Early Life
Suleiman was born to Şehzade Selim (later Selim I) in Trabzon, on the southern Black Sea coast, most likely on November 6, 1494, however there is no concrete proof or confidence of this date.[17] Hafsa Sultan, his mother, was an unidentified concubine who converted to Islam and passed away in 1534.[18]: 9 Suleiman started studying science, history, literature, theology, and military strategy at the imperial Topkapı Palace in Constantinople when he was seven years old. He made friends with Pargalı Ibrahim, a Greek slave who eventually became one of his most valued advisors when he was a young man (though Suleiman ordered his execution).[19] He was appointed governor of Kaffa (Theodosia) at the age of seventeen, followed by Manisa, then Edirne for a short time.
Accession
After his father, Selim I (1512–1520), passed away, Suleiman entered Constantinople and became the ninth Ottoman sultan. The Venetian ambassador Bartolomeo Contarini gave an early account of Suleiman just a few weeks after his accession:
The sultan is just twenty-five years old [really 26], tall and slim but tough, with a thin and bony face. Hair on the face is visible, although not too much. The sultan comes out as amiable and humorous. According to rumors, Suleiman is well-named, likes to read, is intelligent, and has sound judgment.
Millitary campaigns
Following his father's death, Suleiman launched a string of military conquests that culminated in a revolt in 1521 spearheaded by the governor of Damascus, who had been appointed by the Ottomans. Soon after, Suleiman began planning to overthrow the Kingdom of Hungary and take Belgrade, something his great-grandfather Mehmed II had been unable to do due to John Hunyadi's formidable defense of the area. The Hungarians and Croats were the last strong force capable of preventing additional Ottoman victories in Europe after the defeats of the Albanians, Bosniaks, Bulgarians, Byzantines, and Serbs. Their removal was crucial. With 250,000 Turkish soldiers and more than 100 ships, Suleiman surrounded Belgrade on August 28, 1521, and launched a barrage of intense bombardments from a Danube island.[20] With more than 100,000 residents, Belgrade swiftly rose to become the second-largest Ottoman town in Europe, behind Constantinople, and was designated as the headquarters of the Pashalik of Belgrade, also called the Sanjak of Smederevo.
Suleiman focused on Rhodes, the home base of the Knights Hospitaller in the Eastern Mediterranean, even though the way to Hungary and Austria was still open. Suleiman constructed Marmaris Castle, a massive stronghold that the Ottoman Navy used as a base.
Suleiman permitted the Knights of Rhodes to leave after Rhodes surrendered after a five-month siege.[22] The Ottomans lost between 50,000 and 60,000 people to disease and combat during the island's takeover (Christian estimates put the number as high as 64,000 Ottoman battle deaths and 50,000 disease deaths).
Suleiman continued his war in Central Europe as Hungary's relations with the Ottoman Empire worsened, and on August 29, 1526, he defeated Louis II of Hungary (1506 1526) at the Battle of Mohács. Encouraged to fight early by the nobles, the Hungarian army attempted a frontal assault that was routed by well-coordinated Ottoman counterattacks. The Jagiellonian dynasty in Hungary and Bohemia came to an end when King Louis and a large portion of the Hungarian nobility were assassinated, destroying the royal army.
In the years that followed, Hungary was divided between the Principality of Transylvania, the Ottoman Empire, and the Habsburg monarchy. The conflict signaled the start of protracted Ottoman–Habsburg conflicts and Hungary's demise as a sovereign state. Suleiman is reported to have grieved, "I came indeed in arms against him; but it was not my wish that he should be thus cut off before he scarcely tasted the sweets of life and royalty," after seeing King Louis's lifeless body.[25] Kalender Çelebi led an uprising by Turkmen tribes in central Anatolia (in Cilicia) during Suleiman's campaign in Hungary.
Citing prior agreements that the Habsburgs would inherit the Hungarian crown in the event that Louis II died without heirs, several Hungarian nobles suggested that Ferdinand, the ruler of neighboring Austria and related to Louis II's family by marriage, become King of Hungary. Nevertheless, Suleiman backed John Zápolya, another nobleman who was sought after by other nobles. Hungary and Buda were retaken by the Habsburgs under Charles V and his brother Ferdinand I.
