The Usage of
Turkish Language at the Court of Seljuqi Melikshah and Ottoman Bayezid II Emperors
Iranian
historians generally, in an exaggerated way, refer to the usage of Persian
language at the court of Seljuq and Ottoman Empires and set forth that Persian
language was official language of those courts. They usually refer to the lack
of anything written in Turkish belong to the Seljuq period. In addition, the
letters of Ottoman emperors, written in Persian to the Safavid Empire and also,
some Persian poems of a few Ottoman emperors form the grounds of their claim.
Nobody denies the usage of Persian in the courts of Seljuq and Ottoman Empires
as a language of poem and literature some times. Even some of them were proud
of having good knowledge of Persian and Arabic. The existence of thousands of
official writing in Ottoman Turkish in the government archives rejects this
view and indicates that Ottoman scribes, beside Turkish, were corresponding in Persian
and Arabic. Moreover, there are several records referring to usage of Turkish
language by the Seljuq emperors.
The
Ottoman emperors not only have identified themselves different from Iranians,
but also have maligned them. Even a negative feeling of Persian can be deduced
from some of their letters. We can see the example of this negative feeling in
the correspondence between Timur and Bayezid prior to the Ankara Battle in 1402
AD. As is known to scholars, they exchange eight letters. There is interesting
information, related to this subject, in the first and second letter from Bayezid
to Timur. In the first letter, Sultan Bayezid expresses that the God made him
superior than Ajam (Persians) and Arabs in happiness (fulfillment) of jihad.[1]
Also, he expresses that he is not like the Ajam (Iranian) rules and his army is
not like the Dasht-I Qipchaq’s Tartars or the Indian army that is a mob or like
unformed (unconsolidated) Iraq and Khorasan’s army.[2]
In the second letter he states that in his (Timur’s) letter which is written in Arabic
and Persian, there was not anything except violence and conceit. He implies
that his letter was in Turkish, whereas Timur was writing in Persin and Arabic.[3]
Seljuq
sultans also used to use Turkish language in written in their everyday lives.
An example of this is a passage in Zubdet’ut-Tevarikh about the letters of
Sultan Melikshah to Kemaleddin Abul’lreza Fazlullah ibn Muhammed, written in
Turkish. The latter was the head of the correspondence council of the court.
The sultan likes him and wants him to come to the court every day. One day he
did not come to audience of Sultan Melikshah. The Sultan sent him a letter, in
Turkish: “You don’t suffer of not coming to court to see us, but we do. You
have a close friend except us, but we don’t.”[4]
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