Tokatlıdır. Tokatlı Kemankeş Mahmûd Paşa’nın akrabasındandır. 1092 [172] senesi şevvâlinin on üçüncü günü Amasya mutasarrıfı olup tarafından Yeğen Hasan Ağa Amasya mütesellimi oldu.
Zilka’de evâilinde Kal’a-i Bâlâ Dizdârı Çavuşlu Mehmed Ağa vefât eylediğinden yerine kale kethüdâsı Ahmed Ağa dizdâr ve Receboğlu Mehmed Ağa da kale kethüdâsı oldu.
1092 senesi muharreminde sipâhiler ağası Amasyalı Gazzâzoğlu Hasan Ağa Saray-ı Hümâyûn kapıcılar kethüdâsı oldu. Saferde Amasya Subaşısı Cündî Ali Bey, bir Yahudî hâneye girip işret ve sefâhat etdikten sonra rufekasıyla ba’zı hâneleri yağmaya cür’et etmişdi.
Ali Bey ve rufekası derhal tutulup tevkîf edilerek kadı huzurunda bilmuhâkeme cürümleri sâbit olduğundan her birine hudûd-ı şer‘iyye ikâme edildikten sonra aldıkları sahiplerine redd ü iâde ve kendileri tart u iclâ edildi.
Bir aydan beri Çengelli mevkiinde eşkıyâ türeyip rebîülevvelde büyükçe bir kervanı bastıkları ve emvâli yağma etdikleri duyulmuşdu. Bâ-fermân-ı âlî kapıcılardan Amasyalı Kuloğlu Abbas Ağa mübâşir gelip eşkıyâyı tâkip ve emvâl-i mağsûbeyi tahlîse Mirlivâ Mustafa Bey’in me’mûr olduğunu tebliğ etdi.
Mustafa Bey, Amasya a‘yânından Murâd Beyzâde el-Hâc Ahmed Ağa, Ramazânzâde el-Hâc Ahmed Ağa, Bayram Beyzâde Osmân Ağa, Abdî Beyzâde el-Hâc Abdî ağaları ve Alaybeyi Veliyyüddîn Bey’i yanına alıp her biri miktar-ı kâfî kuvvetlerle Amasya’ya on saat mesafe-i cenûbiyede olan Çengelli’ye gitdi. [173]
Sivas Beylerbeyi Merzifonî Halil Paşa da kapısı halkıyla gelip günlerce eşkıyâ tâkip ve Turhal civarında şiddetli muhârebeden sonra tenkîl edildi. Emvâl-i mağsûbe taharri edilerek civar köylerde bulunup sahiplerine verildi.
Ancak Mustafa Bey, eşkıyânın çokluğundan ürküp dâima alarga durmuş, eşkıyânın ablukası esnasında korkaklık göstermiş olduğundan derhal azl u tekâüde sevk edilip⁶⁷² Amasya sancağı Merzifon Voyvodası Ahmed Bey’e tevcîh edildi.
In Modern English
He was from Tokat. He was a relative of Kemankeş Mahmûd Pasha of Tokat. On the thirteenth day of Shawwal 1092 [1681] he became governor of Amasya; in his name Yeğen Hasan Ağa became mütesellim of Amasya, that is, the person who administered the sanjak as deputy.
At the beginning of Dhu al-Qa'da, when Çavuşlu Mehmed Ağa, warden (dizdar) of the Upper Castle (Kal'a-i Bâlâ), died, the castle kethüda Ahmed Ağa became warden in his place, and Receboğlu Mehmed Ağa became castle kethüda.
In Muharram 1092 Gazzâzoğlu Hasan Ağa of Amasya, ağa of the sipahis, became kethüda of the gatekeepers of the imperial palace. In Safar the Subaşı of Amasya, Cündî Ali Bey, after entering a Jewish house and drinking and making merry, together with his companions had attempted to plunder some houses.
Ali Bey and his companions were at once seized and arrested. They were tried before the kadı and, their crimes being established, the had punishments prescribed by the shari'a were applied to each of them. The goods they had taken were returned to their owners, and they themselves were driven out of the city and exiled.
It had been heard that for a month bandits had arisen at the place called Çengelli and that in Rabi' al-Awwal they had raided a rather large caravan and plundered its goods. By the sultan's decree Kuloğlu Abbas Ağa of Amasya, one of the palace gatekeepers, came as bailiff (mübaşir); he announced that Mirlivâ Mustafa Bey had been charged with pursuing the bandits and recovering the plundered goods.
Mustafa Bey took with him, from among the notables of Amasya, Murâd Beyzâde Hacı Ahmed Ağa, Ramazânzâde Hacı Ahmed Ağa, Bayram Beyzâde Osmân Ağa, Abdî Beyzâde Hacı Abdî Ağa, and the Alaybeyi Veliyyüddîn Bey. Each with sufficient force, they went to Çengelli, ten hours south of Amasya.
The Beylerbeyi of Sivas, Merzifonlu Halil Pasha, also came with his household and pursued the bandits for days. After a fierce fight near Turhal the bandits were crushed. The plundered goods were searched for, found in the neighboring villages, and given to their owners.
But Mustafa Bey, alarmed by the number of the bandits, had always kept at a distance and had shown cowardice while the bandits were being surrounded. For this reason he was at once dismissed and retired, and the sanjak of Amasya was given to Ahmed Bey, Voivode of Merzifon.
