by Mehrdad Kia
EDUCATION OF GIRLS AND WOMEN
Women who lived in the palace or were born and raised in ulema families constituted the main segments of the female population that received education. Women educated at the palace learned how to read and write Ottoman Turkish. They also studied the fundamental tenets of Islam, including the basic elements of Islamic law, as well as the arts of sewing, embroidering, singing, and playing various musical instruments. At times, the ladies of the harem, particularly the mothers, wives, and daughters of sultans, memorized the Quran by heart and studied Arabic and Persian literature. They also wrote poetry. The daughters of the ulema were typically taught at home by their fathers and grandfathers. Many memorized the Quran and some became accomplished poets.
Outside of the palace and the home of the ulema, small schools attached to mosques offered classes that taught young girls the Arabic alphabet, the art of reading and reciting the Quran, and the proper performance of the daily prayers. Students also learned how to write and the basics of arithmetic. These schools were funded and supported by the religious endowments or pious foundations. Starting in the second half of the 19th century, the state allowed the establishment of modern schools for girls and many elite families welcomed the opportunity. Before sending their daughters to school, these households celebrated a young girl’s “entrance into learning (başlanmak)” with a ceremony. Families who could afford an expensive başlmanlak “spent large sums in the effort to have a grander ceremony than their neighbors.” They arranged for poor children in the neighborhood to participate in the ceremony and would thereafter pay for their schooling, “as well as that of their own child.” On the first day of school, the young girl “was dressed in silk covered with jewels, and a gold-embroidered bag, with an alphabet inside, was hung round her neck with a gold tasseled cord.” She was seated in an “open carriage, with a damask silk cushion at her feet.”
All the young students of the school “walked in procession after the carriage, forming two long tails on either side.” The older students sang a popular hymn, “The rivers of paradise, as they flow, murmur, ‘Allah.’ The angels in paradise, as they walk, sing, ‘Allah, Allah.’” At the end of each song hundreds of children shouted, “Amin, amin.” The children marched through several streets in this way, drawing into the procession children from other neighborhoods until they reached the school. When they arrived in school, the new student “knelt on her damask cushion before a square table, facing the teacher.” She then kissed the hand of her teacher and repeated the alphabet after her. Sweetmeats were then served to the children, and each student “received a bright new coin given by the parents” of the new pupil. With this ceremony, which “was as important as a wedding,” the young girls were initiated into the school. From that day on, the girl went to school every day “fetched by the kalfa, an attendant who went from one house to another collecting the children from the different houses.”
In some cases, the wealthy and powerful father of a girl from an elite family could decide that her daughter should receive private lessons at home before enrolling at school. On these occasions, he arranged for a tutor to come to the house and give his child lessons that focused on reading Arabic and the holy Quran. Before the first private lesson began, a sumptuous dinner was prepared and served to a group of male acquaintances, co-workers, and neighbors who were invited to the house by the father of the girl. The ceremony began after the men had performed their evening prayer. The girl was dressed in a silk frock and a soft silk veil of the same color. She then walked to the hall where everyone had assembled for the ceremony. A young boy “chanted” the Quran. The girl had to kneel and repeat the first letters of the alphabet. She then kissed the hand of her teacher. The lessons she received took place in the selamlik, before the same table and in the same kneeling attitude as was first assumed at the başlanmak.
TRADITIONAL BELIEFS AND SUPERSTITIONS
Although Islam denounced irrational customs and traditions, superstitious beliefs and practices remained popular among all social classes from all religious backgrounds. Muslims, Christians, and Jews, of both sexes and every age, believed in the power of amulets, talismans, or charms of some kind. Indeed, charms and magical formulas covered the smallest contingencies of daily life. The most common charms were “of stone or metal, strips of paper, parchment, leather, and gems, which were specially valuable as talismans.” Writings of any kind, particularly those containing verses of the Quran, were popularly regarded as a charm of greatest magic and power. The “best talisman of all” was a copy of the holy Quran; “sometimes a small one was worn in an embroidered leather or velvet case carried on a silk cord which passed over the left shoulder and across the body; very powerful too were the ninety-nine names of God.” Other “written charms included the names of saints and angels, or magic squares, or diagrams and combinations of numerals, and sometimes the words of an incantation were interpolated” between verses from the opening sura of the Quran. These written charms “were worn by adults and children, hung on cradles and round the necks or on the foreheads of animals, and suspended in houses and shops; in fact they were used everywhere as protection from evil.” Written charms and incantations were used to exorcise evil spirits, procure aid from unknown powers, separate a boy and a girl who had fallen in love, prevent a man from leaving his wife for another woman, and cure a serious ailment.
