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

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depending on their location, size and function. These buildings, which were

in origin where Suﬁ members of various tarikats (Suﬁ orders) lived, were at the

same time buildings where travellers of every faith and culture, both Muslim

and non-Muslim, could stay without paying. This was one of the conditions

for their existence which was written into a vakıf deed.

In the history of the Turkiﬁcation and Islamisation of Anatolia, these insti-

tutions played at least as important a role as the mosques and mescids. While

these institutions differed according to the nature of the tarikats to which they

were tied, they shared the same general characteristics. In the rural zaviyes,

the dervishes worked during the day on their ﬁelds or were occupied with

animal husbandry and other such agricultural activities; in the evenings they

organised sema religious ceremonies and zikr assemblies and conducted Suﬁ

education of the disciples (m

urid).

Much research has been produced since

the publication of the well-known article by

O. L

utﬁ Barkan on their role in

the Islamisation of towns and villages where there was a mixed population of

Muslims and non-Muslims, and a great many documents on this subject have

survived from the Ottoman period.

Culture and religion

In the context of the history of Islam in Anatolia, the religious life of Turkey

in the twelfth to ﬁfteenth centuries has not been much researched. Neither

the very well known article by F. Babinger nor that of F. K

opr

u (much

better researched and based on much richer material which attacked theories

put forward by Babinger) covered every aspect of the subject. These articles

should perhaps be regarded more as representing an important beginning to

the investigation of this topic. It is nevertheless interesting to note that despite

the considerable amount of time which has passed since their publication,

no more comprehensive or methodological research has been undertaken.

Here we shall try to give a general picture of the main problems to be found

in trying to deal with this subject.

67 For the historical signiﬁcance of these Suﬁ institutions and for a general assessment see

A. Y. Ocak and S. Faruki, ‘Z

aviye’,

IA, xiii,pp.468–76.

68 F. Babinger, ‘Der Isl

am in Kleinasien: neue Wege der Isl

amforschung’, Zeitschrift der

DeutschenMorgenlandischenGesellschaft 76 (1922), 126–52;K

opr

u, ‘Anadolu’da

Isl

amiyet’.

Here, however, one can note two more recent works on this subject, one relatively old

and the other newer: O. C¸ etin, Selc¸uklu M

uesseseleri ve Anadolu’da

Isl

amiyet’in Yayılıs¸ı

(Istanbul, 1981); S. Kara, Selc¸uklular’ın Dini Ser

uveni: T

urkiye’nin Dini Yapısının Tarihsel

Arka Pl

anı (Istanbul, 2006).

380

Social, cultural and intellectual life, 1071–1453

As is well known, Anatolia, from before the Roman dominion and through-

out it, was a region which had a very rich and varied panoply of pagan cults

whichhad survived from ancient times and had roots stretchingback over thou-

sands of years.Affectedby various outside inﬂuences, these cults had developed

their own, particular forms. By the time the region was taken over by Byzan-

tium, it had already been under the inﬂuence of Christianity for some consider-

abletime.Despite this,theOrthodox faith, which became the ofﬁcial religion of

the empire, was unable fully to penetrate the most remote corners of Anatolia

over the ﬁrst few hundred years of the empire’s existence. Even in the sixth cen-

tury when Byzantium was at its height, Christianity was not able completely to

overthrow the pagan cults but was only able to mask them. As true pagan cults

worshipping various gods from former times continued to exist, even Chris-

tianity itself cannot be said to have been more for many ‘Christians’ than a basic

and crude Trinity of God, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. These ‘Christians’

pursued their beliefs in their old gods and various saints who were either imag-

ined or real people by adapting them to Christianity. It is known that the ﬁrst

Christian priests who carried out missionary activities in various parts of the

empire were only successful in making a new religion there by providing a new

interpretation of the old beliefs and by making this interpretation acceptable.

This approach produced various types of popular Christianity created from an

amalgam of Christianity and pagan cults which continued to exist and to be

practised.

One of these was that of the dualist churches which came into existence as

a result of the inﬂuence of the Manichaeists. Having been declared heretics

in the Zoroastrian Sassanid Empire, they had ﬂed from Iran and taken refuge

in Anatolia where they had, in appearance, become Christian.

