When
A series of Ottoman works of political advice (nasihatnameler), written in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, were among the earliest Ottoman texts published and translated in Europe. Europeans were interested in them because they seemed to describe, fully and candidly, the reasons for the decline of the Ottoman Empire. They certainly complained in great detail about political change and corruption, described the problems of the government, and made recommendations on how they should be handled. Some twenty years ago, however, Rifaat Abou-El-Haj proposed that these works were not simply descriptive but reflected a conflict among the Ottoman elites. The old elite was being displaced by a new and rising elite, and members of the old elite wrote these works in order to vilify the new elite and blame them for the problems of the time in Ottoman government and society. My new project analyzes this literature and investigates what light the administrative documents of the Ottoman Empire can shed on the specific complaints it contains. This talk discusses the works and their authors and describes the results of my initial research into one of these complaints, the intrusion of outsiders into the ranks of the timar-holding Ottoman military. Linda Darling received her PhD from the University of Chicago in 1990. She began her career at the U of A in 1989, teaching Middle East history, comparative history, and historiography. She is the author of *A History of Social Justice and Political Power in the Middle East: The Circle of Justice from Mesopotamia to Globalization* (2013) and *Revenue-Raising and Legitimacy: Tax Collection and Finance Administration in the Ottoman Empire, 1560-1660* (1996). She has also published on early Ottoman identity and administration, comparative political thought, and taxation issues. LINDA DARLING,PROFESSOR OF HISTORYMENAS Colloquium SeriesFriday, February 14, 20143pm in Marshall 490