In Albania, where “a childless marriage” was “considered a great misfortune and a woman living on her own, without a husband and children” was “quite inconceivable,” it was “believed that sterility in women could be overcome by the wearing of amulets.” Various herbs “were also used and numerous holy places were visited,” including the beaches of Kavajë and Durrës in western Albania, where women bathed “to ensure pregnancy.” And there were additional stratagems in popular use when it was desired to grant blessings, to lay a curse, to ward off diseases of cattle, to bring success in a difficult enterprise, to come out on top in a business bargain, or to compel someone to do something.
Aside from belief in written charms, the Muslims of the empire attributed miraculous power to the dust from the tomb of the prophet Muhammad in Medina. A “cake composed of dust from the Prophet’s tomb” was “sowed up” in a leather case and “worn as an amulet.” Muslims also believed in the magical power of the water from the sacred well of Zamzam in the holy city of Mecca. A toothbrush dipped in the water of Zamzam was thought to clean a person’s teeth and protect them from pain and decay. The holy water was also sprinkled on the shroud of the dead. Pieces of the curtain covering the sacred Ka’ba were also greatly valued. Every year, “on the first day of the Great Festival, which immediately” followed “the pilgrimage, a new covering” was hung on the holy shrine, while the old one was cut up and sold to the pilgrims. The proper use of charms was usually “in the hands of the wise men and women, of which every community possessed at least one, a feared but essential element in society, who would be consulted on the choice of propitious times and suitable matches and who made up spells and antidotes.”
From the elite to the ordinary people, everyone believed in the devastating impact of an evil eye. If anything in the world could overcome fate, it was an evil eye. If an individual praised the beauty of a Turkish child without prefacing his admiration with mashallah (in the name of God), which was “considered sufficient to counteract the power of all malignant spirits,” and if the child became ill or met with an accident, it was at once decided that the person who had uttered the compliment had smitten the child with the evil eye. When “by accident the Greeks” alluded “to their own good health or good fortune,” they immediately spat on “their breast to avert the malign influence” of evil eye. The Turks decorated the roof of their homes, the prow of their boats, the caps of their children, and the necks of their horses with charms against the evil eye. One of “the most powerful antidotes” was garlic, which was sent “to the mother of a new born infant as a safeguard both to herself and her lit
tle one.” To protect Sultan Mahmud II (1808–1839) from the power of the evil eye during his processions on the streets of Istanbul, a “head-dress was invented for the imperial boy-pages, whose ornamented plumes were of such large dimensions” as “to form a screen” around the monarch.
8 - SUFI ORDERS AND POPULAR CULTURE
Despite the enormous power and influence of official Islam, Ottoman culture and civilization was not a linear projection of Quranic scripture. Throughout the long reign of the Ottoman dynasty, religious orthodoxy had to wage a constant battle for primacy against the heterodox interpretations of faith as articulated and preached by numerous Sufi mystical orders and brotherhoods, which enjoyed enormous popularity among the ruling elite and the masses. Each brotherhood was dedicated to its own unique mystical path, called tarikat, and “had its own form of ecstatic worship, called zikr.” The heterodox beliefs and practices of the Sufis left a profound impact on the popular culture and the everyday life of the masses. The “Sufi brotherhoods and lodges” played “a central role in Ottoman social life” and “provided an important space for socialization outside the home.” The “space was exclusively Muslim” and contained within it sections for men and women, active members, and curious visitors.
