Shinder 1978 Early Ottoman Administration

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Early Ottoman Administration in the Wilderness: Some Limits on Comparison Author(s): Joel Shinder Source: International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 9, No. 4 (Nov., 1978), pp. 497-517Published by: Cambridge University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/162076Accessed: 01-08-2015 09:20 UTC

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Int. J. Middle East Stud. 9 (1978), 497-517 Printed in Great Britain 497

Joel Shinder

EARLY OTTOMAN ADMINISTRATION IN THE WILDERNESS: SOME LIMITS ON COMPARISON

A synthesis of Ottoman administrative history has yet to be written, and it is unlikely that one will appear in the near future. The task is enormous, and more glamorous subjects continue to receive priority. Even now the field of administrative history exists largely as an ancillary to the study of Ottoman diplomatic instruments or as a foundation for the study of the modernization of traditional society. In the latter case it has fallen under the spell of institutional history, where three theses and at least one 'antithesis' scurry in their murine way across the tiles of the Ottoman edifice. Despite the fact that a developed literature is lacking, specialists in other disciplines have used the Ottoman example for broad comparative studies of bureaucratic empires.1 Their premature attempts have perpetuated the notion already endemic in Islamist circles that what we know of Islamic government is all there is to know and need be known. Several themes, however, have dominated the study of governing institutions in the Middle East with a force that has surely impeded progress and fresh thought. Our first results from the four theses referred to earlier are terribly outdated at worst or in need of modification at best. New source materials in the Ottoman archives and new readings of older materials long subject to scholarly scrutiny call for a reexamina- tion of those leading themes and the theses they inspire before any attempt at synthesis and comparison is made.

The first twentieth-century thesis on Ottoman institutions was advanced by Alfred Howe Lybyer in his World War I classic, The Government of the Ottoman Empire in the Time of Suleiman the Magnificent, reprinted in New York (1966) from the 1913 Cambridge, Massachusetts, edition of Harvard University Press. Lybyer based his research on Western materials, from which he concluded that the Empire may be understood in terms of two institutions: the Ruling Institution and the Moslem Institution. The first consisted of the personal slaves of the sultans, slaves who with few exceptions were the conscripted sons of Christian parents. In contrast, the Moslem Institution was peopled entirely by

AUTHOR'S NOTE: I wish to acknowledge the support of the National Endowment for the Humanities and of the State University of New York Research Foundation in the preparation of this essay. I would also like to thank Harvard University's Center for Middle Eastern Studies for the facilities made available to me.

1 S. N. Eisenstadt, The Political Systems of Empires (London, 1963), is an example of the way in which the Ottoman case has been used for comparison and model-building.


498 Joel Shinder

freeborn Muslims. Members of the first wielded military and administrative power, while those of the second were responsible for the maintenance of the Islamic faith (theology, law, philosophy, and other religious sciences). Whereas the first group is European, Christian, and 'white,' the second is Asiatic, Muslim, and 'Turkish.' When the strict separation of these staffs broke down late in Siileyman's reign, the Empire's fate was sealed.2

Late in the thirties Paul Wittek, a most scrupulous Ottomanist, presented his famous ghazi thesis in The Rise of the Ottoman Empire and in a Revue des Jtudes Islamiques articles, 'De la defaite d'Ankara a la prise de Constantinople,' both appearing in 1938. During the fourteenth and well into the fifteenth centuries, according to Wittek, the chief tension in the Empire was that between the independent and 'antinomian' frontier warriors of the faith or ghazis on the one hand and the orthodox purveyors of a High Islamic, hinterland tradition, the ulema, on the other. The sultan's authority could be maintained only by balancing these two elements, whence the devsirme or child levy, at once a compromise with the ghazi ideal of forced conversion (or death) and a constraint on ulema pretensions. Ulema success would threaten the raison d'etre of the state, the Holy War of the ghazis, and bring on decline.

During the sixties Professor Stanford J. Shaw, of the University of California, Los Angeles, then of Harvard, prepared an unpublished study of the Ottoman Empire in two parts: 'The Formative Years' and 'Decline and Reform' (available at Harvard University's Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Reading Room). Shaw observed a tension between the Turkish aristocracy, scions of prominent Turkoman tribal families, and the devsirme class of slave converts together with their freeborn Muslim sons. With the defeat of the Turkish aristocracy, the devsirme class split into rival factions temporarily allied with other groups such as the ulema and harem cliques. The sultan could no longer depend on the countervailing force of the aristocracy to check the excesses of the victorious if fragmented devsirme class. Although the aristocracy of the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries produced reformist tracts designed to restore to them the powers usurped by the devsirme, the sultan was either too weak or too dependent on devsirme military muscle to accept these proposals as the bases for policy. The aristocracy's military contribution, chiefly cavalry, was simply outmoded. Artillery and infantry were needed, and these were the devsirme's forte. Shaw's view, therefore, is a correction to the Lybyer thesis, and it has found a degree of support recently from the thorough studies of Halil Inalcik.3

2 Lybyer, Government, pp. 36-37, 50. His thesis was developed and refined by H. A. R. Gibb and Harold Bowen in Islamic Society and the West, Vol. I, Islamic Society in the Eighteenth Century, Part I (Oxford, I950). I am indebted to Ms. Judith-Ann Corrente of Harvard University for her comments in a seminar paper, 'Approaches to Ottoman Institutions: An Historiographical Essay,' which I found helpful in this analysis.

3 Professor Halil Inalcik has an extensive list of publications, the most relevant of which are the following: 'Ottoman Methods of Conquest,' Studia Islamica, 2 (1954), 103-I30; 'The Emergence of the Ottomans,' in The Cambridge History of Islam, Vol. I (Cambridge, I970), pp. 263-295; The Ottoman Empire in the Classical Age 1300-1600 (New York,


Early Ottoman Administration in the Wilderness 499

Against these three essentially bipolar theses stands an antithesis, if such it is, developed variously by Lewis V. Thomas, Norman Itzkowitz, and Halil Inalcik.4 In contrast with the theses, which are political in emphasis, the antithesis is a cultural or social model of the traditional, High Islamic Near Eastern state. The model describes a corporate society of Men of the Sword, Men of the Pen (both making up the Ottoman ruling or askeri class), Men of Negotiation, and Men of Husbandry (both making up the Ottoman subject class of reaya). The Men of the Pen in the Ottoman system are then subdivided into the ilmiye and kalemiye, the careers of religious-legal knowledge (the ulema) and of the bureaucracy (the kiittab). Ottoman absolutism was founded on Persian traditions of statecraft modified by Islamic law, solidified by the Turkic tradition of dynastic succession, which replaced the Islamic theory of election, and effected by the reign of justice within a circle of equity. This circle has eight propositions: a state requires a sovereign authority to enforce rational and Holy Law; to have authority a sovereign must exercise power; to have power and control one needs a large army; to have an army one needs wealth; to have wealth from taxes one needs a prosperous people; to have a prosperous subject population one must have just laws justly enforced; to have laws enforced one needs a state; to have a state one needs a sovereign authority. Justice is fundamentally the maintenance of corporate order - keeping the four classes of men and their subdivisions in place. This is done through the Holy Law of Islam supplemented with if not complemented by the rational and customary law of the sultanate, kanun. But the key fiscal and administrative unit for the implementation of order is the timar or quasi-feudal regime, which is seen as part of the continuing Persian legacy, through the Abbasids and Seljuks, to the Ottomans. Here the key to Ottoman studies, then, is not the polarities of the political models. Ottoman society was too complex. Diversification and stratification, shifting alliances and alignments within and between occupational classes are what the sociocultural model emphasizes. Rather than tension between two groups with a central authority seeking balance, this model suggests the genesis of a ruling elite drawing membership from and controlling admission to all service areas. It is clearly more sophisticated than its competitors. All four, however, are ruled by themes that pervade Islamic studies in the twentieth century.

