Download PDF | Rhoads Murphey - Exploring Ottoman Sovereignty_ Tradition, Image and Practice in the Ottoman Imperial Household, 1400-1800-Continuum (2008).
369 Pages
Introduction
Is it possible to identify the ‘essence’ of Ottoman kingship, and, if so, what were the core motivating principles that governed the dynasty over its 600 year lifespan and how continuous and consistent were they? Readers may justifi ably wonder not only whether the question is answerable, but also whether it is legitimate to ask it at all. It is based fi rst of all on the challengeable premise that one fi xed set of principles can be used to judge the reigns of all 35 successors who held the throne after the death of the dynasty’s eponymous founder Osman in 1324 despite the wide range of character traits, dispositions and personal preferences which even a small portion of these three dozen rulers must inevitably represent.
Secondly, they may wonder, is it possible to cover such a broad span of history while at the same time doing justice to the growing complexity of the empire as it absorbed cultural infl uences and imperial legacies from a wide diversity of sources, each in turn engendering a further blending of interpretations of, adaptation to and compromise with existing notions of kingship and defi nitions of the role and function of the ruler? The purpose of this introduction is to defend the proposition that such broad treatment, though defi cient in its detailed coverage of specifi c chronological sub-periods and as an adequately nuanced account of regional sub-cultures, offers an alternative way of understanding the soul of the empire as refl ected in its key ruling institution, the sultanate, which itself had a formative infl uence on all these various sub-periods and sub-cultures. Such an approach undoubtedly constitutes history from the top down, but for much of the period of centralized Ottoman rule between roughly 1400 and 1800 encompassed in this study the inclination to focus on the man at the top needs neither explanation nor justifi cation.
The core investigation undertaken in this book concerns the sultanate as an institution, but it also attempts to assess how each of the dynasty’s successive rulers developed and used the state bureaucratic apparatus to achieve their ruling priorities. It is therefore inescapably a centre-centred analysis focusing on the ‘palace’, court culture and rituals of sovereignty as well as on the sultan’s role as the head of the central administrative apparatus of the state. However, despite its being preoccupied with the central ruling fi gure, it cannot be said that our approach is therefore limited by an Istanbul-centric bias. Sovereignty was attached to the person of the sultan, who moved (with his court), often and for prolonged stays, away from his principal residence. In the period between 1360 and 1453 there were two capitals, at Bursa and Edirne (Adrianople), and even after 1453 several Ottoman sultans showed a preference for Edirne over Istanbul. Even Sultan Süleyman the Magnifi cent, held by the Ottomans, Western contemporaries and modern analysts alike to be the pinnacle and paragon of Ottoman kingship, spent more time away from his residence at the Topakpi Palace than in it, and not a few of his successors, whether for military campaigning or hunting excursions, conformed to this pattern.1
Consequently, judgments and assessments of Ottoman sovereignty principles, practical and ceremonial forms that focus exclusively on the highly regimented rules for audiences held at the imperial council (divan) or the comportment of the sultan during his periods of residence in the capital city, when he was shut up in his imperial ‘fortress’ at Topkapi,2 are bound to distort and provide only a partial and unrepresentative picture of the practice of Ottoman sovereignty. While much of our analysis will perforce remain centre-centred, the movements (harekat) of the sultans will hold as much interest and importance as their periods of quiescence and repose (sekenat). After providing an overview of normative ideas and structures of rule in the fi rst part of the book, we will attempt to draw a fuller portrait of the ruling personae of Ottoman sovereigns not just by focusing on the circumscribed and formulaic exceptional activities and court events such as the accession cer emonies, royal festivals and other ‘great’ dynastic celebrations conventionally held in either Istanbul or Edirne, but we will pause also to notice and capture the rhythm of the ‘minor’ everyday acts and gestes exemplifying the royal virtues that made up the main fabric of each sultanic reign. To construct this account of Ottoman sovereignty, sources representing the widest possible span of chronological periods and geographical scenarios will be utilized.
