The Politics of Piety: The Ottoma Ulema in the Postclassical Age 1600-1800 0882970429, 9780882970424

Table of contents :
Table of Contents
List of Illustrations
Preface
Acknowledgments
Note on Transliteration
Abbreviations
One - Introduction: Islam and the Ottoman Empire
Two - Origins of the Ulema Aristocracy
Three - The Crisis of the Elites
Four - The Kadizadeli Challenge
Five - The Ulema Restoration
Six - Epilogue
Glossary
Appendix
Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

STUDIES IN MIDDLE EASTERN HISTORY Edited by BRUCE D. CRAIG University o f Chicago

TITLES IN THE SERIES: No. I The Shuster Mission and the Persian Constitutional Revolution Robert A. McDaniel No. 2 The Odyssey o f F or ah Antun: A Syrian Christian's Quest fo r Secularism Donald M. Reid No. 3 The Aqquyunlu: Clan, Corfederation, Empire John E. Woods No. 4 The Judicial Administration o f Ottoman Egypt in The Seventeenth Century Galal H. El-Nahal No. 5 Lawyers and Politics in the Arab World, 1880-1960 Donald M. Reid No. 6 The Roots o f M odem Egypt. A Study o f the Regimes o f 'Ali Bey al-Kabir and Muhammad Bey Abu al-Dhahab, 1760-1775 Daniel Crecelius No. 7 The First M odem Arab State: Syria under Faysal 1918-1920 Malcolm B. Russell No. 8 The Politics o f Piety: The Ottoman Ulema in the Postclassical Age 1600-1800 Madeline C. Zilfi

The Politics of Piety

STUDIES IN MIDDLE EASTERN HISTORY-NUMBER EIGHT

THE POLITICS OF PIETY: THE OTTOMAN ULEM A IN THE POSTCLASSICAL AGE ( 1600- 1800) by

Madeline C. Zilfi University o f Maryland, Cofifge Park

BIBLIOTHECA ISLAMICA

Minneapolis

Copyright O 1988 by M addine C. Zilfi. Manufactured in the United States of America. All rights reserved. ISBN 0-88297-042-9. This work is fully protected under the revised copyright law and copying is strictly forbidden. Correspondence re­ lating to copying, reprinting or other company business should be addressed to: Bibliotheca Islamica, Inc., Box 14474, Minneapolis, MN 55414, U.S.A.

For My Family

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page List o f Illu stra tio n s....................................................................................11 List o f Figures ......................................................................................... 11 P r e f a c e ........................................................................................................13 Acknowledgments ....................................................................................17 Note on Transliteration ........................................................................... 19 List o f Abbreviations .................................................. 21 Chapter One - Introduction: Islam and the Ottoman E m pire......................... 23 Two - Origins o f the Ulema A risto cracy ......................................... 43 Three - The Crisis of the E lite s.......................................................... 81 Four - The Kadizadeli C hallenge......................................................129 Five - The Ulema Restoration .........................................................183 Six - E p ilo g u e .................................................................................... 227 Glossary .................................................................................................. 237 A ppendix.................................................................................................. 245 B ibliography.............................................................................................257 I n d e x ........................................................................................................ 281

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

following page 159

1. Mosque of Mehmed the Conqueror, Fatih, Istanbul. Courtesy of Professor W alter B. Denny. 2. Şeyhülislam (Grand M ûfti), from an eighteenth-century Spanish engraving series of Ottoman costumes. From the collection of Edwin Binney, 3rd. 3. M evlevi ritual, from Explication de cent estampes. . .(Paris: 1713), engraved by de la Hay. From the collection of Edwin Binney, 3rd. 4. Antinomian dervish, from an engraving entitled “Religious Turkish Dervish” after Louis Danet’s illustrations to D. de Nicholay’s sixteenth-century Navigations et Pérégrinations. From the collection of Edwin Binney, 3rd. 5. Interior, Mosque of Mihrimah Sultan, Istanbul. Courtesy of Professor W alter B. Denny.

LIST OF FIGURES Fig. 1 ilm iye H ierarchy............................................................. 25 Fig. 2 Şeyhülislam Fathers and S o n s....................................... 49 Fig. 3 Occupation o f Fathers of Şeyhülislams and Justices, 1703-1839 ............................................ 55

PREFACE

The (Ottoman religious institution (ilmiye> has a special claim to be studied. It developed at once within the limiting frame of Ottoman ad­ m inistration even while asserting an independence unique among the em pire’s governing institutions. In fact, neither dimension ever had the field exclusively to itself.

The drive for independence never

blinded the ilmiye to the fact that its ritual primacy owed much to its institutional standing, and the sultans never for long entertained the no­ tion o f a wholly captive religious hierarchy. The interplay between these two principles accounts for a good share of Ottoman religious and adm inistrative history over the centuries. The present study grew out of a dissertation on the eighteenthcentury ulem a. As that study progressed, it became increasingly clear that the remarkably stable and aristocratic professional world of the eighteenth-century ilmiye was a thing apart, not only hnom its fellow institutions but from its own recent past. In my search for the roots of patrim onially based stability, the ilmiye’s course looked less like an ever more beaten path to privilege than an assortment of finite and in­ dividualized grants that were only belatedly extended to the ilmiye as a whole.

By establishing the qualitative differences between the

seventeenth-century ilmiye’s individualized guarantees and the “great fam ily” ilmiye of the eighteenth, the present study seeks to explain the circum stances o f that passage as a case study in the chronic ulemastate dilemma. An inevitable component o f that dilemma in any century is the role 13

14

THE POLITICS OF PIETY

o f other groups o f religious in society and the implications for the or­ ganization o f faith and faithful beyond the ulema per se. It is my con­ tention that the fate o f the ilmiye between the sixteenth and late eight­ eenth centuries, while reflecting concerns similar to those of its secular counterparts, was uniquely shaped by ideological conflict within the body o f Ottoman religious. In this regard, it is appropriate to focus on the “high” versus “folk religion” features of such conflict. This, like ulem a-state tensions, is endemic to Islamic history. In the Ottoman case, however, the interaction between the ulema and official religion on the one hand, and Sufism and popular religion on the other, takes on clearer lines in the light of the ilmiye’s internal structure and the nature o f ilmiye recruitment. Each of the two clusters of confessional practice, far from being the preserve of ulema or mystics, found at least partial expression among practitioners in both groups. Not only were many ulema habitués of Sufi lodges, as is already a given in Ottoman history, but the scholars of the holy law— “the ulema” in the broadest sense— were divided between the men of means and position who occupied the em pire's highest judgeships and profes­ sorships and those whose less exalted callings reinforced a more popu­ lar, even populist, orientation. Among the Sufis there was a similar dichotomy. Some of their number were medrese graduates or more legalitarian in any case, but many individuals and entire orders recruited widely among the population, lettered or unlettered, and tailored their rituals to a popular following and fervor. Therein is the source of Ottoman w riters’ tendency to reserve the term “Sufi” for “true” adher­ ents o f an established mystical “way,” while applying “dervish” to those with less acceptable credentials. This is not to say that what one usually understands by “popular religion”— saint worship, syncretism and the like— was equally encouraged by the ilmiye subhierarchy and the more emotive Sufis. Rather, it is to suggest that both the body of m ystics and the exemplars of the law were riven by significant differ­ ences, and that within both groups there were elements which, albeit

PREFACE

15

with different notions o f the faith, consciously shaped their appeal, with comparable directness and emotionalism, to the masses of the faithful. It is a commonplace in Ottoman history that “the scholars of the law” were engaged in a constant struggle against antinomian mysti­ cism . W hat is less known is that there was more than one variety of “popular religion,“ and the “popular religion“ espoused by many in the ilm iye’s own subhierarchy in the seventeenth century was no less su­ spect. The present study is addressed to the circumstances that gave rise to the Kadizadelis’ popular religion and the implications of Kadizadeli “orthodoxy” for the several ilmiye-centered conflicts that paved the way for the great family ilmiye of the eighteenth century.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This book owes more than can be specifically acknowledged to the scholarship and encouragement of many colleagues and friends both at the University o f Maryland and the University of Chicago. Like most Ottom anists, I owe a special debt to Professor Halil İnalcık of the University o f Chicago, whose pathbreaking research on Ottoman so­ ciety led me to undertake this study. I would be remiss if 1 did not express thanks to the staffs of the University o f Chicago's Regenstein Library, the Istanbul University Central Library and West Berlin’s Staatsbibliothek. Above all, the Süleymaniye Library in Istanbul, despite earthquakes, political upheav­ al and researchers’ demanding ways, was invariably a haven of profes­ sional expertise, patience and cordiality. Thanks are also due to Professor W alter B. Denny for his help on il­ lustrations, and to Edwin Binney, 3rd, who kindly allowed me to copy original engravings from his private collection. I am also grateful to the University of Maryland’s General Research Board and Computer Science Center and to the Social Science Research Council, whose generous support enabled me to cany out my research.

17

NOTE ON TRANSLITERATION

M odem Turkish usage has been observed here in spelling most Ottoman Turkish proper names and technical terms. Except for a few words that have been absorbed into English, Turkish words in this text generally reflect spellings used in the New Redhouse Turkish-English

Dictionary (Istanbul: Redhouse Yayınevi, 1968). The number of dia­ critical m arks, however, has been further reduced without, it is hoped, any loss o f meaning for the reader. In addition, in the case of the con­ sonantal alternatives b/p and d/t, b and d have been preferred wherever the choice has been mine to make in transliterating from Ottoman Turkish. For Arabic and Persian names, a simplified system of romanization, without diacritical marks, has been used. Foreign words are italicized only the first time that they appear.

ABBREVIATIONS AJAS Anthro Q AÜ AARP BBA Bibi O r BSOAS BTTD CSSH DD D v cT -C E l' E l2

American Journal of Arabic Studies Anthropological Quarterly Ankara Üniversitesi

Art and Archeology Research Papers Başbakanlık Arşivi (Istanbul)

Bibliotheca Orientalis Bulletin o f the School of Oriental and African Studies Belgelerle Türk Tarih Dergisi Comparative Studies in Society and History Diyanet Dergisi Ankara Üniversitesi Dil ve Tarih-Coğrafya Fakültesi Dergisi Encyclopaedia o f İslam. Edited by Th. Houtsma, et al. 4 vols. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1913-36. Encyclopaedia o f İslam. 2nd revised edition. Edited by H. A. R. Gibb, et al. Leiden: E. J. Brill, I960-.

G-D A A IA IC LIMES iktisat ilahiyat IS IQ 10 JA JAOS JAS JEH

Güney-Doğu Avrupa Araştırmaları Dergisi İslam Ansiklopedisi. Edited by Adnan Adıvar, et al. İstanbul: M aarif Basımevi, 1950- . Islamic Culture International Journal of Middle East Studies Istanbul Üniversitesi iktisat Fakültesi Mecmuası Ankara Üniversitesi Ilâhiyat Fakültesi Dergisi Islamic Studies Islamic Quarterly Istanbul Üniversitesi

Journal Asiatique Journal o f the American Oriental Society Journal o f Administrative Science Journal o f Economic History 21

22 JESHO JJS JQR JRAS JRCAS

STS Ktp. MEB MES MTM MW OA REI RMM ROMM Salname

THE POLITICS OF PIETY Journal o f the Economic and Social History of the Orient Journal o f Jewish Studies Jewish Quarterly Review Journal o f the Royal Asiatic Society Journal o f the Royal Central Asian Society Journal o f Turkish Studies (Türklük Bilgisi Araştırmalan) Kütüphane (library) M illi Eğitim Basımevi

Middle Eastern Studies Milli Tetebbüler Mecmuası Muslim World Orient Abteilung

Revue des études islamiques Revue du monde musulman Revue de l’Occident musulman et de la Méditerranée Meşihat-i ilmiye, ilmiye Salnamesi. İstanbul: Matbaa-i Amire, 1334/1915-16.

SF SI Siyasal SO

Südost Forschungen Studia Islamica Ankara Üniversitesi Siyasal Bilgiler Dergisi Mehmed Süreyya, Sicill-i Osmani. 4 vols. Istanbul: Matbaa-i Amire, 1308-15/1891-97.

