1404 – 1410
Süleyman in Anatolia, 1404–1410
Süleyman crosses into Anatolia with a large army and takes Bursa in March 1404, and Mehmed falls back to Amasya. Süleyman marches to the Aegean coast, where Cüneyd of İzmir and İlyas of Menteşe accept him as overlord. Later in 1404 Ankara surrenders to him, by one account after his grand vizier Çandarlı Ali Pasha sends its garrison forged letters from Mehmed.
Süleyman Çelebi in an engraving by Johann Theodor de Bry, 1590sWikimedia Commons, Johann Theodor de Bry, Public domain (Ottoman Prince Suleiman Celebi.jpg)
Mehmed keeps Amasya, Tokat and the province of Rum. Musa, whom Timur had left in the keeping of Yakub of Germiyan at Kütahya, is released at Mehmed’s request and joins him.
Amasya seen from its castleWikimedia Commons, Michael F. Schönitzer, CC BY-SA 3.0 (Amasya-Panorama1.jpg)
The division lasts from 1405 to 1410: Süleyman rules the Balkans from Edirne and western Anatolia from Bursa, and Mehmed the north-east from Amasya. Ali Pasha, grand vizier since 1387, dies at Ankara on 18 December 1406.
Sources
- Anonymous, Aḥvāl-i Sulṭān Meḥemmed (15th century).
- Âşıkpaşazâde, Tevârîh-i Âl-i Osmân (late 15th century).
- Doukas, Historia Turco-Byzantina (about 1462).
- Dimitris J. Kastritsis, The Sons of Bayezid (2007).
- Elizabeth A. Zachariadou, Trade and Crusade: Venetian Crete and the Emirates of Menteshe and Aydin (1983).
- Colin Imber, The Ottoman Empire, 1300–1481 (1990).
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