Edige
Nogai · mortal · Nogai traditional religion; continuing · Recorded classification
Edige is the supreme hero of Nogai heroic song and the pivot of the great epic that bears his name, sung across the Kipchak world from the Nogai and Tatars to the Kazakhs, Karakalpaks and Bashkirs. Behind him stands the historical emir Edigü (c.1352–1419), the Manghıt commander who broke Khan Toqtamish and built the ulus from which the Nogai Horde and the Nogai people descend. The epic gives him a marvellous pedigree: through the saint Baba Tükles's marriage to a peri he is of part-otherworldly blood. Orphaned when Toqtamish kills his father Qutlı-Qıya, Edige flees to Timur, returns to overthrow the khan, and rules the Horde before his own fall, bequeathing the struggle to his son Nuradin.
Parentage
- parent: Qutlı-QıyaSon of the bey Qutlı-Qıya.A. I.-M. Sikaliev, Nogayskiy geroicheskiy epos (Cherkessk, 1994) (secondary)
Children
Domains
- war
- sovereignty
- vengeance
Powers
- founds the Manghıt–Nogai polity
- avenges his slain father and overthrows the khan
- bears the otherworldly blood of a peri
Epithets
- Эдиге би — Edige the BeyA. I.-M. Sikaliev, Nogayskiy geroicheskiy epos (Cherkessk, 1994) (secondary)
Relations
- parent: Qutlı-QıyaSon of the bey Qutlı-Qıya.A. I.-M. Sikaliev, Nogayskiy geroicheskiy epos (Cherkessk, 1994) (secondary)
- child: NuradinFather of Nuradin.V. M. Zhirmunsky, Tyurkskiy geroicheskiy epos (Leningrad, 1974) (secondary)
- enemy: ToqtamishHis lifelong adversary, whom he ultimately overthrows.Ibn Arabshah, Aja'ib al-maqdur fi nawa'ib Timur (15th c.) (primary)
Sources
- Edige is the central hero of the Nogai and Kipchak heroic epic, based on the historical emir Edigü (c.1352–1419), founder of the Manghıt ulus and eponymous forebear of the Nogai; in epic he is of part-peri descent.: V. M. Zhirmunsky, Tyurkskiy geroicheskiy epos (Leningrad: Nauka, 1974), 'Skazanie ob Idige' (secondary); A. I.-M. Sikaliev, Nogayskiy geroicheskiy epos (Cherkessk: KChIGI, 1994) (secondary); Devin DeWeese, Islamization and Native Religion in the Golden Horde (University Park, 1994) (secondary)