This is because the fall of Constantinople in 1453 was not a war between Greeks and Arabs. In 1453, all the territory of the Byzantine Empire was only the city of Constantinople. The once large territory had been divided up by countless lords from Europe and Asia Minor. Before the Ottoman Sultan Muhammad II attacked the city, he could use weapons to fight in the city. With a population of only 4,983, it is already a great but poor and isolated city.
Secondly, the Ottoman Empire originated from the border areas of Byzantium. In the Battle of Serkot in 1071, after the Seljuk Turks wiped out the main force of the Byzantine Empire, the entire Asia Minor was no longer under the jurisdiction of Byzantium. In the few generations after the disintegration of the Pillar Turks, the small Ottoman state, like other lords, was one of the countless small states in the anarchic state of the former Byzantine border areas. However, the Ottomans, who were devout in Islam, showed the most unified strength. From the time the Ottoman Empire was founded, it was a multi-ethnic state composed of Anatolians, Greeks, Thracians, Bulgarians, Magyars, and Islamic Sufis. Osman himself had a Greek soldier as his best man at his wedding. The Islam of Ottoman Turkey is the product of combining steppe shamanism with simplified Islam. There are many differences from the Islamic beliefs of the Arab world, such as women not veiling.
At that time, Byzantium was already in name only, and the Ottoman Empire, which was more enlightened than the Christian lords (no forced labor, no serfdom, and no right of first night), received the support of most residents of the original Byzantine area. After Muhammad II captured Constantinople in 1453, the Knights of Venice, Genoa, Ragusa and even Rhodes congratulated him. In his campaign to cross the sea and capture the Peloponnese, Greek resistance was also weak.
It can be said that the rise of the Ottoman Empire happened to coincide with the decline of Byzantium, the departure of the Mongol conquerors, the inability of the Holy Roman Empire and the Arab Empire to expand, and the vast former Byzantine territory was in chaos and full of princes. At the right time. If we go back to the origins, the relationship between the Ottomans and the Greeks is probably closer than the relationship with the Arabs, because they originally lived in the territory of the original Byzantium.
The Ottoman Empire’s enlightened, tolerant and eclectic cultural and religious policies were also an important reason for the preservation of Greek culture. Sultan Baiazi I, who came to the throne in 1389, named his son after figures from various religions. Sa (Moses), Isa (Jesus), Suleiman (Solomon) and Muhammad.