Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 December 2009
In connexion with Professor Wittek's article ‘Devshirme and sharī'a’ in BSOAS, xyn, 2, pp. 271–8, a passage in Idrīs Bitlīsī's Hasht bihisht is of interest, for there the author, far from feeling any incompatibility between the devshirme and the sharī'a, even shows the former as justified by the latter.
page 181 note 1 Idrīs's argument is reproduced by von Hammer, GOR, I, 91 (though put into the mouth of Qara ).
page 181 note 2 Thus Palmer, J.A.B. (in his article ‘The origin of the Janissaries’, Bulletin of the John Bylands Library, XXXV, 2, 1953, 472)Google Scholar is mistaken when he says that Sa'duddīn here ‘virtually translates’ Idrīs. He is mistaken also in stating (loc. cit.) that Idrīs is ‘studiously vague as to chronology’: Idrīs explicitly attributes the establishment of the to Orkhan, as will be seen from the passage quoted below.
page 181 note 3 MSS: A = Brit. Mus., Add. 7646, f. 74v.; B = Bodleian, Ouseley 358, f. 105v.—{ } mark the passages a, b, and c whose omission by Sa‘duddīn is discussed later.
page 181 note 4 A
page 181 note 5 B
page 181 note 6 B om.
page 181 note 7 A ;B The reading in the text has been suggested to me by Mr. Meredith-Owens.
page 181 note 8 B
page 181 note 9 A B
page 181 note 10 B
page 182 note 1 AB
page 182 note 2 B om.
page 182 note 3 A
page 183 note 1 Hadith; cf. Suyūḝī, Al-jāmi'