Introduction
The Köprülüs were a seventeenth-century Ottoman family of grand viziers, statesmen, and administrators.Footnote 2 The family's primacy in Ottoman politics began in September 1656 when Köprülü Mehmed Pasha assumed the grand vizierate. Fifteen men had preceded him in that office in the last twelve years, six of whom were executed. In 1656 alone, he was the sixth appointment. Reportedly a septuagenarian when he assumed duty, no one expected him to survive for more than a few weeks or months, but Köprülü Mehmed remained in office until his natural death on 31 October 1661. Over the next fifty years, members of his family, including sons, sons-in-law, and nephews, imprinted their names in some of the most important accomplishments and failures in the empire's history. But their fame continued even after the family members ceased to be an active part of high politics. The legacies of the father, Köprülü Mehmed, and his elder son, Köprülüzade Ahmed, were especially cherished. Nicknamed Fāżıl (Virtuous), Ahmed replaced his father in 1661 at the age of twenty-six, becoming the youngest grand vizier in Ottoman history. He spent most of his time in office on the battlefield, where his conquests reminded contemporaries of the dynamic expansionism of the empire's earlier eras. By the time he died of cirrhosis at the young age of forty-one, he and his father had remained in office for a total of twenty years (1656–1676). The father had come to the office at a very advanced age without any earlier significant achievements, and the son replaced him at an unprecedentedly young age with little administrative experience, yet those twenty years were enough for them to gain a unique reputation and esteem beyond their time. Contemporary Ottoman sources record mixed opinions about the elder Köprülü and other members of their family, but positive narratives of the Köprülü age prevailed in the end. The disaster in Vienna in 1683, where a third Köprülü family member, Grand Vizier Kara Mustafa Pasha, was the main culprit, did not change that positivity. A moment that cemented the family's positive image was the signing of the Carlowitz Treaty (1699), which seemed at the time to have saved the empire from possible collapse under the leadership of a Köprülü nephew, Grand Vizier Amcazade Hüseyin Pasha. The family retained their privileged status in Ottoman historical imagination until the empire itself came to an end.Footnote 3
Most scholars have sought the answer to the rise of the Köprülüs in short-term Ottoman-historical contexts that preceded the elder Köprülü's appointment. The immediate antecedents of the rise of the family were certainly relevant for the Köprülü restoration that began in 1656, but they were only the last episode of much bigger historical trends in the pre-Ottoman Islamic era and the Ottoman age. In this article, without neglecting the short-term conjunctural political build-up that culminated in the appointment of the Köprülü father to office, I highlight the broader historical significance of the Köprülü restoration through a pioneering examination of the Ottoman grand vizierate as an institution in comparison with the pre-Ottoman Islamic origins of the office. In other words, this article is not another attempt to reconstruct the Köprülü takeover in 1656; instead, I am offering new insights into the theoretical and practical origins of the office that the family revitalized in the second half of the seventeenth century. My analysis is based on some of the most popular political literature from pre-Ottoman Islamic history and the pre-Köprülü Ottoman era. I also briefly survey the careers of well-known pre-Ottoman viziers and demonstrate patterns that would be reenacted in the careers of Ottoman grand viziers and the Köprülüs. Examining the persisting elements and changing dynamics in the theory and application of the vizierate in a period stretching from the early Islamic era into the Ottoman times will allow us to unearth the origins of the early modern Ottoman grand vizierate and place it within the broader tapestry of Islamic history. These connections are self-evident to Ottomanists but seldom have been a topic of systematic study.
While the present article focuses on continuities between the early Islamic vizierate and the Ottoman grand vizierate, it is also worthwhile to envisage the Ottoman “deputy of the sultan” at the intersection of two broader historical spheres: the office of grand vizier in Safavid and Mughal courts and the role of chief minister in early modern Europe. The resemblances of the vizierate office between the Ottoman, Safavid, and Mughal courts are also confirmed by remarkable terminological commonalities. These aspects of the grand vizierate present ample opportunities for research that would debunk the correlations and commonalities between the administrative practices of the three empires.Footnote 4 Likewise, parallels and differences between the Ottoman grand vizierate and the role of chief ministries in early modern European courts are also mostly uncharted in the literature. Intra-European similarities between royal favorites and offices of chief ministers received some attention in European historiography. Yet the remarkable practical overlaps between the Ottoman grand vizierate and the office of chief minister in early modern Europe, and the synchronous theoretical divergences between the two, invite in-depth exploration. Especially their divergences – the juxtaposition between the Islamic/Ottoman delegation of royal powers to capable ministers with the early modern European insistence on the indivisibility of royal prerogatives from the person of the monarch – should be underscored. Before I fully delve into the pre-Ottoman origins of the grand vizierate, I propose below some basic ideas that may inspire future investigations into these global aspects of vizierate and ministry.
The Köprülü family and household have always been a popular topic in scholarship with a focus on the family's formation and expansion of its political power, and the longevity thereof. Metin Kunt and Rifaʻat Abou-El-Haj produced seminal scholarship on this theme.Footnote 5 The family's history has come to the fore again in recent years. Though no modern monograph has yet appeared in any language, many dissertations and articles have presented new insights into select themes.Footnote 6 These studies have signaled new research directions as many issues concerning the family's history are yet to be fully explored. In this article, I applied a diachronic and synchronic comparative approach to discern the larger trends driving the development of the Ottoman grand vizierate and enabling the Köprülü restoration from 1656 onwards.
The present work addresses a major research gap in Ottoman history: the study of the grand vizierate as an institution. The history of the Ottoman grand vizierate is an open frontier of research. Seventeenth-century British writer Paul Rycaut's observations concerning the grand vizierate and a chapter in Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall's Des Osmanischen Reichs Staatsverfassung und Staatsverwaltung were among the earliest attempts at describing the office and its functions in the empire in detail.Footnote 7 Although both Rycaut and Hammer's narratives were laced with occasional dramatical overtones that attributed irrationalism to the inner workings of the Ottoman court – which one may come across also in the rest of their accounts of the empire – they still provided credible summaries. Hammer noted that the history of the institution went back to ancient Persia. He wrote that “the grand vizier is the natural chief of all state departments and he is situated at the top of all civil, military, financial, and political affairs. He is the visible similitude of the sultan. . . .”Footnote 8 In modern scholarship, the only book dedicated to the grand vizierate was published in 1974 by Aydın Taneri, but it was a very short and descriptive account focusing only on the pre-1453 history of the institution.Footnote 9 Except for Taneri's book, there is neither a single modern monograph on the history of the grand vizierate nor any analytical study of the office's significance in guiding the early modern Ottoman state, or of grand vizierial correspondence. A book chapter published in 1948 in Turkish by İsmail Hakkı Uzunçarşılı presented a broad overview that was comparable in content to Hammer's presentation.Footnote 10 Later, a 1969 article on telḫīṣ by Suraiya Faroqhi and two more recent articles by Pál Fodor presented preliminary ideas about the evolution of the office within the broader history of the empire.Footnote 11 Lately, Hüseyin Yılmaz and Marinos Sariyannis have presented theoretical observations about the gradual shift in power from the sultan to the grand vizier in the sixteenth century, but they did not focus on the grand vizierate and their evaluations of the office were made only en passant.Footnote 12 The most significant recent addition to the research corpus on the topic was a chapter in Muhammet Zahit Atçıl's dissertation that developed a preliminary macrohistorical perspective about the grand vizierate as an institution. Atçıl's discussions concerning the frequent appointment of figures with non-Muslim noble origins to the grand vizierate in the post-1453 era and the subsequent gradual creation of a Muslim indigenous bureaucratic class in the age of Süleyman presented directions for future research.Footnote 13 In what follows, I explore new dimensions and frameworks of research.
One of the main assertions of this article is that what the Köprülüs achieved as grand viziers in the mid-seventeenth century had so many precedents and so great a theoretical foundation in both pre-Ottoman Islamic history and pre-Köprülü Ottoman Empire that the accumulation of executive authority in the hands of the Köprülü grand viziers may be conceived only as restoration or restitution, as some scholars observed decades ago.Footnote 14 What the Köprülüs achieved was certainly not a revolution; neither in 1656 nor in 1661 was there any “departure from Ottoman bureaucratic norms” for there was institutional continuity between the theory and practice of the pre-Ottoman Islamic vizierate, the Ottoman appropriation of those theories and practices, and the eventual Köprülü takeover.Footnote 15 What gave the Köprülü ascendancy a misleading appearance of revolution was its immediate prehistory from the 1570s to the 1650s, an era dubbed the “reign of chaos” by Oktay Özel.Footnote 16 This period was characterized by a deadly game of musical chairs in the office of the grand vizier that intensified in the immediate years preceding the elder Köprülü's assumption of office. In fact, during the decades preceding the Köprülü takeover, calls for a powerful grand vizier – and thus for a restoration of what contemporaries regarded as theoretical and practical normalcy – had intensified. As I discuss in greater detail below, we find such calls in texts such as the anonymous Kitāb-ı Müsteṭāb (The Agreeable Book) or in Katip Çelebi's verdict that only a ṣāḥib-i seyf (man of the sword) could fix the chaotic situation facing the state. These positions rested in turn upon the arguments and formulations put forth by various Muslim authors across the Islamic world since the tenth century, including al-Farabi, al-Mawardi, Nizam al-Mulk, al-Ghazali, and Ibn Khaldun. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Ottoman political writers including Celalzâde Mustafa, Lütfi Paşa, Mustafa Âli, Hasan Kâfî el-Akhisârî, the anonymous author of Kitāb-ı Müsteṭāb, and Koçi Bey revisited, reinterpreted, and reformulated for their times the ideas of early Islamic writers. Once in power, Fazıl Ahmed Paşa and Kara Mustafa Paşa sponsored political writers who advocated for the primacy of the grand vizierate, yet their aim was bigger than solidifying their grip in the office. A new protocol manual penned during Kara Mustafa Pasha's tenure, The Book of Law of Abdurrahman Abdi Pasha, testified to the theoretical and practical supremacy of the office of the grand vizier as never before. A close reading of passages concerning the grand vizierate in Abdurrahman Abdi Pasha's law book shows that the office had reached its absolute pinnacle in Ottoman history.Footnote 17 Ultimately, the rise of the Köprülüs not only revived an office that had left its imprint on pre-Ottoman Islamic courts but also canonized that office's primacy in executive and ceremonial processes.
