404 chapter 9
reisülküttab Abdürrezzak Efendi.46 At the beginning, Resmi seems to use the
same arguments he had employed in his first essay on the necessity of war;
however, he manages to conclude, through a combination of Khaldunism and
an exhibition of diplomatic knowledge, that peace is also necessary. He admits
that, as God has ordained, when the long-lasting and famous states (devlet) ap-
proach their age of decline (sinn-i inhitat), they are known to be content within
their own borders (hat-ı mahsusalarına). God has also ordained that the states
and dynasties, on whom depend the order of the world and the safety of the
people, have to continuously attack each other on the slightest grounds. Some
sultans, being inexperienced, short-sighted, and lacking good advice, endan-
ger their power and subjects by launching wars to expand their lands; thus,
they destroy their treasury and sometimes lose even the territory they already
possess.
In order to prove this thesis, Ahmed Resmi cites a series of historical ex-
amples from the preceding 50 or 60 years: Mir Üveys from Kandahar destroyed
the Safavid state of Iran in 1729, as the necessities of the age had not permit-
ted new states in the area for the previous two centuries (taze devletler ihdası
tabi’at-ı dehrden za ’ildir). Inevitably, this caused unrest in the social organism
(he’yet-i ictima ’iyye), and all the neighboring states (the Ottomans from the
West, Nader Shah from the East, the Russians from the North) tried to con-
quer as much Iranian territory as they could. After 20 years of war, the bor-
ders merely returned to the status quo ante, with Nader Shah’s state replacing
Safavid Iran (and he himself died because of his own perpetual wars). In a
similar way, Resmi describes the subsequent wars of Russia and Austria against
the weakened Ottomans, of Prussia against Austria, of Poland against its Tatar
neighbors, as well as the conquests of Genghis Khan.
Ahmed Resmi notes (P531) that the real reason for this sequence of war and
peace is that, according to God’s will, the surface of the earth was divided be-
tween various nations (milel) that are separated by physical borders (hudud)
such as mountains, seas, and rivers, and which fight each other, while also
having periods of friendship and peace. The fact that, for the past four years,
Russia had continuously attacked the Ottoman borders is, for Resmi, a paradox
(galat-ı tabi’at) and must be attributed to astrological conjectures. In a simi-
lar situation, he adds (P532), when the stars of Süleyman I were in their most
beneficial position, the Ottomans managed to gain victories in both the Indian
46 He was Resmi’s brother-in-law and (soon after) the chief negotiator with the Russians
(Aksan 1995, 107, fn. 30), as well as Vasıf Efendi’s patron (I wish to thank Ethan Metchinger
for this information).