Bureaucrat and Intellectual in the Ottoman Empire: The Historian Mustafa Ali (1541-1600)

by Cornell H. Fleischer

Overview

Mustafa Ali was the foremost historian of the sixteenth-century Ottoman Empire. Most modern scholars of the Ottoman period have focused on economic and institutional issues, but this study uses Ali and his works as the basis for analyzing the nature of intellectual and social life in a formative period of the Ottoman Empire.

Originally published in 1986.

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Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780691638447
Publisher:	Princeton University Press
Publication date:	04/19/2016
Series:	Princeton Studies on the Near East , #394
Pages:	408
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.10(d)

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Bureaucrat and Intellectual in the Ottoman Empire

The Historian Mustafa Âli (1541-1600)

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By Cornell H. Fleischer

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS

Copyright © 1986 Princeton University Press
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-691-05464-3

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CHAPTER 1

THE MAKING OF AN OTTOMAN

(1541-63 / 948-70)

HOMELAND AND FAMILY

    My home is the land of Gelibolu;
    It is a crossroads, the path to Arabia and Persia.
    That marvelous spot, at the edge of-the sea!
    Its gardens and meadows are like those of pure Heaven.

These were the lines written in 1593 by Mustafa Âli, son of Ahmed, son of Abdullah, when he returned to the city of his birth for the first time since he had left it as a young student thirty-five years before. To commemorate this return to the capital of the Gallipoli peninsula, Ali composed a work in verse which he titled Sadef-i sad güher, The Lustre of a Hundred Jewels. He dedicated it to the glories of his homeland, to recollection of family and friends, and to recapitulation of his own literary career. A few lines from this work constitute almost all the information available on the family into which Mustafa Âli was born on 28 April, 1541.2 Âli writes of his father:

    My father Ahmed, son of Abdullah,
    Elder [hoca] of the people of prosperity, was yet humble,
    Constantly giving to the people of learning.
    His generosity and bounty were extraordinary.
    Although, like Usâma, he was a slave [kul],
    He was handsome as Joseph, and blessed with good character.

It is clear that Âli's father Ahmed was not only a merchant but a prosperous one; he had the honorific title of hoca, literally "master," which was applied in Ottoman times to both teachers and preeminent men of commerce. The mercantile imagery in which Âli couched the chronogram he composed on the occasion of Ahmed's death in 1565-66 confirms the nature of his father's occupation:

    My late father, Hoca Ahmed,
    Exhausted the capital of his life span.
    He abandoned completely the goods of Existence,
    And saw thereby that commerce is for nought,
    Âli, God inspired this event's chronogram;
    I said at that moment "God rest my father's soul."
    [= 1565-66/973]

In what sense Ahmed might be considered a slave, however, is somewhat less clear. In Ottoman usage the word kul, "slave," applied to two types of bonded servitude. Anyone could own personal household slaves bought from the slave market. Since Islam forbids the enslavement of freeborn Muslims, most slaves were Christian or other non-Muslim prisoners of war. In Muslim households slaves were frequently converted to Islam and could engage in trade. Manumission was encouraged as a meritorious act, and slaves could also purchase their freedom. Âli usually refers to household slaves of this sort as müstera kul, "purchased slave," in order to distinguish them from the more specifically Ottoman kuls. These latter were the personal slaves of the sultan recruited primarily, though not exclusively, through the devsirme levy on Christian villages in the Balkan and Anatolian provinces of the Empire. The vast majority of these imperial slaves went into the Janissary infantry corps after converting to Islam and learning Turkish. A select few were educated in the Palace to staff the higher levels of the military governing apparatus. Not all Ottoman administrators, it should be noted, were technically slaves; but even freeborn Muslims in imperial service were considered the sultan's kuls or servitors, slaves in the metaphorical rather than the technical sense.

These imperial slaves were by definition members of the askeri governing class; Âli's father Ahmed, as a merchant, belonged to the taxpaying subjects (re'âyâ). Until the middle of the sixteenth century, strictures on Janissaries' marrying, and a prohibition against their engaging in trade, are thought to have been rigidly observed. It is most likely that Ahmed was a manumitted household slave, or the son of one, rather than an imperial kul or devsirme product; had he been this sort of "slave" he would have had to have lost his military status relatively early in life. Furthermore, Ahmed was involved in literary life to an extent that suggests a level of education congruent with what a household slave could acquire but well above the learning available to the average devsirme recruit who did not enter the Palace. Âli's reference to Usama and Joseph, two famous slaves who were set free, supports this conclusion. If, however, Âli meant "kul" as "devsirme slave," his use of the term would have to be understood in the broader sense of "Christian devsirme origin." If Âli's grandfather Abdullah were such a kul, his son Ahmed would have been born a free Muslim. Âli nowhere declares the ethnic origin of his paternal forebears, although circumstantial evidence suggests they were Bosnian; in discussions of the major ethnic groups represented within the Empire, particularly within the ruling establishment, Âli invariably singles out Bosnians and Croatians for exceptional praise.

