Al-ʿUṣūr al-Wusṭā 33 (2025): 107-138

Mkrtičʻ Nałaš: 
An Armenian Bishop as Pillar of the Aqquyunlu State? 

Synchronisms in the Armenian and Aqquyunlu History 
of Diyarbakır, 1430–1450 CE

GeorG Leube 
University of Bayreuth

Abstract
Although the fifteenth century CE has commonly been recognized as a crucial saddle period in both the history 
of the Armenian church and the administrative history of the Middle East, which is largely focused on Muslim 
rulers before the Ottoman-Safavid confrontation, the two topics are usually approached separately. To bridge 
this gap, the present contribution examines three pivotal moments in the tenure of the Armenian bishop, 
painter, and poet Mkrtičʻ Nałaš (d. after 1469 CE) in Diyarbakır to argue that his career was inextricably entangled 
with the trajectory of the Aqquyunlu “Turkmen” rulers who were establishing Diyarbakır as a regional center 
at the time. Accordingly, I suggest that we should see the processes of Aqquyunlu state formation as including 
members of the Armenian clerical elite such as Mkrtičʻ Nałaš. 

I propose to use the concept of synchronisms to reflect the joint and entangled agency of multiple 
individuals and interpersonal networks of mobilization and patronage. This concept enables the description 
of entanglements and linkages without attributing primacy to any of the involved parties. I argue that the 
synchronisms linking Mkrtičʻ Nałaš and early Aqquyunlu rulers of Diyarbakır demonstrate that the histories of 
Christian clerical elites and the histories of the Muslim etatist and administrative configurations they inhabited 
must be told together.

Introduction: Synchronisms as a Conceptual Framework in Armenian-“Turkmen” History

Research on the institutional and administrative history of the Near and Middle East during 
the fifteenth century CE is commonly centered on three of the “four thrones” of the fifteenth 
century CE Persophone world.1 Whereas the dynastic or paradynastic political dispensations 

1.  The description of the political landscape of the fifteenth-century CE Near and Middle East as structured 
by “four thrones” (chār takht) is proposed in the late fifteenth-century versified travelogue of Abīwardī, Chār 
takht, ed. Īraj Afshār, Farhang-i Īrān-zamīn 15 (1347/1968): 5–84. See the discussion and conceptual development 
in G. Leube, Relational Iconography: Representational Culture at the Qaraquyunlu and Aqquyunlu Courts 
(853/1449 CE to 907/1501 CE) (Leiden: Brill, 2023), 43–51. For the conceptual framework of the Persophonie, 
see B. Fragner, Die “Persophonie” (Berlin: Das Arabische Buch, 1999). I use the modern name of Diyarbakır 
as an ahistorical container for the various names (Āmid, Amitʻ, etc.) under which the town was known in the 
fifteenth century. I similarly use other modern toponyms, omitting the artificial honorific “Şanlı-” from the 
name of the town of Urfa as a matter of personal taste while retaining the form “Şanlıurfa” as the official name 
of the province (il) centered on this town. Contemporary toponyms of minor locations in modern Turkey are 

© 2025 Georg Leube. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License, 
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of the Mamluks, the Ottomans, and the Timurids have received extensive attention,2 
the fourth “throne,” that of Tabrīz, which was occupied alternately by Qaraquyunlu and 
Aqquyunlu “Turkmen” rulers and courts, has not been analyzed as a case study for the 
emergence of early modern preindustrial statehood. This is largely due to the fragmentation 
of the field and the pertinent sources, which necessitates the sustained integration of 
narrative, epigraphic, numismatic, and diplomatic sources composed in Arabic, Persian, 
Turkic, Armenian, Syriac, and the languages of various western European travelers, which 
must be combined with an acute awareness of their geographical, urbanistic, institutional, 
and scribal contexts.

Accordingly, the pioneering works of Woods,3 Sümer,4 and Aka5 on the Turkmen dynasties 
are centered on the reconstruction of these dynasties’ political histories, supplemented by 
snapshots of the cultural, administrative, and economic circumstances under specific rulers 
at particular times. Carlson offers an overview of the cultural history of Christians within 
the Turkmen realms,6 complementing the established ecclesiastical histories, particularly of 
Armenian Christians,7 during the fifteenth century CE. Although some illustrative instances 
of Syriac Christians’ interaction with Turkmen administrations have also been reconstructed 
in dedicated case studies,8 this research commonly focuses on Christian clerical dignitaries 
navigating relationships with non-Christian overlords.

given in the format toponym / İlçe / İl. The term “Turkmen” is used throughout this article as a shorthand for 
Qaraquyunlu and Aqquyunlu to distinguish these dispensations from other political and social formations that 
have been called Turkmen over the past millennium. For individuals whose names are rendered in various ways 
in different sources, I pragmatically retain one recurring form (qara ʿUthmān, Mkrtičʻ Nałaš) in the main text of 
the article, indicating the transliterated original between parentheses where appropriate. In personal names, I 
differentiate capitalized names from italicized epithets (qara ʿUthmān, uzun Ḥasan) but make an exception in 
the case of Mkrtičʻ Nałaš in deference to established practice. Personal names and toponyms are capitalized in 
transliterated passages irrespective of their treatment in the sources. Dates according to the Armenian calendar 
are indicated as AE, dates according to the Seleucid era given by Syriac sources are labelled AS, dates pertaining 
to the Common Era are labeled CE, and dates without indication of the era pertain to the Islamic lunar calendar. 
For AE dates, I give the precise CE equivalent on first mention and abbreviate to the CE year only on subsequent 
occurrences. The conversion of Islamic and Armenian dates to CE ones assumes that architectural work was 
suspended during the winter season; in cases of doubt I give a sequence of years.

2.  For a survey of the current state of research on fifteenth-century CE statehood in the Islamic Near and 
Middle East, see the contributions in J. van Steenbergen, ed., Trajectories of State Formation across Fifteenth-
Century Islamic West-Asia: Eurasian Parallels, Connections and Divergences (Leiden: Brill, 2020).

3.  J. E. Woods, The Aqquyunlu: Clan, Confederation, Empire, rev. ed. (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 
1999).

4.  F. Sümer, Kara Koyunlular: Başlangıçtan Cihan-Şah’a kadar (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu Basımevi, 1967).
5.  İ. Aka, İran’da Türkmen Hâkimiyeti (Kara Koyunlular Devri) (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu Basımevi, 2001).
6.  T. A. Carlson, Christianity in Fifteenth-Century Iraq (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018).
7.  See, for instance, M. Ōrmanean, Hayocʻ ekełecʻin (repr. Buenos Aires: Tparan “Ararat,” 1949), 105–10, 
for the reestablishment of an Armenian catholicate within the Turkmen realms at Ēǰmiacin.
8.  See, for instance, T. A. Carlson, “A Light from the ‘Dark Centuries’: Isḥaq Shbadnaya’s Life and Works,” 

Hugoye 14, no. 2 (2011): 191–214, and A. Palmer, “John bar Šayallāh and the Syriac Orthodox Community under 
Aqquyunlu Rule in the Late Fifteenth Century,” in Christians and Muslims in Dialogue in the Islamic Orient of 
the Middle Ages, ed. M. Tamcke, 187–205 (Würzburg: Ergon, 2007).



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This article follows the trajectory of the well-known Armenian Christian bishop, painter, 
and poet Mkrtičʻ Nałaš (ca. 1394–after 1469 CE) to understand how the Aqquyunlu rulers 
qara ʿUthmān (r. until 1435 CE), Ḥamza (r. 1435–1444 CE), and Jahāngīr (r. after 1444 CE) 
negotiated with urban elites in ruling the town of Diyarbakır between 1430 and 1450 CE.9 
This microhistory of the Aqquyunlu management of urban content and discontent through 
fiscal administration and performative networking is interpreted within the context of 
transregional shifts in the institutional and political landscape. So far, these shifts have 
commonly been analyzed from the particularist perspectives of Islamic political or Armenian 
ecclesiastical history. As suggested by an unpublished diplomatic missive sent from Cairo 
to the court of a Timurid prince (see below), the interactions of Aqquyunlu rulers with 
Christian and Muslim elites within their realms were visible and significant for the political 
configurations of the Islamic world on a transregional scale. I explore this transregional 
dimension to reconstruct and contextualize the local activities of Aqquyunlu rulers and 
Muslim and Christian elites in Diyarbakır.

In this regard, the present study builds on the important research tradition focused on 
reconstructing “enclaves” of Armenian political autonomy, commonly described as fiefdoms 
led by dynastic concatenations of local rulers (išxan, melik) in the fifteenth century CE and 
beyond. This tradition includes important contributions by authors such as Bałdasaryan on 
Erzincan,10 Xačʻikyan and Hewsen on the region of Artaz centered on Maku,11 Hewsen on 
the meliks of Siwnikʻ and Arcʻax,12 and Hewsen and Vardanyan on the hereditary lineage 
of catholicoi at Ałtʻamar in Vaspurakan.13 Because these studies rest predominantly on 
Armenian sources, they usually frame the influence of Muslim rulers as external and 
potentially threatening for Armenian political autonomy.

9.  For a similar approach, reading Armenian church history as a source for Islamicate administrative culture 
centered on Muslim rulers before the fifteenth century CE, see the recent work of Z. Pogossian, “Princes, Queens, 
Bishops, Sultans: Seljuks in Syunikʻ and the Rise of the Monastery of Noravankʻ,” Orientalia Christiana Periodica 
89, no. 1 (2023): 207–50.

10.  Ē. M. Bałdasaryan, “Erznkacʻi haykakan išxanutʻyunə XIII–XV darerum,” Lraber Hasarakakan 
Gitutʻyunneri 2 (1970): 36–44.

11.  See the magisterial exploration of the interplay of political autonomy and scholarly and scriptorial 
production by L. [S.] Xačʻikyan, “Artazi haykakan išxanutʻyunə ew corcori dprocʻə,” Banber Matenadarani 11 
(1973): 125–210, as well as the subsequent study by H. H. Simonian, “Armenian Reactions to the Fall of the 
Principality of Maku in 1426,” in Armenian Communities of Persia/Iran, ed. R. G. Hovannisian, 103–36 (Costa 
Mesa, CA: Mazda, 2021).

12.  See the series of articles by R. H. Hewsen: “The Meliks of Eastern Armenia: A Preliminary Study,” Revue 
des études arméniennes 9 (1972): 285–329; “The Meliks of Eastern Armenia II,” Revue des études arméniennes 
10 (1973–74): 281–303; “The Meliks of Eastern Armenia III,” Revue des études arméniennes 11 (1975–76): 219–43; 
and “The Meliks of Eastern Armenia IV: The Siwnid Origin of Xačʻatur Abovean,” Revue des études arméniennes 
14 (1980): 459–70.

13.  See the groundbreaking study of R. H. Hewsen, “Artsrunid House of Sefedinian: Survival of a Princely 
Dynasty in Ecclesiastical Guise,” Journal of the Society for Armenian Studies 1 (1984): 123–40, as well as the 
detailed study exploring the deployment of illuminated manuscripts as mediums of elite self-representation by 
Zakʻaria III in the mid-fifteenth century: E. Vardanyan, “Un maštocʻ d’ordination et de sacre royal du XVe siècle,” 
Revue des études arméniennes 29 (2003–4): 167–231.



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Conceptually, this article builds on the observation that three crucial turning points 
in the biographical trajectory of Mkrtičʻ Nałaš’s tenure as Armenian Christian bishop 
and archbishop of Diyarbakır between 1430 and 1450 CE coincide chronologically with 
critical junctures in Aqquyunlu rule over Diyarbakır and the political and ecclesiastical 
configurations of wider eastern Anatolia. I do not believe that these chronological nexuses 
joining Islamicate political and Christian ecclesiastical history with the urban history of 
Diyarbakır reflect the agency of a single actor or network. Rather, they are synchronisms.14 
The chronological coincidence of local and transregional developments reflects the 
entanglement of multiple local and transregional interpersonal networks. I thus use the 
concept of synchronisms to recognize connections without attributing decisive explanatory 
power to the agency of any of the involved individuals or networks. The use of this concept 
resonates with a presentation of (calendrical) synchronisms that concludes the critical 
appraisal of Armenian Christian autonomy from Latin Christianity signed by Mkrtičʻ Nałaš 
himself.15

The three synchronisms reconstructed in the present article are the foundation of the 
church of Saint Mary at the fortress of Ergani in 1433 CE in the presence of qara ʿUthmān, 
the foundation and subsequent demolition of the cathedral of Diyarbakır after 1442 CE 
under his son Ḥamza, and the restoration of the cathedral during the tenure of Ḥamza’s 
nephew and son-in-law Jahāngīr in 1447 CE. I have identified these junctures on the basis 
of two Armenian commemorative notes (hišatakaranner or yišatakaranner), which were 
produced in 898 AE (November 29, 1448—November 28, 1449 CE) and have been edited by 
Xačʻikyan in his monumental collection of commemorative notes dating to the fifteenth 
century CE. As I will argue in greater detail below, the two texts share with other Armenian 
and Muslim sources from the same period and area an acute awareness of the significance 
of architectural patronage in the performative establishment of Armenian Christian 
clerical elites in Diyarbakır and its surroundings. Accordingly, I contend that highly visible 
Armenian Christian interventions in the built environment of Diyarbakır and the nearby 
fortress of Ergani manifest moments of significant collaboration between Mkrtičʻ Nałaš and 
the Aqquyunlu rulers qara ʿUthmān, Ḥamza, and Jahāngīr.

