Sultan's Epithets Series

By Ayşe Osmanoğlu

March 16, 2026 08:52 AM GMT+03:00

History has a way of whispering its secrets – if you listen closely…

In the forested hills behind the walled Genoese colony of Galata, the night sky twinkled not only with stars, but with the restless flicker of torchlight. Ottoman war galleys lurched forward in the darkness, their great hulls groaning like angry beasts. These ships were not riding the waves of the Bosphorus. They were sailing over land, hauled across a sea of greased timbers to outflank the wrought-iron chain that sealed the entrance to the Golden Horn.

The great chain. The city’s maritime defence system. The barrier guarding the lightly defended sea walls of Constantinople’s natural harbour.

“Heave!” shouted the young Sultan as he rode amongst his men. His boots were caked with mud, his robes spattered with dirt, and his voice hoarse from issuing commands. Oxen strained against their harnesses. Coarse ropes snapped taut, biting into men’s shoulders as they slipped and staggered through ground slick with tallow.

“Heave!”

Again, and again the order rang out. Mehmed leant forward in the saddle, urging them on. The first ship crested the ridge, hesitated for a moment, then slid onto the oiled logs below, gliding down into the still waters of the Golden Horn.

No loud splash betrayed it. No ripple carried a warning.

As ship followed ship into the harbour behind the chain, Ottoman guns slowly turned to face the walls of Constantinople. Sultan Mehmed II was poised to fulfil the prophecy.

The Conqueror

The appearance of the Ottoman fleet within the Golden Horn dispelled any lingering illusion that Constantinople would not fall. Panic spread quickly through the city as its overstretched garrison scrambled to defend a shoreline previously guarded by little more than faith and the wrought-iron chain. Bells rang in alarm and lament. Men were hastily deployed, thinning defences elsewhere and leaving these sections of the walls weaker, more exposed, and dangerously vulnerable. After fifty-three days, the siege was entering its final phase.

For weeks, Mehmed’s colossal cannon had pounded the Theodosian Walls, hurling vast stone shots that shattered masonry once believed impregnable. The assaults were relentless. Each breach was repaired, each attack repelled by defenders fighting with remarkable bravery. Yet Mehmed persisted. He had patience, and a plan. With his fleet now inside the Golden Horn, Constantinople was encircled.

In the early hours of May 29, 1453, Mehmed ordered the final assault. Wave upon wave of Ottoman troops surged towards the walls. The Sultan held back his elite Janissary Corps until the moment was right. As dawn broke and the first light touched the city’s battered walls, the kettledrums sounded. The Janissaries advanced. Near the Gate of Saint Romanus, they overpowered the defenders, and the last Roman emperor, Constantine XI Palaiologos, died fighting alongside his men.

Later that day, Sultan Mehmed made his triumphant entry through a different gate, the Gate of Charisius, near the highest point of the city.

Rome had fallen.

Constantinople had been conquered by a twenty-one-year-old sultan who succeeded where generations before him had failed. The Red Apple, the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire, Constantinople – it was his.

From that day forward, Sultan Mehmed II would be known as Fatih – the Conqueror.

The Prophecy

For Mehmed, the conquest of Constantinople was more than a glorious military triumph. It was the fulfilment of a prophecy.

“Verily, you shall conquer Constantinople. What a blessed army will that army be, and what a blessed commander will that conqueror be.”

This hadith, attributed to the Prophet Muhammed, transformed the conquest of Constantinople into a sacred cause. It inspired Muslim rulers, from the Umayyad Caliphs to the Ottoman Sultans, to capture the city. Each attempt ended in retreat, defeat, or death, strengthening the belief that when Constantinople finally fell, it would do so under the leadership of an extraordinary man.

Mehmed was taught the significance of this prophecy. He studied theology with the same intensity that he devoted to military strategy, statecraft, languages, history, and mathematics. To him, the conquest of Constantinople was not merely the capture of a city, but the transfer of sovereignty from one civilisation to another. To take Constantinople was to inherit Rome itself.

Seen in this light, the wrought-iron chain across the Golden Horn becomes more than a defensive weapon. It was a symbol of resistance, of a world refusing to yield. By hauling his fleet over land, Mehmed not only outmanoeuvred his enemy. He demonstrated ingenuity, tenacity, and faith. In doing so, he proved himself worthy of the title foretold in the Conquest Hadith: the blessed conqueror.

