The Eighteenth Century: the Westernizers 419
other trades and constant military drilling, and managed to make their own
armies invincible due to them keeping compact lines and the superiority of
their rapid-fire artillery (W240–246).
Kuşmani first remarks pointedly that such rules did not exist in the time of
the old sultans, but nor did such idiocy exist since the beginning of Islam; thus,
because the infidels have proceeded so much in the science of war, it would
be foolish for the Muslims not to follow them. Then he repeats the same argu-
ment in a slightly different way, as he seems to consider all Selim’s innovations
to be merely reworkings of age-old Muslim practices (without reverting to the
Europeans’ having borrowed them). His first point is that both these innova-
tions were in fact used long ago: the various elements of the uniform were
traditionally used by the Balkan Muslims, while the trumpet is nothing but
what the Arabs call tabl-ı harb, or war drums; moreover, its usefulness is self-
evident, even more so since the janissaries themselves had been so many times
defeated without trumpets (İ23–30).
After all, observes Kuşmani in one of his most original arguments (İ30),
most weapons and tools are indeed innovations of the infidels.
Because these accursed ones are all oriented toward this world (salik-i
dünya oldukları ecilden), they always think of increasing their knowledge.That is why they have the custom of keeping an apprentice until he manages to
find some new and unknown knowledge and thus prove that he may become a
master workman himself. Muslims, in contrast, regard the world as something
temporary and transitory, so they tend to neglect worldly affairs and give more
importance to religion and piety. However, Kuşmani notes, during Selim III’s
reign factories were created within the boundaries of the Ottoman Empire,
and these contribute to the military supremacy of the New Army. One may
draw a parallel with Vasıf Efendi’s (who was probably, as we saw, the author
of Sekbanbaşı risâlesi) assertions that the Europeans’ “satanic insight” (‘ukul-ı
şeytaniyye) allows them to organize affairs efficiently and that they are will-
ing to sacrifice family and kin for trifling gains.74 Similar thoughts can be seen
in Sekbanbaşı’s relation of his alleged discussions with Russian officers dur-
ing his captivity: they explained to him how Peter the Great “subjected the
Russians, whether they would or not, to the restraints of discipline” and thus
he and his successors managed to capture Ottoman territories one after an-
other (W279–280).
74 Menchinger 2014a, 207.