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Peerless Among Princes: The Life and Times of Sultan Süleyman
A full life and times biography of Süleyman, the longest reigning sultan of the Ottoman Empire.
Süleyman, who ruled the Ottoman Empire between 1520 and 1566, was a globally recognized figure during his lifetime. His domain extended from Hungary to Iran, and from the Crimea to North Africa and the Indian Ocean. The wealth of his treasury, the strength of his armies, and his personality were much discussed by historians, poets, courtiers, diplomats and publics across Eurasia.
Süleyman was engaged in bitter rivalries with the Catholic Habsburgs in Europe and the Shiite Safavids in the Middle East. He presided over a multilingual and multireligious empire that promised peace and prosperity to its subjects. During his reign, the Ottoman Empire became a truly global power. Imperial governance expanded considerably, and the law was emphasized as the main bond between the ruler and the ruled. Süleyman's prolific poetic output, his frequent appearances during public ceremonies, his charity, and his patronage of arts and architecture enhanced his reputation as a universal ruler with a well-rounded character.
Behind the public facade of might and glory, Süleyman led a complicated life. He grew up with an overbearing father whose legacy was both an advantage and a burden. Defying established practice, he married a concubine named H�rrem whose love and affection became a true refuge. Towards the end of his life, he had to overcome both debilitating sickness and the agitations of his sons to remain on the throne.
Nearly half a millennium after his death, the life of Süleyman has been obscured by romanticized and exoticized narratives. Based on original sources in multiple languages, Peerless among Princes narrates Süleyman's achievements as well as his failures. What emerges is a compelling account of a ruler, his family, his close associates, and the Ottoman imperial project itself during the transformational sixteenth century.
Süleyman, who ruled the Ottoman Empire between 1520 and 1566, was a globally recognized figure during his lifetime. His domain extended from Hungary to Iran, and from the Crimea to North Africa and the Indian Ocean. The wealth of his treasury, the strength of his armies, and his personality were much discussed by historians, poets, courtiers, diplomats and publics across Eurasia.
Süleyman was engaged in bitter rivalries with the Catholic Habsburgs in Europe and the Shiite Safavids in the Middle East. He presided over a multilingual and multireligious empire that promised peace and prosperity to its subjects. During his reign, the Ottoman Empire became a truly global power. Imperial governance expanded considerably, and the law was emphasized as the main bond between the ruler and the ruled. Süleyman's prolific poetic output, his frequent appearances during public ceremonies, his charity, and his patronage of arts and architecture enhanced his reputation as a universal ruler with a well-rounded character.
Behind the public facade of might and glory, Süleyman led a complicated life. He grew up with an overbearing father whose legacy was both an advantage and a burden. Defying established practice, he married a concubine named H�rrem whose love and affection became a true refuge. Towards the end of his life, he had to overcome both debilitating sickness and the agitations of his sons to remain on the throne.
Nearly half a millennium after his death, the life of Süleyman has been obscured by romanticized and exoticized narratives. Based on original sources in multiple languages, Peerless among Princes narrates Süleyman's achievements as well as his failures. What emerges is a compelling account of a ruler, his family, his close associates, and the Ottoman imperial project itself during the transformational sixteenth century.
384 pages, Hardcover
Published February 27, 2023
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About the author
Kaya Şahin
10 books8 followersA specialist in the early modern Ottoman Empire, with a particular interest in history writing, governance, religious/confessional identity, and ceremonies and rituals, Kaya Şahin is Associate Professor of History and the Executive Associate Dean of the Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies at Indiana University.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
July 31, 2024
My first introduction to this larger than life ruler of the Ottoman Empire was an Urdu translation of Harold Lamb's Suleiman the Magnificent. To be honest, Kaya Sahin's book has not surpassed the storytelling style of Lamb's but it is truly a marvel of academic level research and dived deep into structure of Ottoman empire during Suleiman's reign.
The book offers insights via decrees released in Suleiman's lifetime and offers a glimpse of his ambition of living and leaving a legacy that would (as he hoped) mark his place in history books.
The amount of research amazes me at times, however this might be the same reason which makes the book in-parts a bit hard to read.
Overall, the book is simple and fun to read, not exactly a William Dalrymple or Harold Lamb's kind of a fun, but kind of an academic styled glimpse into a person's life who lived, ruled, and died alone.
The book offers insights via decrees released in Suleiman's lifetime and offers a glimpse of his ambition of living and leaving a legacy that would (as he hoped) mark his place in history books.
The amount of research amazes me at times, however this might be the same reason which makes the book in-parts a bit hard to read.
Overall, the book is simple and fun to read, not exactly a William Dalrymple or Harold Lamb's kind of a fun, but kind of an academic styled glimpse into a person's life who lived, ruled, and died alone.
March 10, 2024
A good scholarly biography. I only wish it had more of Suleyman's poetry! It really made the subject matter come alive.
April 15, 2025
The writing is scholarly and dry and almost put me off for the first 50ish pages. But after 70 pages or so Suleyman's life began, and I was enthralled. The dryness didn't matter anymore because his life was just too fascinating, and it became impossible not to want to read any further. I think the scholarly writing actually helped in the end to bring through who Suleyman really was from what we know. There's no guessing game, and I'm thankful for that. A raw, honest, unpolished story unfolds.
