Apocalypticism and imperial criticism: (re)reading the Dürr-i meknūn (The Hidden Pearl, 1472–73) in the context of Ottoman–Akkoyunlu imperial confrontation

Abstract

The Dürr-i meknūn (The Hidden Pearl) is one of the most fascinating and enigmatic works of fifteenth-century Ottoman literature. It consists of a digest of Islamic cosmology and cosmography engaging with a wide array of subjects, beginning with the Creation and concluding with the Last Judgement. The Dürr-i meknūn has long been attributed to the mystic and scholar Ahmed Bīcān and has accordingly been dated to between 1453 and 1466. However, building on the most recent research, which shows that Ahmed Bīcān could not possibly have penned the Dürr and that the text is in fact anonymous, this article provides a critical reading and new dating of the text by focusing on the apocalyptic prophecies found in Chapter 16. Using a novel methodology that integrates contextual and historical reading, with computations of Arabic gematria, my analysis demonstrates that the Dürr was composed in 1472–73, in anticipation of the Ottoman–Akkoyunlu confrontation at the Battle of Başkent, when fears were running high that the end of Ottoman rule was at hand.

Introduction

The Dürr-i meknūn (The Hidden Pearl) is one of the most fascinating and simultaneously enigmatic works of fifteenth-century Ottoman literature. Written in simple Turkish prose, it is a digest of Islamic cosmology and cosmography engaging with a wide array of subjects. Consisting of 18 short chapters, each addressing a separate topic, the book opens with the creation of the universe and concludes with the Last Judgement. Chapters 7 and 8 include a forceful apocryphal account of the foundation and history of Constantinople and its iconic sanctuary Hagia Sophia. The Dürr characterizes the city as an ominous and accursed place that is periodically subjected to God's wrath and remains destroyed, and it portrays the city's rulers as ungodly tyrants aspiring to be worshipped as divine, whom God crushes, along with the city.¹ Written with a strong apocalyptic tone, Chapter 16, dedicated to the science of prognostication (Tr. cifr, Ar. jafr), conveys a sense of impending doom and presents a selection of apocalyptic prophecies announcing that the 7,000-year-long history of humanity, which began with the fall of Adam and Eve, is about to come to an end.² Drawing on Chapter 16, Chapter 17 then describes the eschatological events leading to the final consummation of history, which include the invasion and ruin of the Islamic lands by the apocalyptic enemy, the Benī Aṣfer (the Yellow People or Blond Races), the advent of the Muslim saviour Mehdī and, subsequently, the appearance of other eschatological figures and signs.³

The work lacks a colophon, but internal evidence shows that it was composed after the conquest of Constantinople in 1453.⁴ The Dürr-i meknūn has long been attributed to the mystic Ahmed Bīcān (d. after 1466), younger brother of the famous Ottoman scholar from Gelibolu Yazıcıoğlu Mehmed (d. 1451), and has accordingly been dated to between 1453 and 1466.⁵ In a recent study, however, Carlos Grenier has persuasively demonstrated that the absence of an authorial claim in the Dürr by Ahmed Bīcān – a distinguishing characteristic of all his signed works – as well as other significant differences in linguistic preferences, use of sources, selection of ethical and philosophical content and the divergent geographic focus between the Dürr and Ahmed Bīcān's oeuvre indicate that Ahmed Bīcān could not possibly have penned the Dürr. This leaves the Dürr as an anonymous work, and its previously assumed date of composition can no longer be deemed valid.⁶

The most significant challenge to working on and with the Dürr-i meknūn is that there are no extant copies originating from the fifteenth century. The oldest manuscripts come from the very end of the sixteenth century, with the rest mainly dating from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.⁷ As a result, some words and phrases have been corrupted incorrigibly by later copyists unfamiliar with the immediate historical context in which the Dürr was composed. The lack of contemporary copies has consequently compromised the quality of the two otherwise impeccable critical editions of the work that are available. The first was undertaken in 2007 by Laban Kaptein, who relied on a rich selection of manuscripts found in Turkish, European and Egyptian libraries.⁸ In 2009, the Turkish scholar Ahmed Demirtaş published another edition, using copies found in Turkish libraries. The main weakness of Demirtaş's version is that he did not consult Kaptein's work, which led him to commit reading errors at several critical points.⁹ In addition to these two works, a popular edition drawing on a single late sixteenth-century copy was published by Necdet Sakaoğlu in 1999.¹⁰ Although Sakaoğlu's edition falls short of complying with the standards of a scholarly edition, it can still contribute to reconstructing many corrupted words that puzzled Kaptein and Demirtaş and led to misinterpretations.

This article provides a critical reading and new dating of the work by primarily focusing on the apocalyptic prophecies found in Chapter 16. Using contextual analysis and computations of Arabic gematria (i.e. the abjad numerals), I decipher them in the historical context in which the work was completed. My analysis shows that the Dürr was composed in 1472–73, on the eve of the Ottoman-Akkoyunlu confrontation at the Battle of Başkent, when fears ran high that the end of Ottoman rule was at hand.¹¹

Review of scholarship

The Dürr-i meknūn was first critically examined by the late Stéphane Yerasimos in his seminal book focusing on the legendary history of Constantinople and the Hagia Sophia; it is included as a self-contained chapter entitled “The History of Constantinople from Its Beginning to the Present” in the Anonymous Chronicle of the House of Osman.¹² Yerasimos pointed to the considerable textual overlap between the sections on Constantinople and the Hagia Sophia given in the Dürr and the chapter in the Anonymous Chronicle. He also demonstrated that the legends of Constantinople contained a vitriolic attack on Mehmed's imperial project to build a world empire centred in Constantinople, which had been proclaimed as the new seat of the Ottoman sultan after the conquest and was refurbished as an imperial capital with restoration and new constructions.¹³ Drawing on the close intertextual relationship between the legends of Constantinople in the Anonymous Chronicle and the relevant portions in the Dürr, and the identification of the city – the crown jewel and ultimate symbol of Mehmed's imperial project – as a doomed place in both accounts, Yerasimos concluded that the Dürr was also written to denounce Mehmed's ambitions for the universal rule.¹⁴ Yerasimos's position has recently been criticized by Kaya Şahin, who, in an article focusing on the apocalyptic content of the work, disagreed that the Dürr contained an anti-imperial subtext. Instead, arguing for the opposite interpretation, Şahin claimed that the Dürr promoted a messianic imperial image for Mehmed, identifying him as the eschatological Muslim conqueror.¹⁵

