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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 September 2024
At the core of this article lies the argument that the Ottoman grand vizierate and the rise of the Köprülü family to power in the seventeenth century should be studied and analyzed mainly within two analytical and comparative frameworks. First, we should situate the office of the grand vizier in a diachronic view of the Islamic vizierate. Second, the Köprülü grand vizierate, in particular, should be viewed as one part of a synchronic ‘Eurasian age of the chief minister,” in a historical domain stretching from early modern Mughal and Safavid worlds to European empires and kingdoms. This article presents preliminary observations that may form a blueprint for future investigations into this global aspect of the grand vizierate and chief ministry. A broad perspective that merges these diachronic and synchronic approaches will allow us to detect theoretical and practical peculiarities of the Ottoman grand vizierate in comparison to its peers in Islamic history and across early modern Eurasia. Using that Eurasian macro perspective, I argue that the Köprülü grand viziers spearheaded the restoration of an independent vizierial authority that was idealized by generations of pre-Ottoman and Ottoman political writers and had numerous precedents in Islamic history.1
1 Between September 2023 and August 2026, I will carry out at the Institute for Habsburg and Balkan Studies of the Austrian Academy of Sciences a new project called GraViz: Das osmanische Großwesirat (1560–1760) (P 36216-G). Funded by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF), the project will explore the role of the grand vizier in Ottoman-European diplomacy. The current article is the first scholarly product of the project.
2 I would like to thank my colleagues Georg B. Michels and Christopher Whitehead for their insightful commentary on an earlier draft of the article. I also thank the anonymous reviewer for the helpful criticism.
3 In a medallion issued to celebrate the Ottoman Reform Edict of 1856, the name of Köprülü Mehmed Pasha was engraved next to Sultan Mehmed II, Süleyman I, and Tanzimat-era statesmen Reşit Pasha and Ali Pasha who, in the imagination of the mid-nineteenth century Ottomans, together belonged to a club of great Ottoman reformists in the history of the empire. Deringil, Selim, Simgeden Millete: 2. Abdülhamid'den Mustafa Kemal'e Devlet ve Millet, 5th ed. (İstanbul: İletişim Yayınları, 2007), 62Google Scholar. For the most recent analyses of the family's portrayal by Ottoman writers from the seventeenth to the early twentieth century, see: Bekar, Cumhur, “Köprülü Mehmed Paşa'nın Osmanlı Tarih Yazımında Değişen Algısı,” Tarihyazımı 1, no. 1 (2019): 62–78Google Scholar; Muhammed Fatih Çalışır, “A Virtuous Grand Vizier: Politics and Patronage in the Ottoman Empire During the Grand Vizierate of Fazıl Ahmed Paşa (1661–1676)” (unpub. PhD diss., Georgetown University, 2016), 11–17.
4 For instance, Stephen F. Dale did not analyze the office of grand vizier in his comparative narrative of the three empires. Dale, Stephen Frederic, The Muslim Empires of the Ottomans, Safavids, and Mughals (Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010)Google Scholar.
5 Kunt, Metin, “Naima, Köprülü and the Grand Vizierate,” Boğaziçi Üniversitesi Dergisi 1 (1973): 57–64Google Scholar; “Ethnic-Regional (Cins) Solidarity in the Seventeenth-Century Ottoman Establishment,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 5, no. 3 (1974): 233–39; “The Köprülü Years: 1656–1661” (unpub. PhD diss., Princeton University, 1975); “Kulların Kulları,” Boğaziçi Üniversitesi Dergisi Hümaniter Bilimler 3 (1975): 27–42; The Sultan's Servants: The Transformation of Ottoman Provincial Government, 1550–1650 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1983); “The Waqf as an Instrument of Public Policy: Notes on the Köprülü Family Endowments,” in Studies in Ottoman History in Honor of Professor V. L. Ménage, ed. Colin Heywood and Colin Imber (İstanbul: The Isis Press, 1994), 189–98; “Turks in the Ottoman Imperial Palace,” in Royal Courts in Dynastic States and Empires A Global Perspective, ed. Jeroen Duindam, Tülay Artan, and Metin Kunt, Rulers & Elites (Leiden: Brill, 2011), 289–312; Abou-El-Haj, Rifa'at, “The Ottoman Vezir and Paşa Households 1683–1703: A Preliminary Report,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 94, no. 4 (1974): 438–47CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Abou-El-Haj, Rifaʻat, “Ottoman Attitudes Towards Peace-Making: The Karlowitz Case,” Der Islam 51 (1974): 131–37Google Scholar.
