Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
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CEMAL KAFADAR
have been conquered."1 This is harsh but not par project to articulate their archaic empire to the mod
ticularly creative. Many learned and presumably some ern imperialist world order as an empire among em
not-so-learned Muslims of Asia Minor knew the verse pires that, statesmen and intellectuals hoped, would
well, as did others in the rest of the Muslim world,
survive against all odds and refurbish itself with the
but saw nothing wrong with identifying themselves as techniques and technologies of modernity for proper
recognition in the civilized world. On the other hand,
Rumis, or people of the lands of Rum.
Today, the Battle of Ankara is remembered primar there was an anti-imperialist current, not always in op
ily as a confrontation between Ottoman Turks and position to the first project but ensconced within its
Central Asian Turks, in narratives that tend to erase all
frustrations and the recognition of what the European
other layers of identity and their historical transforma
powers "really thought" of Turks. The latter attitude
tions in favor of a linear story of Turks moving from would grow strong in the context of the First World
Inner Asia to the Middle East, building, and of course War and especially after the invasion of the Greek
destroying, state after state. In Orientalist scholarship armies into Asia Minor in 1919. It would also be ac
and its current offshoots, the Turks, even after being companied by defensive and fanciful theories about
rooted in the Middle East and the Balkans for a mil Turks civilizing the world, in response to historical
lennium, remain latecomers, marginal at some levels theses aimed at robbing those "nomadic and Asiatic"
to the essence of Islamic Middle Eastern civilization, people of any legitimacy in maintaining political con
and certainly to the Greco-Roman Mediterranean tra trol over (western) Anatolia, Thrace, and Istanbul.
dition, even if they are recognized for their military,
The truth is not always somewhere in the middle.
political, and, perhaps, administrative skills and ac I cannot simply say that the two approaches schemat
complishments. They may have protected the Islamic ically presented above are both wrong or misguided,
Middle East from going under during the destabiliz
and that we should find the middle ground and be
ing incursions of the Crusades and the Mongols, or happy. They cozily share an unproblematized concep
they may have created successful polities by being re tualization of Middle Eastern and Balkan history (of
ceptive of Byzantine institutions and traditions, but ul world history, for that matter) in terms of both es
timately they were not wielders of culture (other than,
sences and ethno-national collective agents (Turks,
perhaps, the culture of yoghurt), and their high art Arabs, Greeks, Germans, etc.)?a conceptualization
and literature were but an imitation of Arab, Persian, still dominant in history writing in general, no mat
and Byzantine precedents. Since the latter part of the ter how fashionable it is to crack jokes about trendy
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8 CEMAL KAFADAR
postmodern intellectuals. It might thus be useful to re
fer not merely to nationalism but to "nationism" as a
broader problem, because the implied conception of
history and identity can be shared between nationalist
and, say, colonialist discourses and in fact derives its
very power partly from that double imbrication. Many ries before the beginning of the story of the Ottomans
non-nationalists, or those who embrace (the illusion around 1300. Thereafter, a "beylik (emirate, principal
of?) the downfall of nation-states in an age of global ity) period" is recognized but almost always located
ization, still write history through national identities within the orbit of the rising Ottoman state; worse, it
as primary analytical categories. So long as contin is also conventional to move straight into a narrative
of "Ottoman Anatolia" at the turn of the fourteenth
uous ethnic-national units and their cultures (Volks
geist defined by Stamm, to use the ur-vocabulary of century. From my point of view, the period of four and
this discourse) are taken as the main analytical units a half centuries between Manzikert (1071) and the
of historical study, the Turks naturally get to be the Kalender (Jelebi revolt (1526), instigated during the
descendants of Inner Asian nomads and warriors, and Ottoman incorporation of the Dulkadirid lands, the
their culture reflects those twin essences: nomadism last remaining principality, needs to be characterized
and militarism.
in its own right, at least for the purposes of cultural
and
social history. It might be useful for this purpose
Modern Turkish historical consciousness generally
to
adopt
the term tava'if (short for tava'if al-muluk),
takes that story to heart, qualifying or reversing some of
which
was
used in late medieval Arabic sources with
the attached values, and adding that there were many
who emigrated from the urban centers of Central Asia respect to Iberia, where the fortunes of a waxing and
and Khurasan as well, or that the steppe tradition al waning set of "party kings" (los reyes de taifas or sim
lowed Turks to be much more tolerant than other ply taifas in Spanish) rather than of a single polity
are recognized as having constituted the framework
with minimal bloodshed, brought order and justice of the narrative.2
kinds of Muslims, or that their conquests, achieved
to peoples who were suffering from chaos or tyranny.
