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

According to the Ottoman court historians, the abuses of viziers and other
officials, who got enough opportunity to do that by the deterioration of Bayezid’s health,
were responsible before all for creating so many Safavid adherents and sympathizers in
the Ottoman realm. Their attempt to create a devr-i sābık, an era of dissonance, in order
to legitimize Selim’s grasp of the throne via unusual means sometimes led them to
exaggerate the deficiencies of the former administration. But still their accounts seem to
have sizable credibility in the assessment of the social, religious, and political ground,
which was quite fertile for the cause of Ismail and eventually produced strong religio-
political qizilbash opposition.
On the other hand, one should not underestimate the stimulating role of natural
catastrophes that occurred during this period, as well as the corruptions within the
administrative body. As Sohrweide already pointed out, the first decade of the sixteenth
century, that is the last decade of Bazeyid II’s reign, was a catastrophic era in the
Ottoman realm not only in terms of abuses in governmental mechanism but also natural
disasters as well. 1152 The health problems of Bayezid II, corruptions in the distribution of
state offices and tax collections, and natural catastrophes created a pessimistic mood in
public opinion. The influence of the first two factors in creating alternative expectations
in public opinion is already well-treated by both contemporary and modern historians.
The role of natural disasters in catalyzing these expectations, however, seems to have
been underestimated. Taking into consideration the average man’s mentality of the
Middle Ages, which regarded concrete interactions between natural events and the
1152 “Das letzte Jahrzehnt der Regierung Bāzezīds II. stand für die Bevölkerung des Reiches unter keinem
glücklichen Stern. Vor allem Anatolien wurde von Naturkatastrophen, Hungersnot und Seuchen
heimgesucht, die sich über Jahre hinzogen und zahllose Todesopfer unter der Bevölkerung fordeten.” See
Sohrweide, p. 139.
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