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Contested Territory: Ottoman Holy War in Comparative Context Author(s): Linda T. Darling Reviewed work(s): Source: Studia Islamica, No. 91 (2000), pp. 133-163 Published by: Maisonneuve & Larose Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1596272 . Accessed: 30/01/2012 12:36
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Studia 2000 Islamica,

Contested Territory : Ottoman Holy War in Comparative Context

The questionof the natureof the earlyOttomanconquests,once thoughtto have been exhausted (if not resolved), has been dramaticallyreopened in recenttimes. A pairof papersgiven at the openingandclosing sessions of the 1998 Congresson the Economic and Social Historyof the OttomanEmpire views on the role of holy warin the foundation voiced contrasting of the Ottoman state. (1) The presentationof these papers reflects a recrudescenceof interestin the well-known"ghazi thesis"of PaulWittek,the controversial proanddrivingforce of the positionthatghaza, or "holywar,"was the foundation early Ottomanstate. (2)Althoughghazaiis not identicalto jihad, this interest is probablynot unconnectedwith public anxiety over extremistgroups like onjihad since the Iranian revoIslamicJihador with the spateof publications lution of 1979. (3)The reassessmentof Wittek'sthesis has generateda search of sources for new sourceson the early Ottomanperiodand a reinterpretation alreadyknownfor the cultural historyof westernAnatoliain the late thirteenth of these new sources,however,has andfourteenth centuries.The investigation not settledthe questionof the place of ghaza in the earlyOttomanstatebut has more positions on its meaningfor the early Ottomansand simply introduced its role in the developmentof theirempire. the way the This ongoinglack of resolutionsuggeststhatit is time to rethink andthe strategies by whichit mightbe answered. Despite questionis structured a nearabsenceof directevidence for the role of ghaza in early Ottoman expebeenposed withinthe narrience,the questionof Ottoman ghaza has primarily in westernAnatolia(one row contextof the cultureof the Turkish principalities of which, the Ottoman,would soon dominatethe region). This tactic might of the infantTuras a productof the historiography have been understandable
(1) Halil Inalcik, "New Researcheson Osman Gazi," and Heath Lowry, "TheNatureof the Early Ottoman State as Reflected in the 14thCenturyHistoryof Bursa,"given at the opening lectureand the final panel of the VIII.Uluslararasi Tirkiye'ninSosyal ve EkonomikTarihiKongresi,Bursa,Turkey,June 18-21, 1998. I am grateful to the participantsin the History DepartmentBrown Bag at the University of Arizona for helping to clarify the ideas in this paper. (2) Paul Wittek, The Rise of the OttomanEmpire(London:Royal Asiatic Society, 1938). (3) Expressions of this anxiety in English include, on the academic level, Samuel P. Huntington,"The Clash of Civilizations?"Foreign Affairs 72 (1993): 22-49; and on the popularlevel KarenArmstrong,Holy War(London:Macmillan, 1988).

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kish republic,but in fact it emergedmuch laterin the context of the mature Turkishand non- or historiographies, developmentof a numberof nationalist even anti-Turkish, and of increased academic specialization.The Ottoman conquest,however,did not take place in a vacuum,and the Ottomansdid not arisein westernAnatoliauntouched of thepastandtheproblems by the cultures of the landsthrough whichthey moved.Researchers mustbroaden the scope of of the problembeyond westernAnatoliaand Turkishsourcesin investigation orderto see its full dimensions,let alone to resolve it. This paper surveys some of the directions in which that contextualization might be extended and proposes a more productiveformulationof the question. Ratherthan asking whether the early Ottoman state was a ghazl state or not, or seeking to identify some kind of foundational essence, it takes a potentially more fruitful path, defining the Ottomanstate as a product of contestation among groups with different agendas and different for their own interests and concepts of the relevance and value of ghazad of Most students Ottoman whether or not they considered goals. origins, "theghdzis"to be the dominantelement in the state, have sought to define their role as a group vis-a-vis other groups in the development of Ottoman institutions, ideas, and activities. But ghaza was not the property of a homogeneous group; people advocated or engaged in it from different standpointsand for different reasons. The coexistence of such conflicting interestscan be attested,not on the Ottomanfrontieralone, but on frontiers around the Muslim world where ghaza was practiced and for centuries prior to the Ottoman conquest. Consequently, the debate about Ottoman origins should be reformulatedin terms of the interests that were at stake in the establishmentof the new state of Osman and in the pursuitof ghazai by its members. Such a reformulationcannot be fully accomplished in this short space, but this essay seeks to provide a basis on which it can take place by examining the productionof our sources on ghaza and the interests they representor portray. The debate to this point has centered around the meaning of the term ghaz.aand its applicability to the situations and personnel of the Ottoman frontier. Wittek's thesis, that the founders of the Ottoman state were a group of frontier warriors(ghazifs) motivated by an ideology of holy war (ghaza), was put forth to counter previous assertions that the early Ottomans were simply unletteredTurkishtribesmenwhose state owed its cohesion and growth to traditions of imperial government and sedentarized bureaucracyborrowed from the Byzantines or the Saljuqs. (4) Since Wittek's time, however, both the tribal organizationof the Ottomansand their
werebehindOttoman see Herbert A. Gibbons,TheFounda(4) Forthe positionthatthe Byzantines greatness tionof the Ottoman Clarendon fortheSaljiqs see M. FuadKoprulii, Press,1916);fortheargument (Oxford: Empire Les originesde l'empireottoman(Paris:E. de Boccard,1935);trans.GaryLeiser, The Originsof the Ottoman embracesboth influences, Empire(Albany:State Universityof New York Press, 1992). Vryonis'sformulation the roleof the Ottoman Turksin the foundation of theirown stateto conquestanddestruction reducing (see Speros Dumbarton OaksPapers23-24 [1969-70]:249-308). Forms," Vryonis,Jr.,"TheByzantine LegacyandOttoman

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engagement in holy war have been questioned. Later scholars share a certain skepticism toward claims by fifteenth-century Ottoman chroniclers that the conquests of their forebearswere motivated by religious devotion and zeal for the faith. (5)The heterogeneous natureof Ottomanarmies and alliances, mixing Christians with Muslims and often directed against coreligionists, their focus on booty and territorial expansion rather than conversion, and elements of unorthodoxyor even shamanismin Ottoman religious practice argue against literal readings of the portrayalof the early Ottomans as Islamic holy warriors.The construction of the Ottomans as ghazis is now often considered to be a later overlay, while the chroniclers' inaccuraciesand obviously tendentialreconstructionscall attentionto their own personal agendas as well as their lack of reliable informationon the times of their ancestors.At the same time, conflicting versions of the Ottomans' tribal origins presented in the chronicles raise doubts about their validity. These contradictionshave been resolved in different ways. The interpretationof tribalism made by Lindner demands a rejection of ghadz ideology and orthodox Islam in favor of an Islam heavily influenced by Central Asian shamanist traditions, later repudiated,and an organization that regardedbureaucratictraditionsas alien and corrupt.(6) On the other hand, Inalcik considers that the disruptionof tribal organizationby migration and service in Byzantine mercenarybands made a space in which a ghaizi ideology could act as a uniting force and recruitingmechanism for people of tribal origin who were no longer tribally organized. (7) More recently, the prevailing skepticism towardthe Ottomanchronicles has motivatedtwo authorsto try to determinewhat can be reliably ascertained about Ottomanorigins and ghizi ideologies from other sources. Colin Imber'sarticles deconstructinghistorical incidents and mythological narratives in the chronicles cleared the way for a minimalistpolitical history of the early Ottomansincorporating only informationverifiable from contem(5) This skepticism is based in part on detailed study of the chronicles and their antecedents;see espeand V. L. M6nage, "TheBeginnings of Ottoman cially Halil Inalcik, "TheRise of OttomanHistoriography," in Historians of the Middle East, ed. BernardLewis and P. M. Holt, HistoricalWritingson Historiography," the Peoples of Asia, 4 (London: Oxford University Press, 1962). For recent work in the same vein, see Studiesin OttomanHistoryin Honourof Professor V.L. Menage, ed. Colin Heywood andColin Imber(Istanbul: Isis Press, 1994). (6) Rudi Paul Lindner,Nomads and Ottomansin Medieval Anatolia, Uralic and Altaic Series, n? 144 (Bloomington:IndianaUniversityResearchInstitutefor InnerAsian Studies, 1983); this viewpoint is shared by Gyula Kaldy-Nagy, "The Holy War (jihdd) in the First Centuries of the Ottoman Empire,"Harvard UkrainianStudies 3-4 (1979-80): 467-73; and Ronald C. Jennings, "Some Thoughts on the Gazi-Thesis," WienerZeitschriftfiirdie Kundedes Morgenlandes76 (1986): 151-61. Rudi Paul Lindner,in "Stimulusand Justificationin Early OttomanHistory,"Greek OrthodoxTheological Review 27 (1982): 207-24, describes ghazd as a justification after the fact ratherthan a stimulusto conquest. Journalof Turkish (7) Halil Inalcik,"TheQuestionof the Emergenceof the OttomanState,"International Studies2 (1980): 71-79; he combines mercenaryservice with populationpressuredue to Mongol advancesto band westwardexpansion.However,it shouldbe noted thatwhat Inalcikcalls a warrior explainthe Ottomans' a "new tribe,"that is, a mobile political organizationwith is exactly what Lindnercalls a tribe, in particular recruitment not based on kinshipin which leadershipwent to the most successful war leader(RudiPaul LindStudiesin Society and History24 [1982]: 700). Was a Nomadic Tribe?"Comparative ner, "What

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porary non-Turkish sources. (8) On that basis, authentic evidence identifying the early Ottomans as ghazis is almost nonexistent (the Byzantines, for example, never seem to have noticed a ghazi identification among their Ottoman allies/opponents), and what little evidence there is can be explained away as later interpolations. Imber's negative move of breaking down the traditional narrative of Ottoman origins based on chronicle evidence was followed by the positive one of reconstructing an Ottoman Empire resembling that of Kopruilu in its derivation from the Islamic empires of the past. In place of the imperial administration of the Saljuqs, however, Imber sees the sharl'a as the formative impulse of the Ottoman state. His study of legal manuals supports an argument that the Ottomans from the first conducted their warfare and organized their territories in accordance with the strictures of Islamic law, the portrayal of unorthodox tribal ghazis on the warpath being purely a fifteenth-century reconstruction. (9) In his view, the pursuit of ghaza as mandated by the shar'a legitimated the Ottoman sultans as Muslim rulers, and chroniclers "adjusted" their narratives to account for anomalies and to make the Ottomans heirs to the Saljuqs as ghazi leaders and thus justify their takeover of Muslim lands in Anatolia as well. Although Imber admits that the portrayals of ghaza in epic poetry and in the chronicles appealed to different groups in Ottoman society, he does not accord the tension between them any formative role. Cemal Kafadar's study of western Anatolian literary sources leads him to quite a different position despite a certain similarity of approach. He argues that although hard evidence for Ottoman identification as ghazis in the early years is extremely thin and can be argued away, expansion of the field of inquiry to the western Anatolian principalities as a whole brings out an entire post-Saljuq tradition and literature of ghazi activity. ('1) Late twelfthand thirteenth-century Turkish leaders routinely considered themselves to be engaged in ghaza, were granted and used the title of ghadzi, and were celebrated as such in song and story as well as inscriptions and letters. In that context, the Ottomans may be regarded as having almost been required to engage in ghazli warfare if they were to attract support for their expansion. But what did the term ghadzl mean to those who used it? They considered
(8) Colin Imber, "Paul Wittek's 'De la defaite d'Ankaraa la prise de Constantinople',"Osmanll Arastlrmalar 5 (1986): 65-81; "The OttomanDynastic Myth," Turcica 19 (1987): 7-27; "The Legend of OsmanGazi,"in The OttomanEmirate(1300-1389), ed. ElizabethZachariadou (Rethymnon:Crete University Press, 1993); all reprintedin Studies in OttomanHistory and Law (Istanbul:Isis Press, 1996; citations are from this edition); "Canonand Apocryphain Early OttomanHistory,"in Studies in OttomanHistory in Honour of Professor V. L. Menage, 117-38; The OttomanEmpire, 1300-1481 (Istanbul:Isis Press, 1990). (9) Colin Imber, Ebu's-su'ud: The Islamic Legal Tradition (Edinburgh:EdinburghUniversity Press, 1997), p. 73; idem, "PaulWittek's'De la defaite d'Ankara'," pp. 294-301; idem, "The OttomanDynastic Myth,"pp. 305-9. Between Two Worlds:The Construction (10) Cemal Kafadar, of the OttomanState (Berkeley:University of CaliforniaPress, 1995). The need to expand the context in which Ottomanorigins are considered was pointed out by Kopruiliand Wittek alreadyin the early twentiethcentury,but instead of broadening,since that time the context has drasticallynarrowed(K6priili, Origins, pp. 89-90; Wittek, Rise, pp. 17-19).

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themselves good Muslims, not holders of tribal beliefs outside the Islamic mainstream, yet they did not see theirghazi activity as holy war in any purist sense. Ghazai was notjihad and did not adhereto jihad's legal norms;rather, it was an activity in which people of any faith or origin couldjoin, thoughit benefitted the Islamic state as well as the warriorsthemselves. Anatolian epic poems of the twelfth and thirteenthcenturiesdepict ghdzt warriors,the main agents of conquest, as living for battle and booty, glory and girls. The with nonstrugglefor Islam did not precludecooperationand intermarriage Muslims, religious syncretism, or this-worldly motivations; ghaza2was inclusive ratherthan exclusive, aiming at the attachmentof new territories and new adherents by whatevermeans provedsuccessful, whetherviolent or chronicles writtenmainly by membersof the (1) Fifteenth-century pacific. 'ulama'reinterpreted the ghazt warfareof the early days in more exclusive terms as holy war for the faith pursuedby nomads uncorrupted by civilization. This reinterpretation was addressed to fifteenth-centuryproblems: explaining Timur'sbreakupof the empire by the loss of an original Muslim/tribal purity, legitimizing the reconstituted post-Timurid empire by linking its rulerswith CentralAsian nomadicroyalty,or criticizingthe imperial recruitmentand taxationpolicies of Mehmed the Conqueror.Tensions between these sources reflect tensions in Ottomansociety between groups contendingfor the spoils and creditof conquest,and thatcontentionbecame a significantaspect of Ottomanexperience. Although Kafadar criticized views expressed in the introduction to Imber'sminimalisthistory, (12) he did not use the ample evidence in Imber's text which supportshis own constructionof the Ottomans' ghazi experience. His call for an expansion of the context in which the early Ottoman conquests should be considereddid not go beyond the strictlyTurkishfield; in particular, it did not include a considerationof the Ottomans' non-Turkish allies or enemies, despite an interesting analysis of border epics and the conditions of borderwarfare.According to borderlandsscholars, however, one defining characteristicof border society is that the groups facing each other across the bordertend to resemble each other more stronglythan they do the hinterlandsocieties of which they are the extensions. (13) A considerationof the otherarmiesin the field is thus not irrelevant.(14) Imber'snarrative, like earlierhistories, provides abundantevidence that the context in
(11) As Halil Inalcikhad earlierstated, "HolyWar was intendednot to destroybut to subduethe infidel world"and to redirectits profitstowardthe Muslims (The OttomanEmpire:The Classical Age, 1300-1600, trans.NormanItzkowitzand Colin Imber[London:Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1973; rpt.New Rochelle, NY: Caratzas,1990; rpt. London:Phoenix/OrionBooks Ltd., 1994], p. 7). (12) Kafadar,Between Two Worlds,p. 164, n. 31; see Imber, The OttomanEmpire,pp. 12-13. (13) Oscar Martinez,Border People (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1994), pp. 18-20; Michael a ComparativeHistory of Borderlands," Baud and Willem van Schendel, "Toward Journal of WorldHistory 8 (1997): 216, 221-22. Wittek made this point earlier(Rise, pp. 18, 20). (14) Comparisonof the Normansand the Turksin the medieval Mediterranean brings out some startling et Turcs en M6diterranee m6di6vale:Deux adversaires'symesimilarities;see Michel Balivet, "Normands Turcica 30 (1998): 309-29. triques'?"

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which the Ottomansestablished their state was that of the later Crusades. The impact of the Crusades,althoughit did not alter the legal definition of jihad, stronglyaffected the cultureof the easternMediterranean, generating a twelfth-century literature thatromanticizedthe originalMuslim conquests and the role of Jerusalemas a Muslim holy city. (15)Subsequentevents tarnished this auraof holy war, and by the fourteenthcenturyit existed only in memory, to be drawn upon for other purposes. A Muslim commentatorof the early twelfth centurycould convincingly portraythe Crusadeof his time as ajihad, (16)but the Crusaderattackon ChristianConstantinoplein 1204, like Sunni-Isma'iliwarfareon the Muslim side, made holy war a more complex concept for laterparticipants. The Ottomanconqueststook place in a lull between two majorcrusading phases, during a period of minor expeditions mountedfor a variety of less worthymotives. (17) The deploymentof religious ideology to legitimize warfare and territorialacquisition had become a standardtactic among the peoples of the many small states, Christianand Muslim, of the thirteenththe centuryBalkansand westernAnatolia,includingthe FrankishCrusaders, Venetians, Serbs, Bulgarians and Catalans, the Byzantines, and several groups of Turks. In pursuitof territory,booty, and power, all of the above were preparedto attack co-religionists, ally with former enemies, or hire warriorsfrom any backgroundat all. (18) The Ottomans'emergence took place in a context in which Christiansas well as Muslims engaged in warfare often motivatedby greed, self-aggrandizement, and, as Kafadarput it, victory for "ourteam,"but legitimatedby calls to faith and holy war. This is not to say thattherewere no sincere warriorsfor the faith on either side, but that the uniformityof motive implied by terms like "theghdzis"is illusory.
(15) Fred M. Donner, "TheSources of Islamic Conceptionsof War,"in Just Warand Jihad: Historical and TheoreticalPerspectives on Warand Peace on Westernand Islamic Traditions,ed. John Kelsay and James TurnerJohnson (New York: Greenwood Press, 1991), pp. 53-54; Hadia Dajani-Shakeel,"Al-Quds: Jerusalemin the Consciousnessof the Counter-Crusader," in TheMeetingof Two Worlds:CulturalExchange betweenEast and Westduring the Period of the Crusades,ed. ValdimirP. Goss and ChristineVerzarBornstein, Studies in Medieval Culture,21 (Kalamazoo:Medieval InstitutePublications, 1986), pp. 201-21; see also EmmanuelSivan, L'Islamet la croisade: Ideologie et propagande dans les reactions musulmansaux croisades (Paris:Libraired'Ameriqueet d'Orient,1969). (16) 'Ali b. Tahir al-Silami, Kitdb al-Jihdd (1105); cited by Robert Irwin, "Islamand the Crusades, 1096-1699," in The OxfordIllustratedHistory of the Crusades, ed. JonathanRiley-Smith (Oxford:Oxford University Press, 1995), p. 225. (17) Aziz SuryalAtiya, The Crusadein the LaterMiddleAges (London:Methuen, 1938), p. 282. Societies and Crusadingin the Late Middle Ages," (18) For examples see Norman Housley, "Frontier Mediterranean Historical Review 10 (1995): 107-8; ElizabethZachariadou, "HolyWarin the Aegean during in Latinsand Greeksin the EasternMediterranean the Fourteenth after 1204 (London:FrankCass, Century," 1989), p. 214; Halil Inalcik, "TheRise of the TurcomanMaritimePrincipalitiesin Anatolia,Byzantium,and the Crusades," ByzantinischeForschungen9 (1985): 179-211; rpt.in TheMiddleEast and the Balkans under the OttomanEmpire: Essays on Economyand Society (Bloomington: IndianaUniversity Turkish Studies, 1993), pp. 312-13. The interminglingof Muslim, Byzantine, and westernEuropeanpeoples and states in the easternMediterranean emerges vividly from J. M. Hussey, "TheLaterMacedonians,the Comneni and the CamAngeli, 1025-1204,"in The CambridgeMedieval History, ed. J. M. Hussey, vol. 4, pt. 1 (Cambridge: bridge University Press), 1966), pp. 232-39.

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We cannot say that the Ottomanswere not ghazis, any more than that the FourthCrusadewas not a crusade,but we cannot assume that ghaza meant the same thing to all participants. The battles and maneuveringsof the Crusades are familiarground,but closer study of the cultureof crusadingwarfare in the easternMediterranean in the late thirteenthand early fourteenth centuriesmight illuminateOttomanorigins considerably. The border epics studied by Kafadarsuggest anotherexpansion of the context in which ghaza should be interpreted,that is, an expansion of the time scale. The warfaredepicted in these epics is usually not grandbattles but desultoryfrontierraidinginvolving close and often friendly interactions with "enemy"warriorsand much border-crossing by the protagonists,indications of the developmentof a cross-bordersociety over a long period of time. The Byzantine frontier, as we know, had been a feature of Islamic society almost since its beginning,and it is unlikely thatthe customs and traditions of the borderwere completely overturned by the Saljuqinvasions. In fact, the circulationof epic tales and themes from Arabic throughPersian and Turkishliteraturesindicates a high level of continuity in attitudesand practices.This shouldnot be surprising,since even a cursoryexaminationof the frontiersin the tenth to twelfth centuries demonstratesa high level of continuityin personnel,not only over time but over space, as ghazis moved from one Islamic frontierto another.Thus, Ottomanghazi activity must be investigated in the context of the history of ghaza in the larger Islamic world. Kafadarpoints to the need for such an expansion of the context but confines himself strictly to Turkishsources. Materialfor such a quest, however, can be gleaned from sources questioned by Kafadar for their Turkishbackgroundalone. Two types of sources used by Kafadar,frontiernarrativesand catechetical works, circulatedin late Saljuq-earlyOttomantimes but embodied the traditionsof an earlier era. Frontiernarratives,in the forms of epic poetry and hagiography,contain elements traceable to earlier frontier epics and saints' tales in Arabic and Persian (e.g., the Abiumuslimnima,exploits on attributedto AbuiMuslim, the 'Abbasid-propagandist-turned-folk-hero the CentralAsian frontier,and the Battalnama,the story of Sayyid Battal frontierwarfare).(19) Such Ghazi, a hero of seventh-century Arab/Byzantine narrativesindicate the presence on the Ottoman frontier of concepts and approachesdeveloped in those distant settings and conveyed throughsong and story. These poems closely resemble epic poetry from other frontier milieux, such as the poems of the Byzantine Digenis Akrites or the Spanish Cid, and they had a long history of oral transmissionand re-creationby stowarriorsthemselves before being stabilized in rytellers among the ghadzi written form. In them ghaza is portrayedas an ongoing activity of raiding
(19) Irene Melikoff, Abu-Muslim, Le 'porte-hache' du Khorassan dans la tradition epique turcoiranienne (Paris: A. Maisonneuve, 1962); idem, ed., La geste de Melik Ddnismend, 2 vols. (Paris: A. Maisonneuve, 1960).

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and small-scale conquest starringindividualswhose personal qualities and experiencesare the focus of attention; religious loyalties are more important than religious beliefs, and ethical, honorable,courageousbehavior is more
important still. (20)

The second type of work having earlierantecedentsis of a very different nature:the catechism('ilm-i hal) or articlesof faith (aqa'id),giving rules for religious behavior, in some instances including definitions of ghaza and Producedby 'ulamd'for the purjihad and rules for behavioron ghazd. (21) of this of has a long history, as exemplified text also instruction, pose type Anatoliancatechism by the researchof ?inasi Tekin on a fourteenth-century containinga section on the rules of ghazd, as opposedtojihad in general.(22) The oldest Turkish antecedent Tekin found for his Anatolian text was a translationof a tenth-century catechism by the famous theologian Abu alLayth al-Samarqandi(d. 983); the rules themselves are presumablyeven older. Samarqandl'stext proved so popular that it circulated widely in Arabic, Persian, and Turkish versions. (23) Tekin notes that another text containingthe rules of ghazd, a Persiancatechismwrittenin the twelfth cenauthor,also appearedin several early Anatolian turyby anotherSamarqandi Turkishtranslations,and that in the fourteenthand fifteenth centuriesAnatolian Turkish'ulamd'such as Molla Hiisrevcomposed similartexts of their own. The presenceof these texts in Anatoliaimplies eithera traditionof instructionin the rules of ghazd emanatingfrom the CentralAsian frontierand to the Anatolian frontierby literate migrants,or a migrationof transferred intellectualsfrom Samarqand to Anatolia,where they engaged in the codification of the ghazd. These works make a distinction between ghazacand jihad: in themjihad, a duty incumbentupon all Muslims, refers to defense of Muslim cities against invasion by "infidel"armies, while ghaza, a duty that may be dischargedby a sufficient portion of the Muslim community, refers to invasion of "infidel"lands by Muslims authorizedby the caliph or to defense of far-distantparts of Muslim territory.(24)The rules in themselves strongly suggest an attemptto impose a modicum of control over a chaotic situation;they seek to regulatethe makingof war, peace, and truce,
(20) Kafadar,Between Two Worlds,pp. 62-77. (21) Ibid., p. 64. Wiener Zeitschriftfur die (22) Sinasi Tekin, "XIV iinci Yuzyila ait bir Ilm-i Hal: Risaletii'l-Islam," Kunde des Morgenlandes76 (1986): 279-92; idem, "XIV. Yiizyllda Yazilmi? Gazilik Tarikasl'Gaziligin Yollan' Adll bir Eski AnadoluTurkcesiMetni ve Gaza/CihadKavramlanHakklnda," Journalof TurkishStudies 13 (1989): 139-204. (23) Tekin, "Gazi/CihadKavramlanHakklnda," p. 139 and n. 3. wherethe applicablerules are (24) In these worksAnatoliaappearsto be still considered"infidel" territory those of ghaz.d (ibid., p. 143; see also ClaudeCahen,"Lapremierepenetration turqueen Asie-mineure[second moiti6 du XIe s.]," Byzantion 18 [1946-48]: 64-65; rpt. in Turcobyzantina et Oriens Christianus[London: Variorum consideredto be partof the Dar al-Islamand what that Reprints,1974], I). For a list of "provinces" statusinvolved,see Fadl-Allahb. RuzbihanIsfahani, MuslimConductof State,based uponthe Suluk-ul-Muluk, trans.Muhammad Aslam (Lahore,Universityof IslamPress, 1974), p. 459. Like most worksonjihad, this work distinguishesbetweenoffensive and defensive warfare,but withoutusing the termghaz.d (p. 464).