This point may be elucidated through the simple graphic device of the chart, whose object is to afford the examiner an opportunity to discern the meanings of symbols A and B. What is the underlying structure of the chart? Or, put

1973). Inalcik, unlike Shaw, prefers to see the 'Turkish Aristocracy' as the march lords or uc begs and limits the tension between this group and the devsirme party to the period ca. I362-ca. 600oo. He also works toward a synthesis by incorporating the 'Muslim Aristocracy' or chief ulema families into his scheme. The effect is to bring Wittek and Lybyer (as corrected by Shaw) together.

4Thomas, A Study of Naima (New York, 1972); Itzkowitz, 'Eighteenth Century Ottoman Realities,' Studia Islamica, 26 (I962), 73-94, and Ottoman Empire and Islamic Tradition (New York, 1972), and, with Max Mote, Mubadele: An Ottoman-Russian Exchange of Ambassadors (Chicago, 1970); Inalcik in the works cited in n. 3 above, but especially in Classical Age.


t_rl O O

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ca

FOUR THESES IN OTTOMAN INSTITUTIONAL HISTORY

Origin of thesis I. Lybyer 2. Wittek

3. Shaw/inalcik

A (State) Ruling Institution

Ghazi (to Devsirme) Devsirme Party Devsirme Kapl Kullarla or

Central Government

Intermediate Status B (Society) Moslem Institution

Ulema

Turkish Aristocracy Ulema/Muslim Aristocracy March Lords

4. Inalcik/Itzkowitz/Thomas Askeri (Rulers) Men of the Pen

Bureaucracy Religion/Law

Men of the Sword Kapi Kullar Timariots Auxiliaries

Miners Guards (e.g., bridges) Road crews Falcon breeders Sheep breeders, marketers

Reaya (Subjects) Men of Negotiation Merchants Artisans

Men of Husbandry Farmers Pastoralists

a Persons in the immediate service of the sultan, whether in the palace itself or in the provinces, including the devsirme; either salaried, supported by estates, or in the combination of these two.



another way, what do the symbols 'A' and 'B' stand for, and what is their thematic foundation? (See chart on facing page.)

One theme in Umayyad and Abbasid history (A.D. 661-750 and 750-I258, respectively) is the struggle between advocates of centralized and those of decentralized government. A second popular theme has been the antagonism of different racial groups in government itself, if not throughout the society. Arabs, Persians, Kurds, Berbers, Turks, and Circassians figure prominently in the application of this theme. Yet a third is the rivalry of the military and the bureaucracy in such states as the Abbasid, Great Seljuk, Mamluk, and Ottoman. Where these themes have not masked a stark Western ethnocentrism, they have often served as handmaidens to ideologies past and present, East and West: nationalism, secularism, Islamic reformism, or Arabism. More specific themes of the same formulation exist for the Ottoman case: on origins - Byzantine/ European vs. Muslim/Asiatic; on ruling elites - gallant frontiersman vs. effete hinterlander; on power loci - Palace vs. Porte; on policy - reaction/Islamic Orthodoxy vs. reform/Westernization; on broad cultural influences - Turkish romanticism vs. Islamic ecumenicism. It is obvious that these themes as well have ideological content or potential. The chief problem raised by the examples, however, is not the advancement of ideology. Their bipolar formulation violates the principle in logic of the excluded middle. This requires that any ambiguous statement be either true or false. For example, it is incorrect to ask whether the Ottoman government was in the hands of free Muslim Turks or of converted non-Turkish slaves and to expect that one is true, the other false. The correct question is whether or not the Ottoman government, once clearly defined, was in the hands of free Muslim Turks, and so forth. Disregard of the principle creates artificial situations of tension between alternative choices which an historical society may or may not have faced. It produces loaded or complex questions of the nature: 'How did you spend the money you stole'?

Although the preceding examples do not immediately degenerate into fallacies, a principal theme in Islamic history does - a theme that, as is demonstrated, is the underlying structure of the mystery chart above. This theme is the disruptive tension between the ideals of the Holy Law of Islam, the shari'a (feriat in Ottoman usage), and the practical needs of sovereign states. Inquiries based on the theme conclude from comparisons of Islamic political theory and isolated examples of actual practice that Islamic governments have consistently failed to be 'Islamic' and that Islamic society has failed to be 'political.' This succinct version borders on equivocation, perhaps inevitably in view of the heavily theoretical bias of the research supporting the theme. The research closes in on legal theory and executive practice, demanding absolute purity of the first, corruption of the second:5

Even the most harmonious co-operation of jurisprudents and executive officialdom could not have prevented the gap between the ideal and the actual, the normative and

5 Gustave E. von Grunebaum, Medieval Islam: A Study in Cultural Orientation, 2d ed. (Chicago, 1956), p. 143.


502 Joel Shinder

the practical, the precedent of sacred law and the makeshift decision of the executive order, from widening until it became unbridgeable. The pious condemned the ruler's deviations from the established norm of the Prophet's days, and in fear for their souls they evaded his call when he summoned them to take office.

Thus the government of Allah and the government of the sultan grew apart. Social and political life was lived on two planes, on one of which happenings would be spiritually valid but actually unreal, while on the other no validity could ever be aspired to. The law of God failed because it neglected the factor of change to which Allah had subjected his creatures. [Legal theory] had, unwittingly perhaps, relinquished that grandiose dream of a social body operating perpetually under the immutable law which God had revealed in the fulness of time.

There is an opposition here between government or state and society, and it is suggested that this is a uniquely Islamic phenomenon despite historical evidence to the contrary. Because the legists of early Islam wrestled with the problem of theory and practice for ages bereft of the Prophet's guidance, it is argued, all subsequent states and societies, in being Islamic, suffered the same difficulty. This is the fallacy of division, where the properties of the whole are considered true also for the parts (assuming, of course, the validity of the properties of the whole as described). The fallacy of composition, where the properties of the parts are considered true also for the whole, is introduced when certain key Islamic states, like the Abbasid, are considered models for the entire Islamic community or umma.

When the full theme is drafted into use for the discussion of Ottoman state and society, the fallacy of division applies. One consequence of such reasoning is the judgment that practitioners of Ottoman government, as of any Islamic government, uniformly displayed a total lack of administrative morality. This comes from the uncritical reading of a spate of 'government' manuals which can rival The Prince for the challenge they pose the literary analyst. An eleventh- century manual urges, 'Commit no forgery for a trivial object, but [reserve it] for the day when it will be of real service to you and the benefits substantial.'6 Noting evidence of corruption in Ottoman administrative ranks, a thinker of this ilk - steeped, to be sure, in Oriental lore - would find his general conclusion exonerated. The abundance of Ottoman manuals which urge probity would not impress him. A comparative perspective, in other words, has thrown the Ottoman child into the wilderness where, left to the devices of nature, he would thrive on the milk of two gray wolves, the beasts of State and Society or, respectively, symbols A and B in the chart above (p. 500). In terms of the theme, it should be remembered, 'society' is chiefly the ulema and other popular leadership outside the framework of the government proper. Recognizing the official status of the ulema in the Ottoman state, the Inalcik-Itzkowitz-Thomas proposition is more strictly functional in its askeri-reaya definition.