TAD TD TM TOEM TTEM TTK TV VD WI WZKM ZDMG

Tarih Araşttrmalan Dergisi Tarih Dergisi Türkiyat Mecmuası Tarih-i Osmani Encümeni Mecmuası Türk Tarih Encümeni Mecmuası Türk Tarih Kurumu

Tarih Vesikaları Vakıflar Dergisi Die Welt des Islams . Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenländischen Gesellschaft

Chapter One

INTRODUCTION: ISLAM AND THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE Dynasties o f wide power and large roy­ al authority have their origins in reli­ gion based either on prophethood or on truthful propaganda. Ihn Khaldûn The Muqaddimah, p. 125 (Princeton: 1967)

The Role o f the Ulema Islam has known few more faithful guardians of its rites and pre­ cepts than the Ottoman Empire at its height. As the memorialist Hezarfen(n) Hüseyn (d.

1691?) reminded his compatriots in the

troubled seventeenth century, the Ottomans concerned themselves with Islam far more than did earlier Islamic states; Islam was for the Ottoman Empire the root, while the state grew only as a branch from it.1 In nearly five hundred years as the Ottoman capital, the city of Istanbul received the full architectural impress of the faith. Throughout Istanbul, the Ottomans endowed hundreds of mosques, se­ m inaries (medrese), mausoleums, dervish cloisters (tekke; zaviye), fountains, orphanages, public refectories, hospitals, asylums, Koran schools (mekteb) and hospices.

In the number and ubiquity of its

sacred monuments, Istanbul everywhere testified to the generative 23

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THE POLITICS OF PIETY

force o f Islam. For ruler and for ruled, Islam, more than monarchy or the Ottoman house, ordered and gave meaning to Ottoman life. As architecture was the material expression of Ottoman Islam, the

ulema (s. alim), medrese-trained scholar-jurists, were its living embo­ dim ent. As in other Sunni states, the ulema gave voice to the consen­ sus o f the believing community. But in contrast to other Islamic states both past and contemporaneous, the Ottoman Empire committed itself to the organization of a strong, hierarchically organized ulema institu­ tion, the ilmiye (Fig. 1). The Ottomans showed the ulema more honor and respect, deference and veneration, as Hezarfen put it.2 The

Şeyhülislam (Shaikh el-Islam) o f the empire stood at the summit of the Ottoman religious institution, with the two chief justices of the army

(Kadiasker) in the two grades immediately below him .3 Below these, in graded posts, each a prerequisite for the next, stood the judges

(kadi) o f important imperial cities, Istanbul, Mecca, Cairo and Damascus among them. The professors (müderris) of the major m edreses, almost exclusively those of Istanbul, made up the lower half o f the ulema pyramid. Over the years they moved into increasingly more prestigious professorships. The most senior professors passed each year into the lowest o f the great judgeships. The religious institution also included a subhierarchy of judges, jurisconsults (mufti) and professors, all occupying minor provincial posts. There was as well, apart from the army of supernumeraries at­ tached to the various religious and charitable foundations (evkaf, s.

vakıf), a corps o f mosque preachers (vaizan; s. vaiz). The most presti­ gious preachers were those who addressed the Friday congregations from the pulpits o f Istanbul's imperial mosques— Aya Sofya, Sultan Ahmed, Süleymaniye, Beyazid, Fatih, Selim I, Valide and Şehzade, among others. Generally, neither the subhierarchy nor the preachers had undergone a full course o f training from the central hierarchy’s medrese profes­ sors. They were thus denied the title of “ulema” and the rewards that

ISLAM AND THE EM PIRE

25

Fig. 1— ilm iye Hierarchy Şeyhülislam (Grand Müfti of Istanbul) Major Judgeship (Great Molla) Hierarchy" G rade Rum elia A natolia Istanbul Harem eyn Erbaa M ahreç

Occupant C hief Justice of Rumelia and titular justices C hief Justice o f Anatolia and titular justices Judge o f Istanbul and titular judges Judges o f M ecca and Medina and titular judges Judges o f Edim e, Bursa, C airo, Damascus and titular judges Judges o f Aleppo, Eyüp, G alata, Izm ir, Salonika, Üsküdar, Yenişehir (Larisa), Jerusalem and titular judges

Medrese Hierarchy (Diploma-holding Professors) G rade D arülhadis-i Süleym aniye Süleym aniye H am is-i Süleym aniye M usile-i Süleym aniye H areket-i A ltm ışlı Ibtida-i A ltm ışlı Sahn-i Sem an M usile-i Sahn H areket-i Dahil Ibtida-i D ahil H areket-i H ariç

Constituent M edreses Süleymaniye’s Darülhadis only Four Süleymaniye medreses only Various Various Various Various Eight Fatih medreses only Various Various Various Various

[Subhierarchy Professors and Judges— Not Diploma Holders] "A fter the reorganization o f the ilm iye, midway in the reign o f Ahm ed III (1703-30).

the title conferred. Superior prestige, recompense and promotional op­ portunities belonged to the medrese-trained and Istanbul-ordered central

26

THE POLITICS OF PIETY

hierarchy. The preachers and subhierarchy were nonetheless vital to the Ottoman religious establishment. Some 1200 locales in Anatolia and the Balkans, many o f them no more than waystations, remote from the m ajor population centers, had their Koran schools, mosques, judges and, occasionally, medreses.

Istanbul alone had at least as

many mosques.4 In these and in the strength of their ideological ties to the official center, the ulema of the hierarchy, lay the guarantee that Ottoman society would preserve not only its Sunni identity but its cen­ trist and legalitarian character as well.

Impiety, grievous personal

lapses, and inconsistencies notwithstanding, the official religious esta­ blishm ent represented an unprecedentedly generous and regular injec­ tion o f resources into the realization of the faith as the Ottomans und­ erstood it. The day-to-day role o f the ulema lay in the mingled realms of the shariah (serial), or sacred law, and education. The ulema staffed the em pire’s schools with teachers and its prefectures with judges. Lacking any sacramental function, the ulema were not clergy in the true sense. Nonetheless, as members of the ilmiye, particularly when serving as judges o f the empire, they stood watch over the believer’s life. Transgressors against the holy law or the secular, whether murd­ erers, thieves, miscreants, adulterers, drunkards or shirkers of whatever sort, were judged in the Ottoman kadi’s court. Marriage, divorce, de­ sertion, death, and the transfers of property associated with each such passage, and all manner of vexing human problems in the meantime called for the ulema to certify, register, advise or adjudicate. Through the schools and courts the ulema sought to define the reli­ gious duties o f die believer, delimit the norms of human relationships and reinforce religious and cultural unity. The Ottomans did not leave such tasks to chance. The sacred law theoretically encompasses all hu­ man activity— the relationship of the believer to God, to fellow M uslim and to non-Muslim, through intimacy to opposition, within and without “the Abode o f Islam” (Dar el-lslam). The law, however,

ISLAM AND THE EMPIRE

27

It was Ottoman policy that the sultans’ issuances defining that relation­ ship at the very least not run counter to the sacred law, nor otherwise offend the public’s religious sensibilities. In consequence, the ulema, adm ittedly with varying success, pored over Ottoman administrative laws to judge their conformity with the shariah. In addition, only the Şeyhülislam was empowered to authorize the deposition of the* Sultan. Through the issuance of a legal opinion (fetva), the Şeyhülislam in ef­ fect could confirm or deny the Sultan's fitness to rule. Thus did the ulem a work to ensure the weight of the faith in state and society. The very existence o f an elaborate edifice through which the Ottomans showed the ulema “honor and respect” played a crucial part in the claim s o f the dynasty. Without provision for the ulema there could be no implementation of the law, and without the law there could be little hope o f legitimacy for the plebeian-blooded Ottoman dynasty. The Ottomans made no claim to the legitimizing blood of the Prophet Muhammad or his tribe, and they only occasionally flirted with an ennobling Central Asian genealogy. Performance in the name o f Islam had made the Ottomans a dynasty. Their most prized titles recalled Ottoman rulers as warriors, servitors, protectors, wielders of pow er and conquerors o f the empires of Alexander and the Romans, all for the faith. Justification for the Ottomans’ rise and continued ex­ istence was always couched in terms of their active role for Islam. W hat changed as Ottoman fortunes declined was not the Islamic con­ tent o f the dynastic identity, but rather the particular religious attributes which the Ottomans drew upon to back their right to rule. With the loss o f their perform er titles one by one, the Ottomans resorted to such abstractions as spiritual hegemony and the myth of caliphal transfer from a descendant o f the Abbasid dynasty (750-1258).5 Until Ottoman arm ies permanently shifted to the defensive in the eighteenth century, Ottom an titles were as concrete as the empire itself. Legitimacy in­ hered in enabling the growth and perpetuation of the shariah-guided Islam ic community, the raison d’être of the post-caliphal Sunni state.

28

THE POLITICS OF PIETY

So at least runs the theory of the Ottoman relationship to the pri­ mary custodians o f the faith, the ulema. Actual Ottoman practice ine­ vitably acted as a check on the ulema’s independence. The link be­ tween the ulem a’s fortunes and the state, the role of the state in deter­ mining the religious scholar’s livelihood, cast a shadow over the whole institution. The individual judge or professor was not necessarily com­ prom ised, but there was no mistaking the seriousness of the scholar’s dilemma. Proximity to the state meant corruption, it was traditionally held, even for the best o f men. Religious scholars are “the depositar­ ies o f the prophets,” yet a “religious man who goes to see a ruler loses his religion,” pronounced one of the ominous verdicts in the caliphal era. “He who accepts office as judge is like someone who is being slaughtered without a knife,” was another age-old warning to the pious.6 In the first centuries after the death of the Prophet Muhammad in 632, scholars tapped for judgeships suffered public whippings, exile and ignominious scrambles over rooftops rather than accept public of­ fice. Ottoman scholars passed through their own less dramatic version o f the dilemma in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The most in­ trepid o f them declared a preference for the untainted role of private scholar and devoted themselves to study and teaching, secure in the faith that God would provide. As had been the case in the caliphal era, however, the number of pious holdouts dwindled against the weight o f the government system. It was especially difficult to remain aloof from judgeships when judicial emoluments were higher than those o f other scholars, and the majority of one’s colleagues were rushing to acquire them. By the sixteenth century it was a rare Ottoman scholar whose name did not somewhere appear on a state pay ledger. The marriage between ulema and state continued to be a mixed blessing for the ulema.

The ulema received payment under the

auspices o f the state for performing essentially religious tasks. In ad­ dition, under the Ottomans the role of judge came to include supervis-

ISLAM AND THE EMPIRE

29

ing the activities o f administrative officials. Judges who rode the cir­ cuit to inscribe marriage contracts, deathbed testaments and professions o f faith also participated in tax assessment and collection. Their pre­ sence was intended as a curb on abuses in the countryside, but there were unwelcome consequences even when the judges performed honor­ ably. W hen disputes arose over taxation matters, judges could scarce­ ly dissociate themselves from an onerous or unjust reckoning. In any case, not all judges performed honorably. Judges winked at overtaxa­ tion in order to share in the profits while, for their part, medrese pro­ fessors often awarded unearned diplomas and jurisconsults tailored their opinions to the more lucrative side of litigation. The saleability o f state office further increased the potential for corruption.

For

judges, however, the potential for corruption was especially marked. The judges’ multifaceted authority gave them opportunities to inter­ vene, much as any worldly man of state, in the affairs of litigants, whether they were administrators or common subjects. Indeed, when a professor left the teaching ranks for a judgeship, he was said to have “opted for the state.”7 For the greater part of their history, the ulema of the hierarchy dom inated the ritual life o f Istanbul and the empire. So established were the ulem a’s prerogatives and their place in the rationale underly­ ing Ottoman legitimacy that the ilmiye as an institution was not direct­ ly challenged until the end o f the empire. Then the entire edifice of state came under attack. Before that time, the ulema were generally criticized only as individuals— the corrupt judge, the ignorant profes­ sor, the decadent chief justice. Apart from occasional debate over ac­ cepting pay for doing God’s work, as a practical matter ulema involve­ m ent with the state was taken as inevitable. The stigma of worldly am bition continued to attach to the Ottoman ulema as it had to their predecessors nine hundred years before in caliphal Baghdad. Still, the durable success o f the empire had a legitimizing effect on the empire’s institutions. The ilm iye, for all its flaws, shared in that effect and, in

30

THE POLITICS OF PIETY

any case, the Ottoman system was the only way of treating the ulema that most Ottoman subjects had ever known.

