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Submission, Defiance, and the Rules of Politics on the Mamluk Sultanate's Anatolian Frontier*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2015

PATRICK WING
PATRICK WING*
Affiliation:
University of Redlands and Ghent University pwing6@gmail.com
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Abstract

This article examines the relationship between the leader of the Aqquyunlu Turkman confederation, ‘Uthmān Beg Qarā Yulūk, and the Mamluk Sultanate, with an eye to the ways in which the Mamluks sought to define the limits of sultanic sovereignty on the frontier, as well as the ways in which Qarā Yulūk sought to pursue his own interests and those of his tribal followers within the framework of the Mamluk political order. What becomes apparent is that while the interests of the Turkmans ultimately clashed with those of the Mamluk sultans on the Anatolian frontier, both Qarā Yulūk and the Mamluks shared a common interest in maintaining a relationship in which formal recognition of Aqquyunlu autonomy was exchanged for ritual submission to the sultan.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 25 , Issue 3 , July 2015, pp. 377 - 388
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 2015 

The Mamluk Sultanate ruled Egypt and Syria for more than 250 years, from the middle of the thirteenth century until its conquest by the Ottomans in 1517. In the early years of its history, the sultanate's northern and eastern frontiers were defined by the western limits of the territory held by the Mongol Ilkhans in Anatolia and Syria. With the dissolution of the Ilkhanate in 1335, the limits of the sultan's authority in Anatolia became ambiguous. Formerly under the control of the highest-ranking amirs in the service of the Chinggisids in Tabriz, the regions of the upper Tigris and Euphrates saw the emerging power of several Turkman tribal groups following the collapse of the Ilkhanate. Although the invasions of Tīmūr in 1400–1401 brought back the threat of military invasion from the east, Tīmūr's death in 1405 and the subsequent Timurid civil war in Iran once again left the political situation in Anatolia fluid. The end of the Timurid threat in the early fifteenth century offered new opportunities for both the Turkman tribes of Anatolia and the Mamluk Sultanate. For the Turkmans, the political vacuum left after Tīmūr's death offered the opportunity to the most powerful chiefs (begs) to expand control of pasture and towns in Anatolia. For the Mamluk sultans, Tīmūr's demise offered the chance not only to consolidate their authority in Syria, but also to extend their influence beyond the Euphrates, through alliances with local tribal and petit dynastic leaders.

The encounter between the Turkmans and the Mamluks in this new political milieu in the fifteenth century is the subject of this article. Specifically, the relationship between the leader of the Aqquyunlu Turkman confederation, ‘Uthmān Beg Qarā Yulūk, and the Mamluk Sultanate is examined with an eye to the ways in which the Mamluks sought to define the limits of the sultan's sovereignty on the frontier, as well as the ways in which Qarā Yulūk sought to pursue his own interests and those of his tribal followers within the framework of the Mamluk political order. What becomes apparent is that while the interests of the Turkmans ultimately clashed with those of the Mamluk sultans on the Anatolian frontier, both Qarā Yulūk and the Mamluks shared a common interest in maintaining a relationship in which formal recognition of Aqquyunlu autonomy was exchanged for ritual submission to the sultan. Such an apparent paradox suggests that a re-assessment of the limits of Mamluk authority on the northeastern frontier is called for, in which a distinction is made between the ideological and the functional authority of the sultan.

Background to the Aqquyunlu-Mamluk Relationship

Bahā’ al-Dīn ‘Uthmān Beg b. Qūṭlū Beg, also known as Qarā Yulūk, emerged as the leader of the Aqquyunlu (“White Sheep”) Turkman confederation at the end of the fourteenth century.Footnote 1 The Aqquyunlu confederation was made up of several tribes, loosely organised under the leadership of the paramount clan, the Bayandur.Footnote 2 In the late fourteenth century, under Qarā Yulūk's father, Qūṭlū,Footnote 3 the Aqquyunlu had begun to expand into Diyarbakr from central Anatolia.Footnote 4 In 1389, after their father's death, Qūṭlū's two sons Aḥmad and ‘Uthmān Qarā Yulūk competed with each other for leadership of the confederation. Qarā Yulūk eventually emerged as the victor, mainly by forging an alliance with Tīmūr, who in 1400 invaded Anatolia and Syria. Qarā Yulūk's contribution of Aqquyunlu cavalry in this campaign was rewarded when Tīmūr granted the city of Amid to Qarā Yulūk's son Ibrāhīm in 1400.Footnote 5 Qarā Yulūk also benefited from the ceremonial rewards bestowed by Tīmūr, who recognised him as the legitimate heir to the Aqquyunlu, against his brother, Aḥmad.Footnote 6

Thus, by 1400, Qarā Yulūk had become the paramount leader of the Bayandur clan and the Aqquyunlu Turkman confederation in central Anatolia. Following Tīmūr's death in 1405, his major rival became Qarā Yūsuf, leader of the Qaraquyunlu (“Black Sheep”) Turkmans.Footnote 7 Left without Timurid patronage, Qarā Yulūk looked to the Mamluk Sultanate for support against the Qaraquyunlu. An opportunity arose to align himself with the interests of the Mamluk sultan al-Nāṣir Faraj in 1407 when Qarā Yulūk battled and killed the rebel Amir Jakam, who had declared himself sultan in Damascus.Footnote 8 Qarā Yulūk sent Jakam's head to Cairo, and Faraj rewarded him by acknowledging him as his representative (nā’ib) in al-Ruha (Edessa, Şanlıurfa).Footnote 9 This episode initiated a period of approximately fifteen years of friendly relations between Qarā Yulūk and the Mamluk Sultanate.

