122 chapter 3
peasant; what he was opposing was not so much the concept of state owner-
ship itself, which he accepted by necessity, but the function of the tapu system
of tax and transfer of arable lands.
Birgivi’s analysis of the soul’s faculties and the virtues they produced brings
him unexpectedly close to the falasifa tradition of the Tusian ahlak authors,
and one may wonder whether this was pure coincidence. Towards the end of
Süleyman’s reign, the paragon of the Ottoman ahlak tradition, Kınalızade Ali
Çelebi, was extremely vexed by the substitution of the Sharia by the kanun: the
reader might remember his discussion of secular law, inserted into Tusi’s and
Davvani’s theory on the formation of societies (K413–14):
If you ask whether it is possible for an overpowering king to impose his
government and apply his power in towns and men: as happened in the
case of the Mongols, when Genghis Khan imposed laws (siyasetler) based
on reason and intelligence [rather than God’s inspiration], calling them
yasa, and killed whoever did not follow them. And this law was accepted
and executed by his children and adherents. We will answer that this may
happen, as long as the power of this imposing king, his children, and fol-
lowers lasts ... But when the shelter of kingship leaves this dynasty and
the drums of rulership mark the time of another [dynasty], so must this
law change and the foundations of its government and rules tremble.It is evident that Kınalızade draws a simile between the sultanly law or kanun
and Genghis Khan’s arbitrary yasa, implying that the former may result in ruin
as did the latter.67 The difference with Ahmedi’s pragmatic discussion of the
same issue is telling: it will be remembered that the early fourteenth-century
poet had remarked that Mongol rule (“lawful oppression”) was amenable to
the people; nearer to the time of our author, the geographer Aşık Mehmed
insisted that the Mongols “produced mighty kings and powerful princes
that ruled with justice and care for their subjects”,68 while one could also be
67 This section has been interpreted by Cornell Fleischer as a justification of the Ottoman
kanun, which supports and derives from the Holy Law (Fleischer 1983, 208; 1986, 227); in
contrast, Tezcan argued that Kınalızade instead sought to discredit kanun (Tezcan 2001,
118). On the challenges the Mongol invasions posed to Islamic legitimacy see Fleischer
1986a, 273–279; on the shift of meaning of the term yasa and kanun in the post-Mongol
societies of the Middle East cf. Burak 2015.
68 Aşık Mehmed – Ak 2007, III:1858 (Mogolân’dan padişahân-ı dad-küster ve husrevân-ı
ra ’iyyet-perver ve hakimân-ı ferman-reva ve emîrân-ı kişver-güşa bi-hadd ü bi-intiha zuhur
itdi). Aşık Mehmed (ca. 1556/57–1598), more than forty years younger than Kınalızade,