RECONSIDERING THE RHETORIC OF OTTOMAN GAZA AND THE DISCOURSE

OF EUROPEAN ANTEMURALE IN THE LATE FIFTEENTH CENTURY:

LEGITIMACY, MYTHS, AND IMPERIAL IDEOLOGIES

By

Burak Yazıcı

Submitted to

Central European University

Department of History

In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

Master of Arts

Supervisor: Professor Matthias Riedl

Second Reader: Professor Robyn Dora Radway

Vienna, Austria

2021
Copyright Notice

Copyright in the text of this thesis rests with the Author. Copies by any process, either

in full or part, may be made only in accordance with the instructions given by the Author and

lodged in the Central European Library. Details may be obtained from the librarian. This page

must form a part of any such copies made. Further copies made in accordance with such

instructions may not be made without the written permission of the Author.

ii
 Abstract

This thesis explores the Ottoman rhetoric of gaza in the late fifteenth century and

recontextualize it with the Christian European use of the antemurale christianitatis rhetoric by

considering the apocalypticism’s implications for adoption of such discourses. This thesis

primarily focuses on the reign of Beyezid II (r. 1481-1512) and other contemporary sovereign

figures of the age since it argues that the late fifteenth century political climate and

apocalypticism pushed these figures to develop adjusted imperial ideologies. It considers the

Ottoman capture of Constantinople and subsequent Ottoman expansionism in Europe as the

causative factors behind the reinvigoration of the antemurale christianitatis discourse. It also

suggests that the events of 1453 triggered the Christian apocalypticism since the fall of Nova

Roma and annihilation of the Eastern Roman Empire disturbed both the Latin Church and

Orthodox communities in Eastern Europe. Simultaneously, it argues that the rhetoric of

Ottoman gaza gained additional dimensions owing to the political actions taken by Bayezid II

– as well as his predecessor Mehmed II’s political designations- and challenging internal and

external threats targeted his throne. This thesis adopts a mixture of the comparative historical

methodology and connected histories in an attempt to show that the Ottoman use of the gaza

discourse and European understanding of the bulwark metaphor cannot be fully understood

independently.

Besides, this thesis reveals that both Bayezid II and his Christian adversaries in

Europe such as Charles VIII of France or Ştefan cel Mare utilized the same pool of the

religious myths and semi-historical legends. For instance, Alexander the Great legend that the

Ottoman sultans were smitten with including Bayezid II and the apocalyptic nation of Magog

that the Christian demagogues employed in their anti-Turkish writings illustrate why this

iii
methodological approach is adopted. Alexander the Great legend provided the Ottoman

sultans with a generally acknowledged universal ruler sample that they were eager to follow,

while the evil nations of Gog and Magog that they were associated with by the Christian

demagogues enabled Christian political establishments to draw a civilizational line between

Christian Europe and infidel Ottomans. To sum up, this thesis argues that the late fifteenth

century Europe witnessed the eschatological transformation of the holy war discourses and

the process itself provides historians with a perfect example of the interconnectedness that

existed between Christian Europe and the Ottoman Empire.

iv
 Acknowledgments

The completion of this thesis has been one of the most onerous processes that I have

ever endured due to the paralyzing effects of COVID-19, such as the restricted social life,

diminished occasions of intimacy with friends, and travel bans. I have started my master’s

degree in the Comparative History program in Budapest, continued my research in Vienna,

and finished my master’s thesis in Ankara, where my CEU story began. I would like to pay

my gratitude to my friends, professors, and family members who lent their full support to

keep me physically and mentally strong throughout these two challenging years.

First of all, I would like to thank my supervisor Matthias Riedl for his support,

guidance, and kindness. If it were not for his belief in me, my entire academic career could

have been dramatically different. I will always appreciate your help. Second, Robyn Dora

Radway, I cannot describe how grateful I am for having you as my second reader, professor,

and mentor. Your lecture on the Ottoman Habsburg Borderlands unlocked the doors of novel

research ideas and filled me with an insatiable curiosity to learn more about the Ottoman

history and legacy in Europe. Also, I humbly thank Günhan Börekçi Hocam, who has always

been there when I needed help and support. Last but not the least, to my professors Selda

Güner and Mehmet Özden at Hacettepe University, who never stopped encouraging me to

pursue my dream, my gratitude knows no bounds.

It would be such a great shame if I forgot to mention my dearest friends who

accompanied me through all this from the beginning. First and foremost, I always consider

myself such a lucky person to have had friends as Ersin Ates (Balayısı), Ayaz Pamuk (Ortim),

and Yağmur Özdemir, Yunus Emre Kardeş, Ege Şarlak and Ülken İlhan. We grew closer

despite the miles that separated us. I will forever cherish our friendship with them. I also

thank Cevat Sucu (Dedem) and Serkan Simen (Seko) most warmly, who became my family at

v
CEU. I will never forget how we went deeper into the black hole at Residence Center with

Seko that night while all we ever wanted was to fill our water bottle. Nor the episodes of

random Turkish TV series -mostly Çukur though-, we watched with Dedem. I just live in hope

that one day we will remember the episode number we left off. Also, I humbly thank my CEU

colleagues Yusuf Selman İnanç, Zahid Garip, and Müberra Kapusuz for their friendship.

I need to utter my appreciation and love for my parents and brothers who made this

adventure possible. Emin Yazıcı, it is an excellent opportunity for me to thank you for your

inspiration and encouragement to pursue an academic career. You never refused me when I

needed to buy a book even when I was a child and always supported my academic endeavors.

Şehri Yazıcı, you are the greatest mother who ever lived. I cannot find words strong enough

to show my gratitude for everything you have done for your children. My middle brother,

Yunus Yazıcı, you have always eased my burdens and made me feel fortunate to have you as

my brother. Also, Buğra Balaban and Hamide Balaban, please accept my deepest thanks for

the unconditional support that you have given me during my project. Emir Yazıcı, if anyone

deserves thanks, it is you. You are more than a brother. You are my mentor, my best friend,

confidant, and life-saver. What would I do without you?

On a more personal level, I must thank my beloved girlfriend Buket Korkmaz, who

remained patient and understanding when I never had enough time to spend with her. I cannot

thank you enough my dear, for sharing my sleepless nights and warming my heart with cups

of coffee and tea you prepared for me. From this day on Bukuto, we will watch all Gerçek

Kesit episodes I missed together again.

vi
To my parents, Şehri Yazıcı and Emin Yazıcı

vii
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT………………………………………………………………………………..iii

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS………………………………………………………………….v

TABLE OF CONTENTS…………………………………………………………………..viii

CHAPTER 1………………………………………………………………………………..1

INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………………………….1

[Link] Review and Background…………………………………………………6

[Link]………………………………………………………………………..12

CHAPTER 2………………………………………………………………………………..16

The Rhetoric of Ottoman Gaza, Apocalypse of 1492, and the Ottoman Imperial Ideology

2.1. The Islamic Holy Warfare and the Ottomans up until the Reign of Bayezid II…..16

2.2. The Rhetoric of Ottoman Gaza in the Late Fifteenth Century…………………….21

2.3. Gaza, Apocalypticism, and the Making of the Ottoman Imperial Ideology………33

CHAPTER 3………………………………………………………………………………...40

The Antemurale Christianitatis Rhetoric against the Ottomans: Apocalypse, Eschatology

and Ottoman Advance in Europe in the Late Fifteenth Century

3.1. A Brief Sketch of the Antemurale Christianitatis Discourse……………………….44

3.2. Rome as an Eternal City: Nova Roma, Apocalypse, and the

Ottomans……………………………………………………………...……………..49

3.3. Alexander the Great Legend, Gog and Magog, and the European Response to the
Ottoman Advance…………………………………………………………………………….56

CONCLUSION……………………………………………………………………………….69

BIBLIOGRAPHY…………………………………………………………………………….76

viii
ix
 Chapter 1
Introduction
Petyr Baelish, the famous fictional character in A Song of Ice and Fire, which opens a

window into the ruthless nature of politics, is known for his stimulating quote: “Chaos isn’t a

pit. Chaos is a ladder. Many who try to climb it fail and never get to try again. The fall breaks

them. Only the ladder is real. The climb is all there is.” At first glance, Baelish’s remarks on

the flip-flopping order of political rivalries among the seven kingdoms of Westeros, which

constitute the main plot of the story in the fictional world created by George R. R. Martin, has

nothing to do with the late fifteenth century Southeastern European borderlands, Bayezid II (r.

1481-1512), or his Christian adversaries in Europe, who claimed to be the bulwark of

Christendom against the Ottomans. Yet, the turbulent events of the reign of Bayezid II recall

the chaos portrayed by Petry Baelish. Undeniably, the religious and political chaos of the late

fifteenth century turned out to be a pit for many of the political actors of the age including

Bayezid II’s rebellious brother Prince Cem (b.1459-d.1495). Prince Cem tried to climb the

ladder again and again; he fought against Bayezid, humiliatingly defeated by him, fled to

Cairo, Rhodes, France, and at last died in Italy in sorrow; hence the fall broke him. A similar

impulse conquered the mind of John Albert of Poland (r. 1492-1501), who devoted most of

his reign to fighting a crusade against the Ottomans and ultimately broken by the fall owing to

the betrayal of Stephen III of Moldavia (r.1457-1504). Bayezid II, on the other hand, appears

to be the only one who realized the truth: Only the ladder is real.

Despite the misleading consensus among the Ottoman historians about his military and

strategic incompetence, Bayezid II redesigned the Ottoman imperial ideology through a

strange blend of gaza discourse and cosmological-universal sovereignty ideal.1 Even though

1
Selahattin Tansel’s biography of Sultan Bayezid II provides us with a perfect example of the one-sided
approach towards Bayezid II. Throughout his biography, the reader gets the impression that Bayezid II was an
epic failure compared to both his predecessor Mehmed II and successor Selim I. Selahattin Tansel, Sultan II.
Bayezid’in Siyasi Hayatı (İstanbul: Milli Eğitim Basımevi, 1966). Other notable Ottomanists who approached
the reign of Bayezid II with the same cynical attitude are İsmail Hakkı Uzunçarşılı, Colin İmber, and Stanford

1
his political wisdom was criticized owing to the lack of measures to halt the advance of Shah

Ismail’s Safavids, the imperial ideology he constructed established the political foundations of

the later decades of the empire. Besides, he captured Chilia and Akkerman from the

Principality of Moldavia in 1484, two strategic fortresses on the Black Sea shores of Eastern

Europe that Mehmed II failed to conquer. I argue that he perceived the gist of Mehmed II’s

military expeditions in Eastern Europe and realized how crucial it was to control the region.

In a sense, he accomplished the longed-for dream of establishing naval supremacy against the

Christian powers in the Black Sea and the Mediterranean. Between 1498 and 1503, he

established Ottoman dominance in the Eastern Mediterranean by overpowering the Venetian

navy and completed the conquest of the Peloponnese.2 However, his last years on the throne

witnessed a series of catastrophes, including the military fiasco against the Mamluks in the

East, the rise of the Safavid Dynasty, which was destined to be the archenemy of the House of

Osman in the years to come, Şahkulu Revolt erupted in Teke region and subsequently

pervaded whole Anatolia, and ultimately his dethronement by his son Selim I (r. 1512-1520)

once again revealed that the climb was all there is and Bayezid II was not an exception to this.

This research investigates the political pandemonium of the late fifteenth century

through a comparative lens and aims at the reconsideration of the Ottoman use of the gaza

discourse by recontextualizing it within an asymmetrical-comparative model with the

European antemurale christianitatis rhetoric. Although my research places a great emphasis

on a handful of contemporary sovereign figures of the period, it indicates that systems,

ideologies, and political discourses prove to be enduring in the long run. Thus, these figures

and their critical actions illustrate how interconnected the Ottoman and Christian European

Shaw. Feridun Emecen, on the other hand, challenges their works and reconsider the reign of Bayezid II in a
similar vein with this thesis. Feridun Emecen, ‘II. Bayezid Devriyle İlgili Meselelere Dair Yeni Bakışlar’, in
Sultan II. Bayezid Dönemi ve Bursa, ed. by Nilüfer Alkan Günay (Bursa: Gaye Kitabevi, 2017), pp. 13–24 (p.
13).
2
Volkan Dökmeci, Akdenizde Devletler ve Korsanlar Venedik Kaynaklarına Göre II. Bayezid ve I. Selim
Dönemlerinde Osmanlı Denizciliği ve Korsanlık (İstanbul: Babil Kitap, 2020), p. 18.

2
worlds were in the late fifteenth century and on what basis they can be regarded as the

asymmetrical correspondents of each other. Despite careful consideration of the decisive

moments in Bayezid II’s reign -in relation to their effects on European politics-, the focus of

this research remains how holy warfare discourses adapted to the altering circumstances

rather than the role of the individuals in history.

It also examines the marriage between the Ottoman gaza rhetoric and the

cosmological-universal sovereignty model in the reign of Bayezid II. Two underlying reasons

for searching for this unison in the reign of Bayezid II are listed as follows. First, as already

mentioned elsewhere, Bayezid II’s reign has often been associated with military lethargy and

political stupor, which allegedly constitutes a stark contradiction with Mehmed II’s policies.3

Contra them, I argue that Bayezid II essentially followed the expansionist policies of Mehmed

II and constructed a public image as a gazi sultan who also aspired for cosmological-universal

sovereignty. Hence, investigating how the gaza rhetoric is applied by the Ottoman court

littérateurs, chroniclers, and hagiographers of Bayezid II’s time can make a serious

contribution to the current literature on gaza debate. Second, this project can expand the scope

of the messianism debate in early modern Eurasia to which Cornell Fleischer, Mayte Green-

Mercado, and Sanjay Subrahmanyam made an enormous contribution.4 For instance,

Fleischer has already renewed interest in the reign of Süleyman I (r.1520-1566) since

Süleyman’s hostility with the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V (r.1516-1556) was perceived

3
Aikaterini Dimitriadou, ‘The Heşt Behişt of Idris Bidlisi: The Reign of Bayezid II(1481-1512)’ (unpublished
Ph.D. Dissertation, The University of Edinburgh, 2000), p. 26.
4
Cornell Fleischer, ‘Mahdi and Millennium: Messianic Dimensions in The Development of Ottoman Imperial
Ideology’, in The Great Ottoman-Turkish Civilisation, ed. by Halil Inalcik, İlber Ortaylı, and Nejat Göyünç
(Istanbul: Yeni Türkiye, 2000), III, 42–54; Cornell H. Fleischer, ‘A Mediterranean Apocalypse: Prophecies of
Empire in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries’, Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient,
61.1–2 (2018), 18–90; Cornell Fleischer, ‘The Lawgiver as Messiah: The Making of the Imperial Image in the
Reign of Süleymân’, in Soliman Le Magnifique et Son Temps: Actes Du Colloque de Paris, Galeries Nationales
Du Grand Palais, 7–10 Mars 1990, ed. by Gilles Veinstein (Paris: Documentation française, 1992), pp. 159–77;
Mayte Green-Mercado, ‘Speaking the End Times: Early Modern Politics and Religion from Iberia to Central
Asia’, Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, 61.1–2 (2018), 1–17; Sanjay Subrahmanyam,
‘The Politics of Eschatology: A Short Reading of the Long View’, in Historical Teleologies in the Modern
World (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2015), pp. 25–45; Sanjay Subrahmanyam, ‘Connected Histories: Notes
towards a Reconfiguration of Early Modern Eurasia’, Modern Asian Studies, 31.3 (1997), 735–62.

3
as an apocalyptic rivalry even by the contemporaries. Since the reign of Bayezid II remained

an uncharted period within the scope of this debate, this study places a greater focus on the

years between 1481-1512 to develop a better understanding of the initial stages of the making

of an imperial ideology informed by messianism, apocalyptic fear, and cosmology.

My investigation of the parallels between the two discourses in the political context of

the second half of the fifteenth century and early years of the sixteenth century-which roughly

corresponds to the reign of Bayezid II (r. 1481-1512)-, slightly differs from the traditional

historiography. Unlike the previous scholars, my primary motivation is to demonstrate how

and why the two discourses were linked with a pool of eschatological vocabulary and

employed by both the Ottomans and their Christian rivals in Europe correspondingly. This

parallel was achieved owing to the common motives of the late fifteenth century

apocalypticism such as the Gog and Magog metaphor, Alexander the Great trope, or Qutb al-

Aqtab nom de guerre. To achieve this goal, I illustrate their commonalities and differences

when analyzing climacteric occurrences such as Charles VIII’s invasion of the Italian

Peninsula under the veil of fighting against the enemies of Christianity. My research indicates

that both the Ottomans and Eastern European sovereignties, starting with the second half of

the fifteenth century, strived to adapt themselves to the changing circumstances that had

detrimental effects on the established political ideologies. For example, the rising apocalyptic

fear and growing eschatological pretension shared by two communities who lived on different

sides of the Eastern European borderlands undeniably forced the ruling elites to revise their

ideologies to remain in power. A somewhat modified and buttressed imperial ideology, via a

combination of political motives with an eschatological vocabulary, proved to be obligatory

for kings and sultans to compete with the changing political circumstances.

Another driving force of this research is to discuss how exceptional the Ottoman gaza

was compared to another dominant holy war discourse of the age, antemurale christianitatis.

4
The uncovering of the exceptional features of the Ottoman gaza and antemurale

christianitatis also requires us to keep a lookout for differences that existed between them.

For the most part, these similar and different characteristics came to characterize both

discourses in the late middle ages and the early modern period. Besides, it is worth noting that

this approach enables us to overcome the fallacy of exceptionalism that many historians in the

field were entrapped by in the previous decades. Unlike the previous scholarship, I investigate

the circumstances under which the holy war discourses proved to be essential political tools

for the Ottomans and their Christian neighbors in Europe through comparative lenses.

Equally crucial to these motivations, this thesis proposes to answer the following

questions. First, can we argue that relatable incidents and recurrent themes observable in the

Ottoman Empire and Christian Europe, such as the succession wars, economic struggles, or

growing eschatological disquiet brought forth the strange blend of holy war discourses and

apocalyptic vocabularies? If such is the case, can we conclude that the fifteenth-century

Ottomans and their contemporary ‘enemies’ in res publica Christiana shared a political

vision, which is articulated through widely used motives such as the myth of Alexander the

Great? Can we argue that both the Ottomans and their neighboring Eastern European rivals

demarcated a civilizational line between their world and enemy territories by referring to the

same mythical motives such as Alexander the Great? Finally, how do these relate to what I

refer to as the eschatological transformation of the Ottoman gaza and Christian bulwark

concept in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries’ Europe?

In an age when the line of demarcation between different religious communities was

not indisputably discernible, and their apocalyptic traditions were far from homogenous - as

we tend to imagine them – the possible result that we can discover may seem absurd to the

contemporary reader. Besides, the answers to the questions listed above may vary depending

on the sources referred to by the author. Yet, a venture into the often-neglected relationship

5
between the holy war discourses and the apocalyptic expectations of Muslims, Christians, and

Jews alike is still needed. This undertaking allows me to illustrate how fluid the apocalyptic

traditions of the seemingly isolated religious communities were. It also enables me to discuss

whether the Ottoman gaza and antemurale christianitatis discourses may have triggered each

other inscrutably. It is essential to stress that this is an age each one of the following Christian

rulers cast themselves as the Last Roman Emperor in keeping with the Apocalypse of Pseudo-

Methodius: Ivan III of Moscow, Jan Olbracht (r. 1492-1501), Charles VIII (r. 1483-1498),

and Stephen the Great (1457-1504). Strange as it may seem that both the Ottoman sultans

such as Bayezid II (r. 1481-1512) and the Safavids, namely Shah Ismail (r. 1501-1524),

fashioned themselves as either the Messiah, Alexander of the Age or Qutb al-Aqtab in a

similar fashion with the first group of rulers. Also, the spellbinding appeal of the Alexander

the Great myth for both the Ottomans and European rulers constitutes the connection point in

this narrative. The more we delve into the question of how they perceived the world

surrounding them through alike myths, ideologies, and discourses, the more we become aware

of the intricateness of late fifteenth-century European history.

[Link] Review and Background

Numerous scholars have made incessant efforts to disentangle the emergence of the

Antemurale Christianitatis rhetoric in Central Europe and the Ottoman Holy War discourse

primarily concerning the events surrounding the rise of the Ottoman Empire. That said

historical scholarship has often eschewed certain similarities that the two religious discourses

shared in favor of perpetuating the presumptive and so-called civilizational differences

between Christendom and the Islamic world. One such exception to this tendency is John

Armstrong. While Armstrong’s approach is innovative in the sense that he provides a window

into the similar patterns followed in the Islamic and Christian worlds, he fails to capture the

bigger picture. While it may prove to be fruitful in elaborating on similar dynamics that

6
existed in most pre-modern Islamic establishments and European kingdoms, his belief that

engagement with gaza lends legitimacy to all rulers in the Islamic world is an invalid claim.5

Besides, devotion to a crusading ideology or eagerness to sacrifice for the Res publica

Christiana were not sufficient causes for Christian sovereigns to preserve their thrones.

Despite the flimsy comparison that John Armstrong attempted on the Ottoman gaza

and the antemurale christianitatis discourses, it is Nora Berend to whom all scholars in the

field are in high debt when it comes to delving into the complexities of the latter. In a way,

her interpretation of the bulwark myth and its historical transformation in Central Europe

illustrates the interconnectedness of religion and social identity in the Middle Ages. Besides,

her study merits careful consideration since it traces the discourse back to the Mongol

invasion of Central Europe and avoids a misconception that the rhetoric was a direct result of

the Ottoman incursions. Simply put, ‘At the Gate of Christendom’ provides a window into the

pre-Ottoman history of the antemurale discourse in Central Europe.6

Kerstin Weiand, another scholar, who contributed toward the antemurale literature,

commands our attention to how the Ottoman advance in Europe revitalized the antemurale

discourse. Weiand alleges that the rise of the concept of antemurale became observable with

the rapid expansion of the Ottomans. She mainly argues that the Ottoman capture of

Constantinople in 1453 contributed to the revival of this old discourse. Although

Constantinople had already lost its former glory when the Ottoman Empire captured the city,

its fall instilled a terrible fear in the European kingdoms because of the symbolic meaning

assigned to Nova Roma. Constantinople was reminiscent of the Roman legacy even though it

was far away from its once venerable grandeur -and as the Islamic apocalyptic thinking- the

Latin world regarded the fall of the city as the herald of the last hour. For instance, Charles

5
John Armstrong, Nations before Nationalism (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1982), p.
292.
6
Nora Berend, At the Gate of Christendom: Jews, Muslims, and ‘Pagans’ in Medieval Hungary, c. 1000-C. 1300
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001).

7
VIII justified his Italian Campaign in 1494 by asserting that his sole purpose was to save

Constantinople and the Holy Land from Islamic tyranny and oust the Ottomans from Europe

back to the Asian steppes.7 Weiand’s interpretation of the antemurale rhetoric and the

Ottoman advance in Europe confirms that both discourses merit an asymmetrical comparative

analysis.

