Şehzade Bayezid (Prince Bayezid) was the son of Süleyman the Magnificent and Hürrem Sultan, and he is remembered as the last princely sanjak governor of Amasya. He entered the city on 21 December 1558, after a reluctant journey of fifty-five days; before a year and a half had passed, on 7 July 1559, he left with his sons and never returned. No other Ottoman prince served in Amasya after him. His story is therefore as much a dynastic tragedy as an account of how the city's princely age, which had lasted nearly two centuries, came to an end.

Birth and Family

Bayezid was born in Istanbul in 1526. The Encyclopaedia of Islam published by the Turkish Religious Foundation (TDV) and Mustafa Çiçekler's article give this year, the Dictionary of Turkish Literary Names says 1526-27, and some sources write 1525 or 1527; it is therefore safer to read the date as "between 1525 and 1527." His mother was Hürrem Sultan and his father Süleyman the Magnificent. His siblings included Mehmed, Selim, Abdullah, Cihangir and Mihrimah Sultan; according to the dictionary entry, Bayezid had seven brothers.

The histories offer little about his childhood and education. What is known is that princes at the Ottoman court received a good schooling from an early age, one that included poetry, calligraphy and music; Bayezid's literary personality, which emerged in later years, was a product of that education. According to the dictionary entry, Lala Mustafa Pasha, who for a time served as his tutor-guardian (lala), would later be among those who most wanted Selim to take the throne.

The Circumcision Festival and the First Campaigns

Bayezid was circumcised on 11 November 1539 together with his brother Cihangir. The festival, held in the Hippodrome, lasted fifteen days; some sources note that it fell close to the wedding of Mihrimah Sultan to Rüstem Pasha and that representatives of foreign states attended. The young prince took part in the Hungarian campaign of 1541 and in 1546 was sent to Konya as governor of the sanjak of Karaman. In 1548 he welcomed his father, who was marching on Iran, at Akşehir; while the army wintered in Aleppo, the sultan summoned him there.

The dates of his sanjak appointments are not the same in all sources. Turkish sources place the Karaman post in 1546, while English-language sources give Karaman as 1544-1555 and Kütahya as 1555-1558. Çiçekler, for his part, writes that after the death of Hürrem Sultan's eldest son Prince Mehmed in 1543, Manisa went to Selim and Bayezid was brought to the sanjak of Kütahya, close to Istanbul. Even if the exact sequence remains unclear, it is evident that Hürrem Sultan's two sons, Selim and Bayezid, were kept in sanjaks near their father.

The Death of Prince Mustafa

The turning point came in 1553. As Süleyman set out on the Nakhchivan campaign, he sent Bayezid to Edirne to guard the throne. On the road, at Konya Ereğlisi, his eldest son Prince Mustafa, the governor of Amasya, was put to death on his father's orders (6 October 1553). Bayezid was slow to stop Düzme Mustafa ("False Mustafa"), who rose in the dead prince's name; this delay gave rise to the rumor that he himself had arranged the affair, and it shook his father's trust. Through the intercession of Hürrem Sultan, Süleyman forgave his son and sent him to Kütahya as governor. A letter in which Bayezid thanked his father with the words "You have brought your servant to his desire" bears the mark of that pardon.

From then on Bayezid began to regard himself as the natural heir to the throne. Of the eight princes, only Bayezid and Selim were left; those around them knew, however, that the elder Selim held the stronger claim to the throne under the custom of seniority (ekberiyet). The sources portray Bayezid as gentle by nature, peaceable and devoted to learning, and Selim as inclined to pleasure. It is hard to separate how much of this contrast comes from political narrative and how much from real temperament. According to the TDV entry, the rivalry was not only the result of Bayezid's ambition and the intrigues of those around him; the discontent with Süleyman's rule that spread after Mustafa's death, and the fear that the fratricide provision of Mehmed the Conqueror's law code would be applied, also played a part.