In addressing this manifestation of Armenian–Turkmen interlacement in the 
architectural patronage of churches, previous scholarship has focused on the motivations 

14.  See the discussion in H. Jordheim, “Synchronizing the World: Synchronism as Historiographical Practice, 
Then and Now,” History of the Present 7, no. 1 (2017): 59–95.

15.  The full text of Mkrtičʻ Nałaš’s Response to the Letters of the Latin Christians is edited in Ē. Xondkaryan, 
Mkrtičʻ Nałaš (Erevan: Haykakan SSṘ GA Hratarakčʻutʻyun, 1965), 192–97. The concluding synchronisms and 
poem are also included in the monumental work of L. S. Xačʻikyan, ŽE dari hayeren jeṙagreri hišatakaranner 
(Erevan: Haykakan SSṘ [vol. 3: SSH] Gitutʻyunneri Akademiayi Hratarakčʻutʻyun, 1955–67), 1:464–65. For the 
other contents of this miscellany, formerly held at the monastery of Lim on the eponymous island in Lake 
Van, see G. Hovsepʻyan (as Garegin c. Vardapet), “Mkrtičʻ Nałaši tʻułtʻə Florencʻioy žołovi aṙtʻiw,” Ararat 5–6 
[title page: 3–4] (1916): 413–17, at 415–16. The latest entry in this list appears to be item (e), a “commemorative 
note” (yišatakaran) including biographical information in the hand of the late nineteenth-century CE scholar Ł. 
vardapet Pʻirłalēmean, incipit “I, Łeond” (Es Łeond), immediately following Mkrtičʻ Nałaš’s Response. For him, 
see A. Melkʻonyan, “Łevond Vardapet Pirłalemyani garcuneutʻyunə ew grakan žaṙangutʻyan xndirə (Norahayt 
Inkʻnakensagrakani Aṙtʻiv),” Banber Matenadarani 30 (2020): 408–20.



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of Muslim Turkmen rulers to “permit” the (re)construction of Christian sites of worship.16 
This approach brings together various instances in which Christian sites of worship were 
rebuilt under Muslim rulers during the fifteenth century CE and beyond, but it arguably 
conflates the very diverse motivations of Christian patrons by taking their interest in 
building for granted. By contrast, the present contribution suggests that the reasons that 
led Mkrtičʻ Nałaš to (re)build some of the most prominent monuments in his province 
reflect specific junctures in his own career. Similarly, the detailed reconstruction of three 
synchronisms undertaken in this article serves as a caution against homogenizing the very 
specific contexts and circumstances within which Muslim rulers negotiated monumental 
architectural patronage inside their realms.

In addition, the foundation inscription of the church of Saint Mary within the fortress of 
Ergani, reconstructed below, states explicitly that the foundation took place “according to 
the order of qara ʿUthmān” (hramanaw Awtʻman xanin). The wording reflects the common 
structure of Arabic monumental epigraphy commemorating architectural patronage in 
the name of the ruler at defensive structures and Muslim sites of worship in the Turkmen 
realms. Such inscriptions commonly begin with the Arabic equivalent of this phrase 
(amara bi-[verbal noun denoting construction], “[the ruler] ordered [construction of this 
project]”).17 The parallelism of epigraphic templates in Armenian and Arabic calls into 
question the established assumption that a Muslim ruler should be intrinsically motivated to 
construct mosques and to restrict the building of churches. Instead, we may ask whether the 
commission of monumental architecture within the realm of a given ruler was structured 
by a supracommunitarian framework of expectations concerning the obligations of the 
ruler and the ruled. Therefore, the dominant opposition is not necessarily one of Muslims 
against non-Muslims, but possibly one of the ruler against the (homogenized) subjects. Of 
course, this does not negate the strong likelihood that the expectations and experiences of 
these subjects differed according to their religious affiliations and social status.

Subsequent research may well clarify these and similar questions. For now, this essay 
uses the concept of synchronisms to avoid overstating the significance of the religious 
opposition between Muslim Aqquyunlu rulers and the Armenian Christian elites within 
their realm.

The Beginnings of Aqquyunlu Rule in Diyarbakır, 1400–1433 CE, and the Advent of Mkrtičʻ Nałaš

To contextualize the entanglement of Aqquyunlu and Armenian clerical elites in and around 
Diyarbakır during the tenure of Mkrtičʻ Nałaš, we need to reconstruct their respective 
historical trajectories, leading to the first synchronism of 1433 CE. The present section 

16.  In addition to the relevant sections of Carlson, Christianity, 63–68, see the discussion of the building and 
rebuilding of Syriac orthodox churches during the second half of the fifteenth century CE in Palmer, “John bar 
Šayallāh,” 192–93 and 199–202.

17.  Among extant Arabic inscriptions in Aqquyunlu Diyarbakır, see, for instance, inscription 861 Diyarbakır 
(amara bi-ʿamal hādhā al-tajdīd, commemorating architectural patronage, possibly of the water infrastructure 
of the town, on the inner face of the city wall) and inscription 874 Diyarbakır (amara bi-ʿamalihī, on the prayer 
hall of the great mosque) as edited in B. Konyar, Diyarbekir Tarihi (Ankara: Ulus Basımevi, 1936), 2:144–45.



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summarizes the first three decades of Aqquyunlu rule over Diyarbakır and provides 
an overview of Mkrtičʻ Nałaš’s career until his appointment to this town in 1430 CE. 
Methodologically, this section proceeds through a close reading of sources representing 
various genres and mediums, offering some methodological observations that underpin the 
subsequent parts of the article.

According to the authoritative reconstruction of Woods, Aqquyunlu rule over Diyarbakır 
began during Timur’s third campaign to Anatolia in 1400 CE, when Timur invested Ibrāhīm, 
a son of his Aqquyunlu ally qara ʿUthmān, with control of the city in recognition of his 
military prowess.18 Although Ibrāhīm b. qara ʿUthmān died in battle while defending 
Diyarbakır in the army of his father against a Mamluk invasion in 1407 CE,19 he may 
conceivably be commemorated by a small mosque now known as İbrahim Bey Mescidi off 
Dabanoğlu Sokak in the northeastern quadrant of Diyarbakır.20

Few sources describe the period of Aqquyunlu rule over Diyarbakır between the death 
of Ibrāhīm b. qara ʿUthmān in 1407 CE and the first synchronism linking qara ʿUthmān 
and Mkrtičʻ Nałaš in Diyarbakır and Ergani in 1433 CE.21 Nonetheless, the occupation of 
Çemişgezek to the west of Diyarbakır in 826/1423 CE and that of Silvan and Tercil to its east 
in 827/1424 CE signal the ongoing consolidation of qara ʿUthmān’s rule over the environs 
of Diyarbakır, which reached a preliminary conclusion with the appropriation of Harput in 
832/1429 CE and Mardin in 835/1432 CE.22

The period between 1430 and 1433 CE was overshadowed by the military conflict between 
qara ʿUthmān and his erstwhile Mamluk overlords following the former’s occupation 

18.  Woods, Aqquyunlu, 41, following Ṭihrānī, Kitāb-i Diyārbakriyya, ed. N. Lugal and F. Sümer (Ankara: Türk 
Tarih Kurumu Basımevi, 1962–64), 48.

19.  Woods, Aqquyunlu, 45.
20.  For this mosque, see Ş. Beysanoğlu, Anıtları ve Kitâbeleri ile Diyarbakır Tarihi (repr. Ankara: MN Tanıtım, 

1996), 463–64; Ş. Beysanoğlu, Kısaltılmış Diyarbakır Tarihi ve Âbideleri (Istanbul: Şehir Matbaası, 1963), 140; 
M. Sözen, Diyarbakır’da Türk Mimarisi (Istanbul: Gün Matbaası, 1971), 117–19; and M. Sözen, Anadolu’da 
Akkoyunlu Mimarisi (Istanbul: Türkiye Turing ve Otomobil Kurumu, 1981), 112–14, as well as the plan given 
by C. Parla, “Diyarbakır Surları ve Kent Tarihi,” Orta Doğu Teknik Üniversitesi Mimarlık Fakültesi Dergisi 22, 
no. 1 (2005): 57–84, at 75. A waqf sustaining this mosque is mentioned in the list in Ş. Beysanoğlu (as A. Şevket 
Kavut), “Diyarbakırda Vakıflar,” Karacadağ 2, no. 19 (1939): 17–19, at 18. Although this mosque is commonly 
dated to the period of Aqquyunlu rule, it does not display any foundation inscription. The Ibrāhīm to whom it 
is conventionally attributed—a nephew (yeğen) of the later Aqquyunlu ruler Qāsim—is a phantom not attested 
by any fifteenth-century CE source. A brother of Qāsim named Ibrāhīm is mentioned in Konyar, Diyarbekir, 
1:212. This brother is, however, not mentioned in any of the narratives set in late Aqquyunlu Diyarbakır in the 
sixteenth-century CE Ottoman hagiography of Gulshanī, Manāqib-i Ibrāhīm Gulshanī, ed. T. Yazıcı (Ankara: 
Türk Tarih Kurumu Basımevi, 1982), 272–85, or in the historical reconstructions of late Aqquyunlu rule over this 
town by R. M. Savory in “The Consolidation of Ṣafawid Power in Persia,“ Der Islam 41 (1965): 71–94, at 75–76, 
and by J.-L. Bacqué-Grammont in “Un ‘Fetîḥnâme’ Ẕû-l-Ḳâdirīde dans les Archives Ottomanes,” Turcica 2 (1970): 
138–50. It thus seems reasonable to attribute the İbrahim Bey Mescidi to the first Aqquyunlu ruler of Diyarbakır, 
Ibrāhīm b. qara ʿUthmān Aqquyunlu.

21.  See Woods, Aqquyunlu, 45–50.
22.  Ibid., 50–52.



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of the citadel of Harput.23 In Shaʿbān 835/1743 AS/April 1432 CE,24 qara ʿUthmān’s son 
Ḥamza succeeded in establishing himself as the governor of Mardin. Although Ibn Ḥajar 
suggests that qara ʿUthmān sent the keys of the citadel to Barsbāy as a token of submission 
and thereby preempted an already planned Mamluk campaign,25 an inscription above 
the entrance connecting the citadel to the town names Shāhrukh as the overlord of qara 
ʿUthmān and Ḥamza.26 This inscription displays the date 835 in the last line and also contains 
a catalog of the Aqquyunlu territories ruled by qara ʿUthmān at this point that runs as 
follows: “He [qara ʿUthmān] rules over well-protected Diyarbakır together with Ergani, 
Urfa, Harput, Tercil, al-Raqqa, Raʾs al-ʿAyn, Savur, Erzincan, Kemah, Çemişgezek, [Şebin-]
Karahisar, *Kazbakh*, and Bayburt.”27 Although differing in some respects from the map of 
qara ʿUthmān’s realm suggested by Woods,28 this catalog clearly shows that qara ʿUthmān 
and his son Ḥamza intended to establish Diyarbakır as a regional center in a consolidated 
realm that included Mardin and its citadel.

The more extensive of the two Armenian sources describing Mkrtičʻ Nałaš’s career 
until 898 AE/1448–49 CE suggests that he was consecrated archbishop of Diyarbakır in 
879 AE (December 4, 1429–December 3, 1430 CE) by the Armenian catholicos Kostandin 
VI Vahkacʻi.29 Mkrtičʻ Nałaš’s presence in Diyarbakır is first attested by a note written in 
the town in 880 AE (December 4, 1430–December 3, 1431 CE) that names him as bishop 
and archbishop.30 As suggested by Stromer von Reichenbach,31 a letter dispatched to King 
(subsequently emperor) Sigismund of Luxembourg in September 1430 CE by qara ʿUthmān 
Aqquyunlu was written in Diyarbakır.32 If Mkrtičʻ Nałaš indeed arrived at his post in or 

23.  Ibid.
24.  For the date, see Ibn Ḥajar, Inbāʾ al-ghumr bi-abnāʾ al-ʿumr, ed. Ḥ. Ḥabashī (Cairo: Majlis al-Aʿlā li-l-

Shuʾūn al-Islāmiyya, Lajnat Iḥyāʾ al-Turāth al-Islāmī, 1972), 3:473, as well as the independent account of one 
of the continuators of Barebraeus, Chronography, facsimile ed. E. A. Wallis Budge (London: Oxford University 
Press, 1932), 195r, col. ii.

