1299
Bilecik, Yarhisar and İnegöl, 1299
According to Aşıkpaşazade, the tekfurs of Bilecik and Yarhisar plan to seize Osman at the wedding of their children in the Hijri year 699, 1299–1300. Köse Mihal warns Osman of the plan. Osman sends forty men into Bilecik, dressed as women and bringing his people’s goods for safekeeping as in other years, and they overpower the small garrison while the townspeople are at the wedding.
At Çakırpınarı Osman’s men ambush the wedding escort from Yarhisar and kill most of the riders, and Osman takes Yarhisar by surprise. The bride, called Holofira in the chronicles, is taken captive and married to Orhan. Tradition makes her Nilüfer Hatun, the mother of Murad I. Modern research holds that the tradition merges several of Orhan’s wives, since Nilüfer joined his household around 1325.
The cenotaph of Nilüfer Hatun, wife of Orhan and mother of Murad I, in BursaWikimedia Commons, Maurice Flesier, CC BY-SA 4.0 (Tomb of Nilüfer Hatun, wife of Sultan Orhan of the Ottoman Empire.jpg)
Turgut Alp takes the villages around İnegöl and then the castle, and its tekfur, Aya Nikola, is put to death. Osman makes Yenişehir, in the plain between İnegöl and Nicaea, his seat. By tradition he gives İnegöl to Turgut Alp, Yarhisar to Hasan Alp and Karacahisar to Orhan.
Hills in the district of Yenişehir, Osman’s seat from about 1299Wikimedia Commons, Haluk Comertel, CC BY 3.0 (Yenişehir-Bursa - panoramio.jpg)
Sources
- Aşıkpaşazade, Tevârîh-i Âl-i Osmân (late 15th century).
- Cemal Kafadar, Between Two Worlds: The Construction of the Ottoman State (1995).
- Leslie P. Peirce, The Imperial Harem: Women and Sovereignty in the Ottoman Empire (1993).
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