Murad I: 3rd Sultan of the Ottoman Empire

From 1362 until 1389, Murad I was the Ottoman Sultan. Orhan Gazi and Nilüfer Hatun were his parents. Murad I ascended to the throne following the death of his elder brother Süleyman Pasha. Murad, I captured Adrianople, renamed it Edirne, and declared it the Ottoman Sultanate's new capital in 1363. Then he enlarged the Ottoman Empire in Southern Europe by capturing the majority of the Balkans and forcing the princes of Serbia and Bulgaria and the East Roman emperor John V Palaiologos to pay homage to him. Finally, Murad split his sultanate into two administrative provinces: Anatolia (Asia Minor) and Rumelia (the Balkans).

Murad I was given the titles of Bey, Emîr-i a'zam (Great Emir), Melikü'l-mülûk (Malik of Maliks), Ghazi, Khan, Sultânü's-selâtîn (Sultan of Sultans), Hüdavendigâr, Padishah in Ottoman sources, and Tsar in Bulgarian and Serbian ones. He was referred to as dominus armiratorum Turchie in a Genoese document. Murad couldn't even sign his name because he was illiterate. Murad, I signed a contract in 1353 by dipping his palm in ink and imprinting his fingerprints on it.

Murad fought in Anatolia against the strong beylik of Karaman and in Europe against Serbs, Albanians, Bulgarians, and Hungarians. On 26 September 1371, Murad's capable second lieutenant Lala Şâhin Paşa, the first governor of Rumeli, defeated a Serb invasion to remove the Turks from Adrianople commanded by the Serbian brother's King Vukašin and Despot Uglješa. The Ottomans conquered Sofia in 1385. At the Battle of Pločnik in 1386, Prince Lazar Hrebeljanović beat an Ottoman force. On the way back, the Ottoman forces sustained significant losses and were unable to take Niš.

At the Battle of Kosovo in 1389, Murad's army destroyed the Serbian Army and its allies led by Lazar. When and how Murad I was assassinated are the subject of conflicting narratives from various sources. According to contemporary records, the fight took occurred, and both Prince Lazar and the Sultan died due to it. Additional legends and theories on how Murad I died were circulated and documented in the 15th century and later, decades after the occurrence. According to one Western account, Murad I was knifed to death by Serbian nobleman and knight Miloš Obilić during the opening hours of the fight. However, most Ottoman chroniclers (including Dimitrie Cantemir) claim he was assassinated while walking around the battlefield after the war ended. After that, his older son Bayezid, who was in charge of the Ottoman troops' left-wing, seized command. Bayezid summoned his second son, Yakub Bey, who was in charge of the opposite wing, to the Sultan's command centre tent, but Yakub Bey was killed when he arrived, leaving Bayezid as the only contender to the throne. Murad I's (and Jakub Bey's) assassination was reported in a letter from the Florentine senate (authored by Coluccio Salutati) to King Tvrtko I of Bosnia on 20 October 1389. The Ottoman lines were protecting Murad I was cut by a group of twelve Serbian nobles. Miloš Obilić, one of them, allegedly broke into the Sultan's tent and killed him with sword stabs to the throat and belly. Sultan Murad's internal organs were buried on the Kosovo field and are still visible today in the corner of the battlefield known as Meshed-i Hudavendigar, which has become a holy site for local Muslims. It was vandalized from 1999 to 2006 and was recently restored. His other relics were transported to Bursa, his Anatolian capital, and interred in a tomb at a complex named for him.

He created the sultanate by establishing society and administration in the freshly acquired city of Adrianople (Edirne in Turkish) and extending the kingdom in Europe, conquering much of the Balkans and compelling the Byzantine emperor to pay him tribute. Murad was the one who turned the Osmanli tribe into a sultanate. In 1363, he created the sultanate and the janissary corps and the devşirme recruitment system. He also established the Divan's governance, the timar and timar-holders (timariots) system, and the military judge, the kazasker. He also founded the provinces of Anadolu (Anatolia) and Rumeli.

He was the son of Orhan and Valide Hatun Nilüfer Hatun, the daughter of the Lord of Yarhisar, an ethnic Greek.