Early Islamic Vizierate, Ottoman Grand Vizierate, and the Eurasian Age of Chief Ministers: Three Intersecting Historical Spheres of Theory and Practice
The Pre-Ottoman vizierate
Theoretical discussions of the office of vizier in the pre-Ottoman Islamic era set forth the main principles by which the office operated across the Islamic world, and the careers of the most influential early Islamic viziers likewise became prototypes for later Ottoman viziers. Thus, situating the Ottoman grand vizierate in that broader framework and examining the office in comparison with the norms and patterns established by earlier generations is imperative to better understand the Ottoman grand vizierate. Indeed, what the Köprülüs achieved as grand viziers in the mid-seventeenth century had so many precedents and so great a theoretical foundation in pre-Ottoman Islamic history and pre-Köprülü Ottoman Empire that the accumulation of executive authority in the hands of the Köprülü grand viziers may only be dubbed as restoration or restitution, as scholars have observed decades ago.Footnote 18
One may find in non-specialist modern scholarship attributions of cruelty, irrationality, and despotism to grand viziers and viziers, often without proffering any evidence or often based simply on anecdotal details from the careers of viziers that have copious parallels in global history. Max Weber's trope of sultanism certainly influenced future portrayals of the Islamic and Ottoman vizierate. Weber, who probably never researched the Ottoman decision-making mechanism, state papers, or any book of advice written by a pre-Ottoman or Ottoman-era Muslim political writer, underrated the sultan's administrative staff, calling them dieners (personal retainers). In contrast, European courtiers were beamte (domestic officials). A “retainer” appeared to connote an irrational decision-maker, in contrast to the presumptive rationality of an “official.” Moreover, in a passage specifically mentioning the Ottoman Empire, he wrote that “slaves and freed slaves [could] often be found in the highest positions in patrimonial administrations” and that “in earlier times, it was not unusual for slaves to become grand viziers.”Footnote 19 The idea conveyed by Weber that the highest executive office of the empire was run by a slave – i.e., one dependent on a master – implied the absence of rational decision-making. What he probably had in mind was the Ottoman devşirme policy, the practice of recruiting Christian boys – not exclusively forcibly – for education inside the palace and subsequent employment in state service. While many of these boys joined the Janissary corps, several remarkable figures ended up in the office of the grand vizier and carved their names in Ottoman history, Sokollu Mehmed Pasha (1565–79) being the most remarkable among them. Regardless, following Weber's footsteps, many Western authors continued to associate the grand vizierate with irrationality, cruelty, and despotism. An example is British diplomat Michael Jenkins's biography of the late-eighteenth-century Russian general and statesman Aleksey Arakcheyev, called Arakcheev: Grand Vizier of the Russian Empire. Jenkins neither explained why he chose that title nor provided any description of the office of the grand vizier. He must have thought that the reference to the grand vizierate was self-explanatory because the Russian general was a very unpopular figure among his contemporaries due to his oppressive policies.Footnote 20
One may find ministers in the history of any country who are only ever described as loathsome, but the tendency to attribute apathy, erraticism, and lack of acumen to the grand vizierate is largely detached from the reality of the office. In the Islamic tradition, medieval viziers were often cherished as guiding beacons of truth and companionship for sultans and princes. In medieval Muslim didactic prose and poetry, intelligent and wise viziers appeared frequently, as real persons and literary tropes. Loyalty in all conditions was an assumed virtue of viziers. In the tales of One Thousand and One Nights, the main storyteller Shahrazad is the wise daughter of a vizier who is loyal to his prince, so loyal that he consents to his prince's desire to sacrifice all the virgins of the land one after another.Footnote 21 Such depictions were frequently meant to be edifying tropes rather than historically true stories. As another notable example, one may point to the mid-thirteenth century Būstān (The Orchard) and Gulistān (The Rosegarden) by Saʿdi of Shiraz. In both books, viziers are the protagonists of parables about all aspects of court life, social encounters, and human emotions.Footnote 22 Take, for instance, the first story from the first chapter of Saʿdi's Gülistān, a good example of the use of viziers as a trope in Islamic didactics and political advice literature since the middle ages.
I heard tell of a king who indicated that a prisoner should be killed. The poor fellow, in a state of desperation, began to curse and revile the king, as has been said:
“Whoever washes his hands of life unleashes whatever is in his heart.”
At the time of urgency, when no escape remains, the hand will grab the sharp point of a sword. When a man despairs, his tongue grows long – like a cornered cat attacking a dog.
“What is he saying?” the king asked.
A good-natured vizier said, “O lord, he is saying. And those who bridle their anger and forgive people [Kor. 3:134].”
The king had clemency and spared his life.
The other vizier, who was the opposite of the first one, said, “It is not proper for people like us to speak anything but the truth in the presence of kings. This man has cursed the king and spoken with impropriety.”
The king frowned at these words and said, “His lie was more pleasing to me than the truth you have spoken, for the former was indicative of the best course of action, while the latter was based on viciousness. The wise have said, “A prudent lie is better than a seditious truth.”Footnote 23
This opening vignette from Saʿdi's Gulistān presents two viziers who each represent a different kind of adviser: The first, labeled “good-natured,” represents a benevolent, wise minister who cautioned his prince to hold himself back in times of anger. Though he did not report to the prince reality as it was, Saʿdi presented his attitude of favoring clemency over punishment as preferable. In contrast, the second vizier acted as a mere reporter of events without interpretation – a “retainer,” as Weber might have put it. Saʿdi favored the first vizier's counseling style because, as the moral of the story, a vizier should use his rationality to guide his prince toward mercy, thus making a prudent lie better than a reckless truth.
Ottoman, Safavid, and Mughal Courts
The tradition of the vizierate tied together the likes of the Barmakid vizier Nizam al-Mulk, early modern Ottoman grand viziers Sokollu Mehmed Pasha and Köprülü Mehmed Pasha, the Safavid grand vizier Shaykh ʿAli Khan Zanganah, and the Mughal grand vizier Sadullah Khan. However, while the office was associated with the relatively modest court structures of medieval Muslim princes, the title of grand vizier has early modern imperial connotations, recalling the early modern imperial courts. Recent scholarship has compellingly shown that the Ottoman, Safavid, and Mughal political, administrative, literary, and legal practices were interconnected through “informal and formal networks” of intellectuals who corresponded with each other, traveled across imperial, cultural, and confessional frontiers, and served at different courts, while articulating and disseminating a “vocabulary of terminology” and thus helping to form a common “grammar of rule.”Footnote 24 These parallels between the offices of the grand vizierate in each of these three courts form the second historical sphere of interaction that invites a comparative analysis.
The vastness of these three empires’ territories required advanced administrative structures that could be monitored by multiple viziers (ministers) led by a single grand vizier (chief minister). Yet, unlike the modern chief minister, the early modern grand vizier was not simply a primus inter pares; many early grand viziers were de facto rulers of their lands. In the Ottoman court, vezīr-i aʿẓam (grand vizier) was the head of the dīvān (imperial council). Throughout Ottoman history, grand viziers were also referred to as ṣāḥib-devlet (protector of state), vekīl-i muṭlaḳ (absolute deputy), and ẕāt-ı āṣafī (vizierial personage), but these were not official titles.Footnote 25 In the Safavid court, the chief minister was called vazīr-i aʿzam-i dīvān-i aʿlā or iʿtimād ad-daula, whose primary responsibility was the financial affairs of the state, though it should be stated that the rank of the shah in the Safavid court always surpassed that of the grand vizier.Footnote 26 In the Mughal court, a medley of terms were used for the chief minister, including vazīr, dīvān, dīvān-i aʿlā, and dīvān vazīr and they were the closest associates of the ruler.Footnote 27
Remarkably, many of the most successful grand viziers of the Safavid and Mughal courts were Köprülü contemporaries: In Safavid Iran, Mirza Taqi (1633–45), Mohammad Beg (1642–1666), and Shaykh ʿAli Khan Zanganah (1669–89) were three of the most powerful grand viziers.Footnote 28 In the Mughal court, Bairam Khan (1556–61), known also as Khān-i Khānān (ruler over rulers), was the most notable grand vizier despite holding office only for four years. He was so dominant in decision-making that he was de facto the head of state.Footnote 29 Another significant grand vizier was Sadullah Khan (1645–56), who was in office during the reign of Shah Jahan (1627–58) and matched his ruler in reputation.Footnote 30 In the words of the contemporary traveler François Bernier, Sadullah Khan was “a nobleman whom the [Mughals] considered the most accomplished statesman of Asia.”Footnote 31 The similarities between these three empires confirm the existence of, first, common theoretical origins in the early Islamic era and, second, a common conceptual vocabulary in the administrative realm across the “Balkans-to-Bengal complex.”Footnote 32 Such parallels call for comparative macrohistorical approaches to the grand vizierate as an institution, yet all three offices in their respective historical frameworks are insufficiently studied.Footnote 33 Leaving the task of a more extensive comparison to the future, I will suggest only some preliminary conclusions at the end of this article.
