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| As Night Falls

In a world that is constantly awake, illuminated and exposed, there is

much to gain from looking into the darkness of times past. This fascinating
and vivid picture of nocturnal life in Middle Eastern cities shows that the
night in the eighteenth-century Ottoman Empire created unique conditions
for economic, criminal, political, devotional and leisurely pursuits that
were hardly possible during the day. Offering the possibility of livelihood
and brotherhood, pleasure and refuge; the darkness allowed conﬁding,
hiding and conspiring – activities which had far-reaching consequences
on Ottoman state and society in the Early Modern period. Instead of
dismissing the night as merely a dark corridor between days, As Night
Falls demonstrates how fundamental these nocturnal hours have been in
shaping the major social, cultural and political processes in the Early
Modern Middle East.

avner wishnitzer is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Middle

Eastern and African History at Tel Aviv University where he specializes in
the social and cultural history of the Ottoman Empire. He is the author of
Reading Clocks, Alla Turca: Time and Society in the Late Ottoman Empire
(2015) and a co-editor of A Global Middle East: Mobility, Materiality and
Culture in the Modern Age, 1880–1940 (2016).

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As Night Falls
Eighteenth-Century Ottoman Cities
after Dark

avner wishnitzer
Tel Aviv University

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www.cambridge.org
Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9781108832144
DOI: 10.1017/9781108933131
© Avner Wishnitzer 2021
This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception
and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,
no reproduction of any part may take place without the written
permission of Cambridge University Press.
First published 2021
Printed in the United Kingdom by TJ Books Limited, Padstow Cornwall
A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Wishnitzer, Avner, 1976– author.
Title: As night falls : eighteenth-century Ottoman cities after dark / Avner Wishnitzer,
Tel Aviv University.
Description: New York : Cambridge University Press, 2021. | Includes bibliographical
references and index.
Identiﬁers: LCCN 2021004266 (print) | LCCN 2021004267 (ebook) |
ISBN 9781108832144 (hardback) | ISBN 9781108927772 (paperback) |
ISBN 9781108933131 (epub)
Subjects: LCSH: Nightlife–Turkey–Istanbul–History–18th century. | Istanbul (Turkey)–Social
life and customs–18th century. | Istanbul (Turkey)–Social conditions–18th century. |
Istanbul (Turkey)–Economic conditions–18th century. | Istanbul (Turkey)–Politics and
government–18th century. | Turkey–History–Ottoman Empire, 1288–1918. |
Jerusalem–Social life and customs–18th century.
Classiﬁcation: LCC DR726 .W57 2021 (print) | LCC DR726 (ebook) |
DDC 956/.015091732–dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021004266
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021004267
ISBN 978-1-108-83214-4 Hardback
Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy
of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication
and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain,
accurate or appropriate.

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Contents

List of Figures page viii

Acknowledgments ix
Note on Terms, Names, and Transliterations xii
List of Abbreviations xiii
Introduction 1

Part I Nocturnal Realities 15

1 Disquieting 17
2 Order Invisible 46
3 The Urban Subconscious 81
4 Ambivalence and Ambiguity 110
5 Manufacturing Light 144

Part II Dark Politics 171

6 Shining Power 173
7 Night Battles 207
Conclusion: Dawn of a New Night? 240
Appendix: On the Use of Court Records in This Book 249
Notes 253
Bibliography 335
Index 371

vii

2.1 A man and a young boy caught in bed page 55

2.2 A neighborhood raid 67
3.1 A glimpse of tavern life 84
3.2 A map of Istanbul’s drinking hubs 85
5.1 An iftar meal at the grand vizier’s palace 163
5.2 Armenians playing cards in candlelight 164
5.3 A coffeehouse in Istanbul 166
6.1 A ﬁrework display 189

viii

This project took off following a somewhat unexpected meeting during

my postdoc at the University of Washington, a little over a decade ago.
Soon after I arrived in Seattle, people told me I should meet Walter
Andrews, whom at the time, I only knew by name. I was completely
ignortant of the world of Ottoman poetry, nor was I particularly
interested in learning about it. When we finally met, Walter listened
carefully as I shared with him some raw ideas I had about Ottoman
nights, and then gently suggested that Ottoman poets probably would
not have agreed with many of my observations. I have to admit it had
never occured to me to ask Ottoman poets what they thought. But
something about the way Walter spoke about poetry lured me in and,
before I knew it, I was participating in his poetry-reading group. It was
as if Walter showed us a secret pathway into the collective mind of a
bygone society and guided us along its long and winding corridors.
With his immense knowledge he initiated us into a world of nuance
and ambivalence and patiently corrected our often-embarrassing mis-
translations. An almost incidental encounter turned into a fascinating
intellectual journey.
Over the years, I turned to Walter for advice whenever I was strug-
gling with a couplet, or uncertain about a metaphor, and these con-
sultations often turned into long conversations about poetry and
politics, past and present, about words spoken and written and muted,
or exchanged or suspended between people and peoples, words like
darkness and inspiration, beauty and love. As I was putting the final
touches to the manuscript, which has to do with all of these words,
Walter told me about his illness. I was hoping to share the final work
with him but, by the time I sent him the manuscript, it was too late. He
died two days later. I will always be grateful for the opportunity I had
to learn from such a great scholar and teacher, who was, above all, an
exceptionally kind, warm, and wise person. This book is dedicated to
his memory.

Many friends and colleagues contributed to this project in various

ways, but I am particularly indebted to my research assistants, Zeynep
Üzümçeker, Ramiz Üzümçeker, and Omar Halabi. This project bene-
fitted immensely not only from their endless commitment, prudence,
and intelligence but also from their particular disciplinary training and
language skills. Zeynep, Ramiz, and Omar came to form a research
dream team whom I could trust to locate sources and prepare them for
analysis in the most efficient way. Moreover, in some crucial points,
they suggested important insights and leads and encouraged me to
follow them. I also thank Yoav Schwarz and Sahar Mor Bostock for
their hard work during the early phases of this project. Without all of
these people, this work would have been much more difficult, and
certainly not as pleasant.
The other dream team that accompanied this project is made of my
friends and partners in the Social History Workshop: On Barak and
Liat Kozma. On and Liat read the manuscript from beginning to end
and some parts of it, more than once. They helped me think through
some of the problems of the project in countless conversations and
their ideas and comments greatly improved this work. My friend Selim
Kuru, another master of Ottoman poetry, was always there for me
when I needed guidance, and for this I am greatly indebted. I am also
grateful to Eyal Ginio, whose sensible and sensitive comments on some
of the chapters I adopted without hesitation. I would like to extend my
gratitude also to Iris Agmon, for helping to make sense of the sicil, and
to my friend Hillel Cohen, for helping me sharpen my thinking about
some of the issues discussed in the book.
This research was supported by the ISRAEL SCIENCE
FOUNDATION (grant no. 423/16), and I am thankful for this sup-
port. I was also fortunate to receive the Visiting Israeli Fellowship
which allowed me to spend a wonderful year at St. Antony’s College,
University of Oxford. I thank Aron Shai and Ronit Ackerman for their
continuous support, sensitivity, and understanding in difficult times.
I further thank the people of the Middle East Centre at St. Antony’s,
and especially its head, Eugene Rogan, for making my stay so stimu-
lating and pleasant, and for some very important suggestions. Still at
Oxford, I thank Aslı Niyazioğlu for several wonderful conversations,
and for providing insightful comments on parts of the manuscript.
I also thank John-Paul Ghobrial and the participants of his seminar
for some important feedback.

At Cambridge University Press, I thank Maria Marsh, Daniel

Brown, Atifa Jiwa, and Thomas Haynes, who made working on this
book a real pleasure. I am also indebted to Franklin Mathews Jebaraj
and especially Benjamin Johnson, for the editing. I thank Raquel
Ukeles, curator of the National Library of Israel’s Islam and Middle
East Collection, for facilitating the work on the Jerusalem Court
Records, and Roger Ekirch, for a particularly important conversation.
I owe thanks also to Ehud Toledano, Dror Ze’evi, and Avi Rubin for
their ideas and support, and to Jens Hanssen, Amnon Cohen, Nurçin
İleri, Adel Manna, Şerife Eroğlu Memiş, Mahmoud Yazbak, Ayse
Hilal Uğurlu, Yasemin Avcı, Deborah Shechter, Hay Eytan Cohen
Yanarocak, Omri Eilat, Teddy Fasberg, and Idan Barir for very helpful
suggestions and references. Special thanks to Peter Mackridge and
Feras Krimsti, who kindly shared with me their unpublished work,
and to Yener Koç, who helped to produce the drinking-hubs map.
The cover was illustrated by Itamar Liebergall and I am grateful for
his efforts.
Finally, I thank Hagit, who has to put up with me, nights and days.

Ottoman Turkish words have been transliterated according to modern

Turkish standards. In cases where the Ottoman words are no longer
used in modern Turkish, they were transliterated according to the
Redhouse Turkish/Ottoman-English Dictionary (1968). Arabic and
Hebrew words were transliterated based on the style adopted by the
International Journal of Middle East Studies. Arabic and Turkish
terms usually appear in the singular form and are italicized and
explained on the ﬁrst appearance. Whenever the plural form of such
terms is required, a romanized “s” is added to them. Extracts from
poetry and chronicles that had been transliterated by other scholars
and incorporated into the current study follow the original transliter-
ation. All translations are mine, if not otherwise indicated. Names of
places commonly known to readers of English have been written in
their usual forms (therefore, Istanbul, not İstanbul; Jerusalem, not
Yerūshalayim or al-Quds). For names of authors who wrote in
Ottoman-Turkish, Turkish transliteration was applied (hence Hasan
Hamid and not Ḥasan Ḥamı̄d). In cases where there are several
common transliterations in modern Turkish, I chose the one closest
to the Ottoman source (hence Ahmed Midhat and not Ahmet Mithat).
However, in titles of Ottoman publications that have been reprinted in
modern Turkish, the names of authors appear as transliterated by the
publisher. Inconsistency between text and references in some places is
therefore unavoidable. Names of authors who wrote in Arabic or
Hebrew were transliterated following IJMES conventions.

xii

BOA – Başbakanlık Osmanlı Arşivi

EI – Encyclopaedia of Islam
IJMES – International Journal of Middle East Studies
JS – Jerusalem Sicili
TDVİA – Türkiye Diyanet Vakfı İslam Ansiklopedisi
ÜS – Üsküdar Sicili

xiii

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| Introduction

In a world that is constantly awake, illuminated, and exposed there is

much to gain from looking into the darkness of times past.
Paradoxically, the most significant thing that studying Ottoman nights
allows us to see, is the benefits and costs of invisibility. This book
shows that the night in the eighteenth-century Ottoman Empire created
unique conditions for economic, criminal, political, devotional, and
leisurely pursuits that were hardly possible during the day. It offered
livelihood and brotherhood, pleasure and refuge; it allowed confiding,
hiding, and conspiring. It was the ability to keep out of sight that
created all these opportunities. To be “in the dark” surely involved
the insecurity of not knowing, but also the promise of not being
known, and the benefits of pretending not to know. This hide-ability,
as I argue in this book, had far-reaching consequences on Ottoman
state and society in the Early Modern period.
Counterintuitively, it was not only the socially or religiously mar-
ginal who sought to be hidden from sight. While certainly conducive to
alterity and even subversion, the night also served hegemony. Darkness
allowed easing economic, political, social, religious, and sexual pres-
sures out of sight, without openly challenging the established order. In
fact, the state benefitted directly from taxes levied on alcohol consump-
tion and prostitution. As long as what happened in the dark remained
in the dark, sellers, patrons, and state officials could all pretend it had
never happened. In other words, the night was dark enough to hide
everybody. It was a collective subconscious of sorts, a part of the self
that is, nevertheless, not in focal awareness.
Yet, this productive neglect did not turn the night into some idyllic
land of opportunity, equally open to all. For the feebler and more
physically vulnerable, the impairment of vision and its negative effect
on public security usually meant confinement, and sometimes fear and
violence. Those who went out at night were either those who had no
other choice, or those who could depend on their own stealth and

physical strength, or on the protection of others. The janissaries, the

once-celebrated soldiers of the Ottomans, best fit these criteria. They
were armed and trained in the use of arms and cultivated strong group
solidarity. Officially the arm of order, the unruly, religiously
antinomian corps turned into a major source of disorder, especially
at night. By the end of the eighteenth century, against the background
of military defeats and internal instability, reform-oriented circles
began to push for a more centralist, orthodox order. They were grow-
ing less tolerant of janissary unruliness, urban violence, and anti-
nomian Sufi currents, and by extension, of the night that allowed all
of the above to flourish almost undisturbed. Starting in the 1780s, an
undeclared war was waged under the cover of darkness between the
palace and the janissaries, culminating in the crushing of the corps by
Sultan Mahmud II in June 1826, and the subsequent oppression of the
Bektaşi Sufi order. Mahmud’s victory eliminated the forces that had
pushed back against the incursion of sultanic authority into the night
and kept it as an interval of dissent and freedom, but also of much
violence and insecurity. A new nocturnal reality soon began to take
shape under the sultan’s direct authority.
Rather than dismissing the night as a dark corridor between days,
when “real” history supposedly happened, the night is here shown to
be more like dark matter, invisible and yet fundamental in shaping
major social, cultural, and political processes in the Early Modern
Middle East.

Reconsidering Darkness, Rethinking Sleep

My sensitivity to the productivity of darkness is informed by an
already massive, and still rapidly growing, literature about the trans-
formation of the night in recent decades, and artiﬁcial lighting in
particular. Several factors have contributed to this trend, most notably,
enhanced awareness of the economic costs of outdoor illumination, the
immense amounts of carbon emission it involves, and its negative
impact on humans and nonhumans alike. Scientists working in various
academic ﬁelds are investigating the effect of “light pollution” on
public health, on the well-being of city dwellers, on local ecosystems,
and on stellar visibility. Governmental and nongovernmental organiza-
tions are working to educate the public and promote stricter regulation
of outdoor illumination.1 Darkness, which for generations has been

associated with danger and evil, and therefore as a sphere to be

conquered and subdued, reemerges as an important interval that needs
to be preserved.2 It now appears that a brighter future for humanity
may, in fact, be a darker one.3
Critical approaches to over-lighting contribute to a renewed interest
in the history, sociology, geography, and anthropology of the night.
Research conducted thus far has enhanced our understanding of the
emergence of the modern night from the seventeenth century onward,
and yet most of it is almost exclusively limited to various parts of
Europe and North America.4 Far less is known about the realities,
perceptions, and experiences of night in other parts of the world.
Within the ﬁeld of Middle East studies, there is almost no research
on night-related issues and the little that has been published focuses
almost exclusively on the late nineteenth and early twentieth centur-
ies.5 Consequently, a whole range of human activity remains
unknown. The poverty of research on the nocturnal in the Middle
East also leaves the European and North American experience as an
archetype, a model against which other areas are measured.
Ottoman nights share some of the traits of medieval and Early
Modern European nights and yet, their particularities are equally
important. While the history of the night in major European cities is
often narrated along an axis of expanding street lighting, the streets of
Ottoman cities remained bleak throughout the eighteenth century.6
The Ottoman case thus offers an interesting laboratory in which to
test how darkness featured in, and interacted with, processes typical of
early modernity, from urbanization to the expansion of the govern-
mental apparatus. Placed against the background of these processes, the
study seeks to reconstruct particular experiences of the night, unique
traditions of nightlife, and culture-dependent arrangements and repre-
sentations of darkness and light. Such an examination may contribute
to current discussions about the hyper-illuminated night and its costs
by allowing access to a very different nocturnal reality and enabling us
to imagine alternatives.
A second discussion, to which I hope to contribute, is the study of
sleep in past and present societies, which is again closely related to the
rapid changes in contemporary nocturnal realities. New technologies
including, most notably, portable computers and the internet, allowed
carrying work home, thus blurring boundaries between the “work-
day,” and the dark hours that had been mostly reserved for repose,

family, devotion, and leisure. New modes of online entertainment and

consumption further exacerbated pressures on sleeping time in many
post-industrialized societies. This is only the most recent link in a much
longer process of extending both work and leisure at the expense of
sleep, a process greatly intensified by the industrialization of lighting,
followed by around-the-clock businesses, and radio and television
broadcasts.7
In his 2013 book about the “24/7 society,” Jonathan Crary warned
that sleep is the last barrier protecting us from being fully absorbed
into a new configuration of non-stop capitalism that threatens to
reduce us into full-time producers and consumers.8 As if to prove
Crary right, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings stated a few years later that
his company’s competition was not HBO nor Amazon: “We are com-
peting with sleep, on the margin. And so, it’s a very large pool of
time.”9
The rapid changes in sleep patterns are prompting a flurry of new
research into the world of slumber in the field of Humanities and Social
Sciences. Most relevant for the current discussion, a growing literature
shows how sleep patterns vary over time, across geographies and
between social groups, affected by social class, gender, seasonality,
technology, modes of nocturnal entertainment, and many additional
variables.10 While the need for sleep is biological, everything about it,
from sleeping time to sleeping spaces and arrangements, is historically
specific and socially constructed.
Historicizing sleep in the Middle East may contribute not only to our
understanding of this crucial aspect of life in the region but also to
wider contemporary discussions. While our bedrooms are indeed being
invaded, we should be careful not to contrast dystopic accounts of a
sleepless future with naive portrayals of the supposedly peaceful slum-
ber of times past. Any conversation about the future of repose must
consider its history, fraught as it was with inequalities. In this regard,
this book follows in the footsteps of Roger Ekirch who has shown that
in Early Modern England and its American colonies, various sleep
disturbances deprived people – and commoners, in particular – of
much-needed repose, possibly leading to widespread exhaustion and
related health risks.11 While joining Ekirch on this point, I found little
evidence in Ottoman sources of Ekirch’s other major contribution,
namely, the slumber pattern he dubbed “segmented sleep.”
According to Ekrich’s hugely influential studies, in preindustrial

Europe, sleep was broken into two intervals that were known in most
European languages as “first sleep” and “second sleep.” Preindustrial
families typically went to bed around 9 or 10 p.m., and then woke up
around midnight and spent the next hour or two in a kind of quiet
wakefulness, performing choirs, reading, praying, conversing, having
sex, or meditating. They then went back to sleep for another few
hours, until daybreak. This discovery has far-reaching consequences
on our understanding of “normal” or “natural” sleep. Ekirch, and
later Sasha Handley, both pointed out that while biphasic sleep was
common, sleeping times varied considerably depending on multiple
personal, seasonal, material, and religious factors.12 This book further
complicates the picture. In the Ottoman Empire, so it seems based on
the evidence at hand, biphasic sleep was not common. Monophasic,
consolidated sleep which, in the European context, has been associ-
ated with the industrial revolution and the growing availability of
artificial light, seems to have been common in the Middle East
for centuries.
My final wider intervention concerns discussions of “ocularcentrism,”
that is, the perceptual and conceptual privileging of vision over the other
senses which is said to be typical of western cultures. For more than a
century, scholars in various fields worked to demonstrate that the
seemingly biological hierarchy of the senses is largely a cultural con-
struct that is supposedly typical of “the West.”13 The general impair-
ment of vision of the pre-modern night allows testing these claims.
Under these conditions, it is shown, confidence, security, and trust are
significantly undermined. The analysis offered here certainly does not
doubt that the human sensorium is heavily mediated by culture; it does
provide further proof, however, that the hierarchy of the senses is not
entirely constructed by culture and is not only typical of the post-
Enlightenment West.14 In the eighteenth-century Ottoman Empire – a
“pre-modern,” “non-western” society – people wanted to know with
their eyes. When it came to establishing order and truth in the dark, they
relied – first and foremost – on light and sight.

Dark Ecologies
To reconstruct a thoroughly dark cityscape is to place urban society in
its nonhuman environment. In the last few years, the environmental
history of the Middle East seems to be ﬁnally taking off, signiﬁcantly

changing our understanding of processes we thought we had under-

stood.15 Yet, while some attention was paid to seasonal variation and
its impact on humans and nonhumans, the daily cycle of light and
darkness has attracted very little attention.
Things are not significantly different in the scholarship in other
areas. Extant histories of the modern night have demonstrated amply
that the night is not merely a “darker version of the day,” to quote
Joakim Schlör.16 Nighttime activity does not merely continue uninter-
rupted into the dark hours. Rather, the night changes this interaction in
fundamental ways. This literature, therefore, laid great emphasis on
the particularities of after-dark life, from crime and law enforcement,
through sociability, sexual adventures, intoxication, and on to political
subversion. Yet, this scholarship generally assumes that, while noctur-
nal life is culture-dependent, the night itself is a constant. In other
words, outside the realm of socially constructed nocturnal reality, there
lies a natural phenomenon that looks and feels pretty much the same
around the year and all over the world.17
This is, at least partly, the result of the process that concerns many of
these very histories, namely the development and spread of industrial
lighting (and heating) that made such conceptual separation between
human society and “nature” appear real. Illuminated and heated, the
modern night is seemingly detached from the fluctuations of “nature.”
The second reason why this assumption held for a long time is that
almost all extant histories of the night focus on Europe and North
America, where street lighting began to spread relatively early, and
where the most comprehensive lighting projects were put in place in the
nineteenth century. To this day, these are the most illuminated areas of
the Earth.18
As already noted, the history of the night in eighteenth-century
Ottoman cities is not a history of gradual illumination, but rather,
one in which darkness still reigns supreme. Ironically, this dark city-
scape lays bare the material and environmental entanglements that are
specific to the night. But since, unsurprisingly, entanglements are hard
to untangle, it may be useful to distinguish between different “types”
or layers that are usually subsumed undifferentiated under “night.”
The prominent geographer and intellectual Katip Çelebi (1609–1657)
does exactly that. He differentiates between the “natural night” (leyl
tabı̄ʿı̄) stretching from sunset to sunrise, and the Sharʿi night, which
_
begins at the same time but ends already at dawn.19

In much the same way, I will make a distinction between “astronom-

ical night,” “biological night,” and “social night.” The three categories
are interrelated but not overlapping. The astronomical night is the
period between astronomical dusk and astronomical dawn. Its length
varies with the seasons, affecting a range of physical phenomena
including temperature, humidity, stellar visibility, tides, wind regime,
and more. The biological night is defined as the time when the
circadian clock promotes sleep, which, among humans, roughly cor-
responds to the astronomical night.20 Yet, there is considerable vari-
ation between individuals in what regards the relation between
darkness-light cycles and sleep-wakefulness cycles, depending on
factors such as genes, age, and sex.21
The relation between the astronomical and the biological night is
further complicated by what we may call the social night, here defined
as the aggregate of technologies, practices, and norms that organize
human life during the dark hours in any given society. We may say that
the social night is affected by both the astronomical and biological
night and, in turn, affects the latter. Cheap artificial lighting, for
example, allowed extending the social day at the expense of the social
night. Throughout the nineteenth century and much of the twentieth
century, it was considered one more front in civilization’s struggle to
conquer nature. However, we now know that this apparent severing of
the social night from the biological night has taken its toll. It is well-
established that mistimed sleep, as result of night work, jet lag,
extended leisure activity, and exposure to artificial light, disrupts cir-
cadian rhythms and increase the risk of disease. It has recently been
suggested that desynchrony of sleep/wake times upsets key regulators
of gene expression and may be responsible for a wider range of health
problems than hitherto considered.22
This study is focused squarely on the social night. My aim here is not
to offer an environmental, or posthumanist history of the night, but
rather to place a still anthropocentric history within a wider nocturnal
ecology.23 This ecology varies between seasons and locations and is
affected by climate, currents, tides, flora, and fauna. For example,
currents and water temperature affect reproduction and movement
patterns of fish and humans moving through, or depending upon, these
waters for livelihood. As night fell, Early Modern Istanbul’s fishermen
would take to the sea, seeking particular fish depending on the seasons,
aligning themselves with the tides and currents (see Chapter 1).

Rodents too, were waking up, leaving their nests, and moving closer to
humans. Mosquitoes and fleas now became more active, upsetting the
sleep of their human hosts, and sometimes infecting them with disease,
just when they were laying immobile, unable to defend themselves (see
Chapter 1). In short, humans shared their beds, or rather matrasses,
with nonhumans. If they needed to use light, that too was grounded in
particular geographies, flora, and fauna. For example, in northern
Europe and North America it was mostly tallow and especially
whale oil that served those who could afford to use light at night
(especially from the seventeenth century onward). In the
Mediterranean, too hot for whales and too far from whalers’ ports, it
was mostly vegetable oils, tallow, and beeswax that served as lighting
materials (see Chapter 5).
The concurrent examination through social, material, and – to some
extent – environmental prisms helps us think beyond “conceptual”
light and darkness, which are usually perceived as two universal,
absolute entities that are mutually exclusive and diametrically
opposed. That is exactly what makes “light and darkness” one of the
most effective metaphors for contradiction and conflict, a metaphor
that was also commonly used by the historical subjects of this study.
Yet, as a lived experience, light and darkness are relative, context-
dependent, and interrelated or “mixed” to various degrees. Any light
source at night is limited and surrounded by darkness and, moreover,
creates its own shadows. Any darkness is relative and affected by
whatever light sources are available, whether the moon and stars or
various forms of artificial light.24
That is why we should not think of night as synonymous with some
primordial absolute darkness, nor think of artificial light in separation
from the surrounding darkness. This has very real historical conse-
quences. When I say that monarchs used great amounts of light (that is,
fire) to “turn night into day,” we must not forget that this whole
endeavor was only possible, and indeed meaningful, against the foil
of darkness. When I say that the janissaries used darkness in different
ways, what I mean is that they used a degree of darkness that allowed
them more leeway, without completely hindering their orientation.
They too, needed some form of light. In short, we must not be held
prisoners by our tendency – and that of our historical subjects – to
think of light and darkness only in theoretical terms, as opposing and
mutually exclusive entities. Most often, what humans experience, and

indeed seek, is not maximum light or complete darkness but, rather, a

controllable level of visibility and hide-ability, one that would suit
their needs.

Framing and Chapter Outline

This study is predominantly focused on the imperial capital and yet,
wherever the sources allow, I refer also to the nocturnal realities of the
religiously central, but otherwise marginal, town of Jerusalem. The
former represents a predominantly Turkish-speaking metropolis that
served as a major port city, whereas the other was a small district
capital in the interior of one of the Arab provinces. Jerusalem, in other
words, is substantially different from Istanbul in terms of size, popula-
tion makeup, dominant language[s], proximity to the sea (and hence
interaction with the outside), and being completely (rather than partly)
walled. The two cities, therefore, mark two extremities of a wide
spectrum of nocturnal realities that coexisted in the late Ottoman
Empire and examining them together allows a wider understanding
of the topic than a focus on any one location would permit. While both
cities are discussed, Jerusalem remains peripheral to the study, a reﬂec-
tion of its place in the imperial order but, even more importantly, of the
much smaller body of relevant sources it produced. Therefore, while in
some chapters (mostly Chapters 1, 4, and 5) a look from Jerusalem
provides important insight, in other chapters, references to
Jerusalemite realities are almost entirely absent.
In terms of period, the study covers a “long eighteenth century”
beginning with the return of the imperial court from Edirne to Istanbul,
following the rebellion known as the “Edirne Event” in 1703, and the
efforts of the ruling elite to reassert its power in the city through
monumental construction, processions, and festivals.25 In this context,
the nights became a means to demonstrate power, especially through
extravagant displays of light. The same rebellion reverberated in
Jerusalem, as local actors seized the opportunity to rise against their
imperial lord in what came to be known as the Naqı̄b al-Ashrāf
Mutiny (1703–1705). The period that followed the crushing of the
revolt was marked by a new balance of power between local and
imperial forces, between competing elite families in Jerusalem, and
between the Muslim population and the religious minorities.26 Such
power dynamics, in which central power was kept at check by other

actors from within the imperial and local elites, characterized the entire
long eighteenth century. The study ends when this dynamic changed
rather dramatically in the 1820s, following, in order, the outbreak of
the Greek revolt, the crushing of the janissaries in Istanbul, and the
occupation of Jerusalem by Mehmed Ali Paşa, the ambitious governor
of Egypt. These events fundamentally disrupted power relations and
ushered in significant economic, administrative, and political changes
in both cities.27 In both cities, these transformations gradually altered
nocturnal realities.
This book is divided into two main parts: the first, comprising
Chapters 1–5, explores various aspects of everynight life in a somewhat
“sociological” manner. The discussion is concerned with the systems,
norms, hierarchies, and relations that organized the urban night and less
with processes of change these structures underwent during the period
under discussion. In many of these aspects, little change was observable
between the early eighteenth century and the early nineteenth century.
For example, the economy, ecology, and technology of lighting did not
exhibit dramatic breaks. The political use of light, by contrast, witnessed
significant changes, as did other aspects of the urban night. Part II is
devoted to some of these changes, in particular to the political processes
that affected nocturnal realities and the role the night played in these
same processes. It narrates the intensifying use of the night for various
purposes by both the palace and dissenting elements, most notably the
janissaries and janissary auxiliaries.
Chapter 1, “Disquieting,” seeks to capture the experience of the
night through a much-altered sensorium, one which relied on hearing
to compensate for impaired eyesight. My main argument is that the deep
darkness that reigned through the city undermined people’s sense of
control, thus aggravating fears of very real nocturnal dangers. The
second part of the chapter focuses on the domicile – the fundamental
function of which is to counter this insecurity – to offer shelter in which
one can close one’s eyes. The discussion accompanies people as they
were readying themselves to sleep and shows that even at home, fears
and real dangers could shake people’s security and disturb their sleep.
But, while nocturnal threats, fears, and nuisances seem universal, their
effect was highly differential since it depended on the means one could
use to cope with them. My second argument is, therefore, that the night
did not emancipate people from the social hierarchies and material
conditions of their days. They remained unequal even in their sleep.

Chapter 2, “Order Invisible,” takes the discussion outside. It explores

the infrastructures of actual and conceptual order after dark and the
means employed to maintain it despite the impairment of vision.
Seeking to limit potentially invisible, incontrollable activity, official
decrees, neighborhood communities, guilds, and moralists together
created a powerful discourse that stigmatized the night, and a set of
regulations aimed to impose visibility on those who nevertheless ven-
tured out after dark. Especially in times of turmoil, the authorities
complemented communal mechanisms and stigmatization by means
of harsh punitive measures that were designed to deter people from
using the night as cover for illegal activities. By projecting fear, sultans
sought to compensate somewhat for their actually rather precarious
control over the dark city.
Chapter 3, “The Urban Subconscious,” ventures deeper into the
dark, beyond formal mechanisms and concepts of order. The chapter
sketches the scope and makeup of a huge and yet semi-clandestine
nightlife scene, then explains its resilience, despite the various mechan-
isms put in place to limit it. Put briefly, the night attracted, first and
foremost, economically underprivileged and socially marginal groups
whose numbers were growing rapidly during the period under discus-
sion. It offered them livelihood and leisure options that were hardly
available during the day. Yet, it was not only the “mischievous,”
marginalized populations who took cover in the dark. For “respect-
able” residents, and the authorities too, the night had its advantages.
Darkness, indeed, had a blinding effect, but it also allowed turning a
blind eye. Whereas infringements in broad daylight were a direct
challenge to the established order, it was often comfortable for all
parties to pretend that alcohol, gambling, and prostitution simply did
not exist. Throughout the long eighteenth century – and with few
exceptions – Istanbul’s huge nightlife scene was allowed to flourish as
long as it remained out of sight and did not openly conflict with
diurnal order.
Chapter 4, “Ambivalence and Ambiguity,” continues the journey
away from the official, the orthodox, and the respectable. If, in the
previous chapters, I discuss Ottoman nocturnal life mainly from the
perspective of the established order, which sought to limit it and keep it
out of sight, in this chapter I propose to understand some of the
traditions of nocturnal devotion and leisure in the terms of those
who partook in them. Approached in this way, the night no longer

appears as a mere dark closet in which to hide while drinking, but

rather as the ideal setting for cultivating intimacy and love, carnal,
platonic, and divine. In fact, hiding in the night and celebrating were
intimately connected. “Enlightened” in their own eyes, those engaged
in nocturnal devotion and leisure distinguished themselves from the
slumbering masses, which helped to create a sense of spiritual elitism
or, at the very least, to consolidate a sense of group solidarity.
While darkness was a fundamental experience that was shared, to
some extent, by all, Chapter 5, “Manufacturing Light,” demonstrates
that darkness too was differentially diffused. The chapter sketches
the contours of a centrally regulated network that procured lighting
materials from the provinces, channeled them to Istanbul and other
crucial points in the imperial power grid, and set lighting priorities.
This system served the needs of both the ruling elite and the general
population, as lighting was considered a basic commodity. Yet, the
power differentials and political considerations that shaped this
“Ottoman lighting system” made access to light extremely unequal.
Chapter 6, “Shining Power,” shows how Ottoman sultans, and
especially Sultan Ahmed III (1703–1730), drew on this inequality to
assert themselves. The chapter shows that darkness was not only a
challenge to the ruling elite but also an opportunity to showcase
power, hierarchy, and intimacy which, in itself, was a proxy of hier-
archy in palace circles. By associating themselves with real and meta-
phoric light at night, Ottoman rulers in the long eighteenth century
sought to project their power and legitimate it in the eyes of their
subjects and rivals.
If Chapter 6 shows how Ahmed III used light at night to project
imperial power, the ﬁnal chapter, “Night Battles,” shows how the
janissaries used darkness to undermine it. Starting with the Patrona
Halil uprising in 1730, the chapter underlines the importance of night-
time for the enactment of the janissaries’ “protocols of rebellion.”
Once activated, the janissaries’ networks would organize quickly
under the cover of darkness and march out of the shadows to confront
the sultan in broad daylight. Ottoman sultans, on their part, occasion-
ally tried to dislodge these networks, signiﬁcantly in this context, by
eradicating the nightlife scene. Throughout this period, the struggle
was waged not only in the streets but also on the discursive level.
Starting already following the 1730 rebellion, elite writers began asso-
ciating the janissaries, the religiously antinomian, and the urban

underclass with darkness. This rhetoric would gradually gain traction

in court circles, as the tension between the palace and the janissaries
increased toward the end of the century. The destruction of the janis-
saries and the oppression of the related Bektaşi order would be
described as a triumph of sultanic light, upholding and supported by
Sunni Islam, over the heretic forces of darkness and chaos.

Sources
This work relies on a wide range of sources, including governmental
correspondence, palace-produced celebration albums (sing. surname),
logs of daily affairs (sing. rüzname) and other manuscripts, chronicles
of various kinds, poetry collections, popular jokes and anecdotes,
medical texts, prophetic traditions, and travel accounts written by both
foreigners and Ottoman subjects, Muslims, Christians and Jews. It is
only by relying on such a wide and diversified corpus that one is able to
access a topic that is only rarely addressed intentionally and explicitly
in any of the texts in the corpus. Yet, there is a price to pay. Each of the
sources presents its own complexities, its own challenges, and those
cannot all be equally and sufficiently addressed. I did try, of course, to
contextualize and explain my use of the more important evidence in the
relevant places throughout the text.
One of the most significant sources for this study was court records
(sicil) from the quarter of Üsküdar in Istanbul and from Jerusalem.
I used four volumes from the Jerusalem court (from the 1740s and
1750s), and eight volumes from the Üsküdar court (ranging from the
1740s to the 1760s).28 This period was selected since, in both cities,
these decades represented a relatively calm interlude between the
upheavals of the 1730s and the gradual deterioration of public order
(in Istanbul) following the disastrous war against Russia (1768–1774).
All cases from both Üsküdar and Jerusalem were analyzed qualita-
tively, and the Üsküdar cohort was also analyzed quantitively. The
cases gleaned from the Jerusalem court records, 38 in total, formed too
small a sample for such an analysis.29 While the approach I adopted in
the qualitative analysis is explained in the first chapters of the book,
I chose to leave the explanation of the quantitative analysis to the
appendix, assuming that many readers would deem it irrelevant
and/or tedious. In a nutshell, the sample used for the quantitative
analysis includes 146 cases of nocturnal crimes and conflicts gleaned

from those eight sicil volumes, which forms 3.9 percent of the total
number of cases in these volumes (3,663). When compared to pub-
lished quantitative analyses of Ottoman court registers, this dataset
is admittedly small, yet it does not stand alone. Rather, it is used to
test some of the insights generated by the analysis of the other sources
in a more systematic fashion. Taken together, this body of sources
allows reconstructing nocturnal realities that were radically different
than ours.

Nocturnal Realities

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1
| Disquieting

Around midnight, a scream pierced the silence that hung over the
neighborhood of the Jews in Jerusalem. At least one neighbor heard
it, but nobody saw anything. The next morning, a woman named
Sarah was found dead in the street, lying face down in the entrance
to the house she rented. The judge-administrator (kadı) appointed
several officials to investigate, among them two of the leaders of the
Jewish community and the city’s head surgeon (jarrah başı). Upon
examining the body, the surgeon found that Sarah had been stabbed
in the head and in the elbow. The neighbor who testified she had heard
the scream claimed she did not know “who did it.” She told the court
that the house door was open, although it is not clear from the record if
she had noticed it at the time of the incident or only after the fact. The
court register provides no further information.1
Sarah’s death is, quite literally, shrouded in darkness. The only sure
sign that signaled in real time that something out of the ordinary was
happening, was the screaming that – given the late hour – probably
woke up the neighbor. We can only imagine her, lying on her mattress,
trying hard to listen to the voices in the dark, her heart pounding. She
may have even gotten up to the window, peeking carefully outside, but
could see nothing but darkness.
Hearing without seeing, or without seeing well, was one of the
defining experiences of the preindustrial night. This chapter seeks to
capture something of this experience. It follows darkness as it fell, from
sunset to bedtime, beginning with an attempt to “listen around,” or to
reconstruct the aural texture of the night. While hearing was much
more important than during the day for information and orientation, it
could not compensate for the loss of vision. The main argument in
these first sections is that the deep darkness of the Early Modern city
undermined people’s sense of control, aggravating fears of very real
nocturnal dangers. The second part of the chapter focuses on the
domicile, the fundamental function of which is to counter this

insecurity, to offer shelter in which one can close one’s eyes. Discussion
accompanies people as they were readying themselves to sleep and
shows that even at home, fears and real dangers could shake people’s
security and disturb their peace. But while nocturnal threats, fears, and
nuisances seem universal, their effect was highly differential, since it
depended on the means one could use to cope with them. My second
argument is therefore that sleep did not necessarily emancipate people
from diurnal social hierarchies and material conditions. They remained
unequal even in their beds.

Twilight
Many of us today have only a vague idea about the time of sunset.
Born into constantly illuminated environments, we often cross this
once-important threshold without even noticing it. In the Ottoman
world, such trespassing would have been impossible. The end of the
day was visible, audible, and clearly felt in all aspects of life. The time
of sunset coincided with the call for the evening prayer, which marked
the opening of a new calendric day, a new round of prayers, and a new
cycle of clock hours, commonly reckoned from sunset to sunset.2
These formulas for marking and keeping time corresponded to lived
routines and the daily cycle of social life. Walled cities throughout the
empire closed their gates at sunset, segregating urban communities
from their rural hinterland. The gates of roofed bazaars, quarters,
neighborhood courtyards, religious colleges, and bachelor inns were
also closed at the same time, breaking the urban fabric into a series of
almost isolated cells.3 The city was further segregated along gender and
age lines. While men would often remain in coffeehouses and taverns,
women and children had to be home by now.4 Whether this interval
belonged to the social day or night was not always clear. At times,
people called it “evening” (akşam), as distinct from both the day (ruz;
nehar; gün) and the night (gece, şeb, leyl); in other times, people could
say things like “at night, following the evening prayer.”5 Jurists too
recognized the liminal nature of this time and distinguished it from
both day and night, because although it was increasingly dark, there
were still people in the streets.6
Sunset also effected an important sensorial shift, rendering eyes
increasingly less effective as darkness deepened. The other senses,
and hearing in particular, now became much more sensitive.7 This

sensorial shift was accompanied by a signiﬁcant change in the city’s

aural texture. The soundscape of preindustrial cities was mostly made
up of sounds produced by humans and animals, and tools operated
with their muscles (or in some places, using water and wind power).
The rapid urbanization of the Early Modern period ampliﬁed and
multiplied this soundscape, but the range of possible sounds remained
virtually the same.8 Based on contemporary accounts, we can easily
imagine the calls of peddlers announcing their merchandise, the
howling of porters, the pounding of blacksmiths’ hammers, the soft
thrashing of hoofs on unpaved roads, the bleat of sheep lead to the
slaughterhouses, and the humming of bubbling water pipes and
random conversations rising from countless coffeehouses.9 The call
for the evening prayer, cried more or less simultaneously from dozens
of minarets, would hover over and above this soundscape, anticipating
the end of the social day.10
In the absence of cheap illumination and without fossil fuels–based
technologies to keep it going, urban life slowly calmed down.11 One
could actually hear twilight. Markets were already closed and trafﬁc
receded. Animals gradually dozed off. In residential areas, mothers
could now be heard singing their little children to sleep.12 The adults
would remain awake for a little longer. The call for the night prayer
(Tur. yatsı, Ara. ʿishāʾ) was the ending chord of the day, marking the
boundary of this liminal phase. The call for prayer would be sounded
between an hour a half and two hours after sunset, which translates
into about 7:15 p.m. in Istanbul at the height of winter, and 10:40 p.m.
on the longest day of the year. This meant that not only darkness but
the various arrangements put in place to deal with it varied with the
season. Lights in most mosques would now be extinguished13 and the
pious would make their way home. Guards would go on their beats in
the desolate streets, knocking their clubs against the ground as they
went. In cities throughout the empire, anybody with business outside
now had to carry a lantern.14 The night has begun.
Very few people remained outside after this time.15 Narrative
sources are here supported by records from the Üsküdar court. Out
of 146 nighttime cases examined, 59 cases provide information about
the time of night the incident occurred (the others simply state “at
night”). Out of these, 49 incidents (83 percent) took place at what
would today be considered evening, that is, between the evening prayer
and the night prayer, or soon thereafter. Only 10 cases (16.9 percent)

use terms such as “midnight,” or specify an hour that falls later than
two hours after sunset. At least in residential areas such as Üsküdar,
then, people and their disputes turned in early by modern standards.
Even the crimes and conﬂicts that did occur after sunset, which are
by their very nature an upsetting of nocturnal routines, mostly took
place indoors. Out of 142 cases for which such information is pro-
vided, 96 (67.6 percent) took place in or just outside private
domiciles. Only 46 cases (32.4 percent) occurred in the street or in
public spaces such as coffeehouses, squares, or markets. By way of
comparison, out of 64 violent cases from the same court in roughly
the same period examined by Işık Tamdoğan-Abel, 33 (51.5 percent)
took place outside, and an additional 15 incidents (23.4 percent)
occurred in public or commercial spaces. Only 13 incidents (20.3
percent) took place in private homes.16 The data concerning the
incidents’ location is yet another indication that there was little going
on in the streets in residential areas after sunset, and especially after
the night prayer.

The Soundscape of Darkness

It is hard for us, who live in the age of hyper-illumination, to imagine
the degree of darkness in Early Modern Ottoman cities. A case brought
to the Jerusalem court may give an idea. On November 10, 1719, a
Jewish woman identiﬁed in the record as ʾEstı̄r (Heb. ʾEster) accused a
certain Sheikh Muhammad of entering her room before dawn as she
_
was sleeping and snatching her scarf along with the silver band (zināq
al-t āqiya) that fastened it to her head. Ester woke up and managed to
_
wrestle back the jewel, but the accused ran away with her scarf. She
now wanted her scarf back. The defendant denied involvement and the
judge asked the plaintiff for proof. Ester replied that because it was
dark, her room’s lamp (sirāj baytihā) was extinguished, and since
nobody else was present, she did not have proof. The defendant was
therefore acquitted.17 Although Ester’s robber was within arm’s reach,
darkness was so deep she could not positively identify him. At least one
more case brought before the court in Jerusalem includes a testimony
of a woman who claimed she could not identify individuals with whom
she had talked one night because of darkness.18 In other cases of
unnatural deaths at night, relatives of the victims explained their
inability to see what had happened simply by saying that “it happened

at night,” or that they were asleep and only heard a noise without
actually seeing anything.19
The difficulties involved in using Ottoman court records as a source
are discussed in Chapter 2. At this point, it is enough to note that even
if we accept that in none of these cases can we know for sure what had
actually happened, it is significant that darkness was considered a
reasonable explanation for one’s inability to see, even at a very
close range. Darkness was, therefore, enough to explain one’s
partial knowledge even about events he or she claimed to have
experienced firsthand.
Seeing outside one’s window was next to impossible especially given
that while interiors could be illuminated, however dimly, the streets
were completely bleak, at least on moonless nights and when clouds
obstructed starlight.20 This darkness, and the silence that accompanied
it, drew the attention of contemporary European travelers. Since the
late seventeenth century, more and more European cities were being
illuminated, which helped to stretch social and economic life into the
physical night. An English travel handbook published in 1840 prepared
its readers for the distinctly different night of the Ottoman capital:
“Constantinople and an [sic.] European city is still more strongly
marked at night. By ten o’clock every human voice is hushed.”21 The
Irish aristocrat James Caulfield (1728–1799), who visited Istanbul in
the late 1740s, describes the “pitchy darkness of the night, here unal-
layed even by the twinkling of a single lamp, and the dead silence
which now reigned through this populous and lately busy town.”22
Other European travelers provided similar accounts of both Istanbul
and Jerusalem.23
While reading such descriptions, we must keep in mind that there
remains a gap between the immediate sensorial experience of our
historical subjects and their narration of their experience. The narra-
tion is always done after the fact, based on memory, and therefore
susceptible to its trickeries. Moreover, texts are always shaped by
ideological convictions, literary conventions, and intended audiences,
among other things. Sensorial experience as described in those texts is
therefore heavily mediated, not only in real time but also in retrospect.
But it is true the other way around as well. Sensorial experience is
always mediated by texts and other cultural scripts.24 It is in fact
doubtful whether a distinction between the physical and the cultural
is even possible. As David Howes writes, sensing involves both

“sensation and signiﬁcation.”25 There is no such thing as sensing

outside a particular historical context. When reading such narrations
of sensorial experiences, then, we need to bear in mind the “cultural
scripts” that guided our narrators, and most importantly, their pro-
clivity to contrast light and darkness as yet another manifestation of
the supposedly essential difference between “Christiandom” and
“Islamdom,” or West and East.
There was certainly a difference between European and Ottoman
cities, but the contrast may have been exaggerated. While some
European travelers saw nothing but darkness and heard nothing but
silence, others were more perceptible. The din of the city definitely
faded as night fell, but it did not die out. In his description of a night
out on the Princess Islands in the Marmara Sea, just outside Istanbul,
the English writer John B. Harwood (1828–1899) noticed the roaring
of the wind and the muttering conversations of fishermen sitting by the
fire on the seashore, the “swirling and murmuring of the water,” and a
dog howling.26 Back in the city, it was not just one dog. According to
one listener, the infamous street dogs of Istanbul produced “uninter-
rupted noise at night.”27 Quieter, but still easily heard, were the
footsteps of the guards and the beating of their clubs on the ground.28
In short, while certainly much quieter than the day, darkness had its
own sounds. The effect of nighttime on its soundscape is somewhat
similar to the effect of darkness on the landscape: Since the nocturnal
aural environment was significantly less complex than that of the day,
the few sounds that were heard could be detected and isolated much
more easily.29 Harwood made exactly that point: “In the stillness of
the night,” he noted, “every noise, however slight, could be distinctly
heard.”30 It is this distinguishability of sounds at a time when most
people were sleeping or trying to sleep that turned them into a potential
disturbance, despite the fact that sound levels were now much lower
than during the day.

Stop that Noise!

Among the sounds noted by Harwood, was “the merry song and the
music of the tinkling guitar which told that some band of cheerful
mariners passed at the moment in their tiny shallop.”31 This sound too
was not unusual, but rather a part of the nocturnal soundscape during
spring and summer. Istanbul boasted an elaborate culture of moonlit

pleasure cruises that interacted in particular ways with the darkness

and quiet all around.32 Yet, what was for one the pleasant sound of
“merry song and music” could ruin the sleep of another.
On the night of September 8, 1790, another group of mariners,
European in this case, went for a similar joyride on the Bosporus.
The only problem that night was that the sailors were too loud and
too close to the imperial palace, where Sultan Selim III (1789–1807)
was trying to sleep. The next day, the irritated monarch issued an order
to one of his highest-ranking ofﬁcials, saying that

Last night, toward the morning, Frenk sailors went with a boat back
and forth several times in front of the palace while singing songs [türkü
çağırarak]. Order the Chief Scribe to warn all ambassadors and
Europeans never to perform this shameless act [again]. I will merci-
lessly kill who ever does it [bila aman katlederim] . . . Let him [the
Chief Scribe] issue a stern warning.33

We can quite easily imagine the sailors cruising down the Bosporus,
probably drinking more than just a little and singing their heads off.
We can just as easily imagine the sultan raging in his bedchamber. He
was not used to noise. Since Mehmed II (r. 1451–1481), the inner
courts of the Topkapı Palace were enveloped in solemn silence, which
was strictly enforced by the palace guards. As Nina Ergin notes, this
near-complete silence was not merely a demonstration of the power of
the ruler, as manifested in his ability to mute the great number of
servants, ofﬁcials, and guards present at the inner courts; it served as
“background foil,” which helped to distinguish the ruler from the
mundane, much like an open space around an important monument.34
Until the end of the sixteenth century, the palace even employed
mutes, dozens of them, to maintain the quiet around the person of the
sultan. The use of sign language in the presence of the sultan remained
the norm long after the mutes had been ousted from the palace.35 In
short, court protocols secluded the sultan within a silent bubble. The
sailors’ singing pierced that bubble, and at night too, when the sultan
could do nothing about it.
What turns sound into noise, several studies have suggested, is
tightly bound with social hierarchies and social control.36 In the cases
cited above, the differences between the sources of sound (or noise)
seem to have been less important than the difference between the
listeners. For one, Harwood was sitting quietly and musing about the

sounds he was hearing. The sultan was most probably trying to sleep.
Even more important was the gap in their power and claim to control.
Aimée Boutin notes that sounds are experienced as noise, that is, as a
disturbance, when they lack harmony or order and when they are
uncontrollable. She cites in this context Jacque Atali who contrasted
music, which with its harmony represents social order, with noise,
which by virtue of its disturbing of order connotes violence.37 But here
we have music as noise. It is noise because it disturbs the sultan, and
because – and this is the most important point – he cannot control it.
Indeed, this is probably the final difference between Harwood and
Sultan Selim: The former is but a tourist in the city; the latter, its ruler.
Yet, the sultan simply cannot make it go away. For him, the singing
coming through the window is a most irritating reminder of the limits
of his control.
Indeed, the sultan’s helplessness is probably the most striking elem-
ent in his directive. Although it was formulated to impress its address-
ees with the wrath of an omnipotent monarch who can kill when he so
desires, it was dispatched only after the event was over and the sultan’s
sleep ruined. More than the warning testifies to the power of the sultan,
then, it exposes the limitations the night posed to his power. In the
heavy darkness that hung over the Bosporus, even the sultan could not
locate those loud sailors and stop their singing. After all, he too relied
on the senses of his men, and even the sultan’s men, who had easier
access to artificial lighting, were not free from the universal constraints
posed by darkness.38
Although the sensorium is heavily mediated by culture, human
dependency on vision does have a biological basis. As Martin Jay has
pointed out in this context, the optic nerve has 18 times more nerve
ends than the cochlear nerve and is able to transmit tremendous
amounts of information with an assimilation rate that far suppresses
all other senses. The range of human vision too is much greater than
the senses of hearing or smell.39 Depriving humans of vision denies
them much of their sense of control.
Control, notes Steven Connor, is premised on the ability to gain a
picture of space that is “manipulable, permanent and homogeneous,”
and to be able to position within it different bodies. This facilitates
anticipation, planning, and decision-making. Unlike the seen physical
space, sound happens. It breaks in and fades. A world in which hearing
predominates, continues Connor, “is much more dynamic,

intermittent, complex and impermanent.”40 Without sight, space is

only implicated, orientation difﬁcult, prediction and planning almost
impossible. Without a continuous, constant picture of space, and
bodies moving through it, people are reduced to a reactive mode of
operation. They listen carefully, waiting for a cue that would ease
orientation. Silence therefore can be a source of anxiety, as can
sounds whose sources cannot be veriﬁed. We ask “who is there?” or
“where did it come from?” Our ears alert us, but we then try to
identify the source of the sound – the source of the possible danger –
with our eyes.41
Clearly, even thick darkness is not identical with blindness.
Darkness is always “situated, partial and relational.”42 Moreover,
perceiving involves not only sensorial input but also memory and
imagination, which allows the brain to predict the outcome of our
actions based on previous experience.43 There should be no doubt that
people accustomed to dark environments in the past navigated them
much more easily than we do.44 Yet, the deep darkness of the pre-
industrial night could not but undermine one’s sense of control, and
therefore, one’s security.45 As night fell, then, people retreated into the
safety of their homes, shutting themselves off from the world.

Locked In
Unlike security in the streets, which was by and large the responsibility
of communities and the authorities, securing the domicile was in the
hands of individuals who used a variety of measures to keep burglars
out. These measures turned the interfaces between the domicile and the
outside world into supposedly sealed borders. The distinction between
the street and the home was thus accentuated: Outside it was exceed-
ingly dark and insecure; inside, it was safe enough to let your guard
down and go to sleep. But then again, there is no such thing as
absolute security.
Writing about eighteenth-century London, Amanda Vickrey
describes “a frenzy of fortiﬁcation” between sunset and candle light-
ing, a time known as “shutting in.” Integral locks, padlocks, internal
bolts, iron bars, and chains were used to secure openings. Watchdogs,
alarm bells, and even servants sleeping across the corridor were all
supposed to keep danger out and rouse the household should some-
body try to break in.46

As already noted, a somewhat similar “shutting in” took place in

Ottoman cities around sunset, but information about Ottoman
“domestic fortiﬁcations” is harder to come by. Some details can never-
theless be gleaned from the sources. On June 29, 1748, a Jerusalemite
Jew by the name of Ḥaydar was found dead in his bed, face down, with
blood coming out both his ears. A surgeon (jarrah) was called to
_
examine the body but found no signs of violence.47 In the victim’s
room, there were a basket, a pot, and a chest whose locks had been
broken and contents removed. A servant testiﬁed that the deceased
retired to his room following dinner, as usual, and locked the door. She
went to sleep and noticed nothing unusual. In the morning, she found
the door still locked and when she knocked, there was no answer. She
asked a small child to enter through the west-facing window and open
the door from the inside. The servant entered and found the north-
facing window open. Under that window, she found the dead body.
The other residents of the house were asked whether they had left the
house door open at night and they replied that they had locked it in the
evening and found it still locked in the morning.48 It appears that,
because there were no signs of violence or forced entry, no further
investigation was conducted.
If locks can be taken as an index of insecurity,49 then the victim
probably felt rather vulnerable, as he kept his valuables behind three
locks (the house, room, and chest locks). By London standards, these
measures may seem modest. Yet, Jerusalem was a poor town and
people could not afford expensive security measures. Inhabitants
locked their doors and kept their few valuables in wooden chests,50
which were often fashioned with locks. Rabbi Moshe Ben Yisraʾel
Naftalı̄ from Prague, who moved to Jerusalem in 1621, advised future
migrants to bring with them “iron locks to hang on the rooms’ doors
and closets.”51 The security measures in Ḥaydar’s room, then, appear
to have been typical.
The servant who found Ḥaydar’s body noted in her testimony that
the window that was left open, had no iron bar, implying that barred
windows were not uncommon.52 However, bars too were sometimes
not enough to keep unwanted visitors out. In mid-March 1749, the
house of Rabbi Abrahām was broken into in the middle of the night
and money and valuables were reported stolen. An investigation was
then conducted, and it was revealed that the bars on the window
opposite the door had been broken by the burglars. The rabbi noted

that house’s door (possibly the gate of the courtyard) and rooms were
locked and that the thieves moved in from the roof and stole the money
and valuables that were stored in wooden chests. The investigation was
continued and a few days later, the thieves were caught and confessed
in court. They said that they broke into the rabbi’s house, broke the
window bar, and thus entered his room. They also directed the kadı‘s
men to the place where they hid the stolen valuables.53 This description
indicates that the rabbi’s barred window did not even face the street.
The burglars first entered the house (probably the courtyard) and only
then broke the window bars.
All these cases explicitly mentioned the barriers that were supposed
to secure the house. Ester, whose scarf was snatched from her head,
similarly did not fail to mention that the door was closed.54 Cases of
burglary from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries also describe
domestic security measures, including bars and locks.55 These meas-
ures no doubt reflect security concerns but their mention in all records
may have been related to definitions of theft in Islamic jurisprudence.
Theft was defined as secretly taking goods or money, the minimum
value of which was sanction by law, from a “secure” or “protected”
(Tur. mahfuz) place, when the taker does not own the goods or money
or claims to have a share in them. It was therefore important to prove
that the house was “secured.”56
Cases from the Üsküdar court in Istanbul drive this point home. For
example, in early April 1747, a certain Amine bint İbrahim of the
Durbalı neighborhood in Üsküdar appeared in court and accused her
neighbor that in the previous night, he “secretly” (hafiyyeten) climbed
the wall between his house and hers around the time of the night
prayer, in order to steal from her secured (mahfuzan) property. He
then ran away to the Kassam Bustani neighborhood and stashed the
stolen goods there. Security officials (bahçıvanlar) got word of this and
caught him the next day.57
In short, gates, doors, bars, and locks were important but were not
always enough to guarantee security and peace of mind. In fact, even
walls could not be trusted entirely. Whereas in Jerusalem, houses were
built of stone, houses in Istanbul – and in many other parts of the
empire – were built of wood. Sultanic law specifically referred not only
to the possibility of gaining access through breaking locks, but also by
drilling holes in the wall or roof.58 This was indeed a rather common
way of breaking into houses throughout the period under discussion

and beyond.59 One’s home could hardly be considered a fortress or a

shelter from nighttime threats.
Women were particularly vulnerable, even when in their homes.
Court records from both Jerusalem and Istanbul include quite a few
cases of verbal and physical assaults against women, and accusations
of forced entries for the purpose of sexual assault.60 For example, on
January 27, 1749, a Jerusalemite Christian woman named Jawhariyya
brought charges against a fellow Christian, Salmān bin Shālih. The two
_
lived in different apartments in the same house. One night, five months
prior to the complaint, the man entered her home “in the middle of the
night” as she was sleeping and forced “illicit sexual intercourse” (zanā
bihā) on her, which resulted in her becoming pregnant. The man
denied the allegation and the plaintiff failed to provide evidence. The
kadı ordered the imprisonment of the man until the neighbors could be
questioned, but when they all testified that he was an upright person
that had never been involved in any such acts, the kadı ordered his
release from custody and notified the woman that, since she failed to
provide legal evidence, she would be punished (for filing a false com-
plaint) after she gave birth.61 Less than a week later, Jawhariyya was
found dead in her apartment. The body was examined by three
Christian midwives (dāyāt) who found no signs of violence. They
established that the woman had died of bleeding, the reason for which
remains unclear.62
Was it the result of a failed abortion? We will never know. All we do
know for certain is that Jawhariyya lived alone, that she was pregnant,
and that she accused Salmān of illicit sex, implying it was forced upon
her. Just like in the case of Ester, whose scarf has been snatched from
her while she was asleep, the night setting in Jawhariyya’s narrative
explained how the accused could approach her without her resisting it,
and presented her as a victim, rather than as an active party. Like Ester,
she was attacked while asleep, that is, at the time she was most
vulnerable. Exactly because darkness crippled community and state
surveillance, it threatened those who depended most on these mechan-
isms for personal security. Sleeping alone could be dangerous.
For some women, the greatest threat lay inside. At least according to
contemporary studies, much domestic violence takes place at night.63
This is hardly surprising given that women at this time are effectively
locked in with their partners. A few cases may suffice to suggest that
things were not much different in the past. For example, on September

1, 1767, a Christian woman from the Yenimahalle neighborhood

appeared in court to press charges against her husband. She claimed
that five days earlier, after sunset (or the evening prayer), he hit her
with a big stick bruising her underneath her left eye and elsewhere on
her body. The husband confessed and the kadı ruled he was to be
imprisoned, pending approval by the Imperial Council.64
For the wife of Hasan, too, the night was a time of fear. Hasan was a
soldier in the guard of the Imperial Council, and according to a
complaint filed by neighbors in the summer of 1790, he would
“always” (daiman) return home drunk and hit his wife, accusing her
of seeing other men.65 This horrific routine was embedded in the
nocturnal: first, heavy drinking most often took place at night;66
second, as noted above, at night women were limited to the domicile.
In other words, although the poor woman knew how the evening
would end, she simply could not escape it. She was trapped at home
with her abuser. The night for her was not a time of relief and repose
but quite the opposite. It was the time when her vulnerability was felt
most acutely. In this case, at least, the abuse was stopped. Following
the neighbors’ complaint, Hasan was brought to court and exiled to
Bursa, leaving his wife physically safer, but economically weaker, a
woman without a breadwinner.67

FIRE!
Violence, within or without, was not the only danger, however. The
most horrendous sound one could possibly wake up to in Istanbul at
night was the cry “fire!” (yangın var!). While burglaries were ultim-
ately localized events, conflagrations could potentially ruin the entire
city. It appears that fires were much less of a problem in the major
urban centers of the Arab provinces, probably because they were built
predominantly of stone and clay. In Jerusalem, open fires used for
lighting, heating, and cooking surely caused conflagrations from time
to time but the damage caused by them seems to have been limited.68
Istanbul, by contrast, suffered from conflagrations often, and with
devastating results. Contemporaries and modern historians blame the
frequent conflagrations on the timber of which almost all buildings in
the city were built, and the strong winds (poyraz), especially during the
summer, that fanned the flames and spread them quickly throughout
the city. The dense urban landscape and the lack of efficient firefighting

forces facilitated the spread of fire.69 Some fires nearly wiped out the
entire city. The Great Fire of 1660, for example, destroyed about two-
thirds of the houses, causing the death of up to 40,000 people. Over the
course of the eighteenth century, there were at least seven major fires,
each lasting between one to three days, together destroying hundreds
of thousands of houses. The Sublime Porte, the residence of the grand
vizier and center of government, burned down entirely six times
from the mid-eighteenth century to the early twentieth century.70
Nobody, powerful or poor, well-connected or marginal, was spared
the danger of fire.71
Several nineteenth-century travelers noted that there were fires
“every night.”72 They were probably exaggerating, but fires were
indeed more likely to happen at night. In his encyclopedic work on
Istanbul, Osman Nuri Ergin (1883–1991) listed 109 conflagrations
that occurred in the city between 1633 and 1834, based on Ottoman
chroniclers. Out of the 88 fires for which the time of the day was
recorded, I counted 60 (68.1 percent) that started at night, and only
28 (31.9 percent) that started during daytime.73 Osman Nuri notes
that many more fires went unrecorded, but at least based on the
substantial list he provides, conflagrations were more than twice as
likely to happen at night as during the day. Nocturnal conflagrations
represented such clear and present danger that according to the
Ottoman intellectual and statesman Mehmed Tahir Münif Paşa
(1830–1910), some people slept with their clothes on, ready to run
outside at any moment.74
Many fires were started by arsonists, often affiliated with the
janissaries.75 But there were more prosaic reasons for the prevalence
of fires at night, which were similar to the ones discussed throughout
this chapter: darkness and the lapse of attention due to sleep. In order
to see in the dark, people relied on artificial illumination, which before
electricity was produced solely by combustion. Light was inextricable
from fire76 and the latter’s blessings were therefore inseparable from its
curse. With the household and neighbors sound asleep, a candle that
had not been properly extinguished, or a blanket that accidentally fell
into the heath could gain momentum before anybody noticed it. Sleep,
again, could be dangerous.
When the cry “fire” was heard, then, no one could stay in bed. The
Prussian diplomat Friedrich Tietz (1803–1879), who stayed in Istanbul
in 1833 described these terrifying moments: “I had sunk into slumber,

when these gentry [the guards] aroused me with the most terrific cry
(Iangin war! [sic.]) Fire, fire!” He rushed to the window and saw scores
of people moving through the streets. A fire had broken out in Fener,
on the other side of the Golden Horn.77 The eighteenth-century chron-
icler Küçük Çelebizade recorded in his work numerous conflagrations
that broke out at night in the 1720s, sometimes noting the terrifying
experience of waking up to imminent danger: “the horrifying sound
and the terrifying cry of the guards disoriented the people of the city
whose heads were rested on the pillow of security and peace.” In
another place, he notes that “the horrifying cry of the guards sent
shivers through the body.”78 The abovementioned Münif Paşa also
described the terror that gripped all inhabitants of the city when the
guards cry “fire, fire! (yangın var)” at night. “Close and far, awake and
asleep” the fear deprived everybody of slumber and repose.79 It should
be noted that the palace tried to counter the risk of nocturnal conflag-
rations by improving oversight and firefighting in the capital, and yet
conflagrations remained a major problem in Istanbul to the end of the
Ottoman Empire.80 The common folk could do little against this threat
other than put out their candles, pray, and sleep in their clothes.

When the Devils Spread

Burglaries and conflagrations were not the only dangers that
threatened people in their homes. It was commonly believed that a
whole world of supernatural beings came to life at nighttime and
dispersed with the cock’s crow or the morning call for prayer.81 For
example, some local traditions warned about a supposedly female
spirit called albast (or alkarısı) that would appear at night to harass
women who had recently given birth, risking both the mother and the
newborn child. It would also take horses from stables, ride them all
night long and return them, all sweaty, just before dawn.82 Greek folk
traditions tell about spirits or goblins known as kara koncoloz (from
the Greek καλικάντζαρος), who would appear in the 12 nights between
Christmas and Epiphany to haunt humans.83 In the Black Sea region,
these same beings were believed to appear at night at the height of
winter. Imitating the voice of a close friend or relative, the spirit would
lead people in their sleep out into the cold, causing their death. These
beliefs obviously mark the night as a dangerous time, but they are more
specific than that. They reflect something of the insecurity generated by

the inability to see what was going on outside, the fear of voices whose
origin cannot be veriﬁed, and the utter vulnerability of sleep.
Just as people protected themselves against corporeal dangers, rely-
ing on gates, doors, locks, and bars, so did they cope with more elusive
threats applying a wide range of tools and measures, from special
prayers to protecting objects. These measures could amount to com-
plex ensembles, “bedtime rituals” of sorts.84 Sasha Handley elaborates
on what she calls “sleep-piety” by which she means a variety of
practices shaped by Christian religious beliefs that were intended to
ready the minds, bodies, and souls of the believers to receive God’s
protection and favor while asleep.85 Very similar concerns shaped
bedtime routines in the Early Modern Ottoman Empire.
Several traditions provided pious Muslims with protocols for a safe
night’s sleep. In one prophetic tradition (hadı̄th), for example, the
_
Prophet is cited as saying that
[W]hen night falls, keep your children close to you, since the devils spread
at that time; an hour after the night prayer, you may let go of them;
and lock your door, and mention the name of Allah thereupon, and put
out your light, and mention the name of Allah, and cover the water skin,
and mention the name of Allah, and cover your food containers, and
mention the name of Allah, lest they remain exposed to something.86
Another tradition prescribed a different sequence:
When one of you goes to bed, let him clean his bed with the inside of
his robe and call the name of Allah, since he does not know what he
had left behind him [in bed]. When he wants to lie down, let him lie on
his right side and say: Oh God, thou of many praises, my Lord, in thine
hands I entrust my body, and to thou [is the power to] raise it, and if
thou hold my soul, forgive it, and if thou let it go, guard [it] as you
guard your pious servants.87
The prayer clearly conveys the fear aroused by the lapse of the senses.
Unconscious and vulnerable, one can only turn to God to watch over
until one returns to his or her senses.
Jews recited a somewhat similar prayer known as the “blessing of
He who brings sleep” (birkat ha-mapı̄l). One of its Early Modern,
Sephardic variations reads:
Praised are You our God, king of the world, who brings sleep to my eyes,
slumber to my eyelids and light to [my] pupil, daughter of the eye. And
may it be your wish, my God, that you shall put me to sleep in peace and

raise me to life and peace and may I be governed by good inclination and
not by bad inclination, and save me from blights and ailments, and may
I not be startled by bad dreams, and bad thoughts, and may my bed be
safe in front of you, and light up my eyes, lest I sleep [to] death.88

Prayers were important, but not enough. Muslims, Christians, and

Jews all took additional precautions to safeguard their houses against
supernatural dangers. In his studies about the Balkans in the Early
Modern period, the Serbian Ethnologist Tamotir P. Vukanovic describes
a whole range of such practices.89 For example, among Serbian popula-
tions on the southern Croatian frontier of the Habsburg Empire, it was
believed that witches entered houses to hurt children at night after the
lights had been put out. In order to protect the children, mothers would
rub them with garlic and stick knives in their cradles. Some Serbs in
Kosovo, under Ottoman rule, believed that witches and evil spirits
lurked in the dark on particular nights, waiting to attack newborns
and their mothers. On these nights, mothers and babies would not be
left alone and a light would be kept burning. During the ﬁrst 40 days
after delivery, the new mother was forbidden from going outside after
dark. In Herzegovina, in order to keep witches away, locals would
engage in a complex ritual before going to bed, which included eating
garlic, feeding the ﬁre with thorny branches, and bolting the door, at
which time the oldest women in the household would chant a special
charm three times. Similar beliefs were common in Anatolia and among
the Jews of Istanbul, but the measures used to safeguard the mothers and
babies were different.90 In the eastern Black Sea regions, beetroot was
used to secure the house from the kara koncoloz spirits.91
Thus, as sleeping time drew near, people outsourced the security
work done by the senses, assigning it to a variety of measures, from
locks to garlic. Yet, while insecurity at night was more or less universal,
the ability to cope with it was differential. Not everybody could retreat
back behind walls; not everyone could relax even in his or her own
home; not everybody could afford to keep a light on. These conditions
could have an effect on the length, nature, and even the quality of sleep.

Bedtime
In a society that was based, at least ofﬁcially, on strict hierarchies of
religion, gender, age, and social class, sleep may appear at ﬁrst sight to

be the only common denominator, the one natural constant in a world

of socially determined variables. But it was not. The only “natural”
thing about sleep was the biological need for it. Everything else, from
sleeping time to sleeping place, from sleeping arrangements to the
quality of sleep was dependent upon one’s social position and material
circumstances. As several studies have shown, even dreams (and cer-
tainly their interpretation) are to a large extent socially constructed.92
We should note that some people in Ottoman cities worked nights
and went partying.93 But as already noted above, the vast majority of
people retreated indoors following the night prayer, if not earlier. Since
candles were expensive, took much maintenance, and gave little light
(see Chapter 5), most houses would have been very dark. Given that
not much can be done without light, and that darkness induces sleep,94
it is very likely that most people turned in after the night prayer. This
rhythm was believed to have been enjoined by the Prophet himself.
According to one tradition, that has many versions, the Prophet dis-
liked sleeping before the night prayer and staying up after it.95 In other
words, “early to bed,” was not only borne out of material limitation; it
was a socioreligious ideal.
Sultans and their immediate social circle did not necessarily adhere
to this ideal and often turned in long after the night prayer. Ahmed III
(1703–1730) reportedly left the evening parties organized for him by
some of his high officials between three to five hours after sunset.96 By
contrast, Sultan Mustafa III was not much of a night reveler. Out of
more than 2,200 days recorded in a special log that followed his
schedule (ruzname), only a handful of entries mention nighttime leisure
activities. Daytime leisure activities, by contrast, are much more fre-
quently recorded. When he did stay around for after-dark entertain-
ment, he retired three-and-a-half to four hours after sunset.97 Sultan
Abdülhamid I (1774–1789) enjoyed evening entertainment until
around three to four hours after sunset.98 In the daily journal kept by
the secretary of Sultan Selim III (r. 1789–1807), which covers most of
the 1790s, the sultan’s evening entertainments are meticulously
recorded. In 33 entries, the hour the sultan turned in is noted.
Most typically, the sultan got tired between three to four hours after
sunset (25 entries). The longest he stayed was five hours after sunset
(four entries).99
Staying up late, and certainly nocturnal entertainment, depended
first and foremost on access to light. Recent studies have shown that

light is among the most effective deterrents of sleep. Sleep scientist

Charles Czeisler has even described light as a “drug” that affects our
sleep.100 The palace elite suffered no shortage of light and could
therefore prolong their merrymaking for as long as they wished.101
Just as important, they did not have to open a workshop before dawn,
and nobody would scold them for missing the morning prayer in the
neighborhood mosque. In other words, the palace elite lived by a
different rhythm from the commoners. A similar gap between elite
and commoners’ sleeping time was demonstrated for Europe.102
However, in Europe, according to Craig Koslofsky, court societies
led a process he calls “nocturnalization,” that is, an “increase in scope
and legitimacy of everyday nocturnal activity.”103 This thrust into the
dark hours is much less significant in the Ottoman Empire during the
period covered in this study. As shown above, Sultan Selim III in the
late eighteenth century would still go to bed no later than five hours
after sunset, and usually earlier, just like his grandfather, Sultan
Ahmed III, did some 70 years earlier. Translated into mean time hours,
Ottoman sultans retired around 1 a.m., at the latest. References to elite
drinking parties that went on until dawn crop up, especially in poetry,
but are rarely corroborated by other sources.104 In contemporary
England, by comparison, genteel nighttime entertainment could often
last until 4 or 5 a.m.105
Nocturnal leisure was widespread in Istanbul (but not in Jerusalem),
and yet it was semi-covert and considered dubious, certainly not
legitimate.106 As a whole, cities in the Ottoman Empire maintained
their morning- to night-prayer rhythm deep into the nineteenth
century. Writing in the mid-1840s, Charles White describes the “daily
mode of life of the respectable inhabitants of Stambol” and noted that
they woke up at dawn for the morning prayer, and typically retired at
around 9 a.m. By 10 a.m., everybody is already asleep. Locals recorded
similar patterns down to the early twentieth century.107 Many walled
cities continued to shut their gates at sunset until the mid-nineteenth
century, and beyond. Nocturnal realities began to change more dra-
matically only with the introduction of street lighting in the second half
of the nineteenth century.108
While European elites stretched their activity deeper and deeper into
the physical night, common families in Europe went to sleep more or
less at the same time as their Ottoman counterparts. Yet, there was a
significant difference. According to historian Roger Ekrich’s hugely

inﬂuential studies, in preindustrial Europe, sleep was broken into two

intervals that were known in most European languages as “first sleep”
and “second sleep.” In preindustrial Europe, people typically woke up
around midnight and spent the next hour or two in a kind of quiet
wakefulness, performing chores, reading, praying, conversing, having
sex, or meditating. They then went back to sleep for another few hours,
until dawn.109 However, Ekirch, and later Sasha Handley, note that
sleeping patterns were affected by various additional factors and
changed over the course of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.110
Unlike Europe, the sources examined for this work do not refer to
segmented sleep. Narrative sources, court records, palace documents,
and medical manuscripts which occasionally touch upon slumber,
never once mention a “first” and “second” sleep. Medical treatises,
for example, sometimes refer to the desired length of sleep but fail to
mention a “segmented” pattern. In keeping with the emphasis on
balance in the humoral tradition, one author recommended moderate
sleep, which he defines as eight to ten hours.111 This advice matches
recommendations about sleeping lengths in Early Modern political and
moralistic treatises. Such texts typically advise sultans and grand
viziers to divide their day into three intervals of eight hours each: one
for state affairs, one for leisure, and one for sleep.112 The Chief
Imperial Treasurer, Sarı Mehmed Paşa (d. 1717), included in his
advice book similar recommendations, tying them to personal health
and the good of the state, and supported his argument with a
prophetic tradition.113
Like their European colleagues,114 Ottoman physicians cautioned
against sleeping more or less than the recommended length. They
warned that oversleeping makes the body too moist and weakens the
mental capacity. Sleeping less than prescribed amounts damages diges-
tion, upsets the temper, and may very well lead to mental compli-
cations. If one cannot sleep enough at night, one should complete the
recommended duration during the day.115 This advice merely gave
medical legitimation for the ancient tradition of afternoon
slumber, which seems to have been common, in the palace and among
the people.116
The more popular “Prophetic medicine” (tibb-i nebevi), which relied
on health-related traditions ascribed to Muhammad, similarly enjoined
the afternoon nap (Ar. qaylūla).117 Ottoman society can certainly be
counted among the “siesta cultures.”118 Yet, the main interval of sleep

was to remain at night. The author of The Science of Medicine (İlm-i

Tıbb) warns that sleeping too much during the day might corrupt one’s
color and damage the spleen, weaken her or his mental strength, and
“stupefy the mind.”119 Again, no mention is made of segmented sleep.
The fact that an afternoon slumber was common in parts of the
Ottoman Empire can hardly explain the absence of segmented sleep.
According to Ekirch, biphasic snooze was common also in “siesta
countries” such as Italy and Spain.120 It appears that night sleep in
the Ottoman world was only interrupted for devotional purposes, as in
the case of the Jewish tiqūn hatsot and other nocturnal rituals.121 Yet,
_
it is not at all clear how prevalent these practices were. Moreover, some
of these rituals were associated with particular holidays or times of the
year. In short, sleeping timings changed over the years, between com-
munities, religious confessions, and around the year. As noted above,
such diversity was typical of contemporary Europe as well. Still, the
difference between the monophasic pattern that seems to have been
common in the Ottoman Empire and the biphasic patter that was
prevalent in Europe remains unexplained, at least until further evi-
dence comes to light.

Who Slept Where and by Whom?

If one’s bedtime is dependent upon social norms and status, so do his
or her bed place and bedfellows. Sociologists and anthropologists have
shown that determining “who sleeps by whom” in a family household,
but also in places where co-sleeping is not based on a familial structure,
is a symbolic action that reﬂects and reafﬁrms proximity as well as
hierarchies. Anthropological and historical research has shown that
co-sleeping and bed-sharing was very common (and still is in some
societies) and that the idea of private sleeping is relatively new.122
Sleeping together is strongly associated with security, intimacy,
warmth, and trust and should therefore be counted among the meas-
ures taken to cope with the dangers and fears of darkness. Those who
are forced to sleep alone, or with strangers, are considered – and often
consider themselves – outsiders.123
Enjoying a secure, peaceful sleep begins with having a place to sleep.
Sleeping outside leaves one exposed to nuisances and dangers discussed
above, from physical attacks to noise, and most notably, to the
weather. Sleeping outdoors in winter could quite simply end in death.

Therefore, in Istanbul people with no home sought the heat and shelter
of furnace rooms in the many public baths scattered throughout the
city. They were known, cynically, as “gentlemen of the furnace” (sing.
külhanbeyi).124 The French diplomat, scientist, and writer François
Pouqueville (1770–1838), who traveled extensively in the Ottoman
Empire, wrote that the public baths in winter were “the refuge of those
unfortunate wretches who have no home,” including “rogues, drunk-
ards or beggars.”125 According to the early twentieth-century Ottoman
folklorist Abdülaziz bey (1850–1918), the külhanbeyis were either
orphans or children who ran away or were driven away from their
homes. Bathhouse operators would let these children pass the winters
in the furnace room and they, in return, worked in the bathhouse.
Some made a living by taking all kinds of petty menial jobs and
sometimes stealing and pickpocketing.126 Many also worked in the
bathhouse during the day and prostituted themselves as ‘bedfellows’
(sing. döşek yoldaşı) to janissaries during the nights. They were
expected to make themselves available for up to three sexual acts.
Poor, ﬂoating, and defenseless, these boys could hope to get in return
both pay and protection.127
The külhanbeyis were among the most marginal populations of the
city but even among them there was a clear “sleeping hierarchy”: the
longer one stayed in the bathhouse, the closer he would be to
the furnace, enjoying the most of its warmth. However, when one of
the boys became sick it was common to let him move closer to the
furnace until he got well. Somewhat similar arrangements were observed
in societies where co-sleeping is common still today.128 When the
weather got warmer, the külhanbeyis would leave the furnace rooms
and ﬁnd places to sleep outside, usually in neighborhoods along the
seashore.129 Outdoors, it would be the group that provided at least the
minimal level of security needed for one to close his eyes and doze off.130
Adults with no permanent residence sometimes slept in rudimentary
sheds built in gardens, or in shops and coffeehouses.131 Others rented
rooms in khans and inns known as “bachelors‘ rooms” (bekar
odaları). These itinerants, whose numbers rose constantly over the
period covered here, were often associated with nocturnal disturb-
ances. Students of religious colleges (Tur. sing. medrese) co-slept in
rooms allocated to them in the medrese, sometimes sharing beds as
well.132 In short, while not sleeping outside, bachelors, medrese stu-
dents, and apprentices enjoyed less than ideal sleeping conditions.

Then there were those who slept in houses other than their own, like
domestic slaves and servants, which effectively deprived them of the
relief of “after work” hours, when they could be free from the author-
ity of owners or employers. The constant subjugation, day and night,
must have been hard at times. The anonymous author of Risale-i
Garibe, probably written in the early eighteen century, criticizes those
who maltreated their slaves, and the “little wives (kadıncıklar)” who
made their slaves “work all day and all night,” and when they fell
asleep poked them with a needle.133 Even if we do not take this critique
at face value, it certainly does underline the fact that for domestic
servants the night did not necessarily bring repose. It may have been
these kinds of pressures that got to a servant named ʿAʾishe who
resided and worked in the house of her masters in Jerusalem. On the

night of May 10, 1750, ʿAʾishe had a ﬁght with her mistress, and was
consequently threatened she would be punished in the morning. The
servant was so afraid she threw herself out of the window. If this was a
suicide attempt, it failed. The poor slave only injured her leg badly.134
A Jamaican proverb known to the plantation slaves of the eighteenth
century said that “sleep has no master.”135 Whether or not this was
true on the plantation is not for me to decide. In the Ottoman Empire,
however, the sleep of slaves and domestic servants certainly had a
master. They could not escape servitude even in their beds. In the
houses of the great, and certainly, in the imperial palace, they were
expected to sleep in proximity to their masters, so as to be available to
them should the need arise.136 They were close alright, but always
separated. Charles White described in his oft-cited book, elite houses in
which slaves and servants shared rooms below the upper stories, which
were occupied by the masters. He noted that “the staircase is fre-
quently divided by a door, which keeps the upper stories warm, and
separates menials from masters at night.”137 It is important to note
here both the proximity and the separation, particularly at night. It is
at night that the door closed, that the border between the upstairs and
the downstairs was sealed. Upstairs there was solitary sleep and
warmth. Downstairs it was co-sleeping in the cold.
The proximity and availability of Ottoman underlings to their
master even at night was culturally constructed as a noble duty, a test
of their devotion to their patron. Court poetry (divan şiiri) was of
paramount importance here. Poetry was considered the highest form
of literary expression deep into the nineteenth century and was central

in the socialization and social life of the ofﬁce-holding elite.138

Dependent as it was on patronage, Ottoman elite poetry was never
far from the world of power. Like all other members of the Ottoman
serving elite, poets competed with each other over the protection and
support of powerful patrons and served them by signing their praise
and defaming their rivals. Being thus embedded in patrimonial power
structures, Ottoman court poetry reflected the hierarchal sleeping pat-
terns that developed in this social context. Moreover, the poetry
imbued these practices with additional layers of meaning and thus
served to reaffirm them, at least in the eyes of the masters.
It has been demonstrated that in the court poetry of the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries, servitude and dominance were conceptual-
ized in terms of love and affection. Courting patterns and amorous
relationships, in turn, were modeled after patronage relations.139 In
classical Ottoman poetry, the poet, always assuming the role of a
servant or slave, strives tirelessly and hopelessly to win the heart of
God, patron, and beloved who are all presented as powerful masters.
Indefinitely waiting for one’s master and patiently waiting on one’s
master conveyed the servitude of the underling/lover, but also his
devotion to his master/beloved.140
Sleeping on the doorstep of the beloved/lord can be seen as a vari-
ation on the theme of devotion. If sleeping by or with somebody is
often considered to be the ultimate expression of affection through
physical contact (or what some anthropologists call “skinship”), well,
the lover never achieves it. The lover/servant is always a door away.
Intimacy is desired, never achieved. He remains on the outside, barred
from reaching his beloved/patron. The distance that remains between
lover and beloved is also conveyed through the conditions and quality
of sleep on either side of the door. To sleep in the dirt on the beloved’s
doorstep is an act of self-humiliation that at the same time demon-
strates utter loyalty.
The late sixteenth-century poet Emani ended a poem he devoted to a
beloved named Kaya (lit. rock), with the following couplet: “His head
spinning, your stone threshold is enough for Emani/As mattress and
pillow in the dust at your door, my dear little Kaya.”141 Around a
century later Çelebizade Abdullah Mahir (1643–1709), uses almost the
same words: “For me, the beloved’s doorstep is enough for mattress
and pillow.” 142 These poetic scripts were at times acted out in real life,
or at least recounted to have been so. In his biographical dictionary,

Mirza-zade Mehmed Emin Salim (d. 1743) tells of the late seventeenth-
century poet Dervish Fasih who fell madly in love with a young wine
server (saki) in one of the taverns in Galata. The poet is described
waiting and waiting in the tavern for his beloved to return until he
cannot take the wait any longer. In the middle of the night, he goes to
the beloved’s house and sleeps on his doorstep. “And he accepted to
rest his head on the stone threshold, rubbing his face in dirt, imagining
he was his [lover’s] guest that night, until morning comes.”143 After an
unpleasant encounter with two tougher fans of the boy, which nearly
cost Fasih his life, he was put on a boat and sent back across the
Golden Horn.144 In short, the practice of sleeping in close proximity
to one’s master, but always separated from him, was supported and
perpetuated through cultural scripts. We can assume that for the
servants themselves, however, sleeping on their masters’ doorstep and
being awoken to serve was much less romantic than in the literature.
We have seen that sleep did not lie outside the matrix of power
relations in eighteenth-century Ottoman society. Sleeping time and
length, its location and quality were all affected by one’s social pos-
ition. This was true even within one and the same household, which, at
least among elites, often included free and enslaved individuals. Even
among free members of the family, sleeping conditions were not equal.
Gender and age-based hierarchies, it turns out, never really sleep.
Considered subservient to men, women were at the very least expected
to “support” their men at night, as during the day. Rabbi Eliʿezer
Pāppo (1786–1827), the head of the Jewish community in Silistre, then
in the Ottoman Empire, emphasized in his inﬂuential Pele Yoʿets
(Wondrous Counselor) that “in Judaism,” a woman should do every-
thing she can to assist her husband. “She should get up early in the
night, make the ﬁre and prepare coffee, and then wake up her husband
so that he may say tiqūn hatsot [a nocturnal sermon].”145 Women
_
were supposed to ensure the sleep of their husbands, put the children to
sleep and then back to sleep if they woke up crying.146
The situation was much worse for abused women. Contemporary
studies have shown that women in abusive relationships report sleep
deprivation and sleep disorders at much higher rates than other
women. Many devise strategies that would allow them to sleep in
relative security. For example, they might try to sleep only when the
partner is absent.147 While we cannot reconstruct such strategies based
on the sources at hand, it seems plausible that abused women in the

eighteenth-century Ottoman Empire might have also suffered from

similar problems, and used similar methods to cope with them.

The Materials of a Good Night’s Sleep

Sleep inequalities were not only affected by social hierarchies. They
were also embedded in materiality (which was often just another
manifestation of social and economic power). Ekirch has already ques-
tioned common ideas about the supposedly peaceful and worry-free
sleep in preindustrial societies, showing that Europeans in the Early
Modern period suffered from a wide range of sleep disturbances,
including fleas, lice, cold, noise, stench, and uncomfortable sleeping
surfaces (not to mention worries that often kept them from sleeping).
While laborers might have looked forward to sleep more than those
up the social ladder, they often suffered from much poorer sleeping
conditions.148 Handley has shown that Early Modern English house-
holds invested significant sums in “sleeping environments,” and
increasingly, in specialized bedchambers equipped with bedsteads
and a wide range of other objects supposed to ensure healthy and
comfortable sleep.149
In the Ottoman Empire, by comparison, sleep remained materially
simpler, and yet there was significant variability in the quality of
sleeping environments. Generally, Muslim houses in both Istanbul
and Jerusalem did not have beds. In fact, they had very little furniture.
Writing about domestic spaces in seventeenth-century Jerusalem, Dror
Ze’evi notes that in order to maintain the strict norms of gender
segregation, Muslim houses generally sought to maintain a separation
between an entertaining space and a private space (Tur. selamlık and
haremlik, respectively). Most houses were simply too small to accom-
modate two separate sections, and therefore, the same spaces were
used for multiple purposes (eating, entertaining, and sleeping).
“Hard” metal or wood furniture would hinder this flexibility, and
therefore, most houses included only “light” and movable furniture.150
After dinner, then, mattresses, that were stocked all day long in a
special niche known as yuk, would be spread on the floor, turning
the room from an eating into a sleeping space.151 “Bachelor rooms”
too were empty of furniture and at night, the occupants would place
mattresses on the floor. The pages of the imperial palace too slept on
mattresses on the floor.152

It was common to sleep on two mattresses (minder, döşek), the

lower one being a course sack filled with straw and the upper one
filled with cotton, wool, or hair. A sheet was sewed to the upper
mattress and removed only for cleaning. The head was commonly
supported by a pillow. According to Charles White, in the early
1840s, a local housewife could buy a complete “bed” of “excellent”
quality (including mattresses, blankets, and pillows) for less than a
hundred piasters.153 Indeed, probate inventories from the late eight-
eenth and early nineteenth centuries show that these items were found
in most houses. Around 90 percent of the inventories included blan-
kets; between 73 percent and 91 percent included mattresses and
sheets, the higher percentages generally being from the nineteenth-
century inventories.154 While most people could afford beddings, the
quality and cost of these items varied hugely. On the upper end, one
could find beddings of superb fabrics interwoven with silk, or stripes of
gold and silver, and even pearls. During summer, nets were suspended
over the beds to keep mosquitos away.155
While satin pillows and mother-of-pearl inlays did not necessarily
improve sleep,156 the quiet of solitary spaces, the better-quality bedding,
and the mosquito nets probably did. On the lower end of the social
spectrum, the author of the Risale-i Garibe describes “laying” under the
canopy of a mosque, exposed to the “evil” of snakes, centipedes, scor-
pions, lice, fleas, insects, and mosquitos.157 Charles Frankland, who
traveled through the Ottoman Empire in the late 1820s, recounts that
fleas, mosquitos, locusts, and other insects cost him many nights’ sleep.
Locals too lost sleep (and blood) to such pests. At least in Greater Syria,
households would gather in front of the oven before turning in and try
to shake fleas off their sleeping clothes into the fire.158
The Damascene Sufi-traveler, ʿAbd al-Ghanı̄ bin ʾIsmaʾʿı̄l al-Nāblusı̄
(1641–1731), who journeyed around Greater Syria in the late seven-
teenth century, even dedicated poems to fleas that attacked him and his
companions “like wolves.” He describes a night in one of the villages
in northern Palestine and cites an earlier poet who wrote: “What we
ate from the food we were served/ their fleas ate [back] from us.”
That “freezing night of fleas” was like “poetry barren of passion.”
In his narration of “a long night” in Majdal ʿAsqelān (on the southern
coastal plain of Palestine), he included his own poem, dedicated to a
flea that caused him and his friends to lose “much of our
usual weight.”159

Nāblusı̄’s descriptions also bring up the effect of temperature on the

quality of sleep, which has already come up above, in different con-
texts. Here again, seemingly universal conditions had a very differen-
tial effect on people’s sleep, depending on their social class, gender, and
other variables. For example, around Jerusalem, it was common to
sleep on rooftops to escape the heat that had accumulated inside the
house during the day.160 However, it is doubtful if common notions of
women’s chastity allowed women too to enjoy the relative coolness of
the roof. In the winter, heating involved considerable expense and
many simply could not afford this amenity.161 A good night’s sleep,
then, depended also on geographical and ecological conditions, or
one’s ability to seclude one’s self from disturbances that could arise
from these conditions.

Conclusion
As darkness descended on the Early Modern city and vision was
gradually impaired, people retreated into the security of their homes.
Now, it was mostly sound that brought the outside world in. The near-
invisibility of this world increased the likelihood of multiple dangers,
ranging from burglaries to ﬁres. But beyond such concrete threats,
darkness deprived people of their vision, their most important means
of orientation, and therefore, of their sense of control. Getting some
rest under these conditions depended to a large extent on seclusion;
seclusion from cold, disturbances, supernatural dangers, and physical
harm that lurked in the dark. Yet, seclusion was a privilege not
everybody enjoyed, certainly not to the same degree. Social status
further affected the duration, location, and quality of sleep. Even
within one and the same household, it was shown that some people’s
sleep was more important than others’.
It has been suggested that many of the fears people experienced
before turning in were related to the defenselessness of sleep.162 That
is no doubt true, and yet, it should be noted that afternoon sleep,
common throughout the Ottoman world, did not arouse similar
fears, nor generate a need for similar bedtime rituals. In other
words, the fear was not wholly connected to the receded consciousness
and the defenselessness of sleep (which was similar in
afternoon sleep anyway), but rather its combination with the fears of
darkness.

Discussion in this chapter focused on individuals and households,

but the same physical and biological conditions that were typical of the
night (mainly darkness and human propensity to sleep in the dark),
also challenged urban mechanisms of public order, and at the same
time made them even more important than during the day.