Aqquyunlu and the Mamluk Political Order: The Frontier niyāba

The title nā’ib, bestowed upon the Aqquyunlu governors of al-Ruha by the sultan, is often translated as “provincial governor” but more literally means “deputy” i.e. of the sultan.Footnote 10 The same title was given to appointees to the top military offices in the sultanate's Syrian provinces.Footnote 11 These Syrian nā’ibs were amirs, or military commanders, former Mamluks who had risen through the ranks of the Mamluk military elite. Although a nā’ib could attain a great degree of personal power and wealth, he theoretically held his position at the pleasure of the sultan, who had the authority to remove him at any time.

The northernmost governorate (niyāba) of Syria in which the sultan's amirs consistently served as nā’ib was Aleppo. Beyond Aleppo, the authority of the sultanate tended to be represented not by members of the Mamluk elite, but by tribal or petit dynastic leaders who enjoyed local autonomy, while acknowledging the Mamluk sultan's ultimate suzerainty in the Islamic world. These frontier rulers operated simultaneously inside and outside the Mamluk political order. On the one hand, they owed certain tokens of allegiance to the sultan, such as the provision of military support, the striking of coins in the sultan's name, and the maintenance of order in their domains. On the other hand, they had their own sources of wealth and did not depend on the centrally controlled Mamluk fiscal system for their income. It is important to point out, however, that such semi-autonomous local rulers, like the Aqquyunlu governors of al-Ruha, received the same title of nā’ib as the governors of provinces more strictly within the political, social and economic structures of the sultanate. However, in the case of the frontier cities beyond Aleppo, the bestowal of this title was more a recognition of an already existing local or regional authority, rather than an appointment from Cairo to a provincial capital.

What were the advantages for Qarā Yulūk and for the Mamluk sultan of such a relationship? First, we may surmise that it lent legitimacy to his claims of supremacy within the social structure of the Bayandur clan and the Aqquyunlu confederation as a whole. Rulership within the tribal milieu of nomadic societies like the Aqquyunlu tended to be understood as the shared patrimony of the entire ruling family, and not the sole right of a single heir.Footnote 12 Ceremonial and material benefits offered by an alliance with the Mamluks gave Qarā Yulūk the upper hand against other potential Bayandur rivals.

Secondly, his incorporation into the Mamluk political order offered Qarā Yulūk protection against his Qaraquyunlu rival Qarā Yūsuf. Such a benefit is illustrated by an incident that took place in 1418, after Qarā Yulūk attacked Qaraquyunlu-controlled Mardin. Qarā Yūsuf retaliated by driving him from Amid across the Euphrates. Qarā Yulūk sought the protection of the Mamluk governor of Aleppo, who led the army into battle and drove off Qarā Yūsuf's forces.Footnote 13

Such military protection was accompanied by ceremonial rewards and recognition from the Mamluk sultan. These rewards were exchanged for ritualised demonstrations of submission to the sultan's authority. For example, in 818/1415 Qarā Yulūk's son Abū Yazīd appeared before Sultan al-Mu’ayyad Shaykh in AleppoFootnote 14 to congratulate him on his military success in northern Syria, and to present him with a “splendid gift”. The sultan in turn honoured him and sent him back to his father with “a gift commensurate with his own” (hadiya mukāfa’a ‘alá hadiyatihi)Footnote 15 A similar exchange took place in 820/1417, while the sultan was at Ḥiṣn Manṣūr. In this case, an envoy (qāṣid) of Qarā Yulūk arrived with a gift for the sultan, and was sent back with a robe of honour (khil‘a), signifying both recognition of Qarā Yulūk as a member of the Mamluk political order, as well as his subordinate role within it.Footnote 16 Such ceremonial encounters between Qarā Yulūk's family and the sultan and his representatives served the interests of both Qarā Yulūk and the Mamluks. Qarā Yulūk acquired protection and status, while the sultan acquired a military ally against the Qaraquyunlu and public demonstrations of obedience to the authority of the sultanate beyond the Euphrates.

An Incompatibility of Interests

Relations between Qarā Yulūk and the Mamluk Sultanate changed after 1420, when Shāhrukh, the son of Tīmūr, emerged victorious from a protracted Timurid civil war in Iran, to turn his attention to re-conquering Azarbayjan for the Timurids. His target was Qarā Yūsuf, who had taken Azarbayjan for the Qaraquyunlu after Tīmūr's death. Although Qarā Yūsuf died before a decisive confrontation, on 7 Dhū l-Qa‘da, 823/13 November, 1420, his sons Iskandar and Isfand were left to battle Shāhrukh and his allies.Footnote 17 One of these allies was Qarā Yulūk, who had presented himself at Shāhrukh's court in Qarābāgh a month after Qarā Yūsuf's death. In Rajab, 824/July, 1421, the Timurid coalition defeated the Qaraquyunlu. In return for Qarā Yulūk's support of the Timurids, Shāhrukh appointed his son ‘Alī as his governor in Azarbayjan.Footnote 18

The rise to power of Shāhrukh in the east had a significant impact on the relationship between Qarā Yulūk and the Mamluk Sultanate. Qarā Yulūk suddenly had a new powerful imperial patron, who had successfully confronted his own Turkman rivals. His alliance with the Mamluks, which had offered him protection and status, was no longer as important as it once had been. In fact, with the Qaraquyunlu temporarily dispersed after their defeat, Qarā Yulūk saw the opportunity to expand his patrimony in Anatolia, including the region along the Euphrates in towns owing allegiance to the Mamluk sultan.

