Bayezid II was the eighth sultan of the Ottoman state and held the throne from 1481 to 1512, a reign of more than thirty years. The first half of his life, however, was spent in Amasya, on the banks of the Yeşilırmak. The eldest son of Mehmed the Conqueror, he was sent to govern the city as sanjak governor at the age of seven, in the year after the conquest of Istanbul, and he remained there for twenty-seven years. He learned calligraphy from Sheikh Hamdullah, wrote ghazals under the pen name "Adlî," and absorbed the finer points of statecraft under the supervision of his lalas. His children were born in the city as well: Selim, later known as Yavuz (the Grim), together with Ahmed and Korkut, came into the world in the Amasya palace while their father was sanjak governor. His story therefore belongs to Amasya as much as to Ottoman political history; once his years as a prince, his struggle for the throne, his reign and the end of his rule at the hands of his own sons are set side by side, what emerges is the history of a dynasty and of a city together.

Birth and Lineage

Bayezid was born in Dimetoka (Didymoteicho), which lies today within the borders of Greece and was attached to Edirne in Ottoman times. The sources disagree on the date of his birth: some give 1448, others 3 December 1447, and some combine the two years as "1447/1448." The uncertainty, which falls between December 1447 and January 1448, is left here as it stands.

His father was Mehmed the Conqueror and his mother Gülbahar Hatun; Bayezid was the Conqueror's eldest son by her. At the time of his birth Mehmed was still a very young prince. He ascended the throne for the second time in 1451, on the death of his father Murad II, and Istanbul was conquered in 1453. The young prince was circumcised in Edirne in the spring of 1457, together with his brother Mustafa.

The Sanjak of Amasya

Bayezid was seven years old when he was sent to Amasya as sanjak governor. The article "Şehzadeler Döneminde Amasya Şehri" ("The City of Amasya in the Age of the Princes"), published in the Journal of the Faculty of Theology of Amasya University, relies on Hüsameddin's Amasya Tarihi to place the appointment in 1454, the year after the conquest of Istanbul; another source says "around 1454-1456" and adds that his mother accompanied him. His governorship lasted twenty-seven years, until the change of sultans in 1481. Amasya had served princes as a sanjak before. Prince Alâeddin, the eldest son of Murad II, had been appointed to it in 1440 at the age of fifteen, took part in the war against the Karamanids in 1443, and died in Amasya after returning from the campaign.

Among the princes assigned to Amasya, Bayezid was the youngest; the oldest was Prince Mustafa, son of Süleyman the Magnificent, who was twenty-four. The prince who governed the city longest was Bayezid's eldest son Ahmed, with thirty years, and the second longest was Bayezid himself, with twenty-seven. The princes' terms in Amasya add up to 182 years in all, and within that span Bayezid's place is the most remarkable both for his age and for the length of his tenure.

A child of seven cannot govern a sanjak on his own. Ottoman practice placed beside a prince experienced statesmen known as lalas, who served as tutors and deputies at once. Çandarlı İbrahim and Yahya Pasha are named among those appointed as lalas to Bayezid; it is also recorded that Atabeyzade Hayreddin Hızır Pasha, who built a madrasa in Amasya, "served as Bayezid's lala." Some biographical accounts say that Bayezid was sent to Amasya under the guidance of Hadım Ali Pasha, and Cezerî Kasım Pasha too appears in the sources as his "lala." The terms of service and the order of these men cannot be established from open sources; each is mentioned separately because each appears in the record.

The Palace of the Princes

The princes who came to Amasya lived in a building in the inner citadel that had been known in Seljuk times as the "Palace of the Beys." The Ottomans called it the "Palace of the Princes" (Şehzadeler Sarayı); among the townspeople it is also known as the Beyler Sarayı or the Saraydüzü Barracks. The palace took its definitive form in 1396, during Çelebi Mehmed's governorship of Amasya, when the Gümüşlüzade Pavilion was purchased and a large palace built in its place, and it served as a palace for 350 years in the Ottoman period. Murad II and his son Ahmed Çelebi were born in it, as were Bayezid II's son Ahmed and Selim I.

The birth years of Bayezid's children in Amasya are given in the sources as follows: Ahmed around 1466, Korkut in 1469, Selim on 10 October 1470. The sultan later known as Yavuz was thus born in this city during his father's governorship. The sources disagree about the identity of Selim's mother. The dynastic lists name both Ayşe Hatun, daughter of the Dulkadirid Alâüddevle Bozkurt Bey, and Gülbahar Hatun, daughter of Abdüssamed, as his mother; some publications merge the two into Gülbahar (Ayşe) Hatun. Ahmed's mother was Bülbül Hatun and Korkut's was Nigâr Hatun.

A Prince's Education in Amasya

Bayezid's years in Amasya were a period of administrative apprenticeship, but they were also the years in which his character took shape. He studied under Muarrifzade, and it is said that he learned mathematics from Mirim Çelebi. One of his teachers in the religious sciences was the Bayrami sheikh Şeyh Yavsî. He received instruction in mathematics and philosophy and, besides Arabic and Persian, learned the Chagatai dialect and the Uyghur script. There are also accounts of a mystical, half-poetic life at the Amasya palace. Amasya was then a center of learning and culture, and the young prince was surrounded by scholars, poets and artists.

His most important teacher in Amasya was the calligrapher Sheikh Hamdullah. Hamdullah, regarded as the founder of the Ottoman school of calligraphy, was a native of Amasya. Prince Bayezid learned the fine art of writing from him and received the certificate of proficiency (icazetname) that the young calligrapher granted. When he left Amasya in 1481 to take the throne, he invited his teacher to Istanbul together with his family. According to the account of Gülzârî Savâb, when Hamdullah reached Istanbul he stayed at the house in Saraçhanebaşı of his kinsmen Cemaleddin and Abdullah, calligraphers from Amasya who had come to the city before him. A palace doorkeeper had him write a petition to be presented to the sultan; as Bayezid read it he recognized his teacher's hand, had the writer found, set aside a special place for him in the palace and appointed him teacher of calligraphy. This is a tradition and cannot be said to rest on a contemporary document.

