The Empire in the Making 41
Women will walk in the markets, gain money ... and resemble men. They
[the people] will consume the property of orphans; they will not protect
the poor. Princes will commend high business to mean persons ... The
oppressed will not be heard. Judges will be dissolute and rulers (ümera)
will be merchants (tacir) ... Sufism will be nothing but the external
appearance (tac ile hırkada kala).Particular emphasis is placed on the decline of market regulations:
Merchants will cheat in their weights, and they will sell at whatever price
[they like] (türlü türlü narh ile satalar); they will give full weight to the
great and defective to the poor, and they will lie in their sales.The ulema will also become depraved, issuing fetvas according to their own
interests (nefse kolay), and finally:
as innovation (or heresy, bid’atleri) will increase, they will restore the her-
esiarchs (eshab-i bid’at). The ulema will be begging [for favor] before the
sultans’ doors.In the descriptions of Constantinople, similar immorality is said to have led to
absolute destruction; such a city can only be doomed to destruction:29
When they had completed all these [constructions], they [the ancient
infidels] deported by force many households from every province ...
They made every people of that era suffer, making them settle [in
Constantinople] by force; and because all these people cursed the city ...
they caused its destruction, as it became burdened with all these laments.
This is why this city is destined to be ruined. They prayed for this,
and their tears will never dry on the earth where they fell.The criticism of Mehmed II’s resettlement policy is clear. Things become even
more explicit and straightforward when the anonymous author compares the
old edifices to the new ones and states that the former were larger and more
impressive, because30
29 Yerasimos 1990, 13 (the Ottoman text in the Turkish translation, 19–20).
30 Yerasimos 1990, 34 (the Ottoman text in the Turkish translation, 35–36).