Suleiman the Magnificent
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Suleiman I (Ottoman Turkish: سلطان سليمان اول Sultan Süleyman-ı Evvel; Turkish: Birinci Süleyman, Kanunî Sultan Süleyman or Muhteşem Süleyman;[3] 6 November 1494 – 6 September 1566), commonly known as Suleiman the Magnificent in the West and Kanunî Sultan Süleyman (Ottoman Turkish: قانونى سلطان سليمان; "The Lawgiver Suleiman") in his realm, was the tenth and longest-reigning Sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1520 until his death in 1566.[4] Under his administration, the Ottoman state ruled over at least 25 million people.
Suleiman became a prominent monarch of 16th-century Europe, presiding over the apex of the Ottoman Empire's economic, military and political power. Suleiman personally led Ottoman armies in conquering the Christian strongholds of Belgrade and Rhodes as well as most of Hungary before his conquests were checked at the Siege of Vienna in 1527. He annexed much of the Middle East in his conflict with the Safavids and large areas of North Africa as far west as Algeria. Under his rule, the Ottoman fleet dominated the seas from the Mediterranean to the Red Sea and through the Persian Gulf.[5]
At the helm of an expanding empire, Suleiman personally instituted major legislative changes relating to society, education, taxation and criminal law. His reforms, carried out in conjunction with the empire's chief judicial official Ebussuud Efendi, harmonized the relationship between the two forms of Ottoman law; sultanic (Kanun) and religious (Sharia).[6] He was a distinguished poet and goldsmith; he also became a great patron of culture, overseeing the "Golden" age of the Ottoman Empire in its artistic, literary and architectural development.[7]
Breaking with Ottoman tradition, Suleiman married Hurrem Sultan, a woman from his harem, a Christian of Ruthenian origin who converted to Islam, and who became famous in the West by the name Roxelana, purportedly due to her red hair. Their son Selim II succeeded Suleiman following his death in 1566 after 46 years of rule. Suleiman's other potential heirs, Mehmed and Mustafa, had died; the former had died from smallpox, and the latter had been strangled to death 13 years earlier at the sultan's order. His other son Bayezid was executed in 1561 on Suleiman's orders, along with his four sons, after a rebellion. Although scholars no longer believe that the empire declined after his death,[8] the end of Suleiman's reign is still frequently characterized as a watershed in Ottoman history. In the decades after Suleiman, the empire began to experience significant political, institutional, and economic changes, a phenomenon often referred to as the Transformation of the Ottoman Empire.[9]
Suleiman the Magnificent (
محتشم سليمان Muḥteşem Süleymān), as he was known in the West, was also called Suleiman the First (سلطان سليمان أول Sulṭān Süleymān-ı Evvel), and Suleiman the Lawgiver (قانونی سلطان سليمان Ḳānūnī Sulṭān Süleymān) for his reform of the Ottoman legal system.[10]
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Suleiman I | |||||
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Sultan of the Ottoman Empire Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques Ottoman Caliph | |||||
Suleiman in a portrait attributed to Titian c.1530
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10th Ottoman Sultan (Emperor) | |||||
Reign | 30 September 1520 – 6 September 1566 | ||||
Sword girding | 30 September 1520 | ||||
Predecessor | Selim I | ||||
Successor | Selim II | ||||
Born | 6 November 1494[1] Trabzon, Ottoman Empire | ||||
Died | 6 September 1566 (aged 71)[2] Szigetvár, Kingdom of Hungary, Habsburg Monarchy | ||||
Burial | |||||
Consorts |
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Issue | |||||
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Dynasty | Ottoman | ||||
Father | Selim I | ||||
Mother | Hafsa Sultan | ||||
Religion | Sunni Islam | ||||
Tughra |
