Series Editor:F,clwarcl L. FarmerUniyersitl oJ' Minnesota

Editorial Board:Jerry H. BentleyUniversity of'Hawaii

Thomas A. BradyUniv er si ty of C alifo r ni a, B e rkeley

Timothy BrookUniversity of British Columbia

Luca CodignolaUniyersitd di Genova

Feiipe Fernindez-AnlestoUniversity oJ llotre Dame

Anlhony GraftonPrinceton University

Tamar HerzogStanJbrd IJniversity

Carla Rahn PhillipsUnitersity oJ Minnesota

Minnesota Studies inEarly Modern History

Williarn D. Phillips, Jr.

University oJ Minnesota

Mansur SefatgolUrtiversity of Tehran

|ames D. TracyUniversity of Minnesota

|osefi na Zor arda VisquezEl Colegio de Mdxico

Ann WaltnerUniversity oJ Minnesota

Wang GungwuN at io nal Univ er sit y oJ' S ingap or e

lohn E. Wills, |r.University of Southern California

Titles in Series

L Calvi, Il. Kendall, Oliver Nicholsor.r, William D. phillips, .[r., ancl Mar

guerite Rtrgnow, ecls., (,irnrcr-sion to christianiry from Lalc Ariirluity to theModcru Ac(: ooilsiicrittr thc /)ror1,.s.s irr lr.ttropc, Asit, tuttl rlrc Arrtt,r.ict.rs

2. farrc IIitlllrwrry, crl.,'//lr, t\t,rlt Itttttls itr lltr ()llrtntrtrt 1,,'r.rt

The Arab Lands in theOttoman Era

Edited by

]ane HathawaY

Essays in Honor oJ ProJessor Caesar F arab

nEMH 2,001

The "Mamluk Breaker"Who \il/as Really a Kul

A Fresh Look at Kul Krran Mehmed Pasha,( ,overnor of Egypt 1 607-161 I

l,rne Hatbau)ay

n May 1604, el-Hajj lbrahim Pasha docked and encamped at the

Nile port ol Bulaq, preparatory to entering Cairo and assum-

ing the governorship of Egypt. On disembarking, however, he

lrrcountered a party of soldiers from among the seven Ottomanrt'1:,irlrcnts stationed in Egypt under the terms of the 1525 law code

I' rrtrwn as the l{anunname-i Mrytr.tThese particular soldiers appear

trr llrvc come largely fiom the three sipahr, or cavalry, regiments,

rr lrtrsc clr"rties were concentrated in the countryside. Unlike sipahts

rrr llrc llalkans, Anatolia, Syria, and northern [raq, they did notfitld lttttdrs, the rnilitary "fiefs" from whose tax revenues a cavalry,rllit'cr raiscd and equipped a troop of horsemen. The trmar sys-

l('nr \vrs ncvcr implenrented in Egypt; instead, all soldiers, whether

,;rrrrlry or irrlirntry, received salaries, in cash and provisions, fromtlrr' provirrcial trcasury. Of the seven regimenls, the three cavalryrnrts wclc llrc rrrosl pilorly paicl. Sincc they served in the coun-Ir 1':,rrlr'. lrrllhcrrrrorc. lhcy corrltl rtot supplcmcnt their incomes by

,Il)('lunl,, slrops irr llrr' lrrzrurt's itt lltc tttitttncl ol'tltc .lanissaries and' \zr'lr;rn, lrro lrrr';,t' ttrl:tttlty tt'1,,tntt'ttls lrrrserl itt ('rtirtl.'l'hcy thcrc-

Breake r:

9 4 tr::, THE ARAB LANDS rN THE o'l.T()MAN ERA

fore depended on exactions from the peasantry and extraordinary,often extralegal, fees.

Among these fees was an "accession bonus,, that the cavalryregiments expected fiom every new governor dispatched to Egyptfrom Istanbul, and it was this bonus that they had come to demandfrom Ibrahim Pasha. The latter staunchly refused, however, where-upon the soldiers overran his camp and took the rnoney by force.This incident inaugurated four months of acrimonious relationsbetween the pasha and the soldiery-the cavalry regiments espe_cially, bLrt the other regiments, too, for all of Egypt,s soldiers, likesoldiers in other provinces, were reeling from the effects of thewave of inflation that had engulfed the ottoman Empire at the endofthe sixteenth century, triggering currency debasement and theconsequcnt devaluation of cash salaries. The soldiers were there-fore infuriated by Ibrahirn Pasha's harsh fiscal measures. In Sep-tember 1604, when the pasha left cairo's citadel to participate inthe annual cutting of the Nile dam, a group of cavalry soldierssurrounded the residence in which he was staying and murderedhim. The successor to Ibrahim pasha, now known as Maqt[], or"murdered," Ibrahinr, persuaded the regimental commanders tohand over the ringleaders of the assassination, who were summar-ily executed.2

In 1607, however, a new governor, Mehmed pasha, arrived witha mandate to get to the bottom of Ibralrim pasha,s murder, which,he sensed, could not have been conceived solely by downtroddencavalry troops in the countryside. After repeated interrogation,the commanders of the elite Miiteferrika and Qavugan regimentsconceded that "the sipahts would not have killed hirn except with theknowledge of the sanjaks,"3 referring to the province,s twenty-foursanjak beyis. Although they shared this title with the trmar-holdingdistrict governors of other Ottoman provinces, Egypt,s beys weresalaried officials, some of whom held subprovincial governor-ships while others attained such Iucrative and in|rucntial ol'l'iccsas comrrander ol'the annual pilgrimagc to Mcccu irnd chicl'I'i rurrr-cial <rl'l'iccr, <tr tlcf'tcrtlir'. -l'lrcsc llcys, plrrlicrrlirrly llre srrbpr.ovirrcill

Tus "N{e14LuK Bneernx." wHo wAs REALLy A KUa BREAKER -r:r 9 5

l,,ovcrnors, provided a link between the cavalry troops operatingrrr the countryside and the political establishment in Cairo, where

rrrost beys kept residences and conducted much of their business.('onvinced of their culpability, the new governor expelled thirteenol'them, over half the total number, fiom Cairo.