Despite their differing interpretations, both Yerasimos and Şahin have attributed the authorship of the Dürr to Ahmed Bīcān and assumed that the text dates from the 1460s, shortly before Ahmed's death. Based on this assumption and dating, they associated the composition of the Dürr with the apocalyptic sentiments ignited in Ottoman society by the conquest of Constantinople. They pointed out that the city's fall had long been identified as a portent of the Last Hour by both Byzantine and Islamic apocalyptic traditions, and Mehmed's conquest was seen as the fulfilment of these prophecies, which they understood as prompting the apocalyptic content of the Dürr.¹⁶ However, given Grenier's recent observations regarding the Dürr's anonymous authorship, Yerasimos's and Şahin's arguments must be reconsidered. First and foremost, their association of the Dürr with the apocalyptic fervour incited by the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople cannot be corroborated by internal evidence, as the Dürr contains no mention of this event. It recounts instead the reconquest of the city by the Benī Aṣfer in the imminent apocalyptic future, followed by its last and final Muslim conquest by the Mehdī, which is included among the signs of the approaching end of time.¹⁷ Moreover, although the apocalyptic significance of the fall of the city cannot be denied, associating the eschatological content of the Dürr exclusively with the apocalyptic resonance of the fall of Constantinople reduces the phenomenon of Ottoman apocalypticism to a single event without considering the broader context of Ottoman imperial apocalypticism in the fifteenth century.¹⁸ As the analysis of Chapter 16 below shows, the Dürr instead links the end of the world to the fall of the Ottoman Empire, which, it argues, will occur at the hands of the Turcoman Akkoyunlu emperor Uzun Hasan (r. 1452–78) in 1473.

Analysis of Chapter 16

Chapter 16 is seemingly devoted to the science of prognostication, called cifr (Ar. Jafr).¹⁹ In late medieval Islamdom, cifr had become virtually synonymous with the science of letters, ʿilm al-ḥurūf. Also known as letter mysticism, ʿilm al-ḥurūf denotes the divinatory technique that sought to predict the future and signs of the end time by studying the esoteric and spiritual meanings of the 28 letters of the Arabic alphabet. Cifr most particularly relied on the use of the abjad numerals, in which each letter is assigned a value in a decimal numerical system, consisting of ones (1–9), tens (10–90) and hundreds (100–900), with the letter ġayn assuming the value 1,000. The numerical value of names, words and phrases was used as a heuristic to decipher the hidden code of divine will in the universe and reveal the secrets of the Creation and its end.²⁰

The Dürr-i meknūn names the famous Ottoman-Mamluk mystic scholar ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Bisṭāmī – whom it refers to as deceased – as the great master of the science of cifr. Bisṭāmī was primarily known for his magnum opus, Miftāḥ al-Jafr al-Jamiʿ (The Key to Comprehensive Divination). Written in Arabic, the Key was an encyclopaedic work dedicated to the science of letters, expounding on their occult and mystic properties, as well as a compendium of apocalyptic prophecies of signs and events associated with the end time.²¹ After this brief introduction, the Dürr moves on to a selection of apocalyptic prophecies quoted from Biṣtāmī's Key. These are a set of chronologically arranged ex eventu predictions. The first prophecy reads as follows:

When the date reaches that year, the secret of which is its beginning, oh Yusuf, beware of ʿayn. Greet the ʿayn, but the sīn is a violent name, new sovereignty, a steadfast rider, and an evil occurrence. He will conquer many lands; he will show clemency to some and drive out some others. If you believe that construction and prosperity are the sources of happiness, [you should know] that everything will be ruined and destroyed by him. He is also a murderer of children.²² Woes to the lands and towns of Rūm, and the lands of Crimea at that time due to his oppression, tyranny, cunning, and viciousness, for he will murder scholars and hurt the poor and needy [ . . . ] And this year is the year of dissolution and unfolding. Battles, slaughter, and chastisements will happen. The learned people will run away, and the ignorant will stay put.²³

The prophecy opens with the Central Asian conqueror Timur's sack of Sivas in Anatolia at the beginning of the first month (5 Muharram) of the Islamic year 803 (= 27 August 1400).²⁴ After the ruin of Sivas and the massacre of its inhabitants, the devastation wreaked by Timur continued unabated throughout 803. He first turned south to the Mamluk lands, attacking Bahasna and Malatya, before marching on Syria, where he sacked and burnt Aleppo, Hama, Homs and Damascus. He then advanced on Baghdad, which he razed to the ground, massacring its entire population.²⁵ Timur is designated by the letter code sīn. Although the Dürr does not provide an explicit identification, a prophecy found in Bisṭāmī's Key unequivocally establishes Timur as the evil sīn. This prophecy mentions the forthcoming appearance of a comet in the west that will be the sign of the rise of the one with a face that looks like a flat shield, called the sīn, who will be a conqueror and killer by the sword.²⁶ The expression “with a face that looks like a flat shield” draws on the description of Turks found in the traditions of the Prophet Muhammad (the hadith). After the Mongol invasions of the thirteenth century, the hadith was interpreted as a reference to the Mongols.²⁷ The comet associated with the rise of the conqueror and murderer sīn is that of 1377, whose appearance from the west was observed in Damascus and recorded in contemporary Mamluk chronicles.²⁸ Timur's conquests of the Islamic lands began a few years later, in 1379, when he crossed the Oxus and conquered Khorasan, initiating the subjugation of Iran and the other core lands of Islam to the west.²⁹

Yusuf, to whom the prophecy is addressed, refers to the Mamluk boy-sultan al-Nāṣir Faraj (b. 1389, r. 1399–1405/1405–1414). Yusuf, which is the Arabic rendition of the biblical name Joseph, was associated in the Islamic tradition with the throne of Egypt, where the Hebrew patriarch Joseph, also regarded as a prophet in Islam, was believed to have lived and ruled.³⁰ The prophecy represents a premonition and warning for Sultan Faraj, whose Syrian lands were brutally ravaged by Timur: it was expected that after devastating Syria, Timur would then march on Egypt and conquer the Mamluk sultanate, as he had repeatedly declared to be his intention.³¹ Thus, the prophecy bespeaks the fearful suspense pervading the Mamluk lands in 803.

