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Bayezid II, His Librarian, and the Textual Turn of the Late Fifteenth Century

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Bayezid II, His Librarian, and the Textual Turn of the Late Fifteenth Century _full_journalsubtitle: An Annual on the Visual Cultures of the Islamic World _full_abbrevjournaltitle: MUQJ _full_ppubnumber: ISSN 0732-2992 (print version) _full_epubnumber: ISSN 2211-8993 (online version) _full_issue: 1 _full_volume: 14 _full_pubyear: 2019 _full_journaltitle: Muqarnas Online _full_issuetitle: 0 _full_fpage: 000 _full_lpage: 000 _full_articleid: 10.1163/22118993_01401P000 _full_alt_author_running_head (change var. to _alt_author_rh): 0 _full_alt_articletitle_running_head (change var. to _alt_arttitle_rh): Between Amasya and Istanbul Between Amasya and Istanbul 79 CEMAL KAFADAR BETWEEN AMASYA AND ISTANBUL: BAYEZID II, HIS LibRARIAN, AND THE TEXTUAL TURN OF THE LATE FiFTEENTH CENTURY To Filiz Çağman, scholar-librarian par excellence, who taught me that a custodian of books can be a treasure herself Unlike his father and his son, Sultan Bayezid II (r. 1481– (d. 1496), wrote critically that the wrath of Mehmed II 1512) was more interested in peaceful and orderly ad- trumped his moderation, implying the reverse for his ministration than in conquest. He thus worked harder son Bayezid. Even if this was simply a way of flattering on manufacturing consent than on wielding coercion. the young sultan, the choice of characteristics is telling.3 Not to be confused with a flat-out refusal to use mili- That reputation seems to have rendered Bayezid II a tary force, this is more a matter of a different balance figure of lesser significance and accomplishment in the in policies. Bayezid certainly did not refrain from con- eyes of posterity, particularly in modern historiography, quest or coercion, or from policies that struck many which tends to either ignore him or, more often, present of his subjects as oppressive, even cruel. Yet many of him in a defensive posture.4 Yet the more historians re- his contemporaries described him as unwarlike and peat that Bayezid is underrated, and then rehearse an moderate. argument to counter that reputation in his defense, the The Crimean khan, for instance, an Ottoman vassal more entrenched the image of a weak link in an other- since 1475, asked the sultan in a surprisingly forward let- wise robust narrative of vigorous conquest and expan- ter if the “duty of jihad” was no longer in force, now that sion, by one descendant of Osman after another, seems the Ottoman army had remained inactive for some time. to become. The meek counterarguments are often whit- Bayezid replied gently but firmly that he, too, was mind- tled down into qualifications, even mere excuses: ful of the duty of jihad, which would bring one blessings Bayezid may have been less active on the military front, in both worlds, but reminded the khan that sultans had but that is only because his brother’s captivity in Europe the unique responsibility before God to maintain order until 1495 meant that he had to remain cautious. in the realm so that their subjects could flourish, and Bayezid’s reign was not without its successful cam- that such order is vulnerable to disruption by the ill- paigns, after all, such as the conquest of Kilia and Akkir- willed when the sultan and the army are on the move. man on the Black Sea (1484), as well as Lepanto and With all this in mind, Bayezid wrote, he devoted his Mothoni on the Mediterranean (1499–1500) and Durrës time, day and night, to investigating and managing the (Durazzo) on the Adriatic (1501). Bayezid was person- affairs of the people.1 Later historians did not diverge ally there in the field for much of it. He may have missed much from this assessment. Joseph von Hammer-Purg- “the grand 1492” of Christopher Columbus, but he made stall (1774–1856), the Habsburg Orientalist and historian the best of that fateful year by allowing his realm to be- of the Ottoman empire, wrote that Bayezid “did not en- come a refuge for the Jews and Muslims expelled from gage in war unless he had to.”2 The difference in tem- Iberia after the fall of Granada. Moreover, improving the perament between Bayezid and his father also struck naval capabilities of the Ottoman state was only one of contemporaries who had known them both. Tursun Beg, several important steps Bayezid took toward developing historian and scribe of the late fifteenth century institutions and infrastructure. None of this is as glamor- © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2019 | doi 10.1163/9789004402508_003 80 Cemal Kafadar ous as conquering Constantinople or Egypt, but his ad- as these may have been. Discussing the policies and tem- mirers could still take solace in the fact that “saintly” was peraments of sultans is only meaningful when we bear his sobriquet. Within