A Companion To Early Modern Istanbul

A Companion to Early Modern Istanbul
- 978-90-04-46856-6
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Brill’s Companions to
European History
Volume 26
The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/bceh
- 978-90-04-46856-6
A Companion to Early
Modern Istanbul
Edited by
Shirine Hamadeh
Çiğdem Kafescioğlu
LEIDEN | BOSTON
- 978-90-04-46856-6
Cover illustration: Piri Reis, Book on Navigation, City of Constantinople. The Walters Art Museum,
Baltimore, W. 658, fol. 370v, detail. Ink and colors on paper, artist unknown, ca. 1740. Reproduced
with permission.
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ISSN 2212-7410
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Contents
Preface ix
Note on Transliteration x
List of Figures and Tables xi
Abbreviations xvii
Notes on Contributors xix
Maps xxiv
1 Early Modern Istanbul 1

Shirine Hamadeh and Çiğdem Kafescioğlu
2 The City Opens Your Eyes Because It Wants to Be Seen

The Conspicuity and Lure of Early Modern Istanbul 25
Cemal Kafadar
Part 1
Istanbulites of City and Court
3 Istanbul: A City of Men 63

Selim S. Kuru
4 Women in the City 86

Lucienne Thys-Şenocak
5 Elites’ Networks and Mobility 114

Christoph K. Neumann
6 Palace and City Ceremonials 143

N. Zeynep Yelçe
7 Courtly Spaces: Visual and Material Culture 168

Emine Fetvacı
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vi Contents
Part 2
Spaces and Landscapes of Production
8 Volatile Urban Landscapes between Mythical Space and Time 197

Gülru Necipoğlu
9 Merchants and Global Connections 233

Maurits H. van den Boogert
10 Artisans and Guilds

Practices, Negotiations, and Conflicts 256
Suraiya Faroqhi
11 When Istanbul Was a City of Bostāns

Urban Agriculture and Agriculturists 279
Aleksandar Shopov
12 Water for the City

Builders, Technology, and Private Initiative 308
Deniz Karakaş
Part 3
Everyday Lives and Spaces of Habitation
13 Neighborhood and Family Lives 341

Leyla Kayhan Elbirlik
14 Communal Matters 365

Karen A. Leal
15 Crafts and Everyday Consumption 394

Amanda Phillips
16 Death in Istanbul
Plagues, Fires, and Other Catastrophes 420
Nükhet Varlık
17 Crime, Violence, and Urban Policing 446

Betül Başaran
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Contents vii
Part 4
Streets and Publics
18 Sociability, Public Life, and Decorum 473

Marinos Sariyannis
19 Sufi Spaces and Practices 503

John J. Curry
20 The Sultan, His Monument, and the Critical Public 528

Zeynep Yürekli
21 Urban Protests, Rebellions, and Revolts 555

Gülay Yılmaz
22 The 18th-Century “Istanbul Tale”

Prose Tales and Beyond 581
Zeynep Altok
Part 5
Spaces of Thought and Imagination
23 Science and Technology 607

B. Harun Küçük
24 Music and Musicians in the City 634

Cem Behar
25 Poets, Sufis, and Their City Tours 655

Aslı Niyazioğlu
26 The Poetics of Istanbul: The City of Cities 672

Oscar Aguirre-Mandujano and Walter G. Andrews
27 Istanbul Elites and Political Writing 697

Linda T. Darling
Select Bibliography 717

Index 737
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Preface
The making of this volume has kept us blissful company through the past few
years. The global pandemic, the human lives it took away, the lockdowns and
confinements, the endless disfiguration of the city to which this book is dedi-
cated, the savage explosion of another city by many hundred tons of ammo-
nium nitrate, the continuous assaults on academic and intellectuals’ freedom
of expression and human dignity in these cities and their countries: each of
them has touched millions of people and has touched us more than once, per-
sonally, and profoundly. We pondered over the city anew, living in Istanbul’s
present and contemplating its past—different and connected universes, each
with its beauty and ugliness and wonder and horror—to imagine other ways
of being a city; to traverse through the various chapters the early modern world
of sufis, craftsmen, poets, janissaries, queen mothers, business women, mer-
chants, migrants, and musicians, and Istanbul’s produce gardens, its neighbor-
hoods, its busy markets, its law courts, and its earlier episodes of epidemics
and devastation. And to see that the city always outlives its oppressors.
Through these years we were lucky to have the friendship, encouragement,
and support of many. We want to thank first those who helped bring the book
about through their financial generosity: The College of Social Sciences and
Humanities at Koç University, the Research Center for Anatolian Civilizations
(ANAMED), the Istanbul Research Institute (İstanbul Araştırmaları Enstitüsü)
and, particularly, Aylin Kuntay, Chris Roosevelt, and Mehmet Kentel. We are
most grateful to our anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments, and to
Engin Akarlı, Ahmet Ersoy, and Derin Terzioğlu, for the valuable suggestions
and advice they offered at different times. Our thanks also go to Murat Tülek,
who produced our maps and to Ezgi Dikici, who helped with copyediting and
formatting at a crucial deadline.
We owe a lot to our editors at Brill, Kate Hammond and Alessandra Giliberto,
who accompanied us through and through with their kindness and profession-
alism, to Matthew McHaffie, for his minutious copyediting and readiness to
assist at any moment, and to Jorik Groen, who oversaw the volume’s produc-
tion with meticulous care.
Above all, we are indebted to the colleagues and friends whose contribu-
tions sustained the huge team effort that underlies this volume and who bore
graciously with our numerous emails, questions, and comments throughout
these years.
Dear Walter, how we wish you were with us today to see the final outcome.
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Note on Transliteration
Terms in Ottoman Turkish rendered in the Arabic script have been transliter-
ated according to the system adopted by the International Journal of Middle
East Studies, except for the letter kh that we transliterate as ḫ. Words that
appear in English dictionaries such as Pasha, waqf, and Agha are anglicized,
except when part of a place name, e.g. Kasım Paşa. Modern Turkish orthogra-
phy is used in the text for people and place names. Unless otherwise noted, all
English translations of foreign-language texts are the authors’ own.
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Figures and Tables
Figures
0.1 Istanbul intra muros, Galata and Üsküdar, 15th to early 19th centuries, including
sites that are mentioned in the volume. Based on Ekrem Hakkı Ayverdi,
19. Asırda İstanbul Haritası, İstanbul, 1958; Wolfgang Müller-Wiener, Bildlexikon
zur Topographie Istanbuls: Byzantion, Konstantinupolis, Istanbul bis zum Beginn
d. 17. Jh., Tubingen, 1977; M. Is. Nomidis, Galata, topographisch-archäologischer
Plan: mit erläuterndem Text, Istanbul, 1944. Prepared by Murat Tülek xxiv
0.2 Istanbul’s hinterland, 15th to early 19th centuries, including sites that are
mentioned in the volume. Prepared by Murat Tülek XXVIII
4.1 Women depicted in the margins of the manuscript as mourners and spectators
at the funerary procession for the queen mother Nurbanu Sultan, watercolor on
paper. Şehinşehnāme, 1597. TSMK, B.200 fol. 146r. Photograph: Topkapı Palace
Museum. By permission of the Directorate of Museums, the Presidency of the
Republic of Turkey 98
4.2 A rare scene featuring women in central focus, as they seek the sultan’s justice
in Istanbul’s Atmeydanı. Hünernāme, vol. 2, 1589. TSMK, H. 1524, fol. 250v.
Photograph: Topkapı Palace Museum. By permission of the Directorate of
Museums, the Presidency of the Republic of Turkey 99
4.3 (a) Procession of farmers during the 1582 festivities, showing women as
spectators in the margins of the painting. Sūrnāme-i Humāyūn, 1588. TSMK,
H. 1344, fols. 219v–220r; (b) Female spectators wearing three different types of
veils watch the antics of a jester at the margins. Detail, Sūrnāme-i Humāyūn,
1588. TSMK, H. 1344, fol. 219v. Photograph: Topkapı Palace Museum. By
permission of the Directorate of Museums, the Presidency of the Republic
of Turkey 100
4.4 Individuals from different ethnic groups, social classes, and genders, Album of
Ahmed I, Istanbul, 1614–16. TSMK, B. 408, fol. 9r. Photograph: Topkapı Palace
Museum. By permission of the Directorate of Museums, the Presidency of the
6.1 Süleyman I at the Tomb of Abu Ayyub al-Ansari. Tārīḫ-i Sulṭān Süleymān, 1579,
Chester Beatty Library, T. 413, fol. 38r. Photograph: The Trustees of the Chester
Beatty Library, Dublin, by permission 150
6.2 Enthronement Ceremony of Süleyman I, Süleymannāme of Arifi, 1558. TSMK,
H. 1517, fols. 17b–18a. Photograph: Topkapı Palace Museum. By permission of
the Directorate of Museums, the Presidency of the Republic of Turkey 154
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xii Figures and Tables
6.3 Scramble for dishes at the Hippodrome during circumcision festivities of 1530,
Hünernāme, vol. 2, 1588, Istanbul. TSMK, H. 1524, fol. 120r. Photograph: Topkapı
Palace Museum. By permission of the Directorate of Museums, the Presidency
of the Republic of Turkey 161
7.1 (a) Mehmed III’s procession in Istanbul, Divan Yolu. Şehnāme-i Meḥmed Ḫān
[Fetiḥnāme-i Eğri], Istanbul, c.1598. TSMK, H. 1609, fols. 68v–69r; (b) The Safavid
embassy watching the procession. Detail, Şehnāme-i Meḥmed Ḫān [Fetiḥnāme-i
Eğri], Istanbul, c.1598. TSMK, H. 1609, fol. 69r. Photograph: Hadiye Cangökçe. By
permission of the Directorate of Museums, the Presidency of the Republic of
Turkey 170, 173
7.2 Haçova Battle, Dīvān of Nadiri, Istanbul, c.1605. TSMK, H. 889, fols. 6v–7r.
Photograph: Hadiye Cangökçe. By permission of the Directorate of Museums,
the Presidency of the Republic of Turkey 175
7.3 Haçova Battle, Şehnāme-i Meḥmed Ḫān [Fetiḥnāme-i Eğri], Istanbul, c.1598.
TSMK, H. 1609, fols. 50v–51r. Photograph: Topkapı Palace Museum, by
permission. By permission of the Directorate of Museums, the Presidency of
the Republic of Turkey 176
7.4 Folio with urban types and entertainments, Album of Ahmed I, Istanbul, 1614–
16. TSMK, B. 408, fol. 16r. Photograph: Hadiye Cangökçe. By permission of the
Directorate of Museums, the Presidency of the Republic of Turkey 180
7.5 Murad III dispensing gold coins during the 1582 festivities, İntizami, Sūrname-i
Hümāyūn, Istanbul, 1588. TSMK, H. 1344, fols. 46v–47r. Photograph: Hadiye
Cangökçe. By permission of the Directorate of Museums, the Presidency of the
7.6 Procession of the Guilds: Candlemakers and Barbers, Sūrnāme-i Vehbi, Istanbul,
c.1728–30, opaque watercolor and gold on paper. TSMK, A. 3593, fols. 75v–76r.
Photograph: Topkapı Palace Museum. By permission of the Directorate of
Museums, the Presidency of the Republic of Turkey 186
8.1 (a) Siege of Constantinople in the Last Days; (b) Constantinople Sinking into
the Sea in the Last Days, from Leo the Wise, Oracula, Venice, 1577. Oxford,
Bodleian Library, Barocci 170, fols. 11v, 23v. Photograph: Courtesy of the Bodleian
Library 198
8.2 (a) Hagia Sophia and Antiquities of the Hippodrome, anonymous Austrian
Habsburg artist, c.1574, watercolor on paper, Freshfield Album. Oxford, Trinity
College Library, O. 17. 2. Photograph: Courtesy of the Master and Fellows of
Trinity College. (b) Abd al-Rahman al-Bistami, Tercüme-i Miftāḥ-i Cifrü’l-Cāmiʿ,
c.1597–98. İÜK, T6624, fol. 92v. Photograph: Courtesy of the Istanbul University
Library 199
8.3 (a) Melchior Lorck, View over Constantinople’s Roofs from the Habsburg
Embassy, pen and ink drawing, c.1555–59, from Fischer, Drawings from
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Figures and Tables xiii
the Evelyn Collection, Copenhagen, 1962, 82; (b, c) Salomon Schweigger,

Houses and a Bathhouse in Constantinople, woodcuts, c.1578–81. Ein newe
Reyssbeschreibung, Nuremberg, 1606, 104, 113 207
8.4 The Main Street of Phanar (Fener), “Anthology of Phanariot Architecture”,
photograph by Achilles Samandji, c.1920, from C.M. Stamatopoulos,
Constantinople through the Lens of Achille Samandji and Eugene Dalleggio,
Turin, 2009, 292 210
8.5 (a) Melchior Lorck, Constantinople Prospect, leaf 14 with mosque of
Selim I, drawn c.1559, reworked c.1560–65, pen and ink with color on paper,
Universiteitsbibliotheek, Leiden, Cod. 1758. Photograph: Necipoğlu, Age
of Sinan: Architectural Culture in the Ottoman Empire, Princeton, 2005, 63.
(b) Anonymous Map of Istanbul, 1584/85, watercolor on paper, Lokman bin
Seyyid Hüseyin, Hünernāme, TSMK, H. 1523, fol. 158v–159r. Photograph: S. Bağcı
et al., Ottoman Painting, Ankara, 2010, 144 217
8.6 The Great Fire of 1660, album painting, mid-17th century, Memorie Turchesche,
Venice, Bibioteca Museo Civico Correr, Cicogna 1971, fol. 4r (MCCCXLVIII).
Photograph: Istituto Italiano di Cultura di Istanbul, Topkapı Sarayı Müzesi,
and Museo Correr, İstanbul Topkapı Sarayı Müzesi ve Venedik Correr Müzesi
Koleksiyonlarından Yüzyıllar Boyunca Venedik ve İstanbul Görünümleri,
Istanbul, 1995 222
9.1 Jean Baptise Vanmour (studio of), An embassy building in Pera [probably
the French ambassador’s residence], c.1720–c.1744. Oil painting on canvas.
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam 237
9.2 Marchand Turcque. Gouache and watercolor after Nicolas de Nicolay (1517–83).
BnF, département Estampes et photographie, RESERVE 4-OD-20 250
11.1 The bostān in Yedikule belonging to the Panagia Greek Orthodox church (also
known as Belgrade church), seen from the vantage point of its cistern; the first
known mention of this bostān is in the 1708 endowment deed of Süleyman
Agha (see Shopov & Han “Yedikule Bostanları”, Toplumsal Tarih 236 (2013),
34–38). Photograph by the author, July 2017 281
11.2 Map of Istanbul intra muros showing the locations of bostāns. Base map from
E.H. Ayverdi, 19. Asırda İstanbul Haritası, Istanbul, 1958 284
11.3 Langa bostān complex depicted as a rectangular patch of green in the middle-
lower right, framed by a wall. View of Istanbul intra muros, in Matrakçı Nasuh,
Beyān-ı Menāzil-i Sefer-i ʿIrāḳeyn-i Sulṭān Süleymān Ḫān, İÜK, TY 5964, 8v 294
11.4 Istanbul as depicted in Sebastian Münster’s Cosmographia, Basel, 1544. The
Yedikule area is marked with the white frame 295
12.1 Map of the environs of Istanbul showing water reservoirs, aqueducts, conduits
and water currents. From R. Walsh, Voyage en Turquie et à Constantinople,
par R. Walsh attaché à l’ambassade de Lord Strangford; traduit de l’anglais par
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xiv Figures and Tables
H. Vilmain et E. Rives …, Paris, 1828. Hellenic Library, Alexander S. Onassis

Public Benefit Foundation. Photograph: Courtesy of the Aikaterini
Laskaridis Foundation 311
12.2 Water tower (terāzū). Photograph: Caner Cangül 312
12.3 Hypothetical reconstruction plan of the Kırkçeşme water supply, drawn by Filiz
Karakuş. Reproduced by permission 315
12.4 Panorama of the system of aqueducts of the Kırkçeşme waterway, near the
Golden Horn. From Seyyid Lokman, Tārīḫ-i Sulṭān Süleymān, 1579/80. Chester
Beatty Library, T 413, fols. 22v and 23r. © The Trustees of the Chester Beatty
Library, Dublin 317
12.5 Detail from a map of the mīrī (imperial) branch of Halkalı waterways (AH 1161/
CE 1748), TSMK, H. 1815. Photograph: Topkapı Palace Museum. By permission of
the Directorate of Museums, the Presidency of the Republic of Turkey 324
12.6 Havāyī terāzū (aerial balance), 18th–19th centuries, brass, 92 × 112 mm. Inv.
no. PMA 584. Photograph: Courtesy of the Suna and İnan Kıraç Foundation,
Anatolian Weights and Measures Collection, Pera Museum, Istanbul 325
12.7 Drawing of a havāyī terāzū showing its function. From A.-F. Andréossy,
Constantinople et le Bosphore de Thrace pendant les années 1812, 1813, 1814 et
pendant l’année 1826, Paris, 1828. Photograph: Courtesy of the Bibliothèque
nationale de France 325
12.8 View of the village of Kiumurgi-Kioj (Kömürcü Köyü). From L. Meyer, Views in the
Ottoman Dominions, in Europe in Asia, and some of the Mediterranean Islands,
London, 1810. © The Trustees of the British Museum 329
14.1 Map showing certain landmarks in Fener. Map: C. Scott Walker, Harvard Map
Collection, Harvard College Library; landmark locations based on “Lageplan
der historischen Monumente in der Altstadt Istanbul, in Galata und in Pera”, in
W. Müller-Wiener, Bildlexikon zur Topographie Istanbuls, Tübingen, 1977; and
J. Pervititch, Jacques Pervititch Sigorta Haritalarında İstanbul, Istanbul, [2000],
166–69 368
14.2 Phanariot houses in Fener. E. Diez, Alt-Konstantinopel: Hundertzehn
photographische Aufnahmen der Stadt und ihrer Bau- und Kunst-Denkmäler,
Munich-Pasing, 1920, pls. 72–73 371
14.3 Theotokos Mouchliotissa Church (Kanlı Kilise) (c.1261), Fener. Lithograph,
A.G. Paspatēs, Βυζαντιναὶ μελέται τοπογραφικαὶ καὶ ἱστορικαί, μετὰ πλείστων εἰκόνων,
Constantinople, 1877, 388 379
15.1 (a) Embroidered napkin, Istanbul (?), late 18th century. Off-white linen fabric
worked with silk embroidery thread in twenty colors and with metal-wrapped
silk thread. 170 × 68 cm. Sadberk Hanım Museum, Istanbul, inv. no. 9138-i.
1036, detail of the embroidery. (b) Embroidered napkin, Istanbul (?), late 18th
century 406–407
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Figures and Tables xv
15.2 Rosewater sprinkler, China, 17th or 18th centuries. Porcelain with underglaze
painted motifs depicting other decorative objects. Height: 28 cm. Metropolitan
Museum of Art, New York, inv. no. 79.2.70. Creative Commons Universal Public
Domain Dedication 1.0 409
15.3 Rosewater sprinkler, first half of the 18th century, Kütahya. Suna and İnan Kıraç
Foundation Pera Museum, Tiles and Ceramics Collection. Courtesy of Suna and
İnan Kıraç Foundation Pera Museum. Photograph: Bahadır Taşkın 409
15.4 Coffee cups, Ottoman, Kütahya, early 19th century. Blue-glazed ceramic
(fritware). 3.7 cm × 6.3 cm. Berlin Museum of Islamic Art, inv. no. 1995.15.
© Museum für Islamische Kunst—Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. Photograph:
Johannes Kramer 411
15.5 Ḥilye-i Şerīf (votive tablet with poetry and illumination), Ottoman, Istanbul,
18th century. Ink, opaque watercolor, and gold on paper; mounted on wood.
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, inv. no. 20.120.275. The Grinnell
Collection, Bequest of William Milne Grinnell, 1920. Creative Commons
Universal Public Domain Dedication 1.0 414
16.1 Pieter Coecke van Aelst, Ces mœurs et fachons de faire de Turcz. Woodcut, c.1529,
showing Fatih Mosque with truncated minarets, possibly due to damage caused
by the earthquake of 1509. The Metropolitan Museum, New York. Harris
Brisbane Dick Fund, 1928. Available in Open Access at https://www
.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/336313 427
16.2 Earthquake of 10 May 1556, Istanbul. Colored woodcut, printed by Herman Gall
in Nuremberg, 1556. Source: Wikimedia Commons 427
16.3 Map of plague networks in the Ottoman Empire, 1453–1600. Reproduced by
permission from Routledge 430
17.1 Jean Brindesi, Janissaries with tattoos bearing the numbers and signs of their
regiments, with Pırpırı Esnaf at the far left. From Brindesi, Elbicei atika. Musée
des anciens costumes turcs de Constantinople, Paris, 1855 461
18.1 Antoine Ignace Melling, Interior of a café at Tophane. From Melling, Voyage
pittoresque de Constantinople et des rives du Bosphore, Paris, 1819 480
20.1 Zacharias Wehme, Procession of Selim II to the Süleymaniye mosque for Friday
prayer, 1581/82, based on a slightly earlier model. Dresden, Die Sächsische
Landesbibliothek / Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Dresden (SLUB), Mscr.
Dresd.J.2.a., fol. 8. Photograph in four parts: SLUB Deutsche Fotothek, Brigitta
Paetzold / reassembled by author 531
20.2 Mosque of Mehmed II, portal and foundation inscription. Photograph: Çiğdem
Kafescioğlu 533
20.3 Aerial view towards northeast showing (left to right) Topkapı Palace,
Hagia Sophia, and Sultan Ahmed flanking the Hippodrome. Photograph:
Shutterstock, Koraysa 545
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xvi Figures and Tables
20.4 Süleymaniye (left) and Sultan Ahmed (right), main courtyard entrances.
Photographs by the author 549
21.1 Comparative distribution of the net estates of janissaries (1604–1668), based on
Öztürk, İstanbul Tereke Defterleri, Istanbul, 1995 561
21.2 Map showing the distribution of janissaries’ residences in Istanbul, based
on estate inventories of the first half of the 17th century. Base map from
E.H. Ayverdi, 19. Asırda Istanbul Haritası, Istanbul, 1958. Neighborhood locations
are based on Ayverdi, ibid.; A.N. Galitekin (ed.), Hadikatü’l Cevamiʿ: İstanbul
Camileri ve Diğer Dini-Sivil Mimari Yapılar, Istanbul, 2001; R.E. Koçu et al.,
İstanbul Ansiklopedisi, 11 vols., Istanbul, 1944–73; and Dünden Bugüne İstanbul
Ansiklopedisi, 8 vols., Istanbul, 1993–95. S. Öztürk, Askeri Kassama Ait İstanbul
Tereke Defterleri: Sosyo-Ekonomik Tahlil, Istanbul, 1995 for residences recorded
in the estate inventories 574
23.1 Compass face designs from an anonymous 18th-century miscellany. KR, 198.
Photograph: Courtesy of Boğaziçi Universitesi Kandilli Rasathanesi ve Deprem
Araştırma Enstitüsü 622
23.2 Mustafa Sıdki’s handlist of symbols and numerals used in European
almanacs. From Mecmūʿa-i Resā’il-i Nādire fī’l-ʿUlūmü’l-Felekiyye. Princeton
University, Garrett 373Y, 84v 626
24.1 Chevalier d’Otée, Turkish music concert at the British Embassy, 22 February 1779.
Warsaw University Library, Royal Collection, T.171, by permission 645
Tables
12.1 Estimated number of water entitlement holders between 1619–1717 322

12.2 Building artisans and laborers working on a ḳatma water structure
construction site 327
12.3 List of manufacturers and suppliers of construction tools 332
19.1 Distribution of sufi shaykhs in Ottoman lands in the 18th century 520
19.2 Distribution of sufi lodges in late 19th-century Istanbul 521
21.1 Table showing the number of janissaries recorded (1567–1664). 1567/68 figures
from Ágoston, “Ottoman Warfare”, in J. Black (ed.), European Warfare, London,
1999, 135; 1623 figures from Uzunçarşılı, Osmanlı Devleti Teşkilatında Kapıkulu
Ocakları, Ankara, 1944, 444, based on the maṣar (three-month salaries for the
Hijri months of Muharrem, Safer, Rebiʿül-evvel) in the AH 1033/CE 1623 salary
register; 1654 figures from Genç & Özvar (eds.), Osmanlı Maliyesi, Istanbul, 2001;
1664 figures from salary register in BOA, KK 6599 560
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Abbreviations
AK Istanbul Municipality Atatürk Library, Istanbul

BL British Library, London
BnF Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris
BOA Prime Ministry Ottoman Archives, currently, Office of the Presidency
Ottoman Archives, Istanbul
İKS Türkiye Diyanet Vakfı İslâm Araştırmaları Merkezi, İstanbul Kadı Sicilleri,
Istanbul
İÜK Istanbul University Rare Books Library, Istanbul
KR Boğaziçi University Kandilli Observatory, Istanbul
SK Süleymaniye Library, Istanbul
TSMK Topkapı Palace Museum Library, Istanbul
TSMA Topkapı Palace Museum Archive, Istanbul
AHR The American Historical Review

AO Archivum Ottomanicum
AO-H Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae
ArsO Ars Orientalis
ArtB Art Bulletin
BSOAS Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies
CSSH Comparative Studies in Society and History
DBIA Dünden Bugüne İstanbul Ansiklopedisi
DOP Dumbarton Oaks Papers
EI2 Encyclopaedia of Islam 2nd ed.
EI3 Encyclopaedia of Islam 3rd ed.
IA İslâm Ansiklopedisi
IFM İstanbul Üniversitesi İktisat Fakültesi Mecmuası
IJMES International Journal of Middle East Studies
IJTS International Journal of Turkish Studies
JEMH Journal of Early Modern History
JESHO Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient
JNES Journal of Near Eastern Studies
JOS Osmanlı Araştırmaları/Journal of Ottoman Studies
JOTSA Journal of the Ottoman and Turkish Studies Association
JSAH Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians
JTS Journal of Turkish Studies/Türklük Bilgisi Araştırmaları
JWH Journal of Women’s History
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xviii Abbreviations
MES Middle Eastern Studies

REMMM Revue des mondes musulmans et de la Méditerranée
SI Studia Islamica
TALID Türkiye Araştırmaları Literatür Dergisi
TD İstanbul Üniversitesi Edebiyat Fakültesi Tarih Dergisi
TDVIA Türkiye Diyanet Vakfı İslâm Ansiklopedisi
TED Tarih Enstitüsü Dergisi
TSAB The Turkish Studies Association Bulletin
TSAJ Turkish Studies Association Journal
WZKM Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes
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Notes on Contributors
Oscar Aguirre-Mandujano
is Assistant Professor of History at the University of Pennsylvania. His research
focuses on the intellectual and cultural history of the early modern Ottoman
Empire. He is currently working on his first monograph, on the relationship
between literary composition, sufi doctrine, and political thought in the early
modern Islamic world.
Zeynep Altok
is Ph.D. candidate at Boğaziçi University. She is interested in the literary, cul-
tural and intellectual history of the early modern Ottoman Empire. Her dis-
sertation focuses on 16th-century biographical dictionaries of poets and the
evolution of Ottoman literary culture.
Walter G. Andrews
(1939–2020) was Research Professor Emeritus of Turkish and Ottoman Studies
at the University of Washington. He specialized in Ottoman poetry, the history
of emotions, and digital humanities and his publications include The Age of
Beloveds: Love and the Beloved in Early Modern Ottoman and European Culture
and Society and Poetry’s Voice, Society’s Song: Ottoman Lyric Poetry.
Betül Başaran
is Professor of History and Coordinator of the Women, Gender, and Sexuality
Studies Program at St. Mary’s College of Maryland. She is the author of
Selim III, Social Control and Policing in Istanbul at the End of the Eighteenth
Century: between Crisis and Order (Brill, 2014).
Cem Behar
is Professor Emeritus from Boğaziçi University and İstanbul Şehir University.
He has widely published on the history and musicology of traditional Ottoman/
Turkish music.

is the author of two monographs on the legal and intellectual aspects of
Ottoman-European relations in the early modern period. He is the Publishing
Director for the Middle East, Islam, and African Studies at Brill.
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xx Notes on Contributors
John J. Curry
is Associate Professor of History at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, special-
izing in Ottoman religious life in the context of the early modern world.
Linda T. Darling
is Professor of Middle East History at the University of Arizona and author of
A History of Social Justice and Political Power in the Middle East.
Suraiya Faroqhi
is Professor of History at Ibn Haldun University in Istanbul. She focuses on
Ottoman artisan production, the study of objects as historical sources, urban
life, and cross-cultural linkages.
Emine Fetvacı
is the Norma Jean Calderwood University Professor in Islamic and Asian Art
at Boston College. She is the author of Picturing History at the Ottoman Court
(IUP, 2013), and The Album of the World Emperor: Cross-Cultural Collecting and
Album Making at the Ottoman Court (PUP, 2019).
Shirine Hamadeh
is Associate Professor in the Department of Archaeology and the History of
Art at Koç University. She works on the architecture and urban culture of
early modern Istanbul and is the author of The City’s Pleasures: Istanbul in the
Eighteenth Century.
Cemal Kafadar
is Professor of History at Harvard University. Working on Istanbul as one of the
centers of early modernity, he has published on popular politics, coffeehouses,
and the conquest of the night.
Çiğdem Kafescioğlu
is Professor in the History Department at Boğaziçi University. She works on the
visual, urban, and architectural culture of the early modern Ottoman world
and is the author of Constantinopolis/Istanbul: Cultural Encounter, Imperial
Vision and the Construction of the Ottoman Capital.
Deniz Karakaş
is Visiting Assistant Professor of Islamic art at Tulane University. Her research
focuses on water resources in Istanbul. She is currently preparing her first book
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Notes on Contributors xxi
manuscript, Giving Water Shape and Sound in Early Modern Istanbul, for pub-
lication and developing a new research project that traces spaces of architec-
tural knowledge production in the early modern Eastern Mediterranean.

is Assistant Professor at Özyeğin University in Istanbul. Her work focuses on
Ottoman family history, women and gender, legal history, and the history of
children and childhood.
B. Harun Küçük
is Associate Professor of History and Sociology of Science at the University of
Pennsylvania. Küçük has written on science in the Ottoman Empire, on the
historiography of early modern science and on bureaucratic knowledge. His
first book, Science without Leisure: Practical Naturalism in Istanbul, 1660–1732,
was published by the University of Pittsburgh Press.
Selim S. Kuru
is Associate Professor in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and
Civilization at the University of Washington in Seattle.
Karen A. Leal
was for many years the Managing Editor of Muqarnas: An Annual on the Visual
Cultures of the Islamic World. Her research focuses on the Greek Orthodox
community of Istanbul, Ottoman and European cross-cultural exchange, and
the effects of the Greco-Roman tradition on Ottoman culture. She also contin-
ues to work as an academic editor.
Gülru Necipoğlu
is the Aga Khan Professor and Director of the Aga Khan Program for Islamic
Art and Architecture at Harvard University since 1993, where she received her
Ph.D. in 1986. She has published widely on the visual and architectural culture
of the Ottoman world, including The Age of Sinan: Architectural Culture in the
Ottoman Empire (2005).
is Professor of Turkish Studies at LMU Munich and has published on Ottoman
historiography, social and cultural history, the urban history of Istanbul,
Turkish fiction, and political culture. He has also translated several Turkish
novels and short stories into German.
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xxii Notes on Contributors
Aslı Niyazioğlu
is Associate Professor in Ottoman History at the University of Oxford special-
izing in dreams, literary lives, and urban imaginaries. Her publications include
Dreams and Lives in Ottoman Istanbul (Routledge, 2017).
Amanda Phillips
is Assistant Professor in the Department of Art at the University of Virginia.
Her first book, Everyday Luxuries (2016), considers Ottoman material cul-
ture; her second book, Sea Change (2021), discusses Ottoman textiles over the
longue durée.
Marinos Sariyannis
is Research Director at the Institute for Mediterranean Studies/FORTH,
Rethymno, Greece. He has published several books and articles on early mod-
ern Ottoman social, cultural, and intellectual history.
Aleksandar Shopov
is Assistant Professor of History at SUNY Binghamton University. He special-
izes in the history of science and the social and environmental histories of the
Ottoman Empire, with a focus on 1400–1800. He is currently writing a book
about urban produce gardening in Ottoman Istanbul.
is Professor in the Department of Archaeology and the History of Art at Koç
University. She specializes in the architectural patronage of royal Ottoman
women, early modern fortifications, and the heritage of the Gallipoli peninsula.
Nükhet Varlık
is Associate Professor of History at Rutgers University–Newark. She studies
plague, medicine, and public health in early modern Ottoman history.
N. Zeynep Yelçe
is researcher and instructor at the Foundations Development Program and
Coordinator of Humanities courses at Sabancı University. Her research inter-
ests include early modern power structures, court studies, and ritual studies.
She is currently working on communications and information networks in the
Mediterranean in the first half of the 16th century.
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Notes on Contributors xxiii
Gülay Yılmaz
is Associate Professor at the Department of History at Akdeniz University,
Antalya. She has published several articles on janissaries, devşirme recruit-
ment, and 17th-century Istanbul.
Zeynep Yürekli
is Associate Professor of Islamic Art and Architecture at the University of
Oxford. Her research focuses on aspects of Ottoman architecture, illustrated
manuscripts, and sufi networks.
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Figure 0.1 Istanbul intra muros, Galata and Üsküdar, 15th to early 19th centuries, including sites that are
mentioned in the volume. Prepared by Murat Tülek
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xxvi maps
A4/1 Topkapı / Cannon gate C4/3 Saraçhane

A5/1 Yenikapı Mevlevi lodge C4/4 Yeni Odalar (New Barracks)
A5/2 Merkez Efendi Halveti lodge C4/5 Orta mosque, in New Barracks
A5/3 Mevlanakapı (Mevlana gate) C5/1 Etmeydanı
A6/1 Zoodochos Pigi holy spring and C5/2 Forum Arcadius / Avrat Pazarı
church C5/3 Column of Arcadius
A7/1 Yedikule C6/1 Small (Küçük) Langa garden
A7/2 Golden Gate (Porta Aurea) C6/2 Langa (Vlanga) garden
B2/1 Eğrikapı (Eğri gate) C6/3 Davud Paşa gate
B2/2 Edirnekapı (Edirne gate) D3/1 Cibali gate
B3/1 Yeni Bağçe D4/1 Eski İmaret / Christ Pantepoptes
B6/1 Davud Pasha mosque and kadi court monastery
B6/2 Koca Mustafa Pasha lodge and D4/2 Zeyrek mosque and lodge /
complex / Hagios Andreas en Pantokrator church and monastery
te Krisei D4/3 Odunkapısı (Odun gate)
B6/3 Shah Sultan mosque and lodge D4/4 Atpazari lodge
C1/1 Atik Mustafa Pasha mosque D4/5 Shaykh Vefa lodge and complex
C2/1 Balat quay D4/6 Süleymaniye mosque complex
C2/2 Karaferye synagogue D4/7 Bozdoğan (Valens) aqueduct
C2/3 Yanbol synagogue D5/1 Şehzade Mehmed mosque complex
C2/4 Aya Yani church D5/2 Eski Odalar (Old Barracks)
C2/5 Ahrida synagogue D5/3 Kalenderhane / Theotokos Kyriotissa
C2/6 Aya Strati / Surp Hıreşdagabet church
Armenian church D5/4 Eski Saray (The Old Palace)
C2/7 Fener quay D5/5 Bayezid II public bath
C2/8 Fenerkapısı (Fener gate) D5/6 Forum Tauri
C3/1 Theotokos Mouchliotissa church D5/7 Bayezid II mosque complex
(Kanlı Kilise, St. Mary of the D6/1 Yenikapı (Yeni gate)
Mongols) D6/2 Surp Asdvadzadzin Armenian
C3/2 Fethiye mosque / Theotokos Patriarchal church
Pammakaristos church E2/1 Kasım Pasha Mevlevi lodge
C3/3 Patriarchal Academy E2/2 Petit champs des morts
C3/4 Greek Orthodox patriarchate E2/3 Galatasaray (Galata Palace)
C3/5 Abdi Subaşı mosque E2/4 Kasım Paşa docks
C3/6 Nureddin Mehmed Cerrahi lodge E3/1 Galata Mevlevi lodge
C3/7 Selim I mosque complex E3/2 Galata tower
C4/1 Mehmed II (Fatih) mosque complex E4/1 Ahi Çelebi mosque and kadi court
C4/2 Can Alıcı church / Aya Marina E4/2 Baba Cafer prison
monastery E4/3 Küçük Çukur khan
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maps xxvii
E4/4 Rüstem Paşa khan E5/18 Divan Yolu

E4/5 Rüstem Pasha mosque E5/19 Binbirdirek cistern
E4/6 Balkapanı E5/20 Milion
E4/7 Balık Pazarı gate E5/21 Acem Ağa mosque
E4/8 Yeni Valide mosque complex E5/22 Aydınoğlu lodge
E4/9 Sabuncu khan E6/1 İbrahim Pasha palace
E4/10 Uzunçarşı E6/2 Atmeydanı / Hippodrome
E4/11 Zindankapı khan E6/3 Sultan Ahmed mosque and complex
E5/1 Kilit khan E6/4 Haseki Hürrem public bath
E5/2 Büyük Valide (also, Valide Kösem) E6/5 Kadırga Limanı (Kadırga Port)
khan E6/6 Sokollu Mehmed Pasha and İsmihan
E5/3 Büyük Yeni khan Sultan mosque and lodge
E5/4 Mahmud Pasha khan E6/7 Güngörmez church
E5/5 Hoca khan E6/8 Sipahiler market (Sultan Ahmed
E5/6 Cebeci khan complex market street)
E5/7 Bit Pazarı E6/9 Küçük Ayasofya mosque / SS. Sergius
E5/8 Grand Bazaar and Bacchus church
E5/9 Bedestan F2/1 Cihangir mosque and lodge
E5/10 Sandal Bedestanı F4/1 Sarayburnu
E5/11 Nuruosmaniye mosque complex F5/1 Topkapı Palace
E5/12 Atik Ali Pasha mosque F5/2 Ayasofya / Hagia Sophia
E5/13 Çemberlitaş / Constantine’s column F5/3 Selim II mausoleum, at Hagia Sophia
E5/14 Tavuk Pazarı F6/1 Ahırkapı (Ahır gate)
E5/15 Tahta khan H4/1 Nasuhi lodge in Doğancılar
E5/16 Mahmud Pasha mosque complex H5/1 Üsküdar Palace
E5/17 Vezir khan
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Figure 0.2 Istanbul’s hinterland, 15th to early 19th centuries, including sites that are mentioned in the
volume. Prepared by Murat Tülek
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Chapter 1
Early Modern Istanbul

As Black Sea flows into Mediterranean

Its port comes into view, a sea of vessels
Every path of its marketplace on view, fonts of men

The city and its sea in tempestuous revelry
Bankers of wisdom named it the Market Hall

A sea of silver and gold, mine of pearls and gems
Full of heart-captivating beauties, drops of pure water

Glory of the universe, that sea of boys
Like a church awash with images and ornament

A wellspring of women, a sea of pierced jewels
At sea’s edge, oft alight in blaze

At the heart of each tongue, its own sea of sparks
Wayfarers take leave by land and by sea

A sojourn for princes, a sea of moves and voyages
Âli is a traveler of the climes of the world

Fickleness of a kind unwitnessed by the sea of realms1
∵
1 Couplets 11–18 of Mustafa Âli’s (d. 1600) “Ode to the qualities of Istanbul” (Ḳaṣīde der vaṣf-ı
İstānbūl). Aḳdeñiz Ḳaradeñiz’den çekilüp geldükçe / Baḥr-ı limānı görinür gemiler deryāsı //
Görinür her yolı bāzārınuñ ādem oluġı / Cūş u cünbişde eger şehr eger deryāsı // Didi ṣarrāf-ı
ḫıred aña ki bezzāzistān / Maʿden-i dürr ü güher nuḳre vü zer deryāsı // Bir içim ṣu gibi dil-berler
ile ṭopṭoludur / ʿĀlemüñ yüzi ṣuyudur o püser deryāsı // Döndi bir deyre ser-ā-pā ola pür naḳş u
nigār / Zenlerüñ kānıdur ol süfte güher deryāsı // Leb-i deryādadur ammā ṭutışup yanduḳça /
Her zebāne dil olur kendi şerer deryāsı // Baḥr u berden çekilüp gitmede ebnā-yı sebīl / Ümerā
© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2022 | doi:10.1163/9789004468566_002 - 978-90-04-46856-6

2 Hamadeh and Kafescioğlu
Istanbul, Constantinople, Kostantiniyye: early modern metropolis with one

of the densest and most diverse populations in the world, site of imperium
from its foundation in the 4th century to the early decades of the 20th, capi-
tal city, designed and redesigned to represent the vast polyglot, multiethnic,
and multireligious Ottoman empire. Of these attributes, which together mark
the exceptionalism of Istanbul, it is the early modern imperial metropolis
that this volume privileges: its denizens, Muslim, Christian, and Jewish, who
lived alongside the imperial family and the state’s central administration;
the often turbulent flow of political, economic, social and spatial dynamics
it experienced largely as a result; the breadth and complexity of the culture
it produced; and the interconnections (social, economic, cultural, political,
intellectual, commercial, environmental) it shared with the rest of the world.
A city with a unique geographical location and topography, it was an Eastern
Mediterranean locus of immense political, strategic, and symbolic import. Its
political, economic and cultural connections, regional and global, ensured its
centrality over the longue durée of Eurasian history.
Istanbul’s early modern history is (as most early modern histories can be
said to be) one whose beginning and end points remain unstable and neces-
sarily fluctuate according to historians’ subjects of study and vantage points. In
this volume, we consider it to straddle the later 15th century, when the Ottoman
conquest affected a series of political, economic, institutional, social, and cul-
tural transformations that reinforced the city’s links to the worlds around it,
and the turn of the 19th century, when successive developments, from the abo-
lition of the janissary corps in 1829 to the largely European-modeled modern-
izing reforms of the Tanzimat that began in 1839, precipitated a fast course of
wide-ranging changes in the capital city. In its broadest lines, then, early mod-
ern Istanbul encompasses nearly 400 years of history during which significant
changes in the political body and in social, economic, and cultural patterns
occurred. As urban historians we have looked for the city in the intertwined
layers of the lives of its diverse populations that unfolded in and produced
its spaces, foregrounding the latter to expose connections between these lives
(their economic pursuits, occupations, consumption and recreational habits,
their political and cultural universes, and their social practices and networks)
and Istanbul’s material culture (its neighborhoods, streets, buildings, artistic
production, and visual image). The city’s profound links and shared historical
flow with other contemporary cities of the Ottoman Empire, the Mediterranean
reh-güẕeri naḳl u sefer deryāsı // Gerçi seyyāḥ-ı eḳālīm-i cihāndur ʿĀlī / Öyle ber-ter bir döner
görmedi ber deryāsı; Mustafa Âli, Gelibolulu Mustafa Ālī: Divan, ed. İ.H. Aksoyak, Cambridge,
MA, 2006, 309.
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Early Modern Istanbul 3
region, Eurasia, and the world at large as highlighted by recent scholarship

have also helped locate it firmly within a wider historical and geographical
framework. As part of the Brill series on European history, this book is a con-
crete opportunity to situate the particularities of Istanbul’s history alongside
other early modern cities like Venice or Naples examined in this series, and to
engage the conceptual frame of early modernity with an expanded view on
urbanity that embraces the local and specific as well as the global.
Early modernity, as both a chronological frame and a historical concept, has
emerged fairly recently in the scholarship on Istanbul.2 Emphasis by histori-
ans across disciplines on Istanbul’s connectivity to other cities and empires
through the mobility of individuals and ideas, new far-reaching commercial
and diplomatic networks, and the circulation of material culture and goods
have already offered possibilities of looking at the city from a world historical
vantage point.3 Another line of inquiry on comparable trajectories in modes of
governance, economic and commercial patterns, and state and society dynam-
ics in Istanbul and contemporary cities (which has developed in tandem with
studies on Europe, China, Russia, South Asia, and the Atlantic World) has
made the early modern era one of the major periods in which global history
has expanded in recent decades.
Deeply integral, indeed central to the early modern transition across seas
and lands was urbanization itself. Both in its fast pace and in the growing place
of cities it engendered in a still largely agrarian world, this process generated
novel modes of communal organization, structures of urban life, social and
cultural practices, and forms of urbanity and urban consciousness. The rise of
new publics and loci of expression concurred with the widening scope of polit-
ical, cultural, and artistic agency across societies. More extensive exchanges
of ideas and knowledge with the outside world were engendered by new or
intensified forms of communication through travel, trade, diplomacy, and gift-
giving. All these phenomena, individually and cumulatively, directly or indi-
rectly, have challenged long-dominant views on “non-European” cities that still
continue to be informed by Max Weber’s conceptions of European cities’ dis-
tinctiveness, which in turn have helped fashion the problematic paradigm of
2 Particularly in Anglophone academia. It may be worthy of note that there is no equivalent for
the concept of early modern in, for example, French scholarship, in which the modern era
usually straddles the 15th and 18th centuries and the 19th century ushers in the contemporary
era—even if one finds such usages as “le début de l’ère moderne”.
3 Rothman, Brokering Empire; Casale, The Ottoman Age of Exploration; Jardine & Brotton,
Global Interests are representative examples. These lines of inquiry have been particularly
dominant in the scholarship on Ottoman geography, diplomacy, and art and architectural
history in the past twenty years.
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the “Islamic city” (a Weberian polarity aptly worded by Sami Zubaida as “The
City and the Islamic City”).4 It may seem like a snub to Weber to have a vol-
ume on early modern Istanbul published as part of a series on European cities;
but then again, this would not be the first time that geography confounds and
Istanbul finds itself shifting and straddling continental and cultural borders—
or should we say, testing the very significance of these borders—to firmly posi-
tion itself.5 It may not have been so extraordinary for early modern ears to
hear the late 18th-century poet Enderunlu Fazıl, who placed Istanbul squarely
within “the climes of the countries of Europe”, to ask: “Isn’t the noble city of
Istanbul/The cleanest and most beautiful of all [the cities of Europe]?”6
For historians of Istanbul and Ottoman historians, more generally, early
modernity has offered a constructive frame of reference to respond to the
decline paradigm, one of the most stubbornly ingrained in the historiography,
itself largely the product of scholarly partiality for state-centered viewpoints
and sources. Several features and developments formerly associated with
decline across various fields and disciplines, from the growing influence of the
janissaries and the rise of social and financial power among urbanites and the
lower ranks of the ruling class to the dwindling power of the sultan and vari-
ous forms of shared political power taking shape at different times, from the
waning of the imperial architectural canon to the emergence of new artistic
and literary styles, have been reexamined and assessed as features of a shared
global early modernity. It would be misleading, however, to regard the early
modern framework merely as an antidote to the historiographical problems
embodied by the decline paradigm. The historical dynamics of what was once
considered the “classical age” (the later 1400s and the 1500s, that is, prior to
the so-called era of decline) have been successfully explored from within the
early modern framework to reveal the transformations in Ottoman polity and
society unfolding throughout the long 16th century.
Yet, if early modernity proposes a useful conceptual framework for Ottoman
history, and if the city is a most obvious candidate for explorations of this
framework, scholars’ relative unease with it is difficult to ignore. Aside from
disagreements on the temporal boundaries of the early modern, much of
the root of the discomfort lies in its very construction. Who defines the early
4 Zubaida, “Max Weber’s ‘The City’ and the Islamic City”. On these paradigms and their con-
tinuing dominance see also Janet Abu-Lughod, “The Islamic City: Historic Myth, Islamic
Essence, and Contemporary Relevance”; Rahimi & Şahin, “Introduction: Early Modern
Islamic Cities”.
5 On this see Kafadar, “A Rome of One’s Own”, 7–21; Kafescioğlu, Constantinopolis/Istanbul, 8.
6 The couplet reads: Cümleniñ elṭafı şimdi amma / Semt-i iḳlīm-i bilād-ı Urpā / Andadır şehr-i
Sitānbūl-i şerīf / Cümleden olmıya mı pāk u laṭīf; see Fazıl, Ḫūbānnāme ve Zenānnāme, 26.
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modern, and how, remain points of contention, as some Ottoman historians

reflect on the significance of the early modern period as a frame and concept
formulated for the study of European history, and whose adaptation, or appli-
cation to regions beyond Europe only reinforces the latter’s primacy in under-
standing historical patterns and change.7 The same question has long divided
European and world historians along a line stretching between two poles: early
modernity as a specifically European phenomenon or as an undeniably global
one. And while its global resonance (the many “early modernities” of Shmuel
Eisenstadt and Wolfgang Schluchter’s formula, as well as recent observations
that early modern Europe emerged out of global connections during these
centuries) has gained traction, early modernity is largely understood by many
world and European historians (at least, in its cultural dimensions) as having
unfolded in Europe to be then “creatively appropriated by the rest”.8
It bears remembering, however, that some of the earliest delineations of a
global early modernity came not from the field of European history but from
historians of Central Asia, China, and Japan. Joseph Fletcher’s incisive “integra-
tive history” (published posthumously in 1986) explored early modern connec-
tions and parallelisms across the great Eurasian expanse, with ventures into
North Africa and the Americas.9 By the early 1990s, scholars such as Conrad
Totman in his work on Tokugawa Japan, and Craig Clunas in several studies of
Ming China’s visual and material culture, were already decolonizing the early
modern era.10 As Jeffrey Bentley noted, Thomas Brady Jr., Heiko Oberman,
and James Tracy’s Handbook on European History 1400–1600 timidly but clearly
signaled that “early modern Europe is comprehensible only in the context of
7 These concerns have most recently been voiced by several scholars in a general appraisal
of Ottoman historians’ engagement with the early modern framework; Aksan, Ergene,
Hadjikyriacou (eds.), “Chasing the Ottoman Early Modern”. The publication grew out of a
round table at the 2017 Middle East Studies Association Annual Meeting.
8 One of the earliest published debates was the special issue of Daedalus devoted to Early
Modernities, edited and introduced by Eisenstadt and Schluchter, and published in 1998.
On this question see, more recently, Innes, “Epilogue 1”, in Aksan, Ergene, Hadjikyriacou
(eds.), “Chasing the Ottoman Early Modern”, 74–79.
9 Fletcher, “Integrative History”. Earlier observers of systemic connections within par-
ticular regions (Fernand Braudel in the Mediterranean and Marshall Hodgson in the
Islamicate world), also recognized how certain aspects of these regional histories were
integral to dynamics of global change. Hodgson, The Venture of Islam; particularly perti-
nent are his observations on the world conjuncture of the 1500s, at vol. 3, 3–15; Braudel,
The Mediterranean.
10 Totman, Early Modern Japan; Clunas, Superfluous Things; Fruitful Sites; and Pictures
and Visuality.
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a larger early modern world”.11 One of the most productive conceptualiza-

tions of a Eurasian early modernity has emerged out of the corpus of Sanjay
Subrahmanyam’s work, whose essay, “Connected Histories: Notes towards
a Reconfiguration of Early Modern Eurasia”, first published in 1997, defined
(together with a large number of later publications) his method of inquiry
as one focused on the very paths that connected Eurasian regions and cities
assumed to be isolated from one another, to then point to global conjunctures.12
For a volume focused on Istanbul, the question is, necessarily, what does the
early modern framework offer to urban history? Specifically for our purposes,
why does Istanbul’s early modern history matter? And what is the place of
Istanbul in early modern history? In the largest sense, to embrace the concept
of early modernity in the study of Istanbul is to attend to the city’s participa-
tion in a set of shared historical dynamics and thus engage with the changing
conditions of a Eurasian (and ultimately, world) historical context increasingly
interconnected through, at the very least, imperial and commercial expansion.
Rethinking world history in a recent essay, Huricihan İslamoğlu called for a
vision “that allows for human or societal agency in different world regions,
whereby multiple actors are continually engaged in crafting institutionally
[and, we might add, non-institutionally] innovative responses to changing
conditions”.13 Though obviously responses to change were not linear, let alone
11 Bentley, “Early Modern Europe and the Early Modern World”, 17. See 16–20 for a discus-
sion of the earliest scholarship on Eurasian and global early modernities.
12 Subrahmanyam, “Connected Histories: Notes towards a Reconfiguration of Early Modern
Eurasia”. Subrahmanyam’s discomfort with the conceptualization of the early modern
period in strictly comparative terms has been clearly expounded recently in an interview
with the historian Claude Markovits in Markovits, “Sanjay Subrahmanyam: Le palimp-
seste des grandes villes indiennes”. Generally, we should not imagine that the notion of
a global early modernity based on a comparative perspective has been constructed or
received with ease. It arose amidst much debate, notably with Goldstone, “The Problem
of the ‘Early Modern’ World”, and Starn, “The Early Modern Muddle”—a debate which
has hardly been resolved. For a response that explores, from an Ottoman historian’s
perspective, the notion of early modern Eurasia as a shared time and space, see Şahin,
Empire and Power, 6–12, 243–52. We should also note more recent revisions of earlier
world-system theories that have turned to the early modern/modern period at a world
scale. See, for example, Northrop (ed.), A Companion to World History, where scholars
including Huricihan İslamoğlu, Christopher Chase-Dunn and Thomas Hall, and Adam
McKeown engage with the possibilities world-system theories offer and the critiques they
have received.
13 İslamoğlu, “Islamicate World Histories?”, 460. While İslamoğlu sees modernity beginning
in the 14th and the 15th centuries (as a set of responses to rapidly shifting circumstances
and responses by both state and non-state actors) and despite her criticism of the inward-
looking and idealized understanding of what she terms early modern culturalism, we find
her mode of thinking useful in attempting to define early modernity.
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synchronized, we cannot fail to notice the “shared rhythms of a number of

Eurasian commonwealths [that] lend some justification to the term, ‘the early
modern world’”.14 As noted above, urbanization was pivotal to early modern
developments and cities were key to processes of state-building, commercial-
ization, global trade, and capital formation. As a capital city, Istanbul was the
place where the repercussions and urgency of all things of empire, from victo-
ries and defeats to internal migrations, demographic changes, and agricultural
recession, were most acutely felt and where distinct dynamics of state-building
and society we now associate with the early modern period unfolded, becom-
ing visible at different moments and junctures within this period: bureaucra-
tization and territorialization, increasing urban-hinterland interconnections
and regional and trans-regional integration, the expansion of networks of
knowledge and knowledge production, the advancement of methods of
exploitation of natural resources, new forms of urbanity and communal living,
the state’s growing role in defining and enforcing religious dogma and practice,
and, alongside these, greater visibility of secular forms of cultural production.
Like other early modern cities, Istanbul struggled with urbanization, immi-
gration and changing demographics, food shortages, epidemics, and climate
change; it saw the spread of paper bureaucracy and the acceleration of mer-
cantile activity; it strove for order and stability but saw uprisings and rebellions,
and changing patterns of production, consumption, and wealth accumulation.
It sheltered forms of public life that presented new challenges and possibilities
to state and society alike. It lent shape to new spaces and patterns of socia-
bility, leisure, and literary, musical, and artistic cultures, and to sites in which
untested urban subjectivities and ways of relating to the city developed along
with an expanding vocabulary of urban experiences, spaces, and social types.
One of the common threads discerned in these spheres of change was the
growing number of participants that marked the workings of state and politi-
cal structures, public life, articulations of dissent, the organization of trade and
of artisanal and (urban) agricultural production along with the forms of capi-
tal accumulation that these latter engendered.
It is also important to note here features associated with early modernity
whose beginnings can be traced to Istanbul. This was one of the earliest capi-
tals in the world that broke apart from its medieval core through the imple-
mentation of a city-wide building project and came to house a new expanse
and scale unknown in the medieval world. Already by the second half of the
16th century, its coffee drinking culture had brought new habits of time-use
and had wide-ranging social, spatial, and material implications for public life
14 Kafadar, “The Ottomans and Europe”, 621.
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across class and status boundaries. Despite the stereotyping it has inspired,
Istanbul’s long-praised location as a node of connections between multiple
seas and regional systems (eastern Mediterranean, west Asian, east European,
and Black Sea) and Asian, Islamicate, European, and Mediterranean histo-
ries should be highlighted here, for it placed its inhabitants at a nexus of the
increasingly intense and dynamic interconnections that shaped early modern
times. Istanbul’s early modern history matters, then, because it offers a view-
ing spot, a naẓargāh (so intimate a part of Istanbulites’ urban experiences), to
spotlight local phenomena and dynamics and to observe them as part of the
globe, in broad diachronic lines and in synchronic relation to the geographies
to which the city was connected.
One source of discomfort on the part of some Ottoman historians concerns
what they perceive as the romanticized conceptualization of the early modern
world as an idealized world of fluidity and ethno-religious diversity endowed
with an adaptive state and accommodational legal system; a world and time
occupying a higher moral ground, so to say, in comparison to the heavy hand
and assertive control mechanisms of the modern state.15 Many recent studies
highlight a different situation, however: if the early modern Ottoman polity
sustained itself through successfully adapting to change and embracing diver-
sity, all the while remaining ever attentive to socioreligious hierarchies, it also
introduced tools of social control and attempted to delimit the “confessional
ambiguity” that had marked religious dispositions of an earlier age.16 The early
modern era has been recognized as an era of boundary building at numerous
political, religious, social, and regional registers. Where the plural urban com-
munities of the Ottoman domains were concerned, this was most visible in the
state’s recourse to an increasingly sophisticated bureaucratic machinery that
enabled it to identify and distinguish between subjects of different religions.
State-led attempts to define an orthodox Islam found a riposte in popular writ-
ings on proper forms of devotion; and as the contours of Sunni belief and prac-
tice were delineated, new conceptualizations of alterity vis-à-vis communities
that remained outside of the Sunni fold emerged as well.17 The state’s efforts
to give (or enforce, at particular junctures) visual and spatial form to commu-
nal distinctions through sartorial, architectural, and urbanistic means should
15 See, for example, Mikhail & Philliou, “The Ottoman Empire and the Imperial Turn”, 722;
İslamoğlu, “Islamicate World Histories?”, 454–57; or Hadjikyriacou, “The Late Modern
Origins of Early Modern Governance”, 37–40.
16 Terzioğlu, “How to Conceptualize Ottoman Sunnitization”, 303–04.
17 Krstić, “State and Religion”, 89–91, and Terzioğlu, “How to Conceptualize Ottoman
Sunnitization”, 304–05, where the authors suggest confessionalization as a framework for
understanding the religious politics of the era.
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also be understood within the broader framework of boundary building. Of

course, this remains a complex picture where divergent dynamics co-existed:
for indeed, those communities remained in different degrees of contact, and
boundaries between (and within) their habitats remained permeable. Border
crossers, whatever their gender and confessional identities, remained rightful
denizens of this world.18 As we consider acts of building, sustaining, negotiat-
ing, or scaling boundaries, we should also be mindful of Karen Barkey’s obser-
vation that it was to the imperial state’s advantage to sustain this balancing
act as one of the keys to the functioning of the imperial polity—and a key
to its longevity.19 The modes of negotiation that urban and state agents had
to articulate with respect to varying visions of social order and in the face of
multiple conflicts are precisely what made up the fabric of life in Istanbul, in
its everyday lives and in extraordinary moments.
Back in 2012, Christine Philliou and Alan Mikhail noted that “in Ottoman
historiography, we still do not fully understand how or why early modernity is
integral to the study of the nineteenth century. Surely it is, since the nineteenth
century did not come from nowhere. As yet, though, the field of Ottoman
history has remained divided between those who work on the early modern
period and those who work on the nineteenth century.”20 Notwithstanding
exceptions, this is still largely true today, an outcome of increasing specializa-
tion and continuing discussion on whether the 19th century (specifically the
period following the proclamation of the edicts of Gülhane (Rose Chamber)
in 1839 and Islahat (Reforms) in 1856, known as the Tanzimat) constituted a
rupture with what preceded it. This is perhaps a predicament of all histori-
ographies, integral to the endlessly debated problems of periodization across
fields. The “Problem of What Came Before”, as Alan Strathern unambiguously
put it in the context of a rare cross-period collaboration published in 2018 in
the Special Issue of Past & Present on “Defining the Global Middle Ages”, is
necessarily one that demands more serious attention.21 It bears remember-
ing that some of Istanbul’s early modern experiences were visible already in
late medieval urban environments. Eastern Mediterranean dynamics point
18 Dursteler, Renegade Women; Rothman, Brokering Empire; De Vivo, “Crossroads Region:

The Mediterranean”, 435–40.
19 Barkey, Empire of Difference, 17–22.
20 Mikhail & Philliou, “The Ottoman Empire and the Imperial Turn”, 736. See also Sariyannis,
“‘Temporal Modernization’”, 230–35.
21 Strathern, “Global Early Modernity”, 317–44. See also Bentley, Subrahmanyam, &
Wiesner-Hanks (eds.), The Cambridge World History, vol. 6, for historical and historio-
graphical questions on connections between early modernity and the modern era, which
the editors and several contributors address.
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in the same direction—the emergence of an urban Mamluk bürgertum being

one example.22 In late Byzantine Constantinople, commercial and intellectual
links to Latin Europe and Turco-Muslim Anatolia, emergent notions of history,
and forms of city writing are among the most obvious phenomena observed.
While the countercurrent of isolation due to Ottoman expansion at its edge
hindered some of these developments and ultimately spelled out the demise
of Byzantine rule, there is space for further inquiry into some of the issues
addressed in this volume in connection to late Byzantine Constantinople.23
Similarly, for historians of 19th-century Istanbul, it could be useful to ponder
if and how some developments that gained momentum after the Tanzimat
might have germinated in earlier times through a variety of actors (including
high state-officials and bureaucrats but also soldiers, merchants, and artisans)
who sought to cope with the rising challenges of commercial expansion and
capitalization, urbanization, and military and technological advances—even
if these do not seem to match the colossal challenges of the 19th century. There
is legitimate concern among some historians of the pre-19th century about the
teleological implications of the early modern.24 But recognition of the “mod-
ernizing aura”25 of the concept should not obscure the historical significance
of early modern changes—which the cumulative evidence gleaned by scholars
amply demonstrates—when it comes to appraising later 19th-century devel-
opments. This is all the more pertinent to investigations in urban history, the
terrain par excellence to explore the utility of the early modern frame, particu-
larly and crucially, at street level.26
We may be at an interesting juncture today, as historians continue to explore
a range of frames to understand the global past and present and when, at the
same time, old divides seem more permanent and tenacious than ever.27 In an
academic and world climate of new border-building, we may want to reflect
22 Kafadar, “How Dark”, 244–46, where he refers to Thomas Bauer’s identification of a par-
ticipatory mode in the literary production of the Mamluk middle classes, which Bauer
calls bürgertum in his “Towards an Aesthetics”, 6–7.
23 N. Necipoğlu, Byzantium Between the Ottomans and the Latins, 184–232; Kazdhan, “The
Italian and Late Byzantine City”, 1–22; Akışık-Karakullukçu, “From ‘Bounteous Flux
of Matter’ to Hellenic city”, 147–63; Nelson, “Byzantine Art in the Italian Renaissance”,
329–34.
24 This is one of the concerns voiced by some participants to the debate presented in Aksan,
Ergene, Hadjikyriacou (eds.), “Chasing the Ottoman Early Modern”.
25 Innes, “Epilogue 1”, 74–79.
26 Grehan, “Early Modernity”, 34–36.
27 Recent volumes on world history attest to the former trend; see, for example, Bentley,
Subrahmanyam, & Wiesner-Hanks (eds.), The Cambridge World History, especially vol. 6,
and Northrop (ed.), A Companion to World History.
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on the utility of further exploring the early modern.28 It is our conviction

that for historians of Ottoman cities, no matter how varied their appraisals of
its makeup and temporal brackets, early modernity offers a fruitful frame to
approach and consider their individual endeavors in relation to others across
cultures and geographies.
…
It is impossible to do justice to over 100 years of historiography of Istanbul
within this short piece, let alone present a comprehensive survey of scholarly
work produced in a host of local and western languages as monographs, doc-
toral dissertations, articles, and conference proceedings within the fields and
disciplines of urban, social, demographic, economic, intellectual, cultural,
architectural, or literary history. Nor can we recognize the many contributions
in this respect of Istanbul’s numerous local and international research insti-
tutes and lists of significant publications aimed at a non-specialist readership.
What follows, therefore, is not so much a survey of the scholarship; it is rather
an attempt to map areas and genres within which work on the early modern
city was produced, drawing attention to shifts in foci and methodologies. A
salient aspect of Istanbul scholarship should first be noted: the historiography
of empire and that of its capital city overlap frequently, for what transpired
in Istanbul belonged not only with urban but with imperial history as well.
Dynastic matters, courtly ritual and ceremonial, economic developments, and
popular dissent involved both city and empire, and while they placed the for-
mer center-stage in their work, political and economic historians have usually
tended to prioritize the latter in formulating their research questions.29 An
important body of work that took the city as a topic of scholarship in its own
right (neither overlapping with nor subsumed by imperial history), however,
does exist; its emergence as an area of study was contemporaneous with that
of modern Ottoman historiography.
One of the first major works on Istanbul’s urban life and governance, and one
of the works that marked the beginning of Ottoman urban historiography, was
Osman Nuri Ergin’s five volume Mecelle-i Umûr-ı Belediyye (Code of Municipal
Affairs, 1911/12–1919/20). It is perhaps an irony that the Mecelle inadvertently
28 Kaya Şahin observes that with the exception of Renaissance Italy, efforts towards placing
Ottoman history in global frameworks has not been reciprocated by those working in
other fields; Şahin, “The Ottoman Empire”, 230.
29 As exemplified in some of the large body of work produced by İsmail Hakkı Uzunçarşılı
on Ottoman institutions, and by Mehmet Genç and Halil Sahillioğlu on economic history.
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delivered a concrete response to Orientalist scholarship as it sought to iden-

tify the legal precepts underlying Ottoman urban governance and urban life,
while historians on both sides of the east-west divide continued, through the
following decades and even century, to spill ink on the absence of civic institu-
tions and urban law in the Ottoman, and largely, Islamic world.30 Space does
not allow us to comment on the tenacity of the absence argument (in itself
of substantial historiographical and cultural interest), but we may note that
Ergin, archivist and longtime official of the Istanbul Municipality, was also the
first scholar to explore the rich font of archival material, particularly the sharia
court records and sultanic edicts, and use them to interpret the mechanisms of
Ottoman urban life. Around the same time (between 1917 and 1935) and before
the so-called “archival turn” in Ottoman studies, another collection of court
edicts regarding urban life was published in four volumes by the historian
Ahmet Refik as Life in Istanbul.31 While the body of published source material
has grown exponentially, documents amassed in these volumes remain stan-
dard references on Istanbul’s social, economic, cultural, and architectural his-
tory, testimony to Refik’s astute sense of what this archive would offer to the
historian of the city.
Historical work on Istanbul’s spatial configuration and material environ-
ment has been produced throughout the 20th century within a set of related
yet distinct strands. Archaeological and art historical ground work and analy-
ses have led to an expanding body of scholarship on greater Istanbul in both
Turkish and western languages, with building monographs, surveys and cata-
logues of building types or inscriptions, and archaeological surveys and exca-
vation reports—a scholarship that also benefited from a rich legacy of early
modern historical, geographical, and antiquarian writings.32 Other works have
presented the urban space and material environment through geographical
30 Ergin, Mecelle-i Umûr-ı Belediyye.

31 These volumes are dedicated to the 16th, 17th, 18th, and early 19th centuries respec-
tively; Ahmet Refik, Onuncu Asr-ı Hicrîde İstanbul Hayatı; idem, Hicrî On Birinci Asırda
İstanbul Hayatı; idem, Hicrî On İkinci Asırda İstanbul Hayatı; idem, Hicrî On Üçüncü Asırda
İstanbul Hayatı.
32 Including Pierre Gilles’s De topographia Constantintinopoleos (1561), which remained a
fountainhead for 19th-century antiquarian surveys of Constantinople; Evliya Çelebi’s
(d. c.1684) Istanbul volume of his Book of Travels, and Ayvansarayi’s (d. 1787) volumi-
nous Ḥadīḳatu’l-Cevāmiʿ (The Garden of Mosques, 1781), an encyclopedic survey of the
city’s Muslim houses of worship, which was to inspire two of the earliest modern sur-
veys of Istanbul’s mosques, Reşat Ekrem Koçu’s and Tahsin Öz’s identically titled İstanbul
Camileri (1940?, 1962). For bibliographies of publications on Istanbul, including the early
modern period, see Eyice, “Umumî Bibliyografya”; İnalcık, “Istanbul”; Öztürk, “İstanbul
İçin Yayımlanan”; Güçlü, Istanbul Bibliography.
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analyses, at times integrating art historical and archaeological material. Several

were products of developments made in early 20th-century German scholarship
in the field of urban geography, and they share a long-term perspective on the
city (and the title): Robert Mayer’s Byzantion-Konstantinupolis-Istanbul: Eine
genetische Stadtgeographie (1943), Reinhard Stewig’s Byzanz, Konstantinopel,
Istanbul: ein Beitrag zur Weltstadtproblem (1964), Wolfgang Müller-Wiener’s
Bildlexikon zur Topographie Istanbuls: Byzantion, Konstantinupolis, Istanbul bis
zum Beginn d. 17. Jh. (1977, partly based on his 1962 monograph on the city), and
finally Doğan Kuban’s Istanbul: An Urban History. Byzantion, Constantinopolis,
Istanbul (1996). These geographic, architectural, and historical analyses fore-
ground the urban space and its long-term transformations; in every one of
them, urban mapping (informed by 19th-century European and Ottoman car-
tographic endeavors) has an essential part.33
Monographs on particular themes of the city’s past, its districts and neigh-
borhoods, social and professional groups, ethnography and folklore, fires and
other catastrophes34 added another layer to the expanding historiography on
Istanbul through the middle decades of the 20th century. The growing reach of
publications of manuscripts, especially literary texts and chronicles, continued
the early efforts of the Ottoman History Council (Tarih-i Osmani Encümeni,
1909–31) and brought to light key works on Istanbul poetry, or translations
from Armenian of the city chronicles of Eremya Çelebi Kömürciyan and
P.G. İnciciyan.35 Journals specializing in the publication of archival documents
and research, alongside archive-based studies, gained ground, a trend repre-
sented most visibly by the work of the prolific economic historian Ömer Lutfi
Barkan, whose series of articles analyzing sets of administrative registers—
Istanbul’s charitable foundations (awqaf) and the construction industry,
among others—became a reference for later inquiries on urban economy
and institutions.36 During these decades Istanbul became the subject of sev-
eral more ambitious projects as well through the initiatives of local institutes
such as the İstanbul Araştırmaları Enstitüsü, or İstanbul Fetih Cemiyeti, which
33 This type of urban monograph connects to more recent work incorporating digital
humanities methods to map big data on the city, such as the work being carried out in
Kadir Has University’s Istanbul Studies Center.
34 See, for example, Cengiz Orhonlu’s work on the neigborhood of Fındıklı (1956), Mehmet
Halit Bayrı’s works on Istanbul folklore and popular literature (1934, 1947, 1951), and
Mustafa Cezar’s work on fires and natural disasters (1963).
35 Such as Asaf Halet Çelebi’s Divan Şiirinde İstanbul (Istanbul in Divan Poetry), or Hrand
Der Andreasyan’s translations from Armenian and annotated editions of Eremya Çelebi
Kömürciyan’s and P.G. İnciciyan’s city chronicles.
36 Institutional periodicals featuring archival work include İstanbul Üniversitesi İktisat
Fakültesi Mecmuası (1939–1988?), Tarih Vesikaları (1941–), and Vakıflar Dergisi (1956–).
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published, among a host of architectural surveys, one of the earliest compre-

hensive sources on the history of the early modern city—the waqf survey of
1546.37 A personal initiative (with no institutional support) and exceptional in
its expanse was the İstanbul Ansiklopedisi (Encyclopedia of Istanbul, 1944–51,
1958–73) published and co-authored by Reşat Ekrem Koçu: a veritable urban
history, remarkable (and unique) for the all-encompassing gaze it turned on
the city’s past and present, and its attention to daily life, ordinary urbanites,
and to the city’s natural environments. Unfinished, admired and disparaged in
equal degree, İstanbul Ansiklopedisi was a model for later encyclopedic proj-
ects, including the Dünden Bugüne İstanbul Ansiklopedisi (Encyclopedia of
Istanbul Past and Present, 1993), published by the Foundation of Economic
and Social History.38
In many ways, Halil İnalcık’s full-scale “Istanbul” entry (1973) in the
Encyclopaedia of Islam’s second edition represents a culmination and synthe-
sis of early research and publications. A comprehensive and multifaceted his-
tory of the city, it throws a keen eye on urban institutions, organization, and
physical development, and is buttressed by his own expansive work on archi-
val and narrative sources. Completed about a decade earlier, Robert Mantran’s
Istanbul dans la deuxième moitié du XVIIe siècle. Essai d’histoire institutionnelle,
économique et sociale (1962), is probably the earliest instance when the archival
material first presented by Ergin, Refik, Barkan and others, supplemented by
Mantran’s own research in Ottoman and European archives and libraries, was
deployed for a total economic and social history of the city. This two-volume
study, shortly followed by another on daily life in 16th-century Istanbul, reveals
the impact of two separate strands of scholarship: namely, the annales, and
particularly Braudelian notions of total history, and Barkan’s heavily archive-
based economic history.39 This was a significant turning point: Mantran’s work
(although little acknowledged, as Eldem observes) heralded the new urban
histories of the region at large that would be produced during the final decades
of the 20th century. Most notable was André Raymond’s 1973–74 seminal study,
Artisans et commerçants au Caire au XVIIIe siècle, a two-volume urban history
37 Worth noting are Ekrem Hakkı Ayverdi’s architectural surveys and the waqf survey he
co-edited with Ömer Lutfi Barkan, and the 2004 publication of another city-wide waqf
survey (dated 1600), edited by Mehmet Canatar.
38 Koçu et al., İstanbul Ansiklopedisi; Dünden Bugüne İstanbul Ansiklopedisi; and Antik
Çağ’dan XXI. Yüzyıla. The ten-volume Büyük İstanbul Tarihi, 2015, a thematically orga-
nized collection of essays reflecting recent scholarship, may be connected to this earlier
strand of encyclopedic, multi-authorial enterprises.
39 La vie quotidienne à Constantinople (1965). Eldem, “Un tournant historiographique”,
365–70.
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and geography of the economic activities of Cairene merchants and artisans

based on a colossal quantitative study of material drawn from court documents,
which initiated a spate of major publications on the social and economic his-
tories of various Ottoman cities between the 16th and 18th centuries.40
Looking back at the transformation of the field of pre-19th-century Ottoman
urban history during these decades, it is easy to identify three developments
that would leave a strong mark throughout the 1990s and 2000s. The first has
been the discovery of the richness of the Ottoman archives and the intensive
mining of court records, in particular, spearheaded by Raymond, Abdul-Karim
Rafeq (in his work on Damascus), and Ronald Jennings (in studies of Anatolian
towns) in the 1970s. The second was the beginning of scholarly responses to
the Orientalist scholarship on pre-modern Ottoman cities and, specifically,
to the notion of decline in Arab cities after their conquest by the Ottomans;
noteworthy in this respect were André Raymond’s publication of a conference
series at New York University, in 1984, expanded a year later in his Grandes
villes arabes à l’époque ottomane; Janet Abu-Lughod’s now classic essay, “The
Islamic City: Historic Myth, Islamic Essence, and Contemporary Relevance”,
in 1987; and two monographs on Aleppo that came out a few months apart by
Bruce Masters and Abraham Marcus respectively.41
The third turning point concerns the new attentiveness to space that char-
acterized the work of a few historians across disciplines: Ergenç, Marcus,
Raymond, and İnalcık (in his EI2 essay). Although differing in their aims and
approaches, these authors attributed to urban space an integral role in their
analyses of institutions, governance, organization, economy, and in the case
of Marcus, urban life and experience. They also took account of urban space
as an object in its own right that undergirded the city’s material fabric, its
quarters, neighborhoods, and architectures. The tighter melding of social or
socioeconomic and spatial histories was to become a hallmark of many stud-
ies, including Maurice Cerasi’s La città del Levante: Civiltà urbana e architet-
tura sotto gli Ottomani nei secoli XVIII–XIX (1988); Doğan Kuban’s Istanbul:
An Urban History, the first monograph on the city to appear after a gap of
over twenty years since the publication of Müller-Wiener’s Bildlexikon; and
40 They included Özer Ergenç’s work on Konya and Ankara; Suraiya Faroqhi’s Towns and
Townsmen of Ottoman Anatolia: Trade, Crafts, and Food Production in an Urban Setting,
1520–1650, in 1985; Daniel Goffman’s Izmir and the Levantine World, 1550–1650, in 1986;
and translations of Nikolai Todorov’s The Balkan City: 1400–1900 (originally published in
Bulgarian, in 1972) into Russian (1976), French (1977), and English (1983).
41 Masters, The Origins of Western Economic Dominance in the Middle East: Mercantilism and
the Islamic Economy in Aleppo, 1600–1750, published in 1988, and Marcus, The Middle East
on the Eve of Modernity: Aleppo in the Eighteenth Century, published in 1989.
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The Ottoman City and its Parts: Urban structure and Social Order, edited by
Rifaat Abou-el-Haj, Irene Bierman, and Donald Preziosi in 1991.
If Kuban’s Istanbul prefaced a return to the Ottoman capital, with a major
flurry of studies coming out from the 1990s onward, what has mostly char-
acterized the last twenty years of scholarship on Istanbul is in reality a
shift from the kind of broad urban history Kuban offers to source-intensive
studies focused on specific aspects of the city’s society, economy, culture,
architectures, and cultures. Along with more and more forays into archival
sources that zoom in on ordinary and daily matters of family, neighborhood,
and occupational lives, the range of primary sources has also expanded to
more firmly embrace understudied categories such as urbanites’ accounts
of Istanbul, first-person narratives brought to light already in the 1970s and
1980s and whose import to matters of urban life had long been underscored,
as well as literary texts and poetry spanning across genres. Visual culture too
has been more constructively considered as a lens into facets of the city’s
history not always visible in written sources, a trend that likewise reflects the
gradually receding barriers between different areas and specializations of his-
torical inquiry.42
Concomitant with the increasing adoption of new or scarcely used historical
sources was an emerging interest in conceptual tools, approaches, and theories
prevalent or emerging in other disciplines (particularly in critical theory, soci-
ology, anthropology, and literature, and in continental post-structuralist phi-
losophy from the 1960s and early 1970s that had recently appeared in English
translation). Stronger engagement with historiographical trends, turns, and
reorientations in Europe, South Asia, and the U.S. (from popular culture and
microhistory to material culture, gender history, history of cultural practices,
history of social networks, history of the senses, history of private lives, sub-
altern studies, and, more recently, environmental history and historical geog-
raphy) is a further dimension of urban historiography in these decades. New
topics and concerns have arisen partly from these engagements and partly from
wider access to, discovery, and revisiting of sources. Studies in consumption,
rituals and performances, daily piety, family dynamics, cultural reception and
42 It is important to note that all this has been facilitated by the opening and improved cata-
loguing of the local archives and the continuing efforts by historians, editors, and transla-
tors to make manuscripts, archival documents, and visual sources more accessible across
language barriers. Noteworthy also is the contribution of local research centers, such
as the Istanbul Research Institute and Kadir Has University’s Istanbul Research Center,
as well as the contribution of publishing presses like Türk Tarih Kurumu and Istanbul’s
Municipality and the commitment by more recent ones like İstos and Aras to the transla-
tion of Greek and Armenian historical texts, respectively, into Turkish.
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representation, communal identity and agency, social and political networks,

working patterns and organization, non-elite groups, or cultural practices such
as reading, patronage, and dress have provided a whole set of vantage points
from which to observe Istanbul.43
If these new areas of focus were symptomatic of a (contentious) cultural
turn, they also helped orient attention in earnest to the question of early
modernity.44 Attempts to map out an Ottoman early modernity pointed to syn-
chronic developments in Istanbul and other major cities of the empire; and the
exploration of circuits of information and channels of cultural exchange with
other regions, including Italy, Iran, and India brought new thought-provoking
global elements ripe for further investigation in such disciplines as literary,
art, diplomatic, and religious history. The political history of Istanbul began to
embrace a more comprehensive view of governance that accounts for active
interrelations between the palace, the military, the religio-legal elite, and
various segments of society. With more attention given to non-state political
actors, earlier preoccupations with the court began to be slowly outweighed
by concern with the agency of less visible groups and their connections with
elites, institutions, and broad urban structures. Generally, as interconnections
and networks among subjects and between subjects and elements of the rul-
ing class became more evident, and issues of identity and agency more inter-
twined, the affairs of groups that had remained less conspicuous in earlier
studies—women, Christian, Jewish, Morisco and other, smaller confessional
minorities; foreign residents and migrants—were brought into the historical
fold. In so doing, more attention was also given to spaces of communal interac-
tion such as coffeehouses, bathhouses, inns, and gardens, redefining the role of
space as a potential producer of new forms of social interaction and habits of
consumption, and of cultural models and political discourse.
43 This is not the place to offer an exhaustive list of the scholarship that participated in these
developments. It includes many contributors to this volume and a large body of work by
Engin Akarlı, Tülay Artan, Maurice Cerasi, Eric Dursteler, Nina Ergin, Namık Erkal, İsmail
Erünsal, Soo Yong Kim, Tijana Krstić, Minna Rozen, Kaya Şahin, Stephane Yerasimos,
Eunyeong Yi, Fariba Zarinebaf, Madeline Zilfi, among others. For partial surveys of
recent trends and scholarship in Ottoman history more generally, see Aksan, “What’s Up
in Ottoman Studies”; Mikhail & Philliou, “The Ottoman Empire and the Imperial Turn”;
Peirce, “Changing Perceptions of the Ottoman Empire”.
44 Aksan & Goffman (eds.), Early Modern Ottomans: Remapping the Empire, published in
2007, is an early representative of these efforts.
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Surprisingly, there has been no comprehensive compilation devoted to early

modern Istanbul as of yet that reflects the wealth of this revisionist scholar-
ship. This book is an effort to bring together these various strands of current
research and represents a collective effort to embrace manifold and multi-
disciplinary perspectives on the city through new subjects and questions
alongside fresh perspectives on older debates. It also hopes to offer a broader
horizon of early modern urbanity as viewed through an Istanbulite lens,
attentive to the local and specific alongside the global. Its underlying spatial
emphasis seeks to ensure a layered and pluri-dimensional exploration of the
continuously changing interactions between urban space—man-made and
natural—and human action that have shaped Istanbul’s history.
The book’s structure and rubrics reflect our desire to bring together topics
and questions that are not often treated together and can offer crisscrossing,
sometimes tangled layers of connections between the socioeconomic, cultural,
spatial, and visual dimensions of urban life. Environmental dynamics are thus
presented as constitutive of histories of urban agriculture, neighborhood liv-
ing, and architectural practices; the different religious and ethnic communities
that made up Istanbul’s population are not dedicated discrete chapters, but
are brought into discussions of neighborhood lives, trade and urban economy,
intercommunal cohabitation and conflict, and spatial dynamics, as the city’s
ethnic, religious, and linguistic plurality unfolded in ordinary and extraordi-
nary times.
The opening essay lays out the natural, geographic, temporal, human, and
spiritual landscapes of early modern Istanbul; it reflects on the poetics of place
and explores the making of a new urban society and its public lives. Our first
rubric, “Istanbulites of Court and City”, puts the spotlight on the city’s inhabit-
ants. Ordinary citizens and elites are foregrounded as participants in the urban
process and principal actors in aspects of urban experiences across social
classes, ranks, gender, and community belongings. The rubric suggests the
necessity to acknowledge the increasingly fuzzy contours of the political elite
and different features of elite formation, as well as to consider the intermeshed
spheres of courtly and urban cultures and visual and spatial engagements
that articulated different modes of urban presence. “Spaces of Thought and
Imagination” likewise takes its cue from the very transformations that charac-
terized early modern Istanbul, playing up fluctuation and fluidity. It addresses
issues of the production and consumption of literature and music, scientific
thought and practice, and political writing, highlighting the complexity of the
networks (social, intellectual, professional) in which authors and audiences
were engaged.
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Contributors to the rubrics “Everyday Lives and Spaces of Habitation”,

“Spaces and Landscapes of Production”, and “Streets and Publics” render the
agency and voices of ordinary people and of a range of elites palpable across
different realms of urban life. They track them down in the spaces of the city (its
marketplaces, construction sites, market gardens, places of leisure and socia-
bility, places of devotion, neighborhoods, and homes). Whether in response
to political and economic reconfigurations or to architectural interventions,
or in their roles as leisure seekers or as participants in political action, their
voices are heard most clearly in the city’s public spaces, underlining once more
a global dimension of early modernity.
Since the days Fernand Braudel called it “an urban monster”, the imperial
capital has been understood less as a producer and more as a consumer that
devoured all resources of the empire, and all things mundane and splendid.
Turning to Istanbul’s economy and to the ecological and structural traits that
influenced urban life, “Spaces and Landscapes of Production” reconsiders the
spatial and material dimensions of the urban economy and infrastructure; it
explores the vitality of production, through artisanal and agricultural mecha-
nisms and participants, within the urban core and its immediate hinterland,
while also engaging with the city’s global mercantile connections and the
internal networks that connected interregional trade to urban institutions
and groups.
Any effort to address a topic of this scope within a single volume requires
that thematic choices be made. While comprehensive, Early Modern Istanbul
is not exhaustive. Underdeveloped areas of inquiry in Istanbul studies (nota-
bly, shifts in juristic notions of city and urbanity, and in legal practices) and
recent breakthroughs in others (like the literary and intellectual production
of linguistic communities other than the Turkish-speaking; foreign communi-
ties and professional groups; and diplomacy and military thought and praxis)
could not be included in this book.
Variations in the time spans different chapters examine highlight issues
of temporality and synchronicity within a period of nearly four centuries.
Few chapters address the complete time span that brackets the volume, the
later 15th to the early 19th century. Rather, attentive to changes, ruptures,
discontinuities, and the emergence of novel phenomena during particular
stretches within this period, each contributor follows specific dynamics to
engage directly with questions posed from within the early modern frame-
work; together they underscore the fluctuating weight of different issues and
shifting visibility of actors in the course of these centuries. The volume, then,
offers early modernity as a temporal space within which authors identify areas
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where change occurred and particular conjunctures in which new configu-

rations emerged: the making of a patrimonial centralizing state and, begin-
ning in the later 16th century, its structural transformations, which altered
the relationships between ruler and urbanite in substantial ways; the many
phases of demographic change, each with its own repercussions in urban
economy and politics; shifts in religious culture and politics, with state and
society participating in different ways at various junctures; the making of
urban collectivities (among them guilds, neighborhoods, and sufi communi-
ties and networks); the emergence of novel mechanisms of production, capi-
tal accumulation, and property ownership; the maturation of practices and
spaces predicated on habits brought about by new urban social formations;
the growing visibility of non-religious cultural forms and spaces; the shifts in
relationships among the multi-lingual, multi-ethnic, multi-confessional body
of Istanbulites, and in the ways the ruling apparatus envisioned and admin-
istered these relationships, in leaps and bounds from the later 16th century
onwards. To visualize this complex and layered web of historical processes in
the city and in the world, we may turn again to Joseph Fletcher and evoke his
vivid metaphor for an integrated early modernity: a needlepoint, with its warp
of distinct fibers (“vertical”, place-bound continuities), its weft of translucent
strings (“horizontal continuities” / “parallelisms”), and the brightly colored
threads that created its patterns (“global interconnections”).45 Here, Istanbul
is one (particularly varicolored) patch, a spot where the unique historical con-
tinuities it housed intersected with shared rhythms across parts of the globe
to tint the fabric in particular ways, and where numerous threads connecting
to other spots complicated and enlivened the pattern, introducing new color
and shape to it.
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Chapter 2
The City Opens Your Eyes Because It Wants

to Be Seen
The Conspicuity and Lure of Early Modern Istanbul
Cemal Kafadar
… what do I get? A one-way ticket to Palookaville…. I coulda had

class. I coulda been a contender. I coulda been somebody, instead
of a bum, which is what I am …1
…
Forget about that boor as much as he presumes urbanity
Merely abandoned his land in Ploughville and came to the City2
∵
This essay is written at a moment when the City, the city, Poli, is facing unprec-
edented challenges to its integrity and dignity, to its unique geography that
has proven hospitable and responsive for millennia in multiple ways to the
cultivation of civilized modes of living in relative harmony with it. It may be
considered a curse, or divine justice perhaps, that a city which has for centu-
ries represented to millions of people the universal experience of urbanity and
been invoked as the ideal site of world power by numerous fanciful minds now
embodies the global plague of megaprojects on a mythical scale.
The lurid story of a tyrant who imagined a channel to link the two seas
in competition with the Bosphorus was evidently once woven into premod-
ern urban legends and needs to be remembered today. Told in Evliya Çelebi’s
1 Lines by Budd Schulberg, delivered by Marlon Brando in On the Waterfront, dir. Elia Kazan,
1954.
2 Terket o Türk’ü k’itse teşehhür ne deñli kim / Çifti komış Sitanbul’a gelmiṣ Sapanca’dan. Sururi,
1752–1814(?), cited in Onay, Mazmunlar, 420. Teşehhür (urbanity) could also be translated as
“fame, being somebody”.

26 Kafadar
inimitable style, imbued with humor and a sense of wonder even in an account
of a nightmare, it is a tale of hubris, defiance of divine decree, and ultimate
failure and devastation. Yanko bin Madyan, one of the two evil rulers of all
time who brought defilement to the world, equaled only by Nebuchadnezzar,
wanted to dig his own channel even though he knew that God had decreed
that Alexander of Two Horns, one of the two good rulers of all time, would
come along a millennium or so after Yanko and dig it exactly where it is now.
Yanko’s channel never materialized, but the one built by Alexander did.3
One of the lessons seems to be that Istanbul is a divinely ordained “miracle
of a place”, so to speak. And this has as much to do with the soil, the stone, the
green, the blue, the flora and fauna, as it does with urbanites and streets and
shops and residences and monuments. Something changed dramatically dur-
ing the modern industrial era whereby the urban experience, not only its pres-
ent but also its past, was reimagined with a distinct hierarchy that prioritized
the built environment as the most, if not the only, meaningful setting of city
life. As the Capitalocene evolved and intensified, the natural environment of
cities was increasingly reduced to being considered as a bundle of resources
and plots of land to be used for development or decorative background. The
soil- and working-animal-based past of cities could be conceived of as a once-
necessary compromise from urbanity due to circumstances of pre-modernity,
un-development, and underdevelopment. Protecting and preserving monu-
ments “in the city” is certainly a good thing, or, at the least, one has to say so
while destroying them. Concerns about the integrity of the urban fabric might
be accommodated to some degree if only to appease “romantic” activists, but
one need not respect the fact that the urban fabric is what it is because of
its engagement with the land and the water. The eradication of “unhygienic”
urban agriculture and working animals, of “intrusive” streams and brooks,
was simply inevitable. Backward technologies of medievality did not allow for
urbanity to go full bloom, but now our cities can be denuded of rotting fruits,
shitting animals, and sweaty laborers sharing the city space—not only in fact
but also, to a large degree, in historical imagination.
In much of 20th-century scholarship, when academic production grew
by leaps and bounds, usually in tandem with national/world heritage policy-
making across the globe, the city is noted for its glorious harbors, international
trade, and architecture, and all of that for good reason, but it is hardly ever
noted for its agriculture and its husbandry until recently. The fish are still
3 Evliya Çelebi, Seyāḥatnāme, ed. Kahraman, vol. 1, book 1, fols. 8v–11v, and vol. 4, book 7,
fols. 96v–98r; and Evliya Çelebi Seyahatnâmesi, vol. 1, ed. Dankoff, Kahraman, Dağlı, 14–19,
and ibid., vol. 7, ed. Dankoff, Dağlı, Kahraman, 162–64.
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The City Opens Your Eyes Because It Wants to Be Seen 27
impossible to avoid, but the city was also once famous for its versatile and deli-
cious produce as well as dairy products and “exceptional fat”. If and when basic
foodstuffs and delicacies are mentioned, it is with respect to the city as a glut-
tonous consumer, a devourer of stuff coming from all over the empire and the
world. The age of global trade and capital has made an icon of the Silk Road, a
potent symbol of intercontinental connectedness as a backdrop to commercial
and industrial capitalism. The corollary of this iconization has been a down-
grading, if not utter neglect, of agriculture and animal husbandry as lesser
activities in the grand, universal adventure toward modernity in a hierarchical
path moving upward from rural/agrarian to urban/non-agrarian.
But the Milk Road, too, converges in Istanbul, with Eyüp and its Thracian
hinterland on the European side and Üsküdar and extensions on the Asian side.
The rich and fertile area around the city, the “rural hinterland”, was very much
a regular part of the broader urban experience, not to mention the hundreds
of orchards and gardens within the walls. An awareness of this is palpable in
all that is written in the early modern era, and continues strongly with some
authors into the mid-20th century, all the way to the İstanbul Ansiklopedisi
of Reşad Ekrem Koçu and associates, with brilliant examples along the way
like Evliya Çelebi in the mid-17th century and Vyzantios Skarlatos in the mid-
19th century.4
…
There is nothing about the geographic features of the site of Istanbul, and their
advantages and potentialities, that would self-evidently explain the historical
experience of communities.5 The northern forest belt (lately much reduced),
or the ayazmas (holy springs, numbering more than five hundred once, only
a few known today), the specific flora and fauna of Istanbul (its biodiversity
severely challenged), even the “eternal” circulations of the fish through the
Bosphorus (currently facing the big unknown of a projected “alternative chan-
nel” à la Yanko) took the forms they took, not to mention their meanings,
4 Skarlatos et al., Constantinople, 72 ff: “No other place can boast to be so faithfully represented
by the symbol Cornucopia as Constantinople”, he writes and moves quickly from commerce
and manufacture to “the natural wealth of the place”, which “wiser hands” may have done
better with. He then recounts in detail “dairy products of exceptional fat that even Europe
does not have access to”, vineyards, vegetables, fruit trees and non-fruit-bearing ones, wild
and garden flora, and the bounties of the sea. Even palace gardens were used for marketable
produce, much to the disapproval of some European observers, and the yield was transferred
to the sultan’s purse; Necipoğlu, Architecture, Ceremonial, and Power, 203.
5 The point is made and demonstrated in Russell, Byzantium and the Bosporus.
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28 Kafadar
through interaction with human and other animal communities, and this hap-
pened so gradually and incrementally that it would be ludicrous to speak of a
big bang, or of a foundation, except for individual monuments. Steeped in a
premodern tradition of historical lore and wisdom, with its prescientific but
reflective and insightful conceptualization of a deep history of the city, Evliya
provides nine different foundational moments in mythico-chronological order
before he gets to “historical time” as we prefer to think of it.
Even the seemingly whimsical alternations of the august diarchy of poyraz
(from Greek Boréas) and lodos (Nótos), the northerly and southerly winds,
which could be considered as dominant as the seasons in calibrating the
clime, or modulating the tone, the mood, and the rhythm of the everyday in
the city, have been accommodated, enjoyed, resisted, suffered, manipulated to
different ends, and not allowed to reign over the life of the city on their own
terms. Notwithstanding the need to avoid geographic determinism, a renewed
focus on geography and spatiality should enable us to stretch and relax the
neatly apportioned temporality of two-empires-and-a-republic that currently
shapes the historiography of the city at the expense of longer projects that also
transverse historiographical lines. More specifically, the cordial but relatively
sharp and turf-conscious division of labor between Byzantine/Hellenic and
Ottoman/Turkish studies has occluded, or at least discouraged, explorations
of deep continuities of practice and lore, of engagements with and meanings
assigned to the physical and human geography.6
Istanbul was at the center of Ottoman interests long before 1453, and not only
because of the renown, the prestige, the legendary status, the lore about “the
golden apple”, the oft-cited hadith, and tales of earlier sieges by Muslim armies,
as prodigious as these were in firing the ambitions of would-be and actual con-
querors. Not even the magnificent site of the city, in and of itself, could explain
the incessant drive of generations of Ottomans to encircle and capture the
Byzantine capital. In other words, what guided them was not a single-minded
infatuation with Constantinople as such, but a critical appreciation of the fact
that its conquest would complete control over the whole Marmara basin and
the two channels, the Dardanelles as well as the Bosphorus. The overarching
unity of that geography in need of a base, or a capital city, for total control
was recognized also in legends about two ancient cities south of the Marmara
Sea—Cyzicus and Alexandria Troas, literally known as Eski İstanbulluk (the
former site for Istanbul, the would-be Istanbul) among Turkish-speakers—that
6 Fortunately, the monuments have not suffered from this to the same degree, but even their
study is impoverished if one neglects the long life of legends and tales, as shown brilliantly
by Yerasimos, La fondation de Constantinople.
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allegedly were proposed for precisely that role but eventually faded away when
Constantinople was ultimately noted as the obvious winner.
As announced on Mehmed II’s (r. 1444–46, 1451–81) inscription at the gate of
the new palace he built at the tip of the promontory, Constantinople allowed
his rule to extend over “the two lands and the two seas”.7 The sultan’s egalitarian
approach to land and sea cautions historians to balance prevalent land-centric
conceptualizations with an equally relevant thalasso-mindedness. The city, in
other words, could be seen as one felicitous “island” in an archipelago spread
over and along a navigable, defensible, and productive network of waterways
connecting the Black Sea and the Mediterranean, in addition to its obvious ter-
ritorial position between Europe and Asia.8
…
The longue durée perspective is much needed not only for its own sake but
also for a proper appreciation of the big ruptures. For our purposes, the break
between a late medieval and early modern Constantinople/Istanbul is quint-
essential. Much of what follows in this essay is an attempt to come to terms
with the unavoidable sense that in the long 16th century something happens to
Istanbul, if not cities and to urban life in general, that we need to reckon with.
More narrowly, my focus is not on the physical transformation of the city as
such, but on the historical processes and milestones whereby it was endowed
with a larger-than-life reputation and magnetic power to lure, to nurture, and
to waste millions of lives.
1 A New Urban Society and the Rise of Istanbul’s Magnetic Power
Around 1606, a “Code of the Janissaries” was compiled by an elderly member

of the janissary corps in order to reform the military body by re-instituting its
original rules and regulations. The reforms were badly needed, he insisted, in
the face of an erosion of discipline and of signs of corruption due to the inclu-
sion of lads who would not have been recruited if the original code had been
maintained. One should certainly exclude those who have even just “visited
Istanbul and returned to their province because their eyes will open and they
7 Necipoğlu, Architecture, Ceremonial, and Power, 34.

8 Ilyas Arabi’s 16th-century Risāle-yi Istanbul (ed. Yıldız, 122) mentions a legend about
Istanbul’s deep past as an island. On imperial rituals articulating the nexus of land-and-sea,
see Necipoğlu, “Dynastic Imprints”.
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30 Kafadar
will be shameless”.9 When did this attribution of a quasi-miraculous transfor-

mative power to Istanbul turn into a truism for the author and his audience?
The city was not even in Ottoman hands when the janissary corps was created
during the 14th century.
Sometime during the course of the 16th century, roughly speaking, the city
acquired the aura of being larger than any other place, if not larger than life
itself: demographically, politically, architecturally, urbanistically, commer-
cially, and in terms of its economy. The aura came in the wake of phenomenal
growth and a profound physical transformation, which culminated in the half-
century of Sinan’s career as chief architect (1539–88), who “sculpted” a spectac-
ular cityscape into its celebrated shape, as well as the early but robust growth
of public spaces and sites of excursion, selected or designed with an eye to
catching vistas. It was now, at least in the eyes of its beholders, also larger
and more urban than anything else in terms of those intangibles that defined
urban life: style, aura, iconic status, prestige of address, that something that
announced to the world, “if you have not been there and been transformed
you cannot but be provincial or rustic”, “if you live there you would not want
to live anywhere else”, “there is no other Istanbul”, and so on and so forth. As it
evolved after the conquest, its iconic status manifested itself in a literal sense
as well, since it eventually turned into a recognizable and revered literary or
visual representation.
There were surely places like Aleppo, Cairo, Damascus, Salonica, which one
would be foolish to consider provincial. They need to be recognized as having
their own considerable orbits and aura and style, with their architectural, sar-
torial, culinary, literary zones of influence, with their own magnetism to draw
migrants, to adorn and to waste lives, and with their economic role. For much
of the medieval and early modern era, however, Constantinople/Istanbul radi-
ated to a larger zone of influence than any contender. For the lands of Rum,
at least, it reigned supreme for nearly two millennia, except for intervals of
prolonged political instability or insecurity. International travel, too, favored
the city for its own reasons, commercial and political.
Being there did not immediately and necessarily make one an urbanite, let
alone an Istanbulite, but being there mattered. Even having been there mat-
tered, as noted by the author of the janissary code. It gave one a chance to
acquire fama of a higher sort, to make something with oneself, to be some-
body; one may fail, but that, too, would “open one’s eyes”. Setting the standard
for a culturally productive lexicon and grammar of a rich range of types, from
hip to bore, dandy to boor, an Istanbul style/dialect/accent/way/swagger (ṭarz,
9 Ḳavānīn-i Yeñiçeriyān, 9a.
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şīve, racon …) had to be reestablished after 1453 in an Ottoman inflection in

several registers by and for different social layers and circumstances, just as
the city and its architecture had to be reinvented in new guises and idioms.10
It is also during the course of the 16th century that Ottoman literature reflects
growing awareness of the rise and eventual prominence of Istanbul, paralleled
by profound change in social life, institutions, and mores. The earliest prose
depiction of the Ottoman capital was composed by Latifi of Kastamonu (1491–
1582), who left his hometown “rollin’ and tumblin’” (ṭura düşe) for Istanbul in
1522/23 because it was reputed to be the gathering place of the talented and the
learned, a place where they might expect to be rewarded. His Evṣāf-ı İstanbul
(Descriptions of Istanbul), even in its first recension (1524?), moves beyond
description and works as an allegory since the city is already not just what it is
but also what it represents in the larger scheme of things. To Latifi, some of its
places embodied certain aspects of human nature so profoundly as to be par-
adigmatic. One is swept, for instance, by “Desire’s Galata” and “Temptation’s
Tahtakale”, referring to two areas noted for taverns and debauchery in the first
instance, and drugs and popular entertainments in the second. There seems to
have been multiple later recensions until the one in 1574, half a century later
than the original composition. In it, the places that are worthy of a chapter
multiply and receive longer treatments, including those associated with piety
like Eyüp. The older Latifi also digs far more deeply into Istanbul as a paradigm
of vice and virtue, as if it were Gotham and Jerusalem at once, and presents it
as a city that offers a kaleidoscope of a moral geography, laid out with secular
indulgences and pious modesties.11
The rapidly expanding and evolving social life of cities in the 16th century
invited attempts to understand and manage, at the level of individuals or insti-
tutions, the dynamism and transformation that came with it. The transfor-
mation seems to have given some confusion to Murad III (r. 1574–95), whose
10 On the architectural, urban, social, and political transformation of Constantinople during

the crucial half-century after the Ottoman conquest, see Kafescioğlu, Constantinopolis/
Istanbul.
11 Latifi was evidently the kind of author who keeps revising even if it takes decades, or even
a lifetime. Around 1574, he was again working on a late recension of his Biographies of
the Poets of Rum, which he had originally composed in the 1540s. Andrews & Dalyan, “İki
farklı Latifi tezkiresi”. As for Descriptions, the early recension is represented in BnF, ms
turc 131; the citation is on fol. 22r. For an edition that needs to be updated, see Latifi, Evsâf-ı
İstanbul, ed. Suner (Pekin). The binary of a city of sin versus piety is about the qualities
of the lived city and does not replicate the popular eschatological juxtaposition between
the city whose blessed conquest was prophesied by Muhammad, the Prophet, versus the
inauspicious city whose conquest would signal an apocalyptic turn. On that binary, see
Emecen, “Muhteşem Kent” and his response to critics, “Meş’um ve Mev’ud”.
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32 Kafadar
questions regarding the social life of his subjects led vizier Doğancı Mehmed
Pasha to invite Mustafa Âli (1541–1600) in 1586/87 to write a book on proper
conduct in the light of shifting means and modes of sociability. The author’s
introduction tells us that the sultan specifically asked if “the people of our
times engage in convivial gatherings like the ‘gezek parties’ of olden times”.
Having complied with that commission expeditiously, Âli writes, he decided
to expand with a second edition when he was scandalized by the ill manners
among the populace during his travels in 1599.12
The rich and sprawling oeuvre of Mustafa Âli amounts to a portrayal of the
Ottoman order during his life as having reached a majestic peak, almost the
summit of Islamic and world history, and the beginning of its decline.13 This
was tantamount to a social upheaval that brought disorder to the Ottoman
world in his perspective, which was highly influential for coming generations.
Wherever he turned, he saw the rise of upstarts and the undeserving whose
fortune brought misfortune to the Ottoman order in his eyes. Untalented poets
and scribes captured top positions; manavs (fruit and vegetable growers) who
came from the countryside started wearing atlas and satin; simple people filled
coffeehouses where they engaged in ostentatious hospitality (“it’s on me”) for
a penny or two.
A quintessential institution of the new city life, the coffeehouse was intro-
duced in numerous cities in the eastern Mediterranean within a few decades
of each other. Public spaces dedicated to the consumption of coffee as a social
beverage, whatever the typological differences among them, appeared in Cairo,
Damascus, Istanbul, Rosetta, Salonica, Sarajevo, and many other towns.14 The
first ones in Istanbul were reputed to have been opened in the 1550s by two
coffee merchants from Syria who brilliantly selected Tahtakale (Taḥt al-ḳalʿa)
as the most appropriate venue to lure and tempt, as if they had read Latifi.15
These early records of coffeehouses would have been no more than curious
bits of information about a novelty if the institution did not quickly grow in
popularity and capture much of the social universe of adult males, not to men-
tion the deep inroads made by coffee consumption into modes of sociability in
households, sufi lodges, and other private and public spaces. In fact, both the
coffee habit and coffeehouses did not just appear but also reappeared quickly
12 Mustafa Âli, Mevā’idü’n-nefā’is, ed. Şeker, 62–63.

13 Fleischer, Bureaucrat and Intellectual.
14 For some different cities, see the articles by Hanna, Ismaʿil, and Kawakoto in Tuchscherer
(ed.), Le commerce du café.
15 Kafadar, “How Dark”.
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after the inevitable but often short-lived prohibitions, demonstrating a robust

welcome by the public and a tenacious staying power.
Who were these “urbanites”, whose social life and needs, aspirations and
pretensions, constituted the fertile ground on which coffeehouses flourished?
Some of the distinct social types of early modern cities in the lands of Rum
(çelebi, beşe, ḫātūn, levend, ʿāşıḳ, agha, el-ḥājj, for instance) would not have
been recognizable in the earlier centuries, even if some this vocabulary is
much older. At the same time, certain social types and designations (aḫī, bula,
balı, ġāzī, abdāl, and others) were losing their visibility and prominence, even
if they did not become extinct.
The vocabulary associated with the new urban setting was not always newly
coined, but their designations evolved and some of them underwent dramatic
transformations. Çelebi, for instance, from the Turkic Çalab (God, Lord), was
used only for the male scions of top elite families (descendants of Celaleddin
Rumi, for instance, or the House of Osman, the Fenarizades, and the like) in
the 14th and 15th centuries. By the 1400s it had started to trickle down to those
in scribal careers and eventually to numerous (again, male) representatives of
middle classes associated with urbane qualities, cultivation, refinement, and
distinguished skills of literacy/numeracy and learning (but not necessarily
associated with the madrasa or religious sciences).
One would need to follow the trajectories of kindred vocabulary in differ-
ent social environments, in the different languages of Ottoman society, and
bring them into a fuller analysis of the urban setting. What happened to Greek
kyritzes (young lord), for example, which was adopted as kiriçi/kirişçi among
Turkish speakers in some instances in the 15th century, or amalgamations like
despina hatun or kira kadın (each phrase constituted by a Greek and a Turkish
word for lady)? When did bacı (sister) expand its range to include slave and
ex-slave women of African background? I am unable to answer such questions
at this point. Nonetheless, it is obvious that the desirability of characteristics
associated with being a çelebi was infectious. In the 17th and 18th centuries, it
was not uncommon for Christians and Jews to adopt the title with some pride
and to be known by it with some esteem and social capital.
The çelebis of these different backgrounds wedged open some secular space
in the new social order where their mutually conversant intellectual, scientific,
and cultural pursuits found themselves a respectable place in a world of learn-
ing that was otherwise dominated by the graduates of religious institutions
and sciences. The pursuits of a çelebi tended to be more secular in general,
with a focus on sciences like geography and on literary genres like novellas of
the everyday. One may see a parallel here to the supraconfessional usta which
was becoming the standard term to refer to masters of crafts and trades while
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34 Kafadar
aḫī, associated with an Islamic institutional and discursive tradition, and still
significant to some degree, lost its everyday currency.16
Would it be useful to think of the constellation of these social strata in early
modern Istanbul and other cities as a “bourgeoisie”?17 This is partly a ques-
tion about the history of modernity, early or otherwise, and lies outside our
framework here. There is no doubt, however, that urban society had an aware-
ness of a distinct social formation with an exact counterpart of that word, at
least in a generic sense: şehirli or şehrī (from şehir, city), with subcategories like
şehir oğlanı (city boy), or beledī (from beled, city) in administrative discourse,
certainly implies a recognition of a “civil” layer of urban society, namely of
social classes that were not associated directly or necessarily with the imperial
household or with the ʿaskerī class.
Speaking of the early modern city and its bourgeoisie, the question of
capitalism inevitably arises. While capitalism was the topic of serious debate
among Ottomanists in the Cold War context, it was eventually marginalized,
but now it seems well worth reintroducing with new approaches. The teleo-
logical and maximalist use of the category of capitalism as it was debated has
occluded, for Ottoman historiography at least, practices that did not amount
to a transition and transformation of the western European sort, but should be
understood as capitalistic practices in their own right.18
During the course of the 16th century, the city folk of Istanbul, a complex
social formation including mercantile capitalists ranging from long-distance
merchants to wealthy artisans, petty commodity producers, wage laborers and
servants, slaves and former slaves, as well as animals, all enmeshed within a
framework of dense relationships with the state and courtly society, created
16 A pair of fatwas in a 17th-century compilation captures the anxieties such everyday prac-
tices gave rise to: the questioner asks if it is alright for a Muslim guild member to refer to
a dhimmi master as usta, and the mufti objects. The followup question asks if it is alright
to use the word mastori in the same circumstance, and the mufti objects again after point-
ing out that mastori means usta in “their language”. This is recorded in my personal copy
of a manuscript which is identified by one of the former owners as fetāvā of Üstüvānī
Efendi, but the codex contains selections from different 16th- and 17th-century muftis. For
a generous selection of relevant fatwas, see Düzenli, Gayrimüslimlere Dair Fetvâlar. On
the economic, social, and cultural aspects of artisanal communities, see Faroqhi, Artisans
of Empire; and Faroqhi (ed.), Bread from the Lion’s Mouth.
17 Dejung, Motadel, & Osterhammel (eds.), The Global Bourgeoisie, includes studies of some
non-European settings but only in the long 19th century, without extending its gaze to the
age of early modern empires.
18 See the introductory discussion and collection of essays on merchants and mercantile
capitalism in Subrahmanyam (ed.), Merchant Networks. For a fresh Marxian interpreta-
tion, see Banaji, A Brief History.
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modes of living that came to be identified distinctly with their city. The distinct
sounds (think of everyday language, poetry, music), looks (sartorial, architec-
tural, gestural), and tastes (all of the above, and culinary and olfactory) that
came together in association with the city would be hailed as the ultimate
form and idiom of urbanity in the empire and even beyond it, at least in terms
of its competitive claims and self-perception.
The aura that Istanbul acquired, or regained, during the course of the 16th
century also implied an uncontested dominium as a magnet drawing talented
or ambitious individuals from near and far, as well as those simply looking for
a better life, with dignity. The lure of the city, after all, came down to expecta-
tions of the jobs and opportunities that one would need in order to have access
to those other alluring things. In that respect, Istanbul would eventually gain
the reputation that “its stone and soil are of gold”—an adage that became pro-
verbial not for its realism but as a warning to those masses of dreamers who
took it literally and were doomed to fail.
That was not yet so clearly the case at the time of Lamiʿi Çelebi of Bursa
(1473–1532) who remained in his hometown, a former capital, for a productive
and influential intellectual life and does not seem to have ever considered him-
self left out, let alone provincial. His contemporary Deli Birader (1463–1535?),
also known as Gazali of Bursa, eventually settled in Istanbul, but he had already
been de-sedentarized, serving in numerous cities as müderris (professor) as
part of the rotations of that career path, which Lamiʿi avoided. Moreover, Deli
Birader brought his Bursa, or the part that seems to have mattered the most to
him, to Istanbul when he entrepreneurially built and managed a bathhouse
with a pool in its middle, as in the thermal baths of his hometown. Spacious
enough to allow for socialization, the pool was the first in Istanbul, imitated
soon thereafter due to its popularity with customers. Yet it was also resented
by competitive bathhouse owners who accused him of turning an institution
serving, so they argued, the needs of the public for hygiene and good health
into one promoting merrymaking and amusement, with innuendoes about
sexual libertinism. Deli Birader was catering to clients seeking leisurely diver-
sion and conviviality, rather like those of the coffeehouses that would flourish
a decade or two later.19
19 The bathhouse as a homosocial institution served women as well. On Deli Birader, who
eventually had to leave Istanbul due to scandalous gossip, see Kuru, “A Sixteenth-Century
Scholar”. On the neighborhood of Beşiktaş, where the bathhouse was built, see F. Yılmaz,
“Osmanlı Hanedanı, Kullar ve Korsanlar”.
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36 Kafadar
If any Ottoman city can be identified with commercial capitalism in the 15th
century, it would be Bursa.20 The well-traveled caravan merchants of Iran and
Italy found a congenial hub in Bursa, where they would rub shoulders with the
wealthy bourgeois of that city, identified as capitalist entrepreneurs by Halil
İnalcık.21 It is not incidental that Vahdi’s “Anabacı” (The Tale of the Hag), the
first piece of avowed fiction in Ottoman literature to be set in the author’s/
audience’s own time and place, belongs to that milieu. Encouraged like some
other young literati by the charismatic Tacizade Cafer Çelebi (d. 1515) to write
“modern” works of their own world, Vahdi penned a delicious story of money,
love, and betrayal, dealing with an affair between Bursa and Tabriz, both of
them among the most vibrant hubs of international trade in the 15th century.
Istanbul’s eventual hegemony could easily hide the fact that the amazing
vitality of the new urban economy and culture in the lands of Rum was multi-
focal well into the 16th century, thanks in part to the legacy of the principali-
ties and Byzantium’s offshoots with their alternative capitals. One of the most
original literary novelties asserting the arrival of a new city life was the genre of
şehrengīz, encomiastic poems dedicated to natural, architectural, and human
thrills and heartthrobs of a city, its handsome boys above all. The late medi-
eval Persian genre of shahr-āshûb was reinvented and Ottomanized by Mesihi
(d. 1518?) to praise the beauties of Edirne with a work of c.1512. Only a few years
later, Lamiʿi was to publish the first şehrengīz for Bursa, which would be fol-
lowed by six others for the same city, and the genre continued to flourish in the
16th and 17th centuries, with several works dedicated to Istanbul.22
No matter how big its earlier fame and its natural advantages, the rise of
Istanbul to unequaled primacy among Ottoman cities was not inevitable nor
was it uncontested. For it to enjoy magnetism took decades of construction,
cultivation, and migration, all of which resisted orderly, linear progression.23
Post-conquest Istanbul did not have the demographics, the social fabric, and,
above all, the economic power to beckon clearly and loudly—for a while.
20 For a judicious and insightful discussion of relevant trends in late Byzantine economy, see
Kazhdan, “The Italian and Late Byzantine City”.
21 İnalcık, “Servile Labor”, 29.
22 “Bursa Şehr-engīzi”, ed. Burmaoğlu & İsen. A dozen or so were written for Istanbul, but
the original creative spark was not exclusive to it. In the earliest one for Istanbul, by
Katip Davud in 1513, the city is not represented on its own; Hasan Kaya, “İstanbul ve Vize
Şehrengizi”. The classic study of şehrengīz is Levend, Türk Edebiyatında Şehr-engizler.
Kuru articulates a fresh interpretive perspective in “City as the Mirror of the Beloved”.
Also see Kuru’s seminal work, “The Literature of Rum”.
23 İnalcık, “The Policy of Mehmed”; Kafescioğlu, Constantinopolis/Istanbul.
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In the long run, however, not only Bursa but also many other cities were
in an unequal competition with Istanbul, clearly favored by state policies and
patronage as well as hefty endowments. Mehmed II’s mosque complex with
eight madrasas, the Semaniyye, was a big draw for those with aspirations to
join the ranks of the ulema. A large number of artists and intellectuals left
Amasya, for instance, after the accession of Bayezid II (r. 1481–1512), who had
spent his princely years there, and came to the capital city. As for Bursa, its
international mercantile glamour faded somewhat after 1514/15 when Selim I
ordered a blockade on silk trade with Iran, imprisoning some of the tycoons
who attempted to circumvent the order and continue the lucrative business.24
It would be wrong to speak of the decline of Bursa, or of any of these other
cities as cultural centers, in an absolute sense; but in one way or another, in this
degree or that, they were eclipsed by Istanbul. After a certain point, the capi-
tal city regained its status as the most powerful magnet for migrant labor and
talent. One important aspect of that reputation was that it was the ultimate
destination for those who wanted to build a reputation. One would really make
it only if one made it in Istanbul.
The couplet in the epigraph underlines the conflation of urbanization and
reputation, moving to the city and the desire to become somebody, through
a pun built on a concocted etymology. The felicitous overlap between the
Persian word şehr (city) and the Arabic root-verb şe-he-re (to make famous),
from which words like reputation, publicity, and exhibition are derived, is
manipulated to create a new word, teşehhür. The neologism is made up accord-
ing to Arabic morphology, and no educated Ottoman reader would miss this.
To urbanize entailed the aspiration of being known and seen.
Migrants, then as now, were welcome to the degree that they could be con-
sidered useful or at least accommodable within the emerging parameters of
inclusion and exclusion. For those who did not make it, things could be far
worse than having to return to Palookaville on a one-way ticket. Celalzade
Mustafa (d. 1567) writes of a brutal case of disciplining migrant laborers in
1528. On a February night that year, some criminals forced entry into “the
home of a Muslim family near the mosque of Sultan Selim”, murdered all the
residents and plundered their belongings. With no leads or evidence about
the identity of the perpetrators, the investigation concluded through “supposi-
tion and analogy” that the sundry sort of unattached young men called levends,
distinctly identified as dhimmis in this instance, were the likely suspects since
many of “that sort” had previously engaged in criminality. Even though they
might be working as ırġād (day-wage laborers), that was simply their cover
24 İnalcık, “Bir Tetkik Münasebetiyle”, 661–76.
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38 Kafadar
(setr-i günāh) to look legit in their vagabond lives. The authorities rounded up
all the levends, “sinful unbelievers”, found in “marketplaces, taverns, and boza-
houses” and put them to the sword in public view.25 There were eight hun-
dred of these wretched souls, Celalzade writes, “clearly most of them had not
engaged in criminal acts, or knew about them. God’s will worked thus, and …
[the executions] served a lesson to evildoers and a reason for fear to criminals;
Istanbul did not suffer anything like that again.”26
The statesman-historian skillfully weaves his narrative of the gruesome
events around binaries of family versus bachelors, cityfolk versus migrants,
Muslim versus unbeliever, and home/mosque versus tavern (or bozahouse).
These were surely some of the most important categories in the social
imagination of Istanbulites at the time, with attendant moral valorizations
and anxieties.
The “happy end” of Celalzade’s tale must have been the nightmare of thou-
sands of young men who constituted a huge caste of an unprivileged precariat
in Ottoman society. A wide range of vocabulary was deployed by the state and
those who were ready to perform its interpellation to underline the fact that
they were not attached to legitimacy-providing social collectivities and thus
constituted a potential or actual threat to the well-being of the social order.
Celalzade identifies the levends also as bī-kār, meaning “without a job” in
Persian, but conflated erroneously or willfully in numerous cases by Ottoman
authors with the Arabic bikr (Ottomanized as bekār), meaning unmarried. This
flight to towns was considerable and continuous, with fluctuations, long before
the migrations in the wake of social upheavals and climate-induced agrarian
crises of the late 16th century.27
25 In bozahouses, the beverage of choice was a malt drink, with a slightly fermented variety.
26 Facsimile provided in Kappert, Geschichte Sultan Süleymān Ḳānūnīs, 175b/176a. The word
levend (young man, seafaring soldier, corsair, irregular soldier, outlaw …) has gone through
a fascinating semantic expansion and transformation during the early modern era, just
like the word çelebi. See Cezar, Levendler, 3–17. On p. 9, Cezar cites the relevant passage in
Celalzade’s Ṭabaḳāt from another manuscript, where the word ẕimmiler (dhimmi) does
not appear but kefere-i fecere “sinful unbelievers” does. The historical transformations of
relevant social designations and nomenclature among Ottoman urbanites in the early
modern era is a topic of ongoing research for this author. Here I should note that levends
are not necessarily dhimmi; in fact, the default usage from the late 16th century onward
seems to refer to Muslim young men of similar social standing and attitude. The word
ırġād is from Greek εργάτης “worker”.
27 The late 16th-century migrations also led to “the rise of a distinct ‘Western Armenian’ cul-
ture and society, which developed for the first time in the seventeenth-century Ottoman
Empire”; see Shapiro, “The Great Armenian Flight”. Also see Hamadeh, “Invisible City”,
and the essay by Başaran in this volume.
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In considering the working people of the city, one needs to also reckon
with another important constitutive layer of the social and cultural life of
Istanbul, which remains the least integrated so far into historical accounts of
the city. That is the substantial population of slaves, beyond the better-known
ḳapıḳulları (slave/servants of the Porte): household slaves, slaves working in
the arsenal or various constructions, slaves engaged in agricultural work, and
manumitted former slaves.28
There was also a good deal of fluidity and mobility, upwards and down-
wards. Descendants of those who were forcibly settled by Mehmed II as slave-
agriculturalists in Constantinople’s backyard, without whom the development
of the Haslar district and Eyüp would be unthinkable, were part of the reʿāyā
(tax-paying free subjects) after a couple of generations. Mustafa Âli, as indi-
cated above, complained about the enrichment of the manav at the expense
of members of the ʿaskerī class (capital over status?). By the 17th century,
the appeal of “the golden stone and soil” of the city for peasant populations,
inflicted with worsening conditions in certain regions, led to severe pres-
sures on the job market and on housing, as well as providing opportunities
for investment.
2 A Long Century of Discontent and Dissent
For all its magnetism and allure, some preferred to stay outside the city, even
owning the implications of provinciality and marginality. When Ebu Sehl
Numan Efendi (d. after 1755) was offered a position toward an eventual profes-
sorship during a visit to the capital from Diyarbekir, his response was apolo-
getic but firm: he “could not stay in Istanbul”, he said, as he was “a man of the
margins”.29 Fuzuli (d. 1556), the sublime Iraqi Turkmen poet, was also deeply
conscious of not being from the center, registering this as both a complaint
and a matter of pride, “far from the shadow of sultans” but “from the soil of
Kerbela”.30 His towering reputation is a good reminder that Istanbul was not
the be-all and end-all for achieving fame.
28 For a compelling new depiction of overall trends, see Canbakal & Filiztekin, “Slavery and
Decline of Slave-Ownership”, and “Slaveholding”. İnalcık’s seminal articles are still worthy
points of departure: “Capital Formation”, and “Servile Labor”. Of the total population of
Istanbul around the mid-16th century, İnalcık estimates the ḳuls and other slaves to con-
stitute about one-fifth, approximately 60,000 to 70,000.
29 Ebu Sehl Numan Efendi, Tedbîrât-ı Pesendîde, ed. Savaş, 2: “ben kenār yer ādemiyim,
Āsitāne’de duramam”.
30 Fuzûlî’nin Poetikası, ed. Doğan, 93 and 74, respectively.
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40 Kafadar
Moreover, flight from the city was not unthinkable. We need to be mindful of
Istanbul’s push as well as its pull. Particularly in the latter part of the 17th cen-
tury, some intellectuals quietly resolved to leave the city for a productive life
elsewhere, including such original minds as Evliya Çelebi and Müneccimbaşı
(d. 1702). Their decisions may have been personal, but a confluence of factors
around the mid-17th century, including severe shortages in foodstuffs and a
series of four rebellions in eight years (1648–56), epidemics and fires, rendered
the city unsavory for many. With profound consequences for life in the city,
even the sultan and the court abandoned it in favor of Edirne for much of a
half-century until 1703 when another rebellion brought them back.
This event, known as the Edirne Incident of 1703, could be summarized for
our purposes here as the uprising of the citizens of Istanbul in order to reclaim
its position as the city. Thousands of men, representing three distinct social lay-
ers in particular—the ulema, the ḳuls, and the guilds—walked to Edirne, top-
pled the ruling sultan, and negotiated for the enthronement of Prince Ahmed
(Ahmed III, r. 1703–1730) only after he promised that he would move his court
back to the true capital. A janissary bard assigns agency to the city in an almost
anthropomorphic formulation: “Istanbul boiled up and rose in revolt.”31
If so, the declining economy was a big item on Istanbul’s mind. Shrinking
demand without the court society and its huge appetite for consumption
as well as the diminishing presence of big trade, international or interre-
gional, were all too visible to remain unnoted. The rise of Izmir as a hub of
Mediterranean trade, with vigorous links to Aleppo and Marseilles, had started
to present stiff competition to Istanbul.32 There were also experiments in lift-
ing price controls that severely challenged the moral economy of the middle
classes and the crowds.
The cauldron of alternative politics was regularly simmering in the Ottoman
street, the coffeehouse, the bathhouse, the barbershop, the marketplace, the
tavern, various types of odalar (barracks or hostels), as well as the oikoi/hane
(households) of ordinary people, with their own oiko-nomos/tedbīrü’l-menzil
to worry about, however modest that house or room. The frequent and asser-
tive interventions of this layer of urban society in political life have been dis-
missed for too long as outbursts of short-sighted self-interest with no concern
other than for its members’ stomachs or purses, and no argument other than
“bring back tradition and the sharia”. Popular politics in early modern Istanbul
belies that self-serving misrepresentation on the part of the elites and of the
hegemonic narrative in the mainstream historiography that remains oblivious
31 Köprülü, Türk Sazşairleri; Abou-El-Haj, The 1703 Rebellion.

32 Eldem, Goffman, & Masters, Aleppo, Izmir, and Istanbul.
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to the thought-world and the moral economy of the crowds. The city witnessed
12 spectacular revolts between 1589 and 1826, some of them led by the janissar-
ies or other military bodies but always with popular participation, constituted
by shifting alliances. The period is also punctuated by numerous other kinds
of unruly or defiant crowd behavior in between organized uprisings, from riots
to arson. The civil war of 1826, dubbed “the Auspicious Incident” by Ottoman
chroniclers and “the abolition of the janissary corps” by modern historians, is
one of the most violent events in the history of the city and spells the end of
early modern Istanbul (and empire) by my reckoning. The nature of Ottoman
political power changed dramatically thereafter, disarming certain segments
of urban society of their most vital conduit to popular participation in a public
life of debate and public expressions of dissent, while also eliminating the most
powerful constitutionally-rooted institution to check autocratic tendencies.
In our written accounts of these events, the “crowds” are constituted over-
whelmingly by men, with a vibrant queer folk also visible. Rarely does one
encounter women but it was evidently not out of the question: Şemdanizade,
18th-century historian, writes of a rice riot in 1758 carried out by “several hun-
dred shameless women” led by one wielding a yataghan.33 One is also reminded
of Benli Behiye, “martyr of love”, who ran through the city streets with her rifle
and fell like a “dragon in Nimrod’s bonfire” during the 1826 massacre of the
janissaries while she threw herself into the burning barracks to find her lover,
whom she had been sharing with an officer in a tense ménage-à-trois.34
The role of Jewish and Christian populations in city politics, or in the upris-
ings more specifically, needs further attention and investigation. Their status
exposed them to structural inequity and precariousness even more blatantly
at moments of political unrest. Prudence and reserve were probably their
more common responses. There is no doubt that there were victims of crowd
violence on some of those occasions. Reports of vandalism in Jewish neigh-
borhoods are plentiful. The government was banking on the riot fatigue of
shopkeepers, including non-Muslims, when it distributed arms to them to
be used against rebels in the face of stirrings to rekindle the spirit of uprising
after the execution of Patrona Halil in 1730. The 1820s in particular witnessed
janissary thugs harassing Greek neighborhoods during “the Greek Revolution”,
which the Ottoman state and army fought as “the Greek revolt”. However, there
were also moments when social class trumped religious or ethnic belong-
ing. Patrona Halil, during the brief interregnum when the rebels enjoyed a
short-lived moment of triumph, shocked the representatives of the state, and
33 Şem’dânî-zâde Târihi, vol. II A, 16.

34 Hüseyin Ağa, “Destan mecmuası”, as cited in Koçu, “Behiye”.
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42 Kafadar
segments of the public no doubt, by appointing his Greek butcher friend to the
voivodeship of Moldavia. Among the dead bodies after the massacre of 1826,
eyewitnesses reported seeing some with crosses tattooed on their arms.35
Would such Christian allies of the rebels have been included in Çalık
Ahmed’s vision of “rule by popular assembly”? Probably not. Still, the vision
put forward by this leader of the 1703 Incident was nothing short of revolution-
ary. When the rebels were negotiating over who should be offered the dynastic
throne, he is said to have proposed to do away with the dynastic regime alto-
gether and to adopt some form of “popular” (cumhūr) sovereignty as in the
regencies of North Africa. The idea was perhaps so outré that it was duly sup-
pressed and obliterated even from historical memory but for some pithy refer-
ences in chronicles that present him as a thuggish representative of janissary
power as well as the crowd. Historians of the new urban society can note, how-
ever, that even such a radical means of empowering the cumhūr had become
imaginable through the cumulative impact of processes of democratization
and secularization in certain circles, as subterranean and limited as they were.
It is not incidental that Naima, the chronicler, should frame his objections to
Çalık Ahmed’s proposal for a “false” (bāṭıl) order on the basis of divine sanction
for the Ottoman state.36
Not only would it be wrong to characterize the popular politics of early
modern Istanbul as devoid of any impact toward imagining an alternative
order, but one might even consider the existence of a loose yet vibrant “riff-
raff international” across political and continental boundaries. A densely
wired network of circulating news and ideas, lubricated by gossip and urban
legends, existed among Ottoman cities for sure: Istanbul, Aleppo, Damascus,
Cairo, Tunis, Candia, Salonica, Belgrade were far better connected than we rec-
ognize. But beyond them? Mediterranean port cities had their own close-knit
links of juicy chatter. Looking at the circulation of tales and poetry, there were
vast transregional zones traversed by lore, some with political content. Stories
about a Köroğlu or Aşık Garib, for instance, reached far and wide beyond the
Ottoman realm toward the Caucasus and Iran, as they also proved adaptable
to local circumstances through countless oral renderings. Thousands of pil-
grims every year brought information and misinformation from Hijaz and its
35 On the distribution of arms to shopkeepers, see Olson, “The Esnaf and the Patrona
Rebellion”. On janissary thugs in the early 19th century, see Ilıcak, “A Radical Rethinking
of Empire”. On Patrona’s Greek ally, see Aktepe, Patrona İsyanı, 167. On shifting alliances
in the revolts, see Kafadar, “Yeniçeri-Esnaf Relations”. On rebellions and popular politics
in the city, see the contributions by Danacı, Karahasanoğlu, Şakul, and Yılmaz, in Antik
Çag’dan Günümüze, vol. 2.
36 Naima, Tarih-i Naʿîmâ, vol. 4, 1877.
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busy land and sea routes about the wider world of Islamicate societies. People
in Istanbul were certainly among the makers and consumers of all this. Did
news of the 1729 shoemakers’ uprising in Delhi reach Patrona Halil (d. 1730)
and associates—bath attendants, itinerant fruit sellers, and other “riffraff”?
I would not put it past them.37
To turn our attention back to the city itself, the crowd politics of early mod-
ern Istanbul was also a response to an exclusionary vision. That vision found its
aphorismic expression in Bektaş Agha’s (d. 1651) response to complaints about
his monopolistic involvement in the meat trade and prevalent usurious prac-
tices: “Istanbul is the city of the rich, not the city of the poor; let those who can-
not pay pack their debt live in the provinces and eat bulghur and slurry.” The
supporting words of his minions take us back to the discourse of “Ploughville
versus City”: “are they not ashamed, these Turks [again, in the sense of rustics]
who abandon their land (çiftlerin bozup), come and enjoy the pleasures of this
exquisite city, have meat and other things arrive at their feet, and then expect
to pay five or ten pennies?”38
Most of the resonant debates in everyday life and the large issues of conten-
tion at moments of turbulence revolved around what might be called spatial
politics. The two tumultuous incidents in 1703 and 1730, for instance, can be
read simply as the enthronement and the dethronement of Ahmed III, respec-
tively. At the same time, the first event is about the de facto site of the empire’s
capital. As for the second incident, it was about urban transformation, among
other things, namely the development of the area around Kağıthane, north of
the Golden Horn, as a site of luxurious mansions of an imperial elite that was
not responsive to the insecurities, exploitation, or outright impoverishment of
the artisanal and the lower classes, including—once again—large numbers of
recent migrants.
3 Reconfiguring Public Life with an Istanbul Sound and Style
This is not surprising since the early modern period is also an era of momen-
tous transformation of urban space with all sorts of consequences for public
life, long before the more obvious and often controversial interventions in the
post-industrial era. The establishment of hundreds of coffeehouses within half
a century until the end of the 16th century, with further growth later on, is a sig-
nificant example, but it is only one of a much larger expansion of public spaces,
37 On the 1729 Delhi riot, see Kaicker, The King and the People, chapter 7.
38 Naima, Târih-i Naʿîmâ, vol. 3, 1318.
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44 Kafadar
quantitatively and functionally. The proliferation of neighborhood fountains,

for instance, is an important instance of this development since many of them
created mini-piazzas of neighborhood encounters and exchanges, possibili-
ties for rendezvous as well as for chitchat. One can also think of the growing
number of bathhouses, and their innovative uses as spaces for collective and
performative reading, or even think of the benches appended to mosque walls
for longer and possibly smoking conversations.
To briefly consider the links between coffeehouses and political life, since
this constitutes one of the most fundamental transformations of city life in the
early modern era, the first thing that comes to mind is their obvious role in the
dissemination or manipulation of news and the mobilization of crowds with
regard to specific political events. Over the long run, this amounted to no less
than a cumulative contribution to a “structural transformation” of public life.39
Already in the 1590s, Mustafa Âli was complaining of their role in what might
be characterized as a democratization of quotidian social patronage, namely
micro-patronage through “a few cups of something that is no more than a
penny or two”, but still annoying to him since it undermined established hier-
archies. The social beverage meant more power in the hands of “lesser” people
to treat others to a good time, whereas this kind of gesture used to require
some means and was a prerogative of grandees. By the turn of the 17th century,
coffeehouses had also come a long way toward constituting a public of their
own, where clients would regularly and interactively voice opinions on matters
ranging, one can well imagine, from the latest vintage of eggplants to vizierial
appointments to recent trends in poetry and music.40
Their role in an equally consequential empowerment of the demos to
engage in literary/cultural patronage must also be underlined. The popular
tales of Aşık Garib offer an intriguing portrait of an artist as a young man who
blew away his considerable inheritance only to take up the vagabond life of
a bard (ʿāşıḳ) and eventually become an 18th-century equivalent of a touring
rock star. His rise to stardom was primarily through his performances in the
coffeehouses of different towns, where his success in intensely competitive
bardic duels drew ever-growing audiences who paid for those endless cups
to the coffee shop owners, who in turn paid our bard. The words of Ravendi,
the 13th-century historian, “poets do not sing praises unless they find the right
39 I use the term with great trepidation since it is overloaded with discussions of the
Habermasian public sphere and its essentializing application to European history.
Kafadar, “Tarih Yazıcılığında Kamu Alanı”; Özkoçak, “Coffeehouses”; Hamadeh, “Public
Sphere in the Eastern Mediterranean”.
40 For some of the earliest reports on coffeehouses as venues for public debate, see Selaniki
(d. 1600?), Tarih, ed. İpşirli, vol. 1, 225 and passim.
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ruler and generous rewards”, belonged to a different age.41 As for the patronage
of imperial elites, it did not disappear, or even lose its formative power, but was
far more interactive with the sounds of the city than ever before.42
The fact that coffeehouses were homosocial institutions should not make
us overlook the intimate link between coffeehouse (ḳahveḫāne) and house
(ḫāne); many clients came from a family home and went back to one. Before
coffeehouses, there were coffee chambers (ḳahve odası) in some homes in
Istanbul. Some of Aşık Garib’s most moving performances are set in homes,
including the mansion of his beloved’s family. There was a good deal of circu-
lation of trends and ideas and tales among public spaces, but there was also
a lot between those and private or semi-private ones, like sufi lodges or musi-
cal salons.
Coffeehouses, in combination with all those other venues, offered a plat-
form for what turned out to be a vigorous development of new public perfor-
mance arts after the mid-16th century, with some critical innovations in the
late 17th/early-18th century.43 Building on various late medieval developments
in connected places like Cairo or Tabriz, shadow-puppet theater and performa-
tive storytelling were imaginatively reformatted and captured the hearts and
minds of city folk until the age of early cinema. The forms and many themes
of the rural tradition of Turkish ʿāşıḳ poetry were also reinterpreted for urban
audiences, largely but not fully divested of their explicit mystical content, and
a wildly successful new urban sound came into its own. Someone like Aşık
Ömer (d. 1707?), yet another migrant from the countryside, but one who even-
tually became the most renowned of these trendsetters, owed his huge reputa-
tion in Istanbul and beyond largely to the coffeehouses. ʿĀşıḳ poetry, in other
words, was part of a transformation that could be identified with a large expan-
sion of public performance arts and a proliferation of new techniques, new
repertories, and new perspectives.
The moral universe of these performative public arts was built on a recogni-
tion and in-your-face rendering of the ambiguities of the new urban society.
41 Ravendi, Râhat-üs-sudûr, ed. Ateş, vol. 1, 143.

42 The musical compilation of Ali Ufuki, a palace page, is replete with the songs from the
city and the country; Haug, Ottoman and European Music and idem, “Alī Ufuḳī’s Notation
Collections”.
43 For a more comprehensive look at spaces of literary and cultural production in the
Süleymanic era, see Aynur, “Representations of Istanbul”. “Early modern”, or even “the
long 17th century”, which I take refuge in for the purposes of this essay, is too long a period
to do full justice to the historicity of the trajectories of different forms and genres. For a
more rigorous historicization of some of the most relevant developments, see the chapter
by Altok in this volume.
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46 Kafadar
Not even “family values” were safe in the works of these audacious artists. The
amazing Tıfli, for instance, the iconic storyteller, is portrayed as a homosexual.
That is not necessarily scandalous. One wonders, however, if the audience
reacted merely with laughter to the episode when he is asked to select the most
fetching among the most attractive female prostitutes in Istanbul so she can be
employed as bait to catch Sansar Mustafa, an outlaw who has kidnapped the
handsome boy with whom the sultan is infatuated. Tıfli responds: “How should
I know? The art of womanizing is more challenging than clock-making. I never
even liked my mother.”44
All of these popular art forms had some intimate links to each other and to
artistic production in the higher—or simply different—registers of the court,
the mosque, the church, the synagogue, or the sufi circles. The case of Levni
(d. 1732) is telling: known as Abdülcelil Çelebi, he used the pen name Levni
not only for his paintings while he served as a court painter, which brought
him renown, but also for his stanzas as an ʿāşıḳ, using both prosody and folksy
syllabic meter. ʿĀşıḳ poetry was even more closely linked to the world of music
and worked jointly with it toward creating a secular Istanbul sound, which did
of course engage in a regular and creative conversation with the music and the
sounds of prayer and ritual across confessional and ethno-linguistic lines.
Whatever the joys and pains of living in the city, however, they were not
evenly distributed across divisions of class, gender, or ethnic-confessional
identity. Among the “holy fools” of the city, performers of a different sort, a cer-
tain Elekçi Dede, for instance, is treated with curious nuances in two different
accounts by two contemporaneous çelebis. Evliya informs us that the dede was
named thus because he ate nothing but the tin threads from sieves (“elek”) that
were purchased by men towards whom gypsy women led him, always stark
naked. He would pester them until they paid for a sieve sold by the ladies and
fed him. After his demise, the dede’s tomb became a site for a healing cult, one
of a huge number of such sites in the city with an elaborate division of labor
according to specific afflictions, where people—across confessional lines in
many instances—would turn for some comfort. Another çelebi, on the other
hand, relates something very different about the “holy fool” that unsettles his
saintly image. Evliya’s Armenian compatriot, Eremya (1637–1695), too, observes
the reverence shown to Elekçi. At the same time, Eremya tells us that the dede
spent his time around the land walls where he would roam around naked with
an erection. Is this why the reluctant customers of sieves felt obliged to be rid
of him? Moreover, Eremya informs his readers, a priest once saw him on top
44 Sayers, Tıfli Hikayeleri, 145.
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of one of those gypsy women, harassing her.45 Perhaps Evliya had not heard of
similar stories, or he chose not to write them down? In either case, it is clear
that multiple and, at times, contradictory perspectives shared the public arena
where persons and places and events that constituted the city were recognized
and assessed within an always-already-fragmented collective imagination
of Istanbul.
The future of Istanbul (and Ottoman) studies ought to be far more open
than it has been so far to taking differences of class and gender as well as
confessional and ethnic identity into consideration when reconstructing the
history of the city. More than a matter of perspectives pure and simple, such
differences also revealed conflicting interests.
Communal tensions, when they surfaced, could happen between and among
different confessional communities. The conversion of a Jewish girl into the
Orthodox Christian faith of her beloved in the mid-17th century fostered much
disparaging gossip, evidently, and resentment among Istanbul’s Jews, leading
our Armenian çelebi, Eremya, to compose a “Tale of the Jewish Bride”.46 From
a cultural and literary historical point of view, Eremya’s approach to fictional-
izing the town gossip that Istanbulites spun around ordinary characters and
communities is a western Asian echo of his Japanese contemporary, Saikaku
Ihara (1642–1693), whose vignettes of “this scheming world” (ukiyo) (set in Edo,
in his case) are better known to readers of world literature.
Certain sites with symbolic and social capital, such as holy springs, could
be shared and often were shared, but they could also be contested. Archival
records indicate, for instance, repeated efforts of the Greeks to counteract
claims made by Armenians to Balıklı Ayazma (Zoodochos Pigi), the most
famous of such sites.47 Competitive claims to the past, in other words, could
rage long before the past was considered to be a font of “national cultural heri-
tage”. Investigating such claims would enable us to better understand not only
the eventual nationalisms that developed, but also the identitarian dynamics,
such as they were, of the earlier centuries.
Given the power dynamics of the Ottoman order, the tensions with the
authorities or with Muslim neighbors could weigh more heavily in the minds
of the Christians and Jews of the city. Numerous occasions brought dhimmi
individuals or communities into contact with state authorities. Much of the
time, the parties seem well aware of the rules and protocols, ready to treat mat-
ters at a transactional level. However, the unequal power relationship, not to
45 Eremya Çelebi, İstanbul Tarihi, trans. Andreasyan, 22–23.

46 Eremya Çelebi, The Jewish Bride, ed. Tietze & Sanjian.
47 Sarris, “Balıklı (Zoodohos Pigi) Ayazması”.
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48 Kafadar
mention specific regulations and practices, must have been palpable even on
those occasions. Even more so were instances related to communal taxation
and places of worship and communal life.48 For the Greek Orthodox popula-
tion as a collectivity, the threat of conversion of their churches into mosques
was severe and persistent, for instance. Long after 1453 and the immediate
post-conquest appropriations, there were acts of seizure (the relocation of the
Patriarchate) or an occasional challenge that revived older wounds and ten-
sions, even if the threat was not carried through.49 The long and brutal story of
the transformation of Eminönü through the uprooting of the Jewish neighbor-
hood there and the construction of a mosque complex in its stead is one of the
most severe interventions of the Ottoman state in urban space.50 On a smaller
scale, there were micro-interventions like the removal of “infidels” from the
immediate vicinity of a mosque if they publicly performed their rites or the
demographic prevalence of “the believers” was challenged. However, despite
such confessionally minded “zoning” policies regarding the mixtures of peo-
ple from different faith communities, such mixtures as well as neighborly and
business relations remained common and appear in the sources in a matter-
of-factly manner.
4 The Early Modern City Experienced and Imagined in New Idioms
Beyond the conceptualization of maḥalle/neighborhood as constituted by a

temple/complex and family residences, from the most basic to grandee house-
holds, one needs to consider communal lodgings that are often identified with
the destitute and the precariat.51 Still, the maḥalle is a vital unit for under-
standing the social life of the city, particularly because it was the key site and
coordinate in all sorts of interactions between officialdom and the population.
That was also where micro-administrative, communal, religious, or social insti-
tutions touched most people’s lives. Our maḥalle-centered conceptualization
needs to be diversified, however, by considering both smaller and larger social
units of affective bonds and complex familiarities: on the one hand, there was
the informal but extremely significant sub-maḥalle, something like “the bloc”,
also known as maḥalle; and on the other, the supra-maḥalle unit of the “semt”.
48 Leal, “The Ottoman State and the Greek Orthodox of Istanbul”.

49 Emecen, “Hukuki bir Tartışma”.
50 Baer, Honored by the Glory of Islam, chapter 4 and passim. The legal dimensions from the
state’s point of view are discussed in Yıldız, 1660 İstanbul Yangını.
51 Yerasimos, “Dwellings in Sixteenth-Century Istanbul”; Hamadeh, “Invisible City”.
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Namely, the integrity of the maḥalle was undercut both at the smaller level of
maḥalle-as-bloc as well as the larger level of “part of town”.
While regularly reconfigured in terms of physical or human geography, dif-
ferent areas or zones of the city were also reinterpreted and endowed with new
meanings by different actors in different ways, sometimes in tension with one
another. The most foundational and longest-lived semantic gulf is, appropri-
ately, the one between the two sides of the Gulf that separates Istanbul proper
and Galata, also known as Pera, which was a Genoese colony for much of the
late medieval period. The two toponyms have very obvious and specific deno-
tations of physical geography, reinforced by city walls once (as is still true today,
to some degree), as well as a rich range of dualistic connotations invoked read-
ily and broadly in Ottoman and modern Turkish cultural life at large: Muslim/
infidel; piety/indulgence; Islam/idolatry; self-control/desire; traditional/mod-
ern; alla turca/alla franca … even us/them. The connotative range has evolved
over time, and the binary has often been reworded through references to
specific neighborhoods in the two townships. Peyami Safa’s 1931 novel Fatih
Harbiye, named after the two best-known and representative neighborhoods
at that time of Istanbul and (an outgrowth) of Pera, respectively, featured an
early 20th-century version of the binary that still rings proverbial to this day.
The metonymical usage of the two names was already built into the topoi of
Ottoman literature in the time of Mehmed II and by the sultan himself, among
other poets. “Avni”, he writes, using his pen name, “do not expect that idol to
submit to you. You are Istanbul’s ruler, but that idol rules Galata.” The beloved
as idol, or as idolatrous, is a much older topos of Persianate poetry, but now
the Ottomans were vernacularizing it with new and local references. “Whoever
sees Galata longs no more for the heaven of Firdevs”, he starts another poem,
“I saw there a Jesus speaking like the Franks…. O Muslims! Whoever sees that
Christian will lose their wits, their mind, their faith and belief—an infidel
they will become.” The Frankish identifications of the Christian/idol in Galata
enabled desire for the beloved to also resonate with desire for conquest and
domination over the Franks. Pera was always more than a district; in some
sense, it was also a “Europe within”.52
While Istanbul/Galata remains an ever-present metonymic binary, other
areas and neighborhoods started to acquire their own character and recogni-
tion as such, especially those associated with famous landmarks. Tacizade’s
Hevesnāme (Book of Desire), composed in 1493, already names and describes
the iconic landmarks (the imperial palace, Mehmed’s mosque complex,
Ayasofya, Seven Towers, the shrine of Eyüb, Kağıthane, etc.) that would
52 Mehmed II, Fatih Sultan Mehmed Divanı, ed. Doğan, trans. Sheridan, nos. 14, 61, 78.
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50 Kafadar
thereafter remain fixtures in any narrative of the city. Written three decades
later, Latifi’s Descriptions goes over the same ground with the significant addi-
tion of Tophane and Tahtakale, which Tacizade’s Book of Desire did not include,
presumably because it had not yet started to tempt.53
In Ottoman social imagination, beyond those major landmarks, the maḥalle
never lost its intense presence, but when one wanted to pan out to the city
as a whole, a semt-by-semt depiction eventually prevailed as the main narra-
tive thread. This was closely related to the physical development of the city
through construction and settlement. Units like Tophane or Tahtakale were
hubs that offered a public life and space to those coming from many different
parts of town, or even from out of town. It was also at the semt level that dis-
tinctions like delicacies (the cucumbers of Langa, the lettuce of Yedikule, etc.)
and artisanal production, or breathtaking views of the rest of the city, were
recognized, appreciated, and enjoyed.
More distinct associations with the actual plethora of different neighbor-
hoods, rather than a few iconic ones, emerged during the 17th century and
eagerly included a growing number of “villages” along the two shores of the
Bosphorus, as the city kept expanding. The joys of cruising the shores of the
Golden Horn and the Bosphorus had already been discovered in the 16th cen-
tury, but Eremya Çelebi may well be the first to work out a convention of list-
ing neighborhoods in a certain directionality (around the walled city, gate by
gate, Eyüp at the end of the Golden Horn, eastward along the isthmus, Galata,
northward along the Bosphorus and southward to Üsküdar after you reach the
Black Sea). Not surprisingly, ʿāşıḳ poetry elaborated and diversified this image
of a city that was threaded together like a string of pearls with each unit’s char-
acteristic associations. In a poem dedicated to Istanbul (without its suburbs),
Aşık Ömer encircles the city with “the beauties of Yenikapı … the saintly fig-
ures of Yedikule … the cool air of Ayvansaray … the merchants of Fener … the
arrival of (Asian) caravans from Üsküdar at the quay” before he concludes with
the imperial palace.54 Emir Mustafa, an 18th-century janissary ʿāşıḳ, is almost
encyclopedic in his oeuvre when dealing with buildings, sites and semts, which
include such gems as “From Eyüp to Kavak”, namely from the end of the Golden
Horn to the northern tip of the Bosphorus, with stops for a drink of water at
Tophane (famed for its fountain at that time) and for coffee at Rumelihisarı.55
53 Also see Aynur, “Şehri Sözle Resmetmek”. The addition of Tophane and Tahtakale by Latifi
is already noted by Aynur. Tacizade’s brief description of İskele (Quay) suggests the emerg-
ing area around Tahtakale. Katib Davud’s 1513 şehrengīz refers to the shrine of Shaykh Vefa
and alludes to a social life around it; Kaya, “İstanbul ve Vize Şehrengizi”, verse 44, 51, ff.
54 Köprülü, Türk Sazşairleri, 300–02.
55 Emir Mustafa, Her yanı ve her şeyiyle 18. Yüzyıl İstanbul’u, ed. Tulum, 118–19.
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By then, certain routines of sightseeing, sight-enjoying, and cruising were

well established by Istanbulites. The Tıfli story cited above, recorded in an
18th-century manuscript, is set in the time of Murad IV (r. 1623–40). Having
presumably dispensed with the obligatory and ceremonious rituals on the first
day of the Feast, the sultan wanted to finally do something fun and festive the
next day and asked Tıfli, the narrator embedded in the story, “of the days of
seyrān (a walkabout with connotations of cruising, to walk about while watch-
ing, to walk about radiantly) which part of town is designated for seyr today?”
Tıfli knew, of course, and the two of them headed for Tophane after donning
dervish clothes and adopting new names to address each other so that they
could walk around incognito. Murad IV himself did not know the designated
part of town since this was clearly a custom, decided by popular rather than
sultanic will. When they reached their destination, they found a carnivalesque
Tophane flourishing with flirtatious beauties, male and female. The sultan was
radiant and said he wanted to “hunt a young one”—merely the beginning of a
riveting tale of love and adventure for early modern Istanbulites.56
Seyr was essential to the expectation of having a pleasurable life, or at least
pleasurable moments. While it never quite lost its original sense of walking or
cruising (as on a boat), over time it acquired a dense association with watching
something soul-pleasing (while walking or otherwise) or something entertain-
ing (as in a show or a movie). Often coupled with the Persian word temāşā, it
became the buzzword for a pleasant outing to enjoy or contemplate the beau-
ties of the world. While it was regularly associated with socializing, the more
internalized, reflective dimension was also appreciated and philosophized;
sufis used the term for spiritual progress from one stage to another. In all of
these guises, the notion and especially the practices of seyr grew into one of
the biggest preoccupations of Ottoman urban society in the early modern era,
with pride of place often given to Istanbul as the pinnacle of a culture of seyr
ve temāşā.57
The differences between the two recensions of Latifi’s Descriptions give us
a clue about the emergence of a preoccupation with ocularity, with the city as
an object of viewing pleasure, as a spectacle. The earlier version does not only
miss the dedication to Murad III but also the introduction with profuse allu-
sions to Istanbul as a city to be seen: “everyone is infatuated with and yearn-
ing for seyr ü temāşā of this famous city (şehr-i meşhūr) reputed throughout
56 On promenades, excursions, and owning the pleasures of the city in the 18th century, see
Hamadeh, The City’s Pleasures.
57 On the role of the gaze and of seeing in experiencing early modern Istanbul, see
Kafescioğlu, “Picturing the Square”.
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52 Kafadar
faraway lands”. Boasting that none of the wordsmiths before him composed
a work that would offer “a pleasant demonstration by way of painterly verbal
depiction … to those from all around the universe and the climes in six direc-
tions who did not see Istanbul”, he concludes with a couplet: “May the word’s
painting make that picture manifest / so that people of (discerning) vision be
as if they have seen it.”58
Neither Tacizade’s Hevesnāme nor Lamiʿi’s şehrengīz of Bursa, to take two
prominent literary works dedicated to praising Istanbul and Bursa, respec-
tively, and considered achievements of great originality, come close to giving
the gaze—while they also drop the word seyr here or there—such a key role
in one’s experience and perception of the city as a whole. For Latifi, the city
is above all a sight (and a collection of smaller sights) to behold and to paint,
verbally or otherwise. At this point, Eremya needs to be mentioned again, for
yet another innovation of his. If Latifi would like to be painterly, Eremya would
like to be cinematic—avant la caméra. His precociously cinematic eye took
Latifi’s proposal one step further to articulate a vision of the city not just as
a picture, but as a moving picture, a gate-by-gate semt-by-semt pan on a boat
from Yedikule to the Black Sea and back to the Marmara, with various disem-
barkations for close-ups in between.59
After a certain point in the 16th century, the huge corpus of works and lore
on Istanbul overwhelmingly suggests that the city was meant to be, and was,
experienced as a spectacle. The viewing pleasures were meant to be enjoyed
not only or primarily from the vantage point of the European embassies in
Pera—a perspective that prevailed for a while because of selective uses of
sources—but also in one’s everyday working relationship with the city. The
Golden Horn, for instance, was a harbor, a conduit, a vast avenue with many
side roads if one considers the boat routes. It was also a stage to be viewed
from, say, the terrace garden of the Süleymaniye Mosque, as designed by Sinan
himself, or a platform to look up in ever-present awe at the Galata Tower or
the Valens aqueduct, if not looking at the full silhouette by letting one’s eyes
58 Note that Latifi also plays with the obvious pseudo-etymology linking city and fame,
şehr-i meşhūr. The next part is no less playful: reputed throughout faraway lands, şöhre-i
āfāḳ, could just as well be translated as “manifest/exhibited to one’s field of vision, one’s
horizons”; İÜK, TY 3751, 3a/b. My reading is slightly different from that of Suner. I would
speculate the second version is from the 1540s when Latifi was back in Istanbul working
on his biographical dictionary, and before Sinan’s peak architectural career, but this calls
for a deeper textual excavation.
59 Kafadar, “Eremya Çelebi Kömürciyan’ın …” and idem, “Tıfli’nin Kamera Öncesi Kamerası”.
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wander in a state of seyr.60 If one were so inclined and so fortunate to have

some leisure, one could also enjoy and contemplate the vistas from a coffee-
house or a garden, or as a wanderer (far more easily for males, but not necessar-
ily exclusive to them). The joys of the city as a spectacle were enabled, refined,
and enjoyed with new trends (outings during full moons on the Bosphorus, for
instance) and manners by the public at large, with different foci and different
possibilities, of course, for different communities, classes, and genders.
5 By Way of Conclusion: Istanbul, Matrix of Perception
At the same time, Istanbul owed its reputation partly to the fact that it was a
difficult place, cruel even. It may be unfortunate for some, but that too was/
is part of being Poli. There were at least a couple of spots by the shore, known
for their treacherous crosscurrents, that were identified with suicides and with
dropped sacks containing the bodies of the murdered. Far more common were
the desperate wasted lives, subjected to poverty and all kinds of indignities.
Ethnic and class-based jokes could be fun and enjoyed by all parties, but they
surely could be wounding as well and lead to stereotypes that perpetuated
the petty violences of everyday life. Even those who looked more fortunate,
with wealth and social standing, could be overburdened by the scars inflicted
through the refined unkindnesses of urbanites. Leaving his beloved hometown
yet again for a journey in 1671, not to return there for the rest of his life, Evliya
(1611–84?) wrote: “Having stayed in Istanbul for six months, it turned into a
dungeon for me.”61
Readers of Cavafy’s “The City” know well, however, that the city “will always
pursue you”—for worse, as in the poem, or for the better, even if only a tad
better. Decades after their emigration to Athens, in several waves and trickles
following the pogrom of 1955, Greek Constantinopolitans still think of them-
selves as people of the City, polites, with a mixture of pride and nostalgia.62
Some cities take hold of their prey and own them: “with Naples”, for instance,
“the accounts are never closed, even at a distance”, writes Elena Ferrante. She
continues: “I’ve lived for quite a while in other places, but this city is not an
ordinary place, it’s an extension of the body, a matrix of perception, the term of
60 Both Celalzade and Evliya refer to the “viewing terrace” provided by the courtyard of
Süleymaniye; Necipoğlu, Sinan Çağı, 283. For the ruination of this spectacular design by a
recent megaproject, see Necipoğlu, “Günümüze Yönelik Yorumlar”, 48–51.
61 Evliya Çelebi, Seyāḥatnāme, ed. Kahraman, vol. 6, book 9, fol. 2r.
62 Örs, Diaspora of the City.
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54 Kafadar
comparison of every experience. Everything that has been permanently mean-

ingful for me has Naples as its backdrop and is expressed in its dialect.”63
The “matrix of perception” can even move across generations through the
collective and individual remembrances of migrants and exiles. Thousands of
lines of poetry, musical pieces in various genres, and objects of everyday life
produced over the course of centuries carried the indelible marks, memories,
affective ties, and the wounds associated with Istanbul as place. Often con-
nected with those objects must have been tales and memories, a gesture here
or a swear word there, attributing qualities to distinct features of the city and
its people. Only a year after he finished On the Waterfront, Elia Kazan (1909–
2003) was in Istanbul in 1955, doing research for a new project that was to be
focused on his family history, specifically on his uncle who migrated from a
village of Kayseri to Istanbul first and then to the Newest Rome of America
America, the eventual title of the film (1963). He wanted to understand this
story of migration to a new world where the protagonist, his uncle, expected
to become somebody new and better. The uncle enabled Kazan’s immediate
family to migrate as well in 1913, when Elia was only four years old. Roaming
the streets of the city where he was born and trying to manage the discombob-
ulating flood between his immediate senses and his cognition, the forty-six-
year-old director was stunned by impressions that struck him as re-cognitions:
“Everything I passed stirred up memories I didn’t know I had, like a stick might
stir up mud at the bottom of a pond.”64
Written in the late 1950s, Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar’s (1901–62) celebrated
essay on Istanbul opens with a childhood memory of its own magical quali-
ties. An old and ailing lady, a neighbor of the author’s family, then based “in
a city in Arabia”, slips into a quasi-shamanic incantation whenever burning
fever takes over her. She recites one after another the names of the renowned
waters of Istanbul, each of them known for different healing properties, until
these melodious aquanyms bring her relief. Mesmerized by that miraculous
authority of the City, always there even if distant, the child also remembers
his father’s one big fear: that he might die before seeing Istanbul again.65 With
these memories, Tanpınar launches a discussion of how Istanbul was experi-
enced and perceived through its specific places of affect—springs, neighbor-
hoods, and semts, each of them associated with particular things like vistas or
tastes. This fairyland of a place constituted by a multitude of places is simulta-
neously experienced and imagined within frameworks shaped by centuries of
63 Ferrante, Frantumaglia, 65.

64 Kazan, A Life, 548.
65 Tanpınar, Beş Şehir, 13–14 and ff.
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physical and imaginal labor by its denizens. Istanbul is both the city one lives
in and an “Istanbul” one moves around in one’s head.
Notwithstanding the overpowering influence of Tanpınar’s deeply insight-
ful perspective on Istanbul in modern Turkish intellectual life, including my
own, there is reason to remain uneasy about at least one aspect of his ren-
dering. The Istanbul he is writing about is primarily an early modern and a
19th-century city, while he bemoans its passing with a stoic acceptance, even
discerning embrace, of modernity. Yet he has hardly anything to say about
Christians and Jews; their presence in almost all of the facets of life that he
writes about with such perspicacity is met with forgetfulness, or silence. From
a very different position, one of woundedness, Kazan’s timid steps in Istanbul
reflect a symmetrical image of a past with a deep chasm between the Istanbuls
of different communities. A historian cannot but be struck by how far removed
they are from the world of Evliya and Eremya, even Skarlatos, who wrote only a
century earlier than these two great artists of the mid-20th century, steeped in
an industrial and national modernity that has selectively but decidedly erased
much of Istanbul’s early modern past. Yet even the perspectives of Kazan and
Tanpınar look rather dated now that the Anthropocene, in this aggressive,
rapacious neoliberal phase, presents us with figures who imagine themselves
makers of a new era in the city’s history. With an ambition equal to that of
Yanko bin Madyan, they defy the very fabric of its unique geography which
enjoyed one of its most creative conversations with humankind during the
early modern era.
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Part 1
Istanbulites of City and Court
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Chapter 3
Istanbul: A City of Men

Selim S. Kuru
The city of Istanbul is respected and favored by all the people of

this world, but like the unthankful crone which is the world, the
city is also like a bride who has been left behind by many husbands
and gets filled and emptied like purses of the rich, and those who
claimed her have been devoured by her as others take their place.1
∵
In one of the earliest literary descriptions of Istanbul, written in 1530s and
revised in the late 1570s, the renowned 16th-century Ottoman male author
Latifi (d. 1582) focuses his readers’ attention not only on the startling and rivet-
ing image of the city as a man-eating old woman, but also on the teeming male
denizens she so gruesomely consumes. Indeed, Latifi’s depiction may provide
a good starting point to consider the more general question of how to write
the fluid nature of masculinity back into the history of the early modern city.
In the case of Istanbul, which by the 16th century was arguably one of the
world’s most populated and diverse urban centers,2 how do we define the diver-
sity and mobility of men who congregated in Istanbul’s mosques, churches, and
synagogues; who patronized the hammams; who met at universities (madra-
sas) as students and teachers or just as friends ready to pal around; who lived
behind palace walls, in mansions and more modest abodes, and in barracks
and dockyards? How do we characterize the spatial experiences of men who
traversed the far corners of an ever-expanding Istanbul—its streets, shops,
schools, courtyards, gardens, and cemeteries—even as the very notion of mas-
culinity was itself being shaped by men’s experiences of those same spaces?
While travelogues, literary works, and historical narratives—written over-
whelmingly by men—relate a wealth of information about the possibilities
1 Latifi, Risāle-i Evṣāf-ı İstanbul, fol. 47v; see also Latifi, Evsâf-ı İstanbul, ed. Suner (Pekin),
74–75.
2 İnalcık, “Istanbul”.

64 Kuru
and limitations of masculinity in early modern Istanbul, the nature and the
sheer variety of gender relations in general, and man-to-man interactions in
particular, is not easy to tease out from those sources. In order to explicate
the experience of the majority of men who made Istanbul a microcosm of the
empire, further research is necessary in their diverse linguistic, ethnic, reli-
gious, and professional associations, as well as the masculine performances
developed around those identity markers in particular places in Istanbul.3
Scholars of Ottoman gender studies, on the other hand, have focused primarily
on women’s history. In the numerous premodern sources on Istanbul, women
were afforded only a marginal space, yet they occupy a major subfield in the
scholarship. This presents an asymmetry that requires further scrutiny.4
The organization of gender in premodern Istanbul has only rarely been
addressed, and the meaning and deployment of masculinity in Istanbul even
less so. One may argue that historically scholarship has mainly focused on
men, but the modern field of Ottoman studies has largely neglected a criti-
cal approach to patriarchy and masculinity. Work on patriarchy focuses on a
particular ordering of social relations under the rule of an unidentified group
of men. Masculinity as a concept may help to understand hierarchical interac-
tions among male denizens of Istanbul and complicate generic considerations
of patriarchy. Gender may not be an adequate category to describe individual
or communal experience or expression. Particularly, consideration of gender
in a man/woman binary distorts and diminishes urban experiences that may
not be easily categorized according to biological sex, but involve fluid and
complex gender roles associated with femininity and masculinity.5 In the last
instance, gender is wrought by social standing, space, and age, as well as by
individual performances.
3 Hamadeh focuses on premodern Istanbul’s men who had a particular relation to the streets
in “Mean Streets”, and on migrant-workers in “Invisible City”. For an investigation of the spa-
tial parameters of the boundaries between individual and society, see Artan, “Forms and
Forums”. The experiences of specific groups that constitute this multitude—Armenians,
Jews, Roma, Greek Orthodox, madrasa students, military corps in training, seminarians,
etc.—have yet to be taken up in a manner that reflects on the interaction among them.
4 For an assessment of gender and the city in Ottoman studies, see Thys-Şenocak, “The
Gendered City”; see also Boyar & Fleet (eds.), Ottoman Women in Public Space. On gender
relations in early modern Rome, see Cohen, “Open City”; for premodern gender relations in
private and public spaces, see van den Heuvel, “Gender in the Streets of the Premodern City”.
5 In a satirical early 16th-century text, for example, access to women or younger men deter-
mines the feminine or masculine qualities of men. Elite men, who had access to women,
were described as feminine with respect to their slender bodies, gentle gestures, and lav-
ish clothing, while soldiers, whose sexual interactions were restricted to younger men, were
characterized as robust, crude, and masculine. See Kuru, “Sex in the Text”, 164–65.
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Istanbul: A City of Men 65
However, the dominance of “male citizens” in public spaces, distinguishable

as such through a plethora of signs ranging from physiognomic to performa-
tive and sartorial, stratified a form of Muslim patriarchy that strove to control
complicated forms of manifest masculinities in Istanbul. Muslim Ottoman
male authors definitely wrote from the vantage point of a particular historical
masculinity that was inflected through the various experiences that Istanbul
provided to its population in time and space. Yet, this experiential masculinity
was constantly defined in these narratives through what it was not, i.e. female
and juvenile (being feminine and womanlike would be condemned in a man-
ner similar to acting foolish, or like a child or younger person), while never
itself being described.6
One can trace early modern urban inflections of the male experience
through critical, philological reading of textual sources. Among these are elite
discourses on virtue that, to some degree, reflect the negative attitudes of
the palace related elite towards the men of the city. Yet the elite most prob-
ably experienced the urban environment to a lesser degree than the “many
husbands” of Istanbul that Latifi mentions.7 In the early modern era, neither
the male writers of narrative sources nor the record-keepers of the imperial
bureaucracy considered men’s experience of the city as a particular topic of
interest. Chronicles and travelogues, on the other hand, portray the daily lives
of men in a generic manner, characterized as struggle rather than pleasure.8
Being so close to the central institutions of the empire, which strictly regulated
their interactions, must have been burdensome for Istanbulite men, testing
their manhood as these restrictions demarcated their day-to-day activities and
defined their performances of masculinity—especially in those public spaces
that may be defined as “masculine”.9 On the other hand, this obscured popula-
6 On the vocabulary of age and sex difference, see Peirce, “Seniority, Sexuality, and Social
Order”.
7 On the seclusion of the palace people from the denizens of Istanbul, see Necipoğlu,
Architecture, Ceremonial, and Power, 15–22; on the growing permeability between palace and
denizens, see Kafescioğlu, “Picturing the Square”, and the chapters by Neumann and Fetvacı
in this volume.
8 For two excellent accounts that reflect the ferocity of city life, see Gerlach, Türkiye Günlüğü
1573–1576 for the 16th century, and Cabi, Câbî Tarihi, ed. Beyhan for the turn of the 19th century.
9 I use masculine places to denote urban public settings inflected by this gender rather than
the biological gender of their users. Such places prioritized and were designed with men in
mind, but were of course frequented by women as well. Public spaces for women, on the
other hand, were limited in number and some were designed to reduce women’s public
visibility. In double baths, for example, the door to the women’s section was hidden from
sight and was small in contrast to the monumental main gate for men. For a comparison, see
Tarbin, “Civic Manliness in London, c.1380–1550”.
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66 Kuru
tion of Istanbul might have also been able to take advantage of the privileges
that proximity to power afforded them. Owing to this proximity, they were
also able to contest the authority that directly affected their lives in the impe-
rial capital.
Following some observations on the gendered nature of the source mate-
rial, I will focus on literary texts in order, first, to map out the way that male
inhabitants of Istanbul became visible in the cityscape through the significa-
tion of their vocational and ethno-religious associations, and then to locate
them in the theater of Istanbul, the most vivid stage of which was the east-west
axis that ran through the northern sections of the walled city. I introduce the
men of Istanbul through an examination of the social roles available only to
them and of the spaces meant to host them, that were established by and for
them, and that shaped their experiences.
1 A Gendered Multitude
Although Istanbul has traditionally been portrayed in Ottoman literary sources

as the most beautiful city in the world, it was not uncommon for the city to be
likened, in negatively gendered terms, to a crone or a sinful woman.10 As in
the quotation by Latifi above, Istanbul was often described as a microcosm of
the world, whose multitudes (kes̱ret) of men were but temporary placeholders
in the deadly embrace of the female city.11
Yet another trope was that of the beloved, also found in encomiums to
the city, whereby Istanbul was likened to a beautiful female or male beloved,
matchless in beauty, the object of male desire. This trope allowed male authors
either to boast about the city fulfilling their desires or complain about it as
a wily and deceitful lover. Istanbul could devour its interlocutor or, alterna-
tively, charm and mesmerize “him” with its beauty. The attribution of feminine
gender to cities is attested to on the linguistic level—madīna, city, is a femi-
nine noun in Arabic. However, as the dynastic center of the Ottoman Empire,
10 The idea of Istanbul as a wicked old woman, a manifestation of urban male anxiety,
would continue well into the late 19th century; Tevfik Fikret (1867–1915), a leading mod-
ernist Ottoman poet, would in the poem “Fog” refer to the city as, “The maiden widow
who survived a thousand men … / Clad and sleep forever, the haggard harlot of yore”,
translation from Shaw, Ottoman Painting, 80.
11 Multitude is a recurring topic in accounts of Istanbul; in an early iteration, Latifi devotes a
section on the population density under the subtitle “On the state of multitude, vastness
and embellishments”, which immediately follows a history of the city: see Latifi, Evsâf-ı
İstanbul, ed. Suner (Pekin), 13.
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Istanbul was at least once referred to as “Father of the World”, when the histo-
rian and bureaucrat Mustafa Âli (d. 1600) juxtaposed it with Cairo, known as
the “Mother of the World” (Umm ul-Dunyā). In this way, Âli marked Istanbul as
a mighty patriarchal abode in a relationship depicted as a marriage between
two ancient and storied cities of the world.12
Istanbul was different because it was, whether accidentally or purposefully,
the stage where beys of a regional state became sultans of the world. In 1593, the
court historian Talikizade, while listing 20 aspects that legitimized the rule of
the Ottoman dynasty, counted among them “the unequaled prestige of Istanbul
as their ‘exalted sultanic capital’”, and added that “no other city could claim its
fame and its location at the ‘confluence of two seas’, where ships from the East
and West continually loaded and unloaded merchandise”.13 Talikizade sums
up the structural reasons that made Istanbul distinct among cities; namely,
the sultans’ presence in the city and their desire to turn it into a catalog of
mankind—i.e. to present the world in microcosm by bringing together diverse
communities that comprised followers of the three Abrahamic religions,
Judaism, Christianity and Islam; the fact that it was governed by the central
administration of an Empire while various households around this adminis-
tration, along with other state institutions, shaped the city; its enormous con-
sumption of products, facilitated by access to one of the richest markets in the
world; and a seemingly unending influx of migrants, mostly men, who were
by far the most visible population in this central and continuously expanding
urban space.
Shortly after the conquest of Constantinople, the religious virility of
Istanbul was symbolized by the placement of multiple minarets along the for-
mer Byzantine ceremonial road known as Mese. Over the course of the 16th
century, Ottoman imperial construction campaigns highlighted the empire’s
uninterrupted conquests, and quickly shaped the city.14 As expressed in a well-
known joke, minarets were penises and their domes the testicles of a city.15
Elegant towerlike minarets, phallic signifiers of Istanbul’s mosques like ban-
ners representing masculine power in the horizontally shaped womb of the
expanding town, were also signifiers of the city’s political powerholders and
their religious identity.
12 Mustafa Âli, The Ottoman Gentleman, trans. Brookes, 3. Âli uses this comparison in his
encomium to the city.
13 Necipoğlu, Age of Sinan, 30.
14 In early depictions of the city, mosques would serve as distinguishing markers for Istanbul,
see Kafescioğlu, Constantinopolis/Istanbul, 130–32.
15 Kuru, “A Sixteenth Century Scholar”, 120.
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68 Kuru
As concrete manifestations of rank bearing their founders’ names, mosque

complexes, which generally included schools, libraries, hospitals, soup kitch-
ens, and public baths, established a hierarchy among the male elite—namely,
the viziers, chancellors, and other palace notables alongside the constructions
carrying the names of the female members of the dynasty. Their dominance
of the landscape obscured the churches and synagogues in central areas of
town.16 As such, they were constant reminders for the masses of Muslims who
filled these spaces, and for the non-Muslims who circulated around them dur-
ing their daily activities, of the imperial authority of the Ottoman sultan and
of the hierarchies among his subjects.
At the start of the 16th century, the population of Istanbul numbered
around 100,000. A survey done in 1477 recorded around 16,000 households and
included their ethnic and religious affiliations: Muslims of various ethnic ori-
gins were thus set against the Greek Orthodox, Jews, Armenians, Europeans,
and Roma, each a distinct group residing in the empire’s capital. Since the sur-
vey was intended for taxation purposes, not as a census, it left out the sizable
palace population,17 as well as the soldiers, university students, single men
(bekār), and slaves.18 Those uncounted individuals actually constituted if not
most, then a substantial portion of the city’s population.
Some of those people, extracted from their hometowns and forcefully
deported to the city, were settled in single-men’s quarters close to the bedestān
(the market hall within the bazaar complex) area that continued its life under
the shadows of the surrounding imperial mosques.19 Some distance from the
marketplace were the janissary barracks, the old barracks built in Şehzadebaşı
in the late 15th century during the reign of Mehmed II, with the new barracks
having been built during the reign of Süleyman I (r. 1520–66). We do not know
the exact number of soldiers, students, and transients in the city, but it is esti-
mated that in the 17th century, the number of janissaries settled in Istanbul
during peace time totaled more than 20,000.20 Of course, in addition to single
16 For the hierarchical organization of architecture in 16th-century Istanbul, see Necipoğlu,

Age of Sinan, 27–46, 115–24.
17 The palace population increased from 3365 in 1520 to 9022 by 1670. See the tables in
Murphey, Exploring Ottoman Sovereignty, 171–74.
18 Toprak, “Nüfus: Fetih’ten 1950’ye”, 108–11; see also Yi, “Interreligious Relations”.
19 One typical edict from 1583 ordered the delivery of 600 stonemasons to the city. Ahmet
Refik, On Altıncı Asırda, 29. On Istanbul’s districts, with a focus on their history, bound-
aries, urban population, and topography, see Özkoçak, “The Urban Development of
Ottoman Istanbul”.
20 Around 7000 janissary cadets (acemioğlan) in Istanbul, Edirne, and Gelibolu were
employed in state workshops and worked on urban projects. In the mid-17th century,
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men, there were married heads of households living in neighborhoods with

their families, working in commercial districts, relaxing in coffeehouses, and
strolling through the gardens of Istanbul. In a city with an estimated popula-
tion of 400,000 in the mid-16th century, the dominance of men was readily
apparent. Istanbul was a city of men.21
In a sense, Latifi’s emphasis on the “multitude” of Istanbul’s male popula-
tion may be considered through the lens of the administrative division of soci-
ety into tax-exempt elite (ʿaskerī) and taxpaying populace (reʿāyā) within the
wider frame of male/female and Muslim/non-Muslim discursive binaries, the
latter defined by the practice of religious law. While the elite, with its genera-
tive military and educational institutions, represented a sizable percentage of
the Muslim populace, the majority of men were taxpaying denizens, or city
folk to be despised by the privileged minority. This majority was able to test
the sultan’s power through uprisings that generally began with the murmura-
tion of rumors in public spaces, bathhouses, coffeehouses, military barracks,
squares, and mosques, then fomented through the involvement of elite and/or
non-elite urban factions, in defiance of the conventional elite/non-elite binary.
The incoherent murmur raised by seditious conversations would take place
under the cover of cannons that fired on occasions such as imperial births,
circumcisions, weddings, and various imperial processions for accession cer-
emonies, for Friday prayers, and to signal the start of hunting expeditions. The
frequent cannon fire signified the power and bombast of the dynastic elite, but
it was matched by the rumbling of the citizenry that caused several sultans to
prick up their ears to hear.22
By the end of the 16th century, those rumblings frequently transmogri-
fied into a mob, an unstoppable wave, at times reaching all the way into the
Imperial Council Hall (Dīvān-ı Hümāyūn) in the second court of the Topkapı
Palace, demanding the heads of state notables and even sultans. This mascu-
line performance in response to the might of the palace was a point of culmi-
nation for the otherwise scorned multitude.23 A close look into the revolts that
shook the city, especially after the early 17th century, may reveal how those
there were around 20,000 janissaries in Istanbul: see G. Yılmaz, “The Economic and Social
Roles of Janissaries”, 64–65, 108.
21 Yi, “Interreligious Relations”, 122–24. Robert Mantran’s classification of the different
groups that comprised Istanbul’s population in the 17th century and their relations to con-
structed space provides a helpful blueprint for further studies: see Mantran, 17. Yüzyılın
İkinci Yarısında İstanbul, esp. vol. 1, 97–115.
22 See Boyar & Fleet, Social History, 41–49.
23 F. Yılmaz, “İstanbul’da Siyasal Olaylar Kronolojisi”.
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70 Kuru
revolts reestablished, as they further complicated, the balance among a whole

multitude of masculine positions.24
Certain masculine performances, from commercial interactions to the cre-
ation of high style poetry, enabled some women to take part in particular inter-
actions with men. In the 16th century, Mihri’s poetic duels with male poets
reflected her anxieties about masculinities as much as those of the male poets
who responded to her poems.25 Such exceptional performances reinforced
masculinity as a frame for Istanbul’s society while further complicating it.
Narratives that commented on city life reflected anxieties caused by the unset-
tling nature of manhood—as illustrated below. There, one may further glean
how the positional masculinities that Istanbul’s spatial organization afforded
its male citizens would be shaped in contestation with age-old prescriptive
codes of virtuous manhood.26
2 An Entangled Masculinity
In order to understand how manhood was shaped by the city, it is helpful to

map Istanbul’s male society beyond the state divisions of taxed/untaxed or
elite/non-elite. The men of Istanbul were the visible multitude that made the
city a chaotic space—“a crowd of mankind and a throng of high and low, so
much so that a dog would not be able to recognize its owner”.27 In 1595, Fynes
Moryson, a young graduate of Peterhouse, Cambridge, observed this crowd
fall upon the sailors and fellow passengers of his ship as they disembarked at
the “Port of Constantinople”, as “so many starved flies fell to sucke the sweete
Wines, each rascall among them beating with cudgels and ropes the best of our
Marriners”, until a “Janizare” was sent by the Venetian Ambassador to “beate all
Turkes, and drive them out of the Barke like so many dogs”.28
Latifi and Moryson observed the chaotic crowds in the city as a multitude.
Despite constant attempts by the Palace to keep them at bay, men poured
into the capital. They included refugees from various war zones at the borders
of the Empire, workers in need of jobs and needed for ongoing imperial con-
struction projects from all around the Empire, slaves captured in victorious
24 See the chapter by Necipoğlu in this volume.

25 Havlioğlu, Mihrî Hatun, esp. 57–71, 104–14.
26 The construction and experience of virtue needs further scrutiny in Ottoman studies on
masculinity. A reading of the circle of justice from a gendered perspective may be a good
start. On the circle of justice, see Darling, A History of Social Justice.
27 Latifi, Evsâf-i İstanbul, ed. Suner (Pekin), 13.
28 Moryson, An Itinerary Containing His Ten Yeeres Travell, vol. 2, 90.
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military campaigns, and diplomats, merchants, and travelers drawn to the city
to benefit from the never-ending circulation of goods. Their presence contrib-
uted to an unprecedented linguistic, ethnic, religious, and racialized level of
communal mixing. The group solidarities established around these identity
markers were often made visible by sartorial signification (ordained by the
Palace as much as by norms developed within groups) and communal rituals.
Yet, unlike in less heterogeneous urban settings, these groups interacted more
fluidly given their physical proximity in particularly crowded districts and the
heightened social and economic transactions of this growing and expanding
city of men.29
Though certainly visible at the time to observers such as Latifi and Fynes
Moryson, most of this “chaotic crowd” was devoured by Istanbul, failing to
leave much trace. Only the ample documentation collected by the state cap-
tures the multiple hierarchical structures of Istanbul’s “multitude of men”.30
The state painstakingly attempted to keep the different parts of this multi-
tude separate from one another, both horizontally with respect to religious
and professional demarcations, and vertically with respect to their hierarchy.
Communal leaders, whether religious or professional, attempted to reinforce
state-sanctioned hierarchies further in order to keep flocks together. A certain
hierarchy in the way the state separated and sorted the city’s men begins to
emerge as early as the 16th century, and is discernible not only in the official
records but also in literary sources. The Risāle-i Taʿrīfāt (Book of Explications),
a work in verse, composed in 1534/35 by Fakiri (d. 1530s), presents a hierar-
chical vision of Istanbul. Starting with a lengthy paean to Sultan Süleyman I
(r. 1520–66), Fakiri proceeds to identify various positions and types of charac-
ters in the city, starting with the highest. His list ranges from viziers to porters,
and includes 149 types of men defined by their status, occupations, or personal
characteristics.31
These sorts of hierarchically ordered lists are also found in a letter-in-verse
penned by Gazali (d. 1534), a learned man and poet who retired in Mecca,
where he expressed his yearning for Istanbul, naming his acquaintances and
29 Ariel Salzmann identifies physical proximity and economic transactions as two reasons
helping to explain the unusual levels of mixing in the city: see Salzmann, “Islampolis,
Cosmopolis”.
30 As testified, for example, by the documentation that was required for a wide array of tem-
porary residents. For workers as temporary residents, see Hamadeh, “Invisible City”, and
Çokuğraş, Bekâr Odaları. See also, Zarinebaf, Crime and Punishment in Istanbul.
31 For more detail on Risāle-i Taʿrīfāt, see Ambros, “Six Lampoons”.
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72 Kuru
thus revealing his social network in the city.32 After a short prose section,
Gazali’s 73-couplet letter addresses the morning wind, which to him came
from Rum (i.e. Anatolia):
You must have passed through Istanbul

Are the prosperous city and its Sultan doing well?
This opening couplet confirms Istanbul’s superiority to other cities and identi-
fies it as the seat of the sultan. Each following couplet inquires about the well-
being of an Istanbulite—each of the viziers, military judges, district judges,
and other notables, before turning to personal friends, tradesmen and appren-
tices, and literary figures cited by name, some praised and others insulted.33
Arranged in top-down order, the list provides a glimpse into the network of
an Ottoman learned man in 16th-century Istanbul. Fakiri and Gazali’s works,
the first focusing on professions and characters, the other on friends and foes
ordered according to rank, reflect the variety of Istanbulite men in a hierar-
chical ordering. However, the lists conceal other men, such as non-Muslims,
slaves, and workers, who must have been entangled with the ones cited.34
As a matter of fact, Istanbulite men constituted the most diverse group of
individuals whose lives were regulated by strict rules of dress, etiquette, and
behavior (all imposed in many parts of the Ottoman Empire) to make visible
not only religious but also social and professional differences. However, while
the state-imposed measures of differentiation in order to count and control,
various communities and solidarity groups seem to have complied with these
in order to preserve their coherence. Communities tried to differentiate them-
selves from others and, in order to preserve the integrity of their multilayered
identities (religious, ethnic, and/or professional), resisted the entanglement
urban spaces provided them. This is also why being a male resident of Istanbul
involved a painstaking effort to perform multiple and at times overlapping
forms of manhood as experienced in the city. Variegated masculinities were
signified by tattoos, gestures, textiles, particular clothing styles, religious rou-
tines, and other such signs, which reinforced group solidarity and helped keep
ethnic, religious, and social identifications visible.
32 The letter, sent to Istanbul, received at least three versified replies. These letters seem to
have received a wide readership during their time. See Kut, “Gazâlî’nin Mekke’den”.
33 Kut identifies the people mentioned, yet the letters deserve further scrutiny for an under-
standing of Istanbulite male networks.
34 For the limited representation of non-Muslims and non-Ottomans in Ottoman literary
texts, including Risāle-i Taʿrīfāt, see Ambros, “The Other”.
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Ethnic and religious solidarity in the city tended to be weaker among the
higher ranks. Military corps and guildsmen are a case in point.35 They con-
sisted of groups of men with different ethnic and linguistic backgrounds and
their interaction was across these boundaries. The most visible men in Istanbul
were the soldiers, most notably the janissaries, who appear in every genre of
writing from chronicles to travelers’ accounts as one of the most feared groups
in the city. Their barracks, once located at a central crossroads of intra muros
Istanbul in Aksaray, are no longer extant and there is very little information
about them. The janissaries’ position in the city, as representatives of the
military-administrative governing elite, combined with their role as a police
force and with their growing involvement with artisanal guilds and other
aspects of city life, made them a powerful and dangerous independent force in
the city.36 Constituting roughly 10 per cent of the population, they were distin-
guished by their daily and ceremonial attire, as well as by the battalion insignia
they had tattooed on their arms and/or legs as a sign of solidarity with their
battalions (see also Fig. 17.1).37
Sartorial regulations legislating one’s appropriate outfit according to social
rank targeted and defined men in the streets of early modern urban centers.
Apart from rank, sumptuary restrictions also signified religious identity. An
edict issued in 1568 upon a complaint by “some from the Jewish community”,
announced that “Jewish, Christian and other infidel groups should not wear
elegant and ready-made outfits”, and identified the colors, textiles, and style
of clothing appropriate for Jewish and Armenian men and women. In another
edict from 1580, Jewish men were ordered to wear red caps and Christians
black caps without turban cloth, which was intended only for Muslim men.
Shoe colors and the kinds of cloth meant for cloaks were also regulated: Jewish
men would wear black shoes and use a kind of coarse cotton textile (boġāsı).38
Edicts such as these, which attempted to impose restrictions on the use of
35 Yi, Guild Dynamics in Seventeenth-Century Istanbul.

36 For janissaries’ civilianization and, through this movement, the militarization of
Istanbulites in the 17th century, see Kafadar, “Janissaries and Other Riffraff”, and G. Yılmaz,
“The Economic and Social Roles of Janissaries”. The most detailed study of Istanbul janis-
saries is still Uzunçarşılı’s work, which includes various illustrations of costume and of
the old and new barracks (odalar): Osmanlı Devleti Teşkilâtından. See also, Delice, “The
Janissaries and Their Bedfellows”.
37 An enigmatic passage in Cabi’s account implies that ordinary people living in the intra
muros city could not necessarily recognize the janissaries’ various battalion insignias. It
also alludes to a territorial behavior by some of the battalions in certain districts. See
Cabi, Câbî Tarihi, ed. Beyhan, 408–09.
38 Ahmet Refik, On Altıncı Asırda. The stress on Jewish clothing in this edict and others
needs further attention. See also Faroqhi, “Introduction”.
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74 Kuru
certain textiles, colors, and clothing styles, were intended not only to distin-
guish Muslims from non-Muslims, but also non-Muslims from each other. As
the 1568 edict revealed, Muslim men were not the only ones troubled by sarto-
rial transgressions: non-Muslims of different creeds also jealously maintained
for themselves the distinguishing clothing styles that had been assigned to the
men in their flock.
While there were sumptuary restrictions on the fashions worn by Istanbulite
women of varying social rank, men’s clothing was the most visibly distinguish-
able aspect of the multitude that defined the city. Once the rank-defining cos-
tumes of soldiers, guildsmen, palace officers and servants, and learned men
are added to this variety of sartorial signification, the theater of urban life gains
an overwhelming visual texture with a bewildering signification of difference.
Sartorial rules, reactions to them, and fads among different groups rendered
particular social hierarchies in Istanbul visible. Distinct among Ottoman cit-
ies, Istanbul became a stage where these codes were performed, where vari-
ous groups of men whose identities were determined not only by their ethnic
or religious identity markers, but also by their place of origin, moved or were
forced to move, turning it into a theater of Empire. Law codes and edicts
regulating sartorial restrictions show that these were regularly transgressed.
Indeed, while some men defended the status quo, others defied it, making it all
the more complicated for us to reconstruct the street scene in this city of men.
Another genre that lists types of Istanbulite men was a kind of city enco-
mium that became popular in the early 16th century. Known as şehrengīz, city-
thrillers, these texts contained versified catalogs of young men encountered in
the market districts of urban centers. Unlike the aforementioned lists by Fakiri
and Gazali, şehrengīz texts are not hierarchical. Instead, they focus on men
of a certain age group. Mostly composed by court poets from among scribes
and learned men, these works begin with an introductory section that includes
invocations to God and generic praise for the city, followed by the catalog sec-
tion in which specific features of several young men are praised.
Even though the first samples of the genre focused on the former capi-
tals of Edirne and Bursa, at least nine şehrengīz would be dedicated to the
young men of Istanbul up until the 17th century when the genre fell out of
fashion.39 Following the commonplaces of the genre, Defterdar-zade Ahmed
Cemali (d. 1583), who was a madrasa graduate and the son of a scribe, begins
his Şehrengīz-i İsṭanbūl (City-Thriller for Istanbul, 1565) with a description of
Istanbul as a converging place of seas, mentioning its seven hills, minarets,
the ships at its harbors, and its boroughs. Following previous models, Cemali
39 For a survey of scholarship on the şehrengīz, see Karacasu, “Eski Türk Edebiyatında”.
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comments on the beautiful young men he sees in each and every quarter of the
city before listing the names of 40 beautiful men, praising each in five couplets.
He includes all kinds of apprentices, from soldiers to saddle makers, singers
and dancers, and many whose professions are not cited. Cemali’s work reveals
a particular connection between learned men and members of the scribal
office, on one hand, and the young men of the city, on the other, a connection
that created some challenges for people of the former group.40
For men of the sword, pen, and book, i.e. the military, bureaucratic, and
learned classes, from among whom came the şehrengīz writers, the city streets
presented challenges succinctly encapsulated in the term şehir oğlanı, city-
boy. While this phrase clearly referred to a man’s experience of the city, it
carried two specific connotations: it signified men from among the elite who
were shaped by streetwise experiences; at the same time, it became a deroga-
tory way of describing older members of the elite, who socialized with urban
residents and frequented gatherings at public places.41 Regarding the former
connotation, one should note Mustafa Âli’s (1541–1600) warning against the
recruitment of “young city-men” in elite households. For these young men,
being of ill repute due to their involvement in city life and their experiences in
taverns had a corrupting influence on other recruits.42
The latter connotation transpires in the story of Mesihi (d. 1512), a scribe,
major poet, and composer of one of the first şehrengīz texts on Edirne. When
one day he failed to appear at a meeting called by his patron, Vizier Hadım
Ali Pasha (d. 1511), the vizier shouted, “Bring me that city-boy!” This anecdote,
related by Aşık Çelebi, depicts Mesihi as a “fearless and frivolous” man, who at
the time of this incident was clearly too old to be called “a boy”. What justified
calling him a “city-boy” was his interaction with the young men of the city.43
Many military novice (acemioğlanı) were disdainfully called şehir oğlanı, an
indication of the degree to which they interacted with citizens by virtue of their
positions.44 However, this popular phrase, originally a minor slight compared
40 See Eren, “Defterdâr-zâde Ahmed Cemâlî”. Eren also lists nine şehrengīz texts on Istanbul,
including one on women: see ibid., 7–8.
41 There are cautionary tales about this sort of mixing. A case in point is the story of Meali,
a judge and poet, whose love for a janissary’s son teaches him a lesson. See Andrews,
“Sexual Intertext”.
42 Mustafa Âli, Mevâ’idü’n-nefâ’is, ed. Şeker, 273. For more information on the phrase şehir
oğlanı, see Sariyannis, “‘Mob,’ ‘Scamps’ and Rebels”; and Değirmenci, “Osmanlı Tasvir
Sanatında Görselin ‘Okunması’”, 33.
43 Aşık Çelebi, Meşâʿirü’ş- Şuʿarâ’, vol. 2, ed. Kılıç, 808–09.
44 Şehir oğlanı was used along with Türk oğlanı to criticize breaching the rule of accept-
ing only young men of Christian origin to the janissary corps. For an example, see the
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76 Kuru
to other slurs used for men, over the centuries acquired new connotations that
reflected the male experience of the city.45
The genre of şehrengīz and the phrase “city-boy” are two instances among
many that reveal the hierarchical stratification of Istanbul men, not only with
respect to social class, ethnicity, and religion, but also with respect to age. In
a system of learning where apprenticeship was the norm and determined
one’s path in life not only in the market districts but also in educational insti-
tutions, manhood was determined by professional skill and social mobility.
Apprentices, university students, soldiers in training (acemioğlan), and migrant
workers (bekār) added to the groups of younger men populating the streets, all
of whom became objects of a homoerotics of urban space in the eyes of elite
authors. Undoubtedly, professional and occupational hierarchies, linguistic
abilities, sartorial codes, and generational differences informed the performa-
tive matrices that cut across male spaces where different forms of masculinity
were performed. Nevertheless, the erotics of age differentials further compli-
cated the entangled network of the strictly male-dominated urban landscape.
3 Staging Manhood
While Fakiri, Gazali, and Cemali’s works categorically approach men of

Istanbul, they do not pay particular attention to the city itself. But there are
works that concentrated on Istanbul as a stage for masculine performances. For
example, three early modern texts that describe particular quarters of Istanbul
reveal the elite’s biases and anxieties about the urban population. In a bril-
liant passage toward the end of his Evṣāf-ı İsṭanbūl (Descriptions of Istanbul),
Latifi maps good and evil throughout the city in brisk pen strokes, contrasting
the commercial districts of Tahtakale (Taḥt al-ḳalʿa), the Bedestan, Atmeydanı
(the ancient Hippodrome, the city’s main public square), and Galata with the
religious sites that he advises his male readers to visit: notably, the Ayasofya
mosque, next to Topkapı Palace and overlooking Atmeydanı; and Eyüp, the
borough to the northwest of intramural Istanbul that was formed around the
shrine dedicated to Abu Ayyub al-Ansari, a companion of the Prophet who
quotation from “Kavanin-i Yeniçeriyan (Customs of Janissaries)”, in Uzunçarşılı, Osmanlı

Devleti Teşkilâtından, vol. 1, 39 n. 2.
45 Risāle-i Ġarībe (Book of Curiosities), a curse-text from 17th- or 18th-century Istanbul,
includes a vaster vocabulary employed for and by streetwise men, Risâle-i garîbe, ed.
Develi. See also Sariyannis, “‘Mob,’ ‘Scamps’ and Rebels”.
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was believed to have died during the first Arab siege of Constantinople.46 The
commercial districts of Istanbul, which Latifi labels as profane, were the most
crowded in the city, teeming with unruly males—guildsmen, soldiers, stu-
dents, workers, and sailors who corrupted themselves and the city’s beautiful
boys (maḥbūb) in pursuit of worldly desires. Writing for the elite who would
appreciate his ornate prose, Latifi advises his kind not to mix with the city folk
and to choose instead solitude in religious spaces.47
Latifi’s text seems to stand at the beginnings of a literary exercise, which
seems to have become common later, of mapping out different districts of
Istanbul and its boroughs. In an anonymous “curse-text” written around the
18th century, a listing of districts appears in the form of a diatribe against
inappropriate acts, again from an elite standpoint. The anonymous narrator
complains about those who come to the “great city” of Istanbul and live there
for decades without learning proper Turkish,48 and then provides an informa-
tive description of the city’s various commercial quarters, cursing the people
who frequented them: those who learn music from the gypsies of Eyüp; the
janissary guards of the Patriarchate, at Fener; the coal sellers at Cibali Gate;
the “turbaned Turks” from Anatolia who pray for a rise in the price of grain at
Unkapanı; the lowly people who eat clams, crabs, and oysters at Balık Bazarı;
and the porters who shout at people to make their way through the crowds
of Gümrük. The various people that are encountered in the different districts
of Istanbul become the target of the narrator’s curses due to their practices,
which were linked to these districts. These people and their practices that
defined the mentioned districts must have been a source of anxiety.49
A no longer extant book compiled on the order of Murad IV (r. 1623–40)
in 1638 and titled Evṣāf-ı Ḳosṭanṭīniyye (Descriptions of Constantinople) pre-
sented a survey of buildings in Istanbul. It offers a more detailed list, pro-
viding us with another elite perspective on the organization of the urban
46 See Özkoçak, “The Urban Development of Ottoman Istanbul”, 46–186 for detailed analy-
ses of the five commercial districts of the walled city: Tahtakale, Bedestan, Unkapanı,
Saraçhane, and Edirnekapı.
47 Latifi, Evsâf-ı İstanbul, ed. Suner (Pekin), 74. On “marginality and space” in Istanbul
through single-men’s lodgings and taverns, see Çokuğraş, Bekâr Odaları. Marginal with
respect to the state and current scholarship, they were central to city life, at least accord-
ing to Latifi and other sources. See also Hamadeh, “Invisible City”, 173.
48 Risâle-i garîbe, ed. Develi, 22–24. On multilingualism in Istanbul, see Csató et al., “The
Linguistic Landscape”.
49 Risâle-i garîbe, ed. Develi, 22–24. Ariel Salzman defines this text as “a form of social satire
and a means of multicultural catharsis”: see Salzmann, “Islampolis, Cosmopolis”, 74. For
an insightful discussion of this work along with another curse-text see, Salgırlı, “Manners
and Identity”.
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78 Kuru
environment. Evliya Çelebi copied this book, and in the first volume of his
monumental travelogue, included a summary of the list, which reads like a
detailed travel guide to Istanbul.50 Evliya cites more than a hundred buildings,
including mosques, hospitals, primary schools, Quran schools, dervish lodges,
caravanserais, inns, single-men’s lodgings, dervish lodges, bathhouses, grana-
ries, bakeries, janissary lodges, and yogurt shops. At first glance, one may fail
to appreciate that these were all places shaped mostly by male experience.
Curiously, the list does not include coffeehouses or taverns—though their
owners, together with pimps and male prostitutes, appear in a description of a
guild parade put on for Murad IV, which immediately follows this list.51 In this
section, tavern owners are presented in the same disparaging manner as public
entertainers and prostitutes.
In light of these works, one may delineate what I would call masculine
places. Istanbul proper was shaped roughly as a triangle, surrounded by unin-
terrupted city walls, dotted by smaller districts and agricultural areas, and con-
nected to the outer boroughs through water and land. Within this expansive
intra muros city, a thickly built area defined by the Golden Horn shores to the
north and the Divan Yolu to the south developed as the main stage for the mix-
ing of men of various backgrounds. With its major imperial edifices, includ-
ing mosque complexes, madrasas, bathhouses, mansions of officers with large
households, barracks for soldiers, and a vast commercial sprawl with market
halls and khans, and with its flow of life occasionally disrupted by courtly ritu-
als and ceremonies, fires, earthquakes, and uprisings, this was the space where
new and fluid masculinities were produced; and they were shaped by the kinds
of interactions I described above.52
The quarters of Cibali, Gümrük, Unkapanı, Bedestan, and Tahtakale were
located in the northern part of the walled city, along the middle and eastern
shores of the Golden Horn and the slopes descending to them, on an axis
extending from the Topkapı Palace to Edirnekapı (see Figure 0.1). The Divan
Yolu, along which by the mid-16th century sultanic mosque complexes and
janissary barracks were located, established its southern boundary. This most
populous section of the intra muros city was intersected by arteries link-
ing the Golden Horn to Sea of Marmara. All roads led to the Hagia Sophia,
Topkapı Palace, and the Hippodrome. This densely constructed part of the city
50 For a contents list of the Istanbul volume of Evliya Çelebi’s travelogue, see Dankoff,
An Ottoman Mentality, 9–21.
51 Evliya Çelebi, Evliya Çelebi Seyahatnâmesi, vol. 1, ed. Dankoff, Kahraman, Dağlı, 253–359.
52 The conditions whereby women could experience of this particular area were much more
limited in comparison to men, and arguably required different tactics for them to operate,
including a recognition of this space as a masculine environment.
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comprised the six most populated districts out of the thirteen into which the
walled city was divided.53 Unlike the southern or inner residential districts,
it may easily be imagined as the main stage for performances of masculin-
ity by all kinds of men—Christians, Jews, Roma, Muslims, Albanians, Greeks,
Turks, Italians, French, and English, with professions as diverse as merchants,
guildsmen, migrants, soldiers, bureaucrats, scholars, students, dervishes,
ambassadors, dragomen, workers, beggars, and madmen. Many congregated
in imperial mosques, universities, student lodgings, infirmaries, soup kitchens,
inns, and barracks. Public squares were for promenades and sporting activities;
shadow theater shows in coffeehouses brought people from different walks of
life together who also discussed political and social issues.54 Around the larger
mosque complexes, such as the Süleymaniye and Fatih, were bathhouses, der-
vish lodges, coffeehouses, cookshops, and, outside the city walls and across the
Golden Horn, taverns and more coffeehouses.55
These were spaces intended for men; for Latifi, Evliya, and the anonymous
author of Risāle-i Ġarībe, with the exception of mosques and dervish lodges,
they represented the corrupting material world worked through the bodies
of male Istanbulites. Thousands of edicts and religious opinions were issued
in attempts to restrict the illicit acts that presumably took place in primarily
male venues such as coffeehouses and taverns. Court cases and religious opin-
ions responded to incidents taking place in these arguably proto-democratic
spaces.56 The activities censured in these pronouncements reveal what men
did for fun in premodern Istanbul: in Eyüp, one of the licit places Latifi recom-
mended that his ilk frequent, for example, people were “drinking wine and
accepting harlots to men’s lodgings (odalar)” and “playing chess, rolling the
dice in proximity to mosques and the marketplace”.57 Indeed the city, for all
the hardships it inflicted on its men, was also their playground. For the elite,
however, these activities remained suspect and needed to be curtailed. Their
attraction to this playground conflicted with their anxieties about mixing with
ordinary people. On the one hand, elite men revealed their desire for the city
by commenting on and refashioning discourses about the city through their
53 See Kafescioğlu, Constantinopolis/Istanbul, for formation of this part of Istanbul, and

Özkoçak, “The Urban Development of Ottoman Istanbul”, 40–45 for a description of
the 13 districts. See also Faroqhi, “Urban Space as Disputed Grounds”, 220–21 for a vivid
description of the area and disputes among different guilds for space.
54 Mizrahi, “Diversity and Comedy in Ottoman Istanbul”.
55 See Cerasi, The Istanbul Divanyolu.
56 Yaşar, “Külliyen Ref’ten”; and Kafadar, “How Dark”. See also Tezcan, The Second Ottoman
Empire.
57 Ahmet Refik, On Altıncı Asırda, 133.
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80 Kuru
lists of people and places; on the other hand, they had a precarious relation
with its mean streets, on which they must have stood out with their gestures,
outerwear, and accents.
Non-Muslim elite authors’ observations about the city and their place in
it are another point to be considered. A versified description of Istanbul by
the Armenian Istanbulite Eremya Çelebi Kömürciyan (1637–95) ends with a
lamentation: “We could not enter the greater town. We weren’t able to count
great and smaller mosques and identify their districts. We couldn’t see the
soup kitchens and the food prepared for madrasa students, nor the schools
that trained the children. What are those madrasas to us, since ours are shut
down, they inflict only more sorrow.” Kömürciyan’s list includes the janissary
barracks, the various markets and shopping districts, the slave markets, and
the Greek Orthodox churches in the central districts as restricted spaces for
himself. As a learned Armenian Istanbulite, he stays away from those districts
in which many Armenian and other craftsmen belonging to the multiethnic
guild system worked.58 The places he was not able to venture add another
layer to our understanding of the city’s core sections, as they were experienced
by men of different ethnic and confessional belonging.
Despite whatever reservations they may have harbored about the streets of
Istanbul and the illicit acts they hosted, members of the elite still romanti-
cized the city. Parallel to the aforementioned şehrengīz genre, Ottoman poets
reworked the core Islamicate tropes found in older verse narratives of meta-
phorical love, such as “Leyla and Mecnun” or “Yusuf and Züleyha”, and in their
narrative romances rendered Istanbul as an ideal stage on which to locate the
city’s young men. First-person verse narratives such as Fürḳatnāme (Book of
Separation, 1471), by an obscure poet, Halili of Bitlis, and Hevesnāme (Book
of Desire, 1493/94), by the famous chancellor and poet Tacizade Cafer Çelebi
(1452–1515)—the former about a boy and the latter about a woman—started a
subgenre of Persianate Ottoman Turkish romances in which Istanbul became
the setting.59 In a sense, the love affairs with Istanbulite boys that were taken
up as a fresh theme in these classical literary forms, like similar affairs related
by authors of biographical dictionaries, were highbrow morality tales, reflect-
ing the conflicted gaze of the elite upon the young men of the city’s bustling
58 Eremya Çelebi, İstanbul Tarihi, trans. Andreasyan, 55; for schools that “are shut down”,
ibid., 294, n. 3.
59 For example, Şāh ü Gedā (King and Beggar, 1538–40) by Taşlıcalı Yahya (d. 1575/76) starts
with an encounter during a promenade at Atmeydanı; Jaeckel, “Yahya Bey’s King and
Beggar”, 178–79. For references and a preliminary analysis of Fürḳatnāme and Hevesnāme,
see Kuru, “Mesnevî Biçiminde Aşk Hali”; on similar works in Ottoman Turkish, see
Özyıldırım, “Sergüzeşt-nâmeler”.
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streets, who attracted them with their youthful virility and threatened their
virtue.60 No other city had ever entered Ottoman Turkish romance with such
a subversive topic in such a persistent manner. While Latifi, Evliya Çelebi, and
the anonymous author of Risāle-i Ġarībe all disdained and criticized the mul-
titude of men that to them made up Istanbul’s street scene, the şehrengīz texts
and narrative romances lacked this negative gaze; they furthermore replaced
old praise for the city’s man-made edifices found in those prose texts with
praise for the city’s beautiful young men. It was they who now were the won-
ders of creation and who directed elite authors’ gaze for the experience of met-
aphorical love, for which Istanbul’s street scene became a stage.
The discursive reflections on the men of Istanbul represent a growing sense
of spatial differentiation in Ottoman Turkish writing. Attempts at making sense
of and containing what was perceived of as the negative force of the male mul-
titude were at the same time attempts at categorizing and signifying variegated
forms of manhood, whether in professional, religious, or ethnic terms. The
authors who described the city as outsiders probably experienced the city very
differently from the multitude of men, but their faltering gazes constantly led
them to Istanbul’s predominantly male districts. Under the guise of morality
tales, and with a heightened topographic sensibility, they were able to express
their anxieties about those who animated their city, while the latter, as Michel
de Certeau brilliantly described, “follow the thick and thins of an urban ‘text’
they write without being able to read it”.61
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Chapter 4
Women in the City

Understanding the relationship between Istanbul and women in the early

modern era has never been a simple task, and it has certainly become more
complicated, and more interesting, in the past three decades. Since the 1980s,
several landmark studies on women in the Ottoman Empire have challenged
many of the traditional beliefs about how women negotiated agency, pres-
ence, and access in the early modern urban environment of Istanbul, and have
added to a rapidly growing body of research which addresses various issues of
gender in the Ottoman world. Defining women by a singular and static gender,
and dichotomizing Istanbul’s myriad spaces into binary categories of public/
private, with men prevalent in the former and women in the latter, is no lon-
ger tenable. The research of Joan Scott, Judith Butler, Elizabeth Thompson,
Thomas Laqueur, and many others working in women’s studies, gender, mas-
culinity, and queer studies has firmly established that gender identity is a
social construct, and therefore never fixed or stable. The invention of a “third-
sex” category to accommodate persons of indeterminate sexualities, such as
eunuchs and hermaphrodites, has also failed to account for the nuances of
gender that existed in the Ottoman world.1
Interpreting the diverse nature of women’s lives in Istanbul now calls for a
rereading of many archival sources in which women are a focus, from court
cases, inheritance registers, foundation registers, and chroniclers’ accounts,
to poetry, letters, and illustrated manuscripts. Sources which are intangible or
less textual, such as architecture, objects, scents, and sounds, are also being
mined for information about the past experiences of Istanbulite women, and
are contributing to an awareness that their lives were far more dynamic and
complex than previously imagined. While the majority of research on women
and Istanbul in the early modern era is still rooted in history departments, the
methodologies used by newer disciplines such as cultural geography, urban,
gender, and queer studies, and performative and sensory studies are bringing
new insights to and questions about these residents of the empire’s capital.
My focus here is on 16th- and 17th-century Istanbul, although brief mention
is made about some of the changes that impacted women’s lives in the follow-
ing century. After establishing who in early modern Istanbul was included in
1 Thys-Şenocak, “The Gendered City”, 878.

Women in the City 87
the category “women”, I examine a variety of textual sources which provide

documentation about women’s lives including court records, inheritance reg-
isters, and letters. Letters authored by royal Ottoman women and their kiras, or
court liaisons, are particularly valuable sources as it is in these documents that
we can begin to hear the voices of different women as they exercised influence
and agency beyond the physical borders of the imperial harem. Non-textual
sources, such as architecture commissioned by Ottoman women, and the dif-
ferent ways in which women were represented in Ottoman paintings, are also
introduced here briefly. Finally, the potential of sensory studies to reveal infor-
mation about the olfactory and acoustical dimensions of Ottoman women’s
lives in the capital is considered.
1 Defining “Women”
Ottoman medical discourse about the male and female body in the early mod-
ern era varied, but incorporated both Aristotelian and Galenic theories which
categorized the female body as an imperfect version of the male body. In this
“one sex” model, the male and female bodies were situated along a biologi-
cal continuum, with the male body defined as warmer, more developed, and
able to produce seed. Women’s bodies were cooler, which resulted in their
sexual organs still being embedded in their bodies, thereby making them
imperfect, less developed versions of the male.2 Ottoman physicians debated
the degree to which a woman’s body was less perfect than a man’s, but most
supported some variation of an androcentric and patriarchal single-sex bio-
logical model.3 Many Ottoman intellectuals supported a position on women
similar to that held by Mustafa Âli, author of the 16th-century festival narrative
Cāmiʿu’l-Buḥūr Der Mecālis-i Sūr (Gathering of Poetic Meters in the Scenes of
Festivity) who felt there were important differences between Muslim men and
women. One such difference was the ritual of circumcision, which as Mustafa
Âli noted, elevated the status of males.4
Men are made merry by two celebrations

One of them weddings, and one circumcision
Women have one but don’t have the other
Thus honor is greater in men than in women.5
2 Ze’evi, “Hiding Sexuality”, 40.

3 Gadelrab, “Discourses on Sex Differences in Medieval Scholarly Islamic Thought”, 42.
4 Felek, “Displaying Manhood and Masculinity”, 150.
5 Mustafa Âli, Câmiʿu’l-buhûr, ed. Öztekin, 89.
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88 Thys-Şenocak
Explicit acts of “gender-bending” by men or women stepping beyond the

boundaries of what was considered as appropriate behavior and proper deco-
rum for one’s gender, age, religion, and social status was generally not tolerated
and could be punished by the state, the residents of the local neighborhood
(maḥalle), or the family. The consequences of violating acceptable behav-
ioral norms led to various degrees of punishment, as one woman who dressed
as a ṣubaşı, or city prefect, and rode a horse to the festivities at Istanbul’s
Hippodrome (Atmeydanı) discovered when she was briefly arrested by Sultan
Murad III during the circumcision ceremony for his son in 1582.6
In Istanbul’s palaces, legal courts, streets, baths, markets, and homes, the
discourse of gender could be highly nuanced through the use of different
words and phrases revealing attitudes and assumptions about women. Leslie
Peirce has pointed out that there was a lack of symmetry in the language used
in court records to designate the early life phases of men and women. The
word kız was used for a female from birth through marriage, whereas there
were far more words used to describe males and their life stages between the
end of childhood and the time of marriage; it is only after marriage that more
diverse descriptors are used for women.7 Given this imbalance in nomencla-
ture, Peirce suggests that “early modern Ottoman society perceived the male
process of social maturation leading to marriage to be more complex than that
of females”.8
Married women were most frequently referred to as ʿavrat, but could also
be identified with descriptors that reflected their roles within the family, their
religion, profession, or perceived character, e.g. bint (daughter), gelin (bride
or daughter-in-law), evli (person with a household), ümmülveled (mother of
a child), kira (female liaison for the women of the imperial harem), ḳazzaz
(weaver), bohçacı (peddler), oruspu (prostitute), fācire (sinner), nāshiza (a
disobedient and stubborn woman). Among the elite Ottoman families, rela-
tions to the sultan, hierarchy in the court, and the degree of freedom a woman
legally possessed could also be understood from the specific titles assigned
to them. A cāriye (female servant) could proceed through several phases of
life, becoming a ḫāṣ odalık (royal concubine serving the sultan), gözde (harem
favorite), ḫāṣekī/kadınefendi (sultan’s favorite who had given birth), ḳalfa
or usta (holding administrative positions within the harem), vālide sulṭān
(mother of the sultan), and even vālide-i muʿaẓẓama sulṭān (grandmother of
the sultan) if she lived long enough or had sufficient power to dominate a
6 Terzioğlu, “The Imperial Circumcision Festival of 1582”, 94.

7 Peirce, “Seniority, Sexuality, and Social Order”, 177.
8 Ibid.
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younger vālide.9 Depending on whether one was a kız çocuk, ʿavrat, cāriye, or
vālide sulṭān; young or old; traveled alone to fetch water at a well or was sur-
rounded by an entourage to go to the bath, the relationship with the city of
Istanbul and specific places within it differed vastly for women of varied social
backgrounds. Notions of what was acceptable decorum in the local neighbor-
hood, the kadi’s (judge’s) chambers, or the Council Hall of the Topkapı Palace
depended on a wide range of social and cultural factors. Whether a woman
was muḫaddere (respectable), ehl-i perde (veiled, chaste), ʿafīfe (chaste), ṣāliḥa
(pious), or yaramaz (unruly) ultimately hinged on circumstances such as age,
wealth, status, decorum, and reputation.10
2 Sources for Women’s Agency and Engagement with the City
Most of what we know about the experiences of women living in Istanbul

in the early modern era, with the possible exception of letters composed by
women living in or working for the imperial harem, can be found in texts that
were authored or illustrated by men. Women’s voices can be extracted from
their testimonies that were often recorded in the kadi’s court; their preferences
for particular types of objects can be teased out from their inheritance regis-
ters, and their desire to establish a presence in the city, and a reputation for
piety and good deeds can be determined from close readings of endowment
documents. However, all these documents were heavily mediated through
men and gendered formalities of the era. Even the female poets living in the
literary circles of the empire existed in what Kemal Sılay has called a “men’s
club of literature; a literature which did not even allow its male practitioners
to express their own personality or identity easily”.11
There were some exceptions to the Ottoman male literary club in these cen-
turies, but most occurred outside of Istanbul. Among the notable poets of late
15th- and early 16th-century Amasya were Zeynep and Mihri Hatun, respec-
tively, whom Didem Havlioğlu believes helped to deconstruct “the binary gen-
der construction of the Ottoman poetic discourse and redefined the genders
through poetry”.12 Ayşe Hubbi Hatun stands out as a rare example of a female
poet from late 16th-century Istanbul who was respected in the court circles
of her time for being both well-connected and skillful in her composition of
9 Thys-Şenocak, Ottoman Women Builders, 17–54.

10 Boyar, “An Imagined Moral Community”, 193.
11 Sılay, “Singing his Words”, 199.
12 Havlioğlu, Mihrî Hatun, 127.
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90 Thys-Şenocak
lyrical and narrative poems.13 In five centuries of Ottoman biographical dic-

tionaries (teẕkires), only 35 female poets have been recorded, as opposed to
400 male poets, but it is likely that this former number will increase as literary
scholars look beyond the frequently consulted sources for evidence of Ottoman
women’s literary production.14 The discovery of Asiye Hatun’s 16th-century
diary, in which her dreams and letters to a Halveti shaykh were recorded, and
the poetry written by Nisayi from 16th-century Amasya, who was never men-
tioned in any of the teẕkires but appeared in Pervane b. Abdullah’s anthology
(mecmūʿa) are just some examples of how our understanding of, and evidence
for Ottoman female poets is still evolving.15
The character, behavior, and reputation of the women of Istanbul were
central concerns for Ottoman male authors, and the behavior of different
types of women who lived and worked in the various spaces of the city was
expounded on in many genres, ranging from the historical chronicle to the
şehrengīz (poems which described the beautiful youth of Ottoman cities), or
the bāhnāmes (erotic guides for sexual satisfaction).16 Ottoman chroniclers
employed a range of eloquent epithets for the imperial women of the harem,
comparing their virtuous characters to the wives of the Prophet Muhammad,
and exalting them as cradles which had given birth to the blessed sovereign
(mehdī-i ʿulyā’-yı saltanat) or as rare and precious pearls of the sultanate
(ṣedef-i dürr-i salṭanat).17 Depending on their status in the city, women could
also be described by Ottoman men in very concrete and pragmatic terms, as
the slave Mihriban was by her owner Mustafa ibn Hasan el-Reis who noted in
1580 that his possession was of “Russian origin, of medium height, with wide-
spaced eyebrows, dark hazel eyes, fair skinned and with the big toe of her right
foot suppurating”.18 Women could be celebrated or denigrated, individually or
collectively, as in the Şehrengīz-i İstānbūl der Ḫūbān-ı Zenān (City-Thriller of
Istanbul on Beautiful Women), an unusual example of this genre penned by
Yedikuleli Mustafa Azizi in the late 16th century which describes the beauties
of the city’s women rather than its men.19
European males residing in Istanbul in the 16th and 17th centuries also
produced a vast repertoire of writings about the Ottoman women they saw
13 Havlioğlu, “On the Margins and between the Lines”, 44.

14 Ibid., 26–27.
15 Kafadar, Rüya Mektupları; Çavuşoğlu, “16. Yüzyılda Yaşamış Bir Kadın Şair: Nisayî”.
16 Schick, “Representation of Gender and Sexuality”.
17 Thys-Şenocak, Ottoman Women Builders, 112.
18 Fleet, “The Extremes of Visibility”, 137.
19 Değirmenci, “Osmanlı Tasvir Sanatında Görselin ‘Okunması’”, 25, 43; Schick, “Representa-
tion of Gender and Sexuality”, 90.
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(or claim to have seen) in the city, setting the stage for some of the later and
better known travelers’ accounts produced by their male compatriots, and by
women such as Lady Mary Montagu, whose 18th-century collection of letters
describes her encounters and observations of women’s lives.20 Degrees of
visual and physical access to Istanbulite women depended on the identities of
the observer and the observed, but many of the descriptions of elite women in
the accounts composed by European male writers were garnered from hearsay
and generated by orientalist imaginations.
Descriptions of Istanbul’s women by European men that were based on
direct observation were usually of women they saw going about their busi-
ness in the streets of Istanbul, or non-Muslim women. Wenceskas Wratislaw,
for example, traveled to Istanbul with the Habsburg ambassador in 1591 and
reported that some of the sultanas he encountered could be “scheming figures,
but also consumers and patrons”.21 Elite and non-elite Istanbul women made
a significant impact on the economy of early modern Istanbul and in many
of the provincial regions of the empire, a point which has been discussed at
length by several scholars.22 The physical presence of women in the market
quarters of Istanbul at this time is therefore not surprising, and they were per-
mitted to sell and purchase goods as long as they did not compete with the
guilds or violate any laws.23 Noting the different degree of visual access he had
to women of different religions, Wratislaw wrote, “Christian Greek women are
dressed in the same manner as the Turkish women, yet they do not shroud
their faces, but only wear a thin kerchief over the head, and everyone can look
them in the face.”24
For many women who lived in Istanbul in the early modern era, what con-
stituted appropriate decorum and acceptable gendered behavior was decreed
by members of the Ottoman religious hierarchy, such as Shaykh al-Islam
Ebussuud Efendi, a prominent jurist of the 16th century. Ebussuud’s fatwas,
and the legal opinions expressed by other prominent male jurists, regulated
the degree of visibility and agency that women of Istanbul and throughout
the empire were expected to have; but there were rifts between the norms that
Ebussuud sought to establish and actual practices. According to Ebussuud,
20 Montagu, The Complete Letters of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu.

21 Brummett, “The ‘What If?’ of the Ottoman Female”, 35.
22 The role of non-elite women in the economy of the empire has been addressed frequently
in the context of Anatolia, the Balkans, and the provincial cities of the empire. See, for
example, Faroqhi, Stories of Ottoman Men and Women; Zarinebaf, Women on the Margins;
Zarinebaf-Shahr, “The Role of Women in the Urban Economy”.
23 Kafadar, “Women in Seljuk and Ottoman Society”, 193.
24 Wratislaw, Adventures of Baron Wencelas Wratislaw, 85–87.
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92 Thys-Şenocak
women who were of a noble stature in society could go out of their houses and
neighborhoods to visit certain public areas of the city and maintain respect-
ability (muḫaddere), as long as they were accompanied with a retinue befitting
their position.25 They could even participate in Friday prayers, but only if they
were of a respectable age and had no young women accompanying them.26
Not all jurists agreed with Ebussuud on what constituted respectability for
women. As Ebru Boyar remarks, “muḫaddere was a kind of ‘concertina’ term,
expanding and contracting its meaning according to the period” and, appar-
ently, according to the personality of the authority, setting the parameters of
what it meant.27 Some court records are quite forthright about what consti-
tuted the proper behavior for women, while others require a closer and more
critical reading since laws often revealed the prescriptive view of behavior
rather than reflecting the practiced norm.
In addition to the rich collection of early modern court records, inheri-
tance/estate registers (tereke/muḫallefāt) and the complaints registers (şikāyet
defterleri) of Istanbul (these latter sources date from the second half of the
17th century through the 19th century), have also shed light on the lives of both
elite and non-elite Muslim and non-Muslim women. Yvonne Seng’s research of
Üsküdar court cases from the early 16th century is among the earliest studies
which demonstrated the complexity of women’s experiences in just this one
borough of greater Istanbul.28 Seng and other scholars working on these types
of records have revealed that women from many different strata of Istanbul
society had both legal and physical access to the courts for a variety of pur-
poses, regardless of social status, age, or religion.29 The records from Üsküdar,
along with many other legal cases brought by women to the courts from dif-
ferent neighborhoods in Istanbul, attest to the fact that the women living in
this city spent their time involved in many different types of activity moving
through myriad spaces within Istanbul while fighting for their inheritance,
purchasing and selling properties, settling debts with family members, taking
neighbors to court for stolen laundry or the construction of illegal buildings, or
25 Peirce, “Domesticating Sexuality”, 141–42.

26 Ebussuud, Şeyhülislam Ebussuud Efendi Fetvaları, ed. Düzdağ, 60; Peirce, “Seniority,
Sexuality, and Social Order”, 170–71.
27 Boyar, “An Imagined Moral Community”, 192.
28 Seng, “The Üsküdar Estates”.
29 Seng, “Invisible Women”, 265. Several scholars have used these types of court records to
study the social and economic aspects of women’s lives, both in Istanbul and the provin-
cial regions of the empire. See Jennings, “Women in Early 17th Century Ottoman Judicial
Records”; Zarinebaf, “Women, Law and Imperial Justice”; Zilfi, “‘We Don’t Get Along’”;
Faroqhi, Stories of Ottoman Men and Women.
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seeking justice for the more serious crimes of slander, theft, abduction, rape,
and murder.
When legal cases could not be resolved by the local judge, or the answer
was deemed to be unsatisfactory, or the kadi perceived as corrupt, women
could appeal to the Imperial Council with their complaints, which would be
recorded in registers dedicated for this purpose. From 1680 to 1706, the peti-
tions brought by women to the Council constituted 8.24 per cent of all the peti-
tions in Istanbul. Like their Anatolian sisters, women of intramural Istanbul
occasionally took their grievances to higher authorities and, like their male
relatives, they may have made an appearance in the different places of the
empire where legal disputes were resolved.30
Inheritance registers (tereke/muḫallefāt) also provide important glimpses
into the lives of women in many different strata of Istanbul’s society. Because
they record the wealth and diversity of the deceased’s possessions, estate regis-
ters belonging to women are particularly interesting since they can illuminate
their needs, likes, and dislikes. Bequeathed objects have the potential to evoke
reflections of their owners’ personalities and identities; to whom possessions
were dispersed can also highlight different economic and social networks in
which women navigated. Royal women’s inheritance registers are of particu-
lar interest in this respect. The estate records of Mehmed IV’s mother, Hadice
Turhan Sultan, compiled after her death in 1683, indicate that in addition to
copious furs, silk garments, and sweet-smelling perfumes, the vālide died own-
ing twelve pairs of looking glasses or binoculars (dürbüns), perhaps an indica-
tion that she understood the value of visual access to spaces that she could
not easily access in person, including some of her architectural projects, such
as the great market place and Yeni Valide mosque complex she had commis-
sioned in Eminönü.31
3 Writings by Women/Voices of Women
While the majority of sources about women in Istanbul from the 16th and
17th centuries are authored by men, the letters composed at this time by
royal Ottoman women and their kiras, the non-Muslim women who served as
intermediaries between the harem and the outside world, have received rela-
tively little critical attention to date and can still be mined to provide insight
30 Zarinebaf, “Women, Law and Imperial Justice”, 15–16.

31 Sağır, “Vâlide Turhan Sultan’ın Muhallefatı”, 273; Kıvrım, “17. Yüzyılda Bir Valide Sultanın
Günlük Hayatı”, 250.
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94 Thys-Şenocak
into the different strategies that women of the Topkapı Palace used to extend
their influence far beyond the palace walls.32 While sporadic, the publication
of royal Ottoman women’s correspondence from the 16th and 17th centuries
began as early as 1599 with Richard Hakluyt’s inclusion in Italian and English
of a letter written by Safiye Sultan, the ḫāṣekī, or favorite, of Murad III (r. 1574–
95) in The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of the
English Nation.33 A certain degree of interest in royal women’s correspondence
reemerged in the 19th century as their letters were discovered in the archives of
Warsaw, Venice, and London. These letters included the diplomatic correspon-
dence written by Hürrem Sultan, Sultan Süleyman’s favorite, and his daugh-
ter Mihrümah written around 1550 to two Polish kings, Sigismund I and II.34
Other examples of royal women’s correspondence include several short let-
ters written by Nurbanu Sultan (d. 1583), the favorite of Selim II and mother
of Sultan Murad III, to the Venetian Senate and its trade representatives, the
bailos of Istanbul; and correspondence dating from 1593 and 1599 between
Queen Elizabeth I and Safiye Sultan, the favorite of Murad III and mother of
Mehmed III (r. 1595–1603).35 Letters produced by the Ottoman royal favorites,
wives, mothers, and daughters living in Istanbul during the early modern era,
while relatively small in number compared to those generated by male mem-
bers of the court, did cover a range of topics, from trade and diplomacy, to
concerns for the well-being of children, or the payment of troops, and the rein-
forcement of the imperial navy.
Hürrem Sultan (d. 1558) and her husband, Sultan Süleyman (r. 1520–66), fre-
quently exchanged letters while the latter was on campaign and away from the
capital. Süleyman’s harem favorite briefed him on developments in Istanbul,
from pragmatic details of running the palace in his absence, to the progress of
her building projects, or the state of their children’s health. Her missives were
decorated with gold flecks, used the high prose of the chancellery, and were
filled with information that moved fluidly between intimate news of the family
and pragmatic reports of her inadequate finances. Almost a prose equivalent
of the lyric poetry of gazel, Hürrem’s letters were conceived of as a gift, some-
thing which was a work of art first, a vehicle of communication second, and,
finally, tangible evidence of the ties that bound the sultan and his troops on
the frontiers of the empire to the royal women occupying his household in the
32 Thys-Şenocak, Ottoman Women Builders, 56–65; Lushchenko, “The Correspondence of

Ottoman Women”.
33 Skilliter, “Three Letters”, 119–55.
34 Yermolenko, “Roxolana”, 240–41.
35 Skilliter, “Three Letters”; Skilliter, “The Letters of the Venetian ‘Sultana’”; Pedani, “Safiye’s
Household”.
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empire’s capital. Hürrem and her daughter, Mihrümah (d. 1578), extended their
influence far beyond the walls of their palace quarters and became involved in
the empire’s foreign relations. Peirce has commented that the negotiations of
these two women with the Polish kings mentioned above constituted “a fam-
ily affair”, and contributed to a network of women’s correspondence which
extended to the Ottoman’s neighbors in the east such as Sultanim, the sister of
the Safavid Shah Tahmasp.36
Some of the letters composed under the palace women’s supervision were
intended to serve as major spectacles at the time when presented to the reader.
This is the case of a letter written in 1593 by Safiye Sultan (d. 1619), the favorite
of Murad III and mother of Mehmed III, which was sent to Queen Elizabeth I
and was the first of three letters in an elaborate gift exchange between the two
royals. Composed in a flowery and rhyming prose (sajaʿ) the writing itself
included elaborate color schemes. Susan Skilliter commented that in the first
letter, “in every line except the last, the scribe changes the ink at least three
times, using all together five colors: black, blue, crimson, gold, and scarlet”. A
jewel-studded seal, now missing, decorated the letter. The paper was to have
smelled “more fragrant than pure camphor and ambergris and its ink of the
finest musk”.37 To produce these letters, collaboration would have occurred
between the vālide and her harem agents within the palace in Istanbul, but
also required the talents of the scribe or kātib and, in this case, the skills of the
illustrator (naḳḳāş). This type of diplomatic letter, along with the writing and
the performative act of reading of it, were activities which moved outside the
intimate quarters of the harem, often extending the agency of these women far
beyond the empire’s borders.
There are other rather informal letters which reveal more intimate voices
of the mothers, daughters, or wives of the sultan, or at times, their kiras. On
one occasion the queen mother Safiye Sultan’s kira, Esperanza Malchi, wrote
to Queen Elizabeth: “on account of your Majesty’s being a woman, I can with-
out embarrassment employ you with this notice”. Esperanza then requests
that the English queen send oils and ointments for the face and hands of her
patron, the vālide, but she specifies that these should be sent only through her
because, “being articles for ladies, she [the vālide] does not wish them to pass
through other hands”.38 Maria Pia Pedani’s study of Safiye Sultan’s household
and diplomatics relied on several examples of correspondence housed in the
Venetian State Archives. Pedani refers to letters written in late December 1587,
36 Peirce, The Imperial Harem, 221.

37 Skilliter, “Three Letters”, 120–22, 132.
38 Ibid., 143.
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96 Thys-Şenocak
prior to her tenure as queen mother, in which Safiye thanks the bailo for some
chairs which had been sent from Venice as a marriage gift; in other letters she
informs the bailo that she received the Venetian Senate’s congratulatory mis-
sive of 2 April 1586 about her upcoming marriage, and she requests perfumes
and oils for her upcoming nuptials.39 A third letter cited by Pedani reveals how
Safiye easily mixed personal concerns with political ones, as in the same let-
ter the sultana inquired after the health and whereabouts of her ailing kira,
the military movements of the Venetians, and the diplomatic actions being
taken in the Ottoman court: “How are you? … Why didn’t you send your dish
here to-day? Please, send it at the time of dinner every day … Why do the
Venetians build castles near the border? Please tell them to destroy the castles
or they know what will happen. The baylo sent a letter to have a hatt-ı hümayūn
[sultanic order] but the sultan said that it has to be discussed in the divan.”40
Pedani has remarked that Safiye’s letters were usually brief and simple missives
and that she may have written some of them herself; in one of the letters in the
Venetian archives there is a note which indicates that it was written in “Safiye’s
own hand”.41
This is not the place to debate the “pen-penis” conundrum that Irigaray and
other feminist literary critics have addressed regarding the authenticity of the
voice of the female author.42 Along these lines it is important to note that
royal women in Istanbul would have worked with a scribe or amanuensis while
composing their letters, just as their male relatives did. As Jane Couchmann
and Anne Crabb have pointed out, for the royal female European letter writers
such as Queen Elizabeth, or Catherine de Medici, when it came to compos-
ing letters for men or women, the scribe was most often male.43 These letters,
however, were in no way less genuine examples of the expressions, wishes, and
intentions of their authors, whatever the gender.
Women of the Ottoman court in Istanbul also endowed and collected illus-
trated manuscripts and were active patrons and users of libraries.44 Sultan
Murad III’s daughters, Ayşe Sultan and Fatma Sultan, are known to have
owned manuscripts about astrology, demonology, and other topics. According
to Emine Fetvacı, these royal women, among others, were important compo-
nents of the audiences and readership of manuscripts. We therefore need to
look more closely at these books since “neither the quality nor the content of
39 Pedani, “Safiye’s Household”, 12, 18–19.

40 Ibid., 19–20.
41 Ibid., 19, n. 36.
42 Irigaray, This Sex Which is Not One; Gilbert & Gubar, “Sexual Linguistics”, 515.
43 Couchman & Crab, “Reading Early Modern Women’s Letters”, 100–02.
44 Erünsal, Ottoman Libraries.
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the manuscripts owned by Ottoman elite women seem to have diverged from
those of their male counterparts”.45
4 Visual, Spatial, and Sensory Dimensions: Sites, Sounds, and Scents
Male artists depicted women in several illustrated manuscripts produced for

the sultan during the 16th and 17th centuries. Women who appear in the earlier
illuminated works produced for the sultans were more frequently portrayed as
mourners or onlookers in the discreet margins of the images, such as in a min-
iature in the Şehinşehnāme from 1597, which illustrates the funerary cortege of
the queen mother Nurbanu Sultan (see Fig. 4.1).46 There are rare exceptions to
this, such as the depictions of women seeking the sultan’s justice at Atmeydanı
illustrated in the 1589 Hünernāme (see Fig. 4.2).47 In the Fetiḥnāme-i Eğri of
Mehmed III from 1598, four women are tucked away behind the windows of
a pavilion watching the triumphal entry of the sultan into Istanbul after his
campaign in Hungary (see also Fig. 7.1a). Women spectators look from the
sidelines in many of the miniatures from the 1588 Sūrnāme of Murad III (see
Figs. 4.3a, 4.3b.). Representations of women in the 17th century do become
more pronounced and less marginal, as evidenced in the album compiled for
Ahmed I (r. 1603–17) by his courtier Kalender Pasha (d. 1616), which included
portraits of various ethnic types found in the empire, and depictions of women,
some of them nude (see Fig. 4.4; see also Fig. 7.4).48 Çiğdem Kafescioğlu sur-
mises that the changing approaches towards the presence of women in these
later manuscripts “may also have to do with the demise of illustrated history
production in the early 17th century”, with one of the results being “the open-
ing up [of] a new space for women”.49
Research about the tangible property endowed by women during the 16th
and 17th centuries has shown that close to 37 per cent of the foundations in
Istanbul alone were established by women.50 By the early 18th century, waq-
fiyyas established by women comprised 27 per cent of all newly established
foundations in the Ottoman Empire. The rise in the number of women’s
foundations during the period of Sultan Ahmed III’s reign (r. 1703–30) is
45 Fetvacı, Picturing History, 36–37.

46 Lokman, Şehinşehnāme, TSMK, B. 200 (1597), fol. 146r.
47 Kafescioğlu, “Picturing the Square”, 143–45.
48 Artan, “From Charismatic Leadership to Collective Rule”, 420; Fetvacı, Album of the
World Emperor.
49 Kafescioğlu, personal communication, 8 December 2019.
50 Baer, “Women and Waqf”, 10.
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98 Thys-Şenocak
Figure 4.1 Women depicted in the margins of the manuscript as mourners and spectators
at the funerary procession for the queen mother Nurbanu Sultan, watercolor on
paper. Şehinşehnāme, 1597, TSMK, B.200 fol. 146r
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Figure 4.2 A rare scene featuring women in central focus, as they seek the sultan’s justice in
Istanbul’s Atmeydanı, opaque watercolor and gold on paper. Hünernāme, vol. 2,
1589, TSMK, H. 1524, fol. 250v
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100 Thys-Şenocak
Figure 4.3a Procession of farmers during the 1582 festivities, showing women as
spectators in the margins of the painting, opaque watercolor and gold on
paper. Sūrnāme-i Humāyūn, 1588, TSMK, H. 1344, fols. 219v–220r
Figure 4.3b
Female spectators wearing three different
types of veils watch the antics of a
jester at the margins. Detail, Sūrnāme-i
Humāyūn, 1588, TSMK, H. 1344, fol. 219v
part of a general increase in the empire, and royal women’s desire to repre-
sent their piety and wealth in a more public manner may have contributed
to this increase. Foundations were also a practical financial strategy used in
this era by both men and women to protect wealth and property from confis-
cation by the state.51 Both royal women and women from the ʿaskerī families
51 Zilfi, “Muslim Women”, 240.
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Figure 4.4 Individuals from different ethnic groups, social classes, and genders. Album of
Ahmed I, Istanbul, 1614–16, opaque watercolor on paper. TSMK, B. 408, fol. 9r
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102 Thys-Şenocak
were responsible for the larger female-established foundations in Istanbul of

the early modern era, but in regions outside of the capital, women from non-
ʿaskerī lineages did endow smaller family enterprises. Women, like men, could
inherit the post of waqf administrator; but overall women, whether or not they
belonged to the imperial family, or lived within or outside of Istanbul, con-
trolled and endowed smaller sums of wealth through their foundations when
compared to their male counterparts.52
The Map of Women Patrons’ Structures in Ottoman Istanbul produced
by Firuzan Melike Sümertaş and Murat Tülek communicates spatially the
remarkable variety, number, and locations of the architectural projects which
Ottoman women who possessed some wealth and status commissioned and
endowed from the 16th century onwards.53 Due to changes in the Ottoman
practices of dynastic succession that occurred in the mid-16th century, several
of the royal women, and particularly the wives and mothers of sultans, chose
to construct their pious projects in the capital rather than in the provinces of
the empire.54 Indeed, commissioning architecture was among the most com-
mon means through which women in the Ottoman court established their
presence within Istanbul. Elsewhere I have written about how royal Ottoman
women, such as Mehmed IV’s mother Hadice Turhan Sultan, may have con-
sidered the commissioning of architectural projects as a way to establish an
aniconic presence in the city, particularly at the time when the sultan and
much of the court was residing in Edirne.55 As the social and cultural norms of
this era did not allow for more overt displays of the royal woman, architecture
and its accompanying ceremonial evolved as the embodiments of the imperial
female patron in Istanbul, their buildings serving as synecdoche.56
Among the many conclusions that can be drawn from mapping the loca-
tion and typology of architectural projects commissioned by royal women in
Istanbul is that they selected different parts of the city for their projects based
on a range of personal, political, religious, and economic needs of the time. In
the 16th and 17th centuries, the wives, daughters, and mothers of the Ottoman
sultans tended to build on the historical peninsula of Istanbul, or directly
across the Bosphorus in the Asian borough of Üsküdar, whereas the Ottoman
princesses of the 18th century sought to position their palaces along the shores
of the Bosphorus and the Golden Horn.57

53 https://saltonline.org/en/harita (accessed 31 March 2020).
54 Thys-Şenocak, “The Gendered City”, 888.
55 Thys-Şenocak, Ottoman Women Builders, 233.
56 Ibid., 105–06, 235–37.
57 Artan, “From Charismatic Leadership to Collective Rule”.
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In their choices concerning what type of architectural work, and where to

build, patrons of architecture of all genders were constrained by various fac-
tors including finances, topography, religion, social status, and codes of deco-
rum. Gülru Necipoğlu defines this concept of decorum as “revolving around
the restricted use of visual signs of ‘distinction’…. These signs reinforced the
corporate group identities of the ruling elite and at the same time articulated
its nuanced gradations of status, without daring to challenge the sultan’s over-
arching supremacy.”58 Notions of decorum informed visual signs, such as the
number of minarets or the height of a mosque’s dome, that were used in the
architectural projects of Ottoman patrons, but decorum also extended to other
types of signs beyond those that were visible, and was associated with other
senses such as hearing and smell.
Nina Ergin has pointed out that there was a strict protocol outlined in the
foundation charters of the Süleymaniye mosque (1549–57) and the queen
mother Nurbanu’s Atik Valide mosque in Üsküdar (1570–83), which stipulated
the number and types of reciters and orators who contributed to the repertoire
of prayer within those buildings.59 Based on these records, she concludes that
“builders and architects must have thought of ways to optimize the sensual,
and in particular the acoustic experience of this ritual performance”.60 Clearly
there was attention to decorum concerning the soundscape of a mosque’s inte-
rior, but this could have extended to its exterior and its accompanying sound-
scape since the order of which mosque and whose muezzin began the Friday
call to prayer was a matter of interest for the reigning sultan. This attention to
the decorum of the soundscape of Muslim prayer extended to other sounds,
such as church bells that were produced by non-Muslim communities residing
in Istanbul. Fatwas which attempted to regulate and contain the sounds of the
city emerged as part of a larger effort to control the mobility and expression of
Istanbul’s faithful, including its women. Ebussuud Efendi’s proclamation that
it was a sin to go to a mosque outside your own quarter for Friday prayer if you
were “motivated by the desire to listen to that mosque’s preacher or its Koran
chanters” is just one example of the Ottoman administration’s awareness of
the potential impact that other sensory modalities could have on the urban
landscape and its inhabitants.61
Women of the imperial harem were acutely aware that through their own
voices they could create a formidable acoustic presence in the spaces of power

59 Ergin, “The Soundscape of Sixteenth-Century Istanbul Mosques”, 204–06.
60 Ibid., 213.
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104 Thys-Şenocak
where they themselves could not physically appear, such as the Divan—the
Imperial Council hall of the Topkapı Palace.62 From behind an aperture in a
latticed window above the Divan, queen mothers such as Turhan and Kösem
Sultan frequently took the opportunity to fill the council chamber with their
voices and opinions, using an aural presence to extend agency and influence
beyond the boundaries of their harem quarters, making their wishes known to
the court, while remaining invisible.63 Scent and sound have important impli-
cations for how we can study women and gender relations in early modern
Istanbul. Scent, like sound, crosses borders making it difficult to draw concrete
lines of presence and influence. In Istanbul, the potential that offensive urban
sounds and scents had to defy containment was recognized, and such offences
were punishable by fines. The decisions of Shaykh al-Islam Çatalcalı Ali Efendi
(r. 1674–86, 1692) and Mehmed Feyzullah Efendi (r. 1688, 1695–1703) giving
residents who lived by factories or stores “that produced loud noise or emitted
unbearable odors” the right to sue the owners for damages are examples of this
sensory awareness.64
A pleasant and sweet-smelling mosque was a high priority for worshippers
attending prayer in early modern Istanbul, as is evidenced by the funds allo-
cated in many waqfiyyas for both local and exotic scents such as rosewater,
ambergris, musk, agallochum, and others, along with incense burners, and
buhurcus, those employed to perfume holy spaces. Perfuming one’s body was
also a common practice in the early modern era, with the type of scent, time
of application, and intensity shaped by religious beliefs, wealth, and other
notions of identity and decorum. As Ergin notes, “just as fragrances distin-
guished sacred from profane spaces, so they differentiate the elite from the
common person”.65 From the waqfiyyas belonging to different Ottoman royal
women, female patrons of religious complexes in Istanbul, like their male rela-
tives, allocated funds towards ensuring that the places within the city that were
associated with their piety and patronage were sweet-smelling and evocative
of paradise. Hadice Turhan Sultan employed a buhurcu in both her Eminönü
mosque and her türbe.66 The Helvahane Defteri, a confectionary book from the
Topkapı Palace that was used from the early 17th century to the end of the 18th
century to manufacture scents and fumigatories, must have been consulted
by Turhan Sultan and other members of the harem to perfume their persons
and living spaces.67 At the time of her death in 1683, the vālide’s estate registers
62 Ergin, “Ottoman Royal Women’s Space”, 95–96.

63 Peirce, The Imperial Harem, 251–52.
64 Ayalon, “Ottoman Urban Privacy”, 516.
65 Ergin, “The Fragrance of the Divine”, 74.
66 Thys-Şenocak, Ottoman Women Builders, 262–63.
67 Ergin, “The Fragrance of the Divine”, 74.
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indicate that she possessed several incense burners, flower vases, and rose-
water dispensers with which she perfumed her surroundings with aloe wood,
musk, and ambergris, and her body with rosewater, sandalwood, carnation oil,
and the extract of lilies.68 Whether women of the imperial harem, or women
in Istanbul in general, had “signature scents” that could be tied to their per-
sons has not been investigated, but it is quite likely the harem quarters of the
Topkapı Palace smelled very different from the Divan, and the ability to cre-
ate a presence through olfaction was recognized as one of several sensorial
options for royal women in Istanbul.
5 Concluding Remarks
The ways that women in Istanbul during the early modern era established their
presence, exercised agency and influence, and navigated spaces within the
city has been a topic of much debate, particularly in relation to the concepts
of public and private space. Two recent volumes published by Brill, A Social
History of Late Ottoman Women: New Perspectives (2013) and Ottoman Women
in Public Space (2016) address this issue. In the first volume, edited by Duygu
Köksal and Anastasia Falierou, the editors state in their introduction that “the
‘privacy’ of the private sphere has been shaken, to begin with, by a number of
studies unravelling the power relations implicated in the most (so-called) inti-
mate spaces such as the Oriental harem and the home. And the ‘publicness’ of
the public sphere is being renegotiated, now that it has become apparent that
women in late Ottoman society could be publicly involved”.69
Ebru Boyar and Kate Fleet in their introduction to Ottoman Women in Public
Space also grapple with the discourse of public/private space, noting that “the
view of Ottoman women as relegated to the roles of wives and mothers, at least
before the nineteenth century still persists and little scholarly attention has
been paid to women as active participants in the public space, visible, present,
and an essential element in the everyday, public life of the empire”. They con-
tinue by noting the problematic aspects of dividing space between the public
and the private while so many of the spaces of the Ottoman city just do not
fit comfortably into either category. The neighborhood or maḥalle, for exam-
ple, “could be both public and private, a public zone but also an extension of
home and family, a ‘private’ space policed and controlled by its inhabitants, a
68 Kıvrım, “17. Yüzyılda Bir Valide Sultanın Günlük Hayatı”, 249, 255, 258; Sağır, “Vâlide
Turhan Sultan’ın Muhallefatı”, 272–73.
69 Köksal & Falierou (eds.), A Social History of Late Ottoman Women, 12.
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106 Thys-Şenocak
discreet, controlled and separate world ‘private’ for its members and closed to
the outside”.70
Considering the titles of these volumes, and the number of times definitions
of private and public are qualified or put into italics or quotations when refer-
ences are made to these words, it is evident that we are still struggling with the
inadequacy and inflexibility of the discourse to denote different qualities of
space, gender, and access. We are also reinforcing the binaries embedded in
those terms each time they are used in any analysis of space in Istanbul, partic-
ularly when we add gender into that mix. Some new studies have highlighted
the limitations of this approach and reveal how this discourse continues to
shape our interpretations and our imagination of what Ottoman women’s lives
were like in the early modern era.
Heghnar Watenpaugh, in her study of a late 16th-century dervish, Shaykh Abu
Bakr, and his followers on the outskirts of Aleppo observes that “the inversion
of gender hierarchies was an integral part of the construction of antinomian
piety”. The saint used “incorrect” feminine grammatical forms, on occasion,
when referring to himself and while addressing some of his male disciples in a
process which was intended to invert gender hierarchies. This reassignment of
perceived gender roles had a long history, with sufi saints dressing as women
and well-known spiritual leaders like Ibn al-Arabi (1165–1240) describing his
disciples as “the brides of haqiqa (God’s truth) and their shaykh as the person
who combs the bride’s hair and prepares her for marriage”.71
Antinomian shaykhs were not the only Ottomans who manipulated, when
necessary, the language and/or the expected gender roles of the time. The
ambiguity of the sex of the lover was a common thread in much Ottoman
poetry of the dīvān tradition. Walter Andrews and Mehmet Kalpaklı have noted
this, as has Kemal Sılay, and the latter recommends that in order to understand
this form of expression, “one has to look beyond the questions of explicitly
reflected gender and give up trying to figure out whether the metaphors for
the beloved seem to describe a man or a woman”.72 Distinguishing between the
genders of the çengis (dancing girls) and the köçeks (dancing boys dressed as
girls) in Ottoman paintings can also be difficult, but only if that is the task we
set for ourselves or the question we ask.73
Reflecting the sensibilities and circumstances of Aleppo, another city
of the Ottoman Empire, a court order of 24 January 1762 is of interest as it
decreed that co-confessional bathing of Muslim and non-Muslim women
70 Boyar & Fleet (eds.), Ottoman Women in Public Space, 1–2.

71 Watenpaugh, “Deviant Dervishes”, quotations at 536, 548.
72 Sılay, “Singing His Words”, 206; Andrews & Kalpaklı, The Age of Beloveds.
73 Micklewright, “Musicians and Dancing Girls”, 161–62.
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was prohibited in the city’s bathhouses because “the dhimmi [non-Muslim]

woman is like an unrelated man and it is [therefore] most correct that she
should not gaze upon any part of a Muslim woman’s body”.74 Based on the
writings of earlier Hanafi jurists, the judge of Aleppo decided that the differ-
ences between Muslim and non-Muslim women were substantial enough to
place non-Muslim women in the same category as men who were strangers;
therefore the latter were forbidden to look at any part of any Muslim woman’s
body, even if the body part had been severed. According to Elyse Semerdjian,
“this ruling, paired with other citations and references, supported the judge’s
argument that a non-Muslim woman is gendered male when she casts her gaze
upon a nude Muslim woman”.75
Bathhouses, along with markets, streets, and mosques were considered
by most Ottoman jurists to be places which were largely accessible to all and
were, therefore, well within their jurisdiction in terms of decreeing what
spaces could be used by different genders. However, this was not the case for
the house, the most intimate and restricted space of Ottoman Istanbul, partic-
ularly when considering issues of gender and privacy. As Yaron Ayalon notes,
“Islamic concepts of privacy have roots in the early days of Islam. From the
beginning, Muslim scholars generally agreed that households should have a
space inaccessible to outsiders that would be protected as such by law.” He
goes on to state that “in principle, all schools of Islamic law agreed that what-
ever was concealed within one’s home and was not seen, heard, or known to
others was no one else’s business”.76
Within the space of the Ottoman household of early modern Istanbul there
has been an assumption that the household space could be divided along gen-
der lines. While this may have been the case for the Topkapı Palace and the
more spacious homes of the elite in Istanbul, referred to as beyt, ḫāne, ev, and
menzil, there were also many single-room dwellings (sing. ḥücre, oṭa) in which
clear divisions of use could not have been based on gender alone.77 Stéphane
Yerasimos has noted that in the foundation registers of 1546, 1580, and 1596, the
average Istanbul house contained roughly two-and-a-half inhabited rooms,
a courtyard, latrine, and well.78 The register of 1546 records 1026 dwellings
in several districts of Istanbul; of these, 769 were independent homes while
254 were single-room dwellings.79 Ninety per cent had no separate space
for a kitchen. In many of these domestic spaces, particularly the single-room
74 Semerdjian, “Naked Anxiety”, 666.

75 Ibid., 666.
76 Ayalon, “Ottoman Urban Privacy”, 514–15.
77 Yerasimos, “Dwellings in Sixteenth-Century Istanbul”, 275–76.
78 Ibid., 282, 293.
79 Tanyeli, “Norms of Domestic Comfort and Luxury”, 61.
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108 Thys-Şenocak
dwellings which housed so many of the families in the city, a poor woman of
Istanbul, if she wished to procure something for her family and did not have
a servant or male relatives to shop for her, would have had to move frequently
beyond that one room and into the courtyard, if there was one, first greeting
her neighbors of all genders with whom she shared this communal space. The
frequency, dates, and times she could move past the maḥalle, into the street,
or out to the market to sell her wares or her services, or enter the local bath or
mosque were as carefully regulated by family, neighbors, imams, priests, kadis,
and sultans as the clothes she could wear in each of these different spaces
of the city.
Her royal sisters in the harem of the Topkapı also lived their lives subject
to a complicated body of legislation and expectations of proper decorum,
restricting or allowing different types of access to their bodies, scents, and
voices, depending on age, education, and the proximity of their relationship
to the reigning sultan. What we can conclude with certainty is that if we place
all these different groups into the single category of “women”, this segment of
Istanbul’s population in the 16th and 17th centuries could be present every-
where, and have access at some point in time to all the spaces in the city. This
access may have been the result of their role(s) as a mother, daughter, wife, and
sister, and/or princess, poet, prostitute, bath attendant, dancer, and weaver.
Their presence may not have been tangible, palpable, or visible, but could have
been manifested through olfaction or acoustics. Considering the many vari-
ables of the lives and circumstances of women, the picture becomes incredibly
rich, and, as mentioned earlier, far too complicated to reduce to simple catego-
ries of public and private, male and female.
In 1986 Joan Scott encouraged those who were researching and writing
about women to consider gender as “a useful category of analysis”.80 What Scott
claimed was needed for the transformation of disciplinary paradigms involved
the “refusal of the fixed and permanent quality of the binary opposition, a gen-
uine historicization and deconstruction of the terms of sexual difference”.81
Much has changed since the 1980s as Ottomanists have increasing looked at
the past through the lens of gender. New approaches to analyzing gender, such
as queer studies, will no doubt shed new light, and possibly break through the
binaries that still constrict much of the scholarship about Ottoman women
and the many gendered denizens of Istanbul in the 16th and 17th centuries.
The study of both scent and sound in the Ottoman early modern era, precisely
because these entities defy strict boundaries, has the potential to challenge the
80 Scott, “Gender: A Useful Category of Analysis”, 1053.

81 Ibid., 1065.
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fundamental ways we have conceptualized and analyzed gender and the use
of spaces in the city of Istanbul by its residents. Ultimately, the experiences
of women in Istanbul, like those of other genders, could differ dramatically
based on myriad factors, including social status, religion, life stages, education,
employment, sexual orientation, and notions of decorum.
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Chapter 5
Elites’ Networks and Mobility

For a long time, scholars have written the history of the Ottoman Empire as
that of its elites. Consequently, scholarship has paid a great deal of attention
to the legal-political system of the empire.1 Most sources used were norma-
tive texts, or at least they appeared to be so, such as the much studied legal
code on state organization (ḳānūnnāme) of Mehmed the Conqueror, actu-
ally compiled shortly after his death.2 Even more important were “books of
advice” (naṣīḥatnāme), often called “mirrors of princes”, as some of them were
addressed to young rulers ascending to the throne. An example would be the
famous texts by Koçi Bey, already published in the 19th century.3
It was Cornell Fleischer’s monograph on Mustafa Âli thirty years ago that
changed the picture.4 From then on, studies on the social and intellectual
framework of Ottoman elites have continued to flourish. The thorough contex-
tualization in historical circumstance came with a shift from normative, and
rather static, descriptions of Ottoman elites to an interest in dynamic change.
This orientation of scholarship was, of course, closely related to the largely
collective effort to find an alternative to the conventional narrative of ascen-
dancy, golden age and century-long decline.5 While an equally compact alter-
native grand narrative was never found,6 the demise of the decline paradigm
resulted in a host of studies informed by different emergent discourses, such
as those triggered by the spatial, the visual, or the material turn. These stud-
ies have integrated topics such as gender and ethno-religious diversity into
1 As evinced by general histories of the late 20th and early 21st centuries, such as İnalcık, The
Ottoman Empire; Mantran, Histoire de l’empire Ottoman; Imber, Ottoman Empire; Finkel,
Osman’s Dream.
2 Dilger, Untersuchungen, 14–34. Özcan, Kânûnnâme-i Âl-i Osmân, XI–XVIII; and İnalcık,
Klasik Dönem, 1302–1606, 230–33, esp. 352, n. 19, however, argue for a date during Mehmed II’s
lifetime.
3 On the publication history, see Akün, “Koçi Beğ”, 147–48.
5 Around the turn of the millennium, there were numerous proposals for a new periodization
of Ottoman history, e.g. Kafadar, “Question of Ottoman Decline”; İnalcık, “Periods in Ottoman
History”; Hathaway, “Problems of Periodization”; Darling, “Another Look at Periodization”.
6 Tezcan, The Second Ottoman Empire, constitutes the most recent attempt and has been
strongly refuted in reviews by Boyar, Hathaway, Murphey, Salzmann, among others.

Elites ’ Networks and Mobility 115
the bigger picture of elites. In the emerging complex picture, it is not always
easy to differentiate between constituent and accidental features.
This chapter will attempt to identify larger structures and dynamics of elite
formation in early modern Istanbul. It comprises four parts. The first looks into
elites’ networks as they appear in normative texts such as the naṣīḥatnāme lit-
erature and in official documentation. The second part deals with the dynam-
ics that changed the composition of these networks in early modern Istanbul.
It is especially concerned with the dialectic between elites’ integration into
urban society at large and practices of self-segregation vis-à-vis the rest of soci-
ety. The third part investigates tendencies that led to quasi-aristocratic struc-
tures in different elite segments, such as the ulema (Islamic scholars), families
of sufi shaykhs, and prominent Christian groups. Lastly, the fourth part con-
cerns the socioeconomic bases of these developments, especially the impor-
tance of confiscations and patronage.
1 Who Belonged to the Ottoman Elites?
In order to understand the rivalries and negotiations between members of dif-

ferent strata of Ottoman elites, one needs to take account of the political litera-
ture of the empire. Ottoman political literature after the mid-16th century has
been understood first within the broader framework of Near Eastern advice
literature,7 then as a discourse on Ottoman decline from a perceived golden
age,8 and nowadays rather as an expression of political morals and of what
has come to be called the “ḳānūn-consciousness”: the debate on and reference
to the rules and the spirit of Ottoman statecraft.9 This latest understanding
has provided the basis for recent analyses of the conversation between differ-
ent Ottoman branches of knowledge10 and of the interplay between genre, on
one hand, and authors’ social stratum and individual stance, on the other.11 In
this scholarship, “books of advice” are read in conjunction with historiography,
tracts on points of Islamic law, and memoranda on practical administrative
or political issues.12 Most of these texts take issue with changes in Ottoman
7 Fodor, “State and Society”, 218–22, 239–40; Oğuzoğlu, Devlet Anlayışı, 161–84.
8 Lewis, “Ottoman Observers”.
9 Abou-el-Haj, “Ottoman Nasihatname”; Fleischer, Bureaucrat and Intellectual, 69–105.
10 Hagen, “Order of Knowledge”, esp. 433–53.
11 For examples, see Şahin, Empire and Power, 157–85; Tezcan, “Politics of Early Ottoman
Historiography”; idem, “The History of a ‘Primary Source’”.
12 Examples concerning relatively late texts: Aksan, Ottoman Statesman, 188–204; Findley,
“Ebu Bekir Ratib’s Vienna Embassy”, 41–43; Yeşil, “Looking at the French”, 291–303.
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116 Neumann
elite networks. Both critics and advocates of ongoing dynamics referred to an

idealized past as a point of reference and basis of legitimation for the stance
they advocated.
The figure of thought of a golden age or, in Ottoman parlance, an age of
felicity (ʿaṣr-ı saʿādet, with the word saʿādet assuming a central function in
Ottoman political language) served as a common frame of reference for
explaining and negotiating social dynamics. While references to the reign
of Süleyman I (r. 1520–66), which was common throughout the 17th century
(and to earlier Ottoman rulers in texts of Süleyman’s time), have been much
discussed,13 the significance of the prophetic age in the debate has been less
noted.14 Ottoman authors used the reference to olden times to further their
interests; and this conservative orientation has been central to the under-
standing of Ottoman society as static or averse to change. Moreover, the refer-
ence to a golden past has often obscured the lines of social conflict between
contending authors.
The same reference was used in upholding another well-known principle:
Ottoman elite membership was constituted by the legal status of ʿaskerī,
which came with tax exemption and therefore with a connection to the sul-
tan who would bestow—through the Imperial Divan—the person in question
with a patent (berāt) and thus formalize the relation between himself and
his servant.15 Procedures bestowing posts to ulema, however, were different.
This was indicative, on the one hand, of the fact that ulema income did not
consist of tax revenues or payments from a treasury, but of money yielded by
pious endowments (awqāf) or fees for their services; on the other hand, the
difference marked the privileged status of the ulema whose connection to the
doctrine of Islam gave them independent authority. While, at least in theory,
everybody else’s claim to power was legitimized by his (much more rarely, her)
connection to the ruler, the ulema and the sultan legitimized each other—as
we will see below.
The clear-cut dichotomy between elite ʿaskerī and subject reʿāyā must be
modified on both sides of the divide. There was a kind of grey zone between
elites and subjects.16 Much discussed both by Ottoman authors17 and in
13 Fleischer, Bureaucrat and Intellectual, 226–27, 265–66; Kafadar, “The Myth of the
Golden Age”.
14 On historical times, see Hagen & Menchinger, “Ottoman Historical Thought”; Hagen,
“Order of Knowledge”, 439–53.
15 Mumcu, Siyaseten Katl, 55–62, 113–22; Imber, Ottoman Empire, 244–51.
16 On communities (cemāʿat) and guilds (eṣnāf), see the chapters by Faroqhi and Leal in the
present volume.
17 One of the key texts is the often-published naṣīḥatnāme by Koçi Bey, the most recent edi-
tion being Koçi Bey, Göriceli Koçi Bey Risalesi, ed. Şimşekçakan, 26–76. See also Mustafa
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scholarship18 are the different career paths (ṭarīḳ) that once were understood
as constituting distinct bodies within the elite.
However, career paths lacked social and administrative coherence. The
ulema or, as they were often called in this context, ehl-i ʿilm (men of knowl-
edge), are difficult to separate from adherents of sufi orders, as many ulema
were active mystics; however, their functions as officeholders were different
from those of the sufi establishment and especially from sufi masters, who
also enjoyed privilege and tax indemnity.19 On the military side, the emer-
gence of a bureaucratic class of “people of the pen” (ehl-i ḳalem) separate from
the “people of the sword” (ehl-i seyf ) had begun before the Ottoman imperial
order was established in Istanbul.20 The slow ascendancy of the bureaucrats,
initially a small group of men with skills in accounting and record-keeping,
has been thoroughly investigated.21 In the long run and through the increasing
bureaucratization of the empire, the ḳalemiyye wrested responsibilities from
the military men who conventionally served simultaneously as military offi-
cers and administrators. By the 18th century, the ehl-i ḳalem were in a position
of considerable influence; from 1703 on, numerous grand viziers had a bureau-
cratic background.22
The separation of different career paths, each with functions of its own and
manned by different classes of personnel, suited Ottoman political thought
well, as—perhaps most famously—expressed in Kınalızade Ali’s Aḫlāḳ-ı ʿAlā’ī
(with a play on words, both “Exalted” and “Ali’s [the author’s] Ethics”) of 1565.
Kınalızade employed the model of “circle of justice”, a figure of thought with
a long history in Islamic political thought, but at that time imagined as being
connected to ancient Greek philosophy. Kınalızade used the “circle of justice”
Âli, Counsel for Sultans, vol. 1, ed. Tietze, LXVI–LXXI, 163–69; idem, Description of Cairo,
ed. Tietze, LVII–LXIV, 138–48.
18 Itzkowitz, “Eighteenth-Century Ottoman Realities” refused the dichotomy of a “ruling”
and a “religious institution” put forward half a century earlier by Albert H. Lybyer. He trig-
gered a sustained debate, e.g. Fleischer, Bureaucrat and Intellectual, 202–13; Abou-el-Haj,
“Power and Social Order”.
19 Klein, Die osmanischen Ulema, 32–35. While some shaykhs did hold a patent, most finan-
cial and tax privileges came with the establishment of pious endowments. Offices (vaẓīfe)
were not necessarily confined to shaykhs but might extend to other ṭarīḳat functionaries
as well as to dervishes residing in convents (ḥücrenişīn): Clayer, Mystiques, état et société,
55, 238, 370–75; Yüksel, Vakıfların Rolü, 35–40, 173–75; Muslu, Tasavvuf, 567–86.
20 İnalcık, “Reis ül-Küttâb”, 672–73; on the transformation at the beginning of the 16th cen-
tury, see Şahin, Empire and Power, 215–20.
21 Findley, “Legacy of Tradition”; idem, Bureaucratic Reform, 6–18, 43–58; idem, Civil Official-
dom, 40–86; Aksan, Ottoman Statesman, 12–23; Woodhead, “From Scribe to Litterateur”;
Sievert, Zwischen arabischer Provinz und Hoher Pforte, 50–76.
22 For an analytical list of officeholders in the 18th century, see Ahıshalı, Reisülküttâblık,
36–45.
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118 Neumann
to show the interdependence of different political forces, which he identified

as justice, dynasty/state,23 sharia, king, military, material riches, and subjects.24
These elements corresponded to different agents, namely ruler, ulema, mili-
tary, and subjects. The distinction between them was thus a precondition for
social equilibrium.25
Like other influential Ottoman normative political texts, Kınalızade’s Aḫlāḳ-ı
ʿAlā’ī is deeply conservative. Neither does it mention emergent elite groups
such as the ehl-i ḳalem nor does it acknowledge the status of sufi shaykhs or
non-Muslims as members of the elites. However, both the Greek Orthodox and
the Apostolic Armenian churches were part of Ottoman statecraft; officials
such as bishops routinely received their berāt and were exempt from paying
tax.26 As in this example, normative texts sometimes blur rather than clarify
the concept of elite membership. Moreover, they tend to neglect the not so few
cases of people who changed career paths in the course of their lives.
On the other hand, Kınalızade stresses the role of the sultan, devoting one
of the three parts of the Aḫlāḳ-ı ʿAlā’ī (by far the shortest, though) to the eth-
ics necessary for the ruler. The sultan’s prominence in political theory corre-
sponds to the central place the ruler occupied in Ottoman statecraft. While
the Ottoman monarchs had very different personalities and exacted political
power to vastly varying degrees, they were symbolically and socially at the
apex of the empire. The increasing institutionalization of offices, the tighten-
ing circumscription of responsibilities, the esprit de corps of elite segments
such as the janissaries,27 or even the emergence of political households in the
17th century28 never radically challenged the sublime position of the sultan.
23 The use of “devlet” in the meaning of state very slowly emerged in the late 16th and
throughout the 17th century; in the Aḫlāḳ-ı ʿAlā’ī, it cannot yet be found: see Neumann,
“Devletin Adı Yok”, 276–79.
24 Kınalızade, Ahlâk-ı Alâ’î, ed. Koç, 2nd ed., 532 (ed. Unan, 646). London, “Circle of Justice”,
425–47 on different earlier meanings. Darling, A History of Social Justice, stresses quite
sweeping continuities and regards the circle of justice as a doctrine underlying a political
system rather than as a model.
25 Hagen, “Überzeitlichkeit und Geschichte”, 150.
26 Stipulations from the berevāt are compiled in Kabrda, Le système fiscal, 32–55; an overview
of the research history can be found in Papademetriou, Render unto the Sultan, 41–62.
27 Piterberg, Ottoman Tragedy, 77–88; Kafadar, “Yeniçeriler”, 474–75; idem, “Janissaries and
Other Riffraff”, 124–29.
28 See the pathbreaking Abou-el-Haj, The 1703 Rebellion; idem, Formation of the Modern
State. The concept has been mostly used in provincial contexts, e.g. Hathaway, Politics of
Households. Only later has it been fruitfully applied to the society of the capital city, e.g.
Kunt, “Royal and Other Households”, 108–14; Nizri, Ottoman High Politics.
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From this perspective, it is legitimate to regard the Ottoman Empire as a

patrimonial state as Halil İnalcık, the doyen of Ottoman studies in the second
half of the 20th century, has done.29 While the view on institutions yields a
picture of a segmented elite structure with different branches ever more rami-
fying over the course of time, the patrimonial model yields one of Ottoman
society as concentric circles with the sultan in the center.
The palace, in itself a highly complex organization with many subdivisions,
would form an inner circle, which in turn consisted of the ḥarem, i.e. the per-
sonal (to avoid the anachronistic “private”) space of the ruler, and the “inner”
(enderūn) and “outer” (bīrūn) services.30 The palace (sarāy) with its depen-
dencies (residences for seasonal use or for queen mothers, princesses, and
other members of the dynasty) was the space where the sultanic household
constituted itself.31 However, it also contained interfaces with the outside
world. In the Topkapı Palace, the first courtyard was, at least in principle and
during the day, open to everybody. In the second courtyard, the Imperial Divan
(Dīvān-ı Hümāyūn) functioned as a court of appeal that decided in the sultan’s
name on grievances brought before him, and as a space to receive foreign del-
egations and for political deliberation.32
2 Dynamics in Istanbul’s Elite Structure
The sultanic household was actually much bigger than the court organization
of the Topkapı Palace with its staff of allegedly more than 5000 people.33 The
ruler’s household also included, in legal terms, and very often in rhetoric and
performance on both sides, all the military slaves, the ḳapıḳulu (or ḳul), among
them most notably (and numerously) the janissaries;34 thus the household
was comprised of a large number of people, indeed.
The next concentric ring making up the patrimonial state would consist of
all the people holding a sultanic patent (berāt). Holders of berāts were peo-
ple from a very wide spectrum that ranged from religious functionaries and
29 İnalcık elaborated on this repeatedly, from “Comments on ‘Sultanism’” to Şâir ve Patron.

30 Uzunçarşılı, Saray Teşkilâtı; Necipoğlu, Architecture, Ceremonial, and Power.
31 Peirce, The Imperial Harem, 113–49; Artan, “Politics of Ottoman Imperial Palaces”, 365–71,
398–402.
32 Necipoğlu, Architecture, Ceremonial, and Power, 31–90.
33 Kuban, Istanbul, 279–80, with an extrapolation of a number given by Mustafa Âli.
34 However, when the devşirme (see below, n. 52) was slowly given up and the ḳapıḳulu lost
their slave background, their attachment to the ruler slackened to some degree: F. Yılmaz,
“Siyaset, İsyan ve İstanbul”, 148. See also G. Yılmaz, “Change in Manpower”.
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120 Neumann
dignitaries to military officers, tax farmers, patriarchs, and bishops, along with
a myriad of officeholders. Often a berāt would convey ʿaskerī status and thus
entail tax exemption; in any case, such a patent set the holder into a relation-
ship with the sultan.35
In this patrimonial understanding, people belonging to the palace, people
in the position of a privileged slave (ḳul), and people with an ʿaskerī status
could all claim to be members of the elite. Still, at least some members of
the other rings making up Ottoman patrimonial society in Istanbul had good
reasons to assume that they, too, held privileges conferring elite status. These
rings included Muslims, non-Muslims, and foreign subjects called müsteʾmin,
who were allowed to reside in the empire and formed a particularly large and
diverse population in Istanbul. Guild leaders, dervish shaykhs, priests, rabbis,
ambassadors and their entourages, and members of the Orthodox Phanariot
and Armenian amira families, are among those who stuck out from the general
populace, but the list is certainly not exhaustive. Many of these people would
seek official acceptance into the ʿaskerī class.36
The two imaginations of Ottoman social and political structure as a patri-
monium centered around the ruler on the one hand, and as a polity made up by
interdependent but separate segments on the other, were by no means mutu-
ally exclusive. On the contrary, they translated relatively seamlessly into both a
conservative political discourse and a set of social practices that proved to be
resilient throughout early modern times. Both imaginations made it possible
to negotiate rivalries between social groups in imperial terms that allowed for
a certain flexibility and compromise without necessitating (or even concep-
tually allowing for) the radical dispossession or annihilation of a rival group.
From this perspective, the massacre meted out to the janissaries in 1826 at their
headquarters at Etmeydanı in central Istanbul and the disbanding of their
corps, the so-called vaḳʿa-ı ḫayriyye (the auspicious event), truly marked the
end of the early modern Ottoman constellation of elites.37
Ottoman authors tended to present themselves as members of a social
group rather than as individuals. However, many if not most elite inhabit-
ants of Istanbul were members of more than one social group. From the late
16th century on, many janissaries would not only earn their pay as members
35 Putting the sultanic cipher on the patent was the culmination of any such appointment
process: İnalcık, “The Appointment Procedure”, 138–39.
36 The desire of guild leaders (ketḫüdā) to receive such a patent played a role in the formal-
ization of guild regulations, especially in the 18th century: Faroqhi, Artisans of Empire,
119–23.
37 Recent work on the end of the janissaries includes Yeşil, Osmanlı Ordusu; Sunar, “Ocak-ı
Âmire’den”, 504–26.
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of their respective regiment (and, when stationed in the capital would prob-
ably be put to service in urban security), but also as artisans. Partly due to the
decline in the value of janissary pay and to delays in disbursements, and partly
because of intense contact between the soldiery and the population, janissar-
ies’ engagement in crafts became very common at least from the late 16th or
early 17th century onward. In the 1790s, perhaps 40 per cent of the city’s shops
were in the hand of janissaries; and many guild leaders belonged to their corps,
as well.38
The affiliation of janissaries with sufi orders, especially the heterodox
Bektaşiyye order, furnished another social space providing contact between
the soldiery and other parts of urban society.39 Many aspects of the history of
the janissaries (and the affiliated corps of the cavalry and “palace gardeners”, or
bostāncı) are still not very well known, among them the development of their
connections with the Bektaşiyye, the extent of heterodox orientations among
the corps at any given time, and the relations between the Bektaşi center in the
Anatolian town of Kırşehir and the commanding level of the corps. It has been
claimed recently that since the 17th century, the janissaries formed a corpora-
tion representing the commoners as an assembly or “estate”.40 This thesis is
probably grossly exaggerating the fact that janissaries (whether rank-and-file
soldiers, or officers of lower or even higher rank) often made good use of the
legal immunity stemming from their status and their manifold entanglements
with other sectors of the population. From the mid-17th century onwards,
the careers of head commanders (yeñiçeri āġāsı) often continued with their
appointments as viziers and even grand viziers.41 The separation of the stand-
ing, salaried army of privileged military slaves, of dubious adherence to ortho-
dox Sunni beliefs, from the rest of society was thus an ideal Ottoman authors
often invoked in reference to a golden age but without social foundation: both
the lower and upper ranks of the corps appear very much as part of Istanbul’s
urban life and Ottoman society at large. The janissaries achieved an (appar-
ently increasing) degree of integration into urban society while retaining their
privileged status as military slaves of the ruler.42
38 Başaran, Selim III, 113–26; Beydilli, “Yeniçeri”, 461; Yılmaz Diko, “Blurred Boundaries”,
182–88.
39 Küçükyalçın, Turna’nın Kalbi; G. Yılmaz, “Bektaşilik ve Bektaşi Tekkeleri”, 105–11, 128–31.
40 Tezcan, The Second Ottoman Empire, 198–212.
41 Uzunçarşılı, Osmanlı Devleti Teşkilâtından Kapıkulu Ocakları, vol. 1, 183–84.
42 G. Yılmaz, “The Economic and Social Roles of Janissaries”, 107–25, shows that in the
middle of the 17th century, there was a regular presence of about 20,000 janissaries in
Istanbul (out of 40,000 registered), with many living outside the barracks.
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122 Neumann
Istanbul’s elites continuously operated in a dialectic between integration

into the surrounding society and distinction from it. While in the long run, the
janissary corps moved rather in the direction of integration, the social dynam-
ics of the ulema, the Islamic scholars and lawyers, appear to be much more
complicated. During the long process of Ottoman state-building, the ehl-i ʿilm
retained their largely autonomous standing in a polity that was dependent on
their knowledge of the legal discourse. While early Ottoman rulers, especially
Bayezid I (r. 1389–1402) and Murad II (r. 1421–44, 1446–51), founded a remark-
able number of madrasas in order to educate Ottoman ulema,43 until the
conquest of Istanbul the most prominent scholars had received their training
outside the Ottoman realm. Only with the establishment of the well-endowed
teaching institutions in Istanbul, such as the ṣaḥn seminars of Mehmed II and
the madrasas attached to the mosque of Süleyman, were leading Ottoman
ulema regularly chosen from among the graduates of Ottoman institutions.
The Istanbul ulema increasingly eclipsed those from other centers of learning
in the empire, whether in Greater Syria and Egypt, or in Edirne, Bursa, and
older institutions in Anatolian cities, such as Konya.
Even more importantly, while the Ottoman administration did not directly
interfere in the juridical discourse or in the material taught at madrasas, it
nevertheless established a centrally run examination system and monopo-
lized the appointments of judges (kadis) and other religious functionaries. It
also instituted a ranking system of ulema offices, and thus created a regulated
career path (ṭarīḳ). Moreover, state-appointed functionaries controlled the
administration of pious endowments. In most cases these, again, were kadis,
who were also charged with the execution of sultanic orders. Moreover, they
had to administer the sultanic law (ḳānūn) together with the stipulations of
Hanafi jurisprudence (fiqh).44 The ehl-i ʿilm thus became much more closely
associated with the ruler and his administration than was usual in earlier
or contemporary Islamic polities. It was only this organic coalescence that
made the Ottoman thought of a union between dīn ü devlet, “religion and
state”, possible.45
All of this put the ulema of Istanbul in a key position within the Ottoman
administration. Istanbul became a hub of scholars and students. Success in
Istanbul became a precondition for a respectable career as an ʿālim (scholar)
in the empire (regional ulema networks with a high degree of autonomy were
43 İhsanoğlu, “Osmanlı Medrese Geleneği”, 897.

44 Peirce, Morality Tales, 122–25; Ergene, “Qanun and Sharia”.
45 Neumann, “Hanafitische Jurisprudenz”, 219–23.
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feasible only in Ottoman Arab lands).46 Already by the 16th century, a number
of families began to establish themselves as dynasties of leading scholars; and
the term “aristocracy” can be justifiably used for at least the 11 families who
more or less monopolized the highest ulema ranks from the late 17th century
until the Tanzimat in 1839. These families also held key positions in control-
ling examinations and promotion processes, and were connected to (and over
time, increasingly intermarried with) leading political households.47 While this
system was never watertight against upward climbers, and the ranks immedi-
ately beneath the uppermost ulema echelons were accessible to a wider range
of people,48 Istanbul nevertheless experienced much protest and discontent
by newcomers, along with strife among established ulema households. At this
junction, once again, affiliations with certain sufi orders or, at the other end
of the spectrum, with movements such as the revivalist Kadızadelis49 played
a decisive role in articulating religious, theological, and social conflicts. Sufi
orders would often pursue their own agendas, but also serve as platforms for
mediating between conflicting interests.50
3 Aristocratic Tendencies
The ehl-i ʿilm thus developed a stratum that can be likened to an aristocracy, a
social layer of high, inherited privilege distinct from the many ulema with little
access to prominence. The latter, however, were often part of the ehl-i ʿilm as
their fathers had been before them.
Many Latin European observers have remarked that no nobility existed in
the Ottoman Empire.51 Such remarks were true to a degree, especially with
regard to military men. The practice of the devşirme, the forced recruiting of
Christian boys as ḳul that also entailed their conversion to Islam, was a prac-
tice meant to prevent the development of an aristocracy (or, in its beginning,
46 Atçıl, “Route to the Top”, 492–510; Zilfi, Politics of Piety, 43–80. On the Arab lands, see
Masters, Arabs of the Ottoman Empire, 109–12; Masud, Messick, & Powers, “Muftis, Fatwas,
and Islamic Legal Interpretation”, 11–13. See also El-Rouayheb, Islamic Intellectual History,
257–71.
47 Zilfi, “Elite Circulation”, 331–35.
48 Klein, Die osmanischen Ulema, 89–191.
49 Zilfi, Politics of Piety, 129–81; Baer, Honored by the Glory of Islam, 64–76; Bilkan, Fakihler ve
Sofular, 61–166; Sheikh, Ottoman Puritanism, 56–98.
50 Abu Manneh, “Hâlidîliğin Yükselişine ve Gelişmesine”; Le Gall, A Culture of Sufism, 35–62,
137–56.
51 Çırakman, From the ‘Terror of the World’, esp. 53–62.
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124 Neumann
mainly to counter the influence of Turkish military and tribal leaders).52 In a

similar vein, rules were in force that aimed to prevent members of the preben-
dal cavalry, mainly stationed in the provinces, from striking roots in the regions
where they were posted. Moreover, with the conquest of Istanbul, established
families of Turkish background, who had frequently played an important part
in the emergence of Ottoman authority, lost much of their political lever-
age. While some of these families retained leading roles in the provinces,53
none of them firmly established itself in the new capital. Until the end of the
16th century, when the practice of devşirme began to wane, the Muslim elite
of the capital comprised more converts than born Muslims. These converts
also included a sizeable number of people who had voluntarily changed sides
and allegiances.54 Even when, in the 17th and 18th centuries, the ḳul elite was
largely self-reproducing, the connection between elites in the capital city and
the provinces remained relatively weak.
Still, it is difficult to overestimate the importance of family connections
in Istanbul. It applied even to the janissaries who during the second half of
the 16th century began to marry in large numbers, with the result that their
sons also gained access to the corps. The growing need for infantrymen car-
rying firearms swelled the ranks of the janissaries; and while fiscal squeezes
worked toward limiting the number of salaried soldiers, military exigencies
were responsible for their increase in the long run. In the 18th century, with
the janissaries’ wage statements becoming tradeable, there evolved a grey zone
between membership and non-membership in the corps. The bedrock of the
units, however, remained those who adhered to their ocaḳ because of their
family relations, while they simultaneously occupied themselves as artisans.55
High-ranking janissaries came from these circles and clearly distinguished
themselves from the rest of this soldiery.
The evolution of aristocratic structures was much more pronounced
among other elite groups. Besides the ulema, leading dervish families and
Greek Orthodox Phanariots deserve mention. Despite some indications that
Mehmed II attempted to curb the influence of sufi orders (ṭarīḳāt) after the
conquest of Istanbul, mystical Islam remained an integral part of Ottoman
52 Imber, Ottoman Empire, 134–40 with a very good summary. G. Yılmaz, “Becoming a
Devşirme”, 120–27.
53 Best studied are the Evrenosoğulları: Lowry, Evrenos Family; and Erünsal & Lowry,
Evrenos Dynasty.
54 On this segment of the Ottoman elite, see Graf, Sultan’s Renegades.
55 Kafadar, “Yeniçeriler”, 474; idem, “Janissaries and Other Riffraff”, 125.
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society and culture.56 Accordingly, the capital became a center of dervish

activity, with many convents supported by rulers, members of the dynasty, or
high-ranking dignitaries.57 This does not mean that the religious orientation
of at least some orders did not meet with disapproval, at least in decidedly
Sunni circles—the Kadızadelis, notably, as mentioned above. Topics such as
the use of music or bodily movements, as, for example, the Mevlevis’ semā’
or the devrān of the Halveti orders, wine-drinking, and expressions of radi-
cal pantheist (vaḥdet-i vücūd) aspirations were hotly debated throughout early
modernity and beyond.
Certainly, the position and politics pursued by sufi orders and their shaykhs
differed considerably depending on the principal orientation of their differ-
ent ṭarīḳat, and thus they changed over time. The Mevleviyye, much older
than the Ottoman dynasty, retained its center in Konya along with a relatively
strict hierarchy within the order. Relations between its headquarters (āsitāne)
in Konya and the Ottoman central administration were occasionally quite
complicated.58 Increasingly, the convents at the (then) margins of Istanbul
(Galata, Yenikapı, Bahariye, Beşiktaş) gained in importance vis-à-vis the center
in Konya. By the end of the 18th century, the cultural and spiritual importance
of the Galata and Yenikapı convents (and their shaykhs) in particular was
incommensurate with their ranking among the Mevlevi āsitānes.
The other prominent orders in Istanbul, namely the Kadiriyye, Naqshban
diyya, Rifaʿiyya, and Halvetiyye were not centrally organized. They continued
to develop multiple branches; and the Celvetiyye, founded by the ecstatic
Shaykh Üftade in Bursa but established in Istanbul by Aziz Mahmud Hüdai
at the turn of the 17th century, emerged as a branch of both the Halvetiyye and
the Bayramiyye.59
Aziz Mahmud Hüdai, a charismatic personality who reconciled the mysti-
cal teachings of different orders with a career as a respected ʿālim, perfectly
matched expectations of the establishment in imperial Istanbul. He was thus
co-opted into courtly society, and was chosen to give the first sermon in the
56 Coşkun, “Sanctifying Ottoman Istanbul”, 58–92, 168–227; Öngören, “Tasavvufî Yapı

lanmalar”.
57 See John Curry’s chapter on the sufis in Istanbul in this volume.
58 This is especially interesting in the time of Selim III’s reforms, the niẓām-ı cedīd: Gölpınarlı,
Mevlânâ’dan Sonra Mevlevîlik, 170–76; Gawrych, “Şeyh Galib”; Neumann, “Konya Mevlevî
Asitanesi”, 105–14; Muslu, Tasavvuf, 339–44, 575–79; Ösen, Mevlevilik, 53–82; not used by
any of them are the interesting notes of Taylesanizade, Uzun Dört Yıl, vol. 1, ed. Emecen,
71–73, 178–79, 294.
59 Clayer, Mystics, état et société, 90–91 counts Hüdai among “les derviches de la ‘sunnitisa-
tion’”. On the tekye, see Tanman, “Aziz Mahmud Hüdaî Külliyesi”.
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126 Neumann
mosque of Sultan Ahmed (completed 1617) and to gird Murad IV with the
sword symbolizing his power. Hüdai attained the means to establish a dervish
order centered in Istanbul with an outreach into the provinces. The endow-
ment of his āsitāne gave his descendants control over the order, including both
its spiritual heritage and its material holdings. Communities of a Bektaşi or
Melami orientation, however, were suspected of heresy and never attained a
conspicuous visibility or open dynastic endorsement in Istanbul.60
The five-volume dervish prosopography Sefīne-i Evliyā-yı Ebrār (The Vessel
of True Saints) by Hüseyin Vassaf (d. 1929) covers the lives of over 2000 sufis
from mostly the 18th and 19th centuries. It allows us to trace the ways in which
shaykh families retained control over convents over generations.61 A smaller
convent (tekye/tekke) would typically change hands more easily than a bigger
one, which more likely stayed in the possession of a single family that con-
trolled the respective endowments and fortified its position through careful
marriage policy—sometimes over centuries.
Often, a convent with its mosque, other institutions such as soup-kitchens,62
and the stately selāmlıḳ of the shaykh’s quarters would form the center of a
neighborhood and attract additional devotees from all over the city.63 A
greater convent could be attended by dervishes from all over the Ottoman ter-
ritories, and some convents catered especially for the needs of pilgrims from
Central Asia traveling to Mecca via Istanbul.64
In Istanbul, convents thus served as spaces where Muslims from different
walks of life met. As allegiance to more than one mystic path was widespread,
spiritual and intellectual cross-fertilization was an integral part of a mystic’s
experience. However, all these practices took place under the leadership of
men who belonged to families in possession of both spiritual and material
privilege. Leading a sufi convent entailed an inheritable position of promi-
nence and affluence. Additionally, quite a large number of sufi shaykhs (as well
as an apparently increasing number of ulema) claimed to be seyyids, descen-
dants of the Prophet Muhammad.65
60 Birge, Bektashi Order, 56–58, 81–83; Faroqhi, “Conflict, Accommodation”; Işın, “Bektaşilik”,
133–34. The Melamis operated mostly in a clandestine manner: Ocak, Zındıklar ve
Mülhidler, 251–312; Çalış-Kural, Şehrengiz, 49–56; idem, “Bayramî-Melâmîler”, 108–10. See
also the chapter by John Curry in this volume.
61 Hüseyin Vassâf, Sefîne, ed. Akkuş and Yılmaz, e.g. on the Rumiyye branch, vol. 1, 117–30.
62 Tanman, “Kitchens”, 211–18.
63 Lifchez, “Lodges of Istanbul”, 83–92; Tanman, “Tarikat Yapıları”, 328–56; idem, “Tekkelerin
Yeri”, 365–68. The Mevleviyye and Bektaşiyye did not follow Tanman’s pattern.
64 Smith, “Özbek Tekkes”.
65 On their privileges, see Kılıç, Seyyidler ve Şerifler.
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Similar aristocratic tendencies can be observed among non-Muslims.

While family names of Sephardic Jews have survived until today, the under-
lying structures of prominence do not appear to have attracted much schol-
arly interest.66 Among Armenians, the formation of the so-called amira class
of wealthy laymen can be dated to the second half of the 17th century and
had reached stability by the early 18th.67 Under amira leadership and with
French support, a separate Armenian-Catholic church emerged after 1740, but
was officially acknowledged only in 1830 after massive—if unsuccessful—
resistance by both the Armenian Apostolic patriarch, his church, and the sul-
tanic administration.68
Among the Greek Orthodox Ottomans, a group of families with some
claim to connections with the former Byzantine aristocracy evolved. These
Phanariots (Fenerli begler, after the quarter Fener/Phanarion on the Golden
Horn) managed to monopolize the most important posts as official translators
at the court and, from 1711 on, as the hospodars of Wallachia and Moldavia.
The Phanariots assumed a position that combined high standing in Ottoman
statecraft and pretense to aristocratic descent (in this, some great families of
northern origin such as the Ghicas and Callimachis joined Phanariot circles
from Istanbul)69 with a lifestyle linking up to aristocratic habitus in Latin
Europe.70 This last aspect dovetailed with the function of the Phanariot elite
as a link between the Ottoman administration and Latin European politics:
Phanariots serving as state translators were responsible for the day-to-day con-
tacts with diplomats residing in Istanbul, while the hospodars acted as a kind
of external foreign policy representative.
4 The Political Economy of Istanbul Elites
The economy of Ottoman elites was a decidedly political one. Office and sul-
tanic favor formed its basis. As for each post, there were generally a number
66 See, however, Rozen, A History of the Jewish Community, 220–21; Ben-Na’eh, Jews, 384–90;
Gerber, Crossing Borders, 105–42 (also on tax farmers).
67 Barsoumian, Amiralar Sınıfı, 39–85; Şahiner, “The Sarrafs of Istanbul”, 24–86; Eldem,
“Istanbul”, 158–79; Yarman, “Amiralar”, 21–47.
68 Beydilli, Katolik Ermeni Cemâati, 1–36.
69 For an overview, see Sturdza, Dictionnaire; Philliou, “Communities”, 171.
70 Philliou, “Communities”, 161 writes about “near royal status”; see too ibid., 161–64 on
ceremony circumscribing the Phanariots’ relation to the sultan. Neumann, “Tüketim
Kalıpları”, 28–38 on the lifestyle of two hospodars, namely Nikolaos Mavrogenes (exe-
cuted 1790) and Konstantinos Khantzeres (executed 1799).
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128 Neumann
of suitable candidates and competition was fierce; a considerable amount of

financial means and social capital was necessary for appointment and promo-
tion. Sudden dismissals were always possible and might result in long periods
without appointment and office income. Consequently, if a discharged office-
holder was not banished into inner-Ottoman exile, he would alternate stints
on a provincial post with others in the capital. Relatively few men established
themselves firmly in Istanbul without losing their power base in their prov-
ince of origin. They are recognizable often by their founding of awqāf, both
in their home region and in the capital or, in the case of ulema, by a special
attachment to a sinecure (arpalıḳ) given to them after their deposition.71 In
any case, whether based or exiled in a province, active, high-ranking members
of the elite needed an agent (ḳapu ketḫüdāsı) in the capital and at the court to
safeguard their interests.
In the 16th century, military office-holding in the provinces, in combina-
tion with tax-collecting rights, generally took the form of the prebendal feudal-
ism characteristic of the cavalry army. While the cavalryman (sipāhī) and his
prebend never completely disappeared, during the 17th century, tax farming
became the dominant form of extraction of agricultural surplus. However, it
was not the tax farmers but the high-ranking military commanders who were
able to build “political households” in the provinces and profited the most
from this development. Gradually, local middlemen, the so-called aʿyān, indis-
pensable for the extraction of taxes, established themselves as genuine local or
regional power brokers.
For elite groups in the capital, the political economy developed differently.
Tax yields were direct sources of income only for a few leading, very high-
ranking dignitaries, such as members of the Ottoman dynasty and viziers
who were remunerated with ḫāṣṣ estates and other large prebends, gener-
ally farmed out to aʿyān. The necessary credit for tax-farming contracts was
secured by grand-scale moneylenders (ṣarrāf ), among whose members the
abovementioned Armenian amira class figured prominently in the 18th cen-
tury. Church hierarchies, on the other hand, functioned also as a tax-farming
system, with an often fierce competition between provincial bishops and the
patriarchates in the capital.72
Most members of any of the elite sections living in the capital, however,
relied to a large degree on pious endowments for their income. Revenues were
not only produced by urban real estate, even if these constituted an important
share: by the end of the 16th century, one-quarter to one-third of the land in
71 Neumann, “Arpalık”.
72 Papademetriou, Render unto the Sultan, 107–75.
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Istanbul was endowed property.73 The rent yielded by such properties was
central to the upkeep of many pious foundations, from the sultanic waqf of the
Hagia Sophia to small family holdings.74 Many endowments, especially larger
ones and, above all, those connected to the imperial dynasty, held sources of
revenue outside the capital and often in faraway provinces.75
Waqf property was privileged and inalienable; administration of such prop-
erty amounted to possession and was heritable. The central administration
occasionally intervened in awqāf matters (more often if an endowment had
been founded by a ḳul); however, to the degree that Ottoman statehood claimed
to be Islamic, the protection of endowments figured among the foremost
duties of the sultan and was part of his legitimation.76 Attempts at centraliza-
tion and rationalization of dynastic endowments (evḳāf-ı hümāyūn) developed
only with the Tanzimat reforms into a wider policy that dispossessed many
holders of pious foundations.77 Until then, waqf holdings enabled the estab-
lishment of inheritable entitlements. As has been shown above with regard to
the families at the heads of dervish lodges, this material entitlement generally
went hand in hand with social privilege and prominence.
The institution of endowments limited the otherwise discretionary power
of intervention on the part of the sultan. While ulema enjoyed immunity
from execution,78 the government could use sultanic law in order to punish
officeholders (as well as virtually anybody else) by a decision often made at
the Imperial Divan and formulated as a sultanic edict.79 The sultan could,
moreover, exile or execute any member of the elite with ḳul status, as one
of his slaves, without any legal restrictions. Governments used confiscations
(muṣādere) as a tool to redistribute wealth acquired by officeholders. This
practice was legitimized, again, by the slave status of many dignitaries, or,
perhaps even more often, by the permanent indebtedness of military office-
holders to the state treasury, who also served as tax collectors and still always
had to deliver installments. Muṣādere processes entailed complex negotia-
tions between the aggrieved party (or, in the case of an execution, his relatives
73 Yérasimos, “Les waqfs”, 43.

74 For the Hagia Sophia, see Barkan, “Ayasofya Cami’i”, 343–72; Baş, “Ayasofya Vakıfları”.
Smaller endowments in Istanbul were numerous. Barkan & Ayverdi, İstanbul Vakıfları
Tahrîr Defteri (1546) list 2515 (these exclude dynastic awqāf ); half a century later, there
existed already 3265: Canatar, İstanbul Vakıfları Tahrîr Defteri (1600).
75 Barnes, Introduction, 31–49; Singer, Charity in Islamic Societies, 90–113.
76 Imber, Ebu’s-Suʽud, 76, 156–62. Later Hanafi jurists developed the notion that the sultan as
caliph was eo ipso servant of all pious endowments: Yazır, Ahkâmu’l-Evkaf, 165–67.
77 Güler, Haremeyn Vakıfları, 211–35; Barnes, Introduction, 67–86.
78 Klein, Die osmanischen Ulema, 86; Majer, “Tod im Mörser”; Mumcu, Siyaseten Katl, 124–31.
79 Mumcu, Siyaseten Katl, 101–24.
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130 Neumann
and dependents) and the government; however, these processes also meant
that, apart from endowments, members of the Ottoman elite had few guaran-
teed possessions.80
The political environment of Istanbul was therefore characterized by mul-
tiple insecurities and volatility: terms of office were mostly short, the posses-
sions and even the life of many members of the elite were never safeguarded,
and interventions by the government were always possible. Under these
circumstances the conservativism of the political culture created by ḳānūn
consciousness, and the insistence on procedure and ceremony all gain addi-
tional meaning.
Still, obtaining political power was the main path towards socioeconomic
ascendancy. While there is evidence of very rich merchants in the provincial
metropolis of Cairo, in Istanbul, trade (let alone artisanal production) offered
but modest opportunities for upward mobility.81 The way to become rich
that was open to commoners in Istanbul was not through trade but through
finances, especially moneylending to tax farmers and officials. The ubiquitous
political classes of the capital city made sure that the imperial order rather
than market forces dominated the economy, and that the appropriation of sur-
plus was a matter of political regulation. Ottoman economic doctrine com-
bined fiscalism, traditionalism, and provisionalism, all of which privileged the
elites.82 Little wonder then that these principles were observed in the capital
perhaps more strictly than in the provinces.
For the individuals concerned, this volatility meant that the institutional
framework of one’s own elite segment offered ways and rules of promotion,
but little protection from career calamities. Protection was offered only by
patronage networks and the attachment of individuals to holders of author-
ity. This relation, called intisāb, permeated institutions and social divisions.
An aspiring scholar needed the protection of a high-ranking member of the
ulema, but might likewise have sought adherence to the palace, the house-
hold of a military dignitary, or a sufi order. He might entertain friendship with
scribal bureaucrats, or use his poetic skills to seek the patronage of a high-
ranking dignitary.83
Ottomans used the term intisāb in very different contexts: for the binding
of a disciple to his (or her) spiritual guide (mürşid); for the protection of a
80 Neumann, “Tüketim Kalıpları”, 13–16; Karataş, “Müsâdere Uygulamaları”, 225–32; Telci,

“Muhallefat ve Müsâdere”; Yaycıoğlu, Partners of Empire, 107–11.
81 On Cairo, see Hanna, Making Big Money; and idem, “Merchants and the Economy”,
232–36.
82 Genç, Devlet ve Ekonomi, 39–63.
83 Andrews, Poetry’s Voice, 158–74; İnalcık, Şâir ve Patron, 36–71; idem, ʿAyş u Tarab, 229–418.
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benefactor or superior; for affiliation to a corps, guild, or administrative unit;

or for marriage into a family of higher rank or prestige. In all cases, intisāb
was regarded a personal relationship of considerable stability. While Ottoman
political literature, so keen to describe institutions and their history, rarely
explicitly theorizes about patronage networks, evidence of their impor-
tance abounds in chronicles, biographic dictionaries, and archival sources.
The trade-off between power and protection of a patron on the one hand,
and the abilities, support, and loyalty of his or her clients (although more
rare, the importance of female patrons should not be underestimated)84 was
at the basis of elite relations in Istanbul. (Of course, patronage extended down
the social ladder to include members of the general population.) With regard
to the patronage extended to poets, it also appears that in the 18th century,
popular and public spaces complemented the closed circles of the palace and
of the very high-ranking dignitaries who had shaped the economy and ecology
of the 16th and early 17th centuries.85
5 Conclusion
Istanbul’s cityscape in early modern times was one of quarters (maḥalle) that
were, in legal principle if not always in reality, organized around a central house
of worship. Woven into this urban tissue were landmarks with (semi-) pub-
lic functions, namely monumental buildings and their extensions belonging
to great endowments, commercial structures such as the Grand Bazaar, bar-
racks, and, finally, the imperial palaces. While there were affluent and poorer
quarters, a typical maḥalle also contained dwellings of prominent members of
society: the stately mansion (ḳonaḳ) of a high-ranking dignitary, the quarters
of a sufi shaykh and his family in a large convent, or the spacious house of a
Phanariot.86 Little of this architecture has been preserved,87 but one has to
imagine Istanbul dotted with the residences of its elite—with their degree of
conspicuousness perhaps increasing over time.88
84 Peirce, The Imperial Harem, 198–218; Artan, “From Charismatic Leadership to Collective
Rule”, 64–71, 91–92.
85 Andrews & Kalpaklı, The Age of Beloveds, 304–24; Hamadeh, The City’s Pleasures, 139–70;
see also chapters by Marinos Sariyannis and Zeynep Altok in this volume.
86 On quarters in the city, see the chapters by Leal and Kayhan in this volume.
87 Artan, “The Kadırga Palace: Architectural Reconstruction”; idem, “The Kadırga Palace
Shrouded”; Atasoy, İbrahim Paşa Sarayı; Yıldız, “Amcazade Hüseyin Paşa Yalısı”; Mazlum
(ed.), Sadullah Paşa.
88 Artan, “Arts and Architecture”, 453–79.
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132 Neumann
This spatial arrangement mirrors the social situation: members of the elite
segments in Istanbul navigated between integration with the rest of soci-
ety and exclusivity. In spite of their common submission to the sultan, and
although venues such as sufi convents were shared by people of different walks
of life, the different segments of the city’s elite operated in a rather compart-
mentalized way. Ideological and social antagonisms among them functioned
also, to a degree, as a safety valve for the sultan and his immediate environ-
ment: no urban riot could turn into a serious danger for the government with-
out an alliance between janissaries and ulema, i.e. the corps identified with the
heterodox Bektaşi order and the guardians of Hanafi orthodoxy.89
Slow and erratic economic growth, the preponderance of agriculture over
other economic sectors, monetization of transfers, and the professionaliza-
tion of violence all contributed to the ascendancy of early modern statecraft.
Ottoman society was highly diversified, but it was also rather strictly compart-
mentalized; and this was as true for its elites who relied on the state for status
and wealth. They also relied on sets of cultural practices that distinguished
them from the wider population.90 The culture of the imperial palaces set the
example for the grandees’ households; and social networks functioned along
lines of patronage revolving around the realms of poetry, religious affiliation,
or leisure.
Internal segmentation was only one of the features characteristic of the
Ottoman elite. Dividing lines were blurred by the need of elite members to posi-
tion themselves in institutions, patronage networks, and an environment that
allowed for the establishment of heritable privilege. For Muslim Istanbulites,
pious endowments, largely protected by Islamic law and every single one an
emblem of imperial legitimacy, allowed families to possess real estate and
income in an inheritable way, and to simultaneously profit from the sanctity
of the institution—even if their immunity could be sometimes more precari-
ous than the norms of Hanafi jurisprudence would have it.91 The aristocratic
tendencies of the early modern Ottoman elite have long been overlooked, or
89 Stremmelaar, “Justice and Revenge”, 110–38, inspired by Şerif Mardin’s “Ottoman ‘Tacit’
Contract”, as in his “Freedom”, 26–30. On the key role of the ulema in early modern
Istanbul politics, see F. Yılmaz, “Siyaset, İsyan ve İstanbul”, esp. 148.
90 Mardin, “Power, Civil Society and Culture”, 270–74 talks of a cultural dichotomy between
“palace” and “provinces” or, more generally, “great” and “little” cultures. This dichot-
omy is an oversimplification but reflects the perceived gulf between elites and the
wider population.
91 Gölpınarlı, Mevlânâ’dan Sonra Mevlevîlik, 261–62 had been very critical already of this
aspect of waqf endowments.
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at least downplayed, because of the idealized picture (and self-image) of the

Ottoman Empire as a meritocracy that even in a state of corruption would
not produce the aristocracy typical of (Latin European) feudalism.92 Latin
European aristocrats and high-ranking Ottomans, however, encountered each
other as belonging to different yet comparable social strata and conversed on
an equal footing.93
For members of the Ottoman elites, state institutions and administrative
regulations provided rules, opportunities, and limitations. However, these did
not work as an impartial, stable mechanism. To flourish in them required net-
working, the bending of rules, and some transgression. Social life in the com-
plicated and diverse city of Istanbul through the early modern era is therefore
best observable at the interstices of defined social blocks and group identities.
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Chapter 6
Palace and City Ceremonials

N. Zeynep Yelçe
Istanbul in the early modern period can best be described by the term pāyitaḫt,
meaning the seat of the throne. From the moment Mehmed II set foot in the
city in 1453, it was the presence of the monarch—in other words the throne—
along with his court and high-ranking officials of state and religion that marked
the city as the ultimate political center of the Ottoman empire. During the
period stretching from the mid-15th to the mid-17th century, when the impe-
rial court moved to Edirne, court and palace ceremonial played a central role
in delineating and constantly displaying the unique imperial status of the city
as the political center. With the return of the court in 1703, Istanbul resumed
its status as the center of power. The ceremonial manifestations of power not
only continued thereafter, but expanded with the addition of new sites and
modifications to former practices.1
An early modern political center did not only host and bring together the
governing elite, but it also served as a central stage for the symbolic forms of
expression that marked the governing elite as such, justifying and reproducing
its claims and existence. Accordingly, court ceremonies and festivals required
the presence of not only court officials, but often also of provincial officials
from all over the realm. Assembling thus in a courtly setting reinforced the
integration of the empire’s officialdom into the center. Thus, the rule of the
center was once again showcased so as to create and recreate a sense of sol-
idarity, to confirm and reconfirm loyalties as well as political hierarchies.2
The order of an imperial ceremonial event created a representation of an ideal
1 Necipoğlu’s Architecture, Ceremonial, and Power remains the most comprehensive inves-
tigation of court ceremonial in 15th- and 16th-century Istanbul; see the “Introduction” for
a crucial discussion on its forms and significance. For later ceremonial spaces and prac-
tices, see Artan, “Royal Weddings and the Grand Vezirate”. For the notion of pāyitaḫt, see
İnalcık, “Istanbul”. For a general political outlook, see Neumann, “Political and Diplomatic
Developments”, 44–62 and the chapter by Christoph Neumann in this volume; for the trans-
formation from the warrior sultan to the sedentary monarch, see Findley, “Political Culture”,
66–67.
2 Geertz, “Centers, Kings and Charisma”, 13–38; Asch, “Introduction: Court and Household”, 24;
Kertzer, Ritual, Politics and Power, 68–69, 104; Duindam, “Dynastic Centres”, 4.

144 Zeynep Yelçe
state while simultaneously shaping the behavior of the parties involved to

reinforce the aspired order.3
Ottoman court ceremonies, in this context, stood out for their emphasis
on two major concerns: order and ancient custom. As all ceremonial events,
Ottoman ceremonial and ritual depended largely on “ancient custom”, or
ḳānūn-i ḳadīm as Ottoman authors expressed it. Mehmed II’s (r. 1451–81) law
code for central organization started with the phrase: “This law code contains
the laws of my ancestors and forbearers, and is hence my law. My offspring
should act accordingly.”4 While the text was possibly amended between the
later 15th and 17th centuries,5 it nonetheless demonstrates the continuing pre-
occupation with an “ancient” ceremonial order and protocol. References to the
law code by writers such as Mustafa Âli in the late 16th century and the rein-
troduction of the original text in the mid-17th century by Hüseyin Efendi, who
served as head scribe in the Imperial Divan, indicate that the protocol set forth
by the Conqueror remained fresh in the minds of later authors and readers.6
The sense of order observed in ceremonial events was a conceptual reflec-
tion of niẓām-ı ʿālem, or “the order of the world”. Deeply rooted in medieval
Persian notions of statecraft, the concept was theorized by Ottoman authors
starting with Tursun Beg (d. 1491?), who discussed it in his Tārīḫ-i Ebū’l-Fetḥ
(History of the Conqueror) in the late 15th century.7 The concept implied a
particular and unchangeable universal order imposed on society that aimed
to ensure security and stability. Hierarchical by default, this ideal order was
entrusted to the sultan to establish, consolidate, and maintain. Within this
ideological and political framework, an alternative order was not deemed pos-
sible and meant chaos.8 In this respect, contemporary accounts of ceremonial
events should be evaluated for the values and expectations they reflected as
they reinforced certain behavioral modes, which in turn foresaw the perpetua-
tion of peace and harmony in the court, the capital, and the realm.
Istanbul, with its ancient imperial heritage, doubtlessly played well into
these two crucial aspects of Ottoman ceremonial. The Ottoman appropriation
3 Skinner, “Moral Principles”, 145–57, and Chartier, Cultural History.

4 Özcan, Kânunnâme, 5. Translations from Ottoman and Turkish are mine unless other-
wise stated.
5 The extant copies of Mehmed II’s lawbook date back to the 17th century.
6 Özcan, Kânunnâme, xv. A copy of Mehmed II’s law code has been inserted in Bedāyi ül-veḳāyiʿ,
a history book written by Koca Müverrih Bosnalı Hüseyin Efendi in 1644. Hüseyin Efendi’s
position would have allowed him to see and make a copy of the original manuscript.
7 Hagen, “Legitimacy and World Order”, 59–61.
8 For an illuminating discussion on the concept, see ibid., 53–83, where Hagen argues that the
concept maintained its significance until the beginning of the 18th century when the need
for a different social and political discourse became apparent.
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Palace and City Ceremonials 145
of the city is reflected in the integration of ancient sites into the imperial
topography. The locus of early modern ceremonial between the mid-15th and
mid-17th centuries centered around the Imperial Palace (Topkapı Palace),
Atmeydanı (the ancient Hippodrome), and Hagia Sophia, near which the city’s
main ceremonial road began. Together, these formed a tri-centered ceremo-
nial node marking Ottoman Istanbul as an imperial center. This triad closely
resembled the ceremonial center of pre-1204 Constantinople with the Great
Palace, the Hippodrome, and Hagia Sophia, with the Mese starting at the Milion
nearby. The political meaning of the Great/Imperial Palace coalesced with the
social expression of the Hippodrome/Atmeydanı, the politico-religious sym-
bolism of Hagia Sophia, and the ceremonial and commercial relevance of the
Mese/Divan Yolu. As such this triad not only brought together all three aspects
required of an imperial center, but put the collective memory of the city to use
for its inhabitants through generations.9
1 On the Streets
Several occasions called for glamorous processions through the streets of

Istanbul. Among these were imperial campaign departures and returns, the
departure of a prince to his provincial post, the arrival of the prince-to-be-sultan
in Istanbul, circumcision and wedding festivals, funerals, processions to Friday
mosques, and visits to dynastic tombs and to Eyüp, where the shrine of Abu
Ayyub al-Ansari, a Muslim saint and companion of the Prophet, was located.
Processional routes established by the 6th and 7th centuries as integral aspects
of the “symbolic topography of Constantinople” seem to have remained in use
in varying degrees throughout much of the Byzantine period. Sections of these
arteries that had fallen out of use were in part revived in the Ottoman era, and
used until the mid-17th century and later, albeit with changing emphases.10
Ottoman processions usually used either part or the whole of the Divan Yolu,
9 For discussions on the appropriation and transformation of former Byzantine sites and
localities, see Kafescioğlu, Constantinopolis/Istanbul, 205–26; Kafescioğlu, “Reckoning
with an Imperial Legacy”, 23–32; Kuban, Istanbul, 77; Gür, “Spatialisation”, 243; Brubaker,
“Topography”, 39. For two views on the degree of correspondence of Mese to Divan
Yolu, see Berger, “Streets and Public Spaces”, 161–72, and Cerasi, The Istanbul Divanyolu,
44–55. For the overlapping sections of the Divan Yolu and the Byzantine Mese, see Cerasi,
The Istanbul Divanyolu, 26–33.
10 Brubaker, “Topography”, 39; Berger, “Streets and Public Spaces”, and Kafescioğlu,
“Reckoning with an Imperial Legacy”, 31–35.
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146 Zeynep Yelçe
from the imperial palace (the Topkapı) to Edirnekapı, the main city gate to the
west, or traversed the same route in the opposite direction (see also Fig. 7.1a).
Influential Ottoman bureaucrat Feridun Bey’s (d. 1583) eyewitness account
of Süleyman I’s campaign departure in 1566 reflects both the use of this route
and the sense of order displayed thereon.11 The procession, starting from
the imperial palace and leading to the Edirnekapı on the way out of the city,
resembled a festive occasion with the army waiting for the sultan on horse-
back. According to the author, “order reigned” until the sultan finally appeared
“like the rising sun” and mounted his horse. The sergeants and other servants
of the sultan greeted him with prayers. The grand vizier, other viziers, shaykh
al-Islam, chief judges, high-ranking scholars, head treasurers, and other men of
rank greeted him on foot as everyone stood according to his rank. The janissar-
ies fired pistols and cheered as was required by “ancient custom”. The imperial
guards marched close to the sultan, followed by the troops with the military
band in front, playing martial music. On the right-hand and the left-hand
sides, the townsfolk watched the procession go by and prayed for victory for
the imperial army.12
“Ancient custom” dictated one more action before the imperial procession
left the city: consultation (müşāvere). In 1566, Sultan Süleyman abided by it as
well.13 During the procession to Edirnekapı, he first summoned Grand Vizier
Sokollu Mehmed Pasha and talked with him about state matters. Around the
mosque of Mehmed II, approximately midway along the procession, he was
joined for a while by Shaykh al-Islam Ebussuud Efendi. Then it was the turn of
İskender Pasha, who remained behind as deputy grand vizier (ḳā’im-maḳām),
to approach the sultan, followed by the judge of Istanbul, Mevlana Kadızade
Ahmed Efendi.14 Forty years later, the historian Selaniki (d. 1600) men-
tions the four homologous officials approaching Mehmed III on horseback
as he marched towards Edirnekapı for the departure of the 1596 campaign
to Hungary.15
A comparison between the 1566 and 1596 campaign departures provides an
opportunity to revisit the Ottoman notion of “ancient custom”. Mehmed III
was the first Ottoman sultan after Süleyman I to lead a campaign in person.
11 Feridun Bey, Nüzhetü’l-esrār.

12 Feridun Bey, Nüzhetü’l-esrār, fols. 10v–11v.
13 Feridun Bey, Nüzhetü’l-esrār, fol. 12r. Ottoman chronicles have stressed this point time
and again; the usual suspect was Bayezid I, who almost let the state fall because he did not
value the custom of consultation. See, for example, Anonymous, Anonim Osmanlı Kroniği,
ed. Öztürk, 48.
14 Selaniki, Tarih, ed. İpşirli, 15; Feridun Bey, Nüzhetü’l-esrār, fol. 12r.
15 Selaniki, Tarih, ed. İpşirli, 612–13.
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Court officials had organized the last campaign departure headed by a sultan
thirty years earlier. Therefore, it is not surprising to see Selaniki commenting
on how “the imperial protocol and ways have been forgotten since the two
former sultans did not embark on campaigns”, and how “those who knew
guided those who did not know”.16 Fortunately, not only had earlier authors
left detailed accounts of previous departures,17 but Mehmed II’s law code also
included a protocol for campaign departures in which the order, hierarchical
relations, and behavior of the various echelons of the court were strictly delin-
eated. Ceremonial events and gatherings throughout the early modern period
followed the protocol set therein. In compliance with the law code, follow-
ing the sultan, the grand vizier had precedence over all other members of the
court, no matter the situation.18 After the grand vizier, the shaykh al-Islam, and
the sultan’s tutor came the viziers, military judges, and treasurers. Following
them was the commander of the janissaries as the highest-ranking household
officer who presided over the heads of other household corps.19 Regardless of
the changes in the balance of power structures and relations within the court
(and in the city), protocol—the building block of Ottoman court ceremo-
nial and ritual order—seems to have remained unchanged between 1566 and
1596. The petitioning hierarchy of the palace was repeated for those allowed
to approach the sultan on horseback: the viziers, chief judges, and treasurers,
and, only upon invitation, former governor generals and governors.20 The sym-
bolism of this final act before leaving the capital is worth noting. Riding along-
side the sultan not only signified an official’s rank in the hierarchy but also
carried the palace protocol onto the streets of Istanbul. Although our infor-
mants do not relate what the sultan told to or heard from those he invited to
ride by his side, the act publicly demonstrated the performance of the ruler’s
duty of consultation.
Approaching the dynast during a procession to counsel him was not unique
to campaign departures. Other occasions included the departure of a prince
to his provincial post. The prince would be accompanied by state officials
from the Imperial Palace to the vessel that took him to Üsküdar, from where
he would ride on to his post, along with his immediate retinue. The grand
vizier, other viziers, the shaykh al-Islam, and the chief judges approached the
16 Selaniki, Tarih, ed. İpşirli, 606.

17 See, for example, for the 1521 campaign departure, Celalzade Mustafa, Tabakāt, ed.
Kappert, 133a–135b.
18 Özcan, Kânunnâme, 5.
19 Özcan, Kânunnâme, 5–6.
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148 Zeynep Yelçe
mounted prince to give advice.21 The prince who had been sent off in ceremo-
nial order might someday be welcomed back with the same ceremonial. His
arrival at the seat of the throne to assume the place of his deceased father can
be regarded as a more or less standard royal entry.22 The prince-to-be-sultan
would arrive at the docks in Üsküdar, where a galley would already have been
prepared for him. Arriving at the landing at the Seraglio Point (Sarayburnu),
he would be greeted by the janissaries and other household staff along with
ulema and inhabitants of Istanbul. The janissaries would then escort him to
the Imperial Palace through the crowd of spectators eager to see their new
sultan.23 This ceremonial appearance at the landing was the first public and
official revelation of the death of the former ruler;24 the procession from the
galley to the palace signified both the new sultan’s appropriation of the impe-
rial capital and the acceptance of the dynastic successor by the establishment
and by the subjects. The procession ended with the final act of entry into the
palace, which signified the appropriation of the seat of power by the ascend-
ing sultan. The procession and palace entry transformed the prince from being
the son of the sultan into the ultimate authority he was to become following
his enthronement.
A subsequent ceremonial occasion complementary to this transformation
was the funeral procession for the deceased sultan, which occurred in the
presence of his successor. A typical imperial funeral, as a public spectacle con-
sisting of various ritual stages, involved a procession from the palace to the
mosque near to which the deceased would be interred, prayers, entombment,
distribution of alms, and return to the palace. Other ritual instances were
added to this scenario according to the specific conditions of the death of the
particular sultan. If he died outside of Istanbul, there would first be a princely
procession to receive the corpse in the city, as observed in the funeral of Selim I
(d. 1520). If he died in the palace and his heir was already in Istanbul, as in the
case of Mehmed III (d. 1603), the funeral would go directly from the palace to
the mosque. If, as in the case of Murad III (d. 1595), the deceased sultan had
21 Kunt, “A Prince Goes Forth”, 64.

22 For royal entries in the Western tradition, see Bryant, The King and The City, 99; for
Mamluk state processions exemplifying the Islamic tradition, see Holt, “The Position and
Power of the Mamluk Sultan”, 242.
23 For the entry of Süleyman I in Istanbul in 1520 to assume the throne, see Yelçe, “The
Making of Sultan Süleyman”, 97–106. By the beginning of the 17th century, with the aban-
donment of the practice of provincial assignment for princes, glorious entries in Istanbul
and greeting ceremonies for the newly arrived prince became redundant.
24 On the household troops learning about the demise of Selim I upon the arrival of his son
Süleyman, see Kemalpaşazade, Tevârih, vol. 10, ed. Turan, 21.
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several sons and his heir applied the fratricide law established by Mehmed II,
the biers of his brothers would accompany the procession.25
Imperial mosques, along with their ritual and funerary functions, marked
out the major ceremonial routes of early modern Istanbul.26 Visiting the tombs
of ancestors housed in imperial mosque complexes gradually evolved into a
conventional ritual, finding its final form with the additional importance given
to the shrine of Abu Ayyub al-Ansari towards the end of Süleyman I’s reign
(Fig. 6.1). The ritual procession included the imperial mosques built by previ-
ous sultans and reached the extramural tomb of Abu Ayyub at the western end
of the Golden Horn. Although earlier writers did not usually comment on tomb
visits upon accession, Selim II’s accession tour of the tombs, starting with that
of Abu Ayyub, was noted by contemporaries. The ritual aimed at legitimating
the deceased sultan’s successor by stressing his noble royal lineage “that turned
the whole empire into the inherited legacy of a single family”.27 During his
accession ceremonies in 1574, Murad III first visited the tomb of Abu Ayyub
and then re-entered the city from Edirnekapı. His dynastic tomb visits started
with the mausoleum of Selim I, continued on to those of Mehmed II, Şehzade
Mehmed, Süleyman I, Bayezid II, and ended at his father Selim II’s tomb, near
Hagia Sophia.28 In 1648, Mehmed IV, following the girding ceremony at Eyüp,
rode along the same route; he entered the city from Edirnekapı with a grand
(ʿaẓīm) procession and marched all the way to the Imperial Palace, displaying
himself to the gathered crowds.29
The girding ceremony upon the accession of a new sultan appears to have
been a later addition to Ottoman accession ceremonials, since the first writ-
ten evidence for it dates to the reign of Ahmed I (r. 1603–17).30 Recounting
the accession of Ahmed I’s successor, Osman II (r. 1618–22), the contemporary
chronicler Hasan Beyzade (d. 1636/37) wrote that “in the well-known manner
(resm-i maʿlūm üzre) the new sultan was girded with the sword at Abu Ayyub
al-Ansari”.31
25 The fratricide law was followed so long as the princes were sent to provincial posts.
Mehmed III, the last prince to do so, was also the last Ottoman sultan to apply this prin-
ciple. See Kunt, “A Prince Goes Forth”.
26 For the relevance and ceremonial significance of imperial mosques, see Necipoğlu,
“Dynastic Imprints”, 23–36.
27 Necipoğlu, “Dynastic Imprints”, 33.
29 Naima, Târih, ed. İpşirli, 1170.
30 Kafadar, “Eyüp’te Kılıç Kuşanma Törenleri”, 55.
31 Hasan Beyzade, Târih, ed. Aykut, 921.
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150 Zeynep Yelçe
Figure 6.1 Süleyman I at the Tomb of Abu Ayyub al-Ansari, Tārīḫ-i Sulṭān Süleymān, 1579,
opaque watercolor on paper. Chester Beatty Library, T. 413, fol. 38r
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Before marching out with the army to Hungary in 1521, Süleyman I visited
Abu Ayyub al-Ansari’s tomb and those of his ancestors, requesting their spiri-
tual aid for the duration of the campaign. Quran recitations at these sites were
followed by the distribution of alms to the poor and the needy.32 This phase of
the ceremonial signified both an attempt to win the blessing of the people and
a display of the sultan’s benevolence and ability to take care of his subjects.
For Süleyman, the symbolic weight of visits to ancestral tombs before cam-
paign departures is especially striking in his final campaign departure in 1566.
Feridun Bey relates that the sultan, “as required by ancient custom”, started
visiting the tombs. Too ill to continue the visits, however, he had to return to
the palace, leaving the grand vizier to complete the tour in his name.33 The
author’s stress on custom signified an awareness of a deep-rooted heritage
coming both from Ottoman sultans (selāṭīn-i sevābıḳ-ı āl-i ʿOs̱mān) and from
earlier Turkic emperors (ḫavākīn-i pīşīn-i cihān-sitānī). It also highlighted the
ways in which ceremonial constituted a stage whereby the rights of lineage
and precedence were put on display for all to see. This episode, in which the
grand vizier undertook a task that under normal circumstances would have
been performed by the sultan, foreshadows the role that Sokollu Mehmed
Pasha would assume following the sultan’s death during the campaign. It may
thus be read as a herald of the gradual replacement of the sultan by the grand
vizier as the “center of government” in the later 16th century.34
Although elaborate accounts have been written on campaign departures,
the sources remain rather silent about triumphant returns until around the
end of the 16th century. Selaniki’s detailed description of Mehmed III’s arrival
in Istanbul following the Hungarian campaign is perhaps one of the earliest.
The sultan, he relates, arrived at the outskirts of Istanbul on 21 December 1596.
Before entering the city, he camped at Davud Paşa, the first camp site of the
Ottoman army outside the city’s land walls. After a feast on the spot, he stayed
the night at camp together with the admiral and vizier Mehmed Pasha. In the
morning, the viziers and the high-ranking ulema gathered at the nearby mead-
ows to greet the sultan in ceremonial order. The first to kiss his hand was Vizier
Hasan Pasha, who had acted as deputy grand vizier during the campaign. Then
came the shaykh al-Islam, the former chief judges, the judge of Istanbul, and
madrasa professors. The scene was further ritualized with the musical accom-
paniment of the military band, and by the hanging of the standards. The crowds
of urbanites who came to watch and participate in the spectacle contributed to
32 Celalzade Mustafa, Tabakāt, ed. Kappert, 42b–43a.

33 Feridun Bey, Nüzhetü’l-esrār, fol. 9r.
34 Yılmaz, Caliphate Redefined, 12–14; Kunt & Yelçe, “Divân-ı Hümâyûn”, 330.
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152 Zeynep Yelçe
all the sound and color effects. From there, Selaniki then depicts a colorful pro-
cession into the city, leading to the Imperial Palace through the Divan Yolu; he
describes various groups, mainly artisans and shopkeepers, both Muslim and
non-Muslim, who joined the procession, or rather juxtaposed their own pro-
cessions to that of the sultan. While some showcased textile works, groups of
butchers presented sacrificial animals as the sultan’s procession approached.
Added to these urbanite groups were the trustees and officers of imperial and
vizierial waqfs, as well as soldiers who had remained behind for the protec-
tion of the city. The activity intensified around the Şehzade mosque, located
on the Divan Yolu and in the neighborhood of the old janissaries’ barracks,
Eski Odalar, which was nearby. Selaniki also mentions the Safavid ambassador
who watched the procession from his lodgings in the vicinity of Mehmed II’s
Old Palace.35
Housing mainly the imperial women at the time, the Old Palace played a cru-
cial role during dynastic festivities. Princes to be circumcised and princesses to
be wed would be taken from the Old Palace and brought to the Hippodrome
in procession.36 The Venetian bailo Pietro Bragadin described the procession
of İbrahim Pasha’s bride in 1524, mentioning that she appeared in procession
on horseback, all covered, and surrounded by 25 elegantly dressed female
slaves.37 Writing much later, Selaniki relates the triple-wedding of Süleyman I’s
three granddaughters to promising Ottoman officials in 1562. A personal wit-
ness of the bridal procession coming out of the Old Palace, he carefully noted
the instances where “ancient custom” ruled, recalling the moment Süleyman’s
daughter Mihrümah had left the Old Palace to marry Rüstem Pasha in 1539.
The grand vizier at the time, Süleyman Pasha, had dismounted his horse and
walked in front of the bride. Thus, in 1562, the duty of “protecting the honor of
the throne (nāmūs-ı ṣalṭanat)” fell to Rüstem Pasha as the grand vizier when
the deceased Prince Mehmed’s daughter Hüma was married off to Ferhad
Pasha.38 As we saw in the case of princes’ departures, as the highest-ranking
official, the grand vizier assumed the leading role in processions related to
dynastic rites of passage.39
The intertwined nature of the relationship between the dynasty and the rul-
ing elite was founded on several building blocks which would require a sepa-
rate chapter to explain. However, the basic mutual contract between the ruler

36 Yelçe, “Three Imperial Festivals”, 93–94. This changed in the 18th century as the circumci-
sion festivals of Ahmed III’s sons were celebrated at Okmeydanı.
37 Sanuto, Diarii, vol. 36, 507.
39 Kunt, “A Prince Goes Forth”, 71.
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and his servants, high and low, was sealed within the confines of the Imperial
Palace grounds through the performance of the enthronement ceremony,
before it was then reflected on the street.
2 In the Palace
Enthronement was one of the ritual phases of the accession of an Ottoman

sultan. If the procession to the palace signified the appropriation of the “seat of
the throne”, or the capital city, enthronement in the palace signified the appro-
priation of the throne itself, along with all that it entailed. Whether on the day
of the prince’s arrival or the next, before or after the funeral of the deceased
sultan, this ceremony always involved a throne on which the new sultan sat.
While the throne formed the symbolic essence underlying this ritual, it was
also the main object defining the meaning of the ceremony, a meaning actu-
alized only through the presence of its rightful possessor. When an Ottoman
sultan died, “his throne and realm were left desolate like his body without soul
and his figure without life”.40 As another monarch came to possess the throne,
he honored “this now-soulless throne with his fortune-augmenting shade”, and
“adorned the world-protecting throne and the felicitous Ottoman seat with
his world-beautifying face”.41 This idea finds one of its best expressions in
the lines of the poet Ada’i when he relates how the “throne of the sultanate
remained without a ruler”42 upon Selim I’s death, and how “the state acquired
validity when Süleyman sat on the throne”.43
Not only palace staff and soldiers of various ranks, but members of the reli-
gious and bureaucratic establishments were also present to pay homage to the
new sultan (Fig. 6.2).44 The enthronement consisted of the traditional homage
ceremony (bīʿat) and the ensuing proclamation that was sent to the provinces
and other parties. While the bīʿat consolidated the contract between the sultan
and the various office holders and household members who displayed their
loyalty to him, the official proclamations issued on the occasion registered the
sovereign rights of the sultan over those not present at the ceremony. The bīʿat,
known as the bayʿa in the Islamic monarchical tradition, is a ritual similar to
40 Saʿdi b. ʿAbd ul-Muteʿal, Selimnāme, 107b.

41 Celalzade Mustafa, Tabakāt, ed. Kappert, 25a.
42 Ada’i, Selimnāme, ed. Bilgen, 220 [Persian text, 187].
43 Ibid., 221 [Persian text, 188].
44 Yelçe, “The Making of Sultan Süleyman”, 131–32.
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154 Zeynep Yelçe
Figure 6.2 Enthronement Ceremony of Süleyman I, Süleymannāme of Arifi, 1558, ink,

opaque watercolor, gold and silver on paper. TSMK, H. 1517, fols. 17b–18a
the oath in Western coronation ceremonies.45 It required the participant to

kneel down in front of the sultan and then to kiss his hand—or his feet, the
hem of his skirt, or the ground—a specific act of deference involving the very
body of the participant. The whole ceremony was a physical and visual expres-
sion of the establishment of a contract involving the higher ranks of the ruling
elite. By accepting the homage, the sultan reciprocally accepted the responsi-
bilities that came with the contract.46
By the time Mehmed III ascended the throne in 1595, the ceremony, as
dictated by “ancient custom”, appears to have assumed a standardized form
45 For ceremonies in the Islamic world, see Mottahedeh, Loyalty and Leadership, 40–96;
Hanne, “Ritual and Reality”, 142–43; and Holt, “The Position and Power of the Mamluk
Sultan”, 238, 241. For Ottoman ceremonies and changes in the early modern period, see
Erdoğan, “The Imperial Bi‘at Ceremonies”. For Western coronations and the oath, see, for
example, Le Goff, “A Coronation Program”, 48.
46 For the physical and visual significance of such ritual, see Rappaport, “The Obvious
Aspects of Ritual”, 434–35 and Goffman, “Interaction Ritual”, 271. For Ottoman homage
and hand-kissing ceremonies, see Kafadar, “Eyüp’te Kılıç Kuşanma Törenleri”, 53; and
Ertuğ, Cülûs ve Cenaze Törenleri, 145.
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with the throne set up in front of the Gate of Felicity (Bāb üs-Saʿāde), separat-
ing the second and third courtyards of the palace (i.e., separating the semi-
public and largely administrative spaces of the court from the private domain
of the monarch).47 Selaniki mentions the loud acclamations accompanying
the ruler’s sitting on the throne. His reference to the mourning attire of those
present suggests that condolences and congratulations were extended during
the same ceremony. The participants, according to the order of prostration that
followed a hierarchical pattern in itself, can be divided into three groups: the
central government, the religious and learned establishment, and the sultan’s
household. The first, headed by the viziers, included the two chief judges, the
chief treasurer, the chancellor, and the treasurer of Anatolia, and this group
represented the highest ranks of Ottoman government—in other words, the
Divan or Imperial Council. The second group represented the religious estab-
lishment, and was headed by the shaykh al-Islam, followed by the sultan’s
tutor, former military judges, the judges of Istanbul and other major cities, and
madrasa professors. The third group consisted of household chiefs, starting
with the commander of the janissaries, the head of the irregulars, the janis-
saries’ scribe, and heads of household regiments and corps of various ranks.48
Once the bīʿat ceremony was completed, the official proclamation of accession
was put down in writing and sent to the provinces, as well as to allies and rivals
abroad. This document officially marked the sovereignty of the new ruler by
ordering the performance of the Friday sermon and the minting of coins in his
name. The celebrations ordained by the document carried the festive mood
and ceremonial atmosphere from Istanbul to the provinces.
The sultans’ repeated depositions and four enthronement ceremonies in
the six years following the death of Ahmed I in 1617 suggest a hollowing out
of the homage ritual, which had formerly stood out as the expression of the
mutual contract between the sultan and his servitors in the 15th and 16th cen-
turies. Although the ceremony might have formally retained its basic motifs,
perhaps even becoming more and more elaborate in the course of the 17th cen-
tury, its inherent significance and efficacy seem to have withered. By the same
token, the festive atmosphere surrounding enthronement ceremonies seems
to have been taken over by a graver mood during the 17th century. This was not
only because provincial governorships for princes were abandoned, but also
no doubt because of the circumstances surrounding these enthronement cer-
emonies, which often came in the wake of dethronements and regicides—for
example, those of Mustafa I in 1618, Osman II in 1622 (and subsequent regicide);
47 Necipoğlu, Architecture, Ceremonial, and Power, 88–90.

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156 Zeynep Yelçe
Mustafa I in 1623 (and his incarceration until his death in 1639); İbrahim in
1648 (and subsequent regicide), Mehmed IV in 1687, and Mustafa II in 1703.
The withdrawal of funeral rituals into the confines of the palace at the end
of the 16th century may have added to this grave atmosphere. The funeral rites
of Murad III in 1595 were largely performed within the palace rather than at
the mosque. The new sultan, Mehmed III, withdrew to his chambers after
accepting condolences and came out once the coffin was ready to be taken
in public. He accompanied the coffin as it was carried to the second court-
yard of the palace by inner palace staff and then placed atop the platform set
up in front of the confectionary (ḥelvaḫāne). Following the funeral prayer led
by the shaykh al-Islam, the grandees took the coffin to Hagia Sophia, where
Murad III’s mausoleum would be built near that of his father, Selim II, for
burial amid peoples’ cries and lamentations.49 Mehmed III’s accession wit-
nessed not only his father’s funeral, but those of his 19 male siblings—all of
differing ages—performed the day after, a result of the final act of fratricide at
the Ottoman court. The whole ceremony seemed like a replica of the sultan’s
funeral that had taken place in the presence of viziers, scholars, and shaykhs
on the previous day. The coffins, each guarded by four halberdiers and gate-
keepers, were carried to the second courtyard through the Gate of Felicity by
pages and placed atop platforms before the confectionary. The shaykh al-Islam
said an individual prayer for each. Again, cries and lamentations accompanied
the boys’ coffins to Hagia Sofia, where they were buried by their father’s feet.50
Although funerary rites may have clouded the joyful atmosphere of acces-
sion ceremonies, ambassadorial receptions following accession brought color
to the palace grounds once again. Foreign ambassadors were among the first
to meet and observe the new Ottoman sultan on his accession. The image of
the new sultan in the wider world was therefore largely shaped by ambassa-
dors’ observations. The French and Venetian ambassadors, as favored envoys,
were often allowed to bring the gentlemen of their retinues to their audiences
with the sultan. The French envoys were held in high esteem because the
Ottomans regarded the French as quasi-allies in the Christian world; and in
practice, Venetians were by far the most fortunate in this respect since they
almost always had a representative who resided in Istanbul. As such, the
Venetian bailo Tomasso Contarini was able to give the first on-site response to
Süleyman I’s accession in the name of the Venetian Republic. His report, which
is dated 15 October 1520, shows that he was given a date by the viziers to kiss
49 Selaniki, Tarih, ed. İpşirli, 435. Mehmed III’s funeral appears to be a replica of his father’s
funeral. See Hasan Beyzade, Târih, ed. Aykut, 805–07.
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the Sultan’s hand and “congratulate His Majesty on his peacefully becoming
Signor in place of his father with whom the Signoria had been in peace”. He
also extended his wishes to keep the peace between the two powers.51
It was customary to offer lavish banquets to the envoys and “entertain
[them] according to ancient custom”.52 An order by Selim II, for example,
reveals that an ambassador would be served on a silver plate preserved in the
Treasury.53 When the Safavid envoy Dhulfiqar Khan arrived at the end of 1596,
he was first received by the viziers and the grand vizier who accompanied him
during the banquet. The gifts he presented, which were immediately registered
in the book of protocol, must have pleased the viziers since they secured an
audience with the sultan for him. He was permitted to kiss the sultan’s hand
only after the letter he brought had reached the latter via the viziers. The sul-
tan is reported to have nodded without speaking a word.54 Gift-giving in the
Ottoman court, not unlike other early modern courts, was important. “Even if
the ambassador comes from a friendly city or prince, if he does not bring rich
gifts to the Sultan and the Pashas, he will never have an audience, he will not
be treated well, and the Gran Turco will not let the ambassador kiss his hand”,
wrote Luigi Bassano in the early 16th century.55 There were ardent discussions
in Venetian councils about the gifts to be presented to the sultan and viziers on
various occasions, like at circumcision festivities of Süleyman’s sons in 1530.56
These gifts, along with others brought by officials of various ranks, would later
be displayed during the festivities taking place at the Hippodrome.
3 At the Hippodrome
Nineteenth-century French historian Alfred Nicolas Rambaud described

the three wonders of Constantinople as “the St. Sophia of God, the golden
Triklinium of the emperor (the large reception hall of the palace) and the
Hippodrome of the people”.57 After processing through the ceremonial routes
on the streets of the city and entering the administrative nucleus of the state
in the palace, we now move to the Hippodrome (Atmeydanı) to see how court
51 Sanuto, Diarii, vol. 29, 390–92.

53 7 Numarali Mühimme Defteri, 383 (no. 756).
55 Bassano, “I Costumi et i Modi Particolari de la Vita de’ Turchi”, ch. 50.
56 Sanuto, Diarii, vol. 53, 150, 250, 253, 258, 280, 441.
57 As quoted in Kuban, Istanbul, 77.
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158 Zeynep Yelçe
ceremonial was carried into the largest public space of the city during fes-
tive occasions.
During the Byzantine period, the Hippodrome, its vicinity, and the Mese
maintained an active and prominent status for as long as the emperors contin-
ued to reside in the Great Palace and patronize the Hippodrome.58 The largest
open space created for public display, the Hippodrome resumed its ceremo-
nial and festive character in Ottoman Constantinople, without a change in
name—Atmeydanı literally means “horse square” (Fig. 20.3). Starting with its
construction, the Hippodrome appears first of all as a reference to the glory
and heritage of Rome. Its uninterrupted use throughout the Byzantine era and
its appropriation by the Ottomans can be viewed as an act of legitimation by
claiming continuity with the past. At the same time, the Ottomans’ use of the
Hippodrome was connected to the practice of maintaining a meydān (square)
at the vicinity of the palace in cities of the late medieval and early modern
Islamicate world.59 For the Ottoman sultan, just as for the Byzantine emperor
before him, the events set up at the Hippodrome/Atmeydanı, now stripped of
its Roman architectural frame and most of its sculptural embellishments, and
framed by the İbrahim Pasha palace and, from the turn of the 17th century
on, the mosque complex of Ahmed I, were occasions for visibility.60 The sub-
jects, and perhaps as importantly, the foreign representatives, were thus made
to observe and be impressed by the might and splendor of the ruler and his
retinue. The unrest experienced at the Hippodrome from time to time also sig-
naled its nature as a site of political expression. Its function as a public space
for entertainment is probably the most visible aspect of the site through much
of the 16th century, pointing to the overlap of ceremonial and entertainment.
This was the customary venue for royal festivals like circumcision or wed-
ding celebrations, as reflected in Celalzade Mustafa’s definition of Atmeydanı
as an “ancient sighting spot” (nişāngāh-ı ḳadīm), and in Mustafa Âli’s descrip-
tion of an “ancient excursion spot” (seyrāngāh-ı ḳadīm) and “festive location of
ancient rulers” (sūrgāh-ı şāhān-ı ḳadīm).61 Accounts of 16th-century Ottoman
festivals start with preparations at the Hippodrome.62 The best place was
reserved for the sultan—just as was the case with the Byzantine emperor, who
58 Cameron, Circus Factions, 308; see also Basset, “The Antiquities in the Hippodrome”.
59 Babaie & Kafescioğlu, “Istanbul, Isfahan, and Delhi”, 857, 867.
60 For ceremonial at and around Sultan Ahmed mosque, see Rüstem, “The Spectacle of
Legitimacy”, 261–90; Necipoğlu, Age of Sinan, 514–16.
61 Celalzade Mustafa, Tabakāt, ed. Kappert, 116a; Mustafa Âli, Künhü’l-āhbār, 316a; and idem,
Camiʿu’l-buhûr, ed. Öztekin, 278.
62 On 16th-century festivals, see Şahin, “Staging an Empire”; Terzioğlu, “The Imperial
Circumcision Festival of 1582”; Yelçe, “Three Imperial Festivals”.
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watched the games from his imperial lodge (cathisma) a millennium earlier.63
Functionally, the cathisma seems to have been replaced by a huge and lavishly
decorated tent or lodge constructed for the occasion in front of the palace of
İbrahim Pasha, the spot with the widest view of the area.64 Reporting on the
restoration and decoration activities at the Hippodrome before the celebra-
tions in 1582, Selaniki mentions the repairs undertaken at this palace, including
the tribunes built along its exterior walls where grandees and foreign represen-
tatives could sit according to rank. The stairway and the gate leading to the
palace from the Hippodrome were removed to make space for a magnificent
pavilion for the sultan attached to the main ceremonial hall of the palace.65
Reflections of the strictly hierarchical order characteristic of court societies
are clearly on display in events staged at the Hippodrome. The seating arrange-
ments, the protocol of each stage of the event, and the surrounding dwellings
of the grandees,66 not to mention the imperial palaces themselves, all formed
a part of this hierarchy. Seating arrangements reflected and reconfirmed the
hierarchical sense of order. During a banquet at the 1530 circumcision festival,
to the right of the sultan sat first the grand vizier, İbrahim Pasha, then the sec-
ond vizier, Ayas Pasha, followed by the third vizier, Kasım Pasha, the governor
general of Rumelia, the governor general of Anatolia, the tutor of the sultan,
the chief judges, and then the son of the Crimean Khan. To the sultan’s left, the
former grand vizier, Piri Mehmed Pasha, the former vizier, Zeynel Pasha, and
finally the sons of rulers and commanders who had been defeated by Selim I
during his eastern campaigns.67 The sultan’s tutor, for example, was honored
to have been seated beside the grand vizier and thus placed closer to the sultan
than the chief judges.68
During the 1582 circumcision festivities, a minor crisis occurred when
the Habsburg ambassador objected to being seated next to his Safavid
counterpart.69 The problem was quickly resolved by allocating a separate tri-
bune for the Europeans. And when the Safavids broke a recently concluded
truce (one of many in the Ottoman-Safavid wars of 1578–90), their envoy was
immediately expelled from the festivities and his lodge dismantled.70
63 Kuban, Istanbul, 79.

64 Yelçe, “Three Imperial Festivals”, 89–91.
66 For grand vizieral palaces, see Artan, “Politics of Ottoman Imperial Palaces”, 365–408; and
Bilge, “Sultanahmed Cami ve Külliyesi”, 529–33.
67 Celalzade Mustafa, Tabakāt, ed. Kappert, 200a.
68 Ibid., 197a.
69 Arslan, İntizami Surnamesi, 120–21.
70 Terzioğlu, “The Imperial Circumcision Festival of 1582”, 85–86.
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160 Zeynep Yelçe
Mehmed II’s law code extended to the serving of food in courtly settings,
and thus informed the order of banquets at the Hippodrome. Accordingly, the
grand vizier would eat with the head treasurer, while the other viziers ate with
the treasurers and the chancellor. The chief judges ate separately. If the ban-
quet was presided over by the sultan, all these officials would eat at his table.71
The sultan, however, would only sit but not eat, since the laws of Mehmed II
dictated that he ate alone: “It is not my custom to dine with anyone, except for
my blood relations. My ancestors used to dine with their viziers. I have abol-
ished [the custom].”72 Writing towards the end of the 16th century, Mustafa Âli,
who found this custom abhorrent, accused Murad III of aggrandizing himself
by following it; according to Âli, eating alone was a sign of vanity.73
Banquets were a major part of the festivities held at the Hippodrome. They
reflected the sense of abundance and prosperity of the sultan’s reign as well as
his ability to feed his people. Along with the seating arrangements, the number
and types of dishes served to individual groups functioned as a visual demon-
stration of hierarchy and the established order. One exception to the rule of
order was the practice known as the “scramble for dishes” (çanak yağması)
(Fig. 6.3). Dishes full of rice and meat would be prepared in front of the İbrahim
Pasha palace. On an agreed-upon signal, the janissaries would rush to the food
and get whichever dish they could get their hands on. This chaotic game was
significant in two respects. First, it was a demonstration that the sultan fed his
servants and thus performed his part of the bargain required by the “mutual
contract” that was sealed by the homage ceremony upon his accession. The
janissaries, in turn, reconfirmed their loyalties and their continuing status as
servants (ḳūl) of the sultan by not only accepting, but also rushing to his food.
Second, once all the dishes were taken away, the chaotic atmosphere reigning
at the Hippodrome gave way to order and quiet. In other words, this game also
served as a metaphor for the controlled chaos that only the sultan could allow
and bring to an end.74 The skirmish over the coins that the sultan scattered
during festivities made a similar point because “together they conveyed the
message that the imperial state mechanism was the only source of order in a
chaotic world”.75
73 Mustafa Âli, Camiʿu’l-buhûr, ed. Öztekin, 332–33.
74 For other examples, see Yelçe, “Three Imperial Festivals”. Although circumcision festivals
abandoned the Hippodrome in favor of Okmeydanı in 1720, the practice of the “scramble
for dishes” continued to be part of the festivities.
75 Terzioğlu, “The Imperial Circumcision Festival of 1582”, 96.
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Figure 6.3 Scramble for dishes at the Hippodrome during circumcision festivities of 1530,
Hünernāme, vol. 2, 1588, opaque watercolor and gold on paper. TSMK, H. 1524,
fol. 120r
An indispensable part of the festivities at the Hippodrome were the various,

smaller scale processions along with a plethora of games. The space between
the Imperial Palace and the Hippodrome provided a reasonable distance for a
procession to take place from one site to the other. The grandees would meet
the sultan as he arrived at the Hippodrome and escort him to his lodge; the
sultan remained on horseback, while the others were on foot. This was a ritu-
alized event, giving the public the opportunity to see the sultan and his reti-
nue in all their might and magnificence, and in hierarchical order. A similar
procession would be organized for the princes during circumcision festivals,
during which they were brought by palace officials from the Old Palace to the
Hippodrome, where they too would be greeted by the viziers. Passing through
the crowds in the Hippodrome, they would be saluted by various court officials
and the janissaries, before being escorted to the İbrahim Pasha Palace, where
the circumcision itself was performed. Finally, they would meet their father,
the sultan, at his lodge and kiss his hand.76
Artisans and shopkeepers of Istanbul also had a chance to display their
crafts and skills at the Hippodrome in guild processions during these festivities.
76 Yelçe, “Three Imperial Festivals”, 82.
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162 Zeynep Yelçe
Groups of artisans and other professionals as varied as Quran reciters and

basket weavers would march in groups into the Hippodrome while practic-
ing their trade for all to see. It is possible to identify around 150 such groups
in the 1582 festival, the earliest such event where processions by professional
groups featured as a salient aspect of the festivities.77 Processions of artisans
signaled the events as urban festivities. Indeed, the residents of the city were
not merely audience members, but central actors in these ceremonial occa-
sions. The inclusion of urban professional groups in imperial festivals has been
linked to their growing influence and visibility towards the end of the 16th cen-
tury, as part of wider changes in the urban (political) culture.78
A similar sense of simultaneity, where participants were both actors and
audience members, applies to those who partook in the games. As the par-
ticipants enjoyed the food and entertainment offered at the Hippodrome, they
also put themselves on show for the appreciation of others, not the least the
sultan. One of the favorite games was climbing a greased pole erected for the
occasion (Fig. 6.3). As sailors and janissaries tried to climb and take the robe of
honor placed at the top, their constant sliding down was a subject of amuse-
ment for those watching. For the contestants, though, it was both fun and an
opportunity to attract the attention of the sultan, as exemplified by a janissary
who, as a reward for his ability to climb to the top, was allowed to keep the robe
and appointed as an imperial guard.79 Performers from all over the Ottoman
realm participated in the festivities. Jugglers, ropewalkers, buffoons, wres-
tlers, and body builders all rushed to display their skills. Animal trainers came
with their bears, lions, tigers, and even elephants to put on shows. Others dis-
played a variety of cardboard models, including of animals, castles, and ships.
A mock battle with two large model castles, symbolizing the Ottomans and
oftentimes the Hungarians, represented a confrontation whereby the former
always emerged as the victor. Entertainment continued through the night with
fireworks. Several model objects were blown up in the air with fireworks, and
these nocturnal shows were no doubt entertaining. More importantly, though,
they turned “night into day”, signifying the sultan’s skill in illuminating the
lives of his subjects.80
77 For the guild processions during this festival, see Terzioğlu, “The Imperial Circumcision
Festival of 1582”, 89–93.
78 Ibid., 90; Yi, Guild Dynamics in Seventeenth-Century Istanbul, 40.
79 Celalzade Mustafa, Tabakāt, ed. Kappert, 197b.
80 Yelçe, “Three Imperial Festivals”, 99–101, and Terzioğlu, “The Imperial Circumcision
Festival of 1582”, 85, 87. On the use of pyrotechnic technology in Ottoman festivals, see
Karateke, “Illuminating Ottoman Ceremonial”.
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However, not all events in the Hippodrome consisted of joyful and glorious
celebrations. As a site for public expression, the Hippodrome also served as a
gathering place for public protests and executions, as it had in the Byzantine
era. Several of the riots in Ottoman Istanbul began at or found their way to
the Hippodrome. Officials who attracted the discontent of the janissaries were
either killed or had their corpses brought there for public display.81 Executions
at the hands of the state were also public, as in 1494, when Molla Lütfi, a scholar
who opposed the views of more conservative ulema, was found guilty of heresy
and beheaded at the Hippodrome. In 1529, İsmail Maşuki, a shaykh of the anti-
nomian Melami dervishes who was suspected of Safavid sympathies, was cap-
tured and executed at the Hippodrome along with his 12 followers.82 Factional
struggles, too, sometimes had their violent manifestations played out at the
Hippodrome. At the end of the 16th century, a Jewish woman who was an agent
of the sultan’s mother became the target of soldiers after she was given certain
financial privileges. When she was eventually killed, her corpse was dragged to
the Hippodrome and left there for days.83
When the imperial court moved back from Edirne to the capital, following a
long absence, in 1703, the fate of the Hippodrome started to change once again.
The festive center of Istanbul shifted to the shores of the Golden Horn and the
Bosphorus. The big fires of 1715 and 1718, which devastated parts of the walled
city must have played a role in this change. In 1720, the venues for the circumci-
sion festival for the heirs of Sultan Ahmed III were Okmeydanı, to the north of
the Golden Horn, and a seaside pavilion on the shore.84
Early modern Istanbul, as any early modern city, was neither a static nor a
monolithic entity, and ritual conventions and ceremonial spaces transformed
as conditions required. The gradual replacement of the conquering warrior
sultans of the mid-15th to mid-16th centuries by the more sedentary monarchs
in the late 16th and 17th centuries made the transformations discussed here
inevitable. The Edirne interval in the second half of the 17th century, during
which the imperial court hardly ever visited Istanbul, seems to have acceler-
ated the spatial and ritual transformation of palace and city ceremonial by rob-
bing the city for five decades of its main privilege, that of being the “seat of the
throne”. The return of the throne back to its seat in the beginning of the 18th
81 For janissary-led protests in Istanbul during the 17th and early 18th centuries, see the
chapter by Gülay Yılmaz in this volume.
82 İnalcık, The Ottoman Empire, 178, 192.
84 Yerasimos, İstanbul, trans. Güntekin, 337; Erdoğan İşkorkutan, The 1720 Imperial Festivities.
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164 Zeynep Yelçe
century brought further novelties to courtly ritual, introducing novel spatial

practices and highlighting new ceremonial configurations.
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1450–1580”, in C. Michon (ed.), Conseils et conseillers dans L’Europe de la renaissance:
v. 1450–v. 1550, Rennes, 2012, 299–339.
Le Goff, J., “A coronation program for the age of Saint Louis: the ordo of 1250”, in
J.M. Bak (ed.), Coronations: Medieval and Early Modern Monarchic Ritual, Berkeley,
1990, 46–56.
Mottahedeh, R., Loyalty and Leadership in an Early Islamic Society, 2nd ed., New York,
2001.
Necipoğlu, G., “Dynastic imprints on the cityscape: the collective message of funer-
ary imperial mosque complexes in Istanbul”, in J. Bacqué-Grammont (ed.), Colloque
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International: Cimetières et traditions funéraires dans le monde islamique, Paris, 1996,

23–36.
2005 (repr. 2011).
Neumann, Ch. K., “Political and diplomatic developments”, in S.N. Faroqhi (ed.),
The Cambridge History of Turkey, volume 3, The Later Ottoman Empire, 1603–1839,
Cambridge, 2006, 44–62.
Özcan, A., Kānunnâme-i Âl-i Osman: Tahlil ve Karşılaştırmalı Metin, Istanbul, 2003.
Özcan, A., “Cülūs”, in TDVIA, online at https://islamansiklopedisi.org.tr/culus (accessed
21 October 2018).
Rappaport, R.A., “The obvious aspects of ritual”, in R.L. Grimes (ed.), Readings in Ritual
Studies, Upper Saddle River, NJ, 1996, 427–40.
Rüstem, Ü., “The spectacle of legitimacy: the dome-closing ceremony of the Sultan
Ahmed Mosque”, Muqarnas 33 (2016), 253–344.
Skinner, Q., “Moral principles and social change”, in idem, Visions of Politics, volume 1,
Regarding Method, Cambridge, 2002, 145–57.
Şahin, K., “Staging an empire: an Ottoman circumcision ceremony as cultural perfor-
mance”, AHR 123/2 (2018), 463–92.
12 (1995), 84–100.
Uzunçarşılı, İ.H., Osmanlı Tarihi, vol. 3, Ankara, 1951.
Yelçe, N.Z., “Evaluating three imperial festivals: 1524, 1530, 1539”, in S. Faroqhi,
A. Öztürkmen (eds.), Celebration, Entertainment and Theater in the Ottoman World,
Calcutta, 2014, 71–109.
Yelçe, N.Z., “The Making of Sultan Süleyman: A Study of Process/es of Image-Making
and Reputation Management”, PhD diss., Sabancı University, 2009.
Yerasimos, S., İstanbul: İmparatorluklar Başkenti, trans. E. Güntekin, Istanbul, 2000.
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Jersey, 2018.
2004.
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Chapter 7
Courtly Spaces: Visual and Material Culture

Emine Fetvacı
Visual and material culture created at the Ottoman court of the early mod-
ern period was not only exquisite but also functional and effective. This essay
explores the role played by courtly artistic production in mediating the rela-
tionship between city and palace in early modern Istanbul. While the palace
without a doubt was the primary locus of creative power and patronage, arti-
sans of the city certainly contributed their fair share to the production of visual
and material culture. Moreover, especially in this period, it would be wrong to
consider the two realms as entirely independent of each other. Some of the
artworks created in the palace were made precisely for the city’s consumption,
and helped to present the palace in the city and exert its power and influence
through visual symbolism. Art created in the city increasingly had repercus-
sions for court circles. Just as elsewhere in the early modern period, in Istanbul
too, the newly broadened patronage base included courtiers and other urban
elites. Consequently, new forms of art and entertainment emerged, and even-
tually became a source of inspiration for courtly production.1 Evidence from
albums and manuscripts points to significant overlaps between works of art
collected by the palace and by patrons of lesser social rank. Textile production
also displays the growing influence of urban clients on the shaping of fashions
and tastes.2 Increased trade and connectivity between Mediterranean urban
centers at this time, coupled with an evident growth in consumer culture,
meant that a very lively art and consumer goods market was available to both
courtly and urban elites.3
This essay prioritizes pictorial representation because paintings from the
period lend themselves especially well to the examination of interactions
between court and city. Moreover, illustrated manuscripts and albums were
the primary means through which courtiers collectively and individually
sought to represent themselves, certainly at court, but, by extension, also to the
1 For the participation of non-royal courtiers in artistic patronage, see Fetvacı, Picturing History.
For new forms of entertainment and sociability, see Kafadar, “How Dark”. For overviews of
Ottoman art in the early modern period, see Kafescioğlu, “The Visual Arts”; and Artan, “Arts
and Architecture”. For specific instances of urban artforms influencing courtly production,
see Değirmenci, “An Illustrated Mecmua”; and Fetvacı, Album of the World Emperor.
2 Phillips, “A Material Culture”; see also Phillips’ chapter in this volume.
3 Artan, “Objects of Consumption”.

Courtly Spaces: Visual and Material Culture 169
rest of the empire. In this period, the city started to appear as a subject matter
of great interest in the visual record.4 Similarly, the court’s reach into urban
space through architectural patronage, ceremonial, and festivals was a popular
topic for painters. This is not at all to suggest that these paintings should be
taken at face value, or that what they depict is to be interpreted as a transpar-
ent reflection of lives and events in the city. Rather, they provide a lens through
which we can investigate the court’s use of objects to mediate relationships
and negotiate social hierarchies in the city as well as in the palace.
1 The Development and Dissemination of a Court Style
During the second half of the 16th century, Ottoman court designers and
patrons developed a distinct visual idiom that consisted of recognizable blos-
soms, ogives, and sinewy feathery leaves which are sometimes referred to as the
“reed” (sāz) style, for use in ceramics, textiles, and architectural decoration.5
Gülru Necipoğlu has recently argued that the Ottoman floral idiom was formu-
lated in juxtaposition to the development of court styles in Iran, where artists
employed smaller scale floral and abstract vegetal designs interspersed with
figural depictions.6 The exclusive use of the floral idiom on multiple media
provided visual and material means for the elite to identify themselves as a
group, but also helped to set them apart from the rest of the peoples of the
empire and from the ruling elites of neighboring empires.7 This bold floral
aesthetic appears, for example, on Ottoman silks, which were used both for
furnishings and for luxurious clothing. In a highly regimented society where
sumptuary laws helped to protect social hierarchy, clothing was of the utmost
importance in signaling status. Parading through the streets of Istanbul with
a bold red caftan with oversized gold flowers on it (Fig. 7.1a) advertised one’s
membership to the ruling elite.8 The sultan regularly gifted such silk ceremo-
nial robes to his high-ranking officers and to foreign dignitaries as a sign of
generosity, but also, of course, to mark his power and dominance.
Textiles, ceramics, and various portable objects bearing such bold floral
designs were also placed in elite-sponsored service buildings around the city as
another way to project an imperial image and to concretize—and publicize—
social hierarchies. The elite marked its presence in the city with numerous
4 Kafescioğlu, “Picturing the Square”.

5 Necipoğlu, “A Ḳānūn for the State”; idem, “L’idée de décor”; idem, “Early Modern Floral”. For
the sāz term, see Mahir, “Osmanlı Sanatında Saz Üslubundan Anlaşılan”.
6 Necipoğlu, “Early Modern Floral”.
7 Clearly outlined by Necipoğlu, “A Ḳānūn for the State”.
8 Faroqhi & Neumann (eds.), Ottoman Costumes; and Zilfi, “Whose Laws?”.
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170 Fetvacı
Figure 7.1a Mehmed III’s procession in Istanbul, Divan Yolu. Şehnāme-i Meḥmed
Ḫān [Fetiḥnāme-i Eğri], Istanbul, c.1598, opaque watercolor and gold
on paper. TSMK, H. 1609, fols. 68v–69r
mosques and charitable complexes founded during this period, which not
only enhanced the everyday lives of Istanbul’s residents, but also showcased
the courtly visual aesthetic.9 The patrons of such places worked together
with the chief architect to determine the decorative program (entailing such
aspects of the construction as marble revetments and columns, ceramic tiles,
inscriptions, lamps, and stained glass windows) and the furnishings for the
buildings, donating such objects as manuscripts, book stands, incense burners,
and lamps.10 The portable arts thus contributed to entrenching a sense of local
imperial identity in the city that could be felt by all those who benefited from
the services provided by these institutions—and ultimately, by the ruling elite.
Other occasions for the expression of imperial identity were ceremonials
and festivals, analyzed in greater detail by Zeynep Yelçe in the present volume.11
9 Necipoğlu points to this already in “A Ḳānūn for the State”; see also idem, Age of Sinan,
for the idea of decorum, and for various examples of Sinan and his patrons determining
interior decoration.
10 For various examples, see Farhad & Rettig (eds.), The Art of the Quran; Ergin, “The
Fragrance of the Divine”; Tanındı, “The Manuscripts Bestowed as Pious Endowments”.
11 See the chapter by Yelçe in this volume; Ertuğ, XVI. Yüzyıl Osmanlı Devleti’nde Cülûs ve
Cenaze Törenleri; Atasoy, 1582 Surname-i Hümayun; Terzioğlu, “The Imperial Circumcision
Festival of 1582”; Fetvacı, Picturing History, 175–85.
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The court and the city came together for such events on a regular basis in the
early modern period. While Kaya Şahin’s recent work makes this evident for the
reign of Sultan Süleyman (r. 1520–66), Ünver Rüstem suggests that the young
Ahmed I (r. 1603–17) seized every opportunity to create new public celebra-
tions, and such festivals continued, albeit with some interruptions, in the later
17th and 18th centuries, as we know from the work of Tülay Artan and others.12
Some of these festivities were recorded for posterity with words and images in
illustrated histories that were produced and circulated in court.13
The Ottoman court’s investment in the agency of objects within ceremo-
nial and urban space is demonstrated in an illustration of a royal procession
from 1598 in the court historian Mehmed b. Mehmed el-Fenari Talikizade’s
(d. c.1600) Şehnāme-i Meḥmed Ḫān (Book of Kings of Sultan Mehmed,
Fig. 7.1a).14 Figure 7.1a shows Mehmed III’s (r. 1595–1603) entry into Istanbul
after the Haçova Battle against Habsburg forces. The campaign had not
brought about a significant victory, but the depiction of the sultan’s entry into
the city certainly strikes a victorious tone. The painting shows the Ottoman
army, officers, and military band processing, according to the text, by the
mosque of Prince Mehmed, even though the mosque is not evident in the
image.15 Musicians blow trumpets bringing up the rear in the far right, allud-
ing to the multisensory quality of such processions. The sultan, with his recog-
nizable heavy figure, full beard, and tall turban with double aigrettes, rides on
a richly caparisoned horse. He is wearing a red caftan with gold floral designs
and his pants carry the double wavy lines and dots that were a popular pattern
12 Şahin, “Staging an Empire”; Rüstem, “The Spectacle of Legitimacy”; Artan, “Royal Wed-
dings and the Grand Vezirate”. An overview of the 17th and 18th centuries as well as a thor-
ough account of the 1720 festival can be found in Erdoğan İşkorkutan, The 1720 Imperial
Circumcision Celebrations in Istanbul. On the Sūrnāme (Festival Book), see also Atıl, “The
Story of an Eighteenth-Century Ottoman Festival”; and idem, Levni and the Surname.
13 Illustrated accounts include the Hünernāme (TSMK H. 1524), which records the public cir-
cumcision festivities for the sons of Sultan Süleyman; the Sūrnāme-i Hümāyūn (TSMK H.
1344) and the Şehinşehnāme (TSMK B. 200), which record the circumcision festivities of
Murad III’s son Prince Mehmed (later Mehmed III); the Şehnāme-i Meḥmed Ḫān (TSMK
H. 1609), which records Mehmed III’s entry into Istanbul; and the Sūrnāme-i Vehbī (TSMK
A. 3593, and a second copy, A. 3594), which describes the circumcision festival celebrat-
ing the sons of Ahmed III in 1720. Other ceremonials not illustrated by the Ottomans
but attested to in other sources include the procession of the guilds described by Evliya
Çelebi, the procession of Mehmed IV in 1657/58 documented by Claes Rålamb in Adåhl
(ed.), The Sultan’s Procession, and the 1675 circumcision festival celebrating the sons of
Mehmed IV.
14 TSMK, H. 1609. Woodhead, Taʿlīḳī-zāde’s Şehnāme-i hümāyūn; idem, “Ottoman Historiog-
raphy on the Hungarian Campaigns”; and idem, “The Ottoman Gazaname”.
15 Bağcı et al., Osmanlı Resim Sanatı, 180.
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172 Fetvacı
on imperial objects, referencing the tiger-striped costume of the hero Rustam

from the medieval Persian epic Shāhnāma (Book of Kings).16 Composed in the
11th century by the poet Ferdowsi, the Shāhnāma recounts the exploits of the
kings of Iran from its mythical beginnings and through the pre-Islamic era.17
References to this renowned epic were quite commonplace in the official illus-
trated accounts of Ottoman history, which were themselves modeled on the
style and format of the Shāhnāma, focusing at first on battles, heroic deeds,
and just rule.18 However, the Shāhnāma was not only a model for Ottoman his-
torical writing, where its heroes represented the ideals of kingly behavior, but
an extremely popular work of literature recited in the gatherings of the elite
and of commoners, at times accompanied by images to aid in the recitation
of the narrative.19 In other words, it was a text shared by palace and city alike.
In the last two decades of the 16th century, the verbal style of court-sponsored
official histories moved away from the Shāhnāma model as they began to be
written in Ottoman Turkish prose rather than in Persian verse.20 The Şehnāme-i
Meḥmed Ḫān is an example of this later, localized style. Like the text, the illus-
trations are also strongly anchored in the Ottoman context, as demonstrated
by Figure 7.1a, and display an awareness of style as a sign of imperial identity.
While the visual idiom will be addressed later in this essay, the style of the
textiles depicted by Figure 7.1a is of importance here. The brightly colored and
gilded caftans of the officers of the court and the military are echoed in the
large panels of boldly decorated silks carried by members of the cloth makers’
guild to frame the sultan’s procession and control the crowds.21 The textiles
are clearly being shown off as signs of Ottoman imperial grandeur, containing
great variety within the familiar themes of flowers and ogival patterns. One
exception highlights the significance of these textiles: the rectangular frag-
ment that is the farthest left of the back row (the top left piece of textile) car-
ries figural designs. It depicts two riders on horseback, one of whom has shot
the other with an arrow (Fig. 7.1b). They are accompanied by a dog chasing
a rabbit, and another figure on foot. The figural imagery immediately reads
as different, and more specifically Safavid, as these kinds of images were the
hallmark of contemporary Safavid decorative language. The identities of the
16 Bağcı, “Visualizing Power”, 13–27.

