#beyazit akman

[leydivari]

“Ben, atası Oğuz Han, dedesi Alp Arslan, Şeyhi Edebali, Gündoğdu ve Aydoğdu’nun torunu, Ertuğrul oğlu, Kayıların Osman. Kara yeri, mavi göğü, Güneş’i ve Ay’ı yaratan bir Allah’a ve O’nun peygamberine inanan Osman. “ ... “Ben, Osman, bir kartaldan öğrendim özgürlüğü ve kudreti. Dağlardan öğrendim vakarı ve dik durmayı. Ağaçlarda gördüm kol kanat germeyi ve yaşatmayı. Bir kurdun gözlerinde yaşadım cesareti ve meydan okuyuşu. Gökyüzünü yaran bir okun ucunda tanıdım güçlü olmayı... “  Osman’ın yerinde duramayan halleriyle dağ ve ağaç tepelerindeki çocukluğunu, kabına sığmaz ruhuyla cesaret ve coşku dolu gençliğini, bir dünya kurmaya dair hayallerini, Rabia’ya olan aşkını, koca imparatorluğu yıkmaya dair zekice planlarını, atı Asil ile yek vücut olmasını, alpleriyle çıktığı tüm gaza yolculuklarını ve dostluklarını,  Şeyhi Edebali’nin elinde olgunlaşmasını,  tasavvufla pişmesini,  ölümden dönerek güçlenmesini,  Yunus ile yollarının kesişmesini, bütün engellere ve ordusunun sayıca azlığına rağmen kazandıkları zaferleri, azmini, cesaretini, sevgisini, merhametini, zekasını, çevikliğini ve liderliğini  soluksuz bir heyecanla okuyacağınız seri...  O dönemde yaşama isteğinizi coşturacak bir serüven.  Osman; Aşk ve Savaş  Beyazıt Akman

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At the Crossroads of Politics, History, & Literature: Turks & Jews Since 1492

By Beyazit Akman

One of the most underrated terms of our times is “Abrahamic” religions (as opposed to “Judeo-Christianity”). In the post-9/11 era, it may be difficult for many to see the roots linking the Abrahamic traditions of Judaism, Christianity, Islam. It may be even more difficult to see the rich history of Judeo-Islamic alliance.

This history perhaps is most visible in 1492, when Ferdinand and Isabella expelled Jewish people from central Europe and the Ottoman Empire’s Sultan Bayezid II rescued more than 100,000 of those expelled. Known as one of the most devout Muslim rulers in history (his title “Sofu” means “the Pious” in Turkish), Sultan Bayezid invited Sephardic Jews to the center of his empire at a time when Jewish discrimination and expulsion were instituted in such European metropolises as Amsterdam, Paris, and Venice. While the ships of Columbus were initiating the transatlantic slavery route to be used for centuries by major European colonial powers, the Ottoman navy was carrying victims of Christian oppression to Muslim lands.

Why did an Ottoman sultan help the Sephardim? For those of us who have a myopic understanding of historical events and who evaluate Judeo-Islamic relations in the restricted context of Israel-Palestinian conflict, the fact of the help may seem surprising, even unbelievable.

But in the larger historical-cultural context, there is nothing surprising about Bayezid’s help. Jews and Christians are considered by Muslims to also be “People of the Book” (the “Book” meaning Scripture) who have received God’s divine message through the Scriptures. Even though Islamic theology considers Christianity and Judaism to have changed the divine message, important commonalities remain. Muslims accept Abraham’s sanctity and glorification, Moses’ miracles; Muslims believe in Jesus, Noah, Lut, David, Solomon and many other Abrahamic narratives. And the Qur’an says that these commonalities govern how non-Muslims are to be treated in Islamic lands.

These shared beliefs alone were enough for Sultan Bayezid and also many other Turkish, Arabic and Andalusian (Arabic-Spanish) rulers to respect Jewish and Christian rights within empires and sultanates. And as Bayezid decreed extra-harsh laws aimed at securing Jewish subjects’ welfare, his support went beyond superficial gesture: the punishment for disturbing Jewish people was simply death. No one dared mess with them.

But history has always other realistic answers for those of us who do not easily buy into these idealistic representations. In the 15th Century, to be a Jewish man in Spain usually meant being one of two things: a highly-educated scholar with a knowledge of Hebrew, Arabic and Latin (among other languages) who thus could be a great diplomat, or a merchant with skills in trading and commerce crucial to a developing great metropolis. Indeed, throughout ages of the Ottoman empire, many viziers (high-ranking Ottoman diplomats only second to the sultan) and scholars came from Sephardic backgrounds. Beyazid thus saw potential in increasing the Jewish population of Istanbul first by his father, Mehmed the Conqueror, after the 1453 capture from the Eastern Romans of what was then Constantinople (I narrate this event in my Turkish-language novel The Conquest).

Yet, these pragmatic concerns do not seem to be the primary concern for the Ottoman sultan. After all, it was partly thanks to this operation that the Hebrew culture was kept alive. The ships that Sultan Bayezid sent to aid Jewish flight from Catholic Spain enriched book culture in more ways than one. Fleeing from Toledo to Istanbul, the Sephardic David Ibn Nahmias established in 1493 with his brother the Middle East’s first Hebrew printing press. Simply one of many great stories that have been kept as secret for too long, David’s epic journey forms the backbone of my most recent Turkish-language novel, Son Sefarad--“The Last Sepharad.”

Ever since I first heard the story of Bayezid, my namesake sultan, I have been thrilled by the idea of writing it down. And I was surprised by the fact that no one else had done so before me: the story had been told neither in English nor Turkish.

Aren’t these the kind of examples that we need to focus on to get inspired by history for a better future? There are lots of novels and movies on the Inquisition or on the life of Columbus, but there is no single text whatsoever that tells the “unusual” story of brotherhood between Muslims and Jews.

And in an age when Judeo-Christianity is allied against Islam, it may seem to some people to not make much sense to tell the story of a Judeo-Islamic friendship. Yet, that is exactly the reason, I believe, why this story should be remembered, told, and circulated.

Neither official historiography nor popular literature both in Europe and the United States cites much about this humanitarian operation, if any at all. 1492 is remembered mostly to honor the “discovery” of Columbus, which was also starting the routes of slavery and colonization. The story of Bayezid’s humanitarian ships is nowhere to be found. Yet in an ever-changing world, it is time we also reassessed the way we look at history since there are lots of blind spots that we have chosen to ignore for too long. Only by re-discovering these suppressed moments of history, can we establish accurate narratives that will help our future. For those of us who believe in the power of literature, maybe it will be thanks to these stories by which we will be able to realize our common roots and focus on our similarities rather than help our political differences damage our future.

Today, in Turkey there are more than twenty thousand Sephardic Turks, whose existence dates back to Bayezid. This is the legacy of his trust in the notion of “Abrahamic” faiths.

Beyazit Akman specializes on the image of Islam in the Western discourse. He teaches courses on Global Literature, Post-1700 British Literature, and Humanities sequences at SUNY Geneseo. He is also a novelist of historical fiction (published in Turkey).