Tag: History of Sainthood

Ṭāhā al-Kurdī Meets His Spiritual Master

On By JonathanIn Arabic, Culture, History, Islam, OttomanLeave a comment
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A sufi in a somewhat different socio-cultural context concentrating as he prays dhikr using his prayer-beads, in a mode of bodily deportment likely very similar to what Ṭāhā would have used. Bibliothèque nationale de France. Département des Manuscrits. Arabe 6074.

One of the most fascinating sources that I came across in the course of researching and writing my dissertation was an Arabic text simply titled ‘Riḥla,’ which might be translated as ‘Travel Narrative’ though it has other connotations as well, written by an otherwise fairly obscure Kurdish author named Ṭāhā al-Kurdī who was born in on the night of December 11, 1723, in a small village in the vicinity of the town of Koy Sanjaq, about two hundred miles north of Baghdad and fifty north of Kirkuk, in the foothills of the Zagros Mountains. Then as now the region was predominantly Kurdish and while usually under the suzerainty of the Ottomans had a degree of autonomy, and was in some ways quite distant culturally and socially from the more urbane parts of the empire. Much of the population was nomadic or semi-nomadic, non-elite women played a much more prominent role in religious and cultural life than was typical in much of the rest of the empire, and the practices of sainthood- a major concern for Ṭāhā- in the region had their own distinctive aspects. At the same time, there was much that would have been familiar anywhere in the Ottoman world or indeed elsewhere in the vast Islamicate: Ṭāhā traveled to Koy Sanjaq as a youth to study in the madrasa there, learning various subjects in Arabic and Persian, perhaps, though he does not say so, using Kurdish glosses or helping texts initially. His relative mastery of prestige bodies of texts and learned, literate skills would serve him well in the coming years of his peregrinations around the empire, following routes that many learned Kurds took over the course of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, with scholars from other tiny towns and villages often playing outsized roles in Ottoman religious and intellectual life.

But even more important for Ṭāhā’s self-image and as an impetus for his travels was his love of the saints and his commitment to the practices and doctrines of sufism as transmitted and inculcated by the living friends of God of his day, beginning with his first and most important saintly shaykh, Darwīsh Muṣṭafā. The story from Ṭāhā’s Riḥla that I have translated below relates his first encounter with this saint, and it is a remarkably detailed and emotionally rich story, written in what we might today call a voice of openness and vulnerability, Ṭaha frankly describing his unsettled emotional state, with which I think most people can readily sympathize. We see in the story the way in which a local saint inhered in the social life of a rural community (and navigated its built spaces), and the sheer importance attached to him; we see the process, both in terms of inner states and emotions and in terms of practicalities and ritual actions, of becoming affiliated to such a saintly shaykh, and entering into the sufi ‘path.’ While Darwīsh Muṣṭafā is described as connected to the ṭarīqa of the famed saint and sufi eponym ‘Abd al-Qādir al-Jilānī, there is no sense of institutional organization here or even a set of regularized practices. Instead the stress is on transmission of a saintly lineage from one saintly figure down to another, ending up at ‘Abd al-Qādir. Ṭaha is given a ‘personalized’ dhikr (ritual remembrance of God) to perform, which he finally succeeds in through the dream-intercession as it were of another saint, his shaykh’s shaykh, whose hagiography- which I have not translated here- picks up where the following passage concludes.

The deeply personal voice of Ṭāhā al-Kurdī is perhaps the most striking aspect of not just this story but the whole of his Riḥla; he does not simply narrate the exterior ‘facts’ of his life but is even more interested in relating his inner states and conditions, even when they are not especially flattering. In so doing he was not alone in the early modern Ottoman world, or the world more generally, as this sort of subjective turn is visible in many contexts- as for why this would be so, that is another story entirely and one that I do not think has yet been adequately answered. Certainly however we should not be surprised at this sort of subjective exploration given the emphasis in much sufi training on inner states and conditions; what is perhaps more surprising is its being written down and circulated (there are multiple copies of the Riḥla; I have worked from the one pictured below for the simple reason it’s currently accessible to me!). Regardless, this account is a wonderful view of the operation of sainthood and sufi discipleship in one corner of the rural hinterland of the Ottoman Empire, which, despite the predominance of literary production taking place in and focusing on cities, held the vast majority of the empire’s inhabitants, and no small number of the special friends of God who left their mark upon Ottoman space and society over the centuries.

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A page from a holograph copy of the Riḥla, Yale University Library Landberg MSS 220

In that time there was dwelling in a place called Awājī—a village from among the villages around Koy [Sanjaq], three or four hours’ walk from there—the singular and proximate [to God] saint and master of evident miracles, gracious signs, and fame unsurpassed in that region, known as Darwīsh Muṣṭafā, God be pleased with him and with his land. He would come to town every Friday, and the people would gather around him like he was a prophet from among the prophets. He would stay in the house of Koy [Sanjaq]’s preacher (khaṭīb), the pious, sound, and knowledgeable Mullā Ḥusayn, God be merciful to him, whose house was close to the madrasa in which I was studying. I had a companion in study who was both older than me and more knowledge and better versed in fiqh, named Faqīh Ḥasan ibn Khāneh, God be merciful to both of them. He had pledged allegiance to the Shaykh in accordance with the ṭarīqa of the saintly axis and reviver of religion ‘Abd al-Qādir al-Jīlī [i.e. al-Jilānī], God be pleased with him. He had mentioned to me several times the spiritual condition of his shaykh and his miracles and spiritual states and this and that, to the point that there arose in my heart love for encountering him in order to pay pious visitation and to pledge allegiance to him. So I said to my companion Faqīh Ḥasan, ‘When next Friday comes take me to his presence and tell him about my condition and what I desire and so act as a translator (turjumān) between me and him, and yours will be the reward with God!’

And so towards the end of the month of Sha’bān, six days remaining to it, in the year 1151 [1738], Friday came and the shaykh arrived and stayed in the house of the aforementioned preacher. My companion said to me, ‘The shaykh has come—if you still want, stand and let’s go!’ So we went, but I saw the teeming assembly and I was deeply embarrassed before all the people. The shaykh was inside the house with lots of people before him, likewise outside the house. Still my companion went inside and told the shaykh about me, then he came back out and said to me, ‘I spoke to him.’ An hour later the shaykh had come forth and looked at me, and I had in my hand an inkwell with a tense firm cover such that it could be shaken to rectify the ink. When I saw the shaykh come out I kissed his hand and my companion said to him, ‘This is he,’ meaning me. I was dazed and embarrassed, I couldn’t see anything else save the shaykh stretching out his blessed hand and taking up the inkwell from my hand and saying to me, ‘What is this?’ I replied, ‘This is ink which can be well mixed through motion.’ He stopped for a while to talk with the people, then went back inside the house, saying to me, ‘With your permission—‘ and we entered the house together and sat down, I faced the shaykh with my head bowed for a while. Then he commanded me to come before him so I stood and sat upon my knees in front of him, the space quite filled up with those seated.