European chief ministers in the seventeenth century
While these similarities between early modern Muslim courts are notable enough, the Ottoman grand vizierate and the rise of the Köprülüs as absolute arbiters of state affairs also paralleled developments in contemporary Europe. The early modern Spanish valido and privado, the French premier ministre, the Habsburg Obersthofmeister, and other early modern European chief ministers – the so-called “second men” of their courts – fulfilled the same tasks as grand vizier.Footnote 34 Like the Ottoman designation of the grand vizier as the “sultan's deputy,” one modern scholar described the European chief ministers of the period from 1550 to 1650 as “surrogate sovereigns,” who assumed total responsibility of all governmental matters, while another scholar has labelled the era as “the great age of the European valido.”Footnote 35 Indeed, there are significant commonalities in how De Haro, Olivares, Richelieu, Mazarin, and Axel Oxenstierna governed their states in the names of their sovereigns and how the Köprülü grand viziers governed the Ottoman Empire. When one considers the convergences between the European chief ministry, on the one hand, and the office of the grand vizier in the Ottoman, Safavid, and Mughal empires, on the other, one may talk about a Eurasian age of chief ministers. Nonetheless, they also varied significantly in practice and theory: A comparative reading of theoretical sources and an analysis of the careers of chief ministers and grand viziers show that an Ottoman grand vizier was not merely a second man in the court: they were de facto rulers. More importantly, many grand viziers, including the Köprülüs, possessed privileges and enjoyed general acceptance that their Western peers never possessed. In the eyes of many contemporary European observers, the European chief ministers were usurpers. These maxims paved the way to the so-called “revolution” in Europe in the 1660s when the French, Spanish, and Austrian monarchs reasserted their control as the sole decision-makers of the court. Though the execution of Kara Mustafa Pasha in 1683 evokes parallels, his death was at the hands of his rivals and it was not followed by an expansion of sultanic authority in the Ottoman Empire. Instead, the Ottoman grand viziers continued to function as the executive heads of the Ottoman state. In the eighteenth century, the predominance of individuals coming from non-military career lines gradually increased, but that change did not instantly transform the culture of governance, which favored the office of grand vizier.
The reassertion of European monarchs’ authority at the expense of chief ministers can be attributed to the prevailing aversion in Europe toward minister favorites, who were deputized by monarchs to exercise certain royal privileges. In Baldassare Castiglione's The Book of the Courtier, one of the fictional courtiers advocates for the idea that a prince must personally attend to all affairs within his kingdom. The courtier emphasizes the need for the prince to witness matters firsthand and, as circumstances demand, actively participate in the execution of his commands. The prince's understanding should extend to both major and seemingly minor issues impacting his people. Consequently, a virtuous prince should refrain from blindly trusting or passing the reins of government to any of his ministers.Footnote 36
Monarchs indeed followed such advice: In Spain, Phillip II counseled his son Phillip III to govern independently, for a king who allows others to rule on his behalf does so “unworthily.” Phillip II did not entirely dismiss the potential benefits of wise and capable favorites and advised use of such counselors, yet cautioned against complete submission to any one individual. Instead, he emphasized the importance of listening to diverse perspectives and exercising proper discretion in handling advice from various sources.Footnote 37 The practice in the Ottoman Empire of trusting the sultan's seal to the grand vizier was remarkably similar to the practice in Spain of handing llave dorado (golden key) to the sumiller de corps (groom of the stole), the head of the king's privy chamber. While a grand vizier often kept the sultan's seal on a string around his neck under his clothing (that is, where it could not be seen), the bearer of the golden key was required to display this symbolic object visibly, either fastened on a waistband or suspended from a chain around his neck.Footnote 38 In Velázquez's renowned portrait of Count-Duke Olivares, the golden key is prominently displayed on the Count-Duke's waistband.
In Austria, Prince Gundaker von Liechtenstein, holder of the office of Obersthofmeister for a short spell in 1624–25, wrote a work that can be classified as a Fürstenspiegel. Titled Gutachten über Edukation eines jungen Fürsten und gute Bestellung des Geheimen Rates, a copy was presented to Emperor Ferdinand III and several other princes of the time. As a work written by a statesman who previously held high office, it may be compared to Ottoman Grand Vizier Lütfi Pasha's Āṣafnāme, examined below. Gundaker acknowledged the common practice among princes and monarchs to favor one courtier above the others as advisers and counselors. Despite such observation, Gundaker emphatically cautioned against the delegation to a chief minister of complete control over state affairs. There were four basic reasons for this: first, a minister himself would have only limited capacity and could hinder the prince's ability to act. Second, such a heavy burden would incapacitate a minister, eventually endangering the prince's own position. Third, if a single person were entrusted with so much power and knowledge, his absence would disrupt decision-making. Fourth, other ministers who would be misinformed or uninformed could act on wrong assumptions, leading to further problems. Gundaker's proposed solution was a meritocratic approach that divided responsibilities among multiple ministers.Footnote 39
In the France of cardinals Richelieu and Mazarin, even long after the death of these two powerful premiers ministres, political writers recommended that kings avoid delegating too much power to their ministers. The theology professor Jacque Joseph Duguet explained in his posthumously published Institution d'un Prince why recruiting a principal minister was dangerous. In a chapter titled “Un Prince habile & prudent n'a point de premier Ministre,” Duguet argued that an enlightened prince held sway as master, judge, and arbiter of all. Duguet did not categorically refuse ministers and advisers, a common thread in contemporary literature. Yet, surrendering all royal powers and privileges to a subordinate rendered the king himself bereft of purpose, for a king who allowed a minister to assume the reins of governance foolishly relinquished his sacred duty to ensure just and judicious rule, a responsibility that rested solely upon his royal shoulders.Footnote 40
In short, in three of the major European states, political writers and members of the aristocracy promoted the idea that princes should exercise direct rule without intermediaries. Deeply engrained perceptions of kingship, wherein only membership in a royal lineage could legitimate sovereignty, limited the institutionalization of chief ministry. Therefore, it assumed an ad hoc status, often relying on a unique bond between the monarch and one of his servants, usually his favorite. In stark contrast to the European pattern, the Islamic political tradition openly promoted the presence of powerful ministers. The Ottoman grand vizierate rested on an expansive theoretical corpus that emphasized the value of recruiting wise, prudent, and independently powerful ministers. This fundamental theoretical divergence between European chief ministers and the Ottoman grand vizierate must be considered in any comparison of the two institutions. Finally, the Ottoman practice of delegating executive powers to a person who was not a member of the dynasty points to the tentative separation between the persona of the ruler and the state apparatus that began as early as the mid-sixteenth century.Footnote 41
Pre-Ottoman Vizierate: Theory and Practice
Theory
The English term vizier is the Romanized version of the Arabic word wazīr, or in Turkish, vezīr.Footnote 42 The best modern translation of the term is minister. In the late fourteenth century, Ibn Khaldun (d. 1406) remarked that “the vizierate is the mother of governmental functions and royal ranks,” illustrating the centrality of this institution in the wake of Ottoman institutional evolution into an empire.Footnote 43 The word vizier also appears in the Qurʾan. In both instances, its primary meaning is “helper” or “assistant.”Footnote 44 Muslim writers have written extensively about the Biblical, Qurʾanic, and early Islamic figures whom they classified as viziers, including Asaf, allegedly the vizier of Solomon; Joseph, believed to be the vizier of Pharaoh; Aaron, whom Moses asked God to make his vizier in the Qurʾan (and Bible); and finally Abu Bakr, the closest companion of Muhammad and the so-called “vizier of the messenger.”Footnote 45 However, the existence of the word vizier in the Qurʾan did not resolve the debates concerning the etymological and institutional origins. The recurrent anecdotal references to the Sassanian wuzurg framadārs (chief minister) as archetypes of an ideal minister in the works of subsequent generations of Muslim scholars and statesmen always kept the question of the Persian influence open. Modern scholars have noted that the frequency of allusions to Persian statesmen could be attributed to the Persian origin of many early Muslim secretaries: they saw in the Sassanian tradition an ideal bureaucratic structure that they adopted and refashioned for the needs of the Muslim state.Footnote 46 In a recent, well-researched article, Ivan Sivkov concluded that the word vizier is etymologically Arabic, but the Persian influence in shaping the office cannot be ruled out.Footnote 47
Whatever the origins of the term and the institution, by the end of the ninth century, the vizierate had become an “extremely important” office.Footnote 48 Muslim scholars strongly advocated for the theoretical necessity of the office. The underlying motivation of Muslim writers was a moral concern with the natural limits of a single individual's rule: a man could not attain perfection due to his inborn characteristics; therefore, rulers needed prudent advisers. Yet, political context and personal association with a vizier also determined a writer's ideas. In the following paragraphs, I will focus on five of the most important scholars who argued for the necessity of viziers and consultative processes in government: al-Farabi (d. 950), al-Mawardi (d. 1058), the Seljukid vizier Nizam al-Mulk (d. 1092), who was perhaps the most renowned minister of Islamic history, al-Ghazali (d. 1111), and Ibn Khaldun (d. 1406).Footnote 49
Al-Farabi (d. 950) did not develop a complex theory of government and did not explicitly mention viziers, but his On the Perfect State prescribed the principles of good government. As a Muslim writer, he assumed that the first sovereign – the philosopher-king – of a community would be divinely sanctioned and would not need advisers due to his inborn leadership skills. Yet, after the death of this divinely led first sovereign, it would be very difficult to find all of these qualities in his successors because men had a natural inability to attain perfection by themselves. Therefore, it was a natural requirement for every person in a community to contribute to the harmony and well-being of the whole with what they excelled in. At the governmental level, this must have been realized via the common sovereignty of a select group of people, each of whom had expertise in a particular area. Thus, though al-Farabi did not explicitly define the inner structure of that joint effort, it was clear that consultative processes and cooperation between the ablest minds of a country were central to his thinking.Footnote 50 In essence, his prescription for good government amounted to the establishment of an executive board that may be interpreted as an archetype of modern boards of ministers, that is, of viziers.
