In the records of an Ottoman prince's departure for his sanjak, the same handful of people appear together: his mother, his teacher, the clerks of his retinue and his lala. Of these, only the lala was responsible both for the prince's education and for the daily administration of the province he had been sent to govern. The word is Persian in origin and means "servant, slave" in the dictionary, specifically a servant charged with looking after a master's child. Over time it came to mean tutor, instructor and guardian, and in the Ottoman world it designated a state official appointed from the center with far wider powers than any schoolmaster. Because Amasya served as a princely sanjak throughout the fifteenth century, the workings of the institution can be followed here in unusual detail. The name of a lala such as Yörgüç Pasha still sits on one of the city's largest mosque complexes.

Alongside the lala stood the teacher, or hoca, and the two roles are often confused. The workings of the sanjak system and the individual stories of the princes are treated in separate articles, so only as much of them as helps to illuminate the lala and the hoca is given here.

From Atabeg to Lala

Appointing a guardian to raise a ruler's children was a common practice long before the Ottomans. Among the Seljuks the task fell to the atabeg, an office that over time became a political power in its own right. The word lala is thought to have entered Anatolian usage from the thirteenth century under Persian influence. It appears in the works of Eflâkî, Ibn Bibi and Aksarâyî, writers of the Anatolian Seljuk age, and in some records lala and atabeg are used interchangeably. Among the Mamluks, and in Akkoyunlu and Karakoyunlu circles, lala likewise denoted the person who educated the children of sultans and of emirs. In Ottoman sources the two words occur together. Tursun Bey writes that Zağanos Pasha was "appointed atabeg" to Prince Mehmed (the future Mehmed the Conqueror) when he was sent to Manisa, yet in the same work, speaking of Bayezid II's son Şehinşah, he uses the word lala and names Karagöz Bey as his lala. An anonymous work on the campaigns of Murad II also uses the term often for Çandarlı Halil Pasha and Şahin Pasha.

The difference between the Ottoman lala and the Seljuk atabeg is a political one. An atabeg could govern the state in the name of a child ruler or heir. The Ottoman lala never acted as regent for an heir, still less for a reigning sovereign; his authority remained bound to his sanjak and to the age of his prince. When the institution first appeared among the Ottomans is not known. Some scholars say it became a formal office under Murad I, and some accounts trace its roots back to the age of Orhan Gazi, but the "Lala" entry of the TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi states that no certain information has been found on the question. The first clear document that shows its official character is the Organization Code (Teşkilât Kanunnâmesi) of Mehmed the Conqueror. It sets the protocol rank of the lalaship below that of the treasurer of property (mal defterdarı). This ordering shows that the lalaship was a provincial post and that it did not yet hold a high place in the hierarchy of the central bureaucracy. The office gained in importance in the sixteenth century, and the changes in the titles given to lalas reflect that rise.

How Lalas Were Chosen

Lalas were usually chosen from among experienced and trusted men trained in the Enderun, the palace school, and appointed from the center. In the early period members of local emir families are known to have held the post; from the late fifteenth century slave-origin (kul) officials were generally preferred. It is possible to link this change to a wish to keep the old provincial families away from the prince, but the sources do not say so openly. A lala could be a statesman of the rank of sanjak governor or beylerbey, or a much humbler servant. His term of office was about two or three years, like that of a sanjak governor, and in some cases lalas were replaced even more often. The chief reason was to prevent a lala from staying too long in one place, influencing the prince and becoming an independent center of power. The land registers for the years Selim I spent as a prince in Trabzon give a concrete example. According to them his teacher was Taşköprizâde Muslihuddin Efendi, while his lalas, in order, were İlyas Bey, Sinan Bey, Nasuh Bey, Mehmed Bey, the cupbearer Sinan Bey, another Mehmed Bey and Hamza Bey. At the side of the same prince the teacher stayed for years while the lalas followed one another.

Lalas who completed their term were mostly sent to higher provincial posts, so the lalaship counted as a stepping stone. If the prince he had raised became sultan, the lala gained great influence and rank. Kasım Pasha, lala of Prince Süleyman (the future Suleiman the Magnificent) in Manisa, was an experienced statesman who had already served as treasurer and vizier. Mustafa Pasha, lala of Selim II, was appointed to the post while a sanjak governor, later served as beylerbey and rose to second vizier. Mehmed Pasha, who held the lalaship at the time of Mehmed III's accession, became first a vizier and then grand vizier. The prestige of the institution grew so great that in later periods sultans began to address their viziers as lala.

