Suleiman the Magnificent

The tenth and greatest Sultan of Ottoman Empire (1520–1566)

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Lived 1494–1566, aged 72Turkey

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Wikipedia
136 languages
Cross-language footprint
Rank in Turkey
#10
Politicians
Era
1494–1566
Aged 72

Summary

Updated 2026-09-01

He held the throne longer than any Ottoman sultan—46 years that stretched the empire to 25 million subjects and turned Istanbul into the center of a world that ran from the gates of Vienna to the Persian Gulf.

Biography

About

Suleiman took power at 25 when his father Selim I died in September 1520, and immediately turned west and south with his armies. Belgrade fell in 1521, Rhodes in 1522, and at Mohács in 1526 he shattered Hungary, carving much of it into the empire. Vienna stopped him in 1529; he never broke deeper into Europe. He spent years grinding against the Safavid Empire in the east and took Iraq, while his fleet commanded the Mediterranean, the Red Sea, and the Persian Gulf. He overhauled Ottoman law with his chief jurist Ebussuud Efendi, fusing sultanic decree with sharia, and presided over what became…

Voice

In their own words

Sourced, dated quotes from Suleiman the Magnificent

Suleiman the Magnificent

said1453

The people think of wealth and power as the greatest fate, But in this world, a spell of health is the best state.

— Quoted by Mansel, Philip, Constantinople: city of the world's desire 1453-1924 (1995), p. 84

Suleiman the Magnificent

said1453

The green of my garden, my sweet sugar, my treasure, my love who cares for nothing in this world. My master of Egypt, my Joseph, my everything, the queen of my heart's realm.

— Quoted by Mansel, Philip, Constantinople: city of the world's desire 1453-1924 (1995), p. 84

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