Introduction (5)

In Modern English

At last, when the determination and will of the Seljuk Turks, who conquered and brought the Anatolian continent under their sovereignty, were broken by the clash of the Mongol clans, the exalted God, abundant in bestowal, graciously placed this duty on the shoulders of the Ottoman Turks, who would give their lives to exalt the banner of Islam until the Day of Judgment.

To render thanks for this great divine favor the Ottoman Turks shed their blood for the faith, spent their wealth and raised the banner of Islam toward Europe. The great Danube basin, that is Albania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Serbia, Montenegro and the garden of Istanbul, were made a rose garden of Islam solely by the Ottoman Turks.

They took thousands of fortresses regarded as hard to conquer, secured the obedience of many a nation that passed for heroic; by enlightening the Albanians, Bosnians and then the Laz, Georgians and Circassians, who became valued members of their own, they rendered praiseworthy services to the Islamic world and made Christianity tremble.

In return for such great self-sacrifice and the praiseworthy religious services they showed over centuries, God, Creator of the worlds, exempt from ignorance and injustice, bestowed the great Islamic caliphate on the exalted House of Osman, which proved its competence in fact, and declared that the most honorable of the Islamic communities were the Turks.

This exalted direction of the exalted God, that is this Islamic caliphate that He bestowed on the Turks, is a divine gift and a sacred bounty. It is not a dry caliphal title obtained by force with the help of Christians and the support of polytheists.

The master of the world, the essence of the sons of Adam, our greatest Prophet, who knew by divine revelation that God, the most generous of the generous, would bestow the caliphate on the Turks, pointed to this divine bestowal; that he said "The last to take up the affairs of my community will be the Benû Kantûrâ" has been found sound by the great hadith scholars, who have explained that by Benî Kantûrâ the Prophet meant the Turks.

Our Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) means this: the last of those who find the opportunity to conduct my community's affairs in full independence and to show strength, that is those who seize the caliphate by striving to raise the banner of Islam, will be the Turks.

The Turks were able to obtain the caliphate, by fighting for centuries on the path of God, as the price of the seas of blood they shed for the exaltation of the faith, by God's bestowal and in accordance with the Prophet's command and sign. For this reason in the matter of the caliphate the Turks' helper and supporter is God and the Prophet; its foundation is also the religion of Islam.

The Muslims living in Amasya are in general of the school of Imam-ı Azam Ebû Hanîfe Nu'mân ibn Sâbit el-Kûfî in practice and of Imam Ebû Mansûr Muhammed Mâtürîdî in creed; none adheres to other schools. In this regard no conduct requiring division among them can ever be thought of.

However, since the Sunni and Alevi dispute left a deep mark among the disciples of the tariqa fathers, there are eighty percent Sunnis in the towns and forty percent Alevis in the villages. The existence of this small division stands only through the drift of ignorance and the suggestion of self-interest; it is clear that as learning and knowledge spread light, no trace of this division will remain.

The Kurds are of the Aryan branch, and their languages and histories show that they have racial and political relations with the Persians. Their being counted as of Assyrian descent must be an allusion to their having been under Assyrian administration. The Median state, which arose after the Hittites' influence ended in Anatolia, is thought to have been founded by the Kurds. After parts of the provinces of Bitlis, Diyarbekir, Mosul and Van, where they now live, were conquered in the time of Ömer and the whole in the time of the Abbasid government, the Kurds in general accepted Islam and became Muslim.

But from the years 142-342 onward, millions of Turkmens and Turks came in streams and settled in these provinces and in the provinces of Baghdad, Aleppo, Harput, Damascus, Jerusalem and Egypt and their surroundings, and until the Ottoman state took them, for a thousand years, the Turkish Artukids, İhşidids, Ilkhanids, Bayındırs, Barsaklıs, Celayirids, Seljuks, Salgurids, Sungurids, Tulunids, Bahri Mamluks and then the Ottoman state ruled here. For this reason the title Turkmenistan or Turkistan is far more historical and in accord with the real situation than calling them Kurdistan or Arabia. For since the descendants of the millions of Turks who settled in these provinces multiplied and took root within them, they formed a majority of about two thirds of the native people and had taken the administration into their hands.

