The Ottoman state to 1481: the age of

expansion
The first period of Ottoman history was characterized by almost
continuous territorial expansion, during which Ottoman
dominion spread out from a small northwestern Anatolian
principality to cover most of southeastern Europe and Anatolia.
The political, economic, and social institutions of the classical
Islamic empires were amalgamated with those inherited from
Byzantium and the great Turkish empires of Central Asia and
were reestablished in new forms that were to characterize the
area into modern times.

Origins and expansion of the Ottoman

state, c. 13001402
In their initial stages of expansion, the Ottomans were leaders
of the Turkish warriors for the faith of Islam, known by the
honorific title ghz (Arabic: raider), who fought against the
shrinking Christian Byzantine state. The ancestors of Osman I,
the founder of the dynasty, were members of the Kay tribe who
had entered Anatolia along with a mass of Turkmen Ouz
nomads. Those nomads, fleeing from the Mongols of Genghis
Khan, established themselves as the Seljuq dynasty in Iran
andMesopotamia in the mid-11th century, overwhelmed
Byzantium after the Battle of Manzikert (1071), and occupied
eastern and central Anatolia during the 12th century. The

ghazis fought against the Byzantines and then the Mongols,

who invaded Anatolia following the establishment of the IlKhanid (Ilhanid) empire in Iran and Mesopotamia in the last half
of the 13th century. With the disintegration of Seljuqpower and
its replacement by Mongol suzerainty, enforced by direct
military occupation of much of eastern Anatolia, independent
Turkmen principalitiesone of which was led by Osman
emerged in the remainder of Anatolia.

OSMAN AND ORHAN

Following the final Mongol defeat of the Seljuqs in 1293,
Osman emerged as prince (bey) of the border principality that
took over Byzantine Bithynia in northwestern Anatolia around
Bursa, commanding the ghazis against the Byzantines in that
area. Hemmed in on the east by the more powerful Turkmen
principality of Germiyan, Osman and his immediate successors
concentrated their attacks on Byzantine territories bordering the
Bosporus and the Sea of Marmara to the west. The Ottomans,
left as the major Muslim rivals of Byzantium, attracted masses
of nomads and urban unemployed who were roaming through
the Middle East searching for means to gain their livelihoods
and seeking to fulfill their religious desire to expand the territory
of Islam. The Ottomans were able to take advantage of the
decay of the Byzantine frontier defense system and the rise of
economic, religious, and social discontent in the Byzantine
Empire and, beginning under Osman and continuing under his
successors Orhan (Orkhan, ruled 132460) and Murad I
(136089), took over Byzantine territories, first in western

Anatolia and then in southeastern Europe. It was only under

Bayezid I (13891402) that the wealth and power gained by
that initial expansion were used to assimilate the Anatolian
Turkish principalities to the east.
By 1300 Osman ruled an area in Anatolia stretching from
Eskiehir (Dorylaeum) to the plains of znik (Nicaea), having
defeated several organized Byzantine efforts to curb his
expansion. Byzantine attempts to secure Il-Khanid support
against the Ottomans from the east were unsuccessful, and the
Byzantine emperors use of mercenary troops from western
Europe caused more damage to his own territory than to that of
the Turks. The Ottomans lacked effective siege equipment,
however, and were unable to take the major cities of Bithynia.
Nor could they move against their increasingly powerful
Turkmen neighbours, the Aydn and Karas dynasties, which
had taken over Byzantine territory in southwestern Anatolia.
Orhans capture of Bursa in 1324 (some sources date the event
to 1326) provided the first means for developing the
administrative, economic, and military power necessary to
make the principality into a real state and to create an army.
Orhan began the military policy, expanded by his successors, of
employing Christian mercenary troops, thus lessening his
dependence on the nomads.
Orhan soon was able to capture the remaining Byzantine towns
in northwestern Anatolia: znik (1331), zmit (1337), and
skdar (1338). He then moved against his major Turkmen
neighbours to the south. Taking advantage of internal conflicts,

Orhan annexed Karas in 1345 and gained control of the area

between the Gulf of Edremit and Kapda (Cyzicus), reaching
the Sea of Marmara. He thus put himself in a position to end
the lucrative monopoly enjoyed by the city of Aydn, that of
providing mercenary troops to competing Byzantine factions in
Thrace and at the Byzantine capital, Constantinople (presentday Istanbul). The expansion also enabled the Ottomans to
replace Aydn as the principal ally of the Byzantine emperor
John VI Cantacuzenus. The consequent entry of Ottoman
troops into Europe gave them a direct opportunity to see the
possibilities for conquest offered by Byzantine decadence. The
collapse of Aydn following the death of its ruler, Umur Bey, left
the Ottomans alone as the leaders of the ghazis against the
Byzantines. Orhan helped Cantacuzenus take the throne of
Byzantium from John V Palaeologus and as a reward secured
the right to ravage Thrace and to marry the emperors daughter
Theodora.
Ottoman raiding parties began to move regularly through
Gallipoli on the Crimean Peninsula into Thrace. Huge quantities
of captured booty strengthened Ottoman power and attracted
thousands from the uprooted Turkmen masses of Anatolia into
Ottoman service. Starting in 1354, Orhans son Sleyman
transformed Gallipoli, a peninsula on the European side of the
Dardanelles, into a permanent base for expansion into Europe
and refused to leave, despite the protests of Cantacuzenus and
others. From Gallipoli Sleymans bands moved up the Maritsa
River into southeastern Europe, raiding as far as Adrianople.

Cantacuzenus soon fell from power, at least partially because

of his cooperation with the Turks, and Europe began to be
aware of the extent of the Turkish danger.