Fleet K. The Cambridge History of Turkey: Volume 1, Byzantium to Turkey, 1071-1453

Подождите немного. Документ загружается.

howard crane

Figure 8.30 K

undekari wooden door, Yes¸il T

urbe, Bursa (Photo Walter B. Denny)

the Gebze shutter, the Amasya doors are made of walnut, which, however, is

worked in two broad planks and is carved in a rounded relief.

It is the doors and shutters of C¸ elebi Mehmed’s Yes¸il complex in Bursa that

from the technical, artistic and historical point of view must be regarded as the

outstanding examples of the woodcarver’s art from the period. The doors of

the Yes¸il T

urbe (Fig. 8.30) are especially noteworthy, not only because they can

be approximately dated by the portal inscription on the tomb (Cemaziyelevvel

824/May 1421), but because they are inscribed with the name of the wood-

worker who fashioned them, Hacı Ali bin Ahmed al-Tabrizi, no doubt one

of the Persian craftsmen brought to Bursa by

Ivaz Pas¸a, the architect of the

350

Art and architecture, 1300–1453

Ye s¸il complex, to work on Mehmed’s foundation. Fashioned from walnut in

true k

undekari, the doors follow the standard formula, being divided into three

panels set in an inscribed frame. The upper panels are ﬁlled with geometri-

cised patterns of rosettes carved with leafy arabesques, while the lower two

are constructed of geometric star arrangements. Although different in detail

from the doors and window shutters of the Yes¸il Cami, the latter are for the

most part sufﬁciently similar to the former both in technique and in speciﬁc

motifs to suggest that all are the work of the same master.

Conclusions

The century and a half from the beginning of the fourteenth to the middle

of the ﬁfteenth century – the beylik and early Ottoman periods in Turkish

art – is a moment of transition from, on the one hand, the artistic tradi-

tions of the Anatolian Seljuks which had been given their classical expression

in the thirteenth century, and, on the other, the ﬁrst Ottoman court style

developed under Mehmed II in the 1460s and 1470s, following the conquest

of Constantinople. Both as regards architecture and the arts, it is a period of

experiment and eclecticism, tendencies reinforced by the political divisions of

Anatolia among ambitious and competing emirates that sought to use the arts

to enhance their political legitimacy and prestige, and promote an image of

power and authority. While in central Anatolia traditions inherited from the

Seljuks retained their hold through most of the fourteenth century, in western

Anatolia notions carried over from the Seljuks were joined to ideas, techniques

and vocabularies derived from the Byzantines, from Mamluk Egypt and from

the Iranian world. Although the material resources available to the Anatolian

emirates put limitsonthe scale and ambition of their architectural programmes

and on their involvement in the luxury crafts, it is nonetheless true that among

the many modest efforts of fourteenth-century architects and craftsmen, occa-

sional monuments of true originality and taste were produced. By the early

ﬁfteenth century, this experimentation had led to a signiﬁcant ﬂowering of

the arts in the Ottoman principality in particular, where a new, increasingly

architectonic architecture was supplanting the old fac¸ade-style building of the

Seljuks, a new white frit glazed ceramic tradition made its appearance, and the

ﬁrst stirrings of the arts associated with the illustrated manuscript book can be

discerned. While carpet chronology is still fraught with unresolved problems,

it appears that the Konya-type carpets had gradually given way to the new

Anatolian animal carpet and to geometric types such as the proto-Holbeins of

European painting. As regards the silk industry, a conscious Ottoman policy

351

howard crane

of state encouragement appears to have set Bursa on the course to becoming

a major centre of the luxury textile trade.

The experiments of the fourteenth and early ﬁfteenth centuries were ﬁnally,

after the conquest of Constantinople in 1453, to give rise to a new, ofﬁcially

inspired and imperially sponsored art and architecture in the second half of

the ﬁfteenth century. With the transfer of the capital to Istanbul and the reset-

tlement of the city with populations brought from Anatolia and the Balkans,

architectural programmes, which in scale and ambition were only hinted at

by the monuments of Bursa and Edirne, were undertaken by Fatih and his

successors. The Fatih complex, with its regular planning and imposing dimen-

sions, and the New Palace of Mehmed II on Seraglio Point were metaphors

for a new, bureaucratised and hierarchical, universal order. At the same time,

the process of borrowing and experimentation, the sifting through of vocab-

ularies and typologies inherited from the past, taken over from neighbouring

cultural traditions and incubated in the emirates over the previous century

and a half reached a moment of synthesis. While parts of this inheritance

were discarded, others became central features of a new style, promoted by

imperial patrons, shaped and reﬁned by designers associated with the impe-

rial nakkas¸hane (design studio), and realised in the work of a host of skilled

architects and craftsmen who could draw on the material resources of what

had now become a world empire.

