Between Two Worlds Kafadar.pdf

eflected in the 1337 inscription is due to the Muslim scholars who "began to
gather in the Ottoman domains" in the reign of Orhan . "In the earliest days the
most visible representatives of Islam were dervishes, but soon thereafter more
orthodox figures emigrated from the east in order to serve, and be served by,
the Ottomans ... to the secure revenues accruing from the settled administration
of the Ottoman future they added the gift of an orthodox heroic past.... The
gaza became a useful convention for interpreting, to orthodox and sedentary
audiences, the formative years of the dynasty."[135] No doubt an influx of
Muslim schoolmen to Ottoman domains occurred during the rule of Orhan , or even
as early as that of Osman, as the
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traditions concerning the conquest of Karacahisar imply. However, no sources
link these schoolmen specifically to the gaza ideology, though undoubtedly they
were well aware of the concept and upheld their own version of it.
On the contrary, one exceptionally poignant line of criticism encountered in
early Ottoman chronicles representing the gazi point of view is the one raised
against the danismends (schoolmen) and the ulema who came to the Ottoman domains
from the cultural centers. These sources accuse such groups of introducing many
novelties and leading the rulers astray from their original path. The tenor of
this criticism is nowhere as sharp as in the anonymous chronicles and, to a
lesser extent, in Apz's text, namely, in the sources that can be the most
closely associated with the gazi-dervish milieu. If the Muslim schoolmen coming
from the east were the innovators and propagators of the gaza ideology, why are
the books reflecting that gaza ideology vehemently critical of them? The truth
of the matter is that the more orthodox figures who emigrated from the east were
rivals of the dervishes, who were "the most visible representatives of Islam"
and of the struggle for the faith, as these were understood in the early years
of the Ottomans. Furthermore, it would be unfair to another, often neglected,
social group to restrict the representatives of religious life in early Ottoman
history to the dervishes. Looking at fifteenth- and sixteenth-century land
surveys conducted in the areas of early Ottoman conquests, which meticulously
record the grants and endowments made by the previous generations, it is dear
that a large group of fakihs , apparently not as sophisticated as the ulema in
terms of their educational background and administrative expertise, enjoyed the
support of early Ottoman chiefs and warriors in return for religio-juridical
services.[136] This group, too, would obviously have much to lose with the
ascendancy of the medrese-trained scholar-bureaucrats, the ulema.
The ties of the dervishes to the gazi milieu are attested to in the
hagiographies and the gazi lore analyzed above; copious evidence of the ties of
both dervishes (naturally, of some orders) and fakihs to the early Ottoman
chiefs and warriors can be found in the land surveys. No wonder that the most
lively and sympathetic accounts of early Ottoman gaza traditions were maintained
among the later representatives of these milieux. The anonymous chronicles and
the YF-Apz narrative are imbued with a nostalgia for those early years when
their ruler, as these sources would have it, had not yet been seduced by the
ulema and the courtiers into adopting the habits of sedentary, bureaucratic
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