Suleiman became a prominent monarch of 16th-century Europe, presiding over the apex of the Ottoman Empire's economic, military and political power. Suleiman personally led Ottoman armies in conquering the Christian strongholds of Belgrade and Rhodes as well as most of Hungary before his conquests were checked at the Siege of Vienna in 1527. He annexed much of the Middle East in his conflict with the Safavids and large areas of North Africa as far west as Algeria. Under his rule, the Ottoman fleet dominated the seas from the Mediterranean to the Red Sea and through the Persian Gulf.[5]
At the helm of an expanding empire, Suleiman personally instituted major legislative changes relating to society, education, taxation and criminal law. His reforms, carried out in conjunction with the empire's chief judicial official Ebussuud Efendi, harmonized the relationship between the two forms of Ottoman law; sultanic (Kanun) and religious (Sharia).[6] He was a distinguished poet and goldsmith; he also became a great patron of culture, overseeing the "Golden" age of the Ottoman Empire in its artistic, literary and architectural development.[7]
Breaking with Ottoman tradition, Suleiman married Hurrem Sultan, a woman from his harem, a Christian of Ruthenian origin who converted to Islam, and who became famous in the West by the name Roxelana, purportedly due to her red hair. Their son Selim II succeeded Suleiman following his death in 1566 after 46 years of rule. Suleiman's other potential heirs, Mehmed and Mustafa, had died; the former had died from smallpox, and the latter had been strangled to death 13 years earlier at the sultan's order. His other son Bayezid was executed in 1561 on Suleiman's orders, along with his four sons, after a rebellion. Although scholars no longer believe that the empire declined after his death,[8] the end of Suleiman's reign is still frequently characterized as a watershed in Ottoman history. In the decades after Suleiman, the empire began to experience significant political, institutional, and economic changes, a phenomenon often referred to as the Transformation of the Ottoman Empire.[9]
Contents
Alternative names and titles
It is unclear when exactly the term Kanunî (the Lawgiver) first came to be used as an epithet for Suleiman. It is entirely absent from sixteenth and seventeenth-century Ottoman sources, and may date from the early eighteenth century.[11]
Early life
Accession
Upon the death of his father, Selim I (r. 1512–1520), Suleiman entered Constantinople and ascended to the throne as the tenth Ottoman Sultan. An early description of Suleiman, a few weeks following his accession, was provided by the Venetian envoy Bartolomeo Contarini: "The sultan is only twenty-five years [actually 26] old, tall and slender but tough, with a thin and bony face. Facial hair is evident but only barely. The sultan appears friendly and in good humor. Rumor has it that Suleiman is aptly named, enjoys reading, is knowledgeable and shows good judgment."[16] Some historians claim that in his youth Suleiman had an admiration for Alexander the Great.[17][18]Military campaigns
Conquests in Europe
The fall of Christendom's major strongholds spread fear across central Europe. As the ambassador of the Holy Roman Empire to Constantinople was to note, "The capture of Belgrade was at the origin of the dramatic events which engulfed Hungary. It led to the death of King Louis, the capture of Buda, the occupation of Transylvania, the ruin of a flourishing kingdom and the fear of neighboring nations that they would suffer the same fate ..."[20]
The road to Hungary and Austria lay open, but Suleiman turned his attention instead to the Eastern Mediterranean island of Rhodes, the home base of the Knights Hospitaller. In the summer of 1522, taking advantage of the large navy he inherited from his father, Suleiman dispatched an armada of some 400 ships towards Rhodes, while personally leading an army of 180,000 across Asia Minor to a point opposite the island itself.[21] Here Suleiman built a large fortification, Marmaris Castle, that served as a base for the Ottoman Navy. Following the five-month Siege of Rhodes (1522), Rhodes capitulated and Suleiman allowed the Knights of Rhodes to depart.[22] The conquest of the island cost the Ottomans 50,000[23][24] to 60,000[24] dead from battle and sickness (Christian claims went as high as 64,000 Ottoman battle deaths and 50,000 disease deaths).[24]
