Daily Life In The Ottoman Empire

by Mehrdad Kia

  The inside of mausoleum was covered with embroidered shawls and handkerchiefs, and the turban worn by the Sufi teacher in life “was affixed to the head of the coffin.” The relics of the deceased şeyhs were “suspended against the walls—their walking sticks, their rosaries and beads, and portions of their garments,” and pilgrims kissed and touched these with devotion and reverence. Many Sufi shrines were built on sites that already served as places of pilgrimage and worship before the arrival of the Turks and Islam. While some of the sites were important during the Christian era, the sacredness of others dated back further to pre-Christian times, when pagan cults, centered on the worship of a sun god or another natural deity, prevailed.

  STORYTELLING

  The overwhelming majority of the population in the Ottoman Empire could not read or write. Formal knowledge was the monopoly of a few who had received their education and training either at the palace or at the mekteps and medreses, which prepared their students for a career in the religious establishment. The same situation prevailed among the Christian and Jewish communities of the empire. Until the arrival of modern education and schooling in the 19th century, the majority of Christians and Jews who could read and write received their education at religious schools, at times attached to a church or a synagogue.

  In this environment, storytelling was not merely a form of popular entertainment but also one of the most popular forms of transmitting historical knowledge and popular culture among the masses. Ordinary people from diverse social backgrounds gathered in coffeehouses to listen to storytellers read fables, recite poetry, and use a variety of provocative methods to create and sustain suspense. In these public performances, skilled storytellers inserted pauses, switched from normal speech to chanting, moved arms and head in sweeping gestures, whispered, shouted, clapped hands, and pounded feet, as they impersonated a variety of characters and, in this way, “imparted to the audience the whole gamut of feelings and passions experienced by them.” Instead of relying exclusively on describing characters, the storyteller “would give an impersonation, sometimes changing headdress to suit, and using two props—a cudgel and a kerchief wrapped around his neck—to produce appropriate audible and visible effects.” Sometimes dervişes acted as “oral narrators (meddah) and drew on their knowledge of written culture in their stories.” Because of this highly specialized knowledge and their unique ability to perform in a dramatic fashion, these derviş storytellers were greatly esteemed among the members of the ruling elite. Storytellers were divided into several categories according to their style and repertoire. Some specialized in popular romances, others in national legends, pseudo-historical romances, epic tales, individual exploits, or religious narrations.

  The numerous anecdotes, jokes, and stories attributed to Nassre-din Hoca (Wise or Learned Nassredin), and told daily by storytellers in coffeehouses, or in gatherings with family and friends, reflected the witty and subversive nature of a culture that viewed the claims and actions of those in power with humor and skepticism. In tale after tale, Nassredin appears as a man of small means, living with his wife, or as a travelling wise man, without a regular job, wandering from one town or village to the next. He has a biting tongue and a fearless character, and cannot be easily impressed or intimidated by men of power, wealth, and influence. On one occasion he arrives in a town without a penny in his pocket and desperate to make a quick gain before he can continue his journey. Using his turban and robe to impress the people with his knowledge and education, he agrees to deliver a lecture in return for a handsome honorarium, although he does not know what he will be talking about. When he appears in front of a large crowd that is waiting enthusiastically for his presentation, he asks the audience if they know what he will be talking about. The answer from the crowd is a resounding “No,” to which Nassredin responds, “Since you are so ignorant that you do not know anything about what I will talk about, I refuse to speak to you,” and he walks out. He cannot, however, receive his pay unless he returns and delivers a lecture. Thus, he appears for a second time and since he still does not have anything to say, he merely repeats the same question he had asked the audience the day before: “Do you know what I will be talking to you about today?” To ensure that he does not use their negative response as an excuse to walk out again, the audience answer with a resounding, “Yes, we do,” to which Nassredin responds, “Since you all know what I will be talking about there will be no need for me to waste your time,” and he walks out again. Frustrated and suspicious, the townspeople decide to preempt Nassredin’s shenanigans by discussing a possible strategy that would prevent him from leaving without delivering a lecture. The decision is made that if he asks the same question, “Do you know what I will be talking to you about today?” half of the people present will say, “Yes” and the other half will say, “No.” Thus, when Nassredin appears for the third time and asks the question, the crowd is ready with one group shouting, “Yes,” and the second crying out, “No,” to which the Hoca responds, “There is no need for me to waste your time with a lecture since those of you who know what I will talk about can tell those of you who don’t.”