Since the language influence of the surroundings they were in later represented the lineage of these Turks and merged them with the native people, the Kurdishness and Arabness of persons other than those known and recorded today as Kurd and Arab by father and grandfather seems very strange.

Although the great-grandfathers of a great part of them are recorded as Turks in the biographical dictionaries and books of biography, it is strange that their children showed such lightness as to forget their own religion and nationality merely by looking at their language, and it is an example of soundness for the Turks. Nationality is not only language.

For this reason the Kurds, for a thousand years, have become such a blend united with the Turks that their separation from one another is not possible. Although the word Kurd is, in letters, the reverse of the word Turk, those who examine that it is the same in religion, spirit and structure may see the Kurds as Turks and the Turks as Kurds. If today one of the individuals of these provinces claims to be a Kurd or an Arab, he cannot prove that his father and grandfather were not Turks.

The Christians living in the Sanjak of Amasya are made up of the Pecheneg, Cuman, Armenian and Greek nations. But since the Pechenegs and Cumans are in a state as if mixed with the Armenians and Greeks, it is thought in Amasya that the Christians are only Armenians and Greeks.

The Pechenegs were a Turkish land separated from the Altay branch and counted among the Uygurs. About two centuries before the Prophet's Hijra, when the Turks attacked Western Asia and Europe, they came and settled in Erzurum, Sivas and the Thrace continent as far as the Danube.

Becenek is in the pattern of "ekenek" and, being the same as the word "bezenek," means adorned. As understood from Nüzhetü'l-Müştak and other studies, among the Pechenegs the clans Erzen, Babert, Zara, Kemah and Helken were historically famous, and these existed until the time the Muslim Turks took the Anatolian continent.

The Ersen clan descended from a Pecheneg ruler famous as "Ersan Han," and today's city famous as Erzincan and, among the Turks, "Erzingan" had become, by mistake from the name of this ruler Ersan Han, the homeland of the Pechenegs.

Since the province of Erzurum was a region under the rule of this Ersan Han, those places were called "Erzenü'r-Rum." For within the provinces of Iran and Âmid there were two cities famous by the name "Ersan"; the city in the province of Diyarbekir was called "Arzan" and the city within Iran "Erzenü'l-Acem."

This clan was famous among the Turks as "Ersanlu" and later, accepting Islam, merged into the Seljuks and, Arabized, was called "Erzenlü." The famous scholar Ebü'l-Hasan Ali ibn Mes'ud el-Erzenî is among them. Indeed Emir Mengücek, ruler of Erzincan and Erzurum, must also be among them.

The Babert clan were the children of one of the Pecheneg bays, that is beys, famous as Bay Burt, and the town famous today by the name Bayburt was their center. Babert is the Arabized form of Bayburt, and "burt" in the Pecheneg language is what we call "kurt" (wolf).

This clan, at the Seljuks' first coming to Anatolia, accepted Islam and returned to its origin. Of the children of Bayburt, Kutlu Bey, then Hızır Bey, then Kasım Bey were very famous, and Hızır Bey had friendship with Eretna Han, ruler of Sivas. The famous scholar Ekmeleddin Muhammed Babertî must be from this town, indeed from among these.

The Zara clan were the children of a bay famous among the Pechenegs as "Sara," and their center was the town of Zara within the province of Sivas. Sara, the origin of Zara, is a bird of prey that the Turkmens call "sarı," and "saru" is said of the nightingale. Since they were brave men who later accepted Islam, brave soldiers who were irregular at first were called "sarıca."

The Kemah clan were the children of a person named "Kimak" among the Pechenegs, and their homeland was the town famous today by the name "Kemah" and its surroundings. Kemah and "Kimak and Kimak," the origin of Kemah, are the very same as what we call "kimük, kemük."

The Helken clan were the children of one of the Pecheneg inals famous as "İlgün Han," and its center was the center of the liva of Karahisar-ı Şarkî, recorded as "Kigun, Kigüniye." The name of the city of Karahisar-ı Şarkî is also written as "Kigun, İlgün, Helgüne, Helkine." İlgün and Ilgun are a high hill and what we call the "ılgın tree." "Kigün and Kıgun" is also what we call "kın" (scabbard).

The Cumans were a great kabar separated from the Ural branch; while the greater part lived in the Macedonia continent and essentially around the Kuban River, a part had settled on the coastal side of the Black Sea from the port of Sinop to the port of Batum. These places were called Kumanistan. They were mixed with the Laz, their khans were famous by the title Afşin, and their center was the city of Of. Opa (Hopa) was also among their famous lands.

The word Kuman means "helper and supporter." Kuban also means Kuman. Its derivatives kuma, kumat ("what they bind tender children with"), kumac (gömeç), kumas (kümes), kumaş, kumak (yava), kumal (round) are used to a degree. Among the Cumans the Kulahit, Kelkit and Künit clans are very famous.

The Kulahit clan were the children and tribe members of a ruler famous as "Kulah Afşin," and they are also called "Kulkid." Kulahit means attached to Kulah, that is Kulahlı. Kulah is what we call "kulu, kula." The famous "Kulakid Government" was founded by them.

The Kelkit clan were the children of a bey known by the name Kilki, and today the Kelkit district, town and river are attached to them. Kilki means "kilan," that is great. The Künit clan is also recorded as "unit and kivnit," and its center was today's city of "Künye, Unye." One of the famous lands of the Pechenegs is also seen to be the city of "Bakusvenli," but which city this is today could not be understood.

The Armenians are the children of Ermen ibn Tucrem, and Erminak ibn Haik is among his grandchildren. This Ermen, who is certainly Aryan in race and language, being clearly of the line of "Aryas," of the children of Cevmer "Kiyumers," the Armenians have kinship with the Persians and Kurds.

The Armenians descended from three branches famous by the names Bazi (Basniyan), Huri (Hurunyan) and Minvasi (Minasyan). While living around Nakhchivan (Nahsivan), where they first made their homeland, they spread under the protection of victorious nations to Anatolia, Rumelia and every part of the other continents of the earth.

That when the Turks regained Anatolia, their motherland, they received well, as the Islamic shari'a commands, the Armenians whom they found as Greek subjects and governed them in greater prosperity than the Greeks did, is attested by the Armenians' present situation and standing, a plain witness impossible to reject and deny.

After the Armenians took Sabianism, that is star worship, from the Hittites, Magianism, that is fire worship, from the Persians, and Ishraqism, that is idolatry, from the Romans, they had also partly accepted Christianity in the time of the Roman emperor Kalud.

But when the cruel emperor Nero tormented the Christians with bloody tortures and punished them by killing and burning their heads and bishops, the Christian Armenians too turned back and became idolaters. After remaining in this state for some two hundred and fifty years, when the Roman emperor Constantine accepted Christianity in the year AD 306, the Armenians, upon the order sent by the patriarch of Istanbul, Gregorius, became Christian a second time in AD 310. These historical events are written in the "Daire-i Maarif" written by a Christian committee.

As understood from these historical records, although the Armenians lived under the obligation to accept the official religions of the states to which they were attached, that they did not meet such obligations in order to live, up to the present time when they have been under the administration of the Muslim Turks and especially the Ottomans, is among the visible, plain facts.

The Greeks are the children of Rum ibn Niti, of the Aryans, and have racial kinship with the Greeks (Yunan). Because of very many historical events, the Greeks first migrated as refugees to the Anatolian continent, which in the early ages was under Hittite sovereignty, and settled on the Mediterranean and Black Sea coasts.

This migration later established the influence of the Roman state over the Anatolian continent, and when the powers of the Hittite and Persian states weakened, they spread toward the interior of the said continent.

After the Greeks had trampled for some seven hundred years the Anatolian continent, since the earliest ages the homeland (sıla), that is the esteemed motherland, of the Turks, the heat of usurpation ended and they were obliged to give it back to its true owner; they nonetheless preserved their religion and nation thanks to the Turks' humanity.

But the Greeks and Armenians, living in the lands and towns, had made Christian the Pechenegs and Cumans living in districts and villages by means of the governmental influence they obtained by making fortunes from all kinds of the latter's earnings.

Later, since of these Christianized Pechenegs and Cumans the Orthodox joined Greekness and the Gregorians Armenianism, at the Muslim Turks' entry into Anatolia some of the Pechenegs and Cumans accepted Islam and merged into the Turks, and the rest mixed with the Armenians and Greeks. For this reason the villagers living in the villages of the provinces of Erzurum, Sivas and Trabzon in our time, speaking Armenian and Greek and seen as Christians, are generally not Greeks and Armenians but are made up of Armenian-speaking Pechenegs and Greek-speaking Cumans who accepted Christianity.