Some Hungarian nobles proposed that Ferdinand, who was the ruler of neighboring Austria and tied to Louis II's family by marriage, be King of Hungary, citing previous agreements that the Habsburgs would take the Hungarian throne if Louis died without heirs.[28] However, other nobles turned to the nobleman Ioan Zápolya, who was being supported by Suleiman. Under Charles V and his brother Ferdinand I, the Habsburgs reoccupied Buda and took possession of Hungary. Reacting in 1529, Suleiman marched through the valley of the Danube and regained control of Buda; in the following autumn, his forces laid siege to Vienna. This was to be the Ottoman Empire's most ambitious expedition and the apogee of its drive to the West. With a reinforced garrison of 16,000 men,[29] the Austrians inflicted the first defeat on Suleiman, sowing the seeds of a bitter Ottoman–Habsburg rivalry that lasted until the 20th century. His second attempt to conquer Vienna failed in 1532, as Ottoman forces were delayed by the siege of Güns and failed to reach Vienna. In both cases, the Ottoman army was plagued by bad weather, forcing them to leave behind essential siege equipment, and was hobbled by overstretched supply lines.[30]
Ottoman–Safavid War
Attempting to defeat the Shah once and for all, Suleiman embarked upon a second campaign in 1548–1549. As in the previous attempt, Tahmasp avoided confrontation with the Ottoman army and instead chose to retreat, using scorched earth tactics in the process and exposing the Ottoman army to the harsh winter of the Caucasus.[34] Suleiman abandoned the campaign with temporary Ottoman gains in Tabriz and the Urmia region, a lasting presence in the province of Van, control of the western half of Azerbaijan and some forts in Georgia.[36]
In 1553 Suleiman began his third and final campaign against the Shah. Having initially lost territories in Erzurum to the Shah's son, Suleiman retaliated by recapturing Erzurum, crossing the Upper Euphrates and laying waste to parts of Persia. The Shah's army continued its strategy of avoiding the Ottomans, leading to a stalemate from which neither army made any significant gain. In 1554, a settlement was signed which was to conclude Suleiman's Asian campaigns. Part of the treaty included and confirmed the return of Tabriz, but secured Baghdad, lower Mesopotamia, the mouths of the river Euphrates and Tigris, as well as part of the Persian Gulf.[37] The Shah also promised to cease all raids into Ottoman territory.[citation needed]
Campaigns in the Indian Ocean
In the Indian Ocean, Suleiman led several naval campaigns against the Portuguese in an attempt to remove them and reestablish trade with India. Aden in Yemen was captured by the Ottomans in 1538, in order to provide an Ottoman base for raids against Portuguese possessions on the western coast of India.[41] Sailing on to India, the Ottomans failed against the Portuguese at the Siege of Diu in September 1538, but then returned to Aden, where they fortified the city with 100 pieces of artillery.[41][42] From this base, Sulayman Pasha managed to take control of the whole country of Yemen, also taking Sana'a.[41] Aden rose against the Ottomans however and invited the Portuguese instead, so that the Portuguese were in control of the city until its seizure by Piri Reis in the Capture of Aden (1548).[citation needed]
With its strong control of the Red Sea, Suleiman successfully managed to dispute control of the Indian trade routes to the Portuguese and maintained a significant level of trade with the Mughal Empire of South Asia throughout the 16th century.[43] His admiral Piri Reis led an Ottoman fleet in the Indian Ocean, achieving the Capture of Muscat in 1552.[citation needed]
