Author's note: I thank the Lady Davis Fellowship Trust at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Kreitman School for Advanced Graduate Studies at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev for their generous support. My thanks also to my academic hosts, Yaron Ben-Naeh and Iris Agmon. For their close reading and valuable comments on different versions of this study, I thank Ehud Toledano, Mira Tzoreff, Cyrus Schayegh, Eyal Ginio, Reşat Kasaba, and the participants of the Turkish Circle at the University of Washington in Seattle. Special thanks to On Barak for his insights and ideas, to the anonymous IJMES readers for their sharp critiques, and to Walter Andrews and Selim Kuru for their ideas and continuous support.

¹ Going for nighttime cruises on the Bosporus (mehtab seyri or gümüş servi) was a developed tradition among the elites. For a description of these cruises by the prominent scholar and statesman Ahmed Cevdet (d. 1895), see Cevdet, Ahmed, Maʿruzat, vol. 2, ed. Halaçoğlu, Yusuf (Istanbul: Çağrı Yayınları, 1980), 9Google Scholar. For 18th-century poems that refer to mehtab seyri, see Öztekin, Özge, Divanlardan Yansıyan Görüntüler: XVIII. Yüzyıl Divan Şiirinde Toplumsal Hayatın İzleri (Ankara: Ürün Yayınları, 2006), 376–80Google Scholar.

² Başbakanlık Osmanlı Arçivleri (hereafter BOA), HAT 193/9461, 29 Z 1204 (9.9.1790).

³ See, for example, Kemal, Namık, “Progress,” in The Modern Middle East: A Sourcebook for History, ed. Amin, Cemron Michael, Fortna, Benjamin C., and Frierson, Elizabeth Brown (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 407–10Google Scholar. On the introduction of street lighting and the discourse of Ottoman reform, see İleri, Nurçin, “Delight or Disenchantment: History of Gas Illumination in the Late Ottoman Istanbul,” in A Tribute to Donald Quataert: History from Below, ed. Karahasanoğlu, Selim and Demir, Deniz Cenk (Istanbul: Bilgi University Press, forthcoming), 1–28Google Scholar; Hanssen, Jens, Fin de Siècle Beirut: The Making of an Ottoman Provincial Capital (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2005), 193–212Google Scholar; Wishnitzer, Avner, “Shedding New Light: Outdoor Illumination in Late Ottoman Istanbul,” in The Bright Side of Night: Urban Lighting, Light Pollution and Society, ed. Hasenöhrl, Uteet al. (London: Routledge, forthcoming)Google Scholar.

⁴ On the negative effects of nocturnal exposure to light on human health see, for example, Chepesiuk, Ron, “Missing the Dark: Health Effects of Light Pollution,” Environmental Health Perspectives 117 (2009): A20–27CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed. For the impact of over-lighting on ecosystems, see Hölker, F., Wolter, C., Perkin, E. K., and Tockner, K., “Light Pollution as a Biodiversity Threat,” Trends in Ecology and Evolution 12 (2010): 681–82CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The most ambitious attempt to promote interdisciplinary research on the impact of excessive illumination on human society and the natural world is the Loss of the Night project, a consortium of thirteen teams of scholars from different disciplines, funded by the German government; see http://www.verlustdernacht.de/about-us.html (accessed 3 December 2013). Several international NGOs have been established in recent years to promote darker nights through education and advocacy. See the homepage of the International Dark Sky Association, http://www.darksky.org (accessed 3 December 2013).

⁵ This perspective was deliberated in “The Bright Side of the Night” workshop, organized within the framework of the “Loss of the Night” project in Erkner, Berlin, 21–22 June 2013.

⁶ See, for example, Brox, Jane, Brilliant: The Evolution of Artificial Light (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2010)Google Scholar; Otter, Chris, The Victorian Eye: A Political History of Light and Vision in Britain, 1800–1910 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008), esp. 135–252CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Schlör, Joachim, Nights in the Big City: Paris, Berlin, London, 1840–1930, Topographics (London: Reaktion, 1998)Google Scholar; and Schivelbusch, Wolfgang, Disenchanted Night: The Industrialization of Light in the Nineteenth Century (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1995)Google Scholar.

