Suleiman I

He succeeded his father, Sultan Selim I, in September 1520 and began his reign by embarking on a military campaign against the Christian powers in Central Europe and the Mediterranean. Belgrade fell in 1521; in 1522–1523, it was the turn of Rhodes, wrested from the long domination of the Knights of St. John. At the Battle of Mohács, fought in August 1526, Suleiman destroyed Hungary's military strength, and the Hungarian king Louis II himself lost his life. During his conflict with the Safavids, he also managed to annex much of the Near East, including Baghdad, and 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, which traversed the Persian Gulf.

At the head of an expanding empire, Suleiman promoted significant legislative changes in the areas of society, education, taxation, and criminal law. His reforms, carried out in collaboration with the empire's chief judicial official, Ebussuud Efendi, harmonized the relationship between the two forms of Ottoman law: state law (Kanun) and religious law (Shari'ah). Suleiman was also an excellent poet and goldsmith, as well as a great patron of culture. He oversaw the so-called "Golden Age" of the Ottoman Empire, and consequently fostered its artistic, literary, and architectural development.