Above all, that, taking advantage of the ignorance of the Pechenegs we call Puşiyan, an elekçi sect, who were nomadic and in the Islamic form and spoke Turkish until recent times and bore Muslim names, the Armenians' zeal, in proportion to our heedlessness, registered these poor Turks on the Armenians' account and showed them as Christians, should be an example of admonition to us.

The total of the male population, as it appears in the general census completed in 1254, in which the Sanjak of Amasya was made up of the districts of Amasya, Erbaa, Havza, Zünnun, Zeytun, Zile, Osmancık, Gelgiras, Köprü, Gümüş, Ladik, Mecidözü and Merzifon, is as follows:

General population of the Sanjak of Amasya:

Muslim: 44560

Copt: 65

Armenian: 6350

Mining Greek: 416

(Total): 51391

The general result obtained by adding a like number of female population to this male population is as follows:

Muslim: 89120

Copt: 130

Armenian: 12700

Greek: 832

Total population of the liva: 102782

Christian: 13662

Muslim: 89120

Later, as a result of Gelgiras being united with Merzifon, Zünnunabad with Mecidözü and Zeytun with Köprü at various times, Erbaa and Zile being attached to the Sanjak of Tokat and Osmancık to the Sanjak of Çorum, in the year 1330, when the Sanjak of Amasya was made up of seven districts:

The native general population of the liva is as follows:

Amasya Central District:

Muslim: male 23268, female 23082

Armenian: male 4652, female 4514

Greek: male 1314, female 1247

Copt: male 21, female 19

Havza District:

Muslim: male 8283, female 8072

Armenian: male 28, female 49

Greek: male 4652, female 4514

Gümüş Hacıköyü:

Muslim: male 12288, female 12021

Armenian: male 1788, female 1672

Greek: male 1791, female 1763

Köprü District:

Muslim: male 20280, female 19871

Armenian: male 557, female 548

Greek: male 2273, female 2151

Copt: male 137, female 149

Ladik District:

Muslim: male 7867, female 7641

Armenian: male 134, female 146

Greek: male 2626, female 2250

Mecidözü District:

Muslim: male 18268, female 17538

Armenian: male 202, female 198

Greek: male 466, female 356

Merzifon District:

Muslim: male 12017, female 11850

Armenian: male 4373, female 4221

Greek: male 389, female 365

Copt: male 310, female 347

(Total):

Muslim: 202246

Armenian: 23079

Greek: 24560

Copt: 1033

Total population of the liva: 250918

Christian: 48672

Muslim: 202246

In this native general population of the liva, excluding guest Muslims and Christians, 491 Catholic and 1665 Protestant Armenians are also included. For this reason the total of native Christians in the Sanjak of Amasya at present makes up only one fifth of the sanjak's population. But the Christians written in 1254 were one seventh of the total population.

From 1254 to 1330, although thousands of Muslim immigrants came to the Sanjak of Amasya and three important districts, Erbaa, Zile and Osmancık, were given to other livas, the Armenians' population of 12700 reaches 23079, the Greeks' 416 reaches 24560, even the 65 Copts reach 1033, while the Islamic population of 89120 rises only to 202246. For this reason the increase of the Christians, above all of the Greeks, is an astonishing situation.

For from 1294 onward, every year hundreds of Greek-speaking Christian Pechenegs and Cumans came from the villages of the province of Trabzon and the sanjak of Canik and settled in the villages of the sanjak of Amasya as tenants. Fifteen or twenty years later they seized by force and used the Islamic farms in which they had settled as tenants and drove away the former owners.

Of the above-written Islamic population of 202246, two thirds are estimated to be of the line of Oghuz Han, that is Turkmen; of the last third, half Tatar, Kumyk, Lezgin and Nogay; of the other half, two thirds Circassian and Kurd, and the remaining third Georgian and Laz.

Notes and Research

Old Words in the Text

• livâ: Sanjak, an administrative unit.
• kaza, nahiye: Sub-units of the sanjak.
• zükûr, inâs: Male, female.
• kıbtî: Copt, Gypsy.
• müste'cir: Tenant.
• muhâcir: Immigrant.
• mezâhib, tarîkat: Sects and tariqas.
• Gregoryen, Ortodoks: Member of the Armenian Apostolic church and of the Greek Orthodox church.
• inal: Among the old Turks, a khan's son, one of the khagan's family.