17 I am transcribing Ferdowsi’s original Persian epic as Shāhnāma, and the Ottoman works
inspired by it (see many examples below) as Şehnāme, to distinguish between the Persian
original and the Ottoman works.
18 Woodhead, “An Experiment in Official Historiography”.
19 Mahir, “A Group of 17th Century Paintings”, and Atasoy, “Illustrations Prepared for Display”.
20 Woodhead, “An Experiment in Official Historiography”; Fetvacı, Picturing History.
21 Selaniki, Tarih, ed. İpşirli, 652–55; and Bağcı et al., Osmanlı Resim Sanatı, 180.
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Figure 7.1b The Safavid embassy watching the procession of Mehmed III in Istanbul.
Detail, Şehnāme-i Meḥmed Ḫān [Fetiḥnāme-i Eğri], Istanbul, c.1598. TSMK,
H. 1609, fol. 69r
men who are holding this piece (as well as the next three to its right) explain
its presence here. They wear turbans wound loosely around gold batons, the
Safavid tāj-i Haydarī (crown of Haydar), which identifies them as Safavid. In a
balcony directly behind them, the Safavid ambassador Dhulfiqar Khan, wear-
ing a similar turban, watches the parade with his servants. We understand from
his presence that the procession is not simply for the benefit of the residents
of Istanbul, but it is also staged for this foreign visitor. The Ottoman sultan,
having defeated his enemies to the west, is showing off to his enemies to the
east—and proclaiming his glory with the help of textiles. This is of course a
symbolic image, and the actual designs of the textiles lining the street may not
have corresponded to what we see in the painting. The fact that the painter of
this scene (most likely Nakkaş Hasan, who is praised by the author Talikizade
at the end of the book, and who is also depicted alongside Talikizade in the
final painting of the manuscript) chose to mark the “Persian corner” of the
painting with a Persian textile design tells us that the decorative vocabularies
of the two empires were invested with meaning and associated with imperial
identity by those who used them.22 A silk fragment carrying a figural combat
22 For Nakkaş Hasan, see Akalay, “XVI. Yüzyıl Nakkaşlarından Hasan Paşa ve Eserleri”; Artan,
“Arts and Architecture”, 411–12; and Çağman, “The Ahmad Karahisari Qur’an”.
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174 Fetvacı
scene, when juxtaposed with other textiles that exclusively feature large-scale
flowers, could easily denote imperial difference, and even rivalry.
2 Presenting Ottoman History
Paintings such as the depiction of Mehmed III entering Istanbul (Fig. 7.1a)
were a principal way in which the Ottoman court recorded and presented its
history. The production and circulation of illustrated manuscripts of Ottoman
history similar to the Şehnāme-i Meḥmed Ḫān in large numbers during the 16th
century suggests a court-wide interest in the recording of the past. These books
would be read by the ruling elite in the palace and consulted by the pages in
training there. The young pages, all of whom came from elsewhere through the
devşirme (recruitment) system, were thus acculturated to the ways and self-
perceptions of the ruling elite, whose traditions they would perpetuate when
they formed their own households. They were products of collective author-
ship, for historians, patrons, and artists gave shape to their contents in differ-
ent ways, often trying to influence their own careers as much as recording the
recent past in ways that suited different courtly agendas.
The illustrated histories had different meanings in the courtly and the urban
contexts. The immediate audience they addressed was the contemporary rul-
ing elite of the court, and they were meant to have the most powerful effect
on court hierarchies. Their function in the private realm of the court, in other
words, was specific and pointed. As a result, they are highly informative on
court dynamics, rivalries, and factions. While the courtly versions did not
circulate through the streets of the city, their effects did reverberate through-
out, determining careers and shaping imperial policies and decisions, both of
which naturally had an effect on life in the empire. Moreover, stories about the
contents of such luxurious illustrated books spread through word of mouth.23
In the public realm, by contrast, these objects were symbols of belonging,
not of rivalry. The historical manuscripts developed a new aesthetic that was
meant not only to embody but also to entrench further a sense of imperial
identity and courtly difference. The visual idiom crystallized in these manu-
scripts constituted a deliberate move away from Persianate styles of painting,
illumination, and even calligraphy. This is observable in Figure 7.1a. The paint-
ing is characterized by a clear hierarchy, not only reflecting the hierarchy of
the actual event but exaggerating it by relegating the Safavid ambassador to
23 Fetvacı, Picturing History. For the official court historian and his works, see Woodhead,
“An Experiment in Official Historiography”; idem, “Reading Ottoman ‘Şehnames’”; idem,
“Murad III and the Historians”; and Fetvacı, “The Office of Ottoman Court Historian”.
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Figure 7.2 Haçova Battle, Dīvān of Nadiri, Istanbul, c.1605, ink, opaque watercolor and gold
on paper. TSMK, H. 889, fols. 6v–7r
a small corner of the painting, depicting him as half the size of the Ottoman
monarch at the center, isolated against the plain background so that he stands
out from the crowd surrounding him. The predominant use of horizontal and
vertical lines in organizing compositions, the orderly arrangement of figures,
and the overwhelming sense of order and calm (despite the large numbers of
people present) characterize historical paintings in manuscripts of Ottoman
history. The development of an Ottoman pictorial idiom appears as a deliber-
ate endeavor when considered in light of the fact that during this same period,
through purchase, gift exchange, and war booty, Persian manuscripts and
albums continued to pour into the Topkapı treasury.24
Due to the discursive role the manuscripts played in the court context, the
same event, especially if representing contested memories or values, might
be visualized in contradictory ways at different moments. Mehmed III’s par-
ticipation in battle is one such event (Figs. 7.2 and 7.3). After much debate
among his courtiers and advisors as to whether this was appropriate or not,
24 Uluç, Turkman Governors; Arcak, “Gifts in Motion”; Çağman & Tanındı, “Remarks on
Some Manuscripts from the Topkapı Palace Treasury”.
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176 Fetvacı
Figure 7.3 Haçova Battle, Şehnāme-i Meḥmed Ḫān [Fetiḥnāme-i Eğri], Istanbul, c.1598,
opaque watercolor and gold on paper. TSMK, H. 1609, fols. 50v–51r
Mehmed III broke with the traditions of his father Murad III (r. 1574–95) and
his grandfather Selim II (r. 1566–74) and joined the army on campaign as his
earlier ancestors had done.25 The Haçova battle, the high point of the cam-
paign, is memorialized in two different ways: one is an orderly depiction in
the Şehnāme-i Meḥmed Ḫān, prepared soon after the campaign (c.1598), and
the second is a more chaotic painting accompanying the collected poems
(dīvān) of the poet and courtier Nadiri (d. 1626/27), prepared early in the reign
of Ahmed I.26 The illustration from the Dīvān of Nadiri (possibly by the artist
Nakşi, Fig. 7.3) actually shows the chaos around the sultan: soldiers are actively
engaged in battle, lunging forward and falling off their horses against a back-
ground of severed body parts, all hinting that he might have been in danger. The
earlier illustration by Nakkaş Hasan suppresses all the commotion to present
a remarkably well-ordered army in battle formation.27 The army is organized
25 Selaniki, Tarih, ed. İpşirli, 548, records some of these conversations, and reminds us that
the sultan’s presence on campaign was no longer expected or even necessarily desired.
26 TSMK, H. 1609, fols. 50b–51a, and H. 889, fols. 6b–7a.
27 On Nakşi, see Atıl, “Ahmed Nakşi an Eclectic Painter”; Ünver, Ressam Nakşî; Bağcı et al.,
Osmanlı Resim Sanatı, 209–23. For Nadiri’s Dīvān (TSMK H. 889), see Değirmenci, İktidar
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outwards from the sultan, expanding toward the river, a neat arc separating the
Ottomans from the enemy. The illustration mimics the outlines of a drawn bow
and arrow, the sultan placed where the hand would be that draws the bow and
arrow back. A command from him will release the war-machine through the
bow of the river. Although minor skirmishes are indicated in the lower right
corner, the sense of order and control supersedes everything. There is no mess
of battle here, simply the depiction of a well-organized and obedient army.
These divergent visualizations demonstrate the Ottoman court’s engage-
ment in textual and pictorial representation for various ends. Figure 7.2 was
painted during the lifetime of Mehmed III, and presenting the sultan and
his army as utterly in control was a natural way to eulogize the sultan who
had finally broken with two generations of sedentary rulers to accompany his
army.28 By the time Figure 7.3 was done, Mehmed III’s young son Ahmed I was
on the throne. He was only 13 at the time of his accession and did not have
children until a few years later. For the dynasty to continue, his life had to be
preserved at all costs—going to battle would have been a risk. However, young
Ahmed wanted very much to go on campaign.29 Perhaps this painting was also
meant to discourage him from doing so?
The military ideal represented by the Şehnāme-i Meḥmed Ḫān would be
evoked again to represent Osman II (r. 1618–22) at the conclusion of his cam-
paign into Eastern Europe. The author of that history, the Şehnāme-i Nādirī
(The Book of Kings of Nadiri) was none other than Nadiri, the illustration
from whose Dīvān (discussed above) seems to remind of the dangers of war.30
The Şehnāme-i Nādirī is thought to have been illustrated by the same artist
as Nadiri’s Dīvān, Nakşi.31 That the same author and artist a few years later
emphasize opposing values in their work, this time glorifying war, implies
that the final products aimed to please the different patrons of the works and
served different ends.
No historical manuscripts appear to have been illustrated at the imperial
level after the reign of Osman II, but there are two examples from the 18th cen-
tury, the Sūrnāme-i Vehbī (The Festival Book of Vehbi, in two copies), which will
be discussed below, and the Kebīr Silsilenāme (The Great Book of Genealogy),
which was illustrated with serial portraits of Ottoman rulers.32 While some
Oyunları, 145–71; Tanındı, “Transformation of Words to Images”; Fetvacı, “Enriched

Narratives”; and idem, Picturing History, 249–58.
28 Fetvacı, Picturing History, 239–65.
29 Börekçi, “Factions and Favorites”, 117–25 discusses Ahmed’s eagerness to go on campaign.
30 TSMK, H. 1124.
31 Değirmenci, İktidar Oyunları, 171–280.
32 TSMK, A. 3109, A. 3593 and A. 3594. Illustrated books, including histories, were created for
other Ottoman patrons such as the governors of Baghdad, or other viziers.
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178 Fetvacı
scholars associate the end of the tradition of illustrating histories with the
non-militarized lifestyle of the Ottoman ruler, the fact that most illustrated
histories were made during the reign of Murad III who barely left the palace
after his accession, and that no such works were prepared for Mehmed IV
(r. 1648–87), who was engaged in multiple military campaigns, suggests that
the creation of Ottoman illustrated histories had to do with the specific visual
preferences and organization of the Ottoman court, which naturally changed
over time.
Despite their prominence, dynastic histories were not the only books illus-
trated at the Ottoman court in the early modern period. Various geographic,
scientific, religious, and literary texts were also illustrated and were of interest
to courtly and urban audiences alike.33 The late 16th and early 17th century,
partly as the result of a broader patronage base, brought about the illustration
of religious and universal histories and apocalyptic works of prophecy which
suggested that Ottoman rule was divinely ordained and predestined, and that
they would be the last dynasty to rule at the end of time.34 Ottoman transla-
tions of Ferdowsi’s Shāhnāma were illustrated in the Ottoman historical idiom,
too.35 At the same time, increased urban and courtly interest in popular tales
resulted in the illustration of such prose works.36
While most illustrated books were created as unique works kept at the pal-
ace, the Şemāʿilnāme (Ḳıyāfetü’l-insānīye fī şemāʿil’ül-ʿOs̱mānīye, or Human
Physiognomy Concerning the Personal Dispositions of the Ottomans), a
dynastic history describing the reigns of Ottoman sultans accompanied by a
portrait for each sultan, presents an interesting exception, with 12 illustrated
copies from the late 16th and the early 17th centuries still extant.37 The multi-
ple copies were all owned by members of the ruling elite, and must have served
as status objects, as well as important depositories of historical information.
Genealogies of the House of Osman illustrated with medallion-style portraits
of sultans emulated the Şemāʿilnāme. Produced in Baghdad in multiple copies
33 Bağcı et al., Osmanlı Resim Sanatı, 53–63, 68–80, 82–9.

34 Bağcı et al., Osmanlı Resim Sanatı, 156–63; Tanındı, Siyer-i Nebi; Farhad, with Bağcı,
Falnama, especially Bağcı, “The Falnama of Ahmed I”, 68–75 and Fleischer, “Ancient
Wisdom and New Sciences”, 231–43; Fetvacı, Picturing History, 164–75, 245–49; Fetvacı,
Album of the World Emperor, 37–59; and Yaman, “Osmanlı Resim Sanatında Kıyamet
Alametleri”.
35 Bağcı et al., Osmanlı Resim Sanatı, 94–6; Bağcı, “From Translated Word to Translated
Image”.
36 Bağcı et al., Osmanlı Resim Sanatı, 203–07.
37 TSMK H. 1563 and other manuscripts listed in Necipoğlu, “Word and Image”.
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for a broad clientele, they suggest a spreading of palace tastes to the cities of
the empire.38
3 Between City and Court: Paintings from the 17th and 18th Centuries
Albums are another genre that bridged the gap between city and court. These
are collections of paintings, drawings, and calligraphies that had been pro-
duced as single works of art and pasted and bound together into codex for-
mat. Albums allowed collectors to display their wealth and refinement, and
were a popular genre in Persianate courts starting with the 15th century.39
During the 17th century, album production became the dominant genre both
at the Ottoman court and in the city.40 Seventeenth- and eighteenth-century
albums, made for both courtly and urban collectors, incorporated numerous
images of social, professional, and ethnic types and forms of urban entertain-
ment, suggesting that the city had become a popular source of imagery.41 While
the city appears as subject and source of inspiration in poetry from the early
16th century onwards, it does not appear as a dominant theme in the visual
record until the end of the century. This trend emerged first with manuscripts
such as the Sūrnāme (Festival Book) of c.1588, to be discussed below, whose
subject matter, an urban festival that included the procession of guilds, made
it an obvious candidate for such imagery, and continued with albums and
poetic anthologies.42
The Muraḳḳaʿ-ı Pādişāh-ı Cihān Sulṭān Aḥmed Ḫān (Album of the World
Emperor Sultan Ahmed Khan), prepared for Ahmed I around 1614–16, dem-
onstrates the court’s interest in the social and cultural dynamics of Istanbul.
Many illustrations of urban types, similar to the costume books prepared for
European visitors to the city (Fig. 7.4, see also Fig. 4.4) populate the pages of
38 Necipoğlu, “Word and Image”. Bağcı, “From Adam to Mehmed III”, 201, n. 28 lists ten sur-
viving copies and postulates lost examples.
39 For Persian and Mughal albums, see Roxburgh, The Persian Album; and Wright (ed.),
Muraqqaʿ.
40 For overviews, see Mahir, “XVI. Yüzyıl Osmanlı Nakkaşhanesinde Murakka Yapımcılığı”;
Fetvacı, “Enriched Narratives”; Artan, “Arts and Architecture”. For earlier Ottoman album
production, see Necipoğlu, “Persianate Images Between Europe and China”.
41 Artan & Schick, “Ottomanizing Pornotopia”; and Değirmenci, “Osmanlı Tasvir Sanatında
Görselin ‘Okunması’”.
42 For a novel interpretation of the Sūrnāme emphasizing the rise of subjectivity and urban
imagery in Ottoman depictions of Istanbul, see Kafescioğlu, “Picturing the Square”.
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180 Fetvacı
Figure 7.4 Folio with urban types and entertainments, Album of Ahmed I, Istanbul, 1614–16, opaque
watercolor and gold on paper. TSMK, B. 408, fol. 16r
Photograph: Hadiye Cangökçe
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this imperial work.43 The album also includes scenes of public leisure and
entertainment, whether in coffeehouses, parks, or gardens.44 Figure 7.4, for
example, depicts an outdoors leisure scene in the upper right corner, juxta-
posed with a dancer immediately to the left. At the far left are a janissary and
a middle-class woman, perhaps conversing with each other. Below these are
two dancers with comedic masks, lively poses, and bells, suggesting that they
are performing in a coffeehouse or tavern, new or increasingly popular urban
public spaces. Just to their right, the young man and woman communicat-
ing across a margin are types that also appear in humbler poetic anthologies
from the period, sometimes labeled with names.45 The sheer variety of figures
evokes an urban context.
In addition to visualizing the city for the court, albums brought the two audi-
ences together simply by being a shared pursuit. We understand from Mustafa
Âli’s Menāḳıb-ı hünerverān (Epic Deeds of Artists) that calligraphy, at least, was
collected among urbanites in the late 16th century, if not earlier. Written in
1587 and updated a few times, the book was meant to serve as a guide to collec-
tors, as Âli explains in his introduction.46 Calligraphy was not the only genre
collected by urbanites: during the 17th century, collectors incorporated paint-
ings in their albums.47 While such albums with figural paintings are generally
considered to be of lower quality than imperial commissions, their aesthetic
qualities are in fact difficult to distinguish from contemporary imperial pro-
duction. The urban scenes in Ahmed I’s album (Fig. 7.4), for example, are in the
same pared-down style we see in non-imperial works from the period, as are
the images in a Book of Kings/hunti1ng treatise that was prepared for the same
ruler.48 The simpler aesthetic shared by these 17th-century images might be
connected to the new functions that these images served, such as accompany-
ing oral tales, serving as references for stories shared by large groups of people,
and serving as prompts for more than one tale.49 This new visual aesthetic can
43 For a thorough analysis of this album, see Fetvacı, Album of the World Emperor; Fetvacı,
“The Album of Ahmed I”; Bağcı, “Presenting Vaṣṣāl Kalender’s Work”; Schick, “Ottoman
Costume Albums in a Cross-Cultural Context”; idem, “The Place of Dress in Pre-Modern
Costume Albums”; Renda, “17. Yüzyıldan Bir Grup Kıyafet Albümü”; and And, “17. Yüzyıl
Türk Çarşı Ressamları”.
44 Fetvacı, “Love in the Album of Ahmed I”.
45 Değirmenci, “Osmanlı Tasvir Sanatında Görselin ‘Okunması’”.
46 Mustafa Âli, Muṣṭafā ʿÂli’s Epic Deeds of Artists, ed. Akın-Kıvanç, 165.
47 Fetvacı, Album of the World Emperor; Değirmenci, “Osmanlı Tasvir Sanatında Görselin
‘Okunması’”; Renda, “17. Yüzyıldan Bir Grup Kıyafet Albümü”; Schick, “Meraklı Avrupalılar
İçin Bir Başvuru Kaynağı”.
48 Artan, “A Book of Kings Produced and Presented as a Treatise on Hunting”; Fetvacı, Album
of the World Emperor.
49 Değirmenci, “Osmanlı Tasvir Sanatında Görselin ‘Okunması’”.
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182 Fetvacı
be distinguished from the style of the illustrated histories of the second half of
the 16th century.
The figures depicted in these albums, urban and imperial, seem to derive
from the content of popular literature of the time, both lyric poetry and popu-
lar prose tales—the latter entered the courtly sphere of patronage beginning
with Murad III and attracted more attention during the reigns of his son and
grandson. Lyric Ottoman poetry began to reference worldly love more fre-
quently in the 15th and 16th centuries, naming actual beloveds and describing
urban settings, evoking a tangible local environment.50 The images of urban
types are undoubtedly related to such poetry, whose popularity continued into
the 17th century, eventually affecting the content of narrative epic poetry and
also of well-known and widely circulating prose tales.51 The interest in young
men and women one finds in literature and painting of the 17th century is con-
nected to the massive influx of newcomers to the city, as well as to the emer-
gence of new urban types (such as “city boys”/şehir oğlanları), and novel forms
of leisure and entertainment.52
The court’s increasing adoption of urban art forms is exemplified by large-
scale images of Ottoman rulers contained in a mid-17th-century album that
were probably used for story recitation, assumed to have been made by com-
mercial painters who belonged to the guild of illuminators/painters described
by Evliya Çelebi in his account of the city.53 However, a strict separation
between such “bazaar painters” and those employed by the imperial palace
most likely did not exist.54 On the contrary, archival evidence from the late 16th
century shows that even for imperial historical manuscripts, artists beyond
the palace (listed as “from the vicinity” in pay registers) were employed on
numerous occasions, showing that artistic production in the city and at court
were not isolated from each other.55 The stylistic and content-based overlaps
between images in imperial and non-imperial albums are indicative of a fluid
exchange of artworks and artists between the palace and the city.56
50 Kuru, “The Literature of Rum”, 572–76; and idem, “Naming the Beloved in Ottoman
Turkish Gazel”.
51 Halman, “Shāhrangīz”; Levend, Türk Edebiyatında Şehr-engizler; Robinson, “A Neglected
Ottoman Poem”.
52 Kafadar, “Sohbete Çelebi, Çelebiye Mecmûa …”; idem, “How Dark”; Sariyannis, “‘Mobs,’
‘Scamps’ and Rebels”.
53 TSMK, H. 2143. Mahir, “A Group of 17th Century Paintings”.
54 “Bazaar painters” is a term coined by And, “17. Yüzyıl Türk Çarşı Ressamları”; idem, “17.
Yūzyıl Türk Çarşı Ressamlarının Padişah Portreleri”.
55 The term used is eṭrāfdan; see Fetvacı, Picturing History, 72–73, n. 40.
56 Değirmenci, “An Illustrated Mecmua”; Fetvacı, Album of the World Emperor.
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In addition to leading us to revise our understanding of artistic relations

between city and court, evidence from albums also has implications for
how we conceptualize the use and purpose of the Ottoman historical style.
16th-century Ottoman albums with their predominantly Persian contents
demonstrate that Persian calligraphies and single-figure paintings continued
to be highly valued despite the development of an Ottoman imperial style in
other genres.57 However, an album prepared for Mehmed III is full not only of
Persian artworks, but also of Ottoman materials that mimic Persian painting.58
It also contains texts written directly onto the pages (rather than discrete pan-
els pasted into the codex, which was the norm for albums) in nastaʿlīq, a script
associated with the Safavid court. The illuminated borders are almost exclu-
sively in the Persian idiom, with animals and human figures populating the
landscapes depicted therein. There are two exceptions to the Persianate aes-
thetic that characterizes the album—the Ottoman content of the texts them-
selves (historical documents and poetry) and portraits of Ottoman sultans.
Imperial portraiture is a distinguishing mark of the Ottoman visual tradition,
something we do not find in Safavid painting until much later, and even then,
in limited numbers.59 The contents of the texts relate to Ottoman-Safavid bor-
der skirmishes and contested areas such as Baghdad, itself an important urban
context of artistic production at the turn of the 17th century. Together with
the Persianate style of the materials in the album, these texts bring up issues
of comparison and competition between the two empires, which often played
out in artistic production coming out of Baghdad.60
Albums were not the only works of art demonstrating an aesthetic exchange
between court and city in the 17th and 18th centuries. Textiles and ceramics
emulating courtly production were made for even larger numbers of patrons.
Indeed, as is evident from Amanda Phillips’ examination of the estate inventory
of the late 17th-century Ottoman official Ali Pasha, prevailing tastes at court
shaped the aesthetic choices of government officials throughout the empire.61
Consequently, the ceremonial objects, books, and paintings produced for the
Ottoman court also informed the themes and styles of artistic production and
consumption in the rest of the empire. Echoing the album materials discussed
57 For the Murad III album, see Froom, “Adorned like a Rose”; and for the Shah Mahmud
Nishapuri album (Istanbul, İÜK, F. 1426), see Bağcı et al., Osmanlı Resim Sanatı, 225–26;
and Atıl, The Age of Sultan Süleyman, 104–07, no. 49a–f.
58 Mahir, “Sultan III. Mehmed İçin Hazırlanmış Bir Albüm”; Fetvacı, “The Album of
Mehmed III”.
59 Necipoğlu, “Word and Image”.
60 Taner, Caught in a Whirlwind; Milstein, Miniature Painting in Ottoman Baghdad.
61 Phillips, “Ali Paşa and his Stuff”.
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184 Fetvacı
above, textiles also show that the effects of non-courtly production on impe-
rial works of art increased from the 17th century onwards. Phillips has demon-
strated quite clearly that 18th-century changes in the design and production of
çatma cushion covers, for example, were led by the consumers in the city and
spread “upwards”, so to speak, through the social ladder.62
This overlap between urban and courtly artistic production continued
in full force in the 18th century, when artists (some of whom, like Musavvir
Hüseyin and Abdülcelil Çelebi, known as Levni, were connected to the court,
but many others seem not to have been) produced numerous images depict-
ing urban young men and women as sensual objects.63 Tülay Artan argues for
the increased prevalence of genre scenes and visual erotica in the 18th century,
and writes that the increased representation of women in 18th-century paint-
ing is more a result of artists working less for the court and more for urban
classes than it is a sign of women actually enjoying more freedom in the city.64
Despite these overall changes and the adoption of new visual idioms, the
single figures produced by the renowned court painter Levni, most of which
are collected in an album,65 are also characterized by thematic continuity with
17th-century production. Like the earlier urban figures, Levni’s types appear
to be linked to oral literature.66 As well as including localized details such as
costumes, İznik ceramics, or Ottoman landscapes, Levni’s compositions sug-
gest an awareness of foreign production, such as Persian single figures and the
paintings of Jean Baptiste Vanmour, the French artist working for embassies in
Istanbul (indeed Gül İrepoğlu speculates that he might have been to Vanmour’s
studio in Pera).67 Another work by Levni, the Kebīr Silsilenāme (Great Book
of Genealogy), revives the earlier genre of dynastic portraiture.68 Created at a
time when the Ottoman court had returned to Istanbul and needed to assert its
legitimacy and presence in the capital, this genealogical project may have been
intended to make connections to the dynasty’s glorious past.69
62 Phillips, “A Material Culture”; idem, Everyday Luxuries; and Phillips’ chapter in this
volume.
63 Artan, “Forms and Forums”, 400.
64 Ibid., 381, 398.
65 TSMK H. 2164.
66 İrepoğlu, “Vanmour and Levni”, 82 also points to the names inscribed on these images,
which are very similar to the names inscribed on the 17th-century figures.
67 Ibid., 86.
68 This was expanded later with further paintings and text; see ibid., 73–74. İrepoğlu also
writes that Levni was not listed in the wage registry of the corps of painters (ehl-i ḥiref ),
but must have been paid as an imperial companion.
69 For overviews of Ahmed III’s return to Istanbul, see Artan, “Istanbul in the 18th Century”;
and Hamadeh, The City’s Pleasures, 4–10, 17–47.
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Levni also illustrated one copy of Vehbi’s Sūrnāme (Festival Book), the last
Ottoman historical book to be illustrated.70 I would like to close with a com-
parison of the two illustrated Sūrnāmes, the earlier one documenting the 1582
celebration of Murad III’s son and the later one documenting the circumci-
sion festival of Ahmed III’s sons in 1720, in order to understand the chang-
ing relationships between court and city, at least as represented through these
books.71 These moments of heightened interaction, when courtly life takes
place in the urban context, seem important moments when hierarchies, even
as they might be turned topsy-turvy in a carnival atmosphere, are reiterated
and reclaimed publicly (Figs. 7.5 and 7.6).72 Festivals such as that celebrat-
ing the circumcision of imperial princes (and their representation in text and
image) provide us with concrete examples of the palace presenting itself to
the city, in the city. The two manuscripts are of course products of a changing
artistic tradition: they are separated by almost a century and a half, hence the
manner of visualization evident in the 1580s should not be expected to char-
acterize the manuscript from the 1720s; but all the same, the two books make
a changing dynamic between city and court quite evident. The 18th century
is characterized by less rigid forms of interaction between the court and the
public, and increased participation by the urban classes in the preparations of
the festival.73
In the visualization of the 1582 festival (Fig. 7.5), there is a clear separation
between city and court. The ruler, his harem, and the invited guests clearly
form the background and are contained in the structures built for their com-
fort and viewing pleasure, which occupy the upper half of the illustrations of
the festival. The public, including both performers and viewers, occupies the
lower portions of the pages. The courtiers are seated, and watch from above,
while the city is on foot, watching from the ground, and being watched in turn
from above. The compositions are highly repetitive. Except for the few images
that show the beginning of the festivities with the arrival of the elite at the
70 For an in-depth analysis of the two illustrated copies of Vehbi’s Sūrnāme (TSMK A.
3593 and A. 3594), see Erdoğan İşkorkutan, The 1720 Imperial Circumcision Celebrations,
207–263.
71 TSMK H. 1344 and A. 3593.
72 For a Bakhtin inspired “carnivalesque” reading of the 1588 Sūrnāme, see Terzioğlu, “The
Imperial Circumcision Festival of 1582”.
73 Such a dynamic is thoroughly analyzed in Hamadeh, The City’s Pleasures. Hamadeh also
argues that the 18th-century Ottoman visual idiom “was a dynamic synthesis of foreign
traditions with local forms and aesthetics. Its novelty lay in its unusual degree of receptiv-
ity to and flexibility in the interpretation of diverse foreign traditions, both Western and
Eastern”: see ibid., 11. For urbanites’ contributions to the festival preparations, see Erdoğan
İşkorkutan, The 1720 Imperial Circumcision Celebrations, 33–52, 190–206.
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186 Fetvacı
Figure 7.5 Murad III dispensing gold coins during the 1582 festivities, İntizami, Sūrname-i
Hümāyūn, Istanbul, 1588, opaque watercolor and gold on paper. TSMK, H. 1344,
fols. 46v–47r
Figure 7.6 Procession of the Guilds: Candlemakers and Barbers, Sūrnāme-i Vehbi, Istanbul,
c.1728–30, opaque watercolor and gold on paper. TSMK, A. 3593, fols. 75v–76r
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Hippodrome, and the last two images detailing the production and presenta-
tion of the illustrated volume, the same backdrop gives shape to all the depic-
tions of the festival, which number over 220 double-page spreads.
When we turn to the illustrations of the 1720 festival, however, this strict
and easily identifiable hierarchy no longer holds, and the compositions are
much more varied, including repeating setups but also unique compositions
(Fig. 7.6). While the guilds mostly parade on the left page and the tents for elite
viewers (including the sultan) are set up on the right-hand page, the two often
blend into each other. The emphasis is very much on the banquets, which,
along with processions and public performances, form the visual focus of the
festival.74 Moreover, the 1720 festival took place in multiple venues, and the
resulting varied compositions bring a sense of vitality to the manuscript that is
not there in the record of the 1582 procession. In the later Sūrnāme, the most
important members of the court are depicted as seated in tents, and there is a
kiosk that the sultan uses from time to time to view things from above.75 With
tents that are wide open in front, rather than rigid bleachers raised above the
fray, the court is represented as being more integrated into the festival than
they were in 1582. The images give the impression that inhabitants of the city
and court can easily touch each other, which is not at all the impression one
gets from the rigid visual record of the 1582 festival.
A particular device used by Levni is a bird’s eye view from over the textile
wall partially separating the sultan’s tent from others. This viewpoint, along
with a new engagement in depicting depth and volume, the new tones of red,
green, and yellow in particular (made all the more evident in the many tex-
tiles and costumes that have solid colors, and are not marked by Ottoman flo-
ral designs), and the method of showing us the underside of an awning (as
in the top of the special kiosk used by Ahmed III in Fig. 7.6) are reminiscent
of Mughal painting of the late 16th century. In fact the very form of the sul-
tan’s kiosk, with its bulbous red dome lined with yellow reminds one of the
Mughal emperor Jahangir’s audience scenes. Although there is no way to
prove that Levni was aware of Mughal painting, I am not the first to suggest
an aesthetic affinity between 18th-century Ottoman art and slightly earlier
Mughal visual traditions.76 Earlier studies on Levni have highlighted the link
between his compositions and European art, which we know to have been a
74 Erdoğan İşkorkutan, The 1720 Imperial Circumcision Celebrations, 229–257.

75 Atıl, Levni and the Surname; and idem, “The Story of an Eighteenth-Century Ottoman
Festival”.
76 Hamadeh, The City’s Pleasures, 199–236.
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188 Fetvacı
source of inspiration for Mughal artists also.77 As such, this manuscript, too,
falls in line with scholarly conceptions of 18th-century Istanbul as a time and
place of opening up, both socially and aesthetically, to domestic and trans-
imperial inspiration.
The Ottoman court of the early modern period engaged in the production
of portable artworks that would present it both to posterity and outside the
walls of the palace in multiple ways. The boundaries between palace and city
were never fully closed, but their level of porosity differed, and seems to have
reached a peak in the 18th century. The broadening of the patronage base
from the ruler to those around him and then to the city inevitably changed the
themes and content of the production of portable artworks. The style of these
materials shifted along with their content, creating a new aesthetic in the 18th
century that can be easily differentiated from the products of the 16th century,
that first moment when an identifiable Ottoman visual idiom was formed.
No longer separating the courtly elite from the urban classes, artistic produc-
tion was now a more widely shared practice among the refined members of
Ottoman society.
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Part 2
Spaces and Landscapes of Production
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Chapter 8
Volatile Urban Landscapes between Mythical Space

and Time
Gülru Necipoğlu
Earthquakes and fires significantly affected early modern Istanbul’s urban form,
streetscapes, and vernacular architecture, particularly dwellings and shops.1
Focusing on the intramural city, I examine the simultaneous impact of natu-
ral disasters on its physical fabric and its imaginaries, thereby connecting two
dimensions that have hitherto been treated separately.2 Foundation myths
of the Byzantine and Ottoman capital informed how the apocalyptic city’s
pasts and future were imagined. With its perpetually destroyed and rebuilt
volatile urban landscapes, the millennial cosmopolis became an embodiment
of mythical space and time.
Although destruction provided an opportunity for urban renewal, vernacu-
lar Istanbul tended to resist risk-mitigating legislation imposed by the authori-
tarian state. Having evolved into a way of life, the city’s residential architecture
obeyed an intricate combination of factors ranging from local materials and
skills to environmental, economic, and sociocultural considerations. Ulrich
Beck’s theorization of the “risk society”, which to some extent is an opportu-
nity society, emphasizes the combined agency of natural and human dynam-
ics as a distinctively late modern phenomenon.3 However, in early modern
Istanbul, too, there was no such thing as a purely natural disaster, since inter-
twined parameters made it impossible to separate neatly the realms of nature
and culture.
1 Imaginary Istanbul as Apocalyptic Risk City
According to post-Byzantine Greek lore, Constantine’s imperial capital, co-

founded with Empress Helena, would be recovered in the Final Days from
1 A shorter version was presented at the Harvard Graduate School of Design workshop, “Risk
and the City: The Case of Istanbul”, 2009. I thank my research assistants Damla Özakay and
Cecily Pollard.
2 Ürekli, “Âfetlere İlişkin Literatür”.
3 Beck, Risk Society, 24: “Risk Society is a catastrophic society: in it the exceptional condition
threatens to become the norm.”

198 Necipoğlu
the Ottomans by the Last Emperor, also named Constantine (d. 1453), whose
mother happened to be another Helena. The “Immortal Emperor”, lying dor-
mant inside a sealed cavity at the Golden Gate, was expected to awaken and
repossess Constantinople, only to surrender his insignia of royalty to Christ
in Jerusalem, thereby initiating the Apocalypse and Last Judgement.4 The
city was destined to sink into the waters after its rescue from the Saracens in
eschatological battles between Christians and Muslims. Perceived as an island
anchored by seven hills, echoing those of Rome, Constantinople’s unstable
mountainous terrain that hovered above the seas would be annihilated by
divinely caused cataclysmic earthquakes, thunderstorms, and seismic waves.
While crossing over to the Asian shore, on his way to Jerusalem, the Last
Emperor would watch the city being submerged, as illustrated in a late 16th-
century Venetian manuscript of Leo the Wise’s Oracles (Fig. 8.1).5
In addition to the Hagia Sophia, Byzantine apocalyptic narratives were
obsessed with talismanic columns and statuary, including the nearby bronze
equestrian statue of Justinian I and the antiquities of the Hippodrome (Fig. 8.2).
Figure 8.1 (a) Siege of Constantinople in the Last Days;

(b) Constantinople Sinking into the Sea in the Last Days, from Leo the Wise,
Oracula, Venice, 1577. Oxford, Bodleian Library, Barocci 170, fols. 11v, 23v
4 Nicol, Immortal Emperor; Berger “Magical Constantinople”, 24–25; Nestor-Iskandar, Tale of

Constantinople, ed. Hannak and Philippides; Paliouras, George Klontzas, fols. 155r–163v.
5 Dagron, Constantinople, 283, 324–30; Berger (ed.), Patria, 209, 320.
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Volatile Urban Landscapes between Mythical Space and Time 199
Figure 8.2 (a) Hagia Sophia and Antiquities of the Hippodrome, anonymous Austrian
Habsburg artist, c.1574, watercolor on paper, Freshfield Album. Oxford, Trinity
College Library, O. 17. 2. (b) Abd al-Rahman al-Bistami, Tercüme-i Miftāḥ-i
Cifrü’l-Cāmiʿ, c.1597–98, opaque watercolor and gold on paper. İÜK, T6624, fol. 92v
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200 Necipoğlu
Built to withstand earthquakes, fires, and other calamities, the imperial col-
umns were protective guardians of the city against enemies and natural disas-
ters, marking Constantinople as a “God-protected, victorious, well-guarded
city ruled by a succession of triumphant emperors”. These timeless columns
recorded prophecies since the foundation of the pagan city until the end of
time, listing the names of future emperors and the events of the Last Days.6
The Ottomans did not merely inherit Constantinople and its wondrous
monuments, but also its foundation myths, which they refashioned with
reference to contemporary events, sayings of the Prophet, and medieval
Islamic lore. Some hadith (datable to 7th- and 8th-century Umayyad sieges)
even proclaimed that Constantinople would be conquered by a great sultan
who was to convert Hagia Sophia into a mosque prior to eschatological wars
between Christians and Muslims, which would culminate in the latter’s salva-
tion. A version of this hadith is inscribed next to the foundation inscription of
Mehmed II’s (r. 1451–81) mosque in Istanbul, built between 1463–70 after the
conversion of Hagia Sophia in 1453.7
A painting in a late 16th-century Ottoman manuscript on eschatological
wars and signs of the Apocalypse, entitled Key to the Comprehensive Prognosti-
con, represents talismanic antiquities (ṭılsım) and “marvels” described by his-
torical sources in the Hippodrome and Hagia Sophia itself, “which is a wonder
of the age” (Fig. 8.2b). The text then turns to the Antichrist’s appearance in
Khurasan (Persia) and the final obliteration of terrestrial cities, prior to which
Constantinople is to be conquered by Christians and reconquered by “Imam
Muhammad-Mahdi”.8
The reimagined Ottoman capital was partly interpreted through Byzantine
accounts compiled in the 10th-century Patria of Constantinople, particularly
the “Narrative Concerning Hagia Sophia” copied in 1474, likely for Mehmed II.
This Greek text was adaptively translated into Turkish in 1479, and into Persian
in 1480 (revised in 1489/90).9 It has not been previously noticed that both trans-
lations closely followed the completion of Mehmed II’s New Palace (Topkapı
6 James, Constantine of Rhodes, 164, 167, 170–71. See also, Berger (ed.), Patria, 83, 85, 93, 101–03,
125, 161, 171; Berger, “Magical Constantinople”; Dagron, Constantinople, 328–30; Yerasimos,
La fondation de Constantinople, 94–95.
7 Necipoğlu, “Visual Cosmopolitanism”; Necipoğlu, “Hagia Sophia”; Kafescioğlu, Constantino
polis/Istanbul. On the hadith, Yücesoy, “Cemaatten İmparatorluğa”.
8 The Turkish translation of Abd al-Rahman al-Bistami’s (d. c.1455) Miftāḥ al-jifr al-jāmiʿ was
done c.1597/98, on which see Kafescioğlu, Constantinopolis/Istanbul, 169–70; Fleischer,
“Ancient Wisdom”, 232–36.
9 Yusuf b. Musa el-Balıkesiri’s Turkish translation summarizes the Greek “Narrative” tran-
scribed in 1474 by Michael Aichmalotes, which survives in the Topkapı Palace Library (TSMK,
GI 6). Derviş Şemsüddin Karamani’s Persian translation of the “Narrative” was later revised
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Palace) in November–December 1478. Replacing his Old Palace, the new one
inaugurated a centralized imperial regime formalized by the sultan’s Law Code
(c.1477–81).10
The Persian translation was commissioned by Mehmed II himself from
Derviş Şemsüddin Karamani, just before the end of his reign. It begins with
the foundation by Byzas of a citadel on the “island of seven hills in the midst
of two continents and two seas”. The sufi author specifies that Mehmed II built
his own palace on the same site, surrounded by a castle called the “Imperial”
(Sulṭāniyya). He then describes the “conquest” of Byzantium by Constantine,
followed by Justinian I. The latter defeated the pagans and rebuilt Hagia
Sophia (Ayasofya) as a “temple of the whole world”, which Mehmed II trans-
formed into a mosque “without changing its name”. Thus, the Ayasofya mosque
remained the “Temple of God”, symbolizing the divinely ordained universal
power of empire. Şemsüddin links Mehmed’s imperial project with the pres-
tigious Roman (Rūmī) heritage of Constantinople by focusing on structures
neighboring the New Palace, Hagia Sophia, and the Hippodrome area.11
“Anti-imperial” versions of the city’s foundation myths were subsequently
inserted into anonymous Ottoman chronicles in Turkish, written under
Bayezid II (r. 1481–1512). Not surprisingly, this sultan was supported by factions
reacting against the radical reforms of his father, Mehmed II, who was “pos-
ing as the legitimate heir of Roman emperors”.12 One such chronicle, dated
AH 896/CE 1490/91, opens with a passage according to which Mehmed was so
astonished by Constantinople’s marvels upon conquering it, that he assembled
priests, monks, patriarchs, and connoisseurs of Byzantium and of Frankish
lands to question them about these edifices, their patrons, and former rulers of
the city. Each group informed the sultan by recounting what they knew from
their teachers and chronicles.13
According to this chronicle, when the city’s foundations were dug at the time
of its mythical pagan founder Yanko bin Madyan, a “diabolic dome” appeared
forty cubits underground. It contained statues of seven groups of seven vul-
tures, fashioned from magnet stones and studded with jewels. The statues of
six of the groups had no heads, while in the seventh group, only one vulture
by Ahmed b. Ahmed al-Gilani: see Yerasimos, La fondation de Constantinople, 113–23, 210–

14; Tauer, “Notice”; Tauer, “Versions”.
10 Necipoğlu, Topkapı, 3–30.
11 Tauer, “Versions”, 3, 7, 20; Yerasimos, La fondation de Constantinople, 111–23. Necipoğlu,
“Visual Cosmopolitanism”; Kafadar, “A Rome of One’s Own”.
12 İnalcık, Survey of Istanbul 1455, 584. Anonymous chronicles are classified as pro- and anti-
imperial in Yerasimos, La fondation de Constantinople, 123–210.
13 Yerasimos, La fondation de Constantinople, 5. See ibid., 5–48 for a French translation.
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202 Necipoğlu
preserved its head. This revealed that God had created seven different peo-
ples every millennium, each of which placed statues of vultures in that dome
and cut off their heads to calculate the passage of time. The statues recorded
the seven millennia since God’s creation of the world, the last beginning with
Adam and his progeny. The dome, then, was a “cosmic clock” presaging the end
of the world upon the seventh millennium’s conclusion. By implication, the
“diabolic dome” demonstrated that the layered city conquered by Mehmed II
was not “virgin territory”.14 Its previous founders too were conquerors, who had
no superior claims of ownership over the city than its Ottoman conqueror.
Although the AH 896/CE 1490/91 chronicle is well known, the subtle ways
in which it mixes myth with reality to bring imaginary Istanbul in sync with
its past, present, and future has yet to be fully grasped. Moreover, this anti-
imperial Turkish chronicle coexisted with the pro-imperial Persian text
(AH 885/CE 1480) dedicated to Mehmed II, which was amplified with liter-
ary embellishments in AH 895/CE 1489/90 during Bayezid II’s reign. I would
also like to emphasize that the anonymous chronicle was written when the
Ottoman capital had just experienced a series of catastrophic earthquakes,
fires, and thunderstorms. Two consecutive earthquakes, both of which toppled
“many minarets”, occurred in October 1488 (24 Zilhicce 893) and January 1489
(13 Safer 894). Evoking an apocalyptic tableau, in June 1490 (22 Şaʿban 895)
a thunderbolt struck and led to the explosion of a converted church called
Güngörmez near the Hippodrome, which Mehmed II had partly transformed
into a gunpowder depot. People who woke up as the roofs of their houses col-
lapsed thought the end of the world had suddenly arrived and that the skies
had fallen upon them. Nearby neighborhoods were obliterated, with their
inhabitants buried alive under houses, leaving some 2000 to 3000 dead.15
According to the 1490/91 chronicle, because the city’s foundation was laid
at an astrologically inauspicious time under its idol-worshipping founder
Yanko bin Madyan, it was destined to be perpetually ruined by calamities.
Also cursed by settlers uprooted by forced migration (as under Mehmed II),
Yanko’s impious city was annihilated by the wrath of God in a tornado, tor-
rential rains, and a huge earthquake.16 When his son Byzas rebuilt the city, he
ordered his grandees to construct masonry buildings by demolishing what was
14 Ibid., 11–12, 77–83. The end of the world in the 7th millennium was expected upon the
downfall of the Roman-Byzantine empire and its capital Constantinople: see Berger,
“Magical Constantinople”, 14–16.
15 Boyar & Fleet, Social History, 73–74; Ruhi-i Edrenevi, Tārīḫ, fols. 157v–158v; Cezar, “Âfetler”,
380–81.
16 On Yanko’s inauspicious foundation, Yerasimos, La fondation de Constantinople, 12–13; see
ibid., 65–69 on this theme in the mid-15th-century Dürr-i Meknūn.
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left aboveground. Atop renovated underground structures, they built robust

edifices. And a fear of earthquakes meant that these constructions were pro-
vided with strong cellars. The author notes that the city in his own time, too,
was built in the same manner with structures having two levels; and, wherever
one dug, one found evidence of those “heavy” constructions.17 This fascinat-
ing passage captures the “antiquarian” curiosity of Constantinople’s Ottoman
dwellers about local Byzantine preventive building techniques. There is a
sense of shared destiny that arises from inhabiting the same millennial risk
city, subject to similar environmental as well as human factors. The Ottoman
capital awaiting the approaching Apocalypse of the seventh millennium thus
preserved multilayered traces of its former calamities underground.18
The same anonymous chronicle explains that the city of Byzas was
destroyed by plague, but then rebuilt “more beautifully than before” by Con-
stantine, who invited sages to install protective talismans. The city was called
Constantinople, but “since it had been founded earlier, this name was given
to it subsequently”.19 The enduring consciousness of the cursed city’s dire
fate is also captured by Evliya Çelebi’s mid-17th-century account, which attri-
butes never-ending fires, plagues, and soldiers’ rebellions to its ill-omened
foundation.20 Although Ottoman foundation narratives largely date between
the city’s fall and the late 16th century, they continued to circulate thereafter
when apocalyptic expectations and issues of pro- or anti-imperial stances had
lost their immediacy.
As is well known, Mehmed II left the city’s imperial columns and talismanic
statues intact. Constituting spolia in situ, antiquities were preserved not only
because they were “animated” by prophecies and protective magic spells, but
also for their antiquarian prestige as sites of memory and for their aesthetic
appeal. For instance, the historiated spiral column of Theodosius I at Forum
Tauri, prophesying according to the Patria “the final days of the city and its
conquest depicted as reliefs”, was safeguarded within the Old Palace’s outer gar-
den. A similar column in Forum Arcadius, sculpted with spiraling figural narra-
tives, and the “Goth’s Column” in the Topkapı Palace garden, were protected as
well.21 Mehmed II also conserved the three-headed bronze “Serpent Column”
at the Hippodrome as a beneficial spell against snakes (Fig. 8.2). Yet he had
Justinian’s equestrian statue removed from its column upon being informed
17 Yerasimos, La fondation de Constantinople, 12–22.

18 Ibid., 66.
19 Ibid., 23–24.
20 Evliya Çelebi, Evliya Çelebi Seyahatnâmesi vol. 1, ed. Dankoff, Kahraman, Dağlı, 17.
21 Berger (ed.), Patria, 83; Yerasimos, La fondation de Constantinople, 106; Necipoğlu, Topkapı,
3–7, 198–200; Necipoğlu, “Visual Cosmopolitanism”, 26–28.
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204 Necipoğlu
that he would otherwise fail to make the city his own; it was a Christian talis-
man created to ward off Persian (Asian) conquerors. Parts of the statue were
melted and cast as cannon prior to Mehmed’s siege of Belgrade (1455/56), indi-
cating his selective reception of antiquities.22
The city’s ancient monuments continued to be interpreted in the Ottoman
multi-confessional context as apocalyptic talismans, just as they were inter-
preted in early modern Europe and Russia. This intertextuality augmented
the contested identity of Constantinople/Istanbul, but also of the Last Roman
Empire of the seventh millennium. The association between apocalypticism,
crusade, and the disputed ownership of the Ottoman capital is a leitmotif in
15th- through 17th-century European images of the city, which often depict
natural disasters and miraculous apparitions foreshadowing the End of Days
and the victory of Christendom.23
An early example is a partial view of Constantinople in Hartmann
Schedel’s Liber Chronicarum, published in Nuremberg in 1493. The woodcut
shows Justinian’s iconic equestrian statue intact despite its removal, accom-
panied by a text claiming that the statue (misidentified as Constantine) was
destroyed during a thunderstorm in 1490 upon being struck by a bolt of light-
ning. A domed building below the Hippodrome, labeled as “destruct[i]o anti-
qua”, is the converted Byzantine church (Güngörmez) that exploded during
the abovementioned thunderstorm during Bayezid II’s reign.24 The humanist
author interprets this disaster as a portent of Hagia Sophia’s reconversion into
a church, with its minaret already bearing a cross. He also mentions a future
crusade planned by the Habsburg emperor Maximilian I (r. 1493–1519), who,
after expelling the Ottomans from Constantinople and conquering Jerusalem
(presumably from the Mamluks), would be crowned Holy Roman Emperor
by Pope Alexander VI (r. 1492–1503) at St. Peter’s in Rome, none of which
materialized.25 The catastrophe in Constantinople marks the end of the sixth
millennium in Schedel’s chronicle, where the seventh millennium begins with
a woodcut depicting the Antichrist, who initiates the End of Days.26
22 Raby, “Equestrian Satue”; Kafescioğlu, Constantinopolis/Istanbul, 152; Berger, Patria, 59.

23 Hess, “Himmels- und Naturerscheinungen”, 6; Deresiewicz, “Earthquakes”, 509–10; Ambra-
seys & Finkel, Seismicity of Turkey, 48–51; Kafescioğlu, Constantinopolis/Istanbul, 164–77;
Thomson, “New Babylon”; Debby, “Guidalotto’s City View”; Debby, Crusade Propaganda.
24 Necipoğlu, Topkapı, 46, plate 24; Kafescioğlu, Constantinopolis/Istanbul, 164–67, fig. 119;
Berger & Bardill, “Hartmann Schedel”, 2–37.
25 Schedel, Chronicle, ed. Füssel, 662.
26 Ibid., fols. 257r, 259r–262v.
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2 Vernacular Istanbul: Anti-Seismic Dwellings and Shops
One of the most destructive earthquakes of Istanbul, that of 1509, was dubbed
the “Small Doomsday” in Ottoman chronicles. Nevertheless, this did not
deter Bayezid II from undertaking extensive urban rehabilitation projects
in the apocalyptic city. The earthquake destroyed nearly all minaret hoods
and between 1070 to 1500 houses, leaving not a single dwelling undamaged.
Their chimneys toppled, walls cracked, and brick roof tiles fell, killing 4000 to
5000 people and injuring about 10,000. The city walls and nearby fortresses
partially collapsed, along with water channels. Numerous public monuments
were damaged, including the foremost mosque complexes of Mehmed II
and Bayezid II, whose main domes fell or split open, along with their smaller
domes and dependencies.27
An aftershock in 1510 triggered a fire that burned down 800 to 1500 houses
and shops. The affected Jewish houses were looted by “janissaries and Turks”,
who set them alight for sacking, and did so with “no fear because the sultan
was away” in Edirne during the renovation of the city and palace walls. The
role of janissaries in starting, rather than helping extinguish fires, is a recurring
phenomenon in later instances of arson discussed below, particularly target-
ing the houses of rich Jews.28 When Bayezid returned to the Topkapı Palace,
he settled in the (now-lost) newly built Çatma Saray, also called Çatma Evler
(Timber or Timber-Framed Palace/Houses). Its name reveals an awareness of
the greater resistance of timbered constructions to earthquake shocks than
masonry, implying that risk-mitigation concerns complemented the need for
rapid construction.29
It is assumed that after the 1509 earthquake, most houses in Istanbul were
rebuilt with two stories in the timber-and-infill technique (timber frame),
none of which survive.30 Benedetto Ramberti (1530s) confirms that this was
the predominant construction method, stating that many houses were “made
of clay and wood and only a few of stone”.31 The similarity of that technique
27 For Nicolò Zustignan’s report, written in Constantinople on 15 September 1509, see

Sanuto, Diarii, vol. 9, 261; and ibid., 338, 563–64 for other reports. Cezar, “Âfetler”, 382–83;
Ambraseys & Finkel, Seismicity, 37–43; Ambraseys, “Earthquake of 1509”.
28 Sanuto, Diarii, vol. 11, 293–94. On janissaries pillaging and burning the houses of wealthy
Jews in 1525 and 1589, see Kafadar, “When Coins Turned into Drops of Dew”, 59, 79–80.
29 Necipoğlu, “Waterworks”, 317, 320; Ruhi-i Edrenevi, Tārīḫ, fols. 191r–192v; Ménage, “Edirneli
Rûhi”, 324–27; Sanuto, Diarii, vol. 9, 261.
30 For example, Arel, Konut Geleneği, 70–71.
31 Cited in Kafescioğlu, Constantinopolis/Istanbul, 200.
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206 Necipoğlu
to shipbuilding methods was observed by Pietro della Valle in his letter sent
to Rome from Istanbul in 1614. It mentions alongside timber-framed houses
the all-timber shops lining commercial streets, techniques that were prevalent
prior to his description:
Most houses and shops are extremely ugly and made of humble materi-
als, as the majority are of timber, particularly the shops and streets called
bazaars where they sell goods. The better ones are of mud and timber,
built in such a way that, they first make the timber skeleton precisely
in the manner that ships are constructed. Having that completed, they
make the roof before anything else to create shelter from the rain, so that
the rest of the construction made of feeble materials does not suffer from
water. Then between one timber and another of the skeleton they fill out
in pieces the walls by mud, which likewise has very little durability.32
Some early examples of Istanbul’s dwellings are illustrated by members

of 16th-century Austrian Habsburg embassies, including the Danish artist
Melchior Lorck and the Catholic priest Salomon Schweigger. They show that
the timber-framed walls of houses were not plastered over but left exposed
(Fig. 8.3).33 Most revealing is a pen-and-ink drawing by Lorck (c.1555–59) from
the vantage point of the caravanserai known as Ambassadors’ Khan (Elçi Hanı),
near Constantine’s Porphyry Column (Çemberlitaş), where he resided with
the Habsburg ambassadorial delegation led by Busbecq for nearly four years
during the reign of Sultan Süleyman (r. 1520–66). This drawing indicates that
houses in the timber-framing technique were accompanied by humbler mud-
brick dwellings, and sometimes featured projecting wooden screens across
alleys to impede the gaze of neighbors (Fig. 8.3a). Yet privacy was not guaran-
teed, as on the lower left side one “can spot a couple out on the balcony, who,
evidently excited by the afternoon’s heat, are making love in the open air with-
out (yet?) having taken any notice of the draftsman in the window”.34 Lorck’s
drawing captures the contrast between the organic informality of domestic
architecture, featuring four-sloped pitched roofs with overhanging eaves
covered by curved brick tiles, and the pristine geometry of the lead-covered
32 Della Valle, Viaggi, vol. 1, 24. Dernschwam (1553/55) saw all over the city many “shops or
wooden huts” where the produce of the sultan’s gardens was sold daily: see Dernschwam,
Tagebuch, ed. Babinger, 54–55.
33 Fischer, Melchior Lorck, vol. 1, 96–97; Schweigger, Reyssbeschreibung, ed. Neck, 105–07.
34 Fischer, Melchior Lorck, vol. 1, 97.
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Figure 8.3 (a) Melchior Lorck, View over Constantinople’s Roofs from the Habsburg Embassy, pen and
ink drawing, c.1555–59; (b, c) Salomon Schweigger, Houses and a Bathhouse in Constantinople,
woodcuts, c.1578–81, Ein newe Reyssbeschreibung, Nuremberg, 1606
domical superstructure of a mosque complex seen in the far distance amidst

trees and a glimpse of the Marmara seascape.
The relatively crude yet informative woodcuts in Schweigger’s later travel-
ogue (c.1578–81) depict timber-framed houses with the continuous walls of
their upper and lower floors covered by four-sloped pitched roofs (Figs. 8.3b, c).
He describes ordinary houses in the city as badly built and shoddy, and mostly
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208 Necipoğlu
constructed without lime-mortar, instead only using mud and clay. These
houses were low and dimly lit, their rooms featured “a small window like the
airhole of our cellars or stables”, and their roofs were sometimes pierced by
skylights. Not being familiar with stoves, the “Turks” heated their rooms by
fireplaces with chimneys. They were generally content with small houses, pos-
sessing only a horse and minimal home furnishings: if one has a stable for his
horse, then two small rooms sufficed for him. Outside the windows were bend-
able wooden shutters resembling an “upside-down rooftop” that was fixed
below and allowed light to enter from above, thereby impeding neighbors
from looking into each other’s homes (Fig. 8.3b). The spacious, palatial com-
pounds of grandees were built of stone, but lacked magnificence and differed
from examples in Germany or Italy. Their outer precinct walls were taller than
the roofs of the low edifices contained therein (as seen in the c.1574 Freshfield
album painting of a palace along the Hippodrome, Fig. 8.2a).35
Schweigger reports that the shortage of construction materials was com-
pounded by the absence of wheeled carriages in Istanbul. Stones, there-
fore, had to be carried on mules, and a hundred of them were barely able to
bear what two carriages could easily transport; because of this, houses were
extremely expensive. The inferior dwelling of an ordinary citizen cost 1000
ducats or more, which in Germany would only be worth two to three hundred
gold coins. The Moroccan ambassador al-Tamgrouti, who experienced a major
Istanbul fire in 1588, observed that fireplaces with chimneys called al-odjāq
(i.e., ocāḳ) were “frequently the cause of conflagrations that consume the
houses”, and he added:
The houses are not constructed solidly; the majority are of timber
because of the abundance of this kind of material. That is why fire causes
such great ravages there. Stone and brick are so scarce that few inhabit-
ants, even if they are dignitaries and rich persons, employ these in their
constructions.36
George Sandys (1610/11) judged the best of Istanbul’s houses “inferior to the
more contemptible sort of ours”. As in Byzantine times, the city was subject
to “sundrie horrible combustions”, some of them purposely prolonged for
booty by the janissaries, who frequently set on fire the houses of Jews that “are
35 Schweigger, Reyssbeschreibung, ed. Neck, 105–13. On the lack of houses resembling those
in Christendom, see Dernschwam, Tagebuch, ed. Babinger, 36–37.
36 Schweigger, Reyssbeschreibung, 106–07. Al-Tamgrouti, En-nafhat, ed. de Castries, 54,
57, 59.
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now furnished with arched vaults, for the safeguard of their goods”. Moreover,
Istanbul’s houses frequently suffered from “terrible and long-lasting earth-
quakes” and tempests, whose consequences were exacerbated due to negli-
gence in repairing them, and due to them being mostly built of sundried bricks.
Sandys nevertheless mentions a wide variety of materials used in dwellings,
which did not exceed two stories, “some of timber, some of sundried bricks,
their roofs covered with tiles”. He adds that the many rows of shops belong-
ing to the sultan were rented out to tradesmen, while the narrow streets with
raised sidewalks that often had steep ascents were “in many places bounded
with long dead walls, belonging to great men’s Serraglios; so negligent are they
of exterior garnishings”.37
To return to Pietro della Valle’s 1614 letter, he too judges the narrow and
steep streets uncomfortable and describes them as unsuitable for wheeled car-
riages, due to which Constantinople’s interior failed to correspond to its exter-
nal beauty. He observes that the overly populous intramural city packed with
houses lacked big gardens; it formed a homogenous urban tissue with Pera
(Galata) and Üsküdar. By contrast, the verdant green belt of suburbs and the
Bosphorus shores featured villas with garden estates. Della Valle deemed that
the houses descending from hilltops of the walled city toward the sea, without
blocking each other’s view, contributed to the “exquisite” panoramic beauty
of Constantinople and observed that their roofs were ornamented by “quite
pretty overhanging eaves capriciously painted with various colors in a charm-
ing and peculiar manner”. Under the roofs, projecting from the walls, were a
“large number of spacious bay windows covered on all sides by blinds painted
variously”. The “whitewashing” (bianchaggiar) of dwellings confirms the pre-
dominance of the timber-frame mud brick infill technique, which created a
“pleasing contrast” with the many tall dark-green cypresses. Complemented by
numerous lead-sheathed minarets and domes of mosque complexes, the com-
bination produced “such a beautiful vista” that he did not believe any other city
possessed one like it.38
Della Valle explains that the widespread use of timber in houses caused
horrible fires that were often extinguished by tearing down nearby edifices
and then rapidly rebuilding them. By contrast, the mostly Frankish and fewer
Greek houses in Galata were well-built and made of masonry.39 Later examples
(unfortunately no longer extant) of these masonry houses with sawtooth roof
37 Sandys, Relation, 117, 119.

38 Della Valle, Viaggi, 20–24.
39 Yerasimos, “Galata”. On two-to-three-storied masonry Galata houses with underground
cellars c.1520, see Kafescioğlu, Constantinopolis/Istanbul, 202–04.
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210 Necipoğlu
Figure 8.4 The Main Street of Phanar (Fener), “Anthology of Phanariot Architecture”,
photograph by Achilles Samandji, c.1920
cornices have been photographed in Fener, the elite Greek neighborhood along
the Golden Horn (Fig. 8.4). Della Valle judged urban and suburban kiosks com-
manding views of both land and sea, which were lavishly ornamented with
ceramic tiles, calligraphy, and paintings, as the most “gallant edifices among
modern habitations of the Turks today in Constantinople”. The Ottoman
capital was “one of the most beautiful cities and one of the most charming
sites of the world”, despite his more “particular affection” for his hometown
of Naples.40
This distinctively Ottoman cityscape had developed over the course of
a century and a half. As I have shown elsewhere, by the late 16th century a
classification scheme highlighting a socially stratified hierarchy was devised
and applied to dwellings by the bureaucrat-historian Mustafa Âli (d. 1600),
ranging from a single room to multi-courtyard palatial compounds. The latter
featured an upper limit of three courtyards, besides gardens, thereby echoing
in smaller scale the Topkapı Palace in terms of “inner” and “outer” courtyard
spaces (enderūn/bīrūn; dāḫiliyye/ḫāriciyye). Âli correlates residences with
the gendered social status of predominantly male patrons. However, what
I have termed “codes of decorum” also involved the relative prestige of sites in
40 Della Valle, Viaggi, 28–31, 42. On kiosks, see Necipoğlu, “Suburban Landscape”.
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Istanbul and its suburbs, where the summer and winter palaces of male and
female elites were distributed.41
Only some of these now-lost palatial residences have been studied.42 Most
of the research on Istanbul’s domestic architecture has focused on “ordinary”
houses without considering the “big picture”, namely overall norms of deco-
rum to which modest dwellings had to conform. These studies are dominated
by quantitative analyses of written primary sources and their terminology.
Researchers have observed that 15th- and 16th-century dwellings were predom-
inantly single- or double-storied separate units, often grouped in or around
enclosures with gardens. Matrakçı Nasuh’s topographic painting (c.1537) selec-
tively depicts upper-scale residential compounds of masonry, mostly two-
storied, with bay windows, pillared upper galleries overlooking streets, and
belvedere towers. Studies suggest that mid-17th-century dwellings evolved
toward the refined two-storied “monoblock” houses, which became more com-
mon in the following century. Their masonry ground floor that was adapted
to the street front supported a projecting residential floor in lighter timber-
frame construction. Thinner walls allowed multiple protruding volumes and
larger bay windows, contributing to more spacious interiors with higher living
standards.43 This type of house responded to the shrinking size of land parcels
that started with the late 16th-century population boom. Colorfully painted
houses with wood paneling only appeared in mid-17th-century shore man-
sions, spreading to the walled city a century later and becoming common by
the turn of the 19th century.44
The growing density of the cityscape and its narrower streets and fewer
open spaces boosted the risk of fires, especially given the preference for a tim-
bered, generally two-storied residential fabric (raised to two-and-a-half stories
by internally subdividing the ground floor). Official building codes analyzed
41 On decorum and palatial residences of Sinan’s patrons, see Necipoğlu, Age of Sinan,
40–41, 115–17, 589 (index).
42 Artan, “The Kadırga Palace Shrouded”; idem, “Politics of Ottoman Imperial Palaces”; and
idem, “The Making of the Sublime Porte”.
43 Yerasimos, “Dwellings in Sixteenth-Century Istanbul”; Yılmaz, “Barınma Kültürü”; Tanyeli,
“Klasik Dönem”; Tanyeli, “Norms of Domestic Comfort and Luxury”; Özkaya, “Houses of
Istanbul”; Cerasi “Istanbul 1620–1750”, 481. On residences in Matrakçı, see Kafescioğlu,
Constantinopolis/Istanbul, 202, 210.
44 On painted wood-board cladding and the lighter “Baghdadi” technique that replaced
timber-framed mud brick infill, see Eldem, Türk Evi, vol. 1, 40, 135–36, 147, 162, 231. In
1830, Istanbul’s houses were painted red, yellow, or blue, “colors of privilege” denied
to non-Muslims whose gray or dark-brown houses matched the color of their shoes,
though this rule was previously implemented more severely, see Michaud & Poujoulat,
Correspondance, vol. 2, 206–09.
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212 Necipoğlu
in the next section aimed to reduce the impact of fires and, to a lesser degree,
of earthquakes that were not as frequent. In doing so, these codes gradually
transformed Istanbul’s urban landscapes that had initially featured more
pre-Ottoman masonry residences, including some multistoried mansions.
Nevertheless, fires in Byzantine Constantinople imply the prevalence of timber
in ordinary housing. Due to internal transformations since late antiquity, along
with sieges by Latin crusaders and Muslim armies, the sacked Byzantine capi-
tal inherited by the Ottomans hardly conformed to Roman norms of urbanism
in its irregular streetscapes, interspersed with agricultural lands.
A survey of Istanbul made in December 1455, two-and-a-half years after the
Ottoman takeover, reveals that houses were mostly “in ruins or on the way to
ruination”. Already dominated by one or two stories, only a handful of resi-
dences are defined as “sumptuous” (mükellef ). Yet the intramural city must
have encompassed additional monumental pre-Ottoman dwellings, not least
since the Survey’s section on the most developed districts (Perama, Neorion,
Hagia Sophia) is lost.45 Those pre-Ottoman dwellings likely disappeared with
subsequent earthquakes and fires, as implied by a conflagration in 1633 that
began in the shop of a ship caulker outside the Cibali Gate, along the Golden
Horn. It consumed one-fifth of the city facing the port, including many palaces
comprising four- to five-story tall “ancient buildings” (ḳadīmī binālar).46 Open
to strong winds, this region was exposed to frequent fires, as discussed below.47
3 Constantinople’s Conflagrations: A Confluence of

Contradictory Risks
In the Ottoman capital, storms and fires often coincided, and, at times, earth-
quakes amplified the calamity.48 The walled city’s anti-seismic timber-framed
edifices proved more susceptible to fires than did the earthquake-prone
45 İnalcık, Survey of Istanbul 1455, ix, 7–8, 471. “Infidel” (kāfirī) houses in Mehmed II’s
waqf documents (1474 onwards) in these areas were mostly two-storied: Kafescioğlu,
Constantinople/Istanbul, 198–200. But it is unlikely that all multistoried Byzantine and
Frankish sumptuous dwellings were registered as kāfirī. Although these were first distrib-
uted as freeholds and then rented out, Mehmed II subsequently donated some properties
with ownership deeds to privileged individuals. Some of these larger houses and palaces
(of Sinan Pasha, Çandarlı İbrahim Pasha, and others) with Byzantine sections can be
traced in these individuals’ waqf documents; see ibid., 200–02.
46 Cezar, “Âfetler”, 335.
47 Tekin, “Istanbul in Flames”.
48 The 1766 great earthquake was accompanied by fires caused by lightning, and rains led to
drowning: Ambraseys & Finkel, Seismicity of Turkey, 143–44.
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masonry constructions. The two techniques, then, canceled each other out
in averting multiple hazards that were often simultaneous, as in Japan, where
earthquake-resistant timber dwellings which became the norm gave rise to
recurrent fires.49 Besides human factors (including accidents, apathy, arson,
and the absence of professional fire squads), the mountainous and peninsular
ecology of Istanbul fueled uncontrollable fires with its irregular narrow streets
and powerful winds that swiftly changed direction.
Imperial decrees announced building codes for the standardized width of
streets, as well as the height, roofing, and façades of houses and shops. The
“street vision” of these codes only concerned the public realm of streetscapes
and the exteriors of buildings, without intervening in their inner spaces. I will
cite some notable examples from the tenure of Sinan as chief court architect,
between 1539 and 1588.50 He and his colleagues mastered the construction of
more durable public monuments made of stonemasonry, after having learned
lessons from earthquakes in 1509 and later. However, Istanbul’s predominantly
timber-framed residential architecture and all-timber shops followed a differ-
ent trajectory, being more resistant to change and largely entrusted to masons
or carpenters, unlike “architected monuments”. The urgency to speed up con-
struction in the face of disasters was one of the reasons for preferring dwell-
ings that used prefabricated and standardized timber components. These
houses could be built within a few months, whereas their more expensive
masonry counterparts required professional architects and longer periods
for completion.51
Sinan’s attempts to improve the sense of order in Istanbul’s urban fabric can
be deduced from construction codes recorded in imperial decrees that show
his close collaboration with the city’s kadi and prefect (ṣubaşı), officers repre-
senting the judicial and police departments respectively.52 The repetition of
the same or very similar decrees into the early 18th century, which are cited
below, demonstrates a combination of resistance and indifference toward offi-
cial regulations. One might even conclude that the insurmountable risks of the
city tested the very limits of Ottoman imperial power.
The big fire in 1515, during Selim I’s reign (r. 1512–20), is the earliest instance
known to me of a sultan visiting the site of a conflagration with his grand vizier
and janissary agha. He remorsefully interpreted this fire as a divine punishment
49 Fuyuko, “Fires and Recoveries”.

50 On royal architects and construction codes, Necipoğlu, Age of Sinan, chapters 3–5.
51 On other reasons, see Eldem, Türk Evi, vol. 1, 161. For Sinan’s supervision of prefabricated
timber elements, standardized in cubit measurements: Necipoğlu, Age of Sinan, 165–66.
52 Necipoğlu, Age of Sinan, 111–15.
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214 Necipoğlu
for having recently ordered the execution of an innocent statesman-poet,

Tacizade Cafer. The conflagration that started at endowed shops of the Atik Ali
Pasha mosque consumed the nearby royal Bedestan (multi-domed commercial
core for precious goods in the Grand Bazaar), and destroyed about 1000 sur-
rounding edifices. This fire caused inestimable loss to merchants, particularly
the Florentines, and to others who had stored luxury goods in the Bedestan for
safekeeping, out of worry that the sultan’s recent measures to discipline the
janissaries might give rise to unrest.53
Just around the time Sinan was appointed chief architect, another major
fire broke out at the Zindankapı city gate along the Golden Horn port, near the
Jewish neighborhood, on 2 July 1539 (15 Safer 946). Sultan Süleyman’s decree
addressed to Istanbul’s kadi and prefect on that occasion was reissued in 1559;
an endnote orders it to be recorded in the judicial register for future kadis.
The sultan warns the recipients of his edict to be diligent: “My concern about
this matter is supreme, hence there is no possibility for accepting any apolo-
getic excuse!”54
The kadi and city prefect were instructed not to allow any houses or shops
to abut the inner and outer surfaces of the city wall. Houses and bay windows
(şehnişīn) perched above the city wall were to be strictly forbidden, especially
multistory timber residences of the Jewish population that featured gazebos
(çārṭāḳ). Shops adjacent to the outer face of the city wall, in front of which
lumberjacks piled wood, were fire hazards causing harm to the Muslims and
had to be demolished entirely. Along the outer and inner faces of the city
wall, a public avenue (ṭarīḳ-i ʿāmm) with a width of 4 cubits was to be cre-
ated. In currently burnt places, no further houses should be built; moreover,
those houses with more than two stories must be forbidden elsewhere. The
façades of new houses should feature no corbelled projections (çıḳmalar) over
public avenues (implying that they were allowed in alleys), and both floors
were to have continuous walls from top to bottom. Further, houses should not
feature overhanging eaves (ṣaçāḳ), but must rather utilize brick sawtooth roof
cornices (lit., brick hedgehog: tuladan kirpi) “according to custom” (ʿādet üzre).
Hence, these houses were either masonry or timber-framed constructions. As
for shops, their old boundaries had to be preserved, without allowing porches
and overhangs (ṣoffalar ve pīşhūnlar).
53 It can even be speculated that the fire was started by the janissaries: see Sanuto, Diarii,
vol. 21 (s. a. 1515), 161–62; Cezar, “Âfetler”, 329; Tekindağ, “Yeni Kaynak”, 79.
54 Anonymous Chronicles, TSMK, Revan 1100 and TSMK, Revan 1101/1, cited in Cezar, “Âfetler”,
330. On the reissued 29 June 1559 order (23 Ramadan 966), see Ahmet Refik, On Altıncı
Asırda, 58–59.
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It is not specified when the “custom” concerning sawtooth cornices was

established. While this rule may have been instated with the 1539 decree
(reissued in 1559), it more likely seems to allude to earlier building codes for-
mulated under Bayezid II. Charles White reports in 1844 that this sultan had
“established a council of architects and placed at its head a mimar agha” (chief
royal architect), or “President of the Board of Works”. That post was created
to “preserve some degree of regularity in the construction of houses, and the
laying out of new streets”. This corresponds with what we know of the organi-
zation of court architects under Bayezid II.55 Moreover, two paved roads along
the sea walls mentioned in a c.1486 document may refer to an earlier Byzantine
legacy kept alive under Bayezid II and his father.56 White adds:
No private abode can, therefore, be erected or rebuilt, without this offi-

cer’s sanction, and according to the plan laid down or approved by him—
that is, as far as regards height, frontage, aspects, and disposition of shah
nishans [i.e., shāhnişīn] or other chambers liable to interfere with the pri-
vacy of neighbors. Restrictions are also placed on the projection of roofs,
and that of water-pipes and gutters.
Unlike neglected police regulations relating to the cleaning and upkeep of pub-
lic thoroughfares, laws concerning the construction of houses were “impera-
tive and nicely defined”.57
Nevertheless, regulations requiring houses “not to exceed thirty feet in
height, or to be composed of more than two stories, nor to encroach upon the
straight line” of public avenues were evaded. The “mimar agha [i.e., miʿmār
āġā]” and his subordinates derived “bribes and hush money, given in exchange
for permits of departure from rules”. The only clause rigidly adhered to was
that “respecting windows overlooking gardens and apartments of neighbours”
(likely because this pertained to sharia law). White was fascinated by the archi-
tectural outcome of this legal constraint:
Great ingenuity and equal caution are displayed in the construction of

shah nishan. Care must be taken that the lateral windows do not look into,
or obstruct the view from, houses on each side. The schemes employed to
avoid these difficulties, and yet to obtain the desired prospect, give rise to
55 White, Three Years in Constantinople, 171–72; Necipoğlu, Age of Sinan, 153–55.

56 Kafescioğlu, Constantinopolis/Istanbul, 32.
57 White, Three Years in Constantinople, 171–72.
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216 Necipoğlu
that extreme irregularity and variety of architectural design observable

in all Turkish houses.58
Although he was reporting on current practices, White’s account was probably

based on an oral tradition that traced the origin of urban building codes to
Bayezid II’s reign.
To return to the 1539 fire during the reign of his grandson, Sultan Süleyman:
this blaze erupted in some tar shops near the Baba Cafer prison (a tower of the
Byzantine wall along the Golden Horn port). The grand vizier, chief gardener,
and agha of janissaries, along with the janissaries, struggled all night long with-
out being able to extinguish it. The conflagration killed numerous locked-up
prisoners, and burned neighborhoods, endowed public monuments (includ-
ing the bathhouse of Süleyman’s wife, Hürrem Sultan, in the Jewish quarter),
marketplaces, and warehouses outside the sea wall. Vulnerable to fires, ware-
houses persistently continued to line up the Golden Horn waterfront despite
prohibitions against this, as seen in Melchior Lorck’s panorama (c.1559–61) and
in the Hünernāme manuscript’s (1584/85) city map (Fig. 8.5).
While Sultan Süleyman was wintering in Edirne after the June 1539 fire,
another fire broke out at the Old Palace of Istanbul on 5 February 1540. It
destroyed nearly the whole palace, which was rebuilt “even better than before”.
According to an anonymous chronicle, until then, “whenever the house
or shop of a person burned, its owner would be executed (ṣalb olunurdı)”.
However, “after his [Süleyman’s] palace burned, they did not harm anyone,
and he returned to Istanbul where he settled in the year 947 [CE 1540/41]”.59
Capital punishment was abolished, but the sultan continued to be acutely
vigilant concerning fires. In December 1544, while he was again wintering in
Edirne, Süleyman sent an order for the immediate investigation of a fire that
destroyed a house in the Jewish quarter along the Golden Horn. He wanted to
know without delay who had burnt the house, and, if anyone was found guilty,
the culprit was to be imprisoned.60
Judging by anonymous chronicles and travel accounts, fires increased dur-
ing Süleyman’s reign, as did a growing rate of arson.61 After a 1552 conflagra-
tion in Edirne, its kadi was ordered to enforce the construction of masonry
shops, for which the royal architect Ali had been sent from Istanbul to teach
shop owners how to rebuild their shops in the manner of “those now being
58 Ibid., 171–76.
59 Cited in Cezar, “Âfetler”, 331.
60 Boyar & Fleet, Social History, 86.
61 Cezar, “Âfetler”, 331–34. For arson in Istanbul and Amasya during 1555, see de Busbecq,
Turkish Letters, trans. Forster, 57. On 17th-century examples: Cezar, “Âfetler”, 335, 342–45.
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Figure 8.5 (a) Melchior Lorck, Constantinople Prospect, leaf 14 with mosque of
Selim I, drawn c.1559, reworked c.1560–65, pen and ink with color on paper,
Universiteitsbibliotheek, Leiden, Cod. 1758. (b) Anonymous Map of Istanbul,
1584–85, opaque watercolor on paper, Lokman bin Seyyid Hüseyin, Hünernāme,
TSMK, H. 1523, fol. 158v–159r
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218 Necipoğlu
built in Istanbul, with bricks and roof tiles (tuġla ve kiremid) having sawtooth
roof cornices (saçāḳları kirpi)”. This is a remarkable early modern attempt at
educating the public in architectural risk-management techniques.62 Another
striking decree of Süleyman, addressed on 19 September 1564 (12 Safer 972)
to the kadi of Istanbul and the Hagia Sophia waqf administrator, reveals that
tenants of endowed wood-board and timber (taḫta ve aġāc) shops around
the city’s Bedestan had requested to rebuild these in masonry (kārgīr) with
their own funds as a precaution against fires. However, they would do so only
on condition that their sons and daughters should be allowed to inherit the
leases of those shops: this stipulation was accepted by the sultan.63 This hints
that one of the reasons for ignoring official building codes was the status of
endowed shops and houses as non-inheritable state property, for which a rent
(muḳāṭaʿa) was paid to the imperial treasury.64
A decree requested by Sinan himself from the next sultan, Selim II (r. 1566–
74), commands the kadi of Istanbul to demolish (with the chief architect’s help)
the dwellings and shops of individuals who created bay windows and gazebos
that extended over public avenues. Given to Sinan on 17 May 1568 (20 Zilkaʿde
975), the decree affirms the validity of a previous order sent to the kadi.65
Several months later, a devastating fire broke out on 28 September 1569, extend-
ing from the outer wall of the Topkapı Palace to the Rüstem Pasha mosque
underneath the Süleymaniye, namely the commercial core of the port along
the Golden Horn, called Tahtakale (Taḥt al-ḳalʿa). It was in the same region
that the abovementioned 1539 fire began (close to the Baba Cafer prison), as
did the 1633 fire. The Venetian Republic’s bailo, Marcantonio Barbaro (1569–
74), sent two dispatches describing this “dreadful spectacle”, which he watched
from a window of his residence on a hilltop of Galata (Pera).66
The conflagration that began in the Jewish quarter swiftly stretched over
an area, which Barbaro marked on a map, now lost, that he sent to Venice. He
reports that 20 mosques, 15 synagogues, 12 bathhouses, and an “infinite num-
ber” of large palatial residences were destroyed (according to another source,

63 BOA, MD 6, no. 163, 80.
64 İnalcık, Survey of Istanbul 1455, 581–86.
65 The key passage is as follows: ṭarīḳ-i ʿamm üzrine şehnişīn ve çārṭāḳ çıḳarub ve dükkān
yapub yola muzāyaḳa virenler; see BOA, MD 7, no. 1417, 491; note also Necipoğlu, Age of
Sinan, 114; and Ahmet Refik, On Altıncı Asırda, 59–60.
66 Necipoğlu, Age of Sinan, 114–15. Independently discovered and published in the same
year, with full English translation in Rozen & Arbel, “Great Fire in the Metropolis”. The
two letters are dated 1 October and 15 October 1569.
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the figure was 36,000).67 The fire spread rapidly with the fierce wind because
“nearly all of the city had been built of timber”, with some walls combining tim-
ber and mudbrick mixed with straw (i.e., timber-frame construction), except
for mosques, baths, and some palaces of viziers that were built of masonry.
Barbaro reckons that the Ottoman capital, which had reached its peak as a
great and “most famous” metropolis, now more fully built, populated, and
enriched than ever before, would need a long time to recover: “Many years will
pass before a place comparable to the one existing before the fire will arise”.
In his second dispatch written after personally examining the burnt area,
Barbaro notes that although rebuilding had started in many areas, the fire
was not entirely extinguished. Since the affected region, which formed a cir-
cle of about 4 miles in circumference, constituted “the most densely popu-
lated and richest part of the city, one can say that in truth more than half of
Constantinople has burnt down”, and that in the section completely consumed
by flames, “a new city is being rebuilt” in accordance with building codes, as
ordered by the sultan. Shop owners were made to remove the wooden roofs
that covered the exterior of houses and shops and extended across the streets,
thereby causing the conflagration to spread (a covered street with such an over-
hanging roof supported by struts is seen in Lorck’s c.1555–59 drawing, Fig. 8.3a).
Another order required that while rebuilding the destroyed area, the streets
should be widened by half a cubit (brazza) on each side. No house higher than
two stories was allowed, and each house should not be taller than 8 feet (piedi)
because janissaries said that “they cannot demolish higher houses while trying
to extinguish fires” (presumably ladders did not reach above that height).68
A document I discovered in the Genoa state archive, sent from Pera by
Battista Ferraro on 29 October 1569, describes these two-story residences: “The
Grand Signor has commanded no house to be erected more than 4 cubits tall in
the ground floor and 4 cubits in the upper floor, in total 8 cubits”.69 The codes
that Barbaro and Ferraro mention must have been established by Sinan. A new
double standard, encouraging sawtooth roof cornices, appears in a decree sent
to Istanbul’s kadi on 28 March 1570 (20 Şevval 977): “Houses that are going to be
built at previously burnt places must be 10-cubits-high if they are constructed
with sawtooth roof cornices [lit. hedgehog, kirpi], and 8-cubits-high if they
lack sawtooth roof cornices.”70
67 Cezar, “Âfetler”, 332–33.

68 Necipoğlu, Age of Sinan, 115; Rozen & Arbel, “Great Fire in the Metropolis”, 158.
69 Genoa, Archivio di Stato 2170, no. 301: “El Gran S. a comandato che non se alzi le chasa de
cetero piu che 4 braza da basso et 4 in solar tutti 8 braza”. In no. 300, dated 15 October 1569,
Battista Ferraro reports the 4-mile circuit of the fire with other details.
70 BOA, MD 9, no. 201, 75: Necipoğlu, Age of Sinan, 115.
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220 Necipoğlu
Barbaro says the fire grew because Grand Vizier Sokollu Mehmed Pasha,
who was present at the site with all grandees, refused to increase the pay of
the janissaries. Since the enraged janissaries could not petition their agha, who
was lying sick in bed, they refused to extinguish the fire. The janissary agha
who was Sokollu’s son-in-law was deposed by the sultan, Sokollu’s royal father-
in-law.71 According to the historian Selaniki, the janissaries rejected serving as
firefighters in order to fill their pockets, and even the masonry (kārgīr) houses
of the Jewish population could not withstand the fire.72 Among destroyed
residences was a monumental stone mansion rented by Venice for its ambas-
sadors, the property of Süleyman’s Jewish chief physician Moses Hamon
(d. 1567).73 The sultan had allowed him to build this three- to four-story man-
sion that exceeded the bounds of decorum.74
A decree addressed to Sinan on 19 June 1572 (7 Safer 980) shows that the
chief architect had complained to Selim II about low-quality houses erected
during the flurry of post-conflagration rebuilding by unqualified immigrant
builders. The sultan’s response reads as follows:
You have sent a petition to my threshold of felicity reporting that some

individuals have been coming from Rumelia (Thrace) and other places,
and without knowledge of carpentry (neccāriyye) and the science of con-
struction (binā ʿilmi) have been taking the yardstick into their hands and
practicing architecture (miʿmārlıḳ) without your information. Since you
have reported that the fireplaces (ocāḳlar) of the houses built by these
unqualified persons often catch fire and burn, when my decree arrives,
I order you to be diligent in this matter … and forbid such unqualified
persons from practicing architecture without your approval.75
Less than a month earlier, on 26 May 1572 (13 Muharrem 980), the kadi of
Istanbul received an imperial decree outlining new fire precautions: “I have
ordered that in the city everyone should keep ready a ladder capable of reach-
ing the top of their house and a large barrel ( fuçı) filled with water”.76 The kadi
is enjoined to inform city dwellers that “when my janissary servants and other
71 Rozen & Arbel, “Great Fire in the Metropolis”, 148–49, 156–58. Cezar, “Âfetler”, 332–33;
Selaniki, Tarih, ed. İpşirli, vol. 1, 76–77.
72 Selaniki, Tarih, ed. İpşirli, vol. 1, 76–77.
73 Rozen & Arbel, “Great Fire in the Metropolis”, 141–42.
75 Sent to Sinan on 17 Safer (29 June): Necipoğlu, Age of Sinan, 115; Ahmet Refik, On Altıncı
Asırda, 61; Cezar, “Âfetler”, 333.
76 Cezar, “Âfetler”, 332–33; Ahmet Refik, On Altıncı Asırda, 60–61.
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folk arrive”, they should position their ladders and with their own water supply
take great care to ward off the fire, rather than flee.77 The kadi must inspect
every two to three months the fire-damaged neighborhoods and places near
the markets, and arrest those without ladders and barrels and make them pay
penalties to the city prefect; then the kadi must write to the sultan explaining
how he punished disobedient subjects. Neighborhood communities were thus
compelled to engage in fighting fires as a civic duty. A week later, another decree
instructed the kadi to appoint a strong chief for the water carriers (sāḳa) and to
tell porters to extinguish fires with hooks (ḳanca) and buckets (gerdel).78
Shortly after, on 25 March 1573 (21 Zilkaʿde 980), the kadi and Sinan were com-
manded to inspect three converted churches belonging to the Ayasofya (Hagia
Sophia) endowment: Eski İmaret (Pantepoptes), Kalenderhane (Theotokos
Kyriotissa), and Zeyrek (Pantokrator). This was triggered by complaints at
the kadi court brought by neighborhood residents. They had requested the
removal of the houses that abutted those monuments; the houses had been
built on previously empty plots rented out by the endowment. An inspection
by the kadi’s regent and the royal architect Mustafa revealed that the Zeyrek
mosque’s two windows were blocked by single- and two-story houses built by a
woman, who had also transformed the mosque’s three subsidiary domes into a
chicken coop and two stables. Likewise, the Eski İmaret’s formerly open space
had been rented to a man, who built single- and two-story houses blocking the
masjid’s two northern windows, as well as a stable that jammed one of its doors.
Another man had constructed houses whose eaves and gutters encroached
upon the masjid. The sultan ordered the demolition of those dwellings accord-
ing to the sharia, and mandated the creation of spaces measuring 5 cubits in
width around those monuments.79
In all three cases, encroaching structures were removed not only to save
threatened monuments as an “antiquarian” enterprise, but also as an urban-
istic measure to increase their architectural visibility, improve circulation
around them, and eliminate potential fire hazards. These measures would also
prove useful during earthquakes, when narrow alleys quickly filled with debris,
thus preventing aid and escape. The renovation of the Ayasofya mosque as the
future site of Selim II’s mausoleum in 1573 is another example of such urbanis-
tic reasoning. Clusters of abutting houses that had contiguous roofs with over-
hanging eaves and were fronted by upper galleries featuring wooden pillars,
which are seen in the Freshfield album painting (c.1574), posed fire hazards
77 Ahmet Refik, On Altıncı Asırda, 60–61.

78 19 Muharrem 980 [1 June 1572], BOA, MD 19, no. 395, 191.
79 Necipoğlu, Age of Sinan, 113; Ahmet Refik, On Altıncı Asırda, 20.
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222 Necipoğlu
Figure 8.6 The Great Fire of 1660, album painting, mid-17th century, Memorie Turchesche,
Venice, Bibioteca Museo Civico Correr, Cicogna 1971, fol. 4r (MCCCXLVIII)
and harmed the mosque’s leaning structure that was facing imminent col-
lapse (Fig. 8.2a). Following an on-site inspection attended by Selim II, who was
joined by a committee of experts and legal scholars headed by Sinan, a report
prepared on 22 June 1573 (21 Safer 981) recommended the following: demolish-
ing the houses built of “mud and timber” (ṭopraḳdan ve aġāçdan) that were
carved into the walls, arches, and vaults of Ayasofya; clearing a space 35 cubits
in width along both sides of the mosque for constructing buttresses and water
channels; and opening a street 3 cubits in width around its madrasa.80
The 1569 fire created an opportunity throughout the 1570s to refashion
Istanbul’s urban fabric, which was accordingly made to conform to a single
statute for housing and streets in burnt areas (Fig. 8.5b). In the following cen-
tury, the number of fires increased exponentially while the imperial court
resided in Edirne, an absence that lasted from Mehmed IV’s reign (r. 1648–87)
until his son Ahmed III was forced by a rebellion to return to the capital in
1703. An album painting depicting the 1660 Istanbul megafire shows towns-
people and officers pulling down buildings with hooks (Fig. 8.6). The masonry
courtyards of public monuments, including the four-minareted Süleymaniye
mosque depicted in the painting, became places of shelter for Muslims and
80 Necipoğlu, Age of Sinan, 111–13; Necipoğlu, “Hagia Sophia”; Ahmet Refik, On Altıncı Asırda,
21–24.
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non-Muslims alike. But those who gathered with their packed goods inside the
Süleymaniye’s courtyard perished because its burning minarets “melted away
like candles”. Fueled by the strong wind, the fire marched like an “invading
army”, penetrating stone buildings and killing those who sought protection in
them; the estimated total number of dead was between 3000 and 5000 people.
Ottoman sources interpreted this fire as divine punishment, comparing it to
the Last Judgement. The 49-hour blaze during the deadly heat of July felt like
doomsday, and those left naked and barefoot suffered from thirst and hun-
ger due to the destruction of bakeries, windmills, and water channels. About
two-thirds of the city was ravaged, including its commercial center around the
Grand Bazaar.81
4 Materiality Matters: Masonry versus Timber
The 1660 great fire transformed the city’s demographic, social, and spatial
fabric.82 New decrees banned defective fireplaces and chimneys, and ordered
the appointment of nightguards to each neighborhood whose imams and
muezzins were to inspect the cleaning of chimneys. Yet no attempt was made
to forbid the unsustainable timbered constructions until the innumerable late
17th-century fires decimated Istanbul.83 This is why no pre-18th-century house
remains inside the walled city, and even those that survive from the eigh-
teenth century are very few in number. According to the Armenian-Ottoman
chronicler Eremya Çelebi Kömürciyan (d. 1695), who began to write a history
of Istanbul’s fires in 1648, nearly all the city’s buildings were constructed with
timber because of its abundance in the nearby forests of İzmit and the south-
ern Black Sea coast, called the “Sea of Trees”.84 When Eremya asked Muslims
unapprovingly why they did not rebuild their burnt houses in masonry (kārgīr),
his interlocutors replied, “that is not the custom and it would reduce the size
of our residence” (i.e., either because of thicker walls or the higher expense
involved). He even met people who took pleasure in the burning of their
house, saying “this way I will be able to build it according to my taste”. Burnt
residences were rebuilt again in the same manner according to the latest fash-
ions; they were decorated with novel paintings, and provided with projecting
81 Çabuk, “Kâtipzâde”; Cezar, “Âfetler”, 337–42; Eremya Çelebi, “Eremya Çelebi’nin Yangınlar
Tarihi”, trans. Andreasyan 71–73; Yıldız, 1660 İstanbul Yangını, 21–41.
82 On differing interpretations: Yıldız, 1660 İstanbul Yangını; Baer, “Great Fire of 1660”.
83 On those fires: Cezar, “Âfetler”, 342–45; Eremya Çelebi, “Eremya Çelebi’nin Yangınlar
Tarihi”, trans. Andreasyan.
84 Eremya Çelebi, “Eremya Çelebi’nin Yangınlar Tarihi”, trans. Andreasyan, 60.
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224 Necipoğlu
bay windows, freestanding kiosks commanding sea views, and grapevine trel-
lises. This pleasure-oriented aesthetics of domestic architecture was limited to
the rich, while the poor were unable to rebuild their homes. Due to the rising
costs of materials after each fire, some were even forced to emigrate elsewhere.
After losing three family residences to rampant fires, and being forced to rent
a house for three years in another neighborhood, Eremya was one of those
victims.85
By the end of the 17th century, decrees enforced firesafe masonry residences
and shops. This trend was initiated by the Topkapı Palace’s harem which was
rebuilt between 1665–1668/69 after a fire perpetrated by a female arsonist
destroyed it, and by the Grand Bazaar that had formerly been surrounded
with streets featuring timber overhangs or pergolas.86 Dated 1696, a decree of
Mustafa II (r. 1695–1703) forbade construction using timber on empty plots
caused by fires in Galata, as well as in all future buildings of Istanbul. This
implies that undamaged buildings with timber components would remain
untouched. To be immune from repetitive fires triggered by “houses, shops,
and other buildings constructed with planks, wood, and shingles”, new edifices
had to be built “like buildings in Aleppo, Damascus, and elsewhere in Anatolia,
with stone, lime-mortar, and mud”. This oft-cited edict specifies that “every-
one according to their own means” should use these materials in buildings
featuring “sawtooth roof cornices, in consultation with construction experts”.
The resulting shortage of materials necessitated the increased production of
bricks, rooftiles, and lime mortar in 1702.87
Ahmed III (r. 1703–30) proved especially vigilant in attempting to compel
the construction of stone masonry houses in Istanbul. In 1719 he ordered the
kadi and chief royal architect to have burnt-down structures rebuilt in stone
masonry (tāşdan kārgīr), “by no means giving license to” timber shops, bach-
elors’ rooms, and to houses with overhanging eaves and bay windows facing
one another. Masonry buildings had to have brick sawtooth roof cornices, they
should not exceed two stories, and their bay windows could only project out-
wards by 18 fingers. The chief architect was to inform carpenters and laborers
of these rules, but also to pay his utmost attention to implement them person-
ally. The sultan even threatened him with capital punishment, warning that he
will be “executed” (ḳatl) if he is negligent, for “no excuse shall be accepted!” The
85 Ibid., 59–60, 73.

86 Kocaaslan, Harem, 201–07; Cerasi, “Istanbul 1620–1750”, 481–82.
87 Beginning of Zilkaʿde 1107: Ahmet Refik, Hicrî On İkinci Asırda, 21, 35–36; Cezar, “Âfetler”,
344–45.
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building materials of disobedient homeowners, in turn, would be confiscated

by the state.88
This menacing edict strikingly recalls that of Sultan Süleyman discussed
above. Although Ahmed’s decree followed one of Istanbul’s major earthquakes,
it overlooks the seismic resilience of timbered houses, thereby prioritizing the
greater danger posed by conflagrations. Later that year, he vehemently ordered
Istanbul’s kadi, prefect, and chief architect to forbid constructions that abut-
ted city walls. They also had to prohibit the demolition of palaces with vast
courtyards and gardens that formerly acted as firebreaks (ḥarīḳa sedd), which
had been bought by master carpenters and dismantled to build contiguous
wooden rental rooms: a practice the sultan banned as “a matter of state and
religion”.89 Ahmed personally oversaw firefighting efforts in 1703, 1706, 1719,
and 1721/22.90 By then it was “required that the sultan appear at a conflagra-
tion regardless of the hour to spur on the firemen’s efforts”.91 Initiated in the
early 16th century, this tradition became more common after the 1640s.92 The
practice that endured until the end of the empire gave people a chance to com-
municate their complaints to their ruler.
Ahmed III informed his chief architect Mehmed in 1725 that Muslims were
permitted to build houses up to 12 cubits in height, while the houses of non-
Muslims should not exceed 9 cubits.93 Preserving their two-story elevation, the
maximum height for houses (12 cubits) had increased since the days of Sinan
(10 cubits for those with sawtooth roof cornices, and 8 cubits for those with-
out). Absent from decrees in the age of Sinan, it is unclear when exactly the
lower height requirement for non-Muslim dwellings emerged, a rule that was
later followed by the discriminatory restriction on the use of bright colors.94
The latter rule probably arose when painted timber paneling became fashion-
able in houses, making the city even more vulnerable to fires, whose frequency
increased drastically during the late 18th century.95
88 Mid-Şaʿban 1131 [CE 29 June 1719]: Ahmet Refik, Hicrî On İkinci Asırda, 66–67.
89 Dated end of Şaʿban 1131 [CE 9 July 1719]: Ahmet Refik, Hicrî On İkinci Asırda, 67–68.
90 Cezar, “Âfetler”, 344–45, 348–49.
91 Ünver, Ottoman Baroque, 134.
92 Eremya Çelebi, “Eremya Çelebi’nin Yangınlar Tarihi”, trans. Andreasyan, 63–65, 77–78.
93 Dated beginning of Zilkaʿde 1137: Ahmet Refik, Hicrî On İkinci Asırda, 83.
94 See n. 44 above. I thank Ünver Rüstem for the following references. Black or brown houses
required for non-Muslim subjects: d’Ohsson, Tableau général, 234, writing in 1791. The
color restriction rule implied in an Armenian letter dated 1759: Rüstem, Ottoman Baroque,
148. Selim III’s (r. 1789–1807) decree forbidding Muslims in Bursa from painting their
houses blackish-blue because they resembled black-painted houses of non-Muslims:
Karataş, “Bursa’daki Uygulamalar”, 145.
95 Tekin, “Istanbul in Flames”, 90–91.
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226 Necipoğlu
According to Helmuth von Moltke, the Prussian cartographer-cum-military

expert who prepared a survey map of Istanbul (1835–37), one-fifth of the intra-
mural city comprised burnt areas. He admits that the perilous timber houses
of Istanbul were more comfortable than their damp and chilly masonry coun-
terparts, which were never as sunny, bright, and cheerful. This strongly con-
trasts with Schweigger’s late 16th-century description above, and indicates the
subsequent emergence of a taste for more and larger fenestration that was
“only feasible in timber construction”. But the nearly contiguous and irregu-
larly distributed thousands of unsustainable timber houses within the walled
city were ready to “burn like matches”.96
5 Concluding Remarks
The Great Fire of London in 1666 encouraged the substitution of timber by

masonry and “the adoption of strict norms concerning the width of streets
and the height of buildings, while the city was rebuilt by private enterprise”.97
Such urban codes were proposed much earlier in Istanbul, at least since the
early 16th century, and they were repeated with considerable conceptual con-
sistency; nevertheless, their actual implementation lagged behind. The pas-
sion for timber and timber-frame vernacular architecture reigned supreme,
defying the imperial edicts that prohibited it. It has been noted that “the
wooden houses of the capital brought death, as well as the pleasures of nature,
close to daily life”.98 Just as important as aesthetic sensibilities and domestic
living habits was the preservation of ancient customs (ʿādet-i ḳadīm) through
imperial decrees, and legal practices that protected privacy, property rights,
and pious endowments.99 Houses were generally rebuilt according to their
“previous manner” (vażʿ-i ḳadīm, üslūb-i sābıḳ): a habitus that resisted radical
transformations, without impeding individualized inventiveness.
During the aftermath of major fires, Istanbul’s precarious vernacular fabric
reconfigured itself around the more permanent foci of socio-religious com-
plexes built of masonry, reborn each time from the ashes like a phoenix. The
limited efficacy of the Ottoman administration in implementing its authoritar-
ian municipal interventions became apparent not only in the case of fires, but
also of the earthquakes that lay ticking like a time bomb beneath the soil and
96 Moltke, Türkiye’deki Durum, trans. Örs, 37, 76–78, 81, 134.

97 Folin & Preti, Wounded Cities, 27.
98 Mansel, Constantinople, 224 and 166–68 on aesthetic pleasures.
99 Yıldız, 1660 İstanbul Yangını, 60–63, 236.
- 978-90-04-46856-6
seabed. It was as if reconfigurations of the cityscape after each disaster reen-

acted the ancient prophecy that the imperial metropolis would be doomed
to suffer periodic destructions and reconstructions until its final obliteration.
These persistent architectural reenactments displayed an evident disregard
for the vulnerable city’s volatile urban landscapes, thereby bringing myth
closer to reality. During cyclical calamities, imaginary and vernacular Istanbul
thus became almost interchangeable: one and the same.
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Chapter 9
Merchants and Global Connections

The stimulation and regulation of trade was always at the top of the Ottoman
authorities’ agenda. Merchants required a stable and safe environment in
which trade could flow without obstacles, and where it was advantageous for
them to settle. Early modern Istanbul’s cityscape with its countless facilities for
merchants is a perfect illustration of just how seriously the Ottoman authori-
ties took commerce. Immediately after the city had been conquered in 1453,
the Ottomans rebuilt Istanbul to function not just as the empire’s capital, but
also to retain its role as a commercial hub. After Galata, the Genoese colony
across the Golden Horn, had surrendered, many of its foreign residents were
allowed to stay and continue in business. In the early 16th century the com-
munity of Western merchants in Istanbul was limited to traders from Genoa,
Venice, and Florence. The expulsion of the Jews from Spain had led to an influx
of Iberian Jews in the Ottoman capital, whose commercial networks across
the Mediterranean and beyond strengthened Istanbul’s position as an inter-
regional trade hub.1 The Armenians formed another important mercantile
community, which included both Ottoman subjects and traders from abroad,
including Persia and South Asia. To further encourage interregional trade, the
Ottomans successfully granted fiscal and legal privileges to merchants from
the West, an instrument that was implemented consistently throughout the
early modern period.
This chapter offers a short survey of the city’s multitude of trade-related
sites and buildings, without which Istanbul could not have flourished as a
commercial center. We will also look into the city’s global connections, by land
and by sea, with far-flung regions in all directions. Attention will be paid to the
service industries that thrived in early modern Istanbul, to taxation processes,
and to forums of dispute resolution, with an emphasis on the sharia courts.
The records of these courts shed valuable light on the groups and individuals
who were active in Istanbul’s markets during this period.
1 Krstić, “The Elusive Intermediaries”, 129–51; idem, “Moriscos in Ottoman Galata”, 269–85.

234 van den Boogert
1 Infrastructure and Institutions
The cityscape of Constantinople proper was profoundly affected by the

Ottomans’ desire to revive the city’s role as a commercial hub in the wake of
its conquest. In 1457 Sultan Mehmed II donated a large number of buildings to
the waqfs (pious endowments) of Hagia Sophia (Ayasofya). They included the
Bedestan and the complex of markets surrounding it (the Grand Bazaar of the
later centuries), near which a second bedestān (market hall) for the sale of silks
would be constructed shortly afterwards; kapāns, or weighing scales for staples
(grain, wood, fresh produce); shops at the port area of Tahtakale (Taḥt al-ḳalʿa);
a salt repository (ṭūz ambārı); a tannery; a soap factory; several large caravan-
serais; as well as 46 butcher’s shops, 41 cookshops, and, scattered through-
out the city, about two thousand shops.2 In the 16th century, the chief court
architect Sinan alone built nine caravanserais within the walled city and a
khan in Üsküdar. The major imperial projects in Istanbul, the Şehzade and the
prestigious Süleymaniye complexes (completed in 1548 and 1558 respectively),
included a caravanserai each; an additional two caravanserais were located
near the Bit Pazarı (the flea market); another one on Uzunçarşı, one of the
main arteries of the Byzantine city’s commercial center; and yet another one
in Galata.3 All were parts of pious endowments commissioned by members of
the House of Osman or by leading statesmen.
Evliya Çelebi’s description of the heart of commercial Istanbul shows that,
by the 1630s, numerous great khans for merchants had been added, again
under the patronage of various senior Ottoman officials and members of the
royal family:
The first is the Khoajeh [Khwaja] Khan, near the [khan of] Mahmud
Pasha, in which all the great Persian merchants have their establish-
ments. It has seventy rooms. The khan of Mahmud Pasha has one hun-
dred and twenty rooms; the Kebejilar Khan one hundred rooms; this is
the residence of the rich Bulgarian merchants; the khan of Piri Mehmed]
Pasha, eighty rooms … the khan of Angora [Ankara], for the dealers in
woollen goods (suf ), one hundred rooms; the khan of Pertev Pasha, two
hundred rooms; the khan of Ferhad Pasha, near the Bezestan, two hun-
dred rooms; Kilid Khan, two hundred rooms; the khan of the Valide Kosim
[Kösem] consists of three hundred warehouses, so that this khan, and
that of Mahmud Pasha, are the largest in Constantinople. In one corner
2 İnalcık, “Istanbul”; Kafescioğlu, Constantinopolis/Istanbul, 28–45.

3 Crane & Akın (eds.), Sinan’s Autobiographies, 364.
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Merchants and Global Connections 235
is a kiosk, which raises its head to the skies, and commands a magnificent
view: its stables are capable of holding one thousand horses and mules:
it has a mosque in the centre; the Kiaghid [Kağıt] Khan, near Mahmud
Pasha; Katır Khan, near Takht-ul-kalʿa [Tahtakale/Taḥt al-ḳalʿa]; the khan
of the honey-market [Balkapanı], inhabited by the Egyptian merchants;
Ketan Khan; Kata [Kına] Khan; the khan of Rustam Pasha; the khan of old
Yusuf Pasha; the khan of the Mufti; Chokur [Çukur] Khan; Sulu Khan; the
khan of the tallow-market; and the khan of the Zendan-kapu. All these
khans are in the quarter of the town called Takht-ul-kalʿa; they are exten-
sive buildings, and are covered with lead. The Juvan Kapuji Khan is in the
centre of the raisin-market. The new khan of Kara Mustafa Pasha, Grand
Vezir to Sultan Mohammed IV, near Khoajeh Pasha, is a small but strong
building. The khan of Kopreilí [Köprülü] Mohammed Pasha, Grand Vezir
to Sultan Mohammed IV … near the poultry-market [Tavukpazarı] … has
upwards of two hundred and twenty apartments.4
Buildings with a variety of commercial functions were thus found side by side
in Istanbul’s central districts and its port area. Some khans housed commu-
nities of foreign merchants, like those from Iran, Bulgaria, and Egypt. These
complexes—like similar ones in other Ottoman centers of trade—offered
their tenants lodging and storage spaces. Other buildings, which Evliya Çelebi
also calls khans, offered lodging to traveling merchants for shorter periods,
with spaces for their riding and packing animals. In the 18th century, Sultan
Ahmed III initiated a new building program in Istanbul that included large
commercial structures. Büyük Yeni Han, built by Mustafa III (r. 1757–74) in 1761
is one of the most expansive of such projects.5
Evliya Çelebi also wrote about the slave market, which was housed in a
building called Eski Han (Old Khan), located within the bazaar area. It was
surrounded by heavy iron gates and consisted of 70 apartments and about 300
wooden cells, and had been commissioned by Damad Bayram Pasha, a grand
vizier under Sultan Murad IV. By 1630 it was called Esir Hanı (Khan of the
Captives), because all captives were bought and sold here. The presence of the
Ottoman court and of the numerous residences of senior government officials
in Istanbul created a high demand for slaves. Slave ships arriving in Istanbul
from Central Asia and Russia would have anchored off Tophane, where the
cargo disembarked. The dock tax (resm-i köprü) was collected at the quayside,
4 Evliya Efendi, Narrative of Travels, 176–77; Evliya Çelebi, Evliya Çelebi Seyahatnâmesi, vol. 1,
ed. Dankoff, Kahraman, Dağlı, 146.
5 Yaşar, “The Construction of Commercial Space”.
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236 van den Boogert
where ownership papers were also checked. The amount of additional taxes
paid on slaves appears to have depended on their age and origins.6 Evliya
records that the market had an office for collecting the various taxes levied on
slaves.7 It was supervised by the Esir Hanı emīni, on whose behalf his personnel
collected the market fee (bāc-ı bāzār) from each buyer. The market’s staff, only
some of whom were actually involved in the sale of slaves, were mostly men,
but there were also female slave dealers—and all of those named by Evliya
were Muslims.8 In the early 1700s, the French traveler Tournefort reported see-
ing “a prodigious quantity of slave girls” from Hungary, Greece, Crete, Russia,
Mingrelia, and Georgia, all “destined for the service of Turks”, comparing
Istanbul’s center of the slave trade to a horse market because of the way the
slaves were inspected.9
The large number of buildings connected with trade activities in the old
center of Istanbul notwithstanding, Istanbul’s bedestāns remained the most
emblematic commercial structures in the area. “The Old and New Bazaar
are not far from one another”, Tournefort wrote about his walks in the area.
In the “Old Bazaar” (Bedestan) arms, furs, and horse harnesses were sold, as
well as gold, silver, and jewelry. In the “New Bazaar” (Sandal Bedestanı) one
found stalls with goldsmiths and furriers, as well as textiles of various kinds,
carpets, and precious stones. Tournefort reports that the Old Bazaar had been
under reconstruction for four years. All the wooden structures surrounding the
bedestāns were in the process of being replaced by masonry structures, form-
ing the present-day Grand Bazaar (Kapalı Çarşı). Apartments were constructed
on the first floor for the officers who guarded the complex day and night.10
Despite these precautions, the commercial area remained vulnerable to fires.
On the opposite side of the Golden Horn, in Galata, was Istanbul’s principal
center for trade with Western Europe.11 There, European merchants did not
necessarily live in khans; many rented or bought apartments or houses of their
own, although, according to the Dutch visitor Gerard Hinlopen, in 1670, “many
[Westerners] still have their warehouses in Constantinople”.12 By the middle
of the 18th century, this was evidently no longer the case, for these warehouses
do not appear in foreigners’ detailed reports on damages suffered by European
6 Fisher, “The Sale of Slaves in the Ottoman Empire”, 149–74.

7 Evliya Efendi, Narrative of Travels, vol. 1, 176.
8 Fisher, “The Sale of Slaves in the Ottoman Empire”.
9 Tournefort, Relation d’un voyage du Levant, vol. 1, 515–16.
10 Ibid., vol. 1, 514–15.
11 On Galata’s rich history as a crossroads of interregional trade, see Zarinebaf, Mediterra-
nean Encounters.
12 Oddens (ed.), Een vorstelijk voorland, 184. On how Europeans lived in Galata, see van den
Boogert, “Westerners in Vakıfs”, 71–85.
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Figure 9.1 Jean Baptise Vanmour (studio of), An embassy building in Pera [probably
the French ambassador’s residence], c.1720–c.1744. Oil painting on canvas.
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
merchants from that period.13 It was also in Galata and Pera that the Western
embassies, established from the 16th century onwards, were all located in close
proximity to one another. These ambassadorial palaces were the most visible
European contribution to Istanbul’s cityscape; that said, they may not have
stood out in the early modern period, for until well into the 19th century they
were constructed in local styles.14
2 Interregional Trade: West and East (16th–17th Centuries)
The diversity and quantity of Istanbul’s external trade connections are impos-
sible to chart comprehensively within the confines of this essay. This section
13 BL, Additional Manuscript 35,497, fols. 3v–6v: James Porter to the Duke of Bedford,
23 April 1750.
14 On the embassy buildings, see Hoenkamp-Mazgon, Palais de Hollande in Istanbul and
its bibliography.
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238 van den Boogert
and the next, therefore, offer only a general survey of the commercial networks
within which the Ottoman capital was an important node. It is important to
distinguish between regional networks, in the eastern Mediterranean and the
Adriatic, and interregional networks, which stretched east to Iran and India,
as well as north and west to Europe and Russia.15 Regional trade had a major
role in the supply of Istanbul. The central authorities had a monopoly over the
trade in certain foodstuffs, like grain, but there, too, merchants from various
regions were involved. Initially dominated by Ottoman ships, the coastal trade
was almost entirely taken over by French, Venetian, and Ragusan vessels by
the 18th century. Known as the “caravane” in Western sources, the coastal trade
was probably conducted on foreign boats, but the vast majority of freighters
were Ottoman subjects.16
The promotion of trade was important to the Ottomans from the begin-
ning. In line with the ancient customs in Asia Minor and the Fertile Crescent,
Ottoman rulers offered fiscal and legal privileges to communities of traders
from abroad. The ʿahdnāme (called “capitulation” in the West) was the princi-
pal instrument of this policy, which the Ottomans continued to use through-
out the Empire’s long life. Mehmed II’s treatment of Galata after the conquest
of Constantinople in 1453 is evidence that this was not an empty promise.
Already during the time of Orhan, the Ottomans had maintained close com-
mercial relations with the fortified Genoese colony at Galata and Pera, beyond
the Golden Horn. The day after Mehmed II conquered Constantinople, Galata
surrendered on favorable terms, which had been negotiated beforehand. He
immediately took control of the settlement across the water, but allowed the
inhabitants to keep “their property and houses; their shops and their vineyards;
their mills and their ships; their boats and their entire merchandise; and their
women and children according to their wishes”.17 The way in which Galata—
with its city walls and tower (Galata Kulesi)—was later gradually integrated
in the urban tissue of the sprawling capital city was testimony to the sultans’
recognition of the importance of stability and continuity for the flow of inter-
regional trade.
On the assumption that their sojourn was temporary, European traders set-
tling in Istanbul and other cities were granted the legal status of müsteʾmin (pro-
tected foreigner). This meant that these European merchants did not become
subjects of the sultan (dhimmis) and did not have to pay the symbolically
15 For another general survey of the Ottoman Empire’s commercial networks, see Faroqhi,
“Trading between East and West”.
16 Panzac, “International and Domestic Maritime Trade”, 189–206.
17 Heywood, “G̲ h̲ alaṭa”, EI2, vol. 12, 314–16.
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charged poll tax levied on Christian and Jewish subjects, regardless of how
long they actually resided in the Empire. In the course of the 16th century, first
France and then England established formal trade relations with the Ottoman
Empire. The proliferation of capitulations picked up pace in the 18th century,
when more and more European countries (e.g., Sweden, Denmark, Prussia,
and Spain) established diplomatic ties with the Sublime Porte.
The commodities that European merchants in Istanbul were interested
in buying included sheep’s wool, which they obtained in large part from the
city’s butchers and tanners; alum, a mineral salt used for dyeing and for the
preparation of hides in tanneries; beeswax; and animal hides, which tended
to be exported to Europe raw and salted. Particularly in the 18th century, cot-
ton, initially in the form of cotton yarn but increasingly as raw cotton, was an
important export product for Istanbul. Some silk could also be obtained in the
city, but this commodity came mainly from Iran.18
Silk was one of Iran’s main export commodities and the Ottoman capital
was both an important market in its own right and essential for the transit
trade to the West. Silk was prominent not only as a material for luxurious gar-
ments, but also because it was used for ceremonial robes of honor (ḫilʿats and
kaftans) presented to Ottoman officials and as diplomatic gifts, and because
senior officials received silk as an in-kind payment. Throughout the 16th cen-
tury, the Ottoman authorities officially prohibited the silk trade with Iran, as
well as the export of bullion to its eastern neighbor. Armenians were exempted
from the prohibition, however, so some commercial traffic between the rival-
ling Safavid and Ottoman powers remained possible even during periods of
military hostilities between them.19
Until the middle of the 17th century, goods from the subcontinent of
South Asia directed to the Ottoman Empire tended to be transported by sea
to Bandar Abbas, on the Strait of Hormuz on the Persian Gulf. From there it
took the goods 24 days to reach Isfahan by caravan, and another four months
to continue overland to Istanbul. An alternative route to Isfahan, overland
through Kandahar, took longer (40 days) but was considerably less expensive
and therefore often used. The third option was to ship merchandise from India
to Basra, then along the Euphrates to the ancient site of Babylon, on to Aleppo,
and then Istanbul, each stage taking 40 days. Some Indian ware arrived in
Istanbul by way of Yemen, a less safe route.20 Traditionally, these imports
18 Eldem, French Trade, 90–112.

19 Matthee, The Politics of Trade in Safavid Iran, 17–23.
20 Warner to the Directors of the Levant Trade, 22 February 1663, in: Heeringa (ed.), Bronnen,
163–64.
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240 van den Boogert
included spices, dyestuffs, and Indian textiles. Affordable Indian calicoes were
particularly popular in the Ottoman markets. But by the second half of the
17th century, as the Dutch and English East India Companies began to obtain
these goods directly from South Asia, the Ottoman Empire lost its role as a
central transit hub in the Indian textile trade.21
3 Interregional Trade: North and South (18th Century)
Henry Grenville, the British ambassador in Istanbul from 1762 to 1765, com-
piled a report at the request of his superiors about “the actual state” of the
Ottoman Empire, in which he spoke at length about interregional trade.
Grenville lamented the steady drop in the volume of trade of the British,
French, and other European nations during this period. He noted that the wars
with Iran in the 1730s and 1740s had all but stopped the flow of goods from Iran,
with the exception of some silk that continued to reach Istanbul overland,22
whereas goods from India continued to arrive by caravans from the east. Why
the caravan trade was still alive was a mystery to Grenville, because transport
by sea was more cost-effective, safer, and quicker.23 It is impossible to quantify
the flow of merchandise arriving in Istanbul and other Ottoman commercial
hubs from India and further east because once the goods entered Ottoman ter-
ritory they became part of the regional trade network. Nevertheless, a French
report from 1780 estimated that the value of the Ottomans’ trade with India
was 5 million piastres.24
According to the British ambassador, the most important branch of
Ottoman trade was with the Black Sea region. By way of the Black Sea, Istanbul
was connected with trade routes to Russia—whence furs and table wine were
imported—and with Poland and the German lands via the Danube. Most
importantly, he explained,
the Black Sea is literally the sea of nourishment for Constantinople, and
it supplies [the city] with nearly all its necessities and comestibles, like
wheat, barley, and millet; salt; live cattle and sheep; lambs; chickens; eggs;
21 İnalcık, with Quataert (eds.), An Economic and Social History, 353–55. On the Ottoman
Empire’s first diplomatic and commercial contacts with Southeast Asia at the end of the
16th century, see Kadı & Peacock, Ottoman-Southeast Asian Relations, vol. 1, 1–74.
22 But see Riedlmayer, “Ottoman-Safavid Relations”, 7–10, who argues that despite the hos-
tilities, trade continued.
23 Grenville, Observations, 55.
24 Eldem, French Trade, 27.
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fresh apples and other fruits; and butter [despite the fact that Grenville
considered English and Dutch butter far superior]; snuff; candles of high
quality; wool; cowhides as well as buffalo hides, both dried and salted …
yellow wax and honey … large quantities of potash; stones for grinding …
hemp; iron, steel, and copper; wood for construction; firewood; coal; box-
wood; caviar; dried and salted fish.25
Throughout the early modern period, the Ottomans refused to allow any
European ships to sail to the Black Sea from Istanbul, a policy which the
European ambassadors attempted to change in the course of the 18th century.
This partly explains why Grenville also lists a variety of merchandise from the
Black Sea that might be of interest for the trade with Europe, such as cotton;
incense; wine; oranges and lemons; dried fruits like figs and raisins; or textiles,
plain and colored, and paper.26
The only European merchants whose businesses continued to flourish in
18th-century Istanbul were the jewelers. Precious stones and jewelry tended
to arrive in Istanbul by way of interregional networks. The market for these
luxury goods was already healthy in Istanbul, but special occasions tended to
increase demand further, such as when a child was born to the reigning sultan
and celebrations were held throughout the Ottoman Empire. For merchants
in jewelry and precious stones, these were particularly lucrative occasions
because, in the words of the Dutch ambassador, “upon the birth of every son or
daughter of the sultan they supply jewelry to the Seraglio with a total average
worth of 300,000 akçe”. The precious stones and jewels were imported—by
“Turks, Greeks, Jews and Armenians” as well as by European merchants—from
Northern Europe, coming overland through Germany.27 No taxes were lev-
ied on jewelry and precious stones, but Ottoman officials reportedly tended to
confiscate small quantities for themselves.28
The second most important branch of Ottoman trade in 18th century was
with Egypt, as ambassador Grenville noted. The principal commodities reach-
ing Istanbul from Egypt were rice and coffee, as well as cereals, flax, brown
sugar, dates, incense, and large quantities of medicinal goods. Grenville also
mentions gold and cosmetic powders from Nubia, at the border of which the
Ottomans had stationed a garrison. “The trade with Egypt is entirely in the
25 Grenville, Observations, 49–50. My translation.

26 Ibid.
27 van Haaften to Fagel, 4 April 1780, in Nanninga (ed.), Bronnen tot de geschiedenis, 294.
28 On the unofficial “fee”, see Pedani, “Ottoman Merchants in the Adriatic Trade”, 155–72,
esp. 166.
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242 van den Boogert
hands of the subjects of the Grand Seignior”, the ambassador reported. Thirty
large ships were constantly involved in the trade with Egypt, since the activi-
ties of the Maltese corsairs had rendered the use of more vulnerable smaller
vessels far too dangerous.29 In the second half of the 18th century, 23 ships
were involved in Istanbul’s exports to Alexandria, while 59 were needed for
the capital’s imports. Rice figured prominently on the latter’s cargo lists. In
the early 1780s, for example, the total exports to Alexandria amounted to
2.36 million livres tournois (c.1.049 million piastres), while the imports from
the same Egyptian port amounted to 8.265 million livres tournois (c.3.633 mil-
lion piastres).30 All this indicates that Istanbul’s imports indeed far exceeded
its exports.
4 Service Industries
Small service industries were crucial in ensuring the smooth connection of

maritime and overland traffic, as well as the distribution of incoming goods
through the city. Merchandise from all directions reached early modern
Istanbul by sea. Istanbul had a multitude of quays, but many foreign merchant
vessels were too big to moor directly to them, so they tended to anchor a short
distance from the shore. Cargos therefore had to be transferred to smaller ves-
sels that then brought the goods to land. Sailors (gemicis) and boatmen (perem-
ecis or ḳayıḳçıs) were thus instrumental in connecting maritime and overland
traffic. On land the merchandise was transported and distributed through the
city by a variety of small service industries that were vital for the everyday
activities of the city’s merchants and their commercial connections with the
outside world. Porters (ḥammāls), cart drivers (ʿarabacıs), brokers of pack ani-
mals (ḫargele miyāncıs), and muleteers (kaṭārcıs), for example, all organized
in the form of guilds, were indispensable for the smooth flow of trade in the
Ottoman capital.
Banking services were equally important. There were no proper banks in
early modern Istanbul, but a number of important banking services were widely
available nonetheless. Hundreds of pious endowments in the city lent out
money at interest, some to generate revenues for the benefit of other activities.
For cash waqfs (pious endowments consisting of cash money from which peo-
ple could apply for loans, paying interest to the endowment), making money
by lending funds was their core business. Although almost all endowments
29 Grenville, Observations, 54–55.

30 Panzac, “Les échanges maritimes”, 177–88, esp. 178.
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mentioned in kadi registers were established and operated by Muslims, their

clients included Christians and Jews. As long as the borrower had some form
of surety or collateral—be it a house, jewelry, or a guarantor (kefīl)—these
endowments offered loans at interest rates between 10 and 20 per cent per
annum. Private individuals also lent out money at interest on similar terms.
Even Muslim preachers engaged in these activities, which underlines the point
that the theoretical Islamic legal ban on interest, although it remained a mat-
ter of debate, was effectively a dead letter in Ottoman Istanbul.31
Another way of obtaining capital for merchants was to form a labour-
capital partnership (muḍārebe). In this type of agreement, labour was divided
between those partners who only invested money, and those who actively used
that money to conduct trade. The profits were then divided between all part-
ners after the business had been concluded.32
Money changers (ṣarrāfs), too, were indispensable for the imperial capital’s
economy, not only because of the variety of (often foreign) currencies in the
marketplace, but also because the value of Ottoman coinage tended to fluctu-
ate. This group became particularly important in the 18th century. The ṣarrāfs
offered limited banking services as well, such as extending personal loans
at interest—interest rates of around 10 per cent being the most common.33
Money changers were found all over Istanbul, but they tended to concentrate
in certain places. An early 18th-century survey shows that no less than seven
ṣarrāfs worked from the Valide Sultan Hanı, the khan founded by Mahpeyher
Kösem Sultan, in the Tahtakale quarter. Their names suggest that four were
Armenian, two were Greek, and one was Jewish. Five of their colleagues, two
Armenian, two Jews, and one Muslim, were located in the Zindankapı (Prison
Gate, in Tahtakale, between the mosque of Rüstem Pasha and the Golden
Horn), which had a khan attached to it.34 Towards the end of the 18th century,
almost half of all the rooms available at the Büyük Yeni Han were occupied by
ṣarrāfs, whose guild headquarters had also moved to this location.35
31 Kuran (ed.), Mahkeme Kayıtları Işığında (hereafter as MKI), vol. 9, 3–30. For the preacher
(ḫāṭib), see vol. 9, 517–18, doc. 495 (AH 1072/CE 1661). A large number of transactions that
included interest were recorded in Istanbul’s courts in Arabic, undoubtedly to obscure
that particular aspect. On cash waqfs and the debate about them, see Gürsoy, “The
Financial Analysis of the Ottoman Cash Waqfs”, 389–413.
32 On muḍārebe partnerships, see Çizakça, A Comparative Evolution of Business Partnerships.
33 On moneychangers, see Şahiner, “The Sarrafs of Istanbul”; and Yaşar, “The Construction of
Commercial Space”, 183–200.
34 Bölükbaşı, “İstanbul Sarrafları”, 37–38.
35 Yaşar, “The Construction of Commercial Space”, 193–95.
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244 van den Boogert
Working with money changers also reduced the risk of receiving counter-
feit coins, or at least helped ensure their early discovery. Paper money only
existed in the form of bills of exchange, which were particularly useful for long-
distance trade.36 In a market where cash tended to be scarce, many transac-
tions were concluded on credit or involved a form of deferred payment.
It is worth noting that only a small minority of commercial dealings were
immediately recorded in the Ottoman courts. A significant number of trans-
actions were not recorded in writing at all, or else written records (teẕkires)
were exchanged privately between the parties involved. Oral agreements were
still very prominent in the Ottoman Empire, where literacy levels remained
low throughout the early modern period.37 This applied to many Ottoman
merchants, whose inability to read and write was offset by their considerable
aptitude for mental calculation. İshak Agha, director of customs in Istanbul in
the first half of the 18th century, was a case in point. As the British ambassador
Henry Grenville reported, “This remarkable man, without ever having learned
to read or write, arranged great affairs with an astonishing exactitude.”38
5 Taxation
Merchandise was taxed in Istanbul at the point of entry (or exit), as well as in
the marketplace and at the entrances to individual khans, the owners of which
claimed a small percentage of the value of all goods that entered the premises.
The city gates and Istanbul’s ports were important nodes in the urban network
of trade because it was there that merchandise was registered and taxed. The
city gates swarmed with goods being offloaded, weighed, assessed, and then
loaded again for further transport. Taxes were imposed and collected there
(for example, at the Edirne Gate, a ḥaḳḳ-ı ḳapı (gate levy) had to be paid),39
and those importing or exporting the goods received a written receipt (teẕkire)
upon payment. Tax collectors tended to be reluctant to honor any fiscal exemp-
tions the Ottoman authorities had granted; they preferred to collect first and
reimburse later if they had to. The customs house on the Golden Horn (near
the Balık Pazarı city gate, behind the Yeni Valide mosque) was where goods
arriving by sea had to be declared and where ship manifests were examined.
From the city’s quaysides and gates, the goods were transported to Istanbul’s
36 Eldem, French Trade, 148–73.

37 Hanna, In Praise of Books, 57–64.
38 Grenville, Observations, 51. My translation.
39 Mantran, “Ḥisba—ii. Ottoman Empire”, EI2, vol. 3, 489–90.
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markets, which were supervised by the muḥtesib, the market inspector, whose
office was farmed out annually, and the holder of this office reported to the kadi
of Istanbul and to the grand vizier. The muḥtesib had a staff of about 15 agents
who were assisted by 16 trainees, all of whom were officially appointed by the
central authorities. It was the muḥtesib who had to make sure that the official
price lists (narḫ) were respected in the marketplace, to oversee the division of
merchandise between wholesalers, traders or artisans, and to collect a vari-
ety of taxes levied from merchants and shopkeepers, such as, for example, the
market tax (bāc-ı bāzār), the stamp or brand duty levied on textiles and met-
als (damġa resmi), and the weighing dues (kapān) that were levied on cereals,
dried vegetables, and other foodstuffs.40
Because taxes tended to be farmed out to a variety of people, Istanbul’s city
gates and marketplaces must have been crawling with tax agents. Sometimes
there were disputes among them about who was entitled to collect which
tax, and occasionally tax collectors took merchants to court if the quantity of
goods they had imported was thought to have been higher than what they had
paid for.41
In Istanbul’s complex marketplace, where a large number of different cur-
rencies and weights circulated, and where traders spoke multiple languages
including Greek, Armenian, Arabic, Persian, and Turkish, brokers (dellāls,
simsārs) formed an indispensable link between sellers and buyers. Until the
17th century, Istanbul’s brokers were organized in a guild. Individual brokers
were hired on transaction basis for a fixed fee, a percentage of which was
remitted to the treasury in the form of taxes, the revenue of which, during the
17th century, was reportedly allocated to the Sultan Ahmed mosque for the
salaries of its staff.42 By the beginning of the 1700s, however, many foreign
merchants began employing brokers of their own, bringing about changes
in the system. The Ottoman authorities now began to levy taxes directly from
the merchants.43
The “mistaria”, as European sources called the maṣdāriye brokerage tax, was
fixed at 1.5 per cent of the value of all incoming and outgoing merchandise
sold by weight at the beginning of the 18th century, except for Turkish yarn,
silk, and cochineal, on which a separate tax (the “stamp tax”, ṭamġa resmi) was
levied. Separate rates existed for various qualities of textiles. In principle, the
40 For a survey of the taxes levied by the muḥtesib, see ibid., 489–90.
41 See, for example, MKI, vol. 2, 232, doc. 153 (AH 1022/CE 1613); 286–87, doc. 196 (AH 1027/
CE 1618).
42 Yi, Guild Dynamics in Seventeenth-Century Istanbul, 246, 248, 251.
43 On brokers, see van den Boogert, “Ottoman Brokers in the 18th-Century Levant Trade”,
368–85.
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246 van den Boogert
seller and the buyer each had to pay half of the “mistaria”, but Muslims were
exempted from paying it. This means that in a transaction involving, for exam-
ple, a Muslim buyer and a Jewish seller, the seller had to pay the entire tax.44
The Europeans in Istanbul imported and exported a variety of commodi-
ties that were taxed in a variety of ways. In principle, the central authorities
fixed customs tariffs for all commercial goods and each port had its own tariff
list, which was adjusted periodically. Occasionally, the tariffs were reduced in
response to complaints. In 1673, for example, the Sublime Porte appointed a
new customs director in Istanbul, who informed all European embassies that
both the rates of individual goods and the exchange rate for the lion dollar were
changing to the advantage of merchants. The 1714 tariff list for the maṣdāriye
mentions the following categories: cloth, other textiles, merchandise traded by
weight, goats’ yarn, buffalo and cow skins, treated hides, window panes, rolls of
tin, mirrors, knives, paper, textiles made from hemp, salted fish, and fresh fish.
The rates depended on who transported the goods and from where.45
6 Dispute Resolution
Despite the wide availability of brokers and interpreters whose services focused
on bridging linguistic and cultural differences between buyers and sellers from
different cultures, misunderstandings, disputes, and (accusations of) fraud
inevitably arose in a bustling trade center like that of Istanbul. The Ottoman
capital offered a variety of legal venues for the adjudication of commercial dis-
putes; the manner in which those involved in disputes accessed such venues
differed, depending on the particulars of the transaction.
Among the merchants—regardless of their religious background and
throughout the early modern period—it was common to seek arbitration
rather than adjudication. In such cases, either a single arbiter or a group of
three was jointly appointed by the two opposing parties to review the dispute
and provide a solution. The arbiters were merchants themselves, who were
familiar with the commercial customs of the parties involved but not per-
sonally connected with the disputed transaction(s). Conducting trade across
cultures in the early modern eastern Mediterranean was largely based on per-
sonal networks. Merchants were expected to be honest and reliable, and his
good reputation was a merchant’s most valuable asset. Both for the parties
44 [The Dutch ambassador] Colyer to the States-General, 1 May 1714, in Heeringa (ed.),
Bronnen, 357–58.
45 Heeringa (ed.), Bronnen, 183–84.
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involved and for the arbiters they appointed, it was therefore important to
establish who had done what and when. For this purpose, the arbiters could
either question witnesses, or ask them for written statements. Before entering
into arbitration, both parties had to declare that they would accept the arbi-
ters’ decision, and failure to do so had a negative impact on one’s reputation.
The outcomes of informal mediation and arbitration were often subsequently
recorded in the kadi courts.
Kadis held court in Istanbul proper, Eyüb, Galata, and Üsküdar. There were
also numerous district courts, such as those in Tophane, Hasköy, Beşiktaş, and
Balat, to which merchants often turned in cases of disputes. More importantly,
the courts also had a notarial function. The Ottoman authorities encouraged
merchants to register their business transactions in court, whereupon they
received a written record (ḥüccet). Such written documents were officially pre-
ferred to oral testimony, and occasionally judges would throw cases out if the
oral evidence resulted in a stalemate. Loans, too, were often recorded in the
Ottoman legal courts.46
The kadi courts were open to Muslims and non-Muslims alike, but the
Christian and Jewish communities of Istanbul also had legal courts of their
own, a privilege for which non-Muslims paid a fee to the Ottoman state.47
Commercial disputes among Jewish merchants were usually heard by the rab-
binical courts (in Istanbul’s Balat district, Galata, and the Bosphorus suburbs of
Ortaköy and Kuzguncuk), which discouraged Jewish merchants from seeking
recourse in the Islamic courts.48 The same was true of Christians’ (Patriarchal)
courts. Their formal jurisdiction appears to have been limited to religious mat-
ters and family law, but in practice they may well have served for the adjudica-
tion of disputes of other kinds too. Just like the kadi courts, Patriarchal courts
also had a notarial function, which Christian merchants used to register trans-
actions and loans.49 The document of investiture (berāt) that the Ottoman
authorities issued to a patriarch alluded to the latter’s role as a mediator within
his own community, and codified his right to excommunicate members of his
flock, a sanction that may well have been used to discourage Christian mer-
chants from resorting to the kadi courts. Nevertheless, among both Christians
and Jews, when a party in a dispute adjudicated by a Christian or Jewish court
was unhappy with the outcome, (s)he could then turn to the Islamic court in
another attempt to obtain a more favorable decision.
46 Tamdoğan, “Sulh”, 55–83; Zarinebaf, Crime and Punishment in Istanbul, 143–48.

47 Rozen, A History of the Jewish Community, 28ff.
48 Bornstein-Makovetsky, “Av Bet Din in the Ottoman Empire”, 293.
49 Anastasopoulos, “Non-Muslims and Ottoman Justice(s?)”, 275–92.
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248 van den Boogert
In addition to the Islamic courts and those of the Jewish and Christian com-
munities in Istanbul, European ambassadors had a limited degree of legal
jurisdiction over their own countrymen residing in the Ottoman Empire. From
the 16th century onward, this was specified in the capitulations, the charters of
privileges that the sultans granted to the subjects of foreign rulers who wanted
to conduct trade in the Ottoman Empire. The ambassadors’ prerogatives
were limited to disputes among members of their own communities, but also
included the adjudication of cases in which a countryman was sued by a mem-
ber of another European community. “Ambassadorial courts” were organized
on an ad hoc basis and early modern embassies did not have a dedicated court-
room. They upheld general trade customs among Western merchants, not the
laws of the country represented. Locally recruited interpreters (tercümāns), all
non-Muslim, were invariably important in these proceedings, especially when
they involved Ottoman subjects. Each embassy had a chancery as well, where
trade-related documents of all kinds were registered, not only by European but
also, at times, by Ottoman merchants.50
Which legal forum was the most suitable for a given dispute was largely
decided by the parties involved. The kadi courts were often chosen for a variety
of reasons. For one, Muslim judges acknowledged and respected legal customs
among merchants as long as they were not contrary to Islamic law. They were
also competent in the widest variety of cases, ensuring the relatively more effi-
cient and effective resolution of complex issues; and they were more capable
of enforcing their verdicts in comparison to the Christian, Jewish, and ambas-
sadorial courts. A closer look at the records of Istanbul’s kadi courts will there-
fore shed valuable light on the various merchant groups active in the Ottoman
capital and the problems they encountered as they went about their business.
7 Merchant Groups
On 19 Şevval 1071/17 June 1661, the legal agent of a resident of Üsküdar, Abdullah
Agha, took to court Bedros, the son of Matos, an Armenian from Iran who
resided in Üsküdar’s Reis quarter. The plaintiff claimed that the late Hüseyin,
a manumitted slave of his, had been owed 700 kurush by Rabbi Peres, son of
Paroh, of the Alaman (i.e., Ashkenazi) community in Istanbul. Because Bedros
had been the rabbi’s business partner and stood as surety for him, Abdullah
Agha, Hüseyin’s only heir, now demanded payment from Bedros. Bedros con-
firmed his partnership with the rabbi and another Armenian, identified as
50 van den Boogert, The Capitulations.
- 978-90-04-46856-6
“Tesseli”, but he claimed that 480 kurush had already been repaid, leaving a
debt of only 220 kurush. The court gave Bedros time to produce written evi-
dence of this, but he failed to do so. The court then sent an officer to the plain-
tiff’s house, where Abdullah Agha repeated his testimony from his sickbed and
took an oath that he had not received the partial repayment. On the basis of
this oath, the plaintiff won the case. Having no cash, Bedros gave Abdullah
Agha 20 diamonds, 63 small diamonds, a golden cup inlaid with two pearls,
and five pearls from Bahrein as surety. When Bedros paid the 700 kurush he
owed in cash, Abdullah Agha returned the goods to him, and the dispute
was settled.51
This document from the kadi court of Galata points to the different groups
active in trade in the Ottoman capital during the early modern period. It raises
interesting questions in this regard, most notably regarding merchants’ orga-
nization and guild membership. We know already, based on recent scholar-
ship, that several groups of merchants had guilds of their own;52 this was the
case, for example, for Istanbul’s slave dealers, dealers in second-hand goods,
and sellers of raw silk and silk textiles, as well as for Bursa merchants and “Arab
merchants”. But it is not clear whether everyone who earned a living predomi-
nantly through trade activities was a member of a guild.
In the first document referring to the case described above, the Armenian
merchant Bedros is described as tüccār ṭāʾifesinden, i.e. “from among the ṭāʾife
of the merchants”, the word ṭāʾife generally meaning “group”, while also denot-
ing “guild”. A similar reference to “the merchants’ guild”, which appears in a
17th-century court document concerning the purchase, distribution, and sale
of leather in Istanbul, sheds more light on the expression and on the differ-
ence between two commonly used terms in the legal records for merchant:
namely, tācir and bāzergān.53 This document records the complaint of the
guild of the merchants of Istanbul’s Bedestan against el-Hajj Mahmud Beşe
b. Ali, a bāzergān who was in league with two Muslim tācirs. Contrary to the
customs of the guild, the three accused had brought processed leather into
the city from the countryside to sell in their shops. The plaintiffs produced an
imperial decree stating explicitly that only bāzergāns were allowed this prac-
tice. Yet by selling exclusively to the two Muslim merchants, el-Hajj Mahmud
and the merchants effectively formed a partnership that bypassed the guild
and its other members. The accused confirmed the accusations leveled against
51 MKI, vol. 2, 326–28, doc. 223 and doc. 224 (AH 1026/CE 1617); 359–364, docs. 247 and 248
(AH 1071/CE 1661).
52 Yi, Guild Dynamics in Seventeenth-Century Istanbul, 246, 250, 251, 252.
53 Also spelled bāzırgān or bāzargān.
- 978-90-04-46856-6
250 van den Boogert
Figure 9.2
Marchand Turcque. Gouache and
watercolor after Nicolas de Nicolay
(1517–83). BnF, département Estampes
et photographie, RESERVE 4-OD-20
them, whereupon the judge emphasized that there was a difference between
bāzergānlık and tācirs, the former being an itinerant occupation, and the latter
a stationary one.54
In addition to the “professional” merchants, we come across members from
all walks of life in Istanbul’s court records who appear to have been involved
in trade as an extracurricular activity. Trade, in fact, was an activity in which
people from all ranks of the city’s diverse society engaged, and was not limited
only to those whose livelihood depended entirely on commercial activities.
For example, we find imperial guards (bostāncıs), whose principal task was to
tend and guard the palace gardens, and who were responsible for the imperial
boathouses and rowboats. The court records suggest that they supplemented
their salaries with commercial activities on the side. In a record from the 17th
century, we find a palace guard (müteferriḳa) who acquired half of a trade
ship, and two janissaries in commercial partnerships involving the ownership
of boats. We even find a princess, Ayşe Sultan, daughter of Sultan Murad III,
who, presumably as a silent partner, owned half of a galley built in Sinop and
54 MKI, vol. 2, 394–97, doc. 269 (AH 1072/CE 1661). On this same distinction (but referring to
different terminology), see Çizakça, A Comparative Evolution of Business Partnerships, 66.
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that was worth 1 million aḳçe; the other half belonged to a certain Yusuf Reis,
probably its captain.55 Other documents mention a rabbi who participated in
a business partnership, and one Judah ben Samuel Rosanes, known as a bril-
liant rabbinical scholar within the Jewish community of early 18th-century
Istanbul whose sermons were published soon after his death, in 1727. Active
also as a merchant and banker, Rosanes earned a comfortable living as an ocaḳ
bāzergānı, i.e. as a commercial and financial agent as well as a purveyor for
the janissary corps.56 The janissaries themselves formed a notable category of
Ottomans who increasingly became involved in trade and artisanal industries
from the late 16th and early 17th century onward.57
If one thing is abundantly clear on the basis of the available evidence, it
is that Muslims and non-Muslims, Ottoman subjects and foreigners, were
involved in trade. It has been claimed that interregional trade in particular was
shunned by pious Muslims because they supposedly considered dealing with
infidels “the dirtiest trade of all”.58 This claim—apparently based on normative
texts rather than historical records—is belied by our sources. Notable Muslims
throughout the Ottoman Empire were actively engaged in trade, includ-
ing trade that involved unbelievers, and Istanbul was no exception. In 18th-
century Istanbul trade in sugar, coffee, and some textile products was almost
exclusively in the hands of Muslim merchants.59
8 Conclusion
Istanbul’s cityscape today still reflects the city’s age-old role as a commercial
hub. Right in the heart of the imperial city, between the Old and the New
Palaces (the now vanished Eski Saray and the Topkapı Palace), many a com-
mercial structure dating back to the early modern period still stands. It was
there that commodities from all directions arrived, and it was there that the
merchants who accompanied them found temporary lodgings. These build-
ings were tangible evidence of the Ottoman state’s commitment to inter-
regional trade. Merchants from both the Ottoman Empire itself and abroad
55 MKI, vol. 2, 46–48: doc. 20 (AH 1013/CE 1604); 82–83, doc. 44 (AH 1013/CE 1604); 160–161,
doc. 104 (AH 1014/CE 1605); 166–167, doc. 109 (AH 1014/CE 1605).
56 Ben Naeh, “Rosanes (Rosales) Family”, 185–86.
57 See the contributions by Faroqhi and Yılmaz in this volume.
58 Lewis, The Muslim Discovery of Europe, 105–06.
59 Eldem, French Trade, 221; see ibid., 223: “Muslims … were unavoidable when it came to
the trade in foodstuffs—particularly sugar and coffee—over which they held a quasi-
monopoly.” Also see Kafadar, “A Death in Venice”, 191–218.
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252 van den Boogert
(from Iran, India, and Western Europe) who travelled to Istanbul benefitted
from this highly developed urban infrastructure. In addition, the Empire had a
well-developed network of legal courts throughout its vast territories, and legal
deeds issued in any of these courts were valid anywhere else in the empire.
This legal framework, which was remarkably stable throughout the early
modern period, was very important for the Ottoman infrastructure of long-
distance trade. Istanbul was home to the empire’s highest legal authorities, and
some court cases involved the Imperial Divan, where the claims of individual
Ottoman merchants were occasionally elevated to matters of international
diplomacy and adjudication.
While early modern Europe embraced the policy of mercantilism, the
Ottoman Empire did not have a single coherent and protective approach to its
own economy. This did not mean that it had no commercial policies whatso-
ever; the Ottoman authorities strongly regulated trade, just not with the aim
of maximizing their own exports. The administration was focused on guaran-
teeing the supply of essential commodities, on pricing, and on the diversity
of products that were (made) available in markets across the Empire.60 With
regard to long-distance trade with Western Europe, the policy of granting
capitulations was not only implemented over a period of several centuries, but
it also remained remarkably consistent throughout the early modern period.
Western European merchants benefited from the stability and predictability of
Ottoman trade policies. Throughout the early modern period they could rely
on the Ottoman authorities to uphold the commercial privileges they had been
granted, privileges that had been designed to stimulate interregional trade
and to encourage Western merchants to travel to Istanbul and other Ottoman
entrepôts to conduct trade. Galata and Pera, the districts of Istanbul in which
these foreigners tended to settle, are still among the most cosmopolitan areas
of the city today.
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Chapter 10
Artisans and Guilds

Practices, Negotiations, and Conflicts
Suraiya Faroqhi
1 Bureaucracies, Policies, and Records
Our study focuses on relations between Istanbul artisans and the officials of
the sultan, dealing with the period beginning in the later 16th century and end-
ing in the early 1800s, before the redefinition of relations between Ottoman
subjects—including craftsmen—and the sultans’ officials, which we associate
with the Tanzimat (1839–76). In the roughly 250 years covered, this relation-
ship changed considerably, due in no small part to the increasing bureaucrati-
zation that began in the late 1400s and gathered pace in the mid-16th century,
when finance officials gained a separate career identity, producing ever larger
masses of records.1 However, the production of non-financial documents
increased during the same time: the Registers of Important Affairs (Mühimme
Defterleri), containing considerable amounts of information on Istanbul arti-
sans, also survive from this period. Admittedly, officials may have compiled
comparable chancery records already from the late 15th century onwards, but
no evidence for this has survived.2
The registers of the various kadis officiating in Istanbul are the key source on
artisan life; these judges were always religious-cum-legal scholars (ulema) and
core members of the Ottoman administration. During the 15th and 16th cen-
turies, their certification and promotion became the province of a few highly
placed scholar-officials appointed directly by the sultan. Moreover, ulema were
influential beyond their special fields: certain “border-crossers” might begin
their careers as candidate academics and judges, but later transfer to scribal
or financial careers, bringing their knowledge of Islamic law and legal reason-
ing into the developing bureaucratic apparatus.3 As a consequence, many of
the senior scribes responsible for the documents produced by the Ottoman
1 Röhrborn, Untersuchungen, 3–13; Fleischer, Bureaucrat and Intellectual, 218–20.

2 For the earliest surviving Mühimme Defteri (1544–46), see Sahillioğlu (ed.), H. 951–952 Tarihli
Mühimme Defteri.
3 Itzkowitz, “Eighteenth-Century Ottoman Realities”.

Artisans and Guilds 257
chancery, though not themselves ulema, approached artisan problems from

a similar perspective. During this process of centralization, officials produced
prodigious volumes of documentation that historians of the 20th and 21st
centuries have been studying for quite some time. Even so, we are only begin-
ning to understand the implications of these multifarious records. Our lim-
ited knowledge has, until quite recently, tempted us to imagine the process
of bureaucratization as more orderly than it was in real life. In actuality, dif-
ficulties abounded, and officials struggled for place and status, with the venue
mostly centered on Istanbul.4
As the bureaucracy increased its capacity for enforcement, the attempts of
Sultans Osman II (r. 1618–22) and Murad IV (r. 1623–40) to assert control over
society affected relations between Istanbul artisans and officialdom, some-
times in a dramatic fashion. While the trade in and preparation of coffee had
been lively branches of activity in the late 1500s, the brutal attempts of Murad IV
to eradicate this pastime must have led to sizeable numbers of enforcers ter-
rorizing the city’s coffee consumers, while putting quite a few Istanbul shop-
keepers and coffeehouse servants out of work. Some of these people may have
escaped to provincial towns, including Bursa, where it seems enforcement was
more casual.5 However, despite the existence of such “escape hatches”, in the
1600s and 1700s bureaucratization strengthened the hold of officialdom over
the artisan world.
Craftspeople required customers, raw materials, and skills; therefore we
begin with a short discussion of the economic context in which they needed
to work. In the second section of this chapter, we focus on the power of offi-
cials, both legal and extralegal. The third section deals with the ways in which
Istanbul artisans and shopkeepers reacted to elite pressure, both by anticipa-
tory obedience and accommodation to the ruler’s demands, as best they could.
Even so, “foot-dragging” was probably widespread as well, although difficult
to prove; in other situations, only visible through a glass darkly, we may sus-
pect that artisans transferred their frustration and aggression from mostly
sacrosanct officials to more vulnerable colleagues—and especially to appren-
tices. By contrast, given the differentials in power between officials on the one
hand, and traders or artisans on the other, open resistance on the part of the
4 Three comparatively recent studies: Klein, Die osmanischen Ulema; Beyazıt, Osmanlı İlmiyye
Sisteminde İstihdam; and Atçıl, Scholars and Sultans. Beyazıt has introduced us to the trou-
bles with which a young scholar had to contend even before becoming a recognized candi-
date for office.
5 Evliya visited Bursa for the first time in 1640: İlgürel, “Evliya Çelebi”, 529. If Evliya’s descrip-
tion of the city’s flourishing coffee shops goes back to this period, perhaps in practice, the
sultan’s prohibitions mainly concerned Istanbul.
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258 Faroqhi
latter was rare.6 We treat this aspect briefly, as the participation of artisans in
Istanbul rebellions is the subject of other articles in this volume; the actors of
such rebellions were often people with ties to the soldiery.7 Moreover, we need
to keep in mind that Christian and Jewish artisans, active in the Istanbul mar-
ketplace in sizeable numbers, never became soldiers; their attitudes to urban
rebellions remain largely unknown.
2 The Economic Background, or the Uniqueness of Istanbul in the

Ottoman Craft World
From the artisans’ point of view, Istanbul differed profoundly from all other cit-
ies: locally produced objects primarily went to a local clientele, whereas manu-
facturing centers like Bursa or Ankara worked, at least in part, for interregional
and even interimperial markets. Thus, in the late 16th and early 17th centuries,
foreign demand for Ankara mohair yarn and fabrics was buoyant enough for
Venetian and Polish merchants to spend time in the city.8 By contrast, artisans
working in Istanbul rarely supplied customers in distant venues.9 Therefore,
they mostly avoided dependence on merchants when conveying their prod-
ucts to the customer, a common problem for craftspeople in other manufactur-
ing centers.
However, Istanbul artisans had other fairly serious problems in that they
were subject to far more official regulation than would have been typical in the
large provincial cities. If Istanbul artisans produced bread—a perpetual cause
for concern—or luxuries meant for consumption by the Ottoman elites, this
supervision would have been even stricter.
Istanbul craftspeople also needed to take into account that the goods manu-
factured by provincials might compete against their own products. After all,
unless they worked for export, which was infrequent, provincial artisans could
pay their taxes much more easily by focusing on the Istanbul market, where
there was a high concentration of relatively affluent customers. Mübahat
Kütükoğlu has published a detailed register of administratively decreed prices
(narḫ), dated to the year 1640. A casual survey of this register shows that stone-
ware from Dimetoka (Didymoteicho, Greece), decorated or undecorated felts
6 For an exceptional case of traders attacking a customs official see Sarınay et al. (eds.), 85
Numaralı Mühimme Defteri, 137 no. 227 (AH 1040/CE 1630/31).
7 Yi, Guild Dynamics in Seventeenth-Century Istanbul; and Yılmaz Diko, “Blurred Boundaries”.
8 Ergenç, “1600–1615 Yılları Arasında”.
9 Compare the pioneering monograph of Mantran, Istanbul, 179–85.
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from Edirne, or water jugs from Kastamonu were available to Istanbul buy-
ers, to say nothing of “Portuguese” coffee cups, probably of Chinese origin.10
Provincial centers offered a more restricted spectrum of mostly local goods;
thus, a very thorough study of the textiles available in Damascus around 1700
shows that Bursa silks were unknown, or at least so rare that the scribes did
not recognize or record them.11 Thus, Damascene silk weavers probably com-
peted with manufacturers from other Ottoman centers only in exceptional
cases, if at all.
Given these differences, we cannot assume without verification that obser-
vations concerning craftspeople from large provincial cities with a sizeable
manufacturing sector, such as Damascus, Cairo, Salonika, or Bursa were valid
in Istanbul as well. Conversely, while the documentation on Istanbul artisans
is much fuller than comparable archives surviving in the provinces, we should
not assume without confirmatory evidence that conditions documented for
Istanbul also existed elsewhere.
From the early 1500s onwards, artisans in Istanbul developed craft organiza-
tions, although the loss of the 16th-century kadi registers for the intra muros
section of the capital makes it difficult to follow this process. Establishing such
organizations must have been a complicated affair, as many, if not most, crafts-
people active in 16th-century Istanbul were migrants from towns and cities
with widely varying traditions. Even so, the registers of Üsküdar, a separate
township whose integration into Istanbul took place during the 16th century,
show that some headmen of artisan groups, known as ketḫüdās, appeared in
the kadi’s court of the mid-1500s representing the interests of the relevant
craft masters. Thus, it makes sense to regard these groupings as variants of
the more general category known as “artisan guild”, called eṣnāf or ḥirfet in
Ottoman sources.
At an early stage of research into Ottoman social history, Gabriel Baer
(1919–1982) believed that Ottoman artisan organizations were completely
under the control of the sultans’ bureaucracy, although he changed his mind
after reading the study of Haim Gerber, who demonstrated the very consider-
able scope for agency that craftspeople enjoyed in 17th-century Bursa.12 Today,
after the pathbreaking work of Eunjeong Yi, most scholars agree that Ottoman
artisans had enough scope for independent action for their organizations to
10 Kütükoğlu, Osmanlılarda Narh Müessesesi, 267, 216, 203, 197.

11 Establet & Pasqual, Des tissus et des hommes.
12 Baer, “Turkish Guilds”; Gerber, Economy and Society in an Ottoman City. While Baer died
before the publication of Gerber’s work, he knew it well, having been Gerber’s doc-
toral adviser.
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260 Faroqhi
merit the name of “guild”; put differently, we should not regard them as mere
extensions of the Ottoman bureaucracy.13 After all, not all artisans of Latinate
Europe, especially those in royal capitals including Paris or Naples, enjoyed the
potential for political action available in certain cities of northern and central
Italy or in Flanders during the Middle Ages. While, as emphasized in this chap-
ter, the Ottoman bureaucracy did have a powerful impact, it is unrealistic to
deny Istanbul artisan guilds any space for maneuver.
Established artisans, who by the 17th century were guild members even if
quite poor, had an advantage over other people active in crafts and petty trade
who lacked this protection. Recent migrants to the city might be unable to
enter the relevant guilds, and thus they might try to make some money by sell-
ing their goods in out-of-the-way places. We learn something about such peo-
ple mostly through the complaints of guild members. Apprentices, especially
those with long apprenticeships, might perform a good deal of work, but were
provided with little protection, since apprenticeship contracts seem to have
been rare.14 In certain trades requiring only limited training, housewives, by
definition outsiders to the guilds, might boost family income by selling “home-
made” products, much to the ire of the affected guildsmen.
3 The Power of Officials Who Decreed the Prices at Which They

Would Buy
In Istanbul during the 1600s, the power of officialdom was apparent from the
simple fact that quite a few artisan guilds were under the direction of officials,
including the bazār başı, in charge of palace provisioning. However, we know
very little about the manner in which these people exercised their authority.
Presumably, these officials concerned themselves above all with the procure-
ment of goods for the sultans’ palace at minimal prices. As for the butchers,
they took their cue from the ḳaṣṣāb başı, likely a military man.15 Apart from
Bursa, where specialist artisans prepared foodstuffs for the consumption of the
sultan, palace officials did not often supervise artisans working in other cities,
if only because the officeholders concerned lived in Istanbul, and Istanbul was
far away from these other cities.16

14 Turna, “Ottoman Apprentices”. Although this article focuses on the 1800s, the author has
made interesting observations about the 18th century as well.
15 Faroqhi, Artisans of Empire, 71, 146–47.
16 On Bursa artisans in court service, see Bilgin, Bursa Hassa Harç Eminliği. Seemingly, arti-
sans supervised by an often temporary official (emīn) were largely active in ateliers work-
ing for the court and the military.
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At the same time, many officeholders controlling manufacture and trade

did not receive salaries, but instead farmed their offices. Thus, they had per-
sonal financial interests to consider, apart from whatever commands the sul-
tan might have issued; and it is hard to separate the attempts of the tax farmer
to maximize his gains from the interests of the exchequer, properly speaking.17
Thus, the market inspector of the 17th century (muḥtesib) often held revenues
such as the iḥtisābiye in farm; and with likely abuses in mind, Evliya Çelebi
warned that muḥtesibs would have to account for their actions on Judgement
Day.18 In a different vein, a tax farmer in charge of a source of alum, needed
by dyers and tanners, might have difficulty in marketing the product of “his”
mine, and, his machinations to find customers might cause a good deal of trou-
ble for Istanbul artisans.19
Moreover, in the early 17th century, the social backgrounds of the tax farm-
ers changed. The Ottoman military replaced the former Jewish and Muslim
tax farmers, non-privileged but moneyed men, who were part of the taxpaying
(reʿāyā) population.20 Perhaps the sultans intended to reinforce the division
between the servitors of the monarch (ʿaskerī) and the reʿāyā, a distinction,
which was becoming blurred at just this time.21 Whatever the truth of the
matter may have been, this move surely enhanced the power of officialdom
over artisans. After all, soldiers who turned into tax farmers might exert con-
trol over artisan inputs and outputs, both of which passed through (internal)
customs stations—these were normally held as tax farms and were now in the
hands of military men. We can thus conclude that in the early 1600s, the mili-
tary, whose members were gaining a preeminent place in the Ottoman polity,
strengthened its control over the artisan world.
The price lists (narḫ defterleri) specifying the fees and prices that artisans
might charge were much more detailed in the Ottoman capital than they were
in the provinces, where they often contained only a few basic foodstuffs and
raw materials. Certainly, the regulation of the prices of a few key inputs might
shape the entire urban economy. If, for instance, government officials set the
price for raw unspun cotton, the prices of cotton thread and fabrics may have
so closely depended on the price of the principal raw material that further reg-
ulation became unnecessary. Even so, certain provincial artisans, like those in
17th-century Cairo, for a notable example, probably had more room for maneu-
ver than their Istanbul colleagues could ever hope to obtain. In Cairo during
17 Mustafa Âli, Counsel for Sultans, vol. 1, ed. Tietze, 66.

18 Evliya Çelebi, Evliya Çelebi Seyahatnâmesi, vol. 1, ed. Dankoff, Kahraman, Dağlı, 296.
19 Faroqhi, “Alum Production”.
20 Genç, “Ottoman Industry”, 62; Çizakça, “The Economy”, 271.
21 Yılmaz Diko, “Blurred Boundaries”.
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262 Faroqhi
the 1600s, Nelly Hanna has located oil pressers who not only made a decent
living, but could transfer their wealth to the following generation.22 To date,
we have not found similar artisan “family firms” in Istanbul, although some
examples may yet emerge in the future.
Given the stylized character of Ottoman documents, we do not know much
about the concrete circumstances under which officials and artisan repre-
sentatives negotiated administratively decreed prices prior to the sultans’
servitors promulgating and enforcing them. However, an agreement involv-
ing the Istanbul chicken sellers (1630/31) provides at least a general idea.23
Represented by their guild elders (ketḫüdā, yiġitbaşı), the chicken sellers
explained that when the birds came in from the countryside they were lean
and needed extra feed. As some of the animals died before sale, the sellers
calculated that they would have to spend 3 aḳçe per bird before marketing. In
addition, they assumed that they would purchase three categories of chicken,
paying 14, 13, and 12 aḳçe per animal. As for the profit that the salesmen allotted
to themselves, it was extremely modest, for they proposed to sell the chickens
at 18, 17, and 16 aḳçe per animal. After deducting the 3 aḳçe for costs, only 1 aḳçe
of profit remained. For the most expensive birds, this amounted to about a
7 per cent profit, while for the median-priced birds resulted in a profit of about
7.7 per cent, and the cheapest birds yielded roughly an 8.3 per cent profit. Thus,
the sellers needed to sell a lot of birds to make ends meet; no official seems to
have questioned whether such a small margin would allow the chicken sellers
to feed their families. Of course, we should not neglect Cemal Kafadar’s warn-
ing that we do not know to what extent the sellers really sold their goods at the
prices specified: while members of the administration would not have paid
a single aḳçe over the administratively imposed prices, the sellers might well
have charged non-official customers something more than the narḫ.24
In the price register of 1640, officials omitted most of the details that had
been discussed a decade earlier, and the new document merely decrees that
chickens should sell at 14 aḳçe apiece. This price was thus not only lower than
its counterpart negotiated in 1630/31, but significantly below the level that offi-
cials had fixed in 1600, namely 18 aḳçe.25 While artisans and salespeople were
to sell at lower prices because the government had increased the silver con-
tent of the aḳçe, we do not know how officials thought that sellers and buyers
22 Hanna, Artisan Entrepreneurs.

23 Sarınay et al. (eds.), 85 Numaralı Mühimme Defteri, 71, no. 112.
24 Kafadar, “When Coins Turned into Drops of Dew”, 128–29. The author’s sophisticated dis-
cussion of the narḫ (117–38) remains unsurpassed.
25 Kütükoğlu, Osmanlılarda Narh Müessesesi, 48.
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should handle the uncomfortable fact that living beings, including chickens,
are not of a standard size. Perhaps after 1640, the sellers offered smaller chick-
ens, thus saving on the costs of feed.
In determining officially sanctioned prices, the kadis played an important
role, but these officials mostly knew little about the abundance or scarcity of
copper, cotton, or leather in the producing regions, nor would they always have
known about storms that prevented essential raw materials from reaching the
city on time. For such information, they relied on senior and experienced arti-
sans, the ehl-i ḫibre, whom we find among 17th-century furriers, members of
the building trades, boat builders, barbers, and many other Istanbul craftspeo-
ple. We do not know how an artisan gained recognition as a person suitable
for membership in this select group. Was it sufficient to be a knowledgeable
craftsman, or did he need to possess other qualities as well? Was it possible for
a non-Muslim to be a member of the ehl-i ḫibre? Historians have not shown
much interest in this question, presumably because references to this group
are so brief and casual; but as we now possess a growing number of editions
of documents with good indices, we may want to revisit these somewhat enig-
matic senior artisans.
Other officeholders intervened in the process of price-fixing as well, legally
or illegally. Artisans might complain that the official prices for wood or tim-
ber were insufficient because the janissaries or candidate janissaries control-
ling the boats that transported this essential raw material from northwestern
Anatolia to the capital demanded excessively high transportation fees.26 In
such negotiations, the artisans were presumably the weaker party, but the offi-
cials had to keep in mind that if they imposed conditions that did not per-
mit artisans to survive, the latter might not produce the high-quality goods
demanded by their superiors. Theoretically, underpaid artisans might have
fled the capital to make a living in other cities. However, since we have plenty
of complaints—which must have originated from the Ottoman elite—about
Istanbul being overcrowded and thus unmanageable, rather than about a lack
of qualified artisans, it does not seem that many artisans left for provincial
towns in the hope of higher returns for their labors. On the contrary, many
migrants must have entered Istanbul to ply their crafts and trades, often with
the support of relatives and fellow villagers already established in the city.27
Presumably, the massed purchasing power of the sultans’ officials was a rea-
son to remain in place. The palace certainly received many goods in lieu of
taxes or at below-market prices. Conversely, the numerous religious scholars
26 Faroqhi, Towns and Townsmen, 78–79.

27 Kırlı, “A Profile”.
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264 Faroqhi
or pashas temporarily in Istanbul and awaiting new appointments must have

bought significant quantities of consumer goods in the urban market. In addi-
tion, many tax farmers and scribes in the employment of sultans and viziers
lived in the Ottoman capital for long spans of time; as Halil İnalcık already
explained in the 1950s, a medium-level official often had more money at his
disposal than a rich merchant could ever hope to obtain.28 To support these
hypotheses, we may point out that when in 1703 a coalition of soldiers and
mostly low-level religious scholars deposed Mustafa II (r. 1695–1703) and put
Ahmed III (r. 1703–30) in his place, the new ruler promised that henceforth
he would never reside in Edirne. The sultan presumably made this concession
because he wanted to reassure the craftspeople of the capital by promising
them that they would continue to benefit from elite demand.29
4 Controlling Artisans through the Assignment of Workspaces
Over the last few decades, historians have discovered that the holding of a “slot”
or gedik, “a bundle of rights and obligations” that allowed an artisan to prac-
tice his trade legally, usually in a specified location, was not a perennial char-
acteristic of Istanbul artisan life.30 On the contrary, such arrangements had
been infrequent in the mid-1600s, as is apparent from the rarity of references
in the extensive description of Istanbul’s artisans by Evliya Çelebi.31 By the
1720s and 1730s, however, we encounter something that—sit venia verbo—we
may call the gedikization of Istanbul crafts. In the kadi registers of the period,
and in individual documents as well, we encounter unnamed officials and/or
guildsmen touring the city in order to determine where a given manufacturer
of halva or seller of cheap textiles might legally set up shop. Presumably, not
all crafts received their gediks at the same time; but over the 18th century, the
process was cumulative.
Historians of Ottoman crafts have connected this development with the
spread of long-term artisan tenancies in shops owned by pious foundations
(waqf, awqāf ). When one of the numerous Istanbul fires devastated large
numbers of workspaces, the administrators might have no option but to rent
the relevant shops/workshops to whomever would invest in repairs or even in
28 İnalcık, “15. Asır”, 60.

29 Abou-El-Haj, The 1703 Rebellion, 86.
30 Akarlı, “Gedik”.
31 Consult the index of Evliya Çelebi, Evliya Çelebi Seyahatnâmesi, vol. 1, ed. Dankoff,
Kahraman, Dağlı. For an early reference to a gedik belonging to a water carrier, see Sarınay
et al. (eds.), 85 Numaralı Mühimme Defteri, 99, no. 163 (AH 1040/CE 1630/31).
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rebuilding endeavors. Investors would only make funds available if they were
certain that they would hold on to the structure in question for a reasonably
long time. Foundation administrators thus allowed lengthy tenures, which
were otherwise avoided because they were potentially disadvantageous to the
pious foundation in their care. In this manner, there emerged the “double-
rent” (icāreteyn) contract, which involved the tenant paying a substantial sum
of money up front and paying a fixed and fairly low rent over the course of his
own life and that would continue during the lives of his descendants.32
The possession of such contracts was likely preliminary to the institution
of the gedik. In recent years, the latter especially has interested historians
because of its apparent proximity to private property.33 After all, some artisans
sold and rented their gediks without much reference to their guilds, although in
other instances, craftspeople suffered penalties if they transferred their “slots”
without permission from their guilds, even if only for a limited time span.34
While some artisans gained advantage from possessing a gedik, this arrange-
ment could also serve as a means for disciplining them.35 The knowledge of
where to find a given artisan during working hours no doubt greatly facili-
tated policing. Moreover, if his neighbors felt that he harbored “undesirable”
migrants or disregarded guild regulations, they would find it easier to identify
the suspect to the authorities if they could refer to the location of his gedik.
When it came to making Istanbul urbanites more visible to the authorities,
this was a significant advantage given the rareness of surnames among the
common people and given the prevalence of “standard” given names such as
Ahmed, Mehmed, or Mustafa.
5 Limiting the Use of Gold and Silver as a Means of Control

over Artisans
The control of officialdom over Istanbul artisans is particularly apparent

when it comes to crafts using gold and silver, a subject which therefore mer-
its a short special discussion. Istanbul was home to a significant number of
wealthy people: if they were male, they might ornament their weapons and
horse gear with silver inlays; if they were female, they might possess coronets,
32 Kreiser, “Icareteyn”.
33 Ağır & Yıldırım, “Gedik”.
34 Demirtaş, Osmanlı Esnafında Suç ve Ceza, 108–11.
35 Başaran, Selim III, 146–47. I am happy to say that Başaran’s conclusions are very similar to
my own.
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266 Faroqhi
bracelets, earrings, and rings. Both genders spent money on belts and belt
clasps. Moreover, wealthy householders sometimes had pieces of copperware
coated with thin layers of gold, producing an opulent appearance that contin-
ues to impress viewers today.36 In addition, certain textiles featured embroider-
ies or woven decorations containing gold and silver thread. Seventeenth- and
eighteenth-century illustrations by local and foreign artists show that members
of the elite—and sometimes their slaves—sported such decorations as well.
On the other hand, despite the 16th-century influx of silver from the
Americas, and, to a lesser extent, of gold from Africa, these metals were often
in short supply. In part, this was due to the outflow of precious metals to India
to meet Ottoman demand for good-quality Indian textiles, to say nothing of
pepper and other spices. Since diamonds and pearls were popular components
of the jewelry owned by wealthy women, a certain amount of silver must have
been paid to import these precious items coming from the Gulf of Basra and
from southern India as well.37 In addition, after the 1630s, Yemen was no longer
part of the Ottoman Empire; but as coffee gained in popularity, the export of
silver to buy coffee must have been significant too.
At the same time, the Ottoman monarchs were often at war, and wars were
costly. Additionally, and perhaps in an effort to make political and social hier-
archies more readily apparent, Ottoman officials did not favor the use of silver
and gold by private persons. If precious metals were not in the empire’s trea-
sury, they ought to circulate as coins. This concern explains why the Ottoman
administration forbade the gilding of copperware, which, as noted, was popu-
lar among the rich.38 Admittedly, prohibitions of this kind were often difficult
to enforce, not least because officials entered the private sphere of an Ottoman
home only if they suspected the inhabitant had committed a major crime,
such as theft or counterfeiting. What people kept in their closets and showed
to favored visitors was thus largely beyond official purview. Remarkably, to date
we have found few prohibitions targeting Orthodox Church silver, although
in the 18th century, it became quite common for Christians of some property
to ornament their places of worship with liturgical vessels and decorations
36 Tekdemir, Tombak. However, this exhibition catalogue has few examples from before the
19th century.
37 In the 1500s, the only source of white diamonds was the Indian sultanate of Golconda,
while pearls were available in southeastern India, along the so-called Pearl Fishery Coast,
which, in addition to the Gulf of Basra, seems to have supplied the Ottoman luxury mar-
ket: Malekandathil, “Fishing the Pearl and the Soul”, 46–47.
38 See, for example, BOA, Şikayet Defteri 1, 158 (AH 1060/CE 1650); Mühimme Defteri 26, 219,
no. 621 (AH 982/CE 1574/75).
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made of silver.39 As sultans and viziers put much effort into enforcing the rule
that Christians and Jews could repair but not enlarge or beautify churches
and synagogues, the lack of official interest in silver ornaments is even
more intriguing.40
The scarcity of silver in the late 1500s presumably explains why officials
serving Murad III (r. 1574–95) emphasized the rule that items made of silver
had to bear the sultan’s stamp before appearing on the market.41 It is possible
that the display of valuable items by the merchants of the Grand Bazaar dur-
ing the circumcision festival of 1582 had helped to focus official attention on
this matter. We do not know the name of the original complainant. Whoever it
was, he claimed that vessels of low-quality silver, worth 3 aḳçe/dirham at most,
were finding buyers willing to pay 10 to 12 aḳçe. The sultan’s officials sought
confirmation of this from the chief goldsmith (ḳuyumcu başı) who, as a person
of status, unsurprisingly supported the complainants. As only members of the
elite could afford items made of silver, the petition must have come from these
circles; and since it presumably cost money to have the vessels stamped, the
scarcity of silver probably became a source of extra income for the exchequer
as well as for the men in charge of stamping the silver. The reaction of the
silversmiths remains unknown; but whatever the case, in the Istanbul context,
the attempts by officialdom to limit the use of gold and silver helped to increase
their control over the local artisan world. This issue was probably less signifi-
cant in provincial towns, where few people could afford to use precious metals.
6 Tax-Collecting as a Source of Power over Artisans
Some forty years ago, Halil İnalcık pointed out that in the provinces, some local
powerholders greatly strengthened their positions by undertaking to distribute
the taxes payable by an entire district or village allotting their shares to individ-
ual dues-paying families.42 On a smaller scale, we also encounter such attempts
in the artisan world of Istanbul and its environs. Thus, in 1630/31, the headman
(bāzār başı) of the general storekeepers (baḳḳāl) of Eyüp, at that time still a
separate township, refused to remit into the common fund the dues demanded
from all artisans using trays in their work whenever the sultan decided on a
39 For the church silver in the Sadberk Hanım Museum, in Istanbul, see Pitarakis &
Merantzas, A Treasured Memory.
40 See the chapter by Leal in the present volume.
41 BOA, Mühimme Defteri 69, 226, no. 451 (AH 1000/CE 1591/92). See, in addition, Kürkman,
Osmanlı Gümüş Damgaları.
42 İnalcık, “Military and Fiscal Transformation”, 321 and 337.
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268 Faroqhi
major campaign (ordu aḳçesi). The category of “tray users” included a range
of more or less qualified artisans: cooks, pastrycooks, manufacturers of fatty
buns, and sellers of kebabs and yogurt. The bāzār başı claimed that because
Eyüp was a separate judicial district, he held the special privilege of collecting
the dues free from any outside interference. Presumably, and similar to the
provincial powerholders highlighted by İnalcık, the bāzār başı planned to use
this arrangement as an occasion for patronage. However, matters did not work
out as intended; Murad IV decided to retain the older arrangement by which
the headman of the Istanbul guild of cooks was in charge of collecting these
payments from the intra muros city and from the suburbs—including Eyüp.43
Istanbul artisans paid taxes such as the ordu aḳçesi through their guilds.
Perhaps for the convenience of tax collectors who would have preferred to
deal with a few men responsible for large sums of money, rather than with
a multitude of petty guild headmen, it was customary to declare that certain
guilds, usually those with poor members, were the auxiliaries (yamaḳ) of
larger craft associations. Disputes about which guild was a yamaḳ to which
other artisan organization were quite frequent; and it is likely that the head-
men of the major guilds used this opportunity to lord it over their yamaḳs.
Similar situations occurred when the sultan announced his intention to spon-
sor a major festivity for which the artisans had to present gifts. By the early 18th
century, established tradition determined which gifts the central administra-
tion required from any particular guild, whether “major” or auxiliary. In this
context as well, the need to spend money on behalf of the sultan’s government
led to a hierarchy of prestige between guilds.44
7 Artisans and Janissaries
Conflicts between servitors of the sultans and the artisans of Istanbul and/or
Edirne often originated from the tendency of 16th- and 17th-century soldiers
to become artisans and/or shopkeepers, a phenomenon observable across the
Empire.45 To some extent, this move was due to the decreases in soldiers’ pay,
which began in the 1580s. The devaluation of the aḳçe was partly responsible
for this, but the contemporaneous wars against the Habsburgs and Safavids
led sultans and viziers to enlarge the janissary corps on a massive scale: given
limited funds, the administration allowed soldiers’ pay to deteriorate.
43 Sarınay et al. (eds.), 85 Numaralı Mühimme Defteri, 193–94, no. 319.

44 Erdoğan İşkorkutan, “Chasing Documents at the Ottoman Archive”.
45 For a summary of recent research, see Yılmaz Diko, “Blurred Boundaries”.
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At the same time, boys levied for the janissary corps in the beginning 17th
century were considerably older than their predecessors had been: in c.1500,
the average age of levied youngsters had been 13.5; a century later, it had
increased to 16.5.46 The increased age of janissary draftees presumably made it
more likely that they would marry after having served for only a short time—
by the early 1600s, about one-half of Istanbul’s janissaries were married men.47
Taken together, reduced pay and a greater inclination to marry must have
encouraged janissaries and candidate janissaries to seek alternative sources of
income; and for people without strong political backing, crafts and trades were
modest but accessible ways of doing so.
Certainly, the Ottoman administration of the late 16th and early 17th cen-
turies stridently disapproved of this development. A command issued in the
name of Murad III responded to a complaint of Istanbul’s metal-working
trades concerning the janissaries, gunners, armorers, and other military
men who worked in the relevant trades but refused to perform the services
demanded from other craftspeople active in the city.48 Unfortunately, the text
does not specify which particular services the officials had in mind; perhaps
the work demanded had some connection with the manufacture of weaponry.
Using rather dramatic language, the text described these soldiers as receiving
the officials, who were to recruit them for the sultan’s service, showing openly
that they were armed; and their defiance supposedly encouraged non-military
urban taxpayers to avoid these services too. Some thirty years later, in 1617/18,
the kadi of Edirne received an order to prevent janissaries, gunners, and cavalry
soldiers from shopkeeping and selling goods in the marketplace, along with
a command to ensure that sellers and buyers respected the administratively
decreed prices.49 Those men who contravened the sultan’s orders would be
liable to lose their places in the Ottoman army. Perhaps a similar prohibition
applied to Istanbul, though the relevant document has not, to date, surfaced.
The administration may have hoped to limit employment in crafts and trade to
the numerous soldiers stationed in the capital and who had few other opportu-
nities for making a living. After all, given the decline of soldiers’ pay during the
inflations of the late 1500s and once again during the 18th century, as noted,
many janissaries had to make their own arrangements for feeding themselves
and their families.
46 G. Yılmaz, “Change in Manpower”.

47 Yılmaz Diko, “Blurred Boundaries”, 176.
48 Mühimme Defteri 64, 143, no. 374 (AH 996/CE 1587/88).
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270 Faroqhi
Perhaps with this consideration in mind, the sultans of the 17th century did
not enforce their own commands prohibiting janissary involvement in crafts
and trade. On the contrary, by the later 1600s it had become a recognized
practice, especially in Istanbul, to appoint soldiers as headmen (ketḫüdās) of
craft guilds, the condition being that they renounced their soldiers’ pay. This
arrangement did not mean that the soldier-ketḫüdās acquired an inalienable
right to their positions. It was perfectly possible for guild members to complain
to the authorities about the advanced age of the current ketḫüdā, his lack of
politeness, or about other character traits considered to be objectionable, and
thus to suggest a man whom they considered more suitable for the position
of ketḫüdā. As for the Ottoman administration, its members were quite will-
ing to accept this solution, provided that the new incumbent compensated
his predecessor for the expenses incurred—given the numerous scribes all
demanding fees, it cost money to go through the rather elaborate appointment
process.50 If there were many applicants with the right connections and quali-
fications, the guild might repeat the procedure several times, with the office
becoming ever more valuable in the process.51
From the central administration’s perspective, appointing soldiers as guild
headmen allowed the sultans’ treasury to retain significant sums of money, as
the treasurers off-loaded the pay of a sizeable number of military men onto
the Istanbul guild members. After all, the latter paid dues to their headmen;
and if the headmen were soldiers, the dues were equivalent to soldiers’ pay.
Other arrangements to save money included, for instance, the privilege given
in 1630/31 to six tanners who had agreed to serve in the sultan’s palace and
stables without pay.52 As a general rule, officials were to close down the newly
established tanneries in the walled city and Üsküdar, turning over the skins
and hides previously worked in these places to the older tanneries in Yedikule.
Even so, they were to make an exception in favor of these six craftspeople, who
thus avoided relocation to a distant site on the city’s margins. Seemingly these
tanners had servants, who labored in urban workshops, while the six benefi-
ciaries spent their days serving in the palace. Perhaps the somewhat compli-
cated and unclear wording of this text reflects the uneasiness of the senior
scribe with this obvious attempt to enforce a rule and allow an exception at
the same time.
50 İnalcık, “The Appointment Procedure”.

51 Genç, “Ottoman Industry in the Eighteenth Century”, 62; Faroqhi, “Purchasing”.
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8 Artisans’ Reactions: Ensuring Monopolies by Skillful Petitioning
It is difficult to determine how Istanbul artisans reacted to the effective bureau-

cratic controls established by the sultans and their officials. As noted, from
the 16th century onwards, Istanbul artisans had been forming guilds that often
virulently protested against what they saw as infringements of their monopo-
lies, comparable activities being on record for many societies including regions
of 17th- and 18th-century continental Europe. However, it might be difficult
in practice to prevent “interlopers” from competing with guild members—
especially in trades that did not demand much skill.
In principle, Ottoman officials speaking in the name of the sultan were will-
ing to enforce guild monopolies. This attitude only changed in the early 1800s
when some of the men serving sultans Selim III (r. 1789–1807) and Mahmud II
(r. 1808–32) began to regard monopolies as a hindrance to good government.
Even if they favored guild monopolies, however, officials might make allow-
ances for special situations presented to them by petitioners. Thus, when refu-
gees from the Celali rebellions in Anatolia showed up in the larger Ottoman
cities of the early 1600s, officials often tolerated their attempts to make a liv-
ing by petty crafts and trades provided that the newcomers avoided venues
where they directly competed with established artisans. Likewise, in 1720 the
blacksmiths serving the naval arsenal in Kasım Paşa explained in their peti-
tion that they could not work for the naval arsenal, with its low pay and long
hours, unless their wives could continue to supplement family incomes by sell-
ing home-cooked soup made from sheep’s trotters.53 In this case, too, official-
dom probably deemed that keeping a loyal workforce in the arsenal was more
important than preserving intact the privileges of guildsmen.
Artisans working in Istanbul and nearby villages probably knew quite well
to which official and on which issue they could petition if they wanted sup-
port for a monopoly. In 1647, the tenants of a wax-manufacturing workshop
in Büyük Çekmece, a separate township at the time but today part of Greater
Istanbul, appealed to the sultan against the general traders and migrant sales-
men selling low-quality wax candles similar to their own wares.54 The com-
plainants emphasized that the pious foundation to which the workshop
belonged was suffering losses, while also admitting their own unhappiness
53 Faroqhi, “Women’s Work”.

54 With beeswax being rare and expensive, many people “made do” with candles pro-
duced from the fat surrounding the intestines of slaughtered animals: Tulum et al. (eds.),
Mühimme Defteri 90, 181, no. 214. On janissaries and candle making see Yılmaz Diko,
“Blurred Boundaries”, 184–85.
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272 Faroqhi
about the competition. Established by a certain Dizdarzade Mehmed Efendi,

about whose activities we have no further information, this institution was
probably quite modest; but sultans and officials gained legitimacy by visibly
protecting charitable institutions of whatever size and prestige. The petition-
ers’ strategy was effective in so far as the competing manufacturers received an
order to desist from further activity.
This case was not exceptional, and artisans and/or traders appealed to a
combination of material and “ideological” concerns with some frequency.
Thus, a petition from provincial guildsmen invoked the need to supply afford-
able footwear to Istanbul’s inhabitants and, at the same time, appealed to the
well-known respect of officialdom for policies sanctioned by long usage.55
Official records survive of a petition dated to 1732/33, in which the leather
manufacturers and merchants of Kayseri addressed Sultan Mahmud I (r. 1730–
54). The supplicants began with a completely local issue, namely the immigra-
tion of leather workers from the small Anatolian town of İskilip into Kayseri
and the competition of the newcomers with men already established in the
city. However, the complainants managed to link this affair with the (sup-
posedly) resulting disinterest of Kayseri’s merchants selling Morocco leather
(saḫtiyān) in continuing their accustomed trade. According to the petitioners,
public revenue dropped because the traders now only brought smaller quanti-
ties of leather to the local weighing scales. Most importantly, however, they
dwelt on the need to supply affordable footwear to the inhabitants of Istanbul.
Previously, or so the petitioners claimed, this matter had not been problem-
atic; but now supplies were under serious threat. These arguments apparently
convinced the sultan’s officials, who were no doubt anxious to avoid scarcity in
the Ottoman capital that had only recently been pacified after the upheaval of
the Patrona rebellion of 1730. Given the close connections of Kayseri’s artisans
and traders to Istanbul, whoever had drafted the petition knew exactly what
to say.
9 Artisans’ Reactions: Accusing Potential Rivals before

the Authorities
Other reactions may have been less planned and more visceral. From the late
1500s onwards, when Ottoman townsmen complained about their neighbors,
a standard accusation was to say that the individual concerned consorted
with the servitors of the local governor (ehl-i ʿörf ), thereby getting his fellow
55 Ahmet Refik, Hicrî On İkinci Asrıda, 125–27.
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urbanites into trouble through false accusations. Such individuals were likely
active in the artisan milieu as well, although the resulting intra-guild conflicts
only show up in the sources occasionally. Artisans might complain about recent
migrants from the countryside and about apprentices, who when confronted
with officialdom, were even weaker than the established master craftsmen.
Therefore, the latter might exercise severe pressure on their subordinates. This
was probably the case when Selim III commanded that artisans without guar-
antors must leave Istanbul.56 We do not know how many junior craftsmen may
have defended themselves from denunciations of “being without guarantors”
with unpaid work or with gifts.57
The constant disputes between guilds and individual guildsmen recorded
both in Istanbul and in provincial cities from the 16th century onwards, may
have been, at least in part, a reaction to urban stress. Economic motivations
apart, some such conflicts could have been a way of “letting off steam”. Thus, in
1764, we find a saddler named el-Hajj İbrahim, who enjoyed the right to prac-
tice his trade out of his home near Tavuk Bazarı, instead of in the saddlers’
workshop (sarāçḫāne) near the present-day offices of the İstanbul Büyükşehir
Belediyesi (Municipality of Greater Istanbul).58 To justify this, el-Hajj İbrahim,
and probably the sultan’s order that he exhibited to the authorities, stated that
his work was primarily for the sultan’s palace and the imperial stables, while
the distance from Saraçhane to the Topkapı Palace was (and is) substantial.59
However, the other saddlers protested so vociferously that Mustafa III (r. 1757–
74) had the document in the saddler’s hands declared invalid, and ordered
el-Hajj İbrahim to relocate to the Saraçhane. If it was true that this saddler
worked mainly for the palace, his place of business should not have been a
concern to the denizens of the Saraçhane. A personal and intra-guild dispute
was the more likely source of the trouble here.
10 Artisans’ Reactions: Participation in Urban Uprisings
To a greater or lesser extent, Istanbul artisans participated in the urban rebel-

lions of the 1600s, 1700s, and early 1800s, usually because they felt that their
livelihoods were under threat. Evliya Çelebi has recorded a mid-17th-century
rebellion, which forced his patron Melek Ahmed Pasha out of his position as
56 Turna, “Ottoman Apprentices”.

57 Başaran, Selim III, 146–47.
58 The former Forum of Constantine, close to the Nuruosmaniye mosque.
59 Kal’a et al. (eds.), İstanbul Ahkâm Defterleri: İstanbul Esnaf Tarihi 2, 63–64.
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274 Faroqhi
grand vizier.60 In this case, guildsmen reacted sharply because the vizier had
permitted fraud in the exchange of silver into gold coins, a move detrimental to
many artisans. Moreover, in 1688 when disbanded soldiers rioted, Istanbul arti-
sans vehemently protested, demanding that officials must reestablish order; a
new team of officeholders did just that, and satisfied their demands.
Otherwise, soldiers were the typical rebels, often allied with low-level ulema.
Artisans who were janissaries or members of other military corps certainly
participated; but we know nothing about the attitudes of those guildsmen—
sometimes quite numerous—who remained on the sidelines.
As noted, the need to preserve livelihoods often determined artisan atti-
tudes in urban rebellions. In 1703, many artisan-soldiers probably participated
in the deposition of Mustafa II (r. 1695–1703) because, as we have seen, the
likely move of the sultans’ court to Edirne threatened their livelihoods. In the
rebellion of 1730, frustration over high taxes for an Iranian campaign that failed
to materialize was apparently a major issue. After all, the soldiers stationed
in Istanbul often expressed their readiness go to war, since war was a chance
for prestige, booty, and gratuities.61 We do not know how the married men
among the janissaries regarded this matter. In the dethronement of Selim III
in 1807, the anger of many soldiers about the sultan’s new army was one of the
key motives; by this point, janissary pay tickets had become negotiable, and
many holders of such documents must have been inclined to violent reactions
when the sultan called in these tickets in order to cancel them.62
11 In Conclusion
Istanbul artisans were under constant official supervision, and the sultans’
bureaucracy maintained control even in the 18th century, when local magnates
ran many provinces with little reference to the central administration. Kadis
and other officeholders had a major input when it came to fixing prices; put dif-
ferently, high-level bureaucrats determined the prices at which they were will-
ing to buy. Once gediks had become the precondition for pursuing a significant
number of trades, the authorities could more easily track down recalcitrant
artisans and, sometimes, have them expelled from the capital—perhaps for
harboring relatives who were deemed undesirable immigrants. Furthermore,
60 Faroqhi, Artisans of Empire, 149–50; Yi, “Artisans’ Networks and Revolt”.

