The 2001-2002 Sawyer Seminar at the University of Chicago
	From Medieval to Modern in the Islamic World
Sponsored by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation

Ahmet Yasar OCAK

THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE AND ISLAM
FRAMEWORK FOR A NEW INTERPRETATION

Introduction

The subject of the place, role and nature of Islam in the Ottoman Empire is closely linked to the history of Turkey's process of Westernization and modernization from the Tanzimat through the Republican period to the present. In this respect, from the beginnings of the process of modernization ­ or more correctly Westernization ­ developments both in Turkey and in the rest of the world have shown in a very striking way that this issue still remains the subject of heated debate. Furthermore, it is useful to make clear that Turkey's democratization problem is closely related to this significant issue in many ways. Thus, it is truly of great importance, even just for the present, to try to understand the nature and place of Islam in the Ottoman Empire as the historical background of this vital and crucial "problematic legacy" bequeathed by the Ottoman Empire.

Let me make clear at the outset that I certainly do not claim to bring such a difficult, complicated and multi-faceted subject, with all its dimensions, to clarity and solution within the limits of this paper. What I will here attempt is to draw attention to this important issue, which I believe needs to be included in the agenda of Ottoman history research and dealt with in a broad and serious manner, and to put forth my own perspective regarding how it should be approached, handled and regarded as a problematic issue. In this respect, I will also point out a few problems within the framework of this topic which need to be discussed in a scholarly manner.

The present state of research on the subject

In fact, the issue of Islam in the Ottoman Empire is not a subject that has gone completely untouched. Well-known works such as H. A. R. Gibb and Harold Bowen's Islamic Society and the West(1), Norman Itzkowitz's Ottoman Empire and Islamic Tradition(2), and Marshall G. S. Hodgson's very important work The Venture of Islam: Conscience and History in a World Civilization(3) have dealt with various aspects of the subject. Certain references in Halil Inalcik's book The Ottoman Empire: The Classical Age (1300-1600)(4), and especially certain of his articles such as "Islam in the Ottoman Empire"(5) and "State and Ideology under Suleyman I,"(6) can likewise be cited. But with the exception of certain references in Hodgson's book, however much their titles suggest the subject, in terms of content they are studies of political structure and institutions, especially along the lines of Ottoman legal history, rather than the ideology, belief, education, and social, cultural and practical dimensions of Islam in the Ottoman context. Islam in the Ottoman Empire in fact had, first and foremost, complex dimensions related to the state ideology (the state's domestic and foreign policy, international relations, legal and administrative structure and system of education), to the madrasas and the Œulama' class, to Sufi circles and finally to the common people.

In short, moving beyond being a mere belief, Islam became an ideology and even a politics encompassing almost all of the public sphere - including the status of non-Muslims - in the Ottoman Empire, and did so more in the Ottoman Empire than in any other Islamic state in history.

Most historians would agree that the Ottoman Empire was an Islamic state. Without a doubt, the Ottoman Empire took over dominion of a significant portion of lands formerly under the rule of the Umayyad and Abbasid Empires, and later the Fatimid and Mamluk states, and in the process became heir to the political and administrative traditions of these Islamic states. It was also the inheritor of the Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantium), and appropriated some of its important structural features. It can even further be said that the Ottoman Empire appropriated, even if indirectly, the political cultures of almost all of the empires which existed in the Middle East before it since the ancient period, thereby forming a synthesis. In this respect, it reflected the state ideology, the influence of the political, administrative, financial and legal structures, and the structural features of the two classic Islamic empires - the Umayyad and Abbasid - and, by means of these and the Ilhanids, the Sassanid Empire, and finally Eastern Rome. The view of the Ottoman Empire as the "Third Rome" gains relevance within this general framework. Kinalizade Ali Efendi's famous formula of the Daire-i Adliye (Circle of Equity), expressed in his Ahlak-i Alayi (1572)(7), is a good example reflecting the influence of classical Indian interpretations within the Ottoman understanding of state and suzerainty. However, it would be wrong to assume that the Ottoman Empire was an exact replica of any of these states and empires from which it inherited various elements. Perhaps the most important characteristic of this great empire is that, as a result of the synthesis it created out of such diverse influences, it became a centralist military state, often defined as patrimonial. The binding force for the synthesis of these three qualities was Islam, to an extent not reached by any previous Islamic state.

In the final analysis, the Ottoman Empire can be safely regarded as an Islamic state with the respect to the following characteristics:

1) It was founded by a Muslim dynasty.
2) The majority of the subjects it relied upon were Muslim.
3) Its sultans were accepted and identified by the Muslim public after a certain date as the caliphs of the entire Islamic world.
4) It took upon itself the duties of defending Islam and the Islamic world against the Christian West, and protecting Sunni Islam - as the True Faith, i.e. orthodox Islam - against heresy within the Abode of Islam.
5) It promoted, especially after the second half of the 15th century, the Islamic ideologies of ghaza and jihad, at least in official discourse.

In other words, the Ottoman Empire was as much an Islamic state as were the Umayyad and Abbasid Empires, and other Muslim Persian, Turkish and Arab states. This indicates, more than the expression of a faith or an ideological approach, a historical and sociological fact.

It can of course be argued in opposition to this view that the Ottoman Empire covered not only a Muslim population, but also a great many non-Muslim peoples. But this in itself is not a sufficient proof that the Ottoman Empire was not an Islamic state. For, it must not be overlooked that in most Islamic states - above all the Umayyad and Abbasid Empires, whose status as Islamic states is not questioned - were to be found non-Muslim subjects.

Basic Problematic

Viewed from this perspective, acceptance of the Ottoman Empire as an Islamic state brings up further questions, such as: What was Islam's position in this empire? What was the nature of this Islam? How was the empire seen by outsiders of the time, and what do we as modern historians see today? Did the centralist Ottoman government possess Islamic structural features characteristic of or required by the geography in which it existed? If so, what was the nature of this understanding of Islam? What was Islam's function in the worldview, mentality, politics, political, administrative and legal structure, institutions, and social and cultural life of this empire? Was this understanding of Islam the same at all levels of society, for all sectors of society from the state machinery to the common people? Or were different understandings of Islam expressed by different sectors? Can one speak of a process of development and change in the state's approach to and understanding of Islam, according to fluctuations in the political, economic and social conjunctures, in time and following the changing circumstances?