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the division of booty and the consumptionof perishables,the commission of atrocities,the sale of armsto the enemy, and the offer of conversionor submission to those aboutto be attacked. The circulationof these two very differenttypes of works on the Anatolian frontier reveals the existence of divergent interests and worldviews within the bordercontext. (25) While frontierepics and catechetical works ostensibly operatedfrom the same definitionof ghaza, they embodiedvastly differentimpulses. The epic celebratedindividualheroism that took advanof bordersociety to make friends,converts,and tage of the boundarylessness marriagesamongthe putativeenemy, extolled the bonds of comradeshipand the acquisition and generous disposal of personal wealth, and in general embodied the romantic and individualisticaspects of borderwarfare.The catechism,on the otherhand, sought precisely to set controls on the fluidity of bordersociety, to impose boundariesbetween warriorsidentified primarily as Muslims and their unbelieving opponents,and to interposethe state andits demandsinto the collection of wealth andthe dispositionof the spoils of campaign.The tension between these powerfulinterests,and between the borderwarriorsand 'ulama'who embodiedthem, is far older than the Ottoman state; the killing of the caliph 'Uthman in the first centuryof the hijra already involved a conflict between the same interests. (26)Kafadarnoted this tension in the Ottomanchronicles of the late fifteenth century, which Ottomanorigins to suit the demandsof contending attemptedto reinterpret forces in post-1453 society. Here, however, it appearsalreadyin the process of compositionof the early Anatoliansources on ghazd. Although these contrasting sources were not written down in Turkish until the fourteenthcenturyor later, their circulationin writtenPersianand, we may presume, oral Turkishversions duringthe formativeperiod of the Ottomanstate points to a tension lying at the very foundationsof the state. Ratherthan being a creationof the ghazis or the 'ulama',of tribalor sedentary social formations,of the Greeks or the Turks,the Ottomanstate was a productof the coincidence and divergenceof the interestsof all these groups and more. At heart,the nascentOttomanstate in Anatoliawas contestedterritory.In place of assessing the success or failureof the stateby its closeness to or distance from an original essence of whatever nature,we can better conceptualize Ottomanorigins and subsequentups and downs in terms of conflict and its management,interestsand the balanceof powers. This is not on a new procedurefor Ottomanists,as a considerationof the historiography
(25) Wittek and Imberboth noticed this tension but did not accord it any formativerole (Wittek, Rise, pp. 294-95; idem, "The OttomanDynastic Myth," p. 18; Imber, "PaulWittek's 'De la d6faite d'Ankara'," p. 306); for Kopriili (as for Kafadar)the differences of approachreflected the separatesocial spheres in which they were expressed, and he drew attentiononly to the tension between orthodoxand heterodoxSufT orders(Koprulii,Origins, pp. 88-98, 103-6). b. Jariral-Tabari,The History ofal-Tabari, vol. 15: The Crisis of the Early (26) Abf Ja'farMuhammad Caliphate,trans.R. StephenHumphreys(Albany: State University of New York Press, 1990), pp. 221-22.

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the Tanzimator on Mehmed II's reformsin the late fifteenthcenturywould show, but it needs to be applied to the question of the natureof the early Ottomanstate. With respect to the ghazd, individualsand groups competed for the rightto define its parameters, determineits role, andreapits rewards. Rulers, 'ulamd',and borderwarriorsall had a stake in the prosecutionof ghazd, but theirstakes were different,sometimeseven at odds. Othergroups or peasants,perhaps)could be seen as having a stake in the limi(Christians tation or eliminationof ghaiziactivity. The very meaning of ghaza must be seen as contested between conquerorswho perhapswanted to acquirereliand power, 'ulamd'whopergious sanctionand prestigealong with territory haps wantedto bringthe conquestsunderreligious controland establishreligious institutions,saints who perhapswantedto spreadtheirfaith or live up to its demands,and soldiers who were perhapsnot interestedin justification or organizationor faith but in booty and glory. This brings us to a third interest operative on the pre-Ottomanfrontier, but claimingauthority thatof the distantcentralstate,locatedin the hinterland in the borderland. The identity of the "distantcentral states"attemptingto control and direct the activity of the frontierwarriorsvaried over time, but their interests and capabilities, or lack thereof, also helped shape the final Ottomanproduct.Among the types of sources examined so far, the central state is representedin a text containingthe same rules of ghazd as the catechisms but in a different genre. The anonymousBahr al-Fava'id, cited by Tekin as an antecedentfor the fourteenth-century catechisms,is a mirrorfor princes produced in Aleppo around 1160 under Nfr al-Din Zangi (11461174), a ghazi and fighter against the Crusaders.(27) The book was compiled from a varietyof existing sources, includingboth manualsof religious practiceand earliermirrorsfor princes. In fact, the resemblanceof the portion on ghaza to the correspondingsection of the catecheticalworks discustext was among those sed above promptsthe speculationthat Samarqandi's availableto its authorin the westernSaljuqlands in the mid-twelfthcentury. But in additionto the rules of ghazd, the book includes advice to kings to pray, consult the 'ulamd',protect their domains and treasury,and dispense justice in open court;these values, stemming from the Perso-Islamictradition of the Great Saljuqs of Iraq and Iran, are enforced by stories of pious men and rules for royal grants,the lives of caliphs and the wonders of the world. (28)The text, despite its dependence on the catechisms, depicts a viewpointin which ghaza is only one among severalways in which the royal time and treasuremight be spent. The authorof this book was an anonymousmemberof the 'ulamd',quite possibly one of those whom Nufral-Din brought in from Persia and the east to staff the Sunni schools and courts he built in Syria in the twelfth
(27) The Sea of Precious Virtues(Bahr al-Favd'id):A Medieval Islamic Mirrorfor Princes, trans. and ed. Julie Scott Meisami (Salt Lake City: Universityof Utah Press, 1991); rules of ghazd on pp. 27-32. (28) Ibid., pp. 147, 215, 299, 301, 324.

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century.(29) His work was among several mirrorsfor princes writtenfor Salrulers in the wake of al-Ghazali'sNasihat al-Muluk, juiqand contemporary works that sought to reconcile the Perso-Arabic tradition of state with Islamic norms more fully than in earlierperiods when they had been regarded as alternatives.Ratherthanchoosing between the roles of royal autocrat, just judge, culturedaficionado,pious devotee, and zealous ghdzi, rulersnow tried to combine them, an endeavor that gained poignancy after the end of the caliphate. If the border epics and hagiographies placed the personal rewardsof ghaza (materialor spiritual)above its communalbenefits, and the catecheticalworks tried to harnessindividualheroism by the constraintsof law, the mirrorsfor princes sought to deploy the approvalobtainedthrough ghaza to enhancethe legitimacy and glory of the rulerand the state. In Anatolia,a numberof books of advice to kings were writtenby refugees fromthe east who fled fromthe Saljuqbreakup andthe Mongol invasionsand migratedto the Rfim Saljuqcourtin the early-to-midthirteenth century,men such as the secretary b. Sa'ad b. the Sufi al-Din Ahmad, Razi, and Yahya Najm the 'AlimSiraj al-Din Urmawi. (30)These authors,together with others of easternorigin--aswell as artists,architects,poets, and mystics orthodoxand the most famousof whom is of courseJalalal-Din Ruimi--created antinomian, an AnatolianTurkishculturethathad close connectionswith thatof northern and northeastern Iran.The routefrom the east, more open thanthe southward road to Syria which was closed by the Crusaders, had been traversed by the Saljuqsthemselves,andbeforethatby ghdzisfromthe CentralAsian frontier. The work of easternrefugees and migrantsstrengthens the suggestionof the and fourepics and catecheticalworks that a prominentsourcefor thirteenth Anatolianideas aboutghaza was the Iranian frontierof an earteenth-century lier period.An investigationof thatregionis thus in order. In contrastto the relativelystaticArab/Byzantine the Iranian/Cenfrontier, tral Asian frontierin the early centurieswas a creativematrixfor the whole Islamic world. It was, of course, the hotbed of the 'Abbasid revolutionand the home of most of those who shaped that dynasty'soutlook and policies, its most imporincludingmembersof the dynastyitself, such as al-Ma'miun, tant servants,such as the Barmakids,and the troops that were its mainstay, both Khurasanians and Turks.The northeastern frontierwas also the home of developing Sufism, and it was there that the link between the Sufifsand the
(29) Nikita Eliss6eff, Nur ad-Din: un grandprince musulmande Syrie au tempsdes Croisades (511-569 h./1118-1174), 3 vols. (Damascus:InstitutFrancaisde Damas, 1967), 2: 461-62; cited in Sea of Precious Virtues; p. x and n. 27. For Nur al-Din's constructionssee Nikita Eliss6eff, "Les monumentsde Nfr ad-Din," Bulletind'EtudesOrientales 13 (1949-51): 5-43; idem, "Latitulature de NOrad-Din d'apresses inscriptions," Bulletin d'EtudesOrientales 14 (1952-54): 155-96. (30) C.-H. de Fouch6cour, "Haddyeqal-Siyar, un Miroir des Princes de la cour de Qonya au VIWXIII siecle," Studia Iranica 1 (1972): 219-28; Najm al-Din Razi, The Path of God's Bondsmen from Origin to Return,trans. Hamid Algar (Delmar, NY: CaravanBooks, 1982); on Urmawi see Ann K. S. Lambton, "Changing Conceptsof Justiceand Injusticefrom the 5th/l Ith Centuryto the 8th/14thCenturyin Persia:The Studia Islamica 68 (1988): 27-60; Louise Marlow, "Kings,Prophetsand Saljuq Empireand the Ilkhanate," the 'Ulama' in Mediaeval Islamic Advice Literature," Studia Islamica 81 (1995): 101-20.

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ghdztswas forged,althoughsurvivingsourcesaretoo few to shed light on the main oppoprocess. (31) In the eighthto tenthcenturies,the Muslim warriors' nents were the pagan Turks of the steppe, but Turks also lived within the Islamicfrontierand foughton the Islamic side in increasingnumbers,both as and as official membersof the Umayyad,'Abbasid,and warriors independent were cooks). Samanidarmies(some were of noble status;others,interestingly, In the process many became Muslims and some achievedhigh office. (32) In the chroniclesof the region ghdzis appearas volunteers(10,000, 20,000, or 30,000 in number)accompanyingSamanidand Ghaznavidarmies on campaigns against pagan opponents,as defendersof cities such as Samarqand and Bukharain the absence of governmenttroops, and as robberor rebel bands.(33) The style of borderwarfarewas modeledon thatof nomadicwarfare, whose tacticswere incursionsand raidsratherthanset-piecebattlesand was given to numerousprinces territorial occupation.(34) The title of Ghcdzt
and generals in command of ghazi expeditions.
(35)

At the same time, Samar-

commercialcenter,slave market,papermanufacturing qandwas an important and some ghazis may well have engaged at center,and home of scholarship, times in occupationsotherthanfighting.(36)
(31) RichardN. Frye, Bukhara:The Medieval Achievement(Norman:University of Oklahoma Press, 1965), pp. 115-17. It must have been in the tenth century that the ribdts or frontier fortresses exchanged their militarycharacterfor a religious one. In the eleventh century,the communalSffism of the ribdts was On the conquest and Islamizationof Censpreadwestwardby Khurasanishaykhs (El2, s.v. "Saldjiukids"). tral Asia see Devin DeWeese, "YasavianLegends on the Islamization of Turkistan,"in Aspects of Altaic Civilization III, ed. Denis Sinor (Bloomington: Research Institute for Inner Asian Studies, 1990),
pp. 1-19.

in EarlyMuslim Service,"Journalof TurkishStudies2 (1978): 85-96; Richard (32) Daniel Pipes, "Turks Musand Transoxania at the Time of the ArabConquest," N. Frye with A. M. Sayili, "TheTurksin Khurasan lim World35 (1945): 308-15; rpt. in RichardN. Frye, Islamic Iran and Central Asia (7th-12th Centuries) (London:VariorumReprints, 1979), XIII; Fukuzo Amabe, The Emergenceof the 'AbbdsidAutocracy:The 'AbbdsidArmy, Khurasdnand Adharbayjdn(Kyoto: Kyoto University Press, 1995), pp. 130-33. Inalcik on the subsequentdevelopmentof the AnatolianTurks:Halil Inalpointsout the influenceof this background cik, "Islamin the OttomanEmpire,"CulturaTurcica 5-7 (1968-70): 19-29; rpt. in Essays in OttomanHistory (Istanbul:Eren, 1998), pp. 229-45. Down to the Mon(33) Accordingto Bayhaqi,Ibn al-Athir,and Gardizi,cited in W. Barthold,Turkestan gol Invasion, 3rd ed. (London: Luzac, 1968), pp. 215, 242, 287, 295, 345. For a similar descriptionof the ghdzis of Sicily see RobertS. Lopez, "TheNormanConquestof Sicily," in A History of the Crusades,ed. KennethM. Setton, 6 vols. (Madison:University of Wisconsin Press, 1969-), 1: 58-61. Both Koprul and Wittek speak not just of an undifferentiatedmass of ghdzis but of ghdzf organizationsor corporations, linking them with akhis andfutuwwaorganizations,topics that are outside the scope of this paper.Members of these organizations,full-time ghazis, possessed no means of supportotherthanwarfareand in the absence of ghdzi raidingbecame mercenariesor bandits(Koprulii,Origins, p. 89) or, in an urbansetting, ayydrs (C. E. Bosworth, "TheArmies of the Saffarids,"BSOAS31 [1968]: 538; rpt. in idem, The Medieval History of Iran, Afghanistanand CentralAsia [London:VariorumReprints,1977], XVII). (34) ClaudeCahen, "TheTurkishInvasion:The Selchiikids,"in A Historyof the Crusades,ed. Setton, 1: 138. (35) This includedSaljuq,the eponymousfounderof the Saljiq dynasty,whom laterhistorianscalled alMalik al-Ghazi (IbrahimKafesoglu, A History of the Seljuks: IbrahimKafesoglu'sInterpretationand the SouthernIllinois University Press, 1988], p. 25 and Resulting Controversy,trans.Gary Leiser [Carbondale:
n. 55).