  On another occasion, Nassredin is awakened in the middle of a cold and snowy night by the sound of commotion and loud argument outside his house. He tries to ignore the fight outside his window and goes back to sleep, but his wife, who has also been awakened by the noise, insists that he should get up and investigate the cause of the fight. Despite his best efforts to convince his wife that he should not become involved in the fight, Nassredin is finally forced to wrap himself in his quilt and go out of the house. Shivering from the freezing cold, he steps out of his house and asks the two groups arguing and fighting in front of his house what is causing the big commotion. His question ends the argument among the men who were fighting until then. They look at Nassredin for a moment, then suddenly jump on him and tear the quilt he is using to cover his body. After ripping the quilt into two halves, they run away and disappear into the darkness of the night. Having lost his quilt, Nassredin returns to his bedroom. His wife looks at the baffled, perplexed, and shivering Nassredin and asks him the reason for the loud argument on the street. Nassredin responds: “the fight was over my quilt.”

  The popular Ottoman shadow theater Karagöz and Hacivat was another means through which the society “created its world of laughter,” allowing the ordinary subjects of the sultan to criticize the government and the clerical establishment “before rapturous audiences” who crowded the cafés. There are many different legends and claims about the origins of shadow theater in the Ottoman Empire. Regardless of how it arrived in Istanbul, Karagöz quickly emerged as the epitome of Ottoman wit and humor and a central cultural personage in the daily life of ordinary Ottomans. He was a “roughly colored diminutive figure cut out of camel’s hide,” who played “its merry part behind a sheet” so that “its comic outline and gorgeous coloring” would stand out against the white background. Members of all social classes in the Ottoman Empire watched Karagöz, some of which “originated in the palace” and found its “way to the street,” while others “conceived in local coffeehouses, were performed in the sultan’s harem, transmitting the norms and wishes of the populace and poking fun at the state and its servants.” Removed from reality, “once through the stage, then through the puppets, and finally through their projection on a flat screen,” the shadow play served “as a safety valve for venting popular dissatisfaction,” ridiculing the hypocrisies of power and morality and voicing “a truth about society that hides within fiction.” The plays portrayed a reality that “stood in marked opposition” to the rites and rituals of the palace and the Islamic religious hierarchy, and they represented a world opposed to the one suggested by the ruling class.

  Not surprisingly, the sultans and their officials did not view shadow-theater as “harmless entertainment.” The uneasiness of the ruling elite was intensified by the fact that the majority of shadow plays were performed in coffeehouses, which served as
the meeting place for the members of the lower classes. It is true that shadow plays were also performed “at family celebrations like circumcisions, births and marriages,” but their “greatest success came during Ramadan, when on the evening before breaking their fast, people would crowd into the coffeehouses to watch a show and shorten the time before the next meal.” When the performance was held after breaking the fast, “tiny cups of aromatic coffee were constantly handed round” by young men “wearing the good old costume: baggy trousers and little coils of colored linen” with “turbans heaped up on their shaven heads.” Once the play had ended, the spectators applauded and “bestowed doles of small coin on the two lads who came round with a platter to collect their offerings.” Then, “the light behind the screen disappeared as suddenly as it had shone out,” and the musicians played a final crescendo as the crowd had a parting coffee before it poured out into the street.

  Aside from the sultan and his officials, the members of the religious class viewed the shadow play with suspicion and disgust because they dealt openly with “immoral subjects” and portrayed “female characters whose behavior left a great deal to be desired.” To make matters worse, Islamic law forbade the depiction of all living beings. However, “with just one or two holes in the brightly painted leather puppets, it was possible to kill two birds with one stone: the actors could fit the sticks into them in order to move them, but because of the hole (which was generally in the region of the heart), the characters could not be deemed capable of life, and so they could not be considered to depict living beings.”

  In the shadow play, the principal characters were Karagöz (literally the Black Eye), the kind, honest, straightforward, illiterate man on the street who cannot find permanent employment, and his friend and opposite, Hacivat, an intelligent, refined, and cultured man, who displayed his knowledge and education by speaking Ottoman Turkish and using traditional poetry. Karagöz was usually “eight inches high” and was “always shown in profile” with “a parrot-like nose, and a beady, glittering eye, screened by a thick projecting eyebrow.” He wore a huge turban, “which on the slightest provocation” was “removed by a wire, to display his cocoa-nut of a head, an exhibition always greeted with shouts of laughter.” Dressed in “a colored waistcoat, a short jacket, and a pair of baggy trousers, with striped stockings,” his “legs and arms” were “flexible” and “moved by skillfully concealed wires,” while his gestures were “clumsy but vigorous.” In sharp contrast, his friend and confidant, Hacivat, was “more alert in his movements.”

  Karagöz and Hacivat were joined by a large cast of characters who caricatured “a variety of races, professions and religions.” Besides moving the puppets from the back by rods that he held between his fingers, the puppeteer “spoke all their parts in various voices, sang songs, made a variety of sound-effects, and into the old, familiar and well-loved plots he introduced a number of improvised comic scenes, sometimes of current or legal interest, which included a great deal of ribaldry and a number of coarse jokes.” Usually as the play unfolded, keen to make mischief, Karagöz grew “bolder with impunity and approbation,” becoming increasingly more daring, outspoken, and intrepid “in his impropriety.” Special and “sedater performances” were often organized for women and children “in rich private homes.” Occasionally Karagöz paid a visit to the imperial palace, where he was extremely careful “not to say or do anything” that would offend the Shadow of God. But Karagöz was not the only theatrical performance popular among the urban population. There was another form of theater called orta oyunu, “which involved improvising without a stage or set text” and “depended almost entirely on the skill of the main comic.”

