The end of the sixteenth century and the opening years of the seventeenth were the period in which Anatolia's social order suffered its heaviest shocks. The movements known as the Celali rebellions were not the work of a few brigand chiefs. Across a broad territory that took in Sivas, Tokat, Çorum and Amasya, they drew in peasants, madrasa students, soldiers left without a post, and officials who had been removed from office. The Yeşilırmak basin was more than a corridor for this wave. Amasya, as a sanjak capital, was besieged, part of it was burned, the governorship of its sanjak changed hands repeatedly, and the city lived for roughly six years in a state of administrative uncertainty.

Origin of the Name Celali

The word Celali means "belonging to Celal" and goes back to Şeyh Celal of Bozok, who rose in the early sixteenth century. In 1519 he rebelled near Tokat with a claim to be the Mahdi. The revolt was suppressed harshly, but from then on every uprising, whatever its cause and whatever its kind, came to be called Celali among the people, after his name. In time a way of speaking took hold in which any rebel who harmed the population was labeled a Celali, and the sources too give the name of the rebel leader together with this epithet. The Ottoman administration regarded these movements as "hurûc ale's-sultân," that is, rebellion against the sovereign, and the office of fatwa pronounced the same verdict.

Amasya was no stranger to the first phase of this process. Under Bayezid II, Shah Ismail's propaganda had found an audience in Anatolia, and around the time Selim the Grim came to the throne a rebel named Nur Ali had taken control of the Tokat and Amasya districts. In his Amasya Tarihi (History of Amasya), Hüseyin Hüsâmeddîn Yaşar describes an episode dated to the year of Mercidabık (922/1516). Groups called Celali attacked the city from its western and southern sides and advanced as far as the Ferhad Gorge. Cannons and archers placed on both sides of the gorge kept them out of the city, and the garrison commander of Amasya, Hacı Ahmed Bey, armed the townspeople and held the line. The defterdar who conducted the inquiry, Kadızâde Mehmed Çelebi of Amasya, determined that the assault owed as much to the Qizilbash hidden inside the city as to the number of the attackers. A man named Kutb of Tabriz and another named Koca Mîr Gıyâseddîn of Shiraz were among those found guilty. Gıyâseddîn was executed in Muharram 923, while Kutb was caught in a house in Merzifon and hanged in Amasya before the eyes of the townspeople. The uprisings of the first half of the century, led by figures such as Baba Zünnûn and a man named Kalender who claimed descent from Hacı Bektaş, and which combined the Alevi cause with a claim to sovereignty, are also remembered under the same heading. Yaşar writes that around 933 (1526-27) Zünnûn Halife of Varay mustered some forty thousand followers between Yozgat and Tokat, and Kalender Pasha some thirty thousand around Ankara. The movement that is the subject of this article, although it bears the same name, was largely the product of an economic and administrative breakdown.

The Ground of the Rebellions

In the sixteenth century the population of Anatolia grew quickly, but the arable land did not keep pace. Peasants who had lost their land, the çiftbozan, found no recourse except becoming "retainers" at the doors of the state and the military elite, while those who could not find work formed idle crowds under the name "garip-yiğit" in the streets and around the soup kitchens. Madrasa graduates who could not find posts, the suhte, joined the same pool. The musket-bearing troops paid by wage under the name "yevmlü" during Prince Bayezid's rebellion dispersed after the revolt was put down and turned to banditry. By this time the musket had also spread to the villages, and the sources say that people were exchanging the iron of their plows for firearms.

An economic crisis was added to this picture. Markets were filled with debased coin, inflation had risen, and the peasants who abandoned farming raised the danger of famine. Provincial officials were buying their posts and, within a short tenure, tried to collect as many taxes and levies, the "salgun," as they could. A couplet in the Kitâb-ı Müstetâb puts it this way: "They sell office in the open, the sons of whores / How could Celali not rise, how could there be no slaughter." The behavior of provincial officials had begun in the last years of Süleyman the Magnificent, and a decree of justice sent to every part of the empire in 1565 had not solved the problem. The long Ottoman-Austrian war (1592-1606) both raised the demand for soldiers and money and left Anatolia undefended. During the 1596 muster conducted by Cigalazâde Sinan Pasha, some thirty thousand holders of zeamet and timar fiefs and members of the palace regiments fled to Anatolia and swelled the ranks of the rebels. Some sources tie the rebellion directly to the punishment of those who fled Haçova, but the TDV entry rejects this explanation and looks for the causes in idle levends, aggrieved timar-holding cavalry, unemployed suhte, and a peasantry without protectors.

Hüsâmeddîn Yaşar reads the events from another angle, that of his own day. In his view, behind the rebellion lay the reservation of important state posts for officials of devshirme origin trained in the Enderun, and the exclusion of Anatolia's Turkish sipahis and ulema from offices such as vizierate and grand vizierate. The rebel leaders' two main demands were that Turks too be admitted to the Enderun and that they be able to rise to high state office. This interpretation belongs to Yaşar; encyclopedic studies tend to stress economic and administrative decay. What stands out in both accounts is that most of the rebel leaders had served the state before, had been dismissed, or had not received the sanjak they had been promised.

Karayazıcı Abdülhalim

Karayazıcı Abdülhalim, who launched the first great Celali rebellion, belonged to the Kılıçlı tribe of the Urfa region. He took his nickname, "the Black Scribe," from his service as a clerk in a sekban company. In the years when the Ottoman-Austrian wars were disturbing the peace of Anatolia he was enrolled among the six divisions of the palace cavalry, served for a time as a guard in a frontier fortress, and was then appointed yiğitbaşı, captain of the local militias, in the Malatya region. When he became deputy to a sanjak governor he gathered bands of levends around him. When the sanjak was given to someone else he did not leave, and he killed the governor who came to take it over, thereby raising the flag of rebellion. Groups made up largely of deserters flocked to him, and a force of about twenty thousand sekban took shape. The sanjak governors of Harput, Malatya and Maraş joined forces and moved against him, but they were defeated and withdrew. After this victory the Celali chiefs of the region gathered around him.

Among these chiefs were his brother Deli Hasan, Deli Zülfikâr of Amasya, Karakaş Ahmed of Malatya, Kalenderoğlu Mehmed of Ankara, Gâvur Murad, Tekeli Mehmed, Ağaçtan Pîrî, Kara Said, Hüseyinoğlu İshak, Sevündük of Adana, Uzun Halil of Baghdad, Kalın Dudak Mahmud and Şâban of Köprü. Hüsâmeddîn Yaşar transmits the same list and puts the total of the forces gathered under Karayazıcı's command at more than seventy thousand. This figure must have been inflated, as in the sources of the period, because the TDV entry regards Celali numbers approaching seventy thousand as exaggerated. A second name on the list has a direct tie to Amasya: Sarı Şaban of Köprü. Köprü (today's Vezirköprü) belonged to the Amasya sanjak at that time. Yaşar also records that the notables of Köprü defended the town alongside Durak Ağa against Sarı Şaban.

Hüseyin Pasha's Escape from Amasya Castle

The development that defined Karayazıcı's relationship with Amasya took place in the city's castle. According to Hüsâmeddîn Yaşar, the inspector of Anatolia, Hüseyin Pasha, was trying to punish the bullies of Anatolia and the notables who backed them, and was working to extinguish the hearth of rebellion by giving sanjaks to some of the rebel chiefs and distributing the vacated fiefs to their men. His having Yaramaz Ahmed Ağa of Amasya given the sanjak of Karahisar-ı Şarkî and Deli Mustafa Ağa that of Erzincan is an example of this effort. When he asked for the dismissal of Mahmud Pasha, the governor-general of Sivas, because of his oppression, he met with complaints from the leading men of the sipahi and janissary corps. The center, not knowing the inner story, believed the complainants, and in Shawwal 1007 Hüseyin Pasha was dismissed and imprisoned in Amasya castle together with his steward Deli Zülfikâr Ağa.

The sanjak of Amasya had at that time been given to İbrâhim Bey of Yıldızeli in Sivas, known as Yıldızlı İbrâhim Bey. According to Yaşar, either through deliberate neglect or through secret instructions he had given, Hüseyin Pasha and Deli Zülfikâr Ağa found a chance to escape from the castle. The castle warden, İbrâhim Ağa, and the garrison were bound, and in Dhu'l-Hijjah 1007 (summer of 1599) the two prisoners joined the rebels. The center was thrown into a panic. In Yaşar's assessment, Hüseyin Pasha's presence in the rebel ranks was as dangerous to Karayazıcı as it was to the state, because the leadership might pass to him. The Hüseyin Pasha who appears in the TDV entry, a former governor-general of Abyssinia who rebelled in Karaman when he was not given the post he wanted and who is described as Karayazıcı's grand vizier, must be the same man; both stayed with Karayazıcı and were later handed over and sent to Istanbul. The Sublime Porte agreed to give Karayazıcı the sanjak of Amasya in return for his delivering Hüseyin Pasha.