⁷ Whereas in works on the 19th century, industrial illumination often takes center stage, in works on earlier periods darkness generally gets more attention. See, for example, Ekirch, Roger A., At Day's Close: Night in Times Past (New York: Norton, 2005)Google Scholar; Cabantous, Alain, Histoire De La Nuit: XV^e–XVIII^e Siècle (Paris: Fayard, 2009)Google Scholar; and Koslofsky, Craig, Evening's Empire: A History of the Night in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁸ To my knowledge, only two historical works discuss nighttime in the Ottoman Empire thematically, both in relation to the 19th century: İleri, “Delight or Disenchantment”; and Hanssen, Fin de Siècle Beirut, 193–212. For a survey of the development of gas lighting in the empire, see Kayserilioğlu, Sertaç R., Mazak, Mehmet, and Kon, Kadir, Osmanlı’dan Günümüze Havagazının Tarirçesi, 3 vols. (Istanbul: İGDAŞ, 1999)Google Scholar. Even less is known about nighttime in earlier periods. Metin And's study of early modern public festivals in the Ottoman Empire discusses some forms of nighttime performances, and a few popular histories and studies of poetry describe different forms of nocturnal conviviality. However, little in the way of comprehensive analytic work has been published. See And, Metin, Kırk Gün Kırk Gece: Eski Donanma ve Şenliklerde Seyirlik Oyunları (Istanbul: Taç Yayınları, 1959)Google Scholar; Akbayar, Necdet Sakaoğlu and Nuri, Binbir Gün Binbir Gece: Osmanlı’dan Günümüze İstanbul'da Eğlence Yaşamı (Istanbul: Deniz Bankasi, 1999)Google Scholar; Bey, Abdülaziz, Osmanlı Âdet, Merasim Ve Tabirleri, vol. 1 (Istanbul: Tarih Vakfı, 1995), 287–91Google Scholar; Sevengil, Refik Ahmet, İstanbul Nasıl Eğleniyordu (1453’ten 1927’ye Kadar) (Istanbul: İletişim, 1993), 60–62, 92–95Google Scholar; , Bal, Eski Zamanlarda İstanbul Hayatı (Istanbul: Kitabevi, 2001), 178–82Google Scholar; and Öztekin, Divanlardan, 376–80, 251–71.

⁹ On the role of poetry in scripting behaviors in everyday life, see Andrews, Walter and Kalpaklı, Mehmet, The Age of Beloveds: Love and the Beloved in Early-Modern Ottoman and European Culture and Society (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2005), 37–38, 85–90Google Scholar. On the importance of poetry in Ottoman culture, see also Evin, Ahmed, Origins and Development of the Turkish Novel (Minneapolis, Minn.: Bibliotheca Islamica, 1983), 26Google Scholar.

¹⁰ Erimtan, Can, Ottomans Looking West?: The Origins of the Tulip Age and Its Development in Modern Turkey (New York: Tauris Academic Studies, 2008)Google Scholar.

¹¹ Refik, Ahmet, Lale Devri (Istanbul: Hilmi Kitaphanesi, 1932)Google Scholar.

¹² Tülay Artan, “Architecture as Theatre of Life: Profile of the Eighteenth Century Bosporus” (PhD diss., MIT, 1989); Hamadeh, Shirine, The City's Pleasures: Istanbul in the Eighteenth Century (Seattle, Wash.: University of Washington Press, 2007)Google Scholar; Karahasanoğlu, Selim, “A Tulip Age Legend: Consumer Behavior and Material Culture in the Ottoman Empire (1718–1740)” (PhD diss., Binghamton University, 2009)Google Scholar. For a different approach, see B. Deniz Çalış, “Ideal and Real Spaces of Ottoman Imagination: Continuity and Change in Ottoman Rituals of Poetry, 1453–1730” (PhD diss., Middle East Technical University, 2004).