From 1526 till 1543, Suleiman stationed over 900 Turkish soldiers to fight alongside the Somali Adal Sultanate led by Ahmad ibn Ibrahim al-Ghazi during the Conquest of Abyssinia. After the first Ajuran-Portuguese war, the Ottoman Empire would in 1559 absorb the weakened Adal Sultanate into its domain. This expansion fathered Ottoman rule in Somalia and the Horn of Africa. This also increased its influence in the Indian Ocean to compete with the Portuguese Empire with its close ally the Ajuran Empire.[44]
In 1564, Suleiman received an embassy from Aceh (a sultanate on Sumatra, in modern Indonesia), requesting Ottoman support against the Portuguese. As a result, an Ottoman expedition to Aceh was launched, which was able to provide extensive military support to the Acehnese.[45]
The discovery of new maritime trade routes by Western European states allowed them to avoid the Ottoman trade monopoly. The Portuguese discovery of the Cape of Good Hope in 1488 initiated a series of Ottoman-Portuguese naval wars in the Indian Ocean throughout the 16th century. The Ajuran Sultanate allied with the Ottomans defied the Portuguese economic monopoly in the Indian Ocean by employing a new coinage which followed the Ottoman pattern, thus proclaiming an attitude of economic independence in regard to the Portuguese.[46]
Mediterranean and North Africa
In 1535, Charles V led a Holy League of 27,000 soldiers (10,000 Spaniards, 8,000 Italians, 8,000 Germans, and 700 Knights of St. John)[24] to victory against the Ottomans at Tunis, which together with the war against Venice the following year, led Suleiman to accept proposals from Francis I of France to form an alliance against Charles.[33] In 1538, the Spanish fleet was defeated by Barbarossa at the Battle of Preveza, securing the eastern Mediterranean for the Turks for 33 years, until the defeat at the Battle of Lepanto in 1571.[citation needed] East of Morocco, huge Muslim territories in North Africa were annexed. The Barbary States of Tripolitania, Tunisia and Algeria became autonomous provinces of the Empire, serving as the leading edge of Suleiman's conflict with Charles V, whose attempt to drive out the Turks failed in 1541.[48] The piracy carried on thereafter by the Barbary pirates of North Africa can be seen in the context of the wars against Spain.
Elsewhere in the Mediterranean, when the Knights Hospitallers were re-established as the Knights of Malta in 1530, their actions against Muslim navies quickly drew the ire of the Ottomans, who assembled another massive army in order to dislodge the Knights from Malta. The Ottomans invaded Malta in 1565, undertaking the Great Siege of Malta, which began on 18 May and lasted until 8 September, and is portrayed vividly in the frescoes of Matteo Perez d'Aleccio in the Hall of St. Michael and St. George. At first it seemed that this would be a repeat of the battle on Rhodes, with most of Malta's cities destroyed and half the Knights killed in battle; but a relief force from Spain entered the battle, resulting in the loss of 10,000 Ottoman troops and the victory of the local Maltese citizenry.[50]
Legal and political reforms
Suleiman gave particular attention to the plight of the rayas, Christian subjects who worked the land of the Sipahis. His Kanune Raya, or "Code of the Rayas", reformed the law governing levies and taxes to be paid by the rayas, raising their status above serfdom to the extent that Christian serfs would migrate to Turkish territories to benefit from the reforms.[54][additional citation(s) needed] The Sultan also played a role in protecting the Jewish subjects of his empire for centuries to come. In late 1553 or 1554, on the suggestion of his favorite doctor and dentist, the Spanish Jew Moses Hamon, the Sultan issued a firman (فرمان) formally denouncing blood libels against the Jews.[55] Furthermore, Suleiman enacted new criminal and police legislation, prescribing a set of fines for specific offenses, as well as reducing the instances requiring death or mutilation. In the area of taxation, taxes were levied on various goods and produce, including animals, mines, profits of trade, and import-export duties. In addition to taxes, officials who had fallen into disrepute were likely to have their land and property confiscated by the Sultan.[citation needed]