As noted earlier, the Ottoman arrival in Europe and its armed forces, unleashed against

the Christian principalities located on the Eastern borderlands of Christianity in the fifteenth

century, stirred the crusading ideals and prompted collective defensive strategies throughout

res publica Christiana.8 Yet, I avoid interpreting Christian Europe as a cohesive political unit

driven by a sense of ‘collective consciousness’ and whose members exhibit a willingness to

sacrifice their self-interest for the sake of the whole Christian community. Liviu Pilat and

Ovidiu Cristea, two leading Romanian medievalists, point out this issue and investigate the

Ottoman penetration of the Black Sea region.9 Their study reveals the apathetic attitude taken

by the rest of the Christian world against the Ottoman advance, except the borderland

principalities and Poland for whom the peril the Ottomans posed was imminent. What truly

makes this work distinctive from the previous attempts is the perspective of the authors. They

7
Kerstin Weiand, ‘The Origins of Antemurale Christianitatis Myths: Remarks on the Promotion of a Political
Concept’, in Rampart Nations: Bulwark Myths of East European Multiconfessional Societies in the Age of
Nationalism (New York: Berghahn Books, 2019), p. 11.
8
In its classical form, the term res publica Christiana referred to the ‘terrestrial society of Christians’ and
implied the political and societal unity among Christians. Marshall Baldwin notes that most Middle Age scholars
attributed the emergence of the res publica Christiana concept to the greatest Latin father Saint Augustine of
Hippo ((354-430) who elaborated on the term in his magnum opus the City of God. Marshall W. Baldwin,
Christianity Through the Thirteenth Century, The Documentary History of Western Civilization (London:
Macmillan Press, 1970), p. 6. It is worth noting that the term did not go out of fashion after the Middle Ages. Res
publica Christiana and other terms which were on par with the first were widely used by the Western literati of
the Enlightenment age such as Leibniz. Imperium Romanum which stands for the Roman Empire, and Orbis
Christianus, which is the whole Christian world, had wide application in the Christian West, to name a few.
However, we should note that Leibniz’s philosophy appears to be a complicated one in the sense that what he
meant by the respublica christianitatis cannot be fully appreciated without considering his understanding of the
Roman church. Briefly stated, he held the Roman Church responsible for the cohesion that ideally should exist
among believers. In this regard, res publica Christiana helped him foster the political system he considered
ideal. Hartmut Rudolph, ‘“Res Publica Christiana” and “Corpus Mysticum”: Some Remarks on Their Meaning
in the Political Thought of Leibniz’, Studia Leibnitiana, 43.1 (2011), 24–35 (p. 24).
9
The Ottoman Threat and Crusading on the Eastern Border of Christendom during the 15th Century, ed. by
Liviu Pilat and Ovidiu Cristea, East Central and Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages, 450-1450, 48 (Leiden: Brill,
2017).

8
reinterpret the Ottoman advance in the region by revisiting the antemurale christianitatis and

argue that neither the crusading ideology nor the antemurale concept was distinctive to the

Papacy or its Western European allies. Instead, they discuss how the Pontic principalities

refashioned themselves as the bulwark of Christendom in the face of the Ottoman peril.

One such exception to the shared inertia of Christian Europe at this stage of the

Ottoman advance was John I Albert (r. 1492-1501), who stepped forward to confront the

Ottomans. The young Polish king presented himself as the defender of Christendom and

appealed to the antemurale christianitatis rhetoric following the Ottoman conquest of

Akkerman and Chilia. For the Polish kingdom, the defense of Akkerman and Chilia was

essential for safeguarding the integrality of the whole Christian world.10 The humiliating

military fiasco of Albert against Bayezid II in the so-called crusade of 1497, aimed at

restoring Wallachia and Moldavia to Christian rule, resulted in the pursuant Ottoman-Crimean

incursions into the inner Polish lands led by Bali Bey.11 The unfolding of events in such a

catastrophic way mitigated the tension between John I Albert and Stephen the Great since the

latter sided with Bayezid against the Polish forces in 1497 and illustrated the lack of unity

among Christian sovereigns. From a different angle, however, Stephen’s allegiance with

Bayezid and betrayal of the crusading ideal provided John Albert the fertile ground for

boosting his fame as the sole defender of Christianity.

A literature review on the Ottoman gaza paradigm requires us to revisit one of the

most controversial historiographical debates of the twentieth century: the Gazi Thesis.12 Paul

Wittek’s argument that gaza was the decisive factor in distinguishing the Ottomans from other

Turcoman principalities who competed for supremacy in Anatolia was to be named Gazi

10
Pilat and Cristea, pp. 223–24.
11
Natalia Nowakowska, ‘Poland and the Crusade in the Reign of King Jan Olbracht, 1492-1501’, in Crusading
in the Fifteenth Century: Message and Impact, ed. by Norman Housley (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), p.
131.
12
Paul Wittek, The Rise of the Ottoman Empire: Studies on the History of Turkey, 13th-15th Centuries, ed. by
Colin Heywood, Royal Asiatic Society Books (Abingdon-on-Thames: Routledge, 1938).

9
Thesis. He alleged that the religious warfare enabled the Ottomans to prevail over other

competitive powers in Anatolia and launch grand campaigns in Europe. His magnum opus

stirred a response from the Turkish historian Fuad Köprülü, who prioritized the role played by

Turkoman groups in accounting for the success of the early Ottomans. Köprülü emphasized

that we are obliged to consider the socio-economic conditions that dominated the borderland

regions to explain how the Ottomans outrivaled other principalities.13 Wittek asserted that

gaza has never ceased to be the raison d’etre of the Ottoman Empire until its demise in the

wake of World War I. As Wittek saw it, the Ottomans divided the world into two camps,

namely, Darü’l-Islam and Darü’l-Harb. This perpetual warfare necessitated the rulers of

Darü’l-Islam to fight against the sovereigns of Darü’l-Harb until they convert to Islam or

agreed to pay tribute. In this context, Wittek considered the early Ottomans as devout

Muslims motivated by their religious zeal in their military expeditions. In practice, however,

the Ottomans employed the gaza discourse only when it served their best interests rather than

piously adhering to a religious doctrine.

Although many critics have addressed the problematic aspects of Wittek’s thesis, such

as his excessive dependence on Ahmedî’s İskendernâme as a primary source, the crux of the

matter remains worthy of discussion. One of the solid arguments against the gazi thesis was

put forward by Friedrich Giese who posited that guilt crafts played no less significant role

than the gaza notion in the emergence of the Ottoman Empire. Another blow he hit at

Wittek’s thesis was his counterargument that the Christian soldiers and nobles - recruited in

the Ottoman ranks- contradict the exclusive gaza spirit, which was the name of the game in

Wittek’s analysis of the early Ottomans. Besides, Lindner put forward that the rise of the

15. Mehmet Fuad Köprülü, Osmanlı İmparatorluğu’nun Kuruluşu (İstanbul: Alfa Yayıncılık, 2016).

10
Ottomans relied upon their tribal organization, which was in no way different than other

Anatolian Turkoman principalities at this time.14

Another well-known Ottoman historian who rekindled the interest in the emergence of the

Ottoman state is Cemal Kafadar. Kafadar lends credence to the gazi thesis and acknowledges

that gaza contributed to the consolidation of the heterogeneous elements of the early Ottoman

society. Yet, he casts doubts on Wittek’s analysis and cautions his reader that the gaza spirit

may have denoted different values for different societal groups. In this sense, his approach

reminds us of the methodological contextualism as proffered by Quentin Skinner.15 His

methodological approach, which considers gaza an inclusive political system, fits into my

research. As I discuss elsewhere throughout my thesis, I argue that neither gaza nor the

Christian bulwark rhetoric was inclusive and homogenous, but they were rather inclusive and

heterogeneous. To be more precise, my research suggests that both gaza and antemurale

discourses were informed by similar religious and political sources such as the defense of

faith through political actions and apocalypticism. On a final note, Heath Lowry’s study on

the early Ottomans should be taken into consideration given that he openly rebutted Wittek’s

gazi thesis and argued that the Ottomans abused the classical gaza notion to acquire new

slaves and gain war booty.16

[Link]

14
Rudi Paul Lindner, Nomads and Ottomans in Medieval Anatolia, Uralic and Altaic Series (Bloomington: Sinor
Research Institute of Inner Asian StudiesSinor Research Institute of Inner Asian Studies, 1983), p. 20.
15
Cemal Kafadar, Between Two Worlds: The Construction of the Ottoman State (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1996), p. 75.
16
Lindner, p. 22.

11
 This thesis adopts a combination of two methodological approaches to better understand

the late fifteenth century Eastern European and Ottoman histories: 1) Asymmetrical Historical

Comparison and 2) Connected Histories. To a certain extent, it follows the asymmetrical

comparative methodology developed by the German historian Jurgen Kocka. However, it also

appeals to the connected history approach promoted by Sanjay Subrahmanyam.

Subrahmanyam’s methodological approach fits the aims and scope of this thesis since my

research findings show that both the Ottomans and Christian European political

establishments were linked through similar impulses, myths, and surrounding developments.

The comparative method proves to be a useful methodological tool for all historians,

including the experts on Ottoman history in two respects. First, as Marc Bloch aptly puts it,

history remains unintelligible if historians cannot establish explanatory relationships between

phenomena. Accordingly, the Ottoman historians cannot consider themselves an exception to

this basic principle.17 While a great number of Ottoman historians limit themselves to the

circumscribed sections of Ottoman history and surrender themselves to its so-called

exceptionality, this study evaluates the evolution of the Ottoman gaza discourse within the

wider political context of late fifteenth-century Europe. It links the coalescence of the

Ottoman cosmological-political vision and the gaza discourse with a similar process that can

be found in the apocalyptic climate of Europe. Second, it is now well established from a

variety of studies that the comparative method prevents the fallacy of exceptionalism and

historians can distinguish what is unique in their subject. Besides, Jürgen Kocka suggests that

an asymmetrical historical comparison can free researchers from the nationalist history

narratives and it enables them to devise more inclusive explanatory systems. Theoretically, it

does so by providing the historians with a fertile ground to compare their case society with

another society that was in touch with the first. Hence, historians, who follow this

17
William H. Sewell, ‘Marc Bloch and the Logic of Comparative History’, History and Theory, 6.2 (1967), 208–
18 (p. 208).

12
methodological approach, can better distinguish between the exceptional features and shared

characteristics of the case societies.18

Given that both Wittek and his critics put forward exceptionalist views on early

Ottoman history, the very basis of Ottoman history is built on a myth destined to be torn into

shreds by contemporary historians. The Ottomans were not exceptional in the sense that they

inherited a religious and political formula to engage in religious warfare against their

Christian European adversaries. Furthermore, most of the apocalyptical themes they

incorporated into their imperial ideology were also shared by the same adversaries in Europe

in the late fifteenth century. Building on this premise, this thesis explores the symbiotic

relationship between religion and politics illustrated best by comparing two holy war

discourses, namely, the Ottoman gaza and Latin antemurale christianitatis rhetoric.

Achieving this goal would help us to see how fluid and heterogeneous Holy War discourses

were than they are considered to be. However, this thesis does not undertake a fully

comparative analysis of how these two discourses underwent a cosmological transformation.

Instead, I aim to develop a better understanding of the Ottoman gaza discourse by

investigating the Christian bulwark rhetoric.

The connected histories, on the other hand, constitute the other half of the

methodological skeleton of my study and I particularly follow the example of Sanjay

Subrahmanyam who draws an entangled picture of the histories of India and Europe in the

early modern era. Subrahmanyam argues that the connected histories can offer an alternative

to the comparative investigation of early modern history since -according to him-, the latter

downplays the interconnectedness of the early modern continents, kingdoms, and societies.

However, his study fails to devise a model, which utilizes both the comparative method and

18
Jürgen Kocka and Heinz-Gerhard Haupt, ‘Comparison and Beyond: Traditions, Scope, and Perspectives of
Comparative History’, in Comparative and Transnational History: Central European Approaches and New
Perspectives (New York: Berghahn Books, 2009), p. 5.

13
still exercises attention to the interconnectedness of the early modern world. This study

attempts to reconcile the comparative method and connected history approaches since the rest

of Subrahmanyam’s remarks on the interconnectedness of the early modern world remain

essentially important. It has been demonstrated by him that it was not only armies,

commercial and religious agents, military practice and innovations, or commodities that

swapped places across the early modern world. The ideas, mental constructions, and myths

were traded between societies and remote continents through either direct or indirect contact

with each other.19

Even the specific example he refers to is the gravity of the Franciscan apocalypticism

and messianic thought in convincing Christopher Columbus that his voyage was an integral

part of God’s plan. It is conclusively shown by Subrahmanyam that a messianic vocabulary

and apocalyptic thought cut across the northern and southern globes; hence, created a link

between distant continents.20 Within this political climate, at least a handful of Eurasian rulers

appear to have been concerned with associating themselves with eschatological figures such

as Alexander the Great or the Last Roman Emperor. While the Christian European reception

of the Alexander legend concentrated on his erection of a wall which turned out to be a

civilizational demarcation line between the civilized and evil nation of Gog, the real persona

of Alexander is linked with the prophetic figure of Dhul-Qarnayn the Two Horned One in the

Islamic world. In addition to this, the late fifteenth century Ottoman scholars served the

purpose of designing a new imperial image for their patrons, the Ottoman sultans, by likening

them to Alexander the Great. Yet, as Subrahmanyam points out, it was not only the Ottoman

sultans who referred to themselves as the Alexander of the Age. The contemporary European

litterateurs, who were under the influence of Alexander the Great myth, and Ismail I of the

21. Subrahmanyam, ‘Connected Histories: Notes towards a Reconfiguration of Early Modern Eurasia’, p. 748.
22. Subrahmanyam, ‘Connected Histories: Notes towards a Reconfiguration of Early Modern Eurasia’, p. 749.

14
Safavid dynasty also resorted to the same motive.21 Therefore, there is enough evidence to

suggest that the Alexander the Great legend was one of the connecting points between the

Christian European world, the Ottomans, and the Safavid Persia.

The combination of two seemingly irrelevant -even contradictory-, methodological

approaches may seem absurd at first glance. In a way, the comparative method and connected

histories approach the case societies from different angles and have different priorities.

Nevertheless, comparative studies should take into consideration the connections between

geographically remote societies and be informed by the entanglements that existed between

them.22 These entanglements can reveal themselves to the researchers only if the researchers

ask the proper questions to the sources at their disposal. Judy Wakayabashi’s thoughts on the

inception of the globalization process in the late fifteenth century deserve particular attention

in this regard. As she aptly puts it, the late fifteenth century can be considered as the inception

phase of a globalization process that connected hitherto disconnected societies, remote

geographies, and until then irrelevant phenomena. A handful of audacious explorers, daring

missionaries, sultans, and kings -who all fell victim to the dream of universal sovereignty-,

and ruthless colonizers created countless entanglement points.

While some of these conjunctures received more attention than others such as the Voyage

of Christopher Columbus, the Ottoman capture of Constantinople, or the Reconquista; some

still wait to be examined carefully by historians. In this sense, the late fifteenth century is

replete with connection points. To quote Tijana Krstic, this was an age when the imperial

competition between the Ottoman Empire, Serenissima, the House of Valois, and Hapsburgs

was of soteriological importance if we consider that millenarianism turned out to be the

23. Subrahmanyam, ‘Connected Histories: Notes towards a Reconfiguration of Early Modern Eurasia’, p. 753.
22
Kocka and Haupt, p. 20.

15
common norm of their political ideologies.23 These norms were supported by seductive

mythos among which the Alexander the Great myth seems to be the most common and

alluring one considering its gravity for both the Ottoman and Christian European sovereigns.

The legend of the Alexander the Great myth did not only provide the upcoming generations of

rulers and political authors with a source of aspiration but also created a common political

language to which both pre-modern Islamic and Christian European political establishments

were beholden.

Chapter II

The Rhetoric of Ottoman Gaza, Apocalypse of 1492, and the Ottoman Imperial Ideology

[Link] Islamic Holy Warfare and the Ottomans up Until the Reign of Bayezid II

This chapter aims to provide the reader with a brief background of the Islamic Holy

Warfare that the Ottoman Empire inherited from their predecessors and trace the formation of

Ottoman gaza discourse. The first military campaigns launched by Prophet Muhammad and

his rightly-guided caliphs set an example for the Ottomans -as well as other competitive

political establishments in the Turkic-Islamic Anatolia-, to engage themselves in religious

warfare against their Christian adversaries in Europe. In reality, the Ottomans were cognizant

of the rhetorical power of gaza and jihad and how these concepts lent credence to their

sovereignty claims. They utilized the Islamic Holy Warfare as they saw fit throughout the

fifteenth century such as reinterpreting the early decades of their history through religious

lenses.

Accordingly, in the first section of the first chapter, I explore the emergence of the Islamic

Holy Warfare discourse and how the Ottomans applied this rhetoric to the political

23
Tijana Krstić, ‘Illuminated by the Light of Islam and the Glory of the Ottoman Sultanate: SelfNarratives of
Conversion to Islam in the Age of Confessionalization’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 51.1
(2009), 35–63 (p. 39).

16
circumstances they struggled with. Also, semantic consideration on the meanings ascribed to

gaza and jihad are discussed throughout this section. In the following section, I examine the

Ottoman use of the gaza discourse during the reign of Bayezid II and scrutinize the factors

that pushed Bayezid II to reconfigure the Ottoman imperial ideology around this notion.

These factors encompass Bayezid II’s visit to Sarı Saltuk’s tomb in Dobruja and the failed

assassination attempt that targeted the Ottoman sultan in 1492. Bayezid II’s renegotiation of

power with gazi and dervish circles cannot be fully perceived without considering these

instances. In the last section of this chapter, I explore how the late fifteenth century

apocalypticism contributed towards the eschatological transformation of the Ottoman gaza

discourse during Bayezid II’s time.

Starting with the prophet Muhammad’s earliest military campaigns against those who refused

to join the community of believers or paying jizya to the Islamic Caliphate, nearly all

sovereign figures of the Muslim world applied the holy war rhetoric to justify their

expeditions.24 One of the earliest and rarest exceptions to this appears to be the Constitution

of Medina whereby Muhammad conceded to include the Jewish tribes into the ummah. Islam

was a religion of peace for Muhammad’s followers, and it indubitably restricted the

‘unnecessary’ use of violence. However, the same did not hold for those who rejected

conversion to Islam or paying tribute to the Muslim sovereign since their insubordination

made them the natural targets of the Islamic war machine. This phenomenon became palpable

in the third Rashidun caliph Umar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb's time, who invaded Anatolia, Persia,

Azerbaijan, and the Caucasus. Within this context, Islamic jurists endeavored to determine the

certain circumstances under which any war against non-believers would be considered

24
Selahattin Döğüş, ‘Osmanlılarda Gaza İdeolojisinin Tarihi ve Kültürel Kaynakları’, Belleten, 72.265 (2008),
817–88 (p. 819).

17
legitimate. These offensives were presented under the pretext of gaza or jihad to legitimize

the war against non-believer communities.25

Both gaza and jihad are of Arabic origin and are mentioned in the Quran on several

different occasions. However, they are often mistaken for each other due to the similar aims

they served. Primarily, the Quran defined jihad as an act of resistance against the incursions of

non-believers into the Muslim lands and called it the self-defense right of the community of

believers.26 Nevertheless, the Quranic verses about holy war might be misleading and

paradoxical at the same time. Jihad primarily refers to such occasions, including the legitimate

defense of the community of believers, temples, and Darü’l-Islam countries.27 However,

elsewhere, Muslims were granted the permit to combat against their adversaries provided that

surrounding societies refused to pay tribute or observe the same religious rules as the Islamic

community.28 It is also worth mentioning that the term jihad has gained divergent meanings in

the long run. Şinasi Tekin, for instance, illustrated that the concept of jihad is broken down

into two sub-categories as jihad-ı Akbar and jihad-ı Asghar. On the one hand, jihad-ı Akbar

25
Although gaza often proved to be practical rhetoric to justify the military expeditions against non-Islamic
sovereignties, even the prophet Muhammad first resorted to peaceful negotiations with strong neighboring
polities such as the Eastern Roman Empire. It becomes palpable in Muhammad’s letter to the Roman Emperor
Heraclius. Heraclius is widely acknowledged by his contemporaries and the next generation of scholars and
chroniclers as one of the exemplary and valiant emperors ever to sit on the throne of the Roman Empire. Besides,
his rise to power and his eventual victory against the Sassanid Empire roughly correspond to the emergence of
the Islamic State under the leadership of Muhammad. Moreover, Heraclius’s triumph over the Sassanid Empire
is believed to have been recorded by the Quran itself since the verses of Surat al-Rum directly refers to the
reconsolidation of the ‘Greek’ supremacy over Persians. More importantly, however, Heraclius remains as one
of the notorious ‘Byzantine’ figures as a letter allegedly penned by the prophet Muhammad to call him to Islam
suggests that he considered a possible conversion. The eight-century Arabian scholar and biographer Ibn Sa’d
alleges that Muhammad sent envoys to Heraclius, the Sassanid King Chosroes, and Najashi of Abyssinia upon
his return from Hudaybiya. For more information see Nadia Maria el-Cheikh, ‘Muhammad and Heraclius: A
Study in Legitimacy’, Studia Islamica, 89 (1999), 5–21. However, it should be noted that it is hard to argue that
there is an indisputable consensus among the experts on this issue and the reliability of these letters. For
instance, Robert Bertram Serjeant indicated that the letter that is believed to have been sent to Heraclius by
Muhammed is likely a forgery since at that time Muhammad was still struggling to consolidate his power in the
Arabian Peninsula. Robert Bertram Serjeant, ‘Early Arabic Prose’, in Arabic Literature to the End of the
Umayyad Period, ed. by T. M. Johnstone and others, The Cambridge History of Arabic Literature (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1983), pp. 141–42.
26. The Quran 2:190.
27
Alexander Lopasic, ‘Islamization of the Balkans with Special Reference to Bosnia’, Journal of Islamic
Studies, Islam in the Balkans, 5.2 (1994), 163–86 (p. 167).
28
Ahmad Atif Ahmad, ‘The Evolution of Just War Theory in Islamic Law: Texts, History, and the Purpose of
“Reading”’, American Foreign Policy Interests: The Journal of the National Committee on American Foreign
Policy, 28.2 (2006), 107–15 (p. 110).

18
(the Greater Struggle) denotes that all Muslims were expected to prevail against their ego by

practicing self-denial. On the other hand, jihad-ı Asghar (the Lesser Struggle) stands for the

collective obligation of the Muslim community to engage in a military struggle against the

enemies of Islam, who attacked their countries and violated their religious freedom. 29 Thus,

the term that is mistaken for gaza is jihad-ı Asghar rather than jihad-ı Akbar since the latter is

more of a Sufi expression for individual self-growth. In other words, it is more appropriate to

understand jihad as a comprehensive legal concept interpreted quite distinctively by Islamic

jurists, political theorists, and Sufi thinkers.

When contextualized historically, it comes to our attention that jihad is deeply related to

the prophethood of Muhammad and the establishment of the first Islamic state in the sixth

century. Gaza- or ghazw in Arabic-, by contrast, has its roots in the pre-Islamic history of the

Arabian Peninsula. Initially, it referred to the sporadic incursions or plunder-motivated

expeditions of the Arabian Bedouins in the Sahara. Thus, the salient feature of ghazw was the

redistribution of the wealth through plunder of the enemy camels. With the advent of Islam

and its blistering spread to Eurasia and Transoxiana, the Islamic borderland principalities also

applied the ghazw concept, such as the Samanid Dynasty, Ghaznavids, and later the Seljuks.

The borderland warriors, who engaged in a military struggle with idolators, were bestowed

upon an honorary title of gazi, which was a great source of prestige among the community of

believers.30 They were reminiscent of the Arabian Bedouins since the Eurasian gazis, who

roamed the borderlands and engaged in clashes with their warlords, were mainly under the

29
Şinasi Tekin, ‘Türk Dünyası’nda Gaza ve Cihad Kavramları Üzerine Düşünceler (Başlangıcından
Osmanlıların Fetret Devrine Kadar’, Tarih ve Toplum, 109 (1993), p. 156. Abdul Javad Falaturi, ‘Martyrdom in
the Shia Culture’, trans. by Hamid Farnagh, Safinah Al-Nejat, 1.4 (2016), 73–78 (p. 76).
30
It is worth mentioning that the term gazi and the concept of gaza were already popular before the
establishment of Ottoman supremacy in the Islamic world. Moreover, Turks were often considered to be the
initial target of gazi groups and indispensable elements of the Islamic armies in the later ages. Varying numbers
of Turkic groups can be observed in the Abbasid, Umayyad, and Samanid armies as well. Darling argues that the
number of gazi troops that complimented the large army of the Abbasid Dynasty is estimated to have been
20,000-30,000. The Turkic groups who were engaged in gaza expeditions were given the control of border towns
and cities where we can observe a composite societal structure and the high volume of trade between the
‘believers’ and ‘idolators.’ For more information, see Linda T. Darling, ‘Contested Territory: Ottoman Holy War
in Comparative Context’, Studia Islamica, 91 (2000), 133–63 (p. 144).