Then he said to me, ‘You wish to repent?’ I replied, ‘If God wills!’ He said, ‘Do not return to your sin,’ to which I replied, ‘If God wills!’ He said, ‘Repent from every sin!’ I replied, ‘I repent from all of my sins!’ Now there was to one side of the shaykh his companion, God be merciful to him, who was from among the folk of divine attraction (jadhb) whose state was evident and not hidden, named Mullā ‘Alī, from the people of Koy [Sanjaq]. He said to the shaykh, ‘This boy’—meaning me—‘from what does have to repent?’ He said this in joking manner to the shaykh, but the shaykh replied, ‘No, there is none who is free of sins great and small!’ I felt astonished, and in my heart there was shame over their mentioning sins, due to my own knowledge of my immoderation in regards to my lower self, so that I could verify in my own heart that the shaykh spoke the truth in what he said—this was the first miracle (karāma) manifest to me from him, God be pleased with him! Continue reading “Ṭāhā al-Kurdī Meets His Spiritual Master” →

Sīdī Aḥmad Takes Minimalism to a Whole Other Level

On By JonathanIn Arabic, History, IslamLeave a comment
Interior view of the Miṣbāḥiyya Madrasa in Fez, Morocco, taken by me in 2008; the madrasa- the saint in the below biographical compilation entry’s ‘home base’- was built in 1346 and could accommodate some 140 residents.

The subject of this entry [Abū al-‘Abbās Sīdī Aḥmad al-Būs’īdī al-Hashtūkī, d. 1046/1636] was exceptional in his age in asceticism and piety, only wearing of the clothing of this world the very least necessary to humans, to the point that he had no more than one garment, and if he wanted to wash it he would go out to Wādī al-Zaytūn [a former watercourse on the north end of Fez] and tear his garment into two halves. He would wrap himself in one half and occupy himself with washing the other half; once it had dried he would wrap himself with it, then wash the other. Then when it had dried he would stitch the garment back together as it had been before. He only took sustenance from the seed that he sowed with his own hand on land which someone from the folk of good and religion had gifted him. He would make a round loaf of dough and place it in the fire, and content himself with that—such was his habit. He kept this up even though people sought him out from distant horizons, bringing abundant gifts and generous alms, yet he paid not attention to that, such making no impression on his mind. It is related that one of the elite of Fez was struck with a sickness which thwarted the doctors and wore out the enchanters, so someone suggested to the sick man that he pay a pious visit to the subject of this entry. So he sought him out in his room in the Miṣbāḥiyya Madrasa and described his present sickness to him. Then the shaykh took some of his flour and made a tincture for him, then commanded him to drink it. He drank, and immediately he was better. The shaykh said to him: “That which is ḥalāl is a theriac for the severest of sicknesses! When a sick person eats a bite of something ḥalāl it is as if he has been released from bondage.”

Abū ʿAbdallāh Muḥammad al-Ṣaghīr al-Ifrānī, Ṣafwat man intashar min akhbār ṣulaḥāʾ al-qarn al-ḥādī ʻashar (Casablanca: Markaz al-Turāth al-Thaqāfī al-Maghribī, 2004), 139.

Continue reading “Sīdī Aḥmad Takes Minimalism to a Whole Other Level” →

The Funduq Saint of Fez: ‘Abd al-Majīd and His Exceptional Acts of Devotion

On By JonathanIn Arabic, History, IslamLeave a comment
As far as I can tell, the ‘Abd al-Majīd Funduq is no longer extant; however, it may have resembled in general plan and ornamentation this early 18th century example, Funduq Ṣāgha, pictured here from my visit in the spring of 2008.

Early modern Islamic religious life across Afro-Eurasia was marked by many trends and developments with roots in the medieval period but which took on new and often surprising forms in the following centuries. One of the most important trends was the explosive growth of devotion to Muḥammad, growth both in terms of apparent overall popularity but also, and more objectively measurable, growth in the number of textual instruments, ritual practices, and social settings oriented towards Muḥammad-centered devotion. Alongside this growth in devotion was another trend that does not at first glance seem related, namely, the continued flourishing and adaptive transformations of ‘deviant’ mendicant piety, the sort exemplified in the late medieval period by the Qalandar and other types of ‘radical’ dervishes, and in the early modern particularly by the majdhūb. Such forms of ascetic practice and aspiration to sainthood often eschewed compliance with the sharī’a, or at the very least transgressed many social norms in a deliberate fashion.

The following saint’s life, preserved in a seventeenth compilation of outstanding holy or learned (or both) lives, comes from Morocco, Fez to be precise, and embraces both of the above trends in early modern Islamic religious life. The saint, Sīdī ‘Abd al-Majīd, was acclaimed a saint, at least according to our author al-Ifrānī, because of his incredible, indeed super-human, devotion to the Prophet of Islam. The first few paragraphs of his life, the entirety of which I have translated here, lay out his acts of devotion and his saintly inner states, including the curious detail that his ecstatic remembrance of Muḥammad took place even in the latrine- a detail which hints at a somewhat non-normative manner of life. It is in the following paragraphs that we are given further indications that ‘Abd al-Majīd was not universally admired and that his mode of life had many parallels with that of the ‘deviant’ dervishes better known from the Islamic East. But before we consider just what kind of a saint he was, it would be better to read his life as al-Ifrānī has described it:

Among them, the well-known saint and great gnostic Sīdī ‘Abd al-Majīd ibn Abī al-Qāsim al-Bādisī: he was originally from the Rif [1], from the region of the Banū Yaṭifat; he was of the Malāmatiyya, and dwelled in the funduq [2] associated with him north of the Qarawiyyīn Mosque, which is now known as the Funduq of Sīdī ‘Abd al-Majīd. He practiced numerous prayers upon the Prophet, God bless him and give him peace, constantly devoted to him and to prayers upon him, of immense affection towards him, enraptured in love of him, and of great love towards the Folk of the House [3]. And whenever he commenced with invocation of blessings upon the Prophet, God bless him and give him peace, he would begin with saying: ‘I take refuge in God from Shayṭān the accursed. In the name of God the Merciful, the Compassionate: verily, God and His angels pronounce blessings upon the Prophet—O you who believe, pronounce blessings upon him and ask for him peace!’ He would complete this arrangement in good order, letter by letter, then say: ‘O God, bless Muḥammad!’ then ecstasy would overwhelm him and he would simply cry out, ‘Muḥammad! Muḥammad!’ He did not cease remembrance of him standing or sitting, in whatever condition he was in, even in the latrine (bayt al-khalā’). It was said to him, ‘Do you mention him in the latrine?’ He replied, ‘It dwells, O brother,’ meaning, perhaps, love [of Muḥammad], but God knows best. Continue reading “The Funduq Saint of Fez: ‘Abd al-Majīd and His Exceptional Acts of Devotion” →

