The “Sunna-minded” Trend 237
and sweetmakers (helvacı).14 Some of the more influential ones among them
introduced Üstüvani to the court, where he later came under the protection
of a certain Reyhan Ağa, the sultan’s tutor.15 The Kadızadeli sympathizers,
and especially those among the palace corps, proudly pointed out that the
people of the palace had never before been so distinguished in their piety and
religious learning. Though indirectly, they played a role in the elimination of
Murad IV and Ibrahim’s mother, Kösem, in 1650–51 by the latter’s arch-rival
Turhan Sultan (Mehmed IV’s mother), who crafted an alliance with Kadızadeli
supporters in the palace against the pro-Kösem palace aghas, whom they ac-
cused of draining the public treasury, and the corruption that had character-
ized Sultan Ibrahim’s reign. Not surprisingly, Kösem and her clique had close
ties with the Sufi establishment.16
Between 1650–51 and 1656, the Kadızadelis were able to force the grand vizier
Melek Ahmed Pasha (d. 1662, v. 1651–53) to crack down on at least one Halveti
lodge, in Demirkapı. The müfti Bahai Efendi, who, during his first term of office
between 1649 and 1651, had declared tobacco permitted, banned two rebuttals
of Birgivi Mehmed Efendi’s much-esteemed work al-Tariqa al-Muhammadiyya
(“The Muhammadan way”), deported its authors from the capital, and issued a
fatwa declaring devran and sema (the use of dance and music in Sufi ceremo-
nies) prohibited during his second term between 1652 and 1654.17 It has been
noted that the nature of the movement had undergone a fundamental change
by this time. Under Kadızade Mehmed, the Kadızadelis had denounced all
corruption and wanted a complete and total reformation of ethical attitudes.
Under Üstüvani, the movement merely became an interest group vying for
power and ready to exploit it for whatever it could bring in terms of mate-
rial gain.18 This increasingly pragmatic outlook might have played a role in the
widening of their social appeal around the middle of the seventeenth century.
According to contemporary sources, the economic situation in the capital
indeed contributed to the widening of the Kadızadeli network, especially as
Istanbul tradesmen felt that they were unjustly suppressed by the economic
policies of the janissary aghas in the palace (see also below, chapter 7). This
resentment would culminate in the revolt of the “people of the market” in 1651
against the aghas and their protector, grand vizier Melek Ahmed Pasha.19 The
chief mufti and historian Karaçelebizade Abdülaziz Efendi, who was fairly
14 Terzioğlu 1999, 201.
15 Öztürk 1981, 215, 222.
16 Terzioğlu 1999, 202–203; Sariyannis 2012, 271–278.
17 Terzioğlu 1999, 204.
18 Öztürk 1981, 257.
19 Sariyannis 2012, 271.