• About me

From Middletown to the Middle East

~ Reflections on travel and teaching

From Middletown to the Middle East

Tag Archives: Sufi

The beauty and sacredness of popular religion

30 Thursday Jul 2015

Posted by tgilheany in Uzbekistan

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Islam, Naqshbandi, Sufi

The mausoleum of Bahauddin Naqshbandi outside of Bukhara is a gorgeous and peaceful spot, full but not crowded with families making pilgrimage. A visitor can engage in a series of spiritual practices. At the tomb itself, people found spots sitting on benches under the mulberry trees, holding their hands up in the cupped prayer position.

Praying at the tomb

Praying at the tomb of Bahauddin Naqshbandi

Visitors circumambulate a tree that tradition says bloomed from the walking stick of Naqshbandi. To cure back pain, one ducks under the low branches.

Sacred tree at Naqshband

Sacred tree

People drink water from a holy spring.

Sacred spring at Naqshband

Sacred spring

An imam chants the Qur’an before people share food they brought. On the day we were there, it was a few days before the baccalaureate exams, and the imam added an extra prayer for success for the students.

Praying with Imam at Naqshband

Praying with Imam

If one has a particularly large request, one can sacrifice an animal. When we were there, a sheep arrived on the scene while staff arranged seats for the ceremony. We did not stay for the main event.

Sacrificial lamb

Sacrificial lamb

People of all ages were there. Some focused on the religious practices, others enjoyed the shade and the park. We met a group of older women from Andijan, in the Fergana Valley. They approached us and asked to take a photo with us. One woman, smiling with a mouth full of gold teeth, told us she had trained to be a French teacher but there had been little call for it in her town so she taught Russian. They took our hats and wore them in silly positions for the photo. What made us so interesting that we deserved a photo – whether being specifically Americans or just Westerners in general – I did not discover.

They were smiling just before the photo, I promise!

They were smiling just before the photo, I promise!

The shine is unapologetically populist in its religious practice. There is not even a gesture, as far as I could tell, to the concerns Salafis and others have about folk Islam distracting from a focus on the unity of God.

Share this:

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Tumblr
  • Reddit
  • LinkedIn
  • Print
  • Email
  • Pinterest

Like this:

Like Loading...

Visiting the Ottoman Empire

11 Thursday Jul 2013

Posted by tgilheany in NEH Seminar

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

hamam, massage, ottoman, Sufi

The Empire is gone, but if you want a taste of a wealthy hill town from the Ottoman 19th century, go to Yoruk Koya. It was first settled in the 13th century by the Yoruk, nomadic peoples from Khorasan. They people from Yoruk Koya and the better known nearby Safranbolu made a lot of money as Janissaries – as soldiers and later as bakers – in the capital. A 1929 census showed that over half the bakers in Istanbul were from these towns 250 miles from Istanbul! They brought this wealth back with them, and built beautiful multi-story wood houses. Some of the names of the people still reflect their work in the military – one last name means “armorer” for example.

20130711-231131.jpg

Interestingly, the Janissary Corps was not orthodox Sunni – instead it followed a set of customs called “Bektashi” after its Sufi founder Haci Bektash. “For those who have Awareness, a hint is quite enough. For the multitudes of heedless mere knowledge is useless.” Among their different traditions was a more equal relationship between men and women – in Yoruk Koya traditionally women could pass by the café without covering their faces, and men and women could drink alcohol together. (Orthodox believers sometimes exaggerated these difference to imply moral laxity.)

The area has seen layers of loss. The Bektashi were disbanded as a Sufi order along with the Janissaries in 1826, merging them with the more approved Mehlevi order. Then Ataturk made all sufi orders illegal when he sought to unify the country under a secular Turkish identity in the 1920s. Also in the 1920s Turkey and Greece agreed to a “population exchange,” and up to 20% of Greek-speaking Christians who lived in the area were moved to Greece. Still, in Yoruk Koya and Safranbolu one can see details that indicate the Bektashi heritage of their inhabitants. They followed a numerological system, and many wall paintings in the houses have the specific numbers worked into their decorations. I came across a Greek inscription from the 1840s. Some graves have carved on the top the headgear of the Sufi dervishes (leaders) buried there.

20130711-225909.jpg

I also experienced a more immediately physical connection with the area’s history by spending part of an afternoon in the historic Cinci hamam. Built in the 17th century, the marble-slabbed sicaklik (hot room) is capped with a traditional dome with small glass windows. Metal wrought faucets spill into bowls stamped with the name of the hamam. A massage there was both invigorating and an aesthetic experience.

20130711-231844.jpg

41.247950 32.682967

Share this:

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Tumblr
  • Reddit
  • LinkedIn
  • Print
  • Email
  • Pinterest

Like this:

Like Loading...

Small-time Sufi master

30 Sunday Jun 2013

Posted by tgilheany in NEH Seminar

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

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.

—

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.

41.702567 -70.764783

Share this:

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Tumblr
  • Reddit
  • LinkedIn
  • Print
  • Email
  • Pinterest

Like this:

Like Loading...

Recent posts…

  • Jericho – my good and bad calls
  • Evidence of support – plaques but little else
  • Skirting Jerusalem
  • Ibrahimi mosque/Machpelech cave
  • Dr. Hasan

Days gone by

  • July 2022
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • March 2019
  • August 2018
  • March 2016
  • July 2015
  • November 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
  • June 2013
  • April 2013
  • March 2013
  • February 2013
  • November 2012
  • August 2012
  • July 2012
  • June 2012
  • May 2012
  • April 2012
  • March 2012
  • February 2012
  • January 2012
  • December 2011
  • November 2011
  • October 2011
  • September 2011
  • August 2011
  • July 2011
  • June 2011
  • May 2011
  • April 2011

Enter your email address to follow my adventures in Jerusalem and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Blogroll

  • A Year On My wife’s blog – a more literate and incisive view of our time abroad…

Search

Blog at WordPress.com.

Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy
  • Follow Following
    • From Middletown to the Middle East
    • Join 28 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • From Middletown to the Middle East
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...
 

    %d bloggers like this: