by Alan Mikhail
This perspective explains many of Erdoğan’s actions and ideas. One of his more outlandish statements is his claim that Muslims, not Christians, discovered America. He derived this notion from some of the texts I discussed earlier—ones that mention mosques and Moors in the New World. Without the proper appreciation of the historical context of these statements—and, perhaps more to the point, because it supports his larger political agenda—Erdoğan enthusiastically invoked the idea of a Muslim discovery of America as yet another example of the magnificent accomplishments of Muslims throughout history that the West has suppressed. Why would today’s Muslims, he rhetorically asks Turkey’s secular republicans, want to separate themselves from such a glorious heritage by letting go of their religious identity? Are they so enamored—or duped—by Europe and the United States? For Erdoğan, Selim is the perfect standard-bearer of this grand, if sometimes imaginary, Muslim legacy, and Erdoğan himself stands as its chief inheritor and defender.
Where Selim conquered the Middle East from the Mamluks with camels and cannons, Erdoğan seeks to control the region using Turkey’s military strength and political Islamism. Where Selim made the Ottoman Empire a global economic hegemon through his control of Eurasian trade, Erdoğan has encouraged Islamist-owned companies and developed Turkey’s economy into the world’s seventeenth largest. Where Selim captured Mecca and Medina, shaping the empire as an orthodox Sunni state, Erdoğan cultivates his own Sunni religiosity to position Islam at the center of Turkey’s domestic agenda, then uses it as a force against Iranian Shiite influence and Saudi Sunni competition in the Middle East—hoping, as Selim did, that Istanbul’s Sunnism will soon conquer the world. Where Selim ruthlessly eliminated his domestic and foreign enemies, Erdoğan has pursued a similar path in targeting his country’s Alevis (Turkey’s Shiite community), Kurds, intellectuals, elected officials, police, Christians, Saudi Arabia, journalists, ISIS forces in Syria, leftists, and even peaceful demonstrators in Washington, DC.
Thus, by choosing to name the Bosphorus’s third bridge after Selim, Erdoğan very pointedly embraced a particular vision of Selim’s legacy and of Ottoman history more generally—one that also, quite usefully, serves to critique Atatürk’s republican secularism. Like many of Erdoğan’s aggressive Islamist policies, this move elicited vocal criticism both inside and outside Turkey. Some of the loudest voices against naming the third bridge after Selim came from Turkey’s Alevis, many of whom trace their lineage to the Anatolian Shiites whom Selim repeatedly massacred. The Sultan Selim the Grim Bridge thus incites feelings of intergenerational trauma, insult, and violence similar to those experienced by African Americans, and many other Americans, when faced with Confederate monuments. And, like proponents of these statues in the United States, Erdoğan used the naming of the bridge to send a message to one of his country’s largest minority communities—a message about who the “real Turks” are.
Erdoğan also took rhetorical aim at Turkey’s external Shiite enemies. He revealed the bridge’s name during the Arab Spring, when several governments around the Middle East were collapsing, creating temporary power vacuums. Iran flexed its muscle through its nuclear program in those years, hoping to make further inroads into the Sunni Arab world. Erdoğan countered by supporting various Sunni Islamist political parties in countries affected by the Arab Spring. Symbolic though it was, Erdoğan’s choice of name sent a clear message that Turkey today, like Selim’s empire centuries earlier, would stand as the Middle East’s stalwart defender of Sunnism and would indeed project force whenever and wherever necessary to support Sunnis against Shiites and to battle all those perceived to be Turkey’s enemies.
