Merzifonludur. 1157 cemâziyelevvelinin yirmi beşinci günü ikinci def'a Amasya mutasarrıfı ve Mîrzâ Ağa da Amasya mütesellimi olup geldi. Cemâziyelâhir gurresinde mevâlîden Şeyhzâde Ahmed Efendi Amasya kadısı ve Yûnus Efendi nâ'ibi oldu.
Şa'bânda aylardan beri Köprü kadısı Sâlih ve müftüsü Hacı Mustafâ Efendiler'le a'yân Cârullâhoğlu Hacı Hüseyin Ağa arasında devâm eden münâferet dolayısıyla Köprü mahkemesi ansızın basılıp bîçâre kadı acıklı bir sûretde şehîd edildi. Kâtibi yaralandı. [73]
Bunu haber alan Amasya alaybeyi Sarı Beyzâde Mehmed Bey derhâl Köprü'ye gitdi. Kateleden beş adamla berâber müftü ve a'yânı Amasya'ya getirip tevkîf ederek mahkemeye verdi. Ramazânda takdîm edilen mebâliğ-i mühimme ile Cevher Paşa tarafından bilâ-muhâkeme mevkûflar salıverildi. Bu yüzden şevvâlde azl edildi.
In Modern English
He was from Merzifon. On the twenty-fifth day of Cemaziyelevvel 1157 [1744] he became mutasarrıf of Amasya for the second time; Mirza Ağa also came as mütesellim of Amasya. On the first day of Cemaziyelahir, Şeyhzade Ahmed Efendi, one of the ulema of the rank of great judge (mevâlî), became kadı of Amasya and Yunus Efendi his naib.
In Şaban, because of an enmity lasting for months among the kadı of Köprü, Salih Efendi, the mufti of Köprü, Hacı Mustafa Efendi, and Carullahoğlu Hacı Hüseyin Ağa, one of the notables, the court of Köprü was suddenly raided and the poor kadı was killed in a pitiable manner. His clerk was also wounded.
Hearing of this, the alaybeyi of Amasya, Sarı Beyzade Mehmed Bey, went at once to Köprü. Together with five of the killers he brought the mufti and the notable to Amasya, arrested them and handed them over to the court. In Ramazan, in return for a large sum of money offered, Cevher Pasha released the prisoners without trial. For this reason he was dismissed in Şevval.
Notes and Research
Old Words in the Text
- mutasarrıf: the governing pasha who holds a sanjak and takes its revenue
- mütesellim: the deputy who ran the administration on his behalf when the mutasarrıf did not come to the sanjak
- mevâlî: ulema who had risen to the rank of judge of a major city
- nâ'ib: the kadı's deputy, an assistant judge who heard cases in his name
- gurre: the first day of the Arabic month
- münâferet: mutual aversion, discord, enmity
- a'yân: the leading men of a town; here, the elected notables of Köprü
- bîçâre: poor, helpless
- katele: killers
- tevkîf: arrest
- mebâliğ-i mühimme: large sums of money
- bilâ-muhâkeme: without trial
- mevkûf: under arrest
- azl: dismissal from office
Cevher Mehmed Pasha's Second Coming
According to what Hüsameddin related in the previous entries, Cevher Mehmed Pasha is the son of the sipahi Osman bin Mehmed of the nahiye of Zoğu in Merzifon and the brother of Teymur Süleyman Pasha. When his elder brother became governor of Sivas in Şaban 1154 [October 1741], the sanjak of Amasya had been given with the rank of beylerbeyi to Cevher Bey, who was then bey of Çorum. This entry is his second mutasarrıflık at Amasya and lasted only some five months: 25 Cemaziyelevvel 1157 corresponds to the first days of July 1744, and the month of Şevval in which he was dismissed to November of the same year. These dates are the months in which Nâdir Shah besieged Kars; this entry plainly shows how easily public order in the provinces could break down while the attention of the sanjak administrators was turned to the eastern front. No detailed information about Cevher Mehmed Pasha's life was found in other sources.