In response, Suleiman retook control of Buda in 1529 by marching down the Danube Valley; the following fall, his army besieged Vienna. This was to be the pinnacle of the Ottoman Empire's westward expansion and its most ambitious mission. Inflicting the first defeat on Suleiman with a garrison of 16,000 troops, the Austrians planted the seeds of a savage Ottoman–Habsburg enmity that persisted until the 20th century [27]. In 1532, he made a second attempt to take Vienna, but Ottoman soldiers were unable to do so because of the siege of Güns. In both instances, the Ottoman army was crippled by overburdened supply lines and forced to abandon vital siege equipment due to inclement weather.[28]: 444 Ferdinand I promised to pay an annual tribute, recognized Suleiman as his "father and suzerain," and acknowledged Ottoman suzerainty in 1533 when he signed the Treaty of Constantinople. He also embraced the Ottoman grand vizier as his brother and equal in status.
Suleiman had the chance to exact revenge for the loss at Vienna by the 1540s when the war in Hungary resurfaced. The Ottomans took more Habsburg fortresses in two consecutive battles in 1541 and 1544 after the Habsburgs were driven back from their effort to besiege Buda in 1541.[20] On November 17, 1542, Suleiman traveled to Edirne to get ready for a fresh campaign following Ferdinand's repeated sieges of Buda and Pest. He remained there for a while. He launched a second war against Hungary on April 23, 1543. Following a two-week siege, Esztergom was taken by the Ottoman Empire on August 8. Siklós, Székesfehérvár, and Szeged were also captured in a matter of weeks.
Charles and Ferdinand were compelled to sign a humiliating five-year agreement with Suleiman.
Ferdinand gave up his claim to the Kingdom of Hungary and was compelled to give the Sultan a set amount each year in exchange for the Hungarian territories he still held. More symbolically significant, Suleiman identified as the real "Caesar" because the contract referred to Charles V as the "King of Spain" rather than the "Emperor." In 1552, Suleiman's forces laid siege to Eger, located in the northern part of the Kingdom of Hungary, but the defenders led by István Dobó repelled the attacks and defended the Eger Castle.
After being away for about 13 years, Suleiman embarked on his 13th expedition, the Siege of Szigetvár, on May 1, 1566, at the age of 72. Arriving in Belgrade on June 27 and supported by the soldiers of Sigismund Zapolya, the Ottoman army reached Szigetvár on August 2. On August 5, Suleiman reached the siege and set up his tent atop a hill overlooking the fortress. Suleiman passed away in his tent on September 6, one day prior to Szigetvár's collapse. With considerable effort, his passing was kept a secret; only the Sultan's closest associates were aware of it.
His death was kept a secret for 48 days because the Ottomans were afraid that if their soldiers found out, they would abandon the fight. A messenger bearing a message for Selim II, Suleiman's successor, was sent out of the camp.
Ottoman–Safavid War
Suleiman's father had prioritized war with Persia. Suleiman initially turned his focus to Europe and was happy to keep Persia in check because it was busy fighting its own foes to the east. Suleiman focused on Persia, the home of the opposing Shia Muslim group, after stabilizing his borders in Europe. After two episodes, the Safavid dynasty emerged as the primary adversary. Shah Tahmasp first installed his own man in power after assassinating the Suleiman-aligned governor of Baghdad. Second, Bitlis's governor had vowed loyalty to the Safavids after defecting. Suleiman thus gave his Pargalı Ibrahim Pasha orders to lead an army into eastern Asia Minor in 1533, when he retook Bitlis and took Tabriz without opposition.
In 1534, Suleiman joined Ibrahim. They advanced on Persia, only to discover that the Shah was sacrificing land rather than engaging in a fierce conflict and instead harassing the Ottoman army as it advanced into the hostile interior.[35] Suleiman arrived in Bagdad in style in 1535. By repairing the mausoleum of Abu Hanifa, the founder of the Hanafi school of Islamic jurisprudence that the Ottomans followed, he increased his support locally.