A Circle of Poetry and Learning at Kütahya

The Kütahya years are the period that tells us most about Bayezid's literary side. During this time a circle of scholars and poets, called in the sources an "assembly of learning" (irfan âlemi), gathered around his palace. The poets said to have been at his side include Gubârî Abdurrahman Çelebi, İşretî, Caferzâde Muhlisî, Fıraki, Rahimî Bey and Emre; he also had ties with Celâlzâde Salih Çelebi and is known to have corresponded with Fuzûlî. It is recorded that, in his name, Avfî's Cevâmiu'l-hikâyât was translated into Turkish by Celâlzâde Salih and the Muzaffername by his chief treasurer Sinan Bey.

He was a generous man. He tried to keep those around him materially content and protected scholars and artists; it is said that when his allowance fell short, his mother Hürrem Sultan helped him. The German traveler Dernschwam, who saw him in Edirne in 1555, describes him as short, pale, sallow, thin and lightly mustached; other travelers describe a prince who was melancholic, yet fond of reading and of doing good, intelligent, modest, brave and courageous. It is also reported that he was nicknamed "softa" (religious student) because of his devotion to learning. What the sources share is that he had won the affection of the people and the army.

The Death of Hürrem Sultan and the Transfer to Amasya

His mother Hürrem Sultan died on 15 April 1558. With her death Bayezid lost his strongest protector, and he began to gather supporters. Süleyman chose to separate his sons; adding 300,000 akçe to the revenues of each, he transferred Selim to Konya and Bayezid to Amasya on 6 September 1558. Selim obeyed the order at once. Bayezid, however, took the transfer as an insult and tried to avoid leaving Kütahya on various pretexts.

The details of this resistance can be followed through the letters he wrote to his father. Bayezid asked that his allowance be raised from 300,000 akçe to one million, that his sons be given sanjaks, at one point that Amasya be granted to him with the rank of beylerbey, that the sanjak of Çankırı be given to his son Osman, and that 30,000 gold pieces be sent. Süleyman put his son off with sweet words, promising to grant everything except the beylerbeylik. According to an appeal published and cited by Selim Özcan, Bayezid, suspecting that he was being removed from a sanjak near Istanbul, asked for the sanjak of Engürü (Ankara). He called the appointment a move "from heaven to hell," and left Kütahya only on 28 October, at his father's insistence. At Ankara he was well received by Cenabi Ahmed Pasha, the beylerbey of Anatolia; he wished to spend the winter there, but in the end he went on.

Months in Amasya

Bayezid reached Amasya on 21 December 1558. The princes lodged in the Beyler Palace in the inner citadel, known among the people as Saraydüzü. According to Selim Özcan, this palace was used as a palace for about 350 years in the Ottoman period, and Amasya hosted princes for about 182 years. Bayezid was the last prince of that tradition. The sources available to us do not say clearly in which building he stayed, who his lala was, or what work he had built in Amasya; no document has been found showing that he commissioned any structure. Bayezid's trace in Amasya is to be sought less in stone than in correspondence and events.

When he did not find on arrival what he had hoped for, the tone of his letters hardened. Süleyman had made the fulfillment of his promises conditional on Bayezid first entering Amasya and settling in its palace; when he entered the city, his requests were still not met. Bayezid wrote to his father, "Does a padishah tell lies?"; he declared that he would not remain in the sanjak with the words "I will not stay in Amasya, and the sin will not be mine afterwards," and said that if he were not transferred to Ankara or Kütahya in the spring, "I know where I shall go." If Kütahya was impossible, he added, he could accept the governor-generalship of Diyarbakır, Erzurum, Baghdad or Aleppo. He also wrote to the grand vizier Rüstem Pasha asking for his mediation; in one letter he said he was ready to face death, writing that "rather than die of consumption in such comfort, it is better to go with the sultan's wrath." Some of these sentences were pleading, some bargaining, and some an open threat. In the same appeal he spoke of the city's state with the words "my condition in this Amasya is wretched."

The Fatwa and the Preparations

Bayezid stepped up the gathering of men around him. When Süleyman could not disperse his troops, known as "yevmlü," he told Selim to raise troops as well, and sent him several beylerbeys and the vizier Sokollu Mehmed Pasha as help. It is said that Selim's lala Mustafa Pasha corresponded secretly with Bayezid, appearing to take his side, and passed the letters he received to Süleyman. The view that Bayezid fell prey to the schemes of this circle is widespread, but it should be read as an interpretation.

