Muhammad II

Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Email

(born March 30, 1432, Adrianople, Thrace, Ottoman Empiredied May 3, 1481, near Constantinople) Ottoman sultan (144446, 145181). His father, Murad II, abdicated in his favour when Mehmed was 12 but reclaimed the throne two years later in the aftermath of a Christian Crusade. Mehmed regained the throne when his father died (1451) and began to plan the conquest of Constantinople (Istanbul), the feat for which he is most renowned. In 1453 he captured the city and undertook returning it to its previous level of grandeur. In the next 25 years he conquered large sections of the Balkans. Under his reign, criminal and civil laws were codified in one body of law; he collected a library of Greek and Latin works and had eight colleges built.

For more information on Mehmed II, visit Britannica.com.

Mohammed II (1432-1481), called Faith or Conqueror, was the Ottoman Turkish sultan from 1451 to 1481. His conquest of Constantinople in 1453 guaranteed the consolidation of the Ottoman Empire.

The son of Sultan Murad II (reigned 1421-1451), Mohammed II assumed full sovereignty on his father's death in February 1451. His predecessors had conquered much of the southern Balkans and had subjected the bulk of Asia Minor as well; but the continued independence of Constantinople and of other Greek territories both prolonged the life of the faded Byzantine Empire and deprived the new Turkish power of its logical capital while also posing the danger of some Christian counteroffensive from this strategic center. The ambitious young sultan therefore was determined that the final conquest of Constantinople should be his first major achievement, and he launched his great siege of this city in early April 1453.

Despite heroic resistance under the last Byzantine emperor, Constantine XI, Constantinople was taken by storm on May 29. Mohammed II quickly restored the city's splendor and prosperity, making it the capital of an imperial Turkish regime whose coherent scale and systematic scope were the results of his own massive reorganization. In 1460 Mohammed completed the annexation of the Byzantine Peloponnesus, and in the following year he conquered the truncated empire of Trebizond, thus eliminating the last remnants of independent Greek authority.

Meanwhile, Mohammed expanded Turkish power in the Balkans. He carried out the final annexation of Serbia by 1459. His siege of Belgrade was foiled, however, in 1456 by the Hungarian hero John Hunyadi. The Hungarians further attempted, with only minimal success, to prevent the Turkish conquest of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Mohammed also subdued Walachia. He was unable to conquer Moldavia; but in 1475 he seized Caffa, Tana, and Azov, securing control of the Crimea and the northern Black Sea areas. In Albania, Mohammed carried on the struggle his father had launched; only in the late 1470s was he able to occupy the key fortresses of Albania. Alone and isolated, however, the sturdy Montenegrins resisted Turkish conquest.

Mohammed, more than any other sultan, made good the Turkish domination of Asia Minor. During the 1460s he conquered the long-independent emirate of Karaman. When Uzun Hasan, the Turkoman ruler, attempted to challenge Mohammed in eastern Asia Minor, the Sultan defeated him in the decisive battle of Otluk-beli near Terdshan on the upper Euphrates in 1472. The victory guaranteed Mohammed's Asiatic power and freed him for further conquests in Europe.

To the West, Mohammed was a source of anguish and terror. Stung by his capture of Constantinople, successive popes talked of crusades against the Turk and exhorted the European powers to join the common cause. Although such plans foundered, Mohammed faced a strong Western foe in Venice, which found Turkish disruption of its Levantine commerce intolerable. From 1463 to 1479 Venice made war on Mohammed, supporting the Albanians and the Turkomans against him and attacking his coasts. But in 1470 the Venetians lost Negroponte (Euboea), and a few years later Mohammed's forces, victorious in Albania, menaced Venice itself around the Adriatic headlands. The republic was therefore forced to accept disadvantageous peace terms. On the other hand, when Mohammed attempted to seize the island of Rhodes in 1480, it was successfully defended by the knights of St. John (Hospitalers).

But Mohammed's most daring stroke was also executed in 1480. Taking advantage of Italy's internal disorganization, he sent a fleet to the peninsula's southern shores. In August it seized Otranto and held it for a month. The panic-stricken Italian powers saw this act as the prelude to a serious effort by the Sultan, who had boasted that he would match his conquest of the "new Rome" (Constantinople) by taking the old one. But the alarm was groundless: during the following year, as he prepared a new expedition against Rhodes, Mohammed suddenly fell ill and died on May 3, 1481, leaving his empire to a period of slackness and division under his weak son and successor, Bayazid II (reigned 1481-1512).

