Orhan

Orhan Ghazi was the second sultan of the Ottoman Empire, reigning from 1323 or 1324 until his death in 1362, the son of Osman I and Malhun Hatun. He spent his early reign conquering most of northwestern Anatolia from Byzantine rule, winning his first battle at Pelekanon against Emperor Andronikos III Palaiologos and absorbing the Karasid and Ahi territories. Byzantine civil wars in the 1340s and 1350s extended his influence further: the regent John VI Kantakouzenos married his daughter Theodora to Orhan and used Ottoman troops against rival Byzantine forces, and after an earthquake devastated Gallipoli, Orhan's son Suleyman Pasha occupied the town, giving the Ottomans their first foothold in Europe. The Muslim traveler Ibn Battuta called him the greatest of the Turcoman kings and the richest in wealth, lands and military forces.