Concept

Bayezid I

Summary
Bayezid I (بايزيد اول, I. Bayezid), also known as Bayezid the Thunderbolt (یلدیرم بايزيد, Yıldırım Bayezid; 1360 – 8 March 1403), was the Ottoman Sultan from 1389 to 1402. He adopted the title of Sultan-i Rûm, Rûm being an old Islamic name for the culturally Hellenistic Eastern Roman Empire. He decisively defeated the Crusaders at the Battle of Nicopolis in what is now Bulgaria in 1396. Bayezid unsuccessfully besieged Constantinople. He later was defeated and captured by Timur at the Battle of Ankara in 1402 and died in captivity in March 1403, which triggered the Ottoman Interregnum. Bayezid was the son of Murad I and his Greek wife, Gülçiçek Hatun. His first major role was as governor of Kütahya, a city that he earned by marrying the daughter of a Germiyanid ruler. 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, 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. 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.
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