In its politi-

cal struggle with Byzantium, Iran encouraged the propagation and spread of

Zoroastrian propaganda in Anatolia. Followers of religions which appeared

as a reaction to Zoroastrism, such as eastern Mazdaism and Manichaeism,

were forced to ﬂee from Iran into Anatolia where Christianity came force-

ably into contact with them. Over time and under the inﬂuence of these

Iranian religions, new Christian sects with a dualist character based on the

concepts of goodness and evil of the gods, such as Marcionism (‘Marika’ in

69 Ostrogorsky, Histoiredel’

etat byzantin,pp.76–7; J. Jarry, H

esies et factions dans l’empire

byzantin (Cairo, 1968), pp. 154–5.

70 From the many recent publications on this subject see, for example, M. Roquebert,

Histoire des Cathares: h

esie, croisade, inquisition du XIe au XIVe si

ecle (Paris, 1999); Y.

Perrin Stoyanov, The Other God: Dualist Religions from Antiquity to the Cathar Heresy (New

Haven, 2000), and note 104 below.

381

ahmet yas¸ar ocak

Islamic hereseyographic sources), and Paulicianism (‘Bavlakiyye’ and ‘Baya-

lika’ in Islamic hereseyographic sources) which was to play an important role

in the emergence of Bogomilism and Tondrakism, emerged. These sects had

a powerful inﬂuence on the Byzantine population (the Armenians and the

Greeks), especially in the rural areas.

This amalgamation of religious ideas resulted gradually in the formation

among the various ethnic-religious groups such as the Greeks, Armenians and

Suriyanis in Anatolia of independent ‘heretical’ churches outside the Orthodox

fold. At the same time, the Orthodox faith itself also underwent changes. In

particular, new separatist sects such as the Jacobites and Nestorians appeared

as a result of the inﬂuence of various old Greek and Hellenistic schools of

philosophical thought. These were labelled ‘deviational’, heretical, by the

Orthodox church and by the Byzantine administration which claimed con-

trol of it.

Although the Byzantine government, faced with these separatist

religious currents, took forceful measures to strengthen Orthodoxy, and, forc-

ing the various ethnic groups in Anatolia to accept the church, sought to use

the church as a means to ensure the compliance of the population, this pol-

icy produced the opposite effect and Anatolia instead became the setting for

various religious struggles.

Thus, when the Turks began to settle in Anatolia in the eleventh century

they encountered a highly heterogeneous religious environment. The regions

of inner and eastern Anatolia were divided into the small churches we have

described, which had arisen as a reaction to Orthodoxy and which, for vari-

ous political, social, economic and cultural reasons, were spread among the

ethnic groups, apart from the Greeks. A point which must be stressed here in

particular is that this religious division played an important role in the easing

of the Turkish conquests in Anatolia and in their diffusion, and, therefore,

favourably assisted their settlement in the region. Let us once more stress

that the local population, exasperated by the state’s attitude which opened the

way to separation of religious views and crushed by high taxation, were not

particularly willing to oppose the Turks.

71 See H.-Ch.Peuch,LeManich

eisme (Paris, 1949), pp. 64–5;H.-Ch. Peuch, ‘Le Manich

eisme’,

Histoire des Religions, vol. II (Paris, 1972), p. 630; S. Runciman, Le Manich

eisme

edi

eval (Paris, 1949), pp. 14–16, 20, 37–47; Ostrogorsky, Histoiredel’

etat byzantin,

pp. 295–6.

72 For Orthodoxy and other sects in the Ottoman Empire see O. Cl

ement, Byzance et le

Christianisme (Paris, 1964); J. Guillard, ‘L’h

esie dans l’empire byzantin des origines au

XIIe si

ecle’, Travaux et M

emoires 1 (Paris, 1965), 299–324; Jarry, H

esies et factions;V.E.

Kaegi, Army, Society and Religion in Byzantium (Chicago, 1982); R. Janin, La g

eographie

eccl

esiastique de l’empire byzantin, vol. III: Les eglises et les monast

eres (Paris, 1969).

382

Social, cultural and intellectual life, 1071–1453

The state and the Muslim population

The assertions of some of the older generation of western historians that

the Turkish states in Anatolia followed a policy of enforced Islamisation of

the local population have long since been disproved by western historians

such as Claude Cahen, Bernard Lewis and Marshall G. Hodgson, and Turkish

historians such as Fuad K

opr

u and Osman Turan. Young western historians

now generally approach this subject with greater care and objectivity.

The process of Turkiﬁcation and Islamisation from the end of the eleventh

century encompassed a wide area from the Byzantine frontiers to the borders

of Iran, from the shores of the Black Sea to the lands of the Ayyubid state.