The Ottoman state should be fully characterized, however, as primarily Islamic, Turkish, dynastic, monocratic, and agrarian. To the extent that it was

6 Reuben Levy, trans., A Mirror for Princes: The Qdbus Ndma by Kai Kd'uis Ibn Iskander, Prince of Gurgan (London, I95I), p. 209.



Islamic, it enjoyed only some elements of a civilization to which it fell heir, and it contributed much to that civilization. The same may be said for its Turkic legacy. In neither case is the legacy full. The dynasty, the monocracy, and the economy differ vastly from earlier and later forms, Turkish or Islamic. Similarly, Ottoman administration differs from earlier and later varieties in accordance with development under unique conditions, particularly those introduced with the expansion into Europe and, only subsequently, into the Islamic heartlands of the Middle East, thence into North Africa. These distinctions, unfortunately, have not been preserved. Identical terms for administrative offices and methods as between the Ottomans and other Islamic states have been taken for coincidence and continuity in institutions, regardless of chronological and spatial gaps. To the shifting of personnel across frontiers has been added a lengthy baggage train containing the paraphernalia of a paradigmatic and reified 'traditional Near Eastern State and Society.' The important conclusion is that it is indispensable to study Ottoman administration for itself and in its own context. The comparative study of Islamic government is more than a welcome endeavor, provided that the comparative approach yields results other than mirror images of a self- fulfilled prophecy. The remainder of this essay, accordingly, is concerned with what the past bequeathed to Ottoman administration (to the extent that current research allows) and how the bequest has been presented in historical writings. Ideally, this discussion would be followed by an in-depth examination of Ottoman administration from the reign of Sultan Mehmed II (145I-148I) to the first third of the eighteenth century, by which time major changes in the imperial administration had largely run their course. The materials used here, however, are not drawn from the early period merely to introduce a continuous survey. Even a cursory review is not possible in the present state of the field. The chief intention is rather to discuss notions which have affected the study of Ottoman administration in any period. One such notion, the Turkish ghazi thesis, has its roots in the first Ottoman chronicles.

An early source hostile to bureaucratic, centralized government introduces the history of Ottoman central administration with the following story. One market day in about the year A.D. 1300 a man from the neighboring principality of Germiyan came to the court of Osman Beg, founder of the Ottoman dynasty and first of the great ten leaders of that house. The visitor offered to purchase the tax farm on market tolls. Osman ingenuously asked, 'What is a market toll?' The Germiyanid explained what market tolls were and, noting the just prince's ire, advanced his claim by demonstrating the universality of the practice in all sovereign states since the beginning of time. Yielding to the stranger, who was supported by the local kadi and military commander, Osman promulgated regulations known as kanun - executive law - to govern not only market taxes but also timars, the estates whose usufruct went to the support of warriors and other servants of the dynasty.7

The tendentiousness of this story is more significant than the content. On one 7

'A?ikpa?azade, Tevdrih-i Al-i Osman, ed. 'Ali (Istanbul, I332/II915), pp. I9-20. The


504 Joel Shinder

side is the simple, pure leader of warriors for the faith, whose sole concern is and should be advancing the frontiers of Islam at the cost of the Christian infidels. On the other side stand the external forces of the status quo, princes like those of Germiyan who, together with the Islamic religious establishment (the kadi) and the entrenched household military commander, prefer stable, regulatory government to the material sacrifices and disorder of jihad. Outsiders, it is claimed, sullied the high aims of the Ottoman house, which is identified with the ghazi movement. The tsar is good, but he is misled by his advisors! The principal interest of the earliest chronicles as they have come down to us, then, is the ghazi's exploits against the unbelievers.8 Sophisticated government, whose Anatolian purveyors were the religious-legal scholars of the ulema class, is considered the chief hindrance to the ghazi effort. The simplistic, highly syncretistic and, to some extent, mystical Islam with Shi'i heterodox tendencies to which the ghazis independently adhered would not tolerate the extensively developed and institutionalized system of siyisa shar'iya. This was a theoretical symbiosis of politics and Islamic Holy Law which regulated not only the status and financial obligations of lands and peoples absorbed into the Abode of Islam by conquest or surrender, but also the prerogatives and responsibilities of those in authority.9 According to this doctrine, the two classes of emirs or secular princes and the ulema are in authority. The first keeps order, and the second serves as the heir and guardian of the Prophet's path. It is what the ghazis had presumably rejected in leaving the heartlands of the Islamic Middle East to open new frontiers in the company of clansmen and confederates. (Never mind the compulsion to move ever farther westward with the Mongols breathing hard not far behind.) Interloping strangers from the heartlands with their manners, customs, and institutions were not wanted even for the sake of legitimizing and consolidating the recent conquests. Sword, compound bow, and pony were thought sufficient to that end. More important, the ghazis justifiably felt that the existence of the timar regime and kanun legislation at this early date is a moot point. 'A?ikpasazade is henceforth referred to as Apz., preceded by the editor's last name.

8 Friedrich Griese, ed., Die altosmanische Chronik (Tevarikh-i Al-i Osman) des 'Aszk- pasazdde (Leipzig, I929), in addition to the 'All and Atsiz editions; Oruc, Karamani Mehmed, $ukrullah, Tursun Beg, Ahmedi, and Ne*ri in several editions (but do see the Qift9io/lu, N. Atsiz collection, Osmanlh Tarihleri, Vol. I, Istanbul, I949) - the earliest chronicles we know - possibly share a common prototype.

9 Refer to the discussion of Ibn Taymiya's docrine of siyasa shar'iya in E. I. J. Rosen- thal, Political Thought in Medieval Islam: An Introductory Outline (Cambridge, 1958), pp. 58, 6o. It should be noted, however, that even in the small states which were successors to the Abbasids the doctrine was often ignored in practice, its author having little if any following. Ira M. Lapidus has demonstrated that in many Syrian and Mesopotamian towns and cities new elites emerged during periods of upheaval, common from the ninth century. Military regimes which controlled former Abbasid provinces were incapable of 'reordering' local situations. The urban ulema stepped into the vacuum and, through intermarriage with merchant, administrative, and landowning families, forged a new elite defined by religious qualification. This development, however, should not be superimposed on the scene in western Asia Minor from the thirteenth century. See 'The Evolution of Muslim Urban Society,' Comparative Studies in Society and History, 25 (1973), 21I-50, esp. pp. 39-4I.



strangers would divert the resources of the new conquests - that is to say, booty - from the hands of the actual victors and put them to use for the benefit of others through an organized and regular system of taxation.