SOURCES AND CHRONOLOGY
It is important that the reader be kept well informed about the provenance, chronological coordinates and political–historical context of persons, events and sources mentioned in our account. To facilitate this process, the bibliography (and, where possible, the references in notes) has been arranged to show the fi rst-hand accounts not by author, but in ascending order, by date of composition. Although an attempt has been made in the presentation of the argument to provide some rough and ready guides to contextualization, it should be recalled that much of the analysis is concerned with ritually repeated standard forms and ways of enunciating kingship. By design, these forms were repeated with minimal change, variation or deviation from inherited ‘classical’ types, preserved intact in order to maximize their desired general stasimonic, anamnestic, mnemonic, It is important that the reader be kept well informed about the provenance, chronological coordinates and political–historical context of persons, events and sources mentioned in our account.
To facilitate this process, the bibliography (and, where possible, the references in notes) has been arranged to show the fi rst-hand accounts not by author, but in ascending order, by date of composition. Although an attempt has been made in the presentation of the argument to provide some rough and ready guides to contextualization, it should be recalled that much of the analysis is concerned with ritually repeated standard forms and ways of enunciating kingship. By design, these forms were repeated with minimal change, variation or deviation from inherited ‘classical’ types, preserved intact in order to maximize their desired general stasimonic, anamnestic, mnemonic, Ottoman kingship. Because of the distinctiveness of these two periods, apart from a summary treatment in Chapter 2 designed to illustrate how the general political conditions that prevailed at the emergence of the dynasty were eventually transformed by gradual centralization and imposition of absolute sultanic authority, these can be conveniently excluded from treatment.
Traditionally, general accounts of the Ottoman enterprise have insisted on the periodization of the whole Ottoman era (1300–1920) according to successive eras of growth, decay and eventual demise. The present book will resist this tendency and on the whole avoid applying a chronological framework as a means for organizing the narrative. For the major dynastic events such as battles won and battles lost, treaties signed and general evolutionary trends affecting developments in each reign there are other sources and reference works that provide full information, from the massively detailed Annotated Chronology of Ottoman History by Ismail Hami Danişmend, in four volumes,4 to the synoptic overview account provided in the fi rst chapter of Colin Imber’s survey book on Ottoman institutions.5 The present book is based on the presumption that an intelligible account of the dynasty can be written without reference to ‘great’ or epoch-making events.
If we assume the relative stability which mostly prevailed during the middle centuries sometimes referred to as the period of the pax Ottomanica and the absence of general or sustained crisis (whether political, military or fi scal) affecting the normal modus operandi of the state governing apparatus, then, so far as the limited context of the institution of the sultanate is concerned, treating the four-century period between 1450 and 1850 as a single continuum makes per fectly good sense. As an alternative to the judgemental chronological framework that relies on notions of dynastic rise and fall and on the succession of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ kings, a simplifi ed Ottoman chronology for the period 1430–1830 that takes account of the changes in the territorial size and shape of the empire without overdramatizing the effects of minor changes to the general confi guration of the empire’s frontiers might take the following form: Period I, 1430 (recapture of Thessaloniki)–1606 (Treaty of Sitva-Torok): time of fl uid frontiers and general Ottoman expansion; Period II, 1606–99 (Treaty of Karlowitz): time of ‘relatively’ stable fi xed frontiers (minor gains); Period III, 1699–1774 (Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca): time of ‘relatively’ stable fi xed frontiers (minor losses); Period IV, 1774–1829 (Treaty of Adrianople): time of fl uid frontiers and gradual territorial contraction. It should be remembered, however, that, until the international recognition given to Greece’s independence in 1829, the losses were mostly confi ned to the margins of the empire in the far north, as opposed to the core territories of the central zone. Over the four-century span between 1430 and 1830, by far the least stable was the period of rapid expansion between 1517 and 1541, which saw the addition of Egypt, Syria, Iraq, eastern Anatolia and Hungary to the Ottoman imperial fold in the short time frame of two decades or a single biological generation.
