The Era of Suleyman Magnificent-Crisis of Orient..

The Era of Suleyman the Magnificent: Crisis of Orientation
Author(s): Subhi Labib

Source: International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 10, No. 4 (Nov., 1979), pp. 435-451
Published by: Cambridge University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/162212
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Int. J. Middle East Stud. IO (1979), 435-451
Printed in Great Britain
435
Subhi Labib
THE ERA OF SULEYMAN
CRISIS
THE MAGNIFICENT:
OF ORIENTATION
When the Prophet Muhammad died on 7 June 632, the larger part of Arabia had
already accepted Islam. In fact, Islam had created a solid Arab community that
dominated Arabia and was ready to begin its amazing expansive movement
in world history. The Arab conquests put an end to the Sassanid Empire and
deprived the Byzantine Empire of its Asiatic dominions up to the Taurus and of
all its African possessions. Muslim troops crossed Gibraltar and subdued almost
all the Iberian peninsula. In brief: with their conquests in the seventh and eighth
centuries (634-751) the Arabs became the neighbors of the Franks and Byzantines on the other side of the Mediterranean. In Asia the subjection of Persia
brought them into northern India and the Turkish vassal states of China in
Central Asia.
In the second half of the seventh century the Arabs began to establish themselves as a new power in Central Asia. They crossed the Oxus and gained a
permanent foothold in the areas beyond it. In the first half of the eighth century
Islamic troops conquered the Jaxartes' provinces where the centers of Hellenistic
culture and Buddhism were soon to become centers of Islamic and Arabic
culture.
A confrontation with China, whose Turkish vassal states were occupied by
Islamic troops, was inevitable. A 55-year struggle between China and the Arabs
ended in 751 when the Islamic forces annihilated a Chinese army on the Talas
River. China lost its control over Central Asia.
The Arabs' huge success was owing not only to Arab or Islamic military
capacity and religious zeal but also to the world situation at that time: the
weakness of both the Byzantine and Sassanid empires, centering on their
struggle for supremacy and their efforts to check the barbarian invaders. The
continuing challenge and gigantic imperial responsibilities took a heavy toll of
their resources and energy. Internal weaknesses were not easy to overcome. The
obvious disintegration in Persia, predating the clash with the Arabs, and the
revolts of Byzantine provinces in the East as well as unstable Byzantine rule in
the West accelerated the expansion of the Arabs. Furthermore the Byzantine
Empire was facing an insoluble problem - lack of manpower - and Gaulish and
Germanic Europe did not represent a Mediterranean power. The disunity of
India encouraged the Arabs to march upon northwest Indian areas, which had
already been incorporated into the Persian and Hellenistic cultures. Owing to
0020-7438/79/0300-0408
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Press
436
Subhi Labib
local conflicts, the Arabs could invade the Indus Valley. China of the seventh and
eighth centuries was not strong enough to check the eastward drive of the Arabs.
It was not even able to support Persia against the invaders; when the defeated
Persian king sent several embassies to the son of heaven he declined to offer
any military help against the victorious Arabs.
The Arabs gained the support and cooperation of the indigenous population in
the area they conquered, thus furthering their expansive policy. On the western
front the Berbers took a major part in the invasion of Spain as well as in the raids
on Sicily and the western Mediterranean. They even supported the Arabs in
subduing rebellious Berber tribes and Berbers allied with Byzantium in the
Maghrib. On the eastern front (Oxus-Jaxartes) the Persian mawali (clients) who
fought with the Arabs were in fact fighting against their old 'national' enemies,
the Turks. On both frontiers, Islam became a dynamic factor of integration
and inspiration. The new Muslims of the conquered areas - Persia and the
Maghrib are the best examples - were now ready to die in establishing the Islamic
principles of equality among the believers. It was Islam that gave them backbone
and put into their hands a weapon against their masters: the Arabs and the
Arab Umayyad house (661-750). With the rise of the Abbasids the Empire
became primarily Muslim, and exclusive Arab predominance ceased. Power now
lay not with the Arab tribes but with professional soldiers and administrators.
The soldiers were Persians as well as Arabs; from the middle of the ninth
century, they were usually chosen from among the Turkish slaves of the
Caliphs, whose power by the beginning of the tenth century was in steady
decline.
The nomadic Turkish peoples began to play a decisive role in Islamic history the Maghrib excluded - in the tenth century. Before the end of that century and
during the eleventh century, several migrations of Turkish peoples deeply
affected the history of Eastern Europe and the Middle East. The most important
Turkish migration into the Islamic East was that of the Saljiiqs, known by the
name of the family (Saljfq) that led them. The Saljuqs entered Ma-wara'
an-Nahr (Transoxiana) in the late tenth century and adopted Sunni Islam before
crossing the Oxus, that is to say, before their penetration into the Islamic world.
As auxiliary troops of the warring Muslim powers in Khurasan and Transoxiana
they soon overcame their masters. In the first half of the eleventh century they
even expanded their military and political power to Iran. In 1055 they entered
Baghdad as deliverers of the Abbasids or as champions of the Sunni cause, thus
putting an end to the Buyid (Shi'i) hegemony over the Abbasid (Sunni) Caliphate.
Not only did they seize power in the Abbasid Empire, they also challenged
Fatimid rule in Syria. Furthermore, they broke through the traditional frontiers
between Byzantium and the Islamic world. After controlling Armenia the Saljuqs
won a decisive battle against Byzantium at Manzikert, near Lake Van, in I071.
It was the most disastrous battle in Byzantium's later history. The immediate
result of Manzikert was the intensive migration of the Muslim Saljfq and Turcomen hordes into Asia Minor, the heartland of the Byzantine Empire in Asia.
The Era of Suleyman the Magnificent 437

