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In 1453, Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II led his army to capture Constantinople. The thousand-year-old Eastern Roman Empire was destroyed and Europe was shocked. Over the next half century, the Ottomans continued to expand. By the beginning of the 16th century, although its expansion had achieved certain achievements, the Ottomans were still a medium-sized country mainly composed of the Balkans and Anatolia until it ushered in the ninth sultan: Selim I (1470-1520). Selim was the grandson of Muhammad II. As the non-eldest son, he had no chance of becoming the Sultan. However, due to his brother's rebellion with his father, he took the opportunity to become sultan through a coup. Selim, who ascended to the throne, launched three eastern expeditions. At the Battle of Chaldiran, Selim defeated Ismaili, the founding monarch of the Safavid dynasty of Persia, which was gaining momentum, suppressing the Safavids' rising momentum, and also kicked off the ongoing struggle between Sunnis and Shias within Islam. In the Battle of Dabiq Grassland, Selim defeated the Mamluk dynasty's army in Egypt in one day. The Mamluk Sultan was killed in action, and famous cities such as Aleppo, Damascus and Jerusalem fell into Selim's hands one after another. At the Battle of Raidaniya, Selim defeated the Mamluk army again in less than an hour. Soon, Selim was proclaimed Caliph in Cairo, the Mamluk capital, establishing his supreme status in the Islamic world. In less than four years, under the leadership of Selim, the Ottoman Empire emerged as a world empire spanning Europe, Asia, and Africa. Selim not only reshaped the political ecology of the Ottoman Empire and the Middle East, but the empire that flourished under his leadership also radiated influence around the world. The empire's monopoly on trade routes between the East and the West led Columbus and others to venture across the Atlantic and eventually discover the New World. The Europeans who colonized America also dealt with the Indians in the same way they dealt with the Ottomans in the Old World, thus triggering a series of conflicts in the New World. At the same time, the expansion of the empire also brought a huge sense of oppression to Europe. Some Europeans attributed Europe's disadvantage compared to the Ottomans to moral decay, and mainstream beliefs were challenged. Therefore, we cannot fully understand the world of the Age of Discovery and the Early Modern Age if we ignore the role of the Ottoman Empire. This book is not only a biography about Selim, full of stories of power struggles such as fratricide, father-son antagonism, and son-in-law fighting, as well as Selim's heroic military exploits; it is also an innovative work that breaks away from Eurocentrism and centers on the Ottoman Empire, depicting global history from 1470 to 1520. It emphasizes the role of the Ottoman Empire behind major events such as the Great Navigation and the Reformation, and completes our cognitive picture of the origins of the modern world. The "Shadow of Uthman" and the "Shadow of Allah" are forever cast on the world.