Prince Bayezid looked after the artists around him and put the resources of the state at their disposal. He himself wrote poetry under the pen name "Adlî." His small divan, made up mostly of ghazals, was printed in Istanbul in 1308 (1890-91). The number of ghazals varies with the source: one assessment speaks of about 125 ghazals, another of about 144 Turkish ghazals, 4 matlas and 14 Persian ghazals, and counts five manuscript copies. The difference depends on which copy and which edition one consults. Bayezid is regarded as a poet of middling rank and as a rather gifted calligrapher.

Events in the Region During His Governorship

The main political events in the region during Bayezid's governorship were the flight of the Dulkadirid Alâüddevle to the Ottomans and the devastation of Tokat in 1472 by Akkoyunlu forces under Yûsufca Mirza. In 1473, when his father fought the Akkoyunlu Uzun Hasan at the Battle of Otlukbeli, Bayezid joined the army at Kazova and held the right wing in the battle. On the return from the campaign the Conqueror stayed in Amasya with his son for about a month. The sources give no detail on how that month was spent; the meeting of father and son in the city is one of the rarest direct scenes in Amasya's memory, and in the records it survives only to this extent.

In 1479, after the goods of merchants arriving from Iran were plundered, forces sent by Bayezid annexed Torul and its surroundings to Ottoman territory. Yakup Pasha, the poet, sanjak governor of Bosnia and frontier raider commander, was at Bayezid's side as the Conqueror's representative while Bayezid was prince in Amasya; when Bayezid came to the throne he appointed him first as atabey (guardian) to his son Alemşah and then as governor of Bosnia. The district of Lâdik, attached to Amasya, was the summer seat of the sanjak governors, and Bayezid spent every summer at Lâdik (according to the 1927 book of the Lâdik Türk Ocağı).

Strained Relations with His Father

His time as a prince was not entirely smooth. Bayezid's use of opium at one point caused a rift with his father. According to an account based on a document in the Topkapı Palace Archive, the Conqueror ordered the execution of Hızır Paşazâde Mahmud and Müeyyedzâde Abdurrahman, who had drawn his son into the habit; Bayezid protected his companions, informed his father that he had given up certain "müferrihât" (mood-lifting preparations) that he had been taking in order to lose weight, and begged forgiveness. The Conqueror then withdrew the death sentence.

Apart from this, minor incidents also soured his relations with his father: his harsh enforcement of the restrictions imposed on properties and endowments, and his refusal to hand over a merchant whom Istanbul had asked to have sent to the capital. The restrictions stemmed from the law code issued in the time of Grand Vizier Karamanî Mehmed Pasha, which transferred many waqf and private landholdings to the central treasury; Bayezid announced that he would not apply it in Amasya and gathered supporters around him in this way. His restoration, after he became sultan, of the endowments abolished under the Conqueror can be seen as a continuation of this stance. It is also noted that although he led a free life in his youth, during his reign he turned to worship and charitable works.

The Prince's Mark on the City of Amasya

The buildings that rose in the city during Bayezid's governorship carry the mark of the administrative circle around the prince's palace. In 1466 the Hızır Pasha Madrasa, associated with Bayezid's lala, was built; it was followed in 1485 by the Abdullah Bey Dar al-Hadith Madrasa, in 1489 by the madrasa of Hüseyin Ağa, Chief Gate Keeper (Büyük Kapı Ağası), one of Bayezid's chamberlains, in the Şamlılar quarter, and in 1495 by the madrasa of the Junior Gate Keeper (Küçük Kapı Ağası) Ayas Ağa. The Kilari Selim Ağa Mosque of 1484 and the Mehmed Pasha Mosque of 1486 belong to the same period. The Kumacık Bath was built in 1495 by the Gate Keeper in the Bayezid Pasha quarter. In the 182 years of the princes' service, of the city's 48 Muslim quarters, 13 acquired a mosque, and in the 24 quarters that had no mosque 25 small mosques (mescit) were built, so that 37 mosques and small mosques were constructed in all.

On leaving the sanjak, Bayezid left his eldest son Ahmed, born there, as governor in his place. Ahmed, like his father, opened his palace to poets and scholars; the Amasya-born woman poet Mihrî Hatun presented most of her qasidas to him. Ahmed's mother Bülbül Hatun had the Hatuniye Imaret built in the Hatuniye quarter in 1509; the Hatuniye Mosque dates from 1511. In this way Bayezid's family in Amasya left its own contribution on the city's skyline.

The Conqueror's Death and the Road to the Throne

Mehmed the Conqueror died unexpectedly near Gebze on 3 May 1481. From this moment Bayezid and his brother Cem, the sanjak governor of Karaman, confronted each other over the succession. The Conqueror's law code granted those who would become sultan the right to put their brothers to death for the sake of the "order of the world" (nizâm-ı âlem), and this provision lent the struggle between the princes the character of a fight for survival. Reports that the Conqueror, displeased at Cem's birth, kicked his cradle, or that he left a will naming Bayezid as his successor, are regarded as far from reflecting the truth.