25.  Ibn Ḥajar, Inbāʾ al-ghumr, 3:473.
26.  Inscription 835 Mardin. I am currently preparing a full edition of this important source.
27.  Wa-ḥakama ʿalā Āmid al-maḥrūsa wa-Arqanīn wa-l-Ruhā wa-Kharbirt wa-Tarjīl wa-l-Raqqa wa-Raʾs 

al-ʿAyn wa-l-Ṣawr wa-Arzinjān wa-Kamākh wa-Chimishgazak wa-Qarāḥiṣār wa-*KZBKh* wa-Bāyburt.
28.  See Woods, Aqquyunlu, 55. The ommission of Palu and Kiğı may reflect the relative autonomy of the 

lateral branches of qara ʿUthmān’s family ruling there.
29.  Xačʻikyan, ŽE dari, 1:625.
30.  Ibid., 1:403. Mkrtičʻ Nałaš’s arrival in Diyarbakır has recently been discussed on the basis of these 

two notes in A. Sargsyan, “‘Nawd i beracʻ tʻetʻewacʻoy . . .’: Mkrtičʻ Nałašn u Katʻołikosakan Atʻoṙə,” Banber 
Hayagitutʻyan 1, no. 25 (2021): 107–27, at 108–9.

31.  W. Stromer von Reichenbach, “König Siegmunds Gesandte in den Orient,“ in Festschrift für Hermann 
Heimpel, 591–609 (Göttingen: Vandenhoek & Ruprecht, 1972), 597.

32.  For the date of the letter, see W. Stromer von Reichenbach, “Diplomatische Kontakte des Herrschers vom 
Weißen Hammel, Uthman genannt Qara Yuluq, mit dem Deutschen König Sigismund im September 1430–März 
1431 zu gemeinsamem Vorgehen mit dem Timuriden Schah-Ruch gegen die Türken,” Südostforschungen 20 
(1961): 267–72, at 268, and W. Stromer von Reichenbach, “Eine Botschaft des Turkmenenfürsten Qara Yuluq 
an König Sigismund auf dem Nürnberger Reichstag im März 1431,” Jahrbuch für fränkische Landsforschung 
22 (1962): 433–41, at 441. Although not corroborated by any explicit indications, this suggestion was tacitly 



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before September 1430 CE, this date could be posited as the first attested point of personal 
contact between Mkrtičʻ Nałaš and qara ʿUthmān.

To fully realize the potential of the Armenian sources, some methodological observations 
must be made. The first observation concerns the genre of commemorative notes 
(hišatakaranner or yišatakaranner), which encompasses a range of different types of texts. 
Significantly, it includes colophons in the classical sense, as well as notes pertaining to 
other genres that were added during the production of a manuscript or after its completion. 
Consequently, I do not apply the established term “colophons” to all such notes, as it could 
be misleading in comparative contexts, including scribal traditions other than the Armenian 
one. Instead, I use “commemorative notes” to include the variety of notes made accessible 
by the editions of Armenian colleagues.

The second methodological observation concerns the internal structure of these 
Armenian commemorative notes. In the classical introductory discussion of Xačʻikyan as 
continued by the selective translation and commentary of Sanjian, these notes are lumped 
together as products of a decentralized “writing of the oppressed,” evoking the image of 
lone village priests writing either in icy cold or while being devoured by flies.33 By contrast, 
subsequent research has shown not only that “colophons proper” are linked in intertextual 
frameworks of reference and adaptation34 but also that a significant portion of these texts 
pertains to a repertoire of elite self-representation deployed by monastic and other elites.35

Accordingly, Armenian commemorative notes are most valuable if analyzed systematically 
together with other mediums of Armenian Christian elite self-representation in a given time 
and place. The latter could include monumental epigraphy, performative interactions with 
Muslim and non-Muslim power brokers, or architectural patronage. If we trace the places of 
production of manuscript notes mentioning Mkrtičʻ Nałaš between 1430 and 1450 CE, we can 
discern a spatial cluster of Armenian clerical and monastic foundations that recognized the 
authority of the Armenian archbishop of Diyarbakır. In addition to Diyarbakır itself, these 
localities include the monastery of Erkan36 in modern-day Geçimli/Hozat /Tunceli,37 the 

accepted by Woods in Aqquyunlu, 57, and appears plausible.
33.  A. K. Sanjian, Colophons of Armenian Manuscripts, 1301–1480 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 

1969), 9–29. For a pathbreaking synthetic discussion of the material contained in his edition, see Xačʻikyan, ŽE 
dari, 1:vii–lxvi and 2:vii–cxxxvi. See also the magisterial analysis of the genre of Armenian commemorative 
notes by X. A. Harutʻyunyan in Hayeren jeṙagreri hišatakarannerə (Erevan: Matenadaran Maštocʻi Anvan Hin 
Jeṙagreri Institut, 2019).

34.  See E. van Elverdinghe, Modèles et copies: Étude d’une formule des colophons de manuscrits arméniens, 
VIIIe–XIXe siècles (Louvain: Peeters, 2022), as well as the description of structural features across the tradition 
of Armenian commemorative notes in A. Sirinian, “On the Historical and Literary Value of the Colophon in 
Armenian Manuscripts,” in Armenian Philology in the Modern Era, ed. V. Calzolari, 65–100 (Leiden: Brill, 2014), 
and the case study of A. Sirinian, “Towards a Structural Analysis of Armenian Colophons,” Comparative Oriental 
Manuscript Studies Bulletin 8, no. 1 (2022): 91–120.

35.  For an exemplary study of the use of commemorative notes together with other genres and mediums by 
Zakʻaria III of Ałtʻamar, see Vardanyan, “Maštocʻ,” 167–231.

36.  I consistently use the modern name of Erkan in this article instead of the differing forms of the toponym 
as given by the Armenian sources.

37.  For this monastery, see J. M. Thierry, “Le couvent Erkayn Ǝnkuzikʻ en Dersim,” Revue des études 



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monastery of Karmir Vankʻ at Gözlüçayır/Çemişgezek/Tunceli,38 the important monastery and 
church of Saint Mary established by Mkrtičʻ Nałaš himself at the citadel of Ergani/Diyarbakır 
that will be discussed in greater detail below, Mardin, and (attested by a lone Armenian 
manuscript) Siverek/Urfa.39 Roughly the same area is indicated by a commemorative note 
written by Mkrtičʻ Nałaš as the illuminator of a gospel manuscript that was probably produced 
around 1449 CE.40 Here, Mkrtičʻ Nałaš signs as “the bishop of the town of Diyarbakır, Mardin, 
Urfa, Tʻilkuran, Hani, and Ergani,”41 which again closely corresponds to the southern half of 
the area ruled in the name of Aqquyunlu rulers in this period.42

arméniennes 20 (1986–87): 381–417; for its decoration, see also M. Kulaz and İ. İgit, “Tunceli-Hozat Geçimli Köyü 
(Erkayn-Enkuzik) Kilisesi Taş Süsleme Örnekleri,” Van Yüzüncü Yıl Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü Dergisi 
44 (2019): 239–71. The discursive negotiation of memories of twentieth-century CE genocide and mass killings 
in Dersim at this locality is evocatively reconstructed in A. Törne, “‘On the Grounds Where They Will Walk 
in a Hundred Years’ Time’: Struggling with the Heritage of Violent Past in Post-genocidal Tunceli,” European 
Journal of Turkish Studies 20 (2015), online, at paras. 28–38.

38.  [J.] M. Thierry, Répertoire des monastères arméniens (Turnhout: Brepols, 1993), 84.
39.  Xačʿikyan, ŽE dari, 1:471. Although not strictly within the period between 1430 and 1450 CE, a connection 

between Mkrtičʿ Nałaš and the important monastery of Awagvankʿ near Kemah is implied by the indication 
in Xačʿikyan, ŽE dari, 1:632, that a manuscript containing illuminations and a commemorative note in the 
hand of Mkrtičʿ Nałaš, evidently written in Diyarbakır, was held at Awagvankʿ in 900 AE (November 29, 1450–
November 28, 1451 CE). For a more extensive version of the same note, see Xondkaryan, Mkrtičʿ Nałaš, 187–91. 
For the monastery of Awagvankʿ, see Thierry, Répertoire, 33, as well as J.-M. Thierry, “Le Mont Sepuh: Étude 
archéologique,” Revue des études arméniennes 21 (1988): 385–449, at 409–17.

40.  The manuscript featuring this note was dated to 1418–22 CE by B. Sargisean, Mayr cʻucʻak hayerēn jeṙagracʻ 
matenadaranin Mxitʻareancʻ i Venetik (Venice: S. Łazar, 1914), 115. Xačʿikyan, ŽE dari, 1:292, includes the note 
written by Mkrtičʿ Nałaš together with other notes in the same manuscript under the year 871 AE/1421–22 
CE. This is chronologically impossible, as Mkrtičʿ Nałaš had not yet been appointed to Diyarbakır at this time. 
I suggest 898 AE/1448–49 CE as a very approximate terminus ad quem, before the cataclysmic Qaraquyunlu 
invasion of 1450 CE and toward the zenith of Mkrtičʿ Nałaš’s career.

41.  Mkrtičʿ [. . .] episkopos Amitʿ kʿałakʿi ew Mertənay, Uṙhayu ew Tʿilkurna, Hinu ew Arłnu; Xačʿikyan, 
ŽE dari, 1:292. See also the more extensive edition of the same passage in Xondkaryan, Mkrtičʿ Nałaš, 190, 
and the edition of this note contained in the authoritative catalog of Sargisean, Cʿucʿak, 115. The toponym of 
Tʿilkuran is also mentioned in the historical note by Davitʿ of Mardin as Tʿilguran; see V. A. Hakobyan, Manr 
žamanakagrutʿyunner, XIII–XVIII dari (Erevan: Haykakan SSṘ Gitutʿyunneri Akademiayi Hratarakčʻutʿyun, 
1951–56), 2:210, and N. Połarean, Mayr cʿucʿak jeṙagracʿ srbocʿ Yakobeancʿ (Jerusalem: Tparan Srbocʿ Yakobeancʿ, 
1966–91), 4:324. It also appears in the Persian Aqquyunlu court chronicle of Ṭihrānī, Diyārbakriyya, 233, as Tall-i 
Gabrān, literally “hill of the unbelievers.” According to Sevan Nişanyan’s Index Anatolicus, the toponym refers 
to the contemporary village of Uzunyol/Harran/Şanlıurfa. The tell or höyük to which the fifteenth-century 
CE village owed its name is clearly visible in satellite images on Google Maps. An Armenian settlement at this 
location in the fifteenth century CE is indicated by the name of a certain Šahrman Tʿilkurancʿi, who is named 
as contributing decisively to the rebuilding of the cathedral of Diyarbakır in 1447 CE (Xačʿikyan, ŽE dari, 1:629; 
see below), and of the Armenian patriarch at Cilicia, Hovhannēs Tʿlkurancʿi, who assumed office in 1489 CE. For 
Hin as the name of Hani/Diyarbakır, see the travelogue of a Mamluk envoy to Aqquyunlu Tabrīz in 1471 CE: “I 
asked the inhabitants of this town for its name and some said it was Ḥayn while others said it was ʿAyn, [. . .] and 
some said it was Hayn.” See Ibn Ajā, Taʾrīkh al-Amīr Yashbak, ed. ʿA. A. Ṭulaymāt (Cairo: Dār al-Fikr al-ʿArabī, 
1973), 98. In light of the Armenian form of Hin written by Mkrtičʻ Nałaš, it may be worth considering whether 
the unvocalized Arabic rasm of Ibn Ajā’s report should be interpreted as indicating a vernacular ē as in Ḥēn, ʿĒn, 
and Hēn.

42.  Woods, Aqquyunlu, 55 and 72; cf. Sargsyan, “Mkrtičʻ,” 111–14.

https://www.nisanyanyeradlari.com/


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Across this regional cluster, some eighteen notes written during the twenty years 
between 1430 and 1450 CE are included in Xačʻikyan’s edition, all but one of which name 
either Mkrtičʻ Nałaš or his counterpart Aṙakʻel of Bitlis at the monastery of Erkan (see 
below).43 This wealth of attestations contrasts with the one note written in Diyarbakır in 
874 AE (December 5, 1424–December 4, 1425 CE)44 and the two notes written in Mardin 
in 875 AE (December 5, 1425–December 4, 1426 CE),45 which constitute the sole surviving 
texts written in this area over the preceding thirty years between 1400 and 1430 CE. To 
be sure, this contrast may reflect the vagaries of manuscript survival, and the appearance 
of further manuscript notes in the future may well change the picture. But according to 
the preliminary database of notes consulted for this article, the period between 1430 and 
1450 CE appears to have witnessed an expanded production of Armenian manuscripts and 
manuscript notes across the Aqquyunlu holdings centered on Diyarbakır compared with the 
period between 1400 and 1430 CE. 

