“A Shaykh in the Ottoman Palace: Ismail Haqqi Bursawi’s Struggle Against Moral Decline, Corruption, and Injustice” By Ne?et Ulusal Indiana University Bloomington From their first days in 1299 CE. onward, almost each Ottoman sultan had a spiritual guide—a Sufi shaykh affiliated with one or another tariqah, Sufi order, guiding the Sultan in spiritual matters. Some of those shaykhs are better known than others, such as Shaykh Edebali (d. 1326 ) for Osman Bey, the first Ottoman Sultan (d.1324 ); Emir Bukhari—known as Emir Sultan (d. 1429 CE)—for Beyaz?d I (reign until 1402); Akshamsaddin (d. 1459) for Mehmet II (d. 1481), the conquer of Constantinople; and Shaykh Yahya Efendi (d. 1569) for Suleyman I the Magnificent (d. 1566). Alongside with the official shaykhulislam post of religious affairs in the Ottoman state system, the above-mentioned spiritual guidanceship seems an informal check-balance system within the powerful Ottoman autocracy in general, and over the sultan as the head of the state in particular. In this regard, Ismail Haqqi Bursawi (1653-1725 CE), a prolific scholar in Islamic sciences, the author of his magnum opus “Ruh al-Bayan fi Tafsir al-Qur’an,” a comphrehensive Sufi exegesis work, and the Shaykh of the Jalwati order in his time, seems to be engaged in a similar position, especially in the reign of Ahmed III (reigned from 1703 to 1730), the ruler during the infamous “Tulip Era”. Bursawi, however, was not as influential as the earlier Shaykhs. Realizing that he was not being taken seriously, the Shaykh returned to Bursa shortly before his death. In fact, no other Shaykh was successful in gaining influence over the Sultan—and probably therefore not really well-known—in the imperial Ottoman system after Bursawi, and none of them even became as well-known as Bursawi had been. What was the reason for it? How did Bursawi struggle to make his voice heard? How did the Shaykh address the issue? Was it due to the fact that the Ottomans had established the state system in an imperial structure that there was really no need for these spiritual masters, or just simply that the Sultans had neglected the tradition after the 16th century? This paper tries to find answers to these questions, through a closer look over the example of Ismail Haqqi Bursawi.