Ismail Kamdar – The Reign of Suleiman The Magnificent

			I ruled the Muslim world for 45 years. 45 years which essentially considered Morocco 46 years.
Again, depending on
		

			which direction you rounded off, right, but 45 to 46 years Suleyman, the magnificent ruled the
Ottoman Empire, he's considered the greatest of the Ottoman rulers. This is the peak, this is the
golden age. This is as big and as great and as amazing as the Ottoman Empire would ever reach. When
Solomon dies, and his son Salim, the second comes into power, that's the beginning of the end.
That's when the decline begins that goes on for 300 years until the collapse at World War One.
		

			But if you had to choose one point in Ottoman history and say this was it, this was the height of
Ottoman power, it was the 46 year reign of salamander magnificent.
		

			Now,
		

			TV shows have been made about Salamander. But I
		

			I wouldn't recommend it the way I would dare to rule the smart shows, even though it's more
historically accurate. Because it's a lot more raunchy, it's a lot more, a lot more immorality in
it.
		

			You see, that show was made a generation before the veteran shows and Turkey was a bit more of a
modern place at that time. So the show has a lot of things in it that wouldn't be acceptable for
Muslims to view,
		

			although historically is very accurate. It's far more historically accurate than the actual ruler or
smart shows.
		

			And it covers the entire 46 year reign over five seasons, really showing the political intrigue, the
family life, the military conquest, the power of salamander magnificent, unfortunately also has a
lot of immortality in it, therefore,
		

			it's not something I would recommend, right. But nonetheless it exists. For those of you who want to
know about the for the our resources are out there, it does exist. Right. So Suleiman the
Magnificent he rules for 46 years, and he's considered the greatest of the Ottoman rulers. I mean,
he's called the magnificent for a reason. His reign was magnificent. His palace right to today's
palaces are still up there.
		

			Many of the buildings built in his time are still up there. Well, what's interesting about Solomon
is that it's not just him. That was amazing. But he's the people he surrounded himself with his
grand vizier in Grand Pasha, his wife for him, his head,
		

			olive or mufti, Abu Saud, affendi,
		

			the head of his pirates, the head of his pirate troops, Barbarossa.
		

			Someone else who came to mind I just slipped out of my mind now. But nonetheless, these are all
famous people, right? And all of these famous people lived in Istanbul, in the reign of Slim at the
bank, the percent were close to him, worked with him, and contributed to the greatness of his faith.
That this was a time where just all of these different forms of greatness combined, we had great
Alama like I was to the end, we had great politicians, excellent Monday, magnificent. We had some of
the most famous woman in Muslim history, like from Sudan. We had great pirates in Western history,
they Barbarossa and all of this, at the same time, contributing to the greatness that was the reign
		

			of Superman, the magnificent. So Solomon had the most powerful army in the history of the Ottoman
Empire, and perhaps in the history of Islam. Really, if you're going to take a look at the size and
the pure power of the Ottoman army at the time of Solomon.
		

			It was perhaps the most powerful the Muslim world had seen until that time.
		

			The janissaries had grown into this massive army, well equipped with guns and cannons. And they had
expanded into the oceans through a fleet of pirate ships, led by the famous Barbarossa. So they were
able to invade
		

			many European lands that were islands, or that were farther away from the coast of the Ottoman
Empire. And were able to read these lands and take over these lands. So the
		

			the
		

			armies of Charlemagne was very powerful, and he was able to conquer many, many territories to such
an extent that his army or his empire, and this is the height of the power of the Ottomans. his
empire was spread over three continents, right Africa, Asia and Europe. And what is today 21
countries. There are literally 21 countries in the world today. That combined
		

			together, where the Ottoman Empire at the time of Solomon the magnificent. These include countries
in Europe, countries in Asia and countries in Africa, as well as the entire Middle East.
		

			In general, he was considered a just ruler, there are some controversial things that he did. And
this is for anyone in power, I mean, you're going to stay in power for 46 years, dealing with family
members and friends trying to take their power away from you, then
		

			you're going to deal with some difficult choices. And so the man definitely had to make some
difficult choices, to keep his empire together to keep his empire stable. They were rebellions
internally,
		

			from the Janissaries, from some of his closest friends from some of his family. And he dealt with
these sometimes in the right way, sometimes in the wrong way. But in general, he was considered a
just ruler in his treatment of the average Muslim and his, the way he ran his kingdom, Muslim and
non Muslim alike were given all of the rights in the Ottoman Empire during his 46 years of
greatness. So this is the golden age, right? If you had to.
		