The Seventeenth-Century Challenge Throughout Ottoman history, the ulema’s ultimate necessity, in their state-supported, hierarchical form, was not directly contested. The il­ miye itself and the role o f the ulema as official guardians and exposi­ tors o f the faith were seemingly above question. In the seventeenth century, however, a battle for the religious mind of Istanbul was joined amid the general fiscal crisis that afflicted the empire. The very role o f the ulem a and the deep roots of the crisis made the ulema hierarchy, if not individual ulema, an unwitting casualty of the disintegrating Ottoman order. Although the ulema did not suffer a frontal attack on strictly ideological grounds until the nineteenth century, they were dangerously buffeted in the seventeenth century’s protracted time of troubles. In the seventeenth century, ulema corruption took place on a shockingly grand scale. The matter was of vital consequence for the ilm iye.

Virtually every memorialist in the turbulent seventeenth

century— not accidentally the first flowering of the memorial genre— decried the state of the ulema. From the Bosnian judge Hasan el-Kafi (Shaikh el-Akhisari) (d. 1616) at the start of the century to the urbane litterateur Hezarfen at its close, the memorialists prefaced their pre­ scriptions for saving the empire on, among other things, a revitalized ulem a institution.8 At the same time they bemoaned contemporary ule­ ma venality and despaired of the ulema’s capacity to carry out their trust. Over the course o f the century, the collective prestige of the ulem a plummeted, and public and official support languished. The seventeenth century as a whole was one of debilitating warfare, rural depopulation, urban pressure, epidemics, inflation, capricious executions, a swollen and erratically paid central government, high

ISLAM AND THE EMPIRE

31

taxation and chronic food shortages. The human and spiritual disloca­ tions o f the time took their toll on the institutions that had given life to the classical system. For just the sultanate, the first half of the century saw in Osman II (1618-22) the first murder of a Sultan by his own guardsmen; in M ustafa I (1617-18, 1622-23) a twice-certified mad­ man; in M urad IV (1623-40), at twelve years old the youngest ruler thus far, and on his death at twenty-nine perhaps the most ruthless; and in the voluptuary Ibrahim I (1640-48), who spent most of his hours in the harem , at best “a Faithful and Valiant Souldier of Venus.”9 O f the nine sultans girded with the sword of Osman in the century, only three were both sane and adult on accession.10 For the childsultans, there was no institutionalized regency. Instead, a dizzying se­ ries o f corrupt, palace-bound servitors advised the throne. For those sultans who acceded as adults, there had been no training in gover­ nance but only stifling incarceration in the princes’ quarters at Topkapi palace. A bewildered Süleyman II (1687-91) had spent almost fifty years as a prisoner in Topkapi when he was summoned to the throne. The strictly political evidence o f the empire’s distress was apparent in the standing military corps* rise to kingmaker. Linked to the instabili­ ty o f the tim es and the new hegemony of men of the sword were both a rise in the level o f political violence and a depreciation of learning. The official place o f the ulema derived from their unique training in the sacred law. Their moral authority derived from the public’s judg­ ment o f them . As the repositories of community consensus, the ulema theoretically represented the people. As official appointees, they func­ tioned as part o f the ruling elite. Too often it seemed as though they had com pletely thrown in their lot with the latter, as when they helped to secure the throne for M ustafa I, whose raving insanity they had dis­ m issed as “a touch o f the dervish.” 11 Apart from the issue of their in­ tegrity, the very nature of the juridico-religious calling militated against public confidence. The abstruse legal scholarship that dom inated the medreses in the seventeenth century did not begin to

32

THE POLITICS OF PIETY

meet the spiritual needs of the Muslim population. The bearers o f oth­ er powerful traditions filled the crevices that the legal establishment of the ulema and their adjuncts left open. Under the stress o f the period, religious repercussions were not unexpected. Even in the halcyon times of the most righteous ulema servitors, believers looked beyond the prescriptions of the law for other avenues o f spiritual expression. Eloquent mosque preachers, mystics, healers and wandering holy men attracted men and women seeking comfort or, indeed, better results. In the worst of times that was the seventeenth century, life was brutal, and “winning the favor of the gods"12 became a wider and more frantic pursuit. Through a combina­ tion o f lack o f will and lack of ability, ulema weakness contributed to centrifugal religious tendencies. The visibility of the official hierar­ chy, the promise of its dignifying rituals and its very pervasiveness raised popular expectations of its efficacy. When the ulema failed in tim es o f crisis, there could only be further estrangement between the official religious and the masses. The seventeenth century was such a tim e. Historically, the group, or better, congeries of groups, that more than any other filled the unlegislated crevices of Ottoman religious life were the practitioners o f mysticism, the Sufis, or dervishes, of Islam. They were “folk of the path” (ehl-i tarik) of Truth, travelers in search o f God by way o f the heart. Only through the love of God, and not through fear, could the seeker come to know the Divine Presence. “Dervishhood,” the Sufi master Aşık Pasha (d. 1332) instructed his di­ sciples, “is the plucking from the heart the love of ‘the all beside G od,’ and the freeing o f the soul from the fetters of the world.”13 Sufism may have been all of that and more to its champions. For oth­ ers, even those who believed it to be a legitimate side of Islam, the movement was at least controversial. By the Ottoman era, mysticism in Islam had already had a long his­ tory, one as varied as the assortment of men and women who had

ISLAM AND THE EMPIRE

33

borne its labels. A scetics, ecstatics, literati and maddened lovers o f God called them selves “Sufi” and “dervish.” Since the rise of the O ttom ans, the Sufi movement had been dominated by established ord­ ers. Each possessed its own community of brethren and lay adherents, its own rule o f love or gnosis for the heart's path, and its own chain o f spiritually filiated masters tracing back to the common Islamic fount, the era o f the Prophet. However Sufis might differ, whether rural or urban, solitary or communal, mortified or rapturous, lovers or gnos­ tics, the goal o f true' practitioners was union with God via the heart’s intuition.14 The m ovem ent’s own legitimate varieties, however, found other, da­ m aging, dimensions in the popular wish to fix a name to other types o f “saintliness.” The public added to the roster of “mystics” scores o f conscious and unconscious pretenders to saintliness, many of whom knew nothing o f the heart except that it beats. Thus were yoked to­ gether as “Sufis” Celaleddin Rumi (d. 1273),15 the author of perhaps the finest mystical verse in any language, and the likes of “Slimy”

(Sümüklü) Hüseyn, a seventeenth-century denizen of Istanbul’s Hippodrome whose mucus purportedly brought good luck to those on whom it landed.16 The motley parade historically called “Sufi” offered ample scope for the disapproval o f the Ottoman ulema generally, as well as of the strictly orthodox.

Had there been no Slimy Hüseyns or wily opium

eaters to live o ff a credulous public, those who held themselves to be the true upholders of orthodoxy would have faulted the practice o f Sufism .

In the Ottoman Empire, religion often constituted at once a

political posture and a spiritual creed. Deviations from the established religion autom atically raised questions about political loyalties.

In

Sufism ’s popular appeal lay its danger to the state and, especially in orthodox eyes, to the sacred law and orthodoxy itself. Ottoman rulers worried at the mystics’ proved ability to mobilize the m asses. Since the end of the eleventh century and the mass migrations

34

THE POLITICS OF PIETY

o f the Turks into Byzantine territory, pre-Ottoman and Ottoman A natolia saw any number o f warrior-mystics raise up armies against the m ore settled and urban governing authorities.17 In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, counterreligion and antistatism erupted under the leadership o f the warrior-mystics Shaikh Bedreddin (d. 1420) and Shah Ism ail Safavi (d. 1524). Both movements challenged the Ottomans’ right to rule on religious as well as political grounds. At the cost of tens o f thousands o f lives and decades of civil disruption, both were suppressed, but the underlying animosities were never wholly resolved. The relationship between state and mystics was ridden with second thoughts and am biguities. W henever heterodoxy combined with antiOttom an political aspirations, the interests of the rulers and the ulema m et to rein in the mystical sources that fed popular rebellion. The warrior-m ystics represented a primitive and unlettered fervor of uncer­ tain consequence for the rights and prerogatives of the scholars of the law . Along with outright suppression, the Ottomans adopted a conci­ liatory, longer-range policy toward potential detractors. Ottoman rul­ ers weeded out the antistatists and encouraged potential dynastic sup­ porters.

Those orders and shaikhs who aided Ottoman policies re­

ceived pious endowments, ceremonial recognition and access to ruling circles. Ottoman authorities were more than willing to subsidize ord­ ers that inculcated self-restraint, patience, Sunni brotherhood, sobriety, charity and other virtues conducive to a well-ordered, tractable polity. To the extent that certain orders and their spiritual masters enjoyed of­ ficial protection, they served as adjuncts to the civil authority. In the seventeenth century, the urban mystical lodges were primarily of this sort. In effect they channeled into Sufi ritual the social and potential political energies o f large segments of the urban population. The inter­ ests o f the ulem a, however, ran deeper than the state’s preoccupation with popular tranquility and “the right order of the world” (nizam-i

alem). M anifestations o f disorder and countermobilization in general sounded the alarm for the state’s active concern. The very nature o f

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ISLAM AND THE EMPIRE

m ysticism kept the most orthodox religious, even in times of peace, perpetually on their guard. If the sacred law was a doctrinal heartland for Sunni Islam , Sufism was its frontier.

Although many m ystics,

both Ottoman and pre-Ottoman, were trained in both the bookish scho­ larship o f the law as well as in the mystic’s exercises for preparing the heart, the Sufi movement at its core tended to scorn the role of booklearning and, along with it, the holy law and its doctors. The poet and satirist Şeyhi Sinan (d. ca. 1451), having devoted his early years to both legal scholarship and the Sufi way, declared emphatically for the latter: N e’er may reason yield us tidings of Thy Godhead’s caravan; Only soft unto the Soul’s ear is there borne a chim e o f b ells.18 The Sufi notion of the primacy of the esoteric struck directly at the sacred law and theoretically at the role of the ulema. The exoteric— in textual interpretation and in the forms of ritual and devotion— was the realm o f the ulema. It was the field for their expertise and for their claim s to preem inence.

Among the strictest interpreters of (Sunni)

Islamic orthodoxy, esotericism was licit only within the narrowest o f established lim its. In the somewhat wider view of the Ottoman ulema generally, esotericism , albeit still within bounds, nonetheless offered an enlightening perspective on the same ultimate reality. In the Sufi view , however, esotericism was the true method and the true reality. The layers o f rhetoric that accumulated around the issue over the cen­ turies testified to its contentiousness. The difference in approaches to the sacred constituted the daily bread o f the dispute between mystics and legal scholars. Probably ev­ ery poet who fancied him self a m ystic, and vice versa, composed at least

one

poem

deriding

some

trait

of

the

legal

scholar.

Legalitarianism , slavishness to the word of the law, the Sufis said,

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THE POLITICS OF PIETY

made o f legal scholars a pompous body of bookmen. Such as they could not locate the right path much less hope to tread it. Mehmed Fazlı (d. 1563), a sixteenth-century poet of the Halveti order, was especially outspoken: Obedience and ablution hence I’ve cast, And from all acts of formal worship past. My face 1 lave not, neither pray by rule; None can be as far as I from such a school.19 A t the same tim e, however, the appeal of Sufi-inspired poetry secured for it a central place in Ottoman literary circles. The Sufis’ vocabulary and imagery were almost inescapable for the cultivated poet. Those who by avocation aspired to courtly poetry were by vocation ulema, statesm en, soldiers and scribes, among others of the literate ruling elite.

Thus Şeyhülislam s, judges and medrese professors— some of

them affiliates of the Sufi lodges but many not— wrote poems that were all but indistinguishable from those of actual Suri brethren. For the strictly orthodox, the willful spreading of outlandish Sufi ideals by any m eans was an unacceptable flirtation with heterodoxy. For the ulem a generally, however, there was little, if anything, to condemn in their colleagues’ and others’ Sufi-sounding verse.

Even among the

more cosm opolitan ulem a, however, Sufism broadly conceived bore watching if it was not to degenerate into unbelief. The Sufis’ potential for deviation had become all the more likely once the Sufi orders began to take on a lay following.20 Fashionable antinom ianism among a handful of eccentrics or the elect was one m atter. It was potentially quite another in the hands of the masses. In the seventeenth century, the vast majority of Sufi brethren were laymen— less lettered, less sophisticated and less engaged in the intel­ lectual side o f the movement. The most resolute Sufi master could not guarantee the purity o f the part-tim er, and even politically quiescent orders fed on suspect religious principles.