March 27, 2024
A look at the last of the great Ottoman leaders and a central figure of the early modern period, spreading modern state institutions and Ottoman/Hapsburg Balkan conflicts from a high level. The work is readable and well written, chapters and sub chapters make the story easy to follow, and there are probably few English works both informative and accessible to a general public on pre-19th century Ottoman bureaucracy and governmental institutions.
It's concise but clearly well researched and anyone with interest in great men of history, the early modern period, the Ottomans, or the Balkans will assuredly find value in it. To those without that preexisting interest, I find this easily readable enough you won't slog through it but I also don't believe this is a work turning Suleyman or the Ottomans into anyone's favorite subject. I would love the author to take this critical and amazing reading of the sources into a more broad work on the Ottoman's of the early modern period.
It's concise but clearly well researched and anyone with interest in great men of history, the early modern period, the Ottomans, or the Balkans will assuredly find value in it. To those without that preexisting interest, I find this easily readable enough you won't slog through it but I also don't believe this is a work turning Suleyman or the Ottomans into anyone's favorite subject. I would love the author to take this critical and amazing reading of the sources into a more broad work on the Ottoman's of the early modern period.
August 6, 2023
Masterful biography of Ottoman Sultan who dramatically expanded the scope and influence of this powerful 16 th century empire. Amazing detailed research. Intrigue diplomacy religion and war across Asia and Europe.
January 22, 2024
I really enjoyed reading this! It spent a lot of time on Suleyman's campaigns against the Habsburgs and Safavids but I wish there had been a little more focus on changes within the empire during his reign.
April 22, 2024
An insightful and detailed account of a ruler often ignored or overlooked in history.
May 6, 2023
This is the first English language biography of Süleyman the Magnificent written by someone who actually knows Ottoman Turkish. Considering that Sultan Süleyman I was one of the most important people of the 16th century, such a book is long overdue, and Kaya Şahin's "Peerless Among Princes" is the definitive biography. It also provides a revealing contrast to "God's Shadow," Alan Mikhail's recent biography of Suleyman's father Selim I. That book was padded, marred by hyperbolic claims, and made bizarrely self-limiting choices in its sources. Şahin's book is concise, displays impeccable scholarship, and draws on many sources inaccessible to non-experts.
Şahin makes greater sense of Suleyman's life and decisions than any other book I've read on Ottoman history. We might never know the full story behind the executions of the Grand Vizier Ibrahim and Prince Mustafa, but Şahin gives us enough background, and draws on every available source, to make us understand why Suleyman acted as he did.
Though later regarded as a golden age, the reign of Süleyman experienced its share of anxiety, and Şahin reads between the lines of the Ottoman chroniclers to show that the continuing expansion of the Ottoman empire brought not just booty but problems. The Ottomans, formidable as they were, discovered that their Habsburg and Safavid neighbors couldn't simply be destroyed. Süleyman started his reign with the brilliant conquests of Rhodes and Belgrade and pretensions to universal rule; he ended it in pain from the unavoidable succession struggles between his sons and the cost of maintaining the empire's stretched borders.
This is not pop history, but rather a scholarly biography written in a clear and accessible style. It doesn't pretend to be a novel or treat its subject like a character from one. It's not entirely a narrative history, and on occasion Şahin will mention someone's death before discussing it in real detail later on in the same chapter. But his book's organization presents a precisely rendered picture of the condition of the Ottoman Empire, Süleyman's personal and public lives, and the changing times that exalted and bedeviled the longest-reigning Ottoman sultan. This book belongs on the shelf of anyone seriously interested in Ottoman history.
Şahin makes greater sense of Suleyman's life and decisions than any other book I've read on Ottoman history. We might never know the full story behind the executions of the Grand Vizier Ibrahim and Prince Mustafa, but Şahin gives us enough background, and draws on every available source, to make us understand why Suleyman acted as he did.
Though later regarded as a golden age, the reign of Süleyman experienced its share of anxiety, and Şahin reads between the lines of the Ottoman chroniclers to show that the continuing expansion of the Ottoman empire brought not just booty but problems. The Ottomans, formidable as they were, discovered that their Habsburg and Safavid neighbors couldn't simply be destroyed. Süleyman started his reign with the brilliant conquests of Rhodes and Belgrade and pretensions to universal rule; he ended it in pain from the unavoidable succession struggles between his sons and the cost of maintaining the empire's stretched borders.
This is not pop history, but rather a scholarly biography written in a clear and accessible style. It doesn't pretend to be a novel or treat its subject like a character from one. It's not entirely a narrative history, and on occasion Şahin will mention someone's death before discussing it in real detail later on in the same chapter. But his book's organization presents a precisely rendered picture of the condition of the Ottoman Empire, Süleyman's personal and public lives, and the changing times that exalted and bedeviled the longest-reigning Ottoman sultan. This book belongs on the shelf of anyone seriously interested in Ottoman history.
October 11, 2023
"The Turkish historian Kaya Şahin, in his Peerless among Princes: The Life and Times of Sultan Süleyman, mines a wider and deeper range of scholarship and archive than his predecessors, and arrives at a portrait and a history more detailed and nuanced than the standard story of an austere despot in a Golden Age. His attention to Süleyman’s youth makes for a compelling and foreboding portrait." -Colin Thubron
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Read the full review here: https://books.substack.com/p/review-c...
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews