Sufism in Ottoman Damascus (Routledge Sufi Series) 9781032497976, 9781032498027, 9781003395539, 1032497971

Table of contents :
Cover
Half Title
Series
Title
Copyright
Contents
Note on Transliteration
List of figures
Acknowledgments
1 Patterns of Grace in History and Scholarship: Networks of the Holy in Eighteenth-Century Bilād al-Shām
2 Miracles of God and Saintly Wonders: Magic and Religion in the Syrian Eighteenth Century
3 Haunting the Shadows: Contending with the Jinn Between the Visible and the Invisible Worlds
4 Path to Holiness: The Quest for Grace in Eighteenth-Century Damascus
5 Beyond the Grave: Graceful Dead, Hallowed Places, and the Network of the Holy
6 Artes Magicae: Thaumaturgical Rituals in Eighteenth-Century Shām
7 Conclusion
Index

Citation preview

Sufism in Ottoman Damascus

“This book probes directly and robustly the relations between official state religion, Muslim jurisprudence and magical practices as they actually occurred, untroubled by common clichés found in both contemporary sources and in modern scholarship.” – Aziz Al-Azmeh, Central European University

Sufism in Ottoman Damascus analyzes thaumaturgical beliefs and practices prevalent among Muslims in eighteenth-century Ottoman Syria. The study focuses on historical beliefs in baraka, which religious authorities often interpreted as Allah’s grace, and the alleged Sufi-ulamaic role in distributing it to Ottoman subjects. This book highlights considerable overlaps between Sufis and ʿulamā’ with state appointments in early modern Province of Damascus, arguing for the possibility of sociologically defining a Muslim priestly sodality, a group of religious authorities and wonder-workers responsible for Sunni orthodoxy in the Ottoman Empire. The Sufi-ʿulamā’ were integral to Ottoman networks of the holy, networks of grace that comprised of hallowed individuals, places, and natural objects. Sufism in Ottoman Damascus sheds new light on the appropriate scholarly approach to historical studies of Sufism in the Ottoman Empire, revising its position in official early modern versions of Ottoman Sunnism. This book further reapproaches early modern Sunni beliefs in wonders and wonder-working, as well as the relationship between religion, thaumaturgy, and magic in Ottoman Sunni Islam, historical themes comparable to other religions and other parts of the world. Nikola Pantić is Postdoc Assistant at the Department of Near Eastern Studies, University of Vienna, and Permanent Fellow of the Center for Religious Studies, Central European University, Vienna.

Routledge Sufi Series General Editor: Ian Richard Netton

Professor of Islamic Studies, University of Exeter

The Routledge Sufi Series provides short introductions to a variety of facets of the subject, which are accessible both to the general reader and the student and scholar in the field. Each book will be either a synthesis of existing knowledge or a distinct contribution to, and extension of, knowledge of the particular topic. The two major underlying principles of the Series are sound scholarship and readability. Previously published by Curzon 26. Sufism in Eighteenth-Century India Muḥammad Nāṣir ʿAndalīb’s Lament of the Nightingale and Ṭarīqa-yi Khāliṣ Muḥammadiyya Neda Saghaee 27. Walāya in the Formative Period of Shi’ism and Sufism A Comparative Analysis Shayesteh Ghofrani 28. Nur Baba A Sufi Novel of Late Ottoman Istanbul Edited, Introduced and Translated by M. Brett Wilson 29. Sufism in Morocco’s Religious Politics Refractions of Piety and Iḥsān

John C. Thibdeau

30. Love in Sufi Literature Ibn ‘Ajiba’s Understanding of the Divine Word Omneya Ayad 31. Sufism in Ottoman Damascus Religion, Magic, and the eighteenth-century Networks of the Holy Nikola Pantić For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/Routledge-Sufi-Series/ book-series/SE0491

Sufism in Ottoman Damascus

Religion, Magic, and the Eighteenth-Century Networks of the Holy Nikola Pantić

First published 2024 by Routledge 4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2024 Nikola Pantić The right of Nikola Pantić to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN: 978-1-032-49797-6 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-032-49802-7 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-003-39553-9 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/9781003395539 Typeset in Times New Roman by Apex CoVantage, LLC

Contents

Note on Transliteration List of figures Acknowledgments

vi vii viii

1

Patterns of Grace in History and Scholarship: Networks of the Holy in Eighteenth-Century Bilād al-Shām

1

2

Miracles of God and Saintly Wonders: Magic and Religion in the Syrian Eighteenth Century

46

3

Haunting the Shadows: Contending with the Jinn Between the Visible and the Invisible Worlds

82

4

Path to Holiness: The Quest for Grace in EighteenthCentury Damascus

110

5

Beyond the Grave: Graceful Dead, Hallowed Places, and the Network of the Holy

144

6

Artes Magicae: Thaumaturgical Rituals in EighteenthCentury Shām

185

7

Conclusion

228

Index

233

Note on Transliteration

Throughout this volume, the ALA-LC transliteration system is used for the Arabic language. Well-known toponyms, as well as otherwise commonly known terms, are presented in their English language forms. For the less-known toponyms and phenomena, transliterations are frequently given in parentheses.

Figures

6.1 The ism that identified thieves in dream visions. 6.2 ʿAbd al-Qādir al-Maghribī’s “magic square.” 6.3 “Magic square” from the eighteenth-century copy of the

Compendium.

189

190

191

Acknowledgments

This book is based on the research which I conducted during my doctoral training at Central European University. I owe utmost gratitude to my supervisor and teacher, Professor Dr Aziz Al-Azmeh. I am thankful for his energy, drive, and committed work with me. Professor Al-Azmeh’s advice was always available, and his neverending questions always pointed at new directions for further research and study. I especially admire the patience it took him to read all versions of this text, starting from its very early and flimsy phases. I owe most heartfelt thanks to many scholars whose invaluable advice over the years made this process much easier. Profes­ sor Dr Nadia Al-Bagdadi, Professor Dr Tijana Krstić, Professor Dr Tolga Esmer, Professor Dr Matthias Riedl, Professor Dr László Kontler, Professor Dr Grigor Boykov, and Professor Dr Gábor Klaniczay helped my research take shape from its earliest phases. Professor Dr Jean-Louis Fabiani is a continuous source of inspiration. Discus­ sions with him served not only to better structure the themes in this book after my doctoral research was over but to highlight new study areas – which is delight­ ful, as research should never slow down. Professor Dr Rüdiger Lohlker has been extremely helpful, always willing to cooperate, and point out finer details tied to my research. His suggestions helped formulate some of the ideas presented in this book better, and for this, I owe him gratitude. I wish also to emphasize my endless gratitude to Dr István Kristó-Nagy, Dr Kumail Rajani, and Dr Dunja Rašić who helped track down some more mysterious details presented within this volume. I have bothered many to read portions of this text as it was coming into shape. They showed saintly patience to which I am very grateful. My primary “victim” was my lovely wife, Teona. In addition, Dr Alexandra Medzibrodszky, Dr Igor Vranić, Stefan Trajković-Filipović, Benjamin Sasse, and Elena Jebelean demon­ strated ṣabr that premodern Sufis would envy. I would further like to thank the faculty and staff of the Orient-Institut Beirut in Lebanon. They were most helpful during my research stay there. Special thanks are owed to Dr Stefan Leder, whose advice helped determine some new research direc­ tions. Talks with Dr Astrid Meier made me think of some questions I otherwise would not pose. She further assisted with locating invaluable source material. The curiosity and energy of Dr Torsten Wollina made me think in new ways about my project. My thanks also goes to Dr Kaoukab Chebaro of the American University

Acknowledgments ix of Beirut for her assistance with the archives, as well as to Dr Kamil Chahine, who helped obtain some of the source material. The importance of the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin Oriental Archives for my research needs to be emphasized. Many thanks to all the staff members who were always ready to assist in all possible ways. Special gratitude is owed to Ms Susanne Henschel of the Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz, who offered useful guidelines that made my work many times easier. In addition, I am grateful to Dr Ulrike Fre­ itag and Dr Katharina Lange of the Zentrum Moderner Orient, who helped my academic work under the sponsorship of the DAAD stipend. Professor Dr Xenia von Tippelskirch at the Faculty of Philosophy, Humboldt University, offered help­ ful remarks, especially upon hearing the presentation of my project, while I much appreciate the support of Professor Dr Islam Dayeh of the Arabic Studies at the Free University of Berlin. Finally, my gratitude goes to Professor Dr Marco Schöller and Professor Dr Jonathan Berkey who, during a conference hosted by the Religion and Politics Cluster of Excellence in Münster, inadvertently provided inspiration for the development of my project. Routledge editors “Joe” Whiting, Euan Rice-Coates, and Aruna Rajendran eased the publishing process for me, and I thank them from the bottom of my heart for bearing with me. Many thanks to the copy editing team as well. The administra­ tive personnel of the Department of History and the Center for Religious Studies at Central European University, my alma mater, also need to be given high praises. Their eagerness to help, quick acting, and proper planning makes them the bind­ ing factor that keeps our institutions together. Sadly, due to the relocation of the university from Budapest to Vienna, some of these wonderful individuals are not a part of the Department anymore. Special thanks to Esther Holbrook, formerly of the Religious Studies Program, and the History program coordinators Aniko Molnar, Agnes Bendik, Zsuzsanna Bajó, Mónika Zsuzsanna Nagy, and Margaretha Boockmann. An utmost tragedy was the loss of Judit Gergely in 2015. She will always be remembered. Outside of academia, I do not know how to repay the support of my friends and family. The most luminous stars among them are the “Broman” Nikola, Smi, Žika, Ruža, Mišo, Strale, and Bojana, of whom some were even genuinely interested in this material. The company of Flora, Dunja, Imogen, Iva, Bogi, Giorgia, Manuel, Patrick, Mars, Sam and Viktor, whom I met in Budapest, made me a richer person than I ever was. Special thanks go to Iuliana and Jesus Rosh, without whom it would be difficult to perform even everyday functions at a very recent point in my past. My father Zoran did everything to support me. So did my mother, Vojislava, who did not live to see this work published. May she rest in peace.

1

Patterns of Grace in History

and Scholarship Networks of the Holy in Eighteenth-

Century Bilād al-Shām

Eminent scholars of Damascus believed in many peculiar competencies of Aḥmad al-Naḥlāwī (d.1744). Three men once saw al-Naḥlāwī sleeping in three different city districts during the same night. When a boy fell to his apparent death from a high rooftop, the people rushed with his body to the shaykh who simply held him in his hands and brought him back to life. According to legends, al-Naḥlāwī foretold the death of the Damascene governor, Sulaymān Pasha al-ʿAẓm (d.1743). During a pilgrimage (ziyāra) to the shrine of the medieval Sufi master and saint, Abū Yazīd al-Bisṭāmī (d.848 or 875), al-Naḥlāwī sat next to the hallowed tomb (ḍarīḥ). In this sacred space that was believed to empower wondrous acts,1 one of the men who escorted the shaykh brought a hefty stone which he set before him, saying that it would be great relief if he held gold instead. Al-Naḥlāwī gazed at the stone, remarking that Allah had men who turned stones golden at a glance.2 The stone indeed turned into gold, yet the man could not pick it up nor move it. React­ ing to his astonishment, al-Naḥlāwī gazed at the object once more, changing it back into stone and sending the man away. Legends of Al-Naḥlāwī bent expectations of the humanely possible, yet Muḥammad Khalīl al-Murādī (1759–1791) wrote about this shaykh in ceremonial, respectful tones. This Damascene muftī, historian, Sufi Naqshbandīyya adherent,3 and the syndic of the descendants of the Prophet (naqīb al-ashrāf) in Damascus read about the transformation of the rock from al-Naḥlāwī’s hagiographer and dis­ ciple, Muḥammad al-Ja‘farī. A famous biographer himself, al-Murādī reacted with nothing but pure admiration, referring to al-Naḥlāwī as the “Benediction of Damas­ cus” (barakat al-shām).4 In the circles of the most prominent Damascene scholars, al-Naḥlāwī represented a critically acclaimed Sufi saint. The act of transmutation was an immediate demonstration of his praeternatural gifts, commonly believed to be granted through piousness, devotion, and a purity of character unparalleled by ordinary people. Restriction of access to the wondrous gold, as wonders (karāmāt) allegedly represented consequences of divine will, and not of people’s wishes or requests, highlighted beliefs that Allah’s will, and not some other force, operated through al-Naḥlāwī, endowing him with His grace (baraka). Situating grace (baraka) in popular religious belief and practice of eighteenthcentury Damascus, this book approaches Sufism5 with aims to expand the historical DOI: 10.4324/9781003395539-1

2

Patterns of Grace in History and Scholarship

knowledge about the relations between religion, thaumaturgy,6 and magic in Otto­ man Shām. Sufism, which is until today often described as distinct and separate from official Islam, had an important role in Syrian societies, where it served as a primary vehicle for Muslim thaumaturgy. The old belief among Sunni Muslims that the Sufi-ʿulamā’ could perform wonders by using praeternatural grace, often defined by the ulamaic circles as Allah’s baraka,7 was widespread in eighteenthcentury Syria. I use the term thaumaturgy to further refer to the Sufi-ʿulamā’ wonder-working practices. Thaumaturgy represented an important element integral to premodern Sunnism, as was the case with other scriptural religions. Sufism in eighteenth-century Syria, as well as elsewhere in the Ottoman Empire, therefore represented a constituent element of Ottoman Sunni orthodoxy. Sufi traditions had an important role in matters ranging from quotidian affairs to various state policies, due to widespread beliefs in saintly wonders (karāmāt; sg. karāma) and prophetic miracles (muʿjizāt; sg. muʿjiza),8 and the significance of divine grace (baraka) for premodern Muslims. Sufi traditions in premodern Islam helped cultivate and maintain widespread trust in sodalities of religious professionals who were believed to perform wonders through divine grace. The body of premodern Muslim religious professionals contained significant overlaps between the Sufis and the ʿulamā’. The Sufi-ʿulamā’ with official state appointments, since the medieval and until the modern period, assumed the role of what may sociologically be interpreted as a Muslim priestly sodality,9 even though Islam did not incorporate a theological equivalent of the priestly function. The Sufi-ʿulamā’ historical role as institutional dispensers of divine grace,10 as well as their historical relation to the common people and the state, allows for such socio­ logical definitions. Eighteenth-century Syrian Sufi-ʿulamā’ represented the fundamental layer of the network of the holy, which was the network of baraka, believed to grace virtu­ ous people, prominent religious scholars, the living and the deceased saints among them, and the Muslim prophets. The network of the holy comprised of institution­ ally established relations11 between people, places, and objects, based on the wide­ spread beliefs in their innate thaumaturgical qualities. Sporadic marginalization of thaumaturgical practices became more prominent only after the emergence of Muslim reformist thought during the nineteenth and the twentieth century. In this book, the term religion refers to the orthodoxy of religious beliefs and practice, as officially appointed members in an institutionalized office of authority over a given religious tradition defined it at a given time. Discussions within the following paragraphs commit to historical analyses of eighteenth-century Ottoman institutional Sunni orthodoxy. This version of Sunni Islam was no monolith that, without change, persisted across Eurasia since the seventh century.12 As a tradition and a religious confession, Islam was changing over the passage of time, acquir­ ing numerous historical and socio-anthropological realities pertinent to regions, periods, and social groups.13 In the following chapters, I refer to Islam and use the adjective Muslim to indicate human and historical phenomena, pertinent to times and regions discussed in the following text, which were, as Shahab Ahmad

Patterns of Grace in History and Scholarship 3 indicated, relevant for producing meaning in terms of a hermeneutical engage­ ment with what was presumed to have been the Revelation to Muḥammad.14 The adjective “Muslim” pertains to the religious confession but also refers to a social environment germane to various regions and periods discussed within this book.15 The religion-magic interplay represents the subject of a vast and lengthy scholarly debate. Throughout history, religion contained conceptual, technical, and anthropological overlaps with magic. Some contemporary scholarship therefore sees no reason for these categories to remain distinct at all times.16 This book is, however, a historical account of the effort of religious authorities, as well as the common people in eighteenth-century Ottoman Syria, to create and maintain clear boundaries between these two concepts. Pri­ mary historical sources at the same time indicate the existence of a third category, which, despite its partial procedural overlap with magic, represented a fundamental element of Ottoman orthodoxy. This was thaumaturgy, a tradition of beliefs and practices pertinent to the working of wonders in Ottoman Sunnism. Thaumaturgical practice was by no means unique to Ottoman early modernity nor to Sunni Islam. It represented an important element in monotheistic religious traditions and further afield. Before modernity, thaumaturgical traditions of various religions had the function of providing immediate relief to the common people’s religious needs17 and of dispensing grace18 for the supplicants. Wonder-working was very important for the popularization of religion among the common people and the further social and political integration of religious institutions and religious authorities in various historical and geographical contexts. Research into thauma­ turgy as an integral element of religious orthodoxies prior to modernity, as well as into the historical agents which kept it distinct from magic, contributes to the broader field of comparative religions. The results of this research indicate a path towards more adequate historical narratives about a given region’s religious tra­ dition. Furthermore, scholarly studies into thaumaturgical practices offer highly complex historical and socio-anthropological explanations for the intricate entan­ glement of religious institutions with a region’s economy, society, law, and politics. In attempts to emphasize the historical significance of Sufism, scholarship at times approached it through the lens of intellectual history. This is often case with studying thaumaturgical and mystical trends globally.19 Research into Sufism as an intellectual tradition over time produced many scholarly works that help understand facts about the life and work of prominent Sufis. The analysis of Sufi thaumaturgy, and the way it was practiced, may add to these scholarly findings by better illuminat­ ing reasons for the relevance and the entanglement of Sufism in political, social, and economic settings of premodern Muslim states. The thaumaturgical role of the Sufi­ ʿulamā’ represented a crucial historical fact that highlights the involvement of mys­ tical beliefs and practices in Ottoman socio-politics, economy, and everyday life. This chapter explores how the historical narrative about religion in eighteenthcentury Ottoman Syria may be aligned with the newer scientific literature on reli­ gion across the Ottoman Empire. Some readers may find this problematic, due to insufficient empirical material and scholarly analyses of eighteenth-century Shām. However, due to the highly centralized nature of the Sufi ṭuruq and the ʿulamā’

