The Most Famous

POLITICIANS from Türkiye

This page contains a list of the greatest Turkish Politicians. The pantheon dataset contains 19,576 Politicians, 392 of which were born in Türkiye. This makes Türkiye the birth place of the 9th most number of Politicians behind Spain, and China.

Top 10

The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the top 10 most legendary Turkish Politicians of all time. This list of famous Turkish Politicians is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography’s online popularity. Visit the rankings page to view the entire list of Turkish Politicians.

1. Suleiman the Magnificent (1494 - 1566)

With an HPI of 92.24, Suleiman the Magnificent is the most famous Turkish Politician. His biography has been translated into 118 different languages on wikipedia.

Suleiman I (Ottoman Turkish: سليمان اول, romanized: Süleyman-ı Evvel; Turkish: I. Süleyman, pronounced [syleiˈman]; 6 November 1494 – 6 September 1566), commonly known as Suleiman the Magnificent in Western Europe and Suleiman the Lawgiver (Ottoman Turkish: قانونى سلطان سليمان, romanized: Ḳānūnī Sulṭān Süleymān) in his Ottoman realm, was the longest-reigning sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1520 until his death in 1566.: 541–545 Under his administration, the Ottoman Empire ruled over at least 25 million people. Suleiman succeeded his father, Selim I, as sultan on 30 September 1520 and began his reign with campaigns against the Christian powers in Central Europe and the Mediterranean. Belgrade fell to him in 1521 and the island of Rhodes in 1522–1523. At Mohács, in August 1526, Suleiman broke the military strength of Hungary. Suleiman became a prominent monarch of 16th-century Europe, presiding over the apex of the Ottoman Empire's economic, military and political power. Suleiman personally led Ottoman armies in conquering the Christian strongholds of Belgrade and Rhodes as well as most of Hungary before his conquests were checked at the siege of Vienna in 1529. He annexed much of the Middle East in his conflict with the Safavids and large areas of North Africa as far west as Algeria. Under his rule, the Ottoman fleet dominated the seas from the Mediterranean to the Red Sea and through the Persian Gulf.: 61 At the helm of an expanding empire, Suleiman personally instituted major judicial changes relating to society, education, taxation and criminal law. His reforms, carried out in conjunction with the empire's chief judicial official Ebussuud Efendi, harmonized the relationship between the two forms of Ottoman law: sultanic (Kanun) and religious (Sharia). He was a distinguished poet and goldsmith; he also became a great patron of culture, overseeing the "Golden Age" of the Ottoman Empire in its artistic, literary and architectural development. Breaking with Ottoman tradition, Suleiman married Hurrem Sultan, a woman from his harem, an Orthodox Christian of Ruthenian origin who converted to Sunni Islam, and who became famous in Western Europe by the name Roxelana, due to her red hair. Their son, Selim II, succeeded Suleiman following his death in 1566 after 46 years of rule. Suleiman's other potential heirs, Mehmed and Mustafa, had died; Mehmed had died in 1543 from smallpox, and Mustafa had been strangled to death in 1553 at the sultan's order. His other son Bayezid was executed in 1561 on Suleiman's orders, along with Bayezid's four sons, after a rebellion. Although scholars typically regarded the period after his death to be one of crisis and adaptation rather than simple decline, the end of Suleiman's reign was a watershed in Ottoman history. In the decades after Suleiman, the empire began to experience significant political, institutional, and economic changes, a phenomenon often referred to as the Transformation of the Ottoman Empire.: 11

2. Osman I (1254 - 1327)

With an HPI of 87.50, Osman I is the 2nd most famous Turkish Politician. His biography has been translated into 93 different languages.

Osman I or Osman Ghazi (Ottoman Turkish: عثمان غازى, romanized: ʿOsmān Ġāzī; Turkish: I. Osman or Osman Gazi; died 1323/4) was the eponymous founder of the Ottoman Empire (first known as a beylik or emirate). While initially a small Turkoman principality during Osman's lifetime, his beylik transformed into a vast empire in the centuries after his death. It existed until 1922 shortly after the end of World War I, when the sultanate was abolished. Owing to the scarcity of historical sources dating from his lifetime, very little factual information about Osman has survived. Not a single written source survives from Osman's reign, and the Ottomans did not record the history of Osman's life until the fifteenth century, more than a hundred years after his death. Because of this, historians find it very challenging to differentiate between fact and myth in the many stories told about him. One historian has even gone so far as to declare it impossible, describing the period of Osman's life as a "black hole". According to later Ottoman tradition, Osman's ancestors were descendants of the Kayı tribe of Oghuz Turks. However, many scholars of the early Ottomans regard it as a later fabrication meant to reinforce dynastic legitimacy. The Ottoman principality was one of many Anatolian beyliks that emerged in the second half of the thirteenth century. Situated in the region of Bithynia in the north of Asia Minor, Osman's principality found itself particularly well placed to launch attacks on the vulnerable Byzantine Empire, which his descendants would eventually go on to conquer.