In 1548–1549, Suleiman launched a second campaign in an effort to overthrow the Shah for good. Similar to the last effort, Tahmasp chose to retire rather than engage the Ottoman army, exposing them to the treacherous Caucasus winter while employing scorched earth tactics. With short-term Ottoman victories in Tabriz and the Urmia region, a long-term presence in the province of Van, dominance over the western half of Azerbaijan, and a few Georgian forts, Suleiman called off the campaign.
Suleiman launched his third and last battle against the Shah in 1553. Suleiman fought back after the Shah's son first took over territory in Erzurum. He did this by retaking Erzurum, crossing the Upper Euphrates, and destroying portions of Persia. The Shah's army stuck to its avoidance of the Ottomans, which resulted in a standoff from which neither army gained any real ground. The boundaries of the two empires were established by a settlement known as the Peace of Amasya, which was signed in 1555. Armenia and Georgia were split equally between the two countries by this treaty, with Eastern Armenia, Eastern Kurdistan, and Eastern Georgia (including eastern Samtskhe) remaining in Safavid control and Western Armenia, Western Kurdistan, and Western Georgia (including western Samtskhe) going to the Ottomans.[38] The Persians kept their old capital Tabriz and all of their other northwest Caucasus territories, including Dagestan and all of present-day Azerbaijan, as they did before the wars, while the Ottoman Empire acquired the majority of Iraq, including Baghdad, which allowed them access to the Persian Gulf.
Campaigns in the Indian Ocean
Since 1518, Ottoman vessels had been traversing the Indian Ocean. It is documented that Ottoman admirals Kurtoğlu Hızır Reis, Hadim Suleiman Pasha, and Seydi Ali Reis visited the Mughal imperial ports of Thatta, Surat, and Janjira. It is known that Suleiman the Magnificent and Akbar the Great, the Mughal Emperor, exchanged six documents.
Suleiman attempted to drive out the Portuguese and restore trade with the Mughal Empire by leading multiple naval wars against them. In order to establish an Ottoman base for operations against Portuguese holdings on the Mughal Empire's western coast, the Ottomans took Aden, Yemen, in 1538. Following their defeat in the siege of Diu in September 1538 against the Portuguese, the Ottomans sailed back to Aden and fortified the city with 100 pieces of cannon.[44, 45] Sulayman Pasha was able to seize Sana'a and the entire nation of Yemen from this location.
Throughout the 16th century, Suleiman maintained a substantial amount of trade with the Mughal Empire and was able to contest control of the commercial routes to the Portuguese thanks to its strong hold on the Red Sea.
Suleiman deployed more than 900 Turkish soldiers to fight alongside Ahmad ibn Ibrahim al-Ghazi's Somali Adal Sultanate during the Conquest of Abyssinia between 1526 and 1543. The Ottoman Empire will take over the weakening Adal Sultanate in 1559 during the first Ajuran-Portuguese conflict. Ottoman dominance in Somalia and the Horn of Africa was strengthened by this expansion. Along with its close ally, the Ajuran Empire, this expanded its power in the Indian Ocean to rival the Portuguese Empire.
Aceh, a sultanate on Sumatra in present-day Indonesia, sent Suleiman an envoy in 1564 asking for Ottoman assistance in fending off the Portuguese. Consequently, an Ottoman expedition was sent to Aceh, which was able to offer substantial military assistance to the Acehnese.
Western European nations were able to circumvent the Ottoman trade monopoly by discovering new marine trade routes. A string of Ottoman-Portuguese naval conflicts in the ocean throughout the 16th century began when the Portuguese discovered the Cape of Good Hope in 1488.
By using a new coinage that adopted the Ottoman style, the Ajuran Sultanate, which was aligned with the Ottomans, declared its economic independence from the Portuguese and challenged their economic hegemony in the Indian Ocean.
Mediterranean and North Africa
After consolidating his land gains, Suleiman received the news that Andrea Doria, the admiral of Charles V, had taken control of the castle of Koroni in Morea (the present-day Peloponnese, peninsular Greece). Suleiman was alarmed by the Spanish presence in the Eastern Mediterranean because he believed it was a precursor to Charles V's plan to challenge Ottoman supremacy in the area. Suleiman appointed Khair ad Din, also known as Barbarossa to the Europeans, as an outstanding naval commander after realizing the necessity to regain naval dominance in the Mediterranean. Barbarossa's first task as admiral-in-chief was to rebuild the Ottoman navy.