6 This is a representative list of studies on the Köprülüs; it is not an exhaustive bibliography. Yılmaz, Fehmi, “The Life of Köprülüzade Fazıl Mustafa Pasha and His Reforms (1637–1691),” Osmanlı Araştırmaları 20 (2000): 165–221Google Scholar; Özkan, “Amcazade Hüseyin Paşa'nın Hayatı ve Faaliyetleri, (1644–1702)”; Olnon, Merlijn, “‘A Most Agreeable and Pleasant Creature’? Merzifonlu Kara Mustafa Paşa in the Correspondence of Justinus Colyer (1668–1682),” Oriente Moderno 22, no. 3 (2003): 649–69Google Scholar; Baer, Marc David, Honored by the Glory of Islam: Conversion and Conquest in Ottoman Europe (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sultan Murat Topçu, “XVII. Yüzyıl Ikinci Yarısında Etkin Bir Bani Ailesi: Köprülüler” (unpub. PhD diss., Erciyes Üniversitesi, 2010); Yıldız, Murat, “Bir Osmanlı Veziriazamının Mal Varlığı: Amcazâde Hüseyin Paşa'nın Muhallefatı,” Türk Kültürü İncemeleri Dergisi 26 (2012): 67–106Google Scholar; Kolçak, Özgür, “‘Şahinler'in Pençesinde Bir Erdel Hükümdarı: Köprülü İktidarı ve II. György Rakoczi,” Güneydoğu Avrupa Araştırmaları Dergisi, no. 23 (2013): 25–52Google Scholar; Merlijn Olnon, “‘Brought Under the Law of the Land’ The History, Demography and Georgraphy of Crossculturalism in Early Modern İzmir, and the Köprülü Project of 1678” (Leiden, Leiden University Press, 2013); Yasir Yılmaz, “The Road to Vienna: Habsburg and Ottoman Statecraft during the Time of Grand Vizier Kara Mustafa Pasa (1676–1683)” (unpub. PhD diss., West Lafayette, IN, Purdue University, 2015); Reindl-Kiel, Hedda, “The Must-Haves of a Grand Vizier: Merzifonlu Kara Mustafa Pasha's Luxury Assets,” Wiener Zeitschrift Für Die Kunde Des Morgenlandes 106 (2016): 179–221Google Scholar; Yasir Yılmaz, “Grand Vizieral Authority Revisited”; Çalışır, “A Virtuous Grand Vizier”; Reindl-Kiel, Hedda, “Diamonds Are a Vizier's Best Friends or: Merzifonlu Kara Mustafa's Jewelry Assets,” in Living the Good Life, ed. Akçetin, Elif and Faroqhi, Suraiya (Leiden: Brill, 2017), 409–32CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Cumhur Bekar, “The Rise of the Köprülü Family: The Reconfiguration of Vizierial Power in the Seventeenth Century” (unpub. PhD diss., Leiden University, 2019); Kolçak, Özgür, “Köprülü Enterprises in Yanova ([Boros]Jenő/Ineu) and Varad ([Nagy]Várad/Oradea): Consolidating Ottoman Power and Accumulating Family Wealth (1657–1664),” Archivum Ottomanicum, no. 37 (2020): 69–86Google Scholar; Bekar, Cumhur, “The Rise of the Köprülü Household: The Transformation of Patronage in the Ottoman Empire in the Seventeenth Century,” Turkish Historical Review 11, no. 2–3 (2021): 229–56CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Michels, Georg B., The Habsburg Empire Under Siege: Ottoman Expansion and Hungarian Revolt in the Age of Grand Vizier Ahmed Köprülü (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2021)Google Scholar; Şakul, Kahraman, II. Viyana Kuşatması: Yedi Başlı Ejderin Fendi (Timaş Yayınları, 2021)Google Scholar; Kamaniçe Kuşatması 1672 (Timaş Yayınları, 2021); Uyvar Kuşatması 1663 (Timaş Yayınları, 2021); Bekar, Cumhur, “‘The Ottoman Revolution of 1661’: The Reconfiguration of Political Power under Mehmed IV and Köprülü Grand Viziers,” Journal of Early Modern History, 2022, 1–30Google Scholar; Akbulut, Mehmet Yılmaz, Hekimoğlu Ali Paşa: Paşalar Çağının Şeyhülvüzerası (Timaş Akademi: 2022)Google Scholar; Aydar, Metin, Merzifonlu Kara Mustafa Paşa Kızıl Elmaya Adanmış Bir Ömür (Timaş Akademi, 2023)Google Scholar.