Other questions can also be added, but in my opinion this is the basic problematic. Resolution, even if temporary, can be reached by seeking answers to these questions and analyzing them - of course to the extent allowed by the sources.

Methodology and Approach

How, then, should this issue be approached? We can perhaps begin by addressing the question of whether the Ottoman Empire was an Islamic state by showing how the Ottoman Empire was seen as such through the eyes of Europeans and also of the rest of the Islamic world of the period, by looking at how in fact the concept of "Islamic state" was conceived at the time.

If we choose to look, however, at the Ottoman Empire itself to see the extent to which Islam pervaded Ottoman life, it seems to me that two parallel approaches need to be followed.

1) To evaluate separately the views and interpretations of Islam held by the state (here referring to the officials practically in charge of the central administration), by the high `ulama' affixed to this bureaucracy, by representatives of Sufism (which generally maintained a certain distance from both of these circles), and finally by the common people. But while these points of view should be analyzed independently, they must still be considered not as detached from but as interrelated to each other.

It is, in fact, superfluous to say that these sectors are not and cannot be separate from one another, and that they work together with a certain interaction. However, focusing on distinctions between their respective interpretations of Islam will no doubt facilitate the analyses to be made.

2) To keep in mind that, from the time of the foundation of the empire until its fall, the views of Islam held by these sectors were not immutable and did not follow a straight course, but rather changed according to the political and social circumstances.

Were we to assume that the Islamic mentality, understanding and interpretations of Osman Gazi and Orhan Gazi and those surrounding them were the same as those in the periods of Sultans Mehmed II, Selim I and Suleyman the Magnificent, and to suppose, for instance, that they followed the same course in the modernization period, we would fall into grave error.

Analyses which neglect these two approaches would be essentially contrary to the historical process and to sociological principles, and thus completely anachronic and ahistorical, and entirely meaningless. However, this is unfortunately often the case among conservative historians in Turkey. In order not to fall into the same errors, I feel it is necessary to keep these issues in mind in future analyses.

This being the case, we begin to see much more clearly the difficulty involved in understanding how Islam in the Ottoman Empire was experienced and interpreted, and how it was reflected in a multitude of areas ­ from its state ideology to its domestic and foreign politics; from its administrative system and institutions to its system of jurisprudence and legal and judicial organization and institutions; from the office of shaykhu'l-Islam to the provincial muftis; from its intellectual life to its culture and art; from its `ulama' and Sufi sectors to the beliefs of the common folk. Because of such immense difficulty, we can perhaps begin to see why Ottoman historical research has neglected this dimension.

In my opinion, only an examination of all of these dimensions - independently and yet understood as interrelated - can provide us with the means to correctly understand the nature and place of Islam in the Ottoman Empire. Considering the underdeveloped nature of this area of research within modern Ottoman historiography, there is clearly a need for detailed monographs examining different dimensions of the problem. Only when such monographs are produced and assessed will it be possible to reach a certain synthesis so that we can begin to understand the issue of Islam in the Ottoman Empire in its entirety.

The Basic Sectors Producing Interpretations of Islam

If we set out with the approach formulated above, we can say that there were four basic sectors within the Ottoman world producing interpretations of Islam:

a. The central government, or the political mechanism --that is, the state;
b. The madrasas --that is, the `ulama';
c. The tariqas and tekkes -that is, Sufi circles - which generally maintained a distance from both of these, though not always entirely detached from them; and
d. The folk sector, which was the heir to a traditional culture informed in large part by mythological elements and sustained by cultural factors from the vast milieu stretching from Central Asia to the Balkans.

Especially with respect to the last two sectors, it is unavoidable to note the division between orthodox (Sunni) Islam and heterodox (Rafizi) Islam. This issue still generates various opinions in Turkey today, but is not often argued in a proper manner ­ in my opinion because it has become stuck on terminological orthodoxy ­ and thus the religio-sociological aspect which actually needs to be examined escapes attention. As this dual structure did not arise all of a sudden in Ottoman society, but rather is the continuation and result of a long historical process, both heterodox and orthodox Islam share a common base on some points, and therefore they can not be decisively separated from each other. For example, among both the Sunnis and Alevi-Bektashis, and even among Sufi circles, beliefs and practices associated with a common cult of saints closely resemble each other (with certain exceptions). The `ulama' sector, however, eventually excluded and condemned such beliefs and practices, emphasizing insistently that these were to be considered causes of infidelity and heresy. Despite this opposition, carried out intensely by, for example, Ibn Taymiyya in the 13th century and Birgivi Mehmed Efendi in the 16th century, such practices have continued through the centuries and will no doubt continue in the future. But these issues have not entered the area of interest of Ottoman historians, though the more folkloric aspects of such phenomenon have been dealt with to some extent in certain studies in the fields of anthropology and folklore.

Each of these four sectors had its own mental world, its own methods and style for producing interpretations of Islam, originating in the peculiarities of its own socio-cultural structure, aim, mission and relationships.

When seen from the outside, there were similarities as well as differences -and even diametrically opposed aspects- between the Islam interpreted by the state to serve in a very practical manner its own authority and the Islam as interpreted and practiced by the `ulama' and Sufi circles. The famous polemic of the 16th century between Birgivi Mehmed and Ebussuud Efendi constitutes a typical and striking example of the difference in Islamic approach and interpretation between the `ulama' who were not incorporated into the state and the `ulama' who were.

As an example of the differences between the perception and interpretation of Islam held by the `ulama' sector and those held by Sufi circles, we can show the controversy over the issue of vahdet-i vucud (wahdat al-wujud: unity of existence). The concept of vahdet-i vucud, resting solidly at the foundation of the views of Sufi circles on the relationship between creator and created, has, with certain exceptions, generally drawn severe reactions from the `ulama' sector since the first century of Sufism, as in the case of Mansur al-Hallaj (922 [died? 950]). Even within Sufi circles this concept led to similar reactions.