This chapter leaves the relative safety of the home and takes the
discussion outside. One contemporary observer noted the measures
applied to secure the dark streets, but also their limitations. “In every
street . . ., and every market, and every mosque gate and every tavern
door you see a policing post (qūluk, Tur. kolluk) of between ten and
twenty men.” And yet, the streets were full of “roaches” and “adders”
and there was no choice but to kill dozens of them every night. Most of
them were rounded up and sent to one of the garrisons, where they
would be put to work “day and night.” But, no matter how strictly
order was imposed, Istanbul was a city that was simply “impossible to
police (Istanbūl zabthā ġayr qābil).”1
The writer is Ḥ_ annā al-Tabı̄b (c. 1702–1775), a Maronite physician
_
from Aleppo who arrived at Istanbul in the mid-1760s. He was appar-
ently the protégé of the statesman and commander Köprülü Abdullah
Paşa (1684–1735) and accompanied him to the battlefields of the east.
According to his travelogue, Ḥannā al-Tabı̄b came to Istanbul by order
_
of the grand vizier, to treat the chief mufti (şeyhülislam).2 While a
visitor in the capital, he was certainly no stranger to the corridors of
power and the perceptions of order that prevailed in them. The
numbers of guards and dead bodies cited by the physician seem inflated
but his justification for the use of force echoes views typical of the elite
at the time. The threat to public order, which intensified at night,
warranted drastic means.
The main argument I make in this chapter is that neighborhood
communities, guilds, and religious and state authorities together
created a powerful discourse that stigmatized the night, which worked
to limit potentially invisible, incontrollable activity. This discourse was
complemented by various practices that were intended to impose visi-
bility on those who, nevertheless, went out. Yet, despite all these
measures, the night remained a challenge to urban order and just like
Ḥannā al-Tabı̄b explained, rulers sometimes felt they had “no choice”
_

but to apply harsh punitive measures in order to project fear. These

demonstrations of formal violence were meant to somewhat compensate
for the authorities’ actually rather precarious control over the dark city.
Ottoman public order and morality drew much scholarly attention
in the past decades.3 While most discussions are very sensitive to the
geography of public order and its disturbances, their treatment of
temporal dimensions is cruder. By and large, the scholarship is still
night-blind. Some scholars do refer to nightly occurrences and even
measures of nocturnal order but these are often lumped together with
those of the day.4 There is still no systematic discussion of the radically
different conditions and challenges the night posed to Ottoman order
and authority in the Early Modern period. That is exactly the focus of
this chapter: rather than summarizing an already robust scholarship
about public order and social control, it demonstrates how the night
mattered in these respects.
I begin by illustrating how darkness undermined the “diurnal,”
vision-based operation of the guild and the neighborhood – two crucial
links in the network of urban order predicated on “eyes on the streets
modality.” The discussion then proceeds to the means used by the
palace to augment security and police Istanbul at night, when these
eyes were far less effective. Finally, I show that, whether at the level of
the neighborhood or that of official policing, enforcing the law and
public morality at night ultimately relied on vision, which in turn relied
on artificial illumination. In the absence of systematic lighting, the
night was bound to remain on the very edge of state control, the
temporal frontier of its power.5
Discussion relies, first and foremost, on sources that may be
regarded “hegemonic,” from court records, through sultanic decrees,
and on to court chronicles. While these texts provide a wealth of
information about guild and neighborhood surveillance, patrols, and
other measures of nocturnal order, they cannot be regarded as mere
“windows” opening onto these measures; rather, they were themselves
measures of order – actual and conceptual – at a time when it seemed
most vulnerable.

Ocularcentrism in the Dark

This chapter continues the examination of the relation between the
night and the senses, but the focus now moves from the level of

individuals and households to that of guilds, neighborhoods, and

urban society as a whole. In addition to the more historically specific
discussion, I hope to contribute to a much wider conversation around
“ocularcentrism,” that is, the perceptual and conceptual privileging of
vision over the other senses. For more than a century, scholars in
various fields worked to demonstrate that the seemingly biological
hierarchy of the senses is largely a construct which is supposedly
typical of the West.6 Over the last decades, researchers have shown
that the clear-cut distinction between the senses, as if they were walled
off from one another, is in itself flawed. Following neuroscientists and
cognitive psychologists, historians of the senses speak of an integrated
sensorium in which the different senses play shifting roles, and that is
heavily mediated by culture. It is this “cultural” component that makes
the sensorium an object of historical analysis.7 Concurrently, non-
visual sensorial input has been shown to be crucial. For example,
work in the now-established field of sound studies has done much to
claim the lost honor of hearing and sensitize us to the auditory dimen-
sion of present and past societies.8
The night attracted very little attention, despite its obvious relevance
to these discussions.9 The relation between darkness, light, and sight has
been examined extensively in philosophy, art, and political discourse,
much less so in historical works.10 This is probably not incidental. The
critiques of the alleged ocularcentrism of modern western societies were
penned in the age of industrialized lighting, that has driven darkness to
the point of near extinction in urban settings.11 The thick darkness of
premodern urban environments is unknown to us, but it is exactly this
darkness that offers a good laboratory for testing claims about the
supposedly constructed “bias” toward vision in western societies. The
night was an interval of impaired visibility experienced on both
the individual and societal level. The protocols devised to cope with this
partial blindness indeed allocated greater importance to the aural. Yet,
even when impaired, vision never lost its primacy. Just like in what
regards personal security, when it got to establishing order and truth,
people in the Early Modern night relied on light and sight.

Black Markets
In eighteenth-century Ottoman cities, all aspects of the urban econ-
omy, from provisioning, through production and pricing, and on to

retail commerce were regulated by guild-like associations known in

Turkish as lonca, esnaf, hirfet, or taife. Commodities arriving from
outside the city were brought to central markets and then allocated to
producers and retailers based on fixed quotas under supervision. In the
process, the government collected a number of taxes and customs.
Finally, the government also set ceilings for profit rates according to
the commodity in question. The system was supposed to achieve
several goals. First, it allowed cost-effective tax collection and therefore
served the state’s interest directly. Second, it streamlined the supply of
products, supervised their quality, protected consumers against over-
charging, and limited competition among guild members, which was
thought to protect the interests of the “less efficient majority.”12
Like the neighborhood surveillance discussed below, I argue, guild
surveillance was that of the day. The night offered the best opportunity
to circumvent the system. Engaging in trade at night allowed not
only selling to unauthorized parties for prices above (and sometimes
below) the fixed price (narh), but also to avoid various local taxes
that were collected at the central markets or at the city’s gates.13 Thus,
as cities throughout the empire fell asleep, the black market would
wake to life.14
Markets were closed every day between the afternoon and the
evening prayers.15 City gates too closed around sunset, helping not
only to keep out threats to public order but also to prevent illegal trade.
In towns fully enclosed within walls such as Jerusalem, such closure
was no doubt more effective. But in a city like Istanbul, only part of
which was walled, and which was built along waterways almost
impossible to police at night, smuggling was much easier.
In late August 1726, some 50 individuals from the guild of market
vendors (pazarcı) came to court and accused el-Hac Mustafa b. Ahmed
of the guild of dry fruit of violating market laws.16 Their complaint
reveals the connection between daylight, the collective gaze, and order,
and the disordering potential of the night.
In trying to extract these elements, however, we must take into
consideration the argumentation strategies of plaintiffs and the
recording protocols of the court. As several scholars have shown, the
final entries in the court records were processed after the fact from
more informal records, which involved some “narrative reconstruc-
tion” which flattened complex social realities and forced them into
narrow legal definitions. It is in essence a work of translating what

was a “legal performance” (in court) to begin with, into a highly

formulaic language, leaving out many of the particulars of each case
in the process.17
Moreover, can we really trust that the accusations were real? As
Boğaç Ergene has demonstrated, collective appeals to court against
“undesirable” individuals, required little in the way of evidence and
were very likely to succeed in punishing or removing the defendants.
Not only that, the brevity of the entries, their highly formulaic nature,
and their silence about the context or circumstances that produced
them cast doubt on the extent to which these records can teach us
about historical reality.18 Yet, the fact that we cannot fully reconstruct
the “reality” behind those records, does not mean we should treat them
as complete literary constructs, entirely dissociated from the world
outside the courtroom. The people coming to court were real; their
complaints were at the very least deemed reasonable, even if they were
ill-intentioned or entirely fabricated. In other words, the writing con-
ventions, the formulas, and the discursive order to which all these cases
were subjected reflected fundamental assumptions about the night, and
its relation to the socio-political order. It was the court’s role to
reaffirm this order, first in writing, then through enforcing these
assumptions outside the court.
“Order” (nizam) as it is reflected in such court records consists of
several elements: it rests on groups and serves groups; it draws its
legitimacy from the past, as it is claimed to have existed, and all facets
of this old order are preset; all facets are supposedly open to peer and
state supervision. This order is sanctioned by sultanic authority, which
in turn rests on the religious authority represented in the kadı.
Most important for this discussion, economic order as it is reflected
and reaffirmed in the “legal performance” enacted and recorded in
court is diurnal.
First, regarding the collective nature of order. Cases of infringement
were typically brought to court by a group that speaks on record in one
voice. This particular record, like so many others, opens with a long list
of names who came to court, “each one of them saying that” (her biri
şöyle takrir-i kelam eylediler ki). This is followed by the complaint they
made, brought in direct speech. In fact, the court scribe summarized,
rather than quoted, imposing order on words that must have been
much less organized as they were uttered in the courtroom.19 The
group is thus given a clear, well-orchestrated voice in the record.

If the opening of the record is about who “we” are, next comes what
is legally “ours.” The plaintiffs describe the order of things, things as
they once were (at least supposedly), which is also how they should
remain. Disruption is temporary and to be rectified by state interven-
tion. According to “our old order,” they say, grapes coming from
different places outside the city are loaded in barrels onto boats and
go “straight” in front of the vegetable retail market (sebzehane). In
other words, the boats don’t make detours to sell grapes out-of-sight.
In front of the retail market, the merchandize is divided “publicly”
(alenen) among guild members, based on the fixed price, by the
pazarbaş, (an official charged with buying goods for the palace), a
representative of the janissaries, and senior members of the guild. The
former two are presumably present in order to ensure that the palace
and the corps get their share. The collective gaze of the guild, under the
supervising eye of state officials, is supposed to make sure the alloca-
tion is done fairly, that all transactions are subject to the narh, and
ultimately, that both the state and the people get their grapes at fair
prices. Finally, the record notes that the plaintiffs hold an imperial
decree approving this arrangement.20 In other words, not only is it a
time-honored arrangement. It is backed by the sultan’s authority which
serves to legitimize this “order” and turn it into a binding system.
This order is by necessity of broad daylight. Peer and state supervision
could not work otherwise.
El-Hac Mustafa undermined each and every aspect of this order.
Without the knowledge of the group, he procured grapes from Gemlik
and at night, secretly (hafiyyeten) brought them to his shop and store-
house and sold them above narh prices to peddlers. Many contempor-
ary sources connect the night with acting “secretly” (gizlice, hafi,
hafiyyen, hafiyyeten).21 El-Hac Mustafa’s record clearly contrasts the
secrecy with which he acted, with the publicity (alenen) of the legal
guild procedure, a procedure that relied on the collective gaze of the
guild. Legality and order, it may be argued, relied on light and sight.
The vendors accused that by secretly selling grapes, Mustafa caused
disorder (ihtilal) among them, harmed the people, and acted in viola-
tion of the imperial decree that sanctioned the “old order.” The record
notes that the accused confessed and was warned to abide by the
established order, which is described again, and not to act in violation
of the decree.22 It is important to note the textual sequence here. Order
is established; it is then undermined “secretly” at night, but the accused

is exposed, brought to court, and upon his confession, order is restored

and reaffirmed.
The same can be said about other similar cases. For example, in mid-
June 1726, a large group of fresh fruit sellers (yaş yemiş tüccarı)
appeared in court and complained that fruit is being smuggled into
the city under the cover of night. Like in the case of the market
vendors, the record begins with a description of the established order,
brought in direct speech. The rationale of the procedure is very similar
to the one described in the previous case: cherries, pears, grapes, and
other fresh fruit were regularly bought from producers in villages
according to the fixed price, loaded onto boats and brought to the city,
where they were divided under the supervision of senior guild members
and palace officials, which secures narh prices. Then follows a descrip-
tion of the violation of order. “Peddlers and swindlers,” with no
relation to the guild, arrive at the villages with small boats and buy
directly from producers above narh prices. They bring the fruit to the
city during the night, stash it in “hidden places” and then sell them
above the fixed price. The disruption of “our old order,” complained
the guild members, violates the narh and causes great harm to the
people. The traders requested a decree that would sanction the enforce-
ment of the old order.23
Under the cover of darkness, and while community and guild sur-
veillance capacities were at their lowest, it was simply much more
difficult to eliminate illegal trade. But there is another possibility: that
the government actually tolerated such trade, not least because it
formed an additional network of supply at a time when the guild
system failed to provision the constantly growing population.24 In
Chapter 3, I suggest that the night allowed illegal activities to take
place not necessarily because darkness hid them completely, but also
because it made them easier to ignore. In other words, whereas
infringements in broad daylight were a direct challenge to the estab-
lished order, it was often comfortable for all parties to pretend night-
time violations never happened.25 It is possible that a similar approach
guided the authorities in turning a blind eye to economic activity at
night until they were compelled to act by appeals to court.
If economic order came under threat at night, what about public
order more generally? How did darkness affect the mechanisms
that were supposed to ensure the security, tranquility, and morality
of the people?

A Collective Sensorium
In Early Modern Ottoman cities, residents were held collectively
responsible for upholding public order and morality in their
neighborhoods. This collective responsibility encouraged people to
keep their eyes on the street at all times. Outsiders would immediately
draw attention, and often suspicion.26 Darkness impaired this collect-
ive oversight and exposed the resident to outside threats.
Thankfully, the neighborhood sensorium was not comprised only of
humans and did not rely on vision alone. The famous street dogs of
Istanbul played a crucial role in community policing, especially at night.
Compared to humans, dogs have immensely superior smelling and
hearing abilities, as well as better night vision. Unlike most people, the
dogs of Istanbul spent their nights outside, and were thus not only better
equipped but also better placed to detect movements in the street. Writing
about dogs in eighteenth-century Cairo, historian Alan Mikhail notes
that they tended to bark at strangers that infringed on territories they
considered their own.27 In Istanbul too, street dogs functioned as watch-
dogs, “aiding the sentries to keep watch.”28 Any unusual movement
could raise a terrible cacophony of barking that would alert residents all
around. One visitor to the city describes how he was awakened by “the
yelping, howling, barking, growling, and snarling merged into one uni-
form and continuous even sound” that lasted for hours. He ﬁnally
managed to fall asleep but was awakened again by the noise.29
Dogs may have been good as security guards; less so as morality
guardians. Neighborhood communities, it should be noted, were
charged not only with maintaining peace but also with upholding
chastity among their members. The pressure applied on the individual
to conform to the group’s norms was similarly predicated on the
constant gaze of the community, which one prominent scholar termed
“eye pressure” or “eye oppression” (göz baskısı).30 Any breach of the
norms could be easily noted and swiftly reported around. The “neigh-
borhood talk” could be destructive for one’s reputation. A trashed
reputation, in turn, could have an impact on one’s marriage opportun-
ities, business transactions, and even legal status. Constant surveil-
lance, which is so often associated with the modern era, is in fact
much older.
Darkness obstructed this communal eye, which was a constant
source of concern for moralists. Eliʿezer Pāpo (1785–1828), the chief

rabbi of Silistra (nowadays in Bulgaria), expresses this concern expli-

citly. In his extremely inﬂuential morality book Peleʿ Yoʿets (1824),
Pāpo laments the moral condition of Jewish communities in the empire
during his time, including the proliferation of prostitution, same-sex
relations, and masturbation (prohibited by the Halacha):

Therefore, in every city they must appoint guardians over the young
boys, and the rabbi must watch over his pupils and the father over his
sons shall be very vigilant, especially in the middle of night and dark,
lest they commit evil, because this is a sore evil and great impurity,
causing evil to himself and to the entire community.31

Pāpo’s words lucidly convey both the threat the night posed and the
remedy: increased communal surveillance. This approach translated
into community rules (taqanot) drafted by rabbis in different Ottoman
cities. For example, regulations published in Jerusalem in 1749, pro-
hibited unmarried young men (bahūrı̄m) from going outside after dark
_
unaccompanied by an adult family member, even for such noble pur-
poses as studying Torah. Very similar regulations were published in
Izmir and Salonica (Thessaloniki).32 Such concerns were not limited to
Jewish communities, of course. In the Hamse (Quintet) by the poet
Atāʾı̄ (1582–1634), we read about a “boy-lover” (gulampare) who
_
seduces a boy and brings him over to spend the night with him. Yet,
there are guests staying over and the two pretend to be asleep and wait
for everybody else to doze off. But, when the boy-lover joins the boy in
his bed, the guests, who have also been pretending to sleep, rise, light a
candle, and catch the boy-lover “in the act.” Figure 2.1, taken from an
illustrated manuscript completed in 1721, depicts the scene. In this
case, the sin is prevented because the guests stay awake, alert, and
when the time comes, expose the offender and shame him in front of
those present, and in front of the reader. Much more is said about this
practice below, but at this point, it is important to note the anxiety that
the story betrays: Darkness and sleep threatened to undermine
collective control.
Hearing could compensate for impaired vision to some extent.
While, according to the Sharia, ear-witnessing was not admissible
proof in court (see below), hearing was crucial for detecting irregular-
ities at night, probably more so than vision. While the darkness of the
night impaired eyesight, its silence actually improved listening. The
neighborhood could now hear what it could not see.33 In one case

Figure 2.1 A man and a young boy caught in bed. From Ḫamse-i ͑At āʾı̄.
_
Courtesy of the Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, W.666, 56a

brought to the Jerusalem court in the summer of 1702, the sheikh of

one of the neighborhoods in Jerusalem heard a conﬂict developing
outside one of the houses in the neighborhood and hurried to inter-
vene.34 One night in July 1743, residents in one of the neighborhoods
in Üsküdar heard shouts from one of the houses. Neighbors rushed
there and managed to stop a person who had tried to rape a woman
and then attacked her husband.35 In July 1790, residents in another
neighborhood complained against a certain Hasan, who would return
home drunk every night and hit his wife. It was the sound of his shouts
that informed them of what was going on.36 In all of these cases, it was
sound that alerted neighbors’ and facilitated their intervention, either
directly, or by appealing to the authorities, or both.
Indeed, if walls have ears (al-hit ān lahā ādhān), as the Arabic prov-
_ _
erb has it, well, at night they listen more carefully. The fact that hearing
was more important at night could, at times, save residents when they

were attacked, but it could also be used against them. A rather

common way of getting even with a neighbor was to shout insults at
him or her at night, when everything was quiet and there was no one
around to see. Some people accompanied the throwing of insults with
the throwing of stones. This was an established practice of harassing
and it remained common, at least in some places, until the end of the
nineteenth century.37
But, even without stones, a night attack on one’s honor was con-
sidered a serious thing, not unlike shaming on social media today. On
July 17, 1747, two women, Emine and Ümmehanı, brought charges
against their next-door neighbor, a “bachelor” (bekar) by the name of
İbrahim Beşe, a title that may imply janissary afﬁliation. They asserted
that the night before, just before the night prayer, the said İbrahim,
being drunk, banged on Amine’s door and shouted insults at her
daughter and herself. He allegedly called Ümmehanı a whore, and
her husband, a pimp. As in other similar cases, the insults thrown were
aimed at the moral reputation, and more speciﬁcally, the sexual con-
duct of the addressees. Nobody would come by the house of an enemy
at night only to shout out she (or he) is an idiot.38 Indeed, the slandered
women argued that İbrahim violated their “honor” (ırzımızı hetk
eylemişdir diye). The accused denied the allegations but witnesses
corroborated the women’s story. The plaintiffs requested he should
be removed from the neighborhood.39
Preserving women’s honor or chastity (ırz, namus) at night was a
source of much anxiety. If it was the moralizing gaze of the community
that was supposed to prevent moral irregularities, how could women’s
morality be “protected” when that gaze was impaired? Even during the
daytime, women’s access to urban space was (and still is) far from
universal or taken for granted.40 At night, urban space was much more
heavily gendered. If prevailing norms regarded the time between sunset
and the night prayer as moral twilight – a frontier between the
socially respectable and the immoral – for women, sunset comprised
a borderline that was better not crossed.41 Judging by the cases
brought to the Üsküdar court, the only women found outside after
the evening prayer were prostitutes or women accused of
prostitution.42 Even the interval between the evening and the night
prayer, in short, was a male-only time.
To protect the respectability of women from being soiled with
suspicion, their movements and actions were closely monitored by

male and other female household members, and by the community.43

In the case of Emine and Ümmehanı, however, we see that even in their
homes, women’s reputation was not guaranteed. We know from the
record that one of them was married but it appears that the husband
was not at home at the time of the incident, neither did he accompany
his wife to court. It may be, then, that the two women were living on
their own, which made them particularly vulnerable to allegations of
immoral conduct. It is very likely that İbrahim himself addressed his
words not to the women locked behind doors but to the neighbors’
ears. In other words, he probably knew very well how to play the
“politics of honor.”44
The women clearly did not take the matter lightly. They thought the
insults seriously jeopardized their reputation, so much so that they
rushed to court the next day. But in real time there was little they
could do. Indeed, the nocturnal setting of the incident made things
worse. As the streets sank into darkness, and the good people of the
neighborhood retreated to the [relative] safety of their homes, the day’s
din gradually receded. In the dark quiet that reigned through the
neighborhood, the bangs and shouts no doubt echoed louder. As in
the case of Hasan’s beaten wife, the neighbors who supported the
women’s story in retrospect did not go out of their homes to stop
İbrahim in real time. We can only imagine the women’s plight under
such circumstances: they knew that the neighborhood was listening but
could do nothing to stop the insults from spreading around in the
stillness of the night. All they could do was to try to protect their
reputation after the fact, by bringing their attacker to court.
Nocturnal attacks on one’s reputation, or sumʿa (from the Arabic root
that denotes hearing) had to be refuted during daytime, by actively
voicing an objection.
There is another option, of course, and that is that the plaintiffs
made up the story to eject an undesirable individual from the neigh-
borhood. İbrahim Beşe is reportedly a “bachelor” with no relatives in
the neighborhood, and as such, was very possibly considered a threat
to public morality. Similar cases of expulsion have been discussed in
the scholarship and the possibility of using such tactics is further
discussed below. It is still signiﬁcant that the women here, as in other
similar cases,45 chose to narrate the incident as a nocturnal one.
Building on the stigma and fear associated with the night was probably
an effective way to accentuate the sense of threat the accused

represented, not only to the plaintiffs themselves but to public order

and morality more generally. Every such case heard in court echoed
and reafﬁrmed the stigmatization of the night. We have already seen
that this stigmatization had economic and moral aspects. Next, I show
that the night was also associated with religious deviance.

When the Candle Is Snuffed Out

In Early Modern Europe, the night was widely associated with the
occult, and particularly with witchcraft.46 In the Ottoman Empire, by
contrast, witchcraft was not demonized and witch hunts were rare.47
However, there were others who served as “fifth columnists,” person-
alizing the fear of the authorities and communities from the undermin-
ing of social and political order. Here it was sometimes antinomian
groups that were targeted as the “enemies within,” functioning some-
what like witches in the European and North American contexts.48
These heretics, like the alleged witches, were often accused of deviant
sexual practices assumed to take place in the dark.49
Boğaç Ergene cites a 1698 case of three villagers from eastern
Anatolia who were brought to court in the town of Çankırı, in
north-central Anatolia. Their neighbors testified that they had seen
them congregating at night in the house of one of them, drinking
wine and having sex with each other’s wives. Ergene doubts the
neighbors’ claims, as did the judge, and speculates that if they saw
anything at all, it was probably the alevi ceremony known as cem. The
cem does not involve any sexual activity but, since it is performed by
men and women together, it violates Muslim-orthodox norms of
gender segregation and was therefore for centuries the object of
Sunni criticism. From here it was only a short step to stories, which
abound in orthodox sources, about ritualized orgies that supposedly
took place following the cem. According to this extremely widespread
and persistent myth, after the candles of the ceremony are put out,
those present have sex with each other in the dark. These alleged orgies
are known in Turkish as “snuffing the candle” (mum söndürme).50
The roots of this slanderous myth reach deep into the ancient world.
Similar stories of ritualistic orgies in the dark are ascribed in Roman
sources to secretive religious groups like the Bacchantes and the early
Christians. With the rise of kızılbaş opposition to the Ottomans in
Anatolia in the early sixteenth century, this myth was used to slander

antinomian Muslim groups such as the Kalendaris, the Bektaşıs,

and others.51
The earliest Ottoman records that make such accusations, go back
to the late sixteenth century, when heterodox tribes in southeast
Anatolia sympathized with the Safavids, the Ottomans’ rivals to the
east. For example, a sultanic decree referred to kadıs in the townships
of Küre and Taşköprü in 1571, stated that several people had been
overheard when convened in a certain house during the night to
perform the cem. They played music, enjoyed themselves together,
and then they snuffed the candle and had sex with each other’s wives.
Other decrees from the same period repeated the accusation, some-
times stressing that the practice took place at night “in secret.”52 That
the libel was common later on is beyond doubt. Paul Rycaut, who
served as a secretary to the English ambassador in Istanbul in the
1660s (and later as a consul in Izmir), described the Bektaşis as “a sect
among the janizaries [sic].” They are “called by some ‘Zerati’,” which
he explains as “those who have Copulation with their own Kindred
[capitalization in the original], and by the vulgar mum sonduren
[sic], or extinguishers of the candle.” He then explains that “these
people” copulate with their sons and daughters “against the instinct
of nature.”53
Very similar allegations were made still in the twentieth century, not
only by orthodox Muslims against Muslim heterodox groups, but also
by orthodox Jews against Sabbateans, a sect of Jews that had con-
verted to Islam, but kept some of their Jewish traditions. The stories
were strikingly similar. Married Sabbatian couples allegedly
gathered together for a ritualistic dinner on the night of the 22nd of
Adar (around mid-March), known as the Lamb or Spring Festival.
During dinner, the candles are snuffed and an orgy ensues in the
dark. Like in the case of Muslim heterodox groups, the stories
about Sabbateans have a long history going back almost to the
beginning of the sect in the mid-seventeenth century. It should be
noted that several scholars, including, most recently, Cengiz Şişman,
believe the stories about candle extinguishing have a “factual basis.”54
Yet, the very fact that the same story was blamed on such radically
different groups as the early Christians and the Sabbateans
should cast serious doubts on its authenticity. Indeed, a careful
reading of the evidence exposes the stories about Sabetean candle
snufﬁng as baseless.55

What all versions of the candle snuffing libel share is its nocturnal
setting. The rituals of various antinomian groups (including the
Sabeteans and Bektaşis) indeed took place at night and some of these
groups certainly cultivated a culture that associated the night with love,
carnal, platonic, and divine.56 But we should not confuse such general
notions with alleged ritualistic orgies in the dark. The nocturnal setting
of the libel contributes greatly to its power. It is darkness that renders
the story both threatening and appealing, outwardly offensive to
orthodox sensibilities, and at the same time mysterious, intriguing,
and licentiously attractive.
The famous Ottoman traveler Evliya Çelebi (1611–1682) discussed
“candle snuffing” in his Book of Travels and noted that “people say
that in Persia, there are still those who do it.” However, Evliya Çelebi
completely discredits these allegations, at least with regards to that
area. He emphasizes time and again that he has never observed any-
thing like it although he traveled extensively in the region.57
He does bring a story, however, in an attempt to explain the origins
of the practice. According to Evliya, it was Sheikh Safi al-Din, the
founder of the Safavid Sufi order, who originated the practice. He led
a mystical session known as tevhid (union) and invited both his male
and female disciples to attend. At the end of the session, he extin-
guished the candle and said: “Let everyone, dark as it is, embrace the
ones next to him and go home.” By virtue of his saintly blessing, it
turned out that every man embraced his own wife and daughters. “It is
truly a miracle that in that dark of night, and in that mingling and
whirling crowd of people (ol karanlık gecede ol beni adem izdihamında
karış katış dönerken), everyone should have found his very own
wife.”58 The sheikh conducted such ceremonies a few more times,
and every time the miracle repeated itself. Yet, when some of the
sheikh’s deputies tried to pull the same trick, it did not work so well.
The sheikh therefore prohibited not only the “snuffing of candles,” but
forbade mixed tevhid sessions altogether.
The story about Sheikh Safi al-Din strengthens Evliya’s claim that
snuffing the candle is but a myth. He has not observed the practice, he
seems to be saying, since the very saint who had initiated it later
disallowed it. What is more important for this discussion is the imagin-
ation of darkness and its significance. As long as there was light in the
ceremony, nothing particularly out of the ordinary happened. But in
the darkness, there was much “crowding,” “mingling,” and

“whirling.” Concealed from the authoritative gaze of the sheikh, and

that of the community, people could peel off their morality as quickly as
they could take off their clothes. In this case, it was the blessing of the
sheikh that prevented scandal. Morality was miraculously saved, order
was restored. But, in the absence of such saintly personhood, orthodoxy
must be maintained. The lesson is, therefore, that men and women
should not be allowed to mix. Slopes are more slippery in the dark.
Evliya Çelebi could try to ease the concerns of his readers (while
allowing them a sneak peek into dark rooms at the same time) and
restore order merely by his power as narrator. When the authorities
acted on an accusation of “snufﬁng the candle” it was not just words
that were used. People branded heretics were, at times, severely pun-
ished for such allegations.59 Reports about “candle snuffers” surface
occasionally over the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. For
example, in 1789, a certain Ali Dere of “the heretic band of candle
snuffers” (mum söndüren tabir olunur taife-i zale) was accused of
“fomenting mischief” in a village by the name of Emre in the district
of Karahisar-ı Sahib (today’s Afyonkarahisar), a few hundred kilo-
meters southeast of Istanbul.60 In a report presented to Sultan
Abülhamid II in the late nineteenth century, some of the same libels
were repeated. Interestingly, the report noted that when performing
their ritual, participants make a great effort not to be seen or heard.61
Not only is it dark, then; the deviants are actively trying to conceal
themselves. That is one of the basic traits of all successful conspiracy
theories. The fact you cannot see it does not mean it is not there,
lurking in the dark. The libels of “candle snufﬁng,” then, not only
stigmatized the night as a time of religious and sexual deviance; they
also served to defame antinomian groups. If the alevis and later the
Sabbateans were “a scapegoat for all seasons,”62 then associating them
with the night, and the night with their praxis, added to their dubious
reputation. Darkness is here shown to be not only threatening to
hegemony, but also useful.
Stigmatizing the night as an interval of economic, moral, sexual, and
religious deviance, and community and guild surveillance that served
to impose these norms, joined the physical compartmentalization of
the urban fabric with doors and gates in discouraging the “respect-
able” from going out to the streets at night. Those who went out
nevertheless had to make themselves visible and if they failed to do
so, they risked being forcefully exposed and shamed.

Bringing to Light
Even if darkness did not completely undermine the collective
sensorium of the neighborhood, it certainly made it harder to intervene
in real time. Furthermore, at night, people were mostly indoors and a
collective action against violators was harder to execute. Action
required locating the source of disturbance, and then exposing the
perpetrators, that is, depriving them of the darkness in which they
sought cover. Hearing was simply not good enough for these
purposes. Mechanisms of active intervention at night therefore relied
on light and vision.
First among these mechanisms was the compulsory carrying of
personal lanterns.63 It is not clear when and how the practice
developed. As discussed below, Sultan Murad IV (1623–1640) ruth-
lessly enforced it in Istanbul, which obviously means it was already in
place during his time, or at least at the time the Ottoman chronicler
Mustafa Naima (1665–1716) was reporting it. Orders sent to kadıs
in Istanbul occasionally show that the measure was perhaps not
applied comprehensively, and that officials had to be reminded at
times of the need to enforce it. For example, the kadı of intramural
Istanbul was ordered in 1695–1696 to make sure that nobody went
out after the night prayer without a lantern.64 About a century later,
the kadı of Üsküdar, on the Asian side of the Bosporus, was
instructed to enforce the measure since “some vile individuals roam
the streets at night and dare engage themselves in mischief, and since
it has long been the rule that no one should go out at night without a
lantern.” From now on, the decree read, anyone found in the streets
without a lantern three hours after sunset, shall be arrested.65 These
documents suggest that enforcement of the measure was not as strict
throughout the period under discussion, and yet, whenever nocturnal
disturbances occurred, stricter enforcement of individual illumination
was the default.
Starting in the 1840s, against the background of growing nocturnal
traffic and soaring crime, the authorities enforced measures against
individuals without lanterns much more systematically than ever
before.66 In Istanbul, this remained the rule deep into the second half
of the nineteenth century, long after street lighting had been first
introduced. In Jerusalem, inhabitants were absolved of the need to
carry a lantern only in 1905.67 When thinking about nineteenth-

century developments, then, we should not assume a linear shift from

the neighborhood gaze to the panoptic surveillance of a centralized
state, and from self-exposure by light to a centrally operated system of
street lighting. Rather, we need to consider how modern technologies
and visual regimes interacted with older modalities of seeing and
lighting in shaping nocturnal realities.68
But before the street lighting of the late nineteenth century, portable
lanterns were the only lights to be seen in the streets at night. Powerful
individuals, who could afford servants to light their way, used relatively
big lanterns, but most people had to do with much less. The common
lantern was made of a pasteboard bottom, on which a small candle was
placed, and a paper cover about 14 inches high to protect the ﬂame. The
cover could fold much like an accordion and ﬁt in the pocket. Finer
lanterns were made of gauze stretched over a tin or copper frame.69
The Spaniard Domingo Francisco Jorge Badía y Leblich
(1766–1818), who traveled through the Middle East under the
assumed name Ali Bey al-Abbasi, passed through Istanbul in
1807 and left us a rather dark description of its nights and the portable
lanterns used by its inhabitants:

The profound darkness which reigns in all the streets, added to the
mud with which they are covered, upon a bad pavement, more or less
on the descent, renders the progress of passengers very tiresome, unless
they have lanterns before them. The inhabitants use small ones made
of linen, but they give so feeble a light, that it is difﬁcult to distinguish
the persons who carry them; so that the number of pale lights which
may be seen moving about during the night, as if suspended in the
lower regions of air, resemble a dance of phantoms.70

This mode of moving through the city is worthy of a few words. The
walker is forced to walk slowly, his lantern lowered, with eyes scan-
ning the ground to avoid puddles, pitfalls, and dogs who often slept in
the streets.71 These were territorial animals, and you did not want to
accidentally step on a tail. Even with a lantern, avoiding all these
dangers was not guaranteed. Common candles gave very little light,
which in the case of portable lanterns was further diminished by the
paper or cloth cover.72 This feeble light source could not cast away
darkness. In some ways, it actually deepened it.
Darkness simpliﬁes the perceived environment by hiding all but the
most conspicuous features. Rather than focus on speciﬁc objects, eyes

roam between them. Patches of light, on the other hand, draw the gaze
and serve to focus it much more acutely than during the day, when a
multitude of competing objects are visible.73 All these together contrib-
ute to the instinctive alignment of light and sight. But the very focus on
the lantern serves to blind the traveler to her or his surrounding. The
very exposure to light in the dark enhances this effect as it favors the
cones over the rods, thereby impairing night vision. In short, a portable
lantern was of limited usefulness for seeing. It was crucial, however, for
being seen. The lantern signified that a person was willingly exposing
himself to the gaze of the patrolling guards and that he was a decent
member of the community with nothing to hide.74
Early republican historian Osman Nuri Ergin wrote that people who
were caught walking the streets of Ottoman Istanbul without a lantern
were apprehended even if they committed no felony, simply because
they “invited suspicion.” They were often locked up overnight in one
of the public baths around the city and made to work until the morning
under the supervision of the stoker. Handing over individuals caught
without a lantern and whose identity was unknown (fenersiz gezen
hüvviyyeti mechul) to the stoker of the nearest bathhouse saved the
trouble of escorting them all the way to the guarding station. But there
was another benefit: the hard work in the public bath’s furnace was
regarded as a deterring punishment. The detainees were forced to
perform such jobs as carrying firewood and cleaning the furnace, and
by the time they were set free in the morning, they were extremely
dirty. When they made their way home all covered with soot and ashes,
all who saw them understood that they had been arrested somewhere
during the night, walking without a lantern.75 We can think of this
forced blackening as an inversion of the self-identification by light. The
French diplomat and academic François Pouqueville (1770–1838)
recorded in his travel book a very similar practice and interpreted it
in very similar terms. According to his account, Muslims who had been
caught drunk more than three times were deemed beyond correction
and were sent to sleep “upon the ashes” of public baths. Pouqueville
understood this practice as a “manner of stigmatizing” and then
explained the way neighborhoods often acted against such stigmatized
individuals.76
By inscribing their dubious nocturnal deeds on their face and
clothes, those violating the order and morality were publicly shamed.
They were forcefully removed from the darkness in which they took

cover, deprived of the anonymity in which they wished to wrap them-

selves, and then sent, stamped with disgrace back to their neighbor-
hood. Here, in broad daylight, they were once again seen, recognized,
shamed, and tamed. The night guards, it is readily understood, were
crucial for the system. While authorized to punish offenders on the
spot, guards also served to impose visibility, or put differently, with
returning runaways back under the watchful eye of the community.
James Caulfield (1728–1799), a Dublin-born aristocrat of English des-
cent provides us with a first-hand account of what it was like to be caught
without a lantern in the streets of Istanbul. Caulfield visited Istanbul in the
late 1740s and decided to go with some of his acquaintances on a nightly
excursion. They made their way through the streets “when all at once, the
pitchy darkness gave place to the gleam of a multitude of lanterns by which
we were surrounded and which glared upon us from every quarter, and the
dead silence was broken by the clamour of a large party of men, who
encompassed us on every side, armed with monstrous clubs which they
violently struck against the ground.”77
Caulfield recounts his utter surprise as he and his friends did not
hear even the “smallest previous noise.” The “blaze of light, which
shone in our eyes and dazzled us like a nightly flash of lighning [sic],
the number, noise, arms” of the guards, combined with the foreigners’
preconceptions of “Turkish barbarity” all contributed to the sense of
terror that gripped the party.78 While poor in today’s terms, in
Caulfield’s narrative the light of several lanterns, when shining sud-
denly in his eyes was enough to dazzle.
The guards, according to Caulfield, went around in complete silence,
with their lanterns covered, so as to surprise those “walking at undue
hours.” When such individuals were spotted, they would quietly encir-
cle them and then uncover their lanterns and take them by surprise.
Caulfield and his friends, in any case, suffered no harm. After they
explained who they were, the guards simply bid them good night,
covered their lanterns, and set out again in complete silence.79
Caulfield had nothing but praise for this mode of operation, and
wished it was adopted by the guards in his own country, who always
made terrible noise that warned evildoers in advance and allowed them
to perpetrate their “mischiefs” uninterrupted. In short, the patrolling
guards not only imposed self-lighting but also used light themselves to
expose and arrest people at night, whose failure to light and expose
themselves automatically made them suspect.

Finally, light was used by local residents when engaging in what is

sometimes referred to as “neighborhood raids” (sing. mahalle baskını).
The late Ottoman author, Abdülaziz Bey, provides us with a detailed
description of such raids. When illegal activity, especially prostitution,
was suspected to be taking place and threatened to soil the neighbor-
hood’s reputation, a raiding party comprised of male residents and
local night guards would assemble. They would encircle the sus-
pected house with their lanterns while making a great deal of noise,
shouting that they would not allow a stain on the honor of the
neighborhood and its respectable residents. With the permission
of the local imam or the kadı, they would sometimes break into the
house, dragging the culprits out into the light and publicly shame
them in front of the community.80 Culprits were often handed over
to the authorities but the exposure to both eyes and ears of the
community was no doubt critical not only for upholding public
morality, but for advertising the neighborhood community’s firm
stance on such issues.
Figure 2.2 depicts such a neighborhood raid on a brothel. It is taken
from an illustrated copy of Zenan-Name (The Book of Women) by
Fazil Enderuni (1757–1810) and shows that the practice was well-
established already in the eighteenth century. Contemporary court
records further show that such raids were an integral part of everynight
life. For example, in the summer of 1742 two men and two women
were brought to court by the bailiff (subaşı) of the Yeni Mahalle
neighborhood in Üsküdar. According to the court record, on the
previous night, the group “engaged in mischief until the morning”
(sabaha değin fısk u fesad eylediklerini) in an apartment in the Reis
neighborhood. Unfortunately for them, they were spotted by neighbors
who called in the bailiff. The official, together with the “neighborhood
people” raided the place, took the partiers out, and arrested them.
They were questioned in court and confessed.81 A record from mid-
November 1764 tells of a woman named Emine b. Mehmed who was
caught red-handed in the company of an “unrelated” man. The latter,
however, managed to get away. He left behind a bottle of rakı and a
mattress, which the record defined as “means of party” (alat-ı bezm).82
There is no shortage of similar cases.83 The court records are notori-
ously skimpy in details but, relying on the visual and textual descrip-
tions brought above, we can easily imagine the terror and
embarrassment that must have gripped the culprits as they were

Figure 2.2 A neighborhood raid; from Zenannâme, by Enderuni Fazil

(1755–1810).
Courtesy of İstanbul Üniversitesi Nadir Eserler Kütüphanesi (TY 5502/148a)

dragged out by the bailiff and/or the raiding party, to be exposed in the
light of lanterns.
The close link between light, the neighborhood’s gaze, and collective
action is personified in the figure of the mahalleli (lit. a neighborhood
resident) in the Ottoman shadow theatre (Hayal or Karagöz). This
figure is actually made of three or four individuals congregating under
one umbrella. Significantly, one of these individuals carries a lantern,
signifying that the neighborhood can see even at night. This group–
figure never speaks; it appears in specific moments to indicate that a
certain happening was seen by the neighborhood and that it is now
known to all.84
Not only policing and arrest were guided by light and sight; so was
prosecution. Islamic law favored eyewitness over earwitness testimony.
In fact, according to some prominent jurists, earwitness testimony was
not acceptable except in very specific cases. One of the most important
Hanafi works, Al-Hidāya (1196–1197) stipulates that “it is not per-
missible for a witness to testify about something unless he saw it,” and
elsewhere “if he heard [something] behind a screen (hijāb), it is not
_
permissible for him to testify [regarding it].”85 In many of the cases
cited above, the judge was therefore unable to convict based on the
Sharia and had to turn to sultanic law (kanun), which sets a lower
evidentiary bar. The validity of evidence in Islamic law is well beyond
the scope of this chapter, and this author’s expertise, but for the
purpose of this discussion, it is significant that legally too, only vision
was trusted to tell the truth.
Thus far, I demonstrated the stigmatization of the night by
neighborhoods, guilds, courts, and moralists and the way it worked
to deter people from engaging in illicit activities at night. The Ottoman
authorities augmented these mechanisms by circulating the dark streets
and enforcing the law directly.

The Patrol
With the partial lapse of community and guild surveillance, and in the
absence of cheap street lighting, policing cities was a real challenge. In
Jerusalem, the challenge was easier to meet. With less than 10,000
residents and fully enclosed within its high walls, the city could simply
be shut away from the outside world. Indeed, throughout most of the
Ottoman period, Jerusalem’s gates were closed every evening at sunset

and kept locked and guarded until daybreak.86 Within the city too,
gates of courtyards and roofed markets would also be shut at sunset
making movement much harder.87 Traffic after the night prayer was
extremely low.88
Home to hundreds of thousands of people, sprawling far beyond the
old Byzantine walls and penetrated by waterways, Istanbul presented a
much bigger challenge of nocturnal order. Considering it was the seat
of government, however, meeting the challenge was crucial. The palace
therefore deployed imperial forces to police the city, under the author-
ity of the most senior officials in the empire, the grand vizier, and his
deputy (kaymakam). Below them were the chief of the janissaries and
his deputy (sekbanbaşı), and a number of high military officials, each
responsible for a different area of the capital. The chief of the janissar-
ies was in charge of policing intramural Istanbul, excluding the palace
and its environs, which was the responsibility of the captain of the
armorers attached to the janissaries (cebecibaşı). The chief of the
janissaries also oversaw the “police posts” (sing. kolluk) in the areas
under his responsibility. Among the duties of the men stationed in
those locations were daytime and nighttime patrols and the arrest of
suspects.89
Policing in the neighborhoods outside the walls was divided between
three high officials. The grand admiral (kapudan paşa) was in charge of
the harbor areas in Galata and Kasımpaşa. The master general of the
artillery (topçubaşı) was responsible for the areas of Beyoğlu and
Tophane. Finally, the chief of the imperial guard (bostancıbaşı), over-
saw policing in Üsküdar, Eyüp, the shores of the Bosporus, the coast of
the Sea of Marmara and the Princess Islands, and all open areas
including gardens, meadows, and forests.90 These officers and their
men were assisted by two additional officials, whose mission was more
strictly defined as maintenance of public order and crime prevention.
These were the city superintendent (subaşı), responsible for daytime
policing, and the captain of the guards (asesbaşı) whose kingdom was
the night. The asesbaşı commanded a division of janissaries numbering
as many as 500 men.91
What all representatives of power and authority shared as they
patrolled the dark streets was that they too, much like the offenders
they sought to apprehend, were partly blinded by darkness.92 Light
and noise at night often signaled that something out of the ordinary
was taking place. These signals could direct law enforcers and facilitate

their intervention. The English journalist Frederic Shoberl

(1775–1853) describes, in the illustrated volume he published in
1821, the modus operandi of the bostancıbaşı:

If this ofﬁcer hears a noise in any house, or sees a light in it at

unseasonable hours, he orders stones to be thrown at the windows;
on the slightest suspicion, he breaks open the door, searches it all over,
and frequently punishes the master with a ﬁne and the bastinado.93

As court records reveal, often it was neighbors that informed ofﬁcials

in real time.94 What the records merely mention in a few words,
chronicler Cabi Ömer (d. ~1814) describes in more detail. According
to one of the anecdotes he cites, one night, the chief of the janissaries
was tipped off about gambling activity that was taking place in a house
in the vicinity of Laleli. He arrived there one night in disguise and,
conveniently, found a camel tied outside that belonged to a coal
merchant. He had one of his men mount the camel and peek through
the window. Once it was corroborated that illegal activity was indeed
taking place, the chief and his men burst in and arrested the gamblers.
It was later rumored that the chief of janissaries “even watches over
private homes at night with a camel.”95 The camel was an unexpected
bonus, but the chief was most certainly pleased that such rumors
circulated. Let the people know that the night offers no refuge from
the authorities.
But, in fact, the city was far too big and much too dark to be
controlled effectively. What law enforcers lacked in terms of effective
power, they sometimes tried to make up for by projecting fear. This
was not unique to the Ottomans. According to historian Roger Ekirch,
even in Paris, the best-illuminated city in eighteenth-century Europe,
the night remained largely beyond the effective control of the author-
ities. Sanctioned penalties for nocturnal transgressions were meant to
deter, but enforcement was often impossible.96
While sharing much with other rulers, the Ottomans had their own
ways of instilling nighttime fear of the law, and of those enforcing it.
The bostancıbaşı and his men, as captured in several contemporary
accounts by foreign and Ottoman observers, may help demonstrate
this. One such account was left by Baron François de Tott
(1733–1793), a French military ofﬁcer of Hungarian origins. Baron
de Tott served as military advisor to Sultan Mustafa III
(r. 1757–1774).97 The Baron and his wife were invited to pass a few

days in the waterfront house of the Greek Dragoman of the Porte. De

Tott describes a dinner party attended by “Greek gentlemen” and
“ladies” and takes great pleasure in ridiculing them for trying, rather
unsuccessfully, to “imitate” the French ways. After dinner, the party
moved outside to the villa’s quay. “The Moon began to appear, and a
dead Calm invited us to go upon the Water” [capitalization in the
source]. At that point, the company heard noise in the distance, which
turned out to be the cries of people being hit by the men of the
bostancıbaşı. “Mice are not more in haste to run away, at the approach
of a cat, than all the women now were to hide themselves.”98 The
bostancıbaşı soon appeared in a boat manned by 24 rowers. The
officer, according to de Tott, went on one of his patrols in order to
“chastise the irregularities of some drunken persons, and lay hold of
certain females, a little too gay, who had fallen under his notice.” The
bostancıbaşı passed by the quay, saluting the party, but soon after
stories about his abusive behavior in nearby waterfront houses began
to arrive. The officer, it was said, was arresting people and would only
release them in return for a bribe. “This was sufficient . . . to render the
Panic general.” However, as soon as the bostancbaşı’s boat was seen
making its way back to Istanbul, “the Sea was covered by a prodigious
number of Boats in which Ladies enjoyed the beauties of the scene,
serenaded by musical instruments.”99
Tott witnessed a well-developed tradition of nightly cruises on the
Bosporus.100 What is significant at this point is to note the seemingly
conflicting impressions of widespread leisure and widespread fear. On
the one hand, the account emphasizes time and again the terror that
accompanied the bostancıbaşı wherever he went. On the other hand,
the fear was obviously not enough to deter men and women from
going on leisurely cruises. Wherever the dreaded officer went, boats
moved out of harm’s way, taking cover in the dark, only to reappear
immediately after danger has passed. People, so it seems, knew very
well how to play this nocturnal hide and seek. Considering that officers
were entitled to pocket some of the money imposed as fines at night,
what Tott described as completely arbitrary extortion was, in fact, the
abuse of an institutionalized mechanism. That is significant since
people probably knew that even if they were caught, they could get
away with a fine and possibly a few lashes. That was not pleasant, but
certainly far better than the image of unrestrained violence as por-
trayed by the Syrian Ḥanna al-Tabı̄b at the beginning of this chapter.
_

It can be, of course, that the level of enforcement varied not only
between different areas and officers but between periods. At times of
turmoil, enforcement was no doubt stricter. The Ottoman chronicler
Cabi, tells of a conversation, which supposedly took place in early July
1808, between the new grand vizier Alemdar Mustafa Paşa
(1755–1808) and some of his top officials. The conversation should
be read against the background of the great instability following the
janissary rebellion of 1807. The chronicler Cabi, then, reports that the
recently appointed grand vizier told his top officials that in the prov-
inces, people used to talk so much about the full-moon delights of
Istanbul. Yet, he said, “I have traveled in disguise so much along the
Bosporus and haven’t seen even one individual going about. I wonder,
gentlemen, did we drive away everybody’s fun? (acaba bizler cümlenin
saffalarını kaçırdık mı efendiler?)”
One of the officials replied that the people may be afraid that leisure
trips and wedding feasts might anger “our master,” and so they do not
go out. Or maybe the chief of the bostancılar warned his men not to let
people out. To this, the grand vizier replied: “What does this mean? As
long as the people cannot enjoy, who can? Everybody should enjoy as
they please, nobody should be prevented from it.” The chief of the
bostancılar was then notified that it was the wish of the grand vizier
that the people would be allowed to go for pleasure cruises on the
Bosporus. One day, when the bostancıbaşı was sitting in the Kule
garden, a few revelers (birkaç ehl-i keyf kimesneler), singing in the
back of their boat, did not for a second hesitate and passed in front of
him. This really angered him, but as Cabi says, what could he do
about it? According to Cabi, it became clear that it was indeed the
limitations imposed by the bostancıbaşı that drove people away from
the Bosporus.101
Like Tott’s account, Cabi’s anecdote too exposes not only the heavy
hand of the bostancıbaşı, but something of the life that went on in the
dark despite it. Further away from the officer’s boat, before and after
times of particularly intensive enforcement efforts, the night was
swarming with activity, which was certainly not limited to the tavern
hubs of the city.102 The most important point, however, is that the
same darkness that allowed thieves, smugglers, and drinkers to engage
in their illicit activities, also allowed those charged with catching them
more leeway to avoid the supervision of their superiors. This dynamic
is further discussed in Chapter 3, but at this point, it is important to

note that monitoring the conduct of ofﬁcials at night was one of the
main reasons high ofﬁcials and even sultans went out on undercover
patrols at night, or at least, were believed to have done so.

To Meet the Sultan in a Dark Alley

According to court chronicler Naima (1655–1716), “it is told” (men-
kuldur) that Sultan Murad IV used to roam the streets of Istanbul at
night in disguise to enforce his ban on the consumption of alcohol,
coffee, and tobacco.103 I shall return to Naima’s account shortly, but
ﬁrst, should we even take it seriously? Was it not a fable taken directly
from the Arabian Nights, a kind of bedtime story whispered in the dark
to deter those seeking nocturnal entertainments outside? Sure, that too.
Yet, it is highly probable that some Ottoman sultans indeed went on
such nightly excursions. In fact, I argue that the reality of the practice
and its legend cannot be understood separately. In order to see that, we
need, ﬁrst, to call the practice out of the shadows of legend and mystery
and look at it as yet another instrument in the Ottoman ruling toolkit.
At the same time, we need to keep in mind that it was exactly those
shadows that were supposed to make the practice effective.
The most common term used to denote these undercover patrols was
tebdil gezmek or tebdil çıkmak. Tebdil (lit. change) here is a shorthand
for tebdil-i kıyafet or tebdil-i came, literally, change of clothes.
According to contemporary sources, sultans very often adopted this
mode of travel, usually for banal purposes such as taking a cruise down
the Bosporus or going to pray in a particular mosque. Despite its
prevalence, this mode of undercover travel has attracted far less schol-
arly attention than its pompous, extravagant cousin, the public sulta-
nic procession.104
We do know, however, that Ottoman sultans went on such under-
cover excursions at least since the sixteenth century, and the practice
became even more common in the following centuries. Fikret
Sarıcaoğlu assesses that Sultan Abdülhamid I (r. 1774–1789) went on
tebdil six or seven times a month on average.105 Mehmet İpşirli specu-
lates that it had to do with the growing isolation of the crown princes
from the outer world ever since the late sixteenth century. These young
men, he suggests, wanted to see the world outside the “cage” (kafes) of
their childhood and therefore changed their clothes, assumed fake
identities, and took to the streets.106 This claim should in fact be

expanded: the seclusion of the princes was only one aspect of a much
wider process: the growing distance between the palace and the city.
The tebdil allowed traversing this distance incognito, giving the ruler a
first-hand impression of what he would otherwise have to imagine,
relying on other people’s reports.
Therefore, Ottoman sultans and high officials at times dressed up as
merchants, dervishes, or military officers and went about the city.107
The rationale, according to the chronicler Şemdanı-Zade Fındıkıllı
Süleyman Efendi (~1740–1779) was rather simple: to reward those
who deserved it, and to punish, possibly even execute, the “impu-
dent.”108 Sultan Selim III, for example, quite often went on tebdils,
which at times resulted in measures against officials he held responsible
for flaws in the administration of the city.109 Such excursions could
happen during the day and the night but the two, I argue, were
different in significant ways. If daytime undercover tebdils allowed
inspection of the markets and other diurnal institutions, nighttime
tebdils were excursions into the edges of state control, and therefore,
a claim to rule over the night as well as the day.
Ottoman sultans were following a very long tradition here. Several
sources mention that the second Caliph ʿOmar bin al-Khattāb
__
(r. 634–644) used to walk the streets of Medina at night, asking the
inhabitants whether or not they were content with the government.
The practice seems to have been adopted by several Abbasid
caliphs.110 The ruler most closely identified with incognito night
patrols is the caliph Hārūn al-Rashı̄d (r. 786–809), whose nightly
outings with his vizier Jaʿfar were immortalized in the Arabian
Nights. In the story of the porter and the three ladies, it is said that
the caliph “was accustomed to walk abroad in disguise very often by
night, that he might see with his own eyes, if everything was quiet in
the city, and no disorders were committed in it.”111
Tales and motives from the collection made their way into Turkish
oral tradition and were widely used by storytellers. The first partial
translation into Turkish dates back to 1429, consisting of the stories of
55 nights.112 Interestingly, a comprehensive translation into Turkish
was commissioned by Murad IV,113 whose nightly excursions were
mentioned above. For one copy of this work, we know that it moved
from hand to hand in Istanbul for 30 years, before finally making its
way to Paris.114 The Bursa manuscript, which apparently dates back to
the fifteenth century, includes descriptions of the Caliph’s nightly

patrols.115 In short, stories of sultans roaming the streets in disguise

have been around for centuries and were certainly known both in the
palace and in the city.
It matters not if Sultan Murad IV drew direct inspiration from the
manuscript he commissioned or even if he actually went on tebdils at
night; the important thing, rather, is that in the period under discussion
here, he was widely believed to have done so, and that the stories about
such patrols could be grounded in a longer tradition that gave them
meaning. In any case, according to Mustafa Naima, the people who
were caught violating Murad IV’s ban on alcohol, coffee, and tobacco,
and the law that sanctioned the carrying of portable lanterns when
walking the streets after the night prayer were “mercilessly executed.”
The ban was so strictly enforced that people not only abstained from
smoking publicly but also from going out even at the time of the night
prayer, apparently to be on the safe side. And no wonder. Naima
relates that one night, when the sultan was patrolling in disguise (tebdil
gezerken) in the Hoca Paşa neighborhood, he chanced upon the son of
the neighborhood’s imam. The young lad lingered in the mosque a
little while longer and since his home was near, he did not carry a
lantern. The sultan did not pause for details. He asked: “Did you not
hear of my warning?” We can only imagine the stiﬂing fear that must
have gripped the poor young man. According to Naima, he stuttered,
and the sultan, furious, had him executed on the spot.116
Despite ﬁrst appearance, it is not arbitrariness that is the theme of
this tale but rather the literal enforcement of the law. The sultan indeed
decreed that those found outside after the night prayer without a
lantern would be executed. Literally taken, the young man did just
that, and literally again, had nothing to say in his defense. It is this
literal enforcement of the decree that is unsettling as it violates basic
notions of justice. It’s just not fair. The victim was not a wine drinker;
he did not even consume coffee or tobacco. He was a pious young man,
the son of the local imam on the way back from the mosque. It is the
disagreement between the innocent infringement and the severity of the
punishment that seems misplaced. In this way, Naima tries to give his
readers a taste of the terror supposedly experienced by the people of
Istanbul at that time. Every morning, he adds as if to make things
explicit, people found one or two corpses lying in the streets, which
caused great fear. This reminds us of Ḥannā al-Tabı̄b’s account, with
_
which the chapter opened.

It appears that the story was offensive to contemporary sensibilities

as well, as Naima felt a need to explain the sultan’s ruthless behavior. It
is clear, he stated, that Murad did not act so harshly merely for the
sake of vain domineering. Rather, he used [the ban] as a pretext in the
interest of punishing the vile ones and deterring the common people.
People of virtue, he added, will see that under this oppression (kahr u
zecrin tahtında) there lies perfect kindness and public interest (lütf-i
tam ve nef’-i am). They would realize that in order to direct those who
strayed from the road of docility and acted in violation of the imperial
wish, it is of the greatest importance to scare the common people “with
a shiny sword.”
Furthermore, Naima explained that the ban on tobacco and coffee
was not against the substances as such, but because of the social nature
of their consumption. These substances, he explained, encouraged
people to congregate together in coffeehouses, barbershops, and in
houses of certain people, whence they engage in discussions of matters
of the state, criticizing the rulers, “and so many were the lies they made
up.” It was exactly for this problem, he continued, that the sultan
patrolled the city, in person, “day and night.” During the day, he
arrested and executed the riffraff and bandits and those who congre-
gate to smoke when he encountered them, and at night he made the
heedless night travelers (şeb-revlik eden bi-pervalar) drink the “bever-
age of death.”117
Naima’s text seems to suggest a distinction between daytime gather-
ings that revolved around coffee and tobacco, and those of the night
which were fueled by alcohol (implied in “the beverage of death”).118
But if disorderly and potentially subversive activity was not limited to
daytime, neither was sultanic surveillance. Fariba Zarinebaf has
already noted that Naima’s praise of Murad IV should be read in
context: he was writing in the aftermath of the 1703 rebellion, which
seriously undermined political authority. Naima therefore stressed the
need for a strong and direct rule of the sultan, relying on a powerful
army and covert state control.119 Murad’s version of the “caliph
nightly patrols” theme is therefore very different than that of Hārūn
al-Rashı̄d. While the latter sought to protect his subjects by monitoring
his own ofﬁcers and ofﬁcials, Murad wanted to instill terror in the
hearts of his subjects. The rationale of the patrolling technique was
similar, however. Under normal circumstances, the monarch was all-
powerful and at the same time inaccessible, concealed behind many

walls and guarded by countless soldiers. This distance shielded not only
the sultan from his subjects, but also worked the other way around. The
thought that in the gloom of night, the supreme power was roaming the
streets; that you might suddenly bump into him in a dark alley must
have been terrifying. No wonder the poor imam’s son stuttered.
Stories about the sultan’s acts of cruelty during his undercover night
patrols were widespread in early eighteenth-century Istanbul, as
attested by Dimitrie Cantemir (1673–1723) in his grand history of
the Ottoman Empire.120 Such frightful stories were not the only
accounts of the sultan’s nightly patrols. Among the people, stories
expressing a completely diametric perspective circulated widely. In
these stories and jokes, drinkers constantly outwitted and outman-
euvered the sultan and his men, undermining the enforcement efforts
and the public morals they were meant to impose.121
Frightful or funny, what if these were stories and nothing more?
Naima, after all, writes about Murad’s patrols more than 60 years
after the fact and he might have been recording an urban legend, one
that served both Murad and Naima’s purposes. One can rightly say
that the very existence of such tales is revealing, even in the absence of
any supporting evidence. In this case, however, we have additional
indications that show that at least some sultans continued to go on
nighttime patrols in the eighteenth century. The Istanbul-born
Romanian Alexander Gika alias Elias Hebesci (~1743–1811), who
served as secretary to the grand vizier under Sultan Musafa III
(r. 1757–1773) tells in his book about the Ottoman Empire that his
former master too used to stroll about the city at night in disguise.122
Habesci was surely an informed observer.
Another Christian who mentions such nightly undercover trips is
Konstantinos Mavrikios (1731–91), who was nominated Patriarch of
Constantinople (under the name Kallinikos III) in January 1757.
Mavrikios was ejected from ofﬁce and banished from Istanbul only a
few months later by order of the sultan who acted on the advice of
some of Mavrikios’s rivals within the Patriarchy. Mavrikios too, then,
was no stranger to the corridors of Ottoman power. In his memoirs,
the former patriarch included a long and fascinating account of the
festival held to celebrate the birth of the crown prince Selim (later
Sultan Selim III) in 1761. Right in the beginning of the account, the
former patriarch cites in full detail the stern warning issued by the
sultan ahead of the celebrations “that no woman should appear in the

streets, or in a caique, neither a Turk [Muslim] nor a reaya [non-Muslim

subject], neither in her own attire (kılık) nor in disguise, on pain of
death – a dire punishment/penalty.”123 This no doubt suggests that
sultans were not the only ones who were getting dressed. Yet, while
sultans could put on attires or shed them when they so pleased, those at
the bottom of the social ladder took refuge in their disguise. Shedding it
was dangerous. In one of the nights of the festival, Mavrikios narrates,
the sultan went out in disguise to Tophane. He chanced upon two
women in disguise, approaching the shore in a boat. Their attire did
not save them. The sultan ordered the two poor women thrown into the
sea immediately for violating his explicit orders.124
Interestingly, Mavrikios himself also used to go about the city in disguise.
Since he had returned to Istanbul in violation of the sultan’s decree, he
could not allow himself to be recognized. This is most probably how he
witnessed the celebrations. To make things even weirder, according to his
account, the celebrations included many shows that featured men dressed
as animals and demons or hiding inside special constructions of women’s
figures. While he definitely did see the festivities with his own eyes, the same
cannot be said about the alleged execution of the women. Here he may
have been relating something he heard from others.
Eyewitness or not, the account creates a sense of horrid absurdity: a
former patriarch in disguise who only a few pages earlier described
many of the performers dressed up, describes a sultan in disguise who
catches disguised women, and has them executed. One wonders how
many others on the streets that night appeared as someone they were
not. Suggesting that the temptation of the festival was too strong, the
former Patriarch writes these women “became victims of the illumin-
ations because of their thoughtlessness and carelessness.” He expressed
his hope that this would serve as a warning to other women not to
disobey the ruler again “as they live in slavery in this kingdom.”125
The anecdote reminds us of sultan Murad IV‘s lethal response to the
violation of his own decree or at least, the story told about it. In both
cases, we find the sovereign moving through the city disguised by both
darkness and costume. In both cases, the rulers apprehend individuals
who directly violated their orders. Facing the law cannot possibly be
more direct, more personal, more surprising, and more horrible. The
sultans’ response to the violation of their orders is designed not only to
punish, but more importantly, to impress with fear. Both Naima and
Mavrikios seem to pity the unfortunate individuals who were unlucky

enough to come face to face with an angered sultan. But both accept
the “shock and awe” logic that guided the sultan’s response. In this,
their response recalls that of Ḥanna al-Tabı̄b, cited above. Decrees
_
must be obeyed, order – preserved, even if it is one based on what
the patriarch deﬁnes as “slavery.”
In fact, one of the things that struck Mavrikios most during the
nights of the festival was the lack of fear, which, we understand was
highly unusual:
People who would have shrunk from passing in front of constables
(zabit) at other times went fearlessly (με αφοβίαν, aphobia) to their
palaces, where they leaped and danced and laughed in front of them . . .
Even though the herb of madness was absent, freedom from fear (αφοβία)
appeared to produce the same effect, even though fearlessness (αφοβία) is
not as potent as wine-guzzling. Some people seem to get drunk on
fearlessness, and they forget their position and their property.126

For Mavrikios, then, the absence of fear was both a source of joy and
a source of anxiety. Without fear, he feared, the social order itself was
in danger.
We may conclude that it was certainly in the interest of those in power
to project fear and that the logic was not alien to other people. Yet, we
should not be blinded by such projections. Just like light was not
distributed equally and systematically throughout the city and around
the year,127 power was not applied systematically and equally over
urban space and time; rather, it was concentrated around the sultan
and traveled with him as he made his way around the city. Out of the
sultan’s sight (and the sight of his men), power worked much more
sporadically. The processions, the light displays (discussed in
Chapter 6), and the undercover night patrols served to bridge this gap
between pretense and reality by projecting an image of omnipresent
power, day and night. However, to make such a claim credible, sultanic
power had to appear absolute, awe-inspiring. At times this translated
into fantastic light displays, in others, it was bodies returning home
covered in soot or worse, lying dead in the streets at dawn.

Conclusion
What does it all tell us about the more general discussion of
“ocularcentrism” with which I opened? Placing whole cities in the

dark laboratory of the Early Modern night shows that the dominance
of vision is not a mere social construct. Even when partly blinded by
darkness, hearing augmented sight, never replaced it. At least in the
Ottoman Empire, a “non-Western,” agrarian society, vision was priv-
ileged over hearing, regardless of Plato, the Cartesian tradition, or the
Enlightenment. This does not mean, of course, that vision can be
dissociated from the other senses, or that the primacy of the eye is
entirely biological. It means, rather, that within the integrated, and
culturally mediated sensorium of humans, there is hierarchy after all.
Ultimately, it was only light and sight that were trusted for establishing
truth and order.
Darkness, it was shown, undermined not only individuals’ sense of
security but posed a serious challenge to urban order, that was ultim-
ately predicated on [over]sight. Hearing was important to detect dis-
turbances and direct law enforcers but ultimately, light was needed to
expose and identify the people involved. The authorities, from the
sultan down, sought to project fear, to compensate for their inability
to police the entire city systematically. It was shown, however, that
such projections did not necessarily deter people from breaking the law
under the cover of darkness. Chapter 3 focuses more closely on
these people.

In his annals of the hicri year 1177 (1763–1764), the chronicler

Şemdanizade Fındıkıllı Süleyman Efendi (~1740–1779) recounts a
story that apparently happened at least three years earlier.
Şemdanizade tells about a master jeweler by the name of Tahir
Çelebi (or Ağa) who was nominated the head jeweler of the court
(kuyumcubaşı). Taking advantage of his proximity to the sultan,
Tahir Çelebi was leased a tract of land in the area of Beykoz, north
of the city on the Asian side of the Bosporus, and built a palace there.
Since Tahir Ağa was close with the sultan, ambitious elites who hoped
to gain access to more power could simply not allow themselves to stay
away. They built lavish beach houses, some 40 or 50 of them, around
that area. Tahir then deemed it necessary to build a market, a mosque,
and a public bath, as well as many shops. In order to create demand
and increase the value of the shops, he kept the shops open “night and
day” and ornamented them with candles and lanterns. The emerging
scene attracted musicians, “coquet beloveds,” shadow theatre oper-
ators, jugglers, acrobats, and dancers (köçeks), “sweet tongued, slen-
der waisted, calamity of the soul, sedition of the world.”
Word of the action spread, and people from the city began arriving
in boats (kayık) at night. According to the chronicler, up to 2,000
boats arrived every night bringing people, “some drunk, some sober,”
and turning the area into an “abode of debauchery.” When the sultan
heard that “multiple major sins” (kebair) were openly advertised, and
that the mischief (fısk u fücur) had been going on for 40 days, he had a
few “corrupting shops” demolished and dispersed the crowds. In so
doing, the sultan was “forbidding wrong,” the chronicler wrote, allud-
ing to one of the fundamental duties of a Muslim ruler which goes back
to the Quran.1
Tahir Çelebi literally shed light on what had normally ﬂourished in
the dark, and it was this publicity, this “advertisement of multiple
major sins” that prompted the decisive interference of the sultan. In

what follows I show that as long as such “sins” were kept in the dark,
they were largely overlooked. The night, I argue, was more tolerant
than the day. It allowed everything that was repressed by diurnal order
to surface under the half-closed eyes of the authorities.2
Darkness offered economically underprivileged and socially mar-
ginal groups livelihood and leisure opportunities that were hardly
available during the day. These populations therefore ﬁgured promin-
ently in the city’s nocturnal life. But the night offered cover also to the
“respectable” residents of the city and to its rulers. As shown in the
previous chapters, darkness indeed had a blinding effect, but it also
made it easier to turn a blind eye. Whereas infringements in broad
daylight were a direct challenge to the established order, it was often
comfortable for all parties to pretend nighttime violations never
happened. Muslim drinkers could enjoy a few nightcaps and pretend
they were not, janissaries could continue to frequent the same “dens of
mischief” they were supposed to police, and the tax revenue from these
same dens could continue to ﬂow to the treasury, even when their
Muslim clientele was on the rise. Both order and its alleged enemies
could more easily transgress their bounds at night, assuming that what
happened in the dark remained in the dark. Throughout most of the
eighteenth century, a huge nightlife scene was allowed to exist, as long
as it remained out of sight and did not openly undermine diurnal order.
In the next chapter, I show that this ambivalence, in fact, ran much
deeper, into the heart of Ottoman culture, but at this stage, I limit the
discussion to the more practical level of interests, and considerations of
public order, morality, and stability.
Excepting occasional references, this scene, or at least its scope and
longevity, remains largely unknown even today. Some authors
assumed there was simply nothing going on after dark. A few late
Ottoman writers viewed nightlife as an innovation brought about by
Europeans or by European wannabes. For example, Balıkhane Nazırı
Ali Rıza (1842–1928) wrote that before the late nineteenth century
“there had been no nightlife in Istanbul.” Elsewhere he wrote that the
nightclubs and casinos of Pera seduced the men of Istanbul into spend-
ing their nights and their money on “merrymaking,” probably
unaware that a century earlier, chronicler Ahmed Cavid (d. 1803)
had argued the same about the taverns of the city.3 Writing in the
early 1920s, in Allied-occupied Istanbul whose nightlife was boosted
by thousands of European soldiers, the author Ahmed Haşim

(1884–1933) lamented the good old days when Muslims went to bed
early and woke up early for the morning prayer.4 Such claims were
part of a wider discourse that identified Galata and Pera as the “foreign
within,” and associated its nightlife with every possible vice.5 In short,
nighttime debauchery was presented – and is still presented by some –
as foreign.
In the absence of systematic research into the nocturnal realities of
the Early Modern Ottoman Empire, modern scholarship tended to
reaffirm such impressions. Relying on scant evidence, it was assumed
that before the arrival of gaslighting and related forms of nightlife, the
dark hours in Ottoman Istanbul were nearly barren of social inter-
action.6 The majority of people indeed went to sleep around the night
prayer, and yet, for many thousands of people, the night was still
young. Some were forced to work nights, but most went out seeking
illicit pleasures in what amounted to a huge, and yet semi-clandestine
nightlife scene, fueled by substantial amounts of alcohol. This chapter
seeks to sketch the contours of this scene, the profile of the people who
populated it, and the interests that kept it going for so long, and on
such a large scale.

Mapping the Nightlife Scene

Consuming alcohol was forbidden for Muslims under Islamic and
sultanic law (kanun) and was punishable by 24 lashes, or more com-
monly, a ﬁne (according to the kanun). Just as important was the
stigma attached to drinking, or at least, to heavy drinking.7 Like
commercial sex and gambling, the other main options this scene
offered, alcohol was not entirely limited to the night. Non-Muslims
could drink in broad daylight without fearing punishment or risking
their reputation. According to the Ottoman-Armenian writer
Mourdagea D’Ohsson (1740–1807), people of the “lower classes”
such as sailors, soldiers, and “dervishes” similarly did not limit their
drinking to the dark hours (see Figure 3.1).8 Taverns in Galata, and
possibly in some other places, were opened already during the day and
attracted either non-Muslims or Muslims that were not particularly
concerned about reputation.9 Yet, it was the night that turned the area
into a domain of leisure, a “red light district” of sorts.10
It is worth noting that there was no concept of “nightlife” in the
Early Modern Ottoman Empire. Going out after the night prayer was

Figure 3.1 A glimpse of tavern life. The poet ͑Atāʾı̄, himself not a drinker, is
_
shown conversing with a dervish on the left. From Ḫamse-i At āʾı̄.
_
Courtesy of the Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, W.666, 44a

suspect, dubious, and at speciﬁc times and places, strictly forbidden.

But the fact that nocturnal leisure was not recognized does not mean
it did not exist. To a large extent, it could exist because it was unrec-
ognized. The occasional traveler could hardly access it or appreciate
its scope. Glimpses of it appear in official documents, poems, and
anecdotes but these too hardly reveal the pervasiveness of the
scene. They are more like the tip of a huge iceberg submerged in a
sea of darkness.
Two reports filed by senior security officials in the early 1790s reveal
just how big this iceberg was.11 The reports were produced as part of
an effort to eradicate the scene in its entirety.12 For now, the reports
will serve to map the drinking scene, which was more or less the map of
nightlife in the city (see Figure 3.2). According to the first report, filed
by the sekbanbaşı, there were 101 taverns and bars in his jurisdiction

Figure 3.2 Istanbul drinking hubs, circa. 1790. The size of each circle repre-
sents the number of taverns in that area.
Source: F. Kauffer, Carte de Constantinople Levée par F. Kauffer et J.B. Lechevalier,
1786. Courtesy of the Eran Laor Cartographic Collection, National Library of Israel

(which covered most of the walled city), 62 of which were deﬁned as

koltuk, i.e. unauthorized bars. Balat, on the eastern shore of the
Golden Horn lead the list with 43 bars, followed by Samatya (12),
Tekfursaray (10), and Kumkapı (9).13 By way of comparison, a register
from the same time, listed 144 coffeehouses around the same
neighborhoods.14 In other words, even in the relatively more conserva-
tive walled city, tavern numbers were not negligible when compared to
coffeehouses, without doubt the most common leisure establishment
in Ottoman cities. As shown below, after dark, at least some coffee-
houses also served alcoholic beverages, so the gap between leisure
establishments that did not sell alcohol and those that did was
even smaller.
The list submitted by the bostancıbaşı had even more taverns than
that of the sekbanbaşı. Responsible for the neighborhoods and villages
along the Bosporus and the northeastern side of the Golden Horn, the
Bostancıbaşı listed 322 drinking houses of various kinds (meykede,
meyhane, şerbethane) that had been shut down or converted to other
uses. Here it is Arnavutköy, on the European side of the Bosporus, that

sticks out with 53 bars, followed by Hasköy, a predominantly Jewish

neighborhood on the Golden Horn with 46 bars, and Yeniköy with 29.
Üsküdar and Yeni Mahalle, the predominantly Muslim district that
forms a focal point in this study, had 27 alcohol-selling premises
according to the same document.15 Put together, the two officials
reported the closing down of 423 drinking houses. It should be noted
that the lists do not include Galata, for centuries the most famous (or
infamous) hub of drinking and prostitution in Istanbul. This was prob-
ably due to the fact that Galata was under the authority of another
official, the voyvoda. According to Evliya Çelebi, writing in the mid-
seventeenth century, there were 200 bars in Galata during his time.
Evliya Çelebi’s tendency to exaggerate is well-known and yet, considering
the numbers cited above, and given that Galata was known as the alcohol
hub of the city, his figure does not seem implausible. Furthermore, an
official record from 1829 lists 158 bars in Galata and Beyoğlu (uphill
from the port area).16 If, based on these earlier and later numbers, we
round the number of taverns and bars in Galata to 150, it turns out that
there were more than 570 drinking houses in greater Istanbul. A different
document, from 1827, cites the number of 500 drinking establishments
throughout the city (see below), which further demonstrates that the
figures from the early 1790s were not at all inflated.
These numbers do not include wandering booze vendors, known as
“legged taverns” (sing. ayaklı meyhane), who supplied spirits to poor
people who could not afford to drink in taverns. These vendors too
operated only after dark.17 In the seventeenth century, Evliya Çelebi
estimated their number at 800, although as already noted, his numbers
should be taken cautiously.18 In addition, alcohol was also sold under
the cover of darkness in khans, coffeehouses, and grocery shops (see
below). In short, wherever one lived, an evening drink was just around
the corner.
Who frequented these drinking hubs? Who were the creatures of the
night in eighteenth-century Istanbul? Judging by official documents
and elite accounts, the Istanbul night was mostly populated by the
urban underclass, and in particular, by itinerants and janissaries who
dominated the dark streets. This was true to a large extent but not on
account of these populations’ ingrained depravity, as many hegemonic
sources would have us believe. Rather, an intricate web of push and
pull factors drew these groups into the dark hours and determined the
geography of nightlife.19

Demographics of Nocturnal “Mischief”

Throughout the eighteenth century, Istanbul attracted a great number
of migrants, driven by war, natural disasters, banditry, abuse of power
in some provincial areas, and the promise of security, charity, and
better economic opportunities in the capital.20 Migrants played a
crucial role in the urban economy.21 According to one estimate, in
two of the city’s main districts, they made up about half of the work-
force.22 It should be noted, however, that estimations of the city’s
population during the eighteenth century vary considerably, ranging
between 300–600,000 people.23 It is therefore hard to estimate the
weight of migrants in the general population. What is beyond doubt is
that the rampant migration changed the city’s social makeup, increased
crime, and heightened social tensions.24 This, at the very least, was the
view held by the authorities and many of the older residents, who
looked at the migrants with much suspicion.25
Single men were considered particularly threatening. These people
were variously called serseri, başıboş, and a host of other names, but in
the eighteenth century they were most frequently referred to as
“bekars,” literally “bachelors.”26 This category in fact covered
seasonal workers, recently arrived migrants, vagrants, beggars, ped-
dlers, demobilized soldiers, Roma, and others from among the urban
underclass. Diversified as they were in terms of background, the “bach-
elors” did share certain characteristics that set them apart from
other denizens: they were men without families in the city (many had
families in their places of origins); they had no permanent address and
no fixed occupation. They were transitory, floating, unstable, and
therefore dangerous in the eyes of the authorities and the wider
population.27
Other suspect groups included workers in particular professions
such as porters, boaters, gardeners, and bath attendants, many of
whom were itinerants or were in close interaction with itinerants.28
All of these groups sought to affiliate themselves with the janissaries,
which made them even more suspect in the eyes of the elite, especially
as the tensions between the palace and the corps intensified toward the
end of the century.29
Religiously, socially, and morally suspect, these cohorts were the most
likely to be associated with fesad, variously translated as “disorder,”
“corruption,” “evil,” or “mischief.”30 In classical Islamic jurisprudence,

sai bi’l-fesad, literally “a fomenter of evil,” referred mostly to highway

robbers. The Ottomans have broadened the use of the term fesad to
encompass different types of public offenses. Sai bi’l-fesad became
equivalent with habitual criminal, a constant threat to public order.31
Başak Tuğ has shown that individuals labeled “fomenters of evil” or
“bandits” (eşkiya) could be tried based on the kanun, which set a much
lower evidential bar than the Sharia. For example, according to the
kanun, it was possible to prosecute based on “bad intentions” (su-ı
kasd). Thus, forcing people considered a threat into the category of
“fomenters of evil” made it easier to convict them and, in some cases,
to inflict more severe penalties on them.32
While the term clearly connotes a disruption of order and criminal
activity, it carries a strong moral tone which is not conveyed by such
words as “disorder” or “crime.” I therefore chose to translate it as
“mischief.” Beyond its legal consequences, fesad was widely inter-
preted as the opposite of public good and order. In eighteenth-century
Istanbul, fesad was most closely associated with the “bachelors” and
neighborhood communities therefore sought to keep outsiders away.
“Strangers” (ecnebi) or people of “unknown status” (mechulü-l ahval),
that is, individuals who could not be identified and vouched for by any
respectable member of the community, were commonly considered a
threat to public order and morality.33
In official eyes, and in the eyes of many permanent residents, the
spaces inhabited by bachelors were fundamentally different from the
mahalle, with its family values, and the mischievous lot (ehl-i fesad,
ehl-i fisk ü fesad) were inherently different from the respectable people
(ehl-i ırz) of the residential neighborhoods.34 “Crime and immorality,”
argues Shirine Hamadeh, were not personalized, but spatialized, “and
therefore moral order was to be maintained by enforcing spatial
order.”35 Among other measures, the authorities tried to control the
movement of transients and to limit their residence to specific areas. In
reality, however, these “zoning” policies proved ineffective, and bach-
elors found ways to circumvent such measures.36
Transients, nevertheless, tended to concentrate on particular urban
institutions and open spaces. Many of them resided in more than
12,000 “bachelor rooms” that were scattered around the city.37
These were located in large numbers in the port area, in khans and
markets, and around jetties along the waterways, where many of the
men found work. With transient population moving through

constantly and lacking in terms of policing, these areas tended to be

more violent.38 Medreses also lodged large numbers of young students
and were similarly considered suspect in the eyes of the authorities, as
were dervish lodges, soup kitchens, public baths, barbershops, and
coffeehouses. These were exactly the sites and populations that rallied
around janissary leaders in times of rebellion.39
The night was similar in this way: it pulled populations and activ-
ities that were pushed away by the various facets of diurnal order,
described in Chapter 2. Contemporary court records documenting
nocturnal crimes and conflicts clearly demonstrate, at the very least,
that established residents and the authorities associated nighttime
disturbances with the urban underclass, and itinerants in particular.
A total of 146 cases gleaned from 8 volumes kept by the Üsküdar
court provide the details of 236 individuals brought to court for
various nocturnal transgressions, from verbal assaults, through thefts,
brawls, and on to rapes. In order to get some idea about the social
background of the defendants, I recorded separately the details of the
plaintiffs and accused for each case, to the extent they were available.
In what concerns this discussion, I noted gender, adjectives that
may indicate social marginality (e.g. bachelor, “gypsy”), occupation
(where applicable), religious affiliation (Muslim versus non-Muslim),
and military status.
Out of 236 defendants, 195 defendants (82.6 percent) were men and
only 41 (17.3 percent) were women. We do not have diurnal data, so
comparisons are impossible, but this figure does seem to indicate that
the night turned the city into an almost all-male space, or at least, that
women were almost never accused of nocturnal crime or conflicts,
except for prostitution. It is obviously impossible to tell the truth in
most of these cases, but it does lay bare the common association of the
night with illicit sex.
In terms of religious affiliation, the findings are inconclusive since we
do not have reliable statistical data about the confessional makeup of
Üsküdar in the eighteenth century. Under such conditions, only over-
whelming figures can be trusted to indicate something meaningful. This
is not the case here. Out of 236 defendants, 29 (12.2 percent) were
non-Muslims (defined as either “zimmi” or “nasrani”). Considering
that only 11 out of the 70 quarters in the district of Üsküdar were
populated by Christians, and only one by Jews, the low representation
of these groups in the sample is hardly surprising.

In order to learn something about the socioeconomic proﬁle of the

defendants, I grouped together all defendants for whom I could estab-
lish with reasonable confidence that they belonged to the itinerant
population or, more generally, to the lower social orders. These
included defendants explicitly referred to as “bachelors,” but also
individuals who appear in the record merely as “son of this-and-this,”
without a title, place of residence, or occupation. To these, I added
prostitutes, simple soldiers, boaters, porters, and other poorly paid
menial laborers who were very often migrants and can be confidently
regarded as part of the urban underclass.40 This group was then
compared to the entire cohort.
Thus, out of 236 defendants, 135 (57.2 percent) can be classified as
belonging to the urban underclass with reasonable certainty. As may
be expected, marginal individuals are much less prominently repre-
sented among the plaintiffs in the same sample (only 27 plaintiffs out
of 113, that is, 20.3 percent). We do not have reliable demographic
data for the eighteenth century and, therefore, any attempt to draw
conclusions here is highly tentative, especially considering the small
sample. It does appear, however, that lower-class individuals were
more likely to be involved in after dark conflicts and crimes, or at
least, were accused of being involved.
Indeed, given the hostility toward itinerants and marginals, it is hard
to tell if the cohort as a whole represents the “mischievous” population
of nocturnal Istanbul, or rather the prejudices of the established resi-
dents toward the itinerants, and the superior socio-economic position
of the formers, that allowed them to take legal action more easily.
Considering the findings of other sicil-based studies, it is clear that
itinerants and other marginal populations were legally more vulnerable
and it is possible that their high occurrence in nocturnal cases is simply
a reflection of this bias.41 A more careful way of characterizing the
“mischievous” of nocturnal Istanbul is to use only cases where defend-
ants were caught at night (rather than brought in during the daytime,
after the fact) or cases where the defendants themselves confirmed their
involvement in nighttime incidents either explicitly or implicitly (e.g. by
reaching an agreement with the plaintiff ). Screening the cases in this
way bypasses the possibility of false accusations and allows us to place
people at night with more certainty. Out of 52 individuals in this
subset, 34 (65.3 percent) can be associated with the urban underclass.
It is true that we do not know the proportions of this group’s

involvement in diurnal conﬂicts and crime, so a comparative analysis is

once again impossible. Moreover, as in other times and places, it is
likely that enforcement was selective, and that itinerants and homeless
people were much more likely to be arrested in the first place. We
cannot read around such biases. It is still significant that in comparison
to other sectors of society, the urban poor figures very prominently in
the general sample and the subset made of those who confessed or
caught at night.
Regarding the nature of the incidents that reached court, almost half
of them (48.6 percent) were violent, including brawls, assaults, rapes,
and more. By way of comparison, according to Fariba Zarinebaf,
violent assault and injury made up around 10 percent of the convic-
tions in Istanbul in the 1720s.42 Even taking these data with all the
necessary caution, the gap is too big to be incidental. This does not
change significantly even if we group assaults with rape (as in my
dataset) since in both samples, cases of rape were of much smaller
numbers. Furthermore, Zarinebaf’s sample includes both day and
night cases, which makes the gap between diurnal and nocturnal
violence even more pronounced.
Regarding the rest of the cases, 49 cases (32.2 percent) were break-ins,
and 34 cases (22.3 percent) can be classified as “mischief,” including
prostitution, gambling, and drinking. There were 12 cases of slander
(7.8 percent), three of which also involved stoning the assaulted person’s
house, and a few cases that do not fall under any of these categories. In
short, the nocturnal city was dominated by underprivileged males and
was far more dangerous than during the day.

Geography of Nocturnal Mischief

As shown above, the “nightlife scene” of Istanbul was spread between
several locations, but all were in predominantly non-Muslim neighbor-
hoods along the waterways. It was mostly when the scene spilled
inward and attracted outsiders into residential areas when it raised
local opposition. It was only then that the authorities intervened, and
those interventions were localized and brief.43 Here is one example of
this dynamic. In early July 1811, a big group of residents of Üsküdar,
on the Asian side of the Bosporus, complained in a petition they
submitted that the bachelor rooms on the shoreline were home to
“outlaws and mischievous people” (eşkiya ve ehl-i fesad) who “openly

engage in all kinds of mischief with prostitutes, without fear, night and
day.” The petitioners complained that the authorities were unable to
quell criminal activity in the area and therefore requested that the said
bachelor rooms be demolished.44
The phrase, “night and day” (leyl ü nehar, or in many places gece ve
gündüz, şeb ü rüz), is worthy of attention, as it repeats itself in many texts
pertaining to nighttime “mischief.” The phrase is often translated simply
as “ceaselessly,” yet the wording is important. Even today, in the sup-
posedly 24/7 society, day and night still have their particular rhythms.
The differences between diurnal and nocturnal rhythms were much more
pronounced before the age of fossil fuels. Nothing could work “around
the clock.” To be active during the day was normal, but to be doing
something “night and day” was to be doing it in excess. For example, a
heavy drinker was known as şaribü’l leyl ve’n-nehar, literally “night and
day drinker,” as opposed to the more moderate “evening drinker”
(akşamcı).45 In some contexts, the term could be used positively, for
example, to express utter devotion (to one’s master or duty, to one’s
lover or friend, to God),46 but in this case too, the expression captures a
deviation from the norm. In most cases, however, and certainly in court
records, the phrase signified dubious activity that extended into the dark
hours. The term was also used by contemporary chronicles to criticize
indulgence in leisurely pursuits, especially at night.47
In the abovementioned petition too, the use of the expression was
not merely idiomatic. It indeed signified that criminal and immoral
activity continued into the dark hours, which negatively affected life in
the area. The chronicler Cabi, a resident of Üsküdar himself, reports
about the disorder around the docks and notes that while prostitution
was widespread throughout the area, it was at night that the prostitutes
walked the streets in groups of three to five “as if on patrol.”48 The
petitioners too specifically noted that as the evening was nearing, the
men and women of the neighborhood refrained from passing through
bachelors‘ territory. In other words, as long as it was day, these areas
were safe enough for passage. It was darkness that rendered them off-
limits for “respectable people.” The picture that arises from this peti-
tion is one of a socio-spatial ebb and flow that corresponds, roughly to
the alternation of day and night: as darkness falls, illicit activity
spreads from the interior out into the streets, threatening to turn them
into a realm of insecurity and immorality. It was then that neighbor-
hood communities turned to court.49

In Üsküdar and elsewhere in the city, drinking hubs were also

centers of prostitution. Zarinebaf refers to these areas as “red-light
districts.” However, she notes that the swelling of the urban underclass
in the eighteenth century has led to a dramatic increase in the number
of Muslim prostitutes, usually single women who had no means to
support themselves. It was against this background that prostitution
spread beyond those limited districts.50
Prostitution in residential areas was even more dependent on
darkness as both prostitutes and clients sought to evade community
surveillance. For example, in 1741 people from the Solak Sinan neigh-
borhood in Üsküdar complained in the local court that a number of
brothel keepers (kerhaneci) operated in the neighborhood, each
employing between three to five prostitutes every night. These places
attracted bandits [eşkiya] and were sites of all “kinds of sins.” As in
other similar cases, the plaintiffs requested the said people be ejected
from the neighborhood.51
Another case brought to the court of Üsküdar in March 1748 similarly
demonstrates the benefits of darkness for those who sought hide-ability,
but also its limitations as a hideout. According to the register, because
“bandits and thieves,” were going about Üsküdar, a force of bostancıs
led by a senior officer was sent to patrol the streets at night and provide
security and peace to the people. The residents informed the bostancıs
that the “bandit” responsible for all mischief in the area was el-Hacc
Ahmed of Antakya. He was brought to court and the people of the
neighborhood testified that he had recently arrived in their neighbor-
hood, having been ejected from another one. “He walks around dis-
guised as a respectable man” (ehl-i ırz kıyafetinde gezip) but in truth he
“engages in mischief” with prostitutes, undermining the neighborhood
security. The next day el-Hacc Ahmed ran away and the people of the
neighborhood requested that his house be sold and that he would not be
allowed to return.52 This appears to be a rather standard case of group
action against an outsider, but what is noteworthy is that the residents
claimed that the accused makes an effort to appear respectable. While it
was not explicitly said that he brought the prostitutes at night, the fact
that the patrol had been sent to the neighborhood at night in order to
secure the people implies that it was after dark when the el-hacc Ahmed
allowed himself to drop the disguise and engage in pimping.
In short, fesad and the populations most closely associated with it
were both spatially and temporally marginalized. They were pushed

away from the residential areas onto the margins (and kept coming
back), and from daytime into the night. But the prominence of the
urban underclass within the nocturnal population should also be
understood in terms of the pulling effect of the night: it offered not
only leisure but also livelihood opportunities that were hardly avail-
able during the day, to people who had very few options.