Barthold,Turkestan, (36) E12, s.v. "Samarkand;" pp. 237, 256.

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On the CentralAsian frontier,the interestsof the distant'Abbasid state were representedby the Samanids (874-999). They were in charge of the ghaza, but their court also became, as we know, the center for the development of Perso-Islamicculture.The most outstandingproductof thatculture, Firdawsl's Shahnama, is precisely a story of tension between the central state and the warriorhero, a theme thatmust have been quite familiarto the influential region's rulers and warriors.(37) Abu al-Layth al-Samarqandi's catechism,embodyingthe 'ulamd"sattemptto containthe practicesof ghazi warfarewithin a legal framework,had appearednot long earlier. We thus find the same constellationof intereststhat were presentin Anatolia represented on the CentralAsian frontierin the tenth century. At that moment, this frontierwas on the point of closing, as the conversion of most of the steppe Turksto Islam had caused the ghdzis to lose their employment(perhaps explaining their appearanceas robbers).The Samanidsbegan to send expeditions southward into Afghanistan, and about the same time the Byzantinesbrokethroughthe northwestfrontier,takingAleppo, Tarsus,and Antioch duringthe 960s. (38) In the second half of the tenth century,ghazis left CentralAsia in large numbersto join the fighting in the south and west. We have reportsof the havoc caused in Rayy as ghazis heading for Anatolia passed through in 966. (39) Soon afterward,Samainid territoriesin the northeastwere taken over by the Muslim Karakhanids from the east, and there was no longer a frontierin Transoxiana. The sponsorship of ghaza into India by the Turkish Ghaznavids of Afghanistan(999-1161) attracted many ghazis from the north.SeveralGhaznavid rulersbore the title of Ghdzi, as did some of the Ghfrid rulers who succeededthem. (40) It is unclearhow this title was bestowedor by whom; in latertimes it was eitherconferred by the 'ulamd'on the leaderof an officially for raidsinto non-Muslim ghaza or self-awarded proclaimed territory.(41) The
(37) See Dick Davis, Epic and Sedition: The Case of Ferdowsi'sShahndmeh(Fayetteville:Universityof ArkansasPress, 1992), p. 20. (38) For details see MarkWhittow, The Makingof Byzantium,600-1025 (Berkeley: Universityof California Press, 1996), pp. 310-37. (39) Clifford E. Bosworth, "MilitaryOrganisationunder the Biyids of Persia and Iraq,"Oriens 18-19 (1965-66): 157, from the chroniclersMiskawayhand Ibn al-Jawzi.The Bfyids, regardingthese ghdizisas a Samanidinvasion, defeated them and threw them out (idem, The Ghaznavids:TheirEmpirein Afghanistan and Eastern Iran, 994-1040 [Edinburgh:EdinburghUniversity Press, 1963; 2nd ed. Beirut: Librairiedu Liban, 1973], p. 167). Similar troublesarose in Baghdadin 971-72, accordingto Ibn al-Athir,instigatedby people arriving"fromeverywhere"in response to a call for ghazd (Koprului, Origins, p. 90). (40) Bosworth,The Ghaznavids,pp. 33, 114; the thirdsultanMas'id (1030-1041) had plans to wage holy war in Anatoliaas well as India(Bayhaqi,cited in Bosworth, "TheImperialPolicy of the EarlyGhaznavids," Islamic Studies 1 [1962]: 57, 73; rpt. in idem, The Medieval History of Iran,Afghanistanand CentralAsia [London:VariorumReprints,1977], XI); see also 'Abdu-l-Qadiribn-i-MulukShah al-Badaoni,Muntakhabuvol. 1, trans.George S. A. Ranking(Calcutta:Asiatic Society of Bengal, 1848; rpt. Patna:Acat-Tawdrikh, demica Asiatica, 1973), pp. 64, 74-75. or "SelectHistory",abridgedtrans. Edward (41) Hamd Allah Mustawfi Qazwini, The Ta'rikh-i-Guzida G. Browne (Leiden: E. J. Brill; London:Luzac, 1913), p. 161; BaburMirza, "Babumama," in A Centuryof Princes: Sources on TimuridHistory and Art, trans.W. M. Thackston(Cambridge:Aga Khan Programfor Islamic Architecture,1989), p. 250.

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referencesin contemporary and laterchronicles,but to a large extent it must have continued the ghdzi traditionsof the Central Asian frontier,just as Ghaznavid imperial government maintainedthe Samanid traditionsof its origin. The importanceof the ghdzi ideology can be seen in the Chahar which put ghazl valor beforejustice Maqala by Nizami Arufdi Samarqandi, and orderin the praises of the Ghiurid prince to whom it was addressed.(42) the the to of Ghaznavid 'Utbi, history ghaza entailedthe submisAccording sion of non-Muslims to Muslim rule, the incorporationof their territories into the lands of Islam, and the official renunciationof idolatryby conquered rulers,but mass conversionwas not a centralissue even for Indiantroops serving in the Ghaznavid armies. (43) Besides the Ghaznavids'own slave troops, the army included "varioustribes of Turks, Khiljis, and Hindus and Afghans, and the Gozz (sic) troops,"and a force of Arabsis also mentioned. In addition,there were warriorsfrom CentralAsia; on one occasion "nearly through twenty thousandmen had come from the plains of Mawarannahr, zeal for Islam, and they sat down waiting the time for the Sultan'smovements, striking their numerous swords, and utteringthe shout of the holy war, 'God is great!"'(4) do not portraythe cultureof the ghazis; they The chroniclesunfortunately give detailed descriptionsof battles, but culturalinformationis confined to the rulersand their courts. 'Utbi's historypresentsthe Ghaznavidregime as an amalgamof Islamic orthodoxy,astrology and miracles, drinkingparties, and bureaucratic administration, Bayhaqi'ssimply as a snakepitof intrigue. (45) As on the Anatolian and Central Asian frontiers, however, so on the Indian frontierthe traditionof the ghdzis was preservedin epic form. The hero of this traditionwas the "Princeof Martyrs," Salar Mas'fd, "nephew"
of the Ghaznavid Sultan Mahmud and general (sipahslair) of a ghadzlarmy.

ghadz activity of the Ghaznavids and Ghurids is known mainly from

Mahmuid reigned in the early eleventh century,but the region of Mas'ud's exploits was not actuallyconqueredby the Muslims until the early thirteenth century,so it is not clear who this Mas'ud really was. By the late thirteenth century,however, the poet and travelerAmir Khusrawcould see his tomb in Bahraich,and in the fourteenthcentury it was a popularpilgrimage site visited by Ibn Battfta, who recordedthe tales he was told of the martyr's
(42) EdwardG. Browne, "TheChaharMaqala("FourDiscourses")of Nidhami-i-'Arfud-i-Samarqandt," Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (1899): 619-20. trans.JamesReynolds (London:OrientalTranslation Fund, 1858), pp. (43) al-'Utbi, TheKitab-i-Yamini, 283, 322, 326, 362; C. E. Bosworth, "ThePolitical and Dynastic History of the IranianWorld (A.D. 10001217),"in The CambridgeHistory of Iran, ed. RichardN. Frye, 7 vols. (Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 1975), 5: 177-80. (44) 'Utbi, pp. 363, 335-36, 333, 450. (45) On Bayhaqi see Marilyn Robinson Waldman,Towarda Theoryof Historical Narrative:A Case Study in Perso-lslamicate Historiography(Columbus:Ohio State University Press, 1980); Julie Scott Meisami, "DynasticHistory and Ideals of Kingship in Bayhaqi's Tarikh-iMas'udi,"Edebiyat, n.s. 3 (1989): 57-78.

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The legend of Salar Mas'ud, who was given the title miraculousdeeds. (46) Ghazi Miydn,survives in an early seventeenth-century rendition,the Mir'cti Mas'udf or "Mirror of Mas'ud"by 'Abd al-RahmanChishti. (47)According to its author,this work, besides quotingfrom extanthistories,containsinformation which had "notfound a place in any historical work of repute"but was extractedfrom a very old book with the aid of "directions he graciously received from the spirit of the departed" and "verifiedby oral communications with the author'sspiritualvisitors."(48) These assertionsfunctionedas testimony to its accuracyon both the historicaland spirituallevels. Althoughthe work'slaterdate of composition,and the fact thatthe ghadzs' opponentswere idolatorsratherthanpeople of the Book, separateit from the it has severalthingsin commonwith them.One Anatolianfrontiernarratives, is a certainlack of religiousorthodoxy"despite its self-consciousreligio-political correctness"; (49) accordingto this text, "thePrinceof Martyrswas most spotless in body and mind"and "freefrom sin";he performedmiraclesand exhibitedsupernatural insight;and his goal was "toconvertunbelieversto the one God and the Musulmanfaith. If they adoptour creed, well and good. If is a connecRelatedto this unorthodoxy not, we put them to the sword."(50) tion with a Sfif milieu:GhaizMiyanwas portrayed as an ascetic and spiritual moreovertook pains to hero, and his tomb became a shrine.His biographer link the exploits of Mas'uid to the latercareerof the Suif saint Mu'in al-Din Chishti through the device of clarifying the separationbetween the two. Anothersimilarityis a willingness to cooperateand ally with infidels; after of the garrison to raise Delhi, SalarMas'udordersthe commander conquering and troops,most likely non-Muslim,"fromamongthe people of the country," confirmson theirthronesrulerswho submitto him withoutdemandingtheir conversion. Yet anotherlikeness is a fascinationwith the worldly pursuits of the hunt and the collection of booty. (51) None of these acts, clearly, was consideredinconsistentwith a ghdzzi of the lifestyle eitherby the originators legends or by the lateraudiencefor this version. While the publicationof these tales in the seventeenthcenturymay have been meant as a contributionto the discourse on syncretismthat followed
(46) IqtidarHusain Siddiqui, "A Note on the Dargah of Salar Mas'ud in Bahraichin the Light of the StandardHistorical Sources,"in Muslim Shrines in India: Their Character,History and Significance, ed. ChristianW. Troll (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1989), pp. 45-47; see also Tahir Mahmood, "TheDargah of Sayyid SalarMas'ud Ghazi in Bahraich:Legend, Traditionand Reality,"in ibid., pp. 24-43. (47) 'Abdu-rRahmanChishti, "Mirft-iMas'udi,"partialEnglish translationby R. B. Chapman,in The History of India as Told by Its Own Historians, ed. H. M. Elliot and John Dowson (London:Triibner& Co., 1869; rpt. New York, AMS Press, 1966), 2: 513-49. This work was broughtto scholarly attentionby C. E. Iran 6 (1968): 41-42; rpt. in Bosworth, "TheDevelopment of PersianCultureunderthe Early Ghaznavids," idem, The Medieval History of Iran, Afghanistan and Central Asia (London: VariorumReprints, 1977), XVIII. (48) Chishti, pp. 513-14. (Between Two Worlds,p. 66). (49) This phraseis Kafadar's, referringto the Ddnishmandndma (50) Chishti, pp. 520, 522, 525, 530. (51) Ibid., pp. 548-49; 532-34; 530, 538, 541.

