The Imperial Heyday 121
parts: on upholding the Sunna, on avoiding innovation, and on the importance
of moderation (iktisad). Moderation, i.e. abstaining from excessive behavior
that harms both body and soul, is for Birgivi the golden rule, corresponding
to the Aristotelian mean and—interestingly—being nearer to Kâtib Çelebi’s
dismissal of the Kadızadeli theorists (Birgivi’s seventeenth-century followers)
than to the strict attitude of the latter (cf. below, chapter 7). But the empha-
sis on moderation apart, the general aim of the treatise is to violently attack
and dismiss innovations; true, there are innovations which may be permit-
ted or even recommended, such as the building of minarets, but in general
innovation is a major threat to religion, closely resembling infidelity. His most
important target is “innovation in custom” (bid’a fi’l-‘âda), especially when
committed by “the Sufis of our time” (although he never dismisses Sufism
wholesale), such as dancing and music, issues which were to take on great
significance in later debates. Birgivi discusses at length piety (taqwâ), focus-
ing on trespasses against it: the sins or forbidden acts pertaining to the vari-
ous parts of the body, including the heart (such as arrogance and hatred) an
the tongue (such as blasphemy and lying). In this discussion he also reverts
to the well-known theory of the soul and its faculties, as formulated by al-
Ghazali and repeated in the Tusian theories of ethics.64 Birgivi’s central place
in the opposition to the imperial legal synthesis can be seen in the fact that he
felt it necessary to devote the last chapter of his Tariqa to the fiscal and land
arrangements sanctified by Ebussu’ud.65 Birgivi regarded money with great
suspicion and considered the harmful characteristics of wealth as “overpow-
ering”, and in this vein, while showing the usual condemnation of both ava-
rice and wastefulness, he adamantly denied the legitimacy of paying for any
religious services (though he deemed gifts or donations permissible) and of
monetary charitable endowments (as seen above). The denial of the latter was
based on numerous different arguments, such as the disruption of the regu-
lar course of inheritance and the greediness of administrators, but mostly on
the inevitable identification of such endowments with the strictly forbidden
practice of usury. Moreover, Birgivi also challenged Ebussu’ud’s formulation of
Ottoman landholding; and, unlike the cash-vakf controversy, we have no evi-
dence that this was an issue for debate after Mehmed II’s “greediness”.66 Birgivi
stressed the illegality of the land tax and the injustice caused to the heirs of the
64 Ivanyi 2012, 158ff.
65 For an analysis of this chapter, see Ivanyi 2012, 239ff. and especially 262–283. Cf. Mandaville
1979, 304–306; Mundy – Saumarez Smith 2007, 16–20.
66 A fetva, possibly dated to Süleyman’s time, is similar to Birgivi’s critique: Mundy –
Saumarez Smith 2007, 244, fn. 42.