'fwo years later, nonetheless. the sipaht regiments staged an

urrprccedented uprising against Mehmed Pasha in which they con-

vclged on the tonrb of the wildly popular thirteenth-century Sufislrayklr Ahmad al-Badawi (d. 1276) in the Nile Delta town of Tanta

rrnd appointed their own sultan and ministers. In response, Mehmed

l'asha sent an expeditionary force to crush the insurrection. Fol-

Iowing the success of the expedition, he had fifly rebels who were

not inscribed on the regimental payrolls beheaded and packed 300

rnore, in chains, off to Yemen. According to the chronicler Ibn Abirul-Surur, he then ordered the residents of Cairo each to dig out a

cubit of earth in fiont of their homes and shops "to erase the reb-

cls' fbotprints from the ground."a

Because of his unprecedented success in stemming the tide ofrnilitary rebellion, Mehmed Pasha was popularly known in Egyptas Kul Krran Melimed, or Mehmed, the breaker of the kuls. Amonglristorians of Ottoman Egypt, kulinthis context has typically been

taken to be synonymous with mantluk, that is, an elite militaryslave of the sort who dorninated the later Mamluk sultanate, whichrLrled Egypt, Syria, and southeastern Anatolia befbre the Ottoman

conquest of l516-17. This interpretation is loaded with the bag-

gage of the canonical historiography of Ottoman Egypt, accord-

ing to which Egypt's beys were a holdover from or revival of the

rnilitary-administrative hierarchy of the Mamluk sultanate. Thus,

the ir purpose in dispatching Ibrahirr Pasha was to achieve inde-

pendence, or at least autonomy, from Ottoman rule and revive the

Mamluk sultarrate.s A number of assumptions enable this interpre-tatiorr, alroug them the assumption that these presumed mamluks

wcrc slavcs ll'onr ('ircassia or othcr regions o1'the Caucasus, and

llrlrt thcy wcrc lcclrrilctl irr llrc slunc nranncr ancl lbr the sarne pur-

l)()r.ic iri clilc slrvt's rutrlt'r'llre Mrrnrlrrk srrlllrralc. What lwish to

9 6 r::: - THF ARAB LANDS IN THE o.I.ToMAN EltA

argue, however, is that such an interpretation is untenable fbr twokey reasons: f irst, the specific connotations of the word kul in theearly seventeenth century; and second, the administrative changesthat Egypt had undergone in the late sixteenth century. In otherwords, Kul Krran Mehmed Pasha was definitely not a "Mamluk-breaker" but a kul-breaker, and the two were very diff'erent.

THE MEANING OF KUIKul is a broad, flexible ottoman term that can have a variety ofconnotations, depending on the context in which it is used. It is fre-quently translated as "the sultan's servant,,, and indeed, the unrfyingfeature of all kullor, to use the Turkish plurar, is their position assubject to the sultan's orders. often, knllar are associated with twocategories of elite slave: those who comprised the corps of imperialpalace pages and those who manned the imperial Janissary corps.Both groups were products of the devsirme, the distinctively otto-man practice of "collecting" boys from among the christian sub-jects of the Balkans and Anatolia, converting them to Islam, andtraining them for either the military or the palace. Their separa-tion from their families of origin and, in the case of the pages, theireducation in the sultan's palace are supposed to have ensured theirexclusive loyalty to the sultan.6 Devsirme recruits dominated notonly the irnperial Janissary regiment but also the grand vizierateand other key palace offices, as well as the most prestigious pro_vincial governorships, throughout much of the sixteenth centuryand into the following century.

In a provincial setting, however, kul could carry a much broadermeaning, referring at times to all the sultan's servants in the pro-vincial administration and the provincial regiments of soldiery. Tlreearly seventeenth-century chronicler-bureaucrat Kelami Ef-endi,quoting a sultanic decree (hqlt-t hiimayun), makes it clear that kulis a broad term encompassing "the sanjak be.yis protecting Egypt...and...the kuI commanders...ancl Egypt's Mtitolcrrika ancl eavuqicsand the deputy conrlanclcrs ol'lhc rcginronts anrl ol l-tcr littllot,(14t'trr" du ntttlril'i:tltr ,lrrtr ,vtrtrt'ttli ltt'lilr,i...r't,...krrl tr,rittlttr.r...t.<,...

THE "MAMLUK snnA.xnn" wHo wAS ltEALLy A l<uL BREAKER .-r:r 97

Altsu Miltefbrrikalarr ve QavuSlart ve bdliik ketl.tiidalart ve sa)irIttrllar).7 The court chronicler Mustaf'a Safi further delineates as

/irtis the emlns, salaried officials appointed from Istanbul to collectluxes in the Egyptian countryside during the sixteenth and earlyscventeenth centuries, and Egypt's kashifs, or minor subprovincial

sovernors.S And while the bulk of the soldiery, at least befbre 1600,

would have been devSirme recruits from Hungary, the Balkans, orwestern Anatolia, they seem to have wasted little time in channel-

ing their offspring and clients into the regiments. Hence a rather

curious order from the sultan to the governor of Egypt, dated 20

I{ebi iis-sani 972 (25 November 1564), requests 1000 kullar "fiomarnong Egypt's kulofilu ve kul karmdasr" that is, the sons and

comrades of the kullar.e This irnplies a whole complex of kullarl'rom the Balkans and Anatolia, their f'amilies, and their clients,who had established themselves in Egypt.