Further Reading

A contemporary biography by an admiring Greek supporter, Kritoboulos, who concentrates on the conquest of Constantinople, was translated by Charles T. Riggs as History of Mehmed the Conqueror (1954). The only full-length study is in German. There is no comprehensive account of Mohammed's entire career in English, but a concise general treatment can be found in A. W. Ward and others, eds., The Cambridge Modern History, vol. 1 (1903). His major role in the capture of Constantinople is discussed in such accounts of that episode as Edwin Pears, The Destruction of the Greek Empire and the Story of the Capture of Constantinople by the Turks (1903; repr. 1968), and Steven Runciman, The Fall of Constantinople, 1453 (1965).

Top
Muhammad II or Mehmet II (Muhammad the Conqueror), 1429-81, Ottoman sultan (1451-81), son and successor of Murad II. He is considered the true founder of the Ottoman Empire (Turkey). He completed the conquest of the Byzantine Empire by successfully storming (1453) Constantinople after a 50-day siege, for which he constructed the largest cannons the world had yet known. Byzantine Emperor Constantine XI fell in its defense. Muhammad moved his capital from Adrianople to Constantinople and restored the greatness of that city by settling there the populations of other conquered towns. To Greek and Armenian citizens of Constantinople he granted the privileges that they were to enjoy throughout Ottoman rule, including the freedom to practice Orthodox Eastern Christianity. The Church of Hagia Sophia became a mosque. Muhammad then conquered the Balkan Peninsula, taking Greece, Bosnia, and several Venetian possessions in the Aegean islands. The khan of Crimea became his ally and vassal. However, his further advance was checked at Belgrade by John Hunyadi, in Albania by Scanderbeg until 1478, and in Rhodes by the Knights Hospitalers under Aubusson. In Asia, Muhammad annexed the empire of Trebizond, ended most independent Turkish dynasties, and subdued the emirate of Karamania, putting to death its ruling family, who were Seljuk Turks. In 1480 he captured Otranto, in Italy, but the expedition had no results. Muhammad was a patron of learning and an accomplished linguist as well as a great commander. His son, Beyazid II, succeeded him. For a contemporary account of Muhammad II, see Kritoboulos, A History of Mehmed the Conqueror (tr. 1954).

Mehmed II (Ottoman Empire) (1432–1481; ruled 1444–1446 and 1451–1481), seventh ruler of the Ottoman dynasty. In 1444 the Ottoman sultan Murad II (ruled 1421–1444, 1446–1451), having concluded one treaty with Hungary and Serbia and another with the central Anatolian state of Karaman, abdicated, leaving the throne to Mehmed, his twelve-year-old son born to a slave woman in Edirne. Mehmed II's short initial reign began, and largely continued, badly. Seeing Murad's abdication as an opportunity not to be missed, John Hunyadi, the voyvoda of Transylvania, and King Vladislav I of Hungary promptly attacked. Murad, recalled to lead the army, defeated them at the battle of Varna (1444), and withdrew once more to a life of contemplation.

Mehmed was faced not merely with outside enemies but also with those from within. The janissary revolt of 1446, probably caused by arrears in pay, brought his first reign to an end. The grand vizier (the chief minister of the sultan), Çandarli Halil, from the influential Turkish Çandarli family who had dominated the position of grand vizier under Murad II, was apparently involved in ensuring Murad's return to the throne and Mehmed's departure to Manisa, the town in southwest Anatolia where he was to spend the next few years.

The Second Reign, 1451–1481

When Murad II died in February 1451, Mehmed came to the throne for the second time. He immediately turned his sights to the conquest of Constantinople, the capital of the crumbling Byzantine Empire. His advisers were divided over the plan. The grand vizier Çandarli Halil, who was described by both the contemporary Greek historian Ducas and the Ottoman chronicler of the period Aşikpaşazade as a friend of the Byzantines, was opposed to any attack on the city. However, Zaganos Pasha, a Greek convert to Islam who had been Mehmed's tutor while in Manisa, urged conquest.