It is known that Grand Vizier Karamanî Mehmed Pasha favored Cem, while the commander of Istanbul, İshak Pasha, together with Bayezid's sons-in-law, the Anatolian Beylerbey Sinan and the janissary agha Kasım, wanted Bayezid. When the Conqueror died, the chamberlain Keklik Mustafa was sent to Bayezid and word was dispatched to Cem as well; but the courier going to Cem was intercepted. In the disorder that broke out in Istanbul, Karamanî Mehmed Pasha was killed (4 May), and the janissaries demonstrated in the streets in Bayezid's favor. İshak Pasha sent Bayezid letters of invitation urging him to come as quickly as possible, and meanwhile seated Bayezid's son Korkut, who was in Istanbul, on the throne as his father's deputy.

Bayezid learned of his father's death on 7 May, set out from Amasya with 4,000 horsemen and reached Üsküdar on 21 May; some sources say the journey took nine days. He crossed to Istanbul by galley, attended his father's funeral and entered Topkapı Palace. On 22 May 1481 the Imperial Council, convened, announced that Prince Korkut had yielded the sultanate to his father. The prince of Amasya had taken the throne in the capital after twenty-seven years as sanjak governor. His first acts were to distribute an accession gift of three thousand akçes each to the household troops (kapıkulu) and to raise the janissaries' pay to 5 akçes; he also granted villages as freehold to viziers and notables in places of their choosing.

Cem Sultan: From Yenişehir to Naples

Cem, who thought himself the worthier claimant to the throne, took up arms. With the forces he had gathered he entered Bursa, had the Friday sermon read and coins struck in his name; that is, he proclaimed himself sultan. He claimed that his father had chosen him for the throne. He stayed in Bursa for about eighteen days and then proposed that the empire be divided. Bayezid rejected the offer, stating that the sultanate could not be partitioned, and marched against Cem. The Battle of Yenişehir was fought on 22 June 1481, and Cem suffered a heavy defeat.

Cem went first to Konya, then to Tarsus and Egypt; he was received with great interest in Cairo and made the pilgrimage to Mecca. Having come to an agreement with the Karamanid Kasım, he attempted to take Konya in 1482 but was thrown back, and with some thirty men he reached Rhodes on 29 July 1482. Pierre d'Aubusson, head of the Knights of Rhodes, received him with great ceremony; the knights, however, planned to use Cem as a trump card against the Ottoman state.

Bayezid made great efforts to prevent his brother's release and offered concessions. An agreement was made under which the knights were to be paid 40,000 ducats a year to keep Cem in custody and were granted free trade in Ottoman lands. The right hand of John the Baptist (the prophet Yahya), regarded as holy by Christians, was also presented to the knights in a golden casket set with precious stones. Cem was taken on 15 October 1482 to Villefranche in the Duchy of Savoy; because of plague he was sent to Nice, and on 5 February 1483 he was moved to Chambéry. In these years Bayezid sent spies and couriers to find out whether Cem was alive. The Hungarian king's attempt to abduct Cem came to nothing, and in 1487 the Mamluk sultan offered to have Cem handed over to him for 20,000 florins.

On 4 March 1489 Cem was brought to Rome at the request of Pope Innocent VIII. From then on Bayezid sent to the pope the money he had been paying the knights for Cem's custody; the Ottoman envoy Mustafa Bey delivered 120,000 gold pieces to the pope for three years (some sources date this payment to 1490). Under Pope Alexander VI, King Charles VIII of France agreed to take Cem to Naples; Cem left Rome on 27 January 1495 and died on 25 February 1495 in Castel Capuana near Naples. It is said that his death was most probably the result of poisoning; the pope, who had been forced to give up the valuable hostage in his hands, is rumored to have poisoned him. There is no definite document.

When Bayezid learned of his brother's death, he proclaimed three days of mourning and had the funeral prayer performed in absentia. Cem's body was handed over to the Ottomans by the King of Naples in 1499 and buried in the graveyard of the Muradiye Mosque in Bursa. The Cem affair, and the hopes it aroused in Europe of retaking Istanbul, drove Bayezid to follow a very cautious and peaceable policy; for fourteen years Cem's shadow did not lift from the reign. Bayezid's conduct in this matter could also be harsh. The vizier Gedik Ahmed Pasha, accused of being a partisan of Cem, was executed; according to some sources the madrasa professor (müderris) Kara Mustafa Pasha, husband of Bayezid's daughter Hatice Sultan, was likewise executed on the charge of supporting Cem.

Otranto, Moldavia and Albania

The first consequence of the struggle with Cem was the loss of Otranto. Gedik Ahmed Pasha had taken Otranto on 11 August 1480. When the pasha, who had returned to raise troops, was not allowed to go back to Italy, the Turkish garrison, left in a difficult position, surrendered to the Neapolitan forces (10 September 1481). The base secured in Italy was thus lost, and an agreement was made with Naples providing for the return of prisoners and freedom of trade for subjects.

When Stephen the Great, voivode of Moldavia, attacked Bulgaria and pirates based at the mouth of the Danube damaged the Turkish fleet, Bayezid set out on campaign in person. Kilia was taken on 15 July 1484 and Akkerman on 4 August; Stephen was made liable to an annual tribute, and overland access to Crimea was secured. When Stephen saw that he could not recover the places he had lost, he signed a new peace with the Ottomans in 1501. Because Crimean forces seized Bessarabia during the campaign, direct contact with Poland arose; relations, which did not begin amicably because of raids on both sides, improved through the mediation of King Vladislaus II of Hungary. A campaign and victory against Poland in 1497 are also mentioned. In 1492 a revolt begun in Albania by Iskender Bey, with the support of the papacy and the Kingdom of Naples, spread, and Bayezid advanced as far as Tepedelen and sent Grand Vizier Dâvud Pasha against the rebels. Many prisoners were taken, but complete calm was never achieved in Albania.

