Suleyman I Biography

Suleyman I (also Suleiman) was the greatest sultan of the Ottomans and one of the 16th century’s most formidable conquerors. He succeeded his father, Selim I, as sultan in 1520 and soon began expanding the empire, conquering Belgrade (1521) and Rhodes (1522) before turning his attention to Persia in the 1530s. Suleyman also captured Baghdad (1534) and Tabriz (1535) and battled Emperor Charles V over Hungary and Austria in the 1540s. He also sent naval forces to North Africa and conquered Tripoli in 1551. Suleyman transformed Istanbul into a model of human achievement in architecture and the arts and reconstructed the Ottoman legal system, and he is considered one of Islam’s great poets. A brilliant strategist and administrator, he was known in Europe as “Suleyman the Magnificent” and to his subjects as “Suleyman the Law Giver.”