110 chapter 3
confusion: the conflict between “secular” and “Islamic” law, between kanun
and the Sharia, is one thing, and it concerned the jurists in as much as the two
kinds of laws have different sources and different (or overlapping) executors.
Within the “secular law” itself, on the other hand, there was a part based on
customary law, which obviously preserves many of the feudal structures in use
during the late Byzantine and the early Ottoman centuries, and another part
associated with monetarization, as was the case with the monetary fines that
replaced corporal punishment. We should also bear in mind that Ebussu’ud’s
legitimization of the notion of miri land did nothing to help impose the timar
system (which presupposed this notion); it only reconfigured this system—
one that had, by that time, been established for more than 70 years and which
was perhaps already beginning to cede its place to monetized structures of
taxation—and made it fit within an empire being presented as the champion
of Sunni Islam and into a highly-sophisticated judicial system that professed
a strict orthodoxy. In a sense, this is again an expression of the ambiguity sur-
rounding legal structures in the turning point symbolized by Süleyman’s reign.
State ownership of the land was legitimized in terms of the “jurists’ law” just
when it was beginning to disrupt (as tithe and other taxes in kind waned away
in favor of taxes in cash), and Ebussu’ud and his supporters were expressing
this specific balance. Later, in chapter 6, how the legal arguments of their op-
ponents were later used in order to undermine the feudal structure of land
tenure will be shown—but, as is often the case, it was a structure that by then
had suffered significant blows.
2 A New Legitimacy
At the end of chapter 1 we saw how Ottoman dynastic legitimization was
developed during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, combining the reli-
gious fervor of the gaza (as seen by the ulema) with mythical genealogies link-
ing Osman to noble ancestors and even prophets. As noted above, the fall of
Constantinople had led to significant changes in the imperial image. A new
emphasis on ceremonial and hierarchy, enhanced by the sultan’s withdrawal
from public appearances, was evident in court ritual and literature, as well as
in the creation of a heavy and imposing style of art and architecture.31
31 Necipoğlu 1992.