Adnan Rashid – Ottoman Gun that Conquered Constantinople
AI: Summary ©
The speaker discusses historic examples of objects and stories, including a giant gun from theatt that was made by a culture that wanted to break walls of an airport and a Frenchman who had his gun made by a European gun maker. The history of the gun is also discussed, including its significance to breaking walls and the significance of the French Empire. The fire gun inflects major damage to people being fired upon, causing the collapse of the Roman Empire and the collapse of the European Union, and was gifted to Queen Victoria and later on. The gun became a must-see item from the history of the Muslims, and was used against the British Navy and was eventually replaced by the Ottomans.
AI: Summary ©
Assalamu alaikum everyone, here I am at Fort
Nelson in Portsmouth, Hampshire, Royal Armouries.
You may be thinking, what am I doing
here?
I'm a historian, as you know, and I
like to share historic snippets, historic shots, or
historic anecdotes, or things to do with history,
any historic objects, coins, manuscripts, monuments, weapons, right?
Because they're all to do with history.
I like to share some historic, inspirational information.
Where am I right now?
I've already told you.
Why am I here?
Specifically, to see this thing, this giant gun.
Okay, to put it in simple terms, this
is a giant cannon, which would fire balls,
okay?
Cannonballs made of stone, and guess what, everyone?
This is an Ottoman manufacture.
This was made by the Ottomans.
You may be thinking, hold on a second,
but we have heard of a cannon that
broke the walls of Constantinople in 1453, and
that particular gun, or that cannon, was made
by a Hungarian, you know, cannon maker, or
a Hungarian manufacturer, but this is not the
same gun.
It is inspired by that particular gun.
We know the history that Sultan Muhammad al
-Fatih was very driven and motivated to do
what his ancestors and predecessors couldn't do.
What was that?
To take Constantinople.
This was the dream of all major Ottoman
Sultans before Sultan Muhammad al-Fatih, including his
father, Sultan Murad Khan, but they couldn't do
it.
Here we have this young man in his
early 20s, and he is bent upon taking
the city of Constantinople for Islam and Muslims,
and in order to achieve that, he will
do anything.
So there is this man called Oban, right?
He is Hungarian, he is a gun maker,
and he goes to the Byzantines, the Romans
first, to offer his services to them, and
obviously the Romans didn't have any, you know,
desire to break the walls of another city
because they had more to defend rather than
attack, but on the other hand, the Ottomans
needed such a person to build a super
weapon for them so that they can break
the impregnable walls of Constantinople.
So Oban offered his services to the Ottoman
Sultan at the time, Sultan Muhammad al-Fatih,
and he was very enthusiastic in seeing what
he can produce.
Now what you see here in front of
me is a child, you can say, or
it's an idea born of that particular gun.
That gun made by Oban was twice as
big as this one.
It was 30 feet long, okay, and even
the radius was much larger than this one.
This is actually a gun made by an
Ottoman gun maker whose name was Munir Ali,
we will see very quickly, and how this
gun ended up here in Hampshire in this
museum is also very important information that we
want to share with you.
We wanted to give you the background first,
what inspired this production, this object in the
first place.
So it was Oban who had built that
gun for Sultan Muhammad al-Fatih to break
the walls of Constantinople, and this gun was
instrumental in taking the city of Constantinople in
1453.
Then in 1464, almost 11 years later, another
experiment was done, and you can see some
Ottoman inscriptions here.
This gun was produced in 1464, and these
are later inscriptions, of course they're not from
the time.
What we see from the time is right
here, and the dedication to the Sultan and
the name of the manufacturer and the date
is very clearly inscribed on the front.
So this is three and a half feet
radius.
It's a very huge gun which has the
potential to inflict major damage to the people
who are being fired upon, so here it
states Allahumma bin Nasri, Sultan Muhammad Khan, that's
very clearly inscribed there.
Then it says the date is 860 Hijri,
to be precise, and then it says it
has the signature of the manufacturer Al-Amal,
Munir Ali, Shahar Rajab.
In the month of Rajab, 860 Hijri, it
was completed, and the engineer is Munir Ali,
his name is there, Al-Amal, Munir Ali,
the work of Munir Ali.
You can see the Ottoman design there, it
is very much Ottoman.
This was an absolute game changer, the production
of this gun and the one before it
that broke the walls of Constantinople was a
game changer.
This is what caused the collapse of the
Roman Empire.
The Romans had been in Constantinople for more
than a thousand years.
Obviously, we know the city or the metropolis
was built by Constantine, Emperor Constantine.
In the fourth century, he chose the spot
to build his capital there of the Eastern
Roman Empire, and it remains so for the
next thousand years or so.
In 1453, that was all taken away.
The Roman Empire finally collapsed.
It ceased to exist because of the production
of the predecessor or the mother of this
gun, because that gun was made by Oban.
It was twice as big as this.
This is 17 feet long, that was 30
feet long.
It was bigger in radius.
As you can see, it came in two
pieces, it was screwed together, so the cannonball
would be put there and it would be
fired.
It's now closed from the behind, from the
back, but this is where the fire would
be put and the gun would fire.
So this is an absolutely fascinating piece of
art, piece of weaponry, armory, call it what
you like, and this was an absolute game
changer.
It changed the dynamics of warfare, then sports.
From 1453 onwards, when the bigger version was
produced, and then later on, Ottomans produced their
own version.
This was an absolute game changer and arms
race changed forever, and this gun was used
for the next 300 years.
Even in 1807, this very gun was used
against the British Navy that tried to prevent
the Ottomans from participating in the Russian war
against Britain.
Then in 1866, this very gun was gifted
by Sultan Abdul Aziz to Queen Victoria, who
was the monarch of Britain at the time,
and since then, it has been in Britain
and now it is housed in this museum,
the Royal Armouries in Hampshire in Portsmouth.
This is a must-see item from the
history of the Muslims, very, very powerful weapon,
inspired directly by the example of Sultan Muhammad
al-Fatih and his engineer Oban, who had
offered his services to take the city of
Constantinople, and then the Ottomans produced their own
model, which is here right now.
This is the very real thing.
This was used for 300 years.
Can you imagine, right?
And it inflicted major damage against whoever it
was used.
So I just wanted to share this with
you.
If you are around in the UK, if
you live here and you're close by, close
to the city of Portsmouth, then there's a
lot to see in this museum, British Armouries,
and the, I can say that the biggest
attraction here would be this gun made by
the Ottomans.
Thank you.