The Sanjak of Amasya and the Plain of Geldiklan

According to Yaşar, Abdülhalim proclaimed his rebellion at Çubukova near Ankara in Dhu'l-Hijjah 1007, and with the dismissal of Yıldızlı İbrâhim Bey he became governor of the Amasya sanjak in Muharram 1008 (August 1599). He sent Deli Zülfikâr to Amasya as deputy governor and Hüseyin Pasha to Istanbul. Heading for Amasya by way of Çorum, he was received with ceremony by Murad Bey, the governor of Çorum, despite an order for his arrest. Abdülhalim pitched his tent on the plain of Geldiklan, installed Şeyh Abdurrahîm Efendi of Kayseri in the office of şeyhülislam, made Kalenderoğlu Mehmed his vizier, and had decrees issued under a tuğra naming himself "Halîm Şah." In Rabî' al-awwal 1008 he took Ortaköy, in the Geldiklan district of Amasya, as his seat and from there appointed imams and preachers and distributed patents and decrees.

The TDV entry gives this sequence somewhat differently. According to the account on which the encyclopedia relies, Karayazıcı and Hüseyin Pasha took Urfa Castle in Rabî' al-thani 1008 (November 1599); under pressure from the commander-in-chief, Sinan Paşazâde Mehmed Pasha, Karayazıcı ran short of munitions and provisions and asked for quarter, and once he had received a promise that he would be given the sanjak of Amasya or Antep, he handed over Hüseyin Pasha. Hüseyin Pasha was sent to Istanbul and executed on 22 Rajab 1008 (7 February 1600). Karayazıcı was finally rewarded with the sanjak of Çorum. In both accounts the sanjak of Amasya appears as a post that could be promised to a rebel leader. For that reason it is not certain on what date and in what capacity Karayazıcı actually took up the Amasya sanjak.

Yaşar describes Karayazıcı's influence in those days as "terrible." Mahmud Pasha, the governor-general of Sivas, took fright at this influence, swore allegiance to Karayazıcı and became governor-general of Sivas in his name, and Deli Zülfikâr, the deputy governor of Amasya, joined him on the plain of Geldiklan with a force of five thousand infantry and three thousand cavalry. Nûh Pasha of Dârende, the governor-general of Karaman, was ordered to disperse this multitude at all costs. The center sent Alacaatlı Ahmed Pasha to Sivas and Yaramaz Ahmed Bey to Amasya. Yaramaz Ahmed was the son of a tanner from Köprü who had worked in the tannery at Amasya and risen to be a tax farmer; he had rebelled because of the oppression of Deli İbrâhim Pasha and so earned his nickname, and he had later been made a mirliva on the recommendation of the inspector Hüseyin Pasha. Relying on the notables and ulema of Amasya, he drove Karayazıcı from the plain of Geldiklan; the sipahis of Amasya supported him and gained the upper hand over Karayazıcı's forces. Yaşar notes that there were genuine brigands among the rebels and that Ahmed Bey protected Amasya above all from these.

The End of Karayazıcı

Sokulluzâde Hasan Pasha was sent against Karayazıcı, who was accused of oppressing the people in Çorum. The sixth vizier, Hacı İbrâhim Pasha, had been appointed commander, while Hasan Pasha, who set out from Baghdad, was delayed. According to the TDV, Karayazıcı's army of twenty thousand defeated Hacı İbrâhim Pasha on the plain of Kayseri (14 Rabî' al-awwal 1009 / 23 September 1600) and plundered his camp. It is also related that in September 1600 Karayazıcı issued a decree in his own name exempting a man called Mehmed of Kayseri from taxes. Yaşar too writes that after this defeat the rebels grew very strong.

When Hasan Pasha heard of the defeat he set out without losing time and beat Karayazıcı at the place called Sepetli near Elbistan (12 Safar 1010 / 12 August 1601). Karayazıcı, who lost a third of his thirty-thousand-strong army, withdrew wounded to the Canik mountains, while his brother Hasan took refuge in Tokat Castle. Two accounts of Karayazıcı's death exist: according to one, men with whom he had quarreled killed him; according to the other, he died of his wounds. News of his death reached Istanbul in Ramadan 1010, that is, in the first months of 1602. Yaşar, however, puts forward a different picture. In his version Abdülhalim gradually strayed from his purpose, gave himself over to his own influence and sovereignty, and ceased to recognize the leaders of the rebellion; in Rajab 1010 he was eliminated in the opposition and strife that broke out among the chiefs.

