It was probably during the reign of Orhan that the famous institution of the Janissaries, a word derived from the Turkish yeni cheri (“new troops”), was formed. The first important step in the establishment of this empire was taken in 1326 when the Ottoman leader Orhan captured the town of Bursa, south of the Sea of Marmara, and made it his capital.
Ottoman empire rulers series#
This, together with a series of brilliant sultans – culminating in the redoubtable Suleiman the Magnificent – established the foundations of an empire that at its height was comparable to that of the Romans.īy Chamboz at English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0, Link But at the beginning, when its institutions were responsive to the needs of the people and the state, the Ottoman Empire was a model of administrative efficiency. Towards the end of the Ottoman Empire, this talent fossilized into bureaucracy – and a moribund bureaucracy at that. In addition to their military abilities the Turks seem to have been endowed with a special talent for organization. They were called ghazis, warriors for the faith, and their highest ambition was to die in battle for their adopted religion. Turkish tribes, driven from their homeland in the steppes of Central Asia by the Mongols, had embraced Islam and settled in Anatolia on the battle lines of the Islamic world, where they formed the Ottoman confederation. The Ottoman state was born on the frontier between Islam and the Byzantine Empire. Under a minor chieftain named Othman, groups of Turkish-speaking peoples in Anatolia were united in the Ottoman confederation which, by the second half of the fourteenth century, had conquered much of present-day Greece and Turkey and was threatening Constantinople.
During the second Mongol invasion, Tamerlane had met and very nearly annihilated another rising power: the Ottomans.
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