33

 AN ACEM STATESMAN IN THE OTTOMAN COURT: İDRİS-İ BİDLÎSÎ

AND THE MAKING OF THE OTTOMAN POLICY ON IRAN

Thesis Submitted to the

Institute for Graduate Studies in Social Sciences

in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

Master of Arts

in

History

ii i

To PEJA

iv

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The thesis, which took an unusually long time, would not have been possible

without the support of numerous individuals. First and foremost, I would like to express

my indebtedness to my advisor, Assist. Prof. Derin Terzioğlu, who patiently read drafts

of my chapters and provided valuable and illuminating comments and criticism during

the writing process of this thesis. I am very grateful to her for her unbounded technical

and editorial guidance. I also want to express my special gratitude to Prof. Selçuk

Esenbel and Assist. Prof. Cigdem Kafesçioğlu, who generously agreed to serve on my

dissertation committee despite their intensive schedules. Their thoughtful comments and

constructive criticism significantly improved the final version of my thesis. In addition, I

would like to express my sincere appreciation to Assist. Prof. Yücel Terzibaşoğlu for his

generous and critical input at the end of the thesis.

My deep gratitude goes also to my friends and those scholars who offered support

in acquiring very crucial source materials for the thesis. First of all, I would like to

express my thanks to Kumiko Saito from University of Tokyo who provided me with a

copy of the Sharafnâme. I am also indebted to Tarik Muhammad Nour for his assistance

in acquiring critical articles from the British Library in London. Last but not least, I

would like to acknowledge the help of the scholars who kindly helped me obtain source

material: Orhan Basaran of Atatürk University in Erzurum generously sent me a copy of

his dissertation on the Epilogue to the Hasht Behesht, and Mustafa Kara of Uludağ

University in Bursa, who showed great interest to my study, generously provided, when

necessary, secondary sources throughout the writing process of this thesis. I must also

v

thank Angela Roome for her care and diligence in proofreading and editing the whole

text in a short period of time. Of course, my special thanks go to the staff of the

Başbakanlık Osmanlı Arşivi, the Süleymaniye Library, the libraries of Boğaziçi and

İstanbul Universities, the Topkapı Palace library, Topkapı Palace Archives, and the

library of the İslam Arastırmaları Merkezi, all of whom granted me access to the

materials in their care and provided invaluable support during my research.

The main driving force and a source of support and endless energy has been

Yıldız Yılmaz. I am grateful to her for her more than generous technical help, for

reviving me in the most chaotic stages of this study with her smiling, rosy face and for

hosting me in her delightful home. Her husband, Ogün Karakoç, also uncomplainingly

provided shuttle service between İSAM Beylerbeyi and Küplüce during this process. I

thank him for his patience.

My heartfelt thanks go to all the women of my family, particularly, Gülsen

Sönmez, Neşe Sönmez and Cemre, all of who reminded me of the vital things in life

whenever I could not control my emotions in the writing process of this thesis. Last, but

not least, my deepest gratitude is to my father, Mehmet Ali Sönmez, who has diligently

watched over me since my childhood. Without his personal support, and his confidence

in me, I would not have completed this project.

vi

ABSTRACT

An Acem Statesman in the Ottoman Court: İdris-i Bidlîsî and the Making of the

Ottoman Policy on Iran

This thesis is an attempt to explore key aspects of the religious and political rift

that took place between the Ottoman lands and Safavi Iran in the early sixteenth century

and the roles played by Kurdish notables in that process through a study of the life, the

religio-political writings and diplomatic activities of İdris-i Bidlîsî (1450 ?-1520). A

bureaucrat, a scholar, a historian as well as diplomat, Bidlîsî is examined in this study

principally as an enormously influential figure behind the Ottoman policies on its

immediate eastern neighbors. Specifically, Chapter One, which is biographical in

approach, discusses the formation of Bidlîsî as a learned man of western Iran and an

Akkoyunlu bureaucrat, and the ways in which this formation aided and in some cases

hampered his later career as a man of letters and a political strategist in the Ottoman

court. Chapter Two, which may be considered the crux of this study, demonstrates how

Bidlîsî’s dual position as an envoy of Sultan Selim and as a Kurdish notable enabled him

to forge an alliance between the Kurds in the western Safavi borderlands and the Ottoman

state as well as to guarantee a special status for the Kurdish notables whose lands were

incorporated into the Ottoman realms. Focusing on Bidlîsî’s religio-political writings,

the last chapter analyzes his contributions to the attempts among the Ottoman ulema to

vii

formulate a sound basis for Ottoman legitimacy while delegitimating the Safavis as

heretics.

The sources utilized in this study comprise various published and unpublished

primary sources, including Bidlisî’s own writings such as the Kânûn-i Shahenshâhî, the

epilogue to the Hasht Behesht and Selimshahnâme as well as other contemporary or nearcontemporary

chronicles such as the Sharafnâme, and archival sources such as the

cadastral registers of the newly conquered lands in the east and the letters of key political

figures involved in the Ottoman-Safavi conflict, including Bidlîsî’s own letters in form of

military reports.

viii

ÖZET

Osmanlı Sarayı’nda Acemli bir Devlet Adamı: İdris-i Bidlîsî ve

Osmanlı’nın İran Politikasının Oluşumu

Ebru Sönmez

Bu tez, on altıncı yüzyılın başlarında Osmanlı ve Safavi İranı arasındaki siyasi

ve dini çekişmenin en önemli yönlerini ve bu çekişmede Kürt ileri gelenlerinin

oynadığı rolleri İdris-i Bidlîsî’nin (1450?-1520) hayatı, dini-siyasi eserleri ve siyasi

aktiviteleri aracılığıyla incelemeyi amaçlayan bir girişimdir. Bir bürokrat, alim, tarihçi

ve aynı zamanda diplomat olan İdris-i Bidlîsî, bu çalışmada Osmanlı’nın doğu

siyasetinin oluşmasındaki en etkin şahıs olarak inceleniyor. Tezin ilk bölümünde,

Bidlîsî’nin İran’ın batısında yetişmiş bir alim ve bir Akkoyunlu bürokratı olarak

formasyonu ve bu formasyonun, bir entellektüel ve siyasi stratejist olarak Osmanlı

sarayında devam eden kariyerinde nasıl bir avantaja ve bazı durumlarda da

dezavantaja dönüştüğü biyografik bir yaklaşımla tartışılır. Bu çalışmanın merkezi

olarak değerlendirilebilecek ikinci bölümü, Sultan Selim’in elçisi ve bir Kürt ileri

geleni olarak Bidlîsî’nin, Osmanlılar ile Kürt ileri gelenleri arasında nasıl ittifak

sağladığını ve Kürtlere Osmanlı idaresi içerisinde özel bir statü verilmesini nasıl

başardığını onun bu ikili pozisyonunun bir sonucu olarak incelemeye çalışıyor. Son

bölüm, bir taraftan Safavilerin İslami inanış biçimlerini sapkınlık olarak değerlendirip

reddederken, aynı zamanda Osmanlı meşruiyeti için sağlam bir zemin oluşturmaya

çalışan Osmanlı ulemasının girişimlerine Bidlîsî’nin katılımını, onun dini-siyasi

çalışmalarına odaklanarak analiz eder.

Bu çalışmada kulanılan kaynaklar, Bidlîsî’nin Kânûn-i Shahenshâhî, Hasht

Behesht Khâtime’si (Epilogue) ve Selimshahnâme gibi kendi çalışmaları da dahil

olmak üzere yayınlanmış ve yayınlanmamış birincil kaynakları ve bu çalışmaların

ix

çağdaşı ya da Sharafnâme gibi yakın çağdaşı olan kronikleri içerir. Bununla birlikte,

doğuda yeni fethedilmiş toprakların tapu tahrirleri, Osmanlı-Safavi çekişmesine dahil

olan önemli siyasi şahısların mektupları ve Bidlîsî’nin askeri rapor niteliğindeki

mektupları, bu çalışmanın arşiv kaynaklarını oluşturur.

x

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgements……………………………………………………………………….iv

Abstract………………………………………………….………………………………..vi

Özet……………………………………………………………………………………...viii

Table of Contents………..…………………………….…………………………………..x

Notes on Transliterations…………………………...…………………………………...xiii

Introduction……………………………………………………………………………....1

Chapter One: The Life of İdris-i Bidlîsî …...………………………………………..12

I. Bidlîsî in Tabriz………………………………….…………………………………….13

II. An Acem Bureaucrat at the Ottoman Court……….…………………………………21

III. The War Years………………………………………………………………………34

IV. The Last Years …………………………………………………………….………...40

Chapter Two: Practicing Diplomacy on Behalf of the Ottomans: The role of İdris-i

Bidlîsî in the Ottoman Incorporation of Western Safavi Territories………………42

I. The Kings of Acem: The Presentation by Bidlîsî about the Kurds……………………44

i- Locating Kurdistan…………………………………………………………….44

ii- Genealogical Legitimacy……………………………………………………...51

iii- Marital Kinsmen……………………………………………………………...55

iv- Kurdish Religious Affiliations……………………………………………….59

v- Political Associations with Neighbors in the Early Sixteenth Century……….63

II. Organizing the Kurds on the Side of the Ottoman Sultan…………………..………..69

xi

i- Playing the Tribes and Members of the Same Family off Against One

Another…………………………………………………………………………...70

ii- The Two Captive Kurdish Leaders Back in Power…………………………...74

iii- The Kurds in the Iraqeyn …………………………………………………….79

iv- The Unification of the Kurdish-Ottoman Forces …………………………….82

III. Organizing the Administration of the Eastern Ottoman Frontiers………………….89

i- Administrative Arrangements………………………………………………….89

ii- The Emergence of Semi-autonomous and Autonomous Principalities: Eyâlet-i

Diyarbakır and Cema‘ât-i Kurdân………………………………………………92

Chapter Three: İdris-i Bidlîsî’s Views on Religio-Political Authority……………..104

I. Muslim Concepts of Political Authority During the Fifteenth and Early Sixteenth

Centuries………………………………………………………………………………..106

i- The Regional Caliphate …..………………………………………………….106

ii- From Sufi Order to Polity: The Messianic Claims of the Safavi sheikh/shah

..............................................................................................................................110

II. Sultan Selim Versus Shah İsma‘il: Bidlîsî’s Definition of the Caliphate-Sultanate

Contrasted with the two Leaders’ Mode of Governing………………………………...112

i- The Contribution of Bidlîsî to Ottoman Political Literature ………………...112

ii- Bidlîsî’s Concept of the Caliphate-Sultanate………………………………..115

iii- Redefining the Criteria for the Genealogy of the Caliph…………………...120

III. The Religious and Ethical Duties of the Caliph-Sultan……………………..……..124

i- The Union of Religion and State/Sultanate…………………………………..124

ii- Jihad as a Religious Duty of the Caliph- Sultan …………...……………….129

xii

iii- The Practice of Justice………………………………………... ……………132

IV. Towards a New Formulation of the Universal Caliphate-Sultanate……....………..135

Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………..138

Appendix.........................................................................................................................143

Map 1: Western boundary of the Safavi State around 1512………………..…………..143

Map 2: The Conquests of Selim I (1512-1520)……………………………..................144

Map 3: The Location of the Kurdish tribes in the Ottomans and Safavi Lands in the

sixteenth century and the semi autonomous and autonomous Kurdish principalities in the

Ottoman provincial administration in 1518…………………………………………….145

Map 4: The Ottoman State in the reign of Süleyman I (1520-1566) ……….………....146

Bibliography…………………………………………………………………………...147

xiii

NOTES ON TRANSLlTERATIONS

For the transliteration of Arabic and Persian names, technical terms and book

titles the present study follows the system employed in Encyclopedia of Islam Second

edition (Leiden, 1979). The Ottoman-Turkish personal names and book titles have been

transliterated according to the system used in Türkiye Diyanet İslâm Ansiklopedisi

(İstanbul 1988). Terms familiar to western scholars, such as Sunni, Shi’i, ulema, pasha,

shah, sultan, khan, Sufi, sheikh and dervish have been given in their Anglicized form

without diacriticals if they are not used in a passage quoted from the original texts. In

transcriptions of the Arabic, Ottoman and Persian text into Latin script, the phonetic

spelling of each has been retained. I have given the names of places in their modern

Turkish form and spelling, or in their common Anglicized form, such as İstanbul, Bitlis,

Hakkari - but Rumelia not Rumeli, Cairo not Kahire .

1

INTRODUCTION

This thesis examines the contributions of the Muslim scholar and statesman İdris-i

Bidlîsî (d.1520) to the solution of military, political as well as intellectual problems

encountered by the Ottomans in their conflicts with the rival state of the Safavis in the

early sixteenth century. A respected sufi and scholar, a notable with connections to

prestigious Kurdish families in Mesopotamia, and for many years, a bureaucrat at the

Akkoyunlu court, Bidlîsî was in many ways a perfect representative of the cultural and

political world of Iran/Acem in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. However,

after the destruction of the Akkoyunlu state by the newly established Safavi state, he, like

many others among the Akkoyunlu elite, was compelled to make a break with his native

land and enter the service of the Ottoman sultans. It was in this later phase of his life

that, as a diplomat, scholar and historian, he made major contributions to the Ottoman

political and ideological struggle against the Safavis.

Geographically speaking, in the early modern period, the region that was

interchangeably called Acem or Iran did not correspond to the boundaries of modern

Iran1. Rather, it was understood to include Iraq-i Acem, comprising Tabriz, Isfahan,

Hemedan and Tahran, and Iraq-i Arab, covering Mesopotamia. Even of the prevailing

language of urban elites was Persian, the region was also home to many other languages

and cultures. While Persians, Tajiks, Turcomans, Arabs and Kurds constituted the

Muslim groups who lived in this geography, the non-Muslim groups included Armenians,

Jews and Nestorians as well as small numbers of Buddhists and Zoroastrians. Generally

1 On the configuration of Iran and Iranian national identity in the modern period, see Mohammad Tavakoli-

Targhi, Refashioning Iran: Orientalism, Occidentalism and Historiography (New York, 2001), pp. 96-112.

2

speaking, Sufism was popular among Muslim groups and many Acemî cities were known

as centers of Sufi orders. Politically, the Turcoman states, the Akkoyunlus and

Karakoyunlus, the Uzbeks and Mughals struggled with each other for control of the

regions of Azerbaijan and Mezapotamia which fell within the borders of Iran/Acem in the

fifteenth century. The Safavi state as a new political power in Iran and the Ottoman state

as a state born in former Byzantine territories or “the lands of Rum” also joined the

struggle for the same territories at the turn of the sixteenth century.

The transformation of the Safavi dynasty from a Sufi order into a state with a

Shi’i ideology was a development of tremendous import for early modern Iran. Its

impact was also felt deeply in the “lands of Rum,” where the Safavi sheikhs had long had

devoted disciples, and where they came to be seen as saviors by some of the very groups

that were disgruntled with Ottoman rule. By the time Sultan Selim seized the Ottoman

throne in 1512, the two states found themselves in the midst of a full-blown military,

religious as well as political conflict. Also involved in this conflict were the Kurdish

notables, who lived in the borderlands between these states and whose allegiance and

support was sought by both of these powers.

As Mazzaoui states, the military and ideological conflict between the Ottomans

and Safavis was instrumental in creating new political and religious boundaries between

the western and the eastern Muslim worlds2. Significantly, these boundaries were drawn

not only on the battlefield, but also through complex diplomatic negotiations, religious

polemics and political debates. These complex efforts required the participation of a

wide range of individuals from among the elites and literati, who helped shape and

2 Michel Mazzaoui, The Origins of the Safawids: Shi’ism, Sûfism and the Ghulât (Wiesbaden, 1972), pp. 8-

9.

3

articulate the policies of these states from a wide variety of perspectives. Hence a proper

understanding of the Ottoman-Safavi conflict also requires a careful analysis of the

positions taken and roles played by these individuals 3.

Without doubt one of the most influential architects of the Ottoman imperial

policy on Iran was the Iranian-born scholar and statesmen, İdris-i Bidlîsî. During his

time of service with the Ottoman sultans, Bayezid II (r. 1481-1512) and Selim I (r. 1512-

1520), Bidlîsî served as an intermediary between the Rumi and Acem worlds and from

this position he had a hand in the construction of the Ottoman imperial policy on Iran.

Through the use of his professional and intellectual experiences acquired during service

at the Akkoyunlu court, he became involved in the cultural projects of the Ottoman

sultans. As a notable of Kurdish origin, who had connections with the prestigious

Kurdish families, which were potential political powers in Iran, he occupied a critical

position in the Ottoman-Safavi military struggle during the reign of Sultan Selim. As a

diplomat, he sought and succeeded to establish an alliance between the Ottoman state and

Kurdish notables. As a scholar, he participated in the religio-political debates on Muslim

rulership, which were fueled by the Ottoman-Safavi ideological conflict as well as by

Ottoman expansionist policies towards eastern and southern Muslim lands.

For all these reasons, a study of the life and writings of Bidlîsî offers a unique

vantage point from which to examine key aspects of the Ottoman-Safavi conflict in the

early sixteenth century. Remarkably, however, no study to date has examined in detail

3 For an excellent monograph that exemplifies the potentialities of a person-based approach to Ottoman

history, see Cornell H. Fleischer, Bureaucrat and Intellectual in the Ottoman Empire The Historian

Mustafa Âli (1541-1600) (Princeton, New Jersey, 1986). Also see Derin Terzioğlu, The Sufi and Dissident:

Niyazi Mısri, Unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation (Harvard University, 1999). Nabil Sırrı Al-Tikriti, Şehzade

Korkud (CA.1468-1513) And The Articulation Of Early 16th Century Ottoman Religious İdentity,

Unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation (Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, Chicago,

Illinois, 2004).

4

the complex roles played by Bidlîsî in this conflict. Bidlîsî is best known to Ottomanists

as the author of the chronicle entitled Hasht Behesht, even though no one has yet

analyzed its content or its place in Persian or Ottoman historiography. Recent noteworthy

monographs on the topic include the studies by Mehmed Bayrakdar, who gives a brief

overview of the life of Bidlîsî, and an introduction to his works4, and by Hicabi Kırlangıç

and Orhan Başaran, who introduce original sources giving biographical information on

Bidlîsî in their studies devoted to translations of the works of Bidlîsî, Selimshahnâme5

and Epilogue to Hasht Behest (Khatima of Hasht Behesht) 6, respectively. Besides these,

Nazmi Sevgen has translated and published some reports documenting Bidlîsî’s activities

during the conflicts between the Safavis and Ottoman-Kurdish forces in the Archive of

the Topkapı Palace Museum7. Apart from the translations of Bidlîsî’s works,

Selimshahnâme, the Epilogue to Hasht Behesht and Kânûn-i Shahenshâhî, by Hicabi

Kırlangıç, Orhan Başaran, and Hasan Tavakkoli8 respectively, there is no study which

analyzes the works of Bidlîsî, with the exception of the recently completed

Ph.D.dissertation by Hüseyin Yılmaz. In this study, Yılmaz gives considerable place to

Bidlîsî’s religio-political treatise, the Kânûn-i Shahenshâhî, which he examines in the

context of the Ottoman political writings during the reign of Süleyman (1520-1566)9.

Even though I was able to have access to this study near the completion of the present

4 Mehmed Bayrakdar, Bitlisli İdris (Ankara, 1991).

5 İdris-i Bidlîsî, Selim Şah-nâme, ed. and transl. by Hicabi Kırlangıç (Ankara, 2001).

6 Orhan Başaran, İdris-i Bitlîsî’nin Heşt Bihişt’inin Hatimesi Metin-İnceleme-Çeviri, Unpublished Ph.D.

Dissertation (Atatürk University, 2000).

7 These documents, together with translations and facsimiles, have been issued in three serial parts in

Belgelerle Türk Tarihi Dergisi. See Nazmi Sevgen, “Kürtler”, Belgelerle Türk Tarihi Dergisi, 1/6 (1968),

p. 57, 2/7 (1968), pp. 58-59, 2/8 (1968), pp.48-49.

8 Hasan Tavakkolî, İdrîs Bidlîsî’nin Kanun-i Şahenşahisi’nin Tenkidli Neşri ve Türkçeye Tercümesi,

Unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation (İstanbul University, 1974).

9 Hüseyin Yılmaz, The Sultan and Sultanate: Envisioning Rulership in The Age of Süleymân The Lawgiver

(1520-1566), Unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation (Harvard University, January 2005).

5

study, I nevertheless benefited from its comprehensive thematic approach to the Ottoman

political writings of this period in contextualizing Bidlîsî’s religio-political writings.

Studies dealing with the relationship between the Ottomans and the Kurds in the

early modern period make only brief mention of Bidlîsî. Among them, the study of

Martin van Bruinessen, Agha, Sheikh and State10, the first to give a political and social

history of the Kurds, and the essays of Baki Tezcan11 and Hakan Özoğlu briefly thouch

up on Ottoman-Kurdish relationships as seen in the Ottoman administrative organizations

in the eastern provinces in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries12. Even though their

central theme is not Bidlîsî’s diplomatic activities, they have given the present study a

perspective from which to examine the relationship between the imperial state and the

Kurdish tribal groups and the changes in the administrative positions of the Kurdish tribal

leaders during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

While all these studies have contributed to our understanding of Bidlîsî’s life and

activities, this study aims to treat Bidlîsî, his works and accomplishments from a different

approach and following a different method from all the aforementioned studies. More

specifically, the present study combines the methods and concerns of political and

diplomatic history with the methods and concerns of intellectual history. Hence the

principal narrative sources utilized in this study are examined not only for what they

narrate but also for how they narrate, and what the meaning and intention of their

narrations are. Recently, the study by Gabriel Piterberg, approaching Ottoman

10 Martin van Bruinessen, Agha, Shaikh and State (London, 1992).

11 Baki Tezcan, “The Development of the Use of “Kurdistan” as a Geographical Description and the

Incorporation of This Region into the Ottoman Empire in the 16th Century” in The Great Ottoman-Turkish

Civilization, editor-in-chief Kemal Çiçek, 4 vols (Ankara, 2000), at vol. 3, pp. 540-553.

12 Hakan Özoğlu, “State-Tribe Relations: Kurdish Tribalism in the 16th and 17th Century Ottoman Empire”,

British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, vol. 23 (May, 1996), pp. 5-27.

6

historiography through western theories on narrative by means of comparative criticism,

suggests the valuable idea of considering texts as a “contextual and intended instance of

discourse” 13. Through a textual analysis of several seventeenth-century chronicles

narrating the military revolt that ended in the deposition and murder of Osman II (r.1681-

1622), Piterberg demonstrates that each of the principal narrative representations found in

Ottoman chronicles reflects the viewpoint of a particular socio-political group with which

that chronicler was associated. Parallel to this, our study is also interested in considering

the texts of Bidlîsî as representing a particular point of view, that is of an Acem

bureaucrat who tried to adjust to a new court, a sufi-oriented scholar who claimed the

right to speak about state affairs in the name of God, and a diplomat who sought to

mediate between the Ottomans and the local powers. Bidlîsî’s historical narratives also

tell us about his perception of himself as well as of the political figures around him. They

give us an idea about the author’s interpretation of the major political developments of

the period and of the key players in these developments, namely, the Ottoman sultan,

Safavi shah and the Kurdish notables.

The political and religious views of Bidlîsî are manifested best in his

Selimshahnâme14 and Kânûn-i Shahenshâhî15. Bidlîsî left his Selimshahnâme unfinished

and did not make a fair copy, and his son, Ebu al-Fadl (d.1563-64), after revising and

13 Gabriel Piterberg, An Ottoman Tragedy History and Historiography at Play (California, 2003), pp. 51-

68. Even though I do not examine the historical narratives of Bidlîsî in the context of the Ottoman

historiography of the early sixteenth century, Piterberg’s method influenced my perspective on and my

readings of Bidlîsî’s writings as well as other chronicles relevant to my study. I would like to note here

another more recent study that has exemplified best the fact that “the chronicle is inevitably an expression

of the author’s politics”: Dana Sajdi, Peripheral Visions: The Worlds and Worldviews of Commoner

Chroniclers in the 18th Century Ottoman Levant, Unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation (Colombia University,

2002).

14 Bidlîsî, Selimshahnâme [hereafter referred to as SN], The Topkapı Palace Library /Emanet, nr. 1423.

15 Bidlîsî, Kânûn-i Shahenshâhî [hereafter referred to as KS], Süleymaniye Library /Esad Efendi, nr.

1888/2.

7

editing his father’s work, presented it to Sultan Selim II almost half a century later16.

However, the autobiographical references in the text indicate that the work belonged

entirely to Bidlîsî and that his son wrote only the dedication17. As Ahmet Uğur argues in

his study of the Selimnâme literature, the purpose and motivation of the authors of the

Selimnâmes, histories of the political career of Selim beginning with his struggle for the

throne, was to create an example of a heroic figure from the Ottoman dynasty At the

same time, however, each Selimnâme reflected the viewpoint of its author18. Likewise the

Selimshahnâme, which is based primarily on Bidlîsî’s own observations, is not only an

account of a series of events but also an interpretive history about the political and

military developments during the Ottoman-Safavi conflict and the rule of Sultan Selim as

well as of Shah İsma‘il.

Moreover, the Selimshahnâme is unique among works of the same genre in its

description of the events that took place during the second stage of the Ottoman-Safavi

conflict in which the Kurds were involved. This was the period in which Bidlîsî was

appointed as a diplomat and charged with organizing the tribal groups living on the

western borders of the Safavi lands who were in favor of an Ottoman state19.

Significantly, Bidlîsî describes the events and represents the main actors in the events,

namely the Kurdish notables, from the viewpoint of a mediator who had both imperial

and local entanglements. Hence the importance of the work for understanding Bidlîsî’s

political agenda, intentions and strategies during his diplomatic activities.

16 Bidlîsî, SN, fol. 48a.

17 Baki Tezcan, “The Use of Kurdistan”, fn. 24, p. 550.

18 Ahmet Uğur, The Reign of Sultan Selîm I In The Light Of The Selîm-Nâme Literature (Klaus Schwarz

Verlag, Berlin, 1985), pp. 1, 8.

19 Even though another Selimnâme written by Şükrî-i Bidlîsî also gives space to the military developments

in the east, he was not involved in this development. Furthermore, it is doubtful that he witnessed the

events.

8

The Kânûn-i Shahenshâhî is a political work written towards the end of the reign

of Sultan Selim. By that time, the Ottoman armies had won a major victory against the

Mamluks, incorporating a vast chunk of the Arabic speaking lands from Aleppo to the

Hijaz and Cairo into their empire. Moreover, political tension between the Ottoman and

Safavi state was once again escalating to culminate in yet another war in the reign of

Süleyman. Both of these developments must have been in the mind of Bidlîsî, when he

penned this important work. More specifically, the Kânûn-i Shahenshâhî responded to

the need to revise and idealize the Ottoman imperial image as the universal and absolute

leader of Muslim world. In the present work, the Kânûn-i Shahenshâhî is examined to

understand Bidlîsî’s conceptualization of the offices of the sultanate and caliphate, which

provided the theoretical basis of his arguments for the superiority of Sultan Selim over

Shah İsma‘il, which he presented in the Selimshahnâme.

For information about the life of Bidlîsî, the present study also uses the epilogue

to his magnum opus, the Hasht Behesht20, which consists of eight volumes and contains

eight thousand couplets. It is interesting that this work did not create the positive reaction

expected by Bidlîsî and it was for this reason that Bidlîsî left İstanbul for Mecca. In the

epilogue to the Hasht Behesht, which he wrote in Mecca, Bidlîsî describes himself and

his career and his promotions during the process of writing the Hasht Behesht, and

afterwards he dedicates it to Sultan Bayezid. This information allows us to see a crosssection

of his life between 1510 and 1512.

It should be noted that Bidlîsî wrote all the works discussed above in Persian. The

Persian philologists, Hicabi Kırlangıç, Hasan Tavakkoli and Orhan Başaran respectively,

20 İdris-i Bidlîsî, Hasht Behesht Khâtima [hereafter referred to as HB], Süleymaniye Library/Esad Efendi,

nr. 2197.

9

translated the Selimshahnâme, the Kânûn-i Shahenshâhî and the epilogue to the Hasht

Behesht into Turkish. Our study did not neglect these translations. Rather the works of

Bidlîsî were read both in translation and also in the original texts, preserved in the

Süleymaniye Library and in Topkapı Palace Library, in order to expedite this study.

Apart from Bidlîsî’s own works, the Sharafnâme21, a local history written in 1596

by Şeref, the Kurdish governor of the province of Bitlis, provides us with invaluable

information about the Kurdish social, cultural, political and religious life, and Kurdish

involvement in political developments between the Ottoman and Safavi states. Even

though the Sharafnâme was written almost half a century later than the Selimshahnâme, it

shares with that text a common concern: to legitimate for an Ottoman imperial audience

the political existence of the Kurdish tribes in Iran. Therefore, this work is used in

parallel with the Selimshahnâme throughout the present study. In addition, Ottoman

chronicles such as Tacü’t-Tevârih by Hoca Saadeddîn (d.1599)22 and secondary studies

on the religious treatises written by Kemalpaşazâde (1468-1534) and Ebussu‘ud (1490-

1574)23 are used to provide glimpses of the wider religio-political discussions of the time

and to reveal the place of Bidlîsî in those discussions.

The present study also makes use of archival materials. The military reports of

Bidlîsî, covering the years between 1514 and 1516, constitute the most important sources,

providing us with information about his diplomatic visits to the western borders of the

Safavi state as well as with crucial insight into his perspective as a mediator with both

21 Scheref, Scheref-Nameh [hereafter referred to as Sharafnâme], ed. by V. Veliaminof-Zernof 2 vols. (St.-

Petersburg, 1860), vol. II.

22 Hoca Saadeddin, Tacü’t-Tevârîh 2 vols. (İstanbul, 1879).

23 İsmail Safa Üstün, Heresy and Legitimacy in the Ottoman Empire in the sixteenth century, Unpublished

Dissertation (University of Manchester, 1991); Ertuğrul Düzdağ, Şeyhülislam EbuSuûd Efendi Fetvaları

Işığında 16. Asır Türk Hayatı (İstanbul, 1972).

10

imperial and local entanglements. In addition, the letters sent to Sultan Selim by Bıyıklı

Mehmet Pasha, the Ottoman official commanding the Ottoman-Kurdish armies in

Diyarbakır, are utilized as reports written from a more straightforwardly imperial

perspective. Finally, the present study also makes use of the cadastral registers of the

newly conquered eastern provinces of the Ottoman state, which have been published by

Mehdi İlhan24.

By utilizing all these sources, this study aims first of all to draw a detailed portrait

of Bidlîsî as an Iranian emigree in the Ottoman court, a transmitter of Iranian cultural and

political traditions to the Ottoman realms and one of the architects of the Ottoman

imperial policy on Iran at the height of the Ottoman-Safavi conflict in the early sixteenth

century. In a more general sense, this thesis also aspires to shed new light on at least two

key aspects of the Ottoman-Safavi conflict. One concerns the importance of negotiation

and bargaining alongside military strategy and confrontation in the Ottoman expansion to

the east in general and in Ottoman-Kurdish relations in particular. The other concerns the

religious and political discussions that were prompted by the Ottoman-Safavi conflict and

the redefinition of the concept of Muslim rulership in these discussions in the early

sixteenth century.

This thesis is organized in three chapters. The first chapter presents an account

of the life of Bidlîsî within the cultural and political context of the early sixteenth

century. Central themes include his religious, intellectual and political formation in Iran,

his migration to the Ottoman lands following the overthrow of the Akkoyunlus by the

Safavis and his attempts to adjust to the vicissitudes of the Ottoman court in the reign of

Bayezid I, and following the accession to the throne of Selim I, his intense efforts to

24 Mehdi İlhan, Amid (Diyarbakır) 1518 Tarihli Defter-i Mufassal (Ankara, 2000).

11

forge a military and political alliance between the Ottomans and the Kurdish notables in

the eastern borderlands.

The second chapter, then, examines in detail the roles played by Bidlîsî as an

intermediary between the Ottoman imperial state and Kurdish notables. Specifically, this

chapter tries to answer the following questions: A) How did Bidlîsî represent the Kurds to

the Ottoman imperial government? What kinds of strategies did he employ to present

them as credible and indeed indispensable partners? B) What were the results of his

mediation between the Kurds and the Ottomans? C) What kind of administrative policy

was introduced in the lands where the Kurds lived after their incorporation into the

Ottoman state? All in all, this chapter attempts to demonstrate both the decisive roles

played by Bidlîsî in the Ottoman expansion to the east and the interplay of local and

imperial dynamics in the political history common to the Kurds, the Ottomans and the

Safavis in the early sixteenth century.

The last chapter examines the contribution of Bidlîsî to the Ottoman religiopolitical

discussions that were fueled by the Ottoman-Safavi rivalry. An introductory

section lays the groundwork by considering the concepts of political rulership that

prevailed in fifteenth-century Iran and the Ottoman state, and the new departure taken by

Shah Ismail upon his rise to power at the turn of the sixteenth century. Next comes a

discussion of Bidlîsî’s views on the nature of political rulership, and his efforts to bolster

the image of the Ottoman sultan with reference to a reconstituted concept of the universal

caliph, while denigrating the Safavi shah as a heretic and a tyrant.

12

CHAPTER ONE

THE LIFE OF İDRİS-İ BİDLÎSÎ

In the late fifteenth and early sixteenth century, the political balance changed in

the Middle East with the emergence of a new power, the Safavi state. By 1501, the

Safavi leader Shah İsma‘il had mobilized a vast number of Turcoman tribes who saw him

as their religious (and now, also political) leader, clashed with two powerful dynasties in

Iran and Transoxiana - the Akkoyunlus and the Timurids, and put an end to the

Akkoyunlu state. In addition to these political changes, the adoption of Shi’ism by the

Safavi ruler also affected the lives of the people of the region, marginalizing some and

forcing others to leave their native lands25.

