Introduction 11
Thus, the approach to Ottoman political thought that this book proposes
differs from earlier (Ottomanist) approaches in three main ways. First, it seeks
to examine more than the major classical political thinkers in order to estab-
lish contexts and currents, to locate innovation(s) and “secondary” trends, and
so forth. Studies focusing only on the “major” authors, such as Kınalızade Ali
Çelebi, Koçi Bey, and Na’ima, have the disadvantage of presenting the history
of political theory as a series of great minds that either recapitulated the ideas
of their predecessors, be they fellow-Ottomans or Persians, or departed from
them. In contrast, research that also encompasses as many minor writers as
possible would show the general trends of each period and consequently the
degree to which a “major” thinker used commonly-employed mental tools or
developed innovative ideas. Furthermore, it would track ideas that were cur-
rent among lesser-known authors but which may not have been propagated by
the major ones. Innovation, as well as tradition, can also be a collective effort,
according to the dynamics of a society and the political and ideological climate
of an era, and this can be shown only by extending the field of research to a
vast number of authors and works rather than a few geniuses.37
Secondly, alongside traditional political treatises, other types of sources that
could contain pieces of political theory or advice have been included in the
corpus examined in this work. Such sources include moralist treatises, histo-
riographical works, copybooks of protocol and official correspondence, admin-
istration manuals, literary works, treatises on theology and kalam, collections
of legal opinions ( fetvas), encyclopedic works, and so on.38 This will help to
locate the political thoughts and ideas that circulated within the broader
context of both theory and practice as well as extending the arena of politi-
cal ideas to a wider range of intellectual and administrative groups within the
ruling elite. However, a word of caution may be useful here: as may be sug-
gested by these two points, the current study would be enormous in size and
almost limitless in terms of time and work. Thus, while I tried to accumulate
37 By no means, of course, do I pretend to have studied the whole array of Ottoman politi-
cal literature. As noted in the Acknowledgments, part of this research was funded by the
OTTPOL project; this had the side effect of setting a rather tight time limit on the comple-
tion of the present book. For lists of Ottoman political works see Levend 1962; Çolak 2003.
The list gets even bigger if we consider that political thought is also contained in moral
treatises (see the exhaustive list by Levend 1963).
38 Cf. the notes by Yılmaz 2003b, 253–258. For other efforts to incorporate such sources into
the study of Ottoman political thought, see e.g. Tezcan 2001; Neumann 2000; Murphey
2005; Sariyannis 2008a; Riedlmayer 2008; Yılmaz 2006, 165ff.; Howard 2008; Holbrook
1999; Fazlıoğlu 2003; Al-Tikriti 2005a.