The Confessions of an Ottoman ‘Irregular’: Self-Representation and Ottoman Interpretive Communities in the Nineteenth Century

Abstract

This paper will analyze an autobiographical account attributed to a very unlikely Ottoman author: an obscure Anatolian irregular cavalryman Deli Mustafa (b. 1791/2)—or Kabudlı el-Haccî Mustafa Vasfî Efendi as he fashioned himself in his manuscript. His nar- rative provides rare glimpses into the tumultuous everyday life and moral dilemmas faced by the countless Muslim peasants who joined itinerant military orders in the Ottoman Empire. Deli Mustafa’s narrative and self-fashioning strategies help us understand what common Muslim men serving in paramilitary forces had to do to make a living during this tumultuous period of Ottoman history, and most importantly, how they explained and legitimated their precarious and contentious way of life. Rather than debating the veracity of Mustafa’s jumbled historical account full of inaccuracies and contradictions, this essay focuses on his—or the compiler of the text’s—editorial choices, his target audiences, as well as how the tone of his description of violence changes over time and space as he trav- elled from the eastern to western frontiers of the Empire in order to determine what was at stake for such an obscure author and his interpretative community to tell his story.