An Ottoman sultan abdicated for his 12-year-old son, then was called back
Worn down by war and grief after losing his favourite son, Murad II handed the throne to young Mehmed II in 1444. The boy's government floundered, the grand vizier summoned the father back to lead at Varna, and by 1446 Murad was sultan again. Mehmed would later capture Constantinople.
Born in June 1404 to Mehmed I, Murad grew up in Amasya and was girded with the Sword of Osman at Bursa at sixteen in 1421. Trouble came at once. The Byzantine emperor Manuel II freed a rival claimant, Mustafa, in return for promised cities; Mustafa won early battles and proclaimed himself sultan at Edirne before his troops deserted to Murad. Murad then besieged Constantinople, only to break off when the Byzantines and Anatolian allies propped up his 13-year-old brother as another rebel. Afterwards he annexed several hostile Anatolian principalities.
He then fought on many fronts. The Karamanids were beaten in 1428, Venice gave up after losing Thessalonica in 1430, and Serbia was annexed in 1439. Exhausted after a hard winter battle at the Zlatitsa Pass and the death of his son Alaeddin, who fell from his horse in 1443, Murad agreed to the Peace of Szeged and stepped down. His return came via a rebellion in Edirne in 1446, probably provoked by a debased silver coin.
Murad worked hard on his image. Old Persian, Arab and Anatolian epics were translated so he could model himself on legendary warrior-kings, especially the nameless caliphs of the Battalname. At Varna in 1444, seeing the Hungarians gaining ground, he dismounted to pray as the epic's caliph had done, and the battle turned; the Polish-Hungarian king Władysław III died in a charge. He even quoted the caliph's rallying cry about fighters and martyrs, and his campaigns were recorded in a chronicle modelled on the epic.
His reign brought prosperity. The traveller Bertrandon de la Broquière reported in 1432 that annual revenue had reached 2,500,000 ducats, and described Murad as short and stocky with a broad brown face and a large hooked nose. He introduced the title Şehzade for princes, used until the empire ended. His Serbian wife Mara Branković remained a Christian throughout. He died on 3 February 1451.
Source: Murad II
