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Sheikh Bedreddin Mahmud bin Israel bin Abdulaziz (Ottoman Turkish:شیخ بدرالدین; 1359–1420) was an influential mystic, scholar, theologian, and revolutionary. He is best known for his role in a 1416 revolt against theOttoman Empire, in which he and his disciples posed a serious challenge to the authority of SultanMehmed I and the Ottoman state.
Many details of Bedreddin's early life are disputed, as much of it is the subject of legend and folklore. He was born in 1359 in the town ofSimavna (Kyprinos), nearEdirne. His father was theghazi of the town, and his mother was the daughter of a Byzantine fortress commander. He was born in a family with political and intellectual prominence. His grandfather was a high-rankingSeljuk officer.[1] Notably, Bedreddin was of mixedMuslim andChristian parentage, with a Christian mother and a Muslim father; this contributed to hissyncretic religious beliefs later in life. Turkish scholarCemal Kafadar argues that Bedreddin's ghazi roots may also have contributed to his commitment to religious coexistence.[2] In his youth he was akadi to Ottoman warriors on the marches, which gave him ample experience injurisprudence, a field of study in which he would become well-versed. Bedreddin was exposed to a variety of different cultures during his education, traveling far from his birthplace inThrace. He studied theology inKonya, and then inCairo, which was the capital of theMamluk sultanate. After this, he traveled toArdabil, in what is nowIranian Azerbaijan. Ardabil was under the control of theTimurids, and was home to the mystic Safavid order. Surrounded by mystics and far removed from the religious norms of the Ottoman Empire, Bedreddin was in an excellent place to cultivate his unconventional religious ideology. There he found an environment sympathetic to hispantheistic religious beliefs, and particularly the doctrine of "oneness of being". This doctrine condemned oppositions such as those of religion and social class as interference in the oneness of God and the individual, and such doctrine ran contrary to increasing Ottoman efforts to establishSunni Islam as thestate religion. By adopting it, Bedreddin further established himself as a subversive.
During theOttoman Interregnum after the defeat of sultanBayezid I byTamerlane in 1402, Bedreddin served as thekadiasker, or chief military judge, of the Ottoman prince Musa as Musa struggled with his brothers for control of the Ottoman sultanate. Along with the frontier bey Mihaloglu, he was a chief proponent of Musa's revolutionary regime. While kadiasker, Bedreddin gained the favor of many frontier ghazis by distributingtimars among them. Through this he aided these unpaid ghazis in their struggle against centralization, a clear indication of his subversive side.
AfterMusa's defeat byOttoman sultanMehmed I in 1413, Bedreddin was exiled toİznik, and his followers were dispossessed of their timars. However, he soon decided to capitalize on the climate of opposition to Mehmed I following the disorder of the still-fresh interregnum. Leaving his exile in Iznik in 1415, Bedreddin made his way toSinop and from there across the Black Sea toWallachia. In 1416, he raised the standard of revolt against the Ottoman state.
Most of the revolts that ensued took place in regions ofİzmir,Dobruja, andSaruhan. The majority of his followers wereTurcomans. The rest included frontier ghazis, dispossessedsipahis,medrese students, and Christian peasants. The first of these rebellions was kindled inKaraburun, near İzmir. There,Borkluje Mustafa, one of Bedreddin’s foremost disciples, instigated an idealistic popular revolt by preaching the communal ownership of property and the equality of Muslims and Christians. Most those who revolted were Turkish nomads, but Borkluje's followers also included many Christians. In total, approximately 6,000 people revolted against the Ottoman state in Karaburun.Torlak Kemal, another of Bedreddin’s followers, led another rebellion inManisa, and Bedreddin himself was the leader of a revolt in Dobruja, in contemporary northeastern Bulgaria. The heartland for the Dobruja revolt was in theDeliorman region south of theDanube Delta. Bedreddin found disciples among many who were discontent with sultan Mehmed; he became a figurehead for those who felt they had been disenfranchised by the sultan, including disgruntled marcher lords and many of those who had been given timars by Bedreddin as Musa's kadiasker, which had been revoked by Mehmed.
These uprisings posed a serious challenge to the authority of Mehmed I as he attempted to reunite the Ottoman Empire and govern his Balkan provinces. Although they were all eventually stifled, the series of coordinated revolts instigated by Bedreddin and his disciples was suppressed after only great difficulty. Torlak Kemal's rebellion in Manisa was crushed and he was executed, along with thousands of his followers. Borkluje's rebellion put up more of a fight than the others, defeating first the army of the governor ofSaruhan and then that of the Ottoman governor Ali Bey, before it was finally crushed by the VizierBayezid Pasha. According to the Greek historianDoukas, Bayezid slaughtered unconditionally to ensure the rebellion's defeat, and Borkluje was executed along with two thousand of his followers. Sheikh Bedreddin's own Dobruja rebellion was a short-lived one, and came to an end when Bedreddin was apprehended by Mehmed's forces and taken toSerres. Accused of disturbing the public order by preaching religious syncretism and the communal ownership of property, he was executed in the marketplace.
