2021-01-22 Fri

Selim I, known as Selim the Grim or Selim the Resolute was the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1512 to 1520. His reign is notable for the enormous expansion of the Empire, particularly his conquest between 1516 and 1517 of the entire Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt, which included all of the Levant, Hejaz, Tihamah, and Egypt itself.

Selim's conquest of the Middle Eastern heartlands of the Muslim world, and particularly his assumption of the role of guardian of the pilgrimage routes to Mecca and Medina, established the Ottoman Empire as the most prestigious of all Muslim states.

Today on 22 January in the year 1517, The Battle of Ridaniya was fought in Egypt. The Ottoman forces of Selim I defeated the Mamluk forces under Al-Ashraf Tuman bay II. The Turks marched into Cairo, and the severed head of Tuman bay II, Egypt’s last Mamluk Sultan, was hung over an entrance gate in the Al Ghourieh quarter of Cairo.

On the eve of his death in 1520, the Ottoman Empire spanned about 576,900 sq mi (1,494,000 km2), having grown by seventy percent during Selim's reign.Depicted here is gold Sultani issued under his reign from Hizan mint. The obverse of a coin depict Arabic inscription which read as “Sultan Shah Selim Ibn Bayezid Han Zarb Hizan” with date.

Image Source: https://www.coinarchives.com/