In addition to sites such as Ergani and Diyarbakır that were administered directly by 
Mkrtičʻ Nałaš himself, a significant number of the manuscript notes within this regional 
cluster acknowledging the authority of Mkrtičʻ Nałaš and the Aqquyunlu rulers of Diyarbakır 
are linked to the monastic community of Erkan.46 All of these were written between 880 
and 884 AE (December 4, 1430–December 2, 1435 CE) and attest to a refoundation of the 
monastic community led by Aṙakʻel of Bitlis in or immediately before 880 AE/1430–31 CE 
(i norašēn anapatis [. . . , of Erkan] i tʻvakanis hayocʻ 880).47 This evidence shows that the 

43.  Xačʻikyan, ŽE dari, 1:292 [sub anno 871 AE following the colophon of the manuscript but evidently written 
around 1449 CE], 403–6, 408–9, 426, 439–40, 442–43, 449–50, 458, 464–65, 466, 471–72, 492, 575–76, 589–90, 622–31, 
632, and 634–36 [not naming any bishop or catholicos]. Pace the suggestion of the index in Xačʻikyan, ŽE dari, 
1:805, the locality of Ǝnkuzeacʻ anapat mentioned in the commemorative note written in 883 AE (December 3, 
1433–December 2, 1434 CE) and edited in Xačʻikyan, ŽE dari, 1:442, must be identified with the monastery of 
Erkan in the village of Geçimli/Hozat/Tunceli. This is confirmed by the note’s reference to the joint dedication 
of the church of Erkan to Saints Mary and John the Precursor, by the reference to nearby Çemişgezek, and the 
leadership of the monastic community at this location by Aṙakʻēl of Bitlis. In a conference presentation in 2018, 
A Saratikyan suggested that the Kotʻipʻoroy Vankʻ proposed by Xačʻikyan (ŽE dari, 1:805) as the location where 
this note was written should be identified with an archeological site near the contemporary village of Kotʻi in 
Tavuš Province in modern Armenia. The importance of her identification of this site for other manuscripts 
notwithstanding, the arguments presented above conclusively demonstrate that this cannot be the same 
Ǝnkuzeacʻ anapat that is mentioned in the commemorative note. I thank Dr. Saratikyan for discussing the 
identification with me by email.

44.  Xačʻikyan, ŽE dari, 1:344.
45.  Ibid., 1:354 and 358.
46.  Xačʻikyan, ŽE dari, 1:408, 426, 442, 449–50, and 458.
47.  My citation of the earliest note follows the edition of Połarean, Cʻucʻak, 1:128; cf. Thierry, “Erkayn 

Ǝnkuzikʻ,” 392–95 and 399. The first part of this note, including the reference to the newly established 
monastery, is also preserved in a later miscellany (žołovacu) edited by Połarean, Cʻucʻak, 8:46. Note that the 
same description of the monastery as newly reestablished (norašēn) also appears in a different commemorative 
note in the same manuscript that is dated to 884 AE (December 3, 1434–December 2, 1435 CE); see Połarean, 
Cʻucʻak, 1:128. Therefore, the reestablishment may have predated the year 880 AE/1430–31 CE. For Aṙakʻel of 
Bitlis, see also S. P. Cowe, “Aṙakʻel Bałišecʻi,” in Christian-Muslim Relations: A Bibliographical History, vol. 5, 
1350–1500, ed. D. Thomson, A. Mallett, et al., 346–50 (Leiden: Brill, 2013).



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revival of Armenian manuscript production and religious architecture led by Mkrtičʻ Nałaš 
was centered on the metropolis (mayrakʻałakʻ) of Diyarbakır and its military backstop at the 
citadel of Ergani, as well as the subordinate center of Erkan.48 Within the early Aqquyunlu 
realm, the location of Erkan in today’s Geçimli/Hozat/Tunceli marks the nexus between 
the southern center of Diyarbakır, ruled directly by qara ʿUthmān and his sons, and the 
northern center of Erzincan. Aqquyunlu control over this crucial overland route was 
consolidated with the occupation of the citadel of Harput in 832/1429 CE.49 Accordingly, the 
arrival of Mkrtičʻ Nałaš and Aṙakʻel of Bitlis at Diyarbakır and Erkan, respectively, followed 
immediately upon the consolidation of Aqquyunlu rule over the area.

Mkrtičʻ Nałaš and Aṙakʻel of Bitlis assumed leadership of Diyarbakır and Erkan in or 
shortly before 1430 CE, and their biographies can usefully be compared with one another. 
Although this point is made explicitly only in connection with Mkrtičʻ Nałaš,50 it seems that 
the simultaneous appointment of the two men was a strategic move by the newly elected 
Armenian catholicos Kostandin VI Vahkacʻi, who assumed office in 1429 CE, to revive 
Armenian clerical foundations within the Aqquyunlu realm.51 As already mentioned, this 
period was overshadowed by military conflict between qara ʿUthmān Aqquyunlu and the 
Mamluk overlords of the Cilician Armenian catholicate. Consequently, the amiable expansion 
of Kostandin’s influence across the southern Aqquyunlu realm cannot be explained as the 
result of friendly relations between the Mamluks and qara ʿUthmān.52 Although the citadel 

48.  For the necessity of emending the toponym read by Xačʻikyan as Arzn to Arłn/Ergani, see the discussion 
of the foundation of the monastery and church of Saint Mary in 1433 CE below.

49.  Woods, Aqquyunlu, 50–52.
50.  Xačʻikyan, ŽE dari, 1:625.
51.  For the date, see Ōrmanean, Hayocʻ ekełecʻin, 271.
52.  For a Mamluk fiscal decree commemorating a strategic collaboration between Mamluk rulers and 

Armenian Christian clergy in the mid-fifteenth century CE, see P. Bourjekian, “The Mamluk Inscription of the 
St. James Armenian Monastery inside the Armenian Quarter of the Old City, Jerusalem,” Journal of the Society 
for Armenian Studies 22 (2016): 239–51.

Fig. 1. 
The Aqquyunlu 

realms and their 
surroundings, 
ca. 1430–50 CE 



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Mkrtičʻ Nałaš: An Armenian Bishop as Pillar of the Aqquyunlu State?     •  118

above the catholicate at Sīs was commonly ruled by a governor appointed directly by the 
Mamluk sultan,53 the Ramaḍānid beylik in the Cilician plain to the south of Sīs clearly 
enjoyed some sort of local autonomy. In the absence of any clear Mamluk motivation to 
support the revival of Armenian clerical infrastructure in the southern Aqquyunlu realm at 
this time, it appears that Kostandin’s appointment of Mkrtičʻ Nałaš and Aṙakʻel of Bitlis was 
driven by his own aims and ambitions.

Before leading the monastic community at Erkan, Aṙakʻel of Bitlis is well attested as 
one of the closest students of Grigor Cerencʻ, the well-known Armenian author of versified 
histories and bishop of Arckē/Adilcevaz, who died on May 27, 874 AE/1425 CE.54 A note 
written by Aṙakʻel in 871 AE (December 6, 1421–December 5, 1422 CE) places him at the 
monastery of Aṙakʻelocʻ Vankʻ (Łazaru Vankʻ) near Kepenek/Merkez/Muş.55 As indicated by 
his cognomen, Bałišecʻi, he originally hailed from the town of Bitlis, specifically from the 
nearby village of Poṙ (today’s Değirmenaltı/Merkez/Bitlis), where Mkrtičʻ Nałaš also grew 
up.56 By contrast, no reference to the monastic foundation at Erkan or any ties between this 
area and Aṙakʻel himself is known from the period before 1430 CE. It thus appears likely that 
Kostandin appointed Aṙakʻel as an “up-and-coming” candidate who hailed from the region 
around Lake Van, which was traditionally oriented toward the rival catholicate at Ałtʻamar 
and/or the anti-Uniate alliance centered on the monastery of Mecopʻ near Erciş/Van.57 
Politically, this region was dominated by Qaraquyunlu and Rūzakī Kurdish dispensations at 
the time.58 Aṙakʻel’s appointment to the leadership of the reconstituted monastic community 

53.  For the occupation of the fortress at Sīs by the Dulghādirid/Dhū al-Qādirid ruler shāh Suwār as one of 
the reasons for the military escalation between shāh Suwār and his Mamluk overlords in the 870s/1460s–1470s 
CE, see the eyewitness account of the negotiation conducted with shāh Suwār in Ibn Ajā, Taʾrīkh, 90, as well 
as the subsequent eyewitness description of the fortress at 132. For the military role of Sīs within the Mamluk 
defensive system in Cilicia, see S. Har-El, Struggle for Domination in the Middle East: The Ottoman-Mamluk War, 
1485–91 (Leiden: Brill, 1995), 51–52. For the factual autonomy of the Ramaḍānid and Dulghādirid vassals of the 
Mamluks in the 1430s and 1450s CE, see also V. Adriaenssens and J. van Steenbergen, “Mamluk Authorities and 
Anatolian Realities: Jānibak al-Ṣūfī, Sultan al-Ashraf Barsbāy, and the Story of a Social Network in the Mamluk/
Anatolian Frontier Zone, 1435–1438,” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 26, no. 4 (2016), 591–630, and M. 
Dekkiche, “Crossing the Line: Mamluk Response to Qaramanid Threat in the Fifteenth Century according to MS 
ar. 4440 (BnF, Paris),” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 80, no. 2 (2017): 253–81.

54.  Xačʻikyan, ŽE Dari, 1:293–94 and 333–34. A biography of Grigor Cerencʻ is given in Tʻovma Mecopʻecʻi, 
Patmagrutʻyun, ed. L. [S.] Xačʻikyan (Erevan: Magałatʻ, 1999), 60–62; see also H. Ačaryan, Hayocʻ anjnanunneri 
baṙaran (Erevan: Petakan Hamalsarani Hratarakčʻutʻyun, 1942–62), 1:608–10.

55.  Xačʻikyan, ŽE dari, 1:293.
56.  Thierry, “Erkayn Ǝnkuzikʻ,” 394.
57.  For the healing of the schism between the catholicates of Ałtʻamar and Sīs, see Hewsen, “Sefedinian,” 

125–26.
58.  For the numismatic evidence of coins minted before 1429 CE in the name of Iskandar Qaraquyunlu at 

Bitlis, Erciş, Gevaş/Wasṭān, and Adilcevaz, see S. Album, “A Hoard of Silver Coins from the Time of Iskandar 
Qarā-Qoyūnlū,” Numismatic Chronicle 7, no. 16 (1976): 109–57, at 141–42 and 144. The political impact of Rūzakī 
rulers centered on Bitlis is traceable mainly through Armenian commemorative notes; see the methodological 
evaluation of T. A. Sinclair in “The Use of Colophons and Minor Chronicles in the Writing of Armenian and 
Turkish History,” Journal of the Society for Armenian Studies 10 (2000): 45–53, at 47–48, and in “The Armenians 
and the Kurdish Emirs of Bitlis under the Kara Koyunlu,” in Armenian Baghesh/Bitlis and Taron/Mush, ed. 
R. G. Hovannisian, 155–74 (Costa Mesa, CA: Mazda, 2001). For the principality of Hakkari, see A. Xačʻatryan 
[Khachatrian], “The Kurdish Principality of Hakkariya (14th–15th Centuries),” Iran and the Caucasus 7, no. 1–2 



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at Erkan decisively advanced his career. His initial authority and acceptance as leader 
must have depended on his endorsement by Kostandin VI and his ability to establish good 
relations with the Aqquyunlu rulers and other power brokers in the region.

By contrast, the interpersonal networks sustaining the early career of Mkrtičʻ Nałaš are 
less clear, as much of the information we have about his career before his appointment 
at Diyarbakır is contained in two commemorative notes penned by himself. Because of 
the loss of the original manuscript, the first of these notes survives only in the edition of 
Pʻirłalēmean, who consulted the manuscript in Van in 1868 CE.59 This note is dated 867 AE 
(December 7, 1417–December 6, 1418 CE) and likely constituted the colophon proper of a 
menology (yaysmawurkʻ) copied by Mkrtičʻ Nałaš in his home village of Poṙ near Bitlis.60 
As attested by other notes, his father was named Aṙakʻel;61 the father does not appear to be 
mentioned anywhere else.62 The second note is found in a Bible manuscript from Ahlat that 
was begun in 867 AE/1417–18 CE and completed in 871 AE/1421–22 CE.63 In this undated note, 
Mkrtičʻ Nałaš suggests that he contributed to the manuscript as an illuminator (całkoł).64 His 
skill as an illuminator also motivated his subsequent choice of the Persophone pen name 
(takhalluṣ) Nałaš, derived from the Arabic and Persian naqqāsh, “painter.”

