The Danishmendname is a Turkish heroic romance that recounts the campaigns of Melik Ahmed Danishmend Ghazi, who set out from Malatya and took Sivas, Tokat, Niksar and Amasya. Danishmend Ghazi is the hero of the book, but the liveliest episodes belong to two figures who fight at his side: Artuhi, a warrior who rose from among the Greeks and became a Muslim, and Efrumiye, the daughter of the ruler of Amasya. Their story is interwoven with the epic's account of the capture of Amasya; the passing of the city from a Christian ruler into the hands of Muslim ghazis is told together with a tale of love and conversion.

The Framework of the Epic

According to the narrative, in the year 360 of the Hijra (about 970-971), the notables of Malatya chose Sultan Turasan, a grandson of Battal Ghazi, and Melik Ahmed, a grandson of the Emir of Malatya, Ömer, through his daughter, as commanders. Melik Ahmed was called Danishmend because of the depth of his learning. Both received an order to wage ghaza in their dreams, sent an envoy to Baghdad to seek the caliph's permission, and set out carrying the banner of Battal Ghazi and the standard of Abu Muslim. They repaired the ruined fortress of Sivas and made it their base. The army was then divided in two: Turasan went toward Istanbul and fell as a martyr at Alemdağ, while Danishmend resolved to take the regions of Tokat, Gömenek, Niksar, Zile, Amasya, Samsun and Turhal. The date given shows how free the work's chronology is: the Danishmendid principality emerged after Malazgirt, in the late eleventh century, so the gap with the epic's reckoning is roughly a century.

By its own account the work consists of a preface, seventeen sessions and a conclusion. Even the Christian enemy is often portrayed with respect. The Byzantine ruler is called caliph and his lords are called sultans, some Greek notables bear Turkish names such as Karatekin and İltekin, and white-bearded priests appear as luminous, devout ascetics. The two sides understand each other's language, which is why spying and disguise are among the devices the epic uses most often. The story of Artuhi and Efrumiye is built at the point where these two worlds meet.

Artuhi's Lineage and His Meeting with Danishmend

Artuhi is not drawn in the epic as an ordinary Greek warrior. According to the narrative, his mother was the daughter of a scholar named Abdurrahman Harezmi, who had been taken captive in Malatya and given by the Byzantine emperor to the father of the future hero. The girl grew up among shepherds, and her presence was so formidable that wolves and lions would not approach the flock. A Greek lord who commanded twelve thousand men and, despite forty wives, had no son, was united with her, and a year later Artuhi was born. This lineage gives the warrior who was raised on the Greek side a Turkish maternal descent, and scholars read it as the place the epic gives to national identity.

While riding around Sivas, Danishmend Ghazi meets a formidable warrior. The two fight with every kind of weapon through the day and part at night. Danishmend makes his ablutions and prays, and the warrior sits down to eat. Danishmend declines to join him, saying that if he shared salt and bread with the man he could not fight him the next day. The warrior eats and drinks, then takes up his tambura and sings a plaintive lament. When they meet again in the morning, the Melik throws his opponent down and reaches for his dagger to cut off his head, but sees a moon-faced youth. He tells him that if he becomes a Muslim, his heart's desire will be fulfilled. The youth asks whether he will then reach his beloved, receives an affirmative answer, converts, and introduces himself as Artuhi.

Efrumiye Banu

Artuhi had once gone hunting in the region of Amasya and lost his heart to a girl. She was Efrumiye Banu, the daughter of Shah Şaddat (Şattat), the sultan of Amasya, the caliph of the Greeks and the uncle of the Byzantine emperor. Artuhi tells how he has burned with this love for seven years, asks the Melik for help, and swears to give his life in his service. Danishmend agrees to march toward Amasya. On the road they learn that Efrumiye is being sent as a bride to Nestor, the emperor's world-champion wrestler and the beylerbey of the Greeks. They ambush the bridal escort and fight twelve thousand guards. Hearing Artuhi's war cry, Efrumiye has the shackles on her removed by a ruse, leaps onto one of the thoroughbred horses that are brought, draws her sword and throws herself into the fight, saying: "I am Efrumiye Banu, daughter of Shah Şaddat, the beloved of Muhammad Mustafa, a sacrifice for the faith of Islam, the dust under the feet of Melik Danishmend."