¹³ Refik, Lale Devri, 35–36; Artan, “Architecture as Theatre,” 42–47; Zarinebaf, Fariba, Crime and Punishment in Istanbul, 1700–1800 (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 2011), 16–18Google Scholar; Sakaoğlu and Akbayar, Binbir Gün, 120–31.

¹⁴ See Zarinebaf, Crime and Punishment, esp. 11–34; and Betül Başaran, “Remaking the Gate of Felicity: Policing, Social Control and Migration in Istanbul at the End of the Eighteenth Century, 1789–1793” (PhD diss., University of Chicago, 2006), esp. 12–73.

¹⁵ See, for example, Hattox, Ralph, Coffee and Coffeehouses: The Origins of a Social Beverage in the Medieval Near East (Seattle, Wash.: University of Washington Press, 1985)Google Scholar; Kırlı, Cengiz, “Coffehouses: Public Opinion in the Nineteenth-Century Ottoman Empire,” in Public Islam and the Common Good, ed. Salvatore, Armando (Leiden: Brill, 2004), 75–97Google Scholar; and Mikhail, Alan, “The Heart's Desire: Gender, Urban Space and the Ottoman Coffee House,” in Ottoman Tulips, Ottoman Coffee: Leisure and Lifestyle in the Eighteenth Century, ed. Sajdi, Dana (London: Tauris Academic Studies, 2007), 133–70Google Scholar.

¹⁶ On the Ottoman hour system, see Wishnitzer, Avner, “‘Our Time’: On the Durability of the Alaturka Hour System in the Late Ottoman Empire,” International Journal of Turkish Studies 16 (2010): 47–69Google Scholar.

¹⁷ On the “shutting down” of Ottoman cities at night, see, for example, Habesci, Elias, The Present State of the Ottoman Empire (London: R. Baldwin, 1784), 373–74Google Scholar; Marcus, Abraham, The Middle East on the Eve of Modernity: Aleppo in the Eighteenth Century (New York: Columbia University Press, 1989)Google Scholar; Hanssen, Fin de Siecle, 197–99; McGowan, Bruce, “The Age of Ayans, 1699–1812,” in An Economic and Social History of the Ottoman Empire, vol. 2, ed. İnalcık, Halil and Quataert, Donald (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 647Google Scholar; and Kötükoğlu, Mübahat, “Life in the Medrese,” in The Illuminated Table, the Prosperous House: Food and Shelter in Ottoman Material Culture, ed. Faroqhi, Suraiya and Neumann, Christoph K. (Wèurzburg, Germany: Ergon Verlag, 2003), 216Google Scholar.

¹⁸ See, for example, Caulfeild, James, The Travels of Lord Charlemont in Greece & Turkey, 1749, ed. Stanford, W.B. and Finopoulos, E. J. (London: Trigraph for the A.G. Leventis Foundation, 1984), 210Google Scholar; and D'Ohsson, Ignatius Mouradgea, Tableau général de l'empire Othoman, vol. 4 (Paris: Didot Pere et Fils, 1824), 241Google Scholar.

¹⁹ Schivelbusch, Disenchanted Night, 81.

²⁰ Marcus, The Middle East, 325; Semerdjian, Elyse, “Off the Straight Path”: Illicit Sex, Law, and Community in Ottoman Aleppo (Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 2008), 73–88Google Scholar. See also Zarinebaf, Fariba, “Maitien de l'ordre et contrôle social à Istanbul au XVIII siècle,” in Metiérs de police: être policier en Europe, XVIII-XXe siècle, ed. Jean-Marc Berlière (Rennes, France: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2008), 88, 90, 95Google Scholar.

²¹ On the effect of the urban layout of Aleppo on the intensity of social life in the neighborhood, see Marcus, The Middle East, 282. See also Zarinebaf, Crime and Punishment, 130; and Toledano, Ehud R, State and Society in Mid-Nineteenth-Century Egypt (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 202Google Scholar. On kefalet as a mechanism of social control in 18th-century Salonica, see Ginio, Eyal, “Anshe Shulayim ba-ʿIr ha-ʿOtmanit: ha-Mikreh shel Saloniki ba-Meʾah ha-Shmoneh-ʿEsreh” (PhD diss., The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1988), 106–108Google Scholar; on kefalet in 18th-century Istanbul, see Zarinebaf, Crime and Punishment, 132–33.

²² Toledano, State and Society, 201–202.

²³ Behar, Cem, A Neighborhood in Ottoman Istanbul: Fruit Vendors and Civil Servants in the Kasap İlyas Mahalle (Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press, 2003), 324Google Scholar. See also Marcus, The Middle East, 323. Both Abdul-Karim Rafeq and Elyse Semerdjian stress that the Ottoman mahalle system was not merely a mechanism of control imposed by the authorities through coercion, but rather a system of self-policing that protected and served the inhabitants. Rafeq, Abdul-Karim, “Public Morality in 18th Century Damascus,” Revue du mondes musulmans et de la Méditerranée 55 (1990): 181Google Scholar; Semerdjian, “Off the Straight Path,” 81–86.

²⁴ Toledano, State and Society, 202–203.

²⁵ Başaran, “Remaking,” 62–71, 234–24; Ginio, “Anshey Shulayim baʿir ha-ʿOtmanit,” 81–85; Rafeq, “Public Morality,” 182; Semerdjian, “Off the Straight Path,” 96–97; Zarinebaf, Crime and Punishment, 93, 131. On the use of the term ajnabī, see Semerdjian, “Off the Straight Path,” 96–99, 205, n. 7.

²⁶ See, for example, D'Ohsson, Tableau général, 4:242; and Caulfeild, The Travels, 209.

²⁷ See Zarinebaf, Crime and Punishment, esp. 125–74.

²⁸ In European cities, street lighting was installed starting in the late 17th century. Koslofsky, Evening's Empire, esp. 128–56.

²⁹ See, for example, BOA, C.AS 1152/51221, 25 Ra 1194 (31.3.1780).

³⁰ BOA, C.AS 1023/44841, 1201 (1787).

³¹ BOA, C.AS 1075/47341 1201 (1787).

³² Uzunçarşılı, İsmail H., Osmanlı Devleti Teşkilâtından Kapukulu Ocakları, 1. Cilt (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu, 1943), 323Google Scholar. Betül Başaran provides a good survey of the various offices in charge of public order in 18th-century Istanbul. Başaran, “Remaking,” 128–42. On policing forces, night patrols, and neighborhood night guards, see also Zarinebaf, Crime and Punishment, 91–92, 133–39.

³³ See Nuri's, Osmandescription of “anonymous” individuals walking without a lantern (fenersiz gezen hüvviyyeti mechul) in Osman Ergin, Mecelle-i Umûr-ı Belediyye, vol. 1 (Istanbul: İstanbul Büyükşehir Belediyesi Kültür İşleri Daire Başkanlığı, 1995), 914, n. 70Google Scholar.

³⁴ See, for example, Takvim-i Vekayi, 307, 17.Za.1262 (7.11.1846); BOA, A.MKT.UM 574/82, 28.Z.1278 (26.6.1862); BOA, İ.MSM 5/77, 1 Za 1261 (1.11.1845). See also Zarinebaf, Crime and Punishment, 136–37.

³⁵ Andrews, Walter, “Ottoman Love: Preface to a Theory of Emotional Ecology,” in A History of Emotions, 1200–1800, ed. Lileiquist, Jonas (London: Pickering and Chatto, 2012), 27Google Scholar.

³⁶ It is noteworthy that in different Islamic literary traditions the madman (majnūn) is often depicted as speaking the truth to power and challenging social norms. Nighttime and madness are thus both associated with counter-order. On the love-madness of Majnun and Layla, see for example, Dols, Michael W., Majnūn: The Madman in Medieval Islamic Society (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992), 313–39CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For an Ottoman interpretation of the story, see Andrews, Walter G. and Kalpaklı, Mehmet, “Layla Grows Up: Nizami's Layla and Majnun ‘in The Turkish Manner,’” in The Poetry of Nizami Ganjavi: Knowledge, Love, and Rhetoric, ed. Talattof, Kamran and Clinton, Jerome W. (New York: Palgrave, 2000), 27–51Google Scholar.

³⁷ Gâlîb, Şeyh, Şeyh G âlîb Dîvânı, ed. Kalkışım, Muhsin (Ankara: Akçağ, 1994), 284Google Scholar.

³⁸ El-Rouayheb, Khaled, Before Homosexuality in the Arab-Islamic World, 1500–1800 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005), 34CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

³⁹ That public bathhouses were loci of sexual activity, especially at night, is clearly evident and sometime explicitly stated in official decrees. See, for example, BOA, HAT 195/9720, 29 Z 1204 (9.9.1790). See also Ergin, Nina, “The Albanian Tellâk Connection: Labor Migration to the Hamams of Eighteenth-Century Istanbul, Based on the 1752 İstanbul Hamâmları Defteri,” Turcica 43 (2011): 231–56Google Scholar; El-Rouayheb, Before Homosexuality, 42–43; Semerdjian, Elyse, “Naked Anxiety: Bathhouses, Nudity and the Dhimmī Woman in 18th-Century Aleppo,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 45 (2013): 658CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On taverns and nightly sex among commoners, see Mustafa Ali, cited in Andrews and Kalpaklı, The Age of Beloveds, 69–70. That some women “hosted” men in their homes at night was already indicated above. For more on prostitutes in 18th-century Istanbul, see Zarinebaf, Crime and Punishment, 86–111.

⁴⁰ Yâver, Enderunlu Hasan, Divan: İnceleme—Metin—Çeviri—Dizin, ed. Üstüner, Kaplan (Urfa, Turkey: T.C. Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı, 2010), 151Google Scholar.

⁴¹ Bosnalı Alaeddin Sâbit, Dîvân, ed. Turgut Karacan (Sivas, Turkey: Cumhuriyet Üniversitesi, 1991), 366. For another example, see Refiʿ-i Kalayi, Divan-ı Refi-i Kalayi (Istanbul: Fatih Matbaası: 1867), 122–23.

⁴² Ottoman poetry weaves together several layers, or “voices,” that speak simultaneously, each echoing the others. See Andrews, Walter G., Poetry's Voice, Society's Song: Ottoman Lyric Poetry (Seattle, Wash.: University of Washington Press, 1985)Google Scholar.

⁴³ Schimmel, Annemarie, Mystical Dimensions of Islam, 35th Anniversary Ed (Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of North Carolina Press, 2011), 107, 114–15Google Scholar; Chittick, William C., The Sufi Path of Love: The Spiritual Teachings of Rumi (Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press, 1983), 151, 157Google Scholar.

⁴⁴ See, for example, İnançer, Ö Tuprul, “Rituals and Main Principles of Sufism during the Ottoman Empire,” in Sufism and Sufis in the Ottoman Empire, ed. Ahmed Y. Ocak (Ankara: Turkish Historical Society, 2005), 134, 154Google Scholar. A comprehensive discussion of the meanings of the night, darkness, and light in Sufism is beyond the scope of this study.

⁴⁵ Hakkı, Erzurumlu İbrâhim, Tıpkı Basım Ve Yeni Harflerle Erzurumlu İbrahim Hakkı Divanı, ed. Güneş, Mustafa (Istanbul: Sahhaflar Kitap Sarayı, 2008), 154–55Google Scholar. For some Sufis, mystical contemplation was inseparable from adoring beautiful boys, whose beauty was considered a reflection of the divine. See El-Rouayheb, Before Homosexuality, 95–110.

