Between Two Worlds Kafadar.pdf

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chronicles relate that another prominent figure in the Bithynian frontier at the
time of Osman was a certain Sheikh Ede Bali, who "displayed many miraculous
deeds and was the pivot of the people's faith. He was known as a dervish, but
dervishness was in his esoteric being. He had plenty of worldly belongings and
livestock."[79] This rancher-dervish may have been a fictive character, but the
fictionalizing chroniclers of the early Ottoman gaza exploits had so much
respect for the character that they made him the father-in-law of Osman Gazi.
Thus another pair of seemingly contradictory values could peacefully coexist in
the frontier: on the one hand, living one's life according to high ideals that
may demand self-sacrifice; and on the other, the pursuit of wealth and glory. As
long as one knew when and where to give priority to the right drive, and as long
as one knew how to dispose of wealth (through charity, hospitality, gift giving,
appropriate ostentatious display, etc.), wealth was not just acceptable but even
incumbent upon anyone who wanted to achieve prominence and good repute as a
champion of the faith.
In order to enjoy one's riches without embarrassment, however, one had to be
dear about one's priorities. Erie Bali, for instance, was rich but "his
guesthouse would never be vacant."[80] On the other hand, even charitable
distribution could be suspect if accompanied by the wrong kind of secondary
motives. Some were sharp enough to note, for instance, that generosity could be
a morally hollow gesture, a means to a self-serving end. Such a perception led
to rivalry between two community leaders in Arab Malatya, the ultimate frontier
town at the time of the Byzantine-Arab struggles: "`Abd-al-Wahhab . . . wrote to
Abu-Ja`far stating that he [`Abd-al-Wahhab ] gave food to the people, but
al-Hasan distributed many times more, his aim being to contend with him for
superiority in beneficence."[81] The traveler Ibn Battuta cherished the
competitive hospitality that he observed in Anatolia in the 1330s, but one can
only imagine that some host manqué might have read similarly ulterior motives
into the beneficence of those who snatched the guest.
If even charity could be equivocal, pursuit of material returns most certainly
could be. There were times when the appetite for bounty looked excessive and the
zeal for the faith wanting. Only a few days before the conquest of
Constantinople, for instance, the ultimate goal of Muslim gazis for centuries,
Aksemseddin , the Sufi mentor of Mehmed II, was obviously frustrated by the
failed attempts to conclude the protracted siege and wrote a letter to the
sultan which reveals how piercing leaders of gaza could be in conceptualizing
their ventures. "You know well," the dervish writes of the Ottoman soldiers,
"that fewer than a few among
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them are ready to sacrifice their lives for the sake of God, but as soon as they
see booty they are ready to walk into fire for the sake of this world."[82]
We have seen, however, that as long as one could maintain a balance between the
two concerns, which must have been easier when gaza brought quick and plentiful
returns, one need not be shy about the appeal of bounty. Engaged in battle and
plunder on his way from Delhi to Kashmir, Timur was invited by his commanders to
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