I was talking to a friend about great empires and their impact on our societies today and he said that the Ottomans have not contirbuted in any way. That can't be right. Please help me out Historians of Reddit :)
Can we count coffee culture as society? The Ottomans helped spread coffee to the West through trade and war (ironically, more often when they lost wars and their coffee supplies were captured). Keeping on the food theme, you can observe the influence of Ottoman cuisine on many post-Ottoman states, notably many states in the Balkans. Meze, yogurt, kofta, dolma, etc. are parts of the Ottoman cuisine that have been influential on subsequent Balkan, Levantine, etc. cuisine. If you like Greek or Mediterranean food, then you enjoy something that the Ottomans contributed to.
In regards to science, they continued advances in optics, such as the work of Taqi al-Din. You also have contributions to geography, including the famous Piri Reis map, which included much of the world including the east coast of the Americas and Japan.
Its certainly not right. They had their own contributions and have affected us in ways that we often do not see very clearly but do exist.
Ali Qushji ( an astronomer, mathematician and physicist ) is best known for the development of astronomical physics independent from natural philosophy, and for providing empirical evidence for the Earth's rotation in his treatise. He also contributed much to the Zij-i-Sultani, an astronomical table and star catalogue, one widely considered to be one of the best and most comprehensive star catalogues of its time. It also describes the Earth's axial tilt to be 23.56 degrees, which remains the most accurate measurement to date, and one that was more accurate than than later measurements by Copernicus and Tycho Brahe. [1]
Another astronomer by the name of Taqi al-Din, also measured the eccentricity of the Sun's orbit and the annual motion of the apogee, and so did Tycho Brahe and Copernicus shortly afterwards, though Taqi al-Din's values were more accurate, due to his observational clock and other more accurate instruments. [2]
The Piri Reis Map was also discovered during this period, its one the earliest maps to include the Americas. [3]
Şerafeddin Sabuncuoğlu , was a surgeon and a physician, who authored and produced the first illustrated medical journal. One of the surgical techniques described by Sabuncuoğlu was the ligating of the temporal artery for migraine [4]
Taqi-Ul-Din, wrote the last major Arabic work on optics, entitled Kitab Nūr hadaqat al-ibsār wa-nūr haqīqat al-anzār (Book of the Light of the Pupil of Vision and the Light of the Truth of the Sights), which contains experimental investigations in three volumes on vision, the light's reflection, and the light's refraction. [5]
Taqi al-Din also used astrophysics to explain the intromission model of vision. He stated since the stars are millions of kilometers away from the Earth and that the speed of light is constant, that if light had come from the eye, it would take too long for light "to travel to the star and come back to the eye. But this is not the case, since we see the star as soon as we open our eyes. Therefore the light must emerge from the object not from the eyes."
Of course, this is only the Science and Technological achievements.
One of the remarkable legacies the Ottoman Empire left behind was great diversity and religious and cultural tolerance. The ethnic groups that made up the Ottoman Empire included: Turks, Arabs, Greeks, Serbs, Bulgars, Armenians, Assyrians and Kurds among others.The Millet System of governance allowed for autonomy within individual territories and encouraged religious pluralism and egalitarian ideals.
They were the first Empire to use muskets and canons. They also developed a unique set of infantry units, known as Janissaries. What is interesting about this approach to military was the incorporation of different ethnic groups to form a single army unit. Not only did this show remarkable tolerance and encouragement of ethnic diversity, it also prevented betrayal within the empire – demonstrating innovative tactics.
Masters, Bruce Alan (2009), Encyclopedia of the Ottoman Empire
Encyclopaedia of the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine in Non-Western Cultures
Batirel, HF; Yüksel, M (February 1997). "Thoracic surgery techniques of Serefeddin Sabuncuoğlu in the fifteenth century". The Annals of thoracic surgery.
http://muslimheritage.com/article/taqi-al-din-ibn-ma%E2%80%99ruf-0