Reviews: Ottoman High Politics and the Ulema Household

In this respect, he ties together a tradition of scholarship on the ulema (their social origins, career paths, and the Ottoman organizational hierarchy), taking note of the similarities and divergences from the general 17th century patterns. Yet the fact that Feyzullah's peers expressed their disapproval of his influential position and wealth in their writings built upon what was by then an established practice within advice literature of criticizing favoritism (of which Mustafa Ali is a notable earlier instance). [...]Feyzullah is depicted as a victim of the arbitrary (or despotic) power of the sultan, as Nizri suggests that Feyzullah's main motivation for his accumulation of wealth and assets was his "fear" (p. 188).