Sultan Muhammad al-Fatih

Sultan Mehmed II took Constantinople in 857 AH (1453 CE) at the age of twenty-one, made it his capital and founded the Fatih Mosque complex with its madrasas.

Sultan Mehmed II — known to Muslims as Muhammad al-Fatih, “the Conqueror” — was born in Rajab 835 AH (March 1432) in Edirne, the son of the Ottoman sultan Murad II. His father placed him under strong teachers, among them Molla Gürani and Shaykh Aq Shams al-Din, who taught him the Quran, the religious sciences and the languages of the day. His father briefly made him sultan at the age of twelve in 848 AH before returning to the throne himself.

He became sultan again in 855 AH (1451) and immediately prepared to take Constantinople. He built the fortress of Rumeli Hisarı on the Bosphorus, had great cannons cast, and when the harbour chain blocked his navy, had ships hauled overland into the Golden Horn. On 20 Jumada al-Ula 857 AH (29 May 1453), aged twenty-one, he entered the city, and the Hagia Sophia was turned into a mosque.

He made the city, renamed Istanbul over time, his capital and repopulated it, guaranteeing the safety of its Christians and Jews and appointing a new Orthodox patriarch. He built the Fatih Mosque complex with eight madrasas (the Sahn-ı Seman), a hospital and a public kitchen, and he was a patron of scholars and learning. He continued campaigns in the Balkans, Anatolia and the Black Sea region for the rest of his life.

He died on 4 Rabiʿ al-Awwal 886 AH (3 May 1481) near Gebze while on campaign and was buried at his mosque in Istanbul. Generations of Muslims saw his conquest in the light of the narration in Musnad Ahmad praising the army that would take Constantinople, though scholars differ about the strength of its chain.