The encyclopedia does not take Karayazıcı's claim to sovereignty seriously and states that he was not aiming directly at the Ottoman dynasty. His real intention was to obtain a sanjak governorship or a post as governor-general. Yaşar also writes that the rebel chiefs wished to reach their goal within a "cumhûrî" form and manner, and that Karayazıcı abandoned this common aim and turned toward his own sovereignty. Orhan Türkdoğan interprets Yaşar's note that the rebels had coins struck in their own names as a sign that some Celali chiefs were inclined to separate from the state. The rebellion of Karayazıcı carries a distinct significance as the first movement in which the groups called Celali came together and took a collective stand.

The Rise of Deli Hasan

Karayazıcı's brother Deli Hasan took his place. According to Hüsâmeddîn Yaşar, the chiefs chose him as their head after long negotiation and wrangling. The commander Sokulluzâde Hasan Pasha, who had come as far as Tokat, was besieged and killed in Dhu'l-Hijjah 1010 (spring 1602), and his army was scattered. According to one account, Hasan Pasha was struck down by a musket shot after a man who fled the castle revealed where he was staying. Tokat suffered greatly in these events; in Yaşar's words it "burned to ashes," and those who did not side with the rebels were put to the sword as "Ottomans." Deli Hasan then moved toward Ankara and extracted tribute from the city, in 1602 burned Kütahya, the seat of the governor-generalship of Anatolia, and advanced toward Afyonkarahisar. This picture shows a period in which the state was able to offer almost no resistance in Central and Northern Anatolia.

The center could not spare forces for Anatolia because the Austrian war was continuing. The way out was negotiation. In the time of Grand Vizier Yemişçi Hasan Pasha, Deli Hasan was given the governor-generalship of Bosnia, and his men were given sanjak governorships and posts as cavalrymen of the palace regiments; Yaşar places the date in Shawwal 1012 (early 1604), the TDV in 1603. The aim was to send them off on the Austrian campaign and so move them away from Anatolia. Deli Hasan continued his misdeeds in Bosnia as well, was therefore transferred to the governor-generalship of Temeşvar, then fled to Belgrade and was killed there in 1606. Yet this method of appeasement also emboldened the other chiefs: names such as Tavil Ahmed, Canbolatoğlu and Kalenderoğlu enlarged their rebellions. Tavil Ahmed too had been offered the governor-generalship of Şehrizor, and he had besieged Harput Castle instead.

Deli Zülfikâr and the Siege of Amasya

The Celali leader who came from Amasya's own surroundings was Deli Zülfikâr. According to Yaşar he was the son of the sipahi Mehmed Ağa, known as "Baloğlu," from the Ziyâre quarter of Amasya, and he had been steward of Budak Beyzâde Hüseyin Pasha and deputy governor of Amasya. When Hüseyin Pasha fell, he too joined the rebels. The people of Amasya were divided over these chiefs, all of them men of their own region: some had joined them, others had shut themselves in the castle and stayed on the side of the Ottoman state. The picture in the districts was the same. Tayyâr Mustafa Ağa, deputy voivode of Lâdik, Durak Ağa, voivode of Köprü, Hasımoğlu Yahyâ Ağa, voivode of Merzifon, Hasan Ağa, voivode of Havza, and Ebû Bekir Ağa, voivode of Gümüş defended their districts against the rebels. Yaşar writes that defenders and attackers were of one mind on the cause of giving Turks a place of standing, and that the defenders wished only to protect their homeland from the plunder of the rabble who had joined the brigands.

Deli Zülfikâr marched on Amasya with more than eight thousand cavalry and infantry, pitched his tent at the place called Kaynar, and for some three months exchanged letters with the defenders. He could not persuade them, because among the crowd at his back were wicked men who did not obey him. At the beginning of Rajab 1011 (December 1602), pressed by his steward Sarhoş Mehmed Ağa and his men, he decided to enter Amasya by force and surrounded the city on every side. The notables of Amasya and its people carried their women and children up to the upper castle and either buried their goods and money in the ground or hid them in caves. Hüsâmeddîn Yaşar writes that the rock tombs and caves were used on this occasion as a refuge for the wealthy and as a place to store treasure. The people of Amasya resisted for a time but were powerless against an attacker superior in numbers. On the fifth day of Rajab 1011 the rebels entered the city from the Ziyâre side, where Deli Zülfikâr was living. The Aşağıpazar quarter was burned down completely and those who came in their way were put to the sword. Yaşar regards this event as the end of the second historical period of Amasya.