ISLAM AND THE EMPIRE

37

Apart from Sufism 's perceived indifference, even disdain, for the holy law , the Sufi principles most vulnerable to charges of heresy were those form ulated more or less finally by the Arab mystic from A ndalusia, M uhiy’l-Din ibn al-Arabi (d. 1240).21 In his own era and thereafter, the very mention o f his name excited conflict in learned cir­ cles. Since he had pronounced brilliantly, if not always persuasively, on the nature o f virtually every aspect of the mystical quest, no discus­ sion o f Sufism could be complete without him. His work informed Ottoman m ysticism . In the seventeenth century, his reputation was as much at the center o f the religious conflicts of the time as though he him self were still alive. To orthodox thinkers, Arabi’s doctrine of the Unity of Being (A .,

Wahdat al-Wujud) smacked o f pantheism. Those who exulted in the belief that “everything is H e,” the orthodox insisted, denied the tran­ scendence o f God. Arabi had also elaborated on the principle of the unity o f all religious creeds. By Arabi’s tim e, the theme of religious unity was already a centuries-old legacy from the mystics of the caliphal era. It was Arabi, however, who presented it in a form and in a language that adherents and detractors alike came to use.22 Most Ottoman m ystics who left behind a body of poetry somewhere alluded to the basic unity o f all religion, but tew later writers were bolder than Arabi him self had been. My heart has become capable of every form: it is a pasture for gazelles and a convent for Christian monks. And a temple for idols and the pilgrim ’s Ka’ba and the tables o f the Torah, and the book o f the Koran. 1 follow the religion of Love: whatever way Love’s camels take, that is my religion and my faith.23

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For the orthodox, the m ystic's unitarianism blurred all meaningful lines between the Islamic community and the spiritual "outside." It was this dichotom y that gave the community its shape and ultimately its world­ ly purpose. W ithout the order that the definitions of the sacred law im posed upon human activity, could the believer know who was mis­ sionary and what the mission? M ysticism ’s tendencies toward pantheism, syncretism and the like constituted an irreducible core o f tension between the Sufis and the or­ thodox down the centuries. For some of the orthodox, no amount o f Sufi good works, service or quietism could erase a nagging sense of the m ovem ent’s potential for deviation. For others of them, Sufism was dangerous only at its extrem es, the contributions of the Sufi main­ stream outweighing questionable doctrines or sporadic bursts of heresy. The ferocity with which Ottoman sultans met Sufi-linked threats to their pow er, and the indulgence, by some of the same sultans, of the intellectual sources o f such revolts are especially revealing of the para­ dox.

Around 1514, Selim I "the Grim" (1512-20), ordered tens of

thousands o f Shi’ites in eastern Anatolia killed because of their active sym pathy for the claim s o f his Safavi rival, the warrior-mystic Ismail. Three years later, while at Damascus on his campaign to secure the Islam ic heartland for the Ottomans, Selim had the neglected tomb of Ibn al-Arabi magnificently restored.24 For the most part, the issues of pantheism and religious unity were relegated to the narrow realm of intellectual debate. Individual schol­ ars and commentators held forth on pet themes in the select circles of the literate. If the lay public was privy to the debate; they came by their knowledge accidentally and unsystematically. In the seventeenth century, however, there was a major shift in the character of intra­ confessional discourse. The public at large became an active part of a dram atic religious encounter. It was the Kadtzadelis, a vaizan-led fun­ dam entalist movement, who took the issues to the public. Throughout much o f the seventeenth century the Kadtzadelis engaged the popula­

ISLAM AND THE EMPIRE

39

tion o f Istanbul in a renewed debate over the bounds of orthodoxy. The wildly divergent forms of “Sufism” that were taking hold in the seventeenth century may have been a response to a world out of joint, but to the Kadizadelis, the Sufis had brought that world into being. The O ttom ans, far less than their European counterparts and even less than many o f their Islamic forebears, were not inquisitional. They es­ tablished no standing body to rout out heretics or expose deviations. In the end. the community acted as final arbiter o f right and wrong. If the ulem a had been fulfilling their communal guidance function, the K adizadelis contended, there would have been little room for the longevity and widespread appeal o f the Sufis. If the ulema refused to cleanse society o f heresy, others had to show the way. The term s “ulema” and “orthodox” were far from coterminous in Ottom an society generally, but perhaps least of all in the seventeenth century. However much the ulema, the official religious o f the realm, may have symbolized true, “orthodox,” Islam, at no time were they held to have a monopoly on orthodoxy or orthopraxy. Other individ­ uals could and did lay claim to the “true” faith, sometimes in express solidarity with the m ajor ulema o f the tim e, but often in censorious op­ position to them . In the seventeenth century, the so-called Kadizadelis regarded them selves as exponents o f the “true” faith. Even though the Kadizadelis included ulema among their partisans, they opposed the m ajor ulem a spokesmen o f the day and what the Kadizadelis labeled as the “weakness” o f the ulem a’s faith. By seizing the spiritual and moral initiatives, the Kadizadelis’ corps o f vaizan or mosque sermonists, representatives of the relatively unprestigious and non-medrese-trained religious, threatened the role o f the hierarchy ulem a. The ulem a, repositories of orthodoxy, guardians o f the faith and voice o f the community, found themselves outflanked by an “orthodox” coalition whose membership cut across both religious and secular elite lines. The vicissitudes of the ulema establishment in the seventeenth century constituted a watershed which the ulema not

40

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only survived but over which they triumphed. By the eighteenth cen­ tury the ulema were stronger than ever before. Indeed, it is the ulema o f the eighteenth century, not their beleaguered predecessors, who are really being invoked in descriptions of the pie-modem Ottoman reli­ gious establishm ent. It is their patrimony, their aristocracy, their arro­ gance, their immunity and their centrality that are recollected in discus­ sions o f the ulema of the ancien régime. The ulema of the seventeenth century were far too vulnerable to share such complacency, yet it is on their backs that the new ulema aristocracy emerged. Notes ' “Din asıl, devlet onun fer’i gibi kunılmuşdur. . . . Ve bilcümle ulemâya bu devlet-i aliyyede olan ikram bir devlet-i islâmiyye olmamışdır.” Robert Anhegger, “Hezarfen Hüseyin Efendi’nin Osmanlı Devlet Teşkilâtına dair M ülâhazaları,” TM 10 (1951-53): 389. 2Ibid., p. 391: “Hakka ki devlet-i aliyye-i Osmaniyyede ulemâ-i ’izâm ve fudalâ-i Icirâma olan izaz ve ikram ve tevkir-i ihtirâm düvel-i sâlifeden birinde vâki olmuş değildir. . . .” Also Koçi Bey, “Risale,” Berlin, Staatsbibliothek, OA 1091, fols. 16a-1 6 b. For the Islamic content of Ottoman statecraft and institutions generally, see Halil İnalcık, The Ottoman Empire: The Classical Age 1300-1600, trans. N. Itzkowitz and C . Imber (London: 1973), and “Islam in the Ottoman Empire,” Cultura Turcica 5 -6 (1968-70): 19-29. 3The use o f the term “ulema” among the Ottomans and the evolution of the ilmiye through the early nineteenth century are detailed in Madeline C. Zilfi, “The Ottoman Ulema 1703-1839 and the Route to Great Mollaship” (Ph.D. dissertation. University o f Chicago, 1976). Though somewhat dated, H. A. R. Gibb and Harold Bowen, Islam ic Society and the West, 1 vol. in 2 (London: 1950-57), Part 2, pp. 70 ff., is the m ost detailed treatm ent of Ottoman religious institutions in the postclassical era. İnalcık, Ottoman Empire, pp. 165-78, provides an overview of leligio-cultural deve­ lopments in the classical period. 4The numbers given here for imperial judgeships, mosques and the like are based on this author’s calculations from data appearing in P. G. Inciciyan, XVIII. Asırda Istanbul, trans. Hrand D. Andreasyan (Istanbul: 1956), pp. 39-40; Mouradgea d ’O hsson, Tableau général de l’Empire Othoman, 7 vols. (Paris: 1788-1824), 2:452-56; Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall, Geschichte des Osmanischen Reiches, 10 vols. (Pest: 1827-35), 9:1-24 and passim; Koçi Bey, Koçi Bey Risalesi, ed. Z. Danışman (Istanbul: 1972), pp. 127-29; M. Kemal Ozergin, “Rumeli Kadılıklan’nda 1078 Düzenlem esi,” Ism ail Hakkı Uzunçarşılı'ya Armağan (Ankara: 1976), pp. 253, 270, 309; A. Süheyl Onver, “XVUinci Yüzyıl Sonunda Padişaha bir Lâyiha,” Belleten 33 (1969):27. 5W ith the loss o f M uslim-populated territories, beginning in the late eighteenth cen­ tury the Ottomans increasingly stressed the Sultan’s role as a spiritual leader of all

ISLAM AND THE EMPIRE

41

M uslim s, even those who were legal subjects of other temporal rulers. To bolster their claim s to non-territorial spiritual authority, the Ottomans claimed that in 1517 a de­ scendant o f the Abbasids, the last Islamic caliphs, had transferred the caliphal heritage to Selim I (1512-20) when the latter conquered the Islamic heartland. İnalcık, “Islam ,” pp. 23-25, sorts out the significance and historical background of Ottoman sovereign titles. 6Ignaz G oldziher, Muslim Studies, ed. S. M. Stem, 2 vols. (London: 1967-71), 2:48; S. D. G oitein, “Attitudes towards Government in Islam and Judaism ,” in Studies in Islam ic H istory and Institutions (Leiden: 1966), pp. 205-208; A. J. W ensinck, “The Refused D ignity,” A Volume o f Oriental Studies Presented to E. G. Browne (Cambridge: 1922), pp. 491-99; Adam Mez, The Renaissance o f Islam, trans. S. K. Bukhsh and D. S. M argoliouth (Patna, India: 1937), pp. 218-20; N. J. Coulson, A H istory o f Islam ic Law (Edinburgh: 1964), p. 123. 7“Devlet için ihtiyar etti.” Nevizade Atai, Zeyl-i Şakaik, 2 vols, in 1 (Istanbul: 1268/1851-52), p. 334. *Hasan el-K afi (Shaikh el-Aldiisari), “Principes de sagesse, touchant l’art de gou­ verneur (Üşül el-Hikam fi Nizâm el-’Alem),” trans. Garcin de Tassy, JA 4 (1824) 217-18; Kitâb-i M üstetâb, ed. Yaşar Yücel (Ankara: 1974), pp. 23-24; Anhegger, “Hezarfen,” pp. 389-93; W. F. A. Behmauer, “Koğabeg’s Abhandlung über den Verfall des Osmanischen Staatsgebäudes seit Sultan Suleiman dem Grossen,” ZDMG 15 (1861):288-94; W. F. A. Behmauer, “Das Nasîhatnâme,” ZDMG 18 (1864): Part 9; Koçi Bey, Risale, pp. 24-31, 126-29; Kemankeş Kara Mustafa Pasha, “Sadrazam Kemankeş Kara Mustafa Paşa Lâyihası,” ed. Faik Reşit Unat, TV 1/6:451-53. Memorials or memoranda (layiha) on the state of the realm were cus­ tom arily addressed to the Sultan, often, but not exclusively, in response to his request for the opinions o f a particular government servant or otherwise knowledgeable com­ m entator. The “arbitrista” literature of Hapsburg Spain, the Ottomans’ waning Christian counterpart, is remarkably similar to the layiha in function, tone and chronology. 9Sir Paul Rycaut, The History o f the Turkish Empire from the Year 1623 to the Year 1677, 2 vols. (London: 1680), 2:10. l0Süleyman II (1687-91), Ahmed II (1691-95) and Mustafa II (1695-1703), though not entirely free of quirks, were of age and reasonably sane. "A hm ed Refik Altinay, Osmanh Devrinde Hoca Nüfuzu (Istanbul: 1933), p. 10. l2W illiam Jam es, The Varieties o f Religious Experience (New York: 1958), p. 41. ,3E. J. W. Gibb, A History o f Ottoman Poetry, 6 vols. (London: 1958-67), 1:181. l4O f the vast literature devoted to Islamic mysticism, the works of most help to the present study include: the rich and varied writings of Annemarie Schimmel, especially her M ystical Dimensions o f Islam (Chapel Hill: 1975), Pain and Grace: A Study o f Two M ystical Writers o f Eighteenth-Century Muslim India (Leiden: 1976), The Triumphal Sun: A Study o f the Works o f Jalàloddin Rumi (London: 1978); J. Spencer Trim ingham , The Sufi Orders in Islam (Oxford: 1973); H. J. Kissling, “Aus der Geschichte des Chalwetijje-Ordens,” ZDMG 102 (1953):233-89; H. J. Kissling, “The Sociological and Educational Role of the Dervish Orders in the Ottoman Empire,” in Studies in Islam ic Cultural History, ed. G. E. von Gmnebaum (Menasha, Wisconsin:

