S�leyman the Magnificent 1494-1566
Ottoman emperor, one of the greatest of the Ottoman sultans

S�leyman succeeded his father Selim I in 1520 at a time when the empire was strong both on land and at sea. He himself was an experienced soldier and administrator, and was known to his own people as Kanuni, the 'Lawgiver'. He instituted a programme of internal reforms, aimed at securing higher standards of justice and administration and ensuring freedom of religion throughout the empire. He was an energetic patron of the arts, and literature as well as architecture and the visual arts flourished in Istanbul during his rule.

He extended the bounds of his empire both to the east and west, capturing Belgrade in 1521 and Rhodes (from the Knights of St John) in 1522, and defeating the Hungarians in 1526. His advance to the west was finally checked in 1529 at the gates of Vienna, which he failed to take after a hard siege. In the east, he won territory from the Persians, made territorial gains in North Africa as far as Morocco, and took Aden on the Red Sea. Under Barbarossa the Ottoman fleet was able to establish naval supremacy in the eastern Mediterranean and Aegean while also challenging the Portuguese in the east. They twice failed to capture Malta, but annexed Cyprus in 1570.

Constant campaigning led S�leyman to withdraw increasingly from the active direction of government at home, a tendency which under his successors greatly weakened the empire in the long term. Nevertheless during his reign Ottoman power abroad and Ottoman institutions and culture at home reached the peak of their achievement.

Bibliography: N Itzkowitz, Ottoman Empire and Islamic Tradition (1972); H Inalcik, The Ottoman Empire: The Classical Age 1300-1600 (1973); Robert Merriman, Suleiman the Magnificent, 1520-66 (1944).