7 Paul Rycaut, The Present State of the Ottoman Empire: Containing the Maxims of the Turkish Politie, the Most Material Points of the Mahometan Religion, Their Sects and Heresies, Their Convents and Religious Votaries, Their Military Discipline …: Illustrated with Divers Pieces of Sculpture, Representing the Variety of Habits amongst the Turks, in Three Books, 3rd ed. (London: Printed for John Starkey and Henry Brome: and are to be sold by Robert Boulter, 1670), 41–50; von Hammer-Purgstall, Joseph, Des Osmanischen Reichs Staatsverfassung Und Staatsverwaltung, vol. 2 (Wien: Camesinasche Buchhandlung, 1815), 79–101Google Scholar.
8 Hammer, 82.
9 Taneri, Aydın, Osmanlı İmparatorluğu'nun Kuruluş döneminde Vezir-i Azamlık 1299–1453 (Ankara: Ankara Üniversitesi Basımevi, 1974)Google Scholar.
10 Uzunçarşılı, İsmail Hakkı, Osmanlı Devletinin Merkez ve Bahriye Teşkilâtı (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu, 1948)Google Scholar.
11 Faroqhi, Suraiya, “Das Großwesir-Telhis: Eine Aktenkundliche Studie,” Der Islam 45, no. 1 (1969): 96–116Google Scholar; Fodor, Pál, “Sultan, Imperial Council, Grand Vizier: Changes in the Ottoman Ruling Elite and the Formation of the Grand Vizieral ‘Telkhis,’” Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 47, no. 1/2 (1994): 67–85Google Scholar; Fodor, Pál, “The Grand Vizieral Telhis: A Study in the Ottoman Central Administration, 1566–1656,” Archivum Ottomanicum 15 (1997): 137–88Google Scholar.
12 Yılmaz, Hüseyin, Caliphate Redefined: The Mystical Turn in Ottoman Political Thought (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2018)Google Scholar; Sariyannis, Marinos, A History of Ottoman Political Thought up to the Early Nineteenth Century (Leiden: Brill, 2018)Google Scholar.
13 Muhammet Zahit Atçıl, “State and Government in the Mid-Sixteenth Century Ottoman Empire: The Grand Vizierates of Rustem Pasha (1544–1561)” (unpub. PhD diss., University of Chicago, 2015).
14 Hans Joachim Kißling, “Die Köprülü-Restauration,” in Internationales Kulturhistorisches Symposium Mogersdorf I: Österreich Und Die Türken (Eisenstadt: Burgenländischen Landesarchiv, 1972), 75–83; Kunt, “Naima, Köprülü and the Grand Vizierate.” Metin Kunt repeatedly referred to the appointment of the elder Köprülü as “restoring the traditional authority of the grand vizier.”
15 Recently, Cumhur Bekar dubbed the transfer of power from Köprülü Mehmed to his older son Ahmed a revolution. Bekar, “‘The Ottoman Revolution of 1661,’” for the quoted part see page 20.
16 Oktay Özel, “The Reign of Violence: The Celalis, c.1550-1700,” in The Ottoman World, ed. Christine Woodhead (London; New York: Routledge, 2011), 184–202.
17 Yasir Yılmaz, “Grand Vizieral Authority Revisited: Köprülüs’ Legacy and Kara Mustafa Paşa,” Mediterranean Historical Review 31, no. 1 (2016): 31; Linda Darling, “Ordering the Ottoman Elite: Ceremonial Lawcodes of the Late Seventeenth Century,” Turcica 50 (2019): 355–82.
18 Hans Joachim Kißling, “Die Köprülü-Restauration”; Kunt, “Naima, Köprülü and the Grand Vizierate.” Metin Kunt repeatedly referred to the appointment of the elder Köprülü as “restoring the traditional authority of the grand vizier.”
19 Max Weber, Economy and Society: A New Translation, ed. and trans. Keith Tribe (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2019), 354. The emphasis on “grand vizier” belongs to me.
20 Michael Jenkins, Arakcheev. Grand Vizier of the Russian Empire. A Biography. (New York: The Dial Press, 1969).
21 Malcolm Lyons and Ursula Lyons, trans., The Arabian Nights: Tales of 1,001 Nights, vol. 1 & 2 (London: Penguin Classics, 2010).
22 Saʿdī, Morals Pointed and Tales Adorned: The Būstān of Saʿdī (Leiden: Brill, 1974); The Gulistan (Rose Garden) of Saʿdi: Bilingual English and Persian Edition with Vocabulary, trans. Wheeler M. Thackston (Bethesda: Ibex Publishers, 2017), see especially chapter one.
