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

from the Ottomans; otherwise, a brutal confrontation was inevitable. The letter finishes
with a pray that “God’s compassion be upon whoever on the right path!” 1862
Shortly after dispatching this letter, Selim set off to Konya. On the way he
visited the sanctuary of Seyyid Gāzi where he donated money to the poor of the hospice
(May 12, 1514). 1863 This act of Selim is quite interesting because Abdals (or Kalenders)
of Seyyid Gāzi were known with their ‘heterodox’ beliefs/practices and with the familial
resemblances of their religious perception to that of the qizilbashes. Remembering
Selim’s extremely harsh policy against ‘the qizilbash heresy’, his benevolence to another
religiously ‘divergent’ group, which was indeed fairly similar - from a religious point of
view - to qizilbashes, is worth to be dwelt on.
The relationship between the Kalenderī groups and the Qizilbashes during the
early sixteenth century is still to be clarified for the most part. From the contemporary
sources we learn of an unsuccessful attempt of a Hayderī dervish who claimed to be
Mahdi to assassinate Bayezid II during the course of Albanian campaign in 1492. 1864
Ahmet Y. Ocak appears to be reasonable in arguing that this attempt could be interpreted
as a protest under the disguise of Mahdist claims against the existing regime. 1865
According to Ocak, after this attempt, Bayezid II ordered to deport all Kalenderîs of
1862
IDRS, p. 142; CLZ, p. 565; Feridun Bey, p. 353; Lütfi Paşa, p. 212; HSE4, p. 180; ALI, p. 1085. For a
brief Turkish summary of this letter also see HYDR, pp. 43-44.
1863
HYDR, p. 62; IDRS, p. 143; CLZ, p. 223 ; HSE4, p. 181. (IDRS gives the date as May 1 while HSE
gives as May 2)
1864
This event is recorded in almost all the accounts of the time. Anonymous Ottoman history reads, for
example, “... Ol gün fedâyi nemed-pûş kulağı mengûşlu, boyını toklu Hayderî şeklinde pâdişaha kadt
itmek istedi. Hemandem ‘Mehdi benüm’ düyû nemedi eğnünden atub yalın kılıç elinde pâdişaha yüridi.
Birkaç gayretsiz çavuşlar var idi. Önünden gidüvirüb pâdişaha yakın gelicek vaktin Đskender Paşa hazır
bulundı. Hemandem karşudan bozdağan ile atup urdu, tepesi üstüne yıkıldı. Andan kılıcıyla pare pare
eylediler.” See F. Giese (ed.), Anonim Tevârîh-i Âl-i Osman, haz. Nihat Azamat, Đstanbul: Edebiyat
Fakültesi Basımevi, 1992, p. 130.
1865
Ahmet Yaşar Ocak, “Kalenderī Dervishes and Ottoman Administration from the Fourteenth to the
Sixteenth Centuries”, Manifestations of Sainthood in Islam, ed. G. M. Smith and C. W. Ernst, Istanbul:
ISIS Press, 1994, p. 249; "Quelques remarques sur le rôle des derviches kalenderis dans les mouvements
populaires dans l'Empire Ottoman au XVe et XVle siecles ",Osmanlı Araştırmaları, III, 1982, pp. 74-5.
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