The Mamluk War

The most important military event of Bayezid's reign was the war with the Mamluks, which lasted six years (1485-1491). The rivalry for supremacy in Çukurova and over the Dulkadirid principality, together with the Mamluks' support for Cem, set the two states against each other. Neither side won a decisive victory. Through the mediation of Osman Hafsî, ruler of Tunis, an agreement was made in 1491; the fortresses of Adana and Tarsus were left to the Mamluks on the ground that they were attached to the endowments of the Two Holy Cities (as reported by İbn İyâs). The war with Egypt also affected relations with Karaman and the Dulkadirids unfavorably. The Karamanid principality had been abolished in the time of the Conqueror, but the Cem affair and Egyptian support revived the problem; the efforts at independence of the Karamanid Kasım, and after him of Turgutoğlu Mahmud and Mustafa, could be ended only in 1501. Ottoman-Dulkadirid relations, which had fluctuated, improved again when an agreement was made with the Mamluks and Alâüddevle asked for pardon.

The Venetian War and the Morea

The greatest fluctuation in the foreign policy of Bayezid's reign is seen in relations with Venice. At the outset a new agreement was made that modified certain provisions of the 1479 treaty in Venice's favor (6 January 1482). When Venice failed to pay the annual 10,000 ducats it owed the Ottoman treasury, and Bayezid felt freer after Cem's death, Turkish ports were closed to Venetian trade in 1496. The fleet under Kemal Reis began to strike the Dalmatian coast. When Venice allied with France, the Venetian merchants in Istanbul were arrested and their goods confiscated, and war was declared (1498).

In this war, which lasted four years, the Turkish fleet first took Modon on 9 August and Koron on 15 August; raiders attacking Friuli advanced as far as the approaches to Venice. In 1499 the Ottoman fleet under Kemal Reis defeated the Venetian fleet at the naval battle of Sapienza, and the fortresses of Lepanto (İnebahtı), Navarino, Modon and Koron are reported to have been taken; since the start of the war is given in the sources as either 1498 or 1499, there is a one-year slippage among the events. The Venetians, allied with Pope Alexander VI and King Vladislaus II of Hungary, attacked Lesbos (Midilli) and Çeşme in the summer of 1501 with the participation of Spanish and French ships as well, but achieved nothing. The French fleet besieged Lesbos with 10,000 infantry; Prince Korkut, sanjak governor of Manisa, came to the vicinity of Ayvalık and intervened.

When the Venetian Republic saw that even the pope's call for a crusade was ineffective, it felt the need for a settlement. According to the treaty, drawn up in Greek in Istanbul on 14 December 1502 but ratified by Doge Leonardo Loredano on 20 May 1503, Venice would pay the annual 10,000 ducats as before and return the 34,000 ducats it had seized at Santa Maura; in return it would regain freedom of trade and obtain the right to keep in Istanbul a bailo, changed every three years. The state of war with Hungary, meanwhile, continued in the form of mutual raids; the truces of 1483 and 1494 could not secure peace. In 1503 a treaty was made in which Wallachia, together with Moldavia, and Ragusa agreed to pay tribute to both sides, and which recognized mutual freedom of trade.

First Contacts with Russia and Andalusia

One of the notable features of Bayezid's reign is that relations were established for the first time with Russia and with Andalusia. After preliminary talks conducted through the Crimean khan Mengli Giray, Tsar Ivan III wrote to Bayezid on 31 August 1492 complaining that the pashas of Azov and Kaffa were making difficulties for Russian merchants. A Russian envoy came to Istanbul in 1495 about freedom of trade, and a new mission in 1499.

The Nasrid state of Granada, hard pressed by King Ferdinand of Castile, asked for help. Because of the weakness of Ottoman naval power and the Cem affair, the necessary aid could not be given; even so, a fleet under Kemal Reis struck the Spanish coasts and carried some of the Muslims of Andalusia to the shores of Africa and to Ottoman lands. Some of the Jews fleeing the cruelty of the Inquisition in Spain also took refuge in Ottoman territory and were settled in various cities. According to some accounts Bayezid ordered, through proclamations sent across the empire, that the refugees be received in a friendly manner and threatened with death those who mistreated the Jews; the first printing press in Istanbul was also founded in 1493 by Sephardic Jews. The remark attributed to Bayezid about Ferdinand, "You call him a wise ruler? He impoverished his own country and enriched mine," is a widespread tale, but that it rests on a contemporary document is not certain. For the number of arrivals, figures such as 100,000 to 150,000 are given in some publications; these are estimates.

The Safavids and the Şahkulu Rebellion

Bayezid's peaceable and cautious policy developed to the Ottomans' disadvantage in relations with the Safavids. While Shah Ismail's Shiite policy made its influence felt in Anatolia, the person who persistently tried to prevent its spread was Prince Selim, sanjak governor of Trabzon. When a Safavid force of 20,000 advanced as far as Ankara and showed the size of the danger, 16,000 people suspected of being Shiites were deported from Anatolia to Rumelia.

The rebellion of Şahkulu Baba Tekeli, which broke out in the spring of 1511, drenched Anatolia in blood from end to end; in Tokat the Friday sermon was even read in the name of Shah Ismail. The rebellion engulfed Amasya as well. Prince Ahmed intervened with his forces and went against Şahkulu, but was forced to withdraw. After raiding Antalya, Korkuteli, Elmalı, Burdur and Keçiborlu, Şahkulu's forces came before Kütahya and defeated and captured the Anatolian Beylerbey Karagöz Ahmed Pasha. Grand Vizier Hadım Ali Pasha, who was assigned to the task, besieged Şahkulu together with Ahmed at Altıntaş, but Şahkulu, exploiting a dispute between Ahmed and the janissaries, escaped. In a clash near Sivas in July 1511 Şahkulu was killed, and Hadım Ali Pasha died some time later of the wounds he had received. The failure of Prince Ahmed, who had been charged with suppressing this rebellion, improved Selim's chances.