⁴⁶ Night poems appear in numerous contemporary poetry collections (divans) with such redifs as bu şeb, bu gece, gecelerde (this night, tonight, at night) and nısf-i leyl (midnight). See, for example, Vasıf, Ederunlu Osman, Enderunlu Osman Vâsıf Bey Ve Divânı: Divân-ı Gülşen-i Efkâr-ı Vâsıf-ı Enderûni, ed. Gürel, Rahşan (Istanbul: Kitabevi, 1999), 282–83Google Scholar; Dede, Esrar, Esrar Dede: Hayatı, Eserleri, Şiir Dünyası, ed. Horata, Osman (Ankara: T.C. Kültür Bakanlığı, 1998), 296–97, 532–33Google Scholar; Erzurumlu İbrâhim, Tıpkı Basım, 252–53, 320–21; and Galib, Şeyh, Şeyh Galib Divanı, ed. Kalkışım, Muhsin (Ankara: Akçağ, 1994), 258–59Google Scholar. To the best of my knowledge, there is no systematic literary analysis of this tradition.

⁴⁷ Çalış, “Ideal,” 16–18; Hamadeh, The City's Pleasures, 159–61. For a discussion of the role of evening “dinner parties” in the social life of a 17th-century dervish, see Kafadar, Cemal, “Self and Others: The Diary of a Dervish in Seventeenth Century Istanbul and First-Person Narratives in Ottoman Literature,” Studia Islamica 69 (1989): 141–43Google Scholar.

⁴⁸ Andrews, Poetry's Voice, esp. 146–57.

⁴⁹ Çalış, “Ideal,” 17.

⁵⁰ The word devr, and circles in general, were loaded with layers of meaning taken from Sufi thought and practice. See Çalış, “Ideal,” 100–101, 113, 117, 132–33, 268–74.

⁵¹ For full-moon parties, see Refik, Lale Devri, 35–36. For a reference to a çırağan party in a 17th-century poetry collection, see Öztekin, Divanlardan, 351. Nurhan Atasoy has located a contemporary manuscript that argues that the çırağan festivals originated in ancient China. Atasoy, Nurhan, Hasbahçe: Osmanlı Kültüründe Bahçe ve Çiçek (Istanbul: Aygaz, 2002), 169Google Scholar.

⁵² Efendi, Mehhmed Raşid, Tarih-i Raşid, vol. 5 (Istanbul: Matabaa-ı Amire, 1865), 205–206Google Scholar; D'Ohsson, Tableau général, 249; De Hammer, Joseph, Histoire de'l Empire Ottoman depuis son origıne jusqu'a nos jours, recherche (Paris: Bellizard, Barthes, Dufour et Lowell, 1839), 64–65Google Scholar.

⁵³ D'Ohsson, Tableau général, 4:249.

⁵⁴ On this “troika” and their close relations, see Karahasanoglu, “A Tulip Age Legend,” esp. 40–44.

⁵⁵ See Asım Efendi Küçükçelebizade, Tarih-i Raşid, vol. 6, Tarih-i İsmail Asım Efendi eş-şehir bi-Küçük Çelebizade, 366–77, 470–71; Raşid Efendi, Tarih-i Raşid, 3:319. In mean-time terms, according to sunset hours in April for the latitude of Istanbul, these hours would translate to between 23:00 and 01:00 o'clock.

⁵⁶ For descriptions of çırağan parties, see Efendi, Tarih-i Raşid, 5:205–206, 292–95, and Küçükçelebizade, Tarih-i Raşid, 6:363–67, 456–58, 460–61; Mignot, Vincent, Histoire de l'Empire Ottoman, depuis son origine jusqu’à la paix de Belgrade en 1740, vol. 4 (Paris: Le Clrec, 1773), 317–19Google Scholar; D'Ohsson, Tableau général, 4:248–49; and De Hammer, Histoire de'l Empire Ottoman, 64–65. For a description of such a party held during the reign of Mustafa III (1757–74), see Tott, François, Memoires of the Baron de Tott Containing the State of the Turkish Empire during the Late War with Russia, vol. 1 (London: G. G. J. & J. Robinson, 1786), 78–80Google Scholar.

⁵⁷ For an extensive discussion of Ottoman “garden rituals,” see Çalış, “Ideal,” esp. 112–67.