On 29 May Constantinople fell, and with it the Genoese colony of Galata, whose leaders signed an agreement with Mehmed, now known as Fatih, the Conqueror, under which they retained various trading privileges. The Ottoman conquest of the Byzantine capital was seen by Western contemporaries as an unprecendented disaster. Piccolomini, later Pope Pius II, referred to the loss as that of one of the two eyes of the church. Contemporary Latin accounts spoke of the death of a center of learning, the destruction of the holy relics, and the desecration of the great churches. There was a general terror that within a short space of time, Mehmed, this new Caligula, as one Latin contemporary described him, would ride his horse through the streets of Rome with the very survival of Christendom hanging in the balance. While the fall of the city was thus seen by Western contemporaries as an event of great significance, its importance was more symbolic than actual, for the Ottomans had already absorbed most Byzantine territory, reducing the once great empire to a small strip of land around the city.

Although the Ottoman conquest is sometimes taken as signaling the beginning of a decline in Latin trade in Turkish territory, this was by no means the case, and there is no evidence to suggest that Ottoman policy under Mehmed II was designed to discourage or destroy Latin trading relations. On the contrary, his economic policy shows both continuity with that of his predecessors and the importance he attached to his relations with the Latin trading states. The Genoese, too, continued to have close relations with the Ottoman ruler and, while in the immediate aftermath of the conquest there was some interruption of trade as merchants removed themselves prudently to the Aegean islands to watch developments, they were soon back, and trade continued unabated.

Reputation As Ruler

Mehmed had in fact a considerable interest in encouraging commercial activity and went to great lengths to rebuild Constantinople and recreate it as a thriving commercial center. He set out to repopulate the city, forcefully moving populations in from various parts of his empire, and embarked on an impressive building program, which included the Fatih Cami, the Mosque of the Conqueror, begun in 1463. He was also, according to contemporary accounts, a man of letters, who had various learned scholars at his court. A Latin contemporary, Giacomo Languschi, commented on his interest in ancient history and reported that Ciriaco of Ancona, who had resided also at the court of Murad II, read to him daily from the works of Herodotus and Livy.

A great statesman, Mehmed was much interested in the administration of his empire and in tightening control over the running of the state. He was described by Nicola Sagundino, a native of Negroponte who wrote a report on the Ottoman ruler for Alfonso V, the king of Aragon, in 1454, as having examined with great care the administrative system of his state on coming to power, and as having instituted the necessary improvements. His aim was to centralize power in his own hands, and for this he chose for high office those tied to him personally as slaves, not those from the old established families, such as that of the Çandarli. The former grand vizier, Halil Çandarli, was arrested after the capture of Constantinople and later put to death. Such a drive for control aroused opposition, and Mehmed's policies of confiscating land, issuing new coinage, and increasing taxation proved unpopular.

He was also a military leader of considerable acumen, and during his reign the territory of the state continued to increase both in the European and the Asian sections of his empire. In Europe he took Athens (1458), Serbia (1459), the Morea (1460), and Bosnia (1464). During the war with Venice (1463–1479) he conquered Negroponte (1470). In Anatolia, Trabzon fell in 1461. In the east, he defeated the Aq-Qoyunlu ruler Uzun Hasan in 1473 and Karaman in 1468. Crossing the Black Sea he captured the Genoese trading colony of Cafa (1475) and reduced the Crimea to vassal status. In 1480 the Ottomans besieged Rhodes, and Ottoman forces landed at Otranto, withdrawing a year later. In May 1481 Mehmed II died and was succeeded by his son Bayezid II (ruled 1481–1512).

Mehmed II's reign represents the firm establishment of a major Islamic empire with the flourishing city of Constantinople, later to become the most populous city in Europe, as its imperial capital. The Ottoman Empire was to be a dominant political and commercial presence in the Mediterranean world for many years to come.

Bibliography

Primary Sources

Doukas. Decline and Fall of Byzantium to the Ottoman Turks. Translated by Harry J. Magoulias. Detroit, 1975. Covers the period 1204 to 1462.

Kritovoulos. History of Mehmed the Conqueror. Translated by Charles T. Riggs. Westport, Conn., 1970. Translation of the history written by the Greek who was governor of Imbros from 1456 to 1466.

Secondary Source

Babinger, Franz. Mehmed the Conqueror and His Time. Translated by Ralph Manheim. Princeton, 1978. Detailed biography.

