*this is an imaginery letter aiming to be a close-reproduction of a letter that Ali Kusci would have produced. any anachronisms you find please inform me!
11 Zilkade 878
My most venerable Molla Abdurrahman Cami;
At long last I have found the oppurtunity to write you after the long and tiring, but victorious and fruitful campaign against Uzun Hasan. This will be the subject matter of my next letter I am afraid, because I need some time to contemplate on what happened and what I made of it. I can tell you this however: it has been productive for me and I have compiled a book of astronomy that I named Fethiye and presented it to the Sultan right after the campaign. I am sending you a copy of it enclosed. Please do not leave me without your most valuable interpretations of it.
I hope you are well and happy. Me and my family are very well and settled in Kostantiniyye. It seems that we are going to live in this city for some time to come, but of course these things only God knows!
To my surprise, I have come across a student of yours in Trabzon while we were on our way for campaign in Tabriz ( a certain Muhammed Samarkandi[1], if you will remember) and he has given me your latest risale. I have read it in one breath and my friend, it has opened up new horizons for me. I am sending you a risale of my own that I have written down in response to it. I would be very glad if mine instills in you what your precious work has done in me.
Thanks to the generosity of my benefactor and patron Mehmed the Conqueror –now they call him that-; me, my family and my companions were very well received on our second arrival to Kostantiniyye and we were given the most luxurious mansions to reside within the court of the New Palace. The Sultan’s officials escorted us all the way from Tabriz and we were well entertained throughout the journey. When we arrived in Kostantiniyye, I was received by a group of scholars, including the Kadi of the city known as Hocazâde Müslihü'd-Din Mustafa. He is a very wise, intellectual and influential man and I have sensed that the Sultan respects him greatly. He told me that he has no equivalents in Rum, Acem and Arab lands. You know that I am no man of politics, but I can see that any scholar who wants to establish himself here must be on good terms with him. Of course, this is not to say that the Sultan is easily influenced, but he values Hocazade immensely. I must say that he is a very respectable and intellectual man and our conversations have been inspiring and challenging for me.
From the first day of my arrival, I was surrounded by intellectuals of the city and the lively debates we had has inspired (and still does) my work. The Sultan of the sultans Mehmed is doing all he can to provide and broaden this intellectual atmosphere. In fact, he is proud to play the major role in creating such a milieu. He does not hesitate to grant presents and mansıbs so that the scholars have the means to provide for their and their families’ well being and as a result, have the chance to concentrate completely on their scholarly work. It seems to me that he wants to be an emperor, a caeser. He wants to institutionalize scholarship. We had a chance to talk this over and he told me that the steps of a career of a scholar must be elaborated and set such that he will be guarded and funded by the state at all stages. This also means that the scholar will be under the scrutiny of the state and free and/or marginal thought might be impeded. I had this in my mind, but could not speak it openly to the Sultan, yet he was wise enough to read in between my words and he said that a just and wise Sultan would definitely seek the truth rather than stifle it. I hope so, but this depends on the sultan’s personality. I am convinced that Mehmed is a Sultan as he proposes. As my personal experience and the collective memory preceding me shows science and art need a just and wise patron.
The Sultan is a man that does not differentiate between art and science that comes from a Muslim or a non-Muslim. When I arrived at his court, I have seen that he has given protection to numerous Greek and Italian artists and scholars from the Byzantine court. He is fond of Italian architecture and painting. Although he confines the exercise of his taste to his royal chambers mostly, it is not a secret that he likes paintings made in the Italian way. I have met Kritoboulos, a Greek chronicler from the Byzantine court and George Amirutzes, a Greek philosopher from Trabzon in Mehmed’s court. They were a part of the Sultan’s closest courtiers as were the Muslim scholars and I know that The Sultan himself spoke Greek with them. He also knows Latin, Arabic, Persian and some Serbian. The Florentine merchants of Pera were very frequent visitors of his court and I know that they brought valuable paintings to Mehmed’s collection.
These diverse interests of the Sultan and his palns for the new capital, however, are critiqued by some circles, of which Şihabettin Paşa, the Rumeli Beylerbeyi, plays a leading role. As far as I can understand, they were after a total islamification of the city and they found the inclusion of elements from the Byzantine court dangerous. These ideas are not openly worded to the Sultan out of fear that he would certainly reject and mock these ideas as paranoid and too rigid. Notaras, the last Prime Minister of the Paleologues, is the main target of the criticizers, but the Sultan seems to stick with him especially in the repopulation project of the city. This must be why he announced himself as the protector of the Patriarchate and appointed Gennadios as the new Patriarch of the Orthodox realm. These contradictory issues are due to cause some trouble for the Sultan if they succeed to reach and influence the janissary corps.
As to what my daily routine is: I have been offered a post at the Ayasofya Madrasah. I would like to draw your attention to the name: it is a mere change of letters of the original name Hagia Sophia. Is not this ample proof that Mehmed is a man that tries to encompass all knowledge, be it come from an infidel, a godless or a Muslim? I am also commissioned, together with Molla Husrev, to prepare a standard program for the Semaniye madrasahs founded in his formidable new mosque complex built right after the conquest. This you can take as part of the greater institutionalisation of scholarship mentioned above. By way of establishing centers of religion and education in and around the mosque complexes in various parts of Kostantiniyye, the Sultan aims to transform it into a Muslim capital of the Ottoman State. I have some very important students at Ayasofya. I heard that the Sultan wanted Sinaneddin Yusuf bin Hızır Bey bin Kadı Celaleddin Arif, his famous astronomer and mathematician, to attend my riyaziye classes. He decided to attend indirectly through Molla Lutfu, the librarian of the Sultan. I guess he had reasons for it and nevertheless, he is such a gifted and talented student that I am glad to have him even if it is indirectly. One day I have opened a discussion about how an acute angle becomes an obtuse one if one side of the angle is moved towards the direction of dilation and if this dilation is continued, the angle becomes acute again without being a perpendicular angle. The Sultan stopped me as I was explaining and Sinan Paşa was asked to prove and explain his proof. Soon, he produced a three page article proving my statement and explaining it immaculately. I was proud of this brilliant man. As you can see, I feel very productive and challenged in this wounded but healing city.
The status of the city is another matter that I have to tell you about:
Kostantiniyye, as they say, has been devastated from the looting and the siege. Sultan himself told me that he prayed that the city would surrender without resistance so that it would be spared. Nevertheless, there is gossip that the Byzantine Emperor was willing to surrender, but the Venetians and the Genoese, out of fear of losing their advantegeous position in the city in all respects, did not surrender and thus came the devastation. Notaras told us that the city was in a neglected and depopulated status even before the conquest and yet the conquest finalised it. Mehmed, however, is thrilled with the idea of a revived or even a more elavated city and he is willing to add upto the Byzantinian constructions as long as they did not contradict with the idea of a universal centralized imperial Muslim state. His conversion of Hagia Sophia into a mosque with only really very slight changes proves this. Yet he demolished the burial site of the Byzantine Emperors to start the construction of his new mosque complex.
My dear friend and teacher, this almost sums up my first impression of the new city, the Sultan and his court. Don’t forget to write me your ideas about my risale and Fethiye. Please be informed that our correspondence gives me power and illumination and that I miss our conversations very much. In fact why not come to Kostantiniyye and witness the grand transformation of the city and be a part of the intellectual milue here? I would like to host you here in Kostantiniyye very much and I know that The Sultan would be very proud to have a scholar as valuable as yourself in his court. Please think about my proposal and inform me in due time.
May God be with you my teacher and friend!
Yours faithfully,
Ali Kusci
[1] An imagined person
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