Working Nights
When most of the people were lying in their beds, some were out
making a living. In a city as big as Istanbul their numbers probably
reached thousands and even in a small town such as Jerusalem,
there may have been dozens of such people.53 As shown by research
on other areas and times, it is typically the urban poor or socially
marginal populations who are pushed to perform night work, for
lack of better job opportunities.54 Research since the 1980s has dem-
onstrated that night work also increases morbidity, mostly due to
exposure to artificial illumination.55 In Ottoman Istanbul and
Jerusalem too it was mostly the underprivileged who were forced into
working nights.
In Istanbul, one of the biggest groups of night workers were fisher-
men. Most of the fishermen in the city were non-Muslims that resided
in the villages along the Bosporus. The majority were poor.56 They
differed significantly among themselves in means, methods of catch,
areas of fishing, and the species they specialized in. The night offered
fishing opportunities that the day could not. Taking advantage of these
opportunities required knowledge of the daily cycles of tides, currents,
and winds, but also of the waking and sleep cycles of particular fish
populations. For example, there is a strong current running from the
Black Sea down to the Sea of Marmara, and a weaker undercurrent
going in the opposite way. But as mariners passing through these
waters knew all too well, there were more local, strong counter cur-
rents and eddies.57 The intensity of some of these local currents would
change over the day. For example, a local counter-current running
between Galata and Defterdar Burnu is at its height in the afternoon
but calms down in the late hours of the evening.58 Winds too could
pose a significant challenge to the inexperienced. The southwesterly
wind known as Lodos, which blows episodically from October to
April, is so strong it may even reverse the surface current in the straight

if it blows long enough, seriously jeopardizing mariners. The Lodos

typically calms down at night, allowing mariners to set to the sea.
Night fishermen had to adjust their biological clock to these physical
and biological cycles. For example, one method of night fishing that
required dark nights, little wind, and calm water was to quietly
approach fish sleeping in shallow water and to harpoon them.59
A more complex – and expensive – method of nocturnal fishing was
to attract fish with light (usually a torch or a lantern suspended from
the prow of the boat) and then harpoon them. Observers noted that
this was a particularly profitable mode of fishing, and as one writer put
it in the late 1830s, “at night, the waters are covered with many lights,
which float in various mazes.”60 Night angling was also practiced both
from the shore and in deeper water, with leads rubbed in quicksilver to
attract fish in the dark.61
Fishing in general, and night fishing in particular, followed not only
currents but also seasons, and the migration patterns of various fish
populations. For example, in the late summer and autumn, different
species of fish including Mackerel (modern Tur. Uskumru), Turbot
(Kalkan), Bonito (Palamut), Bluefish (Lüfer), and more, migrated
through the Bosporus from the colder Black Sea to the warmer Sea of
Marmara.62
Not only did some of the city’s fish supply depend on night work; so
did the meat supply. Meat would be transferred from the slaughter-
houses of Istanbul to the butcher shops where it then underwent a
process known as “porging” to cleanse it from certain fats and tendons
that were forbidden to eat according to both Islamic and Jewish
orthodoxy. This was a poorly paid job performed at night by profes-
sional “porgers” (sing. Tur. kanadar), who also weighed the meat.63
Bakeries too began working already during the night, to have bread
ready by morning. Stokers in public baths, another low-paying job,
would also work at night to get the hamams hot for bathers early in
the morning.64 Another group of people who had to work at night, or
at least evenings, were domestic servants and slaves. After dark,
they handled candles and lanterns, which took great care, performed
menial tasks, and ran errands.65 At least in Jerusalem, millers too toiled
after dark.66
Then there was the “security sector” which also employed people at
night. Both janissaries and local guards hired by neighborhood com-
munities could not expect to earn much. For example, the guards hired

to patrol the area of the Imperial Armory were allocated 100 guruş a
month in 1792, which was less than 60 percent of the average pay for
unskilled workers in Istanbul, that same year.67 According to a decree
from 1695 to 1696, neighborhood guards were often retired, elderly
people, another indication of the poor pay.68 At least in the late
nineteenth century, migrants from eastern Anatolia predominated.69
It is not unreasonable to assume that, given the poor compensation, it
would have been migrants who took the job in the eighteenth century
as well.
Finally, there was the “nightlife” sector with hundreds of businesses,
many of which employed cooks and servers. Some even offered music
and dance performances. Prostitutes worked in taverns‘ back rooms
and around them, as well as in public spaces such as markets and
khans, and in private houses.70 As shown below, the scene was even
wider as it also included many legitimate businesses, from coffeehouses
to grocery shops, which were turned after dark into improvised
taverns, and houses of gambling and prostitution. This huge leisure
sector therefore supported many thousands of people, most of whom
were of humble means. Some had both a day and a night job. For
example, bath attendants (sing. dellak), many of whom were poor
young migrants, prostituted themselves at night. A manuscript from
1686 cites the number of 2,321 such boys in 408 public bathhouses
throughout Istanbul. Some of these boys charged 70–100 akçe for a
single act, and more than 300 akçe when hired as “bedfellows” (sing.
döşek yoldaşı) for the whole night.71 This was around 15 times more
than the daily wages of an unskilled worker when the treatise was
written.72 Even if we assume that the author sought to present his
bedfellows as particularly attractive, there should be no doubt that
prostitution offered many poor boys income that was otherwise
unavailable to them. In short, one can say that migration into the city
partly overlapped with “migration into the night,” or in other words,
that migrants to the city were more likely to be out at night, because
of job opportunities that the more established populations would
not take. In fact, working nights and seeking pleasures in the dark
were related on several levels. First, most drinking hubs were located
on the waterways, where many of the itinerants found work. Second,
the pleasure of some was the work of others, and third, the two
were not mutually exclusive. People who had to work nights could
also engage in illicit leisure activities. For example, it is not hard to

imagine nighttime ﬁshermen having a drink before or after work, or

janissaries visiting a brothel after (or during) their patrol or drinking
on duty. After all, who could stop them?

Apex Predators of the Nocturnal City

The military in general, and the janissaries in particular, were central to
the reality of Early Modern Ottoman nights, not only, as may be
expected, as the arm charged with imposing order, but also since its
members were so often involved in subverting it. Over the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries, the ranks of the janissaries swelled substan-
tially due to military needs, economic dynamics, and intra-elite rival-
ries. Estimates for the eighteenth century cite the number of 20,000
janissaries in Istanbul, only a few thousands of whom resided in their
main barracks.73 The soldiery, which had previously been recruited
through the devşirme system, was increasingly replaced with Muslims.
Since acquiring a janissary status entailed various privileges, group
protection and solidarity, and considerable prestige, many urbanites
and migrants sought to affiliate themselves with the corps. The janis-
saries became a major route for the “infiltration” of commoners into
the military class, and as such, challenged the very distinction posited
between the ruling elite and the subjects.74 Moreover, by loaning
money from regiments᾽ treasuries to artisans, selling of janissary pay-
roll tickets (esame) to commoners, and extending protection, the janis-
saries effectively tied many non-janissaries to the corps.75
At the same time, due to the constant swelling of their ranks and the
devaluation of the coinage, the real wages of the janissaries
shrank, and more janissaries than ever before were forced to engage
in artisanal work, commerce, and entrepreneurship. Furthermore, jan-
issaries, who had been barred from marriage in earlier periods, began
marrying locals, thereby further integrating into the urban
population.76
These trends impacted the entire corps, yet it should be noted that
the janissaries were hardly a monolithic group. While a few senior
officers managed to make a fortune, more could be counted among the
middle-class. In the eighteenth century, however, janissaries’ salaries
could not even support a meager living and many janissaries and
pseudo-janissaries (i.e. those who inherited or purchased janissary
status but never went on campaign) were forced to engage in the

lowest-paying menial jobs. They can, in fact, be counted among the

urban poor.77
Beyond such mechanical socioeconomic definitions, artisans and
janissaries shared in a sociocultural world that brought these originally
distinct groups closer together. In fact, the corps were organized much
like the guilds.78 The lower echelons were much closer to the world of
the urban underclass and shared living and working spaces, values,
and norms.79 In short, the janissaries turned from an exclusive fighting
force into an inclusive status group, or a cross between a “political
pressure group” and a union, which clung to its distinct identity, esprit-
de-corps, and privileges. All these processes amounted to what one
scholar defined as the “proletarization of the janissaries and the mili-
tarization of the urban poor or the middle classes.”80
These populations were not only socially and politically volatile.
They were also suspect on religious grounds, especially given that the
elite and parts of the wider population grew more orthodox over the
century. The janissaries were officially affiliated with the antinomian
Bektaşi order, which was also very popular among the lower strata of
society.81 The night, it should be remembered, was used in hegemonic
discourse to discredit antinomian groups and blame them not only
with heretical religiosity but also with deviant sexuality.
Regardless of hegemonic discourse, however, the janissaries were
indeed comfortable in the dark. They were numerous, organized, and
could count on group solidarity to protect them from the many
dangers of the Early Modern night. Last but not least, they were armed
and skilled in the use of arms and did not hesitate to use force. These
tendencies were not limited to the night,82 but seem to have peaked
after dark, when official oversight was at its lowest. The janissaries
took advantage of this laxer surveillance to conspire against the palace
and subvert its policies. In other words, the night also served them
politically.83 Here, I focus rather on the way the darkness allowed the
janissaries to revel, and engage in sporadic violence while at it.
According to the chronicler Esad Efendi, on payment nights, the
janissaries would roam the streets from the afternoon until morning,
harassing the “respectable people” with their drunk shouts. They
would gather in their barracks to get their money and engaged in all
kinds of “amusements and forbidden acts” (enva-i melahi vü
menahi).84 This is corroborated also by Cabi.85 Another enemy of
the corps, the statesman and chronicler Ahmed Vasif (d. 1806), lumped

together the unruliness of the janissaries, their moral depravity, their

humble social background, and their heterodox inclinations. He noted
that they assembled in such dubious places as coffeehouses, taverns,
and brothels and went on to charge: “This perverse race are outwardly
Mussulmans, yet have they not the least idea of religious purity, and
are indeed a collection of baccals [grocers], boatmen, fishermen,
porters, coffee-house keepers, and such like persons.”86
When Sıvazi Mustafa ağa was appointed chief of the janissaries in
late November 1808, he assembled the men and issued a stern
warning, which says much about janissary behavior: anyone who
shouted, drew a dagger, broke a door, or hit someone in a tavern
would be fined 4.5 guruş. He further warned the commanders that
anyone who does not control his men will be removed from office. The
new chief did not content himself with warnings but monitored the
“defective conduct of the officers night and day.”87 Yet, nocturnal
insubordination, disturbances, and clashes between military units con-
tinued, repeatedly causing casualties.88 Often it was conflicts over
prostitutes that sparked violence.89 Such events are recorded not only
by hostile chroniclers but in official correspondence and other real time
sources as well.90
What all these incidents reveal is that the nocturnal urban ecology
was much more predatory than the diurnal one. Anybody venturing
into the night had to be strong enough to defend one’s self or rely on
others for survival. The night, in other words, was not some idyllic
asylum, equally open to all.91 It was largely populated by those who
had fewer opportunities during daytime and dominated by those who
could use force most effectively.
But it would be a gross mistake to think that darkness only served
the urban underclass and the janissaries, so thoroughly assimilated
within this population. It was just as important for “upright” members
of the community who wanted to make some extra cash by turning
their legitimate businesses into occasional bars and brothels, and to
others who sought to enjoy a little bit of mischief and return in time for
the morning prayer, and their diurnal respectability.92

Under Cover
Charles White, a British ofﬁcer who spent three years in Istanbul
around the mid-nineteenth century, noted how darkness served those

who wanted to engage in the illicit without losing face. He describes

parties held along the banks of the Bosporus and notes that so long as
it is light, participants “content themselves with smoking, conversing,
ﬁngering their beads, eating melons, and drinking coffee or water.
But when night throws its veil around them, and intrusive eyes can
no longer watch their actions, then comes the ﬂow of wine, if not the
feast of soul.”93
This logic applied even more strongly to drinking within the city.
While along the banks of the Bosporus one could hope to escape prying
eyes even during the day, in the city itself this was impossible. Only
darkness offered such cover. According to historian Reşad Koçu,
licensed taverns, that were supposed to cater only for the non-
Muslim population of the city, would open already in the late after-
noon but even in those establishments, business started in earnest only
in the evening. The unauthorized bars known as koltuks (which as
shown above were much greater in numbers) operated only after dark.
These places attracted not only the urban poor, but also “respectable”
people who did not want to drink at home or be seen drinking outside.
Over there, “hidden from everybody’s eyes, they would drink their two
or three cups of rakı, one or two glasses of wine, wipe their mouths and
then head home.”94
Hiding in the night for “respectable” persons was not a nineteenth-
century innovation, of course. The prominent Ottoman scholar
Katip Çelebi (1609–1657) is explicit about the way darkness could
be used as cover:

The rival’s eyes cannot see [now]. Deceive the night with your desires.
For the cultured person (adı̄b), night is day. There are many you would
think are devout who [in fact] greet the night with shocking things
(yastaqbil al-layl bi-amr ʿajı̄b). Once the night has covered and veiled
him, he would pass it with much amusement and feasting. The fool
[does it] openly [allowing] a watchful enemy to spread word [of these
amusements].95

The author ﬁnds no fault in hiding one’s desires in the night, but quite the
contrary. That is what a cultured person (adı̄b) should do. Moreover,
that is what seemingly pious people do, “once the night has covered and
veiled” them and rivals’ eyes can no longer see and harm them.
Just as “respectable” people could hide their “mischievous” prefer-
ences at night, so did respectable businesses hide their mischievous

income. Two decrees issued in 1812 and 1815 reported the proliferation
of alcohol production and sale in the back rooms of sweet makers’ shops
(şekerlemeci). However improvised, these places offered a variety of
drinks including punch, rum, and ʿaraq. Not only do these shops sell
alcohol, it was noted, they remain open night and day (leylen ü neharen,
gece ve gündüz), in violation of their regulations, and attract crowds
with various games, gambling, and prostitution, thereby encouraging
mischief (icra-i fesad). Both documents are clearly concerned that these
places attract Muslim customers as well. The earlier document (from
1812) records the location of 15 such shops in Galata alone and three
years later it is reported that these shops are common (vaﬁr) also in
Beşiktaş, Büyük Dere, and Tarabya.96 The earlier document stipulated
that the selling of alcoholic beverages must stop and that the shops must
close at sunset, just like all other businesses.97
Darkness, then, sheltered both those seeking to buy booze and those
seeking to sell it. The same was true for the other “mischievous” activities.
Writing in the early nineteenth century, the French diplomat and scholar
François Pouqville tells of certain shops that were transformed at night to
serve as gambling houses.98 Coffeehouses often transformed in a similar
manner. While extremely popular, coffeehouses were suspicious in the eyes
of the authorities even during daytime. Many coffeehouses were owned by
janissaries, drew migrant populations, and were key nods in the networks
binding the two groups.99 The fact that coffeehouses remained open into
the dark hours throughout the Ottoman Empire increased their potential
threat in the eyes of both authorities and communities.100
As darkness fell, some coffeehouses metamorphosed into improvised
taverns, that offered not only alcohol and gambling but also commercial
sex.101 In early July 1767, the people of Solak Sinan neighborhood in
Üsküdar brought to court one İbrahim Bin Salih, whom they accused of
“engaging in mischief.” The said İbrahim, they claimed, turned a former
grocery shop situated right next to the local mosque, into a coffeehouse. At
night, people socialized there with young boys (gecelerde şabb kimesneler
ile enis ü celis oldugundan), which undermined the residents’ security. They
requested the coffeehouse be removed by an imperial decree.102

The Mischievous Foundations of Order

The night, then, facilitated transformations and transgressions that
were hardly possible during the day. It allowed coffeehouses, public

baths, and sweetshops to turn into taverns and brothels;103 it allowed

men seeking drink, gambling, and illicit sex to cross into the mischiev-
ous and come back again, their respectability intact. But it also allowed
the state to maintain an appearance of order and morality while
benefiting from what it defined as disorder and immorality. First,
taverns, which were considered hubs of mischief, were the source of
taxes that directly supported units and guards, whose job was to
uphold urban order.104 Second, the janissaries and auxiliaries charged
with enforcing order at night were among the most enthusiastic par-
ticipants in the nightlife scene and were very often a source of disorder.
In this terrain of blurred boundaries, selective enforcement and evasion
were paramount, which goes a long way to explain the scope and
resilience of the nightlife scene. Not only was there a growing popula-
tion that was willing to pay to drink away their trouble; as noted by
Cengiz Kırlı, the people up top had a vested interest in keeping the
alcohol flowing.105
The “restriction” (zecriye) tax was introduced in the eighteenth
century and imposed on all alcohol sold in the market. Additional
levies were incumbent on the shipping of wines and spirits.
According to Stanford Shaw, the restriction tax was farmed out to
non-Muslims to prevent Muslims from benefitting from alcohol con-
sumption.106 Yet, it appears that some of the money went to Muslim
officials as well. The taxes levied on alcohol, explains the chronicler
Ahmed Cavid, were borne out of necessity. Writing about Selim III’s
move against the taverns in 1790–1791, the chronicler provides a
detailed account of previous clampdowns on the city’s drinking
and prostitution scene. He documents four such actions between
1595 and 1730 but notes that each time, the taverns were allowed to
reopen. This was not merely the result of neglect. The heavy financial
burden of the largely failed campaigns of the 1680s drained the treas-
ury and pushed the leaders of the empire to lift the ban on alcohol
retail, so as to fill the coffers with tax money. Since it was impossible to
stop the sale of alcohol entirely anyway, they reasoned, it should at
least be taxed. “It is necessary to turn a blind eye” (iğmaz), they said,
and silenced those who objected by the Sharʿi principle “necessity
justifies that which may be unlawful” (in Turkish, from the original
Arabic, ez-zarurat tubihü’l- mahzurat). The alcohol tax was
hence reinstated, only to be abolished and then reinstated a few
years later.107

Cavid here exposes the fundamental dilemma facing the leaders,

namely, whether to stick by the law and Sunni religious ideal and try
to keep Istanbul dry or to be more pragmatic about the sale of alcohol.
For the most part, they opted for the second option. The night eased
the dilemma as it made it much easier to “turn a blind eye.” Cavid
further explains that the tax revenues profited particular officials (the
superintendent of alcohol and the governor of Galata), which made
their posts much coveted.108
This system created an intricate web of conflicting interests and at
times, thwarted actions against the taverns. When Sultan Selim III
(1789–1807) tried to close down all taverns in Istanbul, his top officials
tried to stall and push their master toward a more pragmatic policy.109
I suggest that this may have to do with the revenues the nightlife
industry brought those high officials. This speculation is supported
by several later documents from Sultan Mahmud II’s reign
(1808–1839) that make the connection explicitly. Just like his uncle
Selim, Mahmud considered the tavern scene a kingdom of fesad ruled
by the janissaries. In 1821, against the background of the Greek
rebellion, the kaymakam, the official in charge of Istanbul in the
absence of the grand vizier, noted in a missive to the sultan that
preparations for the campaign are advancing and that most of the
soldiers are already under arms.
It was in this context that an order to close down all taverns was
issued “to prevent mischief.” The kaymakam drew the sultan’s atten-
tion to the fact that the chief of the janissaries derived most of his
income from taxes levied on taverns, and if they were closed, he would
lose revenue. The kaymakam suggested that the chief of the janissaries
would be secretly (mahfiyen) compensated and given an additional
sum as an imperial gift (ʿatiye-i seniyye-i şahane) to “encourage his
efforts and attention” (ikdam ve dikkatına medar olmak için). The
sultan approved the “gift” but ranted about the “endless shooting, day
and night,” saying that the fact the janissaries are under arms does not
justify that level of disorder. He expected that, following the pay, order
would be restored.110 This exchange shows that the “forces of order”
were directly supported by taverns that were so often referred to as the
dens of disorder. The chief of the janissaries appears here almost as a
gangster that holds the city hostage until he is paid protection money.
The payment is done secretly in order to maintain at least an appear-
ance of order.

The second time Sultan Mahmud ordered a clampdown on the

drinking establishments of the city, was part of his move against the
janissaries in 1826. Documents issued around that time reveal just how
much revenue was generated by the city’s taverns, and that it was not
only the chief of the janissaries who benefitted from them. The gov-
ernor of Galata (voyvoda) collected monthly payments of 1,500 guruş
made by an unknown number of taverns, in addition to 15,000 guruş
paid once a year by another group of taverns. The bostancıbaşı too
was entitled to some of the revenue gleaned from some other taverns,
although the exact amount was not specified in the documents.111
About a year later, the tavern owners whose businesses had been
closed down appealed to the authorities and pledged to pay 5,235
guruş each month, on top of a yearly sum of 41,000 guruş, should
they be allowed to reopen their establishments. Given the significant
income, the superintendent of the zecriye tax recommended granting
the request, and the sultan approved.112 Clearly, the tavern owners,
who numbered more than 500 just before the above-mentioned clamp-
down, thought that they could pay more than 100,000 guruş a year in
tax and still make a profit. Otherwise, they would not have
approached the authorities. This shows not only the tremendous
amount of money the drinking scene was making, but also the interest
the state had in keeping the alcohol flowing, despite it being the
“mother of sins” (ümm ül-habaʾis) as the grand vizier put in one of
the above-mentioned memos.113
It was not only highest officials who benefitted from the nightlife
scene. One of these documents said that originally, the taverns that had
been allowed to operate in the city were supposed to cater only for the
needs of non-Muslims. However, since janissary officials (referred to as
the “abolished corps”) drew revenue from the taverns, they “did not
care much for the religious aspect” (avaid ve zevaid almaları takribiyle
diyanet tarafını gözetmeyip) and gave permissions to open new taverns
time and again. The “exalted state” too did not consider the matter
crucial and therefore the number of taverns rose every day, reaching
over 500. The document further notes that Sharʿi limitations had not
been enforced and as a result, alcohol consumption “spread through-
out Istanbul” (dar al-saltanet al-seniyyelerinin her tarafında istiʿmal-ı
müskirat şuyuʿ bulmak).114
Even low-ranking officers and simple soldiers had a direct interest in
the preservation of the tavern scene, as the taxes generated by the

taverns paid their salaries. For example, after the city’s taverns had
been shut down by order of Selim III, two janissary officers whose job
was to patrol the area of the Imperial Armory “night and day” with
their soldiers, petitioned the authorities saying that following the
closing of the taverns, “around the Armory and in other places,” they
were allocated an allowance from the treasury. However, this allow-
ance was discontinued, and the petitioners asked that it would be
resumed and that they would be reimbursed retroactively for the
period they were not paid.115 Kırlı notes that even some large religious
endowments (sing. vakıf) received significant funds from taxes levied
on taverns, which gave members of the religious establishment a vested
interest in the alcohol business.116
From the top officers to the rank and file, then, the apparatus of
nocturnal order was dependent on the “mischievous” alcohol scene.
Moreover, law enforcers actually had an interest that the law would be
violated. For example, the chief of the night guard was entitled to one-
tenth of the fines imposed at night for offenses such as drunkenness.117
And then there were bribes, which, given the laxer surveillance, were
easier to take.118 In his book about bars in Istanbul, early republican
author Reşet Ekrem Koçu notes that koltuk owners actively tried to
evade government oversight by hiding activity behind curtains or by
bribing janissaries on patrol to allow them to keep their businesses
running even after the official closing time has passed. Significantly,
this bribe was known as “don’t see us fee” (“görme bizi” ücreti).119
Darkness, it is shown again, served everybody involved.
This may be the reason that a general curfew was not imposed in
Istanbul, or stated more cautiously, I found no evidence of such a
measure before the mid-nineteenth century. In fact, I did not even come
across mentions of the enforcement of closing time on taverns except
for Koçu’s statement, brought above. Exceptions were made in times of
turmoil. The British ambassador, for example, reported in January
1742 that orders have been issued to the effect that “nobody should
be abroad after such a time at night.”120 In Jerusalem, by contrast, a
general curfew was the rule, at least in the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries, and probably later too. According to Rabbi Moshe Ben
Yisraʾel Naftalı̄, a Jew from Prague who migrated to Jerusalem in
1621, two hours after sunset a drum sound announced curfew, which
lasted until the drumming was heard again, two hours before dawn.
The subaşı rode through the streets and was authorized to arrest

anybody who violated the curfew. He could also impose a ﬁne on

people who failed to secure their doors.121 Very similar arrangements
are described in court records from the sixteenth century.122 Much
smaller than Istanbul and shut off from the world behind its walls at
night, Jerusalem could more easily be “closed down.” More import-
antly, the economy was much smaller and the beneﬁt nightlife could
yield to the state was much humbler. Sources from the late Ottoman
period do mention drinking houses (sing. khamāra) in Jerusalem and
it is very likely that such establishments were not new.123 Yet, I found
no evidence whatsoever of a signiﬁcant leisure scene, neither in the
Jerusalem court records, nor in many dozens of travel accounts
I searched, dating from the early eighteenth to the mid-nineteenth century.

Mischief Visible
It was shown above that the Ottoman authorities did not try to pull the
plug on Istanbul’s nightlife. Rather, they were content with containing
it geographically and temporally, subject only to loose regulation.
When nocturnal “mischief” became visible, however, the authorities
had no choice but to intervene. At this point, I would like to return to
the story of the chief jeweler Tahir Çelebi, the king of the short-lived
nightlife scene in Beykoz, whose exploits opened this chapter.
I could not ﬁnd traces of the events in any other source and there-
fore, the account must be read carefully, and in particular, given that
it carries a pronounced moral message. Even without supporting evi-
dence, however, we can still assume that the author sought to make
the story believable and so, it can be read as a story that could
have happened.
As such, it is interesting for several reasons. First, the numbers of
revelers cited by the author are striking. When brought at the begin-
ning of the chapter, the reader might have dismissed them as a gross
exaggeration, but with the scope of the nightlife scene now fully
exposed, it is safe to assume that contemporary readers would deem
these numbers perfectly plausible. Second, the chronicler ascribes to
Tahir Ağa intentionality. In today’s terms, we would probably say that
he “identiﬁed a need.” The chronicler writes explicitly that in order to
increase the value of the shops Tahir opened (dükkanlar kiymetli
olmaya revac vermek için) he kept them open “night and day.”124
He was obviously in sync with people’s wishes and again in today’s

terms, thousands of customers cannot be wrong. Tahir’s leisure scene

attracted scores of people every night, despite, or maybe because of its
remote location. Indeed, it was probably the remoteness of the scene
that allowed it to thrive in the ﬁrst place. One Leventine, a longtime
resident of the city, explicitly wrote that people went to the northern
areas of the Bosporus – Tarabya and Büyükdere in particular – because
the palace guards (the bostancıs, in charge of patrolling the strait’s
shores) did not reach those areas. In the past, this neglect has attracted
seamen and “lyre-players” to these areas, and later on, European
residents who sought more “freedom.”125
Indeed, word of the action reached the sultan only 40 days after the
party had begun. We should doubt whether this was the exact number
of days. It is more likely that the author chose this number to make a
point. Some of the festivities arranged by Ottoman sultans lasted 40
nights and 40 days, a clear demonstration of their wealth and power.
For example, Sultan Süleyman (whose name is mentioned in that same
account) organized 40 days of celebrations in 1530, on the occasion of
the circumcision of his three young sons. Moreover, all the elements in
Şemdanizade’s description would have been known from Ottoman
nighttime festivities: the shops that remain open after dark, the music,
dancers, and acrobats performing in the streets and, ﬁnally, the festive
illumination.126 Tahir Ağa’s candles and lanterns did not simply light
the shops but rather “adorned” (tezyin) them. This was the term
typically used by Ottoman writers to describe festive illumination.127
The chronicler seems to imply that by creating a nightlife scene that
rivaled the most extravagant celebrations organized by sultans, Tahir
ağa stepped out of bound. The sultan’s reactions should therefore be
read also as a much-needed retaliation against this infringement on the
hierarchies of spending and wealth demonstration.128
The chronicler is clearly concerned not merely with the very occur-
rence of “mischief” but rather with its being committed openly. He
notes that Tahir ağa “did not fear preparing and running and adver-
tising all kinds of pleasures (her cins zevkiyâtı ihzâr ve icra ve ilândan
tahâşî etmez). Similarly, what got the sultan to act was not only that
“mischief” was going on for a long time, but also that the revelers
advertised their “multiple sins” (kebâir-i maʿdûdeyi ilân ettikleri).129 It
was mischief revealed that necessitated action.
Writing about nocturnal mischief was in itself an act of revealing.
What can exist in the dark, even on a very large scale, must be

denounced once it is described in text, in broad daylight. It is then that

the wrong can no longer be ignored; it must be forbidden. Here both
the sultan and the author rush into the action. The sultan effectively
ruins the party and the chronicler frames the action in Sunni terms.
The author’s ﬁnal move of forbidding the wrong in his narrative is
describing the punishment suffered by the offenders of the moral order.
He relates that Tahir ağa, who was not at all pleased to see his creation
destroyed by the sultan, willy-nilly left his waterfront house and moved
back to his house near the Ayasofya mosque. But his problems were
only beginning. Because of the wrong he did to the vakıf, and the
damage he caused the people, “the sparks of the sighs of the oppressed”
set ﬁre to his konak. He managed to move his family and furnishings to
the palace of Yeşilli Oğlu but the sparks of sighs reached there too, and
his furnishings were reduced to ashes. The chronicler seems to suggest
that Tahir ağa’s house and its contents were torched by commoners who
had suffered from his hand. Such acts of arson were rather common.130
Şemdanizade here legitimizes the arson as an act of popular justice.
The area that had been the site of mischief was abandoned. The
account ends with a kind of postscript, according to which the water-
front houses built in the area developed by Tahir ağa lost almost all
their value. A house that had been worth 60 kise was sold for 4 kise
three years later. “Those fools (humeka) who wanted to become close
[to power] ended up far, knowing that they wasted their fortunes with
their own hands.”131 Playing on words, the chronicler writes that the
waterfront houses at Paşa Bahçe were cleansed (tahir) and Tahir’s
nature was revealed (lit. became bright or manifest, bahir oldu).
Şemdanizade’s account is strikingly similar in structure and logic to
the court records discussed in Chapter 2. Established moral order is
disrupted at night; the disruption is then revealed, and the offenders are
punished. Furthermore, the author functions much like some of the
exposure mechanisms discussed in that same chapter: he brings to light
the dark deeds and character of Tahir ağa and his accomplices, shames
and punishes them. Moral order, which had been openly disrupted in
the nights of Beykoz, is thus restored.

Conclusion
As shown throughout the discussion, the Early Modern night offered
cover for different actors. It allowed those who made their livelihood

from fesad to carry on with their business, mostly uninterrupted; it

allowed patrons to frequent those businesses, mostly uninterrupted;
and it allowed the authorities to beneﬁt from the scene without losing
face. At times, neighborhood communities or the authorities acted to
limit “mischief” or drive it away, but systematic attempts to uproot it
were rare. This ambivalence toward nocturnal reveling was demon-
strated in this chapter mostly relying on texts that were meant to serve
order. Chapter 4 is an attempt to go beyond these normative perspec-
tives, and reconstruct the night as perceived by those who saw it as an
opportunity, rather than a threat.

At night, the moth came lip-to-lip with the candle, in the gathering
Burning with wondrous longing, they conversed in the gathering.

When the daughter of the vine was squeezed, her body ﬂowed with sweat
The cupbearer extracted and colored it for the beloved friends, in the
gathering.

Together the ﬂute and wine rent the veil of chastity

The collar proffered kisses to the skirts, in the gathering.

O cupbearer, don’t swear you’ve given up drunkenness, I don’t trust it

If I don’t see it, I won’t believe it and will keep on drinking in the
gathering.

Musellem, it is not the colorful ideas, it is the wine unblended

That makes your pen give joy to the eloquent friends in the gathering.
(Müsellem (Şeyh Ebu’l-Vefa Edirnevi, d. 1754).1

“Gatherings” (meclis) or parties of the kind evoked here were held in

Ottoman elite circles for centuries, loosely following “poetic scripts”
laid out in countless similar gazels.2 Müsellem’s poem is rather con-
ventional in this regard. Wine, music, and conversation ﬂow freely,
allowing participants to shed their “chastity” (namus) and immerse
themselves in the intensely emotional and highly erotic atmosphere.
Yet the candles, the moths, the cupbearer, and the garden itself, are not
merely of this world. Rather, in this cultural universe, they reﬂect
something of the divine, true reality (hakikat/hak) that lies beyond
the illusion of this world. The gathering, the wine, the music, and the
love they are meant to intensify are like passages leading from the here
to the hereafter, a stairway to heaven. This stairway, and similar
unorthodox ways of reaching God, belonged in the dark.
In Chapter 3, I demonstrated the scope of the drinking scene in
eighteenth-century Istanbul and discussed it mainly from the perspec-
tive of the established order, which sought to keep it out of sight.

110

Darkness on this basic level was merely cover, an unofﬁcially desig-

nated reserve for the unorthodox. In this chapter, I seek to understand
traditions of nocturnal conviviality, particularly those that involved the
consumption of alcohol, “from within,” that is, in the terms of those
who partook in them.
In order to do that, I begin with exploring the language and imagery
of night and nocturnal devotion in contemporary poetry, which, as
shown later in the chapter, also framed nocturnal sociability and
invested it with meaning. Approached through this discourse, the night
no longer appears as a mere dark closet in which to hide while
drinking, but rather as the ideal setting for cultivating intimacy and
love: carnal, platonic, and divine. In fact, hiding in the night and
investing it with spiritual signiﬁcance were mutually dependent. By
enveloping these traditions in darkness, the night allowed a space of
“ambivalence and ambiguity” that would not directly challenge the
unequivocal dictates of orthodoxy and authority. Social drinking, in
short, and the wider cultural streams that legitimized it, found in the
nocturnal not only cover, but fertile soil in which to ﬂourish, much like
in a walled night garden.
Previous chapters moved from the domicile out to the streets, paying
attention to class and gender differences. This chapter, by contrast,
emphasizes communalities between social classes and is harder to
ground spatially. Nocturnal partygoers in Istanbul were mostly male,
but they came from all walks of life. Some of the most devout drinkers
were at the apex of power, and yet they shared at least some of the
practices and meanings of social drinking with dervishes at the very
bottom of the social ladder. The analysis, therefore, goes anywhere
tightly knit groups of friends formed private circles, be it in secluded
gardens, open meadows, or taverns. Class differences did matter, of
course, and will be noted in due course.
Finally, while the discussion of vigils in this chapter refers to both
Istanbul and Jerusalem, the analysis of sociability patterns focuses
almost exclusively on Istanbul. That is more than anything else a
matter of sources. While for Istanbul these abound, for Jerusalem it
is the sicil that serves as the main source and at least the volumes
combed for this work, remain completely silent about nocturnal
leisure. Does that mean there was none? Probably not. But it does
stand to reason that in such a small town, that was completely shut
away from the world at night, and hence less dynamic and better

controlled, options of nocturnal leisure would have been more limited.

Moreover, it may certainly be the case that antinomian Suﬁ practices
and discourses had lesser inﬂuence in Jerusalem and the surrounding
area. This question, however, remains open for future research.

Beyond the Prosaic

In the court records, official decrees, and chronicles discussed in previ-
ous chapters, both the authorities and neighborhood communities
seem to be speaking in one voice, for one set of morals that largely
corresponds to the teaching of Orthodox Islam. Drinking and drinkers
are associated with fesad. They are tolerated, at most, certainly not
welcomed. We have to remember, however, that our access to the
historical reality of the Ottoman city is heavily mediated through texts
that depend on, and seek to enforce, legal discourse. These texts and
the institutions that produced them flattened a whole sociocultural
reality and squeezed it to fit narrow legal definitions. In fact, this work
probably began with the litigants themselves. A precondition for win-
ning a case in court was to narrate it in accordance with legal defin-
itions that were by nature dichotomous, delineating the permissible
from the prohibited.
The court record, which is often our “window” into the neighbor-
hood, is therefore far from transparent, not only because of the various
hidden agendas of plaintiffs, the biases of jurists and kadıs, and the
limited, often decontextualized information they contain;3 their very
framing of reality is only one out of many that are possible. People do
not usually live their life as they present it in court.
The problems embedded in state-produced sources are further com-
pounded by the biases of modern historians. As argued by Shahab
Ahmed, scholars of Islam and Islamic societies have for too long
favored legal discourse over all other discourses and acts of speech,
considering it the “true essence” of Islam and the Islamic.4 Ahmed
argues that, rather than viewing Islam through theologians’ eyes, we
should approach it as “a matter of human fact in history,” as a
“historical and human phenomenon” in which contradiction and
paradox are paramount.5
Alongside the narrower legalist discourse (which is in itself fraught
with contradictions), there has always existed other ways of engaging
with Islam, other modes of being Muslim. Of particular relevance here

is what some Muslim “Suﬁ-philosophers” called the “legal school of

love” (Persian madhhab-i ʿishq; Tur. aşk mezhebi), or the “religion of
love” (Tur. aşk dini). This huge stream of thought, practice, and ritual
pervaded all Sufi orders, at least to some extent, and produced count-
less songs, poems, and treatises, effectively touching the lives of mil-
lions of Muslims over the course of many centuries. While obviously
not one of the recognized schools of Islamic law, Ahmed argues that
the Sufi-philosophical-aesthetical madhhab-i ʿishq laid its own norma-
tive claims that were often in tension, if not in outright contradiction,
with that of legalist Islam. Ahmed insists that this was not a counter-
culture, nor can it be considered antinomian, as it was often espoused
by the most powerful people in society.6 On the other hand, and
contrary to what some scholars have suggested, this was not an elite-
only world. The ideals and norms of the madhhab-i ʿishq percolated
through various oral, textual, organizational, and ritual means
through all levels of society.7
If legal discourse and orthodoxy is characterized by seeking clarity
and unequivocalness, the discourse of the School of Love is one of
“ambiguity and ambivalence,” a notion developed by Daryush
Shayegan with respect to the poetry of one of the foremost spokesmen
of this stream, the Persian poet Ḥāfez (or Hafez in Turkish,
1320–1390).8 In Ahmed’s use, ambiguity means _ “ability to understand
in more than one way,” and ambivalence is “the co-existence . . . of
contradictory emotions or attitudes toward the same object or
situation.”9
That Hafez chose to express such complexities through poetry was
anything but incidental. Whereas political and legal authorities spoke
through the prose of decrees, treatises, legal opinions (Tur. sing. fetva),
and court records, the “people of love” or the “people of the heart”
(Tur. ehl-i dil) spoke, first and foremost, through poetry, and the genre
of the gazel in particular. Poetry was considered the medium of
“inspired speech,” a medium that allowed saying what prose did not.10
Gazels typically weaved together several layers, or voices that speak
simultaneously, each echoing the others. Love, which is at the epicenter
of the genre, is at once carnal, platonic, and divine. The poet, always in
the role of a lover, is desperately courting the beloved, who is an object
of fleshly desire and a reflection of divine beauty, or even God Himself,
all at the same time. Wine, the garden, its tulips, narcissuses, cypress
trees, and everything about the social interaction taking place in it, are

at the same time parts of the seen world and reflections of, and
gateways to, the unseen (gayb) world of the divine. Within this poetic
and aesthetic universe, not only the garden, love, and wine are bridges
between the seen and the unseen; metaphor (Tur. mecaz) itself is
considered such a bridge. Hence the importance of poetry; hence also
the ambiguity and ambivalence that defines and sustains this
universe.11
It should be noted that all the major teachers of the School of Love,
including Suhrawardi (d. 1191), Attar (d. 1221), Ibn Arabi (d. 1240),
Rumi (d. 1273), and Hafez (d. 1390), were hugely influential in
Ottoman society and culture for centuries.12 Admittedly, grouping all
these figures, and the great variety of Sufi orders and approaches that
grew out of their teachings in one “school” gives a false sense of
homogeneity. But they all shared in a belief that God can be reached
by means other than God’s word as revealed in the Quran and the life
of the Prophet. Moreover, the boundaries between this stream and
more Sharia-minded discourses were porous and furthermore, changed
over time. On the most general terms, while radical dervish groups
heavily influenced by the School of Love were very common in the
early days of the Ottoman principality, they were either tamed,
absorbed in more controllable structures, or marginalized as the
Ottoman order became more centralized. The space left for radical
dervish groups certainly shrank as the empire was undergoing a pro-
cess of “Sunnization” starting in the sixteenth century, and heterodox
practices and ideas were increasingly threatened from the seventeenth
century onward. But, in parallel to this process of containment, the
School of Love permeated practically every aspect of Ottoman life,
from ritual to political thought, from love and sexuality to modes of
sociability.13 This influence persisted until the nineteenth century. Like
in other Islamic societies, then, Ottoman poetry can be approached as
an alternative archive, one that faithfully holds everything that had no
place in prosaic texts, texts that were meant to draw boundaries, to tell
right from wrong, to prescribe action.
I do not wish to argue, of course, that legalist Islam was merely the
business of jurists, or that it was entirely at odds with the Sufi-
Philosophical amalgam. Furthermore, I do not argue that the Sharia
was limited to the day, or that the School of Love was entirely noctur-
nal. Such dichotomies are far too crude. Rather, the Sharia and Sufi
Islam should be understood on a spectrum that ultimately presented

Muslims, on both the individual and societal levels, with different ways
of ordering the world and making sense of it as Muslims.14 Having said
that, I do claim that the Sharia, along with political authority, were
more diurnal, as they relied on light and sight, whereas dissent was
more comfortable in the dark.
In what follows I show that the School of Love informed both
nocturnal spirituality and conviviality. In fact, in the dark of night,
the two were not so easily distinguishable. One cannot make sense of
the latter without ﬁrst understanding the world of nocturnal devotion.
Individual and group vigils were often described in terms taken from
the world of nocturnal parties and drinking gatherings were conceptu-
alized as spiritual undertakings.

Just You and Me, God

In a pioneering study, Walter Andrews has argued that the Ottoman
“ecology of emotions” can be conceptualized as an axis between two
poles: union on the one side and separation on the other. Light,
commonly associated with the former, was identiﬁed with happiness,
and darkness was linked to the despair, grief, and madness of separ-
ation.15 I wish to argue that the night in Ottoman court poetry, and
therefore, in the collective mind of elite society, was in fact more
complex.16 It was indeed the time of the greatest suffering, but also
the best opportunity for union with God.17 In fact, the suffering of
sleeplessness, and the anxious waiting for the beloved/God to appear,
was a measure of purifying the heart from the fallacies of the seen
world, in preparation for the revelation (keşf) of the unseen (gayb). In
other words, it is at night, when the seen world is covered in darkness,
that one can gaze right through mundane reality, which is in fact an
illusion, and get a glimpse of God-as-truth (hak).18
There is no denying that in Ottoman literature, the night often offers
the setting for scenes of desperate love that cannot be realized.19 In
many poems and anecdotes, the afﬂicted lover is depicted walking the
dark and silent streets of his beloved’s neighborhood or trying to catch
some sleep on his/her doorstep (see Chapter 1). When everybody else is
enjoying a good night’s sleep, the lover tosses and turns, sighs deeply,
and sheds tears of blood. The lover/poet’s inability to sleep is one more
expression of her or, more commonly, his hopelessness.20 The lover
suffers from a disease without cure, and as everyone who has been ill

knows well, symptoms tend to worsen at night, becoming much more

painful and alarming.21 Doctors ask “Does it keep you from sleeping
at night?” Any Ottoman poet would invariably reply: “Are you kid-
ding me?” Here is one example from a poem by the Mevlevi poet Esrar
Dede (1749–1797):
Pour pour oh my eyes many tears, tonight
My rival embraced to his chest that shining moon, tonight.

A cruel moon of dark complexion and dark clothes

Bound (my) wretched mind to his lovelock, tonight.

With a sigh-spark the crazed heart

Again set ﬁre to the whole house of woe, tonight [. . .]22

The image in the ﬁrst couplet is one of darkness covering the moon,
which is a common trope for the beauty of the beloved.23 Since the
redif (a word that repeats itself at the end of every couplet) of the poem,
tonight (bu şeb), can also be read as “this night,” the ﬁrst couplet can
also mean that the rival that embraces the beloved is “this night.”
Embraced by darkness (and therefore clothed in black), the cruel moon
does not reveal himself, unmoved by his lover‘s suffering and utter
devotion, which is expressed through his being bound to the beloved’s
lovelock (another common trope for the beauty of the beloved).24
Darkness appears here to be completely negative: it is the poet’s rival,
not only a time of pain, but one of its sources.
The Mevlevi Şeyh Galib (1757–1797), similarly describes a night that
is prolonged by agony, or rather, a night that actively prolongs agony:
The pillar of my sigh went out to the roof of the heavens’ dawn
At length I endured the teeth of the cogwheel of fate, the enemy,
tonight.

The dark night, the head of lovelocks, and the sorrow of love, Galib
I was often reminded of the condition of Mecnun, whose days were
black, tonight.25

These couplets again conjure an image of night as sorrow, an interval

protracted by pain. Throughout the night, “at length,” the poet had to
endure “the teeth of the cogwheel (çarh) of destiny.” The word çarh
denotes a wheel or a cogwheel, the spheres that turn like a wheel, and
fate, which is decided by the circular movements of the heavenly
bodies, placed as they are (according to the Ptolemaic model) in the

revolving spheres. The teeth of this cosmic machine then, threaten to

squash the poet and when dawn comes at long last, his sigh is so deeply
painful that it reaches these same spheres, or heavens (felek), like a
pillar supporting a dome. The weight of the heavens is, therefore, on
the poet’s shoulders. In order to add an additional tragic dimension,
the poet evokes Mecnun, the sobriquet of Qays b. al-Mulawwah, an
imaginary character known throughout the Islamic world for his tragic
love for Leyla. When Leyla is given away in marriage to another man,
Mecnun loses his mind, hence his sobriquet Mecnun Leyla (Arabic
Majnūn Laylā), literally, the madman of Leyla. Barred from being with
his beloved, Mecnun would secretly visit her at night and recite his love
poetry to her.26 It should be noted that Laylā (or Leyla) is homophonic
with “night” in Arabic and in Turkish, respectively. Mecnun Leyla
sounds much like “night madman.” For a poet to evoke Mecnun, in
short, was a sure way to bound together night, hopeless love, and
maddening pain on multiple levels.27
If pain and hardship are measures of purification, then sleepless
nights are pathways to union with God. Since the early days of
Islam, Sufi lore often reversed the relations between day and night,
between sleep and wakefulness. To be awake and engage only in this-
worldly pursuits without attending to one’s spiritual duties is in fact to
be heedlessly sleeping (hab-ı gaflet). In the words of Ibn Arabi, the Sufis
were “the people of the night.” These notions translated into tech-
niques of self-administered sleep-deprivation. Already in the first cen-
turies of Islam, devout Sufis would deny themselves sleep as a measure
of training the soul and reaching union with God, and the practice
remained alive throughout the Middle Ages and into Ottoman times.28
Writing about ascetic techniques in the ancient world, Violet
MacDermot has argued that they resemble what scientists refer to as
“sensory deprivation.” Seclusion and the removal of external sensorial
stimuli combined with food and sleep deprivation create conditions
conducive for visions or “hallucinations,” as modern science would
call them.29 Medievalist Aviad Kleinberg warns, however, that such
“scientific” claims about our ancestors’ sense of reality stem from over-
confidence in our own understanding of reality:
In the past, no one doubted that visible reality was only the tip of the
iceberg. In modern terms, saints and mystics “had hallucinations”; in
the terms of their time, “they saw clearly through the screen of deception
we call reality.”30

While Suﬁs certainly did not perceive their visions as hallucinations,

they clearly realized that the night provided an environment of dra-
matically decreased “external sensorial stimuli,” although they obvi-
ously did not use such terms. Here is how the Suﬁ poet İbrahim Hakkı
Erzurumi (1703–1780) described it:
The eye of the people of love is awake at the time of dawn.
The soul of the people of the heart is ﬁlled with secrets at the
time of dawn.

The town of the heart is quiet at night, without the common crowds.
The gathering of the soul [bezm-i can] takes place without the distress
of strangers at the time of dawn.31

İbrahim Hakkı Erzurumi’s couplets clearly tie the outer experience of

the city at night, with its mostly desolate and quiet streets, to the inner
state of the contemplating poet. He turns the common trope of the
drinking party (bezm) – which, as shown below, was typically a nightly
tradition – into an image of soul searching in solitude. In the quiet, the
spiritually devout can expect the secrets of the divine to be revealed.
The presence of anybody other than the poet’s soul and God is a
nuisance, even a threat, to that moment of intimacy between the mystic
and God.
İbrahim Hakkı Erzurumi, it should be noted, sought this intimacy all
his life. Since the age of nine – when he was ﬁrst allowed to meet the
sheikh of his father – until his death, he devoted himself to the Suﬁ
path.32 Many of his poems describe his vigils and some give a sense of
the challenge involved. In one of them, he uses the telling metaphor of a
guardian over his own ill heart:
You slept so many nights for the pleasure of the soul
What will you lose if for one or two nights, for the sake of the cave-
companion, you sleep not. [. . .]

Is sleep permissible to a patient’s companion?

Have mercy on this wounded heart, sleep not.33

In those two couplets, the poet uses images of duty, love, and care to
call upon himself not to fall asleep. In the first one, he refers to the first
Caliph Abu Bakr (r. 632–634), known as the Prophet’s “companion,”
who hid with him overnight in a cave following their flight from
Mecca. God then sent down “his calm” (sakı̄nathu) (Quran, 9:40). In

other words, if only the poet guarded himself as Abu Bakr protected
the Prophet, God would send His calm to him too. In the second
couplet, he conjures an image of a dedicated caregiver who remains
awake by the bed of a sick loved one. In another poem, even more
explicitly, he calls upon himself to “eat little, sleep little, drink little,”34
and in yet another one, he urges his soul not to give in to tiredness:
Beware, you the lover who hosts a guest, sleep not
The beloved will come to the house of the heart, sleep not.

Drive away the sleep of heedlessness and watch the heart at night
How many secrets are revealed at night, sleep not.

If you wish for God’s mercy

Whatever you do, do not lie down, sit, sleep not.

At night, lovers ﬁnd auspicious luck

Observe, ﬁnd sight within yourself, sleep not.

If people sleep, they waste their time

Don’t you waste your time, for that awaken One, sleep not.

If the sorrow of love breaks the heart

That Powerful One comes to his throne, sleep not.

Even if the pain of love is your guest, don’t leave him alone
Hakkı! Give him whatever there is, sleep not.35

The poem is a window not only onto the challenge of self-prescribed

sleep deprivation but also to the expected “outcome.” Watching the
heart at night will reveal “many secrets.” It is then that one can see into
the unseen, it is in the dark that one can “ﬁnd sight.”36 To be sleeping
heedlessly is to give away the time when God is most accessible, when
He sits on His throne and can cure the ruined heart. But, it is only in
solitude that one can meet with Him, it is only by keeping awake that
one can be admitted into His presence. As the same poet ends another
one of his vigil poems:

A thousand times I said “Hakkı” come to God at night

So that you know you do not exist, only Him, sleep not.37

Here the poet plays on his pen-name, Hakkı, which is derived from one
of the titles of God, hak, or truth. The poet describes the tremendous
effort, the countless tries to reach God-as-Truth, that is, to realize that

everything in this world is Him, including, of course, the poet himself.

Separation is but an illusion. It is at night, of all times, that the open-
hearted can see right through this illusion, if only he devotes
himself entirely.
Enderunlu Osman Vasıf Bey (~1771–1824) conveys a similar idea:
“I made the beloved’s face reﬂect in the mirror of the heart/I looked at
the moon through a polished mirror.”38 By polishing the mirror of his
heart, that is, by purifying himself from carnal lust, the poet is able to
see God reﬂected in his own spirit. The night is often presented as the
perfect setting for this revelation and it is therefore far from being
simply a dungeon of torture. In fact, it can also be a source of divine
bliss. “That whose heart is pure drinks the wine of love at night/Wake
up, understand the joy in the heart after midnight.”39
Some poems fuse together the terrible pain and the sublime bliss of
the vigil. Here is Enderunlu Osman Vasıf one last time:

Raise your dark lock like the month’s fourteenth night

That shiny moon revealed his beauty, tonight.

My face with a thousand veils, I teased and kissed his mouth

He embarrassed me terribly, that shy rose, tonight.

Be them one thousand and one, be them one thousand, my king, I am a

captive of your lovelock
Come my master, make me too your slave, tonight.

The chest sighed, the heart cried out like a violin

It played music and sang inside, tonight.

May I not see the goblet of the beloved lips in a dream, beware!
Oh Vasif, what is all this joy inside of me, tonight.40

In order to convey something of the awe, torment, and joy involved in

losing one’s self in God, the poem plays with seeming contradictions
and upsets conventional tropes. The poet calls upon the beloved to
fully reveal himself by removing his lock from his face, like the full
moon reveals his face in the middle (“fourteenth night”) of the lunar
month. Yet, the poet cannot quite reach his object of desire. He can
only kiss God through the thousand veils of reality. He is at once very
close and painfully far from union. He seeks ultimate freedom by
ultimate domination; he seeks to release himself from everything mun-
dane by voluntary self-enslavement to God; he wishes union with Him

but dreads it at the same time. Inside of him, a play on words on his
penname Enderuni (lit. that of the inside), there is both the cry of his
tormented heart and then tremendous joy.

Just You and Us, God

The night was not only the setting for solitary introspection. God could
also be sought in a group, and that too typically took place after
sunset. This began, of course, with the canonical evening and night
prayers, but could end much later. Many devout, Sharia-minded
Sunnis would spend entire nights praying. In other words, there was
nothing necessarily dervish about nightly devotions. Yet, it was in
esoteric circles that the veneration of the night was most common.
For example, in the widespread Halveti order, the important rites of
the sema and devran were held on Thursday evenings.41 Another
group for whom the night was a time of spirituality and was highly
influential within this world of nocturnal rituals was the Bektaşi order.
Founded in the fifteenth century and named after Hacı Bektaş Veli
(1209–1271), the order absorbed a wide range of antinomian beliefs.
The concept of love as a means to overcome the illusion of humans’
separateness from God was central to the Bektaşis, as it was in other
antinomian sects and orders. In fact, the simple disciples were referred
to as aşıks, literally, “lovers.”42
The Bektaşi order was both accessible and appealing to many differ-
ent groups. Ritual was open to members of both sexes and included
wine consumption, in violation of the Sharia. The libertine nature of the
order and its openness to believers of other faiths made it popular
among non-Muslims or recently converted Muslims who were still
attached to their previous faith. But the appeal of the order far exceeded
these groups. According to Halil İnalcık, around the early nineteenth
century, there were 14 Bektaşi tekkes in Istanbul, and about one-fifth of
the population was associated with the order.43 Moreover, the influence
of Bektaşi doctrines was not limited to its lodges. The borders between
orders were far from sealed and many affiliated themselves with several
orders, including, at times, orthodox and antinomian orders.44 The
order had a particularly large following among the lower strata of
society and had a pronounced popular tint to it.45
In discussing the influence of the Bektaşis, it is important to consider
not merely the number of their followers but their identity. The Bektaşi

order has been for centuries the order of the janissaries, who were
sometimes called “the sons of Hacı Bektaş.” While other antinomian
groups were either tamed or maginalized under the Ottomans, the
Bektaşis not only clung to their heretic traditions, but did so at the
heart of the Ottoman, Sunni power structure, thanks to the custody of
the janissaries.46
The Bektaşis, it should be noted, did not perform the canonical daily
prayers, and instead held a ceremony called “ayn-i cem” in their
tekkes. The ceremony begins around sunset and is performed in
candlelight. The first ritual within this ceremony, and one of the three
most important, is the “lighting of the candles” (çerağ uyandırma, lit.
awakening of the candles). Drinking wine, which was commonly
understood to be a vehicle of union with God, was integral to the
ceremony. The rituals were followed by a social gathering, around
food and drink that often lasted deep into the night.47 The symbolism
invested with darkness and light among the Bektaşis is far too complex
to be treated here seriously. The important points for this discussion
are, first, that the Bektaşis regularly performed their rituals after dark,
and deep into the night, which perforce meant that at least at nights of
ceremony, they were active long after most people were already tucked
in their beds. This no doubt fueled suspicions and libels on the part of
Sharia-minded actors (see Chapter 2), and probably contributed to the
sense of “spiritual elitism” that was typical of antinomian groups. As
the city was sinking into darkness and sleep, the aşıks were awake to
true, Divine reality (hak). As recited in the ayn-i cem: “Departing
from the way of darkness I have put foot on the straight path; I have
awakened from the sleep of indifference (gaflet), I have opened the eye
of my soul.” The “awakening of the candle,” symbolizes this
awakening of the soul. The light with which they are illuminated is
the “light of Muhammad” that emanates, ultimately, from God.48 The
mystic experience is again not only located in the night; it feeds off it.
Which leads to the final point regarding the ayn-ı cem: the ritualistic is
intricately connected with the social. In fact, given that the presence of
other aşıks is integral to the experience, and forging bonds with them is
practicing the love of God, it is questionable whether such a differenti-
ation is even meaningful. This confluence of social gathering and
spiritual meaning is crucial for understanding the ethics and aesthetics
of nocturnal social life in the Ottoman Empire. It was the spiritual
that justified the social, despite all its ambiguity or even outright

antinomian nature (in the case of wine drinking, for example). It was
this spiritual layer that gave meaning to such practices “in terms
of Islam.”49
Some nocturnal rites began on the margins of society but found their
way to the mainstream. The most prominent example is the mahyāʾ, an
_
all-night long vigil devoted to the love of the Prophet that emerged late-
Mamluk Cairo.50 Night-long rituals, both individual and collective,
were by then well-established in various Islamic traditions, but the
mahyāʾ reached unprecedented conspicuousness. It was started by a
_
peasant-sheikh who moved to Cairo in the late ﬁfteenth century, and
soon became an object of controversy. Fans praised it for nourishing
love for the Prophet in the devotee’s heart, and for inspiring dream-
visions. Antagonists denounced it as a blameworthy innovation (bidʿa)
and charged that burning candles and lanterns all night fell under the
category of “forbidden expenditure.”51
The practice, however, gained the recognition and approval of some
of the foremost religious authorities in early sixteenth-century Cairo
and moved from a small obscure mosque to be performed in al-Azhar,
the most important religious institution in Cairo, and perhaps in the
entire Sunni Islamic world. The ritual later traveled to Aleppo and
Damascus, where, again, it attracted, at least initially, people of the
lower socioeconomic orders. Jonathan Allen, who traces the develop-
ment of the ritual in great detail, argues that the humble background of
the initiators and participants was one of the reasons for the opposition
it raised, as were more general anxieties about nocturnal activity.
While in Aleppo it quickly faded away, in Damascus the ritual was
again adopted and defended by leading religious authorities and came
to be practiced in the great Umayyad mosque, the central mosque of
the city. The rite lasted at least until the nineteenth century.52 As Allen
notes, the most signiﬁcant aspect of this vigil was its visibility. In fact,
when compared to the solitary, dark vigils discussed above, the mahyāʾ
_
rituals appear to be almost ostentatious, a form of “conspicuous
53
devotion.” Performed in the spotlight of candles on the most import-
ant religious stages in the biggest urban centers, featuring some of the
most prominent religious “stars” of the period, the mahyāʾ were
_
designed to draw attention. The night was the foil against which this
performance shone.
It was during the very same period, and in the very same context,
that coffee made its debut in the Arab world. Most early sources on

coffee agree that the drink was introduced by Suﬁs, who used it to stay
awake during their nocturnal devotions.54 Coffee and the growing
popularity of nocturnal vigils among Muslims in the Arab provinces
may have encouraged a similar current among Jews. The leader of the
trend among Jewish communities in the region was Rabbi Isaac Luria
(1534–1572), known as the Ari. Born in Jerusalem, he moved to Cairo
as a child, where he was raised by his uncle, a rich tax-farmer. Luria
received superb education and was well-versed in rabbinical literature,
but he was attracted mainly to asceticism and mysticism and eventually
moved to Safed, in northern Palestine, an established center of
Kabbalah. He gathered around him a circle of disciples and began
teaching his Kabbalistic system, which included many distinctive fea-
tures. One of the practices spread by the Ari and his disciples was a
nocturnal sermon known as tiqūn hatsot (lit. midnight correction),
_
during which Jews mourned the destruction of the temple in
Jerusalem and prayed for its rebuilding. Until the mid-sixteenth
century, it was considered a voluntary prayer to be performed indi-
vidually. Only under the Ari did it become a collective ritual. The Ari’s
disciples maintained a grueling schedule of prayer and Torah studying
throughout the night. The Kabbalists believed, as one rabbi put it in
1586, that at midnight, God “amused himself with the righteous in
the garden of Eden.”55 Elliot Horowitz has argued that the Kabbalists
used coffee to drive away sleep, and as the drink spread, so did
the tiqūn hatsot. By the eighteenth century, it was popular well
_
beyond the Ottoman Empire, spreading into northern Italy and even
further north.56
Such vigils were performed also around Jerusalem in the eighteenth
century. Gedaliah of Siemiatycze, an Ashkenazi Jew who arrived in
Jerusalem in 1700 as part of a messianic group lead by rabbi Yehūdah
Ḥası̄d (1660–1700) witnessed such a vigil at the tomb the prophet
Samuel, about 10 kilometers northwest of the city’s walls. Gedaliah
describes the vigil of the 28th of the Hebrew month ʾIyyar at some
length. After the evening prayer, he recounts, those present studied the
book of Samuel and the book of Zohar (lit. “radiance” or “bright
light”) until midnight:
At midnight they extinguished all candles in the cave and sat in the
dark and did tiqūn hatsot in a tearful voice. And after they ﬁnished the
_
tiqūn hatsot they studied some Zohar. Then they brought the drink
_

that is called cafe, hot, and gave to each. They also ate biscuits that the
Sephardim are used to eat every morning . . . Later they sing hymns and
songs that belong to this night when Samuel died . . . and [they] sing in
a very pleasant voice and make merriment until morning.57

Not only was this particular vigil held in a group; it took place in a site
of significance, a site that can be perceived as yet another door opening
into the unseen, particularly at night. Spending the night at a saint’s
tomb was not unique to Jews. Around Jerusalem, Christians, Muslims,
and Jews used to frequent a cave on the Mount of Olives, east of the
city walls, that was identified as the burial place of different female
saints (each community associated the site with a different figure). It
was believed that circling the tomb seven times and lighting candles on
it brought blessing.58
In short, the night itself, and even sleeplessness was not necessarily
conceived negatively. The darkness and quiet of the night encouraged
introspection. But there was more to it. Keeping awake at night pre-
sented a huge challenge, and it was exactly this difficulty that made the
effort worthwhile. The difficulty involved was rewarding psychologic-
ally and socially, first, because it demonstrated one’s religious devotion
both to him/herself and to peers, and second, because it tied the
devotee to like-minded people, whether they spent the night together
or in solitude. They were all part of a community, whether concrete (as
in Kabbalist rituals) or a more elusive one, that of the “people of the
night”, lovers of God. As İbrahim Hakkı Erzurumi reminds his soul,
“lovers cannot sleep at night.”59
Just before we move from Sufi lodges and holy tombs to gardens and
taverns, a word is in order about the relation between the actual
partying and the highly stylized poetry which will serve as the main
source. Surely, we do not imagine that every drunk in the gardens of
Kağıthane or in the taverns of Kumkapı reflected about the unseen as
he was downing a glass of wine. As a window into past reality, then,
poetry is neither more nor less opaque or distortive than any other
source. Just as legal texts and official decrees served to reflect – and
also create – reality in line with the order sought by authority, the
parallel discourse of poetry not only reflected, but also scripted, behav-
iors in the parallel universe of nocturnal sociability. Thus, we should
not be fooled into taking the highly stylized setting of poetry for reality,
but we should not dismiss it either. Sometimes only paying lip-service

to this project, sometimes deeply invested in it, the School of Love was
always present and accessible for partying Muslims.

Drinking Wine, Making Love

The most common type of gathering identified with the night was
known as meclis. The word meclis is derived from the Arabic root
jalasa, which means to sit, and, therefore, different types of gatherings
could be referred to as meclis.60 I will focus more specifically on the
drinking-meclis, also known as bezm or alem. This was a convivial
gathering of companions commonly held in private gardens, houses,
courtyards, and taverns. Shahab Ahmed referred to such circles as
public (-private) or private (-public) spaces and noted that they allowed
“explorative discourses” entertaining “a wide range . . . of norms and
contradictions” that the law, being prescriptive and unambiguous by
nature, simply could not sustain.61
Such gatherings were held by groups across the Ottoman social
spectrum and served to consolidate solidarity among group
members.62 It was in elite circles, however, that the meclis reached its
most elaborate form. As scripted in Ottoman court poetry, an ideal
gathering would take place within the walls of a secluded garden on a
spring evening, in the company of close friends. Food and wine would
be served, poetry recited, and music played. Such gatherings could
stretch late into the night.63 The elite meclis was usually conceptualized
in mystical terms, and revelers assumed the roles of poets and der-
vishes, intoxicated with love, both mundane and divine. These garden
parties were a way of reconciling the potentially unruly teachings of the
School of Love with legalist Islam and the interdependent sociopolitical
order. By assigning these doctrines specific spaces and ritualizing them
along well-established cultural scripts, Ottoman hegemony curbed
their disruptive potential.64 These “rituals,” I would add, were not
only spatially delineated but also temporally, thus not interrupting
daily routines and dominant norms.
But the night figured in these parties not merely as a safe haven from
hegemonic socioreligious norms; rather, it served to cultivate intimacy
and cement personal bonds among participants. Recent studies suggest
that in the dark, the self is rendered more open to others, provided that
one feels secure. If one has a measure of control over the conditions of
interaction this openness may become conducive to conviviality or

intimacy; where control is absent, this openness is more likely to be

experienced as vulnerability. It has been argued that candlelight, in
particular, facilitates a relaxed, intimate, and cozy atmosphere that
eases social interaction.65 It is reasonable to assume that the familiarity
of the participants and the protocols of the drinking-meclis created a
secure environment conducive to conviviality. The nocturnal gathering
served to consolidate personal bonds further by differentiating the
participants from their others. Deniz Çalış-Kural notes that partici-
pants of the classical meclis followed the Orthodox ritual practices in
everyday life. During the garden party, however, they broke moment-
arily away from ascetic principles and engaged in sensual pursuits and
drinking. This was part of a kind of ritual of inversion, in which they
pretended to be mystics engaged in the quest for God.66
A significant part of this “ritual of inversion,” I argue, was the
reversing of relations between night and day. This reversal was closely
related to the sense of exclusivity shared by the participants. The
classical elite meclis was confined both spatially (to the garden) and
temporally (to the night), but it was exclusive on a more substantial
level: the meclis was defined by its very difference from the outer
world, and from the crowds that populated it. In their own eyes, the
participants were the erbab-ı batın, those of the internal, mystical
understanding. Their spiritual insight elevated them above “those of
the outside” (erbab-ı zahir), the ignorant crowds and dogmatic moral-
ists who renounced beauty and pleasure without truly understanding
their internal, divine qualities. In Ottoman poetry, these outsiders
always lurk outside the confines of the gathering, threatening it, but
also serving to consolidate the bonds between those who partake in it.
In keeping with this function, the classical gathering was visualized
and often physically arranged in a circle, with participants facing
inward. The wine cup would circle around between the participants.
This practice was known as devr, a word that was also used to refer to
the revolution of spheres and planets.67 Indeed, like everything else in
the meclis, the circling of the cup carried a symbolic meaning. It tied
participants not only to one another but also to celestial rhythms as
punctuated by the revolution of heavenly bodies. It is worth remem-
bering that in the dark of the Early Modern night, the stars would have
been much more noticeable than they are in the light-polluted nights of
the twenty-first century and were often a source of inspiration. Indeed,
similes of luminary bodies abound in Ottoman poetry in general, and

in representations of gatherings in particular.68 The recurrent circular

images, of planets and spheres revolving around the earth (according
to the geocentric model) or moths encircling a candle, were typically
constructed around a pole, a source of power and beauty, which was
often represented by light.
As is already evident, within this universe, wine was not considered
negatively, but quite the contrary. It was one other means to peek
beyond the many veils of the illusion we call reality and reach divine
truth. Some scholars have claimed that wine in this poetry was only a
metaphor, but a wealth of textual and visual evidence testify that
much wine was indeed consumed in such collective settings. All lan-
guages of the Islamic world refer to these wine drinking gatherings
unembarrassedly.69
Reciting poetry about the meclis was at the heart of the meclis and
served to frame it as a spiritual activity, and to sensitize the participants
to the sensual experience. The night was central to this experience.
Here are, for example, a few couplets from the extremely inﬂuential
poet, Nedim (1681–1730):
While you have no idea, we are in the corner with your image
Every night we drink until it is morning.

We don’t intend to hunt that Venus

We make his lovelock into the string for the lute of the party.

The ascetic dies for want of the pool of Heaven

We drive away sorrow with a goblet of wine.

We melt the arrowhead with the ﬁre of the heart

We are night dew on the rosebud bed of the wounded heart.70
These couplets all present the night meclis as remedy for the pain of
longing for the beloved, knowing that union cannot be reached in this
world. As common in gazels, these couplets work on two levels: one
conjures up images from the actual meclis; and the other invests these
images with spiritual meaning, bringing together the seen and the
unseen. The ﬁrst couplet depicts a despaired lover sitting on the
margins of the party, contemplating his beloved and drinking just to
pull himself through the night. The agony of separation from God,
discussed above, is here alluded to by using the imagery of the meclis.
The second couplet makes mention of the music played at the actual
party, which again stands for more than just sounds. If union with the

beloved is impossible, at the very least, the participants turn the pain of
longing, represented again by the beloved’s lovelock, into music to
soothe the heart.
The third couplet makes a conventional reference to the ascetic,
orthodox-minded type, who is the ultimate “other” of the School of
Love and its poetry. He is here used to accentuate the difference
between the spiritually enlightened, and those who are unable to access
the Divine. While the orthodox-minded dies in thirst, deprived of
heavenly water, the participants of the meclis can at least “drive away
sorrow” with wine, if not quench their thirst for the beloved. On the
level of the actual party, the ﬁfth couplet refers to ﬁre (possibly the
candles illuminating the party) and water by conjuring up an image of
a blacksmith workshop. The “burning of the heart,” is likened to a
furnace where the arrowheads of pain can be melted, before the heart
itself can be cooled off with the night’s dew. Just like the stars, the night
dew was a common trope in court poetry and can thus be seen as mere
literary convention. Yet, just like the stars, actual dew was part of the
experience of the night outside and this is exactly what turned it into a
potent image. It was easy to imagine how its cool touch could ease an
aching heart.
Presenting the meclis as a remedy for heartache is common. The
following couplets are taken from a gazel by Sünbülzade Vehbi
(1718?–1809) that uses “wine bottle” (mina) as the redif, thereby
placing wine at the heart of the poem and the party it conjures up:

The ornamented crown of Cemşid on the head of the wine bottle

The coronet of the sky is a goblet full of the wine of your lips.

The wine-server’s chest is the light of this dark night of sorrow, the full
moon
and the shining candle of the gathering, the ﬂame of the star of the
wine bottle. [. . .]

As long as there is wine, the heart of light is not empty of the pleasure
of love, Vehbi
That is what it insinuates, the ornamented wine bottle.71

The poet likens here the upper part of the wine vessel to the crown of
the mythological Persian King Cemşid (or Jamshid), who is credited
with the invention of wine. He then immediately ties the actual to the
spiritual by alluding to the dome of the sky, to a goblet of wine full of

divine essence. From the actual wine bottle to the heavenly goblet,
drinking allows traveling into the unseen. Similarly, the wine-server
who pours the wine for the participants, in fact, illuminates them with
his beauty (referenced by his exposed chest), which is ultimately divine.
The last couplet ties drinking and esoteric light even more closely: it is
wine that allows the heart to be open to, and be filled with,
heavenly light.
As evidenced even in the few couplets brought thus far, eroticism,
and often homoeroticism, was as integral to the night as wine, and this
too had a very long history in Islamic societies. Homoerotic interpret-
ations of the Quran (56:16–18), emphasized that Muslims who reach
paradise in their afterlives enjoy not only the company of heavenly
virgins (hūr), but also the flow of wine poured by boys of eternal youth
_
(wildān mukhalladūn). Replications of heaven on earth in later gener-
ations were bound to echo these associations. In antinomian Sufi
discourse, beautiful young boys (amrad) were considered to embody
divine beauty, and therefore, some rituals included gazing at such boys.
Sufis believed that this practice could induce powerful spiritual experi-
ences.72 In reality, the boundaries between platonic and carnal love
were harder to maintain than in prescriptive texts, and dervishes were
often blamed not only for consuming wine and enjoying music but also
for engaging in sodomy.73 In Islamic law, it would be remembered,
sodomy was strictly prohibited under pain of death. Yet, despite clear-
cut legal definitions, even jurists often refrained from condemning
same-sex relations outright. As Elyse Semerdjian noted, Ottoman
rulings on such matters could be “ambiguous.”74
Further away from legalist discourse, things were even vaguer and
here, again, the night assumed special significance. The prominent
geographer and intellectual Katip Çelebi (1609–1657) put it succinctly:
“The night is the cover of beloveds,” when rivals’ eyes cannot see.75
Darkness allowed platonic and erotic attraction to converge more
comfortably, buffering lovers from prying eyes and clear-cut legal
definitions. This erotic ambivalence and ambiguity were certainly not
limited to the night, but as with alcohol consumption, the night offered
unique opportunities, like a hidden playground, free from
parental supervision.
In short, if the meclis can be seen as a semi-ritualized gathering
cultivating idealized love, well the night was essential to that ritual.
Looking from the “outside in,” that is, from the perspective of diurnal,

orthodox order, the night served to envelop and contain the subversive
out of sight. Looking from inside out, that is, from the perspective of
the meclis participants, the night was central to their experience and
endowed it with meaning. By inverting temporal routines, the meclis
celebrated and cemented the bonds between participants, always
described as enlightened with divine light, implicitly or explicitly
placing them in contradistinction to the darkness all around and the
crowds, sleeping in it, spiritually unaware. The night served to accentu-
ate the sense of spiritual superiority of the in-group.

A Silver Cypress
Another tradition that can be seen as a derivative of the meclis was
known as mehtab seyri, literally translated as moonlight watching or
moonlight cruises. The term referred more speciﬁcally to nighttime
boat trips on Istanbul’s waterways. This tradition, too, had its elite
and popular varieties, which survived down to the end of the Ottoman
period. In fact, some of the most elaborate descriptions and
literary representations are from that later period.76 These tell us that
during the last month of spring and the months of summer, when the
moon was full and the weather appropriate, people would take to the
water in boats cruising in close formations and enjoy food,
drinks, music, and poetry. People would usually go out after the
night prayer.77
The declared focus of these gatherings was the moon and the light it
cast on the water, which was often likened to a “silver cypress” (serv-i
simin). Both the full moon and the cypress were common symbols of
perfect beauty and purity in Ottoman culture and were often associ-
ated with the grace of the archetypical beloved in poetry. Just like other
types of gathering, the more afﬂuent full-moon cruises included
refreshments, music, songs, and poetry recitation, all of which served
to sensitize the participants to the audible and visual aspects of the
experience.78 Here is one example by Naşid (d. 1791):
My young boy, let us be satiated with the glass of pure wine
Let us drink so much so that we let loose our temper
Come on, don’t incline to sleep this early, my lord
Oh [you] moon on the summit of grace, let us go out to the full
moon light.

One or two lutes we need and a few good singers

They should sing night tunes and play teasing music at times,
Let us alight at the open meadows of Küçüksu for a while
Oh [you] moon on the summit of grace, let us go out to the
full moon light.79
The poetic protocols of the mehtab seyri tie it firmly to the elite-meclis.
The late Ottoman writer, Nabizade Nazim (1862–1893), indeed
referred to one such event as a “floating party” (bezm-i cari).80 Like
in the garden party, in the mehtab seyri too the night is a time for
wine drinking and heightened aesthetic and erotic sensibilities. These
sensibilities were not limited to elite genres. For example, in one of the
Tıfli stories, a series of popular anecdotes dating back to the eighteenth
century (see below), Tıfli, the character who gave his name to the
stories, drinks with his friends in a tavern in Galata. Around sunset,
the band disperses and Tıfli boards a boat, wishing to go to
Çatladıkapı on the southern edge of the walled city. However, “on
the way, being drunk he began singing and because the rower too was
senselessly drunk (mest-i laʿakil derecede sarhoş olduğundan),
they seized the opportunity offered by the beautiful weather and
full moon (mehtab), and headed to the [Princes, A. W.] Islands”
instead.81
An anecdote brought by the chronicler Mütercim Ahmed Asım
Efendi (1755–1819) may help us to think about the mehtab seyri
beyond literary conventions, elite and popular, and place it in a more
concrete urban context. The chronicler tells of Dimitraşko, brother of
the governor (voyvoda) of Moldavia, who along with others from the
Christian elite, lived the good life in seaside houses in Tarabya and
Kuru Çeşme, north of the city. Dimitraşko would often go on mehtab
cruises with his friends, whence they would get thoroughly drunk.
The chronicler is highly critical of the group’s behavior and the anec-
dote he recounts should, therefore, be read as a moral lesson. As he
puts it himself: “This party cannot go on like this. The drunks will
get drowsy eventually (Bu meclis böyle kalmaz, mestler mahmur olur
bir gün).”82
One night, the group went for one of these cruises in three boats,
attached to one another, and “full of coquettish beloveds.” They set
out, enjoyıng music, singing, and drinking. Interestingly, the chronicler
used the Sufi expression “this is the moment” (dem bu demdir) to
describe the revelers’ approach. As they were living the moment,

they were attacked by more than 20 armed men who arrived in boats
from the Asian side. The author contrasts the “quiet and peaceful
night” and the gentleness of the partiers who went out to enjoy it on
the one hand, with the “terror-filled noise” of the attack, and the
vulgar and evil nature of the attackers, on the other. The attackers
dragged the boats to a secret compound they had prepared in advance
and had their own “mock party” (bezm-i mezak), in which they
liberally enjoyed the wine they took from their captives and forced
them to dance to the amusement of the captors. The party continued
until dawn, when the captives were finally released.83 It is as if repre-
sentatives of the urban underclass from Chapter 3 invaded the seem-
ingly idyllic world of elite nocturnal leisure, reminding us that the
urban night was not really arranged in chapters and that it could be
far less poetic than literary renditions of it. But the most important
aspect for this discussion is again hiding and revealing, which is also
the focus of the chronicler. According to his account, the events were
“hidden under the skirt of that disastrous night and nobody saw or
heard what has happened.” Yet, Dimitraşko was determined to use his
connections to catch those who had humiliated him and his compan-
ions. The bandits were never found but that “nocturnal story” (destan-
ı şebane), quickly spread around town and earned Dimitraşko the
“reproach of the refined” and the scorn of the commoners.84 As in
the anecdote brought from the chronicler Şemdanizade Fındıkıllı
Süleyman Efendi in Chapter 3, the chronicler joins the reproach. In
fact, he plays an active role in “exposing” and shaming moral
offenders who had taken cover in darkness, bringing them to light,
so to speak.
Other contemporary accounts testify that the mehtab seyri was a
well-established, and popular tradition that had different varieties.85
One version of the mehtab seyri involved watching night fishermen at
work. Gasparo Ludovico Momarts (1696–1761), a Levantine born
and raised in the Ottoman Empire, writes that “in the bluefish season,
when the moon is shining and the sea is asleep, caiques gather around,
large and small, with noble men and women in them, as if they are
sitting in an audience chamber.”86 It is worth noting that such bluefish
season “fish parties” (balık alemleri) were still held in the early twenti-
eth century, following elaborate protocols.87
These sources show not only the popularity of mehtab cruises, but
also that unlike the coffeehouse or the tavern, this tradition allowed

room for women, at least among Christians. Among Muslims, if we

can learn something from late nineteenth century accounts, women
may have joined, separately from men. Yet, as important as garden and
ﬂoating parties may have been, for most people in the city it was the
tavern that served as the locus of nocturnal drinking.

Drink with the Common People

Given earlier scholarly understandings of the cultural world of the upper
classes as sealed off from that of the commoners, one might suspect that
the inﬂuence of the School of Love was limited to the elite and conﬁned
in its high-brow poetry. However, more recent scholarship has shown
that neither patterns nor spaces of sociability were entirely bifurcated
along class or estate lines. It should come as no surprise that the wide
variety of notions loosely grouped here under “the School of Love” were
common in the tavern scene, given that it was so often frequented by
dervishes, including of course Bektaşis, and considering that many
leading poets were no strangers to the popular drinking scene. Some
taverns actually posted their poems on the walls.88
That the protocols of the meclis and notions of the School of Love
were accessible across the social spectrum does not mean they were
accessible to all in the same way. Gender and class did matter. As
already noted in previous chapters, “honorable” women were, by and
large, barred from the nocturnal meclis setting. Economic means too
were crucial. While the rich would usually host parties at home and
often have their guests sleep over,89 non-elites’ domiciles were typically
smaller and shouldering expenditures, for illumination, in particular,
posed a serious challenge. Commoners would, therefore, meet outside
and share the costs between them.90 Drinking was usually done away
from the Muslim quarters, for example, in open areas along the
Bosporus, or more typically, in any of the hundreds of taverns scat-
tered along the waterways.91 But, whatever the differences that separ-
ated them from the elite, commoners too cultivated extra-legal
discourses that “normatized” drinking, again, by associating it with
the night and thereby delineating its boundaries and keeping it out-of-
sight. Here, the alternative ethics and aesthetics of the School of Love
could be left to exist.
A glimpse of eighteenth-century tavern nightlife is offered in the
biographical dictionary of Mirza-zade Mehmed Emin Salim (d. 1743)

in the entry on the late seventeenth-century poet Dervish Fasih. One

day, Fasih took a boat from Fener to Galata and joined some of his
friends in one of the many taverns of the area. It seems that it was late
in the afternoon and other groups had already formed their own
“circles” (halka) of drinking, probably with a candle or another source
of light in the center.92 As Ekrem Koçu writes in his work on Istanbul
taverns, albeit without specifying the period, owners of taverns would
greet their patrons, seat them, and place a lantern in their midst. Their
assistants, known as “fire boys” (ateş oğlanları) would light it, saying
“welcome, gentlemen.”93 The light cast by the lantern would create a
kind of “private space” within the larger space of the tavern, differen-
tiating those in the light-circle from those outside of it. Reflected in the
faces of those around the table, the light would serve to bring them
closer together while separating them from the others in the tavern.94
Just as in the elite meclis, the symbolism and the physical sitting
arrangement were hard to distinguish. Here too, at the center of the
circle was the saki, or wine-server, whose beauty was supposed to set
the fire of love in the hearts of the drinkers. These literary conventions
actually scripted expectations and behaviors. We know, for example,
that tavern owners indeed sought to employ good-looking boys as
wine-servers, in order to attract customers.95 This was the case in the
obscure tavern in Galata frequented by Fasih and his friends:

In the midst of the company, a beautiful, heart-burning candle is

lighting up the piping-hot meclis of pleasure, shining [so] bright that
all the participants of the meclis . . . were moths to that bedroom-
candle of the harem of beauty, and all those present were amazed,
drunk and crazed by his bewildering beauty.96

With every round of the cup the saki made the ring of companions
forget the distress of the world and, in every cup, he “pillaged” their
mind and reason. Fasih fell instantly in love and began courting the
boy with clever talk and poetry, but – just when he thought he was
making progress – the boy said he had to leave as night was falling.
Fasih spent the rest of the night drinking and agonizing, wondering if
the saki would return the next day, as he had promised. Day came, and
then evening again and Fasih was still waiting. Unable to withstand the
wait any longer, he ﬁnally went to the home of that saki and spent the
rest of the night on his doorstep. He did not enjoy a peaceful sleep,
however. Two other fans of the boy, much rougher than the poet, were

displeased to ﬁnd competition on their beloved’s doorstep and sent him

back to where he came from. Every single detail in this anecdote
follows well-established traditions of writing and yet, this does not
diminish its value as a historical source. As Andrews and Kalpaklı
have amply demonstrated, poetic traditions reflected but also
scripted behaviors and modes of sociability in Early Modern
Ottoman society.97
The anecdote demonstrates that despite some obvious differences,
the drinking in a tavern could be conceptualized using much the same
imagery that was used to describe more exclusive elite gatherings. Like
the candles of the elite garden party, the candles on tavern tables were
ultimately islands in an ocean of darkness. Humble rather than
extravagant, light was nevertheless identified with a shared experience
of unrestrained joy and affection that only shone brighter in the
surrounding darkness. Like moths around a candle, revelers of all
kinds turned their back to darkness and their faces inside, forming a
circle around a source of real and metaphoric light and gravitating
toward it.
One might object that while the setting of this anecdote is a popular
one, the genre Salim was writing in was elitist. Yet, other sources
suggest that the notions of the School of Love shaped, at least to some
extent, popular gatherings as well. For example, the Sufi diarist Seyyid
Hasan Nuri, records in the first volume of his diary, which covers
approximately one year (1661–1662), 125 gatherings he defines as
işret. The term and the synonymous use of bezm imply consumption
of alcoholic beverages but there is no direct evidence that this was
indeed the case. With or without alcohol, all but two gatherings took
place after dark. Diurnal social gatherings are designated by other
terms. Just to clear any doubt of the diarist being familiar with the
“teachings” of the School of Love, he notes in his diary that he was
reading the Divan of Hafez from time to time.98
Popular literary genres conveyed this association between the night
and social gathering and drinking, as well as the intimacy and eroti-
cism that is associated with the meclis. The Tıfli stories, as they are
usually called, are a series of stories produced in Istanbul from the
eighteenth century to the twentieth century. The oldest Tıfli story we
know of was read aloud already in 1756–1757, and yet the manuscript
has been lost. According to David Selim Sayers, who studied these
stories, they were intended as “lowbrow entertainment” for wide

audiences. He characterizes these stories as descriptive, rather than

prescriptive or subversive, and asserts that although printed in the
second half of the nineteenth century, they engage with pre-tanzimat
norms, practices, and roles.99 Both their “realism” and their ability to
mirror earlier realities make them suitable for interrogation for the
purposes of this discussion.
All of these stories are placed in the period of Murad IV, the great
crusader against substances, including alcohol, whom we have already
met in previous chapters. Tıfli Efendi, who gave his name to the whole
series, in fact plays a minor role in them. He is presented as a close
confident (musahib), consultant, and boon companion (nedim) to the
sultan. The earliest printed Tıfli story that we know of is The Strange
Story of the Lady with the Dagger (Hançerli Hanım Hikaye-i Garibesi)
first serialized in the newspaper Ceride-i Havasis in 1851–1852.
The story tells of a young handsome man by the name of Süleyman,
the son of a prosperous trader, who upon the death of his father is
pulled into a life of debauchery by a band of vagrants who claim to
have been his late father’s dependents. Süleyman drinks and gambles
away his inherited fortune and hits rock bottom. He is then rescued by
a close friend of his father, who teaches him the secrets of commerce.
One day, he comes face to face with a rich lady, known as Hançerli
Hürmüz (lit. Jupiter with a dagger), and she falls madly in love with
him. Unfortunately for her, Süleyman falls madly in love with her
slave girl, Kamer (lit. moon). The names already imply the nocturnal
setting of love.
The lady invites Süleyman over and together they spend many
nights, while he hopes to find an opportunity to be with Kamer. At
last, when the two find the opportunity, they are spotted by the lady,
who then launches a vicious vendetta campaign which culminates in
assassination attempts made on both Kamer and Süleyman. By the end
of the story (spoiler alert), owing to the intervention of Tıfli and then
the sultan himself, the wicked lady stands trial and peace, order, and
love flourish again.100
Not only is the story full of scenes of nocturnal drinking gatherings
that follow the protocols and norms of the School of Love; these
gatherings are conceptualized using that school’s vocabulary. For
example, when the father is on his deathbed, he warns his son
Süleyman about the dangers a young beautiful boy might face. Indeed,
reality was not always as romantic as poetry would have us believe.

A group of men drinking, hidden from communal and state mechan-

isms of surveillance, could be predatory. In his 1686 treatise, Derviş
İsmail, the superintendent of the public bathhouses in Istanbul, tells
of a 15-year-old boy by the name of Yemenici Bali who was raped
by several janissaries at a nightly drinking party (meclis-i işret)
they held.101
Süleyman’s sick father in the story Hançerli Hürmüz was clearly
aware of such dangers:
You are a candle full of warmth, hey light of the eyes
Don’t show your face at every party (bezm).

When the mirth of the gathering (meclis) is full of chastity

Don’t play your chin in other, licentious gatherings.

If they say: “Your pure ruby lips is a remedy”

Say: “There is treatment by thorns for a man.”

May you be safe with God

May you ﬁnd dignity in the two worlds.102
Many facets of the typical meclis are present here: the night (insinuated
in the candle), the mirth, and the erotic context. Only for the father,
fearing for his young, defenseless son, all these are a source of concern,
a concern that turns out to be well-founded. The period following his
father’s death is one of disorientation whence Süleyman is lured into a
life of debauchery in the taverns of Istanbul. The people who lead him
into this world are described as “vagrants,” “wretched” and “evil.”
Much of their reveling takes place at night but is not limited to it.
Sometimes they gather to drink in the early evening, and sometimes
even during the day. They are “drinkers of night and day” (şaribü’l leyl
ve’n-nehar) and this is one of the ways by which their marginality and
threat is expressed.103 These drinking gatherings again include the
basic facets of the drinking meclis: music, merrymaking, love poetry,
mezzes, and lots of alcohol.
Things are different with Hançerli Hürmüz: while she spends
nights and days with Süleyman on several occasions, their drinking is
limited to the night.104 Moreover, these drinking bouts are more
elaborately described and are made meaningful through the language
of the School of Love. For example, one night, when Süleyman visits
the lady’s house, her slave girl (and his beloved), Kamer prepares a

“drinking table” (işret masası) complete with a music band. Then “The
three together, drinking slowly, started to listen to the delicate music of
the lute.” Süleyman, “seeking to arouse the love of the lady and to
strengthen the base of his own love [for Kamer],” started reciting the
following poem:

How lovely, the unequaled garden

How lovely, the garden, the night-chamber (şebistan) of imagination

If the heaven’s houris see the houris of this place

they would fall down, jealous, into the ﬁre.

Don’t think it is dew on the red rose

Sweat breaks out on the fresh face.

This poem, like more standard gazels, moves back and forth between
the actual and the mystical, between the seen and the unseen worlds.
The night is something like a mabeyn between the two.105 The first
couplets turn the actual garden into a space of spiritual contemplation
by likening it to a şebistan (literally a night-place), a word that desig-
nates both a bedchamber and a cell for nighttime solitary meditation of
the kind discussed above. On the level of the actual party, the fire in the
second couplet is that of the candles, but as a metaphor it stands for the
love aroused in, and by, the party. The houris, those divine creatures of
the heavens mentioned in the Quran, are here described as attracted to
and jealous of the party. The unseen is not only present but actively
seeking to participate in the actual party. The houris here are much like
moths drawn to the fire, another standard metaphor for intense love
that would have been known to all listeners. Much like moths, again,
the houris are burned by their uncontrollable attraction and “fall into
the fire.” The couplet further recalls a rather well-known illustration in
Ottoman manuscripts of the divan of the Persian master-poet Hafez
that depict houris celebrating in the invisible domain, looking down at
the humans who hold their own meclis. The illustration adorns the
couplet “The angle of mercy raised the cup of the pleasures of intimate
company:/From the draught: upon the cheek of the houri and fairy: a
rose hue!”106 Indeed, in our story, the actual rose of the actual garden
appears in the following couplet, representing, as always in Persian and
Ottoman poetry, the beloved. The beloved, in turn, represents God and
serves as a corridor to Him.

Here the rose is described covered in, and freshened by, night dew.
That dew, however, is actually the sweat breaking out on the beloved’s
face, aroused and excited as she is by the intensive experience of love.
The poet, in the standard role of the lover, courts the beloved, con-
sciously and explicitly using his poetry to enhance this experience. The
night again emerges as the time of love and intoxication, of intoxica-
tion by love.
The poem continues by mentioning all the typical components of the
poetic garden, and the drinking gathering (here referred to as bezm-i
işret): the cypress trees, the narcissus, the rose, and the tulip, and ends
with a typical Hafezian call:

Let us drink, sip by sip, from the goblet of pleasure

Let us forget the day of sorrow.107

The day is here presented as a time of sorrow, and the meclis as an

escapade, a time of pleasure and bliss. Much more can be said about
this story, but for the sake of brevity, it is enough to note that in this
low-brow literature too, nocturnal drinking exists in its own aesthetic
and ethical universe, which is not at all limited to the elite. It matters
not who penned this story. What matters is that the author assumed
that all of these nocturnal practices and poetics would be readily
accessible and intelligible to the readers and listeners (as it was
common practice to read stories aloud). Furthermore, the story does
carry moral lessons but these are far less pronounced than later
Ottoman novels, some of which drew heavily on such printed rendi-
tions of earlier orally transmitted stories, including Hançerli
Hürmüz.108 While Hançerli Hürmüz and the “vagrants” in the begin-
ning of the story are undoubtedly evil figures, Kamer and Süleyman,
who also engage in bouts of nocturnal drinking, are positive and
sympathetic figures. Such stories, then, both reflect the relative norma-
tivity of nighttime drinking and serve to further normatize it.
This lenient approach to nocturnal revelry is also evident in popular
humorous stories about famous drinkers, most notably the renowned
Bekri (lit. drunkard) Mustafa whose exploits are described in books
and humorous collections in late Ottoman times. Many Bekri Mustafa
stories, like the Tıfli Stories, are placed in the period of Murad IV, and
quite a few of them refer directly to the latter’s ban on alcohol, coffee,
and tobacco.109

The association of Bekri Mustafa with alcohol consumption and

Murad IV goes back at least to the early eighteenth century. Dimitrie
Cantemir (1673–1723), prince of Moldavia under the Ottomans, men-
tions Bekri Mustafa in his grand history of the Ottoman Empire as a
close boon companion of the sultan. Cantemir relates that the people
supposed it was Bekri Mustafa who made the sultan so fond of
alcohol. According to his version, because of the sultan’s love of wine,
he only banned tobacco and coffee and enforced the ban harshly.110
Cantemir’s account provides direct evidence that Bekri Mustafa stories
were circulating widely already in the period under discussion here, if
not earlier, and that already then, his figure was closely associated with
that of Murad IV, and with his ban on substances. Some scholars
devoted considerable attention to the real identity of Bekri
Mustafa.111 For my purposes here what matters is rather what his
character represents in the city’s folklore, and what it tells us about
popular approaches to alcohol consumption.112
Bekri Mustafa is usually presented as a habitual drinker with no
permanent occupation, but in some stories, he works in casual jobs just
to finance his booze. He is a rough, but ultimately good man. In strict
orthodox terms, however, he is hardly a good Muslim. Although,
according to some stories, he received medrese education and some-
times even served as a muezzin or an imam, leading the prayer, he is
anything but observant. It is only during Ramadan that he gives up
drinking and frequents the mosque. This again demonstrates the
ambivalence and even outright contradiction with regards to alcohol
in Ottoman society. Bekri Mustafa is the şaribü’l leyl ve’n-nehar type,
and therefore, his drinking is hardly limited to the night, and yet as
his world is that of the tavern, he is to a large extent a creature of
the night.113
Here is one typical story, brought by Mehmet Tevfik in a text
originally published in the early 1880s. One night, the famous Bekri
Mustafa stayed in his regular tavern until one-and-a-half hours after
sunset. The owners wanted to close the place in compliance with
regulations, but Bekri Mustafa would not leave. At that time, the
officer (subaşı) Tuzsuz (lit. unsalted, but also boring, flat) Ahmed,
accompanied by a few of his men, went on patrol and passed by the
tavern. Seeing that it was still open, he entered the place, raging. The
tavern owners panicked and explained that the only reason they had

not closed for the night was that they could not throw Bekri Mustafa
out. Tuzsuz approached Bekri Mustafa, who was sitting by the sardine
barrel that was commonly placed in the midst of many taverns:
T: Hey you, prick, how much longer are you going to sit here?
B: What’s the rush?
T: Don’t you know who I am?
B: Who the hell are you? [kim oluyorsun?]
T: They call me the famous Tuzsuz Ahmed [. . .]
B: Well, they call me the famous Bekri Mustafa. Go on, I already told
you to piss off.
T: In that case, I will have to teach you how unamusing [tuzsuz] I am.
B: Then I will show you how much of a drunkard [bekri] I am.