If any period can be said to have a had a specially disruptive effect on the effi cient workings of the Ottoman bureaucracy and system of imperial rule, it was those two decades of exceptional growth. The rest of the period saw an empire whose basic component parts and geographical extent changed remarkably little. From a structural and administrative point of view, too, there were very few departures from, let alone major modifi cations to, the basic rules of state organization set down in the administrative code of Mehmed II – introduced in 14796 – until well into the nineteenth century. Therefore, so far as government bureaucracy, bureaucratic forms and, most particularly, court protocol are concerned, the period 1480 to 1830 needs all the more to be regarded as a period representing a single continuum of practice. The bulk of the analysis will concentrate on the ‘high imperial age’ of 1480 to 1820, which constitutes the period when Ottoman traditions of sovereignty were formulated, elaborated and implemented as expressions of a unifi ed and cohesive system of rule and political control.
Though some vestiges and ceremonial survivals of this comprehensive system experienced a prolonged afterlife in the period after 1850 as isolated phenomena, archaisms and anachronisms from a bygone era, they lost some of the power and potency they had once possessed. Still, even after the personal power of the sultan had been seriously eroded and attenuated by checks and balances and other forms of representative government, accompanied by international pressure that gradually impinged on, and eventually nearly paralyzed, the ruling fi gure, these remnants of the old imperial system serve as eloquent reminders of the patrimonial status, power and respect the sultans formerly enjoyed.
These remnants, albeit disconnected from the nexus of power to which they once belonged, are worthy of study in themselves for the simple reason that, coming as they do from the late imperial era, the sources provide a more accessible and in some ways more detailed account of procedures and forms (if not functions and meanings) than is readily available for some earlier imperial periods belonging to the ‘high imperial era’. In the same way, it is legitimate to examine survivals from the sovereignty practices of the pre-Ottoman period in the court practices of the early Ottoman dynastic era as a means of understanding to what extent the Ottomans changed, reinterpreted or placed different emphasis on various elements of inherited tradition when developing their own court rituals. This later phenomenon will be examined in Chapter 1, on the basis of a retrospective analysis of survivals from medieval Islamic statecraft. It is also clear that the Ottomans’ own experiences of statebuilding and dynastic enterprise in the pre-imperial era, between the dynasty’s founding and roughly 1450, had its own separate infl uence on the manner in which the Ottomans interpreted both the distant and the more recent past when formulating their own dynastic traditions.
Throughout the book we will thus be concerned both with the phenomenon of cultural survival and with Ottoman attitudes towards inherited tradition on the one hand and, on the other, with their attitude as creators of new traditions of sovereignty in their own right, and with their adherence to and preservation of those traditions. A second question which the book addresses, though perhaps implicitly rather than directly, relates to the bureaucratic effi ciency of the Ottoman state. One of the unexplained mysteries surrounding the Ottoman state is how, by using the same mechanism of patron–client relations available to all pre-modern states, it was able to mobilize, incentivize and motivate its bureaucratic workforce to provide such loyal and dependable service. Most state business, down to the seemingly most trivial detail, was handled either directly by the head of state (sultan) or by his chief deputy (the grand vizier). The number of purely administrative (that is, secretarial) staff attached to the main organ of state, the Imperial Council (divan-i hümayun), was relatively small and yet, with this small cadre of trained bureaucrats, sovereigns of the high imperial era were able to govern and manage an empire that was, for its time – particularly considering the modest means available from the prevailing methods of communication and transport – truly global in its proportions.
