Original subtitles

(ORIENTAL MUSIC)

This is the untold story

of the making of the modern world.

A fresh perspective,

charting the spread of civilization across the globe.

From the dawn of mankind

and the first cities and empires

to the belief in one god.

(Calls for prayer)

We follow the flow of civilization

from the Middle East.

An extraordinary place that has been a vital link

between the continents of Asia, Africa and Europe for millennia.

An economic, scientific and cultural centre of the world.

This is an epic journey of discovery...

from the East to the West.

Conquest Day - commemorated throughout Turkey every year.

It recreates a historic event in 1453 -

the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople.

At its heart is a heroic figure - the Ottoman sultan.

This is the moment he earned his name:

Mehmet the Conqueror.

The arrival of the Ottomans

marked the end of a millennium of Christian Byzantine rule

and the beginning of a new world order.

When Mehmet came in here he knew he had achieved his ultimate ambition.

He had smashed the Byzantine Empire.

This dynamic new dynasty, would rapidly evolve

into a sophisticated Renaissance superpower -

that would inspire both fear and fascination in the West.

The Ottomans would create models tor state, trade and culture.

HEATH LOWRY: Even today you get a feeling

for the permanency of this dynasty,

that ruled half the known world for more than half a millennium.

This is the story of the rise of the Ottoman Empire.

600 years ago the Islamic world was fractured -

the Mongols had stormed across from central Asia

creating a new order.

Gone were the old sultanates.

Anatolia, modern day Turkey, was a patchwork of beyliks -

small states run by different family regimes.

But one of these had greater ambitions.

Ruled by a dynasty that would found

one of the largest and longest lasting Empires in history -

the Ottomans.

Settled on the north-western slopes of Mount Uludag,

is the first capital of the Ottoman state -

Bursa.

In the 14th century,

the Ottoman beylik was rapidly expanding within Anatolia,

but they wanted more.

Tucked away in Bursa today is a special place

that marks where the Ottoman story began.

This tomb belongs to the founder of the Ottoman Empire -

the man who gave his name to the dynasty -

Osman.

HEATH LOWRY: The tomb of Osman Ghazi -

no more fitting place to begin talking about the Ottomans

than the tomb of the founder

of what was to become a 600-year dynasty, Osman.

We don't know much about Osman's life.

He remains a mysterious figure.

Myth has it that he was a shepherd,

who was also a very successful military leader.

He was obviously charismatic because people were attracted to his banner,

but between the years of 1302 and his death in 1324,

he laid the foundations tor what was to become the Ottoman state.

The Ottomans captured Bursa from the Byzantines in 1326.

Osman's tomb was built on the site of a church complex,

the centre of the old Byzantine city the Ottomans had conquered.

These sarcophagi are ceremonial markers,

commemorating the resting place of Osman and his family.

We know that his son, Orhan, buried him here

in probably one of the most prominent spots of Bursa,

the first city that the Ottomans took.

Next to him are buried a number of his family members.

All around the interior of the tomb, are buried

I think about 15 of his family members.

For 600 years this became a central point of pilgrimage

as people came here to pay homage to the founder of the dynasty.

There's no way that today one can get the entire feeling

of what this tomb was once like

because there should be probably 5O or 7O people praying with candles,

but even today you get a feeling

for the permanency of this dynasty.

We may not know much about Osman's rule,

but we do know he reputedly had a famous dream.

A dream that has become the foundation myth

of the Ottoman Empire.

He's spending the night

in the village home of a sheikh named Edebali

and he has this dream

about this giant tree growing out of his navel

and Edebali, who is a holy man,

explains to him that that tree is his lineage

what's going to happen in the future

and that he might be well advised to marry Edebali's daughter

who would help that foundation myth become reality.

Osman married Sheikh Edebali's daughter

and sowed the seeds of the Ottoman dynasty.

Ottoman power passed down from generation to generation -

creating a strong and lasting lineage.

