Samples of Translated Texts 495
previously were bought for one asper could not be found for ten. This recruit-
ment of peasants and town-dwellers for the army by force did not happen in the
olden days; it began in A.H. 1001 [1592/3] and continues up to today.
... Now great care must be taken in the matter of inspecting (the army), espe-
cially in this period and in these times. We believe that the inability (of our army)
to face the infidels in these years, of which we have been witnesses, comes only
from the neglect and abandoning of this important matter and this great obliga-
tion. We have been experiencing this for 50 years now in our own land, i.e. the
Croatian border: our enemies, who are real warriors, start to overpower us every
time they create a new type of weapon and start using it. Then, as soon as we
begin making and using a similar weapon, we prevail over these accursed ones
with God’s help, because the Muslim religion is the most powerful. Nowadays,
our enemies again use all their strength to make use of some newly-invented
weapons, such as guns and cannons: they have invented various sorts of guns
and cannons and have begun using them on an excessive scale. But our soldiers
have neglected procuring themselves of these weapons and using them; nay,
they even neglect using their old weapons. This is the reason that they have
reached this point, i.e. that they cannot stand the battle and so flee.14 Anonymous, Kitâb-i müstetâb (See Chapter 5)
From Kitâb-i müstetâb (“The approved [or, agreeable] book”):17
... From the happy times of His Excellency the deceased Sultan Murad [III]—
may he rest in peace!—the judges and administrators started to exhibit a lack of
justice and to make bad decisions in their businesses; the affairs of the Exalted
State were neglected and they constantly followed ways contrary to the old
law. As a consequence, the villages and the cultivated lands in the “Protected
Domains” became ruined, the peasants dispersed, the expenses of the Imperial
Treasury surpassed the income and, moreover, janissary corps became corrupt-
ed through the entry of strangers into their ranks ... Due to these reasons, the
situation of the world became confused and the very foundations of the Exalted
State undermined. So, [this treatise] will give answers—God willing—to ques-
tions such as: what were the reasons for the appearance of such shameful acts
after the aforementioned date, and how can these be mended? ... From among
the inappropriate situations that have appeared in these times, the first is that
strangers meddled with the class of the sultan’s slaves [the janissaries], that the17 Yücel 1988, 2, 23, 31.