36 chapter 1
whoever rules takes money”. Osman Ghazi said: “Is this an order of God,
or have rulers ordained it by themselves?” And again the man said: “It is a
custom, my lord. It has been so from olden days”. Osman Ghazi was very
angry and said: “So one person’s gain can belong to another person? No!
It is his own property! What have I added to his property so that I may
tell him ‘give me money’? (A104: bir kişi kim kazana, gayrınun mı olur?
Kendünün mülki olur. Ben anun malında ne kodum ki bana akça ver deyem).
Go away and do not say such things to me again or you’ll regret it”.However, when the community (bu kavım) continues to insist, on the grounds
that market tolls are an old and established custom, the sultan consents, but
stresses that whenever a person is given a timar, this cannot be taken from him
without a good reason, and that upon that person’s death the timar must be
given to his son. Even if the story as a whole belongs to Yahşi Fakih, the refer-
ence to the inalienability of timars must be Aşıkpaşazade’s addition because
it is almost a direct criticism of Mehmed II’s confiscating policies.15 The same
goes for the description of Osman’s meager property as registered upon his
death (A115). In contrast, the account of Orhan’s dialogue with a dervish, who
claims that God entrusted “the property of the world” to kings (A122: Hak ...
dünya mülkini sizün gibi hanlara ısmarladı), seems to be Yahşi Fakih’s own, as
it is the opposite of the references mentioned above.
Bayezid I’s defeat at Ankara, the one and only major defeat Ottoman chroni-
clers had to account for in this period, is the locus par excellence of the political
critique they express.16 Thus, we may attribute to Yahşi Fakih (his chronicle
reaches Bayezid’s reign, but we cannot be sure at which point it stopped) the
justification of Bayezid’s conquest of the Aydın, Saruhan, and Menteşe emir-
ates as something done not out of oppression but justice (A135–36). In contrast,
the libel against the ulema (A138–39), beginning with Çandarlı (Kara) Halil
and Türk Rüstem (who previously, in Yahşi Fakih’s chronicle, were held respon-
sible for the institution of the janissaries: A128), must belong to Aşıkpaşazade.17
Allegedly, in Bayezid’s time the judges began to be corrupt; the sultan wanted
to burn them all alive together, but they were saved due to the cunning inter-
vention of Çandarlı Ali Pasha (Kara Halil’s son; d. 1406). It was he who was
15 Lindner considers this story a “salutary legend” and a posterior addition to the chronicle;
true, it shows an ulema influence incompatible in his view with the tribal realities of
Osman’s time, but the very fact that Karacahisar had belonged to the Germiyan emir-
ate earlier may reinforce the authenticity of the story: see Kafadar 1995, 103–104 and
cf. Lindner 2007, 79. On the Karacahisar incident cf. also Imber 2011, 187–188.
16 On the legitimization problems posed by the Ottoman defeat, see Kastritsis 2007, 195ff.
17 Cf. similar points in contemporary anonymous chronicles (Kafadar 1995, 111–114).