Yazar: Tunay KARAKÖK Yıl: 2026 Yayınlandığı Dergi / Yayın:BELLEK Uluslararası Tarih ve Kültür Araştırmaları Dergisi
ÖZ
XIII. ve XIV. yüzyıllar, Anadolu’da Selçuklu Devleti’nin merkezî otoritesinin zayıfladığı ve bağımsız ve yarı bağımsız Türk beyliklerinin ortaya çıktığı bir dönüşüm çağıdır. Bu makale, dönemin iki önemli seyyahı olan Venedikli tüccar Marco Polo (1271-1295) ve Faslı hukukçu ve derviş İbn Battûta'nın (1325-1354) Anadolu seyahat notlarını karşılaştırmalı olarak analiz etmektedir. Her iki seyyahın rotaları, ziyaret ettikleri beylik merkezleri (Artuklu, Mengücekli, Saltuklu, Aydınoğlu, Çobanoğulları, Candaroğulları vb.) ve anlatılarında öne çıkan temalar (ticaret, güvenlik, adalet, dinî hayat, mimari, Ahîlik teşkilatı) incelenmektedir. Makalenin temel argümanı; Marco Polo, Anadolu Beyliklerini öncelikle İlhanlı egemenliği altındaki bir ticari coğrafya ve güzergâh olarak görüp değerlendirirken; İbn Battûta, her bir beyliği müstakil bir siyasî, kültürel ve dinî ünite olarak deneyimlemiş ve ayrıntılı biçimde kaydetmiştir. Bu farklı bakış açıları, seyyahların mesleki kimlikleri, içinde bulundukları siyasî konjonktür ve seyahat güzergâhlarındaki farklılıklarla açıklanabilir. Makale, seyahatnamelerin resmî kroniklerde bulunmayan gündelik hayat, kent morfolojisi, yönetim pratikleri ve beylerin tebaa ile ilişkilerine dair eşsiz veriler sunduğunu göstermektedir. Sonuç olarak, Marco Polo ve İbn Battûta’nın eserleri, Anadolu Beylikleri döneminin siyasî coğrafyasını, toplumsal yapısını ve kültürel çeşitliliğini anlamak için birinci elden, karşılaştırmalı ve güvenilir bir kaynak grubu oluşturmaktadır.
Anahtar Kelimeler: Anadolu Beylikleri, Marco Polo, İbn Battûta, Seyahatname, XIII-XIV. yüzyıl
THE ANATOLIAN PRINCIPALITIES IN TRAVELOGUES: POLITICAL GEOGRAPHY, POWER, AND EVERYDAY LIFE IN XIIITH–XIVTH CENTURY ANATOLIA THROUGH THE EYES OF IBN BATTUTA AND MARCO POLO
EXTENDED SUMMARY
This extended summary presents a comparative analysis of two major travelogue sources from the XIIIth and XIVth centuries — Marco Polo's The Travels and Ibn Battuta's Rihla– with a specific focus on their depictions of the Anatolian Principalities (Turkish principalities), covering the territories of the Artuqids, Mengüjekids, Saltukids, Aydinids, Cobanids, Candarids, and Hamidids, chronologically examining Marco Polo’s observations (c. 1271-1295) and Ibn Battuta’s travels through the region (c. 1325-1354). The primary aim of this article is to conduct a comparative analysis of how these two travelers from different cultural, professional, and religious backgrounds – a Venetian merchant and a Moroccan jurist-Sufi – perceived, described, and categorized the Anatolian Principalities by reconstructing their itineraries, analyzing their observations on political authority (terminology such as melik, emir, sultan), comparing their descriptions of urban fabric and architecture, examining their accounts of religious life including Ahî organizations and Sufi lodges (zâviye), assessing their perspectives on trade routes and security, and explaining the differences in their portrayals through their professional identities, the political conjuncture of their travels (Ilkhanid dominance vs. independent principality period), and their specific geographic routes. This study holds considerable significance because the Anatolian Principalities’ period has traditionally been studied through centralized dynastic chronicles focusing on military campaigns and dynastic succession, while travel accounts offer an alternative, ground-level perspective capturing everyday life, urban morphology, intercommunal relations, and practical functioning of justice and trade – themes largely absent from official historiography; moreover, while Ibn Battuta’s Anatolian sections have received scholarly attention, Marco Polo’s observations on Anatolia have been underutilized in Principality studies, and the comparative method employed here allows for a nuanced understanding of how different observers interpreted the same political landscape, contributing to the growing field of travel writing studies within Middle Eastern and Anatolian history. The methodology adopted is qualitative, comparative, and source-critical: both travelogues will be read in their complete Turkish translations with special attention to the Anatolian sections; a comparative table will be constructed to map itineraries, visited cities, mentioned Principalities, and key themes (security, trade, architecture, religious life, justice); the terminology used by each traveler for political authority will be analyzed through close reading and contextual interpretation; the observations will be cross-referenced with contemporary sources such as Ibn Faḍl Allāh al-ʿUmarī’s Masālik al-abṣār, al-Qalqashandī’s Ṣubḥ al-aʿshā, Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī’s alDurar al-kāmina, and al-Dhahabī’s Taʾrīkh al-Islām to verify, contextualize, and sometimes challenge the travelers’ claims; and the methodological approach acknowledges the limitations of travel writing including selective memory, literary tropes, self-fashioning, and the influence of patron expectations. The extended analysis leads to the following conclusions: first, Marco Polo and Ibn Battuta offer radically different portrayals of the Anatolian Principalities – Polo, writing from a mercantile perspective, is primarily concerned with the safety of trade routes, the availability of goods, the quality of ports (Trabzon, Ayas), and the extent of Mongol (Ilkhanid) control, rarely delving into local governance or religious institutions, viewing Anatolia as a space of transit rather than a destination; second, Ibn Battuta presents a vivid, multi-layered picture of individual Principalities, recording the names and titles of beys, describing their courts, praising their justice and patronage of scholars and Sufis, and paying close attention to the Ahî organizations that provided him with hospitality, revealing a competitive but functioning system of principalities where trade, religion, and law intersect; third, these differences can be explained by professional identity (merchant vs. jurist), political context (Ilkhanid dominance in Polo’s time vs. fragmentation and principality independence in Ibn Battuta’s time), and literary genre and audience expectations (Polo dictated his book to a romance writer in a Genoese prison while Ibn Battuta wrote for Mamluk scholarly circles); fourth, both accounts, despite their biases, provide invaluable data not available in chronicles – Ibn Battuta’s description of Ahî Evran and the futuwwa organization in Birgi, Marco Polo’s notes on the security of the Ayas-Tabriz route, and both travelers’ observations on the ethnic and religious diversity of Anatolian cities (Turks, Greeks, Armenians, Syriacs, Jews, Latins); fifth, the study confirms that travelogues should not be treated as transparent windows on the past but as culturally mediated texts requiring careful source criticism, yet when read in conjunction with administrative, biographical, and chronicle sources, they significantly enrich our understanding of the Anatolian Principalities, revealing that this period, far from being a “dark age” or “mere prelude to the Ottomans, emerges from travel accounts as a dynamic, creative, and interconnected era of Anatolian history”.
Keywords: Anatolian Principalities, Marco Polo, Ibn Battuta, travel writing, XIIIth. – XIVth. Centuries
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