268 chapter 6
The fact that Kadızade Mehmed Efendi’s lifetime was a turning point in
the dissemination of Birgivi’s religious works has already been mentioned.
A recent study has meticulously examined how the number of al-Tarîqa
al-Muhammadiyya copied steadily rose throughout the seventeenth century,
reaching a peak of 49 between the years 1689 and 1717.126 The details of the
circulation of the Birgivi corpus notwithstanding, it is clear that the Tariqa was
by no means a marginal text; it was widely recognized by the Ottoman political
elite, including Fazıl Ahmed Pasha, as an important legal and political refer-
ence work.127 Therefore, despite the dearth of any direct references, it would
not be too far-fetched to claim that those who carried out the aforementioned
legal reformulations in the spirit of the Sharia were familiar with how Birgivi
dealt with the issue of the legal administration of land in his Tariqa.
An important source that might explain the changing attitudes towards the
taxation of newly-conquered lands is a translation commissioned by the-then
grand vizier, Merzifonlu Kara Mustafa Pasha (d. 1683).128 When compared to
both Fazıl Ahmed and Fazıl Mustafa, Kara Mustafa Pasha seems less “authenti-
cally Köprülü”, not only due to his “in-law” status but also due to his less-than-
scholarly credentials. Nonetheless, the translation that he initiated reveals that
he was at least interested in the legal origins of his otherwise reckless political
and military actions, and that he was surrounded by a scholarly entourage that
guided him in such matters. The work in question is Kitâb al-kharâj (“Book of
land tax”) by the famous Hanafi jurist Abu Yusuf (d. 798), who studied under
Abu Hanifa and rose to the seat of qadı al-qudat of Baghdad during the reign of
the Abbasid caliph Harun al-Rashid (d. 809).129
126 Among Birgivi’s other religious works, al-Tarîqa al-Muhammadiyya was the most popular,
with its 296 manuscript copies followed by the Vasiyetnâme, which has 164 manuscripts;
ibid., p. 163. The ratio of dated manuscripts to the total number of copies for Tarîqa
al-Muhammadiyya is 157/296; for Vasiyetnâme, it is 55/164; Kaylı 2010, 167 and 171.
127 Ahmet Kaylı points out the collection of Fazıl Ahmed Paşa in the Köprülü library, which
has Birgivi’s works on Arabic grammar as well as a copy of his Tarîqa, copied in 1711 by
Mustafa b. Ibrahim el-Bosnevi. Kaylı also mentions the fact that Fazıl Ahmed himself cop-
ied out some of Birgivi’s works, including a volume in the collection of Mehmed Asım Bey
in the Köprülü library that contains two texts of Birgivi (Avâmil and Izhâr): Kaylı 2010,
212–213.
128 The earliest manuscripts of the translation are: Rodosizade (Rodosluzade) Mehmed,
Terceme-i Kitab-i Harac-i Ebu Yusuf, Süleymaniye, Şehid Ali Paşa MS 717 (1683); MS 718
(mentioned as an autograph copy); Halet Efendi MS 128 (1683); Lala İsmail MS 85
(1745/1746).
129 Abu Yusuf – Abbas 1985; Al-Manasir 1992. Ben Shemesh also studied it as part of the series
Taxation in Islamic Law. See Shemesh 1958–1969.