Islam

The conquest of Constantinople made trade between Europe and the east more difficult. The Europeans soon sought a sea route that would bring them to the spices of India without the intervention of Arab traders. Vasco Da Gama reached the Indies by sea in 1498, and opened the ocean trade between Europe and Asia. Thereafter, the overland trade routes of the Arabs and Turks declined in importance.
The Ottoman empire continued to flourish in the 16th and 17th centuries despite inherent weaknesses in the organization of the Sultanate. The first sign of weakness was the Turkish defeat in the sea battle of Lepanto (near Naupactus in Epirus, Western Greece) in 1571, by the anti-Ottoman alliance known as the Holy League. The Holy League was assembled by the influence of Pope Pious V and led by Don Juan of Austria. It consisted of the Papal States, Spain, Venice and Genoa.
The decisive turning point in the Turkish struggle with Europe came with the second siege of Vienna in 1680. The Turks were beaten back by a combined force of Germans and Austrians aided by 30,000 Poles under the Emperor Jan Sobieski. The Ottoman Empire declined in power and importance, but the fact of decline was not really grasped for another 120 years. Napoleon's rapid conquest of Egypt in 1798 clearly signaled to the Muslims that they had been left behind in the race for cultural development, and efforts were made to introduce Western arms, printing presses, music and dress.
However, the Muslim world failed to industrialize and modernize, and the Turkish Empire continued to retreat before the advances of the Russians and to disintegrate due to internal causes. Throughout the nineteenth century, they were partly saved by the British and French who were interested in maintaining Turkey as a means of stopping Russian expansion, and in protecting their growing interests in Turkey, which was considerably indebted to them. All the powers, including Russia, pursued a policy of keeping the Sultan in power and maintaining the integrity of the Turkish Empire. At the same time, the Western powers encouraged or took advantage of the dissolution of certain parts of the Empire. Greece was taken taken from Turkey in 1830 following an internal revolt, and Serbia became autonomous in 1829 following the Russo-Turkish War. Lebanon became autonomous in 1861. Egypt remained independent after the withdrawal of Napoleon, though it was forced to give up conquests in Syria and Palestine. Turkey lost further territories, especially in the Balkans, after the Crimean war in 1856 and after the Balkan crisis of 1878.
In 1908 the government of Turkey was seized by the Young Turks, a group of college students and dissident soldiers who had focused the discontent of many with the despotism and inefficiency of the regime, and the nationalist hopes of Arabs and others. In 1908, the Young Turks forced Sultan Abdülhamid II to reinstitute the 1876 constitution and recall the legislature. In 1914, Turkey entered WW I under on the side of the Central Powers. Britain decided that it was time to dismantle the Ottoman Empire. A British officer, T.E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia) aided a Muslim revolt by the Hashemite family, rulers of Mecca and the Hijaz. The British, Australians and French carried out a long and bloody battle in the Gallipoli peninsula, and finally were forced to withdraw, suffering about 250,000 casualties. However, General Allenby conquered Palestine and Syria, and the Turks retreated before the British and the rebellious Arabs, as well as the Russians pressing from the north.
Turkey was forced to sign an ignominious peace at Sevres in 1919, but Kemal Ataturk, who seized the government from Young Turks, refused to honor it and negotiated better terms at Lausanne in 1922 after defeating the invading Greeks. Ataturk abolished the Caliphate formally in the same year and began the modernization of Turkey.
The Ottoman Empire, the last empire of the Muslims, was at an end, and the Middle East was carved up by Britain and France into nation states, mandates and protectorates, all of which eventually became independent following World War II. In Saudi Arabia, the Wahhabi Saud family, based in the Eastern Najd areas took power, displacing the Hashemites who ruled the Hijaz. The Hashemites had been promised an Arabian kingdom by the British in return for their support of the British and the revolt against the Ottoman Turks. The British compensated the Hashemites for the loss of the Hijaz by giving them the Kingdoms of Transjordan and Iraq.
Arabic identity, nationalism and Islam - The spread of Islam necessarily spread Arabic culture, language and customs. The Qur'an is written in Arabic and may not be translated for religious practice, so that knowledge of Arabic is important for all Muslims. As the empire spread, the Arabic language became the medium of local pre-existing cultures. In particular, early Arab culture and poetry owes a great debt to Persian. The term "Arab" became associated with speakers of Arabic rather than being confined only to the original inhabitants of the Arabian Peninsula, though today it is sometimes used with reference to the Bedouin of Arabia and and at other times used to refer to all Arab-speaking peoples. The Arab empire was in many ways dependent on foreigners, who were integrated into it to varying degrees. The Arabs employed a Turkish slave-caste, the Mamelukes, as soldiers. Christians and Jews served as merchants and administrators, especially in Egypt, and later under the Ottoman Turks. All of these different people were integrated, with varying degrees of completeness and varying enthusiasm, under the rubric of "Arabs."
The historical development of Islam, the Arab state and its successor states, was different from that of the West. Some claim that because of this development, there is no real national feeling in the Arab world, but this is not necessarily the case. An Arab is part of the Arabic Umma (roughly translated as "community" - it is sometimes translated as 'nation') and a Muslim Arab is also a member of the Islamic Umma. An Arab may also have a particular "national" identity, as a member of a "Sha'ab" such as the Palestinian Sha'ab. In modern times, the rise of nationalism has also caused a reassertion of particularism, and of the separate identities of different ethnic and religious groups such as the Egyptians, the Bedouin and Peninsular Arabs, the Maronite Christians and the Amazigh people of North Africa.
Islam and Arab culture developed a model of toleration and coexistence long before these were practiced in the West. The model was different however, from the cultural pluralism or melting pot models of modern Western society. Pluralism and separateness was recognized and regulated. Middle Eastern societies tend to be segmented, so that for example, Armenians, Jews, Greeks and others live in separate quarters, go to separate schools, have different occupations from each other, and each have a separate and recognized place in society. Christians and Jews were classified as people of the book and allowed rights as dhimmi, a second class citizenship that was a handicap of varying degrees of discomfort in different ages and in different Muslim countries, and might involve restrictions on worship, special dress, exclusion from administrative posts and other strictures. Land conquered by Muslims was awarded on leasehold to Muslims. Conversion of Jews and Christians was usually not forced. though for a period in the 12th century, Spain and North Africa came under the rule of a fanatic sect, the Mu'ahaddin, who forced conversion of Jews and Christians to Islam. Conversion to Islam was made particularly attractive because it resulted in reduction of taxes, freedom from slavery for captive and the possibility of advancement. Captive women forced to marry Muslims do not have to change their religion, but their children must be raised as Muslims. The persecution of Hindus under some of the Muslim Moghul emperor Auranzeb was notorious. Nonetheless, for the most part, both Arab and subsequent Ottoman Muslim empires exhibited a toleration of Jewish and Christian faiths, and even of pagan worship that was unknown in Europe. After the Jews were expelled from Spain, the Sultan Bayezid II welcomed them to Ottoman Turkey, and the Ottoman empire allowed Jews exiled from Spain to settle in Palestine, where they formed communities in Tiberias and Hebron.