Süleyman also settled the religious side of a campaign against his son. He asked the Şeyhülislam Ebussuud Efendi whether, when the son of a just sultan had abandoned obedience, seized fortresses, taken property from the people by force and gathered troops, and no other remedy remained, fighting him was lawful under the sharia. Ebussuud replied that it was lawful, and that it was obligatory for those with the strength to put down sedition by the sword, and for those without it to do so by word and prayer. The military judges (kazasker) of Anatolia and Rumelia and some professors of the madrasas answered in the same sense. In these fatwas Bayezid was described as a "bâgî," a rebel who had abandoned obedience to the sultan, and the killing of him and his followers was held to be obligatory.

The Battle of Konya

Bayezid saw no way out except force. The figures in the sources differ: according to one account he set out from Amasya on 14 April 1559 with fifteen thousand men and came to Ankara by way of Çorum, while the TDV entry and Çiçekler give his force as 30,000. From Ankara he wrote his father a soft letter saying that he had come to rest for about a month and meant no harm. Süleyman, however, on hearing that Bayezid had reached Ankara, sent Sokollu Mehmed Pasha and the Rumelian beylerbey Mustafa Pasha to Selim on 8 May 1559 with two thousand sekban troops, and ordered the beylerbeys of Anatolia to assemble at Konya. Selim was instructed to fight a defensive battle and not to leave Konya.

When Bayezid learned for certain at Ankara that he had been declared a rebel, he marched on Konya and on 29 May 1559 came within a day's march of the city. The battle began on 30 May and lasted two days. On Selim's side were the regular forces of the beylerbeys and superior weapons; on Bayezid's side was an army that was largely untrained and poorly equipped. On the advice of Lala Mustafa Pasha, Selim took the following order: on the right wing Cenabi Ahmed Pasha, beylerbey of Anatolia; on the left wing Ferhad, beylerbey of Karaman, Ali, beylerbey of Maraş, and Piri Mehmed Pasha, son of Ramazan and ruler of Adana; in the center Selim with Lala Pasha. Bayezid charged Selim's left wing in the first assault; the Karaman troops began to flee, but the disaster was averted by measures taken in time. The next day he attacked the same wing again, and when Lala Mustafa Pasha reached it, he turned this time against the right wing. Lala Mustafa Pasha reached the right wing too, and by his courage decided the course of the battle. Having suffered heavy losses, Bayezid saw that the battle was lost and left the field with the force he could gather.

The defeated prince returned to Amasya with his son Orhan. Selim carried news of the victory to his father; on 5 June 1559 Süleyman crossed to Üsküdar with Rüstem Pasha and entered his imperial tent. Once at Amasya, Bayezid sent the mufti Muhyiddin Cürcânî to his father to beg forgiveness. Süleyman did not forgive him and ordered his immediate capture. Selim was given broader powers than any prince before him: he could make appointments from a single akçe of revenue up to a beylerbeylik, even up to the vizierate. To prevent his son from fleeing not only to Iran but also to distant places such as Arabia or Crimea, Süleyman sent orders to the beylerbeys of Erzurum, Van, Diyarbakır, Basra and Damascus, to the judges along the coast from Sinop to Trabzon, and to the khan of Crimea, directing that the roads be held.

Leaving Amasya and Fleeing to Iran

Bayezid understood that if he stayed in Amasya he would be crushed by the large forces approaching. On the morning of 7 July 1559, the first day of the Ramadan festival, he left the city with his sons Orhan, Osman, Mahmud and Abdullah. It is said that the people saw him off in tears, and that his newborn younger son, his four daughters and his wife remained in Amasya. According to the letter Süleyman wrote to Shah Tahmasb, he had a force of ten thousand men with him; that so many gathered around him after the defeat is explained by how much he was loved. Indeed, Ali Pasha, the beylerbey of Rum who was charged with capturing him, did not dare to face him.

