Bayezid I

Bayezid was the son of Murad I[5] and his Greek wife, Gülçiçek Hatun.[6] His first major role was as governor of Kütahya, a city that he earned by marrying the daughter of a Germiyanid ruler.[7] He was an impetuous soldier, earning the nickname "Thunderbolt" in a battle against the Karamanids.

Bayezid ascended to the throne following the death of his father, Murad I, who was killed by Serbian knight Miloš Obilić during (15 June), or immediately after (16 June), the Battle of Kosovo in 1389, the battle in which Serbia became a vassal of the Ottoman Sultanate. Immediately after obtaining the throne, he had his younger brother strangled to avoid a plot. In 1390, Bayezid took as a wife Princess Olivera Despina, the daughter of Prince Lazar of Serbia,[8] who also lost his life in Kosovo. Bayezid recognized Stefan Lazarević, the son of Lazar, as the new Serbian leader - later despot - with considerable autonomy.

A Bayezid-era manuscript of the Quran

Upper Serbia resisted the Ottomans until Bayezid captured Skopje in 1391, converting the city into an important base of operations.

Meanwhile, the sultan began unifying Anatolia under his rule. Forcible expansion into Muslim territories could have endangered the Ottoman relationship with the gazis, who were an important source of warriors for this ruling house on the European frontier. Thus Bayezid began the practice of first securing fatwas, or legal rulings from Islamic scholars, to justify wars against these Muslim states. However, Bayezid suspected the loyalty of his Muslim Turkish followers, so he relied heavily on his Serbian and Byzantine vassal troops in these conquests.[9]

In a single campaign over the summer and fall of 1390, Bayezid conquered the beyliks of Aydin, Saruhan and Menteshe. His major rival Sulayman, the emir of Karaman, responded by allying himself with the ruler of Sivas, Kadi Burhan al-Din and the remaining Turkish beyliks. Nevertheless, Bayezid pushed on and overwhelmed the remaining beyliks (Hamid, Teke, and Germiyan), as well as taking the cities of Akşehir and Niğde, as well as their capital Konya from the Karaman. At this point, Bayezid accepted peace proposals from Karaman (1391), concerned that further advances would antagonize his Turkoman followers and lead them to ally with Kadi Burhan al-Din. Once peace had been made with Karaman, Bayezid moved north against Kastamonu which had given refuge to many fleeing from his forces, and conquered both that city as well as Sinop.[10] However, his subsequent campaign was stopped by Burhan al-Din at the Battle of Kırkdilim.

From 1389 to 1395 he conquered Bulgaria and northern Greece. In 1394 Bayezid crossed the River Danube to attack Wallachia, ruled at that time by Mircea the Elder. The Ottomans were superior in number, but on 10 October 1394 (or 17 May 1395), in the Battle of Rovine, on forested and swampy terrain, the Wallachians won the fierce battle and prevented Bayezid's army from advancing beyond the Danube.[11]

In 1394, Bayezid laid siege to Constantinople,[12] the capital of the Byzantine Empire. Anadoluhisarı fortress was built between 1393 and 1394 as part of preparations for the second Ottoman siege of Constantinople, which took place in 1395. On the urgings of the Byzantine emperor Manuel II Palaeologus, a new crusade was organized to defeat him. This proved unsuccessful: in 1396 the Christian allies, under the leadership of the King of Hungary and future Holy Roman Emperor (in 1433) Sigismund, were defeated in the Battle of Nicopolis. Bayezid built the magnificent Ulu Cami in Bursa, to celebrate this victory.

Thus the siege of Constantinople continued, lasting until 1402.[13] The beleaguered Byzantines had their reprieve when Bayezid fought the Timurid Empire in the east.[14] At this time, the empire of Bayezid included Thrace (except Constantinople), Macedonia, Bulgaria, and parts of Serbia in Europe. In Asia, his domains extended to the Taurus Mountains. His army was considered one of the best in the Islamic world.

Bayezid I held captive by Timur, painting by Stanisław Chlebowski (1878)

Bayezid's türbe (tomb) at Bayezid I Mosque

In 1397, Bayezid defeated the emir of Karaman in Akçay, killing him and annexing his territory. In 1398, the sultan conquered the Djanik emirate and the territory of Burhan al-Din, violating the accord with the Turco-Mongol emir Timur. Finally, Bayezid occupied Elbistan and Malatya.

In 1400, Timur succeeded in rousing the local Turkic beyliks who had been vassals of the Ottomans to join him in his attack on Bayezid, who was also considered one of the most powerful rulers in the Muslim world during that period. Years of insulting letters had passed between Timur and Bayezid. Both rulers insulted each other in their own way while Timur preferred to undermine Bayezid's position as a ruler and play down the significance of his military successes.

