page_title: Dahije
section_title: Control of the Belgrade Pashalik
hierarchical_section_title: Dahije / History / Control of the Belgrade Pashalik
caption_attribution_description: English: "Dahias are killing Mustapha Pasa", plate from 1802. Српски / srpski: Dahije ubijaju beogradskog vezira Mustafa-pašu, poznatog po nadimku "Srpska majka" (bakrorez iz 1802. godine)
context_page_description: The Dahije or Dahijas were the renegade Janissary officers who took power in the Sanjak of Smederevo, 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".
context_section_description: On 15 December 1801 Vizier Hadži 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.
  The tyranny endured by the Serbs caused them to send a petition to the Sultan, which the dahije learnt of. The dahije started to fear that the Sultan would make use of the Serbs to oust them. To forestall this they decided to execute leading Serbs throughout the sanjak, in the event known as the "Slaughter of the Knezes", which took place in late January 1804. According to contemporary sources from Valjevo, the severed heads of the murdered leaders were put on public display in the central square to serve as an example to those who might plot against the rule of the dahije. This enraged the Serbs, who led their families into the woods and started murdering the subaşi (village overseers) that had been employed by the dahije, and also attacking Ottoman forces. The dahije sent out the most diplomatic, Aganlija, with a strong force to frighten and calm them down, in order to avoid escalation into armed conflict which would be hard for the janissaries to manage, but to no avail.
caption: Dahije killing Mustafa Pasha.
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