Selim I (; ; 10 October 1470 – 22 September 1520), known as Selim the Grim or Selim the Resolute[
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Selim's conquest of the Middle Eastern heartlands of the Muslim world, and particularly his assumption of the role of guardian of the Hajj, established the Ottoman Empire as the pre-eminent Muslim state. His conquests dramatically shifted the empire's geographical and cultural center of gravity away from the Balkans and toward the Middle East. By the eighteenth century, Selim's conquest of the Mamluk Sultanate had come to be romanticized as the moment when the Ottomans seized leadership over the rest of the Muslim world, and consequently Selim is popularly remembered as the first legitimate Ottoman Caliph, although stories of an official transfer of the caliphal office from the Mamluk Abbasid dynasty to the Ottomans were a later invention.[
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Early life
Selim was born in Amasya on 10 October 1470 as the son of Şehzade Bayezid (later Bayezid II) during the reign of his grandfather Mehmed II. His mother was Ayşe Gülbahar Hatun, a Pontic Greeks concubine, formerly confused with Ayşe Hatun, another consort of Bayezid and daughter of Alaüddevle Bozkurt Bey, the eleventh ruler of the Dulkadirids.
Reign
Governor of Trabzon
During his reign as governor of Trabzon Selim had earned a great reputation among his military men for his confrontations with the Safavids, slave raids and a campaign in the Caucasus against Georgia.[ The Last Muslim Conquest: The Ottoman Empire and Its Wars in Europe. Gábor Ágoston. Princeton University Press.] The following year he invaded the Caucasus, subdued western Georgia, brought the Imereti and Guria under Ottoman domination and seized a large number of slaves.[ p. 21: 1509 nolu Rize şeriyye sicili ışığında Rizede sosyal hayat. Ü Erkan. 2007.][ p. 19: Gürcistanın yeni jeopolitiği. C Küçükali. 2015.][ From Dynastic Principality to Imperial District: The Incorporation of Guria Into the Russian Empire to 1856. Kenneth Church. University of Michigan, 2001] In 1510 he defeated the Safavids again in the Campaign of Trabzon.
Accession
By 1512 Şehzade Ahmed was the favorite candidate to succeed his father. Bayezid, who was reluctant to continue his rule over the empire, announced Ahmed as heir apparent to the throne. Angered by this announcement, Selim rebelled, and while he lost the first battle against his father's forces, Selim ultimately dethroned his father. Selim commanded 30,000 men, whereas his father led 40,000. Selim only escaped with 3,000 men. This marked the first time that an Ottoman prince openly rebelled against his father with an army of his own. Selim ordered the exile of Bayezid to a distant "sanjak", Dimetoka (in the north-east of present-day Greece). Bayezid died immediately thereafter.[ The Classical Age, 1453–1600 Retrieved on 16 September 2007] Selim put his brothers (Şehzade Ahmet and Şehzade Korkut) and nephews to death upon his accession. His nephew Şehzade Murad, son of the legal heir to the throne Şehzade Ahmed, fled to the neighboring Safavid Empire after his expected support failed to materialize. This fratricidal policy was motivated by bouts of civil strife that had been sparked by the antagonism between Selim's father and his uncle, Cem Sultan, and between Selim himself and his brother Ahmet.
Alevi unrest
After many centuries of calm, the Alevism population began an open rebellion while Selim I was the sultan, and they seem to have been backed by the Qizilbash of Safavid Iran. This led to harsh reprisals against the Alevis by the Ottoman Army under Selim I.
Conquest of the Middle East
Safavid Empire
One of Selim's first challenges as sultan involved the growing tension between the Ottoman Empire and the Safavid Empire led by Ismail I, who had recently brought the Safavids to power and had switched the Persian state religion from Sunni Islam to adherence to the Twelver branch of Shia Islam. By 1510 Ismail had conquered the whole of Iran and Azerbaijan,[BBC, ( LINK)] southern Dagestan (with its important city of Derbent), Mesopotamia, Armenia, Greater Khorasan, Eastern Anatolia, and had made the Georgian kingdoms of Kartli and Kakheti his vassals.
Early in his reign, Selim created a list of all Shiites ages 7 to 70 in a number of central Anatolian cities including Tokat, Sivas and Amasya. As Selim marched through these cities, his forces rounded up and executed all the Shiites they could find. Most of them were beheaded. The massacre was the largest in Ottoman history, until the end of the 19th century.
