SÜLEYMAN

Suleiman the Magnificent, 10th Ottoman Sultan. During the 46-year reign, Turkish rule reached its peak, while the Ottomans experienced their highest period.

Born in Trabzon on April 27, 1495, Kanuni’s father was Yavuz Sultan Selim and his mother was Hafsa Hatun. Kanuni, who was raised by his father from an early age, received a very good education. Kanuni, who received his primary education from his mother and paternal grandmother Gülbahar Hatun, was sent to Istanbul to continue his education with his grandfather Sultan Bayezid II when he was seven years old. In addition to the history, science, literature and religion lessons he received from Karakızoğlu Hayreddin Hızır Efendi in Istanbul, Süleyman was also studying war techniques.

Şehzade Süleyman, who stayed with his father Yavuz Sultan Selim for a few years, was appointed to Şarki Karahisar and then to Bolu, and shortly after to Kefe sanjakbey in Crimea, his mother’s birthplace, upon his request for a sanjak in accordance with the law in 1509.

Süleyman, who was called to Istanbul after Yavuz Sultan Selim ascended the throne in 1512 and helped his father by staying in Istanbul during his father’s struggles with his brothers, also served as the Saruhan sanjakbey during this period. Upon the death of Yavuz Sultan Selim, Süleyman, who took the Ottoman throne on September 30, 1520 at the age of 25 and whose transition to the throne was easy and without a quarrel because he was the only male child among his brothers, annexed Belgrade to the Ottoman lands a year after he became the ruler.

Kanuni, who became the head of a state that stood on solid foundations with the innovations made by his father, had the opportunity to examine the Western world and develop the Ottoman Empire based on his observations without having to deal with internal crises too much.

After the conquest of Egypt during the reign of Yavuz Sultan Selim, Kanuni, who tried to control a series of rebellions that started with the first rebellion of Canbirdi Ghazali, who was appointed as the Governor of Damascus, founded Canbirdi Ghazali, whose aim was to re-establish the Mamluk State, in January 1521 by Şehsuvaroğlu Ali Bey from Dulkadiroğulları He was defeated by the Ottoman forces under his command and had him captured and executed. In the following years, Ahmet Pasha, who argued that he should have the right to be the grand vizier in Egypt, Kalender Çelebi, who emerged in Anatolia with the support of the Safavids, and Suleiman the Magnificent, who dealt with the rebellions of Baba Zünnun, who rebelled in 1527 using the tax system as an excuse, successfully suppressed all the rebellions.

Charlemagne, the ruler of the Roman-Germanic Empire, the most powerful state in Europe during the reign of the Magnificent, had close relations with the Hungarian King Louis II in order to dominate Hungary. Louis II, relying on Charlemagne, did not pay his taxes and had the Ottoman envoys sent to him killed. Thereupon, Kanuni took action and Belgrade was besieged from land and the Danube River. On August 29, 1521, Bali Pasha was brought to the captured city as the Belgrade Guard. After this event, which was the first conquest of Suleiman the Magnificent, some Belgrade people sent to Istanbul were settled in the established Belgrade village. Another reason why the conquest of Belgrade was important was that it was the Ottomans’ biggest gateway to Europe in terms of the following campaigns.

After the German Emperor Charlemagne captured King François of France, who opposed his ideas, upon the request of François’ mother, Duchess Dangolen, for help, Kanuni, who sent Barbaros Hayreddin Pasha to the city of Nice on the Mediterranean coast of France, defeated Charlemagne’s fleet and saved both France and the French King.

Later, with the pressure of François, Kanuni decided to wage war against Charlemagne and led the army through the Danube River into Hungary. On 29 August 1526, after the First Siege of Vienna, Buda was taken after the battle with the Hungarian army at Mohács. Hungary was annexed to the Ottoman Empire and Jan Zapolya, one of the Hungarian nobles, was appointed as its head.

The conquest of Hungary pitted the Ottomans against Austria. After the Austrian Duke Ferdinand, who did not want Hungary to fall under Ottoman rule, did not recognize Jan Zapolya with the support of Charlemagne and entered Budin, Kanuni took Budin back. Vienna was besieged on September 26, 1529, after Ferdinand and Charlemagne, who did not dare to go to war again, retreated to Vienna, the capital of Austria. However, due to the onset of winter, the siege was lifted on October 16. After the Ottomans strengthened their position in Hungary and prevented Europe from counterattacking, although they could not achieve any results from the siege of Vienna, they sent an envoy to Kanuni and besieged Ferdinand Budin as a result of the rejection of his request to give Hungary to him in return for taxes.

