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From Middletown to the Middle East

~ Reflections on travel and teaching

From Middletown to the Middle East

Monthly Archives: June 2013

Small-time Sufi master

30 Sunday Jun 2013

Posted by tgilheany in NEH Seminar

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Ottoman Empire, saints, Sufi, women in Islam

I just got the chance to read “Hagiography As A Source For Womens’ History In The Ottoman Empire: The Curious Case Of Unsi Hasan” by John Curry for my Ottoman Cultures course – specifically, the religion study group. I offered said group the quick summary/review below.

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Sainthood, and indeed mysticism in general, has a problematic status in Islam. Because of Islam’s powerful emphasis on monotheism, the claim that some people might be closer to God than others makes mainstream Muslims suspect heresy. The Sufi masters, as mystics, offered a more personal connection to the religion, but simultaneously risked undermining the total separation of God from human, and thus God’s complete transcendance.

John Curry, now a professor at UNLV, was a grad student at OSU in 2003 when he came across the biography of an obscure Sufi master from the late 17th century. Curry describes the master, Hasan, as a “failed saint,” and uses his example as a window into the world of popular religiosity in the Ottoman Empire at that time. Indeed, popularity was essential for mystics to gain the status of saints. Curry notes that since there is not any single hierarchy in Islam as there is in the Catholic Church, there is no Muslim process of canonization. Thus the status of saint emerged organically from the community. In the case of this “failed saint,” the hagiography Curry highlights stands as the only source of information about Hasan. If more followers had written Hasan’s biography, or if this biography was more persuasive, his reputaion might have sustained itself more powerfully through the centuries.

We learn about the presence of women among Hasan’s devotees. Both men and women were followers of Sufi masters (as Quataert also mentioned) and some Sufi masters were women. Hasan is portrayed as an extremely strict master, perhaps even arbitrarily so. He is, however, slightly less stern with women. We also learn that Sufi shaykhs were presumed to have supernatural powers; Hasan’s punishment of one female follower was to haunt her dreams. At the same time, Hasan is portrayed as quite humanly flawed; he regrets his decision to marry and takes out his resentment on his daughter, who he alienates so thoroughly she is driven to choose the shameful occupation of bathhouse masseuse.

Hasan, the small-time Sufi master whose story comes to us through a largely overlooked account, thus gives us a sense of the gender, power and theological issues surrounding mystics in the 17th century Ottoman Empire.

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Packing!

26 Wednesday Jun 2013

Posted by tgilheany in How to

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I really love packing. It combines the anticipation of adventure with a technical challenge. I most enjoy packing for warm climates and trying to pack light; I’m much less confident when attempting (relatively) light packing for skiing, for example. For my upcoming Turkey trip, I bought some golf shirts and pants from Target; they seem to be quick dry without dressing like a British safari adventurer c. 1910. Indeed, try searching for “quick-dry button down” – it’s tough to get one that is long-sleeved but does not have zippers, flaps and the logo prominantly displayed. I’ve ordered a Patagonia shirt that looks from the photos like it will pass for a normal white button-down shirt.

One area that I have historically been heavy on is technology. I bring my 17″ laptop with me everywhere on a daily basis, so going without it on a longer trip has often seemed too risky. On this upcoming trip, however, I will be taking only my iPad and a newly purchased Zaggfolio Bluetooth keyboard. I’ve read about this solution for some time; let’s hope it works! I’m writing this post with it; so far so good, though I can’t see how to upload a photo to my blog (correction – found it!) I have also bought the iPad “camera connection kit” so I can download my photos to the iPad and then upload them to Flickr, etc. I’ll be practicing this move also before I go.