61 Abou-El-Haj, The 1703 Rebellion, 86; Aktepe, Patrona İsyanı, 99–100; Zarinebaf, Crime and
Punishment, 183–86, 235–36.
62 Yıldız, Crisis and Rebellion, 57–64.
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tax farmers controlled quantities of indispensable raw materials. Since quite a

few tax takers were economically active, they frequently defended their own
financial and economic interests against those of unprivileged artisans; and
while the coalescence of janissaries and Muslim guildsmen empowered the
latter, quite a few artisans became the victims of military strongmen as well.
Confronted with officialdom, artisans were in a weak position, although as
Yi has shown, some guildsmen managed to circumvent the constraints of the
system.63 Petitioning served as a means of defense, especially if the relevant
texts of petition appealed to values shared by the sultan’s officials, includ-
ing the supply of consumer goods to Istanbul, the need to retain efficient
workmen, or the protection of pious foundations. However, when pressures
mounted, as they did in the later 1700s in particular, guild solidarity must have
frequently fallen by the wayside. Because information on the 18th century is
more ample than the data surviving from earlier periods we cannot know for
sure whether violence in artisan disputes did in fact become more common
in the later 1700s. Further research may clarify the matter; but at the present
stage, any definite claims would be extremely imprudent.
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Chapter 11
When Istanbul Was a City of Bostāns

Urban Agriculture and Agriculturists
Aleksandar Shopov
In the introduction to his history of Istanbul, written in Armenian in the mid-

17th century, Eremya Çelebi envisions a traveler in a boat sailing along the
Marmara coast and approaching his native city by sea. One of the first sights
Eremya describes from this riparian viewpoint is a complex of produce gar-
dens in Langa, the Istanbul neighborhood from which the author hailed:
The third gate is that of Davut Paşa. This is the location of the Small
Vlanga garden, which is enclosed by two walls all the way until the New
Gate (Yeni Kapı). The Vlanga Garden that is called the Big Garden has
cucumbers that are very large.1
Langa is located in the valley of the Bayram Paşa stream (known in the
Byzantine period as the Lykus stream) that once flowed beneath the ridge of
Istanbul’s six hills before emptying into the Marmara Sea. Eremya’s work is
one of the earliest known references to the Langa gardens’ produce. A court
document of 1662 recording the prices of produce sold at the market in the
neighboring town of Eyüp (about 2 km north of Istanbul’s land walls) lists
two varieties of cucumber: the first is called “local” or yerli, and the second,
“lanḳa”. Thus, by that time the Langa gardens were even exporting their famous
cucumbers outside the city.2 Eremya also mentions the produce garden next to
Kadırga port, at the foot of the hill on which the mosque of Sultan Ahmed I,
now also known as the Blue Mosque, was constructed in 1617. Here, he notes
that “although some of the demand for vegetables is met with imports from the
outside, many produce gardens are located in various locations throughout
the city”.3
Eremya Çelebi treats farming as part of the urban experience, elevating
bostāns and their produce to the status of landmarks that a traveler arriving by
1 Eremya Çelebi, İstanbul Tarihi, trans. Andreasyan, 3.

2 İKS, vol. 28, Eyüb Mahkemesi (Havâss-ı Refîa), 74, fol. 9b–3.
3 Eremya Çelebi, İstanbul Tarihi, trans. Andreasyan, 4.

280 Shopov
water to Istanbul should hope to see. He was hardly alone among his contem-
poraries in characterizing Istanbul as a city of agriculture. From the mid-16th
century on, Istanbul’s produce gardens are frequently mentioned in archival
and narrative sources. In his De topographia Constantinopoleos (1561), the
French antiquarian Pierre Gilles, who lived in Istanbul in the 1540s, remarks
on the vegetable gardens in “Blanchae” (Langa), noting their location over the
former Theodosian harbor.4 In 1609, the Polish-Armenian merchant Simeon
marveled at Istanbul’s many artisanal workshops, schools, coffeehouses, mar-
kets, and palaces; but he also mentions “Valanga” or Langa, describing it as an
orchard “larger than a city”.5 By 1734, a survey recorded a total of 1381 produce
gardeners, largely migrants from Ottoman Macedonia and Albania, working in
344 bostāns within the city walls alone. Small Langa, according to this survey,
had 49 market gardens employing 221 people.6 Bostān, the term used in the
survey from 1734, referred at the time to a plot growing vegetables and, to a
lesser extent, fruits for the market.
The international fame that Istanbul’s culture of urban farming had acquired
by the 18th century is attested in Voltaire’s Candide (1759), whose titular char-
acter rejects philosophy in favor of the practical labor introduced to him by
a farmer in Istanbul.7 A few of Istanbul’s bostāns are still operating today,
with wells and cisterns dating to the Ottoman period (Fig. 11.1).8 The Langa
bostāns existed until well into the 20th century.9 Despite this, Istanbul’s his-
tory has been approached from a standpoint that generally excludes farming
from the urban experience and economy. Scholars have emphasized Istanbul’s
spectacular population boom following the Ottoman conquest in 1453, from
fewer than 40,000 inhabitants to nearly half a million in the 16th century. This
has helped to paint a picture of early modern Istanbul as a crowded metropolis,
which absorbed both rural migrants and goods from the provinces and which
was not itself a space of agriculture.10 Ottoman Istanbul has been described
as being surrounded by agricultural “rings”, similar to the paradigm Johann
Heinrich von Thünen famously laid out in his Isolated State (1826).11 Though
4 Gilles, Petri Gyllii De topographia, 212–13.

5 Simēon, The Travel Accounts of Simēon, 51.
6 BOA, D.BŞM 1841, fols. 16–24.
7 Voltaire, Candide, 117–19.
8 Shopov & Han, “Osmanlı İstanbul’unda”, 34–38.
9 White, Shopov, & Ostrovich, “An Archaeology of Sustenance”, 35.
10 On the early modern “Ottoman command economy” as centered around supplying the
capital, see McGowan, Economic Life, 10–12.
11 Faroqhi, “Migration into Eighteenth Century ‘Greater Istanbul’”, 166–67. Faroqhi notes
that water distribution designed to facilitate transport distorted the shapes of urban
zones outlined in von Thünen, Isolated State.
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When Istanbul Was a City of Bostāns 281
Figure 11.1 The bostān in Yedikule belonging to the Panagia Greek Orthodox church
(also known as Belgrade church), seen from the vantage point of its cistern;
the first known mention of this bostān is in the 1708 endowment deed of
Süleyman Agha (see Shopov & Han “Yedikule Bostanları”, Toplumsal Tarih 236
(2013), 34–38)
Photograph by the author, July 2017
von Thünen’s work has been criticized as “descriptive rather than normative”,12
his ideas, particularly following the translation of his work into English in 1966,
have helped to solidify the perception that a city by definition excludes agricul-
ture. The many produce gardens that flourished within Istanbul’s walled city
have therefore been dismissed by both geographers and historians; and there is
a lack of knowledge about the processes that led to their formation.13
What were the factors that transformed much of Istanbul’s unbuilt land
into bostāns and maintained this agricultural landscape? Who were Istanbul’s
12 Harvey, “Theoretical Concepts”, 361–74. For a review of the literature that criticizes the
fetishization of von Thünen’s model, see Block & DuPuis, “Making the Country Work for
the City”, 79–98.
13 Kaldjian, “Istanbul’s Bostans”, 284–304; Bilgin, “Osmanlı Dönemi İstanbul Bostanları”,
86–99. Istanbul’s bostāns also challenge the French orientalist framework on the study
of urbanism, whereby the ideal-typical “Islamic city” does not produce, and its economic
activities are “essentially parasitic”. See Raymond, “Islamic City, Arab City”, 6.
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282 Shopov
gardeners or bāġçevān, as they are called in the Ottoman sources? Growing

a profitable amount of vegetables and fruits in a relatively limited space
required significant amounts of labor; and the establishment of new bostāns
involved constructing stone wells, wooden waterwheels, and sheds for storage
or dwelling spaces for the gardeners, most of whom were migrants from the
countryside—in a sense, urban peasants. The emergence of the bostāns pro-
foundly shaped the landscape and environment of early modern Istanbul and
was related to new forms of leasing that allowed an urban real estate market to
flourish, shifts in medical practices and diets, the migration of laborers into the
city, and urban planning concerns around fires and floods that encouraged the
inclusion of large, unbuilt agricultural spaces in the fabric of the city.
Following the Ottoman conquest, districts emerged around the newly cre-
ated sultanic and vizierial charitable foundations (waqf) that by the mid-16th
century controlled much of the unbuilt land in and around Istanbul.14 The
largest produce garden complexes, such as Yeni Bağçe and Langa, emerged on
waqf lands in the valley of the Bayram Paşa stream, which divided the city in
two. The waqf system was thus central to both the development of the city
and its agricultural history. Around the mid-16th century, court documents
begin to show waqf land in the city being rented with long-term leases.15 This
was a precursor of the double-rent lease contract, which emerged in the early
17th century and allowed for a lifelong proprietorship over land and buildings,
as well as the right to inherit them, or transfer or sell them to a third party.
Such leases created the conditions for labor- and water-intensive agriculture
to flourish on waqf lands in Istanbul and its surroundings, and were paralleled
with investments in construction of wells and waterwheels that facilitated
the establishment of control over land.16 Moreover, land controlled through
long-term or lifelong heritable leases was typically leased further with fixed-
term leases to middle tenants, who invested further in agricultural production
and organized laborers to maximize their profits.17 In the case of Istanbul’s
bostāns, the new leasing practices also led to increased market specialization,
14 İnalcik, “Istanbul”, 229–231.

15 Baber Johansen argues that Hanafi jurists (the official school of Islamic law in the
Ottoman Empire) restricted leases to between one and three years, a practice that started
in Central Asia in the 9th century; see Johansen, The Islamic Law, 34. Ottoman jurists in
the mid-16th century found ways to circumvent these restrictions and allow for long-term
leasing; see Özcan, Osmanlı Para Vakıfları, 211; and Kaya, Osmanlı Hukukunda, 30–31.
16 According to pre-classical and classical Hanafi jurists, planting trees and building struc-
tures on waqf land justified the “contract of tenancy” (Ar. ijāra); see Johansen, The Islamic
Law, 26.
17 The emergence of an entrepreneur tenant is a phenomenon comparable to the forma-
tion of “landlord-capitalist tenant-wage labor structure” in the English countryside, which
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including the emergence of new local cultivars of vegetables. The new leases
and Istanbul’s bostāns themselves also depended on migration. During the sec-
ond half of the 16th century, waves of migration from the countryside to the
city intensified, especially from regions where peasants began losing control
over their land. Istanbul’s agricultural transformation poses what might seem
to be a contradiction: an early modern city’s growth, rather than necessarily
pushing agriculture out, actually incorporated agriculture in its core.
1 Agriculture in the City following the Ottoman Conquest
Prior to the rise of widespread commercial produce gardening in Istanbul,

agriculture was already being practiced within the walled city in Byzantine
Constantinople. As Alice-Mary Talbot has recently discussed, in the decades
before the Ottoman conquest in 1453, patriarchal registers record vineyards
throughout the depopulated city and a vibrant viticultural production, which
generated revenue for the city’s many monasteries.18 Indeed, the earliest known
Ottoman survey of Istanbul, drawn up in 1455, records dozens of wineries.19
Many of the city’s gardens and vineyards were located along the Lykus (later
Bayram Paşa) stream, which originated north of the city and flowed for 3 kilo-
meters within the city walls. Others were located in the southwestern areas
of the city, where the south-facing slopes of the hills overlook the Marmara
Sea. The Florentine monk Cristoforo Buondelmonti, who visited in the 1420s,
remarked that large open-air cisterns dating to the Roman period had been
transformed into vineyards, and were producing substantial amounts of wine.20
Some of these vineyards, particularly ones along the Lykus stream, contin-
ued to exist in the city following the Ottoman conquest, when the city became
the new Ottoman capital. The 1455 survey of Istanbul, written two years after
the conquest, records a “royal vineyard” (beg bāġ) somewhere in the lower
course of the stream, most likely in Langa, as well as several produce garden-
ers then residing in the city.21 The produce garden complex of Yeni Bağçe,
located along the Lykus stream at the point where it entered the walled city,
was endowed in 1505 to the charitable foundation of Bayezid II.22 In the sec-
allowed for investment, technological improvements, and, consequently, economic

development in the early modern period; see Brenner, “Agrarian Class Structure”, 30–75.
18 Talbot, “Agricultural Properties”, 195.
19 Ibid., 185–95.
20 Buondelmonti, Description des Îles, 245; Talbot, “Agricultural Properties”, 193–94.
21 İnalcık, Survey of Istanbul 1455, 355–359.
22 VGMA, D. 1375, fol. 51.
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284 Shopov
Figure 11.2 Map of Istanbul intra muros showing the locations of bostāns
ond half of the 16th century, Yeni Bağçe consisted of at least 13 produce gar-
dens under the control of the foundation, many of them leased by urban elites,
as we will see later.23 In 1558, a total of 18 gardens in Langa were endowed to
the charitable foundation of Sultan Süleyman (r. 1520–1566).24 An unspecified
number were under the control of older sultanic foundations, such as those of
Ayasofya and Sultan Selim I.25
Generally, the valley through which the Bayram Paşa stream flowed appears
to have been a center of agricultural activity both before and after the con-
quest (Fig. 11.2). The floor of the valley was more susceptible to the flooding
and earthquakes that regularly struck the city. It was therefore more sparsely
23 TSMA, D. 5752, fol. 23b.

24 Kürkçüoğlu (ed.), Süleymaniye Vakfiyesi, 27.
25 BOA, MD 56, fol. 9/29 and BOA, MD 51, fol. 42/133.
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developed, leaving space for agriculture even during what was otherwise a
period of widespread building and development. A disastrous flood in 1574
even prompted the Imperial Council to ban construction along the stream
altogether.26 Another case shows that the susceptibility of areas to flooding
could be a factor in determining rents. According to a court entry from the
winter of 1623, royal architects were dispatched to re-evaluate the rent of a
house built on land that was supposedly prone to flooding. Described as being
on the “flood path” (seyl mecrāsı) by the tenant, a woman named Şemsimah,
the land was most likely located in the valley of the Bayram Paşa stream.27 The
produce gardens in Langa, many of which were part of the endowment of the
Süleymaniye mosque complex, at one point served as a refuge for residents
fleeing the “great fire” in 1660 and may have served this purpose during other
fires and disasters as well.28
If the valley of the Bayram Paşa stream supported numerous agricultural
spaces, Istanbul’s hills also emerged as sites of important produce gardens fol-
lowing the conquest. For example, the palace that would come to be known
as the Topkapı Palace, built in the 1460s on Istanbul’s first hill (the former
site of the acropolis), included, in its grounds, a produce garden. The Topkapı
Palace garden appears to have been highly productive, and its produce was
sold in Istanbul’s market.29 Fruits such as strawberries were presented as
gifts to Sultan Bayezid II (r. 1481–1512) by various Ottoman officials and by
sufi dervishes.30 Correspondence from the Ottoman poet, scholar, and offi-
cial Lamiʿi Çelebi (1472–1532) also records several gifts of fruit, such as melon,
given to other high-ranking officials, suggesting that this was a social practice
not limited to the Ottoman palace.31 The funeral mosque complex of Sultan
Mehmed II (d. 1481)—completed in 1470 on Istanbul’s fourth hill, from where it
looked over the city—had four produce gardens, one of which sold, according
26 BOA, MD 26, fol. 128.

27 See İKS, vol. 45, Evkaf-ı Hümâyûn Müfettişliği 1, fol. 135b–1.
28 On the use of the Langa gardens as a refuge during the “Great Fire” (ḥarīk-i kebīr) in 1660,
see Behar, A Neighborhood in Ottoman Istanbul, 59.
29 The 1505 inventory of the Ottoman inner treasury records two coffers of 150,000 and
100,000 aḳçe, a significant sum, as income from the palace garden (bāġçe-i ʿāmire).
Giovanni Menavino, a page in the palace in the early 16th century, mentions that the
produce from this garden was sold outside the palace (vendere in la piazza fora del
Seraglio). See Necipoğlu, Architecture, Ceremonial, and Power, 203; and Shopov, “Books
on Agriculture”, 558. On the royal gardens along the Bosphorus that also produced for the
market, see Necipoğlu, “The Suburban Landscape”, 32–71.
30 Gök, “Atatürk Kitaplıǧı M.C. O.71 Numaralı”, 149, 151, 158, 227, 371, 372, 498, 566, 568 609,
611, 692, 697, 705, 729, 772, 777, 870, 875, 880, 897, 943, 949, 1029, 1033, 1057, 1089, 1184, 1195,
1197, 1203, 1206, 1237, 1262, 1273, 1382, 1402.
31 Lamiʿi Çelebi, Münşeât-i Lâmiî, ed. Esir, 110, 294.
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286 Shopov
to the income and expense records of the foundation in 1489/90, 4050 aḳçe
(around 2754 grams of silver) worth of surplus vegetables and flowers on the
market.32 The names and salaries of the professional gardeners employed in
the mosque complex were likewise recorded.33 In addition to that of Sultan
Mehmed II, the mosque complexes of the grand vizier Mahmud Pasha and
the sufi shaykh Vefa, likewise built uphill from the Golden Horn, also fea-
tured produce gardens and orchards that generated income for the upkeep of
the complexes.34
In the new Ottoman capital, commercial produce gardens emerged both in
the valley of the Bayram Paşa stream and in Istanbul’s hills, in the newly estab-
lished sultanic mosque complexes, where cultivating and exchanging produce
functioned as a form of royal self-representation.35 That these mosque com-
plexes, which gave architectural form to the new capital and supported the
city’s growth in the years following the conquest, so consistently incorporated
agricultural spaces can be connected to debates surrounding the re-location
of the capital, from Edirne to Istanbul. Older elites balked at the centralization
policies initiated from the new capital, claiming that Konstantiniyye/Istanbul
was not suited to have such a role.36 One objection posed by opponents of the
move was the city’s long history of being ravaged by the plague, earthquakes,
famine, and drought.37 An anonymous chronicle, written at the end of the 15th
century, analogizes the ecological volatility of the city—where buildings are
built only to collapse—with having unfertile soil: “many seeds were planted,
they didn’t ripen” (niceler ekdi toḫum götürmedi).38 The rebuilding of the city,
and the establishment of produce gardens next to the symbols of the new
imperial ideology, occurred amidst tense debates that were also framed in
terms of agricultural fertility.
32 Barkan, “Fatih Câmi”, 310.

33 Ibid., 318.
34 Barkan & Ayverdi, İstanbul Vakıfları, 43, 159. Another 15th-century charitable founda-
tion, that of Gedik Ahmed Pasha, in AH 1005–06/CE 1597–98, generated income from the
produce garden near the harbor of Kadırga (ʿan muḳātaʿa-ı zemīn-i būstān maʿa ḫāne der
nezd-i liman-ı Ḳadırġa); see TSMA, D.1718, fol. 1.
35 Shopov, “Books on Agriculture”, 562.
36 On the opposition to Istanbul as the new capital, and the construction program following
the conquest as the expression of the new imperial and cultural ideology; see Kafadar,
Between Two Worlds, 148–49.
38 The chronicle refers to the legendary founding of Istanbul by Yanko bin Meydan. See
Giese, Die Altosmanischen Anonymen Chroniken, 81. This chronicle and in particular the
stories in it about the founding and the history of the city have been extensively discussed
in Yerasimos, La fondation de Constantinople.
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2 Leasing and Agricultural Investment
In addition to reflecting many of the considerations that shaped the planning

and rebuilding of Istanbul following the conquest, the city’s produce gardens
were also connected to significant changes in control over urban and subur-
ban land—namely, the emergence of long-term lease contracts. Prior to the
mid-16th century, agriculturalists typically rented agricultural land in urban
areas without intermediaries and for short periods. Archival records of Galata
and Üsküdar, which respectively face Istanbul across the Haliç (Golden Horn)
and the Bosphorus, shed light on the kinds of leasing practices surrounding
bostāns in the first decades following the conquest. In 1455, a certain Marko, “a
poor Armenian Christian” rented a produce garden (bostānlık) located in the
moat of the Galata city walls by paying cash to the Ottoman state treasury.39
In 1534/35, a bostān located near the mosque of Selman Agha in Üsküdar was
leased with a three-year contract to a certain Yusuf.40 The price of the lease
was 4700 aḳçe, and the contract, drawn up in the court in Üsküdar, stipulated
that each year Yusuf should pay part of the total sum of 4700 aḳçe to the admin-
istrator of Selman Agha’s charitable foundation. Such leases, which adhered to
the limits for leases of agricultural land that had been prescribed by the Hanafi
legal school,41 allowed a person of relatively modest means to lease a bostān;
indeed, Yusuf did not hold an elite title such as Çelebi, Hacı, or Beg.
In the second half of the 16th century, however, long-term leases begin to
appear more frequently in the documents. Moreover, agricultural land belong-
ing to sultanic charitable foundations in Istanbul began to be exchanged on the
real estate market. An imperial order sent in 1585 to the judge of Istanbul notes
that some tenants who had been renting bostāns belonging to the Süleymaniye
waqf in Langa had sold them (beyʿ idüb).42 As a result, from 18 gardens in Langa
the foundation was now left with only nine, and the yearly rents from the
gardens had plummeted. The order stated that the market gardens that had
been sold should be returned to the control of the Süleymaniye foundation,
and that new leases should be established to guarantee that the gardens could
only be inherited by the tenants’ male progeny. The income and expenditure
records of the Süleymaniye foundation from later that year show that, thanks
to the imperial order, the Süleymaniye foundation was able to collect down
payments (icāre-i muʿaccele) for all 18 of its bostāns, a total of 149,600 aḳçe, in
39 İnalcık, Survey of Istanbul 1455, 38.

40 İKS, vol. 4, Üsküdar Mahkemesi 9, fol. 32b–2.
41 Rafeq, “Making a Living”, 116.
42 BOA, MD 58, fol. 10/32.
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288 Shopov
addition to their annual rents (icāre-i mü’eccele) worth 29,290.43 The income
and expenditure records from 1585 also names the tenants who held leases for
the gardens in Langa, revealing the social status of the people who could afford
such long-term lease contracts, many of them wealthy urban elites. For exam-
ple, the royal food taster in the Topkapı Palace paid a whopping 50,000 aḳçe
for the down payment on a bostān in Langa. Other tenants included the son
of a caller for prayers, the chief of the palace armorers, wealthy Muslim and
Christian women, an Armenian goldsmith, and Orthodox Christian priests.44
A similar process appears to have unfolded in Yeni Bağçe, where, in the 1570s,
artisans, scholars, and wealthy women were leasing 13 market gardens from the
charitable foundation Sultan Bayezid II had established there in 1505.45
The imperial order from 1585 that defined the legal status of the bostāns in
Langa was thus an attempt to negotiate between, on the one hand, the wealthy
Istanbulites who aimed to control waqf land in the city, and, on the other, the
interests of the administrations of the sultanic charitable foundations and
the Ottoman state. The order permitted lifelong lease contracts for bostāns
to be inherited only in the case of male offspring, while still preserving the
rights of the waqf administration over the collection of annual rents, includ-
ing the down payments that guaranteed the perpetual right to rent bostāns. In
1585, a sum of 239,822 aḳçe entered the royal treasury from the surplus of the
Süleymaniye charitable foundation.46 The total amount of down payments
from the Istanbul properties of Süleymaniye (including storehouses and pro-
duce gardens) was 222,408 aḳçe. This amount suggests that down payments
from long-term lease contracts were the primary source of surplus from the
foundation that flowed to the treasury, which by the end of the century had
rising levels of expenditure.
In the second decade of the 17th century, new types of lease contracts,
double-rent leases, emerged for waqf properties. Such leases later became
known as icāreteyn, though the use of the term icāreteyn does not seem to
appear in the documents until the mid-17th century. Such lease contracts
allowed for the administration to receive even larger down payments, in
the initial years of the practice between eight and ten times higher than the
annual rent and, by the 18th century, rising to equal the market value of the
43 Barkan, “Süleymaniye Cami ve İmareti Tesislerine”, 128, 131–32.

44 Ibid., 131–32.
45 TSMA, D. 5752, fol. 23b.
46 Barkan, “Süleymaniye Cami ve İmareti Tesislerine”, 119.
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property.47 In return, the tenants had the right to transfer the property freely
to their offspring, including women, or to sell it.48
The double-rent leases encouraged tenants to maintain and improve the
properties; and anyone renting a produce garden in Istanbul with a double-rent
lease wanted a return on their investment. In many cases, this was achieved by
subleasing the gardens for a fixed term to tenants who then supervised produc-
tion there, hiring wage laborers and buying seeds and tools. A case in point is
that of a certain Stoyan, whose name indicates an origin in the Balkans and
that he spoke a southern Slavic language. In 1661/62, Stoyan rented a bostān in
Small Langa from Hasan, Hüseyin, and Rahime, who jointly held a double-rent
lease contract from the charitable endowment of Süleymaniye. He invested
in tools (such as a hoe and a spade) and a horse, his private property that he
shared with a man named Yorgi.49 As a short-term tenant, Stoyan had paid a
fixed rent in cash and most likely hired his own workers. Such tenants invested
in farming equipment, utilized high-yield farming practices, and specialized in
certain varieties of vegetables—indeed, such as the aforementioned “Langa”
cucumber cultivar—in the hopes of increasing their profits and paying back
their rents to the icāreteyn lease holders. As we will see shortly, entrepreneurial
tenants like Stoyan, and the attractiveness of icāreteyn leases, also relied on the
pool of migrant laborers that, towards the end of the 16th century, began arriv-
ing in Istanbul in large numbers from the countrysides. Another case, involv-
ing a produce garden just beyond the city walls, shows how tangled the web
of property and lease contracts surrounding the newly established produce
gardens could be, and how the new lease contracts compelled tenants to invest
and innovate. A court record from 1661 names two gardeners, Dimo and his
partner Yorgi, who rented a bostān in Eyüp from someone who had obtained
it with a double-rent contract from the Ali Pasha charitable foundation. Dimo
and Yorgi planted trees, which they later sold for a significant sum to a janis-
sary named Ali Beşe.50 Their success at growing fruits with a high market value
47 Kaya, Osmanlı Hukukunda, 127–32.

48 Male and female offspring could divide the inheritance of such leases into equal shares;
see ibid., 192–93. Kenan Yıldız has recently noted examples from the second half of
the 16th century in which Ottoman jurists and the Imperial Council permitted women
to inherit rental leases of waqf properties, indicating the gradual development of the
icāreteyn lease contract, as well as the existence of a debate in the Ottoman society about
how waqf properties should be leased; Yıldız, “Osmanlıda İcâreteynin”, 34–37.
49 İKS, vol. 19, Bâb Mahkemesi 46, fol. 99a–1.
50 İKS, vol. 28, Eyüb Mahkemesi (Havâss-ı Refîa) 74, fol. 47a–1.
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290 Shopov
would have relied on propagation techniques such a grafting trees, which they
probably planted at the edges of the bostān.51
Legal opinions issued by chief imperial muftis (shaykhs al-Islam) at the
end of the 16th and 17th centuries allowed a tenant of land leased from an
older waqf to endow any buildings built on the land, or trees planted on it,
to their own, new foundation.52 Such a lease was obtained with a large down
payment (icāre-i muʿaccele), most likely equivalent to the market value of the
land itself. The tenant was allowed, with the approval of the administrator of
the waqf, to build or plant on the land and, with the approval of the charita-
ble foundation and the judge, could later endow those properties—including
the trees or wells of market gardens—to his or her own newly established
charitable foundation. While outright sales of land belonging to charitable
foundations were open to legal dispute, a small, largely symbolic yearly rent
(icāre-i mü’ecelle), which was typically recorded in the endowment deed for
the new foundation, could keep the transaction legal by maintaining a formal
rental relationship. Thus, although the land itself remained technically under
the control of the older foundation, it was now effectively under the control
of the new one, which could lease it further, as long as the built structures
were maintained, and the land did not fall back into its initial undeveloped
state. Both the property endowed to the new foundation and the practice
itself are referred to in the scholarship as muḳāṭaʿalı waqf.53 The practice
of endowing lease contracts seems to have become more frequent from the
end of the 16th century. Allowing properties on waqf land to be re-endowed,
it incentivized private investment in land, including transforming land into
bostāns. The bostān thus played a role in the expansion of the city, as well as
the construction of new neighborhoods on land just beyond the city walls.54
An example dates to the 1590s, the years immediately following the debase-
ment of the Ottoman aḳçe and the deficits that arose in the treasury thanks
in part to the simultaneous wars with the Habsburgs and the Safavids. In
1592/93, Hasan Efendi, the head of the finance administration (defterdār) of
the treasury (ḫazīne-i ʿāmire), established a new charitable foundation in the
Ebhemzade neighborhood of Kasım Paşa, an area that faced Istanbul across the
51 Istanbul was not the only early modern city where complex leasing arrangements
emerged. For instance, Elizabeth Blackmar has shown that in early modern Manhattan,
long-term leases on urban property allowed some artisans to speculate by building houses
for rent; Blackmar, Manhattan for Rent.
52 Kaya, Osmanlı Hukukunda, 48–49.
53 Yediyıldız, XVIII. Yüzyıl’da, 134–35.
54 Kaya, Osmanlı Hukukunda, 50, n.168.
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Haliç (Golden Horn).55 Hasan Efendi paid the foundation of Sultan Bayezid II,
which controlled the land, an annual rent of 27 aḳçe for a parcel on which he
built a mosque, and 12 aḳçe for a parcel on which he built a school and two
houses for the imam and the muezzin. His new foundation also included a
bostān, for which he paid a higher but still relatively small yearly rent (icāre-i
mü’ecelle) of 254 aḳçe. This would have been accompanied by a large down
payment, though one whose sum is not specified in the document. As we have
seen, such down payments increased the surpluses of sultanic charitable foun-
dations; and these surpluses, particularly in times of fiscal instability or cri-
sis, were transferred to the state treasury.56 The endowment deed, which was
confirmed by the judge in Üsküdar, mentions both fruit-bearing and non-fruit-
bearing trees, which were Hasan Efendi’s “private [property]” (mülk), along
with two wells and two waterwheels, suggesting that a considerable area of
land was involved. The land on which such bostāns were constructed would
have then been open to further development, providing the precondition for
the emergence of new suburban spaces around Istanbul.
As the practice of re-endowing waqf land became more common, its legal
contours seem to have acquired more precision. By the late 17th century such
leases could also be revoked. In June 1676, land in Kasım Paşa that was origi-
nally endowed to the charitable foundation of Bayezid II and that in 1540/41
had come under the control of the new charitable foundation of one el-Hajj
Ahmed was returned to the old sultanic foundation. The administrator of the
Bayezid II foundation took back the land by successfully arguing that it was
no longer a bostān but instead had deteriorated into “white” or unused land
(ārż-ı beyżā) without planted trees and with few wells.57 The administrator
also pointed to the large size of the plot in question, namely 48,792 ẕirāʿ or
around 40,000 m2. This example shows that re-endowing produce gardens
could depend not only on establishing bostāns, but also on maintaining them.
The transformation of urban and suburban land into produce gardens, many
of which included fruit trees, thus seems to have been a strategy to appropriate
and control the land itself.
55 İKS, vol. 10, Üsküdar Mahkemesi 84, fol. 89a.

56 For one of the earliest such transfers of waqf surpluses during the reign of Sultan
Mehmed II (1451–1481), see Barkan, “Ayasofya Camiʿi ve Eyüb Türbesinin”, 372.
57 İKS, vol. 18, İstanbul Mahkemesi 18, fol. 130a.
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292 Shopov
3 Changing Landscapes: Kasım Paşa and Yedikule
At the end of the 16th century, land in other towns surrounding Istanbul
was being transformed into irrigation-intensive produce gardens. This had a
significant impact not only on the city’s economy but also on its landscape
and ecosystem. In at least two cases, both from the end of the 16th century,
the Imperial Council intervened in disputes related to the establishment of
bostāns that were disrupting the water supply for state-owned (mīrī) water-
mills. The owners of the new bostāns were destroying the dams built for the
watermills and using the water for their irrigation, hampering the operation of
the mills and affecting Istanbul’s flour supply.58
Instead of cereal grains and grapevines—which did not require as much
irrigation and which had been cultivated in the city in the late Byzantine
period—land in and around Istanbul was increasingly used to grow more
expensive vegetables, fruit trees, and flowers. The Ottoman official and Istanbul
native Evliya Çelebi (b. 1611), describing the area of Kasım Paşa, mentions sev-
eral market gardens located there as well as fruits that were Kasım Paşa spe-
cialties, such as apricots, the Papa variety of peach, the Cem Şah variety of
grape, and Boşnak Dede roses.59 New complexes of bostāns also appeared in
areas inside the walled city and on a higher elevation, where accessing under-
ground water required investing in wide and deep wells. The most impor-
tant example is the complex of bostāns that emerged in the 17th century in
Yedikule, a neighborhood on the southwestern edge of the city that emerged
around the Yedikule fortress built by Sultan Mehmed II. A handful of bostāns
in Yedikule still exist today, although they are under increasing pressure from
real estate development.60
In 1734, the Ottoman government drew up a survey of the produce gar-
deners working in Istanbul’s bostāns—one of the earliest such surveys (kefīl
defteri), which registered workers from a range of professions, from garden-
ers to bathhouse workers; only workers with guarantors were registered, giv-
ing them official status and excluding others, in a likely attempt to regulate
the large number of migrant laborers then in the city.61 The survey registered
1,381 bostān gardeners working within the walled city alone; 323 of these were
employed in the 88 bostāns in Yedikule.62 Yet, in a city view of Istanbul by
58 Shopov, “Cities of Rice”, 170.

59 Mantran, Istanbul, 501; Evliya Çelebi, Evliya Çelebi Seyahatnâmesi, vol. 1, ed. Dankoff,
Kahraman, Dağlı, 180.
60 Shopov & Han, “Osmanlı İstanbul’unda”, 34–38.
61 BOA, D. BŞM 1841, fols. 24–38.
62 BOA, D. BŞM 1841, fols. 24–38.
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Matrakçı Nasuh (d. 1564), while the gardens in Langa are clearly designated
with a patch of green dotted with trees within a wall enclosure, the area
around the Yedikule fortress, in the lower right, is not depicted as a garden
complex (Fig. 11.3). In Sebastian Münster’s Cosmographia (1544), too, Langa
and Yeni Bağçe are clearly designated within walled enclosures, while the area
around the Yedikule fortress, in the upper left, still appears barren (Fig. 11.4).
Indeed, Yedikule is not recorded in the first half of the 16th century as the site
of any produce gardens.63 The garden complexes in low-lying Langa and Yeni
Bağçe could be irrigated with the underground water table along the Bayram
Paşa stream; by contrast, the bostāns that emerged somewhat later in Yedikule
required significant water exploration and the construction of wells that were
so wide and deep that their size is even remarked upon in early 18th-century
endowment deeds.64 For example, a bostān located in the Bucak Bağı neigh-
borhood (between the Yedikule fortress and the Marmara Sea), established
by a certain el-Hajj Mustafa on land belonging to a charitable foundation, is
described in a court record of 1685 as having a “large” well of around 6.5 m in
circumference and 13 m in depth.65 In addition to a waterwheel and cistern,
this well supported 186 “fruit trees” (eşcār-ı müs̲mire) and “some vegetables”
(baʿżı sebzevāt). A few Ottoman-era wells and cisterns are still preserved in
Yedikule today and are usually located at the highest point in the bostān so that
the water can flow through canals to reach the entire surface of the garden.66
The earliest mention of the bostāns in Yedikule occurs in the 1635 endow-
ment deed of Bayram Pasha, then viceroy of Istanbul.67 Bayram Pasha also
endowed several bostāns in the upper valley of the Lykus stream (just out-
side the city walls), on land then controlled by the charitable foundation of
Sultan Bayezid II, to which the viceroy’s newly created foundation paid annual
rents.68 The endowed wells, waterwheels, and trees were his private property.
Bayram Pasha’s large investment in land and direct involvement in growing
produce for profit may have been a strategy to mitigate losses from the dimin-
ishing value of the Ottoman silver aḳçe during the rising inflation of the 1620s
63 Shopov & Han, “Osmanlı İstanbul’unda”, 35.

64 Ibid., 36.
65 Nine ẕirāʿ in circumference and 18 ẕirāʿ deep; see İKS, vol. 19, Bâb Mahkemesi 46,
fol. 39b–1.
66 On the remaining 17th-century bostāns in Istanbul today, which range in size from around
5000 to 10,000 m2, see Kaldjian, “Istanbul’s Bostans”, 284–304; and White, Shopov, &
Ostrovich, “An Archaeology of Sustenance”.
68 BOA, TT.d. 759, fol. 38.
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294 Shopov
Figure 11.3 Langa bostān complex depicted as a rectangular patch of green in the
middle-lower right, framed by a wall. View of Istanbul intra muros, in
Matrakçı Nasuh, Beyān-ı Menāzil-i Sefer-i ʿIrāḳeyn-i Sulṭān Süleymān Ḫān,
opaque watercolor, gold and silver on paper. İÜK, TY 5964, 8v
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Figure 11.4 Istanbul as depicted in Sebastian Münster’s Cosmographia, woodcut. Basel, 1544. The
Yedikule area is marked with the white frame
and 1630s.69 By the mid-17th century, Yedikule bostāns were briskly exchanged
on Istanbul’s real estate market. For example, in 1667, a certain Andriya sold to
one Bayezid Beg a bostān in Yedikule for 1500 esed ġurūş (180,000 aḳçe). This
bostān was constructed just outside the city walls near the Yedikule gate, on
a plot of land endowed to the sultanic foundation of Ayasofya.70 The court
record characterizes the trees of the bostān as private property, mülk, and the
land itself as being under the control of the Ayasofya charitable foundation,
to which Andriya paid a yearly rent of just 30 aḳçe. According to both seller
and buyer, the annual rent of this bostān was 5000 aḳçe, though Bayezid Beg
accused Andriya of falsely promising that the bostān would yield 10,000 aḳçe.
In Yedikule, as elsewhere in Istanbul, bostāns were attractive investments, and
were subleased to people who then organized agricultural production on them.
69 On the rising inflation in this period, see Sahillioğlu, “XVII. Asrın İlk Yarısında”, 229.
70 The sale of the bostān was disputed by the buyer, who claimed that the market garden he
had purchased from Andriya “did not yield anything”. See İKS, vol. 17, Bab Mahkemesi 3,
fol. 95b–6. The moat of Istanbul city walls was also a site of several bostāns by the 18th
century: see Han, “İstanbul ve Galata”, 35–40.
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296 Shopov
4 Changing Diets
In the Galenic-Avicennan medicine, plants were characterized as either hot

or cold, dry or moist; and depending on these qualities, plants were believed
to have different effects on the body and its four humors. One of the earliest
Ottoman works on medicine, Yādigār fi’l-Ṭıbb, which was written most likely in
the early 15th century and made extensive use of Ibn Sina’s (d. 1037) and Ibn al-
Baytar’s (d. 1248) classical works on medicine and pharmacopoeia, would pre-
scribe eating garlic and mint, which are hot and dry in nature, following a meal
with cold and moist foods such as cucumbers and squash.71 In the late 15th and
early 16th centuries, works on medicine and documents such as the expendi-
ture records of Istanbul’s hospitals show that vegetables and fruits were com-
monly used in the prevention and treatment of various diseases, including the
plague.72 Yet the development of urban bostān complexes and the specializa-
tion of their produce, including the creation of new local cultivars (like the
“large” Langa cucumber) with specific qualities (taste, smell, color, texture,
size), was related to new tastes that were concerned with much more than just
these plants’ medicinal benefits or their effect on the body.
By the mid-16th century, when Langa had begun specializing in the cultiva-
tion of vegetables, fresh vegetables were also being purchased in significant
quantities for members of the growing imperial administration. A list of foods
purchased in 1555/56 for the royal pages in the İbrahim Pasha Palace, located
next to the Hippodrome, records that 120,949 aḳçe were spent that year on
64,681 ḳıyye of meat (nearly 200 kg per day),73 while 33,897 aḳçe were spent on
vegetables: onions from the city of İznik, spinach (for which 8400 aḳçe were
spent alone), leeks, chard, cabbages, parsley, purslane, eggplant, squash, gar-
lic, tarragon, carrots, turnips, and more.74 The sprawling Süleymaniye mosque
complex was completed in 1558 and encompassed a mosque, college, a hospital,
a hospice, a bathhouse. That year, 5277 ḳıyye (around 6700 kg) of onions were
recorded among the expenses for the mosque complex’s soup kitchen, along
with parsley, squash, and unripe grapes.75 We should remember that 18 bostāns
in Langa were endowed to the Süleymaniye mosque complex, and that these
produce gardens were closely linked to the expanding palace administration.
71 İbn Şerif, Yādigār-ı İbn Serīf, SK, Fazıl Ahmed Paşa, 989, fol. 10a.
72 Shopov, “Books on Agriculture”, 563. Fruits and vegetables (including their seeds) were
used as antidotes for plague in 15th and 16th-century Cairo; see Lewicka, Food and
Foodways, 287, n. 758; 462, n. 23; and 481, n. 96.
73 One ḳıyye being equal to 1.28 kg.
74 Barkan, Süleymaniye Cami ve İmareti İnşaatı, 262–63.
75 Barkan, “Süleymaniye Cami ve İmareti Tesislerine Ait”, 122.
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Bostāns not only generated income but also supported the dietary regimes of
the new elites in the capital.
The consumption of vegetables and the proliferation of bostāns in Istanbul
occurred within an economic context in which the consumption of other
foods was also shifting. In the second half of the 16th century, and particularly
in the last two decades of the century, the Ottoman aḳçe was debased, and
inflation spiked dramatically, causing the price of meat to increase. Already in
the 1560s, the Ottoman government had begun establishing official rates for
sheep arriving in Istanbul from the Balkans, a step likely taken to curb the prac-
tice of middlemen buying early in the season in order to inflate prices.76 By
the beginning of the 17th century, meat was no longer being purchased by the
Süleymaniye public kitchen.77 During the same period, the sultanic charitable
complex of Süleymaniye also eliminated, likely as a cost-cutting strategy, its
earlier practice of providing food for students, instead distributing payments
for meat and other foods.78 Some of the earlier reliance on meat may have
been supplemented by fish as well as vegetables. The 1640 price list for the
market in Istanbul, drawn up in response to inflation, lists 25 species of fish,
many of them fished from the Bosphorus, a crucial waterway and one of the
largest fisheries in the world through which fish seasonally migrates between
the Black Sea and the Marmara Sea.79 The same market price list also records,
for the first time, two different varieties of lettuce, one specified as bitter, acı
marul, and the other simply as lettuce, marul.80 By contrast, in an earlier price
list, from 1600—likewise drawn up following the earlier inflation crisis of the
1590s—only one kind of lettuce had been recorded.81 By the 19th century, the
Yedikule bostān complex would become locally famous for its juicy variety of
lettuce. The process of agricultural specialization in Istanbul that would lead
to the creation of “Yedikule lettuce” was already underway in the 17th century.
New vegetables were also taking root in the city, such as okra, whose cultiva-
tion in Istanbul took off in the 17th century and which was grown in bostāns
along the Bosphorus.82
76 Greenwood, “Istanbul’s Meat Provisioning”, 140–41.

77 Güran, Ekonomik ve Malî Yönleriyle Vakıflar, 45.
78 Güran, Ekonomik ve Malî Yönleriyle Vakıflar, 45–46.
79 Kütükoğlu, Osmanlılarda Narh Müessesesi, 92–93. For earlier price lists, see Kütükoğlu,
“1009 (1600) Tarihli Narh”, 1–86; see also Sahillioğlu, “Osmanlılarda Narh Müessesesi”,
36–40, 50–53, 54–56.
80 Kütükoğlu, Osmanlılarda Narh Müessesesi, 97.
81 Kütükoğlu, “1009 (1600) Tarihli Narh”, 28.
82 Bilgin, Osmanlı Saray Mutfağı, 259.
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298 Shopov
By the second half of the 17th century, Istanbul’s bostāns, as well as those
adjacent to the city and those located in the wider Marmara Sea region, were
cultivating so many varieties of produce and using so much labor that new
trade groups (ehl-i ḥirfet) were formed around them. In 1682, a total of 62
new trade groups in Istanbul had to be abolished, most likely as a result of
opposition from already established guilds whose economic interests were
threatened.83 Some of the trade groups banned in 1682 included groups related
to particular varieties of produce, such as sellers of spinach, sellers of early
cherries, sellers of finger grapes (parmaḳ üzümü), sellers of cantaloupes, and
sellers of watermelon, as well as produce wholesalers (biturme-i besātīn).84 The
negotiations between the different trade groups for the control of Istanbul’s
vegetable markets is also reflected in a contract, renewed at the Istanbul court
in 1685, between the trade group of vegetable sellers and the sellers at the city’s
open-air markets. According to the contract, the latter group agreed not to sell
squash, eggplant, cabbage, spinach, turnip, carrot, radish, spring onion, gar-
lic, grape leaves, cucumber, lettuce, dill, tarragon, or celery.85 The market for
vegetables in Istanbul was highly competitive, and the lines were constantly
being drawn and re-drawn for who could sell what, and where. The gardeners
of the bostāns would soon themselves enter into the fray; in 1726/27, Istanbul’s
bāġçevān won permission to sell their produce themselves, adding further
complexity to the vegetable market in the city.86
5 City and Countryside
The rise of Istanbul’s bostāns cannot fully be understood without examining

related agricultural developments in the countryside, where urbanites were
establishing farm estates (çiftlik). By the mid-16th century, the usufruct or the
“right to use” (ḥaḳḳ-ı taṣarruf ) large areas of land surrounding Istanbul was in
the hands of new kinds of tenants such as city-based Ottoman officials, mer-
chants, craftsmen, or military personnel, who financed farm estates there. While
83 Yi, Guild Dynamics in Seventeenth-Century Istanbul, 129–30.

85 İKS, vol. 19, Bab Mahkemesi 46, fol. 107a–3.
86 This permission was given in response to excessive speculation on the price of vegetables
by whole-sellers; see İKS, vol. 21, İstanbul Mahkemesi 24, fol. 11b–2. In earlier periods,
all of the produce from the bostāns and that arriving from outside the city had to enter
the royal vegetable office (ḫāṣṣa sebzeḫāne) located along the Golden Horn (Haliç) and
from there distributed to the palace and to the city’s vegetable sellers; see Bilgin, “Osmanlı
Dönemi İstanbul Bostanları”, 87.
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bostāns in the city specialized in vegetables and fruits, the farms in Istanbul’s
countryside tended to specialize in dairy and livestock production, as well as
fodder—some of which was certainly imported in the city to feed the hundreds
of horses that powered the waterwheels in the bostāns. Like the bostāns that
emerged within the city walls, many of the farm estates in this district were
established on land controlled by sultanic charitable foundations in Istanbul.
If the rise of the bostāns was connected to new leasing practices for waqf land,
the establishment of farm estates in Istanbul’s countryside was made possible
by the loss of the usufruct over the land by customary tenants or reʿāyā.
A survey, dated to the summer of 1545, of the lands endowed to the chari-
table foundation of Sultan Mehmed II in Istanbul (first established 1472),
records numerous farms (çiftlik) in the countrysides of neighboring towns
such as Silivri, Çorlu, and Kırkkilise.87 In two villages—Yatmalu and Bosna,
about 60 km west of Istanbul—nearly all of the land was leased by urbanites.
In Yatmalu, there were seven customary peasant-tenants or reʿāyā, while 20
farms (çiftlik) were in the hands of urban elites. Each of these farms is speci-
fied in the survey by the name of the person controlling the usufruct and the
number of çift units it encompassed. The largest ones measured three çift units
(or approximately 30 hectares) each—that is, they would have been created
by combining what three peasant families would have held as the usufruct of
land. These farm estates are recorded under names with titles such as Çelebi,
Beg, and Silāḥdār, indicating members of the Ottoman elite.88 The same sur-
vey records 12 çiftliks—each of them measuring five çift units—in the village of
Bosna, which received its name from the peasants forcibly moved from Bosnia
during the reign of Mehmed II (r. 1453–82).89 The Haslar district that bordered
Istanbul to the north and west, and which was completely endowed in 1505 to
the charitable foundation of sultan Bayezid II, specialized in both viticulture
and livestock. A court record shows a sale transaction in 1586 for one such farm
estate, in the village of Akpınar in the northern part of the Haslar district. The
farm belonged to one Mehmed Çelebi, whose name indicates an elite status.
At the time of the sale, it consisted of two houses, a vineyard, a fruit orchard, a
well, a furnace, a barn, 10 geese, a chicken coop with 30 chickens, two brick sta-
bles housing 32 buffalo, farming implements, large amounts of stored fodder,
and the usufruct (ḥaḳḳ-ı taṣarruf ) of lands that were controlled by the waqfs of
Sultan Mehmed II and Sultan Bayezid II.90
87 BOA, TT.d. 240.

88 BOA, TT.d. 240, fol. 117.
89 BOA, TT.d. 240, fol. 118.
90 İKS, vol. 22, Eyüb Mahkemesi (Havass-ı Refia), no. 3, fol. 27b–2.
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300 Shopov
The bostāns reflected a much broader interest in agriculture among Istanbul’s

ruling class, members of which were also investing in farm estates outside the
city as well as increasingly specialized agricultural production further afield.
For example, already in the early 16th century, high-ranking Ottoman officials
had financed the construction of canals and mills for the lucrative rice produc-
tion in the Ottoman Balkans, particularly in the region around the city of Filibe
(a major source for rice consumed in the capital), endowing these properties
to their waqfs in Istanbul.91 The bostāns were thus part of the formation of a
much larger imperial agricultural geography, in which shifts in control over
land were transforming ecosystems and landscapes. This occurred in tandem
with new patterns of consumption and, as we will now see, migration.
6 Migrant Labor
Growing enough vegetables in a bostān to make a profit requires significant

irrigation and labor. It is thus not surprising that the emergence of Istanbul’s
bostāns coincided with an influx of migrant laborers, who lived and worked in
the bostāns and whose presence shaped the urban neighborhoods in which
the bostāns were located. The 1734 survey that, again, registered 1381 garden-
ers then employed at bostāns within the walled city, shows that most of these
laborers (whom archival sources interchangeably call bāġçevān or bostāncı)
originated in Ottoman districts in western Macedonia and southern Albania.92
It is difficult to pinpoint exactly when this migration pattern, which continued
into the early 20th century, first began. However, Ottoman documents related
to these regions indicate the flight of peasants and their loss of land already by
the end of the 16th century. An order from the Imperial Council sent in 1606
to the inspector of the province of Ohrid, in western Macedonia, summarizes
the state of affairs in the province. It states that the reʿāyā were abandoning
their land, having gotten into debt. The peasants had been receiving loans, for
which the creditors then forced higher interest rates and took more money and
grain than initially agreed upon.93 Already in the 1582 tax survey of Ohrid prov-
ince, the usufruct of some Christian customary tenant landholdings (baştina)
and some land controlled by Muslim customary tenants in the province
had already been transferred to members of the military class as well as to
91 Barkan & Ayverdi, İstanbul Vakıfları, 67–8, 366–7, 428; Shopov, “Cities of Rice”.
93 Šopova, Makedonija vo XVI i XVII vek, 87–88.
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prominent Muslim women.94 In the first half of the 17th century, urbanites
also began establishing commercial farm estates in the countryside of Bitola,
a region in western Macedonia some 50 km east of Ohrid and 800 km west of
Istanbul.95 The waves of migrations that began in the late 16th century and con-
tinued into the early 20th century were not due to some magnetic attraction
held by the capital, but rather were spurred by a loss of land, as wealthy urban-
ites appropriated the usufruct of the farmland in the countryside, displacing or
competing with small peasant landholdings.96 A number of the migrants that
left villages in western Macedonia and southern Albania in the early modern
period found work in the bostāns of Istanbul’s neighboring towns, or as gro-
cers, street pavers, or attendants in Istanbul’s public baths.97
In Istanbul, these migrant agriculturalists, who brought with them myriad
agricultural techniques, became part of the social fabric of the city. In 1583,
according to an order from the Imperial Council, the Langa gardeners had com-
plained to the Imperial council that, with the opening of an additional gate in
the city walls, people were gaining free entrance to their produce gardens,98
drinking wine, and taking their vegetables without paying. The Imperial order,
which ruled in the favor of the gardeners and directed the Istanbul judge and
the subaşı (the official in charge of public order) to shut down the gate, calls
these interlopers celeb tā’ifesi (livestock dealers), an indicator of their rural ori-
gin. Indeed, by the second half of the 16th century, contemporary Ottoman
writers such as Selaniki (d. 1600) were already discussing the worrisome influx
of peasants from the countryside into the city.99 Taxation also emerged as an
issue for the gardeners working in the city. In 1663, both Muslim and Christian
members of the gardeners’ guild resolved, in court, a dispute with the super-
visor of the guild over a sum collected in the name of a tax, an example of
the growing tax burden on workers in bostāns, but also of the ability of the
94 Stojanovski, Makedonija vo Turskoto Srednovekovie, 109–14.

95 For examples, see the kadi court records of Bitola/Manastır discussed in Sokolovski,
Turski Dokumenti, 94–95, 156–57; Boškov, Turski Dokumenti, 24–25; DARM, BS, no. 18,
fol. 49a; DARM, BS, no. 19, fols. 54b–56a.
96 The farm owners in many instances refused to pay their “share” (tevzīʿ) of the tax bur-
den that the central government assigned to the district; see McGowan, Economic Life,
149 and 162. For a view that sees migration in the Ottoman Balkans after 1600 as unfold-
ing in a “world of choice” that was “open to the enterprising individual and it must not
be supposed that movement was always or only triggered by political, environmental or
Malthusian crises”, see Murphey, “Population Movements”, 90.
97 Faroqhi, “Migration into Eighteenth Century ‘Greater Istanbul’”, 172–177; Ergin, “The
Albanian Tellak Connection”, 231–56.
98 BOA, MD 51, fol. 42/133.
99 Selaniki, Tarih, ed. İpşirli, 4; see also Kafadar, “Les troubles monétaires”, 395.
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302 Shopov
gardeners to collectively organize themselves and navigate through the

Ottoman legal system.100
By the early 18th century, there were more than a thousand gardeners in the
walled city of Istanbul and several thousands more working in the city’s imme-
diate surroundings. There were thousands of wells, cisterns, and waterwheels
powered by horses. Even the gardens of the mosques of Sultan Mehmed II and
Sultan Ahmed I, buildings that formed part of Istanbul’s famous silhouette
and are typically associated with the city’s urbanization in the early modern
period, were leased and tilled in 1734 by groups of migrant laborers.101 Istanbul
had become a city of bostāns. Indeed, the 16th-century scholar Kınalızade Ali
(d. 1571) in his Aḫlāḳ-ı ʿAlāʾī (Exalted Ethics) compared the ideal, virtuous city
to a bostān tended by the ruler who as a gardener plucks the undesirable weeds
(nevābit) and throws them outside the city.102
7 Conclusion
This article has tried to show that the formation of early modern Istanbul is
inseparable from the history of the city’s bostāns. Already in the first decades
following the Ottoman conquest, the Islamic charitable foundation complexes
established in Istanbul included gardens where fruits and vegetables were
grown and, in many cases, sold in the city’s markets. This agricultural revival of
Istanbul following the conquest also carried symbolic meanings, demonstrat-
ing the city’s viability as a capital. During a time when critics of the Ottoman
imperial project and its centralizing policies depicted Istanbul as un unsuit-
able site for a capital ridden with famine, plague and earthquake, defenders of
Istanbul could point to its agricultural productivity, showing that it was a “fer-
tile ground” not only for vegetables but also for Ottoman society and empire.
In the 16th and 17th centuries, at a time when fresh fruits and vegetables
played an important role in Istanbulites’ diets and medical practices, hundreds
of bostāns were established in Istanbul, particularly in areas of the city that lay
in the path of floodwaters and fires and were therefore considered unsafe or
unsuitable for building. During this same period, the emergence of life-long
100 The dispute was resolved by a settlement recorded in the court according to which the
gardeners absolved the supervisor in return for his voluntary stepping down from his
position; see İKS, vol. 16, İstanbul Mahkemesi 12, fol. 57b–4.
101 BOA, D.BŞM 1841, fols. 16, 53.
102 Kınalızade, Ahlâk-ı Alâî, ed. Koç, 458.
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and inheritable lease contracts for waqf land helped to enable the formation of
an urban elite that accumulated wealth by establishing bostāns in the city and
its immediate surroundings. Istanbul’s produce gardens were further leased
to short-term entrepreneurial tenants who organized labor and production
in such a way as to maximize profit and be able to pay rents. Crucial to this
process were the migrants who, displaced from their own agricultural regions,
were arriving from western Macedonia and southern Albania and performed
nearly all of the work on the bostāns. Rather than as marginal or accidental
features of the city’s layout, Istanbul’s bostāns should therefore be seen as a
fulcrum of the social and ecological formation of the early modern city.
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Chapter 12
Water for the City

Builders, Technology, and Private Initiative
Deniz Karakaş
What follows is a little-known story, at once wrenching and inspiring, about

the construction community and trades associated with water in early mod-
ern Istanbul.1 From those who found new water resources in the outskirts of
Istanbul and built the infrastructure to supply the city with water to those who
hauled dirt up and cleaned the water channels, hundreds of men, women,
and children maintained the Ottoman capital’s water infrastructure for cen-
turies. Although the artisans, traditionally known as ṣuyolcu (water chan-
nel builder), have received some attention from historians, the skilled and
unskilled laborers, temporary workers, suppliers of raw materials, and a wide
range of artisans and craftspeople involved in the development of the water
supply infrastructure have not been studied in depth.2 This chapter corrects
this imbalance by zooming in on the microsites of water extraction and the
complex set of practices and skills involved in the creation of Istanbul’s water
structures. It first considers the creation of Istanbul’s long-distance water
infrastructure in the 15th and 16th centuries by focusing on the aftermath of
the floods of 1563 and the restoration of the hard-hit Kırkçeşme waterway that
had just been completed. The next section turns to the mid- to late-17th cen-
tury when a complicated system of water ownership emerged in the form of
a new hydro-architectural structure called ḳatma (lit. adding) and investigates
the agents below the imperial and elite patrons of water structures. The final
part focuses on the operation of the ḳatma building site to expose the complex
web of actors involved in making, repairing, and sustaining it, along with the
1 I would like to thank Çiğdem Kafescioğlu and Shirine Hamadeh for their support and for
facilitating the writing of this chapter. Their invaluable comments and detailed suggestions
contributed greatly to the finished product. I would also like to thank Nancy Um and Rifa’at
Abou-El-Haj for their initial comments and suggestions on an earlier version of this chapter.
Particular thanks are due to Petra Shenk for her help with editing.
2 Orhonlu, “The Institution of ‘Suyolcu’ in the XVIth century”, and Martal, “Osmanlı
İmparatorluğunda Su-Yolculuk” are the only studies dedicated to water channel builders.
See also Martal, “Suyolcu”. For ṣuyolcus in the 19th century, see Kılıç, “Su Yolları ve Su-Yolcu
Esnafına Dair Bazı Tespitler”. On low-level construction workers, see Barkan, “XVII–XVIII
Asırlarda Türkiye’de İnşaat İşçilerinin Hukuki Durumu”.

Water for the City 309
relations that developed among them. As spaces of production, the local con-
struction sites in early modern Istanbul facilitated a wide range of encounters
among officials, artisans, and tradespeople, some coming from distant lands.
Drawing on evidence from an array of primary and secondary sources, this
chapter examines the dynamics of architectural production in conjunction
with hydraulic engineering and highlights the constitutive role of a large con-
struction community in making the physical fabric of early modern Istanbul.
1 Water Infrastructure, Imperial Patronage, and Construction

Site, c.1563
The earliest written accounts of water structure construction in Ottoman

Istanbul date from around 1565 and pertain to the restoration of the newly
built Kırkçeşme waterway which was heavily damaged by a flood that struck
the city in 30 Muharrem–1 Safer 971/19–20 September 1563. Yümni Bey (d.?),
an Istanbul-born poet and eyewitness to the event, mentioned the devastating
flood in the following couplet: “An omen was revealed in the city of Istanbul
and the cries reached the sky / such heavy rain poured down that many houses,
like trash rushing wild, rolled into the sea.”3 As recounted, the flood covered
a wide area and caused great damage and loss of life. Yet, with the exception
of Eflatun Shirvani (d. 1569) and Selaniki Mustafa Efendi (d. after 1600), the
chronicler of the period, the writings of contemporary and later authors say
little about the impacts of this catastrophic event on the rural communities or
the city dwellers; instead, they address the severe damage done to the recently
completed Kırkçeşme waterway and the rebuilding activities afterward.4 The
standard narrative found in most accounts of the period celebrates the swift
efforts pertaining to the drainage and repairs of the Kırkçeşme waterway to
serve the city’s water needs.
Throughout Ottoman history, the need to supply the capital city with fresh
water remained a pressing problem.5 The abundant aquifers, river basins, and
3 Bir ʿalāmet ẓāhir oldı şehr-i İstanbūl’da kim / ḥalḳun efġānı zemīnden āsumāne çıḳdı yā / Eyle
ifrāṭ ile yaġmur yaġdı kim nīce evi / Seyl alup ḫāşāk-veş deryāya anı taḳṭı yā / Vehm-i rʿad ü berk
ile Yümnī didüm tārīḫini / Yıldırımla seyl Ḳosṭanṭaniyyeyi yıḳdı yaḳdı yā, cited in Ahdi, Ahdî ve
Gülşen-i Şuʿarâsı, ed. Solmaz, 81.
4 Eflatun Shirvani, Ḥekāyet-i Seyl Āmeden be İstanbūl; Selaniki, Tarih, ed. İpşirli, vol. 1, 1–4; Peçevi,
Tarih-i Peçevı̂, ed. Baykal, vol. 1, 36–37; Eyyubi, Menâkıb-ı Sultan Süleyman, ed. Akkuş, 156–209;
Beyzade, Hasan Bey-zâde Târihi, ed. Aykut, vol. 2, 160–61; Solakzade, Solak-zâde Tarihi, ed. Çabuk,
vol. 2, 135–136; and Evliya Çelebi, Evliyâ Çelebi Seyahatnâmesi:1. Kitap, eds. Dankoff, Kahraman,
Dağlı, vol.1, 69–70, 227. My thanks to Aleksandar Shopov for information on Shirvani.
5 Constantinople’s nearly complete dependence on outside water resources during the
Byzantine period is stressed by Byzantinists and archaeologists like Cyril Mango, James
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310 Karakaş
small streams were all located in Istanbul’s northern and western hinterland
(Haslar ḳażāsı [district] through the Ottoman period) and water from these
sources had to be brought into the city by means of colossal aqueduct systems
of pipes and channels (Fig. 12.1). In the intra muros city, where the greater part
of the population lived, and with the notable exception of the Valens aque-
duct, however, the water infrastructure was hidden underground or within city
structures, and was perceived only by means of smaller-scale interventions
like fountains and water towers (terāzū) (Fig. 12.2). Thus, the visible aqueducts,
fountains, water towers, and distribution chambers (maḳsem) as well as the
invisible pipes, channels, and sewers were constant reminders of the insepa-
rable relation of urban development to nature.
From the late 1400s onwards, when Istanbul became the capital city of the
Ottoman Empire and was reconstituted by construction works starting with
the reign of Mehmed II (r. 1444–46, 1451–81), building water infrastructure
remained a main preoccupation of the sultans and high-ranking officials. The
earliest waterway (ṣuyolu) was commissioned by Sultan Mehmed II to bring
water to his mosque complex (1463–70) and palaces, among other places,
and was completed around 1470.6 Bayezid II (r. 1481–1512), the elder son and
successor of Mehmed II, followed through by undertaking the construction
of a new waterway in the Haslar district to supply his own mosque complex
(c.AH 911/CE 1506).7 Following the same pattern, Sultan Süleyman I (r. 1520–66)
Crow, Jonathan Bardill, and Richard Bayliss, and had been earlier discussed by Frochheimer
and Strzygowski, who emphasized that the city lacked a good drinking water supply.
See Mango, “The Water Supply of Constantinople”, 9–18; Crow et al., The Water Supply of
Byzantine Constantinople, 9–19; and Dalman, Wittek & Schede, Der Valens-Aquädukt in
Konstantinopel. For assessments of the situation in Ottoman times, see Ata, “İstanbul Evkaf
Suları”, 98–101; Nazım Bey, İstanbul Şehremânetine Evkâfdan Devr Olunan Sular, 3–4; Ergin,
“Vesāṭat-ı İṭfāiyyeden—İstanbul ṣuları”, 1155, 1163; Nirven, İstanbul Suları, 41; and Çeçen,
Sinan’s Water Supply System, 19–27.
6 The Ottomans also called it ṣular (waters), and ṣuyolu was translated as waterway. I prefer the
common Ottoman usage. Hence, I use Kırkçeşme waterway, not Kırkçeşme water supply sys-
tem or Kırkçeşme waters. On Mehmed II’s waterways, see Bilge, “Fatih Zamanında Topkapı
Sarayı Suyu”, 214–22; Nirven, İstanbul’da Fatih ll. Sultan Mehmed Devri Türk Su Medeniyeti,
69–74; Necipoğlu, “Virtual Archaeology”, 315, 344, n. 3; and Karakaş, “Clay Pipes, Marble
Surfaces”, 23–30.
7 Bayezid II’s waterways relied on four sources, located in Cebeci village, Yılanlı Dere, and
Koyun Dere, flowing southeast of Küçükköy village. Çeçen, İstanbul’un Vakıf Sularından
Halkalı Suları. The earliest available document that mentions the Bayezid ṣuyolu is dated 27
Safer 975/2 September 1567. See decree no. 112, in İşler & Yıldırım (eds.), 7 Numaralı Mühimme
Defteri, 39.
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l’ambassade de Lord Strangford; traduit de l’anglais par H. Vilmain et E. Rives …, Paris, 1828
Map of the environs of Istanbul showing water reservoirs, aqueducts, conduits and water
currents. From R. Walsh, Voyage en Turquie et à Constantinople, par R. Walsh attaché à
Figure 12.1
commissioned the building of the Süleymaniye waterway to supply his two

socioreligious complexes, Şehzade (1542–48) and Süleymaniye (1550–57).8
8 See Barkan, Süleymaniye Cami ve İmareti. For the physical and geographical layout of each
sultanic waterway, see Karakaş, “Clay Pipes, Marble Surfaces”, 23–55.
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312 Karakaş
Figure 12.2
Water tower (terāzū)
Photograph: Caner Cangül
There were also the grand viziers’ constructions. Mahmud Pasha (d. 1474), who
served as grand vizier between 1456 and 1468, then 1472 and 1474 to Mehmed II,
was one of the foremost patrons, and around 1459 he built the first grand vizierial
waterway located between Bayrampaşa-Maltepe that ran south of Eyüp for his
religious-charitable complex and its dependencies (1463–73).9 The second
grand vizierial waterway was that of Davud Pasha (d. 1498). Completed in the
first years of Bayezid II’s reign, it carried water from small streams flowing out-
side the city walls to his mosque complex at Avrat Pazarı (between Cerrah Paşa
and Koca Mustafa Paşa).10 The third major vizierial undertaking was built by
Koca Mustafa Pasha (d. 1512), and likewise, his waterway furnished water to his
9 On Mahmud Pasha’s waterways, see Ergin, “Vesāṭat-ı İṭfāiyyeden—İstanbul ṣuları”, 1160;

Nirven, İstanbul’da Fatih ll. Sultan Mehmed Devri Türk Su Medeniyeti, 77–86; and Çeçen,
İstanbul’un Vakıf Sularından Halkalı Suları, 70–72. On Mahmud Pasha’s architectural
patronage within its broader context, see Kafescioğlu, Constantinopolis/Istanbul, 109–30,
and Stavrides, The Sultan of Vezirs, 258–94.
10 Eyice, “Davud Paşa Külliyesi”, IA, vol. 9, 42.
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mosque and lodge complex and the converted church mosque at Atik Mustafa
Paşa (Ayvansaray).11
By the time of Kırkçeşme waterway reconstruction, the sultanic and vizierial
waterways were still in operation and furnished the majority of water supply
to the city. It is important to note that each waterway was managed separately
and funded by their respective endowments (awqāf).12 And equally important
is that as part of the sultan’s private imperial property (ḫāṣṣa), the vast portion
of the Haslar district was incorporated into revenue-producing holdings of
the sultanic endowments. A cursory glance into the endowment deeds (waq-
fiyya) indicates that the agricultural lands—hence villages and agricultural
lands (mezraʿas) in Terkos, Çatalca, Silivri, Küçük Çekmece, and a few villages
in Büyük Çekmece and east of Hasköy—had been endowed to the awqāf of
Mehmed II, Bayezid II, and Süleyman I to generate revenues and maintain
the waterways in support of their respective mosque complexes in Istanbul
proper.13 In that regard, the sultanic awqāf controlled the greatest share of
both land and water resources in the hinterland.
During the second half of the 16th century, the most prominent waterway
was the Kırkçeşme system (1555–63), the second major infrastructure project
Süleyman I undertook in the Haslar district—the drought that hit Istanbul in
1550 was the most likely reason for its initiation.14 The initial construction of
this waterway dates back to Byzantine times. It was then restored by Mehmed II
and expanded by the celebrated master architect Sinan (1489–1588) with new
water resources shortly before the devastating flood of 1563 that destroyed
11 Ergin, “Vesāṭat-ı İṭfāiyyeden—İstanbul ṣuları”, 1160. On the mosque complex, see Barkan
& Ayverdi, 953/1546 tarihli İstanbul Vakıfları Tahrir Defteri, 366–69; and Öztürk, “Koca
Mustafa Paşa Vakıfları ve Külliyesi”, 10.
12 These waterways came to be known as Halkalı waterways. See Çeçen, İstanbul’un Vakıf
Sularından Halkalı Suları. On the income and expenses of the Mehmed II complex in
1489/90, see Barkan, “Fatih İmareti 1489–90 Yılları Muhasebe Bilançoları”, 297–341;
and Ünan, Kuruluşundan Günümüze Fatih Külliyesi. For the waqfiyya of Bayezid II, see
Gökbilgin, XV. ve XVI. Asırlarda, appendix, 1–184. For the Süleymaniye waterways, see
Kürkçüoğlu (ed.), Süleymaniye Vakfiyesi.
13 The Fatih waqf held two villages and agricultural lands in Silivri along with 28 villages
in Terkos. For the names of those villages, see Gökbilgin, XV. ve XVI. Asırlarda Edirne,
302, 312; Ünan, Kuruluşundan Günümüze Fâtih Külliyesi, 101–02; and on the waqfiyyas of
Mehmed II, Beyatlı (ed.), Fâtih Sultan Mehmed’in 877/1472 Tarihli Vakfiyyesi; and Ergin
(ed.), Fatih Sultan Mehmed’in Vakfiyeleri. According to Haslar court records, the Bayezid
waqf held seven villages in Terkos; 12 in Küçük Çekmece; two in Çatalca; seven in Büyük
Çekmece; and one in Silivri, along with lands neighboring the gate of Edirnekapı. Based
on the Haslar court records, the Süleymaniye waqf held one village in Silivri, and six
ṣuyolcu villages (mīrī ṣuyolu ḳaryeleri).
14 Sinan’s Autobiographies, eds. Crane, Akın, & Necipoğlu, 118.
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314 Karakaş
large parts of it. The waterway was supplied from the Cebeciköy area and
Belgrad forests. Unlike earlier waterways, the Kırkçeşme waters arrived in the
city at a lower elevation from the gate of Eğrikapı and, thus served the densely
populated neighborhoods along the south bank of the Golden Horn before
being lifted to the steep slopes overlooking the Golden Horn (Fig. 12.3). It was
managed separately and was not a part of a larger socioreligious endowment.
The Kırkçeşme is one of the earliest waterways that was individually endowed
and had its own waqfiyya (endowment deed). It was immediately put under
the direct control of the state as indicated by the centralized appointment of a
superintendent of imperial waterways (ṣu nāẓırı).15
We do not know much about the sultan’s decision-making process, but con-
temporaries offer a revealing look at the repair activities after the devastating
flood of 1563.16 One work stands out among these accounts. Eyyubi, a scholar
and a poet connected to court circles, wrote a Menāḳıb (Exemplary Deeds) of
Sultan Süleyman around 1568/69 to commemorate the repairs.17
From his eyewitness account, we learn of the organization that went into
directing the construction sites of the Mağlova and Uzun (Long) aqueducts,
west of Kemerburgaz. The head of the janissaries Müezzin-zade Ali Agha
(d. 1571)18 and the grand admiral Piyale Pasha (d. 1578) were appointed along
with Sinan, the chief architect and Balık-zade Ali Çelebi, the building comp-
troller (binā’ emīni)19 to oversee the work. Working under their supervision
were the janissary officers (ṣubaşı), janissaries, foot soldiers (yaya) and their
commanders (yayabaşı), imperial sea captain corps (reis), irregular mounted
soldiers (zaġārcı), and novices (acemioğlan).20 Eyyubi does not report the
numbers of these workers, but the recruitment procedure resembled those
described in the building of the Süleymaniye mosque.21 It is apparent that the
majority of the construction crew gathered from the regimented teams of the
janissary corps and sea captains. However, in contrast to the initial construc-
tion of the Kırkçeşme headed by Sinan, most of the repairs seemed to be led
by artisans. The principal military officers acted as the architect overseeing
15 Ateş (ed.), Kanunî Sultan Süleyman Su Vakfiyesi, 14–16.

16 See above, n. 3.
17 On Eyyubi’s Menāḳıb, see Anhegger, “İstanbul’un Suyollarının İnşasına aid bir Kaynak”,
119–38. For a transcription and translation into Turkish, see Eyyubi, Menâḳıb-ı Sultan
Süleyman, ed. Akkuş. In this study, I have used Akkuş’s transcription of Eyyubi’s text. The
original manuscript is preserved at the Süleymaniye Library, Esad Efendi 2422. The sec-
tion on the repairs spans fols. 38a–62b.
18 On Müezzin-zade Ali Agha, see Danişmend, İzahlı Osmanlı Tarih Kronolojisi, vol. 2, 414.
19 On Balık-zade Ali Çelebi, senior finance minister and building comptroller, see Süreyya,
“Balık-zâde Ali Çelebi”, Sicil-i Osmani, 501–02.
20 Eyyubi, Menâḳıb-ı Sultan Süleyman, ed. Akkuş, 181, 185, 193, 199.
21 See Barkan, Süleymaniye Cami ve İmareti.
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Figure 12.3 Hypothetical reconstruction plan of the Kırkçeşme water supply, drawn
by Filiz Karakuş
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316 Karakaş
construction, going beyond the expectations placed on them; the comptroller

(binā’ emīni) who managed the financial and logistical operations provisioned
the necessary building materials and coordinated work of the master builders
(ustā); the accountant treasurer (kātib) kept the records; and the master build-
ers managed the work of the building specialists on site. The specialists that
Eyyubi mentions include the diggers/sappers (laġımcı), pumpers (ṭulumbacı),
masons (bennā’), and carpenters (neccār), in addition to a team of workmen
including porters (ḥammāl), laborers (yiğit), and slaves (esīrler).
Eyyubi does not dwell much on the construction methods and materials
used, probably because he lacked the practical expertise of building practices.
He begins his account with the repairs and improvements to the foundations
of the Mağlova Aqueduct. Once the remains of the damaged aqueduct were
cleared, a larger workforce dug the foundations for its reconstruction.22 Shortly
thereafter, the crew began the construction of a tunnel to bring water from a
nearby river. A group of diggers/sappers (laġımcı) were involved in the work.23
Eyyubi recounts that heavy rains continued after the foundation was dug
and attempts to empty the water from the massive foundation trenches were
unsuccessful. So, pumpers (ṭulumbacı) built pumps and waterwheels (dūlāb)
at various intervals along the channel to discharge water and soil. Eyyubi’s
narration of building the masonry foundation walls of the Mağlova Aqueduct
involves the architect laying out foundations, porters carrying stones, other
laborers working the quarries, and the sounds of cutting and hammering
day and night. Carpenters put up scaffolds and masons laid the foundations.
“Horasan mortar”, a special mixture of lime, crushed brick, and brick powder,
was applied to strengthen and fill the cracks in the walls. Eyyubi describes
the construction of a collecting dam (sedd) and the aboveground arched sec-
tions of the aqueduct (kemer), encasing the walls of the lower arches (yapıp
bennā’ dibinden dayāḳ), and reinforcing walls and arches with iron chains
(demür kined).24
In the end, the restoration of the Mağlova and Long Aqueducts was a major
feat; as Eyyubi writes, “they built fountains, the master dug tiny channels to
bring water to Istanbul”.25 Evliya Çelebi (d. c.1685) notes that the availability
of much-needed fresh water put an end to the misery of the people.26 Various
pieces of evidence further indicate that the repairs were completed in a short
22 Eyyubi, Menâḳıb-ı Sultan Süleyman, ed. Akkuş, 193.

23 Ibid., 223.
24 Ibid., 227–35.
25 Ibid., 257: āb içün çeşmeler olub bünyād daġlar kesdi niyyet kim Ferhād/ ince yollardan anı
rindāne getürübdür Stanbūl’a ustād.
26 Evliya Çelebi, Evliyâ Çelebi Seyahatnâmesi: 1, vol. 1, eds. Dankoff, Kahraman, Dağlı, vol. 1, 147.
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Figure 12.4 Panorama of the system of aqueducts of the Kırkçeşme waterway.

From Seyyid Lokman, Tārīḫ-i Sulṭān Süleymān, 1579–80, ink and opaque
watercolor on paper. Chester Beatty Library, T 413, fols. 22v and 23r
period of time and extended beyond the Mağlova and Uzun Aqueducts, dem-
onstrating a well-organized, highly motivated group of skilled and unskilled
laborers.27 From an imperial decree dated September 1563, we learn that the
Ayvad Aqueduct (in the Belgrad forest) had also been destroyed by the flood
and needed repair; by 1578 it was functioning again, as revealed in a double-
page painting illustrating Seyyid Lokman’s Tārīḫ-i Sulṭān Sülaymān (The
History of Sultan Süleyman) (Fig. 12.4).28 There is no clear evidence on how
much water was distributed within the city walls after the repairs,29 but an
early survey carried out in AH 985/CE 1577 records at least 170 public fountains
27 In AH 972/CE 1565, the repairs were completed.

28 For a survey of aqueducts that needed repairs, see TSMA, E. 12005. After Çeçen & Kolay,
İstanbul’un Osmanlı Dönemi Suyolları, 46. See also Necipoğlu, Age of Sinan, 113–14, 140–42,
171–72.
29 Sai acknowledges the system supplied water to more than 300 newly built fountains.
Sinan’s Autobiographies, eds. Crane, Akın, & Necipoğlu, 58–60. According to Selaniki, the
daily volume discharged from the Kırkçeşme in 1565 was over 100 lüle (approximately
2 million gallons); see Selaniki, Tarih, ed. İpşirli, vol. 1, 4.
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318 Karakaş
and 39 bathhouses in intra muros Istanbul.30 Additionally, 64 households were

directly supplied and so did not have to collect from public fountains. It is
noteworthy that 39 of these 64 elite households purchased the right to connect
their houses and the public buildings they had built to the Kırkçeşme water-
way through mains and intake pipes; as part of the same agreement, they sup-
plied water to the public fountains they commissioned.31 This indicates that
public benefit was integral to water infrastructure projects and the patronage
of waterworks from early on.
2 The Later 16th Century and Beyond: Changes in Water Use, Rights
to Ownership, and Private Initiative
Together with the 1563 repairs and the construction of new waterways,
Istanbulites enjoyed sufficient supplies of water. The waterways, however,
were prone to damage from floods, earthquakes, and fires, and such unfore-
seen natural calamities often necessitated frequent repairs in the late 16th and
early 17th centuries.32 There were also violations: illegal subdivisions and ille-
gal tapping into waterways, especially in intra muros Istanbul, was becom-
ing widespread—a fact made clear by the sheer number of court cases and
30 The copy of this earliest survey, dated October 1577, can be found in the waqf records (vakıf
su defterleri) housed in İSKİ, 1/1–3 and 7/6–11, published in Kal’a et al. (eds.), İstanbul Su
Külliyati: Vakıf Su Defterleri, vol. 32, 7–26. The reason for the survey by Murad III (r. 1574–
95) was that the private undertakings of the superintendent of imperial waterways (ṣu
nāẓırı) had led to a decrease in water flowing through fountains, which produced water
shortages the larger public was experiencing within the city. From the decree copied on
the survey, we learn that between 1568 and 1577 the ṣu nāẓırı had given permissions to
almost a hundred individuals to divert water from the system. At the time, permission
from the sultan was required to build and use waterways. The issuance of water use rights
by the ṣu nāẓırı was an act of wrongdoing.
31 The extant archival documents indicate that by early 1560s, a new type of water pipe
called a burma lüle came into use in the city’s fountains. As evidenced by an imperial
decree in 1564, if private patrons agreed to build fountains at their own expense, they
would receive orders (emr-i şerīf) from the sultan that guaranteed them a usage right to
the surplus water (geri tepen ṣular). For the decree, see Ahmet Refik, On Altıncı Asırda,
17–18. But as the 1577 survey shows, the rule was not strictly followed. The burma lüle is
important because once it was installed in a public fountain, it would act like a faucet
(muṣluḳ) to stop constant water flow and allow the tank to fill, and then carry off the
surplus water to its original water conduction.
32 BOA, MAD. d. 48, 124 (20 Ramadan 990/18 October 1582), in Martal, “Osmanlı
İmparatorluğunda Su-Yolculuk”, 1645; and BOA, A.DVNSMHM. d-49, 294 (5 Cemaziyu’l-
evvel 991/6 July 1583).
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imperial orders regarding such violations.33 Illicit tapping from the main
waterways, in particular, caused decreased water flow and led to risks of water
shortage in the city. While the physical layout of Istanbul’s water infrastructure
generally resembled a modern supply system, the pressure of its water flow
was considerably lower.
This combination of low water pressure and limited supply into the city’s
main pipes became a source of contention between the state and city dwell-
ers. Unauthorized connections and illegal tapping into the water mains had
affected the entire system—for example, in the year 1591, the available amount
of water was down by 24 lüle, that is, its volume was 228 gallons less per minute
than it had been.34 Hence, on 16 Ramadan 999/12 July 1591, an imperial order
sent to the judge of Istanbul and the superintendent of waterways (ṣu nāẓırı)
launched an investigation into the branch openings of the underground water
channels to safeguard the water flow in the intramural city. As the investiga-
tion shows, action was taken against those who built over the underground
channels or connected pipes to divert water into their private properties.
Besides deeming that the houses and shops constructed over or adjacent to
the underground routes were illegal, the government appointed functionaries
to destroy (refʿ) the illegal connections and re-divert the flow of water back to
public fountains.35
Such fraudulent practices were common, and by the second half of the 17th
century they were among the greatest challenges faced by authorities in the
capital. For example, Ümmühan Hatun, a resident of Esirci Kemal neighbor-
hood (Kumkapı), obtained permission to repair a water line that ran into her
house. At the same time, she prevented her two neighbors, el-Hajj Mustafa
33 For example, see decree no. 356 (AH 1040/CE 1630), in Yıldırım (ed.), 85 Numaralı Mühimme
Defteri, 217; decree no. 395 (Ramadan 1050/Dec–Jan 1640/41), in Çakır & Yılmaz (eds.),
Hasköy Mahkemesi—5 Numaralı Sicil, 292; decree no. 407 (AH 1073/CE 1663), in Kahraman,
Recep, & Akman (eds.), Galata Mahkemesi—90 Numaralı Sicil, 322; decree no. 345 (AH
1097/CE 1686), in Kahraman, Recep, & Akman (eds.), Bab Mahkemesi—46 Numaralı
Sicil, 317; decree no. 345 (AH 1097/CE 1686), in Çakır & Yılmaz (eds.), Eyüb Mahkemesi—
61 Numaralı Sicil, 205; BOA, A.DVNS.ŞKT d-6/136/61? (Receb 1078/December 1667);
d-8/212/1019 (Şevval 1083/February 1673); d-72/60 (Rebiʿül-ahir 1129/March–Apr. 1717);
d-111/230 (AH 1139/CE 1726); BOA, CB 9/425 (16 Safer 1134/6 December 1721).
34 BOA, MAD. d. 68, 41 (21 Rebiʿül-ahir 999/13 July 1591). From Martal, “Osmanlı İmparator-
luğunda Su-Yolculuk”, 1647–48. The basic discharge unit in Ottoman times was the lüle.
The rate of flow of water passing through a short pipe with a diameter of 73.58 mm and
located 96 mm below the level of water equalled 1 lüle, i.e. 36 liters/min., or 52 m3/day.
After Ata, “İstanbul Evkaf Suları”, 138–139.
35 BOA, MAD. d. 68, 41 (21 Rebiʿül-ahir 999/13 July 1591). From Martal, “Osmanlı İmparatorlu-
ğunda Su-Yolculuk”, 1647–48.
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320 Karakaş
and Janissary İsmail, from repairing their own water lines, and thus the neigh-
bors complained to the court. Apparently, Ümmühan was trying to block their
repairs because they would have diverted water from the main water chan-
nel and reduced her water flow. The court banned her from intervening.36 A
month later, however, she demanded the removal of all illegal water lines in
her neighborhood; this time the court ruled in her favor.37 What appears to
have happened in the meantime was that her two neighbors had exploited
the destruction wrought by a fire to build new and illegal water lines to their
respective houses. Their case was not an outlier. City dwellers were active play-
ers in the distribution of water and often monitored and reported excessive
diversions, illegal subdivisions, and illegal tapping.
Keeping the water supply clean and drinkable was another issue the inhab-
itants of Istanbul took an active interest in. An August 1640 entry in a Hasköy
court register records that a Jewish woman by the name of Akiye had pur-
chased a plot measuring about 16 ẕirāʿ (approximately 12 meters) by half a ẕirāʿ
(approximately 37.9 cm),38 and together with her immediate neighbor, Yakko,
had water piped to their respective homes through this plot. But because of
the natural slope, their toilets drained toward their dwellings and wastewater
ran beneath them. To remedy the problem, Akiye purchased another plot from
Yakko and dug an underground channel for the sewage to flow directly into the
sea and protect the quality of their water supply.39
These seemingly mundane historical fragments, I argue, generate a fuller
picture of water use practices and the direct involvement of city dwellers in
the operation and maintenance of Istanbul’s water infrastructure, a perspec-
tive absent from Ottoman historical scholarship that foregrounds the sultan-
ate’s role in matters of water distribution. Of course, from early on, the sultans,
members of the dynasty, and the administrative elite used the institutional
framework of waqf to dedicate enormous sums and deploy vast labor forces to
create new water supply lines, and public good had remained a main goal of
these projects. Through mosque complexes and drinking fountains, the large
sultanic and vizierial awqāf served the needs of public life while simultane-
ously celebrating their own power and piety. Besides, by the early 17th century,
36 BOA, A.DVNS.ŞKT d-8, 212/1019 (Şevval 1083/February 1673).

37 Ibid.
38 The ẕirāʿ, known also as andāza (pic, or pike) was a measure of length that varied greatly.
The Istanbul ẕirāʿ was 69 cm long, while ẕirāʿ-i miʿmāri (the architect’s ẕirāʿ) was 75.8 cm.
Here, I take the architect’s ẕirāʿ as the basis of measurements indicated in the documents;
see Özdural, “Sinan’s Arşın”, 101–15.
39 Decrees no. 343 (1–10 Şevval 1049/February 1640) and no. 399 (1–10 Cemaziyu’l-ahir/
August 1640), in Çakır & Yılmaz (eds.), Hasköy Mahkemesi—5 Numaralı Sicil, 262, 295.
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some of the well-to-do found that water piped to their individual homes was
far more convenient, and growing household demand led to new individual
water supply lines in the Haslar.
Evidence indicates that throughout much of the 17th century (and long
afterwards), long-distance, imperial waqf waterways underwent modifications
and further expansions in both length and capacity. The construction of the
Sultan Ahmed mosque between 1611–17 was followed by a new waterway, the
last major hydraulic project executed under royal patronage.40 Until the 1722–
24 construction of the Great Dam at Belgrad forest under Ahmed III (r. 1703–
30), the building of new waterways was largely left to private investment.41 The
main conduits, like the Kırkçeşme waterway, provided the foundational infra-
structure, and so additions took relatively little time, labor, and capital. Many
high-ranking officials, including the viziers and grand viziers, their household
staff, and courtiers, commissioned small-scale, private water lines that were
built in the Haslar and connected to the waterways of sultanic awqāf. Over
time, these became known as ḳatma.42 The ḳatma water structures, in the eyes
of people, were a concrete expression of their right to hold water under private
ownership. In the 17th and 18th centuries, the legal basis for water allocation
and use, whether public or private, was rooted in ownership. Once someone
built a ḳatma and connected it to the waqf-operated waterway coming from the
Haslar district to various points of use in intra muros Istanbul, then the patron
was legally entitled to the added amount of water as a freehold property.43
Thus, the water amount generated from a ḳatma was considered private prop-
erty (mülk) and could be passed on by inheritance, donation (hibe), endow-
ment, rent (īcāre-i mü’eccele), and sale (beyʿ bi’t-tevliye).
40 Architectural historian Zeynep Nayır provides a vivid portrayal of the construction pro-
cess of the Sultan Ahmed mosque complex; see Nayır, Osmanlı Mimarlığında Sultan
Ahmet Külliyesi, and more recently Aliye Öten’s unpublished dissertation (2017).
41 The building of new dams continued under Mahmud I (r. 1730–54), Mustafa III (r. 1754–
74), and Abdülhamid I (r. 1774–89). For a more detailed account on the construction of the
Taksim waterway and changing patterns of patronage in the building of new waterworks,
see Wielemaker, “The Taksim Water Network”, and Hamadeh, The City’s Pleasures, 76–110.
See also, Çeçen, İstanbul’un Vakıf Sularından Taksim ve Hamidiye Suları.
42 Both Redhouse’s standard Ottoman-English dictionary and Şemsettin Sami’s Ottoman
dictionary give three meanings for the word ḳatma: 1) the act of adding, joining, mixing;
2) a place of junction in aqueducts; and 3) added, joined on, mixed in; an addition; an
appendage (mülḥaḳ; ilḥāḳ olunması). See Redhouse, A Turkish and English Lexicon, New
Edition, 1407; and Şemseddin Sami, Ḳāmūs-i Türkī, 1017.
43 This was not a fixed amount. In general, the ḳatma patrons received two-thirds of the
total amount of water obtained from the drainage area, while the carrier waqf received
one-third, as a usage right.
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322 Karakaş
Table 12.1 Estimated number of water entitlement holders between 1619–1717
No. of No. of Total no. of

patron-owners buyer-owners owners
1619–1645 (AH 1029–1054) 52 5 57

1645–1669 (AH 1055–1079) 94 8 108
1669–1694 (AH 1080–1105) 104 58 229
1695–1717 (AH 1106–1129) 82 146 351
An analysis of court and waqf registers shows that most ḳatma patrons
used their water rights for their own consumption rather than for exchange
purposes.44 From 1619 to 1645, out of the 52 identifiable patrons of ḳatma, 51
(94.2 per cent) reserved the title to water for themselves and never sold. From
1645 to 1669, while there was an 80.77 per cent increase in the number of the
patrons, the rate of sales did not change. Table 12.1 shows that those who had
obtained a water title by constructing a ḳatma averaged 87 per cent, whereas
those who had obtained it through purchase averaged only 7.5 per cent.
Yet, from 1669 to the end of 1717, the number of buyers rose from 58 (or
25.35 per cent of the total) to 146 (or 40.67 per cent of the total). This near
twofold increase in the number of buyers and sellers suggests that those who
could afford it started buying shares in existing ḳatma instead of building new
ones. By the early 18th century, the ḳatma water structures had developed into
objects of economic exchange. Shifts in notions of property ownership and
the legal frameworks that circumscribed it informed the expanding practices
of private water ownership.45 By the 1720s, creating, maintaining, repairing,
and improving ḳatma water structures, together with buying and selling water
entitlements, were economic activities pursued by a broad social spectrum
(aṣḥāb-i miyāh, as the Ottomans called them).46
44 Based on İEM for 1658–1720, and waqf water registers. See Karakaş, “Clay Pipes, Marble
Surfaces”, appendices C–G, and bibliography. These statistics are rough estimates and will
in due course be supplemented as more records are unearthed.
45 For a similar observation, see Aleksander Shopov’s chapter in this volume.
46 On the changing social profile of households owning ḳatma waters and being involved in
transfers and/or sales between 1660 and 1720s, see Karakaş, “Clay Pipes, Marble Surfaces”,
108–77.
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3 The Construction of Ḳatmas: Process, Workers, Suppliers,

and Materials
Unfortunately, few remnants of 17th and 18th century ḳatma structures sur-
vive and, therefore, archaeological research to help us understand the working
methods and practices of ḳatma builders is limited. Much of what we know
comes from written sources, most notably, repair registers. However, by study-
ing the technical aspects of ḳatma building gleaned through available docu-
mentation, we can track down tools, materials, and construction methods; and
working backwards, we can flesh out the skeletal evidence about those largely
anonymous artisans, craftspeople, and laborers who reshaped Istanbul’s water
infrastructure through the construction of ḳatmas. This provides a broader
understanding of the social and economic connections among the city’s work
force in the building industry and the early modern dynamics between the
urban and the rural.
Documentary evidence indicates that ḳatma water supply intake structures
were distinct from the larger systems that incorporated massive overground
elements such as aqueducts, dams, and buttressed reservoirs. The ḳatma
hardly attracts any attention above ground because only a mound of earth
around the openings of the underground shafts were visible, and a carved
stone, strongly resembling a typical gravestone of the period, with inscriptions
recording the names of its founder, marked the presence of the ḳatma.47 The
ḳātma consisted of a drainage area where water was extracted from its source;
it incorporated three main sections: 1) a vertical shaft (yapulu baca and boş
baca), 2) an underground tunnel (taḥte’l-arż laġm ve ḳanevāt), and 3) horizon-
tal underground earthenware pipes (künk) (Fig. 12.5). The technique for the
extraction of water is similar to the ancient ḳanāt (subterranean aqueducts)
water technology, which relied mainly on gravity.48 Like the ḳanāt, the ḳatma
used underground tunnels; but instead of a small channel trenched along the
bottom of the tunnel, it provided often an accessible tunnel through which a
piped watercourse ran.
The construction of a ḳatma began by digging into the soil to locate the water
source, and was then followed by the careful surveying, orienting, and level-
ing of prospective routes. The tool used for leveling, known as a havāyī terāzū
(an aerial triangular balance, also known as a plumb bob level), is probably
47 In 1962, Nirven documented six cut and engraved stones; see Nirven, “Eski Su Tesislerinde
Menba Başlarına Konan Nişantaşları”, 77–78.
48 The ḳanāt technology brought ground water to the surface using gravity. Found in dry
and semi-arid landscapes, ḳanāts, in general, allowed large quantities of water to be
transported great distances. See Wulff, “The Qanats of Iran”, 94–105; and Beaumont et al.,
Qanat, Kariz, and Khattara.
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324 Karakaş
Figure 12.5 Detail from a map of the mīrī (imperial) branch of Halkalı waterways, 1748,
opaque watercolor on paper. TSMK, H. 1815
similar to those used by architects (Fig. 12.6).49 Each end of the havāyī terāzū
(shaped as an equilateral triangle equipped with a plumb line and plumb bob)
was attached to a cord and the cord was neatly stretched between the two
poles (Fig. 12.7).50 The person holding the first pole places it at the spot and the
other person lowers or raises the other end of the cord until the plumb line is
positioned in such a way that the plumb bob (şākūl) stops oscillating, and the
cord at a straight horizontal line marks the two places as level. The person car-
rying the first pole notes the place indicated on the pole by the cord to measure
49 A passage in Sinan’s Teẕkiretü ’l-bünyān notes the importance of the aerial balance dur-
ing the repairs of the Kırkçeşme waterway; Sinan’s Autobiographies, eds. Crane, Akın, &
Necipoğlu, 118, 145. Cafer Efendi (d. after 1633) mentions terāzī (terāzū) in the diction-
ary section of his Risāle-i miʿmāriyye together with tools used for measuring, levelling
and laying out foundations. Cafer Efendi, Risâle-i Mi′mâriyye, 108. See also Kale, “From
Measuring to Estimation”. According to Kale, there is enough evidence that Ottoman
architects probably used an aerial balance, measuring rod, and plumb bob “for measuring
distances, heights, and depths, and for leveling and partitioning surfaces”, and “to make
site measurements”, 138, 139.
50 The Pera Museum in Istanbul hosts a collection of aerial balances dating between the
16th and 19th centuries. Another collection is that of Georges Petrovic, in the National
Museum of Science and Technology, in Ottawa. See also, Kürkman, Anadolu Ağırlık ve
Ölçüleri, 90.
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Figure 12.6
Havāyī terāzū (aerial triangular balance), 18th–19th
centuries, brass, 92 × 112 mm. Inv. no. PMA 584, Pera
Museum, Istanbul
Figure 12.7
Drawing of a havāyī terāzū
showing its function.
From A.-F. Andréossy,
Constantinople et le Bosphore
de Thrace pendant les années
1812, 1813, 1814 et pendant
l’année 1826, Paris, 1828
the differences in height, and then moves in the chosen direction to continue
the leveling. Thus, the builders were able to measure the slope with a value.51
51 Based on the instructions given by al-Karajī (d. 1029) in Inbāṭ al-miyāh al-khafīya (Book
on Extracting Hidden Waters). See Bruin, “Surveying and Surveying Instruments” 2, 4–5
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326 Karakaş
After careful leveling to ensure a through-course for the underground tunnel,

documentary references suggest that along the length of the tunnel, a series
of vertical shafts (yapulu baca) were dug at intervals of roughly 15 meters (20
ẕirāʿ) to 40 meters (50 ẕirāʿ). The shafts were used to provide air to diggers and
to take out the excavated materials from the tunnel. Subsequently, they pro-
vided access just big enough for a worker to pass through to the underground
tunnel for repairs and maintenance. When the shafts were dug into soft rock,
they were reinforced with a siding of masonry made of either stone or brick.
They were then closed by a movable stone or brick tile (üzeri ṭaş/kiremid ḳapak
ferşlī bacalar).52
The length of a ḳatma varied from roughly 150 meters (195 ẕirāʿ) to 2150
meters (approximately 2750 ẕirāʿ).53 The waters were carried through terra-
cotta pipes (künk or maḳāslı künk), of which archival records mention three
types, each with a different diameter.54 The pipes were bonded with a spe-
cial glue called lökün made up of a mixture of 100 oḳḳas (approx. 128 kg) of
recently extinguished and powdered lime, 25 oḳḳa (approx. 32 kg) of linseed oil
(revġan-ı bezir) of the best quality, and 20 oḳḳa (approx. 25 kg) of cotton yarn
(penbe-i ḫām) and linen flax (keten), which prevented leakage.55 Sometimes
pipes were cemented on the exterior with a mixture of clay and lime mortar
(ḫorasān kireç) to avoid the risk of crumbling over time. Various repair registers
further indicate that because the tunnels were dug directly into soil, wooden
boards or frames were often used to hold back the earth. After removing the
permeable ground, the floor of the tunnels was often covered with a bed of
clay. In some cases, the tunnel walls were made of stones cemented together
with lime mortar (kireç) or plastered with a thick layer of mortar made with
crushed brick or terracotta (alçı). Then, the underground tunnel sloped to an
outlet basin (laġm aġzı maṣlāḳ) where the water was measured and connected
to the main conduits. The water was sometimes directed to a settling basin
(ısḳāra) to clean the sediment and gravel.
and Schade, “Hidden Waters: Groundwater Histories of Iran and the Mediterranean”,
appendix, 250–52. See also Àndréossy, “Système des eaux”, 434.
52 See İEM 82/41/2a (AH 1081/CE 1671), BOA, CB 3579 (17 Şevval 1137/29 June 1725), CB 1773
(21 Cemaziyu’l-evvel 1154/4 August 1741); and CB 3063 (Receb 1154/September 1741).
53 Based on İEM 90/10/2a and 90/13/2a (AH 1090/CE 1679); 114/ 42/1c and 118/8-9/2c-
1a (AH 1113/CE 1702); 126/?/2a (AH 1221/CE 1709); BOA, A.DVNS.ŞKT. d-111/230 (AH 1139/
CE 1726); BOA, CB 120/5966 (29 Ramadan 1187/14 December 1773); and decree no. 575
(Zilhicce 1047/April–May 1638), in Kahraman & Akman (eds.), Eyüb Mahkemesi (Havâss- ı
Refîa) 37 numaralı sicil, 434. For some details of ḳatma construction prior to the 17th cen-
tury, see İÜM 51/15/2a (Zilka’de 987/December 1579).
54 See BOA, MAD. d. 4752 (AH 1130–35/CE 1718–23), 25–27.
55 Inferred from BOA, CB 3579 (17 Şevval 1137/29 June 1725). See also Àndréossy, “Système des
eaux”, 473 note. 5; Sönmez, “Lökün”, 74; and idem, “Revgan-ı bezir”.
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The construction process has been discussed here in detail because under-
standing it can provide a means to chart the many actors who contributed to
making a ḳatma, as well as the procedures, the tools, and methods used on site.
My preliminary survey yielded at least 40 categories of production and work,
such as transporting materials, locating water resources, surveying, measuring
heights, leveling water channels, digging an underground tunnel in hard rock,
digging a tunnel in soft rock or sand, laying stones, digging wells, sinking pil-
lars, scaffolding, making terracotta pipes, laying pipes, building vaults, cover-
ing walls, plastering, laying foundations, and cleaning the construction site, to
name a few. As Table 12.2 shows, this type of inquiry can reveal a range of skills
and occupations needed for ḳatma construction and, in turn, can reveal the
complex web of people at an early modern construction site.
Table 12.2 Building artisans and laborers working on a ḳatma water structure
construction site
Ṣuyolcu (rāḥ-ı ābi) Water source founder, leveler, water channel builder
Laġımcı Digger, sapper
Neccār Carpenter
Ḳāldırımcı Pavement layerer
Kireç yaḳıcı Lime burner
Kireçci Lime-maker/dealer
Ṣīvācı Plasterer
Muṣluḳcu Faucet maker
Keresteci Timber supplier
Ḳurşuncu Iron maker
Künkcü Terracotta pipe maker
Kiremidci Roof tile maker
Duvārcı (gilīger) Brick layer
Ṭaş ḳırıcı Stone cutter
Ṭaşcı Stone mason
Künk ḥammālı Porter of pipes
Tuğla ḥammālı Porter of bricks
Irġād Day laborer
Rāḥ-ı ābi ṣuyolcular ketḫüdası Steward of ṣuyolcus
Yamāḳ Apprentice
Löküncü Makers of terracotta pipe glue
Ḫorasāncı Horasan mortar maker
Dökümcü Metal worker
ʿArabacı Cart driver
Meremmetci Repairer, restorer
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328 Karakaş
Table 12.2 Building artisans and laborers working on a ḳatma water structure
construction site (cont.)
Ḳalaycı Glaziers
Rençberan Semi-skilled laborers employed in heavy work
Sengtrāş Carver
Yapıcı Builder
Yemekçi Cook
Without doubt, for locating water sources, surveying the ground, and digging
wells and tunnels, experts in hydraulics, geology, geometry, leveling of the gra-
dient, and construction were key. According to the sources, these experts were
the ṣuyolcus (the water channel builders). Highly skilled and resourceful, they
were important in the 17th century, and by the beginning of the 18th century,
they were in great demand due to continuous ḳatma rebuilding and sale activ-
ities. A survey (taḥrīr) dated 1614 reveals that 359 ṣuyolcus lived in Istanbul
and its environs at the time.56 Under the supervision of the superintendent of
waterways, ṣuyolcus carried out all day-to-day functions of water provisioning
in the capital. Ṣuyolcus also participated in official surveys of ḳatmas and inves-
tigated (keşf ) the water discharges and amounts of water delivered by a ḳatma.
When an agreement was reached between the ḳatma patron and the relevant
waqf administrator (mütevellī), witnesses were called on to testify at the Haslar
court about the location of the water source and the volume extracted by the
ḳatma. These witnesses often included the ṣuyolcus, along with the superin-
tendent of waterways, his deputy, the warden of the water channel builders (ṣu
yolcular or rāḥ-i ābīler ketḫüdası), and the head (serbölüks) of the corps of the
water channel builders. They exercised state authority for all kinds of water-
related activities and, with the proliferation of ḳatma constructions, they were
also called upon to report on specific ḳatma and present their opinion on con-
flicts between private parties related to water use and allocation. In addition,
they were in charge of connecting and maintaining water pipes to places of
use designated by owners of water entitlements, as well as of implementing
the provisions on water-related matters promulgated by the state administra-
tion. Some ṣuyolcus were employed by non-imperial waqf patrons to provide
56 A survey of ṣuyolcus was carried out in May–June 1614 (Rebiʿül-ahir 1022), BOA, KK, 7422.
At the beginning of the 18th century, there were 450 ṣuyolcus maintaining the water-
ways. The expansion of the waterways by ḳātmas may have resulted in an increase in
their numbers, İEM 132/47/3 (AH 1126/CE 1714). See also BOA, KK 3522/171/1 (23 Zilkaʿde
1195/31 October 1781). My methodology is similar to McClary, “Craftsmen in Medieval
Anatolia”, 27–58.
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Figure 12.8 View of the village of Kiumurgi-Kioj (Kömürcü Köyü). From L. Meyer, Views
in the Ottoman Dominions, in Europe in Asia, and some of the Mediterranean
Islands, watercolor on paper. London, 1810
maintenance services to their foundations. Finally, during the late 17th and
first decade of the 18th centuries, some ṣuyolcus carved out for themselves
positions as ḳatma patrons.57
Curiously enough, writing in the 1640s, Evliya Çelebi divides these experts
further into three groups: the water technicians (ṣuyolcu), the diggers of water
channels (ṣuyolları ḳazıcısı), and the well-diggers (ḳuyu ḳazıcısı). The water
technicians primarily worked in the city he says, and their trade is “to fasten
the water pipes with linseed oil coatings”.58 The well-diggers, he explains, dig
down to look for water flowing underground. But to him, they are somewhat
pretentious and boast a mastery that they do not have. The diggers of water
channels, on the other hand, deserve higher praise. Evliya Çelebi is deeply
impressed by their collective labor and knowledge of terrain, geometry, and
surveying. He points out that they carefully determine and dig mother wells in
mountains, leveling in such a way that the water channels and towers would
collect enough water through tens of kilometers in tunnels to feed water into
the city. And among all branches of the building trades, for Evliya, theirs was
“not ordinary work, but art”.59
57 See, for example, İEM 132/86/5 (AH 1125/CE 1713).

58 Evliya Çelebi, Evliyâ Çelebi Seyahatnâmesi, vol. 1, eds. Dankoff, Kahraman, Dağlı, 322–23.
59 Ibid., 323: “Hakkâ ki makdûr-ı beşer değil sanʿatdır”.
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330 Karakaş
The diggers of water channels Evliya mentions were most likely the resi-
dent ṣuyolcus in the Haslar district. A tax-related entry dated to AH 1121/
CE 1709 mentions 109 villages within the district area of Haslar.60 By the early
18th century, 12 of those villages were called mīrī ṣu yolu ḳaryeleri (the imperial
waterway villages) (Fig. 12.8). Residents of these villages, a majority of them
Greek peasants (reʿāyā), held fiscal diplomas proving their tax-exempt status
from all extraordinary levies (ʿavārıẕ-ı dīvāniye ve teḳālīf-i ʿörfiye) in return for
their services in the construction and maintenance of the waterways.61 Yet, the
division of labor was not based on religious and ethnic distinctions. According
to the survey of 1614, although the water business was heavily dominated by
a single community, i.e. the Greeks, nevertheless, out of 218 ṣuyolcus, 23 were
identifiable as Muslim, and 10 as Jewish. As to their 141 apprentices (yamāḳ),
there were 13 identifiable Jews and 8 Muslims. Out of 23 Muslim ṣuyolcus, not
all of their apprentices were Muslims: three Greeks worked alongside eight
Muslim apprentices. In this respect, the division of labor in the early 17th cen-
tury rested on competence and expertise, and transcended the boundaries of
religious and ethnic allegiances (as was the case in many artisanal industries
in early modern Istanbul).
A quick glance at the same survey also reveals that among the ṣuyolcu
apprentices, eleven were not native to Istanbul: two were from Gelibolu,
one from Mytilene, one from Tire, one from Elmalu (Sofia?), one from Hacı
Karaman (Sofia?), four from Halalca and one from Vize (?), suggesting labor
mobility and complex economic ties between different parts of the empire.62
Of course, estimating the proportion of immigrants among this workforce in a
clear-cut fashion is not yet possible. Some ṣuyolcus identified as residents may
have immigrated to Istanbul and some may have been seasonal or temporary
60 İEM, 126, 1–2 (AH 1121/CE 1709). See also İEM 135/11 (AH 1127/CE 1715) and 145/9 (AH 1131/
CE 1719).
61 These villages were: Bergos, Çiftealan, Küçükköy (or Cebeci), Ayvas (Havass, Avas or İvaz),
Bağçe Belgrad (Bağçe Köy or Yenice Belgrad), Orta Belgrad, Kömürlü Belgrad, Çavuş,
Karfe (Karka), Ayapa, Müderris, Akpınar, and Pentnahor. The earliest available evidence
indicates that at the conclusion of the war with Bosnia, in 1463, two Christian families
among war captives who were transported from Istanbul intra muros to the village of
Cebeci, north of the city, provided much of the labor that sustained the city’s water sup-
ply in the hinterland. See Yerasimos, “15. Yüzyılın Sonunda Haslar Kazası”, 86. In the mid-
16th century, 27 households from the two villages of Orta Belgrad and Kömürlü Belgrad
were responsible for the upkeep of the water supply infrastructure; see decree no. 1538
(26 Zilhicce 967/17 September 1560), in Binark (ed.), 3 numaralı mühimme defteri, 682.
Half a century later, a whole 12 villages supplied the labor. See BOA, KK 7422 (Rebiʿül-ahir
1022/May–June 1614). The same villages provided labor throughout the 17th and 18th
centuries. BOA, MAD. d. 8484 (22 Şevval 1112/1 February 1701), 9892, 216 /1 (25 Muharrem
1116/30 May 1704) and İEM 325/23 (8 Ramadan 1217/2 January 1803).
62 BOA, KK 7422 (Rebiʿül-ahir 1022/May–June 1614).
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workers who intended to stay. Nevertheless, contrary to the commonly held

belief that premodern artisans and craftspeople rarely moved away from their
hometowns, the apprentice ṣuyolcus provide evidence of the opposite. Later
records further indicate that some ṣuyolcus hailed from Albania and Bosnia,
and that they labored not only in Istanbul but were active across southeastern
Europe as miners, pointing to the demographic complexity and mobility of the
water channel builders.63
As we know, there were other causes of mobility among the building trade
artisans in and out of Istanbul, such as military mobilizations during this period
of frequent wars. From a document dated to 1703, we learn that a few ṣuyolcus
were sent from Istanbul to Eğriboz (Chalkis) for the expansion and rebuilding
of the aqueduct supplying the fortress on the island.64 In May 1716, 399 build-
ing trade artisans were drafted to restore the fortress of Hotin (in Ukraine),
including the reconstruction of the fortress bath and its water channels. Five
ṣuyolcus were sent from Istanbul to this distant northern border of the Empire.
There is little information concerning the number of ṣuyolcus recruited or
the recruitment process, but it seems that they were drafted on a voluntary
basis and that their skills were greatly sought after by the state.65 Thus, to the
ṣuyolcus in the 17th and early 18th centuries, mobility seems to have been part
and parcel of their trade.
The ḳatma construction sites brought together other specialists, artisans,
and craftspeople. Documents show a range of common people and crafts
involved in making the ḳatma. For example, among the skilled artisans were
the künkcüs, who made the terracotta pipes; by the 1730s, they had four work-
shops in Eyüp.66 Some sellers of linseed oil (an ingredient necessary to make
the lökün) were Cairene. By the mid-18th century, there were 20 lime-burner
workshops in Yoros (Beykoz) and their storage basins were outside the city
walls, near the gate of Eğrikapı.67 A few women too were involved. Two of them
dealt in Khorasan mortar, and another continued to operate her husband’s
63 BOA, MAD. d. 4752 (Rebiʿül-evvel 1130-Rebiʿül-evvel 1131/March 1718–27 February 1719);

8590/176 (4 Cemaziyu’l-ahir 1140/18 December 1727), 3; BOA, CB 3579 (17 Şevval 1137/
29 June 1725), 1, 2. For a similar observation, see Àndréossy, Constantinople et le Bosphore
de Thrace, 439–44 and Hahn, The Discovery of Albania, 22–24, 73–91.
64 BOA, AE 104/11270 (9 Rebiʿül-ahir 1115/23 July 1703).
65 Faroqhi, “Controlling borders and workmen”, 158, 164. See also, Aydın, “Faş Kalesi”, 78–80,
91–93.
66 Decree no. 178 (10 Cemaziyu’l-ahir 1143/21 December 1730), in Akman, Coşkun & Sivridağ
(eds.), İstanbul Kadı Sicilleri Bab Mahkemesi 150 Numaralı Sicil, 206.
67 BOA, AE. SABH. I, 26/2034 (AH 1162/CE 1762) and BOA, D.BŞM.BNE, 15968/3 (AH 1181/
CE 1768/69), cited in Karademir, “XVIII. Yüzyılda Osmanlı Ülkesinde Kireç Üretimi ve
Tüketimi”, 549.
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332 Karakaş
künkcü shop for some time after her husband’s death.68 Other women dug tun-
nels alongside male family members, while others transported water, food, and
other necessities to the construction site.
Table 12.3 List of manufacturers and suppliers of construction tools
Tools Manufacturer/supplier
Çekūç (hammer) Blacksmith

Ḳāngal ip (rolled robe) Rope maker
Veted (wooden beam) Lumber seller
Balṭa (axe) Blacksmith
Ṭaş kıran külünk (heavy iron hammer) Ironworker
Muṣluḳ (tap) Faucet maker
Mismār (nail) Nail maker
Keser (adze) Chipping hammer maker (keserci)
Çengel (hook) Blacksmith
Keçe (felt) Felt maker
Testere (handsaw) Saw maker
Resen-i kendir (soft robe) Rope maker
Ḳāzma (pickaxe) Blacksmith
Orta boy ḳāma (middle-sized dagger) Swordsmith
Eğri kürek (turned shovel) Shovel-maker
Aġac kürek (wooden shovel) Shovel-maker
Ḳāzgan (kazan) Cauldron maker
iğne/mil (needle) Needle maker
çifte timurlu ḳazma Shovel-maker
(Separate bladed-shovel)
Sivri ḳazma (pick mattock) Blacksmith
Sepet (basket) Basket maker
Ḥaṣır (straw) Basket maker
Ḳoğa/Külek (bucket) Tinsmith
Fener/ şamʿdan (lantern) Lantern-maker
Beyaz çuval (sack) Sack heaver
Yel mumu (candle) Candle maker
Ḳandīl (oil-lamp) Lamp-maker
68 Özkan, “İstanbul Bâb Mahkemesi”, 335 (Safer 1143/August 1730); and decree no. 468
(Rebiʿül-ahir 1154/ June–July 1741), in Kahraman & Akman (eds.), Eyüb Mahkemesi 182
numaralı sicil, 305.
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Table 12.3 List of manufacturers and suppliers of construction tools (cont.)
Tools Manufacturer/supplier
Küfe (pannier basket) Pannier-maker

Tüc makara (bronze pulley) Ropers and pulley-maker
As Table 12.3 shows, a closer examination of the tools used by the ḳatma build-
ers may shed further light on the exchanges among artisans and craftspeople
in Istanbul. Initial research suggests that the ḳatma construction in the hin-
terland triggered an expansion of water lines in intra muros Istanbul, which,
in turn, increased the intensity and frequency of contact between the Haslar
district and city. However, there existed no real harmony between the city
dwellers and villagers, nor between the apprentices and masters.69 Further
microanalysis of specific trades will advance our understanding of the chang-
ing city-hinterland relationship and the artisanal social experiences of the
Ottoman construction community.
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Part 3
Everyday Lives and Spaces of Habitation
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Chapter 13
Neighborhood and Family Lives

The corporal and conceptual construction of Istanbul’s neighborhoods in

the early modern period shaped—and was shaped by—the identity of its
inhabitants. Istanbul’s social fabric was fairly complex due to its multi-ethnic
and multi-religious population. As a result of insufficient demographic data,
only a modest number of studies have focused on pre-19th-century Istanbul
neighborhood life, nevertheless revealing the topographical formation and
the diversity of these residential quarters cohabited by individuals of vary-
ing degrees of wealth, social status, class, ethnic and religious backgrounds.1
That said, commonalities such as shared origins, religious and ethnic con-
nections, and vocational affiliations were among the factors that contributed
to the choice of residential quarters for many newcomers to the capital. The
neighborhood was a smaller and familiar locus within the confines of the
overwhelming city and it generated a sense of social recognition and belong-
ing for its residents.
The neighborhood offered a certain kind of identifiability to residents,
demarcating not only a controlled space but also a tight-knit web of social
associations. In early modern Istanbul, familial and kinship affiliations were
among the factors that determined an individual’s identity and social status,
which naturally formed a part of the wider network of the neighborhood. For
instance, in court records and inheritance deeds, claimants were distinguished
by their first name, father’s name (rarely the mother’s), and the name of the
neighborhood in which they lived. Given that family surnames were not legis-
lated until the republican era, one’s kinship ties, religious affinity, designation,
spatial, and local affiliations served as the primary markers of one’s identity.
This chapter explores the concept of neighborhood as a compact, collective
urban entity that embodied a common culture, generating, as well, a sheltering
network for its residents.
1 For recent studies that provide a comprehensive framework for intercommunal dynamics in
18th- and 19th-century Istanbul neighborhoods, see the chapter by Karen Leal in this volume.
See also, Özkoçak, “The Urban Development of Ottoman Istanbul”; Leal, “The Balat District”;
and Morita, “Between Hostility and Hospitality”.

342 Kayhan Elbirlik
While social solidarity and collective liability within the confines of neigh-
borhoods were local protection mechanisms, these properties correspond-
ingly contributed to the formation of an unofficial surveillance structure that
regulated public morality and social order. The local imam, an official who
carried out both religious and legal duties, the semi-official system of sure-
tyship (kefālet), and the neighborhood endowment fund (ʿavārıż waqf) were
mechanisms that bore on the conduct of residents and their collective respon-
sibilities vis-à-vis the state. Accordingly, this self-sustained order generated
a controlled environment with its own codes of proper conduct, alienating
any unsolicited behavior. In its approach, the chapter envisions the neighbor-
hood as a consummate and organic microcosm in which people actively con-
structed a communal memory. Ethical values, codes of conduct, and processes
of moral control inherent to the family reinforced the collective identity of the
neighborhood. Assuming that each individual action was considered to affect
directly the larger communal body, the neighborhood was a space in which the
limits of subjective mobility were actively negotiated.
This chapter is predominantly concerned with the 18th century without
overlooking the period between the 15th and 18th centuries, so as to provide
readers with a comparative perspective. The first part focuses on the nature of
the early modern neighborhood with regard to kinship ties, communal rela-
tionships, and individual agency. How were Istanbul’s neighborhoods formed?
What were the ties between inhabitants of neighborhoods? What kind of influ-
ence did residents have over the moral and social composition of this space?
Questions regarding the religious, ethnic, economic, and social allegiances that
shaped the characteristics of neighborhoods are among the chapter’s larger
concerns. The institution of family formed a central part of neighborhood life.
Hence, the second part of the chapter explores the urban family with a specific
emphasis on the legal and economic dimensions of spousal relationships. How
did the normative regulations of Islamic law on property—for instance, dower,
allowance, and inheritance—impact and construct the marital bond? In what
ways did women’s control of and entitlement to property affect the dynamics
within family? How do the negotiations and strategies of property transmis-
sion between spouses inform our perception of the conjugal unit? These and
other similar inquiries allow a more focused view into family and neighbor-
hood lives, as they were the two most intimate and guarded spheres and spaces
of interaction.
In early modern Ottoman society, pecuniary arrangements regulated the
nature of familial relationships. Given that the family originated in the mari-
tal bond, the structure of financial agreements between the spouses, children,
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Neighborhood and Family Lives 343
and other family members had a bearing on how family was conceived of dur-
ing this time. For instance, even if the sharia law sanctioned women’s owner-
ship of property, allocation practices concerning assets was not immune from
unequal gender parameters that deprived women of their rights. The foremost
indication for such differential terms for women and men is the regulation
regarding the distribution of inheritance, whereby daughters were appor-
tioned only half of what was given to sons.2 Consequently, the intention of
discussing marriage through property allocation patterns is twofold. First, it
is to address active negotiation strategies by the conjugal pair regarding their
shared and individual possessions to process how they affected the realization
of the marital union, as well as the family. Second, it is to examine the pub-
lic statement and notarial registration of the outcome of these strategies in
court to assess what a particular property signified for the parties involved. At
a time when the registry of marriage and divorce was not legally enforced, this
twofold approach permits the strengthening of a broader argument, namely,
that by consciously chronicling cases pertaining to personal status in court,
women, who outnumbered men in these specific court documents, invoked
the formalization of the institution of marriage, conceivably seeking a more
concrete and beneficial resolution of the issue at hand.
In this chapter I use the records of three specific Istanbul courts: the
İstanbul Bab (1755–1840), and the district courts of Davud Paşa (1782–1840)
and Ahi Çelebi (1755–1840). While acknowledging that the court records only
offer a partial perspective, they provide a well-informed view of neighbor-
hood and family life with regard to the intricacies of communal living, such
as violation of boundaries, protection of collective values, property alloca-
tion practices, and arrangements that affected household dynamics. These
records, along with estate inventories, also inform us about the ways in which
Istanbul’s inhabitants perceived and utilized the court as a space of valida-
tion and endorsement. Equally important is the materializing of the voices of
under-represented groups such as women and children in these documents.
By making women’s agency visible, the process of construction of the legal
texts transmits the mentality beneath their formation.3 This discussion in
large part excludes non-Muslim Istanbulites, because the legal notions and
practices I focus on primarily involved Muslims.
2 Cin, Miras, 10–11.

3 On the discursive process in the formation of the calligraphic text (in fatwas and other legal
documents) by authoritative/political entities, see Messick, The Calligraphic State.
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344 Kayhan Elbirlik
1 The Neighborhood
In the early modern Ottoman city, the neighborhood (maḥalle) was the princi-
pal, if not the smallest, administrative unit of communal life.4 In his extensive
survey of Istanbul between the 15th and 19th centuries, Halil İnalcık described
the Ottoman neighborhood “as an organic unity, a community with its own
identity, settled around a mosque, a church or a synagogue”, suggesting an
automatic link between individuals of common origin, religion, and culture.5
Beginning with the forced resettlement policy of Mehmed II in the 15th cen-
tury, intra muros Istanbul’s neighborhoods were to be established by way of
charitable endowments (awqāf; sing., waqf) instituted by the local elite and
prominent individuals. According to İnalcık, during the formative years of
Istanbul’s new Ottoman phase, the Friday mosque, or the masjid, constituted
a social center around which neighborhoods were developed in the predomi-
nantly Muslim localities. Çiğdem Kafescioğlu, while noting the centrality of
the place of worship, found that this narrative did not engage critically with
the statements of contemporary Muslim jurists on the topic, and that it did not
correspond fully to the ethno-religious composition of most neighborhoods.
Kafescioğlu suggested that such a definition fails to capture the way 16th-
century and later waqf-related documents present “a Muslim map of the city”,
sidelining largely non-Muslim residential areas.6 In comparing the waqf docu-
ments of Mehmed II, dating from 1474 and 1479/80, and the survey of 1546,
Kafescioğlu observed an “omission” of certain quarters that were named after
non-religious landmarks in such commercial areas as Tahtakale (Taḥt al-ḳalʿa)
and Unkapanı, or areas near the city gates, which continued to be included in
jizya tax registers.7 According to her, the professed insular structure of neigh-
borhoods in surveys and waqf deeds did not truly reveal their fluid and perme-
able formation. Kafescioğlu argued that even if early 16th-century endowment
deeds, surveys, and legal documents of Istanbul facilitated the construction of
4 In her article on legal practice in 17th-century residential quarters in Antep, Hülya Can-
bakal notes that the term bölük (division) designated a much smaller unit than did maḥalle,
and was limited to between 5 and 50 households: Canbakal, “Legal Identity of Neighbor-
hoods”, 136.
7 There were no residential neighborhoods in the vicinity of the marketplace (bedestān), how-
ever commercial areas such as Tahtakale and Atik Ali were administratively also defined as
maḥalle, a feature that presents the maḥalle as an all-encompassing urban grid: see ibid.,
181–83.
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a topographical narrative of the “cellular city” comprising neatly delineated

quarters, this perception was a rather imaginary one.8
Given this complex and fluid configuration, how can we produce a more
informed definition of what constituted a neighborhood in the early modern
era? Taking into consideration the nature and significance of systematic 15th-
century resettlement methods enhances our understanding of the topographi-
cal composition of the quarters.9 Mehmed II’s repopulation policy of his new
capital by way of forced migration was continued by Bayezid II (r. 1481–1512)
and other successors up to the earlier half of the 16th century. This procedure
gradually acquired a more inviting quality with facilitating laws and temporary
tax concessions that became especially appealing for non-Muslims.10 During
this period, various ethnic and religious groups from Anatolia and the Balkans
were relocated collectively into designated areas. For instance, the 17th-century
Ottoman author, courtier, and traveler Evliya Çelebi provides a detailed list of
the deportation and relocation of people from the Balkan city of Skopje to the
Cibali and Ayasofya quarters of the intra muros city, the Greeks from Morea
and Corinth to the district of Fener, and the Jews from Salonica and Edirne
to the district of Balat, among others.11 These efforts marked the spatial and
cultural blueprint of the city. In the active execution of resettlement policies,
the separation of predominantly Muslim neighborhoods from non-Muslim
ones was not a formally administered regulation. On the contrary, Özer Ergenç
noted the fluidity of such boundaries, given the cohabitation of diverse reli-
gious, ethnic, and occupational groups mentioned in the court records and
pious foundation deeds.12
Early 16th-century poll tax registers and other contemporary documents
indicate the complexity of urban residential quarters, suggesting that only
certain districts of the city could be considered ethnically homogeneous.13
8 Ibid., 183. On Hanafi jurisprudence’s perception of the physical and social structure of
urban space, see Johansen, “Urban Structures”, 94–100.
9 The fluidity of Ottoman neighborhoods in terms of the configuration of residential
and commercial structures has been extensively discussed in Özkoçak, “The Urban
Development of Ottoman Istanbul”, 201.
10 İnalcık, “Istanbul”. The statistics provided by Zekeriya Efendi, the inspector of Istanbul,
in 1577 also support the continuity of such tax concessions as a repopulating method;
Zekeriya Efendi, Evsâf-ı belde-i Kostantiniye, SK, Hacı Mahmud Efendi, 6321, fols. 16b–17a;
Atsız, “Tanınmamış Osmanlı Tarihleri”, 49.
11 For an account of these deportations based on contemporary sources, see Yerasimos, “The
Foundation of Ottoman Istanbul”, 459–79; Evliya Çelebi, Evliya Çelebi Seyahatnâmesi,
vol. 1, ed. Dankoff, Kahraman, Dağlı, 51; Galitekin, Osmanlı Kaynaklarına göre İstanbul, 3.
12 Ergenç, “Osmanlı Şehrindeki ‘Mahalle’nin İşlev ve Nitelikleri”, 76.
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346 Kayhan Elbirlik
Consequently the notion of a neighborhood inhabited by a uniform body of

residents was an imagined conceptualization of a landscape whose borders
were possibly envisaged differently by its inhabitants. It was not until the 19th
century that the municipal delineation of boundaries between neighbor-
hoods established them as separate, formal administrative units. In the early
modern urban setting, the fluid and amorphous identity of neighborhoods is
especially noticeable in registers of household sale transactions in which the
physical constitution of one’s house and the identity of owners in neighboring
houses are presented. These registers of intra muros Istanbul indicate, as well,
a unique social cohesion of urban quarters which not only included esteemed
individuals that were linked by their occupation to the palace such as the
ulema, sayyid,14 high-ranking military officials, and imams, but also crafts-
men, merchants, and military officers who did not belong to the seemingly
elite milieu. The inhabitants’ inclusivist approach to neighborhood living was
what made this sort of cohesiveness possible given such socioeconomic and
occupational diversity.
Despite the lack of comprehensive demographic data, information regard-
ing the organizational structure of neighborhoods and their proliferation pat-
terns prior to the 19th century enables well-informed projections regarding
population counts. Betül Başaran, for instance, produced estimated results
based on a comparative appraisal of earlier evaluations and the censuses of
1829 and 1885. According to her study, the population of intra muros Istanbul
could not have numbered more than 200,000 at the end of the 18th century.15
Başaran’s valuation after an estimated population ratio of intra muros Istanbul
to that of its larger boundaries concluded that the overall population of the
city did not exceed 430,000 by 1794.16
A key aspect in the organizational structure of the neighborhood was the
common acceptance of a moral discourse that prioritized the principle of col-
lective responsibility for the common good. The shared tenets were represented
by and protected in the persona of the imam, who carried on the responsibil-
ity of a semi-formal leadership, overseeing both administrative and religious
14 An honorific title denoting men that are accepted to be descendants of the

Prophet Muhammad.
15 Başaran, Selim III, 62.
16 Given the lack of census records from this period, scholars have estimated different num-
bers for the late 18th century. A possible explanation for the discrepancy in the data is the
composition of the counts. For instance, an 18th-century estimate did not account for the
military population on the ground that it was not part of the taxpaying population. For a
thorough survey of works on the demography of Istanbul in the early modern era see Koç,
“Osmanlı Dönemi İstanbul Nüfus Tarihi”, 171–99.
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matters, acting as an intermediary official between the taxpaying populace

and the kadi of Istanbul. Just as each member was personally accountable for
their actions toward the community, the understanding was that the collec-
tive body of the maḥalle was equally responsible for each resident. Hence, an
implicit communal moral discourse coordinated and measured the actions of
individuals. For instance, to avoid unwanted interactions within the larger city,
substantial public and commercial spaces such as large markets, workshops,
and bazaars were generally separated from densely inhabited residential quar-
ters and were established outside their boundaries—although shops, groceries,
and other small businesses like coffeehouses existed in most neighborhoods.
The court records regarding the physical layout of houses often point to
their proximity, suggesting strong kinship ties and conviviality among the
inhabitants. The moral values that gave neighborhood life its character were
mirrored in the architecture and orientation of houses, such that domestic life
was inward-oriented and often restricted direct access from the streets and
alleys. Numerous complaints in court records show the discomfort caused by
facing windows in adjacent edifices, enabling a vantage point for unwanted
spectators into one’s privacy. Given these concerns, it is possible to view the
neighborhood as a space delineating what was intimately private and blatantly
public. Several court cases regarding inhabitants’ complaints of transgres-
sion attest to active efforts at preserving this invisible divide. A shift from the
inward to outward orientation of houses towards the street in the later part
of the 17th and the earlier 18th century is manifested by the increasing use of
overhangs on street façades and fenestration. This architectural development
speaks to significant changes in attitudes toward the demarcation of public
and private life.17
The protection of household and family was regarded as a shared respon-
sibility of neighborhood residents, and the imam was vested with the
authority to respond to possible threats to the well-being of the community.
Correspondingly, certain measures of safety and good conduct were observed,
establishing the moral confines of what was acceptable in public and in pri-
vate. For instance, any immoral behavior and unwelcomed entry to one’s pri-
vate space was met with such measures as exclusion and banishment from the
neighborhood. Immigrants, bachelors, women engaging in prostitution, and
outsiders to the neighborhood were among those who were considered to be
17 Cerasi, “Ottoman House Types”, 119. These terms should not be understood in a modern,
binary sense.
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348 Kayhan Elbirlik
harmful to social order.18 One had to take up residence for at least five con-
secutive years to be considered an inhabitant of a neighborhood.19 Given the
close-knit nature of neighborhood communities, the influx of immigrants to
the capital in the 18th century raised concerns about the safety of residential
quarters, inevitably creating the perception of a correlation between the high
numbers of immigrants and a rise in crime rates.20
Gender relations were a significant factor in the demarcation of public and
private spheres. Hence, numerous court cases regarding individuals’ banish-
ment from the neighborhood reveal the joint concern for the proper regulation
of gender boundaries. Women living alone were the prime target in the major-
ity of such cases of expulsion, though a substantial number of records similarly
concerned the banishment of married couples from the neighborhood. The
expulsion case of Yusuf Beşe and his wife Saliha along with İsmail Beşe and
his wife Saliha from the Çelebioğlu neighborhood is one such example.21 The
petitioners, including the imam and five other male inhabitants, stated that
the accused were “not keeping to themselves, engaging in immoral behavior”,
and they demanded the court to see to their expulsion for disturbing public
order. In a different case, the inhabitants of the Katip Kasım neighborhood
complained about Molla Hasan who forcefully entered the house of Zeynep
Hatun, his estranged wife, and attacked her.22 The neighbors of Zeynep
Hatun, irritated by Molla Hasan’s violent act, demanded his dismissal from the
neighborhood. These two cases reflect how the inhabitants of a neighborhood,
by acting as patrons of public morality, shaped the demarcation of private and
public by interfering with what was supposed to be a private matter.
The testimony of the imam and other prominent male figures of a neigh-
borhood provided assurance in expulsion cases.23 That this was considered
sufficient evidence for one’s banishment from one’s home demonstrates the
level of agency allotted to the locals of a neighborhood. Several examples in the
court registers suggest that what riveted the cooperation of these petitioners
18 Morita, “Between Hostility and Hospitality”, 65. See also the chapter by Başaran in
this volume.
19 İnalcık, “Istanbul”. Although Selim II’s (r. 1566–74) order suggests a five-year period was
required in order to acquire permanent residency, certain 18th-century sources point to
the possibility that this condition could be extended to ten years, see Hamadeh, “Invisible
City”, 179 and 190, n. 23; see also Ahmet Refik, On Altıncı Asırda, 139–40.
20 Hamadeh and Başaran address this issue extensively: see, Başaran, Selim III, 4, 10, 25;
Hamadeh, “Mean Streets”, 249–77; Faroqhi, “Migration into Eighteenth Century ‘Greater
Istanbul’”, 163–83.
21 İBM 209, 38/5 (1757).
22 İBM 209, 84/5 (1757).
23 Hamadeh, “Mean Streets”, 257.
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was a shared sense of belonging, not just to the neighborhood but to a pre-
dominantly male milieu that shaped and solidified the moral code for the
neighborhood. The process of petitioning, then, was part of displaying one’s
affinity to the neighborhood notables, while it was also an opportunity to take
ownership of the moral values configured by this group.
The degree of one’s freedom in the private sphere, that is, within the house-
hold, depended on one’s compliance with the moral standards of the commu-
nity. This meant that any individual transgression was an offense against the
collective body.24 In other cities as well, the mediation of the local community
was a morally charged act.25 The court served as a “public forum”26 in which the
misconduct of a person would be judged. If the person was not found guilty of
an abominable act, the court would serve as a space for the restitution of his or
her honor. As Leslie Peirce argued, the agency of the collective had the author-
ity to reinstate one’s previously questionable honor and reserved the right to
evict those not wanted in the public sphere.27 What emerged as a result was a
close-knit, cohesive community that continuously controlled, sometimes fab-
ricated, and other times restored the reputation of its members.
The late 17th and the early 18th century saw the increasing visibility of pri-
vate matters in the public sphere. While this is observable through the use of
supporting witnesses to account for the petitioner’s social standing, the neigh-
borhood also provided solidarity networks that sometimes played into this
system. In the court records, this kind of solidarity can be observed between
women of the same neighborhood, encouraging those reluctant to go to court
to do so, especially since it was the only way for women to secure financial com-
pensation. Women’s presence in court indicates an initiative on their behalf to
protect their individual rights. Most often it was they, and not the men, who
registered divorce at court, no matter whether it was initiated by her husband
(repudiation, ṭalāḳ) or by herself (divorce, ḫulʿ),28 mainly to guarantee her
24 Tamdoğan, “Les relations de voisinage”, 167–77.

25 Peirce, Morality Tales, 179; Semerdjian, Off the Straight Path, 82–84.
26 Ibid., 7.
27 Ibid., 179.
28 According to the sharia, since men had the unilateral right to divorce, women could only
initiate it with their husbands’ permission. Among the categories of divorce, the hus-
band’s repudiation of the wife, ṭalāḳ, required him to pay the wife’s deferred portion of
the dower and alimony, as well as her three-month waiting period maintenance. The sec-
ond category of divorce, ḫulʿ, was a wife’s request for formal separation at the expense of
her dower portion, alimony, and waiting period maintenance. The great number of ḫulʿ
cases in court demonstrates women’s agency, yet is also an indication of men’s exploita-
tion of the system to avoid paying the required sums imposed by ṭalāḳ. For a quantitative
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350 Kayhan Elbirlik
direct allotment of the dower (mehr-i müʾeccel)—that is, the marital gift, usu-
ally granted in two installments.
A number of court records allow us to argue that women’s neighborhood
networks gave the incentive to a woman to use the court when she otherwise
might have hesitated. The following three cases concerning the residents of Ali
Fakih, a modest neighborhood in Samatya, demonstrate such solidarity in fac-
ing common setbacks.29 In late March and early April of 1790, three women of
the Ali Fakih neighborhood separately registered their ḫulʿ petitions in court
within days of each other. In the first case, Hadice relinquished her right to the
deferred dower (mehr-i müʾeccel) of 51 kurush along with her waiting-period
allowance, thereby fully taking on the provision of her household, in order to be
divorced from her husband Ahmed Çelebi.30 A day later, on 1 April 1790, Ayşe
made a similar proclamation to be divorced from her husband Mehmed Agha,
renouncing the deferred dower of 31 kurush.31 Finally, it was Zeliha who on
4 April 1790 registered her divorce from Mustafa Beşe, renouncing the deferred
dower of 15 kurush.32 These ḫulʿ documents give good grounds to argue that
there was significant room for intra-communal and gender-based solidarity in
early modern neighborhoods. This appears to have been a necessity for women
of modest means to protect themselves in ḫulʿ divorce. Such a collective under-
taking within the neighborhood possibly encouraged them to consider legal
measures to avoid future disturbances that might arise from their lack of ini-
tiative after repudiation. These parallel cases are indicative of how gender was
implicated in the formation of the early modern neighborhood.
One of the most significant features of the Ottoman maḥalle was the insti-
tution of collective liability, which meant that the inhabitants acted as mutual
guarantors (kefīl) for one another.33 Serving as a mechanism of surety among
the residents, this practice bestowed some measure of local autonomy. The
guarantors could also have a confirmative function. For instance, Şerife Rukiye,
a resident of Çakır Ağa, had her neighbors İbrahim b. Mehmed and Ahmed
Beşe b. Mehmed attest to her identity as an honorable and good neighbor prior
to her request for divorce from her missing husband.34 It was upon the asser-
tions of these neighbors that she was permitted to remarry. The concept of
surety relied on familiarity, rooting one’s sense of belonging to interpersonal
comparison of ṭalāḳ versus ḫulʿ registration by women in court in Istanbul, see Kayhan
Elbirlik, “Reflections of Modernity”.
29 Ayvansarâyî, Hadîkatü’l-Cevâmiʿ, 205.
30 DPM 15, 5/3 (1790).
31 DPM 15, 5/4 (1790).
32 DPM 15, 5/5 (1790).
34 İBM 209, 2/4 (1755).
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relationships forged in the neighborhood. Another practice of collective liabil-

ity was the neighborhood endowment fund policy (ʿavārıż waqf) involving a
collective pool to help those in need. The amount accumulated was used for
the upkeep of public spaces in the quarter, as well as for the collective payment
of neighborhood taxes. In her examination of the ʿavārıż waqf, Hülya Canbakal
addressed the ambiguity of its legal status, arguing that its seemingly contrac-
tual basis could be a sign of recognition of the neighborhood as a corporate
legal body.35
The social and physical composition of early modern Istanbul neighbor-
hoods created the conditions for social control by members of the neighbor-
hood community. The cases of expulsion demonstrate the permeability of
the public and private spheres in the framework of neighborhood living. That
said, it is also during this period that the 18th-century chronicler Şemdanizade
Süleyman Efendi (d. 1779), among others, expressed his anxiety about the inter-
ference of the public in the private sphere, stating that the unhindered min-
gling between the sexes and the positive bias of the legal authorities to women
supported those women’s petitions for divorce without seeking the approval of
their husbands.36 With this assertion the author romanticizes a former period
in which the well-preserved moral bounds of the neighborhood managed to
dissociate what ought to be private from the public domain. Was Şemdanizade
voicing his real anxiety about changing dynamics in state administration by
way of critiquing what he perceived of as a shift in commonly accepted norms
of sociability among men and women and an increased interpenetration of
public and private?
2 Family Life
The intimate life of the family allows for a clearer view of personal relations
and gender dynamics in the communal space of the neighborhood.37 In this
35 Canbakal, “Legal Identity of Neighborhoods”, 137–38.

36 Here I define public and private not in spatial terms, but to indicate a distinction between
that which is accessible and consumed by all and that which is sacred and intimate for
only a few. Given the imposition of stricter regulations for women’s socialization and
mobility in the 1730s, Şemdanizade’s lament demonstrates his preference for this earlier
period in which—according to his judgement—women could not freely wander in public
spaces. He suggests that these matters were suitably handled in the sanctity of the home,
see Kayhan Elbirlik, “Reflections of Modernity”, 120. For restrictions on the public vis-
ibility and mobility of women in the early 18th century, see Morita, “From Confusion To
Tranquility”, 76–79.
37 The scholarship that gave direction to this field includes Peirce, “‘She is Trouble’”,
267–300; Tucker, “Marriage and Family”, 165–79; idem, “Ties that Bound”, 233–53; idem,
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352 Kayhan Elbirlik
section, the discussion on family life mainly focuses on the spousal relation-
ship, to further illustrate the point about the permeability of the public and
private spheres. The emphasis on women’s agency concerning their legal sta-
tus and economic rights provides an insight into how and why they took the
initiative to make their grievances public. A significant number of complaints
and claims registered by women relate to their financial dealings within the
marital union. Hence, in examining the socio-legal and economic components
that shed light on the early modern family in Istanbul, marriage is studied by
means of its transactional and codifying nature.
Marriage’s contractual character is explored in three parts. The first intro-
duces the normative principles of marriage, problematizing the regulations
and shifts in the registry of marriage and divorce, and discussing the preva-
lence of polygyny in this early modern city. The second surveys the property
allocation practices with respect to spouses’ strategies of securing shared and
separate entitlements to their possessions. The third deals with the public
resolution of conflicts among spouses regarding such issues as child mainte-
nance in divorce and in marriage, and coerced renouncement of property. The
overall discussion will speak to how the idea of unity, a quality important for
the sustainability of both the family and the neighborhood, developed. The
sources that enhance our understanding of the marital union, namely the
court records and the 264 estate inventories (muḫallefāt), offer a more criti-
cal lens into how the registry of dower, maintenance, and inheritance claims
inform the way spouses coped with the issue of unequal access to money and
property. They illustrate, as well, the manner in which the well-being of the
family was protected by efforts to keep wealth in the family, given the risk of
possible state confiscations.
The lack of systematic population surveys in the 18th century allows for
only a limited estimation of household structure and family composition. It
should be noted that the court’s notarial function increased its accessibility to
different factions in society in this period, for instance, enabling non-Muslims
to attain better outcomes than they would in their own communal courts.
Therefore, even if non-Muslims were expected to appeal to their respective
community courts for marriage-related disputes, their increasing appearance
in the sharia court indicates a strategic attempt on their behalf.38
Women, Family, and Gender; Layish, Divorce in the Libyan Family; Hanna, “Marriage
Among Merchant Families”, 143–55; idem, Making Big Money in 1600; Zilfi, “‘We Don’t
Get Along’”, 264–97; Meriwether, The Kin Who Count; Doumani, “Adjudicating Family”,
173–200; Todorova, Balkan Family Structure.
38 An 1806 decree recorded in the Davud Paşa court (DPM 47, 1/1 (1806)) concerns the mis-
use of these courts by non-Muslims, and orders that marriage cases should be handled
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The court’s notarial function could also help explain the increasing vis-
ibility of women in this public space during the 18th century. While conflicts
concerning marriage and divorce did not require legal intervention, women,
who were at a disadvantage due to men’s unilateral right to divorce, were more
inclined to register their disputes to avoid future setbacks. The rise in divorce
registration by women might signal a growing confidence in the confirmatory
authority of the court.39 Seeking authorization beyond the discretion of the
conjugal pair should be regarded as a modern feat, in that it de facto formalized
the nuptial bond, and this, long before the state-imposed legal interdictions
on marriage in the 19th century.40 In this respect, this de facto formalization
effectively posed a challenge to the autonomous nature of the household
and family.
The early modern family of Istanbul did not accommodate every sharia con-
vention concerning matrimony. The muḫallefāt demonstrates that polygyny,
a sanctioned right of men, was rare, at only 2.8 per cent, and was often only
prevalent among the elite milieu.41 The quantifiable data from after the 1880s
until the early decades of the 20th century illustrates that polygyny was prac-
ticed in no more than 2 per cent of the Muslim population.42 A major reason
for these low percentages was possibly due to polygyny’s negative economic
and emotional effects on the family. For women, the adverse consequences of
according to the plaintiff’s own religious conviction, in his or her own community court.
This was a concern of both the non-Muslim community officials and the Ottoman state,
on which see Kayhan Elbirlik, “Negotiating Matrimony”, 112–14; Gradeva, “Orthodox
Christians”, 59–62.
39 El Azhary Sonbol (ed.), Women, the Family, 4–6.
40 Zarinebaf, Crime and Punishment in Istanbul; idem, “Women, Law and Imperial Justice”;
Zilfi, “‘We Don’t Get Along’”; Kayhan Elbirlik, Negotiating Matrimony. For Jewish and
Christian women’s appeals to their respective community courts, see Rozen, A History
of the Jewish Community; Lamdan, A Separate People; Ivanova, “Muslim and Christian
Women”.
41 BOA, D.BŞM.MHF, vols. 12881–13539, AH 1196–1250/CE 1781–1835. Studies focusing on
inheritance deeds, tax records, and cadastral surveys (taḥrīr defterleri) have taken
Barkan’s estimate of five people per household (ḫāne) as their premise: Barkan, “Edirne
Askerî Kassamına Ait Tereke Defterleri”, 13–16. Recent research has shown that in 17th-
century Istanbul and Edirne, monogamy appears as the predominant marriage type (92
per cent out of a sample of 1000 men), while the number of children per household is
assessed at no more than two: see Öztürk, “Osmanlı Toplumunda Çok Evliliğin Yeri”, 408.
42 Demirel, “Ailenin Niceliksel Yapısı”, 951; Demirel, Gürbüz, & Tuş, “Osmanlılarda Ailenin
Demografik Yapısı”, 105; Düzbakar, “Osmanlı Toplumunda Çok Eşlilik”, 88–89; Öztürk,
“Osmanlı Toplumunda Çok Evliliğin Yeri”, 408. For the early 19th century, see also Behar,
A Neighborhood in Ottoman Istanbul, 137; Behar and Duben estimated that only 2.29 per
cent of all married men in Istanbul were married to more than one wife, Duben & Behar,
Istanbul Households, 148–58.
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354 Kayhan Elbirlik
polygyny would continue even after the death of their husbands, given that
the estate would be divided among the wives and further reduced if there were
any children. Despite the low rates of polygyny, remarriage after divorce or the
death of spouse was frequent.
The Islamic marital union’s contractual basis did not require a formal
registry.43 In Istanbul, as in 17th- and 18th-century Konya, Bursa, and Ayntab,
the registry of marriage contracts in court was extremely rare.44 The situa-
tion was quite the reverse in Rumelia and the Balkans, where registry of mar-
riage, especially by non-Muslims, appears to be the norm.45 During the 18th
century, several attempts to reinforce the practice of obtaining marriage per-
mits (iẕinnāme) failed to make it a widespread practice.46 The assessment of
the three different courts of intra muros Istanbul has shown that neither the
registry of marriage contracts nor the obtaining of iẕinnāme was systemati-
cally enforced in this period.47 The state at least paid lip service to the need
to formalize marriage contracts, but did not seek to systematize officially their
registry until the latter half of the 19th century.48 An 18th-century fatwa of
the chief jurisconsult, Yenişehirli Abdullah Efendi (d. 1742), deterring judges
from overseeing disputes of those marriages contracted without iẕinnāme,49
and the 1838/39 decrees mandating that the courts reinforce the acquisition of
iẕinnāme further support this point.50
43 Quraishi & Vogel, The Islamic Marriage Contract, 11–46; al-Hibri, “The Nature of the
Islamic Marriage”, 182–215; Pateman, The Sexual Contract, 19–38 and 168–89.
44 Erten, Konya Şer’iyye Sicilleri, 49–50; Yüksel, Tirebolu Kazası; Öksüz, “18. Yüzyılın İkinci
Yarısında Trabzon”; Eken, “XVIII. Yüzyıl Ortalarında Antep’te Aile”, 114; Abacı, Bursa
Şehri’nde Osmanlı Hukuku, 142–43, n. 14; Özdemir, “Tokat’ta Aile”, 1016.
45 Ivanova, “The Divorce between Zubaida Hatun”, 115; Gradeva, “Orthodox Christians”.
46 The stipulation of iẕinnāme was not included in the ḳānūnnāmes of Süleyman II and
Selim III. The 16th-century jurisconsult Ebussuud Efendi’s fatwa compilation mentions
the sultanic order: Akgündüz, Osmanlı Kanunnameleri; Ebussuud, Şeyhülislam Ebussuud
Efendi Fetvaları, ed. Düzdağ, 37–38.
47 Only a handful of cases in 42 court registers within a span of 85 years, in DPM 25 (1796),
57/3. A few studies providing examples of iẕinnāme from different periods also stated
their rarity: Aydın, “Osmanlılarda Aile Hukuku”, 438, 440–41; Aköz, “XVI. Yüzyıla Ait
Bir Nikâh Defteri”, 91–118; for the post-1875 era: idem, Bir İmamın Nikâh Defteri; Ekinci,
“Osmanlı Hukukunda İzinname”, 41–60; several marriages recorded without an iẕinnāme
were mentioned in a study of the notebook of the imam of Tophane’s Akarçeşme neigh-
borhood, dated 1813–38: Aydın, İslam ve Osmanlı Hukuku, 93.
48 Yüksel, Tirebolu Kazası, 12; Öksüz states that marriage contracts and iẕinnāme documents
might not have been well preserved because they were not archived in a registry, but were
instead given to the marrying parties, Öksüz, “Trabzon”, 49; Beydilli, İmamlar.
49 Yenişehirli Abdullah, Behçetü’l-fetava, 423.
50 Respectively, BOA, HAT 48373, 48373A no.1251, 48409, 48409A.
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In his study of the financial arrangements between spouses in early modern

Mamluk society, Yossef Rapoport argued that the “intrusion of cash contracts
typical of the marketplace” affected the spousal relationship, producing new
challenges to the unity of the family and generating a rise in divorce rates.51
I recognize a similar trend in 18th-century Istanbul, and further suggest that
marriage-related monetary claims by women were not restricted to divorce
settlements, and had become a commonplace feature of inheritance claims.
The sharia approved women’s ownership and inheritance of property, permit-
ting them to manage their income independently and to buy and sell estates,
while endorsing the acquisition of shared property by the conjugal unit. The
family had a separate economy with regard to both the independent and inter-
dependent financial activities of the husband and the wife. In this regard, the
unusual practice of recording marriage contracts and dower amounts by some
wives in the marginalia of their husbands’ inheritance deeds intimates their
possible objectives in ensuring for themselves their security in widowhood.52
For example, in the probate inventory of Gemici Hüseyin Agha, his wife
Ümmügülsüm cited their marriage contract, stating that Hüseyin Agha had
promised 67 kurush as her deferred dower.53 Ümmügülsüm’s statement was
a precautionary action to protect her due entitlements from possible claim-
ants, such as Ali Agha, a trustee of the waqf of Gemicibaşı Mehmed Agha, and
Fatma Hatun, who had requested the repayment of the 230 kurush and 60
kurush that the deceased had borrowed from each respectively in his lifetime.
It is conceivably for this reason that the court records include several
bequests devised among the conjugal pair. These cases indicate a conscien-
tious effort by individuals to ascertain the well-being of their spouse and to
keep wealth within the family. For instance, Hadice Hatun had her bequest
recorded as a precautionary action to protect her husband Haffaf Süleyman,
who was a bootmaker.54 Hadice stated that she released her husband from
the obligation of granting her the deferred dower of 25 kurush and the golden
belts that he had previously taken from her. Hadice’s was a strategy to prevent
other heirs from claiming parts of their estate upon her passing. According
to the sharia, as her husband, Haffaf Süleyman’s share of the estate would be
half the entire sum if Hadice had no children, and a quarter if she did. All the
51 Rapoport, Marriage, Money and Divorce, 53.

52 Only six out of 106 entries on married individuals contained information on the marriage
contract. This shows that their citation was not routine in these inventories: BOA, D.BŞM.
MHF, vols. 12881–13539.
53 BOA, D.BŞM.MHF, vols. 13409–13412.
54 DPM 2, 24/2 (1783).
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356 Kayhan Elbirlik
property mentioned in the record would be subtracted from Hadice’s estate

and distributed among her legal heirs.
The estate record of es-Seyyid Ali, which includes the statement of his
wife Mahbube, a manumitted slave, further reiterates the point about mar-
ried couples’ intentions to safeguard the family wealth. In a marginal note,
Mahbube mentioned that the deceased had previously purchased her from
Çerkes Hasan, manumitting and then marrying her, with a deferred dower
of 250 kurush.55 Mahbube added that es-Seyyid Ali had consummated the
marriage (duḫūl idüp) to confirm her newly acquired status as his wife. Given
that es-Seyyid Ali had died soon after the nuptials, one could suggest that he
wished to protect her by way of marriage. Nevertheless, the occurrence of such
cases in estate inventories points to a certain level of distrust by women who
might have believed that either the system or other relatives could threaten
their entitlement to these estates. Members of a married couple often relied
on each other by appointing one another as the executor of their bequest. In
marriage, just as in divorce, the dower emerged as a key issue in the settlement
of inheritance-related cases. The analysis of bequests indicates that women’s
capacity to manage their own property—as well as their families’—was openly
recognized by even their closest male relatives and husbands.
Spouses often acquired property with joint entitlement. On 2 August 1806,
Hafize, the proprietor of a two-story house testified in court that Duhani
Mustafa Agha and his wife Ayşe bought the house from her for 164 kurush.56
Hafize stressed the couple’s co-ownership of the house with the phrase
ʿalel-iştirākü’l-sevī (jointly), which implied that the conjugal pair owned equal
shares. Another example of sale transactions and transfer of property rights
is the case of Fatma and her husband Paçacı Molla Halil.57 In his testimony,
Molla Halil gave Fatma the shares to his trotter’s shop (paçaḫāne) and the right
to keep its tools (so that she could rent them out) in return for 300 kurush,
which he had previously borrowed from her. Many transactions such as these
were notarized in court to protect the rights of the conjugal unit.
The records above demonstrate the way that married couples developed
common material interests. However, it is important to note that even if cou-
ples could have common interests over any property acquired during the mar-
riage, it was maintained that the property was formally owned by the party
who financed it, unless it was paid for by both spouses or was formally regis-
tered as a joint estate. The separate economy between husband and wife was
55 Ibid.; BOA, D.BŞM.MHF, vols. 13411–20.

56 DPM 47, 68/5 (1806/07).
57 DPM 47, 1/1 (1806).
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an ongoing trend traceable to the 16th-century court registers of Istanbul, and

it continued in the late 18th century. It should be noted, still, that owning prop-
erty could also work to the disadvantage of women, making them an obvious
target of their husbands’ coercion. Upon marriage, a woman brought property
that was granted to her as dowry, inheritance share, or marital gift from her
patriarchal household, and could be later pressured by their husbands to sell
or renounce property.58 Such was the case of Zeynep from Mahmud Paşa
neighborhood, who stated that she sold half the shares of her house located in
the Hızır Bey neighborhood, near Küçük Pazar, to her husband Ömer Beşe, for
300 kurush. After the payment, the pair certified joint ownership. During that
same year, Zeynep registered that she sold the rest of the shares of this house
to her husband for 300 kurush, and that she no longer had any rights over half
of this property.59 Transactions like Zeynep’s recording of the sale of her prop-
erty are a widely recurring phenomenon, and may indicate possible coercion
on the part of husbands.
Property-related cases also demonstrate instances in which the spouses
accused one another of unlawful expropriation. The aggrieved spouse would
demand the return of a particular property, and both parties would be required
to prove their claims. For instance, in 1794 Emine filed a complaint about her
husband Ali Çavuş, an officer (silāḥdār), demanding her 250 kurush dower,
which he had promised to grant after their divorce.60 Furthermore, Emine
also requested that Ali Çavuş return the 75 kurush that he borrowed and the
shares to a plot of land that he had taken from her. In his statement, Ali Çavuş
counterargued that Emine’s deferred dower was 190 kurush, and that he had
paid the 75 kurush for his share of the land plot. Once Emine proved her claim,
the court made Ali Çavuş grant her the requested amount.
These cases concerning the registry of property allocation between spouses
could be interpreted as an effort to protect possessions against the state’s inter-
ventionist practice in the late 18th century.61 Motivated by the strenuous cir-
cumstances of the period, people took precautionary measures to evade these
practices, as in the case of el-Hac Halil Agha’s transfer of the title deed of his
house to his wife Zeliha.62 Individual measures to protect family property in
this period became even more visible owing to a new policy on the collection,
by the imperial mint, of gold and silver valuables in return for a fixed rate that
58 AÇM 206, 79/2 (1756/57).

59 AÇM 206, 2/2 (1756).
60 DPM 25, 84/10 (1794).
62 DPM 2, 52/3 (1783).
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358 Kayhan Elbirlik
was lower than the market rate. Introduced by Abdülhamid I (r. 1774–89) and
continued by his successor Selim III (r. 1789–1807) in an effort to compensate
for metal deficiency in the imperial mint,63 policies regarding the collection of
these materials were upheld by fatwas ratifying the state’s confiscations and
claiming that their use by ordinary people was excessive and illicit.
The “monetization” of marriage is closely related to the procedures for
securing the maintenance of children, both during marriage and after its dis-
solution. In this discussion, my main purpose is to demonstrate the extent of
the spouses’ separation from and dependence on each other in managing their
monetary affairs. Rapoport associates the “monetization of marriage” in the
Mamluk period with women’s demand for their dower and for maintenance
during marriage instead of after divorce.64 In early modern Istanbul, we find
several cases like the one presented in court by Şerife Habibe, who had her
request recorded for childcare support from her husband Bostani Hasan.65 In
her testimony, Şerife Habibe mentioned the birth of their two sons, both in her
care. In a second registered case, Şerife stated that she was pregnant again and
requested that her husband pay an additional sum for child support during the
months of her pregnancy.66 The financial pressures of raising children influ-
enced the strategies women used in court. Evidently, women’s insistence on
financial support without resorting to divorce shows that there was an incen-
tive encouraging continuity and stability in their marriage. Similarly, women’s
attempts to maintain their financial privileges as wives show their intentions
to remain within the marriage.67 That said, remarriage was also widely prac-
ticed and it presented a more suitable living environment for women than
being single or divorced.
When a couple was to divorce, the sharia upheld that it was more favorable
for the children to be in the guardianship (bi-ḥaḳḳü’l-ḥiżāne) of their mother,
63 BOA, HAT 182/8353; HAT 201/955 D; HAT 226/12578; C.ML. 112/4987; Cezar, Osmanlı
Maliyesinde Bunalım, 138–51; Karal, Osmanlı Tarihi, vol. 5, 596–99, 601–02; Karal, Selim
III’ün Hat-tı Humayûnları, 84–5.
64 Rapoport, Marriage, Money and Divorce, 53.
65 DPM 15, 34/5 (1790).
66 DPM 15, 36/2 (1790).
67 In the records of the Davud Paşa court for the years 1782–1840, the number of nafaḳa cases
concerning alimony payments after divorce was much lower than the cases concerning
nafaḳa as an allowance for the upkeep of the household and children during marriage.
Note, however, the rise of requisition on behalf of married women in 1830/31 and 1839/40.
The reason for the rarity of pleas by married women for nafaḳa as maintenance during
marriage could be due to their husbands’ coercion: see Kayhan Elbirlik, “Negotiating
Matrimony”, 192.
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or a close female relative, until they reached puberty.68 In cases when the
mother remarried another man after her divorce, the father of the child was
not bound by law to pay for support. My evidence shows, however, that actual
practice deviated from the norm. Hanife, an inhabitant of the Aydın Kethüda
neighborhood, appointed her husband Halil Agha as her proxy in court and
requested that her previous husband, Alemdar Mehmed, continue paying sup-
port for their five-year-old daughter, Emine.69 As a result of Hanife’s plea, the
court decided that Emine would receive child-support from Alemdar Mehmed
in the amount of four para (0.1 kurush) per day. In Hanafi jurisprudence, if
a mother was appointed as the official caretaker for a child after a divorce,
she would normally lose supervision over the child upon her remarriage.70
However, the cases I have encountered indicate that, in some instances at
least, women could continue being the sole guardian of their children, even
after remarriage.
This chapter began by exploring the nature of community formation and the
notion of the collective body in Istanbul’s early modern neighborhoods. The
neighborhood was a space that shaped, controlled, and restructured moral and
ethical bounds, establishing a sense of belonging for its residents. Communal
solidarity was reinforced not just by the existence of strong kinship ties or
ethnic and religious affinities, but also by a peer culture that relied heavily
on cooperation within same-gender groups. This type of solidarity provided
women in particular access to the flow of information in the public sphere,
and it also empowered them when turning to court. The disputes that women
brought to court reflect the level of agency they had both within the family and
in the public realm.
In the second section, the discussion on the family focused more specifi-
cally on marriage’s pecuniary character and the prevailing model of a separate
economy between spouses in order to highlight instances that made visible
women’s agency in family and neighborhood life. Women’s legal awareness,
68 Nine for girls and seven for boys; see Bilmen, Hukûk-i İslâmiyye, vol. 2, 470.
69 DPM 2, 25/2 (1782).
70 According to the norm, the children were supposed to remain with their father after they
completed their prescribed time with the mother or female caretaker. The Shafiʿi school,
however, gave children the choice of living with whichever parent they preferred. The
choice of habitation also differed according to the gender of the child. If a girl desired to
reside with her mother, she was free to remain with her indefinitely. If she chose to live
with her father and decided not to see her mother, she could have her mother banned
from visiting her. For boys, the rule was slightly different. If the boy chose to live with his
mother, he could only spend the nights with her because he was obligated to stay with
his father in the daytime: see Bilmen, Hukûk-i İslâmiyye, vol. 2, 465; Aydın, İslam-Osmanlı
Aile Hukuku, 54.
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360 Kayhan Elbirlik
economic activities, and, at times, leading roles within the household made
the conjugal unit a dynamic partnership with shared responsibilities. The
strategies that the spouses devised with regard to the safekeeping of prop-
erty, inheritance deeds, and care for children might possibly indicate a sense
of companionate partnership within the marital union. Notwithstanding the
negative critiques by some contemporary observers, women’s right to own
property, endow waqfs, grant money, and engage in trade, along with their
husbands’ accommodation of these entitlements, implied changes in the
dynamics of gender roles. These dynamics could perhaps be interpreted as the
undercurrents of more flexible attitudes toward the permeation of the private
in the public sphere in 18th-century Istanbul.
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Chapter 14
Communal Matters
Karen A. Leal
In Philotheou Parerga (Philotheos’s Diversions), a novel by the grand dragoman

Nicholas Mavrocordatos (d. 1730) set in Istanbul in the early 18th century, the
narrator, a Greek Orthodox subject of the Ottoman Empire, crosses the Golden
Horn to Galata with his friend Jacob, a crypto-Christian.1 During the ride, a
garrulous old Muslim boatman (ḳāyıḳçı) describes his life, including the fires
and pestilence that had beset the city and destroyed his home and family, and
presents his views on his religious faith. He prays five times a day, and, display-
ing a certain practicality, respects not only Friday, the Muslim day of gathering,
when congregational prayers are held, but also Saturday, when Jews observe
the Sabbath, and Sunday, the Christian day of worship: “For who knows exactly
which form of worship pleases God?”2
This pragmatic approach to religion reflects, and was perhaps a prod-
uct of, the contemporary urban environment of the Ottoman capital, where
Orthodox Christian, Armenian, Jewish, and Muslim subjects often lived or
worked near one another, and might thus have been familiar with aspects of
their fellow Istanbulites’ confessional lives. There were no ghettos in Greater
Istanbul (i.e., Istanbul proper and the three boroughs [bilād-ı s̱elās̱e] of Galata,
Eyüp, and Üsküdar). Many neighborhoods were centered around a house of
worship—whether a masjid, church, or synagogue—but this did not necessar-
ily mean that only members of that faith lived there. In markets, the businesses
of Orthodox Christians, Jews, Armenians, and Muslims, other than shops sell-
ing foods and drink prohibited (ḥarām) under the sharia, were not segregated
by religion.3 Nor, in many cases, were the guilds to which craftsmen of different
faiths belonged.4 Mavrocordatos’s open-minded boatman might have learned
about Jewish traditions as a member of the boatmen’s guild (ḳāyıḳçılar eṣnāfı),
working on the Balat quay, where, in 1726, Jews such as Hayim, Bünyamin [sic],
and Yuda were listed as plying their trade alongside Muslims such as Uzun
1 Mavrocordatos, Les loisirs de Philothée, ed. Bouchard, 112; see also ibid., 82, 92. A crypto-
Christian is a convert to Islam who secretly practices his original religion.
2 Ibid., 114.
3 İnalcık, “Istanbul: An Islamic City”, 13.

366 Leal
Hasan and İmam Abdi, and Armenians such as Kirkor and Haçador. But the
boatman’s interaction with his non-Muslim brethren in the guild would have
had its limits: it appears that guild members acted as guarantors (sing. kefīl)
only for their co-religionists (e.g., Çıracı Hasan was the guarantor for Sarı
İbrahim, and vice versa; likewise Avram and Mosi).5
The depiction of Philotheos’s friend Jacob, from Izmir, who outwardly pro-
fesses Islam while privately honoring his Christian faith, is also noteworthy. He
hosts a luncheon for Philotheos’s guests in a lush garden situated on a height
overlooking the city, where they engage in lively philosophical debates and dis-
cussion. Living on the threshold between Islam and Christianity, he does not
seem to fear the punishment apparently meted out in 1672 to an adolescent
named Nicholas, as described by Antoine Galland (d. 1715), a French archae-
ologist and translator of The Thousand and One Nights, who was part of the
French embassy to Constantinople in the early 1670s. According to Galland,
the boy was taking Turkish lessons from a Muslim barber who worked next
door to his father’s shop in the commercial district of Tahtakale (Taḥt al-ḳalʿa),
near the Yeni Valide mosque (completed just a few years earlier, in 1665), when
he was tricked into reading the Islamic profession of faith. After objecting that
he was a Christian, Nicholas was imprisoned and then executed for apostasy.6
Jacob’s imaginary Istanbul garden is idyllic. But in accounts of the lives of neo-
martyrs who lived in the 17th century, when individual conversions to Islam
were on the rise, “closely intertwined space[s]” where Orthodox Christians
and Muslims intermingled, such as the neighborhood of Tahtakale, were fre-
quently portrayed as posing a mortal threat to Christian lives.7
Nicholas Mavrocordatos, the author who gave voice to the characters of
the Muslim boatman, Jacob, and Philotheos, was descended on his father’s
side from a wealthy Chian silk merchant for whom he was named, and on his
mother’s side from Scarlatos Begliktzis, a beef purveyor who made his fortune
supplying the Ottoman court. In this era, leading Greek Orthodox merchant
families such as these, who frequently embellished (and at times fabricated)
their Byzantine pedigree, rose to prominence, first in Istanbul and later as
hospodars (Rom. lord, master) of the Danubian principalities of Wallachia
and Moldavia. The members of the Greek Orthodox elite were known as
5 İKS vol. 21, İstanbul Mahkemesi 24, no. 153 (original text, fol. 47a-2). The scribe seems to have
erroneously subsumed a few Armenians, such as the individuals Kirkor (sic, Krikor) and
Haçador, under his listing of the Jewish guild members.
6 Constantelos, “‘Neomartyrs’”, 221–22; de la Croix, État présent des nations, 213–46; Galland,
Journal d’Antoine Galland, vol. 1, 220–21.
7 Krstić, Contested Conversions, 146. See also Baer, “Islamic Conversion Narratives”.
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Communal Matters 367
Phanariots, after Fener,8 the district on the shore of the Golden Horn to which
many in the community gravitated after the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate relo-
cated there around 1600 (Fig. 14.1).9 Near the Patriarchate was the Patriarchal
Academy, founded in 1454, which counted among its students the Moldavian
prince Dimitrie Cantemir (d. 1723), who spent his youth in Fener, and whom
Nicholas Mavrocordatos replaced as hospodar of Moldavia in 1711. Enriched by
their commercial connections in the Mediterranean and the Balkans, and their
business and cultural ties to Italy, the Phanariots held high-ranking lay posi-
tions in the church, and by the latter half of the 17th century, some were being
integrated into the Ottoman government in the powerful roles of grand drago-
man and dragoman of the fleet—without converting to Islam, as non-Muslims
who entered the state bureaucracy had previously been required to do.
In 1719, Philotheou Parerga was presented to the French ambassador to
the Ottoman Empire, the Marquis de Bonnac (d. 1738), as a gift for Louis XV
(r. 1715–74). The work was “intended to be a sort of literary covering [sic] let-
ter … written by a Christian statesman who enjoys the freedom of expres-
sion allowed by a tolerant, beneficent monarch, and an enlightened form of
government”.10 In the characters of the Muslim boatman and Jacob, among oth-
ers, Mavrocordatos provided his European readers with an idealized depiction
of how residents of varying confessional identities interacted in Istanbul at the
turn of the 18th century, perhaps as a counterpoint to less flattering depictions
by some European visitors to the city. But a brief survey of the activities of the
residents of one neighborhood in Fener—gleaned from 17th-century tribunal
court records (kadı sicilleri)—offers a more nuanced understanding of how the
city’s inhabitants conducted their lives in this era. With regard to non-Muslims
in particular, both Mavrocordatos’s fictional account and the court records
discussed below reveal that, even as Greek Orthodox Istanbulites were fully
enmeshed in the life of the city, they were also developing a heightened aware-
ness of themselves as a distinct group in the capital. This sense of communal
identity would develop further as they engaged with the Imperial Divan, and
perhaps also with the objections of Muslim neighbors, in seeking permission
to repair a number of dilapidated churches throughout the city.
8 The Ottoman name derives from the Greek phanári, lighthouse, so-called in reference to
a lantern lit at a nearby tower in Byzantine times.
9 On the relocation, see Runciman, Great Church in Captivity, 190–91.
10 Kamperidis, “Notion of Millet”, 70.
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Figure 14.1 Map showing certain landmarks in Fener. The exact location of
the Patriarchal Academy (no. 4) in the 17th century is unknown,
though it was certainly in Fener. I have hypothetically placed it
on the site of the Greek Orthodox College, built in 1883.
Base map: C. Scott Walker, Harvard Map Collection,
Harvard College Library
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1 The Residents of the Abdi Subaşı Quarter of Fener
As a grand dragoman in the service of the Ottoman state, a novelist who

wrote in a style imitating classical Greek, and a resident of Fener, Nicholas
Mavrocordatos exemplifies the ways in which an erudite Greek Orthodox
Istanbulite fit into the fabric of life in the Ottoman capital. His father was
Alexander Mavrocordatos (d. 1709), a doctor of medicine educated in Italy,
who himself served for almost three decades as grand dragoman (dīvān-ı
ʿālī tercümānı). In 1696, two decades before Nicholas composed Philotheou
Parerga, Alexander appeared in a local courtroom simply as a translator
(tercümān).11 Identified in the court record12 by his Ottoman patronym İskerlet
oğlu (son of İskerlet [Scarlattos])13 rather than as Mavrocordatos, he was there
to translate, from English into Turkish, a document relating to the claim of
an English merchant, identified as “Corco [George?] v. Radomdini”.14 A com-
plaint had been filed against the latter by two Orthodox Christians, Manol and
Dimitraki, who lived in the Abdi Subaşı quarter (maḥalle), near Fenerkapısı
(Fener Gate), and so may have known the elder Mavrocordatos not only as a
distinguished Ottoman minister but also as a neighbor, since the grand drago-
man owned a home nearby.15 The English merchant had Antonaki v. Istifani,
head dragoman of the English embassy,16 attest to the contents of the docu-
ment. Mavrocordatos’s presence in court may have reassured the plaintiffs,
not only because he could affirm that the document had been translated cor-
rectly (particularly since it turned out to be detrimental to their case), but also
because of his local tie to them and his governmental position.
11 The English term “dragoman” is a corruption of tercümān.

12 Kuran (ed.), Mahkeme Kayıtları Işığında, vol. 1, 891–94 (İstanbul 22, fol. 36a/2).
13 Leal, “Ottoman State and Greek Orthodox of Istanbul”, 423.
14 The abbreviation “v.” stands for veled, meaning “son of”. This word was used exclusively for
non-Muslim males, as opposed to ibn (usually abbreviated “b.”), which was used only for
Muslim men.
15 He had a house described as “within Fenerkapısı”, although the Abdi Subaşı quarter is not
specifically mentioned. Ahmet Refik, Hicrî On İkinci Asırda, 21. The Fener Gate and most
of the sea walls are no longer extant. Deleon, Ancient Districts, 80.
16 Antonaki appears to have been a local Greek Orthodox translator in the employ of the
English embassy. Foreign embassies often doubted the loyalty of such dragomans, due
to “real or supposed venality but also because their status as subjects of the sultan made
them liable to pressure by the Ottoman authorities”. Faroqhi, The Ottoman Empire and the
World Around It, 174.
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370 Leal
With its eponymous mosque17 located directly behind the Patriarchate, Abdi
Subaşı was a well-off neighborhood near Fenerkapısı, which was renowned (or
infamous) for its fishermen and taverns.18 This was one of the three quarters
that made up Fener, the other two being Tahta Minare and Tevkiʿi Caʿfer.19
Comprising perhaps ten or fifteen streets and usually centered on a main road
(ṭarīḳ-i ʿāmm), with some houses of worship and small shops providing local
services, neighborhoods such as these “fostered a durable sense of local iden-
tity and cohesion” for their inhabitants, who were of varied socioeconomic and
religious backgrounds.20
By the 18th century, when most homes in Istanbul were just one or two sto-
ries and made of wood,21 the wealthy Greek Orthodox denizens of Fener built
imposing two- and three-story stone (kārgīr) mansions (Fig. 14.2).22 A stately
stone building nearby served from 1686 as the metochion (residence) of the
Monastery of St. Catherine on Mount Sinai, which since Byzantine times had
had a representative in the city. Its salon ran “the length of the house but …
[was] blind on the Horn side … presumably because the owner did not wish to
look out upon the wharf or suffer the stench of the polluted water”.23 Like the
Balat pier further up the Golden Horn, Fener’s wharf was always busy, as it was
intimately connected to the commercial center of Eminönü, further down the
Golden Horn toward the Bosphorus.24
Despite Abdi Subaşı’s proximity to the nexus of Greek ecclesiastical and sec-
ular power, it housed a diverse population in the latter half of the 17th century,25
including two Muslim ladies, Emine bt. İvaz26 and Fatıma bt. Abdullah, the
latter likely a convert, who in 1663 made renovations to their home by adding
a şāhnişīn (bay window), a taḫtapūş (covered wooden balcony on the roof),
and a kenīf (privy). This damaged the property of their next-door neighbors,
17 The Abdi Subaşı mosque was built after the conquest of the city in 1453 and renovated
in the 16th century during the reign of Süleyman (r. 1520–66). Ayvansarayî, Garden of the
Mosques, ed. Crane, 226, n. 1778.
18 Evliya Çelebi, Evliya Çelebi Seyahatnâmesi, vol. 1, ed. Dankoff, Kahraman, Dağlı, 140, 275.
19 Artan, “Fener”, 341; see also Leyla Kayhan Elbirlik’s chapter on “Neighborhood and Family
Lives” in this volume.
20 Behar, A Neighborhood in Ottoman Istanbul, 4.
21 İnalcık, “İstanbul”, TDVIA, 237.
22 Goodwin, Ottoman Architecture, 447–48. See also Sezgin, “Les maisons en pierre”; Cerasi,
“Istanbul 1620–1750”, 481. These mansions were torn down in the early 20th century.
23 Goodwin, Ottoman Architecture, 448. See also Deleon, Ancient Districts, 82. On the repair
of the church associated with the metochion, see n. 83, below.
24 Erbey & Erbaş, “Fener Balat”, 144.
25 On the long-term nature of this demographic diversity, see Kafescioğlu, Constantinopolis/
Istanbul, 186–88; Yerasimos, “La fondation”, 218.
26 The abbreviation “bt.” stands for bint, meaning “daughter of”.
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Figure 14.2 Phanariot houses in Fener. E. Diez, Alt-Konstantinopel: Hundertzehn

photographische Aufnahmen der Stadt und ihrer Bau- und Kunst-Denkmäler,
Munich-Pasing, 1920
Drako and his nephew Mihalaki v. Kostantin, two Orthodox Christians who
served as the representatives of the prince of Moldavia. In late June of that
year, they complained to the sharia court that these structures were putting
pressure on the wall between the houses, causing it to lean precariously toward
their own property. Royal architects, along with Muslim neighbors, were
sent to confirm the situation, and directed Emine and Fatima to undertake
the necessary repairs.27 Two years later, the priest Yakomi v. Tozako and four
Greek Orthodox laymen, residents of the part of Abdi Subaşı located outside
Fenerkapısı, accused some of their Jewish neighbors of attacking and verbally
abusing a watchman, whom the Greeks had hired to patrol the neighborhood,
and other Christian residents of the quarter. Although the judge issued a ḥüc
cet (document) ordering the expulsion of the Jews, an agreement was reached,
allowing them to stay. It is possible that these Jewish residents of “outer” Abdi
Subaşı were among the Jews whom the Ottoman authorities had forced out of
the neighborhoods of Eminönü (an area known in Byzantine times as Porta
27 İKS vol. 16, İstanbul Mahkemesi 12, no. 308 (original text, fol. 26(2)a-5).
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372 Leal
Hebraica (Jewish Gate)) after the great fire (iḥrāḳ-ı kebīr) of 166028 and subse-
quent construction of the Yeni Valide mosque, and who were made to resettle
outside the city walls, in areas such as Balat and Hasköy. Memories of that con-
flagration, which started in Eminönü, may have also prompted Father Yakomi
to mention the Greeks’ fear that their Jewish neighbors might start a fire in
Abdi Subaşı, due to the particular way they lit the braziers in their homes. In
response, and as part of their accord to remain in the neighborhood, the Jews
promised to build and use new braziers “like the ones in Muslim homes”.29
Some court records describe the Abdi Subaşı quarter as “within” (dāḫilinde)
Fenerkapısı, while others describe it as being “outside” (ḫāricinde). If the situ-
ation was like that in neighboring Balat, wealthier residents generally lived
within the walls, while poorer Jewish residents lived outside, in yahūdḫānes
(tenements intended for Jews).30 In the first case discussed above, Drako
and Mihalaki lived within the walls, next to two Muslim ladies who had the
resources to make extensive renovations to their home. The details of their dis-
pute suggest that the parties shared a similar socioeconomic status in “inner”
Abdi Subaşı. Meanwhile, the Greeks represented by Father Yakomi lived on the
other side of Fenerkapısı. Wealthy enough to hire a watchman (though per-
haps not as wealthy as Drako and Mihalaki across the wall), they clashed with
their Jewish neighbors, who appear to have been primarily renters, perhaps
recently arrived from Eminönü. Though the dispute was nominally between
Christians and Jews, it may also have had to do with the tensions that arose
when one group felt its space being encroached upon by another group that it
saw as lower than itself on the socioeconomic scale.
Personal matters, too, are telling. In 1667, Mehmed b. Abdullah, a resident of
“inner” Abdi Subaşi and convert to Islam previously known as Dimitri v. Sebasti,
appeared in the sharia court with his former wife, the Greek Orthodox Fetorye
bt. Petko, in a dispute over his alleged share of a house in the neighborhood.31
Around the same time, another convert residing in the quarter, Süleyman
b. Abdullah, made a claim against the Jew Menahem v. Yasef regarding the
value of jewelry and other precious items that had come into Menahem’s
possession after Süleyman’s former wife, the Christian woman Harsandi, had
pledged them to Ahmed Agha, the mütevelli (administrator) of an endow-
ment in Eyüp, as collateral for a loan.32 Both Süleyman and Mehmed lost their
cases—Süleyman for lack of evidence and Mehmed because Fetorye produced
28 Şişman, Burden of Silence, 34.

29 Kuran (ed.), Mahkeme Kayıtları Işığında, vol. 1, 644–45 (İstanbul 16, fol. 86b/1).
30 Leal, “Balat”, 176, 178–80, 184.
31 İKS vol. 17, Bab Mahkemesi 3, no. 547 (original text, fol. 72a-2).
32 İKS vol. 17, Bab Mahkemesi 3, no. 459 (original text, fol. 63a-1). The decree does not
state whether this was the part of Abdi Subaşı that was within Fenerkapısı, but given
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documentation refuting his claim. For these converts, joining the dominant
religion did not mean they could completely extricate themselves from their
former lives as Christian residents of the quarter, nor did their new Muslim
status guarantee any favors at the hands of the kadi (sharia court judge). A
decade later, in July 1678, a Greek Orthodox woman of Abdi Subaşı, Saltane
bt. Dimitri, also sought a change in her circumstances, not through conver-
sion but by asking the kadi in nearby Hasköy to grant her a divorce (muḫālaʿa)
from her husband, Yorgaki v. Nikola.33 Non-Muslims were allowed to turn to
their own intracommunal courts to plead cases involving their co-religionists,
if the parties agreed to do so and the conflict did not involve a capital offense
or threaten public order.34 Saltane may nevertheless have believed that the
kadi, applying sharia law, would be more receptive to her complaint than the
Greek ecclesiastical courts that were around the corner and had jurisdiction
over their flock in internal matters such as marriage. Indeed, by 1672 Patriarch
Dionysios IV had become so concerned about how many members of his
flock were seeking divorces at the Muslim court that he requested an imperial
diploma (berāt) stating that the patriarch “had exclusive jurisdiction to grant
divorces between Christians”.35 This did not, however, deter Saltane from visit-
ing the Hasköy court in 1678.
2 The Crisscrossing Ties Connecting Muslims and Non-Muslims in

Early Modern Istanbul
Even as religion remained the most important criterion by which individuals

were defined, and defined themselves, in Ottoman society, these vignettes—
about guild members, an erudite host who kept his true religious beliefs hid-
den, adolescent apostates (or martyrs, depending on one’s point of view),
Greek Orthodox Ottoman diplomats, merchants, recent converts to Islam,
litigants and witnesses, homeowners, and sometimes unhappy or unwilling
neighbors and spouses—illustrate other ways that residents of Istanbul were
connected to one another, highlighting the crisscrossing ties that bound them,
in various permutations, both horizontally to one another and vertically to the
state, at the turn of the 18th century.36
the formerly married couple’s material riches, it seems likely that they were from “inner”
Abdi Subaşı.
33 İKS vol. 30, Hasköy Mahkemesi 10, no. 110 (original text, fol. 64–1).
34 Al-Qattan, “Inside the Ottoman Courthouse”, 203, 209–10.
35 Baer, “Islamic Conversion Narratives”, 434, citing Pantazopoulos, Church and Law, 103.
36 Until the late 20th century, ties such as these were largely obscured by the wide-
spread acceptance of the “millet system” paradigm, according to which the empire’s
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In early modern Istanbul, where in the 17th century perhaps two-fifths of

the residents were non-Muslim,37 the acceptance of “difference” was implicit
not only in the Ottomans’ administration of their subjects, but also in how
the inhabitants of the city interacted with one another. Whereas the Spanish
expulsion of the Jews in 1492 and of the Moriscos in 1609, and Louis XIV’s
revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, could be seen as part of an effort
to impose religious uniformity in Spain and France respectively, it has been
noted that in the early modern era, with the exception of the institution of
the devşirme,38 which by the 17th century was in any case falling into disuse,
there was a “near lack of any political will [among the Ottomans] to trans-
form” their non-Muslim subjects’ religious “‘difference’ into ‘sameness’”.39 Even
as Ottoman political and religious authorities attempted in the 16th and 17th
centuries to bring the conduct of their Muslim subjects “(and to a lesser extent,
the[ir] beliefs) … in line with the precepts of Sunni Islam, as they were under-
stood at that time”, it was not Ottoman practice to drive either non-Muslim or
“heretical” Muslim communities outside the empire’s borders.40
Greek Orthodox, Armenian, and Jewish subjects belonged to legally sanctioned, semi-
autonomous religious communities (sing. millet) under the authority of the central gov-
ernment. More recently, however, a consensus has developed that it is not useful to view
these communities in the early modern period as insular elements within the Ottoman
Empire (Faroqhi, “Ottoman Ruling Group”, 256; Greene, Edinburgh History of the Greeks,
29). The shortcomings and nuances of the millet system paradigm are beyond the scope
of this essay (see, inter alia, Braude, “Foundation Myths”; Ursinus, “Millet”; Konortas,
“From Ta’ife to Millet”), but I note that the term does not appear in any of the sharia court
decrees about Abdi Subaşı described above.
37 Başaran, Selim III, 61. There are no satisfactory estimates for the population of Istanbul
in the 17th century, but the scholarly consensus is that it could not have been more than
300,000 (Yi, Guild Dynamics in Seventeenth-Century Istanbul, 26–27).
38 That is, the Ottomans’ periodic levy of Christian children, who were converted to Islam
and groomed for the highest offices of the state or for entry into the janissary corps. See
Ágoston, “Devşirme”; Ágoston, “Janissaries”. Inhabitants of Istanbul were excluded from
the devşirme, but once the levy became less common, some men may have been moti-
vated to convert to Islam as a way to enter the military class: see Baer, “Islamic Conversion
Narratives”, 435.
39 Rodrigue, “Difference and Tolerance”, [n.p.]. See also Baer, “Islamic Conversion Narra-
tives”, 432.
40 Terzioğlu, “How to Conceptualize Ottoman Sunnitization”, 313; Terzioğlu, “Where İlm-i
Ḥāl Meets Catechism”, 104–05. Nevertheless, Ottoman “Sunnitization”, though directed
toward the “social disciplining” of the empire’s Muslims, would have particular rami-
fications in the 17th century for the Jewish and Christian communities of Istanbul, as
described below, when Ottoman religious and political authorities would try to define
relations with those communities in a manner more strictly based on the sharia: see
Terzioğlu, “How to Conceptualize Ottoman Sunnitization”, 321.
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Primacy was accorded to Muslims, and especially to Muslim men, in com-

parison to whom non-Muslims, known as dhimmis,41 were accorded a lesser
position professionally, legally, physically, religiously, and linguistically,
thereby imparting, in the case of Istanbul, a cosmopolitan air to the city, while
also making clear who did and who did not belong to the dominant group. In
records of the Imperial Divan, for example, a Muslim man was described as
“somebody” (kimesne), while the specific terms Ermenī and Yahūdī were used
to single out, respectively, Armenian and Jewish men; and Muslim women
were given the honorific ḫātūn (lady) or ʿavret (woman), whereas a Christian
woman was called Naṣrāniye (Nazarene).42 “The person with the power takes
the noun—and the norm—while the less powerful requires an adjective.”43
Yet the boundaries implied by these designations were not impermeable: con-
versions to Islam, which increased in the 17th century,44 provided a way for
dhimmis such as Abdi Subaşı resident Dimitri v. Sebasti to enter the dominant
group as Mehmed b. Abdullah.45
In return for the protection of the state, non-Muslims had to pay a poll tax
(jizya). Also, the dhimma in theory restricted what non-Muslims might wear,
the height and color of their buildings, the bearing of arms, and the public
display of their religion—limitations all meant to symbolize the lesser, albeit
tolerated, position they held in society due to their willful non-acceptance of
Islam. But the enforcement of these restrictions varied with time and place
across the empire, and it seems that, just as the Ottoman state lacked the will
to impose religious uniformity on its non-Muslims, so too it lacked the will
(and perhaps the resources) to enforce the distinctions that were meant to
highlight the religious differences among its subjects.46 For example, despite
41 From the Islamic concept of the ahl al-dhimma (Ott. Turk. ẕimmī, ehl el-ẕimme, ehl-i
ẕimmet), the people of the “pact”, i.e., the obligation of Muslim rulers to protect and toler-
ate the presence of non-Muslims in their domains.
42 Al-Qattan, “Inside the Ottoman Courthouse”, 209–11; Leal, “Ottoman State and Greek
Orthodox of Istanbul”, 199–205.
43 Steinem, “Women Have ‘Chick Flicks.’ What About Men?” Steinem writes: “I realized
the problem began with the fact that adjectives are mostly required of the less power-
ful. Thus, there are ‘novelists’ and ‘female novelists,’ ‘African-American doctors’ but not
‘European-American doctors’.” Although adjectives such as Ermenī, Yahūdī, and Naṣrāniye
are in these instances used substantively, Steinem’s point remains relevant.
44 See n. 7, above.
45 See n. 31, above.
46 Faroqhi, “Ottoman Ruling Group”, 243; Braude & Lewis, “Introduction”, 6; see also
Terzioğlu, “How to Conceptualize Ottoman Sunnitization”, 322.
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the existence of sumptuary laws, Sir Paul Rycaut, writing in the 1670s, despon-
dently noted “how gladly the Greeks and Armenian Christians imitate the
Turkish Habit, and come as near to it as they dare”.47 Cultural assimilation
was perhaps inevitable when different groups lived and worked so near to
one another. Indeed, in the 17th century, this blurring of the borders between
Muslim and dhimmi would prompt some Istanbulite Muslims to agitate for
a more restrictive stance toward the dhimmi population of the city.48 At
times, then, restrictions meant to highlight the Muslim/dhimmi divide were
enforced—when Muslim subjects demanded it, or when doing so proved con-
venient given local, empire-wide, and international conditions. In the early
modern era, the Ottoman state “made a large number of very matter-of-fact
decisions, based on expediency and taking into account what was possible
under given circumstances”.49 In sum, the place of non-Muslims in Ottoman
Istanbul was “tolerable but insecure”,50 their status often dependent on the
degree to which the Muslims among and with whom they lived and worked
insisted on having the Ottoman state (so near and perhaps more strongly felt
in the bustling capital) enforce the dhimma—which in theory rigidly dictated
the space that non-Muslims would be accorded in a Muslim society, but in
Ottoman hands was often malleable.
As a series of documents related to the repair of Greek Orthodox churches
throughout Istanbul reveals, however, in the last decade of the 17th century
the Greek Orthodox, too, influenced the built environment in which they
lived alongside Muslim, Jewish, and Armenian neighbors. In so doing, Greek
Orthodox Istanbulites appear to have tested the boundaries of what they
were allowed to do when repairing their churches—in the process sometimes
angering neighboring Muslims, who would not hesitate to report the Greeks’
“transgressions” to the sharia courts and to the Divan, and sometimes them-
selves turning to these institutions, when they felt they were being hindered in
carrying out renovations for which they had received the state’s permission.51
47 Rycaut, Present State of the Ottoman Empire, 153.

