Suleiman the Magnificent and his wife Hürrem Sultan, by 16th-century Venetian painter Titian

Suleiman the Magnificent (1520–1566)[56] captured Belgrade in 1521, conquered the

southern and central parts of the Kingdom of Hungary as part of the Ottoman–
Hungarian Wars, and, after his historic victory in the Battle of Mohács in 1526, he
established Ottoman rule in the territory of present-day Hungary and other Central
European territories. He then laid siege to Vienna in 1529, but failed to take the
city.[57]: 50 In 1532, he made another attack on Vienna, but was repulsed in the siege of
Güns.[58][59] Transylvania, Wallachia and, intermittently, Moldavia, became tributary
principalities of the Empire. In the east, the Ottoman Turks took Baghdad from the
Persians in 1535, gaining control of Mesopotamia and naval access to the Persian Gulf.
After the end of the Ottoman–Safavid War (1532–1555), the Caucasus became
partitioned for the first time between the Safavids and the Ottomans, a status quo that
persisted until the Russian conquest of the Caucasus in the 19th century. By this
partitioning as signed in the Peace of Amasya, Western Armenia, western Kurdistan,
and Western Georgia fell into Ottoman hands,[60] while southern Dagestan, Eastern
Armenia, Eastern Georgia, and Azerbaijan remained Persian.[61]
 Ottoman miniature of the Battle of Mohács in 1526[62]
In 1539, a 60,000-strong Ottoman army besieged the Spanish garrison
of Castelnuovo on the Adriatic coast; the successful siege cost the Ottomans 8,000
casualties,[63] but Venice agreed to terms in 1540, surrendering most of its empire in
the Aegean and the Morea. France and the Ottoman Empire, united by mutual
opposition to Habsburg rule,[64] became allies. The French conquests of Nice (1543)
and Corsica (1553) occurred as a joint venture between French king Francis I and
Suleiman, and were commanded by the Ottoman admirals Hayreddin
Barbarossa and Dragut.[65] France supported the Ottomans with an artillery unit during
the 1543 Ottoman conquest of Esztergom in northern Hungary. After further advances
by the Turks, the Habsburg ruler Ferdinand officially recognized Ottoman ascendancy in
Hungary in 1547. Suleiman died of natural causes during the siege of Szigetvár in 1566.
Following his death, the Ottomans were said to be declining, although this has been
rejected by many scholars.[66] By the end of Suleiman's reign, the Empire spanned
approximately 877,888 sq mi (2,273,720 km2), extending over three continents.[67]: 545

Ottoman admiral Barbarossa Hayreddin Pasha defeated

the Holy League of Charles V under the command of Andrea Doria at the Battle of Preveza in
1538.
The Empire became a dominant naval force, controlling much of the Mediterranean
Sea.[68]: 61 The Empire was now a major part of European politics. The Ottomans became
involved in multi-continental religious wars when Spain and Portugal were united under
the Iberian Union. The Ottomans were holders of the Caliph title, meaning they were the
leaders of Muslims worldwide. The Iberians were leaders of the Christian crusaders,
and so the two fought in a worldwide conflict. There were zones of operations in the
Mediterranean[69] and Indian Ocean,[70] where Iberians circumnavigated Africa to reach
India and, on their way, wage war upon the Ottomans and their local Muslim allies.
Likewise, the Iberians passed through newly-Christianized Latin America and had sent
expeditions that traversed the Pacific to Christianize the formerly Muslim Philippines
and use it as a base to attack the Muslims in the Far East.[71] In this case, the
Ottomans sent armies to aid its easternmost vassal and territory, the Sultanate of
Aceh in Southeast Asia.[72]: 84 [73]

The Spanish–Ottoman wars took place primarily in the Mediterranean. Barbary

corsairs from the North African cities of Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli, which were nominally
part of the Ottoman Empire, captured thousands of merchant ships and raided coastal
towns in Europe, enslaving the people they captured.[74]

During the 1600s, the world conflict between the Ottoman Caliphate and Iberian Union
was a stalemate since both were at similar population, technology and economic levels.
Nevertheless, the success of the Ottoman political and military establishment was
compared to the Roman Empire, despite the difference in size, by the likes of
contemporary Italian scholar Francesco Sansovino and French political
philosopher Jean Bodin.[75]

Stagnation and reform (1566–1827)

Revolts, reversals, and revivals (1566–1683)
Main article: Transformation of the Ottoman Empire
Further information: Ottoman decline thesis

Late 16th or early 17th century Ottoman galley known

as Tarihi Kadırga at the Istanbul Naval Museum, built in the period between the reigns of
Sultan Murad III (1574–1595) and Sultan Mehmed IV (1648–1687)[76][77]
In the second half of the sixteenth century, the Ottoman Empire came under increasing
strain from inflation and the rapidly rising costs of warfare that were impacting both
Europe and the Middle East.[78] These pressures led to a series of crises around the year
1600, placing great strain upon the Ottoman system of government.[79]: 413–414 The empire
underwent a series of transformations of its political and military institutions in response
to these challenges, enabling it to successfully adapt to the new conditions of the
seventeenth century and remain powerful, both militarily and
economically.[66][80]: 10 Historians of the mid-twentieth century once characterised this
period as one of stagnation and decline, but this view is now rejected by the majority of
academics.[66]