—KATE FLEET

Osmanli-nisani.svg    Mehmed II
Ottoman Sultan
Turkish miniature of Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror. painting by Nakkaş Sinan Bey.
Tughra of Mehmed II.JPG
Reign 1444–46
Reign 2 1451–81
Period Rise of the Ottoman Empire
Full Name Mehmet bin Murad Khan
Ottoman Turkish محمد بن مراد خان
Born March 30, 1432
Birthplace Edirne
Died May 3, 1481 (aged 49)
Place of death Hünkârçayırı, near Gebze
Predecessor Murad II
Successor Murad II
Predecessor 2 Murad II
Successor 2 Bayezid II
Royal House House of Osman
Dynasty Ottoman Dynasty
Valide Sultan Hüma Hatun

Mehmed II (March 30, 1432 – May 3, 1481) (Ottoman Turkish: محمد ثانى Meḥmed-i s̠ānī, Turkish: II. Mehmet), (also known as el-Fātiḥ (الفاتح, "the Conqueror" in Ottoman Turkish, in modern Turkish, Fatih Sultan Mehmet; also called Mahomet II[1][2] in early modern Europe) was Sultan of the Ottoman Empire (Rûm until the conquest) for a short time from 1444 to September 1446, and later from February 1451 to 1481. At the age of 21, he conquered Constantinople and brought an end to the Byzantine Empire, absorbing its administrative apparatus into the Ottoman state. Mehmed continued his conquests in Asia, with the Anatolian reunification, and in Europe, as far as Bosnia and Croatia. Mehmed II is regarded as a national hero in Turkey, and his name has been given to Istanbul's Fatih Sultan Mehmet Bridge.

Contents

Early reign

Mehmed has left a scrap-book of pen and ink drawings which include these profile and three-quarter face portrait busts.

Mehmed II was born on March 30, 1432, in Edirne, then the capital city of the Ottoman state. His father was Sultan Murad II (1404–51) and his mother Valide Sultan Hüma Hatun, born in Devrekani county of Kastamonu province.

When Mehmed II was eleven years old he was sent to Amasya to govern and thus gain experience, as per the custom of Ottoman rulers before his time. After Murad II made peace with the Karaman Emirate in Anatolia in August 1444, he abdicated the throne to his 12-year-old son Mehmed II. Sultan Murad II had sent him a number of teachers for him to study under.[3]

This Islamic education had a great impact in molding the mindset of Mehmed and reinforcing his Muslim beliefs. He began to praise and promote the application of Sharia law. He was influenced in his practice of Islamic epistemology by contemporaneous practitioners of science - particularly by his mentor, Molla Gürani - and he followed their approach. The influence of Ak Şemseddin in Mehmed's life became predominant from a young age, especially in the imperative of fulfilling his Islamic duty to overthrow the Byzantine empire by conquering Constantinople.[4]

In his first reign, he defeated the crusade led by János Hunyadi after the Hungarian incursions into his country broke the conditions of the truce Peace of Szeged. Cardinal Julian Cesarini, the representative of the pope, had convinced the king of Hungary that breaking the truce with Muslims was not a betrayal.[5] At this time Mehmed II asked his father Murad II to reclaim the throne, but Murad II refused. Angry at his father, who had long since retired to a contemplative life in southwestern Anatolia, Mehmed II wrote: "If you are the Sultan, come and lead your armies. If I am the Sultan I hereby order you to come and lead my armies." It was only after receiving this letter that Murad II led the Ottoman army and won the Battle of Varna in 1444.

It is said Murad II's return to the throne was forced by Çandarlı Halil Paşa, the grand vizier at the time, who was not fond of Mehmed II's rule, because Mehmed II's influential teacher had a rivalry with Çandarlı. Çandarlı was later executed by Mehmed II during the siege of Constantinople on the grounds that he had been bribed by or had somehow helped the defenders.

During his early reign, he married a Christian Albanian, Âminā Kul-Bahar Khātûn, the step-mother of his successor and son Bayezid II whose biological mother was Mükrime Hatun.[6][7]

Conquest of Constantinople

Accession of Mehmed II in Edirne 1451.

When Mehmed II ascended the throne in 1451 he devoted himself to strengthening the Ottoman Navy, and in the same year made preparations for the taking of Constantinople. In the narrow Bosporus Straits, the fortress Anadoluhisarı had been built by his great-grandfather Bayezid I on the Asiatic side; Mehmed erected an even stronger fortress called Rumelihisarı on the European side, and thus having complete control of the strait. Having completed his fortresses, Mehmet proceeded to levy a toll on ships passing within reach of their cannon. A Venetian vessel refusing signals to stop was sunk with a single shot and all the surviving sailors beheaded.[8]

Sultan Mehmed II's entry into Constantinople, painting by Fausto Zonaro (1854–1929)

In 1453 Mehmed commenced the siege of Constantinople with an army between 80,000 to 200,000 troops and a navy of 320 vessels, though the bulk of them were transports and storeships. The city was now surrounded by sea and land; the fleet at the entrance of the Bosphorus was stretched from shore to shore in the form of a crescent, to intercept or repel any assistance from the sea for the besieged.[8]

In early April, the Siege of Constantinople began. After several failed assaults, the city's walls held off the Turks with great difficulty, even with the use of the new Orban's bombard, a cannon similar to the Dardanelles Gun. The harbor of the Golden Horn was blocked by a boom chain and defended by twenty-eight warships.