Although this second note might be interpreted as placing Mkrtičʻ Nałaš at Ahlat at some 
point during the period specified in the main colophon, it is also possible that he produced 
his contributions to the manuscript somewhere else or even that his illuminations postdate 
the production of the text.65 The works of Tʻovma of Mecopʻ have frequently been used 
in modern historiography to contextualize the milieu in which Mkrtičʻ Nałaš grew up 
and received his education.66 However, he is not mentioned in Tʻovma’s historiographical 
writings,67 even if some connection between the two is implied by the suggestion made by 
the colophon of a manuscript completed at the monastery of Mecopʻ in 881 AE (December 
4, 1431–December 2, 1432 CE) that Mkrtičʻ Nałaš supplied the illuminations. Like his 
contribution to the Ahlat manuscript, his contribution to the Mecopʻ manuscript is undated 

(2003): 37–58. For the chronologically unclear evidence of coins minted in the name of Rūzakī rulers of Bitlis, 
see M. B. Severova, “O monetah kurdskih pravitelej Bidlisa konca XIV–XVI v.,” in Četvertaâ Vserosskijskaâ 
Numizmatičeskaâ Konferenciâ, Tezisy Dokladov, 43–45 (Moscow: Gosudarstvennyj Istoričeskij Muzej, 1996).

59.  Ł. Pʻirłalēmean, Nōtarkʻ Hayocʻ (Istanbul: Tpagr. Nišan K. Pērpērean, 1888), 55–56, reprinted in Xačʻikyan, 
ŽE dari, 1:215, and Xondkaryan, Mkrtičʻ Nałaš, 185. For the architectural remains and inscriptions at the 
convent of Saint Anania of Poṙ where Mkrtičʻ Nałaš wrote this note, see J. M. Thierry, Monuments arméniens du 
Vaspurakan (Paris: Paul Geuthner, 1989), 357–62.

60.  For the suggestion that Mkrtičʻ Nałaš was born in Değirmenaltı, see the main Armenian source 
commemorating the ascendancy of Mkrtičʻ Nałaš until 898 AE/1448–49 CE: Xačʻikyan, ŽE dari, 1:622.

61.  Ibid., 1:622 and 632; for the latter, see also the reprint in Xondkaryan, Mkrtičʻ Nałaš, 187.
62.  See the index of Xačʻikyan, ŽE dari, 1:674, s.v. “Aṙakʻel 52.”
63.  For the dated main colophon of the manuscript, see ibid., 1:291.
64.  Ibid., 1:292.
65.  Another note that certainly postdates the appointment of Mkrtičʻ Nałaš at Diyarbakır is edited in ibid., 

1:292.
66.  See, for instance, Xondkaryan, Mkrtičʻ Nałaš, 11–24 and 41–67.
67.  This assessment is based on the absence of any references to MkrtičʻNałaš in the index of Tʻovma’s 

Patmagrutʻyun.



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and may have postdated his appointment to Diyarbakır.68

In any case, nothing suggests a connection between Mkrtičʻ Nałaš and Diyarbakır before 
his arrival, most likely in 879 AE/1429–30 CE.69 Therefore, it is likely that the simultaneous 
appointments of Aṙakʻel and Mkrtičʻ Nałaš reflect the influence of Kostandin VI and the 
consolidation of Diyarbakır as the southern center of the Aqquyunlu realm ruled by qara 
ʿUthmān. As a promising outsider like Aṙakʻel, Mkrtičʻ Nałaš must have owed his initial 
status to the support of the Armenian patriarch as well as his ability to establish good 
relations with local elites. These relations produced their first fruit in the form of the 
foundation of the church and monastery of Saint Mary inside the citadel of Ergani in 1433 CE.

Synchronism I: Qara ʿUthmān, Mkrtičʻ Nałaš, and the Foundation of the Church of Saint 
Mary at the Fortress of Ergani in 1433 CE

In his note dated 898 AE/1448–49 CE commemorating the completion of illuminations in 
a Bible manuscript, Mkrtičʻ Nałaš refers to himself as “the deplorable sinner Mkrtičʻ, who 
is a bishop in name only, and is known by the sobriquet Nałaš. He is the builder (šinoł) of 
the holy cathedral (surb katʻułikēin) in the metropolis of Diyarbakır (Yamitʻ mayrakʻałakʻ) 
and of the sublime church of Saint Mary (barjr astuacacnin) in the fortress of Ergani (i 
yamurn Arłnu).”70 The more extensive narrative of his career indicates that his foundation 
of a church and monastic community inside the citadel of Ergani took place in 882 AE 
(December 3, 1432–December 2, 1433 CE).71 Subsequent references to this foundation are 
dated to 886 AE (December 2, 1436–December 1st 1437 CE; Mkrtičʻ [Nałaš] veraditoł yamurn 
Arzni barjr astuacacnin ew Amitʻ šahastan kʻałakʻi),72 893 AE (December 1, 1443–November 
29, 1444 CE),73 and 894 AE (November 30, 1445–November 29, 1446 CE).74

68.  Xačʻikyan, ŽE dari, 1:424.
69.  For this date, see the later main note describing his career: ibid., 1:625.
70.  Ibid., 1:632; see also Xondkaryan, Mkrtičʻ Nałaš, 187, and Sargisean, Cʻucʻak, 116.
71.  Xačʻikyan, ŽE dari, 1:627.
72.  Ibid., 1:471. Sanjian (Colophons, 393) proposes reading Arzn as a by-form of Arłn/Ergani. In this note, 

the suggestion is supported by the context, pace Xačʻikyan’s suggestion in the geographical index to Xačʻikyan, 
ŽE dari, 1:803, that Arzn represents the earlier town of Ałjn or Xarzan, equivalent to Islamic Arzan and ancient 
Tigranocerta. For the town of Tigranocerta/Arzan, see T. Sinclair, “The Site of Tigranocerta I,” Revue des études 
arméniennes 25 (1994–95): 183–254, and idem, “The Site of Tigranocerta II,” Revue des études arméniennes 
26 (1996–97): 51–117. The abandonment of the site in the fifteenth century CE is discussed by Sinclair in 
“Tigranocerta II,” 105–7; see also the description of the site as being in the process of being abandoned in the 
thirteenth-century CE geographical dictionary of Yāqūt, Muʿjam al-buldān, ed. M. ʿA. al-Marʿashlī (Beirut: Dār 
Iḥyāʾ al-Turāth al-ʿArabī, 2008), 1/2:125–26. Sinclair cites Xačʻikyan’s edition of the Armenian commemorative 
notes pertaining to the fifteenth century CE elsewhere in his article, but he implicitly follows Sanjian in rejecting 
Xačʻikyan’s identification of Arzn as Ałjn/Xarzan. The second attestation of Arzn in an Armenian note edited by 
Xačʻikyan (ŽE dari, 1:449) constitutes a phantom, pace its inclusion in Sanjian, Colophons, 182, as the toponym 
is not included in the authoritative edition of the same note by Połarean, Cʻucʻak, 1:131; the earlier edition of A. 
Siwrmēean, Mayr cʻucʻak hayerēn jeṙagracʻ Erusałēmi srbocʻ Yakobeancʻ vankʻi (Venice: Mxitʻarean Tparan S. 
Łazar, 1948), 1:129–33; or its commented translation by Thierry in “Erkayn Ǝnkuzikʻ,” 392–95. Thierry, too, uses 
Xačʻikyan’s edition of the commemorative notes but implicitly rejects Xačʻikyan’s reading of this note.

73.  Xačʻikyan, ŽE dari, 1:576.
74.  Ibid., 1:590.



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Fig. 2. The remains of the church of Saint Mary at the citadel of Ergani in 2018. Photo by author.

Little remains of this church today (see Fig. 2).75 Nonetheless, a preliminary edition of 
the foundation inscription formerly displayed above the main entrance was published by 
Sruanjteancʻ,76 which enables the following confident reconstruction: “This church was 
erected thanks to the support of God and according to the order of ʿUthmān khān during 
the holy episcopate of Mkrtičʻ Nałaš in the year 883 AE.”77 The difference between the date 
of 882 AE/1432–33 CE given for the foundation of the church in the commemorative note78 

75.  In addition to the most detailed description in H. Oskean, Sebastiayi, Xarberdi, Tiarbēkʻiri ew Trapizoni 
nahangneru vankʻerə (Vienna: Mxitʻarean Tparan, 1962), 173–95, see also the brief description of the remains of 
the Meryem Ana Kilisesi in Konyar, Diyarbekiır, 3:346 and resim 228.

76.  G. Sruanjteancʻ, Tʻoros Ałbar Hayastani Čambord (Istanbul: Tpagrutʻyun E. M. Tntesean, 1879), 2:174.
77.  Awžandakutʻeamb astucoy ew hramanaw Awtʻman xanin kangnecʻaw xoran s[urb] veraditołutʻeamb 

N[a]ł[a]š Mkərtičʻ ep[iskopo]s tʻv[akanis] 883. As already pointed out by Pʻirłalēmean (Nōtarkʻ, 132) and affirmed 
by Oskean (Vankʻerə, 191), the original reading of the date as 803 AE as proposed by Sruanjteancʻ is impossible 
to reconcile with the biography of Mkrtičʻ Nałaš. Although 893 AE, the emended date proposed by Pʻirłalēmean, 
lies within the lifetime of Mkrtičʻ Nałaš, qara ʿUthmān had died by this date. By contrast, the date of 883 AE fits 
much better with the fifteenth-century CE sources describing the foundation of the church of Saint Mary and 
the monastic community at Ergani. Accordingly, I propose that 883 AE marks the completion of the building 
originally commissioned in 882 AE as indicated by the commemorative note in Xačʻikyan, ŽE dari, 1:627. 
Qara ʿUthmān’s title was read as šāh (šahin) by Sruanjteancʻ (Tʻoros, 2:174), and this reading was followed by 
Pʻirłalēmean (Nōtarkʻ, 132). The emendation to khān follows a suggestion by Oskean (Vankʻerə, 191), which is 
convincing because of its resonance with the designation of qara ʿUthmān as khān (i paronutʻean Awtʻmanbēk 
xani) in the Armenian commemorative note written in Erkayn Ǝnkuzeacʻ in 884 AE/1434–35 CE and edited in 
Połarean, Cʻucʻak, 1:131; see also the partial edition in Xačʻikyan, ŽE dari, 1:449.

78.  Xačʻikyan, ŽE dari, 1:627.



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and the date of 883 AE/1433–34 CE displayed in the building inscription likely marks the 
period between the commencement of construction activity and its conclusion. Contrary 
to the suggestion apparently first attested in the early seventeenth-century CE travelogue 
of Simēon Lehacʻi that the church had been founded by some of the apostles,79 the building 
inscription and the notes clearly indicate that the church was newly founded by Mkrtičʻ 
Nałaš.

Although Mkrtičʻ Nałaš’s good relations with qara ʿUthmān and his successors are a 
recurring theme in the extensive account of his career,80 the suggestion made in the building 
inscription that the foundation was established on the explicit command of the Turkmen 
ruler (hramanaw Awtʻman xanin) is striking. At the same time, the highly visible location 
of the inscription above the main entrance makes it very unlikely that qara ʿUthmān was 
not actively involved in the foundation. This interpretation is further strengthened by 
an Armenian note written in Ergani in 894 AE/1445–46 CE that states explicitly that qara 
ʿUthmān built (!) the church.81 In this regard, the building inscription at the church of 
Saint Mary parallels the only other Armenian inscription ostensibly composed in the voice 
of a Turkmen ruler. This inscription was commissioned no later than 1420 CE and was 
originally displayed on the façade of the monastic church of Arcowaber in the contemporary 
village of Salmanağa/Erciş/Van, confirming the possession of landed properties by the 
monastic community.82 The inscription describes the role of the Turkmen ruler qara Yūsuf 
Qaraquyunlu in the exact same terminology of an explicit command (hramanaw Usuf 
paron)83 as at Ergani.

Overall, the Armenian sources describing the establishment of the church and monastic 
community of Saint Mary within the citadel of Ergani indicate that the initial foundation 
took place in 882 AE/1432–33 CE and involved qara ʿUthmān in a way that could plausibly be 
represented as his ordering the building of the church. Subsequently, the conclusion of the 
construction or at least of one of its stages was commemorated by the building inscription 
completed in the following year, 883 AE/1433–34 CE.

Significantly, qara ʿUthmān stayed at the citadel of Ergani in the summer of 1433 CE, and 
this sojourn marked a critical turning point in his establishment of a contiguous Aqquyunlu 
realm centered on Diyarbakır. Even if he sent the keys of the citadel of Mardin to Barsbāy 

79.  See Simēon Lehacʻi, Ułegrutʻyun, ed. N. Akinean (Vienna: Mxitʻarean Tparan, 1936), 203. Arguably, the 
claim that the foundation was established by some of the apostles reflects its prestige and importance at the 
time of Simēon’s visit. In addition, the suggestion that the foundation predated the advent of Islam may also 
have resonated with the Islamic prohibition on the establishment of new non-Muslim houses of worship in 
Islamic lands, discussed in greater detail below.