The life of Bidlîsî also bears the traces of these changes. Even though it is not

entirely clear whether religious differences with the Safavis were the main factor that

prompted Bidlîsî to leave Iran, it is certain that the new conditions compelled him to look

for a protector other than Shah İsma‘il, the founder of the Safavi State. Bidlîsî’s move

from the lands of Iran to “the lands of the Rum,” and for a brief time, to Cairo, constitutes

the most important turning point in his life. With this move, Bidlîsî not only started an

uncertain search for a new patron, but also had to adjust to and prove himself in a

significantly different cultural and political environment. In order to understand this

rupture in his life, this chapter first examines the social and intellectual formation of

Bidlîsî by outlining the cultural milieu of fifteenth-century Tabriz in which he grew up.

Then it details his experiences as he struggled to obtain a high rank at the Ottoman court.

25 Said Amir Arjomand, “Religious Extremism (Ghuluww), Sufism and Sunnism in Safavid Iran: 1501-

1722”, Journal of Asian History, 15/1 (1981), pp. 1-35, at p. 3.

13

I. Bidlîsî in Tabriz

In the fifteenth century, the eastern Islamic lands had a rich religio-cultural makeup,

and were home to a variety of sectarian and popular Sufi orders. In the middle of the

fifteenth century, Bidlîsî was born in the village of Suliqan in Rayy26, which was close to

Tabriz, the capital of the Akkoyunlu State, and the center of a mystical order – the

Nurbakhshî- the most active center of that time. But, as his surname indicates, Bidlîsî’s

family originally came from the province of Bitlis, which in the fifteenth century was

another important cultural and political center.

His father, Husâm al-din Bidlîsî (d.1495), was a respected and learned mystic

who had lived in Bitlis. Husâm al-din Bidlîsî had close connections with the leading

Kurdish families in Bitlis. In addition, he had served as divan secretary at the court of the

Akkoyunlu sultan, Uzun Hasan (d.1478)27. Much more than a statesman his position in

the Akkoyunlu court might have been established on the pattern of a religio-political

patronage. Like other Muslim rulers of that time, Uzun Hasan too, protected religious

scholars, dervishes and mystical leaders, and enlisted them as his closest companions.

Uzun Hasan’s close relations with these groups as their spiritual leader and protector

provided him with political benefits, because the dervishes acted as mediators and

negotiators between the Akkoyunlu state and the tribes, over whom the dervishes exerted

a strong influence28. Most likely, Uzun Hasan aimed to control the religious leaders by

keeping them in proximity in order to prevent their mystical power from turning into a

military power to be used against the state. It is difficult to know the exact nature of the

26 Bidlîsî, Mecmua, Ragıb Paşa Library, fol. 189a; see also, Orhan Başaran, “İdrîs Bitlisî Hakkında Bazı

Yeni Bilgiler”, Akademik Araştırmalar Dergisi, 14 (2002), pp. 201-208, at p. 205.

27 Hoca Saadeddin, Tacü’t-Tevârîh, vol. II, p. 566.

28 John E. Woods, The Aqquyunlu Clan, Confederation Empire (Bibliotheca Islamica, Minneapolis &

Chicago, 1976), p. 12.

14

relationship between the Akkoyunlu sultans and the Bidlîsî family in this regard because

of a scarcity of information. Still, the esteem in which Husâm al-din Bidlîsî was held

among powerful Kurdish tribes brings to mind the possibility that Husâm al-din Bidlîsî,

as a respected Sufi, functioned as a mediator between the Kurdish tribes and Uzun Hasan,

like other dervishes surrounding Uzun Hasan. It is also probable that his political

importance facilitated his advancement as a bureaucrat in the Akkoyunlu bureaucracy.

Biographical notes in the Sharafnâme put emphasis on Husâm al-din Bidlîsî’s

identity as a highly respected Sufi rather than as a bureaucrat29. Even though Husâm aldin

Bidlîsî was a disciple of Muhammed Nurbakhsh (d. 1464), a Sufi who had at one

point claimed to be the Mahdi, his spiritual reputation does not seem to have stemmed

from his being a leader or follower of any of the messianic movements that emerged from

within Sufi circles in Iran and Transoxiana in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries30.

Without giving any details, Bidlîsî confirms his father’s association with Nurbakhsh and,

in his own works, Husâm al-din Bidlîsî also identifies himself as a Nurbahshî31. On the

other hand, the Kitâb al-Nusûs that Husâm al-din Bidlîsî wrote on Sufi philosophy

suggests that he did not follow or approve of Nurbakhsh’s messianic claims32.

Considering that Nurbakhsh himself did not continue his messianic claims after he settled

29 Sharafnâme, p. 342.

30 Kathryn Babayan, Mystics, Monarchs, and Messiahs (Harvard University Press, 2002), p. 80; also see for

the life of Muhammed Nurbahkhsh in particular Shahzad Bashir, Messianic Hopes and Mystical Visions

(University of South Carolina, 2003).

31 Mustafa Çakmaklıoğlu, Hüsameddin Bitlisî’nin “Kitab al-Nusus” Isimli Eserinin Tahkik ve Tahlili,

Unpublished Master Thesis (Erciyes University, Kayseri, 1988), p. 13.

32 In the light of this book, it can be consider that the father of Bidlisî had tendency to Nurbakhsh not

because the latter claimed to be Mahdi, but because he held the philosophy of ishrakiyya of Suhrawardî.

For the Husâm al-din Bidlîsî’s attempts to understand the existence of God see Çakmaklıoğlu, Ibid.

15

in Rayy, Bashir’s assumption that Husâm al-din Bidlîsî was part of the group that

regarded Nurbakhsh as a great mystic but not as the Mahdi seems reasonable33.

Husâm al-din Bidlîsî’s concern for Sufism and his powerful connections from

birth with the Sufi orders can be considered to have shaped İdris-i Bidlîsî’s identity in

Tabriz society. The record of his birth, made by Muhammed Nurbakhsh’s son, Fayd

Allâh Nurbakhsh, implies that İdris-i Bidlîsî was born as a member of the Nurbakhshî

order34, even though he was later attracted to the Khalwatî sheikh, İbrahim Gülşenî. It is

more than likely that, like his father, Bidlîsî was not a steadfast follower of any Sufi

sheikh, but rather entertained a general sympathy for men of wisdom35, and probably

completed the training (seyrüsülûk) of many religious orders such as Safi and Gulshenî,

besides Nurbakhshî.

As the Kitâb al-Nusûs makes clear, Husâm al-din Bidlîsî’s mystical views

encompassed various expressions of Sufism such as the doctrinal Sufism developed by

Ibn Arabî, Koranic commentaries from a Sufi perspective, and the expression of divine

love with which Suhrawardî was associated36. Like many Muslims in the fifteenth

century, Husâm al-din Bidlîsî also had strong Alid loyalty. The main reason behind the

devotion of Husâm al-din Bidlîsî to Ali b. Abu Tâlib (d.661) was the latter’s influence

among the mystics. It was believed that Ali b. Abu Tâlib had written an esoteric

commentary on the Koran entitled Khutba al- Bayân37. The Koranic commentaries by

many Iranian Sufis drew inspiration from this esoteric commentary, and likely used it to

33 Bashir, Messianic Hopes, p. 168.

34 For this record see, Orhan Başaran, “İdrîs Bitlisî Hakkında Bazı Yeni Bilgiler”, p. 203; Bidlîsî, Mecmua,

fol. 189.

35 For Bidlîsî’s similar utterances see Bidlîsî, Mir‘at al-Ushshâk, Süleymaniye Library /Esad Efendi, nr.

1888/4, ff. 153a, 154b.

36 Seyyed Hossein Nasr, “The Rise and Development of Persian Sufism”, ed. by Leonard Lewisohn, The

Heritage of Sufism (Oxford, Oneworld Publications, 1999), 3 vols. , at vol. I, (1997), pp. 1-18, at pp. 5-7.

37 Ibid., pp. 5-6.

16

justify their interpretation of Koranic verses from a mystical point of view. As a Sufi,

Husâm al-din Bidlîsî also wrote a gloss on Ali’s Khutba al- Bayân.

Still, it would be wrong to conclude simply on the basis of his inclination towards

Ibn Arabî’s philosophy, and his Alid loyalty, that Husâm al-din Bidlîsî believed in

Twelver Shi‘ism, as Bashir has suggested38. In fact, in the fifteenth century, Ali was

greatly revered by both Sunni and Shi’i Sufis. Their Alid loyalty has sometimes led Sufis

to be misidentified as Shi’i, as has also been the case with some Sufi-oriented scholars

such as Jalâl al-din Dawânî (d. 1502) who was a companion of Husâm al-din Bidlîsî39.

These views probably also reflect the efforts of later Shi’i scholars to identify the Iranian

Sufis of the early fifteenth century as Shi’i40. In reality, Imami Shi’ism and its missionary

activities were not yet widespread in the Iran of the fifteenth and early sixteenth

centuries41. Rather at that time, Tabriz, like the rest of Iran was predominantly Sunni42.

Besides, a common point between Sufism and Alid loyalty was the

conceptualization of the perfect man (insan-i kâmil) as seen in the character of Ali43.

Consequently, Husâm al-din Bidlîsî’s love for Ali stemmed from Ali’s interest in esoteric

knowledge, and seems different from that of a Shi’i devotee. On the other hand, it is

difficult to declare that Husâm al-din Bidlîsî was an ardent adherent of any Sufi groups

Rather, he was part of a vast Sufi network consisting of different orders including

Nurbakhshî, Gülshenî and Nakshibandî, and he participated in the meetings of the

38 Bashir, Messianic Hopes, pp. 168-169.

39 Harun Anay, “Devvânî”, DİA, vol. 9, p. 259.

40 Babayan, Mystics, p. 449.

41 Arjomand, “Religious Extremism”, p. 2.

42 Ibid., p. 3.

43 Babayan, Mystics, p. xI

17

founders and disciples of these orders, such as İbrahim Gülşeni (d.1534) and Mulla Jâmî

(d.1492)44.

The multifaceted affiliations of his father would play an important role in forming

Bidlîsî’s character during his early life. In fact, Bidlîsî’s father was also his first tutor. In

his translation and commentary on forty famous hadiths, Bidlîsî mentions his father’s

role in transmitting to him the prophetic traditions with the words: “I heard from my

sheikh” or “I heard from my master” 45. Probably under the influence of his father, as

well as of general trends in theological and mystical studies in the eastern Muslim lands

in the fifteenth century, Bidlîsî adopted what Harun Anay has called the “eclectic” views

of Dawânî. According to Anay, Dawânî formulated his teachings on tefsir and hadiths by

drawing upon such diverse sources of influence as the ishrâkkiyyûn (illumination)

philosophy of Suhrawardî (d.1191), the philosophy of Ibn Sina (d.1037) and Tûsî

(d.1277-8), the kelam and logic of Bayzâwî (d.1286), Icî (d.1459-60), Taftazânî (d.1390)

and Jurjânî (d.1413), and eventually the Sufism of Ibn Arabî46. Like Dawânî and his

father, Bidlîsî, too, interpreted hadiths and Koranic verses in a mystical vein, and

supported his Sufiesque conclusions with hadiths and Koranic verses. Mir’ât al-Ushshâk,

Tarjuma wa Tafsîr-i Hadis-i Arba‘în and Hakk al- Mubîn fî Sharh-i Hakk al -Yakîn are

some mystical and religious treatises of Bidlîsî in which such eclectic views can be

detected.

Bidlîsî wrote most of his works in Persian, but he also wrote several treatises on

religious and social matters and politics in Arabic. It seems that he had mastered Arabic

44 Muhyî Gülşenî, Menâkıb-ı İbrahim Gülşenî, ed. by Tahsin Yazıcı (Ankara, 1982), pp. 40, 126; also see,

Çakmaklıoğlu, Hüsameddin Bitlisî, p. 13.

45 Bidlîsî, Tarjuma wa Tafsîr-i Hadis-i Arba‘în, Süleymaniye Library/Fatih, nr. 791/1, fol. 3a.

46 Harun Anay, Celâleddin Devvâni, Hayatı, Eserleri, Ahlâk ve Siyaset Düşüncesi, Unpublished Ph.D.

Dissertation (İstanbul, 1994), pp. 88, 92-94, 258-9.

18

since at least the age of sixteen, since at that age he copied out a work about astrology

and arithmetic in that language47. On the other hand, most probably Bidlîsî could not

write well in Turkish. Bidlîsî owed his mastery of the Persian and Arabic languages, and

particularly Persian, to the training he received at the Akkoyunlu court. It must be thanks

to the connection of his father with the Akkoyunlu court that Bidlîsî was educated as a

bureaucrat. He became divan secretary at the Akkoyunlu court and he was promoted from

this position to be the chancellor of the court (munshî-i mamâlik).

It can be assumed that in his professional life, Bidlîsî combined his religious

education with education in the arts of governance, literature and cosmology. Two of the

religious scholars and chroniclers at the Akkoyunlu court who might have had an

influence in shaping the identity of Bidlîsî as a statesman were Dawânî and Kadi İsa

Sawajı (d.1491). Both of these figures served at the Akkoyunlu court at the same time as

Bidlîsî, and sought to centralize the Akkoyunlu government. Woods, who has examined

this attempt at institutionalization during the reign of Uzun Hasan, considers Kadi İsa

Sawajı to be the main implementer of the administrative reforms, and Dawânî to be the

principal ideologue for the monarchical claims of the Akkoyunlu rulers48. As we shall see

in Chapter Three, the political teachings of Dawânî, based on the ethical principles of the

caliph/sultan derived from Persian, Hellenic and Muslim sources, had a great effect on

Bidlîsî’s understanding of political authority, while those of Kadi İsa Sawajı influenced

the statesmanlike attitude of Bidlîsî in administrative affairs.

Even though Woods defines the office of chancellor as a high ranking position in

the Akkoyunlu bureaucracy, there is little evidence that Bidlîsî had political influence at

47 Başaran, Heşt Bihişt, pp. 15-16.

48 Woods, The Aqquyunlu Clan, pp. 115-118, 156-157.

19

the court. Besides, it is unclear by what means Bidlîsî pursued his interest in political

philosophy. In his treatises, he simply defines himself as a counselor who had gained the

favor of Yakub Khan49. Still, Bidlîsî displayed his vast knowledge of the art of

governance in the political treatises he penned as well as in his political actions after he

quit the Iranian lands50.

Patron-client relationships were an important asset in climbing the steps of

bureaucracy in Iran in the late fourteenth century. As Bidlîsî’s numerous poems indicate,

his close relationship with various political and religious figures at the Akkoyunlu court

must also be examined in the context of patronage relations. Most of his poems that have

been passed down to us were dedicated to the Akkoyunlu sultans, Yakub Khan, Sultan

Halil, Göde Ahmed, or to religious scholars and Sufi sheikhs like Kadi İsa Sawajı and

İbrahim Gülşenî who had influence in the Akkoyunlu palace51. It is clear that the writing

of such poetry was an effective tool in establishing personal relationships and in

participating in different cultural networks. Bidlîsî’s efforts to praise the important

figures surrounding him may be regarded as a necessary act to obtain an influential

position and to communicate with political figures. Likewise, he asked his sheikh,

İbrahim Gülşenî, to intercede between him and the Akkoyunlu sultan in expressing his

dissatisfaction to his protector52.

The writings of Bidlîsî reveal the scope of his intellectual concerns. In addition to

the political treatises in which he deals with the affairs of government and law, he also

49 See Bidlîsî, Risâla-iKhazâniyya, Süleymaniye Library/Esad Efendi, nr. 1881/7; also see Abdüsselam

Uygur, “Bidlisî’nın Tespit Edilebilen İlk Telif Eseri-Risâle-i Hazâniya-’nın Türkçe Tercümesi”,

(Unpublished article).

50Some examples of his political treatises are Mir’ât a-Jamâl, Süleymaniye Library/Esad Efendi, nr.

1881/1, Risâla fi’l-Khilâfa wa Âdâb al –Salâtîn, İstanbul University Library, nr. F 1228, and Kânûn-i

Shâhenshâhî.

51 For his poetries see Bidlîsî, Süleymaniye Library/Esad Efendi, nr. 1888/1,3,6, ff. 2a-7a, 137b.

52 Gülşenî, Menâkıb-ı İbrahim Gülşenî, p. 355.

20

composed a treatise on the “philosophy of nature” in which he discussed the effects of

climate on human character,53 as well as a medical treatise on the plague, which was the

most fatal disease in Tabriz and its environs at the time. While as an intellectual, he must

have felt bound to address a medical problem that affected large numbers of people, a

second motivation might have been the accusations directed at him for having left the city

during the plague epidemic54. Writing after his career as an Akkoyunlu bureaucrat had

come to an end, Bidlîsî would emphasize his responsibilities towards the people by

referring to himself as an advisor to sultans55, a poor dervish who wept for the love of

God56, or a messenger (dâ‘î) of Islam57, in order to redefine and consolidate his position

in the eyes of whoever would pay attention to his sayings.

Bidlîsî served Yakub Khan as chancellor until his death in 1490. After this time

the Akkoyunlu princes started fighting each other for supreme power and as a result each

of them sat on the throne for a short period. This led to political instability in the

Akkoyunlu administration58. When the Akkoyunlu state was further undermined and

eventually annexed by the Safavi State59, some of the elite of the Akkoyunlu court took

up positions at the Safavi court, while others refused to continue their career under the

Safavis. It seems that the end of the Akkoyunlu state created a chaotic situation between

different groups at the Akkoyunlu court. In this connection, the intensity of the

53 Abdüsselam Uygur, “Bidlisî’nın Tespit Edilebilen İkinci Telif Eseri- Risâla-i Rabi‘ al –Abrâr’-nin

Türkçe Tercümesi”, (Unpublished article).

54Bidlisî, Risâla al-Ibâ’ ‘an Mavâki‘ al-Wabâ Risâla fî Tâ‘ûn wa Javâz al-Firâri ‘anhu, Süleymaniye

Library/Esad Efendi, nr. 1682/18.

55 Bidlîsî, SN, ff. 105a-b.

56 Bidlîsî, HB, fol. 557a; Başaran, Heşt Bihişt, pp. 198-199.

57 Bidlîsî, SN, ff. 103b-104a, 129b, 133b.

58For the details of rapid disintegration in the Akkoyunlu state after the death of Yakub Khan see Woods,

The Aqquyunlu Clan, pp. 160-178.

59 Roger M. Savory, Studies on the History of Safawid Iran (Variorum Reprints, London, 1987), p. 71.

21

migrations from Persia to other Muslim states, such as Egypt, Transoxiana and the

Ottoman State, suggests the uneasiness and indecision of the Akkoyunlu elite60.

II. An Acem Bureaucrat at the Ottoman Court

Bidlîsî was probably in his fifties when in 1500 he decided to leave the

Akkoyunlu court. Until that time, he had witnessed both the prestigious years of the

Akkoyunlu state in the reigns of Uzun Hasan and Yakub Khan, and the disintegration of

that state at the beginning of the sixteenth century. As someone who had been reared in

the Iranian cultural tradition and who had served the Akkoyunlu state for a long time,

Bidlîsî must have been fully immersed in the specific ways of the Akkoyunlus in a wide

variety of fields from administration to law and from religion to language. Moreover, he

was no longer a young man who could quickly adjust to a new political culture and

become involved in the networks of a different royal household. All these factors must

have left him in a state of indecision and anxiety when he left his high ranking career and

familiar milieu behind him. He confessed as much when he wrote, “my first place of

exile was Rum”61.

As a bureaucrat reared in the Acem political and cultural tradition, Bidlîsî could

have continued his career and used his professional experience at the court of Shah

İsma‘il, whose state was considered to be the successor to the Akkoyunlu state. Woods

claims that Bidlîsî considered the rise of Safavi state as a divine instrument to punish the

60 Other Akkoyunlu elites who migrated from the Iranian lands included Şükri Bidlîsî, poet, who went to

İstanbul in 1500, İbrahim Gülşeni who went to Cairo in 1502 and Fadl Allâh Isfakhânî who migrated to

Transoxiana in 1508.

61 Bidlîsî, HB, fol.555b; Başaran, Heşt Bihişt, p. 181.

22

tyrannical tribal leaders of the Akkoyunlu62. But, it seems that, unlike many in Sufi

circles, Bidlîsî declined to take up service under Shah İsma‘il. Instead he preferred to

pursue his career at the Ottoman court.

Apparently, sectarian differences did not play a significant role in Bidlîsî’s

choice. A story that suggests the ambiguity of Bidlîsî’s sectarian affiliations is recounted

in the Sharafnâme. According to this, when Shah İsma‘il heard the Bidlîsî’s words

indicating Shah İsma‘il as the follower of the false sect, the Twelver Imams, (madhab-i

nâ hakk), the latter asked Bidlîsî whether he utilized such a phrase. Bidlîsî conceded that

he had indeed written it. However, he added that this phrase should be read according to

the Arabic rather than the Persian genitive structure. In other words, he had meant to say

that “our sect is true (madhabnâ hakkun)” 63. Upon Bidlîsî’s these sayings, Shah İsma‘il

applauded Bidlîsî’s mastery of rhetoric and invited Bidlîsî to work in his court. Bidlîsî

responded this invitation with a poem in which he celebrated the companionship between

their ancestors as well as between him and Shah İsma‘il in the mystical path64.

It is important to point out that while this story does not actually brand Bidlîsî as

the follower of the Safavi shah, it does suggest that he did not degrade his mystical link

with the Shah İsma‘il and his ancestors, at least not directly. Probably, Şeref cited this

story as he heard it from Ebu al-Fadl, who had a close relationship with Bidlîsî’s son, to

account for rumors that Bidlîsî had belonged to the sect of Shah İsma‘il. As the

Sharafnâme indicated and also as we shall see in the last chapter of this study, Bidlîsî

gave high credit to the sheikhs of the Safi order, as did his father, and must have regarded

Shah İsma‘il as heir to this order. Nevertheless Bidlîsî would reject the changes in the

62 Woods, The Aqquyunlu Clan, p. 179.

63 Sharafnâme, p. 343.

64 Sharafnâme, pp. 343-344.

23

mystical thoughts of Shah İsma‘il, and the Safavi ideology, Shi’ism that was introduced

in the process of transforming the Safi order into a political power. Therefore, the story

might have tried to underline the fact that even though Bidlîsî and his father had close

connection with the Safi sheikhs in the mystical path, he rejected the invitation of Shah

İsma‘il because of the impossibility of any companionship between the two of them in

political affairs.

Besides, in order to establish his state on the basis of Shi’i doctrine, Shah İsma‘il

had alienated many Sufi leaders who had Sunni tendency, such as İbrahim Gülşenî65. All

this had made the lands of Iran unsafe for mystics from different sects as well as for the

learned elite affiliated with Sufism like Bidlîsî.

Before deciding to go to İstanbul, Bidlîsî considered going to Mecca on

pilgrimage. But, someone advised him to visit İstanbul before Mecca66. Had he at that

time gone on that pilgrimage, Bidlîsî might possibly afterwards have wanted to go to

Cairo, the capital of the Mamluk state, to request the patronage of the Mamluk sultan.

Bidlîsî’s master, İbrahim Gülşenî had taken refuge with the Mamluk sultan after the

political upheavals in the Akkoyunlu lands and Bidlîsî might at that time have wanted to

join him67. Even though he changed his mind and went to the Ottoman court, Cairo

remained a viable option for him. When he clashed with the Ottoman bureaucrats in

1511, he would leave the Ottoman court under the pretext of going on pilgrimage, but

would not return to İstanbul. Instead, he would stay on in Mecca, probably in order to go

on to Cairo.

65Arjomand, “Religious Extremism”, p. 3.

66 Bidlîsî, HB, fol. 555b

67 For the information about involuntary migration of İbrahim Gülşenî due to the oppressions of Kızılbaş

see Gülşenî, Menâkıb-ı İbrahim Gülşenî, pp. 246-255.

24

Bidlîsî seems to have come to the Ottoman court without a prior invitation, but in

the expectation that he would find a receptive audience there as a man of learning and

culture. He spoke of his expectations, saying that because Bayezid II was the “kibla” of

those in need, and because, at his court, men of knowledge were valued, he had gone to

the land of this sultan in order to gain esteem68. In the Hasht Behesht, in which he

describes his first encounter with the Ottoman sultan, Bidlîsî claims that it was Sultan

Bayezid who asked him to stay at the Ottoman court, rather than him petitioning the

sultan to allow him to do so. Nevertheless, Bidlîsî had prepared himself to come into the

presence of the sultan, and presented him with some gifts including a book, Mir’ât aljamâl.

According to Bidlîsî, although the sultan had already heard about his scholarly

fame, he still wanted to test Bidlîsî’s knowledge, because he wanted to receive the

worthiest scholars from every country69. All these remarks from the epilogue to the Hasht

Behesht inevitably reflect Bidlîsî’s state of mind after ten years of struggle to gain esteem

at the Ottoman court. However, there is little reason to doubt that Bidlîsî was in dire

need of proving his scholarly excellence at that time.

In fact, there was a great deal of ongoing social, cultural as well as diplomatic

contact between the Ottoman state and the eastern Muslim lands. The rulers of these

lands were in competition, not only for power but also for the prestige of providing

patronage to the foremost scholars and mystics of the time. As one of the greatest rulers

of this region, Sultan Bayezid, too, was greatly interested in Iranian men of letters such as

Dawânî and Mulla Jâmî and corresponded with them probably in order to attract them to

68 Bidlîsî, HB, fol. 555b.

69 Ibid.

25

the Ottoman palace70. In this respect, the collapse of the Akkoyunlu State was greatly to

the advantage of the Ottoman State, and made it possible for many poets, Sufis and

bureaucrats from the lands of Acem to be employed at the Ottoman court. Sultan Bayezid

also appreciated Bidlîsî’s professional experience. When the latter entered Ottoman

service, the sultan appointed him as court secretary to the princes, and assigned him a

salary from the revenues of the village of Dubniçe in Rumelia71. Even though this

position was an important advancement for a newcomer at the Ottoman court, Bidlîsî

does not mention these years in his writings, probably because he did not find the

position commensurate with the experience of someone such as himself who had

previously served other sultans.

The crucial event in Bidlîsî’s account of these years is the sultan’s request that he

write a history of the Ottoman dynasty. Accordingly, Sultan Bayezid wanted the Ottoman

dynasty to be commemorated by a work of history written in an eloquent style (…murâdi

men hemîn zikr-i jemîl est…) and he thought that the only person who was capable of

producing such a work was Bidlîsî (nedânam ze ehl-i ‘ilm ez dovr u nazdik, der ân hidmet

kesi râ bâ to tashrîk)72. Even though it is impossible to know whether these words indeed

belonged to the sultan or not, what is important here is what Bidlîsî understood about the

art of historical writing. Taking into consideration the style of the epilogue of the Hasht

Behesht, it may be suggested that Bidlîsî was immersed in the eastern Iranian tradition of

historiography. In Quinn’s recent study on Persian historiography, the most pronounced

features of the tradition are summarized as the use of ornate, elaborate phrases and

70 See the letters of Sultan Bayezid sent to Mulla Jâmî and Dawânî see Feridun Bey, Münşeâtü’Selâtîn,

(İstanbul, 1858), 2 vols. , at vol. I, pp. 361-363.

71 Meşâ‘ir-ü-Şu‘arâ or Tezkere of ‘Aşık Çelebi, ed. by G.M. Meredith- Owens (Londan, 1971), fol. 37b.

72 Bidlîsî, HB, fol. 555b; Başaran, Heşt Bihişt, p. 183.

26

numerous rhetorical embellishments73. These features are also dominant in Bidlîsî’s

Hasht Behesht, which gained fame for its eight thousand verses. Bidlîsî argued in the

epilogue to the Hasht Behesht that history should be composed in such an ornate style

because unless history is narrated in this ‘high style’, it will not be remembered till

eternity. Bidlîsî also stated that his main purpose was not to simply provide a coherent

account of events, but to reconfigure them in a narrative embellished with metaphors,

similes, homonyms and anagrams74.

In the early sixteenth century, when the Hasht Behesht was written, there already

existed a series of chronicles in the Tevârîh-i Âl-i Osman genre that detailed the history

of the Ottoman state from its beginnings until the current time. Fleischer points out that

although late sixteenth-century Ottoman literati continued to use the chronicles of

historians of the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries such as Âşıkpaşazâde and Neşrî as

their sources, they also found the language of these chronicles to be simple and

unadorned75. Quite a few of these texts, which date, at least in their present form, from

after the conquest of Constantinople, were found too naïve to match the imperial image

and prestige of the Ottoman House76. This suggests a reason for Sultan Bayezid’s

commissioning a history of the Ottoman dynasty written in the tradition of Iranian

historiography. When it fell to Bidlîsî to realize this project, he did so by crafting a richly

textured narrative in Persian. This was a work designed not only to enhance the Ottoman

dynastic image as the most prestigious sovereign in the Muslim world, but also to bring

cultural legitimacy to its designs to enlarge its border towards Iran.

73 Sholeh Quinn, Historical Writing During The Reign of Shah ‘Abbas (The University of Utah Press,

2000), p. 23.

74 Bidlîsî, HB, fol. 556a; Başaran, Heşt Bihişt, p. 188.

75 Fleischer, Mustafa Âli, pp. 238-39.

76 Ibid., p. 238.

27

While the stylistic elegance of Bidlîsî set a new standard in the writing of

Ottoman dynastic history, it also caused some unease among the Ottoman courtiers. From

Âşık Çelebi’s tezkire, a biographical dictionary devoted to the poets of Rum, we learn

that what seemed to be a particular problem was that the Hasht Behesht was written in

Persian. According to Âşık Çelebi, Müeyyedzâde, the kadıasker of Anatolia,

recommended to the sultan that an Ottoman history should be written in Turkish and that

his former student Kemalpaşazâde, who was müderris at the medrese of Taşlık in Edirne

at that time, would be best able to do that77. Upon this, Sultan Bayezid asked

Kemalpaşazâde to compose an Ottoman dynastic history written in much the same style

as Bidlîsî’s, but in Ottoman Turkish prose rather than in Persian verse.

In addition, some Ottoman courtiers took a critical view of the Hahst Behesht on

account of its rhetorical embellishments. According to Bidlîsî, they claimed that the

metaphorical and rhetorical flourishes used even to narrate a simple event rendered the

text of the Hasht Behesht verbose and obscure78. Besides, the references the Hasht

Behesht made to the ancient kings of Iran in line with the conventions of Islamic Iranian

historiography seemed to attract the reactions of the Ottoman courtiers. Fully immersed

in the tradition of Iranian literature and historiography, in which the ancient kings of Iran

such as Rüstem, Behram and Jamshid epitomized the ideal ruler, Bidlîsî frequently

compared the Ottoman sultans with them in his work. But “the Ottoman readers”, Bidlîsî

explains, “could not understand whether he praised the Ottoman sultans or their enemies,

the Iranian kings ” because of the difficulty of his style. In this connection, it is

noteworthy that Kemalpaşazâde issued a fetva, probably some years later after the

77 Tezkere of Aşık Çelebi, fol. 37a.

78 Bidlisî, HB, fol. 555a.

28

appearance of the Hasht Behesht, concerning the religious permissibility of comparing

the Ottoman sultans with the infidel kings of the past79.

In fact, the Ottomans who knew or could read Persian were not few in number,

likewise, they also made frequent reference to the ancient kings of Iran in their writings80.

Therefore the main reason for the critique of Bidlîsî’s Hasht Behesht should not have

been on account of its rhetorical embellishments that were also used by the early Ottoman

chronicles. At the same time, some of the criticism seems to have stemmed from the

resentment felt by the Ottoman elite towards the newcomers, particularly the Acems, who

were promoted by the Ottoman sultans without climbing up the steps of bureaucracy81. It

is possible that as an émigré from Acem to the Ottoman lands Bidlîsî became a

convenient target for various individuals who had to through a long and difficult process

to occupy a position in the Ottoman court. In part, too, the criticisms reflected the

ambivalence felt by the Ottoman elites, who sought to forge an identity peculiar to the

Ottoman judicial and cultural practices82, towards the Iranian cultural tradition, even as

they engaged in a competitive dialogue with it. In this regard, the history of the Ottoman

House, which was written by Kemalpaşazâde in the same style with the work of Bidlîsî,

but in Turkish, is best exemplifies the efforts of men of letters to forge a distinctive

Ottoman imperial identity.

79 Ertuğrul Ökten, Ottoman Society and State in the Light of the fatwas of Ibn Kemal, Unpublished Master

Thesis (Bilkent University, 1996), p. 66.

80 For some examples see Tursun Bey, Târîh-i Ebü’l-Feth, ed. by Mertol Tulum (İstanbul, 1977), pp. 175,

192, 195, 204.

81 Babinger mentioned that Sultan Mehmed II also gave considerable credit to the Acem elites, and this led

to complaint among Ottoman elite in the court. See, Franz Babinger, Mehmed the Conqueror and His Time,

ed. by William C.Hickman, trans. from the German by Ralph Manheim (Princeton University Press,

Princeton, New Jersey, 1978), pp. 472-473.

82 Gülru Necipoğlu stated that this identity took a firm shape best in the period of Sultan Süleyman. See,

Gülru Necipoğlu, The Age of Sinan Architectural Culture in the Ottoman Empire (Princeton , 2005), pp.

39-40.

29

In spite of critiques, it can be concluded that Bidlîsî contributed to the

construction of the identity peculiar to Ottomans in a way; he become the vanguard of the

transformation in Ottoman historiography from simple to adorned narrative. Likewise the

later official and individual historians such as Hoca Saadeddin and Mustafa Âli would

praise Bidlîsî’s Hasht Behesht and try to adjust their histories to its style83.

On the other hand, Bidlîsî’s reactions to the criticisms of his Ottoman readers

reveal an Iranian bureaucrat’s perception of Ottoman literati. When Bidlîsî recounted the

unfair criticism directed at him by the Ottoman courtiers, especially “the vizier”, Hadım

Ali Pasha (d.1511), and “the kadı”, probably Müeyyedzâde, he hinted that it was the

Acemîs who had a taste for art and literature by referring to his critics as “some Turks

who were ignorant of the art of rhetoric” (ba‘zı Turkân râ ki ne ez meslek-i belâgat

bûd)84. The use of the word “Turk” in this connection represents a notable departure from

Bidlîsî’s usual practice, which was to refer to the Ottoman military personnel, the ulema,

or artists in his works as “Rumi” rather than as Turk or Turcoman. It seems that by

labeling his critics among the Ottoman ulema as “some Turks who were ignorant of the

art of rhetoric” Bidlîsî echoed a common perception of Turcomans among Iranian literati

as people who had military prowess, but who lacked in artistic talent and education85.

