Uprising of Kara Yaziji and Delhi Hassan

The uprising of Kara-Yaziji and Delhi-Hassan is a peasant anti-feudal uprising in the Ottoman Empire ( 1595 - 1603 ). The uprising began in 1595 in most of Anatolia, with peasants speaking out against the tax burden of arbitrariness by local feudal lords and Sultan officials.

Uprising of Kara Yaziji and Delhi Hassan
A country	Ottoman Empire
date	1595 - 1603
Cause	Feudal oppression
the main goal	The overthrow of the sultan
Total	Suppression of the uprising by the Sultan troops
The organizers	Kara Yaziji , Delhi Hassan
driving forces	peasants, timariots , deserter soldiers, some medium and small feudal lords
Opponents	Mehmed III

One of the largest Turkish medieval historians, Kyatib Celebi, who lived in the first half of the 17th century, wrote: “ ... in Anatolia, despicable paradise, finding the country without supervision, embarked on the path of robbery and robbery. When every starving man acquired a horse and pants in this way, and each gang was led by a leader, they armed with blades and other weapons robbed and destroyed, inflicting insults to respected people ” ^[1] .

The rebel units operated in 1595 - 1596 in Karaman and Sivas , Marat and Aleppo , Damascus and Urfa, Diyarbakir and Erzurum , in a number of other areas ^[1] . According to the testimony of Turkish historians of the beginning of the 17th century, during this period the rebels defeated even the first capital of the Ottoman sultans, Bursa ^[1] .

In the autumn of 1596, small feudal lords of Lennik and fled from the front of the Austro-Turkish War of 1593-1606 began to join the rebels . warriors of the feudal militia (timariota). Former lenniks expelled from the army returned to their native places in Anatolia. Here they, together with the Timariots, who in violation of their duty did not appear at all in the army, became a stronghold for everyone who, for one reason or another, was dissatisfied with the government. Among them was a certain Abdulkhalim nicknamed Kara Yaziji, the "Black Clerk", who was destined to become the leader of one of the most powerful peasant uprisings in the Ottoman Empire ^[2] .

Most historians call Kara Yaziji the commander of a Sekban company - one of the Janissaries corps ^[2] .. His nickname could be due to the fact that he was once a clerk in his company. Finding himself among those deprived of land, Kara Yaziji opposed the Sultan. At first, he united all those dissatisfied with the authorities around him, including landless peasants and small timariots deprived of possessions in the province of Sivas , where he himself used to have a timar. This happened in 1596 , and two years later Kara Yaziji was the leader of the army, in the ranks of which were from 20 thousand to 30 thousand people ^[2] .

In the ranks of the rebels united very different socially related forces. The main core of the Kara Yaziji army was made up of peasants - the chieftains, but among the rebels there were also many deprived of possessions of timariots and loans (holders of zeametes) ^[2] . In the ranks of the rebels there were also many deserters from the Sultan army, acting against the Austrians. Many small timariots joined the rebels, being dissatisfied with the tax policy of Istanbul ^[2] . Some Beylerbey and Sanjak Bey joined Kara Yaziji, who were dissatisfied with central authority for various reasons ^[2] . In particular, he was joined by the former Sanjak Bay Amasya Hussein Pasha, who rebelled against the central authorities in the spring of 1599 . Hussein Pasha received an order from the Sultan to suppress the rebellion of Kara-Yaziji ^[2] . However, instead he joined the rebels and brought 8 thousand soldiers. Even three relatives of the Crimean Khan ( Selyamet , Mehmed and Shahin Gerai ) ended up in the rebel camp, who did not get along with the ruler of the Crimea and took refuge from him in Anatolia. Kara Yaziji also received the support of a number of Kurdish and Turkmen nomadic tribes of Anatolia, whose leaders at that time were dissatisfied with Porta's attempts to establish stricter control over the nomads ^[2] .