He grabbed the officer and soaked him in the sardine barrel and then
threw him out the door. He did the same to one of the officer’s men,
who came charging at him. Passersby who saw them, all covered with
fish water, asked what was going on. Tuzsuz and his man replied: “It
appears a salter came in there, he salts people. If you fancy that, you
too go inside.”114
It may very well be that the story was shaped by the new efforts
made by the Hamidian regime (1876–1908) – when Mehmed Tevfik
was writing – to limit the opening times of unlicensed taverns to one
and a half hours after sunset.115 Yet, for my purposes here, the details
are less important than the general features of Bekri Mustafa stories.
Here we have a kind of ruffian who likes his booze and would have
nobody disturb him. He clearly shares in a macho behavior with his
antagonist, one that fits neatly in the kabadayı culture of which both
figures are part.116 More importantly, as in many other stories, Bekri
Mustafa and his rowdy drinking belong in the night and, in fact, he is
successfully challenging the very efforts made by the government to
regulate the night. As I showed elsewhere, such confrontations over
drinking hours were not limited to the realm of fiction.117
A very similar approach to drinking, which is typically set at night is
also evident in jokes which feature the Bektaşi type. Many such jokes
were circulating and some of them appear in late nineteenth-century
collections. Rather than an identifiable individual, the Bektaşi is a
typecast that, like some of the popular figures mentioned above, mocks
strict ascetics and hypocritical moralists and personifies a more lenient,
tolerant approach.118 Much like in Bekri Mustafa anecdotes, Bektaşis’

jokes sometimes depict their heroes drinking after dark. In some cases,
people of authority, sometimes the sultan himself, invade their nights
and threaten to take their booze or tobacco, and drive away their fun.119
As already noted, these anecdotes probably reﬂect late nineteenth-
century realities, and yet, when read as part of the collage brought above,
of literary representations that stretch back into the late seventeenth
century, it becomes apparent that these later renditions were deﬁnitely
not an innovation of the Hamidian period. Rather, they were adopted
and most probably adapted from a long tradition of popular representa-
tions of the largely nocturnal world of popular social drinking.

Conclusion
David Saetre, a minister and professor of religion, describes his prob-
lem “with Christianity and most structured religions” as “the attempt
to say too much . . . to destroy essential ambiguity.” He calls this “an
obsession with a kind of false clarity” and critiques the “idea that
everything can be brought into some kind of light.” Part of his role
as minister, he says, “is to maintain the dimension of ambiguity.” The
night, according to Saetre, is crucial for this dimension, as it is for our
ability to connect with parts of our inner selves that are masked during
the daytime. “Our daylight selves are not our full selves.”120
The foregoing discussion demonstrated the importance of the night
in rather similar terms. The night, it was shown, was much more than a
hideout for revelers. It offered a perfect setting for the “rituals” of the
School of Love and this, on several levels. Using the contemporaries’
own terms, it is possible to say that as the seen world faded into the
dark, the unseen became more accessible. In more material terms we
can say that the lessened capacity of vision and the heightened sensi-
tivity of the other senses facilitated an altered state of consciousness
that was much sought by both devotees and meclis participants. In
social terms, the night helped to cement bonds among participants,
who congregated in small islands of light in a vast ocean of darkness.
Whereas the common crowds were sleeping their sleep of unawareness
in the dark of their spiritual ignorance, the participants were awake,
practically and spiritually, enlightened by divine light. The night, in
short, was the domain of the School of Love.

We go into a room and hit the switch. Then there is light. The fact is
that even if we turn the light off, the glare spilling over from the
windows would probably be enough to see anyway. In most urban
areas around the world, hyper-illumination has driven darkness to the
point of near-extinction, so much so that it now has to be preserved.1
We have become practically night-blind, entirely dependent on artifi-
cial light, oblivious of the highly complex systems that produce and
bring it to us, and of the environmental cost of these systems. In fact,
artificial lighting was instrumental in accentuating the very distinction
between humans and “the environment.” With human society regu-
larly illuminated with a steady flow of standardized light, it appeared
to be detached from dark and erratic “nature.” Somewhere out there in
the dark lie the sources of our light. The power plants are out of sight,
the cables concealed in the walls. The power relations that organize
these systems remain similarly invisible, “blackboxed,” and safely
depoliticized.2
As observed by Wolfgang Schivelbusch, with industrial illumination,
the use of light was gradually removed from its production, and light
itself was standardized and homogenized, attaining with electricity a
certain “abstract quality.”3 This “abstract” light flows out of our
sockets, cheap and abundant, flooding entire spaces with light that is
so continuous and homogenous as to become unremarkable. Sophie
Reculin notes that it is only the power outlets and the sense of depend-
ency they cause that remind us that electric light is a human creation.4
Although entirely artificial, light has become natural to us, transparent
and yet essential, almost like the air we breathe.
Millions of people are deprived of reliable artificial illumination still
today, but for those of us who are connected to a power grid, industri-
alized light is the only light we know. When we think about people in
times past, we assume they had less of the same. Most histories of the
night and artificial lighting focused mostly on industrialized light and

144

therefore did little to change this assumption.5 Little attention was paid
to preindustrial lighting materials and hardware, even less so to the
experience of light produced by them.6 Disregard to the ecology and
materiality of preindustrial lighting may also have to do with the fact
that almost all extant histories of the night focus on Europe and North
America, where street lighting was introduced already in the seven-
teenth and eighteenth centuries, developing over the nineteenth century
into comprehensive systems of industrialized light.
With light remaining rare and precious until the second half of the
nineteenth century, the Ottoman Empire offers an interesting case by
which to resensitize us to the inﬁnite shades of preindustrial illumin-
ation. If we are to reconstruct something of this multiplicity, we must
de-standardize light and return it to the particular sites and conditions
in which it was produced and used. This chapter visits the pastures of
the Danube principalities where tallow was sourced, the slaughter-
houses of Eyüp and Yedikule where it was turned into candles, the
grocery shops where they were sold, and the palaces and humbler
houses where they were consumed. It sketches the contours of an
“Ottoman lighting system,” that is, a centrally regulated network that
procured lighting materials from the provinces and channeled them to
Istanbul and other crucial points in the imperial power grid and set
lighting priorities in line with its political needs. The main argument is
that lighting was considered a basic commodity and its regular
supply, therefore, concerned the state. Yet, access to light was
extremely unequal, which, as shown in Chapter 6, made light a shiny
index of power.

Illuminating Istanbul: Lighting Materials and Hardware

Light in the Early Modern Ottoman Empire was produced either from
animal fats, mostly processed into solid candles, or vegetable oils,
which were burned in their liquid form in a variety of lanterns.
Discussion here focuses primarily on the imperial system of lighting,
the center of which was the capital where candles were the most
common burning technology. Vegetable oils, and especially olive oil,
will be treated more brieﬂy in due course.
Candles were commonly divided into three categories. The cheapest
one was made out of tallow (don yağı), which gave little light and
much foul odor. The best candles were made out of pure beeswax

(balmumu, şem-i asel), which burned much brighter and emitted little
smell. White (bleached) beeswax was considered the most valuable.
Often, a hint of camphor was added to improve the smell. In between
these categories were mixes of tallow with much smaller amounts
of beeswax.7
Beeswax is produced by worker bees to make the cell walls of the
honeycomb. It is extracted after the honey had been removed by
melting the honeycomb in water. The wax is purified and then poured
into molds to solidify.8 Tallow was produced from raw animal fat (iç
yağı) from around the kidneys and loins of sheep, goats, and cattle.
When first obtained, it produces a terrible stench, and it therefore has
to be processed before it could be used for candlemaking. The fat is
simmered, pressed, and as it cools down it solidifies and loses much of
its bad odor.9 Lighting energy is thus extracted from the time and place
in which it was produced and solidified into easily storable and trans-
portable chunks. As long as it is kept in sealed containers (to prevent it
from oxidizing), tallow can be kept for long periods. While in
eighteenth-century France, for example, candles were commonly made
of a mixture of cattle and mutton tallow, in Istanbul mutton and
lamb were far more available than cattle and therefore candlemaking
had to rely mostly on mutton tallow.10 Other than for candles,
tallow was also used for making soap, greasing machinery, and in
processing leather.
Not only did lighting materials differ from one another, each could
vary significantly, depending on a variety of factors. Tallow quality
was contingent on the species, age, and sex of the animals from which
it was extracted, and the parts of the body used. The solidity of the
material could even vary with the animals’ diet.11 Wicks (sing. fitil)
were another variable. Wicks were made of linen, or more commonly
in candles, spun cotton fibers.12 Matching the size of the wick to the
candle to optimize performance required considerable skill. Poor
matches resulted in much smoke and waste of burning matter.13
While, as shown below, the manufacturing of lighting products was
regulated by guilds, the light emitted by burning these materials could
not possibly be fully standardized. Variation was integral to preindus-
trial light. When thinking about access to light we must consider not
only how much light one could afford, but also what kind of light. But
before answering this, the procuring of raw materials and their pro-
cessing into lighting products must be considered.

Fueling Istanbul: Provisioning and Stock Management

Thomas Hughes, who authored one of the most influential historical
studies of early electrification has tried to approximate a definition of a
“system.” According to him, a system is a centrally controlled network
that connects related components. Central control is applied in order
to optimize the system’s performance and to ensure the achievement of
its goals. The limits of central control are usually what defines the
limits of the system.14 Lighting in eighteenth-century Istanbul was
predicated on a “system” in those very terms. It was, however, signifi-
cantly different from systems of industrialized light, whether gas, elec-
tricity, or even kerosene.15
The candlemaking industry in Istanbul relied on animal fat accrued
in the slaughterhouses of the city, and on shipments of tallow and
beeswax from the provinces. The supply of candles therefore depended
on seasonal and geographical factors, on the rhythms of animal hus-
banding, and on the imperial provisioning apparatus.16 Antony
Greenwood, who authored the most detailed study of this system,
estimates that the annual consumption of sheep, goats, and lambs in
Istanbul between the sixteenth and eighteenth century varied between
600,000 (at times of scarcity) and 1,800,000.17 The mechanism put in
place to ensure the provisioning of the city with such huge numbers of
stock, funneled to Istanbul animals “on hoof” mostly from the Balkans
and particularly the Danube area. Only at times of shortage would
state agents turn to Anatolia for sheep. In the second half of the
eighteenth century, Anatolia’s contribution increased significantly.18
The timing of sheep transports followed biological rhythms. April
was the time of lambing and therefore, herds could not be put on the
road for the long march to Istanbul before the end of that month or the
beginning of the following one. Most sheep arrived at Istanbul between
late June and the end of November. Fattened in the pastures
around the city, herds were then timed to the slaughterhouses in the
city. The period stretching from December to April was typically a
time of shortage since the summer’s supply had already been
consumed and the city could now only rely on sheep pastured in its
immediate environs.19
This system supplied Istanbul not only with meat but also with fat,
much of which was rendered into tallow by candlemakers. This locally
produced tallow was augmented by tallow sent from the provinces.

The supply of tallow from the provinces too was seasonally bound.
Shipments from Bulgaria, for example, were expected to arrive in the
early autumn.20 Wallachia and Moldavia were crucial for the supply,
as they were for meat provisioning.21 But as in the case of meat, with
time, Anatolia too had to give its share. A list from around the middle
of the nineteenth century, for example, mentioned Ankara, Konya, and
Erzurum, among other Anatolian cities that supplied tallow to
Istanbul. Tallow-supplying cities in the Balkans included Plovdiv
(Filiba) and Pazardzhik, in present-day Bulgaria, and Selanik
(Thessaloniki, in today’s Greece). The latter, to give an idea of the
quantities, had 20,000 okkas (25,640 kg) ready for shipment
according to the same document.22
The beeswax candles industry had its own ecology and its own
rhythms. Before the introduction of the Langstroth movable beehives
into the region in the late nineteenth century, the production of honey,
and its by-product, beeswax, was pegged to seasonal cycles. In temper-
ate areas, the blooming of plants in the spring signaled the beginning of
production of honey, but until around the mid-summer, most of the
nectar was not converted into honey but rather fed to the young, non-
foraging bees in the hive, or consumed by the entire colony when
weather conditions did not allow foraging. After mid-summer, when
the number of young bees decreased, more nectar could be converted
into honey and stored as reserves to be used by the colony during the
following winter. Production rates and times further depended (and
still do) on the variety of plants and their period of blooming in
particular geographical areas.23 Like the honey it stores, then, the
beeswax is harvested in the autumn, when the reserves of honey are
at their peak, before they would be depleted during the winter. In
Palestine, for example, honey harvesting would usually take place in
September.24 Considering that Beeswax was sent to Istanbul from
places as far as Trebizond (Trabzon, on the Black Sea), Wallachia,
Moldavia, and different parts of Greece, beeswax was expected to
arrive at Istanbul even later than tallow, at the very end of autumn.25
As with other commodities ﬂowing through the conduits of the
Ottoman provisioning system, variations of supply rates were not only
seasonal. The supply of animals for slaughter varied following long-
term climatic changes and was affected by a wide range of natural
disasters, from droughts to epizootics.26 Furthermore, as the system
relied on the pooling of resources from a vast geography, territorial

losses had a direct negative effect on the amount of available materials.

The Treaty of Passarowitz (1718), for example, signaled the growing
isolation of the Ottomans from European economies and the loss of
direct control over some provinces north of the Danube. This treaty,
and later the Küçük-Kaynarca treaty (1774), placed new political
limitations on the reach of the provisioning system, just at a time when
the population of Istanbul was rising dramatically, and with it the
demand for commodities.27
Just as the supply rhythm varied as a result of a wide range of
factors, so did demand. The longer nights of the winter would have
most definitely increased the need for light. But demand also fluctuated
in correlation with the Hijri calendar, which was not seasonally bound.
As shown below, a variety of public festivals and, most notably, the
holy month of Ramadan, increased the demand for lighting materials
and could create shortages. Abundance could create its own problems.
In the Sacrifice Holiday (ʿid-i azha and later kurban bayramı) produc-
tion of fat exceeded demand for candles, as great numbers of sheep and
lambs were slaughtered in butcher shops around Istanbul. This under-
regulated abundance at times prompted disputes between candle-
makers over access to the large amounts of fat accrued in the process.28
The fluctuations in supply and demand, the variation in extraction
times and locations of the different lighting materials, and the difficul-
ties involved in transporting them over vast distances all called for
careful management. Electricity systems too need to balance produc-
tion and demand, but the nature of electricity makes it much easier.
Electricity can be used for many purposes other than lighting, and
peaks and valleys in demand for light can be balanced by selling more
or less electricity for other uses, thereby averaging demand and
adapting it to production capacity.29 Working with substantially dif-
ferent lighting materials, each entangled in its own economy and
ecology, the Ottoman central government tried to match supply and
demand in a much more mechanistic way, by engaging in what we
would now call stock management.
At times of scarcity, procurement of material from the provinces had
to be speeded up, and allocation, slowed down. For example, in the
winter of 1807, Istanbul experienced a shortage of candles and the
governor of Silistre was ordered to speed up the delivery of candles
from his province. In his reply to the palace, the governor reported that
the traders of his province were given the order to send candles to

Istanbul, yet his province too experienced scarcity. Upon investigating,

the local candle traders argued that raw fat needed for the making of
the candles has not arrived from Wallachia and Moldavia and the price
of an okka (standardized at 1.282 kg) in the area has risen to 50–55
para. Adding transport and other expenses, the cost was bound to
exceed 55 para, which was well above the price fixed in Istanbul at
45 para an okka. The traders further stressed that they had already
sent whatever candles they had. The governor, on his side, tried to
reassure the palace that orders were sent to the districts and that soon,
more candles would be sent to Istanbul.30 This exchange exposes
something of the typical dynamics of the Ottoman lighting system.
Shortage in Istanbul translated into pressure applied on provincial
officials, who in turn transmitted it to the suppliers. But the sultan’s
hand here reached the bottom of the barrel. Istanbul’s hunger for light
would have to be satisfied with materials coming from elsewhere.
At times like this, the allocation of raw materials had to be strictly
controlled. For example, in late August 1789, the kadı of Istanbul
reported that the stocks in the central tallow magazine (kapan) were
running low, with only 50 yedek (7793 kg) of tallow and 112 yedek
(17,456 kg) of animal fat remaining.31 The scarcity was probably
related to the ongoing wars against Russia and the Habsburg Empire
(1787–1792). The kadı noted that it was the magazine’s rule to keep every
year, 100 yedek (15,586 kg) of fat as spare until the arrival of new fat, but
since new fat was not expected to arrive in the coming two months,
candle shortages were to be expected. Although 50 yedeks of tallow
had already been allocated to candlemakers, the kadı anticipated that
this would not be enough. He therefore requested permission to either
allocate the remaining 50 yedek of tallow or to stop allocation altogether
until the arrival of new fat, in keeping with the magazine’s regulations.32
Sultans actively interfered in order to draw the attention of officials
to candle shortages. Sultan Abdülhamid I (1774–1789), used to go out
in disguise (tebdil gezmek) to inspect the markets and to get an idea of
“the word on the street.” In an undated decree, he expressed his
concern that there were not enough candles to last until the arrival of
new raw materials. He suggested several measures to be taken and
rushed his grand vizier to “immediately concern himself with the good
of the people.”33 His grand vizier calmed him, saying that new fat is
expected to arrive within 30–40 days and that the magazines in intra-
mural Istanbul and in Galata have enough tallow to last even beyond

that time. He went on to explain how tallow stocks are managed.

Every year, the quantities that arrived at Istanbul until a month before
the beginning of winter were considered the yearly stock, and with
additional shipments that arrived occasionally, this stock was suffi-
cient. He expressed his hope that all due tallow would be delivered, but
nevertheless noted that a decree would be sent to Varna to forward
tallow to Istanbul.34
Abdülhamid I was not the only sultan to intervene in candle supply.
In early December 1815, sultan Mahmud II (r. 1808–1839) alerted the
grand vizier to the scarcity of candles and soap and demanded that
they be addressed immediately, because “people began talking,” which
the sultan thought might breed trouble. In his response, the grand
vizier explained the reasons for the shortage and listed the measures
taken to alleviate the situation. He pointed out that the slaughtering of
animals for tallow in Silistra and in some other places in the region
begins only in late August and it then takes about a month for the
tallow to arrive at the capital. That year, Ramadan began a few weeks
before that time, and therefore, candles were in short supply. The vizier
probably found no need to explain the increased demand for candles
during Ramadan. Clearly trying to defend himself, the vizier claimed
that measures had been taken in advance to ensure the timely provi-
sioning of tallow and the allocation of candles. Among those measures,
during that month of Ramadan, each grocer was allocated 8 okka
(10.25 kg) of candles per week, and after the holiday ended, 5 okka
(6.41 kg) per week.35
Candles scarcity could indeed breed trouble. The Chronicler
Şanizade (~1770–1826) offers a glimpse of how such candle shortages
would be experienced on the consumers’ end. According to his
account, a religious college (medrese) student went to buy candles from
a local grocer but was told that due to candle deficiency, no one was
allowed to buy more than one candle. Dissatisfied, the student hit the
grocer, and soon officers (kolluk neferatı) appeared on the scene to
restore order. One or two other “fanatic” (yobaz) students, apparently
friends of the attacker, got into a conflict with the officers, which led to
their being severely beaten, arrested, and later executed. When the
news reached the medreses, the students convened and decided to go
the next morning to the chief mufti and demand justice. They spent the
night in preparation and early in the morning set to the mosques,
interrupted the studies there, and then marched to the house of the

chief mufti, to get some answers.36 In short, there was a good reason
sultans and grand viziers took interest in candle supply. But while for
candle consumers, scarcities were uncomfortable, for candlemakers
they were a matter of livelihood.

The Ottoman Light Industry

The production and sale of lighting products in the Ottoman Empire
was regulated by the guild system.37 Unlike in modern, integrated
systems of energy where the producer sells standardized “energy”
directly to the clients, the Ottoman lighting industry was fragmented
between producers and sellers, and producers were in turn organized
separately based on the product they produced, and the location of
their workshop. This industry consisted of makers of tallow and
beeswax candles, weak weavers, olive oil sellers, makers of lanterns
and candleholders, and related accessories.38 This variety created sep-
arate webs of dependencies for different lighting products, which
subjugated their production to completely different conditions.
Within the light industry of Istanbul, candle production was by far
the biggest and the most important sector. Tallow candlemakers
(mumcular/mumcuyan) were organized in a separate guild from that
of the beeswax candlemakers (balmumcular). By the eighteenth cen-
tury, if not earlier, retail trade in candles was mostly conducted by
grocers.39 Guilds were differentiated also along confessional lines.
While sellers of beeswax candles were all Muslims,40 the guild of
tallow candlemakers was mixed, with Christians consisting the major-
ity. In the 38 workshops connected to the Yedikule slaughterhouse
complex in 1728, almost 70 percent percent of the masters and
employees were Christian. Christians formed the majority among can-
dlemakers working in other parts of town as well.41
Beeswax candle production was largely concentrated under state
ownership. According to Evliya Çelebi, a state-owned workshop
employing one hundred workers provided beeswax candles to all
imperial mosques and palaces, and to the palaces of viziers and other
high ofﬁcials.42 After the imperial workshop received its share of the
beeswax that arrived at the customs in Galata, the remaining material
was parceled out between privately owned workshops of beeswax
candlemakers. These were concentrated in the area of Çemberlitaş in
the heart of intramural Istanbul.43 Since wax candles were much more

expensive than tallow candles, the former were sold with the individual
seals of producers, testifying that the candles were pure beeswax and
not mixed with inferior substances.44
Tallow candle production was much wider and more diversified.
Because tallow candle production depended on animal fat, a secondary
product of the slaughtering industry, the guild of candlemakers was
subject (yamak) to the guild of butchers.45 Production was centered
around slaughterhouses with the biggest concentration of candlemak-
ing workshops located in Yedikule, the largest slaughterhouses’ com-
plex in the city. Yedikule, on the southwestern extremity of the city,
was also a center of other animal-based industries such as tanning and
soapmaking.46 Edirnekapı was another major center of slaughter-
houses and dependent industries, including candlemaking.47 Other
centers, albeit much smaller, were located in Eyüp, Tophane, and
Üksüdar. Additional workshops were scattered along the Bosporus
all the way down to Ortaköy.48 Based on intra-guild agreements, each
center and workshop was allocated a fixed share (hisse) of the tallow
arriving at the retail market from the provinces, and fat from the
slaughterhouses around the city.49 These intra-guild arrangements
were recorded in court and were occasionally updated as a result of
conflicts over raw material, or in order to allocate newly opened
workshops their share.50
In some slaughterhouses, these arrangements were rather compli-
cated. In the state-owned slaughterhouse in Yedikule, the fat accrued in
the first five days of each month went to the candlemakers of the
janissaries. From the 6th to the 20th day, the fat went to the masters
who operated private candlemaking workshops outside Yedikule.
The fat produced in the remaining 10 days was divided between two
groups. The candlemakers working near the horse market in Üsküdar
received their share from the animals slaughtered in the mornings, and
the masters of Yedıkule received their fat from the animals slaughtered
in the afternoons.51
A court ruling issued a few years later affirmed that the fat from
Azebkapısı and Tophane was reserved for the candlemakers of Galata;
the fat of Beşiktaş, Ortaköy, Kuruçeşme, Aranavutköy, Kuzguncuk,
İstavros, and Çengelköy was the reserve of the candlemakers of
Ortaköy and Hümayun-abad, and so on.52
While originally, all centers of production seem to have been subject
to the main guild in Istanbul, by the early seventeenth century,

producers in each center of production had already developed into a

kind of sub-guild with their own leadership. Thus, for example, the
“candlemakers of Eyüp” or those of Üsküdar occasionally appeared in
court to protect the interests of their men in disputes over raw mater-
ials and taxes.53 This seems to suggest that the industry grew over the
period under discussion. To give an idea of the scope of production
and the relative importance of the different centers, in 1728, Yedikule
was home to 31 workshops, each employing between 1 and 9 workers,
the average being 2.9.54 These workshops were owned by individuals
who were not guild members. Some were in fact prominent officials
who probably won the property as tax farm from the Ayasofya vakıf
(endowment). They, in turn, leased the shops to guild members who
operated them with the help of additional hired workers.55
In addition, there were almost 50 privately owned workshops
around the same time. These were allocated almost 64 hisses, whereas
those in all other parts of the city combined were allocated only 19.5
hisses. Toward the end of the eighteenth century, the candlemakers of
Yedikule (probably vakıf-owned and privately owned together) were
entitled to 118 hisses and the candlemakers of Üsküdar to only 9.5.
Individual candlemakers working in those different locations would
then each get his share.56 As for outputs, we do not have systematic
data but rather glimpses gleaned from occasional documents. For
example, other than providing the needs of the population, the guild
was expected to provide the janissaries 700 okka (890.4 kg) of tallow
candles every month, at reduced prices, as a kind of tax that was
shared between guild members working in different parts of the city.57
The relations between butchers and candlemakers in each area,
and in particular the supply of raw materials, were laid down in the
charters (sing. vakfiye) of the endowment that owned the premises
in which the slaughterhouses were located.58 Arrangements between
producers in different locations were recorded in court and often
rectified by imperial decrees. For example, an imperial decree from
1716 reaffirmed an arrangement according to which the fat from
animals slaughtered in five slaughterhouses belonging to the Eyüp
vakıf was to be allocated to the candlemakers of that area. The same
arrangement was in effect some 50 years later.59
A detailed arrangement of that type was recorded by guild members
in the Istanbul court in October 1728. The record opens with a list of
66 workshops located in Yedikule, Eyüp, and Galata, the name of the

owner and “operator,” and the share of raw material allocated to each
(between 0.5 and 3.5 hisse). The record ends with a few basic terms
that are supposed to guide the work of the guild and its interaction
with related guilds. It is stated that guild members shall not use fat of
inferior quality; that the head of the butcher guild and master butchers
are to guarantee that all animal fat accrued in the slaughterhouses of
Istanbul is sold to the candlemakers and to none other; that they
commit to produce high-quality candles in sufficient quantities and sell
them to the people of Istanbul in the fixed price; and that no one from
amongst their midst shall act against these terms.60
As in all other sectors, the government, in dialogue with the guild
leaders, fixed the prices of the final products based on the assessment of
production cost, which consisted of the cost of raw materials bought
at fix prices, and additional expenses. For example, in 1704–1705,
total production expenses of candles were set at 6 akçe an okka, and
the sum was later modified to 4 akçe. Based on this assessment, the
market price of candles was set at 42 akçe an okka. In 1749, almost
60 master candlemakers appealed to the Imperial Council saying
that the cost of yarn for wicks more than doubled over time,
and rents and salaries to assistants had also increased dramatically.
They therefore requested that the cost assessment would be put back
at 6 akçes which would allow them to sell to the public an okka of
candle for a lower price (36 akçes an okka instead of 42). Their request
was granted and the arrangement was renewed some seven
years later.61
It appears that candle production in the eighteenth century offered
potential profit as it drew investors from among the state elite.62 The
abovementioned list of workshops in Yedikule, dating from 1728,
mentions among workshop owners some prominent men, including
Hadim (a euphemism for a palace eunuch) Ahmed Ağa, and Kisedar
(purse bearer) İbrahim. The latter’s workshop was operated by the
chief candlemaker of the palace (mumcubaşı). With nine employees, it
was the biggest workshop in Yedikule, and hence in the entire city.63
The potential of investment in the candle industry is also reflected in
the opening of new workshops, both legal and illegal. For example, in
the early 1760s, three such workshops were opened with state
approval, and several others were torn down.64 Such a moderate
increase in the number of workshops could hardly meet the demands
of a rapidly growing population and indeed, the price of candles was

on the rise (see below), which increased the incentive to sell both raw
materials and processed candles in the black market.

Light Leaks
The Ottoman lighting system can be likened to a centralized network
of conduits sucking lighting material to Istanbul and then prioritizing
the distribution of these materials according to a set of political con-
siderations. Yet the pipelines were leaking light all the way from
the peripheries to the center. Put differently, there was a wide, even
international, black market of lighting materials and products. The
existence of illegal trade circumventing the narh (fixed price) system
should not surprise us.65 Yet, the scope of this trade, and the state’s
reaction (or lack thereof ), show that the highly centralized system
described above in fact existed within a state of chronic violation of
its principles. The demand for light, in other words, was regularly
quenched by both legal and illegal trade.
Light leaks began on the provincial level. For example, in January
1743, the chief custom’s official reported that honey, beeswax, fat,
tallow, and other commodities produced in Wallachia and Moldavia
and due to Istanbul, were sold by traders, “infidels and Jews” in other
countries. This created shortages of tallow and other commodities in
Istanbul, raised prices, and undercut customs revenues. He requested,
and not for the first time, that an imperial order would be issued to
prevent these practices.66
In May 1758, Istanbul intervened in candle production in the pro-
vincial town of Kayseri, in central Anatolia. What prompted this
intervention was a complaint made by members of the candlemakers’
guild in the local court, in the presence of a large audience supposedly
representing all classes and groups of the local population (ulema ve
suleha ve ayan ve eşraf ve fukara ve zuefa). The candlemakers told the
kadı that according to an old arrangement, local butchers sold all the
tallow accrued from the sheep and goats they slaughtered, to the guild
of the candlemakers for the fixed price that had been in place for the
last 10 years. They, in turn, produced the candles and sold them to the
people at the fixed price. However, some of the butchers, being
“greedy,” sought to get a higher price and therefore illegally sold
tallow to members of the guild of herbalists (kökçü). Some other
butchers transported tallow to other countries (diyar-ı ahare), and sold

it there, in violation of the established custom of the town. This

resulted in severe scarcities of tallow, which deprived the people of
Kayseri of candles. The candlemakers, according to their own testi-
mony, were eventually forced to abandon the business leaving the city
folk with no candles at all. The audience at the court corroborated the
candlemakers’ complaint and the kadı ruled that all infringements
must be stopped, and the old terms of sale and production should be
reinstated. Under these conditions, a few of the candlemakers agreed to
reopen their workshop and resume candlemaking. The “entire city,” as
represented by the diversiﬁed audience at the court, therefore requested
that an imperial decree stating these terms be issued.67
While the interference of the Imperial Council to facilitate candle-
making in the provinces was not unique, the Kayseri case is particu-
larly revealing.68 First, it shows again the rationale of the Ottoman
lighting system and the ethic that was supposed to sustain it. Every
guild member was entitled to his share of raw material for a ﬁxed price,
and to seek higher prices was not good business but rather greed, as it
deprived others of their modest income, and the people of the city, of
much needed products. Which leads to the second point: in the prov-
inces too, candles were considered a basic commodity that even poor
people expected to have access to. We do not know, of course, who
organized the crowd at court and what happened behind the scenes. It
is possible, for example, that poor clients were mobilized by their
patrons. That, however, is of little relevance here. What matters is that
their presence at court was deemed important and was duly noted.
They too, joined the appeal. They too, wanted candles.
Third, in spite of all the legal and moral constraints, artisans could
still evade the system and sell lighting materials on the local black
market or smuggle it to other places. Finally, the case shows that the
candlemakers, much like modern operators of lighting infrastructures,
could literally turn off the light. Such premeditated “blackouts” dir-
ectly hurt the population, prompting a collective appeal to the author-
ities. The government, on its side, similarly viewed candles as a basic
commodity and intervened to ensure its supply to the city folk. It is
possible to surmise based on all of the above that the government tried
to limit illegal trade only when it created shortages and brought about
complaints. Otherwise, it was left to be.
Even when lighting materials did arrive at the capital, this did not
mean they arrived at the places they were intended for. References to

illegal production and trade in both tallow and beeswax candles in the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries are scattered here and there in the
extant scholarship, suggesting that the phenomenon was anything but
new.69 Butchers were at times accused of withholding the fat from
candlemakers in order to produce candles for sale by themselves, as did
common people who illegally slaughtered livestock at home.70 Several
court entries from the 1720s and 1730s show that beeswax too was
traded on the black market, to the detriment of guild members.71
All the cases cited above may be considered isolated incidents.
However, a set of petitions from 1764 to 1765 reveals the scope and
persistence of the lighting black market. In the late summer of that year
the directors of the endowment (vakıf) in Eyüp, along with tanners and
candlemakers who rented their workshops from that endowment,
appealed to the Imperial Council accusing the butchers and sandal
makers of that same endowment of illegal trade in fat and skins.72
This, it should be noted, was not the first conflict between artisans
working at Eyüp and those of Yedikule, nor was it the last.73
This petition and the ones that followed as a result of this conflict,
help us ground light in concrete sites of production and particular sets
of power relations, and to visualize the individuals involved as real
people with pressing concerns. We can imagine the angered gazes and
words exchanged between the representatives of the conflicting groups
as they waited to be heard by the Imperial Council. Sweating in the
hamam-like weather conditions of Istanbul in August and concerned
about their future, emotions must have run high. While for the viziers
who would decide their matter, candles were part of a whole world of
aesthetics and poetics, for those poor artisans they were livelihood.
Toiling in their stinky workshops, forced to eke out a living out of
grease, candles were what they sold, not what they mused about. And
so, when their raw material was taken from them, they had no other
choice but to appeal for sultanic protection.
According to the documents that record this dispute, there were four
sheep slaughterhouses and one cattle slaughterhouse that belonged to
and generated income for the endowment of Eyüp, all located along
the Golden Horn. The meat was sold in 47 shops in intramural
Istanbul, that were hired from the same endowment. The skins and
fat of the slaughtered animals were to be sold to the tanners and
candlemakers who hired their shops from the Eyüp endowment.74
This arrangement was by that time very old. It is described in almost

the same terms in a decree from 1716, and according to that decree,
even then it was already “old.”75
The Eyüp artisans who appealed to the court in 1764, accused the
butchers and sandal makers (çarıkçı) of violating this old arrangement
by illegally slaughtering animals in their shops and selling the skins and
fat to the tanners and candlemakers of Yedikule, and to “unknown
individuals.” This practice, the petitioners complained, entailed great
losses to the endowment and to the tanners and candlemakers of Eyüp.
The petitioners argued that the butchers and sandal makers had man-
aged to get a formal decree which authorized their scheme. This
authorization, claimed the Eyüp artisans, should be annulled as it
contradicts earlier imperial decrees.
The Imperial Council examined the records and questioned the
representatives of the butchers and sandal makers’ guilds and finally
ruled in favor of the Eyüp artisans. A note was sent not only to the kadı
of Istanbul, the obvious authority in such matters, but also the chief of
the janissaries. This was not the only case where orders pertaining to
the candlemakers’ guild were also addressed to the chief of the janis-
saries.76 This was possibly connected to the fact that the janissaries
were not only key players in the meat market but also major consumers
of state-funded candles.77
But there seems to have been more to it. The Eyüp artisans explicitly
argued that at the time of the previous sultans, the ağas, apparently
referring to former chiefs of the janissaries, were directly involved in
the illegal trade. Gülay Yılmaz Diko has already shown that in the
seventeenth century, janissary-butchers dominated the meat market (et
meydanı), where the main janissary barracks was located, and engaged
in illegal trade with candlemakers.78 Furthermore, the candle work-
shops in Yediküle were strongly affiliated with the janissaries. In 1728,
8 of the operators of the workshops (out of 38) bore the title, beşe,
which signified janissary affiliation. Twenty-one of the workers in the
workshops bore the title (out of 90 in total).79 Considering all the
documents cited here, it appears that the janissaries maintained their
position in the illegal trade of candle fat for generations.
This case strengthens the impression that illegal trade did not take
place without the knowledge of the palace, but rather, with its silent
approval. The power of the janissaries served to deter the palace from
interfering in the market and the privileges enjoyed by the janissary
craftsmen.80 It was only when this trade severely injured the rights of

other actors in the system, including, most notably, the interest of a

major imperial endowment, that the authorities intervened to impose
“the old order.”81 But such interventions were not guaranteed to
produce a result, as the tanners and candlemakers of Eyüp soon found
out. About ﬁve months after they had received the imperial decree they
had petitioned for, they appealed once again to the Imperial Council
complaining that nothing has changed. The butchers and sandal
makers continued to sell their skins and fat to Yedikule.82 In other
words, it is not that the palace did not know about the illegal trade, but
rather that it lacked either the will or the ability to stop it.

The Home Economics of Light

The fluctuations in the availability of lighting materials naturally
translated into oscillations in price levels, not only between years but
within the same year. The widespread illegal trade in lighting materials
and products further complicates any attempt to assess the cost of
lighting for consumers. Taking these complexities into account, the
following cannot be considered more than a glimpse of a much more
compound picture.
In 1708, the fixed price of an okka of tallow candles was 20 akçe
maximum. The cost of an okka of the best flour in the same year was
80 akçe maximum.83 Around the middle of the century, the fixed prices
varied between 36 and 42 akçe.84 In 1807, the fixed price of an okka of
tallow candle in Istanbul was 45 para (=135 akçe). According to an
official price list from 1831, the price of one okka varied between 3
guruş and 38 para (=398 akçe) and 4 guruş and 15 para (495 akçe),
according to the type and quality of the candles. In the same list, an
okka of good flour was 1 guruş (120 akçe).85
Due to the strong inflation of the first third of the nineteenth century,
the daily wages of an unskilled construction worker in Istanbul
climbed from 116.8 akçe in 1807 century, to 533.6 akçe in 1831.86
As noted above, narh prices rarely represented real market prices but,
when read comparatively, they give some indication of the value of
candles vis-a-vis other essential commodities. Considering that flour
was the most essential commodity, we can take it as the basis for
comparison between the two periods. When compared to the fixed
price of flour then, the fixed price of candles in 1831 was much higher
than they were in 1708. For an unskilled construction worker in

1831 to purchase an okka of even the worst type of candle would mean
spending almost a day’s earning. Beeswax was out of the question. In
1807, the fixed price for an okka of beeswax was 630 akçe, and 1552
akçe in 1831.87 Relying on these prices, we can establish that beeswax
was more than 4.5 times more expensive than tallow in 1807, and
almost 3 times more expensive in 1831.
But how much tallow-light would that same worker be able to buy
for almost a day of labor? The efficiency of illuminents is measured
today in candelas, which is an adaptation of an earlier measure called
“candle power.” The measure itself represents the effort to standardize
light, the same process I am trying undo here, exactly because it flattens
the multiple qualities of light. For the purpose of quantification of
light, however, it is surely useful.
Candle power was originally defined in 1860, by the Metropolitan
Gas Act in England. It was defined as the amount of light emitted by a
candle of pure spermaceti weighing 1/6 pound (76 g) and burning at an
average rate of 120 grains (7.777587 g) per hour. To give an idea of
the difference between tallow and beeswax, in order to produce
28 candle powers, one would need 23 wax candles (sold in packs of
six to the pound, that is about 75 g a candle). It would take 40 tallow
candles of the same size to produce the same amount of light.88 As for
burning time, a tallow candle of about 75 g that is well trimmed and
attended to, would burn for almost four hours.89
It should be noted that all these calculations are approximations, at
most. As already noted, tallow differed considerably depending on the
animals it was made from, their diet, the parts of the body it was made
from, and so on. Another complication is that we do not know the size
of the “standard” common candles in eighteenth-century Istanbul.
Evliya Çelebi refers to such a candle (adi) but does not give us its
measures. According to the regulations of the janissaries, issued in the
early seventeenth century, the regiments were allocated 15,000 candles
a week, each weighing 16 dirhem (51.312 g). In addition, every year,
70,000 candles of a different type (referred to as zahire mumu), each
weighing 20 dirhem (64.14 g).90 In the lack of more direct evidence,
the measures of the smaller candles (produced in much bigger
numbers) can be referred to as those of “common” candles in Early
Modern Istanbul.
Translated into these units then, an okka of tallow would mean 25
candles, each providing about 2 hours and 40 minutes of light. This

light, however, was very dim. According to one estimate, even 70 such
candles put together would still give less light than a single 60-watt
bulb.91 In fact, the effectiveness of a light source is not measured only
by its luminous intensity (measured by candela). As Sophie Reculin
notes in her assessment of the effectiveness of eighteenth-century
candle lanterns, what really matters is the intensity per unit area
(measured by lux), and luminance, a measure of luminous intensity per
unit area of light traveling in a given direction. Luminance measures
the amount of light that passes through, is emitted or reﬂected from a
particular area, and falls within a given solid angle (represented as
Candela/M2). Ultimately, the effectiveness of a light source depends
also on the sensitivity of the eye, which of course changes between day
and night, and between people. However, eighteenth-century people
were no doubt more accustomed to operating with meager amounts of
light, at least by our standards.92 Still, even for them, one standard
tallow candle would hardly be enough for more than basic orientation
and the performance of basic tasks. Reading or sewing would have
been extremely difﬁcult, if not impossible. In other words, access to
light, or lack thereof, determined the range of possible after-dark
activities. It is therefore important to note the various levels of inequal-
ity in the availability of light.

Light Inequalities
Wealthy households enjoyed much better lighting (see Figures 5.1 and
5.2) than the common people. We can get an idea of the quantities of
candles consumed in these households from the records of the supplies
provided by the imperial kitchen to senior ofﬁcials traveling with their
households to the battlefront during campaigns. Around the turn of the
seventeenth century, the household of the powerful chief mufti Feyzullah
(1639–1703), was allocated 2.56 kg of tallow daily, the monthly cost
being 2160 akçe. In addition, he received a daily allotment of 0.64 kg of
beeswax.93 It was enough to produce more than 50 tallow candles and
12.5 wax candles a day.94 Even keeping in mind that the chief mufti’s
household consisted of several hundred people,95 the daily consumption
of candles is still considerable, especially when measured against the
meager amount of light unskilled workers could afford.
Probate inventories seem to corroborate the picture of differential
access to light. A study that examined 792 such inventories from

Figure 5.1 An Iftar meal at the grand vizier’s palace, late eighteenth century.
Huge candles illuminate the hall, and additional candles are placed on the tables.
From Ignatius Mouradgea D’Ohsson, Tableau Général de l’Empire Othoman, divisé en
deux parties, dont l’une comprend la Législation Mahométane, vol. II (Paris: De l’im-
primerie de Monsieur, 1790)

Istanbul between 1785 and 1875, has shown that while possession of
candleholders among commoners reached 44 percent (for the entire
period), among members of the state-serving elite (askeri), 69 percent
possessed candleholders. Data for roughly the ﬁrst half of this period
shows that while commoners typically had two candleholders on
average, elite members owned almost three.96
Unequal access to light was not only a matter of prices but also of
power. While commoners often suffered candle scarcities, privileged
individuals and households could manipulate the imperial “lighting
system” in order to secure their needs. In early 1788, a purchasing
agent (bazarbaşı) for the old palace and the imperial palace in Galata
reported that due to candle scarcity, it was hard to provision the two
palaces with the customary number of candles. According to the
report, monthly consumption of candles in these palaces reached
eighty-ﬁve okka (~109 kg), in addition to a few large candles of the
type known as “tube candles” (sing. fuçi mum). Yet, unlike common

Figure 5.2 Armenians playing cards in candlelight, Istanbul, 1730s.

Work by the Flemish artist Jean Baptiste Vanmour. Courtesy of Rijksmuseum,
Amsterdam

subjects, the palace elite did not suffer the inconvenience of darkness.
The pazarbaşı secured a decree that sanctioned the allocation of the
needed amounts of tallow straight from the candlemakers’ guild in
Yedikule.97
The gap in access to light was in fact even wider since eighteenth-
century candles were not only expensive and unequally distributed but
also labor-intensive. Tallow candles burned unevenly, losing their
brilliance over time. They tended to gutter, which wasted much burn-
ing material and made the flame flicker, giving off much smoke and
unpleasant smell. An unattended candle would lose almost two-thirds
of its original brilliance in eleven minutes. It could burn away in less
than half an hour, using only 5 percent of its tallow and wasting all the
rest.98 Tallow candles in particular also consumed significant amounts
of oxygen and, together with the smoke and stench they emitted, had –
quite literally – a negative effect on the atmosphere.99 In order to keep
a candle alive and prevent it from guttering and smoking, the burnt

wick had to be snuffed frequently and rekindled at least once every half
hour.100 A special type of clipper, known as mum mikrazı, was used
for that purpose.101 It is readily understood that we cannot imagine
light as a constant even for one and the same candle, as its burning rate
and the amount of light could change depending on a variety of
factors, from oxygen levels to maintenance levels.
Keeping many candles burning at the same time took constant care.
In Ottoman palaces, the job was entrusted in the hands of servants
known as şamdanılar or şamdancılar headed by a şamdancı başı.102 At
least in the more “important” parts of these palaces, it was no
doubt beeswax candles that were used since these were not only
brighter and did not emit a bad odor; they also burned much more
evenly and needed little maintenance, another good reason for
their very high price.103 Baron François de Tott described one such
candle, two inches thick and three feet high, that was placed by his bed
when he was a guest in the house of the chief dragoman of the Porte.
The wick, he wrote, was almost as thick as a ﬁnger.104 Most people
could only dream of such amenities as they were sitting in their
dark homes.
Coffeehouses offered an affordable solution. Historian Cemal
Kafadar has pointed out that seventeenth-century Istanbul witnessed
an intensiﬁcation of nightlife, which he tied to the proliferation of
coffeehouses in the city and the new modes of entertainment they
offered. Kafadar emphasizes the stimulant nature of coffee which
allowed people to stay up longer.105 It may be that coffeehouses indeed
contributed to the expansion of nightlife but not so much owing to the
substance itself. After all, when people go out at night they often
consume “downers,” and alcohol in particular. The discussion of the
huge alcohol scene in eighteenth-century Istanbul, offered in
Chapter 3, suggests that many contemporaries did the same.
As recent studies have shown, light is among the most effective
deterrents of sleep. Sleep scientist Charles Czeisler has even described
the light as a “drug” that affects our sleep.106 Coffeehouses provided
light, which was, as shown above, hard to come by in Early Modern
Istanbul (see Figure 5.3). It is likely that people went to the coffeehouse
for the free light it provided much like people today go to coffeehouses
for their free Wi-Fi. A famous Turkish proverb says that the “heart
wishes neither coffee nor coffeehouse; the heart wishes conversation,
the coffee is just the excuse” (gönül ne kahve ister ne kahvehane.

Figure 5.3 Free light is included: A coffeehouse in Istanbul.

From Julia Pardoe, The Beauties of the Bosphorus (George Virtue: London, 1838), 146

Gönül sohbet ister kahve bahane”). It may be that at night the heart
actually wished light; the coffee was just the excuse.

Lighting in Jerusalem
While in Istanbul, candles were most commonly used, in Jerusalem
olive and sesame oil were the main lighting materials.107 This probably
had to do not only with the availability of the crops in the region but
also with the low melting temperature of tallow, which caused candles
to soften, making them unusable during times or in areas of excessive
heat.108 Candles do crop up in sources from Jerusalem but their use
seems to have been limited to ritual, and even here, oil was usually
preferred.109 It appears, that the greatest numbers of candles were sold
to the many pilgrims who visited the city every year.110 Unlike in
Istanbul, where candlemakers were supplied with fat from local
slaughterhouses and tallow sent from the provinces, Jerusalemite can-
dlemakers (sing. shamāʿ) had to make do only with fat produced in
local slaughterhouses. Here too, local butchers found ways to circum-
vent the guild system.111

Unlike in the case of tallow, which was used for illumination first
and foremost, the use of olive oil for illumination, with all its import-
ance, was secondary to its culinary use, and to the production of
soap.112 Due to its triple use, olive oil became much like a currency
throughout the mountain areas of Palestine. Taxes were assessed and
collected in kind were not calculated based on the volume or price of
olives but in terms of their most important product, olive oil. The
beginning of the olive harvest in Palestine ranged from the middle of
August to the end of September.113 Amnon Cohen estimates that tens
of tons of olive oil were brought to Jerusalem during the season, and
much of this quantity was stored for later use.114 Olive oil could be
kept for a long period of time without losing its nutritious (or illumin-
ating) value.115
The oil was most commonly pressed in the villages and unlike other
commodities, it was not brought to the city and then sold there but
rather purchased well in advance by merchants who went to the
villages. This was a clear indication of the importance of this product
for the local economy.116 The best kind of olive oil was extracted in the
first press. Afterward, water was added to the pulp, and a second and
third press followed. These presses produced oil of inferior quality that
was often used for lighting.117 Olive oil was to be brought to the
central olive oil market (khān al-zayt), where it was weighed, taxed,
and sold for fixed prices. As in the case of candles, sellers often found
ways to circumvent the system and sell oil illegally.118
For lighting purposes, sesame oil was superior to the oil extracted
from olives. According to Rabbi Moshe Ben-Yisraʾel Naftalı̄, who
arrived in Jerusalem in 1621, olive oil was cheaper than sesame oil
(which he calls sı̄rj, probably from the Arabic sirāj, lamp) and not as
good as the former for illumination purposes. That is why, he
explained, sesame oil is favored for lighting.119 Experiments conducted
in the nineteenth century confirm that sesame oil was indeed a better
illuminating fuel than olive oil. While it took 2,014 grains (130 g) to
produce a given amount of light (equivalent to 13 sperm candles
burning at a rate of 120 grains per hour), 1,716 grains (115 g) of
sesame oil were enough to produce the same amount of light.
According to the same experiment, tallow was more effective than
both. It took only 1,300 grains (84 g) of that material to produce
the same amount of light when placed in the same lamp with an
identical wick.120

A price list provided by a traveler who visited the city in 1824, shows
that sesame oil was indeed more expensive than olive oil. While the
former could be bought for 1.75 guruş per ratl (standardized at
_
337.55 g in the Arab provinces), the former was only 1.5 guruş.121
There is no doubt, however, that prices varied according to annual
crop yields. For example, olive harvests alternate on a two-year cycle.
One year they would bear full fruit and the next little or no fruit at
all.122 Quality too mattered. As noted above, olive oil used for illumin-
ation was of inferior quality and was definitely cheaper than the price
cited in the list. Without further data, then, it is impossible to compare
the cost of lighting between Jerusalem and Istanbul. In any case, the
price difference probably made olive oil more popular among people of
lesser means. Indeed, travelers who visited the city between the mid-
seventeenth to the mid-nineteenth centuries noted mostly the use of
olive oil for illumination purposes and explained it by its availability
and cheap price.123
Whatever oil one could afford would be put in clay lanterns, in
which a single wick was dipped. These lamps provided very little
light. Other than their dim light, oil lamps suffered from additional
problems, most notably smoky flames and the need to prise and trim
the wick, which required constant attention.124 More privileged house-
holds had glass oil lamps hanging from the ceiling, but these too
provided only a meager amount of light. According to Titus Tobler,
who visited the city in the 1840s, the light was “enough for drinking
coffee comfortably, smoking, lying around on the diwan and chatting,
but not for performing proper work. This would require different
lamps or lights and [different] people, not lazybones.”125 Tobler
clearly associates the inability to do “proper work” at night with the
laziness he ascribes to the Jerusalemites, but that comment obviously
reflects on him and his world as much as it does on his subjects. For
him, the night too was made for work and those who did not work
were simply lazy.
Tobler’s comment, however, does make explicit the connection
between the materiality of lighting and the activities it allowed or
disallowed. Reading, for example, would necessitate an additional
lamp, which meant additional costs. Among Jews, Torah studies justi-
fied the additional costs. But even in Jewish colleges (sing. yeshı̄vah),
where the lighting expenses were often covered from donations, several

people would congregate around each oil lamp, which made reading
very difficult. We can speculate that the poor lighting conditions had a
negative effect on the eyesight of the readers. Houses of worship were
illuminated by similar glass lamps, but here several wicks were placed
in each lamp. The bigger mosques, churches, and synagogues boasted
big chandeliers, each holding dozens of such glass lamps.126
While basic data is still lacking, it is reasonable to speculate based on
the evidence at hand, that Jerusalem was significantly darker than
Istanbul. This was the result of the quality of lighting materials avail-
able in the region. The more affordable lighting materials, olive and
sesame oil, produced less light than animal fats, and therefore, even
when lights were on, interiors would have been relatively dark.
Moreover, elite spending on the illumination of public and sacred
spaces in Jerusalem was much smaller than in Istanbul, despite the
religious significance of the former.127 In other small towns that lacked
such significance, there was probably even less “public” light. In other
words, beyond the ecological factors (which made vegetable oils more
available than fat), Jerusalem’s relative darkness was also a result of
economic and political factors, a clear index of its peripheriality. This
darkness must have further discouraged nocturnal leisure, which as
shown in previous chapters, was extremely limited in Jerusalem
anyway.

Conclusion
Unlike modern, fully integrated energy networks that provide easily
accessible and cheap standardized light, in the eighteenth-century
Ottoman Empire light was not only costly and arduous but highly
diversified. It was made of different materials sourced from far-flung
geographies, extracted through diverse technologies, and processed by
different groups of artisans. Availability and quality of lighting prod-
ucts too fluctuated dramatically between places and times. The light
emitted by these products reflected all this divergence.
Socioeconomic class and power differentials therefore translated not
only into gaps in the quantity of light, but also its quality. The rich and
powerful could afford brighter, odorless, and more efficient light. The
poor had to do with a few tallow candles, emitting little light and much
stench. Even at night, then, social hierarchies were not only seen but

also smelled. More relevant to this discussion, since the underprivil-

eged simply could not afford much light, they were most deﬁnitely
more accustomed to dark environments and better adapted to navigate
them. Here is one more reason, then, for the prevalence of the destitute
in the Early Modern night.

Dark Politics

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6
| Shining Power

With a candle the tulip invited mirth and pleasure

To be guests in the party of sultan Ahmed, tonight.

This couplet, by the prominent Ottoman poet Seyyid Vehbi (d. 1736),
economically packs together the material, emotional, and political
value of light. This bundle is the focus of this chapter. The poet plays
on a common phrase, “to invite with a candle” (mumla okumak)
which means to invite sincerely, out of a strong wish to see the invitee.
The phrase originated in a practice common in Ottoman times, to
invite guests to nighttime celebrations (either elite parties or weddings)
by sending them each a candle.1 Before the time of industrialized
illumination, individuals going out after the night prayer were required
by law to carry a lantern. These were most commonly candle-lamps.2
In material terms, then, the host shouldered the illumination expenses
of the guests. Symbolically, the host extended hospitality all the way to
the guests’ doorstep, thereby demonstrating a genuine desire to see
the receiver.
In Seyyid Vehbi’s use, it was the tulip, probably the single most
famous visual motif of the reign of Sultan Ahmed III (1703–1730),
that sent the candle to invite “mirth and pleasure” to one of the “lamp
parties” (çırağan) that were favored by the sultan, and were typically
held in different palace gardens in April, when tulips were in full
bloom. Light, in other words, was not only a means to an end. Rare
and precious, it could be used to signal a wish for proximity, even
intimacy, but also to project awe-inspiring, inaccessible power.
The previous chapters have shown that darkness posed a serious
challenge to the authorities, and yet, as shown next, the night was also
an opportunity to showcase power, hierarchy, and proximity to the
ruler, which was in itself a proxy of hierarchy in palace circles. By
illuminating mosques, Suﬁ lodges and palaces; in public and private
light spectacles, and through court-produced texts, Ottoman rulers in

173

the eighteenth century sought to associate themselves with light and

through this association, to project their power and legitimate it in the
eyes of their subjects and rivals. The two mediums – words and light –
it will be shown, were intentionally and intricately connected to serve
this purpose.
While Ottoman use of actual and figurative light to project royal
power and legitimacy had a long history, the palace elite of the early
eighteenth century, and in particular the ruling clique of the so-called
Tulip Era (narrowly defined 1718–1730), took it to a whole new level.
This chapter begins with the way light was used to project power and
religiously based authority in the city, during routine and on festive
occasions. It then moves into the palaces of the court elite and focuses
more specifically on the Tulip Era.
This chapter offers two different – but interconnected – interventions.
The first one concerns the distinctiveness of the “Tulip Era” (lale devri),
a period commonly associated with the grand vizierate of Nevşehirli
Damad İbrahim Paşa (1718–1730). The notion that this was a distinct
period that marked a break with the past and signaled the beginning of
progressive “westernization” was first expressed by the poet Yahya
Kemal (1884–1958). It was later developed and popularized by the
historian Ahmed Refik (1881–1937).3 According to Refik, Damad
İbrahim’s vizierate was characterized by a new policy that sought peace
on the European front, by the increasing circulation of European tastes
and ideas, and through the indulgence of the elite in a culture of pleasure
and extravagance, symbolized by the craze for tulips.4
Later historians have doubted the notion of a distinct tulip era and
downplayed its uniqueness. Recent studies tend to stress long-term
processes that began before İbrahim’s rise to power and continued
long after his downfall. Among these processes, scholars point to more
or less continuous economic growth in the first two-thirds of the
century, which allowed not only the elite’s extravagant leisure culture
but also the participation of commoners in a new culture of urban
leisure. Ideologically, the regime was forced to retreat from its earlier
valorization of conquest to a more defensive position with increased
emphasis on maintaining social order. This emphasis stemmed, first
and foremost, from rapid urbanization which threatened to undermine
social hierarchies.5
While accepting that all these were long-term processes, looking at
the early eighteenth century at night, the Tulip Era does shine in

brighter light than the periods preceding and following it. This is not
merely a metaphor. At least in what concerns the use of the night
for both leisure and politics (and as shown below, the two were not
at all separate), Damad İbrahim paşa’s term in office was unique.
While here too, trends began before his grand vizierate and did not
die with him, the “Tulip Era” witnessed a significant intensification in
nocturnal sociability at court and the staging of light spectacles of
different kinds.
If this argument is diachronic in nature, my second intervention is
synchronic, in the sense that it examines Ottoman uses of light along-
side and against their European contemporaries. Craig Koslofsky has
shown that Early Modern Europe underwent a process he dubbed
“nocturnalization,” that is, the “expansion of the legitimate social
and symbolic uses of the night.”6 This was paralleled by the growing
use of artificial light and in particular, its deployment for political
needs. Following the Peace of Westphalia 1648, European rulers
sought new means to express legitimacy, means that would transcend
the now heavily contested Christian sources of authority. By making
intensive use of actual and figurative light, long associated with the
divine, monarchs cast themselves as “sun rulers” capable of turning
night into day. Furthermore, through extravagant light spectacles
and the promotion of urban street lighting, they associated themselves
with the widening discourse of Enlightenment that turned light into a
metaphor for human reason. Light in the night, then, became one
of the most prominent idioms of “enlightened” royal power during
the Baroque.7
This chapter shows that the Ottomans too participated in this scene,
and quite consciously so. They too sought to supplant the ethos of war,
a sphere that posed growing challenges, with a more complex system
of legitimacy that relied, among other things, on the projection of royal
power through extravagance. Light was ideal for that purpose. It was
even more “transcultural” than tulips, and indeed, in its demonstrative
form, light became part of an expanding scene of elite conspicuous
consumption shared between European and Muslim elites.8 Yet, this
similarity was ultimately rather superficial. While clearly speaking also
to their European peers and rivals, the Ottomans continued to interpret
light within long-standing traditions that if anything, turned eastward
and not westward for inspiration. If light was to some extent a univer-
sal political language, it also had very local dialects. In fact, it was this

ability to speak simultaneously to different audiences on different

levels that made artiﬁcial light such a versatile political tool.

Highlighting Sites of Signiﬁcance

As shown in Chapter 5, the Ottoman government channeled raw
materials to the major cities and oversaw the manufacture of lighting
products. The final facet of the “Ottoman lighting system” was the
allocation of lighting products, first to the state apparatus and then to
the general public. In that respect, lighting materials were not much
different from other products that were funneled to Istanbul, from
wheat to mutton, from coffee to soap.9 Like these items, light was
considered a basic commodity. Like these items, the quality and quan-
tity of light was dependent on capital, and closely connected to socio-
economic and political power. More than any other basic commodity,
however, it could be conspicuously consumed and served to bring to
the public’s eye to other manifestations of power, from architecture to
celebration. Moreover, light was bound with the sacred on multiple
levels. Official concern with the provisioning of light therefore had its
own particularities.
Imperial palaces and mosque complexes, barracks and fortresses,
urban patrols, and navy vessels all had to be provided with light. This
called for constant management and required significant funds. This
tremendous effort is, in part, very obvious. For the power infrastruc-
ture to remain effective in the dark, light was imperative. For example,
the navy needed lighthouses onshore, and lights onboard its ships for
nightly operation and signaling.10 The Bosporus fortresses, the
janissaries’ barracks, and later, the nizam-ı cedid barracks were also
regularly provisioned with lighting materials.11
In addition to these very practical needs, the government burned a
lot of lighting and administrative energy to ensure the regular illumin-
ation of important mosques and other religious sites, such as tombs
and sufi lodges.12 The relative importance of religious sites and
mosques in particular was demonstrated through light, with mosques
connected to the royal family better illuminated than other, smaller
mosques and sultanic mosques (cevamiʿ-i selatin), most brightly illu-
minated. This was a language anybody could read. The seventeenth-
century Ottoman traveler Evliya Çelebi includes in his descriptions of
mosques in Istanbul the number and type of candles that illuminated

the bigger mosques. In his description of the huge Süleymaniye

Mosque, for example, he relates that on either side of the prayer niche
(mihrab) there stood giant beeswax candles scented with camphor,
each weighing more than a ton (20 kantar). One has to climb a 15-
stair ladder in order to light them every night, and “the inside of the
mosque becomes light within light.”13 The Ayasofya mosque, con-
sidered the most important mosque in the Ottoman hierarchy,
was illuminated every night with “12,000 lamps of various kinds,
and beeswax candles with camphor on candlesticks and there is light
upon light.”14
The numbers provided by Evliya Çelebi are no doubt inflated but the
mosques he describes, along with other imperial mosques, were indeed
magnificently illuminated. These mosques got most of their light from
candle or oil lamps attached to metal frames (asma kandillik) sus-
pended from the ceiling above the mosques’ main spaces.15 Such
frames could hold hundreds of lamps. Maintaining such an amount
of light required much labor.16 Around the time Evliya Çelebi was
writing, the endowment of the Süleymaniye mosque employed 13 men
(siraci) for that purpose. By 1703 the number of employees has
decreased to 11. This may indicate that the scope of work, and there-
fore the amount of light, has remained more or less the same.17 Writing
in the late 1830s, Julia Pardoe described the “thousands” of lamps that
illuminated the mosque, and the huge candles at the Ayasofya, each
being 18 inches in circumference.18
For the Ayasofya mosque, we have a more direct indication of the
number of lamps, albeit, from a later period. During the renovations
initiated in 1847, 2,399 oil lamps were added to the 3,602 lamps
already installed in the mosque, bringing the total number to
6,001.19 These numbers did not include beeswax candles, the cost of
which could reach almost a thousand guruş a year.20 The preference
for beeswax and olive oil (rather than the cheaper tallow candles) was
not incidental. In Greek Orthodox churches too, only olive oil and
beeswax candles were used.21 Being odorless and shining more
brightly, these materials were more suitable for the maintenance of a
solemn atmosphere. In other words, it was not only the quantity of
light that mattered. Its quality was just as important.
In the surrounding darkness, such a huge number of lamps would
have had a dazzling effect. Most people would experience such concen-
tration of artificial light only in the mosque, which even in

disenchanted terms would mark the site as different and special. But
for the Ottomans light was hardly an “empty” physical entity. This-
worldly light at the mosque was but a reﬂection of the divine. To Evliya
Çelebi this was “light upon light,” a reference to the oft-cited Light
Verse from the Quran (24:35):
God is the Light of the heavens and earth. His Light is like this: there is
a niche, and in it a lamp, the lamp inside a glass, a glass like a glittering
star, fueled from a blessed olive tree from neither east nor west, whose
oil almost gives light even when no ﬁre touches it – light upon light –
God guides whoever He will to his Light; God draws such compari-
sons for people; God has full knowledge of everything – shining out in
houses of worship.22

The notion that God is light is an old one and is shared by many
religions. This probably has to do with the very nature of light: it can
be seen and felt but not held; it is at once tangible and elusive, much
present and at the same time perishable, constant but flickering, con-
tinually changing and yet always identifiable. Burning between the
material and the abstract, between the physical and the metaphysical,
and manifest in a huge variety of forms, intensities, and colors, light
lends itself easily to metaphoric use.
Such general characteristics granted, light is, ultimately, historically
created. As shown in the previous chapter, it was (and still is) produced
using specific materials, sourced from different geographies, using
particular techniques, involving a variety of human and non-human
actors. Moreover, the use of light, practically and conceptually (if the
two can even be distinguished) is culture dependent. It is therefore
significant to note the particular ways through which light is invested
with meaning and “put to work” in the service of specific ideas, and
ultimately, the actors who promote these ideas.23 Before continuing
with the actual uses of light by the Ottomans, then, a few words are
needed about the imageries available to them in extant discourses.

Light Diversion: Imageries of Illumination

It was shown in previous chapters that alongside more orthodox
concepts of the night, antinomian Suﬁ interpretations had a profound
impact on modes of nocturnal devotion, literature, and sociability. The
teachings of the School of Love or the Religion of love (aşk mezhebi,

aşk dini), as this stream was sometimes called by its affiliates, often
stood in tension, or outright contradiction, with relation to Sunni
Islam. While a comprehensive history of light-related imagery in
Islamic traditions is well beyond the scope of this study, I would
cautiously suggest that orthodox and Sufi Islam developed two distinct
concepts of light, despite some significant overlaps. Both streams iden-
tified light with the divine, but while for the Orthodox-minded, light
was a metaphor for God’s guidance, mediated through jurists and
rulers, for the Sufis, God Himself was light that one could reach
individually. The path to divine illumination was internal, personal,
and supposedly unmediated by text (while in fact it was mediated by
Sufi discourse). Obviously, for many, probably most people in the
Ottoman Empire, these were not mutually exclusive imageries.
The abovementioned Light Verse can be seen as the shared source of
both these traditions. God’s light in these sentences is not imagined as
daylight but rather as the glow of a glass oil lamp that guides or
attracts the chosen ones to Him. The implicit image here is one of
people walking in the dark with only God to guide their way. Already
in the Quran, then, light is a metaphor for divine, absolute knowledge
that can be transmitted to “chosen” individuals. But it is not only a
metaphor. These same verses refer to the light of the “houses of
worship” which is corporeal and yet reflective of divine light.24
Early interpretations of the Light Verse seem to have clang to a more
metaphoric understanding, with light standing for divine knowledge,
faith, and good guidance, or to the vehicles of divine light, the Prophet
and the Quran.25 But very early on, more mystical interpretations
emerged, arguing that God is light, a supreme form of light.26 Shiites
and antinomian Sufis, including the Bektaşis, perceived divine light to
have been transmitted from Adam and Eve, through Muhammad and
then through ʿAli, the cousin and son-in-law of the Prophet.27 With the
neo-Platonists, the metaphysics of light saw further elaboration. To the
neo-Platonists, the contrast is not between light and darkness, but
between the world of ideas and the physical world. While in the upper
world there is pure light (“light upon light”), in the corporeal world
light is mixed with darkness.28 The Persian philosopher Shahāb al-Dı̄n
Suhrawardı̄ (1154–1191), who made illumination (ishrāq) the funda-
mental notion of his entire philosophy, retained Ibn Sina’s hierarchal
scheme of being, but replaced the notion of “being” with a concept of
light, flowing from the “light of lights” (nūr al-anwār) and animating

the entire creation. The status of all beings within this scheme depends
on their proximity to divine light, that is, the degree to which they are
themselves illuminated. Seeking God is an internal struggle between the
soul (nafs), which is associated with darkness, and the divine, which is
found in all beings. The quest for illumination is a process of becoming
aware of the divine in one’s self, thereby vanquishing darkness and
climbing up the hierarchy of light, seeking, ultimately, to lose one’s self
in the pure, supreme light of God.29 This notion is conveyed in the
metaphor, found everywhere in the poetry of the School of Love, of the
moth that is drawn to the candle and is eventually burned in it. The
moth does not seek the light or heat but rather wishes to annihilate
itself in the ﬂame, to become one with it. This is the fate of the true
lover of God.30 More orthodox writers often viewed the moth more
critically, warning against the disdain of reason and norms that it
represented.31 For them, light was more strictly associated with the
Sharia and the learned (Tur. ulema), the only legitimate interpreters of
God’s word, and just, pious rulers who upheld the Sharia in their
realms, who could dispense it to the people.
Lest there be doubt, all of these notions were very much present in the
Early Modern Ottoman Empire. Numerous copies of Suhrawardi’s
works were found in the libraries in Istanbul and informed contempor-
ary writers, including, for example, the prominent scholar Katip
Çelebi (1609–1657).32 Nor was this imagery limited to the elite. In his
study of the Bektaşi order, John Birge cites a fascinating discharge paper
issued to a janissary of the 45th company (bölük) in 1822:

We are believers from of old . . . Since the time of the heroes (erler), we
have been the intoxicated ones. We are the moths in the divine ﬁre. We
are a company of wandering dervishes (serseri divaneler) in this
world . . . No one outside us knows our state.33

These words, taken from the most mundane document, demonstrate

the pervasiveness of light-related images common in Suﬁ discourses.
The reference to secret also hints at another element that distinguishes
the two traditions: the public and universal versus the introverted
and exclusive.
As already noted in Chapter 4, notions of spiritual elitism were
central to antinomian Suﬁ groups, and the night served this sense
of exclusive group identity in different ways. Their understanding
of divine light should be seen in this context. Shahab Ahmed notes that

[T]he practitioners of philosophy and Suﬁsm declaredly regard their

pure truths as not ﬁt for general human consumption – or rather,
regard the generality of humans as not ﬁt to consume those pure
truths – whereas the practitioners of law regard their truths as being
of universal application and actively prescribe them for general public
consumption.34

These notions informed not only imageries of light but the use of actual
light. While light in Sufi lodges and especially among antinomian
groups, was limited to the interior, reserved for those initiated into
the path, the light of din ü devlet (religion and [the Ottoman] dynasty)
was projected out from mosques and palaces, reflecting the universal
political and normative claims of the ruler and his order. This imperial
order was a natural, immutable part of the nizam-i alem, the divinely
sanctioned order of the universe.35 The light radiating out of imperial
mosques was therefore reflective of, possibly even an emanation of divine
light. As shown above, the ability to project light depended on material
capabilities, but that is exactly what turned light into such a perfect
metaphor for power and piety, and an effective means of legitimation.
The concentration of light in the bigger mosques would activate this
immense world of images, effectively tying it to the ruling dynasty. One
did not even have to conjure up old memories from the mektep (Quran
school). Many mosques boasted, alongside the simpler lamps, beauti-
fully designed lamps ornamented with calligraphy of the abovemen-
tioned Light Verse, and sometimes light-related quotes from the hadı̄th
_
literature or famous poets.36 Light literally shined through God’s
words, bringing the this and other-worldly together, fusing orthodox
alongside mystical interpretations.37 Even from an analytical point of
view, the mosque lamps and the tradition of which they were part
make the very attempt to distinguish the material from the discursive
almost futile. Mosque lamps are meant to conjure up the verses and the
verses materialize in the light of the mosque lamps. For the believer, the
two are One. Evliya Çelebi’s citation, in short, was anything but
incidental. Well-versed in the tradition, he was conditioned to use these
verses upon seeing the many lights of the mosque. In fact, it was almost
as if the tradition used him to reinforce itself.
The lighting of sacred spaces was by no means limited to the capital.
For example, the chronicler Mütercim Ahmed Asım Efendi notes in his
eulogy of Mihrişah Sultan (1745–1805), mother of Sultan Selim III,
that she provided the tomb of Mevlana Celaleddin Rumi in Konya

with beeswax candles every night.38 Jerusalem too got its share of
imperial light. As part of his endowment in Jerusalem, Sultan
Süleyman stipulated 11 akçe daily for olive oil for illumination.39
Süleyman’s wife, Hürem Sultan (also known as Roxelana), endowed
the biggest vakıf complex in Palestine, including a mosque, a public
kitchen, a bakery, rooms for travelers, and many other functions. The
complex served the population of Jerusalem for centuries.40 In the
endowment deed, dated 1552, 2 akçe daily were set aside for “lights
and lamps.” A superintendent was to oversee the lighting and extin-
guishing of the lights, among several other tasks.41 In all these cases, it
would be noted, the light provided for from Istanbul served to adver-
tise not merely the importance of the sites illuminated, but of the
magnets who financed it, marking them as powerful, pious, and
benevolent.
Common Jerusalemites too would light candles or oil lamps in holy
sites. For example, Christians, Muslims, and Jews used to frequent a
cave on the Mount of Olives that various religious communities
identified as the burial place of different female saints. It was custom-
ary to circle the tomb seven times and light candles on the tombstone.
This was believed to bring blessing.42 Yet, even blessing had a
material aspect. Tawfı̄q Kanaʿān, a former Ottoman medical officer
and folklorist, noted that it was common throughout Palestine to
light lanterns and candles even in the simplest and most remote
shrines. This would most typically happen on the night between
Thursday and Friday. The worshiper would cite formulae of dedica-
tion that cited exactly the quantity, size, and quality of the burning
material.43 This was an old practice. Mosheh Yerūshalmı̄, an
Ashkenazi Jew who arrived in Palestine in 1769, describes in his
travel account the lighting of candles and lanterns in tombs sacred
to both Jews and Muslims. “They pray their prayers, make vows and
give alms for olive oil.”44 These formulae made explicit the signifi-
cant sacrifice made in honor of the saint, which, it was hoped, would
elicit his or her assistance. The explicit reference to the cost of light
only makes power differentials more evident. While the offerings
of simple folk had to be brought and kindled in person and burned
out momentarily, the privileged could afford to illuminate sacred
spaces on the other side of the empire continuously and on a much
grander scale.

Highlighting Times of Signiﬁcance

One can imagine Ottoman nights as exceedingly dark, with isolated,
illuminated islands of power and authority. The closer one moved to
the heart of the Empire, where such sites were concentrated, the more
light one was likely to find. Such was the imperial lightscape.45 But it
was not only specific sites that were highlighted, but particular times as
well. First, light in mosques would be on until the night prayer, and
then be lit again before the morning prayer, which falls before day-
break.46 Light was reserved for the prayers, and prayers only, leaving
dark the interval between them. The night prayer, therefore, marked a
boundary between the evening, when men could legitimately be out-
side, and the “deep night,” which was associated with danger, vice,
and moral depravity.
Light was differentially allocated not only along the duration of each
night but between nights as well. For example, at least in some
mosques, Friday nights would be better illuminated than weeknights,
and the “five blessed nights” would be allocated even more light.
The nights of the holy month of Ramadan were the best illuminated
of them all. This all burned down to numbers. In the Ayasofya mosque
around the mid-nineteenth century, every evening and dawn,
1167 lamps would be lit, and on Friday nights, and the five blessed
nights, 1,000 additional lamps would be lit, a total of 2,167. During
Ramadan the total number of lamps would reach 3,834. The cost of
olive oil for all these additional lamps was 2,680 guruş, out of which
381 guruş were allocated to the five blessed nights and the rest for the
nights of Ramadan.47 This does not include the cost of the mahya
lamps that hanged between the minarets of Imperial mosques during
Ramadan.
The “five blessed nights” were nights of special religious signifi-
cance. Marking these nights with additional lights dates back to pre-
Ottoman times.48 However, the Ottomans seem to have systematized
the practice, making it a constant part of their overall lighting policy.
It was apparently Selim II (1566–1574), who began the tradition of
illuminating the minarets of the mosques during those nights.49 With
time, these nights became so closely associated with light that they
were (and still are) known as “lamp nights” or simply “lamp” (kandil
geceleri; kandil).

The lamps placed on minarets signaled to the population the holi-

ness of these nights and their difference from other nights. It was the
sultan himself, the caliph, the shadow of God on earth, who would
“turn on the lights.” By the end of the eighteenth century, if not earlier,
a standard procedure has developed according to which the kadı of
Istanbul would send a memo, notifying the grand vizier that a certain
kandil night was due on one of the coming nights. The grand vizier
would then forward the information to the sultan, asking for a decree
that would authorize the lighting of the mosque minarets around the
city. The memos often referred to this illumination as adornment
(tezyin) and was intended to reflect or even radiate joy (izhar-ı ibtihac
ve surur için).50 For example, in early February 1796, the grand vizier
informed Sultan Selim III that the night of the Mirac (Ara. Miʿrāj)
would fall on that coming Thursday and asked for a decree that
would authorize the illumination of the minarets of all imperial
mosques “as always,” in order to “light up the eyes of the Muslims
(tenvir-i uyun-ı Müslimin).”51
It seems that the grand vizier could not resist a play on words that
departed from the standard formulation of these decrees. He addressed
the sultan as that “who shines royal light” (lamiʿ al-nur-ı
mülükaneleri).52 This title, which in itself builds on a long tradition
of associating light with political authority, shows again that light was
framed within a particular set of images, operating at once in the “real
world” and at several discursive levels that reinforced each other. The
very real light that the sultan was to turn on, was his own projection. It
was him who enlightened the eyes of his subjects with what was
ultimately, divine light. Lamps in Ottoman mosques, then, were not
only invested with religious significance but also with royal authority,
and the two supported each other, highlighting, in short, din ü devlet.
How much light are we talking about? I could not find comprehen-
sive lists from the period under discussion but according to a slightly
later document, from 1840, the number of candles prepared for the
Berat night that year was 475, the overall cost being 343 guruş. The list
specifies the number of candles according to price (3 candles of 6 guruş
each, 50 candles of 30 akçe each, and so on) but does not reveal how
the candles were divided between different mosques. It is clear, how-
ever, that by then not only the bigger, Friday mosques (cevamiʿ) were
given their share, but also smaller mosques (mesacid).53

Starting from the early eighteenth century, the minarets of major

mosques, built by sultans and viziers were also illuminated on the ﬁrst
night of each holiday. According to a decree from September 1716, the
practice originated in the Arab provinces. The decree stipulates that in
order to “honor and enliven holiday nights” (tazim ve ihya), the
“adorning” (tezyin) of mosque minarets with lamps after the night
prayer, that has long been the practice in the Arab lands, was to be
applied in all imperial and vieziral mosques in Greater Istanbul.
However, the decree emphasized that these lamps shall be different
from those of Ramadan and added speciﬁc instructions regarding the
arrangements of the illumination, and even offered possible formulae
for lamp inscriptions (mahya).54 Writing a few decades later, D’Ohsson
observed differences in the arrangement of illumination of minarets
between the nights of Ramadan on the one hand, and the Bayram,
and the lesser kandil nights, on the other.55 The decree, in other words,
seems to have been implemented.
This decree is important for two reasons. First, it joins a wealth of
evidence, brought below, that shows that under Ahmed III, the court
actively sought more illumination, as a way of asserting its power and
legitimacy. Second, it demonstrates the court’s full awareness of the
differential use of light, in terms of both space and time: the decree
orders the illumination of the mosques most closely associated with the
dynasty, and designates hierarchies among the most important nights,
with Ramadan nights prioritized above all other nights.

Turning Night into Day

The holy month of Ramadan was characterized by the “slowing
down” of everyday life as work in governmental bureaus, in shops,
and in workshops was reduced to minimal levels, and religious colleges
were closed altogether. The nights, on the other hand, served as inter-
vals of leisurely diversion and were marked by great intensiﬁcation of
social interaction and relaxation of social boundaries. In sharp con-
trast to ordinary nights, gates and doorways were kept open, allowing
undisturbed movement throughout the city; storytellers, acrobats, and
shadow theatre (karagöz) performers amused crowds deep into the
night. The evening thus became the climax of the social day, which
amounted to a near reversal of urban routine.56

One of the most important features of Ramadan nights was their

special illuminations. The Spanish traveler Domingo Francisco Jorge
Badía y Leblich (1766–1818), described the Ayasofya mosque:

During the classical nights of the Ramadan, the mosques are illumin-
ated. The illumination of the imperial mosques is magniﬁcent. That of
St. Sophia, in particular, produces a surprising effect . . . Thousands of
small lamps placed along the cornices upon the mouldings and other
projecting parts of the interior; innumerable lamps suspended from the
roof upon frames of different forms; and an inﬁnity of crystal and glass
lamps of all sizes; serve to display the majesty of this temple better than
the light of the sun. I confess I had not a complete idea of it until I saw
it in a state of perfect illumination.57

The Spaniard was referring to a tradition is known as mahya (from

mah, Persian for moon). During the month of Ramadan, lamps would
be arranged on cords stretched between the minarets of imperial
mosques, creating images and inscriptions.58 The illuminated inscrip-
tions above the great mosques endowed by sultans emphasized the
commitment of the Ottoman dynasty to Islam. In this sense, the mahya
was one more way to radiate legitimacy.
Illuminated nights were not only limited to religious occasions.
Festive illumination and ﬁreworks were central to all imperial celebra-
tions. These celebrations were supposed to convey a complex set of
messages. According to Stephan Yerasimos, the festivals were intended
to stage an idealized order in which the Ottoman state is inseparable
from a divinely sanctioned cosmic order.59 The power and hierarchies
of that state were demonstrated through these festivals to both sub-
jects, elites and non-elites, and to foreign envoys. This inter-imperial
aspect was indeed crucial. Ariel Salzmann suggested viewing these
events in terms of “dialogue” or even competition between court elites
that shared much of their material culture.60
Among the festivals held throughout Ottoman history, the one held
by sultan Ahmed III to celebrate the circumcision of his four sons,
certainly stands out, especially in what concerns nighttime activity. The
festival, lasting 22 days, included banquets, street performances, acro-
bats, guild parades, mock battles, and most relevant for this discussion,
evening performances, festive illuminations, and great ﬁrework dis-
plays.61 Hakan Karateke notes that while the spectacular circumcision
celebrations staged in Istanbul in 1582 included only a few nocturnal

events, in the 1720 festival, almost half of the events took place after
dark. Karateke ties this to the development of fireworks, but also, more
broadly, to the expansion of public life into the night.62 Given the
evidence brought thus far, this conclusion can be accepted, albeit with
an important reservation: public life was officially allowed to extend
into the night (beyond the night prayer), only on public celebrations.
This does not mean that there was no nightlife on other nights but
rather, that this nightlife was semi-covert, and could flourish only
under the cover of darkness.63
The nocturnal events in Ottoman festivals were quintessential for the
very functioning of the celebrations as a carnival, a “time out of time”
in Bakhtinian terms. Central for the disorienting experience of the
carnival was the seeming inversion of the relations between night and
day. However, as I argue next, in hegemonic discourse, it was the
sultan and his delegates who allow this inversion with his light.
Hence also the importance of the nocturnal in these festivals: there is
no better demonstration of sultanic power than the ability to turn night
into day. Celebration books composed in court circles therefore allot-
ted scope and attention to describing and illustrating festivals’ nights in
great detail, explicitly tying the sultan to light again, and again, using
typical hyperbole.
The albums were obviously not just transparent representations of
the festivals. They had a purpose, aligned with that of the celebrations
themselves, but also quite distinct from them. Unlike architectural
monuments, for example, a festival does not last. The huge sums put
into arranging such events are therefore burnt away quickly, leaving
only memories. The albums were the vehicles supposed to preserve the
moment and carry it into posterity.64 That moment was not simply or
innocently captured in the folios of these albums. Rather, composing
these lavish works afforded an opportunity for a “second framing.”
Ottoman festivals, it would be recalled, were staged to model the
sociopolitical order, to begin with. The albums took these already
staged events and interpreted them in line with the palace interests,
and of the particular patrons who commissioned these works.65
Nowhere is this need for “second framing” more urgent than in the
descriptions of fireworks displays. Fleeting and ephemeral, fireworks
explode in the air and vanish back into darkness in seconds. They last
even less than other nocturnal displays and are harder to give meaning
in real time. That is why descriptions of fireworks displays in Ottoman

celebration albums are so rich with detail, so replete with hyperbole.

They seek to perpetuate on paper an experience that eludes perpetu-
ation by its very nature.
The imperial celebration album commissioned by the grand vizier
following the festival illustrates this, quite literally. It was written by
Seyyid Hüseyin Vehbi (1674–1736), one of the leading poets at court,
whose couplets about the lamp parties were cited above. More than
25 copies of this work survived, a clear indication of the relative
popularity of the text among the elites. The most important illustrated
version of the text was done by Abdülcelil Levni (d. 1732), the most
prominent painter of the period, and was probably completed around
1727–1730.66 It is hardly surprising that both Vehbi’s text, and Levni’s
illustrations of it emphasize the role of the grand vizier, the commis-
sioning patron of the work, in the celebrations.67 While the text and
Levni’s illustrations do not match one another fully, both devote
great attention to the details and effects of the illuminations and
ﬁrework displays (see Figure 6.1). Here is an example from one of
the festival’s nights:
The solar-presence of the auspicious monarch
Made his throne into the House of Aries and turned night into day. [. . .]

That night, the sea of light washed over darkness

Until it was gone.

Even if the sun had not risen at dawn,

the ﬁreworks’ moonlight would sufﬁce for day.

The furnace of ﬁre-water boiled

Turning the “tent ﬁrework” into bubbles of ﬁre.

Sparks fell all around it

Setting ﬁre to the skirt of the heavens.

The outburst of the ﬁrework was unique

With a hundred colors, like the tail of a peacock.68

And so it goes on, for dozens and dozens of couplets. Every single
ﬁrework is described in detail, using much the same imagery of the
poems of the “lamp parties,” discussed below. Most importantly, it is
the “solar presence” of the sultan that illuminates the entire scene. It is
he who turns night into day. Unlike the exclusive lamp parties, how-
ever, his light is here openly dispensed to all. These images recall the

Figure 6.1 A ﬁrework display, from Surname-i Vehbi.

Courtesy of the Fine Arts Library, Harvard University (1990.15861)

very conscious use of light-related metaphors by Louis XIV, the

“Sun King.”69
Such close association of the physical light on display and the
symbolic light supposedly emanating from the sultan is to be expected
in a text commissioned by the grand vizier and designed to serve his
own public image, along with the legitimacy concerns of his master.
But how were the displays perceived by others? Did they make the
same connections? Did they see light as emanating from the sultan?
The answer is a reserved yes. While some of the observers used a much
more sober, disenchanted language, they clearly understood the lan-
guage of “light as power.”
The very same celebrations were described in another festival book
written by one Hafiz Mehmed Efendi, who served as a scribe under El-
hac Halil Efendi, nominated chief of festival (sur emini), and hence in
charge of the entire festival operation. It was the latter who asked Hafiz
Mehmed to write down the details of the celebrations so that later,
people will be able to feel merriment by reading the work, and maybe
say a prayer for the producers of the work.70 Hafiz Mehmed describes
the illuminations and fireworks of every single night in great detail,
meticulously noting not only the names and numbers of dozens of
different types of fireworks fired but also who prepared them, where
they were fired, whether or not the sultan was present, when the
displays ended, and sometimes what effect they had on the audience.71
While Vehbi’s is a court poet’s text, Hafiz Mehmed’s descriptions read
like a storekeeper’s inventory, completely barren of poetics. He simply
mentions what should be mentioned to convey the magnitude of the
event, and to advertise his patron’s abilities as the organizer of this
extraordinarily complex operation. Fireworks are certainly deemed
worthy of such mention. Noting the ending time was possibly intended
to serve the same purpose, that is, to show how unique the nights of the
festival really were. The events, it turns out, ended between two hours
after sunset, and midnight, at the latest. While certainly unusually late
in Ottoman terms, these hours would have been considered early by
contemporary Europeans. Even during festivals, the Ottomans turned
in relatively early.
What about people outside the palace? How did they respond? The
former Patriarch of Constantinople, Konstantinos Mavrikios
(Kallinikos III, 1731–1791), was amazed by the illuminations arranged
to celebrate the birth of Prince Selim (later Selim III) in 1761. The first

light spectacle was arranged in the palace already in the evening of that
blessed day when the prince was born and included fireworks, and a
lantern inscription of the sultan’s name hoisted on poles and “hung
high in the air.” The former patriarch thought it was “truly a lovely
spectacle.” But the best was yet to come:
On the evening of the fifteenth, a Saturday, the illuminations began,
and how could the oil suffice for the innumerable lanterns of all the
City’s palaces and markets and shops? It’s certain that they surpassed
the stars of the heavens and the sands of the sea, my friend, so don’t be
incredulous. If the City’s shops and workshops cannot easily be
counted, it was impossible to number the resplendent lanterns that
adorned each one of them . . . The night resembled day because of the
illuminations and their multiple reflections. The onlookers’ eyes were
so dazzled by the flashing lights that they had to close them, while their
ears could hear nothing but the roar of various musical instruments,
the shouts of the crowd and the children, and the comic displays
(maskaralık) put on by the trade guilds . . . Wherever you went, every
street was filled with dancing and playing . . . Some people seem to get
drunk on fearlessness, and they forget their position and their property.72

The former Patriarch goes on to describe the festivities, in truly carni-

valesque, Bakhtinian terms. The nights of celebrations are defined by
the inversion of urban routine: the darkness, quiet, desolateness, and
fear of the everynight (discussed in detail in previous chapters), give
way to great light, noise, commotion, and fearlessness. “The night
resembled day because of the illuminations and their multiple
reflections.”73
But if the festival seemed like a reversal of order, it was ultimately
those in power, most notably the sultan, that illuminated the whole
scene, therefore allowing it to take place in the first place. Shop owners
and guilds spontaneously put lamps outside upon hearing of the cele-
brations but it was only the empire magnates and especially the palace,
who could amass the lighting materials required for large-scale cele-
brations. The light of order therefore illuminated popular disorder,
facilitating it and at the same time subjecting it to surveillance. It was
the sultan who allowed this “time out of time” simultaneously framing
it as his own.
Baron François de Tott, military adviser to sultan Sultan Mustafa III
(1757–1774) also recorded an Ottoman festival in his memoirs in great
detail. According to Tott, on the occasion of the birth of a daughter to

the reigning sultan, one of the high ofﬁcials – who wished to please the
population and to secure high ofﬁce for himself – threw a
public celebration.
Tott also describes the festive illumination of avenues with “glass
lamps” and “colored lanterns” hung from arches that were placed on
posts lined along both sides of the street. “The Doors of private
persons are, likewise, embellished [with lanterns] according to the
importance or vanity of the Proprietor.” The palaces of the grand
vizier, and that of the chief of the janissaries were most extravagantly
decorated and illuminated, with the cipher of the sultan and quotes
from the Quran once again burning side by side. This coupling of royal
authority and holy verses repeated itself in other sites.74 While during
the religious festivities of Ramadan, the monarch made himself visible
by illuminating imperial mosques, in dynastic celebrations the symbol
of profane authority was literally given a religious aura.
Tott notes, cynical as usual, that these illuminations “amuse the
multitude at a small expense.”75 Well, not so small. According to one
account, Grand Vizier Koca Ragıp Paşa (d. 1763) bought 6.4 tons of
olive oil to be used in the illuminations he arranged for one of these
festivals.76 Tott, in any case, while keeping his distance from the
message, clearly understood the medium. Light was a language even
complete foreigners could read. He clearly sees the way the amount of
light projected by magnates, for example, was an expression of their
status within the system.77
If the night could be a stage for performing power, it was also used
by the palace elite as a backstage room, a space for close, and
supposedly informal interaction among the most powerful people of
the empire. This space too, however, was a stage of sorts, on
which both intimacy and hierarchy were performed following
elaborate scripts.

Night, Leisure and the Politics of Intimacy

In Chapter 4, I showed how the night served as an interval for cultivat-
ing personal bonds and intimacy among groups of peers across the
social spectrum. Central here were the various forms of meclis, or
gathering. Such gatherings were common in palace circles as well, only
here they carried unmistakable political signiﬁcance. Hierarchy was as
important as intimacy.

