Samples of Translated Texts 497
... Let it not be a secret for the sultan that the entering of strangers into the
janissary corps began in A.H. 990 [1582] ... The nobility and beauty of the corps
disappeared; the regulations governing its function declined and became a com-
plete mess. Whereas giving pensions to persons other than the aged and invalids
was against the rules, now there are more than 10,000 pensionaries and retired
men from among the young and strong. This way, the Muslim treasury perished
and was destroyed ... In such a situation, how can the world be restored? How
can the treasury be filled? The army consists of soldiers from many generations;
of noblemen and the sons of noblemen. The job cannot be done by grocers and
the like! To sum up, in the olden days the Muslim army was small in numbers but
great in essence, pure and disciplined; it gained victories and conquest via God’s
order wherever it campaigned ... Now, no army remains: service (kulluk) is re-
stricted to salaried slaves, and the seeds of sedition have been sown in the
world ... They go to the war whenever they like; there is no obedience, no fear of
the sultan. Is that a Muslim army? In our times, these preoccupations have be-
come a duty applicable to all (farz-i ayn).
... The [ janissary] slaves cannot be controlled by advice; it is impossible to
have them reformed with kindness ... In sum, men are controlled by force, not
clemency. The great sultans of the past used the salaried cavalry to control the
janissary infantry, the janissaries to control the cavalrymen, and the owners of
timars and zeamet to control both these classes of slaves. Now, the timariots have
disappeared completely; (military) service remains restricted to these two class-
es of slaves, and each one has attained monstrous proportions. If His Excellency
the sultan acts carefully, the task is easy: if the zeamet and timars attain the per-
fect state they used to have, and if the numbers of salaried slaves decrease as far
as possible, with God’s permission the world will find its order once more.16 Aziz Efendi (See Chapter 5)
From Kânûnnâme-i sultânî (“Book of sultanly laws and regulations”), translated by
Rhoads Murphey:19
The same procedure of inspection and investigation would then be carried out
for each company one by one recording the town, village and province of each
member together with a physical description in an orderly register ... Outsiders
who have abandoned their fields and former trade to become Janissaries on
the strength of a pay certificate belonging to someone else, not being capable19 Aziz Efendi – Murphey 1985, 10, 22.