• Badass_panda@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    1 year ago

    Yeah, it is. It was at a time when the Ottoman Empire ruled essentially the entire Muslim world, so it’s reasonable enough in context.

    • solstice@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      That was my first thought too, maybe the ottoman empire was so big at the time it was essentially synonymous with islam, to a man like Paine in the West. I just looked it up though and it was already in decline by the late 18th century, far from its peak in the 16th and 17th centuries. But it last another ~100-150 years or so after Paine’s death so who knows.

      • Badass_panda@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        It was already the “sick man of Europe” by the start of the 19th century, but when Paine died it had lost only a couple of slivers of territory to Russia… it wouldn’t lose northwest Africa or Greece for another generation