İdris Bey (Hacı Paşazâde)

In Modern English

He was from Merzifon. He was the son of Ali Bey, one of the notables of that place; Ali Bey was the son of Mehmed Bey, who was the son of Hacı Yahya Pasha. While a zeamet holder he became a silver-mine superintendent (emin), and later, through the support of Merzifonlu Kara Mustafa Pasha, he had become a mirliva (sanjak bey). In 1094 [1683] he died a martyr before Vienna. His brother is Yahya Bey, and his paternal cousin is Eyyüb Pasha.

Notes and Research

Old Words in the Text

• eşrâf: notables, respected families
• mahdûm: son
• züemâ: holders of zeamet, cavalrymen who held a fief of high annual income
• emîn: an official placed by the state in charge of a source of revenue or of some task
• mîrlivâ: sanjak bey
• himmet: support, intercession
• şehîden vefât: dying as a martyr in battle
• ammizâde: son of a paternal uncle

Merzifonlu Kara Mustafa Pasha

The patron in the text is Merzifonlu Kara Mustafa Pasha, who was grand vizier between 1676 and 1683. According to the sources he was born in 1044 [1634-35] in the village of Marınca in Merzifon (today's Karamustafapaşa). His father Oruç Bey was a timar-holding sipahi; when he fell as a martyr at Murad IV's siege of Baghdad the child was orphaned at the age of four, and he received a madrasa education together with Köprülü Mehmed Bey's (Pasha's) sons under the patronage of that man, who was then sanjak bey of Amasya. He later became Köprülü's son-in-law and rose during his grand vizierate. This detail is noteworthy for the history of Amasya: Kara Mustafa Pasha's rise began under the patronage of the sanjak bey of Amasya. Hüsameddin's description of İdris Bey as having become a mirliva "through the support of Merzifonî Kara Mustafa Pasha" is a small example of this social network.

Kara Mustafa Pasha also invested in his hometown of Merzifon. He is reported to have had his complex, including a mosque, a library, a primary school, a caravanserai (han), a bath and a bedesten, built between 1666 and 1679. After he was put to death, his property was confiscated.

Death at Vienna

Hüsameddin's sentence "in 1094 he died a martyr before Vienna" points to the 1683 Siege of Vienna. The army under Kara Mustafa Pasha's command reached Vienna on 19 Receb 1094 [14 July 1683]. When the siege passed two months the army began to suffer from a shortage of food; in the battle on 12 September against the allied forces of the King of Poland, Sobieski, the Ottoman army broke. A large number of cannon, tents and war materiel were left behind. After this defeat Kara Mustafa Pasha was executed at Belgrade by the sultan's order. How İdris Bey died in this battle and at the head of which unit he stood could not be determined in the sources read.

The Silver-Mine Superintendent

Hüsameddin does not state where the mine was. One of the places that stood out in the Ottoman period for silver mining is Gümüşhane; there Mehmed the Conqueror exempted the people who worked the mines from taxes, a new settlement was founded in the time of Süleyman the Magnificent, and according to a traveller who saw the town in 1647 there were about seventy silver-mine pits, some closed and some working. Since the name Gümüşhane does not appear in the text, however, whether the mine of which İdris Bey was superintendent was this one could not be verified. That a zeamet-holding sipahi was given such a trust may be explained by the state's wish to keep the mine's revenue and security under its own control; this interpretation is ours and rests on no source.

Merzifon and the Names

Merzifon is the city at the edge of the Merzifon plain that was attached to Amasya in Roman and Byzantine times. Since the Danishmend period it developed as a Turkish-Islamic city, and with its madrasas, mosques, bedesten and Taşhan it was an important centre on a trade route. No information was found in other sources on İdris Bey's family known as "Hacı Paşazâde," that is, the line descending from Hacı Yahya Pasha, on his brother Yahya Bey, or on his paternal cousin Eyyüb Pasha.

Bibliography

Primary sources

• Abdîzâde Hüseyin Hüsâmeddîn Yasar, Amasya Tarihi, Amasya Belediyesi Kültür Yayınları, 2022, vol. 7, p. 275–275. amasya.bel.tr

Academic studies

• Abdülkadir Özcan, "Merzifonlu Kara Mustafa Paşa", TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi. https://islamansiklopedisi.org.tr/merzifonlu-kara-mustafa-pasa

Other sources

• Mehmet Öz, "Merzifon", TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi.
• Metin Tuncel, "Gümüşhane", TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi.