Between Two Worlds Kafadar.pdf

whose establishment spelled the end of the Ottoman dynastic regime, is clear: in
the "long durée" of Ottoman political history, the political tension of
"Istanbul versus another city" represented a symbolically potent axis that
defined different sociopolitical interests, preferences, and visions. In the
Saltukname , we find the first occurrence of this axis (in the form of Istanbul
versus Edirne), along whose lines a meaningful opposition to the central state
can be identified.
In the fifteenth century, this opposition came from the gazi circles of Rumelia
because the definitive consolidation of Ottoman imperial policies after the
conquest of Istanbul represented the final blow to their autonomy, which had
been eroding since at least the 1370s. Some of the authors of that era who had
been steeped in the gazi milieu and were able to understand their plight managed
to convey their sense of resentment in an interconnected corpus of narratives,
the Tevarih-i Al-i`Osman , which enables us to follow the history of the Ottoman
dynasty as the increasing alienation of the ruler from the mores, customs, and
lifestyle of an idealized frontier society of a bygone era.
It would not be realistic to attempt an exhaustive account of the precise nature
of the gasses' role in early Ottoman history and of their relations with other
social groups such as the dervishes, the nomads, or
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the kapikulus . The main aim here has been to demonstrate the possibility of
speaking of a gazi milieu in medieval Anatolia. The gazis are discernible as a
specific social group during the first two centuries of Ottoman history.
Whatever the significance of the role they played in the emergence of the
Ottoman state, they were not imaginary creations of the Ottoman ulema as
relentless fighters against the infidels. They represented a specific segment of
the medieval Anatolian frontier society with their own customs and lore,
interests and alliances, within a coalition that had so much success that it
eventually devoured some of its members.
Like so many other elements of that coalition, such as the pastoralist tribes
and the eventually heterodox dervishes, the gazis, too, represented a concrete
social group which was eventually left out of the ruling stratum as an imperial,
centralized polity emerged under the leadership of the House of Osman, who had
once been one of their kind, one of the gazi begs. An illustrative example of
this change is the case of Mahaloglu `Ali Beg, sixteenth-century heir to a long
and illustrious line of frontier lords, descendants of one of Osman's renowned
fellow warriors, who was told to curtail his gaza activity according to the
decisions of the Sublime Porte. Whereas a raid used to be a matter of local or
regional proportions and of basically personal gain for a gazi in terms of its
immediate consequences, it had by then become a matter in the realm of
international Realpolitik. So, when Suleyman the Magnificent struck a peace
treaty with the Habsburgs and intended to keep it, Mihaloglu was ordered to
refrain from conducting raids into their territory. What that meant for the gazi
is captured in a witty simile by Nihali , a kadi and a poet who was known as the
Ca`fer of Galata because of his indulgence in wine, which often took him to the
pubs in that part of Istanbul: "To give `Ali Beg [a commanders position in] an
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