Adventures in Bookland: Suleiman the Magnificent by Andre Clot

Suleiman the Magnificent by Andre Clot

There must surely be a pun to be made on the author’s name – something like a clot upon Suleiman’s magnificent reputation – but given that the book is very good, it’s proved beyond my wit to make it. Suffice to say that the book spends its first half on Suleiman’s life and reign in an engaging manner, making a reasonable effort to understand the man behind the appellation – Clot’s point that Suleiman really did see himself as a ghazi, a warrior for Islam, is perhaps key to understanding much of his reign – and the second half in a wider description of the Ottoman world over which Suleiman reigned and which, during his reign, seemed poised to remake the world in his image and the image of his religion.

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