We - Hungarians too - consider it great - as a warlord, as a ruler, although he pushed a significant part of Hungary into occupation and made Transylvania his vassal. He died here during the siege of Szigetvár and today we pay tribute to him with a monument.
Suleiman the Great (November 6, 1494 - September 6, 1566) became the sultan of the Ottoman Empire in 1520, proclaiming the "golden age" of the Empire's long history before his death. Suleiman was perhaps best known during his reign for the transformation of the Ottoman government, under many names, including "The LawGiver." Its rich character and even richer contribution to the region and the Empire contributed to it becoming a source of great wealth in the years to come, which eventually led to the founding of many nations in Europe and the Middle East that we know today.
As a man, he was great. In his youth he studied theology, literature, science, history, and warfare. He spoke six languages: Ottoman Turkish, Arabic, Serbian, Chagataj Turkish (similar to Uyghur), Persian and Urdu.
The great Suleiman significantly expanded the size of the Ottoman Empire and ushered in a golden age in the Ottoman arts. Achievements in literature, philosophy, art, and architecture have had a profound effect on both Eastern and Western styles. Some of the buildings built during his empire still stand today, including those designed by Mimar Sinan.
In his youth, Suleiman was impressed by Alexander the Great and later programmed military expansion, which is attributed to being partly inspired by Alexander’s conquests. As Sultan, Suleiman led 13 major military expeditions and spent more than 10 years of his 46-year reign in campaigns.
In 1521, a revolt was carried out by the governor of Damascus, Canberdi Gazali. On January 27, 1521, Suleiman defeated Gazal, who had died in battle.
In July of the same year, the Sultan besieged Belgrade, a fortified city along the Danube. He used both the land army and the fleet of ships to shut down the city and prevent reinforcements. Belgrade, today part of modern-day Serbia, belonged to the Kingdom of Hungary in the time of Suleiman. The city fell on the attacks of Suleiman's army on August 29, 1521, thus removing from the Ottomans the last obstacle to progress to Central Europe.
Before embarking on a major attack on Europe, Suleiman wanted to provide an annoying obstacle in the Mediterranean - crusades, crusades, knightly hosts. This group of knights on the island of Rhodes captured ships of the Ottoman and other Muslim nations, looted grain and gold cargoes, and enslaved the crew. The piracy of the knights endangered even the Muslims who set sail for the pilgrimage to Mecca. Suleiman sent an army of 400 ships carrying at least 100,000 troops to Rhodes. The bastions full of 60,000 defenders, representing various Western European countries: England, Spain, Italy, Provence and Germany, were subjugated.
It took nearly half a year of artillery bombing and blasting of mines under the three-layered stone walls, but on December 22, 1522, the Turks finally forced all the Christian knights and civilians of Rhodes to surrender.
On August 29, 1526, Suleiman defeated II in the battle of Mohács. The army of King Louis of Hungary, and as the next Hungarian king, supported the nobleman János Zapolya. The Habsburgs invaded Hungary and occupied Buda, II. Louis placed his brother-in-law, Ferdinand, on the throne and provoked decades of strife with Suleiman and the Ottoman Empire.
The Safavid Persian Empire, which ruled much of Southwest Asia, was one of the Ottomans' greatest rivals and comrades in the "gunpowder empire." His ruler, Sah Tahmasp, sought to expand Persian influence by assassinating the Ottoman governor of Baghdad and replacing him with a Persian puppet, and persuading governor Bitlis of eastern Turkey to swear allegiance to the Safavid throne. Suleiman, occupied by Hungary and Austria, sent his Grand Vizier with a second army to recapture Bitlis in 1533, who also seized Tabriz from present-day northeastern Iran.
Suleiman himself returned after his second Austrian invasion and marched on Persia in 1534, but the shah refused to meet the Ottomans in an open battle.
Between 1548 and 1549, Suleiman decided to overthrow his Persian bird once and forge a second invasion of the Safavid Empire. Again, Tahmasp refused to take part in a dense battle, this time leading the Ottoman army to the snowy, rugged terrain of the Caucasus. The Ottoman sultan gained territory in Georgia and the Kurdish border between Turkey and Persia, but was unable to cope with the shah.
The third and final confrontation between Suleiman and Tahmasp took place between 1553 and 1554. As always, the shah avoided open battle, but Suleiman marched into Persia and occupied him. Shah Tahmasp finally agreed to sign a treaty with the Ottoman Sultan in which he took control of Tabriz in exchange for promising to end border attacks in Turkey and permanently relinquish his claims against Baghdad and the rest of Mesopotamia.
During Suleiman’s reign, Ottoman ships set out for Mughal India’s commercial ports, and the sultan exchanged letters with the Mughal emperor Akbar the Great. The Sultan’s Mediterranean fleet patrolled under the command of the famous Admiral Heyreddin Admiral, called Barbarossa in the west.
The troubled newcomers of the Suleiman Navy to the Indian Ocean system, the Portuguese, also succeeded in ousting the Portuguese off the coast of Yemen in 1538, from one of the key bases of Aden. However, the Turks were unable to oust the Portuguese from their forts along the west coast.
Suleiman the Great is called "Kanuni, the legislator" in Turkey. It completely transformed the former Ottoman legal system. He ordered every Ottoman soldier to pay for any food or other items taken during the campaign, even in enemy territory.
Suleiman also reformed the tax system, creating a transparent system of tax rates that varies depending on people's incomes. Winning offices was based on merit, not on the whims of senior officials or family ties. All Ottoman citizens, even the highest, were subject to the law.
Suleiman’s reforms more than 450 years ago gave the Ottoman Empire a recognizably modern administration and legal system. He gave protection to the Christian and Jewish citizens of the Ottoman Empire, in 1553 he condemned the blood counts against the Jews and freed the Christian agricultural workers from serfdom.
Suleiman the Great had two official wives and an unknown number of additional concubines, so he succeeded many descendants. His first wife, Mahidevran Sultana, gave birth to his eldest child, an intelligent and talented boy named Mustafa. His second wife, a Ukrainian concubine named Hurrem Sultana, was the love of Suleiman’s life and five boys and she bare one girl unto the sultan.
Hurrem Sultana knew that according to harem rules, if Mustafa became a sultan, all his sons would be killed to prevent them from trying to overthrow him. He sparked a rumor that Mustafa was interested in ousting his father from the throne, so in 1553 Suleiman invited his eldest son to an army camp in the tent, and the 38-year-old man was strangled to death at his command.
This gave free rein to Selim, the eldest living son of Hurrem Sultana. Unfortunately, Selim did not have as good a quality as his half-brother and history remembers him as "Drunk Selim".
In 1566, Suleiman the Great, 71, led his army on a final campaign against the Hungarian Habsburgs. The Ottomans won the Battle of Szigetvár on September 8, 1566, but Suleiman died of a heart attack the day before. His leaders did not want the news of his death to distract him and frustrate his troops, so they kept his death a secret for a month and a half while Turkish troops finalized control of the area.
Suleiman's body was prepared for repatriation to Constantinople. To avoid decomposition, the heart and other internal organs were removed and buried in Hungary. Today, there is a Christian church and orchard in the area where Suleiman the Greatest of the Ottoman Sultans left his heart on the battlefield.
The magnificent Suleiman greatly expanded the size and significance of the Ottoman Empire and ushered in a golden age in the Ottoman arts. Achievements in literature, philosophy, art, and architecture have had a profound effect on both Eastern and Western styles. Some of the buildings built during his empire still stand today, including those designed by Mimar Sinan.
Posted by Cyrke Stuffl, Former Currently a Retired Boomer at Home at Hospitals (1979–2009