The gloomy prediction also urges the Mamluk ruler to act with caution against the ʿayn, which serves as a stand-in for Ottoman Sultan Bāyezīd I (or, “the Thunderbolt”, r. 1389–1402). As the name Osman is written with the letter ʿayn (ʿUthmān) in the Arabic script, and the Ottoman rulers were called Ibn (son of) ʿUthmān in the Mamluk parlance, the warning “beware of ʿayn” is an allusion to Bāyezīd's well-known ambitions to conquer the Mamluk sultanate.³² When Mamluk Sultan Barquq died in 1399, throwing his sultanate into disarray and resulting in internal strife among the leading emirs, Bāyezīd did not waste any time in taking advantage of the Mamluks’ weakness. He invaded the Turcoman Dulkadirid principality, a Mamluk vassal at the border, and seized the Mamluk stronghold Malatya, which guarded the mountain passes connecting the Anatolian plateau to the Syrian plain, signalling an impending full-fledged campaign of conquest.³³ However, after Timur invaded Anatolia in 1400, Bāyezīd experienced a rapid change of heart, dispatching an envoy to Cairo with a proposal to forge an alliance against Timur. However, his overtures of friendship were rebuffed by the Mamluks, who did not trust his goodwill and sent the Ottoman delegate back home empty-handed.³⁴ In hindsight, the famous Mamluk historian Ibn Taghrī Birdī criticized the rejection of Bāyezīd's offer, admitting that it would have been the right course of action to help repel Timur and save the Muslims from destruction.³⁵ Seen in this light, the prophecy's second exhortation regarding Bāyezīd – “greet the ʿayn” – followed by the announcement of the rise of Timur, can be read as an appeal for Yusuf, or rather the Mamluk sultan, to accede to Bāyezīd's proposition to make a defensive alliance against the common enemy.

The Timurid historiography, which flourished under the patronage of Timur and his descendants in the fifteenth century, portrayed him as a divinely sanctioned world conqueror whose conquests punished evil-makers and tyrants and purified the Islamic lands, restoring their unity in peace and order. Timur was famously called ṣāḥib-kirān (“The Lord of the Auspicious Conjunction”), an imperial title associating world conquest with planetary constellations and thus claiming divine sanction for Timur's dazzling conquests.³⁶ In fifteenth-century Ottoman and Mamluk accounts, however, Timur is represented as the ultimate embodiment of evil and tyranny, violating every ethical, moral and religious principle known to Islam.³⁷ The prophecy quoted by the Dürr reflects these hostile depictions, and its allusions to Timur's atrocities concur with Ottoman and Mamluk sources.

For instance, Ibn Taghrī Birdī describes Timur's capture of and atrocities in Sivas as follows:

After a siege of 18 days, he took it [Sivas] on Muharram 5, 803 ah; and seizing its armed men, three thousand individuals, he dug for them an underground vault into which he threw them and then covered them with earth. This was after he had sworn to them that he would shed the blood of none of them; and he then said: “I have kept my oath, since I have not shed the blood of any of them.” He then put the inhabitants to the sword and destroyed the city, wiping out every trace of it.³⁸

Ibn Taghrī Birdī also attests to his brutal killing of children in Aleppo:

The women and children fled to the great mosque of Aleppo and to the smaller mosques, but Tamerlane's [Timur's] men turned to follow them, bound the women with ropes as prisoners, and put the children to the sword, killing every one of them.³⁹

In a later passage, he laments Timur's appalling destruction in Damascus, which “was the most beautiful and flourishing city of the world”, describing it in gruesome detail:

Tamerlane (may God curse him) departed from Damascus on Saturday Sha'ban 3, having been there 80 days. The whole city had burned, the roofs of the Omayyad Mosque had fallen in because of the fire, its gates were gone, and the marble cracked – nothing was left standing but the walls. Of the other mosques of the city, its palaces, caravanseries [sic], and baths, nothing remained but wasted ruins and empty traces; only a vast number of young children were left there, who died, or were destined to die of hunger.⁴⁰

The prophecy's other content can also be corroborated by historical facts and descriptions of Timur found in contemporary accounts. The Ottoman-Mamluk historian Ibn ʿArabshāh, in his venomous biography of Timur, gives a list of the famous religious figures of Damascus who were tortured and slain by Timur's army.⁴¹ Likewise, the woes to the lands of Rūm in the prophecy evince the havoc Timur wreaked in Ottoman Anatolia in 1400, and again in 1402–03 following his crushing defeat of Bāyezīd I in the Battle of Ankara in 1402, where he took the latter captive.⁴² The woes to the lands of Crimea refer to Timur's invasion of the Khanate of the Golden Horde in 1395.⁴³ Finally, the prediction “he will show clemency to some and drive some others out” refers to the singular mercy that Timur showed to the inhabitants of Homs. Ibn ʿArabshāh remarks that after massacring the populaces of Aleppo and Hama and subjecting them to unspeakable tortures, he spared the lives of the inhabitants of Homs when he was told that the city was the resting place of the companions of the Prophet Muhammad, including Khālid b. al-Walīd and Kaʿb al-Aḥbār.⁴⁴ In addition, references to Timur's craftiness and cunning are also noted in historical accounts.⁴⁵

