The Ottoman Empire: a Historical Encyclopedia [2 Volumes]
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In 1863 the Ottoman author, poet, and playwright Namik Kemal joined Şinasi at Tasvir-i Efkar. In 1865 Şinasi left Istanbul for Paris. He lived in the French capital until 1869. In Şinasi’s absence the editorship of Tasvir-i Efkar was assigned to Namik Kemal. In 1867, when Sultan Abdülaziz (r. 1861–1876) visited Paris, Fuad Pasha, who was a member of the imperial entourage, met with Şinasi and convinced him to return to Istanbul (Gibb: 5:27). Soon after Şinasi had returned to the Ottoman capital, however, he appealed to Fuad Pasha to allow him to return to Paris. While Şinasi was in Paris, Fuad Pasha died (February 1869). Şinasi remained in Paris until the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War in July 1870 (Gibb: 5:27). He then returned to Istanbul, where he died on September 13, 1871. As a member of a new generation of young Ottoman intellectuals, the patriotic and liberal-minded Şinasi criticized the despotic policies of the leaders of the Tanzimat and their appeasing attitude toward European states.
See also: Beys and Pashas: Mustafa Reşid Pasha; Empire and Administration: Tanzimat; Historians: Namik Kemal
Further Reading
Davison, Roderic H. Nineteenth Century Ottoman Diplomacy and Reforms. Istanbul: Isis Press, 1999.
Davison, Roderic H. Reform in the Ottoman Empire, 1856–1876. New York: Gordian Press, 1973.
Findley, Carter V. Bureaucratic Reform in the Ottoman Empire: The Sublime Porte, 1789–1922. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1980.
Gibb, E. J. W. A History of Ottoman Poetry. 6 vols. Edited by Edward G. Browne. London: Luzac and Company, 1965.
Lewis, Bernard. The Emergence of Modern Turkey. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1961.
Mardin, Şerif. The Genesis of Young Ottoman Thought: A Study in the Modernization of Turkish Political Ideas. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1963.
Idris-i Bitlisi (1455–1520)
Ottoman Kurdish scholar and the author of Hasht Bihisht (Eight heavens), a work in Persian, which covers the reigns of the first eight Ottoman sultans. Idris-i Bitlisi was born into a family of scholars and theologians from Bitlis in eastern Anatolia. His father, Mowlana Sheikh Husammedin Ali al-Bitlisi (Mevlana Şeyh Hüsameddin Ali ül-Bitlisi), was a prominent religious scholar and the leader of a mystical order. He served for a time at the court of Yaqub Beyk (Yakup Bey), the Aq Qoyunlu (Ak Koyunlu) ruler of Iran and the successor to Uzun Hassan, who had been defeated by the Ottoman sultan Mehmed II (r. 1444–1446, 1451–1481) at the Battle of Başkent (Bashkent) in August 1473. Following his father’s example, Idris joined the Aq Qoyunlu court.
In 1501, after the Shia Safavid dynasty imposed its rule over Iran, Idris-i Bitlisi fled to the Ottoman court and sought the protection of Sultan Bayezid II (r. 1481–1512). Between 1502 and 1504 Bitlisi wrote Hasht Bihisht in verse. After Selim I (r. 1512–1520) ascended the throne, Idris Bitlisi joined his court. The new Ottoman sultan embarked on two major military campaigns to neutralize the threat posed by the Safavid Empire based in Iran and the Mamluk dynasty in Egypt. Bitlisi joined the Ottoman sultan in his campaign against the Safavids, which culminated in the Battle of Chaldiran in 1514. He then accompanied Selim I in his invasion of Syria and Egypt from 1516 to 1517. Because of his service, Bitlisi was appointed to high governmental posts, including kādiasker of Diyarbakir in southeastern Anatolia. His intimate knowledge of Kurdish society and politics allowed him to negotiate on behalf of the Ottoman government with Kurdish chiefs of eastern Anatolia and northern Iraq. These negotiations resulted in the Ottoman annexation of Urfa and Mardin in southeastern Anatolia and Mosul in present-day northern Iraq. Thus, Bitlisi played a central role in the pacification and assimilation of Kurdish groups and communities into the Ottoman political and administrative system.
Idris Bitlisi died a short time after Selim I passed away in 1520. He was buried in the Eyüp neighborhood of Istanbul in the garden of the complex known as İdris Köşkü (Idris House) or İdris Çeşmesi (Idris Fountain), built by his wife, Zeynep Hātun. Bitlisi wrote extensively toward the end of his life; his best known work is Selim Şahname (Selim Shahnameh), an epic history of Selim I’s reign.
See also: Empire and Administration: Ismail I, Shah of Iran; Sultans: Selim I
Further Reading
Imber, Colin. The Ottoman Empire, 1300–1650: The Structure of Power. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002.
