100 chapter 3
(Süleyman profited by launching another campaign against the Safavids),
only to be restarted in Transylvania, Hungary, and the western Mediterranean
in the next few years. On yet another front, the conquest of Egypt had brought
the Ottomans into contact with the Portuguese sphere of interest in the Indian
Ocean: several naval campaigns resulted in the conquest of Basra and of
Yemen, c. 1550, and in raids as far as Diu, in India. However, Süleyman’s main
interest remained Europe: after a short civil war between his two remaining
sons, as will be seen in more detail in the following chapter, he launched his
last campaign in person, dying only two days before the fortress he was laying
siege to, Szigetvár, capitulated.
The discussion on whether Süleyman’s reign was the “classical period”
(whatever that means) of the Ottoman Empire notwithstanding, it was to form
a yardstick for comparison in the following centuries. In this chapter, we will
seek to give an overview of the ideas prevailing in juristic and political thought
during his reign in order to try to detect the beginnings of trends that followed
and the attitudes against which subsequent authors reacted.3
1 The Basis of the Ottoman Synthesis: Ebussuud and the Reception of
Ibn Taymiyya
As shall also be seen in the next chapter, Süleyman’s reign was generally
regarded as the heyday of the Ottoman Empire; this view, however, rested more
on his internal policies than on his conquests, which were no more spectacular
than those of his father Selim. Süleyman was named Kanunî, “the Lawgiver”,
although he was not the first sultan to issue kanunnames, or books of laws
and regulations.4 His reputation rests primarily on his collaboration with
the two major sixteenth-century şeyhülislams, Kemalpaşazade (1525–34) and
Ebussu’ud Efendi (1545–74). Both were outstanding scholars; the latter also or-
ganized the şeyhülislam office into a fully institutionalized quasi-governmental
bureau, and was a paragon of what has been called the Ottoman synthesis of
secular and sacred law.5 “Secular” law itself was a synthesis, since in the preced-
ing centuries the sultans had been issuing edicts that complemented custom-
ary laws and regulations; what Ebussu’ud primarily achieved was to locate the
3 This chapter owes much to Yılmaz 2005, who located and studied plenty of theretofore
unknown minor sixteenth-century authors of political literature.
4 İnalcık 1969a; İnalcık 1992a. On kanunnames see also the bibliographical survey in Howard
1995/96.
5 Ebussuud – Düzdağ 1972; Repp 1986, 224ff. (on Kemalpaşazade) and 272ff. (on Ebussu’ud);
Imber 1997.