Failure #2- He Left a Dubious Legacy
The Sultan had two official wives and an enormous number of concubines. Mahidevran Sultan, his first wife, bore him a son named Mustafa. By all accounts, he was a bright and capable man who could have become an excellent leader. However, Suleiman fell in love with a concubine named Hurrem Sultan (better known as Roxelana) who bore him seven sons. By the rules of the harem, if Mustafa became Sultan, all seven illegitimate sons had to be executed.
Mustafa was supported by the Grand Vizier, Pargali Ibrahim Pasha. Hurrem allegedly began a rumor that Mustafa was intent on taking the throne by force. In 1552, Suleiman had Pasha murdered, and in 1553, the Sultan summoned his oldest son and had him strangled in an army camp tent. The two remaining brothers, Bayezid and Selim, received command of different parts of the empire.
Within a few years, civil war broke out between them and Suleiman ultimately threw his weight of support behind Selim. Bayezid was defeated in 1559 and sought refuge with the Safavids. In 1561, the Safavid Shah allowed the Turks to murder Bayezid and his four sons in exchange for gold. The surviving son was now the sole successor to Suleiman and became Selim II upon his father’s death in 1566.
The Ottoman Empire was one of the strongest in the world when Suleiman died, and although most scholars don’t believe his death marked the decline of the Empire, it certainly became no stronger. It is important to note that there were problems towards the end of his reign. His later years were marked by economic stagnation; low agricultural production and mass dispossession as an increasing number of peasants were unable to pay their taxes. Traders in Anatolia started getting robbed by brigands, but Suleiman was probably too busy embarking on further military campaigns to do anything about it.
Selim II is sometimes known as ‘Selim the Sot‘ but he wasn’t quite the incompetent Sultan one would expect given his nickname. He was renowned for his generosity, and while the Ottoman fleet was destroyed by a storm during his reign, it was restored, and the Empire regained control of the eastern Mediterranean by 1573. Selim died in 1574 after slipping on a wet floor while drunk; he died from a fever brought on by the accident. He was succeeded by Murat III who stamped his authority by having his five younger brothers murdered.