Unqualified acceptance of this interpretation is risky. In his story of the market toll, 'Aslkpasazade (1393-1481) left his own imprint on his recension of the prototypical chronicle. His disapproval of Sultan Mehmed II's administrative policies is clear. Where sultans through Murad II (1421-1451) merely led or ordered campaigns resulting in conquests, Mehmed II went beyond conquest and had scribes busily registering and confiscating the booty.10 Bayezid I (1389-I403) had also committed this 'error' of rapid centralization, but Timur had put an end to his excesses after the Battle of Ankara (1402) by restoring local autonomy to Asia Minor dynasts. The evil of bureaucracy itself is attributed to external (Germiyanid) influences on the pristine form of Ottoman government. Those who perpetuated the evil, the ulema, also come under the author's fire. The Candarli family of viziers is singled out for having introduced corruption into the world.1 Acting under the influence of their breed of officialdom, sultans themselves began to accumulate wealth, that sure sign of corruption resulting in the fall of states and rulers, the destruction of the soldiery, and chaos. Bayezid I and his personal agents had suffered these very consequences. It is not only the influence of the ulema, then, which is responsible for disruption. Part of the blame is also placed on the use of personal agents or slaves, kapt kullarz.12

'Aslkpasazade's argument is poorly developed. The ghazis were as much refugee tribal fragments from the east fleeing Mongol advances and seeking new pastures as they were earnest warriors for Islam occupied more with the future of their souls. The late fifteenth-century politics of the chronicler must not be confused with early thirteenth-century realities. The attempt to use the early chronicles to discern administrative developments, therefore, could not make much progress. The information is fragmentary and somewhat unreliable. Another source was relied on to fill in the lacunae. This was the body of precedents or traditions coming to the early Ottoman principality from the Islamic heartlands through the mediation of the Seljuk state of Rum and its later overlord, the Ilhanid Empire.13 The Ottoman's institutional debt to the

10 See Giese, Apz., pp. I75-I77. The importance of the juxtaposition offeth etmek (to conquer) and kaleme almak (to record) was pointed out to me by Professor Rudi Lindner of Tufts University.

11 Atsiz, Apz., pp. 1i8, I39. The view is shared by other works of the genre, such as 'Ahmedi' in Nihat Sami Banarli, XIV. aszr Anadolu fairlerinden Ahmedi'nin Osmanlz tari- hi: Ddsztan-z tevdrih-i miilik-i dl-i Osman ve CemSid ve Hursid mesnevisi (Istanbul, 1939), p. 74. $ukrullah's Behcet in Atsiz, Osmanli Tarihleri, p. 57, and Banarh's 'Ahmedi,' p. 83, relate how Bayezid I had to restrain the kadis from oppressing the people.

12 This general historical judgment of trial by ordeal is made much of in 'All, Apz., pp. I97-198. History in these chronicles is fundamentally moralistic, teleological, and polemical.

13 Supplementing the early chroniclers with tradition (Turkish, Islamic, Middle Eastern) is standard fare in twentieth-century Turkish historiography, represented in


506 Joel Shinder

Seljuk-dominated border principalities, to the Seljuks of Rum, to the Great Seljuks of Iran-Mesopotamia and, later, to their successors, the Ilhanids, is posited. This assumption bears examination under three headings: (i) composition and training of bureaucratic cadres; (2) Seljuk and Ilhanid precedents; and (3) forms of the tradition of the vizierate.

There is some evidence that the Ottoman chancery scribes early in the fifteenth century relied on earlier collections of letters and other forms of guidebooks from non-Ottoman lands in their task of creating an Ottoman methodology for recruiting, training, and entitling the membership of the scribal cadres. Their sources were of three kinds: insa or miinseat (examples of correspondence, both official and unofficial); 'mirrors for princes' (books of counsel by fathers for sons, or by viziers for princes or sultans); and adab (collections of anecdotes, homilies, and excerpts from classics in prose and poetry). The first genre related directly to the functions of the early administration, the second to the general rules which governors should follow both to maintain power and to rule justly. The third was concerned with 'discipline,' the achievement of cultural refine- ment and wisdom which supporters of the state were to cultivate not only for the prestige of the state itself but also for the very identity of the bureaucratic elite in a corporate society.

The oldest known Ottoman insa is the Teressiil of the poet Ahmed-i Da'i, who died after 1421. Based on Arabic and Persian texts, the Teressiil consists of two parts, the standing form for such works. Part One contains advice to scribes, and the rules prescribed here are termed edeb, Turkish for adab. Part Two is the practical section, where models of letters and forms of address are presented to exemplify the theoretical considerations of the introduction. The usage of the term edeb is an interesting indication of the kind of appreciation early Ottomans with their pragmatic bent had for classical Islamic genres. The author's personal career is also interesting in the light of the market toll story of 'Asikpasazade, inasmuch as he first served under the Germiyan prince Ya'kub Beg II (I387-1390, 1402-1429) before entering the service of the Ottoman Emir Siileyman (1405) and Sultan Murad II. Perhaps this is 'the man from Germiyan' displaced one century!14

The Teressiil's importance in the formation of an Ottoman chancery, however, is not easily assessed. Bj6rkman15 and Tekinl6 detect parallels and continuity, three generations of scholarship: Zeki Velidi Togan, Umumi Tiirk Tarihine Girif, Vol. I, En Eski Devirlerden I6. Asra Kadar (Istanbul, I946); I. H. UzuncarSlih, Osmanli Devleti Teskildtzna Medhal (Istanbul, 1941); and in the works of Halil Inalclk as cited.

14 Ismail Hikmet Ertaylan published a facsimile of the Terressiil in Ahmed-i Dd'Z, Hayatz ve Eserleri (Istanbul, 1952), pp. 325-328. Also see W. Bjirkmann, 'Die Anfiinge der tiirkischen Briefsammlungen,' Orientalia Suecana, 5 (Uppsala, I956), 22-23, on insa forms. A possible source for the Terressiil was published by Adnan Sadik Erzi, ed., Selfukiler Devrine did Insa Eserleri . . . (Ankara, I963).

'5 Bjorkman, 'Anfinge,' p. 29. 16 6inasi Tekin, ed., Mendhicii'l-InSa: The Earliest Ottoman Chancery Manual by Yahyd

bin Mehmed el-Kdtib from the i5th Century, in Sources of Oriental Languages and Litera- tures: Turkic Sources, Vol. II (Roxbury, Mass., I971), p. II.



respectively, in inSa from Sultan Mehmed I (I403-I421) through Sultan Mehmed II. Tekin goes further, concluding from the 1412 Bursa copy of the famous Persian Sa'adetndme (written around I307 by 'Alaeddin-i Tebrizi) of the Ilhanid period that 'the Ottomans are copying the administration and institutions of the Selcuks (sic) and Ilhanids.'17 Barkan is more cautious in this respect but still subscribes to the view that models and parallels constitute grounds for concluding the identity of institutions and practices without regard to region and period or nature of absorption into the Ottoman realm.l8

However difficult the problems posed by the use of insa literature among the early Ottomans, the influence of the 'mirrors' genre together with that of adab is even harder to establish with firm evidence. Nizam al-Mulk's famous Siyaset- name and the writings of Nasir al-Din Tisi were probably read. A translation of Kai Ka'fis's Qabfs Ndma from Persian into Turkish was certainly made for Murad II in his first reign (1421-1443), and Turkish manuscripts are more numerous than those in the original Persian,19 but the degree to which these tracts on Oriental governance actually shaped the Ottoman effort in the construction of an administration cannot be determined. The ideals expressed in such works may well have been shared by early Ottoman scribes, however, even if their own conditions were quite different. A look at this ideal is necessary, therefore, provided that it is ranked in the category of theory or aspiration. It would be misleading to view the ideal as a product or reflection of realities.

The ideal is founded in the golden age of Abbasid rule (ca. 750-900). Under the Abbasids 'administrative appointments were likely to be made from candidates belonging to a rather narrow circle of families. These families were in possession of the secrets of government technique, they were familiar with empire conditions, and they had the necessary connections.' Offices were not hereditary, but professions like the military and the bureaucracy required special knowledge and abilities, so they were largely exclusive. Where clerks tended to be free men or mawali (non-Arab clients) and Persian, soldiers tended to be freedmen and slaves of Turkish or other non-Arab and non-Persian descent.20

If the Ottoman scribal corps of the early period aspired to an equal degree of exclusivity, they may well have sought the cultural identity and etiquette which accompanied the Abbasid civil service corps. That cultural form has been ascribed as a Bildungsideal, polite education or, in Arabic, adab. The original connotation of this term was 'the discipline of the mind and its training ...

