With the arrival of European trainers and the introduction of modern military schools, the antireform forces within the government and the society began to mobilize against the sultan. The new army was fiercely opposed by the janissaries, who viewed it as an open challenge to their traditional dominant role. The introduction of European education also was opposed by the religious classes led by the şeyhülislam, who considered Selim’s reforms to be fundamentally incompatible with Islam. The rebellion that had been brewing finally erupted in late May 1807. Not surprisingly, the backlash began with the janissary corps stationed outside Istanbul killing a member of Nizam-i Cedid, who had urged them to wear new uniforms and receive modern military training. Instead of nipping the rebellion in the bud, Selim hesitated, encouraged by the şeyhülislam to adopt a conciliatory approach toward the rebels (Shaw: 1:273–274). The result was disastrous. The janissary units moved into Istanbul, gathering on their way other janissaries as well as the ulema and students from various religious schools. As they arrived in front of the palace, the sultan once again tried to negotiate with the rebels, promising them to abandon Nizam-i Cedid and throwing a number of his own supporters, including his grand vizier, into the crowd, who tore them to pieces. As in the past, appeasement merely emboldened the rebels (Shaw: 1:274). The ulema supported the rebels and issued a fetva declaring that Selim’s reforms were opposed to the laws of Islam and demanding that the sultan step down from the throne. Recognizing the serious nature of the revolt, Selim accepted his fate and returned to the palace cage. Selim’s cousins, Mustafa and Mahmud, were the only princes of the Ottoman royal house who could ascend the throne. Since Mahmud was suspected by the rebels of being close to the deposed sultan and sympathetic to his reforms, Mustafa was brought out of the royal harem to ascend the Ottoman throne as Mustafa IV on May 29. Weak and incompetent, the new sultan was merely a convenient tool in the hands of the rebels, who used him to reverse Selim’s military and governmental reforms.
Ottoman sultan Mustafa IV (r. 1807–1808). (The Stapleton Collection/Bridgeman Images)
Although many among the provincial notables (āyāns) opposed Selim’s new army, fearing that a strong central government would attack and destroy their power, there were also powerful notables who had recognized the need to build a modern army capable of defending the empire against the Habsburg and Russian empires. Those āyāns who had fought with their armies against the Habsburgs and the Russians recognized the urgent need for military reforms, which would slow down the process of territorial dismemberment by bringing the Ottoman military up to par with modern European armies. They may have opposed the centralizing drive of the Ottoman government in Istanbul, but that would still be preferable to being conquered and ruled by Christian European empires, which would swallow them whole. Among the provincial notables in southeast Europe opposed to the new regime in Istanbul, none was as powerful and influential as Alemdar Mustafa Pasha, the powerful lord of Rusçuk (Ruschuk) in present-day Bulgaria. Mustafa Pasha, who opposed Mustafa IV, organized the Rusçuk Committee, which brought some of the powerful āyāns of southeast Europe under one umbrella. He then marched into Istanbul in July 1808 to reinstate Selim. As the news of the arrival and aims of the army from Rusçuk reached the palace, Mustafa ordered the assassination of Selim and Mahmud, the only members of the Ottoman royal family who could replace him. Selim was killed, but Mahmud managed to escape through the roof of the palace and sought refuge with Alemdar Mustafa Pasha and his forces (Jelavich: 125–126). The newly arrived army deposed Mustafa and installed Mahmud as the new sultan, on July 28.
See also: Sultans: Mahmud II; Selim III
Further Reading
Finkel, Caroline. Osman’s Dream: The History of the Ottoman Empire. New York: Basic Books, 2005.
Jelavich, Barbara. History of the Balkans: Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1983.
Shaw, Stanford J. History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey. 2 vols. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1976.
Somel, Selçuk Akșin. Historical Dictionary of the Ottoman Empire. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2003.
Somel, Selçuk Akşin. “Mustafa IV.” In Encyclopedia of the Ottoman Empire, edited by Gábor Ágoston and Bruce Masters, 412. New York: Facts On File, 2009.
Sugar, Peter. Southeastern Europe under Ottoman Rule, 1354–1805. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1977.
Zürcher, Erik-Jan. Turkey: A Modern History. London: I. B. Tauris, 2004.
