12 Introduction
and accommodate as many authors and types of works as possible, I certainly
do not claim that the present book fully covers the aims I gave myself.39
Thirdly, a history of Ottoman political thought cannot be limited to a sim-
ple enumeration of works and ideas. A concurrent task should be to explore
recurring themes and their development across the period in question. Some
scholars have, for instance, investigated the development and transformation
of notions such as justice, world order, and the state.40 It is necessary to pro-
ceed to a study of themes and notions, such as: the virtues demanded of the
ruler; the place of the sultan within the state apparatus; the ideal structure of
society; views on social mobility; debates between old laws (kanun-ı kadim)
and innovation (bid’at); the place of religion; the shifting balance of power
with (Western) Europe; and so on. In such a way, we may explore the political
vocabulary of Ottoman theorists and state and conduct a comparative study
of the extant political treatises, something that has, up to now, been limited
to either limited periods of time or but a few authors.41 In the conclusion,
I examine some of these fundamental concepts in the form proposed by the
German “conceptual history” or Begriffsgeschichte.42 This is not meant to be a
quest for perennial issues that are teleologically revealed during the course of
human history: instead of looking for the genealogy of modern notions such
as democracy or liberty, we will try to map the inventory of ideas and political
terms and notions that the Ottomans inherited, created, or used themselves,
with a view to understanding the development of such concepts and the
socio-political changes behind them. This systematic study of Ottoman politi-
cal texts ultimately seeks to place such texts within various identifiable ideo-
logical currents with a view to linking them to socio-political developments.
Yet I would like to underline that this does not seek to be a ground-breaking
study; I do not claim to be proposing a totally new interpretation, to have
found a new theory, or even to be applying an entirely new methodological
approach within a seemingly well-known topic. It is, instead, a reference
book, in the sense that it tries to map all available information on pre-modern
Ottoman political ideas which have, up to now, been scattered across unpub-
lished manuscripts, rare translations, editions in transcription, or in mod-
ern Turkish (and thus accessible only to a restricted audience of specialized
39 See also above, fn. 38.
40 Ergene 2001; Hagen 2005; Sigalas 2007; cf. also Sariyannis 2011a.
41 A similar, but incomplete, attempt at a comprehensive treatment is Lewis 1988; for the
Tanzimat period, see Doganalp-Votzi – Römer 2008 and Topal 2017; see also Vatin 2012.
42 Koselleck 1979; Richter 1987; Koselleck 2002.