352

Social, cultural and intellectual life,

1071–1453

ahmet yas¸ar ocak

It is no easy task to write the social, cultural and intellectual history of Turkey

between 1071 and 1453. Although the period is a long one, the material in

the ofﬁcial chronicles is relatively limited. While we do possess information

for the political history, the same unfortunately cannot be said for the social,

cultural and intellectual life of the period since most of the sources we do

have, the majority of which have been translated into western languages, deal

with political history. Despite this difﬁculty, however, valuable information

can be obtained from various sources, including travel books, even if their

number is limited, literature, epics and hagiographies which shed light on

different aspects of the subject.

It nevertheless remains true that, presuming

new sources do not come to light, it will continue to be very difﬁcult to

construct a clear or complete picture of the social and cultural life of the

period with the exception, perhaps, of subjects such as science, literature,

Suﬁsm and art.

If we exclude the vakﬁye (endownment deeds of vakıfs, pious foundations)

of the Seljuk and Ilkhan periods copied in the Ottoman period,

it is clear that

archival material of the type found in the Ottoman archives and which was

without doubt also produced both in Seljuk Anatolia and in the period of Ilkhan

domination has unfortunately not survived from those earlier periods. Such

documents must either have disappeared during the plunder and destruction

of the ﬁrst period of the Mongol invasion or, together with those documents

1 The various types of local sources for Anatolia in the Seljuk period were made known

and analysed many years ago by Fuad K

opr

u in a detailed article, ‘Anadolu Selc¸ukluları

Tarihinin Yerli Kaynakları I’, Belleten 7, 27 (1943), 379–425.

2 Examples of such vakﬁyes belonging to the Seljuk and Mongol period have been published

by Osman Turan and Ahmet Temir in various issues of Belleten. See, for example, Osman

Turan, ‘Selcuklu Devri Vakﬁyeleri I: S¸emseddin Altun-Aba Vakﬁyesi ve Hayatı’, Belleten

II, 42 (1947), 197–235; Turan, ‘Selcuklu Devri Vakﬁyeleri II: M

ubarizeddin Er-Tokus¸ve

Vekﬁyesi’, Belleten 11, 43 (1947), 415–29; Turan, ‘Selc¸uklu Devri Vakﬁyeleri III: Celaleddin

Karatay, Vakıﬂarı ve Vakﬁyeleri’, Belleten 12, 45 (1948), 17–170; Ahmet Temir, Kırs¸ehir Emiri

Nur el–Din’in 1272 Tarihli Arapc¸a–Mo

golca Vakﬁyesi (Ankara, 1959).

353

ahmet yas¸ar ocak

produced by the Ilkhans, were burnt and destroyed in the course of the various

uprisings and pillaging by the Turkomans who sought revenge against the

Seljuk and Mongol administration. This is a substantial loss for the history of

the period and creates a gap in our knowledge which cannot be ﬁlled. It is this

lack of sources which led some historians, such as V. Gordlevsky for example,

to attempt to analyse various economic and institutional aspects of the Seljuk

and beylik periods by working backwards from the Ottoman period and by

using Ottoman documents as an analogy for earlier practices.

In this chapter we shall examine the social, cultural and intellectual life of

the period under ﬁve main headings. After giving a historical introduction to

the political history of the period, setting the subject in its historical context,

we shall consider social and ethnic structure; religion; science; thought; and

intellectual life.

