Ottoman–Safavid War (1532–1555)
war

The Ottoman–Safavid War of 1532–1555 was one of the many military conflicts fought between the two arch rivals, the Ottoman Empire led by Suleiman the Magnificent, and the Safavid Empire led by Tahmasp I. Ottoman territorial gains were confirmed in the Peace of Amasya.
Background
The war was triggered by territorial disputes between the two empires, especially when the Bey of Bitlis decided to put himself under Persian protection. Also, Tahmasp had the governor of Baghdad, a sympathiser of Suleiman, assassinated. Additionally, the Safavid governor of Azerbaijan, Ulameh Soltan, defected to the Ottomans and informed them of the ongoing struggles of the Persians with the Uzbeks as well as with various other tribes.
On the diplomatic front, the Safavids had been engaged in discussions with the Habsburgs for the formation of a Habsburg–Persian alliance that would attack the Ottoman Empire on two fronts.
Two Iraqi Expedition (1532–1534)
Ottoman incursions begun as early in 1532. Grand Vizier Ibrahim Pasha successfully attacked Safavid Iraq, recaptured Bitlis, and proceeded to capture Tabriz on 15 July 1534. There, he was joined by Suleiman himself, and then captured Baghdad in December 1534. Tahmasp, who at the beginning had been on a campaign against the Uzbeks in the east, hurried his armies west but did not force a major confrontation, adopting a strategy of harassing Ottoman supply trains and scorched earth.
Second Ottoman campaign (1548–1549)
While Suleiman I was on his campaign against Habsburg Austria in Hungary, Safavid Shah Tahmasp I seized Tabriz, Nakhchivan, and Van.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Ottoman–Safavid War (1532–1555)” is war. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Ottoman and Safavid, not as a finished interpretation.
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The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q700841. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1532, 1555, 1534 and 1548.
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This entry incorporates text from “Ottoman–Safavid War (1532–1555)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.