49. Ali “Towards an Interpretation of he Mughal Empire"p.274;Richars, Mughal Empire,
'p.7;Stephen P Blake, “The Patrimonial-Bureaueratic Empire of the Mughals in The State
S51. Steusand, “Process of Expansion," pp. 80-81.
52, Steusand, “Process of Expansion,” pp. 66-67.
‘53. Ali“Towards an Interpretation ofthe Mughal Empire". 275,
54, Ira M, Lapidus, "Tribes and State Formation in Islamic History in Titer and State
Formation inthe Middle Fated. Khoury an J. Kostner (University of California Press,
1990), pp.25-47.
55, Streusand, "Process of Expansion,” pp. 67-68; Blake, “Patrimonial-Bureaueratic Empire
‘of the Mughals” pp. 281-284
'56, Streusand, "Process of Expansion” pp. 67-68. See also Nicoa Beldicean Le mar dant
Pa (State University of New York Press, fr Bibliotheca Pet
57, Inalik,"Socio-Politial Eectsof the Diffusion of ire-Arms."p. 211,
4
Bruin THe Torwish War MacHiNe: GuNPownER
TECHNOLOGY AND WAR INDUSTRY IN THE OTTOMAN
Empire, 1450-1700
Gabor Agoston
Despite the slow incorporation of Ottoman history into world history during
the later half of the twentieth century, and despite the growing number of
comparative studies on Ottoman and Islamic military history in Western his-
toriography, some of the old fallacies about Ottoman military technology are
still with us. Historians of the Eurocentric and Orientalist schools alike have a
tendency to present a fixed and facile picture of Islamic backwardness in the
early modern period. Too much emphasis is placed on the alleged inability of
Islamic civilizations to adopt Western innovations in general and military tech-
nology and know-how in particular. Kenneth Setton, E. L. Jones, and Paul
Kennedy fault the “extreme conservatism of Islam,” the‘“military despotism”
that “militated against che borrowing of western techniques and against native
inventiveness and“culsual and technological conservatism”? for the flare
of Islamic civilizations to keep pace with Wester
popularity of these generalizations is particularly surprising since
‘umented that the Ottomans, the Mamluks, the Mughals, and even the
‘Timurids, the Akkoyunlus, and the Safavids have systematically used gunpow-
der and firearms. Because the available evidence, originally published in spe-