48 See below on the influence of the Kadızadelis in this regard, as well as the role played by
Muslim residents of a neighborhood when their Greek Orthodox neighbors sought per-
mission to repair their churches.
49 Faroqhi, The Ottoman Empire and the World Around It, 3.
50 Braude & Lewis, “Introduction”, 6.
51 This discussion of church repairs is based on a section (243–64) of chapter 4 of my 2003
dissertation “The Ottoman State and the Greek Orthodox of Istanbul”.
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3 Between the Kadızadelis and the Treaty of Karlowitz:

The Fluctuating Fortunes of Dhimmis in the 17th Century
The opportunity for non-Muslims, and in particular the Greek Orthodox, to

restore their houses of worship—which would facilitate their ability to con-
gregate and practice their respective religions—came in the wake of two
developments: the waning of the puritanical Kadızadeli movement that had
gripped the city since the 1630s, and the impact of the Ottoman-Habsburg
wars (1683–99).
Although the person most closely identified with the beginning of the
Kadızadeli movement, Kadızade Mehmed b. Mustafa (d. 1635), mainly targeted
the sufi orders, which he felt were harmful to Muslim society, one of his succes-
sors, Vani Mehmed Efendi (d. 1685), also focused attention on non-Muslims,
whom he blamed for the military problems the empire was experiencing in
Crete and related political and financial difficulties. As the shaykh (spiritual
advisor) to both Sultan Mehmed IV (r. 1648–87) and his grand vizier Fazıl
Ahmed Köprülü (d. 1676), and mosque preacher of the Yeni Valide mosque in
Eminönü, Vani Efendi had “both the sale and consumption of wine forbidden
on pain of death wherever there was a mosque, regardless of the composition
of the neighborhood”.52 He also wished to eliminate the communal prayers
that were said in times of calamity, such as during outbreaks of the plague
that beset the city, when Muslim imams along with the Greek Orthodox and
Armenian patriarchs prayed for God’s intercession before an assembly gath-
ered in Okmeydanı. In 1664, when the sultan called for such prayers to be said
before the start of a campaign, Vani Efendi successfully argued that Muslim
prayers would not be made more effective by the “[a]ssembly of all the people
of a City into one body”.53 The shaykh “even sought the execution of [the first
grand dragoman] Panagiotis Nikousios … with whom he engaged in a heated
dispute over the finer points of Christian law”—this despite the fact that it was
Fazıl Ahmed who had elevated Nikousios to the position of grand dragoman.54
During this period, Jewish physicians to the sultan were increasingly
required to convert to Islam, a transformation perhaps related to the influence
52 Zilfi, “The Kadızadelis: Discordant Revivalism”, 264.

53 Rycaut, History of the Turkish Empire, 154, as discussed in Zilfi, “The Kadızadelis:
Discordant Revivalism”, 264. Others, however, such as the shaykh al-Islam Minkarizade
(d. 1677), advocated public multi-communal prayers. Norton, “Introduction”, 7–8; Şişman,
“Minkarizâde”, 406–08.
54 Leal, “Ottoman State and Greek Orthodox of Istanbul”, 15; Cantemir, History of the Growth
and Decay, trans. Tindal, 261–62; de la Croix, État présent des nations, 247–60; Kermeli,
“Polemic/Apologetic Literature”.
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378 Leal
of the queen mother Hadice Turhan Sultan (an acolyte, like her son, of Vani
Efendi),55 as well as to the rise of the messianic movement of Sabbatai Tsevi
(d. 1676), which caused the Jews to seem untrustworthy to the Ottomans.56
Moreover, in contrast to previous periods, after the great fire of 1660, mem-
bers of the Jewish community were not permitted to rebuild their synagogues,
and were expelled from their homes in Eminönü, as part of Hadice Turhan
Sultan’s project to complete the mosque begun there by Safiye Sultan in 1597.57
Christians, by contrast, were “initially allowed to purchase the properties on
which churches had stood and were even permitted to rebuild the structures
[that had been destroyed], ostensibly as homes”,58 though this permission was
soon rescinded, allegedly because the Christians had built churches rather
than residences. This reversal, too, was the work of Fazıl Ahmed, perhaps
under Vani Efendi’s influence.
Vani Efendi was relieved of his office in 1683, after the siege of Vienna,
which he had enthusiastically endorsed, ended in failure, and Kadızadeli
influence thereafter declined, though it never disappeared entirely. By this
time, the empire, “which had only in the previous decade reached its greatest
expanse with the capture of Podolia (in Poland), was now put on the defen-
sive in a series of wars waged over the next fifteen years with the coalition
of the Habsburgs, Venice and Russia [the Holy League]”.59 This was one of
the rare times the Ottomans were forced to fight on multiple fronts (in the
Mediterranean, on the Danube, and in the Crimea). In an effort to curry favor
with Orthodox Christians in the Balkans when the Ottomans were faring badly
in the war with the Holy League, the grand vizier Köprülü Fazıl Mustafa Pasha
(g.v. 1689–91), brother of Fazıl Ahmed, eased restrictions on church repairs and
allowed new materials to be used when making repairs, which had previously
been prohibited.60 Foreign policy considerations thus influenced the Ottoman
state’s relations with its largest non-Muslim community in this era. It appears
that Orthodox Christians in Istanbul took advantage of this loosening of the
rules in a way that would affect churches throughout the city.
55 Thys-Şenocak, “Yeni Valide”, 67.

56 Baer, Honored by the Glory of Islam, 121–38; Greene, Edinburgh History of the Greeks, 134.
57 Baer, “Great Fire of 1660”, 166–67; Şişman, Burden of Silence, 34–37.
58 Baer, “Great Fire of 1660”, 160. See also Greene, Edinburgh History of the Greeks, 134.
59 Leal, “Ottoman State and Greek Orthodox of Istanbul”, 37; Howard, Ottoman Empire, 172;
Ortaylı, “Ottoman Empire”, 6.
60 Cantemir, History of the Growth and Decay, trans. Tindal, 367–68; Gökbilgin & Repp,
“Köprülü”; Hammer-Purgstall, Histoire, vol. 12, 307; Yılmaz, “Life of Köprülü Fazıl Mustafa
Pasha”, 46–47.
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4 Church Repairs in Istanbul
Even if he never entered one, Mavrocordatos’s ferryman likely passed by the

Orthodox Christian, Armenian, and Jewish houses of worship that dotted the
urban landscape and were physical manifestations of the non-Muslim presence
in the city, although most of these were kept inconspicuous, hidden behind
high walls, in keeping with the principle that the particularities of dhimmi life
should not impinge on society at large, and perhaps also to keep the prying
eyes of nosy neighbors at bay. Nevertheless, while guiding his skiff, he might
have caught a glimpse of the dome of the church of St. Mary of the Mongols
(known in Greek as the Theotokos Mouchliotissa, Panaghia Muchliotissa, or
Theotokos Panaghiotissa)61 (Fig. 14.3), located in the Atik Nişancı Caʿfer Çelebi
quarter62 of Fener, on a summit overlooking the Golden Horn. Its Turkish
name, though, might have been more familiar to him—Kanlı Kümbed Kilise
(Church with the Bloodied Dome) or, more simply, Kanlı Kilise, so-called in
remembrance of a battle that took place there when the city was taken in
1453, during which the Byzantine Greeks took refuge in the church and then
Figure 14.3 Theotokos Mouchliotissa Church (Kanlı Kilise) (c.1261), Fener. Lithograph,
A.G. Paspatēs, Βυζαντιναὶ μελέται τοπογραφικαὶ καὶ ἱστορικαί, μετὰ πλείστων εἰκόνων,
Constantinople, 1877
61 See Müller-Wiener, Bildlexikon, 204, for other versions of the name.

62 This appears to be another name for the Tevkii Cafer quarter identified above. Today the
street on which this church is located is called Tevkii Cafer Mektebi Sokağı.
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380 Leal
continued their resistance nearby, on what came to be known as Sancaktar

Yokuşu (Standard-Bearer’s Slope).63 Distinguished by its elegant dome and
quatrefoil plan,64 the Kanlı Kilise was one of the few masonry churches not to
have been converted into a mosque after the conquest.65 It may therefore have
been more noticeable than other non-Muslim houses of worship, and thus a
landmark for all residents in the area.
The church had been established more than four centuries before by a
Byzantine princess, Maria Palaiologina, the illegitimate daughter of Emperor
Michael VIII (r. 1259–82). The adjective “Mouchliotissa” may mean “of the
Mongols”, in reference to the time the princess spent in Iran as the wife of the
Ilkhanid ruler Abaqa Khan, the son of Hülegu (d. 1265). Another theory is that
the name derives from the town of Mouchlion, near Mystras in the Peloponnese,
whose inhabitants had been deported to Fener by Sultan Mehmed II (r. 1444–
46; 1451–81) in 1458—the popular name thus evoking the original home and
forced migration of early inhabitants of the district.66 Mehmed II allegedly
granted the church67 to the architect of his mosque complex, who may have
been a Greek Orthodox Christian convert known as Christodoulos,68 in grati-
tude for his work. The Kanlı Kilise apparently possesses records document-
ing both Mehmed II’s guarantee that the church would not be confiscated
or converted into a mosque,69 and Bayezid II’s (r. 1481–1512) confirmation of
Mehmed’s promise.70
63 Pamukciyan (ed.), in Eremya Çelebi, İstanbul Tarihi, trans. Andreasyan, 167–68.

64 Marinis, Architecture and Ritual, 199; also see n. 72 below.
65 Runciman, Great Church in Captivity, 191, mentions two other Byzantine-era Orthodox
churches that were not converted: St. George of the Cypresses in Samatya (Psamathia),
destroyed in an earthquake early in the 18th century, and St. Demetrius Kanavou, which
burned down a few years later. Regarding the Kanlı Kilise, see Cantemir, History of the
Growth and Decay, trans. Tindal, 102–05, 109.
66 Smaragdi, “Panagia Mouchliotissa”; Yerasimos, Constantinople: Istanbul’s Historical
Heritage, 134.
67 Yerasimos, La fondation de Constantinople, 149, has suggested that Mehmed may have
actually granted the architect a different church, which had disappeared by the mid-
sixteenth century and was, he surmises, later conflated with the Kanlı Kilise.
68 As noted by Kafescioğlu, Constantinopolis/Istanbul, 260, n. 78, Yerasimos’s identification
of Christodoulos with Atik Sinan, the architect of the Mehmed II mosque (Yerasimos,
La fondation de Constantinople, 149; see also Babinger, Mehmed the Conqueror, 292), is
conjectural. See also Goodwin, History of Ottoman Architecture, 121–22; Sönmez, “Sinân-ı
Atîk”. Dimitrie Cantemir, in any case, refers to the architect only as Christodoulos.
69 Cantemir, History of the Growth and Decay, trans. Tindal, 109; Constantios, Κωνσταντινιὰς
παλαιά τε καὶ νεωτέρα, 114; Ryder, “Despoina”, 78. Cantemir states that he himself read the
“Writing given by Mahomet to Christodulus” and deposited it in the “Treasury of the
Church of the blessed Virgin Mary at Muglotissa”.
70 van Millingen, Byzantine Churches, 276. I have not yet been able to examine the docu-
ments in the Kanlı Kilise mentioned above.
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By the 1690s, then, the Kanlı Kilise was a renowned site in Fener, its his-
tory enmeshed in the urban landscape of the Orthodox Christian parishioners
it served, but also part of the background of day-to-day life for others in the
neighborhood or those who might see it from afar as part of the skyline. It was
also, according to its parishioners, in a dire state of disrepair.71
Christians and Jews in Istanbul, as in other parts of the empire, were entitled
to repair and restore religious buildings that had existed prior to the conquest
of the city; they were not, however, allowed to expand or embellish them with
bell towers or ornaments that indicated the building’s function.72 Before begin-
ning repairs, it was necessary to petition either the sharia court or the Divan.
It has not been established why petitioners would select one venue over the
other for submitting these requests,73 though in the case of churches located
in Istanbul, the decision to consult the Divan was perhaps not illogical, given
its proximity to the Orthodox Christian petitioners and churches involved, and
Phanariot influence there. In any event, in the documents described below,
wherever the original petition was submitted, the kadi was an integral part of
the Divan’s decision-making process vis-à-vis the repair of churches in the cap-
ital. Indeed, certain decrees address the kadi specifically, ordering him or his
representatives to conduct an investigation (keşf ) in the presence of Muslims
from the neighborhood in question, to make sure that the church’s condition
was as the petitioners claimed. After the inspection was completed and the
necessity of the repairs confirmed, the petitioners would return to the Divan
with a document stating that the keşf had been carried out and providing
details about the dimensions of the church; permission to proceed was then
granted or not. The shaykh al-Islam was also frequently consulted and, in the
cases studied below, Orthodox Christians consistently obtained fatwas sanc-
tioning such restorations—perhaps to “ward off” complaints by Muslims.74
In the fall of 1691, a group of Orthodox Christians, in what may illustrate the
final step in the petition process described above, came twice to the Sublime
Porte in connection with repairs to the Kanlı Kilise, and received two rulings.75
The petitions vividly describe the church’s dilapidated state: the roof had
71 BOA, MD 102, 63, 69. Hereafter, for brevity, a reference to an unnumbered decree will cite
the register number and page number (e.g., MD 102, 63). If a decree is numbered, the reg-
ister and decree numbers are separated by a slash (e.g., MD 110/2329); see n. 76 below.
72 Until the Tanzimat, there were also prohibitions on domed constructions in non-Muslim
buildings (Necipoğlu, Age of Sinan, 59, 118–19; Girardelli, “Architecture, Identity, and
Liminality”, 239–40), making the Mouchliotissa’s prominent position in Fener that much
more noteworthy.
73 Gradeva, “Ottoman Policy”, 25.
74 Gradeva, “From the Bottom Up”, 161.
75 See n. 71 above.
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382 Leal
become “broken with the passage of time” and “ruined by raindrops”; shattered
windows needed replacing and walls needed repair. The petitioners allude to
a fatwa previously obtained from the shaykh al-Islam, granting them permis-
sion to make the necessary repairs. And, in the concluding lines of the first
decree, their request for an order that no one hinder or prevent them from
executing the project is granted. This order is repeated in the second, related
decree, which notes that an investigation had been carried out (by the kadi or
someone designated by him) to verify the claims being made.
These were just two of eighteen decrees76 issued in the 1690s detailing the
neglected state of many Greek Orthodox churches, which were described as
ḫarāba müşrif (on the verge of collapse), köhne (decrepit), and münhedim
(fallen down).77 Indeed, these years witnessed a concerted effort by Greek
Orthodox subjects to renovate and repair (tecdīd and taʿmīr)—and perhaps,
by pushing the boundaries of what their neighbors and the authorities would
tolerate, expand—the houses of worship that were focal points of their com-
munal lives in various quarters of Istanbul. As mentioned above, Grand Vizier
Köprülü Fazıl Mustafa Pasha eased restrictions on church repairs, and, accord-
ing to Dimitrie Cantemir, it was “a common saying among the Greeks, that
Kioprili ogly built more Churches, than Justinian”.78
Orthodox Christian Istanbulites were thus familiar with the bureaucratic
maze they had to navigate to obtain permission to repair their churches. It
must have taken time and planning to compile a compelling list of reasons
why the repairs being requested were necessary, to obtain a fatwa from the
shaykh al-Islam, to appear before the kadi and/or the Imperial Divan, and, per-
haps, to be present while the kadi conducted his investigation. Before start-
ing this process, moreover, there would have been internal discussion about
how to pay for the repairs and renovations. It is not clear whether the resto-
rations undertaken in these years were part of an overall plan for the com-
munity’s churches, or whether the parishioners of each neighborhood were
alone responsible for initiating petitions regarding their local church and pay-
ing for the repairs. In any case, Greek Orthodox parishioners across the city
seem to have been aware that this was a propitious moment to begin renova-
tions. Although a few petitions were submitted by priests (described as ruhbān
fuḳarāsı and ruhbānlar) and three mention the patriarch, the petitioners
76 BOA, MD 99, 161; MD 100/64; MD 100, 133; (MD 102, 63; MD 102, 69) (decrees in paren-
theses refer to the same church); (MD 102, 119; MD 104/210); (MD 102, 119; MD 104/211);
MD 104/74; MD 104/654; MD 104/814; MD 104/1194; MD 110/1948; MD 110/2329; (MD 110/2622;
MD 110/2715); MD 111/343; and A.DVNS.ŞKT 6/621.
77 BOA, MD 100/64; (MD 102, 63; MD 102, 69); (MD 102, 119; MD 104/210); MD 104/74;
MD 104/814; MD 104/1194; MD 110/2329; (MD 110/2622; MD 110/2715).
78 Cantemir, History of the Growth and Decay, trans. Tindal, 368.
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were generally referred to collectively in terms that highlighted the Orthodox

Christian community’s Rūm (Roman) identity; its non-Muslimness, that is, its
members’ status as dhimmis and kefere (unbelievers) and as part of the taxpay-
ing subject population (reʿāyā); and its communal organization (as character-
ized by the term ṭāʾife).79
In the decrees mentioned above regarding the Kanlı Kilise, the petition-
ers expressly request an order from the sultan that no one interfere with
their repairs. This may have been merely the customary conclusion to such
a petition; then again, the request may have been made specifically because
Muslims living near the church might oppose their renovation or claim that
the repair work being done went beyond what had been approved by the
fatwa and previously completed investigation.80 The formulaic language of
the decrees thus embodied many layers of perceptions, not only those of the
Divan but also those of the dhimmis and perhaps of the Muslim residents of
the neighborhood as well. From the dhimmis’ perspective, the sultanic order,
preventing them from being hindered from completing their renovations,
would hopefully put an end to the matter (though, as Gradeva has pointed
out, in theory this part of the process could continue indefinitely, if Muslim
neighbors continued to raise objections, whether justified or not).81 We see
the process in action again in June 1686, when Muslim elders were called upon
to inspect the Aya Yani church (i.e., the church of St. John the Baptist [Hagios
Ioannes Prodromos], associated with the metochion of the monastery of St.
Catherine on Mount Sinai)82 in the Karabaş quarter of Balat, and confirm that
the repairs made, for which the sultan had previously granted permission, had
not exceeded the original dimensions of the structure. Once the church passed
inspection, parishioners were not to be harassed (taʿarruż olunmaya) in the
“execution of their vain rites”.83
The Kanlı Kilise, described twice as ḳadīm (ancient), had existed since the
13th century and thus was eligible for repairs in accordance with the stipula-
tion that only religious buildings constructed prior to the conquest could be
restored. It seems unlikely, however, that all of the approximately 40 other
churches functioning in the city84 could have met this criterion. Nevertheless,
79 Hence, Rūm ẕimmīler, ẕimmī ṭāʾifesi, ehl-i ẕimmet kefere ṭāʾifesi, Rūm ẕimmī ṭāʾifesi, ẕimmī
reʾāyā ṭāʾifesi, Rūm ṭāʾifesi, ehl-i ẕimmet reʿāyāsı, ehl-i ẕimmet Rūm ṭāʾifesi, ehl-i ẕimmet
reʿāyā ṭāʾifesi, and ẕimmīler.
80 Gradeva, “From the Bottom Up”, 155–56, notes, with respect to the Balkans, “protests by
local Muslims” against such permits.
81 Ibid., 157–60.
82 van Millingen, Byzantine Constantinople, 234.
83 İKS vol. 19, Bab Mahkemesi 46, no. 535 (original text, fol. 88a-3).
84 Runciman, Great Church in Captivity, 191 (based on Baudier, Histoire générale, 9).
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384 Leal
they are consistently called ḳadīm, an assertion that is never questioned in

any of the decrees in this sample. It is as though the petitioners were familiar
enough with the system to know that it was crucial to make this allegation
(whether true or not) about the age of the buildings, and that if it were not
included in the petition, questions would be raised. As the decade progressed,
the somewhat vague adjective ḳadīm was replaced by the more specific and
evocative fetḥ-i ḫāḳānīyyeden (dating from the time of the conqueror, i.e.,
1453). Over just a few years, this more precise phrase came to be used, to the
exclusion of ḳadīm, to buttress requests for approval of church repairs, perhaps
because if the petitioners provided an exact date there would be less chance of
an argument about the age of the church.85 Jewish and Armenian Istanbulites
appear to have adopted a similar rhetorical strategy: in 1693, when the Jews
of the Hacı İsa quarter of Balat sought to restore the Ahrida synagogue, the
Karaferye synagogue, and the Yanbol synagogue,86 the petition employed the
phrase “ḳabl el-fetḥ” (before the conquest), though it is questionable whether
these synagogues could truly have been that ancient;87 the same term, ḳabl
el-fetḥ, was used in a petition to repair the Armenians’ Aya Strati (Hagios
Stratis, Surp Hıreşdagabet) church in Balat.88
In short, we see in these examples how, in the late 17th century, both Greek
Orthodox and Muslim Istanbulites negotiated—indirectly, through their inter-
actions with the sharia courts and the Divan—how spaces in their neighbor-
hoods would be managed and shared. Though Muslims had an opportunity to
articulate their objections, the dhimmis’ voices were also heard and recorded
in the relevant Divan and sharia court records. Under the watchful eyes of
their Muslim neighbors and with the state’s permission, the Greek Orthodox
of Istanbul were thus able to effect the restoration of buildings that were at
the core of their religious identity. As for the Kanlı Kilise, despite the special
protection granted by the sultanic firmans of Mehmed II and Bayezid II, there
was an attempt under Ahmed III (r. 1703–30) to convert it into a mosque.
Dimitrie Cantemir argued on behalf of the Patriarchate, and managed to save
the church when he presented the firman issued by Mehmed II to the grand
vizier Çorlulu Ali Pasha (g.v. 1706–10), “which after he had carefully read, three
times kissed, and as often rubb’d his Face with, he gave it back into my Hands,
and ordered the Turks to give the Christians no farther Molestation”.89
85 Leal, “Ottoman State and Greek Orthodox of Istanbul”, 257.

86 BOA, MD 104/588.
87 See Varol, Balat, 1, 9, and Galanté, Histoire des juifs, vol. 1, 99–100, 285–86, as discussed in
Leal, “Balat”, 192.
88 BOA, MD 104/587. This Byzantine church was granted to the Armenian community in the
early 1600s; Eremya Çelebi, İstanbul Tarihi, trans. Andreasyan, 170.
89 Cantemir, History of the Growth and Decay, trans. Tindal, 109.
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5 Conclusion
The collision and the intermingling of … so many races and creeds make …
a permanent exhibit of the phenomenon of one world…. The city has to
be tolerant…. If the people were to depart even briefly from the peace of
cosmopolitan discourse, the town would blow up higher than a kite.90
E.B. White was writing about New York in the 1940s, but his observations seem
equally relevant to Istanbul in the early 1700s. While few Istanbulites likely pos-
sessed the ecumenical perspective of Mavrocordatos’s fictional boatman, who
seemed equally open to all three faiths (or perhaps actually had no faith at all),
it appears that, as the brief survey of the Abdi Subaşı quarter demonstrates,
many Istanbulites may have been “tolerant not only from disposition but from
necessity”.91 The day-to-day disputes and issues that occurred in Abdi Subaşı
in this era, and which were resolved more or less amicably before the kadi or
the Divan, encapsulate many of the changes that were affecting both the city
as a whole and the empire at this time—e.g., the rising significance of the
Phanariots, the increasing frequency of conversion to Islam, the heightened
influence of Greek business partners and foreign agents, and the changing for-
tunes of the Orthodox Christian and Jewish communities in these years. They
also highlight the way in which interactions between these groups affected
the configuration of the quarters that made up the city, from the most basic
walls that separated Muslim and Orthodox Christian neighbors, to Christians
complaining about the braziers Jews used in their homes, to the restoration
of the religious institutions that might give the Greek Orthodox parishioners
who repaired them a heightened sense of their place in Istanbul in the com-
ing century.
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Chapter 15
Crafts and Everyday Consumption

Amanda Phillips
The story of the daily life in Istanbul may be told, in part, by objects. This chap-
ter takes as its main themes the circulation and consumption of arts and crafts,
the spread of styles, and notions of decorum and hierarchy as expressed in
everyday household goods in the early modern city between about 1550 and
1750. The first section discusses some of the city’s markets, the main avenues
by which art, objects, and commodities moved between artisan and house-
hold, and between households. The second section provides a brief survey of
Ottoman writing about crafts and craftspeople, and about objects. Sources
reveal abiding preoccupations: abundance, quality, and suitability. These
notions impacted on discussions of objects, and on attitudes toward their
makers, buyers, and sellers. The third and last section looks at domestic goods
and makes some preliminary suggestions about how confession might interact
with crafts and, in one case, with the art found in the city’s residences.
The terms “arts” and “crafts” are English-language words that describe sev-
eral overlapping categories of material production. The terms craft, applied art,
and decorative art often refer to objects that were used in daily life, whether
textiles, ceramics, furniture, or even manuscripts. Their modes of production
differ from those of bespoke luxury goods: the crafts in question were made in
large quantities and mostly for an open market by artisans who often worked
in workshops in which labor was divided into specialties and subspecialties.
Rarely can the names of craftspeople, or even workshops, be attached to extant
objects. This chapter focuses on the broad category of craft in the pre-industrial
period, but also pays unapologetic attention to individual objects which are
unusual or interesting in their origin, ornament, or type.1
1 The Movement of Objects around the City and Its Markets
Istanbul abounded in wares. They came from China, Aleppo, England, Venice,
and India, as well as from the kilns, looms, and workshops that dotted the city
1 The author thanks the editors of this volume for their suggestions as she revised the chapter,
as well as for their patience and goodwill.

Crafts and Everyday Consumption 395
and its surroundings. The sale and purchase of these objects was conducted
at innumerable levels in places across the city. The main market area, now the
Kapalı Çarşı, found its original kernel in a bedestān (a secure, vaulted market
hall where valuable goods were kept, bought, and sold) commissioned by Sultan
Mehmed II, which was completed in 1460/61.2 A second market named for cot-
ton cloth-sellers (kirpāscı) was added by c.1500, and subsequently replaced by
a larger structure known as the Sandal Bedestanı (market for precious textiles;
ṣandāl is a type of lightweight silk).3 Over the centuries, 21 khans (where goods
were produced and sold) were added to the initial bedestāns and the system
of market streets surrounding them. Istanbul’s main commercial center devel-
oped around this central area over the next centuries, spilling down the hill to
Tahtakale (Taḥt al-ḳalʿa, Eminönü).4
Smaller-scale establishments served the city’s residents and visitors, too.
Rows of shops featured in the fabric of some mosque complexes, often sheathed
with stone or composite masonry to harmonize with the main monuments. The
edges of the outer precinct of the Süleymaniye complex were lined with shops,
as were those of the complex of Bayezid II and others.5 Some markets were less
permanent: the used-goods market (Bit Pazarı, or “louse market”) had several
incarnations through the centuries. More transitory yet were additional stalls
that appeared along nearby streets on Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays.6
Like the main khans and bedestāns, the Bit Pazarı also had a superintendent
and nominal security, though thefts from shops were also reported.7 A court
case recorded in 1666, in which a man was exonerated from an accusation of
stealing yellow silk and green mohair kaftans, mentions other things that dis-
appeared from the shop: a bracelet belonging to an İlyas and money belonging
to a Hacı Şaban.8 The incident demonstrates another role of some merchants
and shopkeepers: they often sold on consignment and acted as pawnbrokers.
This kind of informal moneylending and brokering might have fallen foul of
strict interpretations of Islamic and Ottoman law, but such practices ensured
2 İnalcık, “Hub of the City”; Kafescioğlu, Constantinopolis/Istanbul, 37–39.

3 İnalcık, “Hub of the City”.
4 Kafescioğlu, Constantinopolis/Istanbul, 39–43.
5 Relationships between the pious foundations (pl. awqaf ) which owned shops and workshops
and their tenants changed over the period; Yıldırım, “Transformation of the Craft Guilds”, 51.
See also Yi, Guild Dynamics in Seventeenth-Century Istanbul, 125–61.
6 Domenico, Domenico’s Istanbul, ed. Lewis, 9.
7 İstanbul Kadı Sicilleri [İKS hereafter], Aydın et al. (eds.), vol. 13 (İstanbul Mahkemesi, 3,
AH 1027/CE 1618), 467.
8 İKS vol. 17 (Bâb Mahkemesi, 3, AH 1077/CE 1666/67), 340–41.
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396 Phillips
a massive informal economy that contributed to the brisk movement of goods

and objects through the city.
Both in the main market and elsewhere, sellers and makers of certain kinds
of objects might cluster along certain streets. For instance, both the shops and
workshops of the ceramic pot makers were centered in Eyüp Sultan and along
the Golden Horn, in part because water was important to their craft, as was a
certain kind of clay dug near its shores.9 Aside from pots—mostly unglazed or
plain-glazed earthenwares—the same workshops or those adjacent also pro-
duced glazed or unglazed terra-cotta roof tiles and drainpipes, according to
records from the 17th century.10 Some cotton and wool weavers were found
around the Bit Pazarı, according to records from the 1560s.11 Groups could dis-
tribute wool and cotton thread more easily if their members worked near one
another, and also share expertise in loom setup and repair, and even weaving.
Physical proximity might also help members of the group, and regulators, exer-
cise quality and price control over finished products, whether by legal or by
less formal means.12 Some markets, and their tenants, had quasi-monopolies
on given categories of goods. A decree from 1726 issued by the central authori-
ties limited the sale of saddles and related goods to the Saraçhane (market
of the saddle makers), explicitly forbidding outside merchants and craftsmen
from selling these wares.13 This shows one way in which purposeful concentra-
tions of markets and workshops were meant to ensure effective tax collection
and regulation.
Markets and shops themselves played significant roles in encouraging dis-
cussion about crafts and other consumables: rosewater merchants and per-
fumers (ʿaṭṭāran, sing. ʿaṭṭār) burned incense outside their shops to advertise
their products and to stimulate sales. Hans Dernschwam, writing in the mid-
16th century, described the colorful textiles, worked with gold, displayed on
benches outside the shops in the bedestān; the benches themselves were
covered in carpets and furnished with velvet pillows.14 The Sandal Bedestanı
was the venue for auctions of art and objects confiscated from members of
the Ottoman military and bureaucracy.15 For wealthy women, who might not
9 Phillips, Everyday Luxuries, 58–59.

10 İKS vol. 19 (Bâb Mahkemesi, 46, AH 1096–97/CE 1685–86), 126, 138, 151; vol. 25 (Eyüp
Mahkemesi [Hāvass-i Refīa], 37, AH 1047/CE 1637/38), 85, 86, 93, 107, and elsewhere.
11 İKS vol. 21 (Balat Mahkemesi, 2, AH 970–71/CE 1563), 216–23.
12 See Yi, Guild Dynamics in Seventeenth-Century Istanbul; and Phillips, “A Material Culture”.
13 İKS vol. 21 (Balat Mahkemesi, 2, AH 970–71/CE 1563), 296–97.
14 İnalcık, “Hub of the City”, 6.
15 These men were considered slaves of the Sultan; on their deaths or exile, their goods,
cash, and real estate reverted to the imperial treasury; İnalcık, “Hub of the City”, 5.
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frequent the markets, peddlers and merchants visited homes.16 Buying and
selling, gift-giving and dowry-creating, literary and musical entertainments,
and similar activities ensured that craft objects featured in everyday life in the
city and also featured in discussions about value, style, and suitability.
2 Crafts and Craftspeople in Written Sources
Other kinds of public events placed objects at the forefront. Evliya Çelebi
(d. after 1685), traveler, commentator, and raconteur, described the makers of
clocks and watches, charms, textiles, swords, and incense-burners who paraded
through the city in 1638 as part of an imperial procession.17 The splendor of
these objects—which were nonetheless made by workshops rather than indi-
vidual artists—put them out of reach of most of Istanbul’s residents. However,
archival documents include similar if more modest iterations of these types
of goods in the same categories. These sources also suggest that Evliya’s poetic
descriptions find some basis in fact.
Chief among archival sources about the marketplace and its wares are
lists of official prices (sing. narḫ) which were disseminated by the central
authorities on an irregular basis.18 They set the price and sometimes qualities
of comestibles, raw materials, and craft goods, and less often, services. The
implementation of the set prices in day-to-day practice finds some confirma-
tion: several travelers reported on both craft goods and foodstuffs conform-
ing to them.19 At first glance, the narḫ might seem like a neutral summary of
marketplace averages, or the result of a consensus on fair prices. In fact, the
authorities—meaning the sultan, his grand vizier, and the latter’s deputy, the
market inspector (muḥtesib)—issued these lists for many reasons, several of
which had little to do with commerce. The lists instead sometimes acted as
rhetorical devices meant to impress upon the populace the sultan’s ability to
provision his subjects with ample and reasonably priced food and sundries,
as well as with highly desirable luxury goods. The narḫ lists also imply that
he could control the uncontrollable, such as scarcities due to natural disasters
or war. Perhaps most obviously, the lists demonstrate that the Sultan could
ensure economic justice—a cornerstone of his right to rule—by setting and
enforcing rules about price and quality to protect his subjects.
16 Women engaged in these activities; see Artan, “Forms and Forums”.

18 Kütükoğlu, Osmanlılarda Narh.
19 de Thévenot, Relation d’un voyage, 66.
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398 Phillips
While some of the narḫ lists were minimal, that from 1640 is extensive. It
may have served to show the new sultan İbrahim I’s (r. 1640–48) concern for
the populace of Istanbul, which had suffered from famine caused by a drought
and by an ongoing rebellion in Anatolia.20 In a similar way, it demonstrated the
minuteness of the sultan’s attention. An entry for a type of cloth-of-gold called
serāser specifies the weights of silk and metal thread meant to be woven into
each length. It designates the origin of each type of silk thread, which defines
their respective qualities and types, while also setting thread counts. Serāser
with plane tree leaf motifs differed slightly in its components from serāser with
peacock feathers and that with roses; for each type, the narḫ list specified dif-
fering quantities of silk and metal thread.21 In addition, each type of design
came in two or three qualities, specified as very high, high, and medium; low
quality was not an option. The entry for serāser, taken at face value, was meant
to prevent corner-cutting on the part of the weavers and therefore ensure for
the consumer that his or her trust, and coin, were well placed. The descriptions
of the serāser capture nicely the tone of the narḫ as a whole and also exemplify
its rhetorical force. Whether the careful specifications were honored as much
in breach as in practice, however, is another matter.22
A list from 1725 naming 277 kinds of tulips also signals a variety that
comes only with plenty.23 The prices for bulbs ranged from 60 aḳçe (high-
denomination silver coin) to a single kurush (smaller denomination silver
coin) though whether this reflected beauty, rarity, health, and size, or other fac-
tors, cannot be known. Some names reference hues directly, including orange,
ruby, lavender, coral, crimson, golden-yellow, red, violet, rose, and perhaps
most amusingly for a flower, a pastırma-colored purple.24 Others are more allu-
sive, such as şīve-engīz (thrills with grace), mirʾāt-i berber (barber’s mirror), and
ṣubḥ-ı bahār (spring dawn). Still others enter into poetic and cosmic realms:
houri-formed (ḥūr-peyker), delicately raised (nāz-perver), and mirrors of God
both universal and clement (mirʾāt-i cihān, mirʾāt-i ḥalīm). The list expresses
literally and figuratively a riot of color and form for the garden, all part of the
lāle-i rūmī category, a term taken to indicate local goods—tulips of Rum (that
20 Emecen, “İbrâhim I”. He assumed the sultanate in February 1640; the list was announced
at the end of that year.
21 Kütükoğlu, Osmanlılarda Narh, 119; also Phillips, “The Historiography of Ottoman
Velvets”, 18.
22 Kafadar, “When Coins Turned into Drops of Dew”, 128–29.
23 İKS vol. 21 (Balat Mahkemesi, 2, AH 970–71/CE 1563), 165–70. This document is an inven-
tory of types, rather than a narḫ list strictly speaking.
24 Pastırma is similar to the English-language pastrami, which takes its name from
the former.
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is, the central Ottoman lands)—rather than those brought from elsewhere.
The leisure to raise and enjoy rarefied types of tulips is implied, leisure itself
being a type of luxury. This inventory, like the narḫ, suggests refinement and
ease were features of life in the city, for some.
Ottoman authors also noted the goods and crafts available to residents of
the capital. Mustafa Âli (d. 1600) cannot resist mentioning the “abundance of
a good market”, which may be found only in Istanbul.25 Indeed, many luxury
goods found in the narḫ from 1640 were imported: Italian silks and woolens,
Chinese and Portuguese ceramics, and Persian floor coverings. Eremya Çelebi
Kömürciyan’s İstanbul Tarihi (History of Istanbul, 1660s) discusses the ports
and gates through which goods from other places flowed into the city.26 Coffee
came from Egypt while mirrors, crystal, paper, and field glasses arrived from
Venice, as did a multitude of silk fabrics. Iran, too, was a source of serāser and
of another heavy compound weave known as dībā. Amber from the Baltic,
coral and pearls from the Hormuz, and small Genoese pietra dura furnish-
ings were meant to tempt women especially.27 Fabrics worked with metal
threads came from India, rubies and diamonds from Hyderabad, Beijing, and
Badakhshan; oudh, musk, ambergris, benzoin, and spices from Lebanon, and
furs from Russia. Perhaps the most interesting single item on Eremya’s list is
a spice or spices from frenk hindistān, meaning the West Indies. An inventory
of the goods available in the Spice Market in Eminönü confirms his account,
as does another from the shop of an ʿaṭṭār who died in 1606 during travels in
the Mediterranean.28 The latter stocked pepper, cloves, coriander seeds, cinna-
mon, ginger, cumin, coffee, labdanum, kohl, white lead, sugar loaves, and gum
mastic, among other things.
Mustafa Âli was preoccupied with the notion of quality; his ideas were
similar to those that are stated explicitly in the narḫ lists and are implied in
other sources. In this view, an individual’s comportment, and the nature of
his possessions, should suit his position in the social and bureaucratic hier-
archy, which was in turn critical to the stability and success of the Empire.
In a book on etiquette from 1599 or 1600—Mevā’idü’n-Nefāis (The Table of
25 Mustafa Âli, The Ottoman Gentleman, trans. Brookes, 75.

26 Eremya Çelebi, İstanbul Tarihi, trans. Andreasyan, 9–10.
27 Ibid; Andreasyan translates the term as Genoese mosaics, which I have interpreted as
pietra dura; several Italian city-states exported both furnishings with pietra dura ele-
ments and pietra dura decorative devices which could be incorporated into bespoke
designs. A chest of drawers now at the Topkapı Palace Museum attests to their presence
in Istanbul, if not their ubiquity.
28 Demirhan, “Mısır Çarşısı Drogları”; İKS vol. 36 (Galata Mahkemesi, 32, AH 1015–16/CE
1606–07), 59–71.
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400 Phillips
Delicacies)—he described the grades of costly broadcloth (çūḫā) suitable to

different ranks in the Ottoman court hierarchy, enumerating the skeins of
wool used in each. In an earlier work on the same topic, he had also listed
some of the gilded and gold-worked furnishings suitable only for the houses
of grandees.29 The author, though, was not an impartial observer of contem-
porary mores and habits, but rather hoped to set rules for what he considered
proper behavior and its material manifestations.30 Strivers and social climb-
ers who purchased and used domestic furnishings, clothes, horse trappings, or
any type of good considered unsuitable for their stations came in for Mustafa
Âli’s swingeing criticism. Personal animus aside, the author was also drawing
from an established vein of writing concerning hierarchies of status as well as
confession and gender. These factors in part determined an individual’s right
to wear silk and gold, ride a horse in the city, paint one’s house vermilion rather
than black or blue, build it above a certain height, or even adorn its interior
with tiles and inlaid wood.31
Tales of calligraphers, painters, and some architects found their way into
contemporary commentaries and histories, where their training and lineages
were discussed along with their virtues.32 Some works even focused on them,
among them Mustafa Âli’s Menāḳıb-i Hünerverān (The Epic Deeds of Artists)
(c.1585–87), which includes passages about the heroes of distant and more
recent history, privileging the arts of the book.33 Craftspeople appear less
often in literature, whether history, books of etiquette, or other types of com-
mentary. In one rare case, Mustafa Âli, in Mevā’idü’n-Nefāis, tells the story of
his own trip to Jeddah, during which his shoes and those of his shipmates fell
apart. No cobblers, whom he calls more “vile and despicable than anyone else”,
were present to repair them, and this in turn forced the author to acknowledge
their importance. He expounds from there:
The same demand applies to the practitioner of every craft, as every per-
son, great or small, has a need for them. The sultans of the world, who are
the monarchs of nations and peoples, the issuers of edicts, the possessors
of attendants and retainers, absolutely need every single man of trade
29 Mustafa Âli, The Ottoman Gentleman, trans. Brookes, 37, 143–44; Tietze, “Mustafa Ali”.
31 Sumptuary law and the regulation of public behavior are discussed in Zilfi, “Whose
Laws?”, and Necipoğlu, Age of Sinan, 114–17, for houses.
32 Calligraphy and book painting feature prominently. Mustafa Âli himself includes a chap-
ter on palace artisans in his etiquette book, but he is concerned mostly with painters: see
Mustafa Âli, The Ottoman Gentleman, trans. Brookes, 57–58.
33 Mustafa Âli, Epic Deeds of Artists, ed. Akın-Kıvanç.
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and must have recourse to them. Neither can the shoemaker do the work
of the wheat merchant, nor can the goldsmith do the work of the turner.
There is certainly a need for the kings and princes to assign position and
glory; for wealthy persons to expend property and goods for the public
weal; certainly for craftsmen to display their artistry and mastery.34
In this brief passage, Mustafa Âli acknowledges the importance of craftsmen,

as well as their diverse skills. For the author, they are part of an orderly soci-
ety in which each tradesman knew his place. But the passage is unusual: pot-
ters, weavers, turners, sculptors of architectural detail, and even goldsmiths
and watchmakers were rarely of concern to commentators, whatever their
worldviews.35 Mustafa Âli urges his readers to consider soberly and seriously
their roles, as exemplified by their manners, in the Ottoman hierarchy. Here,
he suggests that craftspeople also have parts to play, and credits them with
achievements beyond their jobs in providing mere necessities.
Evliya, in a long description of the goldsmiths’ guild, offers a singular insight
into the internal activities of a group of craftspeople.36 His account focuses on
an excursion made every twenty years to the river valley of Kağıthane where
new masters were initiated. Evliya may have singled out this group in part
because he was the son of a goldsmith. Both Sultan Selim I (r. 1512–20) and
Sultan Süleyman I (r. 1520–66) also trained as goldsmiths during their respec-
tive adolescences in the city of Trebizond; that factor may have lent the craft
a certain prestige beyond that already conferred by its use of precious metal
and by the skill of the artisans. In fact, the use of gold and silver in crafts—
and in textiles especially—was highly regulated. The workshops in which
gold-wrapped silk thread was made (sīmkeşḫānes) were attached to mints in
Istanbul and other cities, and standards for quality were set by fiat and rein-
forced in periodic enquiries.37 As well as setting prices and regulating quali-
ties for metal-wrapped thread, the central authorities were eager to prevent
gold and silver—used otherwise as specie—from permanent removal from
34 Mustafa Âli, The Ottoman Gentleman, trans. Brookes, 37–38.

35 This observation relies largely on known works, including others by Mustafa Âli himself;
lesser-known chronicles, histories, advice literature, and other works may offer up further
topics of discussion.
36 Evliya Çelebi, Evliya Çelebi Seyahatnâmesi, ed. Dankoff, Kahraman, Dağlı, vol. 1, 272;
also in Yi, Guild Dynamics in Seventeenth-Century Istanbul, 86–87; Dankoff, An Ottoman
Mentality, 30.
37 The famous enquiry into the Bursa textile crafts, among other things, initiated by Sultan
Bayezid II in 1502 includes a section about gold-wrapped silk threads; Dalsar, Bursa’da
İpekcilik, 89–90. In English in Phillips, Sea Change, 125, 138–39.
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402 Phillips
circulation due to their incorporation in household goods or furnishings. For

this reason, the number of looms for making serāser, which used vast quanti-
ties of gold thread, was restricted in a series of firmans issued in the 1570s.38
Extravagant festivities in 1582 and 1720 included processions similar to those
of 1638 as described by Evliya; they were also recorded in words and images. In
all three events, some artisans displayed tableaux vivants of their workshops,
complete with kilns, ovens, looms, tailors’ workshops, kebab grills, and the
like.39 These processions and their depictions should be considered in light
of imperial rhetoric and the practice of ensuring abundance, and a related
sentiment among subjects such as Evliya, Eremya, and Mustafa Âli, who all
took great pride in the diversity and quality of the goods on offer in their city.
In a similar way, the processions were also visible, tangible, audible, and even
olfactory displays of marketplace life and, by extension, of the sultan’s abil-
ity to ensure economic justice. Among the artisans on parade in 1582 were
those in the textile trades, including cotton workers, silk weavers, and mak-
ers of stamped velvet, as well those from many other craft practices. Gisela
Procházka-Eisl has suggested that İntizami (d. after 1612), the author of the
work that described the procession, detailed most extensively the groups of
the silk weavers because the textiles themselves encouraged lavish descrip-
tions, replete with vocabulary about hue, texture, glitter, and shine.40 Seyyid
Hüseyin Vehbi (d. 1736), who wrote an extended narrative about the 1720 cel-
ebrations (Surnāme, or Festival Book), exercised similar powers of descrip-
tion, vividly recounting cloth in the many colors of the night of al-Qadr (when
the first verses of the Quran were revealed to the Prophet), also referencing
the “clothing” (libās) of the Kaʿba.41 He also lists gifts to and from members
of the court, and to and from other notables and groups.42 Textiles—from
Venice, Iran, Istanbul, Bursa, India, Mardin, Kashmir, France, and Florence—
are given pride of place. Vehbi is equally clear about which prince received the
highest quality goods. As Mustafa Âli, Evliya, and Eremya wrote encomia to
the abundance of the markets, so too did poets and chroniclers stretch their
abilities by enumerating the craftspeople and describing the luxury goods cir-
culating at these festivities. Writing about the arts and crafts in Istanbul was
38 Dalsar, Bursa’da İpekcilik, 331, 333.

39 The 1582 and 1720 celebrations were documented in specially commissioned literary
works which were also lavishly illustrated. See Atasoy, 1582 Surname-i Hümayun and Atıl,
Levni and the Surname.
40 Procházka-Eisl, “Guild Parades”, 48–49.
41 Arslan (ed.), Osmanlı Saray Düğünleri, 163–64.
42 Arslan (ed.), Osmanlı Saray Düğünleri. For a longer summary in English, Phillips, Sea
Change, 223–25.
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complementary and consonant, across different genres, all of which took as

main concerns abundance, quality, and hierarchy.
3 Like and Unlike Objects
While this section uses objects themselves as primary evidence, it is worth

discussing a last type of writing in which goods prevail: probate inventories.
These lists were made irregularly for Ottoman subjects, depending in part on
their professions and affiliations, as well as the circumstances of their deaths.43
Generally speaking, the lists only cursorily describe the goods in question. The
potential of these records—referred to as tereke or muḥallefāt—for scholar-
ship has been debated. They are sometimes terse to the point of obscurity;
“kaftan”, “dish”, or “miscellaneous” offer little information to the unhappy his-
torian of material culture. The prices found therein are occasionally suspect,
because they might be illicitly raised to effect higher commissions or lowered
to guarantee swift sales, since the deceased’s goods were sometimes sold at
auction. Some lists were made by experts in valuation (singular, ḳassām), oth-
ers by less experienced scribes. Nonetheless, the lists provide some evidence
for some household goods owned by some Ottoman subjects, and in turn allow
insight into larger phenomena.44
Some of the evidence offered by the inventories is predictable. Research
has shown that while women, for instance, owned more textiles than men,
men owned more luxury textiles than women.45 This is unsurprising, given
that men’s estates were often worth more than women’s, and that men’s
clothing—and especially that of high officials—was equally if not more
sumptuous than that of their female family members. Textiles, in fact, make
up an outsize proportion of many inventories. Cloth, more than all other craft
goods, was made and used at every socioeconomic level and among people
of all faiths and ethnicities. On the production side, the creation of compli-
cated luxury weaves such as serāser or velvet required an extreme atomiza-
tion of skills in multiple professional workshops.46 No other type of craft
43 See Phillips, Everyday Luxuries, 121–31. Scholars use probates as main evidence for other
aspects of social life, for instance: Barkan, “Edirne Askeri Kassamına ait Tereke Defterleri”;
Faroqhi, “Women, Wealth, and Textiles”.
44 There are gaps; this kind of inventory seems not to have been recorded for Jewish subjects
and tends to be incomplete for many Greek subjects; see n. 65 below.
45 Phillips, “A Material Culture”.
46 For instance, a voided-and-brocaded velvet (çatma) required labor in the following
categories: agricultural workers for the mulberry trees and silk worms, silk reelers, silk
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404 Phillips
good demanded this range of specializations for its production. By contrast, a

single individual could spin and ply wool or cotton fibers, weave a simple type
of cloth, and even add decoration, all by her- or himself. Textile-related tools
and supplies—loom parts, combs for carding, spindles, spinning wheels, and
the like—are present in quantity in inventories.47 In Istanbul, even a mod-
est household might have ready cash to buy wool or cotton, which could be
turned into homespun. Records show big and small looms among male and
female subjects, rich and poor, Muslim and Christian.48 Putting-out systems,
in which middlemen or women provided materials and contracted with weav-
ers and other workers, also attest to the flexibility of labor and to networks of
workers and merchants.49
At the intersection of these categories stand cottons and linens embroi-
dered with silk. Surviving examples attest to their creation throughout the
longue durée and across many modes of production. Professional embroider-
ers were found in shops staffed by men. In Istanbul, a hundred of them worked
in shops specializing in napkins.50 In some cases, skilled artisans drew motifs
in pencil on the fabric ground, which the embroiderers followed with needles
or tambour hooks. Women might work at home using professionally rendered
designs or those of their own devising, either keeping or selling their work.
Embroidery frames (sing., gergef ) are indeed found throughout estate invento-
ries during the period in question and Evliya mentions in passing that one of
his sisters embroidered handkerchiefs.51 He specified further that his mother
modeled her own work on motifs supplied by the guild of napkin designers
(esnāf-ı naḳḳāşān-ı yağlıkcıyān).52
Each design’s format, motifs, and colors had several potential sources.
Professionals based their own designs on those already circulating in the capi-
tal, including a style which originated with the princess Kaya Sultan (d. 1640),
twisters, dyers, makers of gold-wrapped silk thread, which also required miners and mak-
ers of their tools, a knife maker for the velvet-cutting blades, a designer for the motifs and
another for the mapping of the repeats, a weaver, a drawboy, and workers to trim, polish,
and finish the cloth.
47 İKS vol. 5 (Üsküdar Mahkemesi, 14, AH 953–55/CE 1546–49), 176; vol. 7 (Üsküdar
Mahkemesi, 26, AH 970–71/CE 1562–63), 442.
48 İKS vol. 17 (Bâb Mahkemesi, 3, AH 1077/CE 1666/67), 370–71, 542; vol. 15 (Rumeli Sadāreti
Mahkemesi, 80, AH 1057–59/CE 1647–49), 152.
49 Faroqhi, “Merchant Networks”, 86.
51 İKS vol. 3 (Üsküdar Mahkemesi, 5, AH 930–36/CE 1524–30), 122; vol. 19 (Bâb Mahkemesi,
46, AH 1096–97/CE 1685–86), 73 and 210; vol. 37 (Galata Mahkemesi, 37, AH 1022–24/
CE 1613–15), 121–24; Dankoff, An Ottoman Mentality, 23.
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wife of Evliya’s patron Melek Ahmed Pasha (d. 1662).53 Evliya himself gave
them as gifts.54 Earlier, and operating at the very apex of the court’s hierarchy,
Hürrem Sultan (d. 1558), the wife of Süleyman I, also sent her own embroidery
as a gift to the Polish king.55 The impact of court styles is inarguable, but there
were additional sources for motifs, formats, and palettes. In the later 16th and
17th centuries, some embroidery styles were inspired by costly woven textiles,
such as serāser.56 By the 18th century, however, embroideries shared lighter
palettes and patterns of small flowers with painted and printed cottons, some
of which were arriving from South Asia, as were embroidered silks and luxury
woolens. Ottoman napkins and towels in this period were worked with a diver-
sity of bright floral motifs, some of them in rinceaux arrangements, such as
that in Figure 15.1, in which rose blossoms and buds alternate unseasonably
with unlikely pink daffodils.57 The woman who embroidered this linen nap-
kin had access to twenty colors of thread and to metal-wrapped silk thread
as well. The variation in shades as well as hues allowed her to achieve a high
degree of naturalism in some respects, if not in others. If the handkerchief is
not the work of someone who earned a living as an embroiderer, it is that of
someone who had training and experience, and who could afford the silks her-
self or obtained them as part of a putting-out system. A professional probably
designed the rinceaux and blossoms. The individuals who were involved in its
production—spinners, weavers, dyers, designer, and embroiderer—were parts
of larger networks. The motifs, formats, and palettes which together created
the recognizably Ottoman style of this towel resulted from these individuals’
connections to one another and to the larger craft landscapes in the city. They
also united the marketplace, workshop, and, ultimately, house; the towel’s role
in domestic activities also, in part, helped determine its visual nature and its
tactile and haptic qualities.
Textiles also were brought in quantity from outside the city, as demonstrated
in Vehbi’s work, the narḫ lists, probate inventories, and customs ledgers.58
Prosperous subjects wore woolens from Italy and France, while the less pros-
perous bought them from centers in Ottoman Thrace and eastern Europe.
Cottons and linens from Baghdad, Egypt, and Syria also featured, as did a
54 Evliya Çelebi, Evliya Çelebi Seyahatnâmesi, vol. 1, ed. Dankoff, Kahraman, Dağlı, 244; vol. 6,
250; vol. 7, 302.
55 Peirce, Empress of the East, 79.
56 Mackie, Symbols of Power, 328. The court-sponsored arts, and their prominent presence in
the city, is discussed by Emine Fetvacı in this volume.
57 Sadberk Hanım Museum, inv. no. 9138-i 1036.
58 Phillips, Everyday Luxuries, chapter 3; Faroqhi, “Moving Goods Around”.
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406 Phillips
Figure 15.1a Detail of embroidered napkin, Istanbul (?),

late 18th century. Off-white linen fabric
worked with silk embroidery thread in
twenty colors and with metal-wrapped
silk thread. 170 × 68 cm. Sadberk Hanım
Museum, Istanbul, inv. no. 9138-i. 1036
multitude of mixed silk-and-cotton textiles from India. Many of the colorful

wool-pile carpets that were exported in quantity to Europe were made in the
Uşak region, but Ottoman subjects in Istanbul and elsewhere also purchased
Persian and Egyptian versions of the type, as well as expensive gold- and silver-
worked felt floor coverings, if their budgets allowed. In this way, the history of
textiles consumed in Istanbul differs significantly from the textiles produced
in the city and even in the wider Empire.
Some textile preferences might result from intersections of confession with
other factors, as discussed below; however, many Christian and Muslim house-
holds were almost identical in their ownership of daily necessities, from cook-
ing utensils to linens to clothing. This is especially the case for the poorest of
the men and women represented in probate inventories; as a group, they had
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Figure 15.1b Embroidered napkin, Istanbul (?), late 18th

century. Off-white linen fabric worked with
silk embroidery thread in twenty colors and
with metal-wrapped silk thread. 170 × 68
cm. Sadberk Hanım Museum, Istanbul, inv.
no. 9138-i. 1036
only the most meager of personal possessions: a single set of clothing, a pot
or two, perhaps a floor covering, and linens, as records from the first part of
the 16th century show.59 For most classes of goods, the quantity and quality
rather than the type varied between households of different means, an obser-
vation which holds true in premodern societies worldwide. The finest porce-
lain dishes, velvet quilt covers, silver-worked belts, gilt trays, and brocaded,
fur-lined kaftans find less costly equivalents in terms of their respective uses.
The exceptions to this generalization are precious stones and jewelry, incense
59 İKS vol. 1 (Üsküdar Mahkemesi, 1, AH 919–27/CE 1513–21), 259–91, includes a series of ter-
ekes for Christian and Muslim subjects who died in 1515. They were all of modest means
and their estates resemble each other’s. In terekes as a category the very poorest are
almost certainly not represented, in any sense.
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408 Phillips
and some spices, clocks, and mirrors, as well as naturalia and exotica; their
value derives in part from their material.
In some cases, would-be equivalents are in fact substitutes or imitations.
Chinese porcelain was not equaled by wares from İznik, Kütahya, Europe, or
elsewhere. Figures 15.2 and 15.3 illustrate rosewater sprinklers, one from the
kilns of Jingdezhen in eastern China and the other from the kilns of Kütahya,
in western Anatolia. Both take as their models metal versions of the same
type, which originated in the Islamic world in the 10th or 11th centuries.60 The
Chinese example preserves the shape of the original metal version, perhaps
most noticeably in the crisp curves of the stem and body, and in the neat,
straight lines of the disk shape where the elegantly elongated neck meets the
main vessel. Its height is also impressive: it is almost one-third of a meter tall,
which helped make it a distinctive and undoubtedly expensive object. It is
porcelain, which is exceptionally hard and has a clean, smooth, white surface.
Both qualities result from the complete vitrification of silica in the body of the
clay, which had to be fired at a very high temperature in specially designed
kilns. At this point in history, porcelain was made from material and with tech-
nologies known only in eastern China.61
The ʿaṭṭār who died in 1606 also left a fine personal establishment, including
a quantity of Chinese porcelain: plates, bowls, and rosewater sprinklers.62 At
this time, Chinese incense burners and rosewater sprinklers were found only
rarely in Istanbul. The one owned by the ʿaṭṭār may have been a vase—in an
indigenous Chinese shape—amended with an extra metal fitting to allow a
decorous dispensing of the liquid. However, by the later 17th century, Chinese
workshops were crafting vessel types such as rosewater sprinklers such as that
in Figure 15.2, coffee cups, and water pipe bases designed to appeal to the mar-
kets of the Middle East and South Asia. They were traded in quantity.
As seen in Figure 15.3, rosewater sprinklers from Kütahya shared the shapes
of the Chinese versions but were different in their materials and glazes. Like
their İznik counterparts, ceramics from Kütahya used a fritware body that was
covered with a translucent white lead glaze to achieve a uniform white ground.
A yellow glaze rarely seen in other Ottoman pottery characterizes the Kütahya
palette. Petite floral sprays and vines cover the surface in a single layer of blos-
soms and leaves. Despite the profusion, the composition is clearly organized
by using alternating areas of blue and yellow flowers and is pleasing to the eye.
60 Roman perfume bottles may have provided the initial form, albeit on a smaller scale.
61 Saxony was the first place outside China to produce hard-paste porcelain, starting around
1710 at Meissen. Whether they were equivalent to Chinese wares is a matter of argument.
62 See note 27 above; İKS vol. 36 (Galata Mahkemesi, 32, AH 1015–16 /CE 1606–07), 59–71.
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Figure 15.2
Rosewater sprinkler, China, 17th or 18th centuries. Porcelain
with underglaze painted motifs depicting other decorative
objects. Height: 28 cm. Metropolitan Museum of Art,
New York, inv. no. 79.2.70
Figure 15.3
Rosewater sprinkler, first half of the 18th century, Kütahya.
Suna and İnan Kıraç Foundation Pera Museum
Photograph: Bahadır Taşkın
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410 Phillips
Some of the best known Kütahya wares are coffee cups, most often petite,
with bell-shaped or slightly convex walls; they were probably made for the
market, and for several levels of the market. Some have been preserved along
with their matching saucers. They bear delicate, colorful motifs similar to those
of the rosewater sprinkler and are equally accomplished in their potting. The
wares have been discussed in a number of recent publications that have noted
their connection to embroidered household textiles and to other textile styles
of the 18th century—most especially those from India.63 Coffee drinking and
sociability in Ottoman households would necessitate not only pretty ceramic
cups, but also pitchers, sugar bowls, and sweetmeat dishes, and serving cloths
and delicately worked napkins, such as that in Figure 15.1, for those who could
afford them.
A caveat about the cost of embroidered textiles and decorated ceramics is
worth taking up. While both types are well preserved in museum collections
in Turkey, Europe, and North America, they comprise only a small fraction of
their respective categories. Plain cottons, woolens, and linens and plain-glazed
or even unglazed ceramics comprise the largest category for elite households
and the entirety of more modest ones. Inventory lists imply this fact, but
archaeology provides tangible evidence about their respective proportions.
For Istanbul, the majority of the cataloged finds are coarse wares, probably
made locally; a good proportion are large vessels, used for the transportation
of wine, oil, and other liquids.64 Glazed wares account for only a small frac-
tion of the finds, while decorated fine wares total less than 10 percent. While
ornament is often seen as a hallmark of Ottoman art and of Islamic art more
generally, everyday reality was a bit less decorative.
Plain-glazed Kütahya wares such as those in Figure 15.4 were rarely deemed
worth collecting, but they were far more numerous than their decorated
counterparts. These 19th-century examples are late for the period discussed
here but are illustrated because they are rare survivors and worth consider-
ing for their place in the continuum of fine-to-plain tablewares. By contrast,
rosewater sprinklers such as those in Figures 15.2 and 15.3 were relatively rare.
Excavations also attest to the larger landscape of ceramic consumption in the
city. Majolica wares and Pisa-style sgraffito wares, fragments from Damascus or
greater Syria, some imitation İznik wares of possible Italian origin, and small
63 Crowe, “Kütahya Ceramics”; Watson, Ceramics, 445; Phillips, Everyday Luxuries, 74–78.
64 Hayes, Excavations, 233–390. İznik wares were imitated in Italy, Mack, Bazaar, 109.
Excavations in Harput (Elazığ) have revealed İznik-type wares made more locally; Sevin
et al., Harput, 172–75.
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Figure 15.4 Coffee cups, Ottoman, Kütahya, early 19th

century. Blue-glazed ceramic (fritware).
3.7 cm × 6.3 cm. Berlin Museum of Islamic
Art, inv. no. 1995.15
Photograph: Johannes Kramer
quantities of blue and white porcelains from China are all present.65 The pits
yield a greater variety of goods than those from the oft-discussed centers of
İznik, Kütahya, and Jingdezhen, complementing archival and narrative sources
and, in some cases, presenting evidence not found in the written record at all.
If coffee drinking and some of the rituals of hospitality were shared in com-
mon among the households of Christians, Muslims, Jews, and other communi-
ties in Istanbul, other categories of material culture and consumption were
not.66 Unsurprisingly, some Muslim households owned books related to the
faith, namely Qurans, as well as didactic works, treatises on mysticism, col-
lections of sermons, and religious verse. The modest estate of a mosque care-
taker who died in 1563 in Üsküdar included a copy of the Kitāb-ı Muḥammediye
(The Muhammadiye by Yazıcıoğlu Ali, d. 1451), a grammar (Kitāb-ı Ṣarf, Book
of Grammar), a book of rules for writing proper rhyme (Kitāb-ı Ḳāfiye, Book of
Rules of Rhymes), and several codices in an oblong format, known as cönks.67
Tales, however, were sometimes shared: Ottoman- and Greek-language ver-
sions of the İskandernāme (Tales of Alexander, or the Alexander Romance)
are found in the records and exist in surviving copies.68 Some were illustrated.
Antoine Galland (d. 1715), recounting a trip to the book market in late 1672,
espied a lavishly illustrated copy of the İskandernāme with a lacquer cover
adorned with human figures; it may have come from Iran.69 However,
65 Sgraffito here refers to type of pottery which is lightly incised to create ornament.
66 Probate inventories for Jewish subjects are not found among the kadi sicils, as far as
I know. Other groups of subjects—Armenians and Roma among them—are not well rep-
resented in this kind of document.
67 İKS vol. 7 (Üsküdar Mahkemesi, 26, AH 970–71/CE 1562–63), 456–57; other examples may
be found: vol. 19 (Bâb Mahkemesi, 46, AH 1096–97/CE 1685–86), 70 and vol. 15 (Rümeli
Sadāreti Mahkemesi 80, AH 1057–59/CE 1647–49), 192–93.
68 Phillips, Everyday Luxuries, 136–37 and n. 384; Kastritsis, “The Alexander Romance”.
69 Galland, Journal d’Antoine Galland, vol. 1, 33–34.
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412 Phillips
Ottoman written sources, and archival records especially, may also mislead.
The material record and narrative accounts suggest that Greek, Armenian, and
other Christian as well as Jewish households were also consumers of written
materials, but these items are uniformly absent from probate inventories.70
By contrast, several types of objects related to the requirements of daily
prayer for observant Muslims are present in some number: prayer carpets,
ablution basins, and perhaps portable mihrabs.71 Women owned proportion-
ally more carpets than men did, perhaps because they prayed at home more
often.72 Prayer beads, though in no way obligatory, also feature, as does the
occasional qibla-finder.73 Some lists include souvenirs from the Hajj. Flasks for
zemzem water might be specially decorated or otherwise distinguished, and
pieces of the Kaʿba cover, too, are easily identified.74 Tiles depicting the Kaʿba
at Mecca and the mosque of the Prophet at Medina and verses from the Quran
are not attested in these records but survive in small numbers.75 These were
used in homes and were also apparently donated to mosques, where they were
often installed near the mihrab. And of course, some crafts purchased during
the Hajj were of a less pious nature: Chinese porcelain coffee cups and textiles
from India were brought by many pilgrims on their returns to Istanbul and
other cities.76
Among Armenian subjects, tile panels depicting Biblical images and scenes
from religious life may also have been used in domestic settings, though this is
70 See Phillips, Everyday Luxuries, 30–31; Galland mentions books in Greek, as well as
in Arabic, Persian, and Hebrew, though not in their roles as household goods, Journal
d’Antoine Galland, vol. 1, 63, 185, 221–28, 230, 232–37. He also mentions a Chagatai diction-
ary, 240. The inventories made for Greek subjects—presumably Orthodox—almost never
include Bibles, other books, or icons. Omissions in the records are in part explained by
the more cursory lists made for Greek subjects, and in part by the fewer records made for
Greek subjects in general. For a case of more comprehensive wills of Greek subjects, see
McKee & Laiou (eds.), Wills from Late Medieval Venetian Crete.
71 Terms: seccāde, tesbīḥ, and in rarer cases, namāzlık. A wooden mihrab with a built-in
stand is found in the Topkapı Palace Museum collection, inv. no. 39/4686. It was not part
of any architectural ensemble but was portable.
72 Statistical analysis found in Phillips, Weaving as Livelihood, chapter 5.
73 For the qibla-finder (ḳiblanūme), İKS vol. 38 (Galata Mahkemesi, 46 AH 1024–29/CE 1615–
20), 57.
74 İKS vol. 36 (Galata Mahkemesi, 32 AH 1015–16/CE 1606–07), 87–88; this is the record of
a man who presumably made the Hajj—the honorific Hajji is used in his name. The
Kaʿba covers (Kaʿba örtüsü; the term kiswah seems not to be used in these records) were
renewed every year during the Hajj, at which time the old covers were cut into pieces and
sold to raise funds for maintenance of the sanctuaries or given to important figures: see
Phillips, Sea Change, 243 and figure 7.1.
75 Maury, “Depictions of the Harameyn”.
76 Faroqhi, “Trading Between East and West”, 17–18.
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unclear at the current state of research.77 Surely one of the most famous exam-
ples of Kütahya-ware, a pitcher in the Kıraç Foundation Collection, shows a
priest and a man with a turban—perhaps an imam?—in a friendly embrace,
facing the viewer.78 Whether some of the tiles or other wares might have also
been souvenirs from pilgrimages to Jerusalem is so far unknown. It is tempt-
ing to connect them with the Armenian Cathedral of St. James, which had an
extensive program of Kütahya tiles.79
Another type of devotional object, a kind of wall plaque known as a levḥā,
was found in some Muslim homes. The type often verged on the pictorial. The
levḥa in Figure 15.5 is also a ḥilye-i şerīf, a term referring to a broad category
of writing that praises the physical attributes of the Prophet Muhammad.80
Poems in this genre by Ottoman authors—the most famous of which was
written by Hakani Mehmed Bey in 1598 or 1599—exist in many versions and
a number of extant copies. In 1679 or 1680, one of the most notable calligra-
phers of the 17th century, Hafiz Osman (d. 1698), arranged a selection of verses
from Hakani Mehmed Bey’s work into a format which may be described as
anthropomorphic.81 Hafiz Osman’s arrangement was copied in many shapes,
sizes, and materials. One scholar has suggested that copies and iterations of
this arrangement of the ḥilye-i şerīf were similar to the icons used by Christian
subjects in that both inspired devotion through vision and contemplation.82
Two individual ḥilyes are mentioned in a list of goods that disappeared from
a house in Istanbul’s Manisalı Çelebi neighborhood in 1686.83 The scribe
included them in the section that listed other decorative items, including mir-
rors, hearth screens, and hangings. This implies that these ḥilye were in the
levḥā format and meant for display; they may have been similar to that in
Figure 15.5, which was mounted on a wooden frame.84
77 The British Museum has a number of Kütahya tile panels, including several with
cherubim and one of an Armenian deacon holding a cross, British Museum, inv. nos.
1885,0609.3.a–b and OA+ 10638.
78 Kıraç Foundation, inv. no. 288; published in Bilgi, Kütahya Tiles and Ceramics, fig. 120, at
106–07.
79 Carswell & Dowsett, Kütahya Tiles and Pottery.
80 Variations on the theme by different authors are represented in part by variations in
names: Ḥilye-i Şerīf, Ḥilye-i Saʿādet, Ḥilye-i Nabī, and others; Özkaya, “Hilye-i Şerif”.
81 Derman, Letters in Gold, 54–56; while this arrangement for Hakani Bey’s Ḥilye may have
originated with Hafiz Osman, the equally celebrated calligrapher Ahmad Karahisari
(d. 1566) used a similar format in a series of prayers for the seven days of the week.
Sotheby’s Sale L16223, lot 130.
82 Schick, “The Iconicity of Islamic Calligraphy”.
83 For the ḥilye-i şerīf, İKS vol. 19 (Bâb Mahkemesi, 46, AH 1096–97/CE 1685–86), 68–74.
84 Similar examples may be found in other collections; TSMK, inv. no. 8/546, illustrated in
Kahraman and Bayhan (eds.), Surre-i Hümayun, 203.
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414 Phillips
Figure 15.5
Ḥilye-i Şerīf (votive tablet with poetry and
illumination), Ottoman, Istanbul, 18th century.
Ink, opaque watercolor, and gold on paper;
mounted on wood. Metropolitan Museum of Art,
New York, inv. no. 20.120.275
The ḥilye in Figure 15.5, which dates to the 18th century, has been damaged over
the course of the years. Nonetheless, its features are clear: a basmala in a large-
scale, upright script called thuluth across the top of the main panel; the main
body of the text in the large middle circle, which is embraced by a crescent;
the names of the first four caliphs in the roundels in the four corners; a band
and a lower register of text flanked by two elegant stylized tulips in pale pink,
which are related to the arts of the book in this period.85 The script in the cen-
tral areas is naskhī (Turk. nesih) which is placed in cloudlike bubbles on a gold
ground. A single layer of small blossoms and leaves that draws on traditions of
manuscript illumination fills the interstices around the main elements, as well
as part of the finial at the top. Similar levḥās from the 18th century are found in
85 The basmala was itself a popular choice for Ottoman levḥās in the 18th century and later.
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quantities in a number of collections, attesting to their popularity and suggest-

ing that they were sought-after objects among Muslim subjects in the city and
elsewhere.86 This ḥilye-i şerīf is perhaps not of the highest order, but it partakes
of the wider Ottoman repertoire in its decoration and calligraphy.
4 Conclusion
The story of Ottoman material culture—especially in cities like Istanbul, as

well as Damascus and Cairo—is also a story of goods imported from else-
where and consumed with pleasure and by necessity by subjects of all stripes.
While art historians have justifiably focused on ceramics made in the court-
supported kilns of İznik and Kütahya, on velvets made in Bursa, and manu-
scripts crafted in the palace workshops, the reality is that many of the arts,
crafts, and commodities moving through early modern Istanbul were neither
from palace workshops nor even from the greater Ottoman regions. Inventory
lists help reconstruct this historical circumstance, as do narrative accounts and
archaeology. Lavishly illustrated copies of the Şehnāme (Tales of Kings) made
in Shiraz were intended for markets in Istanbul, and elsewhere.87 The Turkish
and Islamic Arts Museum preserves carpets from Iran and the Mamluk territo-
ries and porcelains from China, the most famous of which is a Ming-period gar-
den stool to which Ottoman artisans added gold mounts, transforming it into a
mammoth incense burner.88 In it smoldered incense made of substances from
Arabia, Africa, and southeast Asia, such as those found in the shop of the late
ʿaṭṭār. Envisioning the material culture of the Ottoman capital means imagin-
ing not only the objects and commodities made there or nearby, but raw mate-
rials and luxury goods alike brought from around the world, including the West
Indies, into the docks of Eminönü and Galata.
Individuals, households, and groups across Istanbul participated in the
ebbs and flows of locally-made objects and commodities from market to home
in different ways.89 Some men and women included expensive textiles, por-
celains, and metal wares as elements of their charitable endowments which
brought personal household objects into the public sphere; the goods of gran-
dees were sold at auction on their demotions or deaths; some individuals left
86 Derman, “Hilye (hat)”.

87 Uluç, Turkman Governors.
88 Turkish and Islamic Arts Museum, inv. no. 29, published in Ergin, “The Fragrance of the
Divine”, figs. 13–15.
89 Zilfi, “Goods in the Mahalle”, 290–91.
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416 Phillips
valuables as security for cash loans; even shards of celadon and dispersed folios
were sold in the city’s markets.90 As agents facilitating the swift movement of
many types of goods around the city and beyond, residents and visitors alike
also evaluated, discussed, discerned, and arrived at consensus about qualities
and styles, which in turn engendered a variable but nonetheless recognizably
Ottoman aesthetic found in many goods made nearby. While some of these
styles might have found an initial source in designs disseminated by intent or
default from the palace, others were in fact inspired by objects of global fash-
ion. In 1720, the “newly appeared” (nev ẓuḥūr) silk textiles mentioned by Vehbi
were almost certainly inspired by those of India and Iran, although some of
them were made in workshops sponsored by the central administration.91 At
this point, as through the centuries, the Ottoman style was neither isolated nor
Westernizing, but responsive to the larger spheres of the Mediterranean and
the Indian Ocean, and beyond them, the world.
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Chapter 16
Death in Istanbul
Plagues, Fires, and Other Catastrophes
Nükhet Varlık
Every soul shall taste death

Quran 3:185
…
In Pera sono tre malanni: peste, fuoco, dragomanni.1
∵
Early modern Istanbul, the glorious capital of the Ottoman Empire and a vibrant
commercial and cultural cosmopolitan port city, was notorious for its perils.
Myriad contemporary observers stressed the city’s experience with devastat-
ing epidemics, fires, and other catastrophes, owed not least to its crowdedness,
but also to numerous problems resulting from its particular location, climate,
and prosperity. Like other major port cities of the early modern Mediterranean,
Istanbul was susceptible to predicaments that came from the sea, such as an
influx of infections, immigrants, and unruly sailors, along with a range of “inva-
sive” animal and plant species and dangerous—if not outright lethal—ideas,
trends, and commodities. Its overland connections to the Balkans and Anatolia
likewise exposed it to troubles via major caravan routes spanning networks
near and far. A hub where multiple economic, military, administrative, and
biological networks (within the Ottoman domains and beyond) converged,
Istanbul was thus a critical destination for everything in motion—material or
otherwise; in the same way it received goods, capital, people, knowledge, and
talent, it attracted disease and death. Throughout the early modern period, the
city’s tribulations intensified in proportion to the growing number of bodies it
hosted; as its population increased, problems of housing, sustenance, poverty,
1 “The three perils in Pera are plague, fire, and interpreters.” Shay, Ottoman Empire, 38.

Death in Istanbul 421
unrest, and crime escalated, along with fires, plagues, and mass mortality cri-
ses instigated by such whims of nature as earthquakes, floods, and weather
events. In short, Istanbul’s rising affluence and prosperity came at the cost of
untimely death for many of its residents and visitors alike.
Istanbul was thus as much the capital of death as it was of the empire’s
blossoming lives. Arguably, more people died in early modern Istanbul and
its suburbs than anywhere else in the empire’s vast territories. This was of
course inevitable, for Istanbul was the most populous city in the early modern
Mediterranean, and by the turn of the 18th century, perhaps the largest in the
world west of China.2 Home to a vast population, Istanbulites’ experience with
death merits historical inquiry in its own right.
This chapter examines the myriad urban disasters that affected early mod-
ern Istanbul—focusing especially on the period from the time of its conquest
by the Ottomans in 1453 to the end of the 17th century—including epidem-
ics, fires, and earthquakes, among other misfortunes. Each of these calamities
brought large-scale death and destruction and caused major disruptions in
urban life. I map out these catastrophic moments in the city’s history, with
a particular view to capturing the experience of Istanbul’s ordinary citizens.
How were early modern Istanbulites affected by urban disasters? How did they
protect themselves and their loved ones from such hardships? How did they
die, survive, or remember such moments? To address these questions, I draw
from narrative and documentary sources, including chronicles, archival docu-
ments, hagiographies, medical literature, and travelers’ accounts. In particu-
lar, I seek to situate early modern Istanbul’s vulnerability to such misfortunes
because of the city’s location, topography, climate, urban layout, and popula-
tion dynamics, as well as its connections to the world around it. Where pos-
sible, I stress the resilience of the city in facing such repeated disasters, with
particular emphasis on social, religious, administrative, and legal structures
and practices that helped its population endure such heavy bursts of mortality
and ultimately rejuvenate its resources.
2 According to some estimates, the city’s resident population was already upwards of half a
million in the mid-16th century, and around 700,000 by 1700. İnalcık, “Istanbul”; Chandler &
Fox, 3000 Years of Urban Growth, 175–76, 317–21. For an estimate of 60,000 to 70,000 in the
later 15th century, see Kafescioğlu, Constantinopolis/Istanbul, 178–79. More recent estimates
of Istanbul’s population at the end of the 18th century caution against exaggerated figures,
and instead propose an estimate of around 400,000 people: see Başaran, Selim III, 56–62.
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422 Varlık
1 Istanbul: The Capital of Death
As with all premodern cities, death was ubiquitous in Istanbul; urbanites died
as a result of natural and unnatural causes, including from accidents, ill-health,
and violent crimes, and especially from mass mortality events—wars, epidem-
ics, fires, famines, rebellions, and natural disasters (earthquakes, floods, and
climate events). As such, death was much more present in the lives of indi-
viduals in the premodern era, who experienced the death of others more fre-
quently than we do as moderns. Overall life expectancy was much lower across
the premodern world; in 1800, the global average of life expectancy at birth
was not higher than 30 years. Even though there are no reliable statistical fig-
ures, it should be safe to assume that an individual’s average life expectancy at
birth in early modern Istanbul was between 30 and 40 years, at best.3 Given the
prevalence of (endemic) childhood diseases (e.g., measles, jaundice)4 and the
ensuing high rates of infant and child mortality, individuals went through
the different stages of life (childhood, adolescence, adulthood, and old age)
much faster than their modern counterparts. Reaching puberty signaled that
boys and girls were considered to be adults, which allowed them to have legal
rights in marriage. Even though the age of puberty showed variation across
time and space, 16th-century Ottoman tax registers suggest that 15 was the age
of puberty for boys, and about 12 for girls, while the actual age for marriage was
likely later.5 An individual that made it to adulthood had likely experienced
multiple bouts of suffering and hence was armed with an array of biological
3 Riley, Rising Life Expectancy, 1. In early modern England, average life expectancy at birth was
between 30 and 40 years, with infant mortality rates of between 10 to 25 per cent on aver-
age: see Wrigley & Schofield, Population History of England, 230; Dobson, Contours of Death
and Disease, 172. Mortality statistics in the early Turkish Republic indicate an average life
expectancy of 40 years, which fluctuated between 35 and 45 until the middle of the 20th
century, on which see Bakar, Oymak, & Maral, “Turkey’s Epidemiological and Demographic
Transitions”. According to population statistics from the late 19th century, average life expec-
tancy at birth ranged around 30 to 35 years in Anatolia. If high infant and child mortality
rates are factored into the calculations, an individual’s average life expectancy yields an esti-
mate of around 45 to 50 years once past childhood: see Faroqhi et al., An Economic and Social
History of the Ottoman Empire, vol. 2, 784.
4 See, for example, İbn-i Şerîf, Yâdigâr, ed. Altıntaş, vol. 2, 316, 363, 365; el-Mârdânî, Müntehab
fî’t-Tıb, ed. Bayat, 159.
5 Erder & Faroqhi, “Population Rise and Fall in Anatolia”, 327. In her discussion of Jewish fami-
lies in 16th-century Istanbul, Minna Rozen suggests that a girl was considered an adult when
she reached 12.5 years. See Rozen, A History of the Jewish Community, 112. In 1885, the mean
marriage age in Istanbul was 19 for women and around 30 for men; in the early 20th century,
it went up to 21 for women, while remaining about the same for men. See Duben & Behar,
Istanbul Households, 75; Duben, “Household Formation”.
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and psychological immunity. To make matters worse, the early modern era was
a time of punishing environmental and biological crises on a global scale: from
the second half of the 13th century to the mid-15th, a new ecological regime
(i.e., the Great Transition) had already set the stage for, and the Little Ice Age
precipitated the circulation of biological killers (e.g., plague, smallpox, syphi-
lis) globally, at an unprecedented scale.6
What were the major killers in early modern Istanbul? Were the causes of
death different than elsewhere in the empire or in other early modern cit-
ies? Was there anything distinctive about death and dying in early modern
Istanbul? To address questions such as these, there is a limited body of schol-
arship. The scholarship on death in medieval and early modern Europe and the
Islamic world can offer the broader contours of this field of research.7 Focusing
specifically on Ottoman society, there is now a growing number of studies on
mortality events, such as natural disasters.8 Disaster studies underscore the
importance of studying such crises in premodern societies in conjunction
with each other.9 Questions pertaining to death and mortality thus speak
to the fields of urban, social, and cultural history, and to the history of daily
life, and have been integrated into such perspectives, especially in the case of
Istanbul.10 Works on cemeteries, burials, and tombstones are equally invalu-
able for studying material aspects of death and dying.11 Nonetheless, death still
6 Campbell, The Great Transition; White, Climate of Rebellion; Varlık (ed.), Plague and
Contagion. See also n. 34 below.
7 For Europe, the classic works are by Ariès, Essais sur l’histoire de la mort and L’homme
devant la mort. For more recent scholarship, see for example Rollo-Koster (ed.), Death
in Medieval Europe; Korpiola & Lahtinen (eds.), Cultures of Death and Dying; Lahtinen &
Korpiola (eds.), Dying Prepared; Spence, Accidents and Violent Death. For death rites in
early Islam, see Halevi, Muhammad’s Grave. For the scholarship on death in the modern
Middle East, see, for example, Minkin, “History from Six-feet Below”, 632–46.
8 See, for example, Zachariadou (ed.), Natural Disasters in the Ottoman Empire; Ayalon,
Natural Disasters; Öztürk (ed.), Afetlerin Gölgesinde İstanbul; Ürekli, “Âfetlere İlişkin
Literatür”; Kılıç, “Osmanlı Devleti’nde Doğal Âfetler”; Demirtaş, “Tabii Âfetler”.
9 On natural disasters as part of a larger discussion that also involves epidemics, fires, and
rebellions, see Ayalon, Natural Disasters, 12–19; Hanska, Strategies of Sanity and Survival;
Ambrasey & Finkel, Seismicity of Turkey; Elbendary, Crowds and Sultans; Zarinebaf, Crime
and Punishment in Istanbul.
10 See, for example, Boyar & Fleet, Social History; And, Istanbul in the Sixteenth Century;
Aydın et al. (eds.), Büyük İstanbul Tarihi.
11 See, for example, Eldem, Death in Istanbul; Veinstein, Les ottomans et la mort; Eldem
& Vatin, L’épitaphe ottomane musulmane; Vatin & Yerasimos, Les cimetières; Laqueur,
Hüve’l-Baki; Goodwin, “Gardens of the Dead”; Bacqué-Grammont, Cimetières et traditions
funéraires; Gürsoy-Naskali (ed.), Defin; Kut & Eldem, Rumelihisarı Şehitlik Dergâhı; Vatin
& Veinstein, Le sérail ébranlé; Ünver, “İstanbul Halkının Ölüm Karşısındaki Duyguları”;
Ünver, “Mezar Taşlarında Veba”; Bayrak, Ölüm ve Mezar Şiirleri Antolojisi.
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continues to be one of the neglected aspects of the city’s past, waiting to be

fully integrated into its history.
Istanbulites likely wished to meet the angel of death in their sleep, peace-
fully. A good (natural, nonviolent) death was much to be desired by everyone,
as suggested by the existence of a large number of prayers and talismans put
to use to that end.12 Medical literature of the time underscores anxieties about
sudden and violent death, and helps identify the causes of death that were
feared the most. For example, in his treatise on plague and other epidemic dis-
eases, the renowned polymath of the 15th century Abd al-Rahman al-Bistami
(d. 1454) recommends prayers and other protective methods to ward off the
plague—the most dreaded of all diseases—along with other causes of sud-
den death, such as accidents, burning, and drowning in water.13 Similarly, Hacı
Pasha (d. c.1417), the prominent 15th-century Anatolian physician, also lists
plague remedies in his medical compendium, Müntaḫab-ı Şifā (Excerpts from
the Cure), along with treatments for other conditions, such as rabies, food poi-
soning, and scorpion and snake bites, much feared because they were known
to be fatal.14
Our knowledge on changing patterns of mortality in the early modern era
and statistical information about them is slim. What we have instead is evi-
dence for the beginning of mortality bills issued at times of epidemics. Such
quantitative information was particularly sought by the Ottoman adminis-
tration in the aftermath of fires, epidemics, and earthquakes, in the form of
counting dead bodies and houses damaged or burnt, starting more systemati-
cally in the 16th century.15 Nonetheless, all this is fragmentary and awaits fur-
ther systematic study. What can be gleaned is that early modern Istanbulites,
like other urbanites of their time, feared unnatural death and tried in myriad
ways to protect themselves from it.
Despite continuous efforts of the Ottoman administration since the early
16th century to separate the physical space of the dead and the living—by
moving communal graveyards outside the city walls, regulating burials, and
imposing control over interment procedures—death was part and parcel of
urban life. It was fully present in the sensory landscape of the city. The expe-
rience of death was amply accessible to the living, not only to close family
members who prepared the body of the deceased for interment (e.g., washing,
12 Ottoman devotional literature, prayer books, and ʿilmiḥāl collections contain a number of
such prayers. For an overview, see, for example, Kelpetin, “İlmihal”.
13 al-Bistami, Wasf al-dawa‌ʾ fi kashf afat al-waba‌ʾ, 246–47.
14 Hacı Pasha, Müntahab-ı Şifâ, ed. Önler, 162–79.
15 Varlık, Plague and Empire, 253–62.
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shrouding), but also to the wider community. Even though different funerary
customs were followed by different confessional communities, death was vis-
ible (e.g., funeral prayers, processions, and interments as public events), audi-
ble (e.g., announcements of deaths made from local mosques, prayers during
funerals, weepers), tangible (e.g., carrying of the coffin on shoulders, throwing
soil on grave), and olfactory (e.g., burning of incense, use of flowers in proces-
sions, and the heavy stench caused by dead bodies and animal carcasses left
unburied during epidemics).16 Graveyards scattered across the city enshrined
death as a constant in the city’s sensory realm. This was especially true for the
imperial elite, who often left behind tombs and mausolea to ensure postmor-
tem remembrance.
Istanbulites were connected to the city’s deceased residents in many ways.
They lived alongside the city’s dead—the “honorary” citizens of Istanbul. The
dead were often conjured up in the cultural imagination of learned Ottomans;
teachers, sufi shaykhs, poets, and biographers embraced the dead as part of
their own cultural world, connecting with past lives, using them as models or
guides for their problems. One manifestation of this attitude is attested in the
proliferation of literary genres such as biographical dictionaries of Ottoman
poets, sufis, and other learned men, whose explicit goal was to revive the mem-
ory of these learned men and celebrate their accomplishments.17
In the cultural landscape of the early modern Ottomans, Istanbul was imag-
ined as the twin locus of death and life. In the decades following the conquest,
as residents of Istanbul experienced numerous large-scale urban calami-
ties (e.g., plague, fires, earthquakes), their imagination of the city typically
reflected the anxieties of their time.18 As the physical spaces inhabited by the
living and the dead were gradually separated throughout the course of the 16th
century, however, Istanbulites started to develop new ways of relating to the
dead. Cemeteries (both within and outside the city walls) emerged as spaces
of contemplation and remembrance of the dead, but equally of celebration
of life. Tombs of religious dignitaries and sufi leaders became local shrines
that Istanbulites visited to seek blessings and intercession. Perhaps the most
significant of those sites was the tomb of Abu Ayyub al-Ansari, a companion
16 The Lutheran chaplain of the Habsburg ambassadorial mission Stephan Gerlach

describes the funerals held by the Jewish and Greek Orthodox communities in Istanbul
in great detail. Gerlach, Türkiye Günlüğü, ed. Beydilli, trans. Noyan. On the use of incense
and flowers, see Guer, Moeurs et usages des Turcs, 432, 434. For a discussion of the stench
in Istanbul’s streets at times of plague, see Varlık, Plague and Empire, 276–77.
17 On how the 17th-century Ottoman biographer Atai saw the dead as hidden treasures in
their tombs, waiting to be brought out, see Niyazioğlu, Dreams and Lives, 4–6.
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426 Varlık
of the Prophet Muhammad, who was believed to have died during an early
siege of Constantinople. Upon the miraculous discovery of Abu Ayyub’s grave,
a mosque was built on the location of the tomb and a public burial ground
developed around it, which eventually helped establish the neighborhood’s
sanctity.19 In a similar vein, a number of local tombs and shrines were visited
by Istanbulites to soothe their spiritual, physical, and emotional needs.
2 Forces of Nature: Earthquakes, Floods, and Weather Events
The location of Istanbul in an active earthquake zone made the city vulnerable
to numerous earthquakes throughout its history. In addition to those docu-
mented in the Byzantine period, Istanbul saw major earthquakes in 1489, 1509,
1556, 1648, 1659, 1719, 1766, and 1894.20 The earthquake of 1509 was, according
to contemporary sources, exceptionally devastating; it destroyed countless
buildings, damaged city walls, and caused a massive number of deaths. One
of the most destructive on record and infamously remembered as the Little
Doomsday, this quake caused a great number of casualties, which, according
to some testimonies, was as high as 4000 to 5000 (Fig. 16.1). Sources note that
the aftershocks continued for 40 days, causing many to leave their homes and
sleep in tents and gardens.21 The earthquake of 1556 also caused considerable
damage, leaving many houses, mosques, and city walls destroyed or damaged
(Fig. 16.2). Two others, in 1648 and 1690, caused extensive damage to buildings
and troubled the city’s population.22
Owing to its climate, winds, and topography, Istanbul was equally prone
to storms and floods. Contemporary chroniclers describe a black cloud that
appeared over the skies in the summer of 1490, turning day into deepest night.
Torrential rains and lightning made for an apocalyptic scene, exacerbated
when a lightning bolt hit a gunpowder depot and caused a great explosion
and major damage.23 Another catastrophic incident took place in 1553 when
heavy rains on the midnight of 24 August caused a huge flood in Kağıthane,
19 Eldem, Death in Istanbul, 16.

20 For early modern earthquakes in Turkey, see Ambrasey & Finkel, Seismicity of Turkey; for a
survey of quakes in Istanbul in the Ottoman era, see Sakin, “İstanbul’da Deprem”, 315–72;
for an overview of Ottoman-era earthquakes and the scholarship on them, see Ürekli,
“Âfetlere İlişkin Literatür”, 101–12; for the 1766 earthquake, see Afyoncu & Mete, “1766
İstanbul Depremi”; for the late Byzantine period, see Başar, “1251–1453 Yılları Arasında”.
21 Boyar & Fleet, Social History, 72–73.
22 Sakin, “İstanbul’da Deprem”, 327–30.
23 Boyar & Fleet, Social History, 73–4; Öztürk, “Tabii Afetler”, 414.
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Figure 16.1 Pieter Coecke van Aelst, Ces mœurs et fachons de faire de Turcz.
Woodcut, c.1529, showing Fatih Mosque with truncated minarets,
possibly due to damage caused by the earthquake of 1509. The
Metropolitan Museum, New York. Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1928
Figure 16.2 Earthquake of 10 May 1556, Istanbul. Colored woodcut, printed by

Herman Gall in Nuremberg, 1556
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428 Varlık
damaging houses and agricultural lots, and uprooting trees along its way.24 Yet
the flood of 1563 was probably the worst on record in the history of early mod-
ern Istanbul. Historic quantities of rainfall over 19 and 20 September caused
a massive flood that damaged the shores of the Golden Horn (Haliç), Galata,
and the Bosphorus, as well as Halkalı, Silivri, Küçük Çekmece, and Büyük
Çekmece. Likened by contemporary chroniclers to the Great Flood of Noah,
the flood killed many humans and animals, and even threatened the life of
Sultan Süleyman while he was hunting in Halkalı.25
In addition to storms, rain, and floods, Istanbul saw dramatic weather
events that could, at times, bring life in the city to a halt. A blizzard in the win-
ter of 1595 was so severe that mills stopped working, which eventually caused
a bread shortage, whereupon prices skyrocketed.26 During cold spells and
the long and harsh winters of the Little Ice Age, the Bosphorus occasionally
froze over. When the Bosphorus and Haliç were completely frozen during the
winter of 1621, provisioning became extremely difficult and caused great hard-
ship. Cold spells and heavy snow continued to trouble Istanbul periodically
throughout the second half of the 17th century.27
Most of these disasters entailed multifaceted problems for the city.
Maintaining a steady supply of staples was an endemic problem in Istanbul—
one that only worsened at times of crisis. In the winter of 1573, when bakers
increased bread prices on account of the heavy snow, the administration inter-
vened to have flour brought from the mills of İzmit.28 At such times, crimes
escalated, and maintaining public order became challenging. Another per-
ceived problem was a constant stream of immigration to the city that was
propelled by such crises. In the aftermath of fires, plagues, and other natural
disasters, Istanbul, like other early modern cities, was flooded by an increas-
ing number of migrant workers in search of employment.29 Hence the city’s
growing population and the problems associated therewith (e.g., provisioning,
public order, and health) were closely entwined with disasters in the capital
and elsewhere.
24 Ürekli, “Âfetlere İlişkin Literatür”, 118.

25 Other big floods were recorded in 1618, 1745, 1748, 1751, 1785/86, and 1789/90. See Boyar &
Fleet, Social History, 73; Ürekli, “Âfetlere İlişkin Literatür”, 118–19; Öztürk, “Tabii Afetler”,
391–404.
27 Öztürk, “Tabii Afetler”, 378–82.
28 Öztürk, “Tabii Afetler”, 376; Demirtaş, Osmanlıda Fırıncılık, 142.
29 On plague and immigration to cities, see Varlık, Plague and Empire, 153–8.
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3 Biological Killers: Plagues and Epidemics
Byzantine Constantinople too suffered from disastrous plague epidemics, not

only during the First Pandemic (the Plague of Justinian, starting in the year 542
and with recurrent outbreaks until the mid-8th century), but also during the
Black Death of 1347 and its periodic returns. Recurrences of plague likewise
continued throughout Ottoman rule. Soon after the conquest, an outbreak of
plague in the summer of 1467 killed about one-third of Istanbul’s population.
The Greek historian Kritovoulos of Imbros wrote that many fled fearfully, never
to return, while others confined themselves to their residences and never ven-
tured out, which made the city seem deserted. According to his testimony, 600
people died each day; many corpses remained unburied for days since there
were no workers to remove them.30 As the typical behavior of the disease, this
outbreak was followed by recurrent waves that continued, on and off, for a
decade, and a new wave that followed started in 1491, lasting until 1504. The
spread of plague accelerated throughout the 16th century (most notably in
1520–29, 1533–49, 1552–67, 1578, 1586–87, and 1597–99), commensurate with
the expansion and growing centralization of Ottoman domains, as well as
Istanbul’s escalating importance in the empire. As the empire forged military,
administrative, and economic links between the center and newly conquered
areas, plague spread swiftly. New trajectories along which the infection was
carried to and from the capital, as well as the integration of those trajectories
into intersecting networks of disease-exchange turned the city into the plague
hub of the Mediterranean world (Fig. 16.3). Meanwhile, mortality increased
proportionate to the city’s growing population. The Habsburg ambassador
Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq recorded that 1000–1200 deaths occurred daily at
the height of an epidemic in the mid-16th century.31 Plague continued in the
17th century, with outbreaks in 1611–13, 1620–24, 1636–37, 1647–49, 1653–56,
1659–66, 1671–80, 1685–95, and in the 18th century, with outbreaks in 1713, 1719,
1728–29, 1739–43, 1759–65, 1784–86, and 1791–92, which continued into the 19th
century, peaking in 1812–19 and 1835–38. This seemingly constant presence of
pestilence in Istanbul, seen as a routine, seasonal occurrence, led some foreign
observers to associate the plague with the city, referring to the disease as le mal
de Constantinople.32
30 Kritovoulos, Mehmed the Conqueror, trans. Riggs, 220–21.

31 de Busbecq, Turkish Letters, trans. Forster, 188.
32 The term was mentioned by Jean Gontaut, the French ambassador in Istanbul in the early
17th century. See Dursteler, “The Bailo in Constantinople”, 16.
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430 Varlık
Map of plague networks in the Ottoman Empire, 1453–1600

Figure 16.3
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In Istanbul, plague often appeared in bubonic form typically from mid-

spring to mid-summer, owing to the city’s climatic conditions favorable for the
reproduction of rats and fleas. In other cases, however, outbreaks lasted into
colder months, which may suggest a prevailing pneumonic human-to-human
spread. Outbreaks lasted from a few months to a year, each time leaving survi-
vors in a state of relative prosperity. However, cumulative effects of repeated
outbreaks were severe in the long term, especially because of simultaneous
decline in rural populations that would otherwise help repopulate cities.33
Disastrous outbursts of plague were certainly not the only biological killers
the capital had to endure. Other epidemic diseases also ran amok in the early
modern era—a time for increased circulation of virulent pathogens. Written
sources testify to the presence of a number of illnesses, including smallpox,
syphilis, leprosy, and various gastrointestinal diseases, which aggravated over-
all mortality.34 However, due to the current lack of bioarchaeological and pal-
aeogenetic studies on early modern Istanbul, we do not as of yet know exactly
what types of pathogens circulated in and out of the city.
4 Urban Perils: Fires, Violence, and Crime
Like plague, fires were also an endemic problem in early modern Istanbul.
Once a fire broke out, it spread very quickly because of tightly packed wooden
houses and narrow streets. Fire could burn down thousands of houses in a
matter of hours, especially when there was wind.35 In 1539, a fire that broke
out in the Zindankapı neighborhood near the port of Eminönü burnt down
houses, shops, and mosques, and killed the convicts in the Baba Cafer prison.36
Another fire in 1569 caused great havoc; according to the testimony of the
Venetian bailo Marcantonio Barbaro, it broke out in the densely built and pop-
ulated Jewish quarter in Eminönü on the night of 28 September and consumed
over half the city.37 Again in 1589, a fire starting in Tahtakale (Taḥt al-ḳalʿa)
33 For slow rates of population recovery after the Black Death, see Pamuk & Shatzmiller,
“Plagues, Wages, and Economic Change”; Özmucur & Pamuk, “Real Wages”; Pamuk, “The
Black Death”.
34 For a general background on biological killers in early modern Istanbul, see Varlık, Plague
and Empire, 56–63; White, “Rethinking Disease”, 549–67; idem, Climate of Rebellion, 85–91;
Yıldırım, “Salgın Afetlerinde İstanbul”, 109–84. On smallpox, see Börekçi, “Smallpox in the
Harem”, 135–52. On syphilis, see Yılmaz, “Love in the Time of Syphilis”.
35 For a survey of fires in early modern Istanbul, see Yıldız, “1660 İstanbul Yangını”; Beyhan,
“İstanbul Yangınları”.
37 Rozen & Arbel, “Great Fire in the Metropolis”, 134–63.
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432 Varlık
destroyed a third of the city within 24 hours, burning down markets, mosques,
and several neighborhoods.38 It must be for this fire that al-Tamgrouti of the
Moroccan ambassadorial mission reported an inventory of the damage, which
included 28 mosques, 22,000 houses, 15,000 shops, 9 bathhouses, and count-
less inns and bazaars; he added that Jews suffered the most.39 Another fire in
1593 destroyed business districts, where factories, workshops, shops, and mar-
kets were damaged. In 1596, an accident in an imperial workshop, where sul-
phur and naphtha oil were mixed for use on campaigns, caused a massive fire
and an explosion when it spread to nearby workshops where gunpowder was
stored, and resulted in massive damage.40
Major fires continued to occur throughout the 17th century, about which we
have greater details based on the testimony of contemporary observers. The
Cibali fire of 1633, which was fueled by the north winds and lasted for three
days, was terribly punishing.41 Yet the biggest on historical record was the great
fire of 1660, which resulted in tens of thousands of houses burnt or damaged.
The conflagration broke out on 24 July in a shop near Odunkapısı, whence
the northern wind swiftly spread the flames to timber shops in Unkapanı and
neighboring quarters. In two days, the fire reduced two-thirds of the city to
ash, killing between 2700 to 4000 people, and forcing survivors to take refuge
in mosques, gardens, and the shores, and sleep in boats and migrate to nearby
towns and villages.42 According to the eyewitness testimony of Eremya Çelebi,
it burned numerous bazaars, bakeries, mills, and bathhouses, as well as houses,
schools, mosques, churches and synagogues, and caused unimaginable suffer-
ing and pain.43 Later, in 1682/83, a fire broke out in a Galata warehouse and
destroyed a great many goods and the merchandise stored there.44 Another
one in 1688 started in Balık Pazarı and spread to the shores of Haliç, burning
1500 houses and 5000 shops and businesses.45 Yet another conflagration broke
out in 1693/94 at Odunkapısı, spread rapidly to other parts of the city, only to
be followed by another a few days later; the damage was extensive.46
Frequent fires, like other disasters, were events individuals likely witnessed
multiple times in life; losing one’s home to fire and dislocation were among

39 al-Tamgrouti, En-Nafhat El-Miskiya, trans. de Castries, 54.
42 Ürekli, “Âfetlere İlişkin Literatür”, 113–14; Yıldız, “1660 İstanbul Yangını”, 10–15.
43 Eremya Çelebi, “Eremya Çelebi’nin Yangınlar Tarihi”, trans. Andreasyan, 71–72.
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early modern Istanbulites’ inevitable experiences.47 Loss of life and property

damage caused serious economic stress. Burnt or damaged merchandise hurt
merchants and artisans severely. Moreover, fires usually went hand in hand
with crime and brought problems of public order in their wake; looting was
much dreaded at such times. Many blamed the janissaries for looting houses
and businesses during these events; some even accused them of causing
fires deliberately.
Together, crime and urban unrest made Istanbul a locus of violent death:
people died in rebellions and revolts, street violence, myriad forms of punish-
ments executed in public, and miscellaneous acts of crime (including murder,
thuggery, and kidnap) that haunted the public imagination.48 Certain groups
were notoriously associated with violence and crime, especially janissar-
ies who at times organized vast urban rebellions and on occasion plundered
the city.49 Sailors, Ottoman and foreign, found in large numbers especially in
Galata, were seen as a source of concern because of their alcohol consumption
and disorderly behavior. Immigrants were also often associated with crime and
violence. A large number of migrant workers, typically single men who lived in
bachelor inns and bathhouses, served as unskilled labor; most became porters
or boatmen, which were groups often associated with disorderly behavior and
crime.50 Celali revolts in Anatolia sparked a new wave of immigration in the
late 16th and 17th centuries, whereby large numbers of peasants fleeing vio-
lence sought refuge and safety in the capital.
In a city where death could be lurking anywhere, from the docks to dark
alleys, from the marketplace to large public squares, Istanbulites tried to pro-
tect themselves and their loved ones from these perils in myriad ways. While
the administration offered relief in the aftermath of catastrophic events,
urbanites also sought the protection of the saints, used prayers and talismans,
and followed a range of folk practices. In what follows, I offer an overview
of the experiences, responses, imagination, and resilience of early modern
Istanbulites in facing such moments of crisis.
47 Major fires of the 18th century occurred in 1718, 1756, and 1782. See Ürekli, “Âfetlere İlişkin
Literatür”, 114–18.
48 On crime and violence in Istanbul, see, for example, Boyar & Fleet, Social History, 89–121;
Zarinebaf, Crime and Punishment in Istanbul; Başaran, Selim III.
49 See the chapter by Yılmaz in this volume.
50 Boyar & Fleet, Social History, 103–06. For the link between immigration and crime in the
18th century, see Başaran, Selim III, and Başaran’s chapter in this volume.
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5 Responses to Mortality Events
Like other early modern urban societies, Istanbulites responded to individual

and communal death in a variety of ways. Yet, we do not have a comprehen-
sive study to map out these responses in a systematic way. The involvement
of the Ottoman administration in the management of death is more visible
in its effort to oversee mass mortality. But how did catastrophes and events
of mass mortality cause an extra challenge for the Ottoman administration?
What were the measures taken to cope with such moments of crisis? And what
was the long-term legacy of the administrative response to such crises? For the
time being, it is difficult to establish the contours of early modern Ottoman
policy on disaster relief. Yaron Ayalon has recently argued that there is no
observable difference in the manner the Ottoman administration responded
to natural disasters throughout the early modern era.51 Current scholarship
on medicine and public health likewise downplays early modern efforts for
maintaining health and healing in Ottoman society by focusing mainly on the
modern period. Be that as it may, responses to plague may be used as a pre-
liminary model to trace the emergence of an early modern Ottoman public
health and disaster-relief system. I have argued elsewhere that the Ottoman
central administration implemented a series of new regulations in response
to plague, ranging from monitoring daily death tolls at times of outbreaks to
more comprehensive and ambitious undertakings, such as ensuring cleanli-
ness in urban areas and promoting a system of public health. The threat of
epidemics, among other such crises that demanded immediate attention,
compelled the administration to exercise new forms of governance that were
executed through surveillance of bodies, regulation of their movement, and
control of the space in which they lived, worked, and died. The sum of these
new technologies of surveillance and governance of bodies not only left their
lasting legacy in the emergence of Ottoman institutions of public health, but
also contributed to the making of the early modern Ottoman state.52
A critical component of the response to mortality crises was the manage-
ment of dead bodies. At such times, rapid removal and burial of the dead
became a major challenge. Documents from the late 15th and early 16th cen-
turies suggest the onset of systematic record-keeping of daily death tolls in
Istanbul during epidemics.53 How, when, where, and whom to bury were now
matters governed by the state. Starting in the 16th century, most of Istanbul’s
51 Ayalon, Natural Disasters.

52 Varlık, Plague and Empire, chapter 8.
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dead were buried outside the city walls; the administration then started to
mandate taking the dead outside even during non-plague years. This seems
to have become standard practice in the 17th century, at least for intra muros
Istanbul.54 An 18th-century testimony states that the law forbade anyone from
keeping a dead body for more than one day or from carrying it further afield.55
The rise of Istanbul’s first communal graveyards immediately outside the
city walls coincides with major outbreaks of plague. Following the conquest,
there was no organized space dedicated entirely to burials. As population
increased and plague mortality soared accordingly, establishing graveyards
outside of the city walls became a pressing need. Communal graveyards soon
encircled the city walls, stretching from the shores of the Marmara Sea to
the Golden Horn. The first communal graveyards of Istanbul appeared dur-
ing the reign of Bayezid II (r. 1481–1512), organized exclusively on the basis
of confessional communities. While Muslim graveyards began to form in the
area outside of Edirnekapı, Yenikapı, and Topkapı gates along the city’s land
walls, those reserved for the Orthodox Christians were located in the area that
extended from Topkapı to Silivrikapı gates; Jewish graveyards were located in
the area between Eğrikapı gate and the Golden Horn.56 Yet there were other
burial grounds that served greater Istanbul (i.e., including Galata, Hasköy/
Eyüp, and Üsküdar), in Pera (Grand champs des morts on the northern end of
Pera, over the hill from modern-day Taksim towards Fındıklı; and Petit champs
des morts on the western end of Pera, on the hills of modern-day Tepebaşı and
Kasım Paşa), as well as Karaca Ahmed in Üsküdar.57
Management of the dead, like other related concerns aimed at maintaining
health and order in urban space, was informed by notions of healthy living in
the late medieval and early modern Mediterranean world. Received wisdom
dictated that the health of the body (microcosmos) was in no way separate
from, but rather defined by, the larger natural and mental environment (mac-
rocosmos). The three critical components of health were thus air, water, and
morals: one could only be healthy if one lived in a place that had clean air
and clean water—and was inhabited by people with clean souls. Informed by
the Galenic-Avicennan model of disease etiology, certain environments were
believed to be conducive to ill-health; swamps and marshy lands, dead bodies,
and decomposing matter were believed to release disease-inducing miasma
into the air. Hence regulations of public health directly targeted urban filth
54 Vatin & Yerasimos, Les cimetières, 19–22.

55 Guer, Moeurs et usages des Turcs, 434.
56 Vatin & Yerasimos, Les cimetières, 2.
57 Laqueur, Hüve’l-Baki, 7–9.
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and perceived sources of contamination. In particular, they aimed at cleaning,

paving, and removing waste from the streets, moving slaughterhouses, tanner-
ies, and other businesses that produced foul smells outside city walls, improv-
ing the construction of houses, and maintaining clean water supplies for the
urban population. The conception of health and well-being (ten-dürüstlük)
had a spiritual dimension as well. Individuals were believed to attain their
desired state of health and prosperity only by cleaning their soul. For Muslims,
behaving morally and adhering to Islamic law to avoid sinful and disruptive
behavior were both considered requisite to that end. Eliminating any behavior
deemed contrary to accepted ethical values would help improve the physical
health, well-being, and tranquility of the community as a whole—the state’s
paramount objective.58
Like epidemics, repeated fires in early modern Istanbul also prompted new
regulations. Such measures first appeared in the form of direct intervention in
times of fire, and later developed into preventive policies. A commonly applied
method of containing a fire was to destroy buildings along its path. This was
done by the janissaries, and starting in the 17th century, by a specialized sub-
branch called the balṭacıs, who were in charge of tearing down buildings with
axes.59 An order issued in 1559 banned building houses on the city walls or
too close to them, especially in the densely packed Jewish neighborhoods of
Eminönü, Sirkeci, Tahtakale, and Mahmud Paşa, and banned the building of
houses higher than two stories or less than half a meter away from the street.
Another order in 1572 forbade the residents from fleeing before trying to extin-
guish the fire first. Every house was to maintain a barrel full of water and a lad-
der that reached the roof. These immediate measures were followed by those
that were committed to prevention. Urban planning focused on management
of construction activities; new measures dictated where houses could be built,
the minimum distance between them, as well as from shops and city walls,
and how high houses could be built, and banned projecting windows and pro-
truding structures above streets.60 Arguably, fires provided early modern cities
with rare opportunities for urban planning and reconstruction. In the after-
math of fires, cities sometimes witnessed urban transformation and resettle-
ment policies that aimed at reconfiguring the demographic composition of
neighborhoods. In early modern Istanbul, one such significant transformation
occurred in the aftermath of the 1660 fire by building Yeni Valide mosque in
Eminönü, thereby transforming its surroundings from a Jewish neighborhood

60 Ahmet Refik, On Altıncı Asırda, 58, 60–61; Yıldız, “1660 İstanbul Yangını”, 34–35.
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to a predominantly Muslim one.61 The major fires of the 17th century indeed
intensified efforts to monitor, surveil, and prevent fires. While a survey of dam-
aged and burnt shops and warehouses was requested, new decrees were issued
to secure fireplaces and chimneys in houses and ban the use of timber in new
constructions in Istanbul and Galata: stone and brick were to be used instead.
In addition, there were heavier restrictions in place for maintaining fires in
houses at night, finding and punishing the culprits, and surveillance of resi-
dents. Meanwhile, other orders addressed the problem of safety during and
after fires, aimed at preventing pillaging, theft, and profiteering.62
These multifarious efforts to regulate life and death in the urban space were
by no means peculiar to Istanbul or the Ottoman Empire. Recent studies have
shown that late medieval and early modern cities of the Mediterranean system-
atically worked to improve conditions of urban health and safety—the body of
efforts at making cities more livable that have been collectively referred to as
healthscaping.63 Measures to handle mortality crises gradually matured into
regulations for monitoring, containing, and managing such misfortunes. The
Ottoman administration was not the only active agent in dealing with such
crises; other institutions, communities, and individuals, including neighbors,
families, and friends, also provided much-needed support and comfort to those
in need. More importantly, pious foundations (awqāf, sing. waqf) assisted those
in need during calamitous times; their support included the performance of
funerary rites and burial of bodies. Hospitals offered shelter, food, and treat-
ment to those in need, and provided medicines. Soup kitchens offered food for
the needy, travelers, and those without families.64 Non-Muslim communities
also offered such charitable services through their religious institutions.
Responses varied according to the nature of the calamity. For example, while
people fled from plague, that option was not feasible for more sudden threats,
such as earthquakes and fires. While archival and narrative sources offer ample
evidence for flight from plague by different sectors of Ottoman society during
61 Baer, “The Great Fire of 1660”, 159–81; Thys-Şenocak, Ottoman Women Builders. Yıldız,
“1660 İstanbul Yangını” points out that the Jews who lived in Eminönü at the time of
building of the Yeni Valide mosque were tenants in buildings endowed by Muslim indi-
viduals, and their removal to Hasköy did not result from the confiscation of their property.
62 Boyar & Fleet, Social History, 77–89; Yıldız, “1660 İstanbul Yangını”, 33, 35–45. For a more
detailed discussion of efforts to maintain public safety in Istanbul, see the chapter by
Necipoğlu in this volume.
63 See, for example, Geltner, “Public Health and the Pre-Modern City”, 231–45; idem, Roads
to Health; Rawcliffe & Weeda (eds.), Policing the Urban Environment in Premodern Europe.
64 On hospitals as charitable institutions, see, for example, Shefer-Mossensohn, Ottoman
Medicine. On soup kitchens and other charity institutions, see, for example, Ergin,
Neumann, & Singer (eds.), Feeding People; Singer, Charity in Islamic Societies.
- 978-90-04-46856-6
438 Varlık
the early modern era, such practices were likely limited to those who could
afford it; the dynastic family, members of the court, the administrative and
religious elites residing in the capital, European diplomatic and commercial
classes, and generally well-off Istanbulites typically fled to villages surround-
ing the city.65 Those who stayed put likely turned to other sources of comfort
and protection. Disaster studies suggest that people of the medieval and early
modern world had a whole repertoire of institutions and practices available to
them at such times, including seeking divine protection, organized communal
responses (e.g., processions, prayers, sermons), and magic rituals; Ottomans
were certainly no exception to this. Early modern Istanbulites employed a vari-
ety of practices to ward off calamities and protect themselves and their loved
ones from them. Religious practice was a source of comfort for many, who
individually or collectively engaged in protective rituals and prayers. Popular
Ottoman plague treatises are full of prayers for protection against plague and
other forms of violent death. These prayers could be used in a variety of ways,
including recitals at prescribed times of the day for a certain number of times,
or writing them down on paper and carrying those protective prayers as amu-
lets on one’s body or keeping them at one’s home. At times, prayers or talis-
manic magic squares were written on paper, which was then placed in water
for the ink to infuse, and applied internally or externally (e.g., washing one’s
body with it or drinking it). These protective methods almost always accom-
panied other practical remedies, such as sprinkling one’s body and home with
vinegar, essential oils, and certain plants and animal parts that were believed
to have protective or healing properties.66
At a communal level, organizing processions, collective prayers, animal sac-
rifices, and distribution of alms to the needy were commonplace in times of
calamity. For example, when plague was raging in the capital in the summer of
1592, Sultan Murad III (r. 1574–95) ordered communal prayers and processions
for deliverance from the epidemic. Animals were sacrificed and distributed to
65 Flight from plague is a contentious topic in the scholarship. While the earlier scholarship
assumed that Muslims did not flee plague epidemics on account of religious sanctions,
more recent studies have challenged that view by showing that multiple and often con-
tradictory legal opinions on flight were held by different jurists and scholars, that prac-
tice likely differed from legal theory, and that motivations for flight mostly depended on
social connections, rather than religious principles. See Varlık, Plague and Empire, 72–76;
idem, “Plague, Conflict, and Negotiation”, 261–88; White, “Rethinking Disease”; Ayalon,
Natural Disasters, 72–81, 135–51; Stearns, Infectious Ideas; idem, “Public Health, the State,
and Religious Scholarship”, 163–85.
66 Hanska, Strategies of Sanity and Survival; Dols, Black Death; idem, “Comparative
Communal Responses”, 269–88; Stearns, “New Directions”; Varlık, Plague and Empire,
201–02, 223–40.
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the needy as alms, and prisoners were set free.67 When plague hit again in 1597,
this time Sultan Mehmed III (r. 1595–1603) ordered the viziers to join a com-
munal prayer. Many in Istanbul met in Okmeydanı where communal prayers
were held for the deceased.68 These communal prayers and processions
continued to be held in the 17th century as well. For example, when plague
was raging in the capital in 1661, with more than 1000 dead bodies taken out
of the Edirnekapı every day, a communal prayer was held in Okmeydanı in
which multiple religious communities participated. Similarly, in 1664, when
Mehmed IV (r. 1648–87) called for a similar multireligious communal prayer in
preparation for an upcoming military campaign and seeking deliverance from
plague, it met opposition by the puritan Kadızadelis and turned into a major
religious controversy.69
At times of crisis and heavy mortality, many turned to saints for protec-
tion. Ottoman hagiographies include myriad anecdotes about mystics and
their intercession in response to the suffering of their communities to prove
their sanctity and powers. For example, the 15th-century sufi master Cemal
el-Halveti (d. 1499), protector-saint of Istanbul according to some, sacrificed
himself to save the city’s population from calamities. When Istanbul suffered
a deadly earthquake and an outburst of plague, Istanbulites took these as
apocalyptic portends and feared the End was nearing. Sultan Bayezid II con-
sulted religious dignitaries who advised that a pious man needed to be sent
to the Holy Cities of Mecca and Medina to pray at the Prophet’s tomb. Cemal
el-Halveti, appointed with the task, miraculously caused the earthquake after-
shocks and the plague to come to an end immediately upon his departure to
supplicate for the salvation of the capital.70 Other sufi masters were similarly
willing to offer their protection to Istanbul’s population from plagues and
other misfortunes. Thus Muhammad Nasuhi (d. 1718) was said to have sacri-
ficed his own daughter’s life in order to save the daughter of one of his devout
followers from plague.71 By the same token, non-Muslim residents of Istanbul
had similar practices and rituals to ward off calamities. For example, a church
in Arnavutköy on the Bosphorus was renowned for its holy spring that was
believed to protect from infectious diseases, as was the Zoodochos Pigi (“the
Life-giving Spring”) and its church outside the land walls in Yedikule. These and
other holy springs were popular destinations mainly among Istanbul’s Greek
67 Selaniki, Târih, ed. İpşirli, 285–87.

68 Selaniki, Târih, ed. İpşirli, 759.
69 Zilfi, “The Kadızadelis: Discordant Revivalism”, 264–65.
70 Curry, Transformation of Muslim Mystical Thought, 71; idem, “Scholars, Sufis, and Disease”,
45–46.
71 Curry, “Scholars, Sufis, and Disease”, 51–53.
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440 Varlık
Christians.72 It may be worth noting that many such sites were frequented by
multiple religious communities in Istanbul.
6 Conclusion
Studying death reminds us of the inconstancy of the human condition in a

premodern society in which human life expectancy was about half of what
is accepted in today’s developed countries, even at the best of times. Early
modern Istanbulites, like their contemporaries in other cities, were intimately
acquainted with the vagaries of urban life—they suffered from earthquakes,
plagues, fires, crime, and a high cost of living. Yet Ottoman Istanbul’s rising for-
tunes also allowed for constructing a new imagination of the city that came to
associate it with life, affluence, and prosperity. The following words from İlyas
Efendi’s Tārīḫ-i Ḳosṭanṭīniye (History of Constantinople; written in 1562) per-
fectly encapsulate this new vision: “[T]hey [the people of Istanbul] observed
that plague is not absent in the city, and the city dwellers are not free from sor-
row and grief…. However, it is a city of fortune and glory, which welcomes (and
is full of) fine and rare commodities from all around the world. Considering
this nature of the city, its population found comfort to a degree from other
calamities.”73 It was clear to early modern Istanbulites that they lived in a city
of great perils and untimely death for most; but they also knew they lived in a
city of great opportunities at the heart of a powerful empire.
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Chapter 17
Crime, Violence, and Urban Policing

Betül Başaran
I came to you uttering “Oh Istanbul, Istanbul!”

Ended up all alone in this giant city.
I tumbled down in one direction or another,
I had dreams, you stole them, Istanbul!
I came with hope, but what did I find?
And what about those streets paved with gold, Istanbul?1
∵
“The Gate of Felicity”, as the Ottoman elite often imagined Istanbul, enjoyed a
reputation for golden opportunities that are reflected in popular culture, liter-
ature, and songs even to this day. However, despite its appeal, this magnificent
city was also full of dangers. The risk of death was omnipresent, whether as a
result of various forms of violence inflicted by the state, the military, and the
delinquent among the civilians, or of natural disasters such as epidemics, fre-
quent fires, and earthquakes. Like other early modern cities, Istanbul attracted
continuous waves of migrants, its inhabitants experienced widespread urban
poverty, and successive wars created economic pressures that caused frequent
shortages of basic supplies. As in Vienna or Paris, chronic shortages in Istanbul
could lead to riots, lootings, demands for the removal of incumbent officials, as
well as violent state responses.2 These factors generally contributed to a grow-
ing fear of crime and a perceived increase in violence among city dwellers and
state authorities.3 In this chapter, I discuss some of the ways in which violence
in the form of state policing and of civilian criminality impacted the daily life
of Istanbulites. The first section is an overview of common types of crimes,
1 Song lyrics for “Istanbul” by Nadir Göktürk (2003), translated by the author.
2 See Tilly, “Food Supply”, 448. For supply problems in Vienna under Joseph II and Istanbul
under Selim III, see Yeşil, “Nizam-ı Cedid”; for early modern Europe, see Kaplan, “Provisioning
Paris”.
3 For comparison, see Ruff, Violence; Weisser, Crime; Martin, Pokrovskoe.

Crime, Violence, and Urban Policing 447
including crimes against property, homicide, and domestic violence, followed

by sexual crimes and what was perceived as immoral behavior. The second
section highlights the implementation of common administrative measures
regarding public order and the violence those measures often inflicted on the
denizens. It also explores perceptions of criminality in neighborhood settings,
particularly with regard to janissaries and migrants, and the strategies neigh-
borhood leaders and residents used in order to sustain order, and, at times, to
bend the rules in their own interests.
Ottoman archival materials and narrative sources generally reflect the
state-centric view that the maintenance of public order and security required
the “cleansing” (taṭhīr) of the city from certain undesirable groups that the
authorities associated with violence and crime, i.e. migrants, vagrants, bach-
elors, nominal-janissaries, prostitutes, and the urban poor. However, in the
reality of everyday life, the picture was more complicated. The current state of
scholarship does not allow us to establish factually a correlation between pov-
erty, marginality, and crime; and the association of crime with the abovemen-
tioned groups appears to be socially constructed rather than factual. Given the
nature of our sources at hand, I contend that we must include in our discussion
the notable impact of violence perpetrated by state authorities on the daily
lives of Istanbul’s inhabitants, which is unaccounted for in state documents.
While administrators exercised little direct control over the capital city, the
state’s policing measures generated different levels of violence and aggression.
Harsher regulations during times of economic and political pressures most
likely produced increased violence against vulnerable groups, and failure to
implement these regulations could lead to harsh punishment for the police
and inspectors.
The Ottoman Empire, like many other early modern states, did not have
specialized police forces independent of its military establishment. Public
order in the capital city was administered largely by janissaries and senior mil-
itary officials, such as the grand vizier and his deputy (ḳāymaḳām), the janis-
sary agha and his deputy (sekbānbaşı), the commander of the imperial guards
(bostāncıbaşı), the head of the daytime police (ṣūbaşı), and of the night guards
(ʿasesbaşı).4 During campaigns, a small number of janissaries remained in
Istanbul for policing purposes, which frequently raised concerns about safety
among residents and officials alike. The nature of policing that was widely
practiced in Istanbul in the early modern period resembled the systems of
indirect rule described by Charles Tilly in the context of European empires,
in which rulers “generally sought to co-opt local or regional power holders
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448 Başaran
without utterly transforming their basis of power and to create a distinctive

corps of royal servants … whose fate depended on that of the crown”.5 As he
explains, “indirect rule made it possible to govern without erecting, financing,
and feeding a bulky administrative apparatus”, but entailed risks of disloyalty,
corruption, and rebellion on behalf of the local power holders.6
The main mechanism that made indirect rule functional was the principle
of collective responsibility,7 on which the Ottoman state relied heavily. In fis-
cal, administrative, and legal matters, members of specific communities were
held responsible for each other. In Istanbul, new residents were obligated to
have a reliable community member in the neighborhood stand surety for them
as their guarantor (kefīl). Ottoman authorities and guild leaders also required
guarantors to allow migrant workers to stay in the city.8 Individuals with-
out guarantors fell into the legal category of the unidentifiable or unknown
(mechūl), which made them potential criminals associated with mischief
( fesād/mafsada) in the eyes of the administration. The rights or exigencies of
unidentifiable individuals did not constitute a legal priority given the govern-
ment’s overwhelming concern for the public good and prevention of harm to
communities. However, the practice of surety allowed unidentifiable individ-
uals to become identifiable (maʿlūm) and to exercise their rights by binding
them to trusted individuals or groups.9
During the 17th century and increasingly in the 18th, Ottoman administrators
considered migrants, vagrants, and bachelors to be potential threats to public
order, with little consideration of the conditions that may have forced them to
seek opportunities in Istanbul. This view was so prevalent and the language so
vilifying in official sources10 that one would expect the residents of the city to
turn against such groups entirely. The migrant-bachelors (bekār)11 of Istanbul
5 Tilly, Coercion, 24.

6 Ibid., 25.
7 This principle was used in policing communities in both England and continental
Europe, as well as in the United States until well into the 19th century. See Shelden,
Dangerous Classes, 72–73. England and continental Europe showed different patterns in
policing and the development of modern police. See Bayley, Patterns of Policing; idem,
“The Police”; Harris, “Policing and Public Order”; Kamen, “Public Authority”; Farge, Fragile
Lives; Milliot, “Urban Police”.
8 Başaran, Selim III, 33–38, 161–65.
9 Ibid., 101–05.
10 See Sariyannis, “‘Mob,’ ‘Scamps’ and Rebels”.
11 From the Persian bī-kār for unemployed, in the Ottoman context this word became the
generic reference to male migrants in search of work, regardless of actual marital status;
Başaran, Selim III, 33–40. I am borrowing “migrant-bachelor” as the best translation for
the word from Hamadeh, “Invisible City”.
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resembled the wandering poor in London and Paris, whose rapidly multiplying
numbers during the 18th century often alarmed other residents. It was as if the
social order itself was being threatened by the so-called “dangerous classes”.12
This theme occurs repeatedly in Ottoman administrative documents, as in the
recurrence of such terms as “unemployed vagrants”, “scoundrels”, and “rabble”,
along with concepts of “deep-cleansing” or “purifying” the city (from such
filth). Marinos Sariyannis’ study of 17th-century Istanbul’s underworld docu-
ments a rich and creative vocabulary used in Ottoman sources to refer to the
undesirable and dangerous classes of the city.13 Shirine Hamadeh draws atten-
tion to the use of such terms and their close connections with contemporary
notions of sanitation and hygiene, as they became frequently used by the turn
of the 19th century for garbage collection and street cleaning, as well as for
unwanted individuals.14 These phrases suggest an unmanageable, volatile, and
criminal class at the lower echelons of society that had to be contained and
controlled through exclusion, marginalization, and expulsion. However, the
social, economic, and cultural exchanges among urban dwellers of different
backgrounds proved to be much more complex than this state-centric rhetoric
would suggest, as I discuss in the last section on neighborhoods.
1 Crime and Violence in Everyday Life
Eighteenth-century sources allow for relatively fuller accounts of the history

of crime in Istanbul compared to previous periods, for which we only possess
scattered information.15 Even for the 18th century, we still need much delib-
eration and comparison before we can fully assess fluctuations in actual crime
rates.16 A large number of state documents and court records from the 17th
12 See, for instance, Sheldon, Dangerous Classes; Bayley, Patterns of Policing; Farge, Fragile
Lives; Lis & Soly, Worthy Efforts; Milliot, “Urban Police”.
13 See Sariyannis, “‘Mob,’ ‘Scamps’ and Rebels”, and idem, “Neglected Trades”.
14 Hamadeh, “Mean Streets”, 270.
15 In two sets of samples from nine registers of the greater Istanbul court records for the
years 1612 to 1617 and 1660 to 1664, Sariyannis examined 70 culprits of violent crimes and
found that 24 were associated with the military in some manner, ten were artisans and
traders, and eight were sailors. For property crimes, he found that five of the 38 thieves
were janissaries and cavalry (sipāhīs), five were servants, and four were slaves: see
Sariyannis, “Neglected Trades”, 170–71, n. 59. There is also an incomplete register that lists
326 people who were sent to the galleys for various crimes between 1563 and 1567; İpşirli,
“Kürek Cezası”. Such sporadic figures are only suggestive and do not allow us to draw reli-
able conclusions or to make generalizations.
16 Ergene, “Crime and Punishment”, 639–40.
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450 Başaran
and 18th centuries have been published in modern Turkish, but they have not
yet been examined systematically and collectively.17 Below, I briefly discuss
two categories of common crimes in Istanbul’s neighborhoods and public
spaces, focusing on the 18th century: first, crimes against property, homicide,
and domestic violence; and second, sexual offenses and immorality, including
prostitution and allegations of prostitution.
2 Common Crimes and Criminals
In her criminological survey of Istanbul during the 18th century, Fariba

Zarinebaf provides insights into the social and economic context of crime
and, more broadly, into the history of urban lower classes, based largely on
contemporary accounts of Ottoman and European observers and various state
documents. According to her study, in the 1720s and 1730s, criminal activ-
ity included counterfeiting, violence and homicide, prostitution, and gang
violence, but theft was the most common cause of convictions. As in 18th-
century Paris, where two-thirds of the convicts were recent immigrants from
rural areas, rural migrants, unemployed single men, poor artisans, and profes-
sional thieves committed the majority of robberies.18 While there may have
been a connection between poverty, recent arrival, and theft, the authorities
did not seem to be particularly concerned about the conditions that might
have led newcomers to criminal activity. Even though large numbers of peo-
ple relied on charity and charitable foundations such as public soup kitchens,
these resources provided only limited relief.19 Poverty and starvation were
widespread in Istanbul, as in contemporary London, Paris, Cairo, Damascus,
and Vienna.20 The anonymous author of Risāle-i Ġarībe (Treatise on Strange
Things), writing in late 17th-century Istanbul, describes homeless people sleep-
ing in the furnaces or boiler rooms of public baths.21 Estate records of deceased
residents suggest a prevalence of general poverty among many groups, includ-
ing divorced or widowed women, servants, unskilled laborers, low-skilled
17 See, for instance, Kuran (ed.), Mahkeme Kayıtları Işığında, and Kal’a (ed.), İstanbul
Ahkam Defterleri.
18 Zarinebaf, Crime and Punishment in Istanbul, 84–85. See also Gatrell, Lenman, & Parker
(eds.), Crime and the Law; Hay, “War, Dearth, and Theft”.
19 See Ergin, Neumann, & Singer (eds.), Feeding People.
20 Zarinebaf, Crime and Punishment in Istanbul, 46; Yeşil, “Nizam-ı Cedid”; Kaplan,
“Provisioning Paris”.
21 Risâle-i garîbe, ed. Develi, 96.
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artisans, and peddlers, not to mention beggars.22 For newcomers, opportuni-

ties could be extremely limited, and survival depended on successful integra-
tion into complex regional and occupational networks, including (at least from
the 16th century onward) janissary affiliation. Istanbul became, much like the
Paris described by Arlette Farge, a center of numerous comings and goings.23
Many individuals and families did not make it, and some of them even received
state assistance to return to their places of origin.24 State documents generally
speak more directly to the perceived dangers and threats to urban public order
associated with such groups than to their well-being.
Işık Tamdoğan’s examination of interpersonal crimes in a 1763 court register
of Üsküdar suggests that a majority of the criminal activity took place in pub-
lic and semi-public areas such as busy streets, docks, gardens, orchards, and
fields.25 In these areas, violence often broke out mainly between individuals
who did not know each other well, such as two porters, or a boatman and a
customer.26 By contrast, violent crimes that took place in private spaces, such
as the family home, often involved people who were related to each other and
included neighborhood leaders, spouses, in-laws, and seminary (madrasa)
students.27 In general, people tried to resolve conflicts within their families
or communities, and went to the court as a last resort. However, individuals
who were not well-connected had limited access to such informal networks
of conflict resolution and they might have either resorted to violence more
quickly or ended up in court more easily because of their marginal position
in society. Similarly, in early modern Europe crimes committed by strangers
(as opposed to the local poor) were most likely to come before the courts.28
Furthermore, since the correlation between marginality and crime in early
modern societies was largely perceived and socially constructed, rather than
factually established,29 it is possible that there were frequent complaints about
migrants, bachelors, and outsiders precisely because they were associated
with violence and crime in the minds of denizens and state officials. These
factors might account for the frequency of court records involving crimes
that took place in public and semi-public spaces, which were occupied by
individuals with high mobility, loose connections, and infamous reputations,
22 Zarinebaf, Crime and Punishment in Istanbul, 35.

23 Farge, Fragile Lives, 19.
24 Zarinebaf, Crime and Punishment in Istanbul, 47.
25 Tamdoğan, “Üsküdar”, 82–83.
26 Ibid., 89–92.
27 Ibid., 94.
28 Jütte, Poverty and Deviance, 151.
29 Ibid.
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452 Başaran
such as laborers, migrant-bachelors, and janissaries. Docks, for example, typi-

cally contained housing for laborers, most of them migrants, as well as coffee-
houses, bathhouses, and taverns. In 1763, inspectors registered more than 250
rooms for bachelors on the docks of Kasım Paşa and Galata that lodged nearly
2000 artisans.30 Another register from 1792 listed 144 coffeehouses, 106 bach-
elor houses, and 50 inns with more than 800 rooms in intra muros Istanbul.31
Authorities and neighborhood residents alike viewed such spaces with suspi-
cion, but we know that they simultaneously provided havens for many differ-
ent groups of men. Bachelor houses and inns played an important role as part
of the networks that helped newcomers socialize and find work, much like
the garnis (inns) of 18th-century Paris.32 Such constrictive spaces could indeed
function as instruments of segregation and of integration.33
Among the urban poor and migrants, women and children lived even more
fragile lives compared to men.34 In archival documents, women appear fre-
quently as beggars, along with children. They also appear in chronicles as street
fortune-tellers and psychics from different ethnic and religious backgrounds.35
Officials’ anxieties focused mostly on healthy women who were unmarried,
divorced, or widowed, as they seemed more vulnerable to turn to vagrancy,
prostitution, and begging on the street.36 Women appear in records involving
crimes like theft, both individually and with others. Yet, we must keep in mind
that women were among the most vulnerable to different forms of violence.37
They were easier targets for robbery and assault, as well as sexual and physi-
cal violence. Since families tended to resolve matters of sexual misconduct
and immorality within the household and community, we can assume that
a majority of instances involving violence against women were not recorded.
Domestic violence presumably constituted a common and tolerated form of
discipline in many Muslim, Christian, and Jewish households. 18th-century
court records from Üsküdar and Galata include cases of men physically abus-
ing their daughters or wives, mothers-in-law beating their sons-in-law, sons
beating their mothers, and various types of violence involving neighbors and
30 Başaran, Selim III, 134, n. 91.

31 Ibid., 133.
32 See Milliot, “La surveillance des migrants”; and idem, “Urban Police”.
33 See Hamadeh, “Invisible City”, 181–82 on urban inns.
34 See the contributions by Kuru and Thys-Şenocak in this volume.
35 For example, Greek and Gypsy fortune tellers (kız bakcası) and psychics (cinci) from the
Maghreb; see Risâle-i garîbe, ed. Develi, 28, 36, 90, 94.
36 See Özbek, “‘Beggars’ and ‘Vagrants’ in State Policy and Public Discourse”. For discus-
sions of able-bodied beggars and vagrants in early modern Europe, see Jütte, Poverty and
Deviance, 143–57.
37 Sariyannis, “Neglected Trades”, 174–77.
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in-laws.38 Perhaps it should not come as a surprise that by the 19th century,
some women found using poisons like arsenic an appealing method to kill
their husbands.39
3 Sexual Crimes and Immoral Behavior
Illicit sexual behavior, broadly defined as intercourse outside of marriage

or concubinage, was illegal in Islamic law and subject to punishment.40
However, there was no special treatment of prostitution per se and it was con-
sidered adultery. Yet, the requirement of sharia law for four eyewitnesses with
identical testimonies made it nearly impossible to determine that fornication
took place, and the severe punishments prescribed by the sharia—stoning,
flogging, or execution—were seldom implemented. Thus, studies suggest that
prostitution was a legally ambiguous category of crime, and that the distinc-
tions between adultery, prostitution, and loose morals were quite blurry in
Ottoman legal practice.41
Sariyannis identifies three types of prostitution. They involved prostitutes
who brought clients to their house, others who used taverns, public baths, lanes,
or the client’s house, and others yet whose procurers brought them together
with the client into the latter’s house. Both prostitutes and procurers could be
men or women.42 Bathhouses and taverns in particular had a reputation for
being associated with female and male prostitution.43 A fourth kind of pros-
titution functioned somewhat like an escort service and involved the illegal
use of slave girls. Prostitution of female slaves was endemic in Mediterranean
port cities, and in Istanbul, both licensed and unlicensed slave dealers were
involved in it.44 Faroqhi points out that the 1640 price register for Istanbul
contained allegations about female slave traders who provided temporary
38 Tamdoğan, “Üsküdar”, 88; Zarinebaf, Mediterranean Encounters, 243–44.

39 See Aykut, “Toxic Murder”. There is a corresponding Ottoman History Podcast episode in
Turkish and I applaud the producers’ choice of music for this episode: http://www.otto
manhistorypodcast.com/2014/07/poison-murder-women-ottoman-empire.html.
40 Peters, Crime and Punishment, 59–64.
41 See, for example, Baldwin, “Prostitution” and F. Yılmaz, “Fornication and Prostitution”.
The most detailed study of prostitution in Istanbul in the early modern era is Sariyannis,
“Prostitution”. For the 18th century, see Zarinebaf’s discussion of prostitution and the vice
trade in Crime and Punishment in Istanbul.
42 Sariyannis, “Prostitution”, 58–59.
43 For male prostitution, see ibid., 60–62.
44 Zilfi, Women and Slavery, 199.
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454 Başaran
companions for the ambassadors of Poland and Moldavia.45 Zilfi notes that
the same register listed eight female traders affiliated with the central slave
market in Istanbul, and provides a number of 18th-century examples.46
In the court and police records of Istanbul, allegations of prostitution appear
frequently. Among the most vulnerable to accusations of perceived immoral
behavior were women who lived without male relatives, widows, and divorced
women.47 Unfortunately, sources speak more about the clients and procurers,
and much less about the social background of the alleged prostitutes. Clients
sometimes appear to have military affiliations or belong to marginal groups
like bachelors or vagrants. However, single men and scoundrels who could not
afford a wife or a concubine were not the only ones seeking the company of
prostitutes. For example, popular meddāḥ (public storyteller) stories made fun
of rich youths who wasted their family wealth on prostitutes.48 The anony-
mous author of the Risāle-i Ġarībe from the late 17th century noted the use of
intermediaries who searched the streets for prostitutes for their employers,49
and a 16th-century play told the story of a Venetian man and two prostitutes.50
Additionally, court records present examples of religious dignitaries and offi-
cials who were removed from office and banished for helping prostitutes set-
tle and receive clients in their neighborhoods.51 On the other hand, Ottoman
authorities occasionally hired prostitutes with imperial funds: a military and
administrative expense report from 1778 lists gifts and travel expenses for pros-
titutes from Karaferye/Veria in northern Greece who were sent to various army
outposts.52
During the 18th century, the scope of discretionary punishments in penaliz-
ing crimes concerning public and moral order became quite extensive.53 The
legal procedure regarding prostitution and illicit sex is not within the scope of
this chapter, however, expulsion to different neighborhoods appears to have
45 Faroqhi, Stories of Ottoman Men and Women, 255. This register was published by
Kütükoğlu, Osmanlılarda Narh.
46 Zilfi, Women and Slavery, 199–206.
47 Sariyannis, “Prostitution”; Yi, “Expulsion”; Tamdoğan, “Üsküdar”; Başaran, Selim III, 187–
200. We must note that some women fought back against such allegations and sought
justice; F. Yılmaz, “Fornication and Prostitution”; Başaran, Selim III, 196–97.
48 Sariyannis, “Prostitution”, 52.
49 Risâle-i garîbe, ed. Develi, 36.
50 Sariyannis, “Prostitution”, 52.
52 Sariyannis, “Prostitution”, 51 n. 59.
53 See, for instance, Tuğ, Politics of Honor.
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been increasingly common in the 18th century.54 There was a strong conserva-
tive backlash in Istanbul following the deposition of Ahmed III (r. 1703–30) in
response to a perceived easing of sexual boundaries and women’s increased
public visibility.55 In the following decades, the angry voices of moralists and
the popularity of sexual themes in contemporary narrative sources, sporadic
punishment of prostitutes in the form of banishment without trial, and exem-
plary public executions, sometimes by hanging and drowning, likely reflected
such anxieties rather than an actual, verifiable increase in the number of
women engaged in commercial sex.56 Despite frequent expulsions, prosti-
tutes in the 18th century rarely incurred formerly common punishments such
as flogging or the bastinado.57
Under the influence of obsessive monarchs and pietists, as well as economic
and political pressures, the regulation of public morality by the state implied
various degrees of violence in the form of harsh punishments for “immoral”
actions.58 Throughout the 18th century, the consequences for breaching
such regulations generally seem to have deteriorated. Monarchs like Selim III
(r. 1789–1807) repeatedly ended their edicts with phrases such as, “If I see
anyone doing this again, I will kill them!” Or, when addressing the authori-
ties, edicts might end as follows: “If I see such behavior again, you will regret
it!”59 Selective exemplary punishments including executions were highly
unpredictable and targeted individuals for a variety of actions, such as wear-
ing improper clothing, offering women public boat rides, drinking, prostitu-
tion, gambling, or violating guild rules. Since police forces also lived under
the threat of punishment for failing to implement the regulations, it is likely
that the situation led to “harsher justice for the population”, especially among
more vulnerable groups, such as the poor, women, non-Muslim residents, and
migrant-bachelors.60
In contrast to daytime, nocturnal social life remained largely concealed
from authorities and the public gaze, heightening the anxieties of officials
54 Hamadeh, “Mean Streets”, 267–68; Başaran, Selim III, 197–98; Zarinebaf, Mediterranean
Encounters, 235–36.
55 For women’s visibility in the growing garden culture, see Hamadeh, The City’s Pleasures.
56 For instance, Selim III ordered that six prostitutes be hanged from six different gates of
the city, and that another prostitute be thrown into the sea in a sack; see Hamadeh, “Mean
Streets”, 266. We also possess qualitatively and quantitatively much better information
for the 18th century, which may also account for the frequent references and court docu-
ments dealing with prostitution, but also crime in general during this period.
57 Ibid., 268–70.
58 For sartorial regulations, see Zilfi, “Goods in the Mahalle”.
59 Karal, “Selim III”, 97–102.
60 Zilfi, Women and Slavery, 90–91.
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456 Başaran
about subversive modes of socialization and illicit activity.61 In the absence

of street lighting and centralized policing until the latter half of the 19th cen-
tury, we can assume that state control was even weaker in the dark. After sun-
set, residents were required to carry lanterns to allow themselves to be seen
and identified, which also demonstrated their consent to be seen; but, other-
wise, authorities and moralists viewed darkness with suspicion as a potential
hideout for illicit behavior.62
4 Perceptions of Crime, Violence, and Resistance
Like most state documents that directly related crime and violence with spe-
cific population groups, Ottoman chronicles attributed much of the violence
and crime in Istanbul during the 17th and 18th centuries to migration and
to the presence in the city of large numbers of soldiers/paramilitaries. They
pointed especially to janissaries due to a number of rebellions that were either
led or supported by janissaries during the early 17th century.63 However,
this view did not reflect the reality of everyday life. The issue of migrants in
neighborhood settings will be addressed shortly. Nuanced analyses of janissary
rebellions, too, suggest that they reflected complex socioeconomic and politi-
cal realities, which went far beyond mere violence in the hands of corrupt sol-
diers pursuing their own corporate interests.64 On the contrary, beginning in
the early 17th century, janissaries gradually grew into a massive socio-military
grouping with social status and privileges that had a unique relationship with
the masses; and they often could act as part of competing interest groups and
under-represented segments of society.65 As Şerif Mardin suggests, we can
best approach such events not as gratuitous acts of violence, but rather as a
crisis in the “tacit” social contract between the rulers and the ruled; a crisis in
which popular revolts turned into a warning for the rulers.66
61 See Kafadar, “How Dark”; Wishnitzer, “Into the Dark”; and idem, “Shedding New Light”.
62 See Wishnitzer, “Into the Dark”; and idem “Shedding New Light”.
63 Fleet & Boyar, Social History, 89–121 rely on many of these chronicles and present a good
overview for readers unfamiliar with Ottoman Turkish.
64 Beginning with the works of Rifat Abou-El-Haj and Cemal Kafadar, scholars have revisited
the issue of the corruption of janissaries and their role in revolts. Abou-El-Haj, The 1703
Rebellion; Kafadar, “Janissaries and Other Riffraff”, and idem, “Yeniçeri-Esnaf Relations”;
Sunar, “Grocers”; and idem, “Cauldron of Dissent”, Yılmaz Diko, “Blurred Boundaries”; and
G. Yılmaz, “The Economic and Social Roles of Janissaries”.
65 Yaycioğlu, Partners, 30–34, esp. n. 53. See also the chapter by Yılmaz in this volume.
66 Mardin, “Freedom”, 26–30.
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During the 17th and especially 18th century, the civilian population and mil-
itary groups increasingly blended into each other, and it has been argued that
their interests were mutually shaped and impacted by each other.67 This situ-
ation created anxiety for and drew criticism from the ruling elite. Janissaries
increasingly joined the ranks of artisans and craftsmen (eṣnāf ). Likewise, civil-
ians, including new migrant-bachelors, looked for ways to enter various janis-
sary networks. Some level of connection with the military provided certain
advantages to civilians, who might attempt to use that connection for their
own benefit, but the janissary-eṣnāf-migrant association was just one of the
many networks utilized by newcomers to negotiate power and resist exclusion.
The nature of the relationship between an individual urbanite and the janis-
saries was complicated by numerous factors, including professional connec-
tions and regional migration patterns.68 Janissaries built alliances across all
levels of society; they developed popular claims and also, at times, appeared
as protectors of the common people. They had the ability to mobilize urban
crowds, but they could also control the crowds; thus, they also curbed violence
in some ways.69
Ottoman sources’ vilifying language about janissaries, their affiliates, and
migrant-bachelors—the othering and stigmatization of these groups as dan-
gerous, criminal, and not belonging to the city’s law-abiding society—speaks
directly to the anxieties of the ruling elite. Imperial decrees related to migrants
repeatedly employed the legal concept of public good to remind communities
of their collective responsibility to police and report unidentifiable outsiders.
The administration’s approach produced and justified state violence, espe-
cially in the form of exemplary punishments and repeated expulsions from the
city, with no apparent concern for the well-being of the undocumented people.
5 State Violence and Migrants
Early modern Istanbul relied on migrants for its survival. Its administrators
and residents sometimes welcomed newcomers, and at other times tried to
discourage, isolate, and banish them. Until the second half of the 16th cen-
tury, Ottoman authorities encouraged migration and even resorted to forced
67 See Kafadar, “Janissaries and Other Riffraff”; Yi, “Artisans’ Networks and Revolt”, 108–14.
68 Başaran & Kırlı, “Some Observations”. It is important to note that some of these networks
that centered around the janissaries survived even after the abolition of the janissary
corps in 1826; see Turna, “İstanbul’da Berber Olmak”.
69 Yaycioğlu, Partners, 32, and Yılmaz in this volume.
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458 Başaran
migration to repopulate the city. By the first half of the 16th century, Istanbul
had recovered from the destruction of the conquest and eventually became
one of the most populous and prosperous cities of early modern Europe.
During the late 16th and 17th centuries, on the other hand, large numbers of
peasants fled the violence in the Anatolian countryside as a result of the Celali
rebellions in search of safety and opportunities in urban areas.70 Many of them
ended up in Istanbul. Sources indicate that significant numbers of Armenian,
Jewish, Greek, and Muslim immigrants arrived in Istanbul during the 17th
century.71 Many individuals (mostly men) and households continued to arrive
in the city in large numbers during the 18th century, driven by economic prob-
lems, wars, and lack of opportunity in their provinces. The administration’s
persistent attempts to disrupt migration represented a dichotomy between the
Ottoman government’s quest for control on the one hand, and Istanbul’s actual
dependency on a steady flow of newcomers to sustain its economy and popu-
lation, on the other.72 Istanbul’s recovery after epidemics, devastating fires, and
earthquakes depended on the influx of migrants, as for example in Marseille
following the 1720 plague epidemic.73 Research suggests that during the late
18th and early 19th centuries, a majority of employers and employees in cer-
tain services and trades were migrants.74 Furthermore, the first civilian census
in 1885 revealed that nearly 53 per cent of Istanbul’s residents had been born
elsewhere.75 These findings suggest that migrants constituted a fundamental
component of the social and economic fabric of the city.
Throughout the 17th and 18th centuries, and especially following the rebel-
lion in 1730 led by Patrona Halil, himself an Albanian migrant, and the market
revolt in 1740, officials’ anxieties over the policing of public order increased
significantly in reaction to the capability of different segments of society to
form alliances and to resist state measures. Following such uprisings, which
impacted the city’s inhabitants significantly, authorities often pointed fin-
gers at migrant-bachelors, especially Albanians, whom they associated with
unrest and dissent.76 Particularly during times of war, political instability,
70 See Özel, “The Reign of Violence”. On the question of a general population pressure in
Anatolia during this period, see idem, “Population Changes”.
71 See Polonyalı Simeon, Polonyalı Simeon’un Seyahatnâmesi, ed. Andreasyan, 4; Ben-Naeh,
Jews, 64–69, n. 81; Yerasimos, “Les Grecs”, 391; and Shapiro, “The Great Armenian Flight”.
73 Panzac, La peste, 377–78, n. 66. For epidemics in the Ottoman Empire, see Varlık, Plague
and Empire, and Varlık’s chapter in this volume.
74 See Başaran & Kırlı, “Some Observations”.
75 According to the census, the total population including intra muros and the three town-
ships of Galata, Üsküdar, and Eyüp was 873,000: see Somel, “1885 Istanbul Census”.
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and shortages, the government sent repeated orders that warned denizens
about the dangers of unmanageable numbers of migrants in their midst, who
were allegedly responsible for causing vice, food shortages, epidemics, crimi-
nal activity, and disturbing public order. We are all too familiar with the kind
of fear and anxiety this type of stigmatization often creates, and its negative
implications on social harmony and cohesion within communities.
As officials’ anxieties peaked during the 18th century in response to rebel-
lions (such as those of 1730 and 1740), war, political instability, and frequent
shortages, inspections and restrictions followed suit. Indeed, short of building
a wall around the entire city, administrators tried everything in their means
to curb migration by imposing severe restrictions and bans on travel permits,
creating new checkpoints, using exemplary punishments, and enforcing the
requirements of guarantorship. They rounded up “undesirables” and shipped
them off in large numbers. Following the market revolt in 1740, which came on
the heels of an extremely severe winter and alarming shortage of basic food-
stuffs, government officials hunted down troublemakers in bachelor houses
and inns, public baths—the kinds of spaces “the perfidious and hypocritical”
Albanian migrant-bachelors frequented and inhabited—and expelled them by
the hundreds.77 We do not have detailed descriptions of the manner in which
these expulsions took place by sea and land routes; however, one can imagine
that they must have made quite a public scene. In June 1740, the expulsions
involved many days of filling boats with people and literally shipping them
off. This certainly provided a public opportunity to terrify any undocumented
person who had the good fortune of surviving the death toll of nearly 3000
people after the suppression of the revolt.78 One register specifies 497 men
who were expelled in 1763, making up nearly 10 per cent of the 5156 employers
and employees in 41 different guilds in the Galata and Kasım Paşa region.79
Another register lists 431 migrants and vagrants who were rounded up in 1792
to be immediately expelled. During the reign of Selim III, just between the end
of 1791 and middle of 1793, hundreds of men were expelled.80
77 Olson, “Revolt of 1740”, 195–98.

78 Ibid., 196. This estimate for the death toll came from Everard Fawkener, the British
Ambassador in Istanbul between 1735 and 1742.
79 Başaran, Selim III, 107, 135, and chapter 4 for a detailed examination of various registers
from the 1790s.
80 Presumably, there are other registers that have not been identified or studied. For
example, some of the census registers for certain parts of the city from Selim III’s reign
are missing.
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460 Başaran
These numbers constitute quite a visible form of state violence and can-
not be considered trivial for a city of roughly 400,000 people at the time.81
The persistent threat of being forced out of the city surely frightened newcom-
ers and pushed them to the margins, and this appears to be in tune with the
intentions of some rulers. Selim III stated in one of his imperial decrees that
to encourage obedience, it was “necessary to frighten these people a little”.82
The authorities did not display much concern about whether such people had
any secure place to go back to or the reasons that had led them to migrate,
which undoubtedly contributed to the swift return of many migrant-bachelors
who had been expelled before.83 Many of these men looked for ways to enter
the city’s various solidarity networks for protection and survival. Among these
connections, area of origin (hemşehrilik) and janissary networks seem to have
been most prevalent during the 18th and early 19th centuries.84 Kafadar notes
the colorful designations used in Ottoman vocabulary, such as pırpırı, for
newcomers who tried different ways to build connections with janissaries to
establish themselves successfully in the new urban environment (Fig. 17.1).85
Officials generally viewed such connections with suspicion, as can be gleaned
from an imperial order issued during a riot involving Albanian bakers in 1796,
in which Sultan Selim III suggested sending the bakers to the battlefront as an
effective measure to deal with them, since many of them were janissaries.86
6 Neighborhood Networks and Newcomers
Istanbul residents had the collective responsibility to police their neigh-

borhoods. As a result of the predominant politics of fear and scapegoating,
denizens grew particularly anxious about unidentified people—primarily
migrants, vagrants, and bachelors—in their midst during difficult times;
81 This number is an educated guess that stays closer to the lower end of the various and
wildly incompatible numbers on Istanbul’s population, including both the walled city
and the boroughs, during the 18th century. I have argued elsewhere that the alleged popu-
lation increase at this time demonstrated official fears and anxieties rather than reality.
We do not possess verifiable data to support arguments in favor of an actual population
increase. See Başaran, “1829 Census” and idem, Selim III, 56–62.
82 In Ottoman Turkish, this reads as: Bu halkı biraz korkutmalıdır; see Karal, “Selim III”, 97.
83 Faroqhi, “Daily Bread”, 169.
84 For janissary-eṣnāf symbiosis and regional networks, see Başaran & Kırlı, “Some
Observations”.
85 Kafadar, “Janissaries and Other Riffraff”, 118. The word pırpırı could refer to a type of head-
gear worn by some janissaries.
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Figure 17.1 Jean Brindesi, Janissaries with tattoos bearing the numbers and signs of their
regiments, with Pırpırı Esnaf at the far left. From Brindesi, Elbicei atika. Musée
des anciens costumes turcs de Constantinople, Paris, 1855
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462 Başaran
however, they did not reject newcomers and migrants categorically. They
sometimes accepted newcomers to join their communities for a complex
web of reasons, despite the state’s association of criminality and immorality
with unidentified individuals. Throughout the 16th and 17th centuries, impe-
rial decrees ordered the expulsion of anyone who had migrated within the last
five years and even banned bachelors from living in residential neighborhoods.
However, in her study of Istanbul during the early part of the 17th century,
Eunjeong Yi actually found that neighborhoods appeared to be rather open to
outsiders—especially, but not exclusively, to new migrant families.87
Residents certainly tried to maximize their control over newcomers and
made decisions about what constituted acceptable behavior. This is evident
in numerous group petitions submitted to courts in order to banish “undesir-
able” persons from the neighborhood. When these cases appeared in court
records, however, the defendants were usually deemed by the petitioners to
be a threat to the neighborhood based on their “immoral” or “unacceptable”
behavior, not their migrant or ethnic backgrounds. In these cases, residents
voiced additional concerns about such people bringing potentially dangerous
outsiders into their neighborhood, which speaks to a general anxiety about
undesirable outsiders.88 We should note that in parallel to such aggressive
attempts at expulsion, the acceptance of new members into a neighborhood
community was not infrequent and neighborhood leaders (imams, priests, or
rabbis) and residents could be motivated to do so for a number of reasons.
For example, the promise of sharing the burden of communally levied ʿavāriż
and jizya taxes, especially in impoverished neighborhoods, probably increased
the likelihood of being accepted; newcomers may even have been welcomed
if they had some means. Documentary evidence suggests that some neighbor-
hood imams even collected new types of fees, in one case a so-called “key fee”
(miftāḥ aḳçesi), which might suggest both a steady flow of newcomers and the
level of vulnerability those newcomers faced.89
Madoka Morita’s examination of a register from 1745 reveals a pattern of
integration that had previously escaped the attention of many research-
ers. This document reveals that under the auspices of the judge of Istanbul,
87 Yi, “Expulsion”. I thank the author for providing me with a copy of her unpublished con-
ference paper.
88 These outsiders were variously described as nā-maḥrem (outside the scope of immediate
family or more generally outsider), eşḳıyā (brigands), levendāt (rogues), or fevāḥiş (prosti-
tutes) during the early 17th century; see ibid. A common reference to outsiders during the
late 18th century was nā-maʿlūm or mechūl, both meaning “unknown”. Başaran, Selim III,
190–93.
89 Ibid., 202.
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41 imams registered immigrants in their neighborhoods, not in order to expel

them, but to integrate them into local communities regardless of their marital
status and date of arrival.90 It stands in striking contrast to the registers men-
tioned above of inspections focused mainly on commercial districts of the city
to identify migrants without guarantors in order to expel them. Even though
the register is an incomplete list of neighborhoods and leaves many questions
regarding the particular circumstances behind this policy and its prevalence
unanswered, it supports the notion that attitudes towards migrants varied,
both at the official and the communal levels, and was based on myriad factors,
including the neighborhood’s socioeconomic makeup and location, and the
migrants’ own networks and personal connections.91 Sariyannis notes that the
Ottoman practice of relative openness to migrants in neighborhoods resem-
bled the Byzantine model of philanthropy and social welfare, as opposed to
that of exclusion and persecution in contemporary Europe: in cases of repeated
offenses, previous convictions influenced attitudes towards criminals and cer-
tainly gave them a bad reputation. However, such convictions did not exclude
them from a normal life by lifelong confinement into a social margin, at least
during the 17th and 18th centuries.92 The stigmatization of individuals belong-
ing to certain groups came to an end once a person successfully established
reliable connections, primarily through finding work and/or a guarantor. In
addition, even though the integration of migrant families into neighborhood
life proved to be easier and attitudes toward single migrants wavered, some
neighborhoods also accepted bachelors, who could eventually bring their fam-
ilies or marry locally.93
Imams, priests, and rabbis played an important role in neighborhood gov-
ernance and used their privilege both to implement and circumvent official
policy at the local level. This impacted the integration of newcomers into
neighborhoods and their vulnerability to aggression. Community leaders’
support could be decisive in determining the outcome of petitions request-
ing the expulsion of certain residents. Furthermore, state regulations obliged
new residents to get the leader’s approval to reside in a particular neighbor-
hood, a “vetting” practice that arguably made individuals without connec-
tions more vulnerable than those with ties in the city, but could sometimes
turn to their benefit, as previously mentioned. This could have been a way to
keep undesirables out, but neighborhood officials sometimes bent the rules
90 Morita, “Between Hostility and Hospitality”.

91 Ibid., 79.
92 Sariyannis, “‘Mob,’ ‘Scamps’ and Rebels”, 117.
93 Morita, “Between Hostility and Hospitality”, 75–77.
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464 Başaran
for their own interests. During the late 18th century, petitioners periodically
complained about community leaders who accepted immoral individuals and
prostitutes or collected a personal fee before allowing new residents into the
neighborhood. In one case, residents complained to the judge that their imam
(the same one who was collecting a “key fee”) had sent four decent people into
custody for failing to pay this fee and accused them of running a brothel.94 We
should keep in mind that some migrants assimilated more successfully than
others, and some neighborhoods were more welcoming than others. In the
Kasap İlyas neighborhood, for example, residents did not battle against out-
siders and generation after generation of migrants from Arapkir lived there in
relative harmony.95
In addition to the role of neighborhood leaders and neighborhood dynam-
ics mentioned above, the patronage and support of wealthy elite households
(as in the Kasap İlyas neighborhood) of janissaries and civilians could also
counteract government attempts to control migration and isolate outsiders
and migrant-bachelors from residential neighborhoods. During the 16th and
17th centuries, members of the military, administrative, and palace circles
founded bachelor houses and inns, commonly as revenue-yielding endow-
ments to support their charitable foundations.96 When authorities started
demolishing bachelor houses during the 18th century, they were often quickly
rebuilt with janissary backing. Despite the state’s efforts to segregate and iso-
late them, many migrant-bachelors entered diverse social networks and their
“urban agency and opportunities for resistance” went beyond their ties to
janissaries.97 Authorities found informal civilian support networks more dif-
ficult to disrupt, as was the case, for example, with the illegal bachelor-housing
sector that expanded during the 18th century. Residents from all walks of
life saw opportunities for profit from high rates of migration and engaged in
illicit construction and rental projects, with makeshift structures and building
extensions developing everywhere in the city.98 Government regulations and
punishments for breaching them, repeated expulsions, and the destruction of
illegally built structures all failed to thwart the various networks of support
and resistance that migrant-bachelors formed with Istanbulites. Even Sultan
Selim III’s allocation of unprecedented resources to the registration and polic-
ing of migrant-bachelors at the end of the 18th century proved deficient, at
least from the perspective of the state.99

95 Behar, A Neighborhood in Ottoman Istanbul.
96 Hamadeh, “Invisible City”, 176–79.
97 Ibid., 184–85.
98 Ibid., 185–87.
99 See Başaran, Selim III, 106–67.
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7 Some Concluding Remarks
Like numerous other cities of the early modern era, crime and violence made
up an integral aspect of daily life in Ottoman Istanbul. Common categories of
crimes included, but were not limited to, crimes against property, homicide,
domestic violence, sexual crimes, and immoral behavior. From the perspective
of state officials, “cleansing” the city from undesirable groups who were seen as
the main perpetrators of these crimes was the sine qua non for maintaining pub-
lic order. However, in the reality of everyday life, the picture was more complex.
While many primary and secondary sources attribute crime almost exclusively
to such groups categorically, this viewpoint likely resulted from anxieties about
a perceived increase in crime and concern about a seemingly swelling urban
population, especially during the 18th and early 19th centuries. At the current
state of scholarship, we do not possess reliable comparative data to support
an explicit rise of crime rates; nor do we have reliable numbers for migrants
in Istanbul throughout the early modern period. What we can observe is that
the fear and anxiety associated with such marginalized groups gained more
urgency throughout the 18th century, which led to severe policing measures
that in turn produced more violence. Authorities frequently vilified migrant-
bachelors in response to complex problems that arose partly as a result of the
central administration’s inability to respond to the needs of its subjects during
times of intense socioeconomic and political pressure. The unwavering ideal of
a society with rigid boundaries penalized transgressors with harsh measures,
and also prevailed as a reaction to the permeability of those boundaries.
At the same time, the practice of suretyship (kefālet) allowed the integra-
tion of strangers or offenders into residential or occupational communities by
binding them to other trusted individuals. As we have seen, neighborhoods
sometimes accommodated and integrated newcomers based on a myriad of
complex factors we are only beginning to grasp. Moreover, the daily lives of
migrant-bachelors and janissaries, the most ill-reputed of Istanbul’s “danger-
ous classes”, overlapped considerably, and they contributed significantly to
Istanbul’s urban life and economy. They formed solidarity and support net-
works with each other and with civilian local residents in order to create
opportunities that facilitated migrants’ integration into the city. It is impor-
tant to note as we close, that we must keep challenging the state-centric view
regarding the role of groups such as janissaries, migrant-bachelors, and the
urban poor, and their relation to crime and violence. While we still have a lot
of work to do, we can already acknowledge that individuals who belonged to
marginal groups frequently became themselves the targets of state violence,
and they resisted exclusion by utilizing complex urban, residential, occupa-
tional, personal, and co-regional networks.
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466 Başaran
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Part 4
Streets and Publics
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Chapter 18
Sociability, Public Life, and Decorum

Marinos Sariyannis
If we are to believe Western travelers, the ideal leisure activity of an Ottoman

Istanbulite would be sitting on his own under a shady tree, smoking and drink-
ing coffee, or (in a somehow refined version) at home, reading or playing a
musical instrument.1 Some Ottoman sources seem to corroborate this view:
there is no such happiness in the world as solitude (vaḥdet), we read in one of
Süleyman I’s poems.2
Yet, collective recreation was much more popular than these sources sug-
gest, both as a model of behavior and in real life. As Mustafa Âli (d. 1600) notes,
all men are brethren by nature, and thus “human nature is strongly attached
to the concept of sociability (üns), it prefers familiarity and social intercourse
to solitude and isolation”.3 The high value of friendship and sociability was
traditionally praised in moralistic literature and lyric poetry, where they were
idealized in the “friendly gathering” or “drinking party”.4 In poetic descrip-
tions, the participants should be close friends, refined and educated in poetry
and eloquence, with polite manners;5 the ideal place should be a garden or
whatever carried the symbolism of a garden: i.e. the structure of a microcosm
and the characteristics of a sanctuary, away from the tumult of public life.6 Of
course, this image is highly idealized; however, both visual and textual descrip-
tions of life in Istanbul attest to the high level of sociability throughout the
Ottoman era. Isolation and taciturnity had their place in daily life, but surely
sociability held the larger share.
1 Covel, Early Voyages, ed. Bent, 241; de Thevenot, Relation, 65. I wish to thank the editors for
their meticulous and insightful remarks, as well as Euthymios Machairas for his suggestions
and references concerning the “Age of Tulips”.
2 Gibb, Ottoman Poetry, vol. 3, 10.
3 Mustafa Âli, Counsel for Sultans, vol. 2, ed. Tietze, 101–02.
4 On discourses on friendship in the medieval Muslim world, see Fouchécour, Moralia, 167,
340, 192; Mottahedeh, “Friendship”.
5 Andrews, Poetry’s Voice, 147, 158ff.
6 See, e.g., Gibb, Ottoman Poetry, vol. 2, 334, 336 and elsewhere.

474 Sariyannis
1 Sociability and Reclusion
Traditions of collective organization created a fertile soil for the development

of multiple social relations. Janissaries frequented their barracks and coffee-
houses; members of sufi fraternities gathered regularly in houses and lodges;
guild members had their meetings and rituals, not to mention their everyday
coexistence in the marketplace. Women created networks of friendship and
sociability which extended far beyond family and neighborhood relationships,
even though in the main they were deprived of many activities in the public
sphere (the higher the status and class, the greater the restrictions). The diary
of a mid-17th-century dervish, Seyyid Hasan, mentions dinners; night gather-
ings; social events such as marriages, circumcision celebrations, and funerals;
visits to cemeteries; friendly promenades; coffee gatherings; visits to the mar-
ket; and of course, sufi ceremonies.7 On special occasions social gatherings
were also enriched with professional forms of entertainment. We can imagine
members of the 71 guilds of musicians in Istanbul, referred to by Evliya Çelebi
(d. 1684/85?),8 playing for a party on an excursion or even at home, although
probably their main occupation was to play at family feasts. The same goes
for other professionals of recreation, such as singers, storytellers, shadow-
players, acrobats, and so forth.9 All these activities increasingly expanded into
the night, which underwent a process of “conquest” from the late 16th to the
18th centuries with the development of a new leisure culture characterized
by greater intra-class interaction and extra-institutional public sociability, as
we shall see below.10 Thus, whereas in the 1630s Murad IV still supervised in
person his imposition of a night curfew of sorts, by the beginnings of the 18th
century, nighttime activities had become something habitual: in an early 18th-
century story, we see a group of dervishes in the habit of gathering all night
in a room and talking until dawn, but also running across some drunkards on
the way home late at night. Still, one century later, Sünbülzade Vehbi (d. 1809)
felt the need to advise his reader to avoid night gatherings and discussions,
7 Kafadar, “Self and Others”, 142; Gökyay, “Sohbetnâme”, 131–33.

8 Mantran, Istanbul, 501; Evliya Çelebi, Evliya Çelebi Seyahatnâmesi, vol. 1, ed. Dankoff,
Kahraman, Dağlı, 343–47.
9 Mustafa Âli, Mevâʿidü’n-nefâis, ed. Şeker, 326–28 (= The Ottoman Gentleman, trans.
Brookes, 84–87); Nergisi, Meşâkku’l-uşşâk, ed. Selçuk, 176–77; Schmidt, “Fâzıl Beg
Enderûnî”; d’Ohsson, Tableau général, vol. 4, 401 and 406 (but see ibid., 402: the upper
ranks and especially ulema avoided such recreations).
10 Kafadar, “How Dark”; Wishnitzer, “Into the Dark”. The use of lights and lamps was declared
to be a “useful innovation” in an edict of 1723, Zilfi, “Women and Society”, 295–96.
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Sociability, Public Life, and Decorum 475
which means they were a usual practice but one deemed unsuitable for a well-
bred gentleman.11
Descriptions of these social gatherings raise the issue of Ottoman con-
sumption models.12 Ascetic ideals were widely accepted in Ottoman society,
and they were located at the very center of sufi morals, which, in the main,
promoted abstinence. Still, actual patterns of behavior show that even for
those belonging to a sufi order, sociability was, more often than not, connected
with meals, coffee, and such luxuries as fine dress and recreation. A sufi diarist
could meticulously note down his meals, even more carefully than his mys-
tic experiences,13 and a pasha’s indulgence in clothing, food, and entertain-
ment (including music and dance) were not signs of indifference to religious
and sufi ideals.14 True, “ascetic” models did interfere with actual leisure prac-
tices, especially as certain loci of sociability (the coffeehouse, mainly) were
targeted as hedonistic dens—mostly (but not exclusively) by authors and
preachers adhering to the Kadızadeli movement.15 In some early 17th-century
novels, for example, we read of Halveti dervishes frequenting coffeehouses,
but also of others who despised them.16 What is often described as reclusion,
as a retirement from life into isolation, was in fact a retiring from public and
state activities, idealized by elite authors as a final stage of one’s life: Mustafa
Âli speaks of officials who retired from the world to the corner of ease and
repose (ḥużūr u rāḥat),17 while the poet Nabi (d. 1712), who himself retired to
“the corner of recluse” (künç-i ʿuzlet), praises the notable enjoying a steady
income who retires from public affairs and spends his life in ease and delight
(ẕevḳ ü rāḥatla).18 However, this formulaic description should not be taken at
face value, since it often meant nothing more than a withdrawal from public
11 Enfi Hasan, Tezkiretü’l-müteahhirîn, ed. Tatcı, Yıldız, 121–22 (see also ibid., 65 for nocturnal
semā’ ceremonies in the open air); Vehbi, Nasihatnâme, ed. Alıcı, 62.
12 Quataert (ed.), Consumption Studies; Faroqhi & Neumann (eds.), The Illuminated Table;
Boyar & Fleet, Social History, 173–83; Grehan, Everyday Life; Singer (ed.), Starting with Food.
13 Gökyay, “Sohbetnâme”, 131, 132–33; Kafadar, “Self and Others”, 143–44. On the impor-
tance of food in Ottoman imagination and practice, see, for example, Ayni, Sâkî-nâme,
ed. Arslan, 235–36; Faroqhi, Subjects of the Sultan, 204–15; Reindl-Kiel, “The Chickens of
Paradise”; Işın, “More Than Food”. On wine in the imagery of sufism and of actual lei-
sure, see, e.g., Mustafa Âli, Mevâʿidü’n-nefâis, ed. Şeker, 348 (= The Ottoman Gentleman,
trans. Brookes, 113); Gibb, Ottoman Poetry, vol. 1, 385, vol. 2, 34, vol. 3, 224–26, 248; Ayni,
Sâkî-nâme, ed. Arslan.
14 Reindl-Kiel, Leisure, Pleasure.
15 Sariyannis, “The Kadızadeli Movement”; Tuşalp Atiyas, “The ‘Sunna-Minded’ Trend”.
16 Nergisi, Meşâkku’l-uşşâk, ed. Selçuk, 33–36, 173–91.
17 Mustafa Âli, Description of Cairo, ed. Tietze, 59.
18 Nabi, Hayriyye, ed. Pala, 27, 128–131. See also Glassen, Huzur; Kurz, Ways to Heaven,
249–68.
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476 Sariyannis
activity in one’s old age, usually coupled with active participation in a dervish
order. Sufi doctrine contributed to this appraisal of the “renouncement of the
world” (terk-i dünyā), but, on the other hand, also emphasized the possibility
of “reclusion within society” (ḫalvet der encümen—a formulation peculiar to
the Naqshbandi order, but an attitude also practiced by other orders such as
the Halveti or the Celveti).19
2 Places of Sociability
We usually imagine Ottoman cities, and especially Istanbul, with markets and
streets filled with crowds. Indeed, mosque courtyards and bazaar streets were
a hive of strolling and socializing;20 however, other places, too, were explic-
itly earmarked for this kind of activity. When one thinks of Ottoman spaces
of leisure, the coffeehouse is the first place that comes to mind.21 Yet, cof-
feehouses constituted one of the most controversial institutions of Ottoman
society. According to an oft-quoted passage from İbrahim Peçevi’s (d. 1650) his-
tory, coffee was introduced in Istanbul in 1554/55:
Epicureans addicted to joy, and especially many literate wits began to

gather in parties of twenty or thirty; others read [aloud] books and sto-
ries, others played backgammon or chess, others brought and read to
their friends their new poems…. Gradually, judges, clerks out of office,
teachers and jobless or retired people began to frequent the place.22
Half a century earlier, Mustafa Âli’s only complaint about the coffeehouses
of Cairo concerned their customers, who were dissolute opium addicts,
19 See Zarcone, “Pour ou contre le monde”; Le Gall, A Culture of Sufism, 118–19; Kafadar, “Self
and Others”, 141–42.
20 Boyar & Fleet, Social History, 151–56, 172–73; see also (on fountains as meeting places)
Rauwolff et al., A Collection, vol. 1, 91–92 and Hamadeh, The City’s Pleasures, 101–07.
21 On coffee and coffeehouses, see Hattox, Coffee and Coffeehouses; Yaşar (ed.), Osmanlı
Kahvehaneleri; Mikhail, “The Heart’s Desire”; Artan, “Forms and Forums”, 382–84; Kafadar,
“How Dark”, esp. 246–54; Çaykent & Gürses Tarbuck, “Coffeehouse Sociability”; the rel-
evant literature up to 2005 can be found in Yaşar, “Osmanlı şehir mekânları”. See also
Köse, “The Confusion of the Agha” on the history of chocolate.
22 Peçevi, Tarih-i Peçevi, vol. 1, 363–65 (the same shortened in Hezarfen Hüseyin Efendi,
Telhîsü’l-beyân, ed. İlgürel, 274). See also Katib Çelebi, The Balance of Truth, trans. Lewis,
60–61, who gives the date 1543/4.
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rather than the educated wits of the cities of Rum.23 However, elsewhere he
describes Istanbul coffeehouses in a similar way:
Some “captives of companionship” also frequent these places, men who

love to sit and talk with their friends for hours on end. And many an incor-
rigible vagrant comes by, wanting only to play backgammon and chess or,
for some, to win a few coins by committing the sin of gambling.24
In a satirical text, the same author claims that were the shaykh of a dervish
order to lose his post, he could become the owner of a coffeehouse: thus, he
could continue his life as before, that is organizing initiation rituals, keeping a
sense of authority (now toward the customers), and spending his time in the
company of dervishes.25
The introduction of coffee had initiated a major legal controversy over
whether it should be banned for canonical reasons. The consensus seems to
have quickly developed that coffee as such could be acceptable, but the coffee-
house continued to be targeted far into the 17th century as a meeting place of
rogues and as a center of moral and political corruption. This image of coffee-
house customers was an important factor in the various efforts of the authori-
ties to control or even close down coffeehouses, usually together with taverns
and other loci of “corruption”: the first order was perhaps issued in 1567.26 In
Ebussuud Efendi’s (d. 1574) fatwas, probably in relation to this first ban, we
read that the customers of coffeehouses were usually corrupt epicureans (ehl-i
hevā’) who gathered in these places to play backgammon and chess, have fun
with “sinful and beardless youths”, and talk calumnies.27 Murad IV’s prohibition
of 1633, the strictest of all, was incorporated into his broader program for the
maintenance of public order, which also included a general prohibition against
smoking.28 By then, it was clear that what alarmed the authorities was what had
alarmed Âli almost half a century before, namely the intermingling of people
from various strata and the threat to social and political order, rather than the
23 Mustafa Âli, Description of Cairo, ed. Tietze, 37–38.