The Dürr affirms Timur's invasions of Anatolia, Syria and Iraq in 1400–01 as the turning-point events that ushered in the apocalyptic final period of history, leading to its consummation. This is borne out by the prophecy immediately following the one concerning Timur: “The Benī Aṣfer will arise in a short time, with the infidels of ruddy complexion coming ahead of it.”⁴⁶ The Benī Aṣfer first appears in pre-Islamic Arab poetry, where it designates the Romans (Byzantines).⁴⁷ The oldest Muslim apocalyptic traditions originating from the seventh-century Arab–Byzantine frontier milieu in Syria identify the Benī Aṣfer as a massive military force led by a Christian (Roman/Byzantine) emperor who will invade the Islamic lands to exterminate Islam when the end of times draws close. Subsequently, there will be one final battle (i.e. the great melḥame) between the Islamic and Christian armies in northern Syria, where the Muslims will annihilate the Christians and then march on and conquer Constantinople.⁴⁸ During the crusade period and in the following centuries, however, the Benī Aṣfer came to be associated in the Islamic Mediterranean context with the crusader armies arriving from the Latin West or, as the Muslims called them, the Franks.⁴⁹ In line with late-medieval Islamic usage, the Dürr also identifies the Benī Aṣfer as the apocalyptic crusade against Islam, seeking to extirpate the latter as a religion and political sovereignty. This is indicated first by the phrase “with the infidels of ruddy complexion coming ahead of it [Benī Aṣfer]”. In the original Ottoman text, the Arabic “ʿilj” is used to indicate the word “infidel”. A pejorative word meaning barbarian, in Islamic sources from the crusade period “ʿilj” (pl. “ʿulūj”) describes the crusaders arriving from Latin Christendom.⁵⁰

The Dürr places the rise of the Benī Aṣfer or the attack of a grand crusade, and thus the beginning of the apocalyptic time, shortly after 909.⁵¹ The Islamic year 909 corresponds to 1503–04 of the Common Era. Relying on this internal evidence, scholars have concluded that the Dürr anticipated that the end of the world would occur around 1503–04.⁵² This, however, is not an accurate interpretation. In several places, the Dürr expands on the distinction between the solar year and the lunar year, the latter of which is adopted by the Islamic calendar beginning with the Prophet's migration from Mecca to Medina in 622 ce, and remarks that the lunar year is 12 days shorter than the solar one consisting of 360 days. For the apocalyptic computations of historical time, the Dürr adheres to the solar year system.⁵³ Therefore, the lunar year 909 must be converted to solar years: 909 (lunar) – [909 – [(909 x 12) ÷ 360)]] = 878 (solar), which corresponds to 1473–74 ce.

The final part of Chapter 16 is dedicated to a series of chronologically arranged apocalyptic prognostications related to the Mamluk, Akkoyunlu and Ottoman empires from Timur's invasions in ah 803/1400–01 ce to ah 878/1473–1474 ce. First is listed a set of ex eventu prophecies related to the Mamluks and the Akkoyunlu confederation. A partial translation is given below:

Before their [the Benī Aṣfer's] appearance, there will be three great battles in the Sea of Rūm [deryā-yı Rūm] and two other battles in the lands of Greeks [diyār-ı Yūnān]. Before the manifestation of these, the mīm will forgive the crested ḳāf. As shown by the sign of the fortified hemze, do not ever be unwary, even within the enclosed walls of the fortification, of the devil of the infidels [i.e. western Christians] because it [the crested ḳāf] is the vessel of priests, the shrub of polytheists, and the gathering place of the degenerates, debauchees, and the wicked. [ . . . ] A beautiful boy will soon rule the Arab lands. Also, do not forget those with tiny eyes, the Tatars. [ . . . ] A man of good fortune will be apparent with the letters of yā and alif. He will be from the lands of Greeks, that is, from Iraq. He will be blameless, have an illuminated face, and be of dark complexion and high stature. Half of his name will include weak Arabic letters [i.e. the letters of wāw, alif, and yā]. He will rescue the imprisoned one. After him, the secret of earthquakes, eclipses, and numerous commotions will manifest. After these days, the Arab dominion will be ruined, and, afterward, some Mediterranean islands will be ruined. But in those days, there will be safety and security.⁵⁴

The three sea battles in the Sea of Rūm, the Mediterranean, must refer to the three consecutive Mamluk expeditions against the kingdom of Cyprus undertaken during Sultan Barsbay's reign (1422–38) in 1424, 1425 and 1426, which reduced Cyprus to a tributary vassal of the Mamluk sultan.⁵⁵ It is very likely that the two land battles in the lands of the Greeks signify the Mamluk campaigns conducted against the Karamanids in 1417 and 1419, as the designation of “the Greek lands” was used in this period to denote the territories of the Karamanid principality, centred in the present-day Konya and Karaman provinces of Turkey.⁵⁶ The mention of the mīm forgiving the crested ḳāf is an allusion to the truce made between King Janus of Cyprus (r. 1398–1432) and Sultan al-Muʿayyad Shaykh (r. 1412–21) in 1414, stipulating the cessation of Christian raids from the island to the Egyptian and Syrian coasts.⁵⁷ Sultan al-Muʿayyad Shaykh is signified by the first letter of his name, mīm; likewise, Cyprus is identified with the ḳāf, the first letter of the Arabic word for the island, Ḳubrus.⁵⁸ King Janus's breaking of the agreement and resumption of forays into Mamluk domains prompted the subsequent punitive campaigns that culminated in the Mamluk conquest of Cyprus.⁵⁹

The Dürr also assumes an overtly inimical position towards the kingdom of Cyprus, as attested by the use of vitriolic expressions such as the “devil of the infidels”, “ship of the priests”, “shrub of the polytheists” and “gathering place of the degenerates, debauchees and wicked” to describe the kingdom of Cyprus.⁶⁰ The code “the fortified hamza [hemze-i maḥsūre]” represents the Christian attack and brief capture of Alexandria in 1365, when a joint crusade fleet, organized and led by the king of Cyprus, breached the walls of Alexandria and captured it, ransacking the city and massacring its population before burning it down.⁶¹ Alexandria is written in the Arabic script with the letter alif, which has the same numerical value as that of hamza, the character designating the glottal stop in the Arabic alphabet. Thus, the phrase “hemze-i maḥsūre” refers to the fortified city of Alexandria.

