Wikipedia –
“Bayezid II (nick–named Hüdavendigâr – from Persian: Khod?vandg?r – “the God–like One”) (3 December 1447/1448 – May 26, 1512) (Ottoman Turkish: B?yez?d–i s?n?, Turkish: II.Bayezid or II.Beyaz?t) was the oldest son and successor of Mehmed II, ruling as Sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1481 to 1512. During his reign, Bayezid II consolidated the Ottoman Empire and thwarted a Safavid rebellion soon before abdicating his throne to his son, Selim I.
Jewish emigration
Bayezid II also sent out the Ottoman navy under the command of Kemal Reis to Spain in 1492 in order to save the Arabs and Sephardic Jews who were expelled by the Spanish Inquisition. He sent out proclamations throughout the empire that the refugees were to be welcomed. He granted the refugees the permission to settle in the Ottoman Empire and become Ottoman citizens. He ridiculed the conduct of Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile in expelling a class of people so useful to their subjects. “You venture to call Ferdinand a wise ruler,” he said to his courtiers — “he who has impoverished his own country and enriched mine!”
Spanish refugees, but to give them a friendly and welcome reception. He threatened with death all those who treated the Jews harshly or refused them admission into the empire. Moses Capsali, who probably helped to arouse the Bajazet addressed a firman to all the governors of his European provinces, ordering them not only to refrain from repelling the sultan’s friendship for the Jews, was most energetic in his assistance to the exiles. He made a tour of the communities, and was instrumental in imposing a tax upon the rich, to ransom the Jewish victims of the persecutions then prevalent.
The Arabs and Jews of Spain contributed much to the rising power of the Ottoman Empire by introducing new ideas, methods and craftsmanship. The first Gutenberg press in Istanbul (formerly Constantinople) was established by the Sephardic Jews in 1493 (as early as 1483 there had been a Jewish printing establishment in Istanbul).
It is reported that under Bajazet’s reign, Jews enjoyed a period of and cultural flourishing, with the presence of such scholars as Mordecai Comtino; Solomon ben Elijah Sharbit ha–Zahab; Shabbethai ben Malkiel Cohen, and Menahem Tamar.”
Wikipedia Online, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayezid_II#cite_note–2 (accessed July 21, 2009)
Egger, Vernon O. (2008). A History of the Muslim World Since 1260: The Making of a Global Community. Prentice Hall. p. 82.