Suleiman accepted proposals from Francis I of France to form an alliance against Charles after he led a Holy League of 26,700 soldiers—10,000 Spaniards, 8,000 Italians, 8,000 Germans, and 700 Knights of St. John—to victory over the Ottomans in Tunis in 1535. This victory, along with the war against Venice the following year, further strengthened the alliance. Massive Muslim lands in North Africa were taken over. In light of the conflicts with Spain, the Barbary pirates of North Africa continued their piracy after then.
The Spanish led a failed expedition against Algiers in 1541. During the Italian Wars in 1542, Francis I attempted to reestablish the Franco-Ottoman alliance against a shared Habsburg foe.
Polin successfully negotiated the terms of the alliance at the beginning of 1542. France committed to attacking Flanders, harassing the Spanish coasts with a naval force, and sending 40 galleys to support the Turks for operations in the Levant, while the Ottoman Empire pledged to send 60,000 troops against the German king Ferdinand's territories and 150 galleys against Charles.
Tripoli, which had belonged to the Knights of Malta since 1530, was assaulted and taken by Ottoman naval commander Turgut Reis in August of 1551. Following Suleiman's nomination of Turgut Reis as commander of Tripoli in 1553, the city became the capital of the Ottoman province of Tripolitania and a major hub for Mediterranean piratical expeditions. A strong naval force was dispatched to retake Tripoli in 1560, but they lost the Battle of Djerba.
When the Knights Hospitallers were reinstated as the Knights of Malta in 1530, their activities against Muslim navies in the Mediterranean immediately infuriated the Ottomans, who raised yet another sizable army to drive the Knights out of Malta.
In 1565, the Ottomans attacked Malta and launched the Great Siege of Malta, which lasted from May 18 to September 8. Matteo Perez d'Aleccio's frescoes in the Hall of St. Michael and St. George eloquently depict this event. Initially, it appeared like the war on Rhodes would be repeated, with half of the Knights slaughtered and most of Malta's cities devastated. However, a Spanish rescue force intervened, causing 10,000 Ottoman soldiers to be lost and the local Maltese population to win.
Legal and political reforms
Although Sultan Suleiman was referred to as "the Magnificent" in the West, his Ottoman subjects always called him Kanuni Suleiman, or "The Lawgiver" (نوناق). The Shari'ah, or Sacred Law, was the supreme law of the empire and, as the divine law of Islam, was unchangeable by the Sultan. However, Suleiman's will alone governed a specific field of law known as the Kanuns (نوناł, canonical legislation), which covered topics like taxation, land tenure, and penal law. He gathered all of the rulings made by the nine Ottoman Sultans that came before him. He released a single legal code after removing repetitions and selecting words that contradicted one another, being cautious not to transgress the fundamental tenets of Islam.
It was within this framework that Suleiman, encouraged by his Grand Mufti Ebussuud, sought to reform the legislation to adapt to a quickly changing empire. When the Kanun laws acquired their final form, the code of laws became known as the kanun-i Osmani ( ق نونا نامثع), or the "Ottoman laws". Suleiman's code of law was intended to last for over three centuries.
For decades to come, the Sultan also contributed to the protection of his empire's Jewish subjects. On the advice of the Spanish Jew Moses Hamon, who was his favorite physician and dentist, the Sultan issued a firman (نامر) in late 1553 or early 1554 officially condemning blood libel against Jews. Suleiman also passed new police and penal laws that reduced the number of cases needing mutilation or death and prescribed a range of sanctions for particular infractions.
Taxes were imposed on a range of commodities and produce, including mining, livestock, import-export charges, and trade earnings.
Higher medreses offered university-level education, and their graduates went on to become professors or imams (ماما). Mosque courtyards were frequently surrounded by a number of structures, including educational institutions, public libraries, baths, soup kitchens, homes, and hospitals.