The Duties of the Lala

Among the lala's duties, besides the prince's education, were helping him understand political questions, presiding at the rank of vizier over the prince's council (a small model of the Imperial Council), leading the sanjak troops on campaign or guarding the region while the prince was away, serving as the link between the center and the prince, and writing to the center directly to take measures when necessary. When the prince was young the lala's administrative role came to the fore; beside an adult prince the lala often stayed in the background, and his work turned into mediation between the center and the prince. The lalas of Bayezid II's sons Selim, Korkut and Ahmed belonged to this second group; their administrative weight was slight and their post was almost a nominal one. By contrast the lalas of Mehmed the Conqueror, Suleiman, Selim II, Murad III and Mehmed III came to the fore in political and administrative terms.

The powers of the lalas grew markedly after the affair of Suleiman's son, Prince Bayezid. After it, the lalas of the princes sent to Saruhan (Manisa), which had become the sole sanjak of the heir, took the leading role in all administrative matters, and orders from the center were written out addressed to the lala. Lalas became competent in local appointments, grants of timars, guarding and public order. This development went hand in hand with the narrowing of the prince's room for action. Before Selim I, princes could move freely; they began to be sent to sanjaks near the center so that they could be controlled more easily, and increasing the lalas' powers was one of the ways of making the princes passive. The throne struggles repeated since the Interregnum, namely the revolt of Prince Cem against Bayezid II, of Selim against his father, and of Suleiman's son Bayezid against his father, are the chief reasons behind this tightening.

The Place of the Teacher

The lala looked after the prince's career as a statesman, the hoca after his scholarly training. The prince's education began at a very early age: a wet nurse (dâye) and concubines were assigned to him in the palace, and at weaning three of the has odalıs of the Enderun were appointed as lalas. This is an early form of the palace lalaship that followed the abandonment of the sanjak system and is discussed below. A teacher was appointed when the prince reached five or six, and the beginning of schooling was marked by a ceremony called Bed-i Besmele. The shaykh al-Islam, the chief military judges, the chief of the descendants of the Prophet (nakîbüleşraf) and the dignitaries of the state attended, and the prince completed his first lesson by reading a letter or two at the lectern. One of the liveliest descriptions of this ceremony concerns the occasion held in the presence of Ahmed III in 1721 for Prince Mustafa, Prince Mehmed and Prince Bayezid; the grand vizier lifted the prince onto his lap and seated him before the shaykh al-Islam, and the guests rose to their feet as a mark of respect. The imams of the sultan were mostly also teachers of the princes.

After the basic education the princes took private lessons from well-known scholars. A record of 1499 has the teacher of the princes reporting that they were then reading the Sharh al-Aqa'id, and that whatever books Bayezid II ordered next would be taught. The sultan in turn ordered the purchase, in sequence, of works such as the Shahnameh, the History of Tabari, the Futuh al-Sham, Khusraw u Shirin, Jamshid u Khurshid and the Iskendername, together with Persian divans. The structure of the list is striking. The Sharh al-Aqa'id is Sa'deddin Taftazani's commentary on Nasafi's creed; the Shahnameh is one of the greatest works of Persian literature; Tabari's history covers the prophets and early Islamic history, while the Futuh al-Sham deals with the conquest of Damascus and the age of the four caliphs; Khusraw u Shirin and Jamshid u Khurshid are two famous love stories; Ahmedî's Iskendername, written in Turkish in the fourteenth century, is a universal history that begins with the life of Alexander the Great. In other words the princes' reading list brought theology, history and literature together.

The records of the retinue also show where the teacher stood in the palace order. The 1542 expense register of the household (kapı halkı) of Suleiman's son Prince Mehmed lists 552 servants in all. At the head of the group, in first place among thirty-one men, stood the prince's teacher Mevlânâ Saîdî, who received the highest wage, 50 akçe. The prince's imam Mevlânâ Muhyiddin received 15 akçe, and two of the prince's muezzins were allotted ten each. The teacher's pay thus stands at the top of the servant staff. The record also shows how large a sanjak retinue was and how the scholarly staff were counted within that crowd.

