Between Two Worlds Kafadar.pdf

construct of a settled civilization and... in many places accommodation between
nomad and farmer is mutually profitable."[70] Accommodation and symbiosis were
possible and occurred much more often than historians have so far recognized;
identities changed, inclusivism was common, and heterogeneity was not frowned
upon. Still, hostilities and exclusions were, or could be, part of the same
environment, and one should be careful not to romanticize, whatever the weight
of inclusivism in frontier realities or narratives.
Beyond inclusivism, a "code of honour serves in Digenes as a kind of lingua
franca for the frontier peoples" as it does in the earliest recorded narratives
about Osman.[71] In these traditions, which portray him as a
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gazi, Osman enjoyed friendly relations with his Christian neighbor, the lord of
Bilecik, until the latter plotted against him. In another version, the rupture
occurred because the Christian lord treated Osman with arrogance. If the gazi
identity mandated indiscriminate warfare against the infidel, Osman would not
have needed an excuse to attack the Christians; but it is only when they act
dishonorably that this gazi takes action against his Byzantine neighbors. Osman
was thus driven to undertake military action not because of any automatic
compulsion to finish off the unbelievers but because of a breach of confidence
or etiquette.
It is also noteworthy that, to take the most legendary, the most "Osmanname
"-like, early sections in those chronicles, his hostility seems to be directed
primarily toward the "Tatars" rather than toward Bithynian Christians, just as
Digenis's main enemies apparently are the "apelatai" rather than the
Muslims.[72] And this higher hostility did reappear at least once more, at the
time of Timur's invasion. According to the contemporary historian Ibn `Arabshah
, who knew both Timurid and Ottoman traditions from within, Bayezid asked Timur
to "not leave the Tatars in this country, for they are material for wickedness
and crime .... and they are more harmful to the Muslims and their countries than
the Christians themselves."[73]
Recognizing the role of honor and etiquette enables us to understand that being
a gazi means that one fights not necessarily for a particular set of beliefs but
for one's side, which defines itself through its upholding, perhaps ignorantly,
of a religions identity that claims, perhaps inaccurately, to be based on a set
of beliefs and rituals. Once one has chosen a side, it goes without saying that
one's side has the right beliefs; when one is fighting, one is not necessarily,
and probably not very often, thinking of one's belief system. To the extent that
system has permeated one's values and practices (and whether these are orthodox
or not is not always a meaningful question), one is embedded in it anyway. The
rest can be a question of honor (one does not want to let one's side down in
that category) or worldly gain (why should it not be your side that enjoys the
bounty of God?) or a combination of these and many other considerations.
Whether championing one's faith or protecting one's honor, or both, a frontier
warrior or even a dervish could, without contradicting himself, seek and enjoy
material benefits so long as he had his priorities straight. Had gaza been the
kind of puritanical struggle implied in a literal reading of the notion of holy
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