Orhan

Orhan Gazi

### Relatives

Osman Ghazi (father), Malhun Hatun (mother), Bala Hatun (step-mother), Alaeddin Pasha (brother), Fatma Hatun (sister), Halime Hatun (sister), Omer Bey (maternal-grandfather), Ertugrul Ghazi (paternal-grandfather), Halime Hatun (paternal-grandmother), Gunduz Bey (Uncle), Savci bey (uncle), Aktemur Bey (cousin), Aydogdu Bey (cousin), Bayhoca Bey (cousin), Ertugrul bey (cousin), Selvi Hatun (aunt), Ayse Hatun (aunt), Lena Hatun (aunt), Suleyman Shah and Hayme Ana (Great Grand-parents)

### Occupation

Bey of Karacahisar and Kestel ,Second Sultan of Ottoman Beylik (Ottoman Empire)

## Biographical information

### Place of death

Bursa, Ottoman Empire (now Bursa, Turkey)

## Appearances

### Portrayed by

Yasar Alptekin (Kuruluş Osmancık) , Baris Arslan (Kurulus Osman -S3) Aybars Kartal Ozson (kurulus Osman S3-4), Emre Bey (kurulus Osman -5)

### Debut

Kuruluş Osman Episode 64

Orhan Bey or Shehzade Orhan is a character in the series Kurulus Osman based on **Orhan Ghazi** (c. 1281- 1362) who was the second bey (who officially used the title Sultan) of the Ottoman Beylik from 1324 to 1362. He was born in Söğüt, as the son of Osman Ghazi and Malhun Hatun.

## In Kurulus Osman:

He is the son of Osman Bey and Malhun Hatun and the elder brother of Alaeddin Ali, Fatma Hatun and Halime Hatun. He is shown as valiant boy who saved Holofira a byzantine princess twice and also Sultan Mesud . rhan Bey follows in his father’s footsteps. He is the Bey of Karacahisar and Kestel. Orhan Bey is the strongest candidate for Osman Bey’s post. Orhan Bey, who stands out with his strategic intelligence, sees war not only as physical strength but also as a mental struggle. For this, he will take steps to strengthen the army and defeat many of his enemies with mind games.

### Storyline

#### Season 2:

He was born in the last episode of season 2, much to the joy of his parents and tribe.

#### Season 3:

In season 3, he is shown a 40-day-old baby boy loved by his parents, his stepmother, Bala Hatun and the whole tribe. He was separated from his mother and grandmother Selcan and given in to the care of his aunt Ayşe Hatun by the orders of Vizir Alemsah . But later, Malhun sneaked into the Kayi Tribe and took him with her. After a period of many years, he is shown as a 13- to 14-year-old young boy on a hunt with Baysungur Alp and his brother Alaeddin Ali when suddenly he hears the cries of a young girl being chased by some Christian soldiers. He saved that girl from them and brought her into his tribe. This girl is none other than Prenses Holofira. After some time, he got captured by Tekfur of Bilecek, but Osman saved him.

#### Season 4

In season 4 he is appointed as Bey of Karachaisar Castle by Osman Bey.

## In History

### Orhan's Mother

He was the son of Osman Ghazi and his wife Malhun (Mal Hatun). According to some historians, she was the daughter of the Anatolian Turkish Bey, Ömer Bey. Other sources say that she was the daughter of Ömer Abdülaziz Bey, Seljuk Vizier of Anatolia. The 1324 endowment deed for a Dervish Monastery built by Sultan Orhan suggests that his mother was not, as popular historical tradition maintains, Edebali's daughter but rather Mal Hatun, the daughter of one "Umar Bey or Ömer Bey". The title "Bey", used by the princely dynasties of Anatolia, suggests that Mal Hatun's father was a person of some status and authority. One possibility is that he was the eponymous ruler of an "Amouri" (Umeri) Principality, which was located northeast of the emerging Ottoman State and disappeared in the late 13th or the early 14th century.

### Early life

In the early stages of his reign, Orhan focused his energies on conquering most of northwestern Anatolia. The majority of these areas were under Byzantine rule and he won his first battle at Pelekanon against the Byzantine Emperor Andronikos III Palaiologos. Orhan also occupied the lands of the Karasids of Balıkesir and the Ahis of Ankara.

