The discussion about the personality of Sultan Selim II goes back centuries, he was most likely the center of discussion even in the period of time in which he lived. This would be understandable, as his father, Sultan Suleyman the Magnificent, would be difficult to surpass in greatness. It was with Sultan Selim that the office of the Sultan became immensely more private and reserved, hence the door to open speculation about his character was also widely opened.
Due to this, we also find with Sultan Selim an obvious departure of what is accepted as ‘history’ by Western students from reality. Once a few facts are examined and logical contradictions are exposed, the propagated history of Sultan Selim II becomes very clearly an invented tale. The extent of this false history is somewhat unbelievable to those who are accustomed to what has been bought as the idea of Western ‘impartiality’ when it comes to news and history. Similarly there is often a negative consideration to those who speak out against what is considered as established fact, left to be called ‘conspiracy theorists’.
Oddly enough for a Muslim community, which some may say loves conspiracies, there has been little or no call to rally around when it comes to a false Ottoman history.
As to why there hasn’t been much opposition, it is not difficult to come to some simple conclusions. The founders of the present secular state of Turkey had little motivation to promote an accurate view of history and sought to separate themselves from the Ottomans as much as possible. With no state backing and really no people identifying themselves with the Sultans in spirit, there has been really no organized state effort to provide even an emotional rebuttal, much less a factual one which requires research as in this post. At the same time the Muslim population which turned away from Islam and abandoned the Caliphate has now revitalized a new anti-historical Islam which avoids Ottoman contributions, and in some cases, even perpetuates these myths.
Further, most people have been cut off from the actual facts since the massive cultural shift from the Caliphate to present day. Not only was the entire Ottoman language obliterated and the script of a new language forced on the population, but even ancient religious traditions such as the Azan (Call to Prayer) were being outlawed in anything other than ‘Turkish’ [1]. Furthermore, for decades, the Ottoman archives were completely sealed shut, leaving only biased 18th century Western documents as sources of Ottoman history.
Sultan Selim II receiving Safavid Ambassador
The Ottomans were notorious record keepers, from the earliest days of the Empire. The Ottoman archives are estimated to hold more than 150 million handwritten documents. Only about a quarter of them are yet classified and computerized. It is estimated that only about 32 million records are currently accessible for researchers [2]. The Turkish state is extremely selective on who gets access and it is monitored carefully, being banned without notice is quite common. The Ottoman archives store treaties, border disputes, inheritance, titles and privileges, trusts, gifts, charitable and religious foundations (vakif), court documents, land deeds, applicable laws, historical demographics, tax, crops, military records, and official correspondence.
Only recently have researchers been given the ability to apply to access even the limited catalogue of the Ottoman Archives. With that in mind, this article will focus largely on accepted Western sources, and primarily Osman’s Dream by Caroline Finkel, one of the few books to use information from the Ottoman Archives in order to give a better picture of Ottoman history. The intention is to contrast this information with what is popularly retold as the biography of Sultan Selim II, largely summarized on Wikipedia as sourced from the Encyclopedia Britannica Eleventh Edition (public domain) and Ottoman Centuries by Patrick Balfour Kinross.
Ottoman Centuries is a particularly dastardly work when it comes to accuracy, being one of the most popular on the subject, yet containing only two pages of a bibliography for covering 700 years of history at 640 pages. Osman’s Dream, a much more scholarly work, has 30 pages of bibliographic references and 37 pages of cited notes for a total of 660 pages.
Kinross’s work, the encyclopedia entries, and nearly all Western books on Sultan Selim II’s personality start by painting a picture of an incompetent drunkard :
After gaining the throne after palace intrigue and fraternal dispute, Selim II became the first Sultan devoid of active military interest and willing to abandon power to his ministers, provided he was left free to pursue his orgies and debauches. Therefore, he became known as Selim the Drunkard or Selim the Sot. His Grand Vizier, Mehmed Sokollu, a Serbian forced-convert from what is now Bosnia and Herzegovina, controlled much of state affairs…[wikipedia]
As is commonly known, alcohol is forbidden in Islam, the professed faith of all Sultans (and by which authority they ruled). The attempt to portray certain Sultans as drunks seems to be rooted in a desire to demonstrate weakness of character and sincerity when it came to the faith of Islam. This accusation is repeated through most Western books regarding the Ottoman empire dated from the 18th century onwards (the Sultan ruled in the 16th century) however each case remains uncited as to its source. The most academically honest student might cite Kinross’s work, but that leads the student to a dead end since it is already noted how well referenced that work actually is.
