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

Consequently, many officials either pretended to be or really adhered to the qizilbash
movement. Within the framework of this political struggle between the Ottoman princes,
even Ahmed’s son Murad became a qizilbash. Once the prince, who was then de facto
ruler of the region, declared his qizilbash affiliation, many officials followed him simply
to secure their position. Secondly, as Oktay Özel has already indicated, the geography of
the Province of Rum was more suitable to agriculture than pastoral nomadism. 2013 Thus,
there were not many nomads in the region at all. Rather, the province and its
neighborhood were densely populated by villagers. As a matter of fact, Bezm u Rezm, a
late fourteenth century source, 2014 clearly demonstrates that during the second half of the
fourteenth century, nomadic tribes had already lost their eminence on the political scene
in the region. Instead, the political and military power was scattered among the
fortresses controlling strategic passages and important cities. 2015 When these two factors
are combined, the reason why the tribal character of the qizilbash movement was
loosened in this region can be inferred.
Apart from the tribal-nomadic contest, another peculiarity of this region should
be mentioned: even before the Turkish invasion of the Anatolia, the region appeared as
the niche of ‘heterodox’ beliefs. Under the Turkish rule, the same characteristic
continued. It is well-known that the first large-scale uprising of the ‘heterodox’
Turcomans against the ‘orthodox’ Anatolian Seljukid rule was recorded in the same
2013
Oktay Özel, Changes and Settlement Patterns, Population and Society in Rural Anatolia: A Case
Study of Amasya (1576-1642), Unpublished PhD. Dissertation, Department of Middle Eastern Studies,
University of Manchester, 1993.
2014
See Aziz b. Erdeşir-i Esterâbadî, Bezm u Rezm, translated into Turkish by Mürsel Öztürk, Ankara,
1990.
2015
Bezm u Rezm is full of stories narrating how Kadı Burhaneddin subjugated local lords of these
fortresses, which usually followed the revolt of the latter when opportunity appeared.
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