Because of these and other differences, circles falling afoul of Sunni Islam were always met with suspicion and taken under tight scrutiny and control by the Ottoman political power, which itself had produced a state ideology on the basis of Sunni Islam; social movements arising within these circles were occasionally suppressed by force. The central administration, while pushing these circles into a marginal position, referred to them using a set of terms emphasizing their heterodoxy and heresy ­ terms such as rafizi, zindik, mulhid, and harici - which served to define and formalize them.(8) We need only look at the discourse, concepts and terms reflected in the state's official documents in order to see this. Studies in Ottoman history have passed over these issues only tangentially and with highly superficial interpretations. None have embarked upon serious, in-depth studies of what all these meant in Ottoman social history.

We can thus label the interpretations of Islam produced by these four sectors as follows:

1) State Islam (political Islam)
2) Madrasa Islam (scriptural Islam)
3) Tekke Islam (mystical Islam)
4) Folk Islam (popular Islam)

It should be noted at the outset that the first two of these sectors existed almost completely within Sunni Islam (as was the case with other Islamic states, with the exception of the Fatimids and Safavids), while each of the last two existed partly within Sunni and partly within heterodox Islam.

There will no doubt be certain objections to such a four-fold analytical method: Were the rules, fundamentals of belief and worship, and code of ethics of Islam not definite? Did the sectors producing these interpretations believe in different Gods and prophets, and worship in different ways? Were the ethical views of these groups so different from each other? If considered carefully, such objections will be seen to stem from a superficial approach perceiving Islam as a mere cult and looking at the issue only in terms of beliefs and practices. It should not be forgotten that Islam is not just a cult consisting of faith and worship; it is at the same time a worldview, a mentality, and a vast universal culture arising as the result of a long historical process. Moreover, even in terms of the cultic aspects of Islam, it is a fact that variations have always existed in the understanding, perception, interpretation and practice of them. Thus, the term "Islam" used here includes the whole of the perceptions, interpretations and practices reflected in the behavior of the above-mentioned sectors, which has taken the form of a guiding worldview, a mentality which has been in time internalized by the believers. In short, what is referred to here is Islam as a culture.

However relative, speculative or hypothetical it may seem at first glance, such a four-fold classification and denomination is in a sense no more than the confirmation of a sociological fact of the history of the Ottoman Empire. An approach based on this classification will greatly facilitate future analyses, and will allow us to view the role and place of Islam in the Ottoman Empire from as broad a perspective as possible, with due respect to the historical complexity of the subject. While the various understandings of Islam produced by these four sociological categories should be the subject of separate monographic studies, Ottoman studies can only be said to be at the outset of this task.(9) We have not even been able to put forth a sound history at the macro level, from the state sector to the folk base, of Sunni Islam, the form of Islam we feel we know best. Moreover, just as there are unfortunately few studies of the mental worlds of these four sectors, we still cannot say that Ottoman Sufism has been analyzed, understood and explained from the perspective I have mentioned, despite the many studies that have been made on the various Sufi orders over the years. This is even the case with Bektashism, the most studied representative of this category. Thus, if we are to believe our contemporary scholars, the Islam of the classical period of Ottoman history came down to the period of modernization "showing hardly any intellectual development." Only when this Islam is broken down into its types can we see how it functioned as a state ideology, as a strict legalism and conservatism, as an introverted mystical movement, and as a veneer over folk beliefs. Only further studies in this field can test this hypothesis.

Here I will attempt to analyze the Islamic interpretations and practices produced by the above-mentioned sectors respectively:

1. State Islam (Political Islam)

What are we to understand by the term state Islam? It can be defined as the manner in which Islam was reflected in the domestic and foreign policy and in the diplomacy of the Ottoman state, the form Islam took when it became a practical political medium in these spheres, and thus politicized. In short, state Islam was the form Islam took in becoming the state ideology. State Islam, then, should be understood as the ways in which the administration of the Ottoman state understood and interpreted Islam as a basic political medium, the kinds of meanings and functions it assigned to Islam in the process, and the methods it used to develop institutions for this purpose. This interpretation and practice by the state mechanism produced a powerful, peculiar political function for Islam, an example of which is hardly to be found in previous Islamic states. This function is expressed in the terminology used in many official documents issued for both internal and external affairs. A clear example of this is the term Padisah-i Islam used in reference to the Ottoman sultan.

This level of interconnection between Islam and the politics of the state, in my opinion, gave rise in the Ottoman Empire to an assimilation of the state with Islam that had not occurred in any other Islamic state in history, including that of the Abbasids. In other words, Islam in the Ottoman Empire, with respect to its political dimension, became an inseparable part of the state's self-definition, legitimization and political affairs. This is what we call Ottoman Islam. Nevertheless, within this interconnectedness the state was dominant. Thus, it is not wrong to say that in the Ottoman state everything, including religion, was for the sake of the state. The most concrete indication of this attitude was the institution of the sultanate itself; in the Ottoman understanding of sovereignty the sultanate was a "divine" institution.

This understanding of the sultanate appears at first glance to be the legacy of a deeply rooted tradition of Islamic politics. In my opinion this appearance is deceptive. For, the formation of what is called a "tradition of Islamic politics" in fact involved the deep influence of the political views of ancient India, the Sassanid empire, and even Eastern Rome.(10) Consequently, it was, in point of fact, a political tradition considerably altered from the Islamic political understanding formed in the time of the Prophet within the theoretical scriptural framework of Islam itself; it was a synthesis informed by the local political mentalities and practices of the lands gained by conquest.

This synthesis resulted essentially from the internalization of the institution of the sultanate - which is not at all compatible with Islam - as if it were in fact the natural political institution of Islam. In any case, the institution of the sultanate had been legitimized since the Umayyad period as Islam's form of political organization, and was even set on a foundation of religious legitimacy with the famous fabricated hadith "The sultan is God's shadow on earth, in whom all creatures take refuge." It should not be forgotten how deep and rooted an influence this fabricated hadith and the attitude it legitimized had over the Muslim public through the centuries. This attitude toward the sultan as the shadow of God on earth (zillullah fi'l-alem) - which we know existed among the Anatolian Seljuks from passages found on coins and in inscriptions on the architectural works they had built - is a good indication of how political concepts such as sultan and sultanate were accepted in the Ottoman Empire as identical with Islam, and how Islam was used as a source of legitimization.(11)

This Ottoman Islam, then, secured for the central authority, and the Ottoman dynasty representing it, a sacred legitimacy by bestowing sacredness on the concept of sovereignty, and at the same time performed an active function by providing a means of governing. Islam's arrival at a position where it could perform this double function did not come about at once. It developed as the result of a process, and this process occurred parallel to the political, administrative and institutional development accompanying the transformation of the state to an empire from a small tribal principality on the Byzantine frontier.