By the 14th century, the Ottomans were dominating Anatolia.

And they built permanent foundations here in Bursa.

It's really hard to over-stress the importance of Bursa.

This is where the Ottoman Empire really begins,

and it remained an extremely important centre of Ottoman history.

This is literally where it all began.

Ulu Mosque was the central point

in this quintessential early Ottoman city.

The skyline oi Bursa today is adorned with minarets and domes,

evidence of the Ottomans' talent for city building.

Here you really have the heart of an Ottoman city.

This is probably the best surviving example.

You have the central Friday mosque, whose minaret I am standing atop,

surrounded by all of the buildings that are key to really understanding

what an Ottoman city was all about.

This particular mosque is built in 1399

and a series of structures were built around it,

to provide among other things,

income for its upkeep and maintenance.

And they included primarily a series of huge hans -

central market places, sometimes called kervansarays,

one of which is here the Koza Han.

And it is one of a series of six similar hans

that are built around the perimeter of this mosque.

And then in the centre, now full of trees, it would have been open

and merchants would actually bring their camel caravans of goods

into a particular han.

In the case of this one it was used for the silk trade,

Bursa was a hub of commerce with goods coming from the east

as far as Yemen, spices coming overland.

Silk coming from Syria and Iran, Persia

and it is really no exaggeration to say

that the city was built on silk.

So even as they were constantly moving westward,

the Ottomans were also very interested in

and spent a lot of time and effort, developing trade and congress.

Its strategic location on the westernmost end of the famous Silk Route,

made Bursa one of the most important trading posts in Anatolia.

The Ottomans used the revenue from trade to build in style.

Bursa rapidly expanded until the new Ottoman city

spread miles beyond the old Byzantine city walls.

In Bursa,

the legacy of the Ottoman Turks is carved in its buildings.

The message that these buildings give to me,

is one of permanence -

it is as it the Ottomans were saying to the peoples they conquered

by the creation of these newly built environments

“Oh by the way, we're here to stay."

They didn't have the need to live behind walled cities,

they didn't feel the need.

So when I look at this panorama, it all spells permanence.

The Ottomans transformed Bursa

into a staging post for a new world empire.

The Ottoman advance was rapid.

Ravaged by centuries of isolation, plague and war,

the Byzantine capital, was surrounded by Ottoman forces.

Control of this strategic location was essential.

As a bridge into the Balkans,

it would unify Ottoman territory in both Europe and Asia

and give the new Ottoman state international status.

The huge Christian metropolis,

known then simply as “The City",

had been founded a thousand years earlier

by the Roman Emperor Constantine.

It controlled the straits where Asia and Europe meet.

It had seen far greater days - but was still a daunting prize.

The dream of a great Ottoman empire,

would be realised by one extraordinary man,

the direct descendant of Osman -

Sultan Mehmet ll.

In 1453 Mehmet was just 21 years old.

His entire life had been a preparation for this moment.

Over 100 specially built Ottoman warships lay at anchor

in the Marmara Sea... and waited.

On land, Mehmet mustered a 100,000-strong force

led by his own household troops - the Janissaries.

Armourers and engineers wheeled enormous cannon

and siege machines into position.

Their target - the walls of Constantinople.

Inside the walls,

the Byzantines were a meagre force,

reliant on the strength of their city's defences.

These walls are absolutely wonderful.

Down this way you can see them

dropping down towards the Golden Horn.

Up this way, you can see the magnificent land walls.

They stride away into the distance

and they look like they could protect Constantinople almost tor ever...

But there's a catch,

the higher ground that you can see behind the modern road.

That is the Achilles' heel,

a place where the Ottomans could put their cannon...

And a bit of elevation would allow them

to really pick on this section of the walls.

This was the weakest part of the city's defences.

That meant that Christian defenders had to base their best troops here.

