Sheikh Bedreddin (1359--1420) (Ottoman Turkish: شیخ بدرالدین) was a famous Muslim Sufi theologian and charismatic preacher who led a rebellion against the Ottoman Empire in 1416. His full name was Sheikh Bedreddin Mahmud Bin Israel Bin Abdulaziz. He was a son of the local Turkish Muslim judge and his converted Greek wife in the Anatolian city of Simav or in the European Simavna (today Kyprinos in Greece), Bedreddin's father (whose name was Israel) was the great-great son of the Seljuk Sultan of Rum Kaykaus II and Kadı of the town. His mother was Malak Hatun. Bedreddin began his education in this town. Later he went to Bursa and then to Cairo, where he heard lectures on astronomy, mathematics, logic, and philosophy. He studied law and other Islamic subjects. While in Cairo, he was tutor to the son of the Mamluk Berkuk, the first sultan of the Burji dynasty. He married Jazeba Hatun, a Mamluk princess. Sheikh Bedreddin's (b. 1358/9) father was Turkish and his mother Greek. His father Israel studied jurisprudence in Samarkand before returning to Thrace where he is thought to have joined Hadji Ilbeg, a Turcoman marcher lord. Hadji Ilbeg took the city of Didymoteichon some years before Adrianople fell (1361). As one of Hadji Ilbeg's commanders Bedreddin's father seems to have been rewarded with the castle of Simavna, being assigned to it as commander and jurist. Here he married the vanquished Byzantine commander's daughter (Balivet 2000: ). In accordance with the times Bedreddin would have learnt to read the Koran from his father and Greek from his mother. It is thought he would have also learnt about Christianity in this way as most likely his mother would have continued to practice her religion. Having continued his studies under various local clerics, at the age of twenty Bedreddin appears to have gone first to Bursa then to Konya. In Konya he is thought to have studied astronomy under the tutelage of a mystical cabbalist, a Hurufi, who believed God is embodied in the Arabic and Persian alphabets. From there Bedreddin is known to have gone to Cairo. Having gone on the Hajj to Mecca, Bedreddin was appointed tutor to the Mamluk Sultan Berkuk's (1382--99) son. In the palace he came under the influence of another cleric from Anatolia, Sheikh Ahlati. On the sultan's instigation Ahlati and Bedreddin married two sisters who were his concubines. Bedreddin's son Ismail was born from this marriage (Ibid.). Ahlati was a Sufi interested in philosophy, astrology, medicine and chemistry. He persuaded Bedreddin to go to Tabriz, which at the time was the center of Hurufism, the Cabbalistic Sufi doctrine mentioned above. On his return to Cairo, Ahlati appointed Bedreddin his lieutenant. When Ahlati died in March 1397 Bedreddin took over as sheikh, but is said to have been unable to cope with the politics of such a position. Sheikh Bedreddin left his post in 1403 to return to Anatolia, a time when the Ottoman Empire was at a crossroads (Ibid.). Tamerlane had defeated Bayezid I at Ankara (1402) and divided up the Ottoman realms between Bayezid's sons. Career Amid the dynastic struggles following the Battle of Ankara and the death of Sultan Bayezid I, Musa Çelebi appointed Bedreddin chief military judge (قاضی عسکر kazasker). When in 1413 Musa's brother and chief rival Mehmet Çelebi became sultan, Bedreddin was exiled to Iznik. Sheikh Bedreddin's first stop appears to have been in Aleppo, where it is said he was met by a thousand Turcoman (Ibid.), however, there is no explanation offered as to why this should be so. From here Sheikh Bedreddin journeyed to Konya, the old Seljuq capital, where the Ottomans' arch foes the Karaman had been reinstated by Tamerlane. In Konya the sheikh appears to have contacted an adherent of Haji Bayram, whose activities were centered on the cloth makers in Ankara (İnalcık 1973). After Konya, Sheikh Bedreddin is known to have travelled to Germiyan whose former ruler likewise had been reinstated. From Germiyan the sheikh went on to nearby Aydin, where he may have gained Börklüce Mustafa and Torlak Kemal as adherents (Torlak means untamed colt; the Torlaks were Kalenderis). The new ruler of Aydin, Cüneyd, also seems to have become a devotee of the sheikh's. From Aydin Sheikh Bedreddin appears to have gone the island of Chios as well. Unable to get to Thrace from there because the Saruhan navy was blocking passage across the north Aegean, it is likely the sheih was forced to return to western Anatolia at a time when Bayezid's son Mehmed challenged his brother Isa in Bursa. Isa headed a coalition of the reinstated principalities of Aydin, Saruhan and Menteshe, almost all of western Anatolia (Balivet 2000).

• published: 31 May 2014
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