What others might see as militarism can equally be this periodization and end it with, say, the annexation
translated as state building, and that is a matter of of the Karaman lands in 1473-74, when Mehmed II
deep pride in the long national history of the Turks. had extended the Ottoman realm to that diagonal
line in the east that more or less overlapped with the
At a more popular level, many modern Turkish hab
its, charming faults, or quirks are often explained as boundaries of the empire of Basil II (d. 1025) and
survivals of nomadic customs, just as academics have had consolidated unitary rule over the former "Byz
antine Anatolia." It is clear that the Ottomans had al
observed avatars of "shamanism" in all sorts of "un
ready emerged supreme in that setting before the end
orthodox" practices among Turkish Muslims.
of
the fourteenth century and reasserted this suprem
In narratives of this long history, nationism is sup
acy
two or three decades after Timur. It is also clear,
plemented by statism, again with variants among Turks
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period between 1192 and 1205 can be deemed an in medieval (tavd'if-era.) Anatolian and Ottoman stud
terregnum, and the Seljuks' power was on the wane
ies have been trying to move beyond a critique of
10 CEMAL KAFADAR
of the complexity of ethnic, linguistic, and religious in Anatolia. Those very features themselves, however,
identities they encountered would be impossible here; were developed or inspired to a large degree by Arab
it cannot be subsumed even under the neat trinity of and Persian Sufis, many of whom spent some part of
Muslims, Christians, and Jews. There were other com their lives in Anatolia or settled there. One might re
munities, such as Yezidis, who are reported to have call the likes of Ibn cArabi (d. 1240, a Maghribi who
fought with the Turcomans against the Mongols in lived in Seljuk Konya for several years and inspired
the late thirteenth century; in the 1330s, Ibn Battuta the theosophical school of Sadruddin-i Konevi) or
observed that the lineage of the Sons of Germiyan Shahab al-Din Abu Hafs cOmar al-Suhrawardi (1145
(based in Kutahya, northwest Anatolia) was alleged 1234), who was sent by the Abbasid caliph Nasir li
Din Allah in 1221 to initiate neo-Anatolian Muslims
to go back to Yazid b. Mucawiya.8
Words like "Rum" and "Rumi" were in common and neo-Muslim Anatolians into the futuwwa. This is
currency among some of those people and moved not to say that there are no regional dialects of pi
seamlessly into old Anatolian Turkish. "Istanbul," too, ety and faith, or that it might not be worth speaking
predates 1071: it is mentioned as early as in the tenth of an Islam of the lands of Rum, or of a Turkish Is
lam as it eventually took shape. Ibn cArabi himself was
century in an Arabic work by the polymath al-Mascudi
shocked to see certain practices in Rum, particularly
(d. 955).9 Also bearing in mind the legends concern
ing Abu Ayyub al-Ansari, and his burial site outside the lack of enforcement of certain sharica principles
the city walls, etc., it is clear that some significant as with respect to non-Muslims there.12 This should not
pects of what the city of Constantine would become make us overlook the fact that versions of Rumi Su
after 1453 had been prepared before Turks (and their fism, primarily the less rigid ones, owe a good deal to
associates) settled in Asia Minor. In short, the Turk
his intellectual legacy. Likewise, the Rumi variant of
ish encounter with Hellenic Asia Minor was in some futuwwa (ahilik) is unthinkable without Suhrawardi.
measure supplemented and filtered by the Turkish en Kalenderism and some other antinomian movements
that flourished in the lands of Rum in the late medi
counter with an earlier Arab (and other peoples') re
eval era originated in Iran, and the representatives of
ception of the heritage of the lands of Rum.
As they are written, modern histories tend to erase these movements in Rum received a good part of their
that filter and prefer to present the whole post-Manzi intellectual sustenance and some of their membership
kert story in terms of a direct encounter between through continued migration from and communica
"Turkish settlers" and "autochtonous" others. The tion with Iran. It is only with such awareness that we
historical consciousness of the Rumis themselves did may deal with regional dialects or inflections?spe
not operate in the same manner, however. In the cific historical configurations?of belief and practice
Saltukname, compiled by a certain Ebu'1-Hayr-i Rumi according to a regional habitus among the Muslims of
in 1474 on the basis of oral narratives presumably cir the lands of Rum, who were apparently distinguishable
culating for generations, we encounter a hero who in that manner as of the thirteenth century.