3. Selim II (1524 - 1574)

With an HPI of 85.66, Selim II is the 3rd most famous Turkish Politician. His biography has been translated into 74 different languages.

Selim II (Ottoman Turkish: سليم ثانى, romanized: Selīm-i sānī; Turkish: II. Selim; 28 May 1524 – 15 December 1574), also known as Selim the Blond (Turkish: Sarı Selim) or Selim the Drunkard (Sarhoş Selim), was the sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1566 until his death in 1574. He was a son of Suleiman the Magnificent and his wife Hurrem Sultan. Selim had been an unlikely candidate for the throne until his brother Mehmed died of smallpox, his half-brother Mustafa was strangled to death by the order of his father and his brother Bayezid was killed on the order of his father after a rebellion against him and Selim. During his reign, his grand vizier Sokollu Mehmed Pasha exerted significant control over state governance. The conquest of Cyprus and Tunis were notable achievements during his reign but setbacks occurred in the Battle of Lepanto and the failed capture of Astrakhan as part of the war with Russia.

4. Mehmed the Conqueror (1432 - 1481)

With an HPI of 85.24, Mehmed the Conqueror is the 4th most famous Turkish Politician. His biography has been translated into 102 different languages.

Mehmed II (30 March 1432 – 3 May 1481), commonly known as Mehmed the Conqueror, was twice the sultan of the Ottoman Empire from August 1444 to September 1446 and February 1451 to May 1481. He is best known for capturing the Byzantine capital of Constantinople, which established the Ottomans as a major power in both Europe and Asia, and for enacting military, administrative, and legal reforms that laid the groundwork for the empire's continued expansion into the 16th century. First ascending to the throne at just 12 years old, Mehmed II faced grave internal and external crises but managed to defeat a coalition of Christian powers that threatened the empire. During his second reign, he strengthened the Ottoman Navy and made preparations to attack Constantinople. At the age of 21, he conquered Constantinople and brought an end to the Byzantine Empire in 1453, subsequently claiming the title caesar of Rome, which was recognized by the Patriarchate of Constantinople but rejected by most European monarchs. Mehmed II successfully unified Anatolia and extended Ottoman dominion as west as Bosnia. At home, he made many political and social reforms. He encouraged the arts and sciences, and by the end of his reign, his rebuilding program had changed Constantinople into a thriving imperial capital. He is considered a hero in modern-day Turkey and parts of the wider Muslim world. His legacy is reflected in many placenames and landmarks throughout Istanbul, including the Fatih district, Fatih Sultan Mehmet Bridge and Fatih Mosque.

5. Ahmed I (1590 - 1617)

With an HPI of 85.21, Ahmed I is the 5th most famous Turkish Politician. His biography has been translated into 71 different languages.

Ahmed I (Ottoman Turkish: احمد اول Aḥmed-i evvel; Turkish: I. Ahmed; 18 April 1590 – 22 November 1617) was the sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1603 to 1617. Ahmed's reign is noteworthy for marking the first breach in the Ottoman tradition of royal fratricide; henceforth, Ottoman rulers would no longer systematically execute their brothers upon accession to the throne. He is also well known for his construction of the Blue Mosque, one of the most famous mosques in Turkey.

6. Selim I (1470 - 1520)

With an HPI of 85.05, Selim I is the 6th most famous Turkish Politician. His biography has been translated into 80 different languages.

Selim I (Ottoman Turkish: سليم اول; Turkish: I. Selim; 10 October 1470 – 22 September 1520), known as Selim the Grim or Selim the Resolute (Turkish: Yavuz Sultan Selim), was the sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1512 to 1520. Despite lasting only eight years, 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. On the eve of his death in 1520, the Ottoman Empire spanned about 3.4 million km2 (1.3 million sq mi), having grown by seventy percent during Selim's reign. 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 pre-eminent Muslim state. His conquests dramatically shifted the empire's geographical and cultural center of gravity away from the Balkans and toward the Middle East. By the eighteenth century, Selim's conquest of the Mamluk Sultanate had come to be romanticized as the moment when the Ottomans seized leadership over the rest of the Muslim world, and consequently Selim is popularly remembered as the first legitimate Ottoman Caliph, although stories of an official transfer of the caliphal office from the Mamluk Abbasid dynasty to the Ottomans were a later invention.

