Khaldunist Philosophy: Innovation Justified 287
the array of usable sources. The translations of the Atlas Minor and of similar
Western European texts served to enlarge the tradition and to enrich it with
a new and, furthermore, a more authoritative source; but it was primarily the
traditional textual criticism tools that Kâtib Çelebi applied to these widened
sources.21
As will be seen, Kâtib Çelebi’s teacher Kadızade Mehmed Efendi’s legalist
and literal reading of the Quran impressed him but did not lead him to adhere
to revivalist ideas. His own political sympathies were more inclined towards
the reformist viziers who tried to find a stronghold in the turbulent politics of
1650s Istanbul, such as Tarhuncu Ahmed Pasha and Köprülü Mehmed Pasha.22
Apart from the favorable references in his chronicle, this is also clear in his
major political work, Düstûrü’l-amel li ıslahi’l-halel (“Course of measures to re-
dress the situation”), composed during the former’s vizierate and just a few
years before the rise of the latter.23 As the author himself narrates (not only in
this text but also in his historiographical Fezleke),24 it was composed in 1653
following a meeting of the financial scribes under the defterdar on balancing
the state budget in which he had taken part. Indeed, this short essay stresses
financial reform; however, its main value lies in the exposition of Kâtib Çelebi’s
sociological ideas, which include a novel medical simile for human society, a
pioneering definition of the state, and the first systematic introduction of the
Khaldunian notion of the “state stages” into the Ottoman philosophy of history.
2.1 A Theory of State and Society
We do not know how Kâtib Çelebi came into contact with Ibn Khaldun’s phi-
losophy and sociology of history (in his bibliographical encyclopedia, Kashf
al-zunûn, there is an entry on the Muqaddima), but he included a very detailed
account of it in his concluding remarks to his Takvîmü’t-tevârîh (“Chronicle of
histories”), a world history chronicle compiled in 1648.25
Kâtib Çelebi begins with an assurance that God ordains caliphs and sultans
to administer the affairs of the people. Among the tribes and races who have
21 Sariyannis 2015, 452–456 and 461–463; cf. Kurz 2011, 215.
22 Hagen 2003a, 62–64.
23 There are two known MSS (Nuruosmaniye Ktp. 4075; Murat Molla Ktp., Hamidiye,
no. 1649, ff. 39b–47a). The treatise was published in Ottoman Turkish as an appendix to
Ayn Ali 1978, 119–139; Turkish translation in Kâtib Çelebi – Gökyay 1968, 154–161; a German
translation had appeared as Kâtib Çelebi – Behrnauer 1857. See also Gökbilgin 1991, 212–
217; Lewis 1962, 78–81; Thomas 1972, 73–74; Fodor 1986, 233–235; İnan 2009, 121; Yurtoğlu
2009, 16–22; Black 2011, 265–267.
24 Kâtib Çelebi 1869–1871, 2:384–85.
25 Kâtib Çelebi 1733, 233–237; Turkish translation in Kâtib Çelebi – Gökyay 1968, 114–117;
cf. Yurtoğlu 2009, 22–24; Al-Tikriti 2017.