10 things you might not know about Sultan Suleiman I

Portrait of Sultan Suleiman I by Italian painter Titian, edited by Büşra Öztürk

Sultan Suleiman I inherited the throne of the Ottoman Empire at the age of 26. He was the only son of Selim I, who conquered Mecca, Medina, Jerusalem and Alexandria.

Suleiman I, (1494 – 1566), was known as ‘The Magnificent’ during his reign, because of his conquests and renowned wisdom. He was also known as ‘The Lawgiver’, although this epithet may date from the early 18th century. Under his administration, from 1520 until his death in 1566, the Ottoman Empire ruled more than 25 million people across Southern Europe and North Africa.

Suleiman The Magnificent had great ideals when he ascended the throne as a young man. He wanted to realise the goals of his great grandfather, Sultan Mehmed II. The basis of these goals was to establish a state comparable with the Roman Empire.

Suleiman began his reign with campaigns against the Christian strongholds in the Mediterranean region and central Europe. In 1521 he conquered Belgrade, then the island of Rhodes in 1522–23. In August 1526, the Janissaries, (the elite infantry of the Ottoman Empire), won a decisive victory against the Hungarian army at the Battle of Mohacs. Thus, the army of Sultan Suleiman found themselves outside the gates of Vienna.

Battle of Mohacs, 1526

Suleiman annexed much of the Middle East in his conflict with the Safavids, (a dynastic family that ruled over modern-day Iran) as well as large areas of North Africa, as far west as Algeria. Under his rule, the Ottoman fleet dominated the seas from the Mediterranean to the Red Sea and through the Persian Gulf.

The achievements of Suleiman the Magnificent had made him an important force in European politics. He followed the political and cultural developments in Europe closely. Thus, an alliance was formed with King Francis I of France against the Habsburg Monarchy. When Hungary fell, (the buffer state between Suleiman and Western Europe) the Ottoman Empire and the Holy Roman Empire became neighbours. This triggered a rivalry that would last for decades. Suleiman I and the Holy Roman emperor, Charles V, entered a struggle for supremacy in the Mediterranean.

Map of the Ottoman Empire, 1570, Everett Collection Historical via Alamy

10 things you might not know about Sultan Suleiman I

1. Suleiman’s army was stopped at the gates of Vienna. In the autumn of 1530 his forces laid siege to the great city. This was to be the Ottoman Empire’s most ambitious expedition. With a reinforced garrison of 16,000 men, the Austrians inflicted the first defeat on Suleiman, sowing the seeds of a bitter Ottoman–Habsburg rivalry that lasted until the 20th century. His second attempt to conquer Vienna also failed, in 1532, as Ottoman forces were delayed by the siege of Güns and failed to reach the city. In both cases the Ottoman army was plagued by bad weather, forcing them to leave behind essential siege equipment. They were also restricted by overstretched supply lines. The Ottoman forces retreated from the outskirts of Vienna, but they would return again 150 years later.

2. As a young man, Suleiman befriended Pargali Ibrahim, a Greek slave, who later became one of his most trusted advisers. The two men had met at the Topkapi Palace, when Suleiman was still a prince. They studied together and were inseparable friends and also lovers. Ibrahim was promoted to the position of ‘Grand Vizier’, (the highest bureaucratic level of the state). He was known as ‘Pargali Ibrahim’ because he was born in the Greek town of Parga. Ibrahim had a Western mindset and had huge influence over the young Sultan. However, in later years, Ibrahim eventually fell from grace, following prolonged disagreements with the Sultan and his beloved wife, Hurrem Sultan. Suleiman recruited assassins and ordered them to strangle Ibrahim in his sleep.

3. Suleiman was infatuated with Hurrem Sultan, a harem girl from Ruthenia, then part of Poland. Western diplomats called her ‘Roxelana’, or ‘Russelazie’, referring to her Ruthenian origins. The daughter of an Orthodox priest, she was captured by Tatars from Crimea, sold as a slave in Constantinople, and eventually rose through the ranks of the Harem to become Suleiman’s favourite. Hurrem, a former concubine, became the legal wife of the Sultan, much to the astonishment of the observers in the palace. He also allowed Hurrem Sultan to remain with him at court for the rest of her life, breaking another tradition. Normally when imperial heirs came of age, they would be dismissed, along with the imperial concubine who bore them, to govern remote provinces of the Empire.

