<P> In the Ottoman imperial system, even though there existed a hegemonic power of Muslim control over the non-Muslim populations, non-Muslim communities had been granted state recognition and protection in the Islamic tradition . The officially accepted state Dīn (Madh'hab) of the Ottomans was Sunni (Hanafi jurisprudence). </P> <P> Until the second half of the 15th century the empire had a Christian majority, under the rule of a Muslim minority . In the late 19th century, the non-Muslim population of the empire began to fall considerably, not only due to secession, but also because of migratory movements . The proportion of Muslims amounted to 60% in the 1820s, gradually increasing to 69% in the 1870s and then to 76% in the 1890s . By 1914, only 19.1% of the empire's population was non-Muslim, mostly made up of Jews and Christian Greeks, Assyrians, and Armenians . </P> <P> Turkic peoples practiced a variety of shamanism before adopting Islam . Abbasid influence in Central Asia was ensured through a process that was greatly facilitated by the Muslim conquest of Transoxiana . Many of the various Turkic tribes--including the Oghuz Turks, who were the ancestors of both the Seljuks and the Ottomans--gradually converted to Islam, and brought the religion with them to Anatolia beginning in the 11th century . </P> <P> Muslim sects regarded as heretical, such as the Druze, Ismailis, Alevis, and Alawites, ranked below Jews and Christians . In 1514, Sultan Selim I ordered the massacre of 40,000 Anatolian Alevis (Qizilbash), whom he considered a fifth column for the rival Safavid empire . Selim was also responsible for an unprecedented and rapid expansion of the Ottoman Empire into the Middle East, especially through his conquest of the entire Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt . With these conquests, Selim further solidified the Ottoman claim for being an Islamic caliphate, although Ottoman sultans had been claiming the title of caliph since the 14th century starting with Murad I (reigned 1362 to 1389). The caliphate would remain held by Ottoman sultans for the rest of the office's duration, which ended with its abolition on 3 March 1924 by the Grand National Assembly of Turkey and the exile of the last caliph, Abdülmecid II, to France . </P>

At its greatest extent the ottoman empire did not control