19
illusion of acquiring wealth. Against this background, Irène Mélikoff interprets them as the

Islamic equivalent of the condottieri, who served as bands of mercenaries. In her defense, she

refers to Mahmud of Ghazni’s (d. 1030) military campaigns in India since at least 20,000

gazis were reported to have accompanied Mahmud in his journey to the continent.31 To a

large extent, Turks were the constitutive elements of the mercenary armies and active

members of the gazi community, owing to their widely accepted martial skills. Their success

in dealing with the Byzantine akritais in the Arab-Byzantine frontier zones was inherited by

the next generations of nomadic Turkic warriors in the same region during the Seljuk time.32

With the ever-increasing influence of the futuwwa organization and their principles on the

Anatolian gazi community in the fourteenth century, the act of gaza also gained a more

palpable religious spirit.33

Anatolia was a perfect location for the brotherhood to flourish and instill the gazi

community with its moral principles. Given that there was a continuous state of conflict

between the Anatolian Seljuk Empire and the Byzantines, the akhis must not have struggled to

find a place for themselves in this environment.34 However, we should remember that the

Anatolian Seljuk Empire struggled to keep the gaza spirit alive when it ached from the

indirect rule of the Komnenos Dynasty and later the catastrophic Mongolian invasion of

Anatolia.35 Furthermore, the Mongolian invasion of Anatolia in the thirteenth century and the

31
Irene Mélikoff, ‘Ghāzī’, The Encyclopedia of Islam (Leiden: Brill, 1991), p. 1043.
32
Pınar Kayaalp, ‘Frontier Warriors as Cultural Mediators: Shifting Identities of Byzantine and Turkish March
Fighters as Elicited from Anatolian Epic Literature’, Mediaevistik: Internationale Zeitschrift Für
Interdisziplinäre Mittelalterforschung, 25 (2012), p. 119.
33
The futuwwa refers to a series of moral codes that every chivalrous young Muslim man should abide by and a
certain kind of brotherhood whose members mostly roamed in the borderlands.
34
Here, it should be noted that the Anatolian Seljuk Empire had already lost its once admirable grandeur prior to
the Fourth Crusade and turned out to be a border sultanate. With the Anatolian Seljuks losing power and vitiating
their ability to keep a tight rein on their subjects, dissident Anatolian Turkoman tribes emerged as the new
powerhouses in the region. Besides, so-called Islamic trade unions, which are referred to as the Akhis, were the
Anatolian parallel of the Arabic futuwwa organization that flourished in the region following the Battle of
Kösedağ in 1243.
35
Claude Cahen, The Formation of Turkey: The Seljukid Sultanate of Rum (Eleventh to Fourteenth Century), ed.
by Peter Malcolm Holt, A History of the Near East (Harlow: Pearson Education, 2001), p. 173. Berend, At the
Gate of Christendom: Jews, Muslims, and ‘Pagans’ in Medieval Hungary, c. 1000-C. 1300, p. 164.

20
deterioration of the established Seljuk order in the region played into their hands. Another

group that greatly benefitted from the decline of the Seljuk Empire was the Anatolian

borderland gazis, who indirectly reaped the benefits of the unleashing of the Mongol war

machine.36 The acknowledgment of the Seljuk political superiority by gazis was already

decreased to a symbolic level since they were loyal to their beys who were the bona fide

rulers of their territories. One of these influential beys of Anatolia-but neither the strongest

nor the wealthiest-, was Ertuğrul Bey, who was the father of Osman and the eponymous

forerunner of the Ottoman Empire. The Mongol invasion was a fortuitous occasion for

Osman, who famed himself as a fearless fighter and shrewd tactician to succeed in his grand

strategy. Before he died, he transformed this petty borderland principality he inherited from

his father into a notable beylik by severely threatening the local Byzantine power elite through

his fruitful military expeditions what fifteenth-century Ottoman chroniclers tended to define

as gaza.

[Link] Rhetoric of Ottoman Gaza in the Late Fifteenth Century

The fifteenth-century Ottoman historiography viewed the early Ottoman expeditions,

including those of Osman, as motivated by religious zeal rather than the pursuit of material

wealth. Osman and his companions may have honestly considered their incursions into the

Byzantine-controlled areas as evidence of their religious commitment. However,

contemporary scholars doubt that fifteenth-century Ottoman chroniclers manipulated early

Ottoman history in order to create a new imperial ideology that was supposed to be

compatible with the political aims of Mehmed II and Bayezid II. 37 While this might be the

36
G. G. Arnakis, ‘Futuwwa Traditions in the Ottoman Empire: Akhis, Bektashi Dervishes, and Craftsmen’,
Journal of Near Eastern Studies, 12.4 (1953), p. 234.
37
Halil İnalcık, the doyen of the Ottoman historians who passed away in 2016, notes that most Ottoman
chronicles composed during the reign of Bayezid II attach specific importance to the military achievements of
Bayezid II and compare the sultan with his predecessors such as Mehmed II. For instance, Tursun Beğ, a well-
known contemporary Ottoman historian who is known for Tarih-i Ebu’l- Feth, narrates us Bayezid II’s
Moldavian Campaign and argues that Bayezid’s triumph was beyond Mehmed II’s capability since Mehmed

21
case, it should be noted that Muhammad’s remarks on the city of Constantinople were of great

significance for the pre-modern age Islamic sovereigns, including but not limited to the

Ottomans. The zeal of realizing Muhammad’s prophecy concerning the eventual capture of

the city by an Islamic army reached its zenith during the reign of Mehmed II. It is logical

given that Mehmed II was verbatim obsessed with fulfilling the prophecy and becoming the

new Caesar (kayzer in Turkish) of Nova Roma.38 Building on this, Mehmed II left a legacy as

the father of conquest, and his successors were expected to accomplish no less than he did.

Hüseyin Yılmaz notes that the conquest of Constantinople was the linchpin of the gazi

sultan image Mehmed II strove the design. Hacı Halil el-Konevî -a descendant of Sadreddin

Konevî (1209-1274)-, corroborates his claim by referring to Mehmed II as sāhib-i taht-i

Quntstantīn, khalīfat Allāh fī mashāriq al-ʿard wa maghāribihā (Heir to the Throne of

Constantine, Caliph of Allah and sultan of the East and West) in the chronicle he composed

upon Mehmed II’s request.39 Konevî’s depiction of Mehmed II reveals that the shocking

events of 1453 furnished the Ottoman sultan with such epithets, including the Roman

Emperor and the caliph. In addition to this, Yılmaz reminds us that Mehmed II received

education from the most famous tutors of his time who were acquainted with the Mongolic-

Persian political ideals. Coupled with his zealous engagement in gaza, he acted in accordance

with this set of ideals and forged an alliance with the dervish groups and ulama. The alliance

among the military leaders, ulama, and dervishes appears to be an indispensable element of

failed to capture Kilia and Akkerman. Thereupon, İnalcık concludes that the upsurge in history production under
the reign of Bayezid II implies that Bayezid weaponized the historiographical tools to propagate his imperial
ideology. Nevertheless, his analysis has given rise to criticism as well. Among them was Murat Cem Mengüç,
who criticized İnalcık for reaching a definitive conclusion as to the formulation of a new imperial ideology by
the Ottoman literati at the behest of Bayezid II although we lack enough evidence. Halil Inalcık, ‘Osmanlı
Tarihçiliğinin Doğuşu’, in Söğüt’ten İstanbul’a: Osmanlı Devleti’nin Kuruluşu Üzerine Tartışmalar (Ankara:
İmge Kitabevi, 2005), pp. 93–119 (p. 113). Murat Cem Mengüç, ‘Histories of Bayezid I, Historians of Bayezid
II: Rethinking Late Fifteenth-Century Ottoman Historiography’, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African
Studies, 76.3 (2013), 373–89 <[Link]
38
Söğüt’ten İstanbul’a: Osmanlı Devletinin Kuruluşu Üzerine Tartışmalar, ed. by Mehmet Öz and Oktay Özel
(Ankara: İmge Yayınevi, 2000), p. 265.
39
Hüseyin Yılmaz, Caliphate Redefined: Mystical Turn in Ottoman Political Thought, Rulers&Elites (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 2018), p. 241.

22
the idealized sovereignty model and the centralized state structure according to the Persian

political culture that the Ottomans internalized in the fifteenth century. Based on this,

Mehmed II managed to convince -either in peaceful terms or by resorting to violence-, all

other political actors that his supreme authority was incontestable.40 Perhaps even more

important than adjusting the Ottoman sovereignty model to the Mongolic-Persian ideals is the

semi-legendary historical figure of Alexander the Great, who was by far the most shining

example of a universal sovereign for the Ottomans. Self-obsessed in the Greco-Latin culture

and classics even when he was a prince-governor of Amasya, he was an avid reader of

Arrian’s Anabasis Alexandri. Philoturk Renaissance scholars such as Francesco Berlinghieri

(d. 1501) and Greek Helenoturkists of the age like George Trebizond did not hesitate to

associate Mehmed II with Alexander the Great.41 As will be further discussed throughout the

thesis, Bayezid II fell heir to this political tradition and was referred to as Alexander the Great

of the Age by his contemporaries. The additional political vocabulary adopted by the court

historians and poets who devoted their works to Bayezid II pictured Bayezid II as a savior,

defender of Islam, renewer of faith, and a cosmological sovereign.

Among contemporary scholars, Heath Lowry seems to be the first to shift our attention to

the designation of a new imperial ideology in Bayezid II's reign. He notes that the Ottoman

chronicles depicted the ancestors of Bayezid II as gazi sultans and religious warriors to serve

this purpose and manipulated the early Ottoman history. Lowry argues that the Ottoman

chroniclers of Bayezid’s reign purposefully ascribed religious zeal to the military campaigns

of the first Ottoman sultans. This deliberate attempt was calculated to provide the House of

Osman a religious legitimacy against the Mamluks and Safavids in the East. While the

Mamluks were still considered the caliphs this title lost its sanction power in the wake of the

Halil İnalcık, ‘Mehmed the Conqueror (1432-1481) and His Time’, Speculum, 35.3 (1960), 408–27 (p. 412).
40

James Hankins, ‘Renaissance Crusaders: Humanist Crusade Literature in the Age of Mehmed II’, Dumbarton
41

Oaks Papers, [Link] on Byzantium and the Italians (2016), 111–207 (p. 141).

23
Mongol invasion. Regardless, he suggests that the shifting Ottoman understanding of gaza

from plunder-motivated and sporadic military incursions to consciously waged military

campaigns enabled them to distinguish between gaza and jihad.42

Indeed, the concept of gaza had a prominent role in the redesignation of the Ottoman

imperial ideology. As already mentioned elsewhere, the fifteenth-century Ottoman chroniclers

served this purpose by reinterpreting the early Ottoman age through the lens of Islamic Holy

Warfare. This retrospective interpretation of the early Ottoman history that we can trace back

to the times of Osman Gazi functioned to convince the reader that the House of Osman

deserved its supreme status in the Islamic world and Anatolia more than any other dynasty.

Since the reign of Bayezid II witnessed a series of clashes between the Ottomans, Safavids,

Mamluks, this explicit effort of the Ottoman literati seems a willful act and reasonable

strategy. Hence, I posit that the target audience of these chronicles and their claims about the

legitimacy of the Ottomans was the Turco-Islamic subjects rather than the Christian

dependents of Bayezid. Hüseyin Yılmaz corroborates this claim by referring to the Heşt Bihişt

written at the behest of Bayezid II in which İdris-i Bidlîsî assimilated the Turcoman gazi ethos

to the centralized state formation and new imperial ideology. He must have been considered

as the most suitable litterateur to undertake this task owing to his acquaintance with the

Turcoman tribes since his days in the service of the Aqquyunlu rulers in Eastern Anatolia. In a

sense, Bayezid II appears to have attempted to appease the unrest among the dervish groups,

gazi warriors, and Turcoman population.43 Another contemporary litterateur in Bayezid II

court who served a similar purpose with Bidlîsî was Oruç b. 'Adil whose history scrutinized

how essential the concept of gaza was for the early Ottomans:

“The Ottomans are gazis and victorious, they serve Allah with no thought of personal gain.
They gather up the spoils of their raids and spend them for the sake of their religion. They
42
Heath Lowry, The Nature of the Early Ottoman State, Suny Series in the Social and Economic History of the
Middle East (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2003), p. 50.
43
Yılmaz, p. 245.

24
devote themselves to Allah and they live their lives according to sharia. They are the avengers
of the infidels…”44

Oruç endeavored to illustrate the basis on which Bayezid II could develop his discourse of

legitimacy. However, we should also consider the number of gazavatnâme written at

Bayezid’s time. This genre consisted of works that narrated the military achievements of the

Ottoman sultans, grand viziers, and a handful gazi warlords roamed in the European

borderlands. Both Firdevsî’s Kutbnâme and Safayî’s Fetihnâme-i İnebahtı suggests that gaza

became a prominent tool to boost the legitimacy of Bayezid.45 Besides, a Persianate emigree

İdris-i Bidlîsî’s Heşt Bihişt in which he narrated the history of the House of Osman and

exemplary characteristics of Bayezid II corroborates my claim that the target audience was the

Islamic world. Bidlîsî reconsidered Bayezid’s aid for the Mamluks against the Portuguese

navy and argued that Bayezid’s military and logistic support should be considered as clear

evidence of Bayezid’s willingness to protect Islam against Christian incursions.46 This may be

considered as one of the earliest but systematic references to the Ottoman claim to the

caliphate epithet. After all, protecting Darü’l-İslâm and Muslims from any invader forces was

the highest priority of the Caliph. In reminding his reader that it was Bayezid II who defended

the welfare of all Muslims regardless of the dynasty they lived under, Bidlîsî attempted to

show that Ottomans began assuming the mantle of caliphate even before the reign of Selim I.

All these accounts aim to argue that first and foremost, the Ottomans were religious warriors,

and they were triumphant against their enemies, the majority of whom were ‘infidels’.

Second, they were not driven by personal ambitions or self-interests such as accumulating

material wealth; on the contrary, they disbursed their riches on religious matters. They did not

even hesitate to help the Mamluks when a common Christian enemy appeared. Hence, they

were dedicated to pursuing a life in accordance with the Islamic law and they believed that
44
Oruç b. Âdil, Oruç Beğ Tarihi, trans. by Hüseyin Nihal Atsız (Ankara: Ötüken Yayınevi, 2016), p. 73.
45
Firdevsî-i Rumî, Kutb-Nâme (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu, 2011).
46
Dimitriadou, p. 32.

25
they were given the divine task of punishing the ‘infidels.’ This was the discursive

foundations of Bayezid’s imperial ideology whereby Bayezid did refashion himself as a noble

religious warrior whose military expeditions were in keeping with the Sharia law code. 47

Moreover, references to the gaza spirit of the early Ottomans served to portray Bayezid as the

rightful inheritor of the Ottoman legacy.

Neither Oruç nor İdris-i Bidlîsî or Safayî was the only contemporary chroniclers who left

a considerable room to discuss the centrality of the concept of gaza in elaborating on the

legitimacy of the House of Osman. A contemporary Ottoman chronicler whose identity

remained unknown to us corroborates Oruç’s claim that the early Ottomans were legitimate

rulers by virtue of their military expeditions waged against the Christian principalities. This

time, the reference point of the chronicle appears to be the military campaigns of Orhan Gazi,

son and successor of Osman Gazi:

“The warriors walked over the enemy,

And plundered them day and night,
Women and men, they enslaved all
They killed everyone they found, elder and juveniles
Raided against the infidels the warriors of Islam
Those who were the servants of Islam
This is how they engaged in gaza…”48

The anonymous chronicler gives us further details about the fifteenth-century Ottoman

understanding of gaza and the very nature of the Ottoman war machine. First, plunder and

gaza were strictly connected, and pillaging the enemy territory was permissible.49 Yet,

47
Dimitriadou, p. 62.
48
Anonim Tevârih-i Âl-i Osman, ed. by Nihat Azamat, trans. by Friedrich Giese, Marmara Üniversitesi
Yayınları, 510 (İstanbul: Edebiyat Fakültesi Basımevi, 1992), p. 16.
49
“Know that whatever spoils you take, one-fifth is for Allah and the Messenger, his close relatives, orphans, the
poor, and ˹needy˺ travelers, if you ˹truly˺ believe in Allah and what We revealed to Our servant on that decisive
day when the two armies met ˹at Badr˺. And Allah is Most Capable of everything.” The Quran, 8:41.

26
plunder has never been the primary motivation of these raids. It was rather the by-product of

the Ottoman religious zeal in expanding the frontiers of Islam. In this sense, I argue that this is

the first diversion of the Ottoman gaza concept from the classical Holy War formulation of

the early Islamic jurists. Moreover, the enslavement of the defeated population and the

massacre of certain groups were allowed since the warriors were on a religious duty of

subjugating the ‘infidel’ to the true faith and its champion, the Ottomans. It should be noted

that Bayezid’s court historians’ willful manipulation of the early Ottoman history was only

one dimension of the imperial ideology in making that was bound to the concept of gaza. The

same chroniclers also considered Bayezid II’s seizure of Chilia and Akkerman as the shining

examples of the Ottoman gaza and regarded Bayezid as a great Islamic warrior.50 Concerning

this, Liviu Pilat notes an interesting visit paid by Bayezid II to the tomb of Sarı Saltuk

(d.1298) during the Ottoman campaign of Moldavia. He was considered to be one of the

leading figures of the pre-establishment stage of Bektashism in Europe and venerated by the

Ottomans owing to his dedication to the spreading of Sunni Islam among the local

communities.51 According to Saltuknâme, compiled by Ebu’l-Hayr Rumî in which the author

provided his contemporaries with the miracles Sarı Saltuk performed and narrated the warrior

saint’s participation in gaza activities in the Babadağ region, Sarı Saltuk was a highly-

esteemed mystic for everyone who knew him regardless of their religion.52 While Ebu’l-Hayr

Rumî compiled the deeds of Sarı Saltuk at the request of Prince Cem in 1480, the tomb of the

gazi mystic is restored by Bayezid II who paid homage to his sepulcher during his Moldavian

campaign.53 According to Liviu Pilat, Bayezid II’s trip to Babadağı and his restoration of Sarı

50
Rûhî Çelebi, Ruhi Tarihi, Belgeler, XIV (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu Basımevi, 1992), XVIII, p. 471.
51
Pilat and Cristea, p. 219.
52
Ebü’l Ḫayr Rūmī, Saltuk - Name: The Legend of Sarı Saltuk Collected from Oral Tradition by Ebu’l-Hayr-i
Rûmî, ed. by Şinasi Tekin (Cambridge: Harvard University Print, 1974); Stefan Rohdewald, ‘A Muslim Holy
Man to Convert Christians in a Transottoman Setting: Approaches to Sarı Saltuk from the Late Middle Ages to
the Present’, Interdisciplinary Journal for the Studies of Religious Contact and Transfer, 9 (2019), 57–78 (p. 61).
53
Halil İnalcık, ‘Türkler ve Balkanlar (The Turks and the Balkans)’, in Balkanlarda İslâm: Miadı Dolmayan
Umut (Islam in the Balkans: Unexpired Hope), ed. by Muhammet Savaş Kafkasyalı, Türkistan’dan Balkanlara
(From Turkestan to the Balkans), 19, 5 vols (Ankara: TİKA, 2016), II, 9–41 (p. 16).

27
Saltuk’s tomb suggest that Bayezid II’s attempted to gain the favor of gazi and dervish circles

roaming in the European soils of the Ottoman Empire. This interpretation seems to be a valid

one given that Bayezid II’s reluctance to cope with the agrarian reforms launched during the

reign of Mehmed II and targeted the dervishes and gazi circles corroborates his intimacy with

these milieus. When he ascended the throne, he redistributed the lands and vaqfs taken from

these power groups and won their favor.

The most convincing explanation that elucidates the chroniclers’ deliberate effort in

associating the Ottoman expansion with their religious zeal must be providing the House of

Osman with an additional source of legitimacy that answers to the new challenges arising

from the Eastern and Western borderlands of the empire. Bayezid’s younger brother Cem was

kept captive in Europe until he died in 1495, and the sultan was required to pay a huge sum of

gold to ensure his safety.54 The Ottoman Empire was also struggling to establish a reliable

vassal system in Eastern Europe and about to enter a fierce war with the Venetian Republic at

the time Cem was a hostage. In such a case, The Papacy could have equipped Cem with an

army and sent him to Istanbul as the commander of a new crusade on a theoretical level.

However, both Bayezid and the Papacy must be cognizant of the fact that such a crusade

would contrast with the traditional crusade notion. Cem was still adhering to Islam until his

last breath, and it was theoretically unfeasible for a crusading army to be led by a pretender

rather than a liege, which equally would render Cem’s command of a Christian army

impossible. That said there was not legally binding that would prevent the Papacy from

supporting Cem against his brother Bayezid II. Thus, so long as he lived, Cem remained a

legitimate contender for the Ottoman throne and his release was quite a risk that Bayezid was

54
Bayezid II was supposed to pay approximately 40,000 gold ducats annually to the Papacy for Cem’s
expenditures. İsmail Hikmet Ertaylan, Sultan Cem (Istanbul: Milli Eğitim Basımevi, 1951), p. 224.

28
reluctant to take.55 Coupled with this, there was a growing hostility among the centrifugal

power groups that permeated throughout the European borderlands of the empire against

Bayezid’s centralist policies. The tension between Istanbul and these groups seems to have

reached a climax in 1492 when reportedly a Kalenderi dervish attempted to assassinate

Bayezid II who was returning to the Ottoman capital after the Albanian Campaign.

The year 1492 could not have been predicted to become the ominous turning point of

the sultanate of Bayezid II, whose ascension to the throne was already toilsome due to

fraternal war fought by him and his brother Cem for the Ottoman throne. However, the failed

assassination attempt against Bayezid II revealed that all attempts of Bayezid II to regain the

support of gazi and dervish circles were fruitless. Bayezid II’s dismay is manifested in the

chronicles compiled at his request as they either overlooked the importance of the event or

mentioned it in passing. Hence, the actual identity of the assassin and his ultimate purpose

remained vague. Yet, Halil İnalcık argues that it was Otman Baba dervishes who conspired to

kill the sultan since Bayezid II found the followers of Otman Baba guilty of the assassination

attempt and punished them accordingly. Based on his analysis of the Velâyetnâme-i Otman

Baba, İnalcık notes that some of these dervishes were tortured into confessing their role in the

plot and butchered eventually. The remaining dervishes affiliated with the plot were exiled to

Anatolia.56 Perhaps what is more puzzling is the fact that Qutb al-Aqtab notion is also claimed

by Otman Baba and his caliph Akyazılı Sultan. Given that Otman Baba passed away in 1478,

the assassination attempt seems to be carried out by one of his caliphs. Indeed, Akyazılı

Sultan was recorded to be the new leader of this mysterious dervish order and he was known

as the most revered caliph of Otman Baba at the time. However, it should also be taken into

55
Bidlisi suggests that the mastermind behind the assassination of Prince Cem was either Pope Alexander VI or
Bayezid II. Given that the pope had little to benefit from assassinating the rebellious Ottoman prince, the finger
of suspicion is naturally pointed at Bayezid II who according to Thuasne had already attempted several
assassinations on Prince Cem such as poisoning the fountain where the Pope and Prince Cem would take water.
Dimitriadou, p. 89.
56
Halil Inalcik, ‘Dervish and Sultan: An Analysis of the Otman Baba Vilāyetnāmesi’, The Middle East and the
Balkans under the Ottoman Empire, 1993, 19–36 (p. 33).

29
consideration that Akyazılı Sultan was not considered and/or declared the Qutb al-Aqtab by

his followers until 1495. The assassin-dervish, perchance, may have been sent to that specific

spot by the sheik he was committed to. In this case, the messianic claims of Otman Baba

dervishes might have occasioned the assassination of Bayezid. Although Otman Baba cannot

be the perpetrator of the assassination since he had succumbed to death before the

assassination attempt was carried out, he was believed to be reborn hundreds of times. In

other words, it was believed that Otman Baba was reincarnated several times and was to be

resurrected after he died.57 Thus, it is likely that one of his followers devised the assassination

of Bayezid to prepare the world for the return of their Qutb and manifest the false axis mundi

claims of Bayezid.