24 Mustafa Âli, Mevâʿidü’n-nefâis, ed. Şeker, 363–64 (= The Ottoman Gentleman, trans.
Brookes, 129–30).
25 Fleischer, Curious Bits of Wisdom, 107.
26 Ahmet Refik, On Altıncı Asırda, 138, 141.
27 Ebussuud, Şeyhülislam Ebussuud Efendi Fetvaları, ed. Düzdağ, 148–49.
28 Katib Çelebi, Fezleke, vol. 2, 159, 197; idem, The Balance of Truth, trans. Lewis, 51 and 61;
Naima, Tarih-i Naʿîmâ, vol. 3, 171, vol. 6, 230.
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478 Sariyannis
legality of coffee itself.29 Both coffeehouses and smoking were strongly associ-
ated with the janissaries, who in 17th-century political tracts were described
as threats to the public order.30 But coffee and tobacco consumption also rep-
resented a new kind of sociability. In spite of “confessionalization” processes
and policies that tended to impose strict religious orthodoxy both upon the
faithful and state policy, often paired with disciplinary measures directed at
reinforcing socioreligious boundaries,31 the use of coffee and tobacco tran-
scended social and religious borders into a porous social sphere, comprising
diverse strata of Istanbul’s population. This explains why they were targeted by
both Muslim and non-Muslim elite authors,32 and, conversely, why they were
defended by popular shaykhs opposing state control in everyday life.33
Arguably, coffeehouses constituted the center of a real revolution in
Ottoman mentalities: they were closely connected with the advent of a lei-
sure morality, where (in James Grehan’s words) “the pursuit of pleasure was …
more public, routine, and unfettered”.34 It is only too natural that the political
and intellectual elites looked upon them with contempt, although they some-
times recognized them as a necessary evil. Cemal Kafadar cites a remarkable
answer by the grand vizier Koca Sinan Pasha (d. 1596) given to the sultan when
he was asked to enforce a ban on taverns and coffeehouses: “These people
need a place for rest and relaxation (bir eğlence yeri lāzım), or they will eat
each other’s flesh.”35 In this context, one might wonder if the character of the
Ottoman coffeehouse changed over time toward becoming a more “popular”
institution. Descriptions up to the early 17th century point to a kind of more
“classy” entertainment, a transfer of the private gatherings of the literate bon
vivants to a public space, where the lower strata could also get a taste of elite
recreation models. Mustafa Âli’s descriptions, as well as his allusions to poems
29 Hattox, Coffee and Coffeehouses; Saraçgil, “Generi voluttuari”, 179–80; Boyar & Fleet, Social
History, 183–86.
30 See Terzioğlu, “Sunna-Minded Sufi Preachers”.
31 Krstić, “Illuminated by the Light of Islam”; Terzioğlu, “How to Conceptualize Ottoman
Sunnitization”.
32 Grehan, “The Great Tobacco Debate”; Kermeli, “The Tobacco Controversy”. A major
Ottoman Greek libel against smoking associates it with other corrupt forms of entertain-
ment, such as theater, acrobats’ performances, or even music: Kermeli, “The Tobacco
Controversy”, 132; see also similar arguments in Safavid Iran as discussed in Matthee, The
Pursuit of Pleasure, 168–71.
33 Grehan, “The Great Tobacco Debate”, 1370; see also Katib Çelebi, The Balance of Truth,
trans. Lewis, 50–59. A reasoning similar to Katib Çelebi’s pragmatist attitude can be found
in a Safavid cleric’s argumentation: Matthee, The Pursuit of Pleasure, 141.
34 Grehan, “The Great Tobacco Debate”, 1377.
35 Kafadar, “How Dark”, 252.
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discussed in coffeehouses by a “rabble of ignorant drug addicts”, corroborate

such a suggestion.36 In an album painting, probably dated from the late 16th
or early 17th century, a coffeehouse is depicted as associated with the literati
and the higher urban strata;37 and the young hero of an early 18th-century sufi
story appears as the “host of the gathering” (meclis ṣāḥibi) in “a coffeehouse
they called ‘the School of Knowledge’” (Mekteb-i ʿirfān dedikleri ḳahvede),
where they talked about literature, science, and poetry.38 Still, it is probable
that this was in large part an idealization, as even 16th-century sources point
already to the image of coffeehouses as centers of gossip and idle talk for the
common people.39 Even at the end of the 18th century, when nobody would
even think of a general prohibition of coffeehouses (by then a standard and
uncontested feature of Ottoman cities), Sünbülzade Vehbi describes them as
mean places and their customers as idle.40 By then, janissaries, or what Cemal
Kafadar named the “lumpenesnaf ”-cum-lower-janissaries, constituted the bulk
of their steady customers, as well as their owners.41 The urban elite seemed to
have considered them far too crude from a social and moral point of view. This
does not necessarily mean that the public of the coffeehouses underwent such
a radical change (a famous engraving by Antoine-Ignace Melling, from the late
18th century, depicts a public and its activities as being quite akin to the album
painting mentioned above—Fig. 18.1);42 if anything, coffeehouses must have
been socially diversified at all times. What seems to have changed is rather the
general attitude of the Istanbul elite toward them: one must take into account
the fact that they were the janissary places par excellence, more or less identi-
fied with broad urban strata engaged in an often-bitter contest of power with
palace and ulema circles.
Long before the emergence of coffeehouses, however, spaces of sociability
were an integral part of Istanbul’s life, even if in less widespread fashion. Taverns,
though of course much more despicable from the viewpoint of Islamic moral-
ity, were regular meeting places throughout the 16th century and continued to
be so later on, though perhaps to a lesser extent (or at least this is what their
36 Tietze, “Poet as Critique”, 137 (original, 154). According to de Thevenot, Relation, 63, every-
body may frequent coffeehouses, regardless of religious identity or status.
37 And, Turkish Miniature Painting, 76; Değirmenci, Kahve bahane, kahvehane şahane. For
Iranian parallels see Matthee, The Pursuit of Pleasure, 171; Emami, “Coffeehouses”.
38 Enfi Hasan, Tezkiretü’l-müteahhirîn, ed. Tatcı, Yıldız, 133.
39 For example, Selaniki, Tarih, ed. İpşirli, 270.
40 Vehbi, Lutfiyye, ed. Beyzadeoğlu, 159.
41 Saraçgil, “Generi voluttuari”, 168; Çaksu, “Janissary Coffee Houses”; see also Nutku,
Meddahlık, 193–96.
42 See Artan, “Forms and Forums”, 384–85.
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480 Sariyannis
Figure 18.1 Antoine Ignace Melling, Interior of a café at Tophane. From Melling, Voyage
pittoresque de Constantinople et des rives du Bosphore, Paris, 1819
decreased visibility in Ottoman sources allows us to suppose).43 As one would

expect, most of Istanbul’s taverns were located in the Galata district, both due
to its predominantly Christian character and its vicinity to the port; references
to the taverns of Galata are constant from the beginning of the 16th century
onwards, while numerous taverns are also attested in the neighboring districts
of Kasım Paşa and Hasköy, further westward along the Golden Horn shores.
On the opposite side, clusters of taverns were located within the commercial
area of Tahtakale, as well as on the outskirts of the city proper along the walls,
along the Marmara coast, and extra muros on both the western and the eastern
coasts of the Bosphorus.44 As for descriptions of particular taverns, these are
scarce: in the early 17th century, there are references to three- and four-story
taverns looking to the sea,45 but also to backroom taverns (meyḫāne-i ḳoltuḳ)
43 On the taverns of Istanbul, see Yavuzer, “Istanbul Wine-Taverns”; Boyar & Fleet, Social
History, 194–201.
44 Ahmet Refik, On Altıncı Asırda; Evliya Çelebi, Evliya Çelebi Seyahatnâmesi, vol. 1, ed.
Dankoff, Kahraman, Dağlı; Eremya Çelebi, İstanbul Tarihi, trans. Andreasyan; Latifi,
Evsâf-ı İstanbul, ed. Suner (Pekin); Polonyalı Simeon, Polonyalı Simeon’un Seyahatnâmesi,
ed. Andreasyan. See also Mantran, Istanbul, 106.
45 Polonyalı Simeon, Polonyalı Simeon’un Seyahatnâmesi, ed. Andreasyan, 12.
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and “itinerant wine-sellers”.46 Contemporary sources occasionally list names

of famous taverns (mostly named after their owners), and Evliya Çelebi even
cites the songs that tavern customers typically sung.47 The latter were mostly
Christians or Jews, but there were also Muslim customers,48 especially poets,49
dervishes,50 and soldiers, particularly janissaries.51
Although, as a rule, there were no restrictions on taverns and the use of wine
for Christians and Jews, there were occasional periods of prohibition, based
either on religious reasons or on (the perception of) increased criminality.52
The prohibition of wine and the abolishment of the wine tax office for almost
two decades (1670–88) were clearly related to the famous sunna-minded
reforms of the period.53 Prohibitions of taverns, general or local (in Muslim
neighborhoods), were a usual measure taken in periods of tumult.54
Bozaḫānes, where one could drink boza (a warm malt drink), were other
places of sociability frequented by common folk, especially during winter. They
had a similar reputation as the taverns.55 Although the banning of such venues
46 Evliya Çelebi, Evliya Çelebi Seyahatnâmesi, vol. 1, ed. Dankoff, Kahraman, Dağlı, 355; Peçevi,
Tarih-i Peçevi, vol. 1, 449; see also Yaşar, “The Han in Eighteenth- and Early Nineteenth-
Century Istanbul”, 196–201.
47 Evliya Çelebi, Evliya Çelebi Seyahatnâmesi, vol. 1, ed. Dankoff, Kahraman, Dağlı, 213;
Kınalızade, Tezkiretü’ş-şuarâ, ed. Kutluk, 347, 650; İpekten, Divan edebiyatında edebî
muhitler, 243–51.
48 Latifi, Evsâf-ı İstanbul, ed. Suner (Pekin), 58; Risâle-i garîbe, ed. Develi, 33.
49 For example, Schmidt, Pure Water, 266; Lamiʿizade, Latîfeler, trans. Çalışkan, 201, 202, 256.
50 For example, Risâle-i garîbe, ed. Develi, 21; Rycaut, Present State, 255. In Enfi Hasan,
Tezkiretü’l-müteahhirîn, ed. Tatcı, Yıldız, 85, it is considered natural that a dervish in his
youth be engaged in debauchery and drunkenness. A common accusation against het-
erodox shaykhs was that they led astray (Muslim) customers of taverns: see, e.g., Ocak,
Zındıklar ve mülhidler, 233, 292. Such accusations, of course, may have been only stereo-
typical (Imber, Studies, 157).
51 Evliya Çelebi, Evliya Çelebi Seyahatnâmesi, vol. 1, ed. Dankoff, Kahraman, Dağlı, 59–62;
Yücel, Kitabu mesâlih, 100–01; Naima, Tarih-i Naʿîmâ, vol. 2, 72; Risâle-i garîbe, ed. Develi,
21; Uzunçarşılı, Osmanlı Devleti Teşkilâtından, vol. 1, 482. On Osman II’s attacks against
janissary customers of taverns, see Katib Çelebi, Fezleke, vol. 2, 9 and 20.
52 See, for example, Anhegger & İnalcık (eds.), Kânûnnâme-i Sultânî, 75; de Busbecq, Turkish
Letters, trans. Forster, 180; Ahmet Refik, On Altıncı Asırda, 86, 49–50; idem, Hicrî On Birinci
Asırda, 14–15, 32–33; idem, Hicrî On İkinci Asırda, 173–74.
53 Sarı Mehmed Paşa, Zübde-i vekayiât, ed. Özcan, 298–99. The office had already been abol-
ished in 1601 and 1613 (Katib Çelebi, Fezleke, vol. 1, 143 and 352).
54 Ahmet Refik, On Altıncı Asırda, 141, 50–51, 141–42, 146–47; Naima, Tarih-i Naʿîmâ, vol. 3,
169, 173, 224.
55 Mantran, Istanbul, 205–06; Boyar & Fleet, Social History, 189–90; Selçuk, “Boza
Consumption”; see idem, “State Meets Society”, discussing the case of Bursa.
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482 Sariyannis
was much less frequent, they were often prohibited together with taverns and
coffeehouses.56 Boza was mainly a drink of Muslims, and the distribution of
bozaḫānes in Istanbul points to their prevalence in Muslim neighborhoods, as
well as in hubs of trade and shipping; in many ways, bozaḫānes played the role
of taverns for broad strata of the Muslim lower classes.57
Another locus of social gathering was the barbershop; men gathered there
to see each other and talk, just as they did in coffeehouses, albeit in a space
with a more “private” character. A small barbershop is described in an 18th-
century storyteller’s scenario as a place of gathering for “friends” (yārān);
there, the hero of the story finds bullies and dervishes, each one sitting in his
own self-assigned corner, smoking and joking with each other.58
Finally, a major place where people from every social group gathered
together was the public bathhouse.59 Bathhouses frequented by janissaries,
for instance, were renowned as centers for political discussions.60 Despite the
association of some public baths with male (and female) prostitution,61 bath-
houses were a common place of socialization, where people would regularly
meet with friends. Moreover, in a highly gendered society they constituted a
legitimate and respectable place for women to socialize (they were “the wom-
en’s coffee-house”, as described by Lady Montagu).62
All these places, of course, were highly gendered. Besides bathhouses,
women might meet in markets (if they belonged to the lower strata); but they
mostly (it appears) met during visits at each other’s homes. Still, there was
a lively culture of outdoor meetings: meadows, cemeteries or saints’ tombs,
or holy springs all constituted popular places of gathering for women.63 In
the lower urban strata, unacquainted women and men could meet and go
together to weddings or other occasions.64 Family outings and excursions to
the countryside were a very popular means of recreation. References to such
56 See Ahmet Refik, On Altıncı Asırda, 138, 141, 145–46, 146–47.

57 Evliya Çelebi, Evliya Çelebi Seyahatnâmesi, vol. 1, ed. Dankoff, Kahraman, Dağlı, 353;
Selçuk, “Boza Consumption”.
58 Nutku, Meddahlık, 199.
59 Boyar & Fleet, Social History, 249–70; Ergin, “Tellâk Connection”; Ergin, “Mapping
Istanbul’s Hammams”; Artan, “Forms and Forums”, 386–89; Yaşar, “İstanbul hamamları”.
60 Işın, Gündelik hayat, 271.
61 Sariyannis, “Prostitution”; Semerdjian, “Sexing the Hammam”; Delice, “The Janissaries
and Their Bedfellows”.
62 Artan, “Forms and Forums”, 387; Faroqhi, Subjects of the Sultan, 106.
63 Rauwolff et al., A Collection, vol. 1, 45; Sandys, A Relation, 69, 71–72; Montagu, Turkish
Embassy Letters, 58–60 etc.; Faroqhi, Subjects of the Sultan, 106–07.
64 We get glimpses of such “invitations to strangers” by studying criminal cases, where either
a woman is deceived in order to be robbed or prostituted, or excuses herself for being
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excursions abound already in the late 15th century and multiply by the end of
the 17th century, when an anonymous moralist even lays down special rules of
behavior during excursions.65 Nabi’s urging of his readers to go on excursions
during springtime is telling: “Go for a walk when spring arrives, when the sea-
son of walking about arrives.”66 Evliya Çelebi enumerates several places suit-
able for excursion on the outskirts of Istanbul, such as gardens and meadows,
mosque courtyards, small ports, squares, and beaches.67 A common excursion
custom consisted in having each participant contribute his share of food or
drink: this practice was named ʿārifāne (“in the manner of the wise”), in an
interesting false etymology of the Persian herifāne, “individually”.68 However,
such promenades were not always a social event: from the late 17th century
on, we find repeated references associating them with melancholy and soli-
tary meditation—a kind of therapy for those of a melancholic constitution.69
Again, regarding promenades, European observers usually stressed the idle-
ness of Ottomans and their neglect of physical exercise.70
Gardens were used as pleasure grounds by sultans and their courtiers
already from the late 15th century,71 but it seems that this practice underwent
a great change toward the beginning of the 18th century. Shirine Hamadeh
has shown that in this period, gardens represented a collective leisure, which
transcended social and religious boundaries; in a way, they expressed the new
urban sociability, associated till then with the coffeehouse.72 A major differ-
caught with “strangers”: see Sariyannis, “‘Neglected Trades’”, 170; idem, “Prostitution”, 58.
See also Ambros, “Frivolity and Flirtation”.
65 Avcı (ed.), “Edebnâme üzerine”, 586–87; see also Boyar & Fleet, Social History, 205–48.
66 Nabi, Hayriyye, ed. Pala, 145.
68 When Μustafa Âli mentions ʿārifāne he has to explain its meaning, which suggests that it
was not yet an established practice: Mustafa Âli, Mevâ’idü’n-nefâis, ed. Şeker, 347 (= The
Ottoman Gentleman, trans. Brookes, 111).
69 Artan, “Forms and Forums”, 395–97. This association was also common in Greek Phanariot
texts of the mid-18th century: Kallinikos, Τα κατά και μετά την εξορίαν, ed. Tselikas; Xourias,
“Πυροτεχνήματα, μουσικές”. One might draw some parallels with the development of the
urban promenade in 18th-century France: see Turcot, Le promeneur à Paris; idem, “The
Rise of the Promeneur”, with all the relevant literature.
70 Rauwolff et al., A Collection, vol. 2, 48; Sandys, A Relation, 64; de Thevenot, Relation, 48, 65;
Rauwolff et al., A Collection, vol. 2, 65; see also Necipoğlu, “The Suburban Landscape”, 42.
We find a similar attitude in an Armenian Ottoman work destined for a European audi-
ence: d’Ohsson, Tableau général, vol. 4, 365, 404.
71 Cafer Çelebi, Heves-nâme, ed. Sungur, 200–04, 224–26; see also Reindl-Kiel, Leisure,
Pleasure; Necipoğlu, “The Suburban Landscape”.
72 Hamadeh, “Public Spaces”; idem, The City’s Pleasures, esp. 110–25. Hamadeh argues that
the engagement of the palace in this process was an attempt to keep this leisure culture
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484 Sariyannis
ence with coffeehouse culture was that in the case of gardens, age and gender
barriers were much more permeable: for instance, in an 18th-century story we
read about children playing and singing, youths looking at women, and old
men reciting stories from the Ḥamzanāme (The Book of Hamza) while the
meal is being prepared.73 With early 18th-century garden culture, sociabilities
stepped into the open natural landscape, which became a pivotal point in rec-
reation, both real and imaginary. To take a well-known example, Kağıthane was
used constantly as a place of recreation already from the late 15th century;74
during the so-called “Tulip Era”, Ahmed III added kiosks, bridges, and gardens,
creating Saʿdabad or “the place of happiness”. The demolition of these struc-
tures during the Patrona rebellion and Ahmed III’s downfall did not result in
the end of their use; on the contrary, places for excursion and recreation were
expanded and multiplied along the shores of the Bosphorus.75 Allegedly, the
visibility of women in such places (either in common folk gatherings or in
court parties) considerably increased during this period; still, one should be
cautious not to take at face value pundits’ references to the intermingling of
sexes at court parties, for these were meant as indirect denunciations of the
loose morality critics perceived in court circles.76
3 Practices of Sociability
Although public life encompasses more than simply recreation—notably,

meetings for work, educational, or religious activities—sociability and lei-
sure are central to the notion and closely interconnected with it. “Leisure” (as
opposed to “work”) is arguably a notion distinctly linked with early modernity.
Ottoman sources may not show this distinction as clearly as European ones,
under state control. A comparable suggestion has been offered by Wishnitzer, “Into the
Dark” with respect to the night parties given by the court during the “Tulip Era”.
73 Nutku, Meddahlık, 205–06. On the tradition of reading the Ḥamzanāme aloud, see
Değirmenci, “Osmanlı İstanbul’unda Hamzanâme”.
74 On Kağıthane as a recreation place before the building of Saʿdabad, see, e.g., Çelebi (ed.),
Divan şiʿrinde İstanbul, 30–31, 50, etc.; Latifi, Evsâf-ı İstanbul, ed. Suner (Pekin), 59–61;
Levend, Türk Edebiyatında Şehr-engizler, 40–41; Eremya Çelebi, İstanbul Tarihi, trans.
Andreasyan, 34.
75 Boyar & Fleet, Social History, 230–34; Erimtan, “The Perception of Sadabad”; Çalış-Kural,
“Kağıthane Commons”.
76 Zilfi, “Women and Society”; Hamadeh, “Public Spaces”; Artan, “Forms and Forums”;
Ambros, “Frivolity and Flirtation”, 166–71.
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but they nonetheless attest to the idea of a distinct time for recreation.77 In this
regard, the connection between entertainment and idleness is continuously
present, especially in moralistic and political writings. Administrators, in partic-
ular, we understand, from sultans to viziers, should allocate a part of their time
to “recreation”, though not a big part because “there is a time for everything”.78
In general, elite authors show some contempt for popular recreation prac-
tices, usually targeted because of their vain character; however, such criticism
may conceal political purposes. Their references to coffeehouses, for instance,
stress how such places functioned as loci of gossip and rumor, which usually
implies political discussion.79 Indeed, a cursory reading of Ottoman historiog-
raphy would reveal a large corpus of satirical poems that circulated in Istanbul
coffeehouses, targeting various public personalities.80 Still, one may suppose
that people also discussed personal matters that left little trace in the city’s
chronicles. In an anecdote recorded by Katib Çelebi, some sipāhīs in a tavern
(one of whom was to become a vizier) discussed their dreams for the future
with a dervish;81 and diaries and other personal notes give us a glimpse on mat-
ters that occupied the minds of scribes and other folk.82
As for games, in Islamicate premodern culture they are generally discour-
aged or, more precisely, viewed with condescension as activities unfit for
scholars and magnates, but natural for women and children.83 Jurists often
claimed that except for horse-riding and arrow-shooting (which, along with
hunting, were favorite pastimes of the elite and soldiers), games were use-
less frivolities.84 The latter included chess and backgammon, though chess
was approved by Shafiʿi scholars on the condition that it was played without
gambling, in a sober and decent way.85 Ottoman authors and jurists generally
77 Sariyannis, “Time, Work and Pleasure”; idem, “‘Temporal Modernization’”. See also
Kafadar, “How Dark”.
78 el-Amasi, Tuhfetü’l-ümerâ, ed. Coşar, 163. For other examples, see Sariyannis, “Time, Work
and Pleasure”, 800–02.
79 Sariyannis, “‘Mob,’ ‘Scamps’ and Rebels”, 14; Kırlı, “The Struggle over Space”; Şakul,
“Payitaht halkı ve siyaset”.
80 Mustafa Âli, Künhü’l-ahbâr, ed. İsen, 248–49, 258; Selaniki, Tarih, ed. İpşirli, 279; Naima,
Tarih-i Naʿîmâ, vol. 4, 222, 288; see also Kafadar, “How Dark”, 253.
81 Katib Çelebi, Fezleke, vol. 1, 326–27.
82 Fleischer, “Secretaries’ Dreams”.
83 Rosenthal, Gambling in Islam, esp. 9–26.
84 Ibid., 20. See also a hadith mentioned by Evliya Çelebi, Evliya Çelebi in Bitlis, ed. Dankoff,
142–43. On such pastimes in Ottoman times, see Reindl-Kiel, Leisure, Pleasure.
85 d’Ohsson, Tableau général, vol. 4, 277–79. Allegedly Kurds, as Shafiʿi, were great players of
chess (Evliya Çelebi, Evliya Çelebi in Bitlis, ed. Dankoff, 66–67). On the jurists’ attitudes,
see Rosenthal, Gambling in Islam, 87–96.
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486 Sariyannis
followed this attitude: for instance, the geographer Aşık Mehmed (d. after
1598) enumerates the “inclination for playing backgammon or chess” among
the bad consequences of becoming a eunuch.86 Shaykh al-Islam Ebussuud
Efendi (d. 1574) considers the testimony of backgammon players unaccept-
able, but that of chess players lawful (provided they do not bet); and some
of his fatwas exhibit a mild disapproval of chess.87 For the poet Nabi (d. 1712),
chess and backgammon are childish games on which one should not spend
one’s time, and to which people sometimes get addicted; however, he praises
chess for cultivating the mind and for being a symbolic representation of soci-
ety (teaching, for instance, that everyone has a given place and is subject to
rules).88 And the poet Vehbi (d. 1809) rejects chess, together with other fash-
ionable pastimes, such as bird-raising or gardening, as vain occupations that
unnecessarily occupy one’s mind.89 European authors, however, often mention
chess as a favorite Ottoman pastime and stress that the “Turks” do not bet on
their games90 (although this might be an exaggeration).91 Other favored games
included the following: checkers and mangala, which in the 18th century were
both played among the lower classes in coffeehouses; wrestling, jumping, and
other sports, popular among soldiers and sailors; blindfold games, played by
women at home; and card games such as “the Eighteenth”, favored among trav-
eling merchants.92
Recreation in Istanbul also included public spectacles. Shadow theater
(Karagöz) was a standard spectacle during Ramadan nights.93 Marionette-
86 Aşık Mehmed, Menâzırü’l-avâlim, ed. Ak, vol. 3, 1850.

87 Ebussuud, Şeyhülislam Ebussuud Efendi Fetvaları, ed. Düzdağ, 137, 199–200.
88 Nabi, Hayriyye, ed. Pala, 190–98 (on this symbolism, see Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions,
285; Rosenthal, Gambling in Islam, 161–171).
89 Vehbi, Lutfiyye, ed. Beyzadeoğlu, 65, 160, 162. On Ottoman Arab authors against games, see
Grehan, “The Great Tobacco Debate”, 1373; on the passion for flowers, Boyar & Fleet, Social
History, 220–22.
90 Rauwolff et al., A Collection, vol. 1, 42; Sandys, A Relation, 64; de Thevenot, Relation, 65;
Kınalızade, Tezkiretü’ş-şuarâ, ed. Kutluk, 629.
91 See Vehbi, Lutfiyye, ed. Beyzâdeoğlu, 63–64; Mustafa Âli, Mevâ’idü’n-nefâis, ed. Şeker,
364 (= The Ottoman Gentleman, trans. Brookes, 130). On chess as a gambling game, see
Rosenthal, Gambling in Islam, 37–40.
92 d’Ohsson, Tableau général, vol. 4, 399–400; Rauwolff et al., A Collection, vol. 1, 171; Evliya
Çelebi, Evliya Çelebi in Diyarbakir, ed. Bruinessen, Boeschoten, 196–97. “The Eighteenth”
may be identical to mangala, which was also called “Fourteen” (Rosenthal, Gambling in
Islam, 43–44). Evliya Çelebi’s description of a card game (gencefe) shows that it was not
widely known (Evliya Çelebi in Bitlis, ed. Dankoff, 372–73). On playing cards see Rosenthal,
Gambling in Islam, 62–64.
93 And, Geleneksel Türk tiyatrosu; Sönmez, Karagöz kitabı.
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playing (ḳuḳla) and orta oyunu, a kind of commedia dell’arte, were also popular,
but perhaps not so much as the recitation of adventure stories and comical
impersonations performed by professional storytellers (meddāḥ). Although
the audience of such spectacles was clearly not an elite one, the surviving texts
indicate a common inventory of ideas, tropes, and stories which circulated
among a wide social array, from the coffeehouse to the palace.94
Finally, feasts and festivals were a common occasion for entertainment.
Although Mustafa Âli was surprised by the great number of festivals in Egypt,
in contrast to the two main religious feasts of the “central lands”,95 the inhabit-
ants of Istanbul had many more opportunities for organized collective enter-
tainment. For one thing, there were numerous everyday occasions such as
marriages or circumcisions. Feasts offered by the sultan (sūr-i hümāyūn), cel-
ebrating either royal marriages and circumcisions or military victories, were
colossal entertainment (and legitimization) enterprises, featuring a host of
events, ranging from fireworks to acrobats, public feasts, and guild parades.
European observers spoke of the “extravagant Mirth” pervading during these
occasions; such descriptions, together with references in both European and
Ottoman sources to a tolerance for wine drinking, spectacles featuring opium
addicts, and dancers harassing women,96 suggest that during festive times,
behaviors of a normally “private” character were tolerated in public. This was
the situation characterized as iẕn-i ʿāmm (“general permission”), or (in Derin
Terzioğlu’s words) a suspension of moral judgement.97 Outside this officially
licensed time, such activities were often seen as immoral and threatening to
the public order.98 It is worth noting that such public occasions seem to have
multiplied from the 1720s onwards.99
94 Nutku, Meddahlık; Kırlı, “The Struggle over Space”, 172–78; Güngör, “İstanbul meddah
hikâyelerinde”; Oral, Meddah kitabı. On similar products of Ottoman literature, see
Tietze, “Azîz Efendi’s Muhayyelat”; Ambros & Schmidt, “A Cossack Adopted”; Cinani,
Bedâyiü’l-âsâr, ed. Ünlü; Sariyannis, “Images of the Mediterranean”; Değirmenci, “Osmanlı
İstanbul’unda Hamzanâme”.
95 Mustafa Âli, Description of Cairo, ed. Tietze, 36, 49; Faroqhi, Subjects of the Sultan, 164–84.
96 Nutku, Edirne Şenliği, 123–24, 126–27; And, “Le ‘Commonwealth’”, 286; Erdoğan İşkorkutan,
“The 1720 Imperial Festival”, 276–79; Ambros, “Frivolity and Flirtation”, 177–181.
97 Terzioğlu, “The Imperial Circumcision Festival of 1582”, 91–97.
98 For the historian Mehmed Halife, one of the praiseworthy acts of Mehmed IV was that
he cleaned Istanbul from some entertainment groups that incited disorder, and that he
abhorred entertainers and musicians. Sariyannis, “The Princely Virtues”, 138–39; idem,
“Neglected Trades”, 173 and n. 73. On the presence and function of such entertainers dur-
ing festivities see Erdoğan İşkorkutan, “The 1720 Imperial Festival”, 263–94.
99 See Zilfi, “Women and Society”; Artan, “Forms and Forums”; Hamadeh, “Public Spaces”;
idem, The City’s Pleasures, 11–14 and passim; Erdoğan İşkorkutan, “The 1720 Imperial
Festival”; Faroqhi, Subjects of the Sultan, 164–184; idem, Another Mirror, 74–85.
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488 Sariyannis
4 Elite and Non-Elite Decorum
We lack a comprehensive study of Ottoman manners, although there is a

rich repository of etiquette rules in ethical treatises and books on “good
manners”.100 One could also explore correspondence manuals, as they often
include model personal letters between relatives, friends, or even lovers.101
Ottoman etiquette and manners of sociability seem to have been heav-
ily dependent on one’s social status on the one hand, and on the distinction
between private (or “inner”, “indoors”) and public (or “outer”, “outdoors”)
spheres on the other: different modes of behavior applied in each sphere, one
more hedonistic and another more austere, without any implication of incon-
sistency or contradiction.102 Of course, we should be cautious before speak-
ing of distinctions such as private vs. public in the Ottoman case, and various
definitions and clarifications have been suggested in recent scholarship.103
Perhaps we could speak of a spatial distinction, but one more complex than
the often-assumed binaries. Mustafa Âli, for instance, identifies public places
(il evi, büyūt-i bīgāne: lit. “houses for strangers”) as being distinct from “private
chambers” (ḫalvet-i ḫāṣṣ). The former include rooms and constricted spaces in
taverns, bathhouses, dervish lodges, and boats, while among the latter we find
cells in dervish lodges, libraries, and “the nicely furnished upper stories of the
houses of grandees”, with their “private chambers to which entrance is forbid-
den without permission”.104
Katib Çelebi’s injunction against “inquisition and prying … spying and
peeping” can be seen in the same context.105 Sociability, at any rate, crossed
over these distinctions, despite marked differences between the rules guiding
indoor gatherings and those prevailing in the public sphere. For instance, it
100 Mustafa Âli, Mevâ’idü’n-nefâis, ed. Şeker, 394–95 and passim (= The Ottoman Gentleman,
trans. Brookes, 165–67); idem, Counsel for Sultans, ed. Tietze, vol. 2, 97; Avcı (ed.),
“Edebnâme üzerine”; Ayni, Sâkî-nâme, ed. Arslan, 241–43; Kınalızade, Ahlâk-ı Alâî, ed. Koç,
373–82; Pfeifer, “The Gulper and the Slurper”.
101 Matuz, “Über die Epistolographie”; Riedlmayer, “Ottoman Copybooks”.
102 This model can be called modular or situational, Kaldellis, The Byzantine Republic, 183.
103 Peirce, The Imperial Harem, 6–12; Mikhail, “The Heart’s Desire”, 134–37; Hamadeh, “Public
Spaces”, 309–10; Artan, “Forms and Forums”, esp. 380–81. For non-Ottoman Islamicate
societies, see Cook, Commanding Right, 80–82, 593–95; Matthee, The Pursuit of Pleasure,
192–93, 296–98.
104 Mustafa Âli, Mevâ’idü’n-nefâis, ed. Şeker, 375 (= The Ottoman Gentleman, trans. Brookes,
142–43). Mustafa Âli’s work is full of warnings against interfering in someone’s pri-
vate space.
105 Katib Çelebi, The Balance of Truth, trans. Lewis, 107–08. On actual practice, see also
Yılmaz, “Mahremiyetin sınırlarına dair”.
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was in private spaces that wine intoxication or drug use could be tolerated
(much more so than in the allegedly immoral context of taverns), although
they were almost always met with the profound disapproval of moralists.106
Seriousness and taciturnity were, at any rate, a common precept in moralist
or etiquette treatises. Some etiquette rules, recorded by Katib Çelebi, empha-
size a kind of solemn sobriety:
It has been said: once you sat in a gathering, do not sit long; do not clasp
your fingers; do not play with your beard or your ring; do not pick your
teeth; do not put your finger in your nose; do not spit often…. Your pres-
ence in a gathering must be dignified and calm; your words must be
orderly, and you must hear the nice words told to you without show-
ing extraordinary surprise; do not ask them to repeat; keep silent, when
funny stories or jokes are told.107
This emphasis on seriousness and taciturnity, mainly requested from the

elite circles, is also well attested by other observers.108 Mouradgea d’Ohsson
(d. 1807) explains decorum according to social status as follows: palace officials
are magnificent and arrogant; ministers display a high-brow dignity; ulema,
a grim, dry seriousness; lower officials have rude manners; while the military
use very friendly designations. Ottomans, d’Ohsson goes on, keep calm and
taciturn during visits and gatherings, they seldom laugh, and remain serious
even during hunting and other entertainments.109 This attitude, with its long
prehistory going back to royal and elite decorum in antiquity, can be linked
both to the moral value of self-control on the one hand, and to the religious
value of respect for God and the continuous quest for the soul’s salvation on
the other—the contrast to such decorum is vanity and pompous behavior.110
According to an early 16th-century physiognomic treatise, nervous movements
106 Sariyannis, “Law and Morality”; Boyar & Fleet, Social History, 186–89; Péri, “‘It Is the Weed
of Lovers’”; idem, “Cannabis (esrār)”. These discussions were very similar to those con-
cerning coffee or tobacco. Together with coffee and tobacco, drugs are mentioned in the
context of wine gatherings: Ayni, Sâkî-nâme, ed. Arslan, 258–63. A manufactory produc-
ing a specific type of opiate was functioning up to 1831: Péri, “A Janissary’s Son”; Uluskan,
“İstanbul’da bir afyonlu”. On the use and attitudes vis-à-vis such substances in Iran, see
Matthee, The Pursuit of Pleasure.
107 Katib Çelebi, Seçmeler, ed. and trans. Gökyay, 262–63.
108 Rauwolff et al., A Collection, vol. 1, 42; Covel, Early Voyages, ed. Bent, 195, 205, 264.
109 d’Ohsson, Tableau général, vol. 4, 370–01, 405–06, 403.
110 Fouchécour, Moralia, 141, 191–92; Nabi, Hayriyye, ed. Pala, 94–96; Vehbi, Lutfiyye, ed.
Beyzâdeoğlu, 70–71, 79ff.; Vehbi, Nasihatnâme, ed. Alıcı, 60. On the need for taciturnity,
see Fouchécour, Moralia, 12; Vehbi, Lutfiyye, ed. Beyzâdeoğlu, 68ff.; Nabi, Hayriyye, ed.
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490 Sariyannis
and fidgeting signal selfishness and lewdness; excessive laughing, insincerity

and shamelessness; whereas smiling is a sign of a gracious heart.111 Two cen-
turies later, Nabi wrote against joking and jesting, which he associated with
satire and libel.112
Used to Ottoman elites’ seriousness and composure, Europeans were
impressed at the liveliness and hullabaloo of the crowds that gathered
around storytellers,113 something we also encountered above in the context of
festivals.114 Indeed, it would make no sense to expect a total ostracism of laugh-
ter and gaiety from a society that produced various kinds of humorous litera-
ture: one may refer to the Karagöz plays, to meddāḥs’ impersonations (taḳlīd),
and to the many humorous stories such as those of Tıfli or Bekri Mustafa (farci-
cal personages who allegedly lived under Murad IV), as well as to those incor-
porated in Evliya Çelebi’s text.115 Studying the 19th century, François Georgeon
considers traditional Ottoman laughter a popular, collective, public laughter,
bearing a certain similarity to Rabelais’s “carnivalesque” humor.116 Similar
observations can be made in relation to the humor exhibited in sophisticated
lyric poetry in earlier times.117 One might perhaps say that laughter was a pri-
vate affair for the higher social strata and a public one for the common folk.
Exceptionally, as we saw, laughter became a public affair for all social strata
during festivities, where a temporary “reversal” of the world (or segments
thereof) occurred.
5 Conclusion: Morality and Society
The history of Istanbulite sociability, as seen above, may be said to revolve

around two benchmarks. One is the advent of coffee and tobacco and the new
public sociability that seems to have begun in the late 16th century. By the first
half of the 17th century, the coffeehouse had attained a central role in a new
Pala, 101; Mustafa Âli, Mevâ’idü’n-nefâis, ed. Şeker, 383–85, 398 (= The Ottoman Gentleman,
trans. Brookes, 150–52).
111 Gibb, Ottoman Poetry, vol. 2, 224. See also Hoyland, “Physiognomy in Islam”; Çakır,
“‘Kıyâfet-nâme’ler”.
112 Nabi, Hayriyye, ed. Pala, 87–89.
113 Nutku, Meddahlık, 78–85.
114 Rauwolff et al., A Collection, vol. 2, 65, 76; d’Ohsson, Tableau général, vol. 4, 408, 413.
115 Güngör, “İstanbul meddah hikâyelerinde”; Sayers (ed.), Tıflî hikâyeleri; Emeksiz (ed.), Bir
Istanbul kahramanı Bekri Mustafa; Dankoff, An Ottoman Mentality, 169–75.
116 Georgeon, “Rire dans l’Empire ottoman?”.
117 Ambros, Life, Love and Laughter; Havlioğlu, “The Magic of a Joke”, who speaks of “eroti-
cally humorous discourse”.
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conceptualization of leisure (as terms associated with this concept crystal-

lized during the same period).118 This does not mean that Istanbulites were
a solitary folk before the advent of coffeehouses: urban sociability, whether
in crowded places such as markets and taverns or in the city’s outskirts, is a
visible feature of life as portrayed (mostly) in the literary texts of the first half
of the 16th century, a period which has been compared and even linked with
the European Renaissance.119 Still, aspects of early forms of sociability, such
as epicurean behavior and association with “city lads” (şehir oğlānları), seem
to have been morally if not socially marginalized, at least by a segment of
the elite, during the period that immediately followed this early 16th-century
“Renaissance”.120 One has to stress here that the emphasis on the centrality of
the coffeehouse may give us a distorted image of urban sociability by down-
playing gatherings in houses, dervish lodges, or even graveyards, even well into
the 17th century (as Seyyid Hasan’s diary shows).121 Thus, coffeehouse culture
may have not been such a radical departure from previous practices. Yet, it
undoubtedly was a landmark if seen together with the emergence of the janis-
saries as an institution that was open increasingly to larger segments of urban
society: the janissaries, with the coffeehouse as their meeting place par excel-
lence, gradually embraced most of the urban (male, and largely Muslim) popu-
lation, thus playing a key role in the transformation of city life toward an ever
more open field of social, cultural, and political interaction. This might explain
the centrality that coffee and coffeehouses acquired in moralist attacks against
this new urban culture.
In a second thrust of sociability, which was associated, in an earlier body of
scholarship, with the “Age of Tulips” of the early 18th century,122 the elites seem
118 Kafadar, “How Dark”, 248–50, 252; see also Artan, “Forms and Forums”, 395; and Emami,
“Coffeehouses” for Iranian parallels.
119 Andrews & Kalpaklı, The Age of Beloveds; Kuru, “Naming the Beloved”.
120 Andrews & Kalpaklı, The Age of Beloveds, 304–328; Sariyannis, “‘Mob,’ ‘Scamps’ and
Rebels”, 4–9. On the symbolic and actual content of sexuality in this context, see Faroqhi,
Subjects of the Sultan, 104–05; Ze’evi, Producing Desire; Schick, “Representation of
Gender”; Sariyannis, “Prostitution”; Boyar & Fleet, Social History, 201–03; Levend, Türk
Edebiyatında Şehr-engizler. By no means was this image restricted in the early 16th cen-
tury: see e.g. the love stories in Nergisi, Meşâkku’l-uşşâk, ed. Selçuk.
121 Kafadar, “Self and Others”, 142.
122 Traditionally conceived of so as to coincide with Nevşehirli Damad İbrahim Pasha’s
vizierate (1718–1730), this period has been connected with the exhibition of wealth, ideas
of Westernization, and a supposed tendency for festivities and frivolity; recent interpreta-
tions have focused on the emergence of a popularization of elite forms of entertainment,
on the “luxury antagonism” which was imposed on the elite by the palace, and on the cul-
tural features that bore similarities with the European early Enlightenment, such as the
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492 Sariyannis
to have opted to endorse rather than oppress the common folk’s conceptual-
izations of recreation and leisure, expanding their own pastimes, spaces, and
festivities to include a wider public, while at the same time trying to enforce
social order through sumptuary laws. This was in fact a long process, which
might be described as an effort on the part of the state to “re-institutionalize”
sociability after (and in response to) its ongoing “extra-institutionalization”
and which had begun in the late 16th century.123 Such processes were accom-
panied by other developments that in European historiography have usually
been connected with early modernity, such as a turn to personal experience
and first-person narratives, and a “realistic turn” in literature.124 Cemal Kafadar
has suggested convincingly that these changes were associated with “the emer-
gence of a new kind of urban society”.125 This social development, however,
has yet to be further explored. Moreover, the vision of a society divided into
a strictly binary elite and non-elite is clearly inadequate and leads to severe
misunderstandings of Istanbul’s social reality, which in fact merged behaviors,
values, and customs of the lower and middle urban strata.
Similarly, female sociability seems to have been much more visible in 18th-
century Istanbul, at least if judged by critics’ accusations mentioned above
and by the abundance of sumptuary laws specifically seeking to curb what was
perceived as laxity and immorality. Whereas earlier decrees addressing issues
of social order stressed the need to differentiate classes or, more importantly,
religions, the 18th century abounds in orders prohibiting women’s luxurious or
extravagant clothing.126 From the late 16th century on, at any rate, Istanbul life
was characterized by this twin rise of a leisure culture and its counterpart, the
latter in the form of increased state supervision of modes of sociability.127 In
valorization of natural philosophy. See Karahasanoğlu, “A Tulip Age Legend”; Hamadeh,

The City’s Pleasures; Salzmann, “The Age of Tulips”.
123 Çaykent & Gürses Tarbuck, “Coffeehouse Sociability”, 213–16. One may compare the emer-
gence of private learning circles, breaking the monopoly of madrasa education in the
diffusion of knowledge, as initiated by Katib Çelebi or Hezarfen Hüseyin Efendi, in con-
trast to the reclaiming of knowledge by the state with Naima’s appointment as official
historiographer in the final years of the 17th century. See also Tezcan, “Some Thoughts on
the Politics”, esp. 144–49.
124 Kafadar, “Self and Others”; Faroqhi, Subjects of the Sultan, 202–03; Hamadeh, The City’s
Pleasures, 139–70 and 241–44; Tezcan, “Seventeenth-Century Ottoman Turkish Literature”.
125 Kafadar, “How Dark”, 244–46.
126 Boyar & Fleet, Social History, 180–82; Ahmet Refik, Hicrî On İkinci Asırda, 86–88, 174–75;
Zilfi, “Women and Society”, 298–301; Quataert, “Clothing Laws”, 409–410. For a general
overview of women’s visibility as far as it concerns the flirtatious behavior of both sexes,
based mainly on literary sources, see Ambros, “Frivolity and Flirtation”.
127 Artan, “Forms and Forums”, 401; Hamadeh, “Public Spaces”, 300–06; idem, The City’s
Pleasures, 126–32; Quataert, “Clothing Laws”.
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turn, the intellectual background of such policies was an increased conserva-

tism, usually associated with the Kadızadeli movement, which made its mark
in ulema controversies.128 The subject of manners and decorum also merits
further exploration that takes into account distinctions between indoor and
outdoor behavior, all the more important for its implications regarding the gen-
dered dimensions of sociability. This is because, presumably, the new forms of
sociability introduced by janissaries’ coffeehouse culture and the subsequent
endorsement of popular recreational models by the elite had an impact on
how these distinctions were conceptualized, which, in turn, affected the delin-
eation of social norms and manners. Much more research, however, is needed
before we can understand and elucidate this process.
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Chapter 19
Sufi Spaces and Practices

John J. Curry
In its broadest and simplest sense, sufism has often been defined as the mysti-
cal tradition specific to the religion of Islam, but this definition obscures more
than it clarifies. The various forms of sufism that have emerged throughout
the history of Islamic civilization represent an alternative form of religios-
ity. On the one hand, sufism stands apart from typical Muslim religious and
social practices that jurisprudents and theologians have outlined in their
own spheres. However, it is also grounded squarely within the foundations
of Islamic textual tradition, often drawing on the Quran and teachings of the
Prophet Muhammad for its inspirations, and over half of the world’s Muslims
espouse some connection to it.1 Ira Lapidus described sufism as constituting
three forms of religious experience: a quest for spiritual self-development by
controlling one’s baser instincts, a quest for transcendent experiences through
proximity to the divine, and experiencing God’s presence in one’s worldly life.
Sufism has thus generated a collective life grounded in the various kinds of
spiritual practices and teachings created by various pious and saintly figures,
who can range from the most respected members of society to aloof ascetics
and wandering holy men.2
The Ottoman Muslims who developed Istanbul into one of the great urban
centers of Islamic civilization during the early modern period were the inheri-
tors of mystical traditions that had evolved over the course of many centuries.
This broader history of sufism’s evolution is discussed more fully elsewhere;
this short chapter cannot do justice to the proliferation of literature, in both
Turkish and Western languages, that has emerged about Ottoman sufism.3
Instead, it will sketch out a general trajectory of the history of sufism and sufi
orders in early modern Istanbul, from its conquest by Mehmed II in 1453 up to
the end of the 18th century.
1 Buehler, Recognizing Sufism, xii; in this, Buehler followed the estimation of Carl Ernst, see
216, n. 3.
2 Lapidus, “Sufism and Ottoman Islamic Society”, 16.
3 In addition to the works of Buehler and Lapidus, see Karamustafa, Sufism: The Formative
Period; Knysh, Islamic Mysticism; Ohlander, “Early Sufi Rituals”, 53–73.

504 Curry
The chapter will approach this trajectory in a rough chronological order.

First, it will examine the reasons for the limited presence of sufi figures in
Istanbul in the immediate decades after its conquest. Second, it will address
the rapid influx of powerful sufi leaders and their followings, who often devel-
oped attachments to Ottoman rulers, or powerful figures within their court,
from the late 15th century up until the end of the 16th century. This interaction
between sufis and the Ottoman state could spawn both fruitful collaboration
and tension. The chapter then addresses the general crisis of the 17th century,
which was characterized by growing conflict between some sufi orders and
rising puritanical factions in Ottoman society known as Kadızadelis. Finally,
the chapter offers a brief overview of the proliferation of a more diverse range
of sufi orders throughout Istanbul from the 18th century onward, including a
preliminary evaluation of the emergence of family-based sufi orders and their
connections to sources of Ottoman wealth and power.
1 The Initial Sufi Presence in Istanbul after the Conquest
The history of sufism’s intersection with the Ottoman imperial capital began
with the conquest of the city in 1453 by the armies of Mehmed II. However,
most sufi orders would achieve only very limited influence during the first
several decades of Ottoman rule. Part of this can be attributed to the simple
reality that a substantial Muslim population had not yet settled in the city to
build up the communal base to which sufi leaders could appeal. As late as
1477, Istanbul’s population had only increased to somewhere between 60,000
and 70,000 people, only about 70 per cent of whom were Muslim.4 Yet this
population was not insignificant by 15th-century standards, and the limited
presence of sufism cannot be explained by demographics alone. Rather, the
imperial goals that Mehmed II espoused ran counter to the views of most sufi
leaders of his time, and this tension played a major role in circumscribing sufi
influence on the early development of the city.
The closest thing to a sufi-sultan relationship that Mehmed II had acquired
by the time of the conquest was ties to the Bayrami shaykh Akşemseddin
(d. 1459). This relationship may have carried over from the reign of his father,
Murad II, who had patronized the Bayrami order and incorporated some of
its followers into the military. Akşemseddin and his followers had joined the
army that had besieged the city, and according to various accounts, discov-
ered the burial place of the early Muslim warrior Abu Ayyub al-Ansari (d. 674)
4 İnalcık, “Policy of Mehmed II”, 247; see also idem, “Istanbul”, 238–39.
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Sufi Spaces and Practices 505
at a critical juncture during the siege when Ottoman morale was wavering.
Thus, the shaykh’s intervention can be credited with founding the suburban
district of Eyüp, at some distance from the old city walls. However, it is telling
that shortly after the fall of the city, Akşemseddin and his followers departed
and returned eastward to their rural home base in the town of Göynük.
Akşemseddin cited a need to take care of his elderly parents as an excuse, and
the relationship lapsed thereafter.5 As Çiğdem Kafescioğlu has shown in her
study of Mehmed II’s reconfiguration of his new imperial capital, Eyüp’s found-
ing captured the objections of many in the conquering army to the notion of
settling in the former Byzantine capital.6
As a result, during the first three decades of Muslim rule, a sufi presence in
the Ottoman capital was limited. Nevertheless, exceptions did emerge. The first
was the establishment of various shaykhs of the Zeyni sufi order in the north-
central region of Constantinople between the 1450s and 1470s, beginning with
a sufi convent established for the Ottoman historian Aşıkpaşazade (d. 1484).7
Several other Zeyni shaykhs subsequently settled in the surrounding area,
including Süleyman Halife (d. 1498) and Muhyiddin-i Kocavi (d. 1480).8 But
the most important representative of this order would be Shaykh Vefa (d. 1491),
who came to Istanbul from Konya and took up residence in a mosque and lodge
complex that Mehmed II built for him. It is unclear when Shaykh Vefa actually
arrived in Istanbul; he was clearly still resident in Konya during the 1460s, as
some sources report that he was captured by Crusaders while making the pil-
grimage and imprisoned on the island of Rhodes until the Karamanids secured
his release. Furthermore, Mehmed II, in a rare show of generosity, left Shaykh
Vefa’s endowments in the region untouched after conquering the Karamanid
capital.9 However, it seems far more likely that Shaykh Vefa was part of
the group of Karamanid notables who were deported from the city between
1468 and 1474, to prevent further resistance as it was reduced to an Ottoman
province.10 In fact, the completion date of the mosque and bath complex,
which was dated to 1476, is probably telling, as it intersects with the rise of
Mehmed II’s final grand vizier, Karamani Mehmed Pasha (d. 1481), who hailed
from the same region as the shaykh and developed a close relationship with
him. According to some sources, Shaykh Vefa would ultimately preside over
Mehmed II’s funeral prayer upon his death in 1481, although some accounts
5 Yavuz, “Making of a Sufi Order”, 64 and 77–78.

7 Kafescioğlu, “Ottoman Capital in the Making”, 328–34.
8 Karataş, “City as Historical Actor”, 89.
9 Ibid., 90.
10 Babinger, Mehmed the Conqueror, 272 and 332; see also İnalcık, “Policy of Mehmed II”, 238.
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506 Curry
contradict this by claiming that he never met publicly with any ruler.11 He
continued to occupy the complex until his death, making various additions
aimed at supporting his followers.
The second exception is the curiously named Kalenderhane, which was
established in a converted Byzantine church just south of the Vefa mosque.
While the name has led some historians to associate it with heterodox Kalender
dervishes, the stipulations in the original endowment document suggest func-
tions that included both sufis and visiting religious scholars. Whatever the
case, the building’s use as a sufi center had apparently lapsed by the end of the
15th century, and contemporary sources do not allow us to understand either
Mehmed II’s motives in converting this building into a sufi convent, or to know
who was occupying the building at the time.12
Finally, a few sources suggest that various groups that practiced renuncia-
tory forms of sufism had established a presence in the city.13 Wandering sufi
dervishes such as the Bulgaria-based heterodox dervish Otman Baba (d. 1478),
who was summoned to the capital in 1474, may have also occupied some of the
more marginal spaces within the city walls and acquired some sort of follow-
ing. Otman Baba’s own hagiography, when read carefully, suggests that these
figures and the following they cultivated would have evoked suspicion among
Ottoman authorities due to the growing sedentarization of the dynasty and its
supporters.14
2 Growing Alliances and Tensions between Sufi Orders and the

House of Osman
Sufi orders would dramatically expand their presence with the accession of
Bayezid II in 1481. Bayezid’s power base and outlook were significantly differ-
ent from those of his father, and his provincial base in Amasya had deep sufi
roots among various branches of the Halveti and Bayrami orders.15 In fact,
one prominent Halveti sufi, Cemal el-Halveti (also known as “Çelebi Halife”,
d. 1499), became a strong supporter of Bayezid II during his succession struggle
11 Compare the remarks of Babinger, Mehmed the Conqueror, 406–7 with those of Reşat
Öngören, Zeynîler, 137–43.
13 Kafescioğlu, “Ottoman Capital in the Making”, 325–27; Karamustafa, God’s Unruly Friends,
14–15 and 46–9.
14 On Otman Baba, see Antov, The Ottoman “Wild West”, 78–93; İnalcık, “Dervish and
Sultan”.
15 Karataş, “City as Historical Actor”, 17–50.
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with his rival, Cem Sultan. Cem was based in the rival city of Konya, which had
been the capital of the rival Karamanid emirate up until its incorporation into
the Ottoman domains during the 1460s. Mehmed II had placed Cem in charge
of the region after the death of his preferred successor, Mustafa, in 1474. This
meant that Cem had inherited the growing connections between Mehmed II’s
ruling elites and the Zeyni sufi order that had been based there. As a result,
various biographical entries and hagiographical accounts indicate a conflict
between Cemal el-Halveti and Shaykh Vefa, who had given a talisman of pro-
tection to Cem’s most powerful backer, Mehmed II’s last grand vizier, Mehmed
Pasha. Cemal el-Halveti made a miraculous prediction in regard to the tem-
porary loss of this talisman, at which point the janissaries rose up, overthrew
Mehmed Pasha and murdered him, thereby dooming Cem’s bid for the throne.
Some hagiographical sources also suggest that Cemal el-Halveti played a role
in attempting to sway some of the old Karamanid religious elite over to the side
of the new sultan. Whatever the case, Cemal el-Halveti and the sufis associated
with him were duly rewarded with invitations to the Ottoman capital to take
up residence at the church of Hagios Andreas in Krisei in the southwestern
quadrant of Istanbul, which had been converted into a mosque by Bayezid II’s
grand vizier, Koca Mustafa Pasha.16
This event formed part of a pattern during Bayezid II’s reign whereby many
former Byzantine buildings were converted to Muslim use and given over to
sufi purposes, in addition to a number of smaller mosques initially constructed
during Mehmed II’s reign that acquired new functions as sufi lodges.17 As a
result, prominent figures from other sufi orders, such as the Naqshbandi,
began to make their way to the capital in the wake of Bayezid’s accession to the
throne. During the disturbances that erupted during the succession struggle of
1481, a prominent Naqshbandi shaykh, Abdullah İlahi (d. 1491), came to Istanbul
to evade instability around his former home base in the town of Simav, near
the town of Kütahya. He moved into a dilapidated cell in the Zeyrek mosque
complex, itself the converted monastery of the Pantokrator, in the vicinity of
the places where the Zeyni leaders of Mehmed II’s time had established them-
selves. However, he quickly came to dislike the attention showered on him by
powerful grandees, and subsequently fled to the small town of Yenice-i Vardar
in the Balkans with some of his followers. It was really his successor Ahmed
Bukhari (d. 1516) who made the most progress in establishing a Naqshbandi
presence in Istanbul. He proved more comfortable in navigating the political
and social context of the burgeoning capital city, and by the time of his death,
16 For an overview of the sources, see Curry, “Intersection of Past and Present”, 136–69.
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508 Curry
he had established three major Naqshbandi centers, some of which received

patronage from prominent Ottoman statesmen, including Bayezid II himself.
However, it is telling that most of these centers later passed out of Naqshbandi
hands, and the modest size of the endowments that supported Naqshbandi
activities seemed to be grounded primarily in a series of modest real estate and
cash endowments made by lower-ranking members of the religious establish-
ment, ordinary followers of the shaykh, and a variety of female supporters. The
order would not become predominant on the Ottoman scene until the revival-
ist wave of the Mujaddidi wing of the Naqshbandi order began attracting fol-
lowers in the 18th and 19th centuries.18
The first signs of a Mevlevi presence in greater Istanbul also appeared
during the reign of Bayezid II, when a Mevlevi lodge was founded outside
of the walls of Galata in 1491 through the patronage of İskender Pasha, one
of Bayezid II’s viziers. Initially staffed by a shaykh named Yunus Efendi, who
may have had heterodox leanings,19 it subsequently passed to Safayi Dede
(d. 1533), a successor of the noted Mevlevi shaykh Divane Mehmed Çelebi
(d. 1529) of Afyon Karahisar. Yet like the Naqshbandi, the Mevlevi initially
struggled as well; the Mevlevi lodge was later given over to Halveti dervishes
after the death of the Mevlevi shaykh Mesnevihan Mahmud Dede in 1548,
and not returned to Mevlevi control until the early 17th century.20 Part of the
reason for this discontinuity in Mevlevi circles was the manner in which the
order appointed its shaykhs. Since most of the Istanbul-based shaykhs were
appointed from Anatolian or Balkan regional centers where the Mevlevi were
more entrenched, this limited the degree to which Mevlevis in the capital could
develop their own autonomous leadership cadres. Nevertheless, by the end of
the 16th century, other Mevlevi lodges had sprung up in Kasım Paşa, Beşiktaş,
and, finally, Yenikapı, and these would eventually generate influential family
lineages whose members would become prominent sufis by the beginning of
the 18th century.21
The rise of the Safavid Dynasty at the end of the 15th century, whose origins
were tied to an earlier sufi order founded by Safa al-Din al-Ardabili (d. 1334),
posed challenges for a number of Ottoman sufis. Some detractors of the sufi
orders in Istanbul noted that the silsile (spiritual genealogy) of the Safavids
shared its origins with sufi orders like the Halveti and Bayrami, and attacked
18 For an extensive discussion of Naqshbandi activities in Istanbul and the nature of their
support, see Le Gall, A Culture of Sufism, 36–62.
20 Işın, “Mevlevî Order”, 272.
21 Ibid., 26–30; Tanrıkorur, “Mevleviyye”, 469–70.
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their ritual practices and shaykhs as equally heterodox. With the overthrow of
Bayezid II and his governing circle, who were longstanding patrons of many
sufi groups such as the Amasya-based branches of the Halveti, a number of
prominent sufi leaders in the capital saw their positions weakened. Bayezid II’s
son Selim I seized power in a bloody succession struggle waged against a back-
drop of chaos marked by the pro-Safavid Şahkulu rebellion in Anatolia, and
after seizing control of the throne and temporarily defeating the rebels in
1512, he sought to eradicate the influence of any of his father’s or brothers’ for-
mer supporters. At one point, Selim swore an oath that he would destroy the
Halveti headquarters at the Koca Mustafa Pasha foundation in southwestern
Istanbul, and was only dissuaded by a shrewd demonstration of loyalty on the
part of Cemal el-Halveti’s successor, Sünbül Sinan Efendi (d. 1529). Once the
shaykh won over the new sultan, he allowed him to keep his oath by destroying
only the chimney flues on the building, thereby allowing the new ruler to save
face without damaging the primary headquarters of the order in the capital.22
This narrative cannot obscure that many sufi groups, including the fol-
lowers of Sünbül Sinan, were caught up in an extensive attempt to eradicate
religious movements deemed potentially sympathetic to the Safavid threat.
Several prominent religious leaders who were closely tied to Ottoman military
efforts on both its western and eastern fronts, named in the sources as Molla
Arab (d. 1532) and Sarı Gürz (d. 1520), attacked sufi practices of chanted lita-
nies (semā’) and the ritual motions that accompanied them (devrān), likening
them to singing and dancing, and arguing that earlier generations of schol-
ars had prohibited the intersection of these activities with worship. Traces
of these attacks appear in the form of various apologetic sufi texts defending
their practices, which proliferated from the 16th century onward, though most
sufi orders were able to defend their legitimacy.23
The subsequent defeat of the Safavids at Çaldıran in 1514, followed by the
defeat and incorporation of the Mamluk Sultanate a few years later, alleviated
the military threat to the empire, and also helped to stabilize Ottoman-sufi
relations after the initial period of tension. Selim I’s honoring and renova-
tion of the tomb of the notable Muslim mystic Ibn al-Arabi (d. 1240) outside
Damascus in 1517 was especially significant. Despite the controversial nature
of Ibn al-Arabi’s writings and thought since the 13th century, the sultan’s
22 Curry, Transformation of Muslim Mystical Thought, 72–74; see also idem, “Growth of a
Hagiographical Literature”, 914.
23 This pivotal moment in Halveti history is outlined in Curry, Transformation of Muslim
Mystical Thought, 273–76; for a partial surviving Halveti response to the persecution, see
Yüksel & Toker, Sünbül Efendi, 14–82.
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510 Curry
endorsement of his sanctity boldly proclaimed the dynasty’s support for one
of the foundations of sufi mysticism.24
It is also worth noting that an alternative branch of the Halveti order, based
in Karaman and descended from the leadership of Habib-i Karamani (d. 1496),
abruptly arrived in the capital during Selim’s reign. This branch had publicly
split from the Halveti leaders that had supported Bayezid II, and were hos-
tile to groups like the followers of Sünbül Sinan who descended from them.
The grand vizier Piri Pasha (d. 1532) patronized the new arrivals by having
three lodges built for them in Zeyrek, Fındıkzade, and Sütlüce, and tensions
between the various Halveti groups persisted after Selim’s death, carrying over
into Süleyman’s reign. Eventually, the more established groups like the Sünbüli
defeated this challenge, as the Karamani Halveti seem to have petered out with
the death of Cemaleddin İshak, their most prominent shaykh, in 1526.25 Still,
it was noteworthy that Merkez Müslihüddin Efendi (d. 1552), Sünbül Sinan’s
successor after 1529, started out as a Karamani devotee and later switched
over to their Sünbüli rivals, thereby granting additional spiritual legitimacy to
that branch. Yet a prominent 17th-century Halveti hagiographer subsequently
remarked that Merkez Efendi would purposefully avoid the Karamani cen-
ters via lengthy detours when he went from the Koca Mustafa Pasha lodge to
preach at the mosque of Mehmed II.26
The tension was real enough that it came to be reflected in the work of the
subsequent compiler of biographies, Taşköprizade (d. 1561). He included only
brief entries on the Sünbüli shaykhs of the capital, while offering much more
extensive descriptions of rival Halveti figures like Cemaleddin İshak, including
his deathbed denunciation of most of the sufis of the capital, whom he did not
see as following the religious law.27 These criticisms also emerged in the work
of the Naqshbandi compiler of sufi biographies, Lamiʿi Çelebi (d. 1532), includ-
ing an angry diatribe against the successors of Cemal el-Halveti in a biographi-
cal compilation of sufis he presented to Sultan Süleyman in 1521. Following his
entry for Cemal el-Halveti, he accused subsequent sufi leaders of various doc-
trinal deviations and a failure to uphold the proper principles of religion.28
These criticisms, combined with the existential conflict with the Safavids,
led Ottoman rulers and statesmen to take a more cautious approach to sufism
24 Knysh, Ibn Arabi in the Later Islamic Tradition, 4.

26 Hulvi, Lemeẓāt-ı Ḥulviyye, 226r; see also Karataş, “City as Historical Actor”, 125–27.
28 Abdurrahman Cami and Lamiʿi Çelebi, Nefahâtü’l-Üns, 709–10. This may represent an
echo of earlier Zeyni hostility to the Halveti upstarts, see Karataş, “City as Historical
Actor”, 119–22.
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than other Muslim empires that emerged during the early modern period.
Whereas the rulers of the Safavid, Mughal, and Shaybanid empires often patron-
ized sufi shrines and maintained very close relationships with their followings,
to the point where they would be buried in proximity to them, the Ottoman
relationship with sufi centers tended to be more distant and reserved. Many
Ottoman sultans of the early modern era were buried near the monumental
mosque complexes that they had endowed as part of the construction of an
imperial skyline in Istanbul. While royal patronage of sufi leaders was certainly
possible, it was limited primarily to living sufi figures, not long deceased ones
with an already-established following.29 As a result, relationships that formed
between sultans and sufi leaders in Istanbul were often affected by political
considerations, and both parties maintained a polite distance from each other.
During the long reign of Süleyman I, the state’s attitude toward sufi groups
oscillated between persecution and tacit mutual acceptance. The early decades
of Süleyman’s reign, influenced by the lingering conflict with the Safavids,
were marked by suspicion of any figure who made claims to religious authority
and developed a large following. For example, the founder of the Halveti sub-
branch of the Gülşeni order, İbrahim-i Gülşeni (d. 1534), was summoned from
Cairo following the anti-Ottoman rebellion there in 1524. While his hagiogra-
phy claims that he won over the sultan and was released with great honors, and
Ottoman records indicate a gift of 10,000 gold coins to the shaykh, his followers
were not so fortunate. One of them, a shaykh named Kaşifi, was executed after
some ill-advised ecstatic and messianic utterances early in Süleyman’s reign. A
subsequent Gülşeni shaykh, Muhyiddin Karamani, then attracted the hostility
of the chief jurisprudent Ebussuud Efendi (d. 1574), culminating in an inquisi-
tion by a group of religious scholars that led to his execution in 1550.30
The Gülşeni order was not the only group targeted during Süleyman’s reign.
At the same time that İbrahim was being summoned from Cairo, a nineteen-
year-old shaykh of the Bayrami-Melami order, İsmail Maşuki, arrived in
Istanbul and began mocking the legal judgements of the Ottoman religious
establishment as inferior to his own brand of ecstatic spirituality. Alarmed by
the rapid growth of his following among the sipāhī cavalry and the artisans of
29 Yürekli, “Writing Down the Feats”, 103–04. The only notable exceptions were the afore-
mentioned shrine of Ibn al-Arabi in Damascus and the expansion of the tomb complex of
the founder of the Mevlevi order, Jalal al-Din Rumi (d. 1273), both of which followed major
Ottoman military victories and were implemented with political agendas in mind.
30 The events surrounding Gülşeni’s inquisition and the execution of his followers are
described in Emre, Ibrahim-i Gulshani, 239–48 and 322–39; Necipoğlu, Age of Sinan, 53.
These events led to Gülşeni and his followers being excluded from the sufi groups recog-
nized by Ottoman intellectual elites; see Niyazioğlu, “In the Dream Realm”, 246–47.
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512 Curry
the city, the chief jurisprudent Kemalpaşazade (d. 1536) issued a fatwa for his
immediate execution in the city’s largest public square, Atmeydanı.31 Hostile
scrutiny of sufi orders also ramped up in the final decade of Süleyman’s reign,
as tensions over the succession to the throne led to the rebellion of his son
Bayezid in 1559. After his refusal to perform a public prayer for rain to relieve
a drought, the Halveti shaykh Yakub el-Germiyani (d. 1571) was suspected of
having sympathies with rebellious factions and was arrested, which later led
his son, Yusuf Sinaneddin, to write a hagiography defending the legacy of the
Sünbüli sub-branch in Istanbul.32 A hagiographical anecdote about the Bayrami
shaykh Gazanfer Dede (d. 1567) tells of how the hagiographer and the saint
were imprisoned for a long period, and narrates a miraculous act of the shaykh
whereby he transported them both from the misery of their cell temporarily to
Hagia Sophia mosque. But when the hagiographer asked Gazanfer Dede if they
should then escape, the shaykh responded that he would not violate the reli-
gious law of obedience to rulers by doing so.33 Such narratives suggest that in
the 16th century, during times of imperial crisis, prominent sufi leaders estab-
lished in the capital and its environs came under increased scrutiny, and their
hagiographers later felt bound to defend their legitimacy.
However, narratives suggesting tensions were just as frequently matched by
evidence of more friendly relationships. Prior to his enthronement, Süleyman
had enjoyed the sermons of the Halveti shaykh Merkez Efendi (d. 1552) in
Manisa, and when Merkez Efendi arrived in the capital in 1529 after the death
of Sünbül Sinan, he quickly developed a following among elites and com-
moners alike. Süleyman’s sister Şah Sultan became a follower of this shaykh’s
successor, Yakub el-Germiyani, when she and her husband Lütfi Pasha were
stationed in Yanya (Ioannina). She quickly gravitated to Merkez Efendi himself
when he was appointed as an army shaykh for the campaign against Corfu in
1537, where both he and Yakub appear to have been involved in the fighting.34
After her convoy was attacked by bandits on the way back to the capital,
Şah Sultan claimed to have been saved by the spiritual power of the shaykh,
and subsequently constructed at least three separate complexes at her own
expense (in intramural Istanbul, just outside of the city walls in Mevlanakapı
and in Eyüp), that included sufi convents for various Halveti shaykhs of the
Sünbüli sub-branch. One of these was given over to Yakub el-Germiyani after
31 Ocak, Zındıklar ve Mülhidler, 274–90; see also the interpretations of Necipoğlu, Age of
Sinan, 53; Emre, Ibrahim-i Gulshani, 169.
32 Curry, “Growth of a Hagiographical Literature”, 915.
33 Curry, Transformation of Muslim Mystical Thought, 74.
34 Sināneddīn b. Yūsuf b. Yaʿkūb, Tezkīretüʾl-Ḫalvetiye, fols. 34v–35r.
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recalling him from Yanya—though she later turned it into a madrasa out of
annoyance when Yakub abruptly abandoned it to succeed Merkez Efendi at
the Koca Mustafa Pasha lodge upon the latter’s death. Likening herself to the
noted female saint Rabia al-Adawiyya (d. 801), Şah Sultan was eventually bur-
ied in the complex she constructed in Eyüp.35
At the end of his life, Süleyman himself became deeply influenced by
another Halveti shaykh, Nureddinzade (d. 1574), who had come to Istanbul in
the 1550s and gained the respect of the chief jurisprudent Ebussuud Efendi.
A follower of the prominent Balkan shaykh Sofyalı Bali Efendi (d. 1553), he
won the support of a number of Ottoman statesmen. Süleyman’s respect for
Nureddinzade proved so great that according to Atai’s biographical sketch of
him, he was convinced by the shaykh to launch his final campaign into Europe
despite his failing health, eventually dying near Szigetvár in Hungary. The
shaykh, who had accompanied the sultan as an army shaykh, subsequently
presided over the return of the sultan’s coffin to Istanbul.36 The shaykh’s
influence would continue beyond Süleyman’s death, as his grand vizier Sokollu
Mehmed Pasha (d. 1579) established a dervish convent for Nureddinzade’s
use as part of a mosque complex that he commissioned in Kadırga Limanı,
in close proximity to Küçük Ayasofya mosque and his own palace. While
Nureddinzade would not live to see the completion of Sokollu’s work, his close
follower Kurd Mehmed Efendi (d. 1587) did take up the position, and a number
of Nureddinzade’s followers were appointed in Sokollu-endowed convents in
other parts of the empire during these years.37
The growth in the prestige of these shaykhs was indicative of another trend
by the final years of Süleyman’s reign, which was a turn toward religious fig-
ures who displayed a greater harmonization between their sufi teachings and
the Ottoman religious hierarchy emerging out of the madrasa complexes that
the rulers had endowed. Sofyalı Bali Efendi had been known for acting as a
secret informant against sufi groups that he viewed as being too lax in their
adherence to Islamic norms, and his followers were part of a broader group
that tended to support Ottoman expansion against non-Muslim territories in
conjunction with greater adherence to the sharia.38 Spiritual genealogies of
Soyfalı Bali, Nureddinzade, and their followers presented them as spiritual
35 Necipoğlu, Age of Sinan, 293–96.

36 Yürekli, “A Building Between the Public and Private Realms”, 163; for a more thorough
analysis, see Niyazioğlu, “Dreams, Biography Writing”, 178–79.
37 Yürekli, “A Building Between the Public and Private Realms”, 163.
38 Clayer, Mystiques, état et société, 79–112; Clayer draws upon a unique work that describes
the policing of other sufi orders, particularly the Gülşeni shaykhs, by Sofyalı Bali and his
followers by Münirī-i Belgradi, Silsiletü’l-muḳarribīn, fols. 119v–123r.
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514 Curry
descendants of the same Cemal el-Halveti whose leadership had founded the
Sünbüli. However, it is possible that their positions had diverged from their fel-
low sub-branch in the capital by the final decade of Süleyman’s reign, and later
eclipsed the Sünbüli shaykhs, whose relationships with the Ottoman royal
family showed signs of strain.
Given these growing internal tensions within Ottoman sufism’s own ranks,
it is perhaps ironic that their influence in the politics of the capital reached its
high-water mark during the subsequent reign of Sultan Murad III (r. 1574–95).
Even before his accession to the throne, Murad and his sister Raziye had devel-
oped a spiritual relationship with a follower of a Kastamonu-based branch of
the Halveti order founded by Şaban-ı Veli (d. 1569). Shaykh Şüca (d. 1588), as he
came to be known, subsequently followed Murad to Istanbul and took up resi-
dence outside of Topkapı Palace. The sultan declared himself to be a devotee
of the shaykh, and regularly corresponded with his spiritual master through
written messages, many of which were eventually compiled by a Halveti
dervish after Şüca’s death into a volume that survives in the Nuruosmaniye
Library.39 Şüca’s role was subsequently filled by a Crimean Halveti shaykh from
a different branch of the order, İbrahim-i Kırımi (d. 1593), who also kept up a
running correspondence with the sultan until his death.40 Furthermore, upon
Murad’s accession to the throne, Sinaneddin Yusuf dedicated a well-known
hagiographical work that sought to defend the legacy of the Sünbüli branch of
the Halveti order to Murad III, and was rewarded for it with an appointment
as Shaykh al-Haram in Medina. He subsequently produced a treatise on how
to interpret visions of the Prophet in dreams, and sent it to the sultan from his
post in Medina, where he died in 1581. This trajectory marked a rehabilitation
of the Sünbüli branch of the order from the aforementioned tensions over the
public prayers for rain that had marked their interaction with Süleyman.41
The close intertwining of sufi figures with the ruler appears to have
unleashed additional tensions that proved irreconcilable for both sultans and
shaykhs alike. A close analysis of Murad III’s correspondence with Shaykh
Şüca suggests that the shaykh preferred to keep his distance, especially as the
sultan grew more insistent on acquiring various kinds of mystical powers to
address the growing crisis of the empire, particularly as the Ottoman-Safavid
war bogged down into a stalemate during the 1580s. Subsequent historical
39 Sultan Murad III, Kitāb-ı Manāmāt; it has since been transcribed and published as Özgen
Felek (ed.), Kitâbü’l-Menâmât: Sultan III. Murad’ın Rüya Mektupları.
40 As uncovered by the careful detective work of Terzioğlu, “Power, Patronage and
Confessionalism”.
41 Curry, “Growth of a Hagiographical Literature”, 914 and n. 16.
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chronicles written by contemporaries, such as the Künhü’l-aḫbār of Mustafa

Âli (d. 1601), went as far as to describe the influence of Shaykh Şüca on the
sultan as a cause of the empire’s decline. Subsequent sufi writings were often
critical of the relationships Murad developed with various sufi figures, suggest-
ing that the mixing of the spheres of religious and political authority violated a
boundary between this-worldly and otherworldly power that required a more
careful separation.42 Even the later hagiographer and consolidator of the
Şabani order, Ömer el-Fuadi (d. 1636), seemed purposely to downplay the con-
tributions of Shaykh Şüca, which is evident in the inscription that Fuadi later
placed on the mosque of Şaban-ı Veli in Kastamonu.43
3 Sufi Groups in Istanbul during the General Crisis of the

17th Century
The tensions evoked by relationships between sufi leaders and the Ottoman
royal household coincided with a growing criticism and, in some cases, out-
right rejection of many sufi practices and doctrines among factions of the
broader Muslim community. While issues such as the visitation of tombs, or
the legitimacy of foundational sufi thinkers such as Ibn al-Arabi had also elic-
ited controversy in earlier periods, Ottoman Muslims began to debate these
practices with renewed vigor over the course of the later 16th and 17th cen-
turies. Drawing on earlier thinkers like Birgili Mehmed Efendi (d. 1573), who
placed little value on “custom and usage” (ʿörf ve ʿādet) in interpreting religious
law, groups of mosque preachers and their followers began to utilize strict
literalist readings of the Quran, hadith, and judicial precedent to challenge
established Ottoman Muslim doctrine and praxis. These viewpoints initially
gained traction in the provincial areas of the empire; after all, Birgili Mehmed
hailed from the small town of Birgi, east of Izmir. Nevertheless, Birgili Mehmed
has been tenuously linked to both the Bayrami and Naqshbandi orders due to
mentions of various mentoring figures in the biographical literature. There was
also resistance to the building of the tomb of the noted Halveti saint Şaban-ı
Veli (d. 1569) in Kastamonu that invoked criticism of various Ottoman sufi
practices long before they became prevalent in Istanbul.44 The expansion of
42 For more thorough discussion, see Curry, “‘The Meeting of the Two Sultans’”, 223–42.
43 For an extensive discussion of this inscription and its implications, see Curry,
Transformation of Muslim Mystical Thought, 225–27.
44 For Birgili Mehmed, see Zilfi, “The Kadızadelis: Discordant Revivalism”, 260–62;
Çavuşoğlu, “The Kâdîzâdeli Movement”, 48–59; Ivanyi, “Birgivī Meḥmed”; Weismann, The
Naqshbandiyya, 133. For more on anti-sufi practices prior to the emergence of Kadızade
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516 Curry
these views may have tracked closely with the breakdown of order that marked
the emerging 17th-century crisis, sparked by climate change, the collapse of
provincial security, and the rural-to-urban migrations that followed.45
By the time of Sultan Murad IV (r. 1623–40), those who espoused these
trends in Istanbul coalesced around the leadership of a mosque preacher,
Kadızade Mehmed (d. 1635). His followers, both during his lifetime and after
his death, subsequently received the moniker of “Kadızadeli”. While Kadızadeli
ideas were not particularly novel in their own right, the aggressive tactics they
employed against their opponents were, and they ushered in decades of politi-
cal and social instability for the sufi groups they targeted in Istanbul.46 As
Madeline Zilfi has shown, the eruption of increasingly violent conflict between
key sufi leaders and Kadızadeli followers was grounded in a competition for
positions and influence in the Ottoman imperial structure.47 It also took on a
populist tone through critiques of some of the elite members of the religious
hierarchy. Given the provincial “outsider” origins of many in the movement,
it may have represented an attempt to carve out a space for these newcomers
in the Ottoman hierarchy. Moreover, there some evidence that members of
the movement may have had connections to the Naqshbandi order, suggest-
ing that tensions between sufi orders espousing different ideas about praxis
may have played a role.48 The Kadızadelis and their followers also made direct
appeals to sultans, grand viziers, and jurisprudents to impose their puritanical
vision of religious culture.
The history of 17th-century Istanbul is often presented as being marked by
three successive waves of Kadızadeli ascendancy, each proving more virulent
than the last. The influence of Kadızade Mehmed in the 1630s was followed
by the aggressive anti-sufi activities of Üstüvani Mehmed Efendi (d. 1661) dur-
ing the 1650s, and the movement subsequently reached its peak with the ascen-
dancy of Vani Mehmed Efendi (d. 1685) from the early 1660s to the failed siege
Mehmed, see Curry, Transformation of Muslim Mystical Thought, 223–37; Terzioğlu,

“Sunna-Minded Sufi Preachers”, 254–56.
45 White, Climate of Rebellion, 187–225; which should be set in the context outlined by
Parker, Global Crisis, 1–109 and 185–210.
46 An important contribution in this regard is the work of Sheikh, Ottoman Puritanism,
10–22.
47 Zilfi, “The Kadızadelis: Discordant Revivalism”, 256.
48 On this outsider positioning, see Terzioğlu, “Sunna-Minded Sufi Preachers”, 263–64 and
278–81; Baer, Honored by the Glory of Islam, 74–5. On the extent of possible Naqshbandi con-
nections of the movement, compare the conflicting views of Le Gall, A Culture of Sufism,
150–56, who is skeptical outside of a few cases, and Sheikh, Ottoman Puritanism, 56–66
and Weismann, The Naqshbandiyya 133–34, who suggest a more extensive involvement.
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of Vienna in 1683. Since this has been discussed more thoroughly elsewhere,49
I will focus here on the impact that the Kadızadelis had on day-to-day sufi lives
in urban Istanbul.
The surviving sources from the period of Kadızadeli ascendancy do not
always provide detailed information about sufi responses to their challengers
in the capital outside of major incidents, such as acquiring an order to suppress
an anti-Birgili Mehmed tract produced by a supporter of the Halveti shaykh
Abdulehad Nuri, and the attacks on sufi lodges by the followers of Üstüvani
Mehmed that accompanied it.50 Nevertheless, a few detailed sufi accounts do
survive about the impact of the conflict on urban life in the capital during this
period. The most important is the hagiography of Ünsi Hasan Efendi (d. 1723),
along with a collection of his teachings and sayings compiled by his 18th-
century follower, İbrahim el-Has (d. 1761).51 These sources describe how Ünsi
Hasan’s shaykh, Karabaş Ali Veli (d. 1686), gained such prominence during the
1670s that he attracted the attention of the reigning sultan, Mehmed IV, through
his sermons in major mosques of the Asian district of Üsküdar. Worried about
this sufi’s growing influence over the ruler, the Kadızadeli leader Vani Mehmed
Efendi intervened, and had Karabaş Ali and his son exiled to Lemnos, thereby
leaving his following in Istanbul bereft of leadership.52
The hagiography goes on to describe active Kadızadeli persecution in the
wake of these events. After being assigned to the Acem Ağa mosque, a con-
verted Byzantine church across from Hagia Sophia, Ünsi Hasan found himself
subject to various kinds of petty harassment and acts of violence. İbrahim’s
account presented these oppressors as “fanatical students” (sūḫteler); more-
over, he claimed that many of these men were former devotees of the shaykh
who had turned against him.53 The hostilities apparently reached a point
where Ünsi Hasan, dropping the traditional sufi veneer of disinterest in worldly
affairs, openly condemned his adversaries. When the Kadızadeli students who
had persecuted him began to drop dead from various mysterious causes, he
refused to offer any prayers for their salvation, surprising his remaining follow-
ers by his lack of compassion or forgiveness.54
49 For examples, see the aforementioned works of Zilfi, Çavuşoğlu, Baer, and Sheikh.
50 Zilfi, “The Kadızadelis: Discordant Revivalism”, 258–62.
51 İbrāhīm el-Hāṣ, Risāle-i Menāḳıb-ı Ünsī; idem, Kelām-ı ͑Azīz; modern Turkish printed-text
versions of these texts have also appeared in recent years.
52 Derin, “Abdurrahman Abdi Paşa Vekayi’namesi”, 420.
53 İbrāhīm el-Hāṣ, Risāle-i Menāḳıb-ı Ünsī, fols. 22r–23r.
54 Ibid., fols. 24r–25r.
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518 Curry
The crisis appears to have impacted Ünsi Hasan’s thinking well after the
Kadızadeli movement declined in the 1680s. His actions as a Halveti shaykh,
along with his teachings, underwent significant modification once he came
to occupy the Aydınoğlu lodge just outside of Topkapı Palace, where his tomb
is located. For example, he once told his followers, “may you never ask a ques-
tion of anyone. Because to ask questions makes it clear that you are censur-
ing them … there is another group as well who apply themselves diligently
to censuring. They are insistent in the vanity of impertinence…. Those who
insist on censuring and asking questions, they are far from the secret of
God.”55 It is impossible to ignore the obvious Kadızadeli references in these
remarks. Moreover, in contrast to other Halveti shaykhs who tolerated novel
social practices such as tobacco and coffee consumption among their follow-
ers, Ünsi Hasan issued strong injunctions that aimed to prevent any of his fol-
lowers from taking up these practices, or even spending time in places where
these activities were common, such as barbershops.56 Any act of disobedience,
however marginal, often led to punishment, or even the expulsion of wayward
followers from the order—a policy that led even to the estrangement of the
shaykh’s own daughter.57 Perhaps most strikingly, Ünsi Hasan was adamant for
the remainder of his life to completely avoid any kind of political involvement
with Ottoman leaders and dignitaries, and even other prominent sufi leaders
who had gained a certain renown among their contemporaries.58 All of this
suggests that one of the potential long-term Kadızadeli impacts, despite their
decline, was to cause some sufi leaders to espouse a more private form of reli-
giosity and leadership, marked by careful oversight and correction of activities
among their followers that might draw undue attention.
On the other hand, the diary of the sufi adept Seyyid Hasan (d. 1688) during
the first half of the 1660s makes almost no mention of Kadızadeli influence
on the day-to-day life of the Sünbuli-Halveti devotees with whom he spent his
time. Recent studies of his Soḥbetnāme (Book of Conversations) suggest that
this might be due to a form of self-censorship or dissimulation, or a desire to
chronicle a close-knit social world secure from the tumults of the latter half
of the 17th century.59 However, the much more explicit religious content of
his contemporary Ünsi Hasan suggests alternative explanations may be in
55 İbrāhīm el-Hāṣ, Kelām-ı ͑Azīz, fol. 25r–v.

56 Ibid., fols. 53v–54r and 58v–59r; see also idem, Risāle-i Menāḳıb-ı Ünsī, fol. 47r–v.
57 See İbrāhīm el-Hāṣ, Risāle-i Menāḳıb-ı Ünsī, fols. 32r–33v and 104r–v, for example.
58 See the multiple accounts of distrust of state authority in ibid., 59r–63r, for example.
59 Deniz, “Use of Space by Sufis”, 23–6; Kafadar, “Self and Others”, 138–49; Gökyay,
“Sohbetnâme”.
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order. The proximity of Ünsi Hasan to Topkapı Palace and the major mosques
adjacent to it may have placed him more firmly in the maelstrom of the reli-
gious conflicts of the time, whereas Seyyid Hasan spent most of his time in
the Halveti strongholds of the western edge of the old city, which were home
to the longstanding foundations of the various shaykhs of the Sünbüli-Halveti
order. He was even appointed to a preacher post in Balat by the chief Ottoman
jurisprudent, where he served for 24 years.60 This raises the intriguing possibil-
ity that certain areas of the city were more prone to Kadızadeli-sufi conflict
than others, where business simply carried on as usual, or was insulated from
turmoil taking place elsewhere in the city.
4 Sufism in Istanbul at the End of the Early Modern Period
The historical narrative of sufism’s continuing influence on Istanbul beyond

the tumultuous events of the 17th century remains to be written. Whereas there
is a proliferation of studies examining the spread and influence of sufi move-
ments in the Arab lands, sub-Saharan Africa, Persia, the Indian Subcontinent,
and Southeast Asia during the critical transition from the 18th to the 19th cen-
tury, there is a dearth of scholarly work, especially in Western languages, on
sufi orders in the Ottoman center during the 18th century.61 This may be simply
because of raw proliferation: by the 18th century, the initial domination of the
Halveti, Bayrami, and Naqshbandi orders in the early centuries had given way
to a far more diverse range of sufi figures. According to Ramazan Muslu, there
were 807 known shaykhs that fell broadly under the rubric of ten major sufi
orders, showing a general trend of increase in all orders but the Bayrami, which
may have become more secretive due to the persecutions of the 17th century.
While Muslu’s study encompassed a sample size that extended throughout the
empire, the Istanbul-centric nature of the sources he draws upon probably
reflects general trends in the capital as well.62 His findings can be summarized
as follows:
60 Kafadar, “Self and Others”, 140.

61 An example is Radtke, “Sufism in the 18th Century”, 326–64.
62 Of the 807 shaykhs that Muslu’s catalog discusses, over two-thirds of them (67 per cent)
were Istanbul-based; see Muslu, Osmanlı Toplumunda Tasavvuf, 750.
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520 Curry
Table 19.1 Distribution of sufi shaykhs in Ottoman lands in the 18th century
Sufi order Number of shaykhs Per cent of Per cent increase

total shaykhs since the 17th century
Halveti 328 40.60% +36.8%

Naqshbandi 114 14.74% +69.2%
Mevlevi 89 11.02% +44.9%
Kadiri 87 10.78% +85.0%
Celveti 80 9.91% +61.2%
Bektaşi 30 3.71% +70.0%
Sadi 26 3.22% N/A (new order)
Bayrami 26 3.22% −16.1%
Rifaʿi 23 2.85% N/A (new order)
Bedevi 4 0.49% N/A (new order)
To add to these figures, Muslu also noted that the number of identifiable sufi
lodges built in the 18th century doubled the number of those built in the previ-
ous two centuries combined.63
More detailed information becomes available to demonstrate how these
empire-wide changes were even more pronounced in Istanbul itself by the
19th century. A count of sufi lodges with active shaykhs in Istanbul, compiled
by an anonymous author in 1840, noted a total of 256. This was followed by a
more detailed accounting during the late 19th-century reign of Abdülhamid II
by a religious functionary, Bandırmalı Ahmed Münib Üsküdari, increasing the
total number to 305.64 These numbers indicate how the growth of Naqshbandi,
Kadiri, Rifaʿi, and Sadi lodges had begun to challenge the traditional domi-
nance of the Halveti institutions of the capital since the 17th century.
Nevertheless, these numbers can be misleading; for example, the number
of Mevlevi shaykhs clearly exceeds by a wide margin the number of Mevlevi
lodges that existed in Istanbul. Therefore, it still remains difficult to identify
any post-17th-century trends with any certainty, as the studies of later-period
figures are still in their infancy. However, some intriguing hypotheses do exist.
One is that the proliferation of sufi orders in the capital may have created a
dynamic whereby sufi leaders and their lodges became increasingly associated
63 For summaries of Muslu’s findings, see ibid., 561–62.

64 The relevant counts can be found in Galitekin (ed.), Osmanlı Kaynaklarına Göre, 187–221.
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Table 19.2 Distribution of sufi lodges in late 19th-century Istanbul
Sufi order Number of lodges Per cent of total lodges Per cent change over
(1840 / late 19th c.) (1840 / late 19th c.) course of 19th c.
Halveti 87 / 86 34% / 28% –6%

(all branches)
Naqshbandi 51 / 65 20% / 21% +1%
Kadiri 39 / 57 15% / 19% +4%
Sadi 28 / 23 11% / 8% −3%
Rifaʿi 18 / 35 7% / 11% +4%
Celveti 13 / 22 5% / 7% +2%
Bayrami 9/4 4% / 1% −3%
Mevlevi 6/5 2% / 2% 0%
Bedevi 3/8 1% / 3% +2%
Şazeli 2/3 1% / 1% 0%
with a specific neighborhood, and began to move away from the more exten-
sive reach that the earlier leadership of these groups held. For example, the
development of the Nasuhi order, a branch of the Halveti sub-branch of the
Şabani order, came to be identified very clearly by their followers in their writ-
ings as specific to the quarter of Doğancılar, a suburb of Üsküdar on the Asian
side of the Bosphorus.65 Furthermore, following a pattern that Zilfi observed
in regard to the Ottoman religious hierarchy, many sufi orders became family-
based and not so open-ended in their selection of leadership.66 In a study
of the Nureddin Mehmed Cerrahi lodge in Istanbul, Nathalie Clayer noted how
the family of the shaykh took on a much greater role by the 18th century, with
the tombs of various family members now placed in the lodge’s tomb complex
near that of the founder. The shaykh’s wife and sons also took on important
roles in propagating or supporting the order in the community.67
The aforementioned Nasuhi order followed the pattern even more explic-
itly, with the leadership of the order passing from father to son in an unbro-
ken procession from its founding at the turn of the 18th century right up to
the closing of the sufi lodges in 1925.68 Moreover, a collection of addenda to
65 Ibid., 181–82 and 189.

66 Zilfi, Politics of Piety, 45–65 and 211–14.
67 Clayer, “Life in an Istanbul Tekke”, 224–31.
68 Kürkçüoğlu, Şeyh Muhammed Nasûhî, 62–82.
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522 Curry
a series of waqf endowments that has survived in their library holdings sug-
gests that the order was involved in the administration of pious foundations
established by high-ranking supporters in the Ottoman hierarchy. In this docu-
ment, Mehmed Agha b. Abdülkerim, the former governor of Egypt (1743/44)
who also acted as the yedekçibaşı (chief equerry) and Türkmen Agha69 of the
chief harem eunuch Moralı Beşir Agha (d. 1752), endowed a number of houses
and other properties in the various districts of Üsküdar, where the Nasuhi
lodge was located. He endowed the first collection of properties in 1750, and
continued to endow additional properties to the foundation up until the end
of the year 1757. His wife, Sarayi Rukiyye Hatun bt. Abdullah, later endowed
additional properties in 1774 that built upon her husband’s foundation. While
the connection of the document to the Nasuhi order cannot explicitly be
determined from the information it provides, the burial of Moralı Beşir Agha
in the Doğancılar quarter of Üsküdar, in close proximity to the Nasuhi lodge
and cemetery,70 along with the survival of the document in the sufi order’s
library, suggests that the group played a role in administering and maintaining
the properties in this document.71
These trends line up with a number of changes that marked 18th-century
sufism that were identified by Nehemia Levtzion in a more global context rang-
ing from Africa to Southeast Asia. These included the shift of sufi orders from
diffuse face-to-face affiliations to organizations of a wider scope, affiliations
with only one brotherhood or shaykh as opposed to multiple ones, and a move
69 The yedekçibaşı was tasked with bringing spare horses to the ruler when necessary, and
was among a number of cavalry servants within the sultan’s royal household: see Turan,
“Silâhdar”. As for the term “Türkmen Agha”, its meaning is unclear in this context. A pos-
sible explanation may be that the taxes collected from Türkmen groups around the area
of Sivas were used to support prominent waqf holdings in Üsküdar, most notably the
mosque constructed by Nurbanu Sultan, the mother of Sultan Murad III; thus, this title
may have applied to individuals tasked with managing activity related to this; see Sümer,
“Türkmenler”, 610.
70 For more on Moralı Beşir Agha, see Hathaway, Chief Eunuch of the Ottoman Harem,
150–54.
71 This manuscript of 70 folios has survived in the Hz. Nasuhi Efendi collection of the Selim
Ağa Library in Üsküdar, and is presently catalogued as SK, Hz. Nasuhi Efendi 201. The col-
lection notes various endowed properties dating from 1750 to 1774, followed by a series of
cases in which a female mütevellī by the name of Hatım Hatun incurred debts in the sale
of property to the waqf that later had to be forgiven by its administrators. Unfortunately,
I have not yet been able to link any of the names mentioned in the series of records to
any known person in the Nasuhi circle with 100 per cent certainty, though the contin-
ued recurrence of a mütevellī named al-Hajj Ahmed b. al-Hajj Osman in almost all of the
documents in question may be telling, and the survival of these documents in the Nasuhi
library indicates that they had some interest in the matter.
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away from the more ascetic orientation of earlier eras toward a greater integra-
tion with the community in this world.72 Further research will be required to
determine if other Istanbul-based sufi orders followed these trends, but the
development of extensive endowed properties, and the growing circles of fol-
lowers that supported them, suggest that this type of consolidation may have
been present in Istanbul as well.73
One point is not in question, which is that sufi orders were an extensive part
of the Istanbul landscape by the end of the early modern period. A study of a
record dated around 1820 in the Topkapı Palace Archive by Klaus Kreiser found
that 684 people were inhabiting 171 sufi lodges in Istanbul, which he estimated
as being approximately 1 per cent of the adult male population of the city, and
this number had increased to 1826 people by the year 1870.74 Even on the
eve of the closing of the sufi lodges in 1925, it was estimated that one out of
every eight denizens of Istanbul had some connection to a sufi institution.75
Whatever the challenges posed to sufism by earlier opponents, sufi shaykhs
and their institutions had become ingrained across the urban landscape, and
would remain so until the advent of the Turkish Republic.
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Chapter 20
The Sultan, His Monument, and the Critical Public

Zeynep Yürekli
The bearing of an absolute monarchy on the cityscape of Istanbul is still pal-

pable. Even after the postmodern process that turned it into one small part of a
huge megalopolis engulfed in concrete, the Ottoman palace and the charitable
building complexes sponsored by royalty and viziers stand out. They are ves-
tiges of a centralized bureaucratic machine that produced a relatively unified
and hierarchically codified architectural culture from the late 15th to the early
17th century. Available visual sources leave no doubt that imperial construc-
tions dominated the early modern cityscape as well, before fires, earthquakes,
and finally modern urban interventions pushed most other constructions of
this period into oblivion. The physical predominance of imperial edifices is
compounded by the nature of textual sources. Constructions of private indi-
viduals and communities are in large part only known from endowment docu-
ments, mentions in court records, and fleeting references in biographical/
hagiographical sources. When it comes to imperial edifices, however, chron-
icles and archival sources contain ample information.
All of this has facilitated a neat story of the construction of an imperial capi-
tal by a glorious dynasty for appreciative subjects, which has been retold in the
past century to citizens, tourists, and students. How could one transcend such
an overwhelming authority of survival, sources, and received knowledge, and
see building matters in early modern Istanbul through the eyes of the city’s
dwellers? Some ways of doing so have emerged from relatively recent schol-
arship, which has highlighted, on the one hand, that the lawful allocation of
land for major public projects in the increasingly populated Ottoman capital
was a major problem, and, on the other hand, that ambivalence towards such
projects existed. Of course, eulogists of sultanic monuments abounded while
critics lurked in their enormous shadows. One has to make a concerted effort
to hear the barely audible critical voices in the background of nonstop boister-
ous eulogy. Thus, looking from below, the major public imperial monuments of
Ottoman Istanbul, otherwise easily seen as the works of a confident monarchy
bestowing its wealth on citizens, appear contestable. They appropriated con-
siderable sections of the urban area, displaced people, and reconfigured whole
neighborhoods, not to mention the expenditure involved. There is no doubt
that royal patrons knew that the legitimacy of their construction activities was

The Sultan, His Monument, and the Critical Public 529
a crucial matter. It should be remembered that the early modern period was
one of many rebellions. One would have to be naive to sit on the Ottoman
throne and not care about public opinion; regicide was always a possibility,
and the wrath of the masses would indeed lead to one in 1622.1 Of course, any
such insecurity had to be concealed under layers of royal pomp and grandeur,
self-aggrandizing rhetoric, calculated cruelty towards those who failed to sub-
mit, and big public buildings. It is easy to forget that in all these strategies of
constructing a strong public image, the sultans had to do a balancing act on
the imaginary scales that weighed ẓulm (oppression) against ʿadl (justice) in
the judgement of their subjects. Tipping the scales towards the former risked
alienating major stakeholders such as prominent ulema (religio-legal bureau-
crats as much as scholars in this period) or the janissaries, who could essen-
tially make the ruler powerless and turn the masses against him.
The period considered in this essay is framed by two turning points associ-
ated with the structural transformation of the Ottoman polity. It became a cen-
tralized empire after the conquest of Constantinople in 1453, and underwent
from the late 16th century onwards another profound transformation culmi-
nating with the rebellion of 1622, towards what has been termed (not without
contention among scholars) the second Ottoman empire.2 Though only loosely
sketched here, this political trajectory provides a useful framework for under-
standing the construction of early modern Istanbul. One of the most iconic
elements of this era was the series of six congregational mosques sponsored
by the Ottoman sultans: the Fatih, Bayezid, Selim I, Şehzade, Süleymaniye,
and Sultan Ahmed mosques.3 Accompanying each mosque was a royal mau-
soleum, one or more madrasas, and a soup kitchen, as well as other charitable
functions. This particular type of public work, combining religious congrega-
tion with regal burial, religio-legal training, and public charity, emerged with
the early modern polity and would, after a final revival with the Nuruosmaniye
in the 18th century, wane with it. In the 16th century, the sultans’ mothers and
daughters, viziers, and captains also constructed a number of such complexes.
Princes, who posed the greatest threat to the sultan’s authority, were normally
not allowed to live in the capital and were therefore absent from its imperial
edification, with the exceptions of the mosques that Süleyman I (r. 1520–66)
constructed posthumously for two of his sons, namely Mehmed (Şehzade) and
Cihangir. Many of these congregational mosques replaced smaller masjids and
1 See Piterberg, An Ottoman Tragedy.

2 Tezcan, The Second Ottoman Empire.
3 The mosque of Sultan Ahmed is known today as “Sultanahmet”, that of Selim I, “Yavuz Selim”
and that of Bayezid, “Beyazıt”.
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530 Yürekli
were accompanied by madrasas, gradually solidifying the grip of religio-legal

orthodoxy on urban life.
Their physical and socioeconomic prominence notwithstanding, the sul-
tanic mosque complexes are but the tip of the iceberg of the immense quantity
of waqf-supported buildings, from modest masjids to the monumental com-
plexes discussed here, which dotted the urban area consisting of the former
Byzantine city and its satellites outside the land walls (Eyüp etc.), across the
Golden Horn (Galata), and across the Bosphorus (Üsküdar).4 The waqf institu-
tion allowed private riches to be endowed in perpetuity in order to generate a
steady income for the upkeep of religious and charitable institutions, and/or
for the livelihood of the endower’s offspring. However, legal conditions applied
to all endowers, from the merchant building a Quranic school for his neigh-
borhood’s children to the sultan building a complex for the stated benefit of
the entire umma. This framework hinged on the notion that any charitable
institution to benefit the Muslims had to be sanctioned as legitimate. It neces-
sitated that the conditions for the accumulation of the endowed riches, and
the conditions for the construction of the buildings that are to be supported
by the waqf, were unobjectionable by the standards of mainstream Ottoman
fiqh. Crucially, in the case of sultans, wealth to be endowed had to have been
accumulated through war with the infidel, whereby one-fifth of the booty
(including conquered land and war captives) could be claimed by the sultan as
private property and the rest divided among his soldiers. Accordingly, property
endowed by sultans and the military elite included much of the commercial
establishments in conquered territories, in cities (e.g., shops, markets, resi-
dential rentals, bathhouses) as well as rural lands (e.g., leased farmland, farms,
mills, salt mines). In Istanbul, this was particularly true of the endowments
of its conqueror Mehmed II, which included the lion’s share of the shops and
residential rentals in the city.5
This essay will focus on three construction projects that mark the beginning,
apex, and end of the period bookended by the conquest of Constantinople
and the rebellion of 1622: Mehmed II’s Fatih, Süleyman I’s Süleymaniye, and
Ahmed I’s Sultan Ahmed. I hope that my focus on the tip of the iceberg does
not serve to detach them from what lies underneath the visible surface. In
4 See registers of endowments in Istanbul from 1546 and 1600: Barkan & Ayverdi, İstanbul
Vakıfları; Canatar, İstanbul Vakıfları. For the 18th century, see Yediyıldız, XVIII. Yüzyılda
Türkiye’de Vakıf Müessesesi.
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Figure 20.1 Zacharias Wehme, Procession of Selim II to the Süleymaniye mosque for Friday prayer,
1581–82, based on a slightly earlier model, ink and opaque watercolor on paper. Dresden,
Die Sächsische Landesbibliothek / Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Dresden (SLUB),
Mscr.Dresd.J.2.a., fol. 8
fact, this essay aims to emphasize how embedded sultanic monuments were
in the social spaces from which their praise as well as criticism came. These
three monuments mark significant points in the early modern edification of
Istanbul, which ensured the transformation of the dilapidated Byzantine city
to one that the Ottomans were proud to call their own and keep maʿmūr (i.e.,
edified, populated, and maintained with infrastructure). This process started
soon after the conquest and went in tandem with the consolidation of the
Ottoman polity as a centralized empire. The memory of the Byzantine city was
kept alive but was overpowered by Ottoman constructions. Although a palace,
now demolished, had been constructed in the center of the peninsula imme-
diately after the conquest, it came to be known as the Old Palace (eski sarāy)
after Mehmed II (r. 1444–46, 1451–81) built the headquarters for his centralized
government (today known as the Topkapı Palace) at the tip of the peninsula,
between 1459 and 1478.6 Notwithstanding its relatively unassuming appear-
ance, the permanence of the imperial headquarters is unparalleled in the
early modern Islamic world, and its actual impact on the course of premodern
Eurasian history goes without saying. Secluded in the palace, the sultans were
physically out of sight except for carefully choreographed ceremonial events,
but they remained architecturally visible through their funerary mosque com-
plexes in the city. In the second half of the 16th century, the sultan’s public
appearances were structured around ceremonial visits to these mosques (see
Fig. 20.1) and to the complex commemorating the Umayyad commander Abu
Ayyub al-Ansari (Eyüp Sultan) outside the city walls.7
6 Necipoğlu, Architecture, Ceremonial, and Power; Kafescioğlu, Constantinopolis/Istanbul,

22–24, 56–66.
7 Necipoğlu, “Dynastic Imprints”.
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532 Yürekli
1 Fatih
The mosque complex of Mehmed II that came to be known by his epithet “the
conqueror” (initially ebū’l-fetḥ, later fātiḥ) (see Figs. 16.1 and 20.2) was con-
structed between 1463 and 1470 at a time of regime change from frontier prin-
cipality to patrimonial empire. This political transformation was not without
opponents. The voice of the pro-imperial camp rings understandably louder in
Ottoman historiography, in line with Mehmed’s court historian Tursun. He tells
a relatively seamless narrative, from the city’s conquest, whereupon Mehmed
immediately saw with a sagacious eye (ʿayn-i firāset) what a great place it was
and declared it his seat (taḫt), to the repopulation and edification of the new
imperial capital.8 Was it really this seamless? After all, this move heralded a
new kind of Ottoman polity with which certain stakeholders were profoundly
unhappy.9 In particular, it signified a centralized empire that would no doubt
undermine the autonomy of frontier forces. A dissident viewpoint made it
into chronicles and hagiographies recorded under Mehmed’s son Bayezid II
(r. 1481–1512), indicating that the move to Constantinople was met with a luke-
warm, if not cold, reception in some circles.10 A particular concern was put
into the mouth of the protagonist of the Ṣaltuḳnāme, written for Mehmed II’s
son Cem in the 1470s, where the 13th-century warrior saint Sarı Saltuk proph-
esies Mehmed’s conquest of Constantinople but urges him to remain stationed
in Edirne, because it is the established center of the warriors of the frontiers
(ġāzīler).11
The decade that followed the conquest was a time of negotiation and
conflict between the sultan himself, viziers with clashing views, and Greek
Orthodox subjects.12 Indeed, Çiğdem Kafescioğlu has demonstrated that
Edirne seems to have remained the primary seat of government until a series
of constructions that created Mehmed’s imperial capital—including the New
Palace and the Fatih—gained full momentum from 1458.13 In this precarious
period, while Mehmed struggled to repopulate the city, he also responded to
the ambivalence of frontier forces with two actions that were highly symbolic
in the framework of ġāzī lore. One was the conversion of the famed church
of Hagia Sophia (Ayasofya) to a mosque. The other was the construction of a
8 Tursun, Tārīḫ-i Ebū’l-Fetḥ, ed. İnalcık, Murphey, fols. 52a–61a.

9 Kafescioğlu, Constantinopolis/Istanbul, 2–3, 16–17, 51–52.
10 Kafadar, Between Two Worlds, 148, 152–53; Yerasimos, La fondation de Constantinople,
208–10.
11 Kafadar, Between Two Worlds, 148.
12 Raby, “From the Founder of Constantinople to the Founder of Istanbul”, 252–53.
13 Kafescioğlu, Constantinopolis/Istanbul, 16–17, 53–54.
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Figure 20.2
Mosque of Mehmed II, portal and
foundation inscription
Photograph: Çiğdem
Kafescioğlu
funerary complex for Abu Ayyub al-Ansari (Eyüp Sultan to later Istanbulites),
one of Prophet Muhammad’s anṣār (helpers) who was said to have died during
an Umayyad siege of Constantinople.14 According to Ottoman legend, he had
been one of the first Muslims to pray in the Hagia Sophia,15 and his burial site
outside the city walls was miraculously rediscovered during the Ottoman siege
of 1453.16
Ultimately, following the conquest of Trebizond—the last remaining
Byzantine polity—in 1461, Mehmed emerged unfazed by dissent from the
ġāzī camp. In rebuilding Constantinople as his capital, he engaged with the
Byzantine legacy alongside earlier Ottoman and Islamic traditions and con-
temporary ideas from Renaissance Italy.17 This is reflected in his mosque com-
plex built on the site of the church of the Holy Apostles. The domed area of
Mehmed’s mosque is now largely replaced by an 18th-century structure, but
14 Ibid., 18–22, 45–51; Coşkun, “Sanctifying Ottoman Istanbul”.

15 Evliya Çelebi, Evliya Çelebi Seyahatnâmesi, vol. 1, ed. Dankoff, Kahraman, Dağlı, 33, 197.
16 Coşkun, “Sanctifying Ottoman Istanbul”, 121–28.
17 Kafescioğlu, Constantinopolis/Istanbul, 66–85; Necipoğlu, “Visual Cosmopolitanism”.
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534 Yürekli
its architectural features are known from an original plan and early modern
depictions. It had a “Byzantine” superstructure consisting of a dome rising on
pendentives and abutted by a single half-dome on the qibla side, with tympa-
num walls pierced by windows on the other three sides—arguably inspired by
the 6th-century church that had stood there as well as its famous contempo-
rary, the Hagia Sophia. The mosque was surrounded by an open plaza and edu-
cational and charitable functions ordered in axial symmetry reminiscent of
contemporary Italian plans.18 In its components, the complex was an unmis-
takable replacement of the Holy Apostles with an Ottoman version. Just as
Constantine I (r. 306–37) and later Byzantine emperors had been interred in a
mausoleum behind the apsis of the church, Mehmed’s mausoleum is behind
the qibla wall of the mosque; and just as the Byzantine complex had included
the foremost educational establishment of the Middle Byzantine period, the
mosque was surrounded by eight madrasas, as well as other charitable insti-
tutions including a hospital, a public kitchen, and a Quranic school.19 The
area was renowned for its suitability to agriculture in the Byzantine period.20
Accordingly, Mehmed’s complex also included four gardens that provided con-
siderable income to the endowment.21 The area, quite abandoned at the time
of the conquest, was repopulated with émigrés from central Anatolia and the
Caucasus, and with commercial establishments.22
Greek chronicles from the 16th century claim that although Mehmed had
granted the church to George Scholarios (Gennadios II) as the seat of the
patriarchate, in 1454 the patriarch—citing safety concerns in this abandoned
area—moved to the church of Theotokos Pammakaristos (the later Fethiye
mosque), the vicinity of which was inhabited by sizeable Christian commu-
nities consisting of forced émigrés (σεργούνιδες from sürgün).23 An Ottoman
land register of 1455, which records houses and their occupants, shows that
the area was indeed sparsely occupied.24 Most occupants were recent settlers
and many buildings, including churches and monasteries, were unoccupied. A
monastery recorded as the Aya Marina in the Can-Alıcı quarter, immediately
18 Restle, “Osmanische Architektur unter Mehmet”; Kafescioğlu, Constantinopolis/Istanbul,

72–75; Raby, “A Sultan of Paradox”, 7.
19 Kafescioğlu, Constantinopolis/Istanbul, 66, 70; based on Mesarites, Description, ed. and
trans. Downey, 865–67, 894–95 (Greek on 898–900, 916–17).
20 Mesarites, Description, ed. and trans. Downey, 863 (Greek on 897–98).
21 Shopov, “Books on Agriculture”, 571.
23 Anonymous, Chronicle, ed. and trans. Philippides, 56–57; Melissenos (a.k.a. Pseudo-
Sphrantzes), Chronicle, trans. Philippides, 135; Kafescioğlu, Constantinopolis/Istanbul, 66.
24 İnalcık, Survey of Istanbul 1455, 69–73, 317–27.
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to the south of the site near Saraçhane, was occupied by Baba Ali Haydari—
probably one of the antinomian dervishes who joined the conquest—and his
followers.25 The church of the Holy Apostles, which had recently been aban-
doned by Gennadios, is not mentioned specifically, although the 16th-century
Greek narratives suggest that it must have been intact enough to be allocated to
the patriarchate. Compellingly, Julian Raby has demonstrated that Mehmed’s
mosque rose directly upon the substructure of the church. He argues that, in
an unmistakable triumphalist statement, the mihrab is likely to have been
placed exactly where the Byzantine royal mausoleum had been located.26
However defiant Mehmed was of the concerns of frontier forces, his
mosque complex realized a ġāzī ideal on a grander scale than had ever been
accomplished by the Ottoman rulers before him. The destruction of churches/
monasteries and the construction of mosques/madrasas in their places had
been a recurring theme in Anatolian Turkish ġāzī lore,27 which the Ottoman
poet Ahmedi (d. 1412–13) picked up also in his narrative of early Ottoman con-
quests, claiming that Orhan (r. 1324–62), upon his conquest of Bursa, destroyed
a church and a monastery and replaced them with a charitable complex.28 The
destruction of standing Christian buildings to make room for Muslim ones was
a powerful topos in the discursive contexts to which these narratives belonged,
but this was in reality rarely undertaken by the Ottomans. The destruction of
the Holy Apostles was therefore a notable exception. It struck a clever chord
with the sensibilities of stakeholders who cherished the memory of the early
Ottoman frontier polity and were ambivalent towards the new regime. The
site presented the perfect opportunity to make a declamatory point about
Mehmed’s continued commitment to the ancient ġāzī ethos—a commitment
that was good to claim publicly even when no longer existent.
The Fatih thus presented its patron as the quintessential ġāzī hero, but still
failed to impress hardcore dissidents. In 15th- and early 16th-century sources
analyzed by Kafescioğlu, the appraisal of the mosque closely corresponds to
each author’s opinion of the new regime.29 A critical stance is particularly
evident from an anonymous chronicle of the Ottoman dynasty first written
25 İnalcık, Survey of Istanbul 1455, 70, 319, 494. On the quarter of Can-Alıcı, see also: Ayverdi,
Osmanlı Miʿmârîsinde Fâtih Devri, 341–42; Asutay-Effenberger & Effenberger, “Eski İmaret
Camii”, 15–16, n. 25.
26 Raby, “From the Founder of Constantinople to the Founder of Istanbul”.
27 Yürekli, “Osmanlı Mimarisinde Aleni Devşirme Malzeme”.
28 Ahmedi, İskendernāme, ed. Ünver, fol. 66a, couplet 7613: Yıḳıban ānda kilisāyla deyr /
Mescid eyledi binā vü dār-i ḫayr.
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536 Yürekli
c.1490 and later expanded in the course of the next century.30 The text presents
an amalgam of critical positions vis-à-vis the 15th-century Ottoman state, not
necessarily of a single social group. At certain points, through nostalgic refer-
ences to the good old frontier culture exemplified by the times of the first three
Ottoman rulers, it gives a collective voice to groups of frontier soldiers and
dervishes who felt threatened by the new regime for different reasons.31
Another dissident group, namely the Greek Orthodox inhabitants of
Constantinople, joins these voices in a section that digresses from the account
of Mehmed’s reign and narrates the pre-Ottoman history of the city. This sec-
tion, which the author claims was compiled from stories retold by “people who
knew history from among the Romans, patriarchs, monks, and priests” who
were consulted by Mehmed after the conquest,32 includes a lengthy descrip-
tion of the Hagia Sophia in critical juxtaposition to the Fatih. As Kafescioğlu
has shown in greater detail, in sharp contrast to accounts written by individuals
close to the court who considered the Fatih superior to the Hagia Sophia, the
anonymous author highlights its failure to match the technical and aesthetic
qualities of the Byzantine monument.33 The juxtaposition of the old times (ol/
ilerü zamānda) with what is wrong in the present (şimdiki zamānda) is a leit-
motif of the chronicle as a whole. Usually the good old times are those of the
early Ottoman rulers, but in this section, the nostalgia is for the early Byzantine
period—a perspective likely to have been adopted from Greek Orthodox lite-
rati. No attempt was made at toning down their naturally unsympathetic
stance towards the Muslim monument that replaced the Holy Apostles. The
author also laments the use of forced labor in the construction and claims that
nothing of this sort could have happened when the Hagia Sophia was con-
structed because back then, “buildings were not constructed with ẓulm”.34
Tellingly, this seemingly pro-Byzantine perspective is blended with that of
Ottoman dissidents when the author argues that things were much better
also under Mehmed’s father. Contrasted with how much capable servants had
been valued by Murad II (r. 1421–44, 1446–51), the plight of the architect Sinan
(d. 1471/72), who constructed the Fatih and was then unfairly imprisoned and
beaten to death, serves as an example of Mehmed’s cruelty.35
30 Anonymous, Tevārīḫ, ed. Giese; Yerasimos, La fondation de Constantinople.

31 Yürekli, Architecture and Hagiography, 7–8, 73–76, 126–33; Kafadar, Between Two Worlds,
97–98.
32 Anonymous, Tevārīḫ, ed. Giese, vol. 1, 74.
33 Kafescioğlu, Constantinopolis/Istanbul, 90–91; Anonymous, Tevārīḫ, ed. Giese, vol. 1,
98–100.
34 Kafescioğlu, Constantinopolis/Istanbul, 91; Anonymous, Tevārīḫ, ed. Giese, vol. 1, 99.
35 Anonymous, Tevārīḫ, ed. Giese, vol. 1, 99–100; Konyalı, Fatih’in Mimarlarından Azadlı
Sinan.
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Ġāzīs and Greek Orthodox Constantinopolitans were in fact quite unlikely

allies, but they seem to have joined voices in this anonymous narrative. First
written at a time of extraordinary historiographical activity, it responds to, and
challenges, the official narrative that was emerging at the same time: a neat
story of the conquest and the predestined transformation of the frontier polity
to a glorious empire loved by its subjects. The emerging counter-narrative, as
we shall see, would live on in the 16th century.
2 Süleymaniye
In the period between Mehmed II’s building campaign and the construction
of the Süleymaniye, the changing requirements of the monarchy, a devastat-
ing earthquake in 1509, and a booming construction industry thanks to the
empire’s expanding territories transformed the remains of the Byzantine city
into something uniquely Ottoman. The constructions of this period included
three major sultanic projects besides numerous buildings of lesser patrons.
Mehmed II’s example was followed by Bayezid II, who had a funerary mosque
complex constructed on the Byzantine Forum of Theodosius I (Forum Tauri)
in 1501–06. Selim I (r. 1512–20) spent merely eight years on the throne, much of
which he spent on military campaigns against Muslim rivals, and he died with-
out a mosque to commemorate his victories. A posthumous complex in Selim’s
name was nonetheless completed by Süleyman in 1522. Then in 1543, when his
son Mehmed died of illness prematurely, Süleyman ordered the construction
of the Şehzade complex in his memory, halfway between the Fatih and the
mosque of Bayezid II on the city’s main thoroughfare, within the precinct of
the janissary barracks.36
The Süleymaniye, the primary mosque complex of Süleyman, was con-
structed between 1550 and 1558 at the height of the empire’s might both in
terms of its territorial expansion and the crystallization of administrative,
religio-legal, and social-hierarchical structures.37 It was a hugely ambitious
project that competed with the Fatih as much as it did with the Hagia Sophia,
and it is one of the most extensively documented architectural endeavors of
its time. The sheer detail of archival information recorded for its construction
is hardly available for any other early modern Islamic monument.38 Built on
an elevated location where a part of Mehmed II’s Old Palace had stood, the
36 Necipoğlu, Age of Sinan, 191–207; see 194–95 for the political significance of the site.
37 See Necipoğlu, Age of Sinan, 207–22.
38 Barkan, Süleymaniye; Kolay & Çelik, “Ottoman Stone Acquisition”; Necipoğlu, Age of
Sinan, 176–86.
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538 Yürekli
mosque is a commanding structure that replicates the Hagia Sophia more

closely than the Fatih, with a central dome raised on pendentives and abutted
by two half-domes along the entrance-to-mihrab axis, and tympanum walls on
the two lateral sides. The complex was destined to be the pinnacle of Ottoman
religio-legal education. It included five theological madrasas that eventually
came to be ranked higher than those at the Fatih, an elementary school, a med-
ical school to be headed by the chief royal physician, and a hospital, as well as
a soup kitchen and a guesthouse.
Süleyman’s reign is singled out as a golden age in Ottoman as well as mod-
ern historiography, outstanding for its extraordinary military and economic
success. However, Ebru Turan has demonstrated that his early reign was in
fact plagued with public criticism concerning major shifts in the nature of the
state.39 Although unrecorded by contemporary Ottoman authors who cleansed
this period of dissent and presented Süleyman as the ideal ruler comparable to
his prophetic namesake, Solomon the Just, some critical opinions were noted
by Venetian ambassadors, or lingered on until they were recorded in the late
16th century.40 One point of criticism noted by Pietro Zen in 1523 was that the
sultan’s confidant, İbrahim Pasha, who had just been appointed grand vizier,
lacked the experience and know-how to run the state. Zen wrote: “The Turks
themselves are saying that a great ruin will befall the House of Osman because
one can say that the empire is mostly governed by good fortune rather than by
Süleyman and İbrahim’s prudence.”41 A particular concern was that İbrahim
caused the dismissal and execution of experienced viziers. In the end, he him-
self would be executed in 1536 and a new era would start with Rüstem Pasha’s
appointment to the grand vizierate in 1544. This, however, caused further
opposition, for the new grand vizier (a son-in law to the sultan) was not up to
the mark in the eyes of janissary leaders.42
In 1524, the poet Latifi, a newcomer to Istanbul from the northern Anatolian
town of Kastamonu, wrote a description of the city in admiration of the impe-
rial monuments, especially the imperial palace, the Hagia Sophia, and the
complex of Mehmed II.43 Fifty years later, he reworked this text, and although
at present it is unclear which parts of it date from this later edition, a criti-
cal tone that emerges at the end suggests a surge of accumulated disappoint-
ment at this later stage of his career. He is acutely critical of the favoritism and
39 Turan, “Voices of Opposition”.

40 Turan, “Voices of Opposition”; Kafadar, “The Myth of the Golden Age”.
41 Turan, “Voices of Opposition”, 30–31, citing Sanuto, Itinerario.
42 For documents from 1550s, see Gökbilgin, “Rüstem Paşa ve Hakkındaki İthamlar”.
43 Latifi, Evsāf-ı İstānbul, ed. Suner (Pekin), 18–23.
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bribery that took place in the courtly circles, and of the society in the capital at
large, where consumerism, elitism, and opportunism ran rampant.44 In some
ways Latifi’s criticism was representative of members of the scribal class who
found themselves in a competitive pool of career prospects that could only be
achieved through connections to the right people. Throughout the 16th cen-
tury, somewhat similar frustrations led many religious scholars to leave the
ʿilmiyye (religio-legal bureaucracy) and access patronage networks through
sufi brotherhoods.45 A typical way of justifying such cynicism towards the
established imperial bureaucratic networks was to highlight that things had
been very different in the past.46
The meddāḥ (oral storyteller) or “coffeehouse” literature of the 16th cen-
tury provides glimpses into how the ordinary denizens of Istanbul saw mat-
ters of the court, including the construction of buildings. The Menāḳıb (Tales)
concerning the grand vizier Mahmud Pasha (d. 1474) is a case in point. At
least a part of this narrative was transmitted in the mid-16th century by the
superintendent (mütevellī) of the endowment for Mahmud Pasha’s mosque
complex (built in 1464) where the vizier had been buried after his execution
by Mehmed II, although the text also includes anecdotes taken from earlier
chronicles anachronistically to embellish Mahmud’s life story.47 The text
includes a narrative of the construction of Mahmud Pasha’s mosque. Possibly
in deliberate contrast to Mehmed II’s oppression of his architect and work-
ers, which was highlighted in the aforementioned anonymous narrative for the
Fatih mosque, the (again, anonymous) author of the Menāḳıb emphasizes that
his executed vizier had been extremely kind towards the workers on his own
building site: he asked them to work whenever and as much as they wanted
to, and to sleep and rest as they wished. Even the animals carrying building
materials were to proceed to the site only willingly and were encouraged to
do so with grass and straw spread onto their paths. It has been suggested that
the Menāḳıb’s main point was the juxtaposition between the vizier’s kindness
and the sultan’s tyranny.48 Historical accuracy was therefore of minor impor-
tance, because to 16th-century listeners Mehmed II was not the only tyrant
and Mahmud was not the only vizier who had been unjustly executed. The
44 Ibid., 65–74.
45 See Yürekli, “A Building Between the Public and Private Realms”.
46 See, for example, Latifi, Evsāf-ı İstānbul, ed. Suner (Pekin), 67–69.
47 Stavrides, Sultan of Vezirs, 375; Menāḳıb-ı Maḥmūd Paşa, ed. Çelik, 35; Reindl-Kiel,
“Tragedy of Power”.
48 Reindl-Kiel, “Tragedy of Power”, 249–50.
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540 Yürekli
narrative would have inevitably resonated with recent events such as the exe-
cution of İbrahim Pasha in 1536.49
In 1553, an even more reprehensible action than the execution of his grand
vizier would make Süleyman a tyrant in the eyes of many. The execution of
his own eldest son Mustafa, based on complaints made by Rüstem Pasha, gave
rise to protests by the janissaries and to a genuine risk of rebellion.50 Elegies
for Mustafa which were composed by contemporary poets did not shy away
from criticizing the sultan, who was known to have personally presided over
the execution.51 Despite the non-imperial counter-narrative still alive in the
city’s public loci, and despite the cynicism of the people of the pen and reli-
gion towards the Ottoman bureaucratic machine, Süleyman had thus far
managed to present himself as a powerful but just ruler. That image was now
profoundly shaken.
Interestingly, there is no textual evidence to suggest that the sentiments
concerning Süleyman’s despotic actions colored the opinions concerning
his new mosque complex, as had been the case for the Fatih. Taşlıcalı Yahya,
author of perhaps the most poignant poetic elegy for prince Mustafa where
neither grand vizier Rüstem Pasha nor the sultan himself were spared sharp
criticism, later wrote two poetic eulogies of the Süleymaniye at its completion
in 1557, before turning his critical pen again towards Rüstem on the occasion
of his death in 1561.52 Certainly, as a court poet Yahya had quite a different kind
of audience from the ones of the anonymous chronicles where an uninhibited
criticism could flourish. It helped, of course, when the authors could remain
anonymous. By his own account to Mustafa Âli, Yahya actually did not mean
to publish the elegy for the executed prince but it was copied behind his back,
causing him to be interrogated by the grand vizier.53
The construction of the Süleymaniye was amply justified by Süleyman’s ear-
lier conquests in Christian territories which generated the legitimate property
for his waqf, while a powerful ideological context was also provided by the
conflict with the Shiite Safavids.54 His final campaign against the Safavid shah
Tahmasp I (1524–76) concluded with a peace treaty in 1555 and was followed
by an extensive purge of unorthodox dervishes in Anatolia.55 Gülru Necipoğlu
49 Stavrides, Sultan of Vezirs, 394–95; Reindl-Kiel, “Tragedy of Power”, 255.

50 Afyoncu, Venedik Elçilerinin Raporlarına Göre, 84–85, 172, citing Navagero, Relazione, ed.
Albèri; Anonymous, Relazione, ed. Albèri (both from 1553).
51 Şentürk, Yahyâ Beğ’in Şehzâde Mustafa Mersiyesi, lxxiv–lxxxiii, xcviii–c.
52 Ibid., xciii–xcviii.
53 Ibid.; Mustafa Âli, Künhü’l-ahbâr, ed. İsen, 287.
54 Necipoğlu, Age of Sinan, 207–08; Necipoğlu, “Süleymaniye Complex”.
55 Yürekli, Architecture and Hagiography, 43–45.
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has shown that this framework defined the mosque’s epigraphic program con-
sisting of Quranic verses that emphasize strict observance of daily prayers and
the legitimacy of punishing those who neglect them.56
Turan has suggested that a number of significant changes in the first half
of the 16th century, specifically an increase in historiographical activity, cer-
emonial grandeur, and courtly patronage of architecture and the arts, should
be seen as the court’s responses to increasingly vocal public opinion in the
capital.57 In this light, the Süleymaniye may be seen as the ultimate response
to all criticism thus far leveled towards the aging sultan Süleyman. Perhaps
the most poignant of adverse opinions can be subsumed under the single cat-
egory of going against the established norms in order to accommodate quite
personal connections: appointing a childhood friend (İbrahim) as grand vizier
at the expense of more accomplished candidates; legally marrying a slave
(Hürrem) and allowing her to remain in the palace and get involved in state
matters; and killing the first-born son (Mustafa) from another slave consort.
The ongoing construction of a public establishment in the heart of the city
provided the perfect opportunity to respond to these accumulating concerns.
With its architectural and conceptual similarities to Mehmed II’s foundation,
the Süleymaniye emphasized a commitment to the empire and its institutions.
Just like the Fatih, the Süleymaniye mosque was accompanied by the
patron’s tomb behind the qibla wall and a courtyard in front, all of which were
surrounded by a plaza framed by educational establishments, a hospital, and
a public kitchen. The main portal of the sanctuary is another marker of con-
tinuity from the Fatih. Although the foundation inscription, with its focus
on Süleyman’s particular commitment to orthodox Islam, differs from that
of Mehmed II in content, in its physical arrangement on the portal it closely
emulates it (see Fig. 20.2).58 On both portals, the inscription is written in three
panels, with two vertical panels on the two sides of the portal frame, and a cen-
tral horizontal panel above the door, and it is topped by a tripartite muqarnas
hood. In the midst of the text starting on the right-hand panel and ending on
the left-hand panel, the central panel is reserved to the patron’s titles, name
and lineage going all the way back to Osman I (r. c. 1299–1326). Compared to
the version of this arrangement used in the mosque of Bayezid II in Amasya
(1486) where the dynastic lineage in the central panel only goes back to the
patron’s grandfather Murad II, the arrangement of the Süleymaniye portal is
56 Necipoğlu, “Süleymaniye Complex”.

57 Turan, “Voices of Opposition”, 34.
58 Necipoğlu, “Süleymaniye Complex”, 108–09.
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542 Yürekli
an unmistakable statement of dynastic continuity in its content, which is fur-

ther emphasized with its physical similarity to the Fatih portal.
The Süleymaniye surpassed the Fatih in the competition with the Hagia
Sophia by emulating the Byzantine monument more closely in superstructure
and dome size. Süleyman’s architect Sinan was aware of the structural prob-
lems through his repairs to the Hagia Sophia and could come up with solutions
that he learned from his rebuilding of Roman aqueducts and bridges. Ashlar
stone masonry structure was reinforced with iron joints secured with molten
lead poured into sockets—a method used in ancient architecture—in order
to counter the outward thrust under the weight of the enormous dome, while
hollow earthenware cylinders used in the dome structure served to reduce
its weight.59
Süleyman’s monument was thus simultaneously in dialogue and in com-
petition with the city’s two most celebrated monuments. Structurally more
solid and built with the best of materials and workmen brought in from all
parts of the empire, it was meant to overshadow both the Hagia Sophia and
the Fatih. Sinan was proud of his achievement and claimed that previously,
monuments emulating the Hagia Sophia—by which he must be referring
mainly to the Fatih and the mosque of Bayezid II—lacked refinement.60 Thus
the Süleymaniye established its patron as being more able than the city’s illus-
trious conqueror. It clearly follows the example of Mehmed’s extraordinary
establishment, while surpassing it in size, visibility, competition with the Hagia
Sophia, structural properties, and decorative qualities. The status of the com-
plex is also reflected in the position that the Süleymaniye madrasas eventually
assumed within the Ottoman ʿilmiyye. Whereas the madrasas at the Fatih had
been the uppermost ranking educational institutions within the hierarchy of
top ʿilmiyye appointments at the time of their establishment, by the early 17th
century the Süleymaniye madrasas had assumed this status.61
Due care was taken so that none of the criticism we find for the Fatih in
the anonymous chronicle would apply to the Süleymaniye. Not only was it
designed as an architecturally superior challenge to the Hagia Sophia (unlike
the Fatih according to the anonymous critics), but it was also constructed
without the slightest trace of the tyranny of which its patron was otherwise
accused. Workers were paid handsomely and were able to take time off for per-
sonal matters, and workplace measures were in place to keep them content.62
59 Mülâyim, “Süleymaniye”, 116–17.

60 Necipoğlu, “Challenging the Past”, 172–74.
61 Repp, “Some Observations”, 21–22; İzgi, Osmanlı Medreselerinde İlim, vol. 1, 35–37.
62 Barkan, Süleymaniye, vol. 1, 100–02, 106–07.
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Far from meeting the fate of his namesake who had constructed the Fatih,
Süleyman’s Sinan would enjoy a long, prosperous life in a mansion next to the
Süleymaniye complex, where he would eventually be buried and commemo-
rated with a eulogistic inscription, having outlived the patron and served two
more sultans after him.63
Consequently, the Süleymaniye eclipsed Mehmed’s mosque not only in
architecture, but also in ethics. This arguably most iconic monument of
Ottoman architecture projected an image of its patron as being not just abler,
but also more just, and kinder, than his illustrious great-grandfather who had
conquered the city. Ultimately this is what seems to have mattered to the early
modern citizens of Istanbul. Imperial grandeur, in various shapes and forms
including big buildings, could only be a vehicle to celebrate and advertise qual-
ities of good government, not an end in itself.
3 Sultan Ahmed
The mosque complex of Sultan Ahmed I (r. 1603–17) was constructed between
1609 and 1617 amid profound transformation and turmoil that signaled
the waning of the patrimonial empire, which had been undergoing signifi-
cant changes after the reign of Süleyman. Authority shifted from the sultan
to his courtiers, while attention shifted from the battlefield to the palace.
Selim II (r. 1566–74) and Murad III (r. 1574–95) never joined military cam-
paigns. Mehmed III (r. 1595–1603) did so reluctantly and with little success.
Moving towards decentralization and greater social mobility under Murad III
and Mehmed III, factions of palace personnel composed of devşirme soldiers/
statesmen and eunuchs had greater involvement in state matters, and they in
turn were influenced by ulema and sultans’ mothers. Conservative bureau-
crats of the time complained about these changes in hierarchical structure,
and modern historians have seen in them a downward spiral that rendered the
Ottoman state unable to compete with western powers in the end. By contrast,
a more objective strand of scholarship considers this a time of transition.64
The impact of these changes on Ottoman architectural patronage was
distinctive.65 Most notably, none of the three sultans after Süleyman added
their own monumental funerary mosque complexes to the capital’s skyline.
Unlike their forefathers buried in their individual mosque complexes, the last
63 Necipoğlu, Age of Sinan, 147–52; Konyalı, Mimar Koca Sinan.

64 Kafadar, “Question of Ottoman Decline”; Tezcan, The Second Ottoman Empire, 9–11.
65 See Necipoğlu, Age of Sinan, 506–19.
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544 Yürekli
three sultans of the 16th century were buried in mausolea next to the Hagia
Sophia. Selim II had a mosque complex (Selimiye, 1569–75) constructed in
Edirne and Murad III had one (Muradiye, 1583–86) constructed in Manisa
where he had served as governor prince. The primary public monument of
Mehmed III’s reign—the first royal mosque project to be started in Istanbul
after the Süleymaniye—was initiated not by him but by his mother Safiye,
in 1597. The project met with opposition from ulema who claimed that the
site in the Jewish quarter at Eminönü was acquired by violating the rights of
non-Muslim owners, and it was unpopular with janissaries and courtiers who
resented Safiye’s exercise of extraordinary power.66 The construction stopped
after Mehmed’s demise in 1603 and, according to Evliya Çelebi, came to be
known as the Ẓulmiye (Mosque of Oppression), until the mother of Mehmed IV
(r. 1648–87) would complete it in 1663 with lawful (ḥelāl) resources and rename
it the ʿAdliye (Mosque of Justice).67
Given the profound changes of the late 16th century and Safiye’s failed
project, Ahmed’s decision to build a new mosque complex was all the more
remarkable. The Sultan Ahmed was the first sultanic mosque complex to be
built in the capital after the Süleymaniye. Nebahat Avcıoğlu has demonstrated
that it should be seen in the context of Ahmed’s desire to emulate Süleyman in
all aspects of his life,68 and Emine Fetvacı has highlighted the tension between
this emulation and contemporary aesthetic and social criteria.69 The result-
ing monument was in dialogue with the nearby Hagia Sophia, the Fatih, and
the Süleymaniye, but innovative in its lavish interior decoration, the addition
of a royal pavilion, the prominent placement of the patron’s tomb, and the
unprecedented number of six minarets (Fig. 20.3). To Ahmed’s bureaucrats,
Süleyman’s reign had been a golden age, a time when the Ottomans had power,
territory, and wealth, all made possible by what they considered an excellent
state structure and a robust army. The new mosque was a challenge to prove
that Ahmed still had it all, and more. The construction continued for the good
part of his reign. He personally attended to it from a temporary pavilion set up
on the site and presided over an unprecedented series of sumptuous ceremo-
nial events associated with the construction.70
Ahmed deliberately perpetuated dynastic traditions that had crystallized in
the 16th century, but broke with one crucial tradition that had been sanctioned
66 Thys-Şenocak, “Yeni Valide”, 63–64; Necipoğlu, Age of Sinan, 511–12.

67 Thys-Şenocak, “Yeni Valide”, 64; Evliya Çelebi, Evliya Çelebi Seyahatnâmesi, vol. 1, ed.
Dankoff, Kahraman, Dağlı, 143.
68 Avcıoğlu, “Ahmed I and the Allegories of Tyranny”, 218–20.
69 Fetvacı, “Music, Light and Flowers”.
70 Rüstem, “Spectacle of Legitimacy”.
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Figure 20.3 Aerial view towards northeast showing (left to right) Topkapı Palace, Hagia
Sophia, and Sultan Ahmed flanking the Hippodrome
Photograph: Shutterstock, Koraysa
by ḳānūn (secular canon) in the late 15th century, namely royal fratricide upon
enthronement. He allowed his brother Mustafa to live (and eventually become
sultan in 1617). Considering that fratricide was an obvious infringement of
sharia even when justified by ḳānūn, one reason for Ahmed’s radical decision
must have been the rise of prominent ulema as independent shareholders in
political power, raising them above the sultan, and thus fiqh above ḳānūn.71
Ahmed’s piety and adherence to the sharia are purposefully illustrated by
Safi, who was the sultan’s personal imam from 1608, in a eulogistic chronicle
of his reign. Safi tells a number of anecdotes to prove Ahmed’s religious zeal,
some of which no doubt struck a chord with the rising puritanical movement
of Kadızadeli zealots, such as Ahmed’s demolition of a figural automaton clock
in the palace which had been a cherished gift from the queen of England.72 A
further series of anecdotes then demonstrate Ahmed’s commitment to under-
take five daily prayers with a congregation and his unwavering observation of
71 Tezcan, The Second Ottoman Empire, 46–47.

72 Safi, Zübdetü’t-Tevârîh, vol. 1, ed. Çuhadar, 35–36. See also Bağcı, “Presenting Vaṣṣāl
Kalender’s Works”, 271–72.
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546 Yürekli
prayer times,73 and serve as a preamble to a section explaining the rationale

and circumstances of the decision to construct the Sultan Ahmed, the choice
of site, and the initiation of the works.74
Safi indicates that a correspondence to previous sultanic mosques was very
much in Ahmed’s mind from the outset.75 Indeed, the Süleymaniye seems to
have been a point of reference for the organization of the project. Not only had
the architect Mehmed Agha been trained by Sinan, but also Kalender Pasha,
who was the chief accountant for the construction of the Sultan Ahmed, col-
lected archived documents concerning the construction of the Süleymaniye in
a manuscript to be used as a guide.76
As Ahmed had to reckon with the bad reputation of Safiye Sultan’s unfin-
ished mosque, securing a site that jurists would consider lawful was of prime
importance.77 He rejected a site that Safi says was commensurate with, and per-
haps even better than, the sites of previous sultanic mosques, simply because
it contained a number of occupied houses whose demolition would put their
occupants in distress.78 Finally, the current site at the Hippodrome, then occu-
pied by two grandee palaces, was identified. When the chief mufti was asked
for a fatwa to authorize the construction on the chosen site, he pointed out the
problem of congregation. Given the ample prayer space in the nearby Hagia
Sophia and the limited residential potential of the area due to the grandee pal-
aces, a new congregational mosque was not justified. As a solution, the chief
harem eunuch Hacı Mustafa (d. 1624), who had been appointed to oversee the
construction, suggested populating the area by building new houses.79
A further challenge was then posed by the ulema. Although Ahmed legally
purchased the land from the owners,80 the expenses for the construction and
endowment needed further justification. Lawful resources for these (normally
expected to have been acquired through war with the infidel in the case of sul-
tans) were lacking. This problem was not easy to rectify since Ahmed had failed
to gain a decisive victory against the Habsburgs or the Safavids. In the mid-17th
73 Safi, Zübdetü’t-Tevârîh, vol. 1, ed. Çuhadar, 37–46.

74 Ibid., 46–54.
75 Ibid., 47.
76 Barkan, Süleymaniye, vol. 1, 41–45.
77 See Necipoğlu, Age of Sinan, 514–16; Rüstem, “Spectacle of Legitimacy”, 255; Fetvacı,
“Music, Light and Flowers”, 233–34.
78 Safi, Zübdetü’t-Tevârîh, vol. 1, ed. Çuhadar, 49. See also Fetvacı, “Music, Light and
Flowers”, 334.
79 Safi, Zübdetü’t-Tevârîh, vol. 1, ed. Çuhadar, 51; Fetvacı, “Music, Light and Flowers”, 234;
Rüstem, “Spectacle of Legitimacy”, 256.
80 Bilge, “Sultanahmed Cami ve Külliyesi”, 529–41; Fetvacı, “Music, Light and Flowers”, 234;
Gökyay, “Risale-i Mimariyye”, 158–61.
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century, the French traveler Guillaume-Joseph Grelot noted the still ongoing
discussions surrounding the legitimacy of the mosque because Ahmed had not
conquered any new territory.81 The sultan’s insistence on continuing with the
construction despite these concerns, Grelot says, resulted in the mosque being
known as the “mosque of the impious” (Imansis Giamisi for īmānsız cāmiʿsi).
Following a description of the mosque, Grelot then comes back to the topic of
legitimacy by way of introduction to his description of the Süleymaniye, claim-
ing that “[i]f an emperor of the Turks ever deserved, according to their law, to
erect a temple for having made some conquests from the enemies of Ottoman
grandeur, one might surely say that this was Sultan Süleyman”.82
The legacy of Süleyman, and Ahmed’s inability to match it, loomed large
in the discussions around the Sultan Ahmed mosque. Evliya Çelebi relates
that in one of a series of meetings that took place at the construction site,
the sultan consulted a few people on how to finance the foundation for the
mosque. Citing the example of Süleyman whose conquest of Mediterranean
islands provided the revenues for the foundation of the Süleymaniye, atten-
dants including Shaykh Mahmud Hüdayi (d. 1628) suggested to the sultan
that he conquer Crete with the stated intention of ġazā (niyyetü’l-ġazā diyüp).
The sultan refused, saying that there was a peace agreement in place with the
Venetians, and no reason to violate it, and furthermore, the army resources
were taken up by the Celali revolts.83
With no prospect of military conquest, Ahmed was limited in strategies for
presenting himself on a par with Süleyman. The best that his supporters could
come up with was to argue that the suppression of the revolts in 1610 suffi-
ciently legitimized the construction of the mosque in lieu of a victory against
the infidel,84 but Grelot’s above-mentioned comments indicate that this was
not considered sufficient. Ahmed’s piety, by then well-known, was the only
card he could play. His sumptuous renovation of the Kaʿba, carried out by chief
architect Mehmed Agha from 1611, was highly significant in that respect.85 The
mihrab wall of the Sultan Ahmed displays a significant memento, namely a
stone slab from the ambulatory of the Kaʿba accompanied by an inscription
stating that it was installed here by Ahmed himself in 1615/16. Evliya Çelebi
81 Necipoğlu, Age of Sinan, 515; Rüstem, “Spectacle of Legitimacy”, 255–56; Grelot, Relation
nouvelle, 268–69.
82 Grelot, Relation nouvelle, 271.
83 Evliya Çelebi, Evliya Çelebi Seyahatnâmesi, vol. 2, ed. Kurşun, Kahraman, Dağlı, 82–83. See
also Necipoğlu, Age of Sinan, 516; Rüstem, “Spectacle of Legitimacy”, 255–56.
84 Safi, Zübdetü’t-Tevârîh, ed. Çuhadar, vol. 1, 48; Rüstem, “Spectacle of Legitimacy”, 256.
85 Safi, Zübdetü’t-Tevârîh, vol. 1, ed. Çuhadar, 109–24; Caʿfer, Risāle-i Miʿmāriyye, ed. and trans.
Crane, 47–64, fols. 32b–47b; Gökyay, “Risale-i Mimariyye”, 154–58.
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548 Yürekli
relates that the sultan had another relic, namely a footprint of the Prophet,
transported from Cairo to be installed in the new mosque, but changed his
mind after having a dream in which he had to defend himself in a court where
the Prophet was judge, and the plaintiff was the Mamluk ruler Qaytbay from
whose mausoleum the footprint had been taken. The Prophet’s verdict was that
Qaytbay reserved the right to keep the footprint because he had purchased it
with proceeds from ġazā. “Send [it] back to his mausoleum in Cairo at once, or
else”, the Prophet told Ahmed and dismissed the court, just before the sultan
woke up. The footprint was then indeed sent back to Cairo, in a silver domed
case made by Evliya’s father, the chief goldsmith of the palace.86
Markers of dynastic continuity are visibly inscribed on the mosque’s exte-
rior. In particular, continuity with the Süleymaniye is emphasized along the
main route of approach from the Hippodrome to the main (north) gate of the
sanctuary. The Quranic inscriptions executed on carved marble in monumental
thuluth characters are not only stylistically similar to those of the Süleymaniye
but also mirror them closely in content and placement. The portal leading into
the courtyard from the Hippodrome is remarkably similar to the Süleymaniye
portal, with a muqarnas hood over the gate, a pediment on top, and two enor-
mous inscriptional panels (Fig. 20.4). The panel immediately underneath the
pediment contains the shahada in its shortest form in the Süleymaniye and
the long shahada in the Sultan Ahmed, while the panel in the recess under
the muqarnas hood in both portals contains the same Quranic verse: “Prayer
at fixed hours hath been enjoined on the believers” (Quran 4:103). Above the
arch on the courtyard side of the portal we find, in both monuments: “And
those who are attentive to their prayers, these will dwell in gardens, honored”
(Quran 70: 34–35). Across the courtyard, above the arch that is in front of the
main entrance into the sanctuary we find, again in both monuments: “Be the
guardian of prayers, and the midmost prayer, and stand up in devotion to Allah”
(Quran 2:238). Further, the main entrance into the sanctuary has the same
arrangement in both monuments, which as we have seen above was also the
same in the Fatih (Fig. 20.2): the foundation inscription in a central horizontal
and two lateral vertical panels, topped by a tripartite muqarnas hood. Ahmed’s
inscription presents a particularly crystallized version of this royal tradition
with the dedication of the central panel to a fastidiously regulated, visually
repetitive rendering of the dynastic lineage from Ahmed back to Osman. The
notion of dynastic continuity, which already finds a powerful visual expression
86 Evliya Çelebi, Evliya Çelebi Seyahatnâmesi, vol. 10, ed. Kahraman, Dağlı, Dankoff, 161–62.
See also Abdulfattah, “Relics of the Prophet”, 98–101.
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Figure 20.4 Süleymaniye (left) and Sultan Ahmed (right), main courtyard entrances
Photographs by the author
in the architecture of the mosque, is thus rendered especially legible at the

entrance into the sanctuary.
To literate worshippers, including no doubt the ulema, the exterior epigraphic
program of the Sultan Ahmed, besides alluding to that of the Süleymaniye by
mirroring it in content, style, and placement, emphasized Ahmed’s piety and
observance of prayer times with a congregation, which Safi sought to dem-
onstrate amply before recounting the mosque’s construction.87 As the sultan’s
personal imam, Safi was ideally positioned to make a veritable statement
on this issue. As argued by Ünver Rüstem, the sultan’s personal piety, adver-
tised with remarkable success through ceremonies during the construction,
made up for the sultan’s shortcomings on the battlefield in legitimizing the
Sultan Ahmed.88
87 Safi, Zübdetü’t-Tevârîh, vol. 1, ed. Çuhadar, 37–46.

88 Rüstem, “Spectacle of Legitimacy”.
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550 Yürekli
4 Conclusion
In early modern Istanbul, sultanic mosque complexes filled roles that they did
not in other parts of the empire. As funerary monuments containing sultans’
tombs, they were very closely tied to the dynasty. This connection was publicly
evident because the rare occasions when the current sultan was seen in the
city were in processions to these mosques. Moreover, their symbolic functions
reached beyond the obvious expressions of the patron’s power and benevo-
lence in unique directions that would not have emerged in other parts of the
empire. This is because reckoning with the immense concentration of pub-
lic opinion in the capital was a prerequisite of ruling the centralized empire.
These factors seem to have made the sultanic complexes in Istanbul particu-
larly important and carefully designed as vehicles of reputation management
in the balancing act between ẓulm and ʿadl.
Public opinion concerning megaprojects is often colored by contemporary
politics, today as it has been in the past. Huge construction sites in a busy city,
with the noise and endless transportation of materials and debris for years,
naturally invite public discussion concerning their necessity and whether the
money spent on them is justified. Criticism of sultanic megaprojects in early
modern Istanbul seems to have centered around four points that were seen
as indications of the patron’s position in the ẓulm-versus-ʿadl scale: the treat-
ment of workers and craftsmen; the circumstances of the acquisition of the
site; whether the construction of a Friday mosque is justified by the presence
of a congregation in the area; and the circumstances of the accumulation of
the property endowed for the upkeep of the complex.
Not surprisingly, critics had their voices heard more clearly at times of polit-
ical negotiation. For example, it was during the reign of Bayezid II, who strived
to reach a modus vivendi with social groups that had been marginalized by
Mehmed’s imperial policies, that the criticism concerning the Fatih was
recorded in an anti-imperial counter-narrative. Similarly, in the late 16th cen-
tury, which saw the weakening of the patrimonial state, the lingering criticism
of Süleyman was put on paper. No criticism for the Süleymaniye itself seems
to have been recorded, but as we have seen above, its patron was criticized
for breaking with established practices. To this he seems to have responded
with a monument that presented a crystallized version of imperial traditions
that had been developing since Mehmed II’s time, with such success that this
monument became emblematic of an Ottoman golden age. Ahmed I wanted
to emulate it for this reason, but the times were different. The lawfulness of the
Sultan Ahmed, built at a time of anxiety concerning the empire’s decline and
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the rise of the ulema, began to be openly questioned even before the construc-
tion started.
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funerary mosque complexes in Istanbul”, in J.-L. Bacqué-Grammont, A. Tibet (eds.),
Cimetières et traditions funéraires dans le monde Islamique, Ankara, 1996, vol. 2,
23–36.
2005.
Raby, J., “A sultan of paradox: Mehmed the Conqueror as a patron of the arts”, Oxford
Art Journal 5 (1982), 3–8.
Raby, J., “From the founder of Constantinople to the founder of Istanbul: Mehmed
the Conqueror, Fatih Camii, and the Church of the Holy Apostles”, in M. Mullett,
R. Ousterhout (eds.), The Holy Apostles: A Lost Monument, a Forgotten Project and
the Presentness of the Past, Washington, DC, 2020, 245–81.
Reindl-Kiel, H., “The tragedy of power: the fate of grand vezirs according to the
Menakıbname-i Mahmud Paşa-i Veli”, Turcica: Revue d’études turques 35 (2003),
247–56.
Repp, R.C., “Some observations on the development of the Ottoman learned hierar-
chy”, in N.R. Keddie (ed.), Scholars, Saints, and Sufis: Muslim Religious Institutions in
the Middle East since 1500, Berkeley, 1972, 17–32.
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Restle, M., “Die Osmanische Architektur unter Mehmet dem Eroberer und die
Italienische Renaissance”, in F. Meier (ed.), Italien und das Osmanische Reich, Herne,
2010, 15–28.
Şentürk, A.A., Yahyâ Beğ’in Şehzâde Mustafa Mersiyesi Yahut Kanunî Hicviyesi, Istanbul,
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Library (1502/3–1503/4), Leiden, 2019, vol. 1, 557–68.
Stavrides, T., The Sultan of Vezirs: The Life and Times of the Ottoman Grand Vezir
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Thys-Şenocak, L., “The Yeni Valide Mosque complex at Eminönü”, Muqarnas 15 (1998),
58–70.
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Chapter 21
Urban Protests, Rebellions, and Revolts

Gülay Yılmaz
The history of early modern Istanbul cannot be understood fully unless the
unrest and urban dissent that so often shook the city are addressed. The pro-
tests and violence that engulfed the city at different times are often referred
to as “janissary rebellions”. This chapter will argue that the protests involved
a broader social base than the janissaries and demonstrate that Istanbulites
generated a culture of protest with its own defined spaces and modes. Its goal
is not so much to discuss each event in detail, but to examine the reasons
behind some of the major protests and uprisings, and the actors and urban
sites involved, with a focus on the 17th century.1 While these events certainly
had their differences, investigating some of their similarities highlights com-
mon practices of protest in Ottoman urban culture that in fact continued into
the following century.
For our purposes, the year 1622 is taken as the date of the first rebellion
that marked a rupture from earlier sociopolitical dynamics. It was the first
and most audaciously violent protest, ending with the regicide of Sultan
Osman II (r. 1618–22).2 This uprising pointed to a new era of policy-making
implemented through street protests, and was related to the ongoing trans-
formation of the Ottoman state from a predominantly military and expan-
sionist state into a more bureaucratized administrative body, a process that
started during the late 16th and early 17th centuries.3 At the same time, the city
became a magnet for many who could not survive in the countryside, which
led to the emergence of new socioeconomic dynamics between civilians and
soldiers that blurred the boundaries between the two. As the polity at the state
1 In the first half of the 17th century alone, there were six major uprisings: the regicide of
Osman II (1622); the uprising against Murat IV (1632); the dethronement of İbrahim I (1648);
the uprisings against the janissary aghas (1651) and against İbşir Mustafa Pasha (1655); and
the Vakvakiye Incident (1656). These were followed by the dethronement of Mehmed IV
(1688), the Edirne Incident and dethronement of Mustafa II (1703), and the Patrona Halil
uprising and dethronement of Ahmed III (1730).
2 Piterberg, An Ottoman Tragedy, 10–16.
3 Ottoman scholarship of recent decades has emphasized “transformation” over “decline” with
regard to Ottoman institutions. Howard, “Ottoman Historiography”, 52–77; Kafadar, “The
Question of Ottoman Decline”, 30–75; Hathaway, “Problems of Periodization”, 25–31; Darling,
“Another Look at Periodization”, 19–28; Peirce, The Imperial Harem, 18–27.

556 Yılmaz
level underwent a transformation, the means by which Istanbulites became

involved in politics expanded. The change in the political engagement of ordi-
nary people was largely due to socioeconomic transformations, which in turn
were brought about by changes in the janissary army after the last quarter of
the 16th century, most notably the rapid increase in the number of janissaries
and the enrollment of Muslims in the corps.
Cemal Kafadar’s 1981 study of the involvement of janissaries in trade and
artisanal production of Istanbul in the 17th century, a process he termed
“esnafization”, and janissary-led rebellions was the first work on the topic that
shifted the interpretation of the janissaries from a constant troublemaking
anarchic force supported by palace factions to a sociopolitical body balancing
the power of the monarch.4 Building on this interpretation, a growing body of
research has provided more detailed readings of the rebellions in early modern
Istanbul. Eunjeong Yi’s pioneering work on the Istanbul guilds showed clearly
that not only did janissaries establish connections with artisans or became
artisans themselves, but they also became guild administrators (ketḫüdās). Her
works on the 1651 and 1688 rebellions clearly reveal the agency of artisans in
instigating these protests.5 More recently, Baki Tezcan introduced the concept
of the “second empire”, which he argued began mainly after the transformation
of the janissary army. He argues that while generally the janissaries were the
“pulse of the street”,6 they represented different political factions and became
effective in shaping Istanbul’s politics. Tezcan’s work particularly singles out
the importance of the 1622 revolt and the regicide of the sultan Osman II, a
first in the dynasty’s history.7 Marinos Sariyannis, who investigated the con-
temporary Ottoman social vocabulary used to describe the rebels,8 underlined
that terms such as esāfil-i nās (mob, the scum of mankind), eşḳıyā’ (brigand),
bāġī (villain), and zorba (rebel, rioter) were part of a “linguistic frame” created
by authors who were part of the ruling elite in order to define the urban lower
classes, and were used for both janissaries and civilians who came together
for similar causes. Annemarike Stremmelaar’s meticulous investigation of the
1703 rebellion, based on four different Ottoman chronicles, not only sheds light
on the rebellion itself, but also proposes valuable ideas for how to read urban
protests in Istanbul. She highlights the importance of identifying both those
who led the uprisings and those excluded from the protests, as well as the role
4 Kafadar, “Yeniçeri-Esnaf Relations”; idem, “On the Purity and Corruption of the Janissaries”,
273–79; idem, “Janissaries and Other Riffraff”.
5 Yi, Guild Dynamics in Seventeenth-Century Istanbul; idem, “Artisans’ Networks and Revolt”.
6 Tezcan, The Second Ottoman Empire, 285.
7 Ibid.
8 Sariyannis, “‘Mob,’ ‘Scamps’ and Rebels”, 1–17, esp. 2–3.
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Urban Protests, Rebellions, and Revolts 557
of the ulema in legitimizing an uprising and rebels’ claims for justice through
religious rhetoric.9 Fikret Yılmaz’s recent article on protests in Istanbul pro-
vides a good comprehensive analysis of various rebellions in early modern
Istanbul, and deals with the emergence of dissonant public opinion and urban
spaces of opposition.10
I contribute to this literature first by placing the rebellions in Istanbul into
a global narrative of resistance against early modern economic policies and
state formations. Secondly, building on the critique of the widespread notion
that protesters were simply brigands who had no motive other than plunder,11
I examine rebels’ social positions, stressing the economic stratifications within
the janissary army, so that, ultimately, the term “janissary” cannot be thought of
as a uniform, undifferentiated entity. Rather than examining how different fac-
tions among the elite benefited from these rebellions, I focus on the streets and
analyze the protests through the lens of the “moral economy”. Furthermore,
I highlight the arguments of the actors involved in the uprisings and examine
the religious discourse with which they legitimized their acts within the socio-
political culture of early modern Istanbul. In a sense, this article is an attempt
to lend a voice back to the protesters themselves. Finally, I analyze the spaces
of the protests, including the rebels’ attempts to dominate politically signifi-
cant urban spaces, and their sites of violence and negotiation, which impacted
the social topography of the city.
1 Placing the Istanbul Protests into Their Historical Context
Early modern Istanbul was not unique in having to cope with angry crowds;
the uprisings in the Ottoman capital can be viewed within a wider historical
context. Various major early modern cities, among them Paris, London, Lyon,
Bordeaux, Palermo, Amsterdam, Moscow, Cairo, and Damascus, were also
experiencing violent, contentious politics at the time.
The 17th and 18th centuries constituted a period of turmoil, when the seeds
of the modern state and society were sown and the ground beneath the old
9 Stremmelaar, “Justice and Revenge”.

10 F. Yılmaz, “Siyaset, İsyan ve İstanbul”. Another important work on the rebellions in Istanbul
is Salzmann, “The Age of Tulips”. The relationship between janissaries and artisans in the
18th and 19th centuries was explored in Quataert, “Janissaries, Artisans”; rebellions were
also studied by Quataert’s students, Karahasanoğlu, “Osmanlı İmparatorluğu’nda 1730
İsyanı Üzerine Yeni Bir Eser”, 97–128; and Sunar, “Cauldron of Dissent”, 96–158.
11 For a detailed analysis and critique of this approach, see Kafadar, “On the Purity and
Corruption of the Janissaries”, 273–79.
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558 Yılmaz
regimes and economies began to shake. These centuries were marked by

numerous protests against the changes that were being ushered in by the rise
of autocratic states and capitalism. The early modern era across Europe was
marked by an increase in violent riots against new economic policies such as
price increases, high taxes, and the introduction of a series of new consumer
taxes and extra fees, in addition to food and grain shortages. These protests
were first studied in the late 1960s and 1970s by scholars such as Georges Rudé
and E.P. Thompson, who adopted new approaches that highlighted the involve-
ment of urban dwellers in protests and stressed the importance of reactions
against the new economic policies.12 Soon enough, Thompson’s concept of the
moral economy, which in his examination of 18th-century popular protests in
London referred to particular norms and patterns of behavior and legitimation
through which dissent was enacted and understood, became an analytical cat-
egory used in numerous works, some of which extended its usage to peasant
uprisings in the countryside.13 The concept was further used to interpret pro-
tests from the early modern period to contemporary times, and its geographi-
cal reference was expanded to include not only the rest of Europe, but Russia
and China.14
In the case of Istanbul, comparable political and economic trends to those
outlined by Thompson were also in place during the period I examine. The
Ottoman state had to finance long-lasting campaigns and Istanbul had to
feed an army that at least tripled in size within a 50-year time span. It was
a time of budget deficits, high taxes, delayed salaries, currency debasement,
and inflation. 17th-century urban protests are explored in this chapter in light
of the scholarly trends outlined above. Protests in early modern Istanbul and
European cities were sometimes triggered by similar economic policies that
were not designed to meet commoners’ basic needs. In the case of Istanbul, in
both 1622 and 1632 the anger of the protesters was directed against the authori-
ties responsible for the empire’s finances and those in charge of paying the
janissaries’ salaries. The debasement of the value of the aḳçe by lowering its
silver content, in 1623/24 and from 1638 to 1640, accentuated the economic dif-
ficulties of fıxed-wage earners, especially the janissaries, and resulted in fur-
ther rebellions such as those in 1648 and 1656.15 In the 1648 rebellion, which
12 Rudé, The Crowd in History; Thompson, “The Moral Economy”, 76–136.

13 Outhwaite, “Food Crisis”, 367–74; Bohstedt, The Politics of Provisions; Scott, The Moral
Economy of the Peasant.
14 Randall & Charlesworth, Moral Economy and Popular Protest; Wong, “Food Riots”, 767–78;
Wegren, The Moral Economy Reconsidered; Tilt, Dams and Development; Grehan, “Street
Violence”, 215–36; Raymond, “Quartiers et mouvements populaires”, 112–13.
15 Pamuk, A Monetary History, 140.
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coincided with the salt riots in Moscow,16 the janissaries rebelled against extra
taxes (one on fur and another on amber) issued by İbrahim I. These were
taxes imposed on the artisans and the ulema to support the luxurious life
in the palace. When such demands were made on the janissaries, a popular
protest including civilians erupted against the sultan, İbrahim I, and ended
in his dethronement, the execution of the grand vizier, and the accession of
Mehmed IV.17 In 1651, the introduction of new taxes on artisans triggered the
public tension that in turn led to an uprising. In 1656, the janissary salaries
were paid by a new coin called ḳızıl aḳçe.18 Eremya Çelebi notes that 1000 of
these aḳçes were not worth even 100 normal aḳçes.19 In other words, Istanbul
was not shielded from the global monetary crisis of the 17th century and politi-
cal reactions to the latter showed similarities to other cities. The protests were
an articulation of the Ottoman moral economy.
While the Istanbul protests may therefore be placed within a global context,
one cannot stress enough the fact that there was no such thing as a typical
uprising. Whether in Istanbul or any European city, each protest differed from
the next and reflected its own regional distinctions and the varying cultural
codes to which participating groups adhered. Nevertheless, the urban protests
in the early modern period represent a shared history of collective violence.
2 Actors and Their Goals: Janissaries and Artisans in an Era

of Economic Hardship
The janissaries and artisans were the two main groups of participants in the
urban protests of early modern Istanbul. The principal factor behind the emer-
gence of the janissaries as actors of urban dissent was the transformation of
the Ottoman army during the late 16th and early 17th centuries. In this period,
the number of janissaries enrolled in the army increased dramatically, and
conscription was no longer wholly reliant on the devşirme (child levy) system.
Enlisting Muslim subjects from the countryside and towns altered the profile of
the regular janissary soldier (in earlier periods child-levy was the main method
of manning the army) and also many civilians became nominal janissaries by
buying military titles to strengthen their socioeconomic positions in the city.20
16 Kivelson, “The Devil Stole His Mind”, 733–56.

17 Baer, Honored by the Glory of Islam, 25–37; Mehmed Halife, Târih-i Gılmani, ed. Su, 61.
18 Debased money, which due to its high copper content appeared red.
19 Eremya Çelebi, “Çınar Vakası”, ed. Andreasyan, 58.
20 İnalcık, “Military and Fiscal Transformation”, 283–339; Kafadar, “Janissaries and Other
Riffraff”, 116–18.
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560 Yılmaz
Table 21.1 Table showing the number of janissaries recorded (1567–1664). 1567/68 figures
from Ágoston, “Ottoman Warfare”, 135; 1623 figures from Uzunçarşılı, Osmanlı
Devleti Teşkilatında, 444, based on the maṣar (three-month salaries for the Hijri
months of Muharrem, Safer, Rebiʿül-evvel) in the AH 1033/CE 1623 salary register;
1654 figures from Genç & Özvar (eds.), Osmanlı Maliyesi; 1664 figures from salary
register in BOA, KK 6599
1567–68 1623 1654 1663–64
Janissaries physically 24,543 20,011

present in Istanbul 58% 50%
Janissaries out of Istanbul 17,584 19,460
42% 50%
Total number of janissaries 12,798 35,925 42,127 39,571
registered in Istanbul
Before the mid-16th century, the number of janissaries did not exceed 15,000.21
This number, however, rose drastically during the late 16th and early 17th
centuries. The salary register of 1623 records 35,925 janissaries stationed in
Istanbul alone, indicating a significant increase in the number of soldiers. A
1654 budget register shows that by then, their number had risen to 42,129. Not
all of them, however, were present in the capital, as many were frequently on
duty in military campaigns (Table 21.1).
In a salary register (BOA, KK 6599) dating to 1663/64, the number of peo-
ple affiliated with the janissary army in Istanbul was 51,973, including retired
soldiers and orphans of janissaries who also received salaries from the army.
Based on the commonly accepted estimate of around 300,000 for the popula-
tion of Istanbul in the 17th century,22 janissaries amounted to around 13 per
cent of the population, without their households. Most of them were concen-
trated largely around the two barracks (the Old and the New), the Etmeydanı
(the Meat Square) flanking the New Barracks, Aksaray, and the Atmeydanı (the
Hippodrome). Moreover, many janissaries were fully integrated into the urban
economy and also married and settled in the city, which further increased the
number of urban dwellers related to the army, and which would easily make
them an extremely influential group in the city, especially considering their
privileges and power over civilians.
21 Ágoston, “Military Transformation”, 305.

22 İnalcık, “Istanbul”, 230–39.
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Figure 21.1 Comparative distribution of the net estates of janissaries (1604–1668),

based on Öztürk, İstanbul Tereke Defterleri
From the late 16th century onwards, the increase in the number of janissar-
ies spawned budget deficits. This pushed a growing number among them to
become craftsmen, artisans, and tradesmen.23 My research into 173 janissary
probate registers from the early 17th century brings to the fore detailed infor-
mation on the economic stratification of those residing in Istanbul (Figure 21.1).
Their assets ranged from a high of 9,403,766.5 aḳçes to a low of simply zero. The
fortune of the wealthiest 10 per cent of the deceased janissaries recorded in
the ḳısmet-i ʿaskeriyye registers24 during the first half of the 17th century were,
on average, 20 times the value of the poorest 10 per cent.25 Janissaries living by
modest means were the largest group (those who owned between 10,000 and
49,999 aḳçes worth in net estates). They generated moderate additional earn-
ings by becoming sellers, artisans, or small merchants; in some cases, it is pos-
sible that artisans of the city enlisted themselves as janissaries to supplement
23 Ágoston, “Military Transformation”, 308.

24 Öztürk, İstanbul Tereke Defterleri. These registers contain the estate records of people of
ʿaskerī (military) status who lived and died in Istanbul.
25 For a detailed analysis, see G. Yılmaz, “The Economic and Social Roles of Janissaries”,
chapter 4.
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562 Yılmaz
their income.26 Also, a comparison of the probate registers from the begin-
ning and the middle of the 17th century points to capital formation among the
janissaries after 1650. Those who owned more than 100,000 aḳçes rose from
2 to 21 per cent in this time span, which points to a newly emerging group of
wealthy soldiers.
One of the main principles of the agrarian social order in the Ottoman
domains—namely, provisioning for the needs of the people by the state
through various measures—was fading away.27 This created a space for high-
ranking janissaries to monopolize certain trade sectors and through these to
accrue huge profits unlawfully, which partly explains the source of the new
wealth for some. The historian Naima (d. 1716) calls the janissary aghas of
the time, Kara Çavuş and Bektaş Agha, the “pharaohs of Istanbul”. He writes
that they controlled the city’s economy and also brought in debased coinage
from Albania, Bosnia, and Belgrade to sell for a profit to Istanbul’s artisans.
Furthermore, they sold products to the city’s residents by making excessive
profits.28 The notorious Bektaş Agha had established a monopoly over the meat
and clothing sectors—two major trades that fed into Istanbul’s commerce. As
a result, the price for certain products like meat that used to be controlled by
the state quadrupled due to the activities of the “pharaohs of Istanbul”.29 The
fading of provisioning for the subjects can be seen as the moment in Istanbul’s
history when the moral economy of the urbanites was articulated in new forms
of dissent.
Janissaries’ multilayered stratification was not only economic, but had
social and political dimensions, which were reflected in the protests that
rocked Istanbul. The economic gap between wealthy janissaries (mostly in
higher office) and janissaries living by modest means or in poverty became
reflected in the janissary-artisan liaisons that were formed against tyrannical
and wealthy janissary aghas in some of the protests. Examining how the events
of the 1651 protests escalated can shed light on the divisions within the janis-
sary regiments stationed in Istanbul and on the crucial role of the artisans as
the leaders of the protests.
The 1651 uprising began on the second day of Ramadan, when the guilds-
men of Istanbul gathered in a large crowd (cumhūr-ı ʿaẓīm) around the Grand
Bazaar. They went to the Topkapı Palace to confront Grand Vizier Melek Ahmed
26 Yi, Guild Dynamics in Seventeenth-Century Istanbul, 74–77, 139; Yılmaz Diko, “Blurred
Boundaries”, 182–89.
27 Genç, Osmanlı İmparatorluğu’nda.
28 Naima, Târih, ed. İpşirli, vol. 3, 1319.
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Pasha about the high taxes imposed upon them and about the activities of
domineering and abusive aghas.30 Their demands were refused by the grand
vizier, so as a next step, they approached the shaykh al-Islam, Karaçelebizade
Abdülaziz Efendi, led by the warden (ketḫüdā) of the Saraçhane (saddlers’ mar-
ket), Ramazan Dede. He likewise rejected their demands.31 The presence of the
warden of the Saraçhane as one of the leaders of the crowd is important, for
sources suggest that the saddlers’ guild was one of those commonly visited by
the janissaries, denoting ties between the two.32 The crowd forced the shaykh
al-Islam to lead them. According to Naima, 10,000 artisans marched to the
Hagia Sophia to talk with the sultan, carrying a collective petition (ʿarż-ı ḥāl).33
Evliya mentions that 150,000 people joined the protests. This sounds like an
exaggerated number since Istanbul’s estimated population in that period was
around 300,000. He highlights that the protesters were not soldiers (ölüm er
leri) but grocers (baḳḳāl), silk manufacturers (gazzāz), drapers (bezzāz), camel
porters (cemmāl), porters (ḥammāl), and saddlers (sarrāc).34 The sultan prom-
ised in writing to cancel the newly introduced taxes, and agreed to dismiss the
grand vizier, but when the assembled crowd insisted on the execution of the
janissary officers responsible for the excessive taxation, they were sent away
and asked to come back the following day.35 The next day, however, the guards
of the janissary aghas Kara Çavuş and Bektaş Agha were deployed throughout
the city and killed anyone who attempted to go near their residences.36
On the second day of the rebellion, it became clear that the protests of the
urbanites led to the appointment of Siyavuş Pasha as the new grand vizier.
Siyavuş Pasha was known for his lack of sympathy towards the two aghas,
which escalated tensions among palace factions to the point that the powerful
queen mother Kösem Sultan, a staunch supporter of the aghas, was assassi-
nated on the 16th day of Ramadan.37 The aghas rebelled, declaring they wanted
revenge for Kösem. They assembled the janissaries of the New Barracks, over
whom they had greater control, at the Orta mosque (Orta Camii, the congre-
gational mosque in the barracks compound) and around the Hippodrome;
30 See the detailed account of the rebellion in Yi, Guild Dynamics in Seventeenth-Century
Istanbul, 213–33; Naima, Târih, ed. İpşirli, vol. 3, 1319.
31 The shaykh al-Islam was supported by the janissary aghas. Naima, Târih, ed. İpşirli, vol. 3,
1349.
32 Ulucay, “İstanbul Saraçhanesi”, 153.
33 Naima, Târih, ed. İpşirli, vol. 3, 1320–21.
34 Evliya Çelebi, Evliya Çelebi Seyahatnâmesi, vol. 3, ed. Kahraman, Dağlı, 153–54.
35 Yi, Guild Dynamics in Seventeenth-Century Istanbul, 222 based on the accounts of Vecihi
and Solakzade.
36 Mehmed Halife, Târih-i Gılmânî, ed. Su, 38.
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564 Yılmaz
in this, they had the support of some of the members of the ulema.38 Naima
indicates that town criers were sent by the sultan to all the neighborhoods in
Istanbul to announce that anyone who went against the sultan’s order and
joined the assembly in the Orta mosque would be considered a rebel (bāġī)
and killed.39 The city folk (ahālī-i şehr) adhered to the calls of the sultan, since
they were already hostile to the abusive janissary aghas. They poured into
the Topkapı Palace, spilling over into the squares around Hagia Sophia and
Sultan Ahmed mosque; all the streets up to Ahırkapı, near the Marmara shore
(Ayaṣofya ḥaremi ve eṭrāfı ile Sulṭān Aḥmed ve aşāğı Aḫır-ḳapıya varıncaya),
were full of people, some of them armed. At this point, something remark-
able occurred. The janissaries of the Old Barracks chose to take sides with the
civilians. Rather than assembling at the Orta mosque as they had been asked
to, they went to the palace.40 This act of solidarity led to the rebellious aghas
being captured and killed. The decision of the janissaries to side with the civil-
ians and act in unison with the artisans against their own officers suggests that
there were deeply rooted socioeconomic concerns behind these urban pro-
tests that were independent of soldier or civilian status.
The 1688 revolt was another important protest that was instigated by the
artisans and supported by the janissaries. In September 1687, Grand Vizier
Sarı Süleyman Pasha fled from a mutiny on the front. The soldiers marched on
Istanbul, executed the grand vizier, deposed Sultan Mehmed IV, and brought
Süleyman II to power. The violence of the rebellious soldiers resulted in the
closure of the markets and shops in Istanbul.41 Harputlu Ali was appointed
by Grand Vizier Köprülüzade Fazıl Mustafa Pasha (d. 1691) as a janissary agha
and given the task of dispersing the rebel soldiers; this resulted in his kill-
ing of the most powerful leader of the rebellious janissaries, Fetvacı Çavuş
Hüseyin Agha in 1688. After several days of fighting and Harputlu’s threat of
a general call to arms (nefīr-i ʿāmm), the artisans returned to their shops only
to find that many establishments in the Napkin Makers’ Market (Yaġlıḳçılar
Çārşısı) and elsewhere had been pillaged, including one belonging to a yaġlıḳçı
(napkin-maker), an emir with the title of seyyid, indicating his descendance
from the Prophet.42 The emir called everyone to raise their voices against this
38 Naima, Târih, ed. İpşirli, vol. 3, 1335; Mehmed Halife, Târih-i Gılmânî, ed. Su, 36–37.
40 Ibid., vol. 3, 1337; Mehmed Halife, Târih-i Gılmânî, ed. Su, 39.
41 Yi, “Artisans’ Networks and Revolt”, 114.
42 An interesting note here is that, as Sariyannis has pointed out, these lootings were done
by the sipāhi meydān ağaları (cavalrymen of higher ranks), who continued to think, it
seems, more in the line of military control and booty in contrast to the protective mercan-
tile attitudes of the janissary protesters. Sariyannis, “The Kadizadeli Movement”, 278.
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tyranny, and a large crowd gathered under the banner he held and marched
to the palace.43 Silahdar counts the artisans of the bedestān (bezzāzistān) in
the Grand Bazaar, the big and small arāstas (the markets flanking the Sultan
Ahmed Mosque, also known as Sipahiler Çarşısı), Saraçhane, Bit Pazarı,
Gelincik Pazarı, and Uzunçarşı among the 5000 to 6000 protesters who walked
by the Divan Yolu and forcibly entered the Topkapı Palace.44 According to Yi,
the “urban non-elite civilians” of 1688 were “more confident” than the artisans
of the 1651 protests in raising the holy banner, without even first petitioning for
the replacement of some officials with more righteous ones, as they had done
in 1651.45 The crowd managed to get the holy banner (sancāḳ-ı şerīf ) after occu-
pying the palace, and just as in the 1651 protests, the Old Barracks’ janissaries
joined to the city folk (şehirlü) against the rebellious aghas.46
The 1703 protests, which brought down Mustafa II and ended the court’s
residence in Edirne (which had served as second capital since his enthrone-
ment in 1695 and as the sultans’ residence through much of the second half
of the 17th century), illustrate a comparable coalition between janissaries and
artisans against state authorities. The nepotism of Shaykh al-Islam Feyzullah
Efendi, unpaid stipends, and the sultan’s long absence from the capital had
resulted in angry riots. Armed soldiers walked through the market calling out to
civilians. They argued they were not there to loot but to demand their overdue
stipends, which had been disbursed by the state but withheld by the janissary
aghas. At their instigation, the artisans closed up their shops and joined them.
In a janissary ballad that commemorated this show of support, we learn that
72 guilds rose together with the janissaries.47 In the following days, all shops
with the exception of bakeries, butcher shops, groceries, and bathhouses were
forced to close, as were the customs office (gümrük), the mint (ḍarbḫāne), and
money changers’ shops (ṣarrāfs).48 The janissaries and artisans were groups
that were not totally independent from each other. They overlapped quite a bit
by the late 17th century, which is reflected even more in the 1703 and 1730 rebel-
lions. The precautions sought in the aftermath of the 1730 revolt, which was led
by the Albanian janissary-tellāk (bathhouse employee) Patrona Halil and ended
with the dethronement of Ahmed III (r. 1703–30), point to a similar alliance

44 Silahdar Fındıklılı Mehmed Agha, Silahdar Tarihi, ed. Ahmet Refik, vol. 2, 335–36.
45 Yi, “Artisans’ Networks and Revolt”, 106: Yi, Guild Dynamics in Seventeenth-Century
Istanbul, 231.
46 Silahdar Fındıklılı Mehmed Agha, Silahdar Tarihi, ed. Ahmet Refik, vol. 2, 339.
47 Zarinebaf, Crime and Punishment in Istanbul, 185. Seventy-two may also be a figura-
tive number.
48 Stremmelaar, “Justice and Revenge”, 62.
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566 Yılmaz
between janissaries and artisans. This alliance was further confirmed by a

decree issued after the suppression of the 1730 uprising requesting a complete
list of Albanian bathhouse employees in view of keeping them under tighter
control, as they were believed to be closely affiliated with Patrona Halil.49
3 Ulema: In Search of a Legitimizing Act
We do not know how widespread the presence of the ulema and of madrasa
students was during moments of urban dissent in Istanbul. The significance
of ulema support for the uprisings, however, is made clear in the narratives of
the chroniclers, who state that many low-ranking ulema voluntarily came to
the Etmeydanı during protests.50 After all, they were also affected by economic
cutbacks, such as the reduction in Quran reciters’ stipends. What united all
these groups was anger towards what they viewed as a weak, unfair govern-
ment, and tighter monetary conditions.
More important than their number of supporters was the crucial ideological
role played by the ulema in these protests. The crowd always described itself
as a “Muslim community” pursuing justice in regard to their violated rights,
effectively using a religious rhetoric. Whether conservative or of non-orthodox
leanings (one should remember that Bektaşi sympathies had been an impor-
tant aspect of janissary identities during this period),51 the protesters were
obliged to prove that they were operating within the boundaries of religion.
This was a predetermined condition of engaging in politics in early modern
Ottoman society and was mainly achieved through securing approval from a
high-ranking member of the ulema. The crowd wanted to express its anger on
legitimate grounds, and the most effective way of presenting a strong political
argument was to support it with the fatwa expressing a legal opinion of a high-
ranking alim to confirm the just cause of the protest.
A legitimizing fatwa was critical for the success of a protest.52 During the
1622 rebellion, a fatwa was obtained from the ulema. In 1651, the artisans
who joined the march to the palace to present their petition with the sup-
port of Shaykh al-Islam Abdülaziz Efendi were successful in firing up the pro-
tests against the janissary aghas. The protesters knew that they had to justify
49 Ergin, “Mapping Istanbul’s Hammams”, 108–09.

50 Stremmelaar, “Justice and Revenge”, 101. Alkan, “Osmanlı Modernleşmesi”, 55–58.
51 Kafadar, “Janissaries and Other Riffraff”, 125–29; Küçükyalçın, Turna’nın Kalbi, 180–85;
G. Yılmaz, “Bektaşilik”, 106–10.
52 Tuği, “Tuği Tarihi”, ed. Sertoğlu, 493; Naima, Târih, ed. İpşirli, vol. 3, 1336.
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themselves using religious rhetoric, thus affording their cause a legitimate

standing against the authorities. They actually forced the shaykh al-Islam, who
had initially rejected them, to lead the crowd.53 His presence signified approval
and, therefore, the legitimization of their actions. In 1688, artisans marched to
the palace united under a representative holy banner, which for the first time
was used in the context of political resistance. A palace official attempted to
stop the crowd, saying they could not walk under the holy banner because they
had no leader from among the men of religion.54 This intervention denotes the
crucial role of a religious figure among the leaders of the protest. The crowd
then chose Atpazarî Seyyid Osman Efendi as a spokesperson, a seyyid with
connections in the market around the Fatih area, the founder of the Atpazarî
tekke in the Kul mosque, and a preacher at the Sultan Selim mosque. Seyyid
Osman Efendi was not necessarily a member of the ulema but as a respected
sufi shaykh of the Celveti order, he was a religious leader.55
In 1703 too, a fatwa was issued in support of the uprising. Stremmelaar’s care-
ful examination of this fatwa demonstrates that it highlighted, on behalf of the
protesters, the oppressive acts of the authorities and their misuse of the trea-
sury as just causes for the uprising. This once more points to the economic con-
ditions of the early modern period and to the expansion of an autocratic state
mechanism as the primary reasons behind violent expressions of dissent.56
Naturally, the delegitimization of the authorities’ position often accompanied
the legitimizing of the protesters’ cause; therefore, as Fikret Yılmaz points out,
during some of the protests, supporting members of the ulema refused to lead
the Friday prayer, the symbol of submission to the authority of the sultan.57
During the 1703 revolts, members of the ulema came to the conclusion that
until the protesters received what they requested, no Friday prayers should
take place in any of the mosques in Istanbul, a decision that was actually fol-
lowed through for five weeks. In the ballad that the janissary Mehmed Rıza
wrote during the 1703 rebellion, he delegitimized the authority of Shaykh al-
Islam Feyzullah Efendi, claiming he was a Kızılbaş mufti. The second target in
the ballad is the queen mother, Gülnuş Sultan. It reads: “With the ascendancy
of the queen mother and the Kızılbaş, Infidels took over Istanbul. Beware,
my king.”58

55 Ibid., 121–22.
56 Stremmelaar, “Justice and Revenge”, 132–33.
57 F. Yılmaz, “Siyaset, İsyan ve İstanbul”, 142, 144.
58 Quoted in Zarinebaf, Crime and Punishment in Istanbul, 183–86.
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568 Yılmaz
The crowd’s self-definition as a “Muslim community” was also reflected in the

arguments they advanced to exclude certain groups from the protests. Sources
mention warnings on the part of participants in the 1703 revolt directed at
the women, children, and non-Muslim inhabitants of Istanbul to stay in their
houses.59 It is hard to detect the extent to which non-Muslim Istanbulites were
excluded from the rebellions, since there are accounts indicating that some
were actually present.60 Naima’s chronicle suggests that there was a tendency
to declare non-Muslims the guilty party whenever violence took over the city.
He writes that non-Muslims, disguised as janissaries, looted, pillaged, and set
fire to the city during many protests. He also relates that 40 to 50 janissary out-
fits and headgears (üsḳüf ) were found when the authorities swooped down on
the house of the Greek Orthodox Patriarch Parthenios in 1657, implying that
he was involved in the 1656 lootings.61 Even though Naima’s account points
to non-Muslims as the target of anger, it also hints that they were not totally
excluded from the uprisings. It is possible, however, to understand that these
were times of horror for many. Jewish fears of collective violence are captured
in an anonymous chronicle on the events of 1622–24, written in Hebrew. The
community is described as very anxiously awaiting events to subside, desper-
ately praying, fasting, and crying.62 The risk of being targeted arbitrarily and a
feeling of insecurity would have played a role in these reactions.63
All these factors suggest that these protests were dominated by Muslim male
figures, mostly soldiers, artisans, and ulema gathered around a cause, using
mechanisms, symbols, and rhetoric that situated their acts within the bounds
of religion. Indeed, the claim to exclude Christian and Jewish Istanbulites may
have made these uprisings more legitimate in the eyes of the Muslim majority
and the authorities.
59 Stremmelaar, “Justice and Revenge”, 62. The absence of women in the Istanbul protests
stands in contrast to their presence during protests in early modern European cities: see
Farge, “Protesters Plain to See”, 490–91.
60 Zarinebaf mentions that Greek and Armenian artisans also joined the Patrona Halil upris-
ing and looted the house of the voyvoda of Galata, killed him, and flung his money from
the windows to the poor Greeks, Jews, and Armenians. Zarinebaf, Crime and Punishment
in Istanbul, 58; see also Sandwich, Voyage Performed, 259; Vandal, Une ambassade fran-
çaise, 153–59.
61 Naima, Târih, ed. İpşirli, vol. 4, 1730; Sariyannis, “‘Mob,’ ‘Scamps’ and Rebels”, 14.
62 Anonymous, Anonim Bir İbranice Kroniğe Göre, ed. Arslantaş, Ben-Naeh, 41–42.
63 Examples of targeting Jews in particular can also be found in protests in urban centers in
early modern Germany, on which see Ruff, Violence, 201.
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4 Other Political Actors in Istanbul and the Role of Space
While janissaries and artisans were certainly the most important social groups
involved in the Istanbul uprisings, which, as seen, were largely triggered by
economic factors and supported by members of the ulema, other groups par-
ticipated as well. The unique sociopolitical situation of Istanbul as the capital
of the empire resulted in the particularly strong awareness of political events
and developments on the part of its inhabitants. The rumors that Osman II
had plans to move the capital to another city was one of the causes that led to
the 1622 uprising.64 The fact that Edirne became like a second capital during
the reign of Mustafa II was one of the reasons for the 1703 rebellions. The pro-
test of 1656, which was triggered because janissaries’ stipends had been paid by
the new grand vizier Süleyman Pasha and the powerful janissary agha, Murad
Agha, with the debased ḳızıl aḳçe that even the merchants in the bazaars would
not accept, quickly gained the support of civilians.65 The latters’ support was
very likely due to the fear of famine that threatened the city as a result of
the Venetian blockade. Istanbulites always paid close attention to the state’s
actions both at home and abroad,66 and the unsuccessful campaigns against
the Venetians and the possible outcomes of the blockade of the Dardanelles
had most likely been hot topics of conversation and rumor in the marketplaces
and coffeehouses. They were well aware of the importance of being dwellers
of the capital city and likely felt they were empowered, to a certain degree, to
impact state politics by their involvement in the protests.
People of lower socioeconomic classes, day-laborers, unemployed youth,
and immigrants were also among those who supported the street protests.
Throughout the 17th and 18th centuries, the capital continued to receive an
influx of immigrants from the countryside, and in the later decades of the
18th century, state officials decided to regulate this mobility more severely
than they had before by enforcing guarantorship requirements for those who
wanted to move to Istanbul.67 This mobility transformed the urban population
into a more cosmopolitan body. To be sure, being among the groups who were
64 F. Yılmaz, “Siyaset, İsyan ve İstanbul”, 128.

