Contents
Introduction
Mehmed I also known as Mehmed Çelebi was the fifth sultan of Ottoman Empire from 1413 to 1421. He was the fourth son of Sultan Bayezid I and Devlet Hatun and continued the legacy of his ancestors as the sultan of the Ottoman Empire. He was born in Bursa in the year 1389. He had an average height and a round face with light complexion and a wide chest. He was very energetic, passionate and brave, with a muscular body. He was a skillful archer and wrestler. Mehmed I got involved in around 24 wars and he had more than 40 wounds on his body. He used to wear his turban on his head and a caftan as said by the historians. Mehmed was a very generous and just person and he treated the Muslims and the Christians the same way. He was an excellent statesman and an equally good politician. He completed his education in the Bursa Palace.
Early Life
Following Ottoman tradition, when he reached adolescence in 1399, he was sent to Rûm Eyalet to gain experience as the governor of the province around central northern Anatolia. Few years later his father Bayezid was defeated badly in the Battle of Ankara by the Turko Mongol conqueror Timur. The son of Bayezid and the brothers of Mehmed with the exception of Mustafa, who was captured and taken along with Bayezid to Samarkand were rescued and escorted from the battlefield. Mehmed was being saved by Bayezid Pasha, who took him to his hometown Amasya and Mehmed later appointed Bayezid Pasha his grand vizier. During the early interregnum, Mehmed acted as the Timur’s vassal, Beside the other princes that did not recognize Timur’s authority. The early Ottoman Empire had no regulated way of succession and according to Turkish customs, every son could succeed his father. Out of the Mehmed’s brothers, the eldest, Ertuğrul, had died in 1400, while the next candidate Mustafa, was a prisoner of Timur. This created the void space for underage four princes Mehmed, Süleyman, İsa, and Musa, to fight over control of the remaining Ottoman areas in the civil war known as the Ottoman Interregnum. Out of this Interregnum Mehmed I came out victorious.
Reign
After winning the Interregnum or civil war, Mehmed crowned himself as sultan in Thracian a city of Edirne that is located in the European part of the empire and become Mehmed I. He then strengthened his power and consolidated his rule and made Edirne the most important of the dual capitals. He then conquered the areas of Albania, Jandarid emirate and the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia from the Mamelukes. Considering his achievements as the sultan, Mehmed I is famously known as the second founder of the Ottoman Empire. Soon after Mehmed established his reign, his brother Mustafa Çelebi who had been captured and held captive in Samarkand, later hiding in Anatolia during the Interregnum, reemerged and asked Mehmed for the partition of the empire with him. Mehmed not only refused but met Mustafa’s forces in battle and easily defeating them. Mustafa than escaped and runaway to the Byzantine city of Thessaloniki but later an agreement with Mehmed I the Byzantine emperor Manuel II Palaiologos exiled Mustafa to the island of Lemnos. After this Mehmed however faced some problems and the first one was the problem of his nephew Orhan, who Mehmed perceived as a threat to his rule like of his brothers. There was mysteriously a plot involving he by Manuel II Palaiologos, trying to use Orhan against Sultan Mehmed but sultan found out about the plot and had Orhan blinded for betrayal.
Furthermore, as a consequence of the war of Ankara and other civil wars happening the population of the empire got unstable and traumatized. A very strong social and religious movement arise in the empire and become disruptive in a quick time. The movement was head by Sheikh Bedreddin who was a famous Muslim Sufi. Bedreddin formed a populist religious movement in the Ottoman Sultanate having subversive conclusions and of promoting the suppression of social differences between rich and poor. In 1416, Sheikh Bedreddin initiated his rebellion movement against the empire and after a four years of struggle, he was atlast captured by Mehmed’s grand vizier Bayezid Pasha and hanged in Serres a city in modern day Greece, in 1420.
Death
The rule of Mehmed I as sultan of the reunited ottoman empire remain only eight years to his death, but he was also the most powerful brother contesting for the throne and the real ruler of most of the empire for possibly the whole preceding time period of eleven years of the Ottoman Interregnum that happened between Bayezid’s captivity at Ankara and Mehmed’s final victory over his brother Musa Çelebi in the War of Çamurlu.
Sultan Mehmet I had died in Edirne in the year 1421. His death was supposed to be hidden from the army and the people and probably was the first sultan whom death was concealed. He was buried in the Yesil Turbe in Bursa in a mausoleum erected by Mehmed himself near the famous mosque which he built there and because of its decoration with the green glazed tiles, it is called the Green Mosque.