The arts under Suleiman
The Ottoman Empire began its heyday of cultural growth under Suleiman's patronage. The Imperial seat, the Topkapı Palace, served as the administrative center for hundreds of imperial creative groups, also known as the لها رح Ehl-i Hiref, or "Community of the Craftsmen." Artists and craftspeople were paid commensurately in quarterly annual installments and had the opportunity to rise in their profession following an apprenticeship. The extent of Suleiman's support for the arts is attested by the payroll registers that have survived; the oldest, from 1526, lists 40 groups with more over 600 members. Arabic, Turkish, and European cultures were blended at the Sultan's court as a result of the Ehl-i Hiref, which brought the most skilled craftsmen from the Islamic world and the recently conquered European lands.[8] Painters, book binders, furriers, jewelers, and goldsmiths were among the artisans that worked for the court. Suleiman's encouragement of the arts allowed the Ottoman Empire to establish its own creative legacy, whereas earlier monarchs had been impacted by Persian culture (Suleiman's father, Selim I, penned poetry in Persian).
With widespread support for art and architecture from the sultan, his family, and his senior officials, Suleiman the Magnificent's lengthy rule is widely seen as the pinnacle of Ottoman political and cultural advancement. From 1538 until his passing in 1588, Mimar Sinan, a master of the classical era, was the principal court architect (mimarbaşi). Sinan claimed to have designed more than 300 structures, although another estimate of his output places that number closer to 500. He is recognized for having designed structures as far away as Mecca and Buda (modern-day Budapest). In projects located far from the capital, Sinan was most likely not present to oversee them directly; therefore, his plans were most likely carried out by local architects or his assistants. This further illustrates the central Ottoman state's capacity to organize and commission construction projects throughout its enormous area at the time. By erecting monuments in distinctly Ottoman styles, this practice also contributed to the establishment of Ottoman rule in these provinces. While the imperial administration created a set of guidelines for planning and construction and managed the acquisition and transportation of the required supplies, architects in the capital were able to create plans and assign them to other architects who carried them out locally.
As a skilled poet, Suleiman wrote in both Persian and Turkish under the pen name Muhibbi (بحم, "Lover"). Many of Suleiman's verses are variations of the story, although some, like the well-known Everyone strives for the same message, have been turned into Turkish proverbs [citation needed]. He wrote a poignant chronogram to remember his infant son Mehmed's death in 1543: Peerless among princes, my Sultan Mehmed. The chronogram in Turkish is هدازهش رل³ ·د زׯ س ʌ ناطلس مدمح΅ (Şehzadeler güzidesi Sultan Muhammad'üm), with Arabic Abjad numbers totaling 955, which is identical to 1543 AD in the Islamic calendar. During Suleiman's reign, a number of outstanding authors, including as Bâkî and Fuzûlî, added to the literary landscape in addition to Suleiman's own creations. "At no time, even in Turkey, was greater encouragement given to poetry than during the reign of this Sultan," noted literary scholar Elias John Wilkinson Gibb. A spell of health is the best state in this world, but people consider wealth and power to be the greatest fate, according to Suleiman's most well-known lyric.
Worship of God is the greatest throne and the happiest of all estates; what men refer to as sovereignty is worldly conflict and never-ending battle.
Suleiman is credited with cultivating tulips on a big scale, and it is believed that Suleiman is responsible for the tulips' expansion over Europe. It is believed that the flowers were given to ambassadors who came to his court. After seeing the tulip, a few of the court's nobility started cultivating their own. Soon, tulip imagery was used on pottery and woven into rugs.
Artistic developments
During Suleiman I's rule, prominent poets like as Bağdatlı Ruhi, Bâki, Pir Sultan Abdal, and Fuzûlî rose to prominence. During that time, Matrakçı Nasuh was a significant historian, painter, and miniature artist. Among the most prominent artists of the era were calligrapher Ahmed Karahisari, Shahnameh Arifî, Nakkaş Nigarî, and others who lived at this time and wrote the Suleimanname.