When Ahmed, on receiving an invitation to the throne, left his eldest son Murad in charge of the sanjak of Amasya and went to Istanbul, the Safavid caliphs gained control of Tokat and besieged Sivas. Murad, with ten thousand men, joined the Safavid caliph Nur Ali; this crisis ended when Yahşi Beyzade Ahmed Pasha drove the rebels out of Amasya. Murad then turned toward Shah Ismail's lodge. In the first days of 1512 the Qizilbash rose again in the Amasya-Tokat region; Ahmed's abandonment of the area had created a great vacuum there. That the son of a prince, Murad, was put at the head of the sanjak of Amasya, to which sons of the sultan were appointed, was a situation rarely seen in the age of the princes.

Administrative and Military Measures

Bayezid worked to secure calm at home and to settle the administrative system in an empire grown through conquest. At times he was also obliged to adopt measures in accordance with the wishes of the forces that had brought him to power: the endowments that had been converted into timars and abolished under the Conqueror, on the view that they reduced state revenues, were returned to their former holders, and the office of naqib al-ashraf, which had been abolished, was reestablished. The execution of Gedik Ahmed Pasha was justified by the charge of partisanship for Cem; it did not aim to end the influence of the devshirme.

Measures to strengthen the army were also taken. A new class called the "agha companies" was formed within the janissary corps. The amount required of timar-holding sipahis for the upkeep of one armored soldier (cebelü) was reduced from 5,000 akçes to 3,000. In the navy the first galleon-class ship, named Göke, was built, and long-range cannon came into use. To handle the growing financial business a second treasurer's office for Anatolia, called "şıkk-ı sânî," was established; and the Galata Palace School was opened to train the pages (iç oğlan) to be taken into the palace. Evliya Çelebi traces the founding of this school to the wish of Gül Baba, owner of a rose garden Bayezid came upon while hunting in Galata in the winter of 1481; Gül Baba is said to have given the sultan two roses, one yellow and one red, and asked him to have a school and a hospital built in the garden. This story has not been confirmed by any other source.

The Temper of a Sultan

Bayezid was of medium to tall stature, dark-complexioned, hazel-eyed and broad-chested, with a gentle and even melancholic nature. Because he turned to worship and charitable works during his reign although he had led a free life in his youth, he came to be called Bayezid-i Velî (Bayezid the Saint). He stayed away from war unless compelled and preferred not to leave Istanbul for the sake of "the order of the realm" (nizâm-ı memleket). The report of the Venetian envoy Andrea Gritti, who came to Istanbul in 1503, describes him as tall and swarthy, mentally occupied and appearing anxious, interested in philosophy, well versed in cosmography, a sparing eater, a non-drinker of wine, a frequenter of mosques and a generous giver of alms; it adds that because of gout (nikris) he often could not go hunting.

This gentle temperament did not amount to tolerance on his father's scale. The removal of Gentile Bellini's paintings from the palace and their sale, and the execution of Molla Lutfi of Tokat on a charge of unbelief, both took place in his time. On the other hand, Bayezid attended the funeral of Molla Gürânî and paid his debt from the treasury.

Learning, Art and Culture

Bayezid had gathered scholars around him since his days as a prince; once he became sultan this interest continued. Ottoman historiography produced its first great works in his time: he had a history of the Ottomans written in Persian by İdrîs-i Bitlisî and another in Turkish by İbn Kemal. Scholars and poets such as Molla Lutfi, Müeyyedzâde Abdurrahman, İbn Kemal, İdrîs-i Bitlisî, Tâcîzâde Câfer and Sâdî Çelebi, Zenbilli Ali Efendi, Necâtî, Zâtî, Visâlî and Firdevsî enjoyed his patronage. That the name of many a poet, artist, scholar and sheikh appears in the register of gifts (İn'âmât Defteri) for 1503-1511 clearly shows the value he placed on learning and culture.

Bayezid was not wholly indifferent to the artistic movements of Europe either. Leonardo da Vinci wrote to the sultan that he was ready to build a bridge over the Golden Horn and another over the Bosphorus, and Michelangelo, hearing that a bridge was under consideration, wished at one point to come to Istanbul; but these initiatives did not materialize. It is also told that in 1502 Leonardo submitted a 240-meter project for the Golden Horn, but no source is cited for this. In the divan and the imperial letters (nâme-i hümâyun), as in the Conqueror's time, Greek, Italian and Slavic were also used. It is also recorded that the sultan learned to read the Uyghur script and knew a very little Italian.

His Pious Foundations

Bayezid had many charitable foundations (hayrat) built in Istanbul, Amasya, Edirne, Osmancık, Geyve and Saruhan. The foundation of the complex in Edirne was laid on 23 April 1484 and it was completed in 1488; the district where the complex stood, consisting of a mosque, madrasa, guesthouse (tabhâne), soup kitchen (imaret) and hospital (dârüşşifâ), was called İmâret-i Cedîd (Yeniimaret), and Bayezid exempted its residents from all extraordinary imperial levies (avârız-ı dîvâniyye). Construction of the complex in Istanbul began in 1501 and was finished in 1505; its architect was Yâkub Ağa. The complex at first consisted of a mosque, a caravanserai and a double bath, with a school, a madrasa and a soup kitchen added later. He also had bridges built over the Tunca at Edirne, the Kızılırmak at Osmancık and the Sakarya at Geyve. As endowments for the mosque in Istanbul, the Koza Han (1491) and the Pirinç Han (1508) were built in Bursa. Ahmet Şimşirgil reports that in the medical institution at Edirne the mentally ill were treated humanely by such means as music and fragrances.

