The “Golden Age” as a Political Agenda 227
representative.80 Furthermore, the term he uses for the state, “subdivision” or,
literally, “branch” (fürû’, fer’), belongs to Islamic jurisprudence, where it signi-
fies substantive or positive law in contrast to legal theory.81 If this interpreta-
tion is correct, Hezarfen’s treatise takes the form of a “administration manual”,
normally used to legitimize the “old law”; however, he uses it, in a highly eclec-
tic fashion, to legitimize the sultan’s and the viziers’ power to circumvent both
the “old law” and the Sunna, if necessary.
4.1 Parallel Texts: Eyyubî Efendi, Kavânîn-i osmanî, Dımışkî
Although only four copies of Hezarfen’s treatise are extant, it seems that it had
some degree of influence as a model compendium of Ottoman state regula-
tions. A text bearing extreme similarities is a Kânûnnâme attributed to some
Eyyubi Efendi, about whom we know nothing else.82 Eyyubi’s text is in fact a
summary of Hezarfen’s material; its editor, Abdülkadir Özcan, suggests that it
is an abridgment of the Telhîsü’l-beyân, but one cannot exclude the possibility
that Eyyubi was Hezarfen’s predecessor. Eyyubi’s work contains a large part
of Hezarfen’s treatise copied almost verbatim, but excluding the first (up to
the palace servants) and the latter (from after the excursus on the Crimea)
parts, as well as Hezarfen’s more abstract thoughts. Both the 1660/1 budget and
a list of the gifts bestowed at the time of Mehmed IV’s enthronement (1648)
are found in both texts; if Eyyubi is to be considered later, one could posit that
he decided to copy those parts related to the enthronement of the next sultan,
i.e. Süleyman II (1687). Be it as it may, Eyyubi’s work is the “administration
manual” version of the Telhisü’l-beyân, its raw material, so to speak; wheth-
er it is its source or its abridgment, it shows the close relationship between
Hezarfen’s work and the earlier tradition of Ayn Ali and his continuators. A
similar work of the same period contains almost verbatim (but also simplified)
the rules regarding viziers and provincial governors, the list of provinces and
their revenues, and part of the laws on the timar system from Hezarfen’s work.83
There are some minor discrepancies, especially in some marginal notes and in
80 Cf. Sariyannis 2013, 91–92 and 104, on the significance of this passage concerning the con-
cept of devlet as “state”. Yılmaz 2015a, 238 stresses this claim as evidence for the growing
importance of the şeyhülislam office, to the grand vizier’s disadvantage. The expression
about religion (as the foundation) and power (mulk or sultan, as its guardian) goes back
to al-Ghazali (Laoust 1970, 197 and 237).
81 Hallaq 2002, 153.
82 Eyyubi – Özcan 1994.
83 London, British Library, Or. Mss. Harley 3370, ff. 23–79. The manuscript was copied by a
certain Salomon Negri in 1709 under the title “Notitia Imperij Othomannici” from an origi-
nal belonging to the interpreter of the French Ambassador in Istanbul. The relevant parts
in Telhisü’l-beyân are Hezarfen – İlgürel 1998, 83–85, 114–140. Both works refer to Morea,