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

and the Syrian frontier. 1066 On the other hand, the ruler of Egypt preferred to preserve
the distance in his relations with Ismail. He refuted Ismail’s request to free Mustafa of
Karaman, who was arrested by the governor of Aleppo. He also did not accept Ismail’s
offer to make an alliance against the Ottomans, 1067 and rather pursued a pro-Ottoman
policy against the Safavids. A letter of Hayr Beg, the Mamluk governor of Aleppo,
addressed to the Otttoman sultan evidently indicates that Mamluks preferred to move
together with the Ottomans against rising shi’ite danger. In his letter Hayr Beg states that
he had received a letter from his sultan ordering to help Ottomans against qizilbashes.
He also explains that he had already ordered his generals to join Ottoman forces and he
himself was ready to perform any mission that would be delivered by the Ottoman
sultan. 1068
In the opposite camp, there was Venice and Ismail. There are reasons to suppose
a connection between these two powers and the uprising of Mustafa. Indeed, Ottoman
sources do not suggest any link between the Karaman uprising and the qizilbash
movement, neither ideological affiliation nor concrete co-operation between the two.
Furthermore, Safavid sources never talk about neither Mustafa Beg nor his uprising
against the Ottoman authority. Meanwhile Sydney N. Fisher, relying on Italian sources,
argues many of the tribes summoned under the banner of Mustafa were qizilbash. 1069
Adel Allouche follows the same approach. To him the concurrence of the Karaman
uprising and Ismail’s westward march in the summer of 1500 was not accidental. They
appear to have acted in complete co-operation. Allouche develops his idea further and
1066 FSH, p. 93.
1067 FSH, p. 93.
1068 TSA, document E 5483. This document is partly published by Selahattin Tansel. See TNSB, p. 232.
1069 FSH, p. 91.
327