Between Two Worlds Kafadar.pdf

Obviously the gaza thesis was much more flexible than its critics made it out to
be. It could be incorporated, as Inalcik did in his article mentioned above,
into a matrix of factors that included material ones even if Wittek himself
seemed reluctant to do so. After an outline of the migrations of Turcoman tribes
to western Anatolia that created a "great demographic potential and a heightened
Holy War ideology," Inalcik writes that
a thrust by this explosive frontier society... was accomplished in the
following stages: 1) it began with the seasonal movements of the Turcoman
nomadic groups into the Byzantine coastal plains; 2) it was intensified by the
organization of small raiding groups under ghazi leaders, mostly of tribal
origin, for booty raids or for employment as mercenaries; 3) it continued with
the emergence of successful leaders capable of bringing together under their
clientship local chiefs to conquer and then establish beyliks
(principalities)...; 4) with the involvement of these ghazi-beyliks, with
their definite political and economic aims, in the regional struggle for
supremacy in the Aegean and in the Balkans.
He still refers to gazi bands but calls them "ghazi-mercenary bands," for whom,
due to "the generally rising prices of slaves... enslavement of the neighborhood
'infidels' became a most profitable business as well as a 'pious' act."[73] This
was an account that tried to maintain a balance, or rather to argue for an
interdependency, between the material and ideo-
― 59 ―
logical factors whereby the "Holy War ideology, as much as the success of the
actual raids, reinforced ties within the [gazi-mercenary] band to produce a
cohesive social group centered around the leader."[74]
On that basis, we can proceed to our tour of the medieval Anatolian sources that
have a direct bearing on the ethos of the frontier warriors and the early
Ottomans.
― 60 ―
Chapter 2
The Sources
There is not one incontrovertibly authentic written document from Osman's days
as a beg.[1] And that is only appropriate for a chief who, when asked by a
dervish for a document to confirm the granting of a village as freehold, is
reported to have replied: "You ask me for a piece of paper as if I [knew how to
] write. Here, I have a sword left from my forefathers. Let me give that to you.
And I will also give you a cup. Let them both remain in your hands. And let them
[who come after you] preserve these tokens. And if God Almighty endorses my bid
for this service [of rulership], let my descendants observe that token and
certify it." Relating this legend in the late fifteenth century, the chronicler
Apz, himself a dervish, hastens to add that the sword is still in the hands of
the holy man's offspring and that it is visited by every new ruler. We have,
unfortunately, no extant sword that qualifies or any reliable records of its
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