17 Ibid. 18 Omer Lutfi Barkan, XV ve XVI tncz Aszrlarda Osmanlz Imparatorlugunda Zirai

Ekonominin Hukuk ve Mali Esaslarz, Vol. I, Kanunlar (Istanbul, 1943), pp. lxxi-lxxii. On the problems involved in the use of insa model documents for historical purposes, see Irene Beldiceanu-Streinherr, Recherches sur les actes des regnes des sultans Osman, Orkhan et Murad I (Monachii, Romania, i967), passimn. This is a critical analysis of several early texts.

19 Levy, Mirror, p. xxi. 20 von Grunebaum, Medieval Islam, p. 213.


508 Joel Shinder

characterized by combining the demand for information of a certain kind with that for compliance with a code of behavior.' Although the religious judge and theologian were trained strictly in the sciences of tradition, canon law, and scholastic theology, the perfect kdtib or scribe had to be competent in grammar, law, theology, literature, astronomy, mathematics, medicine, lexicology, political theory, and the science of administration. The ability to recite the Koran and Traditions by heart was also necessary. In fact such encyclopedic knowledge was really narrowed to grammar, belles lettres, and history on the theoretical plane, and calligraphy and style on the practical level. Both recruitment and training, therefore, suggested preference for the all-rounder who could pass freely through the bureaucracy and assume functions as diverse as chancery and finance with equal facility.21

From the Abbasid ideal to Ottoman practice a yawning gap of almost five hundred years exists. Many have tried to bridge the empirical gap through studies on Seljuk and Ilhanid administrative organs and methods. First the Great Seljuks in Iran and Mesopotamia, then the Seljuks of Rum in Asia Minor proper and, finally, the Ilhanids with supremacy in both regions are held to have mediated the Abbasid-Ottoman exchange with but a few Mongol-Turkic variations. The full Abbasid apparatus, therefore, is seen to have been as readily available to the Ottomans as the published traditions of the Prophet were to Muslims of that age.

Under the first two Ottoman princes, Osman and Orhan (together, ca. 1281-1326), the structure of the Ottoman state and its administrative methods were probably very similar to those of the other Anatolian principalities at best. Little more than this statement of probability can be hazarded. Not even the very officials of the early Ottoman state are clear. For example, an important finance officer for the Seljuks of Rum was the mustawfi. His office and duties may be a precedent for the Ottoman finance officer, the defterdar, or for the commissioner of the cadaster, the defter emini. The inception of neither Ottoman office, however, is known accurately. Likewise, just as the Seljuk royal council (divan-i hdss) may be the model for and the functional equivalent of the Ottoman council (divan-i hiimdyun), the exact functions and ranks of member officials concerned with military, judicial, financial, and other affairs could and probably did differ considerably.22 Because the Seljuks and the Ottomans are quite alien to the modern reader, it is easy to accept functional equivalency based on titulature and vice versa. The faith, the culture, the language, and the civilization seem to be the same in each case. This argument, however, would have the Congress of the United States of America and the Parliament of the United Kingdom functionally equivalent entities in respects going far beyond the

21 Ibid., pp. 213, 250, 253-255, and Walther Hinz, 'Das Rechnungswesen oriental- ische Reichsfinanzimter im Mittelalter,' Der Islam, 29 (I950), I-2.

22 Although many parallels may be sought, or analogues found, fundamental differences obtain between various Seljuk offices (in functions, hierarchical position, and power) and the later Ottoman forms. This is clear in the work of Osman Turan, Tiirkiye Selfuklularz Hakkznda Resmi Vesikalar: Metin, Terciime ve Arastzrmalar (Ankara, I958), pp. I-62.



responsibility of legislation and the relationship of these bodies to 'the people.' And in this case, after all, there is a direct historical link between the two nations. Historical differences do in fact obtain to alter institutions even in the proximate case of the Seljuks of Rum and the Ottomans. The case for the Ottoman timar's deriving from the Byzantine pronoia rather than from the Seljuk iqtf' is cogent enough in itself to call for significant changes in administration.23 It is hardly proper, then, to fill in early Ottoman unknowns with Seljuk vaguely knowns.

Although the case for the Seljuks is weak, that for the Ilhanids from the reign of Shazan (I294-I304) and his vizier Rashid al-Din as the true precepts of the Ottomans in the field of government is more coherent. Ilhanid and the later Timurid administrative handbooks are found in the libraries of Istanbul. The use of Persian phrases in official records and the adoption of the Persian solar calendar for the fisc, as well as the Ottoman use of siyakat cipher script for financial registers, could stem from Ilhanid or Ilhanid-Seljuk practice.24 Some malefactor, after all, had to create that cipher which has blinded more than one Ottomanist. The wording of Ilhanid berats, which certified various state liabilities to individual parties, is similar to that of Ottoman documents of the same name.25 From evidence of this nature, the doyen of Ottoman history to the imperial age, Halil Inalclk, asserts that Sultan Bayezid I introduced the full 'Turkish-Islamic' system of central government as developed in Persia under the Mongol Ilhans.26

This system included provincial land and population surveys, fiscal methods, a central treasury, and a bureaucracy. Dominant in the system was Bayezid's extension of his personal ghulam-kapzkulu or slave corps. One religious judge turned territorial prince actually called Bayezid 'son of a Mongol, totally lacking knowledge and grace,'27 so great did he sense Mongol influence at the Ottoman court. The similarity of Ilhanid and Ottoman administration is clearest in the forms of official registers maintained. Under the Ilhanids seven basic types of registers have been described.28 These include the following: a journal for daily transactions and appointments; a general state-of-the-treasury register; a register of ordinary payments; a register of working capital; revenue-expenditure books for individual cities and provinces; a general register of the realm's total revenues; and books of regulations on taxation and other matters. Three of the types (the first, third, and fourth) bear the same names used in the Ottoman system, if for different purposes (ruizname, tevcihat, and tahvil7t). The Ilhanid extraordinary tax known as 'avdrid and the tax levied in kind to provide

23 Claude Cahen, Pre-Ottoman Turkey (New York, 1968), pp. I82-183. 24 Hinz, Rechnungswesen, pp. 4-6, I3. 25 Ibid., pp. 20-22, and I. P. Petruchevsky, 'The Socio-Economic Conditions of Iran

under the Il-Khans,' in The Cambridge History of Iran, Vol. V, The Saljuq and Mongol Periods (Cambridge, I968), p. 494.

26 Inalcik, 'Emergence,' p. 280. 27 Togan, Umumi Turk, p. 33I. Togan (pp. 329-330), is in agreement on the synthetic

'Turkish-Islamic' system of central government. 28 Hinz, Rechnungswesen, pp. 114-134.


5 1 Joel Shinder

food and fodder for the army in a given district, the 'ulffa tax, have exact Ottoman counterparts in the same meaning.29 Finally, the Ottoman practice of having secular kanun/yasak regulations side by side with shari'a prescriptions is also an Ilhanid practice.30 Moreover, Ilhanid land tenure fell into four general categories, each of which has its Ottoman analogue: state lands; private royal domains; lands of the religious institutions and pious endowments; private lands (mulk). This categorization, however, preceded the Ilhanids as much as it did the Ottomans in accordance with custom and Holy Law. Besides, the tenacity of landed classes is a well-known historical phenomenon, and this certainly affected classification of lands.