7. Murad III (1546 - 1595)

With an HPI of 84.47, Murad III is the 7th most famous Turkish Politician. His biography has been translated into 73 different languages.

Murad III (Ottoman Turkish: مراد ثالث, romanized: Murād-i sālis; Turkish: III. Murad; 4 July 1546 – 16 January 1595) was the sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1574 until his death in 1595. His rule saw battles with the Habsburgs and exhausting wars with the Safavids. The long-independent Morocco was for a time made a vassal of the empire but regained independence in 1582. His reign also saw the empire's expanding influence on the eastern coast of Africa. However, the empire was beset by increasing corruption and inflation from the New World which led to unrest among the Janissary and commoners. Relations with Elizabethan England were cemented during his reign, as both had a common enemy in the Spanish. He was also a great patron of the arts, commissioning the Siyer-i-Nebi and other illustrated manuscripts.

8. Murad IV (1612 - 1640)

With an HPI of 83.63, Murad IV is the 8th most famous Turkish Politician. His biography has been translated into 71 different languages.

Murad IV (Ottoman Turkish: مراد رابع, Murād-ı Rābiʿ; Turkish: IV. Murad, 27 July 1612 – 8 February 1640) was the sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1623 to 1640, known both for restoring the authority of the state and for the brutality of his methods. Murad IV was born in Constantinople, the son of Sultan Ahmed I (r. 1603–17) and Kösem Sultan. He was brought to power by a palace conspiracy when he was just 11 years old, and he succeeded his uncle Mustafa I (r. 1617–18, 1622–23). Until he assumed absolute power on 18 May 1632, the empire was ruled by his mother, Kösem Sultan, as nāʾib-i salṭanat (regent). His reign is most notable for the Ottoman–Safavid War, of which the outcome would partition the Caucasus between the two Imperial powers for around two centuries, while it also roughly laid the foundation for the current Turkey–Iran–Iraq borders.

9. Mehmed III (1566 - 1603)

With an HPI of 83.31, Mehmed III is the 9th most famous Turkish Politician. His biography has been translated into 68 different languages.

Mehmed III (Ottoman Turkish: محمد ثالث, Meḥmed-i sālis; Turkish: III. Mehmed; 26 May 1566 – 22 December 1603) was the sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1595 until his death in 1603. Mehmed was known for ordering the execution of his brothers and leading the army in the Long Turkish War, during which the Ottoman army was victorious at the decisive Battle of Keresztes. This victory was however undermined by some military losses such as in Győr and Nikopol. He also ordered the successful quelling of the Jelali rebellions. The sultan also communicated with the court of Elizabeth I on the grounds of stronger commercial relations and in the hopes of England to ally with the Ottomans against the Spanish.

10. Murad I (1326 - 1389)

With an HPI of 83.07, Murad I is the 10th most famous Turkish Politician. His biography has been translated into 74 different languages.

Murad I (Ottoman Turkish: مراد اول; Turkish: I. Murad, Murad-ı Hüdavendigâr (nicknamed Hüdavendigâr, from Persian: خداوندگار, romanized: Khodāvandgār, lit. 'the devotee of God' – meaning "sovereign" in this context); 29 June 1326 – 15 June 1389) was the sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1362 to 1389. He was the son of Orhan Gazi and Nilüfer Hatun. Murad I came into the throne after his elder brother Süleyman Pasha's death. Murad I conquered Adrianople, renamed it to Edirne, and in 1363 made it the new capital of the Ottoman Sultanate. Then he further expanded the Ottoman realm in Southern Europe by bringing most of the Balkans under Ottoman rule, and forced the princes of Serbia and Bulgaria as well as the Byzantine emperor John V Palaiologos to pay him tribute. Murad I administratively divided his sultanate into the two provinces of Anatolia (Asia Minor) and Rumelia (the Balkans).

People

Pantheon has 392 people classified as Turkish politicians born between 1300 BC and 1993. Of these 392, 43 (10.97%) of them are still alive today. The most famous living Turkish politicians include Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Abdullah Gül, and Ahmet Necdet Sezer. The most famous deceased Turkish politicians include Suleiman the Magnificent, Osman I, and Selim II. As of April 2024, 29 new Turkish politicians have been added to Pantheon including Şehzade Bayezid, Hussein Dey, and Şehzade Mehmed Abdülkadir.