In 1514 Selim I attacked Ismail's kingdom to stop the spread of Shiism into Ottoman dominions. Selim and Ismā'il had exchanged a series of belligerent letters prior to the attack. On his march to face Ismā'il, Selim had 50,000 Alevis massacred, seeing them as enemies of the Ottoman Empire. Selim I defeated Ismā'il at the Battle of Chaldiran in 1514.[Michael Axworthy Iran: Empire of the Mind (Penguin, 2008) p. 133] Ismā'il's army was more mobile and his soldiers better prepared, but the Ottomans prevailed due in large part to their efficient modern army, possession of artillery, black powder and . Ismā'il was wounded and almost captured in battle, and Selim I entered the Iranian capital of Tabriz in triumph on 5 September,
Syria, Palestine, Egypt, and the Arabian Peninsula
Sultan Selim then conquered the Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt, defeating the Mamluk Egyptians first at the Battle of Marj Dabiq (24 August 1516), and then at the Battle of Ridanieh (22 January 1517). This led to the Ottoman annexation of the entire sultanate, from Ottoman Syria and Palestine in Levant, to Habesh Eyalet and Yemen Eyalet in the Arabian Peninsula, and ultimately Egypt itself. This permitted Selim to extend Ottoman power to the Muslim holy cities of Mecca and Medina, hitherto under Egyptian rule. Rather than style himself the Ḥākimü'l-Ḥaremeyn, or The Ruler of The Two Holy Cities, he accepted the more pious title Ḫādimü'l-Ḥaremeyn, or The Servant of The Two Holy Cities.[ Yavuz Sultan Selim Government Retrieved on 16 September 2007]
The last Abbasid caliph, al-Mutawakkil III, was residing in Cairo as a Mamluk puppet at the time of the Ottoman conquest. He was subsequently sent into exile in Istanbul. In the eighteenth century, a story emerged claiming that he had officially transferred his title to the Caliphate to Selim at the time of the conquest. In fact, Selim did not make any claim to exercise the sacred authority of the office of caliph, and the notion of an official transfer was a later invention.
After conquering Damascus in 1516, Selim ordered the restoration of the tomb of Ibn Arabi (d. 1240), a famous Sufi master who was highly revered among Ottoman Sufis.
Death
A planned campaign westward was cut short when Selim was overwhelmed by sickness and subsequently died in the ninth year of his reign aged 49. Officially, it is said that Selim succumbed to a mistreated carbuncle. Some historians, however, suggest that he died of cancer or that his physician poisoned him.
On 22 September 1520 Selim I's eight-year reign came to an end. Selim died and was brought to Istanbul, so he could be buried in Yavuz Selim Mosque, which his son and successor, Sultan Suleiman I, commissioned in loving memory of his father. Selim I had conquered and unified the Islamic holy lands. Protecting the lands in Europe, he gave priority to the East, as he believed the real danger came from there.
Personality
By most accounts, Selim had a fiery temper and had very high expectations of those below him. Several of his viziers were executed for various reasons. A famous anecdote relates how another vizier playfully asked the Sultan for some preliminary notice of his doom so that he might have time to put his affairs in order. The Sultan laughed and replied that indeed he had been thinking of having the vizier killed but had no one fit to take his place, otherwise he would gladly oblige. A popular Ottoman curse was "May you be a vizier of Selim's!" in reference to the number of viziers he had executed.
Selim was one of the empire's most successful and respected rulers, being energetic and hardworking. During his short eight years of ruling, he accomplished momentous success. Despite the length of his reign, many historians agree that Selim prepared the Ottoman Empire to reach its zenith under the reign of his son and successor, Suleiman the Magnificent.[ Necdet Sakaoğlu, Bu Mülkün Sultanları, p. 127]
Selim was bilingual in Turkish and Persian, with the Ottoman literary critic Latifî (died 1582) noting that he was "very fond of speaking Persian".[Bertold Spuler, Persian Historiography and Geography, (Pustaka Nasional Pte Ltd, 2003), 68; " On the whole, the circumstance in Turkey took a similar course: in Anatolia, the Persian language had played a significant role as the carrier of civilization. ....where it was at time, to some extent, the language of diplomacy...However Persian maintained its position also during the early Ottoman period in the composition of histories and even Sultan Salim I, a bitter enemy of Iran and the Shi'ites, wrote poetry in Persian."] under the nickname Mahlas Selimi; collections of his Persian poetry are extant today.[
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In a letter to his rival, while equating himself with Alexander, Selim calls his rival Ismail the "Darius of our days".
