Ottomans!

In the earlier part of the Ottoman Empire, which we studied last semester, the Ottomans had strict policies that essentially kept the Muslims in control and strongly encouraged assimilation of foreigners into their culture. However, the alter Ottoman Empire was the opposite, with a short time that was an exception. The early Ottoman Empire taxed non-Muslims, and took their children for the janissaries. The control the Ottomans had on trade also allowed them to heavily tax any foreign traders, to their great advantage. The advancement of technology weakened them, allowing the Europeans access to trading ports all over the world, and from that the Ottoman policies declined. A number of unfair treaties were made, such as abolishing tax on foreign traders and not requiring to follow Ottoman law. This allowed traders to move more freely, and would have brought outside cultures in, rather than keeping them out. The Young Turks and Young Ottomans, while from different times, were essentially in favor of the same thing: Westernization. The Young Ottomans pushed for a constitution, and got one, if only for a short time. When Abd al-Hamid II proclaimed himself caliph, he attempted to re-establish the Ottoman EMpire as a religious nation. He attempted to recreate the difference between Muslim and non-Muslim citizens, but some of the population had already taken a liking to Western culture, so there was backlash from the Young Turks, who rose to power and secularized everything. Had the Europeans never been able to get their culture into the Ottoman Empire through trade, which happened becaus of unequal technology, I doubt power would have changed hands in the way it did.