One should be careful about what the princes were actually taught. Accounts that they received a broad curriculum of philosophy, mathematics, astronomy and Greek and Latin literature alongside Arabic and Persian are not confirmed by contemporary sources; the TDV entry "Şehzade" says so explicitly. What is documented is more limited. Religious sciences such as the Qur'an, creed and jurisprudence, Arabic and Persian, history and literature were read; lessons in calligraphy were taken; and bodily training in riding, archery and the javelin game (cirit) was given in the third court of the palace together with the pages. In addition it was customary for princes to learn a craft according to their talents, such as jewelry, turning, wood carving, bow making or decorative painting. In calligraphy Bayezid II was a pupil of Shaykh Hamdullah and Ahmed III a pupil of Hafız Osman and Veliyyüddin Efendi; in poetry, princes such as Mehmed the Conqueror (Avnî), Bayezid II (Adlî), Selim I (Selîmî), Suleiman (Muhibbî) and Ahmed I (Bahtî) wrote under pen names, and the first five of these have divans.

The Teachers of Amasya

Information on the scholarly training of princes in Amasya is more scattered than that on the lalas. Even so, a few names have entered the record. Prince Bayezid, sent to Amasya at the age of seven, studied with Muarrifzâde and took calligraphy lessons from the Amasya master Shaykh Hamdullah; the fact that he invited his teacher with his family to Istanbul when he left the sanjak to take the throne shows the durability of this bond. Among the teachers of Suleiman's son Prince Mustafa are counted Muhyiddin Mehmed Efendi and Sürûrî Mustafa Efendi. According to a note based on Hüseyin Hüsameddin's Amasya Tarihi, when Muhyiddin Mehmed Efendi died in 1540 Hayreddin Hızır Efendi became the prince's tutor. Sürûrî is remembered as a scholar who presented works to the prince. These examples suggest that a teacher at a sanjak center shaped, together with the prince, the scholarly circle of the city.

Some of the stories about teachers are legendary in character and their sources are uncertain. According to a tale often repeated in popular compilations, Prince Mehmed (the Conqueror) was a mischievous child who ignored the advice of his teacher Akşemseddin and said, "I am the sultan's son, I do as I please"; Murad II devised a plan, burst into a lesson, bowed his head and apologized when the teacher scolded him, and from that day the prince never lost his respect for his teachers. There is no evidence that the story rests on a document. Moreover, whether the Conqueror served as sanjak governor of Amasya at all is disputed among historians; Halil İnalcık and İsmail Hakkı Uzunçarşılı do not place him there, and according to known records the prince was sent to Manisa in 1443 with two lalas. The tale should therefore be read not as an event belonging to Amasya but as an example of how the respect expected toward a teacher was stressed.

Being a Lala in Amasya: The Atabeyzades

The concentration of the lalaship in the hands of one local family throughout the fifteenth century is the most distinctive feature of the institution in this city. The Atabeyzades are the descendants of Nâsırüddin Ahmed Bey, atabeg of the Seljuk Sultan Ghiyath al-Din Mas'ud II and of his son Gazi Çelebi Taceddin Altunbaş. Nâsırüddin Ahmed served as governor of Amasya for five years between 1322 and 1327, and had the Atabey Madrasa built, endowing it with his land and property. His sons likewise held respected positions among the people of Amasya and were among the prudent local families who accepted Ottoman rule. In the Ottoman period the family continued in two branches. The first and best known is Yörgüç Pasha, whose descendants are called Yörgüç Pashazades. The second is his brother Hızır Pasha, whose children were known as Hızır Pashazades. One study writes that in the fifteenth century being a prince's lala became a duty peculiar to the Atabeyzades. This judgment agrees with what is known of the early period, when lalas were chosen from local emir families.

Yörgüç Pasha's genealogy is disputed. Some studies link him to the line of Atabeg Nâsırüddin Ahmed and give his name as Yörgüç son of Muînüddin Abdullah, son of Şücâüddin İlyâs, son of Hayreddin Hızır, son of Ömer, son of Atabeg Nâsırüddin Ahmed. Another genealogy makes him a grandson of Gâzî Mihal Bey. But the inscription of the mosque he built in Amasya, his gravestone and his foundation deed all give his father's name as Abdullah, so these genealogies are doubtful. From the father's name it has also been suggested that he was of Slavic origin and that his name derives from Jorgiç, "son of Yorgi". The title atabeg that appears in the inscription most probably refers to Yörgüç Pasha's own lalaship; it cannot be thought to belong to his father.

