In 1459 CE Sultan Muhammad Abul-Futuh captured a number
of strategic seaports in the Mura lands. Afterwards, he devoted himself
to overcome a Christian Greek state that had risen over the remains of
the Byzantine Empire in 1204. He attacked its capital on the Black Sea
and seized it in 1461. He also took its king, David Kominin, as a
prisoner of war and kept him in prison for a number of years.
In 1461, the Sultan took from them Amastria, which was a
very strategic location to the north of Anatolia. Then he seized Caffe
in 1475 and spread his complete sovereignty over all the trade centers,
turning the Black Sea into an “Ottoman lake.”