⁵⁸ Nedim, Ahmet, Nedim Divanı (Istanbul: İkdam Matbaası, 1338–1340 [1920–22]), 196–97Google Scholar.

⁵⁹ Paşa, İzzet Ali, Lâle Devri şairi İzzet Ali Paşa: Hayatı, Eserleri, Edebî Kişiliğ; Divan: Tenkitli Metin Nigâr-nâme: Tenkitli Metin, ed. Aypay, Ali Irfan (Istanbul: n.p., 1998), 94–96Google Scholar.

⁶⁰ Aypay, Lâle Devri Şairi, 94–96.

⁶¹ Nedim, Nedim Divanı, 196–97.

⁶² The parties were known and noted in real time by people who were not invited to take part in them. For example, the kadı (judge) Sadreddinzade Telhisi Mustafa Efendi (d. 1736) repeatedly reported the parties in his diary, and the Venetian representative (baili) in Istanbul, Giovanni Emo, described in his dispatches the çırağan festivities of 1722. See Karahasanoğlu, Selim, Kadı Ve Günlüğü: Sadreddinzade Telhisî Mustafa Efendi Günlüğü (1711–1735) Üstüne Bir Inceleme (Istanbul: Türkiye Bankası Kültür Yayınları, 2013), 106–109Google Scholar; and Shay, Mary, The Ottoman Empire from 1720 to 1734 as Revealed in Despatches of the Venetian Baili (Urbana, Ill.: University of Illinois Press, 1944), 20Google Scholar.

⁶³ Quoted in Öztekin, Divanlardan, 355.

⁶⁴ Aypay, Lâle Devri Şairi, 94–96.

⁶⁵ It is noteworthy that, in this respect, the Ottomans were much like their European contemporaries. See Koslofsky, Evening's Empire, 91–127.

⁶⁶ See, for example, Salim, Mirzazade Mehmed Emin, Tezkire-i Salim (Istanbul: İkdam Matbaası, 1897), 155Google ScholarPubMed. For kubera hosting drinking gatherings in their homes, see also Bey, Abdülaziz, Osmanlı Âdet, Merasim Ve Tabirleri, vol. 1 (Istanbul: Tarih Vakfı, 1995), 307Google Scholar.

⁶⁷ Ibid. Elites would also at times go to taverns. See Koçu, Reşat, Eski İstanbul'da Meyhaneler Ve Meyhane Köçekleri, vol. 2 (Istanbul: Doğan Kitapçılık, 2002), 48Google Scholar. On the inner organization of houses and the scarcity of indoor illumination, see Uğur Tanyeli, “Norms of Domestic Comfort and Luxury in Ottoman Metropolises, Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries,” in The Illuminated Table, esp. 302–308, 314.

⁶⁸ Georgeon, François, “Ottomans and Drinkers: The Consumption of Alcohol in Istanbul in the Nineteenth Century,” in Outside In: On the Margins of the Middle East, ed. Rogan, Eugene (London, New York: I. B. Tarius, 2002), 11; Sakaoğlu and Akbayar, Binbir Gün, 136–42Google Scholar.

⁶⁹ White, Charles, Three Years in Constantinople or the Domestic Manners of the Turks in 1844, vol. 3 (London: Henry Colburn, 1846), 101Google Scholar.

⁷⁰ On the different types of taverns, see Koçu, Eski İstanbul'da Meyhaneler, 15–17.

⁷¹ This assessment is based on documents pertaining to Sultan Selim III's attempts to close down all alcohol vending establishments in Istanbul. See BOA, HAT 195/9720, 29.Z.1204 (9.9.1790); BOA, HAT 206/10845, 29.Z.1204 (9.9.1790); HAT 212/11497, 29.Z.1204 (9.9.1790); BOA, HAT 211/11470, 29.Z.1205 (29.8.1791). The documents contain lists of alcohol producing and selling businesses arranged according to neighborhoods. Yet, since not all neighborhoods are listed, a definite number for the whole of Istanbul cannot be established. The most comprehensive discussion of the background of Selim's measures is Başaran, Remaking. On occasional measures taken against taverns in Istanbul from the 16th through the 18th centuries, see D'Ohsson, Tableau général, 4:56–62.

