The "Magnificent" Sultan NYPL, General Research Division

During Süleyman's forty-six-year reign (1520–66), Ottoman architecture, engineering, literature, and arts were encouraged and flourished. He also built a modern army and navy, and significantly expanded the frontiers of the Ottoman Empire.

This empire began life in the 13th century as a group of semi-nomadic Turkic peoples who took on a messianic mission of Muslim conquest. This group became an expansive, multiethnic empire through superior military organization and discipline, conquering important cities and vast swaths of territory. During the reign of Süleyman, conquests in Europe (conquering Hungary and reaching the very gates of Vienna in 1529), the Middle East, North Africa, and Persia saw the implementation – or imposition – of Ottoman administration on ever larger and more diverse populations. After the defeat of the Egyptians, Süleyman had at his command an expanded navy, projecting Ottoman power from the Mediterranean to the Arabian Sea. This expansionism also brought him into conflict with other European powers with merchant fleets and trading interests abroad, such as Portugal, Spain, and the Republic of Venice. In the ensuing centuries, Süleyman's successors would come into regular, often hostile contact with the Russian Empire as the latter expanded its holdings along the Black Sea and, still later, the Caucasus.