Here an inherent incompatibility between the interests of Qarā Yulūk and the interests of the Mamluk sultans becomes apparent. For a nomadic tribal chieftain like Qarā Yulūk, political success required a continual redistribution of wealth to his tribal followers. This is the case in any polity to some extent; rulers must provide the political elite with the means to enrich themselves, whether by providing stability to collect taxes, waging war, or disbursing political offices. Yet in the pastoral nomadic societies of the Turkman tribes in Anatolia, where wealth was derived primarily from animal stocks and revenue from trade rather than from agriculture, control of pasture and cities along major trade routes were vital to the ruling elite. Failure by Qarā Yulūk to deliver access to these resources could have led to the break-up of the confederation, and the realignment of tribal loyalties with different branches of the Bayandur, or with other groups altogether.

Opportunity to expand Aqquyunlu domains came at the expense of towns recognising the sovereignty, and thus theoretically entitled to the protection, of the Mamluk sultan. Raids on cities such as those carried out by the Aqquyunlu on Harput, Divriği, and Malatya in the 1420s and 1430s, signalled rebellion on the part of Qarā Yulūk from the Mamluk perspective. While pursuing his own interests and commitments as beg of the Aqquyunlu, Qarā Yulūk exceeded the bounds of his obligations as a nā’ib of the sultan, prompting a response from the sultan in the form of military mobilisation.

Confrontation and Negotiation: The Amid Campaign (1433)

In 1429 Sultan al-Ashraf Barsbāy ordered the first Mamluk military campaign against Qarā Yulūk, following his capture of Harput. This campaign targeted the city of al-Ruha, where Qarā Yulūk's son Hābīl was serving as governor.Footnote 19 The Mamluk army took Hābīl prisoner after promising him amnesty, and thereafter laid waste to the city.Footnote 20 The al-Ruha campaign was the first open confrontation between the Mamluk Sultanate and the Aqquyunlu, after a period of accord going back to 1407. Relations continued to deteriorate after the campaign. Although Qarā Yulūk appealed to Sultan Barsbāy to forgive and release his son Hābīl, he died of the plague in a Cairo prison a year after his capture.Footnote 21 In the autumn 1430, Qarā Yulūk retaliated by attacking and plundering Malatya and ‘Ayntab.Footnote 22

After a second planned campaign was aborted in 1431, the sultan personally led a massive expedition to Amid against Qarā Yulūk in the spring and summer of 1433. The events of this campaign are well documented in the Mamluk sources, and in fact three of the authors of the most important contemporary chronicles were eyewitnesses.Footnote 23 A close examination of the accounts of the Amid campaign offers insight into the ongoing negotiation of the relationship between the Mamluks and Qarā Yulūk, and the attempt by Sultan Barsbāy to come to terms with the challenges to his authority on the frontier.

One curious aspect of the Amid campaign was that although the chronicles describe it as directed against Qarā Yulūk, they actually record very little fighting between the Mamluk and Aqquyunlu armies. Instead, military operations took the form of a siege on the city itself. The sultan's forces encountered the Turkmans only in the form of limited expeditionary forces and raiding parties, sometimes unintentionally. The major fighting took place around the walls of Amid, during which the Mamluks constructed a wooden siege tower,Footnote 24 and fired guns and balistas.Footnote 25 Although Qarā Yulūk controlled the city, he in fact was absent from its citadel for most of this period, leaving the “people of Amid” to confront the Mamluks. It is not clear who the people of Amid were, but in all likelihood they were urban residents or other members of the sedentary population who took refuge within Amid's walls when the Mamluks approached. When sources refer to the Aqquyunlu followers of Qarā Yulūk, they mention the “Qarā Yulūkids” (qarā yulūkiyya),Footnote 26 the “companions (aṣḥāb) of Qarā Yulūk”,Footnote 27 or the “party of Qarā Yulūk” (jāmi‘at qarā yulūk).Footnote 28 Confrontations with these groups, as distinct from the “people of Amid”, took place in a few small skirmishes outside the city.Footnote 29

Who were the “people of Amid”? Our sources give us little indication, but we may surmise that they were not the Turkman tribal followers of Qarā Yulūk. The distinction between the nomadic holders of military power, and the urban elites is one that has been characterised as a fundamental element of the social order in the pre-modern Middle East (Nile to Oxus region), and dubbed the “a‘yān-amīr system” by Marshall Hodgson.Footnote 30 One of the central features of the a‘yān-amīr system was the pivotal role often played by urban elites (a‘yān, singular ‘ayn) in aligning a town with one or other amir, or military ruler. The a‘yān's decision to either surrender their city to an invading army, or to resist in the hope of relief from another party could have a critical impact on the fortunes of a town, the surrounding countryside, and its subsequent political and economic history.

One of Barsbāy's principal aims was to compel the people of Amid to surrender the city to him. In addition to the siege, tactics included using a captured companion and high-ranking amir of Qarā Yulūk, named Qarā Muḥammad, to intercede and negotiate with the inhabitants of the city in order to secure the surrender.Footnote 31 Qarā Muḥammad was threatened with execution if he did not deliver the city, and in fact he was cut in half, along with twenty other Turkmans, at the base of the wall, in a public display of terror and intimidation with the people of Amid as the audience. What is significant is that Qarā Muḥammad was not able to convince the people of Amid to surrender the city to him; they had sworn not to deliver the city except with the permission of Qarā Yulūk himself. Despite such a claim of obedience to Qarā Yulūk, the people of Amid clearly had the practical means to act independently of both the Mamluks and the Turkmans.