Orhan Gāzi (1281–1362)
Orhan was the second ruler of the Ottoman state. He ruled from 1326 to 1362. He was the son of Osman Gāzi, the founder of the Ottoman dynasty. Throughout his reign Osman focused much of his attention on capturing Bursa, an achievement that could significantly enhance his prestige and power. His dream became a reality when, after a seven-year siege, Bursa surrendered in 1326 to his son Orhan, who proclaimed it not only his new capital but also a model of Ottoman generosity, patronage, and support for urban growth and development. The North African traveler and chronicler Ibn Battuta, who visited Bursa during the reign of Orhan, described the town as “a great and important city with fine bazaars and wide streets, surrounded on all sides by gardens and running springs” (Ibn Battuta: 2:449–50). He also presented Orhan as “the greatest of the kings of the Türkmens and the richest in wealth, lands, and military forces,” who possessed nearly a hundred fortresses, and “for most of his time [was] continually engaged in making the round of them, staying in each fortress for some days to put it into good order and examine its conditions” (Ibn Battuta: 2:452). Referring to his role as a gāzi, Ibn Battuta wrote that Orhan “fights with the infidels continually and keeps them under siege” (Ibn Battuta: 2:452).
With Bursa as the center of his political power and military operations, Orhan’s conquests picked up speed. He defeated a Byzantine army of 4,000 men under the leadership of Emperor Andronicus III at the Battle of Pelekanon near Eskişehir (Eskishehir) in 1329, “the first personal encounter between a Byzantine emperor and an Ottoman Emir” (Norwich: 339). Orhan then captured Nicaea (Iznik) in 1331, thus incorporating all of northwest Anatolia into Ottoman lands (Norwich: 339). The Ottomans were not the only power to pose a serious threat to the security and very survival of the Byzantine state. To the west, an alliance between the Serbs and the Bulgarians was concluded in 1332 after the Serbian ruler Stefan Dušan (Dushan) married the sister of the Bulgarian monarch. The Serbian and the Bulgarian monarchs shared the objective of destroying the Byzantine state and replacing it with a Slav empire ruled from Constantinople. By the summer of 1333 the growing threat from Serbia and Bulgaria and the increasing pressure from the Ottomans had forced the Byzantine emperor, Andronicus, to secretly negotiate a promise of tribute in return for Orhan’s stopping the attacks on Byzantine possessions in Asia (Norwich: 340). In 1337, however, the important city of Nicomedia (Izmit) surrendered after the Ottomans allowed the native population who wished to leave for Constantinople to abandon the city before they entered it. With the fall of Nicomedia, the Ottomans established their rule on the southern shore of the Black Sea, making the Ottoman principality the most important and influential neighbor of the Byzantine state.
This newly acquired power and confidence were demonstrated in Orhan’s decision to mint silver coins proclaiming himself sultan. His eldest son, Süleyman, used the newly acquired Ottoman territories to raid the southern shores of the Sea of Marmara and the important strategic region of Gallipoli. By 1354 the Ottomans had occupied Gallipoli, establishing a foothold on the European continent for the first time (Shaw: 1:16). Using Gallipoli as the base for their military operations, they intensified their attacks against southern Thrace, which they had raided since 1352. Thrace would thereafter emerge as the territorial base for Ottoman raids and the eventual conquest of southeast Europe (Shaw: 1:16).
Their newly gained territory and influence allowed the Ottomans to intervene in fractious Byzantine power politics, dominated
by the Cantacuzenus and Palaeologus families, and make an alliance with the former that was strengthened in 1346 when the Byzantine leader offered the second of his three daughters, Theodora, to Orhan as the sultan’s new bride (Shaw: 1:16). The following year, when Cantacuzenus returned to Constantinople and was proclaimed joint emperor with John V Palaeologus, Ottoman influence within the Byzantine court grew significantly. In 1347 the city was struck by the Black Death. The epidemic killed a large segment of the population, disrupting life and commerce in the Balkans and depopulating towns and villages (Norwich: 345). The Black Death, the aggressive and expansionist policy of Ottoman Turks from the east, the emergence of Serbian power under Stefan Dušan to the west, and the continuing rivalry between Venice and Genoa over the shipping routes that connected the Black Sea to the Aegean and the Mediterranean put the very existence of the Byzantine state in extreme jeopardy.