SELIM FIGURES IN ERDOĞAN’S symbolic politics in another way, too. In 2005, thieves stole a kaftan and crown that Selim had worn during his life and that had adorned his tomb in the mausoleum Suleyman built for him in the 1520s. A few months later, baggage screeners at Istanbul’s Atatürk International Airport discovered the items in the luggage of two men attempting to smuggle them out of Turkey to, it was claimed, the headquarters of Fethullah Gülen in the United States. Gülen leads a Turkish Islamist organization named Hizmet, a staunch rival to Erdoğan’s party. Onetime allies, the two leaders fell out in a power struggle and soon turned on each other. Gülen fled the country in 1999 for his own safety, eventually settling in Pennsylvania to orchestrate anti-Erdoğan activities as best he could from there—perhaps, some claim, with support from elements of the United States security services. Over the years, some of Gülen’s followers quietly infiltrated the Turkish military and police and were accused of being behind the failed coup of summer 2016. Selim’s kaftan and crown symbolize the caliphate, so their possessor symbolically becomes Selim’s successor, as both sultan and caliph. If indeed Gülen sought the kaftan and crown for himself, it would have been to impress upon Erdoğan and the world that he—not Erdoğan—was Selim’s rightful descendant, Turkey’s true political and spiritual leader. When the royal accoutrements were discovered in the airport, they were not immediately returned to Selim’s tomb but rather held in safekeeping—allegedly for security reasons.
In 2017, Erdoğan won a constitutional referendum that greatly expanded his powers, removing most of the checks and balances on his rule (some of what he achieved in 2017 has since been lost due to his party’s 2019 electoral setbacks and Turkey’s inconsistent domestic economy). Accusations of corruption, vote rigging, poll violence, and manifold irregularities marred the highly controversial referendum. A vainglorious Erdoğan’s first act after his 2017 victory—imperfect as the process may have been—was to return Selim’s stolen possessions to the deceased sultan’s tomb. In a highly scripted and dramatic performance, with cameras rolling and lights flashing, Erdoğan brought out from hiding the powerfully symbolic kaftan and crown, carried them to Selim’s mosque, and personally placed them on the ornate coffin.
With his characteristic showmanship, Erdoğan made the most of this event; his far-from-subtle first act after winning a referendum that gave him near-limitless power in Turkey reverberated all the way to Gülen’s headquarters in Pennsylvania. Selim was the first Ottoman to be both sultan and caliph, and—by showcasing his personal possession of Selim’s kaftan and crown—Erdoğan became the first republican to profess himself the heir to both titles. Indeed, the vote confirmed Erdoğan as the closest thing to a sultan the Turkish republic has seen. Like Selim, Erdoğan has weaponized his new status to send forceful warnings to his adversaries at home and abroad. In some ways, as farfetched as it might sound, 2017 was not so different from 1517.
Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan at Selim’s tomb
THE BRIDGE BEARING SELIM’S name—one of the world’s tallest and widest suspension bridges—opened in 2016. It stands as one of only three concrete connectors between East and West, Europe and Asia. “When man dies,” Erdoğan said at the bridge’s inauguration, “he leaves behind a monument.” As combative, narcissistically grandiose, and historically selective as he is, Erdoğan is not wrong to single out Selim as a world-changing, world-connecting figure worthy of the honor—next only to his grandfather—of having a bridge over the Bosphorus named after him.
The gray line that is the bridge’s shadow also now connects the continents, moving with the sun across the strait’s blue waters. God’s shadow forever binds the world.
Illustrations Insert
TOPKAPI PALACE
MEHMET II’S CAPTURE OF CONSTANTINOPLE
AK KOYUNLU LEADER UZUN HASAN’S SON MEETS MEHMET II
BAYEZIT HUNTING NEAR PLOVDIV
OTTOMAN CIRCUMCISION CEREMONY, LATE SIXTEENTH CENTURY
MENGLI GIRAY AND BAYEZIT
SELIM HUNTING A TIGER
BATTLE OF CHALDIRAN, OTTOMAN RENDITION
BATTLE OF CHALDIRAN, SAFAVID RENDITION
SIXTEENTH-CENTURY OTTOMAN PAINTING OF TABRIZ
SIXTEENTH-CENTURY OTTOMAN PAINTING OF ALEPPO
SELIM RECEIVES THE HEAD OF AL-GHAWRI AFTER MARJ DABIQ
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p; SELIM HUNTING CROCODILES IN EGYPT
SELIM IN THE PORT OF ALEXANDRIA
A MORISCO FAMILY
THE EXPULSION OF THE MOORS FROM SPAIN
TAINO COOKING
BOABDIL SURRENDERS GRANADA TO THE SPANISH
OTTOMAN COFFEEHOUSE
MONTEZUMA’S DEATH
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
. . .