On April 22, Mehmed transported his lighter warships overland, around the Genoese colony of Galata and into the Golden Horn's northern shore; eighty galleys were transported from the Bosphorus after paving a little over one-mile route with wood. Thus the Byzantines stretched their troops over a longer portion of the walls. A little over a month later, Constantinople fell on May 29 following a fifty-seven day siege.[8] After this conquest, Mehmed moved the Ottoman capital from Adrianople to Constantinople. On his accession as conqueror of Constantinople, aged 21, Mehmed was reputed fluent in several languages, including Turkish, Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, Persian, and Latin.[9][10]

Map of Constantinople and its land walls and harbor.

Reference is made to the prospective conquest of Constantinople in a hadith (a saying attributed to the Prophet Muhammad): "Verily you shall conquer Constantinople. What a wonderful leader will he be, and what a wonderful army will that army be!"[11] Ten years after the conquest of Constantinople Mehmed II visited the site of Troy and boasted that he had avenged the Trojans by having conquered the Greeks (Byzantines).[12]

Mehmed II and Gennadios.

When Mehmed stepped into the ruins of the Boukoleon, known to the Ottomans and Persians as the Palace of the Caesars, probably built over a thousand years before by Theodosius II, he uttered the famous lines of Persian poetry:[citation needed]

The spider weaves the curtains in the palace of the Caesars;
the owl calls the watches in the towers of Afrasiab.

After the Fall of Constantinople, Mehmed claimed the title of "Caesar" of Rome (Kayser-i Rûm). The claim was not recognized by the Patriarch of Constantinople, or Christian Europe. Mehmed's claim rested with the concept that Constantinople was the seat of the Roman Empire, after the transfer of its capital to Constantinople in 330 AD and the fall of the Western Roman Empire. Mehmed also had a blood lineage to the Byzantine Imperial family; his predecessor, Sultan Orhan I had married a Byzantine princess, and Mehmed may have claimed descent from John Tzelepes Komnenos.[9] He was not the only ruler to claim such a title, as there was the Holy Roman Empire in Western Europe, whose emperor, Frederick III, traced his titular lineage from Charlemagne who obtained the title of Roman Emperor when he was crowned by Pope Leo III in 800 - although never recognized as such by the Byzantine Empire.

The Byzantine historian Doukas,[13] stated that after the conquest of Constantinople, Mehmed II ordered the 14-year old son of the Grand Duke Lucas Notaras brought to him "for his pleasure". When the father refused to deliver his son to such a fate he had them both decapitated on the spot.[14] Another contemporary Greek source, Leonard of Chios, professor of theology and Archbishop of Mytilene, tells the same story in his letter to Pope Nicholas. He describes Mehmed II requesting for the 14 year old handsome youth to be brought "for his pleasure".[15] This story was originally recorded by Doukas, a Byzantine Greek living in Constantinople at the time of the fall of the city, and does not appear in accounts by other Greeks who witnessed the conquest.[16] Some modern scholars believe that this tale is merely one of a long series of attempts to portray Muslims as morally inferior, and point to the story of Saint Pelagius as its probable inspiration.[16]

Conquests in Asia

Miniature of Mehmed II

The conquest of Constantinople allowed Mehmed II to turn his attention to Anatolia. Mehmed II tried to create a single political entity in Anatolia by capturing Turkish states called Beyliks and the Greek Empire of Trebizond in northeastern Anatolia and allied himself with the Crimean Khanate in the Crimea. Uniting the Anatolian Beyliks was first accomplished by Sultan Bayezid I, more than fifty years earlier than Mehmed II but after the destructive Battle of Ankara back in 1402, the newly formed Anatolian unification was gone. Mehmed II recovered the Ottoman power on other Turkish states. These conquests allowed him to push further into Europe.

