178 chapter 4
whom the author serves for four years, arrives and tells him that not only will
the dynasty go on, but 70 sultans will follow; at the end of this series, the End
of Days will come, the world will be misled by a pseudo-prophet, the infamous
Deccal, only to see the final victory of the prophet Isa ( Jesus). After a long dis-
cussion in which Abdurrahman tries to persuade Mehmed of the reality of this
prophecy and admits that the ulema of his day are mostly corrupt, the vision
begins (S10a, V12a) with the thirteenth sultan, Mehmed III, who is prophesied
to take Wallachia, Poland, and Hungary. All 70 sultans to come (under tradi-
tional Ottoman royal names but also other ones such as Hasan, Edhem, Yusuf,
Ali and so forth) follow, in various symbolic forms.61
Then, a fascinating story has one of the next sultans take Moscow and
Vienna, and afterwards a complex course toward world conquest, including
the fall of Spain, Germany, Rome (Kızılelma), France, England, and even China
and the “New World” (which, the author notes, is not a new world ad litteram,
but was so named because it was unknown to us before: S20b, V29a), as well as
the death of the Pope at the hands of the Istanbul rabble (S21a, V29b); however,
it also includes occasional setbacks due to either revolts by the infidels or vari-
ous sultans who succumb to arrogance and tyranny. Among the deeds of the
glorious sultans to come should be noted: the mass-killing of the Istanbul Jews
and the prohibition of wine (S14a, V17a–b; the Jews are to come back many gen-
erations later, when the 44th sultan grants a low tax-rate to whomever wants
to settle in the capital: S21a, V29b); the prohibition of narcotics (S14b, V18b);
the prohibition of idleness (S18a, V25a: “those who practice no craft should
be gathered and punished severely, and those whose mind is not fit for a craft
should be directed to practise agriculture”); the granting of stipends to the
elderly (S19b, V27a; also S24b, 35b); the abolition of both fratricide and the
kafes practice, with the sultans’ brothers being appointed viziers, admirals,
or müftis (e.g. S21a, V30a); the compulsory freeing of slaves after seven years
(S24b, V35a); and so on.
An interesting throwback to the sixteenth or seventeenth century comes
in the story of the reign of the 56th Sultan, when he inspects the janissaries
(now numbering 600,000) and the sipahis (400,000), erases the names of half
of them from the registers and cuts the stipends of those remaining by half
61 The series seems to include Ahmed I, Osman II, Murad IV, and Ibrahim (whom a mar-
ginal note in the Vienna MS, copied in 1651, calls “the present sultan”: V16a). However, this
must be a coincidence, since Ahmed is to impose a tax on Malta and Osman is presented
as an old man who will abolish bribery (S11a-b, V13a–14a; moreover, Mustafa is missing
and Osman’s anonymous successor is to capture Moscow).