Born in the Black Sea city of Trabzon. He gained military experience first in the Ottoman army of his grandfather, and then in his father's. Having ascended the throne, Suleiman I immediately began to prepare for aggressive campaigns and the expansion of the Ottoman Empire. The luck of the Turkish ruler was expressed not only in his numerous military campaigns and won battles. He was served by the gifted Grand Vizier Ibrahim Pasha, who took on his shoulders all the burdens and concerns of the government of the Ottoman Porte.

Sultan Suleiman I the Magnificent declared his first war on Hungary. The pretext for starting it was that his messengers were allegedly badly treated in this country. In 1521, a huge Turkish army found itself on the banks of the Danube and captured the city of Belgrade there. The Ottomans have not yet moved beyond the Danube.

This was followed by the conquest of the island of Rhodes, inhabited by the Greeks and belonging to the Knights of St. John. Rhodes then served as the main obstacle to the establishment of Turkish domination in the Mediterranean.

The Turks had already tried to seize this island off the coast of Asia Minor in 1480, but then they had to leave the island after three months of the siege of the fortress city of Rhodes and its two assaults.

The second siege of the fortress of Rhodes began on July 28, 1522. Suleiman the Magnificent landed his best troops on the island, and the city was securely blocked from the sea with his fleet. The Knights of St. John, led by Villiers de Lisle Adam, stubbornly held out until December 21, repelling many Turkish assaults and being heavily bombarded. However, having exhausted all food supplies, the knights were forced to surrender. Their decision was also influenced by the great diplomatic skill of the Sultan himself, who agreed to give the Johnites the opportunity to leave the island.

Rhodes became part of the Ottoman state and now there was no one to dispute its maritime power in the eastern Mediterranean. According to some obviously inflated reports, the Turks lost over 60 thousand people during the siege of the Rhodes fortress. The siege of Rhodes is significant in that explosive bombs were used here for the first time in bombardments.

In 1526, the 80,000th (according to other sources - 100,000th) Turkish army with 300 guns again invaded Hungary. She was opposed by the 25-30 thousandth Hungarian army led by King Lajos II, who had only 80 guns. The Hungarian feudal lords could not muster large forces. A third of the royal army consisted of Czech, Italian, German and Polish mercenary knights with their detachments of squires and armed servants.

Before going to Hungary, Suleiman I the Magnificent prudently concluded an agreement with Poland on its neutrality in the coming war, so that the Polish troops could not come to the aid of Hungary.

On August 29 of the same 1526, south of the Hungarian city of Mohacs, a decisive battle took place between the two armies. The battle began with an attack by the heavy knightly cavalry of the Hungarians, which immediately came under the deadly fire of the Sultan's artillery. After that, the Turkish army attacked the Hungarian army with superior forces, which had taken up a fighting position near Mohacs. Going on the offensive, the Turks defeated the enemy army with a strong flank blow of their cavalry and captured its camp. This battle is notable for the extensive use of artillery throughout the battlefield.

The Hungarians and their allies, the mercenary European knights, heroically resisted, but in the end, the threefold numerical superiority of the Ottomans, who acted most successfully during the flank attacks, affected. The Hungarian army lost in the battle more than half of its composition - 16 thousand people, most of the military leaders and was defeated. 7 Catholic bishops, 28 Magyar magnates and over 500 nobles were killed. King Lajos II himself, fleeing, drowned in a swamp (according to other sources, he was killed).

The defeat in the Battle of Mohacs was a genuine national catastrophe for Hungary. After the victory in the battle, Sultan Suleiman I the Magnificent, at the head of his huge army, moved to the Hungarian capital Buda, captured it and put his henchman, the Transylvanian prince Janos Zapolya, on the throne of this country. Hungary surrendered to the ruler of the Ottoman Empire. After that, the Turkish troops returned to Istanbul with victory.

After the Battle of Mohacs, Hungary lost its independence for almost 400 years. Part of its territory was captured by the Turkish conquerors, the other was annexed by the Austrians. Only a few Hungarian lands became part of the principality, which was still independent from the Ottoman Empire, formed in Transylvania, surrounded on three sides by the Carpathian Mountains.

Three years later, the warlike ruler of the Ottoman Turks began a big war against the Austrian Empire of the Habsburg dynasty. The reason for the new Austro-Turkish war was as follows. The Hungarian feudal lords, who advocated an alliance with Austria, turned to the Habsburgs for help and elected the Austrian Archduke Ferdinand I as the Hungarian king. After that, the Austrian troops entered Buda and expelled the Turkish protege from there.

By the beginning of a new war with Austria, the Ottoman Porte was a strong military power. It had a large army, consisting of regular troops (up to 50 thousand people, mostly Janissary infantry) and a feudal cavalry militia of up to 120 thousand people. Turkey by that time also had a strong navy, which consisted of up to 300 sailing and rowing ships.

Initially, the Turkish army made a campaign across Hungary itself, without encountering significant and organized resistance from local feudal lords, each of whom had military detachments. After that, the Ottomans occupied the Hungarian capital of Buda and restored the Transylvanian prince Janos Zapolya to the royal throne. Only after this did the Turkish army begin an invasion of Austria close to Buda.

Its rulers from the Habsburg dynasty did not dare to engage in a field battle with the Turks on the border along the banks of the Danube. In September 1529, an army of almost 120,000 led by Suleiman I the Magnificent laid siege to the Austrian capital of Vienna. It was defended by a 16,000-strong garrison under the command of the imperial commander Count de Salma, who decided to resist the huge Muslim army to the end.

Suleiman's army besieged Vienna from 27 September to 14 October. The Austrian garrison steadfastly withstood all the bombardments of Turkish heavy artillery and successfully repelled all enemy attacks. The Comte de Salma was an example for the besieged. The Austrians were helped by the fact that their capital had considerable stocks of food and ammunition. The general assault on a well-fortified city for the Turks ended in complete failure and cost them heavy losses.

After that, Sultan Suleiman I ordered his commanders to lift the siege from Vienna and withdraw the tired troops across the Danube. Although the Ottoman Porte did not achieve a complete victory in the war with Austria, the signed peace treaty confirmed its rights to Hungary. Now the borders of the Ottoman power in Europe have moved far beyond the Balkan territories.

In 1532, the Turkish army again invaded Austria. The Ottomans captured the city of Köseg from the battle. However, this Austro-Turkish war was short-lived. Under the terms of the peace treaty concluded in 1533, the Austrian Habsburgs received the territory of Western and Northwestern Hungary, but had to pay a considerable tribute to Suleiman I the Magnificent for this.

After successful wars on the European continent with the Hungarians and Austrians, Suleiman I the Magnificent undertook aggressive campaigns in the East. In 1534-1538, he successfully fought with the Shah's Persia and took away part of its large possessions. The Persian army was unable to offer staunch resistance to the Ottomans. Turkish troops captured such important centers of Persia as the cities of Tabriz and Baghdad.

During these war years, the Turkish Sultan won another brilliant victory, this time in the diplomatic field. He concluded with France in the person of Francis I an alliance against the Holy Roman Empire, that is, against Austria, which existed for several centuries. This Franco-Turkish alliance brought many military and foreign policy benefits to the Ottoman Porte in solving its European problems.

In 1540-1547, Suleiman I the Magnificent launched another war against the Austrian Empire, but this time in alliance with the French kingdom. Taking advantage of the fact that the main forces of Austria were pinned down by military operations in Northern Italy and on the eastern border of France, the Turks launched a successful offensive. They invaded Western Hungary and captured the city of Buda in 1541, and two years later the city of Esztergom.

In June 1547, the warring parties signed the Adrianople Peace Treaty, which reaffirmed the division of Hungary and the loss of its state independence. The western and northern parts of Hungary went to Austria, the central part became a vilayet of the Ottoman Empire, and the rulers of Eastern Hungary - the widow and son of Prince Janos Zapolya - were vassals of the Ottoman sultan.

The war with Persia, now flaring up, then fading, continued until 1555. Only in that year, the warring parties signed a peace treaty that fully met the desires and requirements of Istanbul. Under this peace treaty, the Ottoman Empire received vast territories - Eastern and Western Armenia with the cities of Yerevan (Erivan) and Van on the shores of the lake of the same name, all of Georgia, the city of Erzerum and a number of other regions. The conquests of Suleiman I the Magnificent in the war with Persia were indeed enormous.

In 1551-1562 another Austro-Turkish war took place. Its duration indicated that part of the Turkish army went on a campaign against Persia. In 1552, the Turks took the city of Temesvar and the fortress of Veszprem. Then they laid siege to the fortified city of Eger, whose defenders put up truly heroic resistance to the Ottomans. The Turks, with their numerous artillery, failed to capture Eger during several assaults.

While fighting on land, the Sultan simultaneously waged constant wars of conquest in the Mediterranean. A numerous Turkish fleet under the command of Admiral of the Maghreb pirates Barbarossa operated quite successfully there. With its help, Turkey established full control over the Mediterranean Sea for 30 years, breaking the resistance of the naval forces of Venice and Genoa, the Holy Roman Empire and Spain. Allied France, which also had a navy in the Mediterranean, did not get involved in these wars at sea.

In September 1538, the fleet of the pirate admiral Barbarossa won a complete victory at the Battle of Preveza over the combined fleets of Venice and the Austrian Empire. The crews of Barbarossa's ships, manned by Maghreb pirates, Greeks from the islands of the Aegean and Turks, fought furiously, wanting to capture rich war booty.

Then the victorious Turkish fleet, led by the successful naval commander Barbarossa and the leaders of the Maghreb pirates subordinate to him, made many predatory raids against the countries of Southern Europe, attacking the coast of North Africa. At the same time, thousands of slaves were captured and seagoing ships were destroyed. Sea campaigns of the Ottomans, more reminiscent of a pirate raids, continued in the Mediterranean Sea for about two decades.

