The decline of the Great Muslim Empires : a Fatal Underestimation of European Power From the middle of the fifteenth century and up to the end of the eighteenth century three Great Muslim Empires had been dominating in the Islamic zone of then world : the Ottoman Empire in Asia Minor , the Mughal Empire in India , and the Safavid Empire in Persia , forming “the most rapidly expanding forces in world affairs (Kennedy 1989 .They all failed sooner or later due to the internal factors such as weakening of centralized political control , excessive enlargement of the territories , religious diversity , and rulers ‘ conservatism resulted in failure to implement the modern technologies (Kennedy 1989 . The prevailing factors of their sunset were not the same for each of them ,although there were several common ones . But the major contribution to the process of their decay was made by the outer world . Internal weaknesses were enough to wreck the Muslim empires , but each also failed to recognize the threat to their dominance posed by the rise of the West . By the beginning of the seventeenth century the main world communication routes didn ‘t pass through the Middle East any more and the European states dominated at sea turning a profit from their advances in science and technology and successfully carrying out the “gunpowder ” policy as well as promoting their trade on the territories earlier controlled by the Muslim empires (Wells 1933 . To find the factors which led to the decline of the Great Mughals , the Safavid Dynasty , and the Ottoman Empire , while the Europeans went ahead , we should investigate their features , compare them and draw a conclusion . Considering chronology of their decline , one can find a certain similarity – the period of extinction went along by the reign of a certain leader : the Ottomans fell apart after Suleyman the Lawgiver rule , the Safavids – by the end of Abbas I ‘s reign , and the Mughals -after Aurangzer ‘s rule . The timing of collapse for the Ottoman , Safavid ,and Mughal empires substantially differ . While the Ottoman state declined for the period of three centuries , the Safavids ‘ drop was much faster as well as those of the Great Mughals . The reason of rapid Safavids ‘ decay noticeably lied in the uselessness to defend from the neighboring Ottoman Empire in the seventeenth century resulted in complacence of the Safavid Shans , their growing corruption and decadence . The Mughal Empire ‘s fall is owed to “heavy hand ” rule and aggressive East India Company trade policy . Ottoman rulers in turn had a very short-term policy unwilling to develop their territory as well as to invest in it and mercilessly exploiting land and peoples , they relied on continuous expansion for stability , and when the empire did not grow ,it gradually collapsed (Hooker 1999 .The Ottoman Empire was the long-lived one in comparison with the Mughals and the Safavid dynasty (a short-lived one . It reached its peak by 1600 under the reign of Suleyman the Magnificent and then has been gradually declined up to the end of the…