Inalcik, Halil. The Ottoman Empire: The Classical Age 1300–1600. Translated by Norman Itzkowitz and Colin Imber. New York: Praeger Publishers, 1973.
Morgan, David. Medieval Persia 1040–1797. London: Routledge Taylor & Francis Group, 2016.
Shaw, Stanford J. History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey. 2 vols. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1976.
Somel, Selçuk Akșin. Historical Dictionary of the Ottoman Empire. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2003.
Uğur, Ahmed. The Reign of Sultan Selim I in the Light of the Selim-name Literature. Berlin: Klaus Schwarz Verlag, 1985.
Kemal Pāşāzāde (Kemal Pāshāzāde)
(1468–1536)
Distinguished author, scholar, historian, and șeyhülislam, who served the Ottoman sultans Bayezid II (r. 1481–1512), Selim I (r. 1512–1520), and Süleyman I (r. 1520–1566) as a staunch defender of Sunni Islam against Shiism as represented by the Safavid dynasty in Iran. Pāşāzāde was a prolific writer. He wrote over 200 works in the fields of grammar, theology, jurisprudence, Islamic law, and Ottoman history.
Pāşāzāde was born Şemseddin (Shemseddin) Ahmed ibn Süleyman or Ahmed Şemseddin (Shemseddin) ibn-i Kemal, either in Tokat in north central Anatolia or in Edirne (Adrianople), in 1468 (Gibb: 2:347). He hailed from an old Ottoman family (Shaw: 1:145). His grandfather, Kemal Pasha, served as an army commander and governor during the reign of Mehmed II (r. 1444–1446, 1451–1481), while his father, Süleyman, served as a commander in the armies of Mehmed II and Bayezid II (r. 1481–1512). Pāşāzāde grew up in Edirne, where he received training to become an army officer, before studying with some of the most prominent scholars of his time and joining the ranks of the ulema. After completing his education Pāşāzāde taught and served as a principal at various religious schools in Skopje (present-day capital of the Republic of Macedonia), Edirne, and Istanbul. In 1515 Pāşāzāde was appointed the kādi or the chief judge of Edirne. In 1516 he was appointed the chief judge (kādiasker) of Anatolia, “and in this capacity he accompanied Selim I on his Egyptian campaign from 1516 to 1517” (Gibb: 2:352). After returning to Istanbul in 1518 Pāşāzāde was removed from his high position. For the next seven years he served as the principal of a school in Edirne (Gibb: 2:352). In 1526, during the reign of Süleyman I, Pāşāzāde was recalled to Istanbul and appointed as the șeyhülislam. He served as șeyhülislam until his death in 1536. Pāşāzāde’s rise to power and prominence corresponded with the reigns of Bayezid II and Selim I, when the popularity of Shiism and radical Sufi movements, inspired by the Safavid dynasty in Iran, was spreading throughout Anatolia. Pāşāzāde denounced the Shia Qizilbash (Kizilbaș) as heretics who deserved death and destruction.
Pāşāzāde wrote numerous short treatises (risalis) and Quranic exegeses (tafsirs). Some of these, such as his al-Risala al-Munira, were written to help local judges (kādis) resolve the conflicts caused by the existence of numerous religious sects in the Ottoman Empire, while others were written at the request of Ottoman authorities, including the sultan, about the compatibility of certain beliefs and practices with the teachings of the sharia or Islamic law. His most important historical work is Tevārih-i Āl-i Osman (The chronicles of the house of Osman), which provides a detailed account of the reigns of the Ottoman sultans Bayezid II and Selim I and the earlier part of the reign of Süleyman I.
See also: Sultans: Bayezid II; Selim I; Süleyman I
Further Reading
Gibb, E. J. W. A History of Ottoman Poetry. 6 vols. Edited by Edward G. Browne. London: Luzac and Company, 1965.
Shaw, Stanford J. History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey. 2 vols. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univers
ity Press, 1976.
Somel, Selçuk Akșin. Historical Dictionary of the Ottoman Empire. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2003.
Mustafa Naima/Mustafa Naim (1655–1716)
Ottoman historian and chronicler who wrote a history of the Ottoman Empire known as History of Naima (Naima Tarihi). Naima’s History covers the period from 1574 to 1659, incorporating the reigns of the Ottoman sultans Murad III (r. 1574–1595), Mehmed III (r. 1595–1603), Ahmed I (r. 1603–1617), Mustafa I (r. 1617–1618; 1622–1623), Osman II (r. 1618–1622), Murad IV (r. 1623–1640), and Ibrahim (r. 1640–1648), as well as the first decade of Mehmed IV’s reign (r. 1648–1687).