4

Patterns of Grace in History and Scholarship

institutions in the Ottoman Empire, it is possible to draw parallels which align the history of eighteenth-century Syria with the flows and developments across the Ottoman realm. Such reading of Syrian history further avoids technical issues, as it aims to produce a narrative of a highly significant Ottoman province, and not of any exclusive local or Arab20 entity.21 I commence with an overview of rel­ evant secondary literature, proceeding to discuss the historical place of Ottoman Sufism in religious orthodoxy of eighteenth-century Syria. The discussion then turns to religious authorities in charge of this orthodoxy and the Ottoman networks of the holy. Chapter 2 explores analytical tools for the historical study of eighteenth-century Syrian Sufi-ʿulamā’ thaumaturgy. It explores primary sources to uncover strate­ gies through which religious authorities of eighteenth-century Shām maintained distinctions between thaumaturgy and magic – concepts which were anthropo­ logically comparable – so as to make their profession exclusive and define illicit practices. I explore the historical relationships between religion, thaumaturgy, and magic in eighteenth-century Ottoman Syria. Discussions then turn to historical beliefs in divine grace and the structure of the eighteenth-century Syrian network of the holy. Relevant historical disputes over divine grace and its alleged recipients are discussed within. During the early modern period, controversies arose around the religion-magic relationships, or with religious rigorists casting doubt on the thaumaturgical powers of Muslim saints. Chapter 3 discusses forces of evil, on the case of the jinn, some harmful spells and curses. Discussions within illuminate some important religious and socioanthropological functions of Allah’s grace. In popular belief and theologians’ texts, baraka served both as a shield against malevolent forces and as a discursive tool that indicated exemplary behavior, opposed to odious or undesired acts. Popular beliefs in the continuity between the material and immaterial were integral to the premodern understanding of nature and were presupposed in the development of certain thaumaturgical practices of apotropaic and prophylactic variety. Ways to contend with forces of evil represented an element in official religion of eighteenthcentury Syria that illuminates the intricate entanglement of thaumaturgical beliefs and practices with everyday life within the Ottoman Province of Damascus. Chapter 4 continues the discussion about the significance of baraka as both a social and a socio-anthropological marker on the case of eighteenth-century Damascus and this city’s Sufi-scholar networks. It shows that exemplary behavior, piety, and righteousness in general represented primary conditions for beliefs in an individual’s baraka. However, Damascene religious authorities had ways of approaching this relation systematically and institutionally. Acquaintance with tight Sufi-ʿulamā’ circles, comprised of prominent patrician families, was invaluable for one’s career as a thaumaturge and scholar. Religious professionals of eighteenthcentury Damascus needed validation from their superiors and peers while training as Sufis and studying ʿilm, so as to enjoy widespread popular beliefs in their own thaumaturgical capacities. Their social mobility grew, as well as their opportuni­ ties for acquiring lucrative state appointments and properties. Chapter 4 discusses the most common proceedings of one’s journey from initiation to mastery, and

Patterns of Grace in History and Scholarship 5 sometimes sainthood, which was an open social category, reliant on both peer rec­ ognition and popular consensus. It further takes note of the wider social category of the righteous (ṣāliḥūn) who were sometimes venerated for their own wondrous powers, as well as some other groups whom the people attributed with myths of divine grace, such as the hallowed fools (majādhīb). Chapter 5 shows that beliefs in graceful dead and hallowed places influenced a tradition of religious beliefs and practices that pervaded many domains of human activity and had a practical role for both regional and statewide sociopolitical strat­ egies, as well as regional and imperial economies. When a saint died, the Ottoman subjects would erect shrines in their honor. It was believed that the saints continued to emit baraka beyond the grave. Their praeternatural grace allegedly pervaded the surroundings of the shrines, entering natural objects in the vicinity, while the saintly presence allegedly often intervened in the affairs of the living. Chapter 5 studies the importance of hallowed tombs, other sacred locations, and the beliefs in their grace in eighteenth-century Syria. I discuss the pilgrimage (ziyāra) tradition, as well as the complex economy that generated around it and around hallowed places. Discussions in Chapter 5 further take note of various hallowed natural objects, such as trees, rocks, caves, and water sources, which represented elements in the Syrian network of the holy. Chapter 6 discusses eighteenth-century Syrian Sufi-ʿulamā’ thaumaturgical practice, highlighting the popular beliefs in the benefits of baraka for ritual effi­ cacy as an important reason for the perpetuation of beliefs in the Ottoman network of the holy. The procedure of the Sufi-ʿulamā’ thaumaturgical rituals for the most part remained stable over centuries. In Chapter 6, I discuss most common ele­ ments of Syrian ritual practice, of which some linger until today. Among the main themes of Chapter 6 are thaumaturgical invocations, rituals at Muslim shrines, public religious ceremonies, talismanics, and divination. Other factors that were believed to influence ritual efficacy, such as time and space, are discussed within. Thaumaturgy and magic represented anthropological homologues, albeit clearly distinguished through theological treatises, and this chapter briefly reviews accusa­ tions of sorcery and the official reactions they caused as they remain documented in eighteenth-century Syrian primary source material. The region I selected for my case study, eighteenth-century Syria, refers to the Ottoman Province of Damascus and the Bilād al-Shām. Since the sixteenth century, the Province of Damascus was comprised of ten ṣanjaqs: Jerusalem, Gaza, Ṣafad, Nāblus, ʿAjlūn, Lajjūn, Tadmur (Palmyra), Sidon and Beirut, and Karak and Shaw­ bak.22 The city of Damascus represented an important center for religious learning and an important node of communication for Muslim theologians and the Sufis of the Ottoman Empire. It was relatively well-connected with Istanbul, while its Sufi-ʿulamā’ sodalities held strong ties with the Ottoman administration.23 There existed a high level of mobility for the Syrian scholars and Sufis – educated Mus­ lims frequently traveled within Syria, and to other regions as well, which led to the development of broad networks of knowledge transmission and exchange. The following analysis aims for a more accurate positioning of thaumaturgy in early modern Syrian religion, as well as of Sufism in Ottoman Sunni Islam, as it

6

Patterns of Grace in History and Scholarship

pertained to eighteenth-century Damascus. My exploration of approaches to study­ ing religious authority in charge over Sunni orthodoxy in eighteenth-century Shām begins with the overview of relevant secondary literature. The social and religious history of this Ottoman province in the eighteenth century is not well-served by existing research. The arguments presented in the following paragraphs are there­ fore at times exploratory, where the present state of scholarship does not allow for a synoptic nor a synthetic study. Sufism in Scholarship, Sufism in Islam: Scholarly Approaches to Religion of Eighteenth-Century Province of Damascus Ample research on Sufism emerged in the previous century. Some scholarship holds that Sufi mystical beliefs and practices gained prominence from the twelfth century onwards.24 Their historical significance for the Mamluk and Ottoman states has been well-documented.25 The term “Sufism” for a long time surfaced whenever scholars researched Muslim mysticism. This was especially the case with the analyses of the influence of mystical beliefs and practices on the political establishments dominant in the Middle East and North Africa (as well as further to the east) prior to the Muslim reforms of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.26 Scholarly approaches to Sufism still suffer from several problems, however. Classical studies of Sufism often seemed to consider its subject of research distinct from an official Islam. This old scholarly idea seems to remain in some contempo­ rary work on eighteenth-century Syria, even though a significant body of second­ ary literature emerged to argue against the classical attitudes and depict a more reasonable narrative about Sufism in the Ottoman period.27 The scientific study of Sufism seems further hampered by two old dichotomies, well known among scholars in humanities and religious studies. Their simplicity fails to portray the complex dynamics of the early modern Syrian religious beliefs and practices. They are often entangled and together create problems with attempts to design a definition of Sufism that is precise enough yet sufficiently broad to account for the full extent of the available factual material. One is reflected in occasional scholarly descriptions of Sufism as a heterodoxy juxtaposed against the orthodox binary of mainstream Islam. Sufism is also often portrayed as the “low” pole in the traditional high-low dichotomy. Classifications of Sufism along these binaries partially caused the lack of accurate positioning of Muslim mysticism in religious studies today, further generating issues with the scholarly research of Syr­ ian early modern religion. The “high” and “low” binaries to this day maintain a considerable presence in academic literature dealing with this, as well as many other topics.28 In the frame­ work of the high-low binary, Sufism is supposed to represent the “low” – piety of the masses, a form of popular religion,29 or religion of antinomian groups,30 against an Islam of the elites, based on a puritanical reading of the Scripture. This dichot­ omy possibly acquired a greater currency in the studies of Islam with Ernest Gell­ ner’s research about sainthood in Morocco. The binaries of “popular” and “elite” are obvious in his “pendulum swing” theory of Islam.31 Due to the long usage of the

