Abstract
Throughout his life Feyzullah Efendi experienced a series of upheavals. His biography exemplifies and explains the basic concepts of the legal-academic establishment of his time, something that is vital for understanding the period and cultural milieu in which he acted. Above all, his personal history is bound up with the processes undergone by the ulema in the 17th and 18th centuries.1 This book will show that Feyzullah followed a rather typical rocky career of progress and delay, together with a major fall from favor. Typically, too, a congruence of events made it possible for him to return to the centers of power.
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Notes
For biographical sources on Feyzullah Efendi see, for example, Derin, Feyzullah; Derin and Türek, Hal Tercümesi, I; Idem, Hal Tercümesi, II; Şeyhî, Vekayi, II-III, pp. 247–9; Orhan F. Köprülü, “Feyzullah Efendi”, İA, IV (1948), pp. 593–600
Huriye Gerçek, Feyzullah Efendi ailesi, ecdadi, akrabalari, İstanbul Üniversitesi: Basümamiş Mezuniyet Tezi, Edebiyat Fakültesi, Tarih Semineri Ktb. Nr. T. 506, İstanbul, 1949–50
Serhan Mehmed Tayşi, “Şeyhü’l-islam Seyyid Feyzullah Efendi ve Feyziyye Medresesi”, Türk Dünyasi Araştirmalari, 23 (1983), pp. 9–100
Müstakimzade Süleyman Sadeddin Efendi, Devhatül-Meşayih, İstanbul: Çağri Yayinlari, 1978, pp. 74–6.
On the Halveti Sufi order and its importance in Ottoman Society see Zilfi, The Politics of Piety, pp. 30–6, 139, 165–6; B. G. Martin, “A Short History of the Khalwati Order of Dervishes”, in Nikki R. Keddie (ed.), Scholars, Saints and Sufis: Muslim Religious Institutions in the Middle East Since 1500, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972, pp. 275–305
J. Spencer Trimingham, The Sufi Orders in Islam, New York: Oxford University Press, 1998, pp. 74–7
Alexander Knysh, Islamic Mysticism: A Short History, Leiden: Brill, 2000, pp. 264–71
John Curry, The Transformation of Muslim Mystical Thought in the Ottoman Empire: The Rise of the Halveti Order, 1350–1650. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2010.
Ibid.; Meservey, Feyzullah, p. 33; Yilmaz Öztuna, Devletler ve Hanedanlar: Türkiye (1074–1990), Vol. 2, Ankara: Kültür Bakanliği, 1989, p. 651.
On the role of the judge under the Ottomans see, for example, Zilfi, The Politics of Piety, pp. 28–9; Idem, “The Ottoman Ulema”, in Suraiya Faroqhi (ed.), The Cambridge History of Turkey, Vol. 3, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006, p. 213
Kaldy Nagy, “Kadi”, EI2, IV (1978), p. 375.
Gibb and Bowen, Islamic Society, II, pp. 139–43; Cahid Baltaci, XV ve XVI Asirlarda Osmanli Medreseleri, İstanbul: İfran Matbaasi, 1976, pp. 18–19
Selçuk Akşin Somel, The Modernization of Public Education in the Ottoman Empire, 1839–1908, Leiden: Brill, 2001, pp. 17–20
J.M. Landau, “Kuttab”, EI2, V (1986): 567–70
Zilfi, The Politics of Piety, pp. 130, 163; Idem, “The İlmiye Registers and the Ottoman Medrese System Prior to the Tanzimat”, in J.-L. Bacque-Grammont and P. Dumont (eds), Collection Turcica III: Contributions a l’histoire economique et sociale de l’Empire Ottoman, Louvain: Editions Peeters, 1983, pp. 319–20
Cornell Fleischer, Bureaucrat and Intellectual in the Ottoman Empire: The Historian Mustafa Ali (1541–1600), Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986, pp. 21
Steve Tamari, “Ottoman Madrasas: The Multiple Lives of Educational Institutions in Eighteenth-Century Syria”, Journal of Early Modern History, 5/1 (2001), p. 110
Katib Çelebi, The Balance of Truth, G. L. Lewis (trans.), London: Allen and Unwin, 1957, pp. 135–41.