We catch the messianic claim of the Otman Baba dervishes in Hoca Saadeddin Efendi’s

account of the incident. He notes that the dervish was received by the sultan since the guards

thought that he was asking for alms.58 Once he moved closer to the sultan, he drew his sword

that he was hiding under his dervish coat and cried out loudly “I am the messiah of the time!”.

The imperial guards then trembled with fear and ran away in different directions since they

were unprepared for such an assault. All the contemporary and later Ottoman chroniclers

noting this incident seem to concur on this point. However, there are slightly varying opinions

concerning who prevented the dervish from killing Bayezid. İdris-i Bidlîsî, for instance,

argues that it was Kurt Aydın, a çavuş (court sergeant) who acted first and pacified the

dervish.59 However, Gelibolulu Mustafa Âli Efendi and Sadeddin Efendi argue that it was

İskender Pasha who ripped the head of the dervish with his dagger. According to the chronicle

of Müneccimbaşı, the perpetrator was a dervish with Qalandar attire who approached the

57
Ol şehirlüye ayıtdı ki: Bak bire çirkin, gebe karınlu şehirlüsü! Yüz kere bin yıldır ki ben bu milke gelürem, bir
taşı bir taş üzerine komadum. Başınıza yıkılsun…” Ahmet Yaşar Ocak, Alevî ve Bektaşî İnançlarının İslâm
Öncesi Temelleri, 9th edn (İstanbul: İletişim Yayınları, 2012).
58
Hoca Sadettin Efendi, Tacü’t-Tevarih, ed. by İsmet Parmaksızoğlu, Bilim Dizisi, 1, V vols (Ankara: Kültür
Bakanlığı Yayınları, 1979), II.
59
Vural Genç, Acem’den Rum’a Bir Bürokrat ve Tarihçi İdris-i Bidlîsî (1457-1520) (Ankara: Türk Tarih
Kurumu, 2019), pp. 667–68.

30
sultan by hiding his sword under his coat. When he noticed that the solaks (royal bodyguards)

were unarmed and the sultan was defenseless, he managed to take his sword. However,

İskender Pasha took precedence over the dervish and killed him with his sword. Then, the

janissaries ripped up the deceased body of the Qalenderi into the pieces. Following all these,

Bayezid II exiled all Qalenderi dervishes from Rumelia.60 On the other hand, Ahmet

Karamustafa, a prominent scholar of Sufism and Sufi groups in Ottoman history, posits that

the assassin dervish,- who attempted to kill Bayezid II on the road to Bitola, was a Haydari

dervish based on the account of Oruç b. Adil.61 Besides, the sixteenth-century Ottoman writer

Matrakci Nasuh similarly argues that the assassin had the same outlook as Haydarî

dervishes.62 Nevertheless, it is hard to distinguish between Qalandari dervishes and Haydarîs

as both tariqas’ dresses were quite similar to each other.

Both the internal and external perils against his sultanate must have forced Bayezid to take

certain measures and refashion himself as the champion of Islam through the narration of his

victorious gaza over the Christian principalities of Europe. To a certain extent, Bayezid’s

strategy may be regarded as mimicry of his father’s policy as Mehmed II remained a perfect

role model for his successors in terms of military and politics. However, being a gazi sultan

could have proved insufficient to persuade the dissident groups within the empire to stand

with him against Cem and other external threats. First, the powerful actors of the empire’s

borderlands -gazi families and wandering antinomian dervish circles-, also considered

themselves as religious warriors.63 Further, these frontier warlords and dervish circles were

60
‘Menâkıb-ı Sultan Bayezid Han Ibn Muhammed Han’, trans. by Étienne Roboly (Istanbul, 1732), bibliotheque
nationale de paris e. blochet catalogue, no. 922.
61
Ahmet Karamustafa, God’s Unruly Friends: Dervish Groups in the Islamic Middle Period 1200-1550
(Bloomsbury Street London: Oneworld Publications, 2006).
62
Matrakçı Nasuh, Tarih-i Sultan Bayezid: Sultan II. Bayezid Tarihi, trans. by Mertol Tulum (İstanbul: Giza
Yayınları, 2012), p. 186.
63
Inalcik, p. 26.

31
speaking with one voice against the bureaucratical hierarchy of this new imperial order. The

centralist policies of Mehmed and Bayezid filled them with nostalgia for the time when the

Ottomans raided over the ‘infidels’ together with borderland warriors and did not lord it over

them. In other words, Bayezid was needed to remodel the gaza concept to win over the

dissident gazi groups against possible contenders for the throne and external threats to his

universal sovereignty claim.

Moreover, the unexpected rise of a young and charismatic leader from Azerbaijan, who

was the sheik and political leader of the Safawiyya tariqa, heralded the dawning of a new era

in the Ottomans’ relationship with their eastern neighbors. Shah Ismail’s rise to power was

quite unpredictable not to mention his capture of Tabriz from the Aqquyunlu Confederation in

1501.64 The magnetic leadership and riveting messianic claims through which he garnered

tremendous support in Eurasia made him the first shah of the Safavid Empire.65 Yet, he was

not strong enough to publicly and belligerently take issue with Bayezid’s superior authority

and remained cautious in the face of a possible military clash with the Ottomans until Selim

I’s ascension to the throne.66 Instead, he sent the Safavid propagandists to the Ottoman-

controlled Anatolian territories to mobilize political support for his ‘divine’ cause informed

by messianic expectations of the age.67 Selim the Grim, the son and successor of Bayezid,

frustrated Ismail’s expansionist policies and ruined his religious charisma after defeating him

at the Battle of Chāldirān in 1514. Nevertheless, the Safavid Empire remained a substantial

threat to the Ottoman hegemony throughout the following centuries as well. Along with the

indicated political reasons that pushed Bayezid II to adjust the Ottoman imperial ideology and

64
Adel Allouche, The Origins and Development of the Ottoman-Safavid Conflict (Berlin: Klaus Schwarz Verlag,
1983), p. 132.
65
Hans Robert Roemer, ‘The Safavid Period’, in The Cambridge History of Iran: The Timurid and Safavid
Periods, ed. by Peter Jackson, 7 vols (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), VI, p. 189.
66
Oktay Efendiyev, ‘Sultan II. Bayezid ve Şah İsmail’, Türk Tarih Kongresi: Kongreye Sunulan Bildiriler, XII
(1999), pp. 92–94.
67
Efendiyev, p. 93.

32
renegotiate with the local power groups, we need to explore the late fifteenth century Ottoman

apocalypticism to better analyze the making of the new imperial ideology.

[Link] Ottoman Gaza, Apocalypse, and the Making of the Ottoman Imperial Ideology

Three external political factors pushed Bayezid II to develop a new imperial ideology

around the gaza concept: Cem’s captivity in Europe and his claim to the Ottoman throne; the

emergence of the Safavid Empire; and the political turmoil of the late fifteenth-century

Eastern European political climate. Bearing in mind the magnitude of all three factors, we

should not disregard how pressing the apocalyptic expectations of both Muslims and

Christians were in the late fifteenth century. Most Islamic scholars, jurists, and intellectuals

built a consensus over the impossibility of knowing the exact date of the doomsday. However,

they also admit that certain portents of the last hour could be surmised from eschatological

hadiths and Quranic verses.68 The second advent of Jesus Christ and the appearance of Al-

Dajjāl- the Antichrist in the Bible-, were regarded as the shared harbingers of the last hour in

Islam and Christianity.

One of the striking apocalyptic signs shared by Muslims and Christians alike was the

conquest of Constantinople by a Muslim ruler since the fall of the city was associated with the

end of the world.69 Among the Ottoman intellectuals and cosmographers who devoted their

writings to the Islamic understanding of the apocalypse, Ahmed Bican occupies a special

place for his references to Constantinople’s role in presaging the last hour.70 Thanks to his

expertise in Islamic eschatology, he epitomized Mehmed as a cosmological warrior, who was

68
Norman O. Brown, ‘The Apocalypse of Islam’, Social Text, Winter (1983), p. 163.
69
Gottfried Hagen and Ethan L. Menchinger, ‘Ottoman Historical Thought’, in A Companion to Global
Historical Thought, ed. by Presenjit Duara, Viren Murthy, and Andrew Sartori (New Jersey: Wiley-Blackwell),
p. 102.
70
Âmil Çelebioğlu, ‘Ahmed Bîcan’, TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, 2 (Istanbul: TDV, 1989), pp. 49–51
<[Link]

33
charged with shielding the community of believers from sinister supernatural forces.71

However, the prophecy did not only presume the conquest of the Byzantine capital by an

Islamic army but also portended the recapture of the city from the Muslims by Banu al-Asfar

(The Blonde People). As Kaya Şahin suggests, the Ottomans were adept at reinterpreting the

old prophecies according to their political agendas. While Banu al-Asfar was first associated

with the French people owing to their royal symbol yellow fleur-de-lis, later, the Habsburgs

were thought to have been Banu al-Asfar since Landsknecht troops were wearing yellow

trousers as uniform.72 The shifting tendency of the Ottomans to affiliate the French and

Habsburgs with Banu al-Asfar sheds light on their precariousness in identifying their

archenemies. Yet, it also indicates that starting with the unleashing of the Ottoman war

machine by Mehmed II and ensuing conquests of Bayezid, the Ottomans began confronting

the great powers of Europe.

At this point, we need to revisit the issue of Constantinople, the symbol of Ottoman

supremacy over Latin Europe, and the apocalyptic expectations of Ottoman society. It is

worth noting that the city and its surrounding areas, such as Bursa, witnessed terrible

calamities and miraculous happenings between 1490-1509, which all directly contributed to

the collective solicitude of the society. A massive earthquake shook Constantinople in 1509

and lasted for approximately forty days with aftershocks. An anonymous Ottoman chronicle

reports that the minarets of the mosques were fallen to pieces, most houses were either

entirely collapsed or their walls crumbled in the night of the earthquake. All inhabitants of the

city, men and women side by side, prayed to God for the earthquake to stop shaking the city.73

Shortly after, a devastating fire broke out in Bursa and destroyed circa twenty-five

71
Ahmed Bican Yazıcıoğlu, Dürr-i Meknun, trans. by Necdet Sakaoğlu (İstanbul: Tarih Vakfı Yurt Yayınları,
1999), p. 124.
72
Kaya Şahin, ‘Constantinople and the End Time: The Ottoman Conquest as a Portent of the Last Hour’,
Journal of Early Modern History, 14.4 (2010), p. 326.
73
Necdet Öztürk, Anonim Osmanlı Kroniği(1299-1512) (İstanbul: Türk Dünyası Araştırmaları Vakfı, 2000), p.
139.

34
neighborhoods in a single day this time. Yet, Matrakçı Nasuh notes another catastrophe befell

the city of Constantinople on July 24, 1490. On this day, the Mamluk ambassador to Istanbul

was rejected by Bayezid II, and a lightning strike hit the Güngörmez Church-, we surmise

from the sources that the Ottomans used the church as powder storage-, and it subsequently

reduced to rubble. Moreover, at least four neighborhoods were entirely wiped away following

the blast of the church.74 In 1492, the same year when a Qalanderi dervish attempted to kill

the sultan, another Qalanderi dervish was reported to have flown over the Bosporus on his

dervish coat. Gelibolulu Mustafa Ali notes that nobody ever saw the dervish again. 75 As these

examples illustrate, Bayezid II’s reign witnessed a series of misfortune accidents which

triggered apocalyptic expectation that instilled peoples’ hearts with a terrible fear.

The reconstruction of the gaza discourse functioned to counter the Safavid propaganda

and consolidate the Ottoman subjects under Bayezid II’s rule. The Safavids’ assumption of

power in Persia and Azerbaijan was highly contingent upon their utilization of the gaza

rhetoric like the Ottomans. The enchanting leadership of Shah Ismail was also supplemented

with supernatural attributions such as the divine help he received from God and his distinctive

cosmological importance. The Kizilbash soldiers of Shah Ismail (they were named so because

they wore twelve-peaked read caps as a portent of their reverence of twelve imams) were

fearless before their enemies and would run against their adversaries on the battlefield without

helmet, armor, or shield owing to their unflinching belief in their shah.76 From this

perspective, Shah Ismail had considerably more legitimate claims to universal sovereignty

than Bayezid II on a theoretical level. He was both the messiah and a long-awaited figure

among the Shiite Muslims and gazi warriors for whom thousands of Kizilbash would go into

74
Mustafa Karazeybek, ‘Matrakçı Nasuh’s Târih-i Âl-i Osman’ (unpublished Master’s Thesis, İstanbul
University), p. 229.
75
Gelibolulu Mustafa Âlî Efendi, Kitâbü’t-Târîh-i Künhü’l-Ahbâr, ed. by Ahmet Uğur and others, 2 vols
(Kayseri: Erciyes Üniversitesi Yayınları, 1997), I, p. 877.
76
Palmira Brummett, ‘The Myth of Shah Ismail Safavi: Political Rhetoric and “Divine” Kingship’, in Medieval
Christian Perceptions of Islam: A Book of Essays, ed. by John Victor Tolan (Abingdon: Routledge, 2000), p.
338.

35
bloodshed without even blinking. It was under these circumstances that a certain trend of

referring to Bayezid as Qutb al-Aqtab started. The Ottoman chroniclers developed a complex

sovereign identity for Bayezid II and justified their claim that Bayezid was the cosmological

ruler of the universe by virtue of his exemplary gaza against the ‘infidels’.

As noted earlier, the Ottoman expansion reached the Black Sea shores of Eastern Europe

during the reign of Bayezid II. Until 1484, Stephen the Great aptly secured the independence

of the Principality of Moldavia against the recurrent Ottoman threats which considerably

increased by Mehmed II’s time. Stephen the Great, who consistently disregarded Mehmed’s

ultimatums confronted the Ottoman war machine in 1475 at the Battle of Vaslui and

vanquished Hadım Süleyman Pasha.77 It was only after his remarkable repulsion of the

Ottoman forces in 1475 that he was referred to as the Champion of Christendom.78 However,

it should also be noted that the battle was not the final stage of the Ottoman expansion in the

region nor the last attempt of the Ottoman sultans to subjugate the Principality of Moldavia.

Only nine years later, Bayezid II undertook the dynastic task of transforming the Black Sea

into a shelter for the Ottoman navy and controlling the commercial activities in the region by

capturing Chilia and Akkerman.79 The Ottoman threat against the two Moldavian-controlled

Black Sea fortresses unnerved Stephen of Moldavia to such an extent that he propagated the

whole Christendom may fall under the ‘Turkish Yoke.’80

Getting back to the Ottoman side, one particular poet interpreted Bayezid’s capture of

Chilia and Akkirman within the eschatological context. We surmise from Sehi Bey Tezkiresi

that an Ottoman poet Kıvamî, the author of Fetihnâme-i Sultan Mehmed, devoted a passage to

77
Teodora C. Artimon, ‘All Moldavian Eyes on Ottomans: Perceptions and Representations at the End of the
Fifteenth Century and the Beginning of the Sixteenth Century’, in Practices of Coexistence, ed. by Marianna D.
Birnbaum (Budapest: Central European University Press, 2017), p. 182.
78
Brummett, p. 178.
79
Gelibolulu Mustafa Âlî Efendi, I, p. 835.
80
Pilat and Cristea, p. 19.

36
Bayezid II’s impulse and desire to capture these fortresses.81 He first referred to Bayezid as

the shadow of God and likened him to the Prophet Suleyman who was believed to have

controlled jins together with human beings. Moreover, he uttered particularly significant

eschatological words that are associated with the apocalypse in the wider Islamic world:

“You are the shadow of God; Suleyman of the Age

No one should be surprised if you conquer new countries
With jins and humans under your control
Since you walked against your enemy through a great gaza
You will also conquer the gardens of the paradise
Why should we need Jesus Christ to kill Dajjal?
Why should we expect the Messiah to conquer the world?
Oh Shah, since you established your kingdom on the skies
Your victory became the tenet, the rope of the conquest…”82

As this excerpt further illustrates, Bayezid II was cognizant of the rising eschatological

tension within the empire and endeavored to refashion his sovereign image around the gaza

concept and through the adaptation of eschatological terms such as Messiah, dajjal, sahib-

kıran, mujaddid -the renewer of the faith, qutb, and mahdi. We can surmise that the growing

eschatological anxiety of the Ottoman society pushed Bayezid to re-establish the sovereignty

rhetoric. Especially, the assassination attempt of 1492 of a Kalenderi dervish and the reckless

revolt of Şahkulu should be analyzed bearing in mind this eschatological anxiety. For

instance, Baba Tekeli, the leader of the Şahkulu Revolt, claimed that he was the mahdi and

the long-awaited secret imam. He declared that all believers were supposed to acknowledge
81
İsa Kayaalp, ‘Kıvâmî’, TDV İslam Ansiklopedisi, 25 (Ankara: TDV, 2002), p. 507. 71. İsa Kayaalp, p. 507.
However, it should be noted that Firdevsi was not among the favorite and most intimate littérateurs of Bayezid
due to his lack of elite markers as Tunç Şen puts it. Nevertheless, his references to the Qutb al-Aktab notion
demonstrate that he was familiar with the Islamic cosmology and search for the patronage of Bayezid II. For
more information see Ahmet Tunç Şen, ‘Reading the Stars at the Ottoman Court: Bāyezīd II (r. 886/1481-
918/1512) and His Celestial Interests’, Arabica, 64 (2017), 557–608 (p. 605) <[Link]
12341461>.
82
Ahat Üstüner, ‘Kıvâmî: Fetihnâme-i Sultân Mehmed’ (unpublished Unpublished Master’s Thesis, Fırat
Üniversitesi, 2006), p. 406.

37
his authority as he was the shadow of God.83 In a similar vein with Kıvâmî, Firdevsî-i Tevil

defined Bayezid’s sovereign image through his harmonious combination of the Sufi

vocabulary and gaza concept. The specific term Firdevsî used to refer to Bayezid II was Qutb

al-Aqtab(axis mundi). Qutb was regarded as the leader of a Sufi group and a perfect human

being who was responsible for maintaining order on earth. However, several Qutbs were

assigned to different roles and divine tasks by God. In this sense, Qutb al-Aqtab was the head

of all Qutbs and superior to all profane authorities in the world. 84 It should be noted that

Christopher Markiewicz traces the Qutb notion to the philosophical writings of Ibn Arabi and

argues that it was meant to denote the true leader of the community of believers. 85 The rumor

that Sheikh Edebali, the spiritual mentor of Osman Gazi and eminent mystic of the fourteenth

century Anatolia, attended Ibn Arabi’s open-to-public discussions in Damascus points out an

indirect relationship between the Ibn Arabi School and the first generations of the Ottoman

sultans and scholars.86

Firdevsî-i Tevil appears to have had a clear understanding of the term and interpreted it

within the context of political turmoil that characterized the last quarter of the century. In

Kutbnâme, he argues that the axis mundi of the age must be Bayezid II since through gaza he

waged against the ‘idolators’, he proved his capability of renewing the faith. Further, he posits

that Bayezid could command the natural forces and manipulate them as he wished. He was

believed to possess the divine power of determining the direction of the winds, striking

thunderbolts on his enemies, and achieve his aims by just uttering the words. Further evidence

that he was the Qutb al-Aqtab of the age were his generosity, bravery, justness, and devotion

83
Devlet Arşivleri Başkanlığı Osmanlı Arşivi. TSMA. 6321.
84
Azfar Moin, The Millenial Sovereign: Sacred Kingship&Sainthood in Islam, ed. by Dipesh Chakrabarty,
Sheldon Pollock, and Sanjay Subrahmanyam, South Asia Across the Disciplines (New York: Columbia
University Press, 2014), p. 23.
85
Christopher Markiewicz, ‘Caliphate Redefined: The Mystical Turn in Ottoman Political Thought. Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 2018. 384 Pp. $39.95 (Cloth), ISBN 978-1-4008-8804-7.’, H-Net Reviews in the
Humanities&Social Sciences, 2018, p. 255.
86
Mahmud Erol Kılıç, ‘İbnü’l-Arabî, Muhyiddin’, TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi (İstanbul: TDV, 1999), 520–22 (p.
522).

38
to gaza.87 Thus, the eschatological transformation of the Ottoman gaza becomes more

palpable and evident once we probe into the contemporary texts. In a way, this type of

combination of secular and cosmological sovereignty models appealed to the expectations of

multiple religious jamaats within the empire. Besides, another factor in designing such an

imperial ideology is the functionality of this type of eschatological-political vocabulary in

solidifying the diverse range of ethnic and religious communities.

Overall, the rise of the Ottomans from a meager gazi principality located on the western

borderlands of the Seljuks, which was not more than a ramshackle empire in the thirteenth

century, to world power is a phenomenon itself. Their adaptation of Islamic warfare and

timely modifications that the gaza concept underwent remains an issue to be further

investigated. Their religious zeal is assumed to have motivated them to fight against the

‘infidels’ and therefore, it was a factor behind their astounding expansionism. Yet, their

ability to adapt themselves to changing circumstances lies at the heart of their success more

than anything. While his ancestors also weaponized the gaza rhetoric to justify their mostly

profane political aims, Bayezid II took a step further and transformed the traditional gaza

concept by merging the notion with the Sufi terminology. Both Qutb al-Aqtab and sahib-kıran

were deliberately selected words to define Bayezid’s sovereignty. It was the House of

Osman's dynastic response to the challenges arising within and outside the empire.

Chapter 3

The Antemurale Christianitatis Rhetoric against the Ottomans: Apocalypse,

Eschatology and Ottoman Advance in Europe in the Late Fifteenth Century

The antemurale myth or bulwark rhetoric can be considered as the discursive line

drawn between the ‘civilized’ and ‘uncivilized’ to construct and further consolidate the

87
Firdevsî-i Rumî, p. 30. Tansel, p. 5.

39
collective Christian identity by othering what remains on the other side of the border. It

creates a hypothetical boundary between what is praised as good and demonized as bad. This

dichotomic understanding of self and other attributes all the desired qualities to self and

demonizes the other by associating it with despised characteristics, cursed historical roots, and

civilizational prejudices.88

The use of the discourse by the Christian sovereigns, scholars, and clergy of Europe

has a long history in the collective memory of the continent. On the one hand, the term is

related to the interwoven history of the Middle East and Europe since crusades launched

against the Islamic rulers of the East created Christian-controlled power zones surrounded by

‘infidel’ enemies. On the other hand, the Ottoman threat transformed the classical form of

crusades and forced the Papacy and Eastern European sovereigns to rely upon the antemurale

christianitatis rhetoric more than ever. In either case, the Christian world was divided into the

Western res publica Christiana and Eastern res publica Christiana with often contradicting

priorities. Papal calls to crusade, sermons given by the clerics to inflict the Christian public

with religious fervor to take up arms against the enemies of the faith, and urgent letters sent

by the bulwark kingdoms of Christian Europe to the Western Christian lords often proved to

be ineffective. Left alone against the Ottoman peril; Poland, Livonia, Hungary, and

Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia fashioned themselves as the protecting walls of

Christianity.89 The swift shift from pugnacious crusades to the antemurale rhetoric -which is

accountably a more defensive concept-, became more palpable after the Ottoman conquest of

Constantinople in 1453. The heroic victories that the Christian armies enjoyed against the

infidel Muslims were something of a distant past when the Ottoman armies began shattering

the bulwarks of Christendom.

88
Weiand, p. 31.
89
Paul Srodecki, ‘‘Universe Christiane Reipublice Validissima Propugnacula‘ – Jagiellonian Europe in Bulwark
Descriptions Around 1500’, in The Jagiellonians in Europe: Dynastic Diplomacy and Foreign Relations, ed. by
Attila Bárány, Memoria Hungariae, 2 (Debrecen, 2016), pp. 57–77 (p. 57).

