The Candarli family dominated the early Ottoman central state apparatus for over a century, producing several important grand viziers as well as a number of other officials. During this time, the Ottomans changed from a small raiding principality to a world empire coextensive with Byzantium in its heyday, ruled from its former capital of Constantinople (Istanbul). This transformation happened largely under the leadership of the Candarli family, whose founder Kara Halil Hayreddin Pasa is credited (or better yet, blamed) by various early Ottoman chronicles for the introduction of such imperial institutions as the janissaries and central taxation. This paper will briefly present the problems associated with studying the Candarli, whose image for posterity has been tarnished by their demonization in the chronicles, and how these problems can be remedied by a critical reading of the texts in question alongside other sources.

Ottoman military activities on both the east and western borders of the empire brought new geographies and peoples under Ottoman administration throughout the sixteenth century. During this period, Ottoman ruling elites and intellectuals advocated or critiqued the imperial claims of the Ottoman dynasty for universal leadership. Among them were a group of travelers, historians, sea captains, poets, and astrologers who created a separate body of geographical literature in the sixteenth century. They systematized the production and diffusion of geographical works and relocated existing visual and textual knowledge according to a centralized vision of the state. In their works, the authors narrated and depicted the geographical, political and social features of the Ottoman realm and different parts of the world. In doing so, they reaffirmed the centrality of their Empire as well as emphasized the imperial future of its sultan as the "possessor" of this world. My analysis is primarily based on an early sixteenth-century Ottoman travel account focusing on China: Khitay-nameh (Book on China), prepared by Ali Ekber Hitayi in 1516. Through an examination of this travel account I delineate how the boundaries of the Ottoman world were conceived during the eve of the Ottoman conquest of Egypt by Selim I. A close examination of this travel account highlights Ottoman efforts to integrate the distant lands into the Ottoman geographical consciousness. I suggest that through depicting the geographies and peoples of far away regions of the world, Ottoman geographers attempted to consolidate Ottoman claims regarding their central position in the world as part of the imperial image-making enterprise.

The 1517 Ottoman Conquest of Egypt, especially the conditions of the political transition from Mamluk to Ottoman rule, has been studied in modern scholarship primarily through certain well-established and canonical Ottoman Turkish and Arabic speaking commentators. The perspectives of these commentators on the Ottomans and the conquest's ramifications for the region helped shape a varied understanding of the Ottoman enterprise, including its glory, success, failure, bloodshed, and violence, as well as the chaos that ensued during and its aftermath. However, the predominant historical narrative is lacking and limited in its incorporation and analysis of dissenting and critical voices of the imperial project, as well as certain political agendas that provoked rebellions against the Ottoman government between 1517 and late 1520s. This was a very complex historical period for all of Egypt's inhabitants, including its conquerors and governing elites. Issues such as the political and ideological dimensions of the conquest, Selim's position vis-v-vis the religious implications of warfare against fellow Muslims, and Ottoman interpretations of the idea of holy war have yet to be evaluated in order to achieve a balanced perspective on the Ottoman imperial enterprise in the East. In my paper, I will revisit these issues and challenge the limits of the imperial enterprise in Egypt, as well as the overall success attributed to it. I will do so by textually analyzing narrative texts that depict the interactions and dialogues of three protagonists: Gilteni, Diyarbekri, and Sultan Selim. As their paths converge, I will investigate these men who reflected on the Ottoman presence before its reign, lead the conquest, lived under Ottoman sovereignty, served them, and voiced frustrations with their government and legitimacy. By focusing on 1517-1520, I will challenge perspectives that see this period as part of the ascendant Ottoman imperial narrative and as reflective of the larger success story of integrating Egypt into the larger Ottoman polity. I will pay special attention to Gtloeni, whose Ottoman Cairo years are regarded as valuable by modern-day scholars only to the extent that his experiences reinforced the argument that he was a prominent supporter of the Ottoman conquest and helped transform Egypt into an Ottoman province.

Sultan Suleyman (The Magnificent): An Emperor and a Saint The Ottoman aspirations for a universal empire have been recognized as the chief driving force behind many military, political, artistic, and economic projects in the period that began with the reign of Sultan Mehmed II and ended before 1550, during the reign of Sultan Suleyman the Magnificent. The different facets as well as the multiple fields in which these imperial ambitions were realized have offered many venues of academic investigation and produced studies that enriched our understanding of this period. What has often been forgotten, however, is that even after the 1550s, the Ottoman aspirations for a universal empire continued. In the 1550s and 1560s, the official Shehnameci team headed by the historian 'Arif and later by the crafty artist/writer Eflatun, prepared historical works that presented the Ottoman dynasty as the last of the "divinely willed empires" and its contemporaneous ruler Suleyman as the last saint (veli) king and the viceroy of God's kingdom on earth. Particularly, in the five volumes-long project named "Shahname-yi Al-i 'Osman" and in the first half of the enigmatic scroll referred to as "Tomar- i Humayun," these two writers fashioned their patron and ruler as the last representative of a chain of divinely sanctioned leaders that began with Adam. In fact, it would not be inaccurate to say that the historical vision projected in these works explains the entire human history as an unfolding aimed at the arrival of the Ottoman dynasty and its tenth ruler Suleyman. In my paper, I will discuss how this specific and apocalyptic imperial idea centered around Sultan Suleyman was shaped and narrated in the works of 'Arif and Eflatun in a period often seen as coming after the exhaustion of the Ottoman imperial aspirations when the limitations of their political dominion were finally and unwillingly recognized.