Between Two Worlds Kafadar.pdf

eginning of the sixteenth century which cites the other two and claims to be in
part a Turkish prose translation of Yarcani's * work. See Sikari'nin *
Karaman-ogullari * Tarihi, ed. M. Koman (Konya, 1940), 8-9. On this source, also
see Lindner, Nomads and Ottomans, 145-47. There is very little that can be added
to Köprülü's survey of early Anatolian sources in his "Anadolu Selçuklu
Tarihinin Yerli Kaynaklari"; now also see the English translation of this work
with updated references: The Seljuks of Anatolia, trans. Gary Leiser. For a more
recent survey of relevant hagiographic works (in Arabic, Persian, and Turkish )
from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century, see A. Y. Ocak, Kültür Tarihi
Kaynagi * Olarak Menâkibnâmeler (Ankara, 1992), 46-59.
97. Obviously, the issue of literacy must also be considered in this discussion,
but given our present state of knowledge on the matter, not much can be said.
The number of medreses was slowly growing in the fourteenth century, and there
was increased demand for scribal services. But the sites where one could acquire
literacy skills and obtain some education were not limited to formally
designated schools. Dervish lodges and homes must also have offered such
possibilities; Apz, for instance, in all likelihood obtained his education in
the lodge. Naturally, the history of early Ottoman literacy involves much more
than the possibilities for education within the early Ottoman world since we are
also dealing with many migrants and converts who offered skills acquired
elsewhere. For early Ottoman medreses starting with the first one (established
ca. 1331), see M. Bilge, Ilk * Osmanli Medreseleri (Istanbul, 1984).
98. Ménage,"Beginnings; 170.
99. On Hamzavi * , see Franz Babinger, Die Geschichtsschreiber der Osmanen und
ihre Werke (Leipzig, 1927). To the same author is attributed an early chronicle
of which no copies have ever been identified and to which no date can presently
be assigned.
100. Selcukname * , TSK, R. 1390. Professor Sinasi * Tekin of Harvard University
is currently preparing a critical edition of this text through a comparison of
the cited manuscript with other extant copies. I am grateful to him for enabling
me to make use of his early draft.
101. It is not known when exactly the tales of Dede Korkut were written down,
but it was not earlier than the fifteenth century. Based on the fact that the
author is buttering up both Akkoyunlu and Ottoman rulers, it has been suggested
that the composition belongs to someone living in the undefined borderlands
between the two states during the reign of Uzun Hasan * (1466-78). See Boratav,
100 Soruda Türk Halkedebiyati (Istanbul, 1969), 46-47. G. Lewis, on the other
hand, dates the composition "fairly early in the 15th century at least" ( The
Book of Dede Korkut, 16-19). In addition to questions concerning the time the
stories can be traced back to, or when they were composed in the shape we have
them (which is what G. Lewis is asking and which could have been accomplished
orally), we must ask when a decision was made to render the composition in
written form. In this respect, the reference to the Ottomans is more significant
than Lewis considers. On the other hand, the seemingly interpolated paragraph
about Korkut Ata and his prophecy concerning Ottoman glory in the Book of Dede
Korkut appears also in Yazicizade's * history of the Seljuks, written ca. 1436;
see G. Lewis, n. 140. Also see Bryer, "Hah Turali Rides Again."
102. Abu * Bakr Tihrani-Isfahani * , Kitab-i * Diyarbakriyya * (in Persian), 2
vols., ed. N. Lugal and F. Sümer (Ankara, 1962-64). This work must also be seen
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