The politicization of Islam in the Ottoman understanding of state and sovereignty coincides exactly with the period of Mehmed II (the Conqueror). Thus, Islam formed the basis of the mentality of an empire making its center of dominion the old Byzantine capital Constantinople, and in so doing took on an ideological, politicized, and Sunni character. From the beginning of the 15th century, Islam began to be the political, social and legal organization of the state and society. As the form of Islam applied to was the classical Sunnism of the madrasas, this resulted in Sunni Islam, represented by the Hanafi school, arriving with all of its institutions at the position of the official religion of the state. However, the Ottoman state never used this official religion in order to convert the non-Muslim communities under its dominion. For Islam, as understood in the Ottoman state, was the means not for legitimizing the conversion of non-Muslim groups it took under its sovereignty, but for legitimizing the very taking of them under its sovereignty. It did, however, attempt with full force to bring the non-Sunni (heterodox, i.e. Kizilbash) groups into the fold of Sunni Islam, especially in the 16th century. For the Ottoman state, that Muslim subjects of the empire were other than Sunni ­ that they were Kizilbash ­ meant not only that they deviated from Islamic belief, but also entailed that they rejected being Ottoman subjects: it meant being a supporter of the Shah, rather than of the Sultan. There is no need to explain the results of this here.

Such an Islam was, in the Ottoman Empire, not outside of the state and sovereign over it, but rather was under the control of the state and dependent upon it. We know very well that the shaykhu'l-Islam was not a kind of pope or patriarch, that he was not the head of a spiritual authority or of an institution like the Church. In fact, with few exceptions he never went beyond being an official personally bound to the sultan and representing the highest level of the religious bureaucracy, and being a means for legitimizing the policies of the state. No possibility was ever allowed for his going beyond these roles. Thus Islam in the Ottoman state did not possess the material means to carry out administration itself, or to use spiritual authority - which it did not anyway possess - over the state administration. The institution of the caliphate, which passed to the Ottomans after 1517, did not provide any contribution toward changing the position of Islam until the period of Abdulhamid II, and did not perform any function beyond further sacralizing and consolidating the authority of the sultan, who was the representative of worldly power. That is, it merely served to legitimize this authority in terms of religion. For the caliphate, as we all know, was in the Ottoman state, as it was with the Mamluks, represented by the sultan himself and no one else. That is, the sultan was the caliph as well.

It appears that within such a structure, rather than Islam using the state to bring itself to the position of a center of spiritual authority above the state, the state at all times used Islam as a means for legitimizing its own sovereignty and policies. In such a case, to say that the Ottoman state was a theocracy is in my opinion highly debatable. The point usually brought up as proof that the Ottoman Empire possessed a theocratic structure - namely, the shari'a - rather than proving that the Ottoman state was a theocracy, in my opinion, serves to show the sovereignty of the state over Islam. For the Ottoman government used the shari'a only in specific and limited areas such as personal and family law. Another argument, that the state recognized, from the period of its foundation on, the legitimacy of the tariqas and took great pains to constantly maintain good relations with these circles, is also not a valid reason to speak of a theocracy. For the fact that some of the Ottoman sultans were initiates or sympathizers of this or that tariqa, in the end served to increase the authority and power of the sultan in the areas which they dominated, and close relations with these circles even provided situations in which the state could profit. Nevertheless, certain opponents of the Islamic understanding of the state arose from within these tariqa circles, especially during the classical Ottoman period - as in the example of the Melamis and Gulsenis in the 16th century. Further, the central administration not only took these circles under close scrutiny and control, but also did not hesitate at certain times to execute their leaders.(12)

2. Madrasa Islam (Scriptural Islam)

The `ulama' is known to have long played an important role in and had a considerable influence over Islamic societies. This influence can be observed both at the level of the people and of the state itself. The influence and respect that the `ulama' held in the eyes of the people was due to the fact that they were considered individuals who understood and interpreted best the Islamic sciences, and to the fact that they were perceived as individuals themselves practicing, living, and maintaining the mandates and prohibitions of Islam in the truest manner. However, this influence and respect also burdened them with a weighty responsibility, setting them up in the eyes of the people as requiring respect, as models for behavior, and as arbitrators to be referred to for their opinions on various subjects.

With this image, the `ulama' rose naturally to its position as a mediator between the people and the government and other offices of political authority. Thus it acquired a position such that the state and government had to pay heed and give ear to it, and it gained a certain authority and respect. This strengthened the esteem for the `ulama' in the eyes of the state. The respect paid to the `ulama' by the state at the same time provided the practical result of securing the control of the people and retaining them on the side of the state. The source of the `ulama's authority as representatives of Sunni Islam vis-a-vis both the state and the public was not so much a perceived religious and spiritual status, as was the case with the Shiite `ulama', but rather their own personal scholarly capacities and experiences. The stronger and profounder these capacities and experience were, naturally the greater were the respect for and position of the `ulama'.

Thus the greatest contribution in the Ottoman Empire to the strengthening of Islam in its Sunni form, and to the formation of a political dimension of Islam identified with the state, was provided by the `ulama' sector, which produced a scriptural, or madrasa Islam. The scriptural Islamic interpretation produced by the Ottoman `ulama' quite naturally incorporated almost entirely the theoretical and practical legacy of classical Sunnism, and particularly the Hanafi school, by means of the madrasas in their role as educational institutions. From the formative years of the Ottoma state on, figures belonging to the `ulama' such as Ishak Fakih, Yahsi Fakih and Dursun Fakih, functioning in close proximity to the first Ottoman beys, made significant contributions to the institutionalization of the Ottoman beylik and to the resolution of legal problems. Notwithstanding Asžkpasazade's classification of the groups of Anatolia as consisting of Gazis, Ahis, Abdals and Bacis(13), it is obvious both from the chronicles and records in the archive documents, and from toponymic data, how important a place was held by a fifth class consisting of fakihs (or, in the language of the people faki).(14)

The `ulama', with the exception of certain areas of sultanic law, brought about the political, administrative, social and legal organization of Ottoman society. The Ottoman `ulama', especially after Mehmed the Conqueror began implementing policies in state structure and administration, became one of the most important social classes in not only Ottoman history, but in all Islamic history (with the exception of the Shiite `ulama'). In the Ottoman Empire, the `ulama' undertook four basic duties:

a) The reproduction of Sunni Islam on the scale of the empire, by referring to and utilizing the traditional knowledge taken over from the older Islamic `ulama';

b) The legitimization of all operations and acts of the government, including domestic and foreign policies;

c) The operation of the legal and judicial mechanism; and

d) The performance of religious services and direction of education for the Muslim subjects of the empire.

