A Safavid Bureaucrat in the Ottoman World: Mirza Makhdum Sharifi Shirazi and the Quest for Upward Mobility in the İlmiye Hierarchy

Abstract

This present article examines Mirza Makhdum Sharifi Shirazi’s (1540–87) life and career in the Ottoman Empire. Mirza Makhdum was a high-ranking Twelver Shiite bureaucrat in Safavid Iran, but after taking refuge with the Ottomans, he converted to Sunnism and started a new career as a judge in Diyarbakir, Bilad al-Sham, Baghdad, and the holy cities of the Hijaz. In this article, emphasis has been on his employment and professional advancement in the ilmiye, a milieu that was open on the one hand, but maintained ideological and institutional limitations on the other. I take the horizontality of his ilmiye career as a lens through which to explore nuances and complexities of professional advancement among the Iranian recruits of the Ottoman bureaucracy during the 16th century.