Suleiman the Magnificent

Names
	Süleyman Şah bin Selim Şah Han

Suleiman I
Suleiman I
Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques; Shah of Baghdad in Iraq; Sultan of Egypt; Caesar of Rome; Khagan;
	Portrait of Suleiman by Titian (c. 1530)
Sultan of the Ottoman Empire (Padishah)
Reign	30 September 1520 – 6 September 1566
Predecessor	Selim I
Successor	Selim II
Ottoman caliph (Amir al-Mu'minin)
Predecessor	Selim I
Successor	Selim II
Born	6 November 1494; Trabzon, Trabzon Eyalet, Ottoman Empire
Died	6 September 1566 (aged 71); Szigetvár, Kingdom of Hungary
Burial	Organs buried at Turbék, Szigetvár, Hungary; Body buried at Süleymaniye Mosque, Istanbul, Turkey;
Consorts	Hürrem Sultan (m. 1533; died 1558); Mahidevran Hatun
Issue	Şehzade Mahmud; Şehzade Murad; Şehzade Mustafa; Raziye Sultan; Şehzade Mehmed; Mihrimah Sultan; Selim II; Şehzade Abdullah; Şehzade Bayezid; Şehzade Cihangir;
Names
Names
	Süleyman Şah bin Selim Şah Han
Dynasty	Ottoman
Father	Selim I
Mother	Hafsa Sultan
Religion	Sunni Islam
Tughra

Suleiman I (Ottoman Turkish: سليمان اول Süleyman-ı Evvel; Modern Turkish: I. Süleyman, IPA: [syleiˈman]; 6 November 1494 – 6 September 1566), commonly known as Suleiman the Magnificent in the Western world and as Suleiman the Lawgiver (قانونى سلطان سليمان Ḳānūnī Sulṭān Süleymān) in his own realm, was the Ottoman sultan between 1520 and his death in 1566.^[3]^{: 541–545} Under his administration, the Ottoman Empire ruled over at least 25 million people.

After succeeding his father Selim I on 30 September 1520, Suleiman began his reign by launching military campaigns against the Christian powers of Central and Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean; Belgrade fell to him in 1521 and Rhodes in 1522–1523, and at Mohács in 1526, Suleiman broke the strength of the Kingdom of Hungary.

Presiding over the apex of the Ottoman Empire's economic, military, and political strength, Suleiman rose to become a prominent monarch of 16th-century Europe, as he personally led Ottoman armies in their conquests of a number of European Christian strongholds before his advances were finally checked at the siege of Vienna in 1529. On the front against the Safavids, his efforts enabled the Ottomans to annex much of the Middle East, in addition to large areas of North Africa as far west as modern-day Algeria. Simultaneously, the Ottoman fleet dominated the seas from the Mediterranean to the Red Sea and through the Persian Gulf.^[5]^: 61

At the helm of the rapidly expanding Ottoman Empire, Suleiman personally instituted major judicial changes relating to society, education, taxation, and criminal law. His reforms, carried out in conjunction with the Ottoman chief judicial official Ebussuud Efendi, harmonized the relationship between the two forms of Ottoman law: sultanic (Kanun) and Islamic (Sharia).^[6] He was a distinguished poet and goldsmith; he also became a great patron of fine culture, overseeing the "Golden Age" of the Ottoman Empire in its artistic, literary, and architectural development.^[7]

In 1533, Suleiman broke with Ottoman tradition by marrying Roxelana (Ukrainian: Роксолана), a woman from his Imperial Harem. Roxelana, so named in Western Europe for her red hair, was a Ruthenian who converted to Sunni Islam from Eastern Orthodox Chrisitianity and thereafter became one of the most influential figures of the "Sultanate of Women" period in the Ottoman Empire. Upon Suleiman's death in 1566, which ended his 46-year-long reign, he was succeeded by his and Roxelana's son Selim II. Suleiman's other potential heirs, Mehmed and Mustafa, had died; Mehmed had succumbed to smallpox in 1543, while Mustafa had been executed via strangling on Suleiman's orders in 1553. His other son Bayezid was also executed on his orders, along with Bayezid's four sons, after a rebellion in 1561. Although scholars typically regarded the period after his death to be one of crisis and adaptation rather than of simple decline,^[8]^[9]^[10] the end of Suleiman's reign was a watershed in Ottoman history. In the decades after Suleiman, the Ottoman Empire began to experience significant political, institutional, and economic changes—a phenomenon often referred to as the Era of Transformation.^[11]^: 11^[12]