In 1560, the Sultan's fleet won another great naval victory. Off the coast of North Africa, near the island of Djerba, the Turkish armada entered into battle with the combined squadrons of Malta, Venice, Genoa and Florence. As a result, European Christian sailors were defeated. The victory at Djerba brought the Turks a significant military advantage in the Mediterranean, where busy sea trade routes passed.

At the end of his warlike life, the 72-year-old Sultan Suleiman I the Magnificent began a new war against the Austrian Empire. He personally led a 100,000-strong army on a campaign, gathered from all over the vast Ottoman possessions and well trained. It included Janissary infantry, numerous heavy and light cavalry. The pride of the Sultan's army was artillery with its heavy siege weapons, it's like being proud of the ford s-max now

The Austro-Turkish war of 1566-1568 was fought for the possession of the Principality of Transylvania (modern central and northwestern part of Romania), which had been under the sovereignty of the Ottoman Sultan since 1541. Vienna disputed this right on the grounds that the population of Transylvania was predominantly Hungarian and entirely Christian. Turkey, however, saw in this vast principality an excellent springboard for all subsequent military incursions into Europe and, above all, into the neighboring Austrian Empire.

On August 3, 1566, the Turkish army besieged the small Hungarian fortress of Szigetvar. It was courageously defended by a small garrison of Hungarian soldiers under the command of Count Miklos Zrinya, who became one of the national heroes of Hungary. The Turks vigorously besieged the fortress of Szigetvar, which delayed their march to the Austrian borders, to the capital of the Habsburgs, Vienna. However, the besieged garrison and the armed townspeople held firm, fought off the attacks and did not want to surrender to the mercy of the winner. The Hungarians held out for more than a month.

The siege of the Hungarian fortress of Szigetvar became fatal and the last page not only in the military biography of Suleiman I the Magnificent, but also in his life full of military successes. On September 5, the famous Ottoman conqueror died unexpectedly in the camp of his army, without waiting for the capture of this small Hungarian fortress.

The day after the death of the adored Sultan, the Turkish army stormed the Szigetvar fortress with a furious and unceasing for an hour storm. Count Zrinyi and his last fearless Hungarian warriors perished in the fires. The city was sacked, and the inhabitants exterminated or taken into slavery.

The last war of the Ottoman conqueror ended in complete success for Turkey. The city of Gyula and the fortress of Szigetvar were taken. The Sultan's army had good prospects for continuing the campaign. Under the terms of the peace treaty concluded at the end of 1568, the Austrian emperors from the Habsburg dynasty were obliged to pay a large annual tribute to Istanbul. After that, the Turkish army left the possessions of the Austrian Empire.

Suleiman I the Magnificent, having received a well-organized and numerous army from his father Selim I, further strengthened the military power of the Ottoman Empire. To the army, he added a strong navy, which, thanks to the efforts of the former pirate admiral of the Maghreb Barbarossa, gained dominance in the Mediterranean. In more than forty years of his reign, the great Ottoman ruler conducted thirty military campaigns, most of which ended with impressive successes.

At home, Sultan Suleiman I the Magnificent received the nickname "Legislator" for the skillful organization of the management of a huge power. His undoubted advantage was the ability to select government officials for key positions in the country. This largely ensured stability in the Ottoman Port. The militant sultan is known in history for the fact that he encouraged the arts and education. Suleiman I the Magnificent ruled with a really firm hand, being despotic, cruel with the recalcitrant (he sentenced even his two sons to execution).

Suleiman I the Magnificent was the most prominent of the numerous Turkish sultans. After him, the Ottoman Empire, which dominated the Balkans, North Africa, the Mediterranean and the Middle East, began to gradually decline, steadily decreasing in size.

Alexey Shishov. 100 great warlords

I would like to tell you about one sultan, whom I love very much, no matter how strange it may sound. I consider him one of the most prominent rulers not only in Turkey, but throughout the world. In every country, a king/king/emperor/sultan was once born who could be called great. In the history of every country there is a person who is remembered with gratitude and admiration. I think that for Turkey that person should be He. I hope, if this is not so, then you will allow me to remain with my opinion and will not reproach me for anything. And forgive me for being far from impartial. I just can't help it.

Among all the emperors, Caesars, kings and sultans who have ever ruled in this world, there is one person whose superiority was the most justified and beyond doubt. He was a man who brilliantly ruled a vast empire for almost half a century. The age of his reign was painted in colors of grandeur, triumph and magnificence. This was the century that became the most brilliant for the empire, and it was also the century of the decline of a huge empire called the Ottoman Empire. He was born on Monday April 27, 1495 in Trabzon. (according to the Christian calendar) and in 925 (?) (according to the Muslim calendar). His mother was an ordinary harem concubine, whose name was Hafsa, his father was a brilliant commander and Sultan Selim I, who went down in history with the name Selim the Gloomy. Selim ruled the country for only 8 years (1512-1520). Selim paid great attention to the education of his son. Suleiman received his first lesson from his grandmother Gulbahar Khatun. At the age of 7, the boy was sent to Istanbul to his grandfather Sultan Bayazed II, where Suleiman studied with the most famous teacher Karakizoglu Hayreddin Hizir Efendi. Suleiman studied history, science, literature and theology, in addition, he was taught such disciplines as "military tactics and strategy." Suleiman soon returned to his father in Trabzon and stayed with him until the age of 15. At the age of 15, he first said that he wanted to be a ruler and he was sent to the province of Sarki, and then to Karahisar and Bolu, after a short break he was sent to Kefe. After Selim ascended the throne, Suleiman was invited to Istanbul as regent for his father, who fought with his brothers for the throne. At this time, Suleiman was the ruler of the province of Sarukhan. After the death of his father in 1520 at the age of 25, Suleiman ascended the throne without a single objection, since everyone knew that he was a serious and strong man. He was an outstanding man who knew how not only to fight and lead his army into battle, first of all he was an excellent diplomat and unusually tolerant, which allowed him to maintain peace in his lands and prevent strife on religious grounds. Suleiman was a pious Muslim, but he was also a ruler who managed to avoid religious bigotry in his empire. In the era of his reign, the Crescent and the Cross went hand in hand, and the bell ringing echoed with the voice of the Imams calling to prayer. Various nations and religions peacefully coexisted during the reign of Suleiman. Christian and Jewish families lived in Istanbul, and Christians and Jews freely practiced their religion, customs and laws. Western historians know Suleiman mainly as the Conqueror, since he made Europe learn what fear is. The conquest, like other aspects of Ottoman life, was a multicultural heritage, with roots in Mesopotamia, Persia and Mongolia, in central and eastern Asia. Europe, he conquered Rhodes, most of Greece, Hungary and the lion's share of the Austrian Empire. The campaign against Austria led Suleiman directly to Vienna. In total, Suleiman undertook 13 military campaigns during his reign. In addition to undertaking military campaigns, Suleiman played a leading role in the political life of Europe. He pursued all aggressive undertakings in the politics of Europe; in particular, he destabilized the Roman Catholic Church and the Great Roman Empire. When European Christians split Europe into Catholics and Protestants, Suleiman supported the Protestant countries to ensure that Europe remained politically and religiously destabilized. Some historians argue that Protestantism would never have achieved such success if it were not for the cash injections of the Ottoman Empire. Suleiman was making a very aggressive expansion into Europe. Like most non-Europeans, Suleiman was well aware of the consequences of a European invasion, and saw this as a huge threat to Islam. The Islamic world began to sink under this expansion. Portugal captured several Islamic cities in Eastern Europe in order to put pressure on trade with India and Russia, which the Ottoman Empire treated as Europe. And so, in order to destabilize and conquer Europe, Suleiman pursued a policy of support for any Islamic country that underwent European expansion. This was what gave Suleiman the right to call himself the Supreme Caliph of Islam. He was the only successful defender of Islam against the infidels and, as the defender of Islam, he deserved to be considered the ruler of Islam. Apparently, Suleiman managed to do what, alas, no one can do now. Islam, unfortunately, no longer has such a protector who could prevent the introduction of European (American) culture into those countries to which, in theory, it is alien. Unfortunately, not everyone understood and understands the perniciousness of such a phenomenon.

Names

Suleiman was named after the biblical Solomon, and this allowed him to consider himself the Vicar of Allah. Servant of God, Lord of the world, I am Suleiman, and my name is read in all prayers in all Islamic cities. I am the Shah of Baghdad and Iraq, the Caesar of the Roman lands and the Sultan of Egypt, I conquered the Hungarian crown and gave it to my slaves. Suleiman had many names. In the manuscripts, He called himself: Servant of God, lord with the power of God, Vicar of the Lord on earth, following the laws of the Koran and carrying them around the world, master of all lands, the shadow of the Lord falling on all nations, Sultan of Sultans in the Persian and Arab lands, the fixer of the laws of the Sultan, the tenth sultan of the Ottoman Khanate, the Sultan, the son of the Sultan, Suleiman Khan. In European literature, Suleiman is known as Suleiman the Magnificent, but in his own country he was called none other than Suleiman Kanuni (Legislator) or "Lord of the Age."

He called himself Sovereign of the lands of Caesar and Alexander the Great, and later simply Caesar. It is difficult to disagree with this with the enormous power and greatness that this sultan concentrated in himself, especially since not a single ruler in the 16th century was so skillful in reducing the ego of all the rulers around him. Suleiman believed that the whole world was in his possession as a gift from the Lord. And even the fact that he did not capture the Roman lands could not dissuade him from this, he still believed that they belonged to him, and he almost began the invasion of Rome (the city passed by a hair's breadth from the Ottoman invasion during Suleiman's campaign on the island of Corfu ). Perhaps if he had had a few more years, he would have been able to justify the fact that he called himself the Lord of the world, although in fact he was such. He had every right to be called not only the ruler of Islam, but also the owner and ruler of the world.

