Why didn't the Ottoman Empire or any of the earlier Caliphates explore the Atlantic Ocean or colonize the Americas? They held Morocco and sailed extensively around the Indian Ocean for centuries before Columbus, and yet, they never even managed to colonize Madeira, a few hundred km due west of the major Almohad port at Safi.
What went wrong?
They controlled access to the Silk Road and the Indian Ocean Trade. They didn't need to sail West like the Europeans eventually did. Columbus's journey was literally a shot in the dark trying to gain direct access to the Chinese markets, which the Ottoman's already had.
1. One of the main reasons for Europeans to sail across and beyond the Atlantic was to get around the Ottoman Empire.
2. The Ottomans couldn't escape the Mediterranean Sea without attacking Spain or Portugal.
3. The Ottomans did sail around the Indian Ocean.
4. Portugal crushed any of the Ottoman attempts to sail around Africa and to the Atlantic
>colonize the Americas?
The Gibraltar Straits are too easily blockaded. Its why there were no serious Italian City State led colonies in the new world.
Also why would they? They are as close as they can get to the silk road.
>The Gibraltar Straits are too easily blockaded
The Ottomans launched slaving raids as far north as Iceland as late as the 1600's. And like I noted, Morocco has an Atlantic coastline to the west of the straits. The Europeans had no capacity to blockade the Moroccan or African coasts during the age of exploration.
Early European colonization, particularly Portugal and Spain with their closest Atlantic islands, were to establish plantations to grow crops that were unsuitable for their own native lands, and then sell them for major profit in European markets. Plus Morocco in the Age of Sail was constantly in a state of civil war, and most of its Atlantic ports were either regularly threatened by Iberians or independent pirate coves that were hostile to the crown.
Lepanto
Because Morocco was a shithole of civil war and ethnic strife for pretty much all of the age of exploration, and the one time they really got their shit together was right after the battle of alcazar when they decisively crushed the Portuguese, killed the king and ransomed off a massive host of captured nobles for an amount of gold that really bordered on absurd. That battle was part of a Portuguese intervention in a succession crisis and both claimaints to the throne had also been killed in the battle and their brother Ahmad al-Mansur was able to take the throne unopposed.
He then proceeded to squander all of that money trying to colonize the Sahara so Morocco could expand into west africa. That should give you a better idea of where their priorities were.
stop misusing 'literally' you 14 year old cunt.
>could expand into west africa
Well, they did
Here's your (You).
Because Columbus was a madman who severely miscalculated the size of the Earth on his crazed expedition to find a sea route to Asia.
The Ottoman mathematicians were not fucking retarded and realized there would be no possible chance they could establish a western sea route to Asia. They also didn't have a habit of sending ships on death voyages.
The fact that two giant continents filled with people who didn't even have ironworking yet and had no immunities to smallpox was more Columbus' sheer dumb luck than anything because if there was ocean where the New World was he'd be known in the history books solely for starving at sea.
and then they lost it all after Ahmad al-Mansur died and they went right back to having a civil war after every single fucking monarch
Morocco certainly does seem like a historical under-performer. With its lengthy coastline full of ports on both the Atlantic and Mediterranean, its congenial climate, its rather large arable landbase (almost 20% of the county, much more than other North African regions), and its position as a trading hub between West Africa, Europe, and the rest of the MENA region, it should have been much more important regionally and historically.
Instead, its history looks more like a series of people hitting each other in the face and struggling to get back up just so they can do it again.
So why did everyone think the mountains of the moon or whatever existed, dividing Africa?
most of European accomplishments can be attributed to mad men doing one mad thing or another
maybe other continents need to step their madman chaos game up
Not really. You just need a system that lets the proliferation of their current knowledge get passed down into the next.
>so I told the Hongwu Emperor to go from being a peasant with literally nothing to founder of the Ming Dynasty, and he did it the absolute madman
>shot in the dark trying to gain direct access to the Chinese markets
Indian market. Hence his naming of natives as indians and not chinese.
This.
Europe got lucky.
One of Europe's biggest gains was the solidification of succession that went mostly peacefully.
They probably would have found North America anyway via the northern approach. Once Greenland had been located, it was just a matter of doing enough sailing around the coast until you ran into the Canadian side, then following the Canadian side down south.
>the ottomans went to iceland
No. Morroccoan pirates went to iceland, has they had been going for ages.
Well to be fair, most European countries also thought Columbus was nuts which is why everyone except Spain declined to fund his expedition.