Amasya alaybeyi Mehmed Ağa bin el-Hâc Ahmed Bey bin Ali Bey bin Hundî Ahmed Paşa’nın oğludur. Meşâhîr-i züamâdan olup Caniklizâdelere intisâb ederek mükerreren Amasya alaybeyi oldu. Fakat Tayyar Mahmûd Paşa’nın emriyle Amasya ulemâsını muhakkârâne kaldırıp Samsun’a sürdüğünden bed-du’âlara uğradı.
1222’de son def’a Amasya alaybeyi ve 1223’de i’ânât-ı askeriyye celb ve cem’ine me’mûr ve 1224’de Amasya mütesellim kâ’im-makâmı olduğu esnâda halka zulm ve tecâvüz ve cem’i etdiği i’ânât akçesinden hayli mebâlig ihtilâs etdiği şikâyet olunmağla bit-teftîş sene-i mezbûre zilhiccesinin yirmi birinci günü bâ-fermân-ı âlî i’dâm ve muhallefâtı zabt ve müsâdere edildi. Oğulları Mehmed, Ahmed Ağalara yalnız hânesi kaldı. Meşâhîr-i a’yândan cür’etkâr bir adamdı.
In Modern English
He was the son of Mehmed Ağa, alaybeyi of Amasya; Mehmed Ağa was the son of Hacı Ahmed Bey, who was the son of Ali Bey, who was the son of Hundî Ahmed Pasha. He was one of the well-known zeamet-holding sipahis; attaching himself to the Caniklizades, he became alaybeyi of Amasya several times. But because, on the order of Tayyar Mahmûd Pasha, he insultingly drove the ulema of Amasya from their places and banished them to Samsun, he fell under curses.
In 1222 [1807-08] he became alaybeyi of Amasya for the last time, in 1223 [1808-09] he was charged with collecting the military aid levy, and in 1224 [1809-10] he became deputy of the mütesellim of Amasya. As at this time complaints were made that he had oppressed and assaulted the people and had embezzled a considerable amount of the aid money he collected, after an investigation he was executed by imperial decree on the twenty-first day of Dhu al-Hijja of the same year [27 January 1810]; the property he left was seized and confiscated. Only the house remained to his sons, Mehmed and Ahmed Ağas. He was one of the well-known ayan, a bold man.
Notes and Research
Old Words in the Text
- alaybeyi: the commander of the timar-holding sipahis of a sanjak; the official responsible for assembling and preparing them in time of campaign
- meşâhîr-i züamâ: well-known sipahis who held zeamets
- intisâb: attaching oneself to a great man, becoming his man
- mükerreren: repeatedly
- muhakkârâne: insultingly, with contempt
- i'ânât-ı askeriyye: aid money collected from the people for war
- mütesellim kâ'im-makâmı: deputy of the mütesellim
- ihtilâs: embezzlement
- bi't-teftîş: after an investigation was made
- bâ-fermân-ı âlî: by imperial decree
- muhallefât: the property left behind by a person who died or was executed
- zabt ve müsâdere: seizure by the state
- cür'etkâr: bold, enterprising
The Offices of Alaybeyi and Mütesellim
The alaybeyi was the official at the head of the timar-holding sipahis of a sanjak, who assembled them and made them ready at the time of a campaign. Although by the end of the eighteenth century the timar system had lost its old strength, the alaybeyilik continued in the provinces as a respected post. The mütesellim, on the other hand, governed the sanjak as the deputy of the sanjak governor or of the person holding the sanjak, collecting the taxes and sending them on time. Yücel Özkaya notes that in the eighteenth century most mütesellimliks in the sanjaks passed into the hands of local dynasties, that powerful families at times contended with one another for the post, and that as complaints of corruption and oppression multiplied, changes were made in the appointment of these officials in the nineteenth century. The life of Hundîzâde İbrâhim Ağa fits this framework: he came from an ayan family, rose by attaching himself to the region's powerful dynasty, and, while deputy of the mütesellim, met the state's severe reaction because of corruption and oppression.