Foreign relations
Relations with Shah Ismail
While marching into Persia in 1514, Selim's troops suffered from the scorched-earth tactics of Shah Ismail. The sultan hoped to lure Ismail into an open battle before his troops starved to death, and began writing insulting letters to the Shah, accusing him of cowardice:
Ismail responded to Selim's third message, quoted above, by having an envoy deliver a letter accompanied by a box of opium. The Shah's letter insultingly implied that Selim's prose was the work of an unqualified writer on drugs. Selim was enraged by the Shah's denigration of his literary talent and ordered the Persian envoy to be torn to pieces.[Crider, Elizabeth Fortuato (1969). The Foreign Relations of the Ottoman Empire Under Selim I, 1512–1520 (Master's Thesis). Ohio State University, 1969, p. 20. Retrieved on 12 April 2011]
Outside of their military conflicts, Selim I and Shah Ismail clashed on the economic front as well. Opposed to Shah Ismail's adherence to the Shia sect of Islam (contrasting his Sunni beliefs), Selim I and his father before him "did not really accept his basic political and religious legitimacy,"[Floor, Herzig, Floor, Willem M, Herzig, Edmund, and Iran Heritage Foundation. Iran and the World in the Safavid Age. International Library of Iranian Studies; 2. London; New York: I.B. Tauris, 2012. Chapter 5: The Evolution of Ottoman-Iranian Diplomacy through the Safavid Era. p, 81.] beginning the portrayal of the Safavids in Ottoman chronicles as kuffar.[Floor, Herzig, Floor, Willem M, Herzig, Edmund, and Iran Heritage Foundation. Iran and the World in the Safavid Age. International Library of Iranian Studies; 2. London; New York: I.B. Tauris, 2012. Chapter 5: The Evolution of Ottoman-Iranian Diplomacy through the Safavid Era. p. 82.] After the Battle of Chaldiran, Selim I's minimal tolerance for Shah Ismail disintegrated, and he began a short era of closed borders with the Safavid Empire.
Selim I wanted to use the Ottoman Empire's central location to completely cut the ties between Shah Ismail's Safavid Empire and the rest of the world.[Küçükdağ, Yusuf. "Measures Taken by the Ottoman State against Shah İsmail's Attempts to Convert Anatolia to Shia." University of Gaziantep Journal of Social Sciences 7, no. 1 (2008). p. 12.] Even though the raw materials for important Ottoman silk production at that time came from Persia rather than developed within the Ottoman Empire itself,[Floor, Herzig, Floor, Willem M, Herzig, Edmund, and Iran Heritage Foundation. Iran and the World in the Safavid Age. International Library of Iranian Studies; 2. London; New York: I.B. Tauris, 2012. Chapter 13: Trade between the Ottomans and Safavids: The Acem Tϋccari and others. p. 237.] he imposed a strict embargo on Iranian silk in an attempt to collapse their economy.[Floor, Herzig, Floor, Willem M, Herzig, Edmund, and Iran Heritage Foundation. Iran and the World in the Safavid Age. International Library of Iranian Studies; 2. London; New York: I.B. Tauris, 2012. Chapter 13: Trade between the Ottomans and Safavids: The Acem Tϋccari and others. p. 238.] So strict was this embargo that, "merchants who had been incautious enough not to immediately leave Ottoman territory when war was declared had their goods taken away and were imprisoned,"[Küçükdağ, Yusuf. "Measures Taken by the Ottoman State against Shah İsmail's Attempts to Convert Anatolia to Shia." University of Gaziantep Journal of Social Sciences7, no. 1 (2008). p. 11.] Iranian merchants were barred from entering the borders of the Ottoman Empire under Selim I. Shah Ismail received revenue via customs duties, therefore after the war to demonstrate his commitment to their thorny rivalry, Selim I halted trade with the Safavids
This embargo and closed borders policy was reversed quickly by his son Suleyman I after Selim I's death in 1520.
Relations with Babur
Babur's early relations with the Ottomans were poor because Selim I provided Babur's Uzbek rival Ubaydullah Khan with powerful and .
