| (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
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