We tend to conflate leisure with pleasure but very often, leisure is not
enjoyable at all but rather, another form of social obligation. Going
out for a drink with colleagues, going golfing with business partners, or
even going on family vacations may be fun, but that is not always the
case. They may be dubbed “leisurely” activities, but many people
certainly do not participate in them at their own leisure. Some feel
obliged; for others, these activities may even be stress-inducing.78 That
is because leisure is not necessarily “a break from life,” or its hierarch-
ies and pressures, as it is sometimes presented. In some contexts, leisure
is performance, with far-reaching consequences on one’s social rela-
tions and standing.
Like the world of court politics, the world of court leisure revolved
around the sultan. In fact, it has been suggested that the Ottomans, like
their European contemporaries, may have not had a clear concept of
“leisure” as distinct from work. This claim was subsequently doubted
by historians of Europe, and it is questionable if it holds in the
Ottoman context as well.79 The Ottomans did not have an equivalent
for “leisure” but they certainly did conceive of non-work time dedi-
cated to pleasures, even if recreation and labor were not always clearly
distinct. Different Early Modern Ottoman writers, for example,
advised men of state to divide their day between attending to state
affairs, recreation, studying, and sleep.80 Thus, rather than arguing
that there was no conceptual differentiation between politics and
leisure, it is probably more accurate to say that contemporaries did
differentiate conceptually between state business and leisure and yet,
practically, the two categories were closely inter-related and at times
hard to distinguish.
That such a distinction did nevertheless exist is further evident in the
“division of labor” between the role of the nedim and the post of the
“royal favorite” (musahib, mukarreb, or makbul, lit. companion, close
associate and favored). While the former was an informal but recog-
nized “boon companion,” the latter was an official status accorded by
the sultan to a high official, marking him as the closest advisor to the
sultan.81 The favorite was typically a vizier who enjoyed unparalleled
royal favor and had regular access to the sultan, above and beyond all
other officials. Armed with the sultan’s favor, the musahib could
bypass formal procedures, ignore official promotion patterns and
deny other officials’ access to the sultan.82 Early Modern writers
often stressed the need to maintain boundaries between the two

functions,83 revealing again that conceptually business and pleasure

were distinct but in reality, the boundaries between drinking and
reciting poetry with the sultan, and talking politics with him, were
often blurred.
What both roles shared was royal favor, which often translated into
a type of authority that did not derive from a particular office and was
therefore not limited by the office’s constraints. It was an elusive type
of influence that was effective exactly because it could work outside the
official conduits of power. The changing patterns of court politics in
the early seventeenth century made this type of authority more import-
ant than ever before. As argued by Günhan Börekçi, sultans were now
forced to devise new strategies to retain their position, in the face of the
growing power of other actors within the palace and state apparatus.
In a reality of fierce factional competition involving top officials and
ulema, the janissaries and sipahis, sultans increasingly relied on the
post of the royal favorite to intervene in the political sphere and curb
the power of other actors. Considering the growing inaccessibility of
the sultan during that period, Börekçi notes, “anyone who . . . formed
an intimate relationship with the sultan could solidify his power
against all challengers and make them stay (literally) outside politics
while, at the same time, legitimizing his own power. If a favorite
became too strong, however, he risked polarizing the sultan’s court
and alienating the Ottoman political elite.”84
It is as if these lines were written about Grand Vizier Nevşehirli
İbrahim Paşa. Not only did he dominate the politics of the empire for
12 years; he was also married to the sultan’s daughter, which brought
him into the royal family and gave him the much-esteemed title of
damad (the sultan’s son-in-law). The tremendous power he accumu-
lated indeed earned him the envy and animosity of many within the
elite, and eighteenth-century writers often criticized him for intention-
ally keeping the sultan busy with pleasures, in order to divert his
attention away from state affairs.85 However, contemporary missives
penned by the sultan himself and addressed to his grand vizier show
that the sultan was hardly a helpless victim manipulated against his
will to spend his reign partying. At least when it came to his pleasure
nights, the sultan was very active. For example, in one note he wrote:
“My vizier, on Friday we arrive at Saʿdabad [palace] and will spend the
night there. Prepare numerous fireworks and during the day, a ban-
quet; let there be a play and a horse race to watch.”86

Reading through these notes, one is struck by the closeness between

the sultan and his grand vizier. In one message, apparently written
when the vizier was ill, the sultan wrote to him that “tonight, I was
upset and restless until dawn. I thought about you, worrying whether
or not there is any improvement in your illness.” In another note, the
sultan wrote that “tonight I had a cauldron of aşüre (a kind of
pudding) prepared and had it sprinkled with pretty strong rose water
and musk. It was too musky. I sent you a pot. Eat some.”87 The grand
vizier was clearly on very close terms with the sultan, as close as one
can possibly be with his absolute master, ruler of the world. Some of
the sultan’s notes convey what appears almost as personal dependency
on his vizier. He repeatedly implores İbrahim to join him for nights of
diversion, using a very friendly language.
Anxious as he was to be joined by his grand vizier, the sultan under-
stood that the vizier had an empire to run, and therefore, was not always
available for partying. In another message, the sultan wrote that

The full moon over Saʿdabad is of such level [of beauty] that it cannot
be described with a pen. It would be very agreeable if you come and
stay tonight. I had a special tent placed. Will you take the grand
admiral and come or leave him in Istanbul? Tonight is council night,
[but] Wednesday night is ﬁne. In short, you know, whenever you want,
come . . . And say hello to my daughter. How great it is to have her in
the world, with you.88

This message shows that the (however blurred) boundary between

state business and leisure did not map neatly onto the division between
day and night. Sultans and their companions often indulged in ban-
quets, hunting parties, and whatnot in the middle of the day.89 Here we
learn that at least some state business (i.e. the Imperial Council’s
meeting) was conducted after dark. Yet, assuming some measure of
correspondence between leisure and the night at the palace is not
completely mistaken. Work after sunset was limited across Ottoman
society and in the palace too. State affairs were ofﬁcially carried out
during the day. For example, meetings of the imperial council usually
began early in the morning and continued until the late afternoon.90
Eighteenth-century palace logs (sing. ruzname) that recorded the daily
schedules of sultans, also show that while leisure was not conﬁned to
the night, the night was mostly reserved for leisure, and for some
sultans, devotion as well.91

This was not incidental. Provided basic security, “controlled

darkness” may be conducive for conviviality or intimacy.92 It appears
that the sultan was actively seeking such intimacy. Read alongside the
poetry, brought below, these notes reveal the importance of the dark
hours for court sociability. It was the time that the grand vizier could
ﬁnally be with his master, to relieve him of his boredom and possibly,
from his loneliness.
At times, the two exchanged couplets. For example, on one occasion
the sultan wrote to İbrahim, expressing exactly the double role (nedim
and musahib) he accorded to his grand vizier. Just as important, the
latter is implied by an explicit nocturnal image:
You are both my lamp and my witty vizier
World-famous for ﬁdelity, you have no equal.

The grand vizier countered with couplets that similarly played on the
image of a lamp, inviting the sultan to yet another nighttime party, a
halva gathering in this case:
Since the beginning of all things you are my special lamp
Because you enliven me with good fortune and bliss.

My boundless gratitude is to you, my majestic sultan

Show favor, come to the halva gathering with prosperity and
majesty.93

I shall say a few words about halva gatherings below, but at this point,
I am interested in the confluence of politics and leisure. In a rather
sharp contrast to the notion of some contemporary critics, the grand
vizier did not draw the sultan into the world of leisure and out of that
of politics. Rather, leisure was the continuation of politics by other
means. Indeed, it is hard to imagine the grand vizier survive that long
in office without nourishing his relations with the sultan, and the other
top officials in his circle. It is within this interface of leisure and politics
that the palace elite’s halva gatherings and lamp parties of the 1720s
should be interpreted.

Nocturnal Leisure at Court

Sultans in the eighteenth century often went to sleep long after their
subjects. They did not have to worry about lighting expenses; they did
not have to open a shop or to start the ﬁre in the furnace early in the

morning. Their liberal use of time, and in particular nighttime, set them
apart from the commoners. Like their European peers, they could
party into the night, and they often did.94 As would be clear by now,
these parties were never only about fun. Rather, they were complex
performances of intimacy and hierarchy, marking not only who is part
of the inner circle and who is out, but also the hierarchy within the in-
group. During the vizierate of Damad İbrahim, two forms of nocturnal
parties became particularly popular among the palace elite: the halva
parties, which were held during the winter nights, and the lamp parties
held mostly in the spring.
The halva party was a popular tradition. On the long winter nights,
it was common for men to gather in a private house to chat, play
games, sing, hear stories, and eat. Because of the season, fruits were
hard to come by and it was typically halva that was served as the main
dish, alongside other foods.95 The tradition was widespread during the
period under discussion and was not limited to Istanbul. For example,
the kadı Sadreddinzade Telhisî Mustafa Efendi, who kept a diary
around 1711–1735, reports participating in 39 halva parties.96
Among the more humble residents, either the participants would take
turns hosting (and covering the expenses), or they would split the cost
of each gathering between them.97 It appears that this tradition was
adopted at court during the vizierate of Damad İbrahim98 and in any
case, was taken to a whole new level.
The most celebrated halva parties were held in honor of the sultan
by members of the faction that dominated Ottoman politics during this
period. These included, most notably, Grand Vizier Damad İbrahim
Paşa, his lieutenant (kethuda) Mehmed, and the grand admiral (kapu-
dan) Kaymak Mustafa Paşa.99 The events organized by these men
included exquisite food, drinks, music, and poetry recited by the best
poets of the period. By throwing such lavish parties, the ofﬁcials
displayed their wealth and competed for glory and sultanic favor.100
In this, the halva gatherings shared much with the outdoor lamp
parties that became so popular in the same circles during the same
period. However, while the former merely took place at night, the
latter depended on it in everything, from technics to poetics. It was a
thoroughly nocturnal experience.
Just like the halva party, the lamp party too cannot be understood
outside the longtime meclis tradition. Full-moon, outdoor summer
parties were favored in court circles long before the eighteenth century

and there is evidence to suggest that even lamp parties (çırağan) were
not entirely new.101 Yet, several eighteenth-century writers, both local
and foreign, identify this tradition with Grand Vizier Damad İbrahim
Paşa, whose name keeps cropping up throughout this chapter.102 It
seems that as with the halva gatherings, the lamp cords installed in
mosques, and nighttime festival amusements, the powerful grand
vizier took an existing practice and developed it further. The çırağan
tradition survived down to the early nineteenth century, but according
to D’Ohsson, the splendor of İbrahim’s parties was never
reached again.103
Court chronicler Raşid relates that the first çırağan party was held
on April 26, 1720, at the new palace of the grand vizier in Beşiktaş,
significantly named Çırağan. The sultan arrived with his harem and
retinue and stayed for a week. Raşid writes that the sultan spent his
days listening to music and his nights at çırağan parties.104 D’Ohsson
adds that the sultan enjoyed himself so much at these parties that he
ordered them to be repeated the next spring.105 A note written by the
sultan corroborates, once again, that the grand vizier may have been
the producer, but the sultan was the driving force. “My vizier,” the
sultan wrote, “we are going down to the Beşiktaş palace. The women
(harem) too will arrive there. The weather is pretty nice. Shall we
organize a lamp party (çırağan) tonight or shall it be postponed? No
rush. The lamp party will be whenever you are ready, and taking the
weather into consideration.”106
The çırağan parties were most commonly held in the gardens of the
new mansions built along the Bosporus and went well into the dark
hours, although in modern terms the sultan apparently got tired quite
early. According to various accounts, he usually left between three to
five hours after sunset.107 The most important feature of these parties
was the amount of light. Thousands of candles and lamps were
arranged in the tulip beds, and vases of colored water and mirrors
were placed, creating a dazzling multitude of lights and reflections.
Sometimes, displays of fireworks were staged. Cages of nightingales
were set among the lamps and tulips, adding an audio dimension to the
setting.108 The real garden and the poetic garden invoked in the poetry
produced in and about this setting became hard to distinguish.109
This poetry, written by the best-known poets of the period, enables
us to reconstruct the meaning allocated to the çırağan parties by those
who partook in them. The main poetic themes sensitized listeners to

the night sky, to the setting of the garden, and to the sounds and colors
of the interaction taking place in it. In this, the çırağan poems followed
well-established conventions. Take, for example, the following lines
from a song by Nedim (d. 1730):
Flute and dulcimer, viol, harp, and tambour
The bulbul’s song in harmony with the arbor.

The world’s ﬁlled with mirth and joy of every color

Good news to the garden for the time of lamps is come.110

Also in line with long-time conventions is the rather stark differenti-

ation between the inner domain of the garden and the world outside.
The garden is illuminated, alive, ﬁlled with joyful voices and pleasant
sounds, and contrasted with the surrounding darkness and silence.
İzzet Ali Paşa (d. 1734) describes one of the çırağan parties held by
the grand vizier in the following words:
Who views the lamps in the tulip garden
Sees darkness become light in springtime. [. . .]

Who attends to the gleam of mirrors in the meadow

Supposes the shining sun has descended to earth. [. . .]

Well done, nighttime diffusion of pleasure’s blessings,

For now the dark heart of the people of vision ﬁnds Divine light.111

In line with convention, the poet endows the party with mystical
signiﬁcance and describes the participants as enlightened by divine
light, which enables them to pure their heart of the dark spot of sin
(süveyda) and see beyond the veil of reality. But the border between
light and darkness, between the inside and the outside, is not drawn
only on the mystical level. It is also a social boundary separating the
select from the “commoners.” Here is İzzet Ali Paşa once again:
It’s ﬁtting if they come to observe this elite gathering [bezm-i has]
The shining stars of all the layers of heaven.112

Like other modes of elite meclis, then, the çırağan contributed to the
solidiﬁcation of collective identity and personal relations within elite
circles. Drawing the attention of all participants, ﬁre represented the
coming together of the souls. In this sense it was often explicitly
associated with the archetypical beloved, a role that in elite meclis
settings was often assigned to beautiful boys who served as cupbearers

(sing. saki) or dancers. Within this world of conventional images and

scripted behaviors, the beloved was frequently conceptualized as ignit-
ing the ﬁre of love in the hearts of those present.113 The night emerges
as the setting for more open expression of emotions and desires, with
ﬁre serving as a symbol of the shared experience. Here is Nedim:
They watch the dance of the darling dears
The wails of lutes rise to the spheres.

A mouth-ﬂame of voices set the soul on ﬁre

Good news to the garden for the time of the lamps is come.114

Projecting Power
Thus far I have emphasized the supposedly intimate nature and the
inner-oriented aspects of the çırağan parties. But there was clearly a
dimension of ostentation: in the pitch-black night of eighteenth-
century Istanbul, the glow generated by thousands of candles, and
the fireworks (with their additional audio dimension), were noted by
the people in nearby neighborhoods, generating an image of imperial
power that was near and yet inaccessible.115 Courtly texts echoed this
effect, amplified and perpetuated it by explicitly connecting the light
spectacle with power and authority. While as noted above, the associ-
ation of light with royal and religious authority was not new, the scale
was unprecedented. With typical hyperboles, court poets glorified the
amount of light, the sophistication of its arrangement, and its
dazzling impact.
The Gift of Lamps (Tuhfe-i Çırağan) is a short work commissioned
by Grand Vizier Damad İbrahim Paşa and presented to him by a poet
writing under the pen-name Vahidi, probably around the mid-1720s.
This little-known manuscript, preserved in the library of the Topkapı
palace, focuses on the two most important features of the lamp party:
the light and the flowers.116 Throughout, the author associates light
with divinely delegated authority. For example, he describes the
Prophet and the four “rightly guided” caliphs (rashı̄dūn) who guided
the people with the “lamps (çırağan) of light of faith from the dark
marshlands of the winter of calamity.”117
Such Sunni images of light are interwoven with metaphoric exegesis
of Quranic verses that are typical of the poetics of the School of Love,
discussed in detail in Chapter 4. For example, describing a çırağan

night, the author says that the elaborate illumination carefully

arranged by architects (mühendisan) to illuminate every tulip, made
it seem as though “the lowest heaven came together with this paradise-
like garden.” The author then follows up with a verse from the Quran
(67:5): “We have adorned the lowest heaven with lamps and made
them [missiles] for stoning devils.”118 Building on the verse, Vahidi
describes how, because of “the sparks and flames [of the lamp party],
forty demons and devils fell and rose,” until finally “their wicked
bodies were pierced and scattered.”119
The word used for flame here, şihab, also means a shooting star but
the immediate meaning is again taken from Quranic verses (37:6–10)
that are commonly associated with the verse brought above. These
verses describe the stars of the lowest heavens as “a safeguard against
every rebellious devil.” The şihab mentioned in these verses is under-
stood as a “piercing flame” that is shot at devils who stealthily try to
approach paradise (see also 15:16–18; 67:5). Vahidi may be implying
that the static lamps placed in the garden are like the immovable stars
that encircle Paradise and the fireworks recall the şihab. Conjuring up
these images, the doubtless astonishing view of thousands of flickering
flames and dancing shadows turn into a battle between divine light and
the forces of evil. Once again, the seen hints at the unseen (gayb), and
mundane lamps shine heavenly light, ultimately, on the figure and
power of the monarch.
Other court poets similarly tied hyper-illumination with royalty on
the one hand, and with divinity on the other. Take, for example, the
following lines by Mirza-Zade Ahmed Neyli (d. 1748):

The kingly nature desires that lamps be plentiful

So it’s no wonder that the ruler of the age wishes çırağan.

Don’t think it a lamp party; the stars have gathered on earth

To observe the ﬂower garden of the world-tending king of kings.120

The amount of light is here directly connected to the nature of sover-

eignty. The kings of the world, the rulers of the empire, ﬂock to the
çırağan parties, or the Çırağan palace in Beşiktaş where many of these
parties took place. Even the stars join them in marveling at the beauty
of the garden of the king of kings, the sultan. The same association of
the abundance of light with the power of the ruler is made in a gazel by
İzzet Ali Paşa, written for another çırağan party:

The tulip is become bringer of warmth to the lamps-gathering tonight

It proffers its passionate burning to the ruler of the age tonight.

It decorated the court of lamps with a cloth of many colors

It ornamented this majestic kingly gathering tonight. [. . .]

While every radiant candle is like a brilliant daytime

Who looks at gleam of the shining moon’s face tonight.121

The ability to “turn night into day” sent a message of power to those
left outside the garden, whether they were lesser officials or common-
ers. Far from being a transparent entity that allows social interaction to
take place, light was the main theme of the party. This focus was
apparent both in the physical arrangement of the garden, made to
draw the attention of the participants to the lamps and their reflections,
and in the poems, songs, and descriptions written about these parties.
Light here is completely dissociated from the bloody floors of slaugh-
terhouses where the candles were made, detached from the labor of
bees and beekeepers, of sheep drovers and candlemakers, seemingly
separated from the substance that brought it about.
Thus, freed of its trivial, material entanglements, light could be
turned into a metaphor, and one that worked on multiple levels. On
the social level, light represented the affinity and collective experience
of exhilaration; and on the mystical level, it was conceived as a divine
gift given to those worthy of it. On the political level, light was
identified with the patron and the çırağan parties therefore projected
the power of the monarch, and possibly his highest representatives, in
the eyes of the elite, the people, and other monarchs.

Ottoman En-lightenment?
In projecting power through light, the Ottomans were following in the
footsteps of earlier Muslim rulers, but in the eighteenth century, they
were increasingly turning their attention west, where European rulers
competed among themselves in staging similar spectacles.122 The
Ottoman elite was aware of the European achievements in this ﬁeld,
and vice versa. Yirmi Sekiz Çelebi Mehmet Efendi, the Ottoman envoy
dispatched to France in 1720, attended a light festival in Chateau de
Chantilly, not far from Paris, and described it in detail in his report of
the embassy. The relation of the spectacle to the power of the French

monarch was not left ambiguous. The king’s personal symbol

appeared out of the flames in the climax of a spectacular show of fire
and fireworks. The whole spectacle, wrote the Ottoman envoy, lasted
almost two hours and left him deeply impressed.123 When the French
king bore a son in 1729, his ambassador in Istanbul held an illumin-
ation to celebrate the occasion.124 Clearly seeking to reciprocate and
demonstrate their own power, the Ottomans often reserved front seats
in their own light displays for European envoys, hoping they would
share their impressions with their masters back home. To some extent,
they succeeded: at least some European representatives expressed their
admiration for Ottoman firework ability.125 If displays of light at night
served as a shared field in which European princes and kings competed
for splendor and demonstrated their majesty, as argued by Koslofsky,
the Ottomans were clearly part of the competition.
The similarities between Ottoman and European courts in the uses
of the night for leisure and power projection begs the question of
“Ottoman En-lightenment,” that is, the relations between actual illu-
mination and ideas akin to the European intellectual movement known
as the Enlightenment. Hans Blumenberg has argued that the
Enlightenment movement significantly changed the metaphoric uses
of light. Light, which had always stood for truth, was no longer seen
as divinely bestowed on passive humans, but a vehicle they could
actively use to illuminate the world, that is, subject it to reason and
order.126 Darrin McMahon has shown that this conceptual shift was
entangled with a transformation in the use of actual light. The Age of
Enlightenment saw a great expansion of lighting schemes throughout
most of Europe and the two aspects reinforced each other. Actual light
was a metaphor and a measure of “progress.” Light was used to draw
distinctions between the ancients and the moderns, and between
Europe and the rest of the world.127
It was during this period, and against these trends, that European
observers increasingly portrayed the Ottoman Empire as the diametric
opposition of enlightened Europe, both literally and figuratively.128
The imagery used in typical Enlightenment narratives presented the
Europeans as taking the “light of reason” or “science” from Islamic
civilization and carrying it forward while leaving the realm of Islam in
the dark.129
In fact, several scholars have argued that under Ahmed III, Istanbul too
experienced Enlightenment-like trends including de-confessionalization

and increased religious tolerance, de-militarization, a renewed emphasis

on philosophy and rational interpretations of Islam, the rise of natural-
ism, cultural openness, and efforts to spread knowledge through the
opening of public libraries and the first Ottoman printing press.130
Given the parallel increase in the use of artificial light, it is tempting to
argue that like in Europe, the Enlightenment-like trends were coupled by
shifts in the organization and interpretation of light.
This temptation, however, should be resisted. Historians who have
used “Enlightenment” for the Ottoman context, deployed it to bind
together phenomena and trends that were not necessarily seen as
related by contemporary Ottomans and were certainly not subsumed
under the title Enlightenment.131 Moreover, as Khaled El-Rouayheb
has cautioned, characterizing contemporary Islamic intellectual trad-
itions using such imported concepts as “Enlightenment” necessitates
stretching them to the extent they lose any coherence and meaning they
originally held. Not every “individual illumination,” he stresses, is
“Enlightenment.”132 His research suggests that some of the trends
mentioned above, like the renewed emphasis on rational philosophy,
may better be interpreted as the continuation of long-term trends in
Islamic intellectual spheres, rather than as the eastern edge of the
Enlightenment.133
This is not to say that the similarities should be ignored. Both
Ottoman and European rulers played in the same arena and con-
sciously competed with each other based on a basic set of implicitly
acknowledged rules: the more light, and the more sophisticated its
organization, the bigger the prestige. Yet, while the Ottomans may
have acknowledged European expertise in staging light displays,
including fireworks,134 their protocols of illumination and associated
metaphors differed substantially. Just as light itself was produced from
local burning materials by locally manufactured candles and lamps,
the meanings that were assigned to light followed distinctly Ottoman
cultural repertoires.
Accounts and poems that refer to light spectacles never mention
European sources of inspiration. In fact, the only contemporary source
that touches on the history of the çırağan parties, the Gift of Lamps,
shows that when it came to light, the Ottomans were looking more to
the east than to the west.135 According to the text, one possible source
was the Chinese court. Envoys sent by the Timurid ruler Şahruh
(r. 1405–1447), son of the empire’s founder Timur (Tamerlane),

witnessed the preparations for one such party.136 Keskiner and Araç
suggest that this information may have come from the China Travel
Book, a Persian work from 1422 that was translated into Turkish in
1728 by order of Grand Vizier Damad İbrahim Paşa. The work
includes a detailed description of such lamp-nights.137 The author of
the Gift of Lamps, however, notes that it was not only the Chinese that
held such events. Independently of the Chinese tradition, the Roman
(or Byzantine) Emperor (Şahınşah-ı Rum) had his own line of lamp
parties during the tulip season. The “sultans of the lands of the east,”
including the Abbasid caliphs, preferred organizing such “lamp
nights” in the rose season, unlike the Ottomans (al-ı Osman) who
favored the tulip season. Seasonal preferences aside, the Ottomans
are shown to be the heirs of various distinguished dynasties. All of
these dynasties, however, ruled “the lands of the east.” Moreover, the
poet is clearly eager to demonstrate his mastery of the Persian poetic
canon,138 which further strengthens the impression that outward
resemblance between the Ottoman and European projection of light,
keeps in the dark rather signiﬁcant differences in the way this light
was interpreted.

Conclusion
This chapter demonstrated “nocturnalization” at the Ottoman court of
the Tulip Era, and a parallel increase in the use of light in both public
and closed, palace parties. In all festive events, both profane and
religious, light was not merely an empty entity provided to allow social
interaction to take place. Rather, it was designed to draw attention
onto itself, serving to illuminate sites and times of signiﬁcance. Taken
together, these illumination efforts represented a push by the palace
elite deeper into the night, an interval that had previously concerned
the court to a much lesser extent. Whether on mosques or palaces, in
Ramadan or following a successful military campaign, light at night
was a declaration of patrimonial power that drew its signiﬁcance from
the darkness that reigned supreme in all other parts of town, and
throughout the year.
On one level, light seems to be a cross-cultural, even universal proxy
and servant of power. At the same time, however, it was not only
locally sourced and produced, but also locally interpreted. Since light
and text were so intricately woven together, light could not be

organized nor interpreted outside textual universes that were particular

to the Ottomans. The eighteenth century was in this respect fundamen-
tally different from the world of industrially produced light. Moreover,
the Ottomans played the European game only to a certain extent.
While competing in the realm of spectacle, the Ottoman court made
no attempts to systematically illuminate streets, despite their growing
fear of nocturnal disorder. Examined from this angle, the Ottoman
Empire was actually becoming more different, rather than more similar
to Europe.

One morning in early 1809, dozens of residents in several

neighborhoods of Istanbul woke up to find emblems of janissary
regiments inscribed on their doors. In the following nights, more and
more doors of private houses, but also of churches and synagogues,
were marked in a similar manner. People interpreted this as a
threatening message but nobody knew exactly what they meant or
who was behind them. According to chronicler Cabi Ömer
(d. ~1814), the clandestine action caused much anxiety among house
owners as this was “not the work of one or two people.” One night,
almost 100 doors were inscribed. People suspected it was the soldiers
on patrol who were responsible, but nobody could figure out the
reason.1 The matter reached the deputy to the grand vizier
(kaymakam) who demanded answers from the chief of the janissaries,
who, in turn, questioned the regiment commanders, but to no avail.
Darkness was accompanied by silence. When the matter reached the
sultan, he too was very concerned. The chief of the janissaries promised
to apprehend the culprits but was shown completely helpless when, at
dawn the next morning, a threatening message was posted on none
other but the door of the chamber of the Imperial Council at the
Sublime Porte. The message protested the appointment of Yusuf Ziya
Paşa (d. 1817), a known supporter of the reform program known as
“the New Order,” to grand vizier. “Blood drips from our sword,” the
message read and went on to threaten the official’s assassination. The
janissaries who had guarded the Porte at night claimed they did not
know who posted the message and remembered they actually saw the
kaymakam himself in front of the chamber’s door at dawn. “Ask him
about the message,” they said, “maybe he did it so that he would be
appointed grand vizier.”2
What was going on? The chronicler who recounts the story and us,
his readers, cannot be sure. But the most striking point in this anecdote
is that the sultan too was groping in the dark for an explanation. The

207

janissaries here appear to have the upper hand. Relying on their

solidarity and hide-ability, they initiate, strike, and disappear, leaving
everybody else, including the sultan, helpless and anxious. Something
was cooking in the dark, but nobody was sure what it was.
In this chapter, I show how the loosely regulated night of the
eighteenth century – that had accommodated orthodox and
antinomian ritual, order, and its transgression – gradually turned into
a battleground between the palace elite and the janissaries, the unoffi-
cial rulers of the night. When in conflict with the palace, the janissaries
used the night not only for licentious pleasures and business but also
for conspiracy and sabotage. Darkness was a crucial facet in their
“protocols of rebellion.”3 Once activated, the janissaries’ networks
would organize quickly under the cover of darkness and emerge out
of the shadows to confront the sultan in broad daylight.
Ottoman sultans, on their part, occasionally tried to dislodge these
networks – significantly in this context – by eradicating the nightlife
scene which they considered the breeding ground of janissary revolts.
These efforts, however, were thwarted by the dependency of the
authorities on, and the ambivalence toward, these very networks and
activities.4 The drama is narrated below in three acts of major upheav-
als: the 1730 rebellion; the nizam-i cedid reforms and the 1807 uprising
that undid them; and the destruction of the janissaries in 1826, which
opened the way to significant changes in Ottoman nocturnal realities.
Throughout, the struggle was waged not only in the streets but also
on the discursive level. Starting already following the 1730 rebellion,
elite writers began associating the janissaries and the urban underclass
with darkness. This rhetoric would gradually gain traction in court
circles, as the tension between the palace and the janissaries increase
toward the end of the century. The destruction of the janissaries and
the oppression of the related Bektaşi order would be described as a
triumph of sultanic light, upholding and supported by Sunni Islam,
over the heretic forces of darkness and chaos.

Lights Out
In late September 1730, an Albanian peddler and part-time janissary
known as Patrona Halil lead an uprising that brought about the
downfall and execution of Grand Vizier Damad İbrahim Paşa and his
associates, and the replacement of Sultan Ahmed III with Mahmud

I (r. 1730–1754).5 As shown in Chapter 6, over the preceding decades

the court made excessive use of light to project royal power and
legitimacy. Yet, such demonstrations of power ultimately had an
adverse effect. Against the background of severe hardship, the extrava-
gance of the ruling faction created much popular resentment. One of
the contemporary chroniclers to express such a view was Abdi, a high
official under Damad İbrahim who nevertheless managed to survive
the rebellion and secure himself even higher positions under the new
regime.6 Abdi explicitly notes that the grand vizier and “the majority
of those of high rank” were immersed in parties of pleasures and
musical entertainment “day and night” while “the poor people were
wretched by tyranny and oppression.”7 Even if we accept that Abdi
and other chroniclers sought to retrospectively defame İbrahim and his
faction in order to appease their new master, Sultan Mahmud I, and
even if we agree that the rebellion was an intra-elite conspiracy rather
than a popular revolt,8 it is still significant that contemporary writers
chose to devote much of their critique to the extravagance and pomp of
the former ruling faction. The authors were tapping onto a widely held
sense of animosity, using the magnificent night parties of the elite as a
shining, easy-to-hit target.
Although the chroniclers were critical of Damad İbrahim and his
circle, they were by no means sympathetic to the rebels. In fact, the
rebels were consistently associated with the night, which was in turn
presented as a time of disorder, insecurity, and treachery. This associ-
ation was produced in two ways: the first was what we may call a
“realist” representation of the nocturnal activity of rebels, in routine
and during the rebellion itself. The second way was by figuratively
“blackening” the rebels, building on both primordial and historically
created fears of the night.9 In other words, the supposedly sinister
nature of the night is attached to the rebels, thus presenting them as
the direct opposite of sultanic light.
First, regarding the reality of the rebellion and the rebels: it has
already been shown that the palace’s authority relied on light and sight.
Even in the capital, the night was frontier, an interval that could not be
effectively governed. This reality allowed much more leeway to the
extra-legal or semi-legal power structures dominated by the janissaries.
Something of that dynamics came into play during the rebellion.
The rebellion broke out on September 25, 1730, and the rebels
initially assembled in front of the Bayezid mosque and marched

through the covered market, rallying more people to their cause. The
crowd headed toward the “meat square” (et meydanı), where the
janissaries’ barracks were located. It seemed as if the mutiny was
picking up steam. However, as the night set, the multitudes began to
dissolve, leaving the leaders, hesitant and vulnerable, to their own
devices. According to Abdi, they were concerned that the palace would
learn that the crowds have dispersed and seize the opportunity to
attack them at night. It was Patrona Halil who encouraged the group
to stick together and persevere, thus earning the leadership of the
group.10 It should be noted in passing that Patrona Halil was
probably comfortable in the dark, familiar with the city’s nocturnal
life described in previous chapters. According to John Montague,
the Earl of Sandwich (1718–1792), who traveled through Istanbul
a few years after the rebellion, Patrona Halil used to spend his nights
at the taverns of Galata, where he drank away all of his days’
earnings.11
But if the descending night has left the leaders of the rebellion all by
themselves, it also prevented the leaders of the empire from knowing
about it. The top ofﬁcials who convened in the illuminated halls of the
palace to decide how to deal with the rebels had no idea what was
going on outside. In Abdi’s words, they were “unaware” (bi-haber) of
the situation and missed the opportunity to act.12
As a new day dawned upon the square and “the world was illumin-
ated with light,” the rebels could see that the sultan, his men, and the
people of Istanbul have all been taken by fear and locked themselves
in.13 People now began to regroup around the leaders and the rebellion
regained its momentum. The rebels were now emboldened and the next
night they ventured out in bands, raiding houses of people of means.
Two points are worthy of attention here. First, as long as it was night,
even the rebel leaders could not assess the impact of their action. It was
only daylight that revealed that they dominated the streets. While it
was an everynight practice for the city to shut itself in, the fact that this
self-imposed curfew continued into the day signaled to the rebels that
they faced no opposition. Yet, and this is the second point, raiding
awaited the return of darkness. We have already seen that janissary
violence peaked at night, often leaving sultans completely helpless. The
rebels’ actions on that second night were in a sense based on tradition.
As the rebels became even more self-conﬁdent, their raids spilled over
into daytime, but in general, even during the height of the rebellion,

these actions were mostly limited to the night “when there were no
other people around” (alem ağyardan hali iken).14
In short, chronicles placed the rebels in the night partly because they
were indeed more likely to operate in the night to begin with, and
because during the rebellion itself they often made use of it. Yet, it
would be absurd to assume that elite chroniclers merely reflected
nocturnal realities “as they were.” Often, the nocturnality of the rebels
was used against them. At times, the association of the rebels with the
night was more implicit or indirect, and yet, it would not be lost on
contemporaries. The chronicler Destari Salih, another confidant of the
new Sultan Mahmud I, describes Patrona Halil and his associates as “a
fearless group of dirty pimps from among the naked people of the bath
of sin and fornication,” that “threw the sparks of the fire of the furnace
of their brigandage among the different people . . . A group of guilt-
soiled Albanians came together and lead the people with their satanic
specters . . . causing a major riot.”15
The chronicler here builds on the dubious reputation of the
bathhouse. The hamam, it may be said, was as central in Ottoman
Istanbul as it was marginal. It was central since it was quintessential for
the hygiene, ritual, social life, and well-being of city dwellers, and every
quarter of the city had at least one. It was marginal, first, because it was
mostly poor, unattached “bachelors” with limited opportunities who
worked as bath attendants. Due to patterns of chain migration,
Albanians came to dominate the profession.16 This network was acti-
vated during the revolt, hence Destari Salih’s reference to the “guilt-
soiled Albanians.”
But hamams were dubious in additional ways. Hamam stokers,
another low-paying job, were among the city’s night workers.
Moreover, the warmth of the bathhouse drew homeless people and
they were often allowed to sleep near the furnace on the cold winter
nights. Finally, at least some bathhouses were known as sites of com-
mercial sex, especially at night, and bath attendants often turned to
prostitution as a night job.17 Hence the reference to the “dirty pimps,”
and “the bath of sin and fornication.” In short, the multilayered
marginality of the bathhouse serves Destari Salih in his efforts to
depreciate the rebels.
The association of the rebels with the night becomes even more
explicit a little further down the narrative. After introducing the
leaders of the rebellion, the chronicler writes that two of them were

“the bandits Çınar Ahmed and Uzun Mehmed who wielded the blood-
spilling sword of sedition every night in the Meat Square in order to
turn heedless sleep into rebellion, as if making unwholesome blood
flow out of the artery of banditry.”18 The Meat Square is likened to an
artery always flowing with subversive activity. The “bandits” opened
that artery with their “knife of sedition” and let rebellion flow out like
“unwholesome blood” (dem-i faside from Arabic al-damm al-fāsid).
The author is alluding to the porging of meat sanctioned by the Sharia,
which was a low-paying night job.19 The whole trade was dominated
by janissaries. The same term, dem-i faside, can also be read as “mis-
chievous time,” which in this case refers to “every night.” Either way,
the janissaries are here presented as the forces of darkness, and in some
places (as cited above) are explicitly linked to Satan. Sultanic
authority and order, on the other hand, are equated throughout the
narrative with the sun, with the morning, and with light.20 Thus, the
janissaries, once the mainstay of sultanic power, are presented as its
ultimate opposite.
Sun-ruler or not, the sultan eventually capitulated to the demands of
the rebels and executed the grand vizier and his associates, before being
forced to step down himself. According to Destari Salih, after the rebels
received the bodies of the grand vizier, his lieutenant, and the grand
admiral, they plucked out their eyes and stuck candles in their stead
saying, “if there is going to be a lamp party (çırağan), let it be this
way.”21
It is worth noting that lighting candles in such gory circumstances
was not without its precedents. Until the end of the seventeenth cen-
tury, candles were occasionally used for public torture and execution.
The convict would be strapped to a cross-shaped contraption and deep
cuts were made in his buttocks and below the shoulder blades, where
wrist-thick candles were then inserted and lit. The bounded convict
was then loaded onto a camel and paraded in the streets. Only when
the convict was about to die would he be put out of his misery by
hanging. This form of torture was applied, for example, on two spies of
the rebel governor of Erzurum Abaza Mehmed Paşa in 1627.22
We do not know whether or not the rebels were copycatting or even
that the event actually took place. The only thing we know for certain
is that Destari Salih chose to narrate it in this way. By putting these
words in the mouths of the rebels, the chronicler has them usurp the
power invested in the imagery of the çırağan to celebrate their victory

over the ruling elite in a little party of their own. If the lamp parties of
the Tulip Era were supposed to accentuate social hierarchies and
stabilize the elite’s rule, the rebels were neither impressed nor deterred.
They quite easily leaped over the social walls that were supposed to
keep them away from the elite. Not only were Patrona Halil and his
men able to force the execution of the powerful grand vizier and,
soon thereafter, the dethronement of the reigning sultan; they actually
ruled the capital for almost a month, showing no signs of an
inferiority complex.

Setting Aflame
Toward the end of the eighteenth century, tension between the palace
and the janissaries was again building. The period was one of crisis
throughout the empire. Rampant banditry in the provinces, natural
disasters, epidemics, food scarcity, seemingly uncontrollable urbaniza-
tion, urban unrest, and especially, the excruciating military defeats that
underlay or exacerbated these problems, deeply shook the self-
confidence of the Ottoman elite and prompted some of its members
to seek new solutions to the Empire’s predicament. In reformist circles,
the under-disciplined janissaries were blamed not only for the military
debacles but also for offsetting any significant reform. The palace also
took measures that harmed the janissaries, including, for example,
stricter control of janissary payroll tickets (esame).23 The janissaries,
on their side, blamed the new Sultan Abdülhamid I and his men for the
problems on the front and at home and, over the course of the 1780s,
increasingly engaged in sabotage and propaganda to voice their griev-
ances, demonstrate their power, and undermine policies and appoint-
ments they opposed.24 Critical for this discussion, they often preferred
to operate at night. Fire was one of their most effective weapons.
Conflagrations were more likely to start and to spread more rapidly
at night.25 Yet, several Ottoman writers insisted that many nighttime
fires were not mere accidents. The kadı Sadreddinzade Telhisî Mustafa
Efendi, for example, noted in his diary that most fires happened at
night and argued they were mostly started by arsonists.26 He was not
alone in arguing this point. The chronicler Taylesanizade Hafiz
Abdullah (d. ~1794) tells that on the night of Friday, September 8,
1785, a fire broke out in Bayezid and quickly spread to different areas
of the old city. The covered market was evacuated, and many shops

were damaged. No sooner than the fire was put out, another one
started in Kasımpaşa and then in a number of other places. On the
night of December 19 that same year, fires started in several locations
in the area of Aksaray, and on August 3, 1786, near Rüstem Paşa
mosque.27 Taylesanizade Hafiz Abdullah claims these fires were all
caused by arsonists. For the last case cited, he relates that the artisans
whose workshops burned down, blamed the arson on one of the
officers of the 40th company, subject to the chief of the night police
(asesbaşı). The officer and two soldiers were apprehended and “chas-
tised” by the chief of the janissaries.28
There is nothing surprising about the nocturnality of arson. Arson
has often been the weapon of choice for the subaltern. It was cheap,
accessible, required no skill, and still could wreak havoc on whole
cities.29 Since arsonists sought to act without being caught, arson
was almost always performed at night, not only in the Ottoman
Empire but around the world.30 The reasons for starting a fire were
often very personal. Ehud Toledano and Hakan Erdem have both
shown that arson was used by slaves, mostly against their owners.31
In rural settings, as Ebru Aykut Türker has shown, arson was mostly
used by peasants against one another to take vengeance or settle scores
without recourse to the legal system. In many other cases, the arsonists
were day laborers, shepherds, or farmhands who wanted to get even
with their superiors, be they notables, landowners, village headmen, or
officials. The rural arsonists too used the cover of night.32
What was unique about acts of arson in the capital was not only
their much bigger destructive potential but the political ramifications
they could have. Writing about janissary-related acts of subversion in
the late eighteenth century, Fikret Sarıcaoğlu notes that their use of
arson increased in the 1780s and made Sultan Abdülhamid I anxious
about his public image. He sometimes followed extinguishment efforts
personally and spurred his men on to arrest the arsonists and extin-
guish the fires.33 Failure could cost them their office. The recurring
conflagrations of 1782 lead to the dismissal of Grand Vizier İzzet
Mehmed Paşa. Following yet another fire in September 1785, people
slammed the deputy of the grand vizier saying “it is because of you that
we burn and are reduced to ashes.” He too, was dismissed from office
following the incident.34
The arsons were at times accompanied by anonymous notices left in
different parts of the city, blaming different officials for various

actions. The palace was certainly not indifferent to the word on the
street and took different measures to calm the opposition and deal with
the danger of fire.35 Subsequent sultans were just as conscious of the
dangers arson posed to stability and the way even rumors of arson
could be used to undermine their rule.36
We have already seen that high state officials used tremendous
amounts of burning material to create awesome spectacles of light.
Amassing and controlling so much fire was a clear demonstration of
might and sophistication, which served to project the authority and
legitimacy of the ruling dynasty and those serving it. Interestingly, the
great nighttime fires of Istanbul were also described as “spectacles” by
several European visitors.37 For example, James Dallaway, the phys-
ician of the British embassy in Istanbul in the late eighteenth century,
wrote that fires in Istanbul were a “grand spectacle” that nothing can
exceed, except maybe a volcanic eruption. He described the “vast
column of flame, of the most laminous [sic.] glow, rising up from the
centre, which lighting up the mosques and contiguous cypress
groves, produces an effect of superior magnificence.”38 Describing a
nocturnal conflagration some three decades later, the Prussian diplo-
mat Friedrich Tietz (1803–1879) wrote that “the night was intensely
dark, and the flames (reflected from the surface of the water) wrapt
[sic.] the city in one immense blaze of light, thus forming an interesting
though awful spectacle.”39 Owing to the power of the “spectacle,”
nighttime conflagrations in Istanbul would become a common theme
among nineteenth-century artists, foreign and local alike, including
Mıgırdıç Civanyan (1848–1906), Halil Paşa (1857–1939), Garabet
Yazmacıyan (1868–1929), and Auguste Etienne Francois Mayer
(1805–1890).
It is doubtful whether the common denizens of Istanbul would take
the time to marvel at the “magnificence” of the flames as they were
running away from their burning neighborhoods. Marvelous or not,
the power of fire was undeniable. If concentrations of carefully orches-
trated fire projected power, uncontrolled, raging fire directly under-
mined it. In the light of huge “columns” of flames, political authority
seemed feeble and helpless. On the other side of the social spectrum,
commoners – who could not dream of orchestrating lamp parties –
could easily start one of those “awful spectacles” of fire to signal that
after all, they too had power. In a horrific way, arson was an equalizer;
fire was a leveler. The fact that janissaries and others often took

advantage of the panic and disorder to plunder houses,40 no doubt

aggravated the sense of chaos and collapse of authority.
These are not mere academic observations made in retrospect. As
discussed above, the politics of fire was obvious to contemporaries.
The inability to control the city and secure the life and property of the
people reflected negatively on the palace, as both the arsonists and the
ruling elite knew very well. The relative freedom of action the night
granted the janissaries was therefore crucial for their ability to fight for
their privileges. By demonstrating their destructive potential, they
hoped to influence appointments and policies. Yet, reform-minded
officials were determined to end disorder, reassert sultanic authority,
and bring the janissaries to heel.

Reestablishing Order
Programs of reform along those lines have been circulating since the
late 1770s. It was with the accession of Sultan Selim III (1789–1807)
that these ideas finally matured into an ambitious reform project,
known as the New Order. The New Order included both urban
reforms in Istanbul and, more famously, the introduction of a new
army built along European lines, based on imported European
Knowledge, and a fiscal reform to support the project financially.
The New Order was driven by a new reformist agenda that would
significantly affect nocturnal realities in the capital. It is, therefore,
crucial to say something about this agenda and the threat it posed to
the nocturnal ecology of the capital.
While earlier scholarship has interpreted the New Order mostly
within the framework of Westernization and sometimes secularization,
recent works explain the project as an attempt to constitute an Ottoman
form of “enlightened absolutism” that was informed by both European
ideas of military reform, and an agenda of orthodox revival lead and
spread by the Nakşibendi-Müceddidi Sufi order.41 Scholars of the New
Order have shown that the adoption of European military knowledge
and awareness of the transformations underpinning European growing
power were not an innovation of the late eighteenth century, nor that
they necessarily reflected a “progressive” mindset. Rather, the reform
agenda stretched back at least to the 1720s and was, to some extent,
“traditionalist” in the sense that it sought new means to restore an old
order, and thereby reconstitute a lost, “golden age.”42

New military schools, ﬁrst the Imperial School of Naval Engineering

(established in 1776), then the Imperial School of Military Engineering
(1793) institutionalized the dissemination of originally European
(mostly French) knowledge. Here, European ofﬁcers and military
engineers met with Ottoman cadets and sometimes mathematicians
and engineers, with the aim of producing what Ali Yaycıoğlu dubbed
“a Euro-Ottoman military Enlightenment.”43 Even disregarding the
term “Enlightenment,”44 it is important to note the similarities
between the ideas of this forming professional elite, and the agenda
promoted by equivalent circles in contemporary Europe. As noted by
Michel Foucault:

Historians of ideas usually attribute the dream of a perfect society to

the philosophers and jurists of the eighteenth century; but there was
also a military dream of society. Its fundamental reference was not to
the state of nature, but to the meticulously subordinated cogs of a
machine, not to the primal social contract, but to permanent coercion,
not to fundamental rights, but to indeﬁnitely progressive forms of
training, not to the general will but to automatic docility.45

This emphasis on order and docility as the basis of a comprehensive

agenda of sociopolitical engineering is where the military strand of late
eighteenth-century reformists overlapped with the Nakşibendi-
Müceddidi Agenda. The Müceddidi branch of the Nakşibendi Sufi
order that has originated in Mughal India, spread into the Ottoman
domains in the seventeenth century and gradually grew in influence.
The order called for the “revival and renewal” of Islamic societies by
strict enforcement of the Sharia and “cleansing” unwarranted “innov-
ations” (sing. bidʿa), which were, in fact, traditions that had taken root
over time. The doctrine of the order was formulated both against the
syncretistic religion founded by the Mughal Emperor Akbar
(r. 1556–1605) and the pantheist doctrines of Ibn Arabi, one of the
foremost teachers of the School of Love (see Chapter 4).46 It was part
of a much wider trend of revivalism that swept through the Islamic
world, at least partly in response to growing European pressures.47
While the Nakşibendi-Müceddidi order was not the first to lead a
Sunni-revivalist agenda in the Ottoman Empire, its influence among
the upper rungs of society was unprecedented.48 Scholars generally
agree that the growing influence of the order among the Ottoman elites
should be viewed against the background of the late eighteenth-century

crisis.49 The order’s emphasis on the role of political authority in

reviving and revitalizing religion, its stress on renewal, and the hostile
approach to antinomian Sufi groups who were perceived as a challenge
to authority, were all appealing to elements within the elite that sought
to centralize power based on a program of military and fiscal
reforms.50
Thus, while the Bektaşi order was popular mainly among the urban
underclass, and the janissaries, the Nakşibendiyye-Müceddidiyye was
increasingly influential among the elite, and especially in palace circles.
Sultan Selim III, who lead the reform project starting in 1791, was
himself associated with the Mevlevi Sufi order but was surrounded by
followers of the Nakşibendiyye-Müceddidiyye, many of whom lead the
actual implementation of the reforms. By way of illustration, 9 out of
11 members in the council the sultan appointed to counsel him on the
reforms were disciples of the order.51
The Nakşibendi-Müceddidi agenda indeed informed the New
Order, complementing the imported principles and ideals of military
order and discipline with Sunni indoctrination. The new barracks built
for the soldiers as “spaces of order” set aside from the chaos of city life
(and the janissaries, who were so closely integrated in it), also included
mosques and Nakşibendi lodges. Imams were assigned to all regiments
to oversee moral and spiritual training. It was mandatory for the
recruits to perform the five daily prayers, again, in sharp contrast to
the janissaries-Bektaşis who eschewed the prayers.52 The regulations
issued for the new regiments stipulated that all soldiers were to be
taught the catechism of Birgivi Mehmed (d. 1573), a scholar who had a
profound impact on Ottoman puritan currents in the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries. In 1803, 1,000 copies of this text were printed for
use in the barracks, followed by a second edition two years later.53 In
short, the conflict of interests between the reformers and the janissar-
ies, which was also class-bound, was increasingly exacerbated by a
widening religio-ideological rift, as the elite became more orthodox
and less tolerant of the antinomian affinities of the janissaries and
much of the urban underclass.54
It should be noted that the anti-Orderists did not openly stand for
antinomian interpretations but rather used the same Sunni discourse to
discredit their rivals. For the opposition, it was the court elite that had
deviated from true faith, as manifested in their indulgence in luxury
and interaction with infidels. Some even charged that the New

Orderists sought to convert the empire. Rhetorically, then, both teams

were playing the orthodox game. Yet, under this rhetoric there lay
signiﬁcant gaps, and tension between the two camps was building.

Cleansing
Selim ascended to the throne on April 7, 1789, when he was 28 years
old, in the midst of another disastrous war against Russia and the
Habsburg Empire. Wartime scarcity led to riots, crime, and general
resentment. As historian Betül Başaran has shown, the new sultan
and his men responded to the wartime crisis by increased surveillance
of marginal populations and harsh punitive measures, including
exemplary punishments designed to instill fear and deter others from
violating the law. According to Başaran, the innovation of Selim’s
urban policies lay not in the actual measures taken (which were
highly traditional), but in the spirit of activism and aggressiveness
with which they were carried out. These had to do with Selim’s
wish to reassert the personal authority of the sultan, an authority
that has been eroded by his dependency on provincial governors for
the war effort. 55
Central to Selim’s thrust was a clampdown on urban “mischief”
(fesad).56 Eighteenth-century Istanbul was home to a widespread
leisure scene, which was mostly nocturnal. More than 570 bars and
taverns and countless sites of gambling and prostitution operated
under the cover of darkness. The scene often bred violence but it was
mostly tolerated by the authorities. Selim would tolerate it no more. Or
so he thought.
Early on in Selim’s reign, his grand vizier wrote to him that it was
common practice to close down taverns at times “when the sailors and
other soldiers are mobilized.”57 The grand vizier did not explain the
measure, but it seems that with the majority of the armed forces on
campaign, maintaining order would have been much harder. Pulling
the plug on the drinking scene was, therefore, a reasonable move. The
sultan approved and ordered to notify the relevant ofﬁcials.58
It appears, however, that he soon grew in ambition. In a series of
decrees issued in late December 1790 and early January 1791, he
ordered the closing down of all drinking houses and the prohibition
of prostitution throughout the city.59 According to the well-informed
chronicler Ahmed Cavid (d. 1803), Selim acted under the inﬂuence of

one Turhal Şeyhi, probably the Nakşibendi-Müceddidi sheikh Turhallı

Mustafa Efendi (d. 1794).60
The original imperial decree, issued on December 17, 1790, indeed
carried a very Sunni tone, emphasizing that alcohol consumption and
illicit sex (zina) were forbidden and enforcing the closing down of all
taverns and a complete ban on prostitution. As in all other related
decrees, the language was very strict. “However many bars and taverns
there are, all must be closed down immediately and not a single drop of
alcoholic beverages is to be bought and sold.” The decree threatened
time and again that violators would be arrested and punished. The
same went for prostitutes working in markets and brothels located in
residential neighborhoods. Upon receiving these orders, the chronicler
went on, the officials “left their sleep and peace” and worked “night
and day” to seal the taverns, locate the brothels in the neighborhoods
and arrest their owners.61 Both terms can be read as mere figures of
speech, but as shown in previous chapters, these terms were most often
used in nocturnal contexts.62
While the chronicler’s account emphasized the resolution and deter-
mination with which the sultan’s orders were carried out, contempor-
ary official correspondence pertaining to the decree reveals a more
complex picture. The sultan indeed pushed for an immediate and total
ban on alcohol and prostitution at all times and throughout the city,
but the policy proved harder to implement than he had anticipated.
The sultan’s decrees not only specified the different areas of the city;
they noted that the ban applies universally (külliyen) and should be
enforced “day and night” or “continuously” (ʿala al-devam) with
“utmost attention” (kemal-i itina ve nezaret).63 In August 1791, the
sultan even ordered to impose the ban on alcohol in provincial towns
as well.64 The term used in some of the relevant documents is
“cleansing” or “purification” (tathir). This was not the first time the
term, which also denoted garbage disposal, was used to refer to
mischief.65 Yet, the term is significant as it discloses an approach very
different from the tolerant policies that were in place throughout most
of the long eighteenth century. Rather than assuming that “mischief”
was endemic to the city and trying to limit its expansion, the new
sultan sought its eradication. His highest officials, it appears from the
correspondence, thought this was impossible and, in contrast to the
picture that arises from Ahmed Cavid’s account, they were less than
enthusiastic to carry out the orders.

In a missive to the sultan, the grand vizier assured his master that
following up on his decree, he immediately issued the required orders
to seal up the taverns and summoned the officials who were respon-
sible for security in different parts of the city. The grand vizier
explained to them the implications of the sultanic decree, ordering
them to keep the taverns closed, to search for brothels and punish
their owners, to search for suspicious hamams and “cleanse” them of
beardless youths, and to monitor the activity of prostitutes. However,
right after noting the immediacy with which he acted upon the sultan’s
order, the grand vizier chose to bring some of the reservations
expressed in the meeting he had summoned. The sekbanbaşı, he
reported, had noted that closing down the taverns would undermine
the livelihood of their owners. In order to balance between this harm to
the subjects and the wish to uphold security by closing the taverns, it
was suggested that the owners would be allowed to sell the alcoholic
beverages they had in stock for ten days, as long as they did not sell it
to Muslims. After that time, the total ban on the sale of alcohol would
be enforced.66 The suggestion was indeed adopted and the ban went
into effect only on January 6, 1791.67
The most important aspect in the grand vizier’s response is that it
reveals the comprehensiveness of his master’s ambition in terms of
both sites and forms of leisure (taverns, brothels, public baths) and
the geography. The officials summoned (the sekbanbaşı, cebecibaşı
topcubaşı, and the voyvoda of Galata) covered between them the entire
city, excluding the shores of the Bosporus. For some reason, the
bostancıbaşı, responsible for security in that area is not mentioned in
this memo, but he was issued orders separately.68 The second import-
ant point is that the sekbanbaşı appears very much minded to the
interests of the tavern owners and very pragmatic in his approach to
the prohibition policy. The grand vizier seems to be supportive of this
pragmatic approach as he transmitted the words of the sekbanbaşı to
the sultan.69
This was not the only attempt the officials made to restrain their
ambitious master.70 In another missive sent by the grand vizier to the
sultan, the former informed his master that he had discussed the
closure of the taverns and their “emptying” (tahliye) from alcohol with
the sekbanbaşı, the officer who was supposed to enforce the prohib-
ition in most of intramural Istanbul. The sekbanbaşı said that if it was
decided to go ahead with the measure, he would carry out the order.

However, without taverns, bachelors who resided in hans would not

be able to get food/livelihood (rızıklarına destres olamayıp) and
would be forced to infringe on the homes of [other] subjects. In
addition, the pay of soldiers (salmalar) and some security personnel
and guards was covered by the monthly tax levied on these taverns.
There was a need, he noted, to find an alternative source of revenue.
He then suggested that “here and there” two or three taverns would
remain open for the “non-Muslim bachelors” and a guard be put at
the door to prevent Muslims from entering. In this way, the problem
of the bachelors would be solved, and revenue for soldiers’ pay would
not be lost.
The grand vizier, it is quite clear, shared the sekbanbaşı reservations,
and therefore added that during the reign of Sultan Ahmed
(1603–1617), there were three taverns in Istanbul and Galata and that
they multiplied later on. The matter, he concluded as always, was left
for the sultan’s discretion.71 The mention of Sultan Ahmed was not
incidental, of course. The sultan, known for his piety, enforced the
most comprehensive ban on alcohol before Selim’s time.72 If he
allowed a few taverns to exist, so can the reigning sultan. However,
according to chronicler Ahmed Cavid, it was exactly this laxity that
allowed alcohol to spread in the first place. He argued that following
Ahmed’s ban, alcohol consumption again began to spread and those
few taverns were gradually allowed to multiply. The last ban,
according to him, was applied in 1730 but thereafter, again, their
numbers rose, reaching the huge numbers of Selim’s time.73
It has already been shown that alcohol and security, order and its
undermining were interlaced in somewhat unexpected ways. Taverns
were considered dens of mischief, fomenting immorality and disorder,
and yet it was their taxes that supported at least some of the security
forces, many of whom were charged with policing the very same
taverns. Shutting down all of them, the officials told their master,
would decrease revenue and therefore, security. What is even more
interesting is that the official that was charged with policing all of these
taverns and their rowdy clients, actually thought that closing them
down might upset public order, not improve it. The two officials (the
grand vizier and the sekbanbaşı), in short, called for a slightly more
selective enforcement, noting also that such a pragmatic solution had
its precedents. The sultan, however, was not at all dissuaded. “It is my
wish”, he wrote in response, “to prohibit alcohol from Muslims totally

(külliyen)”. He therefore ordered the grand vizier to discuss the ways

to implement a total (külli) ban on alcohol.
If this was an attempt to project sultanic authority into the nocturnal
realm of mischief, darkness still allowed much room for evasion,
concealment, and hiding, not to mention official neglect and illegal
profit. Such phenomena threatened to undermine the sultan’s efforts.
A tavern owner by the name of Araboğlu Yanaki was reported to have
“secretly” (hafiyyeten) sold alcoholic beverages. For this, and for
“spreading rumors,” he was exiled with his entire family to Samos.74
The Governor (voyvoda) of Galata aroused the anger of the sultan for
secretly (gizlice, hafiyyeten) allowing some taverns in the [Princess]
Islands and in Galata to remain in operation. Yet, the sultan warned
that he has his spies in those areas and threatened to kill the official
should he hear about any further transgressions.75
These cases demonstrate another dimension of hiding already noted
before: of officials concealing their doings from their superiors. This
again is not exclusive to the night but darkness certainly made it much
easier. With the streets sunk in darkness, power holders and their
men were freer to engage in the activities they were supposed to
prohibit, to look the other way (often for a bribe), or to abuse their
power. There was little those at the top could do to monitor their
subalterns’ actions at night.
Like his approach to alcohol, so with his attitude to prostitues, the
young sultan seems to have been decisive, impatient, and extremely
naïve about his abilities. The ban on prostitution too, it should be
noted, was not without precedents.76 Like in the case of alcohol, earlier
attempts to eradicate prostitution were short-lived. Like in the case of
alcohol, the sultan did not seem to take this into consideration or
thought that he could succeed where others had failed. The sultan
apparently wanted all prostitutes deported and concentrated in one
area, apparently in the neighborhood of Ağa Kapı. The grand vizier
wrote back saying that deliberations regarding the expulsion of prosti-
tutes has been occupying him for a few days. He noted that there were
many prostitutes and if they were all put in one place, they would
practice their profession there. He later cited the sekbanbaşı who had
said that if all prostitutes were kept in one place, they would have to be
supplied with food and drink. He also expressed concern that such a
concentration of prostitutes will surely “breed evil” among the
janissary officers deployed there to police them.77

The grand vizier therefore suggested that instead of general deport-

ation, “two or three” well-known prostitutes would be executed, and
the rest would be warned [or threatened – ihafe] that if they were
caught again, they would face the same fate. They would be forced
to repent and then released on the condition that they do not walk the
streets again. The same would go for the brothel owners if they
“secretly” try to reopen their establishments. Thus, little by little (refte
refte), out of fear of execution (katl havfiyle), everybody would come
to their senses and prostitution would be diminished.
The difference in approaches comes out very clearly here. Instead of
the unrealistic wish to cleanse the city of fesad in one stroke, the grand
vizier suggests a measure that is likely to reduce prostitution gradually.
The grand vizier’s suggestion seems to acknowledge the limitations of
power. He knows that there are simply too many prostitutes and that
deporting them involves practical problems. His “solution,” while
horrifically violent, seems more cost-effective: his plan assumes that
prostitutes and brothel owners would seek to return to the trade but
suggests that fear would keep them at bay. It is very possible that he
intended to satisfy the sultan with some measure of action hoping that,
with time, the young sultan would grow to understand that some
things are better left in the dark.
In this case, the sultan adopted his vizier’s suggestions but probably
thought “two or three prostitutes” were not enough. Instead, he
wanted five to be executed, and even specified that three of them were
to be hanged in Istanbul, one in Üsküdar on the Asian side of the
Bosporus, and one in Kasımpaşa in the area of Beyoğlu on the
European side. The rest were to repent their sins and then be released,
under pain of death. The grand vizier was to warn the relevant security
officials that if they let even one prostitute slip away, they (the officials)
shall be punished. The sultan went on to order that brothels were to be
put to the torch and the owners executed. He concluded by warning
the grand vizier himself: “implement this imperial order in its entirety
without faults. You will be held accountable (sonra sen bilirsin).”78
Selim believed the reason for the failure of many of the measures he
initiated was the ineffectiveness, carelessness, and corruption of his
officials, and therefore often used such a threatening tone in order to
spur them into action.79 Just as the grand vizier suspected the prosti-
tutes and brothel owners might not abide by the new orders, so did
the sultan suspect that his officials might not carry them out in full.

He therefore emphasized, time and again, that he expected total

enforcement. Fear, then, was to drive hunted and hunters alike.
Operating under such circumstances, it was important for the grand
vizier and his subordinates to demonstrate their efficiency to the impa-
tient ruler.80 In a missive submitted to the sultan, the grand vizier
reported that following the sultan’s orders, the sekbanbaşı was “imme-
diately” (derhal) informed. The latter asked for permission not to go
on patrol (tebdil) that day so that he can manage the operation. That
night five prostitutes were executed and in the morning their bodies
were hanged in Istanbul, Üsküdar and Kasımpaşa. The others were
brought to the Ağa Kapı in groups of three to five, made to vow that
they would not do it again, and then released. “The imperial order,”
wrote the grand vizier, “was implemented.”81 That was only partly
true. The grand vizier in fact rephrased the original decree of the sultan
and omitted reference to the torching of the brothels and the execution
of the owners. He claimed that the sultan’s order was carried out but
remained silent about these measures.
More important for this discussion, it was at night when the prosti-
tutes were arrested and executed. The sekbanbaşı’s men were sup-
posedly imposing nizam on the realm of fesad. The bodies, however,
were shown in broad daylight, for all to see: thus shall be done to those
who break the law. Nobody could hide from the sultan’s eyes,
even at night. This recalls the logic of “dead bodies at dawn” as
discussed in Chapter 2.
If the grand vizier hoped that the sultan would be satisfied with the
measures taken, he was wrong. To sultan wrote to his vizier in
response that if closing down two or three taverns and executing one
or two women takes 20 days of deliberations, he would not be able to
impose order.82 The gap between the sultan’s impatience and the grand
vizier’s protracted and ambivalent implementation was here
made explicit.
In any case, the sultan’s wish with regards to the taverns of the city
was eventually carried out and hundreds of drinking houses of various
kinds were shut down by the authorities.83 Yet, the measures were
soon abandoned, possibly because the war was over, and with it the
state of emergency. It is even more likely that the sultan wanted to
focus his attention on his ambitious plan to reform the army. Taxes on
alcoholic beverages were among the important sources of revenue used
to finance the project.84 Compromises with fesad had to be made.

Rebellion, Again
It is hardly worth repeating here that the sultan’s new army and the
efforts to reorganize the old corps and subject them to a more
demanding disciplinary regime were bitterly opposed in janissary
circles and resentment finally erupted in a revolt in May 1807.85 In
this context, it is important to show how like in the Patrona Halil
rebellion some 80 years earlier, the janissaries made use of the night for
their designs. The rebellion was started by janissary auxiliaries
(yamaks) who were stationed in fortresses along the Bosporus.
On the night of May 24, 1807, auxiliaries from various fortresses
convened in secret. They were concerned by rumors circulating that
they would soon be forced to wear European-style uniform, just
like the soldiery of the nizam-ı cedid army. Underlying this tension
was the yamaks’ fear that they would soon be replaced by nizam-ı
cedid soldiers.86
The next morning, the yamaks convened in Umur Yeri by Hünkar
İskelesi and informed two officers that were sent there to inquire about
their intentions, that they refused to wear the new uniforms. The
encounter deteriorated into a conflict during which the yamaks
attacked the officers, killing one of them. The other one managed to
escape but was later caught and killed. The yamaks then crossed to the
other side and made contact with the janissaries, seeking their support.
Just like in previous cases, the mutiny brewed overnight, and in the
morning, the janissaries’ caldrons were taken out to the Meat Square,
signaling open rebellion.87
The rebellion gathered momentum in the coming days, as more and
more military units and civilians joined the rebels. The rebels, it should
be noted, vowed to maintain a moral conduct, to abstain from alcohol,
and perform the daily prayers. Their leaders imposed strict discipline
and managed to prevent widespread disorder. Night raids are not
described in the sources. According to historian Aysel Yıldız, this was
all meant to bolster the rebels’ legitimacy.88 Given the dubious moral
and religious reputation of the janissaries, it is not surprising that these
efforts included a demonstration of Sunni piety, which matched the
orthodox rhetoric they employed, as noted above.
In an effort to distance the janissaries from the rebellion, the sultan
declared his intention to abolish the nizam-ı cedid and acceded to the
rebels’ demands to execute several high officials they identified with the

reform project. The rebels, however, have lost trust in the sovereign.
Despite all his efforts, Selim III was deposed by the rebels and taken
into custody. His cousin Mustafa was crowned in his stead on May
29, 1807.
Turmoil, however, did not end there. Alemdar Mustafa, the power-
ful governor of Rusçuk, marched on the capital in order to reinstate
Selim and save the nizam-ı cedid project. The reigning sultan managed
to murder Selim but was soon deposed by Alemdar Mustafa. Selim’s
nephew, an ardent supporter of the reforms, was crowned as Mahmud
II and immediately nominated Alemdar Mustafa grand vizier. Alemdar
Mustafa now worked to recreate the nizam-i cedid units and to discip-
line the old corps, which did not improve his already terrible reputa-
tion in janissaries’ circles. In fact, they were determined to kill him.
According to the chronicler Cabi, in one of the evenings of Ramadan
in 1808 (hicri 1223), janissaries started a fire in a shop in Saraçhane,
hoping that the grand vizier would rush there in order to oversee the
extinguishing efforts. They placed gunmen in several shops around
that area and waited. However, since it was a Ramadan night and
the place was a central one, there were still people around and the fire
was soon spotted. People sought help from the nearby security point,
yet the officers, aware of the assassination plan, did not want to help
putting out the fire. The people of the neighborhood then took matters
into their hands and managed to extinguish the fire.89
The incident shows not merely that the janissaries favored the night
for their operations; this, I believe has already been firmly established
above. It shows, more specifically, how they used darkness, and a
combination of overt (arson, shooting) and covert actions in their
struggle against the palace. In this case, the grand vizier was
saved without even knowing he was in danger. But his luck was about
to run out.
The next night, another fire started by arsonists was detected early
and put out. But Istanbul’s sleep was uneasy. Tension was again
building and violence erupted on the following night, November 15,
1808. This was the Night of Power (Tur. leyle-i kadır; Ara. laylat al-
qadr), one of the most important nights of the Islamic calendar. While
the sultan was at the Ayasofya for the teravih prayer, a rumor started
to circulate among the huge crowds in attendance that a fire had
broken out in the janissaries’ headquarters, not far from the mosque,
causing much panic. The chief of the janissaries hastened to the site of

the alleged fire, only to find out that the rumors were baseless. The
good news eased the officials, and the grand vizier, who had performed
the prayers at the adjacent Sultan Ahmed mosque, allowed them to go
back to their homes. All was quiet, or so it appeared.
Yet, the janissaries had other plans for the night. The chronicler implies
that the rumor at the mosque was of the janissaries’ making, possibly
another attempt to execute the plan that had failed two nights earlier. He
uses the same phrase, “false fire” (harika-i kazibe) to refer to both cases
and adds, further, that janissaries at the mosque with concealed weapons
were observed whispering to one another but their intentions remained
unclear.90 Whether or not the rumor was premeditated, the janissaries
were clearly up to something. That night at 7:30, Ottoman time (that is,
about 1:15 a.m., mean time), the captains (ustas) of the janissaries held a
consultation to plan their next moves. They then set out to raid the
palaces of several top officials “collecting additional vile ones along the
way.” It should be noted that this all happened in the dead of night, and
the fact that they are able to enlist people during that time is in itself
indicative of the night-mode capabilities of the corps.
Interestingly, the conspirers decided that in order to recognize each
other at night they would use the sentence “it’s morning” (sabahdır/bir
sabahdır) as a password, to tell fellow janissaries from soldiers of the
new units (sekban) formed by Grand Vizier Alemdar Mustafa. The
choice of the password is not explained but perhaps the counterintui-
tive nature of the password explains its use. Only the conspirators
would be apt to make such a statement at night. Alternatively, the
password may have implied that while for the ordinary folks it was
time to sleep, for the conspirers, it was morning, that is, time to act. In
any case, those who did not know the password were forced to give
away their weapons, and some were even stripped off their clothes.
More than 15 of them were executed.
Soon, members of the grand vizier’s household woke up to shooting
sounds, as janissaries broke in. Intense fighting between the janissaries
and the grand vizier’s guards then followed. When the janissaries
realized they would not be able to overcome the opposition, they set
fire to the house in several places. The grand vizier tried to escape and
took refuge in a gunpowder depot but was encircled by janissaries who
demanded his surrender. To their detriment, Alemdar Mustafa chose
to go with a bang. Blowing up the magazine, the grand vizier took his
own life, along with the lives of many of his enemies.91

The chaos in the capital did not end with the death of Alemdar
Mustafa. As fear of the rebels mounted, writes the chronicler Asım,
people organized in armed groups and took turns patrolling the streets,
and residents even placed lanterns on the four walls of their houses
making that “disastrous night” (leyl-i pür veyli) look like daylight.
People probably assumed that light would help keeping the janissaries
away, which again demonstrates the association of the corps with
darkness.92

“Vile and Contemptible People”

The events of 1807–1808 revealed just how precarious the palace’s
control of the city was, especially at night. Under the cover of darkness,
the janissaries’ shadow army was again able to organize and mount an
attack on the strongholds of official authority. Over the following
years, Sultan Mahmud II gradually established himself on the throne
and even managed to undermine janissary opposition.93 The night,
however, proved harder to subdue.
In one of the nights of early October 1819, a conflict over a prosti-
tute in Galata ignited clashes between janissaries from the 25th and the
75th regiments (sing. ocak). Officers soon arrived at the scene and
separated the two sides but there was an immediate danger that the
hostilities would resume. The grand vizier therefore ordered the chief
of the janissaries that if violence continues, the instigators shall be
punished by their commanders.94 According to a contemporary diary,
a similar conflict erupted three hours after sunset (around 9:20 p.m. in
mean time terms) on February 19, 1820. This time it was men from the
26th regiment who fought the men of the 31st regiment “over a
woman,” most probably a prostitute. The fight involved pistols, rifles,
and knives and lasted to the following day, leaving dozens of
casualties.95
In early October 1820, the Russian ambassador and his household
members were alarmed by a group of drunk garrison guards (yamaks)
who gathered in front of the house in Büyükdere two hours after sunset
(around 8:45 p.m. mean time). They made “terrible and frightening
noise, like madmen,” (meczuplar gibi sada-yı enker ve dehşet-engiz
kopararak) as though they were readying for battle. A janissary guard
that was stationed at the ambassador’s house rushed outside upon
hearing the noise, as did the ambassador himself. He saw one of the

irregulars shooting a pistol at the house and another slitting the throat
of one of the janissaries, who was trying to defend the ambassador.
The attackers managed to escape but one of them was captured by the
janissaries and kept in the house. The ambassador then sent word to
the commander of the nearest garrison, probably in the hope that he
would rein in the men. However, before the latter could reach the
ambassador’s house, the attackers returned with reinforcements, now
numbering some 50 men. They demanded that their captured friend be
released and when refused, broke into the house. It was then that the
commander of the garrison arrived at the scene and the ambassador
“was forced” to hand over the captive. It appears that the attackers
then left and the household members went to sleep. The memo, from
which we learn about the incident, was dictated to the embassy’s chief
scribe at dawn and dispatched before sunrise to the Ottoman chief
scribe, who was responsible for interaction with foreign delegates.96
We do not know anything about the background of this attack. We
do not know why the ambassador’s house was targeted and what the
yamaks’ objective was. Even so, several points are worthy of attention.
First, the incident exposes again one of the most pressing problems of
the Ottoman authorities in the early nineteenth century, and especially
at night: security forces did not always enhance security. Under the
cover of night, soldiers could promote their own agendas and their
superiors were often very limited in what they could do to impose
discipline in real time. Second, the incident reveals the advantages of
militaries and paramilitaries in the Early Modern night. The yamaks
here rely not only on their weapons and skill in using them, but also on
the military structure and the solidarity among unit members that
allows them to amass a great number of men at a time when most
residents shut themselves in. Third, the commanding ofﬁcer arrives
only after the violence has already ended, and rather than discipline
his men he basically follows them in demanding that the captured
yamak would be released. Only when this happens do the men leave
the premises, bringing the incident to an end.
Violence seems to have worsened after the outbreak of the Greek
revolt in February 1821. In 1823, Sultan Mahmud II was irritated by
the deterioration of security in the neighborhoods of Tahtakale and
Kapan-ı Dakik [in intramural Istanbul]. “Vile and contemptible
people,” he wrote in a missive to the grand vizier, were going around
these areas at night, shooting pistols and riﬂes, and robbing

passersby.97 Unlike in the cases cited above, in this case, janissary

involvement was not explicitly mentioned. But it was strongly implied.
It is definite, stated the sultan, that most of the offenders were rowers,
porters, and members of other guilds. The wharves in Istanbul, it
should be noted, were controlled by different janissary regiments.
The warden of each wharf was usually a janissary officer and was in
charge of the porters working in that wharf. Most of the porters were
janissaries’ affiliates, waiting to become full members.98 The sultan
was surely aware of those affiliations. In any case, he was frustrated
that the violence could not be stopped. With guards placed in “every
corner” of the city, he continued, this should not be allowed to
happen. The chief of the janissaries was to summon the heads of the
relevant guilds and order them to have the offenders punished
“according to the guilds’ ways” (bu makule edenhleri esnaf usulunca
terbiye edip). Those who would refuse the guild’s sanctions were to be
expelled from the guild.99
The palace gradually grew more determined to crush janissary
opposition. Already, in the early 1810s, Mahmud II began taking
actions to undermine the janissaries and their support base. He grad-
ually eliminated the leaders of the 1807 revolt, razed down bachelor
inns, spread anti-janissary propaganda, appointed loyalists to com-
mand the corps in an attempt to bring it to heel, and used a widespread
network of informers to get a sense of the word on the street. In
parallel, the sultan secured the support of the high ulema and con-
tinued to strengthen military units not affiliated with the janissaries,
namely the artillery, the navy, and the bombardiers. Once he felt secure
enough, he announced another military reform, knowing all too well
that the janissaries would not sit still.100 This time, however, the palace
was ready.

The Final Act

Like in previous rebellions, the last janissary revolt gained traction at
night, as per the unwritten protocol of the corps. According to Esad
Efendi, the court chronicler who composed the “ofﬁcial” history of the
“auspicious event,” as it came to be called, the janissaries started to
group in the hippodrome (at meydanı) after sunset “like stray dogs.”
They waited and invited more “pigs” and around midnight, sent
people to summon higher ofﬁcers. “Water sleeps but the enemy does

not,” says the chronicler, conveying a feeling of threat that is con-

stantly brewing in the dark. Indeed, like in accounts on earlier revolts,
there is a very stark contrast between the nocturnal activity or hyper-
activity of the janissaries in the streets and the retreat of the ofﬁcial
leaders of the empire into the safety and comfort of their homes.
According to Esad Efendi, the “frightening news” about the mutiny
woke “all statesmen and notables from their peaceful sleep.” He cites
in this context a couplet from the Basran poet Muhammad bin Ḥāzim
_
al-Bāhilı̄ (d. 810) who wrote: “Oh you who go to sleep at night, happy
at its beginning/Events may come knocking on your door at dawn.”101
Again like earlier accounts, Esad Eefendi’s chronicle describes the
actions taken by the janissaries under the cover of darkness, all of
which would be known by now, and need not be repeated here.102
I would like to focus instead on the systematic effort of the chronic-
ler to couple the sultan and the Sharia with light, on the one hand, and
the janissaries and their heresy with darkness, on the other. As shown
above, this framing of the struggle between the palace of the janissaries
went back at least to the 1730s. Esad Efendi, however, made much
more frequent use of such oppositions essentially turning his narrative
into a triumph of light of darkness.
The sultan and the Ottoman state/dynasty was repeatedly presented
as a dispenser of light that was ultimately divine. The author referred,
for instance, to “the sun of world, the light of the exalted state/dynasty
of the Ottomans, may God make it eternal.”103 The light the Ottomans
brought was God’s word as represented in the Sharia, in keeping with
“orthodox” imageries of illumination.104 In the Base of Victory, it was
not only the Ottoman dynasty in general, but the reigning sultan in
person that dispenses and “shines” the light of Islam.105 This light
binds together ruler and ruled. According to the narrative, when the
sultan’s banner was taken out of the palace to signal that the ruler was
going to face the rebels, heralds were sent everywhere calling “let the
Muslims gather under the banner of felicity and shine with the lights of
obedience to the leader of the Muslims.”106
The use of such metaphors of illumination to associate the monarch
with Islam was standard in Ottoman court literature.107 Yet, the Base
of Victory makes these metaphors shine brighter against the darkness-
related metaphors reserved for the janissaries. Throughout the narra-
tive, the author depicts the janissaries as low-born “bandits” and
“drunkards” who foment evil, “mischief” and heresy, thus presenting

them as socially, morally, politically, and religiously subversive. For

example, the author refers to “the leaders of the Bektaşi bandits (or the
bandits of the Bektaşi order – eşkiya-ı bektaşiye) as the “source of the
seditious acts.”108 Elsewhere the rebels are described marching with
“those axe-at-hand-drunk-heretic rascals named Bektaşis (bektâşî
nâmıyla teber-ber-dest mülhid-i bed-mest gidiler ile).”109 Further down
the text, they are smeared for “openly” eating and drinking wine
during Ramadan in “their tavern-like” tekkes, for not performing the
obligatory prayers, and for

Allowing all kinds of mischief and shameful acts (envâ’-ı fücûr

u fezâhatı bi’l-istihlâl) . . . Even in their night of mourning in the 10th
of Muharrem, which is one of their pervert ceremonies (âyîn-i dalâlet-
karînlerinden), at the end of the drinking parties of debauch they call
‘ayn-i cem (ʿayn-ı cemʿ taʿbîr etdikleri bezm-i fısk-cezmlerinde), they
get drunk and recite gazels without meter or meaning.110

As shown throughout this book, even without the direct reference to

the night, all activities described here, from banditry to drinking,
including the evocation of the libel of ritual orgies (“snuffing the
candle”) – implied here by “shameful acts” and “pervert ceremonies” –
were all intimately connected with the night. But the association of the
janissaries with darkness is more straight-forward than that. Referring
to a janissary officer by name of Habib who was “a firewood spreading
the sparks of the evil of the corps” the chronicler says that “the wind
that blows incitement and foments sedition” might extinguish “the
burning lantern of the sun.” In this case, however, it was light that
overcame sedition.111 The separation of the different functions of fire is
noteworthy. The janissaries are mentioned in relation to the destructive
potential of fire, while the sultan and his high officials are repeatedly
identified with its beneficial aspects, namely light and to a lesser extent,
warmth. This metaphorical use of fire recalls the elite’s efforts to use
massive amounts of carefully organized light to project order, and
janissary use of fire to subvert that order.
Often, the contrast between light and darkness is made explicitly,
serving to bolster the ruler and delegitimize, even dehumanize his
opposition: “The Ottoman dynasty, may it last with the help of God,
giving light everywhere, and in every direction like the sun of light,
drives away the darkness of idolatry and sins . . . they were the east of
the light of Islam in the countries of east and west, over land and sea.”

Yet, the author goes on, due to corruption of the janissaries over the
years “the darkness of the invasion of the enemies stained some
places.”112
If in the above quote the janissaries allow darkness in, in other
places, they themselves are dark. In one point “the sun-faced sultan
(zât-ı hümâyûn-ı âfitâb-dîdârları)” is described as he awaits news
regarding the defeat of the “bandits of dark deeds and wicked fortune
(eşkıyâ-i siyeh-kâr u tebeh-rûzgârın).”113 In another place, the author
refers to the janissaries, by citing the Quran: “They try to extinguish
God’s light with their mouth, but God insists on bringing His light to
its fullness even if the disbelievers hate it” (Quran 9:32).114 He goes on
to say that “they dreamt of extinguishing the sun-candle that illumin-
ates the religion of revelation.”115 This may be yet another attempt to
conjure up images of “candle extinguishing,” thereby pitching again
dangerous, perverted heretic practices against the pious ruler and his
divinely guided orthodox order.
Throughout the narrative, then, Esad Efendi seeks to frame the
conflict not only as a political struggle, but as a religious war between
a rightly guided, Sunni sultan and a bunch of lowly, unruly heretics,
who are ignorant of the Sharia or, worse still, actively trying to
undermine it. Their actions are presented as attacks on Islam itself,
which is exclusively identified with the Sharia.116 The tension between
antinomian streams, most notably the Bektaşis, and orthodox Islam is
turned into a zero-sum game, in sharp contrast to the relations between
antinomian and more orthodox streams of Islam in earlier periods of
Ottoman history. Metaphors of light and darkness lent themselves
naturally to such dichotomist portrayal and indeed, the author exploits
their potential to the full. In his use, light and darkness are not merely
opposing entities that coexist and, together, make a whole. Rather,
darkness actively tries to overcome light, against the will of God, and
therefore, it cannot be allowed to stand. The forces of darkness must
be overcome.

Cleansing, Again
The eradication of the janissaries was accompanied by yet another
attempt to cleanse the city of “mischief.” The nightlife scene was to
receive another blow. A decree, sent by the grand vizier for the
approval of the sultan in the summer of 1826, shows how the mode

of thinking that guided the author of the Base of Victory, translated

into policy, or at least helped to justif it. The decree wrapped together
the janissaries, the Bektaşis, and alcohol, presenting them all as a threat
to urban, moral, and religious order, a threat that had to be removed.
The Grand Vizier Mehmed Selim Sırrı Paşa (in office 1824–1828)
argued in the document that the sale of alcoholic beverages like wine
and ʿaraq, that was supposed to be limited to the non-Muslims
according to the Sharia, in fact, expanded well beyond that population.
The document basically repeated the claim made in the 1790s decrees
according to which alcohol consumption spread from the few taverns
that had been allowed to remain open when all other taverns were
closed in 1689, and again in 1730. Yet, unlike in Selim’s decree and in
Ahmed Cavid’s account, in the new decree, the janissaries were blamed
for the spread of alcohol consumption. The officers of the “abolished
corps,” it was explained, did not care for the religious aspect (diyanet
tarafını göz etmeyip), and since they received revenue from the taverns,
they permitted more and more such establishments to be opened.
According to the document, there were now more than 500 taverns
throughout greater Istanbul. Alcohol was also sold secretly in khans
and local grocery shops (bakkals).117
It has already been suggested that as long as drinking was done in
the dark, out of sight, the authorities usually turned a blind eye. It was
when alcohol consumption became too public and the violation of the
law became flagrant, that the state intervened. This rationale is clearly
evident here as well. The grand vizier reasoned that non-Muslims
would go in and out the taverns, that were operating every day,
“without fear or manners.” Muslims “without honor” too would enter
the taverns, “daring to engage in forbidden acts openly” (alenen irti-
kab-ı menhiyat cesaret etmek). People would walk the streets com-
pletely drunk and permits to open taverns were sold illegally, and no
penalties were inflicted.118
The document has an obvious Nakşıbandi-Mücedidi tone. Not only
is the honor of the Sharia repeatedly evoked; the sultan is referred to as
the “the imam of the Muslim and the renewer of the true religion,” a
title that was much favored in Nakşıbandi-Mücedidi circles. Opposing
the pious ruler and his divinely sanctioned order were the janissaries,
who are the “cause . . . of all evils and mischief” and the heretic
Bektaşis, presented as “the site of disobedience and illicit acts.” In
crushing them, Mahmud was performing the sultan’s duty to “enjoin

the good and forbid the evil.” Now that the enemies of the faith have
been crushed, the sale of alcohol, “the mother of all sins,” shall not be
left to continue as it has in the past. All alcohol selling establishments
were to be shut down, leaving only one or two in each neighborhood
where non-Muslims were concentrated. Non-Muslims were not to
drink “inconsiderately” (bi-edibane) and Muslims were to be pre-
vented from frequenting the taverns that would remain in operation.
The illegal sale of permits would be discontinued, and violators shall be
punished according to the Sharia. In this way, “the seat of the caliphate
will be purified from these sins.”
Here again we see that the clampdown on the taverns was not
perceived as a mere act of law enforcement but as one of moral
cleansing. The grand vizier obviously thought that considerations of
moral and urban order should trump economic considerations. It
would be remembered that tax revenues from taverns directly sup-
ported law enforcement officials and their men. The memo specified
the way the collection of revenue was to change in order to prevent loss
of revenue (and probably, resentment among those officials who relied
on it). Yet, even in the face of a decrease in tax income, it was said, the
honor of the Sharia should be upheld.119
The document therefore represents yet another attempt to do away
with the pragmatism that has characterized Ottoman approach to
alcohol consumption. Here, more than in any of the decrees issued
by Selim III, the rhetoric is pious, yet, here too, it is considerations of
public order and stability, rather than abstract religious principles, that
guide the policymakers. The sultan’s response is telling in this regard.
He accepted that the spread of taverns increased “various kinds of
mischief” and approved the move against the taverns, yet he was
clearly more interested in eradicating the tavern scene because it had
been janissary kingdom. About a year after the closure of the taverns,
tavern owners appealed to the government requesting permission to
reopen their businesses and pledging to pay a much higher tax than
they had paid in the past. The superintendent of the alcohol tax
recommended the granting of their request and the serasker passed
the recommendation to the sultan, probably deeming it desirable. The
sultan approved, noting that the closure of the taverns “was only
intended to prevent some conflicts” (mücerred bazı munazaanın zuhur-
una bais olmaması için idi).120 Once the immediate threat of the
janissaries had been removed, pragmatic, economic considerations

again guided Ottoman policies. Strict moralists may have been disap-
pointed but in the newly opened taverns, drinkers probably rejoiced,
maybe even proposed a toast to the life of the sultan.121

Dead Janissaries Haunting

Even after thousands of janissaries have been massacred and the corps
was officially abolished, the government continued to fear popular
disorder and continued its actions against janissaries who managed
to escape and “suspect” populations of itinerants and especially
porters and boaters, whose well-known affiliation with the corps was
already noted above. In the provinces, the abolition of the corps
generally went unchallenged but, in some places, significant resistance
was registered, fanning government fears of further janissary-lead
disorder. In Istanbul too, popular discontent with the sultan’s policies
continued to threaten the palace.122 In short, the ghost of the janissar-
ies as a counter-hegemonic, popular force, and powerful group identity
continued to haunt the sultan and his men long after the bodies of the
janissaries were collected from the streets of Istanbul.
In October 1833, the Ottoman Official Gazette published a rather
curious report, allegedly sent by the kadı of Tirnova in Bulgaria.
According to the account, some supernatural beings attacked houses
“after sunset,” mixing foodstuffs together and filling them with dirt,
scattering objects, and throwing stones, pots, and jugs at people.
A baby was reportedly pulled out from his mother’s bed and was
found near the room’s door. These events scared the residents of two
neighborhoods away from their homes and caused much fear through-
out town. As the occurrences were unprecedented, the people agreed
that they were caused by invisible witches known as cadı (cadı ded-
ikleri ervah-ı khabiʾe).123 Some of the typical characteristics of noctur-
nal fears are present here: the invisibility of the threat and its
association with disorder (manifested in the objects moving out of
place and the foodstuffs mixing with one another), and the threat they
posed to sleeping, defenseless people, and especially infants.124
The local residents sought the help of local authorities and with the
permission of the governor, a local exorcist (cadıcı) by the name of
Nicola was hired. He arrived at the local graveyard accompanied by a
great multitude to identify the graves from which the witch-ghosts had
arisen. The exorcist singled out the graves of two “bandit” (şekavet-pişe)

janissaries – who, during their lifetime, had engaged in all kinds of

mischief (fesad) from pillage to murder – as the source of trouble.
When the graves were opened, the crowd saw that the bodies in them
did not rot but rather increased in size. Their hair and nails grew
longer, and their eyes were full of blood. This all showed that the evil
spirits of the janissaries still inhabited their bodies. The exorcist tried
sticking a stake in the dead bodies, a tested way of annihilating ghosts
and witches,125 but this seems to have not produced the desired result.
The evil spirits of the janissaries continued to harass the good people of
Tirnova. The exorcist then ruled that the bodies had to be burned and,
once the permission of the chief mufti had been obtained, the deed was
done. The people of Tirnova were ﬁnally rid of the dead janissaries.
This curious incident was in fact fake news. It seems that as part of
the palace-lead war to eradicate even the remains of the corps, many
janissaries’ tombstones were smashed, either on the sultan’s direct
orders or by enthusiastic supporters. Although the matter is still
debated by historians, it is possible to say, at the very least, that claims
regarding the systematic smashing of tombstones appeared in foreign
observers’ accounts as early as the 1830s. Historian Edhem Eldem
notes that some of these observers explicitly argued that in order to
justify the wide campaign against the tombstones, which must have
raised reservations among the people, the sultan’s people spread stories
about janissaries turning into vampires at night.126 For example, in his
1838 travel account, English architect and artist Thomas Allom
(1804–1872) argued that the great damage evident in one of the
graveyards in the capital, which he claimed was untypical of an
Ottoman burying place, was the result not of negligence but of
“design.” He goes on to say that

When the janissaries were extirpated, the vengeance of the Sultan

pursued them even to their tombs. Many of them were reported to
be vampires, their graves were opened, and their bodies pinned to the
earth by stakes, to prevent their rising to suck the blood of the faithful
while all the emblems that appeared above ground, to designate them,
were destroyed. The stones that marked their graves were distin-
guished by their turbans. Even these were decapitated, and the marble
heads cast about the ground, where they now lie.127

Darkness, then, was not only a threat to the authorities. In this case (as
in the case of the “snufﬁng the candle” libel), it served those in power

to “blacken” real or potential opposition. When it came to janissaries,

the palace now wanted to convince the people, you cannot be certain
even when they are dead and buried. True to their treacherous nature,
they return to haunt and attack innocent civilians, just as they had
done when they were alive.
If the janissaries and their evil spirits are the fomenters of nocturnal
evil and chaos, the sultan and his order are of the day. At the end of the
same account, the town’s inhabitants, whose “hatred of the janissaries
has multiplied” following the events, are quoted thanking and praising
the sultan for ridding them of the janissaries. They reportedly
addressed the sultan as “the shadow of God, who shines everywhere,
bright and clear like the sun.”128 The sultan’s light therefore triumphed
over the forces of darkness one last time.

Conclusion
As shown throughout this book, the nights of Istanbul were populated
by the urban underclass and dominated by the janissaries, who used it
for profit, pleasure, and political subversion. Darkness, in other words,
was the janissaries’ best friend. Yet, it should be recognized that it also
served the palace by saving its face. After all, the janissaries were
supposed to be the subordinates and the sultan, and their insubordin-
ation did not reflect positively on the authority of the latter. Just as the
janissaries, for the most part, sought to avoid direct conflict, so did the
palace. Darkness not only served tactical purposes (by facilitating
infiltration, surprise attacks, and so on); it also allowed both sides to
engaged in a struggle on a limited scope, without escalating it to
catastrophe the results of which neither side could predict. It was only
when the janissaries and their allies (as in 1807), or the palace felt
confident enough, that this semi-covert struggle turned into open war-
fare. The decisive victory of the palace in 1826, ended this undeclared
war once and for all and opened the door to a series of changes that
gradually reshaped the night in Istanbul, and later in other cities
as well.