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the religious innovationsof the Mughal emperorAkbar (1556-1605), their role in earliertimes can be seen as embodying a call to faith and conquest that contrasteddramaticallywith the acknowledgedcorruptionand bureaucratic intrigue of the Ghaznavidcentral state. This tension resembles that seen on the Anatolian frontierbut differs in the absence of the law-bound orthodoxyof the 'ulami', althoughwe noted above the existence of a legal to the Anatolianfrontraditionof ghaza in Samarqand that was transferred tier. Does its lack of representation in the Indiansources mean that 'ulama' from CentralAsia did not go to Ghaznaor for some reason played a lesser role in Ghaznavid and Ghurid society? Or are there still undiscovered sources to be found on the ghaza in India? A majorinfluence on the ghadzt traditionof North India was the Mongol incursions,beginning in 1220 with the Mongols' pursuitof the Khwarazmshah to the Indus valley. The ghdzis of the Delhi Sultanateturnedfrom the conquestof Indiato its defense, and in some chroniclesthe termghazd came to refer only to warfareagainst the pagan Mongols, in which Muslims and Hindusboth participated. (52)The historianJuzjanidescribedall Mongol leaders as "accursed"and saw their irruptionas a sign of the end of the world.(53) Ghazd against them legitimated Indian Muslim rulers; Sultan Ghazi Ghiyathal-Din Tughluq(earlierknown as Ghadzt Malik) won the title of Ghazi by his successful defense against the Mongols, and Frfiz Shah's defense of Delhi from a Mongol raid demonstratedhis right to rule. (54) North Indianusage, defining ghazd as defensive warfareratherthan offensive war and raiding,was thus the opposite of that developed on the Anatolian frontier. There were westerners,however, among the Indian frontier warriors;several of the generals and governorsof the Delhi Sultanatewere Rumis or AnatolianTurks,and troopswere sent from the courtof the caliph in Baghdad.(55) In fact, fighters came from all over the Muslim world, particularlyfrom CentralAsia, Afghanistan,and Iranas those regions fell under Mongol control, to participatein the Delhi Sultans'successful oppositionto the Mongols. The understanding of ghazd in India must surely have been affected by the ghdzi traditions of the migrating warriors as well as by India'shistoricalcircumstances.So far, however, the topic has scarcelybeen studied;a recent book alludingto the ghaza in India was forced to fall back on researchon the Ottomanghaza. (56)One indication of a shift in alignon holy war"and "attending to the prosments, however, is that "carrying
(52) See, for example, Minhaj-i Siraj Jfzjani, Tabakdt-iNdsiri, trans. H. G. Raverty, 2 vols. (London: Gilbert& Rivington, 1881-97; rpt.Osnabriick: Biblio Verlag, 1991), 2: 1007, 1009, 1039, 1053, 1117, 1123, 1135. (53) Ibid., 2: 935. Firoz Shahl,"in TheHistory of India as Told by Its Own Historians, 3: (54) Zia al-Din Barani,"TTrikh-i 226; Shams-iSiraj'Afif, "Tarkh-iFiroz Shahi,"ibid., 3: 278. In this milieu, Ghazi appearssometimesto have been used as a propername. (55) Jizjani, 2: 724, 752, 787, 1117. (56) RichardM. Eaton, The Rise of Islam and the Bengal Frontier, 1204-1760 (Berkeley: University of CaliforniaPress, 1993), pp. 71-77.

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no is, ghazia and good administration--were perity of the peasants"--that longer treatedas contrastingimpulses but were linked togetherin praises of good rulerswrittenafterthe startof the Mongol invasion. (57) On the Anatolian frontieras well, changes over time in the way ghaza was depicted can be relatedto changes in the balance of forces contending for its control.The Anatolianfrontierwas for Muslims the archetypalsite of thatof the leaderof the pilgrimage ghaza; the statusof its leaderapproached to Mecca, and conditionstherelargely shapedthe official Islamic legal definitions of ghazd. (58) The Muslim forces never became large enough to ensure a successful offensive war, and perpetualraidingratherthan permanent conquestbecame the goal of frontiercombat.This necessity broughtthe ghaza closer to the original pre-Islamic definition of ghazw as camelraiding, a redistributiveeconomic activity governed by an elaborateset of rules. (59) of the initial Umayyadpolicy of universal After the abandonment fronjihad, the 'Abbasid caliph al-Mansur(754-775) establishedpermanent tiers (thughur) against the Byzantines and institutionalizedthe Umayyad patternof more or less annual summer raids by combinationsof caliphal troops and miscellaneous volunteers,led by princes of the royal house. (60) Emigrantsfrom the east were prominentamongboth volunteersand government troops from the earliest period of the frontier'shistory. The official 'Abbasid army consisted largely of easterners from Khurasan; further easternforces, led by 'Abbasid princes, continuedto be sent at intervalsto reinforcethe western frontier.Both caliphal troops and volunteers counted Turks among their numbers. (61) Harin al-Rashidcreatedwhat became the frontier's"classical" organizationby expandingandreorganizingthe institutions of al-Mansur.He also began to lead expeditionsin person andbecame the first "ghalzi-caliph," one who fought not only as the leaderof the Muslim in his own right. (62) In so doing, he was clearly communitybut as a ghaczi
(57) Jfizjani,1: 665, 676, 698. (58) J. F. Haldon and Hugh Kennedy, "TheArab-ByzantineFrontierin the Eighth and Ninth Centuries: ZbornikRadova ByzantoloskogInstituta 19 (1980): MilitaryOrganixationand Society in the Borderlands," 106, 115. (59) John Walter Jandora, Militarism in Arab Society: An Historiographical and Bibliographical Sourcebook (Westport,CT: Greenwood Press, 1997), pp. 4-5; E12, s.v. "Ghazw."On the relationshipof Islamic definitionsof ghazd to pre-IslamicArabianraidingpracticesand their adaptation by Muhammadto warfareagainstthe enemies of Islam, see Donner,p. 35. (60) For Umayyadjihid policies and summerraids see KhalidYahya Blankinship,The End of the Jihad State: The Reign of Hishdm Ibn 'Abd al-Malik and the Collapse of the Umayyads(Albany: SUNY Press, 1994); on the 'Abbasids see Michael Bonner,Aristocratic Violence and Holy War:Studies in the Jihad and the Arab-Byzantine Frontier (New Haven: AmericanOrientalSociety, 1996). (61) Bonner,AristocraticViolence,pp. 53, 66; C. E. Bosworth,"TheCity of Tarsusand the Arab-Byzantine Frontiersin Earlyand Middle 'Abbasid Times,"Oriens 33 (1992): 272, rpt.in TheArabs,Byzantium and Iran: Studies in Early Islamic History and Culture(Aldershot:Variorum,1996), XIV. For the numbersof Turks see Peter von Sivers, "Taxesand Trade in the 'Abbasid Thughir, 750-962/133-351," Journal of the Economicand Social History of the Orient25 (1982): 86. (62) Bonner,Aristocratic Violence,pp. 99-106; the term was introducedby C. E. Bosworthin his introduction to The History of al-Tabari, vol. 30, The 'Abbdsid Caliphate in Equilibrium(New York: SUNY Press, 1989), p. xvii.

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"playingto an audience which includedreligious scholars,"whom he cultivated throughout his reign. (63) Haruin's presence on campaigntied the Anatolian ghazd more closely to the central state, and the state to the 'ulamd', than was the case in CentralAsia or India. The 'ulama' were an active force on the Byzantine frontierduring the 'Abbasid period, and most were fighters as well as intellectuals.In contrast to the theological ferment of the CentralAsian frontier,however, Islamic intellectualactivity on the Anatolianbordercenteredon law and historical precedent;early books on the law of war were written at the time of alMansur'sreestablishmentof the frontier.In the eighth century the frontier such as Abu Ishaq al-Fazali of Kufa, "sahib was home to fighter-thinkers sunna wa-ghazw"and authorof a Kitab al-Siyar, whose work on maghazi was continued by Hanbali legists; 'Abdallah b. al-Mubarakal-Khurasani, authorof a Kitdbal-Jihad addressingthe needs of the volunteergroups;and Ibrahimb. Adham al-Balkhi,the famous ascetic, frontierghazi, and hero of The codificationof the rules ofjihad duringthe early ninthcenthe faith. (64) into Islamic law the defensive definition of jihad developed enshrined tury
on the Anatolian frontier (65). The stabilized frontier became a permanent

feature of Muslim society and led to the development of institutions of accommodationsuch as the aman or safe-conduct,providingfor commercial contact with the putative enemy, and the ribdt, the combinationof frontier In the late ninthand tenthcenturies fortress,hostel, and religious retreat.(66) the towns of the border region became well-established and prosperous, maintainingan active commercialand intellectuallife as well as serving as It has been arguedthatbecause of 'Abbasid bases for ghazi expeditions. (67) the urbanmerpolicies preventingthe developmentof a warrioraristocracy, cantile classes, from which the 'ulamd' rose, dominated the ranks of the volunteerssharingthe task of frontierwarfarewith the official government This descriptionof the frontierforces omits the rabble and robtroops. (68) bers characteristic of ghadz groupsin the east; robberbaronsand condottieri apparentlywere not considered ghazis as they were elsewhere, although beggars and tricksters were known to claim the title. (69)It also seems frontier? irenic; were there no tensions on the Arab/Byzantine remarkably
(63) Bonner,Aristocratic Violence,p. 105. (64) Ibid., pp. 68, 108. For biographiesof these frontierintellectuals see ibid., pp. 109-34; and idem, "Some ObservationsConcerningthe Early Development of Jihad on the Arab-ByzantineFrontier," Studia Islamica 75 (1992): 5-31. (65) Bonner,AristocraticViolence,pp. 40, 131. The defensive definitionof jihdd may have been a temporarystrategywithinan overalloffensive purpose,but it has had considerableinfluenceon latergenerations. (66) C. E. Bosworth, "Byzantiumand the Arabs: War and Peace between Two World Civilizations," and Iran (AlderJournalof Orientaland AfricanStudies3-4 (1991-92): 5, 9-11; rpt.in TheArabs,Byzantium shot: Variorum,1996), XIII. (67) Bonner,AristocraticViolence,pp. 150-51. (68) Ibid., pp. 8, 137. Bonnerconcludes (ibid., p. 156) thatduringthe Crusades,the Zangids and Ayyubids were finally able to create an alliance between the professionalmilitaryand merchantclasses. (69) Bonner,Aristocratic Violence,pp. 48-49, 154; Bosworth, "Byzantiumand the Arabs,"p. 12.

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frontierappear in the chronicles The mainfaultlines on the Arab-Byzantine as struggles for authoritybetween caliphs and their major commandersor struggles for control over taxation. (70) Scholars have interpretedthese struggles either as competition among governmenttroops, volunteers, and merchants for revenueand its maximization(whetherin the form of spoils of war, commercialgains, or tax revenues),or else as competitionamong actual or would-bepoliticalleadersfor the legitimacygrantedby the exercise of border functions such as leadershipof ghaz.dand redemptionof captives. (71) However, in view of the directionswhich frontierdevelopmenttook in other times and places, these fault lines acquirea new significance.The financial conflict between the military-fiscalinterestsof the state and the commercial interestsof the merchants,'ulama',and volunteersforeshadowsthe tension between the values of the centralstate and the volunteerson the Ghaznavids' Indianfrontier.Likewise, the differencesin emphasisbetween Fazali'slegal and historical interests and al-Balkhi'sasceticism and individual heroism, despite these men's common classificationas frontierintellectuals,are later reflected in the differing attitudes toward boundary-marking and control exhibitedby the Saljuq 'ulama"scatechisms and the Anatolianghazts' folk and the Samarqandi robbersof epics or by the Abu al-Laythal-Samarqandis the Central Asian frontier.The epic of Delhemma (Dhat al-Himma, "the stout-hearted frontier)contraststhe eager ghzits lady"of the Arab/Byzantine with a qadit who represents the lackluster,even traitorous forces, government apparentlyin collusion with the Byzantines. (72)The inclusiveness of the Ottoman and Indian ghazls is matched by the heterogeneity of the frontier,where slaves, renegades,and volunteersfrom each Arab/Byzantine side filled the ranksof the other,brigandsand baronsalike were bilingualin Arabicand Greek,and goods, ideas, horses,and women crossedthe borderin both directions. (73)The tension in medieval Islamic society between the 'ulama' and the central state is too well known to requirecomment. Once again, polarizationamong (at least) the representativesof the state, the can be identifiedin the frontiercontext. 'ulama',and the warriors Moreover, in the tenth century the border region itself became a bone of contention, as the ghaza became a legitimating device not only for individual caliphs but for entire regimes. The Fatimids (909-1171), seeing how their success in the naval ghaza validatedtheir independentcaliphate, tried to gain control of the Anatolianborder area as well. The Hamdanids (905-1004) justified their seizure of northernSyria and their autonomythere
(70) Peter von Sivers, "Military,Merchantsand Nomads: The Social Evolution of the SyrianCities and CountrysideDuring the Classical Period, 780-969/164-358," Der Islam 56 (1979): 222. (71) Idern,"Taxesand Trade,"73, 80, 90; Bonner,Aristocratic Violence, 153-54. (72) This contrastmay go back to the original version of the story, as it forms the basic plot structure (MariusCanard,"Delhemma,epopee arabedes guerresarabo-byzantines," Byzantion10 [1935]: 285). (73) Idem, "Lesrelationspolitiqueset sociales entreByzance et les Arabes,"DumbartonOaksPapers 18 (1964): 45-46; rpt.in idem, Byzanceet les musulmansdu Proche Orient(London:VariorumReprints,1973), XIX.