By the early years of the seventeenth century, this population

of kullar was regarded as a source of unrest. The governor Yavuz

'Ali Pasha, about whom, after his rnartyrdom at Belgrade in 1604,

a flowery panegyric was composed by the above-mentioned KelamiEf'endi, spent two years (1601-02) trying to curb the abuses ofthe kul la)fesi (kul group).r0 Both Mustaf-a Safi and the Egyptianchronicler al-lshaqi take note of the brutal exactions of Perviz"Majar" ("the Hungarian"), kashif of the Nile Delta sLrbprovince

of Gharbiyya, who was executed by Kul Krran Mehmed Pasha.rl

Kullar likewise included the ranks of Egypt's regimental soldiery,

who were chronically disgruntled during these years. Followingthe empire-wide pattern of military unrest in the wake of the eco-

nomic crisis that overwhelmed Ottoman society at the end of the

sixteenth century, Egypt had weathered major soldiery revolts in

l5B9 and 1601. ln fact, Kelami Efendi virtually sets up the rnurder

ollbrahim Pasha after he recounts how prior to (Ali Pasha's sup-

poscdly cnlighte ned administration of Egypt, one governor wouldtrnlcaslr unrcst (/itna) by withholding the kul 1a'ifbsi's salaries,

wlrilc lrrrollrcr woultl l'i ntl urouglr cash to appcasc them, thereby

lrrcilfy crrrrtlorrirrll llrt'ir'('\('csscs. lrithrrr way. thc lirtllor wcrc out

98 r1- THE ARAB LANDS IN THE orroMAN ERA

of control, and the poor, oppressed re caya (peasaHts) were flee_ing the land, as they were elsewhere in the empire, while food anddrink becarre scarce'12 Ibrahim pasha was simpry one in a seriesof governors who faced the impossible task of remitting the req-uisite annual tribute to [stanbul without impoverishing the kurarand risking revort'13 Each governo. rr""a a stark choice betweensending the tribute and paying the kurqr.The attack of the kuraron Ibrahim pasha in 1604,then, was not simply an isorated reactionto Ibrahim's measures, which were probably no harsher than thoseof some of his predecessors, but part of a series of reactions to thegeneral effects ofthe late sixteenth_century crisis.

EGYPT'S BEYS IN THE LATE I6THND EARLY ITTH CENTURIES

L'.ontenrporary accounts of Kur Krran Mehmed pasha, as we, asEgyptian chronicres dating f.onr the forowing century, concur thathe belicved Egypt's sanjak beyis to t uu" u."n complicit in MaqtulIbrahim pasha's murder' By the terms of the canonicar historiogra-phy of Ottoman Egypt, the beys, participatior.r, above all, marks themurder as an attempt to resurrect the Mamruk surtanate. Accordingto this interpretation, these beys are ratter-day products ofthe pro-cess of mamruk-acquisition that continued uninterrupted afler theottoman conquest of Egypt, whire the orn"", they hold representa continuation or resurrection of the Mamruk-era emirate. Thus,they provide evidence that the institutions of the Mamluk surtanatecontinued under a thin ottoman veneer.ra This notion i, turn rendsitself to an encompassing nationalist concep tualizationof the otto_man era in Egypt, whereby the provincial grandees and the ..native,,popuration chafe under the "Turkish yoke" and yearn ceaseressry t'revive the Mamluk surtanate, which is somehow rnore ..authe

ntic,,to their constructed identities than the O,,o,run Entpirc is.AIr this lnighr be marginary prarrsibrc wcrc ir rr.t lirr.rrrc rrrrrrrirr_istrative measures that tlre p,,t,,." u,l,ri,took in ordcr t. prcvonr irsr sucrr rrrr cvcrrrl,,:1,';i:';,iJ'l ,lii,,t,,,,,"),,)),,,i,,

,

Mr'stt'. l)r'o,rargrrrctr h.y Sii rc.yrrrlrrr.s lir.lrrrrr vizit.r.rrrr.rrlrirrr r)rrslr;r lirr

:tttr "ltalarur snrerEn" wHo wAs REALLy A KUL lll{r,AKr.rl{ ' t 9r)

lowing the rebellion ol the governor Ha'in Ahrned Pasha in 1524,

rvas the first such measure. but others followed toward the end ofSiileyman's reign. In 1554, the elite Mtiteferrika corps was intro-tluced to Egypt. Essentially a mirror of the imperial Miiteferrikabased in Topkapr Palace, the provincial regiment was a combined

inlantry and cavalry unit attached to the governor's council (drvan)

rrnd staffed with elite members of the palace soldiery and theirsons. Before the eighteenth century, it was larger than any other

lcgiment but the .lanissaries; its members commanded the highest

salaries and enjoyed distinctive privileges.rs Not surprisingly, sul-

lanic orders to the governor of Egypt from the later 1550s indicate

lhe emergence of a new military-administrative elite in the prov-

ince with roots in the palace. [t was evidently commonplace dur-

irrg these years 1br rnembers of the imperial Mtiteferrika to become

lrcys in Egypt.One of these was even a client of Siileyrnan's son

l)rince Mustaf-a who received his beylik after Mustaf'a's execution

in 1555 on his father's orders. During that same year, the son of anrember of Egypt's Miiteferrika regiment was promoted to impe-

rittl silqhdar, or weapons-bearer, at the request of the I'uture sul-

Iurr Selim II.r6 The great Ottoman naval commander Piri Reis, itirppears, assigned his own son Mchmed to Egypt's Miiteferrikacorps; on Piri's execution in 1555, Mehmed replaced his father's

liathiidc1, or lieutenant, as commander (re'rs) of the Miitef-errika.rT

lrr 1559, a different Piri, who had been a sanjctk beyi in Yemen,joir-red Egypt's Miiteferrika at the request of Egypt's governor.'8'l.hc sons or clients of governors of Egypt and Yemen might also

lrc appointed beys or assigned places in Egypt's Mtiteferrika corps()r cvcn alrollg the imperial Miil.eferrika.re Members of Egypt's

Miitclcrrika cor.rld acquire their own kullqr whom they could then

placc in othcr rcgiurents.r0 The f'cw Egyptian beys identified by

rrrn.rc in tho nricl- to latc sixtecnth centllry, suclr as Piri and Osuran

licys, rnust corrrc ll'onr such clitc lrackgrounds.