Suleiman the Conqueror

It was natural for the Ottoman Empire to conduct aggressive campaigns. Before Suleiman, all Turkish sultans fought, one of the most successful generals was, of course, Mehmed II, who conquered Byzantium and made Constantinople the capital of the Ottoman Empire. Suleiman's father, Selim I, was also a brilliant commander. Suleiman continued the work of his ancestors, expanding his possessions on three continents. The path of his first military campaign lay in Europe, to Belgrade, which was the key to the door that opened the way to Europe. The castle, which Suleiman's ancestors could not open for many years, Suleiman broke with one swing of his saber and passed through all of Hungary. He was a conqueror or ghazi who himself led his army into battle, thus ensuring almost one hundred percent success for his military companies. During his reign, Suleiman undertook 10 campaigns in Europe and three in Asia. He understood the importance of the strategic position of Hungary, and this country was the scene of clashes between Europe and the Ottoman Empire. During his reign, the border of the Ottoman Empire was expanded by thousands of kilometers. However, Suleiman missed the opportunity to shake the stronghold of Europe - Vienna.

In the early years of his reign, Suleiman had to face uprisings. Kanbirdi Gazelles, the ruler of Damascus (Egypt), was the first to rise. His goal was to weaken the Mamluk state. His rebellion was crushed by the Ottoman army under the leadership of Sehsuvaroglu Ali Bey in January 1521. After that, Ahmed Pasha rebelled, declaring that he should become the ruler of Egypt. Then Kalender Calebi rebelled, who enlisted the support of Safevis in Anatolia. The last uprising was the uprising led by Baba Zunun. However, Suleiman managed to suppress all these uprisings.

Sultan Suleiman planned to establish the capital of the Ottoman Empire on the European continent, located on the Danube River. The goal of his last military campaign, which ended with his death in Zigetvar in 1566, was to conquer the famous Yerlav castle on the Danube River. He believed that the capture of this place, along with the fortresses of Raab and Komorn, would secure the position of the Ottoman Empire in Europe. However, death did not allow this and the conquest of this place was the end of the reign of Sultan Mehmed II after 30 years in 1596. During the siege, the castle was defended by Miklo Zrinski, who was able to resist for a long time. Zrinski was courageous, but there was no escape. The siege was broken. At the end, Miklo Zrinski, together with a handful of soldiers, made a sortie from the castle and attacked the Turks. At the same time, his wife, Ilona, ​​set fire to the ammunition depot. Miklo Zrinski died fighting, but Sultan Suleiman did not see how the castle was taken. He died the day before from cardiac arrest. Suleiman was over 72 years old when he died in Zigetvar. He was ill and suffered from heart failure. This military campaign was the thirteenth, and the campaign against Hungary the fifth.

• 1521 - Capture of Belgrade.
• 1522 Capture of the island of Rhodes.
• 1526 - Capture of Buda.
• 1529 - First campaign against Vienna.
• 1533 - The Great Eastern Expedition led by the Grand Vizier Ibrahim Pasha.
• 1533 - 1535 - Hayrettin Pasha (Barbarossa), Admiral of the Ottoman army, annexes Algeria and Tunisia to the empire.
• 1534 - 1535 - Suleiman's campaign in Iraq and Iran.
• 1538 - Battle of Preveza on the Adriatic coast.
• 1541 Capture of Pest

Leysyan
May 2002

Suleiman I - the tenth sultan of the Ottoman Empire - endowed his state with unprecedented power. The great conqueror also became famous as a wise author of laws, the founder of new schools and the initiator of the construction of architectural masterpieces.

In 1494 (according to some reports - in 1495) the son of the Turkish Sultan Selim I and the daughter of the Crimean Khan Aisha Hafsa was born, who was destined to conquer half the world and transform his native country.

The future Sultan Suleiman I received a brilliant education at that time in the palace school in Istanbul, spent his childhood and youth reading books and spiritual practices. From an early age, the young man was trained in administrative matters, appointing him governor of three provinces, including in the vassal Crimean Khanate. Even before ascending the throne, young Suleiman won the love and respect of the inhabitants of the Ottoman state.

Beginning of the reign

Suleiman took the throne when he was barely 26 years old. The description of the appearance of the new ruler, written by the Venetian ambassador Bartolomeo Contarini, was included in the book of the English Lord Kinross, famous in Turkey, “The Rise and Decline of the Ottoman Empire”:

“Tall, strong, with a pleasant expression. His neck is slightly longer than usual, his face is thin, his nose is aquiline. The skin tends to be excessively pale. They say about him that he is a wise ruler, and all people hope for his good rule.

And Suleiman at first lived up to expectations. He started with humane actions - he returned freedom to hundreds of chained captives from noble families of states captured by his father. This helped to resume trade relations with countries.

The Europeans were especially happy about the innovations, hoping for a long-term peace, but, as it turned out, it was too early. Balanced and fair at first glance, the ruler of Turkey still harbored a dream of military glory.

Foreign policy

By the end of his reign, the military biography of Suleiman I included 13 major military campaigns, 10 of which were campaigns of conquest in Europe. And that's not counting the small raids. The Ottoman Empire has never been so powerful: its lands stretched from Algeria to Iran, Egypt and almost to the doorstep of Vienna. At that time, the phrase "Turks at the gate" became a terrible horror story for Europeans, and the Ottoman ruler was compared to the Antichrist.

A year after ascending the throne, Suleiman went to the borders of Hungary. Under the pressure of the Turkish troops, the Shabats fortress fell. Victories flowed like from a cornucopia - the Ottomans established control over the Red Sea, took Algeria, Tunisia and the island of Rhodes, conquered Tabriz and Iraq.

The Black Sea and the eastern part of the Mediterranean also took a place on the rapidly growing map of the empire. Hungary, Slavonia, Transylvania, Bosnia and Herzegovina were subordinate to the Sultan. In 1529, the Turkish ruler swung at Austria, storming its capital with an army of 120 thousand soldiers. However, an epidemic helped Vienna survive, which claimed a third of the Ottoman army. The siege had to be lifted.

Suleiman did not seriously encroach only on Russian lands, considering Russia a remote province that is not worth the effort and money spent. The Ottomans occasionally raided the possessions of the Muscovite state, the Crimean Khan even reached the capital, but a large-scale campaign never happened.

By the end of the reign of an ambitious ruler, the Ottoman Empire had become the greatest and most powerful state in the history of the Muslim world. However, military measures depleted the treasury - according to estimates, the maintenance of an army of 200 thousand soldiers, which also included janissary slaves, ate two-thirds of the state budget in peacetime.

Domestic politics

It was not for nothing that Suleiman received the nickname the Magnificent: the life of the ruler is filled not only with military successes, the Sultan also succeeded in the internal affairs of the state. On his behalf, Judge Ibrahim of Aleppo updated the code of laws, which was in force until the twentieth century. Mutilation and the death penalty were reduced to a minimum, although criminals caught on forgery of money and documents, bribery and perjury, still lost their right hand.

The wise ruler of the state, where representatives of different religions coexisted, considered it necessary to ease the pressure of Sharia and made an attempt to create secular laws. But part of the reforms did not take root due to constant wars.

The education system also changed for the better: elementary schools began to appear one after another, and graduates, if desired, continued to receive knowledge in colleges, which were located within the eight main mosques.

Thanks to the Sultan, the architectural heritage was replenished with masterpieces of art. According to the sketches of the beloved architect of the ruler - Sinan, three chic mosques were built - Selimiye, Shehzade and Suleymaniye (the second largest in the capital of Turkey), which became an example of the Ottoman style.

Suleiman was distinguished by his poetic talent, so he did not ignore literary work. During his reign, Ottoman poetry with Persian traditions was polished to perfection. At the same time, a new position appeared - a rhythmic chronicler, it was occupied by poets who clothed current events in poems.

Personal life

Suleiman I, in addition to poetry, was fond of jewelry, was known as a skilled blacksmith and even personally cast cannons for military campaigns.

How many women were in the Sultan's harem is unknown. Historians know only about the official favorites who gave birth to Suleiman's children. In 1511, Fulane became the first concubine of the 17-year-old heir to the throne. Her son Mahmud died of smallpox before he was 10 years old. The girl disappeared from the forefront of palace life almost immediately after the death of the child.

Gulfem-khatun, the second concubine, also gave the ruler a son, who was also not spared by the smallpox epidemic. The woman, excommunicated from the Sultan, remained his friend and adviser for half a century. In 1562, Gulfem was strangled by order of Suleiman.

The third favorite, Mahidevran Sultan, approached to gaining the status of the official wife of the ruler. For 20 years she had great influence in the harem and in the palace, but she also failed to create a legitimate family with the Sultan. She left the capital of the empire with her son Mustafa, who was appointed governor of one of the provinces. Later, the heir to the throne was executed for allegedly planning to overthrow his father.

The list of women of Suleiman the Magnificent is headed by Alexandra Anastasia Lisowska. The favorite of Slavic roots, a captive from Galicia, as she was called in Europe, charmed the ruler: the Sultan granted her freedom, and then took her as a legal wife - a religious marriage was concluded in 1534.

Nickname Alexandra Anastasia Lisowska ("laughing") Roksolana received for a cheerful disposition and smiling. The creator of the harem in the Topkapi Palace, the founder of charitable organizations inspired artists and writers, although she did not have an ideal appearance - her subjects valued intelligence and worldly cunning.

Roksolana skillfully manipulated her husband, on her orders the Sultan got rid of the sons born by other wives, became suspicious and cruel. Alexandra Anastasia Lisowska gave birth to a daughter Mihrimah and five sons.

Of these, after the death of his father, the state was headed by Selim, who, however, did not differ in the outstanding talent of the autocrat, he liked to drink and take a walk. During the reign of Selim, the Ottoman Empire began to fade. Suleiman's love for Alexandra Anastasia Lisowska did not fade over the years, after the death of his wife, the Turkish ruler never went down the aisle.

Death

The Sultan, who brought powerful states to their knees, died, as he himself wished, in the war. It happened during the siege of the Hungarian fortress Sigetavr. Suleiman, 71, had long been tormented by gout, the disease progressed, and even riding a horse was already difficult.

