The Beylik of Smyrna had been incorporated into the Ottoman Empire for the first time in 1390, and after the violently destructive passage of Timur in Anatolia in 1402 and the ensuing period of troubles that lasted until 1425, its territories again become part of the Ottoman realm, this time definitively.

Greek influence is so strong in the area that the Turks call the city "Smyrna of the infidels" (Gavur İzmir).

The city had several times been ravaged by the Turks, and had become quite ruinous when the Nicaean emperor John III Doukas Vatatzes rebuilt it about 1222.

Ibn Batuta found it still in great part a ruin when the homonymous chieftain of the Beylik of Aydın had conquered it about 1330 and made his son Umur governor; it became the port of the emirate.

Soon afterwards, the Knights of Saint John established themselves in the town but failed to conquer the citadel.