4. Suleiman was a poet. He wrote under the pen name, Muhibbi, and composed this poem for Hurrem Sultan:

Throne of my lonely niche, my wealth, my love, my moonlight.
My most sincere friend, my confidant, my very existence, my Sultan, my one and only love.
The most beautiful among the beautiful…
My springtime, my merry faced love, my daytime, my sweetheart, laughing leaf …
My plants, my sweet, my rose, the one only who does not distress me in this room …
My Istanbul, my karaman, the earth of my Anatolia
My Badakhshan, my Baghdad and Khorasan
My woman of the beautiful hair, my love of the slanted brow, my love of eyes full of misery
I’ll sing your praises always
I, lover of the tormented heart, Muhibbi with eyes full of tears, I am happy.

Portrait of Roxelana, titled Rossa Solymannı Vxor

5. This is Suleiman’s most famous verse:

The people think of wealth and power as the greatest fate,
But in this world a spell of health is the best state.
What men call sovereignty is a worldly strife and constant war;
Worship of God is the highest throne, the happiest of all estates.

6. Wives and concubines: Suleiman had two known consorts, although, in total there were 17 women in his harem when he was a Şehzade, (a prince with imperial blood) Mahidevran Hatun, a Circassian, or Albanian concubine, was Suleiman’s first wife. Suleiman’s concubine and later legal wife, (married in 1533, or 1534) was Hurrem.

7. He had 8 sons and 5 daughters in total, although 4 of his progeny died during childhood.

8. White Tulips: Suleiman loved beautiful gardens. His horticulturists grew a white tulip in one of the gardens. Nobles in the court had seen the tulip and they also began growing their own tulips. Images of the white tulip were woven into rugs and fired into ceramics. Suleiman is credited with large-scale cultivation of the tulip and it is thought that the tulips spread throughout Europe because of Suleiman.

9. Death: On the 6th of  September 1566, Suleiman, who had set out from Constantinople to command an expedition to Hungary, died, shortly before an Ottoman victory at the Siege of Szigetvár in Hungary. He was 71 years old.

10. Legacy: Sultan Suleiman and his close circle left a great legacy to Istanbul. Large mosques, baths and mausoleums were built. An architectural genius named Mimar Sinan became the palace architect in the 16th century. He added a new dimension to Ottoman architecture. Architectural development in this period continued after Suleiman’s death. Mimar Sinan also served during the reign of Suleiman’s son, Selim II and his grandson Murad III. Sinan built the Selimiye Mosque in Edirne, (formerly Adrianople) at the peak of his creative powers.

The Japanese Buddhist priest Kūkai, (774–835 CE) continues to be one of the most popular historical figures in Japan today. He introduced Shingon esoteric Buddhism into his country during the early Heian period, (794–1184).

The emperor awarded him the posthumous title of ‘Kōbō Daishi’, (Great Master Who Propagated the Dharma). Kūkai also exerted major influences on the development of Japanese calligraphy, poetry, and literary theory. He drew the plans for what has become one of the major spiritual and tourist destinations in Japan, the Mount Kōya Temple complex, which is designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. He also constructed ponds and irrigation systems still in use today, on his native island of Shikoku.Kobo Daishi (Kukai), via Tricycle Buddhist Review

Due to his significance in Japanese Buddhism, Kūkai, (meaning air-sea) is associated with many stories and legends. One such legend attributes the invention of the kana syllabary to Kūkai, with which the Japanese language is written to this day.

In another legend, Kūkai was welcomed by two Shinto deities, (a male named Kariba and a female named Niu) whilst searching for a place to build a temple on Mount Kōya. Kariba was said to have appeared as a hunter and guided Kūkai through the mountains, with the help of two dogs; one white, one black. Later, both Kariba and Niu were interpreted as manifestations of the Buddha Vairocana, who was the central figure in Shingon Buddhism and subject of Kūkai’s lifelong interest.