A Self-Taught Shaykha in Early Modern Fes

On By JonathanIn Arabic, Art, Culture, History, IslamLeave a comment

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Detail from a swathe of embroidered silk textile, seventeenth or eighteenth century Morocco, with the word Allāh rather faintly visible running in a band near the center. The polemicist author described below might have had such colorful textiles in mind in castigating women in Fes for their material exuberance in following their female shaykha. (Cleveland Museum of Art 1916.1236)

The place of women in early modern Islamicate societies varied greatly depending on particular place, general cultural norms, social status, prevailing madhhab, and many other intersecting factors. Far from being static, the role and status of different sorts of women often fluctuated over time, and was frequently contested, particularly during periods of change such as marked much of early modernity in the Islamicate world as elsewhere. Of a particularly contentious nature was the question of women’s public religious life, a question that for Muslim communities entailed tension between (albeit limited) recognition in Islamic tradition of female religious authority, beginning with hadith-transmitting wives of Muḥammad himself, and prescriptions on women’s authority and public mobility and visibility. The historical reality of female saints and even masters of sufism added extra dimensions to such tensions. In the Islamic West- the Maghrib- from the medieval period forward highly restrictive attitudes towards women’s public participation in religious life existed alongside prominent, and outspokenly public, female saints such as Sayyida ‘Ā’isha al-Mannūbiyya (1199–1267). The anonymous woman who is described in the below text suggests other possibilities, which were accepted by some but strenuously rejected by others, as we will see.

The text below comes from a major eighteenth century bio-hagiographic compilation, Ṣafwat man intashar min akhbār ṣulaḥāʾ al-ḳarn al-ḥādī ʿashar, written by a scholar whose family was originally from the Draa region in the far south of Morocco, Abū ‘Abdallāh Muḥammad al-Ifrānī (also spelled al-Īfrānī and al-Ufrānī). Born in Marrakesh around 1670, al-Ifrānī eventually settled in Fes, where he would live and work as a scholar, sufi, and author, becoming particularly well known for his historical works, dying in either 1743 or 1745. His Ṣafwat man intashar provides important insight into the shape of early modern Maghribi sainthood as well as many other social realities of the period, including in the vast and often autonomous countryside, as seen in a previous selection from this work translated here.

The following selection comes from the life of a scholar and saint, originally from the town of Ksar el-Kebir but who settled permanently in Fes after his course of studies there, Abū Muḥammad Sayyidī ‘Abd al-Qādir (d. 1680). ‘Abd al-Qādir embodied a form of sainthood that had once been common across Islamic societies but by the early modern period was largely a Maghribi phenomenon: that of the ‘exoteric’ scholar whose vigorous personal asceticism, scrupulosity, and careful adherence to the sharī’a were acclaimed as evidence of sainthood. His karāmāt- miracles or charismatic signs- were many, al-Ifrānī tells us, his saintly status no doubt helped by the fact that his son wrote not one but two manāqibs- hagiographic accounts- of his father’s life. Unlike many of his contemporaries, ‘Abd al-Qādir did not produce in books or compilations; instead, his followers compiled his sayings and fatwas into their own compilations. The passage I have translated here comes from such a compilation, and is reminiscent in form of a fatwa although it is not presented as such:

Another fā’ida: [Abū Muḥammad ‘Abd al-Qādir] was asked about a woman who recited the Qur’an for women, and they would gather around her and take her as their shaykha. He answered with the following: ‘He, peace and blessings of God be upon him, said: “A people ordered by a woman will not know success,” as well as “Hinder them as God has hindered them,” and “They are deficient in reason and religion.” It is not permissible that a woman act as an imāma or shaykha, and as for what the women do on the day when they gather together in the woman’s presence and take her as their shaykha, that is not permissible either, and is an aspect of corruption and evil in the earth due to various reasons: among them, that women pilfer from their husbands and take it to her; and that each of the women dresses in finery, beautifies herself, and goes out into the streets, that being ḥarām and not allowed. And perhaps she leaves without her husband’s permission or pleasure in that, it becoming a cause for anger and division, with things that cause such being ḥarām.

Also, she presides over the reading of books and fatwa collections concerning the religion (dīn) of God, but is without knowledge (‘ilm), not having received that from an ‘ālim, there being things in the books which are comprehensible and things which are not [to those not instructed by a scholar], ‘ilm not being received save from the mouths of scholars. Taking it from books and pages is ḥarām, and all which she receives [in terms of material things] from that is illicit and one ought not eat of it, such that her livelihood is pure ḥarām. Continue reading “A Self-Taught Shaykha in Early Modern Fes” →

The Bey, the Meczûb, and a Cure for Beardlessness

On By JonathanIn Arabic, Culture, History, Islam, Ottoman, Ottoman TurkishLeave a comment

Sultan Murad III (r1574-1595) on Horseback (painting recto text verso) illustrated folio from a manuscript of the Javahir al-Gharaib Tarjomat Bahr al-Ajaib (Gems of Marvels- A Translation of the Sea of Wonders) of Jennabi (Cennabi)
(Fig. 1) Bearded and beardless soldiers and attendants surround Sultan Murad III (r.1574-1595) in this miniature from a translation into Ottoman Turkish of al-Jannābī’s Baḥr al-‘ajā’ib (Harvard Art Museum 1985.219.3.2)

As I’ve discussed on these pages many times before, Ottoman hagiography (like other bodies of hagiography from around the world) can be read in ways that get at much more than just ‘religious’ history narrowly conceived. Attitudes towards political dynamics, concepts of gender, relationships among various social groups, and many more aspects of life can all be discerned in these sorts of texts. One way of getting at underlying social and cultural realities is to read multiple accounts of the same holy person, when this is possible (and obviously in many cases it isn’t, or while there may be multiple accounts one is an original which the others simply copy and paste).

