Between Two Worlds Kafadar.pdf

Still another mystery surrounds the early years and identity of Osman. In the
earliest Byzantine sources referring to him, his name is spelled with a (Image
not available.) as Atouman or Atman. Considering that the Arabic name `Uthman
and its Turkish variant `Osman are regularly rendered with a q or (Image not
available.) or (Image not available) in the Greek sources, some scholars have
concluded that the founder of the Ottoman beglik did have a Turkish name at
first, perhaps At(a)man, and that it was later changed to `Osman .[11]
Curiously, one of the earliest Arabic sources to mention his name, the
geographical work of al-`Umari from the 1330s, also spells it with (Image not
available) in one of two occurrences (but "correctly" in another mention).[12]
And there is an echo of this "other name" in a later Turkish source, the
hagiography of Haci Bektas Veli , written in the fifteenth century.[13]
One does not need to revive Gibbons's theory of Osman's conversion to Islam from
paganism to consider this name change possible and relevant. Turkish names were,
as they are now, commonly given to children born Muslim, and this practice,
though diminished, did not disappear within the Ottoman family very quickly; the
name of Ertogril was given to the eldest son of Bayezid I ca. 1376 and that of
Oguz to a son of Prince Cem in the second half of the fifteenth century. Orhan's
imam, to choose an example from the class of religious functionaries, called his
son Yahsi . Namely, being born with a Turkish name certainly did not imply being
born non-Muslim.[14] If Osman was called Atman, however, and adopted a similar
but more prestigious Arabic name later on, this could point to an important
turning point in the self-identity or political ideology of the
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early Ottomans, probably an intensification of their claims to representing the
struggle for the faith sometime after the huruc of Ertogril's son.
The fragmentary nature of Bithynia's political landscape at the time can hardly
be exaggerated. The dynamics of political life in the area seem to have been
shaped by units as small as villages, small towns, nomadic tribes (with no
sizable confederative articulation), and dervish or monastic religions
communities and attached estates. These small units fashioned their political
destinies mostly within the matrix of local dynamics, usually with minimal and
sporadic intervention by the authorities of established political centers. Many
decisions and preparations concerning war and peace, alliance and conflict, were
apparently made locally by the leaders of those communities. Even the long siege
of Bursa, one of the most important towns in Bithynia, was suffered by its
inhabitants with no significant involvement on the part of the imperial
government in Constantinople.[15]
This political wilderness is one of the important reasons why the notion of
"frontiers" is applicable to western Anatolia at this time. However, the area
was not free from all interference by the larger authorities in political
centers. Not only did they have real muscle, which they occasionally used in
these regions, but perhaps more importantly they also maintained significant
control over mechanisms of legitimation that were part of the political language
of the frontiers. Thus, the autonomy of small frontier powers should not be
exaggerated. Whatever their levels of physical and/or mental distance, the
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