For this reason, history remembers Fatih Sultan Mehmed not simply as the conqueror of Constantinople, but as the man who fulfilled the Prophet Muhammed’s prophecy.

The Chain

Today, fragments of that formidable defensive chain still survive. No longer barring the entrance to the Golden Horn, floating on wooden booms, tethered to the old city walls on one side and to Galata on the other, its heavy wrought-iron links now lie scattered across Istanbul’s museums, with the largest surviving section housed in the Military Museum.

In Ottoman times, the chain was stored in the Military Warehouse at Hagia Irene, reduced to a relic of a defeated empire. The iron is heavy and cold. Rust has crept in its joints. Perhaps traces of sea salt still cling to its surface, remnants of the waters it once protected. Stand before it and you can almost sense what it witnessed: Torches flickering against the night sky, men stumbling in the mud as they dragged ships over land, and a young sultan poised to conquer the greatest city on earth.

The chain rests now, silent and at peace. It did not fail its empire because it broke, but because Fatih Mehmed refused to bow before it. Ottoman sultans bowed only to Allah. No chain could bind them or stand in the path of destiny.

Until we meet again in the next Sultan’s Salon…

By Ayşe Osmanoğlu

February 27, 2026 08:06 AM GMT+03:00

History has a way of whispering its secrets – if you listen closely…

Sultan Mehmed I lay confined to his bedchamber in the palace at Edirne. His strength was ebbing away, yet his mind remained focused on the state he had spent his life rebuilding.

Beyond the palace walls, the city was calm. The gates stood open. There were no enemy banners on the hillsides or plains, no messengers arriving with news of revolt or invasion. The roads were safe again. The bazaars were full of merchants and traders from across the region. Taxes were paid to a single authority. Coins bore one name.

This order had been hard won. After his father’s defeat at Ankara, more than a decade of civil war drove the Ottoman state to the brink of collapse. In the end, Mehmed seized power. As sultan, he worked patiently to steady what had been shaken–restoring Ottoman authority in Anatolia and Wallachia, and securing peace within and beyond his borders.

From his deathbed, he summoned his heir. “Bring my son, Prince Murad, immediately,” he gasped. “The state must not be allowed to descend into chaos again.”

It was how Mehmed had always ruled; it was how he was trained to govern Amasya as a young prince during his father’s reign: with educated foresight, courteous restraint and gentle nobility.

That is why he was called Çelebi.

The Gentleman Sultan

The epithet Çelebi was used in the early Ottoman period to denote a man of refinement, someone well-educated, well-mannered and of cultivated bearing. It was a term applied to princes, scholars and men of standing whose conduct distinguished them from others. To be called “Çelebi” was not to be praised for the power one wielded, but for how one behaved toward others.

Mehmed carried this name before he became sultan, and it followed him naturally onto the throne. In an age shaped by ambition and violence, he ruled differently. Where others relied on fear and intimidation, he preferred diplomacy and restraint; where rivals pursued domination, he practised moderation. His objective was not expansion for its own sake, but the restoration and consolidation of authority, grounded in law, legitimacy, and stability.

In this way, Mehmed sought to place the Ottoman state back on firm foundations, after the interregnum had brought it perilously close to destruction.

Warring Brothers

At just 16, Mehmed fought beside his brothers and his father, Yildirim Bayezid, at the Battle of Ankara in 1402. The Ottoman army was defeated by Timur, Sultan Bayezid was taken captive and the future of the Ottomans hung in the balance. Mehmed was wounded, but he did not seek martyrdom or vengeance. Instead, he gathered what remained of his forces and withdrew to Amasya.

From here, he attempted to rescue his father. The plan failed, but it revealed something essential about his character. In the face of catastrophe, Mehmed acted with caution, loyalty, and a deep sense of duty.

Bayezid’s death a few months later plunged the dynasty into civil war. With no established laws of succession, the Ottoman state fractured into four parts. Suleyman proclaimed himself sultan in Edirne, ruling Rumelia from the capital. Isa established himself in Bursa, the former capital, while Musa did the same in Kutahya. Meanwhile, Mehmed claimed the sultanate from Amasya, quietly gathering support and biding his time.