Notes and Research
Old Words in the Text
- mutasarrıf: the person to whom the administration of a sanjak was given
- mütesellim: the deputy who administered the sanjak in the sanjak governor's absence
- Kal'a-i Bâlâ: the Upper Castle; dizdar: castle commander
- subaşı: the official responsible for public order in a city
- işret ve sefâhat: drinking and making merry, pleasure and revelry
- rufekâ: companions
- tevkîf: arrest; bi'l-muhâkeme: by trial
- hudûd-ı şer'iyye ikâmesi: carrying out the had punishments fixed in the shari'a
- redd ü iâde: returning
- tard u iclâ: driving out and exiling
- bâ-fermân-ı âlî: by the sultan's decree
- mübaşir: the official sent from the center to carry out an order
- emvâl-i mağsûbe: plundered goods; tahlîs: recovery
- mesâfe-i cenûbiyye: distance to the south
- tenkîl: crushing, subduing
- taharri: searching
- alarga durmak: to keep at a distance, to wait in the open
- azl u tekâüd: being dismissed and retired
- tevcîh: the granting of a post to someone
A Retired Sanjak Governor's Register Entry
At the end of this entry Hüsameddin gives a short but valuable archival note. In the 1092 retirees' register (mütekâidîn defteri) of Tokat, that is, the register in which the allowances assigned to retirees were written, he says he saw with his own eyes the entry "Mustafa Bey mirlivâ-i Amasya sâbıkan mütekâ'id yevmî 60." The record shows that the former sanjak governor of Amasya, Mustafa Bey, was retired and assigned a daily allowance of sixty. That a sanjak governor dismissed on a charge of cowardice was not punished but retired also gives an idea of the administrative outlook of the period. Since the record was kept in Tokat, Mustafa Bey must have withdrawn in retirement to his home town of Tokat; this last point is a guess drawn from the place of the register.
Kemankeş Mahmûd Pasha
About Kemankeş Mahmûd Pasha, mentioned as a relative of Mustafa Bey, there is a short biography in Mehmed Süreyyâ's Sicill-i Osmânî. According to it he was originally from Tokat, worked in Istanbul as a bezirgân, that is, a merchant, then entered the service of a statesman, rose to the ağalık of the sipahis and the governorship of Diyarbekir, became deputy of Istanbul (İstanbul kaymakamı) with the rank of vizier, and later governor of Özi and warden of Kamaniçe. It is recorded that during a war about a hundred of his soldiers froze from the cold, that he himself died of freezing while returning to the fortress, and that at his death he was about forty-five years old. The dates in this summary do not agree exactly; Erkan Atak, who studied the Mahmut Pasha Mosque in Tokat, relying on the same source, writes that Mahmûd Pasha was last governor of Özi in 1684 and then warden of Kamaniçe.
Atak's study draws attention to another point concerning Tokat. The Mahmut Pasha Mosque in the city has no inscription, and its date of construction does not appear in the waqf records. The researcher, noting that the sources speak of two Mahmud Pashas who came to Tokat, one a beylerbeyi of Aleppo killed in 1616 and the other Kemankeş Mahmûd Pasha, thinks, from the resemblance of the painted decoration on the mosque's ceiling to examples of the last quarter of the seventeenth century, that the founder of the building was most probably Kemankeş Mahmûd Pasha. Thus Hüsameddin's record of kinship also throws indirect light on the story of a building in Tokat.
Bandits on the Caravan Road
The second half of the entry tells of the pursuit of a band of bandits raiding caravans on the roads south of Amasya. This event is not alone. A few pages earlier in the same volume Hüsameddin writes that in Dhu al-Hijja 1087 bandits had arisen in the provinces of Sivas, Anatolia, Karaman, and Adana and that the governor of Amasya and Kayseri was appointed inspector of Anatolia. In the same place it is also recorded that Kuloğlu Abbas Ağa of Amasya, one of the grand vizier's ağas, came as mütesellim of Amasya and was called "Zor Abbas Ağa." The bailiff who brought the decree for the pursuit of bandits in 1092 is he.
Murâd Beyzâde Hacı Ahmed Ağa, among the notables who took part in the pursuit, appears in Hüsameddin's records as trustee of the Sultan Bayezid waqfs and the person charged with completing the mosque's repair. Thus the pursuit force looks less like a military unit than a company formed by the leading families of the city with their own men. The force that really crushed the bandits was the household of the Beylerbeyi of Sivas.
The present name and location of Çengelli, where the event took place, could not be determined in the sources searched. Hüsameddin places it ten hours south of Amasya; that the fight ended around Turhal also confirms that the pursuit moved in this direction. No information was found in other sources about the Beylerbeyi of Sivas Merzifonlu Halil Pasha either.
The Order of Dates in the Text
There is a snag in the chronology of the entry. Mustafa Bey takes office in Shawwal 1092, the events of Dhu al-Qa'da are told, and then the text continues "in Muharram of the year 1092." Since Muharram is the first month of the year, the Muharram that comes after Shawwal and Dhu al-Qa'da can only be 1093 [1682]. The subaşı affair, the pursuit of bandits, and Mustafa Bey's dismissal then fall in the first months of 1093. The statement in the next entry that Ahmed Bey took office "in Rabi' al-Thani 1092" should for the same reason be understood as 1093. This correction is a conclusion drawn from the order of events in the text.
Bibliography
Primary sources
- Abdîzâde Hüseyin Hüsâmeddîn Yasar, Amasya Tarihi, Amasya Belediyesi Kültür Yayınları, 2022, vol. 4, pp. 598–599. amasya.bel.tr
- Abdîzâde Hüseyin Hüsâmeddîn Yasar, Amasya Tarihi, vol. 4, events of 1087-1088 (Municipality e-book, page 597). https://amasya.bel.tr/uploads/e-kitap/kitap/1-4/files/basic-html/page597.html
- "Kemankeş Mahmut Paşa", Biyografya (from Mehmed Süreyyâ, Sicill-i Osmânî, IV, 1996). https://www.biyografya.com/biyografi/6983
Academic studies