Fundamentals of authority and legitimacy in the 16th century Ottoman siyasetnamas

The period of Kanuni is known as the period in which the Ottomans carried dynastic rule to the top within the patrimonial system, and the dissolution period authors define this period as the ideal period. This study focuses on how the government presented itself as "legitimate" in terms of both worldly and religious aspects and how it shaped its public image in the period of Kanuni, which contained highly complex relations and developments in terms of the Ottoman power. The main purpose of the study is to enlighten the ways of legitimacy applied by the power in the period of Suleiman the Magnificent. The sources of legitimacy in question give a clue to how the Ottoman raison d'etat operated, how the Ottomans presented themselves as both an worldly and religious authority in this period when they reached "double sovereignty," and what religious, ideological, and cultural resources predominated in the Ottoman political mentality and what's the operational motivations of the power. The scope of the study is limited to the Süleiman period, and the studies related to this period have been benefited to the maximum. In addition, in order to determine the dynamics of legitimacy in the Ottoman Empire siyasatnames which belong to this era, such as Amâsi's work titled Tuhfetü'l-Ümera ve Minhatü'l-Vüzera, Kınalızade's work named Ahlak-ı Ali, İbn-i Firuz's work named Gurretü'l-Beyza, Lütfi Pasha's work titled Asafname, Taşköprizade's work titled Risale fî Beyâni esrâri'l-hilafeti'l-insaniyye ve's-saltanati'l-ma'neviyye, were examined. The analyzes, approaches, and works of historians such as Halil İnalcık, Norman Itzkowitz, A. D. Alderson, Cornell Fleischer, Colin Imber, Gülru Necipoğlu, and Suraiya Faroqhi regarding this period depicted the socio-cultural environment and political mentality that dominated this period, shaped our work accordingly. Moreover, the different approaches they presented and the different issues they dealt with provided us with a better understanding of the legitimacy problem.