A series of civil wars surrounding the ascension of the nine-year-old Byzantine emperor John V Palaiologos greatly benefited Orhan. In the Byzantine civil war of 1341–1347, the regent John VI Kantakouzenos married his daughter Theodora to Orhan and employed Ottoman warriors against the rival forces of the empress dowager, allowing them to loot Thrace. In the Byzantine civil war of 1352–1357, Kantakouzenos used Ottoman forces against John V, granting them the use of a European fortress at Çimpe around 1352. A major earthquake devastated Gallipoli (modern Gelibolu) two years later, after which Orhan's son, Süleyman Pasha, occupied the town, giving the Ottomans a strong bridgehead into mainland Europe.

According to Muslim scholar Ibn Battuta, Orhan was "the greatest of the Turkmen kings and the richest in wealth, lands, and military forces".

### Passage of power

Osman Gazi retired in 1324, and Orhan succeeded him. According to Ottoman tradition, when Orhan succeeded his father, he proposed to his older brother, Alaeddin, that they should share the emerging empire. The latter refused on the grounds that their father had designated Orhan as sole successor, and that the empire should not be divided. He only accepted as his share the revenues of a single village near Bursa.

Orhan then told him, "Since, my brother, thou will not take the flocks and the herds that I offer thee, be thou the shepherd of my people; be my Vizier." The word vizier, *vezir* in the Ottoman language, from Arabic *wazīr*, meant *the bearer of a burden*. Alaeddin, in accepting the office, accepted his brother's burden of power, according to oriental historians. Alaeddin, like many of his successors in that office, did not often command the armies in person, but he occupied himself with the foundation and management of the civil and military institutions of the state.

### Government

According to some authorities, it was in Alaeddin's time, and by his advice, that the Ottomans ceased acting like vassals to the Seljuk ruler: they no longer stamped money with his image or used his name in public prayers. These changes are attributed by others to Osman himself, but the vast majority of the oriental writers concur in attributing to Alaeddin the introduction of laws respecting the costume of the various subjects of the empire, and the creation and funding of a standing army of regular troops. It was by his advice and that of a contemporary Turkish statesman that the celebrated corps of Janissaries was formed, an institution which European writers erroneously fix at a later date, and ascribe to Murad I.
During Orhan's reign as the Ottoman emir, the Byzantine Empire declined – partly due to the ambitions of Italian maritime states and to the aggression of the Turcomans and other city Turks, but also due to civil wars within the empire.

During these years the Byzantine Empire became so weak that commercial supremacy in the surrounding seas around it became a bone of contention for the Italian maritime commercial city states. The Republic of Genoa possessed Galata, a separate Genoese city across the Golden Horn from Constantinople itself. The Genoese had fought the Byzantines earlier in 1348 when the Byzantines had decreased their customs tariffs in order to attract trade to the Byzantine side of the Golden Horn. In 1352 the rivalry for trade led to a war between Genoa and Venice. The Genoese, in trying to repel a Venetian fleet from destroying their ships in Golden Horn, bombarded the sea walls of Constantinople and pushed the Byzantines to ally with the Venetians. The Venetians assembled a large naval force, including hired fleets from Peter IV of Aragon and from the Byzantine Empire of John VI Cantacuzene. The sea battle between the Venetian fleet under the command of Niccolo Pisani and the Genoese fleet under Paganino Doria led to defeat of Venetians and their Byzantine allies. Orhan opposed the Venetians, whose fleets and piratical raids were disrupting his seaward provinces, and who had met his diplomatic overtures with contempt. The Venetians were allies of John VI, so Orhan sent an auxiliary force across the straits to Galata, which there co-operated with the Genoese.

In the midst of the distress and confusion that the Byzantine Empire now suffered, Orhan's eldest son, Suleyman Pasha, captured the Castle of Tzympe (Cinbi) in a bold move which gave the Turks a permanent foothold on the European side of the Dardanelles Straits. He also started to settle migrant Turcomans and town-dwelling Turks in the strategic city and castle of Gelibolu (Gallipoli), which had been devastated by a severe earthquake and was therefore evacuated by its inhabitants. Suleyman refused various financial inducements offered by John VI to empty the castle and the city. The emperor pleaded with his son-in-law Orhan to meet personally and discuss the matter, but the request was either rejected or could not be carried out due to Orhan's age and ill-health.

This military situation remained unresolved, in part because of the eruption of hostilities between John VI and his co-emperor and son-in-law John V Palaeologus. John V was dismissed from his imperial post and exiled to Tenedos; Cantacuzene's son Matthew was crowned as the co-emperor. But very soon John V returned from exile with Venetian help and conducted a coup, taking over the government of Constantinople. Although the two men came to an agreement to share power, John VI resigned from his imperial post and became a monk. Each of these two contestants for power was continually soliciting Orhan's aid against the other, and Orhan supported whichever side would benefit the Ottomans.