The evidence admits a strong case for Ottoman-Ilhanid institutional ties. Nonetheless, even in that body of material much is left to be desired. Whether particular officials like the Ilhanid defterdar-i memalik and the Ottoman defterdar of the early period held similar rank and fulfilled similar roles in government is a matter for conjecture. Moreover, the general prejudice of Orientalists for 'Islamic' governments ignores the possible influence on the Ottomans of non- Muslim Mongol-Turkic states north and east of the Black Sea. The kinds of registers the Ottoman kept, however like those of the Ilhanids, give few clues apart from the similarity itself to the method and timing of borrowing. Timing is particularly difficult to establish owing to the formalism of the diplomatics involved. As in the Seljuk case, therefore, a general structure of 'Islamic' or 'traditional Near Eastern' government cannot be assumed to presuppose functional equivalency, however great the force of tradition and precedent. Circumstances, policies, interests, and alignments clearly differentiate the Ottomans from their colleagues in government throughout the Muslim world.

These considerations suggest the tendency in earlier approaches to advance the idea of continuity in Middle Eastern governing traditions to the detriment of innovation or change. Some kind of search for a stereotypical or paradigmatic 'Muslim government' seems to be in progress, despite the prior conclusion that the attempt in the Muslim world to create a Muslim government has consistently failed! A look at the institution of the vizierate is an important step in shifting the balance to the side of change. The example is particularly crucial in that, of the many innovations introduced by the Ottomans, the grand vizierate is outstanding for its effects on the administrative history of the empire.

The Arabic wazir - literally, one who carries a burden - has the sense of aide or counselor.31 The office is neither a direct borrowing from Sassanian practice nor a static tradition. By the sixth century the Sassanian equivalent, the buzurg framdddr, was in decline or non-existent, and the Umayyads had no first minister

29 Petruchevsky, 'Iran under Il-Khans,' pp. 532-533. 30 Togan, Umumi Tirk, p. 330. The Ilhanid state was non-Muslim until Ghazan's

conversion, and this may account for the dual legal system. The Ottomans produced regulations under different conditions; namely, the absorption of largely non-Muslim areas with local codes of law into a state whose leadership was Muslim.

31 Dominique Sourdel, Le Vizirat 'Abbdside de 749 d 936 (I32 a 324 de l'Hegire), Vol. I (Damascus, 1959), pp. 50-54.



of the kind the Abbasids were to develop when they shifted the seat of government from formerly Byzantine Syria to formerly Persian Mesopotamia.32 The first person to hold the title was Abfi Salama, officially saluted wazir dl Muham- mad by the Kufan army in A.D. 749. As the salutation indicates, the office was coincident with the Abbasids' new regime of increasing orthodoxy complemented by oriental influences, which was mediated by the non-Arab secretarial classes.33

Abbasid viziers were most often recruited from the central or provincial administration and were secretaries of recognized competence. While court personnel rarely entered the office, administrators of the fisc were especially prominent. In time, recruiting was carried out almost entirely among the awlad al-kuttdb, sons of the scribal corps, thus generating great vizieral dynasties.34 Functionally, the Abbasid vizier headed up the scribal corps and was responsible for their work in three major areas: applying the injunctions of the Holy Law in fiscal matters; resolving extra-shari'a problems; and executing the will of the caliph according to law. The vizier, therefore, stood between the Holy Law and the caliph's discretionary powers in those areas outside the purview of the sacred code. His dual role was most effective when a special relationship obtained between himself and the caliph. In this relationship the vizier acted as 'tutor' of the caliph at the same time that he was his servant and personal secretary. The personal relationship between sovereign and servant, however, was all too often jeopardized by palace intrigue and by the attempts of some servants themselves to become masters. Through the authority delegated to him, the vizier could place his own men in crucial positions and influence policy in all spheres, including the army. On the other hand, a vizier was vulnerable in that he did not have complete control over his own staff. Military commanders frequently interfered in the vizier's job. The extent of the minister's powers, therefore, ultimately depended on his personal prestige and talents, as well as on his ability to profit from his special relationship to his master. Vizieral instability in the face of caliphal authority and rival groups marred the experience of the Abbasid period even before the caliphal master lost his power to praetorians. The vizier had no weapon to match the brute force of the army. Even his control over the state finances proved inadequate. The vizier, it would seem, required a military command of his own.35

These limitations notwithstanding, for a brief period during the late ninth and early tenth centuries the vizierate reached its pinnacle of administrative and political power, even nominating caliphs. From that time a number of theoretical tracts justify the office and set down guidelines for its holders. Mawardi, for example, distinguished two forms of vizierate, the vizierates of delegation and of execution, and gave them a Koranic justification. He advised the vizier to

32 Ibid., pp. 41-43. 33 Ibid., pp. 59-6I, 65-66. 34 Ibid., Vol. II (Damascus, 9I60), pp. 565-568. 35 Ibid., pp. 6I5-656, 664-667.


512 Joel Shinder

protect the imdm-caliph and the umma, and he cautioned the sovereign to maintain control over the vizier and prevent the creation of an equal and rival power in the state. No legal framework to secure this worthy end of checks and balances was outlined. Consequently, in practice the office depended on the arbitrary will of the sovereign who created it.36

Under the Great Seljuk sultans, the political successors to the Abbasids, the institution of the vizierate suffered the same weaknesses. The military acted independently of the vizier, the cooperation of sultanate and caliphate was seldom realized, and the attempt to link religion and state through the madrasa system of higher education for public servants failed. The vizier's patronage function resulted in factionalization, and the vizier's hold over the army through his control of the treasury disappeared when direct support by land grants was instituted. Finally, the sultans often went over the heads of their ministers by consulting directly with subordinates in the bureaus.37

As an institution of government the Abbasid-Seljuk vizierate was not a homogeneous unit ready for Ottoman adoption. From an advisory post it became an office directing much but not all of civil administration. Its base was the discretionary power of the sovereign, sultan, or caliph. In its most centralized form of the Seljuk period it still had no substantial control over the military forces of the state, so that even the personal prestige of a particularly able vizier only served to excite the envy and fear of the military commanders. The Otto- mans certainly accepted the title of vizier for their head of government and other officers of state. They did not assume the burden of that office's full and turbu- lent history. Neither continuity nor evolution characterizes that history. Neither continuity nor evolution may be presumed for the Ottoman vizierate. The themes and precedents which have informed the study of Ottoman administrative history are proved misleading or fallacious. Some of the circumstances which shaped the early Ottoman experience in administration support this assertion.

The structure of the Ottoman state under the first two princes, it has been stated, was similar to that of the other Anatolian principalities, successors to the Seljuks of Rum and dependents of the Ilhanid empire. Territory in the principalities was divided among the sons of the prince and other family members. Each member acted at will in his own lands. The leadership was elective, and the headman was merely primus inter pares. It is thoroughly appropriate, then, that the Ottomans are known as such, Osmanhs, followers of Osman and his line. Osman's reign, however, was not very remarkable. His property at death reportedly consisted of a province, but no gold or silver; a robe, some armor, a salt cellar, a spoon-holder, some houseboots, several horses, some sheep, a few oxen, and nothing more.38 The spectacular expansion of the family's holdings

36 Ibid., pp. 715-7I7. 37 Carla L. Klausner, The Seljuk Vezirate: A Study of Civil Administration, io55-II94 (Cambridge, Mass., 1973), pp. 26, 40, 44-45, 88.