Danishmend asks Efrumiye how a Greek girl came to be on their side. She tells him a dream. She had found herself in a garden through which rivers of milk, honey, water and wine flowed, and had entered a four-story pavilion of gold and silver. On a throne of ruby sat a figure in a turban of light, surrounded by Ali, Hasan, Hüseyin, Hamza and Abbas. The figure on the throne was the Prophet Muhammad. He told her to become a Muslim, said that God had made Artuhi lawful to her and that through them the Greek lands would be opened, and gave her a cup of sherbet. When she drank it, she says, unbelief left her heart and the manners of Islam settled in her body. In this way Efrumiye's conversion is presented in the epic as a state that follows love and is confirmed by a dream.

The Battles at the Ribat and the Help of Khidr

Nestor, whose bride has been taken from him, raises an army and besieges the ribat, the church of the white-bearded ascetic Harkil in the Taurus palace, where Artuhi, Efrumiye and Danishmend had taken shelter. During the siege Efrumiye captures her own father and drags him before Danishmend. As new armies arrive from Georgia and from the Armenian lands, the battles repeat. Meanwhile Artuhi lies gravely wounded in the courtyard of the ribat. When he prays, the wall splits open, and a white-bearded elder in green robes enters, passes his hand over his wounds and sets back in place a hand that had been cut off in battle. The epic says that this figure was Khidr. He asks that a prayer be conveyed to the Melik. Supernatural motifs are limited in the Danishmendname, and apart from a few appearances of Khidr like this one, its characters are drawn as ordinary human beings.

The Wedding

After the capture of Zile, Danishmend sees in a dream that the Prophet orders him to hold the wedding of Artuhi and Efrumiye, and he arranges a grand ceremony. The couple's gifts include hundreds of servants, slaves and concubines, a hundred bolts of Istanbul satin and a hundred bolts of zerbeft woven with red gold. Sherbets are drunk, the marriage contract is read, a thousand sheep, two hundred black cattle and a hundred horses are slaughtered for the feast, the Qur'an is recited and prayers are offered. Efrumiye and Artuhi enter the bridal chamber.

Captivity, Rescue and the Fall of Harşana

As the wars continue, Efrumiye falls from her horse in a clash, is caught with a lasso and taken prisoner. The Greeks throw her into a well in a dungeon at Çorum and leave a hundred men to guard her. Artuhi reports the matter to the Melik. Soon afterward, on his way to rescue her, he meets a warrior named İltekin by a fountain. İltekin is the son of a merchant from Baghdad and has seen the Prophet in a dream. He shows where Efrumiye is held, and by hidden paths Efrumiye and seven hundred prisoners are freed; weapons and clothing are distributed from the storehouses, the fortress is taken, and an imam and a judge are appointed.

Meanwhile Nestor and Şaddat have taken refuge in the fortress of Harşana. Danishmend besieges it and proposes that they become Muslims and surrender. The offer is refused. After a great battle the enemy scatters, and Nestor and Şaddat flee. A warrior named Ahmed Serfiraz, introducing himself as Nestor's armor-bearer, seizes Şaddat and brings him before the Melik. Harşana is taken partly by trickery and partly by battle. Şaddat escapes captivity by promising wealth to the guards who had converted. The epic does not tie the capture of Amasya to a single stroke; it spreads it over several stages of siege, flight and fresh campaigns. Şaddat is taken prisoner again by Artuhi in a later clash, and Nestor flees to Çorum.

The Church Ruse and Niksar

In the epic Efrumiye stands out as much for her stratagems as for her sword. During the siege of Niksar, Artuhi and Efrumiye write a letter in Greek in the name of Puthil, the lord of Trebizond. The letter announces that a cross dating from the time of the Messiah is being sent to the city. Efrumiye disguises herself as a priest. When Artuhi sees her he cannot help laughing, but the Greeks at the gate believe her to be a handsome priest. Efrumiye delivers the letter to Gavras, the lord of the fortress, and to the priest of the Sematorgos Church, a man past a hundred years old, announces that the cross will arrive in the morning, and leaves the city. The next morning Artuhi, Abdurrahman-i Tokadi and distinguished beys come to the gate with a camel loaded as though it carried a cross. When the priests open the gate, the ghazis draw their swords, rush in and seize the church. Gavras tries to defend the city but is killed by Melik Danishmend. Because of scenes like this, researchers describe Efrumiye as Danishmend's right hand in many battles.

