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

Rum. 674 At the court of Sultan Yakup, Shaykh Haydar was warned for his king-like
doings and encouraged to deals with the proficiency of his ancestors. 675
In the next year, however, Haydar managed to get permission from Sultan Yakub
for a new expedition on Circassia. 676 Then his followers began to summon in Ardabil in
large numbers. In a short while, Haydar’s troops reached the size of an army. When they
reached the river Araxes, “it was an innumerable levy (hashar) of people of Tālish clad
in blue, of the ill-starred lot of Siyāh-kūh and of benighted Shāmlu.” 677 Shaykh Haydar’s
last expedition with his fully mobilized zealots would, however, be on Shirvan rather
than Circassia. 678 Haydar first sacked the town Shamakhī, the capital of Shirvan.
Farruhyasar b. Sultan Halil, realizing that his forces could not resist against the Safavid
army, he dared not meet the gāzis of Haydar but fled to the lofty fortress of Gülistan,
from where he dispatched couriers to Sultan Yakub, who was his son-in-law, informing
him that, although Haydar was ostensibly intent on conducting raids against ‘infidels’,
his main concern was to conquer Shirvan. 679 As Iskender Beg says,
At the moment,” said Farruhyasar, “Haydar owns no territory, but he has
mobilized a warlike army, and his ambitions will not be contained within the
confines of the district of Ardabil. Nor, if he succeeds in acquiring a kingdom
such as mine, will he for long be satisfied with such a meager empire. On the
contrary, it will merely whet his appetite. 680
674
TA, p. 70. Also consider Woods, The Aqqoyunlu, p. 142.
675
See Hinz, p. 70.
676
According to TA, Haydar sent his mother, the sister of Uzun Hasan, to obtain this permission. TA, p.
71. Also consider Hinz, p. 71.
677
TA, p. 71.
678
Ahsenu’t-tevārih, IX, p. 583 ; John E. Woods, “Turco-Iranica I: An Ottoman Intelligence Report on
Late Fifteenth/Ninth Century Iranian Foreign Relations”, Journal of Near Eastern Studies, vol. 38, no. 1,
1979, pp. 5-6.
679
TA, pp. 71-74.
680
AA, p. 32. For a slightly different version of this message see HS, p. 563; Ahsenu’t-tevārih, IX, p. 583;
HT, pp. 157-8.
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