Bidlîsî was also clearly disappointed with the way his history was received by his

patron Sultan Bayezid. According to Bidlîsî, on seeing the reactions of his courtiers,

Sultan Bayezid did not pay him the amount he had promised earlier and did not promote

83 For the accepting of the Persian style by the Ottoman historians see Fleischer, Mustafa Âli, pp. 239- 242,

248.

84 For his letter in which he expressed his critics towards the Ottoman sultan see the Topkapı Palace

Archive [hereafter TSA], E. nr. 5675.

85 Even though, as Savory has shown, Turcomans were able to take on administrative office as well as

artistic commissions at the Safavi court, the prejudices held by the notables outside Turcoman circles must

have ossified, as in the case of Bidlîsî. Roger Savory, “The Qizilbash, Education, and The Arts”,

TURCICA, 6 (1975), pp. 168-169.

30

him to any high position. In return, Bidlîsî did not complete the preface and epilogue of

the Hasht Behesht, probably in order to protest the unfair treatment by the sultan. In this

way, he also kept open the possibility of dedicating this monumental work to another

ruler. Feeling he needed a break in his career at the Ottoman court in order to make a

decision about his future, Bidlîsî wanted to go on pilgrimage to Mecca, but was prevented

by Bayezid, probably because he had not yet completed his work. Nevertheless, Bidlîsî

did not hold the sultan personally responsible for this, arguing that because the sultan was

too old to fulfill his duties as sultan, he came under the influence of others, particularly

his vizier Hadım Ali Pasha. In Bidlîsî’s opinion, it was Hadım Ali Pasha’s hostility and

slander which were the main factors behind the sultan’s negative attitude toward him. By

setting the sultan against him, Ali Pasha prevented Bidlîsî from visiting Mecca when he

wished and obliged him to live at the Ottoman court like a prisoner for a while. Although

in his writings, Bidlîsî asserts that he went through this distressing period with fortitude

like a dervish, he also writes of having at the time cursed the Ottoman dynasty for his

pains86.

Fortunately for Bidlîsî, two developments took place in 1511: Hadım Ali Pasha

was killed and the sons of Sultan Bayezid began to fight each other for the throne, even

though their father was still alive. Bidlîsî interprets these happenings to be a consequence

of his curses87 even though he had earlier said, “I never complain about my Sultan”. On

the other hand, turning these developments to his advantage, he persuaded or, as he puts

it, “tricked” the sultan into sending him to Mecca. But he started off with sadness because

the hajj ceremonial proceedings were not organized in the way appropriate to a high

86 Bidlîsî, HB, fol. 556a; Başaran, Heşt Bihişt, pp. 189-90.

87 Bidlîsî, HB, fol. 556a.

31

ranking bureaucrat. After completing his hajj, he wrote a letter to Sultan Bayezid in

which he mentioned his complaints, worries, and disappointments. He asserted that in

this letter that the revenues the sultan had bestowed upon him earlier had been seized, and

furthermore, some Turks had presented the Hasht Behesht to the Uzbek sultans as if they

themselves had written it88. Bidlîsî did not hesitate to give an indirect ultimatum to the

Ottoman sultan. Firstly, he pointed out that returning to Ottoman lands was impossible

for him under these conditions and asked the sultan to send his family to him; otherwise,

he wrote, he would curse the Ottoman house89. Warning that “the meat of scholars is

poison”, he implied that those who acted unjustly towards him would be punished by

divine power90.

When no answer was forthcoming from the Ottoman court, Bidlîsî decided to

settle in Mecca, probably under the protection of the Mamluk sultan, Kansu Gavri, to

whom he gives a particular place in the last volume of his Hasht Behesht. Here, Bidlîsî

proudly depicts the Mamluk sultan’s attitude towards him. Accordingly, considering

Bidlîsî to be a respected religious scholar, the sultan kept him safe and, thanks to his

hospitality towards Bidlîsî, his esteem increased. Then the sultan honored him by

elevating him to the rank of special servant91. By glorifying the Mamluk sultan as a

unique patron and emphasizing the esteem the sultan had for him, Bidlîsî may also have

intended to emphasize his own scholarly significance which the Ottomans had ignored, or

endeavored to highlight the injustice done to him by the Ottomans. In other words, he

may be comparing the Ottoman sultan with the Mamluk sultan in terms of patronage

88 TSA, nr. 5675.

89 Ibid.

90 Ibid.

91 Bidlîsî, HB, fol. 556b; Başaran, Heşt Bihişt, pp. 194-195.

32

relationship, in which the latter was preferred to the former. But it seems that not even the

attentions of Kansu Gavri could satisfy Bidlîsî’s expectations.

After the hajj season, Bidlîsî stayed in Mecca for a year, which he describes as a

sad and lonely sojourn. At that time, Bidlîsî describes his feeling that his mission as a

bureaucrat had come to an end and that he would continue his life only as a dervish in

these words:

Because I had spent my life in vain, I decided to sit apart like those who live in

seclusion, My soul through pain shall revive, staying close to those who are

mature, …, I will put my trust in God so that I can save myself from the snare of

ambition and greed92.

In these poetical phrases, Bidlîsî seems to submit to divine will and decide to live

on, eliminating the worldly feelings that besmirch his soul. Bidlîsî might have been in a

dilemma in which, on the one hand, he was unhappy because he had not gained the

special attention of the sultans as he wished, while, on the other, he was aware that his

sense of competition and the need to obtain a high rank in the patronage relationship

system was damaging to his desire to be a person who followed the ways of God.

However, it might not have been so much a dilemma as a feeling of resignation through

which he sought to console himself and to endure the difficult conditions in his life.

Therefore, in 1512, when Sultan Selim, the new Sultan of the Ottomans, ordered Bidlîsî

to come back to İstanbul, he complied with the order without hesitation. Bidlîsî expressed

his joy over this event that changed his fate as follows :

In Mecca people were excited because a messenger announced that Sultan Selim

had become the khalîfa of God. All were happy due to the beauty of this news. I

heard about the glory of the Shah [Selim] from my nook. I prayed and thanked my

Lord! I was happy because God had granted our wish… I had told myself that I

was definitely forgotten at that [Ottoman] court. But I was not totally hopeless…

92 Bidlîsî, HB, ff. 556b-557a; Başaran, Heşt Bihişt, pp. 199-200.

33

A messenger came from the invisible world and all his news was undoubtedly

true and what [my] heart desired. With the order, the Shah’s secretary wrote the

name of this poor, İdris. In the edict the sultan ordered this miserable person to

return to the service of the court. I kissed it [the edict] with my eyes rather than

my lips and put it to my forehead… I submitted to the order of the sultan without

delay93.

Despite these words glorifying the new sultan, Bidlîsî finished his work, Hasht

Behesht with a complaint about the treatment he had been subjected to at the Ottoman

court. Furthermore, leaving modesty aside, he asserted that by calling him back to the

court, the sultan had indirectly apologized to him. Still “my sufferings were not

important”, he wrote, “because, thanks to my God, Selim would be the doctor of my

heart”94.

Probably the fluctuations in Bidlîsî’s feelings motivated him to write down what

happened to him. Likewise, the conclusion to the Hasht Behesht suggests that his feelings

changed parallel to the changes in political trends and balance of power at the Ottoman

court. Nevertheless, throughout the conclusion, he praises his work and defends his belief

that the Hasht Behesht was a work unique among the Ottoman chronicles written until

that time. Also through this complaint, he wanted to convey the message that he would

not have returned to the Ottoman lands if the sultan had not motivated him

The order from Sultan Selim had come at a time when Bidlîsî thought himself to

have been completely forgotten, ignored and dishonored. He was touched by this and was

hopeful again of advancing in his career. In fact the new assignment Sultan Selim gave

Bidlîsî would be turning point of his life.

93 Bidlîsî, HB, fol. 557a; Başaran, Heşt Bihişt, pp. 200-202.

94 Bidlîsî, HB, fol. 557b.

34

III. The War Years

After performing the hajj a year later, Bidlîsî left Mecca to enter the service of

Sultan Selim. In the winter of 1513-14, Sultan Selim was preparing for war with the

Safavis, and that spring he marched towards the east. Meanwhile, the Safavi governor of

Diyarbakır, Muhammed Ustaclu, compelled all the inhabitants of the towns including

Bitlis, Van, Hakkari and Muş, to go to Azerbaijan, and destroyed cultivated area in order

to prevent the advance of the Ottoman forces. In August 1514, at the result of the

crashing between the armies of the two states near Çaldıran (northeast of Lake Van);

Shah İsma‘il defeated and Sultan Selim occupied Tabriz95. According to Bidlîsî, he has

been the close companion of Sultan Selim during the Ottoman-Safavi conflicts, and also

before the sultan entered Tabriz, on his orders Bidlîsî, accompanied by the high ranking

Ottoman commanders, Pîrî Çelebi and Dukakinoğlu Ahmed Pasha, was sent to Tabriz as

the vanguard of the sultan’s forces. Bidlîsî explained the aim of the sultan in sending

them away from the front as the following:

“…the sultan appointed this poorest one, Pîrî Çelebi, and Dukakinoğlu Ahmed

Pasha to save Tabriz from looting and pillage. Considering [my] connections in

the past and [my] outcomes of my activities, he ordered this poorest one to

persuade the tyrannized people of Azerbaijan, Iran and Tabriz to accept the

goodwill of the sultan, and to establish the shar’ia law and re-establish Islamic

tradition…” 96.

After the Ottoman representatives entered Tabriz, thanks to the efforts of Bidlîsî

as messenger (dâ‘î), the city prepared to welcome the sultan. But shortly after the

ceremony following the victory through which the Ottoman forces displayed their power,

95 Bruinessen, Agha, pp. 142-143.

96 Bidlîsî, SN, fol. 103b; Kırlangıç, Selim Şah-nâme, p. 195.

35

because of logistical problems the Ottoman army had to leave Tabriz for Amasya, the

main military headquarters.

Bidlîsî claims that the decision to leave was made after a series of discussions.

However, Celâlzâde Mustafa, who wrote another Selimnâme, makes no mention of any

such discussions; nor does he give the names of any of the participants. He just points out

that the sultan intended to stay in Tabriz, but the janissaries wanted to return to

Amasya97. In contrast, according to Bidlîsî, although he himself had argued in favor of

the Ottoman army staying in Tabriz, others had misled the sultan by asserting that it was

impossible for the army to remain in Azerbaijan during the winter and this had provided

an advantage for the defeated Shah [Shah İsma‘il]98. Bidlîsî thought that the Ottoman

army should have passed the winter in Azerbaijan to ensure ultimate victory in this area.

He also stressed the fact that the Ottoman army would suffer both from cold and lack of

food on the way to Amasya and, more importantly, Shah İsma‘il would recapture Tabriz

after a short while.

Bidlîsî accused the people who had recommended returning to Amasya contrary

to his own advice, of being unwise, heedless and concerned for their own comfort. In this

case, he could not maintain the moderate tone that was characteristic of his works in

general and he represented himself as standing apart from the ranks of the dignitaries

surrounding the sultan. Here, Bidlîsî emphasizes the importance of the role of adviser and

the practice of consultation (meshvere), but he also stresses the point that not everyone

can give good advice:

97 Celâl-zâde Mustafa, Selim-nâme, ed. by Ahmet Uğur, Mustafa Çuhadar (İstanbul, 1997), p. 250.

98 Bidlîsî, SN, fol. 105b.

36

“Consult your friend in all of your troubles; accept only the advice of one who is

virtuous. Do not consult one who has no ability to make a difference. One who

makes mistakes has no judicious insight”99.

In using these phrases, he lays stress on his own foresight and indirectly

represents himself as a virtuous and reliable counselor. In fact, the Ottoman army met

with climatic problems and, further, as he had predicted, the Safavi forces recaptured

Tabriz. According to Bidlîsî, the sultan understood that he had acted on wrong advice and

punished those who had agitated for the armies to return, but this only led to increased

hostility towards Bidlîsî100.

In the autumn of 1514 after the Ottoman army left Tabriz, Bidlîsî moved to the

Safavi lands on the eastern border of the Ottoman State by the order of the sultan in order

to organize the tribal groups, particularly, independent Kurdish leaders101, who lived in

this area, against Safavi rule. The short-term purpose of the Ottoman sultan in sending

Bidlîsî on such a diplomatic mission to Safavi lands was to persuade the Kurdish leaders

to fight against their Safavi leader on the side of the Ottoman forces; and, in the long

term, to weaken the Safavi forces and thus attach the provinces of the Kurds to the

Ottoman lands.

Even though it is unclear who advised the sultan to give this important mission to

Bidlîsî, it is possible that either Bidlîsî himself persuaded the sultan that he would be able

to succeed in this charge or that someone close to Bidlîsî reminded the sultan of the

connection Bidlîsî had with the Kurdish leaders, and of his prestige among them. Also it

is difficult to determine the kind of position to which Sultan Selim assigned Bidlîsî but

99 Ibid., fol. 105b.

100 Ibid., fol. 121b.

101 Our usage of the term of leader indicates the tribal leadership of Kurds.

37

the sultan provided him with an imperial decree bearing the imperial cipher but without

any written commands. As is well known, in the Ottoman administrative system, both the

sultan and the beylerbeyi, the highest ranking provincial official, had the right to give

imperial edicts. In fact, if the sultan did not participate in person in a campaign during

wartime, the grand vizier substituted for the sultan and could grant an imperial edict,

using his own initiative102. Bidlîsî was neither a commander nor a beylerbeyi, but it

seems that his authority was equal to that of either. It indicates that the sultan gave Bidlîsî

the responsibility to make political and administrative decisions when he left Amasya in

order to meet with the Kurdish notables in the Safavi districts.

In the Selimshahnâme, which Bidlîsî had just begun to write, he defines his aim in

visiting the Kurdish notables as being to give them news of the Ottoman victory over the

Safavi State and to counsel them so that they could cooperate with the Ottoman forces.

With this aim, Bidlîsî met the tribal Kurdish notables who ruled over both the settled and

nomadic tribes located in the area of Diyarbakır, Bitlis, Van Hakkari, Muş, Urmiye, Siirt,

Hasankeyf, Mosul and Kerkük. According to Bidlîsî, in consequence of his hereditary

links with them and the spiritual fellowship and old ties between them, the leaders

offered their allegiance and services to the Ottoman sultan103. Throughout the political

visits he undertook between the years 1514-1517, Bidlîsî sent Sultan Selim reports to

inform him about his activities and the developments in the region. In addition, in these

reports, Bidlîsî recorded in detail his routes, meetings, experiences and successes in a

personal voice. Indeed, probably in order to underline the seriousness of his troubles and

the importance of the outcome of his activities, he described how Shah İsma‘il had sent

102 İsmail Hakkı Uzuncarsılı, Osmanlı Devletinin Merkez ve Bahriye Teşkilatı (Ankara, 1988), pp. 161-2.

103 Bidlîsî, SN, fol. 119b.

38

his servants to persuade Bidlîsî to change sides, but they could not succeed because

Bidlîsî gave them the answer that best befit a good Muslim104.

As we shall examine in a detail in the second chapter, having managed to

organize the Kurdish tribes, Bidlîsî led the Kurdish leaders to rebel together against the

Safavi government and they began to seize important centers in the Safavi districts. Some

of these centers, in which effective and united struggles on the part of Ottoman-Kurdish

tribal troops against the Safavi armies, consisting of Turcoman tribes, took place, were in

the province of Amid where Kara Khan, the Safavi commander, laid siege to Mardin and

Hasankeyf, between Amid and Cizre. During this time, unrest broke out among the

Ottoman commanders as well as between the Ottomans and Kurdish leaders, because of

the fact that Bıyıklı Mehmed Pasha appointed as governor of Diyarbakır employed a

different siege plan from that of the Kurdish leaders and Bidlîsî.

Bidlîsî claimed that when the Ottoman governor’s military tactics ended in

catastrophic defeat, Bıyıklı Mehmed Pasha began to be vindictive towards him.

Accordingly, when Sultan Selim called Bıyıklı Mehmed Pasha with his armies to

participate in a second military campaign against the Mamluk State and, ordered Bidlîsî

to stay on in Diyarbakır in order to complete the conquests in the provinces of the Kurds

and to deal with the affairs of the state there, Bıyıklı Mehmed Pasha105 prevented him

from staying in Diyarbakır 106. He criticized the Pasha for his impudence and found him

refractory. While clearly defending the practice of shared administrative power, Bidlîsî

implied that Bıyıklı Mehmet Pasha had neither accepted his advice nor had any

consultations with him, furthermore, he regarded Bidlîsî’s efforts to make an alliance

104 TSA, E. nr. 8833/II.

105 Bidlîsî, SN, ff. 146b-147a.

106 Ibid., fol. 147b.

39

between the Kurdish notables and the Ottoman State as a threat to his authority.

According to Bidlîsî, Bıyıklı Mehmed Pasha asserted that the Kurdish people regarded

him as having less authority than Bidlîsî, and for this reason, demanded that the sultan

appoint either him or Bidlîsî to another post107.

At that time, the sultan appointed Bidlîsî as kadıasker of Acem and Iraq, an office

that included Damascus and Cairo108. This office seems to have been created solely for

honoring him and did not survive into later periods. But, probably upon Bıyıklı Mehmed

Pasha’s complaints, Sultan Selim then might have dismissed Bidlîsî also from this office.

All these developments were again frustrating to Bidlîsî during the last years of his life.

His agitated state of mind is apparent in a poem he wrote in these years, entitled Kasîda-i

Mısır (Ode to Egypt). Ostensibly, Bidlîsî wrote this poem to inform the sultan about the

problems that had emerged in Cairo after the Ottoman conquest, as well as about the

malfunctions and abuses present in judicial offices. At the same time, however, he turned

the problems in Cairo into his own personal problems, reproaching the sultan, and

questioning why certain ulema of Cairo in general and he, himself, in particular, had not

been appointed to the offices they deserved109.

İbrahim Gülşenî who was in Cairo at the same time as Bidlîsî, pointed out that

when Bidlîsî asked him for advice because he was annoyed about the sultan’s lack of

concern, he suggested to him that he present the sultan with a poem. It is the poem that

was entitled Kasîde-i Mısır. But it seems that İbrahim Gülşenî warned Bidlîsî not to use

language that would make the sultan angry. Otherwise, the sultan would punish both him

107 Ibid.

108 İsmail Hakkı Uzuncarşılı, Osmanlı Devletinin İlmiye Teşkilatı (Ankara, 1988), p. 152.

109 Bidlîsî, SN, ff. 175a-175b; Kırlangıç, Selim Şah-nâme, pp. 360- 364.

40

and Bidlîsî110. Even though he was very cautious in his use of words when addressing the

sultan, this poem also includes various accusing and threatening expressions. Probably

for this reason, this poem did exasperate the sultan, and in 1518 he ordered Bidlîsî to

return to İstanbul, without elevating him to any further position111.

IV. The Last Years

Bidlîsî spent the last two years of his life in İstanbul probably in the hope of

obtaining a position in the Ottoman court. At that time, the repercussions of the Ottoman-

Safavi conflict were very much on the agenda in the Ottoman palace and in elite circles:

the military, political and religious matters relevant to the conflict were taken up in the

chronicles as well as political writings and judicial tracts. As someone who had

personally witnessed the war, and who had played a direct role in the negotiation that had

affected the outcome of the military and political conflict between the Ottomans-Kurds

and Safavis, must have shared this mood. Also this situation provided an opportunity for

Bidlîsî to complete his professional life with a high rank. Probably with these motivations

he began to draft the Selimshahnâme through which he would display his political efforts

and prove the importance of his role in realizing the Ottoman political success in the

Safavi western lands and his share in this victory. While he tried to complete this work,

he probably began to write the Kânûn-i Shahenshâhi in order to present Sultan Selim. But

before Bidlîsî completed the two works, the Ottoman sultan died unexpectedly. Most

likely, Bidlîsî, too, was ill. Still in a last effort he finished the Kânûn-i Shahenshâhi and

managed to present it to the new Ottoman sultan Süleyman. In the same year, in 1520,

110 Gülşenî, Menâkıb-ı İbrahim Gülşenî, p. 355.

111 Bidlîsî, SN, fol. 177a.

41

Bidlîsî died. He was buried in the town of Eyub, near to the tomb of Abu Ayyûb al-

Ansâr.

42

CHAPTER TWO

PRACTICING DIPLOMACY ON BEHALF OF THE OTTOMANS: THE ROLE

OF İDRİS-İ BİDLÎSÎ IN THE OTTOMAN INCORPORATION OF WESTERN

SAFAVI TERRITORIES

As we have seen in the previous chapter, with the outbreak of the war between the

Ottoman and Safavi states, Bidlîsî visited the Kurdish notables on a mission from Sultan

Selim. Through his diplomatic strategies, he helped to organize the Kurds against the

Safavi shah and to bring the lands where the Kurdish tribal population lived under

Ottoman sovereignty. At the same time, he also helped win for the Kurdish notables

considerable concessions as tribal leaders and/or provincial governors of the newly

incorporated Ottoman lands. In this chapter, we shall take a closer look at this process

and its political outcomes by analyzing the complex roles Bidlîsî played as the architect

of a military and political alliance between the Kurds and the Ottoman state as well as a

major figure behind the administrative reorganization of the Kurdish lands under

Ottoman rule.

The first section of this chapter elucidates the ways in which Bidlîsî presented the

Kurds to the Ottoman central government both during and in the aftermath of the alliance

he forged between them. The second section focuses on Bidlîsî’s role in forging a

military alliance between the Ottoman and Kurdish leaders against the Safavi state, while

the third section appraises his contribution to the establishment of a new administrative

structure in the lands recently incorporated into the borders of the Ottoman state. In a

broader sense, the second chapter illuminates the strategies used by the state as

43

alternatives to the policy of using military force in the process of incorporating a new

territory. In other words, the role of Bidlîsî brings out the importance of creating an

agreement with local notables who would share power and authority with the central

government.

The principal sources utilized in this chapter include the reports Bidlîsî sent to the

sultan regarding the political situation with the Kurdish notables, and the Selimshahnâme,

which he completed after his diplomatic mission and a clean copy of which was made by

his son posthumously. The reports of Bidlîsî as well as the Selimshahnâme will be

considered in this chapter not only as documents that shed light on the process of the

negotiation between the Ottomans and the Kurdish notables but also as texts written from

the perspective of a political intermediary, who was on the one hand an informal agent of

the Ottoman state and on the other, an affiliate of the local notables. Moreover, it should

be noted that Bidlîsî wrote the Selimshahnâme in the hope of obtaining a formal and high

rank in the Ottoman administrative system and was thus concerned to underline his own

role in the process. Interestingly, when later Ottoman historians such as Hoca Saadeddin

used the Selimshahnâme in their chronicles, they “edited out” the self-referential remarks

of Bidlîsî112.

To be able to better situate Bidlîsî’s version of events, this chapter will also make

use of other contemporaneous or near contemporaneous sources. The first and most

important of these is the Sharafnâme, a history of the Kurds, written in Persian in the late

112 For such editing can be seen in the accounts of Hoca Saadeddin on the conquest of Mardin. While he did

not give any place to the problems between Bıyıklı Mehmed Pasha and Bidlîsî, in the Selimshahnâme the

stress of Bidlîsî on the conflicts is obvious. To compare the accounts of Hoca Saadeddin with Bidlîsî’s see

Hoca Saadeddin, Tacü’t-Tevârih, pp. 313-314, Bidlîsî, SN, ff.134b-137b. Since most modern historians

have also relied exclusively on the later Ottoman chronicles, both the the complexity of the negotiations

and the role of Bidlîsî in these negotiations have been considerably obscured in modern scholarship as well.

44

sixteenth century. Its author, Şeref, who was a primary candidate of the Ottoman

governorship of the district of Bitlis at that time, but who also had to account for his

family’s both past and present political affiliation with the Safavis, came from a similar

cultural background as Bidlîsî, and held similar views on the political interests of the

Kurdish leaders. Second, this chapter also makes use of the reports of the Ottoman

commander Bıyıklı Mehmed Pasha to counterbalance the local/imperial perspective of

Bidlîsî with that of an Ottoman official who had no such connection with the local

Kurdish notables. Finally, the third section of the present chapter will draw on such

archival sources as the first cadastral registers and budget records of these lands in order

to illustrate the outcomes of the diplomatic efforts of Bidlîsî for the Ottomans and the

Kurdish notables.

I. The Kings of Acem: The Presentation by Bidlîsî about the Kurds

i- Locating Kurdistan

In a recent study, it has been argued that the use of the term “Kurdistan” or the

“provinces of the Kurds” for central western Iran and eastern and southeastern Anatolia

was of relatively recent origin: the term appears for the first time in a fifteenth-century

source, Zafernâme, and then in the Selimshahnâme of Bidlîsî, written in the early

sixteenth century, and finally assumes a more precise meaning in the Sharafnâme, written

in the late sixteenth century. All were significantly historical rather than geographical

sources, a fact which suggests that the term came into usage largely as a result of the rise

45

of the Kurdish notables as major political players in the borderland between the Ottoman

and Safavi empires113.

This was significantly a region with a highly mixed population both ethnically

and religiously. Principal groups who inhabited the mountainous lands between the

Ottoman and Safavi empires included Kurds, Arabs, Armenians, Syrian Christians as

well as Turcomans. In general, it seems that before the Ottoman-Safavi conflict, the

region was identified not so much by the ethnic composition of its population but rather

by its topographical characteristics or by the political powers that prevailed in its

administration. For instance, the fourteenth-century geographer al-‘Omarî referred to the

region as “the mountainous lands”(mamlakat al- jibâl)114, while Ibn Bibi, a historian of

the fourteenth century, called roughly the same region “the land of the Armenians”

(diyâr-i Arman) 115probably because at the time the Armenians had political superiority

over the other major ethnic groups living in that geography.

It is important to stress that the term “the province of the Kurds” did not have an

ethno-demographic meaning for Bidlîsî, either. It is true that in his writings he made no

mention of the Turcoman or Christian populations who lived in the region, and

mentioned the existence of an ethnic mixture only in relation to political concerns as in

the case of the Arab tribes such as the Ban-i Rabi‘â and ‘Ubada 116. But a similar

privileging of the political can also be seen in the way he defined the geographical

borders of “Kurdistan.”

113 Tezcan, “The Use of Kurdistan”, p. 541.

114 Ibn Fadlullah el-Ömerî, Mesâliku’l-Ebsâr fî Memâliku’l -Emsâr, ed. by Fuat Sezgin (Frankfurt,1988),

vol.2, p. 124.

115 Ibn-i Bibi, el-Evâmiru’l -‘Alâ‘iyye fî’l-‘Umûru’l -‘Alâ‘iyye, transl. by Mürsel Öztürk (Ankara, 1996),

vol.1, p. 320. For the political dominance of Armenians at that time, see Thomas Sinclair, “The Armenians

and The Kurdish Emirs of Bitlis Under The Kara Koyunlu”, The Armenian Bagheesh/Bitlis and

Taron/Mush, ed. by Richard G. Hovannisian (Mazda Publishers, California, 2001).

116 Bidlîsî mentioned two tribes in order to indicate their political preferences. See TSA, E. nr. 6610.

46

Writing at a time when the political status of the Kurds was still being negotiated,

and as one of the key negotiators himself, Bidlîsî was either hesitant or perhaps simply

unable to give precise coordinates for Kurdistan. In the reports he prepared for the

Ottoman sultan, he named an extensive area spreading over the Iraq-i Arab and the Iraq-i

Acem, the lands between the rivers of Tigris and Euphrates, Luristan and Khuzistan as

Kurdistan or the provinces of the Kurds117. According to the Selimshahnâme, Armenia,

consisting of Kemah, Azerbaijan, Bayburt, Tercan and Erzurum118, constituted a frontier

between the lands of Rum and Kurdistan. When Bidlîsî needed to introduce the local

coordinates for the route he followed or for the enemies’ military movements or to

specifically the locates where the tribes lived, he preferred to use geographical names

such as Diyarbakır, Bitlis, İmadiye, Urmiye, Azerbaijan, Iraq, and Khorasan or general

terms of geographical identification such as Acem.

In Bidlîsî’s chronicle and reports, the geographical borders of Kurdistan were

determined to a certain extent by the political statements of the Kurdish tribes. In this

regard, Bidlîsî listed numerous Kurdish tribal leaders as legitimate governors of

“Kurdistan”. Some of them were presented as the leaders of large tribal confederations

like Rozki, Bohti, Baradost, Süleymânî, and Baban. Among them, the tribe of Rozki,

which had settled in the province of Bitlis and ruled over extensive districts in the areas

of Ahlat, Erciş, Urmiye, Hakkari, Van, Vustan and Shirvan, was emphasized to be the

largest confederation of the time119. In this connection, Bidlîsî introduced the province of

Bitlis as “the Rozki government (dâr el-hukûme) of Kurdistan”120. The importance of the

117 TSA, E. nr. 8333/1, nr. 1019.

118 Bidlîsî, SN, fol. 123a; Kırlangıç, Selim Şah-nâme, p. 247.

119 Bruinessen, Agha, p. 199.

120 Bidlîsî, SN, fol. 120b.

47

tribe of Rozki was also stressed in the Sharafnâme, probably because this tribe affected

the decisions about who the ruler of Bidlîsî would be. In Bidlîsî’s writings, political

recognition is mentioned not only in connection with the major tribal leaders in these

lands and the leaders of the cities of Çemişkezek, Diyarbakır, Mardin, and Hasankeyf, but

also with reference to the tribal leaders whose tribes seemed to have been divided into

smaller units situated across the lands from Mosul to Shiraz and from Van to Shirvan.

The first reports of Bidlîsî, dating probably to 1515 indicate that he classified all

these lands under the designation “Kurdistan” in consideration of the potential resistance

among Kurdish leaders to Shah İsma‘il’s administration. In these reports, Bidlîsî claimed

that he had met numerous Kurdish tribal leaders who had trouble with the Safavi shah

and that the problems between the leaders and Shah İsma‘il had arisen either because the

former did not recognize the governor appointed by the Safavi shah or because, as they

were being integrated into the Safavi administration, they could no longer lay claim to

being rulers of their own territories. It must have been with these conflicts in mind that

Bidlîsî defined the borders of Kurdistan as being greater than he would in later reports. At

the beginning of his diplomatic visits to the region, Bidlîsî was probably counting on an

Ottoman victory in the area and wanted to promote the Kurdish notables as the potential

Ottoman governors of the lands he called Kurdistan. On the other hand, as the conflict

between the Safavi and Kurdish forces progressed, he also took into account the results of

that conflict. These results are mirrored in his last reports, in which Bidlîsî redefined

Kurdistan to exclude Luristan and Khuzistan, which were designated as part of Kurdistan

in his first reports. Furthermore, he referred to these as provincial territories, separate

48

from each other121, probably because both the Kurdish tribal leaders in the

aforementioned provinces considered it politically advantageous to remain under the

Safavi administration, and because the Ottoman sultan would not attempt, or even

envisage, any military expedition to these lands for some time to come. Therefore, in his

last reports, dating probably to 1515 and 1516 and in the Selimshahnâme, which may be

regarded as his last word on the military and political developments in these areas, Bidlîsî

defined the provinces of the Kurds as comprising the territories between Azerbaijan,

Baghdad and Diyarbakır122. This is also how they would be defined in the cadastral

registration which we will examine in the last part of the present chapter. In short, the

borders of Bidlîsî’s Kurdistan changed whenever lands were captured, lost or recaptured

by the Kurdish military forces.

Bidlîsî’s efforts to locate the cities of Kurdistan also reflect the power dynamics in

this region. According to his reports, some specific cities such as Bitlis, Diyarbakır,

Mardin, Hasankeyf, Mosul, and Erbil were the fields where Safavi military units under

the command of the Turcoman leaders, Mehmed Ustaclu and Çayan Sultan, clashed with

Kurdish tribal troops under the leadership of Şeref Khan and Melik Halil Eyyûbî. Again,

the conflicts between some Kurdish tribes and Safavi forces in the territory of Khuzistan

and Luristan encompassing the mountainous region of Zaghros, which Bidlîsî calls the

mountain (kûhistân) of Kurdistan123, developed independently of the Ottoman forces,

which had not yet marched as far as these areas. In fact, the Kurdish tribes who lived in

121 For to compare the two documents see, TSA, E. nr. 8333/I and nr. 6610. While the former was recorded

shortly after the battle of Çaldıran in 1514, the latter must be sent in a time between 1515-1516, when the

Kurdish armies waited for the support of the Ottoman armies to conquest the citadel of Diyarbakır and

Mardin.

122Bidlîsî, SN, ff. 129b-130a; Kırlangıç, Selim Şah-nâme, p. 261. Even though Bidlîsî attributed these

expressions to the Kurdish leaders, these might of course be his own words.

123 TSA, E. nr. 8333/I.

49

the mountains of Zaghros and in the lands near Shiraz, west of Isfahan, were depicted as

people who did not recognize Safavi sovereignty, and who had rebelled against the Safavi

administration and recaptured their lands.

In the Selimshahnâme, Amid is described as an important and impregnable citadel

in order to take which violent skirmishes took place between the Safavi armies and the

allied powers of the Kurds and the Ottomans. In fact, for the Safavis, Amid constituted

the farthest district they had managed to reach in the west and its administration was

allocated to the Turcoman Ustaclu tribe. Probably because he noticed the strategic

location of Amid for the Safavis, Bidlîsî wanted to remind the Ottoman sultan of the geopolitical

importance of the city by referring to it as “the key to the conquest of the Iranian

lands (Âmid-i mahrûse ki kilîd-i futûh-i memâlik-i Irânî est)”124. With the same intention,

Bidlîsî underlines its historical significance of the city, by referring to the first conquest

of Amid by Muslims under the command of a historical figure, Halid bin Velid,

emphasizing the difficulties of capturing the city and citing Amid to be “the center of the

throne of Diyarbakır (tahtegâh-i vilâyet-i Diyarbakr)”125. Moreover, the solid walls, tall

bastions and spacious interior of the stronghold of Amid extending from the earth to the

heavens, together with the Tigris flowing before it, were a source of aesthetic delight for

Bidlîsî126, and he describes it in metaphoric expressions and poetic phrases. As narrative

strategies the fulsome compliments Bidlîsî’s paid to Amid served to accentuate its geopolitical

significance.