This area was divided between the Anatolian Seljuk state in the west, the

Danis¸mends in the centre, and the Meng

uceks, the Saltukids, the Artukids

and others in the east. Each one of these followed a clear religious policy in

the regions under their own control.

The target of this religious policy was

two groups, that is, the Muslims and the non-Muslims.

These states aimed rapidly to make the nomadic and settled Turkish popu-

lations productive by giving them land – valleys, plains and summer pastures

– to settle in the eastern, south-eastern and central regions of Anatolia. There

is no doubt that the vakıf foundations were highly signiﬁcant in realising this

extremely important policy. Even though the foundation dates of the vakıf

buildings of the states mentioned above which have survived are not known

today, it is clear that the conquest and settlement movements which came

immediately afterwards followed a line progressing from east to west. Look-

ing at the existing architectural works, it is possible to say that in the east,

the region of Lake Van, and in the centre, the inner section of the Kızılırmak

(Halys) river were the places settled ﬁrst and, in parallel with this, Turkiﬁed

and Islamised.

It is clear that the states which we are discussing had control over a large

Muslim population, the majority of which was made up of Turks. All these

states, as a continuation of the Great Seljuk state, identiﬁed themselves with

Sunni Islam. Babinger’s assertion, mentioned above, that the Anatolian Seljuks

were Shi’i, was not based on any historical evidence and has not so far been

proved.

Although the Anatolian Seljuk rulers had a Sunni Islamic culture and

education and knew Arabic and Persian well enough to write poetry in these

languages, neither they nor the population were particularly strict in religious

interpretation, being neither conservative nor fanatical. It is for this reason

73 See note 27 above for bibliographical references.

74 Babinger, ‘Der Isl

am in Kleinasien’.

383

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that contemporary Arab opinion viewed the Turkish understanding of Islam

with suspicion and the Turks’ ‘Muslim-ness’ was questioned.

In order to legitimise their rule within the Islamic world and develop the

urban centres under their control, the Anatolian Seljuk rulers and the Turko-

man leaders of the beyliks laid the ground for attracting Turkish, Persian and

Arab men of learning and religion, Suﬁs, poets and writers to work and write

for them. Many members of the ulema, such as Abd

ulmecid b.

Isma‘il Herevi

(d. 1142), Muhammad Talakani (d. 1217), Yusuf b. Sa‘id el-Sijistani (d. 1241–2)and

Omer el-Ebheri (d. 1265), therefore came from Iran and the Arab regions and

settled in Anatolia in the Anatolian Seljuk period. One prominent ﬁgure in the

time of the S

okmenids was the scholar of religious law in Ahlat, Abussamed b.

Abdurrahman (d. 1145). Further, there were Turkish scholars settled in various

Arab regions who had been trained in Seljuk medreses in Anatolia. All these

men played an important role in the strengthening of the Sunni policy of the

state.

During the period of their establisment, the Ottomans took over and con-

tinued this tolerant Sunni policy. As is well known, the ﬁrst Ottoman rulers

adopted a tolerant stance towards the Kalenderis, Hayders, Vefais, the Bektas¸is

and other Suﬁ circles which did not ﬁt well with Sunnism, granting them many

vakıfs and beneﬁting greatly from their support, particularly in the conquest of

the Balkans. This tolerant policy of the early rulers continued until the begin-

nings of Safavi Shi’i propaganda in Anatolia at the beginning of the sixteenth

century.

Religious leanings and mezheps: the establishment of

Sunnism in Turkey in the Middle Ages

There is no doubt that from the time of the Seljuks of Iran the political

administrations’ protection of the ofﬁcial policy of Sunnism was a factor in the

strengthening of Sunnism among the other mezheps in the Middle East.

a newly established state in the centre of the Islamic world with a non-settled

population of non-Arab origin, the Iranian Seljuks were initially compelled to

guarantee their political legitimacy by making themselves accepted and, thus,

to back Sunnism. At the same time, the great majority of the Turkish groups

75 Cahen, Pre-Ottoman Turkey,p.204; Cahen, La Turquie pr

e-ottomane,p.164. Despite the

hundreds of years that have passed since then, the Turks in Turkey are still today not

counted as good Muslims in a section of Arab public opinion.

76 Some assertions have been made that the political administrations forced the population

to be Sunni in order to protect the ofﬁcial policy of Sunnism. Based on no historical

foundation or data, these assertions have not so far been proved.