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in by their successes in holy war. (74) The powerful Byzantinecounterattack the 960s, which broke the frontierand capturedseveral of the majorcities, temporarilyintensified "the spirit of militantjihad." (75) The Byzantines' goal, however, was control ratherthan reconquest;once having reestablished their preeminencein the frontierregion, they preferredto see Aleppo as the capitalof an independentbufferzone ruledby Arabtribalpolities that became Byzantine proteges, receiving Byzantine military support against the still dangerous Fatimids, their major opponents. (76) During the next hundredyears, the returnof stability along the borderfavored raidingover conquest and commercial interests over political ones, encouraging the centralstates of the hinterlands to turntheirattentionaway from the frontier area once again. On the frontieritself we can see the routinizationof the dominant interests in the works of 'ulamd' such as Abu 'Amr 'Uthman al-Tarsusi,an 'alim of Tarsus,who compiled a handbookon the procedures of the summer raids of the ghdzis, the summons to arms, the ribats of the fighters, the lives of the 'ulamd', the revenues of the tithes and the endowmentsthey benefitted,and the walls thatdefendedthat outpost of the Dar al-Islam, or Muhammadb. 'Umar, whose father had been a faq.h of al-Andalusstationedin Crete for thejihad, but who became the authorof a book on charteringmerchantships. (77) This comfortablebalance was upset in the second half of the eleventh both of which centuryby the arrivalof two new forces, Turksand Crusaders, had holy war on theirminds. Theirinvasions createda new configurationof states in the easternMediterranean and renewed the ability of holy war to legitimatetheirrulers.The old borderregion of northern Syriabecame a new focal point of contentionbetween Crusader states andghazi princeslike Nur al-Din Zangi ("if not the creator,at least the conscious and uncontestedhead and hero of an enormousrebirthof Muslim ardor"), whose capitalof Aleppo
(74) HamiltonA. R. Gibb, "TheCaliphateand the Arab States,"in A History of the Crusades,ed. Setton, 1: 88. (75) Bosworth,"TheCity of Tarsus," pp. 283-84. The fiery sermonpreachedby the khatibIbn Nubataon the Byzantinearrivalsurvives;see MariusCanard, ed., Sayfal Daula: Recueilde textesrelatifsa lemir Sayf al Daula le Hamdanide avec anotations,cartes etplans, (Algiers:EditionsJulesCarbonel,1934),pp. 167-73;also that preachedat the taking of Aleppo (ibid., pp. 155-60) and one preachedto rouse enthusiasmfor thejihdd (ibid., pp. 129-32;Frenchtrans.in A. A. Vasiliev,Byzanceet les Arabes,vol. 2, La DynastieMacddoine [867de Philologie et d'HistoireOrien959], ed. HenriGegoire and MariusCanard[Brussels:Editionsde l'Institut tales et Slaves, 1950], pp. 292-94); see also selections in Adam Mez, The Renaissanceof Islam, trans.SalahuddinKhudaBakhshand D. S. Margoliouth (London:Luzac and Co., 1957), pp. 319-25. des Croisades et la principautefranque d'Antioche (76) Claude Cahen, La Syrie du nord a 'depoque (Paris: Paul Geuthner, 1940), p. 177; Pieter Smoor, Kings and Bedouins in the Palace of Aleppo as Reflectedin Ma'arri's Works(Manchester: Universityof Manchester,1985), pp. 31, 183-88; MariusCanard, Histoire de la dynastiedes H'amdanidesde Jazira et de Syrie (Paris:Presses universitaires de France, 1953); SuhaylZakkar,TheEmirateofAleppo, 1004-1094 (Beirut:Dar al-Amanahand El-RisalahPublishingHouse, 1971). 'Amr UthmanAl-Tarsfisi's (77) C. E. Bosworth,"AbO Siyaral-Thughurandthe Last Yearsof ArabRule in Tarsus(Fourth/Tenth Graeco-Arabica5 (1983): 183-95; V. Christides,"Raidand Tradein the Century)," A Treatiseby Muhammad EasternMediterranean: bn. Umar,the Faqih from OccupiedMoslem Crete, and the RhodianSea Law, Two ParallelTexts,"Graeco-Arabica5 (1983): 63-102.

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was redefinedas partof the Holy Land and the gateway to holy war. (78) In the Syria of the Zangids (1128-1174) and Ayyubids (1171-1250), it was the state'sinterestin ghaza as a legitimizing and organizingforce that appeared most prominently,as rulersmaneuveredto maintaincentralcontrolover the holy war and direct it where they pleased. A different patternmanifested itself in Anatolia, where the unexpected defeat of the Byzantine army in 1071 by Turkishtribalforces and theirinvasion of the peninsulaallowed the interests of nomadic raiders and antinomianghazts to predominateover those of the centralstate. (79) Saljuiq princeswere unableto exert full control, and the balance shifted away from the 'ulama"s rule-bound approach to ghaza toward the heroic and the mystical. The fortified frontierwith its fighting accordingto establishedrules on a well-known schedule gave way to the unpredictablesweeps of nomadic bands led by chieftains who were indifferentto, or anxious to escape from, the imperialhand of the Saljufqs. The chiefly family of the Danishmands, whose title of Malik was bestowedby the caliph for theirzeal in ghazd, most prominently represented the raidinginterestsof the nomads. (80) That title was first held by the third the grandsonof the conqueror,and was projected Danishmand,Muhammad, backward onto his ancestors by the myth-makers.(81) The legend of the Danishmandslinked them with the frontiercapital of Melitene and with the hero of the Arab/Byzantinefrontier, Sayyid Battal Ghazi. The old border culture continued in the ghazis' easy intercourseacross religious, cultural, and linguistic boundariesand in the active commercial life in the frontier were known as tolerantandjust rulers,full of charityfor region. The Saljiuqs their Christiansubjects. (82) During the twelfth centurythe invading forces, among the remainingByzantine relativelyfew in number,were interspersed population as urbangarrisons,villagers, and pastoralnomadic groups. (83) They easily intermingledwith their new subjects and may have been of
(78) For the quotationsee Cahen,La Syrie du nord, p. 374; Cahen sees the ghazd as the form into which on the frontier,but it might be the other way around,the the "Sunnitewar"of the Saljfiqswas transformed "Sunnitewar"as an extension of ghazd. For the new definitionof Aleppo see the table of contents to Ibn al'Adim's biographicaldictionaryin David Morray,An AyyubidNotable and His World:Ibn al-'Adim and Aleppo (Leiden:E. J. Brill, 1994), p. 202. On the rise of NOral-Din and his takingup the gauntletof the Crusaderssee HamiltonA. R. Gibb, "TheCareerof Nur al-Din,"in A Historyof the Crusades,ed. Setton, 1: 51327; on his devotion to jihdd see Yasser Tabbaa, "Monumentswith a Message: Propagationof Jihad under Nur al-Din (1146-1174)," in Meeting of Two Worlds,pp. 223-40. (79) Cahen, "TheTurkishInvasion,"pp. 144, 147-48. For a summarysee F. Taeschner,"TheTurksand the Byzantine Empire to the End of the ThirteenthCentury,"in The CambridgeMedieval History, vol. 4, pt. 1, pp. 737-52. (80) Cahen, "Lapremierep6entration turque," pp. 59-60; E12, s.v. "Saldjukids." (81) Melikoff, Geste, p. 104. The Danishmands,as well as the Ayyubids, also seem to have used the term fatherwas called Amir Ghazi, Saladin'sson was al-ZahirGhfzi, and ghdzi as a propername; Muhammad's there was an Ayyibid princess named Ghaziya. Studia Islamica 1 (82) Osman Turan, "Les souverains seldjoukides et leurs sujets non-musulmans," (1953): 69-72, 76. (83) Speros Vryonis, Jr., The Decline of Medieval Hellenism in Asia Minor and the Process of Islamization from the Eleventh through the Fifteenth Century (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971), pp. 170, 180-85.

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rather mixed origins themselves; a poem on the Saljuiqforces attacking Cairo says thatthey included "Armenians, Arabs and Edomites,Greeksand Germans,Paphlagoniansand Turks."(84)With time, continued migration altered the ethnic balance; Turks continued to move into Anatolia and the Byzantinesrelocatedmuch of their Anatolianpopulationfar to the west. In eastern Anatolia, western Iran, and the Caucasus, Muslim and Christian
royal families freely intermarried. (85) A struggle between ghadz and raiding interests, patronized by the

Danishmands and others, and those of the Saljuq scions who sought to control the ghdzi activity in Anatolia, to establish a centralized state, and to make alliances and borderagreementswith the Byzantines, occupied the next hundredyears. The twelfth-centurySaljuq ruler Kiliq Arslan'smoves toward subjecting the Danishmands and accommodating the Byzantines roused the disapprovalof the great ghadzi, Nfr al-Din Zangi, and attempts to mollify NOral-Din led to a rupturebetween Saljiuqs and Byzantines. (86) The Saljuqs at last defeated both the Danishmandsand the Byzantines in 1176, after which they worked to subordinatethe ghdzis to an imperial state modeled on that of the Great Saljiuqsof Iraq. The influence on the Rum Saljuqs of Perso-Islamic statecraftand literaryculture is apparentin the court histories, advice literature,and scribal manuals created by the representativesof Islamic civilization who flocked or fled to the court at Konya, mostly duringthe thirteenthcentury. (87)Byzantine influence came throughexchanges of personnel by marriage,conversion, service to rulers, and the taking of refuge; it is evidenced in part by the reconsolidation of the Rum Saljufq state by Kai-KhusrawI (1204-1211), eight years a refugee at the Byzantine court, after whose time the Saljfqs bequeathedtheir realm undivided,althoughprevious sultansincludinghis own fatherhad followed the steppe tradition of parceling it out among their heirs. (88)The eclecticism of this state is well illustrated by the walls of Konya, its capital, which were decoratedwith reused inscriptions,reliefs, and ancient statues that had been looted from the Byzantines "with the sword of Khusraw," as well as with quotations from the Qur'an and the Shahndma, thus
(84) JosephHa-Kohen,quotedby Taef KamalEl-Azhari,TheSaljiuks of Syria duringthe Crusades,463549 A. H./1070-1154 A. D. (Berlin:Klaus SchwarzVerlag, 1997), p. 45. and AndronicusComnenis," (85) Kafesoglu,p. 97; Haldonand Kennedy,p. 85; V. Minorsky,"Khaqani in Iranica: TwentyArticles (Hertford:Stephen Austin and Sons, 1964), p. 127; Michel Balivet, "TheLongLived Relations between Christiansand Moslems in CentralAnatolia: Dervishes, Papadhes,and Country Folk,"ByzantinischeForschungen 16 (1991): 321, n. 19. (86) Cahen, "The Turks in Iran and Anatolia," pp. 676-79; Ralph-JohannesLilie, "Twelfth-Century Byzantineand TurkishStates,"ByzantinischeForschungen 16 (1991): 37-39. Ironically,the eponymousSaljQq himself is reportedto have engaged in ghazd and to have been awardedthe title of al-Malik al-Ghdzi SouthernIllinois Uni(IbrahimKafesoglu,A History of the Seljuks,trans.and ed. GaryLeiser [Carbondale: versity Press, 1988], p. 25). (87) E12, s.v. "Saldjikids." (88) Vryonis, Decline of Medieval Hellenism, pp. 223-44; Cahen, "The Turks in Iran and Anatolia," p. 681. The realm was divided again by the Mongols as partof their pacificationpolicy.

