The discursive construction of the Auspicious Incident in Üss-i Zafer : purification, legitimacy, and the new order

This article examines Üss-i Zafer , authored by Sahhaflar Şeyhizâde Esʿad Efendi, as a constitutive narrative that reveals how the Ottoman political order re-positioned itself at conceptual and symbolic levels in the aftermath of the Auspicious Incident (Vaka-i Hayriye). The text frames the abolition of the Janissary Corps as a comprehensive process of re-founding that brings together religious, social and political dimensions within a single narrative plane, extending beyond the scope of a purely military intervention. Within this framework, the concepts of sedition (fitne), corruption (bozulma), and renewal (tecdid) occupy a central place as key semantic axes that render the establishment of the new order intelligible. The relationship constructed with Bektashism in Üss-i Zafer indicates that the process of abolition targeted a broad field of mentality encompassing rituals, belief practices and collective memory, alongside institutional transformation. In this narrative context, Mahmud II is constructed as a central figure of authority situated at the intersection of historical continuity, sacred representation and political will. The image formed around the sultan makes visible an understanding of authority that re-establishes order and reshapes time itself. The establishment of the Asâkir-i Mansûre-i Muhammediyye is likewise interpreted as a stage at which victory acquires permanence at both institutional and symbolic levels. The article demonstrates that in Üss-i Zafer , prayers, Quranic verses, hadiths and panegyrics are brought together with bureaucratic regulations within a unified narrative structure, through which a selective construction of memory is produced. This configuration of memory reframes the historical diversity of the Janissary Corps around a singular image of threat, while associating the new order with stability, harmony and legitimacy. In this respect, Üss-i Zafer emerges as one of the narratives through which political authority in the early phase of Ottoman modernization grounded itself simultaneously on worldly and sacred foundations, while the Auspicious Incident acquires meaning as a constitutive historical moment in which order was re-established.