TURKOMANS BETWEEN TWO EMPIRES: THE ... - Bilkent University

to transform the state still bearing traits of confederacy into a strictly centralized empire,
trying to grind Turkoman dynasties of Anatolia up. Nevertheless, the center had not yet
achieved enough gravity to stick all political actors together that in the battle of Ankara
most of the Turkoman fighters under their own leader left Bayezid I with his Christian
soldiers. 328 The words attributed to Timur summarize the mentality and attitude of the
milieu discontent of the rising Ottoman regime and of its actors. When brought to his
court, Timur asks Bayezid I in a mocking manner, “Hay Bayazıd Han! Kanı ol
güvendüğün oğullarun, ol sancağun beğleri, ya ol sarhoş vezirlerün? Ne gökçek
yoldaşlık ettiler sana!” 329
As stated previously, the sentiments and opinion of heterodox sufi milieu is best
reflected in anonymously authored hagiographies or velâyetnâmes as well. So the
change in the attitude of popular mystics towards the changing Ottoman state might be
observed in some velâyetnâme accounts. Among the several exemplary cases
demonstrating the disaffection of these mystics, and thus Turkoman folk populace
attached to them, to the rising ‘Ottoman regime’, I will examine an account in the
Velâyetnâme of Seyyid Ali Sultan, also known as Kızıldeli. 330 One peculiarity of this
328 Indeed, already before the Battle of Ankara, many Turkoman begs of Anatolia suffering from Bayezid
I’s arrogant policies, such as Germiyanoğlu, Aydınoğlu, Menteşeoğlu, and Đsfendiyaroğlu, went to the
court of Timur provoking him to invade Anatolia. See APZ, p. 142.
329 APZ, p. 144. Anonymous history says, Turkoman begs and soldiers left Bayezid I in the battlefield and
only his own retinue or standing army (kapusu halkı) remained loyal to him. See Anonim Tevârih-i Al-i
Osman, p. 43.
330 The Velâyetnâme of Seyyid Ali Sultan was published in a non-scholarly manner by Bedri Noyan.
(Bedri Noyan, Seyyit Ali Sultan Velâyetnâmesi, Ankara:Ayyıldız Yayınları, 1999.) Noyan states in the
introductory part of his work that he used a copy given to him by his spiritual master. But it is apparently a
copy of the manuscript preserved in the Ankara National Library, (Manuscript section no.1189) apart from
that there are a couple of other copies in Turkey whose content does not differ from the National Library
copy. John K. Birge states that another copy existed in the Tekke of Kaygusuz Abdal, in Cairo. But after
the closing of the tekke by the socialists in the middle of the nineteenth century this copy was lost.
Nevertheless, luckily, Birge had copied this manuscript and his (uncatalogued) copy is preserved in
Hartford Seminary Library in Connecticut. For an analysis of this hagiography as a source for history and
edited text of the hagiography see Rıza Yıldırım, Seyyid Ali Sultan(Kızıldeli) ve Velâyetnâmesi.
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