80.  See Xačʻikyan, ŽE dari, 1:622–31.
81.  Awtʻman Bahaduṙin or zsurb ekełecʻis šineacʻ i gluxs amur klayin Arłnoy, edited in Xačʻikyan, ŽE dari, 

1:590.
82.  See G. Leube, “Armenian Monastic Elites Harnessing the ‘Turkmen’ State? I: Layout, Text, and Textual 

Commentary of the Armenian Inscription at Arcowaber (1420 A.D. or Earlier),” Iran and the Caucasus 28 (2024): 
1–26.

83.  Ibid., 6.



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in 1432 CE, as reported by Ibn Ḥajar,84 Aqquyunlu-Mamluk tensions escalated in 1433 CE 
with a massive campaign led by Barsbāy himself that culminated in the siege of Diyarbakır 
between May 28 and July 2, 1433 CE.85 During this siege, qara ʿUthmān retreated to the 
citadel of Ergani,86 which guarded the most important mountain pass over the western 
Taurus linking the southern part of the Aqquyunlu realm around Diyarbakır to the earlier 
Aqquyunlu holdings to the north.87 The Mamluk siege of Diyarbakır was subsequently 
lifted following an agreement between qara ʿUthmān and Barsbāy.88 Although the main 
biographical source for the life of Mkrtičʻ Nałaš gives only the year of the foundation of 
the church of Saint Mary (882 AE/1433 CE),89 it seems likely that it took place during qara 
ʿUthmān’s retreat from Diyarbakır to Ergani between May 28 and July 2.

Beyond this plausible timeframe, however, it is much more difficult to identify and 
evaluate the roles of the actors involved in this highly visible performative act. Tentatively, 
I propose that the establishment of the church within the citadel of Ergani suggests that 
Mkrtičʻ Nałaš accompanied the Aqquyunlu ruler and his administrative elite on their retreat 
from Diyarbakır to avoid the imminent Mamluk siege. This argument is premised on the 
assumption that had Mkrtičʻ Nałaš instead remained in Diyarbakır, possibly to help organize 
the town’s defense, the church would have been established in Diyarbakır.90 However, no 
extant source explicitly mentions where Mkrtičʻ Nałaš was during the siege. Nevertheless, 
I believe it likely that Mkrtičʻ Nałaš accompanied qara ʿUthmān on his retreat to Ergani, as 
his subsequent (re)foundation of a cathedral in Diyarbakır under qara ʿUthmān’s son Ḥamza 
clearly attests to his willingness to establish a substantial foundation in this town.

The synchronism that brought together qara ʿUthmān and Mkrtičʻ Nałaš in the citadel 
of Ergani in the summer of 1433 CE and led to the foundation of the church of Saint Mary 
as a product of their joint agency can be traced back to a set of ambitions and concerns 
shared by the two figures. First, both likely regarded the citadel of Ergani as safely beyond 
the immediate reach of the invading Mamluk army while sufficiently close to the besieged 
regional center of Diyarbakır. Second, both probably chose Ergani as the site at which to wait 
out the Mamluk siege because it enabled the maintenance of clear lines of communication 

84.  Ibn Ḥajar, Inbāʾ al-ghumr, 3:473.
85.  Woods, Aqquyunlu, 52; see also the eyewitness account of Ibn Taghrībirdī in al-Nujūm al-zāhira fī mulūk 

Miṣr wa-l-Qāhira, ed. F. M. Shaltūt et al. (Cairo: al-Hayʾa al-ʿĀmma li-Quṣūr al-Thaqāfa, 2008), 15:7–34, which 
is complemented by the contemporary Armenian description of the military conflict between qara ʿUthmān 
and Barsbāy penned in the 1430s CE at Derjki Anapat (located in today’s Güresin/Divriği/Sivas; see Thierry, 
Répertoire, 77) and edited in Połarean, Cʻucʻak, 9:402.

86.  Ibn Taghrībirdī, al-Nujūm al-zāhira, 15:14.
87.  See A. Schachner, Assyriens Könige an einer der Quellen des Tigris (Tübingen: Wasmuth, 2009), 1–3, as 

well as the additional remarks by K. Radner in Schacher, Assyriens Könige, 200–201.
88.  Woods, Aqquyunlu, 52.
89.  Xačʻikyan, ŽE dari, 1:627.
90.  That Christian inhabitants were expected to participate in the defense of Diyarbakır against a besieging 

army is implied by the account of the town’s occupation by qara ʿUthmān’s son Ḥamza contained in the 
Aqquyunlu court chronicle of Ṭihrānī, Diyārbakriyya, 136; see also the recent translation of this passage in 
Leube, Relational Iconography, 346.



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and, if necessary, further retreat to regions beyond the Euphrates River that accepted their 
authority. Finally, the exceptional strength of Ergani’s citadel must have made it equally 
attractive to the Aqquyunlu ruler and the Armenian bishop of Diyarbakır. According to 
the extensive version of his career, Mkrtičʻ Nałaš subsequently used the newly established 
church of Saint Mary as a refuge for liberated Christian captives before sending them on 
their way.91

The foundation of the church of Saint Mary inside the citadel of Ergani thus manifested 
the overlapping interests of qara ʿUthmān and Mkrtičʻ Nałaš during the Mamluk siege of 
Diyarbakır in 1433 CE. When the building inscription of the church was unveiled in the 
following year, both must have looked back on their joint retreat as marking a crucial 
stage in their parallel projects of establishing Diyarbakır as a regional center under their 
leadership. Possibly because the church was built outside Diyarbakır and its supraregional 
visibility, no opposition to this joint foundation is recorded in sources from the fifteenth 
century CE. This situation contrasts sharply with the circumstances of the next synchronism, 
when local and transregional opposition culminated in the demolition of the dome of the 
newly rebuilt cathedral of Diyarbakır.

Synchronism II: Ḥamza Aqquyunlu, Mkrtičʻ Nałaš, and the Demolition of the Dome of the 
Cathedral of Diyarbakır, ca. 1444 CE

In addition to establishing the church of Saint Mary at Ergani, Mkrtičʻ Nałaš names the 
rebuilding of the cathedral in the metropolis of Diyarbakır (surb katʻułikēin or Yamitʻ 
mayrakʻałakʻ) as his main achievement in the note he wrote in 898 AE/1448–49 CE.92 
According to the note, he initiated the refoundation of the cathedral dedicated to Saint 
Theodore93 in 888 AE (December 2, 1438–December 1, 1439 CE),94 during the reign of qara 
ʿUthmān’s son Ḥamza.

Some aspirations to greater autonomy within the Armenian church on Mkrtičʻ Nałaš’s part 
are arguably already reflected in a commemorative note written in Diyarbakır immediately 
after his arrival in 880 AE/1430–31 CE, “during the catholicate (i hayrapetutʻiwn) of Lord 
Kostandin [VI] Vahkacʻi and the incumbency in the town of Diyarbakır of Lord Mkrtičʻ, the 
learned theologian (astuacaban vardapeti), the archbishop of the entirety of Mesopotamia, 
and the viceregent of the catholicos of the inhabitants of Armenia (erespʻoxani katʻołikosi 
amenayn Hayastaneaycʻ).”95 However, the start of Mkrtičʻ Nałaš’s ambitious rebuilding 
project during the fair season of 1439 CE coincides with the incipient movement leading 
to the refoundation of the catholicate at Ēǰmiacin/Vałaršapat in 1441 CE.96 Accordingly, 

91.  See Xačʻikyan, ŽE dari, 1:626.
92.  Ibid., 1:632; see also Xondkaryan, Mkrtičʻ Nałaš, 187.
93.  Both surb Tʻoros and surb Tʻēodoros appear in this note; see Xačʻikyan, ŽE dari, 1:626 and 627.
94.  Sksani veranorogel [. . .] katʻułikēn or Yamitʻ šahastani; ibid., 1:627.
95.  Ibid., 1:403; Sargsyan, “Mkrtičʻ,” 108–9.
96.  See the overview in Ōrmanean, Hayocʻ ekełecʻin, 105–10, as well as A. S. Atiya, A History of Eastern 

Christianity (London: Methuen, 1968), 334, and the discussion in D. Kouymjian, “Cilicia and Its Catholicosate from 
the Fall of the Armenian Kingdom to 1915,” in Armenian Cilicia, ed. R. H. Hovannisian and S. Payaslian, 297–308 



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the decision of Mkrtičʻ Nałaš to launch the highly visible reconstruction of a cathedral 
in Diyarbakır was probably motivated by a wish to secure greater autonomy within the 
Armenian ecclesiastical hierarchy in the transitory period between the death of Kostandin 
VI Vahkacʻi and the subsequent reestablishment of the patriarchal see at Ēǰmiacin/
Vałaršapat.

Within the political history of the Islamicate Middle East, the reestablishment of an 
Armenian catholicate at Ēǰmiacin/Vałaršapat in 1441 CE coincided with the stabilization of 
Timurid influence over western Iran during the final years of Shāhrukh’s reign. Within his 
long-standing conflict with the Qaraquyunlu ruler Iskandar b. qara Yūsuf, the Timurid ruler 
Shāhrukh had appointed Iskandar’s brother Jahānshāh to rule over Tabrīz and Ādharbāyjān 
in 839/1436 CE.97 During Jahānshāh’s rule, the Timurid armies were led by Shāhrukh’s 
son Jūkī mīrzā.98 After the failure of Iskandar’s last attempt to challenge his brother,99 
Iskandar died in Dhū al-Qaʿda 841/April–May 1438 CE while besieged by Jahānshāh’s forces 
in the citadel of Alinjaq, contemporary Əlincə.100 Album has shown that the consolidation of 
Jahānshāh’s rule was manifested in the same year of 841/1438 CE in his issuance of coins in 
the name of his overlord Shāhrukh.101 Against this background, the reestablishment of an 
Armenian catholicate in the upper Aras valley or Chukhur-i Saʿd at Ēǰmiacin/Vałaršapat in 
1441 CE reflects the stabilization of Jahānshāh’s control over this area after the capture of 
Alinjaq.

Following the death of Iskandar Qaraquyunlu in 1438 CE, which coincided with the 
passing of the Mamluk sultan Barsbāy in the same year, a gradual rapprochement between 
the great powers of the Timurids and the Mamluks consolidated the rule of Jahānshāh 
Qaraquyunlu from Tabrīz and that of Ḥamza Aqquyunlu from Diyarbakır.102 As indicated by 
their minting of so-called shāhrukhī reformed tankas, which imply recognition of Timurid 

(Costa Mesa, CA: Mazda, 2008), 299–303. Three short narratives describing the refoundation of the patriarchal 
see at Ēǰmiacin are edited in Tʻovma, Patmagrutʻyun, 218–75. It should be noted that Kostandin VI Vahkacʻi 
already refers to himself as the catholicos of Vałaršapat in the Latin translation of the letters, dated July 25, 
1438 CE, with which he appointed his delegation to the Council of Florence. See G. Hofmann, Documenta Concilii 
Florentini de Unione Orientalium, vol. 2, De Unione Armenorum (Rome: Pontificia Universitas Gregoriana, 
1935), 11 (Constantinus servus servorum domini nostri Iesu Christi cum decore et honore et voluntate 
patriarcha super populum Armenorum patriarcha Vagarsabat, dated July 25, 1438 CE) and 13 (Constantinus 
servus servorum domoni nostri Iesu Christi cum gratia dei constitutus patriarcha Vagarsabat). The reaction 
ascribed to the Byzantine emperor in the documents edited by Hofmann upon his hearing of the union between 
the Armenian and Latin churches (ἀρεστόν ἐστι λίαν τὸ σπουδαζόμενον, “better late than never”; Hofmann, 
Documenta, 17–18) deserves notice.

97.  Woods, Aqquyunlu, 248; Sümer, Kara Koyunlular, 134–37; and Aka, Kara Koyunlular, 24–25.
98.  See Sümer, Kara Koyunlular, 134–37.
99.  The most detailed reconstruction of the final campaign of Iskandar Qaraquyunlu is given in ibid., 137–42.
100.  See Ṭihrānī, Diyārbakriyya, 144–46. The date follows al-Sakhāwī, al-Ḍawʾ al-lāmiʿ li-ahl al-qarn al-tāsiʿ, 

ed. ʿA. Ḥ. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 2003), 2:250; see also the discussion of the date of 
Iskandar’s death in Aka, Kara Koyunlular, 26.

101.  See S. Album, Checklist of Islamic Coins, 3rd ed. (Santa Rosa, CA: Stephen Album Rare Coins, 2011), 269.
102.  Cf. M. Dekkiche, “New Source, New Debate: Re-evaluation of the Mamluk-Timurid Struggle for Religious 

Supremacy in the Hijaz (Paris, BnF MS ar. 4440),” Mamlūk Studies Review 18 (2014–15): 247–71, at 253.



