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

Kemalpaşazāde points out that in this meeting, the ulemā attended the assembly
unanimously agreed on the legitimacy - even on the necessity – of a war against
qizilbashes. They declared that those who adhered to him (Ismail) was surely in astray
and those who performed the actions permitted by him were to be killed; the war against
them was more important and necessary than the other wars (the gazā against the
infidels); Ismail’s adherents and friends were all assumed as fallacious in their faith;
they were to be executed when caught and they were to be extirpated from face of the
earth. 1815 Although the above-mentioned passage summarizes the risāle of
Kemalpaşazāde, his narration does not include any hints implying that he issued a risāle
or fetvā regarding the matter neither in the related part nor in any other part of his
historical accounts. If we interpret this as a sort of modesty, then it would appear as the
most reasonable way to admit that Kemalpaşazāde issued his risāle before the campaign
either before or during the assembly of Istanbul. He did not participate in the campaign.
But thanks to his risāle, he was appointed the qādi of Edirne on August 20, 1515, shortly
after Selim’s return from the Çaldıran campaign, and on September 12, 1516, while
Selim was staying in Aleppo after the battle of Merci-dābık, he was promoted to the
qādi-asker of Anatolia. 1816
The risāle of Kemalpaşazāde repeats Hamza’s fetvā in essence but is much more
developed and better-organized in a scholarly manner. Kemalpaşazāde’s treatise became
a model for the later heresiography literature of Ottoman ulemā on qizilbashes. At the
beginning of the treatise, Kemalpaşazāde directly expresses the aim of his work: “This is
a statement pertaining to the disbelieving (küfr) of Shah Ismail’s followers, who are
1815 KPZ9, pp. 96-7.
1816 Ménage, “Kemāl Pasha-zāde”, EI2, electronic edition; Parmaksızoğlu, p. 563; Repp, p. 231.
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