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

As already delineated, Mehmed II finished Karamanid rule in 1475. However,
when civil war broke out between his sons Bayezid I and Cem, following his death in
1481, Karamanoğlu Kasım Beg returned to Đçel. 398 Hearing Kasım Beg’s arrival,
Turgutlu Begs, alongside with Varsak and other tribes of the region, immediately
presented their allegiance to the former with great pleasure. 399 Nevertheless, Kasım Beg
could never achieve independence, but governed the region for two years as a vassal of
Bayezid II. 400 Following his death in 1483, Turgutoğlu Mahmud Beg, who had
Karamanid blood from his mother, became the governor of the Ottoman province of
Karaman. However, since he supported the Mamluks against the Ottomans, he had to
flee to Aleppo in 1487. 401 Turgutlu, Varsak, Ramazanoğlu and other ex-Karamanid
tribes seem to have never accepted Ottoman suzerainty, or more properly stating, they
never became a ‘tamed’ re’āya of the empire. During the Ottoman-Mamluk rivalry, they
supported Mamluks and took arms against Ottomans when the opportunity appeared. 402
Turgutlu and Varsak tribal forces came up against the Ottoman imperial army, for the
itmişlerdi. Nice köyü issüz koyub, nice boyı tağıtmışlardı.” KPZ8, pp. 52-3. In the following page,
Kemalpaşazāde narrates how Prince Şehinşah dispatch an army under the command of Karagöz Pasha on
the Turgutlu and Varsak tribes, and how the latter were defeated by Karagöz Pasha. According to
Kemalpaşazāde, these events occurred in 1483-4.
398 KPZ8, pp. 23-4.
399 Sümer, “Turgutlular”, p. 121.
400 KPZ8, p. 40.
401 See KPZ8, p. 89; Sümer, “Karāmān-oghullari”, EI2, IV, p. 624; “Karamanoğulları”, DIA, 24, p. 459;
“Turgutlular”, pp. 121-2.
402 Kemalpaşazāde vividly describes the ‘rebellious’ and conceited nature of the tribal people of the
region, and narrates consecutive Ottoman campaigns on these tribes in the last decades of the fifteenth
century to subjugate them. See KPZ8, pp. 87-110. Đnalcık and Lindner rightfully argue that the real reason
behind the continuous enmity of Turgut, Varsak, and other Tas-ili tribes against Ottomans was their desire
to avoid the Ottoman centralizing administration. Lindner says, “… so in some way must these nomads
have learned that the Ottomans threatened the continuation of their ways. And in response to this storm,
the nomads sought any port.” See Lindner, Nomads and Ottomans, p. 81. As a matter of fact, during the
sixteenth century the tribal elite of the region were assimilated the timar system of the Ottomans and the
tribal structure of the local society to a great extend dissolved. See Đnalcık, “Ottoman Methods of
Conquest”, pp. 118-9.
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