Bayezid moved east. Ayas Pasha, the beylerbey of Erzurum, saw that he could not deal with him alone, received him kindly at Hasankale, gave horseshoes and nails for his animals, and even tried to intercede for his pardon; this conduct would later cost him his life. At the insistence of the other beylerbeys the pursuit continued. When the pursuing forces caught up at Karadere on the Aras, Bayezid withdrew toward Kağızman. At Sa'd Çukuru he defeated the vanguard of the sanjak governors in an hour-long battle; according to Peçevî, these troops had fought unwillingly. The victory did not open the way for Bayezid: behind them were the beylerbeys, behind the beylerbeys Sokollu, behind Sokollu Selim, and furthest back a father who would not soften. In mid-August 1559 he wrote to Şah Kulu Sultan, the governor of Revan, declared his wish for refuge, and crossed the frontier. The prince's departure from Amasya marked the end of the princely governorship in the city.

At Qazvin

When Shah Tahmasb learned that Bayezid had come, he was in the region of Astarabad. It is said that he received the news with delight, and thought that he now held a trump card with which to repay the refuge that the Iranian prince Elqas Mirza had found with the Ottomans in 1547. He invited Bayezid to Qazvin. The prince, received at Tabriz, arrived at Qazvin on 23 October 1559 (21 Muharram 967) and was welcomed at the Sa'dabad Square with a magnificent ceremony; the TDV entry also records that dishes full of jewels were scattered over his head. According to one record, the Shah and the prince embraced on horseback like father and son. Kuduz Ferhad, who was with Bayezid, saw that the Iranians were unprepared and proposed attacking at once and taking the country; Bayezid rejected the proposal as an adventure with an uncertain end.

On the Ottoman side, however, the situation had changed: the question of the princes had ceased to be an internal matter and had become a problem between two states. Süleyman, seeing that Bayezid was fleeing east, had written to the Shah, asking that he be given no refuge, that if he crossed into Iran he be seized and handed over to Selim, and warning that otherwise the forces pursuing the prince would be obliged to enter Iran. Sinan Bey and Turak Ağa brought the letters of the sultan and of Selim to Qazvin; Sokollu and Lala Mustafa Pasha wrote in the same sense. Tahmasb had the letters read to Bayezid; Bayezid said that if he was handed over without a pardon he would be killed, and asked the Shah to intercede. In a letter to Süleyman, the Shah in turn said that Bayezid had rebelled through ignorance and, defeated, had taken refuge with him because he had no other way out, and asked that he be forgiven.

For a time Süleyman seemed to soften. In his reply he said that if Ferhad, Dursun, Aksak Seyfeddin and the son of Abdülgani, who had incited Bayezid to rebel, were put to death, if the tribal troops were left in Iran, and if the prince himself came to the frontier with his relatives and children and was handed over to an Ottoman beylerbey, he would be taken to his former sanjak of Amasya and his faults overlooked. But the attitude of Selim and of Tahmasb closed this road; Selim thought it more suitable that his brother be removed.

In the meantime, relations at Qazvin quickly deteriorated. Tahmasb wanted to disperse Bayezid's troops on various pretexts, and even asked him for forces to put down a rebellion. When Arap Mehmed, the commander of the troops Bayezid had supplied, was bought by the Iranians, the prince had him killed; this violence did not dispel the Shah's suspicion and, moreover, led Aksak Seyfeddin and a few others to flee to the Shah. Tahmasb's own memoir says that Bayezid wished to kill him with poisoned halva, planned with Russian and Circassian forces to plunder the Ottoman lands, and asked him for a loan of 1,500 tümen of gold. This account comes from Tahmasb himself and has not been confirmed by an independent source; it should be read as a one-sided claim. According to another record reported by Kadı Ahmed, when the people learned of the matter they marched to Bayezid's door and threw stones, and the next day the prince was brought from his house to the palace with his children and placed under guard.

According to the accounts, Bayezid was so hard pressed that he considered killing his sons with his own hands rather than let them fall into Iranian hands; Tahmasb halted the attack and apologized, and even had some of the attackers executed. The next day he invited the prince to a banquet. As Bayezid entered the palace he was seized, his sons were imprisoned in separate places, and his treasury and goods were confiscated. The TDV entry places the imprisonment on 16 April 1560, another record on 12 February 1560. Some of his remaining troops were executed and some dispersed. A captivity that would last two and a half years began in this way.