Another important political entity which shaped the Eastern policy of Mehmed II was the White Sheep Turcomans. With the leadership of Uzun Hasan, this Turcoman kingdom gained power in the East but because of their strong relations with the Christian powers like Empire of Trebizond and the Republic of Venice and the alliance between Turcomans and Karamanid tribe, Mehmed saw them as a threat to his own power. He led a successful campaign against Uzun Hasan in 1473 which resulted with the decisive victory of the Ottoman Empire in the Battle of Otlukbeli.

Conquests in Europe

After the Fall of Constantinople, Mehmed would also go on to conquer the Despotate of Morea in the Peloponnese in 1460, and the Empire of Trebizond in northeastern Anatolia in 1461. The last two vestiges of Byzantine rule were thus absorbed by the Ottoman Empire. The conquest of Constantinople bestowed immense glory and prestige on the country.

Sword of Mehmed II
Siege of Belgrade (in Hungarian: Nándorfehérvár) 1456. Hünername 1584

Mehmed II advanced toward Eastern Europe as far as Belgrade, and attempted to conquer the city from John Hunyadi at the Siege of Belgrade in 1456. Hungarian commanders successfully defended the city and Ottomans retreated with heavy losses but at the end, Ottomans occupied nearly all of Serbia.

In 1463, after a dispute over the tribute paid annually by the Bosnian kingdom, Mehmed invaded Bosnia and conquered it very quickly, executing the last Bosnian king Stephen Tomašević and his uncle Radivoj.

In 1462 Mehmed II came into conflict with Prince Vlad III Dracula of Wallachia, who had spent part of his childhood alongside Mehmed.[17] Vlad had ambushed, massacred or captured several Ottoman forces, then announced his impalement of over 23,000 captive Turks. Mehmed II abandoned his siege of Corinth to launch a punitive attack against Vlad in Wallachia[18] but suffered many casualties in a surprise night attack led by Vlad, who was apparently bent on personally killing the Sultan.[19] Confronted by Vlad's scorched earth policies and demoralizing brutality, Mehmed II withdrew, leaving his ally Radu cel Frumos, Vlad's brother, with a small force in order to win over local boyars who had been persecuted by Vlad III. Radu eventually managed to take control of Wallachia, which he administered as Bey, on behalf of Mehmet II. Vlad eventually escaped to Hungary, where he was imprisoned on a false accusation of treason against his overlord.

In 1475, the Ottomans suffered a great defeat at the hands of Stephen the Great of Moldavia at the Battle of Vaslui. In 1476, Mehmed won a pyrrhic victory against Stephen at the Battle of Valea Albă. He besieged the capital of Suceava, but could not take it, nor could he take the Castle of Târgu Neamţ. With a plague running in his camp and food and water being very scarce, Mehmed was forced to retreat.

The Albanian resistance in Albania between 1443 and 1468 led by George Kastrioti Skanderbeg (İskender Bey), an Albanian noble and a former member of the Ottoman ruling elite, prevented the Ottoman expansion into the Italian peninsula. Skanderbeg had united the Albanian Principalities in a fight against the Empire in the League of Lezhë in 1444. Mehmed II couldn't subjugate Albania and Skanderbeg while the latter was alive, even though twice (1466 and 1467) he led the Ottoman armies himself against Krujë. After death of Skanderbeg in 1468, Albanians couldn't find a leader to replace him and Mehmed II eventually conquered Krujë and Albania in 1478. The final act of his Albanian campaigns was the troublesome siege of Shkodra in 1478-9, a siege Mehmed II led personally.

Mehmed II invaded Italy in 1480. The intent of his invasion was to capture Rome and "reunite the Roman Empire", and, at first, looked like he might be able to do it with the easy capture of Otranto in 1480 but Otranto was retaken by Papal forces in 1481 after the death of Mehmed.

Administrative actions

Sultan Mehmed II in 1479. Portrait by Italian painter Gentile Bellini
Italian commemorative medal of Sultan Mehmed as Byzantine Emperor, dated 1481

Mehmed II amalgamated the old Byzantine administration into the Ottoman state.[citation needed] He first introduced the word Politics into Arabic "Siyasah" from a book he published and claimed to be the collection of Politics doctrines of the Byzantine Caesars before him. He gathered Italian artists, humanists and Greek scholars at his court, allowed the Byzantine Church to continue functioning, ordered the patriarch to translate Christian doctrine into Turkish, and called Gentile Bellini from Venice to paint his portrait. Mehmed invited Muslim scientists and artists to his court in Constantinople, started a University, built mosques (for example, the Fatih Mosque), waterways, and Istanbul's Topkapı Palace.

