The Making of Selim: Succession, Legitimacy, and Memory in the Early Modern Ottoman World

by H. Erdem Çıpa

The father of the legendary Ottoman sultan Suleyman the Magnificent, Selim I ("The Grim") set the stage for centuries of Ottoman supremacy by doubling the size of the empire. Conquering Eastern Anatolia, Syria, and Egypt, Selim promoted a politicized Sunni Ottoman identity against the Shiite Safavids of Iran, thus shaping the early modern Middle East. Analyzing a wide array of sources in Ottoman-Turkish, Persian, and Arabic, H. Erdem Cipa offers a fascinating revisionist reading of Selim's rise to power and the subsequent reworking and mythologizing of his persona in 16th- and 17th-century Ottoman historiography. In death, Selim continued to serve the empire, becoming represented in ways that reinforced an idealized image of Muslim sovereignty in the early modern Eurasian world.

Genres: History

436 pages, Hardcover

First published February 28, 2017

About the author

H. Erdem Cipa is Assistant Professor of Ottoman History at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
Michigan

Üniversitesi Tarih ve Yakındoğu Araştırmaları bölümlerinde Osmanlı tarihi yardımcı doçentidir. Osmanlı tarih doktorasını Harvard Üniversitesi’nden 2007’de aldı. Emine Fetvacı’yla birlikte Indiana University Press’ten çıkan Writing History at the Ottoman Court: Editing the Past, Fashioning the Future başlıklı kitabın editörüdür. Araştırmalarını Osmanlı İmparatorluğu’nda halk ayaklanmaları, toplumsal çatışmalar ve saltanat mücadeleleri üzerine sürdürmekte olan yazar, halen Osmanlı tarihyazımında I. Selim imgesinin 16. yüzyıldan itibaren günümüze kadar geçirdiği evrimi konu alan bir monografi üzerinde çalışmaktadır.

Reviews

[Anubis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Books on Selim are hard to come by, so i was really excited when i saw this book.

The book is extremely well researched. Massive amounts of notes and a really extensive bibliography, not even mentioning the author actually working in the archives in Istanbul to discover correspondence that was written by the actors in the book.

However, the book isn't really what you would expect. The first part of it focuses on the rise to power of Selim. It's something that is glossed over in other works on Ottoman history. Even here, it leaves room for more, however it is a great analysis of the civil war and it's actors that happened before Selim assumed power. In other works this civil war is basically glossed over, because it was in the interest of Ottoman historians to downplay it's importance since it would hurt the image of the Sultanate.

I've got plenty of information i've never seen before. Who supported which son of Bayezid, why did Selim appeal to the army, what were the mistakes Ahmed and Korkud made in the bid for power etc...

The 2nd part of the book is a discussion on how the image of Selim we have today was made by future generations. I found that part much less interesting, but the great research is clear.

Unfortunately the book basically doesn't discuss anything that happened after Selim became sultan, which is very lacking in the English books still, despite being a very interesting topic. For some reason everyone shies away from describing it, despite Selim doubling the area of the Ottoman Empire and defeating 2 local superpowers while doing so. It is the only reason i'm giving the book a 4, cause i feel it a missed opportunity to completely ignore it.

[Smand · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tarihyazımında, gayri meşru bir hükümdarın yüzyıllara yayılan süreçte meşru hale getirilmesinin aşama aşama incelenmesi. Bunun yanında Osmanlı'nın hiçbir zaman patrimonyal bir devlet olmadığı, sultan ile belirli hiziplerin sürekli pazarlığı sonucu şekillenen bir yapısı olduğu sonucuna ulaşıyor.

Derinliğine rağmen okuru zorlamayan, keyifli bir çalışma.

[Okan Ergul · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yavuz Sultan Selim'in hikayesini kısaca anlatıp sonra da kendisinin tarih yazımındaki (günümüze kadar gelen) imajının oluşum sürecini detaylı şekilde irdeleyen ilgi çekici bir çalışma. Tarih kitaplarında okuduklarımızın yazarlarından bağımsız "doğrular " olmasının ne kadar zor olduğunu algılatması açısından oldukça başarılı.

[Gordon Pyatt · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quite misleading, still a good overview of a Sultan who did a lot in very little time BUT focuses mainly on historiography