“Mirrors for Princes”: The Decline Theorists^173
to appoint unworthy men to high posts only because they were raised in his
palace, while skilled and educated men remain without high positions sole-
ly because they have been brought up outside it. Such evil practice has been
employed since “the early days of the reign of the late Sultan Süleyman”
(T2:93–94/222–23). In general, this plea has often been interpreted as an appeal
to meritocracy; in fact, it is more of an appeal for recruiting medrese gradu-
ates, rather than palace-raised kuls, in governmental posts and for stopping the
blurring of career paths ( judges should not jump into financial or administra-
tive posts, and kuls should not enter the scribal bureaucracy). In fact, Ali is not
unequivocally and in principle opposing this; rather, it is a specific blurring he
has in mind, namely upstarts from the provincial administration making their
way into the higher echelons of central government, or kuls taking the place of
senior ilmiye graduates.47 It is more than clear that Ali’s complains stem from
his own disappointment at his mediocre career: he perceived his failure to find
a position worthy of his merit and knowledge as the result of palace recruits
occupying almost all the higher administrative posts. However, it would be an
oversimplification to consider all his remarks the result of personal bitterness.
The view of the janissaries and of the kul system in general as a threat to the
meritocracy, represented by sipahi cavalry and trained scholars, was to become
a standard view of early seventeenth-century theorists.48
As in Kitâbu mesâlih, so in Ali’s work can an ambiguous attitude vis-à-vis
the “old law” be seen. At quite a few points, Ali, too, considers “old custom”
an impediment to sound practice, or at least something not necessarily bind-
ing: for instance, he urges the sultan not to pay attention to objections such as
“this is not the old custom” (kanun-i kadim) (T1:50/140). Elsewhere, he speaks
of “beneficial innovations and laudable rules” (T1:41/126: nev-ayin-i hasene)
or of “the laws of the House of Osman and the innovations of the monarchs”
(T2:113/252: kavanin-i al-i Osman ve nev-ayin-i şehriyarân). Other points criti-
cize the law of Mehmed II (which, in general, is for Ali the paragon of Ottoman
tradition) on assigning ranks and degrees to the ulema, because the late sultan
did not consider the fact that even accomplished high-ranking ulema could
be corrupted with bribery (B67–68; the same regulations are highly praised in
Künhü’l-ahbâr: Ş76–84).
However, one may detect an attitude against the “disorders of the times”
that praises the old customs, or, in Ali’s words, “the rules” (he speaks of disorder
47 See the detailed analysis by Fleischer 1986a, 201–213. There are points in Künhü’l-ahbâr
where Ali complains of newcomers from the Iranian lands taking presidency over the
products of the kul system (ÇFleischer 1986a, 300).
48 Cf. Abou Hadj 1988. On Ali’s contempt for his fellow scribes see Tuşalp Atiyas 2013, 70–72.