Non-Sunni Muslims in the Late Ottoman Empire


Book Description

The Alawis or Alawites are a minority Muslim sect, predominantly based in Syria, Turkey and Lebanon. Over the course of the 19th century, they came increasingly under the attention of the ruling Ottoman authorities in their attempts to modernize the Empire, as well as Western Protestant missionaries. Using Ottoman state archives and contemporary chronicles, this book explores the Ottoman government's attitudes and policies towards the Alawis, revealing how successive regimes sought to bring them into the Sunni mainstream fold for a combination of political, imperial and religious reasons. In the context of increasing Western interference in the empire's domains, Alkan reveals the origins of Ottoman attempts to 'civilize' the Alawis, from the Tanzimat period to the Young Turk Revolution. He compares Ottoman attitudes to Alawis against its treatment of other minorities, including Bektashis, Alevis, Yezidis and Iraqi Shi'a. An important new contribution to the literature on the history of the Alawis and Ottoman policy towards minorities, this book will be essential reading for scholars of the late Ottoman Empire and minorities of the Middle East.




Ottoman Sunnism


Book Description

Addressing the contested nature of Ottoman Sunnism from the 14th to the early 20th century, this book draws on diverse perspectives across the empire. Closely reading intellectual, social and mystical traditions within the empire, it clarifies the possibilities that existed within Ottoman Sunnism, presenting it as a complex, nuanced and evolving concept. The authors in this volume rescue Ottoman Sunnism from an increasingly bipolar definition that seeks to present the Ottomans as enshrining a clearly defined orthodoxy, suppressing its contrasting heterodoxy. Challenging established notions that have marked the existing literature, the chapters contribute significantly not only to the ongoing debate on the Ottoman age of confessionalisation but also to the study of religion in the Ottoman context.




Ottoman Reform and Muslim Regeneration


Book Description

The late Ottoman period was one of enormous change. This book focuses on the evolution of Ottoman reform as it was perceived, and negotiated, from the perspectives of the capital Istanbul and of the Arab provinces of Syria, including Palestine. It also examines the close interrelationship between the symbolic and actual measures introduced by the state, particularly since the Tanzimat era (1839-76), and the role of Islam as its foundational ethos and as the religion of the majority of the population. The twelve case studies included in this volume reveal the extent of the changes that the Ottoman Empire underwent throughout the period, ranging from the Ottoman dynasty and court at the top, to the marginalized Druzes and Bedouin populations on the periphery.




Encyclopedia of the Ottoman Empire


Book Description

Presents a comprehensive A-to-Z reference to the empire that once encompassed large parts of the modern-day Middle East, North Africa, and southeastern Europe.




A History of the Ottoman Empire


Book Description

Covering the full history of the Ottoman Empire, from its genesis in post-Mongol Eurasia to its dissolution after the Great War in Europe, this textbook takes a holistic approach, considering the Ottoman worldview - what it was, how it came together, and how it fell apart. Douglas A. Howard stresses the crucial role of the Ottoman sultans and their extended household, discusses the evolution of the empire's fiscal model, and analyzes favorite works of Ottoman literature, emphasizing spirituality, the awareness of space and time, and emotions, migration, violence, disease, and disaster. Following how people spent their time, their attitudes towards authority, how they made their money, and their sense of humor and sense of beauty, this illustrated textbook is an essential resource for graduate and advanced undergraduate, courses on the history of the Ottoman Empire, the Middle East, Islamic history, and the history of Eastern Europe. The book includes over eighty illustrations, maps and textboxes.




A Culture of Sufism


Book Description

A Culture of Sufism opens a window to a new understanding of one of the most prolific and enduring of all the Sufi brotherhoods, the Naqshbandiyya, as it spread from its birthplace in central Asia to Iran, Anatolia, Arabia, and the Balkans between the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries. Drawing on original sources and carefully aware of the power of modern paradigms to obscure, Le Gall portrays a Naqshbandiyya that was devotionally sober yet not demysticized and rigorously orthodox without being politically activist. She argues that the establishment of this brotherhood in Ottoman society was not the product of political instrumentality. Instead the Naqshbandī dissemination is best explained in reference to a series of little-appreciated organizational and cultural modes such as proclivity to long-distance travel, independence from specialized Sufi institutions, linguistic adaptability, commitment to writing and copying, and the practice of bequeathing spiritual authority to non-kin.




Disciples of the State?


Book Description

As the Ottoman Empire crumbled, the Middle East and Balkans became the site of contestation and cooperation between the traditional forces of religion and the emergent machine of the sovereign state. Yet such strategic interaction rarely yielded a decisive victory for either the secular state or for religion. By tracing how state-builders engaged religious institutions, elites, and attachments, this book problematizes the divergent religion-state power configurations that have developed. There are two central arguments. First, states carved out more sovereign space in places like Greece and Turkey, where religious elites were integral to early centralizing reform processes. Second, region-wide structural constraints on the types of linkages that states were able to build with religion have generated long-term repercussions. Fatefully, both state policies that seek to facilitate equality through the recognition of religious difference and state policies that seek to eradicate such difference have contributed to failures of liberal democratic consolidation.




Ottoman Empire and European Theatre Vol. I


Book Description

The first volume of the book series Ottoman Empire and European Theatre focuses on the period between 1756 and 1808, the era of W. A. Mozart (1756-1791) and Sultan Selim III (1761-1808). These historical personalities, whose life-spans overlap, were towering figures of their time: Mozart as an extraordinary composer and Selim III as both a politician and a composer. Inspired by the structure of opera, the forty-four contributions of Volume I are arranged in eight sections, entitled Ouverture, Prologue, Acts I-V and Epilogue. The Ouverture includes the opening speeches of diplomats, politicians, and scholars as well as a memorial text for the "Genius of Opera", Turkish prima donna Leyla Gencer (1928-2008). The Prologue, "The Stage of Politics", features texts by distinguished historians who give an historical overview of the Ottoman Empire and Europe in the late eighteenth century, from both Turkish and Austrian points of view. Act I features texts concerning "Diplomacy and Theatre", and Act II takes the reader to "Europe South, West and North". Act III has contributions concerning theatre in "Central Europe", while Act IV deals with "Mozart" and the world of the seraglio. Act V turns our attention to the Ottoman "Sultan Selim III", and the Epilogue considers literary and theatrical adventures of "The Hero in the Sultan's Harem". Contributions by Metin And, Emre Araci, Tülay Artan, Esin Akalin, Thomas Betzwieser, Annemarie Bönsch, Emil Brix, Christian Brunmayr, Bertrand Michael Buchmann, Aysin Candan, Helga Dostal, Erich Duda, Wolfgang Greisenegger, Heidemaria Gürer, Matthew Head, Caroline Herfert, Bent Holm, Frank Huss, Michael Hüttler, Nadja Kayali, Hans-Peter Kellner, Alexandre Lhâa, Isabelle Moindrot, Ilber Ortayli, Zeynep Oral, Cemal Öztas, William F. Parmentier, Matthias J. Pernerstorfer, Gabriele C. Pfeiffer, Walter Puchner, Günsel Renda, Mustafa Fatih Salgar, Ulrike Schneider, Selin Ipek, Käthe Springer-Dissmann, Suna Suner, Marianne Travén, B. Babür Turna, Derek Weber, Mehmet Alaaddin Yalçinkaya, Selim Yenel.




The Islamic Manuscript Tradition


Book Description

The rich and varied traditions of Islamic book art