Between Two Worlds Kafadar.pdf

Insofar as the gaza ethos is concerned, we have seen in the last chapter that it
was intimately tied to a code of honor. Old camaraderies, favors, promises, and
bonds carried a certain weight. Surely they could be broken, but the breaking of
bonds needed to be given meaning within that code. The supporters of Osman
preferred to tell the story of Osman's attack on the tekvur of Bilecik, his
former ally, as something that occurred only after Osman had heard that the
tekvur was about to play a trick on him. On the other hand, there is no reason
to expect that some of those friendships did not continue. Alexios
Philanthropenos was so
― 127 ―
respected by the Turks that they were willing to drop the 1323 siege of
Philadelphia "remembering the kindness and valor he had displayed in 1295."[17]
The most-acclaimed warriors of such frontier conditions have always been those
who could, while upholding their own cause with courage and determination,
display statesmanly compassion and magnanimity toward the enemy. Salah al-Din
al-Ayyubi (Saladin) is probably the best-known example of a medieval warrior who
elegantly combined these two, seemingly contradictory, qualities.[18]
As neighborly or chivalric as Osman's relations with other Bithynians may have
been, some of those relations eventually turned sour as he set out to expand his
domain. Maybe some tension was always inherent in such relationships, not just
between Muslim and Christian but also between coreligionists. Different pieces
of the Bithynian puzzle may well have been living with an awareness of the
temporary nature of the post-Lascarid arrangement. The conversation that leads
to Osman's argument against his brothers suggestion of burning and destroying
starts with Osman's question as to the best methods of gathering soldiers and
conquering lands. At least one of those neighbors was to become a permanent
addition to Osman's political community, however. Mihal , the headman of the
village of Harmankaya, apparently joined Osman's exploits quite early in the
latter's career.[19] It is not dear when he converted to Islam, but some sources
write of the resentment felt by some gazis of this "infidel" among them who had
been participating in and apparently enjoying the benefits of their raids. While
this may seem odd to some modern scholars, we have seen in the last chapter that
even the canonical sources on "war for the faith" did not dismiss such
cooperation offhand. In any case, Mihal did convert after a point, and his
descendants, known as the Sons of Mihal or the House of Mihal (Mihalogullari or
Al-i Mihal ), enjoyed the foremost rank among the gazis in Ottoman service,
though their relationship to the House of Osman was not always free of tension.
It has been pointed out that Osman's relation to Mihal , from a relatively equal
partnership to vassalage to full incorporation in a new hierarchical structure,
can be seen as the beginning of a particularly noteworthy pattern in "Ottoman
methods of conquest."[20]
The picture of Osman's rivals would be incomplete without considering another
"ethnic group" in post-Mongol Anatolia. Although some of them eventually became
assimilated (or some left for central Asia with Timur after 1402), certain
people called Tatar are distinguished from the Türkmen of the ucat and appear as
foes of the Ottomans. These seem to be the non-Oguz Turks and Mongols who were,
112