Between Two Worlds Kafadar.pdf

origins might well serve as a metaphor for all kinds of social ambiguities other
than or in addition to an ethnic one, which has been the sole focus in
literalist readings of historicist folklore.[63] That the soiled and the sacred,
the two faces of what lies beyond the normal, are related to one another must be
obvious to readers of Mary Douglas, the anthropologist, or of La dame aux
camélias , the novel; hence the attributes of impurity and ambiguity can express
sacredness embodied in a Digenis or in Danismend's companions. While the
preceding interpretation of the frontier legends is not meant to provide the
only or the most privileged reading, I would still maintain that the selection
of ethnic fluidity as a meaningful and popular metaphor for social ambiguity in
medieval Anatolia cannot have been totally arbitrary.
In addition to the plasticity of identities in frontier environments, we must
note the possibility of cooperative ventures by people of different identities
at any given moment even if those identities may be seen to be engaged in a
conflict in a larger setting. In fact, contrary to modem scholars' arguments as
to the incompatibility of the gaza spirit and cooperation with or toleration of
infidels, the congruity of these two allegedly disharmonious attitudes appears
to be a topos in frontier literature which reveals an essential point concerning
the gaza spirit: it is, among other things, an attempt to gain hearts and minds;
it is always possible that the pure-hearted infidel will join your fold. He or
she is not necessarily an enemy to the bitter end.
Numerous examples of such collaboration — real or metaphorical or both — occur
in gaza narratives. I have already mentioned the case of Köse Mihal and Osman as
well as the one of Umur Beg and Kantakouzenos. Wittek, too, explicitly noted the
possibility of cooperative under-
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takings, such as the one between a certain Nicetas the Greek and a Saladinus ca.
1278 on the Carla coast.[64] Even in gazavatnames produced much more
self-consciously and knowledgeably in later orthodox environments, to develop a
friendly relation with an infidel was not frowned upon. In the gests of
Hayreddin Pasa (Barbarossa), grand admiral of Suleyman the Magnificent, for
instance, the gazi seaman captures a large number of Christian ships and their
captains, including the renowned Captain Ferando. When he sees that the brave
infidel is wounded, the pasha orders that "a building in the palace complex [of
Algiers] be vacated and reserved for Ferando and that surgeons visit him and
serve him all day" until he is cured.[65]
A late-seventeenth-century novella of the Mediterranean corsairs shows how
exigencies could render the transition from Christian-Muslim cooperation to the
championing of Muslim faith abrupt yet relatively unproblematic[66] .The author
tells us that he and some other Muslims were captured by Christian corsairs
while traveling from Alexandria to Istanbul. In a most surprising narrative
twist, the warden of the corsair ship turns out to be the protagonist of the
story; he delivers the Muslims from captivity and leads them, along with some of
his "infidel" shipmates, to glorious and gainful adventures on the seas. As a
group, the Christian sailors, including the warden, are referred to as "dirty
infidels"; the world is divided into "us" and "them" in a confrontational
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