Abdîzâde Hüseyin Hüsâmeddîn Yasar · İKİNCİ BÂB · BİRİNCİ FASIL
Encyclopedia · History of Amasya, Volume 6, p. 196 • Edited by: Doç. Dr. Recep Orhan ÖZEL - Doç. Dr. Metin HAKVERDİOĞLU
Köprülüdür. Orada Yeniçeri serdârı Halîl Ağa’nın oğludur. Bu da yeniçeri olup 1147’de İran harbine me’mûren on dördüncü bölüğün bayraktârı olarak Musûl tarafına gitdi.
Nadir Şâh muhârebâtında yıllarca bulunarak turnacıbaşılık pâyesini aldı. 1157 sâlinden sonra vefât etdi. Zâbit, şecî idi. Mahdûmu yeniçeri ağalığından vezîr olan meşhûr Topaloğlu Osmân Paşa’dır.
He was from Köprü. He was the son of Halîl Ağa, who was the janissary serdar there. He himself was a janissary, and in 1147 [1734-35], assigned to the Persian war, he went toward Mosul as standard-bearer of the fourteenth bölük.
He was present for years in the wars with Nadir Shah and received the rank of turnacıbaşı. He died after 1157 [1744-45]. He was an orderly and brave officer. His son is the famous Topaloğlu Osmân Pasha, who rose from the janissary ağalık to the vizierate.
According to the encyclopedia entry, the turnacıs were units in the janissary corps concerned with catching cranes and similar birds on the sultan's hunts; they began to be called by this name in the time of Mehmed the Conqueror. The turnacıbaşı, commander of the turnacıs, stood within the corps above the hasekibaşı and below the saksoncubaşı, and was the lowest of the six great ağas of the janissary corps called the "ocak ağas". On promotion he became saksoncubaşı within the corps. It is recorded that in the eighteenth century turnacıbaşıs were sometimes also appointed beylerbeyi. It is written that Ahmed Ağa received this rank as a "pâye", that is, a title; it may be thought that this meant being granted a rank rather than an actual post in the corps, but the text does not say so outright.
The campaigns in which Ahmed Ağa took part correspond to the Ottoman-Persian struggles conducted with Nadir Shah. According to the encyclopedia entry, in 1733 (1146) Baghdad was besieged by Nadir Khan; Topal Osman Pasha, appointed Anatolian beylerbeyi and seraskier of Mosul, moved south from Mosul and defeated Nadir's forces at a place called Dücum near Samarra (19 July 1733). The date 1147 given by Hüsameddin falls a year after this event, and the Mosul side is again at the center of the war. However, the entry does not make clear which campaign is spoken of; no other record was found that Ahmed Ağa was among these forces. In the encyclopedia, Topal Osman Pasha is written as of Morean origin and the son of Bekir Ağa; so it cannot be said that he is the same person as Topaloğlu Osmân Pasha, son of Köprülü Ahmed Ağa.
The entry's last sentence ties Ahmed Ağa's main claim to fame to his son. In the list of janissary ağas, the name Topaloğlu Osman Ağa appears as the person appointed to this post from September 1766 to August 1769. Hüsameddin's saying "who became vizier from the janissary ağalık" does not give a direct confirmation of this record, but the name and the post coincide. No source was found for the details of his vizierate; so the twenty-odd years between the father's death date of 1157 (1744-45) and the son's ağalık period remain a gap not touched on in the text. No information on Ahmed Ağa's standing in Köprü, his father Halîl Ağa the janissary serdar, or the family was found in other sources.
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