From Asia Minor to Turkey

Anatolia, the site of the modern Turkish Republic today, has been known by

many names over the centuries. Anatolia (the country where the sun rose)

in ancient times, it was known as Asia in the Roman and the ﬁrst Christian

periods, and then as Asia Minor. For the Arabs in the early Middle Ages it was

Bilad al-Rum (the land of the Rum). The Europeans in the later Middle Ages

called it Turchia because in that period much of the region had passed under

Turkish domination and had been largely settled by Turks. It was also more

commonly known by the names used for the provinces which it had formed

in the Roman and Byzantine periods. In the classical Ottoman period these

two names, Anatolia (Anadolu in Turkish) and Bilad al-Rum, were used for

two large eyalets (administrative divisions), Eyalet-i Anadolu and Eyalet-i Rum.

During its history, Anatolia underwent four important political, ethnic,

socio-cultural and religious transformations, in other words fundamental civil-

isational and cultural changes, in succession: Hellenisation, Romanisation,

Christianisation and ﬁnally Islamisation. From the beginning of the nineteenth

century it underwent another period of change, westernisation, for which

some use the term c¸a

gdas¸las¸ma (mu

asırlas¸ma in Ottoman Turkish), ‘becoming

3 Turks today use both the ‘Anatolia’ of the classical period, in the form Anadolu, and the

‘Turchia’ of the Middle Ages in the form T

urkiye. They never use the names Asia Minor

or Bilad al-Rum. In the end, as we can see, the name T

urkiye took over in the ofﬁcial name

of the modern-day Turkish state, T

urkiye Cumhuriyeti, the Turkish Republic. Anadolu is

more geographic, T

urkiye more political, ethnic and cultural in meaning. The old Roman

term, Asia Minor, is generally preferred by western historians.

354

Social, cultural and intellectual life, 1071–1453

contemporary’, a period which represents the most important civilisational

and cultural change in Turkish history since the acceptance of Islam.

In the eleventh century, at the time of the appearance of Turkish invaders,

Anatolia was under the rule of the Eastern Roman Empire, as the Byzantine

Empire was known. Byzantium was locked in a political struggle with the

Sassanid Empire in Iran which resulted in frequent and lengthy wars between

the two states. These wars, which ended with victory sometimes for one

side, sometimes for the other, negatively affected the internal politics of both

empires, and served to weaken them both. Although these wars were moti-

vated by a desire to capture territory and to establish dominion, they were

perhaps driven even more by a desire to take control of the trade routes link-

ing east and west and to secure commercial revenue-producing sources, for

the economic base of both empires rested on the typical classical agricultural

economy. Apart from the wars with the Sassanids, the Byzantine Empire also

suffered endless and draining succession struggles among the ruling families,

and the frequent changes which resulted from these rocked Byzantium and

left it further weakened internally. By the eleventh century when the Turks

arrived, Byzantium was no longer the strong empire which it had been in the

time of Justinian (527–65) or Heraklios (610–41).

As is well known, the Roman emperor Constantine the Great (311–37)began

one of the most important transformations in the history of the Mediterranean

basin by bringing Christianity under his protection. This, and the declaration

of Christianity as the ofﬁcial religion of the Roman Empire in 391 in the time of

Theodosios, resulted in the spread of Christianity, backed as it was by political

force. This transformation was speeded up by the establishment of the city

of Constantinople and, immediately after the death of Theodosios in 395,

resulted in the separation of the empire into two. Now Anatolia was ofﬁcially

a Christian region under the control of the Eastern Roman Empire.

The ethnically very mixed population of Anatolia was by no means, how-

ever, all Orthodox, and there were various small churches described as ‘hereti-

cal’ to be found there. The Byzantine central administration applied heavy

ﬁnancial, political and religious pressure to these churches,in particular impos-

ing high levels of taxation on them. While such pressure was designed to ensure

their disappearance, it produced completely the opposite result: the members

of these churches usually chose to come to an agreement with the invaders

4 For the political position in Byzantium before the Turkish invasion see, for example,

V. Ostrogorsky, Histoiredel’

etat byzantin (Paris, 1956); A. A Vasiliev, Histoire de l’empire

byzantin, 2 vols. (Paris, 1932; repr. 1969); L. Brehier, Vie et mort de Byzance, 2nd edn (Paris,

1969).

355

ahmet yas¸ar ocak

and to join them in ﬁghting against the Byzantines. Thus in the Ummayad and

Abbasid periods the members of these ‘heretical’ churches in general gave their

support to the Arabs in the military campaigns they undertook into Anatolia.