Yörgüç Pasha was well educated. When Çelebi Sultan Mehmed sent his twelve-year-old son Prince Murad to Amasya in 1414 with the governorship of the province of Rum, he gave Yörgüç Pasha to him as his lala. In this province, which took in Amasya, Tokat, Sivas, Çorum and Osmancık, there lived a Mongol and Turkmen population left over from the Ilkhanid period. It was hard to hold a large nomadic population under central administration, and local Turkmen families were acting on their own. In this setting Prince Murad tried to secure calm with the help of his lala, a cautious and capable man. Yörgüç's real rise began when his prince took the throne. When Düzmece (the Pretender) Mustafa appeared in the first year of Murad II's reign and tried to take İznik with Byzantine support, the new sultan marched against him on Yörgüç Pasha's advice. One record states that after Mustafa settled in İznik a large part of Anatolia seemed to obey him, and that Murad decided to go to Bursa at his lala's insistence. The Pretender Mustafa had a lala of his own too: the people of Bursa sent Ahî Yâkub and Ahî Kadem to the lala of this prince, Şarabdâr İlyas Bey, to ask him to give up the siege. The example shows plainly that lalas held a decisive place in the fate of both rival princes.

After suppressing the revolt, Murad II appointed Yörgüç Pasha beylerbey of Rum (1423). In the first years of his governorship he brought under obedience the Kızılkocaoğulları bands, who robbed travelers around Amasya and Tokat and from time to time pressed up to the cities themselves. He secured the obedience of Haydar Bey, lord of Kocakayası, and of Hüsâmeddin Hasan Bey, lord of Canik; he caught Hasan Bey and sent him to the sultan at Bursa, and in this way added the Ordu and Çarşamba region, held by the Tâceddinoğulları, to Ottoman administration (1427). When the troops of the Karakoyunlu ruler İskender Mirza began plundering the area after wintering at Tokat, he reported to the sultan, and with the dispatch of the beylerbey of Anatolia, Timurtaşoğlu Umur Bey, the region was cleared. For restoring security in Central Anatolia Yörgüç Pasha was given the rank of vizier. Reports that coins were struck in his name and called Yörgüç Pasha akçes are doubtful. Yörgüç Pasha died in April-May 1442 and was buried in the tomb of the mosque he had built in Amasya. He had sons named Hızır, Yûnus and Mustafa and daughters named Sitti and Hundi Hatun; of his sons, Hızır Bey and Mustafa Bey fell as martyrs at the Battle of Varna. He built a mosque, a madrasa, a soup kitchen and two baths in Amasya, a bath and a caravanserai in Tokat, a mosque at Gümüş, a soup kitchen at Havza, a mosque at Kavak and a bath at İskilip. The mosques at Amasya, Gümüş, Kavak and Köprü and the bath at Tokat survive. The complex in Amasya dates from 1431 and shows how lasting a mark a lala who came with his prince could leave in a city.

The second branch of the Atabeyzades is Hızır Pasha. Atabeyzâde Hayreddin Hızır Pasha served as lala to Bayezid II during the years he spent in Amasya and built a madrasa dated 1466 and a bath in the city. In the entourage of the same Bayezid, experienced statesmen such as Çandarlı İbrahim and Yahya Pasha are also named as lalas; the TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi entry on Bayezid records this explicitly. Prince Bayezid had come to Amasya in 1454 at the age of seven and stayed twenty-seven years. In so long a term of office the lalas too would be expected to change; the sources give several names together. In the Amasya years of Suleiman's son Prince Mustafa, a change of lala is tied directly to a political event. According to one academic study, Grand Vizier Rüstem Pasha replaced the prince's lala in order to keep informed about him, but the new vizier Ahmed Pasha soon won the prince's trust and became his son-in-law, and because of this kinship drew Rüstem Pasha's suspicion. The lala thus stood beside the prince as an educator and just as much as the eye of the center.

