In 1517, Martin Luther published the 95 Theses. Which empire dominated the Middle East that year?

The story behind the answer

The Ottoman Empire is correct because in 1517 Sultan Selim I crushed the Mamluk Sultanate, annexing Syria and Egypt and gaining stewardship of Mecca and Medina. This victory made the Ottomans the dominant power across the Middle East, linking their realms from Anatolia to Arabia and North Africa. Many later traditions also associate this moment with the transfer of the caliphate to the Ottomans.

To place the distractors: the Safavids were powerful in Persia but had been checked by the Ottomans at Chaldiran (1514); the Mughal Empire wouldn’t be founded until 1526; and the Byzantine Empire had fallen in 1453. Memory hook: the year of Luther’s hammer in Europe is the year of Selim’s sword in the Middle East—1517 reshaped both church and empire.