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THE POLITICS OF PIETY

1954), pp. 23- 35; B. G. M utin, “A Short History of the Khalwati Order of D ervishes,” in Scholars, Saints, and Sufis, ed. Nikki R. Keddie (Berkeley: 1972), pp. 275-305. lsRumi was the inspiration for the establishment of the Mevlevi dervish order, and his masterful epic poem, the “Mesnevi” (“Mathnawi”), has been called “the Koran” of the Sufi movement (Annemarie Schimmel, “Sufi Literature,” Special Paper for the Asia Society, New York City: Fall 1975, p. 5). ,6Evliya Çelebi, Evliya Çelebi Seyahatnamesi, 8 vols. (Istanbul: 1976- ), 1:268. l7On rebellions over the centuries and the phenomenon of the warrior-mystic, see İnalcık, Ottoman Em pire, pp. 186-202; V. L. Minorsky, “Iran: Opposition, M artyrdom , and Revolt,” in Unity and Variety in Muslim Civilization, ed. G. E. von Gninebaum (Chicago: 1955), pp. 183-206; Mustafa Akdag, “Celâli Fetreti,” D ve T-C 16 (1958):53-107; Claude Cahen, “Baba Ishaq, Baba Ilyas, Hadjdji -Bektash et quelques autres,” Turcica 1 (1969)):53-64; Ahmet Yaşar Ocak, “Les Menâkıb ulKudslya fi M enâşıb’ıl Unsiya: Une Source pour l’histoire religieuse de l’Anatolie au siècle,” JA 267/2-3 (1979):345-56. 18G ibb, Ottoman Poetry 1:313. ,9Ibid., 3:114-15. ^ rim in g h a m , The Sufi Orders, pp. 102-103 and passim, distinguishes the organ­ izational and intellectual stages in the evolution of Islamic mysticism. 21The controversy surrounding Ibn al-Arabi is discussed at length in Seyyed Hossein N asr, Three Muslim Sages: Avicenna, Suhrawardi, Ibn ’Arabi (Cambridge, M ass.: 1964), pp. 83-121; Henry Corbin, The Creative Imagination in the Sufism o f Ibn ’A rabi (Princeton: 1969); Schimmel, Dimensions, pp. 263-86 and passim; Trim ingham , The Sufi Orders, pp. 57-58, 95 and passim; Franz Rosenthal, *“ I Am You’— Individual Piety and Society in Islam ,” in Individualism and Conformity in Classical Islam , ed. A . Banani and S. Vryonis (Wiesbaden: 1977), pp. 56-57. “ N asr, Sages, p. 118. “ Ib id -.p . 118. ^B ursavi Ismail Hakkı, Kitab’Sl Hitab, trans. Bedia Dickel (Istanbul: 1976), p. 201; also Henri Laoust, Les Schismes dans Vlslam (Paris: 1977), p. 312, on Selim’s regard for Arabi.

xnr

Chapter Two

ORIGINS OF THE ULEMA ARISTOCRACY They are the only men real[l]y consid­ erable in the Empire; all the profitable Employments and church revenues are in their hands. . . . The Grand Signor . . . never presumes to touch their lands or money, which goes in an uninterrupted succession to their Children. . . . their power is so well known ‘tis the Emperor’s interest to flatter them. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, The Complete Letters, 1:316-17 (Oxford: 1965)

The Great Families If Istanbul’s palace promontory belonged to the imperial court, the area west o f the mosque of Aya Sofya belonged to the ulema. The scant square kilom eter, bordered since the mid-sixteenth century by the Aya Sofya, Süleymaniye, Beyazid and Mehmed the Conqueror (Fatih) mosque com plexes, was the center of Ottoman Islam. The area en­ closed the favorite residential quarters for ulema and would-be ulema, often in housing set aside for their use. In its twenty-odd quarters the Şeyhülislam and chief justices had their official residences,1 as many as one hundred former Great Mollas, now “outs,” (mazul\ pi. mazulin), 43

44

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congregated between postings, some fifty subhierarchy judges on rota­ tion attended the chief justices* “days” hoping for reappointment to the m agistracies o f Europe and Asia, and several thousand students min­ gled between classes.2 No area so small ever afforded such opportunities for the Muslim learned. In addition to the largest mosque foundations in the city, in the eighteenth century more than twenty-five of the most important of Istanbul’s two hundred medrese structures lined the main avenues from Aya Sofya through Beyazid Plaza to the mosque of Mehmed the Conqueror.3 The medreses were the academic proving ground for all aspiring ulem a. Here future scholars strove to master the disciplines that would elucidate the faith— Arabic grammar (sarf) and syntax (nahv), Koranic commentary (tefsir), Islamic law and jurisprudence (fikh), prophetic traditions (hadith or hadis), logic and dialectics (mantık), rhetoric (belagat) and scholastic theology (kelam). The m edreses were the cornerstone not only o f the official career but in many ways o f the officially sanctioned religious life as well. Each m edrese supported from one to ten or more professors,4 some thirty re­ sident students, assorted watchmen, custodians, readers, sweepers and librarians as well as a changing body of the poor, transient, idle and infirm who sought out the foundations for quiet shelter and the fre­ quent word o f God. In the eighteenth century the wealth and dignity that attached to the city’s cluster o f foundations belonged to some ulema more than to oth­ ers. For the ilm iye, perhaps for the entire Ottoman state, the founding centuries had been an age o f great men. For twenty and thirty years at a tim e, individual scholar-jurists like the Şeyhülislams Molla Htisrev (d. 1480), Zenbilli Ali Cemali (d. 1525/26), and Ebussuud Mehmed (d. 1574) dominated Ottoman religious scholarship. Their personal prestige as men o f learning and piety was instrumental in the evolution o f the Şeyhülislamate into the monitoring office for the hierarchy of scholars in state service. They were, willy-nilly, the founding fathers o f the ulem a institution.5 W hile the early ilmiye rose on the shoulders

THE ULEMA ARISTOCRACY

45

o f individual worthies, its eighteenth-century counterpart lodged squarely in the ulema family. M ouradgea d ’Ohsson, the tireless recorder of eighteenth-century Ottom an institutions and byways, regarded the highest magistracies as “reserved to the most distinguished families of the corps.“6 In contrast, it was the contest ethic of the classical Ottoman system that had im­ pressed sixteenth-century Europeans. In the mid-sixteenth century, O gier de Busbecq, Hapsburg ambassador to the court of Süleyman I (1520-66), had written admiringly o f Ottoman indifference to pedigree: . . . .In making his appointments the Sultan pays no regard to any pretensions on the score of wealth or rank. . . . It is by m erit that men rise. . . . Each man in Turkey carries in his own hand his ancestry and his position in life which he may make or mar as he will. . . . Among the Turks, there­ fore, honours, high posts, and judgeships are the rewards of great ability and good service.7 Two hundred years later, d ’Ohsson’s Ottoman Empire was a different w orld. In d ’Ohsson’s day, most of the ulema offices that carried any weight— both m ajor judgeships and professorships— were little short of “the patrimony o f the great fam ilies.’’8 The children of notable ulema fam ilies were reared in the knowledge that they would take their place alongside relatives and social peers. They were initiated into the order o f professors, according to d ’Ohsson, “while they were still, so to speak, in the cradle.”9 D’Ohsson need not have been so tentative.

Every age had its

anom alies, but in the eighteenth century, misguided sponsorship was comm on, egregious and almost exclusively family-centered.

Little

Mehmed Ataullah (d. 1785), son of the Şeyhülislam Dürrizade10 M ustafa (d. 1775), would have been hard-pressed to teach the finer points o f Arabic syntax when at age six he secured a professorial di­ plom a (rüus-i tedris) from the hand of his Şeyhülislam grandfather, Dürri Mehmed (d.

1736).

Eleven-year old Dürrizade Nurullah

46

THE POLITICS OF PIETY

M ehmed (d. 1778), a diploma recipient thanks to the same doting grandfather, was little improvement over brother Ataullah.

Such

favors had also been bestowed in the seventeenth century.

Then,

how ever, the underaged or unqualified recipients were a far more var­ ied lot. Some were the relatives o f ulema grandees, but often both sponsors and clients came-from outside the profession entirely. By the eighteenth century an ulema aristocracy, its members strik­ ingly sim ilar in parentage, had settled into place. Certain non-ulema retained their entrée into the hierarchy’s patronage, but the ulema o f the hierarchy had near exclusive say over their calling. The ulema aristocracy that Came to prevail in much of the eighteenth century en­ joyed a status and a stability that differed substantially from those of die classical age or o f the seventeenth century. In any century, what­ ever privileges die Sultan’s servitors enjoyed as individuals or as a group depended in the last analysis upon the will o f the Sultan, i.e ., upon a com bination o f die Sultan's desire and capacity to parcel out such benefits as would— whether intrinsically or in default o f more at­ tractive options— strengthen the throne. The ulem a’s corporate passage to what was, in the Ottoman system, as close as any group would^ come to aristocracy, was neither smooth nor predictable. Some ulema privileges were only sporadic realities betw een 1550 and 1700. M oreover, the expansion and regularization o f privilege, the truly characteristic features o f the aristocracy, took hold only in the two generations following the failure in 1683 o f the second Ottoman siege o f Vienna. To understand the uniqueness of the ulem a’s standing in the eighteenth century, both the halting nature o f the passage to aristocracy as well as the telling distinctions between the eighteenth-century ilm iye and the privileges o f an earlier day require discussion. The patrilinear profession was not unique to the eighteenth century o r to die ulem a institution. Throughout the history o f the Istanbulbased em pire, sons took up the crafts o f their forebears, following their

THE ULEMA ARISTOCRACY

47

fathers into government bureaus as well as into the bazaars and pas­ tures.

Ulema children always constituted a sizeable subgroup of the

ulem a recruitm ent base. They were usually the largest subgroup, and often a m ajority o f the entire profession. Other sons made up identifi­ able subgroups from time to tim e, but their presence and their propor­ tions over the centuries were not consistent. Ulema children had customarily shared the profession with the ta­ lented offspring o f slaves and freemen of all sorts.11 In the cities and the villages, pious endowments supported the educational system. Schools were theoretically free and open to all who met entry criteria. The talented, whoever their fathers, might enter the local Koran school and a few years later find themselves in free accommodations at the finest Istanbul medreses. Ulema children and children of die less pri­ vileged competed in die same examinations for the same teaching and judicial posts. All other things being equal, die greater number of ule­ m a children entering the profession fairly guaranteed them greater representation at every level o f the career from beginning student through Şeyhülislam . Yet die pervasiveness o f die patrilinear career and o f hereditary recruitm ent tends to obscure die substantial changes undergone by the ilmiye over the centuries. Ulema children were a constant feature, but in the eighteenth century, as never before, their num bers and prerogatives made the official religious calling virtually a closed corporation. From 1703 to 1839, eleven families accounted for 29 of the 58 Şeyhülislam s in the period (Fig. 2). Thus did Ebu Ishakzade Mehmed A taullah (d. 1811) in time follow his father Mehmed Şerif (d. 1789), who followed his father Mehmed Esad (d. 1752), who followed his brother Ishak (d. 1734), who followed their father Kara Ismail (d. 1725). W hen the Ebu Ishakzades paused between generations, it was usually to make room for the Diirrizade scions or for the families A rabzade,

Damadzade,

Feyzullahzade,

Mekkizade,

Paşm akçızade, Pirizade, Salihzade and Vessafzade.

M irzazade, In the same

48

THE POLITICS OF PIETY

period, some twenty o f the descendants of these families in the male, line were either C hief Justice of Europe (Rumelia) or Chief Justice of A sia (A natolia).12 The Şeyhülislam s o f the seventeenth century had been far less suc­ cessful in passing on position to their sons. O f the 26 seventeenthcentury Şeyhülislam s, 5 were the sons of Şeyhülislams. The 5 ac­ counted for 12 (29%) o f the 42 tenures of the time. Although theirs was a significant share in the topmost ulema position, 4 of the 5 men were actually members o f only one fam ily, that o f Hoca Sadeddin (d. 1S99), whose unique personal honors and canny nepotism were widely held to have set the aristocratic trend in motion. In the eighteenth century, aristocratic rank was widespread among the ulem a.