  9 – COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE

  One of the basic teachings of Islam was the promotion of marriage and condemnation of celibacy. Only those who suffered from severe economic hardship could legitimately remain unmarried. Every Muslim was expected to marry, and celibacy was regarded as unnatural, unhealthy, and therefore, unacceptable. To abstain from marriage when one had attained a sufficient age and had no physical and emotional impediments was viewed as improper and even disreputable. Girls married at an early age, and at times, soon after they had reached puberty.

  The general belief among the urban and rural population was that if the young remained unmarried, their sexual instincts and desires would find an outlet outside marriage and this could cause social chaos and moral evils. According to the Muslim tradition, “when an unmarried man and woman” were together, Satan was “also present.” There could, therefore, be “no allowance for innocence in the unsanctioned mixing of the sexes.” Families were often apprehensive about the sexual desires of their daughters and always concerned about their sexual purity. Islamic law and tradition viewed women’s sexuality as a potent force, which had to be controlled first by the father and then by a husband.

  The great Muslim theologian, jurist, and philosopher Ghazali (1058–1111), whose works were studied at religious schools and seminaries throughout the Ottoman Empire, had warned against “the calamity of social disorder” that followed “from the failure to control women.” If left uncontrolled, women’s “irresistible and assertive sexual nature” could destroy “social—particularly male— equanimity” resulting in chaos and anarchy. Girls were the guardians of their family’s honor. They were to remain virgins until they married and their “clothing and physical mobility” had to be regulated. The Ottoman religious establishment took Ghazali’s position “on women’s physicality” one step further and argued that “women’s entire body” was “effectively pudendal,” and must therefore be completely covered, including the face and hands. Exception could only be made within the circle of permitted relatives or out of absolute necessity, such as for medical reasons. Violation of this honor code could result in the woman’s expulsion from the household and even worse, death at the hands of her own father or brothers.

  PREARRANGED MARRIAGE

  Family life in the Ottoman Empire began with marriage, and all marriages were prearranged. In exceptional cases, young men escaped the marriage arranged by their parents. Young girls did not, however, have any other option but to obey the decision made by their family. Marriage was a contract negotiated and executed by the families involved, and legalized by a religious judge or another available member of the religious class.

  Islamic law had not fixed an age for marriage, and in the Ottoman Empire, as in other Islamic states, many families gave their young children to marriage, although girls were not allowed to move into their husband’s home until they had reached puberty. The Hanafi school of Islamic law, to which the Ottomans adhered, made it very clear that a marriage could not be consummated until the bride was fit for marital sexual intercourse. Only after the establishment of the Turkish Republic were specific ages defined. The new Turkish constitution fixed 18 as the youngest marriageable age for men and 17 for women, although, even then, the courts could be asked to sanction marriage at 15 for either sex, but no earlier.

  The planning for a marriage traditionally began when the father of a young man decided that the time had arrived for his son to marry. In some instances, the son initiated the process by informing his mother of his desire to marry. Regardless, the father had to agree that the time had arrived for his son to be married. Without his consent and support, the process of selecting a bride and arranging a marriage could not begin. A good marriage was a union that enhanced the economic and social status of the family. Every effort was made, therefore, to find a spouse whose family held equal, or higher, social and economic status. The family of the bride considered a husband who was a hard-working breadwinner a good catch, while the parents of the bridegroom regarded a young beautiful girl, who was well trained by her mother in housekeeping and child care, as the perfect match.

  Marriage customs and traditions varied from one community and region of the empire to another, but the majority of Muslims shared many common or at least very similar traditions and rites. Marr
iage to cousins, particularly between children of brothers, was prevalent in many Muslim communities, particularly in Anatolia, the Arab provinces of the Middle East, and Egypt. In Egypt, when a man married his first cousin, the husband and wife continued to call each other “cousin” because it was believed that blood ties were indissoluble, but those of matrimony very fragile and precarious. In most rural communities, the prospective bride was selected from within the village and in many instances, from within the immediate or extended family. Non-Muslims living in the empire followed many of these same patterns. Most marriages were arranged among co-religionists and co-ethnics who resided in the same village or neighborhood.

  Many marriage arrangements followed a predictable timetable. Inquiries were made among relatives, friends, and neighbors about attractive, available, and well-bred girls. Negotiations began with a go-between or a matchmaker, who provided the family of the prospective groom with a list of young and available girls. Sometimes the matchmaker was a relative or a friend of the family of the future groom and offered her services as a favor. Once the matchmaker and the mother of the prospective groom had agreed on a short list, they visited the homes of intended brides.