Lost in Historiography

This article tackles the question of why an attempt to uncover an indigenous history of limited government in the early modern Ottoman Empire has not been undertaken in twentieth-century Turkish historiography despite the obvious existence of several constituents for such a history, such as the political power and prestige of jurists (ulema), the political role of the janissary corps, and the many depositions and other revolts that they staged in cooperation with the jurists, which, in practice, limited the political authority of the sultan. The answer suggested by the article focuses on the political concerns of the early republic, the socio-economic concerns of the Muslim democrats currently in power, and the theoretical concerns of contemporary western historians who have been influenced by Edward Said's critique of Orientalism. Notes 1. Mustafa Kemal (Atatürk)'s statement is from a letter that included his remarks on the first draft of history textbooks for Turkish high schools which were being written by the Turkish Historical Society; cited by U. İğdemir, Yılların İçinden (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu, 1976), p.26. 2. Ş. Mardin, ‘Freedom in an Ottoman Perspective’, in M. Heper and A. Evin (eds.), State, Democracy, and the Military: Turkey in the 1980s (Berlin and New York: W. de Gruyter, 1988), pp.23–35, at pp.26–7. 3. L.F. Marsigli, Stato militare dell'imperio ottomanno/L'état militaire de l'empire ottoman (La Haye: Gosse, 1732), p.31; T. Timur, OsmanlıÇalışmaları: İlkel Feodalizmden Yarı Sömürge Ekonomisine (Ankara: Verso, 1989), p.121. 4. Sir J. Porter, Observations on the Religion, Law, Government, and Manners of the Turks, 2nd ed. (London: J. Nourse, 1771), pp.xx, xxviii, xxxi. 5. This article follows a book-length study that attempts to make a case for an indigenous history of limited government in the Ottoman Empire, see B. Tezcan, The Second Ottoman Empire: Political and Social Transformation in the Early Modern World, forthcoming from Cambridge University Press in 2010. For a study that focuses on Ottoman historiography in twentieth-century Turkey from multiple angles, see B. Ersanlı, ‘The Ottoman Empire in the Historiography of the Kemalist Era: A Theory of Fatal Decline’, in F. Adanır and S. Faroqhi (eds.), The Ottomans and the Balkans: A Discussion of Historiography (Leiden: Brill, 2002), pp.115–54. 6. See B. Tezcan ‘The New Order and the Fate of the Old: The Historiographical Construction of an Ottoman ancien régime in the Nineteenth Century’, in P.F. Bang and C.A. Bayly (eds.), Empires in Contention: Sociology, History and Cultural Difference, forthcoming. 7. While the New Order, or nizâm-ı cedîd, usually refers to the reform programme of Selim III (r. 1789–1807), I use it in a wider sense to refer to the regime gradually instituted in the Ottoman Empire after the destruction of the janissaries in 1826. 8. E.J. Zürcher, Turkey: A Modern History (London and New York: I.B. Tauris, 1993), pp.4–5. 9. With the term ‘jurists' law’, I refer to the application of the sharî'a, which, although ultimately claiming to be inspired by the Divine, is always articulated – and thus interpreted – by Muslim jurists in works of fiqh, or jurisprudence. For a general introduction to these concepts, see B.G. Weiss, The Spirit of Islamic Law (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1988). 10. Political reaction in this sense was called irtica (irtijāc , Ar.). One of its early uses in the republican period was in the context of the closure of the Terakkiperver Cumhuriyet Fırkası, the first opposition party in the republican period (1924–25); see E.J. Zürcher, ‘Terakkiperver Cumhuriyet Fırkası ve Siyasal Muhafazakârlık’, trans. Ö. Gökmen, in A. Çiğdem (ed.), Modern Türkiye'de Siyasî Düşünce, vol. 5, Muhafazakârlık (Istanbul: İletişim Yayınları, 2003). 11. A. Cevdet, Ta'rîh-i Cevdet, 1st ed., 12 vols. (Istanbul, 1270/1854–1301/1884), Vol.1, p.71; 2nd ed., 2nd imprint, 12 vols. (Istanbul: Matba'a-ı‘Osmâniye, 1309), Vol.1, p.18; for a thoughtful analysis of this work, see C.K. Neumann, Das indirekte Argument – ein Plädoyer für die Tanîmât vermittels der Historie: Die geschichtliche Bedeutung von Amed Cevdet Paşas Ta'rîh (Münster: Lit, 1994). 