From the 14th century onwards, the Ottoman conquest of the Balkans divided Europe in to a Christian part – where there were virtually no Muslims left – and an Ottoman part dominated by Islamic power but populated mainly by Christians and other minorities.

Islam, having receded in the West by the expulsion or forceful conversion of Muslims in Spain, experienced a second phase of expansion, this time under the aegis of the Ottoman Turks, who established Islam in eastern and southern Europe. The Ottomans would remain in power until the dissolution of their empire following the First World War, but the Islamic presence would continue to make its mark in that region in both demographic and cultural terms.

The empire was a multi-ethnic state where a Muslim minority ruled a vast mosaic of peoples administered under the ‘millet’ system, where communities of dhimmis enjoyed freedom of worship and widespread tolerance, provided they paid a special tax.

During the period being considered here, between the initial conquest and the defeat of the second siege of Vienna (1683), which halted the Ottoman advance to the west, contacts with Christian Europe involved both violence and cooperation, in an ever-changing proportion depending on the time and place of the encounter. On both sides of a fluid border that was always considered provisional, the two groups looked upon each other either as an ideological enemy to be defeated, an entity with which one could entertain trade and diplomatic relations or often as both at the same time. More curious about the Ottomans than the Ottomans were about Europeans, the latter studied them, learned their customs and drew inspiration from them in their literature and art. This would become the root of what was later to be known as “orientalism”.

Europe’s Trade with the Muslim world

Religious antagonism and a permanent state of war did not prevent trade. Certainly, the Ottoman Empire could find almost all it needed in its immense territory and therefore imported relatively little: tin (England), glass (Venice and Bohemia), paper (Italy), amber (the Baltics), then, in increasing measure, manufactured goods. Europeans bought from them cotton, wheat, olive oil, coffee, as well as luxury products: fabrics, carpets, spices, drugs and perfumes. Exchanges were regulated by compromises, in principle simple concessions were made by the Sultan, granted to Christian nations, which procured for their merchants a number of privileges which were in fact truly international treaties. There was trade but the merchants never met. Intermediaries, Jews or Armenians, reduced the direct contact between Muslim and Christian merchants to a minimum, the latter being obliged to reside in caravansaries or large inns called funduqs, whose equivalent could be found in Europe, being provided for their Ottoman homologues – as exemplified by the ‘Fondazione dei Turchi’ in Venice.