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Sultan Amuranth The First (Murad I)
His Father's Name: Orkhan Khan
His Mother’s Name: Nilufer Khatun
Date of Birth: 1326 (A.D.)
Date of Death:1389 (A.D.)
His Sultanate: 1359-89 (30 years)
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(b. 1326?--d. June 20/28 or August 28, 1389, Kosovo, Serbia),
Ottoman sultan who ruled from 1360 to 1389. Murad's reign
witnessed rapid Ottoman expansion in Anatolia and the Balkans
and the emergence of new forms of government and administration
to consolidate Ottoman rule in these areas.
Amurath was tall, round faced with a big
nose and a thick, well muscled body. He usually wore a sikke,
the long cap of the whirling dervishes, wrapped inside a round
turban. He dressed very simply and liked garments colored
white-on-red. He was courteous sympathetic, reasonable and
mild. He enjoyed the company of artists and well educated
people and always treated the poor very benevolently. His
people loved him.
Amurath was brought up by his mother Nilüfer
Khatun. He spent his youth at Brusa, with the artists and
teachers at the Islamic School of Theology. Nearly all his
life was spent on battlefields and moving with his army from
one place to another. In the periods between wars he found
time to build great buildings and works of art. In Brusa he
erected mosques, schools and of all things a soup kitchen!
Edirne was made his capital, a huge palace being built there.
The Empire stretched for 95,000 square kilometers when he
came to power and was expanded to 500,000 during his sultanate.
Murad ascended the throne in succession
to his father, Orhan. Shortly after Murad's accession, his
forces penetrated western Thrace and took Adrianople and Philippopolis
and forced the Byzantine emperor John V Palaeologus to become
a vassal. Adrianople was renamed Edirne, and it became Murad's
capital. In 1366 a crusade commanded by Amadeus VI of Savoy
rescued the Byzantines and occupied Gallipoli on the Dardanelles,
but the Turks recaptured the town the next year. In 1371 Murad
crushed a coalition of southern Serbian princes at Chernomen
on the Maritsa River, took the Macedonian towns of Dráma,
Kavála, and Seres (Sérrai), and won a significant
victory over a Bulgarian-Serbian coalition at Samakow (now
Samokovo). These victories brought large territories under
direct Ottoman rule and made the princes of northern Serbia
and Bulgaria, as well as the Byzantine emperor, Murad's vassal.
In the 1380s Murad resumed his offensive
in the west. Sofia was taken in 1385 and Nis in 1386. Meanwhile,
in Anatolia, Murad had extended his power as far as Tokat
and consolidated his authority in Ankara. Through marriage,
purchase, and conquest he also acquired territories from the
principalities of Germiyan, Tekke, and Hamid
In 1387 or 1388 a coalition of northern
Serbian princes and Bosnians stopped the Ottomans at Plocnik,
but in 1389 Murad and his son Bayezid (later Bayezid I) defeated
them at the Battle of Kosovo. The Battle of Kossova, however,
ended In great sorrow. Most of the wounded were the enemy,
only a small minority being Muslims. Amurath Khan was walking
past the Muslim dead, praying as he walked. He ordered that
all the dead should be buried and began to tend some of the
wounded.
At that moment a gigantic Serbian soldier
by the name of Milosh, the aide of the Serbian King Lazar
leapt to his feet and rushed towards Amurath. The Muslims
soldiers held him but Milosh told them that he must see Sultan
Amurath. ''Let me see him," he said. "I want to
kiss his robe and to accept Islam. Besides, I have good news.
King Lazar has been captured. " Hearing this Amurath
signaled his bodyguard to let Milosh go. The treacherous Serbian,
pretending to be wounded came up to Amurath and, kneeling
as if to kiss his robe swiftly drew his dagger and drove it
into the Sultan's chest. The bodyguards could not understand
what had happened but Milosh suddenly ran away. He was seized
shortly afterwards and was immediately put to death.
The last words Amurath spoke were:
"Throughout my life I have begged Allah
to allow me to die for him. He has accepted his poor son's
prayer. Allah be praised, my life has come to an end but the
victory is ours. Obey my son Bayezid. Be kind to the people,
look after their goods and their souls. I commit you and your
magnificent army to Allah. May he protect our Empire from
evil."
Amurath's torn intestines were interred
where he was killed and a tomb built over them. His corpse
was removed to Brusa and buried in his mausoleum at Chekirge.
Amurath was the first Sultan to be killed
in battle. He was the most eminent champion of Islam. In his
mausoleum are kept the lock and key of Biledjik Castle, Amurath's
armour and mantle, his head gear, his prayer rug made from
antelope leather, his sling and arrows and the garments in
which he had been murdered.
Under Murad I the seeds of some of the basic
Ottoman imperial institutions were sown. The administrative
military offices of kaziasker (military judge), beylerbeyi
(commander in chief), and grand vizier (chief minister) crystallized
and were granted to persons outside the family of Osman I,
founder of the dynasty. The origins of the Janissary corps
(elite forces) and the devsirme (child-levy) system through
which the Janissaries were recruited are also traced to Murad's
reign.
The great Muslim personalities of Sultan
Murad Khan's reign were - Shaykh Amir Kulal from the Naqshbandi
Tariqa, Shamsuddin Karamani, and Jamaluddin Abdullah Efendi,
writer of the book "Mughni Al-labib".
Amttrath had four sons Jacoub-Chelebi, Bayezid
the Yilderim, Savdji Bey and Ihrahim. He had two daughters.
Nefise and Sultana Khatoun.
Some info. were compiled from
"Murad I" Britannica Online.
<http://www.eb.com:180/cgi-bin/g?DocF=micro/410/32.html>
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