384

Social, cultural and intellectual life, 1071–1453

chose Sunnism when they began gradually from the tenth century to convert

to Islam because they came into contact with the circles in Transoxania in

which Sunni Islam was the most powerful religion, and even if they initially

met with various problems, they had no great difﬁculty, at least in elite circles,

in adopting it.

Thus as a natural result of these historical developments the great major-

ity of this Muslim population in Anatolia of Central Asian origins followed

Sunni Islam. One can safely say that throughout Anatolia in the Seljuk and the

Ottoman periods the Haneﬁ branch of Sunnism was dominant in education

and teaching, and particularly in law, even if in some places in the south and the

south-east Shaﬁ‘ism was widespread. The cities and towns,that is, places which

had a developed culture and the areas in their vicinity, in other words regions

which had contact with written culture, were normally locations where Sun-

nism predominated. This also naturally appliedto the villages whichwere close

to these centres and which had continuous relations with them. It cannot have

been the case, however, taking into consideration the conditions of the time,

that the Sunnism of the rural areas was bound to the bookish or medrese-based

Sunnism of the city. What we can say, looking at examples which still exist

today, is that, even if not to the same extent as in heterodox circles, traditional

beliefs and customs were dominant to some degree, at least in a widespread

and strong saint cult. Despite the passing to a strict Sunnism in the sixteenth

century in the Ottoman period and the attainment of an advanced level of

literacy, the fact that this position has not changed even today legitimises

this view. Nevertheless, the assertion that all the rural portion of the popu-

lation belonged to a heterodox Islam remains unsupported by any historical

data.

In any case, the vast majority in Anatolia did in principle adopt Sunni

Islam and Haneﬁsm. Thus, if Shaﬁ‘ism is put to one side, the other Sunni

mezheps (Hanbali and Maliki) did not ﬁnd fertile ground in Anatolia. Even if

from time to time over the centuries scholars and Suﬁs of these two mezheps

travelled to the region, or even settled or lived there for long periods working

as high-ranking bureaucrats or in the educational life of the medreses, these

mezheps were not widespread. It has been suggested that this was the result

of the Turks’ contacts with Haneﬁ circles in Central Asia during the period in

which they were converting to Islam, which thus enabled this mezhep better to

put down roots and ﬁrmly establish its culture. A further, equally important

reason was that this mezhep was more rational and more able to meet the

Turks’ practical needs; in other words it was better adapted to Turkish social

structure.

385

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The Shi’i question in medieval Turkey

Thesubject of the religious trends and mezhepsoutside Sunni Islam is one that is

little understood from the point of view of Turkish religious history and which

has hardly been researched at all. There is a considerable lack of information

on it in the sources for the Seljuk and beylik periods in Anatolia. Despite

much research having been done on the period in general, many speciﬁc

questions remained unanswered. One of these is the question of Shi’ism in

Anatolia.

While it has long been known that a substantial proportion of the

Turkoman who came into Anatolia, particularly with the nomadic movements

of the thirteenth century, had an understanding of Islam which did not ﬁt well

with Sunni Islam, and that some Turkoman were active in political and social

movements and in religious and Suﬁ trends, the insufﬁciency of the written

sources on this subject for the period mean that it is not clearly or completely

understood to what extent, where and in which circles these trends were

inﬂuential. But using clues and data concerning the position today, some

hypotheses can be produced about the type and content of these movements.

However insufﬁcient the sources may be, it is still possible to see traces of

Shi’i-Ismaili inﬂuences among the semi-nomadic Turks, regardless of the Sunni

policy of the political administrations which ofﬁcially protected it, inﬂuences

which were not considered by researchers until the recent past. We must

remember that the Turkoman who were present in northern Syria and south-

east Anatolia from the eleventh century had lived for a considerable period side

by side with the Ismailis and had even intermixed with them.

Thus al-Jawbari,

an Arab who travelled among them at the beginning of the thirteenth century

claiming that Ali’s soul had passed to him, wrote that he wandered among the

people without being found in any way odd.

In this context the dominance

of a strong messianism in the revolts against the Mongols in Anatolia in the

following years, including the Babai revolt in 1240 and the Cimri revolt which

succeeded it, is striking.

Although we can presume that the Ilkhan ruler

Oljeit

u Hudabende’s (1304–

16) acceptance of the

Imamiye mezhep resulted in a environment favourable to

77 For Claude Cahen’s argument on this subject see his article ‘Le probl

eme du Shiisme

dans l’Asie Mineure turque pr

e-ottomane’, Le Shiisme Imamite (Colloque de Strasbourg

1 968) (Paris, 1970), pp. 115–29.

