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

to convince the head of the Janissary corps to dispatch military help as soon as possible
– in two days at the latest -. What is important in his letter is that the qādi does not state
‘if a military assistance would not arrive, Bursa will surrender!’, but he consciously
underlines, ‘the country will be wholly lost!’ He also calls attention to the fact that the
rebels retained the weapons and treasury of beylerbey and some sancakbeys; thus his
power acquired further strength.
These early successes of the rebellion, however, should not be regarded as solely
the result of the deed of Şahkulu and his adherents. Although the Safavid propaganda
created an ideologically oriented social ground for such uprisings, it is not sufficient to
explain the whole story. The debility of the Ottoman administration must also be
regarded in this aspect. First of all, as mentioned earlier, the system of the allocation of
administrative and military posts, especially of timars, degenerated; those who deserved
posts by their service could not get good positions while those who offered bribery or
has favor of high bureaucrats received them. The deterioration of merit based allocation
of state favor caused many discontent or dismissed government officials, especially
timar holders, to join the rebellion or at least to support it by some means. On the other
hand the central government was not functioning efficiently either. Selahattin Tansel
argues, for example, that the sultan was not aware of the Şahkulu rebellion until
Korkud’s letter, which was written after the defeat of his forces in Alaşehir, arrived.
Upon learning the situation Bayezid reproved his viziers, especially grand vizier Ali
Pasha, severely and commissioned the grand vizier to finish the problem. 1300
Perhaps more vital then the degeneration of provincial administration was the
chaos that emerged at the Porte. The worsening health of Bayezid II inflamed the desire
1300 TNSB, p. 252.
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