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assimilating the ghaza against the Byzantines to the legendary heritage of the Sasanians and the Perso-Islamic state tradition.(89) The late twelfth and early thirteenthcenturiesalso saw a rapprochement with greater numbers of between the Rum Saljuq state and the 'ulamad', 'ulamn'serving the state and increasedofficial supportof 'ularm' interests The 'ulamn'at the Saljuqcourt seem to have such as madrasa-building. (90) succeededin accommodating themselvesto a government they viewed as less corruptand more orthodoxthan that of the Ghaznavids.The adherenceof Anatolianrulersto the Caliphal-Nasir'sfituwwaembodied thirteenth-century of Sunnm theirconnectionto the official representatives Islam as well as their commitment to the chivalric ethos of the ghazts. At the same time, the construction of Sufi lodges and shrinesandthe writingof saints'lives and SOfi handbookssuggest a certaindomesticationof the mysticalimpulse, in which sultanicpatronageplayed an importantrole. (91)Commercialinterestswere also attended to, as the state pursued the revenues of trade, mining and resource exploitation, capturing seaports and building caravanseraisto promotetrade.A surveyof Persianworkswrittenin Anatoliain the twelfthto fourteenthcenturiesreflects this sedentarizing trend:at first works of poetry and Sufism outnumberedthe rest, but later catechisms and literaryworks becamemorenumerous, (92) accompanied by workson scienceandgovernment. The arrivalof the Mongols diminishedthe activity of the Saljuqrulers,who became Mongol vassals, but culturalpatronagecontinuedto flow from the and great amirs. (93)Eventually,Mongol administration bureaucrats in the Perso-Islamictraditionbegan to have an influence of its own on Anatolian manuals.Thus, culture,to judge by the writingand copying of administrative Anatolia saw the of andthe 'ulama', warriors, thirteenth-century incorporation centralstateinto a single, perhapsuneasy, whole. The vacuum of authorityon the western frontierleft by the Byzantine returnto Constantinoplein 1261 made the area attractiveto rebels, tribal groups, and urbanelements fleeing the Mongols, especially from the region of the Danishmandswhere Mongol control and taxationintensifiedwith the On the frontier,antinomianattitudes suppressionof the revolt of 1277. (94)
(89) Scott Redford, "TheSeljuks of Rum and the Antique,"Muqarnas 10 (1993): 153-55. (90) Vryonis, Decline of Medieval Hellenism, pp. 352-55; E12, s.v. "Saldjikids";Cahen, "TheTurksin Iranand Anatolia,"pp. 677-80; idem, Pre-OttomanTurkey(London:Sidgwick and Jackson, 1968), pp. 24953. This flurryof constructionwas made possible in partby a significantgrowth in tradethroughAnatolia. (91) Forthcomingwork by Ethel SaraWolper pursuesthis theme (personalconversation). Mecmuast (92) Ahmet Ates, "HicriVI-VIII. (XII-XIV.) AslrlardaAnadolu'daFarscaEserler,"Turkiyat 7-8, pt. 2 (1945): 94-135; I. Hakkl Uzunqanh, Anadolu Beylikleri ve Akkoyunlu,KarakoyunluDevletleri (Ankara:Tirk TarihKurumuBaslmevi, 1937), pp. 209-11. Journal (93) HowardCrane,"Noteson SaldjfiqArchitectural Patronagein Thirteenth CenturyAnatolia," of the Economicand Social History of the Orient 36 (1993): 22. The I1-XanidMint'sExploitationof the Rim-Saljfiqid (94) A. Peter Martinez,"BullionisticImperialism: Currency,654-695H./1256-1296 A.D.," ArchivumOttomanicum13 (1993-1994): 172. An Ottomanorigin in northernAnatolia, though not supportedby the chronicles, would do much to explain their mixture of tribalismand urbanism,orthodoxyand antinomianism,Mongol and Perso-Islamicinstitutions.

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could flourish side by side with more orthodoximpulses, as indeed they did even in more centralpartsof Anatolia.Like the initial Anatolianconquests, the later thirteenth-century border raids on the Byzantines were pursued without the help and sometimes without the sanction of official Saljuq or Mongol sources. (95)The most opportunemoments for such activity were times when existing polities were in flux and the centralstate was too weak In the last decades to controlnomad activity, as was the case after 1277. (96) of Anatolia noted a of the thirteenth chroniclers western century,Byzantine massive increase in pastoral nomads whose raids captured booty and prisonersand drove the agricultural populationoff the land. (97) This raiding was as successful as the early Turkishincursions into Anatolia at gaining pasturelandfor the nomadic elements and ensuring their dominance in the borderregion, and it could as easily be dignified by the title of ghazd. sultans (like the early In contrastto earliertimes, however, when Saljufq Islamic caliphs or the Samanidamirs) had been able after the incursionsto control and incorporate the tribal chiefs or ghazi leaders of the newly conqueredlands and give theirraidingofficial sanction,in the late thirteenth century the demands of Mongol suzerainsturnedthe Saljuqs'attentionsto the east, constrainedtheir ability to act, and finally eliminated their power altogether. Since the Mongols themselves were unwilling or unable to control the western Anatolian frontier,the new acquisitionswere not fully into a centralizedstate. The chronicles show Osman and other incorporated frontier leaders treating with tekfurs and local officials rather than with of any the absence from the borderland imperialByzantine representatives; central state activity--Mongol, Saljuq, or Byzantine--is striking. (98)It was left to the conquerorsthemselves to fill the vacuum at the top. In the endeavor to govern what they had conquered,it is unlikely that Turkishrulersin the borderland spured any of the governingtechniquesor available to them thatcould rally theirdisparatefollegitimatingideologies lowers, among whom nomads and ghdzis formed a greaterpercentagethan
and Islamizationin Asia (95) Cahen, "Lapremierepenetration," p. 65; SperoVryonis,Jr., "Nomadization Studies on Byzantium, Minor,"DumbartonOaks Papers 29 (1975): 45; rpt in Byzantinakai Metabyzantina: Seljuks,and Ottomans,2 vols. (Malibu, CA: Undena Publications, 1981), 2: IV. This was true despite the acquisitionof Mongol investitureby Turkmenleaders such as Ali Bey of Denizli and the presence of Mongol troopsthroughoutAnatolia (Cahen,Pre-OttomanTurkey,pp. 280, 283). (96) In contrast,when the Saljfq state was strongit was able to exert control over ghdzi activity and put down nomaduprisingssuch as thatof Baba Rasil in 1240 (Vryonis, "Nomadization and Islamization," p. 47);
on this revolt see A. Yasar Ocak, La revolte de Baba Resul ou la formation de l'hettrodoxie musulmane en

Anatolie au XII' siecle (Ankara:TurkTarihKurumu,1989). and Islamization," (97) Vryonis, "Nomadization p. 48-57; Cahen, Pre-OttomanTurkey,p. 318; Inalcik, "TheQuestionof the Emergenceof the OttomanState,"pp. 73-74. Some of these nomadswere probablydisplaced Byzantines who turnedto pastoralismfor survival in the abserce of effective protectionfor agriculture (Keith Hopwood, "Nomadsor Bandits:The Pastoralist/Sedentarist Interfacein Anatolia,"Byzantinische
Forschungen 16 [1991]: 185).

(98) ElizabethA. Zachariadou,"Histoireset legendes des premiersOttomans,"Turcica 28 (1996): 73. The Saljfq ruler was fully occupied in attemptingto control the frontierleader closest to him in Denizli
(Cahen, Pre-Ottoman Turkey, p. 279).

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under the settled Saljuq state. Consequently,creatingnew political entities in the borderregion meant, among other things, developing forms of legitimacy that tilted farthertoward the ghdzt and tribal elements than Saljuq legitimacy claims had done, while still making room for 'ulamat', former Byzantine subjects, and representativesof the Perso-Islamicstate tradition. As an ideology, ghaza was flexible enough to be representedas an orthodox Islamic activity to/by the 'ulama', an unorthodoxactivity to/by antinomian Suifis, an economic activity to/by tribesmen, and a political activity to/by aspiringrulers. As such, it may have been the most powerful and inclusive unifying device available to conquerors on the frontier, more so than tribalism,origin, religion, language, or culture. Among these border chiefs, it was the Ottomans who were the most successful in the long run at transformingthemselves into sultans and establishing an imperial state. Trying to decide whether ghaza was "the" foundationalelement in that state is a singularlyfutile exercise. The lack of directevidence means thatwe may never know whetherOsmanhimself was the leader of a ghazi band, the chief of a nomadic tribe, the son of a Saljuqid officer, a peasant, or all of the above. We may never be able to assess his degree of Islamic orthodoxyor his level of religious zeal. The arguments built on the scraps of evidence that remain to us appearto be based more than anythingon the amountof faith their authorschoose to place in the fifchroniclersand their selection among interpretations of clues teenth-century that could point in several directions. But how much does it really matter? Knowing Osman's correct label would significantly increase our understandingof Ottomanhistory only if we assume an organic theory of nationhood (as the seed, so the tree). Instead, we must acknowledge the agency of statebuilders over the generations, while recognizing the power of tradition to legitimize their statebuilding and mobilize their followers. If Osman grew up in the western Anatolian borderlandsin the decades after 1261, then we know that he attained adulthood in a region and a period when central state authoritywas receding and local leaders of all types were left to maintain themselves and their followers with only their own resources. In any one area these resources probably included intact nomadic tribes and nomads whose tribal affiliations had been broken, warriorsand brigands,local villagers (Byzantine or Turkish), pastoralists (Turkish or Byzantine) and urbanrefugees from disturbedareas farthereast, converts and "renegades" from the Byzantine, Catalan, Venetian, and other eastern Mediterranean states and later from the less successful Turkishprincipalities,unemployed Saljuq functionariesand intellectuals, losers in Mongol political struggles, and more. There were also people who straddled these categories; it has been suggested, for example, that Osman in his youth led the stillnomadic wing of a body of Turks who were in the process of sedentariza157

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tion. (99) A mobile band of this type may well have included Turks from other groups and perhaps some adventurousByzantines, making it difficult to define the natureof Osman'sleadership,especially since it changed over time. Resources available to him also included advantages of location, opportunities for conquest, sources of wealth, and ideologies of legitimacy, including the ideology of ghazdi.What we need to discover is the roles these resources played at different points in the creation of the principalities and ultimately the OttomanEmpire, which interests were at stake in the various actions of Osman and his peers, and which groups benefitted from the outcomes and became able to shape the direction of their state and the memory of its past. It would be a mistake to visualize these varied interests as belonging to homogeneousand mutuallyexclusive groupsof people. Duringthe first half of the fourteenthcentury,for example, some of the same individualsprobably served at differenttimes as nomadicraiders,Byzantinemercenaries,and ghdzi warriors;their interests doubtless changed to some degree, but not completely, with their changes of occupation. The existence of conquests organizedon shar'i principlesmight indicatethe presenceof the 'ulama'and the influence of 'ulamd'concerns,or it might simply mean that shar'l principles were partof the normalconquest traditionsharedby Middle Eastern rulers no matterwhat their predilections. Osman'soriginal followers may have been mostly Muslims, but it was not long before a majorityof Ottoman this must have affecsubjectsand a certainnumberof troopswere Christian; ted the understandingof ghazai as much as mercenary service with the Byzantines. It would be more useful to inquirehow rulersdeployed the traditions and resourcesat theirdisposal in these ever-changingcircumstances, and how these moves were justified by later historians writing in very differentcontexts for audienceswith very differentpriorities. This is not the place to begin a reinterpretation of Ottomanorigins, but it can be suggested how taking this contestationof interestsinto accountmay affect our assessmentof the sources, drawingour attentionnot only to their contents but to the time and mannerof their composition.For example, the legend of Malik Danishmand,which drew on a fund of Anatolianoral narrative,on the one hand, and on the otherthe romanceof Sayyid Battal,written in the late eleventh or early twelfth century,was itself put into writing for the SaljuqSultan'Izz al-Din KaikavusII (1246-1259) not long afterthe arrivalof the Mongols. Its compositionat thatpoint in time testifies not only to a partialreconciliationbetween the Danishmandsand the Saljfiqsbut also to the fact that even at the sophisticatedcourt of Konya, subjectionto the Mongols createdan audiencefor the ghazi' tradition,depicted as a holy war carried on by tribal forces whose simple faith, though scarcely orthodox,
(99) Haldon and Kennedy, p. 101; Keith Hopwood, "Low-Level Diplomacy between Byzantines and OttomanTurks:The Case of Bithynia,"in ByzantineDiplomacy, ed. JonathanShepardand Simon Franklin (Aldershot:Variorum,1992), p. 152.