AFTER YEARS OF STEADY PROGRESS AGAINST THE HEADWINDS OF daily life, always endeavoring to write and to think, arriving at the end of this book is both wonderful and frightening, inspiring and daunting. What now shall I do with myself? Ends, thankfully, are also possibilities.
My largest debt is to my editor Bob Weil, an unequaled force of passion, ability, and intellect. As editors should but usually don’t, Bob read every word of this book, sometimes three or four times. He shaped it more than anyone else, always pushing me to make it better, bigger. Over years, and countless lunches and dinners, phone conversations and emails, Bob has proven much more than just a brilliant editor. Luckily for me, I now count him as a friend, interlocutor, and adviser of sorts.
That I even know Bob is thanks to my wonderful agent Wendy Strothman. She pushed me to write differently and made sure this book got to where it needed to go. Working with her on writing and conceptualizing this book has been a masterclass in genre, audience, and tone. I thank her and Lauren MacLeod, a formidable team.
I could not have written this book without the confidence and support shown me by Yale University. Yale has been my institutional home for a decade now. It has given me an enormous amount and, in turn, rightly, asked much of me. I thank Tamar Gendler, dean of the faculty of arts and sciences, and Katie Lofton and Amy Hungerford, current and former deans of the humanities, respectively, for their votes of confidence. The support of the Whitney and Betty MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies made the research and writing of this book possible. I thank its current and former directors, respectively, Steven Wilkinson and Ian Shapiro.
More crucially than its generous material backing, Yale has surrounded me with wonderful scholars and people. In the Department of History, I thank Naomi Lamoreaux, Paul Freedman, Joanne Meyerowitz, Carolyn Dean, Dan Magaziner, Anne Eller, Bob Harms, Dani Botsman, and Anders Winroth. Elsewhere on campus, I am fortunate to know Noreen Khawaja, Eda Pepi, and Jackie Goldsby. Katie Lofton—thinker, friend, leader—has supported me in deep and caring ways, in realms personal and professional. She read sections of this book and gave of her characteristically engaged and incisive intellect. Stuart Schwartz also read the chapters of this book about the Americas. I thank both of these towering scholars for helping me to cross the Atlantic.
I became chair of my department in the middle of working on this book. For allowing me to balance the writerly life of the mind with the demands of administering one of the largest departments at Yale—one of the largest history departments anywhere—I thank Liza Joyner, the department’s entire staff, and especially Dana Lee.
I thank my graduate students for their commitment to scholarship and generosity of collective thinking. They always push me, and I am grateful for that. I thank in particular Ian Hathaway for reading Italian for me.
One of my closest colleagues from Yale is now, sadly, a few hours south. Francesca Trivellato is one of the smartest people I know. Getting to teach with her, talk with her, read her work, and learn from her has been one of the most formative parts of my intellectual life.
Leslie Peirce—teacher, interlocutor, friend, dinner companion—recently published a masterful book, Empress of the East. Sharing our projects in Ottoman history and many downtown meals has meant a great deal to me over the past few years.
For five years, Beth Piatote supported me and this book more than anyone else. Incisive reader, gifted writer, nimble thinker, she read an early version of the manuscript and helped me to see contradictions as connections and opportunities in complexity. I will always be grateful and respect her.
For its material support—manna from heaven, really—I happily and gratefully acknowledge the Anneliese Maier Research Award of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. This gift has made so much possible. I enjoy this largesse because of Cornel Zwierlein. I thank him for nominating me for this award and for all the energy and excitement of his collaboration over the past few years.
Colleagues far from my world, with no reason to be generous to me, have been, and for that I’m enormously grateful. Jane Landers shared with me her important unpublished work and sent me off in wholly new directions. Susan Ferber and Alex Star offered their takes on early ideas. Ussama Makdisi helped with beginnings of all kinds. For many generous gifts, I thank Jennifer L. Derr, Angie Heo, Nancy Khalek, and Nükhet Varlık. Thanks to Tom Laqueur, for his example. My colleagues in the fields of Ottoman and Middle Eastern history have always been open to me and welcoming of my slightly eccentric ideas. This book is both for them and—in many I hope productive ways—not for them.
I presented some of the ideas here—especially about Columbus—at the University of Michigan, McGill University, and New York University. My grand German tour of talks during the hottest summer then on record was made possible by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. I thank the audiences in all of these venues for their challenging questions and generous engagement with my work.
For a decade now, I have been lucky to be in constant fellowship with Edith Sheffer, historian, writer, friend. She has been there for me at all my lowest moments, and the high ones too, and shared in the daily intricacies of all that’s on the other side of the wall. I thank her for her friendship and for sharing a sensibility about the world. Preeti Chopra has been my friend now for almost twenty years and remains a key person for me.
An author could not ask for a better team than the one at Liveright and W. W. Norton. Gabe Kachuck fielded my endless queries with grace and patience, offering solutions and direction. Anna Oler, Peter Miller, Cordelia Calvert, Steve Attardo, Dassi Zeidel, Marie Pantojan, and countless others improved this book. I was fortunate to work with Kathy Brandes and Allegra Huston on the text of this book and with Sarah Evertson on its images. The maps were made by David Lindroth, and Heather Dubnick put together the index.
One of my oldest friends in Turkey, Merve Çakır, helped to secure image rights from the Topkapı Palace Museum. I thank her and Esra Müyesseroğlu.
My parents are always there. What does one say to those who have always given him everything?
CHRONOLOGY
. . .
SELIM AND HIS WORLD
BEFORE SELIM (PRE-1470)
1071
Seljuk Turks defeat Byzantines at Manzikert, in eastern Anatolia
1187
Saladin, founder of the Ayyubid dynasty, captures Jerusalem
1202–04
Fourth Crusade sacks Constantinople
1258
Mongols capture Baghdad, capital of the Abbasid caliphate
1302
Osman I defeats Byzantine army in western Anatolia
1352
Ottomans enter Thrace; Orhan Gazi signs treaty with Genoa
1369
Ottomans capture Adrianople, renamed Edirne
1389
Battle of Kosovo: Ottomans defeat Serbians
1394–1402
First Ottoman siege of Constantinople
1402
Battle of Ankara: Tamerlane defeats Ottomans
1402–13
Ottoman interregnum: civil war between the sons of Bayezit I
1447
Birth of Bayezit II, father of Selim
1453 (ca.)
Birth (in Albania) of Gülbahar, mother of Selim
1450s
Coffee likely first used in Yemeni Sufi lodges
1451
Christopher Columbus born in Genoa
1453
Conquest of Constantinople, renamed Istanbul, by Mehmet II, grandfather of Selim
1459
Birth of Cem, half-uncle of Selim; Ottom
an conquest of Serbia and the Morea (Peloponnese)
1461
Ottoman capture of Trabzon
1463
Ottoman capture of Bosnia and Herzegovina
1463–79
Ottoman war with Venice
1466
Ahmed, older half-brother of Selim, born in Amasya
1467
Korkud, older half-brother of Selim, born in Amasya
YOUTH (1470–87)
1470
Selim born in Amasya: October 10, 1470
1472
Columbus crosses the Mediterranean to Tunis
1474 or 1475
Columbus sails to Chios
