Selim I: Sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1512 to 1520

Selim I was also known as Selim the Resolute or Selim the Grim. From 1512 until 1520, he was Sultan of the Ottoman Empire. Despite his short tenure, his reign is remembered for the Empire's massive growth, particularly his conquest of the whole Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt between 1516 and 1517. It encompassed the entire Hejaz, Levant, Tihamah, and Egypt. The Ottoman Empire encompassed about 576,900 square kilometres on the eve of his death in 1520, having risen by 70% during Selim's rule. Selim's conquest of the Muslim world's Middle Eastern heartlands, particularly his adoption of the role as guardian of the Mecca and Medina pilgrimage routes. The Ottoman Empire became the most prestigious of all Muslim states as a result of this. With his conquests, the Empire's physical and cultural fulcrum shifted substantially away from the Balkans and the Middle East. Selim's conquest of the Mamluk Sultanate had become idealised as the moment by the seventeenth century. As a result of the Ottomans seizing control of the remainder of the Muslim world, Selim is often regarded as the first legitimate Ottoman Caliph. However, there are claims that the caliphal office was officially transferred from the Mamluk Abbasid dynasty to the Ottomans.

Selim was the youngest son of Şehzade Bayezid and was born in Amasya around 1470. Gülbahar Hatun was his mother's name. She was a Turkish princess from the Dulkadir State in Maraş, which was centred in Elbistan. Alaüddevle Bozkurt Bey was her father's name. He was the Dulkadirs' eleventh ruler. According to some scholars, Selim's mother was a woman named Gülbahar. However, according to historical evidence, his biological mother's name could have been Ayşe Hatun.

Accession

By 1512, Şehzade Ahmet had emerged as the front-runner to succeed his father. Bayezid was apprehensive about continuing to control the Empire. Ahmet was named as the heir apparent to the throne. Selim was enraged by this announcement and retaliated. His father's army defeated him in the first fight. Selim eventually deposed his father. Selim was in charge of 30,000 men. On the other hand, his father commanded a force of 40,000 troops. Selim managed to flee with barely 3,000 men. This was the first occasion that an Ottoman prince publicly defied his father by raising his army. Bayezid was sent to a faraway "sanjak" by Selim. Bayezid died shortly after that. Upon his accession, Selim executed his brothers and nephews. After his expected backing failed to materialise, his nephew, Şehzade Murad, son of the legal heir to the throne, Şehzade Ahmet, escaped to the neighbouring Safavid Empire. The hostility between Selim's father and his uncle created episodes of civil strife, which prompted this fratricidal approach.

Conquest of the Middle East

The rising rivalry between the Ottoman Empire and the Safavid Empire, led by Shah Ismail, was Selim's first difficulty as Sultan. Shah Ismail had recently brought the Safavids to power and changed Persia's national religion from Sunni Islam to the Twelver branch of Shia Islam. By 1510, Ismail had conquered the entire country of Iran and Southern Dagestan, Azerbaijan, Mesopotamia, Khorasan, Armenia, Eastern Anatolia, and the Georgian kingdoms of Kartli and Kakheti. To his Sunni Muslim neighbours to the west, he posed a serious threat. In 1511, Ismail backed the Ahkulu Rebellion, a Safavid uprising in Anatolia. Selim compiled a list of all Shiites aged 7 to 70 in several central Anatolian cities, including Sivas, Tokat, and Amasya, early in his reign. Selim's men rounded up and executed all the Shiites they could locate as they marched through these cities. The majority of them were executed by beheading. Till the last of the nineteenth century, the massacre was the greatest in Ottoman history. Selim I attacked Ismail's kingdom in 1514 to prevent Shiism from spreading over Ottoman lands. Before the attack, Selim and Ismā'il had exchanged a series of angry letters. In the Battle of Chaldiran in 1514, Selim I defeated Ismā'il. His army was more mobile, and his soldiers were more prepared, but the Ottomans survived due to their well-equipped modern army. These included artillery, black powder, and muskets. Ismā'il was wounded and nearly taken in combat, and Selim I triumphantly reached Tabriz, Iran's capital, on 5 September but did not stay long. The Battle of Chaldiran was significant in history. Shah Ismail's unwillingness to acknowledge the benefits of modern weaponry and the significance of artillery proved decisive.