The Bargaining, the Handover and the Death

A long bargaining followed between Süleyman, Selim and Tahmasb over Bayezid's surrender. The Shah asked for more the longer he delayed. In the end Süleyman agreed to pay Tahmasb 1,200,000 gold pieces (900,000 in the sultan's name and 300,000 in Selim's) and to leave the fortress of Kars to Iran; a report in Peçevî says that the Shah even asked for Baghdad. Selim also gave a written pledge that when he became sultan he would remain a friend of Iran. It has been argued that these concessions were heavier than what Bayezid II had offered for Cem.

When agreement was reached, Hüsrev Pasha, the beylerbey of Van, Sinan Ağa, Selim's chief of couriers Ali Ağa and the müteferrika Firuz Bey were sent to Qazvin; the fourth vizier Pertev Pasha, carrying 500,000 florins and gifts, had also entered Iranian territory. The envoys reached Qazvin on 16 July 1562. On Thursday, 23 July 1562, Shah Tahmasb handed Bayezid over to the Ottoman delegation, his beard shaved off, wearing an old garment and a torn turban. The prince was strangled on the spot by a cord placed around his neck by Ali Ağa. Busbecq records that, as the cord was thrown, he asked to see his sons, and that this last wish was not granted. His four sons were put to death in the same way; his fifth son, three years old and left with his mother in Bursa, was also killed afterward. It is said that the delegation returning with the bodies was met with hatred even by the Iranian people and stoned.

The bodies were brought to Sivas and buried outside the city walls. It was customary to bury members of the dynasty in Istanbul or Bursa; for these five princes the custom was not observed. The structure built over the grave, later known as the Melik-i Acem Tomb, has not survived and is today a mound of earth. A caution is needed on the date of the execution: some sources give it as 1561. The TDV entry, Çiçekler and the Dictionary of Turkish Literary Names agree on 23 July 1562, and the date given by the academic sources is adopted here.

Şâhî and His Poems

In his poems Bayezid used the pen name "Şâhî." Interpreting the name as a sign of his thirst for the throne is old: the biographers Beyânî and Ahdî believed that the prince rebelled against his father because of this pen name. This is an interpretation, not a documented fact. The only known copy of his Divan is in the Ali Emîrî Collection of the Millet Library in Istanbul. The Divan is not arranged in order; its Turkish part consists of 1,443 couplets (168 ghazals, 22 murabba, 3 mesnevi, 1 tahmis, 1 nazm and 19 müfred), its Persian part of 101 couplets, and 12 different meters are used in all. The Divan was published by Filiz Kılıç; a separate Persian divançe in the Millet Library was edited by Mustafa Çiçekler. That one of his Persian ghazals is a nazire (imitation) of a ghazal by Hafez shows that he had read the Divan of Hafez and was at home in Persian.

Şâhî's style is plain. He uses few proverbs and many idioms; his repetition of the same words in succession serves both to create harmony and to strengthen meaning. According to Filiz Kılıç, he was not a powerful poet, but a sincere warmth stands out in his poems. Gelibolulu Âlî says that in the hasb-i hâl genre (the poem of one's own condition) he surpassed most poets; Ahdî and Beyânî hold the same view. Because it was not welcomed in Divan poetry for a poet to voice his own psychological distress, few works have been produced in this genre; Bayezid's life, however, left him little else to say. Poetry was also a way of expressing feelings that could not be said directly to the sultan.