23 Saʿdī, The Gulistan, 12. Italics exist in the original source.
24 İlker Evrim Binbaş, Intellectual Networks in Timurid Iran: Sharaf Al-Dīn ’Alī Yazdī and the Islamicate Republic of Letters (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016); Yılmaz, Caliphate Redefined; Heather L. Ferguson, The Proper Order of Things: Language, Power, and Law in Ottoman Administrative Discourses (Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 2018); Christopher Markiewicz, The Crisis of Kingship in Late Medieval Islam. Persian Emigres and the Making of Ottoman Sovereignty (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019); Furkan Işın, “The Politics of Persian Historiography at the Court of Süleyman: Shah Qasim and His Kanz Al-Javahir” (unpub. M.A. thesis, İstanbul, Sabanci University, 2020).
25 İsmail Hakkı Uzunçarşılı, Osmanlı Devletinin Merkez ve Bahriye Teşkilâtı (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu, 1948), 111.
26 Bert Pragner, “Social and Internal Economic Affairs,” in The Cambridge History of Iran. The Timurid and Safavid Periods, ed. Peter Jackson and Laurence Lockhart, vol. 6 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 554; Rudi Matthee, Persia in Crisis: Safavid Decline and the Fall of Isfahan (New York: I.B.Tauris, 2012), 35.
27 Gauri Sharma, Prime Ministers under the Mughals, 1526–1707 (New Delhi: Kanishka Publishers, 2006).
28 Willem Floor, “The Rise and Fall of Mirza Taqi, the Eunuch Grand Vizier (1043–55/1633–1645) Makhdum Al-Omara va Khadem Al-Foqara,” Studia Iraniqa 26 (1997): 237–66; Rudi Matthee, “The Career of Mohammad Beg, Grand Vizier of Shah ’Abbas II (r. 1642-1666),” Iranian Studies 24, no. 1–4 (1991): 17–36; Rudi Matthee, “Administrative Stability and Change in Late-17th-Century Iran: The Case of Shaykh Ali Khan Zanganah (1669–89),” International Journal of Middle East Studies 26, no. 1 (1994): 77–98.
29 Sharma, Prime Ministers under the Mughals, 1526–1707, 25–28.
30 Ibid., 73-5.
31 François Bernier, Travels in the Mogul Empire, A.D. 1656–1668, trans. Archibald Constable (London: H. Milford, Oxford University Press, 1916), 23.
32 The “Balkan-to-Bengal complex” is a “temporal-geographical” entity recently proposed by Shahab Ahmad in his posthumously published What Is Islam? The Importance of Being Islamic (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2016).
33 Willem Floor noted the same for the Safavid grand vizierate. Willem Floor, “A Note on The Grand Vizierate in Seventeenth Century Persia,” Zeitschrift Der Deutschen Morgenlandischen Gesellschaft 155, no. 2 (2005): 435.
34 I borrowed the expression ‘second man’ from the following volume: Michael Kaiser and Andreas Pečar, eds., Der zweite Mann im Staat: oberste Amtsträger und Favoriten im Umkreis der Reichsfürsten in der Frühen Neuzeit, Zeitschrift für historische Forschung. Beiheft. 32 (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 2003).
35 R.J.W. Evans, “The Austrian Habsburgs: The Dynasty as a Political Institution,” in The Courts of Europe: Politics, Patronage, and Royalty 1400-1800, ed. A. G. Dickens (London: Thames and Hudson, 1977), 133; L. W. B. Brockliss, “Concluding Remarks: The Anatomy of the Minister-Favorite,” in The World of the Favourite, ed. J. H. Elliott and L. W. B. Brockliss (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999), 283.
36 Baldesar Castiglione, The Book of the Courtier, trans. Leonard Eckstein Opdycke (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1903), 265, 278.
37 James M. Boyden, The Courtier and the King: Ruy Gómez de Silva, Philip II, and the Court of Spain (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995), 155–56.
38 R. A. Stradling, Philip IV and the Government Spain, 1621–65 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 42.
39 Wenzel Eymer, ed., Gutachten des Fürsten Gundacker von Liechtenstein über Edukation eines jungen Fürsten und gute Bestellung des Geheimen Rates (Leitmeritz, 1905), 23–24.
40 Jacques Joseph Duguet, Institution d'un prince; ou traité des qualitez, des vertus et des devoirs d'un souverain, vol. 2 (Londres: chez Jean Nourse, 1739), 235–46.
41 Marinos Sariyannis, “Ruler and State, State and Society in Ottoman Political Thought,” Turkish Historical Review 4 (2013): 92–126; Yılmaz, Caliphate Redefined, 13, 79; Sariyannis, A History of Ottoman Political Thought up to the Early Nineteenth Century, 137.