How can we reconcile conflicting idea that the Sultan sought to escape a basic Islamic ruling yet for some reason promoted Islam itself, especially as strongly as Sultan Selim II did? It is difficult to accept this characterization in light of the numerous investments in Islam that Sultan Selim II made, sacrificing great personal wealth in order to leave a legacy of Islam which has stood to this day. Further, the appointments that Sultan Selim II made were of highly religious people, many writing deep loving poetry for God and His Prophet (S). One of the most notable poets of that time, “Fuzuli” was appointed Secretary of State, a sample of his poetry demonstrating a deeply religious character is available within Ottoman Poems by E J W Gibb. Some of that poetry has been available on yursil.com.
Actual imperial orders from the Sultan seem hardly able to fit within the uncited fictional character seeking to escape Islam’s commandments to pursue Western frivolities. On the contrary, imperial orders show firm resolve to ease the burden of those engaging in the strenuous Hajj pilgrimage, and special consideration for Muslims living under the subjugation of intolerant colonialists.
An excerpt of an imperial order from the Sultan below:
..because the accursed Portugese are everywhere owing to their hostilities against India, and the routes by which Muslims come to the Holy Places are obstructed and moreover, it is not considered lawful for the people of Islam to live under the power of miserable infidels … you are to gather together all the expert architects and engineers of that place and investigate the land between the Mediterranean and the Red Seas and report where it is possible to make a canal in that desert place and how long it would be and how many boats could pass side by side. – ref: Ottoman Archives: Muhimme Defteri Vol 7 No 721
Indeed, it was with Sultan Selim II that the first plans of the Suez Canal began, although it was not accomplished in his lifetime.
The second part of the introduction of Sultan Selim II’s character, by Western sources, is the common story that Sultan Selim II was actually controlled by his Grand Vizir. This theory has left out important information contained within Ottoman Archives where Sultan Selim II was often deciding between various Vezirs and creating his own hierarchies of authority:
In 1568 a strong expedition was sent to pacify the province under the command of Sultan Selim’s former tutor and confidant Lala Mustafa Pasha, a choice which showed that Selim was not entirely the pawn of his grand vezir, for Sokullu Mehmed resented Lala Mustafa’s place in the Sultan’s affections. To put down the uprising in Yemen Lala Mustafa needed men and supplies from Egypt but the provincial governor, another rival Koca Sinan Pasha, refused his requests and made it impossible for him to pursue the campaign. In a spate of petitions to the Sultan the two defended their respective positions. Koca Sinan proved the stronger and Lala Mustafa was dismissed from command of the Yemen campaign. To mark his continuing favour, however, Selim created for him the position of sixth vezir of the governing council of the empire. -Osman’s Dream by Caroline Finkel
Introducing another odd contradiction, after insinuating that Sultan Selim had really no care or control of the empire, Kinross’s account in Ottoman Centuries takes almost laughably ridiculous guesses as to motivations for various military campaigns. This is cited on Sultan Selim II’s Wikipedia entry:
Lord Patrick Kinross’ account of Selim’s reign is how he starts a chapter of his book called “The Seeds of Decline”. He sees the massive outlay for the fleet-rebuilding following the Battle of Lepanto as the start of the Empire’s slow decay. Kinross also says that Selim’s reputation for drunkenness was solidified in his decision to invade Cyprus rather than supporting the Morisco Revolt in Grenada as well as in the manner of his death; Selim died after a period of fever brought on when he drunkenly slipped over on the wet floor of an unfinished bath-house.
Other orientalist works from the 1800′s seem to hold the Sultan Selim II was so in love with wine that he wanted control of Cyprus to have fresh wine. On the other hand, Caroline Finkel notes:
Friction between the Ottomans and Venice was never completely absent but outright war was usually avoided. According to contemporary Ottoman historians, it was Venetian protection for the corsairs who plagued Ottoman vessels sailing the route to Egypt which drove Selim to mount a campaign to conquer Cyprus.
It is not difficult to see which theory seems more intelligently considered. Furthermore, a few different reports exist for Sultan Selim II’s death, some indeed say he died from complications from a fall in a bath, without mentioning drunkenness. Other versions state that he fell on way to perform a Khutbe at the new Mosque bearing his name. Oddly enough, for how widely present the idea of a drunk Sultan is within Selim II’s internet presence, Caroline Finkel’s work does not mention drinking or debaucheries within her 20+ page write up on the Sultan.