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The tragedy of rejecting the (recent) past

20 Thursday Jun 2013

Posted by tgilheany in NEH Seminar

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old books, ottoman, rejecting history

I’ve just been reading in Donald Quataert’s The Ottoman Empire about how the successor states of the Ottoman Empire almost without exception viewed the Empire as a loser and/or an oppressor, and so sought to minimize and ignore that part of history. This gave me a strange feeling of nostalgia. It is completely understandable that groups seeking to produce a new group identity (usually nationalist) would set themselves up in opposition to the past. Still, it seems that to reject such a rich heritage, one of hundreds of years in most cases, is a powerful loss. I also never knew that “Ottoman” was a language that could be distinguished from modern Turkish, and though I did know about the shift of scripts from Arabic to Latin, I had not reflected on the daily implications. Am I right that a modern Turk could not read a book or inscription printed prior to the language reforms of 1928? How fascinating, and sad, in a way, that current Turks can be surrounded by writings less than a century old that they cannot read, and even if transliterated might not understand! I love poking around in used bookstores and stumbling upon really old printings. I once came across a fascinating book called something like “The Religion of the Hindoos,” printed in the late 19th Century (it contained a wild mix of real appreciation for the people and a clear sense of the author’s superiority as a Christian missionary). It was exciting to hold that actual book, and I recalled it when Quataert wrote that modern middle class Turks, now seeking to recapture their past, “buy Ottoman books they cannot read” (p. 198).

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Ottoman (lack of?) control over Nablus, 19th and early 20th Centuries

19 Wednesday Jun 2013

Posted by tgilheany in NEH Seminar

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Nablus, NEH, Primary Source

In preparation for my Turkish seminar, I am completing various assigned readings and writing responses. This is a response to a section of Donald Quataert’s The Ottoman Empire, 1700-1922.

The increasing centralization of Ottoman control over its provinces in the 19th and 20th century goes against my stereotype of “the sick man” losing control. It does make sense, however, when one considers the long sweep of improving communications and transport across both the Ottoman Empire and the rest of the world. Having lived in Jerusalem, I find the degree and flavor of Ottoman control over its provinces to be fascinating. Some wish to use a particular read on this question to support the highly politicized claim that there is no true Palestinian identity. Thus I was particularly interested in Quataert’s brief discussion of Nablus as an example of “center-province relations.”

As he notes, Nablus was “not an important center but rather a hill town of modest regional significance” (p. 106). Thus it gives a fascinating model of how central influence waxed, waned and was amenable to negotiations. Local elite families got themselves appointed to ruling counsels, and those ruling counsels sometimes did and sometimes did not obey Ottoman commands. (To be clear, they were never in rebellion or even impolite, but sometimes they would just fail to do what was asked.) Arguments between the governor in Jerusalem and the local Nablusian counsel ensued. To collect taxes, the Empire could not rely on the tax farming system (which if I’m reading correctly, seemed to feed primarily to the local elites) but instead came with troops to collect the taxes directly. Even after the effort of centralization in 1840, it sounds like Nablus stayed fairly autonomous. Quataert’s final note on Nablus says that even in 1910 the residents were finally paying taxes correctly but still were not participating in the draft.

If I am reading this correctly, this narrative will satisfy neither those who wish to establish a 100% pure ethnonationalist Palestinian identity in the 19th century, nor those who wish to show that Palestinians were simply Ottomans who lived in a particular place and could live anywhere else with no ethical concerns.

Addendum to my post: a friend of mine who studies the Samaritans (who live near Nablus) and knows Nablus history well read this post. He characterizes the attitude of that city toward the Ottoman Empire of the late 19th and early 20th century as quite hostile. He argues they saw little benefit to being part of the empire. Also, specifically, the men were indeed drafted in WW I and many died. I wonder if this attitude was true across more of the provinces?

Palestinian school girls talking with my sister in Nablus

Palestinian school girls talking with my sister in Nablus, Spring 2012

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Countdown to my Turkey trip and blog renaming

19 Wednesday Jun 2013

Posted by tgilheany in Uncategorized

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blog name, NEH, Primary Source, Turkey

In 18 days I will board my Swissair flight to Istanbul via Zurich. I will be taking the seminar Ottoman Cultures: Society, Politics and Trade in the Turkish Empire 1299-1922. I am grateful to the National Endowment for the Humanities Division of Education, funders of the seminar. I also want to thank Primary Source, a non-profit that “promotes history and humanities education by connecting educators to people and cultures throughout the world.”

My ongoing adventures call for a renaming of this blog. Thus, “From Middletown to the Middle East.” Stop by!

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Recent posts…

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Days gone by

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