Originally developed in China, gunpowder was transmitted to the Islamic world in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, possibly first introduced by the Mongols. By the fifteenth century, the Janissary corps of the Ottoman Empire were using firearms like the arquebus, an early long gun, in battle. And it was the Ottomans who famously used artillery in the siege of Constantinople in 1453. The Ottoman Empire was not the only Islamic state to use and improve upon gunpowder arms. Both the Safavids in Iran and the Mughals in India were famous for their ability to arm their soldiers with firearms like the powerful matchlock rifle.
Technology
Military technology, especially the use of gunpowder, also greatly advanced in this period.
Source & attribution
World History Volume 2, from 1400 — A Connected Islamic World
OpenStax contributors · OpenStax, Rice University
CC BY 4.0. Text excerpted; whitespace normalised and empty cross-references removed; learning prompts added. No illustrations reproduced.
Source edition: 2024-07-03T15:43:42Z
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