460 conclusion
of government,80 or between the growing reception of Ibn Khaldun’s theo-
ries during the eighteenth century and Thomas Hobbes’ abstraction on the
state.81 Or, less provocatively and probably more fruitfully, let us consider Kâtib
Çelebi’s istihsan and pragmatism against the Kadızadelis’ literal legalism to be
a counterpart of Jesuit casuistry against Protestant ethics in Europe—all the
more so, to push this argument perhaps a little too far, since the two sides,
in both cases, were, to some extent, investing in similar political trends (the
Kadızadelis and the Protestants in sorts of constitutionalism, Kâtib Çelebi and
the Jesuits in absolutist policies). To put the question another way: are similari-
ties in intellectual history to be attributed to the circulation of ideas, to a com-
mon contemporary ground (such as “feudalism” or “modernity”), or to similar
types of state formation? And, after all, are such similarities meaningful, or just
superficial coincidences? In my opinion, no sound comparison of ideas can
be made without a solid foundation of socio-economic and political common
ground; and this, in fact, is something we still are far from achieving. For the
time being, we can only restrict ourselves to highlighting the different forms
Islamicate political thought took in different circumstances.
In fact, to write a history of ideas and of their development and geneal-
ogy is not a very difficult task in terms of interpretation. The real difficulties
come when one seeks to connect these ideas with their political and social
milieus. There are some pioneering studies that have tried to accomplish the
task for some late sixteenth and early seventeenth-century authors, as well as
for Na’ima, but much more work is needed before we can identify Ottoman
groups with a clear political agenda, social interests, and common ideological
roots or credos. Indeed, what is really striking in the history of Ottoman politi-
cal thought is the difficulty of associating ideological currents and trends, as
expressed by the relevant literature, to political and social developments. Such
questions will undoubtedly form part of the agenda for the future; it is to be
hoped that the present book can be a basis for such enquiries.
80 One has to note here the nearly contemporaneous systematic endeavor of the Mughal
court to gain knowledge of European things: see Lefèvre 2012, 129–137.
81 Recently Vefa Erginbaş suggested “an overwhelming similarity” between Hobbes’ ideas
on the “state of nature” and İbrahim Müteferrika’s views on the beginning of political
society: Erginbaş 2014, 86. As we tried to show above, such views (stressing man’s oppres-
sive nature, rather than the need for cooperation) were recurrent in Ottoman texts by the
mid-seventeenth century.