It is the first and third of these duties which interests us here as important functions for the framework we have laid out, that is from the perspective of the diffusion of scriptural Islamic interpretations.

The first Ottoman `ulama' consisted generally of figures coming from other beyliks in and outside of Anatolia. We know quite well that these figures during the foundation of the Ottoman state were the architects of the first administrative and political organization and institutionalization, whether in the existing lands or in regions taken by new conquests. This institutionalization brought about a gradual reinforcement of the state's Sunni character. Most notable were the `ulama' who apparently lived during the periods of Osman and Orhan, as their biographies are given in the Hakayik-i Nu'maniyye. These scholars, among whom were some of Arab and Persian origin, had generally completed their education and specialization at old, established and internationally renowned Sunni madrasas in Islamic countries such as Maveraunnehir (Transoxiana), Iraq, Syria and Egypt, and served either in the field of education or in the bureaucracy. There is no doubt that these `ulama' of various origins and characters added a significant amount of color to the intellectual life of the capital of the empire. In addition to this, we see that from the period of the Empire's foundation on, and especially in the classical period, a great many students from among the Anatolian folk, after completing their educations in the old madrasas like those at Izmir, Bursa and Edirne, or in the empire's highest-level madrasas such as those of Fatih (Sahn-i Seman) and Suleymaniye, still went on to the above-mentioned countries in order to specialize, and that almost all of them returned and took up posts in various Ottoman madrasas.

Without a doubt, this process reached its peak during the consolidation of the centralist understanding of the state in the 15th century, and a well-organized, hierarchical bureaucratic system was created within the `ulama' class ­ one that had never before been seen in any previous Islamic state. This system, then, by carrying out unerringly the duties that fell upon it, brought the shari'a and administrative practices within the structure of the Ottoman state into a reasonable degree of harmony lasting until the Tanzimat.(15) This extraordinary bureaucratic hierarchy extended from the level of professorship (muderrislik) of a small provincial madrasa to that of the Sahn professorship in the imperial capital, and from the Sahn professorship to the empire's highest `ulama' position, that of the Shaykhu'l-Islam. This system can be considered the most concrete example of the interconnectedness of religion and state - or in other words the identity of religion with state - peculiar to the Ottoman Empire.

Perhaps one of the most important functions of this extraordinary hierarchy constructed by the Ottoman state itself was to provide the basis for legitimacy of sultanic law aimed at the administration of a vast empire spreading across millions of square kilometers. The great `ulama' succeeded in this enormous task with extraordinary skill. It was they who produced the mass of law codes from the classical period, which is still preserved in the archives. Moreover, while directing a massive class of kadis by means of the kazaskers, an enormous army of imams and muezzins by means of the muftis, and a large group of muderrises under the control of a single shaykhu'l-Islam, at the same time it kept institutionalized Islam under supervision by means of the waqfs.(16) This was the largest and most developed organization ­ in the bureaucratic sense ­ that Islamic history had seen until that time. Thus in this capacity, the `ulama' played, in my opinion, its most important role in the Ottoman Empire.

These functions of the Ottoman `ulama' were essentially what placed it in an important position within the social structure with respect to social status. The fact that they were exempt from taxation, that they kept under control the vast and rich income of the waqfs, and that they were allowed to pass on to their children their wealth, property and even their professional status, allowed the `ulama' to become a quite privileged "class" among the sultan's other "servants" (kul).(17) The Ottoman `ulama' performed these functions by means of two traditional scholarly fields - fiqh (law) and kalam (theology) - which were the most commonly dealt with, in terms of directly concerning practical life, and thus with the most potential for being performed up until that time.

The Ottoman `ulama' excelled in both fields due to its being the heir to the accumulation of theory and practice amassed by the Islamic world over several centuries. The collections of Turkish and Arabic fatwas produced by the Ottoman `ulama' certainly constitute an important contribution in the practical arena to Islamic law.(18) This accumulation was provided by the classical madrasas of great Middle Eastern cities such as Cairo, Damascus, and Aleppo, in the field of law, and by mostly the madrasas of Transoxiana in the field of theology. While the first of these sciences was an important means used in the administration and institutional organization of the empire, the second was instrumental in producing its ideology. These two traditional religious scholarly disciplines were the most favored areas of interest of the mollas in the Ottoman madrasas. The ability of individual scholars to reach the high bureaucratic positions of their ideals was only possible by their showing competence in one or both of these fields. Thus the basic educational program of the Ottoman madrasas ­ setting aside disciplines closely related to human health and daily life such as medicine (tip), mathematics (hesap) and geometry (hendese), along with astronomy (nucum) ­ consisted essentially of law and theology, and of the two fundamental sciences of tafsir and hadis, which undoubtedly nurtured them.

