Ottoman Empire remains north of the Taurus

The Ottoman conquest of the Mamluk Empire looks like an impressive act at first glance, tripling the size of the Ottoman domain, opening the gates to North Africa, and securing the title of Caliph for the Selim Yavuz and his heirs.

If you think about it a bit, it can be argued that it did more harm than good.

The ability of the government in Istanbul to actually _control_ Egypt and the Levant (let along the Maghreb) was spotty at best (the Malmuks effectively controlled Egypt until the 1800s) and the centrally controlled army often found itself overextended. Meanwhile the increased influence of the Uelma on a government that found itself in many ways the guardian of Sunni Islam Orthodoxy was under more and more pressure to dismiss otherwise good ideas that were excessively heterodox and/or heretical.

Since it is unlikely the Malmuks could have _won_ a war with the Ottomans by the 1500s, let us say that it falls apart a bit earlier whilst both Istanbul and the Savafids are distracted. There are some land grabs (Antioch and SW Anatolia on the Ottoman part for certain), but the rivalry between Selim and Ismail start playing itself out via proxies.

In short, instead of becoming the overlord of the Islamic World the Ottoman Empire remains a half-Christian European marcher state.

Now what?
 
A couple of fundamental misconceptions:

The effects of the Ulema and Orthodoxy in the Ottoman empire were minimal prior to the annexation of the Mamluk Sultanate. This is false, the Ottoman empire has been importing Qadis and Muftis from Egypt, Syria, and pre-Safavid Iran for decades before the Turko-Egyptian war. They have also been sending their own citizens to Madrassas to study and eventually built their own in Thrace and Anatolia. The Ulema were already ingrained in the Ottoman judicial administration, and they certainly played a part in stifling progress long before the annexation of Egypt, as demonstrated by the ban of the printing press during Sultan Bayezid the Second's reign.
 
A couple of fundamental misconceptions:

The effects of the Ulema and Orthodoxy in the Ottoman empire were minimal prior to the annexation of the Mamluk Sultanate. This is false, the Ottoman empire has been importing Qadis and Muftis from Egypt, Syria, and pre-Safavid Iran for decades before the Turko-Egyptian war. They have also been sending their own citizens to Madrassas to study and eventually built their own in Thrace and Anatolia. The Ulema were already ingrained in the Ottoman judicial administration, and they certainly played a part in stifling progress long before the annexation of Egypt, as demonstrated by the ban of the printing press during Sultan Bayezid the Second's reign.
My main point was not that the Ulema did not have influence in the Ottoman state but that it grew stronger. Mehmed II was conversant in Greek, Italian, and IIRC Latin, which indicates stronger links to Europe than the period when Christian subjects were assigned to translate infidel languages what the Sultan could not trouble himself to learn.
 
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