As in the case of many loan words, something new
starts his adventures after receiving, in a dream, bless
ings and tactics from a legendary Arab warrior of the happened in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries
earlier Islamic-Byzantine frontier operations. Follow to the word "Rumi." It came to be adopted by, or
ing his oneiric instructions, Saltuk retrieves Seyyid Bat
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Celaltiddin is reported to have said that Rumi ser respect to a collectivity is given by Gelibolulu Mus
vants should be preferred if one wanted to build and tafa Ali (1541-1600), who undoubtedly embraced that
Turkish workmen if one wanted to demolish, since identity with enthusiasm:
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12 CEMAL KAFADAR
Those varied peoples and different types of Rumis living
in the glorious days of the Ottoman dynasty, who are who belong to [the ruling apparatus shaped around
not [generically] separate from those tribes of Turks the House of] Osman) into the corporate identity of
and Tatars...are a select community and pure, pleasing a political elite, namely a growing number of warriors
people who, just as they are distinguished in the origins
of their state, are singled out for their piety, cleanliness,
two different species of fruitbearing tree mingled and first, but the Kayi lineage from the legendary Oghuz
mated, with leaves and fruit; and the fruit of this union Khan, which makes its appearance in written sources
cadres.
of accomplishments that were once attributed to oth ever, are not so easy to explain, and these appeared
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markers into their ledgers. There are good reasons for was captured by the Crusaders and turned over to the
calling the Ottoman state an early modern one.
Byzantines. Four of these tombstones have writing on
them, two of them with the names of the deceased:
One should not confuse this administrative predi
lection with social convention, however. Social con "a believer, Ahmed, the tanner" and "Mahmud son of
ventions had their own logic, which displayed a much 'Abdullah of Isfahan."27 The sources for the lands of
more freewheeling attitude to identity, by way of la Rum, it seems, were destined from the outset to con
beling or denigrating others through a rich reper found modern scholars and resist their comfortable
toire of slurs and stereotypes but also by recognizing conventions.
fluidities for what they were. Macaronic texts (also
The areas held by Turco-Muslim warriors were con
known as aljamiado, from the Andalusian experience)
stantly replenished thereafter, by Turks but also by
are abundant from the fourteenth century onwards. many other emigrants. Most of the Turks came from
It is hardly possible to follow the bewildering array of the east, while there were some movements of Turk
words that appear and disappear to designate min ish populations from the north?the Kipchak Steppe
ute differences of faith, ethnicity, language, locality, or the lands of the Golden Horde. The formation and
and the like: igdis, turkopouloi, gitak, potur, torbes, gacal, articulation of tribal bodies that accounted for much
manav, etc. (A similar comment can be made about of that mobility included members of different eth
sexual identities, as defined by various preferences, for
were hardly mere ethnic categories; they also carried the Arab lands. While conquests in many instances
immediate sociological and moral associations (per led to outward migration by or dislocation of Chris
haps a bit like the still unfortunate word "gypsy").
tian subjects of former Byzantine lands, many Chris
There was even a word that might be worth rein
tians simply stayed put because they preferred to or
troducing for circumstances when "Do you speak this had to, and some moved from Byzantine-held territo
ries to Turkish-held ones.
language?" is not a simple yes-or-no question. Qetrefil,
which simply means "very difficult" or "complicated"
in modern Turkish, once referred to those who spoke
a language badly, and to a badly constructed sentence
uttered or written by someone who spoke a language
badly. This must have been an important part of life
in the plural environments of premodern empires.
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14 CEMAL KAFADAR
wherein "every year more or less fifty thousand male humanist of the mid-seventeenth century, to look at
and female infidels are taken from the abode of war Ottoman society in its full complexity. After warning
as captives; those become Muslim, and their progeny his European readers that they should not heed the
join the rank of the faithful until the day of resurrec reductionism in so many travelers' accounts that speak
tion."28 There may be an exaggeration in the num of an essential Turkish this and Turkish that, he raises
bers, but there is no hesitation about including the
the question, "What is the Turkish character?" and re
converts and their progeny among the faithful, among sponds:
"us." In a generation or two, descendants of those for
This is a most difficult question, since it is not one nation
mer slaves could blend into Rumi society without any
stigma, as far as we know now; if there were memories
[millet in the Turkish text; una gens in the Latin] but con
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Let us consider the case of E?refoglu Rumi (d. acquired "the grace and generosity of the Arabs, the
1469-70?). According to a short entry in the Encyclo
paedia of Islam, for instance, he was a "Turkish poet
and mystic.. .His father E?ref left Egypt as a young man
will).