I’ve selected two renderings, both from the sixteenth century, of the same story in a saint’s life. One of the stories was written by an otherwise obscure person named Emîr Hüseyin Enîsî (fl. mid-16th century) in the small town of Göynük, located roughly halfway between Istanbul and Ankara; the other version was composed in Ottoman Constantinople (or, possibly, Bursa or Edirne) by one of the most famous Islamic scholars of the period, Ahmed Taşköprüzâde (1495-1561). Emîr Hüseyin Enîsî wrote in an almost colloquial register of Ottoman Turkish, while most of Taşköprüzâde’s literary production, including the one excerpted here, was in Arabic, long one of the two ‘international’ languages of the Islamicate world (though it would soon be translated and expanded upon in Ottoman Turkish). As such, to oversimplify somewhat, the one can safely be taken as representing a ‘provincial’ perspective, oriented around a particular holy person and his family and disciples, while Taşköprüzâde represents a more decidedly ‘imperial’ or ‘central’ view of things. Where Taşköprüzâde was a part of the scholarly-legal hierarchy, the so-called ‘ilmiye system, Emîr Hüseyin Enîsî was not, instead living and thinking at some distance from the imperial center and its rarefied world of sultans, viziers, grand medreses, and the like.

These differences are very much on view in these two stories, to which we will now turn, reviewing what they reveal afterwards. First, it should be noted that the main subject of Emîr Hüseyin Enîsî’s menâkıb is Nûru’l-Hüdâ’s father, Akşemseddîn (see this post for more on him). Out of his numerous sons, Nûru’l-Hüdâ is explicitly described as a saint, albeit of the meczûb variety (on which see this post), one whose divinely bestowed powers could go toe-to-toe with his father’s. Taşköprüzâde’s version of the story comes from his al-Shaqāʾiq al-nuʿmāniyya fī ʿulamāʾ al-dawlat al-ʿUthmāniyya, a ‘biographical dictionary’ of prominent scholars, culture-producers, doctors, shaykhs, and saints of the Ottoman lands from the origins of the dynasty up to Taşköprüzâde’s own day. While the story takes place in the fifteenth century, the underlying social and cultural dynamics that our authors bring to it speak more, arguably, of the sixteenth century. Here is Emîr Hüseyin Enîsî’s version:

‘There was a bey known as Kataroǧlu who was beardless (köse). He didn’t have any beard at all. One day he said to [the meczûb saint] Nûru’l-Hüdâ: “With saintly intention (himmet) cause me to have a beard!” So Nûru’l-Hüdâ looked Kataroǧlu in the face. He spit. In the places where the spit landed on Kataroǧlu beard began to sprout. The next morning Kataroǧlu arose and looked in the mirror. In the places the spit had touched beard had grown, and in a few days he had a full, black beard! He brought [the saint] a golden kaftan, and clothed Nûru’l-Hüdâ in it. Suddenly a dog appeared in their midst, and Nûru’l-Hüdâ rose and clothed the dog in the kaftan.’ [1]

And here is Taşköprüzâde’s version:

‘The shaykh had a young son named Nūr al-Hudā, a son who was a majdhūb, his intellect overtaken [by God]. At the time there was a great amīr known as Ibn ‘Aṭṭār, who was satin-skinned, not a hair on his face. He came before the shaykh while on his way to Sultan Muhammad Khan [Mehmed II]. While he was with the shaykh, that majdhūb came in and laughed, saying, “Is this a man? No, he’s a woman!” The shaykh was angry at this, but the amīr implored the shaykh that he not rebuke his son for saying such. Then the amīr said to the aforementioned majdhūb, “Pray for me so that my beard will grow!” So the majdhūb took a great deal of spit from his mouth and rubbed it on the amīr’s face. His beard began to grow, right up to his entry into Constantinople, and when he came before the sultan, the sultan said to his viziers, “Ask him from whence came this beard?” So he related what had happened, and the sultan marveled at it, and endowed upon that young man numerous waqfs, which remain in the control of the sons of the shaykh to this day.’ [2]

Ottoman Kaftan Fragment
(Fig. 2) A fragment of a particularly rich 16th century kaftan woven from silk and metallic thread, with a gold background, perhaps visually similar to the one described in Emîr Hüseyin Enîsî’s version of the story. (Met. 52.20.23a, b)

First, certain shared components are immediately visible: in both versions the Ottoman official- described as a bey or an amīr, roughly equivalent terms in Turkish and Arabic respectively- suffers from a degree of social stigma, it is implied, due to his lack of a beard. Having a beard, or even the first traces of a beard, was a key marker in this world of transitioning from the ambiguously gendered stage of ‘beardless youth’ to an adult man; the total absence of facial hair, if voluntary, could signal subordination (as in the case of eunuchs particularly) or social deviance and rejectionism (as in the case of radical dervishes). Thus the bey’s lack of beard is not simply a matter of style or personal pride, but could be seen as something approaching a disability. The joke the meczûb tells in Taşköprüzâde’s rendering pointedly gets at this gendered social reality.

The ‘cure,’ described in similar- though not quite the same- ways in both accounts, points to the close linkage between the body, the body’s products, and the transmission of sanctity and saintly power in the Islamicate world (and elsewhere). The exchange of saliva between saint and devotee has many parallels elsewhere in medieval and early modern Islamic hagiography (though I do not know of another instance in which spit cures beardlessness!). That the bey wants Nûru’l-Hüdâ to spit on him (or, in Taşköprüzâde’s somewhat more ‘refined’ version, rub on him) indicates his recognition of the meczûb’s sanctity, and signals to the reader Nûru’l-Hüdâ’s status as a saint.

Where the two accounts diverge is in how they implicitly frame the relationship between Nûru’l-Hüdâ (and his father), on the one hand, and Ottoman central power, on the other. In the first, ‘provincial’ rendering, while Nûru’l-Hüdâ cures the bey’s lack of beard, he does so in a way that signals the relative equality prevailing between the two- he spits right in the bey’s face, an effective way to transmit some sacred saliva, but otherwise a rather degrading action. Taşköprüzâde presents the transmission as having been carried out in a less confrontational manner. When it comes to recompense, Taşköprüzâde suggests that not only did the sultan himself reward Nûru’l-Hüdâ’s family, the family retained the reward, right down to the present, thereby tying themselves into the Ottoman center and implicitly subordinating themselves to the Ottoman dynasty. The framing of the story itself subordinates the ‘local’ saints to the central imperial context, with much of the action taking place in the presence of the sultan, not in the presence of the saint.

