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

struggle between two powers is reflected as a war of religion; its social, cultural, and
economic bases are completely ignored or not noticed by contemporary authors. 48
Consequently, on the one hand, this feature makes Selim-nāmes ‘unreliable’ from
the religious stand, socio-political incentives, sources of motivation in their protest
against the Ottoman rule, and the true sentiments of the qizilbashes. Yet, on the other
hand, it is exactly this feature that makes them extremely valuable as a source for
understanding the proliferating ‘Ottoman official ideology’, which had one of the most
effective roles in the making of the ‘Qizilbash Identity”.
Among a number of Selim-nāmes, some deserve special mention for the purpose
of the present study. Before all, Defter VIII, the Addendum of Defter VIII, and Defter IX
of Kemalpaşazāde 49 must be delineated. Before discussing his works, it should be stated
that Kemalpaşazāde’s own career, which started as a müderris in small-scale medreses
and ended in the highest office of the scholarly-bureaucratic hierarchy – that is
şeyhülislamlık – of the Ottoman Empire, 50 makes his narratives of special interest.
Indeed, Kemalpaşazāde was among prominent actors creating or re-shaping the
‘Ottoman official ideology’ against the qizilbash menace and thus formulating the
‘Qizilbash heresy’ as well. Therefore his writings, to a great extent, reflect the Ottoman
official stand. On the other hand, as he was an active figure taking part in most of the
contemporary events, his accounts are based either on his own eye-witness or on a report
48 See J. R. Walsh, “The Historiography of Ottoman-Safavid Relations in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth
Centuries”, in Historians of the Midle East, eds., Bernard Lewis and P. M. Holt, New York, Toronto,
London: Oxford University Press, 1962, 197-210.
49 Defter VIII, which deals with the reign of Bayezid II, can not be deemed a selim-nāme. The other two
defters, however, must be considered among outstanding examples of the selim-nāme literature.
50 For the life and works of Şemseddin Ahmed bin Süleyman bin Kemal Paşa (Kemalpaşazāde), see Mecdī
Mehmed Efendi, Şakaik-ı Nu’maniye ve Zeylleri, c. I, haz. Abdülkadir Özcan, Đstanbul: Çağrı Yayınları,
1989, pp. 381-385; ALI, pp. 1209-1216; Franz Babinger, “Kemālpashazāde”, EI2, p. 912; Đsmet
Parmaksızoğlu, “Kemāl Paşa Zāde”, IA, p. 561; Hayri Bolay, Bahaeddin Yediyıldız, Mustafa Sait
Yazıcıoğlu, eds., Şeyhülislâm Đbn Kemâl Sempozyumu, Ankara: Türkiye Diyanet Vakfı Yayınları, 1989.
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