 The Sultan’s Advisors and

Their Opinions on the Identity

of the Ottoman Elite, –

Linda T. Darling

Ottoman authors wrote several works of political advice for sultans in the

years 1580–1653. Unlike medieval advice works (mirrors for princes), these works
were not stereotyped moral descriptions of the good prince, or rather the just
sultan, illustrated with episodes from Islamic and Persian history and legend.
These authors claimed to analyze the problems of the current age and give practi-
cal advice for their solution. One of the chief problems they complained about
was the adulteration of the Ottoman elite by outsiders, the contamination of Ot-
toman identity by people without the proper background or education to be true
Ottomans. Although these outsiders were undoubtedly subjects of the Ottoman
sultan, this was not enough to qualify for official positions or merit the rewards of
service. In these authors’ opinion, a true Ottoman came from a good family, was
well educated, and followed the prescribed career path, and therefore he deserved
the wealth and power obtainable on that path.
Good families, education, and prescribed career paths were at that time
relatively new attributes of Ottoman identity. In the empire’s early years, most
positions and offices were open to whoever had the necessary talents and abili-
ties—military, administrative, or political—no matter what social groups they
came from. As late as 1531 Sultan Süleyman (r. 1520–1566) issued an edict for-
bidding people on the inside to block outsiders from obtaining positions in the
military or to denigrate those who did. Only in the 1540s did the arteries of ad-
vancement begin to harden, and it became more difficult for someone not from a
military family or the palace to be promoted. By 1581, when the first of the advice
works appeared, good family or education and prescribed career paths had been
considered necessary qualifications for military and official positions for several
decades. For these writers, that period comprised their whole professional life,
and they took it for granted that those attributes defined the Ottoman elite. These
authors were members of the elite themselves, and their complaints may also
have represented the feelings of the elite at large.