Fleischer, Mustafa Ali, pp. 222–3; Carter V. Findley, Ottoman Civil Officialdom, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989, pp. 54–5
Mehmet İpşirli, “Scholarship and Intellectual Life in the Reign of Sultan Süleyman the Magnificent”, in Tulay Duran (ed.), The Ottoman Empire in the Reign of Süleyman the Magnificent, Istanbul: Historical Research Foundation Istanbul Research Center, 1988, pp. 23–4.
Gibb and Bowen, Islamic Society, II, pp. 139, 143; Uğur, The Ottoman Ulema, pp. xxxvii, lii; Findley, Civil Officialdom, p. 55; Çelebi, Balance, pp. 135–43; Zilfi, The Politics of Piety, p. 85; Idem, “Elite Circulation in the Ottoman Empire: Great Mollas of the Eighteenth century”, JESHO, 26 (1983), p. 337; Colin Imber, Ebu’s-su’ud: The Islamic Legal Tradition, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997, pp. 9–10.
For studies on the medrese see, for example, Baltaci, Medreseler; Gibb and Bowen, Islamic Society, II, pp. 139–64; Uzunçarşili, İlmiye, pp. 1–81; Zilfi, The Politics of Piety, pp. 44–101, 204–9; Idem, Registers, pp. 309–27; A. L. Tibawi, “The Origin and the Character of al-Madrasa”, BSOAS, 25/2 (1962), pp. 25–38
George Makdisi, The Rise of Colleges: Institutions of Learning in Islam and the West, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1981, pp. 27–223
Michael Chamberlain, Knowledge and Social Practice in Medieval Damascus, 1190–1350, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994, pp. 69–90
J. Pedersen and others, “Madrasa”, EI2, V (1986), pp. 1123–54
Davud Dursun, Yönetim-Din İlişkileri Açisindan Osmanli Devletinde Siyaset ve Din, second edition, İstanbul: İşaret Yayinlari, 1992, pp. 288–311.
Uzunçarşili, İlmiye, p. 67; İnalcik, The Ottoman Empire, pp. 165–81; Gibb and Bowen, Islamic Society, II, pp. 147–50; İpşirli, Scholarship, p. 18; Marshall G. S. Hodgson, The Venture of Islam, Vol. 3, Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1974, p. 123.
Meservey, Feyzullah, p. 158; Tayşi, Feyziyye, pp. 31–3; Köprülü, Feyzullah, p. 599; Murat Akgündüz, Osmanli Devletinde Şeyhülislamlik, Istanbul: Beyan Yayinlari, 2002, pp. 95–6.
Chamberlain, Knowledge and Social Practice, pp. 69–90; Jonathan Berkey, The Transmission of Knowledge in Medieval Cairo, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992
Robert W. Hefner and Muhammad Qasim Zaman (eds), Schooling Islam, Princeton: Princeton University, 2007, pp. 42–5.
Zilfi, The Politics of Piety, pp. 24–9; Idem, The Ottoman Ulema, pp. 209–16; İnalcik, The Ottoman Empire, pp, 166–71; Gibb and Bowen, Islamic Society, II, pp. 81–3, 90–7; Berkey, Madrasas, pp. 42–5; Atcil, The Route to the Top, pp. 502, 510; U. Heyd and E. Kuran, “Ilmiyye”, EI2, III (1971), pp. 1152–3
M. Tayyib Gökbilgin, “Ulema”, İA, 13 (1986), pp. 23–5
Mehmet İpşirli, “The Ottoman Ulema”, In Kemal Çiçek (editor-in-chief), The Great Turkish-Ottoman Civilisation, Vol. 3, Ankara: Yeni Türkiye, 2000, pp. 339–42
Abdülkadir Özcan, (ed.). Kanunname-i Al-i Osman, Istanbul: Kitabevi, 2003, pp. 11–12.