However, the Ottoman `ulama' did more than just make new strides in these scholarly fields. Because they gave precedence to service aimed at protecting the existing social order from decay, satisfying the religious needs of the people, and administering unabatedly the affairs of the state, they preferred to expound on the works of law and theology set down five hundred years before them by the Hanafi and Maturidi `ulama' after Ghazzali, known as mutaahhirun (the Later Ones), and to write taliks (explanations?) and hasiyes (commentaries), and even explanations of explanations and commentaries on commentaries.(19) Favored resources in the field of fiqh included Ali b. Ebibekr el-Merginani's (died 1196/1197) work entitled el-Hidaye, and in kalam the Sharhu'l-Akaid of Sa'deddin-i Taftazani (died 1395) - who found fame with the penname "Allame" - which was a commentary on the Akaid of the renowned scholar Nesefi (died 1114).(20) In short, as the Ottoman `ulama' was concerned with the two practical matters of carrying out the bureaucratic requirements of the state and preventing the beliefs of the people from falling into decay, the two favored scholarly disciplines maintained their importance for centuries ­ the one scientifically repudiating non-Sunni movements and strengthening the Sunni perspective, the other condemning these movements from the legal angle. It is generally accepted that the arrival of these religious sciences - referred to as nakli (conventional, dogmatic) sciences - at the forefront played an important role in the formation of an environment of intense bigotry which diminished the esteem of akli (rational) sciences such as logic, philosophy, and mathematics, which had even earlier been taught and respected. Katib Çelebi in the 17th century complains of this bigotry.(21)

Because of the influx into Anatolia of Hurufis who had been subjected to intense persecution in Iran in the 15th century, and because of new fluctuations caused by Safavid propaganda which continued with full force in the 16th century, the campaign led by the state against heretical currents threatening the beliefs of the Sunnis thrust the `ulama' into an intense psychology of defensiveness. The `ulama' of the time, headed by the famous shaykhu'l-Islams Ibn Kemal (died 1535), and after him Ebusuud Efendi (died 1574), began a merciless struggle against every type of Shiite and non-Sunni sect and Sufi tendency.

3. Tekke Islam (Mystical Islam)

One of the most typical and remarkable interpretations of Islam in the Ottoman Empire was certainly tekke Islam. Because of the mystical character it possessed and its deep and substantial influence on folk Islam, this particular form of Islam is a very important subject deserving analysis from many angles, such as its social foundation, doctrine, political relations, folklore, etc.

Like folk Islam, mystical Islam also developed in two parallel directions: with a Sunni and with a heterodox character. Whether with respect to its understanding of wahdat al-wujud or to the way of life it exhibited, tekke Islam displayed a panorama embracing almost all social sectors of the empire, from the highest echelons to the lowest. It took in a vast social base ranging from the common tradesman to the highest bureaucrat, even at times to the sultans.

Since the first appearance of Sufism and in almost all parts of the Islamic world, the mystical interpretation of Islam was characterized by a peculiar worldview, a mentality, and, developing around this, the lifestyle exhibited in the tekkes. According to this interpretation, divine truths could be attained not by means of scientific knowledge, but through divine discovery and inspiration, which were effected by special methods. Tekke Islam in the Ottoman Empire did not exhibit in the main significant differences from mystical Islam in other regions of the Islamic world.

With respect to its worldview, Ottoman tekke Islam constituted in a sense a parallel style of Islam, and this was true even within tariqas like the Kadiris, Rifais, Mevlevis, Halvetis, Bayramis and Celvetis, which followed to a certain extent the Sunni line, and even among the Naksis, who followed the Sunna entirely. This style of parallel Islam was of course much more evident in Sufi circles with a heterodox character, such as the Kalenderis, Bektashis and Melamis.

Ottoman tekke Islam - like madrasa Islam, institutionalized in a very refined manner - maintained this parallelism, not only opposite madrasa Islam, but also opposite state Islam. An exception to this might be the Bektashi order, which the state took great pains to keep exclusively by its side. This parallel position was sustained by means of the concept of wahdat al-wucud in the case of the Sunni mystical circles, and that of wahdat al-mawjud - that is, pantheism - in the case of the heterodox circles. This is one of the most critical issues in the history of Ottoman Sufism, for this pantheism created a protest class within the Ottoman Sufi ranks that came out against the central administration. This protest Sufism developed its pantheist approach by synthesizing it on the one hand with a messianic mentality, and on the other hand with the qutb (pole) theory. At the center of this latter theory was the figure of the qutb - the reigning spiritual authority of the world at the time - who was sultan of both the material and the spiritual worlds. It is easy to see how a militant interpretation could be derived from such a concept.

We can see here a remarkable ideological formation: that of the ability of the pantheist interpretation of the popular Sufi circles - which, unlike the wahdat al-wujud views of the higher Sufi circles, had their fingers on the pulse of rural population - to transform social protest movements into revolutionary, militant movements by combining the qutb theory with the messianic spirit. The ideological mechanism of this transformation was created particularly when Nizari Ismailis, having been scattered by the Mongol invasions, infiltrated various heterodox Sufi sectors and, combining the Ismaili Shiite imam theory with the Sufi qutb theory, assumed a militant attitude.(22) The entire 16th century was colored by the rebellious movements of these circles combining the qutb concept with the messianic belief - movements directed against the Ottoman central administration.(23) The leaders of these movements attracted large groups of followers with this ideology. This opposition ideology relying on a pantheistic pole-messianism, then, was the basic characteristic separating the heterodox sector of popular Islam from the Sunni sector.

4. Folk Islam (Popular Islam)

What is meant here with this term is a form of Islam unaffected by political, scriptural or mystical Islam (except for the influence of certain aspects of mystical Islam), a form in which only the patterns of traditional life and of culture have been naturally internalized. As will be understood from this statement, a simple form of Islam is meant ­ one which animates the scriptural foundations of Islam by mixing them with traditional motifs of folk belief, one by nature formed by practices directed toward belief and rituals more so than by intellect.

Folk Islam, reflecting a style of Islam including not only Turkish elements, but non-Turkish elements as well, does not possess an entirely mystical character, though it has appropriated Sufism's cult of saints and has in fact placed this at the center of its beliefs. This means that it differs from the organized mystical Islamic lifestyle experienced in the tekkes. Folk Islam displays its basic characteristics especially through folkloric elements during the performance of religious beliefs and rituals, elements reflecting beliefs and rituals from the pre-Islamic period. Festivities related to the holidays of Hidrellez and Nevruz, and practices performed during visits to saints' shrines are typical examples of this. These issues have yet to be studied by Ottoman cultural historians.

Birgivi Mehmed Efendi (died 1573) and certain members of the `ulama' following him violently opposed these aspects of folk Islam in the Ottoman Empire, and wrote books aiming to make the Islam of the folk conform strictly to scriptural foundations and to cleanse it of superstition and primitive beliefs ­ known collectively as bid'at. We can say that the term bid'at resembles, and in a way even amounts to the same concept as, the term heresy from Christianity. In fact, it can even be said that Birgivi and his followers focused on the heretical meaning when they used the term bid'at to refer to the practices they saw in folk Islam. Such efforts, while raised continuously by various `ulama' circles at all periods, did not prove to be very effective in practice.

