“Mirrors for Princes”: The Decline Theorists^159
appointments, show respect for ulema and dervishes, and so forth. One may
perceive a “bottom-up” approach not unlike that of Kitâbu mesâlih: a large part
deals with judges, with an emphasis on the fees paid to them by litigants and
the system for remunerating their substitutes (the naibs), and suggests that
strict control by the sultan will eliminate bribery and corruption. Interestingly,
it also envisages a perfect legal book, to be composed by one Molla Ahmed,
which will be a perfect kanunname, conform to the Sharia, and will be used for
700 years (Ö66–69).
In striking contrast to other treatises of the late sixteenth century, Rumûzü’l-
künûz views the sipahis as exploiters of the peasants instead of lamenting the
former’s socio-economic decline. Saruhani proposes that less tax be allocated
to timariot sipahis (1/10 in times of peace, 1/8 in times of campaign: Ö53) and
has a whole chapter on “the sultans’ slaves” (actually, on timars; Ö71–73), where
he complains about viziers’ fiefs being rented out, which results in heavy taxa-
tion on peasants (Ö71):
In the time when this [treatise] was written, in the years of the just sultan,
the sipahis of the land were selling their timars to some strongman, or
otherwise made him a steward (kethüda), and he was overburdening the
peasants; now this [practice] has moved from the sipahis to the viziers.Saruhani shows himself vehemently opposed to the sipahis, who drive the
peasants to despair with their continuous demand for taxes. All too tradition-
ally, the solution he offers lies in the careful registering of lands and taxes.
2 Mustafa Ali and “the Politics of Cultural Despair”
The paragon of the “declinist” political literature in this period was undoubt-
edly Gelibolulu Mustafa b. Ahmed (1541–1600), known by the pen-name ‘Âlî,
one of the most prolific and interesting writers of the sixteenth century.28
Ali was born in Gelibolu (Gallipoli) and received his initial education in his
native city before moving to live with his uncle in Istanbul, where he pursued a
medrese education as a student of Ebussu’ud Efendi’s son, Şemseddin Ahmed.
At the same time, he was closely associated with the poetic circles of the capi-
tal, establishing friendly relations with many renowned poets as well as with
27 I am borrowing this term from Murphey 1989.
28 The standard work on Ali is Fleischer 1986a; on his historiographical work, see also
Schmidt 1991.