Whatever the nature of the merchant Ahmed's origins, by the time Mustafa Âli was born his father had achieved some local prominence, particularly as a patron of and participant in cultural life. To attain such a position in Gelibolu, provincial capital though it was, was no mean feat. The city was the first Ottoman conquest in Rumeli, captured in 1354, and it had early become a strategically and culturally important part of the nascent Ottoman state. Since the early fifteenth century Gelibolu had produced a small but significant number of mystics, scholars, and poets, beginning with the brothers Ahmed and Mehmed Yazicizade. Many of these either lived in Gelibolu or returned to teach there after receiving advanced education at one of the major medrese universities of Istanbul. Hence, in addition to native sons who gained repute for scholarship and literary talent outside their homeland, Gelibolu boasted products of local schools who provided basic education in the city. Âli wrote of the ulema of Gelibolu:

    [Gelibolu] produced few great scholars and famous mystics;
    It does not have many orators or commentators of note.
    Its ulema are mostly prayer-leaders and preachers
    Who teach Arabic grammar from morning to night.

Ahmed married into a Gelibolu family which personified the pietistic traditions of the provincial capital and which was also connected with the Ottoman ruling establishment. Âli's mother, whose name is unknown, was the maternal granddaughter of one Seyh Muslihüddin Mustafa. Seyh Muslihüddin was a disciple and spiritual successor of the Naksbendi sheikh Seyyid Ahmed Buhari (d. 1516-17/922). As the deputy (halife) of the famous Seyyid Ahmed (also known as Emir-i Buhari), Seyh Muslihüddin was authorized to propagate the spiritual teachings of the master of the order, and therefore had considerable stature within the Naksbendi tarikat, as well as within the elevated echelons of Ottoman government, among whose representatives the Naksbendi order gained considerable prominence in the sixteenth century. Seyh Muslihüddin lived for many years at the mother cloister of the order, the Emir-i Buhari Tekkesi in Istanbul, where he died in 1552-53/960.

For a period beginning between 1520 and 1530 Seyh Muslihüddin lived in and raised a family in Gelibolu. He had at least two children, one of whom was Âli's maternal grandmother. The other, Âli's great-uncle Dervis Çelebi, received a religious education and embarked on an ilmiye career. At some point Dervis Çelebi went to Istanbul, perhaps in company with his father, in order to continue his education and to benefit from his father's connections in the capital. Dervis Çelebi did not reach the upper ranks of the learned establishment occupied by the religious judges (kadis) of important cities and teachers (müderris) in major medrese universities. Ulema of moderate education who were unwilling or unable to enter the major career tracks of teaching and law had an alternative; they could be appointed to individual mosques as imam, "prayer leader," or hatib, the official responsible for delivering the sermon and for acting as imam at Friday communal prayer in the mosques where Friday prayer was authorized. Positions of this sort, and analogous ones provided by pious endowment (vakif) of many varieties, were often given to people who had some learning and a repute for piety but who, whether by choice or educational level, were not full members of the ilmiye who could expect a career as either a judge or a teacher. The greatest number of such figures as Dervis Çelebi were found in the Sufi cloisters of the Ottoman Empire. Adherents of the more fashionable orders would have some degree of religious learning without being required to specialize in the religious sciences of jurisprudence and Qur'ânic exegesis as professional ulema were, but yet had prestige based upon their spiritual accomplishment and ample contact with the ulema and government figures who shared their tarikat affiliation.

Some time before 1557/965 Dervis Çelebi attained an important post of this variety, becoming the hatib of a royal mosque in Istanbul, the Sehzade Cami'i. It may have been there that Dervis Çelebi attracted the attention of Sultan Süleyman, who had built the mosque to accompany the tomb of his son Prince Mehmed. In 1557-58 Süleyman brought Dervis Çelebi to the Imperial Palace and made him his personal imam. He served Süleyman in this capacity until the latter's death in 1566, and appears to have won considerable favor, for the sovereign lavished gifts upon him. Dervis Çelebi did not come from a pedagogical or juridical background, and his post of imam-i sultani would not necessarily lead to anything greater, since it was a special one which depended solely upon the favor of the monarch rather than upon seniority or scholarly output. When Süleyman died, Dervis Çelebi was dismissed from the Palace by the jealous grand vezir Sokollu Mehmed Pasa, and received neither pension nor appointment. In order to live he was forced to sell the gifts he had received from Süleyman. When Süleyman's grandson Sultan Murad III (reg. 1574-95/982-1003) ascended the Ottoman throne, he granted Dervis Çelebi a small retirement stipend, with which he retired to Mecca until his death in about 1583 at the age of sixty or seventy.

CHILDHOOD AND EARLY EDUCATION

(1541-56)

In the middle of the sixteenth century Ottoman society was still strictly divided into two broad classes: the re'âyâ, taxpaying subjects, and the askeri, people connected with government and the functioning of the state, who did not pay taxes and who received salaries or revenue grants by government appointment. This latter class included bureaucrats and members of the ilmiye religious establishment as well as military personnel. The social mobility of the re'âya was necessarily very restricted, unless they could cross into the askeri class, which monopolized the upper echelons of Ottoman society. Such changes of status, however, violated Ottoman ideals of statecraft and social stability, for they deprived the state of revenue and blurred the distinction between the rulers and the ruled.

