Ottoman Empire (see: names of the state) (1299 to 1922) was a Turkish state, which at the height of its power (16th - 17th centuries) spanned three continents (see: extent of Ottoman territories) controlling much ofSoutheastern Europe, the Middle East and most of North Africa but not Morocco, stretching from River Moulouya in the west to the Caspian Sea and Persian Gulf in the east, from the edge of Austria and Slovakia and the hinterland beyond Ukraine in the north to Sudan and Yemen in the south. Ottomans began to see themselves as the rulers of a "Universal Empire" and heirs to both Roman and Islamic traditions, hence "unification of cultures". [1]The empire was at the center of interactions between the Eastern and Western worlds for six centuries. In the course of its lifespan, it undertook, more than once, programs of both Islamization and modernization (reform), blurring the difference between the West and the East.[2] The "golden age" of the Ottoman Empire reached its peak in the 16th Century during the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent. In different fields, this can be seen both in the architecture of Koca Mimar Sinan Ağa, and in the total domination of the Mediterranean by the Ottoman navy, led by Barbarossa Hayreddin Pasha.The Ottoman Empire was the only Islamic power to seriously challenge the rising power of Western Europe between the 15th and 19th centuries. With Istanbul (or Constantinople) as its capital, the Empire was in some respects an Islamic successor of earlier Mediterranean empires - the Roman and Byzantine empires.The empire steadily declined during the 19th century and met its demise after its defeat in World War I in theMiddle Eastern theatre. In the aftermath of the war, the Ottoman government collapsed and the empire's lands were partitioned. The new countries created from the remnants of the empire currently number 40 (including the disputedTurkish Republic of Northern Cyprus).In Anatolia, an emergent Turkish national movement waged the Turkish War of Independence, leading to the foundation of the Republic of Turkey. The new republic abolished the Caliphate and Sultanate and declared theOttoman Dynasty as persona non grata of Turkey. Fifty years later, in 1974, the Grand National Assembly of Turkey granted descendants of the former dynasty the right to acquire Turkish citizenship.