66 Baer, Honored by the Glory of Islam, 57–58. A similar attitude was a factor in the 18th-
century London protests. In these protests, there was also an outburst of anti-Catholic
feeling and the fear of war with the Catholic powers of France and Spain: see Rudé, “The
London ‘Mob’”, 12.
67 See the chapter by Betül Başaran in this volume for a more detailed discussion.
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570 Yılmaz
influenced negatively by the economic policies of the state, the new residents
of the city became quite actively involved in the protests.68
Urban spaces such as coffeehouses,69 crucial places where news of politi-
cal affairs, campaigns, and events in the palace were disseminated and gossip
about state politics and authorities spread, or such as bozaḫānes and taverns,
where urbanites hung out and drank alcohol (illegally, in the case of Muslims),
were already part and parcel of the cityscape. But they began to house new
modes of sociability and turned into hotspots generating political criticism
of the Ottoman authorities.70 These new (or increasingly popular) urban
spaces were mostly visited by janissaries, low-class workers, and lower rank-
ing ulemas. The janissaries themselves owned and ran many coffeehouses, up
to 42 per cent of all those owned by Muslims by the end of the 18th century.71
Recent studies have shown that urban dissent spread through connections and
networks established in these gathering places, and that the new street life and
urban political spirit in these spaces played an important role in the dissemi-
nation of discontent and transformed them into loci of dissent.72
5 Landscape of the Protests and Violence
Dominating the city’s public spaces, preventing city dwellers from follow-
ing their daily routines, and partaking in politics of retribution were typical
of early modern urban uprisings. All of these were strategies for dissenters to
have their voice heard. The spatial patterns and movement of protesters in the
city during rebellions provides hints about how Ottoman strategies of protest
68 Sariyannis, “‘Mob,’ ‘Scamps’ and Rebels”, 10–11; Başaran, Selim III, chapter 2; Sunar,
“İstanbul’da Yeniçeri Mekanları”.
69 Coffee and coffeehouses were introduced to the Ottoman capital in 1554 by two men from
Aleppo and Damascus. Until the end of the 16th century, only 50 coffeehouses had been
opened in Istanbul. Their number rapidly increased to around 600 by the first half of the
17th century. Kırlı notes that according to a survey in 1790s, 1654 coffeehouses were serv-
ing Istanbulites. This number rose to 2500 in the mid-19th century: Kırlı, “Coffehouses”,
161–62.
70 See the chapter by Marinos Sariyannis in this volume. Çaksu, “Janissary Coffee Houses”,
117–32; Selçuk, “Boza Consumption”, 61–81; Yılmaz, “Boş Vaktiniz Var Mı?”, 11–49. It is
interesting that in some European cities, as in Istanbul, taverns and other nightlife ven-
ues came to be regarded as the most dangerous places for the authorities. It was even
observed that tavern owners led some protests, as for example the 1629 London uprising:
see Ruff, Violence, 187–88.
71 Muslims owned 95 per cent of the coffeehouses, Armenians, 2.5 per cent, Greeks, 2 per
cent, and Jews, less than 1 per cent: see Kırlı, “Coffeehouses”, 168.
72 Çaksu, “Janissary Coffee Houses”, 117–32; Kırlı, “Coffeehouses”, 171–75.
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materialized within the urban fabric. The janissaries generally gathered in the
Etmeydanı, a large square in the New Barracks where meat was distributed, and
where the Orta mosque, the janissaries’ congregational mosque, was located.
They then walked through the largely commercial area of Aksaray, along the
Divan Yolu, the main ceremonial artery flanking the expansive commercial
sprawl that reached the shores of the Golden Horn, and found their way to the
Hippodrome (Atmeydanı), the most prominent urban public space in Istanbul
at the time and which was flanked by the Sultan Ahmed mosque (Fig. 20.3).
From there, they reached the gates of the Topkapı Palace to present their
claims. This route, which covered two squares with their respective mosques,
the city’s commercial zone, its main public square, and the palace gates where
communication with the authorities took place, encompassed those areas
of the city where the main actors of Istanbul rebellions, namely, the janissaries,
the ulema, and the artisans, commonly congregated in their daily lives.
The starting location could be the marketplace depending on the given pro-
test’s instigators. When the artisans were leading, the bedestān in the Grand
Bazaar seems to have been the initial gathering place, as in 1651. Including the
marketplace as one of the crucial junctures of the protesters’ path towards the
city center also denotes the active participation of economic actors in the upris-
ings. The Hippodrome, which functioned as a public space in Istanbul since
the late 15th century,73 increasingly turned into a space for confrontations. In
1582, for example, during the circumcision festival of the heir to the throne,
a street fight between janissaries and sipāhīs took place at the Hippodrome.
The frequency of confrontations in both squares increased throughout the
17th century, and the Orta and Sultan Ahmed mosques flanking each of these
respective squares also became crucial zones of confrontation between pro-
testers and the authorities. Whenever the janissaries began to gather to express
objections and grievances, they did so mainly around the Orta mosque at
Etmeydanı; this was the epicenter of the protests and negotiations during the
events that led to the dethronement and regicide of Osman II.74
The dissenters’ march from one of the squares to the Topkapı Palace was the
moment during which they sought to display to the public the reasons for their
protests through slogans and songs. Evliya narrates the 1651 events, describing
armed city folks (çārşı ḫalḳı) flowing into the Hippodrome as they closed all
shops and mosques. The cries of “Allah Allah” echoed in the sky and Istanbul
73 It was used for imperial festivals and weddings, and ceremonials for the reception of for-
eign dignitaries. Özcan, “Osmanlı’nın Atmeydanı?”, 104–32; Mehmed Raif Bey, Bir Osmanlı
Subayının Kaleminden, eds. Arslantürk, Korkmaz 33–35; Kafescioğlu, “A New Look”, 124–31.
74 Beydilli, “Yeniçeri”, 458.
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572 Yılmaz
surrendered to chaos, protests, squalls, and screams.75 The closure of shops

and bazaars aimed both at gaining the support of the city’s economic actors
and at halting daily life, and can be read as passive violence meant to bring the
capital city to its knees.
During almost all of the protests, after gathering in the squares, the crowds
drew up petitions (ʿarż-ı ḥāl) to present to the authorities, obtained fatwas
supporting their cause, or chose a representative from among the ulema to
explain their grievances to the authorities at the residences of the grand vizier
or the janissary agha, or at the Topkapı Palace. Throughout the 17th century,
the demands of dissenters to communicate with authorities and discuss the
reasons behind their grievances generated increasingly frequent gatherings,
known as ayaḳ dīvānı (literally, assembly on foot, or emergency councils),
denoting assemblies that took place during extraordinary times.76 In the
17th century, only two such councils were requested by the sultan himself.
Although not all of these assemblies were meetings between civilians and
officials, and even though some took place during military campaigns or royal
processions, the majority of assemblies of this kind was initiated by soldiers
and artisans, and participants stood at the main gate of the sultan’s palace (Bāb
ü’s-Saʿāde).77 As the protests of 1632, 1651, and 1656 show, soldiers and artisans
held ayaḳ dīvānı with the authorities—sometimes with the sultan himself—
and mostly for the purposes of expressing complaints about salaries and deval-
ued money.78 These assemblies were one way of generating a new political
space by protesters of the 17th century and interestingly, the practice faded
after the last quarter of the 17th century, when popular protests in Istanbul
became less frequent.
Protests escalated and gained violent momentum if the authorities did
not engage with the dissenters. Extreme displays of violence were observed
in many uprisings. Janissaries and civilians shouted slogans on the streets,
attacked the houses of the rich, forced shops to close down, and killed. In 1648,
some sipāhīs who were among those rallying against the janissaries surren-
dered and screamed out their apologies from the minarets of the Sultan Ahmed
mosque, while the rest of them were being butchered inside the mosque by the
75 Evliya Çelebi, Evliya Çelebi Seyahatnâmesi, vol. 3, ed. Kahraman, Dağlı, 153.
76 Only a few ayaḳ dīvānı took place during the 16th century and they were summoned at the
request of the sultan when the need arose. Kütükoğlu, “Ayak Divanı”, 192.
77 The first was the meeting initiated by Murad IV at the Sinan Pasha kiosk in 1632 to accept
the soldiers’ oath of loyalty; the second was in 1658, when Mehmed IV gathered the sol-
diers at Solak Çeşmesi, on the outskirts of Edirne, in order to receive their support for a
campaign against Abaza Hasan Pasha. Kütükoğlu, “Ayak Divanı”, 192.
78 Ibid., 192–93.
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janissaries.79 The 1656 protests ended with the merciless killing of statesmen
who had attracted the protesters’ ire. They were hanged from a huge plane tree
at the Hippodrome, and the event was remembered as vaḳʿa-i vaḳvāḳiye, after
the mythological vaḳvāḳ tree believed to bear human beings.
6 Residential Patterns of the Janissaries and the Protests
I have located the residences of 115 janissaries within a group of 173 probate
inventories of janissaries (ḳısmet-iʿaskeriyye), drawn up between the years 1604
and 1668. Only 15 lived in their barracks; the locations of the other 100 are
shown as dots on the map (Fig. 21.2). It would be hard to claim that these num-
bers reflect the relative proportions between those who lived in the city and
those in the barracks, especially because not all the inheritances were included
in the ḳısmet-i ʿaskeriyye registers. Nevertheless, the map helps us obtain some
idea of the janissaries’ spatial distribution in the city. It shows that the janissar-
ies were not segregated from the civilian urban space; rather, their residences
were dispersed throughout the city, with a number of areas of concentration.
The first was the neighborhoods around the New and Old Barracks. The sec-
ond was the commercial zone; the neighborhoods of Sofular and Molla Gürani,
those close to Saraçhane, such as Dülgerzade, and those between Etmeydanı
and Aksaray, such as Softa Sinan and Karagöz, were among the most favored
locations. The third favorite location for janissaries was the area around the
Hippodrome, as well as Kadırga Limanı, Ali Paşa-yı Atik, and, to some extent,
Soğan Ağa. This was mainly the case for the wealthier janissaries who preferred
to live in the neighborhoods that were closer to the palaces of dignitaries and
where men of higher status lived.80
On the map (Fig. 21.2), we can observe a line running between the north-
west and southeast of the intramural city, starting at Yeni Bağçe, going down
to the neighborhoods between Fatih mosque and Etmeydanı, then to the areas
79 Naima, Târih, ed. İpşirli, vol. 3, p. 1194.

80 Evliya Çelebi describes the mansions of the rich near the Topkapı Palace, the Hippodrome,
Hagia Sophia, both sides of the Divan Yolu in the district of Ahırkapı, by the Sea of
Marmara, and around the Süleymaniye and Şehzade mosques. This distribution indi-
cates the tendency of men of status to settle close to the Topkapı. Evliya Çelebi, quoted
in Mantran, La vie quotidienne, 28. Norbert Elias established that the making of impe-
rial rule was closely related to establishing a physical setting for imperial power at the
European royal courts during the early modern era. See Elias, The Civilizing Process, 45.
In the Ottoman context, an imperial court zone may also be detected, which corresponds
to the zone outlined by Evliya Çelebi above. Artan, “The Making of the Sublime Porte”;
Artan, “Politics of Ottoman Imperial Palaces”.
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574 Yılmaz
Figure 21.2 Map showing the distribution of janissaries’ residences in Istanbul, based on estate
inventories of the first half of the 17th century. Base map from E.H. Ayverdi, 19. Asırda
Istanbul Haritası, Istanbul, 1958. Neighborhood locations are based on Ayverdi, ibid.;
A.N. Galitekin (ed.), Hadikatü’l Cevamiʿ: İstanbul Camileri ve Diğer Dini-Sivil Mimari Yapılar,
Istanbul, 2001; R.E. Koçu et al., İstanbul Ansiklopedisi, 11 vols., Istanbul, 1944–73; and
Dünden Bugüne İstanbul Ansiklopedisi, 8 vols., Istanbul, 1993–95. S. Öztürk, Askeri Kassama
Ait İstanbul Tereke Defterleri: Sosyo-Ekonomik Tahlil, Istanbul, 1995 for residences recorded
in the estate inventories
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around the Old Barracks and Aksaray, before finally reaching the more presti-
gious neighborhoods, where palatial residences were located: i.e. Koska, Soğan
Ağa, Ali Paşa-yı Atik, Kadırga, and the areas flanking the Hippodrome. This was
where the highest density of janissary populations was found. This line cor-
responds to the route that protesters followed during popular uprisings of the
17th century, and it ends where they typically attacked the houses of officials
in a violent manner. The overlap between residential patterns and patterns of
movement during uprisings highlights the dominating role of the janissaries in
these events. At the same time, it suggests that their involvement with the city
transformed the social topography and usage of urban space.
7 Conclusion
The uprisings in 17th-century Istanbul were not isolated cases unique to

Ottoman society. To examine them in a comparative global perspective would
save us from assuming that the uprisings were solely related to the internal
political dynamics of the empire and the political factions of the palace.
Istanbul did not exist in isolation—it was intimately connected to the rest of
the world, and the urban protests examined here took place in parallel with
similar events elsewhere, in a similar pattern of the moral economy. Istanbul’s
residents resisted the new economic policies of Ottoman rulers, such as the
high prices of consumer goods, the introduction of new taxes, or the debase-
ment of coinage, all of which dramatically affected them, as they did the par-
ticipants of many other early modern rebellions.
These uprisings should also be read as tools that turned into a form of polit-
ical expression, pointing to new forms of sociopolitical dynamic that were
affected by transformations in imperial political and military structures.81 The
protesters of Istanbul included janissaries, artisans, petty employers, immi-
grants, and members of the ulema, who mostly identified themselves as a
“Muslim community”, highlighting their use of religious rhetoric to legitimize
their cause in the eyes of the authorities. Therefore, these were mostly reac-
tionary protests that espoused the generally accepted political arguments and
rhetoric of their time.
Violence was the handmaid of the rebellions. The protesters were moti-
vated not only by their goal of forcing the state to step back from the economic
measures it had introduced, but also by an outrage and desire to punish the
officials who, in their eyes, were responsible for those measures. Violence
81 Kafadar, “Janissaries and Other Riffraff”; Tezcan, The Second Ottoman Empire.
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576 Yılmaz
was directed against these officials and included hallooing, slogan-shouting,

looting, domestic break-ins, and setting fire to their victims’ properties. It was
another method of making their claims heard.
Finally, these rebellions contributed to the transformation of urban space in
early modern Istanbul. Squares gained new political meaning; spaces of night
life such as coffeehouses, taverns, and bozaḫānes turned into loci for opposi-
tion; and while mosques retained their important position in urban politics,
some also became places of negotiation and confrontation. The urban resi-
dence patterns of the janissaries contributed to this spatial transformation,
since their concentrations in certain neighborhoods politicized these neigh-
borhoods and turned them into centers of political dissent.
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Chapter 22
The 18th-Century “Istanbul Tale”

Prose Tales and Beyond
Zeynep Altok
A group of anonymous and mostly undated prose tales set in early mod-
ern Istanbul has long been known by scholars. These tales of love triangles,
intrigue, and adventure, with proto-realistic plots, ordinary urbanites as main
characters, and occasional comic and pornographic passages, were part and
parcel of the city’s public entertainment culture, as evinced by the extant
reading logs from collective readings.1 They have often been associated with
the oral art of the meddāḥs, popular storytellers who performed in public
places like coffeehouses and in private gatherings. Extant texts come in a vari-
ety of forms, from pre-print era manuscripts to late Ottoman lithograph and
moveable-type prints, a factor that seriously complicates the problem of dat-
ing. There have been pioneering attempts at describing and naming the genre,
but only a limited number of texts, mostly from the Ottoman print era (second
half of the 19th century onwards) were utilized for the discussion. Following
Mustafa Nihat Özön’s initial identification of a distinct story genre in 1936,2
Şükrü Elçin studied eight such tales, describing them as “literary and realistic
Istanbul folk tales in prose” (kitâbî, mensur, realist İstanbul halk hikâyeleri).3
More recently, in an excellent book-length study that expanded upon Elçin’s
main texts with several new titles—also from the print era—David Selim
Sayers has christened the genre “Tıfli stories”, based on the recurrence of the
historical character Tıfli Ahmed Çelebi (d. 1660), classical poet and boon com-
panion of Murad IV (r. 1623–40).4 Sayers’s designation, which affirms Pertev
1 Değirmenci, “Bir Kitabı Kaç Kişi Okur?”.

2 Özön, Türkçe’de Roman, 72–74.
3 Elçin, “Kitâbî, Mensur”. This 1969 study was based on five late-Ottoman prints and three
manuscripts. More tales have been published since, by Elçin and later scholars, though these
were not always understood by their editors as examples of the same genre. Many tales were
first discovered by Kavruk, who gave brief summaries in his Eski Türk Edebiyatında, 70–84,
97–102. In a more recent anthology that sticks to Elçin’s rubric (Kitâb-ı Mensûr, ed. Aytaç
et al.), examples of unrelated short story genres have been mixed in, symptomatic of the
present lack of clarity about the nature and scope of the genre; see esp. 13–17.
4 Sayers, Tıflî. For an English-language article based on this book, see Sayers, “Sociosexual
Roles”.

582 Altok
Naili Boratav’s earlier reference to a “cycle of Tıfli tales”,5 may seem apposite
as it focuses on the modern afterlife of these tales, and, like Elçin, Sayers is
not mainly concerned with the question of origins. Still pending, however, is a
genre definition and dating that can accommodate the broader range of texts
strikingly akin in terms of plots, themes, and style. Thus, this chapter assem-
bles and studies a novel constellation of around 20 prose tales,6 most of which
have already been published and/or discussed in disparate studies that do not
speak to one another. Similarly, some well-known material from other media,
such as meddāḥs’ mnemonic notes, picture albums, and classical poetry,7 will
be deployed here for the first time to provide a context for these prose tales.
Coupled with the scholarly focus on a particular group of tales published
in the late 19th century is the tendency to extend hypothetically the origin of
the prose tales back to the early 17th, or even 16th century, especially where
individual tales in manuscript form are concerned. Such datings are often
based on the unreasonable assumption that the historical characters such
as Tıfli, and events like well-known military expeditions that appear in these
narratives must indicate the date of the stories’ creation.8 In addition, a not
always well-defined understanding of the term “early modern” seems to have
contributed to the obfuscation of the problem of origins. It is true that cultural
trends identified in studies as emerging at various moments within this period,
notably, an increasingly complex urban social life with novel forms of work,
leisure, sociability, and entertainment;9 greater participation of commoners
5 Boratav, 100 Soruda, 77; Sayers, Tıflî, 1–3.

6 Depending on which different “versions” are counted as separate titles; see the Appendix
to this chapter for a list of the tales covered. For the most encompassing preliminary survey
available, see Sayers, Tıflî, 118–22.
7 In the context of Ottoman literary history, “classical literature” (also “dīvān literature”) refers
to the Perso-Islamic high literature of the entire Ottoman era, which waned as Western influ-
ence prevailed in modern times. It is associated with elite culture and an erudite written
language at some remove from colloquial registers.
8 Pertev Naili Boratav reiterated many times his belief that the Tıfli stories were originally cre-
ated by Tıfli himself (“Maddāḥ”, 952; Halk Hikâyeleri, 84; 100 Soruda, 77); Elçin agrees with
caution (“Kitâbî, Mensur”, 77); for 17th-century datings for other tales, see Kavruk, Eski
Türk Edebiyatında, 97, 100; Değirmenci, “Bir Kitabı Kaç Kişi Okur?”, 11–12, 18; and idem, “An
Illustrated Mecmua”, 193–94. In the case of Evḥad Çelebi, a colophon under another story in
the same miscellany (Ankara, Adnan Ötüken Library 06 HK3208)—very likely coming from
the source text for that particular story—has been used to date Evḥad Çelebi to 1670/71. An
understanding of the genre’s chronological scope should forestall such errors: Kavruk, Eski
Türk Edebiyatında, 73; and Kitâb-ı Mensûr, ed. Aytaç et al., 17.
9 Kafadar, “How Dark”; Sajdi (ed.), Ottoman Tulips; Hattox, Coffee and Coffeehouses; Ze’evi,
Producing Desire (see chapter 5 on the Karagöz shadow theater); Hamadeh, The City’s
Pleasures.
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The 18th-Century “ Istanbul Tale ” 583
in politics10 and in the realm of writing as readers and authors;11 rising

consumerism;12 and the ascendancy of a profane world view over the religio-
mystical13 are significant to the concept of early modernity. However, the con-
flation of findings and observations relating to historical contexts separated by
many decades or even centuries can become a problem, especially in research
areas where a dearth of primary sources and/or secure dates encourages spec-
ulation. The prose tales discussed here and the meddāḥ culture they are associ-
ated with, both closely linked with the early modern trends named above, are
cases in point.14 Assumptions of a more or less continuous and homogenous
meddāḥ culture from the 16th century onwards must have encouraged early
datings for the prose tales. Similarly, certain commonalities between these
tales and relatively early classical texts like Vahdi’s Ḥikāyet-i Anabacı (The Tale
of the Hag, before 1538) and Nevizade Atai’s Ḫamse (The Quintet, 1616–27)15
seem to have made early datings plausible for some scholars. It is, however, ulti-
mately the very lack of a broader genre definition to accommodate a range of
related texts straddling early modern and modern times that has undermined
researchers’ capacity to date individual texts. While it is often very difficult to
date individual stories, it is possible to date the genre, as will be seen below.
This chapter, then, attempts to define and date the prose tale genre as a
first step toward understanding its significance as an early modern cultural
development. I will argue that the prose tales emerged as part of a broader
18th-century phenomenon I shall refer to as the “Istanbul tale”. Istanbul tales,
popular fictional narratives that emanated from Istanbul and recounted the
adventures of early modern Istanbulites, are witnessed across different media.
They mainly appear in the oral art of the meddāḥs and in the form of anony-
mous prose tales, but are also seen in some works of literature produced within
10 Tezcan, The Second Ottoman Empire; Kafadar, “Janissaries and Other Riffraff”.
11 Kafadar, “Self and Others”; idem, “Mütereddit bir Mutasavvıf”; Sajdi, The Barber of
Damascus; Quinn, “Books and their Readers”; Hanna, In Praise of Books; Değirmenci, “Bir
Kitabı Kaç Kişi Okur?”.
12 Quataert (ed.), Consumption Studies; Ger & Karababa, “Early Modern Ottoman”; Akçetin
& Faroqhi (eds.), Living the Good Life; see also Amanda Phillips’s chapter in this volume.
13 Kafadar, “How Dark”, esp. 262–63; Artan “Mahremiyet”; Ze’evi, Producing Desire, 128–32;
Tietze, The Turkish Shadow Theater, 19.
14 See, for example, Değirmenci, “An Illustrated Mecmua” for a very liberal use of evidence
from vastly differing periods to date and characterize a picture album I discuss later
in relation to 18th-century Istanbul tales. Artan’s “Mahremiyet” tends to conflate 18th-
century illustrations of Atai’s Ḫamse and prose Istanbul tales with the Ḫamse stories
themselves, which date from the early 17th century, as being representative of the same
overall cultural trends.
15 For the text of Ḥikāyet-i Anabacı, see Kavruk, Eski Türk Edebiyatında, 171–85. The four
extant works that make up Atai’s Ḫamse have been published separately.
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584 Altok
elite circles and picture albums, and were recorded by European travelers.
I argue that the Istanbul tale first developed among the meddāḥs, probably
around the turn of the 18th century, and very soon spawned the prose genre;
the prose tales and meddāḥ tales continued to develop in mutual interaction
into the 19th century. The Istanbul tale was emphatically a “late early modern”
genre that came into being in the unique metropolitan context of Istanbul and
resonated with the cultural trends of global early modernity I noted above. The
genre’s life entered a new phase with the coming of the print era when many
old tales were revised or completely rewritten to suit contemporary expec-
tations, as Sayers has thoroughly discussed. In short, the genre lived on for
almost two centuries, cutting across the conventional divide between pre- and
post-Tanzimat eras, and changing along the way. However, different forms or
degrees of survival (from bare plotlines to entire texts) from the pre-print era
cannot be ruled out, especially in the case of lithographed editions. Likewise,
there is no reason to believe that manuscript production stopped with the
coming of the print editions. For the purposes of this study, which focuses on
the origins and early modern life of the genre, I will consider any late Ottoman
print in which the plotline can be linked with earlier material and which shows
no sign of exclusive modern authorship—many more texts of this nature are
likely to turn up through further research. As for the history of the Istanbul tale
among print-era meddāḥs, it remains beyond the scope of this paper.
Throughout, I will use the encompassing expression “Istanbul tale” to refer
to the supra-genre that we witness across multiple media from about the begin-
ning of the 18th century into the late Ottoman era. I will refer to its two main
manifestations as “prose tales” and “meddāḥ tales”. No simple and straightfor-
ward relationship between the two main genres should be assumed, such as
the prose tales being mere transcripts of meddāḥ tales. The meddāḥ art was an
oral art and our access to their tales can only be indirect, inflected through the
media in which they were recorded, be they summaries made by the meddāḥs,
travelers’ recordings, or works of classical literature interested in gentrifying
these narratives. The status of the tales in picture albums and classical litera-
ture is different since these are very likely derivative of one or the other of the
two main genres.
1 The Genre of the Prose Tale and Extant Texts
Sayers’s characterization of the “Tıfli stories” he explored as a “protorealist

form of pulp-fiction”16 applies perfectly to the broader group of prose tales.
16 Sayers, “Sociosexual Roles”, 215.
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The genre is often easily recognized by its setting in Istanbul, often in one of its
neighborhoods, which the authors are careful to note, and during the reign of
a specified Ottoman sultan; the presence of ordinary Istanbulites as the main
characters; and the involvement of the court or famous historical personages.
In terms of plotlines, love intrigues and adventures in and out of a luring but
dangerous palace or mansion dominate. It is mostly the texts from a core set
of prose tales bearing these recurrent features that have been utilized in schol-
arship exploring or assuming the idea of a distinct genre, from Elçin’s time
to more recent studies and anthologies.17 However, there are also a number
of prose tales that do not display these features in any pronounced way, but
must nevertheless be understood as part of the same genre for a number of
reasons. Both groups comprise stylistically similar fictional stories of compa-
rable lengths and with happy endings, and involve love and adventure in the
contemporary Ottoman urban world. In addition to shared side plots, such
as lengthy escape sequences, they also display common descriptive details,
both being particularly preoccupied, for example, with coffee and tobacco
culture, clothing, and luxury household items. Moreover, they share a profane
and highly materialistic worldview, and lack an overt moralistic message. Last
but not least, the latter group of relatively “atypical” prose tales, and their ana-
logues or prototypes in the meddāḥs’ repertoire, always appear in the same
compilations (miscellanies, picture albums, mes̱nevīs—classical narrative
poems—made up of short tales, etc.) as the core group.
Yet, the most compelling evidence for considering the atypical prose tales a
part of the same genre comes from an understanding of Istanbul tales as one
big narrative system. Like most forms of popular narrative, the supra-genre of
the Istanbul tale works with a limited repertoire of plotlines that can be con-
veniently typologized. By moving out from the realm of the prose tales to the
world of the Istanbul tales as a whole, we can locate seemingly isolated prose
tales—representing plot types abandoned at an early stage—on a bigger map
that is comprised of all extant attestations of the Istanbul tale from diverse
media. This approach also provides a tool for exploring the nature of the prose
tales’ relationship to the meddāḥ repertoire, which appears to have involved a
very selective kind of appropriation. The following six-fold typology of plots
accounts for the prose tales listed in the appendix.
The core group of prose tales are based on two plot types. The first one I shall
call “The-Deathly-Palace-of-Pleasures”. Here, the protagonist, almost always a
young and fatherless middle-class male, is lured into a splendid palace or man-
sion and offered an orgy of indulgences, including food, alcohol, money, lux-
ury objects, and sex. It soon becomes apparent that the host, male or female,
17 See, for example, Soydan (ed.), Masaldan Romana.
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586 Altok
is a murderous villain. The protagonist fights his way out or is helped by the
authorities and the evil figure is eliminated. The second plot type involves a
triangular/quadrangular romance—heterosexual, homosexual, or both. Often,
these two plotlines are combined in a loosely merged bipartite structure. The
tales always end with the protagonists achieving (or being given by govern-
ment officials) a secure socioeconomic position and a happy marriage.
These two plot types and their combinations account for more than half
of the extant corpus of prose tales. Two highly popular late 19th-century sto-
ries with surviving manuscript precedents perfectly exemplify the two-plot
combination: Ḫançerli Ḫānım (The Lady with the Dagger) and Ṭayyārzāde,
also named in different versions after the Binbirdirek (Philoxenos) Cistern
in Istanbul, which features as the evil lady’s den, or after the historical Fazlı
Pasha, her father.18 Among the tales that have survived in manuscript form,
three display the exact same two-plot combination.19 There are four manu-
script tales based on the Deathly-Palace-of-Pleasures plotline alone,20 and
three based on the love triangle plot alone, some incorporating major adven-
ture elements.21 A surviving fragment also seems to be linked with one or
both of these plot types.22 Thus, at least thirteen titles23 represent these two
most common plot types.
An overview of these thirteen tales reveals the schematism with which their
anonymous authors proceeded and how they felt compelled to introduce some
rather mechanical variations each time they reworked a popular plot type. In
Sipāhī-i Ḳasṭamonī (The Cavalryman of Kastamonu), which combines the two
core plot types, the effort to complicate the standard love triangles and quad-
rangles is obvious. Here, the evil woman who lusts after the sipāhī’s beloved,
Çavuşzade, is also in a lesbian relationship with Çavuşzade’s girlfriend, an emi-
nent judge’s daughter. Two tales (Evḥad Çelebi and Caʿfer Paşa) based on the
18 There are multiple late 19th-century print versions of these two tales: see Sayers, Tıflî, 203–
399. The plotlines are older: we have 18th-century meddāḥ and prose versions of Ḫançerli
Ḫānım (Nutku, Meddahlık, 175–76; Elçin, “Kitâbî, Mensur”, 60, 70) and an undated manu-
script version of Ṭayyārzāde. Sipāhī-i Ḳasṭamonī, one of the earliest prose tales we have,
displays the same double plot template, which enhances this idea.
19 Sipāhī-i Ḳasṭamonī, Ḳıṣṣa-i Boşnaḳ, and the incomplete Süleymān Şāh, an early manu-
script version of Ḫançerli Ḫānım. See Kavruk, Eski Türk Edebiyatında, 83–84, 97–98 for
synopses; Elçin, “Kitâbî, Mensur”, 60, 70.
20 Evḥad Çelebi, Yaḥyā Çelebi (a version of the former), Ca‘fer Paşa, and the second half of
Sipāhī Şādān that has survived. Kavruk, Eski Türk Edebiyatında, 73, 83, 100–02.
21 Ṣansar Muṣṭafa, Cevrī Çelebi, and İki Birāderler. The latter two are late Ottoman prints for
which manuscripts have been reported; see Sayers, Tıflî, 401–02, 416.
22 The opening of Ḫāce ‘Azīz oğlu.
23 Depending on which print-era versions of Ḫançerli Ḫānım and Ṭayyārzāde are included.
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Deathly-Palace-of-Pleasures plot type mirror one another, with the man-eating

son of the Üsküdar shaykh in the first, and the corpse-eating daughter of the
sorceress of Cairo in the second. Only the genders of the main characters are
swapped. Unique in the same group, Sipāhī Şādān tells of a woman, the chaste
wife of Şadan, who is trapped in the palace of pleasures (note, however, that
the story is named after the sipāhī). Here, an evil hag tricks the wife into believ-
ing her own daughter is in love with her and will die if her love is not recip-
rocated. It turns out that the hag has no daughter but eight monstrous and
imbecilic sons waiting to gang-rape the wife. Here again, we see an attempt to
create variety around the same plotline by changing the genders, irrespective
of how realistic the outcome might be. This schematism should be of central
import in our appraisal of the cultural meaning of the prose tale genre.
Other plot types are represented by far fewer prose tales, some of which do
not seem to belong to the Istanbul tales corpus at first sight, being set in other
places like Bursa, Baghdad, Cairo, or Algiers. Of these, the “Love-with-a-Married/
Betrothed-Woman” plot type is represented by two tales only, Ṣafiyye ile Yūsuf
Şāh, a manuscript, and Şābūr Çelebi, a print version of the old meddāḥ tale
Bağdādī Ḥülle (the ḥülle24 of Baghdad). Another, the “Western-Mediterranean”
plot type, involves Algerian corsairs, Maltese knights, captivity, conversion,
and romance with Christian princesses, and is exemplified by a single prose
tale, ʿAlī Dayı,25 though it also is a part of two other prose tales.26 A third plot
type is based on chase-and-run adventures, sometimes with comic-dramatic
turns involving cross-dressing or escape through sewers. Although adventure
is a feature of many tales, this particular plot type is illustrated by two prose
tales about the prostitute Kanlı Bektaş.27 One last plot type, a more elusive
one, might be dubbed the “Disgruntled-Son-Who-Travels-the-World” and is
represented by a single prose tale, Ḫāce Saʿīd—the story of a rich Egyptian
merchant’s son who was denied the title Ḫāce (master merchant) by his father
and set out on a voyage to earn the title by himself.
After this brief panoramic survey of the prose tales and their main plot
types, we could make three observations. First, while the last four plot types
did not achieve popularity and were abandoned at some point, the two plot
types concerned with illicit pleasures became enormously popular and gener-
ated highly mechanical repetitions of the same basic formulas. This selectivity,
24 The transitional marriage required in Islam for a woman who wants to remarry her
divorced husband.
25 Dayı is the title given to the independent Muslim corsairs who ruled the North African
coast under an Ottoman aegis.
26 Şād ile Ġamm and Bengī Ḥallāç.
27 Ḳanlı Bektaş and Ṭıflī Efendi.
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possibly an effect of the demands of audiences, is an important problem

that needs to be tackled in its own right in the context of social and cultural
changes that unfolded in the 18th century.28 The disappearance of certain plot
types was, in fact, the continuation of a trend that was already underway when
the prose tale first emerged out of the meddāḥs’ repertoire. By comparison to
the remarkably rich and heterogeneous contemporary meddāḥs’ repertoire
(see below), prose tales represent an impoverishment and standardization of
plot types and characters. Second, stories set in places like Iraq, Algeria, and
Egypt were abandoned or sometimes transposed to Istanbul, signaling a rising
Istanbul-centricism. These abandoned features appear much more frequently
in the earliest attestations of the Istanbul tale from the first decades of the
18th century.
And third, it appears that in the 18th century, the character of Tıfli had not
yet acquired the central role he would have in late 19th-century editions. In
fact, neither Tıfli nor his patron Murad IV appear in more than a few texts
within the manuscript corpus, or in the meddāḥ repertoire, which instead
include stories set in the times of different Ottoman sultans. The duo’s pre-
dominant presence in the print-era texts appears to be a modern phenomenon
that came about, once again, through the gradual elimination of the greater
variety of historical characters who peopled these tales in the 18th century,
when a general interest in the Ottoman dynasty and other grandees was inte-
gral to Istanbul’s culture of popular narratives.
2 The Meddāḥs’ Repertoire and the Prose Tales
The relationship of these prose tales to the meddāḥs’ repertoire has long been
noticed, but its precise nature needs clarification. There is one single impor-
tant source for 18th-century meddāḥ tales: Mecmūʿa-i Fevā’id (Miscellany of
Useful Texts), a miscellany containing an index of over fifty titles, thirteen of
which also have cryptic summaries—or “scenarios”, as Özdemir Nutku calls
them—apparently meant for the use of a meddāḥ as an aide-mémoire. Several
of these scenarios show records of various meddāḥs’ names and performance
28 Pleasure appears as a leitmotif in Hamadeh’s book on the public spaces of 18th-century

Istanbul, The City’s Pleasures. Artan’s “Mahremiyet” dwells at length on the new legiti-
macy of representing private pleasures in 18th-century book illustrations. Similar themes
come up in Kafadar, “How Dark”; Tietze, The Turkish Shadow Theater; and İrepoğlu, Levnî:
Painting, Poetry, Colour.
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dates (ranging from AH 1140/CE 1727/28 to 18 Ramadan 1171/26 May 1758). The
author of the miscellany appears to have been present at these performances.29
We can use the extensive index of titles and the 13 scenarios as a basis for
comparison with the prose tales examined above.30 The Mecmūʿa-i Fevā’id
definitively proves that the prose tale genre emerged out of the meddāḥs’
repertoire, before it took a more or less independent course of development.
Indeed, there are clear precedents in the miscellany for nearly all of the plot
types listed above.31 Of the 13 scenarios, two display the greatest similarity with
extant prose tales.32 Other similarities are more partial, either limited to the
plot type or to smaller portions of texts. For example, the Love-with-a-Married/
Betrothed-Woman type is represented by three scenarios.33 Some titles in the
Mecmūʿa-i Fevā’id’s index also suggest close similarities: several titles refer-
ring to dayıs probably involved Western-Mediterranean plot types; Beş Boynuz
was likely a Kanlı Bektaş story, as this character appears in the prose tales as
the prostitute’s thug; and Şāh-ı ʿAcem-i Merdümḫār (The Man-Eating King of
Persia) recalls the two prose tales with man-eating sons and daughters men-
tioned above.
29 Anonymous, Mecmūʿa-i Fevā’id, İÜK, TY 6758. Metin And was the first scholar to intro-
duce this manuscript in Geleneksel Türk Tiyatrosu, 226–28. It was extensively utilized and
excerpted by Nutku in Meddahlık; see Nutku’s “Original Turkish Meddah Stories” for an
English-language article that focuses on this miscellany. The index is transliterated in
Nutku, “Original Turkish Meddah Stories”, 167; and And, Geleneksel Türk Tiyatrosu, 226–27.
30 To complement this essential source on 18th-century meddāḥs’ repertoires, we also have
18th- and early 19th-century European travelers’ records of the meddāḥ tales they heard
in Istanbul; e.g. Digeon, Nouveaux contes, 1–54; Potocki, Voyage en Turquie, 28–38; Walsh,
A Residence, 240–44; Méry, Constantinople, 333–43.
31 For an earlier discussion of the similarities between Mecmūʿa-i Fevā’id and the prose tales
(Tıfli group), see Sayers, Tıflî, 111–14.
32 The scenario Ḫazīnedār Aḥmed Āġā, Yūsuf bā ‘Aṭṭārzāde matches with the prose Ṣafiyye
ile Yūsuf Şāh fragment that bears a reading log for AH 1170/CE 1756/57. Ṭanbūrī Bursavī
Aḥmed Çelebi’s latter part closely resembles Ḫançerli Ḫānım’s earlier version, Süleymān
Şāh. Ḳonevī Dervīş Ḫalīl matches the French “Halil, Conte Turc” (Digeon, Nouveaux con-
tes, 1–54), which Kavruk believes to be a translation of a prose story: see Kavruk, Eski
Türk Edebiyatında, 74. I refrain from mentioning this scenario in my discussion because
the French text displays Western stylistic features. It was, therefore, probably written by
Digeon or another Frenchman based on a meddāḥ’s presentation, similar to Potocki’s
prose transcription of the meddāḥ tale he had heard at a coffeehouse in 1784, Potocki,
Voyage en Turquie, 28–38.
33 Yūsuf bā ‘Aṭṭārzāde and Ebe, Ḥallāc, ‘Abdullah Āġā recount the stories of young men who
lose their fiancées to rivals, then manage to take them back; in Ḥikāye-i Sergüzeşt-i Ḥāfıẓ
Çelebi, a young man lives in adultery with the wife of Mahmud Agha, whose death makes it
eventually possible for the two to get married. See also Potocki, Voyage en Turquie, 28–38.
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The Mecmūʿa-i Fevā’id also shows that the rich array of secondary fea-
tures that flesh out the prose tales’ basic plotlines come from the meddāḥ
repertoire.34 Most notably, references to specific locations and itineraries in
Istanbul,35 specific sultanic reigns, the particularities of Istanbul’s coffee cul-
ture and luxury consumption trends (often through carefully named types of
fabric/clothing and household items),36 and the unmistakable preoccupation
with money (with mentions of exact amounts of inherited money, payments,
etc.) are all pervasive in both meddāḥ and prose tales. The preoccupation with
worldly goods often takes the form of lists—of luxury items, foodstuff, or sights
to be seen—that are probably meant as a display of mnemonic and rhetorical
prowess.37 Many characters, too, are shared: in addition to main characters,
such as the orphaned son of a decent family who eats up his patrimony with the
help of a group of parasitical libertines38 and the loyal family friend assigned
by the dead father to keep an eye on his son,39 comical side characters like the
tiryākī (opium addict) suffering from withdrawal40 and the accident-prone,
dim-witted Turkoman Deli Mehmed41 also appear in the prose tales. The lovely
story of Deli Mehmed’s thieving cat who was pardoned by a “Gazi Sultan Selim”,
an atypical text embedded in a version of the prose Ḫançerli Ḫānım, resonates
with the cat humor found in the Mecmūʿa-i Fevā’id.42 Besides Deli Mehmed,
an outright farcical country bumpkin from the Kastamonu-Sinop-Safranbolu
region (in north-central Anatolia), other Turkomans from the same area (or
34 See Sayers’s index entries on these topics, categorized and listed in Sayers, Tıflî, vii.
35 Hamadeh refers to a “near-cult of place-names evident in 18th-century verses” by
Istanbul’s classical poets (The City’s Pleasures, 141–44). Kafadar’s examples of early mod-
ern flânerie and “pointless sightseeing” are from a late 17th-/early 18th-century book of
etiquette and a late 18th-century prose tale: “How Dark”, 263–64; see his chapter in this
volume for earlier examples. See also de Vivo, “Walking in Sixteenth-Century Venice”.
36 See Hamadeh, The City’s Pleasures, 166–70. An example from the Mecmūʿa-i Fevā’id:
Ṣadefkārī pīştaḫta, murabba‘ ṣofa, Ṭrabzonlu şīşeler, müferriḥ duḫān çubuḳları mükellef
vaṣf oluna (The mother-of-pearl inlaid drawer, the square hallway, the Trabzon-style
glassware, and the refreshing (?) smoking pipes to be described in detail), which are
instructions that the writer leaves for himself (on fol. 17v). For early modern Ottoman
consumer culture in general, see above, n. 12.
37 See Sayers, Tıflî, 87–88, and Nutku, Meddahlık, 170, 176 for some examples from the prose
tales and Mecmūʿa-i Fevā’id respectively.
38 Nutku, Meddahlık, 169, 164, 172, 177.
39 Ibid., 173.
40 The Mecmūʿa-i Fevā’id’s index includes the title Tiryākī, ‘Ayyāş, Bengī; in the tenth sce-
nario, we read the instruction “always include the opium-addict imitation” (Nutku,
Meddahlık, 187).
41 Sayers, Tıflî, 89 and passim.
42 For cats in the Mecmūʿa-i Fevā’id, see Nutku, Meddahlık, 161, 165.
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Konya-Karaman) in the Mecmūʿa-i Fevā’id play more serious roles. They are the
newcomers to Istanbul, unaccustomed to city ways—a feature that might be
linked to the waves of immigration to Istanbul in the late 17th century and the
resentment this caused among older residents.43 The Anatolian sipāhīs that
crop up in the prose tales are other versions of the same character. Particular
spaces and settings are also shared between prose and meddāḥ tales, such as
the barber’s shop frequented by the yārān (male friends and acquaintances), a
place where critical encounters that get the story going take place. Familiarity
with older literary story traditions, Ottoman as well as Perso-Indian and Arabic,
such as Ferec Baʿde’ş-Şidde (Relief After Hardship) and The Thousand and One
Nights, is evinced in both.44 Last but not least is their common approach to
Ottoman history as entertainment material, with a total lack of concern for
factual precision and freely incorporating fantastical plots bringing members
of the dynasty and the ruling elite into the lives of ordinary people.45
In short, the Mecmūʿa-i Fevā’id gives us a good glimpse of the rich stock of
plots, characters, and secondary features of the 18th-century meddāḥ tales out
of which the prose tales emerged by recombining and restyling these already
existing building blocks. Indeed, the idea of meddāḥs as the first authors of the
prose tales would be worth exploring in future studies.46
Nevertheless, the differences between the prose tales and those of the
meddāḥs cannot be overlooked. It would be safe to say that none of the sur-
viving prose tales can be described as a straightforward “transcript” of an
extant meddāḥ tale.47 The prose tales, including the earliest ones, display rel-
atively unified plotlines in comparison to the highly patchy, episodic quality of
meddāḥ tales.48 Sayers has pointed to this type of shift between, on one hand,
the Tıfli tales in manuscript and lithograph form, which he treats as one big
chronological block, and, on the other, those tales found in the moveable-type
prints of the late 19th century. I argue that this shift had already begun in the
43 Hamadeh, The City’s Pleasures, 78.

44 The Mecmūʿa-i Fevā’id opens with a literary tale about Mahmud of Ghazna (d. 1030), the
first Muslim ruler of northern India and patron of the Şehnāme author Ferdowsi, who in
turn became the hero of a vast Indo-Persian story cycle associated with his name. In the
prose Sipāhī-i Ḳasṭamonī, the characters recount several different types of literary tales
unrelated to the contemporary Istanbul context.
45 For example, Değirmenci notes the mistake about Cafer Pasha’s governorship in Ca‘fer
Paşa, “Bir Kitabı Kaç Kişi Okur?”, 19. The story of Deli Mehmed’s cat locates Tıfli at the
time of an unspecified Sultan Selim.
46 Several tales (like Evḥad Çelebi and Şād ile Ġamm) incorporate oral storytelling conven-
tions alien to literary (textual) traditions.
47 See Kavruk, Eski Türk Edebiyatında, 75–76.
48 Sayers, Tıflî, 28–33, 110–14.
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early 18th century with the transition from the oral art of the meddāḥs to the
prose tale, and long before the influence of Western narrative norms that moti-
vated plot unification in the late 19th-century prints kicked in. And it was prob-
ably required by the differing nature of the acts of watching a performance
as opposed to reading a text. Long established literary story traditions, which
clearly were within the purview of these meddāḥs, already provided models for
what a readerly text should look like. The kind of plot unification and coher-
ent narrative flow characteristic of prose tales was only possible at the cost of
losing a whole spectrum of side characters, side plots, and performative skits
of the kind we see in the Mecmūʿa-i Fevā’id. As noted earlier, many plot types
in the meddāḥs’ multifarious repertoire were discarded. Instead, the authors of
prose tales chose to reproduce schematically a far smaller number of plotlines,
specifically those highlighting themes like sexual pleasure, luxury consump-
tion, and social climbing, at the expense of others. This raises the question of
possibly differentiated audiences, another topic for future studies.49
3 Classical Mesnevīs and Picture Albums, c.1710
The earliest pieces of evidence for the Istanbul tale are clustered in the first
decades of the 18th century and come in the rather unexpected forms of the
classical mes̱nevī50 and the picture album. These are clearly not the original
venues in which the new style tales were created, and they allude to a bigger
world of storytelling from which the tales were borrowed. Although it is often
difficult to make a definitive statement on whether the tales they include are
based on contemporary meddāḥ or prose tales, one could speculate that they
represent a historical moment preceding the full-fledged establishment of the
prose tale genre: such “experimental” attempts at fixing the new style tales on
paper disappear as the prose tale becomes widespread from the 1730s onwards.
49 More research is needed before this question can be adequately addressed. Değirmenci
has published a preliminary study on the audiences of three prose tales with readers’
notes (“Bir Kitabı Kaç Kişi Okur?”). These and other extant notes, significantly, all record
collective readings at well-to-do households and other private spaces, while the typical
settings for the meddāḥs’ performances were both coffeehouses and homes. The language
and style of some tales assume a relatively educated audience familiar with classical liter-
ature (e.g., Sipāhī-i Ḳasṭamonī) while others employ a markedly simple colloquial diction
(e.g., Ca‘fer Paşa). The variability of language among the prose tales does not warrant a
hasty association of the prose tale genre with the upper classes. For 18th- and early 19th-
century readers’ notes on a story of a different genre, see Sezer, The Oral and the Written.
50 Lengthy narrative poems in rhymed couplets, the most famous example of which is
Rumi’s Mes̱nevī.
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Another feature that compels us to locate these works just at the brink of the
prose Istanbul tale era is the way they juxtapose older storytelling traditions
and novel trends. They look backwards and forwards at the same time, con-
trary to the (later) prose tales, which do not overtly allude to anything received
or traditional, whether in terms of storylines, characters, or moral attitudes.
In Subhizade Feyzi’s (d. 1739) mes̱nevī, Heft Seyyāre (Seven Planets, 1710),51
a compendium of seven tales, one tale offers a direct match to a scenario in
the Mecmūaʿ-i Fevā’id.52 Three other tales fit into plot types described above,
the Western-Mediterranean, Palace-of-Pleasures, and Disgruntled-Son-Who-
Travels-the-World.53 Another tale found in Heft Seyyāre belongs to a type
of plot I shall refer to as the “Enchanted-Treasure-Acquired-through-Luck”,
which recurs in the Mecmūʿa-i Fevā’id but was abandoned in the transition
from meddāḥ to prose tales. This places Feyzi’s mes̱nevī closer to the world of
meddāḥs than that of the prose tales. The use of settings like Bursa and Indian
cities alongside Istanbul in Heft Seyyāre points in the same direction, and is
in line with its early production date, that is to say, before Istanbul-centrism
reigned supreme. Feyzi opens his tales with a direct address to his “listeners”,
hoping they will like what they are about to hear. Most of his tales are attrib-
uted to rāviyān (transmitters of stories) and must have been popularly known
(likely through oral transmission), as is clearly suggested by the author who
takes care to note, in the case of one particular tale, that he had found it in an
old miscellany and that it was unknown to the public.
One tale in Heft Seyyāre harks back to an old theme, common in 16th-century
story collections, namely, “the punishment of the womanizer (zenpāre)”. Here,
the womanizer molests a virtuous married woman and then is severely tortured
on his sexual parts. Of note here is the marked antinomy between this tradi-
tional theme and the new Love-with-a-Married-Woman plot type, in which
offenders and adulterers are not shown in negative light and get away with
their transgressions.54 Another archaic feature is Feyzi’s epilogue (ḫātime), in
51 Transliterated in İspirli, “Subhizāde Feyzī”, 786–849.

52 The scenario is Ḳāżı Ḥüseyin Sinobī.
53 Feyzi’s tale of the merchant Hacı Ahmed closely resembles the prose ‘Alī Dayı of the
Western-Mediterranean plot type. The barber Turfe-destar Ali Çelebi (Ali Çelebi of
the Fashionable Turban) is lured into a “palace of pleasures” which turns out to be a
whorehouse, and then callously discarded after being manipulated for a ḥülle marriage.
The story of the Kasım Paşa coffee vendor’s son who travels the world in search of some-
one who would ask him to tell his portentous dream recalls the prose Ḫāce Sa‘īd, where a
merchant’s son travels the world to earn the title of “master merchant”.
54 Compare, for example, to the meddāḥ tale heard by Potocki in a coffehouse in 1784. Here,
the molester of the married woman gets what he wants, the husband divorces his wife,
but then remarries her after being tricked by the hag who had procured the meeting of
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which he summarizes the morals to be learned from his seven tales, a feature
alien to the non-moralizing attitude of the Istanbul tales and the vicarious sat-
isfaction of illicit fantasies they are meant to provide.55
Another mes̱nevī, Sabit’s (d. 1712) undated single-tale piece Berbernāme
(The Story of the Barber), bears many similarities to Feyzi’s story of the barber
Ali Çelebi.56 Just like Feyzi’s protagonist, Sabit’s barber Ali is one day called
on while in his shop, lured into a “palace of pleasures”, and ends up being gang-
raped by a group of men. Both Alis are of the beau type, which is common in
the Istanbul tales. Their shops are frequented by yārān who are there to gaze at
the young barbers’ beauty as they drink their coffee, smoke, and socialize, the
way they would in a coffeehouse. Many later Istanbul tales would feature this
kind of opening at the barber’s shop or the coffeehouse, places where strang-
ers can meet.57 Another short mes̱nevī by Sabit, Derenāme (The Story of the
Creek), parallels Feyzi’s traditional zenpāre tale and involves the molestation
of a married woman by an idiotic, clownish womanizer; here, more in line with
the new Istanbul tales, the zenpāre gets away with his transgression but is still
represented in the traditional manner as a ridiculous character.58 Both Feyzi
and Sabit acknowledge Atai’s Ḫamse as their direct model, though in reality
they draw on contemporary popular material more than anything else.
Comparable to these two classicizations of popular stories is a picture
album by the court painter Levni (TSMK H.2164, c.1710), which visualizes some
story characters.59 The album includes several portraits identified in captions
that seem to refer to at least three distinct stories: one about Sultan Osman II
and his courtiers, probably involving his dethronement and murder, and sev-
eral others centered around love triangles and set in Bursa and at the Persian
court. The absence of references to other plot types common among Istanbul
tales, the lack of focus on Istanbul as setting (except in the Osman II narrative),
and the prominence of Persian fictional and historical characters, which may
be an effect of the court environment in which Levni operated, all set these
images and the stories they allude to apart from the Istanbul tales. What unites
the two groups, however, is the way they feature members of the Ottoman
dynasty in the context of light entertainment; their shared predilection for
the adulterers. The story ends with the narrator celebrating how everything turned out
well for everyone involved.
55 Kafadar has pointed out the absence of “the lesson thing” in a variety of early modern
narratives, “How Dark”, 261–63, and his chapter in this volume.
56 Karacan, “Bosnalı Sabit’in ‘Berbernamesi’”.
57 Sabit’s mes̱nevīs are set in Çorlu and Rodosçuk, small towns to the west of Istanbul.
58 Karacan, Derename.
59 İrepoğlu, Levnî: Painting, Poetry, Colour, 144–81.
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complicated romantic relations; a highly eroticized representation of the pro-

tagonists (both male and female); and an unmistakable interest in pleasurable
leisure activities, and in fabrics and clothing.60
BnF ms turc 140, an undated picture album,61 shares features both with
Levni’s visualization of the storytelling culture at the court and with the world
of the Istanbul tales discussed so far. It is a relatively cheap production com-
prising a series of portraits of story characters accompanied by brief texts
and includes several single portraits without text that closely echo scenes in
Levni’s album. BnF ms turc 140 juxtaposes quasi-historical narratives about
Persian and Ottoman courtly figures (including Osman II) with two oth-
ers based on Istanbul tale plot types. The texts attached to the portraits bear
many staple features of 18th-century Istanbul tales: the care to locate events
at a precise time in the Ottoman past; the theme of the orphaned boy dragged
into debauchery; the interest in citing exact sums of money and treasure or
inheritance items; and the total absence of a moralizing attitude towards illicit
sexuality and other transgressions. These short pieces of text read like tale sum-
maries and are as conspicuously plot-oriented as the prose tales. In contrast,
for example, to Mecmūʿa-i Fevā’id’s fragmented scenarios teeming with perfor-
mance pointers, they offer a coherent reading experience. BnF ms turc 140 is
clearly meant for readers, an aspect I interpret as harbingering the era of the
prose tale. Other discrete features of the album linking it to the 18th-century
Istanbul tales include its plain language, an instance of male cross-dressing,62
and most strikingly, the specification of neighborhoods and particular sites in
Istanbul.63 At the same time, however, like the mes̱nevīs of Feyzi and Sabit, the
album incorporates older, traditional features, not least of which is the pres-
ence of an excerpt from Ferdowsi’s epic Şehnāme. Along with other interna-
tional medieval epics, like Ḥamzanāme and ʿAnṭernāme, Şehnāme was a staple
text in the age-old art of the ḳıṣṣaḫāns, the popular readers/reciters of epics.
All these affinities with texts from the first decades of the 18th century, and, in
particular, the unique way it conjoins old and new trends, strongly suggest that
60 Ibid., 146. Artan places a similar emphasis on sexuality in her analysis of five early 18th-
century illustrated copies of Atai’s Ḫamse; see Artan, “Mahremiyet”, 92 and elsewhere.
61 Anonymous, Album, BnF, ms turc 140. The album was first discussed by Değirmenci,
who assumes a mid-17th century production date and argues it was meant for the use of
meddāḥs as an aide-mémoire; Değirmenci, “An Illustrated Mecmua”, 195, 187, 212–13.
62 Anonymous, Album, BnF, ms turc 140, fol. 29r.
63 These places are noted as Osman II’s men hunt for the janissaries responsible for the
Hotin defeat, which Değirmenci noticed are absent from 17th-century accounts of the
same events; Değirmenci, “An Illustrated Mecmua”, 202.
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BnF ms turc 140’s production date could not have been very far from 1718, the
year in which it was purchased by the French traveler Paul Lucas.64
4 Revisiting the Problem of Dating and Concluding Remarks
A recapitulation on the problem of dating is in order here. Our survey of the

earliest extant attestations of Istanbul tales in classical mes̱nevīs and picture
albums has strongly suggested early 18th-century origins. This tallies with the
different kinds of date found on prose tales in manuscript form, of which only
three include what look like composition dates: Yaḥyā Çelebi bears the date
of 10 Cemaziyu’l-ahır 1143/21 December 1730; Caʿfer Paşa, AH 1144/CE 1731/32;
and Ḳıṣṣa-i Boşnaḳ, AH 1160/CE 1747/48. Other dates are for the most part logs
of collective reading sessions which always begin in the 18th century, going
into the early 19th century in a few cases.65 The earliest date of any kind
on a prose tale is a reading log for AH 1131/CE 1718/19, recorded on the manu-
script of Sipāhī-i Ḳasṭamonī. All other extant attestations of the Istanbul tales
(in European travelers’ records of meddāḥ tales, or in meddāḥs’ own scenario
notes) likewise begin around 1710. No earlier attestation exists, leaving out a
few distant and isolated classical precursors, like a few tales in Atai’s Ḫamse,
or comical city narratives of the shadow theater plays (Karagöz). (The role of
Karagöz as one possible source of inspiration for the Istanbul tales is, indeed,
worth exploring, since it was the main form of popular entertainment that
drew its subject matter from contemporary urban society prior to the 18th
century.)66 Nor has it been possible to identify a significantly earlier date for
the meddāḥs’ Istanbul tales; they appear to have emerged and spread more or
less simultaneously with prose tales in the first decades of the 18th century.
64 See the entry in Blochet, Catalogue des manuscrits turcs, vol. 1. That Paul Lucas could have
been the album’s patron is made plausible by the existence of other 18th-century French
translations of Istanbul tales: BnF, Supplément turc 913, which contains the Yaḥyā Çelebi
tale and its French translation from 1831; for translations of meddāḥ tales by 18th-century
travelers, see above, nn. 30 and 32.
65 Reading logs and copy dates for five other tales range between AH 1157/CE 1744/45 and
AH 1238/CE 1822/23. Danişmend, “Küçük Hikâye”, 7; Elçin, Halk Edebiyatı, 84; Özön,
Türkçede Roman, 73.
66 Evliya Çelebi’s list of Karagöz characters (Evliya Çelebi, Evliya Çelebi Seyahatnâmesi,
vol. 1, ed. Dankoff, Kahraman, Dağlı, 351) suggests important commonalities, such as the
mīrās̱yedi çelebi, the young libertine who eats up his patrimony in debauchery, which
was to become a staple character among the Istanbul tales. However, we have no precise
understanding of the storylines of 17th-century Karagöz plays. See also Tietze, The Turkish
Shadow Theater.
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A review of the scholarly literature reveals a significant lacuna in our under-

standing of Ottoman meddāḥ art prior to the 18th century, primarily due to
a dearth of sources.67 Most of what we know about the actual contents of
meddāḥs’ tales comes from the modern period, when scholars transcribed
their performances.68 It is thus not uncommon to find the image of the late
Ottoman meddāḥ projected on his early modern ancestor. The variability in
meaning of the very term meddāḥ across time and contexts has also made
it difficult to trace consistent lines of development from the early Ottoman
times up until the brink of modernity. For our discussion here, the central
question is: when did the urban performer exemplified by the meddāḥ behind
the Mecmūʿa-i Fevā’id emerge? I refer here to the meddāḥ with novel stories
and skits about contemporary urban society. Significantly, though his urban
narratives are relatively serious, this meddāḥ also incorporates the functions
of a comedian by inserting droll impersonations and crude jokes into his pre-
sentation. This profile is to be distinguished from the age-old ḳıṣṣaḫāns as
well as from the storytellers of princes’ and grandees’ courts (of which the his-
torical Tıfli is an example) who were steeped in the classical tradition. These
two types of performer are also frequently called meddāḥs, both in Ottoman
sources and modern scholarship, but their repertoires, set of skills, and con-
texts of performance appear to be significantly different from those of our new
meddāḥ profile. In other words, the meddāḥs who created Istanbul tales and
performed them in the city, in coffeehouses, and private gatherings, can be
traced back to only the turn of the 18th century—at least on the basis of our
current knowledge. They are not yet, for example, part of the world of Evliya
Çelebi (in the reign of Murad IV, 1623–40). His Seyāḥatnāme gives us a very
detailed picture of the contemporary entertainment regime, in which the old
dual model of public oral entertainment was still operative, and included the
more “respectable” ḳıṣṣaḫāns and the socially “inferior” comedians (imper-
sonators, jongleurs, jokers, and clowns).69 This picture closely parallels Latifi’s
depiction of street performers at Tahtakale (Taḥt al-ḳalʿa, Istanbul’s downtown
market area) at least half a century earlier.70 None of Evliya’s many differ-
ent uses of the term meddāḥ corresponds to the meddāḥ type of Mecmūʿa-i
67 Köprülü, “Meddahlar”; Boratav, “Maddāḥ”; And, Geleneksel Türk Tiyatrosu, 218–41; Nutku,
Meddahlık.
68 The same can be said of Karagöz plays.
70 The passage is from Latifi’s Evṣāf-ı İstanbul (latest rendition 1574) and quoted in Köprülü,
“Meddahlar”, 377–78.
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Fevā’id.71 The latter begins to appear in the sources only around the beginning
of the 18th century, almost suddenly, although further research into the second
half of the 17th century is needed to refine this dating. By the early 19th century,
Süleyman Faik Efendi, author of a miscellany covering mystical and literary
topics, could write “we do not know if there was ever a meddāḥ before Tıfli”,72
a statement that attests to a fully established cult of Tıfli as a kind of patron
saint among the “new style” Istanbul meddāḥs and recognizes a clear distinc-
tion between this type of oral performer and earlier storytellers.
As for precursors of the prose Istanbul tale in Ottoman classical litera-
ture, scholars’ identification of similarities between the two should not keep
us from appreciating the novelty of the Istanbul tales.73 The prose Istanbul
tales are preoccupied with contemporary urban realities, and they operate in
a relatively serious and fictional mode in which the plot dominates and makes
for relatively long narratives—all comparable to the European novel. It is this
combination of features that distinguishes them from the variety of short
“city tales” ubiquitous in Ottoman literature and historical works from at least
the early 16th century onwards, from Lamiʿi’s Leṭā’if, Yahya Bey’s Uṣūlnāme,
Cinani’s Bedāyiʿü’l-ās̱ār, all 16th century, to Atai’s Ḫamse, Nergisi’s Nihālistān
and all sorts of local legends recorded in Evliya Çelebi’s travelogue in the 17th
century. None of these short stories display the unabashed fictionality of the
later tales. They are presented as anecdotes, legends, or hearsay, and draw their
force from their grounding in history, no matter how loose and arbitrary, and
not from the internal machinery of their plots. Authors do not claim to be their
creators and they often imply written or oral precedents. Atai, for example,
was conscious of this distinction, and devoted the final volume of his Ḫamse,
Heft Ḫān (Seven Stops) to fiction exclusively.74 The seven lengthy tales con-
tained in the Heft Ḫān partake of the Islamicate literary tale traditions (such
as The Thousand and One Nights), involve intricate adventures and intrigue
plots with supernatural elements like enchanted treasures and genies, and are
set mainly in Persian lands and in the distant past. Even though Atai makes
a few attempts, quite innovative for his time, to bring this type of tale to the
71 Evliya Çelebi, Evliya Çelebi Seyahatnâmesi, vol. 1, ed. Dankoff, Kahraman, Dağlı, 120–21,
259, 347; Evliya Çelebi, Evliya Çelebi Seyahatnâmesi, vol. 2, ed. Kurşun, Kahraman, Dağlı,
17, 109, 207, 230, 250.
72 Süleyman Faik Efendi, Mecmūʿa, İÜK, TY 3472, 93r.
73 See, for example, the discussion on Atai’s Ḫamse in relation to the prose tales in Artan,
“Mahremiyet”, and Sayers, Tıflî, 118–22.
74 It must have been to this categorical niche that Feyzi referred when, about 75 years later,
he declared his Heft Seyyāre to be modeled after Heft Ḫān in spite of the huge differences
between their contents.
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contemporary Ottoman world of Damascus and Istanbul in plots that seem to

be of his own original creation, only his final tale about the somewhat realistic
seaborn adventures and homosexual love affairs of two orphaned Istanbulite
youths may be said to set a clear precedent for the 18th-century Istanbul tale.75
An earlier attempt along the same lines, Vahdi’s Anabacı, has also been men-
tioned in this respect.76
It is only in the 18th century that the new type of contemporary fiction
appears to have become a mass phenomenon. While it may not be appropri-
ate to speak of “mass culture” before the era of mechanical reproduction and
industrialized entertainment, the sudden ubiquity of the Istanbul tale across
different media, and the repetition of certain “best-selling formulas” in the
prose tales (which, as noted earlier, resulted in the impoverishment of plot and
character types) can be seen as harbingering that age. Their formulaic quality,
more prominent in the prose tales than in the meddāḥs’ tales, strongly suggests
a pressure for rapid production due to high demand. Still, at the same time we
find a conspicuous effort to create variations in each new tale (as we saw above
with the gender swaps and ever-more complicated love triangles and quad-
rangles) suggesting that “novelty” itself had now become a desired object of
consumption.77 In contradistinction to the predominantly traditional nature
of earlier strands of written storytelling culture where each new work drew
upon received oral or written material,78 the prose Istanbul tale might be the
first literary genre in the Ottoman context that relied exclusively on newly cre-
ated plotlines.
Despite our insufficient understanding of the social profiles of both the
writers and the audiences of the prose tales—definitely a topic for further
study—there is enough to point to a new and highly hybrid social context for
these tales, one where conventional distinctions between high and low cul-
tural registers were no longer operative.79 Shirine Hamadeh’s characterization
of 18th-century architecture as a material embodiment of the “opening-up”
(décloisonnement) of age-old social and cultural boundaries might as well
apply to the prose tales.80 Even if we cannot pinpoint the class identities of the
75 Andrews & Kalpaklı provide an English-language prose paraphrase of the tale in The Age
of Beloveds, 59–62.
76 Kafadar, “How Dark”, 262.
77 See Hamadeh, “Ottoman Expressions” for an account of the value placed on innovation in
18th-century architecture and poetry.
78 See Cora’s dissertation “‘The Story Has It’”, for a selection from relatively early strata of
early modern literary tales.
79 Compare Sajdi, Barber of Damascus.
80 Hamadeh, The City’s Pleasures, 4.
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anonymous Istanbulites who produced and consumed these tales, we can tell
that they all lived and felt at home in a world where money was paramount,
the desire for upward mobility and fashionable consumption widespread,
and pleasure-seeking seen as legitimate. Only a metropolis like 18th-century
Istanbul could have made this genre possible.
Appendix: List of Manuscripts and Published Editions of

Prose Tales
ʿAlī Dayı “Hikâye-i Cezâyir Dayılarından Ali Dayı” [The tale of Ali Dayı, a dayı of
Algeria], ed. Ş. Elçin, Halk Edebiyatı Araştırmaları 2, 17–23 [from a manuscript in
the private collection of Raif Yelkenci].
Bengī Ḥallāç “Hikaye-i Bengi Hallaç” [The tale of the opium-addicted wool fluffer],
ed. Ş. Elçin, Halk Edebiyatı Araştırmaları 2, 188–92 [from the same manuscript in
the private collection of Raif Yelkenci].
Caʿfer Paşa Mıṣır Vālīsi Ḳocā Caʿfer Paşa’nın ʿAcā’ib Ḥikāyesi [The strange tale of Koca
Cafer Pasha, governor of Egypt], SK, Hacı Mahmud Ef. 6264.
Cevrî Çelebi “Hikâye-i Cevrî Çelebi”, ed. D.S. Sayers, Tıflî Hikâyeleri, 401–414 [from an
AH 1289/CE 1872/73 moveable-type print].
Evḥad Çelebi Ḥikāyet-i ciğer-ḫār-i Hind ve ez mācerā-yi Evḥad [The tale of the liver-
eater of India and adventures of Evhad], Adnan Ötüken Library, 06 HK 3208,
76v–124r.
“Evhad Çelebi Hikayesi” [The tale of Evhad Çelebi], ed. Ş. Elçin, Halk Edebiyatı
Araştırmaları 2, 84–92 [private collection of Elçin].
Ḫāce ʿAzīz oğlu Ḫāce ʿAzīz oğlu Ḥasan Şāh’ın Menāḳıbıdır [The tale of Hasan Şah, son
of the master merchant Aziz], unidentified manuscript discussed and excerpted
in İ.H. Danişmend, “Küçük Hikâye Çığırı”, Türk Ruhu 1 (1957), 7, 13.
Ḫāce Saʿīd Ḥikāyet-i Ḫāce Saʿīd [The tale of the master merchant Said], İÜK, TY 250,
fols. 1r–19r.
Ḫançerli Ḫānım “Hançerli Hikâye-i Garîbesi” [The strange story of Lady with the
Dagger], ed. D.S. Sayers, Tıflî Hikâyeleri, 299–354 [from an AH 1268/CE 1851/52
lithograph].
“Letâ’ifnâme” [Book of pleasantries], ed. D.S. Sayers, Tıflî Hikâyeleri, 249–97
[from an AH 1268/CE 1851 lithograph].
İki Birāderler “İki Birâderler Hikâyesi” [The tale of the two brothers], ed. D.S. Sayers,
Tıflî Hikâyeleri, 415–20 [from an AH 1301/CE 1883/84 moveable-type print].
Ḳıṣṣa-i Boşnaḳ “Hikāyāt-ı Hüseyin Çelebi ve Nigâr ve Şâh-ı Hûbân ve Kıssa-i Boşnak”
[The stories of Hüseyin Çelebi and the beautiful lady and the lord of handsome
young men and The tale of the Bosniac], ed. P.P. Aytaç et al., Kitâb-ı Mensûr:
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Realist İstanbul Hikâyeleri (Metinler), 195–219 [from Ankara University DTCF

Library, İ. Saib I, 3621].
Ḳanlı Bektaş “Meşhûr Tıflî Efendi ile Kanlı Bektâş’ın Hikâyesi” [The famous story of
Tıfli Efendi and Bektaş the Bloody], ed. D.S. Sayers, Tıflî Hikâyeleri, 191–202 [from
an AH 1299/CE 1882/83 moveable-type print].
Ṣafiyye ile Yūsuf Şāh Untitled, non-extant manuscript discussed and excerpted in
Ş. Elçin, “Kitâbî, Mensur, Realist İstanbul Halk Hikayeleri”, in id., Halk Edebiyatı
Araştırmaları 2, 56–80.
Ṣansar Muṣṭafa “Hikâyet (Sansar Mustafa Hikâyesi)” [Tale (the tale of Mustafa the
Weasel)], ed. D.S. Sayers, Tıflî Hikâyeleri, 139–63 [from İÜK, TY 250].
Sipāhī-i Ḳasṭamonī Ḥikāyāt-i Sipāhī-i Ḳasṭamonī ve Ṭūṭī-i Şekeristān [The story of the
cavalryman of Kastamonu and the parrot of the candy-land], Millet Library, Ali
Emiri, Rm. 146.
Balkanlı S., “Hikayet-i Sipahi-i Kastamoni Tuti-i Şekeristan (vr. 1–27)” [The
story of the cavalryman of Kastamonu, the parrot of the candy-land (fols. 1–27)],
MA thesis, Marmara University, 2010.
Gevrek, H., “Hikayet-i Sipahi-i Kastamoni Tuti-i Şekeristan (vr. 28–54)”
[The story of the cavalryman of Kastamonu, the parrot of the candy-land
(fols. 28–54)], MA thesis, Marmara University, 2010.
Sipāhī Şādān “Hikâyet-i Sipahi Şadan ve Duhter-i Acuze” [The tale of the cavalryman
Şadan and the daughter of the hag], ed. S. Soydan, Masaldan Romana, Sözden
Yazıya: İstanbul Hikâyeleri, 230–42 [from an unspecified Ankara University
Library manuscript].
Süleymān Şāh Untitled, non-extant manuscript discussed and excerpted in Ş. Elçin,
“Kitâbî, Mensur, Realist İstanbul Halk Hikayeleri”, in idem, Halk Edebiyatı
Araştırmaları 2, 56–80.
Şābūr Çelebi “Şâbûr Çelebi”, in P.P. Aytaç et al. (eds.), Kitâb-ı Mensûr: Realist İstanbul
Hikâyeleri (Metinler), 221–782 [from an AH 1293/CE 1876 print].
Şād ile Ġamm “Destân-ı Kıssa-i Şâd ile Gam” [The tale of happi(ness) and sadness],
ed. Ş. Elçin, Halk Edebiyatı Araştırmaları 2, 143–65 [based on the British Museum
manuscript Add. 10,003].
Ṭayyārzāde Meşhūr Binbir Direk Fażlı Paşa Bataḳḫāne Ḥādis̱esi [The famous inci-
dent of the Binbirdirek cistern, the Fazlı Pasha den], AK, Seyfettin Özege 238 ASL.
“Tayyârzâde Hikâyesi” [The tale of Tayyarzade], ed. D.S. Sayers, Tıflî Hikâyeleri,
207–20 [from an AH 1291/CE 1875 lithograph].
“Hikâye-i Tayyârzâde” [The tale of Tayyarzade], ed. D.S. Sayers, Tıflî Hikâyeleri,
221–32 [from an AH 1289/CE 1872/73 moveable-type print].
Ṭıflī Efendi “Tıflî Efendi Hikâyesi” [The tale of Tıfli Efendi], ed. D.S. Sayers, Tıflî
Hikâyeleri, 165–189 [from an AH 1291/CE 1875 lithograph].
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Yaḥyā Çelebi Ḥikāyet-i Yaḥyā Çelebi bā Şeyh Ebu’l-ḫayyār der Üsküdar [The tale of
Yahya Çelebi and Shaykh Ebulhayyar of Üsküdar], BnF, Supplément turc 913,
fols. 1v–31v.
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first-person narratives in Ottoman literature”, SI 69 (1989), 121–50.
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604 Altok
Kafadar, C., “Mütereddit bir mutasavvıf: Üsküp’lü Asiye Hatun’un rüya defteri 1641–43”,
Topkapı Sarayı Müzesi: Yıllık 5 (1992), 168–222.
Karacan, T., “Bosnalı Sabit’in ‘Berbernamesi’”, Çevren 76 (1990), 37–44.
Karacan, T., Derename ya da Hâce Fesâd ve Söz Ebesi, Sivas, 1990.
Kavruk, H., Eski Türk Edebiyatında Mensûr Hikâyeler, Istanbul, 1998.
Kortantamer, T., Nevʿî-zâde Atâyî ve Hamse’si, Izmir, 1997.
Köprülü, M.F., “Meddahlar”, in idem, Türk Edebiyatı Araştırmaları vol. 1., 3rd ed.,
Istanbul, 1989, 361–412 (orig. 1925).
Nutku, Ö., “Original Turkish meddah stories of the eighteenth century”, in İ. Başgöz,
M. Glazer (eds.), Studies in Turkish Folklore (In Honor of Pertev N. Boratav),
Bloomington, 1978, 166–83.
Nutku, Ö., Meddahlık ve Meddah Hikâyeleri, 2nd ed., Ankara 1997.
Özön, M.N., Türkçede Roman, 2nd ed., Istanbul, 1985 (orig. 1936).
Quataert, D. (ed.), Consumption Studies and the History of the Ottoman Empire, 1550–
1922: An Introduction, New York, 2000.
Quinn, M.M., “Books and Their Readers in Seventeenth-Century Istanbul”, PhD diss.,
Harvard University, 2016.
Sajdi, D. (ed.), Ottoman Tulips, Ottoman Coffee: Leisure and Lifestyle in the Eighteenth
Century, London/New York, 2007 (repr. 2014).
Sajdi, D., The Barber of Damascus: Nouveau Literacy in the Eighteenth-Century Ottoman
Levant, Stanford, 2013.
Sayers, D.S., Tıflî Hikâyeleri, Istanbul, 2013.
Sayers, D.S., “Sociosexual roles in Ottoman pulp fiction”, International Journal of Middle
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1500–1900, Berkeley/Los Angeles, 2006.
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Part 5
Spaces of Thought and Imagination
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Chapter 23
Science and Technology

B. Harun Küçük
Science is not and has never been a purely intellectual activity. The very notion
of the purity of science divorced from daily life, practices, and interests is
largely a Cold War myth.1 Even if we were to set aside the fact that no history
truly bears out the alleged chastity of science, we would still miss, to the point
of total misinterpretation, the most important pieces of evidence by leaving
out the relevant impurities. Impurities, that is, context, are a mainstay of the
contemporary historiography of early modern European science. Students of
Islamic intellectual history may see comparable analyses deployed on more
familiar grounds by Dimitri Gutas, Frank Griffel, and Robert Morrison.2
What context means is a matter of abductive reasoning and contenders
range from anthropological thick description to intertextuality. The need for
context, that is, for mixing different registers of activity and analysis, is all the
more pronounced once we combine technology and science. Much recent
historiography has placed this combination, sometimes called technoscience,
at the center of the analysis of early modern science to counteract the long-
standing Newtonian bias, namely the view that philosophy is what makes sci-
ence, and anything without a philosophical articulation is not science.3 This
technoscientific approach will inform the analysis that follows.
Early modern science has become a global category in the last two decades.
It provides historians with the analytical vocabulary to situate and occasion-
ally to replace the outdated notion of a “Scientific Revolution”, which is spe-
cific to a particular narrative of science in Europe.4 This shift in the field as a
whole also meant a reconfiguration of the relationship between history and
the history of science: a few decades ago, many historians of science would
have claimed science’s total independence from and leading role in the flow of
history, while most historians of science today are happy to fold the subject of
their analysis into social, economic, and cultural histories. Early modern sci-
ence in the strong sense—one that I endorse—refers both to the early modern
1 Shapin, Never Pure. See also Küçük, Science without Leisure.

2 Gutas, Greek Thought; Morrison, “A Scholarly Intermediary”, 32–57.
3 Roberts, Schaffer, & Dear (eds.), The Mindful Hand.
4 A good example is Park & Daston (eds.), The Cambridge History of Science, vol. 3, 1.

608 Harun Küçük
commercialization and globalization of the economy and to the 17th-century

crisis-and-response dynamic. From a methodological standpoint, the signifi-
cance of global commerce to the history of science is amply treated in Harold
Cook’s Matters of Exchange, which follows mercantile science across the globe
during the Dutch Golden Age starting with the 16th century. The commercial
element in science is also prominent in current studies of science and impe-
rialism. Cook’s work also exemplifies the practical turn in the historiography
of science, where science is no longer understood as theory but as a series of
practices, including artisanal practices.5
The 17th-century crisis serves to invert some of the analyses of the emer-
gence of modern science, as it rejects the notion that modern science was the
fruit of prosperity and peace. The period generally known as the “Scientific
Revolution” was, as most historians today would argue, a time of profound crisis
across the globe. Some of the earlier analyses that took crisis rather than peace
and prosperity as the proper context of 17th-century science have highlighted
political and commercial contexts.6 In Geoffrey Parker’s recent interpretation,
the crisis of the 17th century was the destructive synergy of the Little Ice Age,
droughts and crop failures, the rise of the fiscal-military state, currency manip-
ulation, and excessive urbanization. Parker’s Global Crisis includes a discussion
of the collapse of higher education everywhere except in some parts of Europe
by the end of the 17th century.7 In this chapter, I will rest my brief treatment
of science and technology in early modern Istanbul on the pillars of commer-
cialization and crisis. The role of the “classical” state institutions—madrasas,
hospitals, and timekeeping houses—diminished over the 17th century, and on
the rise were personal patronage and marketplace dynamics. From a compara-
tive perspective, my case suggests that the distinguishing element in European
science may be not creativity and innovation, but the institutional survival of
scholastic disciplines at some of the better universities.
For the history of science, we currently do not have a satisfactory periodiza-
tion beyond the decline and modernization narratives that stand on very shaky
grounds in other fields of history. I am tentatively proposing the late 17th and
the early 18th centuries as an unambiguously early modern period in Ottoman
science for one very simple reason: post-13th-century philosophical theology
or kalām arguably circumscribed “post-classical” or “medieval” scientific activ-
ity in much of the Islamic world, but we have almost no writings on this subject
5 Cook, Matters of Exchange.

6 Toulmin, Cosmopolis; Jacob, The Cultural Meaning of the Scientific Revolution.
7 Parker, Global Crisis, 642–67.
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Science and Technology 609
during the late 17th and the early 18th centuries.8 Also absent are natural phi-
losophy (ḥikmet-i ṭabīʿiyye), theoretical astronomy (ʿilm-i heyʾet), anatomy
(ʿilm-i teşrīḥ), and any other theoretical field. These disciplines, often called
ancient sciences or ʿulūm-i evāʾil, have roots that go back to classical Greek or
Hellenistic periods. The ancient sciences were, to a certain extent, known and
written about in the 15th and the 16th centuries. Forthcoming work on the ear-
lier centuries may convincingly expand the conception of early modern I pro-
pose here, as there is a non-trivial possibility that theoretical disciplines had
never had much traction in Istanbul outside of a very narrow circle of scholars
who had material connections with Timurid Iran, where the ancient sciences
had a significant impact.
The questions I will address in this chapter center on the profound hybridity
of Ottoman technoscience. In other words, I shall argue that it was not simply
a continuation of the “Islamic tradition”, and comment on the deployment of
scientific and technical expertise in addressing problems (including social and
political problems) that were specific to the period stretching from the late
17th to the late 18th century. Since both “Ottoman science” and “early modern
Ottoman Empire”, are very malleable categories, I consider part of my task in
this chapter to make the case for both. In the first section, I will provide a brief
overview of madrasa science, which refers to disciplines that were handed
down through textbooks—canonical works, commentaries, and summaries.
I shall then delve into what I call Istanbul’s science marketplace and its rela-
tions with the Ottoman state. I will finally turn to technology and statecraft.
All of these analyses will converge on the significance of Istanbul as a space
shaped and maintained by practical naturalism, by which I mean those knowl-
edge practices that dealt with the natural world but did not necessarily benefit
from an overarching theoretical framework.
1 ʿIlm as a Vocation
The first word that springs to mind when we are speaking about Ottoman sci-
ence is ʿilm, particularly as it was taught at the madrasa. The naturalistic aspects
of ʿilm as they were read and taught in the Ottoman Empire generally point us
to Timurid Iran. Brentjes has established that the ancient sciences, especially
philosophy and astronomy, found their niche in Iranian madrasas at least until
the 15th century, and they took on the scholastic character of religious sciences
8 Robinson, “Ottomans-Safavids-Mughals”.
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610 Harun Küçük
such as hadith and tafsīr.9 That there was formal instruction is evinced most
strongly in the proliferation of commentaries, supercommentaries, and glosses
as preferred genres in scientific disciplines—a trend that one can also observe
in the Ottoman Empire. Gerhard Endress published a study outlining how
Avicenna was taught at Iranian madrasas prior to the 14th century.10 Brentjes
also points out that amidst the general lack of evidence for what was in fact
taught at Timurid madrasas, we know for certain that Ulugh Beg’s madrasa
at Samarqand was one place where kalām, mathematics and astronomy were
definitely taught.11 The counterevidence that Subtelny and Khalidov present,
which may suggest that Timurid madrasas taught the religious sciences only
(hadith, tafsīr, and fiqh) is valuable but inconclusive because the authors rely
on a handful of ijāzas.12 Generally speaking, even the properly Islamic disci-
plines have not been subjected to the kind of scrutiny that the exact sciences
have been. Even if Ulugh Beg’s madrasa was truly exceptional, it was this excep-
tional madrasa that had a major impact on Istanbul’s madrasas in the 15th and
the 16th centuries. Nonetheless, reflecting on how often any discussion of the
early Ottoman education has to reckon with the “smoke” of scholastic natural
science, albeit centered around a handful of figures, it is easy to infer that a
“fire” of natural science was burning at some madrasas. The absence of formal
training in the natural sciences during the 17th century left a paper trail that is
qualitatively different from the paper trail of the 15th and the 16th centuries.
The key discipline for the 15th- and the 16th-century madrasa science was
kalām, which was the organizing principle as well as the queen of sciences.
Some kalām texts included elements of physics, anatomy, and theoretical
astronomy, and they also condoned further study in these disciplines.13 When
historians speak of Ottoman science as a kind of Islamic science, what they
often mean is this theology-centered madrasa curriculum that the Ottomans
inherited from Timurid Iran.14 And, for example, Balıkçıoğlu’s work shows that
the engagement with the philosophy of kalām was quite profound in the 15th
century.15 While analyses by Balıkçıoğlu and others hold up very well in the
case of some Ottoman scholars until the middle of the 16th century, the paper
trail for the subsequent centuries is thin enough that it is easy to challenge
9 Brenjes, “Educational Landscapes”, 65.

10 Endress, “Reading Avicenna in the Madrasa”.
11 Brentjes, “Mathematical Sciences”, 329–33.
12 Subtelny & Khalidov, “Curriculum”.
13 Sabra, “Science and Philosophy”.
14 See, e.g., Kadızade-i Rumi (1364–1436) and Müeyyedzade Abdurrahman (d. 1456), both of
whom had material connections to Iran.
15 Balıkçıoğlu, “Coherence of Incoherences”.
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the notion that this intellectual legacy defined or even inflected science in
Istanbul in the later periods.
The most canonical figure in madrasa science is the astronomer and theo-
logian Nasir al-Din al-Tusi (1201–74) whose Tajrīd al-ʿAqāʾid (Abstraction of the
Articles of Faith) was the namesake of a type of Ottoman madrasa where phil-
osophical theology was taught in the 15th century. Other figures include Athir
al-Din al-Abhari (d. 1265?), Qutb al-Din al-Shirazi (1236–1311), Ali Qushji (1403–
74), Jalal al-Din al-Dawani (1426–1502), and Muslih al-Din al-Lari (d. 1572).
These Iranian figures hold a canonical position in the Islamic, madrasa-based
historiography of Ottoman science because their books show up as textbooks
in rare statements of what students read.16 There are some madrasa curricula
from the 15th century to the 18th century that suggest a rigorous training in all
sciences united through the metaphysics of kalām. In these curricula, we find
mostly religious sciences, philosophical-theological compendia, and elemen-
tary texts in logic and mathematics.17 One way to read these idealized texts is
that they reflect a certain universalist ambition: the madrasa scholar could and
should lay all claim to ʿilm—an ideal that 16th-century polymath Taşköprüzade
(d. 1561) placed front and center in his Miftāḥ al-Saʿāda (The Key to Bliss).18
While it is safe to assume that the writings of scholars with connections to
Iran were at least read or heard by some people in Istanbul, their relevance to
scientific practices is questionable. There are many copies of the simpler and
shorter texts written by these authors. Yet, for some of these authors, copies
are all we have. Ottoman scholars as a rule did not write about them. People
who did write into these textual traditions were rare individuals who lived
and died within the century following the establishment of the Ṣaḥn-ı S̱emān
or the Madrasa of the Eight Courtyards by Mehmed II. Some of the central
genres of madrasa science, such as theoretical astronomy and anatomy, were
simply absent from Istanbul’s educational scene from roughly the second half
of the 16th century onwards.19 Also missing from education were higher, more
sophisticated texts in philosophy and astronomy. For example, Nasir al-Din al-
Tusi’s Tadhkira (Memoir), generally recognized as the pinnacle of Perso-Islamic
16 Fazlıoğlu, “The Samarqand Mathematical-Astronomical School”.

17 İzgi, İlim, vol. 1, 67–97.
18 Taşköprüzade Ahmed, Mevżūʿātu’l-ʿUlūm, vol. 1, 37–48.
19 Although Taqi al-Din, the founder of the Istanbul observatory, is often considered in the
context of courtly patronage, he received a thorough astronomical training in Istanbul’s
madrasas. There is a way to overemphasize the role of pure patronage in science with-
out taking into account that scientific patronage is not simply about money, but also
about finding well-educated people with which to fill scientific institutions. See Veres,
“Constructing Imperial Spaces”, 398.
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612 Harun Küçük
astronomy, was never part of the curriculum, nor was Ptolemy’s Almagest.
Nor did Avicenna’s Shifāʾ (The Cure, commonly known as Sufficientia to Latin
readers) show up, despite the fact that this text was the dividing line between
ancient and modern philosophy for many Muslim scholars.
Laying aside the ideal of polymathy that some historical actors shared and
some historians continue to project on the madrasa as a timeless feature,
the core and the socially firm function of this institution was (and had been
since its emergence in the 11th century) training jurists. This core function was
quite pronounced in the 17th century, a period when ambitions for a judicial
career—the only lucrative line of work for someone educated at a madrasa—
replaced scholastic ambitions. A number of intellectual and political exigen-
cies led to the “professionalization” or functionalization of higher education.20
The most prominent factor in the professionalization of the madrasa was the
economy. The economic collapse of education was not unique to Istanbul.
The Mediterranean seaboard, where we have economic studies of universi-
ties, display similar patterns. And it is worth bearing in mind that countries
such as Spain or Italy shared the scientific “decline” and “backwardness” of the
Ottoman Empire. In the specific case of Istanbul, it is hard not to notice the
survival of 40, 50, or 60 aḳçe (basic currency used in accounting, no longer
minted in the second half of the 17th century) teaching salaries, or 20 aḳçe hos-
pital physician salaries—levels set in the 15th and 16th centuries—as the value
of the aḳçe tumbled eightfold over the course of the 17th century.21 For refer-
ence, Ali Kushji earned 200 aḳçe per diem in the 1470s when the aḳçe was far
stronger—his purchasing power was more than 60 times that of 17th century
hospital physicians, calling into question whether we can call a hospital physi-
cian an “elite physician” in any meaningful sense of the word. Or, consider the
fact that Mehmed II’s waqf deed stipulated that a 25 aḳçe salary be paid to pro-
fessors of kalām. These were people who had already advanced considerably
in the learned profession, yet their salaries would have been equal to that of an
unskilled worker by the early 18th century.22 By the mid-16th century inflation
had pushed the prices to more than twice what they were in the 1470s. This was
when Süleyman’s 50 aḳçe colleges replaced those of Mehmed II as pinnacles
of education. This was also when Ottoman scholar Muhammed Birgivi com-
plained that kalām, a very tough discipline that sometimes required students
to read the same text several times, was little more than a bottleneck in the
20 Shefer-Mossensohn, Science among the Ottomans, 61–63; Clayer, “L’autorité religieuse

dans l’Islam”.
21 Çiftçi, “Süleymaniye Darülhadisi”; also Şeyhi, Vekayi, passim. Also see Nabi, Hayriyye, ed.
Kaplan, 289 for a discussion of the crushing poverty of the professoriate.
22 Pamuk, A Monetary History, 121; Unan, “Osmanli İlmiye Tarikinde ‘Paye’li Tayinler”, 46.
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learned hierarchy.23 That is, it slowed down the progress of those who would
make fine jurists or hadith scholars, but subpar theologians. In the 17th cen-
tury, Mehmed IV (r. 1648–87) took away some of the income from the endow-
ments of madrasas in Istanbul to fund military campaigns and also tried to tax
the already impoverished ulema.24
Finally, it is important to note that Istanbul was not a proxy for the rest of the
empire. Khaled el-Rouayheb’s research suggests that madrasas were better off
in the Kurdish and the Arab provinces in the 17th century.25 At times, Istanbul’s
scholarly scene benefited from scholars who had received their formal training
in cities such as Sivas, Bitlis, Cairo, Damascus, or Amed. Nevertheless, if there
was indeed a connected Islamic scientific culture or even just an Ottoman
one after the 16th century, Istanbul must have occupied a unique place in it.
Perhaps there is reason to call into question the very existence of such a culture
if it cannot account for the scientific culture of the largest, the wealthiest, and
possibly the most cultured city of either geography. The economic prospects—
or the lack thereof—and the social (especially tax) privileges of the professors
of Istanbul demand urgent attention if we are to understand not only the func-
tioning of the hundreds of madrasas that dotted Istanbul, but also the place of
Islamic learning in the intellectual history of the Ottoman Empire.
2 The Science Market: Ottoman Science as ʿAmel
Once we leave the confines of the madrasa, we are confronted with scientific
practices that are lucrative, colorful, and diverse, but also lose all rigorous
gatekeeping. Not only do we see a wider variety of practitioners—the market
is where the multiculturalism of Ottoman science resides—but also types of
intellectual hybridization that had nothing to do with the canonical education
of the madrasa. I will repurpose the term “medical marketplace” from historian
Roy Porter to speak about the “science market” in Istanbul.26 This terminology
points to the wide range of practitioners that filled the city, from armed-to-the-
tooth compass merchants to prophesying quacks, from muvaḳḳits (mosque
timekeepers) moonlighting as horoscope casters to imperial chief physicians.27
23 Birgivi, Tarikat-ı Muhammediye, trans. Yıldırım, 66–68.

24 Cezar, “İmdadiyye”; and Zilfi, “İlmiye Registers”. Also see Neumann in this volume.
25 El-Rouayheb, Islamic Intellectual History.
26 Jenner & Wallis, “The Medical Marketplace”, 1–4.
27 See Evliya Çelebi, Evliya Çelebi Seyahatnâmesi, vol. 1, ed. Dankoff, Kahraman, Dağlı, 270
for compass merchants. On Hekimbaşı as esnāf, see Ahmed Refik, Hicrî On İkinci Asırda,
28–30. On timekeepers taking up jobs on the side, see Ünver, “Muvakkithaneler”, 229.
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614 Harun Küçük
Obviously, market practices of this sort existed long before the 17th century,
but their power to define science was largely a 17th-century development.
The “science market” also points to the close and unregulated relation-
ship between urban life, trade, warfare, and practiced science—a notion
that is in line with Baki Tezcan’s argument that the Ottoman society was a
“market society” by the 17th century.28 The science of the market was lucra-
tive work, the governing tropes being, with all the proper hypocrisies, nefʿ-i
ʿāmm, meaning “commonweal”, and nāfiʿ ʿamel, meaning “works conducive
to the commonweal”. Appeals to one or both of these values are common,
both in basic devotional literature, which targeted the urban masses, and in
works of practical naturalism.29 Certainly, Ottoman naturalists were not the
first to invoke these values, but their overbearing presence and the parallel
absence of an emphasis on knowledge for knowledge’s sake may also serve
to frame, from the Ottoman actors’ point of view, the ongoing debates about
Ottoman pragmatism.30
The urban masses of Istanbul—and not an imagined Islamic mega-
geography—constituted the world of the science market. There was a synergy
between the market and the vernacularization of science, as authors who
wrote in Turkish claimed that writing in the vernacular made their work more
“conducive to the commonweal”.31 Their texts, in turn, were highly hybrid-
ized through “collection” (cemʿ eylemek), which gave rise to the most common
object of Ottoman science: the miscellany or mecmūʿa, a word that is derived
from cemʿ. Many authors writing descriptive accounts of the natural and of
the supernatural (ʿacāʾib ve ġarāʾib), or books on medicine and the science of
the stars (astronomy and astrology), claimed that they gathered together the
works of “the Arabs and the Persians”, and, increasingly in the 17th century, also
“the Franks”.32 At the level of scientific practices, madrasas were not the main
actors in the production and dissemination of knowledge in Ottoman natural
science. Nevertheless, people who had had a modicum of madrasa learning
were practically everywhere and could be found selling goods, registering taxes,
28 Tezcan, The Second Ottoman Empire.

29 Küçük, “Arabic into Turkish”.
30 For an overview, see Dağlı, “The Limits of Ottoman Pragmatism”. I think “short-termism”
or “the absence of a sense of distant future” captures Ottoman attitudes better than prag-
matism does.
31 Fazlıoğlu, “Türkçe Telif”.
32 See, for example, Mehmed Çelebi, Uṣūl-i Aḥkām-i Sāl, 2a; Hayatizade, Emrāżi’l-Müşkile,
54a. See also Hagen, “Ottoman Understandings of the World in the Seventeenth Century”;
Sariyannis, “ʿAjāʾib ve gharāʾib”; Coşkun, “Medieval Cosmography”. On ʿacāʾib ve gharāʾib
as cosmography, see von Hees, “The Astonishing”.
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manning the timekeeping houses of mosques, or curing patients. Istanbul’s sci-

ence market quickly responded to novelties of certain kinds, such as new dis-
eases or new scientific instruments, but cared little for theoretical innovations
in fields such as physics or astronomy. This picture bears some resemblance to
what we find in certain parts of Europe, where the university was weak vis-à-
vis the science market.33
Practice was such a dominant element in Istanbul that that it shaped how
its authors viewed both contemporary European science and past Arabic-
Islamic science. Scholar and bureaucrat Hezarfen Hüseyin, in speaking about
ancient and medieval physicians, used the term ḥüẕẕāḳ or “those in posses-
sion of technical skill” rather than the standard ḥükemā or “philosophers”,
thus foregrounding their practical skill rather than their philosophical views.34
Hayatizade Mustafa Feyzi, chief physician to the sultan, attacked the Arabs
and the Persians not because they were wrong about anatomy or about the
principles of medicine, but because their prescriptions failed to cure contem-
porary diseases.35 Tezkireci İbrahim, a tax collector who prepared ephemeri-
des based on those of Noël Duret, the premier almanac maker of France in
the 17th century, saw the superiority of modern European astronomy not in
a cosmological shift, but in a type of practicality that replaced the expensive
observatory with a simple quadrant and a compass.36 Galileo appeared not
as a radical philosopher but as the founder of the science of gunnery ( fenn-i
ḫumbara), and Descartes appeared alternatively as an astronomer and as a late
17th-century Dutch anatomist, but never as an early 17th-century French phi-
losopher whose main interests were metaphysics and epistemology.37
The science market is also helpful when we consider the key early mod-
ern transformation in Ottoman science: how was it that the custody of sci-
ence passed from 16th-century madrasa scholars who worked within a high
Perso-Islamic culture to a chaotic marketplace and finally, in the 18th century,
to the secretaries, physicians, and engineers who more often than not worked
for the state?38 The notion that scientific modernity in Istanbul was due to
Western influence, or more specifically, “top down Westernization” in the
hands of state-sponsored luminaries is somewhat flawed. It fails to explain
33 Rogers, “Introduction”, 4. Also see, e.g. Kagan, Students and Society, 173–74; Orts, La univer-
sidad de Valencia, 36–48; Grendler, Universities, 497–98.
34 Hezarfen Hüseyin Efendi, Tuḥfe, 93a.
35 Hayatizade, Emrāżi’l-Müşkile, 54a.
36 Tezkireci İbrahim, Secencelü’l-Eflāk, 2b.
37 Mustafa b. İbrahim, Fenn-i Ḫumbara, 4a.
38 For an excellent overview of the social register of this shift in a broader context, see Jorati,
“Misuse and Abuse of Language”; and İnalcık, “Reis ül-Küttâb”.
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616 Harun Küçük
the mismatch between the register of madrasa science, which was theoretical
(ʿilmī), and the register at which European texts were received, which was prac-
tical (ʿamelī). The switch from theory to practice is a broader and longer-term
dynamic that subsumed the introduction of Western texts to Istanbul.
State sponsorship or the “top down” nature of early modern science in
Istanbul also deserves some scrutiny. In the early modern era, Western
knowledge was disseminated mostly as the result of private initiative and
entrepreneurship.39 No one ordered Katip Çelebi, a privately wealthy scholar
and a self-fashioned advisor to the divan, to prepare a compendious Dutch
atlas or a massive bibliography of Islamic texts. Mehmed IV did not actively
seek to circulate German medical recipes, nor was anyone trying to get bev-
erage sellers to advertise their drinks using vignettes from medieval Arabic
pharmacopeias. Nor yet did any administrator order into existence a mech-
anized mint, a printing press, or a pump-carrying firefighting corps: these
were rather “projects” pushed by people in pursuit of income, distinction,
and employment.40 Indeed, when we look at the types of “Western”—and
“Islamic” for that matter—science that circulated widely in Istanbul, we will
find drug recipes, materia medica texts, maps, ephemerides, instruments, gun-
nery manuals, and plenty of technology. Almost wholly absent were physics,
theoretical astronomy, anatomy, and such leisurely intellectual pursuits that
still inform the basic Eurocentric historiography of science. The missing link
here, and indeed the social dynamic that requires an explanation, is how ʿamel
(practice) rather than ʿilm (theory) came to define natural science in Istanbul.
While I argue that profit and private initiative were key, I should note that this
position is not widely shared by other scholars. Most notably, Casale maintains
that the state was an important actor in shaping the sciences, especially in
the 16th century.41 The documentary evidence suggests that the Ottoman state
patronized work on geography as part of its expansionist ventures.
The notion of the science market also addresses the scale of scientific prac-
tice in the Ottoman Empire. The 17th-century Ottoman Empire did not have
“big science”, i.e. expensive observatories crunching thousands of numbers
or well-endowed anatomical theaters that cut up cadaver after cadaver. This
is partly because the 17th century was also a period of deep financial crisis.
Ottoman science usually took place on a small scale. It was, in Derek de Solla
39 Küçük, “Arabic into Turkish”.

40 For a general overview of projects in the 17th century, see Novak, “Introduction”. Examples
in Istanbul include Katip Çelebi’s Cihānnümā, Ibn Sallum’s Ṭıbb-ı Cedīd-i Kimyāʾī, the
mechanization of the mint in the late 17th-century, Müteferrika’s printing press, and
Davud Gerçek’s firefighting corps.
41 Casale, Exploration, 185–86.
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Price’s famous phrasing, “little science”.42 There does not seem to have been
much money invested into scientific institutions during the 17th century. While
timekeeping houses, because of the expensive instruments they needed, were
somewhat well-endowed, nothing came close to the observatory Taqi al-Din
founded in 1577, the Mughals’ Jai Singh observatories (1719–43), the anatomical
theaters of Bologna (1595), or the Paris observatory run by the Cassini fam-
ily (1671). As Shefer-Mossensohn has shown, the most notable exception to
capital investment in scientific institutions were the hospitals. These build-
ings that played a role in urban life and in the training of physicians required
a good amount of resources and infrastructure, including sewage works and
running water.43 However, these hospitals were the products of more prosper-
ous times, that is, the 15th and the 16th centuries. By the 17th century, their role
diminished to naught, partly because working in a hospital did not provide a
living wage.
3 Reason, Religion, and the Science Market
The science market accounted for the majority of naturalistic practices in

Istanbul, but it was not without detractors. Most prominent were the tensions
between marketplace medicine and prophetic medicine on the one hand,
and the tensions between astrological almanacs and flat earth astronomy on
the other. We do not know of a single popular reaction against the science
market—and the case could be made that the casual materialism of the sci-
ence market was largely accepted in Istanbul.44 There also were no legal reac-
tions to the science market, and shaykhs al-Islam of the 17th and the early 18th
centuries hardly seemed to address it in their legal opinions. The first people
who objected to the science market in Istanbul were not defenders of an older
and proven Islamic tradition in science. Rather, the main alternative to the sci-
ence market at the end of the 17th century would have been a total rejection of
this market, a rejection that was conditioned by what the market had become
in the past century. In addition to proponents of prophetic medicine and flat
earth astronomy, one also finds the resurgence of Aristotelian philosophy as
a countermeasure against the all-consuming material world and against the
science market, whose apparent ends were simply to manipulate the material
world for material benefit.
42 de Solla Price, Little Science, Big Science, 2–5.

43 Shefer-Mossensohn, Ottoman Medicine, 149.
44 Curry, “Scholars, Sufis, and Disease”, 51.
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The science of the science market was not simply the “applied” version of
what was taught at the schools. Take, for example, the standard work of astron-
omy at the madrasa, Çağmini’s Mulakhkhas fī’l-hayʾa (Epitome of Theoretical
Astronomy, written in the early 13th century).45 The question is, what could
you do with such a work? The answer is not much, beyond get a basic grasp of
the vocabulary of the heavens. It gave you a way to speak about all the visible
(Venus) and imagined (Zodiac) components of the heavens, but little by way
of practice. This is probably why most of the practical work of keeping time,
casting horoscopes, and preparing calendars made use of works of a simple
and practical nature, mainly those of Shaykh Vefa (d. 1491), Mustafa b. Ali el-
Muvakkit (d. 1571), and Müneccimbaşı Mehmed Çelebi (d. 1630).46
The chasm between Islamic theoretical astronomy and Ottoman astro-
nomical practices was so wide by the late 17th century that even their con-
cerns hardly overlapped. Canonical issues in astronomy, such as the order of
the planets and mathematical models for planetary orbits, hardly made it into
Ottoman astronomical texts. Şemseddin Ahmed (d. 1708), who had earned the
epithet “İshak Hocası” because he taught elementary observational astronomy
to Chief Accountant İshak, ran through all the necessary parts of theoreti-
cal astronomy in two paragraphs in his Risale fi’l-ʿAmel bi’r-Rubʿi’l-Muḳanṭara
(Using the Quadrant in the Science of the Stars).47 Instead, what he taught
was how to use an instrument that was ideal for smaller scale and less pre-
cise observations of solar and lunar motion as well as easy trigonometric cal-
culations. As for cosmological models that historians studied to understand
worldviews, they were little more than paratextual or introductory material in
atlases, written by and for bureaucrats from the 17th century onwards.
The discrepancy between madrasa theory and market practice was also
evident in medicine. Take, for example, Emir Çelebi (d. 1638), a very famous
Ottoman physician who had served as the head of the Qalawun hospital in
Cairo before he relocated to Istanbul to open up a shop and become chief
physician to Sultan Murad IV (r. 1623–40). He drew a very clear distinction
between theory and practice—his Enmūẕecü’ṭ-Ṭıbb (The Paragon of Medicine)
was a textbook and a work of ʿilm while his Netīcetü’ṭ-Ṭıbb (The Epitome of
Medicine) was a work of ʿamel. He associated practice not with his work at
the hospital, but with his new drug dispensing shop in Balkapanı (Eminönü),
the center of the Egyptian spice and drug trade in the early 17th century.48
45 Ragep, Mulakhkhas.
46 King, In Synchrony with the Heavens, vol. 1, 438–43; Fazlıoğlu, “Mustafa b. Ali el-Muvakkit”.
47 Şemseddin Ahmed, Rubʿi’l-Muḳanṭara, 3a.
48 Emir Çelebi, Netīcetü’ṭ-Ṭıbb, 18a.
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In the early 17th century, sultans sometimes tried to regulate what they per-
ceived as physicians’ science-less practice—in their words, they “practiced
their trade ḫōdbeḫōd” or according to their own opinions.49 By the 18th century,
the madrasa and hospital medicine became irrelevant to medical practice, as
shopkeeping physicians’ training for the treatment of patients was confined to
an apprenticeship at a shop.50
Some 17th-century authors, especially bureaucrats, thought that mar-
ketplace practices were more progressive and, indeed, more advanced than
what could be found at the madrasa. In his brief account of the geometrically
complex decorations he witnessed at the Yeni Valide mosque (Yeni Cami) in
Eminönü, bureaucrat and interpreter Hezarfen Hüseyin said that “the minds
of the geometers fall short of comprehending the decorations the master arti-
sans have invented”.51 Even the late 16th-century bureaucrat Mustafa Âli, who
was no friend of the marketplace and was one of the first vocal proponents of
madrasa reform said: “How come that all trades and skills flourish constantly
[but] learning and erudition are declining from hour to hour?”52 Not unlike the
bureaucrats, proponents of new chemical medicine also pointed to progress
in ʿamel.
Both rationalist and scripturalist reactions to marketplace practices became
more prominent in the 18th century for a number of reasons. One was the
introduction of philosophy into Ottoman discourses about science thanks
to a series of translations from philosophy textbooks. These included the fol-
lowing: Yirmisekiz Mehmed Çelebi’s S̱emeretü’ş-Şecere (The Fruit of the Tree,
1716), which was a partial translation of Shahrazuri’s compendium of theol-
ogy titled Rasā’il al-Shajaratu’l-Ilāhiyya (Epistles of the Tree of Metaphysics);
Esad of Ioannina’s partial translation of Ioannis Kottounios’s Commentarii
lucidissimi in octo libros Aristotelis de physico audita titled Taʿlīm ath-Thālith
(A Study of [the First] Three [Books of Aristotle’s Physics], 1721); and, İbrahim
49 Ahmed Refik, Hicrî On Birinci Asırda, 8–9.

50 Küçük, “New Medicine”, 242.
51 Hezarfen Hüseyin Efendi, Telhîsü’l-beyân, ed. İlgürel, 5: ʿuḳūl-i ehl-i hendese ve erbāb-i
ṣanāyīʿin īcād eyledikleri maṣnūʿātın idrākine ḳāṣırlardır. These may well be the work
of artisans with connections to the marketplace. On the pyrotechnics, also see Grelot,
A Late Voyage, trans. Philips, 226: “The Grand Signor no sooner wins any Victory over his
enemies, but the Towers of Validea are the first that with their Bonfires and fire-works
give notice thereof to the people. The Galleries which are very large being all hung round
with lighted Torches, and the combustible matter so dispos’d upon Lines and Chains, that
you may read in the very flames the name of the Grand Signor, and the Conquests he has
gain’d.”
52 Mustafa Âli, Counsel for Sultans, vol. 1, ed. Tietze, 176: Ve her ḥirfet u ṣınāʿat dem be-dem
kemālde/ve maʿrifet u kemāl u fażīlet neden ki sāʿat be-sāʿat zevālde.
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Müteferrika’s translations from Edmond Pourchot’s Institutiones philosophicae

(1695). All of these texts were scholastic manuals that primarily had an instruc-
tional use. They were not, in other words, expert texts that introduced innova-
tions to an already trained audience. The translators themselves believed that
what was missing in Istanbul’s culture of naturalism was not innovation, but
formal education.
The first written accounts of a (new) philosophical tension between book
learning and practical naturalism emerged in the second quarter of the 18th
century. Old books were new to Istanbul. And, for the first time in almost a
century, marketplace practices, which clipped along to the latest craft develop-
ments, needed a defense against higher registers of knowledge. The tension in
part had to do with the emergence of a stable leisure (rāḥat, as poet Nabi called
it) class that came to dominate the administrative and learned career tracks
during the reign of Ahmed III (r. 1703–30).53 Book learning was once again
fashionable in Istanbul, if not essential for elite standing. Public and private
libraries proliferated in the city, which meant that more people had access to
what was arguably old and outdated knowledge.54
Practitioners of new chemical medicine, many of whom started writing
towards the end of the 1720s when Istanbul suffered a plague outbreak and
the sultan contracted smallpox, had a clear agenda. They advocated that expe-
rience (tecrübe) and technical skill (ḥaẕāḳat) were far more valuable than
was formal training. Obscure palace physician Hafız Hasan’s Tercüme-i Ṭıbb-ı
Cedīd (A Translation of New Medicine), a highly derivative text that has a
preface attesting to medical experimentation at the palace, went so far as to
say that physicians were better philosophers than philosophers ever were.55
The second wave of ṭıbb-ı cedīd is also full of examples where practitioners
aimed straight at one of Istanbul’s most pressing problems: contagion, for
which the old books did not have an answer. This comes through most clearly
in Ali Münşi’s several treatises on such specifics as cinchona, ipecacuanha,
and coco de mer, all of which were new plant-based remedies that addressed
53 Shinder, “Career Line Formation”, 230; Zilfi, “Elite Circulation”, 320–21. Nabi, Hayriyye, ed.
Kaplan, 291: “I have never seen in our state / Anyone with more leisure (rāḥat) than the
ḫāces of the Divan … They possess reason and skill and science / They have manners
and free time and calm / Their skills have purpose / Covered in purity and beauty in all
directions”.
54 Sezer, “Architecture of Bibliophilia”, 252–53.
55 Küçük, “New Medicine”, 233–36.
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contagious febrile diseases.56 There, too, Ali Münşi appealed to experimenta-

tion, and, more importantly, to experimentation where both the sultan and the
chief physicians were witnesses.57 These forays seem to have been successful
to a degree, because the regulations for medical shops issued in 1727 did not
even mention formal education as a requirement for practicing medicine, but
rather, demanded five years of apprenticeship at a physician’s shop.58
It is also possible to read the tension between formal training and actual
practice in other venues, particularly in the writings of İbrahim Müteferrika.
Müteferrika is often known as the person who introduced the printing press
to the Muslims of Istanbul, and, as a craftsman and an intellectual, he belongs
to the science market as argued in this chapter. It is easy to hear the reso-
nance of the physicians’ pleas from the late 1720s in Müteferrika’s Füyūżāt-ı
Mıḳnāṭīsiyye (Magnetic Effluvia), which was published in 1732. While mag-
nets’ medicinal properties and attractive powers had long been discussed in
philosophical treatises, their ability to reckon direction was never recognized
in Islamic philosophy. It was either in folk settings or in navigational settings
that we encounter a discussion of this instrument and the magnetic features of
the Earth. Early 18th-century sources, especially, attest not only to their wide-
spread use among the masses, but also to their unique religious valence. The
magnet was a mysterious gift from God and was the only way for a pious man
to find the Kaʿba (Fig. 23.1).59
It seems that the conflict between learned and popular means of reckon-
ing direction had its watershed moment shortly before the Patrona rebellion
in 1730. İbrahim Müteferrika and his compass-bearing companions debated
the direction of the qibla with quadrant-bearing astronomers on the site of
the would-be Kaymak Mustafa Pasha mosque in Bebek, in 1730. Müteferrika
reported that the astronomers won the round, but he did so in a treatise show-
ing empirically the existence of terrestrial magnetism and insisting on the reli-
ability of the magnetic compass.60
56 Günergun & Etker, “Quinaquina”.

57 An excellent collection of Ali Münşi’s works is İÜK, T 4234. For Ali Münşi’s complaints
about the rejection of the experienced efficacy of cinchona, see his Risāle-i İpeḳaḳuanḥa,
İÜK, T 4234, fol. 17b.
58 On this and similar documents regarding regulation of medicinal practice, see Küçük,
“New Medicine”, 242.
59 Küçük, “Early Modern Ottoman Science”, 418–19.
60 Müteferrika, Füyūżāt, 6.
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Figure 23.1 Compass face designs from an anonymous 18th-century

miscellany. All four compass faces read: Fikr itmededir
heybetini beyt-i Ḥüdā’nın, beyhūde değil ditremesi
ḳıblenümānın (It is contemplating the grandeur of the
house of God / The qibla compass is not trembling in vain),
ink and opaque watercolor on paper. Boğaziçi Üniversitesi
Kandilli Rasathanesi ve Deprem Araştırma Enstitüsü, 198
4 The Science Market and State-Building
Natural knowledge had become a matter of practice rather than a domain of

theory long before it earned a place in state-building. Without the science mar-
ket, the complex process that takes us from the theoretical concerns of the
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15th- and 16th-century madrasa to artillery, engineering, or medical schools

looks like state-sponsored Westernization, a fraught term that explains in iso-
lation only a small part of the evidence that Istanbul presents. The science
market, which may be a suitable replacement, explains how the center of natu-
ralistic practice shifted from the madrasa and to the court (especially within
the circle of the master scribes of the court known as ḫācegān), the political
household, and the treasury. In other words, natural knowledge became a body
of useful and lucrative practices and it shed its attachments to scholastic or
theoretical concerns before it made its way up the political ladder.
Take, for example, Mustafa Naima (1655–1716). Historians group Naima
together with historians of the 17th century, especially Katip Çelebi, because
of his declinist and pragmatist political views. Yet, from the perspective of this
chapter, he is a marketplace practitioner who became a state functionary. He
had made his initial and meteoric rise as something of a celebrity astrologer
before he became court chronicler and accountant.61 His predecessor would
more properly be Panagiotis Nikousios (1613–73). The two men had remarkably
similar careers. Nikousios was astrologer to Grand Vizier Köprülü Fazıl Ahmed
before he became the first Greek interpreter to the imperial court.62 Following
Nikousios, many Greek interpreters of the court were practicing physicians
who had elite clients before they took on diplomatic roles. Chief physicians
to the sultan were also part of the city’s general service industry. Both Emir
Çelebi (d. 1638) and Arabzade Mehmed (d. 1710) ran medical shops before they
started serving the palace. For foreign physicians, too, the way into palace ser-
vice was through the science market. The career paths of European physicians
in Istanbul, such as Hans Andersen Skovsgaard (1604–56, in Istanbul 1632–41
and 1647–56) or his son-in-law, Giovanni Mascellini (d. 1675), followed the
same pattern as their Muslim colleagues.63
Such practitioners of the science market enjoyed elevated status as state
elites from the middle of the 17th century onwards. The madrasa system increas-
ingly focused on legal practice, and households became the key actors in the
central administration with no institutional resources to train their own per-
sonnel. They created opportunities for outsiders, including recent converts to
Islam, who had various skills but no employment.64 A very good case is Cerrah
Mustafa, a former Frenchman responsible, at the end of the 17th century, for
61 Tayyarzade, Saray Tarihi, vol. 3, ed. Arslan, 52–53.

62 Koutzakiotis, Attendre la fin du monde. See also Cantemir, Histoire de l’empire othoman,
vol. 2, 61.
63 Luca, “Hans Andersen Skovsgaard”; Vatamanu, “Giovanni Mascellini”.
64 On conversion, see Faroqhi, “A Prisoner of War Reports”.
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deploying mechanical equipment that would arguably end the palace’s fis-
cal problems by releasing unheard of amounts of copper coinage mangır (or
manḳūr, a holed copper coin) to the markets.65 According to Halil Sahillioğlu,
other French prisoners of war came forward with their own mechanical skills
once Cerrah Mustafa’s bid at state service proved successful.66
Istanbul’s science market was part and parcel of the state apparatus. The
rapprochement between scientific expertise and the state is evident not only
in the successive coinage reforms from the late 17th century, but also in the
adoption of the sophisticated fiscal calendar in the 17th century, the establish-
ment of a technically trained bombardier corps in the 18th century, and so on.
The focus in all of these is useful practice and not knowledge for its own sake.
The human resources deployed in these processes consisted of naturalists who
provided services for pay.
While we find expressions of utilitarian approaches to knowledge as early
as the 16th century, they become far more pronounced in the 18th century.
One good example is Yirmisekiz Mehmed Çelebi, an Ottoman naturalist bet-
ter known as a state official because of his embassy to France. The evidence
suggests that he went to France in 1720 precisely because he was a naturalist
and had had experience managing the Ottoman imperial foundry and impe-
rial mint.67 He must also have been exposed both to the chemistry of coinage
and to the “mechanical” minting process introduced by Cerrah Mustafa. After
his patron Şehid Ali Pasha died, he was taken up—along with Şehid Ali Pasha’s
books—by the palace. Here is a passage from Mehmed’s Turkish translation
of Shahrazuri’s (d. 1288) Rasā’il al-Shajaratu’l-İlāhiyya, dated 1716 when he was
master of the mint:
The philosophers have said, “For every theory (ʿilm), there is a corre-
sponding practice (ʿamel).” And the relationship of practice to theory is
like the relationship of the fruit to the tree. Now, practice without the-
ory is more beneficial than theory without practice is. The fruit and the
practice of natural science are the arts (ṣınaʿāt) of alchemy, medicine
and astrology.68
65 Following Mehmed IV’s dethronement in 1687 largely due to monetary trouble, as emer-
gency taxation and debasement implemented by Süleyman II did not keep the treasury
afloat, the administration turned to production of mangır; see Sahillioğlu, “Para Tarihi”,
75–77.
66 Sahillioğlu, “Ottoman Mint”, 94.
67 Küçük, “Science Studies”.
68 Yirmisekiz Mehmed, S̱emeretü’ş-Şecere, 119b.
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Yirmisekiz Mehmed Çelebi was already deeply involved in practical natu-

ralism. His engineer-like approach to the natural world is the background that
explains why his most extensive accounts of France are of machines, such as
the Machine de Marly.
A related and earlier development was the adoption of the sene-i māliyye,
or the reform of the fiscal calendar, in 1677.69 The relationship between astro-
nomical knowledge and calendar reform is fairly obvious, but hitherto unin-
vestigated. The architect of sene-i māliyye, Defterdar İshak Efendi, had studied
under Şemseddin Ahmed (also known as Acem Ahmed or İshak Hocası).
Şemseddin Ahmed was something of a misfit: he was an astrologer who had
trained in Safavid Iran and was a follower of the criminalized sufi shaykh
Niyazi-i Mısri to boot. He was an astrologer who gave up astrology and opened
up a medical shop in Eminönü at the end of the 17th century. His student İshak
Efendi, like Panagiotes Nikousios, Ebubekir Behram el-Dimaşki (who was
involved in the translation of Atlas Maior into Turkish), and Tezkireci İbrahim,
was both a client of the Köprülü clan of grand viziers and an astronomical
practitioner who had an eclectic set of skills, none of which were based on
madrasa training.70
Another great example where the bureaucratic state was a magnet for prac-
tical naturalists is Mustafa Sıdki Efendi, one of the ḫācegān and an erstwhile
master of the mint, who collected a volume today identified as Princeton,
Garrett 373Y (Fig. 23.2). This manuscript is a treasure trove of treatises on prac-
tical astronomy and astrology that extends from Aristotle to late antique astrol-
ogy, from the popular Perso-Islamic astronomy textbook Mulakhkhas fī’l-hayʾa
(Epitome of Astronomy) to numerous calendrical works of Shaykh Vefa, but
also tucks in a brief guide for the use of European almanacs. Mustafa Sıdki’s
patron was Yirmisekizzade Mehmed Said, another member of the ḫācegān
and eventually grand vizier, as well as the author of the largest compendium of
materia medica in the 18th century.71
69 Sahillioğlu, “Sıvış Year Crises”.

70 İhsanoğlu, “Introduction of Western Science”; Öngören, “İshak Hocası”; İzgi, İlim,
vol. 1, 358.
71 Bölükbaşı, Darbhane-i Amire, 30. Sezen, “Mustafa Sıdki Efendi Divanı”. I would like to
thank Dr. Bölükbaşı for helping me establish that the mintmaster Mustafa Sıdki was the
Mustafa Sıdki who collected Princeton, Garrett 373Y. On Sıdki, see Günergun, “Ottoman
Ambassador’s Curiosity Coffer”.
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Figure 23.2 Mustafa Sıdki’s handlist of symbols and numerals

used in European almanacs. From Mecmūʿa-i Resā’il-i
Nādire fī’l-ʿUlūmü’l-Felekiyye (Collection of Rare
Treatises in the Sciences of the Heavens). Princeton
University, Garrett 373Y, 84v
5 Technology
Material technologies were essential to Ottoman statecraft. Salient examples

of early modern technologies include mobile water pumps of Dutch pedigree
that put out Istanbul’s fires after 1720 or the mechanized mint that started
striking standard coins right around the same time. Perhaps best known and
most discussed among these technologies is the Müteferrika press that printed
its first book in 1729.
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The role that the Müteferrika press, which released its first publications in
1729, played in Istanbul’s urban life as such is not entirely clear. Admittedly,
the very notion of printing meant much more than simply the machinery
involved.72 Established earlier, and seemingly much more influential were the
non-Muslim presses that played essential parts in the devotional life of Jews,
Armenians, and Orthodox Greeks.73 The sultanic press highlighted Istanbul’s
role as imperial capital, but it was not necessarily a successful project. Far more
important for the circulation of texts were the newly established public librar-
ies that popped up steadily in Istanbul from the late 17th century onwards.74
Nevertheless, the palace employed the press to its utmost for political ends,
partly as a countermeasure against the Safavids and the Russians.
The founding documents of the sultanic press clearly say that the press
would make more obedient subjects, that is, people would be educated into
subservience through printed books.75 In action, this meant the publication
of some very polemical works. A case in point is Nazmizade’s Gülşen-i Ḫulefā
(Rose Garden of the Caliphs), which laid solid Sunni claims over Baghdad, one
of the main theaters of conflict between the Safavids and the Ottomans. No less
aggressive was the map of Iran that İbrahim Müteferrika printed in 1729 as soon
as the press went into operation. Read side by side with Müteferrika’s belief
that geographical knowledge of a place was a precursor to domination, the
meaning becomes much clearer. Examples of such aspirational pro-Ottoman
texts are easy to multiply, and would include the History of Ancient and Modern
Egypt or Krusinski’s Tārīḫ-i Seyyāḥ (The History [of the Afghan Wars]).76
Müteferrika ended his only treatise, titled Uṣūli’l-Ḥikem fī Niẓāmi’l-Ümem (The
Foundations of Government in Various Social Orders), by discussing the rela-
tionship between technology and Russian progress.77
It was not until the 19th century that the Ottomans—or anyone else—had
a word for technology. Whatever terms the Ottomans used, such as fenn (arts)
or ṣınāʿat (industry) or īcād (invention), would likewise have other meanings
than those we have in mind when we speak about technology today. In short,
just like natural knowledge, technology was also not an actor’s category but
an analytical category. That is, it was not a word that period actors used, but
rather a term of analysis that modern historians use. With this caveat in mind,
72 Mavrocordato, Le traité des devoirs; see ibid., 298, where Kamperidis has an excellent dis-
cussion on Greek notions of typos. This is in line with the occult and theological language
İbrahim Müteferrika uses in his praise for the printing press.
73 Lehmann, Ladino Rabbinic Literature; Tsakiris, Beichtbücher.
74 Sezer, “Architecture of Bibliophilia”, 250–53.
75 Anonymous, Terceme-i Ṣıḥaḥ-ı Cevherī, [n.p.].
76 Küçük, “Müteferrika’s Copernican Rhetoric”, 264.
77 Küçük, “Emulating Petrine Russia”.
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the Ottomans were clearly well-versed in a number of typical early modern

technologies, such as sails, compasses, pistols, or cannons; and, engineering
(hendese or applied geometry) was a key practice in the janissary corps, as it
was in architectural practice.
This picture is obviously missing many pieces, partly because of space
constraints and partly because there has not been a tremendous amount of
research on early modern Ottoman technoscience. I have focused largely on
the commercial, monetary, and urban aspects of scientific practice in Istanbul.
My goal has been to lay out the crisis-and-response dynamic and the prag-
matism that informed much of the science that was done in Istanbul. Finally,
I hope that I have made a good case for why looking beyond the madrasa and
walking around the city might be a better way to observe Istanbul’s rich nature
and diverse naturalisms.
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Chapter 24
Music and Musicians in the City

Cem Behar
When, in 1722, Dimitrie Cantemir (1673–1723), former prince of Wallachia and

counsellor to Czar Peter I, was requested to write a pamphlet on Islamic beliefs
and practices, this is what he wrote on the practice of music in Istanbul:
Music is not taught in schools but only privately in homes by individu-

als very skilled in the art of music. Almost all children of dignitaries and
even many from lower class families pursue their special inclination for
it; and even so the ulema, that is to say all scholars among whom I found
not one who would not be able to sing in some way or at least to under-
stand music.1
Cantemir knew very well what he was talking about. He had spent no less than
22 years of his life in the Ottoman capital where he had learned music from the
most prestigious masters and had become a renowned ṭanbūr (round-bodied,
long-necked plucked lute) player and composer himself. Besides inventing a
system of notation with which he put down on paper about 350 instrumen-
tal compositions, Cantemir also authored an important theoretical treatise
(edvār) dealing specifically with Ottoman/Turkish music.2
What Cantemir stresses in the above quotation is one fundamental aspect
of this musical tradition: its very wide social base and openness to people
from all strata of Istanbul society, be it to compose, to play, to sing, or simply
to enjoy music. In stark contrast to practically all antecedent Islamic/Middle
Eastern high musical traditions of the courts of Baghdad, Damascus, Isfahan,
Samarqand, or Herat under Abbasid, Safavid, or Timurid rule, the particular
Ottoman/Turkish musical tradition that bloomed in Istanbul from the late 16th
century on was not, as we shall see, the preserve of a professional artistic elite
more or less dependent on the patronage of the centers of political power, the
court and the palace.
1 Popescu-Judetz, Prince Dimitrie Cantemir, 23–24.

2 Cantemir, Kitāb-ı ʿİlmü’l Musīḳī ʿala Vechi’l Ḥurūfāt, Istanbul University Insitute of Turcology
Library, Y100.

Music and Musicians in the City 635
Music was the music of the city. This basic societal feature of the Ottoman/
Turkish musical tradition which had a much broader—more “democratic”, if
one can say so—social base has made its imprint felt throughout its history.3
1 A “New Tradition”
The early modern period is precisely when a specifically Ottoman/Turkish

musical tradition (sometimes called Turkish or Ottoman/Turkish “classical”
music in modern parlance) emerged and took shape in Istanbul.4 In time, it
would establish itself as the dominant musical high tradition of the Ottoman
lands. Notwithstanding the survival of respectful references and frequent lip-
service to semi-mythical composers and prestigious music theorists of the
medieval Islamic world to whom some of the many pseudographia were later
attributed, the late 16th century is indeed the earliest time to which we can
trace back the inception of a specifically Ottoman manner (ṭarz-ı ʿos̱mānī)
in music.5
The particulars of this process of transition—covering the late 15th century
and nearly all of the 16th century—from the antecedent Middle Eastern tradi-
tions to a new Ottoman mold cannot as yet be documented with precision.
While various contacts with the Persianate world most probably continued
well into the 17th century, the outcome of the transformation became visible in
all aspects of musical life in Istanbul from the end of the 16th century onwards.
When Selim I (r. 1512–20) brought Persian musicians from recently con-
quered Tabriz to the Ottoman capital, they integrated into the soundscape of
Istanbul without apparent difficulty. Their compositions were not perceived as
essentially alien. Other musicians were brought from Baghdad by Süleyman I
in 1534. But the influence of these “Persianate” musicians would quickly fade
away. So much so that when Baghdad (which in the meantime had fallen again
under Safavid dominion) was conquered by the Ottomans for a second time,
in 1638, Baghdadi musicians who were brought to Istanbul were now regarded
as culturally alien. Their style was perceived as foreign and those of their com-
positions that were grafted into the local repertoire were all attributed to a
group branded with both anonymity and “otherness”: “the Persians” (ʿAcemler,
3 Behar, “The Ottoman Musical Tradition”.

4 We shall use the term “Ottoman/Turkish music” throughout to stress, first, that almost all
technical terms as well as the lyrics of vocal music were in Turkish and, second, that this
musical tradition was handed down almost intact to the 20th-century Turkish Republic.
5 Wright, Words without Songs; Behar, “The Ottoman Musical Tradition”.
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636 Behar
ʿAcemiyān). Both Cantemir, who was writing in the first decade of the 18th
century, and Shaykh al-Islam Esad Efendi, whose compendium of compos-
ers of secular music dates from 1728–30, bear witness to this existential cae-
sura and point to a sharp contrast between, so to speak, “les Anciens” and “les
Modernes”.6 More than two-thirds of the composers and performers recorded
in these two sources were born in Istanbul.
The late 16th century saw the development of new musical forms and genres
in Istanbul. As expounded in the 15th- and 16th-century musical treatises of
Abdülkadir Meragi, Muhammed Ladhiki, Hızır b. Abdullah, Seydi, and oth-
ers, the predominant musical form of previous centuries was the nevbet-i
mürettebe, a cyclical suite composed of five parts (ḳavl, ġazel, terāne, fürūdeşt,
müstezād). Neither this musical form nor any of its components were to be
seen again within the Ottoman/Turkish tradition. Instead, from the early 17th
century on another cyclical genre appears, the faṣıl, a type of concert suite
with modal unity and whose vocal and instrumental constituent parts (kār,
murabbaʿ, semā’ī, şarḳı, peşrev, etc.), played in a fixed sequence, are recogniz-
ably similar to their namesakes still in use today. From the middle of the 17th
century on, the numerous manuscript song-text collections in Turkish (güfte
mecmūʿaları) contain the lyrics of only these new Ottoman/Turkish genres.7
Basic musical building blocks were also in flux. Within a century, both the
functions and the structures of the basic rythmic cycles (uṣūls) underwent
deep changes.8 As to the modal entities (maḳāms) themselves, while some
kept their old names, the definition and realization of almost all of them were
radically modified. Some musical instruments were neglected or abandoned
and new ones appeared. Most important among these was the Turkish ṭanbūr,
which by the middle of the 17th century became the instrument of reference
both for theory and for practice, replacing the centuries-old ʿūd.9 The ṭanbūr’s
very long neck and numerous and easily movable frets allowed for relatively
easy transposition and for the numerous microtonal intervals required by the
Ottoman/Turkish maḳām system. As for instruments of European origin, the
viola d’amore made a brief appearance in the late 18th century, to be quickly
replaced by the violin. Perhaps most important of all, in the vocal repertoire
the near universal use of a new language—Turkish—replaced the Arabic and
Persian of classical Middle Eastern musical traditions.
6 Cantemir, Kitab-ı ʿİlmü’l Musıki ʿalâ Vechi’l Hurûfat, passim; Behar, Şeyhülislâmın Müziği.
7 Wright, Words without Songs.
8 Behar, Saklı Mecmua, 94–124.
9 Pekin, “Surnâme’nin Müziği”, 52–91.
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In the 17th century, many of the local sufi orders (especially the Mevlevi)
began to develop musical forms adapted to their rituals, but the musical idiom
used was one and the same for both religious and secular music. There was no
specialization in compositional forms, as some clerics and sufis also composed
light songs, and many laymen religious hymns.
It is totally incorrect, therefore, to posit a strict parallelism between the
political-military “rise and fall” of the Ottoman Empire and the fortunes of its
music. An original and synthetic Ottoman musical tradition took shape only
after the empire had reached its greatest geographical extent and the zenith
of its political power. The new imperial musical tradition was not the fruit of
a quick transplant from elsewhere. It was an outcome of the accumulation
and coalescence of talented people and financial resources, and of a relative
security and sustainability of potential art patronage that lasted for a sufficient
length of time so that what probably began in the 16th century as a simple “local
color” could evolve, through intergenerational transmission at the strictly local
level, into a real, distinctive, and durable musical tradition.
This was a sort of Ibn Khaldunian “late Ottomanization”, in some ways quite
similar to that which prevailed in other areas of the arts such as calligraphy,
architecture, or book painting. The “golden-age”, if we must use this concept,
of the Ottoman/Turkish musical tradition was indeed the 19th century, a well-
documented period of imperial disintegration and territorial contraction, par-
alleled with Westernization and reform efforts. This essentially urban musical
tradition, however, was kept alive from the late 16th well into the 20th cen-
tury and extended over a cultural area centered in the empire’s capital. But
it also struck root in a few other important Ottoman urban centers, such as
Bursa, Edirne, Konya, Salonica, and, to the East, Urfa and Diyarbakır. However,
Istanbul remained—and still is—its undisputed center.
2 The “Social Basis” of Musical Activity
In stark contrast to the bulk of antecedent (and even contemporaneous)

musical traditions of the Middle East where “classical” pieces (such as the cel-
ebrated Arabic muwashshaḥs, for instance) were almost always anonymous,
in the Ottoman/Turkish tradition the name of the composer was always
transmitted with the work itself. Anonymous compositions—whether reli-
gious or secular—were few. In vocal pieces the name of the composer almost
always accompanies the lyrics listed in manuscript song-text collections (güfte
mecmūʿası), of which hundreds have survived. And frequently, both the lyrics
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638 Behar
and the name of the composer who set them to music survive, while the music
itself—almost always orally transmitted—does not.
Some of the earliest composers of vocal music whose names and composi-
tions have reached us are Ama Kadri, Sütçüzade İsa (d. 1628), Hafız Kumral,
and Zakiri Hasan Efendi (d. 1623?). The first three were born in Istanbul, where
they spent their entire lives; the last one was born around Izmir but moved to
the capital at an early age. Two of them (Zakiri Hasan and Hafız Kumral) were
ẕākirbaşıs, masters of ceremonies in sufi lodges officiating in the lodges of,
respectively, the Cerrahi and Celveti orders. İsa was the son of a seller of dairy
products; as for Ama Kadri, not much is known about him, except that he was
blind. None seem to have belonged to the ruling elite or to court circles. This
group of early musicians, small though variegated, encapsulates the nature of
the class base of Ottoman/Turkish music for at least the next four centuries.
Some decades later, more than a hundred names of musicians and compos-
ers (including the abovementioned four) were cited by Evliya Çelebi in the
Istanbul volume of his Seyaḥātnāme.10 The list of names cuts across a large
section of Istanbul society, but only a handful of pashas and other government
dignitaries are seen. Evliya was also witness to the founding, in 1636, of a music
school at the Topkapı Palace intended for the education of pages. At that date,
the reigning Sultan Murad IV decided that it was in only one of the large rooms
(seferli odası) where the palace pages (içoğlanı) resided that all music teach-
ing and rehearsing was to be done. The Polish convert and polymath Wojciech
Bobowski (a.k.a. Albertus Bobovius and Ali Ufki Bey, 1610?–75) who, in the
1630s, 1640s, and 1650s spent almost twenty years of his life as musician, music
teacher, and translator at the Ottoman court, gave a vivid and detailed account
of music teaching and practice in this palace school in his writings.11 The
teachers of this school, however, did not reside in the palace and were always
selected from among the renowned and respected music masters of the city.
Traditional Ottoman/Turkish music could and did survive independently
from the impetus or patronage provided by the ruling group, nor was the court
the main center of music-making. Nor was its patronage indispensable. The
following occurrences may serve as a contrario evidence: when Osman III
(r. 1754–57) and Mustafa III (r. 1757–74), two successive sultans who strongly
disliked music, disbanded the palace meşkḫāne (room for music teaching and
practice), ending all musical activity in the royal palace, their rash decision
did not disrupt the practice of music in the city at large.12 Some twenty years
10 Evliya Çelebi, Seyāḥatnāme, vol. 1, ed. Dankoff, Kahraman, Dağlı, 335–47.

11 Bobovius, Saray-ı Enderûn.
12 Uzunçarşılı, “Osmanlılar zamanında saraylarda musıki hayatı”, 79–114.
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later, Selim III (r. 1789–1807), patron of the arts and a great composer himself,
had no difficulty whatsoever in quickly reconstituting in the palace a retinue
of masterly musicians and composers. By then, the musical tradition was suf-
ficiently diffused and ingrained in the urban social tissue and resilient enough
to survive the effects of random changes in the musical tastes, whims, and pref-
erences of rulers or their immediate entourage.
This view is amply confirmed by the information provided by Shaykh al-
Islam Esad Efendi (1685–1753) in his important biographical compendium
Aṭrābü’l-ās̱ār fī teẕkire-ti ʿurefā-il edvār (Enchanting Works in the Biographies
of Expert Musicians), which covered 17th- and early 18th-century musicians
in Istanbul.13 The social distribution indicated by the names and titles of the
approximately one hundred musicians cited in this unique Ottoman biograph-
ical dictionary (teẕkire) of musicians suggests that a very wide cross section of
the urban population actively took part in musical activities. A few dignitaries
were present, as apparent from their titles (pasha, bey), as well as members
(shaykhs and dervishes) of various sufi orders. But many more musicians were
of much humbler origin, as is shown by surnames such as Tavukçuzade (son of
the chicken-seller), Taşçızade (son of the stonecutter), Buhurcuoğlu (son of the
incense-maker), or Suyolcuzade (son of the builder of water-conduits). And
many other musicians who made their livings as silk weavers, sweet vendors,
tanners, and stonemasons, or as mosque imams, muezzins, and Quran readers
were given honorable mention in Esad Efendi’s biographical dictionary.
Looking at the other end of the social hierarchy, we know that Esad Efendi
himself was a musician, ṭanbūr player, and well-known composer. Esad Efendi
came from a prestigious family of clerics (ulema), the son and brother of
shaykhs al-Islam, and had himself obtained the post of shaykh al-Islam in 1748
after climbing all the usual echelons of the clerical hierarchy. We also know,
however, that notwithstanding his official position as head of the Ottoman
religious establishment, Esad Efendi was often called to the palace to play or
sing his latest compositions (all of which were secular) to Mahmud I (r. 1730–
54), the music-loving monarch of the time.14
Professionalism—in the modern sense of the word—was always limited to
only a small minority of musicians, namely those who occasionally benefited
from the patronage of the palace or of the ruling elite. Out of the hundred or so
musicians whose short biographies are given in Esad Efendi’s biographical dic-
tionary, only seven had had, at any moment of their life, a palace appointment
13 Behar, Şeyhülislâmın Müziği.

14 Uzunçarşılı, “Osmanlılar zamanında saraylarda musıki hayatı”, 97.
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640 Behar
directly connected to their musicianship.15 As to the number of musicians

attached to the palace at any single moment, it did not exceed fifteen or
twenty, even during the reigns of music-loving monarchs. In the 17th and 18th
centuries, relatively few musicians seem to have earned their living mainly
through their art and/or to have been socially perceived as musicians only.
The amateur-professional distinction was often blurred. Non-governmental
sources of income for musicians were also scanty and irregular, as the teaching
and transmission of music did not usually involve a direct financial reward.
Besides, reaping such rewards was considered unethical in many instances,
especially when teaching involved religious or sufi music.
Historical sources and documents are almost unanimous in indicating that
wide participation across socioeconomic classes and ethno-religious groups of
urban society was the rule in the musical world of Ottoman Istanbul. The prac-
tice of music was always a strong factor of inclusion. It would seem, therefore,
that musical fame and prestige in Istanbul were always essentially merit-based.
A somewhat later example is that of İsmail Dede Efendi (1778–1846), perhaps
the most remarkable of all Turkish composers. A Mevlevi dervish, İsmail was
born in Istanbul as the son of the owner of a public bath. During his lifetime he
therefore appeared in all official documents the way he was usually addressed,
as “Derviş İsmail” or “Hamamcıoğlu İsmail” (son of the public bath owner). It is
only much later, in republican Turkey’s nostalgic yearnings for an aristocratic
musical past that his name was transmogrified to “Hammamizade İsmail Dede
Efendi”.16 Many of the sufi lodges, and especially those of the Mevlevi order,
from the early 17th century onwards functioned as important centers of musi-
cal training, performance, and transmission, making both the religious and the
secular repertoire accessible to all classes of people.17
From the very beginning, ethno-religious minorities, such as Greeks, Jews,
and Armenians were amply represented in the city’s musical milieu and were
also instrumental in the formation of the imperial musical tradition. Evliya
Çelebi cites many names of Greek, Jewish, and Armenian composers active
in Istanbul in the 1640s and 1650s. For the 17th and 18th centuries, the most
famous non-Muslim composers were certainly the Greek Orthodox Zaharya
(d. 1740?), most probably a church cantor, and the Jewish musician İsak Fresko
Romano (1745?–1814), composer and ṭanbūr teacher to Sultan Selim III. Aaron
Hamon (d. 1720?) and Moshe Faro (d. 1760?), better known as Musi, were
both rabbis and synagogue cantors. Compositions by all these non-Muslim
15 Behar, Şeyhülislâmın Müziği, 163.

16 Behar, “İsmail Dede Efendi”, 107–61.
17 Ergun, Türk Musıkisi Antolojisi: Dinî Eserler.
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musicians are still part of the classical repertoire. Official documents from the
palace treasury make it clear that Aaron Hamon and the Greek ṭanbūr player
Angeli (d. after 1703), both composers and music masters to Dimitrie Cantemir,
offered in the 1670s and 1680s frequent lessons to the pages at the palace.
Throughout the early modern period, the liturgical music of churches as
well as synagogues in Istanbul were in many ways affected by the mainstream
Ottoman/Turkish musical tradition. Synagogue cantors, for instance, often
used Ottoman compositions as contrafacta for ritual purposes.18 Besides,
many Greek Orthodox priests used the so-called “Byzantine notation system”
to write down—and, after 1830, to print and publish—secular works belong-
ing to the Ottoman/Turkish musical tradition.19 Although the share of non-
Muslims among active musicians probably increased after the 19th-century
Tanzimat reforms, the musical world of early modern Istanbul was far from
being monolithic, be it from a social, ethnic, religious, or political viewpoint.
It is also important to stress that in Istanbul, the line between the so-called
“folk-music” and “art music” was always somewhat blurred. In fact, there too,
influences worked both ways. This distinction was as a matter of fact largely
illusory, and the strict divide that is now posited to have existed between the
two types of music is just the teleological creation of 20th-century nation-
alist and revivalist music historians.20 Popular songs on the themes of love,
estrangement (ġurbet), battles, and heroism, all with simple syllabic texts of
poetry (türkü/türkī, varsağı, raḳsiye), were played and heard in 17th-century
Istanbul just as regularly as were the more serious—secular or religious—
compositions, such as murabbaʿ, ilāhī, or tesbīḥ, which used mostly metric
verses. The Polish polymath Wojciech Bobowski wrote down—in Western
staff notation—almost 500 pieces of vocal and instrumental music that he
had heard or played in and around the palace.21 Among the pieces of vocal
music compiled in his manuscript are 84 murabbaʿs, 15 ilāhīs, and 18 pieces
titled tesbīḥ. But the same manuscript collection also contains 104 türküs and
47 varsağıs, all of them—as evident both by their lyrics and by their melodic
structure—pure products of an essentially rural/provincial culture.
18 Seroussi, “From the Court and Tarikat to the Synagogue”, 81–93; Jackson, Mixing Musics.
19 Behar, “Geleneksel Osmanlı/Türk Musıkisinin Tarihî Kaynaklarından”, 244–71; Kalaitzidis,
Post-Byzantine Music Manuscripts; Kerovpyan & Yılmaz, “Klasik Osmanlı Müziği ve
Ermeniler”.
20 Yekta Bey, “La musique turque”, 2945–3064.
21 Ali Ufki, Mecmūʿā-yı Sāz u Söz, BL, Oriental and India Office Collections, Sloane 3114.
About the life and works of Ali Ufki Bey, see Behar, “Wojciech Bobowski (Ali Ufkî): Hayatı
ve Eserleri (1610?–1675)”.
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642 Behar
Indeed, Istanbul had a population that was always in flux. Rural migrants
from all parts of the empire flocked to the imperial capital, whether for work,
trade, or glory. And, of course, they brought with them their poems and lyrics,
their music and their musical instruments. It is little wonder then that Evliya
Çelebi’s impressive list of musical instruments made and played in Istanbul, a
list compiled in the middle of the 17th century, contains such a large number of
instruments of obvious and often openly declared rural or provincial origin.22
Many sultans and members of the ruling elite seem to have highly appreci-
ated these pleasant, simple, and pedestrian songs. One of the better-known
18th-century composers, Tanburi Mustafa Çavuş (d. 1760?), was employed in
the palace and is particularly famous for having composed only şarḳıs, a type
of light song of which many are still part of the “classical” repertoire.23 There
is plenty of circumstantial evidence to show that, just like for music and musi-
cianship, musical tastes, preferences, and basic aesthetic standards were not
based on either class or urban/rural cultural divides.
Some of the simple and popular syllabic poems were also sometimes set
to music as a şarḳı or a köçekçe with a precise purpose in mind: to function as
a dance tune to accompany the performances of male dancers (köçek). Later,
many of these short and melodically simple songs could be put end to end to
form a sort of dance suite with modal unity. İsmail Dede Efendi, who in 181224
became a boon companion (muṣāḥib) to the music-loving Sultan Mahmud II
(r. 1808–39), had no pangs of conscience in composing, whenever the Sultan
requested it, not one but several of these songs to form köçekçe suites—many
of which survive as part of the “classical heritage”.
The extremely wide social base of musical practice also meant that, in the
course of their “careers”, Istanbul musicians could and often did freely circu-
late back and forth between palace, dervish lodge, and the city at large. The
osmosis did not work only one-way. Movements could be top-down and/or
bottom-up. There was, moreover, a considerable degree of interpenetration
and overlap between the strictly secular and the religious and sufi musical
spheres. Master musicians were appreciated in both and moved continuously
between the two.
The following two biographical/musical itineraries will illustrate the fact
that in early modern Istanbul, professionalism in music and palace service
could both come relatively late in life and sometimes last only for a short
period of time. The different social origins, multiple statuses, and successive
22 Evliya Çelebi, Seyāḥatnāme, vol. 1, ed. Dankoff, Kahraman, Dağlı, 335–47.

23 Ezgi, Tanburi Mustafa Çavuş’un 36 Şarkısı.
24 İlyas Ağa, Letâif-i Vekâyi-i Enderûniyye, ed. Çoruk, 3.
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social identities of the following two musicians and composers of the late 17th
and early 18th century, Reşid Çelebi and Burnaz Hasan Agha, detracted noth-
ing from their prestige as musicians; nor did problems in the exercise of their
art arise because of changes in their status or occupation.
Reşid Çelebi’s dates of birth and death are unknown, but he was alive in 1723
and died probably after 1730. Born in Üsküdar from a modest background, he
became famous as a musician under Ahmed III (r. 1703–30). Enrolled into pal-
ace service first as a guard (bostāncı), he improved his musical skills at the pal-
ace school and was then promoted to the service of the sultan himself. Then,
for reasons unknown, he left the imperial palace and worked for a time as the
trustee (mütevellī) of a pious foundation. At that point, he seems to have had
a sort of nervous breakdown, followed by a period of melancholy, poverty, and
wretchedness from which he emerged with the help and moral support of an
elderly shaykh of the Halveti order of dervishes. Later, thanks to the interces-
sion of some well-connected friends at the Topkapı Palace, he was appointed
as a scribe to the Divan. Reşid Çelebi also wrote poetry, for which he is cited in
Ottoman biographical dictionaries of poets.25
Hasan Agha’s personal musical itinerary, similar in essence to that of Reşid
Çelebi, seems quite different only in its details. Born around 1670 in Fındıklı,26
near the Tophane district of Istanbul, Hasan Agha (later nicknamed enfī or
burnāz after his rather protuberant nose, and adopting the pen name Hulus in
his poetic work) received his first musical training from his father. Attending
regularly the Cihangiri lodge of the Halveti sufi order that was situated near his
birthplace, he committed to memory many hymns (ilāhī) he had learned from
Ahmed Dede (d. 1709), head chanter (ẕākirbaşı) at the tekke. He seems, there-
fore, to have first specialized in religious and sufi music. He was also known as
a ṭanbūr player. In 1704 he was admitted directly to one of the palace’s inner
chambers, the Kiler Oğlanları, or Commissary Pages, where he taught the
pages music. Appointed as head of the imperial group of chamber musicians
(serḫānende), he organized and conducted the group’s public performances
in imperial festivals (sūr-u hümāyūn) during the reign of Ahmet III. In 1715,
after about ten years of service, he left the palace. He seems to have been quite
unhappy about his time at the palace and the conditions of his departure
therefrom. Once out in the city again, he joined, in Üsküdar, the Nasuhi lodge
of Halveti dervishes. He died in 1729.
25 Mustafa Safayi Efendi, Tezkire-i Safâyî, ed. Çapan, 257–59; Salim Efendi, Tezkiretü’ş-Şu’arâ,
ed. İnce, 351–53.
26 Enfi Hasan Hulus Halveti, Tezkiretü’l-Müteahhirîn; Behar, Şeyhülislâmın Müziği, 176–77,
240; Erdem, Râmiz ve Adâb-ı Zürefâsı, ed. Tatcı, Yıldız, 92.
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644 Behar
What perhaps can best summarize—visually—the social diversity and

intercommunality of the active musicians and musical ensembles in 17th- and
18th-century Istanbul is a painting by the Chevalier d’Otée depicting a concert
of Turkish music, performed in February 1779 at the official residence of Sir
Robert Ainslie, British Ambassador to the Porte (Fig. 24.1). Sir Robert Ainslie,
who was ambassador in Istanbul from 1776 to 1793, is said to have been on good
personal terms with the then reigning sultan Abdülhamid I (r. 1774–89). The
illustration is an enlarged copy of an original small painting (4 by 4.5 inches),
executed by a Greek painter and now lost.
This painting of musicians playing in front of a coat-of-arms of the English
royalty encapsulates many of the basic societal and technical characteristics
of the practice of Ottoman/Turkish music as outlined above. In this group
of twelve musicians, six are Muslim and six non-Muslim (either Greek or
Armenian), the latter distinguishable by their tall black headgear. Two of the
Muslim musicians are Mevlevi dervishes as indicated by their felt headgear;
they are playing the ney, a reed flute considered by their sufi order as a holy
instrument that echoes divine utterances. The non-Muslim sitting across from
them, however, seems to have no qualms in playing the same sufi holy instru-
ment. Both a Muslim and a non-Muslim are playing the ṭanbūr, which had
by then become the main plucked-string instrument of the Ottoman/Turkish
musical tradition.
A European bowed instrument (the violin) coexists in this ensemble with
the older spike fiddle (rebāb/kemān), both being played here by non-Muslims.
Two of the instruments present in this ensemble were to be soon abandoned
by Istanbul musicians: the dulcimer (sanṭūr), which was to have a sort of come-
back at the very end of the 19th century, and the panpipes (misḳāl), which were
abandoned for good in the late 18th century.
3 Istanbul Soundscape—Loci for Teaching, Transmission, and

Performance
In the painting, the three singers facing us (each carrying a small frame drum)
and the nine instrumentalists make up an unusually large ensemble by any
Istanbul standards of the time. All twelve musicians are sitting in a circle, for
they had to see each other in order to play in unison. Most importantly, these
musicians are not reading music from a score but playing their pieces from
memory, and this for the simple reason that, at the time, there was no such
thing as written music. Or, to be more precise, the two or three notation systems
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Figure 24.1 Chevalier d’Otée, Turkish music concert at the British Embassy, 22 February
1779, ink and opaque watercolor on paper. Warsaw University Library, Royal
Collection, T.171
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646 Behar
that were invented in the 17th and 18th centuries by Ali Ufki Bey, Osman Dede,
and Dimitrie Cantemir were never really used.
In stark contrast to the overwhelming importance of the written word in
other areas of Ottoman culture and in the polity at large, Ottoman/Turkish
music was taught and transmitted orally. Many European travelers to Istanbul
were struck by the absence of written notation. Some of them expressed their
admiration for the feats of memory that this implied, but others mistook the
absence of notation for a total lack of musical theory.27 Fairly frequent use
of notation began only towards the middle of the 19th century, thanks to a
modified shorthand form of Armenian church notation, first introduced by
the Armenian cantor and composer Hampartzum Limoncuyan (1768–1839)
and called Hampartzum notation.28 Printed sheet music with Western staff
notation made its first and shy appearance around 1880.
Indeed, until about the turn of the 20th century, the systematic use of nota-
tion both within the musical training process and during performances was
rather frowned upon. The main form of Ottoman musical literature had always
been the song-text collection (güfte/şarḳı/ilāhi mecmūʿası), of which hundreds,
if not more, have survived to this day. Meşk was the name given to the entirely
oral teaching and transmission process. Meşk did not only involve the teach-
ing of musical theory, of various techniques of performance, or of a particular
musical instrument; it was also a means of transmitting the whole musical rep-
ertoire itself, whether instrumental or vocal, religious or secular. It was based
on memorization, repetition, and reproduction with a necessarily face-to-face
relationship between master and pupil(s).
A new composition could be taught, disseminated, and performed through
oral transmission only. The existence of meşk and its modus operandi can be
documented as early as the latter part of the 16th century.29 In time, meşk
became much more than a simple pedagogical method. For instance, musical
mastery was—and to a certain extent still is—contingent upon the commit-
ment to memory of as large a number of compositions as possible. The process
fostered a web of chains of transmission connecting generations of composers
and performers, and it gave rise to a particular esprit de corps, to real or imag-
ined solidarities.
Oral teaching and transmission also molded particular performance styles
and eventually created a social/ethical and musical code of conduct, some of
whose tenets still hold today. The degree of freedom that oral transmission
27 Aksoy, Avrupalı Gezginlerin Gözüyle Osmanlılarda Musıki.

28 Kerovpyan & Yılmaz, Klâsik Osmanlı Müziği ve Ermeniler.
29 Behar, Aşk Olmayınca Meşk Olmaz.
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gave to the performer also made possible, and perhaps inevitable, the creation
and dissemination of different versions and variants of the same work. The
“original forms” of most early compositions are now perhaps irretrievably
lost.30 Selection through random attrition was also unavoidable, although its
overall impact on the total size of the repertoire is nowadays often exaggerated.
So, where exactly did this music teaching and these transmission activities
take place? Where were the meşkḫānes located? As Dimitrie Cantemir had
rightly remarked (in the quotation at the beginning of this chapter), music
was not taught in schools, nor were there bona fide music schools in Istanbul
before the very end of the 19th century. Music became part of the course cur-
riculum of a boys’ high-school for the first time in 1874.31 And even then, the
music course that was offered by that school was optional and its syllabus was
no different from the traditional and centuries-old meşk. Until that time, the
city did not offer a single privileged space reserved for teaching—or even, for
that matter, performing—music. In short, there were no designated loci for
musical education in early modern Istanbul. Meşk could take place anywhere
and everywhere.32 Just as with the social or ethnic origins of the musicians
themselves, the precise places where teaching and the transmission of music
occurred were also quite evenly distributed throughout the city and its three
boroughs. Moreover, there was as of yet no real divorce between the functions
of composer, performer, and teacher of music. The master musician had to be a
bit of all three, an obvious consequence of the orality prevailing in composing,
performing, or teaching a musical piece.
Most teaching, however, was done in homes, perhaps most frequently in
the home of the music master himself, sometimes on a one-to-one basis, and
sometimes with many pupils at a time. Pupils often had to travel (on foot) quite
long distances to take a music lesson. Women of the palace harem could also
be sent to the homes of music teachers for instruction.33 For wealthy upper
class families and female pupils, oftentimes music teaching took place in the
pupil’s home. In a sense, the palace too was a home, a home for the sultan,
his family, and large retinue. Here, in a particular designated hall, some of the
palace pages received a musical training from masters who resided in/hailed
from various parts of the city.
30 For a laudable effort at retrieving the originals of a number of 17th-century instrumen-

tal compositions, see Wright, “Aspects of Historical Change in the Turkish Classical
Repertoire”.
31 Behar, Aşk Olmayınca Meşk Olmaz, 172–73.
32 Ibid., 48–57.
33 Ibid., 49–50.
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648 Behar
Then there were the tekkes, of course—the many dervish lodges. Some of
these were becoming centers of musical activity as early as the first decades
of the 17th century. The musically most influential dervish orders in Istanbul
were the Halvetis, along with their Celveti and Gülşeni branches, the Cerrahi,
and, as a matter of course, the Mevlevi (known in Europe as the “whirling der-
vishes”). The musical form most widely used in the liturgical realm and in most
of the ṭarīḳats was the simple hymn (ilāhī), sung in the tekkes with, eventually,
instrumental accompaniment. Such hymns were also sung in mosques (but
there, always a cappella). All of these places of worship were also loci where
music and its repertoire were taught and transmitted to pupils and to the
younger generation. For instance, Antoine Galland (1646–1715), the foremost
French orientalist of the 17th century, tells in his Istanbul diary of 1672/73 of
having personally witnessed, in the recently completed Yeni Valide mosque in
Eminönü in the walled city, a muezzin teaching a young janissary how to sing
an ilāhī.34
The only dervish order that systematically used much more complex, cycli-
cal musical forms as part of its ritual of worship was the Mevlevi. With the
Mevlevis, music and the dance with cosmic associations that accompanied
it were not simple accessories to the ritual of worship, nor were they a par-
ticular mode of expression of devotion. In the Mevlevi sufi tradition, musical
performance itself and all of its paraphernalia were, so to speak, elevated to
the status of worship. Besides, the Mevlevi āyin (mass) is the longest, most
solemn and formal, and most complex pre-composed musical form within the
Ottoman/Turkish musical tradition. The details of its performance were highly
formalized and standardized, probably from the early 17th century onwards,
and reached their present form in the early 18th century.35 The formal com-
plexity, the various maḳām (mode) and uṣūl (rythmic pattern) constraints, as
well as the sheer length of the Mevlevi āyins must indeed have seriously chal-
lenged the skills of all master musicians and composers.
This is probably one of the reasons why, from the second half of the 17th
century on, the Mevlevi dervishes and the sympathizers (muḥib) of the order
acquired musical pre-eminence in the city, and the Mevlevi lodges of Istanbul
began to be considered as de facto music schools. There were five such Mevlevi
lodges in the city: the Yenikapı (alias Mevlanakapı), Galata (alias Kulekapısı),
Üsküdar, Beşiktaş (later Bahariye), and Kasım Paşa lodges, the first two being
certainly the most prominent and active. They were also the earliest, as well
34 Galland, Journal d’Antoine Galland, ed. Schefer; idem, İstanbul’a Ait Günlük Hâtıralar
(1672–1673), trans. Örik.
35 Feldman, “Structure and Evolution of the Mevlevi Ayin”, 49–67.
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as those with the largest number of attendants. Music teaching was pro-
vided within the Mevlevi lodges, and not only to the dervishes belonging to
that lodge; the teaching was open to all. The ḳudümzenbaşı (head kettledrum
player), who was also the organizer of all musical activities within the lodge,
and the neyzenbaşı (head ney player) usually gave music lessons in their private
quarters within the lodge. Thus, private homes, mosques, and dervish lodges
attached to all sufi orders were possible settings for the teaching of music and
the transmission of the musical repertoire. Whatever the location, the single
and sine qua non condition was the face-to-face relationship between master
and pupil(s), and, if needed, perhaps pen and paper to write down the lyrics of
a vocal piece. This being so, music lessons could take place almost anywhere,
almost any time. In period sources we indeed find many instances of master
and pupil coming together for a music lesson in a coffeehouse, or, if the season
allowed it, in a garden, under a tree.36
4 Genres and Performances
Ottoman/Turkish music was essentially a “chamber music” in terms both

of general performance styles and, more simply, in terms of the number of
musicians usually involved in any single performance. There is ample histor-
ical evidence to support this view. The only exception (of a more enduring
sort, not mentioning the occasional imperial festivities/sūr) was the imperial
military band, the mehter, which performed martial music, accompanied the
army in times of war, and was called upon to add pomp and splendor at par-
ticular ceremonial occasions. Therefore, the “sound” it produced had to be as
loud as possible. But the whole mehter genre, the instruments used therein—
mainly the shawm (zurna), cymbals, and brass drums of various sizes—as
well as most of its repertoire were all significantly different from those of the
mainstream urban musical tradition. Europeans often tended mistakenly to
identify the mehter with Turkish music at large at a time when the operatic
“turqueries” were much in vogue in 18th-century Europe.37 In Ottoman terms,
however, mehter instruments and performances were often qualified as “rough
melodies” (ḳaba sāz), in opposition to “delicate melodies” (ince sāz), a term fre-
quently used to designate mainstream classical Turkish music performances.
Otherwise, music-making in early modern Istanbul—and later—was essen-
tially based on the arts and skills of individual performers who addressed
36 Behar, Aşk Olmayınca Meşk Olmaz, 48–57.

37 Sanal, Mehter Musıkisi.
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650 Behar
themselves to a relatively small audience and in an intimate environment.

Ensembles performing the classical faṣıl were quite small, usually compris-
ing one or two singers and just a handful of instrumentalists, all of whom
demonstrated their art by frequently performing solo passages, improvised
or not. Performing and singing were always an individual affair, even more
so when they took place within a group of musicians. Besides, all the visual
documentation from the 17th and 18th centuries (drawings and paintings)
portrays quite a small number of performers—except for the large and very
exceptional imperial festivities (sūr-u hümāyūn). The group of musicians por-
trayed at the English embassy in 1779 (see Fig. 24.1) constituted, in fact, an
exceptionally large ensemble. Otherwise, the largest musical ensemble ever to
have been recorded by a reliable historical source was the group of musicians
who performed a faṣıl in the presence of Sultan Mahmud II (r. 1808–39) on 5
Rebiʿül-evvel 1239/9 November 1823. This ensemble comprised a total of fifteen
singers and instrumentalists. No other musical group in Istanbul could possi-
bly have been larger than that mustered by a music-loving monarch.
In this cultural environment where music was practiced by small groups,
mostly in intimate settings, the concepts of orchestra and chorus never
emerged. Besides, the absence of written notation and, consequently, also of
the notion of a musical “model”, or of an “original” composition to be exactly
and faithfully “reproduced” at each performance, precluded standardization in
performance. Heterophony was thus a natural consequence of all musical per-
formances. Whenever music was played, therefore, what really took place was
more like a re-creation than like a straightforward execution. The emphasis was
on the display of individual prowess and creativity, though it could sometimes
be at the expense of a rigorous collective “discipline”. Besides, as in all Middle
Eastern musical traditions throughout the ages, in Ottoman Istanbul vocal
music had absolute primacy over instrumental performance. Many Ottoman
musical texts stress the fact that the human voice is the most complete and
perfect musical instrument and that all others must strive to attain this degree
of perfection.38 The degree of perfection of an instrument would then be
judged by its ability to accompany the human voice in all imaginable musical
circumstances. This primacy given to vocal music is also reflected in the reper-
toire of Ottoman/Turkish music. Exclusively instrumental pieces make up no
more than about 7 or 8 per cent of the total number of extant compositions.
An intimate atmosphere, as suited to chamber music, that encouraged
artistic communion between the audience and the performers, was thus the
general rule during the early modern period. The audience was never totally
38 See Behar, Kan Dolaşımı, Ameliyat ve Musıkî Makamları, 157, 173–74.
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passive and participated in the act of musical creation and artistic atmosphere
by making its reactions known. Large musical bodies progressively replaced
the traditional small chamber music ensembles only in republican times,
thereby contributing to a radical change in the aesthetics of performance and
its reception. Furthermore, as with music teaching, there were, in pre-19th-
century Istanbul, no designated settings for musical performances: no stages,
no public spaces set up for artistic performance, no public theaters and con-
cert halls, and no regular musical performances on fixed days and times either.
There were only some of the larger coffeehouses of Istanbul where, next to
storytellers (meddāḥ), shadow-puppet performances (Karagöz), music could
also be heard. The first theater hall with a European-style stage and seating
arrangements for the audience opened in Istanbul in the late 1840s.39 However,
this theater (Naum Tiyatrosu) hosted almost exclusively opera, concert, and
theater troupes of European origin and performances (mostly in Italian) were
addressed essentially to a European or Levantine audience living in the Galata
and Pera districts of Istanbul. As for traditional Ottoman/Turkish music, it was
performed in a bona fide “concert” format open to the general public for the
first time long after these European operas, musicals, and operettas became
popular in the city, as late as the so-called second constitutional period, that
is, after 1908.
So, in early modern Istanbul the loci of musical performances were just as
private and just as disseminated and ubiquitous in the urban fabric as were
the loci of music teaching, mentioned above. Most musical performances were
set in private homes: in most cases, in the ḳonaḳs of wealthier households and
members of the urban elite, but also in the more modest lodgings of ordinary
Istanbulites.40 Most of the participants in these musical gatherings probably
already knew one another—or had heard of each other—and, of course, one’s
participation depended upon having been personally invited.
These social/musical gatherings (meclis) in private homes (or, if the case
may be, in their gardens) were occasions not only for music-making, conver-
sation, and sometimes debates about music. They were also venues for the
presentation of new musicians and new compositions as well as for the trans-
mission and memorization of both old and new melodies. Therefore, besides
being an occasion for artistic display and pure enjoyment, the meclis also had
an important pedagogical function, particularly for the younger generation.
These private meclis continued to exist in Istanbul well into the 20th century
and into the republican era. Clearly, it was the secular musical genres, both
39 Aracı, Naum Tiyatrosu.

40 Şeker, Ders ile Sohbet arasında.
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652 Behar
vocal and instrumental, that were generally the center of attention in these
private social gatherings.
Dervish lodges and mosques were also places where high quality music
could be heard, though of course as part of a religious ritual, be it called āyin or
muḳābele (ceremony), as in the Mevlevi lodges, or ẕikr (“remembrance”—i.e.,
the recitation of religious hymns), as in the other Sunni sufi ṭarīḳāt of Istanbul.
Regarding public access and notions of public performance, Mevlevi lodges,
ever since their establishment, had an important particularity that set them
apart from lodges of other sufi orders of Istanbul. The Mevlevi ritual took place
invariably every Friday afternoon, following Friday prayers, and the muḳabele
was open to all visitors.41 Many European travelers and orientalists attended
the ceremony and the dance (semā’), with the cosmic associations that accom-
panied it, and presented them in their accounts. Taking place in a hall designed
to accommodate visitors from all horizons and always at fixed days and hours,
the Mevlevi ritual ceremony was, in early modern Istanbul, the only musical
event that could have qualified as a public concert.
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Aracı, E., Naum Tiyatrosu: 19. Yüzyıl İstanbul’unun İtalyan Operası, Istanbul, 2010.
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History of Turkey, volume 3, The Later Ottoman Empire, 1603–1839, Cambridge, 2006,
393–407.
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Behar, C., “Geleneksel Osmanlı/Türk musıkisinin tarihî kaynaklarından: Karamanlıca
yayınlar”, in Musıkiden Müziğe. Osmanlı/Türk Müziği: Gelenek ve Modernlik, Istanbul,
2008, 244–71.
Behar, C., Saklı Mecmua: Ali Ufkî’nin Bibliothèque Nationale de France’taki [Turc 292]
Yazması, Istanbul, 2008.
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Efendi’nin Atrabü’l Âsâr’ı, Istanbul, 2010.
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A. Öztürkmen, E.B. Vitz (eds.), Medieval and Early Modern Performance in the
Eastern Mediterranean, Turnhout, 2014, 515–32.
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107–61.
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İntikal, 7th ed., Istanbul, 2019.
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in A. Hammarlund, T. Olsson, E. Özdalga (eds.), Sufism, Music and Society in Turkey
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- 978-90-04-46856-6
Chapter 25
Poets, Sufis, and Their City Tours

Aslı Niyazioğlu
Early modern Istanbulites produced a rich literature to orient their readers and
help them imagine particular ways of viewing, inhabiting, and relating to their
city. Each author offered a different walk in Istanbul depending on his particu-
lar social stance and political position, and directed his readers to specific sites,
telling them what to see and do. From the late 15th to the late 16th centuries,
many writers sought to show their place in the city vis-à-vis the imperial order.
While those aligned with the ruling elite praised the monumental architec-
ture and sensual pleasures of the urban life, persecuted groups contested the
sultan’s display of power over the urbanscape and displayed the miraculous
feats of their masters at major public sites. These narratives afford glimpses of
Ottoman views on early modern Istanbul and reveal the ways in which learned
circles, sufi groups and dervishes claimed a place for themselves in the city.1
When discussing ways of reading Ottoman chronicles, Rhoads Murphey
suggests “not so much to reconcile differences or discover the correct version,
but to assess the whole range of opinions expressed in the sources to add new
dimensions to our understanding of the past”.2 I find his approach particu-
larly helpful in the study of early modern narratives about Istanbul. Scholars
of Ottoman Turkish literature have meticulously surveyed various genres of
writing about Istanbul and examined the city’s role both as a place of literary
production and as a subject of literature.3 It is now time to scrutinize the ways
in which historical actors from different sociopolitical backgrounds circulated
divergent views to mark their claims on Istanbul. Thus, rather than piecing
clashing and concurring accounts together to construct a coherent city view,
in this chapter I will focus on close readings of selected texts to examine what
each author wanted to tell about Istanbul and how diverse genres provided
1 For recent scholarship on early modern urban struggles, contested spaces, and the role of cul-
tural production in asserting one’s place in other parts of the early modern world, see Mierau,
Capturing the Pícora in Words; Sharma, Mughal Arcadia; Fei, Negotiating Urban Space.
2 Murphey, “Ottoman Historical Writing in the Seventeenth Century”, 100.
3 The scholarship is vast. See, for example, Aynur, “Şehri Sözle Resmetmek”; Kim, Last of an Age,
27–53; Andrews & Kalpaklı, The Age of the Beloveds; Ülgen & Özbaş (eds.), Türk Edebiyatında
İstanbul; İpekten, Divan Edebiyatı’nda Edebi Mekanlar; Akay, Fatih’ten Günümüze Şairlerin
Gözüyle İstanbul.

656 Niyazioğlu
different routes for different readers. I will examine narrative poems by two
aspiring bureaucrats, Cafer Çelebi, a madrasa teacher who later reached one
of the top positions in the state administration as a chancellor (d. 1515), and
Yahya Bey, a janissary who also served as a trustee of a prestigious endowment
(d. 1582); as well as hagiographies by the antinomian dervish Küçük Abdal
(d. c.1484) and the Halveti-Sünbüli shaykh Yusuf Sinan (d. 1586). These four
works bring to light a range of city tours that, when put in dialogue with each
other, reveal contesting urban visions.4
Although these authors have received ample scholarly attention to date,
they have been studied in isolation from each other; literary historians have
examined Cafer Çelebi and Yahya Bey’s poetry as key examples of Istanbul
eulogies, and historians of religion have used Küçük Abdal and Yusuf Sinan’s
hagiographies as main sources for the history of sufism in the city. These
authors, however, have a lot more to show us when we look at their city por-
traits together. Cafer Çelebi and Yahya Bey offer bird’s-eye panoramas in praise
of imperial power, while Küçük Abdal and Yusuf Sinan present a view from
streets, public squares, and sufi lodges that is critical of the sultan. While they
all wrote in Ottoman Turkish and mostly for Turkish-speaking and Muslim
audiences, the two poet bureaucrats take their readers to a city of pleasure
very different from the city of struggle of the sufi hagiographers, who wrote for
persecuted communities.
Admittedly, my focus on these authors conceals many other voices. But the
rich scholarship on these works allows us to explore their city tours in depth,
something that would not be possible for less-studied texts. As I hope to show,
when we follow these poets, dervishes, and shaykhs in their city tours, we find
ourselves on entangled paths of sensory, imaginary, and spiritual ways of expe-
riencing early modern Istanbul. This chapter is a step towards this course, one
of many that await exploration.
1 A Lettered City and Its Poets
“Conquerors needed writers of some sort (a scribe, notary, a chronicler) to cast

their foundational acts in the form of imperishable signs”, writes Angel Rama in
his study of the role of the literary elite in early modern Latin American urban
4 Atay, “Heves-nâme’de aşk oyunu”; Avçin, “Tâcizâde Cafer Çelebi’nin”; Belli, “Taşlıcalı
Yahya Bey’in ‘Şah u Gedâ Mesnevisinde”; İnalcık, “Dervish and Sultan”; Velikahyaoğlu,
Sümbüliyye Tarikatı.
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Poets, Sufis, and Their City Tours 657
life.5 Rama introduces the urban nexus of lettered culture and state power as
“the lettered city” and discusses the ways in which a myriad of learned men,
letrados, advanced the systematic urban ordering projects of absolute monar-
chies. Early modern Latin American urban experience is, of course, very differ-
ent from that of contemporaneous Istanbul. Still, we observe a similar nexus
of state power, literary production, and urban life in the Ottoman city. Istanbul
attracted talented young men from different parts of the empire who sought
their fortune in administrative positions. Like each young letrado who had to
publish poetry as a testimony of his mastery over language, many of the new
arrivals to Istanbul showed their suitability to serve as part of the ruling appa-
ratus by composing literature. Eulogies of imperial architecture were often part
of these compositions. Cafer Çelebi’s Hevesnāme (Book of Desire) (1493/94)
and Yahya Bey’s response to it in Şāh u Gedā (The King and the Beggar) are
good examples of the ways in which aspiring bureaucrats took part in the
development of a “lettered city” from the late 15th to the mid-16th century.
Let us begin with the Hevesnāme, the earliest long narrative poem about
Istanbul.6 Cafer Çelebi was among many literati who moved to Istanbul from
the provinces (in his case, from his hometown of Amasya, in northeastern
Anatolia) to find a position in the imperial bureaucracy and he composed the
Hevesnāme to share his experiences in the capital city. In his introduction to
this work, he presents himself as a young scholar who decided to compose a
story for his friends about his pursuit of love in the city.7 By choosing Istanbul
as the site of his love affair, he sets the Hevesnāme apart from earlier Ottoman
romances, which take place at nonspecific locations or relate the lover’s travels
from town to town.8 The focus on Istanbul also allows Cafer Çelebi to praise
his city, bringing together eulogy of sultanic grandeur with the celebration of
the sensual delights of a poet’s urban life.
The city to which Cafer Çelebi had arrived in the 1480s must have had a
thriving street life with its uniquely diverse Muslim, Greek Orthodox, Jewish,
and Armenian communities, in large part deported from newly conquered
territories as varied as Caffa in the Crimea, Karaman in Central Anatolia, and
5 Rama, Lettered City, 18.

6 Cafer Çelebi, Heves-nâme, ed. Sungur. See also, Atay, “Heves-nâme’de aşk oyunu”; Avçin,
“Tâcizâde Cafer Çelebi’nin”; Kuru, “Mesnevî biçiminde aşk hali”; Erünsal, The Life and Works
of Tâci-zâde Cafer Çelebi.
7 For the English translation of the introductory section, see Aguirre-Mandujano, “Rhetoric,
Expression and the Poets of Turkish Language”, 548–52.
8 As an example of these earlier Ottoman romances, see the Fürkatnāme (Book of Separation)
(c.1471), possibly a model for the Hevesnāme: Atay, “Heves-nâme’de aşk oyunu”, 49; and Kuru,
“Mesnevî biçiminde aşk hali”, 174–83.
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658 Niyazioğlu
the Peloponnese. Yet these migrant communities are conspicuously absent in

Cafer Çelebi’s panorama. Instead, he focuses the reader’s gaze on the imperial
architecture of the preceding thirty years: the fortress, palace, mosque com-
plex, and shrine that were built by Mehmed II (r. 1444–46, 1451–81) in different
parts of the city. Cafer Çelebi highlights the sultan’s power through his depic-
tions of imperial buildings’ mighty domes and sturdy walls.
Istanbul did not have the same effect on all of Cafer Çelebi’s contempo-
raries. Another Amasyan, an Armenian scribe, who was forcibly moved to
Istanbul, for instance, writes in 1480, “I copied this in times of bitterness, for
they brought us from Amasia to Kostandinupawlis by force and against our
will; and I copied this [manuscript] tearfully and with much lamentation.”9 In
a different vein, Turkish-Muslim frontier warriors, who were threatened by the
increasing power of Mehmed II, objected to moving the capital from Edirne
and voiced dissent through stories they circulated about Istanbul as an abode
of tyranny and ruin.10 In a historical narrative composed around the same
time as the Hevesnāme, an anonymous author depicts the history of Istanbul
as a cyclical story of construction and destruction. He wrote on how each new
ruler built magnificent monuments, and how these were later destroyed as a
result of disasters and wars because of the rulers’ injustice.11 Although such
cautionary tales were among common tropes of both pre- and post-conquest
periods, they must have particularly resonated with later 15th-century writers,
whose city experienced frequent plagues and a major earthquake, as well as
the devastation of the Ottoman conquest.12
Thus, we should be careful not to view Cafer Çelebi’s portrayal of imperial
architecture as a timeless eulogy of the capital. On the contrary, as Çiğdem
Kafescioğlu argues, his depiction of the city’s exquisite monuments should be
seen as a response to stories about doom circulated by writers who criticized
the imperial project.13 Most probably arguing against those who presented
Mehmed II’s mosque complex as unstable and ugly, Cafer Çelebi praises its
sound, skillful, and beautiful construction by writing, “A sound structure they
built / Doors of every wing they erected / with künde-kārī [woodwork] from
floor to ceiling / leaving wondrous craftmanship.” And against those who
9 Kafescioğlu, Constantinopolis/Istanbul, 179, quoting from Sanjian, Colophons of Armenian

Manuscripts, 326.
10 Kafadar, Between Two Worlds, 148–53; Yerasimos, La fondation de Constantinople; Yürekli,
Architecture and Hagiography, 77–78.
11 Yerasimos, La fondation de Constantinople, 5–48. See also Giese (ed.), Die altosmanischen
anonymen, 74–111.
12 See, for example, Varlık, Plague and Empire, 131–60.
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criticized it for being despicable and unjustly built, he glorifies its Heavenly
edifices and writes, “Each madrasa is like the paradise / The trees of each gar-
den a branch from Tuba [of paradise].”14
Such a portrait must have pleased the imperial ears. Shortly after the com-
pletion of the Hevesnāme, in 1493 or 1494, Cafer Çelebi received the prestigious
post of imperial chancellor. Although he did not present his book to any par-
ticular patron, and emphasized its dedication to fellow seekers of love, he must
have foreseen the book’s warm reception at the court of Mehmed II’s son and
successor, Bayezid II (r. 1481–1512). Bayezid was an avid patron of Ottoman
history and interested in eulogies of his city’s imperial buildings. Cafer Çelebi
would address these interests further with a description of the conquest of
Istanbul, titled Maḥrūse-yi İstanbul Fetḥnāmesi [Book of Conquest of the
Well-Protected Istanbul] composed shortly after the Hevesnāme. Focusing on
the victorious siege, this work extended his praise of imperial power.15
Cafer Çelebi’s Istanbul was not only a city of monumental architecture, how-
ever. It was also a city of pleasure and poetry. The main body of the work is set
at a garden party at the banks of Kağıthane river, which flowed into the Golden
Horn, and where the poet falls in love with a noblewoman. The Hevesnāme is
an account of the pursuit of this beloved, and of strolls along riverbanks and
encounters at garden gatherings at the meadows of Kağıthane. Far from the
city center and lacking in basic amenities for visitors, Kağıthane was not among
the most popular pleasure grounds in late Byzantine Constantinople or early
Ottoman Istanbul. Much better-known pleasure grounds, such as Mangana,
located on the eastern edge of the intra muros city, for the Byzantines, or, for the
Ottomans, Eyüp, just north of the city walls on the Golden Horn, were closer
to the city center and could be visited on day trips.16 Yet, for those like Cafer
14 Cafer Çelebi, Heves-nâme, ed. Sungur, 179: Binā’sıñun idüp muḥkem niḥādın / ḳapunuñ
revzenüñ her bir ḳanadın / Ser-ā-ser işlemişler künde-kārī / Bırakmışlar ʿaceb naḳış u nigārı
and ibid., 187: Nedür her medrese cennet misāli/diraḫt-ı ravżāsı ṭubā nihāli.
15 For this Book of Conquest and Cafer Çelebi’s works, see Erünsal, Life and Works of Tâci-zâde,
XXXII and LXI–LXV. Thanks to İsmail Erünsal’s meticulous scholarship, we know about
gift payments Cafer Çelebi received from the sultan for his works. The earliest record we
have is from 1503 for a panegyric. We do not see any record of the Hevesnāme in the pal-
ace library inventory from 1503/04. Cafer Çelebi is not explicitly mentioned in this list
either. Cornell Fleisher and Kaya Şahin, however, attribute to Cafer Çelebi a work entitled
Kitāb dhikr qalʿat Qusṭanṭīniyya wa bināʾ Ayāṣūfiyyā (A Book Relating the Fortifications of
Constantinople and the Construction of Hagia Sophia). See Fleischer & Şahin, “On the
Works of a Historical Nature”, 592.
16 See Maguire, “Gardens and Parks”, 251–64. Cafer Çelebi’s contemporary Tursun Bey praises
Eyüp as a popular pleasure ground while omitting any mention of Kağıthane. Tursun Bey,
Tārīḫ-i Ebü’l-Fetḥ, ed. Tulum, 74–75.
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660 Niyazioğlu
Çelebi and his friends who would pitch tents for overnight stays, Kağıthane’s
greater distance from the center might have provided special opportunities. In
his depiction of Kağıthane, the biographer and poet Latifi (d. 1582) describes its
pleasure grounds as a place where in the early 16th century, men and women
wandered out in the wild kissing and carousing.17 We do not know whether
Kağıthane was a destination for similar pursuits already in the late 15th cen-
tury; still, Cafer Çelebi might have wanted to create, or contribute to, its reputa-
tion as an ideal gathering place for the lovers and beloveds of Istanbul.
In his introduction to a work about the beautiful young men of 16th-century
Skopje, in Macedonia, the poet İshak Çelebi (d. 1537) explains that he wrote
this book for the beloveds who, at a garden gathering, had asked him for such
poems.18 Could Cafer Çelebi have also written the Hevesnāme for a similar
audience who gathered at parties at Kağıthane? The Hevesnāme manuscripts
do not offer us much information about actual readers. Copies are rare and
do not have detailed ownership or readership records.19 But biographical dic-
tionaries provide scattered information about a group of poets who gathered
around Cafer Çelebi frequently and received his patronage later in his life.
Among them, we know of Zati (d. 1546) and Mesihi (d. c.1518), both of whom
composed poetry about the beautiful youth of Edirne, and Vahdi (d. c.1550s),
who wrote about the adventures of a merchant from Bursa. Like Cafer Çelebi,
these poets often worked as scribes, composed urban stories, frequented tav-
erns, and narrated their search for love.20 They could have been among the first
readers and listeners of the Hevesnāme during their gatherings at Kağıthane.
Judging by subsequent references to it, the Hevesnāme provided a template
to write about the city for some among the next generation of Ottomans. In
1540, probably relying on the Hevesnāme as a model, the janissary poet Yahya
Bey composed the Şāh u Gedā (The King and the Beggar), a long narrative
poem about a poet’s search for love in Istanbul, which became very popular in
16th-century literary circles.21 The king and beggar theme had been employed
as a central motif in Persian literature, but Yahya was the first to apply it to the
17 Andrews & Kalpaklı, The Age of Beloveds, 67–68; and Latifi, Evsâf-ı İstanbul, ed. Suner
(Pekin), 59–61.
18 Kuru, “Naming the Beloved”, 171.
19 Cafer Çelebi, Heves-nâme, ed. Sungur, 130–39.
20 Şen, “Tâcizâde Cafer Çelebi’nin Çevresindeki Şairler”; and Kim, The Last of an Age, 35. See
also, Erünsal, Life and Works of Tâci-zâde, LVII.
21 Jaeckel, “Yahya Bey’s King and Beggar”, 174. Although Yahya Bey does not give Cafer
Çelebi’s name, he refers to the Hevesnāme and quotes from the panoramic view of the
Hevesnāme in the beginning of his work. For these city descriptions, see also Özyıldırım,
Mâşi-zâde Fikri Çelebi, 247–53. For a catalogue of surviving manuscript copies, see Jaeckel,
“Yahya Bey’s King and Beggar”, 86–101.
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pursuit of love in a clearly identified city.22 Realistic descriptions of particular

Ottoman cities, as Selim Kuru argues, introduced a distinct sense of place to
Ottoman literary works by the mid-16th century. This was also a time when
numerous depictions of bathhouses, coffee shops, and literary gatherings, in
verse and prose, were composed.23 Yahya Bey took part in these trends. His
Şāh u Gedā, like the Hevesnāme, presented Istanbul as both an imperial capital
and a city of desire. It also foretold some of the major changes that would begin
to unfold in the literary landscape of Istanbul during the mid-16th century.
One of the most notable among these changes was a new kind of interest
among poets in male beloveds. At the time Yahya Bey was writing his work,
Ottoman literati were keen on composing poetry about the beautiful boys
of their cities and composed short verse narratives, known as the şehrengīz
(city-thriller), about young male artisans and craftsmen at major public sites.
Following Arab and Persian poets who depicted the premodern city as an
erotic playground, they praised the beautiful boys whom they encountered on
the streets and in the markets.24 These texts, Selim Kuru argues, contributed
to the debates about love among the learned elite.25 Yahya Bey, who wrote two
şehrengīzes himself, took part in these debates and promoted what he perceived
as the correct path of love.26 For him, the proper object of affection should be
the metaphorical love for a boy, not the sensual desire for a female beloved,
such as that depicted in Cafer Çelebi’s Hevesnāme.27 Yahya Bey emphasizes his
message at the end of the Şāh u Gedā by urging the reader to cast out the carnal
eye and become an earnest lover of God. Divine love, according to him, should
be reached through the love for the young male beloved.28
Not only is the beloved’s gender different in the Şāh u Gedā, but so too is the
site of encounter between lover and beloved. Unlike Cafer Çelebi, who nar-
rates the poet’s search for love at the city’s outskirts, Yahya Bey’s poet meets
his beloved at the major public square of Atmeydanı, the Hippodrome, in the
intra muros city and close to the imperial palace. Yahya Bey does not explain
his choice of Atmeydanı as the setting of this important meeting, but it must
22 Jaeckel, “Yahya Bey’s King and Beggar”, 51–52.

