vast territory. It could also thus be described as a modern universal state of sorts.

[[File:Ottoman map.png|thumb]]