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supremacy,103 both Jahānshāh and Ḥamza should be considered exponents of Shāhrukh’s 
hegemony, in spite of the ongoing challenges that Ḥamza faced from other Aqquyunlu 
contenders for supreme leadership.104 Unfortunately for Mkrtičʻ Nałaš, this transregional 
rapprochement of Islamic rulers in Shāhrukh’s shadow manifested itself in external pressure 
on Ḥamza Aqquyunlu to demolish the magnificently rebuilt Armenian Christian cathedral 
in Diyarbakır, which had been finished in 1443 CE after four years of work.105 Although no 
extant source gives a precise date for this demolition, it likely occurred during the fair 
season of 1444 CE, after the rebuilt cathedral had become transregionally known and before 
the death of Ḥamza Aqquyunlu in late October 1444 CE.106

After praising the splendor of the rebuilt cathedral by noting that its cupola was higher 
than the minarets of the town’s mosques,107 the extensive narrative of Mkrtičʻ Nałaš’s career 
reports: “The Christ-hating Muslims (azgn Mahmetakankʻ) [. . .] complained to the [Mamluk] 
sultan of Egypt (sultʻann Egyptosi), to the [Timurid] ruler of the Persians (tʻagaworn 
Parsicʻ), and the [Ottoman] sultan of the Roman realms (sultʻann Hoṙomacʻ tann). [. . .] 
These sent envoys (aṙakʻecʻin) to sultan Ḥamza to demolish the beautiful holy cathedral.”108 
Capitulating to this pressure, Ḥamza ordered the demolition of the dome, and Mkrtičʻ 
Nałaš left Diyarbakır to go into exile. It is unclear how and why interpersonal networks 
within Ḥamza’s realm conveyed discontent to external Muslim rulers. Nonetheless, the 
responsibility ascribed by this note to Muslim rulers outside the Aqquyunlu realm ruled 
by Ḥamza in effecting the demolition of the dome is corroborated by the unpublished and 
undated Arabic text of a diplomatic letter from the Mamluk ruler Jaqmaq to Shāhrukh’s son 
Jūkī mīrzā.109 The pertinent passages of this missive can be translated as follows:

103.  See the beautiful photograph of such tankas prominently displaying the name of the Timurid ruler 
Shāhrukh in Woods, Aqquyunlu, 71.

104.  For the internal Aqquyunlu power struggles, see Woods, Aqquyunlu, 67–71. Notwithstanding the 
continuing challenges to Ḥamza’s leadership reconstructed by Woods, the ambitious rebuilding program at 
the cathedral of Diyarbakır directed by Mkrtičʻ Nałaš indicates a fair degree of stability and prosperity under 
Ḥamza’s rule. Similarly, the establishment of the now defunct Hamza Bey Mescidi in the area adjacent to the 
old citadel (iç kale) of Diyarbakır before its Ottoman enlargement in the early sixteenth century CE must be 
attributed to the period of Ḥamza’s supreme rule over Diyarbakır and likewise attests to favorable conditions 
during his reign. For the former location of this mosque, see Parla, “Surları,” 75. Its remains are not discernible 
in Gertrude Bell’s photograph showing the view from the kale höyük to the southeast in 1909 (GB 3 1 14 1 82); 
the remains of the mosque may form part of a cluster of buildings visible on the right inside the Ottoman walls 
of the current iç kale.

105.  The date of the work’s completion is nowhere explicitly stated. The suggested year of 1443 CE is based 
on the information that the rebuilding began in the warm season of 1439 CE and Mkrtičʻ Nałaš spent four years 
(d am) on it; see Xačʻikyan, ŽE Dari, 1:627. It is likely that the construction would have been concluded in the 
warm months, so perhaps in May or June 1443 CE.

106.  See Woods, Aqquyunlu, 71.
107.  Glux gmbetʻin barjr ēr kʻan zmnarayicʻn; Xačʻikyan, ŽE dari, 1:627.
108.  Ibid., 1:627–28.
109.  For a collection of sample letters (munshaʾāt) preserved in MS BnF ar. 4440 that also contains this 

missive, see the overview by F. Bauden, “Les relations diplomatiques entre les sultans mamlouks circassiens 
et les autres pouvoirs du Dār al-islām: L’apport du ms. ar. 4440 (BNF, Paris),” Annales islamologiques 41 (2007): 
1–29, as well as the exemplary discussion of correspondence between the Mamluk court and the Qaraquyunlu 

https://gertrudebell.ncl.ac.uk/p/gb-3-1-14-1-82


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Regarding what your honor mentions concerning the proper mode of dealing with amīr 
Ḥamza Aqquyunlu (maʿnā al-amīr Ḥamza), and that it may be preferable to arrive at an 
understanding with him instead of opposing him [. . .], let us begin by informing your 
honor of the reason we became angry with him. [An exposition on Ḥamza’s injustice 
toward his subjects and his plundering of merchants and pilgrims traveling through 
his realm.] In addition, it came to our noble attention that he renewed a church in 
his town of Diyarbakır (bi-madīnatihī Āmid) that had been in ruins for a long time 
and rebuilt it [. . .] in a form better than the original. It is evident that the true belief 
(islām) of whoever supports such an undertaking is blemished. He must be severely 
reproached for this public favoring of the Christians (iḥsānihī ilā al-naṣārā) as regards 
the rebuilding of their churches (ʿimārat kanāʾisihim), as well as the disfavor shown to 
the Muslims in his rulings. [Jaqmaq nonetheless accepts the intercession of Jūkī mīrzā 
and agrees to forgive Ḥamza if Ḥamza repents.]110

Although the letter is preserved in an undated form, it must have been written in the 
period between the completion of the cathedral’s reconstruction in summer 1443 CE and 
Ḥamza’s death in October 1444 CE. Within this period, we must further allow for sufficient 
time for news of the rebuilt cathedral to spread beyond the Aqquyunlu realm and prompt 
opposition, as well as for Mkrtičʻ Nałaš to reach exile in Crimea after the demolition of the 
dome (see below) before being informed of Ḥamza’s passing.

From the text of the letter, it can be inferred that Jaqmaq was replying to a request from 
Jūkī mīrzā to reach an agreement with Ḥamza; this request, in turn, may have been made in 
response to an earlier missive from Jaqmaq expressing the discontent of the Mamluk sultan 
with the Aqquyunlu ruler at Diyarbakır. The Mamluk chronicles mention a delegation 
“from the children of Shāhrukh,” likely including Jūkī mīrzā, in Shaʿbān 846/December 1442 
CE,111 but this date precedes the likely completion of the rebuilding. It appears, then, that 
Jaqmaq’s response quoted above followed the favorable reception of Jūkī mīrzā’s delegation 
a year or two earlier and a subsequent request sent by the latter to Jaqmaq. Although no 
such letter is explicitly recorded by the Mamluk chronicles in early 1443 CE, Ibn Taghrībirdī 
notes the arrival of envoys from Jūkī mīrzā’s father Shāhrukh and Shāhrukh’s protégé 
Jahānshāh Qaraquyunlu in Cairo on Tuesday, Jumādā II 27, 847/October 22, 1443 CE.112 
As the rebuilding of the cathedral at Diyarbakır was likely concluded at this point, this 
embassy may also have delivered a missive from Jūkī mīrzā interceding on behalf of his 

in M. Dekkiche, “The Letter and Its Response: The Exchanges between the Qara Qoyunlu and the Mamluk Sultan; 
MS Arabe 4440 (BnF, Paris),” Arabica 63 (2016): 579–626.

110.  MS BnF Ar. 4440, fol. 66r–66v.
111.  See Ibn Taghrībirdī, Ḥawādith al-duhūr fī madā al-ayyām wa-l-shuhūr, ed. M. K. ʿIzz al-Dīn (Beirut: 

ʿĀlam al-Kutub, 1990), 1:75, as well as Ibn Iyās, Badāʾiʿ al-zuhūr fī waqāʾiʿ al-duhūr, ed. M. Muṣṭafā (Cairo: 
al-Hayʾa al-Miṣriyya al-ʿĀmma li-l-Kitāb, 1982–2008), 2:236. The account of Ibn Iyās appears to be based on the 
text of Ibn Taghrībirdī.

112.  Ibn Taghrībirdī, Ḥawādith, 1:95. The date is consistent with the day of the week indicated by Ibn 
Taghrībirdī.



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Mkrtičʻ Nałaš: An Armenian Bishop as Pillar of the Aqquyunlu State?     •  128

brother-in-law Ḥamza Aqquyunlu,113 prompting the abovementioned reply. According to 
this argument, the missive should be dated to early November 1443 CE, and it contributed 
to the demolition of the dome of the cathedral of Diyarbakır by Ḥamza Aqquyunlu at some 
point during the first half of 1444 CE.

In Mamluk Cairo, Jaqmaq’s insistence that no new churches should be built is perhaps 
connected to an episode described in detail by Ibn Ḥajar and dated to Muḥarram 846/May–
June 1442 CE, a bit more than a year before Jaqmaq composed his missive.114 According to Ibn 
Ḥajar’s account, a suspicion that several Christian churches and Jewish synagogues in Cairo 
had been built anew or rebuilt in a form more splendid than the original foundation led to 
the confiscation or reduced rebuilding of several houses of worship.115 That Jaqmaq’s letter 
had resonance in Mamluk Cairo is suggested by its inclusion in the collection of exemplary 
letters in which it has been preserved. Accordingly, it may be worth considering whether 
Jaqmaq’s condemnation of Ḥamza’s approval of the Diyarbakır cathedral’s reconstruction 
was at least in part directed at an internal audience of Muslim elites and networks in Cairo 
who remembered the earlier controversy described in detail by Ibn Ḥajar.

Although the Aqquyunlu court chronicle of Ṭihrānī, written for Ḥamza’s nephew uzun 
Ḥasan, contains a very disparaging account of Ḥamza’s rule in Diyarbakır that claims that 
he consistently showed favor to Christians and disfavor to the Muslim inhabitants of the 
town,116 Ṭihrānī does not mention the rebuilding of the cathedral. This omission may well 
reflect the continued visibility of the cathedral during uzun Ḥasan’s rule over Diyarbakır 
following its rebuilding during the incumbency of his brother Jahāngīr in 1447 CE, discussed 
in detail below. By contrast, the Ottoman hagiographic history of Ibrāhīm Gulshanī includes 
the building of Christian churches prominently among the ill deeds of Ḥamza Aqquyunlu 
and contrasts Ḥamza’s injustice with the enforcement of Islamic normativity by the first 
Ottoman governor of Diyarbakır, bıyıqlı or fātiḥ Muḥammad pāshā, who demolished the 
cathedral to build the mosque known as the Kurşunlu Camii in its location:117

At this time, the infidels (kāfirler) constructed one or two pretentious churches (bir iki 
ʿālī kilisālar yapırlar), in which they assembled constantly, giving him [Ḥamza] large 
amounts of money on every occasion. [. . . By contrast, bıyıqlı Muḥammad] refused to 
flatter the infidels by accepting their money, and fighting back against the pride of the 
infidels (anf al-kuffār), he remade this church into a splendid mosque. “This is the true 
guidance of God, by which He leads whom He wants!” [Qurʾān 6:88].118

113.  For the marriage of Jūkī mīrzā to a daughter of qara ʿUthmān, see Woods, Aqquyunlu, 62.
114.  Ibn Ḥajar, Inbāʾ al-ghumr, 4:196–98.
115.  Ibid..
116.  Ṭihrānī, Diyārbakriyya, 136–37; see also the translation and contextualization in Leube, Relational 

Iconography, 346–48.
117.  For the demolition of the cathedral of Diyarbakır in 1518 CE under bıyıqlı Muḥammad, see C. Maranci, 

“The Art and Architecture of Amida (Diarbekir) and Edessa (Urfa),” in Armenian Tigranakert/Diarbekrir and 
Edessa/Urfa, ed. R. G. Hovannisian, 165–89 (Costa Mesa, CA: Mazda, 2006), 170–71.

118.  Gulshanī, Manāqib, 14.



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Although the suggestion that the (Armenian) Christians of Diyarbakır paid large amounts 
of money to Ḥamza to facilitate the rebuilding of the cathedral resonates with the account 
of Mkrtičʻ Nałaš’s career,119 it may well be rooted in a shared understanding of how the 
patronage of rulers could be obtained by non-Muslims in the preindustrial Islamicate 
Middle East. In any case, the demolition of the dome of the rebuilt cathedral of Diyarbakır 
demonstrates that the transregional consolidation of Shāhrukh’s hegemony restricted the 
possibilities for performative and specifically Christian self-representation available to 
Mkrtičʻ Nałaš.