Family
Consorts
Selim I had many concubines[KAYA ŞAHİN; Peerless Among Princes: The Life and Times of Sultan Süleyman; Pg 36], the only known consort being the mother of his successor and only surviving son, Suleiman the Magnificent:
Allegedly, Selim had another consort:
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Ayşe Hatun, who entered into Selim's harem after the death of her first consort, Selim's half-brother Şehzade Mehmed
[Ilya V. Zaytsev, The Structure of the Giray Dynasty (15th-16th centuries): Matrimonial and Kinship Relations of the Crimean Khans in Elena Vladimirovna Boĭkova, R. B. Rybakov (ed.), Kinship in the Altaic World: Proceedings of the 48th Permanent International Altaistic Conference, Moscow 10–15 July 2005, p. 341]
Sons
Selim I had at least six sons:
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Şehzade Salih (died 1499, buried in Gülbahar Hatun Mausoleum, Trabzon)
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Şehzade Orhan (1500? – 1510?)
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Şehzade Musa (? – before 1520)
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Şehzade Korkud (? – before 1520)
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Suleiman I (1494–1566) – with Hafsa Hatun. Also known as Suleiman the Magnificent, became sultan after his father's death.
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Üveys Pasha (1512–1547). Illegitimate son, governor of Yemen
Daughters
Selim I had at least nine daughters:
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Hanım Sultan or Hatice Sultan - daughter of Selim I she was married around 1508. Her first husband was Bostancıbaşı İskender Pasha, beyberli of Egriboz and later admiral, who was made a vezir and later executed on the orders of her father. In 1517, she was re-married to İskenderzade (Boşnak) Mustafa Pasha who died in 1525/26. Earlier tradition used to believe that she was married to Pargalı Ibrahim Pasha but Ebru Turan's essay on "The Marriage of Ibrahim Pasha" has debunked this tradition. She had multiple children.
[İsmail Hakkı Uzunçarşılı: Yavuz Sultan Selim'in Kızı Hanım Sultan ve Torunu Kara Osman Şah Bey Vakfiyeleri]
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Gevherhan Sultan (1494-)- she was married in the year 1509 to her cousin Sultanzade Isfendiyaroglu Mehmed Bey (son of Sofu Fatma Sultan, daughter of Bayezid II), governor of Balıkesir. They had no known children and she was widowed in 1514 when Mehmed died at the Battle of Chaldiran. According to unsourced traditions, she remarried Saadet I, Crimean Khanate of the Giray dynasty. If true, she was the mother of Saadet's son, Ahmed Pasha. Her birth year is speculated as 1494 but in presence of multiple other older daughters, it seems very unlikely that a far younger daughter would have been married.
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Hafize Hafsa Sultan (? - 1522?) - She was married to Dukaginzade Ahmed Pasha in 1511, who became Grand Vizier and was subsequently executed on the orders of her father, Selim I. She re-married to Çoban Mustafa Pasha. She likely died young, as there are no certain records of her existence after the death of her first husband, especially because her second husband -if she was even married to him- was married to another of Selim's daughters, Şehzâde Sultan in 1523, at the same time when Şah Sultan was married to Lütfi Pasha. Her date of death has been confused with that of Hanım Sultan.
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Fatma Sultan (? - 1556?) - Married three times in 1516, 1522/23 and 1555/56. Maybe she had two daughters.[Peirce, Leslie: Empress of the East (2017)]
Kamerşah Sultan (died on 27 September 1503 in Trabzon, buried in Gülbahar Hatun Mausoleum, Trabzon), called also Kamer Sultan;
Legacy
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The drillship Yavuz is named after Selim I
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A third bridge over the Bosphorus in Istanbul is called the Yavuz Sultan Selim Bridge
Popular culture
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Selim I appears as an important character in the action-adventure video game
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Selim I is portrayed by Muharrem Gülmez in the Turkish historical television series Magnificent Century
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Selim I is portrayed as a major antagonist by Mahmoud Nasr in the joint Saudi-Emirati series Kingdoms of Fire
See also
Bibliography
Further reading
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Winter, Michael. "The Conquest of Syria and Egypt by Sultan Selim I, According to Evliyâ Çelebi." in The Mamluk-Ottoman Transition: Continuity and Change in Egypt and Bilād Al-Shām in the Sixteenth Century' (2016): 127–146.
External links