Selimye Mosque
Far from running from Islam, Sultan Selim II’s work for Islam is truly beyond impressive, the Selimye mosque he built is an architectural achievement which still causes emotional reactions. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (d. 1762), wife of the English ambassador in Istanbul is quoted as saying the mosque which Sultan Selim II build was “The noblest building I ever saw.”
The seventeenth century traveller Evliya Celebi notes Sultan Selim’s justification for choosing Eridrne as a location for the mosque, relating that the Prophet Muhummad (S) came to to the Sultan in a dream and directed him to build it there.
As is also noted within Osman’s Dream, Sultan Selim’s work for Islam was carried far beyond Istanbul:
Sultan Selim also continued his parents’ involvement with Mecca, his work gave the great mosque the distinctively Ottoman appearance it retains today. The enclosure lacked the space for a monumental mosque like those in Istanbul, so the galleries surrounding the courtyard were remodeled in the Ottoman style and given domes in places of their original flat roof. These works were continued during Murad II’s reign, serving to impress pilgrims from the all over the world with the power and munificence of the new protectors of the Muslim Holy Places
That’s correct, all the structural beauty of Makkah itself in the grand Ottoman style came from the direction and resources of Sultan Selim II. All Hajji’s are witnesses to this. All this, and we have barely scratched the surface. Sultan Selim II was a Sultan for only eight years. This was a Sultan who ruled by the foundations of Islam such that they literally stand to this day, and that itself is testimony to the righteousness of Sultan Selim II. With all of the information of his personal pursuits such as his love of archery, his political activities, his architectural projects and plans, and considering the short time of his rule, it is impossible to buy into the Kinrossian picture of a disinterested drunk perpetuated by his book (Hasha Astaghfirullah).
Kinross’s work is cited in at least 86 other books on Ottoman History [3], and is clearly and fundamentally flawed in its depiction of this Sultan. The flaws, if not in structure then in reasoning, are so apparent that it casts huge doubts on what is commonly known about the Ottoman Empire in general. Britannica and other well considered sources of information make the same fundamental mistakes as Kinross.
Osman’s Dream by Caroline Finkel is a tremendous improvement to what has existed prior to it, however it suffers from a critical flaw: lack of understanding of the Ottoman Muslim culture. A reevaluation of Ottoman history needs to occur from parties with keen insight into the tradition and culture of the Ottomans. Until that occurs, what is currently available is little more than the retelling of enemy campfire stories.
A couplet from Sultan Selim II’s poetry:
We are loving nightingales that have got wretched because of the longing of separation,
The gentle morning wind becomes fire if it blows through our rosary.
[1] The Turkish Language Reform: A Catastrophic Success (Oxford Linguistics) – Geoffrey Lewis
[2] Turkish Cultural Foundation – turkishculture.org
[3] Amazon.com – Product Details, Citations
Noted by SeekersDigest
They link to my site for Sheykh Abdul Qadir Jilani (rad) at the end.
Details here:
Reuters reports that 33 bodies were found in the streets of Baghdad on Monday. Karrada took mortar fire, which left 8 dead and 35 wounded. McClatchy reports that on Sunday night, guerrillas had taken 40 persons hostage in Salahuddin Province, in a bid to counter the operation of a new anti-Salafi tribal council. There were other bombings, shootings and assorted mayhem in Baghdad, Mosul and some other places.
But one above all took the cake. Guerrillas detonated a huge bomb in front of the shrine of Abdul Qadir al-Gilani (Jilani, Kilani) in central Baghdad on Monday, killing (according to Reuters, above) some 24 persons and wounding 90 according to late reports. The bombing damaged the dome and the base of the minaret of the mosque attached to the shrine.
Shaikh Abdul Qadir al-Gilani (d. 1166 A.D.) was a great mystic who founded the vast Qadiriya Sufi order.
An Ottoman mystic, Shaikh Muzaffer Ozak Efendi, later wrote of him,
‘ “The venerable ‘Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani passed on to the Realm of Divine Beauty in A.H. 561/ 1166 C.E., and his blessed mausoleum in Baghdaad is still a place of pious visitation. He is noted for his extraordinary spiritual experiences and exploits, as well as his memorable sayings and wise teachings. It is rightly said of him that ‘he was born in love, grew in perfection, and met his Lord in the perfection of love.’ May the All-Glorious Lord bring us in contact with his lofty spiritual influence!” ‘
The Qadiri Sufi order is very important in Iraq, Nigeria, Senegal, Morocco, Turkey, Pakistan and India, among other places.