As a good politician, Bidlîsî represented the war in such a way as to show the

Ottoman sultan a situation in which all the leaders of “Kurdistan” were uneasy and ready

124 Bidlîsî, SN, fol. 130a.

125 Ibid., ff. 132b-133a; Kırlangıç, Selim Şah-nâme, pp. 268-269.

126 Bidlîsî, SN, ff. 132b-133a.

50

to organize themselves to rise against the Safavi administration. In fact, it should be noted

that the conflicts between the Ottoman and Safavi states for the control of trade routes

provided the disorganized Kurdish leaders with an opportunity to rule the lands which

they had lost or over which they had never established effective political rule. In this

connection, in the narratives of Bidlîsî we can see his efforts to turn this development into

an advantage both for the state he served and for the Kurdish tribal rulers. As a

consequence, the term Kurdistan was created in order to organize a district to be

administered by the Kurds who would be integrated into the Ottoman imperial system.

In his monumental history of “the sultans of Kurdistan” Şeref had a similar aim as

Bidlîsî. The borders of the lands that belonged to the Kurdish “sultans” as drawn in the

Sharafnâme, correspond to the larger Kurdistan conceived by Bidlîsî in his first

reports127. Differently from Bidlîsî, nevertheless, his choice for the provincial center of

the region was not Diyarbakır, but rather, Bitlis. Therefore, in his chronicle, Şeref

stressed the Hellenic and Persian origins of Bitlis to bolster both its history previous to

the Islamic era and the link between the Muslim Kurds and pre-Islamic Iranian history128.

Bidlîsî’s concern, above all, was the territorial integration of these areas into the

Ottoman state, so he gave the term “Kurdistan” an administrative meaning. In this sense,

the borders of Kurdistan were established but lacked a specific geographic, demographic

or ethnic content. On the other hand, in the depictions of Bidlîsî, Kurdistan, identified as

being within the geographical boundaries of Acem, was an area where Kurdish leaders

127 In the Sharafnâme, the borders of Kurdistan also extended from the shores of the sea of Hurmuz to

Maraş and Malatya, see Sharafnâme, pp. 13-14. Seemingly, when a new conflict re-emerged between the

Safavi and Ottoman states in the middle of sixteenth century, the prince of Bitlis, Şerafeddin, as the one

who had potential to establish an autonomous state revealed the Bidlîsî’s map, adding in detail the histories

of tribal leaders or “Kurdish sultans” who fought with each other for leadership or with foreign states such

as Mongols and Turcoman groups for independence. By doing so, Şeref, alike Bidlîsî, proved the political

legitimacy of Kurds in the lands in a definitive depicted border.

128 Sharafnâme, pp. 335-338.

51

had historically held political power. In this regard, the term “Kurdistan” makes reference

to the ethnic identities of the regional political powers. For this very reason, Bidlîsî

frequently emphasized in his writings the names of the Kurdish leaders having political

power as the following: Emir Davud, the king (melik) of Hizan129, Emir Şeref/Şeref

Khan, the king of Bitlis130, Melik Halil Eyyûbî, the holder (sâhib) of Hasankeyf131, Ali

Beg, the ruler (hâkim) of Sason132, Emir Sultan Hüseyin, the ruler of İmadiye133, Bahtiyâr

and Ağlı, the Emirs of Bahtiyârî and Kulkher of Luristan and Khuzistan134, and so on.

The Kurds’ political position characterized their geographic locations in Bidlîsî’s

presentation. Culturally, Bidlîsî depicted Kurdistan as an area overlapping with

Acem/Iran and to a lesser degree with Arabia. Furthermore, he wanted to include the

Kurds in the history of these two regions. In this manner, Bidlîsî provided a solution to

the problem of legitimacy of the autonomous entity and authority of the Kurds. We shall

see in the next section Bidlîsî’s attempt to establish a historical and cultural link between

the Kurds and the people of Iran in order to legitimize the leadership of the Kurds in the

lands of Iran and Arabia.

ii- Genealogical Legitimacy

Nobility

In the Selimshahnâme, the leading Kurdish tribes who lived in the

abovementioned lands were presented as having an aristocratic structure. Bidlîsî’s

129 Bidlîsî, SN, fol. 120a.

130 Ibid.

131 Ibid.

132 Ibid.

133 Ibid., fol. 119b.

134 TSA, E. nr. 8333/I.

52

discourse on the dynastic formation of the Kurdish families made use of the claim of

noble lineage based on the Kurdish leaders’ being either members of or in the service of

families that had played a significant role in the region.

The titles of the Kurdish leaders, as used by Bidlîsî, were expressions of their

nobility even though he did not attempt to expound their origins. As an all-embracing

formula, the title of the kings of Acem (mulûk ve hukkâm-i Ajem) frequently appears in

Bidlîsî’s writings135. This title, which was used to connect the Kurds with Iranian history,

might have also originated from the belief that certain Kurdish leaders’ ancestors were

Iranian or even Iranian nobles. The Sharafnâme also gives considerable space to semilegendary

stories about the origins of the Kurdish ruling families in order to prove this

connection. Accordingly, the ancestors of the rulers of Bitlis, for example, were the

descendants of a Sasanid king136.

The lineage ascribed to pre-Islamic Iranian kings produced a strong justification

for the right of inheritance in the territories of Acem for Bidlîsî and Şeref. But, regarding

the historical past of Iran, it is obvious that the noble lineage of the Kurds depended on

various historical figures who would provide them with a prestigious genealogy. The

most influential of these genealogies went back to the family of the Prophet. For this

reason, Bidlîsî glorified some Kurdish tribal leaders because they were seyyid137. Also in

the Sharafnâme, numerous Kurdish families were presented as Abbasid nobles, based on

their being descendants of the Khashimî family, or simply seyyids138. Since descent from

135 For a couple of examples see Bidlîsî, SN, ff. 121a, 130a.

136 Sharafnâme, p. 362. For some stories indicating pre-Islamic Iranian ties of Kurds families see Ibid., pp.

191, 252.

137 For the praise of Bidlîsî devoted to Ahmed Beg Zorraki, whom he called with the title of seyyid see

Bidlîsî, SN, fol. 126b; Kırlangıç, Selim Şah-nâme, p.254.

138 For the Kurdish families who were from Abbasid lineage see Sharafnâme, pp. 89, 106, 162, 220.

53

the family of the Prophet strengthened the Islamic identity of the Kurds, it seemed to be

as significant a source of political legitimacy as descent from the Iranian kings. Besides,

to come from Arab lineage or to be a member of a family with a prestigious history in the

area must have been considered as a determining factor in becoming leader. One such

Kurdish family who had played a major role in the period of the crusades was that of

Salah al-din al-Ayyûbî. Having stressed that Melik Halil descended from this family of

Salah al-din al- Ayyûbî, Bidlîsî also justified Sultan Selim’s grant of the lands of

Hasankeyf to Melik Halil Eyyûbî139.

The Hereditary Political Positions

Bidlîsî defined the socio-political groups to which the Kurds belonged as tribes

(aşâir, kabîla or kavm). More detailed information about the socio-political organization

of the Kurds comes from the Sharafnâme, which states that the Kurds were subdivided

into numerous tribes (aşâir) and confederate tribes. Both Bidlîsî and the author of the

Sharafnâme referred to the leaders of the Kurdish tribes with such titles as beg, melik,

emir/mir, or sultan. It is obvious that the titles conveyed governmental meanings despite

the fact that Kurdish leaders with these titles listed in Bidlîsî’s writings did not occupy

any governmental positions at that time. Therefore, the usage of these titles simply

referred to these leaders’ status remaining from the past. For this reason, Bidlîsî presented

the leaders as those who had hereditary rights on the administrative leadership of the

lands dating back to the time of their prestigious, powerful, and warrior ancestors.

When Bidlîsî emphasized the authority of the Kurdish tribal leaders, his concepts

of leadership had a dual meaning. The first is tribal leadership, which has to do with the

inner organization of the Kurds, and the second is provincial administration, which was

139 Bidlîsî, SN, fol. 122a; Kırlangıç, Selim Şah-nâme, p. 244.

54

granted by whichever state prevailed in the region. In fact the Kurds had had certain

problems of the states that had rules the region140. At the same time, however, they had

also provided the states with provision troops. By the end of the Seljuk era, many Kurdish

rulers had been rewarded for their service as military officers with a grant of lands and

they emerged as the new local rulers in the Kurdish tribal structure141.

Even if the details of these military developments at that time are omitted in the

Sharafnâme, there is particular mention of the rights of Kurdish leaders to govern the

territories they had gained, seemingly as a result of these conflicts, even when they were

required to formally recognize the central government or local governmental appointees.

Accordingly, the ancestors of the Kurdish leaders had obtained governance over their

territories by permission of the Abbasid caliphs, Seljukid sultans or Timur142.

Furthermore, it was asserted in the Sharafnâme that Emir Şemseddin and İzzeddin Şir,

who had been the rulers of Bitlis and Ahlat respectively, in the fifteenth century, had an

imperial edict issued by Chingis, the Mongol emperor. The author of the Sharafnâme, a

potential candidate for the governorship of Bitlis in the late sixteenth century, stated the

reason for the existence of this edict, written in Uighur as follows:

This edict declares that this noble and well-known family has the property right of

the province of Bitlis for good. The writer of these words saw this edict given by

Chingis. The aim is to prove that the great sultans favored this family, did not

attack its territories, or even if they did, later gave them back143.

Even if the author of the Sharafnâme attempted to demonstrate the governorship

140 Nazmi Sevgen, “Kürtler”, Belgelerle Türk Tarihi Dergisi 6/1(1956), pp. 49-57; Minorsky, “Kurds,

Kurdistan” Encyclopedia of Islam, New Edition, pp. 447-464, at pp. 449-456.

141 David Mc Dowall, A Modern History of The Kurds (London&New York, 1996), p. 22.

142 Sharafnâme, pp. 19, 91, 153.

143Sharafnâme, pp. 91-92. In the Sharafnâme the author mentioned that his own family had also such

documents. See, Ibid., pp. 373-374.

55

of his ancestors with evidence from formal registers, the ownership of the lands by the

Kurdish tribal rulers mostly originated from stories, legends and hearsay current among

Kurds. On the other hand, what was important for Şeref was that documents or hearsay

provided Kurdish tribal leaders with the justification for their political leadership. At the

same time, Bidlîsî’s insistence that the administrative authority inherited by the Kurds

from their ancestors had been seized by Shah İsma‘il was related to his efforts to justify

the Kurdish leaders’ political legitimacy in the eyes of the Ottoman sultan. Relying on

foresight, Bidlîsî must have found such legitimacy necessary for later developments.

Indeed, by acquiring positions of power from the Ottoman sultan, the Kurds would

become one of the parties forming the military, political and administrative conjuncture

that emerged after the Battle of Çaldıran.

iii- Marital Kinsmen

In the Kurdish and Turcoman tribes, kinship established by marrying into the

ruling dynasties with military, political and economic dominance was another way to

obtain great prestige and power as well as political and economic advantages144. The

kinship network among the Kurdish notable families that had intermarried with Arab,

Akkoyunlu, Safavi and other Kurdish families seem to have provided both sides with

benefits, even if they were not as important as the ones obtained by the Kızılbaş

families145.

144 Maria Szuppe, “Kinship Ties between the Safaviis and the Qizilbash Amirs in Late Sixteenth-Century

Iran: a Case Study of the Political Career of Members of the Sharaf al-Din Oghli Tekelu Family” in Safavi

Persia, ed. Charles Melville (London and New York, 1996), pp. 79-104, at p. 79.

145 By marring with Safavi princes, Kızılbaş families became the members of the dynastic family. See

Szuppe, “Kinship Ties”, pp. 80-95.

56

With matrimonial ties among ruling households of different ethnicity, commercial

relationships were also firmly established as in the case of the Kurds of Şehrizor and the

Arab Bedouins, the Ban-i Shayban146. Several political figures appeared in Iranian

geographical territories: one of these was Daysam bin İbrahim (d.956-57), who was the

son of an Arab by a Kurdish woman147. Such a network was also established between

local leading families and the royal families of the central government. In the fifteenth

century, Şemseddin, the ruler of Bitlis, gave his daughter in marriage to Kara Yusuf, the

ruler of the Karakoyunlu State, and helped him to re-establish his power148. On the other

hand, such networks, which were established to consolidate the political authority of both

sides, gave birth to rival factions. Uzun Hasan, the ruler of the Turcoman Akkoyunlu

dynasty, a rival to the Karakoyunlu, married the daughter of Ömer Beg, the leader in

Tercil and Atak around northeastern Diyarbakır. As a result of this marital tie, Uzun

Hasan bestowed on Ömer Beg and his sons governorship over the villages of Mihranî and

Nuşad. Furthermore, he added Bidlis to Tercil and Atak149. In doing so, Uzun Hasan must

have aimed both to exclude Şemseddin, who did not recognize his sovereignty, and to

gain power over the alliance between Şemseddin and Kara Yusuf. As for the leader of

Tercil, he enlarged his domain thanks to this marital tie. With the same aims, the ruler of

Bitlis in the sixteenth century, Şeref Khan, married the daughter of the ruler of

Hasankeyf150, and gave his sister to the ruler of Sason, Ali Beg151. After the Safavi

invasion, marriages of a similar nature took place between the Kızılbaş and Kurdish

146 Minorsky, “Kurds, Kurdistan”, p. 452.

147 Ibid.

148 Ibid., p. 457.

149 Sharafnâme, pp. 250-251.

150 Ibid., p. 382.

151 Ibid., p. 193.

57

leaders. In order to legitimize his authority in the province of Diyarbakır where contests

among Kurdish tribes emerged against the Safavi governance, Muhammad Ustaclu

married the sister of Diyâdin Süleymânî, the tribal leader in the district of Meyyafarkin to

the south of Diyarbakır152.

As seen above, the author of the Sharafnâme gave considerable place to marital

kinship probably in order to bolster the political claims of the Kurdish tribal leaders. With

the same aim, Bidlîsî mentioned the marriage between Melik Halil Eyyûbî, who was one

of the most prestigious notables of the area, and the sister of Shah İsma‘il. Interestingly,

when he mentioned this marriage between a Kızılbaş and a Sunni Muslim, he did not

express any disapproval. Rather, he limited his criticism to the Safavi shah’s bypassing

his son-in-law and appointing a Kızılbaş leader to be governor of Hasankeyf instead153.

Apparently, Bidlîsî thought that the marital tie of Melik Halil with the Safavi dynasty had

provided him with the right to the administration of Hasankeyf, quite apart from his

Ayyubid background.

In this geography, marriage was a pivotal institution in establishing and

maintaining sovereignty. Taking this fact into consideration, Bidlîsî asserted that the

Safavi rulers married the daughters of kings and Iranian sultans (bâbenât-i mulûk ve

selâtîn –i İran) with this very aim154. When he made such remarks, Bidlîsî probably

meant not only the post-Mongol sultans and the Akkoyunlu sultan, Uzun Hasan, the

maternal grandfather of Shah İsma‘il, but also the dominant Kurdish families, whom he

regarded as “the kings of Acem”. If this is correct, Bidlîsî also implied that the marriages

between the ruling Kurdish families and the Safavi dynasty were a major factor in

152 Ibid., pp. 264-265.

153 Bidlîsî, SN., fol. 126b.

154 Ibid., fol. 72b.

58

validating the claims of the Safavi shah and his administrators for their political presence

in Iran. Even if the marital ties justified the political authority of the Kurdish tribal

leaders, too for both Bidlîsî and Şeref, from another perspective, the cases of Melik Halil

and Süleymânî can be regarded as a factor in the Safavi shah’s favor. Having noticed this

fact, Bidlîsî would also state that what the Safavi shah aimed at by establishing a marital

kinship with the Kurdish notables was no more than a strategy for expanding his

power155.

Bidlîsî consistently stressed that the Kurds were rightful heirs to the lands which

the Safavis had usurped in their territories. Nevertheless, it is a fact that when the Safavi

military forces began to seize the Akkoyunlu lands where the Kurds lived, the ruling

leaders who were removed from local government began to negotiate with the Safavi

shah with the aim of regaining their authority. In the same way, the Safavi government

allied with the Kurdish leaders in order to be able to control over the Kurdish tribes. To

marry off Kurdish women into Safavi royal families or to marry Safavi royal women can

be regarded as part of these negotiations because marriage created a political, social and

economic alliance, even if it did not always satisfy both sides at the same time.

Between the Kurdish leaders and Shah İsma‘il, there was an obvious political and,

in some cases, religious affinity, which was formed with or without matrimonial ties.

This stemmed from the fact that the Safavi shah, as a regional power over the lands of

Iran, awakened the Kurdish leaders’ political and religious interests. Bidlîsî was aware of

this fact just as the Ottoman government was. What is significant here is that the alliances

between the Kurds and the Safavi shah led the Ottoman sultan and officers to distrust the

Kurdish tribal leaders and to suspect them of being on the same side with the Kızılbaş. It

155 Ibid.

59

was unlikely that the Kurds, seen as potential religious followers of Shah İsma‘il, would

obtain Ottoman military support or governorship of the lands. Regarding this as an

eventual probability, Bidlîsî’s efforts as they were represented in his reports seem to have

been to dissipate the distrust and suspicions of the Ottoman government. In doing so, he

portrayed the Kurds as being eager to take back their hereditary lands from the Safavis.

Moreover, by representing the Kurds as having fought against the Safavi forces much

more than the Ottoman armies, he tried to prove that Kurds already deserved the

governorship of the lands for the sake of which they had been fighting and over which

they held property rights. Another attempt by Bidlîsî to gain the confidence of the

Ottoman sultan manifested itself in the expressions through which he tried to demonstrate

that the Kurds were eager to fight not only for territorial domination but also for the

salvation of religion. In the following part we will appraise this effort and examine how

and why Bidlîsî exonerated some of the Kurdish leaders and tribes from the label of

“Kızılbaş”.

iv- Kurdish Religious Affiliations

The territories of Iraq-i Arab and Iraq Acem where the Kurds lived were rather

heterogeneous not only ethnically, but also religiously156. Among the Kurds there were

not only sectarian Sunni orders but also mystical marginal groups such as Yezidis and

ahl-i Hak as well as ghulat Shi’i157. It is difficult to determine the exact nature of the

156 Bruinessen and Dowall suggested that with the Seljuk’s sovereignty the eastern Anatolia welcomed the

massive migration of Turcoman tribes and they led to the cultural changes and social formations in the new

and old hosts of this lands. Bruinessen related the existence of variety in beliefs among the Kurdish tribes

to the new formations, see Martin Van Bruinessen, Kürtlük, Türklük, Alevîlik (İstanbul, 2000), pp. 95-96;

Dowall, A Modern History of The Kurds, pp. 22-23.

157 For the sectarian characters of Kurds see Martin van Bruinessen, Mollas, Sufis and Heretics: The Role of

Religion in Kurdish Society, Collected Articles (The ISIS Press, Istanbul, 2000).

60

religious connections between the Safavi shah and these marginal groups in the early

sixteenth century. However, at that time, Bidlîsî regarded the leaders of the Kurdish tribe

of Pazuki and the leaders of the district of Hakkari, İzzeddin Şir, and his son, Zahid, as

religious followers of Shah İsma‘il158. Even if within the Kurdish tribal society there were

marginal religious factions politicized by the Safavi shah, according to Bidlîsî, the tribe

of Pazuki and the ruling family of Hakkari had become Kızılbaş because of their military

and political preferences. In fact, during the Ottoman military expedition against the

Safavi state, anyone who fought against the Ottoman armies or who did not agree to fight

against the Safavi state was simply regarded as Kızılbaş by Bidlîsî. Alaüddevle, the

leader of the Dulkadir principality, for example, was accused of this159. It is no surprise

that a similar argument was used in the Sharafnâme. It seems that the author labeled

some of the Kurdish tribal rulers including İzzeddin Şir and Halid as Kızılbaş because

Shah İsma‘il supported them as political alternatives to Şeref Khan and the latter’s allies

such as Melik Halil160. Above all, both Bidlîsî in the Selimshahnâme and Şeref in the

Sharafnâme attempted to secure the governorship of Bidlis, Van and Hasankeyf in favor

of Şeref Khan and his ally, Melik Halil Eyyûbî, by accusing the rivals of being Kızılbaş.

They did this by implying that if they were not with them then they must be against them:

namely, with the Kızılbaş. It is most probable that together with other political factors, a

similiar manner of reasoning also had an effect on the murder of Pazuki Halil by the

158 Bidlîsî, SN, fol. 126b; TSA, E. nr. 8333/I-II. Also for the accusations of Bidlîsî about the leaders of

Hakkarî for being deviant Kızılbaş particularly see TSA, E. nr. 1019.

159 For such accusations as hak nâ shinâs, munâfik, mulhid see Bidlîsî, SN, ff. 123b-124b; Kırlangıç, Selim

Şah-nâme, pp. 246-248.

160 For particularly the tribe of Pazuki the author of Sharafnâme used the phrase of “ they had no a certain

sect (medheb-i mu‘âyyen nedârend) ”. For this and other definitions about the leading family of Hakkari,

the tribes of Bajnawî and Pazuki see respectively Sharafnâme, pp. 95, 157, 328-329; TSA, E. nr.1019. In

Sharafnâme there is also mention about such religious excessive groups as Kızılbaş and Yezidi Kurds

besides to Kızılbaş Kurds as being political followers of Shah İsma‘il, see Sharafnâme, p. 14.

61

Ottoman sultan, even though the former had pledged his loyalty to Sultan Selim in

person161.

It is striking that Bidlîsî always found it necessary to differentiate the Kızılbaş

from the Sunni Kurds as follows: “…The leaders of Baradost and Nasir Ustani were

people with pure souls and differed from the Kızılbaş…”162, “…. Seyyid Sultan Ahmed

was a pure Muslim but out of necessity had to associate with to Kızılbaş

Hüsameddin…”163, “… the kings of Shirvan were Kızılbaş…”164, “Melik Beg, [the

grandson of İzzeddin Şir] was fortunately chastened [by Bidlîsî] ”165. In specifying people

and geographical locations in his reports, Bidlîsî categorized them according to their

sectarian preferences. Through such narrative strategies, he tried to identify the friends

and foes of the Ottoman sultan. In this respect, the case of the chaste Melik Beg is a

striking example. Bidlîsî wanted to introduce him to the sultan as a devout Muslim, in

spite of his father, Zahid, and grandfather, İzzeddin Şir, known for their adherence to

Shah İsma‘il. As we shall examine in detail, Bidlîsî must have adopted this strategy

because he had promised Melik Beg an administrative position.

Bidlîsî represented the Kurds as pious Sunni Muslims and makes no mention of

the Yezidis, ahl-i Hak or Kızılbaş Kurds with a few exceptions such as Pazuki Halil and

İzzeddin Şir. Nevertheless, while Bidlîsî made considerable effort to prove that the Kurds

were Sunni Muslim, at the same time, he confessed that the Kurds had adjusted

themselves to the religious rituals of the Kızılbaş. According to Bidlîsî, after the Kurds

had been called to fight for Islam and jihad, they proved their devotion to the Sunni sect

161 For the details of the case of the leader of Pazuki see the second part of the present chapter.

162 TSA, E. nr. 6610.

163 TSA, E. nr. 1019.

164 Ibid.

165 Ibid.

62

and its protector, the caliph-sultan Selim, by relinquishing their subordination to the

Kızılbaş, removing the vile and deviant practices of the Kızılbaş from their worship and

begining to act in accordance with the beliefs of the Sunni sect166. In another section of

his work, he noted that after the leaders of Kurds had turned away from the Safavi shah,

they eradicated the religious practices of Kızılbaş that were performed in the mosques,

and changed them in the direction of ahl-i Sunna167. Despite the fact that these statements

of Bidlîsî indicate the religious tendencies among Kurds towards the practices of a

marginal mystical order, the endeavors of the Kurds to be pious Sunni Muslims were

emphasized to demonstrate their credibility as political leaders.

Furthermore, to prove the piety of the Kurds, Bidlîsî claimed that when the Safavi

state had established sovereignty in Iran, the Kurds had fought against the Safavi armies

not only to get back their hereditary lands but also for the sake of Islam. While displaying

superior heroism and prowess during the war, after the conquest they embellished their

territories lavishly with mosques and medreses168. Moreover, “for this very reason”,

Bidlîsî wrote, “they were exposed to the tyranny of Shah İsma‘il; in particular, the

virtuous pure religious scholars of Diyarbakır were suffering... and they sought refuge

with the Ottoman sultan who provided it to the adherents of Islam”169. References to the

wronged but brave Muslim Kurds appear in Bidlîsî’s works whenever he reminds Sultan

Selim of the necessity of military unity under his leadership during the conflicts between

the Kurdish forces and the Safavi armies. Probably Bidlîsî emphasized the wretched state

into which the Kurds had fallen in their fight against Shah İsma‘il not only to prove their

166 Bidlîsî, SN, ff. 129b-130a; Kırlangıç, Selim Şah-nâme, pp. 261-262.

167 Bidlîsî, SN, ff. 120a-120b, 133b.

168 Bidlîsî, SN, fol. 120a.

169 Bidlîsî, SN, fol. 119a, 130a; TSA, E. nr. 6610.

63

religious devotion as Sunni Muslims, but also to persuade Sultan Selim, who had

postponed the second military expedition against Iran in part because of the inconsistent

activities of Kurds, that they could, in fact, be trusted.

Bidlîsî was not alone in emphasizing that the Kurds were Sunni Muslims. It is

also echoed in what the representatives of Kurdish tribal leaders, who tried to convince

Bıyıklı Mehmed Pasha, the Beylerbeyi of Erzurum, of their loyalty to Sultan Selim, told

the Ottoman commander, saying that their business was to live between the Safavi and

Ottoman lands as good Muslims and not to cause any disorder within these boundaries170.

The reports sent by the Ottoman commander, Bıyıklı Mehmed Pasha to Sultan Selim, on

the other hand, indicate that he did not trust the Kurdish notables. Aware of this distrust

on the Ottoman side, Bidlîsî insisted that the Kurds were ahl-i Sunna and tried to make a

sharp distinction between the Kurds and the rest of Safavi society in religious terms with

the ultimate goal of dismissing all suspicion that the Kurds could be religious and

political followers of Shah İsma‘il. Furthermore, the lands to be bestowed by the Ottoman

Sultan would be safe as the Kurds had pledged their loyalty to the sultan in the presence

of Bıyıklı Mehmed Pasha.

v- Political Associations with Neighbors in the Early Sixteenth Century

When Bidlîsî and the author of the Sharafnâme argued that the sole common

characteristic of the Kurds was to believe in the oneness of God and in the sunna of the

Prophet Muhammed, they implied that this factor was not strong enough to bring the

Kurds together171. In fact, with this remark Bidlîsî as well as Şeref sought to draw the

170 TSA, E. nr. 5858.

171 Bidlîsî, SN, ff. 129b-130a; Sharafnâme, p. 16.

64

attention of the Ottoman sultan to the inner conflicts among the Kurds, which made them

vulnerable to external interference. Also with this remark, Bidlîsî suggested that this led

to a division of political authority among the Kurdish tribes. He seems to have presumed

that if proper political strategies were applied, these conflicts could result in favor of both

the Ottomans and the Kurds. At the same time, he probably wanted to remind the

Ottoman sultan that otherwise, the Kurds would change sides whenever they saw their

political future at stake.

When informing the sultan about the political condition in the region, Bidlîsî also

took into consideration the political experiences of the Kurdish leaders in the past. Most

probably, he had been an eyewitness to most of the events he discussed when he was in

the Akkoyunlu palace. At that time, the Kurdish tribal leaders had tried to protect their

political existence by turning the conflicts between the two Turcoman states, the

Akkoyunlu and the Karakoyunlu, to their advantage. The ruler of Bitlis, for example, had

established close relationships with the ruler of the Karakoyunlu State, when the

Akkoyunlu State augmented its pressure on the Kurdish leaders.172. By doing so, the

latter had both divided the forces that would constitute a threat in his territories and

maintained his political existence by playing one rival off against another. As for the

Akkoyunlu ruler, he had tried to weaken the power of the ruling dynasties of Bitlis and

Hakkari, by appointing the family of the Mahmûdî to be the administrators of Hakkari,

thus inciting a new struggle between the family of the Mahmûdî and the leading families

of Bitlis and Hakkari173.

172 For the attitudes of Uzun Hasan towards those who allied with Karakoyunlu state see Sharafnâme, p.

190. Also see the part of Marital Kinsmen in the present chapter. For the relationship between the

Karakoyunlu leader, Kara Yusuf and the leaders of Bitlis, Şemseddin, see Sharafnâme, pp. 474-478.

173 For the struggle for the leadership of Hakkari see Ibid., p. 301.

65

When Uzun Hasan established his sovereignty in the Iraq-i Arab, most Kurdish

leaders were exposed to the centralizing policies of Uzun Hasan and later, of his sons174.

In fact, at this time, the Kurdish leaders may have been looking for support from another

power such as the Ottoman State. But probably because the Ottoman military agenda did

not include expansion in that direction at that time, the appearance of the Safavi shah as a

new power in the east must have seemed like an opportunity for the Kurdish leaders to

regain the political power they had lost during the period of the Akkoyunlu State. With

this aim, twelve major Kurdish leaders declared that they accepted the sovereignty of

Shah İsma‘il in his presence175.

Having considered these political relationships between the Kurdish notables and

the Akkoyunlus and, later, Safavis, Bidlîsî in the Selimshahnâme and his reports

occasionally hints at the slipperiness in the Kurds’ political preferences; he does not

mention explicitly the political contacts of the Kurds with the Safavi shah, except in the

case of Kurd Halil and the son of İzzeddin Şir, Zahid Beg. In reality, not only Zahid Beg

and Kurd Halil, but also most of the ruling Kurdish families whom Bidlîsî defined as

loyal servants of the Ottoman sultan seem to have been ready to provide military support

to the Safavi shah when the Safavi state emerged as a new power in Iran in the early

sixteenth century. But some of those who were the most powerful leaders supported by

the confederate tribes, such as Emir Şeref Khan176, Melik Halil Eyyûbî177, Shah Ali bin

Bedir178, were being kept captive in the Safavi palace. The fact that the aforementioned

174 Bruinessen, Agha, p. 200.

175 Sharafnâme, p. 125.

176 For the reports about the courtesy of Şeref Khan and his pledge of allegiance to the Safavi shah see

Sharafnâme, pp. 408-410.

177 Ibid., p. 156.

178 For the case of the leader of Bohti see Ibid., p. 125.

66

Kurdish leaders had submitted to the authority of the Safavi shah is not mentioned in the

Selimshahnâme. Rather, concerning the captured Kurdish leaders, Bidlîsî simply related

that they had courageously and faithfully defended against Shah İsma‘il’s military forces

the territories in which they lived and to which they claimed administrative rights. It is a

fact that some Kurdish leaders, like the leaders of Bohti, resorted to military struggle

when the victory of Shah İsma‘il in Iraq-i Arab was assured179. The domination of the

rulers of Turcoman tribes over the Iraqeyn compelled the Kurdish leaders to strike a

bargain with the Safavi shah whereby they would retain administrative control over their

lands but accept the Safavi state’s sovereignty.

Bidlîsî explained the political victory of the Safavi shah in the territories where

the Kurdish tribes lived by arguing that the Kurds had had to submit to Shah İsma‘il

because they had been weakened by him economically as well as politically180. Without

giving any place to the political association between the Kurdish notables and the Safavi

shah, Bidlîsî claimed that the forced subordination of the Kurds to Shah İsma‘il actually

presented an advantage for the Ottoman state and an opportunity for negotiation with the

Kurds.

Another reason for the silence in Bidlîsî’s writings on the details of the political

contacts of the Kurds with the Safavi shah, and for his effort in depicting the captive

Kurdish leaders as wronged, must have been to prevent the Ottoman sultan from resorting

to severe policies at a time when he was trying to persuade the Kurdish leaders to submit

to Ottoman power. It is probably this anxiety that led him to avoid reporting the

suspicious acts of some Kurds to Sultan Selim. But Bıyıklı Mehmed Pasha did this in his

179 The leaders of tribe of Bohti took considerable place in Sharafnâme in term of his resistance to the

Safavi shah, see Sharafnâme, pp. 124-125.

180 Bidlîsî, SN, ff. 72b,129b; TSA, E. nr. 6610.

67

stead. According to the reports of Bıyıklı Mehmed Pasha, Davud Beg, the leader of

Hizan, and Pir Hüseyin Beg, the ruler of Çemişkezek, had maintained their contacts with

Shah İsma‘il although they had declared loyalty to the Ottoman sultan181. It seems that

the foremost expectation of the Ottoman officers controlling military developments along

the Ottoman borders in the east, was that the Kurds would provide them with information

about the Safavi military front. Bıyıklı Mehmed Pasha accused the two Kurdish leaders

of not acquainting him with the developments in Iran, and of reporting the Ottoman plans

for military operations to the Safavi shah. Pir Hüseyin, for example, had encouraged Shah

İsma‘il to come to the district of Diyarbakır, by claiming that he held territorial rights to

Diyarbakır182. The Ottoman commander asserted further that some men in the Ottoman

palace were working for Pir Hüseyin183. It is possible that Bıyıklı Mehmed Pasha was

misinformed. Still, he believed in the reliability of this information and felt compelled to

warn the sultan about the Kurds.

Although such news brought the affairs of Bidlîsî to an impasse and increased his

worries about the possibility of failure in uniting the Kurds in the service of the Ottoman

sultan, all the major Kurdish leaders including Davud Beg and Pir Hüseyin were on the

Ottoman side during the battle against the Safavi armies for Diyarbakır, according to

Bidlîsî184. Until this event, Bidlîsî seems to have made extraordinary efforts to persuade

the Ottoman sultan of the credibility of the Kurds as leaders. In this respect, we examined

the representations of Bidlîsî to Sultan Selim about the Kurds as ones who were noble

and pious and were exposed to the tyranny of Shah İsma‘il because they had defended

181 TSA, E. nr. 6627, 8283.

182 TSA, E. nr. 8283.

183 Ibid.

184 For the names of Kurd leaders he listed at the rank of the Ottoman army see Bidlîsî, SN, ff. 137b-138a;

Kırlangıç, Selim Şah-nâme, p.279; TSA, E. nr. 8333/III.

