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

were the champions of the opposition to the Ottoman regime from the very beginning.
Kemalpaşazāde reads,
Kurūm-ı Rumdan bir kimse kalmadı ki itā’at kılmadı, illā birader-i mihteri Sultan
Ahmed, ki ol zamanda daru’l-mülk-i Amasya’da vāli-yi ‘āli-şandı, inkıyād
itmedi. Karaman’a gelüb Varsak-ı pür-nifakun ve Turgud-ı ‘ānudun 1589 cünūd ü
rünūdın cem’ eylemeğe meşgul olub, zimām-ı ihtimāmını ol taraflarun teshīrine
dönderdi. 1590
The contemporary reports and the advance of events clearly demonstrate that
Ahmed was not skilful in politics. At the beginning of the struggle, most of the powerful
institutions in the state machinery of the Ottoman Empire were in favor of Ahmed and
against Selim and Korkud. But he could not keep the alliance of these forces. Especially
his passiveness during the revolt of Şahkulu marked the turn of the rally between him
and his younger brother Selim. During this campaign, he totally lost the most effective
branch of the Ottoman army, namely the Janissary corps and Kapıkulu soldiers. Since
then, Ahmed began to deviate from the center of gravity of the state machinery and to
shift towards periphery while Selim started to approach to the center. Ahmed’s
utilization of tribal forces against the central army of the empire might be regarded as a
pragmatic policy. Whatever it was, his relying on such tribal forces which were the
enemy of the ‘Ottoman regime’ by nature 1591 , must have provoked statesmen,
bureaucrats, and religious scholars who were closely adhered to the traditional line of
the regime to incline towards Selim’s side. Indeed, Ahmed was in a complete paradox:
on one hand, the only effective military force that he can employ against Selim was
post-Karamanian tribal forces of the Taş-ili region, as mentioned in Ottoman sources.
1589 It is very interesting to note that KPZ always uses the adjective “‘anūd” which literally means
stubborn, for Turgud tribes. Against whom or what were they stubborn? KPZ obviously refers to their
resistance against establishment of Ottoman rule in southern Anatolia where these tribal forces resisted
stubbornly.
1590 KPZ9, p. 69-70.
1591 See Chapter III in this study.
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