12. See the discussion of Cevdet's take on the reign of Ah[mdot]ed III, Ta'rîh-i Cevdet, Vol.1, pp.67–8. 13. E.J. Zürcher, Political Opposition in the early Turkish Republic: The Progressive Republican Party, 1924–1925 (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1991). 14. L. Köker, Modernleşme, Kemalizm ve Demokrasi (Istanbul: İletişim Yayınları, 1990), p.117. 15. C. Emrence, Serbest Cumhuriyet Fırkası (Istanbul: İletişim Yayınları, 2006). 16. See Z. Türkmen, ‘Kuleli Vak'ası’, Türkiye Diyanet Vakfıİslâm Ansiklopedisi[İA2 hereafter], Vol.26, pp.356–7; T.Z. Tunaya, Türkiyede Siyasî Partiler, 1859–1952 (Istanbul: Türkiye Diyanet Vakfi, 1988-), pp.89–90, n.2. 17. R.H. Davison, Reform in the Ottoman Empire, 1856–1876 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1963), p.102. 18. See the sources cited by B. Lewis, The Emergence of Modern Turkey (London: Oxford University Press, 1961), p.148, n.44; and N. Berkes, The Development of Secularism in Turkey (Montreal: McGill University Press, 1964), p.203, n.2. 19. To be exact, in 1932 he became the president of the Society for the Exploration of Turkish History (Türk Tarihi Tetkik Cemiyeti), which was founded by Mustafa Kemal in 1931. In 1935, seven months after his death, the name of the society was changed to Turkish Historical Society (Türk Tarih Kurumu); for sources on Yusuf Akçura's life, see N. Yüce, ‘Akçura, Yusuf’, İA2, Vol.2, pp.228–9. 20. U. İğdemir, Kuleli Vak'ası Hakkında Bir Araştırma (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu, 1937), pp.26–8; see also T.T.T. Cemiyeti, Tarih, 4 vols. (Istanbul: Devlet Matbaası, 1932–34), Vol.3, p.252, which was apparently written by Akçura, see İğdemir, Kuleli Vak'ası Hakkında Bir Araştırma, p.28, n.2. 21. İğdemir, Kuleli Vak'ası Hakkında Bir Araştırma, p.38. 22. Ibid., p.29. 23. E. Engelhardt, La Turquie et le Tanzimat, ou Histoire des Réformes dans l'Empire Ottoman depuis 1826 jusqu'a nos jours, 2 vols. (Paris, 1882–84), Vol.1, pp.158–9. 24. İğdemir, Kuleli Vak'ası Hakkında Bir Araştırma, p.18. 25. Reproduced in ibid., p.44. 26. Ibid., p.37. 27. R.H. Davison, ‘European Archives as a Source for Later Ottoman History’, Report on Current Research [on the Middle East], Vol.3 (1958), pp.33–45, at p.39 (emphases added). 28. Davison, Reform in the Ottoman Empire, pp.100, 102. 29. Tunaya, Türkiyede Siyasî Partiler, p.90. 30. E.Z. Karal, Osmanlı Tarihi, Vol.6: Islahat Fermanı Devri, 1856–1861 (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu, 1954), p.97. 31. Davison, Reform in the Ottoman Empire, pp.101, 102. 32. Berkes, The Development of Secularism, pp.203–4. 33. S. Akşin, ‘Siyasal Tarih, 1789–1908’, in S. Akşin (ed.), Türkiye Tarihi, Vol.3: Osmanlı Devleti, 1600–1908 (Istanbul: Cem Yayınevi, 1990), pp.71–188, at p.134. 34. A recent study on the Kuleli incident came too late to my attention to be included in this article, see B. Onaran, ‘Kuleli Vakası hakkında ‘başka’ bir araştırma’, Tarih ve Toplum, Vol.5, No.245 (Spring 2007), pp.9–39. 35. Of course, this is not to say that every Ottoman subject was content with all aspects of jurists' law. It is true that the law of the land was discriminatory toward Christians and Jews. Yet discrimination toward religious minorities was an almost universal phenomenon in the early modern period. Moreover non-Muslim minorities in the Ottoman Empire did not shy away from using the law of the land, even in cases where they had the freedom to go to their communities' courts, such as those related to family law. It was rather the preference of non-Muslims by European merchants in commercial transactions, and later the protection accorded to them by European governments that produced rifts in inter-communal relations; for the extension of European privileges to Ottoman non-Muslim subjects; see H. İnalcık, ‘Imtiyazat’, Encyclopedia of Islam (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1954–2002), new edition, Vol.3, pp.1179–89, at p.1187. These rifts were already in place when the Ottoman government issued an edict in 1856, under European pressure, that consolidated the legal equality between non-Muslims and Muslims; for another example of the way in which the arrival of imperialist powers may create rifts in multi-religious societies, see R.E. Miller, ‘Religious