38 'Ali, Apz., pp. 36-37.



commenced in the reign of Orhan. Ibn Battuta describes him as the greatest of the Turkmen kings and the richest.39 Both he and Gregory, Archbishop of Thessalonica (I347-I360), however, agree that Orhan preferred the outdoors to the foul air and crowds of the cities and towns he held. He never gave up his tents for the sake of a palace, a sure sign of vigor in the mind of Ibn Khaldun, another commentator.40

At some obscure point the Ottomans stopped being simple heads of semi- nomadic tribes with winter and summer pasturages and became governors of an organized frontier march. Historians for the house developed a legitimacy argument that involves Seljuk nomination of Osman as an independent governor. Effective nomination, of course, would have come from the Ilhanids, but the degree of central control over the Anatolian periphery can in fact be minimized. Vassal or independent ruler, Osman's actions bespeak the absence of central constraints. His military feats were not limited to the ghazi struggle against Byzantium but included as prey long-held Muslim lands. The Muslim Ottomans occupied the land of other Muslim princes, who menaced each other as much as Byzantium, if not more so.41 It would be a mistake, however, to conceive of the Ottomans at this early date as a highly centralized state itself. The conquest of Thrace, for example, was not accomplished by a well-oiled, centrally directed and thoroughly coordinated military machine matched by an effective administrative apparatus. Non-Ottoman and Ottoman leaders acted on their own to set up political entities in Thrace. These had a Greek-speaking peasant base, kadis, regional commanders (subasz) and army judges. Yakub, Haci ilbeyi, and Siiley- man (an Ottoman scion) were among the more prominent of these Thracian entrepreneurs. After Siileyman's death no Ottoman was sent to replace him, but the conquest of Thrace continued.42

On emerging from the black hole in their history, ca. 1364-1381,43 the Ottomans are seen to have begun their steep ascent into the ranks of the mighty. Hidden in this lacuna, however, is the formation of the janissary corps, the Thracian take-over, and the development of an administration. When the murkiness clears Murad I (I360-1389), Orhan's successor, appears as grand emir or prince, possibly signifying his success in gaining control over the independent agents in Thrace who felt threatened by Byzantine and south Slav pressures. The janissary corps may well have been initiated with this end in view.44 The final step in the Ottoman assertion of unitary rule in their house was taken by Bayezid I when he assumed the attribute hiimayun, imperial, which

39 H. A. R. Gibb, trans., The Travels of Ibn Battuta A.D. 1325-1354, Hakluyt Society, Series II, Vol. CXVII, Vol. II (Cambridge, I962), p. 452.

40 G. G. Arnakis, 'Gregory Palamas among the Turks and Documents of His Captivity as Historical Sources,' Speculum, 26 (1951), II3.

41 Beldiceanu-Steinherr, Recherches, pp. 70-7I. 42 Ibid., pp. 45-47. 43 The lack of material for this period was first noted by Franz Babinger, Beitrdge zur

friihgeschichte der Tiirkenherrschaft in Rumelien (14-15 Jahrhundert) (Munich, I944), p. 76.

44 Beldiceanu-Steinherr, Recherches, pp. 47-48, 241 and n. 2.


514 Joel Shinder

his successors Musa and Mehmed I continued to use.45 While an elevated attribute, a loyal military force and preeminency among the princes of the region are all manifest by the end of the fourteenth century, the growth of a central administration is masked. Where and who are the Ottoman missi dominici?

According to the ghazi thesis of Paul Wittek, Ottoman success was dependent on the continguity with Byzantium and the appeal to two diametrically opposed groups, the ghazi warriors of the faith and the representatives of high Islamic urban civilization, the ulema. The hinterland was considered the source for the latter, the only social group deemed capable of stabilizing the ghazi state. The ulema, with their knowledge of Islamic principles and methods of administration, were thought to have brought to the Ottoman capital at Bursa a pacific and tolerant Islam which guaranteed subject peoples communal independence and a structured system of taxation, protecting them from the depradations of booty- starved ghazis. Artisans and merchants of the akhi fraternal organization followed these chieftains of law and order and assured the Ottomans a high level of productivity. The fraternal order was the first victim of the new society. Mem- bers with secular interests entered guild organizations (their origins unexplained), and those with otherwordly concerns followed the dervish orders of mystics. The ghazis were the next to suffer the jealousies of Osman's heirs, who identified themselves with the ulema.46

On reconsideration, the Ottoman effort throughout was not so much to harmonize tendencies as to ensure that favorable ones prevailed. The creation of the janissary corps was a hedge against overdependency on the independent forces of the other princes and tribesmen. An independent and quasi-religious political, social, and economic organization such as the akhis could not be tolerated. But Ottoman relations with their ulema were not completely thorough, either. Early Ottoman support in the way of pious endowments was much greater for the popular religious fringes than for the hinterlanders.47 The first chronicles exaggerate corruption among the ulema in administrative posts, especially during the reign of Bayezid I, and intimate that a blind eye was turned on their abuses of authority. Bayezid, however, regulated the fines and fees that officials were allowed to levy in their legal proceedings.48 The practices of accumulating wealth, accounting for it, and creating a treasury to hold it cannot entirely be laid at the doorstep of the ulema alone. The initiative in structuring the ulema into an administrative cadre came rather from the Ottoman court itself. The Ottomans, therefore, pursued an articulated policy which employed

45 Paul Wittek, 'Zu einigen friihosmanischen Urkunden, II,' Wiener Zeitschriftfiir die Kunde des Morgenlandes, 54 (1958), 244.

46 Paul Wittek, 'De la defaite d'Ankara a la prise de Constantinople,' Revue des Etudes Islamiques, 12 (1938), 5, 12-I3. See also G. G. Arnakis, 'Futuwwa Traditions in the Ottoman Empire: Akhis, Bektashi Dervishes, and Craftsmen,' Journal of Near Eastern Studies, 12 (I953), 237, 240.

47 See the lists of monuments in Ekrem Hakki Ayverdi, Osmanlz Mimarisinin Ilk Devri, Vol. I (Istanbul, I966), passim.

48 'Ali, Apz., pp. I97-I98; Giese, Apz., pp. 30, 42.



all human resources at hand without any kind of ideological orientation reflected in such terms as ghazi, hinterlander, ethical fraternity, or mystical order. In their centralist policy the heads of the house found ulema supporters, among others. Candarli Kara Halil Hayruddin Pasa is the outstanding example of an 'alim-turned-administrator and commander.49 The ulema was one important source of recruitment for administrators, but it was not the only one. A vizier named Bayezid Pasa was originally a sipahi, a cavalryman.50 There was also a standing Byzantine scribal class which has to be considered along with the non- Byzantine Balkan scribal classes, most notably the Hellenized south Slavic cadres of the Serbian period. A contemporary observer of the early Ottomans described the Ottoman clerks as 'iaziti' (Turkish, yazici). These wrote in several scripts (and languages?) and included Christian secretaries both at court and in the provinces. Their employment in the provinces was primarily directed to the preparation of cadastral surveys for the fisc.51 Since the Ottomans frequently preserved features if not the bulk of pre-Ottoman Muslim and non-Muslim law codes and customs, such scribal groups were important additions to the state apparatus. They had an immediate, direct influence which was not always that of 'the traditional Near Eastern State' on the development of Ottoman administration. After a conquest the scribes employed to write up the cadasters were often men with local knowledge, themselves natives of the places recorded and, therefore, recent additions to the broad ruling class. One such scribe was a slave of an Ottoman general. Another scribe rose to a field command post himself.52 Just as the ulema did not monopolize scribal positions and traditions, neither can they clearly be set apart as hinterlanders. In Rumeli (the European province), especially, the ghazis under their various independent leaders elected their own kadis to handle such administrative questions as inheritance and taxation. Thus, frontier Turks, not all of whom entered Europe by way of Muslim Iran and Asia Minor, infiltrated the ranks of the incipient 'Ottoman' ulema.53

Administration in the formative period of the state was primarily concerned with the sultan's financial claims. The basic unit of rural exploitation was the timar, the usufruct of which supported both civil and military servants of the Osmanli household - the state, so to speak.54 Ottoman scribes were responsible for developing a systematic means of registration and assignment not only for lands falling under the timar regime but also for the lands, forests, fisheries,

49 The importance of this family in the formative period of the Ottoman state is outlined in Franz Taeschner and Paul Wittek, 'Die Vezirfamilie der Candarlyzade (I4.-I5. Jah.) und ihre Denkmiler,' Der Islam, 28 (1929), 60-115.