Gülnüş Banu's Dream

As they march on Harşana, Artuhi and his companions come upon a warrior and a train of maidservants. The train is escorting Gülnüş Banu, who is traveling in a litter of Istanbul satin worked with red gold to her father Kaytal in Mamuriye. In a dream the girl had been told that Melik Ghazi would take her as his lawful wife. Artuhi attacks the train, takes Gülnüş captive and brings her to the Melik's camp. After Harşana is taken, Efrumiye tells Danishmend about the miracle of Gülnüş's dream, the army judge performs the marriage, and a wedding lasting seven days and seven nights is held. Gülnüş bears a son, and the Melik names him Gazi Bey.

Danishmend's Death and What Followed

While marching on Canik, Danishmend is wounded in seventeen places. Beneath the walls of Niksar he says that in a dream the Prophet showed him Paradise and told him that his life was complete. He instructs that his grave be left unmarked and turned toward Canik, and that his son continue the ghaza; he then pronounces the profession of faith and dies. After this, Artuhi, Efrumiye and Gazi Bey go to Baghdad. The caliph writes to the Seljuk sultan in Khurasan, gives the sister of the Seljuk Süleyman Shah to Gazi Bey in marriage, and transfers the supreme command from Süleyman Shah to Gazi Bey. The ghazis recover the Greek lands. In Niksar Gazi Bey builds dervish lodges for his father Melik Danishmend and tombs for the martyrs. His son Yağıbasan succeeds him. Together with Artuhi's son, many raids are carried out in the Greek lands.

Halifet Ghazi and the Amasya Madrasa

The story's trace in Amasya has been linked with the Halifet Ghazi Madrasa, one of the city's Seljuk-period buildings. According to the epic, Halifet Ghazi was the son of Artuhi and Efrumiye Banu. After Danishmend Ghazi and Artuhi died, Süleyman Shah, who came to Anatolia, appointed Danishmend's son Melik Ghazi and Halifet Ghazi as commanders of his army. The two recovered the places that had fallen to the Greeks after their fathers' deaths. After Melik Ghazi died, Halifet continued the ghaza with Yağıbasan, and in Amasya, which he had conquered, he had the church of his grandfather Şattat demolished and a madrasa built in its place.

Refet Yinanç shows that this account does not square with the facts. According to the madrasa's inscription and endowment deed, and a medical book translated into Turkish in Halifet Ghazi's name, Halifet's father was named Suli or Tuli and his grandfather Türkanshah. Halifet, who in the epic's story ought to have been a comrade-in-arms of Melik Ghazi, is a person who, according to the endowment deed, was still alive around 1225. Yet Melik Ghazi died in 1134 and Yağıbasan in 1164. Apart from the madrasa inscription and the deed, no Seljuk-period source mentions Halifet Ghazi. Later Ottoman historians, Âlî and Cenâbî, repeat the epic's error by writing that Halifet built a madrasa in Amasya while serving as vizier to the Danishmendid Melik Muhammed Ghazi and that his father İltekin was vizier to Ahmed Ghazi. Hüseyin Hüsameddin, the author of the history of Amasya, presents Halifet as a descendant of Gödül Bey; Yinanç notes that this information is confirmed by no source and does not fit the course of events. The debate shows how deeply Efrumiye's story entered Amasya's historical memory and how some older writers used epic material as though it were documentary evidence.

Who Were Artuhi and Efrumiye

The relation of the epic's two heroes to real persons is disputed. Osman Turan argues that Artuhi was Artuk Bey, who came to Anatolia after Malazgirt. According to this reading, the names Artukova and Artukabad, still known around Amasya and Tokat, preserve the memory of Artuk Bey's conquests in the region. This bey, recorded in historical sources as Artuk b. Eksük, is known to have made conquests in the Yeşilırmak and Kelkit basins with Türkmen from the Döğer tribe. If Artuhi really is this Artuk Bey, the epic's portrayal of him as a former Christian does not fit history, since Artuk Bey was evidently a Muslim Turk. M. Halil Yinanç, for his part, maintained that the epic attributes Artuk Bey's conquests in the Yeşilırmak basin entirely to Danishmend Ghazi, that Artuhi is a reflection of this reality, and that the place names in the text have no connection to real geography. Şerafettin Tekindağ, taking into account the time gap between Artuk and Halifet, raised the possibility that Artuhi might be Fahreddin Karaaslan, son of Artuk and ruler of Hısn Keyfa and Harput (d. 1175). Irène Mélikoff and Osman Turan draw a middle path: the Danishmendname is neither a genuine chronicle, as the older historians accepted, nor a book of mere superstition, as M. Halil Yinanç maintained, and it contains clues that can be evaluated with regard to place names and persons.