such a framework, for instance, a this in mind. modern historian characterizes Bayezid’s reign as “a The specific political alignments of the second half of period of transition from the old heroic age of the four- the fifteenth century and their articulations in the cul- teenth and fifteenth centuries to the new age of gran- tural realm ultimately need to be considered against the deur … a period of consolidation before conquests were background of the deep-reaching transformations in the resumed.”5 But would any ruler desire to be considered social order that were taking root in the Ottomanizing “transitional”? geography of the lands of Rum at the time. Large groups In terms of his record as a patron of the arts and cul- of people were undergoing various forms and degrees ture, too, Bayezid’s legacy remains captive to two domi- of social transition within different micro-ecologies of nant narratives. On the one hand, his reign falls between that geography, from nomadism to peasanthood, for the fabled patronage of his father, and the felicitous instance. Encounters, both destructive and synergis- partnership of his grandson (and two more generations tic, between different modes of animal breeding and of sultans) with the great architect Sinan (d. 1588). On plant cultivation, continuing since the eleventh century the other hand, at least since the late nineteenth cen- when Turkish migrations and invasions started, were tury, when intellectuals around the world started to ask culminating in a new agro-pastoral landscape, which why their country was not (like) Europe and adopted the Ottoman state would bring under its control by the defensive positions vis-à-vis “European civilization,” early sixteenth century. Rising numbers of Islamic en- Bayezid’s victory over his brother Cem to consolidate dowments were creating new social and institutional control of the Ottoman sultanate has come to represent environments for important aspects of public life, such a path not taken, the ultimate “what if” of Ottoman his- as education and religion. A corollary of this develop- tory. In this counterfactual account, Mehmed knew ment was the growth of the cadres of ʿulema, namely what the Renaissance was all about and Cem would Muslim scholars and jurists. Religious conversion (to have continued in that path to lead his empire toward Islam) and linguistic métissage (mostly favoring Turk- modernity. What-if easily turns into a wishful if-only. ish) continued apace. Sufism was advancing with a new There are accompanying narratives regarding Bayezid orientation toward a more strictly path- or (Sufi) order- II that compound the image of a reactionary sultan fol- minded organization in its activities and relations with lowing a progressive one. A curious tale, for instance, devotees. Confessional concerns were becoming more attributes to him a firman and a fetva, allegedly issued important for the state and orthodoxy-minded scholarly in 1483, imposing a ban on printing in the Arabic script. cadres, while ecumenicism, ambiguity, and metadoxy Although this tale is based on the shakiest of grounds, it continued to prevail among some influential circles has become a common refrain in Orientalist scholar- as well as large segments of society. Frontier warriors ship.6 Could a firman, or even repeated firmans, if there and former “nobilities” were losing their autonomy and ever were any, have been sufficient to prevent the im- being transformed into appointees in an increasingly portation of a technology and its social uses for two and well-oiled administrative apparatus with its complex a half centuries, considering that the alleged ban is of- calculus of rotating positions, promotions, and dismiss- fered as an explanation for the belatedness of Arabic- als. This was accelerated by the larger “constitutional” script printing in the Ottoman empire, which did not reform initiated and legislated by Mehmed II, whereby begin until 1728? How, then, did coffee and coffeehouses the role of the sultan and of the dynastic state was radi- manage to defy numerous bans from the sixteenth cen- cally redesigned in terms of its hierarchical relationship tury onwards? The point is raised here not to discuss the with a nascent bureaucracy, the ʿulema and the military- history of printing, obviously, but to underline the fact administrative “servants of the Porte,” the latter staffed that Mehmed or Bayezid or any other sultan functioned increasingly by the devshirme. Changing patterns of within a complex social order influenced by dynamic landholding paved the way for the commercialization institutional and irregular factors that shaped the au- of agriculture around cities, and migration to cities.7 thority of the state and the will of the sultan, as powerful A sultan could only harness and control so much of these .
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