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' Bayezid I ' (Ottoman: بايزيد الأول, Turkish: ''Beyazıt'', nicknamed ''Yıldırım'' (Ottoman: ییلدیرم), "the Thunderbolt"; 1354–1403) was the sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1389 to 1402. He was the son of Murad I who was of Turkish and Greek originThe Nature of the Early Ottoman State, Heath W. Lowry, 2003 SUNY Press, p.153 The Fall of Constantinople, Steven Runciman, Cambridge University Press, p.36 and Gülçiçek Hatun who was of ethnic Greek descent.The Nature of the Early Ottoman State, Heath W. Lowry, State University of New York Press (SUNY Press), p.153 History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey, Stanford Jay Shaw, Cambridge University Press, p.28
He ascended to the throne following the death of his father Murad I in the first Battle of Kosovo and immediately had his younger brother Yakub strangled to prevent him from staging a coup.
One year later, faced with a Hungarian threat from the North, the Serbs agreed to become his vassals and he took as a wife Olivera Despina, the daughter of Prince Lazar of Serbia, allying himself with Serbs and enabling his offspring to claim Serbia as a dynastic privilege. He recognized Stefan Lazarević, the son of Lazar, as the new Serbian leader, with considerable autonomy. After this victory he started drinking alcohol according to ruhsats of Hanafi practise but stopped after social unrest about his conduct.
In 1394 Bayezid crossed the Danube river attacking Wallachia, ruled at that time by Mircea the Elder. The Ottomans were superior in number, but on October 10, 1394 (17 May 1395 ?), in the Battle of Rovine, which featured a forested and swampy terrain, the Wallachians won the fierce battle and prevented Bayezid from conquering the country.
In 1394 Bayezid laid siege to Constantinople^[1], the capital of the Byzantine empire. On the urgings of the Byzantine emperor John V Palaeologus a new crusade was organized to defeat him. This proved unsuccessful: in 1396 the Christian allies, under the leadership of the King of Hungary and future Holy Roman Emperor (in 1410) Sigismund, were defeated in the Battle of Nicopolis. Bayezid built the magnificent Ulu Camii in Bursa, to celebrate this victory.
Thus, the siege of Constantinople continued, lasting until 1401. The Emperor left the city to seek aid. The beleaguered Byzantines had their reprieve when Bayezid fought the Timurid Turks on the East.

In 1400, the Central Asian warlord Timur Lenk (or Tamerlane) had succeeded in rousing the local Turkic beyliks that had been vassals of the Ottomans to join him in his attack on Bayezid. In the fateful Battle of Ankara, on 20 July 1402, Bayezid was captured by Timur. His sons, however, escaped, and fled to Serbia until Timur's death (see also Ottoman Interregnum). Some contemporary reports claimed that Timur kept Bayezid chained in a cage as a trophy. Likewise, there are many stories about Bayezid's captivity, including one that describes how Timur used him as a footstool. Another one describes how Timur made Bayezid's wife dance naked at his court. However, these accounts are thought to be false, as writers from Timur's court reported that Bayezid was treated well, and that Timur even mourned his death. Likewise, Timur's own history with other rulers demonstrated that he was true to his word when he later claimed to have aimed at re-establishing Bayezid on the Ottoman throne. One year later, Bayezid died — some accounts claim that he committed suicide by smashing his head against the iron bars of his cage. Others claimed that he had taken the poison concealed in his ring.
'Marriages of Bayezid I:'

★ (m. 1381) Devlet Şah Hatun - Daughter of Süleyman Shah of Germiyan

★ Devlet Hatun - Daughter of Yakub Shah of Germiyan. Descendant of Mevlana Celaleddin-i Rumi through his son Sultan Veled's daughter Mutahhara Hatun who was an ancestor of Yakub Shah

★ Hafsa Hatun - Daughter of Isa Bey of Aydınoğlu

★ Sultan Hatun - Daughter of Süleyman Shah of Dulkadir

★ Olivera Despina - Daughter of Prince Lazar of Serbia
'Issue of Bayezid I:'

★ Ertuğrul - son

★ Emir Süleyman (d.1411) - son

★ Musa Çelebi (d.1413) - son of Devlet Shah Hatun

★ Sultan Mehmed I Çelebi (b.1389-d.1421)- son of Devlet Hatun

★ Kasım - son

★ Isa - son of Devlet Shah Hatun

★ Mustafa (d.1401) - son of Devlet Shah Hatun

★ Erhondu - daughter

★ Hundi - daughter

★ Fatma - daughter

Contents

Notes

References

See also

External links

Notes

1. Mango, Cyril. The Oxford History of Byzantium. 1st ed. New York: Oxford UP, 2002. pg 273-4

References

★ Goodwin, Jason - ''Lords of the Horizons'' (book)

See also

★ Bajazet an opera by Vivaldi on the story of Bayezid I and Timur Lenk
The only complete recording of this opera was released by Virgin Classics on May 10, 2005

★ Georg Friedrich Haendel - Tamerlano - English Concert with Trevor Pinnock [1]

External links

★ http://www.baerenreiter.com/html/vosco/tamerlano.htm

★ Creative Commons MP3 Recording