50 Ibid., p. 95. 51 Speros Vryonis, Jr., 'The Byzantine Legacy and Ottoman Forms,' Dumbarton Oaks

Papers, nos. 23 and 24 (I969-I970), 275-276. 52 Halil Inalclk, Hicri 835 Tarihli Suiret-i Defter-i Sancak-i Arvanid (Ankara, 1954), pp

xvii-xviii. 53 Giese, Apz., p. 50; Franz Babinger, ed., Die Friihosmanischen Jahrbiicher des Urudsch.

Nach den Handschriften zu Oxford und Cambridge ... (Hanover, 1925), pp. I2-I3. 54 Irene Beldiceanu-Steinherr, 'Un Transfuge qaramanide aupres de la Porte ottomane:

reflexions sur quelques institutions,' Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, 26 (I973), I63-I64.


516 Joel Shinder

mines, markets, and customs posts excluded. This they did using every reason- able source or method at hand in the newly acquired regions. The system was not so thorough in its uniformity as in its centralization, for the proprietary rights of the emergent state and the usufructuary rights of individuals had to be protected. The regulations that protected the rights of proprietor and tenants and established the obligations of all persons holding any title to sources of revenue came to be known as the sultan's kanun, his executive law, a law of expediency and custom. Collections of kanuns for particular regions prefaced the appropriate cadastral registers. More general regulations were collected into kanunnames, a form of codification for the use of the public, especially the kadis responsible for applying both kanun and sharz'a in their courts. From the language of Mehmed II's kanunname it can be inferred that the exemplars derive from Bayezid I or Mehmed I. In the reign of Murad I individual questions of proprietorship-tenancy probably were not recorded in writing.55 There are references, however, to regulations for this period. A tentative conclusion is that Murad I was the first sultan to make pronouncements which stipulated the varieties of land tenure and the obligations these entailed.56 If this is indeed the case, then the inception of true Ottoman central administration rests in Murad's reign.

Important clues to the first cadasters produced by the administration come from the earliest surviving cadastral register bearing the date 835/I431. It displays a primitive chronology in the introductory section, which refers to an asil defter, the original or source register, from the period of Mehmed I. The inference from the phraseology is that the first register was completed under Mehmed's father, Bayezid I, in whose reign come the first complaints in the chronicles of bureaucratization.57 Umur Beg, the official responsible for the composition of the register, was the son of a foot soldier who served under Murad I and Bayezid I. Yusuf, Umur Beg's scribe, prepared the register in tevki' script and not in siyakat, as is customary in later registers.58 In every other respect, however, the format is essentially that of the imperial age. The register and chancery documents of the period are indicative of continued development. The principles of Ottoman accounting and the instruments for the certification of rights to individuals are not as yet fixed. There is no heavy-handed tradition of administration and statecraft displayed here, nor is there a homogeneous body of hinterland civil servants perpetuating such a tradition. That tradition, will be manufactured in the sixteenth century by chroniclers of the ulema class rather, seeking for themselves and their colleagues greater influence in government.

One is nonetheless left with a final question. Was there some cohesiveness to the emergent administrative class? If a rudimentary but normal mode of pro-

55 Beldiceanu-Steinherr, Recherges, p. 245. 56 Babinger, Beitrdge, p. 58. 57 Inalcik, Hicri, p. xv. Refer back to the earlier comments on the chroniclers' views of

Bayezid I's policies. 58 Ibid., pp. xii-xiii, xvii.



gression can be suggested for the highest administrative positions as described in the chronicles, it would look something like: mosque professor; kadi of Bursa; kadiasker, the judge-advocate of the army; nisancz, the head of the chancery and keeper of the seal; vizier; and, finally, grand vizier. For the early period as seen in the chronicles the ulema career seemed to lead directly to the highest office in the realm below that of sultan. Cohesiveness would seem to rest in the prestige of the ulema class. So little is known of the early viziers, however, that such a construction is really quite unwarranted. What made a vizier a grand vizier, when and who the first grand vizier was, are questions that cannot be answered. The likelihood is great that there was no clear differentiation of roles either by training or by function during the formative period. High-ranking commanders loyal to the house of Osman, ulema figures who shared abilities in politics, war, and law and, finally, local but non-Ottoman elites contributed to the executive classes in Ottoman government. The administrative cadres beneath the highest figures were also mixed, including Turks and non-Turks, scribes of pre-Ottoman states (Muslim and non-Muslim), and prominent local figures who were not always even literate! Administration may not have meant fulltime employment for most of the personnel involved. The rate of expansion probably exceeded the abilities of government to govern, which helps explain the sine- wave course of Ottoman expansion in Europe and Asia. Moreover, local initiative takes first prize in Ottoman history, even in the periods of greatest centralization. One would expect the absence of a cohesive administrative corps in the early period.

It is erroneous, therefore, to think that the government of the Ottoman principality was the microcosm of the empire's government or a seed of the 'traditional Near Eastern State' planted in the fertile soil of Asia Minor by horticulturists of the ulema class; or that government itself simply resulted from the conflict of ghazi and ulema, Osmanli slaves and free Turkish nobility. The question was not which elements would succeed or how far 'Ottoman State' would withdraw from 'Ottoman Society.' It was which ruler and of what house would prevail. Ottoman survival following the Battle of Ankara (I402) was certainly furthered by the administrative abilities and capabilities of the dynasty's servants, but these functionaries were far more flexible and imaginative than the themes and traditions which have been advanced to classify their achieve- ments. If the Ottoman example is any indication, the comparative study of Islamic government is on a most inauspicious course. Might one yet cleanse these Augean stables without detriment to generalization and the usefulness of comparison?

MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA


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Issue Table of ContentsInternational Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 9, No. 4, Nov., 1978Urbanization, Urbanism, and the Medina of Tunis [pp. 431 - 447]Agricultural Output and Consumption of Basic Foods in Egypt, 1886/87-1967/68 [pp. 449 - 469]The British Occupation of Egypt: Another View [pp. 471 - 488]First Names and Political Change in Modern Turkey [pp. 489 - 495]Early Ottoman Administration in the Wilderness: Some Limits on Comparison [pp. 497 - 517]An Overlooked Problem in Turkish-Russian Relations: The 1878 War Indemnity [pp. 519 - 537]The Study of 'Complex Society' in the Middle East: A Review Essay [pp. 539 - 557]The Zentrales Staatsarchiv of the German Democratic Republic as a Source for Late Ottoman and Middle East History [pp. 559 - 571]Book Reviewsuntitled [pp. 573 - 574]untitled [pp. 574 - 575]untitled [pp. 575 - 576]

Shinder 1978 Early Ottoman Administration

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Transcript of Shinder 1978 Early Ottoman Administration