Between Two Worlds Kafadar.pdf

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strategy?[57] In a world where any self-respecting polity of some scale could
make claims to "world rule," does it make sense to expect people to operate with
the concepts of defense and aggression as defined in a world of nation-states in
"eternal" homelands with "inviolable" boundaries? Therefore, in the context of
medieval Anatolian frontiers, a discussion of jihad as an offensive or defensive
undertaking would be to some extent academic.
Nevertheless, a difference between jihad and gaza was maintained whereby the
latter term implied irregular raiding activity whose ultimate goal was (or at
least the warriors and their supporters could imagine that it was) the expansion
of the power of Islam. Gaza, after all, had the original sense only of a
"predatory raid" or "excursion into foreign territory."[58] It is not at all
certain when the word acquired an exclusively religious connotation or whether
this semantic transformation was complete by the fourteenth century. Even then,
gaza was a lesser category than jihad. Canonical works describe it as a lesser
farz (religious duty); that is, contributing to it was not incumbent upon
everyone in the Muslim community as was the case with jihad. The recently
discovered codebook of fourteenth-century western Anatolia reveals that the same
understanding prevailed in that environment.[59]
The much more striking point that emerges from that codebook, however, is that
gaza, even when defined legalistically, did not preclude certain practices that
some modern scholars prohibit to the warriors of the faith. While delineating
the rules for the distribution of the pot deriving from gaza, this treatise with
no inhibitions mentions the "share of the infidels" in case the latter have
contributed to the acquisition of booty.
Naturally, the day-to-day business of the frontiers could not be expected to
conform to most standards laid down in such codebooks even if the codes
themselves were well known and had some pragmatism built into them. In fact,
that must be the reason why works like this were produced; who would need
codebooks if all the codes were internalized and applied? The actual behavior of
the gaza-minded must be a combination of canonical codes that they were familiar
with (not necessarily accurately, and primarily through oral transmission),
emulation of examples known to them personally or through gazi lore, and various
other considerations arising from the particular circumstances of the moment as
well as shared norms of conduct such as honor and glory. These different
elements may have contradicted one another at times, and a successful leader
would probably be the one who would find
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the most appropriate resolution to such conflicts without ending up in failure
or giving rise to questions of illegitimacy vis-à-vis his authority.
It is difficult to imagine any ideological complex without potentially and, at
times, actually conflicting norms. Is there not always a tension between
principles of "individual freedoms" and "law and order," for instance, in modem
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