Khaldunist Philosophy: Innovation Justified 301
in a similar way when he argued that every new custom is prohibited at first
and then declared licit after it wins the people’s hearts; in this respect, both
Kâtib Çelebi and Abdulahad Nuri can be seen as heirs to the Ebussu’udic tradi-
tion. Kâtib Çelebi explicitly uses the work of the Egyptian jurist Ibn Nujaym
(d. 1562/3), from whom he takes the “oath of hire” stratagem and the summary
classifications of bribery before proceeding to his own position (admitting the
difficulty of prohibiting bribes and recommending this “oath”).45 In fact, here
again we see how Kâtib Çelebi exhibits his competence in fikh reasoning (even
the understanding of bribery in connection with the judges, rather than buy-
ing governmental posts, belongs to the traditional fikh discussion of the issue)
in order to argue for a pragmatic view, thereby excluding, in practice, a great
part of everyday life from the jurists’ remit.
However, Kâtib Çelebi’s views on bribery (more than anything else) seem
to go further than the usual practice of istihsan and istislah reasoning. For one
thing, custom never acquired the dominant position within legal reasoning
which he is so willing to grant it.46 Furthemore, attention should be given
to the “rigorously literal legalism” of the Kadızadelis (in the words of Cemal
Kafadar), which “could be seen to embody some ‘legal rationalism’ that ques-
tioned the preponderant use of vague and subjective criteria such as istihsan
and örf.”47 Kâtib Çelebi’s flexible use of istihsan and istislah may be exam-
ined in the context of his rejection of Kadızadeli legalism, and if, as I argue
elsewere, the latter can be seen as a parallel of European Reformation and
Protestant ethics48 then the similarity of Kâtib Çelebi’s arguments with his
Jesuit counterparts might point to a common intellectual climate across the
Mediterranean. The question is difficult to answer, but intriguing all the same.
At any rate, if this extensive use of istihsan is combined with Kâtib Çelebi’s
plea for a “man of the sword” (as in Düstûrü’l-amel) who would redress Ottoman
society, arguably by dynamically applying istihsan and istislah according to the
“needs of the time” (here is the Khaldunist part), the vision described at the be-
ginning of this chapter can be seen: a strong centralized state, led preferably by
a powerful vizier who would impose discipline on the military and reclaim po-
litical power on behalf of the state apparatus and governmental bureaucracy.
45 Ibn Nüceym – Sahillioğlu 1966. I wish to thank Boğaç Ergene for bringing this point to my
attention.
46 See Hallaq 2001, 215ff. Ebussu’ud himself was very careful to render his appeal to custom
in strictly Hanafi terms.
47 Kafadar 2007, 121. On istihsan and istislah see Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd ed., s.v. “Istihsân
and Istislâh” (R. Paret); Schacht 1964, 60–62, 204; Hallaq 2002, 107–113. The use of these no-
tions significantly predates the usual emphasis on “Ottoman pragmatism” (cf. Dağlı 2013).
48 Sariyannis 2012, 282ff.