Al-Mawardi's (d. 1058) The Ordinances of Government should be approached as a product of the political circumstances of his time and of his relationship with the court. This contemporary setting explains why he took pains to clearly define the types of vizierate and the conditions of holding those offices. Besides, he addressed in a hypothetical manner the potential matters of dispute between the caliph and his viziers. Al-Mawardi's ideas about the vizierate are significant because, while justifying the presence of viziers with references to the Qurʾan and prophetic stories, he also argued that they were necessary to create efficiency in government, for no single man could handle the entire affairs of a community.Footnote 51 Al-Mawardi stated that there existed two kinds of vizierate: a ministry of delegation and a ministry of execution.Footnote 52 A vizier of delegation could act on behalf of the ruler and as if he were the ruler. The vizierate of execution, in contrast, was restricted to ministerial fulfillment of specific tasks. Al-Mawardi wrote that a vizier of delegation must be a free Muslim man with knowledge of Islamic law and regulations pertaining to war and taxation. In contrast, the vizier of execution did not have to be Muslim. Moreover, there could be only one vizier of delegation: responsibilities of a prince could be granted to only a single person. Al-Mawardi justified this principle with a verse from the Qurʾan: “If there were a god other than Allah in the heavens and the earth they would both have been corrupted.”Footnote 53 Although al-Mawardi wrote that a vizier of delegation could act in the name of the prince, the vizier was not the sovereign and it was obligatory for him to continuously inform the ruler of affairs of state. A vizier of delegation could appoint judges to investigate particular cases or name deputies to take his place during absences from office. In all such cases, he was required to inform the prince about his doings and administrative arrangements. Al-Mawardi's ideas about the function of different types of vizier and their relationships with princes responded to the problems he faced in his lifetime, yet these early assertions also shaped the future of the office. Many Ottoman grand viziers, including the Köprülüs, and Safavid and Mughal grand viziers would comport perfectly with al-Mawardi's characterization of the vizierate of delegation.
The most famous vizier of Islamic history, Abu Ali Hasan ibn Ali Ishaq (1018-1092), whom later generations knew by his honorific title Nizam al-Mulk, “the ordering of the realm,” was also the author of one of the most popular Islamic mirrors for princes, The Book of Government or Rules for Kings. Nizam al-Mulk served as a vizier for twenty-nine years under the second and third Seljuk rulers, Alp Arslan (1063-1072) and Malik Shah (1072-1092). Therefore, though greatly popular among later generations, his writings may also be interpreted as self-justification. Nizam al-Mulk generally agreed with al-Mawardi about the necessity of the vizierate. He argued that a good vizier was a source of fame and strength for a leader and ruler; both prophets and the greatest rulers of the past had good viziers. An astute vizier was imperative for the well-being of a kingdom which in turn guaranteed the success of the army and the happiness of the peasantry. When a kingdom lacked such a vizier, it was a recipe for chaos. In the end, Nizam al-Mulk argued that the vizier was not the ruler, and the prince had to remain alert to potential violations and subterfuge by the vizier. He also added that a vizier should be a Sunni Muslim from the Hanafi school of law.Footnote 54
While Nizam al-Mulk is remembered as the most famous vizier in Islamic history, his contemporary al-Ghazali is one of the most prominent scholars in the history of Islamic thought. In addition to many influential theological works, al-Ghazali penned a mirror for princes, Counsel for Kings. The chapter titled “On the Wazirate and the Character of Wazirs” opens with the following statement: “a king will be successful with the help of a virtuous, worthy and competent minister; because no king can reign without a minister, and any king who acts (solely) on his own judgment will surely fall.”Footnote 55 Al-Ghazali wrote that God had recommended to Muhammad to counsel the intelligent and learned men among his followers. Citing the Qurʾanic passages where Moses prays for God to appoint him his brother Aaron as a vizier, al-Ghazali concludes: “If Prophets (could) not do without viziers and administrators, how much the more do we need them?” He wrote that stability comes to the king through the vizier and then to the world through the king; the first person whom a king needs is a minister. Al-Ghazali's opinions would directly influence the thought of many future Ottoman writers.
Finally, Ibn Khaldun's (d. 1406) views about the vizierate also bear mentioning. Ibn Khaldun died in 1406 disillusioned in his struggle to become an Aristo-like chief minister to a Muslim ruler, but his ideas, observations, and commentary had a profound impact on subsequent thinkers. The most remarkable aspect of his political thought was his explicit claim that “the nature of civilization and human existence” necessitated the creation of governmental offices below a prince. Thus, he prioritized a rational approach to the establishment of a governmental structure and its branches. He did not ignore Qurʾanic ideas, but they were but instrumentalized insofar as they could facilitate good governance. Ibn Khaldun encouraged a strong the vizierate, which he called “the mother of governmental functions and royal ranks.”Footnote 56 He noted that in the early Islamic centuries, non-Muslims could come to this position because even the prominent members of the Muslim community did not have the required skills for bookkeeping or counseling. As the state expanded, fulfilling these tasks became increasingly important. Bureaucratic expansion also paved the way for the emergence of power politics. In this new setting, viziers mediated between tribes, families, and factions, ultimately assuming management of official correspondence and financial matters. During this process, the Islamic courts adopted the Sassanian practice of entrusting the sultan's seal to the care of the vizier.Footnote 57 In the following centuries, this symbolic act would be inherited by the Ottoman grand viziers who carried the sultan's seal on their bosoms on a necklace.
Practice
As concluded by Dominique Sourdel at the end of his seminal work on the Abbasid vizierate, the office was not always codified as that of a minister who assisted the caliph; some viziers collaborated with the caliph, while others tried to escape his control and pursue adverse agendas.Footnote 58 However, the early Abbasid viziers were in general more powerful, as exemplified in the vizier family of the Barmakids, who were absolute arbiters of their time and whom al-Ghazali called “one of the marvels of the world.”Footnote 59 In later periods, as the caliphate's administration disintegrated, the vizierate lost prestige.Footnote 60 Ibn Khaldun remarked that the Abbasid era marked the zenith of the vizierate and the office never rose to the same level again in medieval courts.Footnote 61 However, there were still powerful viziers in the pre-Ottoman era whose memories imprinted on later generations and careers set precedents for future occupants of the office.
The vizierate of the Barmakid family and their and fall foreshadowed the careers of many viziers that followed in Islamic history, as well as the Ottoman grand viziers and the Köprülüs themselves.
Originally a Buddhist family from Balkh whose ancestors were viziers in Persia, they were recommended to the Abbasid caliph by a noble.Footnote 62 Recruitment of non-Muslims as viziers was necessary for the early Muslims because, as Ibn Khaldun acerbically noted, illiteracy was the “distinctive characteristic of the Arabs.”Footnote 63 The most important viziers from the Barmakid family were Khalid b. Barmak (d. 781/82), his son Yahya b. Khalid (d. 806), and grandsons al-Fadl (d. 808) and Jaʿfar (d. 803). Under their tutelage as viziers, the Islamic empire further centralized and was able to collect taxes more efficiently. They were also active in the planning of military campaigns.Footnote 64 Outside the court, the family benefited from the service of a large network of clients (mawālī) across the empire that was largely formed of non-Arabs. The family's prolonged service to the court also brought wealth that the family invested in public buildings and patronage for poets and scholars. Given their origin in the Sassanian east, they introduced many Sassanian monarchical practices to the Islamic state, while facilitating a better integration of the Iranian world in the late eighth and early ninth centuries.Footnote 65 By the end of this period, their influence increased such that Dominique Sourdel called it the “reign of the Barmakids.”Footnote 66 After remaining in control of the state for nearly sixteen years, the family perished at the hands of the caliph for reasons not fully clear to modern scholars. Most likely, Caliph Harun al-Rashid grew weary of his favorite courtiers.Footnote 67 However, the functions that the Barmakids performed left a model for future courts and governments. Shelomo Dov Goitein noted that the Barmakid vizierate introduced the idea of the “plenipotentiary vizier” and stood as an example for the courts in the East and West.Footnote 68 Thus, the Barmakid vizierate, in form and content, sketched the patterns that shaped the Islamic vizierate until the dawn of modernity.