The privileged position of the ulema, their close alliance with the Ottoman ruling family, the rigidity of their Islam, and “the cold legalism of their doctrine, failed to satisfy “the “spiritual and social needs of many Muslims, who turned for sustenance and guidance” to mysticism and Sufi brotherhoods. The diverse and heterodox beliefs and practices of various Sufi orders provided men and women with unique spiritual experiences, which transcended the unbending and impersonal rules and practices that a Muslim was obligated to follow at home and at a mosque.
Greatly influenced by Zoroastrian, Manichean, Buddhist, Gnostic, and Neoplatonist ideas, Sufism, or Islamic mysticism, emerged in the first century of Muslim rule as a protest against the rigid, intolerant, and politicized interpretations of Islam. The ulema, who acted as the representatives of official Islam, defended the Islamic law as the essence of Islamic thought and emphasized tawhid (monotheism), or the oneness of God. In sharp contrast, the Sufis preached an ascetic lifestyle that rejected the distinction between the Creator (God) and the created by teaching that the creation was a manifestation of the Creator. For Sufi masters, removing the distinction between the Creator and the created allowed man to attain perfection and unity with God and the divine truth. By God, the Sufis did not mean an anthropomorphic entity that possessed human qualities and was man-made. For them, God was the absolute being, and the whole universe was a manifestation of that Being. As everything was a manifestation of God, to love God was to love God’s creatures and His entire creation.
In their journey to reach union with God, Sufis sought out knowledge and interpretation related to the inner and esoteric (batini) aspects of Islam. This was in sharp contrast with the ulema and the medreses, or religious schools, where the outer and exoteric (zahiri) knowledge of Islam was emphasized. The Sufis did not, however, view mysticism as an intellectual activity confined to elaborating esoteric concepts such as detachment from the world. For them, such concepts could be understood only when one embarked on the spiritual journey towards union with God. In this context, Sufism was essentially a human enterprise, one that combated and neutralized the dry, and, at times, harsh aspects of official Islam by allowing the seeker to design and initiate his own unique journey to spiritual peace and salvation.
In contrast to the ulema, who asserted the absolute and unassailable superiority of Islam over other religions and religious traditions, many Sufis viewed all religions and religious leaders as fellow travelers on the same mystic path, seeking Gnostic wisdom (maarifet) by submitting themselves to the way of Truth (tarik-i hak). Thus, in the poetry of many Sufi masters, Moses and Jesus were praised as great men of knowledge, humanity, spirituality, and integrity, whose lives and actions provided exemplary models for Muslims and all of humanity. The teachings and practices of some Sufi orders, therefore, contained a strong element of respect, appreciation, and tolerance toward non-Muslims and stood in sharp contrast to the rigid interpretations of Islam by the ulema, who viewed Christians and Jews as dirty, inferior, and unequal to Muslims.
Even in their public appearance, the ulema and Sufi masters stood at diametrically opposite poles. The ulema appeared in public with pomp and ceremony, dressed in beautiful and expensive clothing, and surrounded by followers, servants, and attendants, ranging from menial domestics and bodyguards to companions and agents. In sharp contrast, the Sufi leaders adhered to the principles of simplicity and humility. They generally wore a simple white tunic made of wool or, less commonly, linen, and refused to adorn themselves with precious stones. Some “wandering mendicant” dervişes “deliberately flouted Muslim opinion by shaving their beards, hair, and eyebrows and by throwing off the restraints of the Holy Law and most others.” Turning their backs to the vanities of this world, they renounced all human obsessions and small satisfactions of riches and empty honors. Instead, they chose a solitary life of contemplation, meditation, humility, and silence. In choosing solitude and silence, they emphasized the limitations of language to express inner experience and attributed a peripheral significance to religious piety. They ridiculed the pretentious religiosity of the ulema and their pompous public postures and sermons, which for the Sufis were another sad manifestation of man’s ego. Sufi masters considered the ulema’s religious dogmatism, narrow-mindedness, and intolerance, the cause of most calamities, including that of fanaticism and oppression.