The fact that the main military operations at Amid were directed against the city and not against the nomadic Aqquyunlu raises questions about the objectives of the campaign. Could it have been the case that the destruction, or even defeat of the Aqquyunlu and their leader Qarā Yulūk was not Barsbāy's primary aim? This question becomes more compelling when we consider other aspects of the entire military expedition, particularly with regard to Syria. As mentioned earlier, the Syrian provinces, roughly from Ghaza to Aleppo, had become part of the Mamluk Sultanate during the late thirteenth century, as the Mamluks gradually drove the Latin Crusaders from their strongholds in the Levant. However, the degree to which the sultan in Cairo could exert his will throughout Syria varied greatly depending on the period and the political circumstances. In the years following Tīmūr's invasion of 1400–1401, during the reign of the young sultan al-Nāṣir Faraj (r. 1399–1412), Syria was largely out of the control of Cairo, and became the arena for conflict among various Mamluk amiral factions. We have already mentioned the fact that Qarā Yulūk won fame at the Mamluk court by defeating the rebel governor of Damascus in 1407. Faraj's successor, al-Mu’ayyad Shaykh, spent a good deal of his reign on campaign in Syria, attempting to tamp out the fire of rebellion that still smoldered there. When Barsbāy came to the throne in 1422, Syria was more fully under the sultan's control than it had been a decade earlier. Yet, Barsbāy's nā’ibs in the Syrian provinces cannot be considered a priori to have been loyal agents of royal authority. In fact, Ibn Taghrī Birdī's account of the Amid campaign describes a conspiracy among the senior nā’ibs of Syria, led by the governor of Damascus, and attributes the ultimate failure of the campaign to dissention in the Mamluk ranks and the sultan's fears of treason by his own Syrian nā’ibs.Footnote 32

Even before the conspiracy among the Syrian amirs came to light, there is evidence to suggest that Barsbāy sought to make a demonstration of the sultan's authority in the Syrian provinces a central aim of the campaign. The campaign force did not consist only of the army, but much of the elite ruling apparatus of Cairo. The sultan was accompanied by the caliph, the four chief qāḍīs, as well as the highest-ranking chancery and financial officials.Footnote 33 The expedition can thus possibly be understood as a demonstration of the ability of the sultan to deploy the human and material resources at his disposal in Egypt to Syria and beyond. This demonstration was reinforced through public rituals in which the symbols of the sultan's authority were displayed. Our sources report that in Damascus and Aleppo, the two largest Syrian cities through which the sultan's armies passed on their way to Amid, the sultan rode in magnificent processions, replete with displays of the royal insignia, including the “avian parasol” (qubba wa-al-ṭayr) held aloft above his head by the local nā’ib, signifying his sovereign authority.

The audience for these ceremonies comprised the people of Damascus and Aleppo, including the nā’ibs themselves and their own military contingents, but also perhaps the non-military elites of Syria; that is, the a‘yān as well as the amirs. In the aftermath of the factional conflicts and uprisings in Syria under al-Nāṣir Faraj, the deployment of the full retinue of the sultan to Syria may have been intended as a signal to both potentially rebellious amirs, and the non-military populations, that the sultan could, and would, ensure obedience.

To sum up then, the major military operations of the Amid campaign were directed against the city of Amid itself, and not the tribal Turkman cavalry forces of Qarā Yulūk. The “people of Amid” seem to have operated independently of both the sultan and Qarā Yulūk, while ultimately showing loyalty to the latter. The siege and intimidation techniques directed toward the inhabitants of Amid seem to suggest that the military goals of the campaign did not necessarily include the destruction of the Aqquyunlu, but may well have consisted of an attempt to reinforce the loyalty of Syrian amirs and urban a‘yān through a demonstration of the sultan's ability to deploy his military and other resources to all corners of the sultanate.

What then were the aims of the sultan vis-à-vis Qarā Yulūk? The accounts of the terms of the truce concluded at the end of the siege, and the meeting between Qarā Yulūk and the sultan's representative are revealing on this point. According to all accounts, Qarā Yulūk asked for a truce of thirty five days after the arrival of the Mamluk army in Amid. The conclusion of the peace consisted of two phases: first was the exchange of representatives of Qarā Yulūk and Sultan Barsbāy to negotiate the terms of the truce, which was then followed by a formal ceremony which included Qarā Yulūk's pledge to obey Sultan Barsbāy, Sultan Barsbāy's bestowal of gifts upon Qarā Yulūk, and Qarā Yulūk's performance of ritual acts of submission.

The terms of the truce have not survived in documentary form, but can be summarised by collating the main narrative accounts of the campaign.Footnote 34 The terms stipulated that Qarā Yulūk was obliged to:

  1. 1) Kiss the ground before the sultan.

  2. 2) Arrange for the “khuṭba and the sikka;” that is, ensure that the Friday sermon was dedicated to, and coins struck in the name of, Sultan Barsbāy throughout Qarā Yulūk's lands.

  3. 3) Not interfere in the sultan's domains, from Divriği to al-Raḥba.

  4. 4) Not interfere with the subjects or governors of Ḥiṣn Kayfā.

  5. 5) Not interfere with the governor of Egil or his citadels.

  6. 6) Not interfere with merchants, pilgrims, or other travellers passing through his lands, nor to interfere with facilities (al-anbā’) constructed for their use. Rather, he was obliged to protect merchants and facilitate their movement.

