AMASYA 05

Abdîzâde Hüseyin Hüsâmeddîn Yasar · İKİNCİ BÂB · BİRİNCİ FASIL

Ahmed Bey — Taşanzâde

Encyclopedia · History of Amasya, Volume 6, p. 117 • Edited by: Doç. Dr. Recep Orhan ÖZEL - Doç. Dr. Metin HAKVERDİOĞLU

Original Text (Ottoman Turkish)

Kedağralıdır. Oranın emîri Haydar Bey bin Taşan Bey’in mahdûmudur. Pederinin irtihâlinde bir müddet Kedağra emîri oldu. Ba’dehû ammizâdesi Hasan Bey bin Ali Bey’le niza’ edib Kocakaya’ya çekildi. 804’de Timûr harbinde vefât etdi. Mahdûmu Haydar Bey’dir.

Our Research Article Editor: Mevlüt Erdem Öztürk

In Modern English

He was from Kedağra. He was the son of Haydar Bey, son of Taşan Bey, the emir of that place. When his father died, he was for a time emir of Kedağra. Then, quarrelling with his cousin Hasan Bey, son of Ali Bey, he withdrew to Kocakaya. He died in 804 [1402] in the war against Timur. His son was Haydar Bey.

Notes and Research

Old Words in the Text

  • irtihâl: passing away, death
  • ammizâde: paternal uncle's son, cousin
  • nizâ': quarrel, dispute

Kedağra and the Taşanoğulları

Kedağra (Gedegra) is the old name of today's Vezirköprü district of Samsun. The town is known to have been refounded by the Seljuk Sultan Mesud in 1160 under the name Gedekara, and to have taken the name Vezirköprü during the grand vizierate of Köprülü Mehmed Pasha and after his building works. Vezirköprü was a kaza attached to Amasya until 1925, when it was attached to Samsun; Hüsameddin's counting the people of Kedağra among the notables of Amasya agrees with the region's long attachment to Amasya.

The Taşanoğulları, to whom Ahmed Bey belonged, were a small principality that ruled around Vezirköprü, Havza and Merzifon. Its founder Taşan Bey is recorded as the atabeg of Altunbaş, the founder of the Kubadoğulları, and as having founded his own principality in this region after Altunbaş's death in 1357. The principality was one of a group of small principalities known as the Canik beyliks, whose borders cannot be fixed with certainty; it was most often subordinate to the Eretnaids, to Kadı Burhâneddin and to the Ottomans. Some sources list Bali Ahmed, Ali, Hasan and Şahin Beys as sons of Taşan Bey. Hüsameddin, however, presents Ahmed Bey as a grandson of Taşan Bey and Hasan Bey as the son of Ali Bey; this difference of generation could not be resolved from the sources.

Kocakaya and Haydar Bey

Kocakaya, where Ahmed Bey withdrew, has also left its trace in the Ottoman survey registers. According to Mehmet Öz's study based on the registers of 1485-1576, the Vezirköprü region in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries was organised as two separate nahiyes or kazas, called Gedegra and Kocakayası; Gedegra covered the centre and east of today's district, Kocakayası the west. Öz thinks that the name Kocakayası belongs to the place where today's Eğrikale stands, whose old name was Kocakaya. The same study states that before the Ottoman conquest Kocakayası was under the control of "Haydar Bey, lord of the fortress of Kocakayası".

Read together with Hüsameddin's information, this record is striking. The son of Ahmed Bey, who withdrew to Kocakaya, was also named Haydar; it is therefore plausible that the Haydar Bey who held the fortress of Kocakaya before the Ottomans was this son, inheriting the fortress to which his father had withdrawn. Since the source does not give Haydar Bey's lineage, this identification remains a possibility. The nahiye named Simre-i Taşan in the registers also preserves a trace of the Taşanoğulları' dominion in this region.

That Ahmed Bey died in 804, that is 1402, "in the war with Timur" most probably shows that he too was at the Battle of Ankara. No information about Ahmed Bey was found other than what Hüsameddin gives.

Bibliography

Primary sources

  • Abdîzâde Hüseyin Hüsâmeddîn Yasar, Amasya Tarihi, Amasya Belediyesi Kültür Yayınları, 2022, vol. 6, p. 117–117. amasya.bel.tr

Academic studies

Official sources

Other sources

Volume 6 contents