Kesişen Yollar: Şarkta Timur,Garpta Yıldırım Bayezid

The modern historiography lends credit to both Amir Timur and Yildirim Bayezid as being two glorious rulers of the same age in the Muslim world: Timur in the east and Bayezid in the west. Bayezid I, in an effort to grow the principality he inherited into a fully developed state, pursued an absolutist policy and instilled a hegemonic character to the political body he ruled. Amir Timur, on the other hand, was truly a widely recognized and feared ruler in his time at the head of a confederate empire. Having essentially adopted the legacy of Genghis Khan, Timur swiftly extended his political power over Asia, extending from Chinese marches to India as well as to Cumania or Dashti Qipchak and today’s Syria, and even to Anatolia. Timur sought to impose Genghisid rights of sovereignty over all political bodies, small and large alike, in these regions. In his endeavors, Timur tried to restore the hegemonic relationship with his neighboring powers in the way Genghis Khan and his successors had secured in their time. The Ottoman sultan Bayezid (Yıldırım/Thunderbolt), at around the same time, gained fame for his campaigns towards Christian states and established a rigid power structure by shifting the status quo in Anatolia. He also repulsed the last Crusader armies at Nicopolis in 1396 and targeted Istanbul, the Byzantine Empire’s seat of power, with an aim of claiming legacy to the ancient Roman Empire, an ideal in the Ottoman history that would be pursued by his descendants on the Ottoman throne. Paths of these two rulers with similar pursuits of universal supremacy crossed at the Battle of Ankara in 1402. Bayezid’s defeat in this battle, albeit not triggering a significant change in the Timurid history, affected greatly the Ottoman historical experience. Timur’s gigantic empire that he had forged under his own name soon disassembled into pieces. Ottomans, however, following the devastating blow they suffered in 1402, recovered into a great “imperial power” according to a centralized state model once envisaged by Bayezid I.