100 | Ibn-i Kemal’s Confessionalism
translated as “general,” but it was used as a broad title of distinction for several
types of state officials, not just military commanders. His twin legacies, merg-
ing religious and dynastic service, appropriately describe his family background,
career choices, and diverse array of intellectual talents. On his father’s side Ibn-i
Kemal sprang from a prominent military family based in central Anatolia’s To-
kat. His grandfather Kemal Pasha served as Bayezid II’s lala, or governance tutor.
His father, Süleyman Çelebi, served with less distinction as a provincial com-
mander in Tokat. Considering that his real name was Aতmed, the fact that he
grew famous carrying his grandfather’s name suggests that Ibn-i Kemal’s grand-
father Kemal Pasha overshadowed his father, Süleyman Çelebi. On his maternal
side, he sprang from a provincial clerical family, with his maternal grandfather
Kebelüzāde Mulla Meতmed Muতyiddīn serving as kazasker ҕ (military judge) and
joining Fātiত Mehmed’s 1467–1468 Karaman campaign. Ibn-i Kemal’s aunt mar-
ried Sinan Pasha, another prominent religious scholar and son of Hızır Bey, Is-ҕ
tanbul’s first postconquest judge. His parents’ marriage of military and clerical
backgrounds suggests a savvy merging of variant interests that signifies the flux
of the newly emergent Ottoman society in the late fifteenth century.
Kemālpaşazāde initially followed his paternal inclination toward military
affairs, accompanying Bayezid II on campaigns as a young officer. While on cam-
paign in Albania in 1492, he noted the deference shown by a council of military
commanders to fellow Tokat native and renowned cleric Mulla Lu৬fī (d. 1495). At
that point, feeling he was more likely to gain success as a scholar, he changed
careers and began studying with Mulla Lu৬fī. After this mentor was beheaded for
apostasy in 1495, Ibn-i Kemal was obliged to find another figure to attach him-
self to. Amasya native MüɆeyyedzāde ɇAbdurrahmān Çelebi (d. 1516) became his ҕ
next mentor and helped him land several teaching positions. By 1503, the Ibn-i
Kemal of religious fame had gained his first teaching post in Edirne, while the
Kemālpaşazāde of historical writing fame had won his first big commission to
write a multivolume Ottoman dynastic history. From there, his career progressed
from success to success until he reached the pinnacle of the scholarly hierarchy,
serving as şeyhülislam (“religious leader of Islam,” the head of the imperial reli-
gious hierarchy) from 1526 until his death in 1534.
As a madrasa teacher, historian, and poet, Ibn-i Kemal was said to be a tire-
less, efficient, and good-humored scholar who slept less than six hours a night
and produced the equivalent of a chapter a day. As such, he was one of the of-
ficials most responsible for bringing clerics into an integrative relationship with
the state. He advocated for his agenda largely within the norms of kalām argu-
mentation, which suggests he served as point man for an activist court policy
intended to buttress imperial legitimacy by defining enemies of state as enemies
of religion, while enforcing social conformity through religiously defined correct
behavior. Ibn-i Kemal was active at the beginning of this long and complex set of