274 chapter 6
of disapproving contemporaneous historians at least, shows that there existed
other economic pressures that led to this decision. In any case, the decision
created so much confusion in the markets, alongside the unexpected rise in
prices, that the grand vizier was forced to swiftly revoke it.148
No matter what the real causes for his policies were, almost every policy
decision that Fazıl Mustafa made seems to have been deliberately legitimized
by recourse to the Sharia. Immediately after he became the grand vizier,
Fazıl Mustafa abolished the wine tax (def-i hamr) imposed on non-Muslims.
Although contemporary histories do not extensively delve into this, they nev-
ertheless mention that the officer responsible for the collection of the taxes
levied on wine (hamr emini), Küfri Ahmed Efendi, was executed in front of
the Üç Şerefeli Mosque in Edirne, where the Ottoman court was residing at
the time. Perhaps not the policy of elimination but the rarely-witnessed act of
executing a middle-ranking tax official shows how far Fazıl Mustafa could go
in dressing his policies in Sharia colors. According to the historian Raşid, all
the catastrophes the Ottomans faced on the military front were attributed by
the ulema to neglect of the Sharia and laxity of its implementation. The selling
of wine and rakı and their taxation by the state were deemed contrary to the
founding principles of the Ottoman state. According to Raşid, it was the warn-
ings of the ulema that resulted in the lifting of these “un-Islamic” taxes.149 The
same mentality can be seen in Fazıl Mustafa’s annulling of the taxes levied on
the non-Muslims with the exception of cizye and harac. Similar to the Cretan
case, the decision implied that non-Muslims would be exempt from the taxes
deemed to be extra-Sharia, such as avarız, bedel-i nuzül, and sürsat, and their
remaining debts would be canceled.150 One contemporary observer expressed
his astonishment and claimed that the mevkufat registers were almost going
to be set on fire.151
The death of Fazıl Mustafa at the battle of Slankamen did not bring an end
to the implementation of Sharia guidelines in public administration. The next
most influential character who had a significant impact on Ottoman politics
148 Defterdar – Özcan 1995, 387–389.
149 Raşid 1865, 2:101.
150 These taxes had been imposed in order to meet the war expenditures in the post-Vienna
environment. See Defterdar – Özcan 1995, 221 and (for their elimination) 298–299.
151 Özcan 2000, 11. It was not always the case that non-Muslims benefitted from the
Shariatization of the Ottoman tax system. While residing in the island of Lemnos follow-
ing his banishment by Fazıl Ahmed Paşa, Niyazi Mısri was often visited by the priests from
Imroz who consulted him about the legitimacy of the harac tax imposed on them. In his
answer Mısri was reported to have implied that the person responsible was Fazıl Mustafa.
Terzioğlu 1999, 177–178.