What comes to mind when you think of “gunpowder empires”? The term suggests soldiers firing guns and cannon at everyone they meet. This firepower allows rulers to conquer small kingdoms and create vast empires.

The term “gunpowder empires” was created by historians William H. McNeill and Marshall G.S. Hodgson. They noticed that three vast empires emerged around the same time in central Asia: the Ottoman Empire, the Safavid Empire, and the Mughal Empire. The two men wanted to know why these empires rose up at the same time. They concluded that weapons using gunpowder had allowed these empires to become so large and powerful.

But gunpowder technology wasn’t the only thing that enabled their success. These three Islamic empires also developed some really powerful political tools. We will discuss both the firearm technology and the political tools that made these empires great.

Gunpowder and authority in the three Islamic empires

Gunpowder solved a big problem for rulers. In the fifteenth century, or 1400s CE, it was difficult to govern a large area. Most travel on land was still by horse and camel. That made it difficult for rulers to travel long distances, which made it harder to govern large empires. To work around this challenge, most Eurasian kings or would-be emperors forged agreements with local nobles. The nobles were allowed to govern parts of the kingdom in their ruler’s name. In exchange, they agreed to serve and protect the ruler.

Now, here’s the problem: When you give people power, they often want to keep it. Those local nobles built castles and trained skilled soldiers. Protected by their soldiers and safe behind their walls, the nobles could do what they wanted. For a while, the rulers didn’t have a way to deal with this problem.

Then, gunpowder changed this situation. First, gunpowder weapons were so expensive, local nobles usually could not pay for them. Only sultans, kings, and emperors could pay for large numbers of musket guns and cannon. Second, cannon could reduce the walls of a noble’s castle to rubble. Finally, even half-trained peasants with muskets had a much greater advantage over trained soldiers with swords. The result was a huge increase in power for the rulers of the three large Islamic states of the era.

Political technologies and historical events

So, gunpowder was clearly significant. Yet, the rulers’ ability to reign over vast empires may have relied less on gunpowder than on advances in governance. These new “political technologies” weren’t physical things. Instead, they were ideas and ways of organizing the empire. They allowed a central government to rule over a big area.

First, let’s discuss the history. Each of the three central Asian empires emerged after the Mongol Empire collapsed during the fourteenth century. They all relied on tools of governance developed by the Mongols. These included the first of our political technologies: bureaucracy. Bureaucracies are large groups of officials who are paid by a central government. They are usually more loyal to the central government than to local authorities, like nobles. We call the rise of bureaucratic governance rationalization. It involved the development of a permanent, organized set of government agencies. Government officials built and maintained roads, policed communities, and made sure food was distributed. Each of the gunpowder empires developed these bureaucracies, which made them stronger and better equipped to rule larger areas.

The second political technology was alliances between rulers and religious officials. An alliance is when two sides agree to work together to accomplish a goal. The Ottoman sultans had alliances with religious judges, known as qadi. The Safavid rulers, meanwhile, worked closely with Shi’ite Muslim scholars to convert Sunni Muslims in Persia to Shi’ite Islam. These alliances with religious figures strengthened rulers’ control and made it easier for them to rule over large areas.

Ottoman and Safavid rulers made most of their subjects follow a single religion. But gunpowder empires also found ways to rule religiously diverse populations. The Muslim Mughal rulers offer one example. They ruled a majority Hindu population in addition to large Buddhist and Muslim communities. Sultans sponsored Muslim mosques and relied on Muslim religious judges. However, some Mughal rulers were tolerant of other faiths.

The various gunpowder emperors continued to rely on local nobles. However, rulers also tightened their control over nobles. The Mughal sultans, for example, created a set of military commanders known as the mansabdari. These commanders had to regularly visit court to prove their loyalty. The Ottoman rulers also worked to keep their nobles, or sipahi, reliant on the sultan. The sipahi had to give yearly military service in return for the right to tax communities and control an area.

Beyond the three main gunpowder empires

Historians who came after McNeill and Hodgson noted that other parts of Eurasia experienced changes that were similar to those of the three gunpowder empires. Furthermore, these changes occurred around the same time. The governments of Russia and Qing Dynasty China began using gunpowder weapons to ensure the power of the central government. In Russia, the state also forged an alliance with the Orthodox Church. Meanwhile, China developed the most advanced bureaucracy of the age. Further east, guns were making an impact in Japan. To the south, guns were being used by armies in Morocco and other North African states.

Dramatic changes were also taking place in Europe. While there wasn’t a single vast empire there, many of the same trends can be seen. European kings and queens were centralizing power in their own hands. They were using cannon and muskets not only against each other, but to weaken the power of their landholding nobles. Places like France and England began to form permanent systems of government run by bureaucratic professionals. French and English rulers were also making alliances with Christian bishops and officials.

The invention of firearms certainly played a role in the growth of various major empires. However, that wasn’t the whole story. Behind the scenes, the more monumental changes were the alliances forged between rulers and religion and the development of bureaucracy. These developments were two of the most central features of the period.