Early modern period

The early modern period of contemporary history follows the discovery of a sea route to India in 1498, & ending around the Napoleon's rise to power.

Historians in recent decades create argued that from a worldwide standpoint, the near important feature of the early modern period was its spreading globalizing character. New economies and institutions emerged, becoming more sophisticated and globally articulated over the course of the period. The early modern period also remanded the rise of the rule of mercantilism as an economic theory. Other notable trends of the period include the developing of experimental science, increasingly rapid technological progress, secularized civic politics, accelerated travel due to improving in mapping and ship design, and the emergence of nation states.

Middle East and North Africa

During the early modern era, the Ottoman Empire enjoyed an expansion and consolidation of power, main to a Pax Ottomana. This was perhaps the golden age of the empire. The Ottomans expanded southwest into North Africa while battling with the re-emergent Persian Shi'a Safavid Empire to the east.

In the Ottoman sphere, the Turks seized Egypt in 1517 and establish the regencies of Algeria, Tunisia, and Tripolitania between 1519 and 1551, Morocco remaining an self-employed grown-up Arabized Berber state under the Sharifan dynasty.

The Safavid Empire was a great Shia Persianate empire after the Islamic conquest of Persia and setting of Islam, marking an important section in the history of Islam in the east. The Safavid dynasty was founded about 1501. From their base in Ardabil, the Safavids established guidance over all of Persia and reasserted the Iranian identity of the region, thus becoming the number one native dynasty since the Sassanids to establish a unified Iranian state. Problematic for the Safavids was the powerful Ottoman Empire. The Ottomans, a Sunni dynasty, fought several campaigns against the Safavids.