For nearly 11 years, brother fought brother. Alliances were formed and broken, armies clashed, and the state teetered on the edge of dissolution. That it survived at all owed much to Mehmed. When he finally emerged as sole ruler in 1413, he did so not as a conqueror intoxicated by victory, but as a man determined to rebuild what had almost been lost. We can only imagine how different history might have been, had the fledgling Ottoman state collapsed during the interregnum.

This achievement earned Mehmed a second, lasting epithet: the Restorer, the second founder of the Ottoman state.

The Restorer at Rest

Mehmed’s eyes kept drifting toward the door. For days he lingered between levels of consciousness, clinging to life with the same determination he had shown in restoring the state. He was waiting for his son.

Prince Murad did not arrive in time to say farewell. Yet even in his final hours, Mehmed Celebi thought not of himself, but of the state. He left precise instructions, carried out faithfully by his devoted servants: his death was to be concealed until Murad reached Edirne and the smooth transition of power could be secured. For 41 days, the sultan’s death was kept secret. Order, once restored, would not be allowed to dissolve again.

Mehmed was laid to rest in Bursa, in an exquisite tomb: the Yesil Turbe, the Green Tomb. Rising above the city in luminous turquoise tiles, it is one of the most distinctive monuments of early Ottoman architecture. Its unique colour sets it apart from other imperial tombs, much like the man who lies within is distinguished from others.

Nearby rest his half-brothers, Suleyman, Isa and Musa, buried with due honour and respect. Once children who played happily together, they became rivals when fate decreed that only one could sit upon the Ottoman throne. Their struggle nearly destroyed the dynasty, and the state itself. Yet in the Ottoman world, the state came before all else, and each made the ultimate sacrifice for it.

I invite you to visit the historic city of Bursa and to stand before the Yesil Turbe. Look up at its magnificent tiled walls; trace your fingers over the smooth turquoise surface. Perhaps you will feel moved to offer a prayer for the soul of Sultan Mehmed I, the sovereign who saved the Ottoman state when it faced near extinction. Or perhaps you will reflect on how different world history might have been, had this well-educated, well-mannered and cultivated gentleman sultan not ascended the throne.

A Çelebi to the very end.

Until we meet again in the next Sultan’s Salon …

Photo collage illustrating the fall of Sultan Bayezid I after the Battle of Ankara (1402), the rise of Timur, and the turmoil of the Ottoman Interregnum period. (Photo collage by Zehra Kurtulus/Türkiye Today)

By Ayşe Osmanoğlu

February 11, 2026 09:23 AM GMT+03:00

History has a way of whispering its secrets – if you listen closely…

It was with great reluctance that Sultan Bayezid I broke camp beneath the walls of Constantinople, withdrew his army, and turned east. He yearned to taste the sweetness of the Red Apple, the Ottoman symbol of the ultimate conquest, the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire, yet for now it remained just beyond reach.

Following his father’s victory at the Battle of Kosovo, the Balkans were subdued, and most of the Anatolian beyliks were forced into submission. Bayezid now dreamt of fulfilling the Prophet Muhammad’s (pbuh) prophecy and being the commander to conquer Constantinople, but that moment would have to wait. He could not allow his nemesis, Emir Timur, the feared warlord of the east, to attack and plunder the Anatolian heartland.

It was the height of summer, yet the army marched toward Ankara at a punishing pace. Day after day, the land rolled away behind the advancing column, throats burned, dust rose in choking clouds, and the sun bore down without mercy as Bayezid drove his men onward. Sweat beaded on the sultan’s brow beneath his steel helmet, sunlight glinting off the gilded motifs and Quranic verses that adorned it. The weight of the iron chainmail and breastplate pressed upon him as he shifted in the saddle, no longer as strong and agile as he had once been.

Speed had always been his greatest weapon. He moved faster than his enemies could gather, struck before alliances could form, and overwhelmed resistance with swift efficiency. It was this quality—decisive, impulsive, and instinctive—that had earned him the epithet Yildirim.

The Thunderbolt.

The Spark

To the steady drum of hooves and the tramp of marching feet, Bayezid’s thoughts drifted back to another campaign, one fought many summers earlier alongside his father, Sultan Murad Hudavendigar. They had ridden against his sister’s ambitious husband, the Bey of Karaman, to the plains outside Konya.