Education was another important area for the Sultan. Schools attached to mosques and funded by religious foundations provided a largely free education to Muslim boys in advance of the Christian countries of the time.[56] In his capital, Suleiman increased the number of mektebs (مكتب, primary schools) to fourteen, teaching boys to read and write as well as the principles of Islam. Young men wishing further education could proceed to one of eight medreses (مدرسه, colleges), whose studies included grammar, metaphysics, philosophy, astronomy and astrology.[56] Higher medreses provided education of university status, whose graduates became imams (امام) or teachers. Educational centers were often one of many buildings surrounding the courtyards of mosques, others included libraries, baths, soup kitchens, residences and hospitals for the benefit of the public.[57]
The arts under Suleiman
Suleiman himself was an accomplished poet, writing in Persian and Turkish under the takhallus (nom de plume) Muhibbi (محبی, "Lover"). Some of Suleiman's verses have become Turkish proverbs, such as the well-known Everyone aims at the same meaning, but many are the versions of the story. When his young son Mehmed died in 1543, he composed a moving chronogram to commemorate the year: Peerless among princes, my Sultan Mehmed.Muhibbî (Kanunî Sultan Süleyman)‹See Tfd›(in Turkish) In Turkish the chronogram reads شهزادهلر گزیدهسی سلطان محمدم (Şehzadeler güzidesi Sultan Muhammed'üm), in which the Arabic Abjad numerals total 955, the equivalent in the Islamic calendar of 1543 AD.</ref> In addition to Suleiman's own work, many great talents enlivened the literary world during Suleiman's rule, including Fuzûlî and Bâkî. The literary historian Elias John Wilkinson Gibb observed that "at no time, even in Turkey, was greater encouragement given to poetry than during the reign of this Sultan".[60] Suleiman's most famous verse is:
The people think of wealth and power as the greatest fate,
But in this world a spell of health is the best state.
What men call sovereignty is a worldly strife and constant war;
Worship of God is the highest throne, the happiest of all estates.[61]
But in this world a spell of health is the best state.
What men call sovereignty is a worldly strife and constant war;
Worship of God is the highest throne, the happiest of all estates.[61]
Personal life
Consorts
Suleiman had two known consorts:- Mahidevran Hatun (m. 1512/14), a Circassian or Albanian[63][64]
- Hürrem Sultan (also known as Roxelana) (m. 1531), Suleiman's concubine and later legal wife and first Haseki Sultan, possibly a daughter of a Ruthenian Orthodox priest.[65]
Issue
Suleiman had several children with his consorts, including:Sons
- Şehzade Mahmud (1512, Manisa Palace, Manisa – 29 October 1521, Topkapı Palace, Istanbul, buried in Yavuz Selim Mosque);[66]
- Şehzade Mustafa (1515, Manisa Palace, Manisa – killed on 6 October 1553, Konya, buried in Muradiye Complex, Bursa), son with Mahidevran;
- Sehzade Murad, (1519, Manisa Palace, Manisa – 19 October 1521, Topkapı Palace, Istanbul, buried in Yavuz Selim Mosque);[66]
- Şehzade Mehmed (1521, Topkapı Palace, Istanbul – 6 November 1543 Manisa Palace, Manisa, buried in Şehzade Mosque, Istanbul), son with Hürrem;
- Şehzade Abdullah (1523, Topkapı Palace, Istanbul – 1526, Topkapı Palace, Istanbul, buried in Yavuz Selim Mosque),[66] son with Hürrem[67] or Mahidevran;[68]
- Sultan Selim II (28 May 1524, Topkapı Palace, Istanbul – 12/15 December 1574 Topkapı Palace, Istanbul, buried in Selim II Mausoleum, Hagia Sophia Mosque), son with Hürrem;
- Şehzade Bayezid (1525, Topkapı Palace, Istanbul – killed on 25 September 1561, Qazvin, Safavid Empire, buried in Melik-i Acem Türbe, Sivas), son with Hürrem;
- Şehzade Cihangir (9 December 1531, Topkapı Palace, Istanbul – 27 November 1553, Konya, Ottoman Empire, buried in Şehzade Mosque, Istanbul), son with Hürrem
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