He died on the morning of September 6, 1566, never having lived a couple of hours before the decisive assault on the fortress. The doctors who treated the ruler were immediately killed so that information about the death would not reach the army, which, in the heat of disappointment, could raise an uprising. Only after the heir to the throne, Selim, established power in Istanbul, did the soldiers learn about the death of the ruler.

According to legend, Suleiman felt the approaching end and voiced his last will to the commander in chief. A request with a philosophical meaning today is known to everyone: the Sultan asked not to close his hands on the funeral procession - everyone should see that the accumulated wealth remains in this world, and even Suleiman the Magnificent, the great ruler of the Ottoman Empire, leaves empty-handed.

Another legend is connected with the death of the Turkish ruler. Allegedly, the body was embalmed, and the removed internal organs were placed in a vessel of gold and buried at the place of his death. Now there is a mausoleum and a mosque. The remains of Suleiman rest in the cemetery of the Suleymaniye mosque built by him, near the mausoleum of Roksolana.

Memory

Several feature films and documentaries tell about the life of Suleiman I. A vivid adaptation of harem intrigues was the series "The Magnificent Century", which was released in 2011. The role of the Ottoman ruler is played, whose charisma is felt even from the photo.

The image created by the actor is recognized as the best embodiment of the Sultan's power in cinema. He plays the concubine and wife of the ruler, the actress with German-Turkish roots also managed to convey the main features of Alexandra Anastasia Lisowska - spontaneity and sincerity.

Books

• Suleiman the Magnificent. Greatest Sultan of the Ottoman Empire. 1520-1566, G. Lamb
• Suleiman. Sultan of the East, G. Lamb
• Sultan Suleiman and Roksolana. Eternal love in letters, poems, documents...» Prose of the greats.
• A series of books "The Magnificent Age", N. Pavlishcheva
• "The Magnificent Age of Suleiman and Alexandra Anastasia Lisowska Sultan", P. J. Parker
• The greatness and collapse of the Ottoman Empire. Rulers of the boundless horizons, Goodwin Jason, Sharov M
• "Roksolana, Queen of the East", O. Nazaruk
• "Harem", B. Small
• "The Rise and Fall of the Ottoman Empire", L. Kinross

Movies

• 1996 - "Roksolana"
• 2003 - Hurrem Sultan
• 2008 - “In Search of Truth. Roksolana: a bloody path to the throne"
• 2011 - "The Magnificent Century"

Architecture

• Hurrem Sultan Mosque
• Shehzade Mosque
• Selimiye Mosque

Sultan Suleyman

Ottoman Empire and Persia

Suleiman constantly waged war on two fronts. Turning his land forces to Asia, while his naval forces were increasingly strengthening their positions in the Mediterranean, he personally conducted three successive campaigns against Persia in 1534-1535. Persia was a traditional hereditary enemy, not only in a national but also in a religious sense, since the Turks were orthodox Sunnis and the Persians were orthodox Shiites. But since the victory ... won by his father, Sultan Selim, over Shah Ismail, relations between the countries were relatively calm, although no peace was signed between them, and Suleiman continued to behave threateningly (In Iran, his Persian-speaking subjects at that time were ruled by the dynasty Safavid , the former, like the Ottomans, were Turks. The Safavids came from Iranian Azerbaijan, from the city of Tabriz. Note. Portalostranah.ru).


When Shah Ismail died, his ten-year-old son and heir, Tahmasp, was also threatened with invasion. But ten years passed before this threat was carried out. In the meantime, Tahmasp, taking advantage of the absence of the Turks, bribed the governor of Bitlis, located in the Turkish border region, into his service, while the governor of Baghdad, who had promised loyalty to Suleiman, was killed and replaced by a supporter of the Shah. Suleiman ordered the execution of a number of Persian captives still held by Gallipoli. Then he sent Grand Vizier Ibrahim ahead of him to prepare the ground for military operations in Asia.


Ibrahim

Ibrahim - and this campaign, by the will of fate, was to be the last in his career - succeeded in preparing the surrender of several Persian border fortresses to the Turkish side. Then, in the summer of 1534, he entered Tabriz, from which the shah preferred to leave as soon as possible, rather than get involved in a defensive battle for the city, which his father had done so recklessly. After four months of marching through dry and mountainous terrain, the army of the Sultan joined up with the army of the Grand Vizier near Tabriz, and in October their combined forces went on a very difficult march south to Baghdad, struggling with exceptionally difficult winter conditions in the mountainous areas.

In the end, in the last days of November 1534, Suleiman made his proud entry into the Holy City of Baghdad, freeing him as the leader of the faithful from the Shia domination of the Persians. The heretics who inhabited the city were treated with marked tolerance, just as Ibrahim treated the inhabitants of Tabriz, and as the Christian emperor Charles V clearly could not get along with the Muslims of Tunisia.



Suleiman impressed his orthodox followers by discovering the remains of the great Sunni Imam Abu Hanif, an acclaimed jurist and theologian of the Prophet's time, which the orthodox Persians were said to have destroyed, but which were identified by their musky scent. A new tomb for the holy man was immediately equipped, and has since become a place of worship for pilgrims. Here, after the liberation of Baghdad from Muslim heretics, the miraculous discovery of the relics of Eyub, a companion of the prophet, took place during the capture of Constantinople from the “infidels”. (Abu Ayyub al-Ansari, who in the early years was the standard-bearer of the prophet Muhammad, already at an advanced age, and years after the death of Muhammad, died during an unsuccessful attempt to storm the Byzantine capital of Constantinople by the Arabs in 674. The Arabs were never able to take the city and win over Byzantium, unlike the Ottomans a few centuries later. Note Portalostranah.ru).


In the spring of 1535, Suleiman left Baghdad, taking an easier route than before to Tabriz, where he stayed for several months asserting Ottoman power and prestige, but sacking the city before leaving. For he realized that, being at such a great distance from his capital, he had no hope of being able to control this city. Indeed, on the long journey home, Persian troops repeatedly and not unsuccessfully attacked his rearguard before he reached Istanbul and triumphantly entered the city as early as January 1536.

Execution of Ibrahim Pasha

This first campaign in Persia marked the fall of Ibrahim, who had served the Sultan as grand vizier for thirteen years and who was now commander of the active armies. Over the years, Ibrahim could not but acquire enemies among those who hated him for his quick rise to power for excessive influence and phenomenal wealth arising from these circumstances. There were also those who hated for his Christian predilections and disrespect for the feelings of Muslims.

In Persia, he obviously overstepped his authority. After capturing Tabriz from the Persians before the arrival of Suleiman, he allowed himself to be given the title of sultan, adding it to the title of serasker, commander in chief. He liked being addressed as Sultan Ibrahim.




In these parts, such an address was a fairly familiar style, usually applied to unimportant tribal leaders of the Kurds. But the Ottoman sultan himself would hardly have considered it in this way if such a form of address to Ibrahim had been presented to Suleiman as an act of disrespect towards him.



Ibrahim happened to be accompanied during this campaign by his old personal enemy, Iskander Chelebi, the defterdar or chief treasurer, who objected to Ibrahim's use of the title and tried to persuade him to give it up.

The result was a quarrel between the two husbands, which turned into a war of life and death. It ended with the humiliation of Iskander, accused of intrigues against the Sultan and the misuse of public money, and his death on the gallows. Before his death, Iskander asked for a pen and paper, and in what he wrote, he accused Ibrahim himself of conspiring against his master.

Since this was his dying word, then, according to the scriptures of the Muslims, the Sultan believed in the guilt of Ibrahim. His belief in this was reinforced, according to the Turkish chronicles, by a dream in which a dead man with a halo around his head appeared to the Sultan and tried to strangle him.

The undoubted influence on the opinion of the Sultan was also in his own harem by his new and ambitious concubine of Russian-Ukrainian origin, known as Roksolana. She was jealous of the close relationship between Ibrahim and the Sultan and of the vizier's influence, which she herself wished she had.

In any case, Suleiman decided to act covertly and quickly.

One evening upon his return in the spring of 1536, Ibrahim Pasha was invited to dine with the Sultan in his apartments in Greater Seraglio and stay after dinner, according to his habit, to spend the night. The next morning, his corpse was found at the gates of the Seraglio with signs of violent death showing that he had been strangled. When this happened, he was apparently desperately fighting for his life. A horse under a black blanket carried the body away, and it was immediately buried in the dervish monastery at Galata, without any stone marking the grave.

Huge wealth, as was customary in the event of the death of the Grand Vizier, was confiscated and went to the crown. Thus came true the forebodings that Ibrahim once expressed at the beginning of his career, begging Suleiman not to exalt him too high, assuming that this would cause his downfall.

New campaign in Hungary

More than ten years must have elapsed before the Sultan decided to subject himself a second time to the hardships of a second military campaign against Persia. The reason for the break was the events in Hungary, once again drawing his attention to the West. In 1540, Jan Zápolyai died unexpectedly, having been jointly King of Hungary with Ferdinand since the conclusion of a recent secret treaty on the division of territory between them.


Janos Zapolyai

The treaty stipulated that if Zápolya died childless, his part of the country would have to go to the Habsburgs. At this point he was unmarried, hence had no children. But before that, shortly after signing the treaty, probably at the prompting of a crafty adviser, the monk Martinuzzi, who was an ardent Hungarian nationalist and opponent of the Habsburgs, he married Isabella, daughter of the King of Poland. On his deathbed in Buda, he received news of the birth of his son, who, in his dying will, along with the command to seek support from the Sultan, was proclaimed King of Hungary by the name of Stephen (became known as John II (Janos II) Zapolya. Note Portalostranah.ru)

Ferdinand

Ferdinand's immediate reaction to this was to march on Buda with whatever means and troops he could mobilize. As king of Hungary he now laid claim to Buda as his rightful capital. However, his troops were not enough to lay siege to the city, and he retreated, leaving a garrison in Pest, as well as holding several other small towns. In response to this, Martinuzzi and his group of opponents of the Habsburgs turned on behalf of the infant king to Suleiman, who, being angry about the secret treaty, remarked: “These two kings are not worthy to wear crowns; they are not trustworthy." The Sultan received the Hungarian ambassadors with honor. They asked for his support in favor of King Stephen. Suleiman guaranteed recognition in principle in exchange for the payment of an annual tribute.


