Peace from Amasya
The Peace of Amasya ( Persian پیمان آماسیه, Turkish Amasya Antlaşması ) was closed on May 29, 1555 between Shah Tahmasp I of Persia and the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire , Süleyman I in the northern Anatolian city of Amasya . The peace treaty ended the Ottoman – Safavid War , which lasted from 1532 to 1555 , and ensured peace for the next 20 years.
prehistory
Since their defeat in the Battle of Tschaldiran in 1514 , the Safavids avoided open field battles and preferred a scorched earth tactic. Ottoman armies repeatedly invaded the Persian border area, but were each exposed to a guerrilla war that forced them to retreat. Both sides suffered from a lack of resources and their troops were demoralized.
Although planned as wars of expansion, the conflicts between the Ottoman and the Safavid Empire in the middle of the 16th century ended with little profits for the sultan. Instead, the Ottoman Empire had exhausted its military strength at a time when the empire's economic and social order was on the verge of collapse. The Ottoman state was unable to control the southeastern Anatolian border region with the Persian Empire. The Grand Sherif of Mecca complained to Prince Bayezid, Suleyman's son, then governor of Kütahya, that “the Arab countries are a wasteland”. In this situation, it was imperative for the Sultan to make peace. Envoys were exchanged, and in June 1555 the contract was finally concluded in Suleyman's winter quarters in Amasya.
negotiations
On August 6, 1554, the Persians sent a Turkish prisoner of war to the Ottoman fortress of Doğubeyazıt with an offer of peace . On September 26, 1554, Shāh-qolī Āqā came as the ambassador of Shah Ṭahmāsps to Suleyman's camp in Erzurum . The peace offer came just in time for the Ottomans, as they were also waging war against the Habsburg Empire in the West at that time . A ceasefire was agreed until a peace treaty was concluded. On May 10, 1555, the Supreme Doorkeeper (īšīk-āqāsī) Shah Tahmasps, Kamāl-al-dīn Farroḵzāda Beg, came to Amasya as a negotiator. The contract, drawn up by Süleyman's Chancellor Celâlzâde Mustafa Çelebi , was finally concluded on May 29, 1555 (8th Raġab 962 AH).
Subject of the contract
Territorial reorganization
The subject of the treaty was the redefinition of the borders between the two Islamic monarchies. The present-day areas of Armenia and Georgia were evenly divided between the two empires. The Ottoman Empire kept the region around Lake Van and Schahrazor , the border was at Arpaçay . The Persian Empire got its former capital Tabriz back and kept its northwestern territories in the Caucasus , Dagestan , as well as what is now Azerbaijan . Both sides committed themselves to refrain from further attacks and to respect the borders.
Religious agreements
The peace treaty also guaranteed the safety of Persian pilgrims on their way to the holy cities of Mecca and Medina, as well as to the holy places of the Shia in Iraq, such as the Imam Ali Mosque in Najaf and the Imam Husain Shrine in Karbala. It thus indirectly confirms the primacy of the Ottoman Caliphate in the Islamic world. Another part of the contract was the termination of the ritual cursing of the first three of the " rightly guided caliphs ", the Aisha and other companions of Muhammad . This condition is found in many treaties between the Ottomans and Safavids and reflects the religious contrasts between the Shiite Islam of Persia and the Sunni creed of the Ottomans .
Follow-up time
Although the peace treaty was the result of realpolitik rather than a real need for peace, both sides went to great lengths to portray it as lasting and strong. Ogier Ghislain de Busbecq , who as the ambassador of Emperor Ferdinand I at the court of Suleyman was entrusted with peace negotiations for the Holy Roman Empire at the same time, was an eyewitness to the peace agreement in Amasya and reports about it in his letters.
“Erga ipsum vero oratorem nullum honoris genus praetermissum; ut nos de veritate pacis minus dubitaremus. "
"No conceivable honor was neglected [to the Persian ambassador] so that there would be no doubt as to the truthfulness of the peace."
Suleyman's successor Selim II officially confirmed the validity of the peace treaty, but had already commissioned Grand Vizier Sokollu Mehmed Pasha to plan a trade embargo against the Persian Empire in 1569 . His successor Murad III. attacked the Safavid Empire again in the spring of 1578 under the leadership of Lala Kara Mustafa Pasha and defeated the Persian army in August 1578 in the plain of Çıldır and in September 1578 in the battle of Koyun-Geçidi. The victories were paid for with great losses; in the campaign of 1581–2 there was almost a revolt in the war-weary Ottoman army. In 1587 Shah Abbas I came to power in Persia . In the two-front war between the Uzbeks and the Ottoman Empire in 1590, he was forced to accept Murad's terms of peace.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Ebru Boyar: Ottoman expansion in the east. In: Suraiya N. Faroqhi, Kate Fleet (Ed.): The Cambridge History of Turkey. Volume 2, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2013, ISBN 978-0-521-62094-9 , pp. 74-140.
- ↑ a b c Ebru Boyar: Ottoman expansion in the east. In: Suraiya N. Faroqhi, Kate Fleet (Ed.): The Cambridge History of Turkey. Volume 2, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2013, ISBN 978-0-521-62094-9 , pp. 126-132.
- ↑ Markus Köhbach: Amasya, Peace of . In: Ehsan Yarshater (ed.): Encyclopædia Iranica . Volume I (9), p. 928 (English, including references)
- ^ Andrew J. Newman: Safavid Iran. Rebirth of a Persian Empire. IBTauris, London 2012, ISBN 978-0-857-71661-3 , p. 46.
- ↑ Suraiya Faroqhi: The Ottoman Empire and the World Around It. Neudruck, IBTauris, London 2006, ISBN 978-1-845-11122-9 , pp. 36, 185.
- ^ Ogier Ghislain de Busbecq: Legationis Turcicae Epistolae quatuor. Epistola prima , Frankfurt am Main 1595, p. 79 ( online , accessed December 7, 2015).
- ↑ a b Ebru Boyar: Ottoman expansion in the east. In: Suraiya N. Faroqhi, Kate Fleet (Ed.): The Cambridge History of Turkey. Volume 2, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2013, ISBN 978-0-521-62094-9 , pp. 132-139.