In addition to the dominant eleven, other families were

only a shade less successful in capturing high office. The entire judi­ cial, or G reat M olla, half o f the ilmiye was dominated by men whose fathers were Great M ollas, rather than simply ulema of random grade. Between 1703 and 1839, 237 men became Şeyhülislam, Chief Justice or titular C hief Justice. O f the 188 whose paternity is known, 112 (60% ) were the sons o f Great Molla fathers or men o f higher rank (Fig. 3). Some 25 to 41 others were sons of ulema o f lesser stature— professors, provincial jurisconsults, subhierarchy judges and the like. The dom ination o f Great M ollaships by ulema families attests to ulema success in transform ing professional status into patrim ony.13

THE ULEMA ARISTOCRACY

49

F ig . 2— Ş eyhü lislam F athers and Sons

Şeyhülislamate0

Name

Death

1600-1703 26, 32

Hocazade Mehmed Çelebi

1615

33. 35

Hocazade Esad Mehmed

1625

34. 36, 38

Zekeriyazade Yahya

1644

39, 44, 46

[Hocazade] Esadzade Ebusaid Mehmed

1662

61, 63

[Hocazade] Ebusaidzade Feyzuilah

1698

67, 70, 73

Paşmakçızade Ali

1712/13

79

Ebu Ishak Kara Ismail

1725

81

Mirzazade Şeyh Mehmed

1735

82

Paşmakçızade Abdullah

1732/33

83

Damadzade Ebiilhayr Ahmed

1742

84

Ebu Ishakzade Ishak

1734

85

Dfirri Mehmed

1736/37

86

Feyzullahzade Mustafa6

1745

87

Pirizade Mehmed Sahib

1749

90

Ebu Ishakzade Mehmed Esad

1753

92

Feyzullahzade Murtaza6

1758

93

Vessaf Abdullah

1761

9 4 ,9 6

Damadzade Feyzuilah

1761

95, 101, 106

DOrrizade Mustafa

1775

1703-1839

continued on p a g t SO

50

THE POLITICS OF PIETY

97

Mehmed Salih

1761/62

103

Pirizade Osman Sahib

1770

104

Mirzazade Mehmed Said

1775

109

Vessafzade Mehmed Esad

1778

110, 119

[Ebu Ishakzade] Esadzade Mehmed Şerif

1790

112

Dürrizade Mehmed Ataullah

1785

1İ4

Arabzade Ahmed Ataullah

1785

115, 123

Dürrizade Mehmed Arif

1800

117, 122

Mekki Mehmed

1797

126, 131

Salihzade Ahmed Esad

1814

127, 129

[Ebu Ishakzade] Şerifzade Mehmed Ataullah

1811

130

Arabzade Mehmed Arif

1826

132, 134

Dürrizade Abdullah

1828

136, 140,143

Mekkizade Mustafa Asım

1846

‘Şeyhülislamate numbers based on Ismail Hami Danişmend, İzahlı Osmanlı Tarihi Kronolojisi, 2nd rev. ed., 6 vols. (Istanbul: 1971), 5:109-64. bSon of Erzurumlu Feyzullah, Şeyhülislam 59/66, who was ap­ pointed and executed before the reign of Ahmed HI (1703-30).

Recruitment and Mobility The origins o f those with whom eighteenth-century ulema children in effect shared the career point up the shallowness of Great Molla re­ cruitm ent in the later period. The remaining 35 of the 188 of known paternity, while not the children o f ulema, were comparably advan­ taged. All were sons of the empire’s major secular elites in the palace

THE ULEMA ARISTOCRACY

and the m ilitary.

51

They were thus the children of official Istanbul.'

None o f the 237 Şeyhülislams and justices appears to have been o f m erchant, tradesm an, dervish (Sufi) or peasant paternity.14 By con­ trast, in ju st the last half o f the seventeenth century, 3 of 19 Şeyhülislam s were the sons o f m erchants.15 Although of die eighteenth century’s 237, 9 o f those o f unknown paternity had been recruited as slaves, their rearing was not nearly so humble as their origins. In rear­ ing and sponsorship they represented official Istanbul. Their patrons and surrogate fathers were their owners in the imperial palace, most often the Sultan himself. Even in the eighteenth century, thanks largely to the sons of provin­ cial ulem a, die upper echelons o f the career boasted dramatic examples o f upward m obility.

The offspring o f a jurisconsult from distant

A ntalya or o f a müezzin from die foothills o f Albania could rub shoulders with the haughtiest Dürrizade. Still, the unconnected ulema aspirant was too often forced to confront his diminished opportunities. H ie careers o f all diploma recipients from 1757-39 reveal something o f the provincial's plight.16 In all, 52 diplomas were awarded. O f the 52 recipients, 42 w o e the sons or express clients o f one elite or anoth­ e r Ebu Ishakzade Mehmed Ataullah; Chief o f the Descendants of die Prophet (NakibüUşraf) Rıza Efendizade Mehmed; die Second Imperial Astronom er (Müneccim-i Sam) Abdullah; Mustafa Pashazade Ibrahim; M ustafa, Preacher {Imam) to the Grand Vezir Ragib Pasha (d. 1763). The rem aining 10 bear only a geographical cognomen: Ismail o f Tosya, M ustafa o f Tokat, Ali o f Rize, and die like. If die 10 were provincials without ties to officialdom, and if the years 1757-59 were representative, about one-fifth o f the professorial diplomas o f die time went to the unconnected. Career entry, dien, was not barred to them. O f the 10, however, only 3 rose to Great Molla rank, with only one o f the three advancing beyond die lowest (Mahreç) Great Mollaships. In contrast, o f those with connections, 27 (64%) became Great Mollas, including 7 chief justices and 9 Istanbul or Haremeyn judges. The di-

52

THE POLITICS OF PIETY

F ig . 3— O ccu pation o f F athers o f Şeyhülislam s and J u stices, 1703-1839

Occupation Ulema

Respondents 153

Great Mollas (112) Şeyhülislams (44), justices (36), other (32) Other (41) Professors, subhierarchy judges, etc. (25) Probable ulema origin (16)

Secular Elites

35

Grand Vezirs (4), other vezire* (15) Palace dignitaries (16)

Unknown

49

Origin not Istanbul (21) Reared in imperial palace (9) No personal information (19) Total

237

*The figure includes four chief secretaries (Reisülküttab), who did not actually achieve the rank of vezir. The importance of the Reis after the seventeenth century has been established by Norman Itzkowitz, “Eighteenth Century Ottoman Realities," SI 16 (1962):86-87, among others. The fact that the post was increasingly a stepping stone to the Grand Vezirate puts sons of even non-vezirial Reises informally among the “pashazades” in terms of paternal influ­ ence and access to power.

ploma data tend to corroborate findings on the 237 Şeyhülislams and

THE ULEMA ARISTOCRACY

justices.

53

In the eighteenth century, the upper reaches of the ilmiye

were not wholly consigned to a priestly caste. Still, for the uncon­ nected, the disjunctuie between the promise o f the subsidized educa­ tional system and the reality of its rewards was sobering. In a diary o f his years as a student and professor, Sidki Mustafa (d. ca. 1790), father o f the future Şeyhülislam Sidkizade Ahmed Reşid (d. 1824/2S), writes that in 1756 he was passed over for promotion to a second-level ( Hareket-i Haric) professorship despite his precedence under the rule o f seniority (akdem fV l akdem). The Damadza.de family invoked personal precedence on behalf of one of their own, and M ustafa remained unpromoted.

“I am duly become Damadzade’s

victim ,” M ustafa noted. “God grant no harm will come to him, amen. God grant them no misfortune who have brought this to pass.”17 It was some comfort that the ulema aristocracy was not wholly im­ perm eable, and that “bluebloods” (ikişizade) were not alone in climbing to the top. Men o f non-elite and otherwise humble stock managed to enter the ilm iye and penetrate the Great Molla cadres. Sidki Mustafa him self rose to Great Molla rank, and it was not long before he, like his Damadzade nemeses, sought privileges for his own son.18 In the eighteenth century, the surest passage to success began in the G reat M olla fam ily.

Ulema children monopolized the highest, most

lucrative posts with occasional assistance from the sons, biological and fictive, o f other official elites.

Historically, career routes for the

bureaucracy and palace, as well as for the ulema, had been laid down by the patron for his clients.19 In the ulema institution of the eight­ eenth century, the patron-client relationship was predicated on family ties.

Privilege and precedent were summoned up to advance blood

kin. References to the phenomenon are unavoidable in the literature of the tim e. Depending on their personal stance, Ottoman commentators selected from among a newly emergent crop of terms, from the snide— blueblood (kişizade); his mother’s son (maderzade)— to the m atter-of-fact— ulema nobility (asilzade, mollazade, ulemazade); the

THE POLITICS OF PIETY

54

sons (zadegan, mehadim).20 By the early eighteenth century, the spon­ sored m obility o f the traditional system had coalesced with family, and the successful father served above all as patron to his sons. Even if the eleven most durable ulema families had been extraor­ dinarily gifted in the requisites of the religious calling generation after generation, talent alone cannot account for more than a century’s dom­ ination.

The objective features of the career should have worked

against such longevity. The ulema institution in the eighteenth century was crowded with competing careerists. Moreover, the career was of­ ficially weighted toward seniority.

The collective history of Great

M olla sons points to a special ascent that overrode the apparently pre­ scribed rules, reworking discretionary honors into perquisites of office, and offices into perquisites o f pedigree.

The Institutionalization o f Privilege Toward the end o f the seventeenth century, Hezarfen commented on the changes that had overtaken the ulema career since at least the mid­ sixteenth century. It used to be, he wrote, that “there was not such power and glory in the Şeyhülislamate. For the most part these fea­ tures were according to the person “rather than the office.”22 In the previous century, however, the Şeyhülislamate had been given respons­ ibility for the entire ulema hierarchy, and with that responsibility seventeenth-century occupants of the office received conspicuous hon­ ors without regard to individual merit. Within a few generations of Hezarfen’s commentary, the issue had become more complex. Now the m em orialists were as much concerned about the tyranny of pedi­ gree as the tyranny o f ranks and grades. In 1792, the memorial of Tatarcık Abdullah (d. 1797), himself a Rumelia Chief Justice and one o f the most eloquent in the long line of critics of the ulema, deplored the change to aristocracy, but accepted it as unavoidable.22

THE ULEMA ARISTOCRACY

55

Between the tim e o f Hezarfen and the eighteenth-century critics, the ilm iye’s Great M ollaships, perhaps the ilmiye as a whole,23 had be­ com e a near airtight aristocracy. Over the centuries, ulema had de­ m anded aristocratic privileges and the sultans had conceded them, but never so many and to such paralyzing effect as in the eighteenth cen­ tury.

Unlike the Janissaries, the backbone of the Ottoman military,

who received some sim ilar privileges over the same period, the ulema lacked the leverage o f the force of arm s.24 Nor were the ulema the direct kingmakers that the Janissaries had come to be. The ulema pos­ sessed a special relationship to the throne.

It was a relationship

grounded in the ulem a’s role as upholders o f the shariah and the Ottoman dynasty’s claims to the legitimizing force of the holy law. Events o f the seventeenth century disrupted the ilmiye and obscured the full potential o f that relationship. Yet the very circumstances that had tem porarily fashioned new imperial alignments to the disadvantage o f the ulem a served to increase the importance of the ulema to the throne. In the end, the ulema emerged strengthened from the seven­ teenth century. The ulem a’s rise to aristocracy resulted from three interrelated and nearly sim ultaneous developments. One of these, making consistent headway through the seventeenth century, sorted out the kinds o f re­ w ards, as distinct from traditional emoluments, that members of the ulem a would receive. Another, also a product o f the seventeenth cen­ tury although along a rougher course, tended to “objectify” these re­ wards by establishing that they were automatically due any holder o f certain ulem a ranks. A third development, largely a product of the late seventeenth century and early eighteenth, served to confirm aris­ tocracy by all but guaranteeing those ranks— and thus the set of special privileges attached to them— to the sons of leading ulema. In the seventeenth century, unlike the eighteenth, members o f the il­ m iye lacked the power to choose and groom their own ulema succes­ sors, whether from among their own relatives or other clients. The

56

THE POLITICS OF PIETY

ulem a’s ranks were penetrated as never before by the clients of non­ ulem a elites. In the latter half o f the seventeenth century, at least ele­ ven o f the incumbents o f the ilm iye’s four highest offices were sons of m erchants (tacir), Sufi elders and the palace Corps of Gardeners

(Bostancı Ocağı). In the period 1703-1839, despite a quadrupling of total ilm iye incum bents, not a single merchant, shaikh or Bostancı offspring figured among them. In the seventeenth century, numerous new power centers posed threats to the dynasty.