Patterns of Grace in History and Scholarship 7 adjective “popular” with reference to cultures portrayed as inferior to their “high” and “elite” counterparts on the binary scale,32 writing about Sufism as an element of “popular religion” today might strike the reader almost as pejorative. Some recent scholarship on early modern Ottoman Syria went beyond the highlow binaries. Efforts of such authors to redeem the “popular” customs of the Otto­ man Bilād al-Shām33 resonate with broader historiographical attempts to locate the ordinary people in history and improve historical knowledge about their particular temporal and spatial contexts.34 However, these efforts in some cases led to the other extreme, of depicting early modern Syrian religion almost entirely as a prod­ uct of the common people’s beliefs and practices. In 2014, James Grehan’s study of Sufism and popular religion in early modern Ottoman Syria concluded that Muslim eighteenth-century religious beliefs and practices represented a “triumph of reli­ gion ‘from below’.”35 I approach Islam of eighteenth-century Ottoman Syria, along with its Sufism, as a product of interactions between Ottoman religious professionals and the rest of the Syrian societies. Eighteenth-century Syrian Islam was influenced by the combination of the latitudinarianism of official religious authorities and religious and magical beliefs held across the social scale. Some caution is therefore neces­ sary when the implementation of strict terms is concerned. I discuss eighteenthcentury Syrian religion not as a product of high and elite cultures nor as that of “the masses” exclusively. The cultivation and maintenance of a vast body of religious beliefs and practices represents a process of elaborate exchange between groups of professionals, erudites, jurists, as well as the common people, under the careful surveillance of the state authorities.36 I do not study a “religion of the masses,” nor do I aim to employ the high-low dichotomy. Instead, when examining Sufism in Islam, I predominantly refer to those practices which appealed to all social strata in eighteenth-century Ottoman Syria37 and thus represented cultural property avail­ able to all its inhabitants. If the word “popular” emerges in the following text, it should not be understood as a term referring to the binary discussed earlier. I use the adjective to indicate those cultural items described by Shirley Fedorak as the sum of “performance, expression and symbolism that both influences and reflects human culture”38 – the collective representations39 of the Syrian eighteenth-century Ottoman subjects. The popularity of Sufism is evident. For a long number of cen­ turies, it represented a corpus of widespread beliefs and practices that attracted and welcomed the participation of all Muslims, regardless of their rank or status. It was no different in eighteenth-century Bilād al-Shām.40 Another well-established dichotomy in the study of Islam (and other scriptural religions) juxtaposes orthodox beliefs and practices against heterodox, or simply heretical. This dichotomy is most often entangled with that of the high-low. The implementation of the orthodox-heterodox binary reflects the old presumptions that the orthodoxies of Muslim establishments continuously represented a set of doctrinal, jurisprudential, and sociopolitical norms based upon the early sources of Islam – the Qur’ān, the Ḥadīth, and the Sunna, which were presumed nomocen­ tric yet not mystical.41 Attempts have been made to break through this dichotomy, yet some of them bring more confusion than clarifications. For instance, Julian

8

Patterns of Grace in History and Scholarship

Baldick dispatched the orthodox-heterodox binaries, asserting that they inherently corresponded only to the Christian setting. Baldick insisted that heterodoxies could not exist in Islam because orthodoxy was never present. He underlined that Islam represents a scriptural religion without an official priesthood – a matter that my research amply treats – concluding that no authoritative body existed to establish any orthodoxy and eliminating the possibilities of any deviances.42 Other suggestions have been offered to neutralize the orthodox-heterodox dichotomy in the previous decade. In his 2014 study of eighteenth-century Syria, James Grehan offered an approach that partially reflected upon the theories of Ernest Gellner, for whom Sufism represented a phenomenon which tended to emerge and grow stronger wherever and whenever the state authority weakened, especially on the margins of state systems.43 For Grehan, the historical popularity of thaumaturgy in Syria owed to the gradual and continuous filtering of an “agrar­ ian religion” into the cities of early modern Ottoman Shām. The strong presence of this “agrarian religion” represented the consequence of the reliance of early modern Muslim urban centers on their countryside and the dominance of an agrar­ ian culture in both urban and rural hubs. Grehan concluded that “agrarian religion” of the Ottoman realm represented eighteenth-century Syrian religious mainstream, composed of popular beliefs and certain Sufi teachings, which overwhelmed the high and literate elite ulamaic minority over time.44 This one-sided definition relies on the orthodox-heterodox and high-low dichotomies equally and seems not to fully acknowledge the complexity of Syrian eighteenth-century religion. Fur­ thermore, Grehan’s theories might imply that the Syrian thaumaturgical tradition represented a distinct and separate body of practices and beliefs in relation to an official Islam. As it affects my case study, this occasional scholarly presumption merits a brief discussion. The scholarly separation of Sufi thaumaturgy from Islam represents in equal measure the consequence of reliance on the previously outlined dichotomies and the lack of consensus about the historical origins of Sufi beliefs and practices. Nile Green indicated that the researchers of Sufism faced considerable difficulties in attempts to analyze the origins of Muslim mysticism due to the scarcity of early Muslim sources.45 The resulting debates at times questioned the relation of Sufism to Islam, and it seems as if such discussions were more focused on pronouncing upon the orthodoxy of Sufism than studying its history. Earlier academic debates, for instance, questioned the potential of the Muslim Scripture to give rise to Sufi traditions.46 Such debates did not acknowledge that historical developments – and religions, as historical facts – most often emerge from a given set of circumstances in a given time and space, and not from books. Written texts, however, may be later used to lend credibility to a certain emergence, as the case may have been with Sufism during the medieval period.47 Scholarship still occasionally questions what Sufism represents in Islam. Aca­ demic depictions of Sufism often distinguish it from other Muslim “trends.”48 Alexander Knysh is opposed to creating artificial dichotomies between historical versions of Sufism and Islam. He outlines the process through which the studies of Sufism came to rely upon a joint enterprise consisted of numerous internal and