Interaction in Kerala with Special Reference to the Impact of European Medieval Christianity’, in M. Gervers and R.J. Bikhazi (eds.), Conversion and Continuity: Indigenous Christian Communities in Islamic Lands, Eighth to Eighteenth Centuries (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1990), pp.437–47. Thus the reaction to the 1856 Edict of Reform was not simply a reaction against equality, but rather one against the government's support for the socio-economic inequalities created by European commercial and political imperialism in the Ottoman Empire. I doubt whether such a political reaction may be labelled reactionary in the sense of regressive. 36. M. Kaplan, Namık Kemal: Hayatı ve Eserleri (Istanbul: İstanbul Üniversitesi Edebiyat Fakültesi Yayınları, 1948), p.107; cited by Lewis, The Emergence of Modern Turkey, p.141. 37. See, for instance, how Ali Suavi legitimized representative government with concepts rooted in Islamic history; Ş. Mardin, The Genesis of Young Ottoman Thought: A Study in the Modernization of Turkish Political Ideas (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1962), pp.375–6. 38. F.M. Göçek, Rise of the Bourgeoisie, Demise of Empire: Ottoman Westernization and Social Change (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), p.90. 39. A. Slade, Turkey and the Crimean War: A Narrative of Historical Events (London: Smith, Elder and Co., 1867), p.13. 40. K.H. Karpat, Turkey's Politics: The Transition to a Multi-party System (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1959), p.vii. 41. For a popular work on the executions of Ottoman grand viziers, see Ç. Altan, İdam edilen 44 Vezir-i azamın Dramı (Istanbul: Afa, 1991). 42. Ş. Hanioğlu, ‘Meşrutiyet’, İA2, Vol.29, pp.388–93. 43. M.F. Köprülü, ‘Demokrasi Tarihimize Umumi Bir Bakış’, Vatan, 4 and 10 Nov. 1945, reprinted in F. Köprülü, Demokrasi Yolunda, ed. T. Halasi-Kun (The Hague: Mouton, 1964), pp.63–71, at p.70. 44. D. Quataert, ‘The Age of Reforms, 1812–1914’, in H. İnalcık with D. Quataert (eds.), An Economic and Social History of the Ottoman Empire, 1300–1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), p.764. 45. For a short synopsis of this treaty, see M. Kütükoğlu, ‘Baltalimanı Muahedesi’, İA2, Vol.5, pp.38–40. 46. Timur, OsmanlıÇalışmaları, p.139. 47. D. Terzioğlu, ‘Sufi and Dissident in the Ottoman Empire: Niyazi-i Mısri (1618–1694)’ (Ph.D. dissertation, Harvard University, 1999), pp.244–5. 48. Timur, OsmanlıÇalışmaları, p. 10; as it happens Karpat's English title Turkey's Politics (see n. 40 above) was translated into Turkish as the ‘History of Turkish Democracy’–Türk Demokrasi Tarihi: Sosyal, ekonomik, kültürel temeller (Istanbul: İstanbul Matbaası, 1967) – and it starts from the Ottoman Reforms of the nineteenth century. 49. See İ. Küçükömer, Düzenin Yabancılaşması: Batılılaşma (Istanbul: Ant, 1969). 50. Cited by Mardin, ‘Freedom in an Ottoman Perspective’, pp.33–4. 51. The increasing number of books published on Ottoman history should be apparent to anyone who has been following the book market in Turkey since the late 1980s. My impressions were recently confirmed by a Turkish publisher-bookseller, Muhittin Eren of Eren Kitap in Tünel, Istanbul, when I visited his shop in July 2007. As for the investment in Ottoman studies, the two excellent examples are Bilkent University in Ankara and Sabancı University in Istanbul, both of which have outstanding faculty and Ph.D. programmes in Ottoman history. The expansion of faculty in Ottoman history at public universities should also be noted, for which Bosphorus University may form a great example. The most popular Ottoman historian-journalist is Murat Bardakçı, who was recently transferred from the Turkish daily Hürriyet to Sabah. In April 1999, during the opening ceremony of an international academic conference on learning and education in the Ottoman world, some of the members of the Ottoman family were present to listen to the speech of Süleyman Demirel, the president of the Turkish Republic. Turkish news stories about the members of the Ottoman dynasty may easily be found with an internet search using the keywords ‘Osmanoğlu’, ‘hanedan’, and ‘üyesi’. 52. European Stability Initiative, Islamic Calvinists: Change and Conservatism in Central Anatolia (Berlin and Istanbul, 19 Sept. 2005), p.2. 