“Mirrors for Princes”: The Decline Theorists^185
in the early 1590s and served under various viziers and commanders, taking
part in many campaigns on the Habsburg front. In 1600, he became reisül-
küttab himself for a time, and then continued to serve in various financial
posts in Istanbul and the provinces. His treatise was composed between 1619
and 1621 for Osman II’s vizier (Güzelce) Ali Pasha and is preserved in two
copies.69 For his sources, Hasanbeyzade quotes “various books on ethics”,
and particularly Hatib Kasımoğlu Muhyiddin’s Rawz al-ahyâr, claiming that
he took many points concerning the world order and its arrangements from
this treatise (IU2b). In fact, his work is a summary of Rawz al-ahyâr, but in a less
detailed and creative way than is Akhisari’s: Hasanbeyzade keeps some stories
that Akhisari omits, and adds no original ideas, either his own or Akhisari’s. The
exact relationship between Hasanbeyzade’s and Akhisari’s works, and their
common source, is still unclear.70 What is clear, however, is that Akhisari
added plenty of specific advice to his prototype, while Hasanbeyzade, writing
in the second decade of the seventeenth century and following the popular-
ity of Akhisari’s work, was happy with a simple moralistic compilation. One
particular point in Hasanbeyzade’s treatise seems to have been added by
the writer, since it is lacking in Akhisari’s text: his emphasis on the need for
the sultan to keep the army disciplined through mild measures (hüsn-i siyaset)
and to show respect for the elder soldiers (İÜ 17a). If one knows the historical
developments that happened soon after the completion of Hasanbeyzade’s
work, this remark gains a grim feeling of prophecy.
Such criticism became increasingly intense as the seventeenth century pro-
ceeded before taking a different form, one which will be studied in the next
chapter. A famous poem entitled Nasîhat-i İslâmbol (“Counsel to Istanbul”)
was written sometime between 1624 and 1638 (since it mentions Baghdad
as occupied by the Persians) by a certain Üveysi.71 This kaside begins as an
69 Istanbul, Belediye Ktp. nr. 0–49; İstanbul Üniversitesi Ktp. T 6944; here I consulted the lat-
ter manuscript. See Hasan Bey-zâde – Aykut 2004, XLIX–LV; Aykut seems to confuse the
two copies; see p. LIV attributing the Belediye MS to the copyist of İstanbul Üniv. MS.
70 Rawz al-ahyâr was also translated into Turkish by Aşık Çelebi (whom we also encoun-
tered as the first translator of Ibn Taymiyya) for Selim II (d. 1574). Aykut (op. cit.) traces
the use of Hasanbeyzade’s source, which is selective: thus, Hasanbeyzade’s first chapter
corresponds to some parts of Rawz al-ahyâr’s third chapter; his second chapter, to the first
and fifth chapter of his source; and so forth. One might conclude that Hasanbeyzade was,
in fact, re-writing Akhisari’s compilation or translating his Arabian version. On the other
hand, his omissions from Akhisari’s work must lead us to the conclusion that they both
used an abridged form of Rawz al-ahyâr, possibly that written by Aşık Çelebi.
71 Üveysi – von Diez 1811; Gibb 1900–1909, 3:210–218; İz 1966, 1:117–119. The poet is often con-
fused with his more or less contemporary Veysî (see next chapter). On the confusion be-
tween the two poets see Sariyannis 2008a, 143–145; Tezcan (forthcoming).