Key Terms
- caliphate
- an area under the control of a Muslim ruler called a caliph
- caravansary
- an inn funded by the state or wealthy individuals where travelers could spend the night and store their goods securely
- devshirme
- the system of recruiting Christian boys from the Balkans to be enslaved, converted to Islam, and trained to serve the Ottoman sultan
- dhimmi
- a non-Muslim living under Muslim rule
- hajj
- the Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca
- millet system
- the system through which non-Muslim religious communities were allowed to regulate their internal affairs according to their own religious laws
- sharia
- Islamic religious law
- Sultanate of Women
- the period between the tenure of Hurrem Sultan in the mid-fifteenth century and the late seventeenth century, during which wives and mothers of the sultan were able to exert political power and influence at court
- Twelvers
- members of a large Shia sect who believe the twelfth imam, Muhammad al-Mahdi, will return, along with Jesus, to defeat evil on earth
- ulama
- a class of religious clerics and scholars who act as the primary interpreters of Islamic law
- ummah
- the community of Muslims