Selim I

Portrait of Selim I.

Selim I, also known as Selim The Grim or Salīm şāh bin Bāyezīd Ḥān, was the 9th Sultan and 1st caliph of the Ottoman Empire. He is known for his takeover of the Mamluk Sultanate, which made him caliph, and also for being the father of Suleiman the Magnificent. He ruled between 1512 and 1520.

Early life of Selim

Selim was born on October 20th, 1470. he was the youngest son of Bayezid II. Most historians believed that Ayşe Hatun was his wife.

Selim's run to the throne

Selim killed his 7 brothers and their 5 sons in order to capture the throne. He left his son Suleiman as the only heir.

Sultan and wars

Selim’s ambitions circled through Europe and Asia. Bayezid had left the Europeans relatively quiet, so the new king first turned to the east and picked the Safavids of Iran as his first victims. The relationship between the Ottomans and the Mamluks was hostile. Both states fought for control of the spice trade, and Selim dreamed to eventually take control of the Holy Cities of Islam. He crushed the Safavid Iranian empire and took control of what is now Armenia, Georgia, Chechnya, Dagestan and Azerbaijan. He then defeated and crushed the Mamluks, taking control of the holy Islamic cities of Mecca and Medina. His conquest of Egypt finally gave him a base to launch attacks westwards in North Africa. After defeating the Iranian Safavids, he captured the strategic cities of Tabriz and Baghdad and after defeating the Mamluk Sultanate of Cairo, he captured the entire Levant region eventually conquering Egypt itself and capturing Cairo, effectively destroying the Mamluk Sultanate and putting an end to it. He captured all of its territories till Libya in the west. He proceeded to turn his new territories into administrative divisions the biggest of them being the province of Syria. He also turned Egypt into a province with Cairo as its capital however the province was under direct Ottoman control ruling from its capital of Constantinople.