42 In Anglophone Ottoman studies, vizier is the prevalent transliteration, while the modern Turkish rendition vezir is also used. In European historical documents concerning the Ottomans, one may also find vizir, visir, vizier, or wazir. In the field of Islamic Studies, wazīr or vazir are the commonly used transliterations from Arabic and Persian sources.
43 Ibn Khaldun, The Muqaddimah: An Introduction to History, trans. Franz Rosenthal, 2nd ed., vol. 2 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980), 6.
44 The Qurʾan: 20:29; 25:35. Al-Mawardi (972-1058) proposed three possible roots for the word. The first was vizr, meaning heavy burden as a vizier's duty was to “take up the heavy burden of the king.” The second was vazar/vezer, meaning refuge “as the king takes refuge in his judgement and his aid.” The third was azr, “meaning the back, as the king gains strength in his minister just as the body is strengthened by the back.” Ali ibn Muhammad Al-Mawardi, The Ordinances of Government, trans. Asadullah Yate (London: Ta-Ha Publishers, 1996), 40; Ibn Khaldun, The Muqaddimah, 2:6.
45 Al-Mawardi, The Ordinances of Government, 37–38; Ibn Khaldun, The Muqaddimah, 2:7–8; Gîyâsüddîn bin Humâmüddîn Khwandmir (Khvand Mir), Dustur Al-Wuzara, ed. Sa'id Nafisi (Tehran: Antasharat-i Iqbal, 1938), 9–10; Al-Tabari, The History of Al-Tabari, trans. William M. Brinner, vol. 2 (SUNY Press, 1986), 154; Fatih Yahya Ayaz, Memlükler Döneminde Vezirlik (Ankara: Türkiye Diyanet Vakfı Yayınları, 2017), 27.
46 R. A. Kimber, “The Early Abbasid Vizierate,” Journal of Semitic Studies 37, no. 1 (1992): 84–85.
47 Ivan V. Sivkov, “The Concept of Ministry in the Arabic Political Tradition: Its Origin, Development, and Linguistic Reflection,” Journal of Arabic and Islamic Studies 15 (2015): 227–44.
48 Ann K. S. Lambton, State and Government in Medieval Islam. An Introduction to the Study of Islamic Political Theory: The Jurists (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981), 95.
49 Abu Nasr Al-Farabi, On the Perfect State (Mabadi' Ara' Ahl al-Madinat al-Fadilah), trans. Richard Walzer (Chicago: Great Books of the Islamic World, Inc, 1998); Al-Mawardi, The Ordinances of Government; Nizam al-Mulk, The Book of Government or Rules for Kings. The Siyasat-Nama or Siyar al-Muluk, trans. Herbert Darke (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1960); Abu Hamid Al-Ghazali, Counsel for Kings (Nasihat al-Muluk), trans. F. R. C. Bugley (London: Oxford University Press, 1964); Ibn Khaldun, The Muqaddimah.
50 See chapter fifteen in Al-Farabi, On the Perfect State.
51 Al-Mawardi, The Ordinances of Government, 37.
52 For this passage, see Al-Mawardi, 40–45.
53 The Qurʾan, 21:22. Al-Mawardi, 45.
54 Nizam al-Mulk, The Book of Government or Rules for Kings. The Siyasat-Nama or Siyar al-Muluk, 23–24, 178, 184.
55 Al-Ghazali, Counsel for Kings (Nasihat al-Muluk), 1964, 111.
56 Ibn Khaldun, The Muqaddimah, 2:6.
57 Ibid., 2:7–8.
58 Dominique Sourdel, Le vizirat ʿabbāside de 749 à 936 (132 à 324 de l'hégire), vol. 2 (Damas: Institut français de Damas, 1960), 699; 707; Kimber, “The Early Abbasid Vizierate,” 81–82.
59 Al-Ghazali, Counsel for Kings (Nasihat al-Muluk), 1964, 111.
60 Halil İbrahim Hançabay, Abbasiler Döneminde Vezirlik 295-530/908-1136 (İstanbul: Klasik, 2017).
61 Ibn Khaldun, The Muqaddimah, 2:12–14.
62 Nizam al-Mulk, The Book of Government or Rules for Kings. The Siyasat-Nama or Siyar al-Muluk, trans. Herbert Darke (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1960), 179–80.
