212 chapter 5
ask them what should be done with people who belong to the military but are
unfit for their role or are occupied in other professions. The officers being com-
pelled to answer that they will follow the sultan’s orders, he should ask them
to summon all their soldiers. At the same time, the armies of the provincial
governors summoned previously should occupy their posts in order to intimi-
date the janissaries who may consider rebelling. Thus, a proper inspection and
investigation of the janissary pay-rolls will lead to keeping the honest and true
soldiers and expel the unfit and the intruders. The same must be done for the
salaried cavalry and rest of the salaried kuls41 (M6–12).
Yet the relationship of these suggestions to the actual reforms of Murad IV,
namely the realignment of the timar system, remains open to debate.42 The
extent to which Murad actually followed such advice (as well as imposing dis-
cipline and order) is questionable. While one gets the impression that he did
make serious efforts to inspect the timar system and ensure that only those
entitled to military fiefs could have them,43 was this as a result of his advisors’
counsel or did he just follow the general zeitgeist following the janissaries’ role
in Osman’s deposition and death? Or, to quote Derin Terzioğlu:44
Was the relatively modest background of these authors the result of an
attempt by Murad IV to build alternative channels of influence and al-
liance against more powerful elites in this period (...)? Or was it rather
indicative of the extent of social and political mobilization from the very
top down to the peripheral elements? The possibilities need not be mu-
tually exclusive; probably, there was an element of both.In other words, how may we interpret the common background of these au-
thors, anonymous or not? It will be seen that, throughout the first decades of
the seventeenth century, it was the scribal bureaucracy who took the initiative
of advocating reform, rather than discontent ulema or dispossessed officers. A
possible interpretation may be based on the growing role of this bureaucracy
in actual policy-making. Indeed, one may argue that the central governmen-
tal mechanisms were becoming increasingly autonomous and independent
from both the provincial military administration and the pasha households
41 Murphey translates “the artisans [in the palace service]” (M11); I think that cemi’-i esnafı
refers rather to the various groups of soldiers.
42 Some measures taken by Osman II before his deposition, such as inspections of the
army (Tezcan 2010a, 174), may or may not have been the result of similar advice in Kitâb-i
müstetâb.
43 See Murphey 1996, 334–335.
44 Terzioğlu 2010, 250.