Bedreddin

▪ Ottoman theologian

byname of  Badr Ad-dīn Ibn Qāḍī Samāwnā  

born Dec. 3, 1358, Samāwnā, Ottoman Empire [Turkey]

died December 1416/20, Sérrai [Greece]

      Ottoman theologian, jurist, and mystic whose social doctrines of communal ownership of property led to a large-scale popular uprising.

      A convert to Ṣūfism (Islāmic mysticism), in 1383 Bedreddin undertook the pilgrimage to Mecca, and, upon his return to Cairo, he was appointed tutor to the Mamlūk crown prince of Egypt. He then traveled as a Ṣūfī missionary throughout Asia Minor. His communalistic doctrines made him a popular preacher, and in 1410 he was appointed a military judge by Mûsa, a claimant to the Ottoman throne. On the defeat of Mûsa in 1413, Bedreddin was banished to the Ottoman city of İznik.

      During his exile Bedreddin further refined his doctrines and maintained contact with a secret society that in 1416 staged a social uprising, of which he became the ideological head. Upon the collapse of the rebellion, he was arrested, and, after a trial of dubious legality, he was convicted and hanged.

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