Mehmed II allowed his subjects a considerable degree of religious freedom, provided they were obedient to his rule. After his conquest of Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1463 he issued a firman to the Bosnian Franciscans, granting them freedom to move freely within the Empire, offer worship in their churches and monasteries, and to practice their religion free from official and unofficial persecution, insult or disturbance.[20][21] His standing army was recruited from the Devshirme, a group that took first-born Christian subjects at a young age that were destined for the sultans court. The less able, but physically strong were put into the army or the sultan's personal guard, the Janissaries.

Within Constantinople, Mehmed established a millet or an autonomous religious community, and appointed the former Patriarch[who?] as religious governor of the city.[citation needed] His authority extended only to the Orthodox Christians within the city, and this excluded the Genoese and Venetian settlements in the suburbs, and excluded Muslim and Jewish settlers entirely. This method allowed for an indirect rule of the Christian Byzantines and allowed the occupants to feel relatively autonomous even as Mehmed II began the Turkish remodeling of the city, turning it into the Turkish capital, which it remained until the 1920s.

Personal life

Mehmed II had several wives: Validā Khātûn Âminā Kul-Bahar Khātûn, a Christian Albanian, who died in 1492,[6][7] Gevher Khātûn; Gül-Şâh (Kulshah) Khātûn; Mûkrîmā (Sitt-î Mükrime) Khātûn;[22] Çiçek Khātûn; Helenā Khātûn, who died in 1481, daughter of Demetrios Palaiologos and the Despot of Morea; briefly Anna Khātûn, the daughter of the Emperor of Trebizond; and Alexias Khātûn, a Byzantine princess. Another son of his was Cem Sultan, who died in 1495.

Death

Mehmed died on May 3, 1481, at the age of forty-nine, and was buried in his Türbe in the cemetery within the Fatih Mosque Complex[23] Mehmed's primary doctor, "Jacob Pasha" an Italian born convert to Islam was suspected of administering poison to Mehmed over a period of time and was executed.[citation needed] Another source states that: "The likeliest possibility is that Mehmed was also poisoned by his Persian doctor. Despite numerous Venetian assassination attempts over the years, the finger of suspicion points most strongly at his son, Bayezit."[24]

Legacy

Reverse of the 1000 Turkish lira banknote (1986-1992)
Fatih Sultan Mehmet Bridge was named after him that straddles the Bosporus Straits in Istanbul in the twentieth century.
Statue of Mehmed the Conqueror, Edirne

After the fall of Constantinople, he founded many universities and colleges in the city, some of which are still active. Mehmed II is also recognized as the first Sultan to codify criminal and constitutional law long before Suleiman the Magnificent and he thus established the classical image of the autocratic Ottoman sultan.

His thirty-one year rule and several wars expanded the Ottoman Empire to include Constantinople, and the Turkish kingdoms and territories of Asia Minor, Bosnia, Kingdom of Serbia, and Albania. His many internal administrative and legal reforms put his country on the path to prosperity and paved the way for subsequent sultans to focus on expansion into new territories.[citation needed]

Mehmed left behind an imposing reputation in both the Islamic and Christian worlds. The Fatih Sultan Mehmet Bridge was named after him that straddles the Bosporus Straits in Istanbul in the twentieth century. His name and picture appeared on the Turkish 1000 lira note between 1986 to 1992.[25][26] He is the eponymous subject of Rossini's 1820 opera Maometto II.

See also

General
Sultan, Byzantine Empire, Ottoman Empire
Events
Expansion of the Ottoman Empire, Decline of the Byzantine Empire, Fall of Constantinople, Battle of Varna
Locations
Turkey, Fatih Sultan Mehmet Bridge
Other
Cem (His younger son)