Islam in the Modernization Period

It is at this point of bid'at, then, that the problem arose of regarding Islam as an insurmountable obstacle before "modernism" or "modernization," a problem that continues today to be the subject of heated debate. This process, in the Ottoman Empire beginning with the Tanzimat (from 1839 onwards), was to constitute the most significant turning point for Islam. During this process the tendency began to appear, among certain influential Ottoman bureaucrats and intellectuals, of regarding Islam as responsible for the backwardness of the Ottoman Empire. This tendency was actually in opposition to the interpretation and understanding of Islam that had been politicized by being identified with the Ottoman central government and had long been confined within a strict conservatism. It was gradually to gain strength among a certain elite sector and was to form the basis of the Republican reforms aimed at keeping Islam completely outside the public arena, and the basis of the Republican understanding of secularism.

Abdulhamid II, using the institution of the caliphate, made Islam the tool of a new political function, in a manner never before seen in the Ottoman Empire. This new policy, often referred to as Panislamism, aimed not, as is generally supposed, at gathering Islamic countries under a single political authority - that is, under Ottoman dominion - but rather aimed at organizing within the Islamic world an opposition to the imperialist policies of the Great Powers of the West.(24) The attempt was made to show, by emphasizing the Ottoman sultan's function as caliph as a political means, to Western states that he possessed the right of overlordship over the Muslim people of the world. Because of its use of the institution of the caliphate, it would be more suitable to refer to this policy as Caliphism, rather than Panislamism. This policy continued successfully for a while, but ultimately proved ineffective. This was, however, to be the final revival of Islam in Ottoman history.

Islam, after presenting such a colorful appearance during the classical period of Ottoman history, was to become in the period of modernization a problem, and the Westernizing intellectual elite of the empire was to consider it the cause of backwardness and the obstacle to progress (mani-i terakki). The republican ideology takes its foundation here. This was the herald of an important transformation, the consequences of which have continued with full vigor from the early years of the Republic until today. Islam, after serving as the Ottoman state's official ideology until roughly the Second Constitutional Period, was to give birth to a new political and intellectual movement as the ideology of the opposition rising against the Westernizing movement beginning with the Tanzimat. This Islamic movement still constitutes an opposition ideology in Turkey today, as Islamism (Islamcilik).

The roots of this ideology were nourished by reactions against the diagnosis of the reasons for the decline of the Ottoman Empire made by high-level bureaucrats and intellectuals, beginning with the Tanzimat. This diagnosis rose to the surface with the realization of the insufficiency of the modernization movements begun in the military arena by the central administration from the Tulip Age on, and with the idea that the actual problem might lie in other arenas. It then gradually led to Islam being considered a problem, especially in the minds of the intellectual bureaucrat class who had already become acquainted with the West. In this way, Islam gradually came to be seen by a certain portion of this class as responsible for the underdevelopment and decline of the Ottoman Empire.

The Islam opposed by these tendencies of the post-Tanzimat period was actually the traditional Islam identified with the Ottoman central administration - that political Islam that had settled into conservatism - that is, Ottoman Islam. It should be pointed out here that the views toward Islam held by the founders of the Republic, led by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, should be evaluated from this angle.

Another important point which usually goes unnoticed but which requires careful examination is that the new Islamic ideology that emerged in opposition to Western-style modernization movements was based not on the Ottoman Islam of the classical age, but on a Selefi understanding of Islam such as that held by Afghani and Abduh. This ideology, therefore, was in opposition not only to Westernization but also, in both its political and its popular dimensions, to Ottoman Islam. There are three critical indications of this:

1) Islamists were opposed to a sultanate, which was the traditional political institution of Ottoman Islam. They were in favor of a constitutional regime relying on the council (mesveret), which they perceived as being an Islamic institution.

2) They rejected most of the cultural content and institutions of traditional Islam, aiming to return Islam to the purity of its original state - i.e. the Islam of the early period. Thus, they were Selefi, or puritanist.

3) They abandoned "imitation" (taklid), which had been so characteristic of traditional Islam and thus of Ottoman Islam, and aimed at gaining efficiency, vigor, productivity and creativity for the scholarly and intellectual life of Islam by reopening the "Gate of Interpretation" (ictihad kapisi), which had been considered closed since approximately the 10th century.

Thus, the Islamism of the periods of Abdulhamid II and of the Second Constitution was perhaps basically a reactionary movement against classical Ottoman Islam. So it was in essence a modernist trend. Despite its apparent opposition to the West, it was in favor of modernization, and thus should be studied within the framework of the modernist intellectual movements of Turkish history.

Islamist writers and intellectuals of the era of Abdulhamid II such as Namik Kemal and Ziya Pasa, along with figures from the Ottoman Islamist elite such as Sehbenderzade Ahmed Hilmi, Seyhulislam Musa Kazim and Said Halim Pasa, Babanzade Ahmed Naim, Mehmet Akif (Ersoy), Ismail Hakki (Izmirli), Ismail Fenni (Ertugrul) and Semseddin (Gunaltay), took pains to explain that Islam was not a "mani-i terakki", that on the contrary Muslims, while advocating science and thought, had in time retrogressed by departing from this and getting caught up in scholastic thought. They thought that the autocratic regimes and traditional Islam should be held responsible for the backwardness of the Islamic world in general, and of the Ottoman Empire in particular, and attempted to explain that in reality Islam was not open to any regime which suppressed human freedom.

In short, Islam, maintaining its position as the Ottoman state's official ideology until the Second Constitution, was to withdraw into defending itself against the severe criticisms of the bureaucratic intellectuals who were the representatives of Western-style modernization movements, and was to be transformed into an opposition ideology. The name of this opposition ideology was Islamism. Its roots were then nourished by reactions against the diagnosis made upon Islam by the intellectual class raised with the modern bureaucracy and education of the Tanzimat period, as to the reasons for the backwardness of the Ottoman Empire.

Thus, with the fall of the Ottoman Empire, Islam was to be carried over into the Republican period as a problem. The Ottoman Westernizing elite who founded the Republic, in order to carry out the project of modernization (muasirlasma) they envisioned, sought and found a radical way out of the problem they saw as the "greatest obstacle" before them. This way, as mentioned earlier, took the form of putting the Republican reforms into practice one-by-one, which meant removing Islam from all the public spheres it had occupied during the Ottoman period. Thus the Republican period did not espouse this "problematic legacy"; rather it rejected it.

