Between Two Worlds Kafadar.pdf

Constantinople relates that he was there along with 500 dervishes. See Ioannes
Cananus, De Constantinopolis Obsidione, ed. and trans. E. Pinto (Messina, 1977).
According to later legends, he was the one who miraculously caused the departure
of Timur's troops from Bursa and who girded sultans with swords upon accession
or when departing for a campaign. See C. Baysun, "Emir * Sultan * ," IA, s.v.
148. Cezbi * , Velayetname * , 18-19. (The manuscript is assigned not folio but
page numbers by a modem hand.)
149. See her works cited in n. 144, above.
150. See the vita of Seyh * Bedreddin * by his grandson Halil * bin Ismai`il * .
According to this work, Seyh * Bedreddin's * grandfather `Abdul`aziz * and Haci
* Ilbegi * were related. However, while the former was of "Seljuk descent" (
Selcuk * nesli ) (F. Babinger, ed., Die Vita [ menaqibname ] * des Schejch Bedr
ed-din * Mahmud * , gen. Ibn Qadi * Samauna [Leipzig, 1943], 5), the latter was
not, since he was "the seed of a son-in-law" ( gürgen tohumi * ) (6).
151. This curious tale is reported in Dimitrie Cantemir's early
eighteenth-century history of the Ottoman Empire: Osmanli Tarihi, 3 vols.,
trans. Özdemir Cobanoglu * (Ankara, 1979), 1:29-30. It is hard to imagine that
such a story would be made up in the eighteenth century; Cantemir must have had
access to some oral or written tradition. It is also noteworthy that Seyh *
Bedreddin's * grandson, writing in the early sixteenth century and sanitizing
his grandfather's story to forge a rapprochement with the Ottomans, uses a
particularly offensive expression, "seed of a son-in-law," to underline that
Ilbegi * was "not of Seljuk descent." The Timurids, too, could be seen as the
"seed of a son-in-law" since Timur was no more than a son-in-law ( gürgen ) to
the Chingisids, the real bearers of legitimacy.
152. The shrine in Dimetoka, a city conquered by Ilbegi * according to almost
all accounts, was widely known as one of the four or five most-respected cultic
sites of the Bektasi * order in the sixteenth century. A poem by Pir * Sultan *
Abdal * refers to various episodes in the vita analyzed above, indicating that
the Kizil * Deli lore had been elaborated and was in wide circulation by the
latter part of the sixteenth century. The motifs of crossing to Gelibolu and
being the commander of forty holy warriors are repeated in the poems of this
Bektasi * poet and later ones. See Öztelli, ed., Bektasi * Gülleri, 121-22, and
passim.
Chapter 3 The Ottomans The Construction of the Ottoman State
1. According to Lutfi * Pasa * (grand vezir, 1539-41), who wrote a history of
the House of Osman in his retirement, Osman's success partly depended on the
fact that he did not make his political bid ( beglenmedi ) so long as the House
of Seljuk was "ruler of the time" (hakimu'l-vakt * ). Tevarih-i * Al-i * `Osman
* (Istanbul, 1922-23), 5-6. On the political nature of a tribe, see the apt
formulation by Lindner, "What Was a Nomadic Tribe?": ''The tribe served, first
and foremost, a political purpose: the protection and enhancement of the
position of its tribesmen in the face of the wider world" (699).
2. Aptullah Kuran, "Karamanli Medreseleri," Vakiflar Dergisi 8(1969):209-23; see
223 (translation mine).
3. Köprülü argues that Osman's ancestors must have come to Asia Minor with the
first Seljuk conquerors ( Origins, 74-76). His argument, based primarily on the
fact that Kayi appears in many different parts of Anatolia as a toponym, is
hardly convincing. The whole attribution of Kayi ancestry to the Ottomans is
161