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was strongly felt. (10) Such faith permitted,even encouraged,alliance with local Christianpowers to fight the pagan enemy, whose presence on the peninsulawas the most importantchallenge facing the warriorsof Anatolia in the second half of the thirteenthcentury.Epic narrativesand saints'lives and the ethos they embodied were well-known in thirteenth-century Anatolia, not only in ghazi and nomadiccircles but among educatedcity-dwellers as well. Side by side with orthodoxlegal definitions of ghazad in the works of the 'ulama', thereexisted a coherentimage of the ghdzi as a romanticand heroic figure of the past thatdoubtlessserved as a model for aspiringraiders and warriorsbut could also provide inspirationfor subjugatedcourtiersand rulers,and perhapsfor 'ulama' as well. The same image lived on into the fifteenth centuryin the history of Ashikpashazade,and in all these settings it embodied an element of resistanceto an encroachingauthority.(101) Rather than being a pure expression of a group'sethos, then, in each case it was a of that ethos for particular deploymentof representations purposes. In this light, Ottomanclaims to delegation by the Saljuqs take on a new meaning: not only were the Saljuqs the only ones who could authorize a ghazai against the Byzantines in the absence of the caliph, but also their authorityhad priorityover any Mongol claims. (102) This prioritywas certainly recognized by Bayazid I, who deployed it (unsuccessfully) against Timur'sattemptto restoreMongol suzeraintyin 1402. (103) Fourteenth-century Mongol finance manuals indicate that the Mongols at that time still consideredthe westernAnatolianstates,includingOrhan's, as theirown border principalities(ucat), althoughthey did not seem to expect any revenue from them. ('04) Claims of Saljuq authorizationwould have supportedan Ottomanresistanceto Mongol domination,a resistancehinted at by the fact that in the earliest sections of the Ottomanchronicles Osman'sgreatesthosa people tility is directednot againstthe Byzantinesbut againstthe "Tatars," who did not follow the etiquetteof ghaza as it was understoodon both sides of the Byzantine/Turkish divide. (105) The Tatarswere troopsof the Mongols,
(100) Melikoff, Geste, pp. 56-60, 162. (101) Was it also one of the sources for the image of the Balkanhaiduk? (102) Real or fictitious claims to investitureby the Saljfqs or Mongols, useful in legitimizing tribal leaders on the frontier,correspondedto Saljiq and Mongol claims of suzerainty(and, potentially,revenue) in the borderregion (see Cahen, Pre-OttomanTurkey,pp. 313-14). (103) E12, s.v. "BayazidI." On the logic of Timur'scampaigns,includinghis campaignin Anatolia, see Beatrice Forbes Manz, "Temir and the Problem of a Conqueror'sLegacy," Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, ser. 3, vol. 8 (1998): 23-26. b. Kiya al-Mazandarani, (104) 'Abd Allah b. Muhammad Risala-yi Falakiyya, ed. WaltherHinz (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner, 1952), p. 162; Ahmet Zeki Velidi Togan, "MogollarDevrinde Anadolu'nuniktisadi Vaziyeti,"TurkHukukve IktisatTarihiMecmuasi 1 (1931): 33; trans.GaryLeiser, "EconomicConditionsin Anatoliain the Mongol Period," Annales Islamologiques25 (1991): 233. The finance recordsdate from after the disappearanceof the Saljfiqs;prior to 1307, however, the interpositionof some Saljfq authorityin the borderlands was probablyrecognizedby the Mongols (see Ahmet Zeki Velidi Togan, UmumiTirk Tarihine Giris [Istanbul:Ismail Akgiin Matbaasl, 1946], pp. 237-38). (105) Kafadar,Between Two Worlds,p. 85. At the beginning of Ahmedi'shistoricalepic, the faith and justice of the Ottomansarejuxtaposed to the unbelief and oppressionof the Mongols (Ahmedi, "Dastanve Tevarih-iAl-Osman,"in Osmanh Tarihleri,vol. 1 (Istanbul:TiirkiyeBaslmevi, 1949), pp. 6-7).

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whose state was not even nominally Muslim in Osman's early years. It was consequently a prime target for ghaza and a significant factor in western Anatolian politics. The chroniclers, however, seem to have avoided dwelling on the Mongol presence, perhaps in order to emphasize the Saljuq connection, and this suppression has had a distorting effect on our understanding of Ottoman origins, focusing attention on the Byzantine frontier to the neglect of the larger Anatolian context. Parenthetically, Osman and Orhan may have been ghazis in the sense of the epic narratives, but whether they were awarded the title of Ghazl is a different question. Hard evidence that both Osman and Orhan received this title is limited to an inscription on a 1337 mosque calling Orhan "Ghazi son of Ghdzi," but it has been argued that this inscription was not original but was part of a later restoration of the mosque. (106)As we have seen, the title of Ghdzi was generally bestowed on the most prominent leader of ghaza; the protocol surrounding its use has not been clarified. Correspondence manuals prescribed the proper use of the term, and inscriptions in other western Anatolian principalities indicate that it was borne, in different forms, by the rulers of Aydin, Mehmed Bey (1310-1334) and Umur Bey (1334-1348), and by rulers in Germiyan, Sinope, Karaman, Menteshe, and Manisa. (107)In the first half of the fourteenth century the rulers of Aydin were the most active ghazt leaders in the west, carrying the ghazd into the Aegean with their naval forces. (108) Only after 1354, when the Ottomans established their beachhead at Gallipoli and began their European conquests, did they become the undisputed leaders in ghaza. The title of Ghdzi in building inscriptions announced the prominence of a ruler's leadership and legitimated his rule; thus, if the 1337 inscription is authentic, it represents a claim by Orhan parallel to that of Umur Bey. Its inauthenticity by itself would not disprove Orhan'sclaim to the title, as he may have received it only after Umur Bey's death in 1348. During the reign of Murad I (13621389), however, the Ottomans were clearly the most prominent ghazi leaders; it is also possible that it was Murad who was first awarded the title of Ghdzi and that, as in the case of the Danishmands, because of their descendants' success the first two Ottoman rulers later received the title by courtesy. (09) Their lack of the title would not necessarily mean that they
(106) ?inasi Tekin, "Turk DunyaslndaGazd ve Cihad KavramlanUzerine DUiisnceler,II: Gazi Teriminin Anadolu ile Akdeniz Bolgesinde Itibannl Yeniden Kazanmasl,"Tarih ve Toplum 19, no. 110 (;ubat 1993): 73-80. (107) FeridunM. Emecen, "GazayaDair: XIV. Yuzyll Kaynaklar ArasindaBir Gezinti,"in Prof: Dr. Hakkl Dursun YildlzArmagani (Ankara:Turk Tarih KurumuBaslmavi, 1995), pp. 195-96; Paul Wittek, "Deuxchapitresde l'histoiredes Turcsde Roum,"Byzantion11 (1936): 305 and n. 3; Kafadar, Between Two Worlds,pp. 76-77. (108) Irene Melikoff, Le Destdn d'UmurPacha (Diisturndme-i Enveri) (Paris:Presses universitairesde France, 1954), p. 45. (109) Bayazid I, despite his conquests, his defeat of the Crusaders,and his attempton Constantinople, was apparentlynever granted the title of Ghdzi. This in itself would suggest that the title was usually
conferred ex postfacto, as an acknowledgement of a career of ghdzi-like deeds.

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were not engaged in ghazd, but only that their preeminencewas not recognized until after the middle of the fourteenthcentury. The mid-fourteenthcentury seems in general to have been a turning point in the culture of ghaza; it was then, in the contested principalityof Eretna,that the legend of Malik Danishmandreceived its second redaction, which gave it a "mystico-religious"Sufi veneer. (110) A number of saints' lives, catechetical works, and other types of literaturewere also produced at this time, as various elements of the complex Anatolian society found voice. By the end of the century, fine distinctions in the use of the term ghdzi seem to have become irrelevant.The earliest compilationof Ottoman history (finished in 1402, already a century after the events) labeled the whole period of the Ottomansone of ghaza, seen not as the activity of marginal nomads but as the function of a powerful ruler, a conquering state. has been underThis "history", partof Ahmedi'sepic poem Iskandarndma, stood by some scholars as depicting "the"ghazi tendency in the early Ottoman state (an antinomianghaza according to Wittek, a shar'i ghaza
according to Imber).
(111)

In contrast, Pail Fodor sees the poem not as a depiction but as an instrument, an effort to support Ottoman legitimacy after the defeat by
Timiir.
(112)

But with what weapons? The ostensible message of the poem,

as analyzed by Fodor, Imber, and others, is the legitimization of the Ottomans through their support of ghaza, the one criterion on which their qualifications were clearly better than Timur's.This message is conveyed mainly through the poem's language, but its structure conveys another message as well. Its linking of the Ottomanswith the legend of Alexander the Greatand the rulersof pre-IslamicIran,as well as its panegyric nature, place the poem squarely within the traditionof court poetry best exemplified by Firdawsi'sShahnama;in prose, the histories of Juvayni and Rashid al-Din served the same function for the Ilkhanids of Iran. The dedicatees of such works were great conquerorsturnedPerso-Islamic emperors, like Hiilegii, Ghazan Khan, or Mahmudof Ghazna (although the latter did not appreciatewhat the Shdhndmacould do for him). Already duringthe Mongol period, the Shahnama had received a Sufi interpretationthat Islamicized the ancient wisdom of the pre-Islamic Iranianpast and applied it to
the Ilkhanid rulers.
(113)

Ahmedi's iskandarndma followed this tradition,

emphasizing the role of the mystical teacher Hizir, Iskandar/Alexander's

(110) Melikoff, Geste, pp. 61-62. (111) Wittek, Rise, pp. 14; Imber, "The OttomanDynastic Myth,"pp. 308-9. Implied is a critique of Bayazid I for his adoptionof Byzantinemores and his failure againstTimur. (112) Pal Fodor, "Ahmedi'sDasitan as a Source of Early OttomanHistory,"Acta OrientaliaHungarica 38 (1984): 50-51. (113) Assadullah Souren Melikian-Chirvani,"Le Shdh-ndme,la gnose soufie et le pouvoir mongol," Journal asiatique 272 (1984): 312-15; Robert Hillenbrand, "The IskandarCycle in the Great Mongol in The Problematicsof Power: Easternand WesternRepresentationsof Alexanderthe Great, ed. Sdhndma," M. Bridges and J. Ch. Birgel (Bern:Peter Lang, 1996), p. 220.

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search for spiritualtruth,and his relationshipto previous sovereigns of the

world.
(114)

The originalversion of the poem, lacking the section on Ottomanhistory, was probablycompletedin 1390 for a Germiyanid princeduringthe reign of Bayazid I, who subsequently gained control of Germiyan and became Ahmedi'spatron.Bayazid was the first Ottomanrulerto be recognizedas an in the Perso-Islamictraemperorand to develop an imperialadministration dition. Previously the Ottomanswere not famed as good rulers,pious men, or patronsof the arts;conquest was their only outstandingaccomplishment (thus the appropriatenessof the association with Alexander). Only in and state servants Bayazid's time did the interests of Ottomanbureaucrats first begin to outweigh those of the conquerorsand raiders. Ahmedi was surely awarethat Bayazid claimed descent from Alexanderand possessed a set of tapestriesportrayingAlexander'slife. ("5) Even though the revised version of the Iskandarndmawith the Ottoman history attached was not presenteduntil after the defeat by Timurand so was given to Bayazid'sson, the poem supported by its structure Bayazid'simperialambitionsat the same time that it critiquedhis failure to attainthem. Ratherthan being simply a celebrationof the ghazi spirit,however defined, it was an attemptto harness that spiritto a regularizedPerso-Islamicregime. In contrast,the prose historiesof the fifteenthcenturyassumedan opposition betweenghazda ruleandportrayed andimperial the earlyOttoman rulersas standingon one side or the otherof thatdivide. (16) Ghazdbecamea political footballstruggled overby different groupswho soughtto scorewith it; it could or to critiquethe centralauthority. be used eitherto support The very attackof Timurlegitimizedand perpetuated the use of ghdzi ideology throughmuchof role as reasonenough the fifteenthcentury,since even Timursaw theirghdazi not to obliteratethe Ottomanscompletely.Inalcik and Menage showed that used stockimagesof purenomadsandnobleghazisto critique Ashikpashazade the imperialtendenciesof MehmedII and the corruption of the 'ulama'and and thatthis critiquewas drivenby the gradualpoliticalsubordibureaucrats, nationof the ghdzl warriorsand nomadsto the centralizedstate. As Kafadar who wrote the next generation of historieshad an interest argues,the 'ulamal' in representing as an ordered in ghazd activity compliancewiththesharna, and as Imberargues,the statehad a growinginterestin ghaza as a Sunni activity versionsof Islamlike thatof the Safavis.We recognize opposedto "heretical" the coexistenceof conflictinginterestsin ghaza in the fifteenthcenturywhen those interestswere attachedto identifiablegroups with differing political agendas.
(114) CarolineSawyer, "Swordof Conquest,Dove of the Soul: Politicaland SpiritualValues in Ahmadi's in ibid., pp. 135-38, 141. Iskandarndrma," Between Two Worlds,p. 94; Hillenbrand, (115) Kafadar, pp. 222-23. If the Ottomansection of the poem was largely composed before the battle with Timur,it may even have been intendedto celebrate Bayazid's ghazi achievements:the victory at Kosovo, the defeat of the Crusaders,and the attackon Constantinople. (116) See Zachariadou,"Histoireset legendes,"pp. 60-61, and the sources cited there.

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The foundation of a state, however, is a different story; subsequent its existence as somehow necessary, generationshave a need to understand the inevitable productof the "genius"of its founderand the irresistibleforward momentumof its first generation.They quarrelonly over the precise quality of the founder'sgenius and the exact direction in which the initial momentum pointed. The decision whether the original Ottomanswere or of their entire were not ghazis, then, is thoughtto govern the interpretation subsequenthistory and to give their state a specific meaning from the first. Not only is the evidence inconclusive,however,but the examinationof other frontiersalso shows how diverse were the motives of those who interested themselves in ghaza. Even Ahmedi's poem reflects a contest among the ideologies of warriors, 'ulami', and the central state. Analyzing these ideologies in a comparativecontext will yield a more complex view of the natureof the early Ottomanstate, a clearerpicture of the conditions under of the sources. which it was founded, and a more nuancedunderstanding
Linda T. DARLING

(Universityof Arizona, U.S.A.)

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