The “Sunna-minded” Trend 277
Pasha (d. 1708). Rami Mehmed was scandalously elevated from the seat of the
chief scribe to grand vizierate (a leap in career which had never been seen
before) under the auspices of Feyzullah Efendi, yet later fell out with him. In a
section praising Rami Mehmed’s vizierial virtues, the anonymous author gives
a long description of an imperial council (divan) meeting that took place on
January 26, 1703.162 It was Rami Mehmed Pasha who oversaw the divan as the
grand vizier. The anonymous author described Rami Mehmed’s divan as the
best one in Ottoman history with regard to its efficiency in handling petitions
and its conforming to correct legal procedure. An important detail about the
operation of the grand vizier’s council is that, during their free time, the scribes
at the divan occupied themselves reading Kitâb siyar al-kebir, the famous
work on the Islamic law of nations attributed to the Hanafi jurist al-Shaybani
(d. 805) and widely known from al-Sarakhsi’s late eleventh-century commen-
tary.163 The main interest of this work is in its detailing of Islamic law as regards
non-Muslims living in both the domain of war (dar al-harb) and the domain
of Islam. It is not possible to know exactly what part of the work was the most
relevant for the officials at Rami Mehmed’s divan. However, it must be empha-
sized that it continued the line of argument made by Abu Yusuf and Birgivi by
defining the legal status of a land appropriated by conquest as a function of
the status of the land rather than the personal status of those working it.164 In
highlighting the Kitâb siyar al-kebir’s place as the main intellectual reference
for the Ottoman chancellery, the anonymous historian attests to the continu-
ing efforts of the central administration to determine its treatment of state
affairs according to Hanafi law and identity.
5 Conclusion
As has been argued by recent studies on Ottoman Sufism and Sunnism, certain
genealogies that long defined the field have been overstated in scholarship.
Neither Ibn Taymiyya nor Birgivi Mehmed served as the sole ideological basis
162 Özcan 2000, 197.
163 Al-Sarakhsi’s definition of siyar is as follows: “... [Siyar] described the conduct of the be-
lievers in their relations with the unbelievers of enemy territory as well as the people with
whom the believers had made treatises, who may have been temporarily (musta ’mins)
or permanently (Dhimmis) in Islamic lands; with apostates, who were the worst of the
unbelievers, since they abjured after they accepted [Islam]; and with rebels (baghis), who
were not counted as unbelievers, though they were ignorant and their understanding [of
Islam] was false” (Shaybani – Khadduri 1966, 40).
164 Heck 2002, 169.