68

their hereditary territories against Shah İsma‘il and that their links with the Safavi State

developed out of necessity. On the other hand, for the Ottoman State to try to acquire the

Safavi lands by fighting in alliance with disorganized tribal forces, namely the Kurds,

might have seemed to be a futile military effort. Nevertheless, the Ottoman sultan took

the risk of allying with the Kurds. Most likely, Bidlîsî’s positive representations of the

Kurds were a major factor behind the establishment of the trust in the Kurdish notables

by the Ottoman sultan and officers in favor of the Kurds. Let us now examine Bidlîsî’s

political visits to western Safavi lands to see how he was also to bring the Kurdish tribal

leaders and their military forces together in the service of the Ottoman State.

69

II. Organizing the Kurds on the Side of the Ottoman Sultan

Even though Bidlîsî represents the Kurdish notables as the ones who were ready

and eager to fight against the Safavis throughout the Selimshahnâme and in his reports in

order to underline their reliability, when he left Amasya to meet the Kurdish notables,

probably he did not yet have any definitive strategy to organize the Kurds. Most likely

the plans of Bidlîsî took shape during his meetings with and in line with the changing

situation of the Kurdish notables during this process. In addition, the political strategies

of Bidlîsî developed parallel to Shah İsma‘il’s. In a critical period in which the latter

supported some alternative political figures among Kurdish tribes and ruling families,

Bidlîsî discarded these members from his plans and connected with those tribal leaders

who had problems with the Safavi shah. In the Selimshahnâme, he did not mention these

strategies, but instead praised his newfound allies among the Kurdish tribal leaders as

particularly pious and reliable, while denigrating those who sided with the Safavi shah. In

fact, what determined the policies of both Bidlîsî and Shah İsma‘il was the existence of

the ruling families which had political influence in the area. When the Safavi shah

captured tribal leaders such as Melik Halil Eyyûbî and Şeref Khan and supported those

who would be rival to these leaders, he upset the political balance among the Kurdish

tribes living within the borders of the Safavi state. In the following section, we will

examine these developments and the measures that Bidlîsî took to counteract them.

70

i-Playing the Tribes and Members of the Same Family off Against One

Another

When Shah İsma‘il detained Kurdish leaders such as Melik Halil Eyyûbî and

Şeref Khan, he formed new alliances, as he had pledged, with other influential tribes, and

even with relatively minor ones. Through this strategy, the Safavi shah aimed to

legitimize his political power in the Safavi state through alliance with different tribal

powers. The political rise of the leaders of the Pazuki tribe in the area around Bitlis is the

best manifestation of this policy. According to the Sharafnâme, the leader of the Pazuki,

Şehsuvar Beg, had entered the service of Şeref Khan and further, acted as his tutor (lâla)

after the political ruin of the Akkoyunlu state185. But Shah İsma‘il offered Pazuki Halid,

Şehsuvar Beg’s son, authority over and independent governorship of Muş, Hınıs,

Malazgirt, and, later, Bitlis, and Ahlat186.

In recounting the case of Halid as he did, Şeref was clearly concerned to account

for the fact that after the establishment of the absolute rule of the Safavi shah in Iran,

Halid, like other Kurdish leaders, pledged loyalty to Shah İsma‘il, the latter bestowed on

him the governorship of Ahlat, Muş, and Bitlis despite the fact that Şeref Khan was the

governor of these districts at that time. According to Şeref, later, during the Battle of

Çaldıran, Halid had declared that he wanted to join with Sultan Selim187. After taking part

in the victorious Battle of Çaldıran, Halid went to Amasya both to congratulate Sultan

185 Sharafnâme, pp. 329, 401.

186 In fact there was an old struggle for these districts between Şeref Khan and his uncle, İbrahim. In this

period Halid appeared in the side of İbrahim inspite of his father objections. The one of these two powers,

İbrahim, was eliminated by Shah İsma‘il, see Ibid., pp. 400-407. On the other hand the Safavi shah

stimulated the man of İbrahim, Halid who was less powerful rival for him against Şeref Khan. For the rise

of the leaders of Pazuki and his relates see Ibid., pp. 329-330; TSA, E. nr. 8333/I.

187 Sharafnâme, p. 329.

71

Selim and to swear allegiance to him, as did Şeref Khan. But Sultan Selim must have

distrusted Halid’s allegiance as he had him killed188.

In the Sharafnâme, in order to acquit the family of Şeref Khan in the eyed of the

Kurdish tribes, Şeref implicitly justified the killing of Halid, presenting Halid and his

family as those who betrayed their patron, the leader of Bitlis. Probably since Halid

constituted a potential threat to Şeref Khan, who claimed to be the only governor of the

province of Bitlis and the districts north of Lake Van, the elimination of Halid seemed to

be a must. Unlike Şeref, Bidlîsî did not mention about the fact that Halid went Amasya to

present his allegiance to the Ottoman sultan in the Selimshahnâme, probably not to give a

positive impression to the Ottoman reader about Halid. It is possible that Bidlîsî, who did

not think the presence of Halid would be advantageous for Şeref Khan, whom he believed

to be more faithful than Halid, prodded the Ottoman sultan to have Halid executed during

his diplomatic activities. Likewise, the death of Halid allowed Şeref Khan to rise

unopposed after the Ottoman sultan left Eastern Anatolia, whereupon Shah İsma‘il

prodded the son and brothers of Halid to attack Şeref Khan and to seize the territories

north of Lake Van189. In order to eliminate the military threat posed to Şeref Khan by

Halid’s sons, Bidlîsî may have provoked the outbreak of new local tribal struggles

between the members of the Pazuki family and the leaders of minor tribes such as the

Sekri190.

188 In the Sharafnâme Halid seemed to serve to the Ottoman sultan, but since he did not draw a faithful

profile he was killed by the order of the Sultan, see Sharafnâme, p. 329. On the other hand Bidlîsî

mentioned not his desire for serving to the Ottoman Sultan, but his killing by the Sultan Selim and struggle

between Şeref Khan and the sons of Halid. See Bidlîsî, SN, fol. 126b.

189 TSA, E. nr. 8333/I.

190 Sharafnâme, p. 287.

72

Subsequently, Shah İsma‘il used various tactics to establish and consolidate his

authority over the tribes. By supporting politically powerless families against influential

leading families, for example, he attempted to prevent the rise of any power that he would

not be able to control. It was in connection with this that the tribes of Pazuki and

Mahmûdî around Lake Van rose to prominence. The tribe of Bajnawî reappeared as the

leading family of Hasankeyf and, as a result of Safavi shah’s project to weaken other

powerful leaders, the leaders Melik Halil Eyyûbî and Emir Bedir also regained power.

According to the Sharafnâme, the families of Boht and Bajn, who ruled Cezire and

Hasankeyf respectively, shared a common ancestor but had longstanding problems with

each other191. After the ancestor of Melik Halil had seized the citadel of Hasankeyf by

defeating the Bajn, Emir Bedir, head of the Bohti, had wanted Melik Halil to kill Mir

Muhammed, the head of the Bajnawî192. It was the murder of Mir Muhammed which had

provoked a blood feud between the families of Bajn and Melik Halil and Emir Bedir.

The historical enmities among the Kurdish families enabled Shah İsma‘il to

develop his strategies towards the Kurdish tribes. According to the Sharafnâme, the

family of the Bajn had allied with Shah İsma‘il to avenge their father’s death193; Shah

İsma‘il may also have provoked the sons and brothers of Pazuki Halil to take revenge on

those who consented to their father’s death. Most likely, by provoking this enmity

between Emir Şeref, Emir Bedir, Melik Halil and the Pazuki and the Bajnawî tribes, Shah

İsma‘il tried to change the dynamics of power in this region. Nevertheless, Bidlîsî ’s link

with the family of Bajn is difficult to determine. Probably, this family, which laid equal

claim with Melik Halil to inheriting the governorship of Hasankeyf, had been excluded

191 Ibid, p. 158.

192 Ibid.

193 Ibid.

73

from the organization of the Kurds to the side of the Ottoman state in order not to create a

force that would rival that of Melik Halil and Emir Bedir. Therefore, the fact that the

family of Bajn remained partisans of Shah İsma‘il may have been advantageous for the

rise, in particular, of Melik Halil.

Another favorite leader of Shah İsma‘il was İzzeddin Şir and his son, Zahid. This

family, called the Shanbu in the Sharafnâme,194 ruled the mountainous lands south of

Lake Van: Hakkari, Ahtamar, Van and Vustan. Since the mountainous terrain made this

region impenetrable to foreign invaders, the tribal Kurdish leaders could exercise

independent rule in these districts, even when they were militarily subordinate to the

imperial state. When Bidlîsî was organizing the Kurds, this region appeared to him to be

the best zone in which to establish a garrison to prevent Safavi attacks. It seems,

however, that Bidlîsî could not manage to persuade Zahid to join the Ottoman ranks, but

he did not mention about any meeting with Zahid probably to downplay his failure in this

regard. But interestingly, Melik Beg, son of Zahid, is represented as a follower of the

Ottomans in Bidlîsî’s writings. Accordingly, Melik Beg had attended the meetings of the

Kurds and defended the districts of Van and Vustan against the Safavi armies195. On the

other hand, from the Sharafnâme, we understand that Zahid held the governorship of the

region under the Safavi shah until his death, and there is no evidence that the son of

Zahid served as his father’s representative in his father’s lifetime196.

Whereas Zahid acted in the name of the Safavi shah, his son, Melik Beg, as

potential candidate for the governorship of Hakkari under Ottoman guarantee of

suzerainty, was probably encouraged to fight against the Safavi armies along with Şeref

194Ibid., p. 89

195 Bidlîsî, SN, ff. 120a-120b.

196 Sharafnâme, p. 95.

74

Khan. However no conflict between father and son is mentioned either in Bidlîsî’s

writings or in the Sharafnâme. In fact Bidlîsî did not report any drastic conflict between

the Kurds and the Safavi forces north of Lake Van. It seems that Melik Beg did not

participate in any military events, even though Bidlîsî represented him as an Ottoman ally

in spite of his father. Perhaps the reason for Bidlîsî’s representation of Melik Beg in this

manner was to use him as a trump card against his father or to give prestige to the

Kurdish alliance and to prove his efforts to persuade the members of family of Shanbu.

ii-The Two Captive Kurdish Leaders Back in Power

In line with their particular agendas, both the Sharafnâme and Selimshahnâme put

particular stress on the importance of certain tribes and their leaders. As a candidate for

the governorship of Bitlis in the late sixteenth century, Şeref ascribed great significance

to the Rozki tribe as the most powerful confederation which was in the district of Bitlis

and to the Bilbashi and Kavalisi as the significant families of the confederation197. As the

leader of this confederation, his family, the family of Diyaeddin or Şeref khans, was also

represented as having been the rulers of Bitlis since the period of Jalâl al-din Kharizmî

(1220-1231)198 with the support of the Rozki tribe. The closest ally of the ruler of Bitlis to

the southwest of that town, the Melikân family, was depicted as another leading dynasty

that ruled the district of Hasankeyf. As for the Shirvan, Zirkan, Rashan, and Bajnawî,

they were other tribes which played an effective role in the election of the ruler of

Hasankeyf, according to the Sharafnâme199.

197 Ibid., p. 418

198 The author of Sharafnâme recorded that when the Kharizmî shah came to Bitlis, Melik Eşref from the

lineage of Diyaeddin ruled Bitlis, see Ibid., pp. 364-365.

199 Ibid., pp. 152, 157.

75

In order to strengthen his justifications about the influences of Şeref Khan and

Melik Halil Ayyûbî on other Kurdish tribal leaders, the author of the Sharafnâme

recounted the case of captivity of the two leaders by the Safavi Shah. Accordingly, in the

early sixteenth century when Shah İsma‘il, on deciding to release several Kurdish leaders

he had been keeping captive in his palace, asked them who their leader was, all of them

gave the names of Şeref Khan, the ruler of Bitlis, and Melik Halil Eyyûbî, the ruler of

Hasankeyf. Upon hearing this, the Safavi shah released all of them except for these two

leaders200. In the Selimshahnâme, Şeref Khan and Melik Halil Eyyûbî were similarly

represented as the most important leaders of the region as well as vital for establishing

Ottoman sovereignty over the western lands of the Safavi state. Depicting these leaders as

the most influential leaders over the tribes located in Iraq-i Arab, the southern

borderlands of the Safavi state, Bidlîsî might have wanted to give the message that if the

Kurdish tribes were to be united and organized against the Safavi state, the two most

powerful rulers in the region should once more become politically active in their lands.

Şeref claimed that Bidlîsî had met with the Kurdish notables before undertaking

the long journey to the Safavi frontiers in the west201. If this was the case, during this

particular political visit, Bidlîsî may have been given information by the members of the

Rozki tribe such as Mehmed Bilbaşı and Muhammed Kelhori about the developments in

the Safavi borderlands. It is possible that the members of the Rozki tribe wanted Bidlîsî

to guarantee that the attitude of the sultan would be positive if they managed to organize

the Kurds under the leadership of Şeref Khan and Melik Halil in favor of the Ottoman

state. While it is difficult to establish the details of the first political negotiations, it is safe

200 Ibid., p. 412.

201 Ibid., pp. 415-417.

76

to say that Sultan Selim approached the demands of the Kurds positively, and probably

promised the Kurdish notables that he would reinforce their efforts by a second military

expedition to the Safavi frontier in the west202, if the Kurds managed to unite on the side

of the Ottomans. In this regard, Bidlîsî gives us some hints to understand the first

agreement between the Ottoman sultan and Şeref Khan and Melik Halil Eyyûbî.

According to him, these last two notables had sworn allegiance to the Ottoman sultan and

begun the fight against the Safavi shah in the name of the Ottoman sultan. In return, the

sultan had bestowed on them the governorship of the district of Bitlis and Hasankeyf203.

Following the departure of Şeref Khan and, later, Bidlîsî from Tabriz, an uprising in the

aforementioned districts broke out against the Safavi governors; a short while after the

war between the Ottoman and the Safavi states had begun, the Safavi military forces also

had to deal with revolts in Safavi provinces such as Bitlis, Diyarbakır, Hasankeyf and

Mosul, which were organized by the two leaders.

Most likely, both Bidlîsî and Şeref overstated the role of Şeref Khan and Melik

Halil Ayyûbî in the Ottoman-Safavi conflict to justify their outstanding political

authorities among the other tribes and their political standing in Bitlis and Hasankeyf.

The same strategy is manifested also in the accounts of Bidlîsî about the clashes between

the Kurds and the Safavi forces. These accounts also give information about the other

tribal leaders whom Bidlîsî specified to display their endeavors in the struggle against the

Safavi forces and thus to justify their right to claim to be provincial ruler of the territories

for which they struggled. According to these events, between 1515 and 1516, Bidlîsî

traveled through the lands from Tabriz to Diyarbakır and contacted the Kurdish tribal

202 TSA, E. nr. 8333/III.

203 Bidlîsî, SN, fol. 120b.

77

leaders there. As a result of his visits, the leaders of these districts assembled under his

leadership in order to unite in military action and decide on their strategies. Bidlîsî lists

the names of the participants with their titles as the following: the melik of Bitlis, Emir

Şeref, the melik of Hizan, Emir Davud, whom Bıyıklı Mehmed Pasha accused of being a

follower of Shah İsma‘il, the hakim of Sason, Ali Beg, the hakim of Nemran, Abdul Beg,

and the son of İzzeddin Şir, Emir Melik Abbas, all of whom were leaders of the tribes

located around Lake Van and had close relationship with Emir Şeref, and the governor of

Hasankeyf, Melik Halil Eyyûbî204.

According to Bidlîsî, all of them declared their allegiance to the Ottoman sultan

and agreed to remove the Kızılbaş from the region. The presence of Şeref Khan and

Melik Halil Eyyûbî must have encouraged the Kurdish tribes to combine their forces.

Through this collaboration, while guerilla warfare began between the Kurdish tribal

armies based in Bitlis, Şirvan, Sason, Hizan, Müks and Nemran, and the Safavi armies

based in the mountainous areas around Lake Van, Kurdish resistance to the troops of the

families of Pazuki and İzzeddin Şir also broke out in the territories to the north and south

of Lake Van205. In addition, after the temporary victories of the Kurds in these districts

and the conquest of the small citadels of Atak, Palu, and Eğil around Diyarbakır, the

entrance to Diyarbakır from the northeast could be blocked206. In the districts of

Hasankeyf, Mardin, Siirt, Cezire-i Ömeriyye, Ruha and Meyyafarkin conflicts broke out

between the Safavi armies and the Kurdish forces under the command of Melik Halil

204 Ibid., fol. 120a.

205 Bidlîsî reported the details of these uprisings in his first report, see TSA, E. nr. 8333/I. Also see TSA, E.

nr. 8333/II; For the accounts of the struggles of the united Kurds forces with the Safavis see Bidlîsî, SN, ff.

126b-127a; Kırlangıç, Selim Şah-nâme, pp. 254-255.

206 Bidlîsî, SN, fol. 126b.

78

Eyyûbî. The Kurdish forces were supported by Shah Emir Ali b. Bedir207, the leader of

the tribe of Bohti which had influence in the region extending from Bitlis and Diyarbakır

to Baghdad.

The collaboration of the tribes of Rozki and Bohti was represented as critical for

obtaining ultimate victory at Bitlis, Siirt and Hasankeyf, Mardin, Meyyafarkin, and Ruha.

Moreover, Bidlîsî stressed that the tribe of Bohti extended the conflict to Mosul, and

supported the tribal leaders of İmadiye, Soran and Baradost who were continuing their

struggle against the Safavi forces in Mosul, Kerkuk and Erbil208. The district of Iraq-i

Arab was, in fact, a strategic military zone for the Safavi state as well as for the Ottomans

that targeted the political and military stability in this area and its borders, Syria which

the Ottomans were preparing to conquer at that time. Therefore, Bidlîsî mentioned that he

corresponded also with the tribal leaders on these borders and advised them to protect

their territories and defend them against the Safavi state in the name of the Ottoman

sultan209; then sought to make an alliance with the tribe of Baradost which suffered from

internal leadership problems. This was reinforced by an alliance with the two rival tribes,

Baban and Soran. On the advice of Bidlîsî, according to him, three tribes, Baradost,

Baban and Soran, agreed to unite under the leadership of Soran and took under their

protection the leader of the Mekri who ruled over territory near Lake Urmiyye210.

The fastidiousness with which Bidlîsî recounted the tribes that joined the alliance

and the districts for which they struggled indicates his intention to specify the names of

those tribal leaders who were/would be the political addressee of the Ottomans during

207 Ibid., fol. 127a.

208 Ibid., ff. 127a, 134b-135a.

209 TSA, E. nr. 8333/I.

210 Ibid.

79

and after the Ottoman-Safavi conflict. From another perspective, it can be inferred from

his diplomatic tactics that Bidlîsî aimed to establish a zone of resistance near Lake

Urmiye, a Safavi center. Joint as well as independent skirmishes and conflicts in the

abovementioned lands blocked Safavi access to Baghdad, Azerbaijan and Diyarbakır. But

it seems that the mission of Bidlîsî was not limited to organizing the Kurdish tribes in the

districts of Bitlis, Diyarbakır and Hasankeyf. In order to ensure both the continuation of

Ottoman authority in these lands and to realize the future projects of Sultan Selim in Iran,

Bidlîsî would also keep watch over the activities of the Kurds in the Iraqeyn.

iii- The Kurds in the Iraqeyn

In the territories stretching from Shirvan on the coast of the Caspian Sea to

Laristan on the strait of Hurmuz and to Balkh in today’s Afghanistan, the Safavi shah

attempted to control the ports and the silk route, seeking to establish his sovereignty over

these areas from 1507 onwards211. Sultan Selim, too, had designs on these lands and

possibly planned to advance further towards Shirvan in the north, Herat in today’s

Afghanistan in the east, and Hurmuz in the south, after conquering the western parts of

the Safavi state. This is why Bidlîsî reported on the developments in these lands, tried to

contact the Kurd tribes in the Iraqeyn, and sought information about their affiliations with

the Safavi state as the Ottoman sultan had ordered212.

In order to capture the Safavi territories in the area from Baghdad to Hurmuz, it

seemed crucial to contact the Kurds located between these areas in the pivotal regions of

Luristan and Larestan. In the Sharafnâme the area named Luristan is divided into two

211 For the developments in these lands see, Ghulam Sarwar, History of Shah İsmâ‘il Safawi, (Aligarh,

1939), pp. 44-71.

212 TSA, E. nr. 8333/I.

80

parts: Lur Minor(Lur-i Kûchek) [from Baghdad to Basra] and Lur Major(Lur-i Buzurg)

[Larestan from Basra to Hormuz]213. Bidlîsî presents tribes such as the Bahtiyârî, Kelh,

Ağıl and Mash‘ash‘î as being the politically significant families in Luristan214. According

to the information Bidlîsî gave the Ottoman sultan, the sons of Mash‘ashî‘ and the people

and notables of Bahtiyârî and Kalkh had revolted against the Safavi shah and recaptured

their territories in Luristan and Larestan215.

In his first reports to Sultan Selim, Bidlîsî wrote that he had traveled in person as

an ambassador from Mosul to Larestan and Shiraz216. He maintained that as a result of his

propaganda, the Kurds in the region extending from Shiraz to Isfahan, whom he refers to

as the rulers of Acem, declared that they would no longer submit to Shah İsma‘il.

Probably Bidlîsî considered the military conflicts between the Uzbek, Mughal and Safavi

troops around Isfahan, Khorasan and Shirvan as an advantage for both the Kurds and the

Ottoman state. Moreover, he describes the Mughal ruler, Babur Mirza (d.1530), who had

sought to repulse the Uzbek armies by allying with Safavi shah, as an enemy of the

Kızılbaş and a protector of the Kurds217.

“According to the news from Khorasan”, Bidlîsî wrote:

Babur Mirza captured several districts of Khorasan; defeating all the Kızılbaş

there. As for the Timurid ruler, the son of Hüseyin Baykara, he fought with the

Kızılbaş at Astarâbad to the north of Khorasan. On declaring his sovereignty over

Khorasan, Babur Mirza forbade the rulers of Mazenderan, Gilan, Firuzruh and

Rustamdar to pay tax to Shah İsma‘il218.

213 Sharafnâme, p. 24.

214 TSA, E. nr. 8333/I.

215 Ibid.

216 TSA, E. nr. 6610.

217 TSA, E. nr. 8333/I.

218 Ibid.

81

While blocking the way to Iraq, thus preventing the entry of the Kızılbaş, Babur Mirza

also protected a certain amir, who had gained support from the ruler of İmadiya to defend

Mosul, according to the report of Bidlîsî219. In fact, on the other hand, it would be wrong

to think that Shah İsma‘il lost control over all the areas under his sovereignty at that time,

as Bidlîsî claimed. Considering the difficult circumstances in this area and Bidlîsî’s

advanced age, it does not seem possible that he went as far as Larestan or Khorasan.

Presumably, Bidlîsî was reporting on events he had not witnessed in person but had only

heard about. On the other hand, even if Bidlîsî exaggerated the opposition to Shah

İsma‘il in Larestan, Khorasan and Shirvan, the describtions of Bidlîsî about the names

were to give an idea about the existence of potential allies for the Ottoman sultan in this

vast area.

When anti-Safavi uprisings started in Iran, Shah İsma‘il sought to negotiate with

the rebel leaders in order to restore them to the Safavi ranks. According to Bidlîsî, he

managed to control the rebellions in Shirvan, Khorasan, Shiraz and Larestan220. In his last

reports as well as in the Selimshahnâme, Bidlîsî no longer makes any mention of anti-

Safavi developments, probably because at that time no Ottoman military expedition

towards Iranian lands was expected. A second reason for these omissions might be that

Shah İsma‘il had already established a relatively firm control over this region. Still these

cities and others, such as Baghdad, Luristan, Gilan, Mazenderan, and Rasht, had been the

main target of conquest by the Ottoman state221, at least until 1516 when Diyarbakir and

Mardin were besieged. Therefore, Bidlîsî had considerable concern about the districts of

219 Ibid.

220 Ibid.

221 TSA, E. nr. 6610.

82

inner Iran and he considered it part of his diplomatic mission to inform the Ottoman

sultan about them.

As we have seen above, Bidlîsî represented the Kurdish notables and his

diplomatic meetings with them from a distinctly local perspective. In contrast, it was

from a distinctly imperial view that he related the process of creating the alliance between

the Ottoman military officials and the Kurdish leaders. The following section will cover

this difficult process, its results and Bidlîsî’s critical role in the negotiations between the

two sides during this period.

iv- The Unification of the Kurdish-Ottoman Forces

The first formal directive Sultan Selim gave to the Kurdish tribal leaders via

Bidlîsî when the sultan returned to Amasya in 1514 was to fight for their own hereditary

territories. At that time, he wrote them fetihnâmes and edicts which he sent with

Bidlîsî222. These fetihnâmes called upon the Kurds to submit to the Ottoman state. At the

same time, certain letters of intent (istimâletnâme), guaranteeing the Kurds Ottoman

protection, were handed to Bidlîsî to be delivered to the Kurdish leaders223. Through the

istimâletnâme, the Ottoman sultan also promised military support to the Kurds as long as

they fought in the name of the Ottoman state. This last seemed to be one of the conditions

required by Bidlîsî which he used as his main argument when seeking to provide unity

among the Kurdish tribes.

Yet in 1515, one year after the Battle of Çaldıran, the Ottoman sultan had still not

organized a second military expedition against Iran. Among the Kurdish tribal forces,

222 For the letters sent Kurds see Feridun Bey, Münşe‘atü’s-Selâtîn, vol. I, pp. 390, 392; Bidlîsî, SN, ff.

119b, 126b; Hoca Saadeddin, Tacü’t-Tevârih, vol. II, p. 304.

223 Bidlîsî, SN, fol. 126b; Hoca Saadeddin, Ibid.

83

who were in conflict with the Safavi forces in Diyarbakır, Bitlis, Hasankeyf, Mosul,

Kerkuk, İmadiye and Urmiye without any Ottoman military reinforcement, there was

considerable unrest. Bidlîsî reported this military and political situation to the Ottoman

sultan, saying that the Kurds were waiting for the Ottoman armies, which the Sultan

would lead in person, in order to confront the Safavi armies in Diyarbakır and Mardin224.

Furthermore, probably in order to draw the Ottoman sultan’s attention to the situation of

the Kurdish forces, he stressed that the Ottoman reinforcement was necessary not only for

the conquest of these two citadels but also for the capture of all the Iranian lands225. In

fact, when Sultan Selim returned to Istanbul in 1514, leaving the Kurdish leaders on their

own, this created panic among the Kurdish tribes, because they then constituted the only

force the Safavis would encounter in these lands. Probably this unexpected decision by

the Ottoman sultan changed the perception of those who recognized the Ottoman state as

the new power in place of the Safavi state. Indeed the recapture of Tabriz by Shah İsma‘il

indicates the change in the balance of power along the newly formed frontier between the

Ottoman and Safavi states. Furthermore, in Luristan and Laristan and in the north of Iran

bordering on the Uzbek and Mughal lands, the control of the Safavi state became absolute

after the withdrawal of the Ottoman sultan from the lands of northern and western Iran.

Also in western borderlands the Safavi forces put down the Kurdish uprisings around

Bitlis, Diyarbakır and Hasankeyf, thus terminating their united front.

Over all, at that time, the Kurds, who claimed to have entered the war in the name

of the Ottoman sultan and with his guarantee, began to establish contact with the Safavi

shah and the latter gave them gifts, such as swords and plumes, which symbolically

224 The hopeless of Kurds occupied particular place in Bidlîsî ’s historical narrative, see Bidlîsî, SN, ff.

130b-131b.

225 TSA, E. nr. 6610, 8333/III.

84

meant that Shah İsma‘il recognized the hereditary authority of the Kurds over western

Iran226. Bidlîsî regarded these gifts as an effective factor in the submission of some

Kurdish leaders to Shah İsma‘il.

In the summer of 1515, Sultan Selim finally undertook the expected military

campaign but followed a route different from the one predicted. It seems that the main

aim of this campaign was to eliminate the allies of the Mamluks and Safavis in Anatolia,

such as Alaüddevle, dominant in northeastern Anatolia as the ruler of the principality of

Dulkadir, and to capture the territories of the Mamluk state. Probably, the sultan

postponed an Ottoman campaign against Iran and Transoxiana until the uncertainty over

the territories in which skirmishes continued between the Kurds and the Safavi forces had

been eliminated, and the boundaries of the Ottoman state in these lands had been

determined. Bidlîsî was worried by this unexpected change of mind on the part of the

sultan.

When Sultan Selim left the encampment in Amasya for his second military

expedition, Bidlîsî had the opportunity to inform the sultan in person about the recent

developments in Bitlis, Diyarbakır and Hasankeyf, on which he had reported earlier227.

Apparently, this was because the sultan persistently asked Bidlîsî whether there actually

was any Kurdish resistance to the Safavi forces in Diyarbakır and whether it would be

possible to occupy this province228. Bidlîsî mentioned about these difficult moments in

the Selimshahnâme. From the expression of Bidlîsî it is understood that as a diplomat he

was exposed to the pressure of both sultan and the Kurdish notables. He writes that in this

226 TSA, E. nr. 1019.

227 For the report of Bidlîsî devoted to the developments in Diyarbakır, see TSA, E. nr. 6610. Also for the

efforts of Bidlîsî to meet the Sultan when the latter was in Kemah see Bidlîsî, SN, ff. 118b-119a; Kırlangıç,

Selim Şah-nâme, pp. 235-236; Hoca Saadeddin, Tacü’t Tevârih, vol. II, pp. 307-308.

228 Bidlîsî, SN, fol. 131b; Hoca Saadeddin, Tacü’t Tevârih, vol. II, p. 308.

85

period he was an Ottoman pawn among the Kurds (be dâ‘î ki bûdem meyânishân rehîn)

and he was exposed to persistent pressure from them as to whether the Ottomans would

support them or not229. Even if these comments can be interpreted as Bidlîsî’s attempt to

underline his sufferings in this period, they also suggest that the Kurdish notables

regarded Bidlîsî not only as their representative but also as the representative of the

Ottoman sultan and thus they insisted on their political demands from Bidlîsî.

Bidlîsî writes that he coped with this difficult situation, saying that the sultan

would come to help them after resolving the problem of Alaüddevle. As a representative

of the Ottoman state, on the other side, he also persuaded the Kurdish leaders who had

not yet pledged in words their loyalty to the sultan as a whole group, to meet the Ottoman

sultan. Eventually, Bidlîsî’s efforts resulted in favor of both sides: when Sultan Selim was

in the district of Kemah, he summoned Bidlîsî and the Kurds to appear before him230. But

at that very time, the sultan had to leave Kemah on another operation and it became clear

that he would not engage in a fight with the Safavi forces. He did, nevertheless,

recommend Bidlîsî and the Kurdish leaders to Bıyıklı Mehmed Pasha who had been

appointed commander of the army to besiege Diyarbakır231.

The Beylerbeyi of Erzurum was not, in fact, the first Ottoman authority the Kurds

encountered. Earlier the Ottoman sultan had sent a military official, Yiğid Ahmed, to help

the Kurdish forces. The beylerbeyi, nevertheless, was a high ranking officer, thus meeting

a central demand of Bidlîsî and the Kurds. Apparently, Bidlîsî had reported that the

Kurds who acted independently and did not accept an elected leader needed an Ottoman

229 For the difficult process see Bidlîsî, SN, ff. 127b, 131a-131b; Kırlangıç, Selim Şah-nâme, pp. 255-256,

264-265; Hoca Saadeddin, Tacü’t-Tevârih, vol. II, p. 306.

230 Bidlîsî, SN, ff. 118b-119a.

231 Bidlîsî, SN, fol. 131b; Kırlangıç, Selim Şah-nâme, p.267; Hoca Saadeddin, Tacü’t Tevârih, vol. II, p.309.

86

military official appointed by the sultan as the commander of the Kurdish forces.

According to Bidlîsî, such an official could subjugate the Kurds232. Probably both Yiğid

Ahmed and Bıyıklı Mehmed Pasha were appointed as commanders as a result of attempts

by Bidlîsî to bring the Ottoman and Kurdish forces together. In fact, whenever Bidlîsî

mentioned about the military situation among Kurdish forces, he manifested best his

imperial view. Also the most important reason why Bidlîsî wanted an Ottoman military

official as commander of the Kurdish leaders during the guerilla warfare with the Safavi

state was to transform these clashes from being an internal problem of the Safavi state

into that of a struggle between the Ottoman and Safavi states. Bıyıklı Mehmed Pasha,

who was the first high-ranking Ottoman authority the Kurds had encountered, would also

be regarded as the most significant indication of Ottoman military and political existence

in the provinces for which Kurds fought against Safavi military forces.

In the meeting between Bıyıklı Mehmed Pasha and the Kurdish envoys233, the

problems which Bidlîsî had reported to the sultan earlier were discussed. We learn of the

ultimatums and audacious demands of the Kurdish notables from his reports.

Accordingly, the Kurds had explicitly declared that they would submit to Shah İsma‘il if

the Ottoman sultan did not help them. Further, they suggested that a certain area

232 According to Sharafnâme, upon the require of Bidlîsî for an Ottoman commander who would undertake

the leadership of Kurd forces, Sultan Selim sent Bıyıklı Mehmed Pasha, see Sharafnâme, p. 417. Bidlîsî

pointed that the obligation of an Ottoman officer over the Kurds leaders was a decision of Kurds, see

Bidlîsî, SN, ff. 120a-120b; Kırlangıç, Selim Şah-nâme, p. 239. In fact it is rash to say that this offer came

from the side of Kurd. Probably Bidlîsî reported this fact in this way because he intended to display again

the loyalty of Kurds to the Ottoman state.

233 Bidlîsî wrote that the Kurds in person met the beylerbeyi and presented their submission to him, see

Bidlîsî, SN, fol. 131b.

87

identified by them as the Çoban Çesmesi should be established as the Ottoman and Safavi

border, and guaranteed that they would not cause any disturbances around this border234.

