Prof. İnalcık Publishes Hâs-Bağçede Ayş u Tarab
İş Bankası Kültür Yayınları has recently published a new book by Prof. Halil İnalcık, professor at the Department of History entitled Hâs-Bağçede Ayş u Tarab: Nedimler, Şâirler, Mutribler (English title: Banquet at the Sultans’s Private Gardens: Courtiers, Poets, Musicians) on the history of the entertainment tradition in the Ottoman palace. The book is currently only available in Turkish.
Prof. İnalcık's new history of Ottoman entertainment opens uncharted territory in the study of Ottoman Turkey. Although the historiographical traditions in other branches of area history have produced works examining the social history of foodways and entertainment, until now historians have not delved into the entertainment history of the Ottoman palace.
Based in primary sources and rigorously researched, the book explains the practices of the tradition of serving wine in the Ottoman palace and entertainment with saz and song. Also regarded as normal in the Ummayad and Abbasid tradition, with attendants offering drinks, the book also addresses criticism against this custom.
Banquet at the Sultan's Private Garden: Courtiers, Poets, Musicians examines entertainments enjoyed in the Sultan's private garden of the Ottoman palace, a tradition with deep roots stretching back to the pre-Islamic Persian Empire through Abbasid, and Ummayad palace traditions. The Sultan joined these drinking parties with courtiers and companions, who enjoyed examples of the most outstanding of the arts of poetry, music, and dance. These private assemblies both reflected and reshaped the lifestyles and pleasures of the imperial elites.
The parties were a tradition believed indispensable in the palaces of the whole Middle East, where in a single assembly, pleasure and delight continued to the accompaniment of eminent artists reading poetry, playing the saz, and singing songs amongst flower gardens, pools, fountains, canals, and incense burners. Since the periods of the Ummayads and Abbasids, these sultanic parties were accepted as an essential custom as a necessity of the Sultanate.
The equivalent of this tradition could be found in the palaces of Europe too. Regalia, a Latin word meaning literally "royal" or "of a king," were magnificent feasts and entertainments given for the royal court and were counted among the necessities of royal palace. Whether in the East or in the West, palace culture was always different from popular culture, and this difference was reflected in reactions to the tradition of the drinking assembly. While instruction was given to princes in sâkînâmeler dealing with the subject of drinking as related to the upper classes in the most minute detail, antagonists to this tradition wrote fütüvvetnâmeler for the common people.
Fütüvvetnâmeler were morality books written to condemn the parties as activities against the instructions of religion.
Even though sâkînâmeler were criticized as exercises incompatible with elements of Islam and against religious rules, drinking assemblies were always began with prayers to God and the Prophet, and they always emphasized repentance at the end. The reasoning for this invocation and penitence lay in understanding that people are weak and engage in sinful acts, Gaffârul-zünûb. In the end, they take refuge in the Lord as the forgiver of sins.
This book, a long-needed contribution to Ottoman socio-cultural history, tries to shine light on this little known aspect of the life and original culture of the imperial palace and the nobility orbiting its sphere.