As il'lo cxlcrrd lhc pllircc's rcaclt itr lhc 1-lrovit.rcc. Siilcylran iltl5(r,.[ issrrctl rrrr otrlet'lo tlrc g()vct'tl()t'ol'ltgyltt tlttrt orrly tttctttbcl's

ol llrt' Miilt'li'r rikrr rrrrrl llrr' sotrrcrvlrll snrirlle r' (,'lrvtt;lttt t'cgitttcttl

r'ottlrl ltt'lttontolt'rl lo lltt't:ttth ttl'llt'y.'t';,tr.'*r.'tltltttl,1's ltt lt1'yPl's

I00 r--'-t'HE ARAIJ LANlls IN rHIt oI'T()I.IAN lit t{A

miIitary-adrninistrative hierarchy werc consistent with Siileymanicmeasures in other provinces conquered from the Mamluk sultanatcand their Dulkadiro[lu vassals in southeastern Anatolia by Siiley-man's tather, Selim I, as Leslie Peirce's Morolity laies poirTts out intlre case of Ayntab/Gaziantep.)2 Like thc Mtitef-errika, the eavr_r;;anwere an clite drvon rcgiment filled directly 1'rom the imperial pal-ace whose numbers olten included the sons of pashas and viziers.

The beys o1'the early seventeenth century, therefbre, would have

comprised such palace-trained types, or possibly their sons or cli-ents. In other words, they would have becn kullur or the sclns o1'

kullor, rvith strong ties to the palace ancl the culture it represented.

They would also have had a well-developed sensc olethno-regionalsolidarity, as described by Metin Kunt, that defined them as Rhmt,that is, hailing fiom tlre Ottoman central lands, chiefly the Balkansand western Anatolia. This designation distinguishcd them fiom'Asiatic" "easterners." above all mamluks fiom the Caucasus butalso Bedouin tribcsmen and Arabophone townsmen.rr In the longtem, then, the orders of the rnid-sixteenth century, in thc collrseof warding off any attempt to "revive" the Marnluk sultanate orotherwise establish an autonomous base of power, created a pro-vincial /rzl problen, that nrirrorcd the /reri problern that had begunto plagrre the capital.

What, then, was the role of Egypt's bcys in lbrahirn Pasha's

murdcr if they did not wish to revive t1-re Marnluh sultanate? Thesc

beys were part of- the palace-derived elite just describcd, clr elscthc sons of members of this elite. The Egyptian chronicler al-lshacli

notes a Mehrned Bey ibn Husrcv who, so far frorn conspiring tomurdcr Ibrahitn Paslra, was regarded as his accornplice ancl killcdalong with him. He rray have been the son of the governor Husrev

Pasha (term 941 43l1535 36), or possibly of Ktisc Husrcv Pasha.

who governed a nurrber of eastern Anatolian altd Sylian provirrccsfiom thc 1560s through the l-580s bclirrc bcilrg rnurtyrctl irr the lrrrrrcampaign o1'l-587-rr Nttrtcthclcss, llrc lrcys ol'tcrr rrssiurrctl tlrcil orvrr

kttlltrr ltttd otltcr clicnts. lrs rvcll lrs llrcit' s()n\ ()n ()('( ilsi()rr. lo llrcItttnrblcr.t't'titttcrtls. irrclrrrlinll llrt'llrrt't't':rr:rlr'1, lq.l,irrrt'rrls Wlrt'llrt.r

TUI: ..I,TAi''ITUI< BRtsAI(ER,, \ATHO WAS REA I,I,Y A KUL I]REA TNN .-- I I O I

rrr not these kullctrrn kullarr and kttktgullort (kuls of the /rzrls and

/,irls' sons) sloggecl through the countrysidc with other members

,rl'these comparatively lowly regintents, they relied on the regi-

rrrcnts fbr salaries. lndecd, assigning a client to a regiment was a

( onvcnient rncans of providing for his upkeep. If an enterprising

liovcrnor such as Ibrahim Pasha atternpted to curtail the salaric-s

()r other I-iscal privileges ol'these regirnents, the beys and their cli-

r.rrts rvould f-eel the pinch, evcn ilthey were not reduced to misery

irr thc way that sor-ne lnembers of the .sipaht regiments apparently

$,cre. Hence the beys' animus against Ibrahim Pasha and motive

lirr killing him. or at least accluiescillg in his rrurder'

KUL KIRAN OT<UZ KARA MEHMED

ln this context, it is probably significant that KuI Krran Mchmcd

l,asha himself-was neithe r a kul, in the sense o1 o deysirme recruit,

nor a rnornlzl<. Insteacl, he was a Muslirl blacksmith's son fiollr

Istanbul's Karagitmrtik district- In the inTperial capital, he came

to be known as Oktiz Mchrned, or "Mehmed the Ox"-perhaps

[rccause of his father's occupatiot't, perhaps because of lTis phy-

siquc -or, alterr,atively, Kara (Black) Mehmcd, most likely because

lrc sporled a black beard, although he rnay also have had a swarthy

complexion. He served Sultan Ahmed I (r. 1603-17) as weapons-

lrcarer (,silahtlar) befbre being posted to Egypt; on his return in t611,

he marriecl the sultan's daughter and became a naval commander

ancJ, a year later, second vizier on the sultan's governing council,

or tj^:an. At this tiuTe, the Venetian atnbassador Simon Contarini

rlcscribed hirn as "fbrty-six years old, well turned-out, with a copi-

ous bcarcl, of grave and severe aspect. haLrghty in the end, succinct

Irrrrl lrordant of speech."rs lle served as grand vizier fiom october

l(rl4 throLrgh November l6l6 and again during most of 1619. ln his

/.iil>t/ctii '/-tt't'it'rh f('rcarn ttf histories], the chrorTicler of Ahmed I's

r.cigrr. Mrrstalil Sill'i, rr,rtes Okiiz Mchuretl's praiseworthy qualities,

rr, lrit'lr lre ll lcrtsl itrrplicilly colltrltstcd with tl.rtlsc of'his predeces-

s()t its gtiln(l vrzir'r'. {ltr'cret'ttlctl Nlrsrrll I'lrslrlr (tcrrr.r l(rll l4), who