Mustafa Naima was born in Aleppo, Syria, in 1655. At a young age he traveled to Istanbul, where he entered palace service. He rose in rank and held a variety of governmental posts. In 1700 his patron, the Ottoman grand vizier Amcāzāde (Amjāzāde) Hüseyin Pasha (1697–1702), appointed him the official chronicler of the Ottoman court. Naima’s History serves as one of the important sources for the study of the Ottoman Empire in the 16th and 17th centuries. In writing his history, Naima made extensive use of the works of 17th-century Ottoman historians and authors, including Hassan Beyzade (d. 1636/1637) and Katib Çelebi (Chelebi) (1608/1609/1611–1657). Mustafa Naima died in 1716 in Patras, in northern Morea (northern Peloponnese) in present-day Greece.
See also: Sultans: Ahmed I; Ibrahim; Mehmed III; Murad IV; Mustafa I; Osman II
Further Reading
Faroqhi, Suraiya. Approaching Ottoman History An Introduction to the Sources. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
Naima, Mustafa (Mustafa Naim). Annals of the Turkish Empire from 1591 to 1659 of the Christian Era. Translated by Charles Fraser. New York: Arno Press, 1973.
Somel, Selçuk Akșin. Historical Dictionary of the Ottoman Empire. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2003.
Namik Kemal (1840–1888)
Patriotic Turkish poet, journalist, playwright, novelist, and critic, who was also a prominent member of the group that came to be known as Young Ottomans. Namik Kemal was one of the most important and influential literary and intellectual figures of the Ottoman Empire during the second half of the 19th century. Born into an old and prominent Ottoman Turkish family that traced its ancestry to an Ottoman grand vizier in the 18th century, Kemal was born in 1840. He was raised and educated by his grandfather, who was a high government official and a member of the Mevlevi Sufi order, where he learned sama (mystical chants) and Persian.
In 1857, at the age of 17, Namik Kemal began his government career as a secretary at Bab-i Āli or Sublime Porte. He then joined the Translation Office (Tercüme Odasi). The era of Tanzimat was dominated by government officials who had received their education and training at the Translation Office followed by service at Ottoman embassies in European capitals. Under the leadership of Mustafa Reşid (Reshid) Pasha and his successors, Fuad Pasha and Āli Pasha, the center of power shifted from the palace to the Porte and particularly the ministry of foreign affairs.
TURKISH INTELLECTUALS AND REFORM
Throughout the 19th century the Ottoman Empire lost its provinces in the Balkans to nationalist uprisings. The dismemberment of the Ottoman state culminated in the Congress of Berlin (June 13–July 13, 1878), which recognized Serbia, Romania, and Montenegro as independent states, while granting autonomy to Bulgaria. Concerned with the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire, humiliated by the inability of the state to defend itself against foreign aggression, and inspired by the unification of Germany and Italy, a growing number of Turkish intellectuals began to call for modernization of the political, military, and economic institutions of the empire. For these intellectuals, it was necessary that the Ottoman state not only introduce modern political institutions such as a parliament, but also assume a leading role in unifying and guiding the rest of the Islamic world as well as the Turkic-speaking world as they struggled to maintain their independence. Some of these intellectuals insisted on retaining the empire’s basic Islamic characteristics, while others who were more secular became attracted to Pan-Turkism, or the idea of unifying the Turkic peoples of Anatolia, Central Asia, the Caucasus, and the Crimea in one empire.
When Ibrahim Șinasi (Ibrahim Shinasi) published Tasvir-i Efkar, Namik Kemal contributed articles to the newspaper. When Șinasi fled to Paris, Namik Kemal took over the newspaper, writing articles and criticizing the leaders of the Tanzimat for their authoritarianism and corruption. In collaboration with several other intellectuals, including Ziya Bey (Ziya Pasha), Namik Kemal founded the Young Ottoman movement. However, he and Ziya were forced to leave Istanbul, first for Paris and then for London, where they published Hürriyet (Liberty), which advocated the establishment of a constitutional system of government. After his return from exile, Namik Kemal began to publish the newspaper Ibret (Admonition) in 1872. His most controversial work, however, was the patriotic play, Vatan Yahud Silistre (Fatherland or Silistria), which led the government to imprison him on the island of Cyprus. After the 1876 coup that deposed Sultan Abdülaziz (r. 1861–1876), Namik Kemal returned to Istanbul and played an important role in drafting the constitution that was introduced by the reform-minded grand vizier, Midhat Pasha. After the dismissal of Midhat by the new sultan, Abdülhamid II (r. 1876-1909), Namik Kemal was detained and sent into exile in 1877.