It seems that Sultan Selim was persuaded to accept the political alternatives

proposed by the Kurds and ordered Bıyıklı Mehmed Pasha, as well as Şadi Pasha, the

Beylerbeyi of Amasya and Sivas, to move to Diyarbakır with their troops. The Kurdish

and Ottoman troops joined forces in the district of Kiği near Diyarbakır. The news of the

union soon took effect on the Safavi armies and Kara Khan, the Safavi Turcoman

administrator of Diyarbakır, fled to the city of Mardin235. This development made it

easier to control the area and allowed the Ottoman-Kurdish troops to conquer the citadel

of Diyarbakır without any major clashes between the two sides. Following this, the

armies under Ottoman command triumphed over the districts around Diyarbakır and

established firm Ottoman control over this area. But the southern part of Diyarbakır was

still under Safavi control and was constantly reinforced by Safavi forces from the

direction of Iraq. Thus an Ottoman expansion to the south, in particular towards Mardin,

the last Safavi center in the area, seemed mandatory in order to control the whole area

and block the way to Iraq from the north.

However, whereas the Kurdish leaders insisted on the need to move beyond

Diyarbakır, the Ottoman commanders hesitated to besiege Mardin. In addition, a clash

became evident between Bıyıklı Mehmed Pasha and Şadi Pasha. The latter claimed that

the orders given to him by the sultan were limited to the conquest of Diyarbakır, and, on

234 TSA, E. nr. 5858. We cannot identify the location of Çoban Çesmesi but probably it was near Hınıs in

the east of Van.

235 Bidlîsî, SN, fol. 132a; Kırlangıç, Selim Şah-nâme, p. 268; Hoca Saadeddin, Tacü’t-Tevârih, vol. II, p.

310.

88

these grounds, he refused to advance towards Mardin236. This difference of opinion

between the two Ottoman commanders both divided the Ottoman army and gave rise to a

conflict between the Ottoman and Kurdish authorities. In his accounts of these events,

Bidlîsî emphasized his efforts to persuade the two commanders to continue to fight

against the Safavi forces, but also admitted that he failed in this endeavor. He also

implied that he used his initiative as an Ottoman official to prevent an ultimate rupture

between the Kurdish leaders and the Ottoman state, encouraging the Kurds to march

towards Mardin without the Ottoman forces237. It seems unlikely that Bidlîsî would have

made this decision against the orders of the Ottoman commanders. In all probability, he

agreed with at least one of them, most probably Bıyıklı Mehmed Pasha. Indeed, when the

Kurdish forces began to triumph over the Safavi armies in Mardin, Bidlîsî called on

Bıyıklı Mehmed Pasha to march with his armies to consolidate the Ottoman victory in

Mardin. But, because of the problem between the two beylerbeyis, Şadi Pasha had

returned to Amasya with the majority of the Ottoman forces. In this situation, Bıyıklı

Mehmed Pasha could not respond favorably to Bidlîsî’s call for help. It seems likely that

he ordered Bidlîsî and the Kurds to come back to Diyarbakir, and then discontinued the

siege of Mardin.

In his account of the events, Bidlîsî implied that the military problems that

emerged in this process stemmed not from a disagreement between the Ottomans and the

Kurdish forces or from the refractoriness of the Kurdish notables but from the conflict of

power between the two Ottoman military authorities238. Accordingly, after the beylerbeyi

had informed the sultan about the problems with Şadi Pasha armies and after new forces

236 Bidlîsî, SN, ff. 133b, 134a; Kırlangıç, Selim Şah-nâme, pp. 270, 272.

237 Bidlîsî, SN, fol. 133b.

238 Bidlîsî, SN, fol. 135b.

89

from İstanbul and Anatolia arrived, the Safavi western borderlands from Urmiye to Erbil

and from Çemişkezek to Arapgir were conquered by the Ottoman-Kurdish forces without

any problem, 239 not counting the personal problem of the Beylerbeyi with the influence

of Bidlîsî over the Kurdish tribes, as mentioned in the first chapter of this study.

Significantly, Bidlîsî was not only one of the architects, or as he saw it, the

architect, of the Ottoman-Kurdish alliance that won the war, but he also made it possible

for this alliance to work by creating a balance between the local rulers and the Ottoman

military officials240. It is thanks in large part to Bidlîsî’s efforts that the military actions

ended as both the Ottoman state and the Kurdish notables had wished even at a minimum

level. These can be observed best through archival documentations. In the following

section we will analyze the archival sources that detail the newly formed Ottoman

administrative structure in the east. In doing so, we will seek to underline the Ottoman

administrative policy on the Kurds as newcomers to the Ottoman system.

III. Organizing the Administration of the Eastern Ottoman Frontiers

i- Administrative Arrangements

In his classic study of the Ottoman policies of conquest in the early Ottoman

period (1300-1500), Halil İnalcık differentiates between two phases in the process of the

Ottoman absorption of newly acquired lands. In the first stage, the Ottoman state would

seek to establish indirect sovereignty over a given territory. In the second, the state would

tighten its control over the newly conquered lands by incorporating local traditional

239 For the details of conquests of the lands around Diyarbakır and Mardin, see Bidlîsî, SN, ff. 137b-140a;

Kırlangıç, Selim Şah-nâme, pp. 279-283.

240To note that, even Bıyıklı Mehmed Pasha had the highest rank among the Ottoman army, there are a lot

provincial military officials in this army subjected to Ottoman State.

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organizations into its military-administrative system, that is, the timar system241. While

İnalcık’s model also applies, to a certain extent, to the Ottoman administrative policies in

the Iranian lands, specific local conditions, too, played an important role in shaping the

administrative status of the new borderlands to the east of the Ottoman state.242 Local

conditions such as the struggle for leadership, land and blood feuds among Kurdish

tribes, and topographic characteristics would make this region open to Safavi

interference. In such a critical zone, therefore, the Ottomans needed to introduce different

administrative policies, rethink their strategies and to allow room for the political

interests of the local powers, the Kurdish tribes, whenever the political conditions

changed.

As the first indicator of the Ottoman policy of integration of the local political

powers, we can take a look at the istimâletnâme the sultan sent the Kurdish tribal leaders.

As was emphasized in the previous section, with these letters of intent Sultan Selim

guaranteed Ottoman protection to the Kurdish leading families if they fought against the

Safavi forces in the name of the Ottoman state. During military clashes in the provinces

of the Safavi state, such a guarantee paved the way for Ottoman domination in the

western provinces of the Safavi state without their engaging in any military conflicts with

the local forces in this region.

After the conquests which took place from 1518 to 1520, the administrative

organization in the new Ottoman borderlands in the east was formed in such a way as to

241 Halil İnalcık, “Ottoman Methods of Conquest”, The Ottoman Empire: Conquest, Organization and

Economy (London, Variorum Reprints, 1978), pp. 104-129, at p. 103. For the specific analysis of İnalcık

about the establishment of the Ottoman sovereignty over Albania in the framework of the two stages see

Halil İnalcık, Hicrî 835 Tarihli Sûret-i Defter-i Sancak-i Arvanid (Ankara, 1987).

242 On the importance of local conditions in shaping the incorporation process, see Suraiya Faroqhi, The

Ottoman Empire and the World Around It (Londan and NewYork, 2004), p. 78.

91

allow for both imperial central control and local autonomy. The imperial edicts (ferman)

dating from 1517 and 1530 inform us that the administration of the borderlands in the

east was arranged on the basis of the coexistence of the two systems. In a 1518 ferman,

Sultan Selim asks Bidlîsî to assist Bıyıklı Mehmed Pasha in organizing the sancaks and

timars. Thus, Bıyıklı Mehmed Pasha and Bidlîsî were charged with two administrative

duties: firstly, the allocation of the military and administrative control of the lands to the

begs; secondly, the arrangement of a hierarchy through the distribution of titles (elkâb)

among the begs as seen below:

the imperial edicts were sent to my beylerbeyi of Diyarbakır; [you] grant the begs

ranks and incomes in whatever manner is proper, register detailed copies of their

timars and berats, and send them to me so that they may be kept here and every

issue can be known; [you] declare in detail which livâ was distributed to whom

and for what reason they were distributed, and what the beg’s titles, subjects and

incomes are… 243

Apparently, Sultan Selim carried out the promises that he had given the Kurds via

Bidlîsî. But, according to the ferman, he planned to allocate the newly acquired lands to

local begs as timar. This meant that the Kurdish notables would obtain not the property of

the lands but the revenue provided by the lands. In addition to introducing the timar

system, the state gave the Kurdish begs the inherited right to leave the land revenue to

their sons: that is, the right known as yurdluk ve ocaklık.

In the ferman of 1533 in which Sultan Süleyman states the administrative

conditions in the eastern borderlands, the privileges of the Kurdish begs were determined

as follows:

Their provinces, fortresses, cities, villages and arable fields (mezra‘â) with all

their harvest under the condition of inheritance from father to son are also given

to them as their estate (temlik). There should never be any external aggression and

243 Bidlîsî, SN, fol. 140b; Hoca Saadeddin, Tacü’t-Tevârîh, vol. II, pp. 322-323.

92

conflict among them… In case of a beg’s death, his province shall be given, as a

whole, to his son, if there is only one. If there is more than one son, the sons shall

divide the province, contingent upon mutual agreement among themselves. If they

cannot reach any compromise, then, whoever the Kurdistan begs decided to be the

best choice shall succeed, and through private ownership he shall be the holder of

the land forever. If the beg has no heir or relative, then his province shall not be

given to anybody from outside. As a result of consultation with the Kurdistan

begs, the region shall be given to either begs or their sons suggested by the

Kurdistan begs244.

In the light of this ferman it can be said that Sultan Süleyman granted some lands

to Kurdish begs not as timar but as freehold (temlik). On the other hand, in the 1518

ferman Sultan Selim calls the lands -probably all newly conquered lands in the eastallocated

to the beghs timar or sancak, not mulk as they are called in his son’s ferman.

While this differentiation in the two fermans indicates the coexistence of different

administrative systems, it may also be taken as the result of the bargaining process which

went on during the years following the conquest. In this process, which is best seen in the

administrative divisions of the area in 1518 and 1540, there were the Kurds, who insisted

on the right to self-government, on the one side, and the Ottoman government, which

insisted on a policy of centralization, on the other.

ii-The Emergence of Semi-autonomous and Autonomous Principalities:

Eyâlet-i Diyarbakır and Cema‘ât-i Kurdân

From the orders, it is obvious that the sultan gave full authority first to Bıyıklı

Mehmed Pasha, and then to Bidlîsî. In fact, the sancakbeyi was appointed by the central

government and its high-ranking official representatives such as the beylerbeyi. Therefore

the task the sultan gave Bidlîsî was not an official one; in principle, Bidlîsî was expected

244 The translations belong to Hakan Özoğlu. For his cite see, Hakan Özoğlu, “State-Tribe Relations”, p. 18;

For the original document see TSA, E. nr. 11969.

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to serve as consultant to Bıyıklı Mehmed Pasha. By giving him this authority, the sultan

must have sought to create a balance between the two men and to prevent them from

making arbitrary appointments. Likewise, through this edict, Sultan Selim sought to

remind Bidlîsî that he would be responsible for the appointments and would be expected

to explain to whom and for what reason he had distributed the lands.

Even though there is no information about the appointment process, Bıyıklı

Mehmed Pasha and Bidlîsî as well as the defterdar must have surveyed the lands and

their revenues and begun to distribute them to the holders beginning from July 1518, as

the records in the first cadastral register are dated between July and September 1518245.

According to the cadastral register of 1518, some of the newly conquered lands were

organized into standard Ottoman administrative units under the name of eyalet-i

Diyarbakır. The city of Amid together with some villages constituted the livâ of the

Beylerbeyi of this eyalet, and, thus, the revenues were allocated to the beylerbeyi, Bıyıklı

Mehmed Pasha 246. In addition to Amid, Mardin, Sincar, Beriyyecik, Ruha, Siverek,

Çermik, Harput, Ergani, Arapgir, Kiği, and Çemişkezek constituted other livâs of the

eyalet-i Diyarbakır247. Except for these livâs and some other villages, there is no record

about any administrative unit that was categorized under the eyalet of Diyarbakır.

However, another document that Barkan affixed to the budget of 1533 presents a

different profile about the administrative structure of Diyarbakır in 1520248. The

differences, first of all, demonstrate the existence of another form of administration in the

newly conquered lands. Accordingly, the beylerbeyi, as the only formal authority,

245 Mehdi İlhan, Amid (Diyarbakır), p. 16.

246 Ibid., pp. 35-36.

247 BOA, TT, nr. 64, pp. 207-856.

248 Ömer Lütfi Barkan, “H. 933-934 (M. 1527-1528) Mâli yılına ait bir bütçe örneği”, İstanbul Üniversitesi

İktisat Fakültesi Mecmuası (October 1953-July1954), pp. 251-329, at pp. 306-307.

94

granted, of course by the will of the sultan, administrative privileges to some Kurdish

begs on the newly formed border between the Ottoman and Safavi states. These

privileges, in fact, fulfilled the guarantees that, by permission of the sultan, Bidlîsî had

given the Kurds during the wartime.

The register of 1520, which resembles a sort of ru‘us register, affixed to the

budget of 1533, consists of two administrative units which differ from the cadastral

register of 1518. These were the newly acquired lands organized as eyâlet-i Diyarbakır

and as cema‘ât-i Kurdân249. It seems that the term cema‘ât as given in the register of

1520 did not refer to nomadic groups as was its general use in cadastral registers, but

rather to the Kurdish tribal community250. Probably, the use of this term ensued from the

uncertainty concerning the administrative type to which these territories belonged within

the Ottoman system.

The list under the title of cema‘at enumerated the Kurdish leaders and the

territories that they would rule as follows: Çemişkezek: Hüseyin Beg, Hazo: Mehmed

Beg, Atak: Ahmed Beg, Palu: Cemşid Beg, Süleymâniyân: Shah veled-i Süleymânî,

Birecik: Tur Ali Beg Uruçlu, Eğil: Kasım Beg, Çermük: Shah Ali, Hasankeyf: Melik

Halil, Cireyir (?): Kaya Beg, Çapakçur: Sultan Ahmed Beg, Fusul (?): Hacı Beg, Hilvan:

Shah Beg, Bidlis: Şeref Khan, Sason: Mehmed Beg, Cezîre: Mîr Bedreddin, Hizan:

Davud Beg, Siverek: Mîr Muzafferoğlu, برربح : Shah Ali, Hitân (?): Bekir Beg Bohti,

Zarraki: Mehmed Beg, Musul: Seydî Ahmed Beg Bohti, Çüngüş: Halil Beg, Poşadi:

249 Ibid.

250 In the budget, the term of cemâ‘at was also used to identify the military, administrative officers

bureaucrats and certain professional associations such as “cema‘ât-i erbâb-i sanayi’ ve ehl-i hiref, cema‘âti

müşâhere-horân, cema‘ât-i mülazimân-i dergâh-i âlî” and so on. For these examples see Ibid., pp. .309-

313.

95

Saruhan Beg, Haçük: Sultan Ahmed Beg, Sincar: Feyzi Beg, Gence: Isfahan Beg, Aşiret

ve Ulus: Yadigâr Beg 251.

Whereas, in one sense, the existence of the cema‘ât in a ru‘us register,

demonstrates that these Kurdish begs were considered as Ottoman officials, their absence

from the cadastral register indicates that their territories were not/could not be integrated

in to the ordinary administrative structure. Apparently, the territories listed above were

allocated to Kurdish begs not as timar but as freehold lands as in Sultan Süleyman’s

ferman of 1530, mentioned above. Under this regulation, the landowners held land tenure

and had the right to dispose of the yield the land supplied. In addition to administrative

rights, they probably also had judicial authority within the borders of their territories.

Overall, this means that the state would not able to obtain as many military and financial

benefits from this administrative unit, named cema ‘ât, as it usually obtained from the

timar system.

The Ottoman state was committed to granting to the Kurds the lands which they

had struggled for during the conflict between the Ottoman-Kurdish and Safavi forces. On

the other hand, in order to establish central authority in this newly formed borderland, the

Ottoman state introduced some measures that would prevent the domination of any one

local authority over that of the central state. Such a policy manifested itself in the

formation of the cema‘ât. In the register of 1520, it can be seen that the number of

cemâ‘at was strikingly high. In fact, if one considers that Bidlîsî and the author of the

Sharafnâme generally mention only influential tribes, it is safe to say that half of the

cema‘ât was composed of the leaders of small tribes. It seems that the Ottoman state

sought to create a great number of administrative units among the large Kurdish tribes,

251 Ibid., pp. 306-307.

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even if they were outside the state’s regular system. This “divide and rule” policy served

to weaken the power of the influential Kurdish leaders252. In this manner, the state

prevented the tribal leaders from establishing autonomy in the freehold lands.

In addition to this policy of “divide and rule”, the state sought to turn to the state’s

advantage some of the privileges it had granted by interfering in the internal affairs of the

tribes. In accordance with ancient custom, Sultan Selim consented to allow the Kurds to

retain the right to elect their own leaders. But the Ottoman sultan tried to influence the

election of the tribal leader, as in the case of the election of a leader of the Sason family.

In this case, when Shah İsma‘il detained the Kurdish leaders, the notables of the Sason

tribe elected Hıdır253. But another member of the family, Muhammed, rejected his

brother’s leadership and asked for the protection of the Safavi shah. Probably in order to

prevent this alliance, Sultan Selim also supported the leadership of Muhammed in return

for the latter’s submission to the Ottoman state254. Even though the dynamics were

different in this particular case255, the Ottoman sultan may have used his initiative in

other cases of election also and supported a candidate who would not be damaging to

Ottoman policies. Furthermore, Ottoman intervention served to connect the Kurdish tribal

leaders with the center in the process of election and in the creation of loyal forces.

In order to provide security and stability on the borders between the Ottoman and

Safavi states, the Kurdish begs in autonomous administrative units might have had to

serve with their military forces which were recruited from the tribes loyal to the state.

252 As for the tribes in the lands where the Ottoman state they arranged as miri lands, they were ruled by

uniting. See Özoğlu, “State-Tribe Relations”, pp. 17-18.

253 Sharafnâme, pp. 193-194.

254 Ibid., p. 194.

255 The Kurds always had the opportunity to change their side in the favor of the Safavi state, and after the

Ottoman conquest, they used this statement as a threat and ultimatum. Therefore, it can be suggested that

also after the conquest, the Ottoman state introduced such policies to blockade the ways of the threats.

97

They were probably expected to protect the border from Safavi attacks and the caravans

from bandits. Furthermore, in the reign of Sultan Selim, their obligation to participate in

wartime military expeditions became law256.

To control more directly the autonomous begs under the unit of the cema‘ât, the

Ottoman state attempted to create a central administrative unit, the eyâlet-i Diyarbakır, in

the middle of these autonomous lands. In this vilâyet, the revenue of two important cities,

Amid and Mardin, was allocated to the current Ottoman military administrator, the

beylerbeyi Bıyıklı Mehmed Pasha. The rest of the sancaks were distributed to those who

would be considered as Ottoman military administrators. Some of these Kurdish notables

were those mentioned in Bidlîsî’s writings, among whom Pîrî Beg, Shah Ali Beg, Yiğid

Ahmed Beg257, Sultan Ahmed and Pir Hüseyin were appointed as mirliva of Ruha,

Çermik, Ergani, Kiği and Çemişkezek respectively258. The mirlivas of Siverek and

Arapgir, Muzaffer and İskender Begs, may also have been Kurdish notables, even though

their names are not known to us. The Ottoman state granted to these mirlivas the lands as

has, (lands with a tax yield guaranteed to be over 100.000 akçes), or as zeamet, (a unit of

middle rank which generated a revenue of from 20.000 to 100.000 akçes). For example,

the livâ of Sincar and the villages of the livâ of Amid, Tercil, Rabat, Ciske, and Kulb

were allocated to Kurdish notables as zeamet259. Furthermore, some mirlivas’ sons and

relatives were able to possess timars yielding up to 20.000 akçes. For example, the

relatives of Muzaffer Beg, mîrlivâ of Siverek, the relatives of İskender Beg, mîrlivâ of

256 Ahmet Akgündüz, Osmanlı Kanunnameleri ve Hukuki Tahlilleri (İstanbul, 1990), vol. 7, p. 134.

257 Bidlîsî mentioned Yiğit Ahmed Beg as an Ottoman officer but Diyarbakır in origin. See, Bidlîsî, SN, fol.

127b.

258 BOA, TT, E., nr. 64, pp. 387, 508, 537, 723, 757.

259 We determined their Kurdish origin with their nicknames such as Atak, Sasoni or Kurd.

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Arapgir, and the relatives of Shah Ali Beg, mîrlivâ of Çermik, appear in the cadastral

register as timarlı sipahis260.

Here, we have simply tried to illustrate how the Kurds who sought to obtain

autonomy were molded into the central system. It should be noted that Kurdish notables

constituted only one element out of several in the administration of the province of

Diyarbakır. Apart from the local Kurdish administrators, there were Ottoman officers

appointed from the center or from Rumelia, and other local notables such as the

Turcomans; some others were former Akkoyunlu or Dulkadir elites like Tur Ali, the

mirlivâ of Berriyyecik261. This colorful mixture seems to have stemmed from an Ottoman

policy to balance as well as weaken the powerful groups each of who had potential to

declare its autonomy. In conclusion, it can be said that the Ottoman state brought various

politically powerful notables in the area to important positions, but all were appointed as

Ottoman officials and became part of the Ottoman administration262. In addition, the

politically autonomous Kurds on the Safavi border would always be under the control of

the province of Diyarbakır, the regional center of power.

However, even if the Kurdish notables in the picture were integrated into the

central system that the state sought to establish, some records indicate that these new

Ottoman administrators tried to obtain further rights. Firstly, they managed to obtain

recognition of the livas in the provinces of Diyarbakır as yurdluk ve ocaklık, which meant

that succession to the sancak/livâ would remain within the family. Secondly, some of the

260 BOA, TT, nr. 64, pp. 481-483, 691. For the examples for Çermik see Mehmet Salih Polat, “XVI. Yüzyıl

Başında Çermik Sancağı Çüngüş ve Hasaran Nahiyeleri”, Unpublished Seminar Papers (Konya, 1984), pp.

57-58.

261 For the examples see BOA, TT, nr. 64, pp. 58-60, 64-68, 74, 78-80, 368, 407, 416, 418, 420, 489-491.

262 Faroqhi also suggested that to local man as governor enabled the establishment of control of the state in

the first place. See, Faroqhi, The Ottoman Empire and the World, p.75.

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zeamet and timar holders not only had the right to collect land tax as representatives of

the Ottoman state but also took rent from the farmers on their fields as mâlikâne

hissesi263.

While the Ottoman state organized the administration of the borderlands in the

east, it also gradually tried to undermine the Kurdish begs’ autonomy. On their part, these

notables struggled with the Ottoman officials in order to expand the borders of this

extraordinary administrative unit. The differences that emerge when we compare the

cadastral register of 1518 and the registers of 1520 with each other, allow us to trace this

disagreement between the Ottoman and local rulers.

Some districts that are listed under the title of cema‘ât-i Kurdân in the registers of

1520 are listed as livâs of the province of Diyarbakır in the 1518 cadastral register.

Whereas, in the cadastral register the five sancaks, Berriyyecik (Birecik), Çemiskezek,

Çermük, Sincar and Siverek were apparently considered as ordinary Ottoman

administrative units, in the registers of 1520 they were categorized as cema‘ât.

Furthermore, the village of Atak, organized as an administrative unit under the livâ of

Amid in the cadastral register, appears under the cema‘ât in the records of 1520. Even

though these discrepancies, which are mirrored in the 1518 and 1520 records, are limited

to six districts, it seems likely that the Ottoman state and the Kurdish notables were

involved in strife with each other over other territories also264.

263 For the examples see BOA, TT, nr. 64, pp. 6-9.

264 In addition, there were not only Kurds but also other political actors in the Kurdistan of Bidlîsî, even

though he never mentioned them. For this district of Berriyyecik, the Ottoman state seems to have

negotiated with a Turcoman leader, Tur Ali Beg. I can be speculated that the Ottoman state appointed Tur

Ali Beg as mirlivâ-i Beriyyecik in order to create an alternative power to the autonomy of Kurds. In either

case, it is understood that some disagreements between the Ottomans and Turcoman tribal leader revolved

around the type of administrative position of Beriyyecik.

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This administrative structure that was formed shortly after the conquest

illuminates, above all, the process of negotiation between the local Kurdish notables and

the Ottoman state and their struggles for autonomy in the governance of the territories in

the Ottoman borderlands in the east. Taking into account the conditions among the

Kurdish tribes and the topographical characteristics of the area, the state did not/could not

turn the whole of this newly conquered area into a regular Ottoman province. Rather,

central and local administrations were allowed to coexist. In the years following 1518, the

Ottoman state gradually increased its dominance over the lands by rearranging most of

the cema‘ât as livâs265. In 1540, livâs such as Sincar, Çermük and Siverek, seem to have

been considered as ordinary Ottoman administrative units in the province of

Diyarbakır266. Furthermore, from 1540 onward, Hasankeyf267 and some territories of

Bitlis and Van seem to have been compelled to welcome the Ottoman cadastral

officers268. In the seventeenth century, the number of the cema‘ât-called hükümet at that

time decreased269. Apparently, the Ottoman state aimed to rearrange the administration of

Bitlis and Van as standard eyalets like Diyarbakır. Likewise, shortly after the survey of

1540, a new eyalet emerges in the cadastral registers under the name of eyâlet-i Bitlis270.

The reorganization of Bitlis and Van as standard Ottoman administrative units

signified an important success for the Ottoman state because these districts constituted

the Ottoman border in the east. As we have shown, Bitlisî, too, for this reason, gave great

importance to the two districts, but he was not able to incorporate the shore areas of Lake

265 Mehmet Öz, “Ottoman Provincial Administration in Eastern and Southeastern Anatolia”, Ottoman

Borderlands, ed. by, Kemal H. Karpat and Robert. W. Zens (Medison, 2004), p.147; Metin Kunt,

Sancaktan Eyalete (İstanbul, 1978), pp. 35-38.

266 BOA, TT., nr. 200.

267 Ibid.

268 BOA, TT, nr. 208.

269 Öz, “Ottoman Provincial Administration”, pp. 153-154.

270 Akgündüz, Osmanlı Kanunnameler, vol. 7, p. 134.

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Van, consisting of Van, Ahlat and Adilcevaz, into the Ottoman lands, despite the fact that

he had struck a deal with the son of the ruler, Melik Beg. Apparently, the ruler of Van,

Zahid Beg, whom Bidlîsî called a deviant, continued to swear allegiance to the Safavi

shah up to 1527. After this time, Zahid Beg appears in the Ottoman registers as the ruler

of an unidentified territory271. On the other hand, in 1530, the ruler of Bitlis, Şeref Khan,

whom Bidlîsî represented as the most reliable and pious ally of the Ottoman sultan,

would revolt against the Ottoman sultan, and take refuge with the Safavi Shah Tahmasb,

thus inculcating a new period of tension between the Ottoman and Safavi states272. This

last case obviously manifests one result of the centralizing polices of the Ottoman state.

In 1533, the Ottoman provincial officials had begun to change their policies in favor of

the Turcoman leader, Ulama Tekelu, who was a more malleable leader than Şeref Khan,

representing the central state in the province in order to bring the district of Bitlis under

the control of the Ottoman authorities. The cases of the tribal governors of Bitlis and Van

indicate that time could cause changes in the political tendencies, conditions and

considerations for both the Ottoman state and the Kurdish leaders, and old allies could

become enemies or, vice versa, old enemies who had been accused of being deviant could

become allies. All in all, during the sixteenth century the Ottoman state began to annul

the extraordinary status of the Kurdish leaders in the territories east of Diyarbakır. In

time, the number of freehold lands decreased; by integrating Kurdish landowners into the

timar system, the state expanded central control to the lakeshore territories of Van273.

271 Kunt, Sancaktan Eyalete, p. 130.

272 For this development see Sharafnâme, pp. 417-446.

273 The registers demonstrated that in 1568-67 most of territories were not considered as cema‘ât anymore,

but as standard Ottoman provincial unit. See, Kunt, Sancaktan Eyalete, pp. 142-144. Also the number of

the freehold lands were pointed as four in Evliya Çelebi. Besides, it is understood from his accounts that in

seventeenth century, the Ottoman State collected the tax from most of freehold lands, even it was

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Changes in the fiscal arrangements indicate also the increasing control of the

central state in the eastern provinces. Subsequent to the conquest, the state would prefer

to negotiate with the local notables about the types, amounts and rates of taxes, and

accept the existence of local taxes that had been valid before the Ottoman conquest274. In

this manner, the state prevented any interruption in the collection of taxes during the

process of adaptation to local customs. But in the years between 1520-1540, the state

rearranged the tax and introduced standard Ottoman taxes instead of local taxes that could

not be controlled by the state.

Consequently, the lands in the newly formed administrative structure were

granted to Kurdish notables in return for their loyalty to the Ottoman sultan and military

success during the war between the Kurds and the Safavis. As the result of these

negotiations and on account of local conditions, such as the influence of the Kurdish

notables on the tribes in the area, an extraordinary administrative unit appeared in the

Ottoman administration on the borderland between the Ottoman and Safavi states.

Shortly after the conquest, this unit was called cema‘ât and, later, vilâyet-i Kurdistan or

hükûmet. In practice, in Ottoman administrative organization of the early sixteenth

century, the timar system did not apply in some provinces such as Crimea, as it did in the

eastern borders under the cema‘at system. Rather, Crimea, for example, had been subject

to annual taxation. In fact there is no mention in any law of the early sixteenth century

about whether the Kurds considered to come under the cema‘at formula might have been

subjected to such a taxation. But even if they regularly paid a certain amount to the

extraordinary. See, Martin van Bruinessen, Hendric Boeschoten, Evliya Çelebi Diyarbakır’da (İstanbul,

2003), pp. 52-59.

274 For the gradual changes in the tax arrangements in the kanunnames of eastern provinces during the

sixteenth century see BOA, TT, nr. 64, 200; also see Akgündüz, Osmanlı Kanunameler, p. 134.

103

central state, this autonomous unit in the Ottoman borderlands in the east should be

considered as an exceptional case at that time. Over all, it can be said that the Ottoman-

Safavi conflict gave way to the politically rise of the Kurdish notables in the area of Iraq-i

Arab. They would always keep their political influence in the Ottoman provincial

administration in eastern borderlands. Bidlîsî as the one who masterminded the

negotiations between the Ottoman and Kurdish leaders, may be also considered the most

significant agent in the establishment of such an extraordinary administrative unit.

The results of the efforts of Bidlîsî are best demonstrated through the military and

political successes of the Ottoman state in the Iranian lands. Even if we allow some

exaggeration, it seems certain that Bidlîsî’s intimate knowledge of the local power

dynamics and his skill in bringing about an alliance between two parties with sometimes

clashing interests was a major factor behind the success of Sultan Selim in his policies on

Iran in the early sixteenth century. In a more general sense, the efforts of Bidlîsî also

illustrate the importance of diplomacy alongside military confrontation in Ottoman

policies of expansion as well as the roles played by local power holders and mediators

with both local and imperial connections in the process.

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CHAPTER THREE

İDRİS-İ BİDLÎSÎ’S VIEWS ON RELIGIO-POLITICAL AUTHORITY

As the Ottoman state expanded towards predominantly Muslim lands to the east

and south during the early sixteenth century, Ottoman self-image and political identity

were also transformed. The Ottomans not only came to embrace a much more clearly

delineated Sunni identity, but also began to see themselves as the foremost rulers of the

Muslim world. Perhaps the clearest traces of these developments can be found in the

budding Ottoman political literature of this period275. Interestingly, the people who

produced this literature were not all products of the Ottoman political system. They also

included many scholars of Iran who had fled the region upon the Safavi take-over and

who had found new employment in the Ottoman court. Among them was also the

subject of this study, İdris-i Bidlîsî.

When the Ottomans were beginning their military campaigns in the eastern

Muslim world in 1514, Bidlîsî had already penned the Risâla fi’l-Khilâfa wa Âdâb al-

Salâtîn, a treatise in the form of an adab book -ideal refinement of thought, word and

deed276 in which he theorized about the model for an ideal sultan based on his readings in

Sufi and juridical literature. But it was after he returned to İstanbul from Diyarbakır in

1518 that he truly became involved in the intellectual efforts among the Ottoman learned

men to legitimate their ruler. As we have seen in Chapter One, the products of his

intellectual activities on this front appeared in his last years: the Selimshahnâme, a

chronicle of the reign of Sultan Selim, and the Kânûn-i Shahenşâhî, a political tract that

275For more detail evaluation about the factors behind the increasing in the number of political writings the

age of Sultan Süleyman see Yılmaz, The Sultan and The Sultanate, pp. 125-134.

276 Dj.Khaleghi-Motlagh, “Adab”, Encyclopedia Iranica, vol. I, pp. 431-439, at p. 432.

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broke fresh ground in Ottoman political literature. Written by a bureaucrat who had

personally witnessed the policies and affairs of both Sultan Selim and Shah İsma‘il, these

writings must have held special importance for Bidlîsî’s Ottoman patrons.

The aim of this chapter, then, is twofold: to analyze how this important scholar

and statesman represented the Ottomans as well as their rivals, the Safavids, in his

political and historical writings and to situate his views in their proper intellectual and

historical context. With the latter aim in mind, the first part of this chapter, organized in

two sections, examines changing conceptualizations of political authority in the eastern

lands of Islam during the fifteenth and early sixteenth century. The focus of the second

part of this chapter is Bidlîsî’s refutation of the religio-political claims of Shah İsma‘il

and his depiction of Sultan Selim as the ideal sultan. Within this framework, Bidlîsî’s

arguments on the nature of rulership, and the religious and ethical qualities of an ideal

ruler are examined. Finally, the last part of this chapter explores Bidlîsî’s

conceptualizations of the caliph-sultan and his grounds for thinking that only one person

at a time could hold this office. To illustrate the parallels between the outlook of Bidlîsî

and that of the Ottoman elites of his time, references will also be made throughout to the

writings of such Ottoman scholars and bureaucrats as Kemalpaşazâde, Ebussu‘ud (1574)

and Lütfi Pasha (d.1562) about governance, Shah İsma‘il and ghulat Shi’i.