There were three modes of entry into the askeri class. The first, in this period when the Palace slave household dominated the major administrative functions, was through the devsirme, which in turn required non-Muslim birth. The second mode of entry was birth into an askeri family. At this time the marriage of the rank-and-file kuls, the Janissaries, was somewhat restricted; this meant that in order to achieve askeri status by birth one's father had to be either a relatively high-ranking kul, a scholar, or a member of a family in which military status was or could be hereditary, as was the case with timar-holding provincial cavalrymen (sipahis) and established princely families that had accepted Ottoman suzerainty. Other members of military households, such as slaves and freeborn voluntary retainers, could also quÂlify for low-level askeri appointments. The third way into the governing class was education, open to all Muslims, by which means one could enter a religious career that could lead to a judgeship or professorship. This was the avenue most accessible to the children of Muslim re'âya parents, who were otherwise largely disqualified from askeri status at birth. The ilmiye hierarchy and the religious educational system upon which it was based allowed such people a means of advancement whereby they would be judged primarily upon accomplishment rather than inherited or kul status.

Whatever the specific professional and genealogical requirements of the career tracks within the askeri class, one more factor helped to determine individual advancement and both vertical and lateral relationships: intisab, "connections." Intisab signified a semiofficial patronage system whereby a member of the askeri class would help to secure entry into and advancement within the government system for his own protégés, who would in turn support their patron and his interests. Intisab was established on the basis of a variety of other sorts of relationships. Blood kinship constituted the most immediate basis for patronage, but friendship, marriage ties, sexual relationships, ethnic and geographical origins, household service, and studentteacher bonds also played an important part in the establishment of intisab networks.

Mustafa Âli was the firstborn son of Ahmed b. Abdullah, a Muslim merchant. The nature of the status of Âli's immediate family within the structure of Ottoman society was of crucial consequence to his future and to that of his two younger brothers, Mehmed and Ibniyamin. In paternalistic Ottoman society the sons of re'âya fathers were re'âya. On the maternal side of Âli's family, to be sure, there were connections with the ilmiye establishment and with the highest levels of the ruling class. However, neither the kinship status nor the actual positions held by Seyh Muslihüddin and his son Dervis Çelebi were such as would guarantee askeri status for the sons of Ahmed. Neither man was directly involved in either government or the ilmiye hierarchy, but both had positions that would enable them to help a relative once the latter qualified for admission to the askeri class. It appears that the only way for Ahmed to provide such an opportunity for his sons was to educate them, so that they might assimilate Ottoman high culture and enter state service through the religious or bureaucratic career lines, both of which were open to Muslims conversant with the "Ottoman Way." This is what Ahmed did. As a prosperous merchant he could afford to have his sons well educated, and all of them eventually became not just askeri but Ottomans, people whose education and culture made them members of the elite of the ruling class. By 1593 Mustafa had become a provincial governor and director of finance, while his brothers Mehmed and Ibniyamin were attached to the Imperial Council (Divan-i hümayun) as a secretary and pursuivant (çavus), respectively.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from Bureaucrat and Intellectual in the Ottoman Empire by Cornell H. Fleischer. Copyright © 1986 Princeton University Press. Excerpted by permission of PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Table of Contents

• FrontMatter, pg. i
• CONTENTS, pg. vii
• LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS, pg. ix
• LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS, pg. xi
• NOTE ON USAGE, pg. xiii
• ACKNOWLEDGMENTS, pg. xvii
• INTRODUCTION, pg. 3
• ONE THE MAKING OF AN OTTOMAN (1541-63 / 948-70), pg. 13
• TWO THE POET AT THE GATES (1563-77 / 970-84), pg. 41
• THREE TO THE EAST (1577-82 / 984-90), pg. 70
• FOUR TOWARD THE MILLENNIUM: WAR, APOCALYPSE, AND HISTORY (1583-92 / 991-1000), pg. 109
• FIVE THE FINAL YEARS (1592-1600 / 1000-1008), pg. 143
• SIX KANUN-CONSCIOUSNESS IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY, pg. 191
• SEVEN ÂLI ON THE OTTOMAN CAREER PATHS, pg. 201
• EIGHT BUREAUCRACY AND BUREAUCRATIC CONSCIOUSNESS, pg. 214
• NINE OTTOMAN HISTORICAL WRITING IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY, pg. 235
• TEN MUSLIM AND OTTOMAN, pg. 253
• ELEVEN THE TURKIC AND MONGOL HERITAGE, pg. 273
• TWELVE THE REIGN OF MURAD III, pg. 293
• APPENDIX A THE STRUCTURE OF THE OTTOMAN FINANCIAL ESTABLISHMENT IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY, pg. 311
• APPENDIX B CHRONOLOGY, pg. 315
• GLOSSARY, pg. 319
• BIBLIOGRAPHY, pg. 333
• Index, pg. 345