Mehmed I

Mehmed I Çelebi (Edirne, 1389 - Bursa, May 26, 1421), called Kirisci ("the Executioner "), was Ottoman sultan from 1413 until his death. He was the son of Bayezid I Yıldırım. After the period of civil war called "the interregnum", he was recognized as sultan of the entire Empire in 1413.

His early years

Mehmed Çelebi was born in the palace of Edirne (formerly Adrianople, today in Turkey) in 1389 as the fourth son of Sultan Bayezid I (who had succeeded his own father Murad I that same year in the middle of the Battle of Kosovo) and one of his consorts, Devlet Hatun. He was educated in the palace of Bursa and, following Ottoman custom, when he reached adolescence in 1399, he was sent to Amasya for his apprenticeship as an administrator and to gain experience as sanjak-bey (provincial governor). ruling the eyalate of Rûm (central northern Anatolia), an Ottoman territorial entity recently created by his father over the territory conquered from the Eretnids. There Mehmed was mentored by General Bayezid Pasha (a native of Amasya and of convert Albanian parents). Mehmed later made Bayezid Pasha his grand vizier (1413–1421).

The Interregnum

On July 20, 1402, his father Bayezid was defeated at the Battle of Ankara by the Turco-Mongol emir Tamerlane of Transoxiana. The brothers (with the exception of Mustafa and Musa, who were captured and taken along with Bayezid to Samarkand) were rescued from the battlefield, and Mehmed was saved by the general Bayezid Pasha, who took him to Amasya.

The former Ottoman Empire did not have a regulated succession and, according to Turkish tradition, each son could succeed his father. Of Mehmed's brothers, the eldest, Ertuğrul, had died in 1392. Leaving aside the underage brothers, this left three princes: Süleyman, Isa and Mehmed, to contest control of the remaining Ottoman territories in the civil war known as the Fetret devri (Interregnum). In modern historiography, these princes are often referred to by the title Çelebi, but in contemporary sources, the title is reserved for Mehmed and Musa. Byzantine sources translated the title as Kyritzes (Κυριτζής), which in turn was adopted in Turkish as kirişçi, sometimes misinterpreted as güreşçi, "the fighter".

While Mehmed Çelebi formed, based on the Eyalate of Rûm, an independent state in Amasya; his older brother Süleyman, proclaiming himself sultan, ruled northern Greece, Macedonia, Bulgaria and Thrace, with his capital at Edirne (the European capital of the Ottomans), advised by Bayezid's grand vizier Çandarlı Ali Paşa, supported by the Devşirme and the Christian vassal princes of the Balkans. Mehmed's second eldest brother, Isa, established himself as an independent ruler in Bursa (the Asian capital), ruling southern Greece and the westernmost part of Anatolia. War broke out between Mehmed and İsa, and after the battles of Ermeni-beli and Ulubad (March–May 1403), İsa fled to Constantinople and Mehmed occupied Bursa. The subsequent battle at Karasi between Mehmed and İsa resulted in a victory for Mehmed and İsa fleeing to Karaman. İsa was later killed in a bathroom by Mehmed's agents. Süleyman took advantage of the occasion to also seize southern Greece, while Mehmed ruled Anatolia.

After İsa's death, Süleyman crossed the strait with a large army. Initially Süleyman was successful, invading Anatolia, capturing Bursa (March 1404) and Ankara later that year. Meanwhile, Prince Musa, who was captured in Ankara, was released by Temür, at Mehmed's request. Mehmed sent Musa across the Black Sea to Thrace with a small force to attack Süleyman's territories in southeastern Europe. This maneuver soon brought Süleyman back to Thrace, where a brief but bloody armed encounter ensued between him and Musa. At first, Süleyman had the advantage of winning the Battle of Kosmidion in 1410, but in 1411 his army defected to Musa, after being defeated in a battle outside Edirne. The fugitive Süleyman was forced to retreat to southern Greece. Ultimately, Süleyman was captured and executed on Musa's orders. He was now the ruler of the Ottoman dominions in Europe, betraying the favor of his brother Mehmed.