Pechenegs and Cumans

Hüsameddin ties the arrival of the Becenek (Pechenegs) and Cumans in Anatolia to the Erzurum, Sivas and Black Sea region. According to the TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi the Pechenegs appear in Arab sources from the 9th century; they were a community made up of eight tribes and forty clans and had withdrawn west from the Lower Syr Darya under Oghuz pressure. After 1048 many entered Byzantine service; place names left from the Pechenegs settled in Anatolia are many, and a part of them took part in the Battle of Manzikert in 1071 with Alparslan's army. The Cumans (Kipchaks), for their part, took the Pechenegs' lands north of the Black Sea after 1060. Hüsameddin's account that "the Pechenegs had come to Anatolia two centuries before the Hijra" does not agree with this chronology; in the encyclopedia the Pecheneg presence in Anatolia is documented from the 11th century.

The author himself presents the interpretation that the Mengücek dynasty came from the Pechenegs with "must be." The Mengüceks were an Anatolian beylik that ruled around Erzincan, Kemah, Divriği and Şebinkarahisar; no separate document on the dynasty's origin was found in the sources read in this study.

On the Kurds

The text reflects the outlook of Hüsameddin's time on the origin of the Kurds. According to the TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi's entry on the Kurds there are different approaches to the Kurds' origin; their homeland is at the foothills of the Zagros mountains, and they are shown as related to the Iranian peoples rather in terms of historical and linguistic closeness than of ethnic origin. Some researchers associate the Kurds with the Cyrtii (Kırtis) west of Lake Van, others with the Medes. Hüsameddin's attributing the Median state to the Kurds is close to one of these approaches. The claim that the name Kurd is the reverse of the word Turk and that the Kurds merged with the Turkmens is not supported by encyclopedic knowledge; it should be read as an interpretation belonging to the author's period.

The Population of Amasya

The census of 1254 (about 1838-39) and the figures of 1330 (about 1912) that Hüsameddin gives are an important record of the population structure of Amasya in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The Amasya population register of 1840 examined by Selim Özcan was also drawn up after the census of 1830-31; in the census of 1830-31 only the males in households had been taken as the basis. Özcan notes that the numbers of quarters and households in the 1840 population register and the 1844-45 temettuat registers differ greatly within a short time of four years, and that this can be attributed to long-lasting wars, migrations and epidemics and to the difference in the method of preparing the two records. That is, one should not expect precision in the population figures of this period.

The table in the text gives the Muslim, Armenian, Greek and Copt populations district by district for the year 1330. The Greek population in Havza is written with exactly the same figures (4652 male, 4514 female) as the Armenian population in Amasya center; this may be a writing or typesetting error, and the correctness of the table totals was not recomputed in this study. Hüsameddin shows 24560 Greeks and 23079 Armenians in total; he bases these figures on his own interpretation ("the increase of the Greeks is an astonishing situation").

The years in the text concerning the date of the Armenians' acceptance of Christianity (306, 310) could not be compared with another source or verified in this study.

Bibliography

Primary sources

• Abdîzâde Hüseyin Hüsâmeddîn Yasar, Amasya Tarihi, Amasya Belediyesi Kültür Yayınları, 2022, vol. 2, p. 249–256. amasya.bel.tr

Academic studies

• "Peçenekler", TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi. https://islamansiklopedisi.org.tr/pecenekler
• "Kıpçaklar", TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi. https://islamansiklopedisi.org.tr/kipcaklar
• "Kürtler", TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi. https://islamansiklopedisi.org.tr/kurtler
• Selim Özcan, "H.1256 (1840) Tarihli Amasya Nüfus Defteri ile H.1260-1261 (1844-1845) Tarihli Amasya Temettuat Defterlerinin Karşılaştırmalı Değerlendirilmesi", Studies of the Ottoman Domain, 6/11, 2016. https://dergipark.org.tr/en/download/article-file/268330
• Ali Hatalmış, "Sahabîlerin Türkleri Tanımaları ve İlişkileri", Çukurova Üniversitesi İlahiyat Fakültesi Dergisi, 19/2, 2019. https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/download/article-file/905532