Under the pressure of increasing Turkish expansion in Asia Minor, and owing
to their lack of armies and pressing financial difficulties, the Byzantines repeatedly appealed to the Pope for help in expelling the Turks from Asia Minor. The
papacy, whose policy against Islam had been successful in Spain, Italy, and
Sicily, was now ready to extend the war against the Turks. Manzikert justified
Western intervention. The goal of the West was not only to rescue Byzantium
but also to release the Christian holy places from the hands of the unbelievers.
Neither aim was realized. The crusading challenge for the deliverance of the
Holy Land ended in a complete victory for Islam. Even Asia Minor was almost
lost to the Turkish hordes while the Franks were holding Constantinople (12041261).
Not only in Syria and Egypt but also in North Africa, the Islamic ecumene
built an impregnable, unshakable barrier between Africa and the West. This is
the most decisive and definite change in the history of Africa from the rise of
Islamic world power to the Portuguese discovery of the Cape of Good Hope,
and even the Spanish discovery of America - that is to say from the seventh to
the sixteenth century. During this long period Islamic maritime power in the
Mediterranean deteriorated considerably. The long challenge with Byzantium
but, more importantly, with the Christian Western maritime trade republics primarily the Italian but also the Normans in Sicily and south Italy - put an end
to Islamic naval power in the Mediterranean. Never again, after the loss of
Cilicia, Crete, Cyprus, Sicily, Malta, and the Balearic Islands, did medieval
Islamic powers regain their position of superiority in Mediterranean waters.
Even the creation of a huge navy (with seven hundred vessels, considered the
biggest navy in the Mediterranean) by the Almohad Caliph 'Abdal-Mu'min
cannot minimize the significance of this basic historical change.
(II30-II63),
Only in the sixteenth century did the Ottomans revive Islamic naval power in
the Mediterranean for a limited period.
In terms of economic history and challenge, the Muslims gradually became the
only big business partners of the Italian merchants. In accordance with the
state's newly crystallized Islamic Mediterranean policy, these Italian merchants
were allowed to trade only at certain points on the Islamic Mediterranean coast.
In other words, the African and Asiatic (Syrian) coastline of the Mediterranean
remained an iron curtain built up by Islam to face the West. This Islamic front
was able to check all the crusading enterprises. Even the rapid Mongol expansion
in the thirteenth century did not destroy it; Egypt survived the Mongol storm.
Thus, no Asiatic or European power endangered Islamic superiority and penetration in Africa from the rise of the Islamic world power in the seventh century
until the Portuguese geographical discoveries in the sixteenth century. The
situation in Asia was somewhat different. The huge Mongol Empire established
a Pax Mongolica throughout Asia and opened its trade routes -from the
frontiers in Asia Minor and the Black Sea to the Chinese ports - to its neighbors.
Western merchants and Frankish missionaries began to cross Asia for the first
time since the rise of Islam. The Pax Mongolica or Pax Tartarica, which
438
Subhi Labib
lasted for about a century (from the middle of the thirteenth century to the
middle of the fourteenth) ended with the disintegration of the Mongol Empire.
During the Mongol era of world supremacy, however, no effective political or
military cooperation came into being between Mongols and Franks. Not less
important is the fact that Islam began to spread among the Mongols themselves
as well as among their Turkish subjects, thus expanding the Islamic ecumene.
Ii
In 1243 the Mongols destroyed the Rum-Saljuq army at K6sedagh (near

Siwas), transforming Turkish Anatolia into a Mongol protectorate. But the
Mongols respected the independence of the Greek emperor, who resided in
Nicaea after the loss of Constantinople. They did not attack Frankish Constantinople. In fact, both the Greek and the Frankish emperors were allowed to
keep their holdings to counterbalance the Saljuq vassal state in Asia Minor. In
126I the Greeks recovered Constantinople, but they never succeeded in reintegrating their empire. They even neglected the fortification and defense of the
remnant Byzantine holdings in Asia Minor after moving their capital to Constantinople. But, it was neither the remote Mongols nor the weak Rum-Saljiq
dynasty that filled the vacuum in Asia Minor after 1261; this was destined for the
Turcoman Ghazi emirates, whose population increased steadily through Turkish
immigrants escaping the Mongol devastations, and also at the expense of the
Greek population in the newly occupied Anatolian areas.
By the middle of the fourteenth century the Ghazi emirates had annexed
almost all the Asiatic possessions of the Byzantines. The Ottoman Ghazi
emirate was the most successful and militant. After the capture of Bursa (originally Brusa), Nicaea (Iznik), and Nicomedia (Izmit), the Ottomans strategically
presented the most acute and pressing peril to Constantinople. Moreover, the
conflict between the competing emperors John VI Cantacuzenus and John V
Palaeologus ended in the Ottomans successfully establishing Islamic rule in the
Balkans, and from about 1365 Adrianople (Edirne) became their new residence.
Furthermore, the untimely death of the Serbian King Stephen Uros IV Duschan
in 1355 and the death of the Hungarian King Louis (Liajos) the Great of Anjou in
1382 left a vacuum in southeastern Europe which was filled by the Ottomans,
and not by the Hungarians with whom Bosnia, Bulgaria, Wallachia, and Moldavia did not intensively cooperate - as their vassal states - against the Ottoman
peril. The new masters, the Ottomans, concentrated on subduing the area
between the Danube and the Maritza. In 1389, barely 40 years after they began
to settle on European soil, the Ottomans won a decisive victory at the Battle of
the Amselfeld (field of the blackbird; Turkish Kosovo). Thereafter they became
the most successful power in the Balkans. In the defeat at Kosovo, Serbia - like
Bulgaria before her - became a vassal state and the Serbians had to fulfill their
military obligations in all the major battles of early Ottoman history: in Bayezid's
attack on Wallachia in 1395, in the victorious engagement against the Crusaders

at Nicopolis in 1396, and, finally, in the fatal battle of Ankara against Timur
Lenk in 1402. Thereafter, the Ottomans lost their possessions in Asia Minor to
the Mongols, and they had to recreate their domination in Europe after the
Mongol retreat. Western Europe did not make use of this rare chance. Almost
exactly at that time - the middle of the fourteenth century - the German colonial
movement in southeastern Europe came to a standstill.
In 1413 Sultan Mehmed I restored Ottoman unity, and the Turkish menace
was once more crystallized when H-ungary proved unable to regain Serbia or
any strategic position to the south of the Danube. With Murad's (Murad II:
142i-1451) victory against Hungary and her allies at Varna in i444, the Ottomans consolidated their power on the Danubian line. The Hungarian hero (and
regent of Hungary during the minority of Ladislau V), John Hunyadi, insisted on
avenging the defeat of Varna. He penetrated into Serbia and met Murad II in
Kosovo, where the Christian resistance fought its last battle (1448) to rescue the
Balkans. After 1448, it was only a matter of time before Christian resistance in the
Balkans was brought to an end.
On the Islamic and Turcoman front the Ottomans absorbed all other Turcoman Ghazi principalities, but they still had to face two opponents in Anatolia.
First, the Shi'i Turcomen; second, the Karamanians whose prince resided in
Konya and enjoyed the support of the Mamluk Sultans as well as the rising
religious and military order of the Safavids in Iran. Although Safavid activities
accelerated the crystallization of the challenge between Iran and the Ottoman
Empire, the capture of Constantinople was the more pressing question after the
Ottoman success in storming and destroying the Hexamilion, the Greek wall
across the Isthmus of Corinth, in 1446 (and after Murad's triumph at Kosovo in
1448). The Ottoman state, which inherited the Byzantine Empire in the first
half of the fifteenth century, needed the natural imperial capital of the area,
Constantinople.
Before the end of May 1453, Constantinople was in the hands of the Ottomans,
and Hagia Sofia was converted into a mosque when Sultan Mehmed the
Conqueror entered it to pray. Soon the Ottoman Sunni conqueror proclaimed
himself the protector of the Orthodox Christians, the Greek Church, thus
announcing the main religious orientation and the cultural characteristic of the
Empire: Islamic and Christian orthodoxy under Turkish leadership. The
traditional rights and obligations of an Orthodox Patriarch in an Islamic state
were established.
In his wars in Europe and Asia Mehmed II was annihilating the strategic
position of Venice and Genoa in the Ottoman waters, not only in the Aegean and
the Sea of Marmara but also in the Black Sea, even before the annexation of the
Crimea in I475. On the Danubian front Mehmed failed to take Belgrade in 1456,
the last barrier to his crossing the Danube and marching upon Hungary, owing
to the effectiveness of Hungarian resistance under Hunyadi's leadership.
Thereafter he concentrated his efforts on incorporating the whole Balkan
peninsula to the south of the Danube and proceeding into Italy. In the
440
Subhi Labib
Balkans Mehmed's success was sure. His forces sent to south Italy in 1480
captured Otranto (near Brindisi). The fall of Otranto might have been followed
by the sack of Rome, but Mehmed died suddenly in 1481, while he was preparing
an immense expedition. The Ottoman forces did not penetrate into Italy and had
to evacuate during the rule of Bayezid II.
Furthermore, Mlehmed checked Uzun Hasan's power in the East. Uzun
Hasan (I423?-1474), originally the chief of the Turcoman tribes known as the
Ak-Koyunlu ( = the white sheep) or the Ak-Koyunlu dynasty or state, extended
his protection to the Greek Emperor of Trebizond as well as to the Turcoman
beys of Karaman, the bitter enemies of the Ottomans in east Anatolia. In 1472, he
even became an ally of Venice, Cyprus, and the Knights Hospitallers. He promised to send a force of 30,000 men to the shores of the Mediterranean where they
were to be joined by Venetians armed with firearms. This remained only a plan.
What really happened was a separate quarrel between the Islamic powers. At
first the Ottomans routed Uzun Hasan's forces. This victory was essentially owing
to the use of firearms by the Ottomans, and Uzun Hasan had to give up further
incursions into Ottoman territory. In I474 lMehmed's forces easily completed the
conquest of the Karamanid possessions. Thereafter the Ottomans had to face
the Dhu'l-Qadr (Zulkadir or Dhulghadir) in Elbistan, and their overlords, the
Mamluks, in southeastern Anatolia.
Mehmed died in 1481. Two sons survived him: Bayezid, the candidate of the
Devshirme party, and Jem, the candidate of the Turkish nobility. In their
competition for power Bayezid reached the capital earlier and became sultan. Jem
decided to resist but had to flee to Europe when he failed to gain power in
Anatolia. The story of Jem is unique in Ottoman history. The simple fact that a
brother of the ruling sultan was still living and free could disturb the internal
peace and order of the Ottoman state. The European powers, which were still
hopelessly fighting the Ottomans, understood how to make use of the opportunity. Even the Mamluk sultan in Cairo was now very anxious to catch the
victim that he once barely supported to gain power. In 1495 Jem died in mysterious circumstances, and the constant danger that a coalition of Christian powers
might invade the Ottoman Empire using Jem as their instrument was over.
Now Bayezid continued the work of Mehmed II: the consolidation of the
Ottoman power on the Danubian line, along the eastern Islamic frontier, and
in the eastern Mediterranean.
Bayezid's rival in Hungary was King Matthias I (I458-1490), son of the
Hungarian hero John Hunyadi. In the Balkanshe retained a small area in northern
Bosnia with the support of the Croatian nobility. No serious conflict occurred
between him and Bayezid. In fact Matthias Corvinus almost dropped the idea of
serious offensive operations against the Turks; instead he began to realize his
dreams of uniting Central Europe under his own rule and of acquiring the imperial crown. An unsuccessful Ottoman attack on Belgrade and raids into
Transylvania, Croatia, and Carinthia ended in 1495 when Bayezid once more
concluded a truce with Hungary, in order to concentrate on the Italian conflict.