Emîr Hüseyin Enîsî’s version runs in exactly the opposite direction: not only does Nûru’l-Hüdâ reject the sumptuous kaftan bestowed upon him (see fig. 2 for an example), but he instead clothes a dog with it (the dog, it is implied, appearing providentially in just that moment). This act of rejection is not just a manifestation of conventional ideas of asceticism and distance from rulers. In Emîr Hüseyin Enîsî’s time, a very real struggle was taking place over who was to control the use and distribution of sanctity, over who was to occupy the ‘top spot’ in the hierarchy of saints. The Ottoman dynasty and many of its elite sought to organize, channel, and outright control the many holy people scattered across their domains, with the sultans themselves as saints presiding over the empire. Saints and their supporters, especially hagiographers, resisted these attempts. Neither ‘side’ rejected the legitimacy of the other outright: sultans and beys respected the saints of the land, and the saints, for the most part, supported the right of the House of Osman to rule. What was at issue was the nature of their relationship, and the degree to which saints should be subordinate to sultans and other members of the Ottoman elite.  Dressing a passing dog in a kaftan (itself symbolically linked to the sultan’s household) is in the story a way of signaling the superiority of the saints and that while beys and sultans needed them, the saints did not themselves need beys and sultans. The historical reality was no doubt, in fact, somewhere in between the two visions these contrasting hagiographic accounts present.

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[1] Emîr Hüseyin Enîsî, Akşemseddin hazretleri ve yakın çevresi: Menâkıb-ı Âkşemseddîn, edited by Metin Çelik  (İstanbul: Ark, 2016), 98.

[2] Ahmed Taşköprüzâde, al-Shaqāʼq al-Nuʻmānīya fī ʻulmāʼ al-Dawla al-ʻUthmānīya (Beirut: Dār al-Kitāb al-‘Arabī, 1975), 141-142.

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The Sesame Presser Turned Saint Who Almost Threw a Qadi in the Water

On By JonathanIn Arabic, Culture, History, Islam, Ottoman, PoliticsLeave a comment

Divan of Mahmud `Abd al-Baqi Abu Sa'ad teaching
A depiction, from a mid-sixteenth century illumined copy of the Divân of Mahmûd ‘Abdülbâkî, of the most prominent Ottoman jurist of the century, Muhammad Ebussuûd Efendi, (d. 1574), and a circle of students, wearing clothing typical of the Ottoman ‘ilmiye hierarchy from which kâdîs, such as the one in the story below, were recruited. 

As I’ve discussed in these digital pages before, one of the most fascinating and insightful ‘variety’ of Muslim saint in the early modern Ottoman world was the majdhūb (Ott. Turk. meczûb), the ‘divine attracted one,’ a strange and often disruptive and even antinomian figure who became a fixture of many Ottoman cities and towns in both the Arabic and Turkish speaking portions of the empire. Like the holy fool (yurodivy) in the Russian lands during the same period, [1] the majdhūb often engaged in public acts of disrespect towards holders of political power and authority, often with a sharp edge of political critique which might not have been tolerated from other actors. Such an act of transgressive, symbolic political intervention featured strongly in the remembered life story of the majdhūb I’m profiling today, one Abū Bakr al-Mi’ṣarānī al-Majdhūb (d. 1605), of Damascus.

He was profiled by the prominent Damascene scholar and biographer Najm al-Dīn al-Ghazzī, who personally knew and revered the saint, to the point that towards the end of Abū Bakr’s life he would even spend nights in the al-Ghazzī family home, talking with Najm al-Dīn deep into the night. Abū Bakr had humble origins and source of livelihood, having worked, as his laqab al-Mi’ṣarānī indicates, as an oil-presser, until one night while in a dhikr assembly (that is, a session of ritual remembrance of God) under the leadership of Shaykh Sulimān al-Ṣawāf al-Ṣufī, Najm al-Dīn’s brother Shihāb al-Dīn in attendance as well, ‘lightning flashes from God flashed out to him and seized him, so that he entered divine attraction, stripping off his clothes and going naked, save for his genitals. Then the state left him after some months, returning to him every year for three or four months. He was hidden in it from his senses, and would utterly shave away his beard and go naked [2].’ Besides embracing the typical majdhūb distaste for proper clothing and facial hair, both also characteristics of ‘antinomian’ dervishes, Abū Bakr also engaged in playful ‘assaults’ on people, demanding money from them, which he would then distribute to the poor. When not in his state of jadhb he would practice silence and acts of worship, secreting himself in the Umayyad Mosque. When ‘under the influence’ his state was clearly a fierce and potentially dangerous one, especially to members of the Ottoman elite. His inner potency was further indicated by a dream al-Ghazzī reports, in which, having asked God to reveal Abū Bakr’s true ‘form’ to him, the scholar behold the majdhūb transmuting into the form of a lion, then back to his human form. ‘That made manifest that he was from among the Abdāl. When day came I saw him, in his condition, and he laughed at me, and said to me: “How did you see me last night?”’ [3]

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Muslim Saints and Dogs: A Sampler

On By JonathanIn Culture, History, Islam, Ottoman Turkish, PersianLeave a comment

That the position of dogs in Islamic societies has often been an ambiguous one is relatively well known. However, the ambiguous and sometimes hostile attitudes and practices directed at canines by some in the Islamic world down through the centuries is but part of the story of the place of the dog in Islamic societies and Islamic traditions. The role of dogs in elite culture is relatively well known- the modern day saluki, for instance, probably traces its ancestors back to dogs owned by members of elite groups in the Middle East and elsewhere- with such dogs often being employed in both hunting and as every-day animal companions. But dogs could be found in many other capacities as well: any town or city would have its street dogs, animals who show up in the story from Rūmī’s life (1207-1273) illustrated below, and in the tale from the life of Şemseddîn Ahmed Sivâsî (1519-1597), while guard and herding dogs would be found in the countryside. And, as the following stories indicate, dogs could have a more intimate relationship with humans, even to the point of close companionship.

I’ve arranged these accounts, taken from Persian and Ottoman Turkish sources, in chronological order, each reflecting a somewhat different stance towards dogs and their relationship with humans, each involving ‘friends of God’ in an Islamic setting, as described by a hagiographer. The first, written sometime before 1291, concerns the canine companion of Rūmī’s grandson, Chalabī Amīr ‘Āref, a dog named Qeṭmīr after the famed canine companion of the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus, a dog who is described as being effectively a saint in his own right. The second story, from the life of Shaykh Ṣafī al-Dīn al-Ardabalī (1252–1334), the eponym of the Safavī sufi order and later Shi’i dynasty that would rule over the Iranian lands for some two and a half centuries, is the oddest and most ambiguous of the two, as it suggests a sort of sanctity on the unnamed dog’s part, but in a very ambiguous way. The final story is from a compilation of saints’ lives produced in the late 17th century Ottoman Empire, and may very well be ‘in dialogue’ with the preceding two, since both the menâkıb of Rūmī and of Shaykh Ṣafī, in both their Persian originals and in later Ottoman Turkish translations, were well known in the Ottoman lands.

