The first extant Ottoman examples of the gazavatnames, the historical works dedicated to narrating the heroic deeds of a sultan or a high ranking Ottoman official fighting against the Christians, date back to the fifteenth century and focus on the exploits of Sultan Murad II (r. 1421-1451). Assuming that these texts were composed in Murad’s time to provide factual information on his military campaigns, current scholarship has failed to read them critically in historical context. My paper not only shows that Sultan Murad’s gazavatnames were actually composed in his successor Mehmed II’s time but also argues that the image they construct for Murad should be analyzed in tandem with other contemporary representations of Murad, and most particularly, with those found in historical works composed to celebrate Mehmed’s deeds. While the gazavatnames portray Murad as a saintly figure, Mehmed’s panegyric histories suggest that he was a weak and cowardly person who wanted to escape from the battlefield. Through a close examination of these conflicting images of Murad, the paper hopes to delineate the broader political and ideological debates revolving around the issue of universal rule in the fifteenth century Ottoman Empire.

Ottoman historians conventionally explain the trials and tribulations of the fifteenth century, a dramatic period of empire building, through a discussion of the social and political dynamics of the Ottoman “core lands” comprised of two provinces that cover Western Asia Minor and the Southern Balkans. The composition and nature of the sources studied so far account for the current historiography’s depiction of political figures and groups as primary agents of historical change and therefore their representation of these two provinces as the core Ottoman lands. This paper uses less tapped sources, such as waqfiyas and takes a more comprehensive and interdisciplinary approach to the formation of the Ottoman Empire by introducing religious, intellectual and artistic actors. The methods and analytical tools borrowed from architecture, the sociology of knowledge, urban and network studies and prosopography reveal the role of the third Ottoman province, the Rum centered around the northern Anatolian city of Amasya, in the empire building process. The intellectual, artistic and religious contributions of this province to the rising Ottoman world against the backdrop of political factionalism, interregional rivalry and urban-rural conflict challenges some of the key assumptions about the center-periphery relations in the process of empire building in the early modern period. The religious aspect of Amasya’s contribution to the Ottoman imperial fabric in the context of the city’s role in the urbanization, institutionalization and “Ottomanization” of marginalized -if not demonized- Halvetiye Sufi order will be the main focus of this paper. I argue that Amasya’s mystical tradition, unique private land-ownership practices, and privileged connection with the Ottoman center translated into a shared architectural design in religious structures. Besides, the city of Amasya, by transmitting the Halvetiye Sufi order from geographical and political margins to the imperial center in both ideological and physical sense, exerted a certain degree of agency in the making of the socio-religious scene of Istanbul, the burgeoning heart of the body Ottoman.

From the early centuries of Islam, religious scholars claimed the exclusive right to produce religious knowledge, and in many instances, collectively resisted interference by political authority in this sphere. As a corollary of this claim, many scholars rejected the offer to serve government functions, since they considered that this would compromise their academic integrity and would make them acquiescent before the demands and interference of the political authority. In addition, there was a disdain for government service, because it would keep them from studying the “noble” religious disciplines. On the other hand, some scholars accepted government service and justified this with reference to the principle of exigency. Most commonly, they asserted that these government functions needed to be fulfilled by knowledgeable people, and that, if they abstained, “ignorant oppressors” would undertake these functions and would cause “many injustices.” In this paper, I will look and trace the changes at the attitudes of Ottoman religious scholars towards government employment from the 15th to the 16th centuries. I will argue that, in the 15th century, religious scholars frequently rejected, or reluctantly accepted, the offers of government employment, while, in the 16th century, the government employment became prestigious and most of religious scholars competed to receive a position. The change can be seen by following the shift in their views about excellence in learning, rank and hierarchy. In the 15th century, even the government-employed scholars desisted from asserting that their rank in the hierarchy and their proximity to the ruler showed their academic merit. The aspiration of religious scholars at the time was to surpass the level of intellectual excellence in the works of Sadeddin Taftazani (d. 1389) and Seyyid ?erif Cürcani (d. 1413). On the other hand, in the 16th century, the government hierarchy became the preponderant fact of life for religious scholars in the Ottoman lands. Many scholars wrote treatises about the praiseworthy qualities of, and otherworldly rewards acquired from, fulfilling government functions. More and more, having the top positions in government hierarchy became the marker of academic distinction and the sole objective of religious scholars.