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

“If one promulgates another as an unbeliever, one of them becomes an unbeliever. If the
statement of the speaker is true then the other man is really and unbeliever, but if he is
mistaken, then he himself becomes an unbeliever.” 1714 Thus, blaming a Muslim with
atheism (küfr) is quite a risky action for a religious Muslim.
However, when the fetvās issued against the qizilbashes and the descriptions by
Ottoman historians and religious scholars are scrutinized, it can be concluded that they
were completely free of such a religious concern. Both contemporary chroniclers and the
authors of fetvās seem to have been quite sure and clear in their thoughts regarding the
the qizilbash problem. These texts contain sharp discriminations, clear descriptions,
strict judgments, and offer severe punishments for the qizilbashes. Even so, a careful
study of these texts in the context of the political atmosphere in the contemporary
Ottoman palace raises some questions on this clarity in terms of religious thought. First
of all, one should keep in mind that these fetvās and chronicles, commonly called as
Selim-nāme, were written either under the rule of Selim or his son Süleyman. Second,
they were, except for the fetvā of Hamza and perhaps of Kemalpaşazāde, written after
the events somehow arrived at the final phase, after the Ottomans and Sunni
interpretation of Islam gained victory against Shiite Ismail. Approaching the whole
matter retrospectively influenced the Ottoman perception of the qizilbash phenomenon
directly. One can hardly argue, for example, that in the autumn of 1513
Kemalpaşazāde’s mind was as clear as it was while he was writing his Defter IX in
December 1516.
1714 Riyâzü’s-Sâlihin ve Tercemesi, vol. 3, ed. Muhyiddîn-i Nevevî, translated into Turkish by Hasan
Hüsnü Erdem, Ankara: Diyanet Đşleri Başkanlığı Yayınları, 1991, pp. 145-6.
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