The “beautiful boy” who is to rule the Mamluk sultanate as the end of times nears refers to Sultan Barsbay's 14-year-old son Yusuf, who briefly ruled as his father's successor from June to September 1438. The prophecy that warns against the Tatars alludes to the resurgence of the Timurid threat under Timur's son and successor Shahrukh (d. 1447) after the 1420s.⁶² And finally, the man of good fortune, whose outer appearance is that of a very handsome figure, indicates the founder of the Turcoman Akkoyunlu principality, Kara Osman, also known as Kara Yölük. Although the true meaning of the Turkish appellation “Yölük” remains a mystery, John Woods has drawn on contemporary sources to suggest that Kara Osman received the sobriquet because of his dark complexion and clean-shaven face in his youth, which accords with the physical description given by the Dürr. Furthermore, as the prophecy announces, half of his name – that is, his nickname Yölük, written in Arabic as YLWK, YWLWK or YWLK – includes two weak Arabic letters, namely yā and wāw.⁶³ And the letter alif appears in the first half of his name (kara), which means black or dark in Turkish. Kara Osman was arguably the biggest winner in Anatolia from Timur's invasions. He was one of the first Turcoman leaders to submit to Timur and secure his recognition, participating in the latter's campaigns in Syria and Anatolia. He later took advantage of the political vacuum resulting from Ottoman and Mamluk weakness in the aftermath of Timur's conquests and succeeded in building an independent state centred in Diyarbakir and Erzincan. Kara Osman also enjoyed the backing of Shahrukh, and occasionally even the Mamluk sultan, against his chief rivals, the Karakoyunlu Turcoman principality. Finally, the prophecy's mention of Kara Osman having rescued the prisoner might concern his involvement in the release of his brother Pir Ali from Timur's captivity.⁶⁴ The last section of the Mamluk and Akkoyunlu prophecies notes the ruin of the Mamluk lands due to persistent famine and plague in the first half of the fifteenth century.⁶⁵ The section closes with a remark about the two unsuccessful Mamluk expeditions against the Knights Hospitaller of Rhodes, in 1440 and 1444, and the restoration of relative stability under Sultan Jaqmaq (r. 1438–53).⁶⁶

Next, the Dürr proceeds to tell the last phase of the apocalyptic time in which all the signs of the rise of the Benī Aṣfer will become evident. It defines this period as one of calamities and troubles during which rivers of blood will flow. All prophecies in this section relate to the Ottomans, and in contrast to the Mamluk prophecies, the Ottoman passage provides specific dates. The first appears in the prediction that this tumultuous period will last throughout the early years of the tenth century of Islam, clarified by the expression that “boys born after 909 will be able to witness it”.⁶⁷ As shown above, when converted to solar years, the lunar year 909 translates to 878, corresponding in turn to 1473–74 ce. The year 878 was critically important for the Ottomans, the Akkoyunlus and the Mamluks, marking the date of the Battle of Başkent, fought on 16 Rabi ‘I ah 878 /11 August 1473 ce, in which Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II annihilated the forces of Akkoyunlu Emperor Uzun Hasan (grandson of Kara Osman) near Erzincan at Tercan, consequently saving the Ottoman Empire from destruction and Anatolia and Syria, and most likely also Egypt, from Turcoman domination.⁶⁸

The first Ottoman prophecy announces the accession of Mehmed II (r. 1444–46/1451–81) to the throne. The Dürr does not demonstrate a favourable opinion of Mehmed, remarking, “The one who will then be the ruler of Rūm will be a young boy whose beard has not grown out yet (yalın yüzlü oğlan). Woes to the lands of Rūm at that time! There will be two letters of mīm in his name; it will be either Mehmed or Mahmud, with one mīm at the beginning and one mīm in the middle.”⁶⁹ This prophecy is unmistakably a reference to Mehmed's first accession to the throne in 1444 at the age of 12, following his father Murad II's abdication.⁷⁰ The unflattering prophecy is succeeded by a vitriolic comment on Mehmed's reign, namely, that this will be when the deserving and learned are ruined and when the despicable and vile rise to become the highest-ranking officials. This disparaging observation is accompanied by another hostile prophecy announcing that Ottoman rule will end after 900 years, corresponding to 872 solar years, or 1467–68 of the Common Era. The impending fall of Ottoman rule is reinforced by the following prognostication calculating the duration of the Ottoman dynasty as 204 years. The number is derived from the numerical value of the letters ḳ, b, ḳ, b (100 + 2 + 100 + 2 = 204). Subtracting 204 from 872 results in 668 solar years or 688 lunar years. The date perfectly matches the year 689 provided in the Anonymous Chronicle of the Ottoman House, with which the Dürr shares close affinities, as the beginning of the reign of Osman Bey, founder of the Ottoman dynasty.⁷¹

