Khaldunist Philosophy: Innovation Justified 299
for his own teacher, Kadızade Mehmed Efendi. His general idea on the subject
is that religion has its place in life but that place is restricted: “not every facet of
behavior can be Sunna, you know” (cümle ahval sünnet olacak değil ya: KC87;
L102). The chapter on innovation (bid’at), which touches upon a central argu-
ment in the Kadızadeli conflict, is of particular interest as it also indirectly
touches upon the “old law” argument, which must still have been running in
his circles (the last “administration manuals”, Koçi Bey’s second treatise and
Avnî Ömer’s Kânûn-ı Osmânî, were only fifteen years old, and works such as
Eyyubi’s Kânûnnâme were still to come). Following an old thread in fikh rea-
soning, Kâtib Çelebi divides innovations into good and bad (bid’at-ı hasene,
bid’at-ı seyyiye). The former includes what was unknown in the time of the
Prophet but “which the leaders of the Faith have subsequently allowed as fill-
ing a need (iktiza hasbıyle)”, such as “the building of minarets and the manu-
facture of books”. Kâtib Çelebi declares directly that there is no point trying to
abolish innovations, even bad ones, once they are established in a community,
for “people will not abandon custom” (halk adeti terk eylemez). What is neces-
sary for the rulers is only to protect the orderly condition of the Muslim people
(ehl-i İslam nizamı) and the principles of Islam among the community, and not
to force anyone to comply with them. After all, “scarcely any of the sayings or
doings of any age are untainted by innovation” (KC74–76; L89–91). As for the
other central tenet of the Kadızadelis, that of the obligation to “command right
and forbid wrong” (emr bi’l-ma ’ruf ve nehy ‘an al-münker), Kâtib Çelebi states
that “in matters obligatory or prohibited, [this tenet] is obligatory[, while] in
matters merely disapproved or recommended, it is recommended [but not
obligatory]”. By laying down a number of rules that further define this duty and
its prerequisites, he once again declares that violent interference in people’s
lives and customs only brings dissent and strife (KC91–96; L106–109).
It is interesting to see how, in this issue, as indeed in most of Mîzânü’l-
hak, Kâtib Çelebi prefers to use fikh arguments rather than the Khaldunist or
medicine-inspired philosophy he had preferred in his other works (one reason
might have been that he was reacting to a fikh-oriented legalism using the lat-
ter’s very own weapons).42 Another fine example is his discussion of bribery, a
common topos in Ottoman political literature from the sixteenth century on-
wards (KC115–120; L124–127). Unlike his predecessors (see above, chapter 5),
Kâtib Çelebi focuses on bribery not as a means to gain high offices but as gifts
given to judges or other officials to secure favorable verdicts (or, he adds, any
42 Only the discussion of Khidr’s immortality contains almost verbatim the observations
on the three stages of human life, as analyzed in Kâtib Çelebi’s political essays (KC17–19;
L33–34).