It would seem that with the reopening of the taverns in 1827, every-
thing was back to normal. The night in the capital assumed its old,
familiar form, allowing what the day forbade. But, with the eradication
of the janissaries and the final marginalization of the Bektaşis, the
forces that had pushed back against the incursion of sultanic authority
into the night and kept it as a space of ambivalence and ambiguity, but
also of much violence and insecurity, were finally gone. The night
would now be gradually colonized by an increasingly centralizing
government promoting more orthodox Islam.1
Already in the years immediately following the massacre of the
janissaries, the government began to tighten its grip over the night.2
In 1845, in the wake of a major crime wave, the government drafted
new regulations that not only stipulated stricter enforcement of per-
sonal carrying of lanterns but also announced a general curfew, which
was lifted soon thereafter.3 The first street lights, burning oil, were
installed in Pera in 1847. Gas lighting was introduced in 1856 and the
network gradually expanded, providing better security and allowing
for new, public forms of nighttime entertainment.4 The Galata Bridge,
connecting intramural Istanbul to the nightlife hub of Galata and Pera,
would be closed for traffic at night. Over the next decades, regulations
limiting drinking to the early hours of the evening were also introduced
and enforced. At the same time, urban policing was being centralized
and systematized.5 Similar measures, from street lighting to closing
times, were introduced in provincial cities, including Jerusalem, in the
last third of the nineteenth century.6 While nocturnal security remained
a major challenge,7 the government no longer faced organized oppos-
ition such as the janissaries and could claim direct control over the city
at night, with varying degrees of success. Economic globalization, and
in particular, the 1838 Anglo-Ottoman treaties that increased
European economic activity in the empire, contributed in various ways
to the expansion of a Europeanized nightlife scene.8

240

Yet, remnants of the nocturnal reality of the long eighteenth century

lingered long after its major protagonists had been eliminated or
simply died out, much like the dead janissaries’ ghosts that continued
to haunt the people of Tirnova (see Chapter 7). In the illuminated hubs
of Ottoman cities, new modes of public nighttime entertainment
developed, but these did not take the place of the old, darkened
nightlife scene. Rather, the two modes coexisted for many decades.
Likewise, the new ways of seeing through the darkness that were
devised by the state developed alongside (rather than instead of )
well-established patterns of communal gaze. Old anxieties about the
dissolution of the moral order after dark also persisted, and probably
intensiﬁed, as lighting not only contributed to the expansion of the
nightlife scene but made it more visible.9
The culprits accused of nocturnal immorality did change, however.
With Bektaşis and janissaries gone, and with European power and the
threat of actual or symbolic colonization stronger than ever before,
hegemonic moralistic discourse shifted the responsibility (or blame) for
such nocturnal activities as drinking, gambling, and illicit sex from the
“others within,” namely janissaries, antinomian Suﬁs, indigenous non-
Muslim populations, and the urban underclass, to “others without,”
that is, Europeans and Levantines. Thus, while nightlife was claimed
by some Ottomans as integral to urban modernity, it was disowned
by others as foreign to the Ottoman, Islamic, or Turkish way of life.
As actual light and enlightenment discourse, along with orthodoxy and
“progress” gradually took over city centers and intellectual life, con-
servative writers and leaders doubled their efforts to bury the ambiva-
lence and ambiguity that had once resided in the dark, in the cemetery
of collective memory.10

Although it is by now long gone, the night of the long eighteenth

century offers valuable insights about Early Modern mechanisms of
rule, urban life, center–periphery relations, and more. One signiﬁcant
point is the multifaceted relations between the body politic and human
bodies. By this, I do not mean merely the relations between the real and
symbolic body of the monarch, but rather the way very real bodies of
common subjects worked together with the political system to uphold
public order and morality. This is true even today (civilians still call the

police to report crimes) but was much more straightforward prior to

the mechanization, bureaucratization, and digitization of surveillance.
Before identity cards and fingerprints; before police records and
CCTV; before PRISM and face recognition, the state sensed through
the senses of its subjects and often acted with their arms. Bound by
mutual surety, residents of Ottoman cities were encouraged to keep an
eye on the conduct of their neighbors and bar outsiders from entering
their neighborhood. When they spotted irregularities, they either called
security officials or organized a “neighborhood raid,” which was often
followed by a lawsuit in the local court. The people and the state
collaborated in sensing and eliminating threats to public order and
morality, which were usually considered as one and the same thing.
Christopher Otter argues that the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries witnessed the rise of “coercive and asymmetrical” visual
regimes, which were nevertheless not panoptic.11 The current work
shows that such visual regimes, which in the Ottoman Empire
developed even earlier, were much less effective after dark. For many,
this relative ineffectiveness was a mixed blessing. Darkness allowed
evading or even violating economic, sociopolitical, and religious hier-
archies and, at the same time, made these very same violations toler-
able, as they did not challenge hegemony directly and, in some
significant ways, even served it.
Economically, the night created optimal conditions for illegal trade,
hidden from the collective supervision of guilds. In Jerusalem, such
trade was much harder to engage in since the city, fully encircled with
high walls, was completely sealed off from the outside world at night.
Istanbul was an entirely different story. Not only was it much bigger;
large areas of the city were not surrounded by walls, and the water-
ways (the Bosporus and the Golden Horn), which would have been
completely bleak on moonless nights and very hard to monitor,
allowed reaching the very heart of the city rather easily. Moreover,
the authorities may have facilitated this trade by turning a blind eye, as
it helped to ease the pressures caused by frequent shortages of
basic commodities.
In terms of its social profile, the night belonged to the underprivil-
eged. First, the night offered livelihood opportunities that more estab-
lished populations would normally decline, because of the disruption
of sleep they entailed, low compensation, and, in some cases, dubious
reputation. Weaker populations, and especially migrants, had no

choice but to take whatever job they could find, hence their gravitating
toward the dark hours. Second, the lapse of surveillance mechanisms
allowed such transient, automatically suspect populations more leeway
to move through the city without attracting attention, and engage in
activities that were both illegal and heavily stigmatized. No evidence of
anything equivalent was found for Jerusalem and here again, it would
seem that the relative ease with which the city could be shut down,
combined with the much more limited revenue nightlife in such a small
city could yield, worked to discourage the development of such a scene.
Yet, it was not only the socially marginal who enjoyed a nightcap,
and it was not the lack of knowledge about the nightlife scene that
allowed it to flourish. Even more than in the case of illegal trade, the
state and some of its highest officials, had a vested – and sometimes
personal – interest in the nightlife scene. The forces charged with
enforcing order drew their salaries, not to mention bribes, from the
taverns and brothels they were supposed to police and, therefore,
hardly wished them closed. The patrons, many of them Muslims for
whom alcohol consumption was strictly forbidden, had their own
interest in the perpetuation of the scene, and its remaining out of
sight. The closest modern equivalent is probably the online porn indus-
try, which allows millions around the world to consume “indecent”
contents invisibly, without jeopardizing their respectability. It often
involves abuse and is heavily stigmatized, but it generates huge
amounts of money, which keeps the wheels of the industry going,
despite frequent critiques. Everybody knows it is there; everybody
knows it is huge; few would openly identify themselves as clients. It
is an industry shrouded in metaphorical darkness. In the eighteenth
century, darkness was real, but it served much the same purposes.
After dark, the state and many of its subjects could benefit from what
in broad daylight they would all denounce. Whether this was a mani-
festation of healthy flexibility, the Ottoman famous “pragmatism,” or
simply institutionalized double-standard is probably in the eyes of
the beholder.
Or maybe this was exactly what the night allowed: a second stand-
ard, a set of norms that was different than that of the day. As shown in
Chapter 4, the ambivalence and ambiguity that were characteristic of
the night ran much deeper than economic interest or the need to hide.
Darkness not only allowed but indeed encouraged activities, behaviors,
and interpretations that stretched orthodox prescriptions beyond

recognition or violated them completely. Such violations were not

limited to antinomian groups, such as the Bektaşis, but were rather
integral to drinking gatherings across the social spectrum. It would
probably be exaggerated to speak of diurnal and nocturnal Islam,
but it is clear that the night was conducive to the unorthodox.
From a Bakhtinian perspective, however, the social night was
crucial for upholding diurnal hierarchies, exactly because of their
momentary relaxation.
Again, it is questionable to what extent Jerusalem shared this noc-
turnal relaxation, ambivalence, and ambiguity. Toward the end of his
book What is Islam? Shahab Ahmed raises the question of the import-
ance of the “School of Love” in the premodern Arab world, as opposed
to what he calls the Balkans-to-Bengal complex, where the influence of
this “school” was immense. Although he argues that “the values of
ambiguity, ambivalence and contradiction . . . are also abundantly
present in the Arabic discourses of Muslims before the emergence of
the Balkans-to-Bengal complex” and that they “remained present in
these societies down to the advent of the modern,” he seems to
acknowledge that these currents were less prevalent and influential
here than in other parts of the Islamic world. Much more work is
needed, but at this point we may speculate that it was not only the wall
and the size of the population that circumscribed nocturnal life in
Jerusalem; it is possible that local society and culture was less accom-
modating to the practices and interpretations fundamental to the
School of Love.
These conclusions bring up the relation between night time and
space, as they materialized in city walls throughout the Ottoman
Middle East and beyond. With their gates closed every evening at
sunset, walls made the very same movements that animated the night
of the capital, very difficult.12 The benefit of the wall was of course
much higher levels of security and control over trade, public order, and
morality. While it is commonly assumed that the farther from the
center, the looser state control becomes, comparing nighttime in
Istanbul and Jerusalem reveals an opposite picture: after-dark life in
the remote town was much more strictly controlled than that in
the capital.
Examined from this perspective, it is no wonder that in many
Ottoman cities, walls remained intact until the eighteenth and even
nineteenth centuries. The expansion of cities beyond their walls was

accompanied, and probably encouraged, by the expansion of city life

into the night.13 The economic interest of private business owners and
the imperial and municipal authorities’ hunger for tax revenues fueled
this double expansion, which, in turn, drew more people out into the
night. In Jerusalem, new neighborhoods began to be built outside the
walls only around the mid-nineteenth century. The residents of the new
neighborhoods still preferred to pass the night in the security of the
walled city. Yet, within only two decades, the spatial expansion outside
the walls entailed the expansion of city life into the night and by the
early 1870s, the main gate of Jerusalem’s walls was left open through-
out the night. In the late 1880s, street lighting was introduced, albeit in
a gradual, piecemeal manner.14
Most narratives of the introduction of street lighting in Europe and
North America, starting in the late seventeenth century, document an
amalgam of political and economic factors that pushed the project
forward, despite its high costs and in the face of occasional opposition
to lighting taxes and the challenging of natural order. In the case of
Ottoman Istanbul, economic interests probably worked to keep the
city in the dark. It is otherwise difficult to explain why the Ottomans
did not adapt systematic lighting before the mid-nineteenth century,
although they have always been open to technological, organizational,
and military innovations, from firearms to mechanical clocks, from
maps to water pumps. The openness to European knowledge within
the elite increased in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries,
effecting the introduction of many more innovations. Street lighting
was not one of them, despite the seeming interest, on the side of the
palace, to better control the city at night and although the elite was by
then without doubt aware of the progress made in Europe in this
regard. The city’s huge nightlife sector was a major source of revenue
for the state and provided income to high- and low-ranking officials
alike. Illuminating the scene would literally shed light on moral, eco-
nomic, and political compromises that were more comfortable in the
dark. It was only in the completely different settings of the tanzimat
reforms, that street lighting was finally introduced.
While economic, social, and political hierarchies were at least partly
eclipsed at night, gender hierarchies were impregnable and were even
more strictly enforced than during the day. The subalterns of the
household, and especially women, could hope to elude community
surveillance once outside, but slipping out and returning back home

undetected was a different story. After sunset, then, the city turned into
an almost all-male space, and all “respectable” women were conﬁned
to the domicile. Even the quality of sleep of women was likely to be
negatively affected by gender hierarchies within the household as
women were expected to take care of the needs of their spouses and
children at night. Patriarchy, it transpires, never sleeps. Due to the
impairment of surveillance mechanisms, women were more vulnerable
even at home. Victims of domestic violence were in the worst situation;
locked in with their aggressors, they were completely helpless.
It was shown that there were great differences between nocturnal
realities in Istanbul and Jerusalem on almost every level. What about
the mass majority of the population, who lived outside cities? This
work said almost nothing about night in the countryside and not
because it is impossible to say something meaningful about it, but
rather because of the limited scope. Various sources, from court
records to travel accounts allow examining questions of nocturnal
security and even leisure in Ottoman villages.15 Religious minorities
were only crudely treated and they too deserve much more elaborate
discussions, not least because of their involvement in alcohol retail,
which fueled the nightlife scene, at least in Istanbul. These groups must
await further research.
Other than comparing Istanbul to Jerusalem, this book repeatedly
juxtaposed Ottoman and European realities and demonstrated signiﬁ-
cant commonalities, which testify powerfully to the far-reaching
impact of darkness in its own right. European and Ottomans shared
nocturnal fears and dangers and often used similar measures to cope
with them. They also made use of darkness in similar ways for spiritual
purposes, illicit entertainment, sexual exploits, criminal activity, and
political subversion. Rulers tried to counter such threats relying on
similar methods, most notably by restricting free movement and for-
cing self-lighting and, at the same time, used real and metaphoric light
to augment their legitimacy. Yet, these commonalities were gradually
eroded during the period under discussion. Europe increasingly
employed new material means to cope with some of those ancient
nocturnal challenges. Whereas middle and upper class English people
invested growing amounts of money in furnishing specialized bed-
chambers, sleeping technology in the Ottoman Empire remained rela-
tively simple. While in Europe, sleep time was gradually delayed until
later at night, at least among the elites, in the Ottoman Empire this

“nocturnalization” was more limited even in palace circles. Whereas

European cities began deploying streetlights, Ottoman rulers clang to
community-based mechanisms of order, under imperial oversight.
Changes were introduced, for example, in the elaboration of mutual-
surety networks, surveillance practices, and legal and administrative
procedures, but the night remained beyond the effective control of the
government as long as the janissaries were around. Differences were
noted also on the ideological level. Whereas in Europe Enlightenment
discourse began to change metaphoric uses of light, in the Ottoman
Empire parallel changes were only beginning to appear in the early
nineteenth century, and really gained momentum only with the
tanzimat reforms from the late 1830s onward.

Any discussion of the future of the night should be grounded in its past.
The constantly connected, illuminated, and bustling world of the
twenty-ﬁrst century exerts tremendous pressures on humans, eroding
their privacy, ﬂattening relations, and undermining sleep. The Early
Modern night presents a radically different reality, where the night was
a time of seclusion, a time when people could be legitimately inaccess-
ible to others. That is, if they had a home, and were not subject to the
authority of others. Indeed, we should not romanticize this reality, nor
idealize the quality of sleep it provided. While our bedrooms are
certainly being invaded by online work, shopping, gaming, video
streaming, and social media, we should not imagine that the past
offered calm, stress-free nights. While hyper-illumination is indeed a
problem, the solution cannot be simply to shut down the lights, as done
in some cities in Europe and the United States in order to reduce public
spending.16 As emphasized time and again throughout this book, a
dark urban environment has had a negative effect on the more physic-
ally vulnerable elements of society, especially women. We must make
sure that the darker and dark-sensitive nights of the future will not
deny particular populations access to the night, nor put them at greater
risk. In short, if the history of the night has anything to offer us, it is a
range of past nocturnal experiences and the caution with which to
examine their relevance for our future.
There is a growing consensus that, because of the carbon emissions
involved in the provision of public lighting, and the negative effects of

light pollution on humans and other species, we need to dim down the
lights (that is, of course, if they are not turned off altogether by a
sweeping environmental catastrophe). We need to reacquaint ourselves
with darkness, to become dark-sensitive. Just like after the designation
of natural reserves outside the cities, there grew an awareness of the
importance of “urban nature,” so do we need to make room for more
urban darkness. This understanding has been developing over the last
two decades, as attested to by legislation and regulation efforts in some
countries, and the designations of dark-sky reserves.17 Promoting this
agenda further calls for sustained legislation and regulation, not only
in Europe, where these efforts are mostly concentrated, but in other
illuminated areas around the world. Yet, legal action is not enough
and, in many places, impossible, simply because there is no awareness
of the costs of hyper-illumination.
In order to raise such awareness, we need not only to explain the
importance of darkness for human health and the environment, an
effort that is well underway, but also its potential contribution to a
richer human existence.18 Here, Early Modern aesthetics and sensibil-
ities may become useful. Ottoman modes of nocturnal conviviality
were not incidentally “placed” at night; rather, they built on the dark
and quiet surrounding to create an atmosphere of intimacy and exhil-
aration. Poetry and music served to further sensitize the participants to
the nocturnal setting and the play of lights and reflections (e.g. the
candlelight on the beloved’s face), the starry sky, or the moonlight on
the water. Attention was similarly drawn to the unique sounds against
the foil of almost total silence, as for example, the swish of oars in the
water (in the mehtab seyri), and the sound of a flute in the evening
wind. Although some modes of nocturnal gatherings survived into the
twentieth century, their aesthetics were completely erased by the glare
of industrial lighting and the bustle of hyper-illuminated nightlife.
Developing sensitivity not only to the material, medical and environ-
mental benefits of darkness but also to its potential for repose and well-
being is crucial for popularizing the notion of a darker future. A night-
sensitive public would not want a “night turned into day” just like it
would not want every last green piece of the city turned into concrete.
Such a public would join the efforts to return a measure of darkness
and quiet to our lives and reduce the carbon footprint we leave behind.

In this work, I used four court registers from Jerusalem and eight from
the Üsküdar court in Istanbul, all from the 1740s to the 1760s. This
period was selected since neither city experienced major upheavals
during those years. In Jerusalem, I used the following registers: #230
(1741), #234 (1746–1747), #236 (1748–1749), and #239 (1755).
Other registers from around the same period (including #248–253
and #261–270) were also searched, but did not yield a single nocturnal
case. The reason is probably that litigations (sing. dava) were often
registered separately from other legal and notary matters handled by
the court. Only volumes of litigations include night cases. In addition
to these registers, I used many nocturnal cases that were transliterated
and published by Amnon Cohen, Elisheva Simon-Pikali, and Ovadia
Salama.1 Since the overall number of cases from Jerusalem numbered
in several dozens, I did not examine them quantitatively.
In Istanbul, the effort focused on the court of Üsküdar. Knowing
that I could not possibly cover the entire city, I chose Üsküdar for
several reasons. First, I did not want to focus on places like Galata or
Kumkapı, known for the exceptionally wide nightlife scene. Üsküdar, a
predominantly Muslim district on the Asian side of the Bosporus,
seemed more “average” and more typical of a largely residential area.
Out of the many extant volumes that record all cases brought before
the court during those years, I selected only volumes that included
mostly recorded litigations. In order to enlarge the sample, I added to
the cases I located in the unpublished sicil volumes, night cases gleaned
from registers from the Üsküdar court that have been published. All in
all, I used eight volumes of sicil from the Üsküdar court, four of which
have been previously transliterated. These include #402 (1153–1154/
1741), #407 (1155–1156/1743), #415 (1158–1159/1746), #420
(1159–1161/1748–1749), #433 (1164–1165/1751), #466
(1178–1179/1765), #470 (1179–1180/1766), and #474 (1180–1182/

249

1767–1768). All together, these 8 volumes include a total of 3,663

cases, out of which 146 were “night cases” (3.9 percent).
While for the qualitative analysis I also considered cases published in
collections of sicil cases,2 for the quantitative analysis I limited myself
only to registers that were published in full.3 The choice of registers is,
therefore, not random, which complicates the problems that are inte-
gral to sicil studies and, especially, to the quantitative study of sicils.
These problems have long occupied researchers.4 Most relevant to the
modest analysis offered in this work is the question of the relation
between the dataset and the “reality” it is supposed to reflect.5 To what
extent Üsküdar is representative of Istanbul and to what extent the
court records are representative of reality even with regard to the
period and area covered in the volumes examined? These questions
do not have easy answers, yet, as Ergene and Coşgel point out, they are
not particular to the quantitative analysis of sicils, but rather compli-
cate the use of many other types of sources and methodological
approaches. The assessment of quantitative analysis, they argue,
should be conducted with reference to specific findings, rather than in
a sweeping manner.6
It is, therefore, important to address the specific problems of my
dataset, and then to explain how it was processed to answer very
specific, and relatively simple, questions. The most obvious among
the problems of the dataset is its relatively small size, which means
that findings should be treated very cautiously. Second, as already
noted, it reflects only the realities of Üsküdar. It is very likely, for
example, that janissary involvement in nocturnal activity was much
higher closer to their barracks in Et Meydanı. For example, up to
95 percent of the residents in khans and bachelor inns in Galata and
Kasım Paşa were associated with the military.7 Third, the sample
reflects only the decades around the mid-century. Earlier, and later,
realities may have been different. Fourth, even for that particular time
and area, we do not know about nocturnal activity that did not reach
the court simply because it went unregistered. We do not have, for
example, police logs that record the arrest of people at night. Since, as
noted in Chapter 2, officials had the right to punish individuals caught
red-handed at night, drinking alcohol, for example, these individuals
never reached court and remain invisible to us.

Given all these problems, I limited myself to very specific and simple
questions, for which straight-forward answers could be expected from
the dataset. These questions were: (a) what populations were more
likely to be outside after dark, or at least, brought to court for after-
dark activities? (b) What time of the night were incidents and conflicts
more likely to occur? (c) Where were incidents more likely to occur?8
Each of these questions bears consequences for our understanding of
the Early Modern night, as explained in the relevant chapters.
In order to answer these questions, the following details were
recorded separately for each case: the identity of the plaintiff and
accused including gender, titles that may indicate elite social status
(hac, seyyid, ağa), titles that may indicate social marginality (e.g.
bachelor, “gypsy”), occupation (where applicable), religious affiliation
(Muslim versus non-Muslim), and military affiliation. I grouped under
“the urban poor” all defendants, for whom I could establish with
reasonable confidence, that they belonged to the itinerant population
or, more generally, to the lower social orders. These included defendants
explicitly referred to as “bachelors,” but also boaters, soldiers, porters
and other menial laborers, prostitutes, and individuals who appear in
the record merely as “son of this-and-this,” without a title, residence, or
occupation. This group was then compared to the entire cohort.
In order to get an idea of who was likely to be outside after dark, I had
to add to the defendants who were out or active after dark, the plaintiffs
who, according to their own testimony, were also out. For example, if a
resident charges three itinerants of breaking into his house at night, we
have four people in court but only the three defendants should be
counted as being “out at night.” But, if a person sues another one for
stabbing him in the street after the night prayer, both of them were out
at night and therefore should both be counted separately. The count of
nocturnal cases, and the count of “people out at night” that is based on
the very same cases therefore diverge significantly.
Next, I looked at the sites in which nocturnal incidents took place
(private home, shop, out in the street), and then grouped them under
“indoor/outdoor.” Attacks on homes (throwing stones at homes,
shouting insults) were included in the former category, even if the attacker
remained outside since the object of the attack was inside, and in any case,
the site was a domicile. The two categories were then compared.

Finally, I recorded the times of nocturnal incidents (after the evening

prayer, after sunset, at midnight) and then grouped them under
evening/night with the evening deﬁned as the period stretching from
the evening to the night prayer, or immediately thereafter. These
categories correspond to the way the Ottomans themselves divided
the physical night, as discussed especially in Chapter 1.

Introduction
1 For a good, recent summary of the rapid changes in nocturnal realities and
the questions they pose, see Luc Gwiazdzinski, Marco Maggioli, and Will
Straw, “Géographies de La Nuit/Geographies of the Night/Geografie
Della Notte,” Bollettino Della Soci- Età Geografica Italiana, 1 (2018),
9–22. On the negative effects of nocturnal exposure to light on human
health, see for example, Ron Chepesiuk, “Missing the Dark: Health Effects
of Light Pollution,” Environmental Health Perspectives, 117(1) (January
2009), A20–A27; YongMin Cho et al., “Effects of Artificial Light at Night
on Human Health: A Literature Review of Observational and
Experimental Studies Applied to Exposure Assessment,” Chronobiology
International, 32(9) (2015), 1294–1310; C. A. Wyse et al., “Circadian
Desynchrony and Metabolic Dysfunction; Did Light Pollution Make Us
Fat?” Medical Hypotheses, 77(6) (December 2011), 1139–44. For the
impact of over-lighting on eco-systems and particular species, see for
example, Kevin J. Gaston et al., “Review: Reducing the Ecological
Consequences of Night-Time Light Pollution: Options and
Developments,” Journal of Applied Ecology, 49(6) (December 1, 2012),
1256–1266; F. Hölker et al., “Light Pollution as a Biodiversity Threat,”
Trends in Ecology and Evolution, 12 (2010), 681–682; Catherine Rich
and Travis Longcore (eds.), Ecological Consequences of Artificial Night
Lighting (Washington, DC: Island Press, 2006); Kevin J. Gaston et al.,
“The Ecological Impacts of Nighttime Light Pollution: A Mechanistic
Appraisal,” Biological Reviews, 88(4) (November 2013), 912–927.
Several national and international research initiatives have been formed
over the last decade to promote interdisciplinary study of light pollution
and its costs. These include the Loss of the Night Project, www
.verlustdernacht.de/about-us.html (accessed June 17, 2019); the
Consortium for Dark-Sky Studies, http://darkskystudies.org/ (accessed
June 17, 2019); and Artificial Light at Night, www.artificiallightatnight
.org (accessed June 17, 2019). Several international NGOs have been
established in recent years to promote darker nights through education

253

and advocacy. See for example, the homepage of the International Dark-
Sky Association, www.darksky.org (accessed June 17, 2019).
2 On the importance of darkness and current efforts to preserve darkness, see
Paul Bogard, The End of Night: Searching for Natural Darkness in an Age
of Artificial Light (New York: Back Bay Books/Little, Brown & Co., 2014).
On dark sky reserves, see Josiane Meier, “Designating Dark Sky Areas:
Actors and Interests,” in Urban Lighting, Light Pollution and Society,
Josiane Meier et al. (eds.) (New York: Routledge, 2014), 177–196.
3 This perspective was deliberated in “The Bright Side of the Night” work-
shop, organized within the framework of the “Loss of the Night” Project
in Erkner, Berlin (June 21–22, 2013). On the darker artificial lightscape of
the future, see Kevin J. Gaston et al., “Review: Reducing the Ecological
Consequences of Night-Time Light Pollution: Options and
Developments,” Journal of Applied Ecology, 49(6) (2012), 1256–1266.
4 On night in Early Modern Europe, see for example, A. Roger Ekirch, At
Day’s Close: Night in Times Past (New York: Norton, 2005); Alain
Cabantous, Histoire de la Nuit: XVIIe–XVIIIe siècle (Paris: Fayard,
2009); Craig Koslofsky, Evening’s Empire: A History of the Night in
Early Modern Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011);
Sophie Reculin, “Le règne de la nuit désormais va finir: L’invention et la
diffusion de l‘éclairage public dans le royaume de France (1697–1789)”
(Charles de Gaulle University, 2017); Darrin M. McMahon, “Illuminating
the Enlightenment: Public Lighting Practices in the Sicèle Des Lumières,”
Past and Present, 240(1) (2018), 119–159; Mark J. Bouman, “Luxury and
Control: The Urbanity of Street Lighting in Nineteenth Century Cities,”
Journal of Urban History, 14(1) (1987), 7–37; Wolfgang Schivelbusch,
Disenchanted Night: The Industrialization of Light in the Nineteenth
Century (Berkeley: University of Califonia Press, 1995); Lettie
S. Multhauf, “The Light of Street Lanterns: Street Lighting in 17th-
Century Amsterdam,” Technology and Culture, 26(2) (1985), 236–252;
Bryan Palmer, Cultures of Darkness: Night Travels in the Histories of
Transgression (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2000). See also
Matthew Beaumont, Nightwalking: A Nocturnal History of London from
Chaucer to Dickens (London: Verso, 2015).
5 For systematic discussions of night-related issues, see Nurçin İleri, “A
Nocturnal History of Fin de Siecle Istanbul,” unpublished Ph.D. disserta-
tion, Binghamton University (2015); Jens Hanssen, Fin de Siecle Beirut:
The Making of an Ottoman Provincial Capital (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
2005), 193–202; Daniel-Joseph MacArthur-Seal, “Intoxication and
Imperialism: Nightlife in Occupied Istanbul, 1918–1923,” Comparative
Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, 37(2) (2017), 299–313;

G. Carole Woodall, “Decadent Nights: A Cocaine Filled Reading of 1920s

Post-Ottoman Istanbul,” in Mediterranean Encounters in the City:
Frameworks of Mediation between East and West, North and South,
Michela Ardizzoni and Valerio Ferme (eds.) (Lanham: Lexington, 2015),
17–36; Avner Wishnitzer, “Eyes in the Dark: Nightlife and Visual
Regimes in Late Ottoman Istanbul,” Comparative Studies of South Asia,
Africa and the Middle East, 37(2) (2017), 245–261; Avner Wishnitzer,
“Kerosene Nights: Light and Enlightenment in Late Ottoman Jerusalem,”
Past & Present (n.d.); Sibel Zandi-Sayek, Ottoman Izmir: The Rise of a
Cosmopolitan Port, 1840–1880 (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota
Press, 2012), 26–29. For a survey of the development of gas-lighting in the
empire, see Sertaç R. Kayserilioğlu, Mehmet Mazak, and Kadır Kon,
Osmanlı’dan Günümüze Havagazının Tarirçesi, 3 vols. (Istanbul:
İGDAŞ, 1999). The only critical works on earlier periods are Cemal
Kafadar, “How Dark Is the History of the Night, How Black the Story
of Coffee, How Bitter the Tale of Love: The Changing Measure of Leisure
and Pleasure in Early Modern Istanbul,” in Medieval and Early Modern
Performance in the Eastern Mediterranean, Arzu Ozturkmen and Evelyn
Birge Vitz (eds.) (Turnhout: Brepols Publishers, 2014), 243–269; Jonathan
P. Allen, “Up All Night Out of Love for the Prophet: Devotion, Sanctity,
and Ritual Innovation in the Ottoman Arab Lands, 1500–1620,” Journal of
Islamic Studies, 30(3) (2019), 303–337; Avner Wishnitzer, “Into the Dark:
Power, Light and Nocturnal Life in 18th-Century Istanbul,” International
Journal of Middle East Studies, 46(3) (2014), 513–531. Occasional descrip-
tions of nocturnal performances and modes of leisure are found in other
works. See for example, Metin And, Kırk Gün Kırk Gece: Eski Donanma
ve Şenliklerde Seyirlik Oyunları (Istanbul: Taç Yayınları, 1959); Necdet
Sakaoğlu and Nuri Akbayar, Binbir Gün Binbir Gece: Osmanlı’dan
Günümüze İstanbul’da Eğlence Yaѕ̧amı (Istanbul: Deniz Bankasi, 1999);
Abdülaziz Bey, Osmanlı Âdet, Merasim ve Tabirleri: Vol. 1 (Istanbul: Tarih
Vakfı, 1995), 287–291; Reﬁk Ahmet Sevengil, İstanbul Nasıl Eğleniyordu
(1453’ten 1927’ye Kadar) (Istanbul: İletişim, 1993), 60–62, 92–95;
Balıkhane Nazırı Ali Rıza, Eski Zamanlarda İstanbul Hayatı (Istanbul:
Kitabevi, 2001), 178–182; Öztekin, Divanlardan, 376–380, 251–271.
6 On the installation of street lighting in Europe from the late seventeenth
century onward, see for example, Multhauf, “The Light of Lamp-
Lanterns;” Wolfgang Schivelbusch, “The Policing of Street Lighting,”
Yale French Studies, 73 (1987), 61–74; Schivelbusch, Disenchanted
Night; Joachim Schlör, Nights in the Big City: Paris, Berlin, London,
1840–1930 (London: Reaktion, 1998); Ekirch, At Day’s Close;
Koslofsky, Evening’s Empire; Reculin, “Le Règne de la Nuit.”

7 A. Roger Ekirch, “The Modernization of Western Sleep: Or, Does

Insomnia Have a History?” Past and Present, 226(1) (2015), 149–192;
A. Roger Ekirch, “Sleep We Have Lost: Pre-Industrial Slumber in the
British Isles,” The American Historical Review, 106(2) (2001), 343–386.
For the earlier phases of this process, see for example, Bouman, “Luxury
and Control”; Schivelbusch, Disenchanted Night; Baldwin, In the
Watches of the Night, esp. 35–37.
8 Jonathan Crary, 24/7: Late Capitalism and the Ends of Sleep (London/
New York: Verso, 2013), 74. On the development of the “24/7 society,”
see also Luc Gwiazdzinski, La Nuit, Dernière Frontière de la Ville (La
Tour d’Aigues: Éd. de l’Aube, 2005), 101–140.
9 Alex Hern, “Netflix’s Biggest Competitor? Sleep,” The Guardian (April
18, 2017), www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/apr/18/netflix-com
petitor-sleep-uber-facebook (accessed June 17, 2019).
10 For historical analyses of changes in sleep patterns, see especially
Ekirch, “The Modernization of Western Sleep”; Ekirch, “Sleep We
Have Lost”; Sasha Handley, Sleep in Early Modern England (New
Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2016). On the sociocultural
embeddedness of sleep in various societies, see for example, Matthew
Wolf-Meyer, The Slumbering Masses: Sleep, Medicine, and Modern
American Life (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2012);
Peter Rensen, “Sleep without a Home: The Embedment of Sleep in
the Lives of the Rough-Sleeping Homeless in Amsterdam,” in Night-
Time and Sleep in Asia and the West: Exploring the Dark Side of Life,
Brigitte Steger and Brunt Lodewijk (eds.) (London: Routledge, 2003),
87–107; Yasmine Musharbash, “Embodied Meaning: Sleeping
Arrangements in Central Australia,” in Sleep around the World:
Anthropological Perspectives, Katie Glaskin and Richard Chenall
(eds.) (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2013), 45–60; Roger Ivar
Lohmann, “Sleeping among the Asabano: Surprises in Intimacy and
Sociality at the Margins of Consciousness,” in Sleep around the World,
21–44; Eric L. Hsu, “The Sociology of Sleep and the Measure of Social
Acceleration,” Time & Society, 23(2) (2014), 212–234. More works
are discussed in Chapter 1.
11 Ekirch, “Sleep We Have Lost”; Ekirch, “The Modernization of
Western Sleep.”
12 Ekirch, “Sleep We Have Lost”; Ekirch, At Day’s Close, 264–266,
300–302, 305–311.
13 This discussion is summarized in Chapter 2.
14 Martin Jay has already made the point, albeit briefly. See Martin Jay,
Downcast Eyes: The Denigration of Vision in Twentieth-Century French

Thought (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), 5–6. See also

Gwiazdzinski, La Nuit, 33–34.
15 For some of the more prominent examples, see Nükhet Varlık, Plague
and Empire in the Early Modern Mediterranean World: The Ottoman
Experience, 1347–1600 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2015); Sam White, The Climate of Rebellion in the Early Modern
Ottoman Empire (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011); Alan
Mikhail, Nature and Empire in Ottoman Egypt: An Environmental
History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012).
16 Schlör, Nights in the Big City, 55.
17 Historians of the Early Modern night seem to be more sensitive to
various material and environmental aspects of the night. See for example,
Reculin, “Le Règne de la Nuit”; Ekirch, At Day’s Close.
18 F. Falchi et al., “The New World Atlas of Artificial Night Sky
Brightness,” Science Advances, 2(6) (June 10, 2016).
19 Kâtib Çelebi, Tuhfetü’l-Ahyâr Fi’l-Hikem ve’l-Emsâl ve’l-Eş’âr
(Süleymaniye Kütüphanesi, Esad Efendi, nr. 2539, n.d.), 474 (406). To be
more precise, the Sharʿı̄ night ends at the “second dawn,” that is horizontal
light, as opposed to the “first dawn,” which is the zodiacal light (or al-fajr
al-kādhib; false dawn). The latter has no significance in the Sharia.
20 T. C. Erren, J. V. Groß, and L. Fritschi, “Focusing on the Biological
Night: Toward an Epidemiological Measure of Circadian Disruption,”
Occupational and Environmental Medicine, 74(3) (2017), 159–160;
Simon N. Archer et al., “Mistimed Sleep Disrupts Circadian Regulation
of the Human Transcriptome,” Proceedings of the National Academy of
Sciences of the United States of America, 111(6) (2014), E682–E691.
21 Erren, Groß, and Fritschi, “Focusing on the Biological Night.”
22 Archer et al., “Mistimed Sleep.”
23 For a laypersons’ discussion of the “ecology of the night,” see Bogard,
The End of Night, 124–157.
24 On “controlled darkness,” see Robert Shaw, “Controlling Darkness:
Self, Dark and the Domestic Night,” Cultural Geographies, 22(4)
(2015), 585–600. On the relations between light as a social and material
agent, and light as metaphor, see Mikkel Bille and Flohr Tim Sørensen,
“An Anthropology of Luminosity: The Agency of Light,” Journal of
Material Culture, 12(3) (2007), 263–284.
25 Tülay Artan, “Architecture as a Theatre of Life: Profile of the Eighteenth
Century Bosporus,” unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Massachusetts
Institute of Technology (1989); Shirine Hamadeh, The City’s Pleasures:
Istanbul in the Eighteenth Century (Seattle: University of Washington
Press, 2007); Rifaʻat Abou-El-Haj, The 1703 Rebellion and the Structure

of Ottoman Politics (Leiden: Netherlands Historical-Archaeological

Institute in Istanbul, 1984). The term “the long eighteenth century” has
been increasingly used by Ottomanists in recent years to refer to vari-
ously defined time periods. See for example, Michael Talbot, British-
Ottoman Relations, 1661–1807: Commerce and Diplomatic Practice in
Eighteenth-Century Istanbul (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2017);
Mikhail, Nature and Empire; Dana Sajdi, “The Barber of Damascus
Nouveau Literacy in the Eighteenth-Century Ottoman Levant”
(Redwood City, CA: Stanford University Press, 2013).
26 On the revolt, its causes and consequences, see Adil ʿMannāʿ, Tārı̄kh
filast ı̄n fı̄ awākhir al-ʿahd al-ʿuthmānı̄, 1700–1918: qirāʾa jadı̄da (Beirut:
_
Muʼassasat al-dirāsāt al-filastı̄nı̄yyah, 1999); Dror Ze’evi, An Ottoman
_
Century: The District of Jerusalem in the 1600s (Albany: State University
of New York Press, 1996), 63–85; Minna Rozen, “Mered ha-naqı̄b al-
ashrāf bi-yerūshalayim ba-shanı̄m 1702–1706 ū-matsavam shel bney ha-
hasūt ba-ʿı̄r,” Cathedra: For the History of Eretz Israel and Its Yishuv,
_
22 (1982), 75–90.
27 On the dramatic changes of the 1820s in the military, economy, government,
state-subject relations, and more, see for example, Carter V. Findley,
Bureaucratic Reform in the Ottoman Empire: The Sublime Porte,
1789–1922 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980), 59, 133–147;
Virginia H. Aksan, Ottoman Wars, 1700–1870: An Empire Besieged
(Harlow: Pearson Longman, 2007), 288–342; Donald Quataert, “Clothing
Laws, State, and Society in the Ottoman Empire, 1720–1829,” International
Journal of Middle East Studies, 29(3) (1997), 412–421; Marinos Sariyannis,
Ottoman Political Thought Up to the Tanzimat: A Concise History
(Rethymno: Foundation for Research and Technology – Hellas – Institue
for Mediterranean Studies, 2015), 171–174; Noémi Lévy, “Une Institution
en Formation: La Police Ottomane à L’époque d’Abdülhamid II,” European
Journal of Turkish Studies, 8 (2008). On changes brought about by İbrahim
paşa’s rule in Jerusalem, see Yitzhak Hofman, “The Administration of Syria
and Palestine under Egyptian Rule (1831–1840),” in Studies on Palestine
during the Ottoman Period, Moshe Ma’oz (ed.) (Jerusalem: Magness Press,
1975), 311–330.
28 For a full list of the volumes and the years they cover, see Appendix.
29 Out of these 38 cases, 13 night-related cases were gleaned from the volumes
of sicil documents published by Amnon Cohen and his colleagues, covering
the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries. See Amnon Cohen and Elisheva
Simon-Pikali, Yehūdı̄m be-beyt hamishpat ha-mūslemı̄: hevrah, kalkalah,
_ _
ve ʾirgūn qehı̄latı̄ bi-yerūshalayim ha-ʿuthmānı̄t: ha-meʾah ha-shesh-ʿesreh,
4 vols. (Jerusalem: Yad Izhak Ben Zvi, 1993–2003).

Chapter 1
1 “. . .baʿd nusf al-layl samaʿat siyāh ﬁ-l-dār wa bāb al-dār maftūh wa lam
_ _ _ _
taʿlam min faʿala dhalika.” Jerusalem Sicil [hereafter JS], vol. 236, p. 26,
26 B 1161 (July 22, 1748). The Hebrew name Sarah is spelled Sāra in the
Arabic-written court register.
2 On historically listening to the call for prayer, see Ziad Fahmy, “‘Coming
to Our Senses: Historicizing Sound and Noise in the Middle East’,”
History Compass, 11(4) (2013), 309–310. On the time of sunset and the
setting of clocks, see Avner Wishnitzer, Reading Clocks, Alla Turca: Time
and Society in the Late Ottoman Empire (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 2015), 14, 32–33, 112, 124. Compare the ringing of church bells at
sunset in rural French communities: Alain Corbin, Village Bells: Sound
and Meaning in the Nineteenth-Century French Countryside, trans.
Martin Thom (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998), 112–118.
3 On the “shutting down” of Ottoman cities at night, see for example,
Ignatius Mouradgea D’Ohsson, Tableau général de l’Empire Othoman
(Paris: Didot Pere et Fils, 1824), vol. 4, 241; James Caulﬁeld Charlemont,
The Travels of Lord Charlemont in Greece and Turkey 1749, W. B.
Stanford and Finopoulos E. J. (eds.) (London: Trigraph for the A. G.
Leventis Foundation, 1984), 210; Stephen Olin, Travels in Egypt,
Arabia Petræa, and the Holy Land (New York: Harper & Bros, 1849),
vol. 2, 78; Edmondo de Amicis, Constantinople, trans. Caroline Tilton
(New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1878), 130–131. For Jerusalem, see
Avraham Moshe Luntz, Lūah ʾerets yisraʾel shı̄mūshı̄ ve-sifrūti li-shnat
_
htrsʾ (Jerusalem: published by the author, 1903); Yehoshuʿa Ben-Arieh, ʿIr
_
bi-reʾı̄ teqūfah: yerūshalayim ha-hadashah be-reʾshı̄tah (Jerusalem: Yad
_
Izhak Ben-Zvi, 1979), vol. 2, 36; Harry Leech, Letters of a Sentimental
Idler: From Greece, Turkey, Egypt, Nubia, and the Holy Land (New
York: D. Appleton & Co., 1869), 330–331. See also Abraham Marcus,
The Middle East on the Eve of Modernity: Aleppo in the Eighteenth
Century (New York: Columbia University Press, 1989), 16, 279, 284;
Bruce McGowan, “The Age of Ayans, 1699–1812” in An Economic and
Social History of the Ottoman Empire, Halil İnalcık and Donald Quataert
(eds.) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), vol. 2, 647;
Mübahat Kötükoğlu, “Life in the Medrese” in The Illuminated Table,
the Prosperous House: Food and Shelter in Ottoman Material Culture,
Suraiya Faroqhi and Christoph K. Neumann (eds.) (Wèurzburg: Ergon
Verlag, 2003), 216.
4 On coffeehouses in the evenings, see for example, Thomas Milner, The
Ottoman Empire: The Sultans, the Territory and the People (London:
Religious Tract Society, 1859), 250. On the stigmatization of women
outside after dark, see Raphaela Lewis, Everyday Life in Ottoman

Turkey (London/New York: Batsford; G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1971), 115;

Zeyneb Hanım and Ellisson M. Grace, A Turkish Woman’s European
Impressions (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Company, 1913), 171–172.
These norms are still very much in place in many contemporary
Anatolian towns. See Binnaz Toprak et al., Türkiye’de Farklı Olmak:
Din ve Muhafazakârlık Ekseninde Ötekileѕ̧tirilenler (Istanbul: Metis,
2009), 39–41, 89.
5 Resul Attila, “Istanbul Galata Kadılığı 353 Numaralı Şerʿiyye Sicili, 3.
R.1173–7.Ca.1173 (21 Aralık 1759–26 Ocak 1760),” unpublished MA
thesis, Marmara University (1994), 38; Erdal Kılıç, “1158–1159
(1745–1746) Tarihli Üsküdar Sicili,” unpublished MA thesis, Marmara
University (1997), 26–27.
6 Nasuhi Bilmen, “Hukukĭ Islâmiyye ve Ĭstĭlahatĭ Fĭkhiyye” Kamusu
(Istanbul: Bilmen yayĭnevi, 1967), vol. 3, 274.
7 Historians, geographers, and anthropologists have recently grown aware
of this shift, although studies that focus on it are still scant. For examples
of such studies, see Tim Edensor, “Reconnecting with Darkness: Gloomy
Landscapes, Lightless Places,” Social & Cultural Geography, 14(4)
(2013), esp. 457–459; Nina J. Morris, “Night Walking: Darkness and
Sensory Perception in a Night-Time Landscape Installation,” Cultural
Geographies, 18(3) (2011), 315–342. For more passing references,
see for example, Mark M. Smith, How Race Is Made: Slavery,
Segregation, and the Senses (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina
Press, 2007), 33–34; Steven Feld, Sound and Sentiment: Birds, Weeping,
Poetics, and Song in Kaluli Expression (Philadelphia: University of
Pennsylvania Press, 1982), 180. Among historians of the night, Roger
Ekirch, in particular, is an attentive listener. See Ekirch, At Day’s Close,
8–9; 132–133. Ekirch also emphasizes the importance of smell and touch.
8 Emily Ann Thompson, The Soundscape of Modernity: Architectural
Acoustics and the Culture of Listening in America, 1900–1933
(Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2002), 116–117. Aimée Boutin argues that
not only the city noise changed with modernity but also the way we listen
to it. See Aimée Boutin, City of Noise: Sound and Nineteenth-Century
Paris (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2015).
9 This passage is based on the following sources: Hayati Develi (ed.),
XVIII: Yüzyıl İstanbul Hayatına Dair Risâle-i Garîbe (Istanbul:
Kitabevi, 1998), 23; Albert Smith, A Month at Constantinople, 2nd ed.
(London: Bogue, 1851); John Harwood, Stamboul, and the Sea of Gems
(London: R. Bentley, 1852); The Abbé de St. Michon, Narrative of a
Religious Journey in the East in 1850 and 1851 (London: Richard
Bentley, 1853), 206–207; C. Addison, Damascus and Palmyra:
A Journey to the East (Philadelphia: E. L. Carey & A. Hart, 1838).

10 In this, the ezan was similar to church bells in rural communities. See
Corbin, Village Bells, 97.
11 For a similar pattern in eighteenth-century Aleppo, see Marcus, The
Middle East, 284.
12 That the voices of women singing lullabies echoed in the street was a
source of concern for some Jewish moralists in eighteenth-century
Jerusalem. See Alisa Meyuhas Ginio, “Ḥayey yom yom be-hūg ha-mis-
_
hpahah ha-sefaradı̄t lefı̄ peyrūsho shel r’ yaʿaqov kūley le-sefer bereʾshı̄t
_
ba-hı̄būr me-ʿam loʿez,” in Nashı̄m, zeqenı̄m ve-taf: qovets maʾamarim
_ _
li-khevodah shel Shūlamı̄t Shahar, Miriam Eliav-Feldon and Yitzhak
_
Hen (eds.) (Jerusalem: Merkaz Zalman Shazar le-toldot Yisraʾel, 2001),
161. The earliest collections of Turkish and Arabic folk lullabies are from
the late nineteenth century, and therefore, I decided to leave them out of
the analysis. On lullabies in Turkey and the late Ottoman Empire, see for
example, Zeki Karakaya, “Göstergebilimsel İşlevler Açısından Ninniler,”
Milli Folklor, 16(61) (2004), esp. 44–51; Nilgün Çıblak Coşkun, “Türk
Ninnilerine İşlevsel Yaklaşım,” Turkish Studiesi, 8 (2013), 499–513;
Songül Çek Cansız, “Ninnilere Bağlam Merkezli Bir Yaklaşım,”
Turkish Studies, 6 (2011), 61–75; Emine Kırcı Uğurlu, “Kültürel Bellek
Aktarıcısı Olarak Ninni,” Milli Folklor, 26(102) (2014), 43–52; Belde
Aka, “Ninnileri Psikanalitik Yaklaşımla Yeniden Okuma Denemesi,”
Milli Folklor, 22(88) (2010), 38–43. On Arabic lullabies in Greater
Syria, see Fruma Zachs, “Qolot redūmı̄m: shı̄rey ʿeres ke-ʿaspaqlaryah
le-havanat gı̄shot mishtanot klapey yeladı̄m ve-yaldūt be-sūryah ha-
gedolah,” Ha-mizrah ha-hadash, 58 (2019), 49–50.
_ _
13 On Lighting arrangements in mosques, see Chapter 5. In some mosques,
all night long rituals took place, see Chapter 4.
14 On the extinguishing of mosques’ lights, see Chapter 6. On sleeping
patterns, see below. On patrols and the carrying of lanterns, see Chapter 2.
15 Fuad Carım, trans., Pedro’nun Zorunlu İstanbul Seyahati: 16. Yüzyılda
Türklere Esir Düşen Bir İspanyol’un Anıları (Istanbul: Güncel
Yayıncılık, 1995), 156; D’Ohsson, Tableau général, 4:241; A
Handbook for Travellers in the Ionian Islands, Greece, Turkey, Asia
Minor and Constantinopl (London: John Murray, 1840), 152; Charles
White, Three Years in Constantinople; or, Domestic Manners of
theTurks in 1844. 2nd ed. (London: Henry Colburn, 1846), vol. 3, 77;
Balıkhane Nazırı Ali Rıza, Eski Zamanlarda İstanbul Hayatı (Istanbul:
Kitabevi, 2001), 153.
16 Işık Tamdoğan, “Atı Alan Üsküdar’a Geçti Ya Da 18. Yüzyılda
Üsküdar’da Şiddet ve Hareketlilik İişkisi,” in Osmanlı’da Asayiş, Suç
ve Ceza, 18–20. Yüzyıllar, Noémi Lévy and Alexandre Toumarkine
(eds.) (Istanbul: Tarih Vakfı, 2010), 80–95.

17 The original record is brought in Cohen, Simon-Pikali, and Salama

(eds.), Yehūdı̄m be-beyt ha-mishpat: ha-meʾah ha-shmoneh-ʿesreh,
_
296–297. Ester was in a difﬁcult situation since, as mentioned in
Chapter 2, Islamic jurisprudence favored eye witnessing and tended to
dismiss ear-witness testimonies, not to mention that women’s testimony
was considered inferior to that of men.
18 Cohen, Simon-Pikali, and Salama (eds.), Yehūdı̄m be-beyt ha-mishpat:
_
ha-meʾah ha-shesh-ʿesreh, 87–88.
19 JS, vol. 234, p. 135, 3 R 1163 (March 11, 1750); vol. 234, p. 78, end of Ra
1165 (February 7–16, 1752). In another case, darkness hindered a victim
from identifying her robber. See Cohen, Simon-Pikali, and Salama (eds.),
Yehūdı̄m be-beyt ha-mishpat: ha-meʾah ha-shmoneh-ʿesreh, 296–297. For
_
more about investigations conducted in cases of suspected unnatural deaths,
see Cohen, Simon-Pikali, and Salama (eds.), Yehūdı̄m be-beyt ha-mishpat:
_
ha-meʾah ha-shmoneh-ʿesreh, 306–307; Cohen, Simon-Pikali, and Ginio
(eds.), Yehūdı̄m be-beyt ha-mishpat: ha-meʾah ha-teshaʿ-ʿesreh, 156–157.
_
20 On the critical role of moon and starlight for traveling at night, see
Ekirch, At Day’s Close, 127–131; J. C. Baker, “Darkness, Travel and
Landscape: India by Fire- and Starlight, c. 1820–c. 1860,” Environment
and Planning A: Society and Space, 47 (August 6, 2015), 1–16. On the
limitations of contemporary artiﬁcial lighting, see Chapter 5.
21 A Handbook for Travellers, 152. See also John Broughton, A Journey
through Albania: And Other Provinces of Turkey in Europe and Asia, to
Constantinople, during the Years 1809–1810, 2nd ed. (London: J.
Cawthorn, 1813), vol. 2, 820; Charles Colville Frankland, Travels to
and from Constantinople in the Years 1827 and 1828 (London: Henry
Colburn, 1829), vol. 1, 84. Another common contrast drawn by
European travelers was between the bright light of and bustle of
Istanbul’s days, and the darkness and quiet of its nights. See for example,
Charlemont, The Travels, 210; Broughton, A Journey through Albania,
2:820; Smith, A Month, 69; de Amicis, Constantinople, 130.
22 Charlemont, The Travels, 210.
23 See for example, Broughton, A Journey through Albania, 2:820; Smith,
A Month, 69; Ali Bey (Domingo Francisco Jorge Badía y Leblich), Travels
of Ali Bey in Morocco, Tripoli, Cyprus, Egypt, Arabia, Syria, and Turkey,
Between the Years 1803 and 1807, 2nd ed. (Philadelphia, Pa: M. Carey,
1816), vol. 2, 400. On darkness and quiet in Jerusalem, see for example,
Mary Elyza Rogers, Domestic Life in Palestine (Cincinnati, OH: Poe &
Hitchcock, 1865), 307; Leech, Letters of a Sentimental Idler, 330–331.
24 On the gap between sounds and their often clichéd descriptions, and the
way these descriptions often frame hearing, see Boutin, City of Noise,
5–6. On the cultural embeddedness of hearing, see Elizabeth Hellmuth

Margulis, “Music Is Not for Ears,” Aeon, November 2, 2017, https://

aeon.co/essays/music-is-in-your-brain-and-your-body-and-your-life
(accessed July 10, 2019).
25 David Howes, “Architecture of the Senses” in Sense of the City: An
Alternate Approach to Urbanism, Mirko. Zardini and Wolfgang
Schivelbusch (eds.) (Montréal: Centre Canadien d’Architecture,
2005), 329.
26 Harwood, Stamboul, 181.
27 White, Three Years, 3:290.
28 Julia Pardoe, The City of the Sultan; and the Domestic Manners of the
Turks, in 1836, 2nd ed. (London: Henry Colburn, 1838), vol. 1, 86–87,
163–164, 250–251; James D. Haas and Friedrich Tietz, St. Petersburgh,
Constantinople, and Napoli Di Romania, in 1833 and 1834 (New York:
Theodore Foster, 1836), 154; Smith, A Month, 69.
29 Ekirch, At Day’s Close, 133.
30 Harwood, Stamboul, 180–181.
31 Ibid., 181.
32 For a description of these cruises by the prominent scholar and statesman
Ahmed Cevdet (d. 1895), see Ahmet Cevdet, Ma’rûzât, Yusuf Halaçoğlu
(ed.) (Istanbul: Çağrı Yayınları, 1980), vol. 2, 9. For eighteenth-century
poems which refer to mehtab seyri, see Öztekin, Divanlardan, 376–380.
For more on this, see Chapter 4.
33 BOA, HAT 193/9461, 29 Z 1204 (9.9.1790).
34 Ergin notes additional ways in which silence at the palace served to
project awe and impress visitors. See Nina Ergin, “‘Praiseworthy in
That Great Multitude Was the Silence’: Sound/Silence in the Topkapı
Palace, Istanbul” in Resounding Images: Medieval Intersections of Art,
Music, and Sound, Susan Boynton and Diane J. Reilly (eds.) (Turnhout:
Brepols Publishers, 2015), 109–133. See also Oleg Grabar, “An
Exhibition of High Ottoman Art,” Muqarnas, 6 (1989), 5.
35 Ayşe Ezgi Dikici, “Imperfect Bodies, Perfect Companions? Dwarfs and
Mutes at the Ottoman Court in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth
Centuries,” unpublished MA thesis, Sabancı University (2006), 63–65,
67; Ergin, “Praiseworthy in That Great Multitude,” 125. On silence, the
use of sign language and mutes at the court, see also Gülru Necipoğlu,
Architecture, Ceremonial, and Power: The Topkapi Palace in the
Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries (New York/Cambridge, MA:
Architectural History Foundation/MIT Press, 1991), 26–29.
36 Peter Payer, “The Age of Noise: Early Reactions in Vienna, 1870–
1914,” Journal of Urban History, 33 (2007), 773–93; Adam Mack,
Sensing Chicago: Noisemakers, Strikebreakers, and Muckrakers
(Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2015); Boutin, City of Noise.

37 Boutin, City of Noise, 6.

38 For more on the limitations darkness posed to law enforcement and
public order, see Chapter 2.
39 Jay, Downcast Eyes, 6.
40 Steven Connor, Dumbstruck: A Cultural History of Ventriloquism
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 17–18. On sound and the
experience of sighted people navigating thick darkness, see Edensor,
“Reconnecting with Darkness,” esp. 457; Morris, “Night Walking,”
323–324.
41 Connor, Dumbstruck, 20–21.
42 Morris, “Night Walking.”
43 Daniel Yon, “Now You See It,” Aeon, July 4, 2019, https://aeon.co/
essays/how-our-brain-sculpts-experience-in-line-with-our-expectations
(accessed October 7, 2019); Edensor, “Reconnecting with Darkness,”
461.
44 In fact, recent studies show that people tend to fear the night even in
hyper-illuminated environments. See Bogard, The End of Night, esp.
64–92.
45 On limited visibility and insecurity, see for example, Brigitte Steger and
Lodewijk Brunt, “Introduction: Into the Night and the World of Sleep”
in Night-Time and Sleep in Asia, 6–7. Studies have suggested that the
long-established connection between night and insecurity may not be
only related to actual darkness, but also to circadian rhythms (that are
in themselves connected to light and darkness), and to cognitive-
mediational factors. See for example, Yadan Li et al., “Night or
Darkness, Which Intensiﬁes the Feeling of Fear?,” International Journal
of Psychophysiology, 97 (2015), 46–57; Jocelynne Gordon and Neville
King, “Children’s Night-Time Fears: An Overview,” Counselling
Psychology Quarterly, 15(2) (2002), 121–132. On nocturnal vulnerabil-
ity, insecurity, and circadian rhythms, see also Gwiazdzinski, La Nuit,
25–37. On the relation between the ability to “control the experience of
darkness” and relaxation at home, see Shaw, “Controlling Darkness,”
593. The inability to control darkness, by contrast, can be used to instill
deep insecurity in inmates. See for example, the works of Lawrence Abu
Hamdan (with Forensic Architecture and Amnesty International), about
Saydnaya prison near Damascus, http://lawrenceabuhamdan.com/#/
sayadna/ (accessed November 2, 2018).
46 Amanda Vickrey, “His Castle? Thresholds, Boundaries and Privacies in
the Eighteenth-Century London House,” Past and Present, 199
(2008), 156.

47 The case is described in two separate entries in the Jerusalem court records:
JS, vol. 234, p. 51, 3 B 1161 (June 29, 1748), and vol. 236, p. 25, 4 B 1161
(June 30, 1748). The latter adds a few more details to the former.
48 JS, vol. 234, p. 51, 3 B 1161 (June 29, 1748).
49 As brieﬂy suggested in Schivelbusch, Disenchanted Night, 88.
50 Ze’evi, An Ottoman Century, 31.
51 Rabbi Mosheh Ben-Yisraʾel Naftalı̄, “Masʿot R. Mosheh Porayı̄t mi-
prāg” in Masʿot ʾerets yisraʾel, 276.
52 JS, vol. 234, p. 51, 3 B 1161 (June 29, 1748).
53 JS, vol. 236, p. 78, end of Ra 1162 (mid-March 1749).
54 Cohen, Simon-Pikali, and Salama (eds.), Yehūdı̄m be-beyt: ha-meʾah ha-
shmoneh-ʿesreh, 296–297.
55 Cohen and Simon-Pikali, Yehūdı̄m be-beyt hamishpat: ha-meʾah ha-
_
shesh-ʿesreh, 54, 55, 57–58, 79, 87–88.
56 Bilmen, Hukukĭ Islâmiyye, 3:261, 263. See also Ömer Menekşe, “XVII
ve XVIII. Yüzyılda Osmanlı Devletinde Hırsızlık Suçu ve Cezası”
(Marmara University, 1998), 17–20.
57 Saadet Muzaffarova (ed.), “Üsküdar Kadılığı 420 Numaralı Şeriyye Sicili
Defteri” (2012), 80. For another example, see Kılıç, “1158–1159
(1745–1746) Tarihli,” 36–37.
58 Ahmed Akgündüz (ed.), Osmanlı ve Hukukî Tahlilleri, IV. Kitap:
Kanunî Sultan Süleyman Devri Kanunnâmeleriç I. Kısım (Istanbul: Fey
Vakﬁ, 1992), 302, no. 1.
59 See Omri Paz, “Crime, Criminals and the Ottoman State: Anatolia
between the Late 1830s and the Late 1860s,” unpublished Ph.D. disser-
tation, Tel Aviv University (2010), 101–102, 273, 317, 327–329.
60 For examples, see Üsküdar Sicili (hereafter ÜS), vol. 407, p. 19, 4
M 1156 (February 28, 1743); ÜS, vol. 474, p. 11, 25 Z 1180 (May 24,
1767); ÜS, vol. 407, p. 40, 24 Ca 1156 (July 16, 1743); case dated 9
R 1159 (May 1, 1746) in Kılıç, “1158–1159 (1745–1746) Tarihli”; cases
dated 25 S 1160 (March 8, 1747) and 5 B 1160 (July 13, 1747) in
Muzaffarova, “Üsküdar Kadılığı,” 68, 142 respectively; case dated 4
Z 1153 (February 20, 1741) in Ülkü Geçgil, “Uskudar at the Beginning
of the Eighteenth Century,” unpublished MA thesis, Fatih University
(2009), 63–64.
61 JS, vol. 236, p. 63, 8 S 1162 (January 27, 1749).
62 JS, vol. 236, p. 64, 14 S 1162 (February 2, 1749). The exact expression
cited in the record as the cause of death is ʿarād damawı̄, which is
_
probably a corruption of aʿrād damawı̄, lit. symptoms of blood. Given
_
that there were no external signs of violence, and that midwives were sent

to examine the body, the bleeding was probably vaginal, possibly from
the womb.
63 Shaw, “Controlling Darkness,” 595.
64 ÜS, vol. 474, p. 23, 6 Ra 1181 (September 1, 1767). For another case of
severe domestic violence at night, see ÜS, vol. 407, p. 12, 25 Şevval 1155
(December 23, 1742).
65 BOA, C.ZB 16/786, 13 Za 1204 (July 25, 1790). The neighbors further
accused Hasan of sexually assaulting neighborhood children. On the
function of such accusations, see Baѕ̧ak Tuğ, Politics of Honor in
Ottoman Anatolia: Sexual Violence and Socio-Legal Surveillance in the
Eighteenth Century (Leiden: Brill, 2017), 129–140.
66 See Chapter 3.
67 This dependency was only one out of multiple factors that deterred
women from bringing charges against their aggressors. See Eyal Ginio,
“Women, Domestic Violence and Breaking Silence: The Evidence of the
Şeriat Court of Eighteenth-Century Salonica” in Mélanges en l’honneur
du Prof. Dr. Suraiya Faroqhi, Abdeljelil Temimi (ed.) (Tunis: Fondation
Temimi pour la recherche scientifique et l’information, 2008), 153–167.
68 Yaron Ayalon, Natural Disasters in the Ottoman Empire: Plague,
Famine, and Other Misfortunes (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2017), 87–91. On fires in eighteenth-century Jerusalem, see
Meyuhas Ginio, “Ḥayey yom yom,” 154–155. A writer in a late
Ottoman Hebrew newspaper, published in Jerusalem, explained that
fires were infrequent in the city because it was built of stone. See
“Yerūshalayim,” Ḥavatselet, December 27, 1889, 1.
69 Derviş Efendi-Zade Derviş Mustafa Efendi, 1782 Yılı Yangınları,
Hüsamettin Aksu (ed.) (Istanbul: İletiѕ̧im, 1994), 19–20; Barış Taşyakan,
“The Volunteer Firefighters of Istanbul, 1826–1923,” unpublished MA
thesis, Boğaziçi University (2008), 75–81; White, The Climate of
Rebellion, 264–265; Fariba Zarinebaf, Crime and Punishment in Istanbul,
1700–1800 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011), 31–33.
70 On the 1660 fire, see Marc David Baer, “The Great Fire of 1660 and the
Islamization of Christian and Jewish Space in Istanbul,” International
Journal of Middle East Studies, 36(2) (2014), 159–181. For the other
data, see Taşyakan, “The Volunteer Firefighters,” 69–78. For a general
discussion of fires in Ottoman Istanbul, see Ebru Boyar and Kate Fleet,
A Social History of Ottoman Istanbul (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2010), 77–89.
71 The chronicler Şani-Zade makes this point when referring to the conflag-
rations of 1782. See Şânî-zâde MehmedʿAtâʾullah Efendi, Şânî-Zâde
Târîhi (1223–1237/1808–1821), Ziya Yılmazer (ed.) (Istanbul: Çamlıca
Basım, 1821), vol. 2, 852.

72 Taşyakan, “The Volunteer Fireﬁghters,” 72–73.

73 Osman Nuri [Ergin], “İstanbul Yangınları” in Mecelle-i Umûr-ı
Belediyye (Istanbul: İstanbul Büyükѕ̧ehir Belediyesi Kültür İѕ̧leri Daire
Baѕ̧kanlığı, 1995), vol. 3, 1183–1227.
74 Münif Paşa, “Harîk-i İstanbul,” Mecmua-i Fünun, 28 (1281/1864), 153.
75 See Chapter 7.
76 On the unique nature of industrialized lighting with regard to earlier
forms of lights, see Schivelbusch, Disenchanted Night, 3–78.
77 Haas and Tietz, St. Petersburgh, Constantinople, 154. See also François
Tott, Memoires of the Baron de Tott: Containing the State of the Turkish
Empire & the Crimea during the Late War with Russia (London: G. G.
J. & J. Robinson, 1786), 20.
78 Küçük Çelebizade Asım Efendi, “Tarih-i İsmail Asım Efendi eş-şehir
bi-Küçük Çelebizade” in Tarih-i Raşid (Istanbul: Matbaa-ı Amire,
1865), 492, 409; see also 68, 178, 416. For more accounts of nocturnal
fires during those years, see 11, 77, 118–119, 224–225, 242,
491–492, 493.
79 Münif Paşa, “Harîk-i İstanbul,” 153.
80 On the firefighting measures, see Mehmet Zeki Pakalın, “Köşklü” in
Osmanlı Tarih Deyimleri ve Terimleri Sözlüğü (Ankara: Milli Eğitim
Basımevi, 1971), vol. 2, 304–305; Mehmet Zeki Pakalın, “Tulumbacı”
in Osmanlı Tarih Deyimleri. On fires and firefighting in the nineteenth
century, see, most recently, Taşyakan, “The Volunteer Firefighters.”
81 Pertev Naili Boratav, 100 Soruda Türk Folkloru (Istanbul: Gerçek
Yayınevi, 1973), 92.
82 Ibid., 95.
83 Marinos Sariyannis, “Of Ottoman Ghosts, Vampires and Sorcerers: An
Old Discussion Disinterred,” Archivum Ottomanicum, 30 (2013),
199–200.
84 On nighttime anxieties and bedtime rituals in the British Isles in the Early
Modern period, see Ekirch, “Sleep We Have Lost,” 351–357.
85 Handley, Sleep in Early Modern England, 69–107.
86 Muhammad bin ʾIsmāʿı̄l bin Ibrāhı̄m al-Bukhārı̄, S ̣ahı̄h al-Bukhārı̄, kitāb
_ _ _
badʾal-khalq (Damascus: Dār Abū Kathı̄r l-l-tibāʿa wa-l-nashr wa tawzı̄ʿ,
_
2002), vol. 1, 808, no. 3280.
87 Muslim Ibn al-Ḥajjāj al-Qushayrı̄, S ̣ahı̄h Muslim (Riyad: Bayt al-afkār
_ _
al-duwaliyya li-l-nashr wa-l-tawzı̄ʿ, 1998), 1088, no. 64 (2714). For a
similar formula, see p. 1086, no. 56 (2710).
88 Sidūr tfilot ha-shana le-minhag qehilot romanyā (Venice: Dfūs Daniʾel
Bombı̄rj, 1523), 22–23.
89 T. P. Vukanovic, “Witchcraft in the Central Balkans I: Characteristics of
Witches,” Folklore, 100(1) (1989), 9–24; T. P. Vukanovic, “Witchcraft

in the Central Balkans II: Protection against Witches,” Folklore, 100(2)

(January 1989), 221–236.
90 Vukanovic, “Witchcraft in the Central Balkans II,” 222, 229–232;
Boratav, 100 Soruda Türk Folkloru, 95. On “nocturnal women”
(nashı̄m leylı̄yot) who lurk in the dark, seeking to strangle little babies,
see Minna Rozen, A History of the Jewish Community in Istanbul: The
Formative Years, 1453–1566 (Leiden: Brill, 2011), 267.
91 Boratav, 100 Soruda Türk Folkloru, 94.
92 See for example, Aslı Niyazioğlu, Dreams and Lives in Ottoman
Istanbul: A Seventeenth-Century Biographer’s Perspective (London:
Routledge, 2016); Amira Mittermaier, Dreams That Matter: Egyptian
Landscapes of the Imagination (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 2011). I chose to leave dreams out of this book as the topic is
too wide and complex to be addressed here seriously.
93 See Chapter 3.
94 Ekirch, “The Modernization of Western Sleep,” 176–177.
95 In some versions, it is said that the Prophet disliked “conversation”
(hadı̄th) after the night prayer, and in others, that he did not “stay up”
_
socializing (samara) after that prayer. See for example, S ̣ahı̄h Bukhārı̄,
_ _
vol. 1, book 10, no. 552.
96 See for example, Asım Efendi Küçükçelebizade, Tarih-i İsmail Asım
Efendi eş-şehir bi-Küçük Çelebizade (brought in Tarih-i Raşid,
vol. 6), 366–377, 470–471; Raşid Efendi, Tarih-i Raşid, vol. 3, 319.
In mean time terms, according to sunset hours in April for the latitude
of Istanbul, these hours would translate to between 11:00 p.m. and
1:00 a.m.
97 Yunus Irmak (ed.), “III. Mustafa Rûznâmesı̄ (H. 1171–1177/M.
1757–1763),” unpublished MA thesis, Marmara University (1991),
87, 98–99.
98 Fikret Sarıcaoğlu, Kendi Kaleminden Bir Padiѕ̧ahın Portresi Sultan I:
Abdülhamid (1774–1789) (Istanbul: Tatav, Tarih ve Tabiat Vakfı,
2000), 45–46.
99 Sema Arıkan, “III. Selim’in Sırkatibi Ahmed Efendi Tarfınan Tutulan
Rüznamesi,” unpublished MA thesis, İstanbul Üniversitesi (1988).
100 Cited in Ekirch, “The Modernization of Western Sleep,” 276. For a
review of studies on the effect of light-darkness alterations on sleep
patterns, see Jacques Galinier et al., “Anthropology of the Night,”
Current Anthropology, 51(6) (2010), 824–825.
101 See Chapter 6.
102 Craig Koslofsky, “Princes of Darkness: The Night at Court,
1650–1750,” The Journal of Modern History, 79 (2007), 235–273;

Craig Koslofsky, “Court Culture and Street Lighting in Seventeenth-

Century Europe,” Journal of Urban History, 28(6) (2002), 743–768;
Sasha Handley, “Sociable Sleeping in Early Modern England,
1660–1760,” History, 98(329) (2013), 79–104.
103 Koslofsky, “Princes of Darkness,” 236, 251–258. Koslofsky’s definition
of the term “nocturnalization” applies also to the use of the night for
political spectacles.
104 In one case, brought before the court of Üsküdar, two commoners were
charged for immoral conduct, having been caught partying with prosti-
tutes, “until the morning.” This, however, may only be a figure of
speech intended to highlight the defendants’ licentiousness. See ÜS,
vol. 407, p. 3, 5 C 1155 (August 7, 1742). See also Mütercim Ahmed
Âsım Efendi, Âsım Efendi Tarihi, Ziya Yılmazer (ed.) (Istanbul: Türkiye
Yazma Eserler Kurumu Başkanlığı, 2015), vol. 1, 329.
105 Handley, “Sociable Sleeping.”
106 See Chapter 3.
107 White, Three Years, 3:94–96. Balıkhane Nazırı Ali Rıza, Eski
Zamanlarda, 153; Falih Rıfkı Atay, Batış Yılları (Istanbul: Hürriyet,
2012), 23. In late nineteenth-century fiction too, the neighborhood goes
to sleep early. See for example, Şinasi, Şair Evlenmesi (Istanbul: Remzi
Kitabevi, 1982), 43; Hüseyin Rahmi [Gürpınar], Şık (Istanbul: Atlas
Kitabevi, 1968), 56–57.
108 On the closing of the gates of Jerusalem at night, see Ben-Arieh, ʿIr bi-
reʾı̄ teqūfah, 1: 36; Ben-Arieh, ʿIr bi-reʾi teqūfah, 1979, 2:105, 167. On
street lighting and the changing of Ottoman nocturnal realities, see
Wishnitzer, “Eyes in the Dark”; İleri, “A Nocturnal History.”
109 Ekirch, “Sleep We Have Lost”; Ekirch, At Day’s Close, 300–302,
305–311. Sasha Handley emphasizes that this basic pattern was differ-
entially influenced by various factors and changed over the course of the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. She does not question, however,
that a biphasic sleep pattern was common. See Handley, Sleep in Early
Modern England, 8–9, 151–163, 213.
110 Handley, Sleep in Early Modern England, 8–9.
111 Muhammed Bin Hasan, “İlm-i Tıbb (İnceleme-Metin-Dizin),” Hande
Ünver Özdoğan (ed.), unpublished MA thesis, Süleyman Demirel
Üniversitesi (2015), 129. For similar recommendations, albeit without
the specification of desired sleep length, see Gevrekzade Hafız Hasan,
Aslü’l-usul tercüme-i faslü’l-fusul (1796), İstanbul Üniversitesi
Kütüphanesi, TY, nr. 4289, p. 3. On Ottoman humoral medicine, see
Miri Shefer Mossensohn, Ottoman Medicine: Healing and Medical
Institutions, 1500–1700 (Albany: State University of New York,

2009), 66–67. In Early Modern England too sleep was believed to be

affected by a mixture of supernatural, spiritual, and bodily factors, with
humoral medicine serving as the main framework for explaining its
physiology. Starting in the second half of the seventeenth century,
however, new neurological interpretations gained traction, and sleep
was gradually removed from the spiritual realm and located ﬁrmly in
the material body. See Handley, Sleep in Early Modern England,
18–38.
112 Marinos Sariyannis, “Time, Work and Pleasure: A Preliminary
Approach to Leisure in Ottoman Mentality” in New Trends in
Ottoman Studies: Papers Presented at the 20th CIÉPo Symposium,
Rethymno June 27–July 1, 2012, Marinos Sariyannis et al. (eds.)
(Rethymno: University of Crete, 2012), 799–800.
113 Defterdar Sarı Mehmed Paşa, Ottoman Statecraft: The Book of
Counsel for Vezirs and Governors: Nasaihü’l-Vüzera, Walter
Livingston Wright Jr. (ed. and trans.) (Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 1935), 80.
114 Ekirch, “Sleep We Have Lost,” 348–49. American physicians and
moralists too warned against oversleeping. See Wolf-Meyer, The
Slumbering Masses, 54–55.
115 Bin Hasan, “İlm-i Tıbb,” 26a–27a (in the original text, brought in the
appendix of the published work). Compare Handley, Sleep in Early
Modern England, 22–29.
116 For references to afternoon sleep across the Ottoman Empire, from
the Early Modern period to the early twentieth century, see for
example, Irmak, “III. Mustafa Rûznâmesı̄,” 107; Thomas P Hughes,
Travels in Greece and Albania, vol. 2 (London: H. Colburn and
R. Bentley, 1830), 66–67; Georgina Mackenzie, The Turks, the
Greeks, and the Slavons: Travels in the Slavonic Provinces of Turkey-
in-Europe (London: Bell & Daldy, 1867), 13, 76, 265. See also
Sariyannis, “Time, Work and Pleasure,” 807; Salim Tamari, “The
Vagabond Café and Jerusalem‘s Prince of Idleness,” Jerusalem
Quarterly File, 19 (2003), 33; Hanssen, Fin de Siecle, 197; Michelle
Campos, Ottoman Brothers: Muslims, Christians, and Jews in Early
Twentieth-Century Palestine (Redwood City, CA: Stanford University
Press, 2011), 20.
117 Muhhammad Nāsir al-Dı̄n al-Albānı̄, Silsilat al-ahādı̄th al-sahı̄ha wa-
_ _ _ _ _ _
shayʿan min ﬁqhihā wa-fawāʾidhā (Riyad: Maktabat al-maʿārif li-l-
nashr wa-l-tawzı̄ʿ, 2000), vol. 4, 202. On “prophetic medicine,” its
popularity and its competition with humoral medicine, see
Mossensohn, Ottoman Medicine, 24.

118 On “siesta cultures” see Steger and Brunt, “Introduction: Into the
Night,” 17–19. In fact, afternoon slumber seems to have been common
throughout Early Modern Europe, possibly owing to chronic sleep
deprivation. See Ekirch, “Sleep We Have Lost,” 361.
119 Merin Güven, “Abdulvehhâb Bin Yusuf’un Müntahhab-ı Fi’t-Tıbb’ı
(Dil İncelemesi-Metin-Dizin ),” unpublished Ph.D. dissertation,
Pamukkale University (2005), 211.
120 Ekirch, “The Modernization of Western Sleep,” 158.
121 See Chapter 4.
122 On co-sleeping in contemporary societies, see for example, Musharbash,
“Embodied Meaning”; Galinier et al., “Anthropology of the Night,” 822;
Diana Adis Tahhan, “Sensuous Connections in Sleep: Feelings of Security
and Interdependency in Japanese Sleep Rituals” in Sleep around the World,
61–78. On sociable sleeping in medieval and Early Modern Europe, see
Handley, “Sociable Sleeping”; Ekirch, At Day’s Close; Norbert Elias, The
Civilizing Process, Eric Dunning, Johan Goudsblom, and Stephen Mennel
(eds.) (Malden: Blackwell, 1994), 137–42.
123 Richard A. Shweder, Lene Arnett Jensen, and William M. Goldstein,
“Who Sleeps by Whom Revisited: A Method for Extracting the Moral
Goods Implicit in Practice,” New Directions for Child and Adolescent
Development, 67 (1995), 21–39; Musharbash, “Embodied Meaning”;
Lohmann, “Sleeping among the Asabano”; Tahhan, “Sensuous
Connections.” On “bed-companionship” in Early Modern Europe,
see Alan Bray, The Friend (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
2003), 153–156; Ekirch, At Day’s Close, 278–284. On those “left
outside” see Rensen, “Sleep without a Home.”
124 Mehmet Zeki Pakalın, “Külhanbeyi,” Osmanlı Deyimleri, 339–340;
Zarinebaf, Crime and Punishment, 46. The anonymous early eighteenth-
century writer Risale-i Garibe, criticizes those hamam owners who did not
take poor people in. See Develi, Risâle-i Garîbe, 40.
125 François Pouqueville, Travels in Greece and Turkey: Comprehending a
Particular Account of the Morea, Albania, Etc, 2nd ed. (London:
Colburn, 1820), 291.
126 Abdülaziz Bey, Osmanlı Âdet, 1995, 1:324–325.
127 Serkan Delice, “The Janissaries and Their Bedfellows: Masculinity and
Male Friendship in Eighteenth-Century Ottoman Istanbul” in Gender
and Sexuality in Muslim Cultures, Gul Ozyegin (ed.) (Farnham:
Ashgate, 2016), 115–136.
128 See for example, Musharbash, “Embodied Meaning,” 55.
129 Abdülaziz Bey, Osmanlı Âdet, 1995, 1:324–325.
130 Recent studies on the sleep of homeless people show that even the most
seasoned outside sleepers fear falling asleep. See for example, Rensen,

“Sleep without a Home.” On group sleeping and security, see for

example, Lohmann, “Sleeping among the Asabano,” 26; Musharbash,
“Embodied Meaning.”
131 Cengiz Kırlı, “A Proﬁle of the Labor Force in Early Nineteenth-Century
Istanbul,” International Labor and Working-Class History, 60 (2001),
135, 137; Cengiz Kırlı, “The Struggle over Space: Coffeehouses of
Ottoman İstanbul, 1780–1845,” unpublished Ph.D. dissertation,
Binghamton University, 2000), 145.
132 The “bachelors” are discussed in detail in Chapter 3. For a brief
discussion of close relations among former medrese students, deﬁned
by sharing physical spaces, including beds, see Aslı Niyazioǧlu, “How
to Read an Ottoman Poet’s Dream? Friends, Patrons and the Execution
of Fiġānı̄ (d. 938/1532),” Middle Eastern Literatures, 16(1) (2013), 8.
133 Develi, Risâle-i Garîbe, 43.
134 JS, vol. 234, p. 67, 3 C 1163 (May 10, 1750).
135 Laura Hollsten, “Night Time and Entangled Spaces on Early Modern
Caribbean Sugar Plantations,” Journal of Global Slavery, 1(2–3)
(2016), 248–249.
136 White, Three Years, 3:174; Frederic Shoberl, The World in Miniature:
Turkey. Being a Description of the Manners, Customs, Dresses, and
Other Peculiarities Characteristic of the Inhabitants of the Turkish
Empire, trans. A. S. Catellan (London: R. Ackermann, 1821), vol. 8, 190.
In Louis XIV’s bedchamber, a valet regularly slept at the foot of the bed. See
Norbert Elias, The Court Society (New York: Pantheon, 1983), 83.
137 White, Three Years, 3:178.
138 Ahmed Evin, Origins and Development of the Turkish Novel (Minneapolis,
Min: Bibliotheca Islamica, 1983), 26. On the functions of poetry in every-
day life, see Walter Andrews and Mehmet Kalpaklı, The Age of Beloveds:
Love and the Beloved in Early-Modern Ottoman and European Culture
and Society (Durham: Duke University Press, 2005), 85–90.
139 On the palace imagery and the portrayal of affectionate relations in terms
of monarchial domination, see Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar, XIX: Asır Türk
Edebiyatı Tarihi, 2nd ed. (Istanbul: İbrahim Horoz Basımevi, 1956), 5–9;
Walter G. Andrews and Mehmet Kalpaklı, The Age of Beloveds: Love
and the Beloved in Early-Modern Ottoman and European Culture and
Society (Durham: Duke University Press, 2005), 229–232; Walter
G. Andrews, Poetry‘s Voice, Society’s Song: Ottoman Lyric Poetry
(Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1985), 89–108.
140 Wishnitzer, Reading Clocks, 38–44.
141 Brought in Walter G. Andrews, “Ottoman Love: Preface to a Theory of
Emotional Ecology” in A History of Emotions, 1200–1800, Jonas
Liliequist (ed.) (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2012), 37.

142 The gazel is brought in full in Saadet Karaköse, “XVII: Yüzyılda

Nedimâne Bir Üslup; Mâhir Divanı,” Türkiyat Araştırmaları Dergisi,
22 (2007), 162. For more examples, see Nazim Özerol, “Klasik Şiirde
Uyku,” Sosyal Bilimler Araştırmaları Dergisi, 1 (2013), esp. 88–89.
143 Mirzazade Mehmed Emin Salim, Tezkire-i Salim (Istanbul: İkdam
Matbaası, 1897), 540.
144 Every single detail in this anecdote follows well-established traditions of
writing and yet, this does not diminish its value as a historical source.
As Andrews and Kalpaklı have amply demonstrated, poetic traditions
reﬂected but also scripted behaviors and modes of sociability in Early
Modern Ottoman society. See Andrews and Kalpaklı, The Age of
Beloveds.
145 Cited in Matthias Lehmann, Ladino Rabbinic Literature and Ottoman
Sephardic Culture (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2005), 127.
On nocturnal religious rituals, see Chapter 4.
146 The expectation that mothers intervene as soon as their babies woke up
crying was common in many traditional societies. See Monica Toselli,
Angela Costabile, and M. Luisa Genta, “Infant Sleep and Waking:
Mothers’ Ideas and Practices in Two Italian Cultural Contexts” in
Sleep around the World: Anthropological Perspectives, Katie Glaskin
and Richard Chenall (eds.) (New York: Palgrave MacMillan,
2013), 98.
147 Pam Lowe, Cathy Humphreys, and Simon J. Williams, “Night
Terrors,” Violence Against Women, 13(6) (2007), 549–561.
148 Ekirch, “Sleep We Have Lost,” 351–363.
149 Handley, Sleep in Early Modern England, esp. 39–68, 108–148. On
bedsteads see also Ekirch, “Sleep We Have Lost,” 352.
150 Ze’evi, An Ottoman Century, 31. On the introduction of heavy furni-
ture and the related changes in domestic life in the nineteenth century,
see Toufoul Abou-Hodeib, A Taste for Home: The Modern Middle
Class in Ottoman Beirut (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press,
2017), 95–97; Alan Duben and Cem Behar, Istanbul Households:
Marriage, Family and Fertility, 1880–1940 (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1991), 205–210. See also Ron Fuchs, “The
Palestinian Arab House and the Islamic Primitive Hut,” Muqarnas,
15 (1998), 157–177. Charles White notes in the 1840s that in elite
houses, European furniture, including beds, is already common but
much less so in middle-class houses. See White, Three Years,
3:175, 178.
151 White, Three Years, 3:96. For similar sleeping arrangements in Early
Modern Japan, see Brigitte Steger, “Negotiating Sleep Patterns in
Japan” in Night-Time and Sleep in Asia and the West: Exploring the

Dark Side of Life, Brigitte Steger and Lodewijk Brunt (eds.) (Vienna:
Abteilung für Japanologie des Instituts für Ostasienwissenschaften der
Universität Wien, 2006), 68–74.
152 Florian Riedler, “Public People: Temporary Labor Migrants in
Nineteenth-Century Istanbul” in Public Istanbul: Spaces and Spheres
of the Urban, F. Ekradt and K. Wildner (eds.) (Bielefeld: Transcript,
2008), 241–242; Shoberl, The World in Miniature, 8:131.
153 White, Three Years, 3:178–179.
154 Fatih Bozkurt, “Tereke Defterleri ve Osmanlı Maddı Kültüründe
Değişim (1785–1875),” unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Sakarya
University (2011), 312.
155 White, Three Years, 3:178–179; Tott, Memoires, 95–96.
156 The even-grumbling Baron de Tott found the pillows he was given in
the house of the Chief Dragoman of the Sublime Porte to be extremely
uncomfortable. See Tott, Memoires, 95–97.
157 Develi, Risâle-i Garîbe, 19. For an Arabic lullaby referring to the protec-
tion of the sleeping child from snakes, see Zachs, “qolot redūmı̄m,” 62.
158 Zachs, “qolot redūmı̄m,” 61.
159 Frankland, Travels to and from Constantinople, 1:84, 132–133. 265;
ʿAbd al-Ghanı̄ al-Nāblusı̄, al-hadra al-ʾansiyya fi-l-rihla al-qudsiyya
_ _ _
(Beirut: Al-masādir, 1990), 47–48, 356; ʿAbd al-Ghanı̄ bin ʾIsmaʿʾı̄l
_
al-Nāblusı̄, l-Ḥaqı̄qa wa-l-majāz fi-l-rihla ʾila bilād al-shām wa misr
_ _
wa-l-hijāz, Ahmad ʿAbd al-Majı̄d al-Harı̄dı̄ (ed.) (Cairo: al-Hayʾa al-
_ _
misriyya al-ʿāma li-l-kuttāb, 1986), 150.
_
160 For sleeping on rooftops, see for example, JS, vol. 234, p. 21, 25 Ra
1159 (April 17, 1746). For sleeping in the fields, see JS, vol. 234, p. 112,
17 N 1169 (June 14, 1756). In both cases, sleeping outside turned out to
be terminal. See also Edward Robinson, Biblical Researches in
Palestine, Mount Sinai, and Arabia Petrea: A Journal of Travels in the
Year 1838 (London: John Murray, 1841), 32–33; Fuchs, “The
Palestinian Arab House,” 167.
161 On heating in Jerusalem, see for example, Titus Tobler, Denkblätter
Aus Jerusalem (St. Gallen and Konstanz, 1853), 179.
162 Handley, Sleep in Early Modern England, 6–7.

