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

However, this account of Hoca Ali’s meeting with Timur has been rejected by
some prominent scholars. According to Roemer and Sohrweide, for example, this story
must be a later invention of the Safavids, either during the time of Haydar or Ismail,
simply to provide legitimacy for their temporal suzerainty by somehow establishing a
connection with the former great ruler of the region. Sohrweide notes that none of the
Mongol sources mention Timur’s visit to Hoca Ali in Ardabil. 456 Faruk Sümer follows
the same line of argument. After mentioning the absence of any single reference in
Mongol sources to this event, he concludes that this story must have been a distortion of
qizilbash Turks’ collective memory pertaining to their Rūmī origin. 457 Likewise,
Sohrweide argues that Shaykh Sadreddin and Shaykh Hoca Ali could hardly have had
disciples among the Turkoman nomads of Anatolia. 458
As a matter of fact, Timurid sources do not mention any meeting between Hoca
Ali and Timur, or even any correspondence between the two. Nonetheless, we learn
from Zafernāme, the biography of Timur written by Nizamuddin Şâmî in 1402, that
while returning from his campaign in Asia Minor, Timur passed through Georgia,
Armenia, Shirvan and Azerbaijan, conquering some fortresses in Georgia and Armenia.
Zafernāme says that upon returning from Asia Minor, Timur decided to invade Georgia
and laid siege to Berts, one of the most fortified fortresses of Georgia. After a nine-day
456
Roemer, “The Safavid Period”, pp. 205-6; Sohrweide, p. 126.
457
Faruk Sümer, Safevî Devletinin Kuruluşu ve Gelişmesinde Anadolu Türklerinin Rolü, Ankara: TTK,
1999, pp. 6-7.
458
Sohrweide, p. 130. Babinger recites from the Ottoman historian Cenābī (d. 1590) that Shaykh
Sadreddin had a great number of disciples in the Province of Teke and Hamid-ili, who joined Timur while
he returning from his campaign. See Franz Babinger, “Schejh Bedr ed-Din, der Sohn des Richters von
Simaw”, Der Islam, 11, 1921, p. 85. Nonotheless, Sohrweide regards this record of Cenābī as “Tekelü-
Version der Tīmūr-Legende”. For a similar approach see Herbert Horst, Tīmūr and Hōğä ´Alī, ein Beitrag
zur Geschichte der Safawiden, in Abhandlungen der Geistes- und Sozialwissenschaftlichen Klasse
Jahrgang, Wiesbaden, 1958.
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