Süleyman I

Süleyman I

 or Süleyman the Magnificent

(born November 1494?/April 1495?—died Sept. 5/6, 1566, near Szigetvár, Hung.) Ottoman sultan (r. 1520–66). He became sultan of the Ottoman Empire after serving as a provincial governor under his grandfather Bayezid II and his father, Selim I (r. 1512–20). He immediately began leading campaigns against the Christians, taking Belgrade (1521) and Rhodes (1522). At the Battle of Mohács (1526) he broke the military strength of Hungary. In 1529 he laid siege to Vienna but failed to capture it. Further campaigns in Hungary (1541, 1543) left the region divided between Habsburg- and Ottoman-dominated areas. Iraq and eastern Anatolia were captured during his first campaign (1534–35) against the Persian Safavid dynasty; his second (1548–49) brought conquests in southern Anatolia around Lake Van; but his third (1554–55) was unsuccessful. His navy, under Barbarossa, controlled the Mediterranean Sea. He built mosques, bridges, and aqueducts and surrounded himself with great poets and legal scholars. His reign is considered a high point of Ottoman civilization.