On the same pages Yaşar also lists what Amasya lost at this date. The city, which had been a provincial capital before and had descended to the rank of a sanjak, still held within it the districts of Taşâbâd, Lâdik, Havza, Gümüş, Merzifon, Gelgiras, Mecidözü, Tanun, Varay, Turhal and Geldiklan, together with the sub-districts of Akdağ, Yenice, Hakala, Arguma, İnepazar, Öz and Olus. Intellectual life remained lively in this period as well. Scholars such as Mü'eyyedzâde Abdurrahmân, Tâcîzâde Ca'fer and Sa'dî, Cemâlîzâde Alî and Kemâl Paşazâde Ahmed, and statesmen such as the grand vizier Pîrî Mehmed Pasha, were among those Amasya had produced. New institutions had been added, such as Kaya Pasha's mosque and school, the dârülhadîs of Seydî Alizâde Osmân Efendi and the dârüttevhîd of Abdullah Efendi. Yaşar writes that the rebellion "ruined" a good many of these institutions.

The Six-Year Interregnum

Hüsâmeddîn Yaşar calls the period after 1011 a six-year "interregnum" that falls between the second and third eras of Amasya's history. During this time the city was governed sometimes by the Ottoman state and sometimes by the rebel leaders. The same author adds that, as is clear from entries in the administrative registers, some of the rebels declared independence and had coins struck in their names. The administration of Deli Zülfikâr Bey was, in Yaşar's words, that of a "patriotic, active, brave and just" man; at his side stood chiefs such as Tâhir Bey, Budakoğlu Alî Ağa, Çeribaşıoğlu Sarhoş Mehmed Ağa, Dündaroğlu Mustafa Ağa, Şeytânoğlu İbrâhim Ağa and Yardımoğlu Sefer Ağa. Alî Ağa became trustee of the endowments of a madrasa in Gümüş, and Mehmed Ağa trustee of the Bayezid Pasha endowments in Amasya, which is to say that the rebel chiefs had also been installed as endowment trustees.

The state took the road of appeasement. Nûh Pasha of Dârende, governor-general of Karaman, was given the vizierate and the governorship of Anatolia, and the master of the horse Nasûh Pasha, son of Zeynelâbidîn, the governor-generalship of Sivas (1011). According to Yaşar, Nûh Pasha being a Turk and Turks being given the vizierate and the governorship of Anatolia was a first since 929; but Nûh Pasha failed when he acted harshly. Nasûh Pasha, on the other hand, understood the aims of the rebel chiefs well, negotiated with their leaders, and in Safar 1012 came to Amasya and gathered the notables of the districts. The notables and teachers of Amasya intervened, Deli Zülfikâr submitted and was appointed governor-general of Karahisar-ı Şarkî. In his place Deli Tâhir Bey, one of the rebels, became governor of Amasya. Tâhir Bey was a descendant of Devâtdar Ahmed Pasha, and he had large farmsteads and many followers in Geldiklan.

Shortly afterward the situation changed. Deli Hasan was at Karahisar-ı Şarkî and was not pleased with Zülfikâr's submission. When Sultan Mehmed III died in Rajab 1012 and Ahmed I took the throne (December 1603), viziers and governor-generalships were handed out to the chiefs: Deli Hasan received the vizierate with Bosnia, Karakaş Ahmed Revan, Tekeli Mehmed Tabriz, and Kalenderoğlu Mehmed the governorship of Ganja. Deli Zülfikâr became governor-general of Maraş. The field in Amasya was left to Tâhir Bey. In Dhu'l-Hijjah 1012 (1604) Tâhir Bey declared his independence and took the title "Sultan Tâhir Khan," had the khutba read in his name, and sent out orders and decrees. He pressured the mufti of Amasya, Emîr Alî Efendi, until he was forced to withdraw from issuing fatwas. He sent his men against Karahisar-ı Şarkî and had the city plundered. The government appointed Yıldızlı İbrâhim Bey, governor of Çankırı, to the Amasya sanjak for the second time, with orders to put Tâhir Bey to death. While Tâhir Bey took the advice given him and withdrew from Amasya toward Bursa, Kara Said and Uzun Halil left him and went toward Sivas. The center also knew that Tâhir Bey was forging orders; in a decree that reached the governor-general of Sivas his name appears as "Tâhir the forger, who writes false orders and draws the tuğra."