The Dürr continues with prophecies concerning Mehmed that identify him as the apocalyptic emperor. First comes a warning: “using good deception, stratagem, and intelligence, be on your guard against the ḳāf”.⁷² The Dürr firmly identifies this menacing apocalyptic ḳāf with Mehmed, noting, “The ḳāf is intended to be understood as ḳayṣer.”⁷³ The Arabic rendition of Caesar – ḳayṣer – was used in Islamic political parlance to refer to the Roman (Byzantine) emperor.⁷⁴ After the conquest of Constantinople, Mehmed, who had assumed the rank and place of the Roman emperors, also began to be called “ḳayṣer”.⁷⁵ Then comes an apocalyptic prophecy in Arabic attributed to the Prophet Muhammad: “The Hour will not arrive before a man named jahanjāh rules.” In nearly all the manuscripts examined by Kaptein and Demirtaş, the word “jahanjāh” is misspelled in various ways, with “jahjāh” being the most common version, and the corruption of the word has frustrated attempts to decipher its meaning.⁷⁶ The Dürr, however, provides clues to uncovering it. It remarks that this name has Maghrebi (North African/western Islamic) origins, and the cīms must be understood as sīn. In the western Islamic abjad numerals, which show minor differences from the eastern Islamic abjad, the letter sīn has a value of 300; in the eastern Islamic system, however, the letter shīn has the value 300.⁷⁷ Thus, the name must be read as shahanshāh, a Persian, particularly Sasanian, imperial title meaning “king of kings”. The title was prevalent in Persian or Persianized panegyric court poetry,⁷⁸ and there are several examples contemporary to Mehmed in which he is addressed as shahanshāh.⁷⁹ However, the religious authorities traditionally did not approve of the title, which they viewed as an appellation appropriate only for God, and denounced its use by rulers as blasphemous.⁸⁰ Its condemnation on Islamic grounds was also affirmed by a prophetic tradition included in Imam Bukhari's authoritative hadith compilation, stating, “The most awful (meanest) name in Allah's sight is (that of) a man calling himself king of kings. What is meant by ‘the king of kings’ is shahanshah.”⁸¹ Thus, the mention of the title in relation to Mehmed must be understood as yet another hostile remark on the part of the Dürr regarding the sultan.

The Dürr identifies the Akkoyunlu emperor Uzun Hasan, who had turned his grandfather Kara Osman's small tribal principality into a territorial empire after a series of spectacular victories spanning 1467–69, as the ruler who is to rout Mehmed and bring Ottoman rule to an end. After consolidating his position in Iran, Iraq and Azerbaijan in 1469, Uzun Hasan turned his attention to the Ottomans, intending to defeat Mehmed in open battle and bring an end to Ottoman imperial formation in Anatolia. To this end, Uzun Hasan took under his protection the rulers of the Isfendiyarid and Karamanid principalities and the Empire of Trebizond, whom Mehmed had subjugated and driven out of their lands, promising them assistance in their ongoing struggle against Mehmed to recover their states.⁸² In addition, he had also been in close contact with Mehmed's enemies in the west, most notably Venice, to form an alliance to launch a coordinated attack against Mehmed from east and west simultaneously, intending to destroy the Ottoman Empire and divide up its dominions. These contacts climaxed in 1472 when Uzun Hasan officially joined the Christian League against Mehmed.⁸³

This background confirms that the Dürr was composed shortly before the Battle of Başkent, when expectations and fears ran high that the Akkoyunlu emperor was about to vanquish Mehmed, destroying the imperial unity that he had most recently overseen. Although Uzun Hasan is not explicitly named, many clues, couched in a coded language that draw on prophecies, the science of letters and numerical calculations, leave no doubt that the prophecy concerns him. To begin with, the Dürr writes that this new conqueror will arise from Iraq (i.e. Mesopotamia) and that his name will have the letter mīm in the middle.⁸⁴ After his victories over Jahanshah Karakoyunlu in 1467 and the Timurid Abu Sa‘īd in 1469, Uzun Hasan emerged as the lord of Persian Iraq, denoting the lands of western Iran, and Arabian Iraq, which comprises Mesopotamia. Although the letter mīm does not appear in Hasan, it is the middle letter of the name Osman, grandfather of Uzun Hasan. According to the fifteenth-century chronicler ‘Abd Allāh al-Baghdādī, the middle mīm in Osman referred to Uzun Hasan, who represented the third ruler of the Osmanid dispensation.⁸⁵

Moreover, the year 872, or 1467–68 ce, prophesied by the Dürr as the date after which the fall of the Ottoman dynasty would occur, coincides with a major event in Uzun Hasan's political career, when he destroyed his arch-rival Jahanshah and unified the Turcoman confederations of Akkoyunlu and Karakoyunlu. This made him the sole master of the lands stretching from Iran to Mesopotamia, Azerbaijan and eastern Anatolia. Uzun Hasan proclaimed his victory and new imperial status to his Mamluk and Ottoman neighbours through pompous letters claiming that his defeat of Jahanshah was divinely sanctioned and, by implication, that he was God's chosen sovereign of the Muslims. In them were cited verses 1–5 of chapter 30 of the Qur'an, Sūrah al-rūm, which includes a prophecy: “The Romans have been defeated in a nearby land. But they, after their defeat, will be victorious in a few years (biḍa’ sinīn).” The Akkoyunlu letters interpreted them esoterically as a reference to the Akkoyunlu, associating them with the Romans. The defeat mentioned in the prophecy was construed as an allusion to the past Akkoyunlu defeats suffered at the hands of their neighbouring Karakoyunlu, and the numerical value of the words biḍa‘ sinīn, 872, was regarded as indicating Hasan ibn Osman, since the summation of the letters of Hasan amounts to 118; the middle letter of Osman, M, to 40; Ibn to 53; and Osman to 661, all adding up to 872.⁸⁶

Composed shortly before Mehmed's eastern campaign, which culminated in the decisive defeat of Uzun Hasan, the Dürr reinforces Uzun Hasan's identity as the apocalyptic conqueror from the line of Osman by quoting an Arabic prophecy, which is also in part quoted in Bisṭāmī's Miftāḥ.⁸⁷ The translation reads as follows:

A healthy and good-natured man (Ar. ‘salīm) from the House of Osman must take the Arabian Peninsula into his possession at the end of times. Give the good news of the yā’ and rā’ to ḳāf’ alā (or ‘alī) ḳāf that [he should] hope for all his wishes; and there are also cīm, [the letter of] wāw, [the letter of] yā’, cīm, [the letter of] wāw, [the letter of] bā’, cīm, and alif and nūn in his name. And they are at the end [of the name]. In his youth, he will be afflicted with a disease but then will recover in a short time. But the nūn will be victorious with the aid of Allah. He will gain sovereignty with the help of the sīn, and his rule will run from east to west. He will be of high stature, with red cheeks, a handsome face, good nature, and fierce eyes. His upper half is larger than his lower half. And before the emergence of the Mehdī, he will take the two noble sanctuaries and all the Arab lands into possession.

