The Eighteenth Century: the Traditionalists 335
Such an attitude toward revolt is also seen in other works of the period. Na’ima’s
discussion of the Edirne event, as seen in the previous chapter, appears rather
distant; he places more blame on the şeyhülislam than on the rebels. Other de-
scriptions of the same or other revolts also show a sort of benevolent attitude,
for instance when an anonymous chronicler praises the discipline and order
prevailing among the revolting crowd in 1703, or when Abdi Efendi vehemently
blames the grand vizier and his entourage for the 1730 rebellion.24
2 Defterdar and His Circle
One of the major exponents of the “traditionalist” trend in the early eighteenth
century was Bakkalzade Defterdar Sarı Mehmed Pasha (d. 1717). He started his
career as an apprentice in the financial service of the palace (ruznamçe-i evvel)
and gradually rose to serve as chief minister of finance, or başdefterdar, no less
than seven times between 1703 and 1714. His first term began during the vizier-
ate of Rami Mehmed Pasha and ended with the “Edirne event”, during which
time he was in Edirne, at Mustafa II’s side. Afterwards, he was soon reinstated
by Ahmed III. He also held other high bureaucratic and administrative posts;
in 1716, he was appointed governor of Salonica, before being executed (because
he was an opponent of the new grand vizier) in 1717. While he included some
pieces of advice in his historical work, Zübde-i vekayiât (“The quintessence of
events”, which is extremely valuable for the history of the last quarter of the
seventeenth century and the “Edirne event”),25 his most important work from
our perspective is his Nesâ’ihü’l-vüzerâ ve’l-ümerâ veya Kitab-ı güldeste (“Advice
for viziers and statesmen, or a book containing a bouquet of flowers”), a fairly
popular work (it is preserved in more than ten manuscripts, some in slightly
different versions) that was probably completed between 1714 and 1717.26 Some
manuscripts contain two appendices (U155–165, W151–158), one on innovation
(a very short recapitulation of fikh distinctions) and the other containing a
detailed description of the timar system in the “administration manuals” genre
(see chapter 5).
To a large extent, Defterdar’s work may be called eclectic: he freely copied
or adapted passages and ideas, mainly from Lütfi Pasha and Hezarfen, as well
as moral treatises. His work may be seen as being a continuation of Hezarfen’s
24 Özcan 2000, 230; Abdi – Unat 1999, 5–6, 26.
25 Defterdar – Özcan 1995.
26 Defterdar – Wright 1935 (Ottoman text and English translation); Defterdar – Uğural 1990
(transcription and modern Turkish translation). On this work see also Lewis 1962, 82;
Yılmaz 2003a, 313–14; Aksan 1993, 55–56 (=Aksan 2004, 29–30); Defterdar – Özcan 1995,
lxxxvii–lxxxix.