The Complex in Amasya

The branch of these charities that reached Amasya is the Bayezid II Complex. Like the complex at Edirne, it was founded beside a watercourse, the Yeşilırmak. According to its three-part building inscription, placed over the main portal and on two side walls, the mosque was completed in Rajab 891 (July 1486); the inscriptions, in thuluth script, are the work of a calligrapher named Ali b. Mezîd. Hüseyin Hüsameddin Yasar claims that construction began right after Bayezid's accession, in Rajab 886 (September 1481). The same author, relying on İdrîs-i Bitlisî, reports that the construction, begun as thanks for the grant of the sultanate, was entrusted by Bayezid to Prince Ahmed; this information is repeated in Âlî's Künhü'l-ahbâr and in Nişancızâde Mehmed's Mir'âtü'l-kâinât. The deed of endowment was written in January 1496 and describes the complex as a mosque, soup kitchen, madrasa and children's school. The sources agree that the foundation was laid by Ahmed, and give 1486 as the completion date; the provincial culture and tourism records describe the building as built by Prince Ahmed in 1485-1486. The complex stands in the Hacı İlyas quarter, and when it opened it took the place of the Fethiye Mosque as the city's Friday mosque. The name of its architect is not known.

There is no clue to support the claim that the complex stands on the site of the Church of the Virgin Mary, about which nothing is known beyond that it stood on the riverbank. The mosque stands in the middle of an outer courtyard of roughly 160 x 120 m; to its right is the madrasa, to its left the refectory-soup kitchen and the guesthouse, and the mosque has no inner courtyard of its own. The five-bay domed portico rests on marble columns. The crown gate, with its muqarnas crest and entrance arch of two-colored marble, is as imposing as those of Bayezid's other mosques; in the pediments of the four windows opening from the main space onto the portico, white thuluth inscriptions in tile appear on a dark blue ground. The harem section consists of two domed spaces entered through squinches and, at the sides, wings of three domes each; the first dome has a diameter of about 13 m, the second, covering the qibla section, about 15 m. The side spaces are thought originally to have been guesthouse rooms, since Bayezid's other two great complexes also have guesthouses, and these spaces have connections to the outside.

Simplicity prevails inside the mosque: the mihrab is modest in scale and has muqarnas, the white marble minbar is very plain, and so is the muezzin's gallery resting on slender black columns. By contrast the wooden door and window leaves are of superb workmanship; the main door leaves are joined in an interlocking geometric pattern, and their brass bands and studs survive. Of the two minarets, the one on the right is decorated, in a way not seen on any other minaret, with red zigzag inlays ending in lily motifs; the one on the left is built in red and white bands in keeping with the old Turkish minaret tradition.

The madrasa is also known as the Sultaniye. Opposite the entrance there is a square, domed lecture hall-mescit, vaulted arcades enclosing a courtyard with an ablution fountain on three sides, and behind them eighteen domed cells, each with a hearth. For many years it served as the Provincial Public Library. It is reported that the professorship was assigned to the muftis of Amasya and that the first professor was the renowned Shaykh al-Islam Zenbilli Ali Efendi; the list of professors is found in Cahit Baltacı's Osmanlı Medreseleri. The refectory-soup kitchen to the left of the mosque is L-shaped; as can be seen from its two large hearths, it was the place where meals were cooked. Because it was used for a long time as a military depot, the original function of some of its sections cannot be understood. The children's school, known to have stood near the soup kitchen, vanished without a trace in the last century.

The complex was damaged repeatedly by earthquakes and by floods of the Yeşilırmak. In the earthquake of 1590 (Muharram 999) its domes and arches were badly damaged and were repaired at once. In the earthquake of 1668-69 the domes collapsed, the two minarets tilted, and the domes of the soup kitchen and guesthouse fell; the steward (mütevelli) Merzifonî İbrahim Ağa made good all the damage within a year. Additions were made to the building over time: in 1782-83 Hacı Ali Ağa had taps and a water-heating place built on the river side so that ablutions could be made with warm water in winter, in 1813 Ayşe Hatun added a fountain, in 1820-21 Hacı Osman Ağa a public drinking fountain (sebil), and in 1840 Kapancızâde Hacı Hüseyin Zeki Efendi a timekeeper's room-library (muvakkithâne) and another fountain. Between 1909 and 1911, by bequest of the Yamuk Osmanzâde family, a library and a new fountain were built at the foot of the courtyard wall. In the flood of 1980 a deposit 70 cm deep accumulated inside the mosque. In the very severe earthquake of 1939 some arches and domes of the portico collapsed; the repair carried out in the 1960s cannot be called successful. On the walls of the timekeeper's room in the courtyard there are painted decorations of landscapes with trees and a picture of the nearby Beyazıt Mosque. The square, domed tomb southeast of the mosque is held to be the tomb of Prince Osman Bey, Prince Ahmed's son, who was put to death in 1513 by Yavuz Selim; there is no sarcophagus in it today.

The detailed story of the complex is told in the page on the complex on this site.

The "Lesser Doomsday": The Earthquake of 1509

The earthquake that began in Istanbul on 11 September 1509 and lasted forty-five days came to be called the "lesser doomsday" because it brought down 1,070 houses and 109 small mosques and caused the loss of more than 5,000 lives; some sources give 14 September for the main shock. A single source states that the earthquake began on 10 September in the area called "Memalik-i Rum" (the Rûm lands), meaning Amasya, Tokat, Sivas, Çorum and their surroundings, that it continued with violence for 45 days, and that the people lived in tents for about two months; since this information appears in no other source, it should be read with caution.

