INSTRUMENTOS DE APOYO DE POLITICA SECTORIAL

The multiple parallels that Hakki draws between the Axis and the Sultan in his tuhfe works poses the important question of how these discussions connect and disconnect from the larger narrative the author is creating. In order to assess how these discussions of the relationship between the Sufi and the Ottoman ruling elite inform our

343 _{Ismail Hakki Bursevi, Tuhfe-i Hasekiye, Süleymaniye Kütuphanesi, Mihrişah Sultan 164, fol. 219b,} Kitābü’n-Netice, I, 367.

344 _{Kitābü’n-Netice II, 159.}

345_{Tuhfe-i ‘Aliye, 213-214; Tuhfe-i Vesīmiye, 135.}

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understanding of Hakki’s views on religious authority, I will refer back to the language of the tuhfes.

All of the works that Hakki composed for Ottoman officials were written in Turkish, his audience’s native language, and not in Arabic. In several of them, Hakki explains that his goal in doing so is to make his writings more understandable:

It is necessary that the folk of the imamate follows the wisdom [in this book]. For this reason, I wrote this book in Turkish, the language of the Turkish regions, so that the minds can easily comprehend.347

Hakki was not unique in his preference for writing in Turkish. Tabur has demonstrated that Hakki’s choice was very much in line with that of other public religious figures who sought to spread their message widely.

Bursevi’s tuhfes were first of all educational tracts which aimed not only to inform the reader about the basic tenets of Celveti Sufism but also to offer a roadmap to live one’s life within the acceptable limits of sunna and sharia as a responsible member of the community. Through these texts Bursevi partook in the consolidation of orthodoxy and orthopraxy and regarded it as his responsibility to provide religious education to more people as a response to what he conceived as decline in all aspects of society due to impiety.348

The target audience of the aforementioned dedicatory treatises included high- ranking Ottoman officials and members of the imperial court. These statesmen undoubtedly had good awareness of the overarching hierachical structure of which they were part, and were likely intimately familiar with the titles of the court. By depicting the saintly hierarchy and the Ottoman ruling hierarchy in parallel terms, Hakki could have

347 _{Tuhfe-i ‘Aliye, 198.}

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aimed to portray his overreaching spiritual power through a reference to what they knew well – the key positions in the Ottoman political domain.

In Tuhfe-i Hasekiye, a treatise dedicated to the chamberlain of the palace, Tubazade Mehmed, Hakki describes the positions of several Ottoman officials as the loci of manifestation of particular divine names. Thus, God’s name The Knower (al-‘alīm), is manifested in the position of the Grand Mufti of the imperial capital; the name “The Magnificent (al-jalīl) is manifested in the position of the Army Judge of the Balkans (Rumeli), “The Beautiful” (al-jamāl) in the Army Judge of Anatolia (Rum), “The Most Perfect” (al-kāmil) in that of Mecca and Medina, and so forth.349

The Names of God also play a crucial role in Tuhfe-i Recebiye, a treatise Hakki dedicated to the Governor of Damascus, Recep Pasha. The work outlines a sacred geography, according to which, major cities in the territory of the Ottoman Empire represent the loci of manifestations of twelve individual divine names.350

Tuhfe-i ‘Aliye outlines the stages of the vizierate in metaphysical terms: Hakki presents the sultan as the locus at the station of the divinity of the name “The Magnificent (celāl)” and the vizier – as the locus af the name “The Lord” (rabb) at the station of lordship. The power duo is also portrayed as the divine throne (the sultan) and the footstool (the vizier) at the stations of being (merātib-i kevniyede). Hakki emphasizes the complementarity of the two by referring to the sultan as the sun (şams) and the vizier as

349 _{Kazıcı, “Osmanli müesseseleri,” 207-220.} 350 _{Ilahi isimler (Tuhfe-i Recebiye), 203-236.}

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the moon (qamr), which is the locus of the sun’s light. Finally, at the stations of the soul, the sultan is the spirit (rūḥ), and the vizier – the heart (qalb).351

In all of the above examples, critical to Hakki’s portrayal of the relationship between the saintly hierarchy is the concept of God’s manifestation (feyz, Arabic: fayḍ) in various loci (maẓhar, pl. maẓāhir). The idea of the divine manifestation is not unique to Hakki: In Ibn al-‘Arabi’s metaphysics, the notion of God’s manifestation through His Names allows for the continuous divine involvement in the world, and the possibility for individuals to perceive aspects of their Creator. In Hakki’s hierarchy, the notion also serves an additional purpose: It provides legitimation for the Ottoman establishment by drawing a direct link between the temporal world of Ottoman statesmen, on one hand, and a divine realm, on the other. At the time when Hakki was writing, the Ottoman state had a largely secular bureacracy: beyond the Sultan, who claimed spiritual authority as the caliph of the Muslim world, the majority of the offices Hakki lists on the above diagram and outlines in his writings, such as the Kazaskers of Rumelia and Anatolia, local governors, and corps in the army, were not religious in nature. By presenting Ottoman political titles as the loci of manifestation of individual divine names, Hakki lends significant spiritual legitimacy to the Ottoman state. He implicitly suggests that the Ottoman polity was brought into existence not merely due to a temporal need for a government; but that it came about by a divine order.

351 _{Tuhfe-i ‘Aliye, 222-223.}

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