63 Ibn Khaldun, 2:8.
64 Tayeb El-Hibri, The Abbasid Caliphate: A History (Cambridge University Press, 2021), 71.
65 Ibn Khaldun, The Muqaddimah: An Introduction to History, trans. Franz Rosenthal, 2nd ed., vol. 2 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980), 10; Dominique Sourdel, Le vizirat ʿabbāside de 749 à 936 (132 à 324 de l'hégire), vol. 1 (Damas: Institut français de Damas, 1959), 127–81; Hakkı Dursun Yıldız, “Bermekîler,” in Diyanet İslam Ansiklopedisi, December 15, 2019, https://islamansiklopedisi.org.tr/vezir; Dominique Sourdel, “Al-Baramika,” in The Encyclopedia of Islam (Leiden: Brill, 2002); Tayeb El-Hibri, “The Empire in Iraq, 763-861,” in The New Cambridge History of Islam, ed. Chase F. Robinson, vol. 1, 6 vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 269–304.
66 Sourdel, Le vizirat ʿabbāside, 1:127.
67 Sourdel, 1:179–81; El-Hibri, The Abbasid Caliphate, 85.
68 S.D. Goitein, Studies in Islamic History and Institutions, vol. 5, Brill Classics in Islam (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 183.
69 Atçıl, “State and Government in the Mid-Sixteenth Century Ottoman Empire,” 193.
70 Carla L. Klausner, The Seljuk Vezirate: A Study of Civil Administration, 1055-1194 (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1973), 15; 21; 38.
71 Carole Hillenbrand, “The Nizamiyya Madrasas,” in Turks in the Indian Subcontinent, Central and West Asia: The Turkish Presence in the Islamic World, ed. Ismail K. Poonawala (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2017), 149–50.
72 Klausner, 38-50; Carole Hillenbrand, “Nizam Al-Mulk: A Maverick Vizier?” in The Medieval Turks: Collected Essays (Edinburgh University Press, 2022), 254–69.
73 Quoted in Carole Hillenbrand, “The Life and Times of ‘Amid al-Mulk al-Kunduri,” in The Medieval Turks: Collected Essays, by Carole Hillenbrand (Edinburgh University Press, 2022), 270.
74 Carole Hillenbrand, “Nizam Al-Mulk: A Maverick Vizier?” 259.
75 Carole Hillenbrand, “Nizam Al-Mulk: A Maverick Vizier?” 260–61.
76 Leila S. al-Imad, The Fatimid Vizierate, 969-1172 (Berlin: Schwarz, 1990), 71, 160.
77 Fatih Yahya Ayaz, Memlükler Döneminde Vezirlik (Ankara: Türkiye Diyanet Vakfı Yayınları, 2017), 42–44.
78 Ali Rıza Yağlı, “Timurlu Devleti'nde Vezirler ve Vezirlik Kurumu” (unpub. PhD diss., Ankara, Ankara Üniversitesi, 2014), 373; Ankhbayar Danuu, “İlhanlı Devleti'nde Vezaret” (unpub. PhD diss., Ankara, Ankara Üniversitesi, 2016); Beatrice Forbes Manz, The Rise and Rule of Tamerlane (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 113–14; Manz, Power, Politics and Religion in Timurid Iran (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 105.
79 Yağlı, “Timurlu Devleti'nde Vezirler ve Vezirlik Kurumu,” 141; Jon McGinnis, Avicenna (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 21–23.
80 Vincent J. Cornell, Realm of the Saint: Power and Authority in Moroccan Sufism (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1998), 44.
81 Klausner, The Seljuk Vezirate, 99; Aydın Taneri, “Büyük Selçuklu İmparatorluğu'nda Vezirlik,” Ankara Üniversitesi Dil Tarih Coğrafya Fakültesi Tarih Araştırmaları Dergisi 5, no. 8 (1967): 94.
82 Halil İnalcık, Fatih devri üzerinde tetkikler ve vesikalar I (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu Basımevi, 1954), 137–39.
83 Atçıl, “State and Government in the Mid-Sixteenth Century Ottoman Empire,” 209–10.
84 Hüseyin Yılmaz, Caliphate Redefined, 33.
85 Ibid., 39.
86 Marinos Sariyannis, A History of Ottoman Political Thought up to the Early Nineteenth Century (Leiden: Brill, 2018), 20–21. I disagree with Sariyannis who thinks that this gradual transformation suits the Weberian typologies of government, which, I believe, were based on over-simplifications of complex dynamics.
87 Ahmet Akgündüz, Osmanlı Hukukuna Giriş ve Fatih Devri Ḳānūnnāmeleri, vol. 1, Osmanlı Ḳānūnnāmeleri ve Hukuki Tahlilleri (İstanbul: Fey Vakfı Yayınları, 1990), 318.
