The “Sunna-minded” Trend 245
brotherhoods against rafizilik (schism, especially represented by the Shi’a) and
perversion, criticizes the Melamis, Kalenderis, and the Haydariyye, and under-
lines the importance of belonging to the sünnet ehli, the people of the Sunna.
He pointed out the hidden meanings behind the usual practices of the broth-
erhoods and warned them that their loyalties actually might have extended
to the Kızılbaş and the Safavid shah. Belgradi’s own definition of fütüvvet is
completely devoid of such impurities and is centered around the concept of
valor (yiğitlik), whereby one would work and exert oneself according to one’s
own strength.48 In conclusion, Belgradi’s Nisab exemplifies the centrality of
the market people as a social force and how their ideological loyalties became
a source of concern for the Sunnitizing Halveti establishment from the six-
teenth century onwards.
2.2 Imam Birgivi as the “Predecessor”
The biography and main works of Şeyh Muhyiddin b. Pir Ali b. İskender el-
Rûmi ̂ el-Birgivi ̂ (1523–73) were described in some detail in chapter 3, above. In
Ottoman historiography, Birgivi has been many things at once: the founding
father of Salafism in Ottoman lands, the predecessor of the Kadızadelis, and
one of the first early-modern critiques of the Islamic tradition who opened the
way to the much-debated eighteenth-century Islamic “enlightenment”.49 His
image as a strictly orthodox scholar comes from his oft-quoted participation in
the famous cash-vakf controversy of the sixteenth century, in which he refuted
the cash-vakf formulations that the Ottoman chief mufti Ebussu’ud and judge
Bilalzade came up with.50 His major work, al-Tari ̂qa al-Muhammadiyya wa al-
si ̂rat al-Ahmadiyya (“The Muhammadan way and the character of the most
laudable [Prophet]”) is an extensive Hanafi-Maturidi explication of the Sunna
that became a crucial reference text in the context of the seventeenth-century
Kadızadeli versus Sivasi controversy, while his Vâsiyet-nâme was extensively
circulated in the later period as one of the most consulted books on Sunni
catechism (ilm-i hal). Birgivi’s strict interpretation of Islamic scripture in his
writings on law and piety stems from his loyalty to the Hanafi legal tradition
and its most important figures, including Abu Hanifa (d. 150/767), Abu Yusuf
(d. 182/798), and Muhammad al-Shaybani (d. 189/805).51
48 Sarıkaya 2010, 61–62.
49 Works on Birgivi include Yüksel 1972; Martı 2008; Birgili – Duman 2000; Birinci 1996;
Radtke 2002; Lekesiz 2007; Kaylı 2010: Ivanyi 2012. See also chapter 3, above.
50 İnkâz al-hâliki ̂n, İnkâz al-nai ̂mi ̂n and Al-sayf al-sârim. For more details on the cash-vakf
controversy see chapter 3, above.
51 Ivanyi 2012, 65. In addition to Abu al-Layth and post-classical “fatāwā” handbooks, Birgivi
also drew on a range of other Hanafī sources—both early and later ones. From among the