Towards an Ottoman Conceptual History 449
in its own right (bu fenn-ı garib-i nizam-ı asker zatında ... bir leziz ilm olub).55 In
the late eighteenth century, this term reemerged: Penah Efendi used the term
nizam-i cedid for the army, while references to the “new order” in the Austrian
army can be found in Ratıb Efendi’s account of Austria. Even opponents of the
Westernizing reform used the new terms and notions: the title of Ömer Faik’s
work, Nizâmü’l-atîk (“The old order”) is, again, quite suggestive. Ömer Faik also
speaks of the “apparent order” (nizam-ı suriyye), i.e. issues pertaining to the
court, economy, and the army, in contrast to spiritual matters such as prayer or
the condition of the ulema. As for Şanizade in the early 1820s, he preferred to
speak of reordering (tekmil-i nizam) the army.
3.5 Keeping One’s Place (hadd)
At least for the majority of the Ottoman centuries, one of the primary com-
ponents of what was conceived of as “world order” was the maintainance of a
hierarchical society where every “class” or “estate” kept to its place or (to put it
as an Ottoman would) knew its limit (hadd). As we saw in chapter 2, this em-
phasis on compartmentalization can be seen in Amasi, who introduced Tusi’s
theory of the four classes (corresponding to the four elements) and the need
for them to be balanced.56 This theory continued until well into the eighteenth
and even the early nineteenth century as a standard form for describing soci-
ety, especially after Kâtib Çelebi further elaborated on it, and was mostly used
as a means to press for stricter control of the army, recte a stricter check of the
janissaries’ power. As a side-effect, one should cite the (not at all unexpected)
condemnation of the unemployed, as seen, for example, in Akhisari. On the
other hand, what was new in Ottoman political theory and practice was the
stress placed on every individual having to keep to their own place, i.e. against
crossing class boundaries. This principle took the form of an emphasis on ex-
ternal signs distinguishing not only Muslims from non-Muslims but also rich
from poor. The anonymous author of the Kitâbu mesâlih (c. 1560) stressed the
need for strict sartorial rules along social/religious lines, while only a few de-
cades later Mustafa Ali gave detailed instructions on how everybody should
conduct themselves according to their income (on the other hand, he favored
mobility, provided it happens at a young age, e.g. in medreses). Clothing re-
strictions also appear in the first Veliyuddin telhis; as for the Sunna-minded
authors, Sivasi argues vehemently against the violation of dress codes by
non-Muslims.
55 Müteferrika – Şen 1995, 191.
56 On the development and the various forms of the four-fold division in Ottoman thought
see Sariyannis 2013, 107–111; Yılmaz 1999.