For its part, the

throne could not oversee, much less rein in, the diffuse patronage that in the seventeenth century afflicted every elite group.

Yet, elite

dynamics in the seventeenth century were too uncontrolled and poten­ tially explosive to suit traditional Ottoman visions of social stability. And, for the ulem a, they were too destructive of the social and politi­ cal power o f the ilmiye to be endured without a struggle. Only by the early eighteenth century were the ulema in a position to establish a new alliance with the throne and capitalize on their traditional legiti­ mizing capacity.

And, in the early eighteenth century, Ahmed III

(1703-30) was both able and willing to increase the stability o f the il­ miye institution in order to increase the ilmiye’s contribution to the stability o f the realm. In a series o f measures midway in his reign, Ahmed III paid tribute to the new aristocracy and the special status of the ulema-bom. The origins o f each measure could be traced to earlier centuries, but the bold endorsement o f the rights of an entire group, the ulema-bom, was unique to the eighteenth century. The first such measure, issued in 1715, directed the Şeyhülislam to stop the flow of uneducated novices into the career.23 The move appeared to be merely one more reform aimed at general corruptive practices, but the similarity to past decrees was only superficial. Ahmed III had in mind a particular set of benefi­ ciaries, the established ulema families of Istanbul, and the novitiate system was intim ately linked to their fortunes.

57

THE ULEMA ARISTOCRACY

The novitiate system had become an increasingly rich source of pa­ tronage with the development of the centralized ulema system.26 From the system ’s formal beginnings in the early sixteenth century, the procedures for novice registration sought to restrict the number of po­ tential rûus diploma recipients and to standardize educational criteria. Students who, after some three years of study, successfully completed the texts associated with the first five medrese grades, became scholars (71. 178 n75, 183, 211, 219 Egypt 141 elite see rating elite English embassy 150

circumcision 154-55

enjoining right (emr-i maruf) 137, 144

coffee, coffeehouse 131, 136, 138-39, 149, 199

Erbaa grade 25, 73 Erivan 114

Command Lectures (Huzur Dereleri) 227-32

Erzurum 147, 163, 215

consensus (ijma) 136

Esad Mehmed 104-105

Constantinople 151

Esad Mehmed, Hocazade 49

Crete 90, 118

Europe 74, 90. ISO. 154, 158, 159

Cyprus 147

evkaf see pious endowment

Damadzade family 47, 63, 73

Eyüp 25, 68

Damascus 24, 25, 38, 60. 98, 141, 172

Fatih see Mehmed II

dancing see Sufis, ritual

Fatih mosque 24, 43, 44, 73, 75 n4, 104, 105, 130, 141. 147, 160, 165

Dardanelles 153 de la Haye, Ambassador 150-51 Debbagzade family 76 nl4 Delhi 119 Demiikapi 142 deputy judge (naib) 68, 69 dervish see Sufis devran see Sufis, ritual

Fazıl Ahmed Pasha, Köprülüzade 84-85, 90, 118, 147-48, 151, 152, 157, 179 n88, 188, 189 Fazlullah, Birgilizade 132 Fethullah, Feyzullahzade 65, 70, 115, 216, 217, 219 fetva 27, 142, 143, 176 n53, 203, 210-11, 219

283

INDEX Feyzullah, Erzurumlu 49, 50, 65, 70, 113, 114. 115. 116. 122 n l6 , 215-20, 234

Hoca Sadeddin 48. 65. 103, 187, 216

Feyzullah, Hocazade, Ebusaidzade 49

Hocazade Kanunu 65

Feyzullahzade family 47, 217, 218

holy law şee Islamic law

Galata 25. 68. 100, 110, 149, 151, 153 Galata Sarayı 75 n4, 206, 207 gayret see zeal Ghazali, Abu Hamid al- 191 Grand Mfifti see Şeyhülislam Grand Vezir 52. 83. 85. 86-87, 89, 104, 107, 113, 115, 116-17, 118, 119, 143, 165, 186, 188, 189, 210. 227 Great Molla 25, 43, 48, 50-54, 55, 64. 65, 66, 67-70, 72. 95, 96, 98. 207, 213, 216, 231

Hocazade family 65, 74

Hungary 67, 82 Husayn b. Ali 136 Httseyn, Ahizade 113, 115 Hüseyn, Astrologer 198-99 Hüseyn, Evhad Şeyhi 181 nl30 htttbe 130 Huzur Dersleri see Command Lectures Ibn al-Arabi, Muhiy’l-Din 37-38, 136-37, 159, 171, 172, 175 n31 Ibn Khaldun 23

Gufuri Mahmud 181 n l3 l

Ibn Taymiyya, Taqi al-Din Ahmad 175 n31

hadd limits 69. 113, 198, 199, 2!9

Ibrahim I 31. 70. 88, 98. 99. 100, 106, 113, 123 n26, 123 n27, 140, 141, 229

hadith see Prophet Muhammad, traditions

Ibrahim Pasha, Damad 127 nlOl

Halveti Sufi order 36, 124, n50, 131, 133, 135, 139, 142, 145, 165, 166, 168, 169, 171, 175 n47, 181 nl30. 211,221 nl2

Ibrahim, Feyzullahzade 217

Hamis-i Süleymaniye grade 25. 230; see Süleymaniye medieses

Ibrahim, Mustafa Pashazade 51

Hanefi Mehmed 117

Ibşir Pasha 199, 200

Hapsburg 45

Ibtida-i Altmışlı grade 25

Hareket-i Altmışlı grade 25

Ibtida-i Dahil grade 25

Hareket-i Dahil grade 25

ilmiye see religious establishment

Ibrahim, Ivaz Pashazade 79 n59 Ibrahim Pasha palace 75 n4, 206-207

Hareket-i Haric grade 25, 53

imam 99, 130

harem 95. 101. 105, 109

Imam, Shi’ite 136

Haremeyn 25 n l. 51

India 119

Haric grade, Ibtida-i 63. 99. 208 Hasan, Ommi Sinanzade 165

innovation (bida) 133, 134-38, 145, 146-47, 149, 168, 186, 192, 217

Hasan el-Kafi 30. 227

Iran 88

Hasan Fehmi, Akşehirli 78 n49

Ishak, Ebu Ishakzade 47, 49

Hekimbaşı see Chief Physician

Islam 23. 24, 27, 32. 43, 129, 134, 135, 136, 144, 152. 154, 155, 156, 166, 168, 169, 191, 203, 204. 206, 232

Helvacı corps 142 Hezarfen Hfiseyn 23. 24. 30. 54. 55, 106, 214 Hizr 136

Islamic law (shariah) 26, 27, 35, 55, 69, 84, 121, 145, 151, 152, 163, 166, 167, 191, 193, 203, 204, 205, 206, 210-11, 222 n47, 223 n64, 229

hoca see Preceptor

Ismail Safavi, Shah 34, 38

Hippodrome 33. 113. 202, 203, 206

284

THE POLITICS OF PIETY

Istanbul 23ff, 39, 43ff, 51, 52, 56, 59ff, 67. 83, 87, 90ff, 98, 102, 108, 110, I I I . I29ff, 138, 141, 143ff, 157, 158. 163, 165, 166, 170, 172. 177 «71, I87ff, 202, 205. 211-12, 218, 219, 231; judge o f 25, 51, 72, 84, 92-93, 104^105, 114, 143, 217 Izmir 25. 144, 150, 151. 153, 155. 156, 158 İznik 114

Koca Sinan Pasha 127 nIOl Koçi Bey 214 Konya 67. 110, 114 Köprülü Mehmed Pasha 85, 89-91. 114, 118, 123 n26, 146-47, 150, 186, 189. 195, 198, 199 Köprülü vezirs 87. 148, 205 Koran 37. 64, 135, 144. 145. 151. 167. 174 n28, 176 n56. 183, 184, 188, 193, 228

Janissary corps 55, 82, 83, 86, 87, 92, 96, 101, 107, 108, 109, 112, 114, 119, 120, 125 n69, 125 n73, 142, 152, 167

Koran school (mekteb) 23. 26, 47, 85

Jawziyya, Ibn Qayyim al- 175 n3l

Kurd Mehmed 145. 146. 221 nl5

Jerusalem 25, 153

Kurds 155

Jesus 159

Kütahya 67

Kösem Sultan (Mahpeyker) 139 Kumkale 153

Jews 150, 153-56 judge (kadi) 24. 25, 26. 29. 44, 62. 65. 84. 96, 110, 119,230.231 jurisconsult (mflfti) 24, 25, 29, 64; see Şeyhülislam

Lala Mustafa Pasha mosque 147 Levant 60 mahdi 155, 156, 195, 200. 201 Mahmud I 219. 224 n84

Ka‘ba 37

Mahmud II 75 nl

Kadi Mustafa Pasha 122 n9

Mahmud Pasha, Çivizade 122 n9

Kadiasker see Chief Justice Kadir Gecesi 193, 194

Mahmud Pasha. Kara Hüseyn Efendizade 122 n9

Kadiri Sufi order 211

Mahmud, Shaikh 76 nIS

Kadizade Mehmed 129ff, 148. 159, 163, 175 n47, 189, 194, 223 n57

Mahreç grade 25, 51, 68. 98

Kadizadeli movement 38-40, 131, 133-50, 158, 159, 163-72, 177 n74, 185. 186-96, 20lff, 232ff

Marmara 131

Kanber Baba Sufi lodge 178 n75 kanunname 98 Kapıcı corps 142

Manisa 67. 110 marriage 80 n7l, 122 nl5 Marsigli, Count Luigi Ferdinando 81-82 Mecca 24. 25. 156, 217 Medina 25. 134, 185. 191

Kayseri 67

medrese 23, 24. 26, 44, 47. 57, 59, 61, 62. 63. 96. 99, 129, 130, 144, 147, 163, 164, 165, 170, 192, 205-12, 216, 229, 231, 233; curriculum 44, 84; nonexistent 73; professor (müderris) 24, 25, 28, 29, 36, 52. 58. 59, 62. 63, 84. 99, 101, 207-208, 229, 230; students 83. 101. 105. 208, 209

Keçecizade family 76 n!4

Mehmed II (Fatih) 230

Kemal Pashazade Şemseddin Ahmed 143,

Mehmed III 65. 79 n63. 197, 198

Kara Abdullah 106 Kara Ismail, Ebu Ishak 47, 49 Kara Mustafa Pasha 157 Kara Mustafa Pasha, Kemankeş 118 Katib Çelebi 138, 139, 168-69, 183, 193

210,211

Mehmed IV 87, 89. 91, 106. 118, 139, 140,

285

INDEX 141, 146fr, 156, 157, 177 n64, 180 nl22, 187, 189, 203, 218, 228

214 merchant (tacir) 51, 56, 96, 97

Mehmed, Abdurrahimzade 92-93

Mete Hüseyn Pasha 104

Mehmed, Birgili see Birgili Mehmed

Merzifon 98

Mehmed, Bostanzade, the elder 65, 66

Mesnevi 42 nl5

Mehmed, Bostanzade, the younger 65

Mesud, Hocazade 113, 114, 115, 116, 150, 209

Mehmed Pasha, Boynueğri 117 Mehmed, Debbağzade 76 nl5 Mehmed, Hasanzade, Shaikh % Mehmed, Kadizade see Kadizade Mehmed Mehmed, Kadizade Sofyali 181 nl30 Mehmed Pasha, Köprülü see Köprülü Mehmed Pasha Mehmed, Mirzazade 49, 217 Mehmed, Rıza Efendizade 51

Mevlevi Sufi order 42 n15, 124 n46, 135, 139, 140, 149, 158, 161, 168 Mevlud 133, 137, 138, 194 Mihrimah Sultan mosque 162 military corps 55, 81-83, 89ff, 104-105, 107-108, 112, 118, 120, 183-85 Mirmiran 71 Mirzazade family 47

