The Imperial Heyday 115
On the political level, a number of anti-imperial movements all took reli-
gious forms, mostly as mystical reactions based on Ibn Arabi’s notion of “the
pole of the world” (kutb): apart from the various rebellions of Anatolian sheikhs
that rallied the heterodox Turcoman populations, one may mention the mes-
sianic movements around the Bayrami-Melami (and later Hamzevi, after the
execution of the Bosnian Hamza Bali in 1561) dervishes of central Anatolia dur-
ing the fifteenth century (1524, 1538, 1568) and numerous ulema and (mainly
Gülşeni) dervishes accused of being heretics, who have been studied in an
exemplary manner by Ahmet Yaşar Ocak.45 It should be noted, however, that
the şeyhülislam Çivizade Efendi, a strict defender of the Sharia and an oppo-
nent of Ebussu’ud’s interpretations and syntheses, was dismissed in the early
1540s on account of (among others) his accusations not only against long-dead
authorities of Sufism such as al-Ghazali, Ibn Arabi, and Jalal al-Din Rumi,
but also against Sheikh İbrahim Gülşenî (d. 1534).46 On the other hand, we
will see below that eulogies for Süleyman such as the anonymous al-Adliyya
al-Süleymaniya or Dizdar Mustafa’s Kitâb sulûk al-mulûk used the same
notion of the “Pole” to glorify the empire, as they identified this role with the
Ottoman sultan.
A striking case, where opposition to the imperial project took the form
of a total renunciation of secular power in the name of piety, is to be found
(many years before Süleyman’s accession) in the works of Şehzade (Prince)
Korkud (c. 1468–1513), (most probably) the fifth son of Bayezid II. Having, even
in his childhood, an inclination for scholarship, in his youth (and after sitting
for two weeks on the throne as regent following the death of his grandfather,
Mehmed II) he served as the governor of Manisa, where he was involved
in naval conflicts with the French and Venetians (the siege of Lesvos, 1501),
and then of Antalya, where he collaborated closely with Muslim corsairs. In
1509, perhaps seeing that he stood no chance against Selim, his competitor in
the succession struggle, Korkud renounced his eligibility for succession and
left for Cairo, where he spent more than a year at the court of the Mamluk
sultan. He then returned home and became governor of Antalya and, later,
Manisa. After the Şahkulu rebellion he recognized the accession of his brother
Selim I; almost a year later, Korkud fled and was eventually executed near
Bursa. During his adventurous life, he wrote many religio-political works in
Turkish and Arabic, which mainly addressed the problem of the compromise
of imperial authority with the precepts of the Sharia, as well as treatises on
mysticism, music, etc. Among his most important works are: Dawat al-nafs
45 Ocak 1991 and 1998.
46 Repp 1986, 250–252; Gel 2010, 233ff.