Yıldızlı İbrâhim Bey entered Amasya in Sha'ban 1013, but before long turned out to be "madder" even than Tâhir Bey. He made his steward Kör Yûsuf Ağa deputy governor of Amasya and went off to Çankırı himself; Yûsuf Ağa's oppression cowed everyone, and as complaints grew İbrâhim Bey returned to Amasya. Yaşar describes how, though he had proclaimed "sovereignty and independence" for himself, he defied the very brigands around him; the brigands split into three factions. When the commander Nasûh Pasha learned of this he dismissed İbrâhim Bey and appointed Müezzinoğlu Ahmed Bey, son of Mehmed Efendi, the muezzin of the Orta Mosque at Kedağra in Köprü. Ahmed Bey became governor of Amasya in Sha'ban 1014; Yaşar finds him, among the rebels, "fairly just, fair-minded and learned." The notables of Amasya accepted Ahmed Bey and gave way before İbrâhim Bey.

At the end of Safar 1015 (1606) İbrâhim Bey took Amasya by surprise, pushed Ahmed Bey out, and announced with a forged decree that the sanjak had been given to him. The arrival in Amasya of the chief palace gardener Hızır Ağa, sent in the sultan's name, and the news that the sultan would go to the Persian war shook him; he drew close to Hızır Ağa and declared himself a loyal servant of the state, but when the chief gardener left he returned to his old ways. In Jumada al-akhira he produced yet another forged decree, this time claiming to be governor-general of Sivas. The center appointed the Amasya alaybeyi Seydî Alî Bey as sanjak governor and ordered, by a secret decree, that İbrâhim Bey be removed and, if possible, killed. Alî Bey came to an understanding with Müezzinzâde Ahmed Bey, an enemy of İbrâhim Bey, and with Murâd Çavuşoğlu Alî Ağa. İbrâhim Bey withdrew toward Taşâbâd, but the road was blocked; he was caught at the end of the eastern gorge of Amasya and executed.

Kalenderoğlu and Kara Said

Meanwhile Kalenderoğlu Mehmed of Ankara had become a great power in the west of Anatolia. According to the TDV he is said to have been born in the village of Yassıviran in the district of Murtazaâbâd near Ankara; he had been pardoned together with Karayazıcı and had served governors-general as çavuş, steward and deputy governor. The reason given for his rebellion is that the sanjak governorship promised him was not granted. In 1604 he rebelled and plundered the Aydın and Manisa regions, defeating the forces sent against him. By the figure Yaşar gives, in 1015 he was terrorizing the Saruhan and Manisa region with some thirty-five thousand men. As Kuyucu Murad Pasha was on his way to Aleppo, he sent Kalenderoğlu a patent giving him the sanjak of Ankara in order to keep him occupied. Kalenderoğlu came to Ankara, but the judge of Ankara, Vildanzâde Ahmed Efendi, had fortified the castle and did not open the gate. Unable to continue the siege, Kalenderoğlu moved off toward the Bursa region.

Hüsâmeddîn Yaşar writes that in Shawwal 1016 Kalenderoğlu attacked Zile and battered it with cannon brought from Trabzon, and that Hayreddîn Ağa, the voivode of Zile, defended the town and saved it. Canikli Osmân Pasha was appointed to Sivas at about this time. After scattering Canbolatoğlu Ali Pasha around Aleppo, Kuyucu Murad Pasha marched on Sivas in Muharram 1017. From the register of decrees, Yaşar also quotes a draft decree dated 11 Muharram 1017 describing Celali oppression in the sanjaks of Kastamonu and Çankırı; this document states that even Alî, the governor of the Çorum sanjak, raided the homes of the people and plundered them. According to Yaşar's footnote this Alî is Murâd Çavuşoğlu Alî Bey, that is, another rebel who came from the Amasya region. Yaşar does not conceal the severity of Kuyucu Murad Pasha either; he says that the harshness the pasha showed to the brigands was mild beside the oppression the brigands inflicted on the people.

