Shinder 1978 Early Ottoman Administration

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. 497-517
Published by: Cambridge University Press
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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:
LIMITS
SOME
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from the four theses referred to earlier are terribly outdated at worst or in need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 reexamination 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 Governmentof 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 devsirmeclass 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 devsirmemilitary 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,
The Ottoman Empire in the Classical Age 1300-1600
(New York,
I970), pp. 263-295;
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.
FOUR
Origin of thesis
THESES
IN
OTTOMAN
I. Lybyer
A (State)
Ruling Institution
2. Wittek
Ghazi (to Devsirme)
3. Shaw/inalcik
Devsirme Party
Devsirme
Kapl Kullarla or
Central Government
4. Inalcik/Itzkowitz/Thomas
Askeri (Rulers)
Men of the Pen
Bureaucracy
Religion/Law
Men of the Sword
Kapi Kullar
Timariots
Auxiliaries
INSTITUTIONAL
HISTORY
Intermediate Status
Miners
Guards (e.g., bridges)
Road crews
Falcon breeders
Sheep breeders, marketers
Persons in the immediateservice of the sultan, whether in the palaceitself or in the provinces
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 harmoniousco-operationof jurisprudentsand executive officialdom
could not have preventedthe gap between the ideal and the actual, the normativeand
5 GustaveE. von Grunebaum,MedievalIslam:A
Studyin CulturalOrientation,2d ed.
(Chicago, 1956), p. 143.
502
Joel Shinder
the practical,the precedentof sacred law and the makeshiftdecision of the executive
order, from widening until it became unbridgeable.The pious condemnedthe ruler's
deviationsfrom the establishednorm of the Prophet's days, and in fear for their souls
they evaded his call when he summoned them to take office.
Thus the governmentof Allah and the governmentof 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
aspiredto. The law of God failed because it neglected the factor of change to which
Allahhad subjectedhis creatures.[Legaltheory]had, unwittinglyperhaps,relinquished
that grandiosedream of a social body operatingperpetuallyunder the immutablelaw
which God had revealedin 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 eleventhcentury 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 selffulfilled 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 altosmanischeChronik (Tevarikh-i Al-i Osman) des 'Aszkpasazdde
Mehmed,
Qift9io/lu,
chronicles
9 Refer
in addition to the 'All and Atsiz editions; Oruc, Karamani

(Leipzig, I929),
$ukrullah, Tursun Beg, Ahmedi, and Ne*ri in several editions (but do see the
N. Atsiz collection, Osmanlh Tarihleri, Vol. I, Istanbul, I949) - the earliest
we know - possibly share a common prototype.
to the discussion of Ibn Taymiya's docrine of siyasa shar'iya in E. I. J. Rosen-
thal, Political Thoughtin Medieval Islam: An IntroductoryOutline (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
10See 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.
11Atsiz, Apz., pp. 1i8, I39. The view is shared by other works of the genre, such as
'Ahmedi' in Nihat Sami Banarli, XIV. aszr Anadolu fairlerindenAhmedi'nin Osmanlztarihi: Ddsztan-ztevdrih-i miilik-i dl-i Osman ve CemSidve 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 refinement 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 Teressiilof 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
before entering the service of the Ottoman Emir
Beg II (I387-1390, 1402-1429)
and
Sultan
Murad
II. Perhaps this is 'the man from Germiyan'
Siileyman (1405)
displaced one century!14
The Teressiil'simportance in the formation of an Ottoman chancery, however,

is not easily assessed. Bj6rkman15and 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.
166inasi
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 Literatures: 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 Siyasetname 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.
18Omer 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, Recherchessur les actes des regnesdes 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.22Because 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
and Walther Hinz, 'Das Rechnungswesen orientalIbid., pp. 213, 250, 253-255,
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.25From 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,'27so 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 ClaudeCahen, Pre-OttomanTurkey(New York, 1968), pp. I82-183.
24 Hinz,
pp. 4-6, I3.
Rechnungswesen,
25 Ibid., pp. 20-22,
and I. P. Petruchevsky,'The Socio-EconomicConditionsof Iran
under the Il-Khans,' in The Cambridge
Historyof Iran, Vol. V, The Saljuqand Mongol
Periods (Cambridge,
26
I968),
p. 494.
Inalcik, 'Emergence,' p. 280.
27 Togan, UmumiTurk,p. 33I. Togan (pp. 329-330), is in agreementon the synthetic