Although this grade was regularized only under Ahmed III (1703–30), it had been used occasionally since the late 16th century. See Uğur, Ottoman Ulema, pp. xlviii-xlix; Zilfi, The Politics of Piety, p. 230; Idem, Registers, p. 313; Itdem, “Sultan Süleyman and the Ottoman Religious Establishment”, in Halil İnalcik and Cemal Kafadar (eds), Süleyman the First and his Time, Istanbul: Isis Press, 1993, p. 112.
Zilfi, The Politics of Piety, pp. 26, 61; Idem, Circulation, p. 329; Idem, The (Ottoman Ulema, pp. 216–17; Uğur, Ottoman Ulema, pp. xxxix, xli; Uzunçarşili, İlmiye, pp. 1–3, 69; Dursun, Siyaset ve Din, pp. 293–5; İnalcik, The Ottoman Empire, pp. 167–8; Atcil, The Route to the Top, pp. 495–6, 500, 510; Baki Tezcan, “The Ottoman Mevali as ‘Lords of the Law’”, Journal of Islamic Studies, 20:3 (2009), p. 394.
Derin and Türek, Hal Tercümesi, I, pp. 212–13; Naima, Tarih, VI, p. 5; Defterdar, Zübde, pp. 210–11; Şeyhî, Vekayi, I, pp. 580–1; Zilfi, The Politics of Piety, pp. 146–58; Semiramis Çavuşoğlu, The Kadizadeli Movement: An Attempt of Şeriat-Minded Reform in the Ottoman Empire, Unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation, Princeton, 1990, pp. 150–62; Ahmed Refik, Osmanli Devrinde Hoca Nüfuzu, second edition, İstanbul: Toplumsal Dönüşüm Yayinlari, 1997, pp. 137
M. Cavid Baysun, “Mehmed IV”, İA, VII (1960), p. 556.
On the Kadizadelis, see Semiramis, The Kadizadeli Movement; Zilfi, The Politics of Piety, pp. 129–81;Idem, “The Kadizadelis: Discordant Revivalism in Seventeenth century Istanbul”, The Journal of Near Eastern Studies, 45/4 (1986), pp. 251–69; Ahmet Yaşar Ocak, “XVII. Yüzyilda Osmanli İmparatorluğu Dinde Tasfiye Teşebbüslerine Bir Bakiş: Kadizadeliler Hareketi”, Türk Kültürü Araştirmalari, 4 (1983), pp. 208–25
Necati Öztürk, Islamic Orthodoxy among the Ottomans in the Seventeenth Century, with Special Reference to the Qadizade Movement, Boston Spa, England: The British Library, 1988.
Zilfi, The Politics of Piety, p. 57; Uzunçarşili, İlmiye, pp. 5–17, 45, 75; Dursun, Siyaset ve Din, pp. 301–3; Baltaci, Medreseler, pp. 31–4; Uğur, Ottoman Ulema, pp. xl-xli; Repp, Mufti, pp. 37, 51; Shahab Ahmed and Nenad Filipovic, “The Sultan’s Syllabus: A Curriculum for the Ottoman Imperial Medreses Systems Prescribed in a Ferman of Qanuni I Süleyman, dated 973 (1565)”, Studia Islamica, 98–9 (2004), pp. 183–218.
Ismail. H. Uzunçarşili, Osmanli Tarihi, fifth edition, Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu, Vol. 3/2, 1995, p. 482.
Derin ve Türek, Hal Tercümesi, I, p. 217; Idem, Hal Tercümesi, II, p. 71; Mehmed Süreyya, Sicill-i Osmanî, Nuri Akbayar (ed.), Vol. 3., İstanbul: Tarih Vakfi Yurt Yayinlari, 1996, pp. 533–4.