All extant sources agree in framing the conflict as one between (Armenian) Christians 
and Muslims. However, the setback to Mkrtičʻ Nałaš’s ambitions to establish Diyarbakır as 
a supraregional center within the Armenian Christian world might also be connected to 
the consolidation of Armenian ecclesiastical hierarchies after the transitory period that 
culminated in the reestablishment of the patriarchate at Ēǰmiacin/Vałaršapat in 1441 CE. 
From this perspective, the performative reversal of Mkrtičʻ Nałaš’s ambitious (re)building 
project in 1444 CE manifested the subalternity of Diyarbakır both within the Armenian 
Christian hierarchy and among the Persophone rulerly elites subordinate to Shāhrukh 
during the final years of his reign.

Synchronism III: Jahāngīr Aqquyunlu and the Rebuilding of the Cathedral in 1447 CE

According to the extensive Armenian account of the career of Mkrtičʻ Nałaš, he went into 
exile when Ḥamza ordered the demolition of the dome of the cathedral of Diyarbakır.120 
The destinations named in the account, Kaffa/Feodosìâ and Istanbul (i Kafay ew Ystampōl), 
should probably be understood as an inclusive designation for travels across the Black Sea 
region. The narrative goes on to report that after Ḥamza’s death in late October 1444 CE,121 
Ḥamza’s nephew and successor Jahāngīr facilitated Mkrtičʻ Nałaš’s return to Diyarbakır.122 If, 
as the Aqquyunlu court chronicle of Ṭihrānī claims, Jahāngīr’s succession occurred against 
the wishes of his uncle,123 his return invitation to Mkrtičʻ Nałaš was likely intended to 
support the consolidation of his rule.

Mkrtičʻ Nałaš reportedly offered the considerable sum of 3,000 tanka to the Muslim 
power brokers of Diyarbakır (paronacʻn ew mecamecacʻn) and succeeded in having the 
dome reconstructed in the remarkably short time of only ten days; the work was completed 
on August 6, 896/1447 CE.124 Although the Armenian text highlights the role of the local 
Armenian Christian elite in facilitating the rebuilding,125 we subsequently learn that Mkrtičʻ 

119.  Xačʻikyan, ŽE dari, 1:626–28. For “building permits” granted to Christian elites by Turkmen rulers in 
exchange for money, see the comprehensive discussion in Carlson, Christianity, 63–68.

120.  Xačʻikyan, ŽE dari, 1:628.
121.  For the date, see Woods, Aqquyunlu, 71.
122.  Xačʻikyan, ŽE dari, 1:628.
123.  Ṭihrānī, Diyārbakriyya, 168–70.
124.  Xačʻikyan, ŽE dari, 1:628–29. Although the text suggests that the work was completed on a Monday 

(erkušabtʻi), the day in question was in fact a Sunday.
125.  Among those named as contributing decisively to the rebuilding are two goldsmiths, one of whom is 



Al-ʿUṣūr al-Wusṭā 33 (2025)

Mkrtičʻ Nałaš: An Armenian Bishop as Pillar of the Aqquyunlu State?     •  130

Nałaš had brought with him considerable funds and valuable artifacts, which he had 
obtained during his sojourn in Kaffa/Feodosìâ.126 In this context, it is highly significant that 
his contact in Crimea, described as “the great vardapet Sargis” (mec vardapetn Sargis),127 is 
the same vardapet Sargis from Kaffa/Feodosìâ who had served as the main negotiator for 
the union between the Armenian church and the pope declared at the Council of Florence 
in 1438 CE.128 In the Latin translation of the July 25, 1438 CE, letter in which the Armenian 
patriarch Kostandin VI appoints his delegation to the pope, this Sargis is explicitly named 
as the patriarch’s plenipotentiary.129 Therefore, the performative self-representation of 
Diyarbakır’s urban Christian Armenian elite as facilitating the rebuilding of the cathedral 
intersected with external support granted to Mkrtičʻ Nałaš by Uniate power brokers 
within the Armenian church. Although we know that Mkrtičʻ Nałaš authored a theological 
treatise that underlines the differences between the respective teachings of the Armenian 
and Latin churches,130 it may be wise not to overstate the stability of inner-Armenian 
doctrinal boundaries in the decade following the Council of Florence in 1438 CE and the 
reestablishment of the patriarchate at Ēǰmiacin/Vałaršapat.131 In any case, Mkrtičʻ Nałaš’s 
acquisition of significant capital from Uniate figures in Crimea should be interpreted as 
indicating his continued ambition for an independent and somewhat autonomous role 
within the Armenian ecclesiastical hierarchy of eastern Anatolia.

Within the political history of the “Persophonie,” Jahāngīr’s permission to rebuild the 
cathedral in August 1447 CE must be understood in the context of the deterioration of 
Timurid hegemony over western Iran after the death of Shāhrukh in March 1447 CE.132 

described as “viceregent and commander” (or ēr erespʻoxan ew hramanatar), and one locksmith (darbin).
126.  Xačʻikyan, ŽE dari, 1:629–30.
127.  Ibid., 1:629.
128.  For the identities of the Armenian envoys to the Council of Florence, see S. Obertyński, Die florentiner 

Union der polnischen Armenier und ihr Bischofskatalog (Rome: Pontificium Institutum Orientalium Studiorum, 
1934), 10. See also Atiya, History, 334, and G. Alberigo et al., Conciliorum Oecumenicorum Decreta (Paderborn: 
Ferdinand Schöningh, 2000), 2:534–59. This Sargis may also be identical to the Sargis kʻahanay who is included 
in an intercessory list inscribed in a Xačʻkʻar at Kaffa/Feodosìâ that is dated to August 8, 874 AE/1425 CE; see the 
edition of this inscription in G. M. Grigoryan, Divan Hay vimagrutʻyan VII: Ukraina, Moldova (Erevan: HH GAA 
Gitutʻyun Hratarakčutʻyun, 1996), 34. See also his recurring mention in commemorative notes in the index to 
Xačʻikyan, ŽE dari, 1:781, s.v. “Sargis 79.”

129.  Cum plenaria nostra potentate dedi Sarkis Vertebet, quid est, erit loco personae meae [. . . sequuntur 
alii], ut eant ad synodum; Hofmann, Documenta, 13.

130.  See the edition in Xondkaryan, Mkrtičʻ Nałaš, 192–97; the partial edition in Xačʻikyan, ŽE dari, 1:464–65; 
the descriptio princeps in Hovsepʻyan, “Mkrtičʻ,” passim; and the recent analysis in Sargsyan, “Mkrtičʻ,” passim. 
For a recent Armenian theological appraisal of the Uniate decree issued at the Council of Florence, see A. 
Manukean, “Hay ew hṙomēakan katʻolik ekełecʻineru miutʻean verǰin pʻorzə Florentioy mēǰ ew ‘Decretum pro 
Armenis’ kam ‘hrahang aṙ Hays’ kondakə,” in Sen Arevšatyan 90, 58–94 (Erevan: Matenadaran, 2020).

131.  The open acknowledgment of Sargis’s support of Mkrtičʻ Nałaš in the account of the latter’s career 
demonstrates that collaboration with individuals who would in hindsight be clearly identifiable as proponents 
of the union between the Armenian and Latin churches was uncontroversial in Diyarbakır in the second half of 
the 1440s CE. 

132.  See Woods, Aqquyunlu, 73.



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Al-ʿUṣūr al-Wusṭā 33 (2025)

According to Woods, Jahāngīr subsequently decided to grant asylum to the Qaraquyunlu 
contender Alwand b. Iskandar after Alwand’s abortive revolt against his uncle Jahānshāh in 
early 1448 CE.133 Jahāngīr’s facilitation of the cathedral’s reconstruction thus complemented 
his commission of another building project, likely directed at strengthening the town 
walls near the pre-Ottoman citadel (iç kale) and commemorated in a fragmentarily 
preserved inscription from 853/1449 CE.134 Taken together, these two available glimpses of 
architectural patronage in Diyarbakır during the early reign of Jahāngīr Aqquyunlu point 
to a comprehensive program aimed at garnering the support of the urban elites while 
preparing the fortifications of the town for the imminent conflict with Jahānshāh. 

Outlook and Conclusion: The Invasion of Jahānshāh as a Cataclysm in the Early Aqquyunlu 
History of Diyarbakır

After occupying the formerly Aqquyunlu town of Erzincan in 1450 CE, Jahānshāh 
Qaraquyunlu dispatched an army led by Rustam b. Tarkhān to the southern part of the 
Aqquyunlu realm established by qara ʿUthmān.135 The ensuing collapse of social order around 
Diyarbakır, Mardin, and Urfa is remembered vividly in several Armenian historiographical 
accounts.136 A tantalizing note by a certain Davitʻ of Mardin suggests that Mkrtičʻ Nałaš’s 
son Mesrop died during a pitched battle between Aqquyunlu and Qaraquyunlu troops that 
was fought under the walls of Diyarbakır.137 Consequently, the splendor of the period that 
followed the return of Mkrtičʻ Nałaš and the rebuilding of his cathedral, commemorated 
in the notes written about and by him in 898 AE/1448–49 CE,138 contrasts sharply with 
subsequent ruin. The devastation of the southern part of the Aqquyunlu realm coincides 
not only with the death of Mkrtičʻ Nałaš’s son but also with the obscurity of the second half 
of Mkrtičʻ Nałaš’s tenure in Diyarbakır. Although uzun Ḥasan eventually reconsolidated 
Aqquyunlu rule, his conquest of the Qaraquyunlu territory centered on Tabrīz in 1467–69 
CE irreversibly marginalized Diyarbakır as a supraregional capital. Within the Armenian 
church, the city’s subordination was then manifested in the early Ottoman demolition of 
Mkrtičʻ Nałaš’s glorious cathedral and the foundation of a mosque in its former location by 
the local governor, bıyıqlı Muḥammad, in the 1520s CE.

133.  Ibid., 74. Alwand’s flight to the area around Lake Van is incidentally described by Mkrtičʻ Nałaš himself 
in a commemorative note edited in Xondkaryan, Mkrtičʻ Nałaš, 187–91, at 190.

134.  The two extant fragments of the inscription originally likely displayed near the pre-Ottoman citadel 
that can be attributed to the patronage of Jahāngīr Aqquyunlu display the date of 853 and the name of Jahāngīr 
together with some of his titles. They are today found on the inner face of the northern town walls facing 
Karaman Sokak, adjacent to the citadel. I am currently preparing a full edition of both fragments.

135.  See Woods, Aqquyunlu, 74–75.
136.  In addition to the eyewitness account of Davitʻ of Mardin, discussed below, see, for example, the 

anonymous short historiography edited in Hakobyan, Žamanakagrutʻyunner, 1:167–73, at 167–68, and the note 
written in Harput (Xarberd) in 902 AE (November 28, 1452–November 27, 1453 CE) by Davitʻ episkopos, edited in 
Xačʻikyan, ŽE dari, 2:30–31.

137.  Hakobyan, Žamanakagrutʻyunner, 2:210. Note that Mesrop is described as a priest (ērēcʻ) by Davitʻ of 
Mardin, and this description is corroborated by the narrative edited in Xačʻikyan, ŽE Dari, 1:630–31. It is unclear 
how he came to die in the midst of a battle without serving in one of the two Turkmen armies.

138.  Xačʻikyan, ŽE dari, 1:622–31, 632.



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Mkrtičʻ Nałaš: An Armenian Bishop as Pillar of the Aqquyunlu State?     •  132

My recounting of the history of Diyarbakır during the seventeen years between 1433 
and 1450 CE as structured by synchronisms linking Mkrtičʻ Nałaš to the Aqquyunlu rulers 
qara ʿUthmān, Ḥamza, and Jahāngīr demonstrates that we must see Persophone etatist and 
Armenian clerical trajectories as entangled. As noted in the introduction, my approach 
methodically avoids attributing primacy to any specific individuals in specific situations 
wherever such primacy is not explicitly indicated by our sources. This policy is motivated 
by the hope that the reconstruction of synchronisms between Armenian and Aqquyunlu 
history in and around Diyarbakır enables us to continue “reading one into the other.” 
Accordingly, the present article consciously attempts to understand the etatist trajectories 
of Islamicate state formation in the first half of the fifteenth century CE as multidirectional 
and open-ended. These multidirectional processes of state formation are manifest in the 
performative engagement of Aqquyunlu rulers and Armenian clerical elites in architectural 
patronage.

This approach does not deny the importance of analyzing how Aqquyunlu sultans 
interacted with Armenian clerical elites or how Mkrtičʻ Nałaš navigated successive stages 
of Aqquyunlu history. But both sides of this entanglement should arguably be seen as 
embedded in a multidirectional and gradual process of consolidating an “etatist social 
infrastructure” that was driven jointly by a variety of actors and interpersonal networks. 
I sincerely hope that the present article contributes to the ongoing rediscovery of this and 
similar entanglements, which counteract the seductive explanatory power of monocausal 
and ideological simplifications in the name of nation, linguistic identity, or religion.

Acknowledgments

I gratefully acknowledge the exemplarily detailed and pertinent comments on earlier 
versions of this article made by the two anonymous reviewers, as well as by the editors of 
Al-ʿUṣūr al-Wusṭā: Jazāhum allāhu khayran.

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