Patterns of Grace in History and Scholarship 9 external components. To list but a few, Muslim sources from the medieval period until modernity, which were sometimes hostile to certain practices in Sufism, or denied it fully, Orientalist studies of the subject, works of Muslim reformists, as well as the contemporary scholarship which is dependent on earlier historical sources, all influence the scientific perception of Sufism today.49 However, Knysh’s definition of Sufism as “Islam in miniature, with the major features of Sufism pre­ sent in Islam and vice versa,” may in some cases appear problematic. The elabora­ tion that Sufism, like Islam, contained all features of a religious tradition, without highlighting the overlaps may be carelessly misunderstood to imply clear distinc­ tions between the two phenomena.50 Furthermore, continuous emphasis needs to be placed on the functions of Sufism which kept it integrated into the various versions of official Islam throughout centuries. This book aims to contribute by discussing Muslim thaumaturgical beliefs and practices in Syria as one aspect of the func­ tional link which made Sufism an integral element of eighteenth-century official religion in the Ottoman Province of Damascus. I approach Sufism as a mystical tradition which, for a long time (and before the modern period), represented a constituent element of official and mainstream religion, through its function as a primary medium for Muslim thaumaturgical traditions, along with many other mystical, ascetic, and devotional elements comprising the doctrine, beliefs, and practices in Islam. Instead of employing dichotomies of orthodox and heterodox, or high and low, which may lead to distinctions between mainstream Islam and Sufism, I argue that Sufism was inseparable from eighteenth-century Syrian Sunnism. Its roots were deep within premodern Ottoman religious traditions. It was only during the modern period that Muslim reformist thought attempted to push Sufism to the margins as a heterodox body of superstitions. Modern reformers achieved varying degrees of success in various regions and times. Before them, Sufism represented an important component of practiced Islam, which had a considerable influence on the social, economic, and political fields within the early modern Ottoman Empire. Recent scholarship produced ample evidence of this influence, and it may be worthwhile to explore the ways to align the history of early modern Syrian religion with some of the more recent scholarly findings. Religion of an Imperial Province: Eighteenth-Century Syrian Sufism, its Primary Sources, and Contemporary Scholarship Many studies were published on the history of Sufism in the Ottoman Empire, predominantly focused on Istanbul, Anatolia, and the Ottoman Balkans. Yet what kinds of processes allowed for the proliferation of Sufi ideas, beliefs, and practices during the Ottoman era, and how do these processes relate to early modern Prov­ ince of Damascus? The following discussion aims to suggest a way of filling the gap in the history of eighteenth-century Syria through the framework of existing secondary literature. The functional overlap between various ulamaic and Sufi groups in eighteenthcentury Syria represents one of the main foci of my study. In eighteenth-century

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Ottoman Bilād al-Shām, this overlap was demonstrated by officially appointed representatives of a highly centralized network of religious authorities. Of high importance were individuals such as Muḥammad Amīn Ibn ʿĀbidīn (1784–1836), ʿAbd al-Ghanī al-Nābulsī (1641–1731), or Muṣṭafā al-Bakrī (d.1749). Ibn ʿĀbidīn was a Damascene jurist and a Naqshbandīyya and Khalwatīyya Sufi order member. He was a descendant of a long line of Muslim scholars. In Damascus, he held the state-appointed position of a Fatwa Secretary (amīn al-fatwā).51 In his capacity as a jurist in charge of writing legal opinions, Ibn ʿĀbidīn wrote around fifty works that even today influence Hanafite jurists.52 ʿAbd al-Ghanī al-Nābulsī was also a descendant of a long line of Muslim scholars and wealthy Damascene urban patri­ cians. In addition, he was the highest-ranking Sufi shaykh and saint of his time. He belonged to the Qādirīyya and Naqshbandīyya orders and worked as a muftī, taught in many madrasas, and delivered sermons in mosques around the Province of Damascus.53 He trained many students, among whom was Muṣṭafā al-Bakrī, one of the most influential shaykhs of the Khalwatīyya order.54 Muṣṭafā al-Bakrī produced a great number of works, describing his pilgrimages and leaving trac­ tates on techniques of prayer and worship. He was a skilled networker who left considerable influence on many Sufi- ʿulamā’ as well as other Ottoman notables.55 The majority of the most prominent Muslim authors, since the medieval period and before modernity, were illustrative of the Sufi-ulamaic convergence. Such was the case with widely known Ibn Khaldūn (1332–1406), a conservative adherent to Ash’arite theology. Ibn Khaldūn held one of his mentors, Abū Mahdī ʿῙsā Ibn al-Zayyāt – an Andalusian gnostic, “great among the saints”56 – in high esteem. Ibn Khaldūn served as the rector of the Baybarsīyya Sufi lodge in Egypt57 and wrote a tractate on Sufism, which was very influential during the premodern times, while for today’s historians, it represents a valuable resource.58 These scholars exemplify powerful individuals with authority and social status defined through the engage­ ment with the ulamaic and Sufi institutions, wealth, and networking. Social categories frequently employed by eighteenth-century Damascene eru­ dites imply that the Sufi-ulamaic convergences were widely considered a matter of course. For instance, al-Murādī left a biographical dictionary of eighteenthcentury Syrian notables. Aside from the commoners (al-ʿāmma), this text most often refers to the Damascene classes of the scholars (al-ʿulamā’) and the righteous (al-ṣāliḥūn).59 Ibn ʿĀbidīn’s writing often indicates a similar social division.60 The term al-ʿulamā’ in eighteenth-century sources from Bilād al-Shām seems to rep­ resent an overarching category which refered to appointed legal authorities, thau­ maturgical professionals, and ranking Sufis (such as al-Nābulsī, for instance). The term indicates popular expectations of the overlap between the Sufis and the Mus­ lim scholars in eighteenth-century Bilād al-Shām. This functional overlap was not confined to one century nor to one given province. In scholarship today, however, the term ʿulamā’ often tends to imply scholars and jurists, yet not thaumaturges. With the exception of Albert Hourani and Aziz Al-Azmeh, historians very rarely noticed that the scientific approach to the premodern ulamaic role through such limitations distracts from understanding these groups’ priestly function in various types of historical Muslim states.61 Since the Abbasid and until the modern period,

