This chapter shows that the sixteenth century was not dominated by European actors but rather by three post-Timurid empires in west Asia, that expanded the reach of the Chinggisid sovereign norm and world ordering into new territories. These empires were the Ottoman, the Mughals and the Safavid, and together they ruled over a third of the world's population and controlled much of the world's resources. They also developed their own version of the Chinggisid sovereignty model, inflected by Timurid influences and varying according to local cultural repertoires. This was the notion of 'millennial sovereignty' as captured by the concept of sahibkıran, essential a ruler marked by conjunction astrology for great distinction. Ottoman, Safavid and Mughal rulers competed with each other (and Charles V) for the title of sahibkıran. Their world order was connected through intellectual network of astrologers and other occult scientists who legitimised universal empire projects. This chapters develops a comparative narrative of these three empires and their rulers' universal empire dreams in the sixteenth century.

This chapter traces Chinggisid influences throughout the globalising world order of the sixteenth century. It shows that the European timeline – so foundational to IR – cannot be thought of as free from influences from Asia. As this chapter clearly demonstrates, Charles V and the Habsburgs were very much shaped by their competition with the Ottomans. The chapter then moves to the north and discusses the influences of Chinggisid sovereignty model on Muscovy, specifically on Ivan IV. It also catches up with sixteenth-century developments in Inner Asia and Ming China. The sixteenth-century order, with its centre of gravity in the post-Timurid empires of west Asia, fragmented in the seventeenth century, during the long period of 'general crisis' (often associated with climate change) which frayed both the material and ideational connections across Eurasia. Though some Asian polities were relatively unaffected by this period of crisis and others bounced back economically, no world ordering projects were successfully launched out of the East after this period. This was a major contributor to the perception of Eastern decline.