88 Tülay Artan, “Die institutionelle Trennung der Haus-halte von Großwesir und Sultan: Der neue Gesellschaftsvertrag des 18. Jahrhunderts in historischer Perspektive,” in Die Anatomie frühneuzeitlicher Imperien: Herrschaftsmanagement jenseits von Staat und Nation: Institutionen, Personal und Techniken, ed. Stephan Wendehorst (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2015), 121–41.
89 Uzunçarşılı, Osmanlı Devletinin Merkez ve Bahriye Teşkilâtı, 118–20.
90 Hammer, 94.
91 Theoharis Stavrides, The Sultan of Vezirs: The Life and Times of the Ottoman Grand Vezir Mahmud Pasha Angelovic (1453–1474) (Leiden: Brill, 2001). One should keep in mind that the mid-fifteenth century is a relatively early period in Ottoman history to find a sufficient amount of historical documentation about the period.
92 In four of the six letters sent by Maktul Ibrahim Pasha to the Polish king, the material elements, including the length of roll and use of colorful, glittered ink, are so rich and the linguistic formulations are so pompous that they are clear signs of the prestige the grand vizier enjoyed in the Ottoman court. All six letters that were dispatched between 1531 and 1535, that is between the eighth and twelfth years of his tenure. The letters may be also interpreted as signs of Ibrahim's growing pretentiousness in office and one of the factors that led to his eventual downfall. The letters are located in the Archiwum Główne Akt Dawnych w Warszawie (The Central Archives of Historical Records in Warsaw), Tureckie, Kartons 67 and 68.
93 Günhan Börekçi, “On the Power, Political Career and Patronage Networks of the Ottoman Royal Favourites (Late Sixteenth and Early Seventeenth Centuries),” in Social Networking in South-Eastern Europe: 15th-19th Century, ed. Maria Baramova, Grigor Boykov, and Ivan Parvev (LIT Verlag Münster, 2021), 40.
94 Yasir Yılmaz, “Grand Vizieral Authority Revisited: Köprülüs’ Legacy and Kara Mustafa Pasha,” Mediterranean Historical Review 31, no. 1 (2016): 23.
95 Kaya Şahin, Empire and Power in the Reign of Süleyman: Narrating the Sixteenth-Century Ottoman World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 235, 241.
96 Mübahat S. Kütükoğlu, Lütfi Paşa Âsafnâmesi (Yeni Bir Metin Tesisi Denemesi) (İstanbul: Edebiyat Fakültesi Basımevi, 1991), 2–3.
97 For the remainder of the discussion about Âsafnâme, see Kütükoğlu, 5–25.
98 Mustafa ibn Ahmad Âli, Mustafa Âli's Council for Sultans of 1581: edition, translation, notes, ed. Andreas Tietze, 2 vols. (Wien: Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1979).
99 Ibid., 24-25, 37.
100 Mehmet İpşirli, “Hasan Kafi El-Akhisari ve Devlet Düzenine Ait Eseri Usûlü’l-Hikem Fî Nizâmi'l-Âlem,” Tarih Enstitüsü Dergisi 10-11 (1980 1979): 239–78. The English translation of the title is from Sariyannis, A History of Ottoman Political Thought up to the Early Nineteenth Century, 180.
101 İpşirli, “Hasan Kafi El-Akhisari,” 257.
102 The translation of the title is from Sariyannis, A History of Ottoman Political Thought up to the Early Nineteenth Century, 195.
103 Yaşar Yücel, Osmanlı Devlet Teşkilatına Dair Kaynaklar: Kitâb-i Müstetâb, Kitabu Mesâlihi'l Müslimîn ve Menâfiʿi'l-Müʾminîn, Hırzü’l-Mülûk (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu Basimevi, 1988), 30–31.
104 Koçi Bey, Koçi Bey Risaleleri. Sultan IV. Murad'a Devlet Yönetimindeki Bozukluklar Ile Alınması Gereken Tedbirler Hakkında Sunulan Risale ve Sultan I. İbrahim'e Osmanlı Devlet Teşkilatı Hakkında Sunulan Risale, ed. Seda Çakmakçıoğlu (İstanbul: Kabalcı Yayınevi, 2008).
105 Koçi Bey, 28; 77; 80.
106 The translation of the book title is from Sariyannis, A History of Ottoman Political Thought up to the Early Nineteenth Century, 287.