That day, Bayezid fought with fierce, instinctive brilliance. He surged forward relentlessly, pressed hard, and then … crack … descended upon the enemy like lightning ripping through the sky—sudden, flashing, and impossible to parry. His actions were daring, even reckless to some, yet devastatingly effective, breaking through the enemy lines in a single violent manoeuvre. Murad watched as his son seized fleeting opportunities on the battlefield that others hesitated to take, striking swiftly, decisively and always to his advantage.

What impressed the sultan most was not his son’s courage, but the lightning speed with which the young prince acted. And according to sources, when victory was his, Murad bestowed upon Bayezid the name that would follow him into history.

Yildirim.

The Thunderbolt Strikes

From that moment on, Bayezid dominated the battlefield as quickly and impetuously as he rode towards it.

On the field of Kosovo, the instant news reached him of his father’s assassination, he acted. Bayezid seized the throne and ordered the execution of his younger brother, Yakub, who had commanded the left flank of the Ottoman army during the battle. It was a brutal but decisive act, one that secured his position.

With his authority established, his reputation spread as fast as his armies marched, and the name Yildirim ceased to be an epithet and became an omen.

In 1396, he inflicted a crushing defeat on the Crusader army at Nicopolis, consolidating Ottoman dominance in Rumelia. No European army now dared raise arms against the Ottomans. In Anatolia, Bayezid moved just as adeptly, subduing the fractious Turkic beyliks, and bringing their lands, including those of Karaman, under Ottoman sovereignty. Constantinople was besieged repeatedly, its fall imminent, and the longed for prophecy close to fulfilment.

Then came reports from the east. In 1400, Timur had invaded Sivas and sacked the city.

Characteristically, Bayezid reacted immediately. He suspended the siege of Constantinople and marched to confront his enemy. He trusted his instincts. They had never failed him before.

End of the Storm

Bayezid would never return from Ankara. His fate was not to fulfil the Prophet Muhammad’s Conquest hadith, “Constantinople will surely be conquered. What a wonderful commander will that commander be, and what a wonderful army will that army be,” and conquer Constantinople.

His decisiveness, his impulsiveness, the very instincts that had earned him the epithet Yildirim, betrayed him at the last. At Cubuk Plain, on July 28, 1402, his exhausted army faced a rested enemy. The thunderbolt was brought to ground. The storm was over.

Bayezid would die in captivity, a prisoner of Timur. Yet he is not remembered as a passing storm, but as a powerful force of nature. During his short reign, the territory of the Ottoman state almost doubled in size, much of Turkic Anatolia was united, Ottoman power in Rumelia was consolidated, and the foundations were laid to ensure the conquest of Constantinople.

If you would like to encounter Yildirim Bayezid for yourself, to gain a sense of the impetuous warrior sultan he was, you might like to visit the Hisart Living History and Diorama Museum in Istanbul.

In one of the exhibition halls dedicated to Ottoman armoury, in a brightly lit display cabinet, lies a breastplate and arm guard that once belonged to Sultan Bayezid. The worked steel has darkened with time, the gilded decoration and sacred verses no longer glint in the sun as they once did when Bayezid wore them, but they still whisper their secrets.

Stand here for a moment, and the man begins to emerge. This armor was functional, made for speed—for a sultan who led from the saddle and struck before his enemies could react. In its dented steel lies the trace of a soul as blinding and untamed as a “Thunderbolt,” and through these artefacts, the story of a life lived at full charge is told.

Perhaps that is why they still hum, charged with electricity, centuries later.

Until we meet again in the next Sultan’s Salon …

A photo collage illustrating the legacy of Sultan Murad I through historical depictions, his tomb, and key architectural monuments associated with his reign. (Photo collage by Zehra Kurtulus/Türkiye Today)

By Ayşe Osmanoğlu

January 16, 2026 02:50 PM GMT+03:00

History has a way of whispering its secrets—if you listen closely…

Night settled over the Kosovo plain. Beyond the ring of watch fires and fluttering banners, the land lay still beneath a vault of stars, its silence broken only by the restless snorts of horses and the footsteps of sentries on patrol. Within the Ottoman camp, on the eve of what would become one of the most consequential battles in Ottoman history, the army slept—dreaming of victory, of martyrdom.

At the heart of the encampment, in a tent pitched upon the open field, Sultan Murad I did not sleep. Instead, he spent the night in devotion. Raising his hands in supplication, he offered a prayer.