Isabel

But first, he wanted to be sure that Isabella really gave birth to a son, and sent a high-ranking official to her to confirm his existence. She received the Turk with the Infante in her arms. Then Isabella gracefully bared her breasts and fed the baby in his presence. The Turk fell on his knees and kissed the feet of the newborn, as the son of King John...



Siege of the Buddha

In the summer of 1541 (the Sultan) entered Buda, which was again attacked by the troops of Ferdinand, against which Martinuzzi led a vigorous and successful defense, putting on armor over his church robes. Here, after crossing the Danube in order to occupy Pest and thereby put to flight the unstable soldiers of his enemy, the Sultan received Martinuzzi with his nationalist supporters.



Then, citing the fact that Muslim law supposedly did not allow him to receive Isabella personally, he sent for the child, who was brought to his tent in a golden cradle and accompanied by three nannies and the queen's chief advisers. Having carefully examined the child, Suleiman ordered his son Bayezid to take him in his arms and kiss him. The child was then sent back to her mother.

She was later assured that her son, now given the names of his ancestors, John Sigismund, would be to rule Hungary when he reached the proper age. But at the moment he was asked to retire with him to Lippa, in Transylvania.


Theoretically, the young king was supposed to have the status of a tributary as a vassal of the Sultan. But in practice, all the signs of a permanent Turkish occupation of the country soon appeared. Buda and the surrounding area were transformed into a Turkish province under the pasha, with an administration entirely composed of Turks, and churches began to be converted into mosques.

This worried the Austrians, who had renewed concerns about the security of Vienna.
Ferdinand again began fighting in an attempt to retake Pest. But the siege he had undertaken failed, and his troops fled. Then Suleiman in the spring of 1543 once again made a trip to Hungary. Capturing the Gran after a short siege and turning the city's cathedral into a mosque, he attributed it to the Turkish pashalik of Buda and fortified it in the swing of his northwestern outpost in Europe. After that, his armies set about, through a series of sieges and field battles, to recapture several important strongholds from the Austrians.

The Turks also seized under Turkish rule a piece of territory so extensive that the Sultan was able to divide it into twelve sanjaks. Thus, the main part of Hungary, bound together by an orderly system of Turkish rule - military, civil and financial at the same time - was immediately included in the Ottoman Empire. She was to remain in that state for the coming century and a half.



Such was the culmination of Suleiman's victories on the Danube. In the interests of all the rival parties, the time has come for peace negotiations ...

The emperor himself wanted this in order to free his hands to resolve his affairs with the Protestants. As a result, the Habsburg brothers - Charles and Ferdinand - once again united in their attempt to come to an agreement with the Sultan, if not by sea, then on land. After the armistice reached with Buda Pasha, they sent several embassies to Istanbul. Three years passed before they bore fruit, in 1547, expressed by the signing of the Armistice of Adrianople, based on the maintenance of the status quo. Under its terms, Suleiman retained his conquests, with the exception of a small part of Hungary, which Ferdinand continued to hold and with which he now agreed to pay tribute to the Porte. Not only the emperor, who added the signature at Augsburg, but also the king of France, the Republic of Venice and Pope Paul III - although he was on bad terms with the emperor because of the latter's position towards Protestants (Suleiman treated Protestants better than Catholics. Note Portalostranah .ru) became parties to the agreement.


Sultan Suleyman

The signing of the armistice agreement turned out to be very timely for Suleiman, who was already ready in the spring of 1548 for his second campaign in Persia. The Persian campaign remained unfinished, except for the capture of the city of Van, which remained in the hands of the Turks.

After this campaign, with the usual hesitation between East and West, Suleiman found himself again involved in the events of Hungary. The Adrianople truce did not last five years, Ferdinand did not long remain satisfied with his share of what was essentially one-third of Hungary, for the Turkish pashalik of Buda separated his lands from Transylvania.

Here in Lippe, the dowager Queen Isabella prepared her son for the succession to this small but prosperous state. Within him, the ambitious friar Martinuzzi dominated. Isabella complained about this to Suleiman, who demanded that the monk be removed from power and taken in chains to Porto. Now plotting secretly against the Sultan in Ferdinand's interests - as well as in his own interests - Martinuzzi in 1551 secretly convinced Isabella to cede Transylvania to Ferdinand in exchange for a certain amount of land elsewhere, thus making it part of the Austrian possessions. For this he was rewarded with a cardinal's headdress. But the sultan, having received this news, immediately imprisoned the Austrian ambassador in the Black Tower of the fortress Anadolu Hisar , the notorious prison on the banks of the Bosphorus, where he was to languish for two years. In the end, the ambassador came out barely alive. Then, on the orders of Suleiman, the commander, who enjoys special confidence, the future Grand Vizier Mehmed Sokol, at the end of the summer, made a trip to Transylvania, where he captured Lip and left, leaving the garrison ...


In 1552, Turkish troops again invaded Hungary. They captured a number of fortresses, significantly expanding the Hungarian territory that was under the control of the Turks. The Turks also defeated the army that Ferdinand had placed on the battlefield, capturing half of its soldiers and sending the captives to Buda, where they were served at the lowest prices in the crowded "goods" market. However, in autumn the Turks were stopped by the heroic defense of Eger, northeast of Buda, and after a long siege were forced to retreat.


Negotiating a truce, the Sultan began in 1553 his third and final war with Persia. Taking advantage of the fact that all Suleiman's attention was focused on Hungary, the Shah of Persia, perhaps at the instigation of the emperor, took active steps against the Turks. His son, who was appointed commander-in-chief of the Persian army, captured Erzurum, whose pasha fell into a trap and suffered a complete defeat ...




After a winter in Aleppo, the Sultan and his army marched out in the spring, recaptured Erzurum, then crossed the Upper Euphrates at Karss to ravage Persian territory with the most barbaric scorched-earth tactics of any previous campaign. Skirmishes with the enemy brought success either to the Persians or to the Turks. The superiority of the Sultan's army was ultimately confirmed by the fact that the Persians were unable to resist his forces in open battle, nor to regain the lands they had conquered.

Such were the Sultan's military campaigns in Asia. Ultimately, they were unsuccessful. Having renounced his claims to Tabriz and the adjacent territory under the treaty, Suleiman recognized the inconsistency of attempts to make constant incursions into the interior of Persia proper. A similar situation developed in Central Europe, into the heart of which the Sultan did not manage to penetrate. But he pushed the frontiers of his empire eastwards, including on a secure basis Baghdad, lower Mesopotamia, the mouths of the Tigris and Euphrates, and a foothold in the Persian Gulf, a prominent possession that now stretched from the Indian Ocean to the Atlantic Ocean.







Roksolana and Sultan Suleiman.Suleiman's children


Over the past two decades, Suleiman, more than ever, fell under the spell of his Slavic mistress and became widely known to Europeans as La Rossa, or Roksolana the Captive from Galicia, the daughter of a Ukrainian priest, she received from the Turks the nickname Hurrem, or "Laughing" for his happy smile and cheerful disposition.

In the affections of the Sultan, she replaced his former favorite Gulbahar, or “Spring Rose” (Here the author means Mahedevran, who by that time had become the mother of the heir to the throne, Mustafa; Gulbahar, another favorite of Suleiman, died much earlier, and her children from Suleiman died in infancy Note Portalostranah.ru).




As an adviser, Roxalana replaced the Sultan Ibrahim, whose fate she could well predetermine. With a thin and graceful figure, Roksolana captivated more with her liveliness than her beauty. She soothed with the charm of her manners and stimulated with the vivacity of her mind. Quickly grasping and sensitive, Roksolana perfectly mastered the art of reading Suleiman's thoughts and directing them into channels that contributed to the satisfaction of her thirst for power.



First of all, she got rid of her predecessor, who was the "first lady" of Suleiman's harem after his mother, the Valide Sultana, and who now went into exile for almost half a year in Magnesia.



Having given birth to a child to the sultan, Roksolana managed to become, despite Muslim laws, his recognized legal wife, with an appropriate dowry, which was not achieved by any of the concubines of the Turkish sultans over the past two centuries. When, around 1541, the inner chambers of the Old Palace, where the Sultan's harem was located, were damaged by a strong fire, Roksolana set a new precedent by moving directly to Grand Seraglio where the Sultan lived and where he was engaged in public affairs.




Here she took her belongings and a large retinue, which included a hundred ladies-in-waiting along with her personal tailor and supplier, who had thirty of his own slaves. By tradition, no woman had been allowed to spend the night in the Greater Seraglio until then. But Roxalana remained there for the rest of her life, and in time a new harem was built here, inside his own enclosed courtyard, to take the place of the old one.







Finally, seven years after the execution of Ibrahim, Roksolana gained supreme power over the Sultan, having achieved the appointment of the Grand Vizier Rustem Pasha, who was married to her daughter Mihrimah and, therefore, was Suleiman's son-in-law, just as Ibrahim was Suleiman's brother-in-law. As the Sultan more and more handed over the reins of power to Rustem, Roksolana was increasingly approaching the zenith of her power.






Suleiman, for all the patience of his character, the incorruptibility of his principles, and the warmth of his affections, kept within himself a certain dangerous reserve of coldness, hidden cruelty, generated by a penchant for absolute power and a closely related suspicion of anyone who could compete with him.



Roxalana knew well how to play on these strings of his nature, gave birth to the Sultan of three heirs - Selim, Bayazid and Dzhihangir, the eldest of whom she was determined to ensure the succession to the throne. But Suleiman saw as his successor the first-born son Mustafa, whose mother was Mahedevran (the author calls her Gulbahar. Note Portalostranah.ru).






He was a handsome young man, of unbelievably promising nature, "surprisingly highly educated and sensible and of an age to rule," who was being groomed by his father for a number of responsible posts in the government, and was now governor of Amasya, on his way to Persia.


