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.
Al-Ashraf Qansuh Al-Ghuri
On the succession, however, of Selim I to the throne of Ottoman Sultanate, things took a very different turn. Not only had the attitude of Shah Ismail I become more threatening, but Sultan Selim I himself was more of the warrior than his father. Selim I set out against him, and the Battle of Chaldiran was fought near Tabriz on August 23, 1514. The fanaticism of the Sufis, which led even to their women joining in the combat, failed against the cavalry and artillery of the Turks, and Ismail after a disastrous defeat fled and escaped. Selim I, his provisions failing, returned westward and spent the winter at Amasia. In the spring taking the field again, he attacked the bey of Dulkadirids who as Egypt's vassal had stood aloof, and sent his head with tidings of the victory to Mamluk Sultan Al-Ashraf Qansuh al-Ghawri. Selim I later overran Diyarbakır and Iraq, taking Roha, Nisibin, Mosul and other cities. Secure now against Shah Ismail I, a larger project dawned upon Selim I; it was the conquest of Egypt, and the fact that the invasion must be made from Syria. With no anxieties toward the North, he could now safely make the advance, and so in the spring of 1516 CE he drew together for this end a great and well-appointed army; and with the view of deceiving Egypt, represented his object to be the further pursuit of Shah Ismail I.