40
 Three major apocalyptic works, the Book of Daniels, Apocalypse of Pseudo-

Methodius, and Gennadius Scholarius’s Chronographia; all point out to the late fifteenth

century for the coming of the Anti-Christ.90 It is known that 1492-1493 was marked as the

7000th year in the Byzantine calendar and Eastern Orthodox Christians believed that this was

the year when the world was coming to an end.91 In a similar vein, the Muslim world in the

late fifteenth century was awaiting the mujaddid (renewer of faith) who will establish a

universal empire and restore justice.92 The failed assassination attempt against Bayezid II in

1492 by a Kalenderi dervish claiming to be the actual Qutb al-Aqtab, translation of the Book

of Daniels from Syriac to Arabic at the behest of Mehmed II -which does not only provide the

reader with a window into the apocalypse but also the Last Roman Emperor motive-,

Metropolitan of Moscow’s, Zosimus the Bearded,93 composition of a paschal for the eighth

millennium, which starts in 1493; another paschal table compiled by a monk at Putna

Monastery in Romania, which ended in 1493 during the reign of Stephen cel Mare are

examples corroborating the claim that the year was received with an apocalyptical expectation

in Eastern Europe.94 Both the Christian and Islamic apocalypticism of the late fifteenth

century spoke with one voice concerning the eventuality of the apocalypse and they both

presaged a series of colossal battles that should be fought among the believers and the evil

forces. While Christian Europe perceived the evil other as the Ottomans and likened them to

the wicked nations of Gog and Magog, the Ottomans were expecting a final attack on

Constantinople by Banu al-Asfar, the Blonde People of North. In this apocalyptic climate, it

was inevitable that the most useful discursive tools of the Christian rulers of Europe and the

90
Şahin, p. 323.
91
Isabella Sullivan, ‘The Painted Fortified Monastic Churches of Moldavia: Bastions of Orthodoxy in a Post-
Byzantine World’ (unpublished Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation, University of Michigan, 2017), p. 10.
92
Cornell H. Fleischer, p. 18.
93
Zosimos the Bearded (d.1494) served as the Metropolitan of Moscow during the reign of Ivan III (r.1462-
1505).
94
Isabella Sullivan, p. 11; Gülru Necipoğlu, ‘Visual Cosmopolitanism and Creative Translation: Artistic
Conversations with Renaissance Italy in Mehmed II’s Constantinople’, ed. by Gülru Necipoğlu and Karen A.
Leal, Muqarnas: An Annual on the Visual Cultures of the Islamic World, 29 (2012), p. 12.

41
Ottoman sultans proved to be holy war discourses. Notwithstanding a piece of direct

evidence, I argue that Christian European sovereigns of the age responded to the Ottoman

capture of Constantinople and the subsequent Ottoman expansionism in Eastern Europe and

the Mediterranean in the reign of Bayezid II by resorting to myths, legends, and antemurale

christianitatis discourse.

Throughout this chapter, I explore three different dimensions of the antemurale

christianitatis rhetoric. First, I briefly introduce the rhetoric and discuss how and under what

circumstances it emerged. Second, I illustrate how this discourse is weaponized by the

Christian bulwark sovereigns against the imminent Ottoman threat that became more tangible

following Mehmed II’s capture of Constantinople. I argue that the expansionist policies

pursued by Bayezid II and military campaigns launched against the Principality of Moldavia,

the Kingdom of Poland, and Venice were in line with the new imperial ideology adopted by

the Ottoman Empire at that time. Concurrently, however, the European world responded to

Bayezid II’s gaza-centered ideology and discourse by resorting to a similar discursive

instrument. My research suggests that the revised Ottoman ideology and interminable

Ottoman-Crimean raids provided Stephen cel Mare, John Albert of Poland, Charles VIII with

a fertile ground to justify their expeditions on religious ground. Moreover, some of their

actions imply that they were under the spell of fifteenth-century apocalypticism to a

considerable extent.

Finally and most importantly, I argue that the apocalypticism of the late fifteenth

century was a universal phenomenon, which asserted itself most clearly in the common belief

that the apocalypse was destined to occur in 1492-1493. My argument echoes Liviu Pilat’s

assertion that the rising apocalyptic anxiety may have had an impact on the decision-making

42
mechanisms of the late fifteenth century.95 As will be further discussed in the following

pages, Charles VIII’s invasion of Italy was introduced under the pretext of restoring the Holy

Land to Christianity and driving off the Ottoman pretenders to the Roman Emperor’s throne

in Constantinople. The fall of Constantinople in 1453, the Ottoman advance in Europe during

the reigns of Mehmed II and Bayezid II, Eastern European sovereigns’ attempts to launch a

crusade against the Ottomans should be considered as related to Charles VIII’s rhetorical

defense concerning his Italian Campaign. Also, we should bear in mind the fact that Charles

VIII’s military expedition gave a new impetus to Girolamo Savonarola’s apocalyptic sermons

which prophesized that Florence would become the New Jerusalem.96 The issue of New

Jerusalem becomes especially important given that the Last Roman Emperor was required to

“lay down his diadem and robes, relinquishing authority to God” in Jerusalem after he

defeated the peoples of Gog and Magog.97 In this regard, the Italian War of 1495-1495 brings

forward the long-debated sincerity of crusaders and Christian eschatology. Was it truly

motivated by religious fervor or did he use the crusading rhetoric together with implicit

references to the Last Roman Emperor to materialize his political agenda?

Building on this, I argue that apocalypticism of the late fifteenth century buttressed the

use of holy war discourses explored throughout this thesis. Both Stephen cel Mare, John

Albert of Poland, Charles VIII of France, and Bayezid II utilized the apocalyptic climate of

the age to justify their political agenda and increasingly used the holy war discourses to

refashion themselves as pious sovereigns.

3.1. A Brief Sketch of the Antemurale Christianitatis Discourse

95
Liviu Pilat, ‘Mesianism Şi Escatologie În Imaginarul Epocii Lui Ştefan Cel Mare (Messianism and
Eschatology during the Time of Stephen the Great)’, Studii Şi Materiale de Istorie Medie (Studies and Sources of
Medieval History), 12 (2004), p. 14.
96
Patrick D. McCorkle, ‘Fifteenth-Century Florentine Exceptionalism: Civic Humanism, the Medici, and
Savonarola’, Oshkosh Scholar, 2014, 77–93 (p. 78).
97
Ilkka Lindstedt, ‘The Last Roman Emperor, the Mahdī, and Jerusalem’, in Understanding the Spiritual
Meaning of Jerusalem in Three Abrahamic Religions, Studies on the Children of Abraham (Leiden: Brill, 2019),
p. 205.

43
 Antemurale christianitatis concept refers to the bulwark of Christendom or the

borderland sovereignties of the Christian Europe, who were the first victims of the enemy

assaults. The sovereigns of these territories regarded themselves as religious warriors, and

their countries were regarded as the protecting walls of the whole Christendom. 98 In this

regard, it should be noted that the term has a long history in Christian politics starting from

the first half of the eleventh century. For instance, Pope Urban II (r. 1088-1099) referred to

Tarragona as antemurale christianitatis since it was considered the Western bulwark of

Christendom against the Moors.99Another earliest known use of the term belongs to Saint

Bernard of Clairvaux (d.1153), the Burgundian abbot who played a major role in the

revitalization of Benedictine monasticism in the eleventh century and referred to the County

of Edessa as antemurale christianitatis. Saint Bernard of Clairvaux’s addressing of the

County of Edessa through the bulwark rhetoric was cut to the chase considering the unceasing

Seljuk attacks on the crusader state.100 Besides, defending the Christian territories against

enemy attacks at the risk of sacrificing their lives was considered a way of emulating Jesus

Christ’s sacrificial love for the body of believers.101 This seems to be the main reason why

heroic Christian figures who fought against the enemies of Christianity were bestowed upon

the title of athleta christi by the Papacy.102

98
Charlton Lewis and Charles Short, ‘Antemurale Christianitatis’, Harper’s Latin Dictionary: A New Latin
Dictionary (New York: Harper&Brothers Publishers, 1891), p. 130.
99
Nora Berend, ‘Hungary: The Gate of Christendom’, in Medieval Frontiers: Concepts and Practices, ed. by
David Abulafia and Nora Berend (London: Routledge, 2002), pp. 195–217 (p. 209).
100
Andrew D. Buck, The Principality of Antioch and Its Frontiers in the Twelfth Century (Suffolk: Boydell,
2017), p. 44.
101
Borislav Grgin, The Ottomans and Croatia at the End of the Middle Ages (1458-1526), trans. by Abidin
Temizer, Glimpses of Balkans (Ankara: Gece Kitaplığı, 2017), p. 1.
102
Athleta Christi was one of the honorary titles that the Papacy bestowed upon Christian kings, princes, and
lords, who proved their dedication to the Christian faith through their engagement with the adversaries of
Christianity. The military clashes with the Ottoman Empire provided the Eastern Christian sovereigns with
ample opportunities to get concessions and financial aid from the Papacy. One of these princes was Gjergj
Kastrioti Skënderbeu (r.1443-1468) who has found huge fame among Western Christians owing to his heroic
resistance against the Ottomans. Peter Mario Kreuter notes that his rebellion against Mehmed II was glorified by
Pope Calixtus III (r. 1455-1458) and he was given the title of athleta christi, champion of Christ. Peter Mario
Kreuter, ‘How Ignorance Made a Monster, Or: Writing the History of Vlad the Impaler without the Use of
Sources Leads to 20,000 Impaled Turks’, in Disgust and Desire, ed. by Kristen Wright, At the Interface/Probing
the Boundaries (Leiden: Brill, 2018), XCI, p. 7.

44
 Paul Srodecki draws our attention to an often-overlooked aspect of the antemurale

christianitatis rhetoric in his exploration of the antemurale based frontier societies in the early

modern period. He reminds us that the formation of a collective identity necessitates the

existence of self and others. In this sense, the division of the world into the civilized and

barbarian sections by the Greeks and Romans was a tradition to be inherited by Christian

Europe to consolidate the self-consciousness of Christians.103 The feeling of togetherness and

uniting against a common enemy -oftentimes associated with the Biblical figures such as the

Anti-Christ, Gog and Magog, the beast of the Apocalypse, etc.-, was the linchpin of this

dualistic perspective. While these motives will be further analyzed in the following pages, we

need to address the first instance when this rhetoric is properly used by a Christian king in

Europe. The first serious attempt of a Latin ruler to unite the Christian world against a

common infidel enemy by applying this discourse was to be made by King Bela IV of

Hungary and Croatia in the wake of the Mongol Invasion in the 1240s.

The Mongol invasion of Europe in the thirteenth century started a new chapter in

Central and Eastern Central European history and shaped the way how the frontier kingdoms

of the continent restructured and utilized the antemurale rhetoric. Nora Berend notes that it

was King Bela of Hungary and Croatia (r.1235-1270), who applied the antemurale

christianitatis rhetoric to refashion himself as the bulwark of Christendom and secure

concessions from the Papacy.104 King Bela’s intimidation of the Papacy that the fall of

Hungary and Croatia would mean the carnage of the whole Christendom set the precedent for

how future sovereigns of Christian Europe would negotiate with Rome. In response to the

clamors coming from the Magna Hungaria, Gregory IX (d.1241) declared that the royal

family of King Bela was under the protection of the apostolic see and he granted the same
103
Paul Srodecki, ‘Antemurale-Based Frontier Identities in East Central Europe and Their Ideological Roots in
Medieval/Early Modern Alterity and Alienity Discourses’, in Collective Identity in the Context of Medieval
Studies, ed. by Michaela Antonin Malanikova and Robert Antonin (Ostrava: University of Ostrava, 2016), p. 98.
104
Berend, At the Gate of Christendom: Jews, Muslims, and ‘Pagans’ in Medieval Hungary, c. 1000-C. 1300, p.
164.

45
indulgences to all who fight alongside them against the Mongols. However, none of these

measures were of practical importance and proved ineffective in lightening the burden on

King Bela’s shoulders. It was not until 1243 that the Papacy adopted serious measures by

recruiting crusaders in Germany through sermons given by Berthold of Aquileia. 105 King

Bela’s complaining letters addressed to Papacy and other Christian kings of Europe indicate

that the Mongol invasion supplied him with a rhetorical tool to accentuate his special status

among all Christian kings. He was the defender of Christian faith as much as the Kingdom of

Hungary and Croatia was the bulwark of Christendom against the barbarian ‘Tartars.’ He was

the only Christian king fighting against the common enemy of res publica Christiana.

Berend’s enlightening remarks prove that the rhetoric was already in use among the Christian

rulers of Europe long before the Ottoman advent in the continent.

The rapid expansion of the Ottoman state in Europe, starting as early as the fourteenth

century, allowed the European intellectuals to choose the Ottomans as the external enemy of

Christian Europe at that time. They were often referred to as Turks in the primary sources and

regarded as the champions of Islam. However, the extent to which the Latin aristocracy was

aware of the fundamental precepts of Islam and how Turks and/or Ottomans are Islamized

remains open to debate. That said majority of Christian literati placed a particular menacing

nature around Turks since the Crusades. For instance, twelfth-century English historian and

the author of the Gesta Regum Anglorum (Deeds of the Kings of the English), (d. 1143)

described Turks as cowards and degenerate people by referring to Pope Urban’s crusade

rhetoric.106 Fulcher of Chartres directly referred to the Anatolian Turks as a sub-race of

105
Berend, At the Gate of Christendom: Jews, Muslims, and ‘Pagans’ in Medieval Hungary, c. 1000-C. 1300, p.
165.
106
J. A. Giles, ‘William of Malmesbury’s Chronicle of the Kings of England: From the Earliest Period to the
Reign of King Stephen’, [Link], 2015, p. 361.

46
Persian and a barbarian horde who were truly adept at using their bows.107 Both accounts

corroborate the claim that Turks were becoming the evil other for Christian Europe and the

theoretical ground on which the future generations of Christian scholars would base their

civilizational allegations concerning the Ottomans was in progress. It was the fifteenth-

century Renaissance scholar Francesco Fielfo, who bluntly associated a Christian king with

the antemurale christianitatis owing to his brave struggle with the Ottomans. This occasion

appears to have been one of the earliest Renaissance attempts to revitalize the antemurale

rhetoric against the Ottoman Empire. As Paul Knoll aptly puts it, Fielfo referred to

Wladyslaw III of Poland, who was the king of Poland and Hungary then, (r.1424-1444) as the

bulwark of Christendom just before the Battle of Varna in 1444:

"All the nations and kings of Christendom pray God this day for your health and victory…

Thou art a bulwark for the whole Christian Commonwealth.”108

While it is very well established from the contemporary sources that the Ottoman

advent was a critical stage in the formation of a fully-grown antemurale-based frontier society

in Poland, we should not disregard the fact that the same rhetoric was used against interior

enemies within fines Christianitatis as well. In the thirteenth century, Poland fell victim to the

ceaseless raids of the Prussians and Jatvings, thus; developed a distinct sense of a frontier

society, which is the prerequisite of antemurale discourse.109 In the following century, the

Polish king Ladislaus the Short (r. 1320-1333) asked for the moral help of the Papacy against

the infidel Tartars in a letter addressed to Pope John XXII (r.1316-1334). Ladislaus the Short

can be regarded as a self-seeking opportunist, although he defined the Kingdom of Poland as

a scutum, protecting wall, of the whole Christendom. Equally important was Pope John

107
Fulcher of Chartres, ‘The Siege and Capture of Nicaea (May-June, 1097)’, in The First Crusade: The
Chronicle of Fulcher of Chartres and Other Source Materials, ed. by Edward Peters, The Middle Age Series
(Philadelphia: University of Philadelphia Press, 1998), p. 181.
108
Paul W. Knoll, ‘Poland as “Antemurale Christianitatis” in the Late Middle Ages’, Catholic Historical Review,
60.3 (1974), p. 381 <[Link]
109
Knoll, p. 385.

47
XXII’s response to the letter sent by the Polish king in which the apostolic see granted

Vladislaus with the official permission to fight against “Schismatics, Tatars, Pagans, and other

confused unbelieving peoples.”110 Pope John XXII’s letter proves that the antemurale

characteristic of the Kingdom of Poland was already acknowledged by the Papacy before

John Albert of Poland’s ambitious crusading plans were executed in the late fifteenth century.

It is equally essential that the Papacy also utilized the antemurale rhetoric to eliminate all

obstacles in the way of Catholicizing the Baltic regions. In other words, resorting to the

bulwark metaphor was in the interests of both sides and this was a recurrent motive in the

long history of the antemurale discourse in Europe.

While the Ottoman peril was already intimidating in the thirteenth and fourteenth

century for Christian Europe, it was the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople in 1453 which

set the alarm bells ringing in throughout much of the continent. It was the building block of

Ottoman expansionism and a crowning achievement that will be praised in the following

decades and centuries. The news from Constantinople was received with fear and despair in

Italy. There was a growing whisper that if the Turks managed to breach the walls of

Constantinople, their invasion of Apulia would be inevitable. Besides, Gran Turco’s conquest

of Constantinople revived the bitter memories of Alaric’s sack of Rome in 410 AD. 111 Once

again, the time-honored myth about the eternality of the city of Rome was invalidated by the

barbarians coming from the uncivilized world.

3.2. Rome as the Eternal City: Nova Roma, Apocalypse, and the Ottomans

The Ottoman capture of Constantinople is considered thoroughly in the first chapter of

this thesis. However, the preliminary exploration of the incidents that took place in 1453

should be accompanied by a further discussion on the eschatological importance attached to

110
Knoll, p. 387.
111
Kenneth M. Setton, The Papacy and the Levant (1204-1571) (Philadelphia: The American Philosophical
Society, 1978), II, p. 139.

48
the city in the Christian tradition. Pursuing the following questions can prove fertile to realize

if the Ottoman and Christian Europe were linked via eschatology, apocalypse, and holy war

discourses. First, what is the main reason that the city of Constantinople has been targeted by

both Latins and Ottomans? Second, why has it been an enchanting imperial dream for the

early modern rulers to fashion themselves as the new Roman Emperor? To facilitate this

discussion, I explore the example of the Grand Duchy of Moscow. Third, how does the

ascription of eschatological importance to Constantinople and association of the Ottomans

with apocalyptical motives i.e., Gog and Magog, connect in the reign of Bayezid II?

The fall of Constantinople in 1453 was terrific news received with great dismay in

Christian Europe. On the one hand, the Christian public gained an insight into the magnitude

of the danger that the Ottomans possessed for Christian Europe after 1453. On the other hand,

the Ottoman capture of the Eastern Roman capital unearthed the apocalyptic anxiety, which

was deeply rooted in Christian political thought owing to the eschatological importance

attached to the city. It was not the first time that the Roman capital fell under pagan rule or

was plundered by infidels. Alaric I’s (r. 395-410) invasion of Rome or Latin invasion of

Constantinople in 1204 was still alive in the collective memories of Latin and Orthodox

Christian communities in the fifteenth century. Constantinople was already named Nova

Roma in the fourth century by Emperor Constantine the Great (d. 337), and the Ottoman

conquest was redolent of Alaric’s destruction of Rome in AD 476.112 While it is true that the

Ottoman conquest made it clear for the rest of the Christian world that the circle was

tightening, it also implied the approaching of an apocalyptic prophecy associated with the city

of Rome. In this regard, the reason why the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople set the

Christian public off in fear and trepidation remains vague without deliberating about one of

the most persistent pagan myths about Rome.

112
Demetrius John Georgacas, ‘The Names of Constantinople’, Transactions and Proceedings of the American
Philological Association, 78 (1947), 347–67 (p. 354).

49
 Both the city of Rome and the Roman Empire were believed to live eternally. This

belief should be sought in the writings of the greatest Roman authors of the first century B.C.

One such name is Albius Tibullus, who epitomized this legend before he died in 19 B.C:

“Romulus Aeternae nondum formaverat Urbis moenia.”113 His contemporaries Livy, Ovid,

and Virgil also shared his amorphous belief concerning the fate of the city. In his famous

Aeneid, Virgil exposed the idealness of Rome as a city and unlimited power that the Roman

Empire was thought to have possessed: “…his ego nec metas rerum, nec tempora pono:

imperium sine fine dedi…”114 Both of these excerpts illustrate the widely shared Roman belief

that Rome was meant to go on eternally and the imperial power of the Romans was endless.

Considering that the Roman Empire ruled over most of the known world until its demise, the

legacy it has left was contested by the successor political establishments in the following

centuries. As demonstrated in the first chapter, the title of Roman Caesar was bestowed upon

Mehmed II shortly after his capture of Nova Roma. However, the Ottomans were not left

unrivaled in their claims to be the successors of the Roman Empire.

While the Ottomans may have considered Devlet-i ‘Aliyye-i ‘Osmaniyye ( ‫ع ِليّه‬ ِ َ‫دَ ْول‬
َ ‫ت‬

‫ عُث َمانِيّه‬in the Ottoman Turkish) as the Second Roman Empire and pondered over the

eschatological role that Nova Roma will play in the apocalypse, the Russians claim to be the

Third Roman Empire after the fall of Tsargrad provides us with a junction point between the

Ottoman and Russian worlds as well. It was not a simple coincidence that the Metropolitan

Zosima of Moscow declared Ivan III as the new Emperor Constantine and named Moscow the

new Constantinople shortly after the Ottoman conquest in 1453. Marking the Grand Duke of

Moscow as the new Roman Emperor was in line with the shared Christian belief that Rome

was eternal. Besides, the Russian response to the shocking news of Constantinople was mixed
113
“Neither had Romulus erected the walls of the Eternal Urbe.” Kenneth J. Pratt, ‘Rome as Eternal’, Journal of
the History of Ideas, 26.1 (1965), 25–44 (p. 26).
114
Duncan F. Kennedy, ‘Modern Receptions and Their Interpretative Implications’, in The Cambridge
Companion to Virgil, ed. by Charles Martindale, Cambridge Companions to Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1997), p. 44.

50
with the apocalyptic apprehension that the fall of Rome would signal the coming of the Anti-

Christ. The Russian clergy was already familiar with the Pseudo-Methodius apocalyptic

scenario, which is considered one of the pillars of the Byzantine eschatological ideology.

According to this, the Ishmaelites would replace the Eastern Roman Empire under the

command of the Anti-Christ until a liberator emperor would defeat them. The fifteenth and

sixteenth-century Russian historiography confirm the wide appeal of the Pseudo-Methodius

apocalypse and display how the Russian elements were incorporated into the already existent

form of this scenario. While the theme of the Last Roman Emperor and his restoration of

Constantinople and Jerusalem is found in basically all copies of the Pseudo-Methodius, the

mentioning of the Russian tribes appear as novelties. The following excerpt, which is taken

from a Russian chronicle estimated to have been composed in 1511 by Philotheus in Pskov,

reveals that a grand battle should be fought between the Russians and Ottomans, who are

considered to be the Ishmaelites: “The Russian tribes will battle against the Ishmaelites with

the help of erstwhile inhabitants, will conquer the city of the seven hills.”115

There is no doubt that the city of seven hills stands for Rome, although the same

position has been assumed by several other cities in the long run such as Edinburgh, Durham,

Bristol, Jerusalem, and Babylon to name a few.116 It is hard to assume that the Russian public

dreamt of capturing Rome and fight against the Ishmaelites in Italy in the early sixteenth

century. The most convincing explanation appears to be Nova Roma following the Ottoman

conquest. Philotheus’s addressing to Vasily III (r. 1505-1533) as the ‘sole emperor of all the

Christians in the whole universe’ shows that the Russian messianism was strictly related to

the idea of a chosen people and anointed savior sent by God. Chosen by God since they were

the only Orthodox sovereigns free from Ottoman rule, Grand Dukes of Moscow acquired a

115
Dimitri Strémooukhoff, ‘Moscow the Third Rome: Sources of the Doctrine’, Speculum, 28.1 (1953), 84–101
(p. 88).
116
Caroline Vout, The Hills of Rome: Signature of an Eternal City (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2012), p. 2.