The ﬁrst step in the process of the familiarisation of Anatolia with the Turks

and Islam was the battle of Dandanakan in 1040. This battle, fought between

the Gaznevids and the Seljuks, resulted in the settling of the Seljuks in Iran and

the consequent founding of an empire, that of the Iranian Seljuks. A new Seljuk

state was created in Anatolia by Seljuk expansion from Iran, and it was this

state under the Seljuks, called Anatolian or Turkish Seljuks by modern Turkish

historians, which affected almost every political, ethnic, social and religious

aspect of this process of familiarisation. Of the four periods of transformation

listed above, this was one of the most radical in the history of the region. In

political terms, it pushed the frontiers of Byzantium back to western Anatolia;

in ethnic terms, it drove different Turkish groups, the most signiﬁcant being

the Muslim O

guz (Turkomans), into the region where they settled and began

a process of Turkiﬁcation; in social terms, it created a totally new society in

Anatolia; and in religious terms it became symbolic of Islam, the religion they

brought with them and which they made the religion of the area.

The Turkish invasion of Anatolia, undertaken with the aim of settling there,

was not the result of any Seljuk policy of conquest or expansion, but was driven

by internal political developments within Iran and was, for this reason, an event

brought about by necessity rather than one of the Turks’ own choosing.

know that the battle of Manzikert (Malazgirt in Turkish) in August 1071 was not

a battle into which the Great Seljuk sultan Alp Arslan (1063–72) entered with

the intention of invading Anatolia, but was an encounter forced upon him by

the attack of Emperor Romanos Diogenes at the time of the military campaign

against the Fatimids. Therefore, at the end of the battle Alp Arslan came to an

agreement with Romanos Diogenes. The sultan released the emperor whom

he had taken prisoner, restored all his rights to him and did not take over the

territory.

5 See Claude Cahen, ‘La premi

ere p

etration turque en Asie Mineure (seconde moiti

du XIe si

ecle)’, Byzantion 18 (1946–1948), 5–67, which considers this question in detail.

See also Claude Cahen, Pre-Ottoman Turkey (London, 1968), pp. 66–9; Cahen, La Turquie

e-ottomane (Istanbul and Paris, 1988), pp. 83–5;O.Turan,Selc¸uklular Zamanında T

urkiye

(Istanbul, 1971), pp. 37–44.

6 See Claude Cahen, ‘La campagne de Manzikert d’apr

es les sources musulmanes’, Byzan-

tion 9 (1934), 613–42;Turan,Selc¸uklularZamanında T

urkiye,pp.27–31; S. Vryonis, TheDecline

of Medieval Hellenism in Asia Minor and the Process of Islamization from the Eleventh through

the Fifteenth Century (Berkeley, 1971), pp. 96–103.

356

Social, cultural and intellectual life, 1071–1453

To understand the invasion and conquest of Anatolia by the Turks, it is

necessary to see it in relation to the policy adopted by the Seljuk administration

of Iran in its attempt to impose control over and settle the Turkoman tribes

who represented a threat to regional order as they moved constantly from

Central Asia into Iran and caused disruption. In order to rid themselves of

these troublesome tribes, the Seljuk rulers made no attempt to prevent their

organising raids into Anatolia, then under Byzantine control; on the contrary,

they even encouraged them.

Following the battle of Manzikert (Malazgirt), Turkoman leaders (beys)

such as the Artuk, Saltuk, Danis¸mend and Meng

ucek beys, conquered

lands in Anatolia and set up a number of small states there: the Saltuks

in Erzurum, the Meng

uceks in the region of Erzincan and Sivas, the

Danis¸mends in the region of Tokat, Niksar and Malatya, and the Artukid

state around Mardin and Harput.

The Danis¸mend conquests in Anatolia

created great admiration among the Turks of the time and was the subject

of a large anonymous epic called the Danis¸mendname which described the

conquests.

Apart from these small beyliks, the major state which occupied almost

all of Anatolia with the exception of the Aegean and Marmara regions was

created by the Turkoman beys, relations of the Great Seljuk dynasty in Iran.