The first sentence of the prophecy is attributed to the North African Mehdī Ibn Tūmart (d. c. 1130). Still, it is undoubtedly an ancient one, as it was already present in Ibn Ṭalḥa's thirteenth-century Kitāb al-durr al-muntazam, from which al-Bisṭāmī must have copied it.⁸⁸ In the medieval Mediterranean Islamic context, the prophecy was generally interpreted as referring to the conquest of the Mamluks, for they held the prestigious title of ‘Servitor of the Two Noble Sanctuaries’ (Mecca and Medina) and were therefore regarded as the sovereigns of the Arab lands.⁸⁹ Uzun Hasan's ambitions to conquer the Mamluks are well known and had become most conspicuous after the grand conquests he had made between 1467 and 1469 against his eastern rivals. Furthermore, following his participation in the crusade league in 1472, control of Syria, connecting eastern Anatolia to the Mediterranean, had become even more critical, not least because the firearms he requested from his western allies would be delivered via the ports of the southeastern Mediterranean coast of Anatolia. Therefore, before his final engagement with Mehmed, he first attacked the Mamluk lands in November 1472 and besieged Aleppo to gain access to the mountain passes leading to the Mediterranean coast. His forces, however, were defeated and repelled by the Mamluks the following spring (1473).⁹⁰ This further affirms that the Dürr was written sometime between 1472 and 1473.

The prophecy “Give the good news of the [letters of] yā’ and rā’ to ḳāf ‘alā (or ‘alī) ḳāf that [he should] hope for all his wishes; and there are also cīm, [the letter of] wāw, [the letter of] yā’, cīm, [the letter of] wāw, [the letter of ] bā’, cīm, and alif and nūn in his name” is challenging to decode, as each of the extant copies provides a different set of letters.⁹¹ Nevertheless, relying on internal evidence and contextual analysis, its meaning can be reconstructed. The numerical value of the first part, involving the letters yā’ (10) and rā’ (200), is 210. When 210 is added to 668, noted above as the foundation year of the Ottoman state based on the solar system, it equals 878, which corresponds to 1473–74 ce, the same year as the Battle of Başkent. The second half of the prophecy encodes the number 872, which, as indicated above, was associated by the Akkoyunlu propagandists with “Hasan ibn Osman”:

[(ḳāf ‘alā ḳāf) = (100 + 1 + 80 + 70 + 30 + 10 + 100 + 1 + 80) = 472] +

[(cīm + [the letter of] wāw + [the letter of] yā’ + cīm + [the letter of] wāw + [the letter of] bā’+ cīm + alif + nūn) = (3 + 10 + 40 + 6 + 10 + 3 + 10 + 40 + 6 + 2 + 3 + 10 + 40 + 1 + 30 + 80 + 50 + 6 + 50) = 400] =

(472 + 400) = 872.

In brief, the prophecy intends to give Uzun Hasan the good tidings that Ottoman rule will soon collapse, and he will achieve all his ambitions, including the conquest of the Mamluk sultanate and universal dominion.

After the Arabic prophecy announcing the imminent fall of the Ottomans and the rise of Uzun Hasan's world rule, the Dürr provides more specific information about him, writing that his exaltation in power will be due to a certain Ali. Naturally, this must refer to Jahanshah Karakoyunlu's son and successor Hasan Ali, whose reckless decision to ask for aid from the Timurid Sultan-Abu Saʿid against Uzun Hasan resulted in the former's defeat and death at the hands of Uzun Hasan – a development that made Uzun Hasan the sole master of Iran and Iraq in 1469.⁹² Last but not least, the flattering depiction of Uzun Hasan's appearance and nature in the prophecy concurs with the Venetian historian Malipiero's account, in which Uzun Hasan is described in such superlative terms as valiant, handsome, generous, kind and gracious.⁹³

Then follows a set of genuine prophecies predicting what will happen after Mehmed's defeat at the hands of Uzun Hasan. It is intimated that Mehmed will fall on the battlefield, precipitating a civil war in the Ottoman realm, which the Dürr expresses with a prophecy: “Since the sebʿ-i şidād is destroyed, there will be fighting and war among the sons.” The Dürr defines the “sebʿ-i şidād” as seven great rulers who exercised sovereignty and ruled independently.⁹⁴ According to this definition, Mehmed II represents the seventh Ottoman sultan, as the brief reigns of Bāyezīd I's sons Süleymān and Mūsā Çelebis in the early fifteenth century, during which neither could rule over the whole Ottoman realm single-handedly, disqualify them from being counted among the “sebʿ-i şidād”.⁹⁵ None of the princes is mentioned by name, but the Dürr does refer to two sīns and a mīm, as well as two ʿayns, who are cast as secondary actors. In the context of 1472–73, the two sīns and the mīm must represent Mehmed II's three princes, who were his eldest son Bāyezīd (later Bāyezīd II, r. 1481–1512), his second son Mustafa and the youngest prince, Cem. The Dürr also implies that the Ottoman civil war will spill over into the neighbouring states, prophesying that there will be a great war among the alif, mīm and ḳāf, during which one of the ʿayns will martyr the ḳāf. It is likely that the alif represents Uzun Hasan Akkoyunlu, written with alif, and ḳāf the Mamluk Sultan Qayitbay (r. 1468–96). Such an association would also account for Uzun Hasan's prophesied domination over the Arab lands in the apocalyptic time.