Thereupon, the Ottoman army, which went on an expedition to Germany and advanced to Esztergon after retaking Budin, made raids into Austria and Germany. During the seven-month German campaign, many towns, cities and castles were conquered in Austria. As a result of Ferdinand’s request for peace after the conquests, the Treaty of Constantinople signed on July 22, 1533 prevented Ferdinand and Charlemagne’s efforts to seize both Hungary and all of Europe for a while. However, Ferdinand had no intention of giving up Hungary. Ferdinand’s After the siege of Budin again, Kanuni, who went on a Hungarian expedition in 1540 and entered Budin, appointed Sigismund to the Erdel Principality and made Hungary a province of Budin under the Ottoman Empire, and Süleyman Pasha was appointed as the beylerbey of this region. After this expedition, in which only Northern Hungary remained in the hands of Austria, Ottoman-Hungary, Germany and Austria relations continued until the death of Kanuni.

The Safavid State, which wanted to take advantage of Suleiman the Magnificent’s orientation towards Europe, began to pose a danger to the Ottoman Empire in the east. After establishing peace in Europe, albeit temporarily, with the Treaty of Istanbul, Kanuni embarked on his first expedition against Iran and took Azerbaijan, Tabriz and Hamedan, and captured Baghdad in 1534 with the Iraqeyn expedition.

When the Safavid Shah Tahmasb, who wanted to take advantage of Kanuni’s expedition to Austria, seized Tabriz, Nakhchivan and Van, claiming that his brother took refuge in the Ottomans, Kanuni organized an expedition to Iran for the second time. In 1548, Van and Tabriz returned from the expedition with Van and Tabriz recaptured. The Safavids, who attacked again in 1553, advanced in Eastern Anatolia and came to Muş and besieged Erzurum. After Kanuni, who went on his third expedition to Iran after this event, took Revan, Nakhchivan and Karabakh, peace was made at the request of Shah Tahmasb and the Treaty of Amasya was signed in 1555. Thanks to the treaty, which was the first official treaty between the Ottoman Empire and Iran, the Iranian problem, which had been going on since the reign of Yavuz Sultan Selim, was resolved, while Eastern Anatolia, Tabriz and Baghdad remained under Ottoman rule.

During the reign of the Magnificent, when maritime was important, Rhodes Island was in the hands of the Knights of St. John. Rhodes was captured in 1522 with the expedition organized to stop the Knights, who disturbed the peace in the seas and harmed the Turkish navy by piracy.

After Algeria was taken from the Spaniardsby Baba Oruç and his brother Barbaros Hayreddin Pasha in 1516 and Barbaros Hayreddin became the head of Algeria in 1518, Kanuni called Barbaros Hayreddin Pasha to Istanbul in 1533 and brought him to the position of Captain-ı Derya. Thus, Algeria joined the Ottoman lands. Barbarossa, who became the head of the Ottoman Navy, later took the islands in the Aegean Sea that were in the hands of the Venetians. One of the sailors who went down in the history of the Ottoman Empire, Captain-ı Derya Barbaros Hayreddin Pasha, also captured North Africa.

While the strengthening of the Ottomans in the Mediterranean and their domination of the entire Aegean Sea mobilized Europe, the ongoing Austrian and Hungarian campaigns led to the preparation of a large Crusader fleet. In the battle fought in the Gulf of Preveza on September 27, 1538 with the Crusader fleet under the command of Andrea Doria, which included ships belonging to Malta, Portugal and Spain, as well as Venetian and Genoese, the Ottoman fleet under the command of Barbaros Hayreddin Pasha achieved a great victory. At the end of this war, which went down in history as the Preveza Naval Victory, the dominance of the Mediterranean was completely in the hands of the Ottomans.

In 1541, the Crusader fleet attacked Algeria, but was defeated by the Ottoman fleet. Turgut Reis, who was raised by Barbarossa, besieged Tripolitania from land and sea, and Benghazi was included in the Ottoman Empire in 1551.

