Conclusion

This chapter talks about the Sufi-minded Ottoman historians that reconstructed Islamic history in which both the Ottomans and the Safavids were identified as the parties of the same perennial conflict since the creation of Adam. The Ottomans and the Safavids—both ethnically Turkic dynasties—were identified as the Romans and the Persians in allusion to the well-known Qur'anic prophecy that the former would defeat the latter. Perception of the Safavids as the perfect other for Islam was not mere war propaganda. The conquest of Constantinople, reportedly prophesized by Prophet Muhammed, and the approach of the end of the first millennium of the Islamic calendar had already sparked apocalyptic anxieties. Through the endeavors of high-profile jurists and mainstream Sufis, this esoteric epistemology was fully reconciled with the formal teachings of Islam and became an important component of political imagery and imperial ideology.

The Myth of the Ottoman Caliphate

This chapter discusses the mystification of the Ottoman caliphate and the apocalyptic-messianic reconstruction of imperial ideology in the context of the long Ottoman–Safavid conflict of the sixteenth century. Current studies in the main treat the Ottoman–Safavid conflict as no more than a sectarian conflict between two expanding Muslim empires. The Ottomans, however, perceived it as an apocalyptic conflict between primordial forces of faith and disbelief, often expressed in manicheistic dichotomies. Being one of the most aggressively fought religious wars in Islamic history, it profoundly altered both Sunni and Shiite conceptions of history and rulership. The Safavids, being at once a Turkoman chieftainship, a Shiite dynasty, and a Sufi order, were better endowed with esoteric image-making skills than the Ottomans, whose juristic and theological arguments against heresy were, simply, by definition nullified. Despite the Ottoman military might that overwhelmed the Safavids in multiple battles, the Safavid–Shiite call resonated much more strongly among the vast Turkoman diaspora from Central Asia to the Balkans, particularly among popular mystical orders of the countryside.

The Sultan and the Sultanate

This chapter examines the innovative panoply of views on the nature of political authority, and visions of the sultanate as its form of embodiment. Virtually every author writing on rulership felt it necessary first to address the question of what political authority really was, its raison d'etre and status among humanity, how it was acquired or lost, the nature of the ruler and his morality, and historical models of rulership. No author doubted the consensus-confirmed view that the sultanate was the highest rank a human being could attain, but they took divergent paths in defining its nature, scope, and entangled boundaries. A common attitude was to reconcile between various historical and theoretical models of political authority including philosopher-kingship, prophethood, and imamate by defining them in ways compatible with their own visions of rulership. Elaborating on a particular vision of rulership almost always involved an explanation of human nature, human beings' existential status, and the purpose of life. There is a strong correlation between one's perception of human nature and vision of ideal rulership.

The Caliphate Mystified

This chapter deals with the formative period of Ottoman political thought from the formal end of the Seljuk state at the turn of the fourteenth century to the Egyptian campaign of 1517. It argues that political ideals and imageries inculcated from the Ottomans' own historical experience, appropriation of Arabic, and the Persian corpora on Islamic political theory; and its exposure to indigenous practices of authority constituted an integral part of state formation and ruling ideology that redefined rulership in general, and the caliphate in particular. Having been founded at the western fringes of the Islamicate society in the midst of nominally converted Turkish-speaking nomadic populations, the Ottomans at large were only gradually exposed to learned traditions of High Islam. Two foundational epics of the Ottoman Empire, Halīlnāme and İskendernāme, were composed in this period. Translation of political texts and composition of frontier epics gradually transformed Turkish, which was continuously despised by the learned as a profane language of illiterate nomads with no alphabet, into one of the three principal languages of Islamic learning and culture.

The Caliph and the Caliphate

This chapter analyzes the views on the nature of authority in Islam, diverse visions of the caliphate and its relation to sultanate as a political regime, and portrayals of the perfect ruler through archetype-building and reinterpretation of Islamic history. The emergence of Turko-Mongolian dynasties whose Islamic credentials were at best questionable, the decline of the power of the jurists, and the spread of Sufi orders in response to spiritual anxieties of fragmented Muslim society enabled the Sufis to resolve this question in their favor. It was consensual among Ottoman Sufis to argue that the Prophet had three distinct natures: spiritual, political, and prophecy. Political and prophetic nature emanate from the spiritual. In this configuration, the jurists, as inheritors of Muhammed's prophecy, and rulers, as claimants for his political nature, were obliged to submit to the spiritual authority, namely the perfect human being among the Sufis whose identity was disclosed only to the worthy.

Introduction

This chapter details the post-Abbasid trajectory of the caliphate and its Sufistic reconstruction. With the fall of Baghdad in 1258, the historical caliphate, embodied by the Abbasid Empire, formally ended with traumatic consequences that, in response, facilitated the rise of a new wave of self-reflection, exploration, and experimentation in all segments of Islamicate societies. In the absence of the imperial caliphate, along with the rise of independent regional Muslim dynasties from the fourteenth century onwards, the idea of the caliphate, reinterpreted in response to profound changes taking place in the broader Muslim community, regained its prominence in Islamic political discourse, and, with the rise of the Ottoman Empire, became the linchpin of imperial ideology in the sixteenth century. Modern studies on the question of Muslim rulership repeatedly assume that the historical caliphate, as conceived by Muslim jurists during the Abbasid period continued to define both the concept and the institution in subsequent political thought and praxis. This assumption confines the theoretical construction of the caliphate to jurisprudence, overlooks the impact of later historical experiences, and disregards the formative influence of broader intellectual traditions in framing the caliphate as both an institution and an ideal.

The Discourse on Rulership

This chapter examines the Ottoman political discourse from its origins in the early fifteenth century to the third quarter of the sixteenth century. Views on the caliphate were expressed through a diversified corpus of works on government and rulership across various genres and disciplines accompanied by a broad-based interest in engaging with issues related to government among the Ottoman readership. This diverse body of political literature, written in different languages and genres, was produced by an equally diverse group of authors from various backgrounds, including statesmen, jurists, and Sufis. Along with the expansion of the public sphere in sixteenth-century social life, not only did ordinary folks come to be more interested in matters of government but new questions and sensibilities were introduced to the sphere of the political as well. The conventional form of political discourse that was largely confined to providing advice for rulership by a select few gave way to presenting views on all aspects of government by people from different walks of life.