Officially, Selim was said to have died of sirpence. It was a skin illness he had acquired during his long riding campaigns. Sirpence was an anthrax infection that was occasionally encountered among leatherworkers and other livestock workers. Some historians believe he died of cancer or was poisoned by his physician. Other historians have pointed out that Selim's death occurred during a period of the epidemic in the Empire and that various sources suggest that Selim himself was afflicted. Sultan Selim I's eight-year rule came to an end on 22 September 1520. Selim died and was carried to Istanbul to be interred in the Yavuz Selim Mosque, which Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent had built in his father's honour. The Islamic holy territories had been captured and consolidated by Sultan Selim I. When it came to defending Europe's lands, he prioritised the East, believing that it was the source of the actual danger.

Selim had a fierce temper and had high demands on those beneath him, according to most reports. For various reasons, some of his viziers were executed. Another classic legend tells how another vizier jokingly sought the Sultan for some advance notice of his impending fate so that he may get his affairs in order. The Sultan smiled and responded that he had considered assassinating the vizier but had no one suitable to take his place. Otherwise, he'd be happy to help. Selim was an energetic and diligent emperor who was one of the Empire's most successful and renowned monarchs. He had a great deal of success in his short reign of eight years. Despite his short rule, many historians think that Selim set the stage for his son and successor, Suleiman the Magnificent, to bring the Ottoman Empire to its pinnacle. Under the pen name Mahlas Selimi, Selim was a renowned poet who composed both Turkish and Persian verse; collections of his Persian poetry are still existent today. Persuaded by the powerful clergy of the realm in 1515. He issued a proclamation punishing anyone who used a printing press invented in Germany in 1455 and used to print books in Turkish or Arabic.

Relations with Shah Ismail

Selim's army were subjected to Shah Ismail's scorched-earth tactics while marching into Persia in 1514. The Sultan intended to force Ismail into a fight before his forces died of starvation. In response to Selim's third message, Ismail dispatched an ambassador to send a letter along with a package of opium. The Shah's letter insulted Selim's prose by implying that it was the work of an inexperienced writer on drugs. The Shah's dismissal of Selim's literary abilities angered Selim, who ordered the Persian envoy to be ripped apart. Selim I and Shah Ismail clashed on the economic front as well as in their military wars. Shah Ismail's devotion to the Shia faith of Islam was a source of contention. The characterisation of the Safavids as kuffar in Ottoman histories began with Selim I and his father before him, who did not genuinely embrace his core political and religious legitimacy. Selim I's meagre tolerance for Shah Ismail dissolved after the Battle of Chaldiran. With the Safavid Empire, he began a brief period of restricted frontiers. Selim planned to entirely leverage the Ottoman Empire's central location to cut connections with Shah Ismail's Safavid Empire. He put a strict embargo on Iranian silk to collapse their economy. The raw materials for key Ottoman silk production came from Persia rather than developed within the Ottoman Empire.

Relations with Babur

Babur's early relations with the Ottomans were strained because Selim I sent powerful matchlocks and cannons to Babur's opponent Ubaydullah Khan. When instructed to recognise Selim I as his legitimate suzerain in 1507, Babur resisted and assembled Qizilbash troops to fight Ubaydullah Khan's soldiers during the Battle of Ghazdewan in 1512. Fearing that Babur would join the Safavids, Selim I reconciled with him in 1513. He sent Ustad Ali Quli and Mustafa Rumi, and many other Ottoman Turks to assist Babur in conquests. This specific aid became the foundation for future Mughal-Ottoman relations. He also learned from them to use matchlocks and guns in the field rather than only in sieges. It would provide him with a significant advantage in India.