### Last years

Orhan was the longest living and one of the longest reigning of the future Ottoman Sultans. In his last years he had left most of the powers of state in the hands of his second son Murad and lived a secluded life in Bursa.

In 1356 Orhan and his grandson Khalil, were abducted somewhere on the Bay of Izmit. A Genoese commercial boat captain, which was conducting acts of piracy alongside commercial activity, was able to capture the young prince and take him over to Phocaea on the Aegean Sea, which was under Genoese rule. Orhan was very much upset by this kidnapping and conducted talks with his brother-in-law and now sole Byzantine Emperor John V Palaeologos. As to the agreement, John V with a Byzantine naval fleet went to Phocaea, paid the ransom demanded of 100,000 *hyperpyra*, and brought Khalil back to Ottoman territory.

In 1357 Orhan's eldest and most experienced son and likely heir, Suleyman Pasha, died after injuries sustained from a fall from a horse near Bolayir on the coast of the sea of Marmara. The horse that Suleyman fell from was buried alongside him and their tombs can still be seen today. Orhan was said to have been greatly affected by the death of his son.

Orhan died soon after, likely from natural causes. It seems rather likely that the death of his son was taxing on his health, however. Orhan died in 1362, in Bursa, at the age of eighty, after a reign of thirty-six years. He is buried in the türbe (tomb) with his wife and children, called *Gümüşlü Kumbet* in Bursa.

### Wives and children

* In 1299 Orhan married (1359) Nilüfer Hatun, daughter of the Prince of Yarhisar or Byzantine Princess Helen (Nilüfer), who was of ethnic Greek descent, and had three sons :
* Süleyman Pasha (c. 1316 – 1357). Eldest known son and the intended heir who was the architect of the Ottoman expansion into Thrace. He died, shortly after his brother Khalil's capture by the Genoese pirates, as the result of a fall from his horse. His steed was buried next to him in Bolayir, north of Gallipoli, where their graves can still be seen.
* Hatice Hatun, married Süleyman Bey, son of Savji Bey and through him grandson of Osman I.
	+ Murad I (1319– 15 June 1389). Assassinated by Miloš Obilić during the Battle of Kosovo.
* Qasim son of Nilufer Hatun and Orhan Ghazi
* Orhan married Asporça Hatun. Her parentage is unknown. The resting place of Asporça is in the tomb of Orhan in Bursa, Turkey. They had at least four children:
	+ Ibrahim Bey, Governor of Eskişehir (1320–1362). Executed by order of his half-brother Murad I.
	+ Şerefullah Bey
	+ Fatma Hatun
	+ Selçuk Hatun
* Orhan married in 1346 Theodora Kantakouzene, born in 1332. She was a daughter of John VI Kantakouzenos, Emperor of Byzantium, and Irene Asanina. They had at least one son:
	+ Halil (1347–1362). When still only a child he was captured by Genoese pirates for ransom. The Byzantine emperor and his future father-in-law John V Palaeologus was instrumental in his eventual release. Halil married Irene, who was a daughter of John V Palaeologus and Helena Kantakouzene.
* Orhan married Eftandise Hatun, daughter of his uncle Gunduz Bey

In 1351, Orhan and Stefan Uroš IV Dušan of Serbia were negotiating about a potential alliance. There was a proposal to marry Dušan's daughter Theodora to Orhan, or one of his sons. However, the Serbian diplomats were attacked by Nikephoros Orsini, after which the negotiations broke down, the marriage didn't take place, and Serbia and the Ottoman state resumed hostilities.

## In popular culture

In the Turkish television series *Kuruluş "Osmancık"* (1988), Orhan Gazi has been portrayed by **Yaşar Alptekin.**

In 2006 Film "Hacivat Karagöz Neden Öldürüldü?" Orhan is portrayed by **Ragıp Savaş**.

He has an integral part in the series *Kuruluş Osman* (2019-present), where he is shown as baby by" **Baris Arslan"** and as a young boy by "**Aybars Kartal Ozson."** In season 5 Orhan is portrayed by actor **''Emre Bey'' .**

## Gallery

Baris Arslan as orhanOrhan with his mother Malhun HatunOrhan with his motherorhan while fightingAybars kartal ozson as OrhanOrhan with his parentsOrhan Ghazi as Bey of Karachisar CastleOrhan while fightingEmre Bey as Orhan Gazi