Abstract:

It is an undeniable reality that Islam affected the establishment and development of the Ottoman Empire that became a worldwide empire in the XVIth century. In fact, political factors rather than religious factors were effective on the formation of the state and official ideology especially institutionalized in the “classical age”. Otoman-Safavid, e.i Sunnite-Shiite conflict is the clearist example of the process. Ottoman government, not insisted on the Orthodox Islam at the beginning, had become the most radical advocator of the Sunnite after the Safavids adopted the Shi’a as the basic ideology of their state.

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