History of Ottoman Political Thought up to the Early Nineteenth Century

Marinos Sariyannis, Ph.D. (2005), Aristotelian University of Thessaloniki, is Research Director at the Institute for Mediterranean Studies/FORTH, Rethymno, Greece. He has published several articles on Ottoman history and culture. E. Ekin Tuşalp Atiyas, Ph.D. (2014), Harvard University, is Assistant Professor of Humanities at Boğaziçi University, Istanbul. She focuses on seventeenth-century Ottoman social and intellectual history. She is contributing a chapter to this book.

• ContentsAcknowledgmentsNote on Transliteration and CitationsIntroduction1 What Is Ottoman Political Thought?2 Scope and Aims: the Quest for Innovation3 A Note on ModernityEarly or Not4 Trends and Currents: for a Thematic Description of Ottoman Political Thought1 The Empire in the Making: Construction and Early Critiques1 Opposition to Imperial Policies as an Indicator of Gazi Political Ideas2 The Introduction of Imperial Ideals3 Shifting Means of Legitimization2 Political Philosophy and the Moralist Tradition1 Works of Ethico-political Philosophy: from Amasi to Knalzade2 Moral Philosophy as Political Theory3 The Afterlife of a Genre3 The Imperial Heyday: the Formation of the Ottoman System and Reactions to It1 The Basis of the Ottoman Synthesis: Ebussuud and the Reception of Ibn Taymiyya2 A New Legitimacy3 Reactions to the Imperial Vision4 The Iranian Tradition Continued: Bureaucrats, Sufis, and Scholars5 Lütfi Pasha and the Beginning of the Ottoman Mirror for Princes6 As a Conclusion: the Ideas at Hand, the Forces at Work4 Mirrors for Princes: the Decline Theorists1 Ottoman Authors and the Decline Paradigm2 Mustafa Ali and the Politics of Cultural Despair3 Alis Contemporaries, Facing the Millenium5 The Golden Age as a Political Agenda: the Reform Literature1 The Canonization of Decline2 The Landmarks of Declinist Literature3 Administration Manuals: an Ottoman Genre4 The Afterlife of the Genre: Late Seventeenth-Century Manuals6 The Sunna-Minded Trend1 The Controversy of the Century? The Kadzadelis2 Beyond the Social History of the Controversy3 Ottoman Decline la Sunna4 Political Practice and Political Thought5 Conclusion7 Khaldunist Philosophy: Innovation Justified1 The Social and Ideological Struggles: between Viziers and Janissaries2 Ktib elebi and Ottoman Khaldunism3 Ktib elebis Immediate Influence: the Conciliation with Change4 Naima: Stage Theory in the Service of Peace5 Peace and Change: Preparing an Ideological Environment8 The Eighteenth Century: the Traditionalists1 The Eighteenth Century and Its Intellectual Climate: on Ottoman Traditionalism2 Defterdar and His Circle3 The Last of the Traditionalists4 Traditional Reformers: Rivers in Confluence9 The Eighteenth Century: the Westernizers1 The Precursors of Nizam-i Cedid: brahim Müteferrika and the Dialogue with the West2 Selim III and the Reform Debate3 The Last Round: from Selim III to Mahmud II4 The Tanzimat as EpilogueConclusion: towards an Ottoman Conceptual History1 Politics2 State3 The Ottoman Political Vocabulary and Its Development4 Some General RemarksAppendix 1: Historical TimelineAppendix 2: Samples of Translated TextsBibliographyPerson NamesPlace Names, Subjects, TermsTitles of Works

[...] 'The last paragraph of the book, and especially its questions for further research, is a reminder of the fact that we are still at the beginning of a long journey of exploring the interplay between ideas and realities that shaped the human experience of the Ottoman centuries. In this regard, this book constitutes an encouraging first step toward a richer understanding of the intellectual and cultural history of the Ottoman Middle East and Balkans.'Deniz T. Kılınçoğlu, in Wiener Zeitschrift Für Die Kunde Des Morgenlandes. Vol. 110 (2020), pp. 406-408'A History of Ottoman Political Thought up to the Early Nineteenth Century by Marinos Sariyannis (and a chapter by E. Ekin Tuşalp Atiyas) is a major contribution to research on Ottoman intellectual history and an essential reference work on the development of Ottoman political thought. Traditionally, the field of intellectual history has not been a key focus of Ottoman historians, though there have been some classic monographs which address particular themes, works, or authors. This volume, however, is almost unprecedented in its broad scope and deep reading of authors who wrote over the course of more than four centuries of Ottoman intellectual history, and it is the first systematic effort to reconstruct the broad history of pre-modern Ottoman political thought.'[...]Henry Shapiro, Jerusalem, in Orientalistische Literaturzeitung, 114-6 (2019), Islam, pp. 471-473“A stunning accomplishment in that field. […] The book is extensive in scope and rich with issues needing to be addressed.” By Linda T. Darling in the Journal of the American Oriental Society 141/4 (2021)“This book should have been published decades ago. [...] Based on both primary and secondary sources, the book provides a rich account of Ottoman thought in historical context. […] it breaks new grounds for thinking and research by bringing together the scattered resources of the field in a highly analytical fashion.” Deniz T. Kılınçoğlu in Wiener Zeitschrift Für Die Kunde Des Morgenlandes 110 (2020)“A History of Ottoman Political Thought up to the Early Nineteenth Century by Marinos Sariyannis (and a chapter by E. Ekin Tuşalp Atiyas) is a major contribution to research on Ottoman intellectual history and an essential referencework on the development of Ottoman political thought. […] The authors have made a major contribution and done a valuable service to their field.” Henry Shapiro in Orientalistische Literaturzeitung 114/6 (2019)