The Caniklizades and Tayyar Mahmud Pasha
The Caniklizades, to whom İbrâhim Ağa attached himself, were a powerful ayan dynasty that, based in Samsun, dominated the Amasya, Trabzon and Sivas area in the second half of the eighteenth century. The Amasya sanjak was given as a life-tenure holding (mâlikâne) to the family's founder Canikli Hacı Ali Pasha in 1772, and from then on Amasya became an arena of rivalry between the Caniklis and the Çapanoğlus, based at Bozok. Hacı Ali Pasha's grandson Tayyar Mahmud Pasha received the sanjaks of Canik and Amasya when he returned from captivity in Russia in 1799 together with his father Battal Hüseyin Pasha.
According to Sabit Genç's study, after becoming tax collector of Amasya in July 1799, Tayyar Mahmud Bey set up an arbitrary and tyrannical administration in the city and appointed opponents of the Nizâm-ı Cedîd to office. In 1805, when the government gave the administration of the sanjak to Çapanoğlu Süleyman Bey on condition that he spread the Nizâm-ı Cedîd army in Amasya, Tayyar Pasha rebelled openly, invited the Janissaries of the region to Samsun and incited them against the new army, and made contact with the opponents of the Nizâm-ı Cedîd in Istanbul. Defeated, he was forced to flee to Crimea in the summer of 1806; after the Kabakçı Mustafa revolt he was pardoned, returned to Istanbul on 20 October 1807 and rose to the post of sadaret kaymakamı, but was dismissed in March 1808 and was executed after the accession of Mahmud II.
The date of the banishment of the ulema to Samsun that Hüsameddin describes is not given in the text. In the sources read it is related that Tayyar Pasha protected the ulema who opposed the Nizâm-ı Cedîd in Amasya and summoned the Janissaries to Samsun; the banishment of the ulema to Samsun was not found directly and the event could not be verified from another source. İbrâhim Ağa's becoming alaybeyi for the last time in 1222 coincides with the period when Tayyar Pasha was pardoned in the autumn of 1807 and regained power; this must be recorded as an observation arising from setting the dates side by side.
His Execution and Family
İbrâhim Ağa's execution date, 21 Dhu al-Hijja 1224 [27 January 1810], falls in the years when Mahmud II was trying to re-establish central authority against the powerful ayan in the provinces and their men. The execution of Tayyar Mahmud Pasha, the strongest representative of the Caniklizades, also took place in this sultan's time. That an ağa was executed and his property confiscated, on the ground that he had embezzled the war aid collected from the people, at the same time as the fall from favor of the dynasty to which he was attached, is in line with the general tendency of the period.
No information was found in other sources about Hundî Ahmed Pasha, at the head of the line of descent, or the other members of the family. According to the lineage Hüsameddin gives, Hundî Ahmed Pasha is the father of the grandfather of İbrâhim Ağa's father; by generational reckoning he would be expected to have lived around the beginning of the eighteenth century, but this is only a guess.
Bibliography
Primary sources
- Abdîzâde Hüseyin Hüsâmeddîn Yasar, Amasya Tarihi, Amasya Belediyesi Kültür Yayınları, 2022, vol. 6, p. 69. amasya.bel.tr
Academic studies
- Yücel Özkaya, "Mütesellim", TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi (islamansiklopedisi.org.tr/mutesellim).
- Özcan Mert, "Canikli Hacı Ali Paşa Ailesi", TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi (islamansiklopedisi.org.tr/canikli-haci-ali-pasa-ailesi).
- Sabit Genç, "Nizam-ı Cedid'in Amasya Sancağındaki Yansımaları", Karamanoğlu Mehmetbey Üniversitesi Edebiyat Fakültesi Dergisi, 8/2 (2025), pp. 335-362.