In fact, the French claim to supremacy in Italy accelerated the Ottoman
penetration into the Adriatic and the raids upon the Italian littoral. Venice,
facing both France and Ottoman penetration, was alarmed at the growth of the
Ottoman fleet both in number and activities - not only in the Aegean but also in
the Adriatic, where Venice still possessed her old strongholds on the coasts of
Dalmatia, Albania, and the Morea. Furthermore, the Ottoman fleet was supported by the Muslim corsairs who were becoming a formidable power at sea.
Owing to financial difficulties and lack of manpower the Signoria could not equip
a fleet strong enough to beat the Ottomans. The Holy League, formed in 1501,
including the Pope, France, and Hungary, was weak from the beginning, and
the Ottomans annexed a number of Venetian naval strongholds in the Adriatic.
In 1503 and in 1506 respectively, the continental-Mediterranean European
Ottoman war was concluded and the Christian states, implicated directly or
indirectly in the war, obtained a truce from the Sultan.
Poland was included in the peace treaty of I 503, which also asserted the Porte's
acquisition of Moldavia and the annexation of Kilia and Akkerman, at the mouth
of the Dniester. In fact, lack of cooperation between the Jagellon brothers to fill
the vacuum left by the disintegration of the Golden Horde established Ottoman
suzerainty in what we call Romania and the Crimea.
After 1503 Bayezid had to face the threatening situation in Anatolia and on the
Islamic front, where the Safavids had strong religious and political chances to
establish their power for three essential reasons. First there were the military
victories of both the Ak-Koyunlu of Diyar Bakr and the Timfrids over the KaraKoyunlu of Azerbaijan and Irak. The dynastic feuds among the Ak-Koyunlu
after the death of Uzun Hasan (1453-1478) ended also the close alliance of the
Safavids with the white sheep tribal confederations, who then became the target
for Safavid political and military ambitions. In fact, the contemporary Mamluk
sultans missed the chance to consolidate their power in the area, and the rapid
collapse of the Ak-Koyunlu left a political vacuum in Diyar Bakr and Azerbaijan
which was only filled by the Safavids. Furthermore the Timfirids failed to
maintain themselves in western Iran after the death of Shah Rukh (14051447).
In 1500 Isma'il as-Safawi entered Azerbaijan. In I50i he routed the forces of

the Ak-Koyunlu, and in the same year he proclaimed himself the first ruler of the
Shi'i dynasty in Persia.
There were hundreds of thousands of Shi'i of various persuasions in Anatolia
who could be suspected of favoring the Safavids. The unbroken vigorous Safavid
propaganda in Anatolia in the second half of the fifteenth century won remarkable
success among the Turcomen in different parts of Ottoman Anatolia. As early as
1502 Bayezid, already conscious of the danger to the Ottomans of the new Shi'i
emperor in Persia, Shah Isma'il, had ordered the deportation of Shi'i elements
from Asia Minor to the Morea. The Shi'i nomadic rebels in Anatolia, distinguished at the time by their red hats (known as Qizilbash), owed religious as well
as political allegiance to their Safavid leaders in Persia and began to undermine
442
Subhi Labib
Ottoman rule in Anatolia. Their leader, Shah Kuli, preached the end of Ottoman
domination. An Ottoman army drove Shah Kuli from Teke (in southwestern
Anatolia), where the revolt began, toward Kaysari in east Anatolia. Near this
town a battle was fought, in 151 I, in which the Anatolian Safavids were defeated
and chased from Asia Minor.
Like the Ottomans the Safavids recognized and represented the principles of
Ghazw and Futuwwa with their dynamic impact on both Islamic expansion and
Islamic urban communities in Anatolia. The Futuwwa was a brotherhood or
fraternity that combined Islamic ethics and mystical inclinations with the virtues
of the Turkish or Persian warrior. Akhism, a specific Anatolian Futuwwa with
Shi'i coloring, had already been acknowledged by Sunni authorities. It spread in
towns and dominated the Islamic 'guilds,' the groups of artisans and craftsmen,
which never possessed the monopoly of production and distribution in an Islamic
town. With the development of the Ottoman centralistic administration in the
fifteenth century and owing to their Shi'i links, the guilds lost the freedom they
had enjoyed during the early period of islamization and turkification of Asia
Minor. It was exactly during Bayezid's and Selim's rule that this fundamental
change was enforced. Both sultans simultaneously suppressed the 'guilds' and
Shi'ism in Anatolia.
In 1512 the ageing Sultan Bayezid II was forced to abdicate and give way to
his son Selim I (1512-1520), who led the inevitable war with the Safavid Shah
Isma'il of Persia and the Mamluk Sultan Qansufhal-Ghauri of Egypt.
The conflict of the three Islamic powers for hegemony in the Middle East
culminated in 1514 when Selim I defeated the Safavids at Chaldiran. There is no
doubt that the victory at Chaldiran was essentially owing to the new 'Frankish
Weapon,' the firearms which the Ottomans adopted rapidly, extensively, and
with great effect.
This Ottoman victory did not terminate Safavid rule; but the Safavids did
not dare to attack Asia Minor after their defeat at Chaldiran, and the Shi'i in
Anatolia were now at the mercy of Ottoman rule.
The Ottoman triumph at Chaldiran and the annexation of Dhu'l-Qadr by
Selim accelerated the decisive military confrontation between the Mamluks and
the Ottomans. In fact, the two big Sunni powers preferred to reckon up rather
than to face the Portuguese danger in the Indian Ocean with double energy.
Once more firearms decided the future of the Islamic Middle East. Like the
Safavids, the Mamluks did not even try to overcome or circumvent Ottoman
artillery by executing a massive surprise attack in the appropriate moment. With
their victory at Marj Dabiq in 1516 and Raidaniyya in 1517 the Ottomans
inherited the Mamluk empire, which included Egypt, Syria, northern Sudan,
great dominions and supremacy in the Red Sea area as well as overlordship of
Yemen and the Islamic holy cities. Selim also began the annexation of the Maghrib.
During the reign of Bayezid II began the Ottoman penetration into the western
Mediterranean. The fleet was employed to rescue Moorish refugees before and
after the fall of Granada in 1492. During Selim's rule the Ottomans gained a