According to the account, Bayezid, unable to trust the walls of the palace, had a light tent pitched in its garden and stayed there for about ten days. Fifteen days after the Istanbul earthquake a similar one struck Edirne, and the architect Hayreddin built a wooden house for the sultan within 15 days. His birthplace Dimetoka was reduced to a heap of earth. Bayezid personally held meetings on the rebuilding of Istanbul; the work, which began on 29 March 1510, lasted 65 days, and many places were repaired, among them the city walls, the Galata Tower, the Maiden's Tower, and the Rumeli and Anatolian fortresses, and at the end of the work food was distributed to the poor for three days. These years were the hardest of the reign: the plague epidemics of 1492 and 1502 had caused many deaths, and a famine lasting six years had brought great hardship. The sultan wanted calm and the welfare of his people but did not achieve this aim, and his growing lack of tolerance and his leaving of the administration to unqualified persons played a part in it.

The Struggle Among the Sons

Bayezid had eight sons: Mahmud, Ahmed, Şehinşah, Selim, Mehmed, Korkut, Abdullah and Alemşah. The eldest, Abdullah, died early; he is recorded as born around 1465 and dead on 6 November 1483. Mehmed, Alemşah and Mahmud died before 1507. The survivors, in order of age, were Ahmed (governor of Amasya), Korkut (Manisa), Selim (Trabzon) and Şehinşah (Konya).

As he aged and his health declined because of gout, Bayezid wished to place on the throne his eldest son Ahmed, who resembled him in conduct. This caused a struggle among his sons to begin very early. Gritti had written in 1503 that Korkut considered himself the prince most worthy of the sultanate, while Selim had won renown through his war with the Persian shah. The first to act was Korkut. Angered that he was not transferred from Antalya to Manisa, he went to Egypt in 1509 and returned the following year. It is told that, on the pretext of going on pilgrimage, he set out with a retinue of 137 persons and 8 ships, that he was received in Cairo by Sultan Kansu, and that his aim was to frighten his father; statesmen suspected that the situation resembled Cem's story. Korkut's dispatch from Manisa to Antalya was read by the prince, who knew that Hadım Ali Pasha favored Ahmed, as an attempt to keep him away from the throne, since Ahmed could reach Istanbul from Amasya much faster than Korkut could from Antalya.

Selim was sanjak governor of Trabzon and the one farthest from Istanbul; his raids against the Safavids and his making the Georgian kings tributary had brought him to the fore. For his son Süleyman he asked first for Bolu and then for the sanjak of Kaffa. Ahmed, sanjak governor of Amasya, opposed this, since Bolu lay between Amasya and Istanbul and could be dangerous to him. In 1511 Selim went from Trabzon to Crimea and gathered forces with the support of his father-in-law Mengli Giray. When his transfer to Silistra was asked and not accepted, he crossed to Kilia with the forces he had gathered and marched toward Edirne (June 1511). Bayezid transferred him to Semendire and promised that he would not place Ahmed on the throne; this agreement did not last. Selim marched against his father, was defeated in the clash at Uğraşdere (Çorlu) (3 August 1511) and returned to Kaffa. Şehinşah died in Konya on 2 July 1511, at the age of 40.

Bayezid summoned his eldest son Ahmed to Istanbul in order to put him on the throne. Ahmed's coming to Istanbul stirred up the janissaries, who did not want him. The date of the uprising is given as 21 September 1511, while it is also written that the summons was made on 21 August 1511 and that Ahmed came as far as Maltepe and was forced to turn back; the difference between the two dates is left open. Instead of returning to Amasya, Ahmed went to Konya. It is reported that he took Konya and, according to some sources, proclaimed himself sultan there, whereupon the ulema turned away from him. According to the article on Amasya, however, Ahmed, getting no result from his attempts, returned to Amasya; when his brother Selim became sultan in 1512 he left his sanjak and continued the struggle, and in 1514 he lost the battle he fought with his brother at Yenişehir and was done away with. In other sources Ahmed is written to have been killed on 24 March 1513; the difference between the two dates has not been resolved. Meanwhile the janissaries, citing the sultan's mismanagement, demanded that Selim be appointed their commander (serdar), and Bayezid was finally forced to accept this proposal. On 6 March 1512 the Kapıkulu corps rose in revolt in Istanbul, and Bayezid, abandoning his support of Ahmed, invited Selim to Istanbul.

Abdication

Selim arrived in Istanbul on 19 April 1512. According to the account of the Genoese Antonio Menavino, who was in Bayezid's service, Selim set up camp at Yenibahçe, then went to the palace and kissed his father's hand. When Bayezid asked Selim to cross over to Anatolia, Selim said that "if he became the master of the throne he could fight with an easy mind," whereupon Bayezid left the sultanate to him. Bayezid thus withdrew from the throne under pressure from the janissaries on 24 April 1512, after a reign of 30 years, 11 months and 2 days (some sources say 25 April). In handing the throne to his son he is reported to have said: "Do not depart from justice; be merciful to the weak and the helpless. Show compassion to the friendless; if you wish everyone to be obedient to you, show great respect to the ulema; do not be harsh to anyone unless necessity requires." Because the saying is reported from a single source, it should not be taken as certainly authentic and should be read as a narrative.

The Last Journey and Death

Bayezid left Istanbul to go to Dimetoka, taking some of his men and four loads of akçes; his departure took place 11 days after Selim's accession. Selim saw his father off as far as outside the city. Bayezid was so worn that he could not mount a horse; in a litter he could cover only 5 or 6 kilometers a day. When they reached the village of Abalar near Çorlu he fell ill and died. The date of death differs in the sources: according to one view 25 Rabî' al-awwal 918 (10 June 1512), according to another 26 May 1512. The place of death appears in some sources as the village of Abalar near Çorlu, in others as the village of Abalar in the district of Havsa; Büyükçekmece is also mentioned. Bayezid's age was 64. The cause of death is doubtful; some native and foreign sources dwell on the possibility of poisoning. There is no definite document confirming this.