^ ^a ^b ^c Dimitri Korobeinikov (2021). "These are the narratives of bygone years: Conquest of a Fortress as a Source of Legitimacy". medieval worlds comparative & interdisciplinary studies (PDF). Vol. 14. Austrian Academy of Sciences Press. p. 180. That the Ottomans might have had a different view was demonstrated by Sultan Sulaymān the Magnificent, who called himself the shah of Baghdad in 'Iraq (Shah-i Bagdād-i 'Irāq), the Caesar of Rome (qayṣar-i Rūm), and the sultan in Egypt (Miṣra (i.e. Mısıra) Sulṭān) in the inscription in the fortress of Bender (Bendery, Tighina) in Moldova, AH 945 (29 May 1538–18 May 1539). The title qayṣar-i Rūm (Caesar of Rome) was a traditional designation of the Byzantine emperor in Persian and Ottoman sources (from the Arabic al-qayṣar al-Rūm).
^ Oriental Translation Fund. Vol. 33. 1834. p. 19.
^ ^a ^b ^c Ágoston, Gábor (2009). "Süleyman I". In Ágoston, Gábor; Masters, Bruce (eds.). Encyclopedia of the Ottoman Empire.
^ Hüseyin Odabaş; Coşkun Odabaş (2015). Manuscript and Ferman Ornamentation Art in the Ottoman Empire. p. 123.
^ Mansel, Philip (1998). Constantinople: City of the World's Desire, 1453–1924.
^ Finkel, Caroline (2005). Osman's Dream: The Story of the Ottoman Empire 1300–1923. Basic Books. p. 145.
^ Cite error: The named reference atil24 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^ Hathaway, Jane (2008). The Arab Lands under Ottoman Rule, 1516–1800. Pearson Education Ltd. p. 8. historians of the Ottoman Empire have rejected the narrative of decline in favor of one of crisis and adaptation
^ Tezcan, Baki (2010). The Second Ottoman Empire: Political and Social Transformation in the Early Modern Period. Cambridge University Press. p. 9. the conventional narrative of Ottoman history – that in the late sixteenth century the Ottoman Empire entered a prolonged period of decline marked by steadily increasing military decay and institutional corruption – has been discarded.
^ Woodhead, Christine (2011). "Introduction". In Woodhead, Christine (ed.). The Ottoman World. p. 5. Ottomanist historians have largely jettisoned the notion of a post-1600 'decline'
^ Şahin, Kaya (2013). Empire and Power in the Reign of Süleyman: Narrating the Sixteenth-Century Ottoman World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
^ Tezcan, Baki (2010). The Second Ottoman Empire: Political and Social Transformation in the Early Modern Period. Cambridge University Press. p. 10.

[caesar-1] Dimitri Korobeinikov (2021). "These are the narratives of bygone years: Conquest of a Fortress as a Source of Legitimacy". medieval worlds comparative & interdisciplinary studies (PDF). Vol. 14. Austrian Academy of Sciences Press. p. 180. That the Ottomans might have had a different view was demonstrated by Sultan Sulaymān the Magnificent, who called himself the shah of Baghdad in 'Iraq (Shah-i Bagdād-i 'Irāq), the Caesar of Rome (qayṣar-i Rūm), and the sultan in Egypt (Miṣra (i.e. Mısıra) Sulṭān) in the inscription in the fortress of Bender (Bendery, Tighina) in Moldova, AH 945 (29 May 1538–18 May 1539). The title qayṣar-i Rūm (Caesar of Rome) was a traditional designation of the Byzantine emperor in Persian and Ottoman sources (from the Arabic al-qayṣar al-Rūm).

[2] Oriental Translation Fund. Vol. 33. 1834. p. 19.

[AG-BM-encyc-3] Ágoston, Gábor (2009). "Süleyman I". In Ágoston, Gábor; Masters, Bruce (eds.). Encyclopedia of the Ottoman Empire.

[4] Hüseyin Odabaş; Coşkun Odabaş (2015). Manuscript and Ferman Ornamentation Art in the Ottoman Empire. p. 123.

[Mansel-5] Mansel, Philip (1998). Constantinople: City of the World's Desire, 1453–1924.

[6] Finkel, Caroline (2005). Osman's Dream: The Story of the Ottoman Empire 1300–1923. Basic Books. p. 145.

[atil24-7] Cite error: The named reference atil24 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).

[decline-8] Hathaway, Jane (2008). The Arab Lands under Ottoman Rule, 1516–1800. Pearson Education Ltd. p. 8. historians of the Ottoman Empire have rejected the narrative of decline in favor of one of crisis and adaptation

[9] Tezcan, Baki (2010). The Second Ottoman Empire: Political and Social Transformation in the Early Modern Period. Cambridge University Press. p. 9. the conventional narrative of Ottoman history – that in the late sixteenth century the Ottoman Empire entered a prolonged period of decline marked by steadily increasing military decay and institutional corruption – has been discarded.

[10] Woodhead, Christine (2011). "Introduction". In Woodhead, Christine (ed.). The Ottoman World. p. 5. Ottomanist historians have largely jettisoned the notion of a post-1600 'decline'

[Empire-Power-11] Şahin, Kaya (2013). Empire and Power in the Reign of Süleyman: Narrating the Sixteenth-Century Ottoman World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

[12] Tezcan, Baki (2010). The Second Ottoman Empire: Political and Social Transformation in the Early Modern Period. Cambridge University Press. p. 10.

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