The terms of the truce thus indicate an interest by Barsbāy in Qarā Yulūk returning to his former role as loyal, but autonomous nā’ib. The truce did not obligate him to provide any material indemnity or service other than not interfering with other regional amirates and the traffic of merchants and pilgrims. The obligations to kiss the ground, and to provide the khuṭba and sikka in the name of Barsbāy had real meaning, for they represented an acknowledgement of Qarā Yulūk's ties and subordinate status to the sultan. Yet, they did not place any substantial economic or political burden on Qarā Yulūk.

The most detailed account of the ceremony concluding the truce is that of Ibn Taghrī Birdī, whose father-in-law, Qāḍī Sharaf al-Dīn al-Ashqar, served as the sultan's representative.Footnote 35 Qarā Yulūk was in fact not besieged himself in Amid, but came to meet the qāḍī from the citadel of Arqanīn (Ergani), some 60 kilometers away. Qarā Yulūk kissed the ground before Sharaf al-Dīn, who thereafter bestowed a magnificent robe of honour (khil‘a) upon him. A horse was then brought to Qarā Yulūk, and Sharaf al-Dīn ordered him to kiss its hoof. After first refusing to do so, Qarā Yulūk grudgingly submitted, muttering something like “by God, this is a wretched custom”.Footnote 36 Ibn Taghrī Birdī then records that Sharaf al-Dīn began warning Qarā Yulūk of the consequences should he rebel against the sultan, prompting Qarā Yulūk to say

“Where am I from, and where is the sultan from? I am a Turkman man from one of many regions   The governor of Aleppo would suffice for me, and he is one of the nā’ibs of the sultan. What would the sultan do if he took Amid? Everything that is in Amid does not amount to what he has spent. By God, if the sultan gave me half of the gold that he spent on the horseshoes of his horses and the horses of his army, I would be satisfied and submit to him”.Footnote 37

It is questionable whether these sentiments were in fact uttered by Qarā Yulūk, or rather reflect the view of Ibn Taghrī Birdī himself. Both al-Maqrīzī and Ibn Taghrī Birdī conclude their accounts of the Amid campaign with the assessment that it was a great waste of resources that did not achieve its objectives.Footnote 38 Qarā Yulūk's speech to Sharaf al-Dīn then seems likely to reflect the chronicler's own view, rather than that of Qarā Yulūk himself. Yet even if these are Ibn Taghrī Birdī's own thoughts on the matter, they reflect the apparent irrationality for the sultan to personally lead the entire Mamluk military against a small frontier city in Diyarbakr. Why did Barsbāy not just send the nā’ib of Aleppo, or pay protection money to Qarā Yulūk, as Ibn Taghrī Birdī suggests in the text? The answer may be that the campaign had several objectives, including a demonstration of the military might of the sultan in Syria, as well as the hardships that the Mamluk army could inflict on cities like Amid which chose to side with local amirs rather than with the sultan. In addition, Barsbāy's objective with regard to Qarā Yulūk seems to have been to restore the niyāba relationship between Qarā Yulūk and the sultan which had existed previously during the reigns of al-Nāṣir Faraj and al-Mu’ayyad Shaykh. By keeping Qarā Yulūk within the framework of the Mamluk political order, through the bestowal of honours, while at the same time reinforcing a status subordinate to the sultan within that order, Barsbāy served his own interests in ensuring the continued recognition of his authority among the different political constituencies on the northern frontier, including local rulers, urban a‘yān, and the sultan's own Mamluks.

For Qarā Yulūk, surrender at Amid meant an opportunity to continue to pursue his own interests within the context of his own tribal confederation by raiding frontier towns. In fact, soon after the Mamluk army withdrew from Amid, the sultan's newly assigned governor of al-Ruha, Īnāl al-‘Alā’ī, (the future Sultan al-Ashraf Īnāl), battled Qarā Yulūk there.Footnote 39 In addition, in 838/1434 or 1435, Qarā Yulūk's sons raided Divriği and Malatya,Footnote 40 a clear breech of the Amid peace agreement. Qarā Yulūk's raids were combined with aid for the sultan's arch-nemesis, Jānibak al-Ṣūfī, who had been on the run since his escape from prison at the beginning of Barsbāy's reign. He had been in hiding in Cairo, but later found refuge with the Ramazanid and Dulghadirid Turkmans in Anatolia by 838/1435.Footnote 41 In early 839/summer 1435, reports in Cairo placed Jānibak at the Aqquyunlu fortress of Kamākh, where he had received money and a horse from Qarā Yulūk.Footnote 42 Aqquyunlu support for Jānibak was a clear indication of hostility toward the sultan's authority. Yet, following the Amid campaign, Barsbāy had little leverage remaining with which to control Qarā Yulūk's raids.

Conclusion: The Multivalent Limits of the Sultan's Authority

To sum up, Qarā Yulūk consolidated his authority within the Aqquyunlu tribal confederation in part through a relationship of loyalty and submission to the Mamluk sultans in Cairo. This relationship was formalised through the bestowal of the title of nā’ib upon members of Qarā Yulūk's family, and the de facto recognition of their power and influence in the region around al-Ruha and in Diyarbakr. This title situated Qarā Yulūk and his Aqquyunlu followers within the institutional framework of the Mamluk Sultanate. Although very different from the relationship between the sultan and his Mamluk amirs appointed to provincial governorates, Qarā Yulūk nevertheless shared with these amirs the title, as well as other symbolic trappings that accompanied it. These included both ceremonial rewards and ritual obligations to show deference to the sultan's ultimate authority in the Muslim world.

