The Imperial Heyday 141
than any pre-existing political tradition). But on the whole, Âsafnâme stands
out as an impressively original work, setting a new example for the genre that
would be followed throughout the sixteenth century.
It is very interesting that Lütfi Pasha seems to have been considered igno-
rant in the eyes of educated bureaucrats such as Mustafa Ali and (perhaps)
Celalzade, who looked with disdain upon devşirme recruits in high administra-
tive positions.111 As has been seen, however, he was perfectly capable of writing
elaborate treatises in Arabic with quotations from hadiths and other medieval
authorities, as he did in his essay on the caliphate. Yet the absence of any refer-
ence, quotation, or even of any real glimpse of earlier political philosophy in
his Âsafnâme is striking. Not a single authority is mentioned. He does illustrate
his points with stories, but they all come from his own experience under Selim
and Süleyman: neither Muhammad nor the first caliphs, nor Anushirvan or
Iskender/Alexander, are to be found. A reflection of the bureaucratic obsession
with lists, mentioned above in relation to Celalzade, may perhaps be detected
in his enumerations of posts, salaries, and pensions.
On a more political level, the emphasis placed by Lütfi Pasha (and, to a
lesser extent, by Celalzade) on the vizier rather than the sultan himself is a sign
of his times: even before Mehmed II, Ottoman sultans had begun to seclude
themselves; they gradually ceased to appear very often in public and even to
eat together with their officials, increasingly delegating their everyday powers
to the viziers and the kadiaskers. The grand vizier started to be designated as
the “absolute proxy” (vekil-i mutlak) of the sultan’s power, and consequently
to have a more important position in conducting political affairs.112 While
Selim I’s grand viziers were short-lived and prone to immediate dismissal or
even execution (hence the curse of the time, “may you become a vizier of
Selim!”),113 Süleyman and his successors relied extensively on their viziers (suf-
fice it to mention the careers of Ibrahim Pasha and Sokollu Mehmed Pasha),
each of whom adhered to specific policies and were allied with specific power
parties. Lütfi may have not been the first or only author who wrote advice for
viziers rather than sultans, but he had the authority to do so through experience,
111 Ali admits that, for a devşirme recruit, Lütfi’s education was better than average, but he
considers him as arrogant and having a high opinion of himself: Yılmaz 2006, 107–8.
112 Stavrides 2001, 30–37 (on the sultans’ seclusion) and 56–59 (on the growing power of the
viziers); Sariyannis 2011a, 129ff.; Yılmaz 2015a, 234–237. Stavrides’ analysis is very reliant
on the so-called “kanunname of Mehmed the Conqueror”, which is, in fact, a much later
product (see Imber 2011, 174–178), although this does not alter his central conclusions.
113 Ali, as quoted by Hammer 1963, 2:378; Çıpa 2014, 132.