53. Ibid., p.24. 54. A. Lodhi, ‘Turkish toil brings new form of faith’, BBC News, 13 March 2006. 55. D.M. Doğan, Batılılaşma İhaneti (Istanbul: Dergah Yayınları, 1975); the 19th imprint of the book, which I purchased in 2006, was printed in 2001 by İz Yayıncılık. 56. See, for instance, E. Aydın, Osmanlı Gerçeği: ‘Nizam-ı Alem'in Gayrı Resmi Tarihi (Istanbul: Cumhuriyet Kitapları, 2005), which is the seventh imprint of the work first published in 1999. Ali Kemal Meram's very popular historical fiction Padişah Anaları was first published in 1977 but became a hit in the last decade when it was republished by Toplumsal Dönüşüm Yayınları. 57. B. Lewis, ‘Ottoman Observers of Ottoman Decline’, Islamic Studies, Vol.1 (1962), pp.71–87. 58. L.T. Darling, Revenue-Raising and Legitimacy: Tax Collection and Finance Administration in the Ottoman Empire, 1560–1660 (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1996), p.5. The introduction whence this citation originates is entitled ‘The Myth of Decline’, pp.1–21. 59. M. Öz, Osmanlı' da ‘Çözülme’ ve Gelenekçi Yorumcuları (Istanbul: Dergah Yayınları, 1997). Öz's study is based on his MA thesis, which he wrote in the early 1980s. He explains, however, that he revised his work taking account of the recent studies published especially in the US. He cites Darling's Ph.D. dissertation, noting that her book based on the dissertation was published while his study was in press; pp.9, 12. 60. Ibid., p.99 (emphasis added). 61. Ibid., pp.30–47. 62. Ibid., pp.32, 37, 111. 63. Ibid., p.111. 64. V. Bilgin, Fakih ve Toplum: Osmanlı' da Sosyal Yapı ve Fıkıh (Istanbul: İz Yayıncılık, 2003), p.80. 65. Ibid., pp.110, 145–67, 191–7, 202. 66. There is a growing group of Muslim intellectuals, including İsmet Özel and Ali Bulaç, who identify themselves in opposition to modernity as a whole; see, for instance, H. Gülalp, ‘Using Islam as a Political Ideology: Turkey in Historical Perspective’, Cultural Dynamics, Vol.14 (2002), pp.21–39, especially pp.30–33. If a wholesale rejection of the decline thesis were to come from anywhere, it would be from the intellectual circles associated with this group. But so far such an effort has not been undertaken, or at least I am not aware of it. Despite their respectability, I believe that the practical impact of this group on the Muslim democrat movement is limited. The movement is dominated by a tendency to create a synthesis between modernity and Islam by Islamizing the private sphere of the modern, as exemplified by Fethullah Gülen and his followers. 67. See Doğan, Batılılaşma İhaneti. 68. C. İzgi, Osmanlı Medreseleri'nde İlim, 2 vols. (Istanbul: İz Yayınları, 1997). 69. E. İhsanoğlu et al. (eds.), Osmanlı Astronomi Literatürü Tarihi, 2 vols. (Istanbul: İslâm Tarih, Sanat ve Kültür Araştırma Merkezi [known as IRCICA], 1997); E. İhsanoğlu, R. Şeşen and C. İzgi (eds.), Osmanlı Matematik Literatürü Tarihi, 2 vols. (Istanbul: IRCICA, 1999); E. İhsanoğlu et al. (eds.), Osmanlı Coğrafya Literatürü Tarihi, 2 vols. (Istanbul: IRCICA, 2000). 70. See, for instance, K. Çelebi, Mîzanü' l-hakk fi ihtiyari'l-ahakk (En doğruyu seçmek için hak terazisi), ed. Orhan Şaik Gökyay (Istanbul: Tercüman, 1980), p.21. 71. For a larger discussion of this point, see B. Tezcan, ‘Law in China or Conquest in the Americas: Competing Constructions of Political Space in the Early Modern Ottoman Empire’, forthcoming in Journal of World History. 72. The AKP claimed a pedigree going back to Adnan Menderes, the leader of the Democratic Party, in the recent election campaign of 2007. 73. For one of the earliest studies of shantytowns in Turkey, see K. Karpat, The Gecekondu: Rural Migration and Urbanization in Turkey (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976). 74. See M. Özbek, Popüler Kültür ve Orhan Gencebay Arabeski (Istanbul: İletişim, 1991). 75. S. Hıncal, ‘Benim oyum Refah'a!’, Express, Vol.1, No.6 (1994), pp.6–7. 76. M.C. Yalçıntan and A.E. Erbaş, ‘Impacts of “Gecekondu” on the Electoral Geography of Istanbul’, International Labor and Working-Class History, Vol.64 (Fall 2003), pp.91–111. 