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16 CEMAL KAFADAR
times even called Rumice (in the Rumi manner), one ature in India in the sixteenth century, writes of the
would turn to a rich set of allusions deriving from the lands of Rum as being "all the way over there" (ta
Persian and Arabic classics, which Rumis considered diyar-i Rum). A Bolognese sailor who was in South Asia
part of their own heritage, as well as from a whole with the Portuguese in the first decade of that century
body of Hellenistic, Roman, and late antique concepts relates that Diu was called "Divobandirrumi," presum
and figures, often filtered through those classics.
ably because of the preponderance of Rumis.38
The quasi-amnesia in modern scholarship regard
The heyday of "Rumi" as a socially and culturally
ing the once-abundant usage of "Rumi" is deeply meaningful category spans the thirteenth to seven
mans, and of Turcophone Muslims of the Ottoman was thereafter known as the Rumiyye, indicating that
Empire, as "Turks"?a preference manifested since the word was still used to generate new coinages.39 It
the late medieval era in both European and, to a lesser seems to have slowly fallen out of favor in the eigh
but significant extent, many non-Turkish Middle East teenth century. Still, Nevres-i Kadim (d. 1762), in his
ern or Balkan languages (Greek and Arabic, for in history of a Safavid assault on Erevan in 1731, writes
stance). Such a designation remained standard despite of the cAcems as planning to massacre the "Rumis"?
the countervailing preference among those very Ot i.e., the Ottoman soldiers inside the fort.40
empire, the city of caesars. The Muslims who live in Arabia."41 Thereafter, it appears regularly in both the
that city now call themselves "Rum" [again rendered somewhat rarefied writings of the poets of Rum and
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that "Rum" implied something more limited than Anatolia, historically speaking? Today, the word is
the whole Ottoman Empire. He felt he had found used almost universally to cover all of the lands of
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18 CEMAL KAFADAR
voked in a metaphorical fashion, by Turks in partic
ular, to imply "the deep country," the soil, the soiled
but true essence of Turkey, minus the cosmopolitan
corruption and money of Istanbul (and perhaps also
"infidel Izmir"). But "Anatolia" was used even as late as
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20 CEMAL KAFADAR
Remzi Oguz Ank, with his influential explorations
of "how geography turns into patria," provides one of
the best examples of the obsession with the question
that loomed large in the minds of many early repub
lican intellectuals:
to mutually shape each other, however, mere land new forms of imperialism, articulating them with some
turns into homeland. That is how, according to Ank, hypocritical discourses (on human rights, democracy,
the Oghuz Turks made Anatolia their own after 1071, minority rights, women's rights, etc.).63
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tion, ed. Adnan Sadik Erzi (Ankara, 1957), 11, and the Turk
ish translation by Miirsel Oztiirk, 2 vols. (Ankara, 1996), 1:29
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22 CEMAL KAFADAR
the Iranians and the Turanians. Moreover, Kai Khusraw (Key
husrev) is born to Siyavush and a daughter of Afrasiyab, af
and Samsun.
of the Yezidis (London and New York, 1993). For some pri
mordialist Kurdish nationalists, Yezidism is indeed the origi
nal faith of the Kurds. Ibn Battuta's reference to Yezid as the
ancestor of the Sons of Germiyan, even if it is related by the
traveler as a disparaging remark by their resentful neighbors,
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11.
mentioned here.
7 and passim.
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24 CEMAL KAFADAR
'Abdullah's chronicle had survived, we might have encoun 33. This assessment, which may be worth revisiting, is widely ac
tered such counterexamples, since most of Erdem's instances
cepted and cited in later scholarship: see, for instance, John
of non-ventriloquial uses are in passages that deal with pre
Woods, The Aqquyunlu: Clan, Confederation, Empire (Chicago,
1976), 9.
or early Ottoman history, where links to Oghuz and Inner
Asian traditions (the "Turkish past" of the Ottomans) are of 34. Harun Tolasa, Sehi, Latifi, A?ik Qelebi Tezkirelerine gore 16. yy.da
particular relevance. It also should be noted that many of
Edebiyat Arastirma ve Ele?tirisi (Izmir, 1983), 34.
them are in passages where an Ottoman/Turkish character 35. All examples in this paragraph are cited in Tolasa, Sehi, Latifi,
is speaking to non-Ottomans. There needs to be a more sys
13-14. For a compound word with negative connotations see
tematic survey of different sources in order to understand
Miitercim Asim Efendi, Burhan-i Kati: rumi-huy (of Rumi dis
and contextualize the preferences of authors or the routes
position), explained as "a fickle person who has a capricious
of transmission with respect to the relevant vocabulary.
nature." F. Steingass's rendering, s.v. rumikhuy, is "fickle, like
22. Translated and cited in Fleischer, Bureaucrat and Intellectual,
a Greek": A Comprehensive Persian-English Dictionary (Delhi,
254.
1996).
(1985): 43-112.
29. M. Kunt, "Ethnic-Regional {Cins) Solidarity in the Seven
1973).
alia.
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kara, 1999).
46. Abu Bakr Tihrani, Kitdb-i Diydrbakriyya, ed. Necati Lugal and
Faruk Siimer (Ankara, 1962), 44; idem, Kitab-i Diyarbekriyye,
Turkish trans. Miirsel Oztiirk (Ankara, 2001), 41.
47. Yusuf b. 'Abdullah, Tdfih-i Al-i cOsman, 269.
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