foothold in the Maghrib, where the Spaniards had already occupied the principal
points on the coast within a few years (before the end of the fifteenth century and
the beginning of the sixteenth). Although the Spanish policy of expansion was
based on the occupation of strategic points from which raids could be carried out
in the surrounding countryside at favorable moments, Selim decided to free the
Mediterranean coasts of the Maghrib from the new aggressors and to reestablish
the traditional Mediterranean barrier between Africa and the west. Not only the
political weakness of the Maghribi states and the discovery of the Cape of Good
Hope, but also the conquest of the Mamluk empire, Libya included, made the
Ottoman intervention in the Maghrib inevitable. The Ottoman conquest of
North Africa was, in fact, initiated by the Barbarossa brothers, who shifted
their theater of action from the Aegean Sea to the western Mediterranean. The
famous admiral or champion among them, Khayr ad-Din, refused to cooperate
with the Christian powers and linked his destiny with that of the Ottoman
Empire. In I519 he swore homage to Sultan Selim, who gave him the title of
pasha and appointed him Beylerbey of Algiers. Between 1517 and 1574 the
Ottomans completed the annexation of the Maghrib except for Morocco. In
other words, all the Mediterranean outlets of the African and Asiatic trade routes
were now under the control of the Porte and of the state of Morocco. But
before the end of the fifteenth century the Portuguese were to discover the route
of the Cape of Good Hope, thus ending the unique significance of the geographical location of the Islamic world in the traffic between East and West. Sultan
Selim, however, kept up the Islamic/Egyptian traditional monopolistic trade
policy. The treaty he concluded with Venice (I517) was more or less a copy of
pre-Ottoman agreements between the Mamluks and the Signoria.
Furthermore, Selim was concentrating on increasing his Mediterranean naval
power. In 1515 he began with the creation of a great arsenal at Istanbul, where a
new, more powerful fleet was built. Also in the South Seas the Ottomans
inherited Egypt's responsibility. It is important to notice that the Ottomans
were involved in the challenge against the Portuguese even before the annexation
of the Mamluk empire. After the famous victory of the Portuguese against the
combined Egyptian and Indian forces at Diu in 1509 Sultan Bayezid II offered
his support to Egypt in her jihad against the infidels. In 151 four hundred guns
and about two tons of gunpowder were sent by the Ottomans to assist the
Egyptian forces fighting against the Portuguese in the south. Moreover, the
Ottomans placed at the disposal of the Mamluk government two thousand
warriors trained to use firearms. This force, under the command of Salman Re'is
( = Salman al-'Uthani), reached Cairo in 1512 and was immediately sent to the
Red Sea headquarters, where a bitter quarrel began between the Mamluk
admiral, Emir Hussein, and Salman. In 1517 the Ottomans took Cairo while the
Egyptian forces were fighting to strengthen their position in Yemen instead of
checking the Portuguese advance in the Indian Ocean. Before Salman Re'is
arrived in Cairo to meet Sultan Selim in 1517, he had had Emir Hussein killed.
Both Selim and his son Suleyman retained Salman Re'is as the Ottoman admiral
444
Subhi Labib
in the south, where the Egyptian Mamluk and Yemenite forces were still fighting
against Ottoman domination in Yemen.
III
Selim left to his son Suleyman (1520-1566) an empire vastly increased in size
and resources and able to resume the offensive against the Christians on a
formidable scale. Belgrade surrendered to the Ottoman forces in August 1521
and the route to Hungary was open. On 29 August 1526 came the devastating
Hungarian defeat at Mohacs. Ten days later, the victors entered Buda. Twothirds of Hungary were now lost to the Ottomans. The victory at Mohacs
encouraged Suleyman to march upon Vienna. The siege of Vienna in 1529 was,
in fact, the most daring military enterprise in Ottoman history and the climax of
the Turkish drive westward. The Christians held out against the Turkish
assault, however, and it was not the Christian defence but the difficulties of the
Ottoman expedition which decided the future of the Ottoman assault on Vienna.
Problems of supply and transport were especially hard to resolve. In spite of his
earlier misadventure Suleyman repeated his march to capture Vienna in I532.
The campaign did not fulfill its aim, nor did he reach Vienna.
In spite of his failure to capture Vienna, Suleyman was the ruler of the biggest
empire in the 'ancient world' to the west of India. He challenged not only the
Archduke of Austria and claimant to the throne of Hungary, but also Charles V,
the last Emperor (15 I9-1556) of the Holy Roman Empire.
In their conflict Suleyman and Charles had to determine the future of Italy
and the supremacy in the western Mediterranean. Suleyman's ally in this
conflict was Francis I, the bitter enemy of Charles V. The Ottomans possessed
every means to accomplish their supremacy in the western Mediterranean after
their overwhelming success in the eastern Mediterranean: great arsenals,
abundant timber, and good warriors. What they needed was an efficient high
command, a match for Andrea Doria, the best admiral of his time and the
Genoese ally of Charles. Suleyman appointed Khair ad-Din Barbarossa admiral
of the Ottoman fleet in the Mediterranean (I533). He and his splendid sailors
and corsairs were well trained in ceaseless sea forays against the Christians. In
1534 Barbarossa and the Ottoman fleet captured Tunis, but in the following year
Charles led a campaign, took it, and restored the Hafsid ruler under his suzerainty. Charles's Spanish troops were now stationed in La Goletta, the fortress
that controlled the Tunisian coast.
The challenge for supremacy in Italy reached its climax when Francis I
declared war on Charles in 1536, hoping to regain Genoa and to enter Milan.
Francis's ally, Suleyman, did not attack Italy at the same time. In 1537, after the
Ottomans had finished their naval preparations, Khayr ad-Din advanced to
Otranto, raided Apulia, and kept the command of the strait of Otranto. But in
spite of this success, neither Khair ad-Din with his big fleet, nor Francis, who
badly needed financial support, was able to stabilize his position in Italy. The