51
sense of exceptionality. Besides, Ivan III’s marriage to Sophia Paleologina in 1472 provided

the Muscovite Tsars with genealogical legitimacy as the new Roman Emperors. 117 As

mentioned earlier, the Paschal Canon, composed by the Metropolitan Zosima in 1492, sheds

light on the Russian eschatology and the Muscovite reactions towards the Ottoman

expansionism crowned with the conquest of Constantinople. We observe explicit references to

1492 as the exact year of the transition of imperial power from Rome to its successor in his

canon. The reason for this is the end of the world should have occurred around 7000,

according to the Byzantine calendar.118

In summary, both Philopheus and Zosima are among the first generation of Russian

scholars referring to the year 1492 as the beginning of a new era and ascribed an

eschatological mission to the Muscovite Tsar. After all, the Grand Duke of Moscow was the

only autonomous Orthodox monarch who can fight against the Ottomans, repel these evil

forces of Gog and Magog, and recapture the seat of the Roman Caesars. Nevertheless, the rise

of the Grand Duchy of Moscow to world power and its claim to be the Third Rome by

ignoring the Ottoman occupation of Nova Roma was either ignored or unnoticed by the

Ottomans. Despite the Muscovites’ association of the Ottomans with Ishmaelites -and

indirectly with Gog and Magog because of the earlier link made between Ishmaelites and Gog

and Magog-, the Ottomans found their eschatological enemy in the persona of a Latin king:

Charles VIII, who embarked upon the invasion of Italy in 1494 and threatened Bayezid II by

implying to the Last Roman Emperor legend.

It would be an uncontested claim that the Russian apocalypticism, which was slowly

emerging in the fifteenth century, derived most of its constituent elements from the Byzantine

117
Peter S. J. Duncan, Russian Messianism: Third Rome, Revolution, Communism, and After, Routledge
Advances in European Politics, 1 (New York: Routledge, 2000), p. 12. Also, see Cyril Toumanoff, ‘Moscow the
Third Rome: Genesis and Significance of a Politico-Religious Idea’, The Catholic Historical Review, 40.4
(1955), 411–47 (p. 439).
118
Marshall Poe, ‘Moscow, the Third Rome: The Origins and Transformations of a “Pivotal Moment”’, in
Jahrbücher Für Geschichte Osteuropas, 49 (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2001), III, 412–29 (pp. 414–15).

52
apocalyptic ideology. The Byzantine scholars and public considered the fall of the city was

equal to the end of the world, which was to occur after seven thousand years following the

Creation in correlation with the eternality topoi attributed to Rome. In a similar vein, Islamic

eschatology assumed that the conquest of Constantinople was a sign of the apocalypse. The

second advent of Jesus Christ and the appearance of Al-Dajjāl- the Antichrist in the Bible-,

were regarded as the shared harbingers of the last hour in Islam and Christianity. In addition

to this, the fierce clashes between the Ottomans and Christian communities were also

considered as a sign of doomsday because the Ottoman sultans were often referred to as Anti-

Christ. As we know it, one of the crucial stages of the apocalypse in the Bible is Armageddon,

the final battle between Jesus Christ’s army and Anti-Christ.119

The capture of the city by Muslims was not the final stage in Islamic apocalypticism.

Accordingly, a Nordic nation known as Banu al-Asfar would reclaim Rome and repel the

Muslims, referred to as Ishmaelites by the Byzantine and Russian scholars of the fifteenth

century.120 Banu al-Asfar, to whom the Ottomans referred as Asferoğulları, was a recurrent

theme in the Ottoman apocalyptic tradition, and they were often associated with Franks. For

this reason, the Ottomans monitored the actions taken by the French kings throughout the

fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. For instance, Bayezid II is known for his careful

observations of the steps taken by Charles VIII after he invaded Italy. It appears that the

Ottomans were aware of the Last Roman Emperor propaganda that Charles VIII carefully

disseminated and knew that he was aiming for restoring Nova Roma to Christianity. During

this time, Kemalpaşazâde, an Ottoman chronicler who was a contemporary of Bayezid II,

noted a growing disquiet at Bayezid II’s court concerning a possible French attack on

119
David Cook, Studies in Muslim Apocalyptic, Studies in Late Antiquity and Early Islam, 21 (Princeton, New
Jersey: The Darwin Press, Inc., 2002), p. 94.
120
Şahin, p. 325.

53
Constantinople.121 Echoing Kemalpaşazâde, Firdevsî-i Tevil also notes that the actual target

of the crusading armies in Europe was to remove the Ottoman presence from Europe and

restore Holy Land to Christianity. In Kutbnâme, he argues that Pope Alexander VI sent a

letter to the Hungarian and Polish kings in which he called them to join the crusade:

“Let us pass beyond the Danube River with armies

Let us conquer the Turkish lands with our sword
Let us conquer Rum, Egypt, and Damascus
And restore Jerusalem so that we can all be pilgrims…
These must be the words uttered by the Pope
The Messiah should descend from the sky
Let us go there (Jerusalem) before Jesus Christ descends
Let us spill the Turkish blood to the ground…”122

Firdevsî’s obvious reference to Jerusalem and the second advent of Jesus Christ

enables us to argue that the Ottomans were cognizant of the Pseudo-Methodius apocalypse

and the late fifteenth-century Christian fascination by it. Since almost the whole work is

dedicated to the brave Ottoman defense of the Aegean Islands against the motley of French,

Venetian, and Spanish in 1501, he elaborates on the religious motive that united these

different political actors. It appears in his account that a pivotal role is attributed to the Papacy

in bringing together the aforementioned political establishments. Citing the papal bull sent by

Pope Alexander VI, Firdevsî refers to both the Pseudo-Methodius and Last Roman Emperor

topoi:

“Now the time has come that infidels should run

And Banu al-Asfar should make them frighten away
So that Banu al-Asfar should reach Constantinople
Thus the infidels should reach Adana at this time

121
İbni Kemal, Tevârih-i Âl-i Osman, ed. by Ahmet Uğur (Türk Tarih Kurumu, 1997), VIII, p. 144.
122
Firdevsi-i Rumî, Kutbnâme (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu Yayınları, 2011), p. 79.

54
And they should settle in Jerusalem and Damascus
So that the Messiah should descend from the sky…”123

Firdevsî’s remarks on the crusade armies gathering in Europe reveals that the most

popular Christian apocalyptic scenario was known by the Ottoman chroniclers and Bayezid II

to whom this work is dedicated. When we reconsider the fear at the Ottoman court, we can

claim that the courtiers of Bayezid II might have realized that the prophesized people of Banu

al-Asfar could be the French army attempting to recapture Nova Roma.

Being very well aware of the eschatological importance attached to the city by the

Byzantine and Islamic sources circulating throughout the century, the late fifteenth century

Ottomans referred to the apocalyptic motives more than ever. For instance, the endowment

deed of Mehmed II portrayed the Ottoman sultan as if he were fighting against the evil forces

of the apocalypse, including the Blonde People.124 Besides, all the catastrophes that Istanbul

and its surroundings suffered are reminiscent of what happened to Moldavia in 1484,

including the blood rain and great fire that swept over the Putna Monastery, which would also

house Stephen cel Mare’s tomb in the future. Notwithstanding the invalidity of a claim that a

series of incidents that are considered bad omens should be related to a prophesized

apocalypse in the late fifteenth century, I attempt to picture the lugubrious environment in

which political priorities may have been renegotiated by the sovereign powers.

In this sense, I argue that Bayezid II did not only inherit a vast empire with well-

defined expansionist policies and an ideal sovereign image that engages in gaza and brings

justice to the world. He also fell heir to a fecund apocalyptic ideology developed by his

predecessors and further refined it through the systematic use of myths, apocalypticism, and

holy war discourses.

123
Rumî, p. 56.
124
Şahin, p. 326.

55
 3.3. The Apocalypse, Gog and Magog, and European Response to the Ottoman

Advance

The apocalyptic expectations of the Christian world and the ever-increasing pressure

of the Ottoman threat gained momentum in the last decade of the fifteenth century. On the one

hand, it was because the Byzantine calendar was showing the end of the world was nearing in

the 1490s. On the other hand, Bayezid II proved himself on the battlefield on several different

occasions such as the capture of Chilia and Akkerman from the Principality of Moldavia in

1484. It evoked memories of the military debacles that the Eastern European sovereigns

suffered against the Ottomans in the previous decades. As emphasized elsewhere, the

apocalyptic apprehension that both the Latin and Orthodox communities shared with Muslims

in the late fifteenth century was closely linked to the Ottoman advance in Europe which was

crowned with the conquest of Constantinople. The relentless Ottoman invasion of Europe

enabled the Renaissance authors, demagogues, and crusaders to expand the archaic discussion

over the link between Turks and Gog and Magog into the Ottomans.

Following the fall of Constantinople, both the Greek-speaking parts of the Balkans and

Latin Europe found themselves in a state of chaos with the surge of writings concerning the

heinous of the ‘Turks.’ Some Renaissance scholars believed that the ‘Turks’ were the

descendants of the House of Togarmah, the closest ally of Magog.125 Another widely-held

belief among the Renaissance scholars was related to the ‘barbarian nature of the Turks’ and

their descendancy from the Scythians. The argument that the Ottomans were the descendants

of the Scythians was in harmony with the Gog and Magog myth since Scythians appear to be

among one of the earliest associated nations with these invader people mentioned in the

125
Michael J. Heath, ‘Renaissance Scholars and the Origins of the Turks’, Bibliothèque d’Humanisme et
Renaissance, 41.3 (1979), p. 454.

56
Bible.126 Coupled with the assumed barbarity of the Turks, the historical region where the

Scythians were believed to live was taken as a token of their likeliness to be the descendants

of the Scythians and thus the Gog and Magog. Alternatively stated, the surrounding area of

the Caspian Sea was feared to have been the starting point of the apocalyptic invasion of the

world by Gog and Magog.127 Proceeding on this track, we are first required to visit the

passages in the Bible concerning the evil nations of Gog and Magog. Then, we need to

analyze the Alexander the Great legend so that we can get an insight into the civilizational

dimension of the bulwark rhetoric and apocalypticism.

In Ezekiel 38-39, Gog was described as the leader of a confederation of barbarian

nations who settled in Magog. They first appeared in the Hebrew Bible owing to their

relentless raids -motivated by plunder-, into Israel. Their chief leader was referred to as the

‘chief prince of Meshech and Tubal’ about whom we learn further details in Genesis 10,

where the Table of Nations introduces the descendants of Noah.128 Accordingly, Magog,

Tubal, Meshech, Tiras, and Gomer all descended from Japheth. In Ezekiel 27, Tubal and

Meshech were reported to have traded human slaves and bronze to Israelis. Togarmah -

associated with Turks by the sixteenth-century Flemish cartographer Abraham Ortelius and

French cabalist Guillaume Postel-, were said to have relied upon their trade in chariot horses.

Nevertheless, Heath cautions us concerning the link forged between the Turks and Togarmah.

126
Scott D. Westrem, ‘Against Gog and Magog’, in Text and Territory: Geographical Imagination in the
European Middle Ages, ed. by Sylvia Tomasch and Sealy Gilles, The Middle Age Series (Philadelphia:
University of Pennsylvania Press, 1998), pp. 54–75 (p. 55).
127
Nicholas Railton notes that Josephus seems to be the first notable figure who associated the Scythians with
Gog and Magog in the third century. Besides, it was Josephus again, who provided us with a vivid narration of
how Alexander the Great had the ‘barbarian people’ living beyond the Caucasus imprisoned by erecting iron
gates in their lands. Thus, Alexander was named as the defender of civilization against barbarian invasions.
However, we need to consider the shifting tendency among the Jewish literati in their considerations about the
Gog and Magog story since the Middle Ages. For instance, Rabbi David Kimchi (1160-1235) considered both
Christians and ‘Turks’ as the common enemy of the Jews and descendants of Gog and Magog. Nicholas Railton,
‘Gog and Magog: The History of a Symbol’, EvQ, 75 (2003), p. 29. Also, see Victor Scherb, ‘Assimilating
Giants: The Appropriation of Gog and Magog in Medieval and Early Modern England’, Journal of Medieval and
Early Modern Studies, 32.1 (2002), 59–84 (p. 62) <[Link] Railton, p. 29.
Scherb, p. 62.
128
Ezekiel., 38-39.

57
He reminds us that the early thirteenth century Franciscan Ubertino of Casale and sixteenth-

century German historian Johann Carion argued that Turks were the descendants of Japheth
129
and Magog. Alternatively stated, while there was a common tendency among Christian

scholars of the Middle Ages and early modern period authors to associate the Turks with these

barbarian nations, there was not a consensus among them about the exact nation that Turks

descended from. Yet, an agreement seems to have been reached concerning their motherland.

They were believed to have been the offspring of Japheth populating the vast area over the

South Caucasus where the Gate of Alexander is constructed.

Andrew Runni Anderson, however, puts forward that the Biblical narrative about the

invasion of Israel territories by barbarian nations sent by YHWH was a restructured and

distorted version of the actual Cimmerian raids into the Middle East. Putatively, they were

Gog and Magog who erased the Alexander Gate -erected in Darial Gorge-, sometime around

the eighth century during the reign of Sargon of Assyria.130 In this regard, ceaseless raids of

Asian tribes that terrorized relatively more ‘civilized’ parts of Eurasia created a frontier myth

that would be mixed with the Alexander the Great legend. It was Flavius Josephus, the first-

century CE Romanized Jewish historian, who laid the foundations of this rhetoric by

associating all invader forces with Gog and Magog regardless of their ethnicity, language, and

religion.131 For him, they were barbarians in the sense that they ruined the civilized Greek

territories. Thus, we are allowed to argue that this frontier myth inherently possessed a

civilizational dimension which enabled the European public to identify their enemies with

barbarianism and attribute innate civilizational elements to their territories.

It is worth elaborating on how this connection between the lineage of Japheth and

Turks is perceived by the Turkic scholars in the Middle Ages and Early Modern times. It is

129
Heath, p. 454.
130
Andrew Runni Anderson, Alexander’s Gate, Gog and Magog, and the Inclosed Nations (Cambridge:
Medieval Academy of America, 2013), p. 7.
131
Anderson, p. 8.

58
public knowledge that the twentieth-century Turkish scholars were particularly interested in

this discussion and they did not hesitate to verify the claim that the first identifiable ancestor

of the modern Turkish nation was Japheth, the third son of Noah.132 As expected, their

analyses aimed to serve the political interests of the nationalist movements in the country

rather than reviving an interesting medieval age sovereignty claim put forward by the well-

known scholars of the medieval age Turkic world. One of the earliest dated Turkic scholars,

who affiliated Japheth with the Turks was the tenth-century Kara-Khanid poet and

lexicographer Kaşgarlı Mahmud (d. 1102). Dîvânu Lugâti't-Türk, the first-ever known

extensive Turkish dictionary compiled by Mahmud for Arabs to get acquaintance with Turks,

contains the genealogical assumption that Turks were the descendants of Japheth:

“The Turks are twenty tribes in fact. They descended from Turk -son of Japheth-, who was
the son of God blessed Prophet Noah’s. …these tribes consist of many clans that their
numbers can only be known by God.”133

Echoing the genealogical explanation of Mahmud, Mahmud Sharif al-Din 'Ali Yazdi

also considered the Turks as the descendants of Japheth. Yazdi (d. 1454) was a Persian poet

famous for his Zafarname in which he narrated the life story of Timūr Gurkānī (d. 1405).

Besides the heroic victories of Timūr which bestowed upon him the title of sahib-kıran, Yazdi

elaborated on the genealogy of Turks and corroborated the previous claims put forward by

Mahmud. He argued that the father of Turk was named Türkhan and he was Japheth’s son.134

Even more important is the shared perspective of the late fifteenth century Ottoman

chroniclers who all repeated the age-old claim that Turks descended from Japheth, and thus,

the Ottomans genealogically derive from the lineage of the Prophet Noah. It is of primary

importance to emphasize that this topos was known by the Ottoman scholars at Bayezid II’s

132
Zekiye Tunç, ‘Turkish Presence in Mosul before Islam’, in Rifat Özdemir’e Armağan, ed. by Rahmi
Doğanay, Ahmet Çelik, and Fatih Özçelik (İstanbul: Hiper Yayınları, 2018), p. 76; İbrahim Kafesoğlu, Umumi
Türk Tarihi Hakkında Tespitler, Görüşler, Mülahazalar (Ankara: Ötüken Neşriyat, 2017), p. 424.
133
Mahmud el-Kaşgari, Dîvânu Lugâti’t-Türk (Ankara: Kültür Bakanlığı Yayınları, 1990), p. 28.
134
Junko Miyawaki, ‘The Chinggsid Principle in Russia’, Russian History, 19.1–4 (1992), 261–77 (p. 264).

59
time and inserted into the Ottoman genealogy trees prepared to prove the legitimacy of the

House of Osman. One of these chronicles was penned by Bayatî Hasan b. Mahmûd, who

was a companion of Prince Cem and named his work after the prince. While our knowledge

of Bayatî remains uncompleted and vague owing to the lack of any explicative references

made to him by his contemporaries, he notes in his work that he met Prince Cem in Hijaz

sometime around 1481. In Câm-ı Cem-Âyin, Bayatî referred to the Ottomans as the

descendants of Oghuz Khan, who was the scion of Japheth. In doing so, he hit two birds with

one stone since he mixed the descendancy from Japheth with another popular genealogical

source of legitimacy that the Ottomans utilized extensively.135

Another prominent figure, who explored the Ottoman genealogy in his chronicle is a more

familiar name whose Heşt Bihişt is discussed extensively in the first chapter: İdris-i Bidlîsî. In

addition to rehearsing the military and political career of Bayezid II, his association of the

Ottomans with Japheth serves a particular purpose considering the political priorities of the

sultan. At the time Heşt Bihişt is sponsored by Bayezid II, the Ottomans were struggling with

the Safavid propaganda in Anatolia and the charismatic leader cult created around the persona

of Shah Ismail was threatening the legitimacy of the House of Osman. Considering that the

Shia propaganda that targeted the Turkic population in the continent came to be fruitful in the

long run, it is logical to assume that Bayezid II strived to re-establish the Turkic origins of the

House of Osman and renegotiate with the Turkic communities settled in Anatolia and Persia.

Also, as Ali Anooshahr aptly puts it, Bidlîsî’s remark concerning the Ottoman descendancy

from Japheth was a constituent element of refashioning Bayezid II as the new Alexander the

135
According to the fifteenth century Ottoman history writing tradition, the Ottomans were descending from the
famous Kayı Boyu and thus they were the legitimate heirs to Oghuz Khan. İdris Kadıoğlu, ‘Câm-ı Cem-Âyin’de
Oğuz Kara Han Nesli ve Dede Korkut’, Kesit Akademi Dergisi, 3.10 (2017), 1–11 (p. 4).

60
Great of the age.136 Neşri, a contemporary of Bidlîsî and court historian of Bayezid II, also

refers to the Ottomans as the descendants of Japheth:

“These people are known for their extreme gallantry, and they are all sons of Bulcas Han b.
Yafes b. Prophet Nuh. And Bulcas had two sons: One was named Turk and the other was
called Moğul (Mongol). Their descendants and relatives are in great number that they are like
sands and trees whose numbers can only be known by God.”137

Other eminent court historians of Bayezid II’s time seem to have shared the same

tendency with Neşrî and Bidlîsî. For instance, Oruç b. Âdil and Derviş Ahmed, also known as

Âşıkpaşazâde, touch upon the Ottoman descendancy from Japheth and Noah.138 The only

remarkable difference that can be found in Derviş Ahmed’s account stems from his

addressing the Persians as the descendants of Japheth as well.139 This specific reference to the

Persians as the relatives of the Turks does not appear in the anonymous Ottoman chronicle -

although the Ottomans were still portrayed in the same way with other chronicles-, dated to

the 1490s.140 Among all of these contemporary sources, one poet distinguishes himself

because of the curious terms he applied in eulogizing the sovereignty of Bayezid II. Ibnü’l-

Uleyf (d.1520) was an Arab poet who appended a kaside (eulogy) to his work ed-Dureru’l-

manzûm in which he praised the sultan and the House of Osman. What gives this work its

high distinction is his approach towards the issue at hand. He resorts to the word ‘Rum’ to

address the Ottomans and argues that Rums descended from Japheth. Ibnü’l-Uleyf also notes

that Japheth is the ancestor of both Rum and Magog. By so doing, he sets up a kindred

relationship between the Ottomans and the evil nations of Gog and Magog. Furthermore, he

refers to Alexander the Great as Dhu al-Qarnayn er-Rûmî (Alexander the Great of Rum).141 In

136
Ali Anooshahr, ‘İdris-i Bitlisi’nin Heşt Bihişt’inde Osmanlı’ya Dair Efsanenin Yaratılması ve Tarih Yazımı’,
Osmanlı Araştırmaları, 50.50 (2017), 1–28 (p. 6).
137
Mehmed Neşri, Kitâb-ı Cihannümâ: Neşrî Tarihi, 2 vols, I, p. 9.
138
Âdil, p. 12.
139
Derviş Ahmed, Aşıkpaşaoğlu Tarihi, ed. by Hüseyin Nihal Atsız (İstanbul: Ötüken Neşriyat, 2020), p. 6.
140
Azamat, p. 8.
141
Şükran Fazlıoğlu, ‘Mekkeli Şair İbnu’l-Uleyf’in Sultan II. Bayezid’e Yazdığı Kaside’, Dîvân, 2 (2001), 163–
81 (p. 169).

61
this regard, the following verses in his kaside directly refer to the association made between

Bayezid II and Alexander the Great:

“Oh Bayezid who breaks his back to defend the Muslim lands
You drew your sword for the religion of Allah
And vanquished all infidels and heathens with it
In the hope of conquering and receiving the approval of Allah
You fought jihad in the way of Allah
Your victories over infidels are reminiscent of Alexander
And they reveal that you are the one that the Quran praised…”142

The poetry of Ibnu’l-Uleyf exposes the reader to the Ottoman sovereignty claims and

demonstrates the charm of the Alexander the Great topoi at the time Bayezid II ruled the

Ottoman Empire. The fact that Bayezid II rewarded the poet with 50 dinars per year makes

the impression that Ibnu’l-Uleyf ‘s specific wording of Bayezid II’s sovereignty and praises

he used to describe Bayezid II’s characteristics enabled the poet to ingratiate himself with the

Ottoman sultan.143

Saint Methodius of Patara provides us with a glimpse into the connection between the

people of Magog and the apocalypse. In the seventh millennium, the barbarian nations of Gog

and Magog -who were imprisoned by Alexander the Great in the Caucasus-, would be

unleashed and the Anti-Christ would appear. Thus, the process of apocalypse would begin

until Christians would reclaim Constantinople and Holy Land under the command of the Last

World Emperor who would prepare the world for the second advent of Jesus Christ. These

nations are often regarded as the descendants of Ishmael and the rise of the Ottoman peril

throughout the eastern borderlands of Christian Europe prompted the idea that they were Gog

142
Fazlıoğlu, p. 179.
143
Fazlıoğlu, p. 167.

62
and Magog.144 The range of pre-modern age authors and scholars who associated Turks with

the nations of Gog and Magog vary depending on the context in which these affiliations are

made. For instance, the twelfth-century Arabian author Abu Shaker explains why Turks must

be the descendants of Gog and Magog by elaborating on the name ‘Turk.’ He argues that the

word Turk was the distorted version of ‘Terkî’, an epithet given to them since they are denied

permission to enter into the civilized world. Given that the nations of Gog and Magog were

banned from touching the civilized world via the wall that is erected by Alexander the Great,

his explanation seems to be in line with the Alexander the Great legend.145

The millenarian connection made between Turks and the Biblical apocalyptic motives

was not limited to rather unknown individuals such as Abu Shaker. It was Pope Nicholas V

who openly referred to Mehmed II as the Anti-Christ and indirectly implied that the Ottomans

were descendants of Gog and Magog.146 Therefore, the idea of defending the civilized world

against the savagery of Islam was the moral and legal basis of the antemurale christianitatis

discourse. The military expeditions of the Christians were legitimate by the virtue of their

responsibility of defending the Christian civilization and the Papacy. Since the Donations of

Constantine, the Papacy assumed the successor role of the Roman Empire and had remained

the major political actor on the political stage for a long time.147 It should be noted that this

binary of civilization and savagery does not appear in the Ottoman documents that touch upon

the concept of gaza. Thus, this binary can be taken as one of the unique features of the

antemurale christianitatis discourse that can be dated back to the Greco-Roman world’s

discrimination between civilization and barbarism.148

144
Anderson, p. 45.
145
Ernest Alfred Wallis Budge, The Life and Exploits of Alexander the Great, Elibron Classics (Boston:
Adamant Media Corporation, 2000), p. 396.
146
Hankins, p. 142.
147
Johann Wilhelm Zinkeisen, ‘The Donation of Constantine as Applied by the Roman Church’, The English
Historical Review, 9.36 (1894), 625–32 (p. 625).
148
Zinkeisen, p. 461.