Mehmed Arif, Arabzade 50

Mısri Ömer 142, 175 n47, 176 n50, 181 nl30

Mehmed Arif, Dünizade 50

Moghul 119

Mehmed Ataullah, Dünizade 45, 50, 126 n97

Molla Fenari 64, 171

Mehmed Ataullah, Ebu İshakzade 47, 50, 51 Mehmed Çelebi, Hocazade, Sadeddinzade 49, 78 n46. 115-16, 119

Molla Hüsrev 44 Mollazade 53. 61-63, 64 Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley 43, 203

Mehmed Dede 217

Moses 174 n28

Mehmed Emin, Ankarevi 76 nl5 Mehmed Emin, Hayatizade 180 nl09

mosque 23, 24, 26, 43, 170, 171, 193, 1%, 205, 233; imperial 24, 129-32, 163ff; preacher see vaiz

Mehmed Esad, Ebu ishakzade 47, 49

Muallim-i Sultani see Preceptor

Mehmed Esad, Vessafzade 50

müderris see medrese professor

Mehmed Fazlı 36

müezzin 51

Mehmed İsmeti, Fazlullahzade 176 n58

müfti see jurisconsult

Mehmed Raşid 122 nl3 Mehmed Sahib, Pirizade 49

Muhammad, Prophet see Prophet Muhammad

Mehmed Said, Mirzazade 50

Muhiyeddin, Fenarizade 171

Mehmed Salih 50

Muhiyeddin Mehmed, Çivizade 171, 176 n53, 223 n63

Mehmed Şerif, Ebu ishakzade, Esadzade 47, 50 Mekki Mehmed 50

Mulakkab Musliheddin 97-100, 105, 113, 115, 189

Mekkizade family 47

mümeyyiz 58

mekteb see Koran school

Müneccim-i Sani see Astrologer

Melek Ahmed Pasha 142, 195

Murad III 65. 66. 187, 197, 198, 224 n78

memorialist 30. 41 n8, 54-55, 93, 102, 111, 123 n39, 152-53, 197, 198, 200, 213,

Murad IV 31, 70, 87-90, 92, 113, 114, I38ff, 163, 171, 172, 189, 195, 198, 199, 229

286

THE POUTICS OF PIETY

Murad Pasha, Kuyucu 124 nS3

Omer, Preceptor 187

Murad Pasha mosque 132

Omer, Shaikh 131

Murtaza, Feyzullahzade 49, 217

opium 136

music 136, 142, 149, 171, 191, 210; see Sufis, ritual

order (nizam-i alem) 34, 88, 90, 92, 94, 198ff, 209

Musile-i Sahn grade 25

orthodoxy 33-40, 136, 166, 170, 171. 172,

Musile-i Süleymaniye grade 25

Osman II 31, 79 n63, 107, 109, 187

Muslim b. al-Hajjaj 190

Osman, Bosnevi 175 n47, 176 n50

Mustafa I 31, 87

Osman Sahib, Pirizade 50

Mustafa II 41 nlO, 70, 155, 215, 216, 217, 219

Ottoman dynasty 24, 27, 55, 64, 74, 89, 109, 130

Mustafa III 227, 230

Ottoman Empire 23, 24, 106, 109

Mustafa, Balizade 123 n27

palace 82, 88, 140, 141-42, 145, 146, 166, 186

Mustafa, Bolevi 76 nl5, 91, 114 Mustafa, Dürrizade 45, 49, 61-62

pantheism 37-38 see Unity of Being

Mustafa, Evliyazade 165

pasha %

Mustafa, Feyzullahzade 49, 217

Pashazade 52, 122 n!4

Mustafa, Hamidizade 72, 79 n59

Paşmakçızade family 47, 75 nl4

Mustafa, Hayatizade 180 nl09

Persian campaign 118

Mustafa, Imam 51

Physician, Imperial see Chief Physician

Mustafa, Kethüda 72

pilgrimage 136

Mustafa, Preceptor 114

pious endowment (vakf) 24, 47, 58, 71, 205, 206, 208

Mustafa Asım, Mekkizade 50 Mustafa Fevzi, Hayatizade 155 naib see deputy judge Naima, Mustafa 220 Nakibuleşraf 51 see Prophet Muhammad Nakşbendi Sufi order 206 Nasreddin Hoca 137 Niyazi el-Mısri 159 nizam-i alem see order Nizam al-Mulk 81, 227 nöbet 59 non-Muslims 90, 102, 149, 150-57, 178 n86 novice, novitiate (mûlazemet) 43, 56-65, 67, 69, 83, 84, 95, 96, 143, 207-208, 215 Nurullah Mehmed, Dürrizade 45-46 Ofen campaign 121 nl Okmeydanı 157 Omer, Feyzullahzade 217 232

Pir Ali 143 Pirizade family 47 plague 157, 209 poetry 35. 36, 37, 172 polygamy 218 prayer, intercommunal 156-57, 158, 209 prayer, supererogatory 136 preacher see vaiz Preceptor, Imperial (Muallim, Hoca) 65, 99, 100. 118, 144, 187. 198, 212, 215, 216, 217, 220 Prophet Muhammad 27, 28. 33, I33ff, 144, 145, 146, 173 n23, 174 n24, 174 n25, 174 n29, 186, 189, 193, 194, 219; de­ scendants (seyyid) of 95, 114, 124 n46, 215, 217; practice (Sunna) of 135, 138, 144, 193, 221 n5; traditions (hadith) of 44, 134, 145, 190, 221 n!4. 221 nl5, 228 Ragaib Gecesi 194

287

INDEX Ragib Pasha Sİ raks see Sufis, ritual Ramadan 227, 229 ranks, honorary see religious establishment reaya see subject population reform 109-10 Reisülküttab 52 religious establishment (ilmiye) 24ff, 44, 47, 48, 53, 54, 63, 71, 74, 82ff, 94, 95, 198, 199, 202, 204, 205, 209, 212, 215ff, 223, 229ff; endangered 110-21; honorary ranks 55, 71-73; operation 98; recruitment 96-101, 118, 119, 220; sti­ pends 61, 66-70, 214; subhierarchy 24, 62-63, 67-68, 83, 110, 111, 207, 208, 209 “Risale-i Birgili" see Birgili Mehmed ruling elite (askeriye) 56, 82-87, 94-% , 102-103, 106-109, 117-18, 12t nS Rumelia Chief Justice (Kadiasker) see Chief Justice

n73, 160, 187, 195-% , 207, 209, 216flf, 227; and Kadizadelis 138ff, 148, 156, 157, 170, 211; and Sufis 165, 171-72, 210-11; career path 72, 84, 115; honorary rank of 216-17; recruitment 47-52, 74, 96-97, 100; tenure 66, 68, 89, 198, 204-205 seyyid see Prophet Muhammad, descendants shariah see Islamic law Shi*ites 38, 88, 136 Sidki Mustafa 53, 63 Sinaneddin Yusuf 72 Sipahis see cavalry Sivas 133 Sivasi, Ebülhayr Mecdeddin 133-34, 138, 140, 142, 145, 165, 171, 175 n47, 194 Siyavuş Pasha, Abaza, Damad 117 Siyavuş Pasha, Abaza, Köprülü Damadı 83 Siyavuş Pahsa, Kanijeli 127 nlOl Slankamen campaign 121 nl

riius see diploma

Slimy Hüseyn 33

Sabbetai Svi 153-56

smoking see tobacco

Sadeddinzade family see Hoc azade family

stipend see religious establishment, stipends

Safavi 38, 88

Subhi Çelebi 181 nl30

Safranbolu 99

subject population (reaya) 86, 94-% , 123 n39

Sahn-i Seman grade 25, 75 n4, 99, 207 salat worship 193 Salih, Keçecizade 70 Salihzade family 47 Salonika 25. 73 Samarkand 60 Şehzade mosque 24. 130, 133 Şehzade Muallimi see Preceptor Selim 1 38. 60. 172, 230 Selim II 64. 79 n63, 110. 144 Selim III 79 n59 sema see Sufis, ritual Şemseddin 73 Serbia 183

Sufi Mehmed Pasha 123 n26 Sufis 85, 129, 157, 161, 184ff, 195, 223 n63, 232; and Kadizadelis 131-49, 163, 164-72; and Ottoman Islam 23, 31, 32-39, 192-94, 234; and ulema 51, 56, 206ff; ritual 136, 140, 145, 149, 158, 171, 210. 211 Sufyan al-Thawri 227 Süleyman I 45, 62, 64, 79 n63, 88, 102. 110, 112, 115, 153, 171, 172, 213, 214 Süleyman II 31. 41 nlO, 215 Süleyman, Vanizade 126 n97 Süleymaniye medreses 25, 62-63, 99-100, 230

Şeyhi Sinan 35

Süleymaniye mosque 24, 43, 130, 132, 142, 165, 175 n47

Şeyhülislam (Grand Müfti) 24, 25. 27. 36. 43. 54. 59, 62. 64, 65. 116. 119, 125

sultan 31. 46, 74, 92, 98. 99, 109, U2ff, 165, 186ff, 195-201; and ulema 227-35;

THE POLITICS OF PIETY

288 and Üstüvani I40ff Sultan Ahmed medrese 215

recruitment and tenure 66-71, 94, 101, 106. 208; role 23-32, 35, 39. 194-95, 233-35; see religious establishment

Sultan Ahmed mosque 24, 130, 133, 165, 175 n47

ulufe see religious establishment, stipends

Sultan Selim mosque 24, 130, 132, 133

Ommi Sinan 211

Sunna see Prophet Muhammad, practice of

Unity of Being (Wahdat al-Wujud) 37, 136

Sünbül. Shaikh 211

Unkapani 70

Sünbül Molla Ali 75 ni I

Oskübi Omer 181 n!30

Sunni Islam 24, 26, 27, 34, 35. I l l , 134, 174 n25, 191, 192, 219, 221 nl4 , 228, 234

Üsküdar 25, 68

Sunullah Mustafa 65, 116 n53

Üveysi 129

Straits 90 Tabriz 60

vaiz 131, 132, 133, 144; Kadızadeli 38-40. 141, 159. 185. 193. 195, 1%. 202, 211, 233; recruitment 24, 163-72; sermons 130, 133, 137. 142

tafra 61

vakf see pious endowment

*Tarikat-i Muhammadiye” see Bilgili Mehmed

valide 139 ^

Syria 141

Tatar Imam 145, 146, 190, 221 nl5 Tatarcık Abdullah 54, 65, 214, 234 taverns 138 taxation 29, 31, 90ff, 113 tecdid-i iman 135

Üstüvani Mehmed 141-42, 144, 146, 147, 148, 163, 167, 186, 188

Valide mosque 24, 130, 147 Vani Mehmed 118, 126 n97, 146-59, 163, 168, 187, 188, 195, 202, 203, 210, 215 Vaniköy 180 nl22 Venice 90 Vessaf Abdullah 49

Tercüman Sufi lodge 131

Vessafzade family 47

terk-i tarik 85

vezir 52. 70, 84. 85. 87. 94, 107, 112, 229

tekke see Sufis Thrace 91

Vienna campaign 46, 121 n l, 157, 158, 188. 205

timar see cavalry, provincial

Wahdat al-Wujud see Unity of Being

Tirmidhi, Abu Abdullah Muhammad 190

wine 139, 149, 151, 171-72, 188

tobacco 136, 139, 176 n53. 198, 199 Topkapi palace 31, 177 n7l, 229

Yahya, Minkarizade 177 n74, 180 nl20, 189. 204-205

Torah 37

Yahya, Zekeriyazade 49, 99, 171-72, 205

Transylvania campaign 198

Yazid, Caliph 136

Tripoli-in-Syria 67

Yedi Kule 151

Turhan Sultan 147

Yenijehir (Larisa) 25

Ttuks 34, 107, 154

•zade 75 nlO

ulema 43-74, 130, I63ff, 185, 217-18; and

zadegan 54

Huzur Dersleri 227ff; and Kadizadelis 168-72, 190, 209, 210; aristocracy 40, 43ff, 74, 56, 57ff, 69, 71, 73-74, 212, 213, 232-35; degeneration 105-106; exe­ cutions 70-71, 113-15; privileges S4ff;

zaviye see Sufis zeal (gayret), career 86, 103, 112 zilcr see Sufis, ritual Zülfikar Agha 119