Ottomans did not dare to attack Rome, and Francis began to negotiate with
Charles for peace on the Italian front. The French danger to Genoa was over,
and Andrea Doria began to attack Barbarossa in the strait of Otranto.
A turning point in the sea war for supremacy was effected when Suleyman
ordered his forces to concentrate on attacking Corfu instead of Italy. Corfu was a
Venetian island and an important goal of the Ottoman strategy to dominate the
central Mediterranean. With Khayr ad-Din's attack on Corfu, Charles won a
new ally against the Ottomans - Venice - and a new league between the
Emperor, the Pope, and Venice was created. In 1538 the Ieague's fleet was
defeated at Prevesa by Barbarossa. Although the Christians lost only a few ships,
Prevesa was not followed up with a decisive engagement. On the other side,
neither Suleyman nor his ally, Francis I, renewed his attack on Italy after the
failure of 1536-1537. The Ottomans kept their supremacy in the Mediterranean
from Prevesa to Lepanto (1538-I571).
Soon after Prevesa the Christian League lost its value. Then Venice aimed
essentially at getting Charles's support to stabilize its position in the eastern
Mediterranean, and Charles had to concentrate on defending his position against
the Berber corsairs in the western Mediterranean. In 1540 the Signoria had to
conclude a separate and humiliating peace treaty with the Porte. On the other
side, Charles renewed his attack upon the strongholds of the Muslim fleet and
corsairs in Barbary without success. The splendid imperial armada of 5I6 sails,
carrying I2,330 sailors and 24,000 soldiers, suffered a disastrous defeat in 1541 (at
Algiers) caused by storms and rains. After this natural catastrophe Charles was
neither ready nor able to repeat the assault. Consequently the Holy Roman
Empire as well as Europe's Mediterranean maritime powers acknowledged the
de facto Ottoman sea supremacy in the Middle Basin from their defeat at Prevesa
in 1538 till their victory at Lepanto in 1571. During this period the Ottomans
completed the conquest of Tunis in 1569, but the strong Turkish Armada which
attacked the Hospitallers in Malta in 1565 failed to crush the Christian resistance
in the central Mediterranean. In the Levant the Ottomans assured their
supremacy by taking Cyprus from Venice in 1570-1571. Once more the Christian
powers - Venice, Genoa, Spain, the Hospitallers, and the Pope - formed an
alliance to check the growing supremacy of the Ottomans in the Mediterranean.
In other words, the conquest of Tunis in I569 and of Cyprus in 1571 led to the
inevitable confrontation at Lepanto, the last decisive naval battle in the
Mediterranean until the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
Lepanto, which ended in the overwhelming defeat of the Ottomans (7
October I57I), also put an end to Islamic-Ottoman naval supremacy in the
Mediterranean, in spite of the fact that the Porte restored its fleet immediately
after the battle, that Venice concluded 'humiliating' peace terms with the Porte
in 1573, and that the Christians failed to vanquish the corsairs in North Africa.
Venice could not afford a long war with the Porte. Also, the brief period when
Phillip II had been able to concentrate his forces in the Mediterranean had come
to an end. Spain was now deeply involved in Western Europe and her financial
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Subhi Labib
crisis could not allow any big military and naval engagement in the Mediterranean. Like Venice in 1573, Phillip had to make peace with the Porte in I581,
thus giving up the idea of revenge in Africa under the pressure of his precarious
position in Europe. In I588 the Spanish Armada was lost in the naval war
against England and during its journey back. Even after this Spanish catastrophe,
which created new chances for the Ottomans in the Mediterranean, the Porte
did not develop a new maritime policy which would assure Islamic supremacy
after the retreat of Spain and the decline of Venice. In fact, neither Suleyman the
Magnificent nor his successors began constructive plans for the future - either
in the Mediterranean or in the Indian Ocean; nor could the unhealable struggle
on the heretic front be overlooked or underestimated.
The important rivals of the Porte after the acquisition of the Mamluk empire
were the Shi'i Safavids. Suleyman found in France and Francis I a Christian ally
against Charles V. In the east Charles tried to establish his relations with Shah
Tahmasp (1524-1576). In 1529 Charles's envoys met the Muslim rival of the
Ottomans. This rapprochement between the Habsburgs and the Safavids had
relatively or almost no positive or military effect. At any rate, it was one of
Suleyman's pretexts to attack Persia, in order to solve frontier problems and to
take Iraq, where the Shah's governor of Baghdad had offered submission to the
Porte. In I534 Ottoman forces even succeeded in entering Tabriz. Shah
Tahmasp already knew that his forces could not match Suleyman's Janissaries
and field artillery. He avoided all risk of a great battle and even removed his
capital to Qazvin. In 1538 Basra was also annexed. There, the Porte established
an arsenal and a base of operations which had little strategic importance. In
1548 Suleyman marched once more upon Tabriz, but did not conquer it. He
returned to Istanbul in December 1549 without realizing conclusive results. A
protracted war (1553-I555) ended in the destruction of the Persian border
defenses that had long been the main point of departure for Persian raids into
Asia Minor. Now Suleyman was ready to conclude peace with the Safavids: in
the peace of Amasya (May I555) the Porte abandoned all claim to Tabriz but
retained Iraq, together with most of Kurdistan, western Armenia, and western
Georgia. This peace did not terminate the hostilities on the heretic front, which
drained Ottoman resources and manpower during the following centuries.
Suleyman did not entirely neglect his Islamic obligations in the south. In
1525 his admiral Salman Re'is exacted from certain Yemenite coastal areas a
nominal obedience; a confrontation with the Portuguese, however, did not take
place. In 1538 the Porte established Ottoman rule in Aden and ended Egyptian
resistance in the Yemen. With the reconquest of Basra in I546 Suleyman was
strategically able to attack the Portuguese from the Persian Gulf as well as from
the Red Sea. He sent three important expeditions against the Portuguese in the
Indian Ocean. The first, in 1538, was to support Bahadur Shah, the sultan of
Gujarat, to regain Diu. In spite of the huge armada the Turkish admiral ordered
the lifting of the blockade of Diu after about twenty days of siege. The two other
expeditions hopelessly tried to capture Ormuz on the Persian side of the Gulf,

thus stabilizing the Portuguese position in western India as well as in the Gulf Ormuz, Maskat, and Bahrain. In the Red Sea Suleyman, on the contrary,
chastised the Portuguese and preserved the medieval policy, averting 'the evil
deeds of the Portuguese infidels' in that Islamic sea, though he could not annex
Christian Ethiopia.
IV
Suleyman lived during a decisive period of world history. He was victorious

