Al-Tikriti|99majority of each population and continues to mark a flashpoint for occasional
sectarian conflict today.
Ibn-i Kemal and the Ottoman Mentalité
What did it mean to be and behave as an Ottoman “Sunni,” and how was such
an identity articulated? Well before the first nasty outbreaks of confessional wars
had run their course with the Amasya formulation, both Ottoman and Safavid
Empires set out to define their respective communal identities against each other,
consolidate rule over their respective territories, and decide how to deal with
their newly defined internal enemies. For the Ottomans, this search for collec-
tive identity was a long, gradual process of creeping orthodoxy, which gained
momentum in the early sixteenth century and resulted in an official ideology,
sometimes characterized as “Ottoman Sunnism.” This self-consciously Sunni-
umbrella religious identity, the limits of which were defined in contrast to a
Safavid-dominated Shiɇism, allowed for the active joint participation of a wide
variety of formerly incompatible legal and philosophical subgroups in the im-
perial enterprise. As a result, Sufi orders as diverse as Naqshbandīs, Mevlevis,
Bektaşīs, Halvetis, and others all became loosely redefined as Sunnis, supporting
the same Ottoman team.
One of the key indications of this Ottoman mentalité was the set of kalām
(theological disputation) arguments that emerged from its madrasa education
system as it coalesced in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. Heav-
ily influenced by earlier Timurid court patronage of madrasa scholarship, the
curriculum that first emerged out of the reign of Fātiত Mehmed II (r. 1451–1481)
continued to dominate imperial education well into the nineteenth century. Cov-
ering theology, logic, philosophy, law, language, rhetoric, and other fields outside
the hard sciences, several of the foundational texts were still being hotly debated
throughout this period. Through a close reading of the articulation of religious
culture expressed in such sources, combined with a meticulous review of politi-
cal events of the period, one can sound out the driving forces, social parameters,
and intellectual justifications behind this widely noted, but imprecisely defined,
identity transformation.
The most important scholar articulating an Ottoman vision of correct re-
ligious practice through kalām argumentation was Ibn-i Kemal (d. 1534), the
leading religious official of his generation. When engaging with his profile as a
religious official, scholars usually refer to him as “Ibn-i Kemal,” an Arabic con-
struction meaning “son of Kemal.” He also grew famous as one of the most prom-
inent court historians and poets of the early sixteenth century. When engaging
with this profile, biographers usually refer to him as “Kemālpaşazāde,” a Persian
construction meaning “son of Kemal Pasha.” The “paşa” in his name is often