Portal:Military history of the Ottoman Empire/Selected biography
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Suleyman I (Ottoman Turkish: سليمان Sulaymān, Turkish: Süleyman; the long name is Kanuni Sultan Süleyman in Turkish) (November 6, 1494 – September 5/6, 1566), was the tenth Sultan from the House of Osman of the Ottoman Empire, and the longest-serving one, reigning from 1520 to 1566. He is known to the West as Suleiman the Magnificent. In the Islamic world, he is known as the Lawgiver (in Turkish Kanuni; Arabic: القانونى, al-Qānūnī), a nickname stemming from his complete reconstruction of the Ottoman legal system. Within the empire, Suleiman was known as a fair ruler and an opponent of corruption. He was a great patron of artists and philosophers, and was noted as one of the greatest Islamic poets, as well as an accomplished goldsmith.
Suleiman was considered one of the pre-eminent rulers of 16th-century Europe, a respected rival to Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor (1519–56), Francis I of France (1515–47), Henry VIII of England (1509–47), Sigismund II of Poland (1548–72), and Ivan IV of Russia (1530–84). Under his leadership, the Ottoman Empire reached its Golden Age and became a world power. Suleiman personally led Ottoman armies to conquer Belgrade, Rhodes, and most of Hungary, laid the Siege of Vienna, and annexed most of the Middle East and huge territories in North Africa as far west as Algeria. For a short period, Ottomans achieved naval dominance in the Mediterranean Sea, Red Sea, and Persian Gulf. The Ottoman Empire continued to expand for a century after his death.
Barbarossa Hayreddin Pasha (Turkish: Barbaros Hayreddin Paşa or Hızır Hayreddin Paşa; also Hızır Reis before being promoted to the rank of Pasha and becoming the Kaptan-ı Derya (Fleet Admiral) of the Ottoman Navy) (c. 1478 – July 4, 1546), was a Turkish privateer and Ottoman admiral who dominated the Mediterranean for decades. He was born on the island of Midilli (Lesbos in today's Greece) and died in Istanbul.
His original name was Yakupoğlu Hızır (Hızır son of Yakup). Hayreddin or Khair ad-Din, which literally means "Goodness of the Faith", was an honorary name given to him by Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent. He became known as Barbarossa (Redbeard) in Europe, a name he inherited from his older brother Baba Oruç (Father Aruj) after Oruç was killed in a battle with the Spanish in Algeria. Coincidentally, this name sounded like "Barbarossa" (Redbeard) to the Europeans, and he did have a red beard.
George Kastrioti (Albanian: Gjergj Kastrioti, Greek: Γεώργιος Καστριώτης Geórgios Kastriótis, Serbian: Ђурађ Кастриотић Đurađ Kastriotić, May 6 (disputed), 1405 - January 17, 1468), better known as Skanderbeg (Albanian: Skënderbeu, Turkish: İskender Bey "Lord Alexander", Greek: Σκεντέρμπεης Skendérbeis, Serbian: Скендербег Skenderbeg), is one of the most prominent historical figures in the history of Albania and the Albanian people. He is also known as the Dragon of Albania and is the national hero of the Albanians. He is remembered for his struggle against the Ottoman Empire, through the work of his first biographer, Marin Barleti.
According to Edward Gibbon, Skanderbeg's father, Gjon Kastrioti, was a hereditary prince of a small district of Epirus (southern Albania) that included Mat, Krujë, Mirditë and Dibër. His mother Vojsava was a princess from the Tribalda family, who came from the Polog valley, in modern-day Macedonia. It is said that she was a serbian noble, though that claim has yet to be validated. Gjon Kastrioti was among those who opposed the early incursion of Ottoman Bayezid I, however his resistance was ineffectual. The Sultan, having accepted his submissions, obliged him to pay tribute and to ensure the fidelity of local rulers, George Kastrioti and his three brothers were taken by the Sultan to his court as hostages. After his conversion to Islam, he attended military school in Edirne and led many battles for the Ottoman Empire to victory. For his military victories, he received the title Arnavutlu İskender Bey, (Albanian: Skënderbeu Shqiptari, English: Skanderbeg, the Albanian). In Turkish and Albanian this title means Lord Alexander the Albanian, comparing Kastrioti's military brilliance to that of Alexander the Great).
Omar Pasha Latas (1806-71) was an Ottoman General of Serb origin whose birth name was Mihailo Latas (Michael Latas).