It is also transmitted that, having received Qeṭmīr [the dog] from Shaykh Nāṣeh al-Dīn, Chalabī [Amīr ‘Āref] set off and instructed Qeṭmīr: ‘Come along with us!’ When the dog had gone a few steps, he turned around and looked at Nāṣeḥ al-Dīn, who said: ‘What are you looking at? Would that I were in your place and might become the dog of that royal court!’ Then Qeṭmīr rolled about, let out a yelp, and set off running.

Similarly, in the city of Lādīq during the samā’ he would enter the circle of the companions and turn about with the noble disciples. Another of his miracles was that whether at home or abroad no dog ever attacked him, nor did any dog bark at him. When they sniffed him, they would form a circle around him and lie down. And whenever Chalabī sent a messenger somewhere, he would join Qeṭmīr to him. Indeed, whether it was a journey of ten days or a month, Qeṭmīr would escort him to his destination and then return. Moreover, they [burned] his hair and used the smoke to treat fever. The fever would depart.

Whenever he saw a denier, without mistake he would piss on him. And he would never eat food from deniers of [Mowlānā Rūmī’s] family. If they secretly mixed that food from the companions and gave it to him, he sniffed it and wouldn’t eat it!

Shams al-Dīn Aḥmad Aflākī, The Feats of the Knowers of God: Manāqeb al-ʻārefīn, translated by John O’Kane (Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2002), 659

Commentary: This is just a selection from the ‘biography’ of the dog Qeṭmīr, who receives fairly extensive treatment from Aflākī- who was himself a companion and disciple of Shaykh Chalabī. In this section, Qeṭmīr is treated much as a saint would be, with a description of his entry into the company of Shaykh Chalabī, himself sanctified primarily through his descent from Mavlānā Rūmī, followed by practices typical of a ‘friend of God,’ only here in canine form: entry into ecstatic dance (the samā’), recognition of his inherent sanctity by others of his kind, the ability to heal diseases, and preternatural recognition of interior human dispositions and other things otherwise impossible to discern. To my knowledge this is the only dog so depicted in Islamic hagiography, though the dog below comes close- if anyone out there is aware of other instances do let me know in the comments!

Another account involving dogs in the Manāqeb al-ʻārefīn: Rumi addresses the dogs of the marketplace, from a c. 1590 copy of the Ottoman Turkish translation of Aflākī’s menāqib (Morgan Library MS M.466, fol. 66v)

The custom of this dog was that if a hypocrite was in the midst of the [Sufi] assembly this dog would enter and would smell the men gathered, one by one, and upon the one who smelled of hypocrisy he would urinate, so that the person would be completely humiliated. One day a man of great reputation sat in the assembly, and when the dog smelled from this man the scent of hypocrisy, he urinated on him, so that the man was greatly embarrassed and mortified. The shaykh was angered by this, and cursed the dog that ‘He go to pieces!’ Then the dog disappeared and was not seen for one or two days. When they searched for him, they found him under a rosebush, dead, all gone to pieces.

Ibn al-Bazzāz al-Ardabalī, Ṣafvat al-ṣafā ([Tehran]: Intishārāt-i Zaryāb, 1376 [1997 or 1998]), 612. Translation by Jonathan Parkes Allen, 2019.

Commentary: The dog described here is described in a previous section as well, as being a black dog who hung around the zawīya of Shaykh Ṣafī as something of a regular fixture. The entire account is part of a chapter devoted to Shaykh Ṣafī’s miraculous interactions with the non-human world, including animals, which receive a sub-chapter. The unnamed black dog described here seems, at first glance, to be almost a facsimile of Qeṭmīr from a few decades previous: he can preternaturally detect ‘hypocrites,’ presumably meaning here people who did not believe in the sanctity of Shaykh Ṣafī or in the legitimacy of sufi practices. Yet when he seemingly righteously takes a piss on just such a person, Shaykh Ṣafī grows incredibly angry with him, employing his ‘jalāl,’ or power of divine wrath, upon the hapless animal. What are we to make of this? I am honestly not entirely sure. That Shaykh Ṣafī accumulated lands and goods and influence is not disguised in this saint’s life, so perhaps we are meant to understand him as being properly angry at alienating a man whose wealth could potentially be turned to the good use of Shaykh Ṣafī’s community. It is possible as well that the story is meant to distinguish Shaykh Ṣafī from Rūmī, though this seems a bit of stretch to me. Doubtless other things are going on in these accounts, with which I am generally less familiar than the other two examples- again, comments or suggestions are welcome!

From among [Şeyh Şemseddîn Ahmed Sivâsî’s] miracles was the following: the people of Karahisâr-ı Şarkî [modern Şebinkarahisar] sent messengers to Şems asking him that he honor them with his preaching, counsel, [performance of] zikr [remembrance of God], and his blessed noble beauty. In answer to their supplication he came, and was honored immensely, being given a fine place to stay as well as much feasting and amiable conversation. For some time he preached, gave counsel, and led zikr, then announced that he was returning to Sîvâs. When the scholars, şeyhs, merchants, notables, and ordinary people of the town all came together to give him a farewell with honor and respect, numerous dogs also came before the saint, and, as if presenting complaints, began barking! When Şems asked why they were barking so, the people replied, “Because there has been plague and pestilence in our town, the kadi [judge and administrator] of our town ordered the killing or banishing of the dogs, so that we killed some and we banished some. These are dogs that we banished.”

The saint cried out, “Your kadi was heedless of the hadith which says, If dogs were not a community (umma) from among the communities, then I would order them killed.” Saying that, he addressed the dogs: “Go safely and soundly back to dwell and to be at rest in your former places!” As the townspeople returned from bidding the saint farewell, they saw these words fulfilled as the dogs, understanding the command, followed after the people back into town to their usual places—and having done so, by the command of God, the plague was lifted on that very day!

Şeyh Mehmet Nazmî, Osmanlılarda tasavvufî hayat: Halvetîlik örneği : Hediyyetü’l-ihvân, edited by Osman Türer (İstanbul: İnsan Yayınları, 2005), 359-360. Translation by Jonathan Parkes Allen, 2018.

Commentary: In this story we see dogs recognizing someone’s sanctity, but this time that of a human saint. In recognizing Şemseddîn Ahmed Sivâsî’s holiness the dogs also engage in another typical action directed at saints, that of supplication in the face of unjust ‘secular’ authority, thus reinforcing the saint’s authority. This interaction with the dogs also allows Şeyh Şemseddîn to enact his saintly authority over the entirety of the town in a dramatic way: when he discovers that the dogs of the town have been unjustly displaced by the unkind and implicitly irreligious kadi, he rebukes the kadi and intervenes miraculously so as to restore the dogs to their rightful places in the town, restoring harmony, as indicated by the lifting of the plague. In returning the dogs to their places Şemseddîn also, at least temporarily, displaces the Ottoman kadi from his sultanically designated place, not only nullifying his anti-dog decree but also casting aspersion on the kadi’s knowledge of the Prophetic sunna, a reminder of Şemseddîn’s mastery of both the exoteric and the esoteric, mastery which could shape the very configuration of the places through which he passed, mastery to which even dogs might respond.