What was particular about human relations, personnel management and motivational techniques in the Ottoman context will thus inevitably form an implicit subject throughout the course of the narrative.7 Before ending our introduction on general purposes and intents, it may be appro priate, as a means for launching the project whose detailed analysis will focus primarily on the high imperial era of 1450–1850, to catalogue some remnants and vestiges of this integrated system of patrimonial rule, which survived into the late imperial era after 1850. Changes in state ceremonial, court protocol and the symbolism of power always lag behind changes in political structures and methods of rule, and the Ottoman case is no exception. Having provided, in the introduction, a brief glimpse into the ceremonial side of Ottoman sovereignty in its disembodied forms following the removal of the sultan from his determining central position in decision-making in the late imperial era, the remainder of the book will be devoted to a reconnecting of these ritual forms and ceremonial expressions of sovereignty with the real nexus of power that imbued them with life and meaning in earlier centuries.
Some forms, such as the act of distributing robes of honour (hilat) to offi ce holders, may have been preserved in later imperial times, but the meaning of investiture by the sultan’s hand and the personal duty and corresponding obligation of the wearer to the person of the sovereign underwent profound changes over time. The outward act was the same, but its signifi cance had changed. One small example of this change of meaning due to a change in the relative positions of power of the participants in the ceremony can be seen in the context of Franco-Ottoman diplomatic relations in the period of the Directoire, 1795–9. While at this time the outward form of distributing hilats of various grades and refi nement appropriate to each rank of offi cial, from ambassador to interpreter, and to all diplomatic representatives from abroad as part of the ceremonies for receiving embassies at the Porte was still being observed, on one side of the relationship between guest and host doubts were beginning to be expressed as to whether it was in keeping with the honour and status of the French nation that ambassadors should accept, from the hands of the Ottoman sovereign, a token symbolizing their (and their nation’s) subordination, even vassalization.8 Over time even the form was changed, and foreign diplomatic representatives doffed a less elaborate round cloak, called harvani. 9 Still later, in the second half of the nineteenth century, nishans, that is, jewel-encrusted decorations, medals, superseded and displaced the former practice, with its symbolic language of protection and dependency which insisted that guests at the Ottoman court should be received in a robe, kaftan or cloak, provided to them and decided for them by the host (the Ottoman sovereign).
The use of the hilat for internal purposes to acknowledge the loyalty and devotion (sadakat) as well as the subservience of the ruler’s own subjects, continued for some time, but in both its international diplomatic and its domestic applications it would be naive and unrealistic to assume that its meaning remained constant or unchanged. Such acts acquired meaning and resonance only in relation to prevailing general political conditions and within the context of the real power and patronage which the sultanate as an institution was able to realize in particular imperial epochs and under particular historical circumstances.
LATE IMPERIAL SURVIVALS
The tughra or royal insignia provided one of the principal means by which a new sultan placed his personal stamp on the patrimonial realm inherited from his father or (after succession to the throne of collateral branches of the dynasty was regularized from 1617 onwards) his uncle or brother. The appearance of the imperial insignia on legal documents and sultanic communiqués was used for practical purposes, as a means of verifying and authenticating a document’s contents, but the display of the sovereign’s name in tughra form on public buildings to indicate his sponsorship, fi nancing and in the fi nal analysis ‘ownership’ and proprietorship of key public buildings was a form of assertion and pronouncement of sovereign rights that lasted right up to the end of the empire.10 The sultan’s role as sole patron and protector over all his subjects regardless of race, creed or colour was fi rst challenged by the terms of the Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca in 1774, which gave the Russian czar the theoretical right to intervene in the Ottoman Empire to ensure the safety and security of Orthodox Christians living under Ottoman rule. But the challenge assumed a more threatening form, with serious practical implications for Ottoman sovereignty, in 1808, when Czar Alexander I of Russia asserted an independent ‘protectorate’ over some 