Kadizade (Encyclopedia of Renaissance Philosophy, Springer 2015)

K

^de Kadıza Born: 1582, Balikesir Died: 1635, Istanbul Marinos Sariyannis Institute for Mediterranean Studies/FORTH, Foundation for Research and Technology Hellas, Rethymno, Greece

Abstract Kadız^ade Mehmed Efendi, son of Mustafa (Balıkesir 1582–Istanbul 1635), was a highly influential Ottoman preacher whose revivalist ideas initiated a strong movement named after him, the Kadızadeli; he advocated the abolishment of innovations, especially those favored by dervish orders, and the return to the precepts of the Islamic Holy Law.

Biography Son of a provincial judge, Kadızade Mehmed Efendi took his first training in his native town, Balıkesir, before moving to the Ottoman capital, Istanbul, where he became a mosque preacher. Initially, he was under the influence of a sheikh of the Halveti order of dervishes; however, he then # Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2015 M. Sgarbi (ed.), Encyclopedia of Renaissance Philosophy, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-02848-4_137-1

reverted to an austere fundamentalist attitude. He served as a preacher in various mosques, beginning from the early 1620s, and his career culminated in 1631, after his appointment as the preacher of the imperial mosque of Ayasofya (St. Sophia). In his highly popular and eloquent sermons, he attacked vehemently the dervish practices and confronted in particular with the Halveti sheikh Abd€ulmecid Sivasıˆ Efendi (1563–1639). Apart from oral sermons, he was the author of several treatises in Ottoman Turkish or Arabic. His teachings drew a lot of supporters and influenced Sultan Murad IV’s harsh policies. Kadızade even joined Murad’s campaign against Iran in 1635; however, he fell ill and had to return to the capital, where he died a little later.

Heritage and Rupture with the Tradition Kadızade’s ideas influenced deeply Ottoman politics throughout the seventeenth century. They have often been characterized as “fundamentalist” or “revivalist,” as they emphasized the need for a moral and social redressing of the Ottoman Empire through a return to what he considered strictly Islamic values and the abolition of as many innovating aspects of everyday life as possible. Indeed, the main characteristics of Kadızade’s ideology were the opposition to any innovation (bid’at), as opposed to the way of life in the time of Prophet Muhammad, and especially the violent struggle against the dervish

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brotherhoods and more specifically, the Halvetis. His forerunner was Birgivıˆ Mehmed b. Pir Ali (1523–1573), an eminent theologian who had reacted against Ebussuud’s interpretation of the Sharia and whose books were widely read by both the people and the ulema. Birgivıˆ had written two highly influential treatises in the form of catechism brochures, stressing among others the dangers of innovation (bid’at) from pious foundations based on cash to the dancing ceremonies of the Sufis and the payment of religious functionaries. In a wider context, both Birgivıˆ and Kadızade may be viewed as influenced by medieval Salafist philosophy (itself the precursor of nineteenth-century Wahhabism), notably Ibn Hanbal (d. 855) and Ibn Taymiyyah (d. 1328), who stressed the need for unity of belief among the faithful and attacked what they considered pantheistic and extremist doctrines of most Sufis. Like the Salafists, moreover, Kadızade tended to understand the Koranic verses literally, denying any altering of their content by logical interpretation.

Innovative and Original Aspects Kadızade turned Birgivıˆ’s teachings into an activist movement, the Kadızadeli (meaning Kadızade’s followers), a movement which dominated the political and ideological scene of the Ottoman Empire throughout the seventeenth century. Activism was justified due to the old Islamic obligation for “commanding right and forbidding wrong” (emr-i ma’ruˆf ve nehy-i m€ unker), i.e., the obligation of a believer to impose righteous behavior and to act against impious practices. While the application of this duty is generally considered as incumbent upon the ruler, Birgivıˆ had extended it to every Muslim, and his followers tended to consider themselves entitled to practice this obligation even by force. Kadızade himself was more of a preacher and advisor than an activist leader, but his successors in the following decades did launch anti-dervish pogroms and took an active part to the political turmoil of the era.

