490 appendix 2
peasant performs extraordinary service and out of (the sultan’s) abundant grace
becomes a sipahi and is endowed with a fief, then his relatives and father and
mother are not to follow him; or, if he is a student, he is relieved from his taxable
status (raiyyetlik), though his family remains taxable. As for the sort of the de-
scendants of the Prophet, they are the sacred Hashimi race but (nowadays) there
have been many intruders. A chief (nakibü’s-sâdât) has been ordained for them;
he has to remove those who are not written in their old registers, which contain
their pure genealogical trees.
If a peasant rides a horse, he must pay an important fine to his sipahi. Peasants
go from one village to another on donkeys. It is not appropriate that peasants are
given more licence than this. And it is a law that if a peasant is found with a
sword, bow and arrows, a gun or other weapons he must be killed at once. And
the inhabitants of his village must pay a full fine. It is a law that if an official (ehl-i
örf) sees such a weapon, he must ask the people of the village why they did not
deliver it [to him] and impose a grave fine upon them. Arms and all necessaries
are not for the peasants; the faulty [results] appear even after a hundred years.
God knows, license is not good for the peasants; they should not be encouraged.
If someone gets wealthy, he must not be oppressed; peasants should be
protected.For Birgivi Mehmed Efendi, see below.
10 Anonymous, Kitâbu mesâlih (See Chapter 4)
From Kitâbu mesâlihi’l-müslimîn ve menâfi’i’l-mü’minîn (“Book on the proper courses
for Muslims and on the interests of the faithful”).12
There is one (mention of the sultan in the) hutbe and one coin in all the ter-
ritories ruled by His Excellency the sultan, the protector of the world. It is ap-
propriate that the kile [weight mesure], the ell (arşun), the okka, and the dirhem
of every district comply with those of Istanbul. Travelers are helpless in this mat-
ter; they arrive in one place and are cheated by words such as “this is the kile of
Karaman, this is the okka of Karaman”; every district has its own type of ells and
kiles. What is right is that in the happy days of the glorious sultan kile, ell, okka
and the like all be adjusted according to the measures of Istanbul, just like hutbe
and coinage are the same in every place.12 Yücel 1988, 94, 98–99, 107–108.