Kalenderoğlu, Kara Said, Kepenekli Halil, Kürd Haydar, Ağaçtan Pîrî and their like met the commander with a force of twenty thousand on the Göksun plateau. Kuyucu Murad Pasha scattered the rebels (26 Rabî' al-thani 1017 / 9 August 1608), had those he captured thrown into pits dug for the purpose and buried, and cleansed the province of Ankara by this method. Kara Said, routed, tried to seize Amasya Castle with more than ten thousand men and take refuge there, while Kalenderoğlu hurried to the castle of Karahisar-ı Şarkî. In Rabî' al-thani 1017 Kara Said began to batter Amasya with heavy cannon. This time the defense of Amasya was well organized: the mirliva Alî Bey, the alaybeyi Murâd Bey, the castle warden Memî Bey, Mustafa and İskender Beys among the zeamet holders, Topçu Mehmed, Cebecioğlu Mehmed, Köse Mehmed, Haydar and Velî among the sipahis, and Çakaloğlu Hüseyin, Kara Hasan, Kurd of Lâdik and Karabulutoğlu Ahmed among the janissaries defended the city. The judge of Amasya, Mustafa Efendi, supported the defense. According to Hüsâmeddîn Yaşar, the mufti Mahmûd Efendi, through ignorance, tried to hand the city over to Kara Said and for this reason was dismissed, and Köse Ahmed Efendi was made mufti for the second time.

When Kara Said realized he could not take Amasya he turned to plundering the surrounding country. Kuyucu Murad Pasha had meanwhile come to the plain of Çorum. He executed the Celalis in Çorum, Emîrşâh, the governor of Beyşehir, and the brigands of İskilip, then moved on to Sivas, made Hüseyin Pasha, governor-general of Aleppo, commander and sent him against Kara Said. When Hüseyin Pasha entered the Amasya sanjak the defenders of the city joined him. The pasha's forces advanced in two columns and drove the brigands together on the plain of Merzifon. In three days of bloody fighting Kara Said was routed, thousands were put to the sword, and he fled eastward with about a thousand remaining men. Çakaloğlu Hüseyin, Kurd of Lâdik and the sipahi Haydar Ağa, having won the favor of the commander Murad Pasha by their services, went with him to Istanbul. Kalenderoğlu, after being defeated again near Bayburt, fled to Persia, and nothing more was heard of him.

The Great Flight

Between 1603 and 1608 the greater part of Anatolia was in the hands of the rebels. In this period, which historians call the "Great Flight" (Büyük Kaçgunluk), villagers left their homes and fled to the mountains, to walled cities and towns, even to Istanbul and Rumelia. It is recorded that Anatolia was reduced to ruin. The people of cities and towns either protected themselves by giving the Celalis money, food and clothing, or surrounded their town with walls and resisted. The notables of Amasya chose the second way; according to Yaşar, the notables of the city, having seen the disaster of Tokat, had promised to keep the brigands away from Amasya "at whatever cost." The forces sent by the state sometimes also oppressed the people, and a commander sent for this purpose could join the rebels.

The strength of the Celalis did not come from their numbers alone. Among themselves they had set up a company organization resembling the palace regiments, and the chief of each company, the zorbabaşı, carried a banner on which his name was written in large calligraphy. The zorbabaşıs were known among the people by nicknames such as Tanrıbilmez ("Heedless of God"), İnciryemez, Kabresığmaz, Kâfir Murad and Dağlardelisi. The Celalis generally gathered easily around a leader but could not sustain their unity for long. Feeding thousands of people and finding shelter in winter was the greatest difficulty; for this reason villages and towns became their quarters. Those who could escape generally took refuge in Persia. Shah Abbas's sudden attack on Ottoman lands in 1603 aimed at exploiting this turmoil.

One of the solutions the state resorted to was pardon. Leaders were given sanjaks and governor-generalships and were generally posted in Rumelia. This method spared some Anatolian cities from siege and eased operations along the frontiers. But most abused the pardon and the post and kept up their old habits in their new places of service. The method of Kuyucu Murad Pasha rested on severity; in his inspections thousands were killed on the ground that they were Celalis, and this purge brought a period of calm. His execution of the governor of Çorum and the brigands of İskilip during his stay on the plain of Çorum is an example of this severity in the Amasya region. The decree of justice issued by Ahmed I in 1609 was intended to protect the peasantry against moneylenders and the unjust levies of the ehl-i örf.

The Recovery of Amasya

After the victory on the plain of Merzifon, those who had distinguished themselves in the defense of Amasya were rewarded. According to Yaşar, Çakaloğlu Hüseyin Ağa later rose to the post of steward of the palace regiments and to that of sekbanbaşı; Kurd Ağa of Lâdik became steward of the regiments, died on his return from the Hejaz in Dhu'l-Hijjah 1024, and was the father of Bayram Pasha, who later became grand vizier. Because all three, together with the sipahi Haydar Ağa, had caught the attention of Kuyucu Murad Pasha, they were taken into his retinue and carried off to Istanbul. Topçu Mehmed Ağa, who is named among the defenders, is recorded as the great-grandfather of the Topçuzâdes, a family among the notables of Amasya in the days when Yaşar was writing his book.