I think it's hard to imagine what it's like to be somewhere

for 40-odd days with guns smashing the place to bits day after day,

night after night.

A series of night attacks so that the Christians couldn't rest,

drums, cymbals,

a real sort of psychological onslaught on the place.

The Christian defenders could try and repair the damage,

Every so often they would put barrels of earth there...

wood, rubble blocking the gaps.

But ultimately you can repair things so many times

but there is an end point.

Final onslaught comes,

the Christians defend the walls bravely time after time.

The Genoese commander,

their great talismanic figure is wounded in the arm.

This is a disaster because he goes to seek help,

it's misinterpreted, they think he's running away,

and this causes the whole stretch of defenders

along this wall to lose heart.

That really is the turning point.

The Ottomans get a great hold on the wall,

the dam is burst and they plunge into the city.

Triumphant, Mehmet the Conqueror was now Sultan

of a new Ottoman Empire.

To set the seal on his victory,

Mehmet headed straight to the spiritual heart

of the old Byzantine city.

To claim an ancient Christian throne...

"the Hagia Sophia,

meaning the Church of Holy Wisdom.

This was the largest cathedral in the world

for nearly 1000 years.

When he walked in here Mehmet must have known

that he'd achieved his ultimate, ultimate ambition.

He'd smashed the Byzantine Empire.

This place was the spiritual heartland of Byzantium

it's the place where emperors were crowned and now it was his.

Years of struggle were over. He had triumphed.

After the conquest, Mehmet's troops looted the city,

starting to strip the Hagia Sophia of its precious icons and relics.

It must have been complete chaos

when Mehmet came in here just after the conquest.

The place would have been a wreck.

Yet it was still this wonderful, wonderful structure.

He saw a man hacking up the floor and said “What are you doing?"

The man said “I'm doing it for the faith".

Mehmet was furious and he said

“I told you to keep the structure of the place intact.

“I want this building for myself for the Ottomans and for Islam."

Mehmet had no intention of destroying the Hagia Sophia,

he planned to adapt it.

As a symbol of the arrival of the Ottomans,

he converted the Hagia Sophia into an Ottoman mosque.

Mehmet changed the Hagia Sophia

by stamping an Islamic identity on it.

It had been a Christian power station

and now he really needed to erase that as much as he possibly could.

Mehmet installed a minbar,

from which the Imam would deliver sermons.

And in the apse where the Christian altar used to stand,

he built a mihrab, pointing towards Mecca.

Walking through the Hagia Sophia's corridors today

is like walking back in time.

The worn flagstones and dense brickwork date back over 1500 years.

Today there are still visible remains of Hagia Sophia's lustrous mosaics,

an unmistakable symbol of its Christian origins.

But, representational imagery such as this was forbidden in Islamic law -

and all the mosaics were whitewashed.

In laying claim to this magnificent structure -

Mehmet could assert the power and authority oi the Ottomans

over Byzantine civilization.

The Hagia Sophia's four minarets were added

over the course of Ottoman rule.

Today they stand as a reminder of the moment

the Ottomans took control and created a great new city.

Buondelmonti's map from 1422 is the only surviving map

that shows Byzantine Constantinople before the Ottoman conquest.

The small details in this map,

compiled by geographer Piri Reis 7O years after the conquest,

reveals a transition.

Mehmet radically altered the city with the symbols of Ottoman Islam.

He gave orders to his pashas to build baths, mosques and madrasas.

From this moment on,

“The City” became known as Istanbul.

But the Ottomans were not going to stop here.

As well a making the mark of Islam in this ancient city,

Mehmet had a vision of a great empire

and one way to drive empire building, was commerce.

To promote economic growth,

Mehmet maintained Byzantine trading links

and encouraged the international traders of Renaissance Europe

to return to business as usual.

It is early morning at the Grand Bazaar,

the largest and oldest market of its kind in the world.

Shopkeepers prepare for business.

And at the centre lies a clue to its Ottoman beginnings.