78 See F. Daftary, The

Ism

a‘

ıl

ıs: Their History and Doctrine (Cambridge, 2001)pp.356, 374.

79 See ‘Abd al-Rahim b.‘Umar al-Jawbari, Al–Mukhtar ﬁ Kashf al-Asrar wa Hatk al-Astar,

uleymaniye K

uphanesi (Karac¸elebiz

ade), no. 253,f.39a. Claude Cahen was one of

the ﬁrst scholars to refer to this source.

80 Ocak, La r

evolte de Baba Resul,pp.75–80.

386

Social, cultural and intellectual life, 1071–1453

the spreading of Shi’ism in Anatolia, the subsequent rapid shift of the Ilkhans

to Sunnism must have hindered any such development. Further, the Anatolian

Turkoman rulers, who were, as we have said, dominated by strong messianic

beliefs, did not enter this mezhep despite being in close contact with Shi’i-

Ismaili inﬂuences, but rather preserved their old pre-Islamic beliefs under an

Islamic veneer. With the development of Bektas¸i and Kızılbas¸ movements in

the ﬁfteenth century among those Turkoman and Kurdish tribes in Anatolia

who are known to have been the object of probably strong Ismaili inﬂuence in

the thirteenth century and of Huruﬁ propaganda which was highly inﬂuenced

by Ismailism in the fourteenth century, the Anatolian branch of heterodoxy

appeared.

Despite the existence of such inﬂuences we have no proof of the diffusion of

either Ismaili Shi‘ism or

Imamiye (Twelver Shi‘ism) in Anatolia in this period.

Thus, no Shi’i groups belonging directly to either of these branches existed in

Anatolia, even in the following centuries.

There were, however, Yazidi circles which were sufﬁciently numerous to be

involved in a series of political incidents which broke out in the east and south-

east of Anatolia in the second half of the thirteenth century. Developed in the

twelfth century by s¸eyh Adi ibn Musaﬁr (d. 1162) with the aim of defending

the Ummayad Caliphs, in particular Yazid I, by opposing the extremism of the

Shi’i mezheps, the Adeviyye mezhep gradually changed its character among the

mountain Kurds in the south-east of Anatolia and, combining with former local

beliefs, became an extreme heterodox mezhep. In the time of the grandsons of

s¸eyh Adi ibn Musaﬁr the mezhep took the name Yazidiye from Caliph Yazid and

its followers began to be known as Yazidis. They joined with the Turkoman

and fought together against the Mongols who were occupying Anatolia. Yazidi

identity as it exists today emerged fully at the end of the fourteenth century.

The mezhep did not extend beyond the south-east of Anatolia and there is no

trace whatsoever of the existence of Yazidism in the western parts of Anatolia

today.

The state and non-Muslims

Here, even if only brieﬂy, it is necessary to touch on the religious policy which

the political administrations followed towards the non-Muslim population in

Turkey in the twelfth to ﬁfteenth centuries. A non-Muslim subject population

81 See in particular J. K. Birge, The Bektashi Order of Dervishes (Hartford, Conn., 1937); I.

elikoff, Hadji Bektach: un mythe et ses avatares: gen

ese et evolution du Souﬁsme populaire en

Turquie (Leiden, 1998).

82 For the Yazidis see note 22 above.

387

ahmet yas¸ar ocak

of signiﬁcant size, even if less than in previous periods, and made up of Ortho-

dox Greeks (Rum), Gregorian Armenians, Georgians, Suriyanis, Nestorians,

monophysite Jacobites and others lived in the lands over which these states

ruled. The Turkish rulers were therefore well aware of the need to protect

and look after their non-Muslim subjects in order to preserve social order,

thus allowing the Turkish population, the vast majority of which was semi-

nomadic, to adapt to their new life in the new lands and to become productive.

This depended on not destabilising the existing social and economic structure.

With this aim in mind, therefore, almost all the Seljuk sultans left the non-

Muslims undisturbed as far as possible. They did not strictly enforce the law

related to the ahl al-dhimma (the non-Muslim population) which was ﬁrmly

implemented by other Muslim countries, and adopted a policy designed to

assure ease of relations, a policy known in the Ottoman period as istimalet

(persuasion). After his military expedition into the Menderes valley in the

west of Anatolia in 1196, Gıyaseddin Keyh

usrev I, for example, settled a large

group of Rum villagers whom he brought to Aks¸ehir from the Menderes valley,

gave them materials and equipment for arable agriculture, and exempted them

from tax for a considerable period.