The discovery of new maritime trade routes by Western European states allowed them
to avoid the Ottoman trade monopoly. The Portuguese discovery of the Cape of Good
Hope in 1488 initiated a series of Ottoman-Portuguese naval wars in the Indian
Ocean throughout the 16th century. Despite the growing European presence in the
Indian Ocean, Ottoman trade with the east continued to flourish. Cairo, in particular,
benefitted from the rise of Yemeni coffee as a popular consumer commodity. As
coffeehouses appeared in cities and towns across the empire, Cairo developed into a
major center for its trade, contributing to its continued prosperity throughout the
seventeenth and much of the eighteenth century.[81]: 507–508

Under Ivan IV (1533–1584), the Tsardom of Russia expanded into the Volga and
Caspian regions at the expense of the Tatar khanates. In 1571, the Crimean
khan Devlet I Giray, commanded by the Ottomans, invaded Russia and burned
Moscow.[82] The next year, the invasion was repeated but repelled at the Battle of
Molodi. The Ottoman Empire and its vassal, the Crimean Khanate, continued to invade
Eastern Europe in a series of slave raids,[83] and remained a significant power in Eastern
Europe until the end of the 17th century.[84] The Crimean cavalry became indispensable
for the Ottomans' campaigns against Russia, Poland, Hungary, and Persia.[85]

Order of battle of the two fleets in the Battle of Lepanto,

with an allegory of the three powers of the Holy League in the foreground, fresco by Giorgio
Vasari
The Ottomans decided to conquer Venetian Cyprus and on 22 July 1570, Nicosia was
besieged; 50,000 Christians died, and 180,000 were enslaved. [86]: 67 On 15 September
1570, the Ottoman cavalry appeared before the last Venetian stronghold in Cyprus,
Famagusta. The Venetian defenders held out for 11 months against a force that at its
peak numbered 200,000 men with 145 cannons; 163,000 cannonballs struck the walls
of Famagusta before it fell to the Ottomans in August 1571. The Siege of
Famagusta claimed 50,000 Ottoman casualties.[87]: 328 Meanwhile, the Holy
League consisting of mostly Spanish and Venetian fleets won a victory over the
Ottoman fleet at the Battle of Lepanto (1571), off southwestern Greece; Catholic forces
killed over 30,000 Turks and destroyed 200 of their ships.[88]: 24 It was a startling, if mostly
symbolic,[89] blow to the image of Ottoman invincibility, an image which the victory of
the Knights of Malta over the Ottoman invaders in the 1565 siege of Malta had recently
set about eroding.[90] The battle was far more damaging to the Ottoman navy in sapping
experienced manpower than the loss of ships, which were rapidly replaced. [91]: 53 The
Ottoman navy recovered quickly, persuading Venice to sign a peace treaty in 1573,
allowing the Ottomans to expand and consolidate their position in North Africa.[92]

By contrast, the Habsburg frontier had settled somewhat, a stalemate caused by a

stiffening of the Habsburg defenses.[93] The Long Turkish War against Habsburg Austria
(1593–1606) created the need for greater numbers of Ottoman infantry equipped with
firearms, resulting in a relaxation of recruitment policy. This contributed to problems of
indiscipline and outright rebelliousness within the corps, which were never fully
solved.[94][obsolete source] Irregular sharpshooters (Sekban) were also recruited, and on
demobilisation turned to brigandage in the Celali rebellions (1590–1610), which
engendered widespread anarchy in Anatolia in the late 16th and early 17th
centuries.[95]: 24 With the Empire's population reaching 30 million people by 1600, the
shortage of land placed further pressure on the government.[96][obsolete source] In spite of these
problems, the Ottoman state remained strong, and its army did not collapse or suffer
crushing defeats. The only exceptions were campaigns against the Safavid dynasty of
Persia, where many of the Ottoman eastern provinces were lost, some permanently.
This 1603–1618 war eventually resulted in the Treaty of Nasuh Pasha, which ceded the
entire Caucasus, except westernmost Georgia, back into the possession of Safavid
Iran.[97] The treaty ending the Cretan War cost Venice much of Dalmatia, its Aegean
island possessions, and Crete.[98]: 33

During his brief majority reign, Murad IV (1623–1640) reasserted central authority
and recaptured Iraq (1639) from the Safavids.[99] The resulting Treaty of Zuhab of that
same year decisively divided the Caucasus and adjacent regions between the two
neighbouring empires as it had already been defined in the 1555 Peace of
Amasya.[100][101]

The Sultanate of Women (1533–1656) was a period in which the mothers of young
sultans exercised power on behalf of their sons. The most prominent women of this
period were Kösem Sultan and her daughter-in-law Turhan Hatice, whose political
rivalry culminated in Kösem's murder in 1651.[102] During the Köprülü era (1656–1703),
effective control of the Empire was exercised by a sequence of grand viziers from the
Köprülü family. The Köprülü Vizierate saw renewed military success with authority
restored in Transylvania, the conquest of Crete completed in 1669,
and expansion into Polish southern Ukraine, with the strongholds of Khotyn,
and Kamianets-Podilskyi and the territory of Podolia ceding to Ottoman control in
1676.[103]