Bayezid Pasha and the Interregnum Years

Another well-known statesman of Amasya is Bayezid Pasha, who stood by Çelebi Mehmed throughout the Interregnum. His father's name was Yahşi; because he was born in Amasya the sources call him Amasyalı, though an Albanian origin is also likely. He was brought up in the palace, held military posts under Bayezid the Thunderbolt, and during Çelebi Mehmed's governorship at Amasya belonged to the prince's close entourage. He stayed loyal to him in the Interregnum too. In popular accounts he is often called a lala; the TDV entry on Bayezid Pasha says that he was in the prince's close circle and does not record the title of lala explicitly. It is therefore more accurate to call him a trusted close associate of the prince than a lala.

When Çelebi Mehmed secured unity in the country in 1413, Bayezid Pasha was made grand vizier and beylerbey of Rumeli. In the same year he played a part in the killing of Mûsâ Çelebi. The following year he had Karamanoğlu Mehmed Bey sign a treaty whose terms were heavy for the latter. In the affair of Shaykh Bedreddin in 1420 he first defeated the rebels gathered around Börklüce Mustafa and Torlak Kemal, then marched against Shaykh Bedreddin, who had settled in the Deliorman. When Çelebi Mehmed died, he concealed it for forty days, as the sultan's will required, until his son Prince Murad arrived, because the brother Mustafa, held hostage by Byzantium, was to be released after the sultan's death under the agreement. When Murad II took the throne in 1421 Bayezid Pasha kept his position, but he was sent against the released Pretender Mustafa, who was challenging the legitimate ruler. At Sazlıdere near Edirne most of his soldiers went over to the other side; he surrendered and was killed the next day, and his grave is at Sazlıdere. The TDV entry counts him among the greatest of the Ottoman grand viziers and adds that the jealousy of Turkish-origin viziers such as Çandarlı İbrahim and Hacı İvaz Pasha may have played a part in his being sent to Rumeli on this mission.

Bayezid Pasha built a mosque, soup kitchen and madrasa on the bank of the Yeşilırmak in Amasya. According to the inscription over the mosque door, the building was completed in April 1414. A copy of his foundation deed dated 11 Zilhicce 820 (19 January 1418) exists, with supplements dated 1418 and 1420, and in these texts only the title Celâleddin appears. The mosque is considered one of the finest examples of the tabhâneli, or zâviyeli, mosques common in early Ottoman architecture. Evliya Çelebi, around 1646, describes it as "a garden like Iram". On a rock near Kuşköprüsü a summary of the foundation deed is carved in eight lines. The building is a tangible endowment left to his city by a statesman who had grown up around a prince in the days of the Interregnum's turmoil.

The Transformation of the Lalaship

When princes' departure for sanjaks effectively ended in the late sixteenth century, the lalaship changed its form as well. After Mehmed III princes were no longer sent to sanjaks, and the administrative side of the lalaship disappeared altogether. Keeping the princes under close watch in the palace gave the lalaship a new character in which only the educational function stood out. Three has odalıs chosen from among the harem agas were appointed to their households, and the oldest and most experienced of them was made responsible for the prince's education with the title başlala (chief lala). These lalas, chosen from among the eunuch agas, concerned themselves only with the prince's education in the palace. It is known that in the seventeenth century some of these officials became entangled in palace intrigue and gained great influence. Uzun Süleyman Ağa, the başlala of Mehmed IV, was involved in the killing of Kösem Sultan. Ahmed Ağa, lala of Süleyman II, Mahmud Bey, lala of Selim III, and Anber Ağa, Recebpaşazâde Mehmed Bey and Başlala Tayyar Efendi, lalas of Mahmud II, are also among those named in the records.

The order that replaced the sanjak system ran as follows. When Mehmed III took the throne he sent no prince to a sanjak; when Ahmed I spared his brother Mustafa in 1617 and left him alive, the rule that the oldest and soundest member of the dynasty should take the throne took hold. Princes who did not become sultan lived in a section next to the Harem, surrounded by box trees, under the supervision known as the kafes (cage). It is often said that this order produced rulers without administrative experience; one study counts that Ahmed I came to the throne at 13, Osman II at 11, Mustafa I at 9, Murad IV at 11 and Mehmed IV at 7, and notes that Osman III took the throne after fifty-one years in the cage. The same study adds that ascribing the seventeenth-century decline solely to this arrangement would run against historical reality, and that the causes were many.