In the east the Artukid ruler Balak Gazi

deported the Gerger Armenians who had revolted against him to the region of

Hanazit, but adopted a tolerant policy towards them thereafter and interfered

as little as possible in their religious life. The sources show that the period

of one of the Artukid rulers, Necmeddin Alp (1152–76), was one of the most

prosperous for the Christians of the region. Similarly, the reigns of Emir Saltuk

(1145–76) and the Ahlat ruler S

okmen II (1128–83) were periods in which the

Christians of eastern Anatolia lived peacefully. Further, the Danis¸mends who,

as is clear from the famous epic romance known as the Danis¸mendname,were

tightly tied to the cihad and gazi ideology, behaved very tolerantly towards the

Christians, so much so that according to the account given by Michael, the

Suriyani historian of the period, they were overcome with grief at the death of

us¸tekin Ahmed Gazi in 1104.

From the ﬁrst conquests on, the Christian

population, particularly those belonging to the ‘heretical’ churches in the rural

regions, did not feel great hostility towards the Turks, and, as explained above,

regarded the wars which the Turks won against the Byzantines as punishing

Byzantium, which looked down on and oppressed them.

83 See Turan, Selc¸uklular Zamanında T

urkiye,p.292.

84 See Michael the Syrian, Chronique de Michel le Syrien, Patriarche Jacobite d’Antioche (1166–

1199), ed. and tr. J. Chabot, 5 vols. (Paris, 1899–1924), ii,p.195; Matthew of Edessa, Recit

de la premi

ere croisade, extrait de la chronique de Matthieu d’Edesse, tr. E. Dulaurier (Paris,

1858), p. 256.

388

Social, cultural and intellectual life, 1071–1453

The Anatolian Seljuks and Turkoman beyliks were able, thanks to their

more ﬂexible application of the law relating to the ahl al-dhimma in compari-

son with other contemporary Muslim states, to incorporate the non-Muslim

populations of Anatolia into their own economic and social system. This pol-

icy towards the non-Muslims occasioned some criticism. The famous Suﬁ

Muhieddin

Ibn Arabi complained in a letter he wrote to

Izzeddin Keykavus I

that

the sultan, who is the shadow of God on earth, must raise the honour and

the glory of Islam, he must work for the total domination of the inﬁdels,

churches must be destroyed in towns in which the Muslims rule, the bells in

those which are not destroyed must be rung very softly, Christians must not

mount horses or donkeys using saddles, they must not carry weapons, they

must respectfully stop in places when Muslims pass, they must not go around

in Muslim clothes, and they must not use Arabic seals.

Despite any such criticism, there is no doubt that this realistic and intelligent

policy was a factor which strengthened the existence of these states. From a

political point of view it successfully removed possible Byzantine claims over

the Christian population living under Turkish rule. In other words, the non-

Muslim population which had begun to live under Turkish control must from

then on have largely disregarded Byzantium as its protector and refuge.

It can be said that the period of Mongol occupation which began in reality

in Anatolia in 1246 ensured a more varied environment for non-Muslims when

compared with earlier periods. When they took the Anatolian Seljuk state

under their rule, the Mongols were still shamans and for a time they remained

indifferent to both Islam and Christianity. Wishing to beneﬁt from this situa-

tion, the Armenians approached the Mongols. It is probable that the Mongols

were both attentive to the Rum and used the Georgians as soldiers in their

armies in order to weaken the inﬂuence of the Seljuk administration over the

population and to ensure their own better relations with the local inhabitants.

Thus the Christian groups succeeded to an extent in securing new privileges

from the Mongols and in using them against the Turks. As an example we can

point to the restoration of various bishoprics removed by the Turks. But this

novel situation which began with the Mongol occupation continued only until

85 For a summary of the text of the letter see Karim al-Din Aqsara’i, M

ameret

ul-ahb

ar:

gollar Zamanında T

urkiye Selc¸ukluları Tarihi, ed. O. Turan (Ankara, 1944), Persian text,

p. 328;cf.Togan,Umum

ıT

urk Tarihine Giris¸,p.213. Togan interprets this letter as a sign of

Ibn Arabi’s fanaticism, although we think it useful in this context to recall that Ibn Arabi

lived in Andalusia in a period when Catholic oppresion of the Jews and the Muslims

during the reconquista was increasing, and that he came to Anatolia from there.

389