The Empire in the Making 49
follow by half a decade).48 Of course, the term “originally composed” must
be taken cum grano salis, since the work is essentially a partial translation of
Razi’s Mirsâd al-‘ibâd (1230–1) with additions by the author; in fact, from Razi’s
mostly Sufi treatment of the soul and spirit Şeyhoğlu adapted only the fifth and
final part, concerning “the wayfaring of different classes of men” (and he omit-
ted its last chapters, i.e. those concerning merchants, farmers etc., concentrat-
ing thus on governmental apparatus and the ulema).49 However, given its early
date and the fact that such works dominated the intellectual milieu of the late
fourteenth and early fifteenth century, it seems appropriate to give here a
description of the structure of the work, a large part of which consists of
poetry and hadiths. It has four chapters. The first (Y40–66) deals with “sultans,
kings, and beys” (padişahlar ve melikler ve begler), and the second (Y66–105),
more specifically, with the three “situations” or “states” (halet) of the sultan,
namely his relationship with himself, with his subjects, and with God. The
third chapter (Y106–122) promises to speak of “the viziers, the men of the pen,
and the other deputies”, but in fact speaks almost exclusively of the former, dis-
cussing again the vizier’s respective three “situations”, this time in relation to
God, to his king, and to the people and the army. As with the sultan, the main
idea is that one must display certain virtues in all three situations: in the case
of viziers, these virtues are honesty (toğrılık), loftiness ( yücelik), perseverance
(sebat), and forbearance (tahammül). Finally, the fourth chapter (Y122–153)
deals with the ulema, müftis, judges, and preachers.
Şeyhoğlu’s work, formulaic and commonplace as it may seem, represents
a tradition of political thought that must have prevailed in ulema circles
throughout the fifteenth century. One can see many of his ideas reiterated in
other works of advice even in the sixteenth century; on the other hand, his
political vocabulary is interesting, since some of the standard terms of Islamic
ethico-political terminology were translated into Ottoman Turkish for the first
time. Before leaving the Germiyan court, Şeyhoğlu had translated into Turkish
(through a Persian translation by Sa’d al-Din al-Varâvinî) another work of this
48 Şeyhoğlu – Yavuz 1991. Very few scholars have studied Seyhoğlu’s work from the point of
view of political thought: Unan 2004, 313–352; Yılmaz 2005, 36; Darling 2013b, 238. I was
not able to check Varlık 1979.
49 Razi – Algar 1982, 394ff. Razi’s work was also translated into Ottoman Turkish in 1421/2 by
Mevlana Kasım b. Mahmud Karahisari as Kitâbu irşâdi’l-mürîd ile’l-murâd min-tercümeti
kitâbi Mirsâdi’l-ibâd. It is interesting to note that one of the few instances where Şeyhoğlu
departs from his model is a reference to trade and fixed prices: bad judges, he says, take
bribes, administer the vakf revenues for their own profit and even engage in trade, taking
advantage of their privilege to draw the officially fixed prices (Y147: narh; cf. the relevant
part in Razi – Algar 1982, 458).