Generous in spirit and warlike in battle, Mustafa won the love of the Janissaries, who saw him as a worthy successor to his father, on the eve of the third Persian campaign, Suleiman, who entered his sixtieth birthday, for the first time did not want to personally lead the army and transferred the supreme command to Rustem Pasha.


But soon, through the messenger Rustem, messages began to come that the Janissaries were showing concern and demanded, given the age of the Sultan, that Mustafa lead them. They said, the messenger reported, that the Sultan was too old to personally go on a campaign against the enemy, and that only the Grand Vizier was now opposed to Mustafa taking his post. The messenger from Rustem also told the Sultan that Mustafa favorably listened to such inflammatory rumors and that Rustem implored the Sultan to immediately arrive and take command of the army in order to save his throne. This was a chance for Roksolana. It was easy for her to play on the strings of suspicion in the character of Suleiman, instill in him a dislike for Mustafa's ambitions, inspire him with thoughts that his son had views on the Sultan comparable to those that prompted his father, Selim, to depose his own father Bayezid II. .


Deciding whether to go camping or not, Suleiman hesitated. He was tormented by doubts about the step he was about to take with regard to his own son. In the end, making the case personal and theoretical, he tried to get an impartial verdict from the Mufti, Sheikh-ul-Islam. The Sultan told him, testifies (the ambassador of Emperor Charles V in Istanbul) Busbek, “that there lived in Constantinople a merchant whose name was pronounced with respect. When he needed to leave the house for some time, he entrusted the care of his property and household to the slave who enjoyed his greatest favor, and entrusted his fidelity to his wife and children. No sooner had the master left than this slave began to take away his master's property and plot evil against the life of his wife and children: moreover, he planned the death of his master. The question to which he (the sultan) asked the mufti to answer was: "What sentence could legally be given to this slave?" The mufti replied that he thought he deserved to be tortured to death.”



Thus, the religious consciousness of the Sultan was saved. Marching eastward, he reached his field headquarters in Eregli in September and summoned Mustafa from Amasya. Friends, aware of the fate that could await him, begged Mustafa not to obey. But he replied that if he was destined to lose his life, he could not have done better than to return back to the source from which he came. “Mustafa,” Busbeck writes, “was faced with a difficult choice: if he entered in the presence of his angry and offended father, he would be at undeniable risk; if he refuses, he will make it clear that he was plotting an act of betrayal. The son chose a bolder and more dangerous path. He proceeded to his father's camp.



There, the arrival of Mustafa caused great excitement. He boldly pitched his tents behind his father's tents. After the viziers paid their respects to Mustafa, he rode on a richly decorated war horse, escorted by the viziers and to the exclamations of the Janissaries crowding around him, to the tent of the Sultan, where, as he expected, he was to receive an audience.

Inside, “everything seemed peaceful: there were no soldiers, bodyguards or escorts. There were, however, several dumb (a category of servants especially valued by the Turks), strong, healthy men - the killers intended for him. As soon as Mustafa entered the inner tent, they resolutely attacked him, trying with all their might to throw a noose on him. Being a man of strong physique, Mystafa bravely defended himself and fought not only for his life, but also for the throne; for there was no room for doubt that if he had managed to escape and unite with the Janissaries, they would have been so indignant and touched by a feeling of pity for their favorite that they could not only protect, but also proclaim him sultan.



Fearing this, Suleiman, who was fenced off from the tent that was only linen curtains ... stuck his head in the place where his son was at that moment, and cast a fierce and menacing look at the mute and with threatening gestures stopped their hesitation. After that, redoubling their efforts in fear, the servants knocked the unfortunate Mustafa to the ground and, throwing a string around his neck, strangled him.

Mustafa's body, placed in front of the tent on a carpet, was put on display for the entire army. Sorrow and lamentations were universal; horror and anger seized the Janissaries. But before the death of their chosen leader, lying lifeless, they were powerless.


To appease the warriors, the Sultan stripped Rustem - no doubt not entirely against the will of the latter - of his post of commander and other ranks and sent him back to Istanbul. But two years later, after the execution of his successor, Ahmed Pasha, Rustem was again in power as the Grand Vizier, no doubt at the insistence of Roksolana.

Three years later (in 1558. Note by Portalostranah.ru) Roksolana herself died, bitterly mourned by the Sultan. She was buried in the tomb that Suleiman built for her behind his huge new Sulaymaniyah Mosque . This woman achieved her goals, and, perhaps, if it were not for her intrigues, the history of the Ottoman Empire would have gone in a different direction.















She ensured the succession of the empire to one or the other of her two sons: Selim, the eldest and her favorite, who was an uninterested drunkard, and Bayazid, the middle, disproportionately more worthy successor. Moreover, Bayazid was a favorite of the Janissaries, by whom he resembled his father and from whom he inherited the best qualities of his nature. The youngest of the brothers, Jihangir, a hunchback, not distinguished by either a sound mind or a strong body, but the most devoted admirer of Mustafa, fell ill and died, stricken with sadness and fear for his future fate, shortly after the murder of his half-brother.

The two remaining brothers experienced mutual hatred, and in order to separate them from each other, Suleiman gave each one the opportunity to command in different parts of the empire.

But a few years later, a civil war broke out between them, in which each was supported by his own local armed forces. Selim, with the help of his father's troops, in 1559 defeated Bayezid near Konya, forcing him with four sons and a small but efficient army to seek refuge at the court of the Shah of Iran, Tahmasp.

Here Bayazed was first received with royal honors and gifts due to an Ottoman prince. To this, Bayezid responded to the Shah with gifts that included fifty Turkmen horses in rich harness and a demonstration of the horsemanship of his cavalrymen, which delighted the Persians.

This was followed by a diplomatic exchange of letters between the ambassadors of the Sultan, who demanded the extradition or, at choice, the execution of his son, and the Shah, who resisted both, based on the laws of Muslim hospitality. At first, the shah hoped to use his hostage to bargain for the return of lands in Mesopotamia that the sultan had seized during the first campaign. But it was an empty hope. Bayezid was taken into custody. In the end, the Shah was forced to bow his head to the superiority of the Ottoman military and agreed to a compromise. By agreement, the prince was to be executed on Persian soil, but by the people of the Sultan. Thus, in exchange for a large amount of gold, the Shah handed over Bayezid to an official executioner from Istanbul. When Bayazid asked to be given the opportunity to see and embrace his four sons before his death, he was advised to "pass on to the work ahead." After that, a string was thrown around the prince's neck, and he was strangled.

After Bayezid, four of his sons were strangled. The fifth son, only three years old, met, on the orders of Suleiman, with the same fate in Bursa, being given into the hands of a trusted eunuch assigned to carry out this order.

Thus, the path to the succession to the throne of Suleiman was opened without any obstacles for the drunkard Selim - and to the subsequent decline of the Ottoman Empire.

Selim II

Ottomans in Indianocean
and in the Persian Gulf, as well as an attempt to take Malta

Suleiman's eastern conquests on land expanded the possible scope of sea expansion beyond the waters of the Mediterranean. In the summer of 1538, while Barbarossa and her fleet from the Golden Horn fought against the forces of Charles V in the Mediterranean, a second naval front was opened with another Ottoman fleet leaving Suez for the Red Sea.
The commander of this fleet was Suleiman al-Khadim ("Eunuch"), Pasha of Egypt. His destination was the Indian Ocean, in whose waters the Portuguese had achieved an alarming degree of superiority. Their plans included turning the trade of the East away from the ancient routes of the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf to a new route around the Cape of Good Hope.
Like his father, this was a matter of concern to Suleiman, and he was now ready to take action in response to the appeal of a fellow, Shah Bahadur, the Muslim ruler of Gujarat, located on the Malabar coast north of Bombay.

Suleiman kindly listened to the ambassador of Shah Bahadur as a Muslim Muslim. As leader of the faithful, it seemed to him his duty to help the Crescent wherever it came into conflict with the Cross. Accordingly, Christian enemies must be expelled from the Indian Ocean.



Suleiman Pasha, the Eunuch, who commanded the expedition, was a man of advanced age and of such a corpulent physique that he could hardly stand up even with the help of four people. But his fleet consisted of almost seventy ships, well armed and equipped, and had on board a significant land army, the core of which was the Janissaries.

Having reached Aden, the admiral hung the local sheikh on the yardarm of his flagship, plundered the city and turned its territory into a Turkish sanjak. Thus, the entrance to the Red Sea was now in the hands of the Turks.




Instead of looking for the Portuguese fleet and, in accordance with the orders of the Sultan, engage them in a battle in the Indian Ocean, in which, thanks to superior firepower, one could count on success, the Pasha, preferring to take advantage of a favorable tailwind, sailed in a straight line across the ocean. , to the west coast of India. Suleiman Pasha landed troops on the island of Diu and, armed with several large-caliber guns that were transported through the Isthmus of Suez, laid a siege to the Portuguese fortress located on the island. The soldiers of the garrison, who were assisted by the female part of the population, courageously defended themselves.

In Gujarat, Bahadur's successor, mindful of the fate of Sheikh Aden, tended to view the Turks as a greater threat than the Portuguese. As a result, he refused to board Suleiman's flagship and did not provide him with the promised supplies.

After that, rumors reached the Turks that the Portuguese were gathering a large fleet in Goa to help Diu. Pasha safely retired, crossed the ocean again and took refuge in the Red Sea. Here he killed the ruler of Yemen, just as he had previously killed the ruler of Aden, and brought his territory under the authority of the Turkish governor.

Finally, hoping, despite his defeat in the Indian Ocean, to confirm his status as a "warrior of the faith" in the eyes of the Sultan, he made a pilgrimage to Mecca before proceeding through Cairo to Istanbul. Here the pasha was indeed rewarded for his devotion with a place in the Divan among the Sultan's viziers. But the Turks no longer tried to extend their dominance so far to the east.

The Sultan, however, continued to challenge the Portuguese by being active in the Indian Ocean.

