An Ottoman Historian in an Age of Reform: Ahmed Vâsıf Efendi (ca. 1730–1806) by Ethan Lewis Menchinger A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Near Eastern Studies) in the University of Michigan 2014 Doctoral Committee: Associate Professor Gottfried J. Hagen, Chair Professor Virginia H. Aksan, McMaster University Professor Michael D. Bonner Professor Rudi P. Lindner © Ethan Lewis Menchinger 2014 This dissertation is dedicated to my family, who never once questioned the wisdom of a career in history. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This study has been made possible through the largesse and generous aid of a number of institutions. I am grateful firstly to the Department of Near Eastern Studies and the Rackham School of Graduate Studies, University of Michigan, for funding the bulk of my overseas research; a 2013/14 Rackham Pre-doctoral Fellowship freed me from the necessity of teaching and gave me the unwonted luxury of an entire year of uninterrupted writing. I also owe a deep debt to staff at the Robarts and Thomas Fisher Rare Book Libraries in Toronto, the Hatcher Graduate Library in Ann Arbor, the Österreichische Nationalbibliothek in Vienna, the Newberry Library in Chicago, the American Research Institute in Turkey, and to those at the Başbakanlık Osmanlı Arşivleri, Süleymaniye Kütüphanesi, Beyazıt Devlet Kütüphanesi, and Millet Kütüphanesi in Istanbul for cheerfully meeting my requests for often recondite materials. I have been fortunate as a junior scholar to have the support of excellent teachers, foremost among whom are my committee members. Gottfried Hagen and Virginia Aksan have been fonts of wisdom and patience throughout my time in Near Eastern Studies and fostered this project, consciously and unconsciously, through their guidance, mentoring, and inspiration. My professional formation owes largely to their influence and to the rare opportunities they have afforded me; Virginia also allowed me access to her personal library and to manuscripts otherwise inaccessible. I am grateful as well to Rudi Lindner for sharing his profound historical sensibility and insight into Ottoman history, for his faith in me, and for his timely and sage advice, offered in his usual self-deprecating way. Michael Bonner agreed to sit on this committee, iii I think, with little idea of what the project might entail. He has consistently asked the difficult questions that had to be asked. No lesser thanks must go to Professors Kemal Beydilli, Mustafa Bilge, and Seyfi Kenan at the İslâm Araştırmaları Merkezi (İSAM) in Istanbul, who welcomed a foreign graduate student and shared their hospitality, advice, and authoritative knowledge of Vâsıf and the sources. Kemal Bey, like Professor Aksan, kindly provided key files that have made this study possible. I am further indebted to my colleagues in Turkey, especially Günhan Börekçi and Kahraman Şakul at İstanbul Şehir Üniversitesi and Aysel Yıldız, who, in addition to help and suggestions, made my research experience companionable and pleasurable. There are a great number of teachers, colleagues, and friends to whom I am grateful and without whom, whether they know it or not, I could never have completed this work. I especially wish to thank: Remzi Bilgin, Deborah Black, Wendy Burr, Margaret Casazza, Kate Creasey, Semi Ertan, Özgen Felek, Noah Gardiner, Rob Haug, Gina Konstantopoulos, Evyn Kropf, Joo- Yup Lee, Nancy Linthicum, Derek Mancini-Lander, Victor Ostapchuk, Haluk Otman, Metin Bayraktaroğlu, Maxim Romanov, Veysel Şimşek, Ali Sipahi, and Will Smiley. Especial thanks to my colleague and friend Frank Castiglione for making graduate study much easier to bear; and to my in-laws Máмa, Бáтько, and Larissa for welcoming me into their family. This dissertation is dedicated to my family: to Dad, Mom, Stefan, Olivia, and my extended family, who have always supported me no matter how strange my choice of vocation might have seemed. Lastly, my wife Natalia’s encouragement has sustained me for years and seen this project from its inchoate beginnings many years ago to its end. I thank God for her love every day. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Dedication ii Acknowledgements iii List of Abbreviations viii Glossary ix Note on Transliteration xi Introduction 1 Ahmed Vâsıf: His World and Corpus 2 Chapter One: History as Magistra Vitae: 12 Ahmed Vâsıf's Life and Work a. A Portrait of an Eighteenth Century Historian 12 b. Vâsıf and the Practice of History 34 c. History Defined 39 d. History and Knowledge 42 e. History and Morality 48 f. Criticism and Self-Praise 53 g. Conclusions: Vâsıf and the Post of Court Historian 60 Chapter Two: Ahmed Vâsıf on Agency and Causality: 63 a “Reformist” Philosophy of History a. Ottoman Exceptionalism and the Problem of Causality 64 b. The 1784 Risâle 71 v c. Vâsıf on the Natural and Supernatural 80 d. The 1787-1792 War: the Morality of Victory and Defeat 85 e. The 1798 Tesliyetnâme: a Theodicy 91 f. Refuting the Rabble: Polemic and Reform 96 g. Final Chronicles 101 h. Conclusions 110 Chapter Three: Sheathing the