63
 One of the leading Renaissance scholars, who were convinced that the ‘Turks’ were

the scourge of God and should be fought against by any means, was the Italian poet

Callimachus. He played a major role in Eastern European politics in the late fifteenth century

following his appointment as the tutor of John Albert, the future Polish king.149 Callimachus

was believed to have shaped the political mindset of the young Polish prince and persuaded

him that he was chosen by God to punish the Ottomans. Although the Ottoman menace was

not something new for the Polish Kingdom, the threat became more palpable with Bayezid

II’s expansionist policies that targeted the coastal towns of the Black Sea region. The Ottoman

conquest of Chilia and Akkerman had two-fold significance for Albert. First, the Ottomans

were now controlling the Dniester and Dnieper deltas together with the commercial routes

passed through them. Second, they were seizing the opportunity of directly threatening the

Polish Kingdom and waging deleterious incursions into the Polish territories together with the

Crimean forces. Thus, the Polish crusade of 1497 against the Ottoman Empire and John

Albert’s religious zeal in devoting himself to this cause was evidence of Callimachus’ success

in training the prince as a chevalier. In addition to the religious fervor that he was imbued

with starting from his youth, he was craving eternal fame. The sixteenth-century Polish

chronicler Bernard Wapowski delineated his personality as follows:

“He was full of majesty, and by day and night, he thought of nothing else but how to
link his name with fabulous deeds for all eternity. … His great soul was tortured night
and day as he waited for an opportunity…”150

This opportunity that the Polish king was seeking seems to have presented itself in

1497 when he managed to muster an army of around 80,000 soldiers with artillery forces.151

While the number of Polish forces gathered to repel the Ottoman forces in Chilia and
149
Katarzyna Niemczyk, ‘Antemurale Christianitatis? Anti-Turkish Propaganda And The True Goal Of Johannes
Olbracht’s Crusade’, Tyragetia, Serie Nouă, XXVII.2 (2018), 31–43 (p. 31).
150
Nowakowska, ‘Poland and the Crusade in the Reign of King Jan Olbracht, 1492-1501’, p. 130.
151
Natalia Nowakowska, ‘Poland and the Crusade in the Reign of King Jan Olbracht, 1492–1501’, in Crusading
in the Fifteenth Century: Message and Impact, by Norman Housley (London: Palgrave Macmillan UK, 2004),
pp. 128–47 (p. 131).

64
Akkerman is overestimated, the fate of the campaign was in the hands of John Albert. He was

unaware of the secret alliance forged between Stephen cel Mare and Bayezid II when the

Polish army stepped into the Moldavian lands. However, Stephen’s chancellor asked him to

leave the Moldavian soils since the presence of the Polish king in Moldavia would mean the

violation of the aforementioned alliance. In response to this, John Albert incarcerated the

chancellor and sent him to the Lwów Castle in chains. Shortly after, he united his forces with

that of Alexander Jagiellon, the Grand Duke of Lithuania, and besieged Sucaeva to punish

Stephen cel Mare and force him to ally against Bayezid II. However, Vladislaus II of Hungary

threatened John Albert that should he not lift the siege, he would consider it as a violation of

Hungarian rights on the Moldavian soils. Frustrated by the forewarning of Vladislaus and the

fact that Stephen cel Mare had already slipped through his fingers, John Albert realized that

the campaign had no chance to succeed. The humiliation that the Polish army suffered was

exacerbated when a motley of Ottoman, Crimean, and Moldavian forces ambushed them near

Codrul Cosminului (Battle of the Cosmin Forest). Along with thousands of Polish soldiers

who fell to the ground, we learn that also the Grand Master of the Teutonic Order died with

his knights in this battle. In sum, the Battle of the Cosmin Forest exterminated the Polish

dream of capturing Chilia and Akkerman and repulsing the Ottomans from Christian

Europe.152 In the following years, the Crimean and Ottoman frontier units had launched more

plunder-motivated incursions into the inner Polish lands as there remained no aversive power

on the Ottoman-Polish borders.

Stephen cel Mare’s case was much more complex and more enlightening concerning

the eschatological transformation of the antemurale christianitatis discourse in the second

half of the fifteenth century. According to the millennialist theory informed by the Christian

eschatological beliefs, the second advent of Jesus Christ was supposed to take place seven

152
Tadeusz Grabarcyzk, ‘The Polish Court Banner in the Moldavian Expedition in 1497’, Fasciculi
Archaeologiae Historicae, 30 (2017), 29–34 (p. 29).

65
thousand years later than the creation of humankind which approximately corresponds to

1492-1493.153 The earthquakes, massive fires, and floods that stroke Moldavia at the time

were similar to what the Ottomans experienced on the other side of the border. Also, the

appearance of a comet sometime between 1480-1492 aggravated the Moldavian fear that the

last hour was imminent. While it may have instigated the fear that the comet harbingered the

unstoppable advance of the Ottomans, it should be noted that this was only one of the popular

interpretations. Besides, we should be skeptical of this approach since it is unlikely that the

comet was seen by both the Ottomans and the Latin world at the same time. In 1484, just like

the explosion of the Güngörmez Church near the Topkapı Palace in Istanbul, the Putna

Monastery fell victim to a massive fire. Adding to this was the bloody rain which aroused fear

among the Moldavians and more strongly convinced them the end was near. This fear was not

baseless given that the Book of Revelations presaged that fires, flashes of lightning, and

earthquakes were the signs of the apocalypse: “Then the angel took the censer and filled it

with fire from the altar and threw it on the earth, and there were peals of thunder, rumblings,

flashes of lightning, and an earthquake."154 All these ominous accidents were taken as the

portents of the apocalypse.155 Under these circumstances, it is no wonder that Gennadius

Scholarius’ interpretation of Constantine’s calendar gained even more popularity among the

Greek-speaking intellectuals.156 Maria Magdalena Szekely argues that Scholarius’ prophecy

concerning the apocalypse of 1492 must have reached the Moldavian lands through

merchants, soldiers, and travelers.157

153
At this point, however, it should be noted that the prophecy or expectation that Jesus Christ’s second advent
was to take place roughly around 1492 was not a universally shared Christian belief. Yet, it remains to be one of
the most popular eschatological beliefs among the Christian clergy and Renaissance scholars.
154
The Book of the Revelation: Apocalypse and Empire, ed. by Leonard L. Thompson (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1997), p. 83.
155
Pilat, p. 2.
156
Scholarius was one of the established and well-known figures of Mehmed II’s age owing to his new position
as the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople from 1454 to 1464.

Teodora Artimon, ‘The Proto-Myth of Stephen the Great of Moldavia’ (unpublished Doctoral Dissertation,
157

Central European University, 2015), p. 55.

66
 Perhaps more importantly, Theodora Artimon points out a particular painting that

established a parallel between Stephen the Great’s victory over the Ottomans in 1475 and

Constantine I’s vanquish of Maxentius’s army at the battle of the Milvian Bridge. The

painting ‘The Mounted Procession of the Holy Cross’ cannot be argued to have enjoyed

popularity among Orthodox Christians, though Stephen saw in it the visual representation of

his universal sovereignty dream. The painting served the purpose of portraying Stephen as the

true inheritor of the Roman legacy.158 This prophecy, again, was related to the widespread

belief that Rome, as a concept, was to survive until doomsday. The Roman Empire might

have collapsed. However, the idea of Rome, as the ideal political entity, was eternal in this

sense. This belief also stems from the conventional wisdom that the Papacy inherited the

mantle of the Roman Empire owing to the Donation of Constantine. Therefore, the Ottoman

conquest of Constantinople and the fall of the Eastern Roman Empire allowed Stephen the

Great to represent himself as the heir of the Roman legacy in the same vein as Ivan III of

Moscow. Szekely maintains that Stephen’s generous donations to the St. George Church

following his victory over the Ottomans in 1475 corroborate the possibility that the

millennialist anxieties were indeed influential on Stephen’s psychology. Stephen believed that

he was given the same divine task of fighting against the ‘infidels’ and ‘pagans’ as

Constantine, which was a common position for many in what was considered the Greek-

Orthodox Commonwealth.159

While the Battle of Vaslui allowed Stephen III of Moldavia to build glorious fame

throughout Eastern Europe and brought his name to the forefront in collective defense of

Christianity against the Ottomans, Bayezid’s Moldavian Campaign severely tarnished

Stephen’s prestige. Up until 1484, Stephen proved useful to shield Hungarian inner lands and

158
Teodora Artimon, p. 188.
159
Teodora Artimon, p. 66.

67
the Polish crown from the Ottoman incursions.160 Especially, the fortress of Chilia had always

been considered the Hungarian outpost since the reign of Janos Hunyadi (d. 1456) until the

Ottoman seizure whereas Akkerman served the same purpose for the Polish kingdom.161

Historians attribute Stephen’s failure to resist the Ottoman assaults in 1484 to the messianic

expectations of the age and their influence on Stephen. Maria Magdalena Szekely, for

instance, argues that Stephen’s reluctance to oppose these incursions might be related to his

belief that the apocalypse was to occur in 1492.162 However, it is difficult to explain the whole

story through the apocalyptic mindset of Stephen the Great. Stephen was already negotiating

with Matthias Corvinus (d. 1490) and waiting for the Hungarian diet to decide the fate of

Moldavia. Corvinus himself was eager to command the Hungarian army together with Pál

Kinizsi (d. 1494) and fight against Bayezid II whom he believed to have violated the peace

treaty. However, the long-hoped-for decision to send the Hungarian army to Chilia was never

taken and Stephen was abandoned to his fate. Yet, the unfolding of the events following

Bayezid’s seizure of Chilia and Akkerman might be hinting at his surrender to the ‘Qutb al-

Aqtab’ Bayezid since Stephen, at least ostensibly, appears to have acted in accordance with

Bayezid’s grand strategy in the following years. He stabbed John Albert I in the back and

divulged his ‘crusade strategy’ against the Ottomans in 1497, which rendered John Albert’s

ambitious desire of removing the Ottoman existence from Christendom abortive. On the verge

of death, he advised his son to remain loyal to Bayezid II rather than resisting the Ottomans. It

160
The antemurale christianitatis role assumed by Stefan the Great requires us to revisit Gog and Magog
prophecy since there is a direct correlation between the Ottoman penetration to the coastal areas of the
Principality of Moldavia. Liviu Pilat notes that the fifteenth-century Moldavian clergy associated the Tartars and
Turks with Gog and Magog by the virtue of their ceaseless attacks on res publica Christiana and their enslaving
of Christians. Pilat. Among his most remarkable military and political achievements was the Battle of Vaslui,
fought between Mehmed II and Stefan the Great, which resulted in a shocking defeat for the Ottoman side. His
confrontation with the Ottoman sultan who refashioned himself as the New Roman Emperor after his capture of
Constantinople provided Stefan the Great with a fertile ground to link his universal sovereignty claims with the
messianic climate of the age. His fame as the defender of Christianity persisted until Bayezid II’s conquest of
Kilia and Akkerman in 1484. Alice Isabella Sullivan, ‘The Athonite Patronage of Stephen III of Moldavia,
1457–1504’, Speculum, 94.1 (2019), 1–46 (p. 39). Isabella Sullivan, p. 39.
161
Tamás Pálosfalvi, From Nicopolis to Mohács: A History of Ottoman-Hungarian Warfare, 1389-1526, The
Ottoman Empire and Its Heritage, 63 (Leiden: Brill, 2018), p. 281.
162
Maria Magdalena Szekely, ‘Ştefan Cel Mare Şi Sfârşitul Lumii(Stephen the Great and the End of the World)’,
Studii Şi Materiale de Istorie Medie (SMIM), XXI, 2003, 255–62 (p. 260).

68
was the last words of a pretender to the Roman throne and messianic ruler whose ambition

went astray.

CONCLUSION

The rhetoric of Ottoman gaza and European antemurale christianitatis discourse

whetted the curiosity of a wide range of historians who all approached these holy war

discourses with differing priorities and agendas. The first wave of Ottoman historians, who

considered the Ottoman gaza discourse worthy of academic inquiry, were the eyewitnesses of

World War I (1914-1918), which resulted in the dissolution of the last multinational empires

of the world. Paul Wittek, for instance, to whom even the present-day Ottoman historians owe

gratitude, was one of the Austrian military officers sent to Istanbul in 1915 amidst the Great

War. He returned to Vienna only after the end of the war; thus, he observed the collapse of the

Ottoman Empire and grew curious about the history of the House of Osman. One can easily

imagine his frustration at what he saw throughout the distant parts of the empire. If these were

the Ottomans who once breached the walls of Vienna, then, what on earth has led to this

tragic collapse of the empire? It must be the question he had in his mind when delving into

the early Ottoman history and gaza discourse. Hence, his personal experiences should not be

entirely disregarded while gauging his gazi thesis. His reinterpretation of the early Ottoman

history was erroneous since he was caught in the exceptionalism trap. He falsely associated

the rise of the Ottomans to power with their religious fervor, a claim destined to be rebutted

by the next generations of Ottoman scholars.

In the same vein, Fuad Köprülü’s response to Wittek’s gazi thesis cannot be fully

understood without acknowledging his nationalism. As may be expected, the bitter memories

69
of the Balkan Wars (1912-1913), the First World War, and the Turkish War of Independence

(1919-1923) were still alive in the memories of the first generations of the young Turkish

Republic. Köprülü’s constant references to the pre-Ottoman years of the Turkish dominance

in Anatolia implied that the young Turkish republic developed a sense of possessive

nationalism over Anatolian soils. Turks have always been the rulers of the Anatolian

continent, even before the Ottomans. Disputing the one-size-fits-all theory of Wittek, he

counterargued that the religious zeal of the early Ottomans was one of the contributing factors

that may account for the rise of the Ottomans.

The second wave of Ottoman historians, who are engrossed by the early decades of

Ottoman history and disputed the age-old paradigms that had been hitherto embedded in the

academia, appeared in the 1990s following the disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991. For

instance, Cemal Kafadar published Between Two Worlds in 1995, while Heath Lowry

contributed to the extant literature with the Nature of the Early Ottoman State in 2003. Both

works reinterpreted the rise of the Ottomans and what distinguished them from other

competitor Turcoman dynasties roaming in Anatolia in the fourteenth century. Kafadar and

Lowry set an example for future studies in the field and adopted a more syncretic and eclectic

interpretation of early Ottoman history. For instance, building on Wittek’s gazi thesis,

Kafadar drew our attention to the exclusive nature of the Ottoman gaza rhetoric. That is is to

say that the Ottoman pragmatism allowed their imperial system to incorporate different

ethnicities, nations, and religious communities in gaza. As Alan Mikhail aptly puts it, the

second wave of worldwide academic interest in Ottoman history was encouraged by the

collapse of the last conglomerate political establishment of world history in 1991. The

pressing issues of ethnic nationalism and growing tension between different religious

communities -especially in the Balkans-, revived the legacy of the multinational and multi-

70
confessional empires, including the Ottoman Empire. Hence, again, the increasing academic

interest in the Ottoman rhetoric of gaza was subject to contemporary developments.

Recently, the outbreak of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) crisis has

brought back to the foreground the historical evolution of the hybrid religious-political

precepts of the Islamic holy warfare. Moreover, the rise of political Islam in Turkey did not

hesitate to associate itself with global jihadism and lost in the pathetic nostalgia for the

Ottoman past. It was Tayyip Erdoğan, who declared in 2005 that the whole Islamic world was

looking forward to the revival of Muslim Turkey upon whose recovery that the victory over

the enemies was imminent. Once again, political circumstances began stimulating the

academic interest in Ottoman holy warfare. This thesis does not distinguish itself from its

predecessors in the field driven by the political milieu of their ages. However, it contributes to

the extant literature on the rhetoric of Ottoman gaza by reconsidering it in a new context.

First, this thesis outlines the historical evolution of Islamic holy warfare and discusses

how the Turks were involved in the gaza raids in the first place. This is essential to

understand the legacy that the Ottomans inherited from their predecessors and illustrate how

they transformed the traditional gaza discourse from a plunder-motivated raid to a religious

war fought against the Christian adversaries in Europe.163 My investigation of the Ottoman

rhetoric of gaza suggests that the late fifteenth century was one of the most critical stages in

the making of a new imperial ideology that began taking shape in the hands of Mehmed II and

Bayezid II. While the conventional wisdom appreciates Mehmed II’s role in the designation

of a new imperial ideology, it also tends to neglect the titanic efforts Bayezid II made to

refashion himself as a gazi sultan and a cosmological sovereign. Bayezid II needed to revise

the ideal sovereign image he inherited from his father since the pressing issues of his age such

163
Here, it should be noted that the metamorphosis of the rhetoric from plunder-motivated raids to zealously
fought a religious war against the Christian enemies in Europe is argued on a theoretical level. Both the Ottoman
sultans and the court chroniclers of his reign, naturally, tended to dismiss the economic factors behind any gaza
launched against the Christian communities in Europe.

71
as the hazardous situation concerning Prince Cem or the growing tension between the

centrifugal power groups in Rumelia and Istanbul required him to take additional measures.

While historians build a consensus about Bayezid II’s reluctance in military affairs in

the first years of his reign, I argue that he took over the expansionist policies of his father. The

Moldavian Campaign in 1484 helped him refashion himself as a gazi sultan who was the best

candidate for the throne. Besides, his visit to the tomb of Sarı Saltuk in the same year, who

was a legendary gazi-dervish whose deeds were narrated to the next generations as well, was

an easy-to-read message for the gazi and dervish circles in the Ottoman Rumelia. He was

ready to renegotiate the imperial image of the Ottoman sultan with the centrifugal

powerhouses if necessary. However, an antinomian dervish’s failed assassination attempt in

1492 in Rumelia revealed the magnitude of the danger these groups possessed for Bayezid

II’s reign. The dervish’s claim that he was the Qutb al-Aqtab and legitimate ruler of the

universe was an open threat to his sovereignty claims. Based on this, I argue that the rising

number of eschatological and cosmological references to his sovereign image, such as

Firdevsî’s Kutbnâme and Bidlîsî’s Heşt Bihişt, intended to counter this intensifying hostility

towards his sultanate. Moreover, the claim that Bayezid II was the cosmological sovereign of

the universe strengthened through references to his devotion to Islam and gaza. Therefore, the

Ottoman chroniclers married the Ottoman gaza discourse with a Sufi terminology strongly

associated with apocalypticism. This functioned to design a new imperial ideology, at the

center of which we can find the rhetoric of Ottoman gaza and cosmological sovereignty,

which hints at the universalist claims of the Ottoman sultans.

The more puzzling issue that this thesis sought to investigate was the connectedness of

the late fifteenth century Ottoman Empire and Christian Europe. As extensively discussed in

the previous chapters, I argue that the late fifteenth-century apocalypticism and holy war

discourses bonded the two worlds. The Ottoman military campaigns launched against the

72
Eastern bulwarks of Christendom revived the antemurale christianitatis discourse -in an age

when the Christian public shared the same apocalyptic apprehension with the Islamic

communities on the other side of the border. On the one hand, both Islamic eschatology and

Christian apocalyptic tradition expected 1492-1493 to be the last year of the world. The fall of

Constantinople in 1453 was regarded as the portent of the apocalypse by both the Latin and

Orthodox communities. The Pseudo-Methodius apocalypse prophesized the appearance of the

Last Roman Emperor who would save Nova Roma from the infidels, restore the Holy Land to

Christianity, and prepare the world for the second advent of Jesus Christ. Therefore, it is no

coincidence that Ştefan cel Mare and Ivan III of Moscow utilized the same pool of religious-

political references to adjust their sovereignties to the challenging issues they struggled.

While Ştefan çel Mare resorted to both the antemurale christianitatis discourse and Last

Roman Emperor topos, Ivan III refashioned himself as the true heir to the Roman Empire. In

a similar vein, the Ottomans expected the second conquest of Constantinople by Banu al-

Asfar, who will attack the city. The apocalypse was not meant to occur before the second

conquest of Constantinople by the Muslims. Considering that the Ottomans were aware of

Charles VIII’s propaganda that he was intended to save Constantinople, oust the Turks from

Europe, and restore Jerusalem to Christianity, this thesis argues that Banu al-Asfar was

associated with the French during the reign of Bayezid II. In other words, this thesis illustrates

that both the Ottomans and their Christian adversaries in Europe, who undertook the task of

bulwarking Christendom against the infidel attacks from the East, underwent a similar process

during the late fifteenth century.

As indicated in the introduction, this thesis argues that another connecting point

between the Ottomans and Christian Europe was the Alexander the Great legend. While the

Christian scholars of the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period associated the Turks and

Ottomans with the evil nations of Gog and Magog, they directly or indirectly drew a

73
civilizational line between Christian Europe and what remains on the other side. Throughout

the late fifteenth century, the Ottomans extended the limits of their empire and threatened the

so-called civilized Christian territories in Europe. The intriguing coincidence, however, is the

fact that the Ottoman sultans patterned their universal sovereignty claims after Alexander the

Great. However, the Ottomans did not add another dimension to their gaza discourse by

undertaking a civilizing role in their expeditions launched against the European political

establishments. Most likely, they were not even aware of the Christian European tendency to

associate the Ottomans with the barbarian nations of Gog and Magog. However, the Christian

references to the Gog and Magog topos and the imprisonment of these evil people behind a

gate erected by Alexander the Great demonstrate how deeply rooted the bulwark metaphor is

in the European historical consciousness. Simply put, the rhetoric of Ottoman gaza was

responded to by Christian Europe through the antemurale christianitatis discourse and

Alexander the Great legend. Thus, the Ottomans -who were often associated with Gog and

Magog-, not only breached the bulwark of Christendom, but also the walls of civilization.

Finally, this thesis argues that relatable occurrences and similar themes observed in the

Ottoman Empire and Christian Europe in the late fifteenth century contributed towards the

emergence of the messianic transformation of holy war discourses. Although the rhetoric of

Ottoman gaza and European antemurale christianitatis rhetoric have separately emerged, they

triggered each other. The ruling elite of both worlds utilized the same pool of eschatological

vocabulary to either strengthen their universal sovereignty claims or secure their throne. In

this sense, it is safe to argue that the Ottomans and their Christian adversaries in Europe

shared a similar political vision. Alexander the Great legend, Gog and Magog topos, Qutb al-

Aqtab epithet, universal sovereignty claims, and holy war discourses functioned to articulate

this shared political vision. Contrary to what has been argued in the literature, thus, the reign

of Bayezid II was far from a pacificist interregnum period, but a critical stage in the making

74
of a new Ottoman imperial ideology, which manifested itself as the messianic sovereignty in

the reign of Süleyman I.