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I. Muslim Concepts of Political Authority during the Fifteenth and Early

Sixteenth Centuries

i- The Regional Caliphate

Political as well as astrological events, religious tendencies and considerations,

and debates over judicial questions shaped and changed the theories and concepts of

Islamic political authority. One of the most important political events in this regard was

the invasion of much of the eastern lands of Islamdom, including Baghdad, the seat of the

Abbasid caliphate, by the Mongols in the thirteenth century. While afterwards a branch of

the Abbasid family took refuge with the Mamluks and maintained the caliphate under the

protection of the Mamluk rulers, they no longer provided a leadership of much

significance to Muslims277.

After this development, the historical caliphate ceased to exist and jurists such as

Ibn Jamâ’a (1241-1333), Ibn Taymiyya (1262-1328) 278 and philosophers such as Ibn

Khaldun (d.1406) and later, post-Mongol authors such as Dawânî, Mulla Jâmî and Fadl

Allâh Isfakhânî needed to redefine and reformulate the caliphate. Despite the variety of

their ideas, these authors of the post-Abbasid and the post-Mongol period seemed in

general to ignore one main axiom: namely, that the caliph had to be from the tribe of

Kuraysh. Relieving the caliphate from the burden of having to be of prophetic lineage,

they basically suggested that “upon the death of the prophet Muhammed the sovereignty

277 Ann K. S. Lambton, State and Government in Mediveal Islam An Introduction to the Study of Islamic

Political Theory: The Jurists (Oxford, 1981), p. 138.

278 Ann Lambton, “Changing Concepts of Authority in the Late Ninth/Fifteenth and Early Tenth/Sixteenth

Centuries”, in Islam and Power, ed. by Alexander S. Cudsi and Ali E. Hillal Dessouki (London, 1981), pp.

49-71, at p. 49.

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devolved on all those who by their learning and virtue were the authorized interpreters of

the law and charged with adapting it to new conditions of time and place”279.

Above all, these confirmations gave birth to new consideration of the caliphate

that is regional caliphate. In the fifteenth century, several Muslim Turks and post-Mongol

rulers in Iran and Minor Asia appeared as the caliph-sultan of their own territories,

claiming that they protected the religion and acted in the name of God. In this connection,

while the scholars such as Dawânî sought to provide a theoretical base to the nature of

this new concept of the caliphate, both Ottoman and Acem rulers began to use the title of

caliph, which were attributed earlier to only Abbasid caliphs.

According to Imber, the word “caliph” and its variants such as “mücâhids and

ghazis after the apostle of God and the rightly guided caliphs”, “the swords of God” and

“the instrument of God’s religion” were used as a title for the Ottoman sultans for the

first time in 1424280, but these usages were simply rhetorical embellishments 281.

Likewise, while the rulers of Anatolian principalities such as Karaman, Canik and

İsfendiyar addressed Sultan Murad II [r.1421-44, 1446-51] as “the chosen caliph of

human kind (güzîde-i halîfe-i âferîde)” or “the shadow of the God” in the letters they sent

to congratulate the Ottoman sultan on the victories he had gained over the Christians282,

in his reply, Sultan Murad, who was aware of the religious as well as political meaning of

279 Lambton, “Changing Concepts”, p. 50. Even tough Lambton attributed this argument to Ibn Jamâ‘a and

Ibn Taymiyya, it can be safely say that Ibn Khaldun and Dawânî based their interpretations on this

argument. Ibn Khaldun, for example, regarded the caliphate as a position to which every sultan could be

appointed, and suggested that government and kingship are the caliphate of the God amongst men, for the

execution of His ordinances amongst them. See, Hamilton A.R. Gibb, “Some Considerations on the Sunni

Theory of the Caliphate” in Studies on the Civilization of Islam, ed. by Stanford J. Shaw&William R. Polk

(Princeton, New Jersey, 1962), p. 145.

280 Colin Imber, The Ottoman Empire (Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 2002), p.126.

281 Colin Imber, “The Ottoman Dynastic Myth” in Studies in Ottoman History and Law (The ISIS Press,

İstanbul, 1996), pp. 308-309.

282 Sir Thomas W. Arnold, The Caliphate (Adam Publishers, Delhi, reprint in 1994), p. 130; Feridun Bey,

Münşe’atü’s- Selâtîn, vol. I, pp. 95, 96, 104.

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this title, declared himself to be the caliph by implying that, God having graced him with

the dignity of the caliphate, he, in return, devoted himself day and night to engaging in

ghaza and jihad283. Arnold ascertained that after the time of Sultan Murad II, Ottoman

sultans from Bayezid II to Selim I used the title for themselves, and that other Muslim

rulers used, both for themselves and also for the Ottoman sultans, variants of this phrase-

“the shadow of God”-: “ the refuge of the Sultanate/caliphate (sultân/halîfe-i penâh)”284,

“the star of the caliphate (şihâb-u hilâfe)285”, “light of the garden of the Sultanate and

light of the garden of the caliphate (nûr-i hadîka’-i saltanat ve nûr-i hadîka’-i hilâfet)”286,

“the manifestations of the lights of the caliphate, the manifestation of the arts of God

(mazhar-i envâr-i hilafet, mazhar-i âsar-i rahmet)”287. In parallel to the Ottoman rulers,

the Akkoyunlu rulers used the title of caliph and its variants such as “master of an

auspicious conjunction” (sahib-kırân)288, “the Lord of the Time” (sahib-i zamân), and

“the Restorer of the Faith” (mujaddid-i din)289.

Even as waging wars against infidels seemed to be the strongest factor justifying

the caliphate of the Ottoman as well as other Muslim rulers in the fifteenth century, these

rulers further compounded their image as the ghazi/mujâhid caliph with the image of the

sultan/caliph as a quasi-mystical leader. As is well known, the social and political

dislocation caused by the Mongol invasion had stimulated the growth of Sufism,

283 Feridun Bey, Münşe’atü’s- Selâtîn, p. 96.

284 For it use by the ruler of Karaman, for the Sultan Murad II see Ibid., pp. 166, 177.

285 For the same sultan see Ibid., p. 216.

286 The Sultan Mehmed II used these phrases for his sons, Mustafa and Cem; see Ibid., pp. 279, 283.

287 For these expressions used for Sultan Selim see, Ibid., pp. 368.

288 For the titles of Uzun Hasan see, Abu Bakr-i Tihrani, Kitab-i Diyarbakriyye, ed. by N. Lugal and Faruk

Sümer (Ankara, 1962), pp. 309, 315, 330.

289 For such depictions see, Abu Bakr-i Tihrani, Kitab-i Diyarbakriyye; Fadlullah b. Ruzbihan Khunji-

Isfahânî, Târîkh-i Âlam-i Ârâ-yi Amini [hereafter be referred to as TAA], ed.by John Woods, transl. by

Viladimir Federov Minorsky (Royal Asiatic Society, 1992), p. 30; Woods, The Aqquyunlu Clan, p. 119.

109

promising spiritual and moral advancement of the individual290. In fifteenth century Iran

as well as Asia Minor, there emerged various mystical movements comprising Sunni

Sufis, ghulats (excessive mystics) including those with messianic tendencies. In order to

appeal to these mystical groups the Akkoyunlu and Ottoman rulers resorted to an image

of the ruler as a quasi-mystical leader. Uzun Hasan, for instance, appeared in public in the

guise of a Sufi sheikh. According to Münşî, after Uzun Hasan performed the dawn

prayer, the drums were played in order to gather the divan; then Uzun Hasan appeared

with a dervish aba on his back and a woolen girdle around his waist and inaugurated the

divan” 291. Uzun Hasan as well as Bayezid II further reinforced their mystical images

through their patronage of Sufi masters. Mulla Jâmî, Husam al-din Bidlîsî, İbrahim

Gülşenî, and Najm al-din Abd al-Gaffâr Tabâtabâ’î, şeyhülislam of Tabriz in the fifteenth

century, and his son, Abd al-Vahhâb Hamadânî who served Shah İsma‘il later, were some

of the esteemed Sufis who had close connections with the Akkoyunlu dynasty.292

According to Hinz, Uzun Hasan’s closeness to Sufis attracted even Rumi Sufis, such as

Dede Ömer from the city of Aydın293. Like Uzun Hasan, Bayezid II also patronized Sufi

groups; he supported particularly the Khalwatî sheikhs, facilitating the spread of their

networks to İstanbul294.

290 George Lane, Early Mongol Rule in Thirteenth-Century Iran (RoutledgeCurzon, London&NewYork,

2003), pp. 228-30; for the same argument see Michel M. Mazzaoui, The Origins of the Safawids , pp. 42,

56-57; Moojan Momen, An Introduction to Shi’i Islam (Yale University Press, New Haven &London,

1985), p. 90.

291 Cited in Walther Hinz, “Akkoyunlular’ın Kültür ve Teşkilat Tarihi”, in Türkmen Akkoyunlu

İmparatorluğu, ed. by Necip Aygün Akkoyunlu&Adil Şen (Grafiker Press, Ankara), pp. 324-25.

292 Hamid Algar, “Naqshbandîs and Safavis” in Safavis Iran and her Neighbors, ed.by Michel Mazzaoui

(The University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City, 2003), pp. 9-11.

293 Hinz, “Kültür ve Teşkilat”, p.325; Dede Ömer mentioned by Hinz, was probably the founder of

Khalwatî order, Ömer Rûşeni (d. 1475).

294 Yusuf Küçükdağ, “Osmanlı Devleti’nin Şah İsmail’in Şiî Propangandacılarına Halvetiyye ile Karşı

Koyma Politikası”, XIII. Türk Tarih Kongresi (4-8 Ekim 1988), III/I (Ankara, 1999), pp. 435-444, at pp.

440-444.

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At the turn of the sixteenth century, Shah İsma‘il, who appeared as new political

power in Iran consolidated his political existence with different religio-political claims,

which would surpass the notions of regional caliphate. The next section discusses these

claims, which would preoccupy Bidlîsî during his last years as well as the Ottoman men

of letters, who dealt with the Ottoman-Safavi ideological conflict, and led them to

reformulate the concept of the caliphate.

ii- From Sufi Order to Polity: The Messianic Claims of the Safavi

sheikh/shah

In the fifteenth century, the adherents of Safaviyye order in Iran and Asia Minor,

included Sunnis as well as ghulat Shi’is, known as Kızılbaş. The master of the order in

the fifteenth century, Sheikh Cüneyd (1447-60) began to politicize the order by claming

messianic status. In fact, messianic claims seemed to be the most effective way among

the Sufis to legitimize their political authority. During the period of Mongol rule, Iran had

witnessed several messianic movements, such as Mar’ashi, Sarbidar, and Nurbakhshî,

which had originated in Sufi circles, and which had turned political. In the fifteenth

century, the messianic claims of Cüneyd were considered as heretical by Iranian ulema

such as Fadl Allâh Isfakhânî. The latter described this turn from mystical activities to

political ones on the part of Cüneyd as follows:

“The fools of Rum, who are a people in error and imagine a number of devilish

things, struck the bell of the inane claims of Christians on the roof of the

monastery of the world…they openly called Sheikh Cüneyd “God and his son

[ibn Allah]”…In his praise they said: “He is the Living one, there is no God but

he. Their folly and ignorance were such that, if anyone spoke of Sheikh Cüneyd

as dead, he was no longer able to enjoy the sweet beverage of life”295.

295 Translations of the phrases from Persian to English are those of Minorsky, see Arjomand, TTA., p. 80;

also for original terms of Fadl Allâh Isfakhânî, see, Ibid., pp. 65-67.

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It is difficult to determine whether Shah İsma‘il, the grandson of Sheikh Cüneyd

as well as the founder of the newly established Safavi state, claimed to be the absolute

ruler of Muslim world. But it is a fact that through his religious-political claims, he

succeeded to unite the ghulat Shi’is in Iran as well as Anatolia under his quasi-mystical

leadership. Through his mystical poems the Safavi ruler announced his claims to a quasidivine

rulership. In these mystical poems written in the Turkish vernacular Shah İsma‘il

bolstered his self image by identifying with all the political, religious and epic heroic

characters in the cultural past of both Islamic and pre-Islamic Iran. Hence, in some

verses he would declare: “I am the reincarnation of Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus,

and Muhammad”296; and also “Jamshid, Zahhak, Faridun, Hosraw, and Alexander the

Great”297. In other verses, he proclaimed himself to be the Messiah298 who was expected

to arrive at the end of the first millennium of the Islamic calendar, and thus, also the last

Prophet (khatm-i enbiyâ) 299.

Of course, it would be rash to undertake a literal reading of Shah İsma‘il’s poetic

declamations without taking into account the metaphors and symbols of the Sufi poetic

tradition; nevertheless, the words and images employed in his poetry can still tell us

much about the semantics of the Iranian world to which the Safavi shah addressed in

order to legitimate his worldly and divine rulership in Iran300.

296 Shah İsma‘il Khata’i, Il Canzoniere di Sah İsma‘il Hata’i, ed. by Tourkhan Gandjei (Napoli, Istituto

Universitario Orintale, 1959), p. 125; The English translations of these lines belong to Babayan. See

Babayan, Mystics, p. xxxi.

297 Hatâ’î; Also these lines of the English translations are those of Babayan. See Babayan, Mystics, p. xxx.

298 Hatâ’î, p. 155.

299 Hatâ’î, p. 155.

300 For the evaluation of the poem as a reflection of the society, which the poet perceived, see Victoria R.

Holbrook, The Unreadable Shores of Love: Turkish Modernity and Mystic Romans (University of Texas

Press, 1994), p. 15.

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Even if it is difficult to ascertain whether with his messianic utterances Shah

İsma‘il claimed to be the absolute and universal ruler of the Muslim world, the Ottomans

perceived the increasing influence of Shah İsma‘il among mystical groups in Iran and

Anatolia as a threat for their political existence and their projects of territorial growth.

Therefore this development resulted in a religio-political and military conflict between

the Safavis and Ottomans. This conflict, which was also a struggle between two Muslim

rulers for power, was also one of the reasons which brought out the need to reformulate

the legitimizing principles that would construct the religious basis of Ottoman political

existence and represent the Ottoman sultan as superior over other Muslim rulers.

II. Sultan Selim versus Shah İsma‘il: Bidlîsî’s Definition of the

Caliphate/Sultanate Contrasted with the Two Leaders’ Mode of Governing.

i-The Contribution of Bidlîsî to Ottoman Political Literature

As have mentioned in the first chapter of this study, one of the factors behind the

decision of Bidlîsî in leaving Iran was probably the ideology of ghulat Shi’ism that Shah

İsma‘il appropriated to consolidate his power, quitting the mystical path of his ancestors.

Bidlîsî as a follower of the Safi order, who had witnessed the transformation of the Safi

order from a Sunni order into a polity with a Shi’i ideology, probably reacted to this

development, rejecting the rulership of Shah İsma‘il and leaving his native land, Iran. The

conflict between the Ottoman and Safavis offered an opportunity for Bidlîsî to articulate

his thoughts about the rulership of the Safavi shah and his followers as well as about the

rulership of the Ottoman sultan in his political writings. Moreover, the Acem scholar

might have noticed that as of yet the Ottomans lacked an extensive treatment of political

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philosophy and might have wanted to fill that gap by bringing to his political writings the

insights he had drawn from juridical, philosophical and mystical literature as well as the

experiences he had accumulated in his native land. In both of these respects, Bidlisi has a

special place among the Ottoman political writers of the period.

Kânûn-i Shahenshâhî is not the first example of Ottoman political literature but it

seems to have been the primary work of political philosophy written in the reigns of

Sultan Selim and his son, Sultan Süleyman. In the formative period of the Ottoman state,

the demand in Ottoman society had been for epic stories such as İskendernâme of

Firdawsî rather than for information about political theory301. Also more works

containing entertaining features written in a simple literary style, such as Kâbusnâme of

Kaykâ’us (d.after 1082/83), were translated rather than sophisticated theoretical works on

political thought302. During the fifteenth century, there was a change in the nature of

political literature and an increase in the number of political works as well as translations.

Until the time of Bidlîsî, writers such as Amâsî (d.after 1412), Muşannifek (d.1470),

Kâfiyeci (d.1474), Sinan Pasha (d.1486) and Tursun Beg (d.after 1490) wrote political

works shaped by theoretical exposition, ethical and political philosophy as well as juristic

and Sufi views303.

Like other authors of the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries who produced

political works for the Ottoman sultans, Bidlîsî, too, seems to have been inspired by the

thoughts and methodology of Jalâl al-din Dawânî304 as well as Ibn Arabî, and Ghazalî (d.

1111), both of whom had influenced Dawânî. In addition, philosophers and jurists from

301 Yılmaz, The Sultan and The Sultanate, pp. 25-26, 34-35.

302 Ibid., p. 26.

303 For the brief information about these authors see Ibid., pp. 27-33, 37-43.

304Tavakkolî, Kânûn-i Şahenşahi, p. XXXIX.

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different areas and sects such as Tûsî, Ibn Jamâ’a, Ibn Taymiyya and Ibn Khaldun,

provided the theoretical background of Bidlîsî’s considerations concerning political

authority in his Kânûn-i Shahenshâhî.

Another political writing of Bidlîsî, Risâla fi’l-Khilâfa wa Âdâb al-Salâtîn, was

written in a period when the political crisis between the Ottoman and Safavi states as well

as the political struggles among the sons of Bayezid for the throne had just started.

Differently from the Kânûn-i Shahenshâhi written in Persian, this work was written in

Arabic. Risâla fi’l-Khilâfa wa Âdâb al-Salâtîn is divided into two main sections: in the

first, Bidlîsî discusses the question whether in a given time period there could be more

than one caliph from juridical, philosophical and mystical perspectives; in the second, he

devotes himself to giving advice to the rulers, providing space for anecdotes from, for

example, the prophet Solomon.

Differently from the abovementioned writings, the Selimshahnâme was a

historical narrative, but Bidlîsî also articulated his political views in this work. Besides,

the political treatises of Bidlîsî, particularly Kânûn-i Shahenshâhî appeared at a time

when the Ottomans had just incorporated a vast chunk of the Arabic speaking lands from

Aleppo to the Hijaz and Cairo into their empire were written with the consideration of the

Ottoman growth as an imperial state. In line with this, Bidlîsî reformulated the model of

ideal Muslim ruler that would give a universal and absolute imagery to the Ottoman

sultan in the Kânûn-i Shahenshâhî. For this reason, it is a product of a wider context. On

the other hand, the Selimshahnâme was a offspring of the Ottoman-Safavi conflict and it

is a key work in declaring and justifying Sultan Selim as ideal Muslim ruler, and in

disproving the rulership of Shah İsma‘il, relaying on both his religiou-political activities

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and on the axioms to be ideal ruler, which were suggested in the Kânûn-i Shahenshâhî.

The following section will examine the considerations of religio-political leadership that

provided the Ottoman sultan in general, Sultan Selim, in particular, with superiority over

Muslim rulers through the political writings of Bidlîsî.

ii- Bidlîsî’s Concept of the Caliphate-Sultanate

Bidlîsî’s political views have much in common with the Ottoman political

literature of his time. In a recent study, the main features of the political theory of this

period have been characterized as “an acquiescent acknowledgement of rulership as

political power, a glorifying plaudit to portray the position of ruler as the noblest rank

among mankind, and an unremitting exhortation to the ruler to endow himself with moral

traits”305. In parallel to these general political views, and particularly to the mystical

perspective of such contemporaries as Dizdar Mustafa b. Abdullah or of scholars writing

slightly later such as Taşköprizâde (d.1561), Bidlîsî exposed the nature of rulership and

the need for a ruler, first of all, in the Kânûn-i Shahenshâhî. In this context, Bidlîsî

explains the reason for the existence of the ruler, referring to a Koranic verse that was

frequently used both before and after him:

When thy Lord said to the angels: “Lo, I am going to place a vicegerent in the

earth”. “They said: Wilt Thou place in it one who will work corruption and shed

blood? We sing hymns in Thy praise and ascribe holiness to Thee” was regarded

as defining the obligations of a sovereign in the earth306.

In Bidlîsî’s interpretation the sovereign in the earth was synonymous with such

titles as caliph and imam. He also used the caliphate and imamate as interchangeable

305 Yılmaz, The Sultan and The Sultanate, p. 135.

306 The Qur‘ân [hereafter Koran], trans.by Richard Bell, (Edinburg, 1960), 2:30.

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categories. According to him, the caliph had to be the sultan at the same time, but not

every Muslim sultan was caliph. This basic principle of Bidlîsî which disproved the

concept of the regional caliphate can be detailed with his suggestions that any Muslim

sultan who claimed to be the caliph must embody the divine caliphate and divine ethics in

his person. In the introduction to his work devoted to ethics, he first addressed the issue

of the divine nature of the caliphate/sultanate within the framework of the creation of

humankind. According to his arguments on the creation of humankind, which were

seemingly based on the ideas of illumination of Suhrawardî and the monism of Ibn Arabî,

the human was the perfect created being among all those of both the physical and

metaphysical world, since God had bestowed His glorious qualifications on a human

being307. While reinforcing this main suggestion with the Koranic verses: “…He formed

the human being and breathed into him His spirit”308, Bidlîsî also interpreted the mystical

verse: “ God made a mirror in which His perfect qualifications were reflected”309. By

using this metaphor of the mirror, Bidlîsî suggested that human beings are reflections of

God, and thus explained the main quality of the soul of a human being.

As for the benevolence and blessings of God, these would illuminate the

privileges of the caliph imparted by God. Bidlîsî discusses the blessings of God from two

standpoints of kalam. In the first, he considers that if God bestowed some of His qualities

such as beauty, fortune, happiness and prosperity on people without any effort on their

part, these are considered as divinely given (wehbî)310. In the second, he explains the rest,

307 Tavakkolî, Kânûn-i Şahenşahi, pp. 11, 13; Bidlîsî, KS, ff. 94b, 95a.

308 Koran, 32:9.

309 Bidlîsî, KS, fol. 94b.

310 Tavakkoli, Kânûn-i Şahenşahi, p.24; Bidlîsî, KS, fol. 98b; Yılmaz, The Sultan and The Sultanate, p. 231.

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which were the acquired (kesbî) qualities like wealth and position311. For Bidlîsî, like

prophethood312, the caliphate/imamate should be regarded as a divinely given blessing.

He probably inferred it from the following Koranic verse: “ Say: O Allah, owner of the

(kingly) power, Thou givest the power to whom Thou willest…”313. The verse was also

used by early Muslim rulers, like the Umayyads (661-750) to construct divine evidence

for their sovereignty314, and was interpreted to mean that nobody can be caliph, unless

God bestows this gift on him.

Nonetheless, an ambiguity in Bidlîsî’s exposition of the caliphate/imamate in

terms as divinely given should be underlined. This stems partly from the fact that the

subjects of both divinely given and acquired have been problematic concepts in both

kalam and akaid, and partly from the fact that Bidlîsî does not give any illustrative or

detailed information on these matters. Therefore, it is difficult to understand whether, by

regarding the caliphate/imamate as a divinely given, Bidlîsî implied that to govern is

natural in human being as Ghazâlî, Ibn Taymiyya and Ibn Khaldun did315 or whether he

simply sought to justify his assumption that God bestowed the caliphate/imamate as He

wished. The latter seems to be the more reasonable interpretation since Bidlîsî utilized

311 Tavakkolî, Kânûn-i Şahenşahi, pp. 24-5; Bidlîsî, KS, fol. 98b-99a; Yılmaz, The Sultan and The

Sultanate, p. 231. The term of kasb means to obtain; and Bidlîsî used it with this simple correspondence.

On the other hand, since he did not mention any details about the accusation of the deeds (amal) and the

effect of the God on amals, it is difficult to say by whom he was impressed in constructing his notions

about kasb.

312 Bidlîsî, KS., ff. 99a-b; For information on prophecy as a wahbî quality see, Şerafettin Gölcük and

Süleyman Toprak, Kelam Tarih-Ekoller-Problemler (Konya, 2001), pp. 329-331.

313 Koran, 3:26; 2:247.

314 Umayyads indicated this and similar verses to legitimized their caliphate and affairs see İsmail Çalışkan,

Siyasal Tefsirin Oluşum Süreci (Ankara, 2003), pp. 160-174.

315 Lambton, State and Government, pp. 108-9, 146, 156-57; also see Hamilton A. R. Gibb, “ The Islamic

Background of Ibn Khaldun’s Political Theory’, in Studies on the Civilization of Islam, ed. by Stanford J.

Shaw&William R. Polk (Princeton, New Jersey, 1962), p. 169.

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similar expression such as “God selected special people to give the caliphate to as He did

to the prophets”316.

According to Bidlîsî, a ruler who claims to have been chosen by God as the caliph

on earth had to be equipped with the proper qualifications. Furthermore, the true ruler

was the manifestation of the prowess (kuwwa), knowledge (‘ilm) and wisdom (hikma) of

God, like the prophets, saints, and imams who had perfected all of these317. For him,

only if these qualifications were manifested in the ruler could true leadership (khilâfat-i

Hakk) be assumed. As the manifestation of the wisdom of God, the perfect ruler

represented God’s government on earth. Accordingly, those representatives of the

power/authority of God were obligated to guide people, to establish order, and manage

the affairs of the city, domestic governance, and the worldly and religious acts of their

subjects; “the one who executed all in the name of world leadership was called zill Allâh

and khalîf Allâh”318.

Since “the kings were the manifestations of the regency of God (padishâhân

mazhar-i shâhî-i Hakk) 319, and the reflection or the light of God, from which the idiom

the shadow/light of God originated, the caliph would govern as the representative of God

upon earth. While Bidlîsî represented the divine nature of the caliphate in such a mystical

light, he objected to the use of the mystical notion of hulûl (transmigration/reincarnation)

to explain the nature of rulership of Shah İsma‘il. Hulûl, which is usually translated as

transmigration/reincarnation, is a concept that has been interpreted differently by

different groups. For some ghulat Shi’i groups, the Divine Soul transmigrated to the

316 Bidlîsî, KS. fol. 99a; Yılmaz, The Sultan and The Sultanate, p. 154.

317 Tavakkolî, Kânûn-i Şahenşahi, pp. 15, 22; Bidlîsî, KS, ff. 95b, 97b.

318 Tavakkolî, Kânûn-i Şahenşahi, pp.19-20; Bidlîsî, KS, fol. 97a.

319 Bidlîsî, KS, fol. 97b.

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Prophet Muhammed, his son-in-law, Ali, and the Twelve Imams who came from the

lineage of Ali320. In Sufi conception based on the monism of Ibn Arabî, hulûl was

regarded as the essence of the cosmos and of all creation in which the divine was

manifested (tajalliyât-i ilâhiyya)321. Hulûl was also manifest in Suhrawardî’s doctrine of

illumination. According to him, light as well as darkness is an expression of existence322.

While this approach was also to become the basis for the Nizâriyya-a branch of Shiismwhose

adherents believed that the Divine light transmigrated into the Prophet, Ali and

Imams323, Bidlîsî, like other Sunni Sufis, must have appropriated the theory of

illumination; on this theoretical basis, he discussed human nature being in a mystical

light: “God lighted the candle of the heart from His divine light” (o dil râ az çerâğ nur-i

kudsî ber efrûht) 324.

On the other hand, Bidlîsî did not define his monistic ideas, which explained the

cosmos as the manifestation of the qualities and power of God, as hulûl. Rather he

labeled as hulûl the abovementioned notions of ghulat Shi’i or Nizâriyya. Bidlîsî

regarded such beliefs as heretical, and accused Shah İsma‘il and his subjects of being

hulûlî because they believed that God had transmigrated into the Safavi shah, who came

from the family of the Prophet Muhammed, and, also that the Hidden Imam was revealed

in the persona of Shah İsma‘il325. In this regard, Bidlîsî might have had in mind such

320 Bekir Topaloğlu, Kelam İlmi Giriş (İstanbul, 1981), pp. 221-29; Kürşat Demirci and Yusuf Şevki

Yavuz, “Hulûl”, DİA, vol. 18, p. 343.

321 For Ibn-i Arâbî see Henry Corbin, Spiritual Body and Celestial Earth (I. B.Tauris, London, 1990), p. 83;

Hüsamettin Erdem, Panteizm ve Vahdet-i Vücûd Mukayesesi, (Ankara, 1990), pp. 42-43.

322 John Walbridge, The Wisdom of the Mystic East (New York, 2001), p. 53; Also for Walbridge’s

commentary on the notions of hulûl of Suhrawardî, see Walbridge, Ibid., pp. 80-83.

323 Demirci/Yavuz, “Hulûl”, p. 343.

324 Bidlîsî, KS, fol. 94b.

325 Bidlîsî, SN, fol. 73a; Kırlangıç, Selim Şah-nâme, p. 121.

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verses of Shah İsma‘il as “I am one with God” (‘ayn Allahım) 326 and “I was the

reincarnation of Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad”327.

In sum, while Bidlîsî defined the caliph-sultan as the manifestation of the

prowess, knowledge and wisdom of God on the earth, he rejected the Safavi shah’s

formulation of the divine nature of his rule as heretical. Besides, Bidlîsî attempted to

disprove the claim that Shah İsma‘il descended from the prophet Muhammed probably

with the consideration of the influence of this claim over Muslims. Let us now see how

Bidlîsî together with the Ottoman ulema dealt with the matter of the geneology of Sah

Ismail and how he supplemeted his remarks on the divine nature of the

caliphate/sultanate with his observations on the lineage of the caliph-sultan.

iii- Redefining the Criteria for the Genealogy of the Caliph

In the sixteenth century, to be sayyid – namely to be a descendant of the family of

Muhammed- was highly valued throughout the Islamic world. The Safavi shah tried to

consolidate his political legitimacy in the eyes of Shi’s and Sunni Muslims in Iran by

claiming descent from Ali as in the following poetical expressions: “(anamdur Fatima

atam Ali dür ) Fatima is my mother [the daughter of the Prophet], my ancestor is Ali ”328

Likewise, he wrote:

know for certain that Khatâ’i is of divine nature, that he is related to Muhammad

Mustafa. He is of the issue of Safi, he is the scion of Junayd and Haydar [İsmail’s

grandfather and father, respectively], [and] he is related to Ali Murtaza329.

326 Hatâ’î, p. 129.

327 Hatâ’î, p. 125; Babayan, Mystics, p. xxxi.

328 Hata’i, p.18.

329 Hatâ’î, pp. 22, 155; The translations of these verses are those of Babayan. See Babayan, Mystics, p.

xxxi.

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As a recent refugee from Iran, Bidlîsî had probably witnessed the gradual rise of

the prestige of Shah İsma‘il, and was aware of the effectiveness of the claim for

genealogical superiority of the Safavi shahs in Muslim eyes, even after Shah İsma‘il was

defeated by the Ottomans. For this reason, he was particularly concerned with the matter

of the lineage of the Safavi shah in his Selimshahnâme. According to him, the lineage of

Muhammed was not necessarily a determining factor in becoming the ruler but was,

nevertheless, important. In addition, Bidlîsî seemed to be quite aware of the political use

of descent from the Prophet, and he must have been sincere, when asserting that the

genealogy of Shah İsm‘ail was false, as his following remarks suggest:

“the claim of the Safavi sheikhs [Haydar, Cüneyd as well as Shah İsma‘il] to

sovereignty stemmed from their marital kinship with Iranian Kings and Sultans;

also, in order to justify their right to rule over the [Acem] lands, they insisted

upon a dubious claim to the lineage of seyyid”…330, “ when basing his lineage on

Betül ( another name of Fatma, the daughter of Muhammad and the wife of Ali),

he [Shah İsma‘il] did not fear the spirit of the Prophet Muhammad”331

Bidlîsî asserted that political marriages were the only reason for the rise of Shah İsma‘il

and his known ancestors as political rulers, and he found their lies contemptible. Still the

claim of the Safavi shah to be a descendant of the Prophet became an issue of dispute

among the Ottoman ulema. During the reign of Sultan Süleyman, a period when the

Ottoman-Safavi conflict was still continuing, the chief mufti, Ebussu‘ud, needed to

answer questions such as “if their chief claim to be a descendant of the Prophet is true,

would there be any hesitation in killing them?” in a fetva. In response, he declared that

Shah İsma‘il was definitely not of the pure line of the Prophet. He continued his

argument,

330 Bidlîsî, SN, ff. 72b-73a.

331 For such claims see Bidlîsî, SN, fol. 77a. But because these expressions belong to Bidlîsî, these can of

course be regarded as attributions of Bidlîsî to Shah İsma‘il.

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Shah İsma‘il, forced the sâdât-i ‘izam [who were descendants from Imams] to

give him a place in the chain of linage depended on the Imams, and killed those

who refused to do so. Yet some sâdât did what he wanted, in order to escape

death; but they deliberately tied İsma‘il’s genealogy with the one [Imam], who

had no children, so that one can understand the truth332.

The Ottoman ulema as well as Bidlîsî disproved the claim of the Safavi shahs to

be sayyid. At the same time they gave importance to the supremacy of lineage in

becoming the caliph. Bidlîsî gave an explanation for the significance of the lineage in the

following passage:

In accordance with the word of God, “I am going to place a vice-regent333[who

would fulfill Our orders on the earth] and, He it is who hath made you viceregents

on the earth334, the caliph means successor [he implied the successor of

God on earth], and therefore, a noble and pure lineage should be looked for in the

caliph. Undoubtedly, only one accepted [in terms of his noble lineage] deserved

the lordship of both body (jismâniyya) and soul (arvâh) and the throne of the

divine caliphate in the world335.

In the same mystical tone, Bidlîsî designated the lineage of Ottomans, calling Âl-i

Osman as the soul of the body of the sultanate/caliphate. In the section in the Selimnâme

on Sultan Selim’s accession to the throne, he praised the new sultan thus:

God gave nobility to Selim who came from the lineage of Ottoman, the most

auspicious of the ancestors having worn the crown (taj); [therefore] he

predominated over all other nobles in terms of dignity336.

On the other hand, in the years after the death of Sultan Selim, Ottoman literati

must have been still sceptical about the claim of both this sultan and later his son

Süleyman to the caliphate/imamate on grounds of the fact that the Ottoman dynasty was

332 Üstün, Heresy and Legitimacy, p. 65; Düzdağ, Şeyhülislam EbuSuûd Efendi, pp. 109-110.