The shrine was likely attacked by radical Sunni Salafis, with several objects in mind. First, Salafis hate Sufi shrines (see below). Second, the Salafi Jihadis in Iraq are trying to mobilize all Iraqi Sunnis behind them, and do not want rivals from among the Sufi orders and tribal shaikhs. Third, the Salafi Jihadis want to throw Iraq into ever greater chaos, such that they strike at all national symbols. Fourth, they are probably hoping that at least some Sunni Arabs will blame Shiite militiamen for the attack, or will blame the Shiite government for not preventing it, so that the bombing has the effect of heightening sectarian tensions further. The guerrilla attack on the Shiite Askariya Shrine in Samarra in February, 2006, set off an orgy of sectarian violence, and was the most successful single act of terrorism the guerrillas have ever carried out.
One saving grace is that Sufis are oriented toward symbolic meaning, and physical places are therefore not central to their worship. One famous medieval Sufi, al-Hallaj, famously thought that it was better to visit God in your heart truly than to undertake a perfunctory pilgrimage to Mecca. (The orthodox were outraged.) It is a little unlikely, therefore, that there will be a backlash from this bombing in Nigeria or Senegal or India. For Iraqi Sunnis, likewise, it seems a little unlikely to produce further violence, since the imam himself blamed the radical Salafis (takfiris), themselves Sunni.
Al-Hayat reports in Arabic that Muhammad al-Isawi, the prayer leader and preacher at the mosque attached to the shrine, said, “I send condolences not only to myself but to all Iraqis for what befell this mosque for everyone, for Sunni and Shiite, for Turkmen and Kurd. Who venefits from blowing it up? We must be patient and resigned and deny any opportunity to the enemies, the Takfiri terrorists.” [Takfiris are radical Salafis who declare Sufis and other non-Salafis to be non-Muslims and deserving of death.] He added, “They have idled the charitable works in the mosque, which provides food to widows, orphans and the needy; it also contains a library, to which seekers after knowledge resort. It was, truly, a cowardly act.”
There are lots of strands of Sunni Islam. Many of them are better thought of as tendencies than as sects in their own right. If we make an analogy to Christianity, so there are scriptural literalists (fundamentalists), and there are mystics seeking union with God, and there is everything in between.
The mystics organized into orders or brotherhoods (tariqa) are called Sufis. (The etymology of ‘Sufi’ is disputed. Some say it refers to the early mystics’ preference for woollen (suf) cloaks. Others say it is derived from the Greek Sophia or wisdom.) The mystics typically get together on a Thursday night (or other occasion) at the mosque and sit in a circle and chant spiritual verses and listen to the teachings of their spiritual master or shaikh (in Persian, pir). Some Sufi meetings, with their chanting and rhythmic dancing, resemble Pentacostal services in Christianity. When the shaikh died, often a shrine grew up around his tomb, which was thought a center of blessings and people would come there to touch it and be cured of infertility and other woes.
Sufism was so successful as an organized movement from about the 1100s that it took over Islam, and there were very few Muslims who were not in some sense Sufis in the period 1200 through about 1850. From the mid-1700s, Muhammad Ibn Abdul Wahhab in Arabia began attacking Sufism. The attacks were taken up and refined by the Salafis (revivalists) of the late 19th and early 20th century. It began being argued, under Wahhabi and Salafi influence, that it was wrong to attend at shrines, wrong to seek the intercession of saints, wrong to chant and to dance for God. Modern Wahhabism (mostly a Saudi Arabian phenomenon) and Salafism (much more widespread) have a “Protestant” character to them, emphasizing puritanism and the casting down of all images (iconoclasm) and saints’ shrines.
Sufism has rapidly declined in much of the Muslim world. The Sufi orders still have a central place in society and even politics in Senegal. The Sufis of Morocco are not inconsiderable. But they no longer are in the mainstream in Egypt and are minor affairs in Palestine, Syria and Jordan. The Sufis of the Hijaz in western Arabia are said to be having a bit of a revival, but Wahhabism has reduced them to a shadow of their former selves. Aside from Morocco, Iraq may have been the Arab country with the biggest Sufi presence, both among Sunni Arabs and among Kurds (a lot of Kurds in Iraq, Iran and Turkey are Sufis and some are Qadiris).
Some of the Sufi orders, including branches of the Qadiriya, have at one time or another joined the Sunni Arab insurgency (a major guerrilla leader at Falluja was a Qadiri shaikh). Other branches of the Qadiriya have, however, been quietists and avoided politics (the shrine keeper is in that category, another reason that the shrine may have been hit).
There is a whole web site on al-Gilani and his order by an adherent.
One of the most powerful ways to understand things is through a lens of historical context.
