For over five centuries, the Ottoman sultans were the most significant rulers of the Muslim world. They dominated southeastern Europe, the Middle East, and northern Africa, placing the holy sites of Islam under their protection.

The relationships of the Ottoman state with its near and distant neighbors, as well as the interactions between Ottoman subjects and foreigners, both within and outside the Ottoman realm, are the issues that concern Suraya Farokhi in "The Ottoman Empire and the World Around It," a study that focuses on the middle ages of Ottoman rule, from the 1540s to the Russo-Ottoman War of 1768-74.