Muse immediately besieged Constantinople, because the Byzantine emperor, Manuel II Palaiologos, had been an ally of Süleyman. Manuel called Mehmed (enraged by the betrayal of his brother Musa) to protect him. Mehmed's Ottomans now garrisoned Constantinople against the Thracian Ottomans, commanded by Musa. Mehmed made several unsuccessful sorties against his brother's troops, one of which was sending a small army to Gallipoli, where he was defeated at Incegiz. Mehmed was forced to cross the Bosphorus again to put down a revolt that had broken out in his own territories. Musa further pressed the siege of Constantinople. However, Mehmed returned to Thrace and enlisted the help of Stefan Lazarevic, the Serbian despot, and primarily the Turkish aristocracy, promising to resume the old ghazi traditions. He also reestablished the Ottoman dynasty's connections with Sufi orders and Anatolian artisan brotherhoods.

The Ottoman armies of the rival brothers met face to face on the Chamurli Plain (present-day Samokov, Bulgaria) on July 5, 1413. The decisive battle that followed was won by Mehmed and his allies. Musa was captured and strangled.

Reign

After winning the Fetret devri, Mehmed crowned himself sultan in the Thracian city of Edirne, which was in the European part of the empire (the area dividing the Anatolian and empire, Constantinople and the surrounding region, was still in the hands of the Byzantine Empire), becoming Mehmed I. He consolidated his power, making Edirne the most important of the dual capitals, and conquered parts of Albania, the Candaroglu emirate, and the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia of the Mamluks. Considering the many achievements of his, Mehmed is widely known as the "second founder"; of the Ottoman sultanate.

As the new sultan had succeeded thanks to the Turkish aristocracy, Byzantine elements that had infiltrated Ottoman institutions were eliminated; Emphasis was placed on the Turkmen past of the Ottoman dynastic lineage and chronicles of its history were commissioned for the first time. The Turkish aristocracy regained its supremacy, taking over its former estates and holding important positions in the government and in the army, dominating the sultan and the government. The janissaries (infantry of the Kapıkulları corps) remained as the sultan's personal guard. The recruitment of the Devşirme was ended, depriving this emerging political class of its potential civilian and military elements. The sultan's guard was left in such a neglected situation that it could not help his sovereign.

Rebellions by Düzmece Mustafa and Orhan Çelebi

Shortly after Mehmed began his reign, his brother Mustafa Çelebi, who had originally been captured along with their father Bayezid I during the battle of Ankara and had been held captive in Samarkand, returned to Anatolia and went into hiding during the Fetret devri, he resurfaced and asked Mehmed to divide the empire along with him. Mehmed refused and engaged Mustafa's forces (supported by the Christian Wallachian princes) in battle, easily defeating them. Mustafa escaped to the Byzantine city of Thessaloniki, but after an agreement with Mehmed, the Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Palaiologos exiled Mustafa to the island of Lemnos. In the course of the fighting between these brothers, firearms were used for the first time in the Ottoman Empire.

In return for the help provided, Mehmed must recognize the Byzantine Emperor as "father and lord" and remain loyal to him, which can be considered the last diplomatic triumph of Byzantium.

However, Mehmed still faced some problems, the first being the problem of his nephew Orhan Çelebi (son of his older brother Süleyman Çelebi), who Mehmed perceived as a threat to his rule, just as his followers had been. siblings. Apparently, there was a plot involving Manuel II Palaiologos, who tried to use Orhan against Sultan Mehmed; however, the sultan found out about the plot and had Orhan blinded for treason, according to a common Byzantine practice.

Shaykh Bedreddin's revolt

Following the battle of Ankara and the Fetret devri, the empire's population had become unstable and traumatized. A very powerful social and religious movement arose in the empire and became disruptive. The movement was led by Shaykh Bedreddin (1359–1420), a charismatic and famous Sufi Muslim theologian. He was an eminent ulema, born to a Greek mother and a Muslim father in Simavna (present-day Kyprinos) southwest of Edirne. Mehmed's brother Musa had made Bedreddin his 'army qadi'. or the supreme judge. Bedreddin created a populist religious movement in the Ottoman sultanate, "subversive conclusions that promoted the suppression of social differences between rich and poor, as well as the barriers between different forms of monotheism". Successfully developing a popular social revolution and the syncretism of the various religions and sects of the empire, the Bedreddin movement began on the European side of the empire and underwent further expansion into western Anatolia.

In 1416, Shaykh Bedreddin began his rebellion against the throne. After a four-year struggle, he was finally captured by Bayezid Pasha, Mehmed's grand vizier, and hanged in the city of Serres, a city in modern Greece, in 1420.