Further reading

References

General information
Footnotes
  1. ^ "Dates of Epoch-Making Events", The Nuttall Encyclopaedia. (Gutenberg version)
  2. ^ Related to the Mahomet archaisms used for Mohammad. See Medieval Christian view of Muhammad for more information.
  3. ^ ^ الشقائق النعمانية في علماء الدولة العثمانية، صفحة 52 نقلاً عن تاريخ الدولة العثمانية، صفحة 43
  4. ^ الفتوح الإسلامية عبر العصور، د. عبد العزيز العمري، صفحة 358-359
  5. ^ تاريخ الدولة العليّة العثمانية، تأليف: الأستاذ محمد فريد بك المحامي، تحقيق: الدكتور إحسان حقي، دار النفائس، الطبعة العاشرة: 1427 هـ - 2006 م، صفحة: 157 ISBN 9953-18-084-9
  6. ^ a b Edmonds, Anna. Turkey's religious sites. Damko. p. 1997. ISBN 975-8227-00-9. http://books.google.com/books?ei=2do8TIGfMKOcOISUsJsP&ct=result&hl=en&id=xVbkAAAAMAAJ&dq=Gülbahar+Albanian&q=An+Albanian+by+birth,+legend+also+has+it+that+Gulbahar+Hatun+was+a+French+princess+kidnapped+for+the+sultan's+harem.#search_anchor. 
  7. ^ a b Babinger, Franz (1992). Mehmed the Conqueror and His Time. Princeton University Press. p. 51. ISBN 0-691-01078-1. http://books.google.com/books?id=PPxC6rO7vvsC&pg=PA175&dq=Kladas+%2B+Albanian&hl=en&ei=TtY8TIrFJ4SoOKbF1Y8P&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CCoQ6AEwATgK#v=onepage&q=Albanian&f=false. 
  8. ^ a b c Silburn, P. A. B. (1912).
  9. ^ a b Norwich, John Julius (1995). Byzantium:The Decline and Fall. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. pp. 81–82. ISBN 0-679-41650-1. 
  10. ^ Runciman, Steven (1965). The Fall of Constantinople: 1453. London: Cambridge University Press. pp. 56. ISBN 0-521-39832-0. 
  11. ^ Haddad, GF. "Conquest of Constantinople". http://www.sunnah.org/msaec/articles/Constantinople.htm. Retrieved August 4, 2006. 
  12. ^ Turks.org.uk
  13. ^ Crowley, Roger (2006). Constantinople: The Last Great Siege, 1453. Oxford: A.P.R.I.L. Publishing. 
  14. ^ Steven Runciman, The Fall of Constantinople 1453. Cambridge University Press, 1965.
  15. ^ John R. Melville-Jones, "The Siege of Constantinople 1453: Seven Contemporary Accounts"
  16. ^ a b Andrews, Walter G.; Mehmet Kalpaklı (2005). The Age of Beloveds: Love and the Beloved in Early Modern Ottoman and European Culture and Society. Duke University Press. pp. 2. ISBN 0-8223-3424-0. 
  17. ^ http://www.exploringromania.com/young-dracula-childhood.html
  18. ^ Mehmed the Conqueror and his time pp. 204-5
  19. ^ Dracula: Prince of many faces - His life and his times p. 147
  20. ^ Croatia and Ottoman Empire, Ahdnama, Sultan Mehemt II
  21. ^ Light Millennium: A Culture of Peaceful Coexistence: The Ottoman Turkish Example; by Prof. Dr. Ekmeleddin IHSANOGLU
  22. ^ Wedding portrait, Nauplion.net
  23. ^ culturecityistanbul.blogspot.com/2009/10/fatih-sultan-mehmed-mausoleum.html.
  24. ^ 1453: The Holy War for Constantinople and the Clash of Islam and the West, Roger Crowley, 2005
  25. ^ تاريخ الدولة العليّة العثمانية، تأليف: الأستاذ محمد فريد بك المحامي، تحقيق: الدكتور إحسان حقي، دار النفائس، الطبعة العاشرة: 1427 هـ - 2006 م، صفحة: 177-178 ISBN 9953-18-084-9
  26. ^ Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey. Banknote Museum: 7. Emission Group - One Thousand Turkish Lira - I. Series & II. Series. – Retrieved on 20 April 2009.

External links

Mehmed II
Born: March 30, 1432 Died: May 3, 1481
Regnal titles
Preceded by
Murad II
Sultan of the Ottoman Empire
1444–1446
Succeeded by
Murad II
Preceded by
Murad II
Sultan of the Ottoman Empire
Feb 3, 1451 – May 3, 1481
Succeeded by
Bayezid II
Titles in pretence
Preceded by
Constantine XI
Caesar of Rome Succeeded by
Bayezid II
New title
Self-proclaimed
Caliph of Islam Succeeded by
Bayezid II


Post a question - any question - to the WikiAnswers community:

Copyrights:

Mentioned in

Constantine XI (Byzantine emperor)
Pierre d'Aubusson (French military leader & theologian)
Beyazid II (Ottoman sultan)
Murad II (Ottoman sultan)