Although the Turks dominated the Red Sea, they faced obstacles in the Persian Gulf, from which the Portuguese, thanks to their control of the Strait of Hormuz, did not release Turkish ships. In terms of shipping opportunities, this neutralized the fact that the Sultan of Baghdad and the port of Basra in the Tigris and Euphrates delta took possession.


Piri Reis

In 1551, the Sultan sent Admiral Piri Reis, who commanded the naval forces in Egypt, with a fleet of thirty ships down the Red Sea and around the Arabian Peninsula to drive the Portuguese out of Hormuz.




Piri Reis was an outstanding navigator born in Gallipoli (a city in European Turkey on the Dardanelles, now known as Gelibolu. Using the experience of his youth spent in pirate raids, Piri Reis became an outstanding geographer who wrote informative books on navigation, one of them about the conditions of navigation in the Aegean and Mediterranean seas - and made one of the first maps of the world, which included part of America.


Istanbul Map

The admiral now captured Muscat and the Gulf of Oman, which lay opposite the hostile strait, and ravaged the lands around Hormuz. But he could not capture the fortress that protected the bay. Instead, the admiral sailed in a northwesterly direction, up the Persian Gulf, loaded with riches he had collected from the locals, then still further up the estuary to Basra, where he anchored his ships.

The Portuguese pursued Reis, hoping to bottle up his fleet in this hideout.

In response to this advance of the "vile infidels", Piri Reis vilely left with three richly laden galleys, avoiding the Portuguese to slip through the channel, and abandoned his fleet to the enemy. Upon returning to Egypt, having lost one galley, the admiral was immediately arrested by the Turkish authorities and, upon receipt of the Sultan's order, beheaded in Cairo. His riches, including large porcelain urns full of gold, were sent to Istanbul to the Sultan.



Piri's successor, the corsair Murad Bey, was instructed by Suleiman to break through the Strait of Hormuz from Basra and bring the remnants of the fleet back to Egypt. After he failed, the task was assigned to an experienced sailor named Sidi Ali Reis, whose ancestors had been managers of the naval arsenal in Istanbul. After refitting fifteen ships in Basra, Sidi Ali Reis put to sea to face the outnumbered Portuguese fleet. In two skirmishes outside Hormuz, more violent, as he later wrote, than any battle between Barbarossa and Andrea Doria in the Mediterranean, he lost a third of the ships, but broke through with the rest into the Indian Ocean.



Here, the ships of Sidi Ali Reis were hit by a storm, in comparison with which “a storm in the Mediterranean Sea is as insignificant as a grain of sand; day is indistinguishable from night, and the waves rise like high mountains.” He eventually drifted to the coast of Gujarat. Here, being now defenseless against the Portuguese, an experienced sailor was forced to surrender to the local sultan, to whose service some of his associates went over. He personally, with a group of associates, went inland, where he undertook a long journey home through India, Uzbekistan, Transoxiana and Persia, writing a report, half in verse, half in prose, about his travels, and was rewarded by the Sultan.

Another short campaign was forced on Suleiman east of Suez. It centered around the isolated mountain kingdom of Abyssinia. Since the conquest of Egypt by the Ottomans, its Christian rulers have been seeking help from the Portuguese against the threat from the Turks, which took the form of Ottoman support for Muslim leaders along the Red Sea coast and inland, who from time to time resumed hostilities against the Christians, and finally took by force from them all of Eastern Abyssinia.

In 1540, the Portuguese responded by invading the country with an armed detachment under the command of the son of Vasco da Gama. The arrival of the detachment coincided with the ascension to the Abyssinian throne of an energetic young ruler (or negus) named Claudius, otherwise known as Gelaudeos. He immediately went on the offensive and, in cooperation with the Portuguese, kept the Turks on alert for fifteen years.
In 1557, the Sultan captured the port of Massawa on the Red Sea, which served as the base for all operations of the Portuguese inland, Claudius had to fight in isolation, he died in battle two years later. After that, the resistance of Abyssinia came to naught; and this mountainous country of Christians, though retaining its independence, was no longer a threat to its Muslim neighbors.


In the Mediterranean, after the death of Barbarossa, the mantle of the chief corsair fell on the shoulders of his protege Dragut (or Torgut).

The enemy they opposed in 1551 was the Order of the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, expelled from Rhodes but now established on the island of Malta. Dragut first wrested Tripoli from the knights to be appointed as its official governor.

When Emperor Charles V died in 1558, his son and heir, Philip II, gathered a large Christian fleet in Messina in 1560 to return Tripoli, first occupying and fortifying the island of Djerba, which was once one of the first strongholds of Barbarossa. But he was expected by a sudden attack by a large fleet of Turks, who arrived from the Golden Horn. This caused a panic among the Christians, causing them to rush back to the ships, many of which were sunk, the survivors went back to Italy. The garrison of the fortress was then brought to complete submission by starvation, largely due to the ingenious decision of Dragut, who captured the walls of the fortress and deployed his troops on them.

Fight for Malta




The way was opened to the last famous stronghold of Christians - the island-fortress of Malta. The strategic base of the knights south of Sicily dominated the straits between east and west and thus represented the main barrier to the sultan's full control of the Mediterranean. As Suleiman well understood, the time had come, according to Dragut, "to smoke out this nest of vipers."

Sultan's daughter Mihrimah, child of Roksolana and widow of Rustem, who consoled and influenced him in the last years of his life, persuaded Suleiman to undertake a campaign as a sacred duty against the "infidels".

Seventy-year-old Suleiman did not intend to personally lead an expedition against Malta, as he did in the years against Rhodes. He divided command equally between his chief admiral, the young Piale Pasha, who was in charge of the naval forces, and his old general, Mustafa Pasha, who was in charge of the land forces.


Aware of their hostile attitude towards each other, Suleiman called on them to cooperate, obliging Piale to treat Mustafa as a respected father, and Mustafa to treat Piale as a beloved son.

But in the sense of waging war in the Mediterranean, the sultan had special respect for the skill and experience of Dragut, as well as the corsair Uluj-Ali, who at that moment was with him in Tripoli. He also used the expedition as consultants, instructing both commanders Mustafa and Piala to trust them and not do anything without their consent and approval.


Grand Master

Suleiman's enemy Grand Master of the Knights Jean de la Valette was a tough, fanatical fighter for the Christian faith. Born in the same year as Suleiman, he fought against him during the siege of Rhodes and from then on devoted his whole life to the service of his order. La Valette combined.



The Great Siege of Malta was unsuccessful. The Ottoman military leader Dragut, mentioned above, died from the consequences of a head wound by fragments of the cannonball during the siege. Malta survived as a Christian bastion in the Mediterranean, and continued to be ruled by the Order of Malta until 1798, when it was occupied by Napoleon on his way to Egypt.










(After an unsuccessful siege) the Turkish armada was already sailing away in an easterly direction, beginning its thousand-mile march to the Bosphorus. Hardly one-fourth of its total composition survived.
Regarding this failure, Suleiman bitterly remarked: "Only with me do my armies achieve triumph!" This was not empty bragging. Malta was indeed lost for lack of the same strong, unified command that the island of Rhodes won for him in his youth, from the same implacable Christian enemy.



Only the sultan himself, holding in his hands unquestioned personal power over his troops, could achieve the desired goal. It was only in this way that Suleiman, with his special rights of judgment in council, decision in leadership, and inflexibility in action, achieved his goal during forty-five years of almost uninterrupted victories. But Suleiman was already approaching the end of his life's journey.


The last years of Suleiman's life
and his last campaign in Hungary

Lonely in his personal life after the death of Roksolana, the Sultan withdrew into himself, becoming more and more silent, with a more melancholic expression on his face and eyes, more distant from people.

Even success and applause ceased to touch him. When, under more favorable circumstances, Piale Pasha returned with a fleet to Istanbul after his historic victories at Djerba and Tripoli, which had established Islamic dominance over the Central Mediterranean, Busbeck writes that "those who saw the face of Suleiman in this hour of triumph could not detect on it and the slightest trace of joy.

... The expression of his face remained unchanged, his hard features did not lose anything of their usual gloominess ... all the celebrations and applause of that day did not cause him a single sign of satisfaction.

For a long time, Busbek noted the unusual pallor of the Sultan's face - perhaps due to some hidden illness - and the fact that when ambassadors came to Istanbul, he hide this pallor "under the rouge, believing that foreign powers would be more afraid him if they think he is strong and well.”

“His Highness, for many months of the year, was very weak in body and close to death, suffering from dropsy, with swollen legs, lack of appetite and a swollen face of a very bad color. In the last month, March, he had suffered four or five fainting spells, and after that another, during which his attendants doubted whether he was alive or dead, and hardly expected that he would be able to recover from them. According to the general opinion, his death is already close.

As Suleiman aged, he became more and more suspicious. “He loved,” Busbeck writes, “to enjoy listening to a choir of boys who sang and played for him; but this came to an end due to the intervention of a certain prophetess (that is, a certain old woman, famous for her monastic holiness), who declared that punishment awaited him in the future if he did not give up this entertainment.

As a result, the instruments were broken and set on fire. In response to similar ascetic doubts, he began to eat, using earthenware instead of silver, moreover, he forbade the import into the city of any wine - the consumption of which was forbidden by the prophet. “When the non-Muslim communities objected, arguing that such a drastic change in diet would cause illness or even death among them, the Divan relented so much that he allowed them to receive a week's ration, which was landed for them at the Sea Gate.”

But the sultan's humiliation in the naval operation in Malta could hardly be lessened by such gestures of mortification. Regardless of age and poor health, Suleiman, who spent his life in wars, could only save his wounded pride with one more, final victorious campaign to prove the invincibility of the Turkish warrior. Initially, he vowed to personally try to capture Malta next spring. Now, instead, he decided to return to his usual theater of war - land. He would go once again against Hungary and Austria, where Ferdinand's successor from the Habsburgs, Maximilian II, not only did not want to pay the tribute due from him, but also launched raids on Hungary. In the case of Hungary, the Sultan was still burning with the desire to avenge the earlier repulse of the Turkish troops near Szigetvár and Eger.

