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

of foremost akıncı dynasties like Malkoçoğlu, Mihaloğlu, and Evrenosoğlu to zâviyes of
these dervishes, who later melted in the pot of the Bektashi Order, are well-known. 350
Zeynep Yürekli-Görkay has suggested that the interest of Rumelian akıncı families in
the two greatest shrines most celebrated by ‘heterodox’ dervish groups, namely Shrine
of Hacı Bektaş and Seyyid Gāzi, and their financial support to recover and to extend
buildings of these shrine complexes should be regarded as a symbolic act of protest
against the centralistic-imperial tendency in the Ottoman polity. She interprets the
palatial arrangement of the Hacı Bektaş complex, which is composed of three successive
courtyards, as a symbol of contest posed by akıncı families, whose autonomy and
splendor started to waste away under Mehmed II. 351
3.3.2.2. Turkoman (Active) Resistance in Anatolia
In Anatolia, the opposition was led by pre-Ottoman aristocracy, who were transformed
into simple timar holders from hereditary feudal lords, and tribal leaders. It is not
surprising that in the battle of Ankara, in 1402, all the troops from the sanjaks of
Saruhan, Ayın, and Menteşe abandoned Bayezid I, holding their position in Timur’s
army and leaving the Ottoman sultan only with Serbian troops and Janissaries. 352
« Hallâj des Turcs » (1358/59-1416), Istanbul : ISIS Press, 1995 ; Abdülbâki Gölpınarlı (with a foreword
by Đsmet Sungurbey), Simavna Kadısıoğlu Şeyh Bedreddin, Đstanbul: Eti Yayınevi, 1966; Ahmet Yaşar
Ocak, Zındıklar ve Mülhitler, pp. 136-202; Müfid Yüksel, Simavna Kadısıoğlu Şeyh Bedreddin, Đstanbul:
Bakış, 2002. In the latter work, however, one would realize the effort of the author to tune down the
unorthodox aspects of the revolt and of Shaykh Bedreddin’s religious identity.
350 See, for example, Irène Beldiceanu-Steinherr, “Le règne de Selim Ier: tournant dans la vie politique et
religieuse de l’empire ottoman”, p. 41. For a recent study on the sponsorship of great akıncı families to the
shrine of Hacı Bektaş and socio-political motives behind this sponsorship see E. Zeynep Yürekli-Görkay,
Legend and Architecture in the Ottoman Empire: The Shrines of Seyyid Gāzi and Hacı Bektaş,
Unpublished PhD. thesis, Harvard University, 2005, especially pp. 174-91.
351 See Yürekli-Görkay, pp. 263-6.
352 Beldiceanu-Steinherr, “Le règne de Selim Ier: tournant dans la vie politique et religieuse de l’empire
ottoman”, p. 42. Also consider Bacqué-Grammont, “Un rapport inédit sur la révolte anatolienne de 1527”,
pp. 156-7.
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