Islamic courts also saw other viziers whose impact in history surpassed the Barmakids. Nizam al-Mulk (d. 1092) was probably the most celebrated vizier of all pre-modern Turco-Persian courts, with a twenty-nine-year-long career. As Carla L. Klausner noted, the Seljukid state was not as centralized as the future Ottoman state would be, but during Nizam al-Mulk's three-decade-long tenure the court substantially consolidated power based on the models of Sassanids and the high Caliphal era.Footnote 69 As the Seljukid state established its control in the former Sassanian world, the vizier became “the pivot of machinery, and the sultan's chief deputy. . . in charge of all aspects of administration which came under the jurisdiction of the central government,” a practice that would be copied by Turco-Persian states of Iran, Transoxiana, and ultimately the Ottomans.Footnote 70 Nizam al-Mulk not only oversaw finances as most viziers of the early Islamic era did; he controlled judicial and religious matters as well as ceremonies and he was a celebrated patron of scholarship. Most remarkably, he founded the Nizamiyya madrasas, where he frequently appointed family members as teachers.Footnote 71 Though usually remembered as a man of letters, he was militarily active and even fought in battles.Footnote 72 Trade and agriculture flourished during his reign. Nizam al-Mulk had come to the office after securing the death of his rival Al-Kunduri, who reportedly told his executioner to report the following to Nizam al-Mulk: “You have acted wrongly in teaching the Turks to put to death their viziers and administrative heads. He who digs a pit shall fall into it.”Footnote 73 Neither Nizam al-Mulk nor other early Islamic viziers had instigated any particularly bloody political feuds, but the possibly apocryphal statement proved prophetic: Removal of rivals as a means of gaining political power would soon come to characterize the history of the Islamic vizierate. Nizam al-Mulk himself would be assassinated as an outcome of what was likely pent-up rancor and resentment against him.Footnote 74
The vizierates of the Barmakids and Nizam al-Mulk may be considered the most significant prototypes of an institution that would have great significance in Islamic courts until the modern era, but one may mention the names of several other influential viziers in the West and East from the pre-Ottoman era. The Fatimid vizier Badr al-Jamali (d. 1094), who stayed in office for twenty-two years, was a contemporary of Nizam al-Mulk and oft compared to him. Al-Jamali was a vizier of Armenian origin commanded a loyal Armenian military force. As vizier, he left no maneuvering room for the Fatimid caliph al-Mustansır, who had originally recruited him.Footnote 75 Badr al-Jamali was not the only vizier with a non-Muslim origin in the Shiʿi Fatimid court; in part owing to the separation of religion from civil bureaucracy in the Fatimid caliphate, many non-Shiʿi Muslims and non-Muslims came to the office of the vizier – seven Christians and three Jews among them.Footnote 76
The Fatimid state would come to an end at the hands of its last vizier, the infamous Salah ad-Din (Saladin; d. 1193), who abolished the Fatimid state and established his own dynasty and state, the Ayyubids. In that new state, the vizierate never became a significant office. One wonders if that was an effect of Salah ad-Din's own background as a vizier who toppled the ruling dynasty. Later, in the Mamluk court of Egypt, the viziers initially enjoyed certain privileges but gradually lost prestige. A notable vizier from Mamluk Egypt was Baha al-Din b. Hinna, who served Baybars and his son Berke for eighteen years. Administration and economy were under his supervision, which raised the envy of many Mamluk officials. It was only due to Baybars’ full trust in his vizier – whom the sultan addressed as “my father” – that Baha al-Din survived in office for so long.Footnote 77
There were parallels between the Seljukid vizierate and the same office in Turco-Persian courts of the Ilkhanids, Timurids, and other smaller entities of Transoxiana that enjoyed the counsel of wise and skilled viziers. Nonetheless, as most Turco-Persian rulers sought personal control of government, a vizier's scope of influence was often limited.Footnote 78 Ibn Sina (Avicenna, d. 1037) and Ali Shir Nevai (d. 1501) were two well-known scholars who served as viziers in Transoxianian courts.Footnote 79 In the Mongol era preceding the foundation of the Ottoman sultanate, the vizier – and the de facto ruler – of the Anatolian Seljuk state Mu‘in al-Din Parwana (d. 1277) was an influential forerunner to Ottoman grand viziers. Further west in Andalusia, the famed philosopher Ibn Rushd (Averroes, d. 1198) performed vizier-like duties, albeit for a short time.Footnote 80
This article has thus far summarized the theoretical arguments of several renowned Muslim writers from the pre-Ottoman era about the necessity of viziers for efficient government, with examples of prominent viziers from history. What preliminary conclusions can be drawn from these theoretical discussions and examples from medieval Islamic courts?
Many viziers of the pre-Ottoman era became de facto rulers, while princes and monarchs often held only nominal or ceremonial roles in state administration. The friendship and personal acquaintance between an heir to the throne and his tutor was a typical precursor to prospective cooperation between the ruler and his chief minister. The relationship between young Prince Harun and his vizier Yahya b. Barmak, whom the caliph called “father” was a notable early example. Many later sultans addressed their viziers in the same way: Baybars to Badr al-Jamali, Malik Shah to Nizam al-Mulk, and later Mehmed IV to the elder Köprülü. Once in office, viziers would often exploit their position to build clientele networks and accumulate wealth. It was not uncommon for them to advance family members, be they sons, grandsons, brothers, or nephews, to increase their chances of taking the mantle of the vizierate. Following the example of the Barmakids, Nizam al-Mulk's extended family benefited from his oversized legacy: One-third of all Seljukid viziers were chosen from his sons, grandchildren, and nephews, though by the later Seljukid era, the importance of the office dwindled.Footnote 81 Later, many members of the Ottoman grand vizier families of Çandarlıs and Köprülüs, or the family of Mughal grand vizier Mirza Ghias Beg, inherited their family fortunes. Such authority usually enabled acquisition of great wealth, which the viziers used to build public works or patronize scholars and artists. Unsurprisingly, a vizier would often win many enemies in the process and, whenever possible, would not hesitate to imprison, exile, or execute potential rivals. Despite the privileges of office, it was not rare for viziers to suffer sudden and unexpected falls from power, or execution.
Another significant feature of the early Islamic vizierate was that the earliest generations of Muslim rulers did not hesitate to recruit non-Muslims of promising talent. The Barmakids came from a Buddhist background; Badr al-Jamali was of Armenian origin; and the Shiʿi Fatimid court selected multiple Jewish and Christian viziers. As Ibn Khaldun noted, viziers of non-Muslim origins were often accompanied by secretaries of non-Muslim origin. There were parallels between these early Islamic practices and the Ottoman policy of integrating the non-Muslim Balkans into the Ottoman system.Footnote 82 In the decades following 1453, many members of the Byzantine and Balkan noble families acceded to the office of the grand vizier, including the notable case of Mesih Pasha who was a displaced heir to the Byzantine throne.Footnote 83 From the sixteenth century on, the number of devşirme boys who became grand viziers increased. Devşirmes were Christian boys who were recruited from their villages to be raised and educated inside the court. The most skilled among them could ascend to the highest levels of imperial government, while still being able to maintain a connection to their homeland. In short, variations in time and space notwithstanding, the office of vizier had become a staple of the Islamicate courts before the age of early modern empires. The Ottomans adopted and refashioned the office for their own purposes, eventually creating a benchmark institution.