\\ lls il (/('l'\/t lll,' t t't'l ttil '''

lO2 w-'THE ARAB LANDS IN THE orroMAN ERA

THE AFTERMATH OF KUL KIRAN MEHMED'S MEASURES

Cairo in 1604 was probably well on its way to becomin g a kul cap-

ital, not unlike Istanbul in the 1620s. Egypt's sanjak beyis were,in many respects, part of this kul problem inasmuch as they werethemselves kullar and, on attaining the rank of bey, began patron-

izing lower-ranking kttllar by assigning thern salaries in Egypt'sregiments. ln this context, Ibrahim Pasha's rnurder by the soldiers,at the instigation of the beys, emerges as a harbinger to SultanOsman I I's murder in 1622 by palace kullar who resented his plans

for supplementing the kul forces with mercenaries from Anatoliaand the Arab provinces.2T The aftermath of both incidents allowedalternative pools of manpower to come to the fore in both capitaland province mamluks from the Caucasus; mercenaries fiom Ana-tolia and, in the case of Egypt, from the Arab provinces themselves

and from other regions of Asia.

Already by tlie late sixteenth century, increasing numbersof palace personnel were being recruited from the region of theCaucasus, notably from Circassia, Abkhazia, and Georgia. Such

a development was perhaps to be expected after the conquest ofthe Mamluk sultanate in 1516*17 and Ottoman successes againstthe Safavids of Iran in the early decades of the sixteenth century,which gave the Ottomans relatively easy access to the Caucasus,

as wellas conlrol of the major slave trade routes. By the 1620s, in

any event, mctmluks from the Caucasus and their sons, including the

Abkhazian Melek Ahmed Pasha, future grand vizier and patron ofthe famous traveler Evliya Qelebi, were emerging as an alternative,and occasionally rival, source of influence to the kullar in the pal-

ace itself.28 Palace-trained mamluks also figure prorninently among

the rebellious jelalt governors of the seventeenth century, as wit-ness Abaza ("Abkhazian") Mehmed Pasha, govemor ol'Erzurur.trin the 1620s, and Abaza Hasan Pasha, governor ol'Aleppo in thc1650s. In Egypt, by the same token, the govcrnors ancl militarycommanders, tlrenrselves oftcn o[- da v; i rmc origi lt. i ncrr:asi nglypurchascd Caucasiatr mttnluks irs pcrsonll lclirirrcls irrrtl cliorts lirr'thcil housclroltls. ol'lctt prorrrolirrg llrcrrr llrlorrglr llrc ol'l'it'cr clrtl-

Trle "Mautur snEeren" wHo wAs nEALLy A KUL BREAKEII ' r I 0 3

rt's ol the provincial regiments and ultimately to the rank ol san-

1rtli. lteyi. Between the end of Kul Krran Mehmed's tenure and the

Itr-10s, consequently, we see a huge increase in fbrmer mamluks

lrorn the Caucasus, above all Circassia, among Egypt's beys.

Similar changes occurred among Egypt's regiments of Otto-rrriur soldiery toward the end of the sixteenth century, as a new ele-

rrrcrrt began to gain ground: the so-called evlad-i'Arab, literally,"sons of the Arabs," whose identity Ihave explored elsewhere.2e

As I have previously observed, it is far easier to deterrrine who the

r'vlfid-i cArab were not than who they were. They were not devSirrue

lecruits, and they were not Rumls-that is, not frorn the Balkans or

ivcstern Anatolia. Particularly as used in the late sixteenth century,

thc term seems to have ref'erred to local elements who somehow

irrsinuated themselves into the regiments. Their ranks probably

rncluded townsmen from Cairo and other Egyptian towns, and

srr rely Bedouin tribesmen, but also mercenaries and opportunistsol'various ethnicities fiorn other Arab provinces, as well as desert-

crs lrom the Safavid arrnies and those of the Shaybanid Ozbeks,

who had dominated Transoxiana throughout the sixteenth centu-

ry.'r0 They were probably not covered by the term kullar, except

in the vague and generic sense in which this word was sometimes

trsed in sultanic orders calling for large numbers of the "sultan's

scrvanls" for nriIitary campaigns.

To some degree, the evlad can be compared to the dispossessed

rc(aya who took up arms in Anatolia in the late sixteenth century,

triggering the Jelall Rebellions.3r It is even worth asking whether

they did not number among the members of the sipahl regiments

who rebelled against Kul Krran Mehmed Pasha in 1609 and named

thcir own sultan. Although the bulk of the rebels were probably kul-

/rrr recruited through the devSirme, the fact that some fifty were

not inscribed on the regimental payrolls leaves open the possibil-

ity ol' ;rirrticipation by cvldcl-i 'Aretb frorn among Egypt's re'ayA.'I'hc rcvoll ilscll'. witlr rts slltlng rural corrponent, overturning ofllrc cxislirrgl ortlu. rrttl t;rrtsi-rrrillcrtitriiur appcal ttl [1gyp1's "patron

srrnl," Alrrrrrl rl ll;rrl;rrt t. lr;rs sontt'llrirrg ol'llrc clurt'rrclcr rll'classic

lO4 =- THE ARAB LANDS IN THE oTToMAN ERA

peasant resistance.32 Hence it may not be at all far-fetched to cailit an Egyptian Jelall Rebellion.

Evlad-i ,Arab offercd certain of Egypt,s new generation of beysof caucasian mamluk origin a ready supply of mercenaries fbr therank-and-fire of their household armies; other beys recruited Rumrmercenaries, some of whom may well have been devSirmerecruitsoriginally. The beys oflen injected their rnercenarics into the regi-ments by way of providing them with steady salaries and provi-

- sions' within the regiments, the ethno-regional tension betweenRumt "westerners" and Asiatic "easterners,, persisted, but it wasnow between two pools of mercenaries ernployed by beys from theCaucasus. To the Rumfs, the evlad_i (Arab represented above allcompetition for regimentar sararies, whose varue was constantlydecreasing, in any case, as prices rose and currency was debased.r3Hence it is no surprise that during the early decades of the sev_enteenth century, sultanic orders and orders frorn the governor ofEgypt demand that the evrad-i'Arab be expelred from the regi-ments.sa

This ethno-regional rivarry came to a head in the early 1640s,when Rrdvan and ,AIi Beys, with their army ot Rum o{lant(sons ofthe Rumts\ mercenaries. conrronted eansuh ana n,,eii Beys withtheir troops consisting of evrad-i'Arqb- As I have noted elsewhere,this conflict appears to have marked the first political manifes-tation of the rival Faqari and easimi factions, who wourd divideEgyptian society for the foilowing century.35 The Faqari factionwas named after (Ali Bey, who was occasionally styled ,,Zulfikarlt,after the ottoman banner he carried, emblazoned with the ottomanversion of 'Ari ibn Abi Tarib's doubre-braded sword Dh[,r-FaqEr;the Qasimis apparently took their name from eansuh Bey,s patron,Qasim Bey the Great.36

Rather than reflecting a tink to the kulproblern of the early scv_enteenth century and the ,Iercttt Rebelrions, this initiar c,nft-orrta-tion between the two nasce nt lirctions bcr,rgs t, lhc paracr ign*r.lelalt gctvc, nors with privirtc ,rc.cc'rlr.y .r-r,ics. ,Ari rlcy, rhc g.v_crrrrlr .l'rhc crrrlrrrr.rrs ullpcr. rigyprirrr srrhpr,virrcc .r'.1 ir.jrr, wlrs

'lllli "MAMt,Ut( til(t, At(ritr" \\,il{) !!As r{llAr.r\ A,!r// ,il{r/\r!rr I0',

an Egyptian counterpart to Abaza Hasan Pasha ol'Alcppo. Au cvcu

more obvious counterpart was his mamluk Mehmed Bey, who suc-

ceeded him as governor of Jirja and used his own mercenary annyto rebel against the Ottoman governor. Indeed, in recognition ofthis parallel, the Turcophone chronicler Mehmed ibn Yusuf al-Hal-laq interrupts his lengthy account of Mehmed Bey's rebellion and

defeat to report the arrival of news that Abaza Hasan Pasha has

been defeated and killed.3?

Kul Krran Mehmed Pasha's tenure, then, marks a paradigm shiftwithin Egypt between the era of Jelall Rebellions and tyrannicalkullar, on the one hand, and, on the other, the era of jelalr gov-

ernors, or in this case sanjak beyis, with mercenary armies. The

story of Mehmed Pasha's accomplishments, if read in an Otto-man context, shows that Egypt participated fully in the crisis ofthe late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries that swept the

Ottoman provinces, and suffered a kul problem similar to the one

in the imperial capital that culminated in the murder of Osman II.Mehmed Pasha's "breaking" of Egypt's kullar, in turn, ushered in

an era of beylical households, powered by mercenary armies. com-parable to the "yezir and pasha households" of the Anatolian and

northern Syrian provinces.3s These parallels have been obscured,

however, by the inordinately long shadow cast over the historiog-raphy of Ottoman Egypt by the Mamluk sultanate and the conse-

quent insistence on interpreting any rebellion within Egypt as an

attempt to resurrect Mamluk rule, without regard fbr the Ottoman

context in which such a rebellion occurred. Thanks to this histori-ography, Mehmed Pasha the kulbreaker has been misconstrued as

a "Mamluk breaker" for far too long.

I 06 r-' THE ARAB LANDS rN THE orroMAN ERA

2.

J.

4.

5.

(r.

EndnotesFor the full text of the t{anunndme, see Orner Lutfi Barkan, ed.,"Mtstr KanunnAmesi" IEgypt's legal code], in XV ve XVImctAsrlarda Osmanh imparatorlu{u Zirai Ekonominin Hukuki ve MaliEsaslarr. fl-egal and fiscal foundations of the Ottornan Empire's ag-

ricultural economy in the flfteenth and sixteenth centuries], ed. Bar-kan, Istanbul University Faculty of Literature Publications No. 256,

vol. l: Kanunlar lLawsf (lstanbul, 1943), chapter 105. In actual fact,the Kanunname provides for only six regiments; the seventh, the

Miiteferrika, was added in 1554; see Stanford J. Shaw, The Finan-cial and Admini,ytrative. Organization ttnd Development of OttomanEgypt, 1517-1798 (Princeton, NJ, 1962), 192*94.