In the nineteenth century the education of princes was reorganized. The Şehzadegân School opened at Yıldız Palace under Abdülhamid II was open to the children of the nobility and of state dignitaries as well as to those of the dynasty. The lessons taken and the progress shown by each prince were reported separately to the sultan, and report cards were kept; one prince's card shows subjects such as Arabic grammar, the principles of composition, arithmetic, geometry, Islamic history, geography and French. The regulation issued in 1913 set out the primary, preparatory and higher education of the princes and provided for the thorough teaching of Turkish, Arabic and a foreign language, followed by study at the military and naval academies. Neither the state nor the dynasty lasted long enough to carry out this program. The word lala meanwhile continued to live among the people in the sense of tutor and nurse.

What It Means for Amasya

The record of the lalaship in Amasya allows every side of the institution to be seen in a single city. One sees a local family, the Atabeyzades, first holding the lalaship almost as an inheritance, and then slave-origin officials being brought to the post. The complexes, madrasas and baths that men such as Yörgüç Pasha and Hızır Pasha left to the city show that a lala was not only a tutor but also had a share in the building of the city where he served. In the case of Bayezid Pasha one sees how decisive a statesman who rose around a prince could be in the struggle for the throne. The teachers stay quieter than the lalas; apart from a few records, such as the bond between Shaykh Hamdullah and Bayezid or between Sürûrî and Mustafa, their names are little known. When the princely sanjaks closed, the administrative side of the lalaship ended too, but the traces of the statesmen and scholars raised in the sanjak have reached the present in Amasya's buildings and documents.

Chronology

1322-1327: Atabeg Nâsırüddin Ahmed's governorship of Amasya; construction of the Atabey Madrasa.

1413: Bayezid Pasha is made grand vizier and beylerbey of Rumeli.

1414: Prince Murad is sent to Amasya at the age of twelve with his lala Yörgüç Pasha; the Bayezid Pasha Mosque is built (April).

1421: Bayezid Pasha is killed at Sazlıdere.

1423: Yörgüç Pasha is appointed beylerbey of Rum.

1431: The Yörgüç Pasha Complex is built.

1442: Death of Yörgüç Pasha (April-May).

1454: Prince Bayezid is sent to Amasya at the age of seven.

1466: The madrasa of Atabeyzâde Hayreddin Hızır Pasha in Amasya.

1499: The record of the teacher of the princes on the books to be read to Bayezid II's sons.

1542: The register of Prince Mehmed's household of 552 people.

1617: Mustafa I takes the throne at the death of Ahmed I, and seniority succession is established.

1913: The regulation governing the education of princes.

Sources

Academic studies

  • Gözde Birsel Varol - Selim Özcan, "Atabeyzadelerin Amasya'nın Siyasi ve Sosyal Tarihindeki Yeri ve Önemi", MANAS Sosyal Araştırmalar Dergisi, 2019.
  • Yağmur İlhan, "Osmanlı'da Şehzade Eğitimi", Hüma Dergisi, 2024.

Other sources

  • Tuncer Baykara, "Lala", TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, vol. 27, Ankara 2003, pp. 70-71. islamansiklopedisi.org.tr
  • Aydın Taneri, "Bayezid Paşa", TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, vol. 5, Istanbul 1992, pp. 242-243. islamansiklopedisi.org.tr
  • "Bayezid Paşa Camii", TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, vol. 5, Istanbul 1992, pp. 243-244. islamansiklopedisi.org.tr
  • "Yörgüç Paşa", TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, vol. 43, Istanbul 2013, pp. 566-567.
  • "Şehzade", TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi.
  • "II. Bayezid", TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi.
  • İlhami Yurdakul, "Şehzade Eğitimi", Türk Maarif Ansiklopedisi, 2022. turkmaarifansiklopedisi.org.tr
  • Uğur Kurtaran, "Osmanlı'da Şehzadelik Kurumu: Şehzadeler Nasıl Yetişirdi?", TARSAM, 2017.
  • "Şehzade Mustafa'nın Öldürülmesi", Bilimname XVIII, 2010/1, pp. 205-227.

Online sources