Spies, Scandals, and Sultans Istanbul in the Twilight of the Ottoman Empire

158 Pages·2007·0.99 MB·English

by  Roger Allen

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Muwaylihi, Ibrahim, d. 1906.
[Ma hunalik. English]
Spies, scandals, and sultans : Istanbul in the twilight of the Ottoman Empire: The First English
Translation of Egyptian Ibrahim al-Muwaylihi’s Ma Hunalik / Ibrahim al-Muwaylihi ;
translated and introduced by Roger Allen.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
9781461643470
1. Istanbul (Turkey)—Description and travel—19th century. 2. Turkey—History—1878-1909.
I. Allen, Roger M. A. II. Title.
DR721.M95513 2008
949.61’8015--dc22

2007026724
Printed in the United States of America
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National
Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials,
ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
A Note on Transliteration
The Later Ottoman Sultans
Introduction
THE TRANSLATION
1 - Concerning the Circumstances of the Ottoman Sultanate
2 - Almabayn
3 - The Chief Secretary’s Department in Almabayn
4 - The Almabaynjiyya Department in Almabayn
5 - The Department of the Chief Eunuch in Almabayn
6 - The Department of the Yavaran in Almabayn
7 - Spies
8 - Anniversary of the Sultan’s Accession
9 - Spies (II)
10 - Splendor of the Caliphate and Magnificence of the Sultanate
11 - Appointment to Ottoman Offices
12 - Court Proceedings in Istanbul
13 - Shaykhs
14 - Writing Ma Hunalik
15 - The Sultan
16 - Deposition of Sultans
Glossary
Index
About the Translator
A Note on Transliteration
In this work I am not resorting to the usual conventions of transliteration, in that I only include
the conventional symbol ( ‘ ) for the Arabic phoneme ‘ayn. Faced here with the translation of a
work by an Egyptian writer, writing in Arabic for a predominantly Egyptian readership and
publishing in an Egyptian newspaper, describing in detail the life and times of the Ottoman
Sultan, ‘Abd al-Hamid, in Istanbul and thus citing all manner of technical terminology and the
hierarchy of ranks associated with the Ottoman administration, I confront what is already a
complex situation, in that a central part of the modernist agenda of the Turkish leader Mustafa
Kamal, renowned as Ataturk, was the decision to convert the writing system of Turkey and its
language from Ottoman (i.e., extended Arabic) script to Roman.
Faced with this situation, I have decided to transliterate the terms and names into English as
though from an Arabic text but without resorting to the conventional set of diacritical markings
above and below elongated vowels and emphatic consonants. In attempting to justify such a
decision, I might follow the lead of the great Middle Eastern comic-figure, Nasr al-din Hoja
(in Turkish) or Juha (in Arabic), namely of requesting that, if needed, those who know inform
those who don’t.
The Later Ottoman Sultans
Arabic Turkish
Mustafa II Mustafa II
Ahmad III Ahmet III
Mahmud I Mahmut I
‘Uthman III Osman III
Mustafa III Mustafa III
‘Abd al—Hamid I Abdilhamit I
Salim III Selim III
Mustafa IV Mustafa IV
Mahmud II Mahmut II
‘Abd al—Majid I Abdilmecit I
‘Abd al—‘Aziz Abdilaziz
‘Abd al-Hamid II Abdilhamit II
Muhammad V Rashad Mehmet V Reflat
Mehmet VI
Muhammad VI Wahid al-din
Vahideddin
‘Abd al—Majid II Abdilmecit II
Introduction
This translation of Ibrahim al-Muwaylihi’s renowned, indeed infamous, work is titled Spies,
Scandals, and Sultans, an apt description of much of its content. However, the original title in
Arabic is Ma Hunalik, with a literal meaning something akin to “Over Yonder.”1 It was in
1964 that I first read extracts from Muhammad al—Muwaylihi’s famous Hadith Isa ibn
Hisham, a work that was to become the topic of my DPhil dissertation at Oxford (1968), later
published, first in microfiche form in 1974 and then as the book, A Period of Time, in 1992.
If correct, the birthdates of the two al-Muwaylihis, father and son—Ibrahim and Muhammad,
1844 and 1858—suggest that, since the age gap between them was a mere fourteen years, they
seem to have interacted with each other more as colleagues than as father and son. What is not
subject to doubt is that the two men shared a number of variegated experiences during the latter
half of the nineteenth century, only coming to an end with Ibrahim’s death in 1906. Those
experiences involved, among other things, commerce, speculation, newspaper publishing, and
not a little political intrigue in Egypt, exile to Italy along with the Khedive Isma’il, periods
spent in Paris and London, and then a prolonged stay in the Ottoman capital of Istanbul, before
a return to Cairo in the mid—1890s.
It is that stay in Istanbul that is reflected in the present work. While clearly a supporter of the
Ottoman role as defender of Islamic interests in the Middle East and in its relationship with the
European powers, Ibrahim al-Muwaylihi, the author of Ma Hunalik, is equally obviously
appalled by the situation that he finds in the Ottoman capital and spares no one in his
description of the factors and personalities involved.
As if to prove the efficacy, if not the accuracy, of al-Muwaylihi’s acidly critical portrait of
Istanbul under the regime of Sultan ‘Abd al-Hamid, the book version of the work—published
in 1896 by the press of the Cairene newspaper, al-Muqattam (in which the sequence of
chapters had been previously serialized), was immediately banned on orders from the Ottoman
capital; all copies were ordered sent to Istanbul. Accounts of al-Muwaylihi’s life assure their
reader that he carried out the Sultan’s orders to the letter, and yet. . . .
In the early 1970s, when I was preparing my study of Muhammad al-Muwaylihi’s Hadith
Isa ibn Hisham, for publication in book form—a process that, as I noted above, inevitably
also involved a study of the life and works of Muhammad’s father, Ibrahim, Professor Bernard
Lewis informed me that he had found a copy of Ma Hunalik in Cairo. He kindly sent me a
xeroxed copy and microfilm of the text. Following the completion of my research in Cairo on
Muhammad al-Muwaylihi’s Hadith Isa ibn Hisham, I was now able to turn to the infamous,
banned text of his father and to follow its history through the pages of al-Muqattam in the mid-