ion to himself as being in opposition to Mehmed's policies.
When Murad died in 1451, Mehmed took steps to ensure that his reign could not be legally challenged. His stepmother, who was not a slave, had borne Murad another son, who was reportedly eight months old at the time of his father's death. While his stepmother was grieving the loss of her husband, Mehmed ordered her son drowned in his bath. In doing so, he carried on a tradition which had become an unofficial part of Ottoman succession: murdering all rival heirs to the throne. But Mehmed later took the tradition one step further by codifying it. He enacted a law which officially sanctioned the practice, stating that it "behoove[d]" whichever of his sons who inherited the sultanate to kill all his brothers "in the interest of the world order."
Murad's death provided an opportunity for western forces to unite against the Ottomans and regain what had been lost during the previous wars. The problem was that western forces were not united in their objectives. While s
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