84 | A Shaykh, a Prince, and a Sack of Corn
with the Ottoman polity. Belonging to the Amasyan network, the Halvetiye
naturally sided with Amasya in the city’s ancient rivalry with Konya and the
Karamanid networks to which the Zeyniye belonged. The first few decades of the
Halvetiye among the Ottomans were promising. A significant Ottoman pasha
financed construction of a large Halveti lodge in Amasya in 1412. However, Ot-
tomanization of the Halvetiye was disrupted by the domination of the Zeyniye
in the Ottoman heartlands during the reign of Mehmed II and the marginal-
ization of other Amasyan networks within the Ottoman power structure. Un-
der Mehmed II’s rule the Zeyniye became actively involved in the expulsion of
Halveti dervishes from the two major Ottoman cities, Istanbul and Bursa.
Like the Halvetiye, Bayezid too belonged to the Amasyan networks. Since
the age of seven, he had lived in Amasya surrounded by members of local fami-
lies sympathetic to the Halvetiye. One of his favorite activities in Amasya was
hunting. He hunted near İskilip, where Karamani and İskilibi had moved. Pos-
sibly during a hunting excursion Bayezid met Karamani and İskilibi and granted
them a plot of land in the town and two fields in nearby villages. Karamani now
had all the prerequisites for establishing a successful Sufi community in Ottoman
lands: good connections, a receptive local population, and financial freedom. His
prospects for becoming an Ottoman were bright.
The Karamani-İskilibi Partnership in Peril
Karamani immediately set out to establish a Sufi community by constructing a
lodge and forming a waq f (charitable foundation) to pay its expenses. This en-
dowment, however, was not completely for charitable purposes; it was also a fam-
ily waq f, in which the beneficiaries of the endowment were family members. The
properties and stipulations listed in Karamani’s endowment deed provide details
about daily life in a Sufi lodge, family relationships, and the reason behind the
collapse of his alliance with his father-in-law and partner, İskilibi.
Karamani endowed the waq f from mainly two sources. The first and larger
was the tax revenues from a number of surrounding villages that Karamani had
purchased from local people. The second source was two fields and a plot of land
around İskilip that were granted to Karamani by Bayezid. The tax revenues were
divided into sixty shares and endowed for the expenses of the regents of the en-
dowment, the Sufi lodge, the scholars of Medina, and Karamani’s three sons.
Some of the shares were given to Karamani’s sister as an inheritance and oth-
ers to his daughter as a gift. Lastly, almost half the shares were given to his wife
(İskilibi’s daughter) as her dower. The second set of properties was endowed for
his lodge and for his son Mahmud.
As for the stipulations, all Karamani asked from his sons was to read the
Koran chapter “Mulk” (property) every morning. Female members of the family