The Dahije () or Dahijas were the renegade Janissary officers who took power in the Sanjak of Smederevo (also known as the Belgrade Pashaluk), after murdering the Vizier Hadži Mustafa Pasha of Belgrade on 15 December 1801. The four supreme dahije leaders were Kučuk Alija, Aganlija, Mula Jusuf and Mehmed-aga Fočić. Rebels against the Ottoman sultan, they were defeated by the Serbs in the initial phase of the First Serbian Uprising, which is also called "Uprising against the Dahije" (Буна против дахија / Buna protiv dahija).
Name
The renegade janissary leaders were called dahije, from Ottoman Turkish dayı, meaning "uncle". The lesser janissary commanders were called kabadahije (s. kabadahija), referring to the Turkish phrase "kabadayı", a colloquial phrase for bullies.
Background
In 1788, during the Austro-Turkish War (1787–1791), Koča's frontier rebellion saw eastern Šumadija occupied by Austrian Serbian Free Corps and hajduks, and subsequently, most of the Sanjak of Smederevo was occupied by the Habsburg Monarchy (1788–91). The Siege of Belgrade from 15 September to 8 October 1789, a Habsburg Austrian force besieged the fortress of Belgrade. The Austrians held the city until 1791 when it handed Belgrade back to the Ottomans according to the terms of the Treaty of Sistova. With the return of the sanjak to the Ottoman Empire the Serbs expected reprisals from the Turks due to their support to the Austrians. Sultan Selim III had given complete command of the Sanjak of Smederevo and Belgrade to battle-hardened Janissaries that had fought Christian forces during the Austro-Turkish War and many other conflicts. Although Selim III granted authority to the peaceful Hadži Mustafa Pasha (1793), tensions between the Serbs and the Janissary command did not subside.
In 1793 and 1796 Sultan Selim III proclaimed firmans which gave more rights to Serbs. Among other things, taxes were to be collected by the obor-knez (dukes); freedom of trade and religion were granted and there was peace. Selim III also decreed that some unpopular janissaries were to leave the Belgrade Pashaluk as he saw them as a threat to the central authority of Hadži Mustafa Pasha. Many of those janissaries were employed by or found refuge with Osman Pazvantoğlu, a renegade opponent of Sultan Selim III in the Sanjak of Vidin. Fearing the dissolution of the Janissary command in the Sanjak of Smederevo, Osman Pazvantoğlu launched a series of raids against Serbians without the permission of Sultan Selim III, causing much volatility and fear in the region. Pazvantoğlu was defeated in 1793 by the Serbs at the Battle of Kolari. In the summer of 1797 the sultan appointed Mustafa Pasha on position of beglerbeg of Rumelia Eyalet and he left Serbia for Plovdiv to fight against the Vidin rebels of Pazvantoğlu. During the absence of Mustafa Pasha, the forces of Pazvantoğlu captured Požarevac and besieged the Belgrade fortress. At the end of November 1797 obor-knezes Aleksa Nenadović, Ilija Birčanin and Nikola Grbović from Valjevo brought their forces to Belgrade and forced the besieging janissary forces to retreat to Smederevo.
By 1799, the janissary corps had returned to the sanjak, as they were pardoned by the Sultan's decree.
History
Control of the Belgrade Pashalik
On 15 December 1801 Vizier Hadji Mustafa Pasha of Belgrade was killed by Kučuk-Alija, one of the four leading dahije. This resulted in the Sanjak of Smederevo being ruled by these renegade janissaries independently from the Ottoman government, in defiance to the Sultan. The janissaries imposed "a system of arbitrary abuse that was unmatched by anything similar in the entire history of Ottoman misrule in the Balkans". The leaders divided the sanjak into pashaluks. They immediately suspended the Serbian autonomy and drastically increased taxes, land was seized, forced labour (čitlučenje) was introduced, and many Serbs fled the janissaries in fear.
Some Ottoman sipahi and Mustafa Pasha's men plotted, and agreed with Serbian knezes to rise against the Dahije, on a given day. Ammunition was smuggled from the Habsburg Monarchy, some given out to the Serbs, and some hid on the Avala. This first attempt to remove the Dahije, erupting a day early in 1802 in Požarevac, was stopped, and the Dahije continued ruling the pashalik.