120,000 Greek Orthodox subjects of the sultan and issued them his own orders of immunity as protégés (beratî).11 Yet, despite these signifi cant shifts in power relations and real political power, throughout the remainder of the century formal procedures for permission to build new schools to serve the Greek community of Istanbul continued to be processed in accordance with Ottoman bureaucratic norms requiring fi nal authorization by the sultan himself, granted in an imperial decree issued in his name.12 After the dissolution of the Janissary corps in 1826, which put an end to a centuries-old tradition of associating the principal land forces of the empire with the ‘household’ (that is, personal) troops of the ruling sovereign, Mahmud II (1808–39) introduced further epoch-making changes in the structure of government in 1836, which permanently removed key areas from the patrimonial sultan’s direct management and control and re-distributed key executive functions in areas such as fi nance (maliye), justice (daavi), internal affairs (umur-i mülkiye) and foreign affairs (umur-i hariciye) to separate ministerial depart ments with independent ministerial control and powers of decision. Instead of one seal of offi ce (mühür) bestowed directly by the sultan to his chosen absolute deputy (vekil-i mutlak), the grand vizier, signifying his installation in offi ce with overall responsibility for all decisions taken in the sultan’s name and subject to his sovereign master’s fi nal approval, each department head now had his own seal of offi ce, with independent decision-making authority within his particular sphere of ministerial competence. Yet, despite these far-reaching changes in administrative structure – which amounted effectively to a parcelization of the unitary authority exercised by the sultan and by his right-hand man and chief deputy, the grand vizier – the sultan’s supremacy and indispensability for the purposes of state ceremonial and court protocol and as the symbolic embodi ment and representative of the body politic was not questioned. Although this dissolution of authority constituted a revolutionary change, so far as bureaucratic procedures were concerned, other aspects of the sultan’s position and performance as ‘ruler’ were unaffected. Patronage of learning and the arts remained an exclusive sultanic prerogative in the late imperial era. All works published by the state-owned and operated presses, whose cumulative output began to mount after the 1860s, and, later, private press activity too were closely monitored by the imperial authority. License to publish was subject to strict procedures for scrutiny and review, and the fi nal approval required the explicit, personally authorized permission (ruhsat) of the sultan.13 Details of court receptions and person-to-person relations with foreign heads of state were also left entirely to the sovereign’s discretion. These included decisions about gift exchanges and arrangements for offi cial visits by foreign heads of state, an innovation of the nineteenth century so far as Ottoman court practice was concerned. Buried treasure (rikaz), including by defi nition also antiquities, was in any case traditionally regarded in Ottoman law as the exclusive property of the crown.14 But the lavish scale of sultanic gift-giving in the late imperial era reached proportions hitherto unheard of, as for example in the case of the visit of the French King Louis Philippe in 1830 when, at his request and as a special mark of Sultan Mahmud’s favour and friendship towards the French people, reliefs recently excavated at Assos were handed over for export to France.15 On another occasion the monumental Mschatta Gate was dismantled at its site in Syria and authorization was given for its transport for presentation as a gift to Kaiser Wilhelm II in 1904.16 Decisions about the appropriate level and type of such diplomatic gifts remained within the exclusive jurisdiction of a vestigial form of the former Imperial Council (divan-i hümayun), which in former times had enjoyed universal jurisdiction and was attended by all the principal governors and offi cers of state. The new body was given the grandiose name of Privy Council (meclis-i mahsus), but its principal brief was to make decisions regarding the housekeeping arrangements of the imperial household and other matters relating to court protocol. It is not always easy to distinguish between what is part of a still living tradition of paternalistic rule and acts which represent the preservation of the empty form of once vibrant traditions, but a careful look at the context, including location, in which rituals were performed does reveal the difference between acts performed in public that held meaning for the public and empty gestures staged for effect that had lost their communicative function. Two examples from Mahmud II’s practice in the 1830s and a comparison with a late imperial survival in the twilight years of