“Oh Allah! Sacrifice me for the sake of Islam; so long as my army is not defeated and destroyed at the hands of the enemy!”

It was not the prayer of a conqueror intoxicated by power, but of a ruler who believed that sovereignty carried obligation and that victory, if granted, must come at a price he himself was willing to pay.

By sunset, the Kosovo plain would be soaked in blood. The battle would be won, the Balkan coalition broken, and Ottoman sovereignty in Rumelia secured. But the Ottoman Sultan who prayed for martyrdom would be dead.

He would be remembered as Hudavendigar Murad.

Sovereign favoured by Allah

Hudavendigar is derived from the Persian “khudawandgar,” a word that carried profound meaning in the language of the medieval Islamic world. It is formed from two elements—Huda”, meaning Allah, God; and “vendigar,” meaning possessor, master, or one who holds authority. Together, they create a title that does not merely denote power, but more specifically, power exercised under divine sanction.

It was reserved for rulers who embodied the ideal of kingship, who stood as Allah’s deputy on earth, entrusted with the protection of his people and the preservation of order. To be called hudavendigar was to be recognized as a ruler who governed not only by the sword, but by law, piety and moral authority.

As Murad expanded his territories into Rumelia, as Edirne was established as the new capital, and as Ottoman dominance in the Balkans was consolidated and Balkan rulers came under the sultan’s vassalage, Ottoman chroniclers increasingly used the epithet of hudavendigar to encompass both the extent of Murad’s power and the manner in which it was exercised.

A manner that would find its final expression on the field of Kosovo.

Martyrdom on field of Kosovo

The precise circumstances of Sultan Murad I’s death have long been debated. What is beyond dispute, however, is that on June 15, 1389, Murad became the only Ottoman sultan to lose his life on the battlefield, and that his death occurred on the very day Ottoman victory in the Balkans was confirmed.

According to one tradition, following the battle Sultan Murad rode onto the field of Kosovo to survey the fallen. As he moved among the dead and wounded, some sources say offering water to those in need, a Christian knight rose from among the corpses and fatally stabbed him.

A second account states that the assassination happened inside the Ottoman camp. In this version, a defeated knight requested an audience with the sultan. Murad consented, and as he received him, the man pulled out a concealed dagger and killed him, in an act that violated the codes of honor and chivalry by which warfare was followed in the 14th century.

In both versions, the assassin is most commonly identified as Milos Obilic, a Serbian noble who would enter Serbian folklore as a heroic figure. Ottoman chroniclers, meanwhile, ensured the legend of Sultan Murad would endure. He had prayed to die as a martyr if victory was granted. They recorded his end as divine acceptance of a righteous ruler’s plea.

And so the epithet hardened. Murad was no longer simply Hudavendigar by virtue of his life, but by the manner of his death.

Where the Hudavendigar rests

The legend of Hudavendigar Murad is most keenly felt in two places.

On the field of Kosovo, where Murad’s life ended and his prayer was answered, a modest turbe marks the site where his internal organs were buried— sanctifying the ground on which Ottoman sovereignty in the Balkans was won, a presence that would last for centuries. The plain is quiet now, open to the sky, surrounded by lush, verdant fields. Within the grounds of the tomb, a building erected during the reign of Sultan Abdulhamid II to accommodate pilgrims to the site has been converted into a small museum. It tells the story of the Battle of Kosovo and contains artifacts dating to the period of Sultan Murad I, inviting visitors to pause and reflect.

Far away, on another continent, Murad’s body rests in a tomb within the Hudavendigar Mosque complex, which he built in Bursa—the city conquered by his father, Orhan Gazi. This early example of Ottoman architecture also includes a medrese, a soup kitchen, a public bath, and a dervish lodge. It stands as a monument to a form of sovereignty that demanded accountability before Allah. As the soft light filters through its arched windows, one senses the early Ottoman vision of a state rooted in faith, benevolence, tempered ambition, and sacrifice. Here, as the call to prayer embraces you, the meaning of hudavendigar becomes clear, a reminder of what a ruler should be.

Some epithets are exaggerations. Some are aspirations. But every now and then, as with Sultan Murad I, they become the truest way history can honour a life.

In this series, I invite you to join me in discovering other Ottoman sultans through the epithets history chose to remember them by.

Until we meet again in the next Sultan’s Salon…