Page:The Arabs short history-PKHitti.djvu/204

 THE ARAB LANDS IN THE MODERN WORLD

times, with their Dark Ages, held no black-out for the Arab lands; but modern times did. Throughout the four centuries of Ottoman domination, beginning in 1517, the whole Arab East was in a state of eclipse. Builders of one of the mightiest and most enduring of Moslem states, the Ottoman Turks conquered not only the Arab lands but the whole territory from the Caucasus to the gates of Vienna, dominated the Mediterranean area from their capital, Constantinople, and for centuries were a major factor in the calculations of Western European statesmen. In the meantime the once glamorous Medina, Damascus, Baghdad, Cairo, former capitals of mighty empires and brilliant seats of culture, receded into the background. They became residences for provincial governors and armed garrisons sent from Constantinople, the city before whose walls had stood on four historic occasions threatening Arab armies from Damascus and Baghdad. The limelight now shone on the city of the Bosphorus.

Besides Arabs the empire of the sultan-caliphs embraced a heterogeneous mass of alien nationalities, religious groupings and linguistic units held together by the sword. The subjugated peoples shared in a common fate of excessive taxation and oppressive rule. No wonder if under such conditions no creative work in art, science or literature was produced by Arabic-speaking peoples.

The Ottoman Empire, which reached its height under Sulayman the Magnificent (1520- 1566), son of the conqueror of the Arab East, started on its downward course immediately after that. The course was long and tortuous. After the 196