ABSTRACT
The first half of the sixteenth century was a period of rapid territorial expansion that put the Ottomans in contact with different geographical regions and peoples. New geographies and the urgent need to consolidate their control over newly conquered lands and peoples forced a change in the ottomans’ understanding of space and empire. Triggered by military conflict and territorial expansion in the East and West, these changes revolutionized the political-cultural perspectives of the Ottoman ruling elites and intellectuals. This new era in the history of the ottoman Empire coincided with the reigns of Selim I (r. 1512-20) and Süleyman I (r. 1520-66). During the reign of these sultans, the ottomans reached Hungary and took control of strategic islands and ports in the Mediterranean. In the East, the Ottoman domains extended to the Red Sea, with the potential to reach the shores of the Indian ocean. Assimilating the newly conquered territories and peoples into the Ottoman domains was simultaneously a political and mental process. As the ottoman court articulated its sultan’s role as a world conqueror and the sovereign of an ever-expanding empire, intellectuals revised the existing geographical literature to either suit or shape an emerging vision of the empire.
