Acknowledgments
In Ottoman moral philosophy, generosity (sehâvet) is one of the main virtues
related to politics, and in our field one can do very little without the generos-
ity of one’s friends and colleagues, even though academic and socio-economic
conditions do not favor this seemingly anti-productive virtue. Versions of
some chapters were meticulously read by Antonis Anastasopoulos, Antonis
Hadjikyriacou, and Ethan L. Menchinger; their remarks contributed much
and prevented me from making numerous errors. My discussions with Boğaç
Ergene, Gottfried Hagen, Güneş Işıksel, Katharina Ivanyi, Derin Terzioğlu, Baki
Tezcan, Gülçin Tunalı, and Bilal Yurtoğlu were especially useful in illuminat-
ing various aspects of the subject. Several Ottoman manuscripts and a large
portion of the modern bibliography were made accessible to me thanks to
the generosity and help of Feride Akın, Cumhur Bekar, Günhan Börekçi, Melis
Cankara, Lejla Demiri, Emrah Safa Gürkan, İrfan Kokdaş, Tijana Krstić, Dimitris
Loupis, Vasileios Syros, and Özgün Deniz Yoldaşlar. I also have to thank Edith
Gülçin Ambros, Tobias Heinzelmann, Elias Kolovos, Phokion Kotzageorgis,
Christos Kyriakopoulos, Sophia Laiou, Andreas Lyberatos, Foivos Oikonomou,
Nicolas Vatin, Yiannis Viskadouros, and Fr. Jason Welle O. F. M., for their mag-
nanimous assistance whenever I asked for it. My thanks also go to Maurits van
den Boogert, whose willingness and care were decisive for the present publi-
cation, as well as to Professor M. Şükrü Hanioğlu, whose opinion was key in
this book being accepted for publication in the “Handbook of Oriental Studies”
series, and who made important comments. The anonymous reader’s remarks
were of great help in rethinking the content of this book and restructuring
its chapters in a, hopefully, more meaningful way. My poor English and some
errors and points of confusion were amended by Alex Mallett, who meticu-
lously edited the text and managed to make this book readable. I cannot ignore
my debt to my teachers and mentors: apart from introducing me to Ottoman
history and palaeography, John C. Alexander (Alexandropoulos) also taught
me to formulate all my questions in terms of social history while, as well as
making me as meticulous in care for details as she is, Elizabeth A. Zachariadou
was the person primarily responsible for creating the ideal research environ-
ment in which the composition of this book took place.
Indeed, a major part of the research that led to this monograph was funded
by the project “OTTPOL: A History of Early Modern Ottoman Political Thought,
15th to Early 19th Centuries”, carried out at the Institute for Mediterranean
Studies of the Foundation of Research and Technology—Hellas (Rethymno,
Greece), within the action “Aristeia II” of the Greek General Secretariat for