Patterns of Grace in History and Scholarship 11 the ʿulamā’ establishment served mystagogic, initiatory62 and thaumaturgical func­ tions,63 in addition to their other responsibilities. Likewise, Sufi initiates with ula­ maic careers in mind were required to learn about the ulamaic scholarly methods, techniques, and disciplines, along with the requirements of their respective orders.64 Hüseyin Yılmaz traces an unprecedented level of entanglement between Sufi and ulamaic circles during the Ottoman period. Due to heavy reliance on the Sufi orders, they became invaluable for the Empire’s spread.65 The participation of Sufis in ulamaic offices had much earlier roots. Throughout the early medieval era, Sufis in the Middle East strove to bring their teachings in line with the main­ stream Sunni doctrine.66 Mysticism played a significant role both for ulamaic sodalities in state administration67 and individual scholars. Through the dissemi­ nation of texts and oral transmission, Sufism gradually became more aligned to the ulamaic teachings.68 With ʿAbd al-Karīm al-Qushayrī (986/987–1072/1073), Sufism seems to have reached the form in which it was able to resist charges of heterodoxy.69 The prominent Sufi shaykhs from the eleventh century onwards seemed to move seamlessly between madrasas and ṭuruq, demonstrating shared practice, language, and symbols.70 Ayfer Karakaya-Stump, Jonathan Berkey, and many other scholars see the jurist cum mystic, Abū Ḥāmid Muḥammad al-Ghazālī (1058–1111) as a pivotal figure for the development of Sufism.71 Al-Ghazālī’s work embodied the growing accept­ ance of Sufism by the ulamaic circles and contributed to the gradual harmoniz­ ing of institutional Sufi training and madrasa education.72 The utilization of the madrasa system by the Sufis was an important step towards the “hard institutional­ ization” of Sufi orders.73 The institutionalization of the madrasa system, started by the Saljuqs,74 reached its peak during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. By the 1500s, most madrasa teachers and judges had pensions, were divided into ranks, and had grades under state auspices. Most scholars’ names figured on state-pay ledgers.75 Since the eleventh century, the gradual alignment of Sufi doctrines to official versions of Muslim orthodoxy occurred in parallel with the development of institu­ tional Sufism – a transition from the individual master-disciple relationship model to the Sufi ṭuruq (sg. ṭarīqa; [Sufi] “path”) with large followings.76 Very early on, there existed a tendency of grouping Sufi adherents into clearly defined communi­ ties with distinct boundaries and internal rules.77 Erik Ohlander traces the processes through which Sufi education became increasingly tied to a particular location between roughly the eleventh and the thirteenth century. Sufi lodges became the places in which the core madrasa education was replicated by the disciples under a shaykh’s supervision.78 It is possible to trace the development of the lodge since its early emergence. Dina Le Gall distinguishes the three stages of the Sufi lodge development as the ribāṭ, the khanqa, and the zāwiyā. The early ribāṭ’s function was to host Sufis, as well as the poor of both genders. The khanqa in general represented a royal or a princely foundation that hosted numerous Sufis, who were however not attached to a particular master or a Sufi path. The third stage, the zāwiyā, was reserved specifi­ cally for a certain order’s master and his disciples.79 Ohlander adds the fourth stage,

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the ṭā’ifa, which developed during the Ottoman fifteenth century as an institution­ alized network of lodges belonging to the same order and under the supervision of a supreme master (shaykh al-ṭarīqa).80 The institutionalization of the location and method of teaching ran in parallel with the continuous alignment of Sufi doctrines with Sunni orthodoxy as the centu­ ries passed, allowing for a wider dissemination of texts as highly important media for the spread of Sufi ideas. During the Mamluk and Ottoman centuries, the names of scholars such as al-Suhrawardī and al-Gīlānī81 became eponyms to indicate a particular set of doctrines, practices, and methods tied to increasingly differentiat­ ing Sufi orders (ṭuruq). Their adherents commenced with codifying the collec­ tive past into concrete, self-regulating methods of organization and practice which were highly convenient for further reproduction.82 Adherents to a given order were expected to function as brotherhoods based upon the medieval futuwwā principle,83 its elaborations laden with confraternal expressions aimed to describe a commu­ nity of equals in faith.84 They were comparable to the concepts of brotherhoods in Christ which featured in European sources during the premodern times.85 However, clear ranks between the orders’ disciples seem to have begun emerging as early as the eleventh century, with initiates at the bottom and the masters of orders at the top.86 A transition was identifiable, meanwhile, from individual masters as the focus of all learning to the institution of the ṭarīqa with specific teachings, practice, and a set of doctrines.87 The legitimacy and authenticity of a given order was symbolized by that order’s silsila, which at the same time legitimized the authority of every individual shaykh of that order.88 Silsila represented a genealogical chain of knowledge and baraka­ transmission and succession that ranged from the still living Sufis all the way to a Sufi order’s eponymous founder, and at times further until the Prophet, often through ʿAlī Ibn Abī Ṭālib.89 Silsilas were fundamental for internal organization of various Sufi paths, as they represented core principles the ṭuruq were based on.90 Rooted into the silsila principle, the ṭuruq became efficient mechanisms of saint-making through the initiation of individuals,91 simultaneously functioning as baraka-conducting chains92 and isnads leading to important historical Muslims to ensure an order’s integrity. The orders’ masters were to be obeyed without ques­ tion.93 They commanded authority as the successors of a long line of Sufi shaykhs instead of functioning as individual teachers to isolated groups.94 The growingly bureaucratized ṭuruq gradually became institutionalized channels for the dissemi­ nation of Sufism as the secret legacy of the Prophet.95 During the early Ottoman period, emerging Sufi orders steadily grew in popu­ larity among the Ottoman subjects.96 While the Ottoman administration strove to consolidate its authority over official imperial religion and deal with its rivals – such as the emerging Safavid dynasty – many orders that aligned with Sunnism became much closer to the state top. Such was the case most prominently with the Khalwatīyya and Naqshbandīyya orders.97 At the same time, efforts have been made to align potentially problematic doctrines to the legislative norms of the Ottoman government. Illustrative examples are provided by the scholarly studies focused on the Bektashi order’s history.98

