The Ahi Brotherhood (, ), referred to as Ahi Republic in modern historiography, was a brotherhood union by Ahi Evran in

Anatolia Anatolia (), also known as Asia Minor, is a peninsula in West Asia that makes up the majority of the land area of Turkey. It is the westernmost protrusion of Asia and is geographically bounded by the Mediterranean Sea to the south, the Aegean ...

(around present-day

Ankara Ankara is the capital city of Turkey and List of national capitals by area, the largest capital by area in the world. Located in the Central Anatolia Region, central part of Anatolia, the city has a population of 5,290,822 in its urban center ( ...

) in the 13th and 14th centuries.

Etymology

The traditional explanation for the name "Ahi" is that it is the Turkish pronunciation of the

Arabic Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...

word "akhi", meaning "my brother". Another possibility is from an early Turkish word ''aqi'', recorded in Mahmud al-Kashgari's 11th century Turkish dictionary '' Dīwān Lughāt al-Turk'' as meaning "generous, courageous, virtuous". A progression from ''aqi'' to ''akhi'' to ''ahi'' is "entirely consistent with the phonetic development of Anatolian Turkish".

Background

Turkic people Turkic peoples are a collection of diverse ethnic groups of West Asia, West, Central Asia, Central, East Asia, East, and North Asia as well as parts of Europe, who speak Turkic languages.. "Turkic peoples, any of various peoples whose members ...

began settling in

in the second half of the 11th century. But they mainly preferred rural areas. Seljuk government on the other hand encouraged those who preferred a settled life in cities. After the

Mongols Mongols are an East Asian ethnic group native to Mongolia, China ( Inner Mongolia and other 11 autonomous territories), as well as the republics of Buryatia and Kalmykia in Russia. The Mongols are the principal member of the large family o ...

began occupying Khorosan in the early 13th century, people from Khorasan took refuge in Anatolia and the Seljuk government settled some of the newcomers in the cities. So a class of

Muslim Muslims () are people who adhere to Islam, a Monotheism, monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God ...

craftsmen and merchants appeared in the history of Anatolia.

Emergence of Ahis

Ahi Evren, a Muslim preacher came to Anatolia before the

Mongol Mongols are an East Asian ethnic group native to Mongolia, China (Inner Mongolia and other 11 autonomous territories), as well as the republics of Buryatia and Kalmykia in Russia. The Mongols are the principal member of the large family of M ...

invasions in Khorasan. He worked as a leather dealer in

Kayseri Kayseri () is a large List of cities in Turkey, city in Central Anatolia, Turkey, and the capital of Kayseri Province, Kayseri province. Historically known as Caesarea (Mazaca), Caesarea, it has been the historical capital of Cappadocia since anc ...

and began organizing Muslim craftsmen in the cities. This organization was named after him. He moved to

Konya Konya is a major city in central Turkey, on the southwestern edge of the Central Anatolian Plateau, and is the capital of Konya Province. During antiquity and into Seljuk times it was known as Iconium. In 19th-century accounts of the city in En ...

and after Mongol invasions to

Denizli Denizli is a city in Aegean Region, Aegean Turkey, and seat of the province of Denizli Province, Denizli. The city forms the urban part of the districts Merkezefendi and Pamukkale, Denizli, Pamukkale, with a population of 691 783 in 2024. Denizl ...

and Kırşehir where he died.

Ahi as a political power

After the Battle of Kösedağ in 1243, the Seljuks came under the influence of the Ilkhanate Mongols, and during the power vacuum in Anatolia, various tribes or local warlords established their principalities as vassals of Ilkhanids. Ahis in Ankara also saw their chance to declare their semi-independence under Mongol suzerainty towards the end of the century (about 1290). However, Ahi Beylik, unlike the others, was not ruled by a dynasty. It was a religious and commercial fraternity which can be described as a republic not much different from the mercantile republics of the

medieval Europe In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of World history (field), global history. It began with the fall of the West ...

End of Ahi Beylik

In 1354, Ankara was briefly annexed by Orhan Bey of

Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire (), also called the Turkish Empire, was an empire, imperial realm that controlled much of Southeast Europe, West Asia, and North Africa from the 14th to early 20th centuries; it also controlled parts of southeastern Centr ...

(then known as beylik). Although Ahis tried to restore their independence after Orhan’s death, in 1362 Murat I ended the political power of Ahis and they became the part of Ottoman Empire.Prof. Yaşar Yüce-Prof. Ali Sevim: ''Türkiye tarihi Cilt II'', AKDTYKTTK Yayınları, İstanbul, 1991 p 35 In later years, some Ahi leaders even appeared as Ottoman bureaucrats.

References