The Sufis demonstrated their tolerant attitude by absorbing Islamic heresies, as well as Shia and Christian beliefs and practices. It is not surprising, therefore, that the Sunni ulema viewed the activities of Sufi teachers with apprehension and trepidation, and frequently denounced them as hypocrites, innovators, and heretics. In particular, the Sunni religious establishment detested the pantheistic beliefs and doctrines of various Sufi orders, “which seemed to impugn the transcendental unity of God,” as well as “their idolatrous worship of saints and holy places; their thaumaturgic practices and suspect methods of inducing ecstasy,” and “their laxness in observing the divine law.”
Throughout the long history of the Ottoman Empire, the philosophical and doctrinal conflict between the ulema and the Sufi orders ignited rivalries and jealousies between prominent religious leaders and influential Sufi masters. The antagonism between the two camps was also reflected in unrelenting battles over consumption of coffee and tobacco, which the religious establishment condemned and the Sufi orders defended.
Each Sufi brotherhood was founded around loyalty, devotion, and belief in the teachings of a particular Sufi master (şeyh/sheikh), who was at times revered as a saint. During their life on earth, each şeyh had, through his teachings and practices, established a distinct pathway to attainment of spiritual truth and union with God. His followers, who had adopted him as their guide (murşid), gathered in a Sufi lodge (tekke) for communal prayer and ecstatic worship (zikr), as well as a set of distinct practices prescribed by their spiritual leader. These lodges served as spiritual retreats and hospices for travelers. Financed by contributions from their members, they usually had a mausoleum (türbe), where the veneration of the saints and founders of the order took place, a “hall for prayers and rituals (tevhidhane, semahane, or meydan)” and a “kitchen (matbah, aş evi, mutfak).” Because serving food to travelers and the poor constituted one of the principal functions of the Sufi orders, the kitchen occupied a central role in derviş lodges. Among some orders, such as those of the Mevlevis and Bektaşis, the kitchen was used as a space “for training and initiation” of new recruits.
In the 17th century when coffee drinking spread among the masses, many Sufi establishments, “particularly in the Balkans, incorporated a special room for the preparation of coffee, known as the kahve ocağu.” Many large tekkes also had baths, libraries, “reception and meeting halls
(mosafer odasi, meydan odasi), cells or chambers for the şeyh and dervishes (hücerat), and often one or several small spaces, generally without windows, for spiritual seclusion (halvet odasi, halvethane, çilehane).” Large Sufi lodges and hospices contained homes and apartments for the family of the şeyh, and some were attached to a mosque and a garden that they kept immaculate. Thus, derviş lodges “were not only places of worship, but also housing complexes where people lived and carried out the routines of everyday life.” As late as 1885, 1,091 men and 1,184 women lived in 260 tekkes in Istanbul.
In earlier Ottoman times, lodges and hospices established and run by ahis, or semireligious/semimystical fraternities in Anatolia, provided food, shelter, and hospitality to all travelers regardless of social background. As the North African traveler Ibn Battuta described, the ahis built hospices and guesthouses and furnished them with rugs, lamps, and other equipments they required. The members of the brotherhood worked “during the day to gain their livelihood, and after the afternoon prayer,” gathered “their collective earnings”; with this they bought “fruit, food, and the other things needed for consumption in the hospice.” Whenever a traveler arrived at the hospice, they served him food and lodging, while Quran readers recited the holy book, and if no newcomer arrived, the members of the brotherhood assembled, ate, and, after eating, sang and danced. In the later Ottoman period, many Sufi convents followed the same traditions and practices, providing food, lodging, and hospitality to travelers from far and near. Devout dervişes —barefoot and bareheaded, and dressed in rough, patched woolen cloaks—pursued a life of poverty, withdrawal, isolation, and quiet meditation. As they “were expected to provide a bowl of soup” for the visiting guests, “the cauldron, on the boil day and night, became a symbol of hospitality.”