As a result, the uprising led by Kara Yaziji took on the character of a broad uprising, extremely dangerous for the Sultan power in Anatolia . Under the banners of the rebels more than 70 thousand people gathered in 1599-1600 ^[2] . The main centers of the uprising were Urfa, Amasya , Malatya , Ankara , Teke, Tokat , Sivas , Adana and Baghdad . In each of these areas, the rebels had a large armed detachment of 3-5 thousand people ^[2] . The center of the uprising was the district of Urfa, where the rebel forces were under the command of Kara Yaziji himself ^[2] .

In October 1599, Kara Yazigi captured the city of Urfa (Edessa), where he announced that in a dream he had the prophet himself, who said that from now on, Kara Yazigi, belongs to "justice and the state" ^[3] . Mustafa Selyaniki wrote that after this, Kara Yaziji began to send his decrees to all the ends of the Ottoman Empire, equipped with a tug with the words "Halim Shah the Victorious" ^[3] . Kara Yazigi appointed Hussein Pasha as his great vizier ^[3] .

The Ottoman sultan Mehmed III ( 1595 - 1603 ) sent a large Turkish army against the rebels under the command of the military commander Sinanpashazade Mehmed Pasha (the son of the late great vizier Koji Sinan-pasha ). With the support of the troops at the disposal of the Beylerbeys of Aleppo and Damascus, as well as units of some Kurdish Beys, Mehmed Pasha besieged Urfa ^[3] . The siege lasted 73 days. The army of Mehmed Pasha fiercely fired at the fortress with cannons and rifles, several times unsuccessfully stormed its walls, causing huge losses. The situation of the besieged became critical, the ammunition was running out. When they ran out of lead, Kara Yazigi ordered copper coins to be used for casting bullets ^[3] . At the end of December 1599, Mehmed Pasha proposed Kara Yaziji to bring Sultan Huseyn Pasha to court, and to stop the fight against the government in exchange for controlling Sanjak Amasya ^[3] . Kara Yazigi agreed. He ordered the Hussein Pasha to be connected, to lower it from the fortress wall and to hand it over to the soldiers of Mehmed Pasha. In Istanbul, the incident was regarded as the elimination of the rebellion. Kara Yazigi with his army left Urfa and went to the possessions granted to him, and Hussein Pasha was taken to Istanbul , where he was executed as a traitor and instigator of the rebellion ^[3] . The ease with which Kara Yazigi betrayed one of his main associates to the enemy was clear evidence of serious contradictions among rebel leaders, whose social aspirations were very different. It is possible that this episode was also the result of a struggle between Kara Yazigi and Hussein for leadership ^[3] .

Arriving in Amasya, Kara Yaziji, instead of obeying, continued to show disobedience to the Sultan power. Then the Sultan troops under the command of Mehmed Pasha made an attempt to liquidate the units of Kara Yaziji ^[3] . One of the bloody battles took place in the mountains near Sivas . The situation of Kara Yazigi was very difficult, but a harsh winter came to his aid, halting hostilities ^[3] .

In the spring and summer of 1600, Kara Yaziji and his brother Delhi Hassan energetically prepared for a new speech against the Sultan government. They managed to collect more than 20 thousand people ^[3] . In September, Kara Yaziji in a battle near the city of Kayseri defeated the army directed against him under the command of the Sultan Vezir Haji Ibrahim Pasha ^[3] . The Sultan army lost 12 thousand people killed ^[3] .

In the hands of Kara Yazigi got a rich booty, including military equipment. After this victory, the rebels became masters of the situation in a significant part of the lands of Central Anatolia ^[4] .

About a year after these events, Kara Yaziji acted as an independent ruler. From among his associates, he appointed a great vezir and even Sheikh-ul-Islam, expelled Sultan officials and replaced them with his proteges, began to collect taxes from the population, and sometimes to exempt soldiers who distinguished themselves in battles from paying taxes. So, Kara Yazigi issued special letters of exemption from all taxes to those participants in the battle of Kayseri who showed particular courage ^[4] . But the maintenance of Kara Yaziji’s own army required considerable funds, and therefore the leader of the rebels not only did not exempt the peasants from paying ordinary taxes, but he himself also resorted to emergency fees for the army ^[4] .

