[Armagan]

§ 9. [39] Berke khān transfers the Turks of the Dobruja, ‘and with them Ṣar Ṣaltq,’ into the steppe (desht).

At this point the story seems to finish and, indeed, Loqmān’s version stops here. Yazjoghlu, however, resumes the story, much later, with a short interpolation in Ibn Bībī’s last chapter, where the latter tells how after ‘Izzeddīn Kaikāūs’ death in the Crimea, in 679/1280, Mas’ūd is acclaimed as his successor (for he, like his brother Kayūmerth, is present at his father’s deathbed) and prepares to return to Anatolia by ship.

§ 10. When Mas’ūd asks for and obtains permission to cross over to Rūm, Ṣar Ṣaltq, on the order of Berke Khān, leads the nomad folk (göcher él) with all their cattle overland back to ‘ their abode’, to Dobruja éli. [40] ‘Their story shall be told in detail at its proper place.’

The next instalment follows immediately the last chapter of Ibn Bībī whose history ends with Mas’ūd’s arrival in Rūm, his journey to the Mongol Court where he is recognized as ruler of the eastern half of the Sultanate (the western half being left to his cousin Kaikhosrou III b. Rukneddīn). [41] In this chapter Yazjoghlu has made a number of interpolations; inter alia he adds to the territories now subject to Mas’ūd ‘all the lands until the frontier region of Izniq’, since in view of what follows he feels obliged to represent him as an immediate neighbour of the Byzantines.

§ 11. In order to learn about his brothers and the Turks in Rūmeli, Mas’ūd sends ambassadors to the basileus Palseologos (fāsilyevs Balālōoghōs [42]) who replies as follows: one of your brothers stays with me, the other at Karaferia where he is invested with the government (beylik) of that country. As to the Rumeli Turks, some of them have joined him, the others have remained in the Dobruja. [43] This news reassures the sultan. Of the tribute which the basileus pays from of old, he (now) sends one-third to the Mongol khān, one-third to Mas’ūd, and one-third to Ghiyatheddīn (Kaikhosrou III). § 12. Matters continue like this for a fairly long time. The Turks in the Dobruja remain there with Ṣar Ṣaltq. Then Mas’ūd’s brother who was with the emperor (tekvur) tries, together with some Turks, to escape. However, he is arrested and imprisoned. The Patriarch, ‘that is to say the caliph of

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the Infidels’, [44] asks the basileus (fāsilyevs) to grant him the prince. He obtains him. baptizes him, and makes him a monk. The prince is for some time at the Hagia Sophia (Āyā Sōfya) in the service of the Patriarch. Then Ṣar Ṣaltq asks the Patriarch for him, and as the Patriarch knows Ṣar Ṣaltq to be a holy man, he sends the prince to him. There, after a while, the prince returns to Islam and becomes a dervish in the service of Ṣar Ṣaltq. [45] One day the supernatural power, which Ṣar Ṣaltq as a shepherd had received from the holy Maḥmūd Ḥayrān of Aqshehir, is transmitted to him and the name of Baraq (‘dog’) bestowed on him. He is sent to Sultanīye where ‘still nowadays’ his sanctuary exists. The Baraqī are his disciples. § 13. As to the Muslims at Karaferia, being tired of life among the Infidels, they migrate to Anatolia across the sea. The prince and his son live and die at Karaferia as Muslims, but the children of the latter are baptized on the order of the basileus in the year of his coming to Salonica. It is from one of their descendants, a certain Līzaqōs, that the town is taken (by the Ottomans) in the time of the grandfather of our Sultan. This Līzaqōs and his brothers, all valiant infidel warriors, are transferred to Zikhna and Līzaqōs, the eldest of them, is made governor (subash) of that place. In Sultan Bāyezīd’s campaign against Malatia and Erzinjan, Līzaqōs and his brothers are with the army. Līzaqōs, having suffered many hardships and difficulties in these two campaigns, on his return renounces his office and asks for a diploma of exemption (müsellemlik ḥükmü) for himself and for his brothers. When Sultan Bāyezīd learns that they are of Seljuk origin, he grants them the privilege. Līzaqōs dies at Zikhna as a monk. ‘His brothers and their sons are still nowadays at Zikhna and pay neither kharāj (here: poll-tax) nor onda (tithe). Recently they have secured the renewal of their diploma. One of them is called Dīmitrī Sulṭān, the other Mīkhō Sulṭān. That’s all (wa’s-salam).’ [46]

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