Kutalmıs¸’s unsuccessful claim to the sultanate in Iran resulted in his being

unable to take refuge in Iran, and his being driven from there into Ana-

tolia. Kutalmıs¸’s son S

uleyman did not intend to remain permanently in

Anatolia, hoping instead to settle matters with his relations in Iran. The Ira-

nian administration was, however, determined not to allow them back into

Iran.

Driven out of Iran, the Turkomans were thus forced by the political situation

to settle permanently in Anatolia.

In 1081 S

uleyman took

Iznik (Nicaea) from

the Byzantines and made it his capital, and thus established the Anatolian

7 Apart from several articles written about these states, there are only two monographs,

both written by Turkish historians: O. Turan, Do

gu Anadolu T

urk Devletleri Tarihi: Saltuk-

lular, Meng

ucikler, S

okmenliler, Dilmac¸o

gulları ve Artuklulur’ın Siyasi Tarih ve Medeniyetleri

(Istanbul, 1973); F. S

umer, Selc¸uklular Devrinde Do

gu Anadolu’da T

urk Beylikleri (Ankara,

1990).

8 See S¸. Akkaya, Kit

ab-ı Melik D

anis¸mend Gazi: Eine T

urkische Historicher Heldenroman aus

der Mitte des 13. Jahrhunderts (Ankara, 1954); I. M

elikoff (ed. and tr.), La Geste de Melik

anis¸mend:

etude critique du D

anis¸mendn

ame (Paris, 1960).

9 Z. V. Togan, Umum

ıT

urk Tarihine Giris¸ (Istanbul, 1970), pp. 202–3; Vryonis, Decline of

Medieval Hellenism,pp.103–33.

10 Claude Cahen, ‘Notes pour l’histoire des Turcomans d’Asie Mineure au XIIIe si

ecle’,

Journal Asiatique 239 (1951), 335–54.

357

ahmet yas¸ar ocak

Seljuk state.

Three years later, Antakya was taken. The Turks were now

permanently settled on Anatolian soil, never to leave.

The establishment of the Seljuk state was not a particularly easy process.

While the Turks struggled with Byzantium on the one hand, they also fought

the Danis¸mends, another Turkish state which had control of part of central

and eastern Anatolia, on the other. The reign of Kılıc¸ Arslan I (1092–1107), the

son of S

uleyman, was one of conﬂict with the Byzantines, the Danis¸mends

and the crusaders. Surrendering to the crusaders who besieged

Iznik in 1096,

this courageous sultan withdrew eastwards. In 1106 he took Malatya from the

Danis¸mends and in 1107 he conquered Mosul, but he was eventually defeated

by Emir C¸ avul and drowned in the Habur river. His son Mesud (1116–56) took

Konya from the crusaders and made it the centre of the state. His successor,

Kılıc¸ Arslan II (1156–92), who, too, fought against the crusaders, inﬂicted a

heavy defeat on the Byzantines at the battle of Myriokephalon (Karamıkbeli

in Turkish) in 1176. With this battle the permanent settlement of the Turks

was secured. The dream of the Anatolian Seljuks to return once more to

Iran and to take control of the state there was ended. Another important

development in the same period was the Seljuk removal of the Danis¸mend

state in 1178, which resulted in more than two-thirds of Anatolia coming under

Seljuk domination.

Before the death of Kılıc¸ Arslan II the state was divided

betweenhis sons in accordance with the old Turkish tradition. It was during the

period of struggle between them for supremacy that the third crusade of 1189

occurred. Despite this, the Seljuks successfully defended their territory against

the crusaders. In the end

Izzeddin Keykavus I (1210–20) emerged successful

from the power struggles with his brothers and ascended the Seljuk throne

alone. In 1204 the crusaders of the fourth crusade captured Constantinople

and set up the Latin state there, forcing the Byzantines into exile in the region

Iznik.

During the reigns of

Izzeddin Keykavus I and, in particular, of his brother

Alaeddin Keykubad I (1220–37), the Anatolian Seljuk state made considerable

political and economic advances. Taking the harbours of Sinop on the Black Sea

coast and Antalya (Attaleia) on the Mediterranean, the Seljuksobtained control

of important trade routes. With the ensuing revenue from international trade,

the Anatolian Seljuks were able to increase further the social and economic

11 Historians are not agreed on the date of the establishment of the Anatolian Seljuk state,

some, for various reasons, regarding it as having been set up in 1075, some in 1081.

