In just eight years Selim I became ‘God’s Shadow on Earth’

Faber must take a rather dim view of British readers’ historical awareness these days. This is a biography of one of the greatest Ottoman sultans in the empire’s 600-year history, yet the publishers cannot bring themselves to mention his name in the book’s title. Perhaps they thought Selim I was too obscure, and maybe they’re right, but their reticence is not shared by Alan Mikhail’s American publishers, who rightly give the sultan his due. Never mind. Mikhail, chair of Yale’s history department and a specialist in Ottoman history, makes it his mission to demonstrate how this utterly compelling leader helped define his age, bending the world to his will. And he succeeds with a flourish.

Selim’s reign may not have been long —he only ruled from 1512 to 1520 — but he managed to fit an awful lot of conquest in. So much so that by the time of his death the Ottoman empire had almost trebled in size. He had gobbled up the Mamluk sultanate of Egypt, encompassing the Levant and swathes of the Arabian peninsula, including the holy cities of Mecca and Medina to provide added Islamic lustre to his dominions. He had also given the Safavid shah Ismail I a bloody nose at the Battle of Chaldiran in 1514, entering Tabriz in triumph to add to Iranian ignominy.

Selim’s rise to the throne was no less interesting than his time on it. Mikhail’s passages on the bouts of fratricide that necessarily accompanied an Ottoman prince’s succession are riveting. As the fourth of his father Bayazid’s ten sons, Selim was never expected to become sultan. While princeling governor of Trabzon from 1487 to 1510, however, he proved his military mettle in clashes with his heterodox Shiite neighbour of Iran, a carefully calibrated signal to the powerful military Janissary class that he would be a worthy successor to his doveish father.