in Europe and the Orient, but his success was obviously limited. Suleyman
consolidated Ottoman possessions in Europe, and the Danube became the
undisputed Ottoman frontier in the north. But he failed to incorporate the
remote Danube or to take Vienna, the gateway to the center of gravity in the
west. According to his concept, which he inherited from later medieval Islam,
Rome was the center of the Christian/Frankish west. That concept was unhistorical, or at least not up to date. Rome was never the capital of the Holy
Roman Empire, whose center of gravity was to the north and west of the Danube,
not to the south of it. In any case, Suleyman also failed to conquer Rome or to
gain a foothold in Italy. In short, the two red apples, Rome and Vienna, did not
fall into the hands of the Ottomans. Furthermore, the Ottomans did not restore
the unity of the Mediterranean, although Mehmed the Conqueror revived the
Roman imperial title ;asar after the fall of Constantinople.
The local history of Western Europe during Suleyman's reign was dominated
by two essential events: the rivalry of the Habsburgs and Valois, and the Christian
Reformation which deeply divided the West. They did not, however, seriously
change the balance of power. From 1519 to 1559 the two dynasties struggled for
supremacy in Europe and in the western Mediterranean. Nevertheless, after
1529 - more exactly, after the decisive battle of Pavia (I525), in which France
was defeated - the French were checked and their future success comparatively
limited until 1559 when the Habsburg-Valois struggle came to an end with the
treaty of Le Cateau-Cambresis.
Le Cateau-Cambresis is a landmark in European history. After this peace
treaty, the activities of Europe were stimulated and the goal was the Atlantic
Ocean, which the Turks, Suleyman the Magnificant included, almost entirely
neglected. Charles V realized that the heart of his Empire was in Spain and not in
Central Europe and Germany. And it was Spain more than the imperial gold
crown that made Charles - Spain, and the mines of America. Suleyman failed
to realize the significance of this change or to foresee its deep impact upon
Europe's future and on European policy from then on.
In the Habsburg-Valois challenge for supremacy in Europe, Suleyman played
a part which must be considered of second-grade importance. Then the very
Christian King Francis I did not cooperate (or did not succeed in cooperating)
with Suleyman in his attack on Italy. Outside Italy their cooperation did not
endanger Charles's position in Western Europe. Behind and above the struggle
448
Subhi Labib
between the Habsburgs and Valois (Francis I and his successor Henry II) was a
clear aim, and Suleyman missed its significance: this aim was to hinder the
Habsburgs' predominance in Europe, to hinder the concentration of power in
one hand. And this was, and is, exactly the backbone of the Germanic way of
political thinking and political behavior.
The other essential event that dominated the local history of Western Europe
in the sixteenth century was the Christian Reformation. To weaken the position
of Charles and the Habsburgs in Germany, Suleyman the Magnificent was ready
to encourage the Protestant movement. He even promised on oath that he would
not harm the Protestant princes if Germany came under his sway. Suleyman also
encouraged the spread of Calvinism in Hungary. The Ottoman campaigns against
Vienna and Austria, however, worked on Germany to the disadvantage of both
Francis I and Suleyman the Magnificent.
At any rate, the rise of Protestantism in the sixteenth century - after the
discovery of the Americas and the Cape of Good Hope - is the best proof that
Europe had overcome the Islamic pressure or Islamic danger and was in need of
an inner religious movement or Reformation to counterbalance the papacy and
the dominant Catholic Church.
v
Suleyman's activities did not match the new dimensions of the world in which
he lived, or, simply the contemporary politico-economic map.
As we know now, in the north Suleyman did not confront the core powers of
Europe. He must have calculated the danger of Russia for the future of his
empire. Then he conceived the bold plan of uniting the Don to the Volga by
means of a canal which could have asserted Turkish control of the lower Volga
and the Caspian, thus providing a directly link with the Ozbecks who were
enemies of Persia and Turkey's allies in Central Asia. But this vital project, too,
was neglected by Suleyman's successors.
In the east his policy was almost unbelievable, in spite of all his victories.
Suleyman did not establish Ottoman Rule in Tabriz. He did not even overcome
the technical difficulties- problems of supply and transportation, the prerequisite for success in Tabriz. Almost the same problems led to his failure to
take Vienna.
More disastrous was his inadequate Mediterranean and Indian Ocean
policies. The backbone of naval policy was only the raiding principle of jihad,
which could not or did not promote a durable, solid, or progressive Ottoman
role in the Mediterranean. Suleyman, as well as his father Sultan Selim I and his
son and successor Sultan Selim II (1566-1574), challenged the Spanish penetration into Islamic North Africa, but none of them ever created a constructive
Ottoman policy there. The African coast became the corsair coast for centuries
to come.
Suleyman the Magnificant and Selim II continued the traditional Ottoman