The office of mufti was one of the posts that suffered most in these years. Those appointed often hesitated to come to Amasya because the roads were closed and out of fear of the brigands: Abdullah Efendi, son of Manav Hasan Efendi, did not dare to come, and Şücâ'eddîn Efendi, the mufti of Trabzon, was set upon by brigands on the road, reached Amasya half dead and died a month later. This detail shows that in the years of rebellion the scholarly and administrative cadres too could not move. Köse Ahmed Efendi resigned twice for fear of the brigands, and although the Amasya fatwa office was offered in Istanbul to several teachers, none of them dared to accept the post.

In the later years of the seventeenth century, as central authority grew stronger, Amasya and its surroundings gradually found peace. The movement died out completely only much later: the rebellion of Abaza Pasha in Erzurum, who demanded vengeance for the blood of Osman II, set the Celali remnants that Kuyucu had cowed in motion again, and when Murad IV took the government into his own hands in 1632, Anatolia entered a calmer era. For Amasya the main outcome is that a sanjak capital took a heavy wound in administration, property and population within a few years. The city recovered and continued to exist as a sanjak capital.

Chronology

1519: Şeyh Celal of Bozok rebels near Tokat with a Mahdist claim; later rebellions come to be called Celali after him.

After 1596: The musters following Haçova and the masses of sipahis and palace troops who fled to Anatolia swell the number of rebels.

Summer 1599 (Dhu'l-Hijjah 1007): The inspector Hüseyin Pasha and Deli Zülfikâr escape from Amasya Castle and join the rebels.

1599 (Muharram 1008): According to Hüsâmeddîn Yaşar, Karayazıcı Abdülhalim becomes governor of the Amasya sanjak and pitches his tent on the plain of Geldiklan.

1600 (7 February): Hüseyin Pasha is executed in Istanbul.

1600 (23 September): Karayazıcı defeats Hacı İbrâhim Pasha on the plain of Kayseri.

1601 (12 August): Sokulluzâde Hasan Pasha defeats Karayazıcı at Sepetli.

1602: News of Karayazıcı's death reaches Istanbul; Deli Hasan takes over the rebellion and Hasan Pasha is killed at Tokat.

Late 1602 (Rajab 1011): Deli Zülfikâr enters Amasya and the Aşağıpazar quarter is burned.

1603: Deli Hasan is given the governor-generalship of Bosnia; Mehmed III dies and Ahmed I takes the throne.

1604: Deli Tâhir Bey takes the title "Sultan Tâhir Khan" in Amasya; Kalenderoğlu rebels.

1606: Yıldızlı İbrâhim Bey is caught in the eastern gorge of Amasya and executed; Deli Hasan is killed in Belgrade.

1607 (June): Kuyucu Murad Pasha sets out from Üsküdar for Aleppo.

1608 (9 August): Kalenderoğlu and Kara Said are routed at Göksun; Kara Said besieges Amasya and is defeated on the plain of Merzifon.

Bibliography

Primary sources

  • Hüseyin Hüsâmeddîn Yaşar, Amasya Tarihi, vol. III (especially pp. 345-377).

Academic studies

  • Orhan Türkdoğan, "Sosyal Hareketler Olarak Celâli Ayaklanmaları," Belleten, 60/228 (1996). belleten.gov.tr
  • Mustafa Akdağ, Celâlî İsyanları (1550-1603), Ankara 1963; "Celâli İsyanlarından Büyük Kaçgunluk, 1603-1606," Tarih Araştırmaları Dergisi, II/2-3 (1964).

Other sources

  • Müctebâ İlgürel, "Karayazıcı Abdülhalîm," TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, vol. 24, Istanbul 2001, pp. 482-483. islamansiklopedisi.org.tr
  • Müctebâ İlgürel, "Kalenderoğlu Mehmed," TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, vol. 24, Istanbul 2001, pp. 256-257. islamansiklopedisi.org.tr
  • Müctebâ İlgürel, "Celâlî İsyanları," TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, Istanbul 1993. islamansiklopedisi.org.tr
  • Vikipedi, "Celâlî isyanları" and "Deli Hasan Paşa" entries (supporting source). tr.wikipedia.org