Based around the original Byzantine trading street,

Mehmet founded the Old Bedesten in 1461.

Its labyrinthine vaults and domed ceilings,

made it a fortress for trade.

The Bedesten is a strongly walled, steel-doored,

square, central marketplace

where valuable items, silks, jewels, gold, are marketed.

The idea is that at night it becomes a veritable bank if you will,

but it's also a bank where during the day business is carried out.

These doors have opened every day for almost 600 years.

Over the life of the empire,

the covered bazaar expanded to its current size,

today the biggest market in the world, with 5000 shops.

These well-worn streets see a quarter of a million visitors every day.

And today's Turkish traders still sell many of the same goods

that drew travellers and merchants

from all over the world into the Ottoman marketplace.

Today, no matter where we go in the world

we're surrounded by malls

and that mall in a way is an extension of this concept

of the covered bazaar.

Just as the Ottoman bazaar and the population of Istanbul begin a phase of exponential growth,

Mehmet's empire enters its fastest-growing phase.

The Ottomans move eastward,

taking over Turkic beyliks

and the last areas of Byzantine resistance leading

to their complete domination of Anatolia.

And they also move north

taking Serbia, Greece, Romania and the Ukraine.

As the Ottoman empire grew in size and power,

it spread its control further over Europe.

But this flourishing empire was closely regulated and administered

from a central point - Istanbul.

So to consolidate his new-found power,

Mehmet began building a new Ottoman palace -

it was named Topkapi.

And he chose an extremely important location -

the site was the ancient acropolis of Byzantium.

Set upon the highest ground in the city,

Topkapi Palace is shaded from the bustle of the city by woodland,

extending all the way down to the Bosporus shore.

The basic layout of this new royal residence

was established in Mehmet's time.

Over centuries of Ottoman rule,

the Topkapi complex became the byword for opulence,

as later sultans enhanced

its elaborate, ornate chambers and pavilions.

Topkapi Palace is the expression of Mehmet's desire

to create a centralised empire

which would equal its European counterparts -

even rival the legacy of the Roman Empire.

After taking Constantinople,

this is where Mehmet pulled his new empire together.

He was a military hero conquering new land.

This gives him enormous prestige and clout.

I mean, now the Ottoman Empire is a global empire

in a sense of the globe in that period

and he could make great claims as to who he was.

I, Mehmet, son of Murad, son of Mehmet,

Ruler of the Black Sea and the Mediterranean Sea,

Romalia and Anatolia,

Ruler of this, that, that and that

and they got to add more conquests.

They saw themselves as commanders of many old empires and regions.

I think we could say he was a 360-degree sultan

in a sense that the world around him needed to pay attention to him.

In Western eyes, Mehmet was the terror of the world.

But as well as being a successful military leader,

Mehmet was also a ruler of the Renaissance,

primed to negotiate the Eastern and Western cultural horizons

of his new empire.

At Topkapi Palace he created a sophisticated machine for government.

He gathered the most highly skilled people in the empire

and brought them to the palace to form a new Ottoman elite.

This is where the sultan lived.

It's very quiet right now as you look around,

looks very pastoral, but you have to imagine it full of people,

quiet, disciplined, walking in the prescribed way

but rather full of people.

Who were those people?

They were the sultan's personal servants

but perhaps more importantly,

this third courtyard was something like a royal academy

for training the sultan's officers.

These officers were the Sultan's personal servants and advisors.

But, they were not the traditional Muslim advisors of his forefathers.

They were a Christian-born intelligentsia.

Selected from within the Ottoman territories,

these Christian servants or kuls,

were converted to Islam and trained the Ottoman way.

The ones who did very well would be chosen

for the Sultan's own private room.

The best would acquire titles like, the Sultan's Linen Bearer,

the Sultan's Stirrup Holder

and these titles were very important political titles,

but they are service titles.

