View source for Mehmed I

==Reign==
After winning the [[Ottoman Interregnum|Interregnum]], Mehmed crowned himself sultan in the [[Thrace|Thracian]] city of [[Edirne]] that lay in the European part of the empire (the area dividing the Anatolian and European sides of the empire, [[Constantinople]] and the surrounding region, was still held by the [[Byzantine Empire]]), becoming Mehmed I. He consolidated his power, made Edirne the most important of the dual capitals, and conquered parts of [[Albania]], the [[Jandarids|Jandarid]] emirate, and the [[Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia]] from the [[Mamluk Sultanate|Mamluks]]. Taking his many achievements into consideration, Mehmed is widely known as the "second founder" of the Ottoman Sultanate.

Soon after Mehmed began his reign, his brother [[Mustafa Çelebi]], who had originally been captured along with their father Bayezid I during the [[Battle of Ankara]] and held captive in [[Samarkand]], hiding in Anatolia during the Interregnum, reemerged and asked Mehmed to partition the empire with him. Mehmed refused and met Mustafa's forces in battle, easily defeating them. Mustafa escaped to the Byzantine city of [[Thessaloniki]], but after an agreement with Mehmed, the Byzantine emperor [[Manuel II Palaiologos]] exiled Mustafa to the island of [[Lemnos]].

However, Mehmed still faced some problems, first being the problem of his nephew Orhan, who Mehmed perceived as a threat to his rule, much like his late brothers had been. There was allegedly a plot involving him by [[Manuel II Palaiologos]], who tried to use Orhan against Sultan Mehmed; however, the sultan found out about the plot and had Orhan blinded for betrayal, according to a common Byzantine practice.

Furthermore, as a result of the [[Battle of Ankara]] and other civil wars, the population of the empire had become unstable and traumatized. A very powerful social and religious movement arose in the empire and became disruptive. The movement was led by [[Sheikh Bedreddin]] (1359–1420), a famous Muslim Sufi and charismatic theologian. He was an eminent [[Ulema]], born of a Greek mother and a Muslim father in Simavna (Kyprinos) southwest of [[Edirne]] (formerly [[Adrianople]]). Mehmed's brother [[Musa Çelebi|Musa]] had made Bedreddin his "[[qadi]] of the army," or the supreme judge. Bedreddin created a populist religious movement in the Ottoman Sultanate, "subversive conclusions promoting the suppression of social differences between rich and poor as well as the barriers between different forms of monotheism."<ref name="Islamic World p. 128">Europe and the Islamic World: A History. p. 128.Tolan, John. Princeton university Press. (2013) {{ISBN|978-0-691-14705-5}}</ref> Successfully developing a popular social revolution and [[syncretism]] of the various religions and sects of the empire, Bedreddin's movement began in the European side of the empire and underwent further expansion in western Anatolia.

In 1416, Sheikh Bedreddin started his rebellion against the throne. After a four-year struggle, he was finally captured by Mehmed's [[Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire|grand vizier]] [[Bayezid Pasha]] and hanged in the city of [[Serres]], a city in modern-day [[Greece]], in 1420.<ref name="Islamic World p. 128"/>