Kadız^ade

Moreover, Kadızade and his disciples adopted a much more uncompromising stance against innovations, taking them literally to be every practice that did not exist in the time of the prophets. A negative attitude against innovation (bid’at) is inherent in Islamic thought, but then the concept of “good innovation” (such as the building of minarets or the compilation of books, for instance) had been developed, and the traditional view rejected only innovations in matters of belief and worship. What constituted such an innovation, however, could still be a matter of dispute, and Kadızade tended to expand the field of “bad innovation” as much as he could. Not all the issues he brought under dispute were unprecedented in Islamic history, and some were already discussed by Birgivıˆ; however, their grouping as a set of “evil innovations” which had to be fought against seems to have been a policy initiated by Kadızade in his struggle against the Halveti dervishes and especially against Sivasıˆ Efendi. A first group of these issues, indeed, was related to dervishes, condemning their religious practices and especially their use of music and dance. A second group had to do with social life, from the use of coffee and tobacco (a demand partly satisfied by the Sultan during Kadızade’s life) to the practice of shaking hands or bowing, while quite a few of issues were related to various religious beliefs and issues, such as visiting tombs of dervishes or saints (a practice Kadızade and his followers condemned), or whether the Pharaoh or the Prophet’s parents died in Allah’s faith and so forth. Kadızade was also known to despise philosophy and logicians in favor of canonical jurisprudence and Koranic commentary. He stressed the importance of catechism and religious sciences, arguing that “all other sciences are like medicine which should be taken only when necessary” (C¸avus¸og˘lu, 272). One of the issues in dispute between the Kadızadelis and their opponents concerned Shaikh M€uhyiddin Ibn Arabi (1165–1240) and his theory on the “unity of being” (vahdet€ u’l-v€ ucuˆd), i.e., the belief that all things existent share the same essence, being all part of a varied yet congruent totality that reflects

Kadız^ade

God’s existence, the latter being the only true reality. Although he does not name Ibn Arabi, Kadızade explicitly attacks his theory: he argues that it would mean that canonical lawfulness or divine punishment is just an imagination and that it blurs the borders between worshipped and worshipper, creator and creature. On the contrary, he states, the existence of the creation is real and from it God’s existence may be inferred.

Impact and Legacy Murad IV did not adopt the Kadızadeli program against the Sufis and had close relations with Sivasıˆ as well; however, it seems that he used Kadızade’s ideas and popularity in order to promote his own measures for public order and enhancement of the state power. The ban on tobacco and the closing down of coffeehouses by Murad were, at least in theory, based on these ideas. A second Kadızadeli wave, which seems to have been the most popular and massive ¨ st€ one, appeared under the leadership of U uvanıˆ Mehmed (d. 1661). In the turmoil of the years after the deposition of I˙brahim and during the first years of Mehmed IV’s reign, the Kadızadelis attracted large masses of the Istanbul populace, targeting what they perceived as the corruption of society and the state due to irreligious innovations and especially the dervish orders, mainly the Halvetis, until the suppression of the movement by the grand vizier Mehmed Ko¨pr€ ul€ u in 1656. Finally, during the grand vizierates of Mehmed Ko¨pr€ ul€ u’s son Fazıl Ahmed (1661–1676) and his successors, the Kadızadeli movement had its third major wave of influence under the preacher Mehmed b. Bistam Vanıˆ Mehmed (d. 1685). Here again, as in Murad IV’s time, the influence of the movement was a result of its leader’s personal relations rather than mass participation. Vanıˆ Efendi was very close to Fazıl Ahmed and his successors and succeeded in implementing part of the Kadızadeli program. He managed to ban taverns and dervish congregations, while in 1666 the ban came to include the ritual dances (sema) of the dervishes and

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especially the Mevlevis. It seems that this time, fundamentalist ideas influenced more deeply the state apparatus; the “classical” Ottoman legal synthesis, which balanced holy and secular law, tilted toward the former, while regulations based on customary law were abolished. However, after the failure of the Vienna campaign (1683), which had been incited by him, Vanıˆ Efendi was exiled and the “fundamentalist” movement waned away. Nonetheless, various reforms instituted later on continued to be legitimized in terms of a return to the foundations of the holy law, while individual Kadızadelis were still mentioned in the Ottoman provinces well into the eighteenth century. The Kadızadeli movement played a predominant role in the shaping of Ottoman ideas and policies throughout the seventeenth and well into the eighteenth century. Traditionally seen as a “fundamentalist” versus Sufism conflict, it has recently been the object of several studies, focusing on the fluidity of this distinction, the social and political context of the conflict, or the role that career opportunities for preachers and dervishes played in its development. At any rate, its influence was evident to various measures and reforms effectuated from the late seventeenth century onward in what has been viewed as a gradual abandonment of the Ottoman state law statutes (kanun) in favor of a more rigid compliance to the Islamic legal precepts (s¸eriat), especially in landholding and tax law, but also in penal issues or the regulation of prices; the incentives for these reforms have been the object of scholarly debate, but it is sure that their justification leaned heavily on the Kadızadeli ideas.

Cross-References ▶ Ebussu’ud ▶ K^atib C ¸ elebi

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References Primary Literature Chelebi, K^atib [K^atip C¸elebi]. 1957. The balance of truth. Trans. G. L. Lewis. London: George Allen and Unwin.

Secondary Literature C¸avus¸og˘lu, S. 1990. The Kadiz^adeli movement: An attempt of S¸eri’at-minded reform in the Ottoman

Kadız^ade Empire, Unpublished PhD dissertation, Princeton University. Zilfi, M.C. 1986. The Kadızadelis: Discordant revivalism in seventeenth-century Istanbul. Journal of Near Eastern Studies 45(4): 251–269. Zilfi, M.C. 1988. The politics of piety: The Ottoman Ulema in the postclassical age (1600–1800). Minneapolis: Bibliotheca Islamica.