Timişoara, Ottoman eyalet of

The Ottoman Empire is a world power when Suleyman dies in 1566.

Most of the great cities of Islam—Mecca, Medina, Jerusalem, Damascus, Cairo, Tunis, and Baghdad— are under the sultan's crescent flag.

The Porte exercises direct control over Anatolia, the sub-Danubian Balkan provinces, Syria, Palestine, and Mesopotamia.

Egypt, Mecca, and the North African provinces are governed under special regulations, as are satellite domains in Arabia and the Caucasus, and among the Crimean Tartars.

In addition, the native rulers of Wallachia, Moldavia, Transylvania, and Ragusa (Dubrovnik) are vassals of the sultan.

Border strife between Austrian and Ottoman Hungary, intermittent since the earliest Austro-Turkish War, becomes more violent during 1591.

A large uprising has begun against the Ottoman Empire in the Banat region, which forms part of the Ottoman Eyalet of Temeşvar, in the area around Vršac.

The leader of this uprising is Teodor Nestorović, the Bishop of Vršac.

Other leaders are Sava Ban and voivode Velja Mironić.

The Serb rebels capture, for a short time, several cities in Banat, including Vršac, Bečkerek, and Lipova, as well as Titel and Bečej in Bačka.

The size of this uprising is illustrated by the verse from one Serbian national song: "Sva se butum zemlja pobunila, Šest stotina podiglo se sela, Svak na cara pušku podigao!" ("The whole land has rebelled, a six hundred villages arose, everybody pointed his gun against the emperor").

The rebellion has the character of a holy war, the Serb rebels carrying flags with the image of Saint Sava.

Sinan Pasha, who leads the Ottoman army, orders the green flag of Muhammad brought from Damascus to counter the Serbian flag, and burns the mortal remains of Saint Sava in Belgrade in May.

The uprising is eventually crushed, and most of the Serbs from this region, fearing Ottoman retaliation, flee to Transylvania, leaving the Banat region deserted.

The Ottoman authorities, who need population in this fertile land, promise clemency to all who returned.

The Serb population does come back, but the authorities' mercy does not extend to the leader of the rebellion, Bishop Teodor Nestorović, who is flayed alive as a punishment.