In his desperate attempt to revive the state and confront the threat posed by Stefan Dušan, Cantacuzenus turned to Orhan for military support. The anti-Serbian alliance allowed the sultan’s eldest son, Süleyman, to confront and neutralize the Serbian army as it advanced against Thrace in 1352, bringing Ottoman troops to the European side of the straits, who were soon followed by Turkish settlers. Thus, in confronting the Serbian threat Cantacuzenus had unwittingly enhanced the power and influence of the Ottoman state, providing it with a bridgehead to Europe. Cantacuzenus tried unsuccessfully to bribe the Ottomans to abandon their new territory, but Süleyman was determined to hold onto it. He expanded his possessions after an earthquake destroyed hundreds of towns and villages on the Gallipoli Peninsula in March 1354, thus allowing Ottoman forces to occupy the ruins and to transport new settlers to rebuild and repair the homes and farms evacuated by their Greek inhabitants. In response to the Byzantine demand for restitution, Süleyman replied that the devastated villages and towns had fallen into his hands not by conquest, but by the will of God, and that returning them “would be an act of impious ingratitude” (Norwich: 348).
The establishment of Turkish settlements on the European continent and the growing Ottoman influence in the Byzantine court created a movement against Cantacuzenus, who was forced to abandon the throne. With Cantacuzenus out of power, Emperor John V Palaeologus appealed to Pope Innocent VI for assistance, hoping that a new crusader army from Catholic Europe would rescue him from the tightening Ottoman noose. But a new crusade was unlikely. France and England were absorbed with the Hundred Years’ War, which had started in 1337. The church in Rome was torn by internal conflicts, while the Venetians and Genovese were engaged in “mutually destructive” warfare (Jelavich: 30). In the east, the small Christian states of the Balkans were divided by old rivalries and lacked the political and military organization to mount a formidable defense against the Ottomans (Jelavich: 31).
But if Christian Europe could not mobilize a strong crusade, events of a different kind helped the beleaguered Byzantine elite recover momentarily from its panic-stricken state. In the summer of 1357 Orhan received the news of the death of his eldest son and designated successor, Süleyman (Finkel: 17). At almost the same time, Orhan’s 12-year-old son Halil was captured by pirates in the Gulf of Iznik (Finkel: 17). To win Halil’s freedom, Orhan was forced to appeal to the Byzantine emperor for assistance. The Byzantine ruler agreed, but demanded that the Ottomans halt their territorial advances against the Byzantine state and stop their interference in the empire’s internal affairs, including withdrawing their support for the new pretender to the Byzantine throne, Cantacuzenus’s son Matheos. Furthermore, the Ottomans would forgive the emperor’s remaining debt and assume the cost of rescuing Halil. Orhan agreed to the terms, and for the next two years Ottoman troops did not launch any attacks on Byzantine territory. True to his word, the Byzantine emperor dispatched a rescue mission to free Halil, who was brought to Constantinople in 1359. With Halil in the Byzantine capital, the emperor arranged for a marriage between his daughter Irene and the young Ottoman prince, requesting Orhan to designate Halil as crown prince and the next sultan (Finkel: 17). But the agreement reached between the Byzantines and Ottomans did not stop Constantinople from pursuing its double-pronged strategy. The Byzantine emperor was painfully aware that peace with Orhan would be short-lived and that the Ottomans would revive their expansionist policy in southeast Europe as soon as they had secured the release of Halil.
During the next several years, Emperor John V traveled to several European courts to organize an anti-Ottoman alliance. His efforts, however, were in vain. In addition to the English-French rivalry, the major European naval power, Venice, was engaged in its own conflict with a major European land power, Hungary, over the control of Dalmatia. And the Ottomans were not idle. Once Halil had been freed, the Ottomans resumed their expansionist policy toward the Byzantine state, besieging Constantinople by land from Asia and Europe. Shortly after the death of Süleyman, Orhan had designated his second son, Murad, as the commander of all Ottoman forces in the west (Finkel: 17). When his brother Halil was rescued in 1359, Murad reassumed the leadership of holy war in southeast Europe, focusing his military campaign on consolidating Ottoman territorial gains in Thrace and capturing the important Byzantine city of Adrianople (Edirne). Under the direct command of Prince Murad, the Ottoman forces stormed the city in 1361 and immediately proclaimed it the new capital of the Ottoman state. The fall of Edirne allowed the Ottoman forces to push into southern Bulgaria and Macedonia and confront the threat posed by the Serbian state, which had declined significantly since the death of its leader, Stefan Dušan, in 1355.
See also: Sultans: Osman I; Murad I
Further Reading
Finkel, Caroline. Osman’s Dream: The Story of the Ottoman Empire 1300–1923. New York: Basic Books, 2005.
