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politic in relation to the taxable subjects of the sultan. Peasants may succumb
to excessive ease and thus rebel; merchants may become greedy profiteers and
so impoverish the poor. On the other hand, his views on the economy do not
reveal Na’ima to be an enemy of wealth in general; furthermore, while discuss-
ing the fifth stage of dynasties, he remarks that the constant demands of the
state from rich people make them fear for their sustenance and consider going
to Mecca or to Egypt to once more become wealthy, not realizing that even in
foreign lands they are not safe (here, one could also add Na’ima’s reluctance to
condemn fully the pomp and luxury of state magnates). His digression on the
role of a capital city and of its population, in the second preface, is, unsurpris-
ingly, dictated by the “Edirne event”; on the other hand, if combined with his
other ideas, it shows his distrust and suspiciousness of the janissary-affiliated
urban strata who were playing an increasingly important role in public poli-
tics. His praise of Murad IV’s harshness could be seen in the same context.
In this vein, advocating peace as a way out of the stages of decline is Na’ima’s
original contribution, and it must be noted that he inserts it very carefully
into his general framework while at the same time giving very specific advice
on how the state should use such a period of peace to recover. Kâtib Çelebi,
half a century earlier, had seen the solution in a powerful “man of the sword”;
Na’ima, his position in the court meaning he was much more keen to keep an
elaborate balance, emphasized a long interval of peace in which the state ap-
paratus (which he praised so much) could bring about the gradual and careful
reforms he proposed. With Na’ima, the seventeenth century ends with a new
world vision, well vested in both history and the outside—and widening—
world. More particularly, there were two important legacies for subsequent po-
litical writing: legitimacy of change (following Kâtib Çelebi’s reasoning), and
justification of peace. From a different perspective, one which would become
increasingly dominant, there was also the acknowledgment (for the first time
since Akhisari) that the Ottomans’ military might was no longer sufficient for
supremacy on the battlefield, and that a step back to think and reorganize was
needed.
5 Peace and Change: Preparing an Ideological Environment
One may find the political preoccupations of the period in several other works
that belong to genres other than political writing. Evliya Çelebi’s monumental
Seyahatnâme (“Book of travels”) contains a few scattered views on politics that
represent, to a large degree, the Weltanschauung of the Ottoman elite as it was
constituted towards Murad IV’s reign (during which Evliya began his travels): a