When examining Shariat (Divine Law) we often think of the historical context, even if it is involuntary. We may understand the Shariat as a need that came to a people of lawlessness and injustice. We may further understand the books of Hadith through the need to capture and maintain the traditions of the Prophet (Sallalahu’alaiheewassalam) for future generations. While we know that Tassawuf (also known as Tazkiyat and Tariqat) much like Shariat, existed for all times with different names and slightly different means, we can certainly examine the rise of Tassawuf in an Islamic and historical sense.
Where do we put the spiritual sciences, Tassawuf, or the Tariqats in the larger context of history?
The best way to come to build a historical context for the Tariqat is to examine the society around the great saints and namesakes of the Tariqats.
All of these high saints and their large bodies of students came from societies very different from the one we live in today. They were surrounded by Muslims, they lived in societies where praying in Jamaat was the norm. This is where everyone in the country (and beyond) was fasting and giving their zakat. Pilgrimage was much more arduous, yet performed by thousands. If someone didn’t rise for Tarawih, they became the talk of the town.
It is within this environment that we see the great Saints of Islam rising and gather students. Teacher of the likes of Sheykh Abdul Qadir Jilani (R), Shah Naksiband (R), Moinuddin Chishti (R) were all living in the reality of a ubiquitous Shariat, when the laws of Islam were being canonized. They lived in the type of society of Imam Ghazali (R), from whose writings we can witness the high level and respect that religious scholars of Islamic Law and doctrine were given. In fact, we can see from his writings in the “Deliverance from Error” how the people considered him insane for leaving his high teaching position in order to pursue the inner side of Islam.
Tassawuf, and Tariqat flourished in this environment. What was about its message that was so uniquely fitted within this time period?
Read More Post a comment (6)Shaykh Daoud Sharafuddin, a Shafi’i and Naqshbandi from London UK, writes a very interesting piece which all should read here.
An Essay on Redhouse’s Pamphlet on the Ottoman Caliphate
Small Excerpt:
The Redhouse pamphlet, I feel, needs to be widely read for several reasons. Until now, most of the running in raising the issue of the Restoration of the Caliphate has been made by Hizbu-t Tahrir (whether in the UK or Palestine and Jordan),), and after the official break with the Jordan party, for a while by Al Muhajiroun in the UK. But in recent years matters have been restored, and Hizbu-t Tahrir has reasserted itself over the digression that was Al Muhajiroun. The Redhouse pamphlet constitutes, in a way, another contribution – another way of looking at the matter of the Restoration – which is to bring back the Ottoman Imperial Family. This is, actually, part of the agenda of the Turkish political parties ‘Mill Nizm’ which became ‘Mill Selmet’ which was reconstituted as ‘Refah’ and which was been reborn as ‘Fazilet’, and which is a principal element in the “Islamist” AK Party (Adlet ve Kalkinma Partisi) government in Turkey. This is one of the reasons why the Opposition (overt and covert) is so desperate to prevent such a government happening. The Ottoman Option has the merit of being practicable immediately. In any consideration of Restoration, one of the first things is to establish the legitimacy and qualifications of the proposed persons. I consider that that is precisely what the Redhouse pamphlet does for the ‘Ottoman Option’, and thus, vicariously, is throwing the Ottoman hat back into the ring.
The Ummah is in a state of theological anarchy, with far too many people considering that they have the liberty to throw out several centuries of deep and broad scholarship on the whole corpus of the “adillatu-sh Shari’ah” and make their own madh’hab. The destruction of theological authority within the Ummah was one of the aims of those ‘makers of policy’ in the European Great Powers, and it was correctly seen by them that the removal of the Caliphate, and the subversion of the legitimacy of the Ottomans in holding it, was an essential step in bringing this about. If the French and Russians (and their British ‘fellow travellers’ – or ‘useful idiots’ in Lenin’s other phrase) had succeeded in enthroning the Sharif of Mecca it is most unlikely that they would have allowed him or the office to survive long. I think that Redhouse draws attention to this.
*Pointed out by Hajje Meryem
Malaysia considers Islam in space
The country’s first spaceman is almost certain to be a Muslim, which raises a number of practical issues.
For instance, Muslims wash before they pray but not only is water a precious commodity in space, but it is also impractical in weightlessness.
Likewise, the faithful face Mecca. However, that will mean pin-pointing a moving location while in zero gravity.
And Muslim prayer times are linked to those of the sunrise and sunset, but in orbit the sun appears to rise and set more than a dozen times a day.
the truth on 
m.a.kidwai,CME/IND.RLY.(retd.) on 