Early life

His first name is generally believed to be Mao, (meaning true fish). He was born on June the 15th, Houko 5, (774) in the precinct of Zentsū-ji temple, in Sanuki province, on the island of Shikoku. His family were members of the aristocratic Saeki family. The family home was very religious. One day, his father and mother had a simultaneous dream, of an Indian Buddhist monk riding on top of a glittering violet-coloured cloud, which entered into the mother’s chest. At Shingon, June 15th takes the name of ‘Aoba Matsuri’ (Fresh Leaves Festival) and marks Daishi’s birthday.Portrait of Kobo Daishi (Kukai) as a Boy (Chigo Daishi)

His childhood involved making Buddhist images in the dirt, collecting grass, or wood to make shrines and worshipping the Buddha. At seven years of age, he ascended the nearby Shashin ga Dake Peak and prayed to the Buddha: “When I become big, I want to aid the ailing. If I shall have that power, please bless me with a long life,” and then he jumped off a high cliff into the ravine. From below, a beautiful sound manifested, along with a celestial maiden. Young Mao was saved. He was overjoyed and thus became even more zealous in his studies.

By the age of 14, he was studying at Sanuki. When he was 15, he left for the capital (Nagaoka) and studied the writings of his uncle, the Confucian scholar Ato-no Otari, and entered university at the age of 18. There he encountered a monk who first raised his interest in Buddhism by revealing a technique of repetition to better remember texts.

At age 20, he overcame the resistance from his family and entered the priesthood at Makino Osanji in Izumi no Kuni (Osaka) and adopted the name Kukai. His deliberations on the merits of the three main schools of thought – Buddhism, Confucianism, and Taoism – are set out in his ‘Indications’, a fictional discussion, written circa 798 CE, between three men. Each man represents one of the three branches of philosophy. Needless to say, the Buddhist is the more convincing of the three.Statue of Kobo Daishi, photo credit Uncover Travel

Shingon Buddhism

Kukai’s studies of Chinese classics at the capital allowed him to visit China as part of a diplomatic embassy between 804 and 806 CE. He studied there under the master Hui-kuo, abbot of the Ching Lung, (Green Dragon) Temple and was chosen as the master’s successor. Thus he became an advocate of esoteric Buddhism, or mikkyo, which meant that only the initiated, (only those who gave up their worldly life and resided in a monastery) could know the Buddha and thus achieve full enlightenment.

The Shingon (True Word) Sect, which Kukai studied in China, stipulated that ideal leadership should not be based on Confucian principles, (as was hitherto the case) but on the teachings of the Buddha, which would be revealed to an emperor on his succession, following certain esoteric initiation rites. Consequently, priests, (with their privileged knowledge) had the highest status in the state according to Kukai, higher even than emperors.

Crucially, Shingon Buddhism proposed that an individual could achieve enlightenment in their own lifetime and need not wait for death. Rituals included meditation carried out while the body was held in various postures, sacred hand gestures, (mudras) and the repetition of secret mantras. Great importance was given to the power of prayer.

Despite Kukai’s own aristocratic background, he was known to have practised what he preached and lived the life of an ascetic, as reflected in this poem from the Seirei Shu, ‘Collected Inspirations‘, an anthology of his works compiled by his disciple Shinzei:

Valley water – one cup in the morning sustains life;
Mountain mist – one whiff in the evening nurtures the soul.
Hanging moss, delicate grasses suffice to clothe my body;
Rose leaves, cedar bark – these will be my bedding.
Heaven’s compassion spreads over me the indigo canopy of the sky;
The Dragon King’s devotion passes round me curtains of white clouds.
Mountain birds sometimes come, each singing its own song;
Mountain monkeys nimbly leap, displaying incredible skill.
Spring flowers, autumn chrysanthemums smile at me;
Dawn moons, morning winds cleanse the dust from my heart.Danjō-garan, head temple of Shingon Buddhism, Mount Koya

Mount Kōya

In 816, Emperor Saga accepted Kūkai’s request to establish a mountain retreat at Mount Kōya, as a retreat from worldly affairs. The ground was officially consecrated with rituals lasting seven days. Kūkai’s vision was that Mt. Kōya was to become a representation of the Mandala of the Two Realms, that form the basis of Shingon Buddhism. At the centre of the temple complex sits an enormous statue of Vairocana, who is the personification of Ultimate Reality.

The project was not fully realised until after Kūkai’s death. The temple remains the headquarters of the Shingon Buddhist Sect.

Death

Kūkai believed that rather than use this short life to promote the teachings, he should enter the next realm and help rescue those suffering throughout eternity. Daishi passed away on March 21, Jouwa 2, (835) at the age of 62 and left future matters to his students. For one week, until his passing, he purified one room of his dwelling. He ate nothing and purified his body with perfume. He sat in the lotus position, put his hands in a mudra form and entered into the meditation of Maitreiya. Legend has it that Kūkai has not died, but has entered into an eternal samadhi, (meditative trance) and is still alive on Mount Kōya, awaiting the appearance of Maitreya, the future Buddha.

