Towards an Ottoman Conceptual History 433
people the means of living in society (majma ’) and in peace, namely siyasa.
This science is based on both fikh and ahlak.3
Bernard Lewis argued that in Ottoman usage the term mainly meant “pun-
ishment”, especially when inflicted by the secular branch, or more generally
“non-canonical justice”.4 If one has in mind juridical books such as Dede
Cöngi’s treatise, this would seem to be true, since Ottoman administration
also constantly used the adverb siyaseten to denote extra-canonical punish-
ment; moreover, Ottoman administrative and historiographical texts abound
in terms such as seyf-i siyaset (“the sword of punishment”), siyasetgâh (place of
executions), and so on, where the word clearly means “punishment”.5 However,
in its more political meaning the term is certainly not absent from Ottoman
literature. It is first seen comparatively early, in Amasi’s early fifteenth-century
compendium of ethics, where it has the meaning of “government” or “gover-
nance” and is defined as the power or measures (tedbir) required to keep dif-
ferent people living together in harmony; the term is used in the same sense
by Tursun Beg (who speaks of “kingly government or kingly law”, siyaset-i
sultanî ve yasağ-ı padişahî) and Kınalızade, who emphasize that it emanates
from the law of God. The same meaning is seen in Celalzade’s adaptation of
Kashifi’s ethics: one must govern oneself (siyaset-i nefsi), while an administra-
tor governs the people (siyaset-i gayri) by imposing justice. A similar sense is
conveyed by Taşköprüzade’s definition of the “science of government” (ilm al-
siyâsa) as pertaining to the government, the administration, and the social as-
semblies of the cities (anwâ’ al-riyâsât wa ’l-siyâsât wa ’l-ijtimâ’ât al-madaniyya)
and as concerning kings, judges, ulema, market administrators (ahl al-ihtisâb),
and administrators of the treasury.6 Taşköprüzade’s description seems to
have been particularly influenced by al-Farabi (whom he cites), who speaks
of “the royal, political art” and has political science inquiring “into the [vari-
ous] kinds of actions, and conscious volitional ways of life (siyar), and into the
habits, mores, and natural dispositions which produce these actions and ways
of life”.7
In fact, therefore, all these authors merely translate their Persian prototypes
(Tusi, Davvani, and/or Kashifi). Nevertheless, with or without the presence
of the specific term (siyaset), the Ottomans never neglected the notion of a
sphere related to statecraft and which does not belong exclusively to the ruler
3 Laoust 1970, 192–193, 205ff.; Najjar 1984, 98.
4 Lewis 1984.
5 See, for example, Mumcu 1963; Heyd 1973, 192–195; Burak 2015, 20–23.
6 Taşköprüzade – Bakry – Abu’l-Nur 1968, 1:407.
7 See Rosenthal 1958, 119.