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

firm roots and branches protecting fountains and gardens reflects the purpose of the
Ottoman enterprise. The Ottomans represented peace and plenty for settled agriculture, a
bucolic promise made explicit in the dream. The Ottoman dream was for farmers and
merchants, not for nomads.” 176 Taking into consideration the fact that the dream was a
retrospective fabrication and prospective vision of the fifteenth century Ottoman
intelligentsia, Lindner’s conclusion seems accurate. Already alienated from the
Turcoman milieu, which once founded the beylik, their attitude towards nomadic
elements was not limited to despising but also they forced them to transform.
3.1. SOCIO-RELIGIOUS SET UP OF THE EARLY OTTOMAN SOCIETY
In his article analyzing the emergence of the Ottoman state, Đnalcık stresses two factors
that led the Ottoman success: 1) the westward exodus of Turkomans 177 and 2) the
successful use of gazā ideology as a tool to attract Turkoman tribal warriors, as well as
offering enough booty or doyum. 178 Indeed, these two factors were closely
176 Lindner, Nomads and Ottomans, pp. 37-38.
177 The continuous Turkoman immigration into Anatolia took the form of an exodus first by the collapse
of Byzantine defense after the battle of Manzikerd in 1071 and second under the Mongol pressure from
the East in the period 1221-60. The overwhelming majority of Turkish immigrants were pastoral nomads,
whose social organization was simply based on tribal means. Following Anatolian Seljuks’ second defeat
against Mongols in 1261, the Turkoman tribes in western Anatolia enjoyed large-extend autonomy, which
gave rise to Turkoman principalities. See, for example, Halil Đnalcık, “The Yürüks: Their Origins,
Expansions and Economic Role”, in his The Middle East and the Balkans under the Ottoman Empire.
Essays on Economy and Society, Bloomington: Indiana University Turkish Studies and Turkish Ministry
of Culture Joint Series Volume 9, 1993, pp. 97-9; “Osmanlı Tarihine Toplu bir Bakış”, Osmanlı, ed. Güler
Eren, Ankara, 1999, pp. 37-8. (The English translation of this long article is published as “Periods in
Ottoman History, State, Society, Economy”, in Ottoman Civilization, I, edited by Halil Đnalcık and Günsel
Renda, Ankara: Ministry of Culture and Tourism, 2004, 31-239); “Osman I”, DIA, p. 446. According to
Speros Vryonis, the intensive Turkoman influx led to extensive nomadization of Anatolia during the
period 1071-1300. See Speros Vryonis, The Decline of Medieval Hellenism in Asia Minor, Berkeley, 1971,
p. 184.
178 See Halil Đnalcık, "The Question of the Emergence of the Ottoman State", International Journal of
Turkish Studies, 2, 1980, 71- 79. Also consider his ”The Emergence of Ottomans”, The Cambridge
History of Islam, Vol.I, eds., P. M. Holt, Ann K. S. Lambton, and B. Lewis, Cambridge, 1970, 263- 291;
“Osmanlı Tarihine Toplu bir Bakış”, Osmanlı, ed. Güler Eren, Ankara, 1999, 37-116. The decisive role of
westward Turkoman migration in the socio-political developments in the thirteenth-century Anatolia was
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