			If you had to expand the golden age, you would say from Mohammed, the conqueror, to Superman, the
magnificent. If you have to narrow it down to one rain, it will be this 50 years, these five decades
in which Solomon rule the Ottoman Empire, that this was the height of its power, the height of his
craters, and I just remembered the one more person I was supposed to mention earlier. Mimar Sinan
Mimar, Sinan was the head architect of Solomon. Right. And he is considered the greatest architect
in the history of the Muslim world. Many of the buildings that he built 400 years ago during the
reign of Solomon magnificent, are still working today. Are they still operational, they're still
		

			around, they have survived multiple earthquakes. And you can find it across the Muslim world. In
many different countries, particularly in Istanbul, many of the classical palaces and monasteries in
Istanbul, they go back to the time of Solomon the magnificent were built by numerous units. So
again, look at the people surrounding Solomon.
		

			Abu The venue was the greatest call of the time, but also maybe the greatest Muslim pilot command of
all times.
		

			Meanwhile, Cena is the greatest Muslim architect perhaps of all time, and all of these people work
for sulamani Magnificent, you can see why it's considered a magnificent rain and a magnificent time
for this empire. So many historians, including many, many non Muslim historians consider Solomon as
the greatest king of that era, that 400 years ago, if you look across the entire world, Muslim and
non Muslim alike, there is not a single ruler that comes close to the power, the glory, the justice,
the length of reign, and the accomplishments of Solomon. Right. This is by far the greatest king of
that century. He conquered many European lands, so many parts of the European world, particularly
		

			the Balkan areas and areas surrounding Hungary like the Hungary, Ottoman borders, became part of the
Muslim world during that time, as well as many of the islands off the coast of Europe, thanks to his
pirate armies, but Superman had one weakness that will eventually lead to the downfall of the
Ottoman Empire or bringing the cracks for the downfall of empire. And that was his love of his wife
Hurrem which would cause him to make some disastrous, disastrous political
		

			political mistakes that would eventually see the end of the Golden Age and the beginning of the
decline period. So what else do we know about Solera?
		

			Sorry, I mistakenly repeated a slideshow
		

			pretty sure I was supposed to write something else here.
		

			Okay, I get I apologize for that. I was supposed to have a second slide about Scylla Manya. And I
think I forgot to edit it.
		

			If you move on to the next slide about his about his two main right hand, people who played an
important role, understanding what I was supposed to include in this slide, why I duplicated it.
		

			Right. So Solomon rules for 46 years, and
		

			externally, the Empires around him are not much of a threat. He is able to take over many of these
lands he's able to
		

			establish His power grow and keep the the Empire large and powerful and wealthy. But internally he
has to deal with a lot of problems. They are plagues so the smallpox pandemic takes place during the
reign of salamander magnificent they revolt, so twice at least twice the Janissary corpse revolt
against Allamanda
		

			First time is because of the
		

			because of a Pay Issue. They weren't happy with how much he was paying them. The second time, we'll
come to this a bit later. But when he executes his son, who they were hoping will be the next
caliph,
		

			the Janissaries were very loyal to his son revolt against him and begin rioting and looting.
		

			And the third big problem he faced was his family. So in Solomon's family, because he is this rich
and powerful ruler over this massive Empire, the most rich and powerful person at the time, he
developed internally, some enemies that will eventually cause the downfall of the Ottoman Empire in
the long run. Now, what's interesting to look at to people who are very close to them and examine
their lives, because what's interesting what studying their lives is, it really shows us how
different slavery in the Muslim world was compared to the west and we have to discuss this very
		

			controversial topic of slavery.
		

			The fact is that slavery is not haram in Islam. I for a person through a war, to take prisoners of
war and enslave them and be and become the owner of those people is not technically haram. It's not
haram either for a man to have a intimate relationship with his slave woman.
		

			Right? These are things which are clearly Halal in the Quran, and the Sunnah. And we practice
throughout Western history until recently, where, because Islam does not command slavery, it simply
allows it, and the whole world has given it up. Muslims have given it up as well. It's not
compulsory, it's just something that it's not considered immoral, the way it is considered immoral
in modern society. And this is something very difficult for many people today to digest. The idea
that,
		

			that Islam doesn't consider slavery immoral.
		

			But one of the ways to understand it is to realize that the way slaves were treated in the Muslim
world was fairly different from that, which most of us picture most of us, our only understanding of
slavery is Western slavery, particularly America and the way they treated the African Americans.
That's the only picture we have of slavery. Slavery in the Muslim world was a very different
phenomenon. It was a man owning another person. But as per the rights of Islam, that person had to
be treated well fared well loaded, well, given opportunities to buy their freedom, given
opportunities to grow as a person and basically treated well. And so slaves triumph in the Muslim
		

			world we already looked before at the example of the mom, Luke's mom looks are the best example of
how powerful a slave can be in the Muslim world while still being owned by another person.
		