Shikoku henro

The Shikoku Pilgrimage, also called the ‘Shikoku henro (四国遍路)’ or the ‘88 pilgrimage’ was established over 1,200 years ago. Inspired by Kūkai, the standard walking route, (approximately 1,200 kilometres, or 750 miles long) can take anywhere from 30 to 60 days to complete. The pilgrimage is traditionally completed on foot, although modern pilgrims use cars, taxis, buses, motorcycles, or bicycles. The pilgrimage and its customs are deeply ingrained in the people of Shikoku. Visitors are often moved by their legendary hospitality of the local people and the osettai culture. *Osettai is the act of giving gifts to pilgrims on the henro. Shikoku Henro (Shikoku Pilgramage)

For more than 400 years, the Roman Empire had a profound influence in Britain. The Romans called the British Isles ‘Britannia’. The actual occupation lasted from 43 AD to 410 AD, although the Romans first entered Britannia in 55 BC under the leadership of Julius Caesar. He crossed the channel and landed his forces in Kent. The ancient Britons fought valiantly and Caesar was forced to retreat and spend the winter in Gaul, (France). He returned in 54 BC with five Roman legions, (around 30,000 soldiers) They marched across Kent and eventually crossed the River Thames. Caesar was successful in forcing some of the barbarian tribes of Britannia to pay tribute to the Romans in return for peace, but he didn’t actually conquer the lands.

John Deare’s marble relief of Caesar’s invasion of Britain, on display at the V&A, London

Emperor Claudius wanted to gain more power, by controlling more lands. In 43 AD he sent his trusted general, Plautius, with four legions of Roman soldiers, to conquer Britain and once again, the barbarian tribes of Britannia fought back. The Romans managed to defeat the Catuvellauni, (the most powerful Belgic tribe in ancient Britain) and then began organising their conquests, progressing north and west. By 47 AD, the Romans held all the lands southeast of the Fosse Way.

In 60-61 AD, an armed uprising by native Celtic Britons took place, led by Boudica, the Queen of the Iceni tribe, (who were based in present day Norfolk). The uprising was motivated by the Romans’ failure to honour an agreement they had made with Boudica’s husband, Prasutagus, regarding the succession of his kingdom after his death.

Boudica led an army to Camulodunum, (Colchester) and burnt it to the ground. The city had been made into a ‘colonia’ for Roman military veterans. These veterans had been accused of mistreating the locals. A temple had been erected  to Claudius, (a former emperor) in the city, at great expense to the local population, which also caused much resentment. Boudica’s forces then went on to destroy Londinium, (London) which, since 43 AD, had grown into a thriving commercial centre, containing a large population of traders and Roman officials. She then led her army north, to Verulamium, (St Albans).

Print by William Sharp, from the engraving by Thomas Stothard, displayed at the National Portrait Gallery, London

Around 61 AD, Gaius Suetonius Paulinus, the conqueror of Mauretania, (modern day Algeria and Morocco), became the governor of Britain. After conquering Wales and ultimately the island of Mona, he marched towards Verulamium, (St Albans) for what would be the final battle against Boudica and her army of rebels. Paulinus only had two legions available to him, (12,000 men) The Britons outnumbered the Roman forces by twenty to one. Although the Britons were gathered in considerable force, (more than 230,000) the Iceni and other tribes had been disarmed some years before and it is thought they may have been poorly equipped for battle.

The Roman army was well-trained, well-armed, highly skilled and heavily protected. Native Britons were skilled at riding two-wheeled battle chariots and using spears, but they wore very little armour. Paulinus chose to engage the Britons in a defile, (a narrow gorge) with a wood behind. The defile opened out into a wide plain in front of his legionnaires. The walls of the gorge protected the Romans from surprise attacks and the forest behind prevented Boudica from deploying chariots and attacking from the rear. Paulinus defeated the rebels in the ‘Battle of Watling Street’. Boudica died soon afterwards. Tacitus, (a well-respected Roman historian and politician) states that 80,000 Britons fell that day, with the loss of only 400 Romans.

10 things you might not know about Roman Britain

1. Roman cruelty was the cause of the rebellion in Britannia. Prasutagus, (the king of the Iceni tribe), thought he had secured independence for his people, by leaving his lands jointly to his daughters and also to the Roman emperor, Nero. However, when he died in AD 61 his will was ignored. The Romans seized his lands and violently humiliated his family: his widow Boudica was publicly flogged and her two daughters brutally raped.

