Suleiman II

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Suleiman II Ottoman Sultan CaliphReigned: Ottoman Period Full name Suleiman II Predecessor Mehmed IVSuccessor Ahmed IIReign 1687–91

Suleiman II (April 15, 1642 – June 23, 1691) (Ottoman Turkish: سليمان ثانى Süleymān-i sānī) was the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1687 to 1691. The younger brother of Mehmed IV (1648–87), Suleiman II had spent most of his life in the kafes (cage), a kind of luxurious prison for princes of the blood within the Topkapı Palace (it was designed to ensure that none could organize a rebellion).

When he was approached to accept the throne after his brother's deposition in 1687, Suleiman II assumed that the delegation had come to kill him and it was only with the greatest persuasion that he could be tempted out of the palace to be ceremonially girded with the sword of the Caliphs.

Hardly able to take control of events himself, Suleiman II nevertheless made a shrewd choice by appointing Ahmed Faizil Köprülü as his Grand Vizier. Under Köprülü's leadership the Turks halted an Austrian advance into Serbia and crushed an uprising in Bulgaria. During a campaign to retake eastern Hungary, Köprülü was defeated and killed by Imperial troops led by Louis William of Baden at Szlankamen in 1690. Suleiman II himself died a year later.