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‘Abd al-Wahhāb Rescues a Fly in Peril

On By JonathanIn Arabic, History, Islam, OttomanLeave a comment

W659_000287_sap
An insect of some sort, from an 18th century Ottoman Turkish version of ʿAjāʾib al-makhlūqāt (Wonders of creation) by Zakarīyā al-Qazwīnī (d. 1293). Walters Art Museum, W.659

Among the many writings produced by the prominent early modern Egyptian saint and sufi ‘Abd al-Wahhāb al-Sha’rānī (d. 1565) was a work that is best described as a cross between an ‘auto-hagiography’ and an encyclopedia of ethics and sufi practice. Al-Sha’rānī wrote the Laṭāʼif al-minan ostensibly as a compilation of practices and virtues for his followers and others to study and to emulate, though it also clearly functioned as a sprawling (the printed edition I used for this entry clocks in at over eight hundred pages!) argument for his own sanctity. Stories of al-Sha’rānī’s life (including, as here, aspects of his family life) are scattered generously throughout, including this curious little account which comes in the midst of a discussion of proper treatment of cats and other animals. Al-Sha’rānī was especially kind to cats, offering them food right out of his own hands, but, as this little miracle tale reveals, far ‘lowlier’ creatures were on his radar as well.

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Among the things that happened to me: my wife Fāṭima Umm ‘Abd al-Raḥman had a thickness (ḥādir) upon her heart. Her mother cried out and was certain that [her daughter] would die, and I was greatly agitated on her account, but a voice came to me while I was in the toilet-room: “Release the fly from the fly-hyena (ḍabu’ al-dhabāb) in the crack that is in front of your face, and We will release your wife from sickness for you.” So I went to the crack and found it to be quite tight such that fingers could not open it, so I took a stick and pulled it open and extracted the fly-hyena with the fly, and found it whole but with the fly-hyena gripping its neck, so I released it from him, and in that moment my wife was released from sickness and restored to health and her mother rejoiced—from that day on I have not looked down upon bestowing good upon any creature or best which the Lawgiver, upon whom be peace and blessing, does not command be slain.

‘Abd al-Wahhāb al-Sha’rānī, Laṭāʼif al-minan wa-al-akhlāq fī wujūb al-taḥadduth bi-niʻmat Allāh ʻalá al-iṭlāq, (Damascus: Dār al-Taqwā, 2003) 349-350.

Saints and the Crossing of Confessional Boundaries in the Ottoman and Safavid Worlds: Part ii.

On By JonathanIn Armenian, Culture, History, Islam, Orthodoxy2 Comments

Armenian MS 11, folio 2 recto
Frontspiece to a Gospel Book, Wellcome Collection MS Armenian 11, early 18th century

The modern history of relations between Muslims and the Armenian Orthodox of Anatolia, Azarbaijan, and other parts of the former Ottoman Empire has not been happy one for the most part, and in both popular memory and in historical scholarship pogroms, dislocation, erasure, and genocide have been foremost concerns, and for good reason given the ongoing discourses and actions of denial and erasure in the region. However, that focus has often resulted in lack of attention to the complexities of relationships between Armenians and their Muslim neighbors, relationships that historically were marked by more than just antagonism (though conflict did exist). The following story, which reflects a different iteration of the ‘shared economy of holiness’ that we explored in an earlier post, comes from Aṛak’el of Tabriz’s magisterial volume of history that deals with Armenians in the Safavid Empire and beyond during the 17th century, and which includes within it several sustained hagiographic accounts of contemporary- to Aṛak’el- Armenian saints, saints who sought to ‘reform’ and restructure Armenian Orthodoxy through preaching, educating and disciplining clergy and monastics, and building or renovating local church infrastructure. While, according to Aṛak’el’s accounts, these saintly vardapets (a vardapet is a type of monastic preacher and scholar in the Armenian Church) practiced intense personal holiness and strove for the good of the Armenian people and faith, they ran up against entrenched powers in the hierarchy, and as a result sometimes ran afoul of Safavid officials. Interestingly, however, many of the stories of conflict that Aṛak’el tells involve Armenian Christian instigators who go before Muslim Safavid officials and level charges against the saintly protagonists.

Such is the milieu in which this story takes place. Vardapet Poghōs, one of the key saints in Aṛak’el’s history, had incurred the wrath of a range of prominent church officials in his efforts to revive parish life in the far northwestern corner of the Safavid realm. The encounter described in the following account occurs while Poghōs and his disciples are on their way to visit Shah Abbās II in order to clear their name. The encounter between the Armenian saint and the pious Muslim householder that takes place in the midst of this journey is a good symbol of the ways in which holy men and women might be recognized across confessional boundaries, even as prominent people within their own community did not recognize their holiness, for various reasons. Şeyh Hasan Efendi, the subject of part one of this installment, was in a similar state, as he was opposed by Ottoman Muslims of a ‘puritanical’ bent, even as he was evidently recognized as holy by at least some of his Christian neighbors. At the everyday level, it seems, early modern people in the Islamicate world, of which Armenians were an integral part, sought to recognize the friends of God in whatever form or place they might be found, since such holy men and women might provide a crucial source of safety and aid in an often hostile and uncertain world. Holy men and women themselves- including those such as both Vardapet Poghōs and Şeyh Hasan who were clearly deeply committed to the creedal precepts and claims of their respective faiths- were more often than not in this period accepting of such ‘ecumenical’ encounters.

armenian-5.jpg

When they reached the gawaṛ called Araghbar at dusk, they entered a Muslim village to spend the night there. It so happened that they encountered a man, a Muslim, who came out to greet them. He implored them, saying, “I beg you, for God’s sake, do not abhor that I am a Muslim, but pay heed to my request and enter my house so that I may show you my hospitality. For I have made a vow to God not to eat anything today without a guest. I have been standing here in the middle of the village seeking a guest. God has sent you! I therefore, ask you to enter my house.” The blessed vardapet [Poghōs] answered the man happily and said, “Let it be as you wish. We shall go to your house.” They spent the night at that man’s house and he received them very well. He gave them everything they required for their rest. In the morning, before they prepared to leave, the Muslim man came and implored them, saying, “I have no son, and no one will remember me on this earth. I beg you to pray for me, so that I shall have a son, for my wife is barren.”