His best-known poem is the verse plea for pardon with the refrain "baba" ("father") that he sent from Iran to Süleyman: "Ey ser-â-ser âleme sultânum Süleymânum baba / Tende cânum cânumın içinde cânânum baba / Bâyezîdine kıyar mısın benüm cânum baba / Bî-günâhem Hak bilür devletlü sultânum baba." Judging by his saying that the mountains had become his resting place and that he had fallen far from his property and possessions, the poem must have been written after his departure from Amasya following the defeat at Konya. It is reported that Süleyman replied with a nazire in the same meter and rhyme; its first line is "Ey demâdem mazhar-ı tuğyân u ısyânum oğul" and its refrain "Bî-günâhum dime bârî tevbe kıl cânum oğul." In another poem, quoted in Çiçekler's article, the prince says "Redd itdilerse ger bizi Osmân erenleri / Itdi kabûl-i dil Acemistân erenleri," that is, that although the Ottomans had rejected him, the Persians had accepted him, and he begs forgiveness with the line "Afv eyle sen de bendeni ey pâdişâh afv."

The first couplet of a ghazal thought to belong to the years of captivity runs: "N'ideyin zâyi' idüp tûl-i emelle nefesi / Kalmadı zerre kadar dilde bu dünyâ hevesi." According to Çiçekler, four themes stand out in the Persian poems: the desire for the throne, love, complaint against the times, and a plea for the forgiveness of sins. Some couplets in the Divan say that the world is transient and that crown, throne and sultanate are not to be trusted; this is striking for a prince who spent his life in a struggle for the throne.

His Place in the History of Amasya

The princely governorship in Amasya had begun in 1386 with Yıldırım Bayezid (Bayezid I), son of Murad I; it ended with Prince Bayezid's departure from the sanjak. After the killing of Prince Mustafa in 1553, Amasya had left its position as an independent province and become again a sanjak attached to the province of Rum; after 1559 no prince served in the city. By Özcan's reckoning, the prince who held the Amasya governorship longest was Ahmed, son of Bayezid II, with thirty years. Süleyman's sons Mustafa and Bayezid are the last two links of this long tradition; both lost their lives in the struggle for the throne.

The Bayezid affair also left lasting traces on Ottoman administration. According to the TDV entry, besides a bloody civil war, it led to administrative changes such as the spread of Janissaries into Anatolia as guards and the granting of sanjaks only to the eldest of the princes. The system that trained princes in the provinces and gave them experience in government thus moved toward its end.

Chronology

1526: Born in Istanbul (some sources give 1525 or 1527).

11 November 1539: Circumcised together with Cihangir.

1541: Took part in the Hungarian campaign.

1546: Sent to Konya as governor of the sanjak of Karaman.

1553: Sent to Edirne during the Nakhchivan campaign; Prince Mustafa was killed (6 October 1553).

15 April 1558: Hürrem Sultan died.

6 September 1558: Transferred from Kütahya to Amasya.

21 December 1558: Arrived in Amasya.

29-31 May 1559: Defeated by Selim before Konya.

7 July 1559: Left Amasya with his sons.

August 1559: Took refuge in Iran.

23 October 1559: Received by Shah Tahmasb at Qazvin.

February-April 1560: Imprisoned at Qazvin (the sources give 12 February or 16 April 1560).

16 July 1562: Ottoman envoys reached Qazvin.

23 July 1562: Handed over to Ali Ağa, Selim's chief of couriers, and strangled.

Sources

Academic studies

  • Şerafettin Turan, "Bayezid, Şehzade", TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, vol. 5, Istanbul 1992 (islamansiklopedisi.org.tr) islamansiklopedisi.org.tr
  • Mustafa Çiçekler, "Şehzâde Bayezid ve Farsça Divançesi", Şarkiyat Mecmuası (DergiPark)
  • Selim Özcan, "Amasya'da Sancak Beyliği Yapan Şehzadeler Döneminde Amasya Şehri", Amasya Üniversitesi İlahiyat Fakültesi Dergisi, no. 5

Other sources

  • Filiz Kılıç, "Şâhî, Şehzâde Bayezid", Türk Edebiyatı İsimler Sözlüğü (teis.yesevi.edu.tr) teis.yesevi.edu.tr
  • "Şehzade Bayezid Olayı (1558-1561)", tarihibilgilerim.com (for the accounts of Feridun Bey, Peçevî and Müverrih Ali) tarihibilgilerim.com
  • Şerafettin Turan, Kanunî'nin Oğlu Şehzade Bayezid Vak'ası, Ankara 1961 (the principal study cited by the TDV and TEİS entries)

Online sources