Ottoman Grand Vizierate and the Theoretical Origins of the Köprülü Restoration
Until Mehmed II's reign (first term: 1444-46; second term: 1451-81), the Ottoman vizierate had only “little institutional basis” and had “functioned as a venue for the powerful with deep roots in the Ottoman state and society to have a say in government.”Footnote 84 During Mehmed II's rule and in the ensuing decades, the office represented the sultan's executive powers. In this way, the Ottomans revived in a new form the Islamic and Turco-Persian bureaucratic tradition of vizierate. The intellectual climate endorsed this change in a specific way: The earliest Ottoman political writers stressed above all else the importance of the sultan's moral character, but with the establishment of an imperial style after the conquest of Constantinople, an emphasis on institutions and legal systems began to take precedence in Ottoman political thought.Footnote 85 The impact of this development on the grand vizierate was substantial. The fifteenth-century Ottoman court had seen authoritative grand viziers, but from the early sixteenth century on the grand vizierate became the virtual center of executive authority. According to Marinos Sariyannis, the gradual shift in power from sultans to the grand vizier produced an “autonomous rational bureaucracy” which in turn gave way to a state apparatus consisting of an apprenticeship and patronage network led by grand viziers by the end of the seventeenth century.Footnote 86
As early as the mid-fifteenth century, the ḳānūnnāme (book of law) of Mehmed II had affixed the grand vizier as the executive head of all state departments: “The grand vizier is the head of all viziers and administrators; he precedes all; he is the absolute deputy of all administrators, the treasurer of all my properties, and he sits down and stands up first and he is ranked above everyone else.”Footnote 87 This codification of the office made the Ottoman grand viziers de facto heads of the state.Footnote 88 As a token of this delegated authority, sultans personally handed the royal seal to grand viziers or had it delivered to them via the ḳapucılar ketḫüdāsı (head of the palace gatekeepers).Footnote 89 Grand viziers carried the sultan's seal on a string around their neck and used it in two discrete circumstances: to affix his endorsement upon a telḫīṣ (memorandum), and to secure the entrance of the treasurer's room after an imperial council meeting.Footnote 90
In the two centuries preceding Köprülü Mehmed's appointment in 1656, the office maintained its prestige on the theoretical level, but its actual prestige and significance could vary greatly in practice. The longer a grand vizier stayed in office, the bigger was his chance to inscribe his name on the canvas of his era and garner esteem. As a diplomatic historian, I especially consider the presence of extensive international correspondence as a sign of domination and prestige. Mahmud Pasha (Angelović), who held office for nearly twelve years across two terms (1456–66; 1472–74) under Mehmed II (1453–1481), appeared frequently in contemporary European diplomatic reports that allowed the construction of a biography.Footnote 91 After Mehmed II's reign, between 1482 and 1579, four grand viziers occupied the office for a total of six decades. Among them, Makbul Ibrahim Pasha, who remained in office for thirteen years (1523–36) acquired so much power and prestige that the material features of the letters he sent to foreign courts rivaled those of Sultan Süleyman in pomp and grandeur.Footnote 92 The last of those four grand viziers was Sokullu Mehmed Pasha, who held office for fourteen years from 1565 until his assassination in 1579. Similar to Makbul Ibrahim Pasha, he left behind a considerable collection of international correspondence in European archives and public works he funded across the empire. In the seventy-five years following Sokollu's death, no grand vizier was able to hold on to the seal of the sultan for very long. Sultan Murad III's (1574–95) motivation to prevent the rise of another Sokollu likely influenced this.Footnote 93 Eventually, by 1595, the average time a grand vizier remained in office had decreased to less than two years. For the 52 grand viziers who came to office for 68 terms between the death of Sokollu Mehmed Pasha and the appointment of Köprülü Mehmed Pasha on 15 September 1656, the average time in office was less than 14 months. When the father Köprülü assumed the grand vizierate, he was the sixth person in the office in that year alone.Footnote 94
Theory
Köprülü Mehmed Pasha's ability to hold office for six years was unexpected to contemporaries but predicated upon a time-honored Islamic theoretical tradition, which supported the institution of wise and powerful viziers. The following section surveys the ideas of several prominent Ottoman political writers about the grand vizierate. One of the first Ottoman intellectuals who discussed the importance of the vizierate was Celalzade Mustafa (c. 1490–1567). Celalzade argued in his Mevāhib that a vizier's “intelligence, piety, trustworthiness, and loyalty” had a direct influence on a monarch's reign. Echoing earlier generations of Muslim authors, he argued that if prophets needed advice from wise men, it was only natural for a sultan to need the same. Indeed, the requirement was such that “even the advice of an intelligent non-Muslim” could be helpful. Rulers of ancient Persia employed counselors because they needed them. Being “wise and knowledgeable about the affairs of the world” was a necessary quality of a vizier, who had to have the foresight and decisiveness to intervene. His prudence and sharpness of mind would be displayed though resolution to address difficult matters. Yet, these qualities was not sufficient: without mutual trust and confidence with the prince, a vizier could not be succeed. Outside of court, the vizier had to oversee military affairs, maintain social and political order, and ensure the safety and security of the state.Footnote 95
A contemporary of Celalzade was Grand Vizier Lütfi Paşa (in office 1539–1541). His Aṣafnāme, likely the earliest example of Ottoman advice literature written by a grand vizier for the future office holders, was based on his experiences during his seven years in the imperial council.Footnote 96 Upon becoming grand vizier, he observed the disappearance of long-standing customs within the imperial council. In the first chapter, Lütfi Pasha delved into the principles of proper conduct and etiquette and outlined the ideal relationship between grand viziers and sultans.Footnote 97 At all times, the grand vizier had to be sincere and amiable toward the sultan. Confidentiality was key, and he should never disclose his private dealings with the sultan to other viziers. The grand vizier was required to keep the sultan informed about the true state of affairs and undelayedly. In return, the sultan was obligated to heed his vizier's advice.
Lütfi Pasha's advice contains a few remarkable aspects: Presciently of modern concerns, he warned against permitting singlehanded dominance of the decision-making process by the vizierate. He suggested a system akin to checks and balances. For instance, if the grand vizier's directives disregarded the established practices of various ministerial fields, the reʾīsü’l-küttāb (chief secretary), defter emīni (the commissioner of the cadaster), and others had an obligation to warn the grand vizier that his order violated the law. The grand vizier nonetheless retained his centrality within and beyond the court. It was his duty to seek out competent men for state offices. He must always maintain an open-door policy with those wishing to meet him. Market prices, scholarships, and protection of social hierarchy were all matters falling under his purview. The latter meant ensuring that the sons of peasants stayed put in their station and were denied opportunities to pursue careers in the state apparatus. Lütfi Pasha also insisted that the children of grand viziers, due to their abilities, should be prioritized over others. He contended a vizier's son qualified to become a vizier himself by virtue of his father's loyalty and competence. Leaving aside Lütfi Pasha's aspiration to advance the careers of his children, this comment reveals that by the mid-sixteenth century, a prominent Ottoman grand vizier had developed a strong sense of belonging to an esteemed and privileged class in the government hierarchy.
Mustafa Âli (d. 1600), a contemporary of Sokullu Mehmed Pasha, discussed at length the centrality of the grand vizierate in his Nuṣḫatu's-Selāṭīn (Counsel for Sultans).Footnote 98 A disillusioned bureaucrat, Âli is best known to students of Ottoman history as an adamant critic of the Ottoman system and bureaucracy. Grand viziers were not excepted: Âli argued that the skill or inaptitude of viziers determined whether good or evil reigned a political system. He argued that the sultan should carefully investigate his viziers’ background. As the linchpin of government, an unqualified vizier would lead to a disaster.Footnote 99 Notably, Âli was highly critical of the late Sokullu, who is usually regarded as an excellent statesman. But according to Âli, he had become senile in his later years in office and unfit to properly judge his appointees or make prudent decisions.
A near-contemporary of Mustafa Âli, Hasan Kafi el-Akhisari (d. 1615), authored another advice book, Uṣūlü’l-Ḥikem fī Niẓāmi'l-ʿĀlem (Elements of Wisdom for the World Order).Footnote 100 El-Akhisari wrote that older generations categorized men into four fundamental groups: men of the sword, men of the pen, men of artisan crafts, and men of trade. The viziers, he noted, belonged to the first group, along with princes. El-Akhisari argued that the sultan was the nominal head of the state, but it was the ability of viziers to handle the state's problems that determined its success. One could discern the condition of a state by looking to its vizier: when the vizier was virtuous, the sultanate was virtuous; when the vizier was malicious, the state was malicious.Footnote 101
The anonymous author of Kitāb-ı Müsteṭāb (Agreeable Book)Footnote 102 was critical of the excessive authority exercised by the grand vizier, but the rest of his treatise acknowledged the centrality of the grand vizierate in government; he was essentially criticizing the abuse of grand vizierial authority while approving the institution's position in the bureaucratic hierarchy. The author argued that a grand vizier should be the sultan's only confidant and closest custodian. The disruptions of the time had occurred because, in the past, everyone was fearful of grand viziers, whereas now the grand viziers feared everyone. He complained that bribery had become the only means and motive of working. The anonymous author lamented, “the reason for the appearance of all misdeeds is nothing but the absence and impotency of grand viziers.”Footnote 103
Kitāb-ı Müsteṭāb was an inspiration and source for a more popular mirror for princes attributed to Koçi Bey, the first and second versions of which were introduced to the Ottoman court in 1631 and 1640.Footnote 104 Koçi Bey argued that the office's loss of prestige had begun with the reign of Murad III (1574–1595). Koçi Bey remarked that the office had gradually lost its independence as courtiers and pages increasingly, and too easily, swayed the sultan's opinion and intervened too much in state affairs. To restore order, the sultan had to protect grand viziers from outside threats and interventions. A notable frustration of Koçi Bey was the quick circulation of grand viziers through the office. He emphasized the importance of longevity of tenure, arguing that a grand vizier should not be dismissed if he performed the requirements of office.Footnote 105
Koçi Bey's grievances were shared by Katip Çelebi, probably the most significant intellectual in the early modern Ottoman Empire. In 1653, he wrote a pamphlet named Düstūrü’l-ʿAmel li-Iṣlāḥi'l-Ḫalel (Course of Measures to Redress the Situation).Footnote 106 In this short text, written only three years before Köprülü Mehmed Pasha's appointment, Katip Çelebi likens the state to the human body, a practice inherited by Ottoman intellectuals from pre-Ottoman Islamic political writings. Katip Çelebi wrote that the sultan represented the soul (nefs-i nāṭıḳa), while the [grand] vizier represented the faculty of reason (ḳuvve-i ʿākıla).Footnote 107 Given the lack of a grand vizier in his time who guided the empire like the reason led the body, Katip Çelebi's metaphor may be interpreted as wishful thinking. Yet he was more explicit when defining twice in the pamphlet the personality and desired governing style of the ideal person who could resolve the state's problems. In the first instance, he described him as forceful, able to impose his will on others (…bir ḳāṣırın ḳaṣrı lāzımdur).Footnote 108 Next, he argued he should be a “master of sword,” able to make people obey the law as instructed by God and implemented by the state (ḫalḳı Ḥakka münḳād ider bir ṣāḥib-i seyf).Footnote 109 Though Katip Çelebi did not unambiguously refer to the grand vizier as that desirable arbiter, it was clear, as confirmed by Metin Kunt, that he assumed that this heroic figure would be the grand vizier.Footnote 110
Köprülü takeover and canonization of the grand-vizierial restoration under the Köprülüs
Lastly, two works written under Köprülü sponsorship that belonged to a genre labeled “administration manuals” by Marinos Sariyannis must be mentioned to complete the theoretical analysis.Footnote 111 The first work was Hüseyin Hezarfen's Telḫīṣü’l-Beyān fī Ḳavānīn-i ʿĀl-i ʿOs̱mān (Memorandum on the rules of the House of Osman) which was written in the 1670s under the patronage of the elder Köprülü son, Ahmed Pasha.Footnote 112 Telḫīṣü’l-Beyān was one of the most extensive books of law written in the seventeenth century, though it was not fully original as it heavily copied from previous works. The passages about the grand vizierate were mainly copied from Lütfi Pasha's Āṣafnāme. However, the second work, Tevkii Abdurrahman Paşa Ḳānūnnāmesi (The Book of Law of Abdurrahman Abdi Pasha), which was more of a protocol manual than a law book. Penned by an eponymous scholar-statesman, the latter book was an original statement of the primacy of the grand vizierate in the Ottoman governmental hierarchy.
