Ergeldi Bey — Oğuzoğlu

In Modern English

He was a man of Geldiklân. He was the son of Hasan Bey, one of the famous zeamet holders. Hasan Bey was the son of Kubad Bey, who was the son of Devlet Han Bey. He is one of our forefathers. While a zeamet holder he took part in many wars. In recognition of the services he rendered he became one of the emirs and died in the Shirvan wars. His son is Doğan Bey.

Notes and Research

Old Words in the Text

• meşâhir-i züamâ: famous zeamet holders
• mahdûm: son
• ecdâd: forefather, ancestor
• muhârebe: war, battle
• iştirâk: taking part
• binâen: on account of, because of
• ümerâ: emirs, beys
• muhârebât: wars

The Author's Forefather

The words "ecdâdımızdan" in the text show that Hüsameddin is speaking of a man of his own family. The names Hasan, Kubad, Devlet Han and Doğan give a family line, but no dates are written. For this reason the century in which Ergeldi Bey lived could not be verified with the sources.

Zeamet Holder and Emir

In the Ottoman land system fiefs were classed by income as has, zeamet and timar. Zeamets with an annual income between 20,000 and 100,000 akçe were given to members of the Divan and to mid-level bureaucrats. At the end of the 16th century there were 2,375 zeamets against 35,964 timars; that is, being a zeamet holder meant entering a privileged and numerically small class compared with timar holders. A fief holder was obliged, according to his income, to maintain armed mounted men and to go on campaign with them. The obligation of the sipahi had been fixed in the law codes of Mehmed II: a sipahi with an income up to 1,000 akçe took the field alone, up to 2,000 akçe with a gulam, and with higher incomes with one cebelü for each 3,000 akçe. It is stated that in 1475 there were 17,000 sipahis in Anatolia and 22,000 in Rumelia. The sentence in the text, "while a zeamet holder he took part in many wars", describes this obligation. The expression "he became one of the emirs" shows that he rose into the class of emirs.

The Shirvan Wars

The centre of Shirvan was Shemakha, and the region also took in cities such as Baku and Derbend. After 1538 it was a province of the Safavids. The period in which the Ottomans aimed directly at the region falls in the years 1578-1590. In 1578 the army marching east from Erzurum under the command of Lala Mustafa Paşa defeated the Safavids first at Çıldır (9 August 1578) and then at Koyungeçidi near the Alazan River (September 1578). These victories opened the road to Shirvan for the Ottomans. As Lala Mustafa Paşa withdrew the army to Erzurum to winter, he raised Özdemiroğlu Osman Paşa to vizier and left him at the front with a small force as beylerbeyi of Shirvan and Dagestan. The Safavids counter-attacked, and Osman Paşa withdrew from Shemakha and took refuge in Derbend. After the arrival in October 1579 of the army of 40,000-50,000 men of the Crimean Khan Mehmed Giray, he drove the Safavids out of Shemakha and Shirvan. On 7-11 May 1583 he won the Battle of Meşâle, said to have lasted four days and four nights. The treaty of 1590 ended with the Safavids recognising Ottoman rule in the region. Shah Abbas annexed the region to Safavid rule again in 1607. Later the treaty of 1724 and the Ottoman-Iranian wars after 1730 brought Shirvan to the fore again. Hüsameddin does not say which period he means by "Shirvan wars". It may be thought that Ergeldi Bey died in the wars of the late 16th century, but there is no date in the text and this is an inference.

Geldiklân

In the entry on Erdoğan Bey in the same volume, the man who is named emir of Geldiklân and Tânunözü is likewise called "Oğuz oğlu". Ergeldi Bey's epithet "Oğuzoğlu" may be linked with that family; the text does not say so openly. Records of Geldiklân from the 14th to 16th centuries could not be found in the sources available to us.

Bibliography

• Abdîzâde Hüseyin Hüsâmeddîn Yasar, Amasya Tarihi, Amasya Belediyesi Kültür Yayınları, 2022, vol. 7, p. 280. amasya.bel.tr
• Mustafa Aydın, "Şirvan", TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi. https://islamansiklopedisi.org.tr/sirvan