Between Two Worlds Kafadar.pdf

existence.[2]
The only pieces of writing that survive from the days of Osman are not on paper
but on coins.[3] There is not much that one can infer from their terse formulae
about the ideology of the early Ottomans. As insignificant as his polity may
have been, Osman had obviously found the moment opportune to make the
significant political statement of sovereignty that is implied in the striking
of coins in one's own name. These findings should also put to rest the disbelief
in Ertogril as a real historical character since he is, at least on one of the
coins, referred to as Osman's father. Otherwise, but for the fact that they were
issued by a Muslim ruler, they do not reveal much about the political culture of
the little beglik.
― 61 ―
Yet we certainly do not need to wait until the time- and scholarship-worn
inscription of 1337 for some glimpses into the self-image of the early Ottomans.
A revealing piece of evidence on early Ottoman political culture is an endowment
deed from 1324.[4] Two aspects of this document indicate that already by this
early date, the budding beglik had been touched by the so-called higher Islamic,
or Persianate, ruling traditions. The deed is composed in Persian, and the first
appointee as the administrator of the endowment is identified as a manumitted
eunuch of Orhan's . Yet the true value of the document in this consideration of
the history of notions concerning "war for the faith" lies in the fact that
Orhan , in whose name the deed is issued, and his recently deceased father,
Osman, are both mentioned with their epithets: Suca`uddin and Fahruddin ,
respectively ("Champion of the Faith" and "Glory of the Faith"). These epithets
prove well beyond doubt that the Ottomans had adopted Islamic nomenclature
compatible with the rest of Anatolian Muslim society more than a decade before
the Bursa inscription. It is also impossible that Orhan would not be aware of
the meaning of Suca`uddin when his entourage included people who could produce a
canonically impeccable endowment deed in Persian.
In this world of dizzying physical mobility — crisscrossed by overlapping
networks of nomads and seminomads, raiders, volunteers on thee way to join
military adventurers, slaves of various backgrounds, wandering dervishes, monks
and churchmen trying to keep in touch with their flock, displaced peasants and
townspeople seeking refuge, disquieted souls seeking cure and consolation at
sacred sites, Muslim schoolmen seeking patronage, and the inevitable risk-driven
merchants of late medieval Eurasia — it is not at all surprising that
information traveled. So did lore and ideas, fashions and codes, of course. The
title that Orhan had adopted, "the champion of the faith," was a highly popular
one in western Anatolia among other begs of his generation; the Ottomans
obviously were up-to-date on the frontier vogue.[5] It is simply impossible to
consider that they would have been unaware of or untouched by cultural elements
that the whole region was heavily immersed in. In fact, communication between
the proto-Ottomans and their not-so-immediate neighbors can be established in
the very earliest datable record of Osman's activities. Pachymeres (d. ca.
1310), the Byzantine chronicler, writes that Osman was joined by warriors from
the Meander region, in addition to some from relatively nearby Paphlagonia, in
57