⁷² D'Ohsson, Tableau général, 4:63. On nighttime consumption of opium and alcohol among “dervishes,” see Tott, Memoires, 141, 143–44.

⁷³ By the 19th century, different terms were used to denote different types of drinkers. A heavy drinker was şaribü’l leyli ve'n-nehar (lit. night and day drinker); someone who limited his drinking to the evenings was an akşamcı, literally an “evening person.” See Abdülaziz Bey, Osmanlı âdet, 2:307; and Redhouse, James, A Turkish and English Lexicon (Constantinople: A. H. Boyajian, 1890), 165Google Scholar.

⁷⁴ This was still the arrangement in the late 19th century. See Rıza, Balıkhane Nazırı Ali, Eski Zamanlarda İstanbul Hayatı (Istanbul: Kitabevi, 2001), 180Google Scholar. The use of light-related metaphors in this anecdote suggests that the same arrangement was customary in the period here discussed.

⁷⁵ Koçu, Eski İstanbul'da Meyhaneler, 46.

⁷⁶ Abdülaziz Bey, Osmanlı âdet, 1:309.

⁷⁷ Salim, Tezkire-i Salim, 536.

⁷⁸ Every detail in this anecdote follows well-established traditions of writing, yet this does not diminish its value as a historical source. As Andrews and Kalpaklı have amply demonstrated, poetic traditions reflected but also scripted behaviors and modes of sociability in early modern Ottoman society. See Andrews and Kalpaklı, The Age of Beloveds.

⁷⁹ For different, partly conflicting analyses of the rebellion and its social background, see Zarinebaf, Crime and Punishment, 54–69; Olson, Robert W, “The Esnaf and the Patrona Halil Rebellion of 1730: A Realignment in Ottoman Politics?,” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 17 (1974): 329–44Google Scholar; Aktepe, M. Münir, Patrona İsyanı (1730) (Istanbul: Edebiyat Fakültesi Basımevi, 1958)Google Scholar; and Karahasanoğlu, “A Tulip Age Legend.”

⁸⁰ Abdi, Abdi Tarihi: 1730 Patrona Ihtilâli Hakkında Bir Eser, ed. Faik Reşit Unat (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu, 1943), 26.

⁸¹ As argued in Karahasanoğlu, “A Tulip Age Legend.”

⁸² Montague, John, A Voyage Performed by the Late Earl of Sandwich Round the Mediterranean in the Years 1738 and 1739 (London: T. Cadell Jun. & W. Davies, 1799), 233Google Scholar.

⁸³ Salih, Destari, Destari Salih Tarihi: Patron Halil Ayaklanması Hakkında Bir Kaynak, ed. Baykal, Bekir Sıtkı (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu Basimevi, 1962), 7Google Scholar.

⁸⁴ Ergin, “The Albanian Tellâk Connection.”

⁸⁵ Salih, Destari Salih Tarihi, 8, 12, 15, 19, 20.

⁸⁶ Abdi, Abdi Tarihi, 30–32.

⁸⁷ Salih, Destari Salih Tarihi, 19.

⁸⁸ The çırağan tradition continued into Mahmud I's reign (1730–54), if not later, but according to D'Ohsson the splendor of İbrahim's parties was never reached again. See D'Ohsson, Tableau général, 4:249.

⁸⁹ The early phases of this colonization are discussed in Wishnitzer, Avner, Reading Clocks, Alla Turca: Time and Society in the Late Ottoman Empire (University of Chicago Press, forthcoming)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. My notion of “the colonization of the night” draws on Melbin, Murray, Night as Frontier: Colonizing the World after Dark (New York: Free Press, 1987)Google Scholar; and Koslofsky, Evening's Empire, 158, which uses the term to mean “the exercise of power and authority, or both, over the people already there.”