Chapter 2
1 Ḥannā al-Tabı̄b, Rihla, 1764, 54r, Gotha’s Research Library, Ms. Orient.
_ _
A 1550. I used the transliterated version by Feras Krimisti. Translation is
mine. I thank Feras for sharing with me this yet unpublished work and his

thoughts on it. I use “policing forces” rather than police (as an institution
in the modern sense), since the Ottomans, like most other Early Modern
states, used soldiers to impose urban order, and had no concept of civilian
law enforcement.
2 On the physician and the travelogue manuscript, see Feras Krimsti, “The
Lives and Afterlives of the Library of the Maronite Physician Ḥannā al-T
_
abı̄b (c. 1702–1775) from Aleppo,” Journal of Islamic Manuscripts, 9
(2–3) (2018), 190–217.
3 For some of the more recent works, see Betül Başaran, Selim III, Social
Control and Policing in Istanbul at the End of the Eighteenth Century
Between Crisis and Order (Leiden: Brill, 2014); Zarinebaf, Crime and
Punishment; Shirine Hamadeh, “Mean Streets: Space and Moral Order in
Early Modern Istanbul,” Turcica, 44 (2013), 249–277; Shirine Hamadeh,
The City’s Pleasures: Istanbul in the Eighteenth Century (Seattle:
University of Washington Press, 2007); Nina Ergin, “The Albanian
Tellâk Connection: Labor Migration to the Hamams of Eighteenth-
Century Istanbul, Based on the 1752 İstanbul Hamâmları Defteri,”
Turcica, 43 (2011), 231–256; Tamdoğan, “Atı Alan Üsküdar‘a Geçti,”
85–90; Işık Tamdoğan-Abel, “Les han, ou l’etranger dans la ville
Ottomane,” in Vivre dans l’Empire Ottoman: sociabilitâes et relations
intercommunautaires (XVIIIe–XXe siècles), François Georgeon and Paul
Dumont (eds.) (Paris: L’Harmattan, 1997), 319–334; Elyse Semerdjian,
“Off the Straight Path”: Illicit Sex, Law, and Community in Ottoman
Aleppo (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2008).
4 See especially Zarinebaf, Crime and Punishment; Hamadeh, “Mean
Streets”; Başaran, Selim III.
5 For this concept, see Murray Melbin, Night as Frontier: Colonizing the
World after Dark (New York: Free Press, 1987).
6 On ocularcentrism and its critics in twentieth-century France and the U.S.,
see Jay, Downcast Eyes; Martin Jay, “Returning the Gaze: The American
Response to the French Critique of Ocularcentrism,” in Perspectives on
Embodiment: The Intersections of Nature and Culture, Gail Weiss and
Honi Fern Haber (eds.) (New York/London: Routledge, 1999), 165–182.
7 Martin Jay, “In the Realm of the Senses: An Introduction,” American
Historical Review, 116(2) (2018), 307–315. See also Charles Hirschkind,
The Ethical Soundscape Cassette Sermons and Islamic Counterpublics
(New York: Columbia University Press, 2006), esp. 13–21. On the
sensorium as an integrated system that is culture-dependent, see also
Elizabeth Hellmuth Margulis, “Music Is Not for Ears,” Aeon,
November 2, 2017, https://aeon.co/essays/music-is-in-your-brain-and-

your-body-and-your-life (accessed August 8, 2019); Daniel Yon, “Now

You See It,” Aeon, July 4, 2019, https://aeon.co/essays/how-our-brain-
sculpts-experience-in-line-with-our-expectations (accessed August 8,
2019). For attempts to historicize vision in Europe, see for example,
Jonathan Crary, Techinques of the Observer: On Vision and Modernity
in the Nineteenth Century (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1992); Stuart
Clark, Vanities of the Eye: Vision in Early Modern European Culture
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007); Christopher Otter, The
Victorian Eye: A Political History of Light and Vision in Britain,
1800–1910 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008); Theresa Levitt,
The Shadow of Enlightenment: Optical and Political Transparency in
France 1789–1848 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009).
8 For good introductions into the rapidly growing ﬁeld of sound studies,
see for example, Jonathan Sterne (ed.), The Sound Studies Reader
(London: Routledge, 2012); Trevor Pinch and Bijsterveldm Karin
(eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Sound Studies (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2013). More speciﬁc studies are cited below.
9 Historians and anthropologists of the senses have made occasional refer-
ences to this shift. See for example, Smith, How Race Is Made, 33–34;
Feld, Sound and Sentiment, 180. Among historians of the night, Roger
Ekirch, in particular, is an attentive listener (and smeller). See Ekirch, At
Day’s Close, 8–9, 132–133.
10 For important exceptions, see Otter, The Victorian Eye; Reculin, “Le
Règne de la Nuit.” For discussions of darkness, light, and vision in
philosophy, art, and political thought, see for example, Hans
Blumenberg, “Light as a Metaphor for Truth: At the Preliminary Stage
of Philosophical Concept Formation,” in Modernity and the Hegemony
of Vision, David Michael Levin (ed.), trans. Joel Anderson (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1993), 30–62; Rolf Reichardt, “Light
against Darkness: The Visual Representations of a Central
Enlightenment Concept,” Representations 61 (1998), 95–148;
Elisabeth Bronfen, Night Passages: Philosophy, Literature, and Film
(New York: Columbia University Press, 2013); David Michael Levin
(ed.), Modernity and the Hegemony of Vision (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1993).
11 See Chapter 5.
12 Nurhan İsvan, “Illegal Local Trade in the Ottoman Empire and the
Guilds of Istanbul, 1725–1726: Suggested New Hypotheses,”
International Journal of Turkish Studies, 5(1–2) (1990), 5–6. For the
eighteenth-century context, see Mehmet Genç, “Ottoman Industry in the

Eighteenth Century: General Framework, Characteristics, and Main

Trends,” in Manufacturing in the Ottoman Empire and Turkey,
1500–1950, Donald Quataert (ed.) (Albany: State University of New
York Press, 1994), 59–86. For general surveys of Ottoman guilds in
the Early Modern period, see for example, Eunjeong Yi, Guild
Dynamics in Seventeenth-Century Istanbul: Fluidity and Leverage
(Ledien: Brill, 2004); Suraiya Faroqhi, Artisans of Empire: Crafts and
Craftsmen under the Ottoman (London: I. B. Tauris, 2009).
13 İsvan, “Illegal Local Trade,” 19.
14 A comprehensive study of smuggling in the Ottoman Empire is yet to be
written but occasional examples of nocturnal trade from different parts
of the empire are scattered in various sources and in the scholarship. See
for example, Câbî Ömer Efendi, Câbî Târihi: Târîh-i Sultân Selîm-i Sâlis
ve Mahmûd-i Sânî: Tahlîl ve Tenkidli Metin, Mehmet Ali Beyhan (ed.)
(Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu Basımevi, 2003), I, 179; Antony Warren
Greenwood, “Istanbul’s Meat Provisioning: A Study of the Celepkeşan
System” (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1988), 52; İsvan, “Illegal
Local Trade,” 16; Alan Mikhail, The Animal in Ottoman Egypt
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 47–48; Marcus, The Middle
East, 134; Eyal Ginio, “When Coffee Brought About Wealth and
Prestige: The Impact of Egyptian Trade on Salonica,” Oriente
Moderno, Nuova Serie, 25(86/1) (2006), 102.
15 On the shutdown of Ottoman cities around sunset, see Chapter 1.
16 On the advantages of appealing to the court en mass, see Boğaç
A Ergene, Local Court, Provincial Society, and Justice in the Ottoman
Empire: Legal Practice and Dispute Resolution in Çankırı and
Kastamonu (1652–1744) (Leiden: Brill, 2003), esp. 72–73, 151–167.
17 Ergene, Local Court, 127, 130; Metin Coѕ̧gel and Boğaç A. Ergene, The
Economics of Ottoman Justice: Settlement and Trial in the Sharia Courts
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016), 132–133; Tuğ, Politics of
Honor, 157. On recording procedures in Ottoman courts, see also Işık
Tamdoğan-Abel, “L’écrit comme échec de l’oral? L’oralité des engagements
et des règlements à travers les registres de cadis d’Adana au XVIIIe siècle,”
Revue du monde musulman et de la Méditerranée, 75–76 (1995), 155–165.
18 Ergene, Local Court, 151–167; Dror Ze’evi, “The Use of Ottoman
Sharı̄ʿa Court Records as a Source for Middle Eastern Social History:
A Reappraisal,” Islamic Law and Society, 5(1) (1998), 35–56; Boğaç
A Ergene, “Social Identity and Patterns of Interaction in the Sharia Court
of Kastamonu (1740–1744),” Islamic Law and Society, 15(1) (2008),
2–5; Ido Shahar and Iris Agmon, “Introduction to Theme Issue: Shifting

Perspectives in the Study of Shariʿa Courts,” Islamic Law and Society,

15(1) (2008), 1–19; Iris Agmon, Family & Court: Legal Culture and
Modernity in Late Ottoman Palestine (Syracuse: Syracuse University
Press, 2006), esp. 40–45.
19 On direct speech brought in Ottoman court records and its functions, see
Ergene, Local Court, 133–138.
20 Entry dated 25 Z 1138 (August 24, 1726), in Fuat Recep et al. (eds.),
İstanbul Kadı Sicilleri, İstanbul Mahkemesi, 24 Numaralı Sicil (H.
1138–1151/M. 1726–1738) (Istanbul: İSAM, 2010), 23–24.
21 ÜS, vol. 407, p. 40, 24 Ca 1156 (July 16, 1743); ÜS, vol. 407, p. 14 7 Za
1155 (January 3, 1743); C.BLD 132/6569, 9 B 1194 (July 31, 1780);
HAT 181/8259, 29 Z 1204 (September 9, 1790); Case dated 21 Ra 1160
(April 2, 1747), #109, Muzaffarova, “Üsküdar Kadılığı.”Câbî Ömer
Efendi, Câbî Târihi, 179, 802. More examples are provided below.
22 Entry dated 25 Z 1138 (August 24, 1726), in Recep et al., İstanbul Kadı
Sicillleri, 23–24.
23 Entry dated 13 L 1138 (June 14, 1726), in Recep et al., İstanbul Kadı
Sicillleri, 103–104.
24 İsvan, “Illegal Local Trade,” 19.
25 Ibid., 19–20.
26 On collective responsibility with respect to nighttime theft and robbery,
see Ömer Menekşe, “XVII ve XVIII. Yüzyılda Osmanlı Devletinde
Hırsızlık Suçu ve Cezası” (Marmara University, 1998), 69–70. See also
Fariba Zarinebaf, “Maitien de l’ordre et contrôle social à Istanbul au
XVIII siècle,” in Metiérs de police: Etre policier en Europe, XVIII–XXe
siècle, Jean-Marc Berlière (ed.) (Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes,
2008), 88, 90, 95. On neighborhood policing, see also Marcus, The
Middle East, 322–328; Ehud R. Toldano, State and Society in Mid-
Nineteenth Century Egypt (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1990), 200–203; Eyal Ginio, “Marginal People in the Ottoman City:
The Case of Salonica during the 18th Century” (in Hebrew), unpub-
lished Ph.D. dissertation, Hebrew University of Jerusalem (1998), 81–85.
27 Mikhail, The Animal, 91.
28 White, Three Years, 3:291.
29 Smith, A Month, 69–70. In French-occupied Cairo, dogs barked and
chased the soldiers, constantly harassing them on their night patrols. This
led to the French decision to poison as many dogs as possible on the night
of November 30, 1798. See Mikhail, The Animal, 91.
30 Şerif Mardin, who coined the term “neighborhood (or community)
pressure” directly connected it to the collective gaze of the neighborhood,
or “eye pressure” (göz baskısı), as he put it. See Şerif Mardin and Ruşen

Çakır, “Mahalle Baskısı: Ne Demek İstedim?,” rusencakir.com, 29 May

2013, www.rusencakir.com/Prof-Serif-Mardin-Mahalle-Baskisi-Ne-Demek-
Istedim/2028 (accessed October 7, 2019). Just like the original use of the
term, the discussion that ensued around the “neighborhood pressure”
was highly political. See Adnan Çetin, “Bir Kavramın Kısa Tarihi:
‘Mahalle Baskısı’,” Mukaddime, 3 (2010), 81–92.
31 Brought in Yaron Ben-Naeh, “Moshko the Jew and His Gay Friends:
Same-Sex Sexual Relations in Ottoman Jewish Society,” Journal of Early
Modern History, 9(1–2) (2005), 103.
32 Ben-Naeh, “Moshko the Jew.”
33 In some ways, sound is superior to sight. In what concerns us here, it can
go around corners and travel through walls. For a fuller discussion, see
Jonathan Rée, I See a Voice: A Philosophical History of Language,
Deafness and the Senses (London: Harper Collins, 1999), 34–40.
34 Cohen, Simon-Pikali, and Salama, Yehūdı̄m be-beyt ha-mishpat: ha-
_
meʾah ha-shmoneh-ʿesreh, 279.
35 ÜS, vol. 407, p. 40, 24 Ca 1156 (July 16, 1743). The defendant was
accused of being a “habitual criminal.” Accusing one of being a “habit-
ual criminal” and especially in sexual crimes, was a technique commonly
used by plaintiffs to increase the chances of conviction. “Habitual crim-
inality” turned an incident from a private suit into a case of public order,
and therefore, transferred the defendant to the jurisdiction of sultanic law
(kanun), which set a lower bar of evidence. See Tuğ, Politics of Honor,
129–140. See further below.
36 BOA, C.ZB 16/786, 13 Za 1204 (July 25, 1790). The neighbors further
accused Hasan of sexually assaulting neighborhood children. On such
accusations, see previous note. For additional cases of people sensing
undesirable activity within their neighbors’ homes, see for example,
Marinos Sariyannis, “Prostitution in Ottoman Istanbul, Late Sixteenth–
Early Eighteenth Century,” Turcica, 40 (2008), 38, 49–50.
37 ÜS, vol. 407, p. 19, 4 M 1156 (February 28, 1743). For more cases of
stoning houses at night, see case dated end of Z 1159 (January 4–12, 1747),
in Ahmet Kal’a (ed.), İstanbul Ahkam Defterleri: İstanbul’da Sosyal Hayat,
vol. 1 (Istanbul: İstanbul Araѕ̧tırmaları Merkezi, 1997), 255; case dated
26 Ra 1160 (April 7, 1747) in Muzaffarova, “Üsküdar Kadılığı,” 86–87;
cases dated 12 M 1159 (February 4, 1746); 41–42, 30 M 1159 (February
22, 1746) in Kılıç, “1158–1159 (1745–1746) Tarihli,” 31–32. On stoning
houses at night in the nineteenth century, see Atay, Batış Yılları, 22.
38 Similar insults could be thrown at men, although it is likely that men were
better positioned to cope with such slanders, e.g. by appealing to court.
See for example, ÜS, vol. 466, p. 10, 5 Ca 1178 (October 31, 1764).

39 Muzaffarova, “Üsküdar Kadılığı,” 142. For similar cases of verbal attack

after dark, see pp. 68, 114. Accusations of “violation of honor” were
common in the eighteenth century. The term covered a wide range of
offenses, from rape to verbal assaults. See Tuğ, Politics of Honor, 149–151.
40 Maksudyan, “Introduction,” 3–4; Madeline C. Zilfi, Women and
Slavery in the Late Ottoman Empire: The Design of Difference (New
York: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 74.
41 Lewis, Everyday Life, 115. Even in Ramadan, which generally marked
the relaxation of gender limitations, women’s being outside could raise
resentment. See Câbî Ömer Efendi, Câbî Târihi, II, 690. These norms are
still rather common in many contemporary Anatolian towns. See Toprak
et al., Türkiye’de Farklı Olmak, 39–41, 89. In early nineteenth-century
Europe, too women “of good reputation” did not allow themselves to be
seen after dark. See Schlör, Nights in the Big City, 192.
42 See Chapter 3.
43 Liat Kozma, “Wandering About as She Pleases: Prostitutes, Adolescent
Girls, and Female Slaves in Cairo’s Public Space, 1850–1882,” Journal of
Women of the Middle East and the Islamic World, 10(1) (2012), 18–36;
Leslie P. Peirce, Morality Tales: Law and Gender in the Ottoman Court
of Aintab (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003), 166–179, 187,
193; Betül Başaran, “Remaking the Gate of Felicity: Policing, Social
Control and Migration in Istanbul at the End of the Eighteenth
Century, 1789–1793,” unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of
Chicago (2006), 237 n. 77. Madeline Zilfi notes that women too were
“watchdogs of their sisters’ morality” and served as the “eyes and ears of
the neighborhood.” See Zilfi, Women and Slavery, 74.
44 I borrow the term from Başak Tuğ. Tuğ shows that women sometimes
turned to the state to thwart such assaults and protect their honor. See
Tuğ, Politics of Honor, 140.
45 See for example, Kılıç, “1158–1159 (1745–1746) Tarihli,” 26–27, 77,
169–170.
46 Piero Camporesi, Bread of Dreams: Food and Fantasy in Early Modern
Europe (Cambridge: Polity in association with Basil Blackwell, 1989),
94–102; Ekirch, At Day’s Close, 15–23; Koslofsky, Evening’s Empire, esp.
28–45.
47 Sariyannis, “Of Ottoman Ghosts.”
48 See the online discussion in the H-Turk discussion group held between
August 6–12, 2002, www.h-net.org/logsearch/ with keyword “Ottoman
witchcraft” (accessed August 2, 2018). The scholars who took part in the
discussion were Michael Meeker, Carter V. Findley, Diana Wright, Selim
Kuru, Nurhan Davutyan, Colin Imber, Walter Andrews, Andras
Riedlmayer, Anat Lapidot-Firilla, Boğaç Ergene, Matthew Elliot, Peter

M. Kreuter, and Leslie Peirce. See also Sariyannis, “Of Ottoman

Ghosts,” 208–209 n. 50. For a case of alleged kızılbaş heresy analyzed
in the context of sociopolitical anxieties in sixteenth-century Anatolia,
see Peirce, Morality Tales, 251–275.
49 Ayfer Karakaya-Stump, The Kızılbash/Alevis in Ottoman Anatolia:
Sufism, Politics and Community (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University
Press, 2019), 282, 292. Semerdjian, “Because He Is So,” 194.
50 Ergene, Local Court, 165–166. On candle-snuffing see also Ayşe
Baltacıoğlu-Brammer, “‘Those Heretics Gathering Secretly . . .’:
Qizilbash Rituals and Practices in the Ottoman Empire according to
Early Modern Sources,” Journal of the Ottoman and Turkish Studies
Association, 6(1) (2019), 39–60. Snuffing the candles when in company
carried sexual connotations also in Europe and North America. See
Ekirch, At Day’s Close, 192–193.
51 M. Brett Wilson, “The Twilight of Ottoman Sufism: Antiquity,
Immorality, and Nation in Yakup Kadri Karaosmanoğlu’s Nur Baba,”
International Journal of Middle East Studies, 49(2) (2017), 237–238.
Heterodox groups in Anatolia have been accused of engaging in orgies
with family members already in the fourteenth century. See Mehmet
Köprülü, Osmanlı Devleti’nin Kuruluѕ̧u, 4th ed. (Ankara: Türk Tarih
Kurumu basımevi, 1991), 100–101.
52 Brought in Baki Öz, Aleviliğe Iftiralara Cevaplar, 2. basım. (Istanbul:
Can Yayınları, 1996), 23–24.
53 Paul Rycaut, The History of the Present State of the Ottoman Empire
(London: Charles Brome, 1686), bk II, 248–249.
54 Cengiz Şiѕ̧man, The Burden of Silence: Sabbatai Sevi and the Evolution
of the Ottoman-Turkish Dönmes (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2015), 183–187.
55 Marc David Baer, The Dönme: Jewish Converts, Muslim
Revolutionaries, and Secular Turks (Redwood City, CA: Stanford
University Press, 2010), 167–169.
56 On nocturnal religious rituals, see Chapter 4.
57 Robert Dankoff, “An Unpublished Account of Mum Söndürmek in the
Seyāhatnāme of Evliya Chelebi,” in Bektachiyya: études sur l’ordre
_
mystique des bektachis et les groupes relevant de Hadji Bektach,
Alexandre Popovic and Gilles Veinstein (eds.) (Istanbul: Isis, 1995),
69–73. All translations here are by Dankoff.
58 Ibid., 72. Transliteration here follows not Dankoff’s translation but the
simpler rules adopted in this work.
59 Ali Yıldırım, Osmanlı Engizisyonu: Zulmün Tarihi (Kalkedon Yayınları,
2008), 176–177.
60 BOA, AE.SABH.I 7665/1, 10 B 1203 (April 6, 1789).

61 Baki Öz, Alevilik İle İlgili Osmanlı Belgeleri (Istanbul: Can Yayınları,
1995), 145–146.
62 That is the title of Rifat Bali’s work on the demonization of Dönmes in
contemporary Turkey. See Rıfat N. Bali, A Scapegoat for All Seasons:
The Dönmes or Crypto-Jews of Turkey (Istanbul: Isis Press, 2010).
63 Compulsory carrying of personal lanterns was also the rule throughout
late medieval Europe. See Schivelbusch, “The Policing of Street
Lighting,” 61–62.
64 See decree cited in Osman Nuri Ergin, “Tenvirat,” in Mecelle-i Umur-ı
Belediyye, vol. 1 (Istanbul: Matbaa-i Osmaniyye, 1922), 975.
65 Order dated 22 B 1193 (August 7, 1779), cited in Mehmet Mazak,
“Istanbul’un Aydıntama Tarihçesine Giriş,” GazBir, 11 (2011), 118.
The reference to clock hours, rather than to prayer time, reﬂected the
growing reliance on mechanical clocks. See Wishnitzer, Reading Clocks,
esp. 32–44.
66 For regulations sanctioning the carrying of lanterns in the nineteenth
century, see Takvim-i Vekayi, 17 Za 1262 (December 1, 1846); BOA,
A.MKT.NZD 309/41, 28 Ş 1276 (March 22, 1860). There are many
documents showing that the regulations were indeed enforced. See for
example, BOA. A.MKT 5/49, 25 Ş 1264 (July 26, 1848); BOA, C.ZB
3/101, 19 R 1289 (June 25, 1872). For background see Avner Wishnitzer,
“Shedding New Light: Outdoor Illumination in Late Ottoman Istanbul,”
in Meier et al. (eds.), Urban Lighting, 74–75; İleri, “A Nocturnal
History,” 143–149.
67 For Istanbul, see for example, BOA, C.ZB 3/101, 19 R 1289 (June 25,
1872). See also İleri, “A Nocturnal History,” 168. On Jerusalem, see
Yasemin Avcı, Degiѕ̧im Sürecinde Bir Osmanlı Kenti: Kudüs
(1890–1914) (Ankara: Phoenix, 2004), 228–229.
68 Wishnitzer, “Eyes in the Dark.”
69 Balıkhane Nazırı Ali Rıza, Eski Zamanlarda, 67–68; Smith, A Month,
89; White, Three Years, 3:249–250.
70 Ali Bey, Travels of Ali Bey, 2:400.
71 See for example, John Madox, Excursions in the Holy Land, Egypt,
Nubia, Syria, Etc. (London: Richard Bentley, 1834), 51.
72 On artiﬁcial lighting and its limitations, see Chapter 5.
73 Edensor, “Reconnecting with Darkness, 452.
74 See Osman Nuri’s description of “anonymous” individuals walking
without a lantern (fenersiz gezen hüvviyyeti mechul) in Nuri, Mecelle,
vol. 1 [2inci bölüm], 914, n. 70. See also Smith, A Month, 89.
75 According to Nuri, that is the source of the term külhanbeyi that is still
used in modern Turkish to denote a roughneck, hoodlum, or a hooligan.

76 Pouqueville, Travels in Greece and Turkey, 291.

77 Charlemont, The Travels, 210–211.
78 Ibid.
79 Charlemont, The Travels, 210.
80 Abdülaziz Bey, Osmanlı Âdet, 1995, 1:339–341. Writing about the late
sixteenth century, Fikret Yılmaz argues that breaking into a private
house required a kadı’s permission. See Fikret Yılmaz, “The Line
between Fornication and Prostitution: The Prostitute versus the Subaşi
(Police Chief ),” Acta Orientalia, 69(3) (2016), 255.
81 ÜS, vol. 407, p. 3, 5 C 1155 (August 7, 1742).
82 ÜS, vol. 466, p. 6, 16 Ca 1178 (November 16, 1764). The defendant in
this case was not Emine but rather a woman named Aişe, whom the
neighborhood people blamed for operating a brothel. Emine was caught
in the apartment Aişe was renting.
83 In just two weeks in December 1767, three such cases were brought
before the Üsküdar court. See ÜS, vol. 474, p. 40, 9 B 1181 (December
1, 1767); ÜS, vol. 474, p. 47, 21 B 1181 (December 13, 1767); ÜS,
vol. 474, p. 47, 22 B 1181 (December 14, 1767). That is an unusual rate
that may have to do with a particularly active bailiff, or a host of other
reasons that remain invisible to us. However, similar cases were brought
to court in other times and places. See for example, ÜS, vol. 466, p. 32,
11 Za 1178 (May 2, 1765).
84 Işık Tamdoğan-Abel, “Osmanlı Döneminden Günümüz Türkiye’sine
‘Bizim Mahalle,” İstanbul, 40 (2002), 69–70.
85 Burhān al-Dı̄n ʿAlı̄ b. Abı̄ Bakr al-Marghı̄nānı̄, al-Hidāya: sharh bidāyat
_
al-mubtadı̄, vol. 3 (Cairo: Dār al-salām li-l-tibāʿa wa-l-nashr wa-l-tawzı̄ʿ
_
wa-l-tarjama, 2000), 1099, 1098.
86 Ben-Arieh, ʿIr bi-reʾı̄ teqūfah, i:36.
87 Avraham Moshe Luntz, Lūah ʾerets yisraʾel shı̄mūshı̄ ve-sifrūti li-shnat
_
htrʾ (Jerusalem: Published by the author, 1909), 11. Very similar prac-
tices were common in Medieval Europe, and in some areas they survived
into the Early Modern era. See Schivelbusch, “The Policing of Street
Lighting”; Ekirch, At Day’s Close, 61–65.
88 Leech, Letters of a Sentimental Idler, 330–331.
89 Details here are based on the good discussion provided in Başaran, Selim
III, 44–56. For more on law enforcement in eighteenth-century Istanbul,
see Zarinebaf, Crime and Punishment, 125–140.
90 Başaran, Selim III, 48–52. On the bostancılar, see also Hamadeh, The
City’s Pleasures, 127.
91 Halim Alyot, Türkiye’de Zabıta (Tarihi Gelişim ve Bugünkü Durum)
(Ankara: Kanaat Basımevi, 1947), 61–63. See also Glen W. Swanson,

“Ottoman Police,” Journal of Contemporary History, 7(1) (1972),

247–250.
92 On the sensorial experience of the urban nights, see Chapter 1.
93 Shoberl, The World in Miniature, 8:253.
94 For examples, see ÜS, vol. 407, p. 3, 5 C 1155 (August 7, 1742); ÜS,
vol. 466, p. 32, 11 Za 1178 (May 2, 1765); ÜS, vol. 474, p. 47, 22
B 1181 (December 14, 1767).
95 Câbî Ömer Efendi, Câbî Târihi, i, 409–410.
96 Ekirch, At Day’s Close, 88–89.
97 Virginia Aksan, recommends using Tott’s memoirs cautiously, as they
were heavily biased by the author’s preconceptions and poor familiarity
with some of the topics he covered. See Virginia Aksan, “Breaking the
Spell of the Baron de Tott: Reframing the Question of Military Reform
in the Ottoman Empire, 1760–1830,” The International History
Review, 24(2) (2002), 253–277.
98 François Tott, Memoires of the Baron de Tott: Containing the State of
the Turkish Empire & the Crimea during the Late War with Russia
(London: G. G. J. & J. Robinson, 1786), 100.
99 Tott, Memoires, 100–103.
100 On this tradition, see Chapter 4.
101 Câbî Ömer Efendi, Câbî Târihi, 213–214.
102 See Chapter 3.
103 Mustafa Naima, Tarih-i Naima, Mehmet İpşirli (ed.) (Ankara: Türk
Tarih Kurumu, 2007), 756.
104 Modern research about the practice is limited to short entries in several
encyclopedic works and passing references in some other works. See for
example, Mehmet İpşirli, “Tebdil Gezmek (Osmanlılar’da),” Halis
Ayhan and Ahmet Yılmaz (eds.), Türkiye Diyanet Vakfı İslam
Ansiklopedisi (hereafter TDVİA) (Istanbul: Türk Diyanet Vakfı,
2011); Necdet Sakaoğlu, “Tebdil Gezmek,” Dünden Bugüne İstanbul
Ansiklopedisi (Istanbul: Kültür Bakanlığı and Tarih Vakfı, 1993);
İsmail Hakkı Uzunçarѕ̧ılı, Osmanli Devletinin Saray Teskilati
(Ankara: Turk Tarih Kurumu Basımevi, 1945), 60–62; Fikret
Sarıcaoğlu, Kendi Kaleminden Bir Padiѕ̧ahın Portresi Sultan
I. Abdülhamid (1774–1789) (Istanbul: Tatav, Tarih ve Tabiat Vakfı,
2000), 47–51.
105 Sarıcaoğlu, Kendi Kaleminden, 48.
106 İpşirli, “Tebdil Gezmek,” 212–213.
107 Ibid.

108 Şemʿdânî-Zâde Fındıkıllı Süleyman Efendi, Şemʿdânî-Zâde Fındıkıllı

Süleyman Efendi Târihi Mürʾiʾt-Tevârih, II.2, M. Münir Aktepe (ed.)
(Istanbul: Edebiyat Fakültesi Matbaası, 1978), 35.
109 BOA, HAT 1384/54834, 29 Z 1203 (January 20, 1789).
110 İpşirli, “Tebdil Gezmek.”
111 Antoine Galland (trans.), The Arabian Nights Entertainments:
Consisting of One Thousand and One Stories, vol. 1 (London:
T. Longman, 1789), 98.
112 Husain Haddawy (trans.), The Arabian Nights: Based on the Text of
the Fourteenth-Century Syrian Manuscript Edited by Musin Mahdi
(London: W. W. Norton & Co., 1990), 78.
113 Şinasi Tekin, “Binbir Gece’nin İlk Türkçe Tercümeleri ve Bu
Hikayelerdeki Gazeller Üzerine,” Türk Dilleri Araştırmaları, 3 (1993),
241; Hande A. Birkalan-Gedik, “The Thousand and One Nights in
Turkish: Translations, Adaptations and Issues,” in The Arabian
Nights in Transnational Perspective, Ulrich Marzolph (ed.) (Detroit:
Mayne State University Press, 2007), 201–220.
114 Tekin, “Binbir Gece’nin,” 242–244, 254.
115 Sadettin Eğri (ed.), Elfü Leyletin ve Leyle Hikayetleri/Binbir Gece
Masalları, Bursa Nüshası (Bursa: Bursa Büyükѕ̧ehir Belediyesi Kitaplığı:
Bursa Araѕ̧tırmaları Merkezi: Bursa Kültür A.Ş, 2016), 258. For the dating
of the manuscript, see pp. 37–38. On the different manuscripts and the
relations between them, see Tekin, “Binbir Gece’nin.”
116 Tekin, “Binbir Gece’nin.”
117 Ibid.
118 On the association of the coffeehouse with the day, and the tavern
with the night, see also Marinos Sariyannis, “‘Mob,’ ‘Scamps’ and
Rebels in Seventeenth-Century Istanbul: Some Remarks on Ottoman
Social Vocabulary,” International Journal of Turkish Studies,
11(1–2) (2005), 10. As noted above, however, some coffeehouses
certainly operated into the dark hours. Furthermore, some coffee-
houses were turned into provisional taverns after dark. See
Chapter 3.
119 Naima, Tarih-i Naima, 756–757. On Murad and his nightly patrols, see
also Zarinebaf, Crime and Punishment, 125.
120 Dimitrie Cantemir, The History of the Growth and Decay of the
Othman Empire, Part 1, M. A. Tindal (trans.) (London: John James
and Paul Knapton, 1734), 249–250.
121 On such stories, see Chapter 4.

122 Elias Habesci, The Present State of the Ottoman Empire (London: R.
Baldwin, 1784), 226. Although Habesci’s work is widely cited in the
scholarship, he is often miss-identiﬁed, mostly owing to the fact that
very little has been written about him, despite his fascinating life story.
For a good, brief biography, see Liviu Bordas, “An Early Ideologist of
British Supremacy in South and South-East Asia: Elias Habesci (1793),”
in Sharing a Future in Asia: The Fifth International Convention of Asia
Scholars, Kuala Lumpur, August 2–5, 2007 (Bangi: Institute of
Occidental Studies, 2007), 217–218.
123 Καλλίνικου Γ΄ Πατριάρχου Κωνσταντινουπόλεως, Τα Κατά Και Μετά Την
Εξορίαν Συμβάντα, Agamemnon Tselikas (ed.) (Athens: MIET, 2004),
238. Turkish words appear in the original. As I do not read Greek,
I used an unpublished translation by Peter Mackridge. I thank professor
Mackridge for bringing this text to my attention and kindly sharing
with me his translation. I was also guided by Peter Mackridge, “The
Delights of Constantinople in Eighteenth-Century Greek Literature,”
A talk presented to the Levantine Heritage Foundation at the Hellenic
Centre, London, April 10, 2018.
124 Καλλίνικου Γ΄ Πατριάρχου Κωνσταντινουπόλεως, Τα Κατά Και Μετά, 256.
125 Ibid.
126 Καλλίνικου Γ΄ Πατριάρχου Κωνσταντινουπόλεως, 241.
127 See Chapters 5 and 6.

Chapter 3
1 Şemʿdânî-Zâde, Mürʾiʾt-Tevârih, 61.
2 I am of course alluding to Freud’s conceptualization of mental material or
“wishes” that had been “pressed down” to the extent that they cannot be
accessed by the conscious mind, nor can they be erased. Rather, they
continue to exist subconsciously, emerging and re-emerging in various
forms. Freud developed these notions especially in The Interpretation of
Dreams and Moses and Monotheism.
3 Balıkhane Nazırı Ali Rıza, Eski Zamanlarda, 153, 191. Ahmed Cavid,
“Hadîka-i Vekāyiʿ,” Adnan Baycar (ed.) (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu
Basımevi, 1998), 217.
4 Ahmet Haşim, “Müslüman Saati,” Dergah, 1(3) (1921), 35; Balıkhane
Nazırı Ali Rıza, Eski Zamanlarda, 153. On the intensiﬁcation of nightlife
during the foreign occupation of Istanbul, see Daniel-Joseph MacArthur-
Seal, “Intoxication and Imperialism: Nightlife in Occupied Istanbul,
1918–1923,” Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle
East, 37(2) (2017), 299–313.

5 Woodall, “Decadent Nights,” 17–36; Wishnitzer, “Eyes in the Dark,”

250–257; Nurçin İleri, “A Nocturnal History of Fin de Siecle Istanbul,”
unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Binghamton University (2015), 202–270.
6 See for example, Arus Yumul, “‘A Prostitute Lodged in the Bosom of
Turkishness’: Istanbul”s Pera and Its Representation,” Journal of
Intercultural Studies, 30(1) (February 2009), 62; Fatma Müge Göçek,
East Encounters West: France and the Ottoman Empire in the
Eighteenth Century (Oxford: Oxford Unıversıty Press, 1987), 54;
Tülay Artan, “Architecture as a Theatre of Life: Proﬁle of the
Eighteenth Century Bosporus,” unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, MIT
(1989), 44. There are some references in eighteenth-century sources to
the lack of nocturnal activity in Istanbul. See for example, Charlemont,
The Travels, 210; D’Ohsson, Tableau général 3:241.
7 Akgündüz, Osmanlı ve Hukukî Tahlilleri, IV. Kitap, I. Kısım, 301,
368. On the punishments stipulated by law to drinkers and the
stigma attached to drinking, see also François Georgeon, “Ottoman
and Drinkers: The Consumption of Alcohol in Istanbul in
the Nineteenth Century,” in Outside In: On the Margins of the Middle
East, Eugene Rogan (ed.) (London/New York: I. B. Tarius, 2002), 10.
8 D’Ohsson, Tableau général, vol. 4, 63. About night-time consumption of
opium and alcohol among “dervishes,” see also Tott, Memoires, 141,
143–144. On nighttime gambling, see Câbî Ömer Efendi, Câbî Târihi, I, 421.
9 For taverns open during the day, see Mirzazade Salim, Tezkire-i Salim,
535–536; Yakup Çelik (ed.), Hançerli Hanım Hikaye-i Garibesi
(Ankara: Akçağ Yayınları, 1999), 13; Broughton, A Journey through
Albania, 2:279.
10 Fariba Zarinebaf, Mediterranean Encounters: Trade and Pluralism in
Early Modern Galata (Oakland: University of California Press,
2018), 241.
11 BOA, HAT 212/11497, 29 Z 1204 (September 9, 1790); BOA, HAT
211/11470, 29 Z 1205 (August 29, 1791). The reports themselves do not
carry dates and seem to have been arbitrarily dated by the archive to the
last day of the Hicri year (29 Zilhicce), along with many of the other
documents pertaining to the sultan’s clampdown on alcohol and
prostitution. The chronicler Ahmed Cavid, who cites some of the related
sultanic decrees, allows dating them to late December 1790 and early
January 1791. See Ahmed Cavid, “Hadîka-i Vekāyiʿ,” 194–195, 203,
215–221. See also Chapter 7. The dates of the documents are here
provided only to ease their location in the archive. They do not reﬂect
the dates the documents were actually issued.
12 On Selim III’s campaign against Istanbul’s taverns, see Chapter 7.

13 BOA, HAT 211/11470, 29 Z 1205 (August 29, 1791).

14 Başaran, Selim III, 115.
15 BOA, HAT 212/11497, 29 Z 1204 (September 9, 1790).
16 Ahmet Hezafren, “H. 1245’te (1829) Başmuhasebeye Gedik Olarak
Kayıtlı İstanbul Meyhaneleri,” Tarih ve Toplum, 129 (1994), 36–39.
17 Reѕ̧at Koçu, Eski İstanbul’da Meyhaneler ve Meyhane Köçekleri, 2.
baskı. (Istanbul: Doğan Kitapçılık, 2002), 16, 37–40, 61–65.
18 Evliya Çelebi, Evliyâ Çelebi Seyahatnâmesi: Topkapi Sarayı Kütüphanesi
Bağdat 304 Numaralı Yazmanın Transkripsiyonu -Dizini, Yücel Dağlı,
Seyit Ali Kahraman, and Robert Dankoff (eds.), vol. 7 (Istanbul: Kredi,
Yapı, 2003), 349.
19 Luc Gwiazdzinski provides a fascinating geography of early twenty-first
century night with its ebbs and flows, and different types of “people of
the night” moving in and out of particular spaces, engaging in different
activities, and interacting with one another in different ways. See
Gwiazdzinski, La Nuit, esp. 141–191. His “spacio-temporal” mode of
analysis is further developed in his later work.
20 Başaran, Selim III, 27–33, 62–66.
21 Florian Riedler, “Public People: Temporary Labor Migrants in
Nineteenth-Century Istanbul,” in Public Istanbul: Spaces and Spheres
of the Urban, F. Ekradt and K. Wildner (eds.) (Bielefeld: Transcript,
2008), 235; Başaran, Selim III, 27; Zarinebaf, Crime and
Punishment, 38.
22 Kırlı, “A Profile,” 125, 134.
23 See Kırlı, “A Profile,” 125; Kemal Karpat, Ottoman Population,
1830–1914: Demographic and Social Characteristics (Madison:
University of Wisconsin Press, 1985), 53, table 5.3; Başaran, Selim III,
60–61; Zarinebaf, Crime and Punishment, 38; Ali Yaycıoğu, Partners of
the Empire: The Crisis of the Ottoman Order in the Age of Revolutions
(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2016), 19.
24 Zarinebaf, Crime and Punishment, 38–39.
25 Başaran, Selim III, 97, 106; Hamadeh, “Mean Streets,” 253.
26 On the many other terms used by the elite to refer to the urban under-
class, see Sariyannis, ““Mob,” 1–15.
27 Hamadeh, “Mean Streets,” 252–253.
28 Başaran, Selim III, 97, 106.
29 Mehmet Mert Sunar, “Cauldron of Dissent: A Study of the Janissary
Corps, 1807–1826” (Binghamton University, 2006), 33–95, 111.
30 Başaran, Selim III, 103.

31 Haim Gerber, State, Society, and Law in Islam: Ottoman Law in

Comparative Perspective (Albany: State University of New York Press,
1994), 63, 72–73, 98–99. See also Peirce, Morality Tales, 327.
32 Tuğ, Politics of Honor, esp. 129–140, 157–163.
33 Ginio, “Marginal People,” 81–85; Başaran, “Remaking,” 62–71; Ehud
R. Toledano, State and Society in Mid-Nineteenth-Century Egypt
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 200–203; Semerdjian,
Off the Straight Path.
34 Hamadeh, “Invisible City,” 175; Riedler, “Public People,” 240.
35 Hamadeh, “Mean Streets,” 262.
36 Hamadeh, “Invisible City.” On measures taken against these popu-
lation and their limited efficacy, see also Riedler, “Public People,”
236–237; Başaran, Selim III, 33–40; Zarinebaf, Crime and
Punishment, 48–50; Kırlı, “A Profile,” 134–135; Sunar, “Cauldron of
Dissent,” 115.
37 Hamadeh, “Invisible City.”
38 Işık Tamdoğan demonstrates this with regards to the neighborhood of
Üsküdar. See Tamdoğan, “Atı Alan Üsküdar’a Geçti.” On khans, see
also Tamdoğan-Abel, “Les han.”
39 Sunar, “Cauldron of Dissent,” 113–115, 128–131. On these networks
and sites, see Ergin, “The Albanian Tellâk Connection”; Başaran, Selim
III, 133–161; Hamadeh, “Invisible City,” 180–181. See also Ali Çaksu,
“Janissary Coffee-Houses in Late Eighteenth-Century Istanbul,” in
Ottoman Tulips, Ottoman Coffee: Leisure and Lifestyle in the
Eighteenth Century, Dana Sajdi (ed.) (London: Tauris Academic
Studies, 2007), 117–132. The janissaries’ use of the night in times of
rebellion is further discussed in Chapter 7.
40 On these groups and their place in the workforce in the long eighteenth
century, and their relations with the janissaries, see Riedler, “Public
People”; Kırlı, “A Profile”; Sunar, “Cauldron of Dissent,” 65–77,
113–116.
41 Boğaç Ergene and Metin Coşgel, for example, show that Ottoman courts
in two provincial towns in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries
served the powerful much more than they served the powerless. See
Ergene, Local Court; Coѕ̧gel and Ergene, The Economics.
42 Zarinebaf, Crime and Punishment, 112. Even if we take the higher figure
reported by Zarinebaf for the years 1719–1721 (armed robbery and
banditry, at p. 73), the percentage of violent cases in my nocturnal
sample is still significantly higher.

43 It was only around the end of the century that the palace adopted more
comprehensive – and violent – policies to assert its control. See
Chapter 7. See also Hamadeh, “Mean Streets,” 259–264.
44 BOA, C.ZB 34/1675, 12 C 1226 (July 4, 1811). For more about the
petition and its context, see Hamadeh, 259–264.
45 Abdülaziz Bey, Osmanlı Âdet, 2:43, 1:307. For a similar, pejorative use
of the term, see Marinos Sariyannis, ““Neglected Trades: Glimpses into
the 17th-Century Istanbul Underworld,” Turcica, 38 (2006), 169.
46 Mirzazade Salim, Tezkire-i Salim, 300, 467.
47 For examples, see Kal’a (ed.), İstanbul Ahkam Defterleri, 1: 191, begin-
ning of R 1158 (May 3–12, 1745); p. 247, middle of B 1159 (July 30–
August 8, 1746; p. 253, no date, 1159 (1746); p. 291, middle of C 1161
(June 8–17, 1748); p. 345, end of B 1164 (June 14–24, 1751). For
chronicles, see for example, Faik Reşit Unat (ed.), 1730 Patrona Ihtilâli
Hakkında Bir Eser: Abdi Tarihi (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu, 1943),
26; Şemʿdânî-Zâde, Mürʾiʾt-Tevârih, 61.
48 Câbî Ömer Efendi, Câbî Târihi, 2: 761.
49 For another example of residents’ appeal to the court concerning
drinking houses that operate “day and night,” see cases dated beginning
of S 1165 (December 20–29, 1751) brought in Kal’a, İstanbul Ahkam
Defterleri, ii, 26–27. More examples are brought below.
50 Zarinebaf, Crime and Punishment, 100–101. On prostitution in taverns
at night see also Sariyannis, “Prostitution in Ottoman Istanbul,” 51, 55,
58. On prostitutes arrested in various public spaces around town, see
Hamadeh, “Mean Streets,” 265–266.
51 Geçgil, “Uskudar at the Beginning of the 18th Century,” 235. For more
examples, see Kal’a, İstanbul Ahkam Defterleri, 1: 191, beginning of
R 1158 (May 3–12, 1745); p. 253, no date, 1159 (1746); p. 291, middle
of C 1161 (June 8–17, 1748). Muzaffarova, “Üsküdar Kadılığı,” 41, 57,
67. For more cases of prostitutes at night, see Zarinebaf, Crime and
Punishment, 86–91, 108; Sariyannis, “Prostitution in Ottoman
Istanbul,” 51.
52 Kılıç, “1158–1159 (1745–1746) Tarihli Üsküdar Sicili,” 51–52.
53 For night work in Early Modern European cities, see Ekirch, At Day’s
Close, 155–184.
54 Melbin, Night as Frontier, 55; Ekirch, At Day’s Close, 158–160. On the
colonization of the night in recent times, see also Gwiazdzinski, La Nuit.
55 For a review of the literature, see YongMin Cho et al., “Effects of
Artiﬁcial Light,” 1294–1310. For a good discussion for laypersons, see
Bogard, The End of Night, 93–124.

56 Nejdet Ertuğ, Osmanlı Döneminde İstanbul Balıkçıları (Istanbul:

Kitabevi, 2015), 25; Minna Rozen, “Boatmen’s and Fishermen‘s Guilds
in Nineteenth-century Istanbul,” Mediterranean Historical Review, 15
(1) (2000), 84. For a review of the huge marine sector in Istanbul,
including the different types of ﬁshermen, see Ertuğ, Osmanlı
Döneminde, 18–81.
57 Alan R. Longhurst, Ecological Geography of the Sea (San Diego: Academic
Press, 1998); James Tuckey, Maritime Geography and Statistics, or a
Description of the Ocean and Its Coasts, Maritime Commerce,
Navigation Etc., vol. 2 (London: Black, Parry and Co., 1815), 371.
58 Ertuğ, Osmanlı Döneminde, 86.
59 Suraiya Faroqhi, “Fish and Fishermen in Ottoman Istanbul,” in Water
on Sand: Environmental Histories of the Middle East and North Africa,
Alan Mikhail (ed.) (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 94–95.
60 Thomas Allom and Robert Walsh, Constantinople and the Scenery of the
Seven Churches of Asia Minor: Illustrated (London: Fisher, Son & Co.,
1838), 40; R. Walsh, A Residence at Constantinople, during a Period
including the Commencement, Progress, and Termination of the Greek
and Turkish Revolutions, vol. 2 (London: F. Westley & A. H. Davis,
1836), 40; Stephen Olin, Greece and the Golden Horn (New York: J. C.
Derby, 1854), 306; Faroqhi, “Fish and Fishermen,” 91–107.
61 Faroqhi, “Fish and Fishermen.”
62 Mackridge, “The Delights of Constantinople.”
63 Recep et al., İstanbul Kadı Sicillleri, 518. On “porging” and “porgers,”
see Minna Rozen, “A Pound of Flesh: The Meat Trade and Social
Struggle in Jewish Istanbul, 1700–1923,” in Crafts and Craftsmen of
the Middle East: Fashioning the Individual in the Muslim Mediterranean,
Suraiya Faroqhi and Randi Deguilhem (eds.) (London: I. B. Tauris,
2005), 200.
64 On Bakeries, see Y. Barnay, Yehudey ʾerets-yisraʾel ba-meʾah ha-18. Be-
hasūt “peqidey Qūshtā,” R. Eshel (ed.) (Jerusalem: Yad Yitshakq Ben-
_ _ _
Tsevı̄, 1982), 206. See also Peirce, Morality Tales, 171. On public baths
in Istanbul, see Nuri, Mecelle, vol. 1 [2inci bölüm], 914, n. 70.
65 D’Ohsson, Tableau général, vol. 4, 241. On menial jobs, see Develi,
Risâle-i Garîbe, 43. On taking care of lanterns and candles, see
Chapter 5.
66 Cohen, Simon-Pikali, and Ginio, Yehūdı̄m be-beyt ha-mishpat: ha-meʾah
_
ha-teshaʿ-ʿesreh, 237.
67 See BOA, C.DH 16/751, 27 L 1206 (June 18, 1792). 100 guruş equals
1,200 akçe, which, divided by the number of nights each month gives 40

akçe a night. An unskilled worker could make about 68 akçe for a day of
work. See Şevket Pamuk, İstanbul ve Diğer Kentlerde 500 Yıllık Fiyatlar
ve Ücretler 1469–1998 (Ankara: Devlet İstatik Enstitüsü Matbaası,
2000), 72. On night guards in sixteenth-century Jerusalem, see Cohen
and Simon-Pikali, Yehūdı̄m be-beyt ha-mishpat: ha-meʾah ha-shesh-
_
ʿesreh, 52–60.
68 The decree is brought in full in Ergin, “Tenvırat,” 965.
69 Noémi Lévy, “Yakından Korunan Düzen: Abdülhamid Devrinden II.
Meşrutiyet Dönemine Bekçi Örneği,” in Osmanlı’da Asayiş, Suç ve
Ceza (18.-20. Yy.), 141–142.
70 Zarinebaf, Crime and Punishment, 100–101. On prostitution in taverns
at night see also Marinos Sariyannis, “Prostitution in Ottoman
Istanbul,” 51, 55, 58. On prostitutes arrested in various public spaces
around town, see Hamadeh, “Mean Streets,” 265–266.
71 Derviş İsmail, Dellaknâme-i Dilküşâ, brought in transliteration in Murat
Bardakçı, Osmanlı’da Seks: Sarayda Gece Dersleri (Istanbul: Gür
Yayınları, 1992), 88–102. The ﬁgures cites are from the accounts of
Yemenici Ali (89–90) and Kız Softa (92–93).
72 For the average wages of unskilled workers in Istanbul that year, see
Pamuk, İstanbul ve Diğer Kentlerde, 70. For more on the Dellaknâme-i
Dilküşâ and an analysis of the relationships between these boys and their
janissaries patrons, see Delice, “The Janissaries and Their Bedfellows,”
126–127. On bath attendants, see also Ergin, “The Albanian Tellâk
Connection.”
73 For a brief discussion of these numbers, see Başaran, Selim III, 120–121.
74 Baki Tezcan, The Second Ottoman Empire: Political and Social
Transformation in the Early Modern World (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2010), 175–190, 199–212; Aysel Danacı Yıldız, Crisis and
Rebellion in the Ottoman Empire: The Downfall of a Sultan in the Age of
Revolution (London: I. B. Tauris, 2017), 57; Başaran, Selim III, 116–126. On
janissaries’ group solidarity, see Kadır Ustun, “The New Order and Its
Enemies: Opposition to Military Reform in the Ottoman Empire,
1789–1807” (Ph.D. dissertation, Columbia Univesity, 2013), 159–160.
75 Tezcan, The Second Ottoman Empire, 204–212; Yıldız, Crisis and
Rebellion, 57–59. On the janissaries’ interaction with other socioeco-
nomic groups, see Ustun, “The New Order,” 173–184.
76 On the intermingling of the janissaries and guilds, and the integration of
janissaries into urban economy and society, see Cemal Kafadar,
“Janissaries and Other Riffraff of Ottoman Istanbul: Rebels without a
Cause?,” in Identity and Identity Formation in the Ottoman World:

A Volume of Essays in Honor of Norman Itzkowitz, Baki Tezcan and

Karl K. Barbir (eds.) (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2007),
118–122; Cemal Kafadar, “On the Purity and Corruption of the
Janissaries,” Turkish Studies Association Bulletin, 15(2) (1991),
273–280; Eunjeong Yi, Guild Dynamics in Seventeenth-Century
Istanbul: Fluidity and Leverage (Ledien: Brill, 2004), esp. 132–143;
Gülay Yılmaz Diko, “Blurred Boundaries between Soldiers and
Civilians: Artisan Janissaries in Seventeenth-Century Istanbul,” in
Bread from the Lion’s Mouth: Artisans Struggling for a Livelihood in
Ottoman Cities, ed. Suraiya Faroqhi (New York: Berghahn Books,
2015), 175–193; Ali Yaycioglu, “Guarding Traditions and Laws –
Disciplining Bodies and Souls: Tradition, Science, and Religion in the
Age of Ottoman Reform,” Modern Asian Studies, 52(5) (2018),
1550–1551; Tezcan, The Second Ottoman Empire, 202–204.
77 Yıldız, Crisis and Rebellion, 179–180.
78 Yaycioglu, “Guarding Traditions,” 1550.
79 Shirine Hamadeh, “Invisible City: Istanbul’s Migrants and the Politics of
Space,” Eighteenth Century Studies, 50(2) (2017), 180–181.
80 On the privileges of the janissaries, and incentives for joining the corps,
see Tezcan, The Second Ottoman Empire, 204–212. Yıldız, Crisis and
Rebellion, 96–99. Quote at p. 97. For “political pressure group,” see
Tezcan, The Second Ottoman Empire, 182–184.
81 Halil İnalcik writes that in the early nineteenth century, about one-ﬁfth of
the capital’s population was associated with the Bektaşis. Halil İnalcık,
The Ottoman Empire; the Classical Age, 1300–1600 (London:
Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1973), 199. On the popular nature and
following of the order, see Butrus Abu-Manneh, “Between Heterodox
and Sunni Orthodox Islam: The Bektaşi Order in the Nineteenth Century
and Its Opponents,” Turkish Historical Review, 8(2) (2017), 210–212,
218; Yıldız, Crisis and Rebellion, 188–191. For a glimpse of janissary
culture, including its non, or even counter-orthodox tendencies, see Elif
Sezer Aydınlı, “Unusual Readers in Early Modern Istanbul: Manuscript
Notes of Janissaries and Other Riff-Raff on Popular Heroic Narratives,”
Journal of Islamic Manuscripts, 9(2–3) (2018), 109–131.
82 On janissary and gang-related violence, see Zarinebaf, Crime and
Punishment, 119–121.
83 This aspect is discussed in detail in Chapter 7.
84 Esʿad Efendi, Üss-i Zafer (Yeniçeriliğin Kaldırılmasına Dair), ed.
Mehmet Arslan (Istanbul: Kitabevi, 2005), 115.
85 Câbî Ömer Efendi, Câbî Târihi, I, 409–410.

86 William Wilkinson, An Account of the Principalities of Wallachia and

Moldavia: With Various Political Observations Relating to Them
(London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, 1820), 219–221.
Wilkinson includes in his book a translation of a treatise titled “The Final
Word to Refute the Rabble” ascribed to one “Tshelebi Efendi.” Scholars
debate the authorship of the work, but according to historian Ethan
Menchinger, most recently, the work was written by Ahmed Vasif. See
Ethan L. Menchinger, The First of the Modern Ottomans: The
Intellectual History of Ahmed Vasıf (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2017), 268–276.
87 Câbî Ömer Efendi, Câbî Târihi, I, 338–339.
88 For examples, see Câbî Ömer Efendi, I, 369–371, 437–438, 469, 491,
570, 572; II, 761–762, 821, 829.
89 Two major night brawls among janissaries over prostitutes caused sev-
eral deaths in January 1809. See Câbî Ömer Efendi, I, 380, 385. For
more night brawls between members of different military units, see Câbî
Ömer Efendi, 437–438, 469; II, 821, 829.
90 BOA, HAT 341/19504, 29 Z 1234 (October 19, 1819); BOA, HAT
1164/46058, 29 Z 1235 (October 7, 1820); BOA, HAT 525/25660, 29
Z 1238 (September 6, 1823); Selim Karahasanoğlu, Kadı ve
Günlüğü: Sadreddinzade Telhisî Mustafa Efendi Günlüğü (1711–1735)
Üstüne Bir Inceleme (Istanbul: Türkiye Bankası Kültür Yayınları, 2013),
191–192. More incidents of widespread violence are discussed in
Chapter 7.
91 Peter Baldwin makes a similar argument with regards to nineteenth-
century American cities. See Baldwin, In the Watches, 6.
92 Rudi Matthee noted the “stealthy” mode of popular drinking among
Muslims in Istanbul but missed the importance of the night in this respect.
See Rudi Matthee, “Alcohol in the Islamic Middle East: Ambivalence and
Ambiguity,” Past & Present, 222(9) (2014), 100–125.
93 White, Three Years, 3:101.
94 Koçu, Eski İstanbul’da Meyhaneler, 15–16, 33–34, 45, 48.
95 Kâtib Çelebi, Tuhfetü’l-Ahyâr, 475 (407).
96 BOA, C.ZB 24/1173, 9 R 1227 (May 12, 1812); BOA, C.ZB 78/386, 14
M 1231 (December 16, 1815).
97 BOA, C.ZB 24/1173, 9 R 1227 (May 12, 1812). The drinking scene
around Galata and beyond was expanding during this time. See
Zarinebaf, Mediterranean Encounters, 242.

98 Pouqueville, Travels in Greece and Turkey, 267. On gambling in

coffeehouses where drunk “inﬁdels and people of unknown status”
pass their nights, see ÜS, vol. 274, p. 54, 15 Ş 1181 (January 7, 1768).
99 Kırlı, “The Struggle over Space,” 67–130.
100 For coffeehouses at night in Istanbul and elsewhere in the empire, see
for example, ÜS, vol. 407, p. 4, 11 L 1155 (December 9, 1742); ÜS,
vol. 407, p. 10 14 şevval 1155 (December 12, 1742); Kafadar, “How
Dark Is the History,” 264–265; Abraham Marcus, The Middle East on
the Eve of Modernity: Aleppo in the Eighteenth Century (New York:
Columbia University Press, 1989), 227, 231; Alan Mikhail, “The
Heart’s Desire: Gender, Urban Space and the Ottoman Coffee
House,” in Ottoman Tulips, Ottoman Coffee: Leisure and Lifestyle in
the Eighteenth Century, Dana Sajdi (ed.) (London: Tauris Academic
Studies, 2007), 141–142; Hattox, Coffee and Coffeehouses, 128.
Coffeehouses abounded in Jerusalem during the Naqı̄b al-Ashrāf
mutiny (see Adel Manna, “Mered ha-naqı̄b al-ashrāf bi-yerūshalayim
(1703–1705),” Cathedra: For the History of Eretz Israel and Its Yishuv,
53 (1989), 62–63) and it is most likely they operated into the evening,
considering that even in the small town of Safed, in the north of
Palestine, coffeehouses remained open “late into the night.” See Elliott
Horowitz, “Coffee, Coffee Houses, and the Nocturnal Rituals of Early
Modern Jewry,” Association for Jewish Studies Review, 14(1) (1989),
25. On janissary ownership of coffeehouses, see Çaksu, “Janissary
Coffee Houses.” On coffeehouses at night in Safavid Isfahan, see
Farshid Emami, “Coffeehouses, Urban Spaces and the Formation of a
Public Sphere in Safavid Isfahan,” Muqarnas, 33 (2016), 197.
101 For a complaint about transients drinking and gambling in a local
coffeehouse after dark, see ÜS, vol. 274, p. 54, 15 Ş 1181 (January
7, 1768).
102 ÜS, vol. 474, p. 18, 7 S 1181 (July 5, 1767).
103 For public baths as sites of prostitution in Istanbul and Aleppo, respect-
ively, see BOA, HAT 195/9720, 29 Z 1204 (September 9, 1790); Delice,
“The Janissaries and Their Bedfellows.” Elyse Semerdjian, “Naked
Anxiety: Bathhouses, Nudity and the Dhimi Woman in 18th-Century
Aleppo,” International Journal of Middle East Studies, 45(4) (2013),
658. See also Khaled El-Rouayheb, Before Homosexuality in the Arab-
Islamic World, 1500–1800 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
2005), 42–43.
104 Several scholars have already pointed out similar dynamics with regard
to the vice trade: prostitution provided various beneﬁts to a range of

groups, including government ofﬁcials who beneﬁtted from taxes levied

upon it. For the taxation of prostitution in sixteenth-century Istanbul,
see Sariyannis, “Prostitution in Ottoman Istanbul,” 55–57. On govern-
ment ofﬁcials and soldiers as patrons of prostitutes in eighteenth-
century Aleppo, see Semerdjian, Off the Straight Path, 94–137. See also
Tuğ, Politics of Honor, 227–229.
105 Kırlı, “The Struggle over Space,” 58–62.
106 Stanford J. Shaw and Ezel Kural Shaw, History of the Ottoman Empire
and Modern Turkey: Volume 2, Reform, Revolution, and Republic:
The Rise of Modern Turkey 1808–1975 (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1976), 110.
107 Ahmed Cavid, “Hadîka-i Vekāyiʿ,” 216.
108 Ibid., 217.
109 See Chapter 7.
110 BOA, HAT 1315/51277, 29 Z 1236 (September 27, 1821).
111 BOA, HAT 488/23958, 29 Z 1240 (August 14, 1825). The date given
by the archive is incorrect (see no. 114).
112 BOA, HAT 639/31486, 19 Z 1242 (July 24, 1827).
113 BOA, HAT 488/23958, 29 Z 1240 (August 14, 1825).
114 Ibid. The document is undated and the date given by the archive is
deﬁnitely wrong, as the document refers to the “abolished corps” (ocağ-
ı mulğa)
115 BOA, C.DH 16/751, 27 L 1206 (June 18, 1792).
116 Kırlı, “The Struggle over Space,” 61.
117 Glen W Swanson, “Ottoman Police,” Journal of Contemporary
History, 7(1) (1972), 240.
118 BOA, HAT 191/9253, 29 Z 1203 (September 20, 1789); BOA, C.BLD
22/1067, 29 L 1205 (July 1, 1791). These cases are discussed in
Chapter 7.
119 For “don’t see us” fees, see Koçu, Eski İstanbul’da Meyhaneler, 16, 36.
120 See Robert W. Olson, “Jews, Janissaries, Esnaf and the Revolt of
1740 in Istanbul: Social Upheaval and Political Realignment in the
Ottoman Empire,” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the
Orient, 20(2) (May 1977), 206.
121 Rabbi Mosheh Ben-Yisraʾel Naftalı̄, “Masʿot R. Mosheh Porayı̄t
miprāg,” trans. Y. D. Wilhelm, in Masʿot ʾerets yisraʾel, 283.
122 See for example, a case dated 6 N 982 (January 9, 1575), brought in
Cohen and Simon-Pikali, Yehūdı̄m be-beyt hamishpat: ha-meʾah ha-
_
shesh-ʿesreh, 170–171. I have not come across a similar order in the
court records of the eighteenth century.

123 Yaron Ben-Naeh notes that “taverns, even if they existed, apparently
played no great role in Jerusalem.” See Yaron Ben-Naeh, “One Cup of
Coffee: Ordinances Concerning Luxuries and Recreation,” Turcica, 37
(38) (2005), 179. For a mention of taverns in late Ottoman Jerusalem,
see Khalı̄l al-Sakākı̄nı̄, Yawmı̄yyāt khalı̄l al- sakākı̄nı̄: yawmı̄yyāt,
rasāʾil wa- taʾammulāt, Akram Musallam (ed.), vol. 1 (Ramallah: mar-
kaz Khalı̄l al-Sakākı̄nı̄ al-thaqāfı̄, 2003), 114.
124 Şemʿdânî-Zâde, Mürʾiʾt-Tevârih, 61.
125 Mackridge, “The Delights of Constantinople.”
126 On festive illumination, see Chapter 6.
127 For examples, see BOA, HAT 228/12678 (n.d.); BOA, AE.SABH.I 13/
1170, 10 B 1203 (April 6, 1789). For another example, see the descrip-
tion of the festivities held for five days and five nights on the occasion of
the birth of princess Mihrimah: Irmak, “III. Mustafa Rûznâmesı̄,”
98–99.
128 On these hierarchies, see Artan, “Architecture as Theatre,” 67–69,
92–96; Necipoğlu Gülru, “A Kanun for the State, a Canon for the
Arts: Conceptualizing the Classical Synthesis of Ottoman Art and
Architecture,” in Soliman Le Magnifique et Son Temps, Gilles
Veinstein (ed.) (Paris: Documentation Français, 1992), 208–209.
129 Şemʿdânî-Zâde, Mürʾiʾt-Tevârih, 61.
130 See Chapter 7.
131 Şemʿdânî-Zâde, Mürʾiʾt-Tevârih, 60–61.

Chapter 4
1 Meryem Kurumehmet, “XVIII. yy. Şairlerinden Müsellem (Şeyh Ebu’l-
Vefa Edirnevi) Hayatı, Sanatı, Divanı’nın Tenkitli Metni,” unpublished
M.A. thesis, University of Marmara (2006), 167.
2 The gazel is a genre of poetry most closely associated with the “gathering” (see
below). On elite leisurely gatherings and the poetry produced in and about
them, see for example, Andrews, Poetry‘s Voice; Andrews and Kalpaklı, The
Age of Beloveds; B. Deniz Çalıѕ̧-Kural, Şehrengiz, Urban Rituals and Deviant
Suﬁ Mysticism in Ottoman Istanbul (Farnham: Ashgate, 2014); Zeynep
Tarım Ertuğ, “Onaltıncı Yüzyılda Osmanlı Sarayı’nda Eğlence ve Meclis,”
Uluslararası İnsan Bilimleri Dergisi, 4(1) (2007), 1–9.
3 The difﬁculties involved in using Ottoman court records as historical
sources are referred to in Chapter 2.
4 Shahab Ahmed, What Is Islam? The Importance of Being Islamic (New
Jersey: Princeton Univesity Press, 2016), esp. 117–129.

5 Ibid., 5–6.
6 Ibid., 40, 80, 97.
7 Ibid., 85–97.
8 Daryush Shayegan, “The Visionary Topography of Hafiz,” Peter Russel
trans., Temenos, 6 (1985), 207–233; Ahmed, What Is Islam?, 36. Rudi
Mathee has used the same term, “ambivalence and ambiguity,” referring
to dominant approaches to alcohol consumption in the Middle East, but
he did not develop the concept further. See Matthee, “Alcohol in the
Islamic Middle East.”
9 Ahmed, What Is Islam?, 36.
10 Derin Terzioğlu, “Sufi and Dissident in the Ottoman Empire: Niyazi-i
Misri (1618–1694),” unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Harvard
University (1999), 269.
11 On the different “voices” of Ottoman poetry, see Andrews, Poetry‘s
Voice. On the gazel, ambivalence and ambiguity, and on the centrality
of paradox and metaphor in the mezhep-i ışk, see Ahmed, What Is
Islam?, 36, 386–397.
12 İnalcık, The Ottoman Empire, 199–202. On the influence of some of
these figures on Ottoman political thought in the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries, see Hüseyin Yılmaz, Caliphate Redefined: The Mystical Turn
in Ottoman Political Thought (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
2018). For the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, see for example,
Terzioğlu, “Sufi and Dissident,” esp. 364–374; Çalıѕ̧-Kural, Şehrengiz,
27–62.
13 The following works are just a few out of many that tell this story of
limiting the sphere of radical dervish groups on the one hand, and the
huge influence of their ideas and practices, on the other: Ahmet
T. Karamustafa, God’s Unruly Friends: Dervish Groups in the Islamic
Later Middle Period, 1200–1550 (Salt Lake City: University of Utah
Press, 1994); Madeline Zilfi, The Politics of Piety: The Ottoman Ulema
in the Postclassical Age (1600–1800) (Minneapolis, MN: Bibliotheca
Islamica, 1988); Terzioğlu, “Sufi and Dissident”; Ahmet Yaşar Ocak,
Osmanlı Toplumunda Zındıklar ve Mülhidler (15.–17. Yüzyıllar)
(Istanbul: Ekonomic ve Toplumsal Tarih Vakfı, 1998); Niyazioğlu,
Dreams and Lives; Çalıѕ̧-Kural, Şehrengiz; Yılmaz, Caliphate
Redefined; Andrews and Kalpaklı, The Age of Beloveds.
14 Ahmed, What Is Islam?, 122.
15 Walter Andres, “Ottoman Love: Preface to a Theory of Emotional
Ecology,” in A History of Emotions, 1200–1800, Jonas Lileiquist (ed.)
(London: Pickering and Chatto, 2012), 27.

16 Şerife Uzun has recently argued, along somewhat similar lines, that the
night in Ottoman poetry is associated with both pain and hope. See Şerife
Uzun, “Klasik Türk Şiirinde Şeb-i Yeldâ,” Selçuk Üniversitesi Edebiyat
Fakültesi Dergisi, 34 (2015), 353–370.
17 Night as a time of divine meditation was also prized by Christians. See
for example, Koslofsky, Evening’s Empire, esp. 46–87.
18 For a good discussion of these terms and their signiﬁcance within a wider
context, see Ahmed, What Is Islam?, 19–26.
19 Andrews and Kalpaklı, The Age of Beloveds, 56.
20 İskender Pala, “Fükrat,” “Gam,” “Hasret,” “Şeb,” in İskender Pala,
Ansiklopedik Divan Şiiri Sözlüğü (Istanbul: Kapı Yayınları, 2009), 169,
172–173, 207, 435–436. See also, Uzun, “Şeb-i Yeldâ,” esp. 358–359.
21 Şerife Uzun brieﬂy refers to love-sick lovers at night in Ottoman poetry.
See Uzun, “Şeb-i Yeldâ,” 356–357.
22 Osman Horata (ed.), “Esrar Dede: Hayatı, Eserleri, Şiir Dünyası,” in
Esrar Dede: Hayatı, Eserleri, Şiir Dünyası (Ankara: T. C. Kültür
Bakanlığı, 1998), 296.
23 Wheeler M. Thuckston, “Light in Persian Poetry,” in God Is the Light of
the Heavens and the Earth: Light in Islamic Art and Culture, Jonathan
Bloom and Shiela Bliar (eds.) (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press,
2015), 185–187.
24 On the beloved as light, and his absence or reluctance as darkness in
Persian poetry, see ibid., 179–180.
25 Şeyh Galib, “Şeyh Gâlîb Dîvânı,” Muhsin Kalkışım (ed.) (Ankara:
Akçağ, 1994), 405.
26 It is noteworthy that in different Islamic literary traditions the madman
(majnūn) is often depicted as speaking the truth to power and challenging
social norms. Night-time and madness are thus both associated with
counter-order. On the love-madness of Majnūn Laylā, see for example,
Michael W. Dols, Majnūn: The Madman in Medieval Islamic Society
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992), 313–339. For an Ottoman interpret-
ation of the story, see Walter G. Andrews and Mehmet Kalpaklı, “Layla
Grows Up: Nizami’s Layla and Majnun ‘in The Turkish Manner’,” in
The Poetry of Nizami Ganjavi: Knowledge, Love, and Rhetoric, Kamran
Talattof and Jerome W. Clinton (eds.) (New York: Palgrave, 2000),
27–51.
27 For another example, see Şeyh Gâlîb, Şeyh Gâlîb Dîvânı, Muhsin
Kalkışım (ed.) (Ankara: Akçağ, 1994), 284.
28 Annemarie Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions of Islam: 35th Anniversary
Edition (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2011), 107,

114–115; William C. Chittick, The Suﬁ Path of Love: The Spiritual

Teachings of Rumi (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1983),
151, 157; Layla Shamash, “The People of the Night,” Journal of the
Muhyiddin Ibn ‘Arbi Society, 14 (1993); Karamustafa, God’s Unruly
Friends, 16; John Curry, The Transformation of Muslim Mystical
Thought in the Ottoman Empire: The Rise of the Halveti Order,
1350–1650 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2010), 8.
29 Violet MacDermot, The Cult of the Seer in the Ancient Middle East:
A Contribution to Current Research on Hallucinations Drawn from
Coptic and Other Texts (Berkeley: University of California Press,
1971), 48.
30 Aviad M. Kleinberg, Flesh Made Word: Saints’ Stories and the Western
Imagination (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008),
149–150.
31 Erzurumlu İbrâhim Hakkı, Tıpkı Basım Ve Yeni Harﬂerle Erzurumlu
İbrahim Hakkı Divanı, Mustafa Güneş (ed.) (Istanbul: Sahhaﬂar Kitap
Sarayı, 2008), 154–155. Compare the words of John of the Cross
(1542–1591): “The tranquil night,/at the time of the rising of the dawn,/
the silent music and sounding solitude.” Brought in Koslofsky, Evening’s
Empire, 59.
32 Mustafa Çağrıcı, “İbrâhim Hakkı Erzurûmî,” TDVİA, 21 (2000),
305–311.
33 Erzurumlu İbrâhim Hakkı, Erzurumlu İbrahim Hakkı Divanı, 320–321.
34 Ibid., 453.
35 Erzurumlu İbrâhim, Erzurumlu İbrahim Hakkı Divanı, 320–321.
36 On seeing Truth in the dark of night, see also Uzun, “Şeb-i Yeldâ,”
364–365. Such paradoxes abound in apophatic and mystical references
to the night in Early Modern Europe. See Koslofsky, Evening’s Empire,
79–82.
37 Erzurumlu İbrâhim, Erzurumlu İbrahim Hakkı Divanı, 320–321.
38 Ederunlu Osman Vasıf, Enderunlu Osman Vâsıf Bey ve Divânı: Divân-ı
Gülşen-i Efkâr-ı Vâsıf-ı Enderûni¸, Rahşan Gürel (ed.) (Istanbul:
Kitabevi, 1999), 353.
39 Erzurumlu İbrâhim, Erzurumlu İbrahim Hakkı Divanı, 252–253.
40 Ederunlu Osman Vasıf, Enderunlu Osman Vâsıf Bey ve Divânı,
282–283.
41 Curry, The Transformation, 8–9.
42 John Kingsley Birge, The Bektashi Order of Dervishes (London: Luzac &
Co., 1937), 109–111; Thierry Zarcone, “Bektaşiyye,” Kate Fleet et al.

(eds.), Encyclopaedia of Islam, THREE; Ahmed Yaşar Ocak,

“Bektaşîlık,” TDVİA, 5 (1992), 373–379.
43 İnalcık, The Ottoman Empire, 199.
44 George W. Gawrych, “Şeyh Galib and Selim III: Mevlevism and the
Nizam-ı Cedid,” International Journal of Turkish, 91(4) (1987), 95.
45 Abu-Manneh, “Between Heterodox,” 210–212, 218; Yıldız, Crisis and
Rebellion, 188–191.
46 Karamustafa, God’s Unruly Friends, 83–84.
47 For a detailed description of the ayn-i cem ceremony, the use of candles,
and wine consumption, see Birge, The Bektashi Order, 175–201, 50–51,
110–111, 259. See also Fredrick de Jong, “The Iconography of
Bektashism: A Survey of Themes and Symbolism in Clerical Costume,
Liturgical Objects and Pictorial Art,” Manuscripts of the Middle East, 4
(1989), 8.
48 Birge, The Bektashi Order, 259: quote at 193.
49 I am here once again drawing on Ahmed, What Is Islam?, passim.
50 The practice was most recently discussed in Jonathan Parkes Allen, “Up
All Night Out of Love for the Prophet: Devotion, Sanctity, and Ritual
Innovation in the Ottoman Arab Lands, 1500–1620,” Journal of Islamic
Studies, 30(3) (2019), 303–337.
51 Ibid., 319–321.
52 Ibid.
53 Ibid. Allen uses “conspicuous illumination.”
54 Hattox, Coffee and Coffeehouses, 14, 74–76. See also Kafadar, “How
Dark”; Allen, “Up All Night,” 332.
55 Horowitz, “Coffee, Coffeehouses,” 32.
56 Ibid.
57 Yaari, Masʿot ʾeretz yisraʾel, 349–350. On the meaning given to per-
forming the tiqūn at night, see ibid., 365.
58 Minna Rozen, Ha-qehı̄lah ha-yehūdı̄t be-yerūshalayim ba-meʾah ha-yz
(Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University and misrad ha-bitachon, hotsaʾah la-or,
1985), 95, 261–264. See also Curry, The Transformation, 168.
59 Erzurumlu İbrâhim, Erzurumlu İbrahim Hakkı Divanı, 453.
60 On scholarly gatherings in the sixteenth century, see Helen Pfeifer,
“Encounter after the Conquest: Scholarly Gatherings in Sixteenth-
Century Ottoman Damascus,” International Journal of Middle East
Studies, 47 (2015), 219–239.
61 Ahmed, What Is Islam?, 454. For a discussion of public (-private) and
public (-private) spaces, see ibid., 363–386.

62 Çalıѕ̧-Kural, Şehrengiz, 10; Hamadeh, The City’s Pleasures, 159–161.

On popular gatherings, see more below.
63 Andrews, Poetry‘s Voice, esp. 146–157; Pala, “Bezm,” “Şeb,” in
İskender Pala, Ansiklopedik Divan Şiiri Sözlüğü, 81, 435–436. See also
Hatice Aynur and Jan Schmidt, “A Debate between Opium, Berş,
Hashish, Boza, Wine and Coffee: The Use and Perception of
Pleasurable Substances among Ottomans,” Journal of Turkish Studies/
Türklük Bilgisi Araştırmaları, 31(1) (2007), 85–88.
64 Çalıѕ̧-Kural, Şehrengiz, 9. This argument recalls Ahmed Karamustafa’s
thesis regarding the taming of heterodox dervish groups by the
Ottomans. See Karamustafa, God’s Unruly Friends, esp. 85–90.
65 Shaw, “Controlling Darkness”; Bille and Sørensen, “An Anthropology
of Luminosity,” 275. On darkness and candlelight promoting intimacy
in Early Modern Europe and North America, see Ekirch, At Day’s Close,
192–192.
66 Çalıѕ̧-Kural, Şehrengiz, 10.
67 The word devr (or devir) and circles in general were loaded with layers of
meaning taken from Suﬁ thought and practice. See Behar D. Çalış, “Ideal
and Real Spaces of Ottoman Imagination: Continuity and Change in
Ottoman Rituals of Poetry (Istanbul, 1453–1730),” unpublished Ph.D.
dissertation, Middle East Technical University (2004), 100–101, 113,
117, 132–133, 268–274.
68 On planets revolving around the beloved, or the patron, in Ottoman
gazels and kasides, see Atillâ Şentürk, “Osmanlı Edebiyatında Felekler,
Seyyâre ve Sâbiteler (Burçlar),” Türk Dünyası Araştırmaları, 90 (1994),
136–137.
69 Ahmed, What Is Islam?, 57–62.
70 Nedim, Nedîm Divânı, Muhsin Macit (ed.) (Ankara: T. C. Kültür ve
Turizm Bakanlığı, 2012), 278–279.
71 Sünbül-Zâde Vehbî, Sünbül-Zâde Vehbî Dîvânı, Ahmet Yenıkale (ed.)
(Ankara: T. C. Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı, 2012), 350–351.
72 Dror Ze’evi, Producing Desire: Changing Sexual Discourse in the
Ottoman Middle East, 1500–1900 (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 2006), 83. See also El-Rouayheb, Before Homosexuality, 36–39.
73 El-Rouayheb, Before Homosexuality, 19, 36–39.
74 Semerdjian, “Because He Is So,” 185.
75 Kâtib Çelebi, Tuhfetü’l-Ahyâr, 475a (407).
76 Abdülhak Şinasi Hisar, Boǧaziçi Mehtapları (Ankara: Varrlık, 1978);
Abdülaziz Bey, Osmanlı Âdet, 1:287–291; Nabizade Nazım, Zehra
(Istanbul: Özgür, 2004), 26–29.

77 Abdülaziz Bey, Osmanlı Âdet, 1995, 1:287–291; Hisar, Boǧaziçi

Mehtapları, 75; Sakaoğlu and Akbayar, Binbir Gün, 143–148.
78 Very similar practices and sensibilities are described by Abdülhak Hisar
in his Boǧaziçi Mehtapları, 45–46, 72–77, 87–88.
79 Ömer Zülfe, “Nâşid [1749–1791]: Dîvân,” unpublished M.A. thesis,
University of Marmara (1998), 95. Translation is author’s own. For
more eighteenth-century poems which refer to mehtab seyri, see
Öztekin, XVIII. Yüzyıl, 376–380.
80 Nabizade Nazım, Zehra, 26.
81 Çelik, Hançerli Hanım, 54–55.
82 Mütercim Ahmed Âsım Efendi, Âsım Efendi Tarihi, 2015, 1:327.
83 Ibid., 1:326–31.
84 Ibid., 1:329–31.
85 Tott, Memoires, 100–103. Câbî Ömer Efendi, Câbî Târihi, 213–214.
These accounts are discussed in Chapter 2.
86 Mackridge, “The Delights of Constantinople.” On night ﬁshing, see
Chapter 3.
87 See Rıdvan Tezel, “Eski Balıkçılık Aleminden Portreler,” in Balık ve
Balıkçılık (Istanbul: Et ve Balık Kurumu Umum Müdürlüğü, 1955), 15–20.
88 On modes of leisure and sensibilities shared between different classes in
eighteenth-century Istanbul, see Hamadeh, The City’s Pleasures. On
poetry permeating everyday Ottoman life, see Hatice Aynur, “Ottoman
Literature,” in The Cambridge History of Turkey. Vol 3: The Later
Ottoman Empire, 1603–1839, Suraiya Faroqhi (ed.) (New York:
Cambridge University Press, 2006), 499. On the blurred boundaries
and commonalities between court and popular poetry, see for example,
Cemal Kurnaz, Halk Şiiri ve Divan Şiirinin Müşterikleri (Ankara:
Kurgan Edebiyat, 2011); Kim Sooyong, The Last of an Age: The
Making and Unmaking of a Sixteenth-Century Ottoman Poet
(Abingdon: Routledge, 2018), esp. 7–11. On the protocols of meclis across
the social spectrum, see Çalıѕ̧-Kural, Şehrengiz, 9–13. On notions of the
mezhep-i aşk permeating popular discourses across the Islamic world for
centuries, see Ahmed, What Is Islam?, 85–97. On poems on tavern walls,
see Abdülaziz Bey, Osmanlı Âdet, 1995, 2:50. On poets in taverns in
different periods, see also Koçu, Eski İstanbul’da Meyhaneler, 25–32.
89 See for example, Mirzazade Salim, Tezkire-i Salim, 155. For kubera
hosting drinking gatherings in their homes, see also Abdülaziz Bey,
Osmanlı Âdet, 1, 307.
90 Abdülaziz Bey, Osmanlı Âdet, 1995. Elites would also at times go to
taverns. See Koçu, Eski İstanbul’da Meyhaneler, 48. On the inner

organization of houses and the scarcity of indoor illumination see Uğur

Tanyeli, “Norms of Domestic Comfort and Luxury in Ottoman
Metropolises, Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries,” in The Illuminated
Table, esp. 302–308, 314.
91 For a map of these taverns in the late eighteenth century, see Chapter 3.
For taverns in the nineteenth century, see Georgeon, “Ottomans and
Drinkers,” 11; Sakaoğlu and Akbayar, Binbir Gün, 136–142.
92 This was still the arrangement in the late nineteenth century. See
Balıkhane Nazırı Ali Rıza, Eski Zamanlarda, 180. The use of light-
related metaphors in this anecdote suggests that the same arrangement
was customary in the period here discussed.
93 Koçu, Eski İstanbul’da Meyhaneler, 46.
94 I am drawing here on an analysis of the use of such “conﬁned” illumin-
ated spaces for creating hygge (loosely translated as “coziness”) in
Danish culture. See Bille and Sørensen, “An Anthropology of
Luminosity,” 276.
95 Abdülaziz Bey, Osmanlı âdet, 1, 309.
96 Mırzazade Salim, Tezkire-i Salim, 536. On the candle as a metaphor for
the beloved in Turkish and Persian poetry, see Sadık Armutlu,
“Kelebeğin Ateşe Yolculuğu: Klasik Fars ve Türk Edebiyatında Şemʿ
Ü Pervâne Mesnevileri,” A. Ü. Türkiyat Araştırmaları Enstitüsü
Dergisi, 39 (2009), 877–907; Thuckston, “Light in Persian Poetry,”
181–182; Celâl Metînî and Fatma Kopuz, “Pervane ve Mum,” Ekev
Akademi Dergisi, 17(57) (2013), 525–540.
97 Andrews and Kalpaklı, The Age of Beloveds.
98 Aykut Can, “Seyyîd Hasan, Sohbetnâme, I. Cilt, (1071–1072/
1660–1661), (Inceleme-Metin),” unpublished M.A. thesis, University
of Marmara (2015). For a discussion of the diary, the diarist, and his
social world, see Cemal Kafadar, “Self and Others: The Diary of a
Dervish in Seventeenth-Century Istanbul and First-Person Narratives
in Ottoman Literature,” Studia Islamica, 69 (1989), 121–150. On the
question of alcohol consumption in Seyyid Hasan Nuri’s gatherings, see
Tunahan Durmaz, “Family, Companions and Death: Seyyid Hasan
Nuri Efendi’s Microcosm (1661–1665),” unpublished M.A. thesis,
Sabancı University (2019), 34–35.
99 David Selim Sayers, “Sociocultural Roles in Ottoman Pulp Fiction,”
International Journal of Middle East Studies, 49(2) (2017), 215–216,
218–221. On the “realism” of the stories and their connection to the
story-telling tradition, see also David Selim Sayers, “Tıﬂî Hikâyelerinin
Türsel Gelişimi,” unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Bilkent University
(2005); David Selim Sayers, “Letâʾifnâme ve Çokseslilik,” in Mitten

Meddaha Türk Halk Anlatıları Uluslararası Sempozyum Bildirileri,

M. Öcal Oğuz (ed.) (Ankara: Gazi University, 2006), 90–99.
100 Çelik, Hançerli Hanım.
101 Derviş İsmail, Dellaknâme-i Dilküşâ, brought in transliteration in
Bardakçı, Osmanlı’da Seks, 88–102. On wages, see Donald Quataert,
“Janissaries, Artisans and the Question of Ottoman Decline,
1730–1826,” in Workers, Peasants and Economic Change in the
Ottoman Empire 1730–1914 (Istanbul: Isis, 1993), 201.
102 Çelik, Hançerli Hanım, 4.
103 Ibid., 8–13.
104 Ibid., 21–22, 23, 31, 34–35.
105 In elite houses, the mabeyn, lit. “in-between,” was a room that con-
nected (and separated), the part of the house reserved for hosting and
the private sections.
106 Ahmed, What Is Islam?, 417–418.
107 Çelik, Hançerli Hanım, 21–22.
108 On later novelists’ use of stories from the oral tradition, including
Hançerli Hanım, see for example, Güzin Dino, Türk Romanın Doğuşu
(Istanbul: Agora Kitaplığı, 2008), 33–39; Evin, Origins and
Development, 35–36. Some adventure stories circulated in manuscript
form, at least since the eighteenth century, and were often read in
public. See Tülün Değirmenci, “Bir Kitabı Kaç Kişi Okur? Osmanlı’da
Okurlar ve Okuma Biçimleri Üzerine Bazı Gözlemler,” Tarih ve
Toplum, Yeni Yaklaşımlar, 13 (2011), 7–43.
109 M. Guboğlu, “Romen Edebiyatında Bekri Mustafa ve Bekricilik,” Türk
Folkloru Belleten, (1986), 317–321.
110 Dimitrie Cantemir, The History, 249–250. On Kantemir, and some
problems involved in the English translation of his work, see Mihai
Maxim, “Dimitrie Cantemir,” in Historians of the Ottoman Empire, an
online project by the University of Chicago, Division of the Humanities,
https://ottomanhistorians.uchicago.edu/en/historian/dimitrie-cantemir
(accessed December 16, 2018).
111 Rukiye Akçar, “Iki Osmanlı Nüktedanının (Bekri Mustafa-İncili Çavuş)
Fıkraları Üzerine Karşılaştırmalı Bir Araştırma,” unpublished Ph.D.
dissertation, Selçuk University (2010), 123–128.
112 Ibid., 130. See also Esma Şimşek and Ömer Faruk Elaltuntaş, “Osmanlı
Devleti’nde Uygulanan İçki Yasağının Fıkralara Yansıması,” Akra
Kültür Sanat ve Edebiyat Dergisi, 6 (2018), 30.
113 See for example, Reşad Faik, Külliyat-ı Letaif (Istanbul: Dersaadet
Kitaphanesi, 1912), 526–527; Himmetzade, Bekri Mustafa, 2nd ed.
(Istanbul: Kitaphane-i Sudi, 1927), 13, 51–52, 85–86.

114 Mehmet Tevﬁk, İstanbul’da Bir Sene (Istanbul: İletişim, 1991),

165–166.
115 Wishnitzer, “Eyes in the Dark,” 248–250.
116 On late Ottoman kabadayı culture, see for example, Roger Deal,
Crimes of Honor, Drunken Brawls and Murder: Violence in Istanbul
under Abdülhamid II (Istanbul: Libra Kitapçılık ve Yayıncılık, 2010),
73–144.
117 Wishnitzer, Reading Clocks, 124–126.
118 For a comprehensive collection and analysis, see Dursun Yıldırım, Türk
Edebiyatında Bektaşı Tipine Bağlı Fıkralar (Ankara: Akcag, 1976).
119 Ibid., 164, 170. For numerous anecdotes featuring Bektaşis drinking at
night see also ibid., 91, 167–171, 193.
120 Quotes from Bogard, The End of Night, 173–174.

Chapter 5
1 On preserving darkness and light pollution, see for example, Bogard, The
End of Night; Meier, “Designating Dark Sky Areas”; Chepesiuk,
“Missing the Dark”; Bob Mizon, Light Pollution: Responses and
Remedies, 2nd ed. (New York: Springer, 2012).
2 On the concept of blackboxing, see Bruno Latour, Pandora’s Hope:
Essays on the Reality of Science Studies (Boston: Harvard University
Press, 1999). See also On Barak, On Time: Technology and Temporality
in Modern Egypt (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2013), 21. On
the politics of electrification, see for example, Ronen Shamir, Current
Flow: The Electrification of Palestine (Stanford: Stanford University
Press, 2013); Thomas P. Hughes, Networks of Power: Electrification in
Western Society, 1880–1930 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press,
1983); David Nye, Electrifying America: Social Meanings of a New
Technology, 1880–1940 (New York: ACLS History E-Book
Project, 2005).
3 Schivelbusch, Disenchanted Night, 25–30, 40–44, 178.
4 Reculin, “Le règne de la nuit,” 6–7.
5 See for example, Schlör, Nights in the Big City; Baldwin, In the Watches;
Otter, The Victorian Eye; Schivelbusch, Disenchanted Night; İleri, “A
Nocturnal History.”
6 For an important exception that is highly sensitive to the experience of
light, see Ekirch, At Day’s Close. Works focusing on artificial light (as
opposed to the night more generally) did touch upon questions of materi-
ality, but little was said about the experience of light. See for example,
William O’Dea, The Social History of Lighting (London: Routledge &

Kegan Paul, 1958); Jane Brox, Brilliant: The Evolution of Artificial Light
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2010); Schivelbusch,
Disenchanted Night. Anthropologists have recently begun to examine
the “materiality and sociality” of light. See for example, Bille and
Sørensen, “An Anthropology of Luminosity.”
7 “Mumculuk: Osmanlı Dönemi,” Dünden Bugüne İstanbul
Ansiklopedisi, vol. 5, 497–498.
8 On beeswax and beeswax candles, see Eva Crane, The World History of
Beekeeping and Honey Hunting (New York: Routledge, 1999),
524–525.
9 John Scoffern, “The Chemistry of Artificial Illumination,” in The Circle
of the Sciences: A Series of Treatises on the Principles of the Sciences,
with Their Application to Practical Pursuits, vol. 7 (London: Richard
Griffin & Co., 1860), 450–451.
10 On tallow in eighteenth-century France, see Reculin, “Le règne de la
nuit,” 151–153. On the preference for mutton in Istanbul, see
Greenwood, “Istanbul’s Meat Provisioning,” 8.
11 O’Dea, Social History of Lighting, 213.
12 Sources are mostly silent on the cost and source of wicks. An exception is
D. 10433, 29 Z 1202 (September 30, 1788), which includes the cost of
wicks in the calculation of lighting costs in specific mosques.
13 O’Dea, Social History of Lighting, 219. For more on eighteenth-century
wicks (in France), see Reculin, “Le règne de la nuit,” 153.
14 Hughes, Networks of Power, 5.
15 On Kerosene, see Wishnitzer, “Kerosene Nights.”
16 On the interplay of these factors in the case of wheat provisioning, see
Rhoads Murphey, “Provisioning Istanbul: The State and Subsistence in
the Early Modern Middle East,” Food and Foodways, 2(1) (1987),
217–263.
17 Greenwood, “Istanbul’s Meat Provisioning,” 19. See also White, The
Climate of Rebellion, 35–37.
18 Greenwood, “Istanbul’s Meat Provisioning,” 19–32.
19 Ibid., 34.
20 BOA, HAT 206/10861, 29 Z 1205 (August 29, 1791); BOA, HAT 295/
17541 29 Z 1230 (December 2, 1815). See also Abdullah Uysal,
Zanaatkarlar Kanunu: Kanun-Nâme-i Ehl-i Hıref (Ankara: KTB,
1982), 36–37, 39.
21 BOA, C.MTZ 11/505, 8 Za 1155 (January 4, 1743); BOA, HAT 1366/
54120, 29 C 1222 (January 3, 1807). Although by the early nineteenth
century, Istanbul lessened its reliance on this area for sheep, a stock-
takings from that period shows that the principalities still provided a

huge share of the sheep slaughtered in Istanbul. In 1818, for example,

42 percent of the sheep were brought from Wallachia and Moldavia,
63,000 in total. See Greenwood, “Istanbul’s Meat Provisioning,” 29; see
also 31.
22 BOA, MVL 265/67, 1 Ra 1270 (December 2, 1853).
23 Crane, The World History.
24 Tamar Novick, “Milk & Honey: Technologies of Plenty in the Making
of a Holy Land, 1880–1960” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of
Pennsylvania, 2014), 22, 31–32.
25 On sources of beeswax candles, see BOA, C.MTZ 11/505, 8 Za 1155
(January 4, 1743); White, Three Years, 3:108–109.
26 On such calamities and their effect on livestock and provisioning, see
White, The Cilmate of Rebellion, 97–102, 155–162, 247–248; Mikhail,
The Animal; Murphey, “Provisioning Istanbul.”
27 Murphey, “Provisioning Istanbul,” 219–220.
28 BOA, C.EV 278/14182, 4 Ra 1178 (September 1, 1764). More on these
disputes below.
29 Nye, Electrifying America.
30 BOA, HAT 1366/54120, 29 C 1222 (January 3, 1807).
31 Yedek is deﬁned as a horse carrying reserves and is probably the equiva-
lent of yük, or “horse load,” standardized as 155.86 kg. See Halil İnalcık
and Donald Quataert, An Economic and Social History of the Ottoman
Empire, 1300–1914, vol. 2 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1994), xliii.
32 BOA, HAT 206/10861, 29 Z 1205 (August 29, 1791).
33 BOA, AE.SABH.I 4/372, 10 B 1203 (1789). The document bears no date
and the date here seems to have been given by the archive since it was the
last day of Abdülhamid’s life.
34 BOA, AE.SABH.I 18/1573, 10 B 1203 (April 6, 1789). For the dating of
the document, see previous note.
35 BOA, HAT 295/17541 29 Z 1230 (December 2, 1815).
36 Şânî-zâde MehmedʿAtâʾullah Efendi, Şânî-Zâde Târîhi, II:808–810.
37 See Chapter 2.
38 Contemporary probate inventories include such items as mikraz (a clip-
per used to snuff the burned wick), mum damlalığı (a plate-like piece
placed under the candle). On these items, see Mehmet Zeki Pakalın,
“Mum Makası” and “Mum Damlalığı” in Osmanlı Tarih Deyimleri,
581. On their appearance in probate inventories, see Bozkurt, “Tereke
Defterleri,” 318.
39 On grocers selling candles in the eighteenth and early nineteenth century,
see for example, HAT 1384/54834, 29 Z 1203 (September 20, 1789);

HAT 295/17541, 29 Z 1230 (December 2, 1815). On grocers selling

candles in the seventeenth century, see Selma Akyazıcı Özkoçak, “Two
Urban Districts in Early Modern Istanbul: Edirnekapı and Yedikule,”
Urban History, 30(1) (2003), 38; Yi, Guild Dynamics, 116. On differen-
tiation between candlemakers’ guilds, see Evliya Çelebi, Evliyâ Çelebi
Seyahatnâmesi, vol. 1, pt. 1, 274.
40 Evliya Çelebi, Evliya Çelebi, 1, Pt. 1:274. Court records from the
eighteenth century mention only Muslim names, in sharp contrast to
records pertaining to tallow candlemakers. See records dated 21
C 1144 (December 21, 1731), in Recep et al., İstanbul Kadı Sicillleri,
395–396.
41 See records dated 20 Ra 1139 (October 15, 1726) and 7 Ş 1140 (March
19, 1728), in Recep et al., İstanbul Kadı Sicillleri, 320–321,
376–382, respectively.
42 Evliya Çelebi, Evliya Çelebi, 1, Pt. 1:274.
43 Recep et al., İstanbul Kadı Sicillleri, 272, 281–285; White, Three Years,
3:76–77.
44 See records dated 21 C 1144 (December 21, 1731) in Recep et al.,
İstanbul Kadı Sicillleri, 395–396. On very similar problems and solutions
in Early Modern England, see Crane, The World History.
45 Evliya Çelebi, Evliya Çelebi, 1, Pt. 1:274. On yamak, see Yi, Guild
Dynamics, 105–107.
46 Özkoçak, “Two Urban Districts,” 28.
47 See also ibid.; Yi, Guild Dynamics, 126(43).
48 On the bigger centers, see for example, BOA, C.EV 278/14182, 4 Ra
1178 (September 1, 1764); BOA, C.BLD 35/1727, 25 Ra 1208 (October
31, 1793); records dated 20 Ra 1139 (October 15, 1726) and 7 Ş 1140
(March 19, 1728), in Recep et al., İstanbul Kadı Sicillleri, 320–321,
376–382. On workshops along the Bosporus, see BOA, C.İKTS 21
1014, 11 S 1141 (September 16, 1728). See also S. E. Kucuk,
“The Story and Conservation Problems of an Industrial Heritage
Building in Istanbul: The Sütülce Slaughterhouse,” in Structural
Studies, Repairs and Maintenance of Heritage Architecture XIV, C. A.
Brebbia and S. Hernández (eds.) (Southampton/Boston: WIT Press,
2015), 237–238. On the distribution of slaughterhouses that provided
these workshops with fat, see Greenwood, “Istanbul’s Meat
Provisioning,” esp. 47–53.
49 BOA, C.İKTS 36/1784, 11 B 1180 (December 13, 1766).
50 For an example of hisse allocation, see record dated 20 Ra 1139
(October 15, 1726) in Recep et al., İstanbul Kadı Sicillleri, 320–322.
For an example of reallocation following the opening of new authorized

and unauthorized workshops, see, BOA, C.İKTS 36/1784, 11 B 1180

(December 13, 1766).
51 Case dated end of Z 1168 (September 27–October 6, 1755) brought in
Kal’a et al., İstanbul Esnaf Tarihi, 1:118–119. The arrangement was
later renewed and remained relevant for at least a few more decades.
See Ahmet Tabakoğlu et al. (eds.), İstanbul Ahkâm Defterleri: İstanbul
Esnaf Tarihi (1764–1793) (Istanbul: İstanbul Araştırmaları Merkezi,
1998), 366–367.
52 Ibid., 1:281–282, end of R 1174 (November 29–December 8, 1760).
A very similar dispute reached court a few decades later, which suggests
the same allocation arrangements were in place. Only the actors changed.
See Tabakoğlu et al., İstanbul Ahkâm Defterleri: İstanbul Esnaf Tarihi
(1764–1793), 353–354.
53 See for example, BOA, C.EV 278/14182, 4 Ra 1178 (September 1,
1764); BOA, C.BLD 35/1727, 25 Ra 1208 (October 31, 1793). On the
branching of the guild in the early seventeenth century, see Yi, Guild
Dynamics, 126(43).
54 Record dated 7 Ş 1140 (March 19, 1728), in Recep et al., İstanbul Kadı
Sicillleri, 376–382.
55 The owners may have been subletting vakıf property over which they had
rights as tax farm, see Yi, Guild Dynamics, 54–55.
56 BOA, C.BLD 35/1727, 25 Ra 1208 (October 31, 1793); BOA, HAT 625/
30915, 23 Z 1248 (May 13, 1833). See also Özkoçak, “Two Urban
Districts,” 38; Zeki Tekin, “İstanbul Debbağhaneleri,” Osmanlı Tarihi
Araştırma ve Uygulama Merkezi Dergisi, 8 (2015), 349–364.
57 C.BLD 35/1727, 25 Ra 1208 (October 31, 1793).
58 On the sanctioning of relations between butchers and dependent guilds in
vakﬁyes, see Greenwood, “Istanbul’s Meat Provisioning,” 54.
59 The earlier decree is dated 29 L 1128 (October 16, 1716), in Recep et al.,
İstanbul Kadı Sicillleri, 328–329. The same arrangement is described in
detail in a series of petitions and decrees enclosed under BOA, C.EV 278/
14182, 4 Ra 1178 (September 1, 1764). These are discussed in some
detail below. On similar arrangements in other guilds, see Yi, Guild
Dynamics.
60 Record dated 20 Ra 1139 (October 15, 1726), in Recep et al., İstanbul
Kadı Sicillleri, 320–322. Another record, dated 7 Ş 1140 (March 19,
1728), lists 38 workshops, out of which 31 seem to be in Yedikule, 4
“outside Eğrikapı,” and 3 in Eyüp. I cannot explain the differences
between the numbers of workshops cited in those two documents, nor
the discrepancies in the names of the owners and operators. That they are
all from the same guild is evidenced by the fact that in both lists, the head

of the guild (kethuda) is al-hac Mahmud. For the second document, see
Recep et al., İstanbul Kadı Sicillleri, 376–382
61 Ibid., 1:61–62, end of Ca 1162 (May 9–18, 1749); 137–138, Beginning
of M 1170 (September 26–October 5, 1756).
62 Genç, “Ottoman Industry,” 63.
63 On the workshop operated by the mumcubaşı in Yedikule, see record
dated 7 Ş 1140 (March 19, 1728) in Recep et al., İstanbul Kadı Sicillleri,
376–382. On the authority of the head of the state-owned workshop
over all candlemakers, see Evliya Çelebi, Evliya Çelebi, 1, Pt. 1:274.
64 BOA, C.İKTS 36/1784, 11 B 1180 (December 13, 1766).
65 See for example, İsvan, “Illegal Local Trade.”
66 BOA, C.MTZ 11/505, 8 Za 1155 (January 4, 1743).
67 BOA, AE.SMST.III, 43/3085, 29 Z 1171 (September 3, 1758). On
candlemaking in the provinces, see also Güler Yarcı, “Osmanlı’da
Mum ve Beykoz İspermeçet Mumu Fabrikası,” in Mum Kitabi, Emine
Gürsoy-Naskali (ed.) (Istanbul: Kitabevi, 2015), 27–30.
68 For a somewhat similar case in Kastamonu, see BOA, C.BLD 137/6804,
29 R 1179 (October 15, 1765).
69 Ahmet Refik, On Altıncı Asırda Istanbul Hayatı (1553–1591) (Istanbul:
Devlet Kitabevi, 1935), 112–113; Ahmet Refik, Hicrî on Birinci Asırda
Istanbul Hayatı (1000–1100) (Istanbul: Devlet Matbaası, 1931), 28–29;
Kate Fleet, “The Extremes of Visibility: Slave Women in Ottoman Public
Space,” in Ottoman Women in Public Space, Ebru Boyar and Kate Fleet
(eds.) (Leiden: Brill, 2016), 134.
70 BOA, C.İKTS 15/707, 3 Z 1107 (June 4, 1696). See also Özkoçak, “Two
Urban Districts,” 38; Diko, “Blurred Boundaries,” 185.
71 Recep et al., İstanbul Kadı Sicillleri, 272, 281–285.
72 BOA, C.EV 278/14182, 4 Ra 1178 (September 1, 1764).
73 Tekin, “İstanbul Debbağhaneleri,” 355, 360. We know of complaints
about butchers withholding tallow from candlemakers already in the
sixteenth century. See Refik, On Altıncı Asırda, 123.
74 BOA, C.EV 278/14182, 4 Ra 1178 (September 1, 1764).
75 A decree dated 29 L 1128 (October 16, 1716), in Recep et al., İstanbul
Kadı Sicillleri, 328–329.
76 Recep et al., İstanbul Kadı Sicillleri, 376.
77 BOA, C.BLD 35/1727, 25 Ra 1208 (October 31, 1793).
78 Diko, “Blurred Boundaries,” 185. On the involvement of janissaries in
the economic sphere, see Sunar, “Cauldron of Dissent,” 32–95.
79 Record dated 7 Ş 1140 (March 19, 1728), in Recep et al., İstanbul Kadı
Sicillleri, 376–382. On the title beşe, see Güçlü Tülüveli, “Honorific
Titles in Ottoman Parlance: A Reevaluation,” International Journal of

Turkish Studies, 11(1–2) (2005), 21–22. The presence of janissaries in

this guild conforms to Sunar’s findings, according to which janissaries
were represented also among professions that required considerable skill.
See Sunar, “Cauldron of Dissent,” 64. On janissary candlemakers and
illegal trade, see ibid., 83–84, 252.
80 Sunar, “Cauldron of Dissent,” 86.
81 On the “traditionalist” rhetoric of guild politics and its reality, see Yi,
Guild Dynamics, 113–165.
82 BOA, C.EV 278/14182, 4 Ra 1178 (September 1, 1764).
83 Arif Bilgin, “Narh Listeleri ve Üsküdar Mal Piyasası,” in Üsküdar
Sempozyonu IV (Istanbul, 2007), 186–187.
84 Cases dated end of Ca 1162 (May 9–18, 1749); 137–138, Beginning of
M 1170 (September 26–October 5, 1756), in Kal’a, İstanbul Esnaf
Tarihi, 1:61–62.
85 Doğan Kuban, “Aydınlatma: Osmanlı Dönemi,” Dünden Bugüne
İstanbul Ansiklopedisi, 475. On the narh and its renewed use as a com-
prehensive policy between 1789–1850, see Süleyman Özmucur and Şevket
Pamuk, “Real Wages and Standards of Living in the Ottoman Empire,
1489–1914,” The Journal of Economic History, 62(2) (2002), 293–321.
86 Pamuk, İstanbul ve Diğer Kentlerde, 72.
87 Tevfik Güran, Ekonomik ve Mali Yönleriyle Vakıflar: Süleymaniye ve
Şehzade Paşa Vakıflar (Istanbul: Kitapevi, 2006), 150. In the mid-
seventeenth century too, beeswax candles were more than trice the price
of tallow candles. See Bilgin, “Narh Listeleri,” 186–187.
88 Scoffern, “The Chemistry,” 444.
89 R. B. Graves, Lighting the Shakespearean Stage, 1567–1642
(Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1999), 184. For more
data about different types of candles, see Andrew Ure, “Candles,” in
A Dictionary of Chemistry on the Basis of Mr Nicholson’s, Andrew Ure
(ed.) (Philadelphia: Robert Desilver, 1821), 295.
90 Tayfun Toroser (ed.), Kavanin-i Yeniçeriyan: (Yeniçeri Kanunları)
(Istanbul: Türkiye İѕ̧ Bankası Kültür Yayınları, 2011), 96.
91 This estimation is based on Graves, Lighting the Shakespearean Stage,
130. I converted the English standard to the Ottoman measure of
51.312 g per common tallow candle.
92 Reculin, “Le règne de la nuit,” 156–159.
93 Michael Nizri, Ottoman High Politics and the Ulema Household (New
York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), 162–163. As already mentioned, two
imperial palaces toward the end of the eighteenth century were allocated
almost 110 kg of tallow monthly, excluding beeswax candles. See
Tabakoğlu et al., İstanbul Ahkâm Defterleri: İstanbul Esnaf Tarihi
(1764–1793), 363, beginning of Ca 1202 (February 8–17, 1788).

