Khaldunist Philosophy: Innovation Justified 307
compiler and imitator of his mentor than an original spirit; they were prob-
ably acquainted (Hezarfen seems to have been almost the same age as Kâtib
Çelebi, although he outlived him by almost forty years). His universal history
(Tenkîh-i tevârih-i mülûk), incorporating material on China and Byzantium
(a practice Kâtib Çelebi had initiated), also contained a conclusion on geogra-
phy (again his mentor’s favourite subject) and a “conclusion of conclusions”,
which is in fact a verbatim rendering of Kâtib Çelebi’s conclusion in his own
universal history.57 The simile of the time-span of a society with man’s natu-
ral life, the three ages of states and their characteristics, are all copied word
for word, though Hezarfen seems to have been more selective in copying his
predecessor’s final advice. He also added a “warning” (tenbih) about the im-
portance of price-regulation, which he also included in his Telhîsü’l-beyân, the
“administration manual”-cum-political treatise studied in detail in chapter 5.58
In Telhîsü’l-beyân, a work very much belonging to an earlier and this time
bygone tradition, there are also examples of Kâtib Çelebi’s influence. For one
thing, as was implied in chapter 5, Hezarfen’s attempt to undermine the ulema’s
competence and to justify the sultan’s and the grand vizier’s freedom of action
is concomitant with the political aims (an alliance between the central govern-
mental bureaucracy and strong viziers in order to control the janissaries’ polit-
ical power) Kâtib Çelebi’s ideas wished to promote. And indeed, there are both
more and clearer signs of Kâtib Çelebi’s influence within Telhîsü’l-beyân. In
his chapter on the rules of the timar system, after copying Lütfi Pasha’s advice
for avoiding the intrusion of peasants, Hezarfen notes (in a free adaptation
of Kâtib Çelebi’s analysis) that in this world everybody has to follow a certain
way of making one’s living, and thus both polities and houses need to be well-
governed (tedbir-i medine ve tedbir-i menzil görülüp). But this, i.e. each person
staying in his proper place, is not achievable in every period: the stages of a
state (bir devletin asırlarına göre) all have different arrangements (daima nesk-ı
vâhid üzere ola gelmemişdir), for “this is the necessity of the natural stages of
civilization and society” (mukteza-ı etvar-ı tabi’at-ı temeddün ve ictima ’).59
Furthermore, Kâtib Çelebi’s medical vision of the elements of society can
be seen in Hezarfen’s chapter concerning the ulema. Before proceeding to the
division between the external and the internal, he states (drawing from the
first chapter of Düstûrü’l-amel) that they are the most honorable and exalt-
ed of the pillars of the state, being like blood, the natural humor of the body
57 Hezarfen Hüseyin Efendi, Tenkihü’t-tevârîh, Istanbul, Süleymaniye Kütüphanesi,
Hekimoğlu 732, ff. 277b–279b.
58 Süleymaniye Kütüphanesi, Hekimoğlu 732, ff. 279a-b; Hezarfen – İlgürel 1998, 248.
59 Hezarfen – İlgürel 1998, 142.