This was an Ottoman meritocracy.

Being trained to serve in Mehmet's palace chambers could lead

all the way to the top of the Ottoman political hierarchy.

This is where Mehmet pulled the bureaucracy of his empire together -

here he ran his centralised state.

The Ottoman bureaucracy would meet at the Imperial Council.

This is really the seat of Ottoman Government.

Here is where the major decisions are taken by the Sultanate,

were discussed and decided.

They discussed military policy, foreign affairs.

They were also responsible for the smooth running of the empire

which meant that they were constantly having information

coming in from the provinces

and responding to questions from their officials.

So there was quite a flow of information.

Over 400 years ago, the Head of the Chancery, the leading judges

and the ministers of the treasury would have gathered in this room.

Led by the sultan's most powerful official - his Grand Vizier.

Here, Sultan Mehmet ll issued the first Ottoman Imperial Law Code.

Delegates, princes and diplomats from the West and the East

were received in this room by the Ottoman elite.

And, most remarkably,

even the lowliest Ottoman subject had the right

to pass through the palace gates for an audience with the sultan.

Ordinary people had the right to come to Istanbul

and submit a petition to the sultan.

In fact, there's a story

that has to do with the existence of this window up here.

The story is about Mehmet the Conqueror,

who would sit with his council

deliberating affairs and making decisions.

This alleged peasant comes in

and he's got his petition and he says

“Which one of you is the Sultan?"

Which of course insulted the Sultan.

So the story goes that the Sultan gradually withdrew himself

from council deliberations.

But he had this room constructed up here.

There's a small room behind this grill.

And the Sultan would sometimes come, sometimes not come.

The Council would never know when he was going to be there.

The point being that he was always scrutinising

the correctness of their deliberations.

But this was not only a regime

that gave men a chance to prosper inside Topkapi.

Inside the palace was another, private, training ground...

exclusively for women.

The harem.

The women in the harem, at all stages,

were recruited like the men

who were serving the Sultan as Janissaries,

as famous pashas.

They all are Christian in origin.

They may come in as prisoners of war.

They may come in on the slave market

or they may come in as gifts.

They're being taught cultural skills,

how to converse politely,

some of them are expert musicians, poets. They perform.

So it is a place where women are being trained

for service to the dynasty.

Traditionally, the image of the Ottoman harem

is one of pleasure, and seduction.

But, as the Harem expanded within Topkapi Palace,

it brought women into the heart of government.

Originally from places like Bulgaria, Georgia, and Macedonia,

the women of the harem had converted to Islam.

And through bearing the sultan's son,

some harem women were responsible for the political training

of successors to the Ottoman sultanate.

Others became part of the Ottoman political arena

by marrying the male trainees in the palace.

What they often did was to marry a graduate,

if you want to say, of the female harem, so to speak,

to the male side of the palace training.

And in that way it was clever of the dynasty -

they had a kind of a satellite household.

Woman is from the palace, man is from the palace.

Mehmet's circle drew together the culture of East and West.

In his court, he kept Persian poets,

Arab and Greek astronomers,

Italian scholars and artists.

This acceptance of diversity extended far beyond the palace.

The Ottoman heartland acted as a bridge between Europe and Asia.

Many of the people the Ottomans had conquered, were non Muslim.

Although sharia was the law of the land,

the Ottoman system didn't impose Islamic culture

upon the empire's Christian, Jewish and other minority communities.

Instead, Mehmet codified a system

that would enable him to successfully manage

one of the largest empires on Earth.

It was called the Millet system.

It organised Ottoman subjects together by faith -

into different millets or nations .

At the Ottoman State Archives,

there is detailed evidence on how the system worked in practice.

This is one of the largest archives in the world.

Its millions of documents reveal how Mehmet's administration

recorded information about every person in their territories

in exact detail.

And there's one particular case that highlights the differences

between the European West and the Ottomans.