2. The island of Mona, (Anglesey) off the northwest coast of Wales, was a refuge for British rebels and a stronghold of the druid community. It was regarded as the spiritual centre of Britannia. Druids had a variety of functions outside of the temple. They were teachers, scientists, philosophers, and judges in equal measure. Druids were the arbiters of the British justice system at that time. The Roman emperor Nero knew that if he killed the druids on Mona, then the native population would capitulate.

3. The tribes of Picts in Caledonia, (Scotland) were violent warriors and they were able to resist Roman invasion. In 122 AD, the Roman Emperor Hadrian decided to build a wall across the middle of Britain, in order to keep the Pics out of Britannia. This structure helped defend the new lands of the Roman Empire from the barbarians in Caledonia. When Hadrian’s Wall was completed it spanned 73 miles, (the entire width of the land, from Wallsend on the River Tyne, in the east, to Bowness-on-Solway in the west) and fluctuated in height, from 3 to 6 metres, along the entire length. The structure was 3 to 6 metres wide, with a deep, ditch-like construction, called a vallum, running immediately south of the wall. Soldiers were garrisoned along the line of the wall in large forts, smaller milecastles and intervening turrets. The remains of the wall are now part of the ‘UNESCO Transnational World Heritage Site Frontiers of the Roman Empire’.

4. In 410 AD, the majority of the Roman troops were forced to leave Britannia in order to defend their capital city against various barbarian tribes. The Goths and Vandals sacked the city of Rome twice in the 5th century, (in 410 and 455) As the Roman Empire declined in power, the Western Roman Empire collapsed in 476.

Hadrian’s Wall

5. The Roman legacy in Britannia is considerable. The Romans were master builders and had advanced engineering skills, which allowed them to build technologically advanced walls, roads and aqueducts, to transport water. They also introduced concrete to the islands. They built many miles of roads in Britannia, (around 55,000 miles). Some of these roads are still in use today, such as the A1 from York, (Eboracum).

6. They left behind a rich and sophisticated Roman culture, in the form of government systems, laws, the Latin language and the Julian calendar. The Julian calendar was the first to consist of 365 days, (with a leap year every four years). July and August were named after the early rulers Julius Caesar and Emperor Augustus. This calendar forms the basis of the Gregorian calendar that we use today.

7. The Romans left an advanced system of currency in Britain. Some of the tribes in the South of England produced coins before the Romans arrived, however, they were not used for purchasing things. The Romans brought in their own coinage, which was the same across the Empire. A denarius minted in Rome could be spent in Britain, North Africa or Turkey.

8. Bathing was an extremely important part of Roman life. Going to the baths was a social event. Baths were also places for exercise, gambling and catching up on the gossip. They usually contained hot rooms, both dry and wet, cold plunge pools and warm baths. The city of Aqua Sulis, (Bath) was named after the elaborate Roman baths built there. Although the Romans didn’t have central heating, they did have ways (other than fireplaces) to keep buildings warm. Raised floors, laid on squat columns, allowed hot air to circulate. Fires would be lit in stoke-holes, which allowed hot air to circulate and so the Romans brought the concept of underfloor heating to Britain as well.

9. The Romans introduced street stalls, selling food. With more than 10,000 soldiers in Britain, based at forts such as Birdoswald, having access to convenient food in towns and cities was vitally important and vendors serving fast food would have been commonplace. The Romans also introduced some staple foods, such as apples, pears and peas to Britain.

10. In ‘Life of Brian’ the infamous Monty Python film, John Cleese, playing Reg, (the leader of the revolutionary group ‘The People’s Front of Judea’) says: “All right, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?” That just about sums up the influence of the Roman Empire on Britain.

Roman Baths in Bath, UK

Following the Roman retreat, Britain plunged into a period known as the ‘Dark Ages’. The 5th and 6th centuries are wrapped in obscurity. Records are few, difficult to interpret, propagandist, or written long after the events they describe. After 350 years of Roman rule, all Britons were, in a sense, Romans. However, Britain was no longer protected by an imperial power, so these people were vulnerable to attack. At first, the chief enemies of an independent Britain were Irish raiders from the west and Picts from the north. Later, Angles, Saxons and Jutes arrived from across the North Sea.

Photo credit, History Skills