Caliphate Redefined

Huseyin Yilmaz is associate professor of history and director of the Ali Vural Ak Center for Global Islamic Studies at George Mason University.

Acknowledgments ix

Note on Translation, Transliteration, and Pronunciation xiii

Introduction 1

The Ottomans and the Caliphate 1

The Caliphate in the Age of Suleyman 4

The Caliphate as a Moral Paradigm 8

The Rumi Character of Political Writing 10

Outline of the Book 14

List of Abbreviations 21

1 The Discourse on Rulership 22

The Age of Angst: Turkish Vernacularism and Political Expression 23

The Age of Excitement: From Conquest to Exploration 31

The Age of Perfection: From Engagement to Exceptionalism 45

Imperial Turkish and the Translation Movement 55

Four Ways of Writing on Politics 64

Ethics 69

Statecraft 75

Juristic Perspectives 80

Sufistic Visions 89

Languages of Political Thought 94

2 The Caliphate Mystified 97

The Ottoman Dawla 97

The Contest for the Caliphate 107

Rulers and Dervishes 112

The Ottoman Dawla Lost and Found 125

Converging and Diverging Spheres of Authority 131

3 The Sultan and the Sultanate 145

Reconciling Visions of Rulership 146

The raison d'etre of the Sultanate 150

Rulership as Grace from God 156

The Nature of the Ruler 167

The Question of Morality 173

The Status of Rulership among Humankind 177

4 The Caliph and the Caliphate 181

God's Government 182

The Shadow of God on Earth 186

Prophethood as Rulership 188

The Sultanate as Caliphate 191

Prophet's Successor and God's Vicegerent 196

Rulership as Mystical Experience 200

The Caliphate as Unified Authority 206

From Sultanate to the Caliphate 215

5 The Myth of the Ottoman Caliphate 218

God's Chosen Dynasty 218

Mystification of the Origins 228

Mehmed II and the Making of the Ottoman Archetype 241

Suleyman I and Designing the Ottoman Epitome 251

The Seal of the Caliphate 266

Conclusion 277

Notes 287

Glossary 329

Bibliography 337

Index 357