The saintly vardapet lifted his habitually outstretched hands to the sky and prayed adamantly to the Lord to give the man a son. The benevolent Lord, who had promised to give His followers whatever they requested in faith, granted the man a son because of the saintly vardapet’s prayers. The same man later informed us of this. For, after some time, the Muslim man came, thanked the vardapet during the Divine Liturgy, bowed down, thanked him, praised him, and said, “Because of your prayers, God has granted me a son. I now beg you to pray that God grant him a long life.” The saintly vardapet prayed for him again, comforted him for some time and then let him go.

Aṛakʻel of Tabriz, The history of Vardapet Aṛakʻel of Tabriz ( Patmutʻiwn Aṛakʻel Vardapeti Dawrizhetsʻwoy)  Translated by George A Bournoutian. (Costa Mesa, Calif.: Mazda Publishers, 2005), 202-203.

 

Saints and the Crossing of Confessional Boundaries in the Ottoman and Safavid Worlds: Part i.

On By JonathanIn Armenian, Culture, History, Islam, Orthodoxy, Ottoman, Ottoman Turkish2 Comments

Ottoman Armenian
An Ottoman Armenian Christian resident of Istanbul, probably relatively well off enough to warrant his inclusion in a c. 1657‒58 costume collection book (The Rålamb book of costume, Rål. 8:o nr 10)

The two accounts that I’ve selected for this and an upcoming installment come from two milieus that at first glance might seem very different but upon a closer look reveal some striking similarities, similarities that reflect shared ways of seeing the world and ways of relating to people of different religious and confessional traditions, even in an early modern world marked by frequent conflicts and debates over confessional boundaries. The first story comes from an Ottoman Turkish source we’ve explored here previously, the menâkıb (saint’s life) of Hasan Ünsî, an eighteenth century Muslim saint of Istanbul, while the second installment, originally composed in grabar (‘classical’) Armenian, will be an excerpt from the life of Vardapet Poghōs, a seventeenth century Armenian Orthodox saint whose career took place in the northwest corner of the Safavid domains, in what is now Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Iran.

Here is the account from Hasan Ünsî’s menâkıb, with my commentary following:

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‘Near the door of the exalted tekke there lived a Christian doctor, named Mikel, who was skillful and wise in the knowledge of medicine. It was his custom that if a sick person came to him and his treatment was not effective or treatment was not even possible, he would say to the patient, “The cure for this illness is inside this tekke, so go to the tekke, and find the Şeyh therein. His name is Hasan Efendi—go to him, he can treat this illness. Its cure will come from the Şeyh, so that you’ll have no need of other than him.” So saying he would send the sick person to the venerable Şeyh. This Mikel was consistent in this practice.

‘One day this poor one [Ibrahim Hâs] had gathered along with the other dervishes before the candle-like beauty of the venerable Şeyh, deriving abundant benefit from the sight of the saint. We saw that two people had come within the door. One had nothing upon his head but a wrapped around piece of cloth. He came up to the venerable Şeyh, kissed his blessed hand, and sat down. The venerable Şeyh said to him, “Have you come from afar?” He replied, “We are from afar.” The man whose head was wrapped in a piece of cloth came before the Şeyh, lifted the piece of cloth from his head and showed his head to the venerable Şeyh. As he turned we all saw that his head was entirely in boils (çıbanlar). Each one was jagged like the shell of a hazelnut and very red, without numerous individuals boils—they were about thirty in number, but each boil was very bad—we take refuge in God! This person said, “My Sultan, thus with this sickness I have been tried. I cannot put anything on my head. I have sought someone to treat it in both Istanbul and Galata, but no physician understands this sickness, and they give no answer. Despite expending many akças I have neither cure nor respite. The physicians of this city are incapable of treating me! Finally, near this tekke’s door there is a physician to whom I came and showed the boils on my head, and he said to me that ‘We have no means of treating this illness. But the doctor for this illness is the şeyh of this tekke, who is named Hasan Efendi. The cure for this is there.’ Saying this he sent me to your side. Will you give me an electuary, or give me a pill? Or perhaps you will give me some other treatment—whatever you say, let it be upon my head! I remain without a cure!”

The venerable Şeyh smiled and said, “Mikel has given you a good report; but you did not quite understand if you seek from us an electuary or pill.” Having said this, he said to the man, “Come before me!” He came before him and uncovered his head. The venerable Şeyh said to him, “Bend your head towards me!” He bent his head, and the venerable Şeyh spit into his hands and placed them on the boils of the man’s head, and then for one time gently hit them. He then said, “This is our pill, electuary, and şerbet! Go now, and henceforward you will be well, whether you believe or don’t believe.’ The venerable Şeyh said no invocation, read no prayers, nor said the Fatiha over him. Then the man kissed the venerable Şeyh’s blessed hand and left. Two days later that person came to the venerable Şeyh and we saw that the boils had gone, he was well, and was wearing a quilted turban (kavuk). He had brought many gifts and much praise. Afterwards he came face-to-face with the venerable Şeyh with his gift, but the Şeyh strongly enjoined him not to tell anyone, but [the story] was circulated among the poor ones [the dervishes].

İbrahim Hâs, Hasan Ünsî Halvetî ve Menâkıbnâmesi, edited by Mustafâ Tatcı (Bağcılar, İstanbul: Kırkambar Kitaplığı, 2013, 2013), 314-317. Translated by Jonathan Parkes Allen, 2018.

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What might we make of this story? It gets at, I think, an important feature of religious life in not just the Ottoman world but much of the rest of early modern Eurasia: the potential power of sanctity, as invested in a holy person, place, or object, had a decided ecumenical quality. There is no sense here that either Mikel of Hasan Ünsî were rejecting their confessional affiliations, or even questioning the validity of their respective faiths. But we do get the sense of a shared economy of sanctity among them, and among the unfortunate patient and the various onlookers. The story does not end, note, in anyone’s conversion (unlike any number of medieval Islamic saints’ lives), and Şeyh Hasan is explicitly described as not using overtly Islamic methods in treating the man (whom we are given to understand, I think, to be non-Muslim himself, though this is not made explicit). Mikel the Christian doctor does not become Muslim, either, and we get the sense that Şeyh Hasan quite appreciates the referrals he receives from him. The saint’s power has an open quality, at least towards ‘ordinary’ people- elsewhere the saint is shown restricting access to himself when he is sought out by more powerful and wealthier people with ties to the Ottoman ruling elite. Continue reading “Saints and the Crossing of Confessional Boundaries in the Ottoman and Safavid Worlds: Part i.” →