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

igorously deem both Ismail and the rebels as heretics. Thus what we read is the version
of an authentic event that could have passed through the intellectual filter of Hoca.
Indeed, it is highly likely that the factual event was not only filtered but also eunderwent
metamorphosis while being reformulated in Hoca’s mind. Even so, two incentives of
rebels clearly appear in this account. Hoca Saadeddin makes the leader of the rebels
articulate firstly the oppression of the Ottoman regime, and secondly their enthusiastic
devotion to the Shah. 1168
No less decisive than the above-mentioned two reasons was that the
incompatibility of Turkoman tribal organizations and the bureaucratic-state organization
of the Ottoman Empire had already appeared. It is known that the Taurus region was
densely populated by nomadic Turkoman tribes such as Turgutlu and Varsak. This
region had long been the center of tribal resistance against Ottoman imperial expansion.
Thus this socio-cultural discrepancy had already created alienation between ottoman
bureaucrats and the nomadic subjects populating the region.
1168 The sentiment of qizilbash population is better seen in the oral productions of this milieu. A poem of
Pir Sultan Abdal, a qizilbash ozan (poet-singer) of the sixteenth century, is pregnant to the sentiment of
qizilbashes against Ottomans. It reads,
“Lānet olsun sana ey Yezid Pelid,
Kızılbaş mı dersin söyle bakalım!
Biz ol āşıklarız ezel gününden,
Rāfızī mi dersin söyle bakalım.
Ey Yezid geçersen Şah’ın eline,
Zülfikārın çalar senin beline.
Edeple girdik biz kırklar yoluna.
Kızılbaş mı dersin söyle bakalım.
Yuf etti erenler ey münkir size,
Đftira ettiniz sizler de bize,
Muhammed sizleri taş ile eze,
Rāfızī mi dersin söyle bakalım.
Pir Sultan’ım eder lānet Yezid’e,
Müfteri yalancı yezidler size,
Đşte er meydanı çık meydan yüze,
Rāfızī mi dersin söyle bakalım.”
See Cahit Öztelli, “Pir Sultan’ın Hayatı Đle Đlgili Yeni Şiirleri”, Türk Dili Dergisi, 34, 1954, p. 587. The
whole text of this poem also recited in Tekindağ, “Şahkulu Baba Tekeli Đsyanı”, p. 34.
354