The District of Köprü
The Köprü named in the text is Vezirköprü, which is today attached to Samsun. After the town passed to Ottoman rule it became a district of the sanjak of Amasya, attached to Sivas, and kept this status until the Republican period. Evliya Çelebi, who came here in 1647, describes Köprü as a district of 140 villages attached to the liva of Amasya, and speaks of nearly forty mescids and mosques in some twenty quarters and of about seventy mansions large and small. The town's real rise began with Köprülü Mehmed Pasha. The Pasha settled here in his youth and married, and took the nickname "Köprülü" from this town; the mosque, bedesten, bath and prayer ground built by him and his wife Ayşe Hatun form the core of the town's present historic fabric. The town's being called "Vezirköprü" is also after this vizier. The incident Hüsameddin relates is a rare local record showing how severe the contention between notables and the kadı could become in the town some eighty years after the Köprülüs' brilliant era.
The Kadı Killed in the Court
In the Ottoman provinces the kadı was not merely a judge who heard cases; he was the representative of the district responsible for both legal and administrative matters. The âyan, for their part, were local leading men elected as spokesmen of the townspeople before the state, often enriched through iltizam and malikâne. From the seventeenth century on the âyan had grown stronger economically, socially and militarily, and in the eighteenth century they had begun to become the most influential persons in their regions' relations with the center. Within this balance of power, a kadı's entering into a contention lasting months with the âyan and the mufti ended with the court being raided and the kadı killed. The text does not say plainly whether the mufti was on the kadı's side or against him; yet the mufti's being arrested together with the notable, both in this entry and in the next, suggests that he was on the side opposed to the kadı.
It is known that similar lawlessness was frequently seen elsewhere in Anatolia in the same years. Studies on the Anatolian Ahkâm registers kept from 1742 show that in districts such as İznik, Yalakabad and Görele, many complaints about the oppression of the people by state officials and local powers reached Istanbul in 1742-1743, and that solutions were sought through orders sent to the district naibs. Researchers regard such incidents as a result of the deterioration seen in provincial order in the eighteenth century. Hüsameddin's record adds a concrete example from the sanjak of Amasya to this general picture.
The Alaybeyi Sarı Beyzade Mehmed Bey
The alaybeyi was the commander of the timar-holding sipahis of the sanjak and the sanjak bey's most important assistant in military matters; on promotion he could also become a sanjak bey. That the first person to run to the scene and to seize the culprits was the alaybeyi shows that the duty of securing public order in the sanjak at this time in practice rested on his shoulders. Hüsameddin also records that in 1128 [1716], for his services in the Morea campaign, the sanjak of Çorum was given to the "former alaybeyi Sarı Beyzade Mehmed Bey." Since twenty-eight years have passed, it is not certain whether these two Mehmed Beys are the same person or two different generations of the same family; it is nevertheless understood that the Sarı Beyzades were an Amasya family that kept the alaybeyiship from generation to generation.
The end of the entry contains a noteworthy detail on the administrative outlook of the period: the prisoners whom the alaybeyi had seized and handed over to the court were released without trial in return for a large sum of money offered to the mutasarrıf. The pasha's dismissal soon afterward suggests that the matter was reflected in Istanbul and that the center did not tolerate a murder of a kadı that was sought to be closed by bribery. The case was not closed by this, and was taken up again in the term of the next mutasarrıf. No information was found in other sources about Şeyhzade Ahmed Efendi, Yunus Efendi, Mirza Ağa and Carullahoğlu Hacı Hüseyin Ağa, named in the entry.
Bibliography
Primary sources
- Abdîzâde Hüseyin Hüsâmeddîn Yasar, Amasya Tarihi, Amasya Belediyesi Kültür Yayınları, 2022, 4. Cildin Bakiyyesi, p. 649–649. amasya.bel.tr
- Abdîzâde Hüseyin Hüsâmeddîn Yasar, Amasya Tarihi, 1-4. Cilt, Amasya Belediyesi e-kitap, p. 633, https://amasya.bel.tr/uploads/e-kitap/kitap/1-4/files/basic-html/page633.html
Academic studies
- Özcan Mert, "Âyan", TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, https://islamansiklopedisi.org.tr/ayan
- Ziya Kazıcı, "Alay", TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, https://islamansiklopedisi.org.tr/alay--osmanli
- Mustafa Kaya, "18. Yüzyılın Ortalarında Osmanlı Taşrasında Görülen Kanunsuzluklar ve Şikâyetler: İznik, Yalakabad ve Görele Kazaları Örnekleri", Akademik Tarih ve Düşünce Dergisi, 5/16, 2018, p. 137-151, https://dergipark.org.tr/en/download/article-file/536404
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