In 1492,

the Sephardic Jews were being expelled from the Iberian peninsula.

The majority of them found a refuge in the Ottoman Empire.

These meticulous documents

list the names of the thousands of people

that settled in Ottoman cities.

This shows how waves of Jewish refugees

integrated into the empire.

Under the Millet System, minority communities

had comparative social and religious freedom -

so long as they kept to the rules and paid their taxes.

The Millet System didn't give the empire's non-Muslim community

complete equality,

but it allowed the Ottomans to maintain a stable and peaceful empire

in which trade could flourish.

In ports like Bursa, trade was the lifeline of the city.

And in great fortified marketplaces or hans, like Koza Han,

500 years ago there were thriving communities

of Jews, Christians, Greeks and Armenians.

We see that there were Muslim merchants

but they were often in business with Jewish merchants.

They were often in business with former Byzantines, er...

so one certainly doesn't get the...

the feeling in any way

that trade and commerce in any way

was limited by one's religion or anything like that.

With its mix of central regulation

and comparative religious and social freedom,

the Ottoman system allowed trade to develop within the empire.

But, it also attracted merchants from outside the empire.

In Renaissance Europe there was a growing demand

for exotic Ottoman products.

In tact, Italian city states like Venice -

were entirely dependent on trade in Ottoman dominions.

They relied on the Ottomans for luxuries like spices,

leather and textiles.

This Turkish connection was so vital

that even today its legacy can be seen here in Venice.

Known as the Fondaco dei Turchi,

this grand building served as home, warehouse, and market

for all the Turkish traders, living in Venice.

A constant flow of merchants carried goods between Venice

and port cities like Bursa.

The Italians brought wool,

which they marketed in hans just like this.

And with the profits from the sale of that they bought raw silk,

which in turn they exported back to Italy.

We have records from an Italian merchant, Francesco de Meringi,

who relates how he sold and made 1%, 1.5% on the sales.

So I mean it was er, clearly a very complex market economy,

even at the beginning of the 15th century.

It was this trade with places like Venice

that built Bursa into a great city

and fuelled the expansion of the empire.

The Ottoman dynasty cast its shade further and further around the world.

Their unrivalled military strength,

economic riches and territorial expanse

made Sultan Suleyman ll

one of the world's most powerful rulers.

In the 16th century,

the empire expanded across three continents.

The Ottomans controlled much of western Asia,

north Africa and south-eastern Europe.

Because their principles and practices

were not tied to any one territory,

the Ottomans were able to conquer and control

a huge and complex empire.

We see case after case where,

when the Ottomans decided to move against a territory,

that initially they proffer an offer:

surrender - and everything will stay the same.

And one of the things that they followed very carefully

is a policy that we call istimalet,

good will, good treatment.

So when the Ottomans come they bring a kind of Pax Ottomanica,

a kind of Ottoman peace...

That kind of good treatment must have been a major factor

in how the system was readily accepted.

And that of course is an important part I think of their success.

But while Suleyman could claim that peace reigned within his empire,

he brought war to those lands that refused his rule.

From Mecca in the east, to Rome in the west.

Suleyman's ambition was to unite the world under his sovereignty.

Now, he pushed westward.

Virtually invincible,

the Ottoman elite troops, the Janisseries,

were the vanguard of the largest army in Europe.

At the Battle of the Mohacs in 1526,

victorious Sultan Suleyman forged new frontiers, into Hungary.

Three years later,

the 300,000-strong Ottoman war machine

pushed their way to the gates of Vienna.

Shockwaves ran throughout Christian Europe.

Total Ottoman domination seemed imminent.

The dynasty that had risen in Anatolia

had spread its influence far across the world.

The empire had begun with a tiny independent kingdom

just over 200 years earlier.

But from this simple start it had found a formula for success.

By using conquest, trade

and promoting the most talented people it could muster,

it now stood on the brink of world power.

Subtitles © SBS Australia 2013