Samples of Translated Texts 509
25 Ahmed Vasıf Efendi (See Chapter 8)
From Risâle (“Essay”), partly translated by Ethan L. Menchinger:29
Let it be known that the infidel kings ... have invented a way to achieve great
benefits easily; in brief, they build a special place in their capitals, providing it
with all the necessary materials and provisions ... There they collect children of
unknown parents, illegitimate sons of adultery and lust, and they take them to
these appointed places ... They train the aforementioned children according to
the new ways of the science of war, and thus part of their soldiery is arranged
and ordered by these Satans; the same is done with part of the peasant sub-
jects of their lands, whom they divide into parts and recruit as if they were their
bought slaves ... All these groups serve under duress and have to obey orders in
every case; certainly this is not something that is unattainable.
... If things have now altered so that our soldiers are denied victory and if the
enemy sometimes prevails by land and sea, this is an effect of their faculty of is-
tidrac [deceiving temporary success by divine order], produced by Satanic
means; and the function of istidrac is that it is short and that it is impossible to
achieve its aims at all times. Especially in the times when the victorious [Muslim]
armies prevail, the weapons of the infidels are still the same: the weapons which
they use nowadays being known, their ways of peace are similarly analogous to
the rules of war. Whenever the invasion of the Muslim swords into their ranks
disperses the measures and arrangements and all the means of intimidation and
threatening which they have gathered together, their ill-omened armies are hu-
miliated and scorned, they give up their souls and possessions; who may doubt
for this? It is depending on the subtle points of God’s will.
Indeed do victory and defeat depend on the will of God. As for Christian na-
tions, their beliefs dispute this. Hence they say, following a group of philoso-
phers, that the circumstances of war are among particular events and that
God—Heaven forfend!—has no effect on particular events. They not only ridic-
ulously contend that whichever side can muster superior means of warfare will
prevail, but they produce proofs weaker than a spider’s web, crediting victory to
the perfection of means and necessities and heedless of the sacred import of
“Not the least atom is hidden from Him” and “There is no aid but from God the
Almighty”. In the campaign of Eğri, when the Sultan Mehmed—peace be upon
him!—with an innumerable army confronted the enemy, by God’s will his regu-
larly and carefully arranged army was dispersed and the enemy prevailed over29 Vasıf – İlgürel 1978, 150–151; for the translated parts see Menchinger 2014b, 147–150 (ad-
ditional parts translated by the author).