12 Turan, Selc¸uklular Zamanında T

urkiye,pp.191–200.

13 For the various phases of the history of the Anatolian Seljuks see Cahen, Pre-Ottoman

Turkey, and Turan, Selc¸uklular Zamanında T

urkiye.

358

Social, cultural and intellectual life, 1071–1453

afﬂuence of the region, which had in any case by now reached a certain level

of prosperity.

It is at this time that the Suﬁ and philosopher Shihab al-din

al-Suhrawardi and, after him, the famous Andalusian mystic Muhieddin

Ibn

Arabi came to Anatolia.

This period of afﬂuence did not, however, last long. Under the despotic and

incompetent rule of Gıyaseddin Keyh

usrev II (1237–43) the order of the Anato-

lian Seljuk state began to break down. After the great Turkoman rebellion, the

Babai revolt of 1240, which represents an important turning point in medieval

Turkish history,

the Mongols moved easily into Anatolia and the period of

an independent Anatolian Seljuk state came to an end.

Wishing to beneﬁt

from this situation, the Vatican sent Dominican and Franciscan missionaries

to Anatolia with the aim of converting the shamanist Mongols to Christianity

and imposing this religion once more on the region. One of these Dominican

missionaries, Simon de Saint-Quentin, has left an interesting account of the

social and religious life of the Mongols in Anatolia in this period.

It was at this

time that the Latin state came to an end with the Byzantines of

Iznik once more

taking Constantinople. This period was one of successive political and social

crises and revolts in the Seljuk lands of Anatolia. It was in this environment

that the famous mystic Mevlana Celaleddin Rumi lived in Konya.

After 1277 the Mongols took over the administration in Anatolia. Escaping

from Mongol pressure and pursuit, the Turkoman tribes ﬂed towards the

Byzantine frontiers in the west where they began to set up small states on

the lands they conquered. The Byzantines had neither the strength nor the

time to oppose them. Among these little states were the beyliks of Mentes¸e,

Aydın,KarasıandGermiyan.

Of these, Mentes¸e and Aydın successfully fought

14 Cahen, Pre-Ottoman Turkey,pp.155–68; Cahen, La Turquie pr

e-ottomane,pp.114–20;Turan,

Selc¸uklular Zamanında T

urkiye,pp.395–402.

15 About this major revolt which has a very important place from various points of view

in Turkish history, see M. F. K

opr

u, ‘Anadolu’da

Isl

amiyet: T

urk

Istilasından Sonra

Anadolu Tarih-i Dinisine Bir Nazar ve Bu Tarihin Menba’ları’, Dar

ulf

unun Edebiyat

Fak

ultesi Mecmuası 3–4 (1338/1922), 303–11; Cahen, Pre-Ottoman Turkey,pp.136–7, 221–

2, 258–9; Cahen, La Turquie pr

e-ottomane,pp.95–7, 181–2, 334–5; Claude Cahen, ‘B

a’

ı’,

The Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd

edn (Leiden, 1960–2006) [henceforth EI2], i,pp.843–4;

A. Y. Ocak, La r

evolte de Baba Resul ou la formation de l’h

erodoxie musulmane en Anatolie

au XIIIe si

ecle (Ankara, 1989), and the relevant bibliography in this book.

16 Cahen, Pre-OttomanTurkey,pp.269–79; Cahen, La Turquie pr

e-ottomane,pp.227–50;Turan,

Selc¸uklular Zamanında T

urkiye,pp.427–57.

17 Simon de Saint-Quentin, Historia Tartarorum (Histoire des Tartares), ed. Jean Richard

(Paris, 1965).

18 For the only monograph which deals with these beyliks as a whole see

I. H. Uzunc¸ars¸ılı,

Anadolu Beylikleri ve Akkoyunlu, Karakoyunlu Devletleri (Ankara, 1988; repr. 1998). See also

Claude Cahen, ‘Les principaut

es turcomanes au d

ebut du IIIVe si

ecle d’apr

es Pachim

ere

et Gr

egoras’, TarihDergisi(M

elanges

I.Hakkı Uzunc¸ars¸ılı) 39 (1979), 111–16.As anexample of

359