Muhammad ibn 'Abd al-Mu'ti al-Ishaqi, Akhbar al-uwal J'l mantasarraJa fl Misr min arbab al-duwal [Annals of the most promi-nent: Statesmen who admlnistered Egyptl (Bulaq, 1304/1887), 165-68; Mustafa Safi, Mustafa Safi'nin Ztibdetii't-tevArih'i IMustafa Safi's

cream of historiesl, ed. ibrahirn Hakkr Quhadar, 2 vols. (Ankara,2003), I: 120 l,ll: 88 98; P.M. Holt, Egypt and the Fertile Crescent,

1516-1922: A Political History (lthaca, NY, 1966),73-74. Holt's ac-

count is based on the work of the seventeenth-century chronicler Mu-hanrmad ibn Abi al-Surur al-Bakri al-Siddiqi, Al-Kawakib al-sa'iraft akhbar Misr wa-al-Qahira [The wandering stars: Annals of Egyptand Cairol, British Library, MS Add. 9973. Holt dates the assassina-

tion to September 1605, but this appears to be incorrect.

Ahmed Qelebi ibn Abd al-Ghani, Awdah al-isharat.ft man tawallaMisr al-Qahira min al-wuzara'wa-al.-bashat [The clearest signs: The

ministers and pashas who governed Cairo], ed. A.A. 'Abd al-Rahim(Cairo, 1978), 131.

Paraphrased in Holt, Egypt and the Fertile Crescent,74J6.Ibid., 76. Michael Winter, however, translates kul in this context as

"rebellious soldiers" and notes that there is no firm evidence that thiswas, in fact, a Marnluk separatist revolt, although lre believes thatsome of the rebels were mamluks. He notes, further, that contcmpo-rary sources label the rebels Rum, i.e., frou.r Anatolia and the Balkans.See Winter, Egyptian Soc'iety undcr Otlomon Rulc, l5l7 1798 (l,ott-don,1992),19-20 idem, "Ottortan Egypt. 1525 1609." ir'r'l'hc ('trrn

bridge Histor.v oJ Eg.ypl. vol. II: Modt,t'tt lig.r'1tl fhtttt l5l7 trt thc lirtrlo/ lhe Twcnlielh ('cnlru'.t,. crl. M.W. I)aly (('lrnbritlgc, l(X)l{). ll{ 20.

.l.A.f ]. I)rrlrrrcr', "'l'lrc Origirr ol-tltc.ltrtrissirrics," lltrllclitt ttf lltt'.loltrt ll)'Itttttl,s l,iltt'ttt'r' l5 (l()51 1): .l,lli Sl;V. 1.. Mtrnltlqe. "Srrlr'lrltlrls ort llrt'

ruE "Ir.telrtur snnexen" wHo wAS REALLY AKUL BREAKEn "'= 107

Devshirme from Idris and Sa,duddin," Bulletin of the school of ori'ental and African Studies 18 (1956): 181-83'

Kelami Efendi, Vel.eayi'-i'Alt PaSa fEvents of lAli Pasha's term as

governor], Siileymaniye Library (lstanbul), MS Halet Efendi 612' fol'

I 36r.

Mustafa Safi , Zii b detii' t - t ev ar lh, ll 88.

BaqbakanlrkottomanArchives(Istanbul),MiihimmeDefteri[Regis-ter of important affairs] (hereafter MD) 6, no' 412'

Kelami Efendi, Vekaf iti'AltPasa, fols' 136r' l45v'

Mustafa Safi, Ziibdetii't-tevarth, II: 90; al-lshaqi, Akhbar al-uwal'

1 67 -68. In the Latin-letter transcription of Zii b detii' t - t ev ar tl.t, Ghar-

biyya is erroneously rendered'Azbiyye.

Kelarni Efendi, Vel.rayi'-i'Alt PaSa, fol' 145v'

On the tribute, or irsaltye-i hazrne, see Shaw, Finctncial and Admin-

is t rat i v e O rganizat io n rt nd D ev e lop ment, 283 -j1 2'

Holt, Egypr and the Fertile Crescent,73,76; idem, "The Beylicate

in Ottoman Egypt during the Seventeenth Century," Bulletin of the

School of Oriental and African Studies 2412 (1961): 223 251, Winter'

Egyptian Society uncler Ottoman Rule,50-53; Doris Behrens-Abou-

seif , Egypt's Aeljustment to Ottoman Rule: Institutions, Waqf ' and Ar-

chitecture in Cairo (Sixteenth- Seventeenth Centuries) (Leiden' 1994)'

108-16.

Jane Hathaw ay, The Politics ttf Households in Ottoman Egypt: The

Rise o.f the Qazdaglu (Cambridge, 1997), l1; Shaw, Financial and

Aclministrat ive Organizat ion and Development, 192-94'

MD 1, no.1667; MD 2, no. 612 (17 Cemaziyiilahrr 963); MD 2' no'

955 (6 $a'ban 963); MD 2,no.1042 (20 $a'ban 963)'

MD 2, no. 2038 (7 Cemaziytilevvel 964); see also Svat Soucek' art'

"Ptrr Re'rs b. Hadjdji Mehmed," E12.

MD 4, no. 380 (26 Receb 967).

MD 4, no.644 (4 $a'ban 967); MD 4, no' 843 (10 Ramazan 967); Ml)

4, no. l2l4 (27 Z.'lkade 967); MD 25, no' 260 (12 Ramazan 981)'

MD 2, no.905 (21 Receb 963). See also MD 4, no' 718 (18 $a'ban

967), where a Miiteferrika described as the "man" (adam) of a de-

ccascd [rcy ol'Egypt is given a ttmar.

MI) (r. no.4lt7 (CcmaziyiilevvelgT2); MD 29,no' 9 (18 Cemaziyiilev-

vcl ()tl4).

1,"sf fc f)r:ircc, l\lttrtrlit.v'lirlcs; ltrt'r'ttnd (ictttlcr in lhe Oltomun (lourl

ttf ,'l.rttlttlt (llclkclcy, ( n ' 100.1)' t'ltitplcr l'

7,

li

9

t4

t6

18.

t9.

20.