Both Qarā Yulūk and the Mamluk sultans benefited from such a relationship. For Qarā Yulūk, it offered material benefits such as military protection and support against his Qaraquyunlu enemies, as well as enhanced status within the Aqquyunlu political order. For the Mamluk sultans, ties of reward and obligation with Qarā Yulūk could help to ensure auxiliary military service against foreign and internal enemies, such as the Syrian rebel amir Jakam. These ties also involved the less tangible, but no less effective displays of submission and acknowledgement of the sultan's authority in Syria and beyond the Euphrates.

Yet, while such a relationship was mutually beneficial to both the Mamluks and the Aqquyunlu, Qarā Yulūk conducted raids and captured Anatolian towns within the sultan's domains when it served his interests as the leader of his own supra-tribal polity. This contradiction raises some interesting questions. Can we characterise Qarā Yulūk as a subject of the sultan? Was he acting illegitimately when he defied the sultan, or is the question of illegitimacy only relevant from a Mamluk perspective; in other words, was Qarā Yulūk an independent political actor all along, despite any Mamluk claims to the contrary? Is it correct to say that the frontiers of the Mamluk Sultanate extended to Diyarbakr in the first half of the fifteenth century?

Evidence from the sources available suggests that we must accept that the limits of a sultan's authority were multivalent, that different varieties of frontier existed simultaneously, and changed according to historical circumstances. In fact, a frontier of ideology prevailed alongside the limits of the actual power held by the sultan in Anatolia. The ideological frontier was defined by the limits to which the symbolism and rhetoric of the Mamluk political order, including titles, ceremony, and deference to institutional hierarchies, were used to negotiate and consolidate political relationships. As we have seen, this ideological frontier did indeed extend beyond the Euphrates to Diyarbakr, and included the Aqquyunlu. However, the limits of the sultan's effective power,Footnote 43 where his agents could compel a political actor like Qarā Yulūk to submit to his will, was a different matter. Sultan Barsbāy could not prevent Qarā Yulūk from pursuing his own political interests locally when they contradicted his own. Barsbāy could not remove Qarā Yulūk from power as he could under normal conditions in the Syrian provinces governed by his own amirs.

If we accept that the limits of a sultan's authority were multivalent in the way described here, our understanding of the political order on the frontier perhaps should include the notion that military conflict, like the Amid campaign of 1433, also involved multiple objectives that may have involved the sultan's attempts to adjust both the ideological and functional limits of his authority at the same time. As has been argued above, Barsbāy sought to re-establish recognition of his authority by Qarā Yulūk not through military means, which were designed to achieve other objectives. Aware, perhaps, that he could not compel Qarā Yulūk to obey in Anatolia, Barsbāy sought at least to demonstrate to potentially rebellious (and actual, if we believe Ibn Taghrī Birdī's account) amirs in Syria that the human and material resources under the sultan's control could be brought to bear on cities that disobeyed. In this context, the political culture of the Mamluk Sultanate, the ideological symbolism of Mamluk authority, was useful to both Barsbāy and Qarā Yulūk in negotiating the scope and limits of their personal power in the Turkman regions east of the Euphrates.

Footnotes

*

Research for this article was conducted under the auspices of the project “The Mamlukisation of the Mamluk Sultanate: Political Traditions and State Formation in 15th Century Egypt and Syria”, directed by Dr Jo Van Steenbergen at Ghent University, Belgium, with funding made possible by a grant from the European Research Council.

1 The most extensive study of the history of the Aqquyunlu is Woods, John E., The Aqquyunlu: Clan Confederation, Empire (Salt Lake City, 1999). For the emergence of the Aqquyunlu in the historical record, see pp. 25–43.

2 Woods, The Aqquyunlu, 11.

3 Qūṭlū was an amir in the service of the Artuqid dynasty of Mardin in Diyarbakr. See al-Sakhāwī, Muḥammad b. ‘Abd al-Raḥmān, al-Ḍaw’ al-Lāmi‘ li-Ahl al-Qarn al-Tāsi‘, (ed.) ‘al-Raḥmān, Abd al-Laṭīf Ḥasan ‘Abd (Beirut, 2003), 5: p. 121 .

4 Kamākh (Kemah) and Arghani (Ergani) were among the early strongholds in the possession of Qarā Yulūk. See Ṭihrānī, Abū Bakr, Kitāb-i Diyārbakriyya: Ak-Koyunlular Tarihi, (ed.) Lugal, Necati and Sumer, Faruk (Ankara, 1993), pp. 32–33 .

5 As Woods points out, the account of Tīmūr's bestowal of Amid to Ibrāhīm b. Qarā Yulūk is given by Ṭihrānī, while other accounts differ. See Woods, The Aqquyunlu, 41; p. 242 fn 86.

6 Woods, The Aqquyunlu, p. 41.

7 Qarā Yūsuf had been detained in Damascus by the Mamluk governor there. Upon Tīmūr's death, he was released, and returned to his lands in eastern Anatolia, Mesopotamia and Azarbayjan. For a general history of the early Qaraquyunlu confederation to 1439, see Sümer, Faruk, Kara Koyunlular (Başlangıçtan Cihan-Şah’a kadar), I. Cilt (Ankara, 1962). Some of the earliest references to the Qaraquyunlu can be found in accounts of the Jalayirid sultan Shaykh Uvays's campaigns against the Turkman leader Bayrām Khvāja in the 1360s by Zayn al-Dīn Qazvīnī and Ḥāfiẓ Abrū, though these authors do not use the name “Qaraquyunlu.” See Qazvīnī, Zayn al-Dīn b. Ḥamd Allāh Mustawfī, Żayl-i Tārīkh-i Guzīda, (ed.) Afshār, Īraj (Tehran, 1372 [1993], 79 ; Abrū, Ḥāfiẓ, Żayl-i Jāmi‘ al-Tavārīkh, (ed.)Bayānī, Khānbābā, (Tehran, 1317 [1939]), p. 194 .

