Sufism and Governmentality in the Late Ottoman Empire

Abstract

1 7 1 C o m p a r a t i v e S t u d i e s o f S o u t h A s i a , A f r i c a a n d t h e M i d d l e E a s t V o l . 2 9 , N o . 2 , 2 0 0 9 d o i 1 0 .1 2 1 5 / 1 0 8 9 2 0 1 x -2 0 0 9 -0 0 2 © 2 0 0 9 b y D u k e U n i v e r s i t y P r e s s Sufism and Governmentality in theLate Ottoman Empire Brian Silverstein n 1918 a Sufi sheikh in the Ottoman capital found himself filling in blank spaces on a printed questionnaire sent to him, as it was to all other sheikhs in the city. 1 This is what he wrote in response to the questions: My name is Hüseyin Şerafeddin. I am one of the grandsons of Mehmet Ali Pasha. I follow the Mezheb of Imam-ı Azam Ebu Hanife. In 1904 I took an oath [müstahlef oldum ] to the Halvetîye-i Uşakîye Tarikat. In the presence of my sheikh I was trained in the path [of Sufism ] [terbiye-i seyr-i suluk eyledim ]. My dear sheikh is among the notables of the Uşakî tarikat at Kal'a-yi Sultaniye [Çanakkale]. He passed away in 1916. I was born in Istanbul in 1872. My father is Mehmet Recai Pasha, retired from the Çanakkale artillery commanders. After completing the Rüştiye Mektebi and upon my graduation from the Mekteb-i Mülkiye-i Şahane I studied Arabic to a practicable [tatbikat ] level and the text of the Gülistan [Persian] with Kırımlı [Crimean] Hacı İbrahim Efendi at Bayezit Mosque. I read and write French and speak Greek. For formal correspondence I use [kitabet ] Ottoman, which comprises three languages [üç lisandan mürekkeb ]. I have no published works. I previously worked in the Ministry of Justice, and for more than twenty years I have been working in several secretariats of the Directorate of the Central Registries [Defter-i Hakanî Emaneti ]. . . . [Our] dergâh [sufi lodge] was rebuilt and reanimated in the name of Deniz Abdal by your humble servant [Şerafeddin himself ] in my garden (which was empty land) located near the Prefecture on Tramway Street in the Deniz Abdal neighborhood. The work was done by my dervishes. As is customary in the Halvetîye-i Uşakîye [order], our devotions [ayîn] are practiced on Monday and Friday nights. At present nothing has been determined regarding succession or appointments, and our foundation [vakıf ] documents are in order. Besides the Rüştiye teacher Ahmet Fazıl Efendi I have no assistants. Though outwardly [zahiren] it appears that I have more than two thousand dervishes, in reality [hakikatte ] there is not more than one. 2

Исключенность И Исключительность: Самопрезентация Религиозного Лидера И Социальный Контекст Религиозной Повседневности

“…Мои собеседники упоминают в основном ключевые обители и их филиалы в следующих городах: Скопье (Северная Македония), Призрен, Джакова и Косовска Митровица (Косово). (Silverstein 2009;Clayer, Bougarel 2017: 70-78;95-122;150-158;Glasnik Islamskog Vjerskog Starejšinstva 1962: 186;Popovic 1985). Одни сохранили активность, будучи связанными с официальными религиозными организациями (например, текке братства рифа' ийа в Скопье 6 ), другие -на, своего рода, полулегальном основании, объединившись и создав в 70-х гг.…”

A catalogue of vice: a sense of failure and incapacity to act among Roma Muslims in Macedonia

“…However, tropes of modernization, rationalization, and secularization, analogous to socialist discourses, characterize reformist Islam that has circulated in the region – formerly the Ottoman Empire, subsequently Turkey and the sovereign Balkan states – from the nineteenth century until today (Clayer ; Fortna ). In the nineteenth century, many Ottoman Sufi orders underwent institutional modernization and reforms (Turkish, islah ) that saw an incorporation of contemporary techniques of governmentality, such as bureaucratization, centralization, and new meritocratic assessment of qualifications for a shaykh's post (Silverstein ). Many Ottoman Sufi lodges jettisoned their unconventional, ‘antinomian’, ritual practices (Watenpaugh ), such as drinking saliva to transmit and receive a spiritual blessing (a common practice among the grandparents of my informants, who expressed disgust at the thought), and aligned with more legalistic, scriptural versions of Sunni Islam promoted by Ottoman and Turkish religious institutions and officials (Tsibiridou : 180, 189).…”

Crossing the Bosphorus: Connected Histories of “Other” Muslims in the Post-Imperial Borderlands of Southeast Europe

“…It can therefore be argued that the empire, with its dense networks of interconnected dervish lodges across a vast Ottoman space, was to the peripatetic dervishes as the ocean was to the mobile Hadramis. 5 The late phase of the Ottoman Empire brought about a number of bans and restrictions imposed on dervish brotherhoods mainly as a result of the Tanzimat reforms (Barnes 1992: 38-46;Clayer 2011;Silverstein 2009). The newly formed, secular Turkish state banned all dervish orders in 1925, and this ban officially continues up to the present day.…”

“…The late phase of the Ottoman Empire brought about a number of bans and restrictions imposed on dervish brotherhoods mainly as a result of the Tanzimat reforms (Barnes 1992: 38–46; Clayer 2011; Silverstein 2009). The newly formed, secular Turkish state banned all dervish orders in 1925, and this ban officially continues up to the present day.…”