The Grand Vizier Pargalı Ibrahim Pasha also took the Three Beauties, a mythical statue, from Buda to Istanbul following the Battle of Mohács and placed them in his mansion in the At Meydanı during Sultan Suleiman's reign. Despite drawing attention, these monuments were temporary since some groups did not accept them and saw them as idols. Along with these monuments, a library was built and certain Eastern and Western intellectuals' works were transported from Buda to Istanbul. The Hungarian monarch Matthias Corvinus maintained a sizable library, from which these books were taken as war booty. Suleiman fills the role of a significant and powerful ruler in Ottoman library culture in this regard. Suleiman the Magnificent wanted to demonstrate his dominance in every way during the Ottoman-Habsburg rivalry in 1532, so he had a four-tiered crown made by Venetian merchants for 115,000 ducats through the Italian chief treasurer Alvise Gritti and with Makbul İbrahim Pasha's encouragement. In addition to being a reference to the well-known three-tiered crown of the Pope, the four tiers of the crown stand in for the four continents that were recognized at the time. European painters regularly portrayed the crown on the heads of Ottoman Sultans like Mehmed IV and Ahmed I, despite the belief that it was melted down after Süleyman.
In his empire, Suleiman also gained notoriety for funding a number of significant architectural advancements. Bridges, mosques, palaces, and other social and benevolent institutions were among the many projects the Sultan undertook in an effort to make Constantinople the epicenter of Islamic civilization. Mimar Sinan, the Sultan's principal architect and the man who brought Ottoman architecture to its pinnacle, constructed the best of these. In addition to his two masterpieces, the Süleymaniye and Selimiye mosques, which were constructed in Adrianople (now Edirne) during the rule of Suleiman's son Selim II, Sinan came to be in charge of more than three hundred monuments around the empire. Suleiman also renovated the Kaaba in Mecca, built a complex in Damascus, and reconstructed the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem as well as the Walls of Jerusalem, which now form the Old City of Jerusalem.
Suleiman commissioned the Şehzade Mosque complex, which was devoted to Şehzade Mehmed, his son who passed away in 1543. Between 1545 and 1548, the mosque complex was constructed. The mosque was the most noticeable of the several structures that made up this royal külliyes. The mosque's rectangular floor design is split into two equal squares, the prayer hall taking up one square and the courtyard the other. At the intersection of these two squares, there are two minarets on either side.
Suleiman started building the Süleymaniye complex, a magnificent religious and philanthropic edifice devoted to him, in 1550 through Mimar Sinan. In 1557, construction was completed.
It is situated on a planned site atop a hill in Istanbul and, like the previous Fatih complex, is made up of numerous buildings arranged around the great mosque in the center. The mosque itself, four general madrasas, a medicine-focused madrasa, a hadith-focused madrasa (darülhadis), a caravanserai, a mektep, a darüşşifa, a tabhane, an imaret, a hammam, rows of stores, and a cemetery with two mausoleums were among the structures. The gardens of Mehmet II's Old Palace (Eski Saray), which had been damaged by fire, once stood on the location. By this time, Suleiman had also relocated the royal family and his own home to Topkapı Palace. Sinan had to start by constructing sturdy foundations and retaining walls to create a broad terrace in order to modify the hilltop location. Compared to the Fatih complex, the general building arrangement is less strictly symmetrical because Sinan chose to incorporate it more loosely into the pre-existing urban fabric. The Süleymaniye Mosque complex is one of the most significant examples of Ottoman architecture and is frequently regarded by academics as the most magnificent mosque in Istanbul because of its exquisite architecture, size, commanding presence on the city skyline, and function as a testament to Suleiman's strong rule.
Smaller domes fill the corners of the prayer hall, which has a central dome encircled by semi-domes on four sides. The area between the main semi-domes and the corner domes is also occupied by smaller semi-domes. This design, which gives the dome pattern perfect symmetry, is the pinnacle of Ottoman architecture's earlier dome and semi-domed structures. Prior to Sinan, the Fatih Pasha Mosque in Diyarbakir had employed a scaled-down variant of this style as early as 1520 or 1523. In Ottoman architecture, a cross-like layout served only to highlight and heighten the central dome, whereas in Christian construction it had symbolic importance.
During his rule, the Imperial Harem was permanently added to the Topkapı Palace, substantially expanding it. Up until the 19th century, Topkapi was the imperial residence of all Ottoman Sultans and the Ottoman Royal family, in addition to being the administrative hub of the Empire from Suleiman's reign.