8 Birdī, Abū al-Mahāsin Yūsuf b. Taghrī, Al-Nujūm al-Zāhira fī Mulūk Miṣr wa-al-Qāhira, (ed.) Popper, William (Berkeley, 1960), 6, pp. 185–186 . (Hereafter referred to as Ibn Taghrī Birdī, Nujūm).

9 al-Sakhāwī, al-Ḍaw’ al-Lāmi‘, 5, p. 121: wallāhu al-nāṣir faraj niyābat al-ruhā li-mā qatala jakam.

10 Gibb, H. A. R., “Nā’ib,” Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd edition (Leiden, 1992), 7, p. 915 . The title “nā’ib” is short for nā’ib al-salṭana, or the sultan's deputy.

11 Holt, P. M., “The Structure of Government in the Mamluk Sultanate,” in The Eastern Mediterranean Lands in the Period of the Crusades, (ed.) Holt, P. M. (Warminster, 1977), p. 56 ; Van Steenbergen, Jo, Order Out of Chaos: Patronage, Conflict and Mamluk Socio-Political Culture, 1341–1382 (Leiden, 2006), pp. 39–40 .

12 Woods, The Aqquyunlu, pp. 19–22.

13 al-Maqrīzī, Taqī al-Dīn Aḥmad, Kitāb al-Sulūk li-Ma‘rifat Duwal al-Mulūk, (ed.) ‘Ashūr, ‘Abd al-Fattāḥ (Cairo, 1972), 4, pp. 458–461 ; al-‘Asqalānī, Ibn Ḥajar, Inbā’ al-Ghumr bi-Anbā’ al-‘Umr fī al-Ta’rīkh (Beirut, 1986), 7, pp. 314–318 ; Ibn Taghrī Birdī, Nujūm, 6, pp. 383–386. From the point of view of the Mamluk Sultanate in this period, Qarā Yūsuf was the greater threat to the northern frontier and to Aleppo. The significance of this threat is illustrated by the issuance of a fatwa by the shaykh al-islām and chief qāḍīs in Cairo in 1418, declaring it licit for Muslims to attack and kill Qarā Yūsuf. See al-Maqrīzī, Sulūk, 4, p. 459; Ibn Ḥajar, Inbā’, 7, p. 316; Ibn Taghrī Birdī, Nujūm, 6, p. 384.

14 According to Ibn Ḥajar, Abū Yazīd came to Shaykh in Hama. See Ibn Ḥajar, Inbā’, 7, p. 184.

15 al-Maqrīzī, Sulūk, 4, p. 329; Ibn Ḥajar, Inbā’, 7, pp. 183–184. The description of the sultan's gift as commensurate with that given to him by Qarā Yulūk is given by Ibn Ḥajar.

16 al-Maqrīzī, Sulūk, 4, p. 409; Ibn Ḥajar, Inbā’, 7, p. 261; Ibn Taghrī Birdī, Nujūm, 6, p. 369.

17 Manz, Beatrice Forbes, Power, Politics and Religion in Timurid Iran (Cambridge, 2007), p. 35 .

18 ‘Alī b. ‘Uthmān Qarā Yulūk was driven out of Tabriz by Qaraquyunlu loyalists soon after the withdrawal of the Timurid forces. However, Qarā Yulūk took advantage of the victory over the sons of Qarā Yūsuf to expand his territory in eastern Anatolia. In the aftermath of the battle with the Qaraquyunlu in 824/1421, Qarā Yulūk conquered Karahisar, Tercan, Bayburt and Akşehir. See Woods, The Aqquyunlu, pp. 49–50.

19 Ṭihrānī, Kitāb-i Diyārbakriyya, p. 100; al-Maqrīzī, Sulūk, 4, p. 806; Ibn Taghrī Birdī, Nujūm 6, p. 645. According to Ṭihrānī, Qarā Yulūk installed his son, ‘Alī Beg, as governor of Harput. When Qarā Yulūk urged him to fortify al-Ruha against the Mamluks, ‘Alī Beg responded that al-Ruha was part of the province (ayālat) of Syria, and that such action would mean confrontation with the Mamluks. Thus, their only choice was to remain obedient. Unsatisfied with his son's argument, Qarā Yulūk instead assigned his son Hābīl to al-Ruha, in place of the reluctant ‘Alī Beg.

20 al-Maqrīzī, Sulūk, 4, pp. 806–808; Ibn Taghrī Birdī, Nujūm, 6, pp. 646–648. Al-Maqrīzī described the sacking of al-Ruha as among the “calamities of the age” and commented that the harsh response from the sultan departed from earlier practice. Instead of sending notice to Qarā Yulūk of his disapproval and a threat, Barsbāy unleashed the army, which did little in the end to solve the problem. As the verse included by al-Maqrīzī went, “We sought a remedy when we were ill. But the disease came from the physician”. See al-Maqrīzī, Sulūk, 4, p. 808.

21 Ibn Ḥajar, Inbā’, 7, pp. 224, 402–403.

22 al-Maqrīzī, Sulūk, 4, pp. 837, 850; Ibn Taghrī Birdī, Nujūm, 6, p. 666.