107 Katip Çelebi, Siyaset Nazariyesi-Düstûru'l-Amel Li Islâhi'l-Halel, ed. Ensar Köse (İstanbul: Büyüyen Ay, 2016), 151.
108 Ibid., 153.
109 Ibid., 155.
110 Metin Kunt, “Naima, Köprülü and the Grand Vizierate,” Boğaziçi Üniversitesi Dergisi 1 (1973): 57–64.
111 Sariyannis, A History of Ottoman Political Thought up to the Early Nineteenth Century, 213.
112 Hezarfen Hüseyin Efendi, Telhı̂sü’l-beyân fı̂ kavânı̂n-i Âl-i Osmân, ed. Sevim İlgürel (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu, 1998). The translation of the book title is from Sariyannis, A History of Ottoman Political Thought up to the Early Nineteenth Century, 222. About Köprülü Fazıl Ahmed Pasha's patronage of scholars, see Chapter 4 in Muhammed Fatih Çalışır, “A Virtuous Grand Vizier”.
113 Darling, “Ordering the Ottoman Elite,” 358.
114 About the sources of Telhisü’l Beyan, see Sariyannis, A History of Ottoman Political Thought up to the Early Nineteenth Century, 222.
115 About the significance of Abdurrahman Pasha's book of law as a protocol book, see Filiz Karaca, “Teşrifat,” in Diyanet İslam Ansiklopedisi, accessed July 21, 2023, https://islamansiklopedisi.org.tr/tesrifat.
116 I have argued elsewhere that Kara Mustafa Pasha became the most powerful early modern grand vizier of the empire when he came to office. Yılmaz, “Grand Vizieral Authority Revisited.”
117 Hezarfen Hüseyin Efendi, Telhı̂sü’l-beyân fı̂ kavânı̂n-i Âl-i Osmân, 73.
118 Ibid., 84.
119 Ibid.
120 Sariyannis, A History of Ottoman Political Thought up to the Early Nineteenth Century, 230.
121 Abdurrahman Abdi Paşa, Abdurrahman Abdi Paşa Ḳānūnnāmesi, ed. Ahmet Arslantürk (İstanbul: Okur Kitaplığı, 2012), 21–22.
122 Ibid., 22.
123 Ibid., 22–23.
124 The existence of such a straightforward provision in a protocol book provides a context for contemporary reports of the grand vizier's manipulation of a peace letter presented by the Austrian extraordinary envoy Alberto (Albrecht) Caprara in 1682. Multiple chronicles from the time of Kara Mustafa Pasha report that although Caprara had made a peace offer and even proposed to cede territory to the Ottomans, the grand vizier falsely reported to the sultan that the Austrian ambassador had threatened the empire and invited both sides to a military confrontation. Ottoman sources unanimously report that the grand vizier had justified his campaign against Austria in this way. In a forthcoming article, I analyze Caprara's mission: Yasir Yılmaz, “The Last Habsburg Peace Attempt in Istanbul before the Second Ottoman Siege of Vienna (1683),” in Opera and Diplomacy from the Ottoman World to Papal Rome, ed. Suna Suner (Hollitzer).
125 E. Ekin Tuşalp Atiyas, “The ‘Sunna-Minded’ Trend,” in A History of Ottoman Political Thought up to the Early Nineteenth Century, by Marinos Sariyannis (Leiden: Brill, 2018), 268.
126 See relevant sections in a new account of the siege: Kahraman Şakul, II. Viyana Kuşatması: Yedi Başlı Ejderin Fendi (Timaş Yayınları, 2021).
127 In the GraViz project, we currently collect data for this macro comparison. Drawing and expanding on the preliminary ideas outlined in this article, the findings of that comparison will be published in a separate publication.
128 Cumhur Bekar, “Köprülü Mehmed Paşa'nın Osmanlı Tarih Yazımında Değişen Algısı,” 69.
129 Paşa, Defterdar Sarı Mehmet, Ottoman Statecraft: The Book of Counsel for Vezirs and Governors (Naṣā'iḥ Ül-Vüzera Ve'l-Ümera), ed. Wright, Walter Livingston (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1935)Google Scholar.
130 Afyoncu, Erhan, “Sultan III. Ahmed'in Gözünden Pasarofça Barışı,” in Harp ve Sulh: 300. Yılında Pasarofça Antlaşması Sempozyumu Bildirileri, ed. Yıldız, Gültekin (İstanbul: Milli Savunma Üniversitesi Yayınları, 2019), 6Google Scholar.
131 Berkes, Niyazi, The Development of Secularism in Turkey (London: Hurst & Company, 1998), 23Google Scholar.
132 Taneri, Osmanlı İmparatorluğu'nun Kuruluş döneminde Vezir-i Azamlık 1299–1453, 89.