42 chapter 1

[a]t that time, edifices were not built by force. Everybody took their sala-

ries. Nowadays, in order to build an edifice they tax the towns and prov-

inces, and, moreover, they uproot and bring masons and builders from

their places ... At the time of Sultan Murad, the son of a slave of the ruler

could not become a slave of the ruler himself, and timars were not grant-

ed to such slaves. Nowadays, fiefs of these people are multiplied, and they

look upon strangers with a better eye [than upon natives].

As for Yazıcıoğlu, he does not speak of Istanbul openly, yet he clearly agrees
with the anonymous author that a city or state dominated by immorality and
oppression has a gloomy destiny. The twelfth chapter of his book (S92ff.) deals
with places destroyed by the wrath of God, and here Yazıcıoğlu is more specific
about the responsibility of the ruler as opposed to that of the ruled. When
God destroyed the sinful kingdom of Yemen, the angel Cebrail objected that
among the inhabitants there were also devoted people. God responded by
saying that they did not practice emr-i maruf, i.e. the command to do what is
right and lawful, since the pious ones did not turn the impious away from sin,
either with counsel (nasihat), coercion (örf ), or even their loathing (ikrah).
Yazıcıoğlu continues by reiterating the accusations mentioned above, among
them that “present-day ulema lost their capacity to speak and their sight due
to their fear of [losing their] offices (mansıb korkusundan)”. Later on, speaking
of the mythical destruction of pre-Islamic Basra and Khwarezm because of
their oppressive rulers, Yazıcıoğlu observes:

This people ( filan halk) met [God’s] wrath because of His revenge against

this oppressor (ol zalimin öcünden) ... because they did not command

what was lawful nor did they deny the unlawful (emr-i maruf, nehy-i

münker etmedikleri ecilden) ... What is given to the oppressed is taken

from the oppressor (mazlumun dadını zalimlerden alıverir), in both this

and the next world ... The prayers of the oppressed in favor of the oppres-

sor are acceptable ... So many oppressed met with misfortune in order for

a tyrant to be punished, because they did not command what was lawful

and deny what was unlawful. Thus, the sins committed by this oppressor

are blamed on everyone (cümlesinin boynundadır).

...

Yazıcıoğlu thus introduces the precept of “commanding right and forbid-
ding wrong” (emr-i ma ’ruf ve nehy-i münker), which was to play a major role