Between Two Worlds Kafadar.pdf

Endriyye. And whoever wishes to destroy the infidels and the enemy, should
remain in Edirne since it is the hearth of the gazis. There is no better place
for gaza than that. This world is like a ring; Rumelia is the seal of the ring
and the middle of that seal is Endriyye. Whoever has this [land of] Rum like a
seal on his finger, the center [could also be read as "the capital"] of his
ring should be this site. It is the inner sanctum of [the land of] Rum .
The holy man also prophesies that a sultan named Mehmed will appear and conquer
Constantinople; that city will eventually be destroyed due to "corruption,
adultery, sodomy, and tyranny," but not Edirne "unless Muslims give up
gaza."[64] Later, during the siege of the Byzantine capital, Sari Saltuk appears
to Mehmed II in a dream and gives him the keys to the city but urges the young
sultan to keep these keys in Edirne and never to neglect the latter city since
it is the "ancient and holy abode of the gazis."[65]
Do we not find here an expression of the gazis' dismay at the ascendancy of a
kapikulu -dominated central administration in Istanbul? The compiler of the
Saltukname also reports that Cem promised to reside in Edirne, the "abode of
gazis," if he became sultan. For the gazis, this was a promise of a change of
policy that would restore their honor and power. For Cem, it defined his
clientele in his future bid for the sultanate.[66] The opposition to Cem in his
later struggle (1481-82) for the throne indeed came from some key grandees and
the kapikulu army, who favored and managed to enthrone Bayezid . Thereafter, the
ascendancy of a kul-based administration was sealed, and the gazis never again
played as significant a role in guiding the Ottoman polity. The resentment of
the pro-Edirne party may have lived on for a while; it is probably not
coincidental that in the succession struggles (1511-12) of the next generation
one particular historian, Ruhi of Edirne, criticized Selim , the candidate of
the kul soldiery and the eventual winner.[67]
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The moving of the capital away from Istanbul, however, retained its symbolic
charge in Ottoman political history until the final days of the empire. When
`Osman II (r. 1618-22) wanted to curb the power of the kul army, he threatened
to move the capital to another city, rumored to be Bursa, Edirne, or Damascus.
Then in 1703, the Janissaries (together with the guilds and the ulema of
Istanbul) walked in revolt to Edirne, where Sultan Mustafa II (r. 1695-1703) had
been residing for years intending to reestablish it as the Ottoman capital
according to rumors; after Mustafa II was forced to abdicate, the newly chosen
Sultan Ahmed III (r. 1703-30) was taken back to Istanbul only after he promised
that he would not leave it. In the 1810s, it is reported, Mahmud II (r. 1808-38)
would threaten the Janissaries that if they did not restrain their excesses, he
would take his family and move out of Istanbul. And finally, the choice of
Ankara as the capital of the Turkish republic needs no further comment as the
symbol of an ultimate rupture from the Ottoman political order.
These incidents do not have anything to do with the gazi circles; it would be an
anachronism to talk of the frontier warriors as a political force after the
sixteenth century. Yet the thread binding these incidents, from Cem's promise to
reside in Edirne to the choice of Ankara as the capital of the Turkish republic,
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