the sultanate in the early 1900s will serve to illustrate the difference. In the heyday of empire one of the traditional expectations imposed on Ottoman rulers was that they should engage in social interaction with, and thereby acquire empathy and understanding for the condition of, the common people subject to their rule. Commentators on good government praised the ‘caring’ sultans who became involved in direct contact and intermingling with members of the public (muamelat-i nas). The circumambulation of the sultan among his subjects, usually not in his royal raiment but disguised in a lesser court offi cial’s uniform or in commoner’s dress (tebdil or tebdil-i came), allowing for chance encounters with the ‘man in the street’, was still regularly practised in the later part of the eighteenth century, as can be judged from the court calendar of Selim III (1789–1808).17 More often than not, these impromptu excursions among the city population or in the countryside outside the capital offered equally impromptu occasions for the ritual distribution of sultanic largesse to the sultan’s needier subjects.18 The long-standing tradition requiring sultans to circulate abroad among their subjects was preserved intact even by such ‘modernizing’ sultans as Mahmud II (1808–39), who not only engaged himself in token intermingling exercises and day excursions from the palace, but carried out prolonged tours of inspection in the provinces, which were designed to familiarize him with the true conditions and outstanding unmet needs of his subjects. Although this was part of new measures of defensive modernization designed to prevent the outbreak of further uprisings and succession movements, as had happened in Greece between 1821 and 1829, the procedure itself repre sented the continuation of a longstanding traditional practice associated with patrimonial rule. Taking an interest in the condition of the peasantry was not just an expression of the sultan’s altruism and charitable disposition, it was also a pragmatic necessity, since a chronically discontented peasantry produced not only low crop yields and low tax returns but also – potentially, if their concerns were not understood and addressed – collective resistance to state and sultanic authority. Taking effective measures to counteract this effect required fi rst-hand exposure and knowledge that could only come from direct contact and from the opportunity of the sovereign to hear and react to his subjects’ grievances and complaints at fi rst hand. During a 31-day tour to the Dardanelles and Edirne in June–July 1831, Sultan Mahmud was not shy of using open appeals and efforts to win the hearts and minds of his subjects in the western provinces by means of public distributions of charity to the urban poor of the cities through which he passed.19 His stay in Edirne included an incognito tour of inspection through the public market, to show his commitment to fair trading practices and to his patronage of and interest in the high quality textile production of that city, which in both cases exhibited the sultan’s traditional role as overseer of economic justice and quality production.20 Upon his return to Istanbul at the end of a tour of the western provinces in July 1831, the sovereign Mahmud II was welcomed with the customary rituals befi tting the return/arrival (kudum) of the sovereign to his principal residence. Partly in acknowledgement of the gesture of welcome and partly so as not to leave his subjects in the capital feeling excluded from the benefi cence he had recently showered on his provincial subjects, he made generous contributions to the needy schoolchildren belonging to all the major faiths represented in the city’s diverse population. By so doing, he broadcast with unmistakable clarity the message that he was not just their lord and master, but at the same time their protector, friend and father fi gure.21 In the everyday practices and special public-relations gestures during Selim III’s and of Mahmud II’s reigns, it is still possible to observe the traditions of royal charity and largesse functioning in the traditional way, and not just as artifi cial remnants of a former age of imperial glory. By way of contrast, when we examine the perfunctory performance of some other rituals and traditions associated with the dynasty – such as the obligatory weekly public appearance of the sultan at the Friday prayer service to meet the Muslim faithful – on the part of some sultans of the late imperial era such as Abdülhamid II (1876–1909) it is clear that what we observe is the preservation of the form and outward appearance of rituals and ceremonies whose underlying meaning and purpose is no longer being fulfi lled. By tradition, the sultan’s ‘Friday Salutation’ (Cuma selamlığı) had offered the opportunity (as well as obligation for the sultan) to hear the opinions and, if necessary, to answer the complaints and grievances of his ordinary subjects free from