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

Taşköprizāde states that when Mevlāna Arab personally joined the campaign on
the qizilbash; he declared and clarified the virtue of gazā and cihād on the way.
(Kızılbaş seferine giderken fāzıl-ı mūma-ileyh rāh-ı gazāda ... cihādı beyān ve müberrāt-
ı gazāyı tibyān eyledi.) Remembering that the campaign started in Edirne on March 19
(or 20) and the religious sanction was provided through the assembly with ulemā in
Filçayırı, which was summoned on the tenth day of the campaign, Taşköprizāde’s
explanation leaves no doubt that the first fetvā for this campaign was issued by
Muhammed b. Ömer b. Hamza during the campaign, i.e. during or shortly after the
assembly of Istanbul. Possibly because of this fetvā, he seems to have obtained Selim’s
special benevolence; during or shortly before the battle he prayed for God to bestow
Ottomans the victory while the sultan and soldiers followed him. Taşköprizāde says that
his pray was accepted by God.
After Mevlāna Arab returned from Çaldıran, he settled in Bursa and delivered
sermons during the rest of his life. He died on Muharrem 4, 938 (August 18, 1531) in
Bursa. 1791 As reflected in Terceme-i Şakāik, his profile resembles a middle-ranking
religious scholar whose career built up mainly on the religious sermons (va’az) and
religious sanctions (fetvā). Because of that, the epithet ‘müfti’ is inscribed before his
name in the document E 6401. During his first visit to the Ottoman Empire, he doesn’t
seem to have achieved a satisfactory position within the Ottoman society of ulemā. His
Rather they took the worst elements of each of these fallacious groups and created a new synthesis of
heresy. See Manuscript, Süleymaniye Kütüphanesi, Esad Efendi, no. 3542, fol. 46a-47a. Also see
Eberhard, pp. 166-7; Düzdağ, pp. 134-6, fetvā 481. Eberhard suggests that Ebussud’s fetvā should have
been issued during his long şeyhülislamlık between 1545-1574, most possibly before Sultan Süleyman’s
second and third campaigns on Persia in 1548 and 1553. He was already a famous qādi in 1532, first in
Bursa and then in Istanbul. In 1537, he became the kadiasker of Anatolia and seven years later the
şeyhülislam. See Eberhard, p. 50.
1791 Mecdī, p. 414.
539