As a result, on May 1, 1566, Suleiman set out for the last time from Istanbul at the head of the largest army he had ever commanded, on the thirteenth campaign he personally conducted - and the seventh in Hungary.

His sultan's tent was destroyed in front of Belgrade during one of the floods so common in the Danube basin, and the sultan was forced to move to the tent of his grand vizier. He could no longer sit on a horse (except on especially solemn occasions), but instead traveled in a closed palanquin. Semlina Sultan ceremoniously received the young John Sigismund (Zapolya), whose legal claims to the Hungarian throne Suleiman recognized when he was still a baby. Like an obedient vassal, Sigismund now knelt three times before his master, each time receiving an invitation to rise, and when he kissed the hand of the Sultan, he was greeted by him, like a dear beloved son.

Offering his help as an ally, Suleiman made it clear to the young Sigismund that he fully agreed with such modest territorial claims as put forward by the Hungarian king.

From Semlin, the Sultan turned to the fortress of Szigetvar, trying to mark its commandant, the Croat Count Nikolai Zrinyi. The worst enemy of the Turks since the siege of Vienna, Zrinyi had just attacked the bey of the sanjak and the favorite of the Sultan, killing him along with his son, taking away all his property and a large amount of money as trophies.

The campaign to Szigetvar, thanks to the untimely zeal of the quartermaster, was completed, contrary to orders, in one day instead of two, which completely exhausted the Sultan, who was in poor condition, and so enraged him that he ordered the beheading of this man. But Grand Vizier Mehmed Sokollu begged not to execute him. The enemy, as the Vizier astutely proved, would be daunted by the proof that the Sultan, in spite of his advanced age, could still double the length of a day's march, as in the energetic days of his youth. Instead, Suleiman, still enraged and thirsting for blood, ordered the execution of the governor of Buda for incompetence in his field of activity.

Then, despite the stubborn and costly resistance of Zrinya, who erected a cross in the center of the fortress, Szigetvar was encircled. After the loss of the city itself, it closed in the citadel with a garrison that raised a black flag and declared its determination to fight to the last man. Admired by such heroism, but nevertheless frustrated by the delay in capturing such an insignificant fortress, Suleiman offered generous terms of surrender, seeking to tempt Zrinyi with the prospect of serving in the Turkish army as the de facto ruler of Croatia (i.e. Croatia. Zrinyi was the commander of Croatia under the rule of the Habsburgs. He died in this battle.His great-grandson and full namesake was the ban (ruler) of Croatia under the rule of Austria-Hungary a hundred years later and also fought the Turks. However, all proposals were rejected with contempt. After that, in preparation for the decisive assault, on the orders of the Sultan, Turkish sappers brought a powerful mine under the main bastion in two weeks. On September 5, a mine was detonated, causing devastating destruction and a fire that made the citadel powerless to defend.

But Suleiman was not destined to see this last victory of his. He died that same night in his tent, perhaps from a stroke of apoplexy, perhaps from a heart attack, the result of extreme exertion.


Grand Vizier Sokollu
A few hours before his death, the sultan remarked to his grand vizier: "The great drum of victory must not yet be heard."

Sokollu initially concealed the news of the death of the sultan, allowing the soldiers to think that the sultan had taken refuge in his tent due to an attack of gout, which prevented him from appearing in public. In the interests of secrecy, the grand vizier was said to have even strangled the physician Suleiman.

So the battle went to its victorious end. The Turkish batteries continued shelling for several more days, until the citadel was completely destroyed, with the exception of one tower, and its garrison was not killed, except for six hundred survivors. Zrinyi led them to the last battle, luxuriously dressed and adorned with jewels, as if on a holiday, in order to die in a spirit worthy of self-sacrifice glory and be included in the number of Christian great martyrs. When the Janissaries broke into their ranks with the aim of capturing Zrinyi, he fired from a large mortar with such a powerful charge that hundreds of Turks died dead; then, sword in hand, Zrinyi and his comrades fought heroically until Zrinyi himself fell and scarcely any of the six hundred were still alive. His last act was to lay a land mine under an ammunition depot, which exploded, killing about three thousand Turks.

The Grand Vizier Sokollu wished more than anything that Selim's succession to the throne, to whom he sent the news of his father's death by express courier in Kutahya, Anatolia, would be peaceful. He did not reveal his secret for several more weeks. The government continued to conduct its affairs as if the Sultan was still alive. Orders came out of his tent as if with his signature. Appointments were made to vacant positions, promotions were made, and awards were distributed in the usual manner. The Divan was convened and the traditional victorious reports were sent on behalf of the Sultan to the governors of the provinces of the empire. After the fall of Szigetvar, the campaign continued as if the troops were still in command of the sultan, and the army gradually retreated to the Turkish border, carrying out a small siege along the way, which the sultan allegedly ordered. Suleiman's internal organs were buried, and his body was embalmed. Now it was on its way home in its buried palanquin, accompanied, as it was when it was on the march, by its guards and the appropriate expressions of respect due to a living sultan.

Only when Sokollu received word that Prince Selim had reached Istanbul to formally assume the throne did the Grand Vizier allow himself to inform the marching soldiers that their Sultan was dead. They stopped for the night at the edge of a forest near Belgrade. The Grand Vizier summoned the readers of the Koran to stand around the Sultan's palanquin, praising the name of God, and read the due prayer for the deceased. The army was awakened by the call of the muezzins, solemnly singing around the tent of the Sultan. Recognizing in these sounds the familiar death notice, the soldiers gathered in groups, making mournful sounds.

At dawn, Sokollu walked around the soldiers, saying that their padish, the friend of the soldiers, was now resting with the one God, reminded them of the great deeds committed by the Sultan in the name of Islam, and called on the soldiers to show respect for the memory of Suleiman not by lamentations, but by law-abiding obedience to his son, to the glorious Sultan Selim, who now rules in place of his father. Softened by the vizier's words and the prospect of offerings from the new sultan, the troops resumed their march in march formation, escorting the remains of their late great ruler and commander to Belgrade, the city that witnessed Suleiman's first victory. The body was then taken to Istanbul, where it was placed to the tomb , as bequeathed by the Sultan himself within the limits of his great mosque of Sulaymaniyah.

Suleiman died in the same way as he, in essence, lived - in his tent, among the troops on the battlefield. This deserved, in the eyes of Muslims, the introduction of the holy warrior to the ranks of saints. Hence the final elegiac lines of Baki (Mahmud Abdulbaky - Ottoman poet, lived in Istanbul Note. Portalostranah.ru), the great lyric poet of that time:

The farewell drum sounds for a long time, and you
from that time went on a journey;
Look! Your first stop is in the middle of Paradise Valley.
Praise God, for he blessed in every world
you and inscribed before your noble name
"Saint" and "Gazi"

Given his advanced age and death at the moment of victory, this was a happy ending for the Sultan, who ruled over a vast military empire.

Suleiman the Conqueror, a man of action, expanded and preserved it;

Suleiman the Legislator, a man of order, justice and discretion, transformed it, by the force of his statutes and the wisdom of his policies, into an enlightened structure of government;

Suleiman the Statesman won for his country the dominant status of a world power. The tenth and perhaps the greatest of the Turkish sultans, Suleiman led the empire to an unsurpassed peak of its power and prestige.

But the very grandeur of his achievements bore within it the seeds of ultimate degeneration. For now other people succeeded him: not conquerors, not legislators, not statesmen. The peak of the Turkish Empire very abruptly and unexpectedly turned into a watershed, the top of a slope, which gradually, but nevertheless inexorably, led down to the depths of decline and final collapse.

French King Francois I

Formation of the Ottoman dynasty

250 years after the formation of the Ottoman Empire, its growth curve, having reached an unprecedented point, froze.

This happened in the last quarter of the 16th century, at the end of the reign of Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent.

As a result of Suleiman's long campaigns, the Europeans' fear of the Turks intensified. The Europeans now understood that they were opposed not by savages who came from the Asian steppes, but by an army built in a modern manner. The Ottoman Empire became a state whose opinion had to be reckoned with in European affairs.

In Turkey, Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent was called a lawyer, which was associated with his implementation of many legislative reforms.

In essence, the Sultan did not have the authority to change Sharia law. Yes, and Suleiman, being a devout Muslim, did not at all seek to change Islamic laws. However, at the same time, the Sultan understood that in the face of a rapidly changing world, much should be changed in his own state.

If the majority of the population of the European territories conquered at the beginning of the 16th century was Christian, then in Asia the Ottomans managed to conquer the Arab countries, including all of Arabia with Muslim shrines - the cities of Mecca and Medina. All this led to the fact that, in general, the composition of the population of the Ottoman Empire became Muslim, which required the adoption of certain legislative measures. As a result, a set of laws was adopted under the general name "Maritime Crossroads". And this legislative code was preserved until the 19th century.

At the time of Suleiman's death, the borders of the Ottoman Empire stretched from Buda to Aden, from Morocco to the Caspian Sea. No wonder the Europeans awarded Sultan Suleiman the lawyer with the nickname "Magnificent". In those years in Europe they said that the name of the peak was Sultan Suleiman.

The reign of the Sultan the Magnificent can be called a classic period in the history of the Ottoman Empire. It was under him that state institutions were finally formed that ensured the permanence of state power and its stability; in short, a well-functioning system of government. At the same time, the empire at that moment was at the zenith of not only its power, but also wealth. At that time, both people and wealth from all over the vast empire flocked to Istanbul. At that time, the population of Istanbul exceeded the population of Paris, and five times the population of London. At the same time, the Ottoman Empire towered not only over Europe, but also over the world of Islam. The reign of Suleiman the Magnificent was a period of flourishing of the arts, science and literature.

The empire united various peoples - Turks, Greeks, Slavs, Armenians, Albanians, Hungarians. Not only Muslims lived within the empire, but also Orthodox, Catholics, Gregorians, Monophysites, as well as most of the Jews.