policy to end the political position of Venice in the Mediterranean. To reach this
aim, they also kept up the traditional Ottoman policy of encouraging the other
Italian trade republics, Venice's relatively weak rivals, who could never revive
the traditional medieval trade routes after the Dutch and English broke into the
Mediterran and the Indian Ocean.
Suleyman also took France as his ally in the Mediterranean, but France was
not, or not yet, a Mediterranean maritime power. Consequently, she could not
replace Venice in the area. Suleyman's Capitulation Treaty with France is
almost always overestimated by European and American scholars. The Capitulation Treaty of 1535 (Francis I/Suleyman) is more or less an extension of the
treaties between the Italian maritime trade republics and Egypt in the later
Middle Ages - before the Ottoman invasion and the discovery of the Cape of
Good Hope. It could never have met the challenge of the economic and political
situation in the sixteenth century, when Egypt and the Islamic Mediterranean
virtually lost their monopolistic position in world trade.
Also the Greek, Armenian, and Jewish merchants - in fact, the intermediaries
between Ottoman business and the West - could not inaugurate the big maritime
and trade business between the East and the West. In spite of their vital role
for the Ottoman Empire, we have to keep in mind that they were then second
class subjects or tolerated 'citizens.'
In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the only reasonable solution
toward a constructive Ottoman policy in the Mediterranean would have been
close cooperation with Venice. The Italians, and above all the Venetians, had
been very interested in mutual understanding with the Mamluk Sultan in order
to survive the two big pressures: unhampered Ottoman military expansion and
Portuguese economic pressure following the discovery of the Cape of Good
Hope. The Mamluk Sultan refused close cooperation with Venice. It is truly
amazing that the Ottomans kept up the traditional Islamic protectionist trade
policy without shaping it to match the needs, the situation, or the scope of a
new world - the world after the European geographical discoveries and their
revolutionary results: a world of competition, not monopoly. In other words,
Suleyman did not understand how to initiate and to take the necessary steps to
keep pace with the changing world of the sixteen century.
It was during the reign of Suleyman, who failed to take Vienna or to reach
Rome and who, through his Christian and non-Christian spies and advisors, was
well informed about the increasing significance of the Americas for Europe and
his imperial rival, Charles V, that the Ottoman Empire was obviously in need
of a more constructive maritime and trade policy in the Mediterranean and the
Indian Ocean to counterbalance Charles's policy or Europe's progress in the
Atlantic and the Indian Oceans. A constructive policy would also have counterbalanced the overwhelming power of the Janissaries and at the same time
protected the state and its subjects against the abuse of the principle of jihad.
Suleyman preferred to repeat his attacks upon Vienna, the Christian Mediterranean, and Persia than to take Morocco and reach the gold sources and slave
450
Subhi Labib
areas of West Africa, as well as the Atlantic coast in order to correctly face or
compete with the rising transatlantic/Atlantic European/ Christian powers. Then
the European oceanic discoveries ended not only the traditional monopoly of the
Muslim intermediaries between East and West but also broke the traditional
frontiers of the challenge between East and West and erected new ones. In other
words, the European oceanic discoveries set new dimensions for the East/West
challenge which the Ottomans did not really or sincerely take into consideration.
For the Turks there was simply no compelling motive to undertake transoceanic journeys, because they possessed shorter routes to the Indian Ocean. But
it was, above all, trade beyond the oceans that stimulated changes in sea warfare
and progress in shipbuilding. Moreover, this accelerated the growth of world
trade; and the extension of jihad activities in the new world could as well have
kept the balance of power between the two traditional competing camps.
The Ottomans ended Venetian power in the Mediterranean, but the vacuum
was filled by the rising maritime powers of Western Europe, and not by the
Ottoman fleet or the capacity of the subject of the Ottoman Empire itself: in
1583 the English Capitulation Treaty with the Porte was confirmed and the
English Ievant Company, founded in 1581 as a joint-stock company, became a
regulated company in I6o5. At the same time English merchants began to show
their interest in the Aleppo-Baghdad-Persian Gulf-Indian trade traffic.
The Porte showed keen interest in the struggle of the Dutch Calvinists against
Catholic Spain, and in 1612 the Dutch were also granted capitulations, which
meant extraterritorial rights modeled after the Capitulation Treaty between
Francis I and Suleyinan the Magnificent.
It is important to remark that when the Portuguese reached the Indian Ocean
they immediately discovered that Muslim traders and Muslim shipowners
dominated the whole area. Neither the Mamluks nor the Ottomans, however,
succeeded in checking Portuguese expansion in the Indian Ocean area. The
essential success of the Ottomans in the south was that they hindered the
Portuguese only enough to win a foothold in the Red Sea which gradually
became, under Ottoman rule, a quiet backwater of Muslim commerce.
In fact, neither the Ottomans nor the Portuguese had the strength to win
absolute command of the Indian Ocean. It was only when maritime peoples,
Dutch and English, broke into the waters of the Indian Ocean that Europe and
the Cape route began to win a dominant share of the Eastern trade. Dutch and
English became the bitter rivals of the southern Islamic and Arabic businessmen,
who never enjoyed the imperial support of the Ottoman power.
To sum up: the Ottomans, primarily Suleyman the Magnificent, had
established an inadequate international policy. Then, instead of keeping pace
with the changing world after the crossing of the Atlantic, Suleyman initiated
capitulations in the Islamic world. In other words, Suleyman did not overcome
or break through the medieval concept of the foreign Islamic policies.
At any rate, it was in Europe and the Mediterranean area that the future of the

Ottoman Empire was decided. It was with the Peace of Karlowitz in 1699 and the
Treaty of Constantinople in 1700 that the 'Turkish Menace' for the West became
a thing of the past. Now the Ottomans had to contend with two rising powers on
their northern and Western frontiers: Russia and Austria. 'Ottoman statesmen
now finally accepted the superiority of the "Franks" and the weakness of their
own state. From now on they saw their interest in a policy of peace.' I am quoting
here Halil Inalcik.1 He says further, 'The belief that the state could be revived by
a return to the order imposed on it by Suleyman the Magnificent was abandoned,
and the Ottomans turned their eyes to the West.' In his opinion, 'the hardships
which the great war (I682-1699) had brought in its train: the increasing taxation,
the first massive revolt of the Porte's Serbian and Albanian-Greek subjects in the
Balkans, renewed depredation by the Jelalis in Anatolia, and, in general, the
impoverishment of the country, threw the empire into a decline from which it
was not to recover.' The worst defect in this good and honest statement is that
Inalcik could not appreciate the established fact that internal decay had already
taken hold during Suleyman's reign, a century earlier than the external decline.
In any case, the hard-pressed Empire could not overcome the emerging
crisis of orientation during her golden age. The internal reforms (the so-called
Westernization), from the beginning of the eighteenth century, were landmarks
in a changing - still oriental - conception, not effective enough to maintain or
save the integrity of the empire nor yet to match the Western economy. And in
spite of the military reforms instituted in order to regenerate the Ottoman army
and navy, the decline of the Devshirme system for recruiting Ottoman military
from Christian subjects accelerated the falling capacity of the Ottoman troops,
troops that never revived their vigorous and traditional military achievements of
the early days of the Turkish cavalry or the Devshirme infantry.
Just one last point, which needs no further comment. Suleyman did not
establish a solid tradition of succession to the throne, which could protect the
state from its horrible dynastical weakness. In spite of the fact that the whole
system of the empire evolved around the strong man on the throne, Suleyman
left the empire to the least deserving of his 'surviving' sons.
UNIVERSITY
OF UTAH
SALT LAKE CITY

1
The Cambridge History of Islam (Cambridge
1970), I, 352-353.

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The Era of Suleyman the Magnificent: Crisis of Orientation

Author(s): Subhi Labib

Int. J. Middle East Stud. IO (1979), 435-451

Printed in Great Britain

? 1979 Cambridge University

The Era of Suleyman the Magnificent 437

In 1243 the Mongols destroyed the Rum-Saljuq army at K6sedagh (near

The Era of Suleyman the Magnificent 439

The Era of Suleyman the Magnificent 441

In 1500 Isma'il as-Safawi entered Azerbaijan. In I50i he routed the forces of

The Era of Suleyman the Magnificent 443

The Era of Suleyman the Magnificent 445

The Era of Suleyman the Magnificent 447

Suleyman lived during a decisive period of world history. He was victorious

The Era of Suleyman the Magnificent 449

The Era of Suleyman the Magnificent 451

SALT LAKE CITY

The Cambridge History of Islam (Cambridge

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