77. All of this reminds one of the election policies of the Republican Party in the US which revolve around turning issues such as abortion or gay marriage into the most significant problems faced by the American lower middle classes whose values, the Republicans contend, are desacralized by the educated elite represented by the Democrats. 78. While examples of violent chauvinism in contemporary Turkey may well have been noted in such cases as the assassination of the Armenian-Turkish journalist Hrant Dink, the rise of anti-Semitism may not have been apparent outside the country. The popularity of the allegedly historical novel Efendi: Beyaz Türklerin Büyük Sırrı by Soner Yalçın clearly demonstrates the widespread of about the of the modern Turkish elite who are the The book had between its first by Kitap in April so the last one in April The also wrote a entitled – Beyaz Büyük Sırrı (Istanbul: 2006). In the of in the Turkish the of which was that was going to be the of the Turkish of published a on its that changed the of and the election into a in the of 2007. after the early the new to the of the by the is the first Turkish president whose a For a analysis of the of contemporary Turkish in see C. de at the New of M. the and the of (New York: Press, 2005), 61. See Tezcan, ‘The New Order and the Fate of the European Stability Initiative, Islamic p.24. J. of in Ottoman The the Eighteenth The Turkish (Fall 1996), at for the of the case for the Ottoman see B. Lewis, on the of the Ottoman Empire’, (1958), of in Ottoman History’, by S. Ottoman An to the (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), to İnalcık with Quataert (eds.), An Economic and Social History of the Ottoman Empire, at and Myth in the Ottoman for in and D. (eds.), The Early Modern the Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), at also see Darling, Revenue-Raising and See, for instance, M.F. Köprülü, Observations on the of on Ottoman trans. and ed. (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu, N. Ottoman (1962), article was published in the Journal of the American (1962), see especially (New York: and and in and since in A. V. and (eds.), History after the at and B. Lewis, Impact and Middle Oxford University Press, for the and the in the Ottoman Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, K. and The Ottoman to University Press, Darling, and D. The Ottoman Empire and Early Modern (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, J. The Politics of in Ottoman The Rise of the (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997); and Society in the Ottoman Empire: (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997); The and in the Ottoman Empire Oxford University Press, An Ottoman History and Historiography at University of Press, M.C. (ed.), in the Ottoman Empire: Middle in the Early Modern (Leiden: Brill, 1997). For a recent discussion of the historiography on the Ottoman see D. Quataert, ‘Ottoman History and the of History Vol.1 2003), S. and Vol.3 at as of See, for instance, and in the Early Modern World University of Press, 1991). and B. Tezcan, ‘The in A Historiographical International Journal of Turkish Studies, (2002), The and the of Ottoman Politics (Leiden: in and since The present study not that the of decline should be in Ottoman For a thoughtful study of this see C. ‘The of Ottoman Decline’, Harvard Middle and Islamic See Köprülü, For a of the in see and and the of History in the Ottoman Empire University of Press, 2003), 102. İslâm Vol.1, at trans. and N. Berkes, ‘Turkish of The Muslim World, at E. – trans. N. (Istanbul: Yayınları, It was after its that the work was and published by a that is associated with the intellectual of the political trans. B. (Istanbul: İA2, Vol.1, See, for instance, and T. İA2, A. and and in the of Edward in In (London: Verso, at In Darling's short entitled ‘The Myth of Ottoman Decline’, is one cited in a which happens to be an article that not have to with the of the see Revenue-Raising and at n. 8. in of in Ottoman History’, the cited has to with see My I is not to or – on the I have been very inspired by their work – but rather to a general produced by in the of in the contemporary – I should say in the in which the US is the but that would take to a See, for instance, K. A to the of Political trans. H

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