His body was brought to Istanbul, and the funeral prayer was performed at the Fatih Mosque. Bayezid was buried beside the mosque he had built on what is today the square that bears his name, Beyazıt Square; a tomb was later built over his grave. It is told that when news of his death was heard, funeral prayers in absentia were performed in Cairo, attended by many people with Sultan Kansu at their head, and in other parts of the Islamic world as well.

Family

Bayezid is known as a sultan who married many women and had many children. The number of his wives whose names are known is eight; he is known to have had eight sons and eleven daughters. According to İbn Kemal's record, the number of his children and grandchildren exceeded 300. According to another count he had about ten wives: Şirin Hatun (chief consort, mother of Abdullah), Hüsnüşah Hatun (mother of Şehinşah, daughter of Karaman Nasuh Bey), Bülbül Hatun (mother of Ahmed), Nigâr Hatun (mother of Korkut), Gülruh Hatun (mother of Alemşah), Ferahşad Hatun (mother of Mehmed), Ayşe Gülbahar Hatun, Selim's mother, Gülfem and Mühürnaz Hatun.

Of his sons, Ahmed was born in Amasya around 1466 and was killed by his elder brother Selim on 24 March 1513; Korkut was born in Amasya in 1469 and was killed in Manisa on 10 March 1513 after the struggle against Selim; Selim was born in Amasya on 10 October 1470 and died at Çorlu on 22 September 1520. When Bayezid became sultan he gave the title "Sultan" to his daughters and to the daughters of his sons, and the title "Hanımsultan" to the daughters of his daughters; this practice, which replaced the title "Hatun," is still current among members of the dynasty today.

Bayezid II in Amasya

Amasya hosted the princes for 182 years, and within that span Bayezid's place is distinct for its consequences as much as its duration: a prince raised in the city became sultan of the empire, while the children born in the city became both heirs and rivals in his reign. The complex that bears his name still stands open for worship on the bank of the Yeşilırmak, and its madrasa served for many years as a library. The Saraydüzü on the site of the Palace of the Princes, Hamdullah's calligraphy, Mihrî Hatun's poetry, the walls of the Hatuniye and the madrasas of the Gate Keepers make up the traces of those years in the city.

Chronology

3 December 1447 / 1448: Born in Dimetoka (the date is disputed in the sources).

1454 (at the age of seven): Appointed sanjak governor of Amasya.

1457: Circumcised in Edirne together with his brother Mustafa.

1466: The madrasa of his lala Hızır Pasha is built in Amasya.

Around 1466, 1469, 10 October 1470: Ahmed, Korkut and Selim are born in Amasya.

1472: Akkoyunlu forces devastate Tokat.

1473: Takes part in the Battle of Otlukbeli as commander of the right wing; on the return the Conqueror stays a month in Amasya.

1479: Forces he sends annex Torul and its surroundings to Ottoman territory.

3 May 1481: Mehmed the Conqueror dies.

21-22 May 1481: Reaches Üsküdar; confirmed as sultan by the Imperial Council.

22 June 1481: Defeats Prince Cem at Yenişehir.

September 1481: Construction of the Amasya complex begins (according to Hüsameddin Yasar).

29 July 1482: Cem takes refuge on Rhodes.

1484: Kilia (15 July) and Akkerman (4 August) are taken.

1485-1491: The Mamluk War.

July 1486: Completion date given in the building inscription of the Bayezid Mosque in Amasya.

1492: Albanian campaign; those expelled from Spain are admitted to Ottoman lands.

25 February 1495: Prince Cem dies in Naples.

January 1496: The deed of endowment of the Amasya complex is written.

1498-1502: The Venetian war; Modon and Koron are taken; peace signed on 14 December 1502.

1501-1505: The Bayezid Complex in Istanbul is built.

1509: The "Lesser Doomsday" earthquake shakes Istanbul; the Hatuniye Imaret is built in Amasya.

1511: The Şahkulu rebellion; Selim marches from Kilia to Edirne; Şehinşah dies.

19 April 1512: Selim comes to Istanbul.

24 April 1512: Bayezid abdicates.

26 May / 10 June 1512: Dies at the village of Abalar on the road to Dimetoka (date and place differ in the sources).

Sources

Primary sources

  • Hüseyin Hüsameddin Yasar, Amasya Tarihi (through the citations in the sources above).

Academic studies

  • Şerafettin Turan, "Bayezid II", TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, vol. 5, Istanbul 1992, pp. 234-238 (islamansiklopedisi.org.tr). islamansiklopedisi.org.tr
  • Semavi Eyice, "Beyazıt II Camii ve Külliyesi (Amasya)", TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, vol. 6, Istanbul 1992, pp. 40-42 (islamansiklopedisi.org.tr). islamansiklopedisi.org.tr
  • Mahmut H. Şakiroğlu, "Cem Sultan", TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, 1993 (islamansiklopedisi.org.tr). islamansiklopedisi.org.tr
  • Selim Özcan, "Şehzadeler Döneminde Amasya Şehri", Amasya Üniversitesi İlahiyat Fakültesi Dergisi, no. 5 (DergiPark).

Official sources

  • "Sultan II. Bayezid Külliyesi", Amasya Provincial Directorate of Culture and Tourism (amasya.ktb.gov.tr).

Other sources

  • "II. Bayezid", Vikipedi (tr.wikipedia.org); "Bayezid II", Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org). tr.wikipedia.org
  • "Adlî, Sultân Bâyezîd-i Velî bin Fâtih Sultân Mehmed", Türk Edebiyatı İsimler Sözlüğü, Ahmet Yesevi University (teis.yesevi.edu.tr).
  • Ahmet Şimşirgil, "II. Bayezid Hân'ın Şahsiyeti" (ahmetsimsirgil.com).

Online sources