the obstacles presented by the usual hurdles of guards, gatekeepers and chamberlains that isolated the sultan from the approach of would-be complainants and petitioners during sessions of the imperial divan. Even if the petitioner managed to penetrate the two heavily guarded Outer and Middle Gates of the Topkapi Palace compound, direct approach was restricted and in practice most petitions were delivered to the grand vizier, who prioritized them and only summarized the most urgent among them for forwarding to the sultan.22 The traditional viewpoint of the scribal class of advisers, companions and tract writers such as Koçi Bey was that attendance at the Friday prayers, where the sultan was more exposed to the public gaze, formed an essential dimension of the sultan’s duties of offi ce. Other opportunities to hear petitions and reach independent and direct judgements without the interference of intermediaries (bila vasita) were offered during excursions for the royal hunt (şikâr-i hümayun). Sultans who spent too much time in isolation and allowed their subordinates too much scope for fact-gathering as well as decision-making were criticized for dereliction of duty.23 Viewed as a theoretical ideal, the institution of the ‘Friday Salutation’ formed an essential element in consultation (müsşavere) and rule by consensus (ijma), which both were the foundation stones of good government according to Islamic political theory. Even if one allows for some degree of exaggeration and journalistic excess, which refl ected negative public opinion on the increasingly autocratic nature of his reign after his fi rst quarter-century on the throne in the early 1900s, there can be little doubt that Abdülhamid II’s rule from a position of isolation within the walls surrounding his Star Pavilion (Yıldız Köşk) was far from living up to the best traditions of governance through consultation.24 One result of his isolation from the people was his preference for a residence far removed from the most populated quarters of the city. Another was that, as the place chosen for the performance of the weekly appearance for the Friday Salutation, he selected the equally remote Hamidiye mosque within the grounds of the Yıldız compound, where chance meetings with any of his subjects, whether well-wishers or critics, were out of the question. During a visit to the Ottoman court in 1901, the New York-based travel writer and sometime journalist Ann Bowman Dodd had an opportunity to view Abdülhamid’s performance of the Cuma selamlığı at the Hamidiye, of which she left the following, less than fl attering, account: the sultan who goes thus, week after week, to worship his master, proceeds to his mosque between a wall of steel. During the short length of the drive [from his residence in the Star Pavilion] no one can approach him. No human hand or arm can thrust forward the written petition, that last resort of the subject governed by the autocrat.25 Another late imperial survival that mimicked the posture of the patrimonial ruler in the high imperial era was the habit of inaugurating, launching and otherwise marking with the imperial seal of approval and ownership public assets, including buildings.26 In the late imperial era this practice was, if anything, extended; it was used for the naming not just of naval vessels, but even of towns and urban settle ments, either those founded and patronized by the sultan or those spontaneously re-dedicated using the ruling sultan’s name to convey his subjects’ good wishes and affection. Abdülaziz, who ruled between 1861 and 1876, had scarcely been on the throne a year before two settlements in eastern Anatolia – one, a new foundation and the other a re-branded sister city – had honoured him by adopting his name, which was timed to coincide with his accession year.27 Regarding the sovereign as the personifi cation of the body politic as a whole was common practice in both eastern and western polities. In choosing suitable names for warships, oftentimes names with clear dynastic or regal associations were preferred. As the Ottoman fl eet underwent a process of modernization in the 1860s and commissioned new ships to be constructed abroad, names with historical resonance harking back to the early days of empire such as ‘Osmaniyeh’ and ‘Orhaniyeh’ were obvious choices, but references to the current ruler were also common.28 In keeping with this practice, two ships scheduled for delivery to the Ottomans on the eve of the First World War were named ‘Sultan Osman’ and ‘Reshadiye’, the latter to honour the currently reigning Sultan Mehmed V (Reşad), who reigned between 1909 and 1918.29 Some technical forms of ceremony inextricably linked with fundamental ruling principles, such as the sultan’s obligation to provide humani tarian aid and charity to the needy, also survived until the end of empire.30 Institutional inaugurations, boat launchings and symbolic laying of foundation stones for buildings under