As Linda Darling noted, these two lawbooks were produced “with the aim of regulation rather than advice.”Footnote 113 Both should be read against the backdrop of the Köprülü restoration and the buildup of vizierial power under Köprülü Mehmed Pasha, the full restoration of the office under Köprülü Fazıl Ahmed Pasha, and the climax of grand vizierial authority under Kara Mustafa Pasha. Telḫīṣü’l-Beyān was written roughly two decades after the elder Köprülü's appointment, under the auspices of his son, presumably to provide an intellectual fulcrum for the political and military reinvigoration under the father's and son's regimes. The book addresses the history of the empire, the administrative structure of the state, military institutions, and financial matters. Telḫīṣü’l-Beyān thus compiled rules and regulations about a broad array of topics and explained customs and legal practices in great detail.Footnote 114 In contrast, Abdurrahman Abdi Pasha's work, commissioned as the first independent Ottoman protocol book by Kara Mustafa Pasha, was intended as a manual in a new setting where the court and office of the grand vizier reasserted themselves.Footnote 115 In other words, if Telḫīṣü’l-Beyān aimed at the canonization of restored grand vizierial authority, Kara Mustafa Pasha's goal in commissioning the manual was to affirm the ceremonial supremacy and, thus, independence of his office. Indeed, there is a great consistency between the legal codification of the grand vizier's supremacy in theory and the actions of Fazıl Ahmed Pasha and Kara Mustafa Pasha, the latter arguably being the most secure grand vizier in the early modern Ottoman Empire by the time he came to office.Footnote 116
Hüseyin Hezarfen reiterated many principles of the office of the grand vizier. First, in a chapter where Hezarfen outlined the established customs of court and government, he asserted the superiority of the office and laid down some basic principles about the relationship of the sultan and grand vizier: The sultan should appoint a wise and knowledgeable vizier (from among members of the imperial council). He must be tried and tested beforehand and well acquainted with worldly matters. Once in office, the sultan should grant him full independence. No one should share authority in his matters, and all his decisions should be respected. Nonetheless, he should not be exempt from inquiry and scrutiny. But the sultan should hesitate to rebuke him based solely on the statements of others, in case it is mere slander. Likewise, the sultan should avoid reprimanding the grand vizier for minor mistakes. Instead, when necessary, the sultan should caution him: “I am aware of your actions; you have been doing so and so. Abandon them, otherwise I will hurt you.” If the grand vizier becomes arrogant due to the sultan's confidence and behaves beneath the sultan's dignity and honor, the sultan should not immediately have him killed. Instead, the grand vizier should either be dismissed or demoted to a lower office. The pool of capable people to employ was limited: a vizier, once dismissed, might reform himself and be reappointed again later.Footnote 117
Hezarfen wrote that there were two ranks of vizierate: a grand vizier, who was of the first rank, and six “viziers of the dome” (ḳubbealtı vezīrleri), members of the imperial council who were of the second rank. Grand viziers were absolute deputies (vekālet-i muṭlaḳa) and of the greatest preeminence, or ṣadāret-i ‘uẓmā in Ottoman parlance, a sobriquet used for the office of the grand vizier in Ottoman official correspondence and literature. “In this Sublime State, after the rank of the sultanate, there is no rank above the grand vizierate.”Footnote 118 The following passage unambiguously placed the grand vizier at the top of the executive mechanism:
Settling and deciding on affairs depended on his opinion and foresight. With the delivery of the seal of delegation to his able hand, he is given full independence and it has become the law not to reject a matter he presented and reported to the sultan. Footnote 119
Most ideas Hezarfen outlined had already been listed by Lütfi Pasha almost 150 years earlier: A grand vizier was required to invest all his time into the most important matters of the sultanate and inform the sultan without delay. It was his duty to guide the statesmen in the right direction. Even viziers should not know the secrets between the sultan and grand vizier. Grand viziers should not reject appeals made to him: he had to strive, as much as possible, to satisfy requests. He had to look for people who were poor and weak, yet skilled enough to hold a rank, and recruit them for service on the battlefield. He had to identify those capable of command and elevate them as ağas (commanders) of the household troops, while appointing the most discerning of men as scribes, because if the household troops were not kept under control, the grand vizier would not be secure. Finally, the grand vizier was responsible for preventing the wrongful confiscation of commoners’ assets on behalf of the sultanate, because such injustice would threaten the health of the state.
Recently, Marinos Sariyannis analyzed Telhisü’l-Beyan in his A History of Ottoman Political Thought up to the Early Nineteenth Century, a seminal study that will remain a reference book for years. Sariyannis argued that Telhisü’l-Beyan was not the product of “an actual description or a political agenda.”Footnote 120 Though there was nothing original in that compilation, the timing of the compilation made it significant. Roughly twenty years after the restoration of the grand vizierial supremacy and the establishment of a new status quo following decades of chaos that had preceded the elder Köprülü's appointment, the elder Köprülü son, Hezarfen's patron, must have thought that the time was ripe to reaffirm state power by compiling the laws and customs of the empire. Sariyannis is right that this compilation added nothing original to the political and intellectual tradition of the early modern Ottomans, but it nevertheless stands as a monument to the Köprülü restoration and the political changes that surrounded its production. While most political works from the pre-1656 era contained long discussions about how to ameliorate the state's problems, Telḫīṣü’l-Beyān was a law book to be used in a new era where a new, satisfactory status quo had been achieved. Unfortunately for us historians, the absence of private correspondence between the Köprülüs and the intellectuals under their patronage prevents us from making definitive arguments about the circumstances of such works’ composition. Yet there is enough circumstantial evidence to suggest a correlation between the preparation of Telḫīṣü’l-Beyān and the political developments surrounding its preparation.
That correlation is clearer in Abdurrahman Abdi Pasha's protocol manual, thanks to a statement in the opening paragraph. Abdi Pasha noted that he prepared the manual upon a directive of Grand Vizier Kara Mustafa Pasha, who, after becoming the “absolute deputy” of Sultan Mehmed IV, instructed Abdi Pasha “to collect and codify from among the protocols of the Ottoman sultans some of the most important of laws of the state, including (1) those which have fallen into oblivion due to the elapsing of time and the extinction of those who had a thorough knowledge of the law and (2) the laws of the state which are the most necessary of the main pillars of the sultanate and that are the guiding principles of our time.” He added that he recorded them as instructed by the grand vizier so that the rules of protocol “could be found when required.”Footnote 121
The protocol book opened with a chapter called “the law of grand viziers.” Abdi Pasha's description of the grand vizier's primacy in ceremonies and executive mechanisms was unprecedentedly detailed. As the above survey showed, the authority of grand viziers as absolute deputies was canonized in the Ottoman tradition, yet no other manual or book of law had enunciated the grand vizier's supremacy to the degree that Abdi Pasha did. The degree of articulation in the first two paragraphs testifies to Kara Mustafa Pasha's desire as the commissioner of the work to take advantage of the unique legacy he adopted from his predecessors.
To begin with, those who are grand viziers precede all. They are absolute deputies by personal delegation of his majesties the sultan and the arbiters and possessors of verdict upon all the people in the well-protected Ottoman domains and in the capital [on the following matters]: public affairs concerning religion and state and the entire order of state affairs; the execution of the laws of border; retaliation in kind (ḳıṣaṣ), imprisonment, exile, and all kinds of chastising (taʿzīr) and capital punishment; the hearing of cases and the execution of the Islamic law's provisions; removal of injustices; taking the necessary measures for the country;
the appointment of provincial governors and commanders; distribution of salaries; the allocation of zeʽāmets and tīmārs; the appointment of the trustees to pious foundations; the appointment of preachers, imams, secretaries, and all posts in pious foundations; the appointment of judges and temporary judges; assignments, delegations, appointments, collection of revenues, and all appointments without limits; in short, the assignment of all military and scholarly ranks and removal from office, and the hearing and execution of all Islamic and customary law.