The Dürr describes the time of the Ottoman civil war, instigated by the defeat and death of Mehmed II, as one of constant warfare and killing in the lands of Rūm and the environs of Constantinople. It writes that there will be great massacres, and many, even those who have taken refuge within fortifications, will perish – some from sickness, some from fighting and some from famine.⁹⁶ The Christians will attack the Ottoman lands from all sides and rivers of blood will flow, with the Muslims being taunted by the dhimmis, the protected Jews and Christians living under Muslim rule. In light of this, the Dürr advises people of sound judgement and prudence to go up to the mountains to take refuge during this time.⁹⁷

And the end

Chapter 16 is the bridge, chronologically, thematically and geographically, to Chapter 17, which is devoted to describing the ten signs of the end time, with the rise and attack of the Benī Aṣfer identified as the first portent and the final destruction of the physical world as the tenth.⁹⁸ As noted above, the Dürr, in line with the late medieval Muslim apocalyptic tradition, associates the Benī Aṣfer with a pan-European crusade against the Islamic lands that aims to extirpate Islam as a religious and political force. Building on the chronological framework delineated in Chapter 16, Chapter 17 places the end time around the year 900 of the Islamic calendar (1494–95 ce), about 20 years after the Ottoman–Akkoyunlu encounter. To reaffirm the date, the Dürr quotes an apocalyptic hadith in which the Prophet advises Muslims to seek devotional reclusion after the year 900 to evade the wickedness of the people at that time, who will no longer have respect for the divine law or any regard for the Day of Judgement.⁹⁹

The Dürr describes this last phase of apocalyptic time as a total collapse and subversion of the political, social and religious order, and one of moral depravity. It writes that people at that time will reject the guidance and recommendations of religious leaders, and as religious corruption gains ground, the Islamic establishment will collapse. As a result, God will afflict Muslims with unabated calamity and disaster. The Islamic lands will be continuously ruined by internal strife; oppression and tyranny will fill the world; the prescriptions of divine law will be ignored and violated; and God will punish people with numerous tribulations and abnormal phenomena, such as torrents, earthquakes, eclipses, plagues, incurable illnesses and famines. Finally, God will pass sovereignty of the Islamic lands to the infidels, coded in the apocalyptic term “Benī Aṣfer”.¹⁰⁰

Although the Dürr presents the rise of the Benī Aṣfer as a punishment for Muslims for their moral and religious misconduct, the root of the criticism is aimed at Mehmed, whom the Dürr primarily blames for the collapse of peace and order in the Islamic lands. It is implied that Mehmed's insatiable imperial ambitions tipped the balance of power in the region and provoked Uzun Hasan's aggression against the lands of Rūm, which was legitimized by the grievances of the Turkish princes whom Mehmed had stripped of their lands and sovereignty. Although the Dürr does appear to portray Uzun Hasan in a more favourable light than Mehmed, it is only a matter of degree, not of kind, and the Dürr by no means endorses or condones the imperial unification effected by Uzun Hasan in the eastern Mediterranean Islamic lands; in fact, it categorically rejects any universal empire, regardless of the emperor who stands behind the project.

The Dürr reveals its contempt for universal imperial rule most notably in the section describing the attack of the Benī Aṣfer on Islam. It writes that the Benī Aṣfer will arise when Muslim sovereignty of the Islamic lands comes together in the lands of Rūm – in other words, in Anatolia.¹⁰¹ In the prophecy announcing Uzun Hasan's triumph over Mehmed and his rise to sovereignty over the Arab lands, the Dürr implies the existence of a political picture in which Egypt, Syria and Anatolia are united under Uzun Hasan's rule. Nevertheless, as the Dürr indicates, this political unity hardly promotes strength and robustness in the Islamic lands. When the crusaders, or the Benī Aṣfer, attack, their armies swiftly overrun Egypt, Syria and Anatolia without encountering any effective Muslim resistance and easily conquer Constantinople by driving the Muslim forces out of the city and out of Anatolia, pursuing them down to Syria.¹⁰² After this Christian victory, the Muslims find themselves under the rule and oppression of the Benī Aṣfer for some unstipulated time.

Muslim suffering finally comes to an end with the appearance of the Mehdī, the saviour-ruler who is shown to be a conqueror arising from the eastern Islamic lands, namely, Bukhara, in modern-day Uzbekistan.¹⁰³ In accordance with the well-known Muslim apocalyptic traditions, the Mehdī ultimately annihilates the Benī Aṣfer, recovers the lost territories and reconquers Constantinople one last time in the name of Islam, redeeming the Muslims from Christian domination.¹⁰⁴ However, after Islam's final vindication, the Dürr does not culminate in a millenarian endpoint. On the contrary, the reign of the Mehdī is far too brief – foretold to last only seven to nine years – to effectuate any long-term peace, prosperity and happiness for the Muslims. Besides, most of his short career is spent in China, far from the Dürr's main geographic focus on the eastern Mediterranean Islamic lands, and is occupied fighting the false-prophet Deccāl, whose tortures and tribulations bring the Muslims no less suffering and hardship than the Benī Aṣfer.¹⁰⁵ In the end, the Mehdī remains wholly ineffective against the devil's incarnate Deccāl, who is eventually killed by Jesus Christ, descending to the earth on God's command to save humanity. At this point, the Dürr quickly dispenses with the Mehdī, who has no further role in the eschatological drama.¹⁰⁶ Events slip out of the hands of human agency, and the eschatological figures take over completely and remain in charge until the destruction of the world and the Day of Judgement.

The Dürr identifies Mehmed's imperial politics and his conflict with Uzun Hasan, which eventually climaxed with the Ottoman–Akkoyunlu showdown at Başkent, as the primary cause not only of the imminent collapse of the Ottoman Empire but also of the end of peace and order in the Islamic world and of the destruction of Islam by the Christians. Behind this assessment lies the Dürr's characterization of Mehmed as a selfish, tyrannical and oppressive ruler, one who is possessed by insatiable greed and lust for power. In this respect, the anonymous author of the Dürr finds Mehmed to be no different from the Central Asian tyrant Timur.