23 Kuru, “The Literature of Rum”, 573.
24 For the development of Ottoman şehrengīz, see Kuru, “The Literature of Rum”, 574–76. For
studies on Persian and Arabic traditions, see, for example, Sharma, “If There is a Paradise
on Earth, It is Here”; and Talib, “Citystruck”.
25 Kuru, “The Literature of Rum”, 575.
26 Çavuşoğlu, “Taşlıcalı Dukakinzâde Yahya Bey’in İstanbul Şehrengîzi”.
27 Some of Yahya Bey’s contemporaries seem to have agreed with his response to the
Hevesnāme. For a discussion on the biographer Aşık Çelebi’s criticism of the depiction of
love in the work, see Atay, “Heves-nâme’de aşk oyunu”, 82–84.
28 Yahya Bey, Şāh u Gedā, ed. Jaeckel, 330–25.
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662 Niyazioğlu
be related to the growing popularity of the square among 16th-century learned

circles as a meeting place for male lovers. The biographer Aşık Çelebi (d. 1571),
for instance, writes about poets promenading in the square to meet their
male beloveds and notes specifically his friend Yahya Bey’s interest in such
gatherings.29 In an anecdote suggesting the close relationship between urban
practices and their literary depictions, Aşık Çelebi explains that Yahya Bey
wrote the Şāh u Gedā for a palace servant who used to hang around Atmeydanı,
and recalls that while on a stroll to the square together one day, he presented
on Yahya Bey’s behalf a poem to the young man. While the anecdote empha-
sizes who is to be chased and where, it also indirectly suggests that the Şāh u
Gedā offered its readers an itinerary of Istanbul contemporary of its time and
different from that of the Hevesnāme.
2 Spiritual Landscapes, Dervishes, and Shaykhs
Compared to poets among the ruling circles who presented Istanbul as a

source of power and delight, hagiographers, especially those belonging to per-
secuted sufi orders and antinomian dervish groups, often presented Istanbul
as a city of trials and reported violent conflicts with state authorities. Works
of Küçük Abdal, a disciple of the antinomian itinerant dervish, Otman Baba,
who challenged the sultan, and Yusuf Sinan, a sufi shaykh who served at a
lodge established with imperial support, offer two different examples of such
a perspective. These two authors had fundamentally different agendas for the
future of their respective communities, yet they shared a common goal when
writing about the past: they strove to show the power of their masters over
the urbanscape.
Küçük Abdal’s Istanbul, like that of Cafer Çelebi and Yahya Bey, is shaped
by imperial history. Yet, it is not a city for leisurely strolls in the company of
beloveds around imperial monuments. It is a stage to admonish the way-
ward urbanites and primarily the sultan himself. Küçük Abdal was brought to
Istanbul for interrogation in the 1470s, along with his master Otman Baba, an
ascetic who wandered about towns and mountains in northwestern Asia Minor
and the eastern Balkans with a few hundred dervishes known as the Abdals of
Rum. This dervish group had emerged during a wave of religious mendicancy
in the 13th century, and roamed the countryside along with numerous other
29 Aşık Çelebi, Meşāʿirü’ş- Şuʿarā’, ed. Kılıç, vol. 3, 1203. Later biographers who use the Meşāʿir
as a source for writing Yahya Bey’s life also present the meeting of the poet and his beloved
at Atmeydanı. See Atay, “Heves-nâme’de aşk oyunu”, 16.
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dervish groups, advocating radical renunciation of all worldly attachments. By

the end of the 15th century, the Abdals of Rum emerged as a distinct dervish
band, and Otman Baba as a key player in this transformation. His radicalism
and political power over hundreds of dervishes upset the state authorities.30
In his Velāyetnāme-i Sulṭān Otman (The Hagiography of Sultan Otman),
composed in 1483, Küçük Abdal writes that when the dervishes were brought
to Istanbul for an interrogation, hooks were set at Atmeydanı in prepara-
tion for their execution. Yet, upon meeting Otman Baba, the reigning sultan,
Mehmed II, suspended the interrogation and even offered the dervish a lodge
to settle in Istanbul.31 This was not an offer that Otman Baba would take. His
religious agenda included a radical criticism of property ownership.32 Not
only did he refuse imperial patronage, but he also railed against the dervishes
who accepted such offers. He refused Mehmed II’s gift of “a lodge like a palace”
(sarāy gibi tekye), saying, “Refrain! Do not put any stone upon stone. You would
regret it. I do not need a lodge to settle in comfort.”33 Küçük Abdal then relates
how Otman Baba spent his time touring Istanbul, going around major urban
sites and punishing those he perceived as evildoers.
By writing down Otman Baba’s refusal of patronage and attacks on urban-
ites, Küçük Abdal may have wanted to strengthen his community’s antinomian
position and to consolidate it against the dervish orders who had accepted to
settle down. He wrote for fellow Abdals, wary of those among them who had
established lodges and formed alliances with ruling circles in the late 15th cen-
tury. At the time, loosely organized and radical dervish collectives were under
pressure to assimilate into more conformist orders or transform into new insti-
tutionalized sufi paths.34 In response, dervishes like Küçük Abdal wrote against
Ottoman political supremacy and the institutionalized sufism it supported.
They composed hagiographical works to promote the all-encompassing power
of their masters over sultans and their cities.35
30 Karamustafa, “Antinomian Sufis”, 115–24; Karamustafa, God’s Unruly Friends, 97; and
Antov, The Ottoman “Wild West”, 49–62 and 71–93. For a study of doctrinal positions of
the Abdals of Rum, see also Oktay, “Works of Kaygusuz Abdal”.
31 Küçük Abdal, Vilāyetnāme, ed. Kılıç, Arslan, Tuncay, 206.
32 Karamustafa, God’s Unruly Friends, 97.
33 Küçük Abdal, Vilāyetnāme, ed. Kılıç, Arslan, Tuncay, 223: Saḳınuñ bir ṭaşı bir ṭaş üzerine
ḳomayuñ ki peşīmān olursız. Ve baña tekye gerekmez ki varam ḫoşam didi.
34 Yürekli, Architecture and Hagiography, 26–50.
35 The Vilāyetnāme (Hagiography) may not have circulated widely in the 16th century.
We know very little about its reception at the time. Interestingly, the work, which sur-
vived only in two manuscripts, was not listed among the endowed books of an “Otman
Baba convent” in Akyazı, Bulgaria as recorded in a register dated 1572/73. See Kayapınar
& Kayapınar, “Osman Baba ve Otman Baba Tekkeleri”, 109. Ayşe Kayapınar and Levent
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664 Niyazioğlu
In their comparative study of early modern Istanbul, Isfahan, and Delhi,

Çiğdem Kafescioğlu and Susan Babaie highlight the significance of city-
building for rulers and of court historians who often promoted rulers as “build-
ers” of Ottoman, Safavid, and Mughal capitals.36 Küçük Abdal also wanted to
promote his master’s power over the urbanscape, only in this case the sover-
eign was Otman Baba.37 To present the dervish’s power over Mehmed II’s capi-
tal, he engages with stories about imperial tours but uses the theme for his own
political agenda. In one of the best-known stories that was noted by the court
historian Tursun Bey (d. 1491), when Mehmed II first entered city on the day
of the conquest, he toured the Hagia Sophia with great delight.38 According
to Küçük Abdal, Otman Baba, traveling around the city, breaks up the sultan’s
procession. He writes, “When Sultan Mehmed was touring Istanbul, he came
upon his holiness [Otman Baba] on a street. That Pole of the world immedi-
ately stood in front of him and asked Sultan Mehmed: ‘Answer me right now.
Are you the sultan, or am I?’”39 Mehmed II immediately accepts the dervish’s
manifest force. In another episode, the sultan has to stop when trying to re-
enter Istanbul because Otman Baba is standing in the way like an impenetra-
ble fortification.40 Again and again, the dervish exhibits his immense power to
the sultan and to Istanbulites at major urban sites.
The city for Küçük Abdal becomes a stage to portray not the sultan’s but
Otman Baba’s power. Not only does he give, in different parts of his work, full
credit for the conquest of Istanbul to Otman Baba’s saintly interventions, but
he also overlooks Mehmed II’s building projects and presents them as sites
of conflict instead.41 The central market is where Otman Baba presented food
during Ramadan and upset the authorities. The New Mosque (Mehmed II’s at
Fatih) is where dissolute shaykhs and scholars conspired against Otman Baba.
The fortress of Yedikule was where Abdals fought the neighborhood’s new
Kayapınar suggest Küçük Abdal’s master Otman Baba was the founder of this lodge.
However, more research is needed since their meticulous study has shown that many
convents were founded by different Osman/Otman Babas in Bulgaria at the time.
36 Babaie & Kafescioğlu, “Istanbul, Isfahan, and Delhi”, 851.
37 For the religiopolitical claims of Otman Baba, see İnalcık, “Dervish and Sultan”.
38 Tursun Bey, Tārīḫ-i Ebü’l-Fetḥ, ed. Tulum, 175; and Kafescioğlu, Constantinople/Istanbul,
62–63.
39 Küçük Abdal, Vilāyetnāme, ed. Kılıç, Arslan, Tuncay, 39: Günlerde bir gün Sulṭān
Meḥemmed İstanbul’da seyrān iderken bir soḳāḳ başında ol kān-ı velāyete ṭuş geldi. Daḫī
ol ḳuṭb-ı ʿālem Sulṭān Meḥemmed’üñ derḥāl öñine geçti. Daḫī su’āl idüp ayıtdı ki Sulṭān
Meḥemmed’e: Tīz cevāb vir ki sulṭān sen misin yoḫsa ben miyim didi. For the translation, see
İnalcık, “Dervish and Sultan”, 29.
40 Ibid., 38–40.
41 Ibid., 19, 27, 38, 189, and 203.
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inhabitants. Each episode ends with Otman Baba’s punishment of city dwell-
ers in great wrath.42 For Otman Baba, Istanbul is still a city of infidels because
the current Muslim occupants are in denial of his sainthood.43 He fights them
vigorously, as when he sets off a great storm and an earthquake that shakes all
the city dwellers and even the sultan himself. Küçük Abdal writes,
Three immense black clouds covered the skies from three sides. With
thunder and lightning came a flood as great as that of Noah which gushed
into the houses of Istanbul and shed much blood. All feared for their lives
and thought they would all perish. And lightning struck a corner of Sultan
Mehmed’s palace, killing his cranes and various other birds. There was
also a garden kiosk which collapsed. The trembling of the earth reached
the outmost skies that night. It was like the plain where the resurrected
are to assemble on the Judgement Day. Sultan Mehmed, as told later, ran
from one corner to another in his bed chamber and prayed.44
Küçük Abdal highlights the dervish’s wrath throughout his work by employing
common motifs from the vitae of esteemed dervishes and warriors that circu-
lated in his milieu. Otman Baba claimed to be the incarnation of the epony-
mous founder of the Bektaşi order, Hacı Bektaş (d. 1271), and the legendary
13th-century warrior Sarı Saltuk. Küçük Abdal frequently refers to Sarı Saltuk
and Hacı Bektaş, showing the similarities between Otman Baba’s miraculous
deeds and theirs, but also setting Otman Baba apart from them by emphasiz-
ing the dervish’s wrath and penchant for destruction. Trees frequently appear
as a source of vitality and rebirth in the vitae of Sarı Saltuk and Hacı Bektaş.
Sarı Saltuk makes a dead mulberry tree flourish and plants a poplar that later
becomes a site of veneration. Hacı Bektaş grows an oak from the ashes of his
cloak and seeks a juniper’s shelter when hiding from his enemies.45 Otman
Baba, by contrast, cuts down the cypresses of the monastery garden where he
42 Ibid., 27, 43, and 204. See also, Kafescioğlu, Constantinopolis/Istanbul, 43 and 235.
44 Ibid., 208: felege üç ṭarafdan üç ḳara heybetlü bulut hevāya aġdı. Ve raʿd u berḳ birle bir Nūḥ
ṭūfānı oldu kim İstanbul şehrinüñ ḫānelerine girüp ve eşyāsı ol ḳadar ḫūn itdi. Ve ḳorḳdılar
kim mecmūʿan ġarḳa varup helāk olalar. Ve daḫı Sulṭān Meḥemmed oturduġı sarāyuñ bir
köşesin yıldırım urup ṭurna ve ġayr-ı envāʿ ḳuşların helāk eyledi. Ve bir ṣaḫn-ı çemen köşki
var idi ṭurduġı yirden aşaġa geçdi. Ve ol gece ol şehrüñ zelzelesi felek-i ʿayyūḳa çıḳup ṣan
kim ʿaraṣāt idi. Ve ṣoñra rivāyet itdiler kim Sulṭān Meḥemmed yatduġı sarāyuñ içünde ism-i
aʿẓām oḳuyup gāh ol köşeye ve gāh şol köşeye revān olurdı didiler.
45 Alptekin, “Saltuknâme”, 15; and Ocak, Alevî ve Bektaşî İnançlarının İslâm Öncesi Temelleri,
127–28. Ocak gives examples of later Bektaşi hagiographers who also used this motif in
their works about the followers of Hacı Bektaş.
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666 Niyazioğlu
stays while in Istanbul and burns them in front of his dervishes.46 Unlike Hacı
Bektaş and Sarı Saltuk, he often manifests his immense power by pulling down
trees, knocking down buildings, and flooding the streets.
Shortly after Küçük Abdal wrote about his master’s wrath and power in the
Vilāyetnāme in 1483, the Abdals were interrogated, exiled, and even executed
for heresy. An anonymous chronicler from the late 15th century, for instance,
reports how the judge of Edirne arrested followers of a dervish called Otman
Baba (possibly the same Otman Baba); two within the group were hanged and
the others deported to Anatolia. The chronicler then relates how a dervish
crossed the Marmara Sea sitting on a piece of cloth, presenting this feat as
a warning to all. Thus, in response to persecutions, some among the Abdals
and their supporters seem to have circulated stories about the immense power
of their shaykhs over their adversaries.47 Similarly, Küçük Abdal wrote about
Otman Baba to familiarize his readers with the life of a Friend of God, “so
when the people of the world see a Friend of God, they would appreciate him
thoroughly and refrain from denial”.48 Numerous stories in Küçük Abdal’s
Vilāyetnāme reveal that it was difficult for many to appreciate a scarcely clad
dervish’s claims to divinity. “What a strange man! Who is he?”, Istanbulites ask
when Otman Baba arrives in their city, “We have not seen anybody like him.”49
The Vilāyetnāme is Küçük Abdal’s answer to them.
What about those sufi shaykhs who, contrary to Otman Baba, chose to stay
in the new capital? Dina Le Gall’s in-depth analysis of Ottoman Naqshbandi
shows that establishing a lodge for an order in late 15th-century Istanbul was
not easy. Ottoman hagiographers, as Le Gall shows, reveal Naqshbandi and
other shaykhs’ own hesitations in settling in Istanbul after the conquest. The
Naqshbandi Lamiʿi Çelebi (d. 1532), for instance, relates how his shaykh, İlahi
(d. 1487), had an unnerving dream upon his arrival in Istanbul in which he
failed to light the candle of his lodge. Interpreting it as a divine warning, he left
Istanbul swiftly.50 Similarly, the Bayrami biographer Enisi (d. 1503) writes how
his shaykh, Akşemseddin (d. 1459), supported Mehmed II during the siege,
but preferred to return to his hometown Göynük in northwest Anatolia after
the conquest.51

47 Giese (ed.), Tevārīḫ-i Āl-i Os̱mān, 126, cited by İnalcık, “Dervish and Sultan”, 33.
48 See, for example, Küçük Abdal, Vilāyetnāme, ed. Kılıç, Arslan, Tuncay, 11 and 13.
49 Ibid., 205: Ne ʿaceb kimse olur ki hiç biz bunuñ gibi kimse ve kişi gördügimüz yoḳ. Küçük
Abdal frequently notes that townsmen think Otman Baba was a runaway slave. See, for
example, ibid., 18 and 22.
50 Le Gall, A Culture of Sufism, 50.
51 Enisi, Menāḳıb-ı Akşemseddin, ed. Yurt, 134–38.
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In the 16th century, sufi shaykhs needed imperial patronage to establish

lodges in Istanbul, but, as Zeynep Yürekli argues, members of the Ottoman
ruling elite were often hesitant patrons.52 Even orders like the Halvetis,
invited to the city in the early 16th century by Sultan Bayezid II, could lose
imperial support easily and suffer persecution a decade later. A hagiography
of Halveti-Sünbüli shaykhs, Teẕkiretüʾl-Ḫalvetiyye (Halveti Biographies) com-
posed in the late 16th century by Shaykh Yusuf Sinan, offers a revealing account
of a sufi order’s struggles when settling down earlier in the century.53 Yusuf
Sinan’s work is a collection of the lives of the first four shaykhs of the lodge,
Çelebi Efendi (d. 1493/94), Sünbül Sinan (d. 1529), Merkez Efendi (d. 1551/52),
and Yakub Efendi (d. 1571), whom Yusuf Sinan succeeded as the fifth shaykh.
It was composed for Sultan Murad III (r. 1574–95) shortly after a meeting
between the sultan and the author in 1576/77. Yusuf Sinan must have found in
their meeting a good opportunity to seek imperial patronage for his order and
to present the Halveti-Sünbüli shaykhs to the court.54
The Teẕkiretüʾl-Ḫalvetiyye revolves around the Koca Mustafa Pasha lodge,
which was located in the southwestern section of the intra muros city, close
to the land walls. Unlike Küçük Abdal, Yusuf Sinan does not write about der-
vishes’ walks around the city, for he must have advocated seclusion as a major
component of spiritual training.55 Still, like Küçük Abdal, claiming a place for
his order in Istanbul was important for him. He thus describes at length how
Shaykh Sünbül Sinan had to save the Koca Mustafa Pasha mosque, the cen-
ter of the lodge complex, from demolition. The Halveti-Sünbülis had settled
in this mosque, converted from the monastic church of Hagios Andreas en te
Krisei, by invitation from Sultan Bayezid II and through the patronage of the
grand vizier, Koca Mustafa Pasha.56 But when Sultan Selim took power from
his father in 1512, he executed Koca Mustafa Pasha for supporting his brother
Ahmed, a rival prince. He also attempted to punish the vizier’s ally Sünbül
Sinan by taking the main marble pillars of the mosque for a kiosk near his own
palace. But, according to Yusuf Sinan who wrote about fifty years later, when
Selim arrived to remove the pillars, he had a vision: Sünbül Sinan was standing
52 Yürekli, “Writing Down the Feats”.

53 SK, Esad Efendi, 1372.
54 Curry, “The Meeting of the Two Sultans”, 235–38.
55 His father’s shaykh, Sinan Efendi, for example, instructed his disciples not to leave their
lodge without permission and to have their eyes fixed to the ground when walking.
Velikahyaoğlu, Sümbüliyye Tarikatı, 84.
56 For the Halvetis moving to Istanbul and the making of their main lodge, see, for example,
Karataş, “City as a Historical Actor”, 117–29.
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668 Niyazioğlu
at the gates of the lodge with two fierce lions. Shaken, the sultan abandoned his
plans to demolish the mosque, as “nobody was able to oppose [the shaykh]”.57
Although Yusuf Sinan presents this miraculous deed as a victory of the
shaykh over the sultan, the account also reveals Halveti-Sünbüli sufis’ anxi-
eties about their lodge’s annihilation by imperial order. Unlike Küçük Abdal,
who writes about the ways Otman Baba shook the corrupted city, Yusuf Sinan
portrays a less powerful sufi figure whose lodge complex was on the verge of
being knocked down. Still, like Küçük Abdal, he turns the lettered city of Cafer
Çelebi and Yahya Bey upside down. Rather than solid domes and joyful literary
gatherings, the hagiographers’ Istanbul is a city shaken by a dervish’s wrath and
a lodge under threat of demolition.
To conclude, reading Yusuf Sinan and Küçük Abdal in dialogue with Yahya
Bey and Cafer Çelebi allows us to observe the multiplicity of city tours that
were offered to Ottoman readers. Their accounts are examples of the par-
tial, conflictual, and heterogenous ensemble of voices that claimed a place
in Istanbul vis-à-vis the imperial order in the late 15th to late 16th centuries.
With the expansion of the city outside its walls and the growth of new forms of
pleasure on the Bosphorus, poets and sufis of later generations would expand
the scope and content of their city tours.58 15th- and 16th-century writers like
Yahya Bey, Küçük Abdal, Yusuf Sinan, and Cafer Çelebi, however, focused their
gaze mostly inside the city walls and tried to instruct their readers on how
to relate to imperial power. It is surprising how rarely we follow them as our
guides. Their tours of early modern Istanbul are awaiting their modern readers.
Bibliography
Primary Sources
Aşık Çelebi, Meşâʿirü’ş- Şuʿarâ’: İnceleme, Metin, ed. F. Kılıç, 3 vols., Istanbul, 2010.
Cafer Çelebi, Taci-zade, Heves-nâme: inceleme-tenkitli metin, ed. N. Sungur, Ankara,
2006.
57 SK, Esad Efendi 1372, fol. 19b: Hiç kimesne muḳābeleye ḳādir degül idi.
58 See, for example, the place of the Bosphorus shores in the long narrative poetry of
Nevizade Atai (d. 1637) and the hagiography of Yahya Efendi (d. 1570) written by
Mehmed Dai (d. 1660/61) in Niyazioğlu, Dreams and Lives, 27; and Asa, “Beşiktaşlı Yahya
Efendi”, 139–46.
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Chapter 26
The Poetics of Istanbul: The City of Cities

Oscar Aguirre-Mandujano and Walter G. Andrews
Early modern Istanbul is, in a very real, non-hyperbolic, and non-metaphoric

sense, a city defined, organized, and made meaningful by poetry.1 Every era is
marked by many hundreds of elite poets—poets of sufficient stature to war-
rant their inclusion in the Ottoman “biographies of poets” (şuʿarā teẕkireleri)
literature—and these poets are only the visible surface of a many-times larger
pool of not-quite-elite poets of several kinds. In the 15th and 16th centuries,
and long after, poetry was produced among popular versifiers, dervish lodge
poets, and musicians—from court musicians to mystics and coffeehouse
minstrels.2 Sultans and soldiers, bureaucrats and courtiers, viziers, high offi-
cials, shopkeepers, religious dignitaries, institutional sufis, and scruffy deviant-
rejectionist mystics: all wrote reams of poems, often collected in volumes
(each called a dīvān) containing hundreds and even thousands of poems.
Public buildings, facilities, religious edifices, fountains, military buildings, and
park and garden pavilions were for the most part adorned with poems by elite
poets. Poetry embellished dervish ceremonies, social gatherings, and enter-
tainment at all social levels, not only giving them meaning, but also providing
templates for their activities, from conversation and behaviors to food, drink,
and expected types of guests.3
In this chapter, we sketch a “poetics” of early modern Istanbul that theorizes,
with examples, the way in which Istanbul can be seen as a psychological con-
struct organized and made meaningful by an unusually extensive and intimate
engagement with poetry. “Poetics” is the systematizing of the kinds of “making”
and “doing” that poetry achieves as it engages in its work in the world.4 Poetics
1 Walter and I worked on this chapter for almost three years. It saddens me that Walter could
not see its printed version. It was an honor to collaborate with him.
2 See the chapter in this volume by Behar, which points to the ways in which music and, pre-
sumably, the “language” (lyrics) of music transcend class divisions.
3 Andrews, Poetry’s Voice, 62–88, 143–74; Andrews & Kalpaklı, The Age of Beloveds, passim, on
entertainments and the sexuality of Ottoman poetry and society and parallels to European
social activities.
4 “Poetics”, which comprises many theoretical perspectives on what poetry does, has a long
and complex history from antiquity to the present day. For an introductory overview, see the
article (with bibliography) on “poetics” in Greene et al. (eds.), Poetry and Poetics, 1058–64.

The Poetics of Istanbul: The City of Cities 673
theorizes how we are moved by things, people, the natural world, social and
political systems, and the cosmos—how we glimpse the emotional content
of life in a certain time and place. Poetry is a group activity implying creators
(poets), audiences, critics/theorists, other poets, performers, and a history of
poetry. Poetry is socially creative; it strives to create a consensus of meaning, of
emotional responses, of focused attention. It structures the objects of experi-
ence and makes the world meaningful. The theoretical grounding of this per-
spective has been established in some detail in articles on the roles of poetry in
constructing an emotional ecology of Ottoman society during the “long” 16th
century.5 We also draw less directly on the notion of “emotional communities”
as expounded by Barbara Rosenwein,6 and on the extensive theoretical work
on the history of emotions by William Reddy.7
Our focus here will not be on the way Ottoman poetry directly describes
Istanbul. It does, indeed, do this regularly and often, depicting buildings, gar-
dens, water, trees, and people in lush and emotion-laden imagery.8 However,
these descriptions, when taken out of context, are not fundamentally different
from descriptions of other Ottoman cities or from inhabitants’ descriptions of
major cities across the world. What follows is based on the more interesting
observation that very nearly every poem not clearly about someplace else is
about Istanbul. The theory of how this is so constitutes the poetics of Istanbul.
1 Istanbul: The City of Cities
Scholarship on pre-Ottoman Anatolia provides mounting evidence for the

notion that Ottoman cities, at the time when Byzantine Constantinople
became Ottoman Istanbul, were already grounded culturally, spiritually, and
emotionally in institutions and practices of a fundamentally Neoplatonic
Islamic mysticism/sufism that saw tangible material reality as the conse-
quence of emanations from a hierarchy of abstract ideal forms descend-
ing from a primal unity that constitutes the ultimate reality or ground of all
existence.9 Simply put, the Ottoman version of what we today think of as a
5 Andrews, “Ottoman Love”, 21–47; idem, “Speaking of Power”, 281–300; idem, “Gardens”,
90–115.
6 Rosenwein, “Theories of Change”, 7–20.
7 Reddy, The Navigation of Feeling.
8 See, for example, Cafer Çelebi, Heves-nâme, ed. Sungur, 5–9; Kaplan “Türk Edebiyatında
İstanbul”, 1214 & 1215/157–168.
9 The roles of a generic Neoplatonic sufism in early and pre-Ottoman Anatolian urban social
organization and literary production are strikingly reflected in the social and cultural
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674 Aguirre-Mandujano and Andrews
“Neoplatonic” view sees the ideal forms as the foundation of our notions of
beauty. The essence of beauty is ultimately the perfection of the ideal forms.10
Yearning for re-absorption in or re-union with the ideal (beautiful-perfect) is
the true source of the emotion we call “love” (in Ottoman Turkish ʿişḳ). Broadly
speaking, Ottoman Neoplatonism in the early modern period can be summed
up in a few fundamental principles: first, the observable universe is an emana-
tion from a primal, spiritual, eternal, and all-powerful unity. Consequently, all
things of this world have ideal analogs in the higher, non-material world, and
the patterns of this immaterial world are repeated in the patterns of life in
this world.11 Indeed, the human soul is understood as an alienated fragment
of the Primal Unity. And, more important to us, human beings are capable, by
means of spiritual discipline, of achieving some degree of re-union with the
Primal Unity.
From these principles, certain emotionally grounded beliefs and truths fol-
lowed, beliefs that were widely shared by many who did not see themselves as
“dervishes” or “sufis”. What human beings feel is more “true” than what is known
by reason. This belief assumes that what human beings experience as love is
in fact longing for reunion with the Primal Unity. Furthermore, what attracts
love—what human beings experience as “beauty”—in this (material) world
is our apprehension of the ideal forms through their this-worldly analogues.
Consequently, reunion with the Primal Unity is achievable by casting off all
attachments to the material world. Poetry—and especially love poetry—is the
voice of emotional “truth”. Poetic language is ambiguous. A word can point to
quite different things from this party with these people to the hidden secrets
of the universe. This is not accidental, but reflects the analogical nature of this
world (that things in this world are distorted images of a more real reality). In
other words, it affirms the proposition that there is a truer meaning to life than
what is apparent on the surface.
This understanding implies a cosmic vision, a “theory of everything”, in
which everything on earth has an analogue on a higher ideal plane. This cos-
mic vision is absolute and all-encompassing. This is reflected in the discus-
sion used to introduce Cafer Çelebi’s Hevesnāme (Book of Desire). The future
practices of Ottoman Istanbul. See, for example, Wolper, Cities and Saints; Yalman,
“‘Ala Al-Din Kaykubad Illuminated”, 119–40; and idem, “From Plato”, 151–86; Pfeiffer,
“Mevlevi-Bektashi Rivalries”, 309–27. For the development of sufi institutions in Istanbul,
also see the chapter by John Curry in this volume.
10 Plotinus, Enneads, ed. Armstrong, vol. 1, 231–63. For a recent study of the impact of
Neoplatonism on the Islamic and Christian mystical traditions, see Zarrabi-Zadeh,
“Sufism and Christian Mysticism”, 330–42. Also see Andrews, “Ottoman Poetry”.
11 Meisami, Court Poetry, 30–39.
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imperial chancellor debates whether it is worthwhile for a man of learning

to entertain himself by crafting poetry. His companions quickly convince him
that poetry is a duty for all men with discerning intellect because they can cre-
ate meaning through poetry, meaning that would remain hidden otherwise.12
They understood poetry as struggle to visualize Truth through language. This is
a manifestation of a “theory of everything” that we call the poetics of Istanbul,
which refers here to a theory of language as it works to “create” an ideal uni-
tary Istanbul underlying the quotidian multiplicity of voices that existed not
only within the sufi framework(s) described above, but also within the various
classes of the imperial bureaucracy, the so-called Ottoman governing elite.13
This chapter describes the elements and mechanisms of a literary prac-
tice that informed the creation of a perspective that naturalized Istanbul not
only as the ultimate space of poetry but, in a sense, as an ultimate product
of poetry. It is not that there were no other cities mentioned or featured in
Ottoman poems; indeed, a genre of city-thrillers flourished in the 16th cen-
tury, describing in verse the “beautiful beloveds” of cities such as Bursa and
Edirne.14 For most Istanbulites, this theory was neither organized conceptu-
ally nor rationally conceived. Yet it was implicit in popular piety, spiritual-
ity, history, legend, and, most powerfully, in poems. In general, hierarchies in
this world—including gradations of power and fortune—were seen to reflect
their ideal, non-material analogues. For example, the sultan is “the shadow of
God on earth”; the Kaʿba in Mecca is the material counterpart of the celestial
Baytu’l-Maʿmūr, the Inhabited House where 70,000 angels circumambulate
every day. This view of the practices of Ottoman poetry may seem anachronis-
tic, or even ahistorical, to a reader familiar with the shifting nature of Ottoman
society in the 15th and 16th centuries. However, it is precisely because Ottoman
poetry is firmly rooted in establishing a relationship to an unchanging and uni-
versal reality that poets worked within the expected forms of the tradition,
12 For a translation of this passage, see Aguirre-Mandujano, “Rhetoric, Expression and the
Poets of the Turkish Language”, 548–52.
13 The historical process by which Ottoman poetry incorporated various philosophical tra-
ditions is yet to be studied. However, a similar and interconnected process can be seen
in recent studies that focus on the creation of an Ottoman vocabulary of power that
incorporated sufi teachings. See, for instance, H. Yılmaz, Caliphate Redefined. Similarly,
Hasan Karataş has shown a similar trajectory for sufi teachings in what he calls the
Ottomanization of the Halvetiye order: see Karataş, “Ottomanization of the Halveti Sufi
Order”, 71–89.
14 For the şehrengīz (city-thriller) genre, see Andrews & Kalpaklı, The Age of Beloveds, 40–43
and notes.
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even when challenging them.15 Although more recent work, ours included,
has identified in some detail the structures of an Ottoman imperial emotional
ecology, the general features of this ecology are already implicit in the overview
expressed by the brilliant Turkish literary scholar, Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar, in
the introduction to his 1949 XIX. Asır Türk Edebiyatı Tarihi (The History of
19th-Century Turkish Literature). He points out that all the various elements
of Ottoman poetry “appear to us as a grand and broad palace metaphor”.16
Central to the palace is the more or less divine or deified person of the sultan,
whose will represents “the good itself”. All things, “nature, objects, institutions”,
are ordered hierarchically in relation to him. “All the behaviors of the (poetic)
beloved are the behaviors of the ruler.”17 All meaningful relations within the
system were relations of love. Wherever the sultan was, there too was the cos-
mic center. Our historical view suggests strongly that a measure of the com-
bined spiritual and emotional charisma that invested the dervish adepts and
sufi saints in pre-Ottoman Anatolia was co-opted by the palace and sultan in
early modern Istanbul.18
From a cultural systemic perspective, it is illuminating to think of Istanbul,
the imperial city, as the City of Cities—a higher order of city that encompasses
the features of all cities within its imperial embrace: their governing and
social institutions, their ethnicities and communities, their religions, clothing,
speech, customs, skills, employments, enjoyments, entertainments, and food.
Istanbul is a city like all cities but, as the Imperial City of Cities, it contains
features common to all cities taken together, and displays these features more
completely and on a higher plane. Returning to the notion of “poetics”, in order
to see how this particular city functions in the broadest sense, we will examine,
with a few examples, the role of poetic speech in creating a spiritual and emo-
tional (or psychological) “reality” in which the structure and activities of the
metropolis become meaningful to a wide range of its inhabitants. Although
the focus here will be on the poems of elite poets, we must keep in mind that
the pyramid of social class in which the literate elites occupied a relatively
tiny space at the apex is reversed by a pyramid of preserved literary artifacts
in which the broad base—the vast majority of the literary artifacts we have on
hand today—belonged to the elites. Accordingly, readers should be aware that,
appearances aside, both the emotional reality and the core cast of characters,
15 For an excellent example of an Ottoman poet that both challenged and defined the
canon, see Sooyong Kim’s recent study on Zati (d. 1546), The Last of an Age.
16 Tanpınar, XIX. Asır Türk Edebiyatı Tarihi, 23.
17 Ibid.
18 This has been recently argued by Hüseyin Yılmaz in a different context. See H. Yılmaz,
Caliphate Redefined.
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metaphors, legends, and analogies of elite poetry repeat themselves in a less

erudite and complex fashion in popular and most often orally transmitted
poetry and song as well.19
Let us begin by unpacking a short lyric poem on love (ġazel) by the 16th-
century Ottoman master poet Baki, whose work represents both an accepted
high point in the development of an Ottoman elite poetic tradition and a model
for centuries of poetry to come. If one poet could be chosen as the iconic poet
of Istanbul, he would be Baki. He was a scholar, a professor of Islamic law,
a high-ranking military magistrate, a famed poet, and an ambitious, admired
figure at court: the ultimate insider.20
1. Degme naḫcīrin şikār itmez bu deştüñ şīr-i ʿaşḳ

Şīr-merdān-ı dil-āverdür yine naḫcīr-i ʿaşḳ21
The lion of love in this desert

hunts no trifling prey
It is brave lion-like men
who are the prey of love22
It is neither a hyperbole nor an unwarranted reduction to say that Ottoman

poetry is overwhelmingly love poetry.23 Ottoman lyrics, epics, and even pan-
egyrics are, most commonly, love poems at their core.24 Unlike some of its
counterparts in the West, Ottoman love poetry is robust, all-encompassing and
masculine. There are no epicene shepherds and few emotionally delicate
19 Most scholarship on Ottoman classical literature tends to distinguish the court or high
literature from folk literature. For an overview of Turkish literature and its periodization,
see Tekin, “Othmanli: Literature”, 210–14. See also Halman, “Poetry and Society”, 44–60.
Considering the oral nature of Ottoman poetry, it is not surprising, however, that we see
tropes, metaphors, and even characters of traditional court poetry echoed in non-elite
literary products. Examples of this shared language of love exist in epics, non-elite lyrical
poems, and religious and narrative poems, i.e. the mesnevi genre. While it is not possible
to show here the many and multiple connections between sufi doctrine and language and
their relation to elite and folk poetry, we should remember the iterations of love in aşık
poetry as pointed out in Kafadar, “The New Visibility of Sufism”, 307–22.
20 Çavuşoğlu, “Baki”, 537–40; Bombaci, Storia, 337–47.
21 Baki, Bâkî Dîvâni, ed. Küçük, 246. In order to facilitate the identification of the poems
used in this chapter, we have included the first couplet of all poem’s in transliteration
immediately before our translation as well as a reference to its modern edition in the
footnotes when available.
22 All translations are ours unless otherwise noted.
23 Andrews, “Ottoman Love”, 21–47.
24 Andrews & Kalpaklı, The Age of Beloveds.
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swains or swooning young women. Baki personifies love as a lion rather than
as a mischievous cherub or rascal boy hunting lovers with a tiny bow. Ottoman
lovers suffer, but the lover—love’s prey—is a lion too, a strong man, a brave
man. The word translated as “brave” here is the Persian compound dil-āver,
which more literally means “possessor/master of heart” (with “heart” in this
case paralleling the English usage as “courage” or “fortitude” as in “to lose
heart”). However, in Ottoman, this Persian compound also parallels the com-
pounds ṣāḥib-dil (also literally “possessor/master of heart”, with the common
meaning “a person open to love”) and ehl-i dil (“people of the heart” or “people
having a propensity to love”). In the Ottoman poetic view, the person who is
open to love is a strong person, a warrior, in large part because it takes a strong
person to stand up to the torments of love and to cast off attachments to the
material world in favor of spiritual attachment. We must also keep in mind
that the power of love is, in essence, the power of the sultan, the power to
attract self-sacrificing attachment. In the palace and empire of love, power and
spirituality are indistinguishable.
2. Nār-ı miḥnet nerm eder ʿāşıḳ mülāyim-tābʿ olur

Āhen-i pūlād ise altun ider iksīr-i ʿaşḳ
The fire of affliction warms the lover

and makes his temperament mild
The alchemists’ stone of love
turns the hardest steel into (soft) gold
The strong person, the person like finely tempered steel, is reheated in the fires
of love’s pain. It loses its “temper(ament)” and becomes soft, gold-like, trans-
muted from the base metal of this-worldly striving and strife (the sword) into
something or someone soft and mild, yet with an essence of immense value
and power. Behind the curtain of the visible, tangible universe lies another,
more real reality in relation to which language reveals an essential and contra-
dictory ambiguity: the hard is weak, the mild is powerful; courage is revealed
not in battle but in submission; the pain of love is the most poignant pleasure.
3. Ḫusrevāne penc nevbet çaldı heft iḳlīmde

Nüh ḳıbābın yanḳulandurdı sipihrüñ mīr-i ʿaşḳ
He played the royal five fanfares

in (all) the seven climes
And Captain Love made
the nine domes of heaven echo
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Here love, the lion, is cast as a noble captain (leader of the troop of lovers).
The “five fanfares” (penc nevbet) are a perfect icon for the multiple and mean-
ingful ambiguities of language. In the material world, they represent: 1) the
five-times-a-day prayers of the Muslim faithful, 2) fanfares that were played
five times a day before the homes of the great and powerful, and 3) the five
instruments played in traditional Persian military groups. Taken together these
represent the major axes of this-worldly power: the power of the community
and the social contract, the power of wealth and position, the power of mili-
tary might. But when the wielder of this power is love, everything is reversed.
Military might cannot compel love; it cannot force a vision of the real, ideal
reality—but real love can. One can only approach the true Truth (al-Ḥaḳḳ) and
its power by stripping oneself of attachments to worldly wealth and position.
One must step outside (or beyond) the daily strictures of community life and
religious practice in order to seek absorption in a higher spiritual unity/com-
munity. This is what the five fanfares of Captain Love call one to recognize.
This is the spiritual and emotional message that sets the whole universe—the
seven climes and the nine domes of heaven—ringing.
4. ʿAḳlumı itdi perīşān göñlümi ḳıldı ḫarāb

Vażʿ-ı nā-hemvār-ı ʿālem kār-ı bī-tedbīr-i ʿaşḳ
It scrambled my wits,
made ruins of my heart
The disruption of this world
is the disorderly work of love
Love, as we have seen, turns this world on its head. It causes one to cease
relying on one’s bewildered rational mind and turns one’s emotional center
into a jumble of pain and longing. When one becomes a lover, all of a sudden,
this world stops making sense and one is forced to face the logic of that other
(ideal) world.
5. Lerze virdi ʿāleme ṣaldı zemīne zelzele

Ġulġul-i kūs u nefīr-i ṣīt-i ʿālem-gīr-i ʿaşḳ
It set this world atremble,

sent a quake into the ground
The uproar of the pipe and drum
of the world-conquering fame of love
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The onslaught of love (Captain Love?) not only scrambles the wits of lov-
ers and breaks their hearts, but it shakes the earth, destroys our faith in the
material world and its solidity. It is worth noting that a major psychological
component of Ottoman warfare was the terrifying rumble of great kettledrums
carried by deaf horses, which signaled the moment of an assault.
6. Gerden-i mihre eşiʿa ṭaḳdı altun silsile

Sīm-tenler ideli dīvāne-i zencīr-i ʿaşḳ
The rays attached a golden chain

to the neck of the sun
Making the silver-skinned ones,
madmen in the chains of love
After evoking the ultimate power of love’s extended assault on worldly

powers—the strong man, the wealthy man, the rational man, the army of
men—and on material reality itself, the poet turns to lovers and beloveds, the
victims and warriors of love. The beloveds of this world, the young and silver-
skinned beauties, are attractive and engender love because they remind the
loving soul of the perfection of the ideal forms with which it craves union. The
faces of these beloveds burn with dazzling brilliance resembling the sun, and
like the sun they are surrounded by a corona of rays that the poet compares to
the heavy chains that used to be wrapped around madmen to encumber them
and protect the populace as they wandered about. This is a reminder that the
people of love are dangerous. The lovers and beloveds are maddened by love
and not responsible for their actions.
7. Zaḫmumuz ḫūnı mey-i gül-gūnumuzdur giceler

Bezmümüzde şemʿ-i rūşen şuʿle-i şemşīr-i ʿaşḳ
Our wounds’ blood is rose-colored wine

for us in the evenings
In our gathering, a bright candle
is the flame of the scimitar of love
The domain of love in this world—as most Ottoman subjects would know—is
the meclis, the convivial gathering of dear friends (the yārān), beautiful youths,
and beloved patrons. This gathering is the model (the closest reflection of the
ideal) for, and the site of, all social activities in the Ottoman world. It repre-
sents networks of support, the emotional content of critical relationships, and
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an emotional language of such relationships (poetic language). This couplet

also reminds us that the business of desire and the business of war—a primary
occupation of the Ottoman state through the “long” 16th century—are not as
far apart as they might seem, and that the elements of war (wounds and weap-
ons) have their analogues even in the gathering of love.
8. Ḫānḳahdan ṭoġru ʿazm itse n’ola mey-ḫāneye

Bāḳīyi çün böyle irşād eylemişdür pīr-i ʿaşḳ
So what, if from the dervish lodge

he heads straight for the tavern
It is because the ancient master Love
has so guided Baki
Love—conceived of as the drive to attach to a higher order of ideal (perfect)

reality—is only effective when it forces a person out of rational states and into
purely emotional states. Purely emotional states are commonly divided into
two categories: “rapture” (vecd), achieved by intense focus on the Divine gener-
ally produced by dance, music, and choral chanting associated with the der-
vish lodge; and “intoxication” (sükr), achieved by various means from gazing at
a beautiful beloved to actual intoxication caused by alcohol and drugs associ-
ated (metaphorically and actually) with the tavern and the poetic gathering
(meclis). Love, imagined as a mystical adept and guide, urges its disciple to
one or another emotional, irrational, or supra-rational state through which the
disciple can participate in a higher-order connection (association, bonding,
union) with the Ultimately Real.
Baki is not known as a dervish, nor even as a lay adherent of a dervish
lodge of a particular dervish order. The scholar, bureaucrat, or Islamic legal-
ist who, as a poet, takes on the role of dervish has long been a problem for
post-Ottoman Western (and even some Turkish republican) literary scholar-
ship. For more than a century, the general academic response to this problem
has been to regard the mystical content of Ottoman poetry as a convention-
bound rehearsal, in ever more fanciful conceits, of commonplace themes and
vocabulary that are themselves the residue of a long Arabo-Persian tradition
of love poetry, which is supposed to lack a deeply meaningful relation to the
lives of non-dervishes or any noticeable relation to broader structures of social
interaction or government.25 However, the abovementioned recent scholarly
25 For critiques of the tradition, see Andrews, Poetry’s Voice, 3–18; Holbrook, Unreadable
Shores, 1–31.
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attention to the integrated and integrative role of Islamic mysticism, mystics,

and mystical (dervish/sufi) institutions in the growth of urban centers in pre-
Ottoman and early Ottoman times brings into question any easy dismissal of
the elite poet speaking in the persona of a lovestruck dervish. We should begin
taking seriously the participation of many quite thoughtful, creative, and highly
educated people—women as well as men—in the production and consump-
tion of poetry grounded in a distinctly mystical (Neoplatonist) worldview.26 At
the same time, the close relations between the Ottoman sultans in the forma-
tive period of the Empire (approximately the “long” 16th century) and dervish
masters and dervish thought will begin to take on added significance.
2 Poetry and the Dervishes
At court in the newly Ottoman Istanbul, the volatile and contested place of
the dervish orders highlights not only the spiritual and political significance of
the dervish shaykhs and their followers, but also the value of associating the
political center—the royal court and capital—with the reigning spiritual cos-
mology. Mehmed II is said to have strictly regulated the construction of der-
vish lodges in the new capital, which seems to indicate a desire to manage the
placement and activities of influential social and political actors.27 He was a
strong supporter of the Zeyniyye and its shaykh Muslihüddin Mustafa (Shaykh
Vefa).28 The place of the Zeyniyye at court was challenged upon the accession
of Mehmed’s son, Bayezid II, who supported his longtime allies, the Halveti
dervishes from Amasya, where he had governed as a prince.29 The Zeyniyye’s
fall from favor also opened the door to Istanbul for the Naqshbandi order and
the Bektaşi, who later became the source of spiritual guidance for the influen-
tial janissary corps. Sultan Selim I (r. 1512–20) produced a poetry collection of
mystical verse in Persian. Süleyman I (r. 1520–66) patronized the antinomian
rejectionist dervish, Hayali. Murad III (r. 1574–95) kept records of his dreams
which he shared with his dervish master, Shaykh Şüca.30 As Istanbul began to
take its place as a cultural, social, political, and spiritual microcosm of a
26 Aguirre-Mandujano, “The Social and Intellectual World”. For the role of poetesses in
the canon, see Andrews & Kalpaklı, The Age of Beloveds, 195–216 and Didem Havlıoğlu’s
monograph on the renowned poetess Mihri Hatun (d. 1506), Havlıoğlu, Mihrî Hatun.
27 Babinger, Mehmed, 412–16.
28 Kafescioğlu, “Ottoman Capital in the Making”, 105–20; Karataş, “City as Historical
Actor”, 90.
29 Ibid., 109–13.
30 Murad III, Kitābü’l-Menāmāt, ed. Felek, 1–39.
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widespread and spreading empire, spiritual legitimacy became a contested

issue at the highest levels of the royal court, and battles involving legalists,
scholars, and high-ranking administrators were often fought with weapons of
poetry on the battlefields of love.
For example, Ahmed Pasha, widely considered to be one of the founders
of the elite Ottoman poetry tradition, was likely born in Edirne, capital of the
empire prior to the conquest of Constantinople in 1453. His father served as
a military judge under Murad II, one of the most powerful positions in the
empire, and aided the sultan in writing his correspondence and edicts.31 Most
likely thanks to his father’s position, Ahmed Pasha had access to the court,
and so eventually became preceptor and boon companion of Murad’s heir
Mehmed II.32 Yet, due to intrigues at the court and accusations regarding
his abuse of power and improper moral behavior, he was later removed from
his position. While we have no exact date for his dismissal, we know he spent
some time in prison, either in Istanbul’s Yedikule Fortress (Fortress of the
Seven Towers) or within the imperial palace.33 He was subsequently exiled to
Bursa. He never returned to the capital but remained in Bursa until his death in
1497. Despite Ahmed Pasha’s literary renown, historians of Ottoman literature
have never been able to establish a clear chronology of his life.34 Nonetheless,
three panegyric ḳasīdes (odes) in his dīvān (collected poems) seem to indicate
clearly that when under suspicion, he sought the support of the dervishes,
most likely Shaykh Vefa’s Zeyniyye.35 One of these poems is the following:
Cennetüñ ḳapısıdur ḫalveti dervīşlerüñ

Yir-ü-gök ṭapusıdur ḫıdmeti dervīşlerüñ36
31 Mecdi, Ḥadāyıḳü’ş-Şakāyīk, 216. This is the Ottoman translation of Taşköprüzade Ahmed

b. Mustafa’s Shaqā’iq al-Nuʿmānīyah fī ʿulamā’ al-Dawlah al-ʿUthmānīyah (Crimson
Peonies Concerning the Ulema of the Ottoman State). Mecdi’s translation offers consider-
able additions to some biographical entries in Taşköprüzade. The information about the
scribal responsibilities of Ahmed Pasha’s father appears only in the Ottoman translation.
32 Katip Çelebi also cites Ahmed Pasha as one of Mehmed II’s preceptors. For a transcription
of his chronological tables, see Katip Çelebi, Kashf al-ẓunūn, trans. Carli, 195.
33 For an English summary of Ahmed Pasha’s biography, see Gibb, Ottoman Poetry, vol. 2,
40–58. Gibb presents a clear summary of the conflicting versions of Ahmed Pasha’s bio-
graphical entry in the major biographical dictionaries of poets of the 16th century.
34 See Karabey, Ahmet Paşa, 11–12. For Ahmed Pasha’s preeminent position among Anatolian
poets in the 15th century, see Tarlan, “Fatih Devri”, 8–15. See also surveys of Ottoman litera-
ture such as Köprülü, “Turks: Literature”, EI1, 938–59; Kut, “Turkish Literature in Anatolia”,
25–45; Tekin, “Othmanli: Literature”, 210–14.
35 Aguirre-Mandujano, “Poetics of Empire”.
36 Ahmet Paşa, Divanı, ed. Tarlan, 20.
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The dervishes’ retreat

is the doorway to paradise
The dervishes’ service
is their duty to heaven and earth
The beloved object of desire

shows his countenance
To those who yearn for Him, in the mirror
of the dervishes’ faces
Passing out of this dwelling of dark dust,

the blessing
Of the dervishes pitches its tent
in the field of space-less void
Spontaneously it spills forth

a thousand sun-cakes for an ant
When the bounty of the dervishes
sets out its feast of blessings
May the lord of the spheres make

a crown from the dirt at its feet
For whomever the exalted dervishes
call “my servant”
Even if he be the least mote, may he become

a sun of felicity
Upon whom should fall
the majestic gaze of the dervishes
They have found, in the nook of renunciation

a treasure of contentment
The dervishes’ retirement is a position of power
from which there is no dismissal
To the eyes of those who see only surface

it seems like suffering
But what is pain for the dervishes
is the heart and soul’s delight
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I hope this black heart will

become as pure gold
For I know the dervishes’ conversation
to be an alchemy
O Ahmed, if you desire

the water of eternal life
Come, look! Here is the dust
at the door of the dervishes’ retreat
Is it any wonder if this bird of praise

flies up to the Lotus tree of Paradise
For bound to its pinion are
the praiseworthy deeds of the dervishes
Here, the troubled bureaucrat-poet reflects both the prevailing mystical cos-
mology and the power of the dervishes and dervish thought in the political
landscape of the new Ottoman City of Cities. The dervishes serve the earthly
city and its inhabitants while also serving the Divine, which, in the role of the
ultimate beloved, reveals itself in the ecstatic faces of the dervishes to those
who long passionately for something missing in their lives. These dervishes
have divested themselves of attachments to this world—the dwelling of dark
dust—and live on a higher plane of existence, free from the limits of time and
space, from which placeless place they can shower endless spiritual patron-
age on their disciples. In their detachment, they have achieved a power and
position that cannot be touched by this-worldly powers—a power much
to be envied and sought by a bureaucrat facing or having experienced dis-
missal from office. Concealed beneath the surface suffering of their chosen
poverty, self-abnegation, and rituals of physical self-abuse is a transcendent
joy and contentment. In contrast, the poet, his heart black with sin or burnt
black in fires of worldly desire, seeks redemption or transmutation that would
result in a connection with the eternal, unchanging spiritual ground of mate-
rial existence.
Love always has, as its true object, an ideal beloved beyond the this-worldly
objects of erotic attraction. From the perspective of the Imperial City, the link
to the dervish orders is illuminating because it immediately binds the court
directly to the prevailing mystical view; but, in practice, the court itself is
seen as closer to the ideal analogue of a wide variety of human interactions.
Thus, activities in which the sultan participates as the central figure, along
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with favored courtiers and powerholders surrounding the sultan, are echoed
throughout the city by people at all social levels in rituals, attitudes, and enter-
tainments, all of which are endowed with meaning by poetry.37
As a first step in demonstrating how an extensive love poetry tradition
thickly populated with familiar tropes can shape the psychological perspec-
tive of the Imperial City, let us take a close look at one couplet (the maṭlaʿ)
of a love poem embedded in a 56-couplet panegyric to Sultan Bayezid II. The
author, Cafer Çelebi, imperial chancellor, madrasa teacher, and poet, belonged
to the provincial elite of Amasya in western Anatolia. His father, Taci Beg,
was appointed tutor to Bayezid II, who was then prince-governor in Amasya.
Cafer Çelebi grew up close to the prince’s circle before moving to Bursa to be
trained by some of the most renowned scholars of the empire. He held various
appointments as a madrasa teacher before reaching the court and becoming
imperial chancellor. He served under both Bayezid II and Selim I, becoming
a highly respected scribe, an influential statesman, and a generous patron of
poets. After rumors spread of his involvement in a rebellion of the janissaries
against Selim I, he was stripped of his position and executed in 1516.38
Rişte rişte itdi cānı ġamzen ey sīmīn-beden

Kim ide sen dilbere cān riştesinden pīrehen39
Oh silver-body, your glance

tore the soul to shreds
That you might make a heart-thief’s shirt
of soul-threads
37 See, for instance, the poetic circles around princes and notables that imitated the impe-
rial court in İpekten, Edebi Muhitler. In a different context, Metin Kunt has also surveyed
the different ways in which households of notable families, including the ulema, emu-
lated practices and configurations of the imperial household: see Kunt, “Royal and Other
Households”, 103–15. For references to activities bringing together different confessional
communities and social classes, see Andrews & Kalpaklı, The Age of Beloveds, 59–84. In
addition, note that the Sephardic communities transplanted to Istanbul likely brought
with them a literary tradition already strongly influenced by the Arabic literature of
Muslim Spain and the literature of the Christian communities that was surely to some
extent shaped by their own Neoplatonic (and Petrarchan) influences. Nonetheless, these
mutual influences sadly remain an understudied topic. For the interaction between Jews
and sufis in medieval period, see Russ-Fishbane, “The Jewish-Sufi Encounter”, 342–56.
38 Erünsal, Life and Works, XXIII–XLVI.
39 Ibid., 66–71, couplet 19.
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This couplet describing the ruler as a beloved could have equally served
well were it addressed to a beautiful boy (or girl), or even to the Deity in a sufi
context. The couplet’s diction plays on the words for “thread” (rişte) and “soul”
(cān). In the first half-line, the beloved’s glance has torn the lover’s “soul” to
shreds (rişte rişte itdi), in which case “soul” means “life”. The beloved is “killing”
the lover. In the second half-line, “soul” and “thread” are brought together in
the compound “soul-thread” which refers metaphorically to the rather simple
understanding of the mystical concept of “the unity of unqualified being”
(vaḥdet-i vücūd), namely that human beings are born out of a primal unity
into a state of separation. But they retain, in the form of what is understood
as the “soul”, a link—resembling a “thread”—that attaches them to the lost
unity. If one can see beyond the attractive illusions of material existence, one
will come to realize that feelings of passionate love, intense longing, burning
desire, the irresistible pull of the beloved’s allure are, at the core, the desire of
the “soul-thread” to draw itself back into Divine Unity. It is the beloved (or the
Beloved) who is the “heart-thief” and who tears away or burns away the coating
of material form, of “life” in this world, and who reveals the true nature of the
eternal existing that lies hidden within us all—like the wick or “thread” within
the wax of a candle burning with passion’s flame. And, in the poet’s metaphor,
the “soul-threads” of many lovers are woven together to create the “shirt” that
cloaks the beloved in the willingness, in fact, eagerness of lovers (and courtiers
and soldiers and subjects) to sacrifice their lives for love.
The fact that this couplet addresses the beloved object of praise directly is
also meaningful. We must remember that the primary mode of consuming
Ottoman poetry by far is hearing it recited in an assembly of some kind. And
the prototype of the assembly is the meclis (salon), the gathering of special
friends for conversation, music, poetry, food and drink, and the contemplation
of attractive servants—i.e. a primary site for social networking. For instance,
consider the early 16th-century poet, Mesihi, who made his way from Prishtina
in today’s Kosovo to Istanbul where he had some early success as a poet and
boon companion, but later fell from favor and died in poverty. Mesihi wrote
a 32-couplet ḳasīde in praise of the imperial treasurer Bedrüddin Beg, which
begins with the description of a literary salon in which Bedrüddin, the guest of
honor, is given the role of beloved:
Meclis-i ḫāṣ içre bir şeb bir nice ehl-i kemāl

ʿAyş iderdi vü yanardı ḳarşuda şemʿ-i cemāl40
40 Mesihi, Mesîhî Dîvânı, ed. Mengi, 56.
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One night, in an elite private salon,

several of the intelligentsia
Made merry and face-to-face with them
burned a candle of beauty
Some recounted lovelocks on faces

that would raise the dead
Some created images of union
with the paradise of the beloved
Sometimes they’d recite a sweet lyric

about the beloved’s lip
Sometimes that gazelle-eye
would gaze lion-like bold
That monarch of beauty ordered

that each compose a gazel
And I, bowing to that command,
did my part with this poem
Hey, on that world-reflecting cheek,

why the boy’s beard and mole?
On the mirror of Alexander,
the dust of ennui has no role
The gathered elite friends entertain their beloved guest—the “candle of

beauty”—with cultured conversation about love and the beloved, larded
with poetry. At one point, he asks them each to extemporize a love poem, and
Mesihi responds with a seven-couplet lyric of which only the first (maṭlaʿ) cou-
plet appears above. What might be striking to modern, non-Ottoman observ-
ers is that the poet addresses the beloved object of praise (the treasurer) as if
he were a lovely boy with a smooth shining cheek like the famous mirror of
Alexander, in which could be seen everything that happens in the world. He
then wonders why this pure boyish cheek is marred by adolescent peach-fuzz
and a tiny mole, which he compares to dust (of bored depression) on a mir-
ror. Given that the beloved in this context is a mature adult, certainly with
aging skin and a full dark (or greying) beard, the comparison might seem to
be a ridiculous hyperbole of patently absurd and unrealistic praise. However,
this gathering, this poetry, this beautiful young beloved, this cheek and lip and
eye and hair, repeat themselves over and over again in many thousands upon
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thousands of poems, in gatherings of friends, in dervish ceremonies, in homes,

parks, and private and public gardens, from the mansions of the great to the
private quarters of the sultan’s palace. The imperial city is alive with gatherings
and the poems that both describe them and impose structure and meaning
upon them. When the poet and the gathered friends and patronage seekers
look at Bedrüddin they know to look beyond the surface illusion of material
reality and to see, with the eyes of love, the ideal beloved that lies beneath. This
knowledge is theoretically hidden, but it is actually made quite obvious to the
audiences of poetry. For example, consider a few lines from a “poem on poetry”
by the Albanian janissary poet, Taşlıcalı (or Dukaginzade) Yahya (d. c.1582):
Yüzine ṭutmuş niḳāb-ı ḫaṭṭı Yūsuf-vār şiʿr

Şīvesindendür ḥicāb ile ider güftār şiʿr41
Poetry holds the veil of its peach-fuzz script

over its face like Joseph
Poetry speaks its words by concealment
for that is its allure
If the beloved would listen to my wailing
he’d know the pain I suffer
If he would read poetry
he’d be aware of my condition
Poetry, from Yahya’s perspective, is like a beautiful beloved—represented

by Joseph, the most beautiful and modest of men.42 It hides its lovely face
beneath the veil of its boy’s peach-fuzz beard (of script, because the word ḫaṭṭ
means both “peach-fuzz beard” and “writing/script”) and the “concealment”
is what makes it so attractive. He then goes on to describe what poetry does
not conceal:
My divan became a personal confession

for the maddened lover
Poetry always makes apparent
the pain of the masters of pain
41 Yahya Bey, Divan, ed. Çavuşoğlu, 349–50. For other examples, see Andrews & Kalpaklı,
“The Ottoman Ghazal”, 357–65.
42 The Quranic story of the Biblical prophet Joseph was a popular theme in Islamic, and in
particular Persian and Ottoman, literature. The motifs of the story would have been evi-
dent to most Ottoman audiences. For an introduction to Joseph’s story and its adaptation
in Turkish, see Hickman, Joseph, 1–32.
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As if its every line

is a tongue of the occult
Poetry reveals itself
from the world of ideal forms
3 Habits of Mind
In the case of the Ottoman Empire and its imperial center in the 15th and 16th
centuries, the ubiquity of “love” poetry cries out for a descriptive term that
more clearly encompasses cases of “longing” that range from sexual desire to
a desperate need for the protection of a powerful patron.43 Almost every lit-
erate person seems to be creating “love” poetry or, more meaningfully, “long-
ing for association/bonding” poetry. For example, consider a ġazel by Sultan
Mehmed II, composed under the pen name Avni:
Bir şāha kul oldum ki cihān aña gedādur

Bir māha dutuldum ki yūzi şems-i duhādur44
I was enslaved by a ruler

to whom the world was a beggar anchorite
I was captivated by a moon
whose face was sunshine bright
Hey you, disaster! If loving you

is my mortal sin
Don’t just kill me with cruelty
for love is bad enough a blight
If I set the flame of a sigh

on my head, this is right
It’s my guide to the beloved’s threshold
in separation’s dark night
43 In a different context, William Reddy has suggested such an alternative for the mak-
ing of romantic love. Benefitting from modern psychology, he explains that “the long-
ing for association is an ‘affect’ or ‘emotion’”; see Reddy, Romantic Love, 6–9. For a first
step towards a theory of emotional ecology in the Ottoman case, see Andrews, “Ottoman
Love”, 21–47. For an extended discussion of the use of psychology, anthropology, and emo-
tions in historical research see Rosenwein & Cristiani, History of Emotions.
44 Mehmed II, Fâtih Dîvâni, ed. Doğan, 68.
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Since your face was compared to the holiday,

your hair to the Night of Power
All my morns and evenings
are holidays and holy nights
My sighs have reached to the sky

my tears cover all the earth
Both earth and sky become
witnesses to my plight
Avni, I’ve loved that heart-thief

and thus oppressed my heart
If I am punished with cruelty
and torment, it is right
The turning of the spheres

made me fall for a heart-thief
In the beams of whose face
sun and moon are but a star’s distant light
Or consider an example from Baki:
Rāh-ı çeşmümden dile tāb-ı ruḫ-ı cānān gelür

Ḫâne-i cāna żiyā-yı mihr-i nūr-efşān gelür45
Through the pathway of my eyes

comes the brilliance of the beloved’s spirit
Into the house of the soul
comes the light-scattering rays of the sun of love
Bonding with the beloved

is what I would buy whole heartedly
If it would cost a thousand soul-coins for a moment,
it comes cheap
Running throughout these examples is a core of words related to attachment:

“enslavement, captivity” (ḳul olmaḳ, esīr olmaḳ), “bonding or union” (vaṣl),
“separation, lack of attachment” (hecr, fırāḳ). In fact, this core represents a
45 Baki, Bâkî Dîvânı, 19–20.
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norm that manifests itself in the vast majority of Ottoman poems for genera-
tions. It is perhaps not surprising that a cultural industry generating a steady
stream of “attachment” or “bonding” (or “love”) poems with a restricted vocab-
ulary of tropes should develop in a society and capital where slaves and cap-
tives (e.g., the ḳul) wielded tremendous power and represented the epitome
of self-sacrificial attachment and devotion (e.g., the janissaries), and where
influential mystical religious assemblages and leaders held out the promise of
a direct metaphysical attachment to the Divine.46 Modern cultural psychol-
ogy and neuroscience indicates that the brain itself and its responses can be
shaped not only by macro ecological and social conditions (e.g., climate, social
mobility, the economy), but by the repetition of “cultural tasks” that enforce
cultural values by encouraging the spontaneous performance of culturally
scripted behaviors and attitudes.47
Particularly in the Ottoman case, there was a powerful impetus to attach-
ment to or bonding with a single absolute monarch from a single family, who
was believed to be the sole representative on earth of a unitary and omni-
present God. Also, at the power center of Ottoman society in the “long” 16th
century, there was a slave (ḳul) army made up of individuals who, as early ado-
lescents, were conscripted from non-Muslim rural communities and from cap-
tives in war, and who went through an educational process directed at bonding
them to the monarch and their military units through the acquisition of well-
defined values and cultural tools. A cadre of these elite slaves (slaves trained
as part of the sultan’s household) were elevated to the most powerful admin-
istrative positions in the empire, which made extreme (emotionally loaded,
self-sacrificial) attachment a value emulated even by non-slave members of
the scribal, legal, and educational elites. Because the state lacked a powerful
hereditary nobility, and because a new sultan’s male siblings were executed
upon his accession, bonding with the person of the monarch was focused and
valued to an unusual degree. Discursively, at least in the ideal representation of
the binary sultan-subject, social mobility and economic success were depen-
dent on developing bonds to individuals at higher levels in a power hierarchy
directly descending from the ruler (intisāb).
The situation of a prolific poetic tradition, a feature of almost every sig-
nificant social event and one that focused on an intense emotional desire for
attachment and on the agonizing existential fear of being unattached or sepa-
rated, appears to conform closely to the role of a cultural task as understood
by cultural neuroscientists. The task, in this case, is to pattern the brain to
46 See Andrews & Kalpaklı, “The Ottoman Ghazal”.

47 Kitayama & Tompson, “Future of Cultural Neuroscience”, 92–101.
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construct an emotional framework for group cohesion centered on the sultan

and his court, and a script for gatherings of every kind at every level of soci-
ety from the court to the janissary corps, to guilds, dervish orders, and groups
of friends picnicking on the grass. It also connects the emotional universe of
everyday life and love and desire in all their forms to a spiritual cosmology that
imagined fundamental needs for attachment and painful feelings of separa-
tion as grounded in a primal separation from bonding with the Divine One. As
Baki, Istanbul’s sultan of poets said:
Sīne mecrūḥ-ı ġam-ı ġurbet ü efgār-ı firāḳ

Dil esīr-i elem-i hecr ü giriftār-ı firāḳ48
My breast is wounded by the grief of alienation

and the gall of separation
My heart is a prisoner of the pain of abandonment
and a prisoner of separation
If now and again my bloody tears flow

from my eyes, what wonder is it
For my heart is shredded by the dagger
of the torment of separation
The caravan of peace and patience

has departed for the land of annihilation
Lighting its way on the road
with the torch of the fires of separation
The lover, sorely afflicted,

becomes so completely worthless that
He is, in the end, sold for nothing
by the merchant in the bazaar of separation
Dry lipped, his two eyes watching

for the water of bonding with you,
On the bolster of grief lies Baki,
sickened by separation
48 Baki, Bâkî Dîvânı, 19–20, 251.
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- 978-90-04-46856-6
Chapter 27
Istanbul Elites and Political Writing

Linda T. Darling
The early modern period saw a new development in the Ottoman literature
of political thought, one perhaps unique to the Ottomans. In the middle of
the 16th century writers introduced a new genre of political literature called
works of advice (naṣīḥatnāmes). This genre grew out of the earlier mirrors for
princes, political works that portrayed the ideal state or ruler, whose virtues
would be reflected in the actual ruler as he looked into or read these books.
What was different about the advice works was that they did not present an
ideal; they criticized, sometimes vehemently, the flaws and failings in the real
state (as they imagined it) and offered suggestions for improvements. They
became the characteristic genre of political writing in the period between the
mid-16th century and the mid-17th, a century of difficulties for the Ottomans,
when climate change combined with a military revolution, monetary distur-
bances, and social upheaval to create an atmosphere of crisis.
The authors of these works used to be considered candid observers of
Ottoman decline, and a narrative of deterioration and fall based on their com-
plaints was widely accepted, both by contemporary Ottomans and by modern
scholars.1 These authors, however, were not dispassionate observers of their
times. They were current or retired officials and administrators with close
connections to the factional politics of their day; in fact, the several anony-
mous works were probably authored by officials still working and anxious to
avoid repercussions. They wrote their works to support a particular political
point of view and to blame the opposing faction for the problems the state
was experiencing.2
The authors of political advice rarely discussed the physical city of Istanbul;
their attention was on the governing and military elites and their behavior. This
was a time of portentous political and social changes, during which a medieval
polity organized for war transformed into a major early modern empire, one
of the era’s great powers, with war as only one of its many concerns. However,
most of the political officials were resident in Istanbul, and their writing could
1 Lewis, “Some Reflections on the Decline of the Ottoman Empire”; idem, “Ottoman Observers
of Ottoman Decline”.
2 Abou-El-Haj, Formation of the Modern State.

698 Darling
not help but reflect the relationship between the palace, the seat of govern-
ment, and the city. Istanbul was their professional center, the location where
their careers developed, and the place where they continued to return, even
if their posts were in the provinces. Their attitudes toward the city emerge
from their writing, even though it was not the subject of their works.
Although it has been decades since Rifa’at Abou-El-Haj showed that the
advice works were not objective analyses of Ottoman conditions, scholars still
study them most frequently as abstract collections of ideas about Ottoman
governance.3 The tone of the naṣīḥatnāmes is abstract, but the works were
not written in the abstract; they were written as responses to specific situa-
tions, often ones in which the authors were personally embroiled. They do
present the problems they discuss in general terms, and usually they do not
name the persons deemed responsible for them, as they were no doubt very
powerful officials. The occasional named individual was probably a factional
enemy, and most likely one who was not in a position to retaliate. The del-
eterious situations they describe were delineated with the ostensible intent
that the recipients of the advice works—sultans and grand viziers—would
enact measures to counter the problems they identified and punish the indi-
viduals they held responsible. Although the people and events they refer to so
obliquely may not be known to us, we can be sure that their immediate audi-
ence understood the references.
The authors, moreover, present their complaints as problems of the empire
as a whole, rather than of any specific place. Some of the authors were from
Istanbul, others from the provinces; some spent their careers largely or wholly
in Istanbul, others had careers in the far-flung reaches of the empire. The peo-
ple they thought to regulate were also divided between those based in Istanbul
and the provincially based. Much of the authors’ attention is concentrated on
the provinces, and they do not seem interested in isolating the capital as such.
Still, it is possible to dig out some of their views on Istanbul as a center of gov-
ernment and on relations between the palace and the city, topics key to the
authors’ lives. In the case of the works that are not anonymous, the authors’
biographies may reveal aspects of Istanbul’s role in their lives and thought and,
by extension, in the lives of thousands of elite and semi-elite Ottomans.
The main issue confronting the authors of the naṣīḥatnāmes was the condi-
tion of the elite, to which, as officials, they also belonged. The Ottoman popu-
lation was traditionally divided into two groups: on the one hand, the elite or
ʿaskerī, the “military”—including also the officials, the administrators, and the
3 Sariyannis, A History of Ottoman Political Thought; H. Yılmaz, Caliphate Redefined; both these
works contain extensive bibliographies of Ottoman political writing.
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Istanbul Elites and Political Writing 699
educated ulema, the ruling group in the empire’s early centuries—and on the
other hand, the reʿāyā, the taxpaying class, including both peasants and urban
dwellers, whose tax revenue supported the ʿaskerī. While the military rank and
file did not belong to the high elite and the chance of their promotion to that
level was small, they were at least lesser elite, as they had privileges denied
to the reʿāyā, such as exemption from taxation.4 In a period of tumultuous
change, when these social divisions were being challenged, the advice writ-
ers sought to regulate the behavior of the ʿaskerī—in their relations with each
other, with the sultan, and with the reʿāyā, the townsmen and peasants.5 The
place of Istanbul in the lives and careers of the elite was in flux, as the ruling
class changed from a medieval military leadership to an early modern admin-
istrative, financial, and cultural elite. The early modern elite multiplied and
diversified and became interconnected with all aspects of Ottoman society. As
the role of Istanbul in shaping the elite career changed, so too did the elite’s
perception of Istanbul and its place in the larger empire.
In the early centuries of the empire, the Ottoman social system was shaped
by the tīmār system (the system of grants of land revenue to cavalrymen,
sipāhīs) and its relationships and rhythms.6 Tīmār-holding sipāhīs spent the
campaigning season, March to October, in the field with the sultan and the
other half of the year on their tīmārs in the provinces, overseeing agriculture
and collecting taxes, while the sultan retired to the capital with his household,
his administrative staff, and his janissary bodyguard. The sipāhī army com-
prised the bulk of both the high elite and lesser elite, and the capital played a
quite minor role in their lives. As the janissaries grew in number and became
a more important part of the army and the administration, the social system
began to be shaped by the janissary career and its rhythms. The janissaries
were independent of the agricultural calendar. They began their careers in the
capital; having been collected in the devşirme, a periodic roundup of promis-
ing non-Muslim youths, they were selected, schooled, and trained in the sul-
tan’s palaces. Many of them then left the city to take up military or governing
positions in the provinces, but a substantial number stayed in the capital in
palace jobs or military labor.7 The best of them were eventually brought back
to Istanbul to end their careers as viziers or in other high positions. Istanbul
was both their training ground and their ultimate goal.
4 Conceptually, they might correspond to the gentry in the European system.

5 For more on this change, see Tezcan, The Second Ottoman Empire.
6 Darling, “Istanbul and the Late Sixteenth-Century Ottoman Elite”, 89–97.
7 G. Yılmaz, “The Economic and Social Roles of Janissaries”.
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700 Darling
Unlike the tīmār-holders, whose function on their tīmārs was to oversee and
police the reʿāyā, a job to which their sons would eventually succeed, the janis-
saries had no such clear distinction from the taxpaying class. They originated
from the non-Muslim peasantry, and their distinction from the reʿāyā, once
they left the barracks, consisted of symbolic attributes: the janissary uniform
and their immunity from taxation and local prosecution for their misdeeds.8
They had no authority over the reʿāyā as such and no assurance that their sons
would succeed them, although it is likely that they continually pushed to make
their status hereditary. By the middle of the 16th century they were succeeding
in that aspiration. The janissaries of the provinces were recruiting their broth-
ers and sons, as well as other young men from among the reʿāyā, the taxpay-
ing class, Muslim as well as Christian.9 Moreover, the high political positions
formerly filled by officers of the sipāhī army were now being awarded to the
top level of devşirme recruits.10 By the first half of the 17th century, the janis-
saries in the capital also started being drawn from non-devşirme sources, and
the devşirme, the conscription of non-Muslim boys, gradually fell into disuse.
The common people identified with the janissaries since, although they served
as provincial garrisons and sāncaḳ beys (district governors), they also worked
as urban laborers and were now being recruited from a wide variety of sources
among the common people. The peasants, by their status as the reʿāyā of rural
tīmār-holders, had a primary relationship with a conquering army and a prov-
ince. Foreign or not, the tīmār-holders were the equivalent of local nobility,
provincial in scope, with dominance over the peasants. More widely, however,
the common people, especially the urban working class, shared an identity
with the janissaries that allowed them to identify themselves as members of
a sprawling empire with its center at Istanbul. As the janissaries became more
central to Ottoman governance, the common people made the janissaries
their spokesmen and champions in a way that the tīmār-holders never could
have been.
Istanbul was the home, the center, not only for the sultans but for all the
janissaries, even those who never actually went there; as the sultan’s slaves,
they all belonged to his household. “Registers of important affairs” (müh-
imme defterleri) in the 16th century show that janissaries in the provinces who
committed crimes or were suspected of them were remanded to Istanbul for
8 On the crime of pretending to be a janissary, saplamak, and on the janissaries’ immuni-

ties, see Darling, “Crime among the Janissaries”, 13–34.
9 On janissary recruitment, see Darling, The Janissaries of Damascus in the Sixteenth Century.
10 Kunt, The Sultan’s Servants.
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interrogation and punishment.11 Not just another city, no matter how big or
how beautiful, Istanbul increasingly functioned for the Ottoman subjects as
the capital city of an intercontinental empire. The period of the advice litera-
ture encompasses this change, which was not merely a geographical one.
The first work generally considered to be in the genre of naṣīḥatnāmes is the
Āṣafnāme (Book of Asaph) of former grand vizier Lütfi Pasha (1488–1562).12
Lütfi was conscripted in the devşirme and had a career of increasingly impor-
tant posts in the palace staff before becoming a sāncaḳ bey and beylerbey
(provincial governor) under Selim I (r. 1512–20) and then Süleyman, gaining
experience in government outside Istanbul. He returned to the city to become
a vizier and then grand vizier (1539–41). He wrote the Āṣafnāme in retirement,
probably in the 1550s. He discusses the state in an old-fashioned way, describ-
ing the grand vizier and his relations with the sultan, the conduct of the army
and military campaigns, the management of the treasury, and the control of
the reʿāyā as they had been throughout the century past. He seems most con-
cerned that the social hierarchy be maintained, and that the conditions pre-
vailing when he was grand vizier not be altered by his successors, especially the
grand vizier when he was writing, the sultan’s son-in-law Rüstem Pasha (whom
he does not name). Lütfi Pasha seeks to regulate the relationships of the high
officials, and most of their activities take place in Istanbul, but he does not
discuss Istanbul as a city. This suggests that some aspects of the empire’s social
transformation were visible at that time, but that they were still considered as
aberrations that could be suppressed.
Also written in the 1550s was the anonymous work Kitābu Meṣāliḥi’l-Müslimīn
ve Menāfiʿil-Mü’minīn (Book of the Affairs of the Muslims and the Interests of
the Believers). This work also focuses on officialdom, but more in the style of
a manual, detailing the conditions of the religious, military, and scribal cadres.
It includes a long diatribe on conditions in Istanbul.13 The author especially
chastises the office of the muḥtesib, the market inspector, which is filled by
people who do not do their job.14 The milk is watered, the lamb is half goat
meat, and the fruit! The author complains that the fruit sellers of the city are
marketing unripe fruit.15 It is not really their fault, however; the fault lies with
the shippers who bring the unripe fruit to the city, and beyond them with
the growers who pick the fruit before it ripens, on the excuse that if they wait
11 Darling, “Crime among the Janissaries”.

12 Lütfi Paşa, “Lütfi Paşa Asafnamesi”, trans. Kütükoğlu.
13 Anonymous, Kitâbu Mesâlihi’l-Müslimîn, ed. Yücel, 102–03, 114–22.
14 Ibid., 115.
15 Ibid., 102.
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702 Darling
to pick it, it will rot. And “since the inspectors are from among the ordinary
janissary cavalry, no one is afraid of them”.16 The shippers carry this unripe
fruit instead of wood, and the price of wood rises. And in fact, the peasants
are either cultivating or weeding their land and do not transport wood to the
coast for shipping to Istanbul.17 An additional difficulty is a shortage of ships
for bringing in wood and other scarce commodities. In another section the
author bemoans Istanbul’s fires and recommends building shops and ship-
yards of stone instead of wood.18 Finally, in order to ensure the safety of the
road between Istanbul and Edirne, he recommends that villagers along the
route be allowed to arm themselves against bandits.19 The author’s focus on
supplying the city reflects Istanbul’s rapid expansion in mid-century and the
need for infrastructural accommodation. Another anonymous work written in
this period, Ḥırz al-Mülūk (The Stronghold of Kings), includes in its table of
contents a chapter on Istanbul and other cities, but that chapter was appar-
ently never written; the sections that exist cover only the top officials.20 For
more on the city, we may turn to the work of one of the most famous of the
advice writers, Mustafa Âli.
The life of Mustafa Âli (1541–1600) illustrates quite well the role of Istanbul
in the career of the Ottoman elite as their social transformation was taking
place. It is a long and tortuous story, but it is known in detail thanks to his
voluminous writings.21 Here was a person caught in the middle of a change
he deplored, and both his life and his political opinions reveal his dilemma.
Born in Gallipoli, he moved to Istanbul in 1557, where he studied with the son
of the great shaykh al-Islam Ebussuud and met several high-level poets and
statesmen. His presentation of a book of poetry to Prince Selim (later Selim II,
r. 1566–74) at his provincial court in Kütahya won the young poet a post as the
prince’s secretary and launched him on the scribal career path. In that role
he became acquainted with the statesman Lala Mustafa Pasha and became
his private secretary in Erzurum, Aleppo, and Damascus. Even though Mustafa
Âli’s employment kept him in the provinces for decades, the appointment
of his mentor as commander of the Ottoman expedition to Yemen in 1568
embroiled him in the politics of the capital and earned him the disfavor of
powerful men in the opposing faction. They accused Lala Mustafa Pasha of
16 Ibid., 116. The text refers to the fruit growers as “Türkler”. I am grateful to Ali Atabey for
translating portions of this work.
17 Ibid., 125.
18 Ibid., 122.
19 Ibid., 101.
20 Anonymous, Hırz al-Mülûk, ed. Yücel.
21 Mustafa Âli’s life story is drawn from Fleischer, Bureaucrat and Intellectual.
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misconduct and dragged him back to Istanbul for trial, and when the pasha
lost his job, Âli lost his. After the dust settled, Âli found himself assigned to
the equally distant province of Bosnia as a tīmār-holder and secretary to the
sāncaḳ bey, where he stayed, frustrated, for eight years, writing poetry and let-
ters in his spare time. He sent a book of poetry to Murad III (r. 1574–95), whom
he had met as a prince, hoping to be recalled to Istanbul, and when no official
appointment came his way, he returned on his own to be near the court and
attract attention by offering his writings to the sultan and his officials.
Court politics were against Âli, however, and it took him about a year to
land a job, not in the capital but as secretary to the eastern campaign of 1578.
He also received an appointment as tīmār registrar of Aleppo, though he spent
the next two years not in that city but with the army on campaign and only
managed to reside in Aleppo during the winter of his third and fourth years.
This was the time when he wrote his major work of advice, Nüsḥatü’ṣ Ṣelatīn
(Counsel for Sultans), though not in Aleppo but in Van, on the job. That effort
did not result in an invitation to a position in Istanbul, but in 1582 he was asked
to write a letter of congratulations to Prince Mehmed on his circumcision, so
someone in authority knew he was out there and valued his talents.
In 1583, with good recommendations from the governor of Aleppo and
other provincial officials, Âli traveled again to Istanbul to try to obtain a post
in the capital. Although he spent a year in a temporary position, supervising
the production of an illustrated presentation copy of one of his own works,
Nuṣretnāme (Victory Book) on the eastern campaign of 1578/79, he failed
once again to obtain an Istanbul appointment and had to be satisfied with
the finance directorships of Erzurum and then Baghdad. He was not satisfied,
though; the second of these posts was actually a demotion, which must have
tempered his disappointment when he learned after he arrived that one of his
patrons had died and the appointment in Baghdad had been given to someone
else. Unemployed, he spent a year absorbed in the Baghdad cultural scene and
writing letters requesting positions elsewhere. When in 1586 another patron
of his became chief treasurer, Âli journeyed hopefully back to Istanbul, but by
the time he arrived, his patron had been reassigned to Egypt. Without a job
offer, he wrote voluminously. Two years later, he managed to land a provincial
finance directorship, an appointment that lasted a little over a year, after which
he went back again to Istanbul and returned to writing.
Only three years later, in 1592, did Âli finally obtain another position, secre-
tary to the janissary corps, which was quite a comedown from a financial direc-
torship, but after a few months he was given a more prestigious job as registrar
of the Imperial Council (defter emīni). It seemed he had finally set his foot on
the stairway to a career in the central administration. However, at that juncture
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704 Darling
his old political enemy became grand vizier and Âli lost this job as well. His
opponent then left Istanbul on campaign, and Âli managed to get reappointed
as janissary secretary. When Murad III died and Mehmed III (r. 1595–1603)
came to the throne, Âli won and immediately lost (due to political wrangling)
the finance directorship of Egypt, a prestigious and lucrative post. However,
he succeeded in obtaining a lesser directorship with the addition of a post as
sāncaḳ bey to boost the salary. Again his job did not last long, since in the wake
of disturbances in Anatolia, the Istanbul officials reorganized the provincial
administration and eliminated his position, though he soon received another
short-lived provincial post.
Dismissed from that position as well, and on the wrong side of the capital’s
political infighting, Âli finally abandoned his Istanbul ambitions and asked for
permission to retire to Mecca. He gained appointment as sāncaḳ bey of Jeddah
and traveled there via Cairo, where he stayed for a while and wrote a book
about the city. In Jeddah he completed one more book dedicated to the sultan,
and died there in 1600.
Mustafa Âli’s career, as he described it, revolved around the hub of Istanbul,
even though he almost never had the chance to work there. The city attracted
him like a magnet; it was the source of all power, wealth, and opportunity in
the empire. As well, it was the center of culture, of literary, artistic, and reli-
gious life. It was also, in the clichéd term, a snakepit of intrigue, and Âli did
not have a magic touch; more often than not, he ended up on the losing side of
the capital’s factional warfare. The nationalist historiography of the past cen-
tury has emphasized the provinces as separate from the capital, but although
the distances were great, in the 16th century the ties between Istanbul and
the provinces were strong, at least on the elite level.22 What happened in the
provinces was known in Istanbul, and what happened in Istanbul affected
the provinces almost immediately. Âli came and went frequently between
Bosnia and Istanbul when he was stationed there, and he was only one of
many officials and envoys crisscrossing the empire on the improved roads that
Süleyman masterminded.23 Perhaps Âli did not have what it took to navigate
the murky waters of Istanbul’s cutthroat politics, but he kept returning to the
city to increase his visibility, to seek employment, and to participate in its lively
cultural scene.
To discover Mustafa Âli’s own view of Istanbul as a city, it is necessary to
piece together snippets from a number of his writings, as he never described
22 Koh, “The Sublime Post”.

23 Fleischer, Bureaucrat and Intellectual, 61.
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it connectedly in the way he described Cairo.24 What he brings to the reader’s

notice concerning the imperial capital is its palaces, “the New Imperial Palace
and also the Old Imperial Palace…. At the time of previous sultans and glori-
ous kings there was no lofty palace of this expanse, no Abode of Happiness of
such pomp … the İbrahim Pasha Palace, the Sultan Mother Palace, the Palace
of Galata, and the Palace of Üsküdar … the Palace of Edirne.”25 His observation
of the importance of the royal palaces is in keeping with the statement in his
history that ruler and subjects are the central elements in human history, and
one could not exist without the other.26 The sultan, he says in his advice work,
lives all alone in his palace surrounded by several thousand slaves; he lists this
as the first gift of God to the Ottoman sultans that makes them great. It was
not exactly the case, however, as the sultan’s politically active mother, his wife,
and his children lived there with him; it was actually Âli who lived all alone
in the city “without relatives or dependents”.27 Some of the sultan’s slaves, he
notes, had recently become overmighty; Murad III and Mehmed III allowed
themselves to be ruled by their statesmen and influenced by their courtiers,
and power shifted away from the sultans to these officials.28
On officials as a group Âli says very little, as they were the ones among
whom factionalism was rife; but he does allow himself to criticize other
groups. About the harem aghas, the black eunuchs who head the guard and
serve as go-betweens for the powerful women of the Ottoman dynasty, he com-
plains that they buy houses outside the palace and spend time there network-
ing and making social connections. On the young janissaries and palace pages
he has more to say; he criticizes the admission into palace service of ill-bred
and dissolute boys, the association of these young men with people outside
the palace,29 and their dressing like “city boys” and outsiders.30 Young palace
servants apparently ought to keep themselves separate from their contempo-
raries outside the walls, but Âli claims that they even fall in love with outsid-
ers and employ tricks and stratagems to leave the palace and “make mischief”.
Harem girls use the same ploys, along with pretending to be sick and needing
to leave the palace to buy medicine.31 So much for their seclusion in the harem.
24 Mustafa Âli, Description of Cairo, ed. Tietze, 65.

26 Schmidt, Pure Water for Thirsty Muslims, 144.
28 Schmidt, Pure Water for Thirsty Muslims, 154–55, 157.
29 Mustafa Âli, The Ottoman Gentleman, trans. Brookes, 15, 17. See also Mustafa Âli,
Meva’idü’n-Nefa’is, ed. Baysun.
30 Mustafa Âli, The Ottoman Gentleman, trans. Brookes, 140–41.
31 Ibid., 19.
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706 Darling
It appears from Âli’s complaints that in fact there was a busy traffic between
the palace and the city. His criticism of the lavish food and drink served in
the palaces indicates an ongoing commerce in comestibles; his notice that the
divan secretaries take drugs suggests a trade in opiates; and his dismay at the
hundreds of palace craftsmen reveals a flourishing of the arts and an exchange
of the materials employed in them.32
Moreover, “this great city and capital was admired because in it gathered the
educated men of the day and the people learned in the obscure, poets of pure
speech, and fine speakers eloquent of tongue”.33 Âli had studied in Istanbul,
where he met a number of those educated men.34 He was also connected
with sufi circles in the capital and late in life wrote a treatise on mysticism,
although he sometimes exhibited a negative attitude toward sufism.35 He nat-
urally belonged to the city’s literary society, attended its salons, and described
their activities in his writings.36 Among other things, he tells us that the city’s
inhabitants, together with those of Edirne and Bursa, are the most refined,37
and its beardless boys are the most beautiful.38 Istanbul, however, is full of cof-
feehouses frequented by dervishes, gnostics, the indigent, town hooligans, and
janissaries—and some people who just want to drink coffee.39 The working
class is full of people from the provinces, who get rich in Istanbul but do not
pay their taxes.40 On that count, Âli wants everyone to dress in a way proper to
their actual social class rather than according to their degree of wealth. With
respect to the fabric, design, and ornamentation of their clothing, as well as
their behavior and the size of their houses, the lower classes should be easily
distinguishable from the elite, and Âli regrets that the law-books contain no
rules regarding the lifestyles and spending of the various social classes.41
One reason why sartorial propriety worried him so much may have been
that at this time the elite could no longer be distinguished by their behavior;
that is, they were no longer warriors, strong and pure, or well-educated and
upright ulema, but officials, administrators, hangers-on, and power-seekers
without manners or morals. The sharp line between rulers and ruled was
32 Mustafa Âli, Counsel for Sultans, vol. 137, ed. Tietze, 49, 60–61.
34 Fleischer, Bureaucrat and Intellectual, 25.
35 Ibid., 57, 134–36.
36 Ibid., 30–31, 56, 127–28 and n. 55.
38 Ibid., 29.
39 Ibid., 77, 129.
41 Tietze, “Mustafa ‘Ali on Luxury”, 578–79, 581–82.
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blurring, and social mobility was bursting its proper channels and spreading
across the whole of society. While Mustafa Âli began his career full of ambition
and expectations of a satisfying and lucrative career, he ended it in disappoint-
ment and straitened circumstances, bitter not only over his abandoned hopes
for a top position, but over what he saw as the ever-increasing ignorance, favor-
itism, corruption, and criminality of Ottoman officialdom, which he attributes
to the entry of people from the wrong social groups. He describes the Istanbul
of the past as a neat hierarchy of classes and positions, with predictable paths
to the top, whereas the present reality is a fierce scramble for power and wealth
in which no advantage, no stratagem, no trick is so dirty that it cannot be used.
Next to pay attention to Istanbul are two advice writers from the 1620s.42
The anonymous Kitāb-i Müsteṭāb (The Agreeable Book), written most likely
by a devşirme janissary to criticize outsiders in the janissary corps for failing
to uphold the standards of the corps, recounts the processes by which boys
conscripted in the devşirme were formerly assigned to the city’s palaces and
trained, paid, and promoted. The author then describes the expansion of the
corps and the increase of their salaries and bemoans the granting of posi-
tions to unqualified outsiders in return for bribes. Incompetent men thus
gain appointment to office, the treasury becomes empty, and the army loses
battles.43 The older janissaries used to be assigned to protect the vineyards
outside Istanbul’s walls from hooligans; the vineyards are long gone, but the
number of men in the “old janissaries” (korucu) unit has swelled with younger
men trying to avoid going on campaign.44 The janissaries are also responsible
for the transportation of wood from Anatolia to Istanbul across the Bosphorus;
when they go on campaign, wood becomes scarce in the palaces and expensive
in the city.45 Several other corrupt practices attributed to the janissaries and
their officers also have their roots in the increasing involvement of the janissar-
ies in the urban economy. Their involvement is usually attributed to the declin-
ing value of their military salaries, but there was another reason: not only did
they have to supply their own needs for food, clothing, and equipment, but
when there were no campaigns, they were employed by the state as cheap
labor to fulfill its responsibility for the provisioning of Istanbul and other cities.
The 1628 poem by Üveysi, Naṣīḥat-i İslāmbōl (Advice for İslāmbōl/Istanbul)46
paints a picture of an Istanbul that has become more wicked and more
42 Neither İpşirli, “Hasan Kâfî el-Akhisarî ve Devlet Düzenine ait Eseri”, nor Veysi, Hâb-nâme-i
Veysî, discusses Istanbul.
43 Anonymous, Kitāb-i Müsteṭāb, ed. Yücel.
44 Ibid., 9.
45 Ibid., 13.
46 İslāmbōl, “full of Islam”, was a nickname for Istanbul.
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708 Darling
dangerous than in Mustafa Âli’s time. The poet, a son of a tīmār-holder from
Konya about whose career nothing is known, addresses the people of Istanbul,
by which he means the governing elite, the viziers in particular, as they are
responsible for official appointments, distribution of funds, and redress of
complaints. He accuses them of tyranny, faithlessness, mercilessness, greed,
illegality, injustice, alliance with the devil, cruelty, vice, treason, pusillanimity,
thievery, bribery, and more. İslāmbōl may mean full of Islam, but the city is
empty of justice; religious personnel do their jobs only for money, and judges
take bribes. The statesmen also have their eyes on wealth, while men of learn-
ing are impoverished. The viziers are unbelievers, and the real rulers are women
and slave boys (a reference to the queen mothers and wives of the sultans,
who exercise political power in this era, and to the palace pages). The men in
power are Albanian and Bosnian converts rather than born Muslims (that is,
devşirme recruits from the palace school, who fill the high political offices in
place of the officers of the tīmār-holding cavalry). As for the general popula-
tion, they cry and pray for aid, orphans are despoiled of their goods, the court
of justice dispenses fraud, true believers are viewed with scorn, “all the world”
is ablaze (a reference to recent disastrous fires in Istanbul), nobody volunteers
for the army even if they can afford a horse, and the learned are in hiding as are
the saints.47 The author of the Kitāb-i Müsteṭāb may have hoped to influence
the young Osman II (1618–22), but he was deposed the year after that work
was written. When Üveysi wrote his poem, Osman’s successor Murad IV (1524–
1640) was still under age, and leadership lay in the hands of his mother Kösem
and her allies. About this time, advice writers began to wish for a strong sul-
tan who could curb the vices of the men of state. Both these authors describe
the sultans as powerless and the rotting leadership of the great men as having
drastic repercussions on people’s ordinary lives and safety, the viability of the
urban economy, and the chances of obtaining justice.
Their work prepared the ground for Koçi Bey, the most prominent advice
writer of the following decade.48 He was a devşirme recruit from Albania who
(in contrast to Mustafa Âli) spent his entire career in the palace as muṣāḥib
(gentleman-in-waiting, royal companion) to two sultans, Murad IV and
İbrahim (1640–48), for each of whom he wrote a treatise of advice. Although
he never worked outside the intimate quarters of the palace, he wrote about
problems in provincial and finance administration with the tone of an expert.
Much of his information, and even his rhetoric, on the janissaries was cop-
ied from Kitāb-i Müsteṭāb, so it is likely that his pronouncements on the tīmār
47 Üveysi, “Ermahnungen an Islambol”, trans. von Diez, 249–74; Gibb, Ottoman Poetry, vol. 3,
214–18.
48 Koçi Bey’s dates are not known, but his works appeared in 1630 and 1640.
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system and imperial finances were also cribbed from reports submitted to the
sultans and viziers. In other words, Koçi Bey, although he has been cited as an
authority by later scholars, had no governing experience nor an independent
viewpoint. Rather, he reflected back what people in the palace heard from peti-
tioners and officials, who were, as Mustafa Âli tells us, “not disinterested”.49 For
example, he apparently thought there were no tīmār-holders in 1630—şimdī
ehl-i tīmār bi’l-külliye yoḳ oldı (“now the tīmār-holders are all gone”)—which
suggests that he had not read the tīmār registers. The detailed (mufaṣṣal) tahrīr
surveys, which estimated rural revenues for allocation to tīmār-holders, were
no longer being made, but the daily tīmār bestowal registers (tīmār rūznāmçe
defterleri) as well as the few remaining summary registers (icmāl defterleri)
from those years indicate that many tīmārs were still being awarded and name
and describe the new recipients.50 Koçi Bey recommended that the sultan “go
back” to awarding tīmārs to the sons of tīmār-holders, but an examination of
the records shows that the sons of tīmār-holders had always averaged less than
half of the sipāhīs, and sometimes only a third.51
Despite these inaccuracies, there are things we can learn about Istanbul
from Koçi Bey’s presentation. One thing that leaps to the eye is the increas-
ing diversity of the population and the integration of that population into the
imperial mechanism. One of Koçi Bey’s main complaints is that the janissary
corps has become corrupted by the admission of a long list of outsiders. By
the time he wrote his treatise, the tīmār system was no longer the core of the
army, the main system of governance, or the primary route to high office; it had
been replaced in those functions by the janissary corps, which garrisoned the
empire’s cities and its frontiers, and from whose officers the generals, gover-
nors, and viziers were usually drawn in this period. Becoming janissaries gave
the “outsiders” access to high positions, wealth, ʿaskerī status, and powerful
patronage networks. And who were these outsiders? According to Koçi Bey,
they were “upstarts, those who said ‘there is profit here’”, relatives of existing
janissaries, city boys, peasants, Turks, gypsies, Persians, Kurds, Jews, atheists,
foreigners, Laz, Yürüks, muleteers, cameleers, porters, syrup sellers, brigands,
pickpockets, and firefighters.52 While it is not necessarily the literal truth that
50 See Howard, “The Ottoman Timar System and Its Transformation”; Soyudoğan,
“Reassessing the Timar System”.
51 Darling, “Nasîhatnâmeler, İcmal Defterleri, and the Timar-Holding Ottoman Elite”; idem,
“Nasîhatnâmeler, İcmal Defterleri, and the Timar-Holding Ottoman Elite, II”.
52 References to Koçi Bey in order of appearance: Koçi Bey, Koçi Bey Risalesi, ed. Kurt, 12,
31–32, 40, 42–43. By Turks, here, he means peasants, workers, and nomads; Laz are a nega-
tively regarded ethnic group from the Black Sea coast, and Yürüks are nomads.
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710 Darling
all these types of people wangled their way into the janissary corps, they must
all have been present in the urban population to be represented in such a way.
True or false, this claim does illustrate that the people entering the janissary
corps came from a variety of backgrounds. By the time Koçi Bey wrote this
treatise, devşirme recruitment was in abeyance, and the Albanians, Bosnians,
Serbians, Bulgarians, Greeks, and Armenians who formerly made up the janis-
sary corps were being supplemented by Turks, Kurds, Arabs, Hungarians,
Circassians, urbanites of various stripes, and their own relatives.53 What this
indicates is not the corruption of a “pure” janissary corps but the integration
of all these groups into the Ottoman population and military-political system,
into the lesser elite, and potentially into the high elite as well. Men like the
Albanian Koçi Bey saw diminishing opportunities for their own groups in the
face of this diverse competition.
Koçi Bey also describes new janissary units created to accommodate the
outsider recruits, which would suggest that their entry into the corps had offi-
cial sanction. These include the āġā çırāġı, the agha’s apprentices (men cho-
sen outside the devşirme), a unit established by Bayezid II (1481–1512) in the
late 15th century;54 the ferzend-i sipāhī, sons of cavalrymen, a unit founded by
a janissary scribe named Aksarayi Mehmed Efendi; and the admission of the
firefighters in 1582 by the commander of the janissaries, Ferhad Agha.55 At the
same time (or, as Koçi Bey claims, because of this), the size of the janissary
corps increased; but then, so did that of many of the other groups of salaried
state servants, such as the çavūşes (messengers, pursuivants) and the palace
cavalry regiments. He tells us that between 1574 and 1630, the salaried state
servants as a whole increased from 36,153 to 92,206 men.56 This had two con-
sequences that were deplorable in his eyes: the drain of their salaries on the
treasury, and (although not all these men were stationed in Istanbul) a notice-
able increase in the ratio of government personnel to the population of the
city, making Istanbul more government-centered than before.
Strangely, the acceptance of outsiders into the janissary corps took place at
a time when career paths were generally becoming more hereditary. Koçi Bey’s
complaints reflect the existence of considerable pressure to give tīmārs only
53 Darling, The Janissaries of Damascus in the Sixteenth Century, 13, 15, 19, 22, 29, 35; the
source is the mühimme registers.
54 Thus, these units were far from illegitimate; Koçi Bey, Koçi Bey Risalesi, ed. Kurt, 45.
Uzunçarşılı, Osmanlı Devleti Teşkilâtından Kapukulu Ocakları, vol. 1, 162–71.
55 Koçi Bey, Koçi Bey Risalesi, ed. Kurt, 56.
56 Ibid., 29–30, 51–52. The figure of 100,000 men is still a small number for the standing
army, palace servants, and governing cadre in a state the size of the Ottoman Empire, but
it equaled around a fourth of the population of Istanbul at that time.
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to sons of tīmār-holders and to allow janissaries’ sons to be recruited into the

corps (but note the complaints about the practice of veledeş, recruiting rela-
tives of janissaries).57 Without evidence as to how many sons of tīmār-holders
actually failed to receive tīmārs, or on the factional ties of the military, it is dif-
ficult to tell whether we are seeing a population growth within the elite, which
would increase competition for positions and make outsiders a threat, or a
move to make military advancement more meritocratic by eliminating those
who complacently expected promotion without performance, or a desire to
cut out the supporters of the author’s factional opponents. Whichever it is,
the conclusion we can draw at this point is that the distinction between the
military men and the general population was decreasing, that the class system
strictly dividing ʿaskerī from reʿāyā was shifting,58 and that men like Koçi Bey,
whose entire career was based on the old social system, were feeling insecure
and threatened. Koçi Bey’s report that tīmārs were being awarded not only
to the deserving but to outsiders and slaves and servants is, however, at least
partly incorrect. In the existing summary registers (icmāl defterleri) from that
period, the proportion of tīmārs awarded to slaves, janissaries, and the follow-
ers of great men is lower in comparison to the late 16th century, while tīmārs
awarded to sons of tīmār-holders increased slightly and tīmārs for those with
no identification rose perceptibly.59
Ottoman officials had other reasons to feel threatened. There were the famil-
iar problems of the era, such as climate change, inflation and coinage depre-
ciation, constant war, and military revolution, and there were the Celalis, rural
bandits and rebels, together with a new group that Koçi Bey notes, Cossack
raiders from the Black Sea who were inflicting depredations on Istanbul’s
Bosphorus shores from Rumeli Hisarı to Yeniköy.60 Yet another grievance Koçi
Bey voices is that the men of the palace cavalry used to live in the villages
between Bursa, Istanbul, and Edirne, the three Ottoman capitals. Presumably,
this arrangement was made so that they could provide for the safety of the road
but could be quickly contacted in an emergency and assembled at the capital.
Now, the author complains, they are living in far-flung places such as Hungary
and Bosnia, Greece, and the frontiers of Georgia and Persia.61 Scattered about
in this fashion, how can they maintain the order of the world? If a substantial
57 Ibid., 53.
58 See Abou-El-Haj, Formation of the Modern State, Tezcan, The Second Ottoman Empire.
59 Koçi Bey, Koçi Bey Risalesi, ed. Kurt, 69–70. See Darling, “Nasîhatnâmeler, İcmal Defterleri,
and the Timar-Holding Ottoman Elite”, 193–226; and idem, “Nasîhatnâmeler, İcmal
Defterleri, and the Timar-Holding Ottoman Elite, II”.
60 Koçi Bey, Koçi Bey Risalesi, ed. Kurt, 64.
61 Ibid., 53.
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712 Darling
number were still living between the capitals, which we do not know, their
presence in Istanbul might not have lessened visibly. Interestingly, however,
this dispersal of the palace cavalry coincides with the assignment of the janis-
saries as urban and frontier garrisons all around the empire. Taken together,
these practices must have spread central government personnel from Istanbul
all throughout the provinces to provide security—as the tīmār-holders used to
do, but these men were coming from the Porte, not just standing in for it as the
tīmār-holders did. The interests of the capital were by this means filtered into
the provinces, its culture became accessible to provincial residents, and the
people of the provinces had a ready-made link to the capital. Like the recruit-
ment of men from all walks of life, this dispersal of the central army drew the
provinces and the capital into closer association and made communication
between the two more likely, and probably faster.
The subsequent advice works do not provide any information about Istanbul;
the city only reappears in the work of Hüseyin Hezarfen, Telḫīṣü’l-Beyān fī
Ḳavānīn-i Āl-i ʿOs̱mān (Explanatory Summary of the Regulations of the House
of Osman). This is not an advice work, although it contains some advice. It
began as a history of Ottoman law intended as a parallel to Hezarfen’s ear-
lier study of Chingiz Khan’s law, which he wrote for his literary patron.62 The
section on Istanbul comes near the beginning of the work. When he wrote
that section, Hezarfen was probably thinking of the ḳānūnnāme attributed to
Mehmed II, a copy of which (that he titles Ḳānūn-Nāme-i Ṣelāṭīn-i Āl-i ʿOs̱mān
der Zamān-ı Fātiḥ Sulṭān Meḥemmed) he includes at the back of the book and
of which his book is partly an imitation and an updating. He also includes an
advice work, Lütfi Pasha’s Āsafnāme, which has induced scholars to classify
this book as an advice work as well. It is mainly, however, a collection of regu-
lations. As a book of regulations, its chapters are almost all prescriptive rather
than descriptive. They explain the laws of the Ottoman rulers to show how
much more glorious and appropriate they are than the yāsā of Chingiz Khan,
so the emphasis is not on the aspects of the city that are not working, as it is in
the advice literature.
Hezarfen recites the history of Constantinople, starting with the planting
of the city by Constantine and its partial destruction by the Sasanian ruler
Shapur.63 He includes the erection of Hagia Sophia by Justinian, but not, oddly,
Justinian’s promulgation of his famous law code. He then turns to the Ottoman
62 Hezarfen Hüseyin Efendi, Telhîsü’l-beyân, ed. İlgürel. For a partial analysis of Hezarfen’s
work that explains the circumstances of its composition, see Darling, “Ordering the
Ottoman Elite”.
63 Hezarfen Hüseyin Efendi, Telhîsü’l-beyân, ed. İlgürel, starting on page 45; his Tenkîhü’t-
tevârîh has a lengthier narrative on the city’s history.
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conquest of the city and to the construction of Mehmed II’s mosque complex
and other sultanic mosques. As in the Christian city, the houses of worship
take first place, then the secular leadership, those close to the sultan, followed
by the state’s servants, roughly in order of closeness to the sultan, and then the
urban residents. He lists the grand viziers, the neighborhoods of Istanbul, and
the city’s craftsmen in alphabetical order. Then comes the building of the city’s
palaces, Yedikule in the south, the Old Palace, and the New Palace or Topkapı.
This last is described in fine detail with all its rooms, its courtyards, and their
uses as the setting for his detailed description of the Ottoman administrative
cadre. Hezarfen also enumerates the palace staff and includes a “budget”, an
income and expense summary, for the year AH 1071/CE 1660. The next topic is
the army and the tīmār system, with the tīmār revenues of each province and
sāncaḳ, followed by the janissaries, the provincial garrisons, the palace cavalry,
and the navy.64 Hezarfen also includes a description of the circumcision cer-
emonies of 1675; although they took place in Edirne, they were essentially an
enactment of Ottoman social hierarchies.65 A narḫ ḳānūnu, or regulation of
market prices, enumerates the sellers of various items and what they should
charge for their goods, sometimes including variations for the city’s differ-
ent neighborhoods. The book ends with the arrival of coffee and tobacco into
the empire, two substances that the government diligently tried to regulate.
The description of the city forms the background for Hezarfen’s regulation of
Ottoman officialdom.
Conclusion
Istanbul plays a minor role in the literature of political advice, mainly for the
reason that the capital city was not in itself politically relevant. Ottoman poli-
tics were imperial politics; Istanbul formed the backdrop against which politics
were most often played out, but in this period it was not itself the player that it
later became. Still, it could not be ignored completely, as it loomed so large in
the lives of the political elite, the group to which the authors of naṣīḥatnāmes
generally belonged. Mustafa Âli’s life dramatically illustrates its pervasiveness
as the scene of the highest government offices. His life story perfectly dem-
onstrates the central role of Istanbul in the typical administrative career and
the pull of the city on political aspirations. Istanbul was equally central in the
lives of janissaries, as shown in the Kitāb-i Müsteṭāb; it was the location of their
training, their molding into the sultan’s ḳūls (slaves, but more than slaves, loyal
64 Ibid., the tīmār system begins on 113, janissaries on 143, the navy on 157.
65 Ibid., starting on page 207; see Darling, “Ordering the Ottoman Elite”, 366–67.
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714 Darling
followers). This is why when the men in charge become unjust, it is so disas-
trous; “the fish begins to stink at the head”.66
Koçi Bey testifies to the diversity of the city’s population and to the gradual
disappearance of the stark separation between the elite, the “military”, and the
taxpayers,—the reʿāyā, that Lütfi Pasha took for granted—as well as to a rap-
prochement between the cultures of the capital and the provinces. The com-
plaints of the anonymous writers reveal that as the largest city in Europe and
the Mediterranean region, Istanbul had problems with provisioning that came
to the notice of the elites; food and fuel were not easy to obtain. Another topic
of interest is the roads, a sometimes dangerous place. Roads linked this exten-
sive empire and made possible closer relations between the capital and the
provinces than Europeans at the time may have been able to duplicate over
such a distance and such a terrain. As well as a political, literary, artistic, and
religious center, Istanbul was a playground for a variety of groups including
palace servants, hangers-on at coffeehouses, careerists, rank-and-file janissar-
ies, petty criminals, and a range of ethnic groups.
Hezarfen’s dwelling on the history of the city is perhaps an indication of the
city’s relevance, if not to imperial politics, at least to Ottoman law, as it is the
doorsill, the gate, from which the laws are promulgated. Hezarfen’s book, as a
compilation of regulations, is meant not so much for the sultan as for the peo-
ple being regulated, primarily the elite. Has he given up on the sultan? Has the
sultan been relegated to purely symbolic leadership by this time? The sultans
of the 18th and 19th centuries were active rulers with positions and purposes
of their own, but that kind of royal leadership was lacking for most of the 17th
century. As in France, it was the high officials of the state, the great ministers
and their factions, who stepped up to fill that gap, and it was the members of
the new military, the musketeers and the janissaries respectively, who became
both their agents and their opponents.
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Index
Abaqa Khan 380 Ahmed I’s mosque and complex xxiv–xxv

Abbasid 634 E6/3, 126, 245, 279, 302, 321, 529, 530,
Abdi Subaşı mosque xxiv–xxv C3/5, 370 543–549, 549, 564, 565, 571, 572
Abdi Subaşı neighborhood 369, 370–373, and public criticism 547–549
375, 384 Ahmed III 40, 43, 97, 163, 185, 187, 222, 224,
Abdulehad Nuri 517 225, 235, 264, 321, 384, 455, 484, 565,
Abdülhamid I 358, 644 620, 643
Abdülhamid II 520 Ahmed Dede 643
Abdullah İlahi 507, 666 Ahmedi 535
al-Abhari, Athir al-Din 611 Ahmed Münib Üsküdari, Bandırmalı 520
Abou-el-Haj, Rifaat 16, 698 Ahmed Pasha 683
Abu Ayyub al-Ansari 76–77, 504 Ahmet Refik (Altınay) 12, 14
mausoleum and shrine complex of 49, Ahrida synagogue xxiv–xxv C2/5, 384
76–77, 145, 149, 150, 151, 425–426, Ainslie, Robert 644
531, 533 Akpınar village 299
Abu-Lughod, Janet 15 Aksaray 73, 560, 571, 573, 575
Acem Ağa mosque xxiv–xxv E5/21, 517 Akşemseddin 504, 505, 666
Acem Ahmed. See Şemseddin Ahmed Albania 280, 300, 303, 330, 562, 708, 710
ʿacemioğlanı 75–76 Aleppo 30, 40, 42, 107, 224, 239, 394, 702,
Ada’i 153 703
ʿadl 529, 550 Alexander IV (Pope) 204
administration Algeria 588
central 7, 8, 10, 48–49, 65, 69, 75, Algiers 587
115–131, 153, 155, 256–257, 271, 274, Ali Çelebi 594
374–376, 382, 399, 539, 543–545, Ali Çelebi, Balık-zade 314
555, 697–702. See also architecture: Ali Agha, Müezzin-zade 314
and building regulations; Ali Fakih neighborhood 350
devşirme; Dīvān-ı Hümāyūn; urban Ali Paşa-yı Atik neighborhood 573, 575
governance Ali Pasha 183
Adriatic sea 238 waqf endowment of 289
Africa 266, 415, 522 Alexandria 242
North 5, 42 Ama Kadri 638
sub-Saharan 519 Amasya 37, 89, 90, 506, 509, 541, 657, 658,
Afyon Karahisar 508 682, 686
agriculture 280–303. See also bostān(s); Amed 613
çiftlik ʿamel 613, 614, 616, 618, 619, 624. See also
in Byzantine times 283 sciences: practice of
ʿahdnāme. See trade: capitulations Americas 5, 266, 375, 410, 656–657
aḫī 33, 34 Amsterdam 557
Ahi Çelebi mosque and court xxiv–xxv Anatolia 10, 77, 159, 224, 263, 271, 345, 398,
E4/1, 343 408, 420, 432, 458, 508, 509, 534, 540,
Ahırkapı xxiv–xxv F6/1, 564 590, 591, 657, 666, 673, 676, 686, 704,
Ahmed I 149, 155, 158, 171, 176, 177, 544, 545, 707. See also Asia Minor
545, 547, 548, 549, 550 Andrews, Walter 106
Album of 97, 101, 179, 180, 181 Angeli 641
- 978-90-04-46856-6
738 Index
Ankara 258 Atik Mustafa Paşa mosque xxiv–xxv C1/1,

Antichrist 200, 204 313
Arabia 415 Atik Nişancı Caʿfer Çelebi neighborhood
Arab provinces 519, 613, 710 379
Arapkir 464 Atik Valide mosque and complex 103
Arabzade Mehmed 623 Atmeydanı xxiv–xxv E6/2, 76, 78, 88, 97, 99,
architecture 158–159, 163, 144, 187, 199, 200, 202, 296,
and construction techniques 205–210, 512, 546, 548, 560, 563, 571, 573, 575, 661,
216–219 663. See also Hippodrome
and building regulations 211–212, executions at 163, 573
213–219, 224–225 guild parades at 161–162, 186, 187
domestic 205–226 imperial festivities at 157–162, 161
of sultanic mosque complexes 528–551 Atpazari Seyyid Osman Efendi 567
and public criticism 528–529, Atpazari lodge xxiv–xxv D4/4, 567
535–551 auspicious incident. See vaḳʿa-ı ḫayriye
Aristotle 617, 625 Avcıoğlu, Nebahat 544
Armenian(s) 68, 80, 118, 233, 239, 241, 243, Avicenna. See Ibn Sina
248, 287, 288, 365, 366, 375, 376, 377, Avrat Pazarı 312
383, 412, 640, 644, 646, 658, 710. See Ayalon, Yaron 107, 434
also Christian(s); non-Muslim(s) Ayas Pasha 159
Amira 120, 127–128 Ayasofya. See Hagia Sophia
churches xxiv–xxv D6/2, 118, 127, 379, neighborhood 345
384, 413 Aya Marina monastery xxiv–xxv C4/2, 534
Arnavutköy 439 Aya Strati church. See Surp Hıreşdagabet
Artan, Tülay 171, 184 church
artisans 40, 73, 74, 77, 79, 80, 119, 121, 249, Aya Yani church. See Hagios Ioannis
256–275, 298, 301, 366, 394–403, Prodromos church
405, 408, 562, 563. See also guild(s); ayazma 27, 439–40
janissary/ies: and artisans Aydın Kethüda neighborhood 359
and migrants 260, 273 Aydınoğlu lodge xxiv–xxv E5/21, 518
and officialdom 260–268 Ayntab 354
in urban uprisings 273–274; 556, 559, Ayvad aqueduct 317
562–573, 575–576 Ayvansaray 50, 313
Ashkenazim 248. See also Jew(s) Ayşe Hubbi Hatun 89
Asia Minor 238, 662. See also Anatolia Ayşe Sultan 96, 250
Asiye Hatun 90
ʿaskeri Baba Ali Haydari 535
and reʿāyā 116–133, 261, 699, 711, 714 Baba Cafer prison xxiv–xxv E4/2, 216, 218,
social transformation 698–699, 431
702–714 Babaie, Susan 664
status 34, 39, 69, 116–120, 127, 709 Badakhshan 399
ʿāşıḳ 33, 44–46, 50 Baer, Gabriel 259
Aşık Çelebi 75, 662 bāġçevān 282, 298, 300–302
Aşık Garib 44, 45 Baghdad 178, 183, 405, 587, 627, 634, 635,
Aşık Mehmed 486 703
Aşık Ö mer 45, 50 bāhnāme 90
Aşıkpaşazade, Derviş Ahmed 505 Baki 677–682, 691, 693
Atai, Nevizade 513, 583, 594, 596, 598 Balat 247, 345, 370, 372, 383, 384, 519
Atik Ali Pasha mosque xxiv–xxv E5/12, 214 quay xxiv–xxv C2/1, 365
- 978-90-04-46856-6
Index 739
Balıkçıoğlu, E.M. 610 Bektaşi order 121, 126, 132, 520, 566, 665, 682
Balıklı. See Zoodohos Pigi beledī 34
Balık Pazarı 77, 244, 432 Belgrade 42, 204, 562
Balık Pazarı gate xxiv–xxv E4/7, 244 Belgrade church. See Panagia church
Balkans 297, 300, 345, 354, 367, 378, 420, Belgrad forest 314. See also aqueducts;
507, 508, 662 Haslar district
Balkapanı xxiv–xxv E4/6, 235, 618 Great Dam at 321
Bali Efendi, Sofyalı 513 Benli Behiye 41
Baltic sea 399 Bentley, Jeffrey 5
Bandar Abbas 239 berāt 116, 118, 119–120, 247
banking 242–244 Beşiktaş 247, 508, 648
Barbaro, Marcantonio 218, 219, 220, 431 Beykoz 331
barber shops 40, 482, 518, 591, 594 bīʿat 153–155
Barkan, Ömer Lutfi 13, 14 Bierman, Irene 16
Barkey, Karen 9 Binbirdirek (Philoxenos) Cistern xxiv–xxv
Basra 239, 266 E5/19, 586
Bassano, Luigi 157 Birgivi (Birgili) Mehmed Efendi 515, 612
bathhouses 17, 35, 44, 107, 218, 219, 318, 432, al-Bistami, Abd al-Rahman 424
433, 452, 453, 482, 565–566, 661 Bitlis 613
Bayezid I 122 Bit Pazarı xxiv–xxv E5/7, 234, 395, 396, 565
Bayezid II 37, 149, 201, 202, 204, 205, 215, Bitola 301
216, 285, 310, 312, 345, 380, 384, 435, Black Death 429
439, 506, 507, 508, 509, 510, 512, 532, Black sea 29, 50, 52, 223, 240, 241, 297, 711
537, 550, 659, 667, 682, 686, 710 Blue Mosque. See Ahmed I’s mosque and
waqf endowment of 283, 288, 291, 293, complex
299, 313 Bobowski, Wokciech. See Ufki Bey, Ali
Bayezid II’s mosque and complex 395, 529, Bologna 617
537, 541, 542 Bonnac, Marquis de 367
Bayrami order 125, 504, 506, 508, 512, 515, book of advice 15. See also naṣīḥatnāme
519, 520, 521, 666 Boratav, Pertev Naili 581–582
Melami- 511 Bordeaux 557
Bayram Paşa stream xxiv–xxv, 235, 279, 282, Bosna 299
283, 284, 285, 286, 293, 312 Bosnia 299, 330, 562, 703, 704, 708, 710, 711
Bayram Pasha 293 Bosphorus 25, 27, 28, 50, 53, 102, 163, 209,
bāzergān 249–251. See also merchants 247, 287, 297, 370, 428, 439, 480, 484,
Bebek 621 530, 668, 707, 711
Beck, Ulrich 197 bostān(s) 279–303, 281, 284, 294
Bedestan xxiv–xxv E5/9, 68, 76, 78, 214, 218, and waqf lease 282, 284–291
234, 236, 248, 396, 565, 571 produce 292–293, 296–298
bedestān 234, 236, 395 bostāncı 121, 250, 300, 447, 643. See also
Bedevi order 520, 521 bāġçevān
Bedrüddin Beg 687, 689 Boyar, Ebru 92, 105
Begliktzis, Scarlatos 366 bozaḫāne 481–482, 570, 576
Beijing 399 Brady, Thomas Jr. 5
bekār 38, 76, 347, 446–452, 454, 456–465. Bragadin, Pietry 152
See also migrants Braudel, Fernand 19
inns 452, 464 Brentjes, S. 609, 610
Bekri Mustafa 490 Bucak Bağı 293
Bektaş Agha 43, 562, 563 Buhurcuoğlu 639
- 978-90-04-46856-6
740 Index
Bukhari, Ahmad 507 Cerasi, Maurice 15

Bulgaria 235, 506, 710 Cerrah Mustafa 623–624
Buondelmonti, Cristoforo 283 Cerrah Paşa 312
Burnaz Hasan Agha 643 Cerrahi order 521, 638, 648
Bursa 35–37, 52, 122, 257, 258, 259, 260, 354, Certeau, Michel de 81
402, 415, 535, 587, 594, 637, 660, 675, children 94, 342, 343, 352, 354, 355, 358, 359,
683, 706, 711 360, 422, 452, 484, 485, 568
Busbecq, Ogier Ghiselin 206, 429 China 259, 394, 399, 408, 411, 412, 415, 558
Butler, Judith 86 Chingiz Khan 712
Büyük Çekmece 271, 313, 428 Chios 366
Büyük Yeni khan xxiv–xxv E5/3, 235, 243 Christian(s) 33, 41–42, 47–48, 55, 247,
Byzantine 10, 145, 201, 208, 212, 216, 234, 258, 266–267, 288, 300, 301, 365–385,
292, 313, 366, 370, 371, 380, 426, 429, 411–413, 435, 481, 534, 568, 700. See
463, 505, 507, 517, 530, 531, 533, 534, also Armenian(s); dhimmi; Greek
535, 536, 537, 659, 673 Orthodox; non-Muslim(s)
emperor 158–159 as merchants 243, 248–249
Byzas 201, 202, 203 crypto- 365
Muslim wars 198, 200
Cafer Çelebi 656, 657, 658, 659, 660, 661, Christodoulos 380
662, 668, 674, 686 church(es) 48, 80, 118, 127, 202, 204, 221,
Caffa 657 266, 267, 344, 365, 367, 376–384, 413,
Cairo 30, 32, 42, 45, 67, 130, 259, 261, 415, 506, 507, 513, 535, 640, 646. See also by
450, 476, 511, 548, 557, 587, 613, 618, name
704, 705 repairs 379–384
Callimachi family 127. See also Greek Cibali 78, 345, 432
Orthodox: Phanariots gate xxiv–xxv D3/1, 77, 212
Can-Alıcı neighborhood 534 Cihangir 529, 643
Canbakal, Hülya 351 Cihangiri lodge xxiv–xxv F2/1, 690
Candia 42 Cinani 598
Cantemir, Dimitrie 367, 382, 384, 634, 636, Circassian(s) 710
641, 646, 647 Clayer, Nathalie 521
caravanserais 78, 206, 234. See also khans Clunas, Craig 5
Casale, Giancarlo 616 coffee 476, 477–478, 490, 518, 585, 590, 706,
Cassini family 617 713
capitalism 27, 34, 36, 558 coffeehouses 32, 43–44, 45, 79, 347, 452,
Caucasus 42, 534 474, 475, 476, 477, 478–479, 480, 482,
Cavafy, Constantine 53 483–484, 485, 486, 490–491, 570, 576,
Cebeci khan xxiv–xxv E5/6, 234 597, 651, 661, 714
Cebeciköy 314 Column of Arcadius xxiv–xxv C5/3, 203
Celali(s) 711 Column of Constantine xxiv–xxv E5/13, 206
rebellions 271, 433, 458, 547 Column of Theodosius 203
Celalzade Mustafa 37–38, 158 Constantine I 197, 201, 203, 534, 712
Celveti order 125, 476, 520, 521, 567, 638, 648 Constantine XI Palaiologos 198
Cemaleddin İshak 510 Constantinople (Byzantine)
Cemali, Defterdar-zade Ahmed 74–75, 76 aristocracy 127
cemeteries 426, 434–435 capital’s foundation myths 197, 198,
Cem Sultan 507, 532 200–201, 203
Central Asia 126, 235 population 379
ceramic wares 407–413, 409 Contarini, Tomasso 156
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Index 741
Corinth 345 Descartes, René 615

Cook, Harold 608 devşirme 123–124, 174, 374, 543, 559, 699,
Cossack 711 700, 701, 708 710
countryside farms. See çiftlik dhimma. See dhimmi
Corfu 512 dhimmi 47, 238–239, 375–379, 383. See also
Crabb, Anne 96 non-Muslim(s)
crafts 394–416 Dhulfiqar Khan 157, 173
Crete 236, 377, 547 el-Dimaşki, Ebubekir Behram 625
Crimea 378, 657 Dimetoka 258
crime 428, 433, 446–465 Dionysios IV 373
Crusaders 505 Divane Mehmed Çelebi 508
cumhūr 42, 562 Dīvān-ı Hümāyūn 69, 104–105, 116, 119, 129,
144, 155, 252, 285, 292, 300, 301, 367,
Çağmini, Mahmud b. Muhammed 618 375, 376, 381, 382, 383, 384, 385
Çakır Ağa neighborhood 350 Divan Yolu xxiv–xxv E5/18, 78, 145, 146, 152,
Çaldıran 509 565, 571
Çalık Ahmed 42 divorce 343, 349–359, 373. See also family
Çatalca 313 Diyarbakır 39, 637
Çatalcalı Ali Efendi 104 Doğancılar neighborhood 521, 522
Çatma Saray 205 Dülgerzade neighborhood 573
Çavuşzade 586 Duret, Noël 615
çelebi 33, 46, 47, 287, 299
Çelebi Efendi 667 early modernity 2–10, 29, 34, 40–48, 44, 51,
Çelebioğlu neighborhood 348 65, 88, 91, 120, 131–133, 143, 168, 204,
Çemberlitaş. See Column of Constantine 218, 246, 283, 302–303, 344–345, 351,
çiftlik 298–300 355, 428, 434–437, 447, 451, 484, 492,
Çorlu 299 529, 557–559, 567, 575–576, 582–584,
Çorlulu Ali Pasha 384 607–609, 615–616, 635, 699
Çukur khan xxiv–xxv E4/3, 235 earthquakes 205, 209, 212–213, 225, 226,
420, 424–426, 427
Damascus 30, 32, 42, 224, 259, 410, 415, 450, East India Companies 240
509, 557, 599, 613, 634, 702 Ebhemzade neighborhood 290
Danube 240, 378 Ebu Sehl Numan Efendi 39
Dardanelles 28, 569 Ebussuud Efendi 91–92, 103, 146, 477, 486,
Davud Paşa neighborhood 151 511, 513, 702
Davud Pasha 312 economy. See also artisans; bostān(s);
Davud Pasha mosque and court xxiv–xxv guild(s); market(s); narḫ; merchants;
B6/1, 343 urbanites: consumption; waqf / awqāf;
Davud Paşa gate xxiv–xxv C6/3, 279 water supply: private ownership
al-Dawani, Jalal al-Din 611 and global monetary crisis 557–559
death 420–426, 429–440 and inflation and coinage devaluation
and burial practices 434–435 243, 269, 293–294, 297, 558, 711
Delhi 43 elite participation in 128–131
Deli Birader (Bursalı Gazali) 35 informal 395–396
Deli Mehmed 590 Edirne 36, 40, 102, 122, 143, 163, 205, 216, 222,
Denmark 239 259, 264, 269, 274, 286, 345, 532, 544,
dervish(es). See sufi(s) 565, 569, 637, 658, 660, 666, 675, 683,
Derviş İsmail. See İsmail Dede Efendi 702, 705, 706, 711, 713
(Hammamizade) Edirne incident 40
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742 Index
Edirnekapı xxiv–xxv B2/2, 78, 146, 149, 243, Eyyubi 314, 316
435, 439 Eyüp 27, 31, 39, 50, 76, 77, 79, 145, 149, 247,
Eğriboz (Chalkis) 331 267–268, 279, 289, 312, 365, 372, 396,
Eğrikapı xxiv–xxv B2/1, 314, 331, 435 435, 505, 512, 513, 530
Eisenstadt, Shmuel 5
Egypt 122, 235, 241–242, 399, 405, 406, 487, Fakiri 71–72
522, 587, 588, 703, 704, 618 Falierou, Anastasia 105
Elçi Hanı (Ambassadors’ khan) 206 family. See also children; neighborhood:
Elçin, Şükrü 581, 582, 585 women
Eldem, Edhem 14 as institution 342–343
Elekçi Dede 46 economy 349–350, 353–359
Elizabeth I 94, 95, 96 legal disputes 349–351, 353–359
Eminönü 48, 104, 370, 371, 372, 377, 395, Farge, Arlette 451
399, 415, 431, 436, 544, 618, 619, 625, 648 Faro, Moshe 640
Emir Çelebi 618, 623 Faroqhi, Suraiya 453
Emir Mustafa 50 faṣıl 636, 650
Endress, Gerhard 610 Fatih district 567
England 95, 239, 369, 394, 395, 545, 644, 650 Fatih. See Mehmed II’s mosque and complex
embassy of 369, 644, 645, 650 Fatma Sultan 96, 91, 103, 290, 354, 358,
Ergenç, Özer 15, 345 381–382, 477, 546, 566–567, 572
Ergin, Nina 103, 104 Fatwacı Çavuş Hüseyin Agha 564
Ergin, Osman Nuri 11, 12, 14 Fazıl, Enderunlu 4
Erzurum 702, 703 Fazlı Pasha 586
Esad Efendi 636, 639 Ferdowsi 172, 178, 595
Esad of Ioannina. See Yanyevi Esad Efendi Fertile Crescent 238
Esirci Kemal neighborhood 319 Fener 50, 77, 127, 210, 210, 345, 367, 368,
Esir khan 235, 236 369–373, 371, 379, 379–381
Eski İmaret. See Pantepoptes church quay xxiv–xxv C2/7, 370
Eski khan 235 Fenerkapısı xxiv–xxv C2/8, 370, 371, 372
Eski Odalar xxiv–xxv D5/2, 152, 560, 564, Ferhad Agha 710
565, 573, 575 Ferhad Pasha 152
Eski Saray xxiv–xxv D5/4, 152, 161, 201, 203, Feridun Bey 146, 151
216, 251, 531, 537, 705, 713 Ferrante, Elena 53
eṣnāf. See artisans Ferraro, Battista 219
Etmeydanı xxiv–xxv C5/1, 120, 560, 566, 571 Fethiye mosque. See Theotokos
Euphrates 239 Pammakaristos
Eurasia 2, 3, 5–6, 531 Fetvacı, Emine 96, 544
Europe 5, 10, 179, 187, 204, 238, 260, 271, 367, Feyzi, Subhizade 593, 594, 595
405, 406, 447, 451, 463, 491, 558, 592, Filibe 300
598, 636, 644, 646, 651, 714, 607. See Fındıklı 643
also Franks; sciences: European Fındıkzade 510
embassies of the nations of 237, 237, fiqh 122, 530, 545, 610
238, 246, 248 fire(s) 208–209, 212, 213–214, 216, 218–226,
trade with 236–241 285, 372, 420, 424–425, 428, 431–433,
Evliya Çelebi 25–26, 27, 28, 40, 46–47, 53, 436–437
55, 78, 79, 81, 182, 203, 234, 235, 236, 261, Cibali 432
264, 273, 292, 316, 328, 329, 345, 397, Great 222, 223, 285, 432–433, 436
401, 402, 404–405, 474, 481, 483, 490, Flanders 260
544, 547, 548, 563, 571 Fleet, Kate 105
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Index 743
Fleischer, Cornell 115 Georgeon, François 490

Fletcher, Joseph 5, 20 Georgia 236, 711
floods 285, 309, 313–314, 426–428 Gerber, Haim 259
Florence 233, 402 Germany 208, 240, 241
fountains 44, 317–318 Ghica family 127. See also Greek Orthodox:
Forum Arcadius xxiv–xxv C5/2, 203 Phanariots
Forum Tauri (Forum of Theodosius) Gilles, Pierre 280
xxiv–xxv D5/6, 203, 537 God 202, 489, 503, 621, 661, 666, 675, 680,
France 374, 402, 405, 615, 624, 625, 714 684, 692, 693, 705
embassy of 366, 367 Golden Gate xxiv–xxv A7/2, 198
Franks 49, 614 Golden Horn 43, 50, 52, 78, 102, 127, 149, 163,
lands of the 201. See also Europe 210, 212, 214, 216, 218, 233, 236, 238, 243,
houses of the 209, 212 244, 286, 287, 291, 314, 365, 367, 370,
Freshfield album 221 379, 396, 428, 432, 435, 480, 530
Fuzuli 39 Göynük 505, 666
Gradeva, Rositsa 383
Galata 31, 49, 50, 52, 76, 125, 209, 210, 218, Grand Bazaar xxiv–xxv E5/8, 214, 223, 224,
224, 234, 236, 237, 238, 247, 249, 252, 234, 236, 267, 395, 562, 565, 571
287, 365, 415, 428, 432, 433, 435, 437, Grand champs des morts 435
452, 459, 480, 508, 530, 648, 651, 705. graveyards. See cemeteries
See also Pera Greece 236, 454, 711
Genoese colony of 233, 238 Greek, classical 609
Galata Mevlevi lodge xxiv–xxv E3/1, 648 Greek Orthodox 48, 68, 118, 209, 241, 243,
Galata palace xxiv–xxv E2/3, 648, 705 288, 328–329, 345, 365–385, 412, 435,
Galata tower xxiv–xxv E3/2, 238 439–440, 532, 536, 537, 623, 640,
Galileo 615 641, 644, 710. See also Christian(s);
Galland, Antoine 366, 411, 648 non-Muslim(s)
Gallipoli 702 College 368
games 476, 477, 485, 486 churches 266, 367, 376–384
gardens judicial courts 247, 248, 373
excursions in 474, 482–484 Patriarchate xxiv–xxv C3/4, 48, 77, 367,
market. See bostān(s) 370, 377, 384, 534
produce. See bostān(s); Langa; Patriarchal Academy xxiv–xxv C3/3, 368
Mehmed II’s mosque and complex: Phanariot(s) 120, 124, 127, 367, 385
produce gardens; Topkapı Palace: houses 371
produce gardens; Yeni Bağçe Grehan, James 478
public 474, 482–484 Grelot, Guillaume-Joseph 547
gardeners. See bostāncı Grenville, Henry 240, 241, 244
Gazali 71–72 Griffel, Frank 607
Gazali, Bursalı. See Deli Birader guild(s) 40, 73, 74, 77, 79, 80, 119, 121, 249,
Gazanfer Dede 512 259–274, 298, 301. See also artisans
ġazā, ġāzī 532, 533, 353, 537, 547, 548 parades 161–162, 186, 187, 402
ġazel 677, 690 Gülnuş Sultan 567
gedik 264–265, 274 Gümrük 77, 78
Gelibolu 330 Güngörmez church/mosque xxiv–xxv E6/7,
Gelincik Pazarı 565 202, 204
Gennadios II 534, 535 Gutas, Dimitri 607
Genoa 233, 399 gypsies 77, 709
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744 Index
Habsburg 171, 204, 206, 429 hammam. See bathhouse

wars with the 290, 377, 378, 546 Hamon, Aaron 640, 641
Hacı Bektaş 665, 666 Hamon, Moses 220
Hacı İsa neighborhood 384 Hanafi 107, 122, 132, 287, 359
Hacı Mustafa 546 Hanna, Nelly 262
Hacı Pasha 424 Harputlu Ali 564
Haçova battle 171, 175, 176, 176 Hasan Beyzade 149
Hadice Turhan Sultan 93, 102, 104, 378, 544 Hasan Pasha 151
mosque and complex of. See Yeni Valide Hasköy 247, 313, 320, 372, 373, 435, 480
mosque and complex Haslar district 39, 299, 310, 313, 321, 329,
hadith 28, 200, 515, 610 333. See also Akpınar; Burgaz; Eyüp;
Hafız Hasan 620 Kömürcüköy
Hafız Kumral 638 villages of 313, 329–330
Hafız Osman 413 havāyī terāzū 323–324, 325
Hagia Sophia xxiv–xxv F5/2, 49, 76, 78, 129, Havlioğlu, Didem 89
145, 156, 198, 199, 200, 201, 204, 212, 218, Hayali 682
221, 222, 234, 512, 532, 533, 534, 536, 537, Helena (Empress, c. 248–c. 328) 197
538, 542, 544, 546, 563, 564, 712 Helena (Dragas) 198
waqf endowment of 284, 295 Hellenistic 609
hagiography 662–668 Herat 634
Hagios Andreas in Krisei church 667. See Hezarfen, Hüseyin 615, 619, 712–713, 714
also Koca Mustafa Pasha lodge and Hijaz 42
complex ḥilye 413–415, 414
Hagios Stratis church. See Surp Hıreşdagabet Hinlopen, Gerard 236
church hinterland 298–300, 309–318
Hagios Ioannis Prodromos xxiv–xxv C2/4, Hippodrome xxiv–xxv E6/2, 158–159,
383 198; 199, 200, 201, 203, 204. See also
Hajj 412 Atmeydanı
el-Hajj İbrahim 273 Hızır b. Abdullah 636
Hakani Mehmed Bey 413 Hızır Bey neighborhood 357
Hakluyt, Richard 94 Holy Apostles, church of 533, 534, 535, 536
Halalca 330 Holy League 378
Haliç. See Golden Horn holy spring. See ayazma
Halkalı 428 homoerotics 74–81, 660–662
waterway 324 homosociability 45, 77, 79–81
Halili, Bitlisli 80 Hormuz, strait of 239, 399
Halveti order 125, 475, 476, 506, 508, 509, Hotin fortress 331
510, 512, 513, 514, 515, 517, 518, 519, 520, Hüdai, Aziz Mahmud 125–126, 547
521 Hungary 97, 146, 151, 236, 513, 710, 711
Gülşeni- 511, 648 Hürrem Sultan 94–95, 216, 405, 541
Karamani- 510 Hürrem Sultan public bath xxiv–xxv E6/4,
Nasuhi- 521, 643 216
Sünbüli- 510, 512, 514, 518, 519, 656, 667, Hüseyin Efendi, Bosnalı Koca 144
668 Hyderabad 399
Şabani- 515, 521
el-Halveti, Cemal 439, 506, 507, 509, 514 Ibn al-Baytar 296
Hamadeh, Shirine 449, 483, 559 Ibn al-Arabi 106, 509, 515
Hamamcıoğlu İsmail. See İsmail Dede Efendi Ibn Khaldun 637
(Hammamizade) Ibn Sina 296, 610, 612
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Index 745
İbrahim I 156, 398, 559, 708 Jahangir 187

İbrahim el-Has 517 Jai Singh observatory 617
İbrahim Gülşeni 511 janissary/ies 29, 50, 73, 118, 120–124, 132, 163,
İbrahim-i Kırımi 514 205, 208, 220, 251, 433, 461, 482, 529,
İbrahim Pasha 152, 159, 538, 540, 541 544, 656, 692, 700, 705–712, 713, 714
İbrahim Pasha palace xxiv–xxv E6/1, 158, aghas 562–566, 569, 572
159, 160, 161, 296, 705 and artisans 120–121, 268–270, 457,
icāreteyn 265, 282, 288–289 559–562
Ihara, Saikaku 47 and coffeehouses 474, 478, 479, 481, 491,
ilāhī 641, 643, 646, 648 493, 570
Ilkhanid 380 and migrants 451, 458, 460, 465
ʿilm 609–613, 616, 618, 624 ballad 565, 567
İlyas Efendi 440 barracks 67, 152, 560, 563–565, 571, 573,
Imperial Council. See Dīvān-ı Hümāyūn 575
İnalcık, Halil 14, 15, 36, 119, 264, 267, 344 capital formation by 561–62
İnciciyan, P.G. 13 in Istanbul 559–562
India 238, 239–240, 266, 394, 399, 402, 406, in urban uprisings and revolts 40, 41,
410, 412, 416, 519. See also South Asia 555–559, 562–576
Indian Ocean 416 residential neighborhoods of 573–575,
intisāb 130–131, 692 574, 576
İntizami 402 Jeddah 704
Ioannina 512, 513 Jennings, Ronald 15
Iran 42, 169, 233, 235, 238, 239, 248, 416, 519, Jerusalem 198, 204, 413
594, 595, 598, 625, 635–636, 711. See Jew(s) 41, 47, 48, 68, 214, 216, 233, 241,
also Safavid; Timurid 243, 247, 248, 251, 261, 267, 320, 365,
artifacts from 399, 402, 406, 411, 415, 416 371–379, 381, 383–385, 412, 431, 432, 435,
Iraq 588 436, 481, 544, 568, 640, 709
İrepoğlu, Gül 184 houses of 205, 208–209, 214, 220
Irigaray, Luce 96 Jingdezhen 408, 411
İsa, Sütçüzade 638 jizya 344, 375, 462
İshak Agha 244 Joseph 689
Isfahan 239, 634 justice. See ʿadl; Dīvān-ı Hümāyūn; Greek
İshak Çelebi 660 Orthodox: judicial courts; Hanafi;
İshak Efendi, Defterdar 625 ḳānūn; neighborhood: residents’
İshak Hocası. See Şemseddin Ahmed disputes; Shafiʿi; sharia; trade: dispute
İskender Pasha 146, 508 adjudication; ẓulm
İskilip 272 Justinian I 198, 201, 382, 712
Islam 8, 49, 67, 107, 116, 503, 541, 708 equestrian statue of 203, 204
Islamic law. See sharia
Islamic world 531, 598, 608, 634, 635 Kaʿba 402, 412, 547, 621, 675
İslamoğlu, Huricihan 6 Kadırga 279, 575 513, 573
İsmail Dede Efendi (Hammamizade) 640, Kadiri order 125, 520, 521
642 Kadızade Ahmed Efendi 146
İsmail Maşuki 163, 511 Kadızade Mehmed b. Mustafa 377, 516
Istifani, Antonaki v. 369 Kadızadeli(s) 123, 377, 378, 439, 475, 493,
Italy 260, 367, 405, 533, 612 504, 516, 517, 518, 545
Izmir 40, 366, 515 Kafadar, Cemal 262, 460, 478, 479, 492, 556
İzmit 223, 428 Kafescioğlu, Çiğdem 97, 344, 505, 532, 535,
İznik 184, 296, 408, 410, 411, 415 658
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746 Index
Kağıthane 44, 49, 401, 426, 484, 659, 660 kefīl. See kefālet
kalām 608, 610, 611 Kemalpaşazade, Şemseddin Ahmed 512
Kalenderhane xxiv–xxv D5/3, 221, 506. See Kemerburgaz 314
also Theotokos Kyriotissa church Khalidov, A.B. 610
Kalender Pasha 97, 546 khans 234–235, 236, 243, 244, 395. See also
Kalpaklı, Mehmet 106 by name
Kandahar 239 Khurasan 200
Kanlı Bektaş 587, 589 Kilit khan xxiv–xxv E5/1, 234
Kanlı Kümbed Kilise. See Theotokos Kınalızade Ali 117–118, 302
Mouchliotissa church kira 87, 93, 95
ḳānūn 122, 129–130, 395 Kırkçeşme waterway 308, 309, 313, 314, 315,
Kapalı Çarşı. See Grand Bazaar 321
kapān 234, 245 Kırkkilise 299
ḳapıḳulu. See ḳul Kırşehir 121
Karabaş neighborhood 383 Kızılbaş 567
Karabaş Ali Veli 517 Koca Mustafa Paşa neighborhood 312
Karaca Ahmed cemetery 435 Koca Mustafa Pasha 312, 507, 509, 667
Kara Çavuş 562, 563 Koca Mustafa Pasha mosque and lodge
Karaçelebizade Abdülaziz Efendi 563, 566 complex xxiv–xxv B6/2, 510, 513, 667,
Karaferye 454 668
Karaferye synagogue xxiv–xxv C2/2, 384 Koca Sinan Pasha 478
Karagöz 486, 490, 596, 651 Koçi Koçi Bey 114, 708–711, 714
Karagöz neighborhood 573 Koçu, Reşat Ekrem 14, 27
Karaman 510, 591, 657 Köksal, Duygu 105
Karamanid(s) 505, 507 Kömürciyan, Eremya Çelebi 13, 46–47, 50,
Karamani, Derviş Şemsüddin 201 52, 55, 223, 224, 279, 399, 402, 432, 559
Karamani, Habib-i 510 Kömürcüköy 329
Karamani, Muhyiddin 511 Konya 122, 125, 345, 505, 507, 590, 637, 708
Karlowitz, Treaty of 377 Köprülü, Fazıl Ahmed Pasha 377, 378, 623
Kasap İlyas neighborhood 464 Köprülü, Fazıl Mustafa Pasha 378, 382, 564
Kashmir 402 Kösem Sultan, Mahpeyker 104, 563, 708
ḳasīde 677, 683, 687 khan of. See Valide Sultan khan
Kaşifi 511 Koska neighborhood 575
Kasım Paşa 271, 290, 291, 292, 459, 480, 508, Kosovo 687
648 Kottounios, Ioannis 619
docks xxiv–xxv E2/4, 452 Kreiser, Klaus 523
Kasım Paşa Mevlevi lodge xxiv–xxv E2/1, Kritovoulos of Imbros 429
508, 648 Krusinski 627
Kasım Pasha 159 Kuban, Doğan 13, 15, 16
Kastamonu 259, 514, 515, 538, 590 Küçük Abdal 656, 662, 663, 664, 665, 666,
Katib Çelebi 485, 488, 489, 616, 623 667, 668
Katip Kasım neighborhood 348 Küçük Ayasofya mosque (Sts. Sergius and
ḳatma 308, 321–323, 326–328, 331, 333 Bacchus church) xxiv–xxv E6/9, 513
Kaya Sultan 404 Küçük Çekmece 313, 428
Kaymak Mustafa Pasha mosque 621 Küçük Pazar 357
Kayseri 272 ḳul 40, 119–120, 123–124, 129, 160, 692, 713
Kazan, Elia 54, 55 Kul mosque 567
kefālet 243, 292, 342, 350, 366, 448, 569 Kumkapı 319
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Index 747
Kurd Mehmed Efendi 513 Macedonia 280, 300, 301, 303, 660
Kurd(s) 709, 710 madrasas 79, 80, 122, 222, 513, 529–530, 535,
Kurdish provinces 613 542, 608–613, 614, 615, 618, 619, 623. See
Kuru, Selim Sırrı 66 also by name
Kütahya 507, 702 professors 151, 155, 612–613
ceramic wares 408, 409, 410, 411, 413, 415 students 76, 122, 297, 451, 517, 566, 611, 612
Kütükoğlu, Mübahat 258 Mağlova Aqueduct 314, 316, 317
Kuzguncuk 247 maḥalle. See neighborhood
Mahmud I 639
Ladhiki, Muhammed 636 Mahmud II 271, 272, 642, 650
Lala Mustafa Pasha 702 Mahmud Paşa neighborhood 357, 436
Lamiʿi Çelebi 35, 36, 52, 285, 510, 598, 666 Mahmud Pasha 312, 539
Langa xxiv–xxv C6/1, C6/2, 50, 279, 282, 283, Mahmud Pasha (Kürkçü) khan xxiv–xxv
284, 285, 287, 288, 289, 293, 294, 296, E5/3, 234
301 Mahmud Pasha’s mosque and
Lapidus, Ira 503 complex xxiv–xxv E5/16, 286, 539
al-Lari, Muslih al-Din 611 Malchi, Esperanza 95
Laqueur, Thomas 86 Malta 242, 587
Latifi 31, 32, 50, 51, 63, 65–66, 69, 70–71, Maltepe 312
76–77, 79, 81, 538–539, 597, 660 Mamluk 204, 355, 358, 415, 509
Latin America. See Americas Mangana 659
Laz 709 Manisa 512, 544
Lebanon 399 Manisalı Çelebi neighborhood 413
Le Gall, Dina 666 Mantran, Robert 14
leisure 478–479, 484–485, 491–492 Marcus, Abraham 15
Lemnos 517 Mardin 402
Leo the Wise 198, 198 Mardin, Şerif 456
levend 33, 37–38 market(s) 234–236, 394–402, 564, 565,
levḥā 413–414 569, 571–572. See also Avrat Pazarı;
Levni (Abdülcelil Çelebi) 46, 184, 185, 187, Balık Pazarı; Bedestan; bedestān; Bit
594, 595 Pazarı; Gelincik; Grand Bazaar; khans;
Levtzion, Nehemia 522 Sandal Bedestanı; Saraçhane; Sipahiler
literature. See hagiography; meddāḥ: tales; Çarşısı; Spice Market; Uzunçarşı
mes̱nevī; naṣīḥatnāme; poetry; administration 245, 256–270, 274, 397,
political thought; prose tales; sciences; 701. See also narḫ
şehrengīz Marly 625
Limoncuyan, Hampartzum 646 Marmara sea 28, 52, 78, 207, 279, 293, 297,
Little Doomsday 426 298, 435, 480, 564, 666
Little Ice Age 423, 428, 608 marriage 343, 352–359
Lokman, Seyyid Hüseyin b. 317 Marseilles 40, 458
London 226, 449, 450, 557, 558 Mascellini, Giovanni 623
Lorck, Melchior 206, 216, 219 masculinity
Louis XIV 374 concept of 63–66
Louis XV 367 performance of 66–70, 76–81
love 657–662, 674–693 heterogeneous 71–73
Lucas, Paul 596 spaces of 76–81
Lütfi Pasha 512, 701, 712, 714 masjid 344, 365, 529, 530
Lykus stream. See Bayram Paşa stream Masters, Bruce 15
Lyon 557 Matrakçı Nasuh 211, 293
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748 Index
Mavrocordatos, Alexander 369 Mehmed Pasha, Karamani 505

Mavrocordatos, Nicholas 365, 366, 367, 369, Mehmed Rıza 567
379, 384 Mehmed (Şehzade) 149, 529, 537
Maximilian I 204 Melami order 126, 163
Mayer, Robert 13 Melek Ahmed Pasha 273, 405, 562–563
Mecca 71, 126, 412, 439, 675, 704 Melling, Antoine-Ignace 479
meclis 651–652, 680–681, 687–688 Meragi, Abdülkadir 636
meddāḥ 487, 490, 581, 582, 583, 584, 588, merchants 214, 233–252, 258. See also
591–592, 596, 597–598, 651 Bedestan, khans, market(s)
tales 584–585, 587–593, 596–597, 599 Merkez Efendi lodge xxiv–xxv A5/2, 512
Medici, Catherine de 96 Merkez (Müslihüddin) Efendi 510, 512, 513,
Medina 412, 439, 514 667
Mediterranean sea 29, 42, 168, 246, 367, 378, Mese 67, 78, 145, 158. See also Divan Yolu
399, 416, 420, 421, 429, 435, 437, 453, Mesihi 36, 75, 660, 687, 688
547, 612, 714 meşk 646, 647
Eastern 2, 8, 9–10, 32 meşkḫāne 638, 647
trade 40, 168, 233, 238, 246, 367 mesnevī 592–596
Western 589, 593 Mesnevihan Mahmud Dede 508
Mehmed II 39, 49, 68, 124, 143, 146, 149, 171, Mevlana Kapı 512
200, 201, 202, 203, 204, 238, 292, 310, Mevlevi order 125, 508, 520, 521, 637, 640,
312, 344, 345, 380, 384, 503, 504, 505, 643
506, 507, 510, 530, 531, 533, 536, 537, musical forms 648–649, 652
539, 541, 550, 658, 663, 665, 666, 682, Michael VIII 380
683, 712 Middle East 408, 634, 635, 636, 637, 650
law code of 144, 147, 160, 201 migrants 37–38, 76, 260, 273, 347–348, 428,
poetry of 49, 690 433, 446–452, 456–465, 569. See also
waqf endowment of 299, 313 bekār
Mehmed II’s mosque and complex xxiv– Albanian 458–459, 460, 565, 566
xxv C4/1, 29, 49, 79, 146, 200, 205, 427, as agriculturalists 300–302, 303
529, 530, 532–537, 533, 537, 538, 539, in fiction 590–591
540, 541, 542, 543, 544, 548, 550, 573, Mihri Hatun 70, 89
664, 713 Mihrümah Sultan 94, 95, 152
criticism of 535–537 Mikhail, Alan 9
and ġāzī ethos 533–535 Milion xxiv–xxv E5/20, 145
madrasas at 37, 122, 534, 538, 542, 611, military. See ʿacemioğlanı; janissary/ies; ḳul;
612 sipāhī
mausoleum 534 Ming Empire 415
produce gardens 285–286, 302 Mingrelia 236
Mehmed III 148, 151, 154, 155, 156, 170, 171, Moldavia 127, 366, 367, 371, 454
173, 174, 176, 177, 183, 439, 543, 544, 704, Molla Arab 509
705 Molla Gürani neighborhood 573
Mehmed IV 149, 155, 156, 178, 222, 377, 439, Molla Lütfi 163
517, 559, 564, 613, 616 von Moltke, Helmuth 226
Mehmed Agha b. Abdülkerim 522 Montagu, Lady Mary 91, 482
Mehmed Agha, Kayserili 225 Moralı Beşir Agha 522
Mehmed Agha, Sedefkar 546, 547 Morea 345
Mehmed Efendi, Dizdarzade 272 Morisco(s) 374
Mehmed Feyzullah Efendi 104, 565, 567 Morita, Madoka 462
Mehmed Pasha 32, 151, 507 Morrison, Robert 607
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Index 749
Moryson, Fynes 70–71 475, 476, 477, 478, 487, 488, 515, 540,
Moscow 557, 559 619, 702–709, 713
mosques 218–219, 344, 377, 528–551, 567, Mustafa Azizi, Yedikuleli 90
571. See also by name Mustafa Feyzi, Hayatizade 615
Mouchlion 380 Mustafa Sıdki 625, 626
money lenders and ṣarrāf 242–243 müste’min 120, 238
Mughal Empire 187–188, 511, 617, 664 Müteferrika, İbrahim 619–620, 621, 626–627
Muhammad-Mahdi 200 al-Muvakkit, Mustafa b. Ali 618
Muhyiddin-i Kocavi 505 mythology
Müller-Wiener, Wolfgang 13, 15 Islamic 200
Müneccimbaşı Ahmed Dede 40 Constantinople’s foundation 197–204
Müneccimbaşı Mehmed Çelebi 618 Ottoman Greek 197–198
Münşi, Ali 620–621 Mytilene 330
Münster, Sebastian 293
Murad II 122, 504, 536, 541, 683 Nabi 475, 483, 486, 490, 620
Murad III 31, 51, 148, 149, 156, 160, 176, 178, Nadiri 176, 177
182, 185, 186, 267, 438, 514, 515, 667, 682, Dīvān of 175
703, 704, 705 Naima, Mustafa 42, 562, 563, 564, 568, 623
mausoleum of 156 Nakkaş Hasan 173, 176
Murad III’s mosque and complex 544 Nakşi 177
Murad IV 51, 77, 78, 126, 235, 257, 268, 474, Nantes (Edict of) 374
477, 490, 516, 581, 588, 597, 618, 638, Naples 53, 210, 260
708 Naqshbandi order 125, 476, 507, 508, 510,
Murad Agha 569 515, 516, 519, 520, 521, 666, 682
Murphey, Rhoads 655 Mujaddidi 508
muṣādere 129–130 narḫ 261–263, 397–399, 405
Musavvir Hüseyin 184 naṣīḥatnāme 114, 115, 697–714
music 634–652. See also musicians Nasuhi lodge xxiv–xxv H4/1, 522
performance of 644–652, 645 Nasuhi, Muhammad 439
social bases of 634–644 natural disasters 212–223, 420–440. See
sufis and 637–640, 642, 643, 648–650, also death; earthquakes; fires; floods;
652 plague
teaching 646–649. See also meşk; management and prevention of 211–225,
meşkḫāne 433–437
musicians 635–636, 638–644 popular practices in times of 437–440
Muslim(s) 223, 224, 413, 481, 482, 491, 503, natural environment 26–29, 279–287,
504, 515, 530, 568, 570, 708 292–296, 298–30, 308–318
and non-Muslims neighborhood Naum Tiyatrosu 651
relations 344–346, 365–385 Nazmizade 627
conversion to Islam 367, 372, 373, 375, Necipoğlu, Gülru 103, 169, 540
377, 385 neighborhood 48–50, 131, 341–360, 520–523
merchants 236, 248–251, 250 demographic composition 344–346
polygyny among 353–354 expulsion from 347–348, 351, 454–455,
Mustafa, son of Süleyman I 540, 541 459, 462–464
Mustafa I 155–156 imam 346–349, 463
Mustafa II 156, 224, 264, 274, 565, 569 janissaries in 573–575, 576
Mustafa III 235, 273, 638 Jewish 214, 216, 431, 436, 544
Mustafa Âli, Gelibolulu 2, 32, 39, 44, 67, 75, management and organization
87, 144, 160, 181, 210, 399–401, 402, 473, 346–348, 350
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750 Index
neighborhood (cont.) Osman II 149, 155, 177, 257, 555, 569, 571,
policing 448, 460–464 595, 708
residents 342, 347–360, 369–373 Osman III 638
residents’ disputes 348–359, 370–373, Osman Dede 646
381–384 Otée, Chevalier d’ 644
spatial configuration 344–347 Otman Baba 506, 662, 663, 664, 665, 666,
women in 342–343, 347–359 668
Neoplatonism 673, 674, 682 Ottoman court. See also, architecture; Dīvān-ı
Neorion 212 Hümāyūn; music; literature; Topkapı
Nergisi 598 Palace
New Palace. See Topkapı Palace and artistic interactions with the city
New York 385 168–188
Nikousios, Panagiotis 377, 623, 625 and diplomacy 94–96
night 162, 474–475, 486 at Edirne 40, 184
Nisayi 90 ceremonial 146–162, 150, 154
Niyazi-i Misri 625 courtiers at the 168, 321, 543, 544, 705
non-Muslim(s) 41, 47–48, 73–74, 91, 92, festivities 157–162, 161, 185–188, 487
93, 106–107, 225, 258, 343, 344, 345, interpreters at 127, 367, 369, 377, 421,
352, 354, 439, 455, 544, 568. See also 623, 638
Armenian(s); dhimmi; Christian(s); visual culture 168–188
Greek Orthodox; Jew(s) Ömer el-Fuadi 515
elite 120, 124, 127–128 Ö zön, Mustafa Nihat 581
interrelations with Muslims 365–385
merchants 248–251 painting 168–188
musicians 640–641, 644 Palaiologina, Maria 380
Nubia 241 Palermo 557
Nurbanu Sultan 97, 98 Panagia church 281
mosque and complex. See Atik Valide Pantepoptes church xxiv–xxv D4/1, 221
mosque and complex Pantokrator church and monastery xxiv–
Nureddin Mehmed Cerrahi lodge xxiv–xxv xxv D4/2, 221, 507
C3/6, 521 Paris 260, 446, 449, 450, 451, 452, 557
Nureddinzade, Mustafa Müslihüddin 513 Paris observatory 617
Nuruosmaniye mosque and complex xxiv– Parker, Geoffrey 608
xxv E5/11, 529 Parthenios (Patriarch) 568
library at 514 Paspatēs, Alexandras Georgios 379
Nutku, Ö zdemir 588 Patriarchal Academy 367, 368
Patrona Halil 41–42, 43, 566
Oberman, Heiko 5 rebellion 272, 458, 484, 565, 621
Odunkapısı xxiv–xxv D4/3, 432 Peçevi, İbrahim 476
Ohrid 300, 301 Pedani, Maria Pia 95, 96
d’Ohsson, Mouradgea 489 Peirce, Leslie 88, 95, 349
Okmeydanı 163, 377, 439 Peloponnese 380, 658
Old Palace. See Eski Saray Pera 49, 52, 184, 209, 218, 219, 237, 237, 252,
Orhan 535 435, 651. See also Galata
Orta mosque xxiv–xxv C4/5, 563, 564, Perama 212
571 Persia. See Iran; Safavid; Timurid
Ortaköy 247 Persian Gulf 239
Osman I 541, 548 Pervane b. Abdullah 90
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Index 751
Peter I (Czar) 634 produce gardens. See bostān(s)

Petits champs des morts xxiv–xxv E2/2, 435 Prophet 200, 402, 413, 503, 514, 533, 548
Peyami Safa 49 mosque of the 412
Phanariots. See Greek Orthodox: Phanariots tomb of the 439
Philliou, Christine 9 prose tales 581–602. See also meddāḥ tales;
Phillips, Amanda 183–184 mes̱nevī
Philotheos 366 prostitution 78, 88, 347–348, 453–455, 482,
Piri Mehmed Pasha 159 587, 589
Piri Pasha 510 Prussia 239. See also Germany
Pisa 410 Ptolemy 612
Piyale Pasha 314 public health 433–437
pious endowments. See waqf / awqāf public order 446, 447, 448, 451, 455–60,
plague 420, 424–425, 428–431, 434–435, 477, 478
437–440 public spaces 43–45, 50–53, 473–493.
networks 430 See also Atmeydanı; bathhouses;
of Justinian 429 bozaḫāne, coffeehouses; gardens;
Podolia 378 Hippodrome; market(s); mosques;
poetics 672–677 public squares
poetry. See also ġazel; ḳasīde; mesnevī; public squares 79, 564, 571, 572, 576. See also
şehrengīz; women: poets Atmeydanı; Hippodrome
and sufi(s) 682–688
Arab 661, 681 Qalawun hospital 618
ʿāşıḳ 45–46, 50 Qaytbay 548
dīvān 89–90, 106, 672–693 quarter. See neighborhood
love 674–693 Quran 402, 411, 412, 503, 515, 541, 548, 566
narrative 655–562 Qushji, Ali 611, 612
Persian 36, 49, 660, 661, 678, 681
Poland 94–95, 240, 258, 378, 405, 454 Rabelais, François 490
political thought 115–118, 697–714. See also Rabia al-Adawiyya 513
naṣīḥatnāme Raby, Julian 535
politics. See ʿaskeri; cumhūr; governance; Rafeq, Abdul-Karim 15
intisāb; janissary/ies; Kadızadeli(s)?; Rama, Angel 656
ḳul; Ottoman court; political thought; Ramadan 486
rebellions; sufi(s): and the state; Ramazan Dede 562
ulema; urbanites: and popular dissent Ramazan Muslu 519, 520
Porta Hebraica 371–372 Rambaud, Alfred Nicolas 157
Porter, Roy 613 Ramberti, Benedetto 205
Portugal 399 Rapoport, Yossef 355, 358
Pourchot, Edmond 620 Ravendi 44–45
poverty 446, 447, 450, 452 Raymond, André 14, 15
Preziosi, Donald 16 Raziye Sultan 514
Price, Derek de Solla 616–617 reʿāyā. See also Armenian(s); artisans;
printing press 626–627 Christian(s); Greek-Orthodox; Jew(s);
Müteferrika 626–627 merchants; Muslim(s); non-Muslim(s);
non-Muslim 627 urbanites
Prishtina 687 status 69, 116
Procházka-Eisl, Gisela 402 and ʿaskeri 116–133, 261, 699–701, 711, 714
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752 Index
rebellions 40–43, 458–459, 555–576 Rüstem Pasha’s mosque and complex xxiv–
1622 555–556, 558 xxv E4/5, 218, 243
1648 558–559 Rüstem, Ünver 171, 549
1651 562–564 Rycaut, Sir Paul 376
1688 564–565
1703 565–566 Sabbatai Tsevi 378
Patrona Halil 41–42, 43, 272, 458, 484, Sabit 594, 595
565, 566, 621 Saʿdabad 484
spaces of 569–576 Sadi order 520, 521
recreation and entertainment 31–32, Safa al-Din al-Ardabili 508
43–45, 50–53, 181, 473–493. See also Safavid 95, 239, 399, 511, 540, 546, 625, 627,
Atmeydanı; bathhouses; bozaḫāne; 634, 635, 664. See also Iran
coffeehouses; fountains; games; embassies 173, 173, 174–175
gardens; leisure; meddāḥ; Ottoman literature 172
court: festivities; prose tales; public visual arts 172, 173, 174, 175, 183, 184
spaces; seyr; sightseeing; sociability; wars with 140, 159, 268, 290, 540, 546
spectacles Safayi Dede 508
Reddy, William 673 Safi, Mustafa Efendi 545, 546, 549
religion. See Armenian(s); Christian(s); Safiye Sultan 94, 95–96, 378, 544, 546
churches; dhimmi; Greek Orthodox; Safranbolu 590
Islam; Hanafi; Jew(s); ḳānūn; Sahillioğlu, Halil 624
madrasas; mosques; Muslim(s); Salonica 30, 32, 42, 259, 345, 637
non-Muslim(s); Shafiʿi; sharia; sufi(s); Samandji, Achilles 210
Sunni(sm); synagogues; ulema; Samarqand 610, 634
Reşid Çelebi 643 Samatya 350
revolts. See rebellions Sancaktar Yokuşu 380
Rhodes 505 Sandal Bedestanı xxiv–xxv E5/10, 236, 395,
Rifaʿi order 125, 520, 521 396
Roma 68. See also gypsies Sandys, George 208, 209
Roman Empire 204, 283 Sansar Mustafa 46
Romano, İsak Fresko 640 Saracens 198
Rome 198, 204 Saraçhane xxiv–xxv C4/3, 273, 396, 535, 563,
Rosenwein, Barbara 673 565, 573
Rosetta 32 Sarajevo 32
el-Rouayheb, Khaled 613 Sarayburnu xxiv–xxv F4/1, 148
Rudé, Georges 558 Sarayi Rukiyye Hatun bt. Abdullah 522
Rūm 383. See also Greek Orthodox Sarı Gürz 509
Rum, lands of 33–37, 72, 477 Sarı Saltuk 532, 665, 666
Abdals of 662, 663, 664, 666 Sariyannis, Marinos 449, 453, 463, 556
tulips of 398–399 sartorial rules 8, 65, 71, 73–74, 492, 706
Rumelia 159, 220, 354 Sayers, David Selim 581, 582, 584, 591
Rumelihisarı 50, 711 Schedel, Hartmann 204
Russia 204, 235, 236, 238, 240, 399, 558, sciences
627 Arab 614, 615, 616
wars with 378 European 607, 608, 614, 615, 616
Rustam 172 Islamic 608, 609, 610, 611, 612, 613, 615,
Rüstem Pasha 152, 538, 540, 701 616, 617, 618, 625
Rüstem Pasha khan xxiv–xxv E4/4, 235 madrasa 608–613, 614, 615, 618, 619, 623
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Index 753
medical 614, 615, 617, 618–619, 620–621, Shaykh Şüca 514, 515, 682
623, 625 Shaykh Vefa, Muslihüddin Mustafa 286,
Persian 611, 614, 615, 625 505–506, 507, 618, 625, 682, 683
practice of 613–625 mosque of xxiv–xxv D4/5, 286, 506
of astronomy 609, 610, 611–612, 614, 615, Shefer-Mossensohn, Miri 617
617–618, 625 Shiraz 415
Schluchter, Wolfgang 5 al-Shirazi, Qutb al-Din 611
Scholarios, George. See Gennadios II sightseeing 50–53
Schweiggger, Salomon 206, 207, 208, 226 Sigismund I 94
Scott, Joan 86, 108 Sigismund II 94
Selaniki Mustafa Efendi 146, 147, 151, 152, Sılay, Kemal 89, 106
155, 159, 220, 301, 309 Silivri 299, 313, 428
Selim I 37, 148, 159, 213, 220, 401, 509, 510, Silivrikapı 435
537, 580, 635, 682, 686, 701 Simav 507
Selim I’s mosque and complex xxiv–xxv Simeon of Poland 280
C3/7, 217, 529, 567 Sinan, ʿAtik 536
waqf of 284 Sinan 30, 52, 213, 214, 218, 220, 221, 222, 225,
Selim II 149, 157, 176, 218, 222, 531, 543, 667, 234, 313, 314, 542, 543, 546
702 Sinaneddin Yusuf 512, 514
mausoleum of xxiv–xxv F5/3, 156, 221 Sinop 250, 590
Selim II’s mosque and complex 544 sipāhī 158, 485, 511–512, 571, 572, 591, 699,
Selim III 271, 273, 274, 358, 455, 459, 460, 700, 709, 710
464, 639, 640 Sipahiler Çarşısı xxiv–xxv E6/8, 565
Selman Agha mosque 287 Sipahi Şadan 587
Semerdjian, Elyse 107 Sirkeci 436
semt 48–50, 52 Sivas 613
Seng, Yvonne 92 Siyavuş Pasha 563
Serbia 710 Skarlatos, Vyzantios 27, 55
Seven Towers. See Yedikule Skilliter, Susan 95
sex 585–587, 592, 593, 595, 599 Skopje 345, 660
Seydi 636 Skovsgaard, Hans Andersen 623
seyr 51–53 slaves 39, 72, 235–236, 356, 453–454
Seyyid Hasan 474, 491, 518, 519 Softa Sinan neighborhood 573
Seyyid Osman Efendi 567 Sofular neighborhood 573
Shafiʿi 485 Solomon 538
Shahrazuri 619, 624 spectacles 486–487
Shah Sultan mosque and lodge xxiv–xxv Spice Market 399. See also Yeni Valide
B6/3, 512 mosque and complex
Shapur 712 Spain 239, 374, 612
sharia 132, 243, 248, 256, 342, 343, 365, 395, sociability 31–32, 43–45, 473–484, 488–493.
453, 513, 545 See also barber shops; bathhouses;
courts 233, 247–250, 343, 349, 372, bozaḫāne; coffeehouses; gardens
373, 376, 384. See also family: social ranks and hierarchies 44, 64, 68–76,
legal disputes; urbanites: as legal 120–122, 123–127, 132–133, 169, 210,
claimants; women: legal agency of 266, 299, 399–401, 516, 639, 707. See
family matters in the 352–360 also ʿaskeri; reʿāyā; urbanites: social
Shaybanid 511 designations of
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754 Index
Soğan Ağa neighborhood 573, 575 public criticism of 538–540

Sokullu Mehmed Pasha 146, 151, 220, 234, waqf endowments of 284, 285, 287, 288,
513 289, 313
Sokullu Mehmed Pasha’s mosque and lodge Süleyman Faik Efendi 598
complex xxiv–xxv E6/6, 513 Süleyman Halife 505
South Asia 233, 239, 240, 405, 408. See also Süleyman Pasha (grand-vizier 1562) 152
India Süleyman Pasha (grand-vizier 1656) 569
South East Asia 415, 519, 522 Süleyman Pasha, Sarı 564
Stewig, Reinhard 13 Süleymaniye mosque and complex xxiv–
St. Andrea in Krisei 507 xxv D4/6, 52, 79, 103, 218, 222–223,
St. Catherine monastery, metochion of 370, 234, 296, 297, 314, 395, 529, 530, 531,
383 537–543, 544, 545, 547, 548, 549, 549,
St. James Cathedral (Jerusalem) 413 550
St. John the Baptist. See Hagios Ioannis madrasas at 122, 542, 612
Prodromos waterway to 310
St. Mary of the Mongols. See Theotokos Sultan Ahmed. See Ahmed I’s mosque and
Mouchliotissa church complex
St. Peter’s basilica 204 Sulu Manastır 313
Strathern, Alan 9 Sümertaş, Firuzan Melike 102
Stremmelaar, Annemarike 556, 567 Sünbül Sinan Efendi 509, 510, 512, 667
Sublime Porte 239, 246, 381 Sünbülzade Vehbi 474, 479, 486
Subtelny, Maria 610 Sunni(sm) 8, 121, 125, 374, 652
Subrahmanyam, Sanjay 6 Surp Hıreşdagabet church xxiv–xxv C2/6,
sufi(s) 285, 377, 439, 474, 475, 476, 477, 481, 384
503–523, 540. See also by name Sütlüce 510
and literature 655, 656, 662–668, ṣuyolcu 328, 329–331
682–690 Suyolcuzade 639
and music 637–640, 642, 643, 648–650, Sweden 239
652 synagogues 218, 267, 344, 365, 378, 379, 384,
and the state 504–515 640, 641
and the Safavid dynasty 508–511 Syria 32, 122, 405, 410
conflict between Kadızadelis and Szigetvár 513
516–519
establishment in the Ottoman capital Şaban-ı Veli 514, 515
505–511 Şahin, Kaya 171
lodges 79, 125, 126, 505–513, 519–523, Şahkulu 509
638, 640, 642, 643, 648–649, 652, Şah Sultan 512, 513
682 şarḳı 636, 642, 646
mysticism 673, 674–675, 676, 682–687 Şazeli order 521
orders 123, 124, 505–515, 519–523 Şehid Ali Pasha 624
practices 509, 515–519 şehirli 34, 365. See also urbanites
shaykhs 124–126, 504–515, 519–523, 567, şehir oğlanı 34, 75–76, 182, 491
656, 662, 666, 667, 682 şehrengīz 36, 52, 74–76, 80, 81, 90 661, 695
Süleyman I 68, 71, 94, 116, 146, 149, 150, Şehzade mosque and complex 152, 171, 234,
151, 152, 154, 156, 171, 206, 214, 216, 310, 529, 537
218, 225, 310, 314, 401, 428, 473, 510, Şehzadebaşı 68
511, 512, 513, 514, 529, 537, 538, 540, Şemdanizade Süleyman Efendi 41
541, 543, 544, 547, 635, 682, 701 Şemseddin Ahmed 618, 625
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Index 755
Tabriz 45, 635 Tophane 50, 51, 235, 247, 480, 643
Taci Beg 686 Topkapı gate xxiv–xxv A4/1, 435
tācir 249–250. See also merchants Topkapı Palace xxiv–xxv F5/1, 49, 69, 78,
Tacizade Cafer Çelebi 36, 49–50, 52, 80, 214 104–105, 119, 145, 146, 147, 148, 149,
Tahmasp I 95, 540 152, 161, 175, 200–201, 203, 205, 210,
Tahtakale 31, 32, 50, 76, 78, 218, 234, 243, 218, 224, 251, 273, 285, 288, 514, 519, 531,
344, 366, 395, 431, 436, 480, 597 532, 562, 564, 565, 571, 572, 638, 643,
Tahta Minare neighborhood 370 705, 713
Talbot, Alice-Mary 283 Bāb üs-Saʿāde at 155, 156, 572
Talikizade, Mehmed b. Mehmed el-Fenari women 94–96
67, 171, 173 Totman, Conrad 5
Tamdoğan, Işık 451 Tournefort, Joseph Pitton de 236
al-Tamgrouti, Abu’l-Hasan 208, 432 Tracy, James 5
Tanburi Mustafa Çavuş 642 trade. See also artisans; Bedestan; bedestān;
Tanpınar, Ahmet Hamdi 54–55, 676 bostān(s); khans; market(s); merchants
Tanzimat 2, 9, 10, 123, 129, 256, 584, 641 capitulations 238, 239, 248, 252
Taqi al-Din observatory 617 dispute adjudication 246–251
Taşçızade 639 infrastructure 234–237, 244–245
Taşlıcalı Yahya 540 interregional 238–242
Taşköprüzade, Ahmed 510, 611 prohibitions 239, 269–270, 396
taverns 79, 478, 479, 480–481, 482, 491, 570, slave 235–236, 453–454
576 taxation on 244–246
Tavuk Pazarı xxiv–xxv E5/14, 273 Trebizond 401, 533
Tavukçuzade 639 Tülek, Murat 102
technology 626–628 Turan, Ebru 538, 541
tekke. See sufi: lodges Türkmen Agha 522
Terkos 313 Turkoman 590
Terzioğlu, Derin 487 Tursun Beg 144, 532, 664
Tevkiʿi Caʿfer neighborhood 370 al-Tusi, Nasir al-Din 611
textiles 169–174, 402–407, 406, 407, 410, 412
Tezcan, Baki 556, 614 Ufki Bey, Ali 638, 641, 646
Tezkireci İbrahim 615, 625 Üftade, Shaykh Mehmed Muhyiddin 125
Theotokos Kyriotissa church 221, 506 ulema 40, 116–117, 122–123, 128–129, 132, 529,
Theotokos Mouchliotissa church xxiv–xxv 542, 544, 545, 546, 551
C3/1, 379, 379–383, 384 in urban uprisings 559, 566–571, 575
Theotokos Pammakaristos xxiv–xxv C3/2, Ulugh Beg 610
534 Umayyad 200, 533
Thompson, Elizabeth 86 Unkapanı 77, 78, 344, 432
Thompson, E.P. 558 Ünsi Hasan Efendi 517, 518, 519
Thrace 220, 405 uprisings. See rebellions
Von Thünen, Johann Heinrich 280, 281 urban governance 11–12, 32–33, 40–41, 107,
Tıfli Ahmed Çelebi 46, 51, 490, 581, 582, 584, 365, 446–460, 477, 478, 479, 481–482.
588, 591, 597, 598 See also church(es): repairs; kefālet;
Tilly, Charles 447 natural disasters: management and
tīmār 124, 128, 699, 700, 703, 708, 709, prevention of; neighborhood: imam;
710–711, 712, 713 neighborhood: management and
Timurid 609, 610, 634 organization; neighborhood: policing;
Tire 330 public health; public order; sartorial
tobacco 478, 490, 518, 585, 713 rules
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756 Index
urbanites 2–48, 70–76, 446–465. See also Veria. See Karaferye

Armenian(s); artisans; Christian(s); Vezir khan xxiv–xxv E5/17, 235
Greek Orthodox; Jew(s); merchants; Vienna (siege of) 378, 446, 450, 517
Muslim(s); non-Muslim(s); reʿāyā; violence 446–465; 564, 567, 568, 570–573
sufi(s); şehirli; women janissary 447, 451–452, 456, 570–573. See
and elites 74–81, 115–133 also crime; rebellions
and popular dissent 39–43, 555–566, Voltaire 280
562–573, 575–576, 658
as art collectors 179, 181 Wallachia 127, 366, 634
as legal claimants 248–251, 285, 287, waqf / awqāf 13, 116, 128–130, 234, 264–265,
289, 291, 293, 295, 299, 319–320, 290, 302, 313, 344, 437, 530
348–359, 381–384, 464 administration 102, 129, 264–265, 288,
as agricultural land tenants 284–285, 290, 291, 313, 320–321, 328
287–291 ʿavārıż 342, 351
as çiftlik tenants 298–299 cash 242–243
consumption trends of 394, 397–400, land 282, 284–291, 299–300, 303
403–416, 475, 478 muḳāṭaʿalı 290–291
in fiction 581–602 sultanic 283–291
in visual representations 179–182 Watenpaugh, Heghnar 106
moral economy of 40, 559, 562, 575 water supply 292–293, 308–333
recreation among 473–493. See also and private ownership 308, 318–322,
recreation and entertainment 327–328
social designations of 33, 34, 249, 375, aqueducts 52, 310, 311, 314, 316, 317, 542
460 as waqf endowment 310, 312–314
Urfa 637 infrastructure 308–333, 311
Üsküdar 27, 50, 92–93, 102, 103, 147–148, construction labor 314, 316, 323–333
209, 234, 247, 248, 259, 270, 287, 291, towers 310, 312
365, 411, 435, 452, 517, 521, 522, 530, 587, Weber, Max 3–4
643, 648, 705 West Indies 399, 415
Üsküdar palace xxiv–xxv H5/1, 705 White, Charles 215, 216
Üstüvani Mehmed Efendi 516, 517 White, E.B. 385
Uşak 406 women 91–96, 404, 405, 452, 568. See also
Üveysi 707, 708 family; neighborhood(s)
Uzun aqueduct 314, 316, 317 and prostitution 447, 450, 453–455
Uzunçarşı xxiv–xxv E4/10, 234, 565 and sociability 474, 482–484, 485, 492
discourse on gender and 87, 86–89,
Vahdi 36, 583, 599, 660 105–109
vaḳʿa-ı ḫayriye 41, 120 in visual representations 97–101
Valens aqueduct xxiv–xxv D4/7, 52, 310 legal agency of 342–343, 347–359
Valide Sultan khan xxiv–xxv E5/2, 234–235 non-Muslim 91, 92, 93, 106–107
della Valle, Pietro 206, 209, 210 poets 89–90
Van 703 royal 93–97, 100, 102–105
Vani Mehmed Efendi 377, 378, 516, 517 waqf endowments and economic
Vanmour, Jean Baptiste 184, 237 investments 91, 97–105
Vassaf, Hüseyin 126 Wratislaw, Wenceskas 91
Vehbi, Seyyid Hüseyin 177, 185, 402, 405, 416
Venice, Republic of 96, 156, 157, 218, 220, yaḥūdḫāne(s) 372
233, 258, 394, 399, 402, 569 Yahya Bey (Taşlıcalı / Dukaginzade) 598,
wars with 378 656, 657, 660, 661, 662, 668, 689
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Index 757
Yakomi v. Tozako 371, 372 Yi, Eunjeong 259, 275, 462, 556, 565
Yakub el-Germiyani 512, 513 Yılmaz, Fikret 557, 567
Yakub Efendi 667 Yirmisekiz Mehmed Çelebi 619, 624, 625
Yanbol synagogue xxiv–xxv C2/3, 384 Yirmisekiz Mehmed Said 625
Yanko bin Madyan 26, 55, 201, 202 Yoros (Beykoz) 331
Yanya. See Ioannina Yunus Efendi 508
Yanyevi Esad Efendi 619 Yürekli, Zeynep 667
Yatmalu 299 Yürük 709
Yedikule xxiv–xxv A7/1, 49, 50, 52, 270, 281, Yusuf Sinan 656, 662, 667, 668
439, 664, 683, 713
bostān(s) 281, 292–293, 295, 295, 297 Zaharya 640
Yelçe, Zeynep 170 Zakiri Hasan Efendi 638
Yemen 239, 702 Zarinebaf, Fariba 450
Yeni Bağçe xxiv–xxv B3/1, 282, 283, 284, 288, Zati 660
293, 573 Zen, Pietro 538
Yenice-i Vardar 507 Zeynel Pasha 159
Yenikapı xxiv–xxv D6/1, 50, 125, 435, 508, Zeynep Hatun 89
648 Zeyni order 505, 507, 682, 683
Yenikapı lodge xxiv–xxv A5/1, 125 Zeyrek 510
Yeniköy 711 Zeyrek mosque. See Pantokrator church
Yeni Odalar xxiv–xxv C4/4, 560, 563, 571, 573 Zilfi, Madeline 454, 516
Yenişehirli Abdullah Efendi 354 Zindankapı 214, 243, 431
Yeni Valide mosque and complex xxiv–xxv Zindankapı Han xxiv–xxv E4/11, 235, 243
E4/8, 93, 244, 366, 372, 377, 436, 619, Zoodochos Pigi xxiv–xxv A6/1, 47, 439
648 Zubaida, Sami 4
Yerasimos, Stéphane 107 ẓulm 529, 536, 550
- 978-90-04-46856-6

A Companion To Early Modern Istanbul

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A Companion to Early Modern Istanbul

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/bceh

The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available online at https://catalog.loc.gov.

Copyright 2022 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands.

This book is printed on acid-free paper and produced in a sustainable manner.

1 Early Modern Istanbul 1

2 The City Opens Your Eyes Because It Wants to Be Seen

3 Istanbul: A City of Men 63

4 Women in the City 86

5 Elites’ Networks and Mobility 114

6 Palace and City Ceremonials 143

7 Courtly Spaces: Visual and Material Culture 168

8 Volatile Urban Landscapes between Mythical Space and Time 197

9 Merchants and Global Connections 233

10 Artisans and Guilds

11 When Istanbul Was a City of Bostāns

12 Water for the City

13 Neighborhood and Family Lives 341

14 Communal Matters 365

15 Crafts and Everyday Consumption 394

17 Crime, Violence, and Urban Policing 446

18 Sociability, Public Life, and Decorum 473

19 Sufi Spaces and Practices 503

20 The Sultan, His Monument, and the Critical Public 528

21 Urban Protests, Rebellions, and Revolts 555

22 The 18th-Century “Istanbul Tale”

23 Science and Technology 607

24 Music and Musicians in the City 634

25 Poets, Sufis, and Their City Tours 655

26 The Poetics of Istanbul: The City of Cities 672

27 Istanbul Elites and Political Writing 697

Select Bibliography 717

Shirine Hamadeh and Çiğdem Kafescioğlu

the Evelyn Collection, Copenhagen, 1962, 82; (b, c) Salomon Schweigger,

H. Vilmain et E. Rives …, Paris, 1828. Hellenic Library, Alexander S. Onassis

12.1 Estimated number of water entitlement holders between 1619–1717 322

AK Istanbul Municipality Atatürk Library, Istanbul

AHR The American Historical Review

MES Middle Eastern Studies

Maurits H. van den Boogert

Leyla Kayhan Elbirlik

A4/1 Topkapı / Cannon gate C4/3 Saraçhane

E4/4 Rüstem Paşa khan E5/18 Divan Yolu

Early Modern Istanbul

As Black Sea flows into Mediterranean

Every path of its marketplace on view, fonts of men

Bankers of wisdom named it the Market Hall

Full of heart-captivating beauties, drops of pure water

Like a church awash with images and ornament

At sea’s edge, oft alight in blaze

Wayfarers take leave by land and by sea

Âli is a traveler of the climes of the world

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2022 | doi:10.1163/9789004468566_002 - 978-90-04-46856-6

Istanbul, Constantinople, Kostantiniyye: early modern metropolis with one

region, Eurasia, and the world at large as highlighted by recent scholarship

modern, and how, remain points of contention, as some Ottoman historians

a larger early modern world”.11 One of the most productive conceptualiza-

synchronized, we cannot fail to notice the “shared rhythms of a number of

14 Kafadar, “The Ottomans and Europe”, 621.

also be understood within the broader framework of boundary building. Of

18 Dursteler, Renegade Women; Rothman, Brokering Empire; De Vivo, “Crossroads Region:

in the same direction—the emergence of an urban Mamluk bürgertum being

on the utility of further exploring the early modern.28 It is our conviction