Consolidation

During the period of Fetret devri, the Empire had lost a number of territories in Anatolia. Mehmed sets out on a campaign to recover them as quickly as possible. Annexes Smyrna in 1414, annexes Saruhan and Menteseoglu, defeats the Karamanogullari who had attacked Bursa, whom he finally pardons, allowing them to live in the territory of the Empire as subjects, and conquers part of the Candaroğlu emirate, to finally occupy the Christian kingdom of Cilicia.

Consolidating his power in Anatolia, he left for Rumelia. He conquers part of Albania and submits to Wallachia, imposing the payment of tribute. At the same time, he reinforces his fleet and the first naval battles take place.

Death

Mehmed I's reign as sultan of the reunited empire lasted only eight years before his death, but he had also been the more powerful brother vying for the throne and the de facto ruler of most of the empire for most of the world. preceding eleven-year period of the Fetret devri (Ottoman Interregnum) which passed between his father's captivity in Ankara and his own final victory over his brother Musa Çelebi at the decisive Battle of Çamurlu.

He died in the palace of Edirne on May 26, 1421, and was entombed in Bursa in a mausoleum erected by himself near the famous mosque he built there and which, because of its green-tiled decorations, was called respectively with the names of Yeşil Türbe (Green Mausoleum) and Yeşil Camii (Green Mosque). It is said that his body showed the scars of forty wounds, product of the 24 military campaigns in which he had participated. To avoid a repetition of the period of anarchy prior to his reign, his death was concealed from the people and the army until the assumption of his successor.

Mehmed I also completed another mosque in Bursa, which his grandfather Murad I had started but had been neglected during the reign of his father Bayezid. Near his own Green Mosque and his mausoleum Mehmed founded two other characteristic institutions, one a school and the other a refectory for the poor, both endowed with royal munificence.

Family

Consorts

• Şehzade Hatun (?) daughter of Dividdar Ahmed Paşa, third ruler of the Kutluşah Baylicate of Canik;
• Emine Hatun (1389 - 1449), married to Mehmed in 1403, daughter of Şaban Süli Bey, fifth ruler of the beylicate of Dulkadir;
• Kumru Hatun (?

Children

• Şehzade Bayezid Çelebi (1403-1420);
• Şehzade Murad Çelebi (1404 - 1451), son of Emine Hatun and sultan future Murad II;
• Şehzade Kasim Çelebi (Death in childhood in January 1406, buried in the Mausoleum of Prince, Amasya);
• Şehzade Mustafa Çelebi (1408 - executed by order of his brother Murad II in October 1423);
• Şehzade Ahmed Çelebi (died in childhood);
• Şehzade Mahmud Çelebi (1413 - executed by order of his brother Murad II in August 1429, buried in the mausoleum of Mehmed I, Bursa);
• Şehzade Yusuf Çelebi (1414 - executed by order of his brother Murad II in August 1429, buried in the mausoleum of Mehmed I, Bursa.

Daughters

• Selçuk Hatun (1407 - died on 25 October 1485, buried in the mausoleum of Mehmed I, Bursa), married Damat Taceddin Ibrahim II Bey, ruler of the beylicate of Candaroglu (1392 - 30 May 1443), son and successor of İsfendiyar Bey;
• Sultan Hatun (1408 - died in 1444), married to Prince Damat Kasim Bey (fallen in 1464), son of Isfendiar Bey, ruler of Candaroglu;
• a daughter (?) married to Damat Karaca Paşa (deceased on 10 November 1444);
• Hafsa Hatun (? - 1445, buried in the mausoleum of Mehmed I, Bursa), married Damat Mahmud Bey (deceased in January 1444), son of Ibrahim Paşa Çandarlı;
• İlaldi Hatun (1412 - 1471), married to Damat Ibrahim II Bey, ruler of the beylicate of Karaman (fallen on 16 July 1464), son and successor of Damat Mehmed II Bey;
• a daughter (?) married to Prince Damat Isa Bey (fallen in 1437), son of Damat Mehmed II Bey;
• Ayşe Hatun (1414 - 1469, buried in the mausoleum of Mehmed I, Bursa);
• a daughter (??) married to Damat Alaattin Ali Bey, ruler of the beylicate of Karaman, son of Halil Bey.