But could this legacy really be rejected? The seventy-nine years that have since passed have seen the development of two distinct tendencies on the issue of what is to be done about this "problematic legacy". Today in the secular Turkish Republic, Islam has come to be the opposition ideology of a significant portion of the population, while a section of the administrative intellectual elite tries to free itself from this problematic legacy, in whatever way it takes to achieve ­ even if it involves a disguised effort such as the "war against irtica" (retrogressive political reactionism). However, supporters of Islam as an opposition ideology, along with a significant portion of the people, continue to see Islam as still the basic factor defining identity. Resolution will certainly only be reached if both sides, using reason rather than enmity, bearing in mind the realities of history and society, reach a compromise on the issue of how Islam is to be dealt with.

Conclusion

In conclusion, Islam's place in the history of Turkey from the foundation of the Ottoman state until today, and its perception and presentation, in view of its profound influence on Turkey, are issues requiring serious discussion, not only from the perspective of Ottoman history but also from the perspective of Turkey's past, present and future; and they are issues that will be beneficial both academically and practically. The study of Ottoman history should begin to turn to such issues attentively and seriously, in order to understand what is to be done with this problematic legacy that still persists today.

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Notes:

1. Oxford Unv. Press, 1950, 2 vols.
2. Unv. of Chicago Press, 1972.
3. The Unv. of Chicago Press, 1974, vol. 3.
4. London, 1973.
5. Cultura Turcica, V-VII (1968-1970), 19-29.
6. In his The Middle East and the Balkans Under the Ottoman Empire: Essays on Economy and Society, Bloomington, 1993, 70-90.
7. See, Kinalizade, Ahlak-i Alayi, Cairo, 1248, p. 49.
8. See for example, A. Yasar Ocak, "Turk heterodoksi tarihinde zindik, harici, rafizi, mulhid ve ehl-i bid'at deyimlerine dair bazi dusunceler", Tarih Enstitusu Dergisi, XII (1981-1982), 507-520.
9. Far an assessment of the literature, see A. Y. Ocak, "Turkiye'de 1980 sonrasi Osmanli donemi akademik nitelikli tasavvuf tarihi arastirmalarina genel bir bakis", paper presented at Dunden Bugune Osmanli Arastirmalari Sempozyumu, Turkiye Diyanet Vakfi, Islam Arastirmalari Merkezi, (24-25 Subat 2001, Istanbul), (in press).
10. See Halil Inalcik, "Kutadgu Bilig'de Turk ve Iran siyaset nazariye ve gelenekleri", in Resit Rahmeti Arat Ocin, Ankara, 1976, 259-271.
11. On this, see Tursun Bey, Tarih-i Ebu'l Feth, ed. Mertol Tulum, Istanbul, 1977, pp. 10-15.
12. See A. Yasar Ocak, Osmanli Toplumunda Zindiklar ve Mulhidler Yahut Dairenin Disina Cikanlar, 2nd edition, Tarih Vakfi Yurt Yayinlari, Istanbul, 1999, pp. 251-327.
13. See Asikpasazade Tarihi, ed. Ali Bey, Istanbul, 1332, p. 205.
14. See for example, Hudavendigar Livasi Tahrir Defterleri I, ed. O. L. Barkan and E. Mericli, TTK Press, Ankara, 1988, passim.
15. B. Lewis, Istanbul et la Civilisation Ottomane, Jclattès, Paris, 1990, p. 160. For a detailed information on this hierarchy in the Ottoman ilmiye, see the following monographs which have become classic in the field, H. A. R. Gibb and Harold Bowen, Islamic Society and the West, Oxford Unv. Press, 1957 (reprinted in 1969), vol. 1, pp. 81-113; I. Hakki Uzuncarsili, Osmanli Devleti'nin Ilmiye Teskilati, 1st edition, TTK Press, Ankara, 1965.
16. See Gibb and Bowen, ibid; Lewis, ibid, pp. 160-161.
17. Compare Lewis, ibid, pp. 161/162; Hodgson, ibid, vol. 3, p. 115.
18. Inalcik, The Ottoman Empire, p. 174.
19. See Hulusi Lekesiz, Osmanli Ilmî Zihniyetinde Degisme (Tesekkul-Gelisme-Cozulme: XV-XVII. Yüzyillar), (Unpublished M.A. thesis, Hacettepe Unv., Ankara, 1989), pp. 164-171.
20. See Lekesiz, ibid, pp. 42-43; Fahri Unan, Kurulusundan Gunumuze Fatih Kulliyesi (Unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Hacettepe Unv, Ankara, 1989??), p. 305. For a sound analysis of Serhu'l-Akaid, see Taftazani, Kelam Ilmi ve Islam Akaidi. Serhu'l-Akaid, ed. Suleyman Uludag, 2nd edition, Istanbul: Dergah Yay., 1982, pp. 62-87.
21. See Mizanu'l-Hakk fi Ihtiyari'l-Ahakk, Istanbul, 1311, pp. 10-11.
22. See Farhad Daftary, Ismaililer: Tarih ve Kuram, trans. Ercument Ozkaya, Ankara: Rastlanti yay., pp. 481-486 ff.
23. For an analytical assessment of this subject, see A. Y. Ocak, "XVI. yuzyil Osmanli Anadolusunda mesiyanik hareketlerin bir tahlil denemesi", in V. Milletlerarasi Turkiye Sosyal ve Iktisat Tarihi Kongresi (Tebligler), Ankara: TTK Press, 1999, 817-825.
24. See Jacob Landau, The Politics of Panislamism, Ideology and Organization, London, 1990; Cezmi Eraslan, II. Abdulhamid ve Islam Birligi (Osmanli Devleti'nin Islam Siyaseti, 1856-1908), Istanbul: Otuken Yay., 1992; Azmi Ozcan, Panislamizm: Osmanli Devleti, Hindistan Muslumanlari ve Ingiltere (1877-1914), Istanbul: ISAM Yay., 1992 (in English: Pan-Islamism: Indian Muslims, the Ottomans and Britain (1877-1924), Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1997).