The Ottoman Sultan, Selim I

Compiled by: Syed Ali Shahbaz
On September 22, 1520 AD, the Ottoman sultan, Selim I, died at the age of 55, after a reign of 8 years, three years after occupying Syria and Egypt from the Mamluk rulers, and declaring himself caliph, although he had no right or legitimacy, even from the Sunni point of view.
In 1512, he had usurped the throne by dethroning his father, Bayazid II and immediately embarked on fratricide, killing his brothers and cousins. Although an accomplished poet in both his native Turkish and in Persian, he was of violent temper and notorious for his frequent killing of his viziers and the genocide of Shi'ite Muslims in Anatolia because of his fears of the growing influence of the Safavid Dynasty of Iran, against whom he was lucky to win the Battle of Chaldiran in 1514.
His bid to build an alliance with Ubaydollah Khan Shaybani of Bukhara and the Timurid prince of Kabul, Zaheer od-Din Babur, against the Safavids failed, with Babur (the future founder of the Mughal Empire of the Subcontinent) spurning the offer and opting to join Shah Ismail, and the subsequent defeat and death of Shaybani in the battle against the Iranians.