75
 BIBLIOGRAPHY

Primary Sources

Âdil, Oruç b., Oruç Beğ Tarihi, trans. by Hüseyin Nihal Atsız (Ankara: Ötüken Yayınevi,
2016)
Ahmed, Derviş, Aşıkpaşaoğlu Tarihi, ed. by Hüseyin Nihal Atsız (İstanbul: Ötüken Neşriyat,
2020)
Azamat, Nihat, ed., Anonim Tevârih-i Âl-i Osman, trans. by Friedrich Giese, Marmara
Üniversitesi Yayınları, 510 (İstanbul: Edebiyat Fakültesi Basımevi, 1992)
Çelebi, Rûhî, Ruhi Tarihi, Belgeler, XIV (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu Basımevi, 1992), XVIII
Ebü’l Ḫayr Rūmī, Saltuk - Name: The Legend of Sarı Saltuk Collected from Oral Tradition by
Ebu’l-Hayr-i Rûmî, ed. by Şinasi Tekin (Cambridge: Harvard University Print, 1974)
Efendi, Hoca Sadettin, Tacü’t-Tevarih, ed. by İsmet Parmaksızoğlu, Bilim Dizisi, 1, V vols
(Ankara: Kültür Bakanlığı Yayınları, 1979), II
Fulcher of Chartres, ‘The Siege and Capture of Nicaea (May-June, 1097)’, in The First
Crusade: The Chronicle of Fulcher of Chartres and Other Source Materials, ed. by Edward
Peters, The Middle Age Series (Philadelphia: University of Philadelphia Press, 1998)
Gelibolulu Mustafa Âlî Efendi, Kitâbü’t-Târîh-i Künhü’l-Ahbâr, ed. by Ahmet Uğur, Ahmet
Gül, Mustafa Çuhadar, and İbrahim Hakkı Çuhadar, 2 vols (Kayseri: Erciyes Üniversitesi
Yayınları, 1997), I
Karazeybek, Mustafa, ‘Matrakçı Nasuh’s Târih-i Âl-i Osman’ (unpublished Master’s Thesis,
İstanbul University)
el-Kaşgari, Mahmud, Dîvânu Lugâti’t-Türk (Ankara: Kültür Bakanlığı Yayınları, 1990)
Kemal, İbni, Tevârih-i Âl-i Osman, ed. by Ahmet Uğur (Türk Tarih Kurumu, 1997), VIII
Nasuh, Matrakçı, Tarih-i Sultan Bayezid: Sultan II. Bayezid Tarihi, trans. by Mertol Tulum
(İstanbul: Giza Yayınları, 2012)
Neşri, Mehmed, Kitâb-ı Cihannümâ: Neşrî Tarihi, 2 vols, I
Öztürk, Necdet, Anonim Osmanlı Kroniği(1299-1512) (İstanbul: Türk Dünyası Araştırmaları
Vakfı, 2000)
Roboly, Étienne, tran., ‘Menâkıb-ı Sultan Bayezid Han Ibn Muhammed Han’ (Istanbul,
1732), bibliotheque nationale de paris e. blochet catalogue, no. 922
Rumî, Firdevsi-i, Kutbnâme (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu Yayınları, 2011)
Yazıcıoğlu, Ahmed Bican, Dürr-i Meknun, trans. by Necdet Sakaoğlu (İstanbul: Tarih Vakfı
Yurt Yayınları, 1999)

76
Secondary Literature
Ahmad, Ahmad Atif, ‘The Evolution of Just War Theory in Islamic Law: Texts, History, and
the Purpose of “Reading”’, American Foreign Policy Interests: The Journal of the National
Committee on American Foreign Policy, 28.2 (2006), 107–15
Allouche, Adel, The Origins and Development of the Ottoman-Safavid Conflict (Berlin: Klaus
Schwarz Verlag, 1983)
Anderson, Andrew Runni, Alexander’s Gate, Gog and Magog, and the Inclosed Nations
(Cambridge: Medieval Academy of America, 2013)
Anooshahr, Ali, ‘İdris-i Bitlisi’nin Heşt Bihişt’inde Osmanlı’ya Dair Efsanenin Yaratılması
ve Tarih Yazımı’, Osmanlı Araştırmaları, 50.50 (2017), 1–28
Armstrong, John, Nations before Nationalism (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina
Press, 1982)
Arnakis, G. G., ‘Futuwwa Traditions in the Ottoman Empire: Akhis, Bektashi Dervishes, and
Craftsmen’, Journal of Near Eastern Studies, 12.4 (1953)
Artimon, Teodora, ‘The Proto-Myth of Stephen the Great of Moldavia’ (unpublished Doctoral
Dissertation, Central European University, 2015)
Artimon, Teodora C., ‘All Moldavian Eyes on Ottomans: Perceptions and Representations at
the End of the Fifteenth Century and the Beginning of the Sixteenth Century’, in Practices of
Coexistence, ed. by Marianna D. Birnbaum (Budapest: Central European University Press,
2017)
Baldwin, Marshall W., Christianity Through the Thirteenth Century, The Documentary
History of Western Civilization (London: Macmillan Press, 1970)
Berend, Nora, At the Gate of Christendom: Jews, Muslims, and ‘Pagans’ in Medieval
Hungary, c. 1000-C. 1300 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001)
———, ‘Hungary: The Gate of Christendom’, in Medieval Frontiers: Concepts and
Practices, ed. by David Abulafia and Nora Berend (London: Routledge, 2002), pp. 195–217
Brown, Norman O., ‘The Apocalypse of Islam’, Social Text, Winter (1983)
Brummett, Palmira, ‘The Myth of Shah Ismail Safavi: Political Rhetoric and “Divine”
Kingship’, in Medieval Christian Perceptions of Islam: A Book of Essays, ed. by John Victor
Tolan (Abingdon: Routledge, 2000)
Buck, Andrew D., The Principality of Antioch and Its Frontiers in the Twelfth Century
(Suffolk: Boydell, 2017)
Budge, Ernest Alfred Wallis, The Life and Exploits of Alexander the Great, Elibron Classics
(Boston: Adamant Media Corporation, 2000)
Çelebioğlu, Âmil, ‘Ahmed Bîcan’, TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, 2 (Istanbul: TDV, 1989), pp.
49–51 <[Link]

77
el-Cheikh, Nadia Maria, ‘Muhammad and Heraclius: A Study in Legitimacy’, Studia
Islamica, 89 (1999), 5–21
Claude Cahen, The Formation of Turkey: The Seljukid Sultanate of Rum (Eleventh to
Fourteenth Century), ed. by Peter Malcolm Holt, A History of the Near East (Harlow:
Pearson Education, 2001)
Cook, David, Studies in Muslim Apocalyptic, Studies in Late Antiquity and Early Islam, 21
(Princeton, New Jersey: The Darwin Press, Inc., 2002)
Darling, Linda T., ‘Contested Territory: Ottoman Holy War in Comparative Context’, Studia
Islamica, 91 (2000), 133–63
Dimitriadou, Aikaterini, ‘The Heşt Behişt of Idris Bidlisi: The Reign of Bayezid II(1481-
1512)’ (unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation, The University of Edinburgh, 2000)
Döğüş, Selahattin, ‘Osmanlılarda Gaza İdeolojisinin Tarihi ve Kültürel Kaynakları’, Belleten,
72.265 (2008), 817–88
Dökmeci, Volkan, Akdenizde Devletler ve Korsanlar Venedik Kaynaklarına Göre II. Bayezid
ve I. Selim Dönemlerinde Osmanlı Denizciliği ve Korsanlık (İstanbul: Babil Kitap, 2020)
Duncan, Peter S. J., Russian Messianism: Third Rome, Revolution, Communism, and After,
Routledge Advances in European Politics, 1 (New York: Routledge, 2000)
Efendiyev, Oktay, ‘Sultan II. Bayezid ve Şah İsmail’, Türk Tarih Kongresi: Kongreye
Sunulan Bildiriler, XII (1999)
Emecen, Feridun, ‘II. Bayezid Devriyle İlgili Meselelere Dair Yeni Bakışlar’, in Sultan II.
Bayezid Dönemi ve Bursa, ed. by Nilüfer Alkan Günay (Bursa: Gaye Kitabevi, 2017), pp. 13–
24
Ertaylan, İsmail Hikmet, Sultan Cem (Istanbul: Milli Eğitim Basımevi, 1951)
Falaturi, Abdul Javad, ‘Martyrdom in the Shia Culture’, trans. by Hamid Farnagh, Safinah Al-
Nejat, 1.4 (2016), 73–78
Fazlıoğlu, Şükran, ‘Mekkeli Şair İbnu’l-Uleyf’in Sultan II. Bayezid’e Yazdığı Kaside’, Dîvân,
2 (2001), 163–81
Fleischer, Cornell, ‘Mahdi and Millennium: Messianic Dimensions in The Development of
Ottoman Imperial Ideology’, in The Great Ottoman-Turkish Civilisation, ed. by Halil Inalcik,
İlber Ortaylı, and Nejat Göyünç (Istanbul: Yeni Türkiye, 2000), III, 42–54
———, ‘The Lawgiver as Messiah: The Making of the Imperial Image in the Reign of
Süleymân’, in Soliman Le Magnifique et Son Temps: Actes Du Colloque de Paris, Galeries
Nationales Du Grand Palais, 7–10 Mars 1990, ed. by Gilles Veinstein (Paris: Documentation
française, 1992), pp. 159–77
Fleischer, Cornell H., ‘A Mediterranean Apocalypse: Prophecies of Empire in the Fifteenth
and Sixteenth Centuries’, Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, 61.1–2
(2018), 18–90

78
Genç, Vural, Acem’den Rum’a Bir Bürokrat ve Tarihçi İdris-i Bidlîsî (1457-1520) (Ankara:
Türk Tarih Kurumu, 2019)
Georgacas, Demetrius John, ‘The Names of Constantinople’, Transactions and Proceedings
of the American Philological Association, 78 (1947), 347–67
Giles, J. A., ‘William of Malmesbury’s Chronicle of the Kings of England: From the Earliest
Period to the Reign of King Stephen’, [Link], 2015
Grabarcyzk, Tadeusz, ‘The Polish Court Banner in the Moldavian Expedition in 1497’,
Fasciculi Archaeologiae Historicae, 30 (2017), 29–34
Green-Mercado, Mayte, ‘Speaking the End Times: Early Modern Politics and Religion from
Iberia to Central Asia’, Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, 61.1–2
(2018), 1–17
Grgin, Borislav, The Ottomans and Croatia at the End of the Middle Ages (1458-1526), trans.
by Abidin Temizer, Glimpses of Balkans (Ankara: Gece Kitaplığı, 2017)
Hagen, Gottfried, and Ethan L. Menchinger, ‘Ottoman Historical Thought’, in A Companion
to Global Historical Thought, ed. by Presenjit Duara, Viren Murthy, and Andrew Sartori
(New Jersey: Wiley-Blackwell)
Hankins, James, ‘Renaissance Crusaders: Humanist Crusade Literature in the Age of Mehmed
II’, Dumbarton Oaks Papers, [Link] on Byzantium and the Italians (2016), 111–207
Heath, Michael J., ‘Renaissance Scholars and the Origins of the Turks’, Bibliothèque
d’Humanisme et Renaissance, 41.3 (1979)
Inalcik, Halil, ‘Dervish and Sultan: An Analysis of the Otman Baba Vilāyetnāmesi’, The
Middle East and the Balkans under the Ottoman Empire, 1993, 19–36
İnalcık, Halil, ‘Mehmed the Conqueror (1432-1481) and His Time’, Speculum, 35.3 (1960),
408–27
Inalcık, Halil, ‘Osmanlı Tarihçiliğinin Doğuşu’, in Söğüt’ten İstanbul’a: Osmanlı Devleti’nin
Kuruluşu Üzerine Tartışmalar (Ankara: İmge Kitabevi, 2005), pp. 93–119
İnalcık, Halil, ‘Türkler ve Balkanlar (The Turks and the Balkans)’, in Balkanlarda İslâm:
Miadı Dolmayan Umut (Islam in the Balkans: Unexpired Hope), ed. by Muhammet Savaş
Kafkasyalı, Türkistan’dan Balkanlara (From Turkestan to the Balkans), 19, 5 vols (Ankara:
TİKA, 2016), II, 9–41
Kadıoğlu, İdris, ‘Câm-ı Cem-Âyin’de Oğuz Kara Han Nesli ve Dede Korkut’, Kesit Akademi
Dergisi, 3.10 (2017), 1–11
Kafadar, Cemal, Between Two Worlds: The Construction of the Ottoman State (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1996)
Kafesoğlu, İbrahim, Umumi Türk Tarihi Hakkında Tespitler, Görüşler, Mülahazalar (Ankara:
Ötüken Neşriyat, 2017)
Karamustafa, Ahmet, God’s Unruly Friends: Dervish Groups in the Islamic Middle Period
1200-1550 (Bloomsbury Street London: Oneworld Publications, 2006)

79
Kayaalp, İsa, ‘Kıvâmî’, TDV İslam Ansiklopedisi, 25 (Ankara: TDV, 2002), p. 507
Kayaalp, Pınar, ‘Frontier Warriors as Cultural Mediators: Shifting Identities of Byzantine and
Turkish March Fighters as Elicited from Anatolian Epic Literature’, Mediaevistik:
Internationale Zeitschrift Für Interdisziplinäre Mittelalterforschung, 25 (2012)
Kennedy, Duncan F., ‘Modern Receptions and Their Interpretative Implications’, in The
Cambridge Companion to Virgil, ed. by Charles Martindale, Cambridge Companions to
Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997)
Kılıç, Mahmud Erol, ‘İbnü’l-Arabî, Muhyiddin’, TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi (İstanbul: TDV,
1999), 520–22
Knoll, Paul W., ‘Poland as “Antemurale Christianitatis” in the Late Middle Ages’, Catholic
Historical Review, 60.3 (1974) <[Link]
Kocka, Jürgen, and Heinz-Gerhard Haupt, ‘Comparison and Beyond: Traditions, Scope, and
Perspectives of Comparative History’, in Comparative and Transnational History: Central
European Approaches and New Perspectives (New York: Berghahn Books, 2009)
Köprülü, Mehmet Fuad, Osmanlı İmparatorluğu’nun Kuruluşu (İstanbul: Alfa Yayıncılık,
2016)
Kreuter, Peter Mario, ‘How Ignorance Made a Monster, Or: Writing the History of Vlad the
Impaler without the Use of Sources Leads to 20,000 Impaled Turks’, in Disgust and Desire,
ed. by Kristen Wright, At the Interface/Probing the Boundaries (Leiden: Brill, 2018), XCI
Krstić, Tijana, ‘Illuminated by the Light of Islam and the Glory of the Ottoman Sultanate:
SelfNarratives of Conversion to Islam in the Age of Confessionalization’, Comparative
Studies in Society and History, 51.1 (2009), 35–63
Lewis, Charlton, and Charles Short, ‘Antemurale Christianitatis’, Harper’s Latin Dictionary:
A New Latin Dictionary (New York: Harper&Brothers Publishers, 1891)
Lindner, Rudi Paul, Nomads and Ottomans in Medieval Anatolia, Uralic and Altaic Series
(Bloomington: Sinor Research Institute of Inner Asian StudiesSinor Research Institute of
Inner Asian Studies, 1983)
Lindstedt, Ilkka, ‘The Last Roman Emperor, the Mahdī, and Jerusalem’, in Understanding the
Spiritual Meaning of Jerusalem in Three Abrahamic Religions, Studies on the Children of
Abraham (Leiden: Brill, 2019)
Lopasic, Alexander, ‘Islamization of the Balkans with Special Reference to Bosnia’, Journal
of Islamic Studies, Islam in the Balkans, 5.2 (1994), 163–86
Lowry, Heath, The Nature of the Early Ottoman State, Suny Series in the Social and
Economic History of the Middle East (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press,
2003)
Markiewicz, Christopher, ‘Caliphate Redefined: The Mystical Turn in Ottoman Political
Thought. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2018. 384 Pp. $39.95 (Cloth), ISBN 978-1-
4008-8804-7.’, H-Net Reviews in the Humanities&Social Sciences, 2018

80
McCorkle, Patrick D., ‘Fifteenth-Century Florentine Exceptionalism: Civic Humanism, the
Medici, and Savonarola’, Oshkosh Scholar, 2014, 77–93
Mélikoff, Irene, ‘Ghāzī’, The Encyclopedia of Islam (Leiden: Brill, 1991)
Mengüç, Murat Cem, ‘Histories of Bayezid I, Historians of Bayezid II: Rethinking Late
Fifteenth-Century Ottoman Historiography’, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African
Studies, 76.3 (2013), 373–89 <[Link]
Miyawaki, Junko, ‘The Chinggsid Principle in Russia’, Russian History, 19.1–4 (1992), 261–
77
Moin, Azfar, The Millenial Sovereign: Sacred Kingship&Sainthood in Islam, ed. by Dipesh
Chakrabarty, Sheldon Pollock, and Sanjay Subrahmanyam, South Asia Across the Disciplines
(New York: Columbia University Press, 2014)
Necipoğlu, Gülru, ‘Visual Cosmopolitanism and Creative Translation: Artistic Conversations
with Renaissance Italy in Mehmed II’s Constantinople’, ed. by Gülru Necipoğlu and Karen A.
Leal, Muqarnas: An Annual on the Visual Cultures of the Islamic World, 29 (2012)
Niemczyk, Katarzyna, ‘Antemurale Christianitatis? Anti-Turkish Propaganda And The True
Goal Of Johannes Olbracht’s Crusade’, Tyragetia, Serie Nouă, XXVII.2 (2018), 31–43
Nowakowska, Natalia, ‘Poland and the Crusade in the Reign of King Jan Olbracht, 1492-
1501’, in Crusading in the Fifteenth Century: Message and Impact, ed. by Norman Housley
(London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004)
———, ‘Poland and the Crusade in the Reign of King Jan Olbracht, 1492–1501’, in
Crusading in the Fifteenth Century: Message and Impact, by Norman Housley (London:
Palgrave Macmillan UK, 2004), pp. 128–47
Ocak, Ahmet Yaşar, Alevî ve Bektaşî İnançlarının İslâm Öncesi Temelleri, 9th edn (İstanbul:
İletişim Yayınları, 2012)
Öz, Mehmet, and Oktay Özel, eds., Söğüt’ten İstanbul’a: Osmanlı Devletinin Kuruluşu
Üzerine Tartışmalar (Ankara: İmge Yayınevi, 2000)
Pálosfalvi, Tamás, From Nicopolis to Mohács: A History of Ottoman-Hungarian Warfare,
1389-1526, The Ottoman Empire and Its Heritage, 63 (Leiden: Brill, 2018)
Pilat, Liviu, ‘Mesianism Şi Escatologie În Imaginarul Epocii Lui Ştefan Cel Mare
(Messianism and Eschatology during the Time of Stephen the Great)’, Studii Şi Materiale de
Istorie Medie (Studies and Sources of Medieval History), 12 (2004)
Pilat, Liviu, and Ovidiu Cristea, eds., The Ottoman Threat and Crusading on the Eastern
Border of Christendom during the 15th Centur, East Central and Eastern Europe in the
Middle Ages, 450-1450, 48 (Leiden: Brill, 2017)
Poe, Marshall, ‘Moscow, the Third Rome: The Origins and Transformations of a “Pivotal
Moment”’, in Jahrbücher Für Geschichte Osteuropas, 49 (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag,
2001), III, 412–29
Pratt, Kenneth J., ‘Rome as Eternal’, Journal of the History of Ideas, 26.1 (1965), 25–44

81
Railton, Nicholas, ‘Gog and Magog: The History of a Symbol’, EvQ, 75 (2003)
Roemer, Hans Robert, ‘The Safavid Period’, in The Cambridge History of Iran: The Timurid
and Safavid Periods, ed. by Peter Jackson, 7 vols (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2006), VI
Rohdewald, Stefan, ‘A Muslim Holy Man to Convert Christians in a Transottoman Setting:
Approaches to Sarı Saltuk from the Late Middle Ages to the Present’, Interdisciplinary
Journal for the Studies of Religious Contact and Transfer, 9 (2019), 57–78
Rudolph, Hartmut, ‘“Res Publica Christiana” and “Corpus Mysticum”: Some Remarks on
Their Meaning in the Political Thought of Leibniz’, Studia Leibnitiana, 43.1 (2011), 24–35
Şahin, Kaya, ‘Constantinople and the End Time: The Ottoman Conquest as a Portent of the
Last Hour’, Journal of Early Modern History, 14.4 (2010)
Scherb, Victor, ‘Assimilating Giants: The Appropriation of Gog and Magog in Medieval and
Early Modern England’, Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies, 32.1 (2002), 59–84
<[Link]
Şen, Ahmet Tunç, ‘Reading the Stars at the Ottoman Court: Bāyezīd II (r. 886/1481-
918/1512) and His Celestial Interests’, Arabica, 64 (2017), 557–608
<[Link]
Serjeant, Robert Bertram, ‘Early Arabic Prose’, in Arabic Literature to the End of the
Umayyad Period, ed. by T. M. Johnstone, R. B. Serjeant, A. E. I. Beeston, and G. R. Smith,
The Cambridge History of Arabic Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983)
Setton, Kenneth M., The Papacy and the Levant (1204-1571) (Philadelphia: The American
Philosophical Society, 1978), II
Sewell, William H., ‘Marc Bloch and the Logic of Comparative History’, History and Theory,
6.2 (1967), 208–18
Srodecki, Paul, ‘Antemurale-Based Frontier Identities in East Central Europe and Their
Ideological Roots in Medieval/Early Modern Alterity and Alienity Discourses’, in Collective
Identity in the Context of Medieval Studies, ed. by Michaela Antonin Malanikova and Robert
Antonin (Ostrava: University of Ostrava, 2016)
———, ‘‘Universe Christiane Reipublice Validissima Propugnacula‘ – Jagiellonian Europe
in Bulwark Descriptions Around 1500’, in The Jagiellonians in Europe: Dynastic Diplomacy
and Foreign Relations, ed. by Attila Bárány, Memoria Hungariae, 2 (Debrecen, 2016), pp.
57–77
Strémooukhoff, Dimitri, ‘Moscow the Third Rome: Sources of the Doctrine’, Speculum, 28.1
(1953), 84–101
Subrahmanyam, Sanjay, ‘Connected Histories: Notes towards a Reconfiguration of Early
Modern Eurasia’, Modern Asian Studies, 31.3 (1997), 735–62
———, ‘The Politics of Eschatology: A Short Reading of the Long View’, in Historical
Teleologies in the Modern World (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2015), pp. 25–45

82
Sullivan, Alice Isabella, ‘The Athonite Patronage of Stephen III of Moldavia, 1457–1504’,
Speculum, 94.1 (2019), 1–46
Sullivan, Isabella, ‘The Painted Fortified Monastic Churches of Moldavia: Bastions of
Orthodoxy in a Post-Byzantine World’ (unpublished Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation,
University of Michigan, 2017)
Tansel, Selahattin, Sultan II. Bayezid’in Siyasi Hayatı (İstanbul: Milli Eğitim Basımevi, 1966)
Szekely, Maria Magdalena, ‘Ştefan Cel Mare Şi Sfârşitul Lumii(Stephen the Great and the
End of the World)’, Studii Şi Materiale de Istorie Medie (SMIM), XXI, 2003, 255–62
Tekin, Şinasi, ‘Türk Dünyası’nda Gaza ve Cihad Kavramları Üzerine Düşünceler
(Başlangıcından Osmanlıların Fetret Devrine Kadar’, Tarih ve Toplum, 109 (1993)
Thompson, Leonard L., ed., The Book of the Revelation: Apocalypse and Empire (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1997)
Toumanoff, Cyril, ‘Moscow the Third Rome: Genesis and Significance of a Politico-
Religious Idea’, The Catholic Historical Review, 40.4 (1955), 411–47
Tunç, Zekiye, ‘Turkish Presence in Mosul before Islam’, in Rifat Özdemir’e Armağan, ed. by
Rahmi Doğanay, Ahmet Çelik, and Fatih Özçelik (İstanbul: Hiper Yayınları, 2018)
Üstüner, Ahat, ‘Kıvâmî: Fetihnâme-i Sultân Mehmed’ (unpublished Unpublished Master’s
Thesis, Fırat Üniversitesi, 2006)
Vout, Caroline, The Hills of Rome: Signature of an Eternal City (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2012)
Weiand, Kerstin, ‘The Origins of Antemurale Christianitatis Myths: Remarks on the
Promotion of a Political Concept’, in Rampart Nations: Bulwark Myths of East European
Multiconfessional Societies in the Age of Nationalism (New York: Berghahn Books, 2019)
Westrem, Scott D., ‘Against Gog and Magog’, in Text and Territory: Geographical
Imagination in the European Middle Ages, ed. by Sylvia Tomasch and Sealy Gilles, The
Middle Age Series (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1998), pp. 54–75
Wittek, Paul, The Rise of the Ottoman Empire: Studies on the History of Turkey, 13th-15th
Centuries, ed. by Colin Heywood, Royal Asiatic Society Books (Abingdon-on-Thames:
Routledge, 1938)
Yılmaz, Hüseyin, Caliphate Redefined: Mystical Turn in Ottoman Political Thought,
Rulers&Elites (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2018)
Zinkeisen, Johann Wilhelm, ‘The Donation of Constantine as Applied by the Roman Church’,
The English Historical Review, 9.36 (1894), 625–32

83