94 In order to simplify things, I calculated beeswax candles as being of the

same size as “common” tallow candles, although I have no indication
that this was the case.
95 Nizri, Ottoman High Politics, 81.
96 Bozkurt, “Tereke Defterleri,” 315–321. For another study that demon-
strates similar trends, see Pınar Ceylan, “Essays on Markets, Prices and
Consumption in the Ottoman Empire (late-seventheenth to mid-
nineteenth centuries),” unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, London School
of Economics (2016), 195–196. On inequality in access to light, see also
Kafadar, “How Dark,” 257–258.
97 Tabakoğlu et al., İstanbul Ahkâm Defterleri: İstanbul Esnaf Tarihi
(1764–1793), 369, beginning of Ca 1202 (February 8–17, 1788).
98 Scoffern, “The Chemistry,” 452; Brox, Brilliant, 13–14; Graves,
Lighting the Shakespearean Stage, 14–16.
99 On candles‘ consumption of oxygen, see O’Dea, Social History of
Lighting, 19.
100 Scoffern, “The Chemistry,” 452; Graves, Lighting the Shakespearean
Stage, 14.
101 Pakalın, “Mum Makası,” 581.
102 Mehmet Zeki Pakalın, “Şamdancı Başı,” Osmanlı Tarih
Deyimleri, 308.
103 O’Dea, Social History of Lighting, 6, 18–19.
104 Tott, Memoires, 96.
105 Kafadar, “How Dark,” 264–265.
106 Cited in Ekirch, “The Modernization of Western Sleep,” 276. For a
review of studies on the effect of light-darkness alterations on sleep
patterns, see Galinier et al., “Anthropology of the Night,” 824–825.
107 On the use of olive and sesame oil for illumination in nineteenth-
century Palestine, see Shmuel Avitsur, Ḥayey yom-yom be-ʾerets-yis-
raʾel ba-meʾah ha-teshaʿ-ʿesreh (Tel Aviv: ʿAm ha-sefer, 1972),
169–171.
108 Scoffern, “The Chemistry,” 460. See also O’Dea, Social History of
Lighting, 19.
109 For example, BOA, HAT 1578/11, 28 L 1244 (May 3, 1829); JS,
vol. 230, p. 131, 20 L 1153 (January 7, 1741); complaint dated middle
of Ra 1117 (August 2–11, 1705), cited in Cohen, Simon-Pikali, and
Salama (eds.), Yehūdı̄m be-beyt hamishpat ha-mūslemı̄: ha-meʾah ha-
_
shmoneh-ʿesreh, 145. Among the Jews, oil lamps were often called
nerot (usually translated as “candles”) and it was these lamps, rather
than actual candles, that were used for the traditional “candle lighting”
(hadlaqat nerot) service on the eve of Sabbath. See Avitsur, Ḥayey yom-
yom, 171.

110 Nathan Schur, Toldot yerūshalayim, vol. 2 (Tel Aviv: Devir,

1987), 697.
111 This is, at least, the picture that arises from the work of Amnon Cohen
on the sixteenth century. See Amnon Cohen, Economic Life in
Ottoman Jerusalem (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2002), 14.
112 On olives, olive oil, and soap production Ottoman Palestinian, see ibid.,
61–97; Beshara Doumani, Rediscovering Palestine Merchants and
Peasants in Jabal Nablus, 1700–1900 (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1995), 131–232; Amy Singer, Palestinian Peasants
and Ottoman Ofﬁcials: Rural Administration around Sixteenth-
Century Jerusalem (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994),
78–79.
113 Cohen, Economic Life in Ottoman Jerusalem, 76.
114 Ibid., 81.
115 Ibid., 77.
116 Ibid., 75.
117 O’Dea, Social History of Lighting, 221–22.
118 Cohen, Economic Life in Ottoman Jerusalem, 77–78.
119 Rabbi Mosheh Ben-Yisraʾel Naftalı̄, “Masʿot R. Mosheh Porayı̄t mi-
prāg,” trans. Y. D. Wilhelm, in Masʿot ʾerets yisraʾel, 278.
120 George Gore, Marcus Sparling, and John Scoffern, Practical Chemistry:
Including the Theory and Practice of Electro-Deposition, Photographic
Art, the Chemistry of Food, with a Chapter on Its Adulterations, and
the Chemistry of Artiﬁcial (London: Houlston and Stoneman,
1856), 470.
121 David de-beyt Hilel, “Masʿot David de-beyt Hilel be-ʾerets yisraʾel ve-
be-sūryah,” in Yaʿarı̄, Masʿot ʾerets yisraʾel, 504. The conversion of ratl
_
is based on İnalcık and Quataert, An Economic, 2:xlii.
122 Singer, Palestinian Peasants, 78.
123 Gedalyah mi-sı̄mı̄yātı̄ts, “Masʿot R. Gedalyah mi-sı̄mı̄yātı̄ts ʿı̄m
shayeret Yehūdah ha-Ḥası̄d,” in Yaʿarı̄, Masʿot ʾerets yisraʾel,
323–368; David Millard, A Journal of Travels in Egypt, Arabia,
Petrae, and the Holy Land during 1841–1842 (Rochester: Erastus
Shepard, 1843), 258.
124 O’Dea, Social History of Lighting, 19, 27, 40. On oil lamps used in
Jerusalem and their problems, see Avitsur, Ḥayey yom-yom, 69–72.
125 Tobler, Denkblätter Aus Jerusalem, 182. I thank Joana Bürger for her
help in reading and translating the relevant parts of this book.
126 Shmuel Avitzur, “ha-Rovaʿ ha-yehūdı̄ ba-ʿı̄r ha-ʿatı̄qah,” in Praqı̄m be-
toldot ha-yeshūv ha-yehūdı̄ bi-yerūshalayim, ed. Yehuda Ben Porat,

Ben Zion Yehoshua, and Aharon Kedar, vol. 1 (Jerusalem: Yad Izhak
Ben Zvi, 1973), 39; Avitsur, Ḥayey yom-yom, 71. On oil lamps in
churches, see Millard, Journal of Travels, 258.
127 See Chapter 6.

Chapter 6
1 Hasan Kaya, “Divan Şiirinde Mum,” in Mum Kitabi, Emine Gürsöy
Naskali (ed.) (Istanbul: Kitabevi, 2015), 124.
2 White, Three Years, 3:249–250. On the carrying of lamps at night, see
Chapter 2.
3 Can Erimtan, Ottomans Looking West?: The Origins of the Tulip Age
and Its Development in Modern Turkey (New York: Tauris Academic
Studies, 2008).
4 Ahmet Refik, Lale Devri (Istanbul: Hilmi Kitaphanesi, 1932).
5 Artan, “Architecture as Theatre”; Hamadeh, The City’s Pleasures; Selim
Karahasanoğlu, “A Tulip Age Legend: Consumer Behavior and Material
Culture in the Ottoman Empire (1718–1740)” (Ph.D. dissertation,
Binghamton University, 2009); Zilfi, Women and Slavery, 6–7;
Zarinebaf, Crime and Punishment, 11–50.
6 Koslofsky, Evening’s Empire, 1–2.
7 On light spectacles and politics in Early Modern Europe, see especially
Koslofsky, 91–127. On the use of festive illumination in the Baroque, see
also Schivelbusch, Disenchanted Night, 3–4, 137–43. On light and
Enlightenment, see McMahon, “Illuminating the Enlightenment.” See
also Gwiazdzinski, La Nuit, 23–28.
8 On this repertoire and the Tulip Age’s place in expanding it, see Ariel
Salzmann, “The Age of Tulips: Confluence and Conflicts in Early
Modern Consumer Culture (1550–1730),” in Consumption Studies
and the History of the Ottoman Empire, 1550–1922: An Introduction,
ed. Donald Quataert (Albany: State University of New York Press,
2000), 83–106.
9 On the Ottoman provisioning system and its priorities, see Murphey,
“Provisioning Istanbul”; Greenwood, “Istanbul’s Meat Provisioning”;
White, The Climate of Rebellion, 276–297; Tülay Artan, “Aspects of
the Ottoman Elite’s Food Consumption: Looking for ‘Staples,’
‘Luxuries,’ and ‘Delicacies’ in a Changing Century,” in Quataert,
Consumption Studies, 107–200.
10 BOA, İE.BH 14/01237, 25 L 1136 (July 17, 1724); BOA, HAT 695/3354
29 Z 1249 (May 9, 1834); C.BH 244/11301, 29 Z 1251 (March
16, 1836).

11 BOA, C.AS 1023/4484 28 Za 1201 (September 11, 1787); C.AS 136/

6050, 3 R 1211 (October 11, 1796); C.AS 561/23544, 1 N 1210 (March
9, 1796).
12 Yarcı, “Osmanlı’da Mum,” 17.
13 Evliya Çelebi, Evliya Çelebi, 1, Pt. 1:69. Similar candles illuminated the
mosques in the Ḥaram al-Sharı̄f in Jerusalem. See Robert Hillenbrand,
“The Uses of Light in Islamic Architecture,” in Bloom and Blair, God Is
the Light, 105–106.
14 Evliya Çelebi, Evliya Çelebi, 1, Pt. 1:58.
15 On mosques’ illumination during the Ottoman era, see Kuban,
“Aydınlatma”; Tanju Cantay, “Asma Kandillik,” TDVİA, vol. 3,
498–499.
16 On the labor needed to keep multiple light sources burning, see
Chapter 5.
17 The numbers are gleaned from Güran, Ekonomic ve Mali Yönleriyle
Vakıflar, 111–112. On the provisioning and maintenance of illumination
devices in Mamluk mosque complexes, see Abdallah Kahil, “The Delight
and Ambiguity of Light in Mamluk Architecture,” in Bloom and Blair,
God Is the Light, 245–247.
18 Julia Pardoe, The Beauties of the Bosphorus (George Virtue: London,
1838), 81.
19 BOA, EV.d 14116, register begins in 15 L 1265 (September 3, 1849).
20 BOA, EV.d 11651, 1257 (1842). It should be noted that some artificial
light was probably needed during the day too, as not all corners of these
huge buildings were sufficiently illuminated. The document cited here,
however, refers only to nighttime usage.
21 Scoffern, “The Chemistry,” 460.
22 M. A. Abdel Haleem (trans.), The Qurʾan (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2008).
23 Bille and Sørensen propose treating light as an agent in its own right and
raise questions like “what does light do? How is light used? What does
light mean?” See Bille and Sørensen, “An Anthropology of
Luminosity,” 265.
24 Light is used in the Quran both concretely and figuratively. On light as
metaphor for guidance, faith, and Islam in general, see William
A. Graham, “Light in the Qurʾan and Early Islamic Exegesis,” in
Bloom and Blair, God Is the Light, 50–52.
25 Ibid., 52–53.
26 De Boer, “Nūr: Philosophical Aspects,” EI2; Graham, “Light in the
Qurʾan,” 53–54.

27 On this notion among Bektaşis, see Birge, The Bektashi Order, 114; de
Jong, “The Iconography of Bektashism,” 13.
28 De Boer, “Nūr: Philosophical Aspects.”
29 Mehdi Amin Razavi, Suhrawardi and the School of Illumination, 2nd ed.
(Abingdon: Routledge, 2013), 31–32. See also Schimmel, Mystical
Dimensions, 4.
30 Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions, 70.
31 Armutlu, “Kelebeğin Ateşe Yolculuğu,” 882–883.
32 İlhan Kutluer, “Hikmetü’l İşrâk,” TDVİA, 17 (1998), 524.
33 Birge, The Bektashi Order, 75. As Birge notes in a footnote, erler in Sufi
discourse refers more specifically to saints.
34 Ahmed, What Is Islam?, 365.
35 On the “order of the world,” see Gottfried Hagen, “Legitimacy and
World Order,” in Legitimizing the Order: The Ottoman Rhetoric of
State Power, Hakan T. Karateke and Maurus Reinkowski (eds.)
(Leiden: Brill, 2005), 55–83. Hagen argues (at p. 81) that over the
eighteenth century, the concept gradually lost its appeal. See also
Menchinger, The First of the Modern Ottomans, esp. 84–85.
36 Cantay, “Asma Kandillik.”
37 According to Kahil, the light of glass lanterns inscribed with the Light
Verse in Mamluk mosques, medreses, and Sufi lodges, stood for the faith
of the donor, who financed their purchase, provisioning, and mainten-
ance, rather than for divine light. Kahil, “The Delight,” 248–253. The
two, however, are not mutually exclusive.
38 Mütercim Ahmed Âsım Efendi, Âsım Efendi Tarihi, 2015, 1:144–145.
39 Oded Peri, Christianity under Islam in Jerusalem: The Question
of the Holy Sites in Early Ottoman Times (Ledien: Brill, 2001),
182–183.
40 On the complex, see especially Amy Singer, Constructing Ottoman
Beneficence: An Imperial Soup Kitchen in Jerusalem (Albany: State
University of New York Press, 2002).
41 St. H. Stephan, “An Endowment Deed of Khasseki Sultan, Dated the
24th May 1552,” The Quarterly of the Department of Antiquities in
Palestine, 10 (1944), 190–191.
42 See for example, Mosheh Ben Elı̄yahū ha-Levı̄, “Masʿot Mosheh Ben
Elı̄yahū ha-Levı̄ ha-qaraʾı̄,” in Yaari, Masʿot ʾerets yisraʾel, 317, 318,
321–322. See also Rozen, ha-qehı̄lah ha-yehūdı̄t be-yerūshalayim, 95,
261–264.
43 T. Canaan, “Light and Darkness in Palestine Folklore,” The Journal of
the Palestine Oriental Society, 11 (1931), 20. See also pp. 26, 36.

44 Mosheh Yerūshalmı̄, “Masʿot R. Mosheh Yerūshalmı̄,” Y. D. Wilhelm

(trans.), in Yaʿarı̄, Masʿot ʾerets yisraʾel, 431. See also ibid.,
445–446, 449.
45 On “lightscapes” see Bille and Sørensen, “An Anthropology of
Luminosity.”
46 See the calculation of olive oil cost for the thousands of lanterns in the
Aya Sofya mosque: BOA, EV.d 14116, register’s beginning date 15
L 1266 (August 24, 1850).
47 BOA, EV.d 14116. The Defter begins at 15 L 1266 (August 24, 1850).
48 Nebi Bozkurt, “Kandil,” TDVİA, 24 (2001), 300–301.
49 İlhan Tekeli (ed.), “Kandiller,” Dünden Bugüne İstanbul Ansiklopedisi,
vol. 4, 408. Tradition has it that the external illumination of mosques on
holidays goes back to the second caliph, ʿUmar. Before the Ottomans,
such illumination was practiced on a large scale by the Mamluks. See
Kahil, “The Delight,” 241–243, 248–249.
50 BOA, HAT 228/12678 (n.d.). For very similar requests for decrees
concerning the Mevlid nights of 1789 and 1791, and the Regaip night
of 1792, see respectively BOA, HAT 1451/14 (around early December
1789); BOA, HAT 211/11361 (around mid-November 1791); BOA,
HAT 205/10745 (Toward the end of March 1792). All documents do
not indicate the dates they were written. Since the requests were written a
few days prior to the kandil night in question, their date can only
be estimated.
51 BOA, HAT 179/8050, 1210/1796 (no exact date given).
52 Ibid.
53 BOA, D 10404/1 (1840, no exact date found).
54 Record dated 24 N 1128 (September 11, 1716) brought in Recep et al.,
İstanbul Kadı Sicillleri, 38–39.
55 D’Ohsson, Tableau général, vol. 3, 37.
56 For a contemporary description of this reversal, see for example,
D’Ohsson, Tableau général, vol. 3, 32–47; Elizabeth Craven,
A Journey through the Crimea to Constantinople (London: G. G.
J. and J. Robinson, 1789), 277–278; James Capper, “Observations on
the Passage to India” (London: W. Faden, 1785), 70. For scholarly
analyses, see François Georgeon, “Les usages politique de Ramadan, de
l’Empire Ottoman à la République de Turquie,” in Ramadan et
Politique, Fariba Adelkhah and François Georgeon (eds.) (Paris: CNRS,
2000), 21–39; Avner Wishnitzer, “The Transformation of Ottoman
Temporal Culture in the Long Nineteenth Century,” unpublished Ph.D.
dissertation, Tel Aviv University (2010), 80–85; Adam Mestyan,
“Upgrade? Power and Sound during Ramadan and `Id Al-Fitr in the

Nineteenth-Century Ottoman Arab Provinces,” Comparative Studies of

South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, 37(2) (2017), 262–279.
57 Ali Bey, Travels of Ali Bey, 2: 399–400.
58 Nebi Bozkurt, “Mahya,” TDVİA, 27 (2003), 396–398.
59 Stefanos Yerasimos, “The Imperial Procession: Recreating a World
Order,” in Sûrnâme: An Illustrated Account of Sultan Ahmed III‘s
Festival of 1720, Doğan Kuban, Stefanos Yerasimos, and Mertol
Tulum (eds.) (Bern: Ertuğ & Kocabıyık, 2000).
60 Salzmann, “The Age of Tulips,” esp. 93.
61 While some of the extant studies do refer to the nocturnal dimension of
these celebrations, for the most part they do not engage analytically with
their significance. See for example, Derin Terzioğlu, “The Imperial
Circumcision Festival of 1582: An Interpretation,” Muqarnas, 12(1)
(1994), 85, 89; Mehmet Arslan, Osmanlı Saray Düğünleri ve Şenlikleri,
vols. 4–5 (Istanbul: Sarayburnu Kitaplığı, 2009), 324–327; Esin Atil,
“The Story of an Eighteenth-Century Ottoman Festival,” Muqarnas, 10
(1993), 82, 84–85; Sinem Erdoğan İşkorkutan, “Between Representation
and Reality: A Critical Evaluation of Narratives of the 1720 Festival and
Unknown Archival Sources,” Journal of the Ottoman and Turkish Studies
Association, 6(1) (2019), 121–140. On Ottoman fireworks see Suraiya
Faroqhi, “Fireworks in Seventeenth-Century Istanbul,” in Medieval and
Early Modern Performance in the Eastern Mediterranean, Arzu
Öztürkmen and Evelyn Birge Vitz (eds.) (Turnhout, 2014), 181–194;
Metin And, Osmanlı Şenliklerinde Türk Sanatları (Ankara: Kültür ve
Turizm Bakanlığı Yayınları, 1982), 101–121.
62 Hakan Karateke, “Illuminating Ottoman Ceremonial,” in Bloom and
Blair, God Is the Light, 282–307. The imperial festival staged in Edirne
in 1675 already included an elaborate evening program, including illu-
minations and firework displays. See Efdal Sevinçli, “Festivals and Their
Documentation,” in Celebration, Entertainment and Theatre in the
Ottoman World, Suraiya Faroqhi and Arzu Öztürkmen (eds.) (London:
Seagull Books, 2015), 193–195.
63 See Chapter 3.
64 Yerasimos, “Sûrnâme,” 8.
65 On the personal interests of the patrons, and their affect on the texts and
illustrations of the 1720 surnames, see İşkorkutan, “Between
Representation and Reality.”
66 Atil, “The Story,” 181. Another illustrated version of the same text was
painted by another court artist by the name of İbrahim: see İşkorkutan,
“Between Representation and Reality.”
67 İşkorkutan, “Between Representation and Reality.”

68 Ahmet Ertuğ (ed.), Sûrnâme: Sultan Ahmed’in Düğün Kitabı (Bern:

Ertugrul & Kocabıyık, 2000), 223.
69 Koslofsky, “Princes of Darkness,” 239–241.
70 Arslan, Osmanlı Saray Düğünleri, 4–5, 295.
71 The text is brought in full in Arslan, Osmanlı Saray Düğünleri. For
descriptions of illuminations and ﬁreworks, see for example, pp. 366,
369, 372, 375–378, 384–385, 388.
72 Καλλίνικου Γ΄ Πατριάρχου Κωνσταντινουπόλεως, Τα Κατά Και Μετά,
238–239. As I do not read Greek, I used an unpublished translation by
Peter Mackridge. I thank professor Mackridge for bringing this text to
my attention and kindly sharing with me his translation.
73 Καλλίνικου Γ΄ Πατριάρχου Κωνσταντινουπόλεως, 239. Translation
by Mackridge.
74 Tott, Memoires, 169–173.
75 Ibid., 171. For a similar contemporary description, see Habesci, The
Present State, 406–409.
76 Sevengil, İstanbul Nasıl Eğleniyordu, 60.
77 Tott, Memoires, 169–170, 172.
78 According to a poll conducted by the British Institute for Leadership and
Management, 73 percent of the interviewees (1,000 British workers and
managers), reported that the prospect of an upcoming vacation increased
their level of stress. See www.institutelm.com/resourceLibrary/summer-
holiday-stress.html (accessed March 19, 2019).
79 On the question of “leisure” as a clearly demarcated sphere in the Early
Modern Ottoman Empire, see Sariyannis, “Time, Work and Pleasure.”
Hedda Reindl-Kiel has recently argued that by the seventeenth century,
the Ottomans did have a clear concept of “leisure.” See Hedda Reindl-
Kiel, Leisure, Pleasure and Duty. The Daily Life of Silahdar Mustafa,
Éminence Grise in the Final Years of Murad IV (1635–1640), Stephan
Conermann and Gül Şen (eds.) (Berlin: EB-Verlag, Dr. Brandt, 2017), 6.
For the debate regarding contemporary Europe, see Peter Burke, “The
Invention of Leisure in Early Modern Europe,” Past and Present, 146
(1995), 136–150; Joan-Lluis Marfany, “Debate: The Invention of Leisure
in Early Modern Europe,” Past and Present, 156 (1997), 174–191. On the
slippage between leisure and politics in the seventeenth-century Ottoman
court see also, Reindl-Kiel, Leisure, Pleasure and Duty.
80 Sariyannis, “Time, Work and Pleasure,” 801–802.
81 Mehmet İpşirli, “Musâhib,” TDVİA, 31 (2006), 230–231.
82 Günhan Börekçi, “Factions and Favorites at the Courts of Sultan Ahmed
I and His Immediate Predecessors,” unpublished Ph.D. dissertation,
Ohio State University (2010), 151–152.

83 See for example, Dikici, “Imperfect Bodies,” 101–102.

84 Börekçi, “Factions and Favorites,” 151–152.
85 See for example, Destari Salih, Destari Salih Tarihi: Patron Halil
Ayaklanması Hakkında Bir Kaynak, Bekir Sıtkı Baykal (ed.) (Ankara:
Türk Tarih Kurumu Basımevi, 1962), 3. This opinion was also shared
by at least some of the European diplomats. See Salzmann, “The Age of
Tulips,” 92.
86 BOA, A.E.III. Ahmed 227/21888 (n.d.).
87 For the ﬁrst quote, see BOA, E.SAMD III 223/ 21490; For the second,
BOA, A.E.III. Ahmed 215/20805.
88 BOA, A.E.III. Ahmed 222/21416.
89 See for example, Mehmed Subhî, Sâmî, ve Hüseyin Şâkir, Subhî Tarihi:
Sâmî ve Şâkir Tarihleri Ile Birlikte 1730–1744 (Inceleme ve
Karşılaştırmalı Metin), Mesut Aydıner (ed.) (Istanbul: Kitabevi, 2007),
223–226, 649–651, 728–729, 731–734. On leisure life in the mid-
seventeenth century Ottoman court, see Reindl-Kiel, Leisure, Pleasure
and Duty.
90 Wishnitzer, “The Transformation,” 101–103.
91 Irmak, “III. Mustafa Rûznâmesı̄”; Arıkan, “III. Selimin Rüznamesi.”
On Abdülhamid I, see Sarıcaoğlu, Kendi Kaleminden, 45–46.
92 Shaw, “Controlling Darkness.” For a fuller discussion, see Chapter 4.
93 Cited in Sevengil, İstanbul Nasıl Eğleniyordu, 94. Translation is mine.
94 On sleeping time at the court, see Chapter 1. On the “nocturnalization”
of court life in contemporary Europe, see Koslofsky, Evening’s Empire,
esp. 110–127.
95 The most detailed description of these popular gatherings dates back to
the early 1880s. See Mehmet Tevﬁk, İstanbul’da Bir Sene, 46–48;
Sakaoğlu and Akbayar, Binbir Gün, 125.
96 Karahasanoğlu, Kadı ve Günlüğü, 56. On halva gatherings in Edirne,
see Ratip. Kazancıgil, Edirne Helva Sohbetleri ve Kıѕ̧ Gecesi Eğlenceleri
(Edirne: Türk Kütüphaneciler Derneği Edirne Şübesi, 1993).
97 Sakaoğlu and Akbayar, Binbir Gün, 122; Kazancıgil, Edirne Helva
Sohbetleri, 14, 16; Selim Nüzhet Gerçek, İstanbul’dan Ben de Geçtim,
Ali Birinci and İsmail Kara (eds.) (Istanbul: Kitabevi, 1997), 109.
98 Sakaoğlu and Akbayar, Binbir Gün, 120–125.
99 On this “troika” and their close relations, see Karahasanoglu, “A Tulıp
Age Legend,” esp. 40–44.
100 Sevengil, İstanbul Nasıl Eğleniyordu, 92–95; Sakaoğlu and Akbayar,
Binbir Gün, 120–122; Kazancıgil, Edirne Helva Sohbetleri, 5–8.
101 On the meclis in the sixteenth-century Ottoman court, see Ertuğ,
“Onaltıncı Yüzyılda.” On full moon parties at court in the seventeenth

century, see Reindl-Kiel, Leisure, Pleasure and Duty, 18–19, 23. See
also Reﬁk, Lale Devri, 35–36. For a reference to a çırağan party in a
seventeenth-century poetry collection, see Öztekin, Divanlardan, 351.
102 D’Ohsson, Tableau général, vol. 4, 249; Joseph De Hammer, Histoire
de’l Empire Ottoman depuis son origine jusqu’a nos jours, Recherche
(Paris: Bellizard, Barthes, Dufour et Lowell, 1839), vol. 14, 64–65;
Mehmed Raşid Efendi, Tarih-i Raşid, vol. 3, 205–206.
103 D’Ohsson, Tableau général, vol. 4, 249. For a çırağan party organized
by Esma Sultan, daughter of Ahmed III, for the ladies of the harem, see
Tott, Memoires, 78–80. On çırağan parties in the early nineteenth
century, see Mehmet Ali Beyhan, “Amusements in the Ottoman
Palace of the Early Nineteenth Century,” in Faroqhi and Öztürkmen,
Celebration, Entertainment and Theatre, 233.
104 Mehhmed Raşid Efendi, Tarih-i Raşid, vol. 5, 205–206; D’Ohsson,
Tableau général, 249; Hammer, Histoire de’l Empire Ottoman, 64–65.
105 D’Ohsson, Tableau général, vol. 4, 249.
106 BOA, AE.SAMD.III 221/21374, 1730 (this is the date given by the
archive, as this was the last year of Ahmed III‘s reign. The document
itself is undated).
107 See for example, Asım Efendi Küçükçelebizade, Tarih-i İsmail Asım
Efendi, 366–377, 470–471; Raşid Efendi, Tarih-i Raşid, vol. 3, 319.
In mean time terms, according to sunset hours in April for the latitude
of Istanbul, these hours would translate to between 11 p.m. and 1 a.m.
108 For descriptions of çırağan parties, see Raşid Efendi, Tarih-i Raşid,
vol. 5, 205–206, 292–295; Tarih-i İsmail Asım Efendi, 363–367,
456–458, 460–461; Vincent Mignot, Histoire de l’Empire Ottoman,
depuis son origine jusqu’à la paix de Belgrade en 1740, vol. 4 (Paris: Le
Clrec, 1773), 317–319; D’Ohsson, Tableau général, vol. 4, 248–249;
Hammer, Histoire de’l Empire Ottoman, 64–65. For a description of
such a party held during the reign of Mustafa III (1757–1774), see Tott,
Memoires, vol. 1, 78–80.
109 For discussions of Ottoman garden parties, see especially Andrews,
Poetry‘s Voice, 143–174; Çalıѕ̧-Kural, Şehrengiz, 63–105.
110 Ahmet Nedim, Nedim Divanı (Istanbul: İkdam Matbaası, 1338–1340
(1920–1922)), 196–197.
111 İzzet Ali Paѕ̧a, Lâle Devri Şairi İzzet Ali Paѕ̧a: Hayatı, Eserleri, Edebî
Kiѕ̧iliği Divan: Tenkitli Metin Nigâr-nâme: Tenkitli Metin, Ali İrfan
Aypay (ed.) (İstanbul: [s.n.], 1998), 94–96.
112 Aypay, Lâle Devri Şairi, 94–96.
113 For more on the real and metaphorical use of light in nighttime parties,
see Chapter 4.

114 Nedim, Nedim Divanı, 196–197.

115 The parties were known and noted in real time by people who were not
invited to take part in them. For example, the kadı (judge)
Sadreddinzade Telhisi Mustafa Efendi (d. 1736), repeatedly reported
the parties in his diary, and the Venetian representative (baili) in
Istanbul, Giovanni Emo, described in his dispatches the çırağan festiv-
ities of 1722. See Karahasanoğlu, Kadı Ve Günlüğü, 106–109; Mary
Shay, The Ottoman Empire from 1720 to 1734 as Revealed in
Despatches of the Venetian Baili (Urbana: University of Illinois Press,
1944), 20.
116 I could not find any information on the author in the standard bio-
graphical dictionaries of the period. As far as I am aware, the only
scholarly work on this manuscript is Philippe Bora Keskiner and Ünal
Araç, “Çerağan Eğlenceleri ve Çiçekleri Tarihine Işık Tutan Bir Eser:
Tuhfe-i Çerağan,” İstanbul Araştırmaları Yıllığı, 3 (2014), 1–8. The
manuscript was first located by Nurhan Atasoy. See Nurhan Atasoy,
Hasbahçe: Osmanlı Kültüründe Bahçe ve Çiçek (Istanbul: Aygaz,
2002), 169.
117 Vahidi, Tuhfe-i Çırağan, Topkapı Sarayı Müzesi Kütüphanesi,
H. 1442, folios 1A–2.
118 English translation from Abdel Haleem, The Qurʾan.
119 Vahidi, Tuhfe-i Çırağan, 10.
120 Quoted in Öztekin, Divanlardan, 355. Translation is mine.
121 Aypay, Lâle Devri Şairi, 94–96.
122 On the Safavid ruler Shah Abbas I and the light spectacle he organized
for foreign envoys in 1629, see Emami, “Coffeehouses,” 177. On light
spectacles in contemporary European courts, see Koslofsky, Evening’s
Empire, 91–127. On the competitive aspect of Ottoman and European
light demonstrations see also, And, Osmanlı Şenliklerinde Türk
Sanatları, 101.
123 Mehmed Efendi Yirmisekiz Çelebi, Yirmisekiz Çelebi Mehmed
Efendi’nin Fransa Sefaretnamesi, ed. Beynun Akyavaş (Ankara: Türk
Kültürünü Araştırma Ensititüsü, 1993), 148.
124 And, Kırk Gün, 15.
125 Karateke, “Illuminating Ottoman Ceremonial,” 294. On European
impressions of Ottoman firework ability, see Yerasimos, “Sûrnâme,”
9, 11; And, Osmanlı Şenliklerinde Türk Sanatları, 101. Damad İbrahim
was particularly keen to demonstrate Ottoman power and sophistica-
tion to European envoys. See And, Kırk Gün, 14.
126 Blumenberg, “Light as a Metaphor for Truth,” 52–54.
127 McMahon, “Illuminating the Enlightenment.”

128 Descriptions of dark Istanbul by contemporary Europeans are brought

in Chapter 1. On the depiction of the Empire as the opposite of
Enlightened Europe, see Vefa Erginbaş, “Enlightenment in the
Ottoman Context: İbrahim Müteferrika and His Intellectual
Landscape,” in Historical Aspects of Printing and Publishing in
Languages of the Middle East: Papers from the Third Symposium on
the History of Printing and Publishing in the Languages and Countries
of the Middle East, University of Leipzig, September 2008, Geoffrey
Roper (ed.) (Leiden: Brill, 2014), 56–57. On the rising interest in the
lands of Islam among contemporary Europeans, see, most recently,
Alexander Bevilacqua, The Republic of Arabic Letters: Islam and the
European Enlightenment (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of
Harvard University Press, 2018).
129 For a typical example of such construction, see “History,”
Encyclopædia Britannica: Or, a Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, &c.
On a Plan Entirely New (Edinburgh: Printed for J. Balfour and Co.
W. Gordon, J. Bell, J. Dickson, C. Elliot, W. Creech, J. Mccliesh,
A. Bell, J. Hutton, and C. Macfarquhar, 1778), 3678. Thomas
Thornton notes that the “Turkish government” is blamed for “extin-
guishing the light of science.” He disagrees. See Thomas Thornton,
The Present State of Turkey, vol. 2 (London: Joseph Mawman,
1809), 18.
130 Bekir Harun Küçük, “Early Enlightenment in Istanbul,” unpublished
Ph.D. dissertation, University of California San Diego (2012), 6–7;
Erginbaş, “Enlightenment in the Ottoman Context: İbrahim
Müteferrika and His Intellectual Landscape.”
131 Küçük, “Early Enlightenment in Istanbul.”
132 Khaled El-Rouayheb, Islamic Intellectual History in the Seventeenth
Century: Scholarly Currents in the Ottoman Empire and the Maghreb
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 8.
133 Albeit from a very different angle, Nir Shafir’s study of seventeenth and
eighteenth-century Ottoman “religiosity” too emphasizes “intra-imper-
ial regime of circulation” over “more distant connections.” See Nir
Shafir, “The Road from Damascus: Circulation and the Redefinition
of Islam in the Ottoman Empire, 1620–1720,” unpublished Ph.D.
dissertation, University of California (2016), 2.
134 Karateke, “Illuminating Ottoman Ceremonial,” 294–296. See also
Yirmisekiz Çelebi’s account, noted above.
135 I am here drawing on Erimtan, Ottomans Looking West? See also Can
Erimtan, “The Perception of Saadabad: The ‘Tulip Age’ and the
Ottoman-Safavid Rivalry,” in Ottoman Tulips, Ottoman Coffee:

Leisure and Lifestyle in the Eighteenth Century, ed. Dana Sajdi

(London/New York: Tauris Academic Studies, 2007), 41–62.
136 Vahidi, Tuhfe-i Çırağan, 3.
137 Keskiner and Araç, “Çerağan Eğlenceleri,” 3–4.
138 Vahidi cites the prominent Persian poets Saʿdı̄ and Hafez, and his
writing is extremely heavy with Persian vocabulary, references, and
imagery. See also ibid., 8.

Chapter 7
1 Câbî Ömer Efendi, Câbî Târihi, 408–409.
2 Ibid., 409. These actions may have receded but did not cease entirely. On
November 25 that same year (1809), two men were reportedly executed
for writing on people’s doors at night, spreading “seditious ideas.” Cabi
provides no further details about the identity of those men. See ibid., 579.
3 I take the concept of “protocols of Rebellion” from Sunar, “Cauldron of
Dissent,” 127–129. He, in turn, adopted it from John Bohsted, Riots and
Community Politics in England and Wales, 1790–1810 (Cambridge:
Harvard University Press, 1983). For a much more elaborate discussion
of the janissaries’ protocols of rebellion, see Yıldız, Crisis and Rebellion,
17–43. For a similar notion, see Yaycıoglu, “Guarding
Traditions,” 1563.
4 On these dependencies, see Chapter 3.
5 For different, partly conﬂicting analyses of the rebellion and its social
background, see Zarinebaf, Crime and Punishment, 54–69; Robert
W. Olson, “The Esnaf and the Patrona Halil Rebellion of 1730:
A Realignment in Ottoman Politics?,” Journal of the Economic and
Social History of the Orient, 17(3) (1974), 329–344; M. Münir
Aktepe, Patrona İsyanı (1730) (Istanbul: Edebiyat Fakültesi Basımevi,
1958); Karahasanoğlu, “A Tulıp Age Legend.”
6 This is assuming that Faik Reşit Unat’s identiﬁcation of the writer is
correct. See Faik Reşit Unat (ed.), “Önsöz,” in 1730 Patrona Ihtilâli
Hakkında Bir Eser: Abdi Tarihi (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu, 1943) xi,
no. 2.
7 Unat, Abdi Tarihi, 26.
8 As argued in Karahasanoğlu, “A Tulıp Age Legend.”
9 See Chapter 1.
10 Unat, Abdi Tarihi, 30–32.
11 John Montague, A Voyage Performed by the Late Earl of Sandwich
Round the Mediterranean in the Years 1738 and 1739 (London:
T. Cadell Jr. & W. Davies, 1799), 233.
12 Unat, Abdi Tarihi, 30–32.

13 Ibid., 32.
14 Ibid., 32, 35–36, 45. Quote at p. 36.
15 Salih, Destari Salih Tarihi, 7.
16 Ergin, “The Albanian Tellâk Connection.” On bachelors in the night, see
Chapter 3.
17 Derviş İsmail, Dellaknâme-i Dilküşâ, brought in transliteration in
Bardakçı, Osmanlı’da Seks, 88–102. For a good analysis, see Delice,
“The Janissaries and Their Bedfellows.”
18 Salih, Destari Salih Tarihi, 7–8. The transliteration here reads “efsürde-i
hâb-ı fesâd olmak için” but it should probably be “efsürde-hâb fesâd
olmak için.”
19 See Chapter 3.
20 Salih, Destari Salih Tarihi, 8, 12, 15, 19, 20.
21 Ibid., 19.
22 Reşad Ekrem Koçu (ed.), “Balmumları ile Teşhir (Idam Mahkumları),”
İstanbul Ansiklopedisi (Istanbul: İstanbul Ansiklopedisi ve Neşriyat
Kollektif Șirketi, 1960), vol. 4, 2059–2060.
23 On the crisis and calls for reform following the humiliating defeat in the
1768–1774 Russo-Ottoman war, see for example, Yıldız, Crisis and
Rebellion, esp. 44–77; Başaran, Selim III, esp. 13–71; Virginia
H. Aksan, “Ottoman Political Writing, 1768–1808,” International
Journal of Middle East Studies, 25(1) (1993), 53–69; Virginia
H. Aksan, An Ottoman Statesman in War and Peace: Ahmed Resmi
Efendi, 1700–1783 (Leiden: Brill, 1995); Sariyannis, Ottoman Political
Thought, 153–167; Menchinger, The First of the Modern Ottomans;
Yaycıoğu, Partners of Empire, esp. 38–64. On blaming the janissaries,
see Yaycıoglu, “Guarding Traditions,” 1567. On stricter control of the
esame market, Yıldız, Crisis and Rebellion, 63–64.
24 Fikret Sarıcaoğlu, “Osmanlı Muhalefet Geleneğinde Yeni Bir Dönem: İlk
Siyasî Bildiriler,” Belleten, 64(241) (2001), 901–20.
25 On the risk of nocturnal ﬁres, see Chapter 1.
26 Karahasanoğlu, Kadı ve Günlüğü, 159. Additional examples from other
contemporary writers are brought below.
27 Taylesanizade Hafız Abdullah Efendi, İstanbul’un Uzun Dört Yılı
(1785–1789): Taylesanizâde Hafız Abdullah Efendi Tarihi, Feridun
M. Emecen (ed.) (Istanbul: TATAV, 2003), 97–98, 118, 159. For more
examples, see Câbî Ömer Efendi, Câbî Târihi, I, 270. See also ibid.,
II, 628.
28 Taylesanizade Hafız Abdullah Efendi, İstanbul’un Uzun Dört Yılı, 159.
29 Ebru Aykut Türker, “Alternative Claims on Justice and Law:
Rural Arson and Poison Murder in the 19th Century Ottoman

Empire,” unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Boğaziçi University (2011),

105–107.
30 Ekirch, At Day’s Close, 54–56; Aykut Türker, “Alternative
Claims,”, 115.
31 Ehud R. Toledano, As If Silent and Absent: Bonds of Enslavement in the
Islamic Middle East (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2007),
177–181; Hakan Y. Erdem, “Magic, Theft, and Arson,” in Race and
Slavery in the Middle East, Terence Walz and Kenneth M. Cuno (eds.)
(Cairo: American University in Cairo Press, 2011), 125–145.
32 Aykut Türker, “Alternative Claims,” 109. For many examples, see ibid.
esp. 136–196.
33 Derviş Efendi-Zade Derviş Mustafa Efendi, 1782 Yılı Yangınları, 8.
34 Sarıcaoğlu, “Osmanlı Muhalefet,” 905–908.
35 Ibid., 906–907.
36 See for example, Sultan Mahmud II’s 1818 order to the chief of the
janissaries as cited by his court chronicler, Şânî-zâde MehmedʿAtâʾullah
Efendi, Şânî-Zâde Târîhi, II:855.
37 Taşyakan, “The Volunteer Fireﬁghters,” 73.
38 James Dallaway, Constantinople Ancient and Modern, with Excursions
to the Shores and Islands of the Archipelago and to the Troad (London:
T. Cadell Jr. & W. Davies, 1797), 74.
39 Haas and Tietz, St. Petersburgh, Constantinople, 154.
40 Boyar and Fleet, A Social History, 87.
41 For some of the important work of this new scholarship, see Abu-
Manneh, “Between Heterodox”; Yıldız, Crisis and Rebellion;
Kahraman Şakul, “Nizâm-ı Cedid Düşüncesinde Batılılaşma ve İslami
Modernleşme,” DÎVÂN İlmî Araştırmalar, 19(2) (2005), 117–150;
Yaycıoglu, “Guarding Traditions.”
42 On the rather long tradition of advocating state and military reform
based on European models, that informed the New Order, see for
example, Enver Ziya Karal, “Tanzimattan Evvel Garplılaşma
Hareketleri (1718–1839),” in Tanzimat I; Yüzüncü Yıldönümü
Münasebetile (Istanbul: Maarif Matbaası, 1940), 13–30; Aksan, An
Ottoman Statesman, esp. 184–205; Aksan, “Ottoman Political
Writing”; Menchinger, The First of the Modern Ottomans, esp. 76–88;
Darina Martykánová, Reconstructing Ottoman Engineers: Archaeology
of a Profession (1789–1914) (Pisa: Pisa University Press, 2010), 3–7.
43 On these institutions, see for example, Kemal Beydilli, Türk Bilim ve
Matbaacılık Tarihinde Mühendishane, Mühendishane Matbaası ve
Kütüphanesi (1776–1826) (Istanbul: Eren, 1995); Martykánová,
Reconstructing Ottoman Engineers, 7–16.

44 For the difﬁculties involved in applying this concept to the eighteenth-

century Ottoman Empire, see Chapter 6.
45 Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (New
York: Vintage Books, 1995), 169.
46 Butrus Abu-Manneh, “The Naqshbandiyya-Mujaddidiyya in the
Ottoman Lands in the Early 19th Century,” Die Welt Des Islams, 22
(1/4) (1982), 12–13; Hamid Algar, “The Naqshbandi Order:
A Preliminary Survey of Its History and Significance,” Studia Islamica,
44 (1976), 143–144. Algar notes (p. 144), that even among the
Nakşibendis-Müceddidis, some still subscribed to Ibn Arabi‘s doctrines.
On bidʿat as tradition, see Yaycıoglu, “Guarding Traditions,”
1582–1583. On the original Nakşibendi order in the Ottoman Empire,
see especially Dina Le Gall, A Culture of Sufism: Naqshbandis in the
Ottoman World, 1450–1700 (Albany: State University of New York
Press, 2005). On the School of Love, see Chapter 4.
47 Yıldız, Crisis and Rebellion, 137–139.
48 Yaycıoglu, “Guarding Traditions,” 1585. On the most influential
revivalist movement in the Ottoman world prior to the rise of the
Nakşibendi-Müceddidis, see Zilfi, The Politics of Piety.
49 Yıldız, Crisis and Rebellion; Abu-Manneh, “Between Heterodox,” 208;
Yaycıoglu, “Guarding Traditions,” 1566–1567.
50 Yaycıoglu, “Guarding Traditions,” 1588–1599. On the connection of
the most prominent thinker among the reformists, Ahmed Vasıf
(d. 1806), with the Nakşibendi-Müceddidis, see Menchinger, The First
of the Modern Ottomans, 22–23.
51 Abu-Manneh, “Between Heterodox,” 210. For a more systematic dis-
cussion of the Nakşibendi-Müceddidi leanings of the leaders of the New
Order, Yıldız, Crisis and Rebellion, 137–142, 204–209. On the Mevlevi
attachment of Selim III, see Gawrych, “Şeyh Galib.”
52 Yaycıoglu, “Guarding Traditions,” 1578–1579.
53 Abu-Manneh, “Between Heterodox,” 209–210.
54 This tension would later explode in the revolt of May 1807. See Abu-
Manneh, 210–211.
55 Başaran, Selim III, 72–80.
56 For a brief discussion of Selim’s move against the taverns, see Kırlı, “The
Struggle over Space, “ 58–62.
57 BOA, HAT 381/54515, 29 Z 1203 (September 20, 1789). This docu-
ment, like many other documents pertaining to this issue, was dated by
the archive to the last day of the Hicri year.
58 Ibid. See also Başaran, Selim III, 80–81.
59 Ahmed Cavid, “Hadîka-i Vekāyiʿ,” 194–195, 203, 215–221. Most
documents pertaining to the issue do not bear a date. Many of them

seem to have been arbitrarily dated by the archive to the last day of the
Hicri year 1204. It is Ahmed Cavid’s chronicle that allows dating them
with conﬁdence. See Chapter 3.
60 Ibid., 219–220. On Turhallı Mustafa Efendi, see Sare Yıldız, “Turhallı
Mustafa Efendi’nin Hayatı, Eserleri ve Tasavvuf Anlayışı,” unpublished
M.A. thesis, Ankara University (2006), 26–29.
61 Brought in full in Ahmed Cavid, “Hadîka-i Vekāyiʿ,” 194–195.
62 Cavid himself notes (p. 218) that the taverns were open “night and day.”
On the use of the term in Ottoman texts, see Chapter 3.
63 See for example, BOA, C.ZB 8/369, 20 Z 1205 (August 20, 1791); BOA,
C.ZB 13/642, 29 N 1205 (June 1, 1791). Again, the dating of these
documents by the archive should be ignored.
64 BOA, C.ZB 8/369, 20 Z 1205 (August 20, 1791).
65 See also Hamadeh, “Mean Streets,” 270.
66 BOA, HAT 195/9720, 29 Z 1204 (September 9, 1790).
67 Ahmed Cavid, “Hadîka-i Vekāyiʿ,” 203, 205.
68 Ibid., 194–195, 203.
69 This approach is somewhat similar to that of Grand Vizier Koca Sinan
Paşa (d. 1596), when he was assigned a similar task with regards to
coffeehouses. See Kafadar, “How Dark,” 252.
70 In the front too, high ofﬁcials were trying to cool down the sultan’s
unrealistic ambitions. See Menchinger, The First of the Modern
Ottomans, 157–158.
71 BOA, HAT 189/9020, 29 Z 1203 (September 20, 1789).
72 Erdir Zat, Rakı: The Spirit of Turkey (Istanbul: Overteam Yayınları,
2012), 82.
73 Ahmed Cavid, “Hadîka-i Vekāyiʿ,” 203, 215–217. The chronicler
explains that it was the need for the tax imposed on alcohol that drove
the leaders of the empire to allow the re-opening of taverns. See also
Chapter 3.
74 BOA, C.BLD 22/1067, 29 L 1205 (July 1, 1791).
75 BOA, HAT 191/9253, 29 Z 1203 (September 20, 1789).
76 Hamadeh, “Mean Streets,” 267.
77 BOA, Hat 208/11055, 29 Z 1204 (September 9, 1790). On the deliber-
ations, see also BOA, HAT 195/9720, 29 Z 1204 (September 9, 1790).
78 BOA, Hat 208/11055, 29 Z 1204 (September 9, 1790).
79 Başaran, Selim III, 94.
80 BOA, HAT 195/9720; HAT 209/11176; HAT 206/10845. Although
according to their contents, these documents could not have been issued
on the same day, they were all given the same date by the archive, 29
Z 1204 (September 9, 1790). Two other documents that pertain to the
same issue, HAT 212/11497 and HAT 212/11497 were also given the

same date. The true dating of the whole correspondence, according to

Ahmed Cavid is between late December 1790 and early January 1791.
81 BOA, HAT 206/10845, 29 Z 1204 (September 9, 1790).
82 Ibid.
83 Ibid.; BOA, HAT 211/11470, 29 Z 1205 (August 29, 1791).
84 Yıldız, Crisis and Rebellion, 74–75; Menchinger, The First of the
Modern Ottomans, 186. Kırlı notes that in addition to the economic
interests, the sultan may have responded to petitions sent by the inhabit-
ants of the Agean islands, who depended on the production of alcoholic
beverages for livelihood. See Kırlı, “The Struggle over Space,” 61.
85 On the janissary opposition to these efforts and its motives, see Ustun,
“The New Order,” esp. 146–192.
86 Yıldız, Crisis and Rebellion.
87 Câbî Ömer Efendi, Câbî Târihi, 128. Various contemporary chroniclers
holding different views regarding the rebellion all note the rebels’ use of
the night for preparations, consultations, and intrigue. See for example,
Mütercim Ahmed Âsım Efendi, Âsım Efendi Tarihi, Ziya Yılmazer (ed.),
vol. 2 (Istanbul: Türkiye Yazma Eserler Kurumu Başkanlığı, 2015), 787,
800–803; Fahri Ç. Derin (ed.), “Yayla İmamı Risalesi,” İstanbul
Üniversitesi Edebiyat Fakültesi Tarih Enstitüsü Dergisi, 3 (1972), 224,
229; Fahri Ç. Derin, “Tüfengçi-Başı Ârif Efendi Tarihçesi,” Belleten, 38
(151) (1974), 385, 389, 397, 421; Bayram Doğan, “Mustafa Necib
Efendi Tarihi,” unpublished M.A. thesis, Ankara University (2001), 33.
88 Yıldız, Crisis and Rebellion, 27–28.
89 Câbî Ömer Efendi, Câbî Târihi, 269–270.
90 Ibid., 270.
91 Ibid., 270–273. On the death of Alemdar and the conﬂicts that ensued in
the following nights, see also Derin, “Yayla İmamı Risalesi,” 254–56.
92 Mütercim Ahmed Âsım Efendi, Âsım Efendi Tarihi, 2015, 2:1271.
93 Sunar, “Cauldron of Dissent,” 158–199.
94 BOA, HAT 341/19504, 29 Z 1234 (October 19, 1819). For more
examples of janissary-related nocturnal violence in the late eighteenth
and early nineteenth centuries, see Chapter 3.
95 Sadreddinzade Telhisi Mustfa Efendi’s diary was in the possession of a
certain Sadık, who commented on some of its original entries. Sadık,
about whom we know next to nothing, also used the empty space of that
older diary to inscribe his own entries. For the cited entry, see
Karahasanoğlu, Kadı ve Günlüğü, 191–192. On Sadık and his additions
to Sadreddinzade’s diary, see pp. 183–201.
96 BOA, HAT 1164/46058, 29 Z 1235 (October 7, 1820). The incident
occurred on the night of September 27, 1820, assuming that Eylül in the
document is the Ottoman Rumi Eylül (or the Julian September).

97 BOA, HAT 525/25660, 29 Z 1238 (September 6, 1823).

98 Sunar, “Cauldron of Dissent,” 67–69.
99 BOA, HAT 525/25660, 29 Z 1238 (September 6, 1823). For another
shooting incident, this time by sailors, see case dated 11 S 1160
(February 22, 1747), in Muzaffarova, “Üsküdar Kadılığı,” 57.
100 Sunar, “Cauldron of Dissent,” 158–199.
101 Es’ad Efendi, Üss-i Zafer, 60. The chronicle was written soon after the
events in 1826.
102 For examples, see ibid., 58–59, 93–94.
103 Ibid., 45.
104 See for example, ibid., 93. On such imageries, see Chapter 6.
105 For examples, see ibid., 188, 189, 190, 192, 195, 198.
106 Ibid., 65–66. The grand vizier is also associated with light in several
places. See ibid., 74, 78.
107 See Chapter 6.
108 Es’ad Efendi, Üss-i Zafer, 78.
109 Ibid., 115.
110 Ibid., 168.
111 Ibid., 131.
112 Ibid., 49–50.
113 Ibid., 67.
114 English translation from Abdel Haleem, The Qurʾan.
115 Es’ad Efendi, Üss-i Zafer, 10.
116 This position is expressed throughout the narrative. For a succinct
expression of it, see pp. 93–94. The Sharia and canonical duties are
evoked repeatedly. See for example, pp. 17, 93, 94, 96, 100. For the
janissaries’ ignorance of the Sharia, see pp. 120–121.
117 BOA, HAT 488/23958, 29 Z 1240 (July 14, 1825). The memo itself
bears no date and it is not clear why it was given that date by the
archive. The memo explicitly refers to “the abolished corps,” (ocağ-ı
mulğa), suggesting it was penned after the abolition of the janissaries.
Other documents pertaining to the same issue were similarly dated to
the last day of the subsequent Hicri years (see below). According to
another document pertaining to the same issue, the grand vizier’s order
to demolish the taverns was issued in 23 M 1242 (August 27, 1826). See
BOA, HAT 669/32648, 29 Z 1242 (July 24, 1827).
118 BOA, HAT 488/23958, 29 Z 1240 (July 14, 1825).
119 Ibid.
120 BOA, HAT 639/31486, 29 Z 1242 (July 24, 1827).
121 Pouqueville writes that the re-opening of a closed tavern is “a great
event among the drinkers; and these form a pretty numerous class.” See
Pouqueville, Travels in Greece and Turkey, 291.

122 Sunar, “Cauldron of Dissent,” 210–241.

123 “Tirnova naibi müderisin-i kiramdan Ahmed Şükrü Enfendinin der
aliye’ye takdim eylediğ, gayret alacak iʿlamıdır ki ʿayniyle tabʿ
olunmuştur,” Takvîm-i Vekāyi’ (October 6, 1833). The incident has
been brieﬂy discussed by several scholars. See for example, Reşad
Ekrem Koçu, Yeniçeriler, 3rd ed. (Istanbul: Doğan Kitapçılık, 2004),
333–336; Şahmurat Arık, “Osmanli Döneminde Bir Cadı Avı ve Türk
Romanında Cadı Kavramı,” Akademik Araştırmalar Dergisi, 29
(2006), 140–141; Zeynep Acibin, “Osmanlı Devleti’nde Cadılar
Üzerine Bir Değerlendirme,” Ankara Üniversitesi Osmanlı Tarihi
Araştırma ve Uygulama Merkezi Dergisi, 24 (2008), 59–60. For a more
general discussion, see Sariyannis, “Of Ottoman Ghosts.”
124 On such fears, see Chapter 1.
125 See for example, Evliya Çelebi, Evliyâ Çelebi Seyahatnâmesi, vol. 7,
vol. 280; Arık, “Osmanli Döneminde,” vols. 141–142.
126 Edhem Eldem, “Yeniçeri Taşları ve Tarih Üzerine,” Toplumsal Tarih,
188 (2009), 4–7.
127 Thomas Allom and Robert Walsh, Constantinople and the Scenery of
the Seven Churches of Asia Minor, Illustrated. (London/Paris: Fisher
Son & Co., 1838), 24–25.
128 “Tirnova naibi.”

Conclusion
1 My use of “the colonization of the night” relies on Melbin, Night as Frontier
and Kraig Koslofsky’s emphasis that colonization of the night means
“the exercise of power and authority, or both, over the people already
there.” See Koslofsky, Evening’s Empire, 158. On the night as frontier and
its “colonization” in more recent times see also Gwiazdzinski, La Nuit.
2 İleri, “A Nocturnal History,” 143–149.
3 For the curfew and lantern-carrying regulations, see BOA, I.MSM 5/77,
1 Za 1261 (November 1, 1845); Takvim-i Vekayi, 17 Za 1262 (December
1, 1846); BOA, A.MKT.NZD 309/41, 28 Ş 1276 (March 22, 1860). There
are many documents showing that the regulations were indeed enforced.
See for example, BOA, HR.MKT 9/72, 1261 (1845); BOA, HR.MKT 9/
72, 1261 (1845); A.MKT 5/49, 25 Ş 1264 (July 26, 1848). For a more
detailed analysis of these measures and their context, see Wishnitzer,
Reading Clocks, 145–146; İleri, “A Nocturnal History,” 143–149;
Wishnitzer, “Shedding New Light,” 74–75.
4 On early illumination efforts in Istanbul, see BOA, A.MKT 97/5, 23
L 1263 (October 3, 1847). See also BOA, A.MKT 98/65, 3 Za 1263
(October 12, 1847); BOA, A.MKT 152/55, 5 Za 1263 (October 14,

1847). For the context, see Wishnitzer, “Eyes in the Dark,” 246–250. On
gas lighting, see İleri, “A Nocturnal History,” 131–201.
5 On drinking regulations, see Wishnitzer, “Eyes in the Dark,” 248–250.
On policing the night, see İleri, “A Nocturnal History,” 271–328. See
also Lévy, “Une institution.”
6 Wishnitzer, “Kerosene Nights”; Hanssen, Fin de Siecle, 193–212; Zandi-
Sayek, Ottoman Izmir, 26–29, 88, 100; Avcı, Degiѕ̧im Sürecinde,
227–229; Vincent Lemire, Jerusalem 1900: The Holy City in the Age of
Possibilities, Catherine Tihanyi and Lys Ann Weiss (trans.) (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 2017), 107–109.
7 İleri, “A Nocturnal History,” esp. 58–125; Deal, Crimes of Honor;
Wishnitzer, “Kerosene Nights.”
8 Steven T. Rosenthal, The Politics of Dependency: Urban Reform in
Istanbul (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1980), esp. 107–115; Malte
Fuhrmann, “Down and Out on the Quays of İzmir: ‘European’
Musicians, Innkeepers, and Prostitutes in the Ottoman Port-Cities,”
Mediterranean Historical Review, 24(2) (2009), 169–185; Malte
Fuhrmann, “Beer, the Drink of A Changing World: Beer Consumption
and Production on the Shores of the Aegean in the 19th Century,”
Turcica, 45 (2014), 79–123; Boyar and Fleet, A Social History,
309–327; Wishnitzer, “Eyes in the Dark”; Yumul, “A Prostitute”;
Edhem Eldem, “Ottoman Galata and Pera between Myth and Reality,”
in From “Milieu de Mémoire” to “Lieu de Mémoire”: The Cultural
Memory of Istanbul in the 20th Century, Ulrike Tischler (ed.)
(München: Martin Meidenbauer, 2006), 19–36; Nur Akın, 19.
Yüzyilin Ikinci Yarısında Galata ve Pera (Istanbul: Literatür, 1998).
9 Wishnitzer, “Eyes in the Dark.”
10 On this discourse and related trends see especially Wishnitzer, “Kerosene
Nights”; Wishnitzer, “Eyes in the Dark”; Wishnitzer, “Shedding New
Light.” See also İleri, “A Nocturnal History,” 202–270; Hülya Yıldız,
“Limits of the Imaginable in the Early Turkish Novel: Non-Muslim
Prostitutes and Their Ottoman Muslim Clients,” Texas Studies in
Literature and Language, 54(4) (2012), 533–562; Yumul, “A
Prostitute”; Woodall, “Decadent Nights.”
11 Otter, The Victorian Eye, 3–5.
12 Gates and walls did not always bring nocturnal trafﬁc to a complete halt.
See for example, Hanssen, Fin de Siecle, 198–199.
13 On this dynamic in Beirut, see Hanssen, 199–200.
14 Wishnitzer, “Kerosene Nights.”
15 For an interesting treatment of leisure, including nocturnal leisure in a
sixteenth-century Anatolian village, see Fikret Yılmaz, “Boş Vaktiniz Var
Mı?,” Tarih ve Toplum (Yeni Yaklaşımlar), 1 (2005), 11–49.

16 See A. Roger Ekirch, “Artiﬁcial Lighting and Its Discontents,” a talk

given at the 12th International Conference on Urban History (Lisbon,
2014). In many places the problem is the opposite: even efforts to dim the
lights are thwarted by residents who demand ever more light, claiming
they feel insecure, despite growing evidence that hyper-illumination does
not diminish crime. See Bogard, The End of Night, 64–92.
17 On current efforts to reduce light pollution from a historical perspective,
see, most notably, Bogard, The End of Night. See also the various studies
collected in Meier, Urban Lighting.
18 Some people and organizations have been invested in this effort for some
time now. For a beautiful introduction see Bogard, The End of Night.

Appendix
1 Cohen, Simon-Pikali, and Salama, Yehūdı̄m be-beyt: ha-meʾah ha-shmo-
neh-ʿesreh.
2 Most notably, Kal’a et al., İstanbul’da Sosyal Hayat, 1997; Kal’a et al.,
İstanbul’da Sosyal Hayat, 1998; Tabakoğlu et al., “İstanbul Ahkâm
Defterleri: İstanbul Esnaf Tarihi (1764–1793).”
3 Kılıç, “1158–1159 (1745–1746) Tarihli”; Geçgil, “Uskudar”; Muzaffarova,
“Üsküdar Kadılığı.”
4 For an insightful survey of the debate, see Coѕ̧gel and Ergene, The
Economics, esp. 13–26.
5 Ze’evi, “The Use,” 44.
6 Coѕ̧gel and Ergene, The Economics, 18–19.
7 Cited in Zarinebaf, Crime and Punishment, 41.
8 Işık Tamdoğan-Abel asks similar questions with regards to crime in
Üsküdar, but she is not concerned with the night. See Tamdoğan, “Atı
Alan Üsküdar’a Geçti.”

Archival Sources
Başbakanlık Osmanlı Arşivi (Ottoman Archives of the Ofﬁce of the Prime
Minister)
Abbrevations for BOA collections cited in the text:
AE.SABH.I – Ali Emiri/Abdülhamid I
AE.SMST.III – Ali Emiri/Mustafa III
A.MKT – Sadaret/Mektubî Kalemi
C.AS – Cevdet/Askeriye
C.BH – Cevdet/Bahriye
C.BLD – Cevdet/Belediye
C.DH – Cevdet/Dahiliye
C.EV – Cevdet/Evkaf
C.İKTS – Cevdet/İktisad
C.MTZ – Cevdet/Eyalet-i Mümtaze
C.ZB – Cevdet/Zabtiye
D – Dahiliye
EV.d – Evkaf Defterleri
HAT – Hatt-i Hümayun tasniﬁ
HR.MKT – Hariciye/ Mektubî Kalemi
İE.BH – İbnülemin/Bahriye
İ.MSM – İradeler/Mesâil-i Mühimme
MVL – Meclis-i Vâlâ

Ottoman Court Records

ÜS – Üsküdar Sicilleri, İSAM Library, Istanbul
JS – Jerusalem Sicili, National Library of Israel, Jerusalem

Unpublished Manuscripts
ʿAtāʾullāh bin Yahyá ʿAtāʾı̄, Ḫamse-yi ʿAtāʾı̄, the Walters Art Museum,
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Baltimore, W.666.

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Enderuni Fazil, Zenannâme, İstanbul Üniversitesi Nadir Eserler

Kütüphanesi, TY 5502/148a.
Gevrekzade Hafız Hasan, Aslü’l-usul tercüme-i faslü’l-fusul (1796), İstanbul
Üniversitesi Kütüphanesi, TY, nr. 4289.
Ḥannā al-Tabı̄b, Rihla, 1764, 54r, Gotha’s Research Library, Ms. Orient.
_ _
A 1550.
Kâtib Çelebi. Tuhfetü’l-Ahyâr Fi’l-Hikem ve’l-Emsâl ve’l-Eş’âr. Süleymaniye
Kütüphanesi, Esad Efendi, nr. 2539, n.d.
Vahidi, Tuhfe-i Çırağan, Topkapı Sarayı Müzesi Kütüphanesi, H. 1442.

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Abdülaziz Bey, 66, 255, 271, 283, 290, Bektaşi, 2, 13, 98, 121, 142, 180, 208,
302–303, 336 218, 233, 293, 344
Abdülhamid I, 34, 73, 150–151, bezm, 66, 118, 126, 132–133, 136,
213–214, 321, 335 138, 140, 199, 233, See gathering
Abu Bakr, 118 biological night, 7
Ahmed Asım Efendi, 132, 181 bi-phasic sleep, 5, 37, 269, See
Ahmed III, 12, 34–35, 173, 185–186, segmented sleep, first and second
203, 319, 322, 369 sleep
alcohol, 1, 11, 73, 75–76, 83, 85–86, Bosporus, 23, 62, 69, 71–73, 81, 85,
101–105, 111, 130, 136–138, 91, 94–95, 100, 107, 134, 153,
140–141, 165, 220–223, 226, 176, 198, 221, 224, 226, 242, 249,
235–236, 243, 246, 250, 287, 304, 257, 287, 309, 345
329 bostancıbaşı, 69–72, 104, 221
Ali Bey al-Abbasi, 63
American colonies, 4 Cabi Ömer, 70, 207
anecdotes, 13, 70, 84, 115, 132, 142, candles, 31, 34, 58–60, 63, 81, 95, 107,
306 110, 122–124, 129, 136, 139,
antinomian, 2, 12, 58–61, 98, 112–113, 145–146, 148–152, 154–164,
121–122, 130, 178–181, 208, 218, 166–167, 169, 176–177, 182, 184,
234, 241, 244 198, 200, 202, 204, 212, 281, 291,
Arabian Nights, 73–74, 285, 339, 347, 301, 307–309, 312, 316, 343
354 snuffing, 31, 34, 58–60
arson, 108, 214–215, 227 carbon emission, 2
artificial light., 8 cebecibaşı, 69, 221
astronomical night, 7 Celaleddin Rumi, 181
Attar, 114 chief mufti, 46, 151, 162, 238
Christians, 13, 33, 58–59, 125, 134,
bachelors, 38, 87–88, 90, 92, 211, 222, 152, 182, 270, 299, 348
251, 272, 326 Çınar Ahmed, 212
bars, 25–27, 32, 84, 99, 105, çırağan, 173, 198–202, 204, 212, 322,
219–220 See lamp parties
baths, 38, 64, 89, 95, 102, 221, 291, circadian, 7, 264
295 circadian clock, 7
bedtime, 17, 32, 37, 44, 73, 267 circadian rhythms, 7, 264
beeswax, 8, 145, 147–148, 152, 156, climate, 257, 368
158, 161–162, 165, 177, 182, 308, coffeehouses, 18–20, 38, 76, 85–86, 89,
312 96, 99, 101, 165, 259, 285, 294,
bekars, 87, See bachelors 329
Bekri Mustafa, 140–142, 305, 340, court records, 13, 21, 36, 47, 49–50,
344, 353 66, 70, 89, 92, 106, 108,

371

112–113, 246, 250, 265, 278, environment, 5, 22, 63, 118, 127, 144,
296–297 247–248
crime, 6, 62, 69, 87–89, 91, 219, 240, Europe/European, 3, 5, 21–23, 35–36,
334 58, 82, 85, 107, 149, 174–175,
193, 197, 202–205, 215–217, 224,
Damascus, 123, 258, 260, 264, 267, 226, 240–241, 245–246, 258, 260,
301, 324, 336, 341, 362–363, 365 262, 272, 276, 290, 321, 323–324,
danger, 3, 25, 29–31, 71, 79, 183, 215, 327, 333, 345, 347, 349, 352,
227, 229 358
dark/darkness, 1–3, 5–6, 11–12, 17–18, evil, 3, 33, 43, 54, 65, 87, 133, 138,
20, 24–25, 30, 33–35, 44–46, 54, 140, 201, 223, 232–233, 236,
57–61, 63–64, 68–72, 77, 80–83, 238–239
85–86, 90, 92–93, 95–96, 98, Evliya Çelebi, 60–61, 86, 152, 161,
100–101, 107–108, 110–111, 176–178, 181, 309, 311, 316
115–116, 119–120, 122–124,
126–127, 129, 136, 143–144, 162, family, 4, 37, 41, 54, 88, 108, 176,
165, 169, 176, 179, 183, 187, 193–194, 223, 281
195–196, 198–200, 203, 205, 207, Fazil Enderuni, 66
210, 215, 224, 232, 234–235, fear, 1, 11, 29, 31–32, 44, 47, 57,
241–245, 247–248, 251, 254, 259, 70–71, 75, 78–80, 92, 107, 191,
268, 280, 285, 295, 300, 324 206, 210, 219, 224, 226, 229, 235,
dawn, 6, 20, 31, 35–36, 79, 105, 116, 237, 264, 271
118, 133, 183, 188, 195, 207, 225, fesad, 66, 87–88, 91, 93, 101, 103, 109,
230, 232, 257, 300 112, 219, 224–225, 238, See
domicile, 10, 17, 25, 29, 111, 246, 251, mischief
See home Festival, 59, 190, 319, 345, 367, 369
dream, 120, 123, 165, 215, 217 fire, 8, 22, 29–30, 33, 41, 43, 108, 115,
drinking, 12, 23, 29, 35, 58, 83–86, 91, 128–129, 135, 139, 178, 180, 188,
93, 96, 100, 102, 104, 110, 115, 196, 199, 203, 211, 213–216,
118, 123, 126–128, 130, 132, 227–228, 233, 266
134–138, 140–143, 168, 194, 219, fireworks, 186–188, 190–191,
225, 233, 235, 240–241, 244, 250, 194, 198, 200–201, 203–204,
287, 290, 294, 303, 306, 333 319
first sleep, 5, 36
Ecology, 272, 298, 345, 352, 355 fish, 291, 352
Edirne Event, 9 fishermen, 291, 352, 363
Egypt, 10, 257, 259, 262, 277–278, fleas, 8, 42–43
282, 289, 306, 314, 337, 340–341,
346, 358, 360, 367 gathering, 110, 118, 122, 126–127,
Eliʿezer Pāpo, 53 129–131, 136, 138, 140, 192,
Elliot Horowitz, 124 196–197, 199, 202, 297
endowment, 154, 158–160, 177, Gedaliah of Siemiatycze, 124
182 gender, 4, 18, 33, 42, 44, 58, 89, 111,
England, 4, 35, 161, 256, 267, 269, 245, 251, 280
273–274, 309, 325, 354, 362 guards, 22–23, 31, 46, 53, 64–66, 69,
Enlightenment, 80, 175, 203, 247, 95, 102, 107, 222, 228–229, 231,
254–255, 276, 315, 324, 347, 351, 292
357, 359, 362, 368 guilds, 11, 46, 48, 68, 98, 146, 155,
entertainment, 4, 34–35, 136, 165, 209, 159, 191, 231, 242, 277, 292,
240–241, 246 309

hadı̄th, 32, 181, 268 338, 340, 343, 346, 353–354, 357,
_
Hafez, 113–114, 136, 139, 325 359, 362, 365–366, 368, 370
hamam, see baths, bathhouses Jewish orthodoxy, 95
Hançerli Hürmüz, 137–138, 140 Jews, 13, 17, 32, 59, 89, 124–125, 156,
Ḥanna al-Tabı̄b, 71, 79 168, 182, 270, 282, 296, 313, 346,
_ 290, 348
health, 253, 348, 361
hearing, 10, 17–18, 24, 48, 53–55, 57, jokes, 13, 77, 142
80, 191, 229, 262
heretic, 13, 61, 122, 208, 233–235 Kabbalah, 124
hiding, 1, 12, 63, 78, 100, 105, 111, kadı, 17, 27–29, 50, 62, 66, 150, 156,
133, 223 159, 184, 213, 237, 283, 323
home, 3, 10, 18–19, 25, 27–29, 33, 38, Katip Çelebi, 6, 100, 130, 180
46, 55, 57, 60, 64, 75, 79, 91, 100, kaymakam, 69, 103, 207
134–135, 154, 158, 203, 213, 219, Konstantinos Mavrikios, 77, 190
245, 247, 251, 264, See domicile
lamp parties, 173, 188, 196–197, 205,
Ibn Arabi, 114, 217, 328 213, 215
İbrahim Hakkı Erzurumi, 118–119, lantern, 19, 62–65, 68, 75, 95, 135,
125, 284, 300–301, 339, 348 173, 191, 233, 282, 332
illumination, 178, 282, 307, 317, 342, law enforcement, 6, 236, 264, 275, 283
362, 368 leisure, 4, 7, 11, 34–36, 71–72, 82–83,
insecurity, 1–2, 10, 18, 26, 31, 33, 92, 85, 94, 96, 106–107, 111, 133,
209, 240, 264 169, 175, 193, 195–196, 203, 219,
intimacy, 12, 37, 111, 118, 126, 136, 221, 246, 255, 303, 320, 333
173, 192, 196–197, 248, 302 light, 2–3, 5–10, 12, 22, 32–34, 42, 48,
intoxication, 6, 140 51, 60, 62–65, 68–69, 79, 81, 83,
invisible/invisibility, 11, 46, 289, 293, 93, 95, 100, 107–108, 115, 122,
354 124, 127, 129, 131, 133, 135–136,
Islam, 13, 59, 112, 114, 117, 123, 126, 138, 143–146, 149, 152, 156–158,
179, 186, 203, 208, 232–234, 240, 161–162, 165, 167–169, 173,
244, 289, 293, 297, 299, 301, 303, 175–188, 191–192, 198–205,
305, 316, 324, 344, 347, 353, 362, 208–210, 212, 215, 229, 232–234,
364–365, 369 239, 241, 243, 245–246, 248, 253,
257, 262, 264, 268, 276, 299, 304,
James Caulﬁeld, 21, 65, 259, 287, 306, 313, 315–316, 322, 324, 331,
338 333
janissaries, 2, 8, 10, 12, 30, 38, 51, light pollution, 2, 248, 253, 306,
69–70, 82, 86–87, 95, 97–99, 334
101–103, 105, 122, 138, 153–154, lighting, 145–147, 166, 253, 261, 269,
159, 161, 176, 194, 207–209, 282, 285, 306–307, 312, 314, 334,
212–213, 215, 218, 226–229, 347, 350, 353, 357, 359–360,
231–236, 238–241, 247, 289, 292, 363–364, 368
294, 311, 325–326, 331 locked, 26–28, 57, 64, 69, 210,
Jerusalem, 9, 13, 17, 20–21, 26–27, 29, 246
35, 39, 42, 44, 49, 54–55, 62, 68, long eighteenth century, 9, 11–12, 241,
94–95, 105, 111, 124–125, 258, 289
166–167, 169, 182, 240, 242, love, 12, 40–41, 60, 110–111,
244–246, 249, 255, 258–259, 261, 113–116, 118–122, 126, 129–130,
265–266, 269, 274, 278, 282, 135, 137–138, 140–141, 178, 200,
291–292, 295, 314, 317, 333, 335, 298–299

lover, 113–114, 126, 129, 134, 165, 175, 178, 188, 200–201, 209,
136–138, 143, 178, 180, 200, 217, 217, 228, 239, 248, 267, 293
244, 255, 272, 295, 298–299, 301, neighborhoods, 38, 48, 53, 55, 68–69,
328, 344–345, 349, 355 85, 88, 200, 207, 215, 220, 230,
245
Mahmud II, 227, 231 nightlife, 3, 11–12, 82–84, 86, 91, 96,
mahya, 183, 185–186, See lamp 102–104, 106–107, 134, 165, 208,
inscriptions 234, 240–241, 243, 245–246,
Majnūn Laylā, 117, 299 248–249, 286
mattresses, 42–43 nineteenth century, 6, 10, 35, 39, 43,
meclis, 110, 126–128, 130–132, 56, 61–62, 96, 99, 101, 105, 114,
134–136, 138–139, 143, 192, 197, 121, 123, 134, 137, 145, 148, 160,
199, 303, 321, See gathering 167, 183, 198, 230, 240, 242, 244,
medrese, 38, 141, 151, 272 247, 261, 267, 273, 279, 282, 293,
Mehmed Ali Paşa, 10 304, 307–308, 313, 322
mehtab seyri, 131–133, 248, 263, 303, nizam, 50, 176, 181, 208, 225–227, See
See moonlight cruises order
meyhane, See tavern noise, 21–23, 37, 42, 53, 65, 69, 71,
Mihrişah Sultan, 181 133, 191, 229, 260
minorities, 9, 246 North America, 3, 8, 145, 245, 281,
mischief, 61–62, 66, 81–82, 87, 91–93, 302
99, 101–103, 106–108, 219–220,
222–223, 232, 234–236, 238 ocularcentrism, 5, 48, 79, 275
modern, 1–7, 17, 19–20, 29, 32, 36, 42, oil, 8, 145, 152, 166–169, 177–179,
44, 47–48, 53, 58, 63, 80, 83, 95, 182–183, 191–192, 240, 313–314,
97–98, 108, 112, 117, 127, 136, 145, 318
152, 157, 161, 165, 169, 175, 180, order, 1–2, 5, 9, 11, 13, 23–24, 27, 30,
193, 198, 230, 241, 243–244, 33, 42, 45–52, 58, 60–61, 64, 69,
247–248, 251, 254, 257, 267, 71, 73, 76–77, 79–82, 88–90, 93,
270–271, 273, 275, 277, 282, 290, 97–98, 102–103, 105–106, 108,
300, 302, 309, 315, 320, 336 110, 114, 117, 120–121, 125–126,
moon, 8, 22, 72, 116, 120, 129, 131, 135, 137, 147, 149–151, 153,
131–133, 137, 186, 195, 197, 202, 156, 158, 160–161, 163–164, 174,
262, 321 177, 180–181, 184, 186–187, 191,
moonlight, 131, 188, 248 194, 203, 205, 208, 212, 216–219,
moonlight cruises, 131, See mehtab 221–222, 224–225, 227–228, 231,
seyri 233–236, 238–239, 241, 243–245,
Mosheh Yerūshalmı̄, 182, 318, 343 247–249, 251, 264, 275, 279, 293,
mosquitoes, 8 296, 299, 313, 317, 327–328, 331
mum söndürmek, 281, 349 orthodox, 2, 11, 58–59, 98, 121, 129,
Murad IV, 62, 73–74, 76, 78, 137, 140, 131, 141, 178, 180–181, 208, 216,
320, 362 218, 226, 232, 234, 240, 243
Mustafa III, 34, 70, 191, 322, 335
palace, 2, 10, 12, 23, 31, 35–36, 39, 42,
Nabizade Nazim, 132 47, 51–52, 69, 74–75, 81, 87, 98,
Nakşibendiyye-Müceddidiyye, 218 107–108, 149, 155, 159, 163, 173,
Naqı̄b al-Ashrāf, 9, 295 187, 190–192, 194–198, 200–201,
narh, 49, 51–52, 156, 160, 312 205, 208–210, 213, 215–216, 218,
nature, 6–7, 18, 33, 50, 59, 76, 91, 108, 227, 229, 231–232, 237–239, 245,
112, 121, 123, 126, 133, 144, 149, 247, 263, 272, 290

Patrona Halil, 12, 208, 210–211, 213, 131, 144, 159, 175, 180, 186, 199,
226, 325, 361 209–210, 216, 231, 275
poetry, 39, 113, 248, 272, 297, 299, sensorium, 5, 10, 24, 48, 53, 62, 80, 275
302, 304, 322, 345, 348, 367 sex/sexual/sexuality, 5, 7, 28, 36, 54,
police, 46–47, 49, 69, 80, 82, 214, 223, 58–59, 83, 89, 101, 130, 146, 211,
242–243, 250, 258, 275, 278, 358 220, 241
policing, 46–47, 53, 68–69, 89, 222, şeyhülislam, 46, 162
240, 275, 278, 333 Seyyid Vehbi, 173
port, 9, 86, 88 sicil, 13, 90, 111, 249–250, 258, 291
pre-industrial night, 17, 25 sight, 1, 11, 25, 33, 48, 51, 64, 68, 79,
prophetic, 36 82, 110, 115, 119, 131, 134, 144,
prophetic traditions, 13 209, 235, 243, 279
prostitution, 1, 11, 54, 56, 66, 86, 89, sirāj, 20, 167
91–92, 96, 102, 211, 219, sixteenth century, 23, 58, 73, 106, 114,
223–224, 287, 290, 292, 295 124, 283, 301, 311, 314
public baths. See baths sleep, 3–4, 7, 10, 18–19, 22–26, 30–44,
64, 83, 94, 115, 117–119, 122,
Ramadan, 141, 149, 151, 183, 124–125, 131, 134–135, 143, 165,
185–186, 192, 205, 227, 233, 280, 193, 196, 211–212, 220, 227–228,
318, 353, 359 230, 232, 242, 246–247, 256, 268,
reading, 162, 168, 195, 255, 259, 272, 271, 313
282, 306, 332, 368 slumber, 256, 350
rebellion, 9, 12, 76, 89, 103, 208–211, social night, 7, 244
226, 289, 325, 330, See revolt solidarity, 2, 12, 97–98, 126, 208, 230,
reform, 2, 207, 213, 216, 218, 225, 292
231, 326 sound, 19, 22, 24–25, 128, 199, 228,
religion/religious, 1, 5, 9, 18, 32, 33, 34, 248, 262
37–38, 50, 58, 61, 98–99, street lighting, 254–255
103–104, 113, 123, 125–126, 151, Sufi, 2, 12, 43, 60, 112–114, 117, 125,
169, 176, 181, 183–186, 192, 200, 130, 132, 136, 173, 178, 180–181,
204–205, 217, 226, 234–235, 236, 216, 218, 297, 300, 302, 317, 348,
242, 251, 273, 281 367
revolt, 9, 209, 211, 226, 230–231, 258, Sufism, 181, 281, 328, 357, 368
328 Suhrawardi, 114, 180, 317, 362
rüzname, 13 sunrise, 6, 230
sunset, 6, 17–19, 25, 29, 34–35, 49, 56,
Sabeteans, 60 62, 68, 101, 105, 121–122, 132,
Sadreddinzade Telhisî Mustafa Efendi, 142, 190, 195, 198, 231, 237, 244,
197, 213, 294, 322, 340 246, 252, 259, 268, 277, 322
season/seasonal, 5–6, 19, 87, 133,
147–148, 167, 197, 205 tallow, 8, 145, 147–148, 150–154, 156,
second sleep, 5, 36 158, 160–162, 164, 166–167, 169,
security, 1, 5, 10, 18, 25–28, 31, 33, 177, 307, 309, 311–312
37–38, 41, 44, 46–48, 52–53, 80, tavern, 18, 41, 82, 84–85, 96, 99–101,
84, 87, 93, 95, 101, 196, 221–222, 103–105, 111, 125, 134, 138, 142,
224, 227, 230, 240, 242, 244–246, 210, 219–223, 235–236, 240, 243,
272 285, 287, 290, 292, 303, 329, 331
segmented sleep, 4, 36–37 tax, 49, 82, 102–104, 124, 154, 222,
sense, 10, 12, 17, 24–25, 44, 57, 65, 78, 236, 245, 310, 329
80, 114–115, 117–118, 122, 127, Taylesanizade Hafiz Abdullah, 213

tebdil gezmek (undercover patrols), 73, walls, 27, 33, 49, 55, 68–69, 77, 106,
150 124, 126, 134, 144, 146, 213, 229,
technology, 4, 10, 145, 246, 256 242, 244, 279, 303, 333
tiqūn hatsot, 37, 41, 124 west/western, 80, 124, 178, 202, 204,
_ 233, 256, 268, 271, 300, 306, 313,
Üsküdar, 13, 19, 55–56, 62, 66, 69, 86, 350, 355–356
89, 91–93, 101, 153–154, whales, 8
224–225, 249–250, 260, 265, 269, wine, 41, 58, 75, 79, 100, 110, 114,
278–279, 283, 289–290, 312, 331, 120–121, 125–129, 131–133, 135,
335, 340, 347, 366 141, 233, 235, 301
court, 13, 19, 27, 56, 89, 249, 283 work, 3, 7, 13, 30–31, 33, 36, 39, 46,
Uzun Mehmed, 212 48–49, 51, 60, 64, 74, 83, 88, 92,
94–97, 111, 128, 133, 135, 155,
vakıf, 108, 154, 158, 182, 310 168, 177–178, 185, 188, 190,
vigil, 119–120, 123–125 193–194, 200, 205, 207, 242, 244,
violence, 1, 24, 26, 28, 47, 71, 246–247, 249–250, 270, 274, 281,
91, 98–99, 210, 219, 227, 286, 288, 290, 292, 294, 305, 314,
229–231, 240, 246, 265, 294, 323, 327
330
visibility, 2, 7, 9, 11, 46, 48, 65, 123, Yahya Kemal, 174
264 Yirmi Sekiz Çelebi Mehmet Efendi,
vision, 1, 5, 11, 17, 24, 44, 47–48, 202
53–54, 62, 64, 68, 80, 143, 199, Yusuf Ziya Paşa, 207
276
zina, 220, See sex
wakefulness, 5, 7, 36, 117 Zohar, 124

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