This is the excerpt from one of Timur's letters addressed to Ottoman sultan:

Believe me, you are but pismire ant: don't seek to fight the elephants for they'll crush you under their feet. Shall a petty prince such as you are contend with us? But your rodomontades [braggadocio] are not extraordinary; for a Turcoman never spoke with judgement. If you don't follow our counsels you will regret it.[15][16]

In the fateful Battle of Ankara, on 20 July 1402, the Ottoman army was defeated. Bayazid tried to escape, but was captured and taken to Timur.[17] Historians describe their first meeting as follows:

When Timur saw Bayezid, he laughed. Bayezid, offended by this laugh, told Timur that it was indecent to laugh at misfortune; to which Timur replied: "It is clear then that fate does not value power and possession of vast lands if it distributes them to cripples: to you, the crooked, and to me, the lame."[18]

Many writers claim that Bayezid was mistreated by the Timurids. However, writers and historians from Timur's own court reported that Bayezid was treated well, and that Timur even mourned his death.[19] One of Bayezid's sons, Mustafa Çelebi, was captured with him and held captive in Samarkand until 1405.

Four of Bayezid's sons, specifically Süleyman Çelebi, İsa Çelebi, Mehmed Çelebi, and Musa Çelebi, however, escaped from the battlefield and later started a civil war for the Ottoman throne known as the Ottoman Interregnum.[20] After Mehmed's victory, his coronation as Mehmed I, and the deaths of the other three, Bayezid's other son Mustafa Çelebi emerged from hiding and began two failed rebellions against his brother Mehmed and, after Mehmed's death, his nephew Murad II.

Bayezid is proclaimed sultan, 15th-century miniature

According to the British orientalist, Lord Kinross, Bayezid was distinguished by haste, impulsivity, unpredictability and imprudence.[27] He cared little for state affairs, which he entrusted to his governors. As Kinross writes, between campaigns Bayezid was often engaged in pleasures: gluttony, drunkenness and debauchery. The courtyard of the sultan was famous for its luxury and was comparable to the Byzantine court during its heyday.[28]

At the same time, the sultan was a talented commander.[27] In all 13 years of his reign, Bayezid suffered only one defeat, which eventually turned out to be fatal for him.[29] Despite his lust for earthly pleasures, Bayezid was a religious man and used to spend hours in his personal mosque in Bursa. He also kept Islamic theologians in his circle.[30]

In the words of the contemporary Greek historian Doukas:[31]

[Bayezid] was a feared man, precipitate in deeds of war, a persecutor of Christians as no other around him, and in the religion of the Arabs a most ardent disciple of Muhammad, whose unlawful commandments were observed to the utmost, never sleeping, spending his nights contriving intrigues and machinations against the rational flock of Christ.... His purpose was to increase the nation of the Prophet and to decrease that of the Romans. Many cities and provinces did he add to the dominion of the Muslims.

Bayezid managed to expand the territory of the Ottoman empire to the Danube and the Euphrates. However, his reign culminated with a humiliating defeat at Ankara, whereby the empire was reduced to the size of a beylik from the time of Orhan. This small territory was divided between Bayezid's two sons by Timur and many beyliks regained their independence. The defeat at Ankara marked the beginning of the Ottoman interregnum, which lasted 10 years.[17]

Sultan Bayezid was portrayed in the Serbian 1989 historical drama film Battle of Kosovo, as a participant of the Battle of Kosovo by actor Branislav Lečić, and in the Romanian historical drama Mircea (Proud heritage) by Ion Ritiu as a young Sultan who fought in the battles of Rovine, Nicopolis and Angora.

• Amir Sultan

• İnalcık, Halil (1960). "Bāyazīd". In Gibb, H. A. R.; Kramers, J. H.; Lévi-Provençal, E.; Schacht, J.; Lewis, B. & Pellat, Ch. (eds.). Encyclopaedia of Islam. Volume I: A–B (2nd ed.). Leiden: E. J. Brill. pp. 1117–1119. OCLC 495469456.
• Harris, Jonathan (2010) The End of Byzantium. New Haven and London: Yale University Press ISBN 978-0-300-11786-8
• Imber, Colin (2009). The Ottoman Empire, 1300–1650: The Structure of Power (2nd ed.). New York: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-0-230-57451-9.
• Kastritsis, Dimitris (2007). The Sons of Bayezid: Empire Building and Representation in the Ottoman Civil War of 1402–13. Brill. ISBN 978-90-04-15836-8.
• Nicolle, David (1999) Nicopolis 1396: The Last Crusade. Oxford: Osprey Books ISBN 978-1-85532-918-8

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