'Turkish-Islamic'system of centralgovernment.
28
Hinz, Rechnungswesen, pp. 114-134.
Joel Shinder
51
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 memalikand 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 nonMuslim 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
Petruchevsky, 'Iran under Il-Khans,' pp. 532-533.
until Ghazan's
Togan, Umumi Tirk, p. 330. The Ilhanid state was non-Muslim
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.
29
30

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 Muhammad 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.

34Ibid., 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 Ottomans 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 turbulent 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.
37Carla L. Klausner, The Seljuk Vezirate: A Study of Civil Administration, io55-II94

(Cambridge, Mass., 1973), pp. 26, 40, 44-45,
38
'Ali, Apz., pp. 36-37.
88.

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 seminomadic 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 Siileyman (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.
44Beldiceanu-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 bootystarved 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. Members 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
See also G. G. Arnakis, 'Futuwwa Traditions in the
Islamiques, 12 (1938), 5, 12-I3.
Ottoman Empire: Akhis, Bektashi Dervishes, and Craftsmen,' Journal of Near Eastern
Studies,
12 (I953),
237,
240.
See the lists of monuments in Ekrem Hakki Ayverdi, Osmanlz Mimarisinin Ilk Devri,
Vol. I (Istanbul, I966), passim.
48
Giese, Apz., pp. 30, 42.
'Ali, Apz., pp. I97-I98;
47

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.50There was also a
standing Byzantine scribal class which has to be considered along with the nonByzantine 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.54Ottoman 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.
50Ibid., p. 95.
51 Speros Vryonis, Jr., 'The Byzantine Legacy and Ottoman Forms,' Dumbarton Oaks
275-276.
Papers, nos. 23 and 24 (I969-I970),
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 reasonable 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 kanunnameit 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.58In 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 manufacturedin 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 proBeldiceanu-Steinherr, Recherges, p. 245.
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.
55
56

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 sinewave 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 achievements. 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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Early Ottoman Administration in the Wilderness: Some Limits on Comparison

Author(s): Joel Shinder

Int. J. Middle East Stud. 9 (1978), 497-517

Printed in Great Britain

A synthesis of Ottoman administrative history has yet to be written, and it is

498 Joel Shinder

Early Ottoman Administration in the Wilderness 499

especially in Classical Age.

Ghazi (to Devsirme)

salaried, supported by estates, or in the combination of these two.

Early Ottoman Administration in the Wilderness 501

Studyin CulturalOrientation,2d ed.

(Chicago, 1956), p. 143.

Iskander, Prince of Gurgan (London,

Early Ottoman Administration in the Wilderness 503

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

504 Joel Shinder

in addition to the 'All and Atsiz editions; Oruc, Karamani

thal, Political Thoughtin Medieval Islam: An IntroductoryOutline (Cambridge, 1958), pp.

Early Ottoman Administration in the Wilderness 505

506 Joel Shinder

The Teressiil'simportance in the formation of an Ottoman chancery, however,

Early Ottoman Administration in the Wilderness 507

18Omer Lutfi Barkan, XV ve XVI tncz Aszrlarda Osmanlz

508 Joel Shinder

Early Ottoman Administration in the Wilderness 509

Inalcik, 'Emergence,' p. 280.

27 Togan, UmumiTurk,p. 33I. Togan (pp. 329-330), is in agreementon the synthetic

Hinz, Rechnungswesen, pp. 114-134.

Early Ottoman Administration in the Wilderness 511

Ibid., pp. 41-43.

Ibid., pp. 59-6I, 65-66.

Ibid., pp. 715-7I7.

37Carla L. Klausner, The Seljuk Vezirate: A Study of Civil Administration, io55-II94

Early Ottoman Administration in the Wilderness 513

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

514 Joel Shinder

Early Ottoman Administration in the Wilderness 515

516 Joel Shinder

Early Ottoman Administration in the Wilderness 517

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