262 chapter 6
he could ever make was to continue with warfare when his opponent asked
for peace. He added that sultans must always abide by the terms of peace trea-
ties. In his Nasihatü’l-müluk tergiban li-hüsn al-süluk, written for Mehmed IV,
Sarı Abdullah Efendi offered similar restraint in matters of war. In the section
on the duties of the grand vizier, Sarı Abdullah argued that the vizier should
prefer peace whenever possible and should not force the sultan to conduct
warfare when it was not necessary since it would lead to the depletion of the
treasury and the destruction of the country and the population.99
Another common thread in these Sharia-informed criticisms was the reac-
tion to the functioning of the urban economy and its moral underpinnings.
As stated previously, the seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century accounts
of the Kadızadelis disapprovingly declared the lower-echalons of urban esnaf
as being one of the most important constituents of the Kadızadeli movement.
Therefore, it is crucial to understand if and how the leaders of the Kadızadeli
movement, its opponents, and other participants in the debates interpreted
the economic landscape around them. Sivasi, in the Letaif, enumerated the
moral vices of the times. Among the moral crimes, he denounced such as star-
ing at women and young boys with less than pure intentions, and not being
content with what God offered one, thereby developing excessive ambitions
to earn more. According to Sivasi, these were the two moral shortcomings of
hoarders.100 In the kaside he presented to Murad IV in 1630, Kadızade Mehmed
defined the same problem, but in more exact terms: the richest members of
the military had become shopkeepers and they certainly did not want to ob-
serve the officially-fixed price; thus, their own prices were altered.101
The most detailed statement about the partakers of the Ottoman urban
economy comes from Hasan Efendi. His Pendnâme starts with a general admo-
nition to readers to not become distracted by the affairs of this world. Hasan
Efendi distinguished between the people of this world (ehl-i dünya) and the
people who had metaphorically left this world (terk-i dünya), and constantly
reminded his reader of the ephemeral nature of life and the inevitability of
death. He warned his readers against the people of innovation (ehl-i bidat),
the people of bribery (ehl-i rüşvet), and the people of this world (ehl-i dünya).
Yet the main targets of his criticism of those in pursuit of wordly pleasures
and goods were the Sufis themselves. He criticized the inherent hierarchy of
99 Sarı Abdullah dispensed similarly cool-headed advice in another nasihat work attributed
to him, Tedbir ün-neşeteyn ve ıslahı’n-nüshateyn, where he addresses the caliph: “If you are
attacked or threatened by an enemy who is stronger than you, try to make peace (müdarat
üzre sulh yüzün göster). If he is weaker than you, then engage in warfare (mukatele et) .”
100 Abdülmecid Sivasî, Letâ’ifü’l-ezhâr, 184.
101 Öztürk 1981, 41, 42.