There are also several proposals for Efrumiye's identity. Mélikoff and Turan identify her with Morphia, daughter of Gabriel, the Armenian-descended ruler of Malatya. Hüseyin Hüsameddin, relying on the information in the epic, writes that Efrumiye's real name was Apa Rumiye, daughter of Jotatüs, the governor of Amasya, and that after her marriage to Artuhi her name changed by a slight sound shift into Efrumiye Banu. Because he cites no source, historians have not accepted this explanation. In the Mirkatü'l-cihad, one of the later reworkings of the epic, Artuhi's name after his conversion appears as Mizban and Efrumiye's as Mihriban. The name Harşene in the epic is taken to indicate Amasya. Yinanç also reminds us that another fortress of the same name, Harşene, lies near the Çukur district of Kayseri.

The value of the Danishmendname as a historical source has been the subject of a long debate, from Ottoman historians treating it as a direct reference work from the sixteenth century onward to critical examination by researchers such as Fuad Köprülü and Mélikoff. The Artuhi and Efrumiye episodes are among the examples at the center of that debate. In the scene where Artuhi, Efrumiye and Gazi Bey go to Baghdad, the Great Seljuk sultan is named as Tuğrul Bey; yet Tuğrul Bey died in 1063, and this event, which follows Danishmend's death, can only have taken place in the time of Muhammed Tapar (1105-1118) and the Abbasid caliph al-Mustazhir-Billah (1094-1118).

The Literary Side of the Narrative

The language of the epic is closer to the oral narrative tradition than to historical record. In battle scenes the kettledrums sound, the priests strike the semantron, the hafizes recite the Qur'an and the ghazis cry out the takbir. Every sword stroke cuts the enemy in two as far as the brow, horses neigh, and the steam of blood covers the air. This formulaic manner of telling recurs in the marriage, siege and captivity scenes of Artuhi and Efrumiye. The descriptions of weddings, lists of feasts, gifts and garments contain cultural-historical material that informs us about the ceremonies of the period. As in the work as a whole, Sunni belief and loyalty to the caliphate are marked in these sections: the heroes pray five times a day, do not drink wine, and set aside the caliph's share of the booty.

Chronology

1063: Death of the Great Seljuk sultan Tuğrul Bey. His mention in Baghdad after Danishmend's death in the epic is a chronological error.

1071: Battle of Malazgirt. According to Osman Turan, Artuk Bey was one of the beys who came to Anatolia after this battle.

1104 or 1105: Date accepted for the death of Melik Danishmend.

1134: Death of Melik Ghazi.

1164: Death of Yağıbasan.

1175: Death of Fahreddin Karaaslan, whom Tekindağ associated with Artuhi.

Around 1225: The date at which, according to the endowment deed, Halifet Ghazi was still alive.

Sources

Academic studies

  • Şükrü Akkaya, "Kitab-ı Melik Danişmend Gazi - Danişmendname", Dil ve Tarih-Coğrafya Fakültesi Dergisi, VIII.
  • Ergin Ayan, "Dânişmendnâme'de Trabzon", Uluslararası Sosyal Araştırmalar Dergisi, 6/28 (2013). sosyalarastirmalar.com

Other sources

  • Refet Yinanç, "Selçuklu Medreselerinden Amasya Halifet Gazi Medresesi ve Vakıfları". amasya.edu.tr
  • Turkish Religious Foundation Encyclopedia of Islam, "Dânişmendnâme" entry.
  • Irène Mélikoff, La Geste de Melik Dânişmend, Paris 1960.
  • Osman Turan, Selçuklular Zamanında Türkiye.

Online sources