enjoining good and forbidding wrong 73they were affi liated or at least sympathetic.^50 Katip Çelebi wrote The Balance
of Truth arguing the futility of forcing people to abandon long-held customs
and beliefs.^51 Concerning the prohibitions of the age, he argued that dancing
or whirling, if it was intended for God, was acceptable; that the consumption
of tobacco should be allowed because its use was widespread and unstoppa-
ble; that coffee could not be perpetually banned; that it was foolish to interfere
with drug addicts; and that people could not be deterred from visiting tombs to
seek favors. He further argued that it was folly to hope to contain innovation,
for once a custom has taken root it becomes legitimate and cannot simply be
wiped out. Rebuking the Kadızadelis, he wrote that “enjoining right and for-
bidding wrong” was an acceptable practice, but there should be no prying. He
warned that those who sought to police morals and labeled others as heretics
were arrogant and unkind. They stirred up fanaticism, leading to bloodshed.
Katip Çelebi’s admonitions proved accurate. The intrareligious dispute in-
cited by the Kadızadelis caused Muslims to split into factions and take every
opportunity to dispute with each other on every street corner, at every pub-
lic gathering, and in every mosque, each side attempting to expose the other
to public scorn.^52 By the mid- 1 650s, the disputes had turned violent. Fridayprayers at imperial mosques devolved into shouting matches and brawls. On
one Friday in August 1 656, when the muezzins at the Fatih Mosque began to
chant a laudatory melody to Muhammad, a group of Kadızadelis, to silence
the song, raised a ruckus and began to insolently revile the muezzins in an
obscene manner.^53 When their opponents tried to stop them, “it nearly caused
them to slaughter each other.” After this the Kadızadelis decided to raid and
raze all the Halveti lodges. They planned to gather at Fatih Mosque with weap-
ons to do away with those who would hinder them from attacking members
of that order and their lodges. Most of the religious class expressed its opinion
to the sultan that “in accordance with the Shariah it was necessary that those
who caused the spread of sedition and disorder be killed.”^54 In the minds of
religious scholars, the Kadızadelis were both ignoramuses who preached un-
reasonable things, ideas that not coincidentally went against what the elite and
most of the religious class supported, and a popular group with a wide follow-
ing. They had to be repelled. The sultan agreed with them, as he had not yet
converted to Kadızadeli piety, yet the grand vizier intervened and exiled their
leaders instead.
Some of the harshest criticism of the group, unsurprisingly, comes from
the sultan’s astrologist, the Salonican-born Mevlevi Sufi Ahmed Dede, son of
Lutfullah. He referred to the Kadızadeli affair as an uprising or rebellion and
offered dire warnings about their real motives. He called them a “ragged group
of bigots” and ignoramuses, led by “ignorant, banal preachers.” They aimed to