333 Koran, 2:30.

334 Koran, 6:165; 35:39.

335 Tavokkolî, Kânûn-i Şahenşahi, p. 12; Bidlîsî, KS, fol. 94b.

336 Bidlîsî, SN, ff. 56a-57b.; Kırlangıç, Selim Şah-nâme, pp. 82-83.

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not of the tribe of Kuraysh, probably because they were confused about the concept of the

caliphate. Thus, Lütfi Pasha, a former grand vizier of Sultan Süleyman, composed a

risala discussing of this issue in order to eliminate remaining uncertainties about the

Ottoman right to the caliphate. In this risala, Gibb elaborates, Lütfi Pasha clarified the

questions of “certain noblest of the eşraf” who were in doubt about the necessity that the

Imam belong to the Kuraysh and about the appropriateness of applying the title of

caliph/imam to the Ottoman sultan. After searching canonical books on aqaid, Lütfi

Pasha stated that

“the requirement for imams to be of the Kuraysh was applicable only in the

earliest times of Islam after the death of the Prophet Muhammed, but not,

however, at this time… after the Abbasid Caliphs the matter is problematical”337.

Also he explained the matter of applying the title of caliph/imam to the Sultan as

follows338:

“I found certain books mention that…who commands the good and forbids the

evil is the caliph of God upon earth. Likewise, the authors of these books applied

the name of ımam and caliph to the sultan, vali and âmir,”

and allowed him to use these titles. Furthermore, Lütfi Pasha added that “the opinion of

jurisprudence was that the assertions of the Imamiyye that the Imamate was established

with Ali and for this reason continued in his house were contrary to the Sunna”339.

Neither Bidlîsî nor, later, Lütfi Pasha declared that being of the Kuraysh family

for the caliph/imam was mandatory. While this approach legitimates the caliphate of the

Ottoman sultan, it reveals the matter of the availability of the caliphate for every Muslim

ruler, and thus, multiplicity of the caliph. In the light of his political writings it can be

337 Hamilton, A.R.Gibb., “Lutfi Paşa on the Ottoman Caliphate”, Oriens, 15 (1962), p.292.

338 Ibid., p. 289.

339 Ibid., p. 292.

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suggested that Bidlîsî did not support the concept of a regional caliph, which meant that

there could be more than one caliph at the same time with a noble lineage. In this

connection, it is necessary to analyze Bidlîsî’s conceptualizations of the caliph-sultan of

Muslim world in greater detail.

III. The Religious and Ethical Duties of the Caliph-Sultan

Bidlîsî identified the religious and ethical principles which the caliph-sultan had

to have in his Kânûn-i Shahenshâhî, and evaluated the acts of Sultan Selim and Shah

İsma‘il according to these principles in his Selimshahnâme. These comparisons will be

dealt within the following section. Through such an analysis, I will continue to put

forward the role of the Ottoman ulema, in general, and that of Bidlîsî, in particular, in

formulating the superiority of the Ottoman sultan over the Safavi shah as well as the

religious identity of the main institutions of the state, the dynasty and society in line with

Islamic as well as pre-Islamic connotations of the ideal ruler and of statecraft.

i-The Union of Religion and State/Sultanate

Religion (din) and state/temporal power (devlet) were regarded as twins in

Islamic political theory340. al-Jâhiz (d.869) and Ghazâlî, for example, posited the idea that

“if religion was the base, devlet was its guardian and charged with its preservation; such a

principle required a norm, a canon (kânûn)”.341 In the same manner, Bidlîsî put forward

340 Ann Lambton, “Islamic Mirrors For Princes” in Theory and Practice in Medieval Persian Government

[hereafter be referred to as Theory and Practice] (Variorum Reprints, London, 1980), p. 419; also for the

ideom of “the religion and the state are twin”, see Lambton, “Justice in the Medieval Persian Theory of

Kingship” in Theory and Practice, p. 96.

341 Lambton, “Islamic Political Thought” in Theory and Practice, p. 409; Lambton, State and

Government, p. 108.

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the axiom that kingship and religion are twins; and that kingship is a form of piety. At

this point, Bidlîsî differentiated sultanate/kingship from the caliphate; the sultan was

directly chosen by God but only a pious, virtuous and righteous ruler could be the caliphsultan342.

In the Kânûn-i Shahenshâhî, where he listed the qualities of the caliph-sultan,

Bidlîsî regarded piety as the first obligation of the caliph-sultan; as for the criterion of

piety, he stipulated that the caliph-sultan should care for the tradition of the religion of

the Prophet, and glorify the rules and the Book of God. He pointed out the section of

hajj343 for the Koranic basis of his arguments:

“ Who, if We establish them in the earth (allazîna in makannâhum fî’l-‘arz), will

observe the Prayer, and pay the zekat, urge people to do what is reputable and

restrain from what is disreputable !… ”344.

For Bidlîsî, devotion to religion represented both a personal benefit in the sultan’s

next life and a political advantage for his temporal authority. The latter manifested itself

in the ordering of the subjects and armies of the sultan since, in accordance with the

maxim that the sultan’s religion is his subjects’ religion, too (al-nâsu ‘alâ din-i

mulûkihim)345. While requiring piety on the part of the sultan in order to take care of the

affairs of government, and harmony and unity between the sultan and his subjects, Bidlîsî

reminded the sultan of what would happen if he acted counter to the orders of God by

quoting the Koranic verse “And when your Lord proclaimed: Assuredly if you are

thankful, I shall increase you, but if you disbelieve, My torment is severe”346 as a warning

342 The thirteenth century Sufi, Najm al-din Râzi (d. 1256) discussed the matter of caliphate using the

same expressions. See Lambton, “Some Reflection on The Persian Theory of Government” in Theory and

Practice, p. 138-9.

343 Bidlîsî, KS, ff. 115a-b; Bidlîsî referred to the same Koranic verse in his Selimshahnâme, see Bidlîsî,

SN, fol. 71a.

344 Koran, 22:41.

345 Bidlîsî, KS, fol. 117a.

346 Koran, 14:7; also for the use of Bidlîsî see, Bidlîsî, KS, fol. 117b.

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to preserve the blessings of God, including the sultanate. He continued with an analogy

between the slave and the sultan to exemplify his argument. In this connection, he

asserted that in the same way that a patron gradually increases his mercy and favors

towards a slave who executes his service, so God augments His mercy and support and

shows benevolence toward His servants if they praise God by serving the divine order in

accordance with the book of God, the Sunna of the Prophet Muhammad and the Sunna of

the four rightly guided caliphs (khulefâ-i râşidîn)347. Otherwise, the end of the sultan

would be like the end of those degraded by God for deviating from the ways of religion.

At this point, in the Selimshahnâme Bidlîsî illustrated these views with the

examples of Shah İsma‘il, whom he criticized and Sultan Selim, whom he praised. When

he wrote about the religious and political acts of Shah İsma‘il, Bidlîsî assesed that Shah

İsma‘il could not be a true ruler who would represent the government of God on earth

and his claim to be “the refuge of the religion on the earth (eknûn ba gîtî menem dînpenâh)”

348 was unacceptable, since he had fallen into error. Already, because of his and

his followers’ deviations from Islamic behavior, God punished him by the sword of His

true representative, Sultan Selim, whose aim was to establish the order of God349.

Bidlîsî thought that religious acts of the Safavi Shah and his followers

demonstrated their deviations from the norms of Islam. On this point, Bidlîsî

distinguished the current Shah, his father, Haydar, and his grandfather, Cüneyd, from the

early sheikhs of the sect of Safî; he commended the latter as trusting and devout people,

347 Tavokkolî, Kânûn-i Şahenşahi, pp. 73-76; Bidlîsî, KS. ff. 116b-117a.

348 Bidlîsî, SN, fol. 91b; Kırlangıç, Selim Şah-nâme, p. 167.

349 For such poetical expression Bidlîsî attributed to Sultan Selim, see Bidlîsî, SN, ff. 79a-79b; Kırlangıç,

Selim Şah-nâme, pp. 137-138.

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worthy of respect350. According to Bidlîsî, the generations following these pious masters

had quit praying, declared canonically forbidden acts (haram) to be canonically

permissible (halal), drinking alcohol, illicit sexual relationships to be legal and despised

the Koran, Islam and shari’a, cursed the sheikhs and killed the ulema, destroyed the

mosques and burnt the sheikhs’ tombs and graves351. In the Selimshahnâme such aberrant

acts were represented in three partially overlapping ways. In the first, Shah İsma‘il and

his followers were represented as beliveres in Zoroastrianism; in the second, they became

ghulat Shi’i. Bidlîsî construed ghulat Shi’ism, which in some passage he called Khârijî-

Râfidî and, in other places, Kızılbaş, as a belief which originated in Zoroastrianism. In

Bidlîsî’s poetical compositions inserted into his prose works, he asserted that Kızılbaş

had learned to worship the fire from the Moghan [Zoroastrian priests]; the color of their

red headgear emerged from the color of fire of Zoroaster and in accordance with the

religion of Zoroaster, they put on this red headgear”352. Third, probably referring to the

Kızılbaş belief in hulûl, as mentioned above, Bidlîsî claimed that the Kızılbaş regarded

Shah İsma‘il as God and that İsma‘il also established his own shari’a353. Because the

latter amounted to heresy, he went on to label Shah İsma‘il and his believers as atheists

(mulhid), infidels (kafir) and apostates (murtad), heretics, and ahl-i fasâd/mafâsid

(seditious) throughout his historical narrative.

In the fetvas they issued on the ghulat mystical groups, Ottoman ulema of the

reign of Sultan Selim such as Kemalpaşazâde, and Hamza Gürz as well as the chief mufti

of the reign of Süleyman, Ebussu‘ud made almost the same arguments as Bidlîsî. Recent

350 Bidlîsî, SN, fol. 72b.

351 Bidlîsî, SN, ff. 72b, 77a-77b, 80a; Kırlangıç, Selim Şah-nâme, pp. 132-33.

352 Bidlîsî, SN, fol. 96a; Kırlangıç, Selim Şah-nâme, p. 177.

353 Bidlîsî, SN, ff. 73a, 77b.

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studies of these fetvas indicate that the common standpoint on the beliefs of Shah İsma‘il

and his followers was that the Safavis were a heretical group uniting all earlier

heresies354. Based on the fetvas of the ulema of his own time, Sultan Selim, in the letter

he sent to Shah İsma‘il, also mentioned the link between the pre-Islamic beliefs in Iran

and Safavis’ belief as the following: “according to fetvas given by the ulema, the ancient

obligation of extirpation, extermination and expulsion of evil innovation must be

fulfilled”355.

The most critical points of the Ottoman ulema’s attack on the Safavis were the

ideas of tajallâ (the manifestation of God as a human being) and tanâsûh (incarnation and

multiplicity of forms), which Bidlîsî defined with the term hulûl. These ideas must have

provided a key connection between the ghulat and the beliefs of pre-Islamic Iran, as the

Ottoman ulema, and Bidlîsî asserted. Interestingly, a recent study by Babayan has also

found the marks of Zoroastrianism in the ghulats’ cosmology356.

Bidlîsî, like the Ottoman ulema, underlined the weakness of the faith of the Safavi

shah and of his subjects to establish the proper religious practices of the caliph-sultan in

accordance with “shari‘a”. Whereas the appraisals of Bidlîsî and other Ottoman ulema

disproved the rulership of the Safavi shah, they granted the caliphate/sultanate to the

Ottoman sultan in accordance with these proper practices. In other words, the discussions

of the heretical beliefs and practices of the Safavis provided a convenient counterpoint to

a discourse of merit of the Ottoman rulers as Sunni Muslims. In this respect, like Bidlîsî,

Kemalpaşazâde suggested that, as a legal sect of the Ottomans, the ahl-i sunna did not

354 Üstün, Heresy and Legitimacy, pp. 28, 50; also Düzdağ, Şeyhülislam EbuSuûd Efendi, p. 110.

355 Üstün, Heresy and Legitimacy, p. 34.

356 Babayan, Mystics, pp. 48-49, 58-59.

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believe in the incarnation of God but defended the Unity of God, the eternity of His

attributes, and confirmed the shari’a of the Prophet Muhammad357.

Bidlîsî implied that God had granted the caliphate-sultanate to the Ottoman rulers,

because since the establishment of their dynasty, they had always been ahl-i iman, and

had been commended for propagating just laws based on the shari‘a. He interpreted also

their success in expanding their territories to be the result of their piety and their efforts in

the name of Islam. Like his successors, Sultan Selim had also endeavored to elevate and

spread the practice of Islam358. Moreover, both in the letters Sultan Selim sent to Shah

İsma‘il and also at the time he ascended the throne, the Ottoman sultan had declared that

God had given him the throne of the sultan and the caliphate, and his main aim in

accepting this divine trust was, as his ancestors had done, to reinforce Islam, to fulfill the

obligation to establish order in religion and the state through justice, and to eradicate

cruelty as his ancestors had done359.

ii-Jihad as a Religious Duty of the Caliph- Sultan

In the works of the ulema in the sixteenth century, jihad as a religious obligation

of the Ottoman sultan was defined in detail since at that time, in their opinion, Islam was

being threatened by the “heretical Safavis”. Bidlîsî, who shared the same worries with

the Ottoman ulema, wrote: “in accordance with his religious duty towards God, the

Sultan attempted to declare jihad, as did his ancestors”360 and presented the war against

357 Üstün, Heresy and Legitimacy, p. 29.

358 Bidlîsî, SN, ff. 71b-72a.

359 Üstün, Heresy and Legitimacy, p. 34., Bidlîsî, SN, fol. 64a.

360 Bidlîsî, SN, ff. 59b-60a, 73a.

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the Safavis as obligatory since they construed the actions of the Safavis as violations of

Islam.

Bidlîsî declared that fighting against the Safavis came prior to fighting infidels361.

In the Selimshahnâme, when he recounted the long process of decision making on the

part of the Ottoman ulema on this issue, he pointed out that such a decision was given in

the light of religious evidence and according to reason. According to shari‘a, the sultan

had to act under the guidance of the practices and moral example established by the

Prophet Muhammad, the four Caliphs and Imams362. Giving specific examples from early

Islamic preiod, Bidlîsî pointed out that even though, in their time, the invitation to accept

Islam had not yet reached many provinces, these leaders had given importance to fighting

those who appeared in the world of Islam with a rival claim of prophethood. Referring to

the historical events of that time to legitimate the Ottoman was against the Safavis,

Bidlîsî recommended fighting against the Safavis rather than “fighting against infidel

Franks and Tatars who had trespassed the borders of the Ottoman state” and violated their

religion363.

The Ottoman jurists contemporary to Bidlîsî and Şehzâde Korkud, the son of

Bayezid II, in a comprehensive work on the issue of faith he wrote as a candidate to the

throne classified Safavi society and the Turcomans who rebelled in Anatolia as murtad,

mulhid or zındık, and supported the Ottoman campaign against the Safavis. Some

declared that to punish them was canonically required (farz-ı ‘ayn) and (wâjib)364, and

361 For the fetvas of the Ottoman ulema including Ebussu‘ud’s issued on this argument see, Üstün, Heresy

and Legitimacy, pp. 39, 61; Also see Düzdağ, Şeyhülislam EbuSuûd Efendi, p. 111.

362 Bidlîsî, SN, fol. 73b.

363 Bidlîsî, SN, ff. 73b-74a.

364 For Şehzâde Korkud’s justifications of faith and the absence of the faith see Al-Tikriti, Şehzade Korkud,

pp. 163-185.

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some, like Ebussu‘ud who served as şeyhülislam during the reign of Sultan Süleyman

argued that it was canonically permissible (mübah)365. Drawing on the legal

consequences of the rules of jihad, the ulema found certain punishments appropriate for

the Kızılbaş heretics. Some punishments cited in recent studies can be summarized as

follows:

“If a village is on their (the opposite) side, the Sultan-ı Islam should execute their

men and divide their women, children and property among the guzat-i Islam; after

capturing these, the Sultan-i Islam should not accept their repentance but should

kill them all; whoever is captured while on his way to join them, should also be

killed”366.

Ultimately these fetvas show that the Ottoman ulema considered the Safavis as non-

Muslim since, in accordance with the shari‘a, such punishments were proper for infidels.

In Bidlîsî’s definition of the Ottoman sultanate/caliphate there is a formula,

masterfully designed by him. Accordingly, God had given the caliphate/sultanate to the

Ottoman dynasty in return for their upholding Islam. Having fulfilled their religious

obligations, the Ottomans had proved that they merited the benevolence of God. As for

the other Muslim states, they became part of dar al-harb like the Safavis if they fell into

religious aberration.

Bidlîsî’s definition of the duties of the sultan can be discussed in two main

sections. The first, as shown above, concerns the duties the sultan undertook to carry out

the commands of God and to give thanks to God for the blessing of the

caliphate/sultanate by promoting and refining the Islamic religion by means of jihad. The

365 Üstün, Heresy and Legitimacy, p. 60; also Düzdağ, Şeyhülislam EbuSuûd Efendi, p, 110. The reason

why he justified punishing the Kızılbaş as mubah was probably because he was considering the political

relationship between the Ottoman and the Safavi states in his own time.

366 Üstün, Heresy and Legitimacy, pp. 39-40.

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second duty of the caliph-sultan was to administer justice. This was the ultimate axiom of

Bidlîsî’s formula, as will be discussed in the next section.

iii-The Practice of Justice

The concept of justice (adalet) was a major principle in political thought and

practice and to administer justice was considered the most effective and wise principle of

conduct for a king367. In the administrative practices, the concept of justice meant both a

principle of social action and also embraced equity as an ethical notion. Thus, in

government, justice was defined as the prevention of abuse, the hearing of complaints

and the protection of the interests of the subjects368. The just government of the ruler was

linked to his ethical principles consisting of generosity, mercy towards his subjects,

humility, and faithfulness in keeping promises369. In the Kânûn-i Shahenshâhî these are

represented as significant factors that would lead to social harmony and peace. As for the

Selimshahnâma, it was a testimony to the just order of a sultan, Sultan Selim, who was

represented as having all of the abovementioned ethical characteristics.

In his advice on how to reach a state of perfect order, Bidlîsî did not overlook the

link between the pious and the just king and seemed not to tolerate the Islamic sanction,

“kingship is undermined by tyranny, not unbelief”370. For Bidlîsî, an irreligious king was

also an unjust/tyrannical one, and Shah İsma‘il, as the head of an irreligious society,

came under this category. He described the adherents of Shah İsma‘il as cursed sect does

not subscribe to the religion of God and Mustafa; their business is killing, tyrannizing,

367 Lambton, “Islamic Mirrors For Princes”, in Theory and Practice, p. 419.

368 For the quotation of Lambton from Bahrü’l - Fevâ’îd, see Lambton, “Islamic Mirrors For Princes”, pp.

430-1.

369 Ibid., p. 439.

370 This idiom is known as hadith.

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and causing sedition “(fırka-i mel‘ûn ne dar dîn-i hodâ ve mustafa kâr-i ishân katl we

zulm we fitna we cowr u cafâ) ”371, and he frequently emphasized the affairs of the Safavi

Shah out of Islam throughout the Selimshahnâme as the following: “…those who were

thirsty for blood and did not recognize the True [God]” “… the complaints from the lands

of Iran that the rule of religion had deteriorated; the owner of this dome [Shah İsma‘il]

was becoming a tyrant; because of his blasphemy, law and the order had been

overturned”372, “...Wherever there was a mu’min (believer), the Shah killed him, usurped

his possessions and took over his family; in accordance with his orders, adultery and

illegal intercourse (liwâta) were declared legal; and virtuous people were compelled to

practice such immoralities”373.

For Bidlîsî and the Ottoman ulema, the tyranny of Shah İsma‘il was not limited to

mere physical violence. By burning the Koran and other religious works, killing the

ulema, and burning the bones of deceased ulema, he violated what people considered

valuable and sacred.

While waging war against Shah İsma‘il was the duty of the caliph-sultan towards

God, the sultan who was appointed to execute justice upon earth must consider the

weakness of subjects who were exposed to cruelty and this was his duty towards his

subjects374. “If the shadow of the sultan”, Bidlîsî said, “is the refuge of the old and young,

[the sultan] must regard those under his order as part of his body, and consider their

welfare or their suffering of any kind as his own”375. The sultan must also show mercy

371 Bidlîsî, SN, fol. 71a.

372 Bidlîsî, SN, fol. 77a; Kırlangıç, Selim Şah-nâme, p. 132.

373 Bidlîsî, SN, fol. 77a; Kırlangıç, Selim Şah-nâme, p. 133.

374 Tavakkolî, Kânûn-i Şahenşahi, pp. 67-68; Bidlîsî, KS, ff. 114b-115a.

375 Tavakkolî, Kânûn-i Şahenşahi, pp. 67-68; Bidlîsî, KS, fol. 114a.

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towards His creations in accordance with the Koranic verses: “Verily Allah commandeth

justice and kindness...”376 and “And lower thy wing to any of the believers who follow

thee”377. Whereas the violent and impious actions of Shah Ismail towards the Sunnis in

Iran as was represented in Selimshahnâme indicated his unjust rulership, the appearance

of Sultan Selim as the saviour of Sunnis who suffered cruelty proved the justice of Sultan

Selim in the presentations of Bidlîsî.378.

Faithfulness in promise-keeping (ahde vefâ), presented as a significant ethical

principle, which the caliph-sultan had to have in order to be regarded as just, in the

Kânûn-i Shahenshâhî, was also stressed in the Selimshahnâme. For Bidlîsî, the sultan

should keep the promises he gave both to his enemies and to his allies: “And fulfill the

covenant, verily, a covenant is a thing for which one is responsible”379; if the sultan

neglected the orders of God and broke his promises, his subjects would lose their trust in

him as well as their desire to serve him in peacetime and in war, and the credit of the

sultan would decline in the eyes of his subjects380. When mentioning the events following

the military conflict at Çaldıran, Bidlîsî rejoiced that the sultan had ultimately kept his

promise to complete the military campaign he had planned toward Iran and reinforced the

Kurdish forces in difficult situation, which had ensued when the Ottoman sultan had

returned Amasya instead of advancing further to support the Kurdish forces (ez ân âvd-i

sultân mulûk-i ‘ajem perîshân dîl uftâd u zâr u dizham)381.

376 Koran, 16:90; for the quotation from Bidlîsî see Bidlîsî, SN, fol. 67b.

377 Koran, 26:215; also for quotation from Bidlîsî, see Bidlîsî, SN, fol. 73a.

378 Bidlîsî, SN, fol. 113a; Kırlangıç, Selim Şah-nâme, pp. 121- 122.

379 Koran, 17:34.

380 Tavakkolî, Kânûn-i Şahenşahi, pp. 81-82; Bidlîsî, KS, fol. 120a.

381 Bidlîsî, SN, ff.130a-b; Kırlangıç, Selim Şah-nâme, pp. 264-5.

135

The mention on the promise of the Ottoman sultan revealed another component of

administering justice in the Selimshahnâme: the obligation of the unity between the

people and the sultan. Here, Bidlîsî explained this axiom as the following: “the sultan is

the soul (jan we ten) and security of the body (beden); the parts of the body represent the

subjects of the sultan in both peace (hazar) and war (sefer)”382. In the Selimshahnâme,

Bidlîsî elucidated this principle by giving the example of the Ottoman sultan’s attitude

toward the Kurds. During the conflict between the Kurdish and Safavi forces, the Kurds

had waited for the support of Sultan Selim because the sultan had made promises to them

in this regard, as well as because his commandment would provide them with physical

and spiritual power. Even if the Ottoman sultan had not actually commanded the Kurds

in person, he had supported them with military forces and equipment383 and this was

enough, in Bidlîsî’s opinion, to demonstrate his perfection as caliph-sultan.

IV. Towards a New Formulation of the Universal Caliphate-Sultanate

As mentioned in the first section of this chapter, the notion of the regional

caliphate that emerged in the post Abbasid period allowed for the existence of multiple

caliphs/sultans at the same time. Even though the title of caliph continued to be used as a

prestigious title, it did not give the ruler who used it universal claim any more. Bidlîsî

reformulated the concept of the regional caliph and endowed it again with universal

meaning. According to this reformulation, there could once again be only one caliph at

the same time within the Islamic realm.

382 Bidlîsî, SN, fol. 104a.

383 When Kurds insistently called the Ottoman sultan for the support, Sultan Selim appointed Bıyıklı

Mehmed Pasha and his army to supply military force in aid of the Kurdish armies. For these historical

accounts see Bidlîsî, SN, fol. 131b; Kırlangıç, Selim Şah-nâme, p. 267.

136

In this respect, the date of the appearance of another political tract in which

Bidlîsî dealt with this issue is striking. Bidlîsî wrote Risâla fi’l-Khilâfa wa Âdâb al-

Salâtîn in 1512, when he was in Cairo and the struggles among the sons of Bayezid for

the throne continued and tension between three Muslim states, the Ottomans, the Safavis

as well as Mamluks was high. These political conflicts among Muslim rulers for absolute

power within the Islamic realm must have rendered the coexistence of multiple

caliphs/sultans unacceptable. Bidlîsî’s tract written at this critical period begins with the

permissibility of two or more caliphs/imams. Relating to this, Bidlîsî resorts to opinions

from Icî of the school of Ashâri, Keshshsaf of the school of Mu‘tazila and Zaydiyya, a

branch of Shi’i. To stress once more, Bidlîsî was not imbued with any sectarian bigotry.

Therefore he did not object to utilizing various concepts, including those of Shi’is, in

order to reach an ultimate decision for his justification of any issue. He probably made

conscious reference to different concepts through which he could justify his assumptions

from many perspectives.

Besides that, he indicates the hadiths as the main support for his claims.

Seemingly these hadiths comprised the juristic touchstone in the matter of the multiplicity

of the caliphs. One expedient is that if people acknowledged two caliphs, one of them

should be killed!; and another is that if someone appeared with a claim to the caliphate,

even though there already was an Imam, people should acknowledge the first as far as

they can or decapitate the latter!384. Through these hadiths, Bidlîsî probably inclined

towards the idea that the second one who declared his caliphate/imamate was the target to

be killed.

384 Bidlîsî, Risâla fî’l- Khilâfa wa Âdâb al-Salâtîn, ff. 2b-3a.

137

In the Kânûn-i Shahenshâhî, Bidlîsî further argued that as the representative of

God’s perfect government on the earth, there could only be one sultan/caliph; the oneness

of the sultan/caliph had to parallel God’s uniqueness (uhuwiyya)385. It is difficult to

understand whom Bidlîsî had in mind when he implied the existence of multiple caliphs.

But when we consider the subsequent developments he witnessed, we can speculate that

other figures he had in mind were Shah İsma‘il, Mutavakkil, the last Abbasid caliph who

was protected by the Mamluks, or both. Of course, Bidlîsî might have wanted to justify

the oneness of the caliph-sultan, and thus, the obligation to kill others who claimed to be

caliph/imam, regarding the Ottoman princes who struggled for dynastic succession386.

To sum up, the political developments in the reign of Sultan Selim led to changes

in the concept of Muslim rulership and resulted in the representation of the Ottoman

sultan as the universal leader of the Muslim world. Even if this image would be

manifested best in the person of Sultan Süleyman, literati of the court of Sultan Selim

such as Bidlîsî who were the pioneers in this regard. Even though the reception of

Bidlîsî’s political and historical writings is yet to be studied in detail, it is quite likely that

his contemporaries who served Sultan Süleyman read and were inspired by these works.

Also his representations of the Ottoman sultan and Safavi shah helped to construct the

identities of the two leaders in the memory of the Ottoman household, being recounted

from generation to generation, and whenever a new military campaign was planned

against the Safavis.

385 Tavakkolî, Kânûn-i Şahenşahi, p. 99; also see Bidlîsî, KS, fol. 126b.

386 Yılmaz, The Sultan and The Sultanate, p. 160.

138

CONCLUSION

In the preceding chapters, we have explored key aspects of the Ottoman-Safavi

conflict through an examination of the life, the religio-political writings and the

diplomatic activities of İdris-i Bidlîsî as a political and cultural intermediary between the

Ottoman and Iranian worlds in the early sixteenth century. At this time, the relations

between these two realms underwent a cataclysmic change as a result of the rise of the

Safavi state in Iran and a series of pro-Safavi revolts among the Turcoman population

living under Ottoman rule in Anatolia. The ensuing conflict between the Ottomans and

the Safavis was played out on both a military and a religious-ideological level, and

helped transform the definitive character of both states, with the Safavis adopting

Twelver Shi’ism as the state religion and the Ottomans embracing a much stronger Sunni

identity. It was in this context that a number of the Iranian learned elite, among them

Bidlîsî, left their native lands, either because of their sectarian preferences or because of

the uncertainty of their future at the Safavi court, to start a new life and career in the

Ottoman lands. As men who had links with both realms, some of these newcomers at the

Ottoman court played pivotal roles in the conflict with the Safavis.

Without doubt the most influential of these figures was Bidlîsî, who seems to have

taken refuge in the Ottoman state because it seemed to him to be the most powerful

protagonist in this struggle. The services Bidlîsî rendered the Ottoman state were

multifaceted, and shed important light on the cultural, intellectual, political and religious

dynamics of early sixteenth-century Ottoman Empire as well as on the complex

relationship between the Ottoman and Iranian worlds in this period.

139

As a product of the Iranian cultural domain, Bidlîsî acted, first of all, as a

transmitter of Iranian cultural and political traditions to the Ottoman-Rumi world. Under

the patronage of Sultan Bayezid and his son Selim, both of whom had a deep interest in

and admiration for the Iranian cultural tradition, Bidlîsî produced two literary masterpieces

in Persian: the Hasht Behesht, a history of the House of Osman, and Selimshahnâme, a

history glorifying the deeds of Sultan Selim I in the tradition of the şehnâme. These

works brought to Ottoman historiography long-established conventions of Iranian

historiography and deeply influenced other Ottoman historians such as Kemalpaşazâde,

Hoca Saaddedin and Mustafa Âli, and initiated new modes of history writing, which would

culminate in the creation of the post of şehnameci in the reign of Sultan Selim II (r.1567-

1574). During his service to the Ottoman sultans as a sufi-oriented scholar, Bidlîsî also

wrote political tracts in Persian. Among them the Kânûn-i Shahenshâhî, which he wrote

towards the end of his life, represented the first theoretical exposition on Muslim

leadership in Ottoman political literature.

Interestingly, Bidlîsî’s literary and scholarly output received at best a mixed

response from the Ottoman court and courtly elites. In the case of the Hasht Behesht,

some of the criticism seems to have stemmed in part from the resentment felt by the

Ottoman elite towards the Acems, who were promoted by the Ottoman sultans without

climbing the steps of bureaucracy. In part, too, the criticisms reflected the ambivalence

felt by the Ottoman elites towards the Iranian cultural tradition, even as they engaged in a

competitive dialogue with it.

Bidlîsî’s rise in the political arena largely ran parallel to the military policies of

Sultan Selim. During his reign, as the tension with the Safavis was escalating, the

140

Ottomans looked for the ways to expand towards the Safavi territories. At this point,

Bidlîsî appeared again in the Ottoman court but in a different position and with a different

aim. This time, Bidlîsî used his personal connections with the local powers, the Kurdish

tribal leaders, in the Safavi western borderlands; as an informal Ottoman representative,

he strove to negotiate a military and political alliance between the Ottomans and the

Kurdish tribal leaders.

Bidlîsî’s writings about these meetings reveal a perspective that defies easy

classification as imperial or local. It is clear that as an agent who had strong

entanglements on both the imperial and the local level, Bidlîsî considered not only the

interests of the Ottoman state but also the political benefits of the Kurdish notables. This

was evident both when he tried to persuade the Kurdish notables to join the Ottoman

ranks and conversely when he tried to reassure the Ottoman court of the reliability of the

Kurds as allies.

Significantly, Bidlîsî’s efforts in this regard were enormously influential: the

Ottoman-Kurdish alliance that he helped forge brought under Ottoman sovereignty the

western territories of the Safavi empire. Moreover, the newly acquired lands, where the

Kurdish tribes also lived, were incorporated into the Ottoman realms under terms that

granted considerable autonomy to the Kurdish tribal leaders. In short, it was as a result of

the negotiations with the Ottomans that the Kurds emerged as the most important

political powers in the borderlands between the Ottoman and Safavi states. Over and

beyond Bidlîsî’s role in all this, what this episode goes to show is first that negotiation and

diplomacy were as much a part of the Ottomans’ eastern policy as war and military

confrontation and second that the political status of the “Kurdish lands” as the newly

141

incorporated lands came to be known was determined neither by Ottoman imperial policy

alone nor by local power dynamics but by the interplay between the two.

Finally, Bidlîsî also played an active role in the religio-political discussions among

the Ottoman learned elite. These discussions were fueled by the Ottoman-Safavi

ideological rivalry as well as by growing Ottoman territorial and political ambitions and

Ottoman expansion towards the Muslim lands in the east and south. Bidlîsî partook in the

ensuing discussions both through his political writings such as the Kânûn-i Shahenshâhî

and his historical works such as the Selimshahnâme. Remarkably for a relative

newcomer to the Ottoman court, Bidlîsî’s treatment of the political claims of the Ottoman

sultan and the Safavi shah in these works largely ran parallel to the positions taken by the

Ottoman learned elite, and in some cases even anticipated them. Like the Ottoman muftis

Kemalpaşazâde and Ebussu‘ud and many others after them, he denigrated the Safavi shah

as a heretic and a tyrant, while extolling Sultan Selim as a model Sunni Muslim ruler.

Most importantly, at a time when the Ottoman sultan was preparing to claim to be the

supreme leader of the Muslim world, Bidlîsî helped articulate a theoretical base for the

Ottoman sultan’s leadership that contained the new formula that the caliph-sultan as

absolute sovereign would enable the justice of God to take place on earth. This signified

a departure from the post-Abbasid, post-Mongol concept of the regional caliphate and a

move towards a new concept of the caliphate/sultanate as a form of universal and

absolute Muslim leadership.

Ultimately, Bidlîsî was a man of multiple involvements. His accomplishments and

expertise as a man of literature, a statesman and a sufi-oriented scholar ensured him

credit at the courts of many different Muslim rulers, put him in touch with a wide social

142

and intellectual network and ultimately granted him considerable geographical and

professional mobility. It was also this cultural and professional capital that enabled him

to, in some measure, transcend regional differences and play a leading role in the

formation of the Ottoman policy on his native land Iran and its powerholders.

147

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