The Ottoman Empire and the Technological Dialogue Between Europe and Asia: The Case of Military Technology and Know-How in the Gunpowder Age

Abstract

The historiography of Muslim-Christian relations has suffered from many distortions. Clashes between Cross and Crescent have dominated the narrative, whereas intra-civilizational conflicts, that is, wars within Christianity and Islam, as well as military cooperation and acculturation between the various Muslim and Christian polities, have usually been de-emphasized. The history of Islamic warfare shows that wars within Islam and wars against non-Muslim enemies other than Christians were as important as wars against the Cross. After all, the Mongol invasion in the 1250s had far greater impact on the history of the Islamic heartlands than the Crusades. Despite rhetoric to the contrary, holy war – whether crusade or jihad – was not the only way in which relations between Europe and the Ottomans were defined either.