74 honored by the glory of islammurder not only Sufi s, but also “monotheists” (Muslims) who opposed them
and plotted to use violence to intimidate and exercise power or dominate the
sultan “just as the wicked and rebels have done since ancient times.”^55 Threat-
ened by their rise in infl uence, the urbane astrologer looked down on them as
country bumpkins who dared attack his interpretation of Islam.
Modern scholars have often adapted similar anti-Kadızadeli viewpoints,
which has hindered exploration of the prevailing interpretation of Islam in the
late seventeenth century so crucial for understanding conversion and conquest
in that era. Normally sober scholars become intemperate when writing about
the Kadızadelis. In a chapter entitled “The Triumph of Fanaticism” in his his-
tory of the Ottoman Empire, Halil Inalcik seems positively relieved when the
grand vizier exiles “the infl ammatory fakîs from Istanbul,” which prevents civil
war since the “fakî demagogues,” who appealed to “popular religious fanati-
cism,” intended “a general massacre.”^56 Ahmed Yaşar Ocak denigrates the in-telligence of the Kadızadelis and their followers, considering their movement
to have been based on “a very superfi cial, simple minded” set of ideas “with-
out any serious intellectual content”; they were “quite superfi cial” and “rather
crude” and took advantage of “the ignorance and naivete of the public.”^57
Ocak is correct to point out that it is fruitful to consider the struggle
among Muslims over the correct interpretation of Islam to also be social strife
“articulated in a religious idiom.”^58 Militant Kadızadeli activism had socioeco-
nomic, class, and ideological motivations and pointed to underlying ethnic
tensions. Similar to concerns voiced by writers of advice literature anxious
about what they perceived to be the corruption of societal organization, oppo-
sition to the Kadızadelis was in part based on the usurping of elite positions by
outsiders. Kadızadelis were usually not Ottomans in the limited sense of the
word, trained in the imperial schools of the capital, but often of provincial ori-
gin, and received their initial training in the provinces. Once in Istanbul they
struggled for positions within the religious hierarchy. As mosque preachers
they held positions that paid less and carried less prestige than the judgeships
and professorial positions held by the well-established jurists they attacked.
Their primary targets were members of the establishment-supported Sufi or-
ders such as the Halvetis and Mevlevis, who, not coincidentally, were their
main competitors for posts as preachers in Istanbul’s imperial mosques.^59 In
the seventeenth century, many rebels originated in the Caucasus (Abkhazia
and Georgia), while their opponents were from southeastern Europe (Albania,
Bosnia), pointing to ethnic tensions among the ranks of Muslims serving the
state.^60 The dispute between the Kadızadelis and the Halvetis displays similar
dynamics of ethnic antagonism, as the former were mainly migrants from the
Anatolian provinces, including Turks from central Anatolia and Kurds from