How the Ottomans refashioned and legitimated their rule through mystical imageries of authority

The medieval theory of the caliphate, epitomized by the Abbasids (750-1258), was the construct of jurists who conceived it as a contractual leadership of the Muslim community in succession to the Prophet Muhammed's political authority. In this book, Hüseyin Yilmaz traces how a new conception of the caliphate emerged under the Ottomans, who redefined the caliph as at once a ruler, a spiritual guide, and a lawmaker corresponding to the prophet's three natures.

Challenging conventional narratives that portray the Ottoman caliphate as a fading relic of medieval Islamic law, Yilmaz offers a novel interpretation of authority, sovereignty, and imperial ideology by examining how Ottoman political discourse led to the mystification of Muslim political ideals and redefined the caliphate. He illuminates how Ottoman Sufis reimagined the caliphate as a manifestation and extension of cosmic divine governance. The Ottoman Empire arose in Western Anatolia and the Balkans, where charismatic Sufi leaders were perceived to be God's deputies on earth. Yilmaz traces how Ottoman rulers, in alliance with an increasingly powerful Sufi establishment, continuously refashioned and legitimated their rule through mystical imageries of authority, and how the caliphate itself reemerged as a moral paradigm that shaped early modern Muslim empires.

A masterful work of scholarship, Caliphate Redefined is the first comprehensive study of premodern Ottoman political thought to offer an extensive analysis of a wealth of previously unstudied texts in Arabic, Persian, and Ottoman Turkish.

Hüseyin 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 Süleyman 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'être 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
Süleyman I and Designing the Ottoman Epitome 251
The Seal of the Caliphate 266
Conclusion 277
Notes 287
Glossary 329
Bibliography 337
Index 357