Ibn Battuta. The Travels of Ibn Battuta A.D. 1325–1354. 2 vols. Translated by H. A. R. Gibb. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1962.
Imber, Colin. The Ottoman Empire, 1300–1650: The Structure of Power. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002.
Inalcik, Halil. The Ottoman Empire: The Classical Age 1300–1600. New York: Praeger Publishers, 1973.
Jelavich, Barbara. History of the Balkans: Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1983.
Köprülü, Fuad M. The Origins of the Ottoman Empire. Translated and edited by Gary Leiser. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992.
Norwich, John Julius. A Short History of Byzantium. New York: Alfred Knopf, 1997.
Shaw, Stanford J. History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey. 2 vols. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1976.
Osman I (Osman Gāzi) (1258–1326)
Osman I, also known as Osman Gāzi, was the founder of the Ottoman dynasty. He ruled a small principality in western Anatolia from 1290 to 1326. Osman traced his origins to the nomadic Oghuz Turkish horsemen, who arrived in Anatolia from Central Asia at an unknown date. A myth was constructed later that traced the origins of the family to a certain Süleyman, leader of the Kayi tribe who lived in northeastern Iran but had been forced to flee his home at the time of the Mongol invasion. Süleyman is said to have drowned as he crossed the Euphrates River, but one of his sons, Ertuğrul, moved his tribe into Anatolia, where he entered the service of the Seljuks of Rum, who rewarded him with a small fiefdom around the district of Sögüt. His son, Osman, emerged as the actual founder of the Ottoman state.
It is generally believed that Osman was a gāzi or a frontier commander (bey), who first established himself in the district of Sögüt around 1290. Waging gazā or holy war against infidels allowed Osman to establish a reputation for himself as a devout and dedicated Muslim ruler who sought to expand the domain of Islam at the expense of the Byzantine Empire and other Christian rulers of Europe, who belonged to the domain of war. Although this claim may have provided a convenient ideological legitimization for Ottoman westward expansion, it is very clear that a religious war against the infidels was not sufficient to rally fighters ar
ound the Ottoman banner (Lowry: 45–46). The war against infidels could only succeed if it provided material incentives and promised profits for those who participated. Some may have justified their actions under the banner of religious holy war, but in reality the promise of material gain and upward social mobility motivated them (Lowry: 46). Thus, the gāzis not only waged gazā but also launched raids (ākin) against non-Muslims, allowing the ākincis (ākinjis) to plunder rural and urban communities and amass booty and slaves. They also acted as the frontline shock troops plundering enemy territory, spreading fear in the hearts and minds of the population who were about to be invaded and conquered.
Osman I, also called Osman Gāzi, was the founder of the Ottoman dynasty and the ruler of a principality in northwestern Anatolia. (DeAgostini/Getty Images)
The principal objective of Osman was to avoid moving against neighboring Turkoman principalities to the south and east and focus on expanding west and northwest against the Byzantine state and the Christian states of southeastern Europe (Shaw: 1:13–14). He was well aware that such a policy could be justified easily under the banner of holy war against nonbelievers. He also knew that the politically fragmented and internally divided southeast Europe was a far easier target than the neighboring Muslim states.
Osman expanded his territory from the region of Eskișehir (Eskishehir) northward, encountering local feudal lords who functioned as representatives of the Byzantine state. Some of these local notables were defeated on the battlefield, while others were co-opted through marriages and alliances (Shaw: 1:14). Soon Osman attacked and occupied the important town of Yenișehir (Yenishehir), which was proclaimed the Ottoman capital (Shaw: 1:14). On July 27, 1301, Osman defeated a Byzantine army outside Nicomedia (Izmit). The victory brought recognition and prestige for Osman Gāzi and allowed the beys fighting under his command to push toward the Sea of Marmara and the Aegean. Determined to capture vulnerable Byzantine towns, which were not receiving adequate support from Constantinople, Osman cut the communication lines between Nicaea (Iznik) and Nicomedia (Izmit). By the time he died in 1326 Osman had extended his territory all the way to the port of Mudanya and had cut the communication line between Constantinople and the important Byzantine city of Bursa (Shaw: 1:14). Throughout his reign Osman focused much of his attention on capturing Bursa, an achievement that could significantly enhance his prestige and power. His dream became a reality when, after a seven-year siege, Bursa surrendered in 1326 to his son Orhan, who proclaimed it not only his new capital but also a model of Ottoman generosity, patronage, and support for urban growth and development.
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