All viziers, governors, scholars, judges, muftis, sheikhs, dignitaries, notables, prominent figures, all those who belong to the military class (ʿaskerī) and all subjects, including those who enjoy certain privileges (reʿāyā vü berāyā), holders of ranks at pious foundations, members of the merchant class, those who are old and young, rich and poor, strong and weak, humble and noble, in brief, all the people together with the high and the low are obliged to respect and show honor and the greatest awe to him and obey his order, acknowledging that the words of those who are grand viziers are like the edicts worthy of compliance that directly came out of the blessed and lofty tongue of his majesties the awe-inspiring, majestic, fortunate sultan who is the shadow of God.Footnote 122
Abdi Pasha then continues to explain the grand vizier's role as the central hub of correspondence and communication with the sultan. Accordingly, all deputies, scholars, provincial governors, and judges were required to present their affairs to the grand vizier. The grand viziers would customarily refer the appointments to the sultan, yet if they were away from court, for instance, due to a campaign, they could bypass the sultan's approval and make the appointments themselves. In a notable passage, Abdi Pasha explicitly presents a grand vizier's freedom in making appointments as a practice that had been observed in the empire since the time immemorial:
Since days of yore, the law of the Ottoman sultans has been laid down such that the grand viziers who are deputies of state and sultanate are authorized and deputed in all appointments and acts of disposal; when they are away from the court, they do not refer them to the sultan and confer offices as a proxy. The requirement of grand vizierate (vezāret-i muṭlaḳa) has always been so since the foundation of the state. Its recommissioning or the penning of another sultanic edict is not needed. Assuming the position of grand vizierate and holding that office is enough for him to have canonical permission to govern Islamic and customary matters and make the aforesaid appointments.
The protocol book then listed among the distinguishing traits of the grand vizierate the officeholder's ability to present reports (telḫīṣ) to the sultan without mediation and the possession of the seal of the sultan which the grand vizier carried on a string around his neck, a signature that separated him from the rest of the viziers.Footnote 123 Yet, there was also an explicit protocol concerning the reception of foreign diplomats (ḳānūn-ı ilçiyān), and in particular the letters presented by them to the sultan during an audience. Accordingly, after a foreign representative handed his letter to the sultan inside the audience chamber, the grand vizier would place the letter next to the sultan's throne. The last sentence of the paragraph then stated: “His majesty the grand vizier picks up the letter from that spot and has the letter translated. Then the grand vizier reports its content to the sultan through a telḫīṣ.” This last article of the manual was apparently formulated to give the grand vizier the freedom to interpret the letters of foreign statesmen.Footnote 124
Conclusion: The Köprülü Restoration and the Pinnacle of Grand Vizieral Authority in Theory And Practice
Kara Mustafa Pasha was neither less “authentically Köprülü” than his predecessors, nor inexplicable in his “reckless political and military actions.”Footnote 125 Indeed the Köprülü restoration reached its climax under Kara Mustafa Pasha: the elder Köprülü had begun the restoration of grand vizierial authority against all odds, his elder son accelerated the domination of the office in the decision-making mechanism, while Kara Mustafa Pasha, more by virtue of his inheritance of the Köprülüs’ legacy than as a result of any previous achievement, clinched the process. The first Köprülü grand viziers had challengers, but Kara Mustafa Pasha's career began relatively safer, in part because his confrontational and stubborn personality – a character trait unanimously witnessed by Ottoman and European observers – probably pushed potential rivals away. Commissioning a protocol manual manifested his desire to establish himself as the one and only successor of the Köprülüs. Eventually, he undertook an ambitious campaign against Vienna – against the counterarguments of more experienced statesmen – that ended in catastrophe.Footnote 126 His execution only three months later showed that unchecked grand vizierial power could also lead to undesired outcomes, as befell the Barmakid viziers and Nizam al-Mulk.
Ultimately, what separated the Köprülü grand viziers – especially the father Mehmed, older son Ahmed, son-in-law Kara Mustafa, and younger son Mustafa – from the other grand viziers of the post-Sokollu era was their independence in decision-making. Witnessing the constant turnover of grand viziers before the appointment of the elder Köprülü and endless factional struggles, Katip Çelebi made unambiguous suggestions to fix the problem: Appoint a commanding figure capable of exerting his authority over others, of ensuring people adhered to (divine) law enforced by the state. These ideal goals could have been achieved only by a man who possessed independence in decision-making and from external influence, and thus true freedom of action. That great traveler Evliya Çelebi described the elder Köprülü as müstaḳill ṣadr-ı aʿẓam (independent grand vizier), indicating his impression that Köprülü was able to put into practice that old theory which the Ottomans took over from the pre-Ottoman Islamic tradition. This Islamic institution diverged significantly from the European approach. While European political writers insisted for long on the primacy of monarchs in decision-making, the Islamic political tradition fervently endorsed the idea of appointing wise, cautious, and autonomously influential ministers, acknowledging the potential shortcomings of a prince or king whose only legitimacy derived from his bloodline. The Köprülü restoration was underpinned by that substantial theoretical framework. Nonetheless, despite variations in theoretical approaches, the seventeenth century may be dubbed the “Eurasian age of chief ministers.” During the seventeenth century, all major courts across Eurasia were dominated by ambitious grand viziers and chief ministers.Footnote 127
The Köprülü fame and saga were constructed, first, by the achievements of the elder Köprülü and his elder son and second, by generations of family members who commissioned authors to craft eulogistic works about their lives. Such tributes to the family served to immortalize the positive historical image of the Köprülüs in the imagination of the broader public. Meanwhile, critical perspectives about the Köprülüs were written, or sponsored, by men who were Köprülü victims. A well-known example is Evliya Çelebi's scathing attack on the founding father of the family, which was most likely motivated by the downfall of Evliya's patron, Melek Ahmed Pasha, under the Köprülü regime.Footnote 128 Yet, the observations and anecdotes recorded by both Ottoman and European contemporaries leave little doubt that for those who witnessed the Köprülü restoration, the family's accomplishments were phenomenal. True, the Köprülü restoration did not revolutionize the Ottoman governmental organization or lead to the creation of a new, innovative governmental system to address the chronic problems of the central administration. Instead, the Köprülü grand vizierate revamped the old system while preserving its traditional essence, as prescribed by Ottoman political writers of the age. One may detect some novel, progressive reforms implemented by the members of the family, such as Köprülüzade Mustafa Pasha, the younger son of the elder Köprülü whose economic and administrative reforms during his twenty-two-month-long tenure (1689–1691) raised hopes for the rehabilitation of the state in the aftermath of 1683. Yet, in general, the crux of the Köprülü grand vizierate was the rejuvenation of a time-honored institution with little deviation from its original form. The new life the Köprülüs breathed into the centuries-old grand vizierate was so powerful that it represented the pinnacle of grand vizierial authority in early modern Ottoman history. If the Ottoman grand vizierate was a continuation of the ministry of delegation as described by al-Mawardi in the eleventh century, the Köprülüs were the ministers of delegation par excellence.
Future research should look into the evolution of the grand vizierate in the eighteenth century until the bureaucratic reforms of Selim III. While the grand vizierate preserved its unique position in the empire until the dawn of the modern era, the office went through another phase of modifications that has yet to be charted. In the theoretical domain, Defterdar Sarı Mehmed Pasha's Naṣāʾiḥü’l-Vüzerā ve'l-Ümerā (The Book of Council for Viziers and Governors) bears mentioning.Footnote 129 An administrative manual written in the early eighteenth century by a former bureaucrat at a time when the Köprülü legacy was still alive, the manual showed that little had changed in Ottoman political writers’ approach to the structure of government. The first chapter, “Explanation Regarding the Behavior and Habits and Actions of the Illustrious Grand Vizier,” added nothing new to the previous advice literature. Following the centuries-old patterns of the genre, the author used traditional adages and repeated long-standing dictums. The basic idea was that the grand vizier “should have complete freedom in his business” and be free to act “unrestrained.”
While the theory of the grand vizierate thus firmly held onto the principle of independence, the office experienced another gradual evolution in the profile and background of grand viziers. In the early eighteenth century, the Ottoman court was motivated by what one may call damage control. Let alone Köprülü-style expansionism, the priority of the court in the aftermath of the treaties of Carlowitz (1699) and Passarowitz (1718) was the prevention of further insult to the most recent injuries. A second-generation Köprülü grand vizier became one of the main figures in that process. Amcazade Hüseyin Pasha (1697–1702), a nephew of the elder Köprülü, made a name for himself as a peacemaker, accompanied by Rami Mehmed Pasha, the Ottoman plenipotentiary at Carlowitz who also held the grand vizierate for ten months in 1703. They did not fully revolutionize the career pathway to the office, but they were the first harbingers of a new age and an ongoing break with past trends. Gone were the days of powerful “men of sword.” While the peace-oriented Amcazade came from an administrative career line, Rami had come from among ḳalemiyye (men of the pen) and he was the first chief of scribes to be appointed grand vizier. His time in office was short and lacked significant transformative impact. The towering figure of the immediate decades following the Köprülüs was Grand Vizier Nevşehirli Damad İbrahim Pasha (1718–30), who would be the last grand vizier in the history of the empire to occupy the office for so long. Like Rami, İbrahim Pasha had also climbed the career ladder through the Ottoman bureaucracy as a scribe. He came to the vizierate in the months following Austria's peace offer in early 1718. As the negotiations were underway, he let the military elite know that it was at their discretion to decide what was good for the state and people as he was not experienced in warfare.Footnote 130 During his twelve-year tenure, he became the main catalyzer of an era that has been dubbed the “Silhouette of Renaissance” by Niyazi Berkes.Footnote 131 In 1730, he was brutally executed by rebels. Seventeen years later, another figure of scholarly origins, Koca Ragıp Pasha (1757–63), came to office and prevented a probable disaster for the Ottoman Empire by avoiding involvement in the Seven Years’ War. There lies a tale yet to be told: the evolution of the Ottoman grand vizierate, transitioning from the age of “men of sword” that had been most recently represented by the Köprülüs, to a new age in which grand viziers, once again, as in the pre-1453 era, emerged from the ranks of scribes and scholars, this time prioritizing peace over warfare.Footnote 132