On the chief military judges of the army see Uzunçarşili, İlmiye, pp. 151–60, 177–9; Gibb and Bowen, Islamic Society, II, pp. 84–91; Erk, Meşhur, pp. 580–4; Akgündüz, Şeyhülislamlik, pp. 263, 267–8; Zilfi, The Ottoman Ulema, p. 213; Dursun, Siyaset ve Din, pp. 177–80, 270–5; Repp, Mufti, pp. 20–5, 44–5, 51–5; Atcil, The Route to the Top, p. 509; Kaldy Nagy, “Kadi Askar”, EI2, IV (1978), pp. 375–6
On the institution of the Şeyhülislam and its development see Repp, Mufti; Akgündüz, Şeyhülislamlik; Uzunçarşili, İlmiye, pp. 173–214; Refik, Salname, pp. 267–79;Altunsu, Şeyhülislamlar, pp. xxxvii-xlv;Dursun, Siyaset ve Din, pp. 227–85; J. H. Kramers, “Şeyh-ül İslam”, İA, XI (1993), pp. 485–9
J. H. Kramers and R. C. Repp, “Shaykh Al-Islam”, EI2, IX (1996), pp. 399–402
Richard W. Bulliet, “The Shaikh al-Islam and the Evolution of Islamic Society”, Studia Islamica, XXXV (1972), pp. 53–67
Norman Itzkowitz and Joel Shinder, “The Office of Şhaykh Al-Islam and the Tanzimat: A Prosopographic Enquiry”, MES, 8 (1972), pp. 93–101
Michael M. Pixley, “The Development and Role of the Şeyhülislam in Early Ottoman History”, JAOS, 96 (1976), pp. 89–96
Ekrem Kaydu, “Osmanli Devleti’nde Şeyhülislamlik Müessesesinin Ortaya Çikişi”, Erzurum Atatürk Üniversitesi Islamî İlimler Fakültesi Dergisi, 2 (1977), pp. 201–22.
İnalcik, Transformation, pp. 313–23; Suraiya Faroqhi, Akdes Nimet Kurat, “The Retreat of the Turks, 1683–1730”, New Cambridge Modern History, 6 (1970), pp. 618–24
Silahdar, Tarih, II, pp. 483, 569–79; Abou El-Haj, The 1703 Rebellion, p. 47; Cantemir, Growth and Decay, p. 377; M. Tayyib Gökbilgin, “Köprülüler”, İA, 6 (1955), pp. 903
On Sultan Mustafa II see Silahdar, Nusretname, 2 vols; Abou El-Haj, Narcissism, pp. 115–31; Sakaoğlu, Sultanlari, pp. 303–14; Cengiz Orhonlu, “Mustafa II”, İA, 8 (1987), pp. 695–700
On the Treaty of Karlowitz and its ramifications see, for example, Kenneth M. Setton, Venice, Austria and the Turks in the Seventeenth Century, Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1991, pp. 404–12
Rifaat Ali Abou-El-Haj, “Ottoman Attitudes Toward Peace Making: The Karlowitz Case”, Der Islam, 51/1 (1974), pp. 131–7
Hrand D. Andreasyan, “Balatli Georg’a gore Edirne Vak’asi”, Tarih Dergisi, 15 (1960), p. 52.
Zilfi, The Politics of Piety, p. 70; İpşirli, The Ottoman Ulema, p. 342; Ahmet Mumcu, Osmanli Devletinde Siyaseten Katl, Ankara: Ajans-Türk Matbaasi, 1963, pp. 125–31
Rifaat Ali qAbou El-Haj, Formation of the Modern State, New York: New York University Press, 1991, pp. 46–7.
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Nizri, M. (2014). The Life of Feyzullah Efendi: A Typical Rocky Career Path of an Alim. In: Ottoman High Politics and the Ulema Household. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137326904_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137326904_2
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