I0.

il.

12.

I .1.

r5.

23.

24.

108 THIt AriAl] LANDS IN THE o'r"r'()MAN IRA

i. Metin Kunt, "Ethnic-Regional (Cin.i) Soliclarity in the Seventeenth-Centnry Ottoman Establishment," InternationaI JournaI of MitldItEost Studies 5 (1914):233 39.

Mehmed Siireyya, Sicill-i O,smani [The Ottoman register], 4 vols.(lstanbul, 1308-15/1890 97; republished Farnborough, Hants, U.K..1971),II:299."Relazione del N.U. Simon Contarini Cav., ritornato bailo di Costan-tinopoli, I'anno 'l612," in Relozioni di ambasciatori veneti al scn..

crto, vo1. XIII Costantinopoli (1590 1793), ed. Luigi Firpo, 2',d erl.

(Turin, 1984), l4l1489. On his biography, see further Mustafa Sali.Ztihdetii't-tevarlh, T: 101-2, lI 321; Mehmed Stireyya, Sicill-i O.y-

mani, lY'. 147. See also Ehud R. Toledano, review of Doris Behrer.rs-

Abouseif, Egypt',s Adjustntent tct Ottomon Rule: Institutior.s, Waql,and Archilecture in Cairct (Sixteenth-Seventeenth Centu ries), Turkis lr

Studies Association Bulletin 2412 (2000): 87-95, at 92 93. Toledano,however, erroneously gives the dates of Mehmed Pasl.ra's governor-ship as 1605-l l.Mustafa Safi, Ziibdetii't-tevarlh,Il 315 24; Rhoads Murphey, "Mus-tafa Safi's Version of the Kingly Virtues as Presented in His Ziibdetii't-tevdrih, or Annals of Sultan Ahmed. 1012 lO23 A.H./1603 l6l4A.D.," in F-rontiers of Ottoman Studies; State, Province, and the West.

vol. l, ed. Colin Imber and Keiko Kiyotaki (London, 2005), 14,24.

See Gabriel Piterberg, An Ottontan Tragedy: History and Historiog-raphy at P/a1 (Berkeley, CA, 2003).

Robert Dankoff, trans. and comrnentary, The lntimate Li/b of an Ot-toman Sfotesman: MelekAhmed Pashct (1588 1662) as Portrayed irt

Evliya Qelebi',s Book of Travels, historical introduction by Rhoacls

Murphey (Albany, NY, 1991).

Jane Hathaway, "The Evldd-i TraD ('Sons of the Arabs') in OttornarrEgypt: A Rereading," in Frontiers of Ofiomctn Studies: State, I.nn'-ince, ond the West, vol. l, ed. Colin Imber and Keiko Kiyotaki (Lon-don,2005), 203 16.

Svat Soucek, A History of lnner Asia (Cambridge, 2000), 149 (r(r,

t7l 81.

Mustafa Akcla!, Celctli isyunlctn 1155t) l6tt3) lThe Cclali rchclliorrs(1550 1603)l (Ankara, 1963); William J. Griswol cl, Thc (irt,ttt ltttrtttlian Rebellion, 1000- 1020/1591 /6// (Bcrlin. l9ll3)See, for exatnplc, .lanres C. Scott. 77zc Nlot'trl lit'otrotrn' of.tltt l't,tr,s

un/: Rcltalliorr trrttl ,Srrlt,s'i,slt,rtt t' itt ,\ottllt<,trs't ..1,r'irr (Nr'rr, lllrve rr. ( ''l'.

f()7(r);Ilolrcr'1 I)rtntlort. l'ltr'(lrL'ttt('ttl lllttsttro('tuttl()tlr,r'1,.1,is,,,1,,:

21.

28.

29.

30.

31.

32.

'r'nFr "NtAMr.uK BItI.rAK!rrt" wttcl wAs REALLyAKUa BREAKEn ..r I09

in l,-renc'h Cttltural Hi,storl: (New York, 1984), chapter 2.

I i Orner Lr-rtfi Barkan, "The Price Revolution of tlre Sixteenth Century:A'furning Point in the E,conomic History o1'tl.re Near East," trans..lustin McCarthy, Internotional Journol o/ Middle Eust Studies (t

(1975): 3 28; $evket Pamuk, A Monetttry History o;f'thc Oltomon Ent-

Trire (Clambridge,2000), chapters 7 [3.

i l Fcrr exarnple, Melrn.red ibn Yusuf al-Hallaq, Tarrh-i Mrsr-r Kahiref History of Cairol, Istanbul University Library, T.Y. 628, 1bl. 109v;

anonymous, Kildb-i Tevurlfi-i Mtsr-t Kahire-vi Hatt-r Hason Pa,Su

[The book o1'the history o1'Cairo in thc calligraphy of Hasan Pasha],

Siileymaniyc Library (lstanbul), MS Hacr Mahnrud Efendi 4877, Ibls.(r7v 68r; al-Ishaqi, Akhbor al-uv,al,l56, 157.

i'r. .lane Hathaway, A Tole o.f Two Fac:tions: Myth, Memor.y, ond ldenl i-t.\, in Ottoman Eg.ypt ond Yemen (Albany, NY, 2003). 88 tt9. 181 82,

185 86. 190 -91.

i(,. tbid., 150, 164,167,181, 185.

i7. Al-Hallaq, Tarth-i Mt;r-r (uhirer, lbls. l59v 179r, at 173v.

\li. Rilaat A. Abou-El-I1aj, "The Ottorran Vezir and Paga Households,1683 1703: A Preliminary Report," Journal of the Antericon Orien-tal Sociel-v L)4 (19741:438 1l'- i. Metin Kurft, The Sultan's Servants;

The Transfbrntalion of Oltoman Proyinc'ial Government, 1550 1650

lNern York" l(tx3.1.

25.

26.