construction all form part, even today, of the ceremonial presence of monarchy and personalized rule, long after the sovereign’s position as a central fi gure in the political process has ceased to exist. In the chapters that follow we will make it our task to reanimate the fi gure of the sultan, reconnected to all the dimensions of his varied and instrumental roles, which encompassed not just the artistic, intellectual and architectural patronage whose vestigial forms, surviving into the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, we have considered briefl y here in this introduction, but also the wider scope of state activity across the whole spectrum of economic, social, cultural and political life of the community. The omnipresence as well as centrality and instrumentality of the patrimonial ruler to all aspects of the life and livelihood of the territories and peoples under his rule, before the inroads into his sphere of competence were deliberately introduced by Mahmud II’s administrative reforms of 1836, are not easily grasped or even imagined. If our treatment succeeds in putting the various pieces of the toppled HumptyDumpty fi gure of the late imperial era back together in a form which captures the position of the sultan as collector and distributor of livelihood, wealth, honour and reputation as well as the fi nal arbiter of both reward and punishment over all his territories and their populations, then some notion of his solar position within the constellations and galaxies making up his patrimonial universe will have been conveyed.32 By acknowledging the centrality of the fi gure of the sultan and the importance of the institution of the sultanate for understanding the dynamics of power in the high imperial era we need not ascribe to the ‘great men’ theory of history or suggest that the ups and downs in imperial fortunes the dynasty experienced are entirely attributable to the character and competence of a single person, known by his Italian contemporaries in reverential terms as Il Gran Signor.
On the other hand, no account of Ottoman realities which marginalizes or ignores the role of the sultan, appealing instead to irresistible historical forces or environmental causes, can claim to have accurately assessed the true extent of involvement in public affairs and the energetic activism which even sultans such as Mehmed IV (1648–1687) – labelled fainéant or ineffectual by his own Ottoman compatriots – delivered. The sultans were certainly much more than mere fi gureheads even when – as was notoriously the case with Sultan Süleyman I (1520–66), who delegated unprecedented levels of responsibility for high-level decision-making to long-serving as well as wealthy and powerful grand viziers such as Ibrahim Pasha (g.v. 1523–36) and Rüstem Pasha (g.v. for two terms, 1544–53 and 1555–61) – they performed a signifi cant proportion of their duties of offi ce by proxy. Our account of the mechanism and manifestations of sultanic power will necessarily be selective and based largely, though not exclusively, on evidence from the longer and best documented reigns such as the 46-year reign of Süleyman I and the 39-year term of Mehmed IV mentioned above.
A comprehensive account of all 35 successors of the dynastic founder would in any case easily degenerate into a hagiographic account of the ‘good kings’ and a vilifi cation of the ‘bad kings’ based on the reputations assigned to them in accounts which have acquired respectability and credence through frequent repetition and wide distribution in standard Ottoman court chronicles. Tales, anecdotes and exploits (menakib) of the so-called ‘lesser’ sultans such as the short-lived Ahmed I (r. 1603–17), composed by his admirer and amanuensis Mustafa Safi , can provide a refreshing antidote to the sometimes unconvincing and rather de-personalized accounts found in standard histories, with their tendency to be dominated by a one-dimensional focus on the campaign successes of the warrior sultans.33 In the main, such sources draw a portrait of the sultan that is both distant and abstract since, more often than not, they relate not what he did by way of direct action (for instance, wielding the sword, issuing commands or even participating in debate over policy), but what he accomplished (through his generals, aides and advisers and lawmakers acting on his behalf).
Our aim is to draw a portrait of the sultan as a man in full, but by seeking out sources that describe his active and direct input to the art of government, whether in the sphere of war, diplomacy or his participation in court ceremonial. Thus, in addition to offering a centre-centred approach to Ottoman political reality, our account – in its attempt to reconstruct and re-animate the operation of the Ottoman court by placing the spotlight on its rulers and their ruling personae – will by necessity remain a mostly personcentred account.
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