He was born in Janja Gora, municipality of Plaški in present-day Croatia, at the time part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Educated at a military school, he joined a frontier regiment. Latas fled to Bosnia in 1823 to escape charges of embezzlment. There he converted to Islam.
His father Petar served in the Austrian Army and in time was appointed military mayor of their home village. Michael was an intelligent and lively if rather sickly child. He developed a passion for military, and on leaving school he was accepted as a cadet in his father's Ogulin Regiment. He had beautiful handwriting, and was assigned to clerical duties. There he might have languished, if his father had not upset someone along the corruption line and suffered a conviction for misappropriation. Michael understandably felt that he couldn't stay with the Regiment, and he took off for Bosnia.
He became writing-master to the Ottoman heir, Abd-ul-Medjid, and on the succession of the latter in 1839 was made a colonel. He was military governor of Lebanon in 1842, won distinction in suppressing rebellions in Albania, Bosnia, and Kurdistan, but his chief services were rendered in the Russian War; he successfully defended Kalafat in 1853, entered Bucharest in 1854, and defeated 40,000 Russians next year at Eupatoria in the Crimea. His capture of Cetinje, Montenegro, in 1862 was a difficult feat.
Piri Reis (full name Hadji Muhiddin Piri Ibn Hadji Mehmed) (about 1465 – 1554 or 1555) was an Ottoman-Turkish admiral and cartographer born between 1465 and 1470 in Gallipoli on the Aegean coast of Turkey.
He is primarily known today for his maps and charts collected in his Kitab-ı Bahriye (Book of Navigation), a book which contains detailed information on navigation as well as extremely accurate charts describing the important ports and cities of the Mediterranean Sea. He gained fame as a cartographer when a small part of his first world map (prepared in 1513) was discovered in 1929 at Topkapı Palace in Istanbul. The most surprising aspect was the presence of the Americas on an Ottoman map, making it the first Turkish map ever drawn of the Americas -- although not the first ever, which was drawn by pilot and cartographer Juan de la Cosa in 1500 and is conserved in the naval museum (Museo Naval) in Madrid.
The most striking characteristic of the first world map (1513) of Piri Reis, however, is the level of accuracy in positioning the continents (particularly the relation between Africa and South America) which was unparalleled for its time. Even maps drawn decades later did not have such accurate positioning and proportions; a quality which can be observed in other maps of Piri Reis in his Kitab-ı Bahriye (Book of Navigation). The map of Piri Reis perfectly fits an azimuthal equidistant projection of the world centered in Cairo, and some believe it's also the oldest surviving map of Antarctica, despite being drawn more than 3 centuries before the official discovery of that continent.
In 1528 Piri Reis drew a second world map, of which a small fragment showing Greenland and North America from Labrador and Newfoundland in the north to Florida, Cuba and parts of Central America in the south still survives.
Ali Pasha (or Muezzinzade Ali Pasha) (Turkish: Müezzinzâde Ali Paşa), was an Ottoman official and general and finally grand admiral ("Kaptan-ı Derya") of the Ottoman Mediterranean fleet from 1569 to 1571, succeeding Piyale Pasha. He was the son of a Muezzin and had himself issued the call to prayer from his father's mosque which overlooked the sultan's seraglio. He was a favorite of Sultan Selim II and the women of the seraglio who had greatly admired his voice, and, like Piyale Pasha, he had married one of Selim's daughters.
Ali Pasha, with a fleet eventually numbering 188 Galleys, fustas, transports and other ships, carried the main land force, commanded by Lala Mustafa Pasha, for the Ottoman invasion and conquest of Cyprus from Istanbul on 16 May 1570 to Cyprus, where they landed on 3 July. While Lala Mustafa commanded the eventual capture of the island from Venice, Ali Pasha took the bulk of his fleet to Crete and then to Morea, thereby effectively preventing any Christian relief fleet from coming to the aid of the besieged defenders of Cyprus.
Ali Pasha was commander-in-chief of the Ottoman naval forces at the Battle of Lepanto on 7 October 1571. Selim had entrusted him with one of the most precious possessions of the Ottoman Sultans, the great "Banner of the Caliphs", a huge green banner heavily embroidered with texts from the Qur'an and with the name of Allah emblazoned upon it 28,900 times in golden letters. It was intended to provide an incentive for him and his men to do their best in battle.
