ABSTRACT
Following the Battle of Ankara Timur returned to Samarqand to undertake a great campaign in China, but he died in 1405 and was succeeded by his son Shahrukh. At this point the Ottoman-Timurid relationship entered a second stage. This chapter will analyze this relationship, particularly as it related to ghaza and as it culminated in the reign of Murad II. Specifically, the argument will be made that Mehmed I (1402-21) acknowledged the overlordship of Shahrukh (as shown by his letters to Shahrukh and his coins recognizing Timurid suzerainty), and also tried to manipulate ghaza (against Christian powers as well as the ‘Tatar/Timurids’) to keep the Timurids at bay, all the while pursuing an aggressive policy of internal consolidation.1
Yet Mehmed does not seem to have been able to present himself as or become a full-fledged ghazi king. At least, he was not remembered as such by later Ottoman historians. Instead, it was left to his son Murad II to fully recover the sovereignty of his house by embodying the role of ghazi king:2
not merely a ruler who does ghaza, but also a king over other ghazis. Murad had thus started a new cycle in Ottoman history, signaling a second rise after the uncertainties of the interregnum. Murad’s new ghazi ‘persona’ was a composite one, highly textual, and it comprised motifs and episodes drawn from translations and compilations of the histories of ghaza in Anatolia. In turn, this image found its way to Ottoman dynastic histories such as Arıkparazade’s Tevarih-i Âl-i Osman.
