Contents Acknowledgments Note on Transliteration and Citations Introduction 1 What Is Ottoman Political Thought? 2 Scope and Aims: the Quest for Innovation 3 A Note on ModernityEarly or Not 4 Trends and Currents: for a Thematic Description of Ottoman Political Thought1 The Empire in the Making: Construction and Early Critiques 1 Opposition to Imperial Policies as an Indicator of Gazi Political Ideas 2 The Introduction of Imperial Ideals 3 Shifting Means of Legitimization2 Political Philosophy and the Moralist Tradition 1 Works of Ethico-political Philosophy: from Amasi to Knalzade 2 Moral Philosophy as Political Theory 3 The Afterlife of a Genre3 The Imperial Heyday: the Formation of the Ottoman System and Reactions to It 1 The Basis of the Ottoman Synthesis: Ebussuud and the Reception of Ibn Taymiyya 2 A New Legitimacy 3 Reactions to the Imperial Vision 4 The Iranian Tradition Continued: Bureaucrats, Sufis, and Scholars 5 Lütfi Pasha and the Beginning of the Ottoman Mirror for Princes 6 As a Conclusion: the Ideas at Hand, the Forces at Work4 Mirrors for Princes: the Decline Theorists 1 Ottoman Authors and the Decline Paradigm 2 Mustafa Ali and the Politics of Cultural Despair 3 Alis Contemporaries, Facing the Millenium5 The Golden Age as a Political Agenda: the Reform Literature 1 The Canonization of Decline 2 The Landmarks of Declinist Literature 3 Administration Manuals: an Ottoman Genre 4 The Afterlife of the Genre: Late Seventeenth-Century Manuals6 The Sunna-Minded Trend 1 The Controversy of the Century? The Kadzadelis 2 Beyond the Social History of the Controversy 3 Ottoman Decline la Sunna 4 Political Practice and Political Thought 5 Conclusion7 Khaldunist Philosophy: Innovation Justified 1 The Social and Ideological Struggles: between Viziers and Janissaries 2 Ktib elebi and Ottoman Khaldunism 3 Ktib elebis Immediate Influence: the Conciliation with Change 4 Naima: Stage Theory in the Service of Peace 5 Peace and Change: Preparing an Ideological Environment8 The Eighteenth Century: the Traditionalists 1 The Eighteenth Century and Its Intellectual Climate: on Ottoman Traditionalism 2 Defterdar and His Circle 3 The Last of the Traditionalists 4 Traditional Reformers: Rivers in Confluence9 The Eighteenth Century: the Westernizers 1 The Precursors of Nizam-i Cedid: brahim Müteferrika and the Dialogue with the West 2 Selim III and the Reform Debate 3 The Last Round: from Selim III to Mahmud II 4 The Tanzimat as Epilogue Conclusion: towards an Ottoman Conceptual History 1 Politics 2 State 3 The Ottoman Political Vocabulary and Its Development 4 Some General Remarks Appendix 1: Historical Timeline Appendix 2: Samples of Translated Texts Bibliography Person Names Place Names, Subjects, Terms Titles of Works.