23 Accounts of the Amid campaign are given in al-Maqrīzī, Sulūk, 4: 890–898; Ibn Ḥajar, Inbā’, 8, pp. 274–281; al-‘Aynī, Badr al-Dīn Maḥmūd, ‘Iqd al-Jumān fī Ta’rīkh Ahl al-Zamān, (ed.) ‘al-Qarmūṭ, Abd al-Rāziq al-Ṭanṭāwī (Cairo, 1989), pp. 429–433 ; and Ibn Taghrī Birdī, Nujūm, 6, pp. 691–712. Ibn Ḥajar and al-‘Aynī travelled in the Sultan's entourage as chief Shāfi‘ī and Ḥanafī qāḍīs respectively. They were eyewitnesses to the march of the army to Aleppo. Here they were left behind, as the combat units of the army advanced northward. They travelled together to al-‘Aynī's native ‘Ayntāb, before returning to rejoin the sultan in Aleppo as he returned from Amid. Ibn Taghrī Birdī apparently accompanied the army all the way to Amid. His account is the most detailed, and the only one to mention a conspiracy among the Syrian amirs against Sultan Barsbāy, to which he attributes the failures of the campaign. Ibn Iyās, writing a generation after Ibn Taghrī Birdī, alludes to the conspiracy without going into detail, stating that the reasons for tensions within the army and between the sultan and the nā’ib of Damascus, would take too long to explain. See Iyās, Ibn, Badā’i‘ al-Zuhūr fī Waqā’i‘ al-Duhūr, (ed.) Muṣṭafá, Muḥammad (Beirut, 2010), 2, pp. 148–149 .

24 Ibn Taghrī Birdī, Nujūm, 6, p. 705.

25 Ibn Taghrī Birdī reports that “naphtha containers (makāḥil al-nafṭ) were fired every day from cannons (al-mudāfi‘). Trebuchets (al-manājanīq) were also set up to fire upon the towers [of the city]. See Ibn Taghrī Birdī, Nujūm, 6, p. 705. Ibn Ḥajar records only the use of a trebuchet (manjanīq). See Ibn Ḥajar, Inbā’, 8, p. 280. Al-‘Aynī mentions that the Mamluk army employed guns (makāḥil) and trebuchets (majānīq). See al-‘Aynī, ‘Iqd, p. 432.

26 Ibn Taghrī Birdī, Nujūm, 6, p. 704.

27 al-Maqrīzī, Sulūk, 4, p. 93, 896; al-‘Aynī, ‘Iqd, p. 431.

28 al-Maqrīzī, Sulūk, 4, p. 896; Ibn Taghrī Birdī, Nujūm, 6, p. 704 (jāmi‘a min a‘wān qarā yuluk; jāmi‘a kabīra min ‘asākir qarā yuluk).

29 According to Ibn Ḥajar, a group of Qarā Yulūk's men was in the citadel, under the command of his son. See Ibn Ḥajar, Inbā’, 8, p. 280.

30 Hodgson, Marshall G. S., The Venture of Islam: Conscience and History in a World Civilization. Vol. 2: The Expansion of Islam in the Middle Periods (Chicago and London, 1974), pp. 63–69 .

31 Ibn Taghrī Birdī, Nujum, 6, p. 703.

32 For the details of the amirs implicated in the plot against the sultan, see Ibn Taghrī Birdī, Nujūm, 6, pp. 700–701.

33 The senior administrative officials present in the sultan's campaign entourage included the privy secretary (kātib al-sirr), deputy privy secretary (nā’ib kātib al-sirr), comptroller of the army bureau (nāẓir al-jaysh), and comptroller of the privy purse (nāẓir al-khāṣṣ). See Ibn Taghrī Birdī, Nujūm, 6, p. 692.

34 For accounts of the terms of the truce see al-Maqrīzī, Sulūk, 4, p. 897; Ibn Ḥajar, Inbā’, 8, p. 281; al-‘Aynī, ‘Iqd, p. 432; and Ibn Taghrī Birdī, Nujūm, 6, p. 705. Not all terms are recorded in every text referenced here.

35 Ibn Taghrī Birdī, Nujūm, 6, p. 705.

36 Ibn Taghrī Birdī, Nujūm, 6, pp. 705–706.

37 Ibn Taghrī Birdī, Nujūm, 6, p. 706.

38 al-Maqrīzī, Sulūk, 4, p. 898; Ibn Taghrī Birdī, Nujūm, 6, p. 712.

39 News reached Aleppo in Ramaḍān 837/May 1434 that Qarā Yulūk's followers had battled Īnāl at al-Ruha, and that the Turkmans had been routed. See al-Maqrīzī, Sulūk, 4, p. 915; al-Ṣayrafī, Ibn, Nuzhat al-Nufūs wa al-Abdān fī Tawārīkh al-Zamān, (ed.) Ḥabashī, Ḥasan (Cairo, 1974), 3, p. 286 .

40 al-Maqrīzī, Sulūk, 4, p. 937.

41 al-Maqrīzī, Sulūk, 4, p. 948.

42 al-Maqrīzī, Sulūk, 4, p. 955.

43 The term “effective power” has been used by Jo Van Steenbergen in contradistinction to “legitimate power,” in the context of the turbulent period between the sultanates of al-Nāṣir Muḥammad and al-Ẓāhir Barqūq in the fourteenth century, in order to highlight the divergence between the ability of amirs to impose their political will and the persistence of the charisma of the descendants of al-Nāṣir Muḥammad, and their continued recognition as sovereign within the institutional framework of the sultanate. See van Steenbergen, Order Out of Chaos.

* Research for this article was conducted under the auspices of the project “The Mamlukisation of the Mamluk Sultanate: Political Traditions and State Formation in 15th Century Egypt and Syria”, directed by Dr Jo Van Steenbergen at Ghent University, Belgium, with funding made possible by a grant from the European Research Council.