List of campaigns of Suleiman the Magnificent
The imperial campaigns (, "sefer-i humāyūn") of Suleiman the Magnificent were a series of campaigns led by Suleiman, who was the tenth and longest-reigning Sultan of the Ottoman Empire. He is known in the Western world as "Suleiman the Magnificent", and in the East as "the Lawgiver" (), for his complete reconstruction of the Ottoman legal system. During his reign from 1520 to his death in 1566, the Ottoman Empire became the most powerful state in the world. At its height, the Empire stretched from Hungary to Yemen.
Selim I
One of Selim's first challenges as Sultan was the growing tension between himself and Shah Ismail, who had recently brought the Safavids to power and had switched the state religion from Sunni Islam to the adherence of the Twelver branch of Shia Islam. By 1510, he had conquered the whole of Iran and Azerbaijan, southern Dagestan (with its important city of Derbent), Mesopotamia, Armenia, Khorasan, Eastern Anatolia, and had made the Georgian kingdoms of Kartli and Kakheti his vassals. He was a great threat to his Sunni Muslim neighbors to the west. In 1511, Ismail had supported a pro Shia/Safavid uprising in Anatolia, the Şahkulu Rebellion.