The belief in the three ideas of progress, liberty, and the defense of the Ottoman fatherland formed the foundation of Namik Kemal’s political philosophy. He believed first and foremost in the establishment of a constitutional form of government and a national assembly as a means of preventing the further disintegration of the Ottoman Empire. He also advocated the preservation of the Islamic identity of the Ottoman Empire. Thus in his writings he sought to reconcile the establishment of a modern political system based on individual liberties with Islamic beliefs and traditions, arguing that far from undermining Islam, the creation of a constitutional form of government could be viewed as a return to the original teachings of Islam. Namik Kemal wrote his works in a simple and accessible Turkish free of Arabic and Persian loan words.
See also: Beys and Pashas: Midhat Pasha; Historians: Ibrahim Șinasi; Ziya Pasha; Rebels: Young Turks; Sultans: Abdülaziz; Abdülhamid II
Further Reading
Davison, Roderic H. Reform in the Ottoman Empire, 1856–1876. New York: Gordian Press, 1973.
Davison, Roderic H. Essays in Ottoman and Turkish History 1744–1923: The Impact of the West. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1990.
Davison, Roderic H. Nineteenth Century Ottoman Diplomacy and Reforms. Istanbul: Isis Press, 1999.
Devereux, Robert. The First Ottoman Constitutional Period: A Study of the Midhat Constitution and Parliament. 2nd ed. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1964.
Findley, Carter V. Bureaucratic Reform in the Ottoman Empire: The Sublime Porte, 1789–1922. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1980.
Gibb, E. J. W. A History of Ottoman Poetry. 6 vols. Edited by Edward G. Browne. London: Luzac and Company, 1965.
Lewis, Bernard. The Emergence of Modern Turkey. London: Oxford University Press, 1961.
Mardin, Şerif. The Genesis of Young Ottoman Thought: A Study in the Modernization of Turkish Political Ideas. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1963.
Shaw, Stanford J. History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey. 2 vols. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1976.
Somel, Selçuk Akșin. Historical Dictionary of the Ottoman Empire. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2003.
Zürcher, Erik-Jan. Turkey: A Modern History. London: I. B. Tauris, 2004.
Piri Reis (1465/1468/1470–1554)
A cartographer, maritime geographer, and commander of the Ottoman fleet, who produced the oldest surviving map showing parts of the Americas. Piri Reis was born Muhyiddin Piri in 1465, 1468, or 1470 in Gallipoli in present-day Turkish Thrace (the Aegean coast of Turkey). His father was Hāci Mehmed Piri (Hāji Mehmed Piri). Piri Reis hailed from a family of outstanding seafarers, i
ncluding sailors, captains, and commanders. His uncle, Kemal Reis, was a distinguished sailor who had participated in naval operations against Spain, Genoa, and Venice. As a young man Piri Reis followed in the footsteps of his uncle and joined the Ottoman navy. He participated in several major campaigns before returning home, where he began to work on a book on navigation, as well as on a series of maps.
In 1513 Piri Reis produced a world map, which was presented to the Ottoman sultan Selim I (r. 1512–1520). The Piri Reis Map, which was discovered in the Topkapi Palace in 1929, is considered by some scholars to be the oldest surviving map to show parts of the Americas. The notes on the Piri Reis map reveal that his map was drawn based on information and data collected from nearly 20 other maps, some of which had been seized from Spanish and Portuguese vessels in the Mediterranean. In producing his map, Piri Reis also used the information provided to him by Spanish and Portuguese sailors whom the Ottoman navy had captured.
Surviving fragment of the first world map by Piri Reis, 1513. (Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty Images)
In 1516–1517, when Selim I invaded the Mamluk sultanate based in Egypt, Piri Reis joined the sultan’s military campaign. In 1521 Piri Reis completed his famous Book of the Sea or Book of Navigation (Kitab-i Bahriyye), which is based on his travels around the coasts of the Mediterranean, as well as his participation in several naval campaigns. Kitab-i Bahriyye incorporates comprehensive and in-depth information on Mediterranean coasts and major ports. The book also contains valuable descriptions of various gulfs, peninsulas, islands, and straits around the Mediterranean. Piri Reis’s book “incorporated all of the knowledge of the seas and navigation developed by Islamic seamen and writers during the previous eight centuries as well as his own experience and that of the Western seamen whose accomplishments came to his attention” (Shaw: 1:147). The book “was divided into 129 chapters, each with a map, in which he described the Mediterranean and the eastern seas, harbors, important points, dangerous and prominent rocks and natural features, the flow of tides, the imminence of storms, and the like” (Shaw: 1:147). In his writings and maps, Piri Reis paid particular attention to the Adriatic Sea and its ports, particularly the Croatian coast, which was used as a vital sea route for Venetian shipping. Because Venice was the Ottoman Empire’s principal rival in the battle over control of the Mediterranean, it was essential for the Ottoman authorities to collect detailed, exact, and accurate information about the Adriatic Sea.