			The next best example of that is the slaves of Solomon, particularly in Bryan parsha and hood
epsilon, both of whom, at least for me, in the beginning, and Abraham throughout his life, were the
slaves of Soleimani. Magnificent. So who was Abraham Pasha. Ibrahim Pasha was a in a sense he was he
went through the Janissary system, right, he was a slave for a Christian boy taken from a Christian
village, raised in the Ottoman Palace,
		

			given to Solomon as a slave, and he was around the same age as Solomon, and he was given to him as a
slave as while he was still a young boy and he became best friends. So again, you know, the way
people treated slaves back then it wasn't how the West treated slaves rather, already, we can see
that the prince and his slave are best friends. Right, and this friendship would last almost a
lifetime, almost a lifetime. So Solomon grows up, he becomes the king.
		

			And Ibrahim Pasha becomes like his head advisor. Not only that Ibrahim Pasha become the head advisor
to the Khalifa, but he marries the Khalifa system. So he becomes his brother in law.
		

			Then, he becomes the Grand Vizier. Now, the grand was here is the most powerful position in the
empire after the after the Khalifa. But while Ibrahim Pasha holds his position, he was technically
even more powerful than Solomon. What do we mean by this? Solomon was very distracted by family
life. He had a large family and he wants to make time for them. So because he loved and trusted
O'Brien so much he handed over to Abraham the authority to run the Empire. So Abraham Pasha, as the
Grand Vizier, would meet with delegations, me to diploma
		

			At Issue verdicts, he basically ran the Empire. He was almost as if he was the Caliph, while
Superman was in the palace enjoying his time with his family. So at one point in time, a brand Pasha
is literally the most powerful person in the world.
		

			He makes the decisions about war and peace. He makes the decisions about economic prosperity,
		

			economic growth, and anything related to wealth, he makes decisions related to reform of society. He
is the most powerful person.
		

			Suleiman hands over everything to him trusting Him fully. But Abraham slavery slave. So yeah, we
have a man slave, who is also his best friend, who is also his brother in law, who is also his grand
vizier, who is also the man he and hand over the full authority to run the kingdom to. And Ibrahim
does this for many years, perhaps eight to 10 years, right? I can't remember the exact amount. But
for many years, Ibrahim is running the kingdom. Despite being a slave, and Solomon is enjoying
family life. Everything's going fine, until Solomon discovers that Abraham had been
		

			deceiving him, and using the power for personal gains. So it seems that once Ibrahim became the most
powerful person in the Muslim world, he became arrogant. He became greedy. He began to misuse state
funds for personal gains, he began to have nepotism in terms of who you would appoint to power. He
began to have a lot of secrets from Solomon, Solomon wasn't happy with.
		

			So that gave him a chance give him another chance.
		

			spoke to him privately, to power away from him for a while before giving it back to him. But every
time Ibrahim returned to a position of power, his arrogance would come back. His greediness would
come back. And there is a conflict at this time between Ibrahim and Solomon's wife for him, we will
discuss in the next slide, that Ibrahim Pasha,
		

			he hates Quran, and he does not want her children to be the rulers after Solomon. So there is
ongoing espionage between Ibrahim and his allies and harassing her allies. So eventually, she
manages to get some documents and records to show to Solomon to prove the Ibrahim has been misusing
funds. And when he broke into the mud ceases, it's clear that if I'm Pasha has been misusing funds.
He gets a fatwa from Abu Saud affendi and has a Bipasha executed in the middle of the night he
strangled to death buried in an unmarked grave. And that is the end of it. Right, Marsha?
		

			So why is this story important? Well, this story is important for for many reasons. Number one, it
shows us
		

			the humanity of these people, why did these were people put into positions that we can't even
imagine? And you know, it got to the heads, greed, arrogance, in fighting, murder. This is what
happens with political power. So we thank Allah for not giving us political power, because we don't
know what we would do in that situation. Number two, it really shows us how different slavery was in
the Muslim world, compared to the west, right?
		

			I mean, right till the very end, Ibrahim was a slave.
		

			But he's the best friend of the King, the brother in law of the king. And at one point in time, the
most powerful man in the world, it seems like the only
		

			thing they're making him a slave is that Solomon never said you are free. And so a man could always
hold that over his head, that remember, you might slave don't go too big for your boots, by ISIL own
you.
		

			But beyond that, there is no change. There is no Oops, there's no holding a person back from
aspirations. There's no mistreatment of people Ibrahim was given. I would see as a slave, he was
given more opportunities, and more power than most free people in the world today will have
experience at the end of the day. All of that got to his head and his greed and arrogance was the
cause of his own downfall. And he was executed. But it remains a very interesting part of our
history to study to see how high and how powerful a
		

			slave could call
		

			the other slave of Solomon who's interesting to look at is rarely a person who had some historians
call the person individual for the one individual, most responsible for the collapse of the Ottoman
Empire. And that is Solomon's wife. Hurrem Sultan