After Turgut Reis besieged the island of Djerba, which belonged to the Spanish, a Crusader fleet under the command of Andrea Doria came to the aid of the Spanish forces. With the victory gained after the war, Djerba Island became part of the Ottomans in 1559.

In 1522, after the conquest of Rhodes, the Knights of St. John were stationed in Malta, posing a danger to the Ottomans, so Malta had to be taken for the security of Tripoli and Algeria. However, the siege in 1565, in which Turgut Reis lost his life, was not successful.

The beginning of the search for colonies after the geographical discoveries, the fact that states such as Portugal and Spain led to acquire colonies, their attempts to dominate the Red Sea and Indian trade routes, and the discovery of the Cape of Good Hope dealt a great blow to the spice trade of the Ottomans. For these reasons, during the reign of the Magnificent, four Indian naval expeditions were organized. However, none of these expeditions were fully successful due to the fact that the Ottoman navy was not suitable for ocean conditions. However, Yemen, Eritrea, the coast of Sudan and parts of Abyssinia were annexed to the Ottoman lands. While the Arabian peninsula came under Ottoman control, Ottoman rule was also established in the Red Sea.

Piri Reis, who was at the head of the Ottoman fleet in the Second Indian Expedition in 1551, defeated the Portuguese navy by taking Muscat during this expedition, but he was executed in Egypt because he left the fleet in Basra and returned with the spoils.

During the 46-year period he was on the throne between 1520 and 1566, he also gave importance to architectural works during the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent, who increased the Ottoman lands from 6,557,000 square kilometers to 14,893,000 square kilometers, which he inherited from his father Yavuz Sultan Selim. In addition to completing the Sultan Selim Mosque in Istanbul, the foundations of which were laid by Yavuz Sultan Selim, structures such as the Çoban Mustafa Pasha Mosque and Complex in Gebze, the Sinan Pasha Mosque in Afyon Sincanli, and the Bozöyük Kasım Pasha Mosque were also built during his period.

Mimar Sinan, the most important and well-known architect of the Ottoman Empire during the Kanuni period, also signed many works. Aleppo Husrev Pasha Mosque, Istanbul Haseki Complex, Istanbul Şehzade Mosque and Madrasa, Üsküdar Mihrimah Mosque, Istanbul Suleymaniye Mosque and Complex, Tekirdağ Rüstem Pasha Mosque and Complex, Silivri Gate Ibrahim Pasha Mosque, Istanbul Rustem Pasha Mosque, Istanbul Sinan Pasha Mosque, Topkapı Kara Ahmet Pasha Mosque and Complex, Fındıklı Molla Çelebi Mosque, Babaeski Semiz Ali Pasha Mosque, Büyükçekmece Suleiman the Magnificent Complex and Bridge, Süleymaniye Lodge is among the most important of these.

Known for his seriousness, willpower, and self-confidence, Kanuni was a thinker and never went back on his orders. The reason why he was called “Kanuni” was not because he made new laws, but because he recorded the existing laws and applied them very strictly. Western sources and historians also referred to him as “Magnificent” and “Great” (Magnificent, Magnifique, Der Practige, Grand Turc) because of his great and mighty qualities.

Known as a just sultan, Kanuni revealed this aspect with examples such as finding the tax from Egypt excessive and dismissing the Governor of Egypt on the grounds that he was persecuting the people. Referred to by European historians as Suleiman the Magnificent, Kanuni personally led his army in many campaigns, as did his great-grandfather Mehmed the Conqueror. In addition to his statesman qualities, Kanuni was also a famous poet.

Although Kanuni, who besieged Szigetvar Castle in his last expedition, Hungary, died on September 7, 1566, while the siege was continuing, the castle was conquered. The body of Suleiman the Magnificent was buried in the mausoleum in the courtyard of the Suleymaniye Mosque, which was built by Mimar Sinan. Later, his wife Hürrem Sultan was also buried here.

After Kanuni, who had eight sons named Selim II, Bayezid, Abdullah, Murad, Mehmed, Mahmud, Cihangir, Mustafa, and two daughters named Mihrimah Sultan and Raziye Sultan, Selim II, his son from Hürrem Sultan, took the throne.