Sheikh Bedreddin was a prolific writer and religious scholar, and a distinguished member of the Islamic religious hierarchy. He is often regarded as a talented voice in religious sciences, particularly for his thoughts on Islamic law. For his works on jurisprudence he is classed among the great scholars of Islamic thought. On the other hand, many condemn him as a heretic for his radical ideas on religious syncretism. Bedreddin advocated overlooking religious difference, arguing against zealous proselytism in favor of a utopian synthesis of faiths. This latitudinarian interpretation of religion was a major part of what allowed him and his disciples to instigate a broad-reaching popular revolt in 1416, unifying a very heterogeneous base of support.
Bedreddin's religious origins were as a mystic. His form of mysticism was greatly influenced by the work ofIbn al-‘Arabi, and he is known to have written a commentary of Ibn al-‘ Arabi's bookFusus al-hikam (The Quintessence of Wisdom). Through his writings, he developed his own form of mysticism. His most significant book,Varidat, orDivine Inspirations, was a compilation of his discourses which reflected on his ideas about mysticism and religion. Bedreddin was amonist, believing that reality is a manifestation of God's essence, and that the spiritual and physical worlds were inseparable and necessary to one another. As he writes inVaridat, he believed that"This world and the next, in their entirety, are imaginary fantasies; Heaven and Hell are no more than the spiritual manifestations, sweet and bitter, of good and evil actions."[3]
Bedreddin'smetaphysical beliefs greatly influenced many of his political and social ideas, particularly the doctrine ofWahdat al-wujūd, or "Oneness of Being." This doctrine condemns worldly divisions which its adherents believe hinder the oneness of the individual with God, including social discord between religious communities and divisions between the privileged and the powerless. This belief system is reflected in the beliefs of Bedreddin and his disciples, who, among other things, preached thatall religions stemmed from the same fundamental truth, as well as that ownership of property should be communal. Such ideas appealed greatly to those who felt marginalized in Ottoman society, and this egalitarian ideology played a major role in inspiring popular revolt in 1416.
Bedreddin's sympathy towards and popularity among Christians might have been influenced by his Greek heritage. While Bedreddin was himself a distinguished Islamic scholar and theologian, his mother had been a Greek Christian, who allegedly converted to Islam when she married his Muslim father. Bedreddin was born inDimoteka, and grew up familiar with the culture, religion, and sociopolitical plight of his mother's people. He considered national divisions, including the division between Greek and Turk, to be another distraction from achievingWahdat al-wujūd.[4][5]
The 15th-century Ottoman historianIdris of Bitlis alleged that Bedreddin claimed to be theMahdi, founding a heretical sect which made "many forbidden things lawful," and won the support of the ignorant masses through "latitudinarian" promises.[6] Idris' account is partial, and few other sources state that Bedreddin claimed to be the Mahdi. This allegation of Mahdism is possibly slanderous; but millenarianism was popular in folk religious movements and peasant rebellions of the time (e.g., in theSafavid movement, or therebellion ofŞahkulu), so it might be true.
Sects of Bedreddin's followers continued to survive long after his death. His teachings remained influential, and his sectarians were considered a threat until the late sixteenth century. Known as the Simavnis or the Bedreddinlus, a sect of his followers in Dobruja andDeliorman continued to survive for hundreds of years after his execution. Unsurprisingly, the Ottoman government viewed this group with great suspicion. In the sixteenth century, they were regarded as identical to theQizilbash, and persecuted along with them. Some of Bedreddin's doctrines also became common among some other mystic sects. One such sect was theBektashi, a dervish order commonly associated with the Janissaries.
Sheikh Bedreddin continues to be known in Turkey, especially amongsocialists, communists, and other political leftists. In the twentieth century, he was brought back into the spotlight by the communist Turkish writerNâzım Hikmet, who wroteThe Epic of Sheikh Bedreddin to voice opposition to the rise of fascism in the 1930s. Hikmet's work popularized Bedreddin as a historical champion of socialism and an opponent of royal tyranny, and his name has remained well known to those on the left of the political spectrum. His bones were exhumed in 1924, but his devotees were so fearful of a backlash against Bedreddin's newfound political significance by the Turkish government that he was not buried until 1961. He was finally put to rest near the mausoleum ofMahmud II, inIstanbul.
LikeAbu Dharr al-Ghifari, Sheikh Bedreddin is looked to as an example byIslamic socialists.[7]
He came from a family which had political military and intellectual significance. His grandfather was a high ranking Seljuk officer.
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