Sword of Enmity: 112 Vâsıf on Peace and Peacemaking a. Ottoman Views of War and Peace 113 b. Defenses of Peace: 1.b. Karlowitz 117 2.b. The Early Eighteenth Century 122 3.b. Küçük Kaynarca 124 c. Vâsıf on Peace: 1.c. The Crimean Crisis and the “Lesser of Two Evils” 129 2.c. The Maçin Boycott, 1791 141 2.c. Küçük Kaynarca: “War is Unpredictable” 148 d. Conclusions 157 Chapter Four: the Moral Order of the Universe 159 a. Human Nature and Social Order in Ottoman Thought 160 b. Ahmed Vâsıf and World Order 170 c. Practical Philosophy as Governance 178 d. Governance of the Self: Virtue and Vice 183 e. Governance of the Polity: Ottoman Political Thought 194 vi f. Vâsıf on the Ideal Ruler, Politics, and Proper Rule 200 g. Conclusions 212 Chapter Five: Eighteenth Century Ottoman Reform 214 a. “World Order” and the Problem of Reform 215 b. Reform as Restoration: the 1770s and 1780s 223 c. Nizâm-ı Cedîd: Reform under Selim III 233 1.c. The Meaning of Nizâm-ı Cedîd 235 2.c. Reform and its Discontents 239 d. Ahmed Vâsıf on the “New Order” 248 Epilogue: Vâsıf and Ottoman Intellectual History 263 Bibliography 269 vii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AE Ali Emiri A.RSK.d Bâb-ı Asâfî, Rüûs Kalemi Defterleri BOA Başbakanlık Osmanlı Arşivleri, Istanbul C.DH Cevdet Dahiliyye D.BŞM.d Bâb-ı Defterî, Başmuhâsebe Kalemi Defterleri DİA Türkiye Diyanet Vakfı İslâm Ansiklopedisi EI² Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd edition GOW Babinger, Die Geschichtsschreiber der Osmanen und ihre Werke HAT Hatt-ı Hümâyûn İA İslâm Ansiklopedisi İÜ İstanbul Üniversitesi Kütüphanesi, Istanbul MEHÂSİN 1 Mehâsinü’l-Âsâr ve Hakâîkü’l-Ahbâr, İstanbul Arkeoloji Müzesi Kütüphanesi nr. 355 MEHÂSİN 2 Mehâsin, İÜ nr. 5978 MEHÂSİN 3 Mehâsin, İÜ nr. 5979 MEHÂSİN 4 Mehâsin, İÜ nr. 6013 MEHÂSİN 5 Mehâsin, İstanbul, 1804. 2 vols MEHÂSİN 6 Mehâsin, TOP nr. 1406 MEHÂSİN (EGYPT) Mehâsin, İÜ nr. 6012 MAC Muhassenât-ı ‘Asker-i Cedîd, Abdullah Uçman, ed., Sekbanbaşı Risalesi, Hulâsat el-Kelâm fi Red el-Avam. İstanbul, 1975. SO Sürreya, Sicill-i Osmânî TOP Topkapı Sarayı Müzesi, Istanbul ÖN Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Vienna UT University of Toronto Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library Y.EE Yıldız Esas Evrakı viii GLOSSARY amedcî – Receiver-general of the Grand Vezir’s provincial correspondence. anadolu muhâsebecisi – Accounting officer for the province of Anatolia. baş muhâsebeci – Chief accounting officer. beylikçi – Chancery official responsible for promulgation of all edicts and regulations except those of a financial nature; a subordinate of the reis efendi. büyük rûznamçe/tezkireci – Secretary and paymaster of the imperial council. defterdâr – The empire’s chief treasury official. fetvâ emîni – Head of the office dealing with religious opinions or fatwas. hacegân – Bureau chiefs of the Ottoman administration; the highest level of the chancery. kethüdâ bey – The Grand Vezir’s deputy, who acted as his secretary and managed his correspondence. kapıcıbaşı – Head of the palace doorkeepers kapudan-ı deryâ – The Grand Admiral of the Ottoman navy. ix kaymakam – A proxy, here for the Grand Vezir when on campaign. During wartime the Ottoman government accompanied the army in the field and proxies were left in the capital to duplicate their normal functions. mektûbî – Official who managed the correspondence bureau of the Grand Vezir. reisülküttâb – Official in charge of the chancery scribes and secretaries in the financial administration. The reis was the head of the chancery and also, in the eighteenth century, assumed direction of foreign affairs. sefâretnâme – The official report of an Ottoman ambassador, submitted after his return from abroad. serasker – Military commander. şeyhülislâm – The highest religious official in the empire; the chief jurisconsult. sırkâtibi – Privy secretary to the sultan. tevkî‘î – Chancellor; responsible for validating official documents and affixing the sultan’s seal thereto. vekâyi‘nüvis – Official court chronicler. x NOTE ON TRANSLITERATION This study uses a modified Modern Turkish script to render Ottoman Turkish names, titles, terms, and constructs. In general, I adhere to the original orthography and indicate long vowels with a circumflex (Â, â, Î, î, Û, û); I omit the glottal consonants ‘ayn (‘) and hamza (’), which are unvoiced in Turkish, except where absolutely necessary, as in the transliteration of extended passages and key technical terms. For non-specialists the following letters may be unfamiliar: C,c – pronounced “j” as in “jam.” Ç,ç – pronounced “ch” as in “cheese.” Ğ,ğ – this “soft g” is mostly unvoiced and lengthens the preceding vowel. I,ı – pronounced like the first syllable in “early.” Ö,ö – pronounced as in German “schön” or the French “seul.” Ş,ş – pronounced “sh” as in “shoe.” Ü,ü – pronounced as in German or the French “tu.” For Arabic and Persian names, terms, and text, I have followed the transliteration system employed by the International Journal of Middle East Studies (IJMES), which uses diacritics to more accurately reflect the script.