At that time, when Kara Yaziji controlled a significant territory in Central Anatolia, many local feudal lords joined him, including a number of Sultan Sanjak Beys who wished to retain their possessions or positions in this way ^[4] . The rapprochement of Kara Yazigi with this group of participants in the uprising led to a gradual increase in contradictions between him and the bulk of the rebels - peasants who could not help but murmur, seeing how their leader surrounds himself with various dignity people and distributes profitable posts and posts between them ^[4] . All this soon affected the combat effectiveness and stamina of the Kara Yaziji army.

Meanwhile, the Sultan government carefully prepared a punitive expedition against the rebels ^[4] . She was led by the Baghdad Baylerbay Sokolluzade Hassan Pasha. By the beginning of 1601, troops from Baghdad , Aleppo , Damascus and several other cities that were part of the Arab provinces of the empire were drawn into the Diyarbakir region ^[4] .

On August 15, 1601, in the valley of Elbistan north of [Kahramanmarash], a bloody battle took place between the army of Kara Yaziji, numbering 30 thousand soldiers, and the army of Hassan Pasha ^[4] . The rebels were defeated, having lost, according to various sources, from 10 thousand to 20 thousand killed ^[4] . Wounded in battle, Kara Yaziji with a small detachment took refuge in a mountainous area between Tokat and Trabzon . Here he died in the winter of 1602 . There are different versions of his death ^[4] . According to one of them, he was killed by people from his immediate environment ^[4] .

The death of the leader did not interrupt the fight of the rebels with the government. As their new leader, they elected the brother of Kara Yaziji - Delhi (" Mad ") Hassan. He managed to assemble a new army from the peasants of Anatolia ^[4] . At the head of the 20,000th army, Delhi Hassan in the spring of 1602 entered into battle with the army of Hassan Pasha and inflicted a serious defeat on it. Beylerbey Hassan Pasha took refuge in Tokat ^[4] . However, the rebels soon captured Tokat , captured the treasury, convoy and harem of Hasan Pasha, and killed him himself ^[4] . The riches taken from the Baghdad Beylerbey allowed Delhi Hassan to increase the ranks of his soldiers and improve their equipment and weapons. Then Delhi Hassan turned his now 30,000th army to the west ^[4] . In December 1602, he besieged Kutahya for some time. Things turned out well for the rebels, but the harsh winter forced Delhi Hassan to break off the siege and withdraw the army for the winter in the Karahisar region ^[4] .

Ports by all means sought to extinguish the fire of the uprising in Anatolia. Preparing a large army for a new punitive expedition, the Sultan government sought to simultaneously split the rebel camp ^[5] . In the summer of 1603, Delhi Hassan submitted to Sultan Mehmed a request for forgiveness for all leaders of the uprising, which was immediately satisfied ^[5] . Delhi Hassan himself and a number of his closest associates received high posts from the Sultan ^[5] . Delhi Hassan was granted the Bosnian Sanjak, about 400 participants in the uprising were enlisted in the regular forces of the Sultan. At the beginning of 1604, Delhi Hassan and part of his former soldiers were sent to the Turkish army, acting against the Austrians ^[5] . Some of the associates of Delhi Hassan tried to continue the fight with the government in Anatolia, but they were soon bribed by agents of the Sultan ^[5] . The movement of the peasants, betrayed by the feudal lords - leaders of the uprising, gradually lost its strength ^[5] . Most of the large detachments assembled by Delhi Hassan ceased to exist ^[5] . Delhi Hassan himself was executed at the end of 1605 in Belgrade for a new attempt at a revolt against Porta and secret negotiations with the Venetians and dad about the sale of one of the Sultan's fortresses in Dalmatia ^[5] .