Patterns of Grace in History and Scholarship 13 The works of Ibn ʿArabī (d.1240) were invaluable for the history of the Ottoman Empire’s official religion. Early Ottoman scholars demonstrated mixed reactions to his works,99 yet he was later considered the patron saint of the Ottoman dynasty.100 Dubbed “the Grand Master (al-shaykh al-akbar)” by the Sufis of the following generations,101 Ibn ʿArabī received his spiritual and philosophical training from a Muḥammad Ibn Qāsim al-Tamīmī (d.1207/1208), who was a prominent Ḥadīth scholar and a biographer.102 He was buried in Damascus, and Selim I (1470–1520) endowed a large shrine complex around his tomb.103 The commissioning of Ibn ʿArabī’s shrine represented one of many pivotal events in the framework of the Ottoman policy of institutionalizing the Sufi ṭuruq under the control of the ruling class.104 Ottoman sources from the late fifteenth century onwards show an unprecedented degree of ṭuruq organization as institutional networks across the Empire and under control of state administration. The centralization of Sufi lodges’ networks reflects the Ottoman rulers’ effort to organize the Empire’s religion (and its orthodoxy), structure the orders of religious professionals to conform to state policies, and respond to pressures from both within and outside its borders.105 Investigations into Ottoman imperial patronage reveal a process of legitimization in which the state administration continuously distinguished orthodox and illicit practices.106 This process extended over both the Sufi and the ulamaic sodalities in the early modern period. The participation of state administration in the institutionalization of Sufi net­ works had roots in the medieval period. The governments of medieval Muslim states significantly affected the development of Sufi orders. Erik Ohlander criticizes the apparent reluctance of certain scholarship to acknowledge the ruling class’s sys­ tematic patronage of popular Sufi-scholars and the ṭuruq from the medieval period onwards.107 During the Abbasid reign, many prominent Sufis were appointed to high-ranking positions of significant social and political influence,108 such was the case with Abū Ḥafs al-Suhrawardī (1145–1234) under al-Nāṣir (1158–1225).109 The ulamaic sodalities had continuously assisted the Abbasid state in locating ways to justify the dynasty’s right to caliphate.110 The Abbasid caliph was claimed to be graced by God and appointed to ensure the natural cycle of divine order.111 In turn, the caliph provided legitimacy to the Sufi-ulamaic sodalities and made partner­ ships with them through granting tenures and official appointments. In addition, many Sufi-ʿulamā’ received lucrative landed properties and other privileges that allowed for a significant degree of economic power.112 In the aftermath of the Mon­ gol conquests, Sufi orders assisted the institutional and ideological amalgamation of various communities, amidst a vast and heterogeneous domain characterized by political discord.113 The Mongols themselves soon started to rely on the ṭuruq for a number of purposes ranging from education to proselytization.114 Researchers noticed a comparable state of affairs during the Ayyubid115 and the Saljuq116 reign. During the early modern period, Sufi ṭuruq assisted in justifying the mystical legacy of the Ottoman caliphate.117 While these mystical orders were conforming to the imperial expectations of the social and religious norms, they were becoming increasingly popular among the Ottoman elites. The state enforced Friday prayers

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and commissioned the erection of numerous madrasas, mosques and masjids, allowing the Sufi-ʿulamā’ to compete for appointments.118 By the sixteenth century, Sufis could hold important government posts, such as tenures at courts. Adherents of various mystical orders were taking a growingly significant role in many politi­ cal and jurisprudential matters. Michael Winter demonstrates the involvement of Sufis in state affairs on the case of ʿAbd al-Wahhāb al-Shaʿrānī (1493–1565). In Winter’s work, it is apparent that personal relationships between Sufi masters and office holders increased the shaykhs’ potential to influence state appointments.119 The participation of the Sufi-ʿulamā’ in politics, society, and economy of vari­ ous Muslim polities during the premodern centuries is well-documented.120 Similar to Sufi networks, during the Ottoman era, the increased bureaucratization of the state affected an unparalleled degree of centralization of Ottoman ulamaic groups and their official functions.121 The highest ranks of the ʿulamā’ were responsible to the two chief judges. They were in turn under the supervision of the shaykh al-islām, who operated under the rule of the sultan.122 Over time, the ulamaic net­ works became highly exclusive and privileged social groups.123 Most individuals who later gained reputation as prominent Sufi-ʿulamā’ com­ menced with their education at home with their families. They later joined one or several of the available Sufi orders. A large number of the Sufis, in addition, sought supervisors among the ʿulamā’ and received education which qualified them as jurists, theologians, or teachers. The Ottoman administration frequently appointed Sufi-ʿulamā’ members of patrician families at important jurisprudential and other administrative positions.124 However, even those of humble origins were able to accumulate social capital through acquaintances with the members of these net­ works.125 Officially appointed Sufi-scholars enjoyed askeri status, superior to the ordinary tax-paying subjects, and were immune to execution and confiscation.126 The ulamaic circles accumulated finances along with landed properties and the waqf institutions127 that secured the social and material status of families over the ensuing centuries.128 Careerism intensified among the appointed scholars, with an increase in documented attempts to manipulate occupational benefits for the pros­ perity of the appointees’ families.129 Madeline Zilfi sees the eighteenth century as a period of true arrogance and power of the ʿulamā’,130 caused in part by the dimin­ ishing of the Kadızadeli movement.131 Throughout the 1700s, the ʿulamā’ and the palace formed the same ruling enterprise.132 Prominent shaykhs often superintended lucrative property endowments, obtained important appointments from the state,133 and further networked with other groups of Ottoman imperial elites. Gatherings in Sufi lodges, for instance, as well as private assemblies (majlis, pl. majālis), allowed disciples and masters to mingle among influential merchants, artisans, and other notables.134 For instance, personal networks of the Khalwatīyya shaykh Muṣṭafā al-Bakrī, a student of al-Nābulsī, allowed him to become the gray eminence behind the Khalwatīyya initiation cam­ paign in Cairo. Al-Bakrī’s efforts led to a significant rise in the Khalwatīyya disci­ ples’ numbers. Many of them obtained important positions from the state. Nine of the Khalwatīyya members acquired tenures in the Cairene al-Azhar, with al-Bakrī’s

Patterns of Grace in History and Scholarship 15 student Muḥammad Ibn Sālim al-Ḥifnī (d.1767), a Pole of his time, becoming its rector.135 The Khalwatīyya’s popularity growth was interpreted in scholarship as this order’s revival.136 In the eighteenth century, the Ottoman ʿulamā’ maintained the use of traditional methods to control their knowledge transmission which also guarded access to their exclusive networks. The circulation of knowledge was regulated through the system of granting ijāzas. Religious scholars granted their students with several types of such documents to attest to the completion of various training stages. ʿIlm was taught in madrasas or mosques. The students could hope to obtain an ijāza, which would allow them to further transmit or discuss a particular text. Further­ more, certain ijāzas recognized a student’s aptitude to discuss a particular sub­ ject or confirmed the successful completion of training in a particular discipline. Finally, a shaykh could grant ijāzas of a general character, which would allow the students to teach all works that their master taught as well. All such documents represented institutional elements of one’s education.137 For the Muslim scholars, these certificates were invaluable while they looked for opportunities to teach law or issue legal opinions. With appropriate certification, the students would be able to pursue appointments in the legal or the educational madrasa system. Later on, some advanced to the position of judges or mudarrisūn.138 Sufi knowledge transmission also ended with the granting of ijāzas. These doc­ uments certified that the initiates trained in a particular discipline, allowed them to further transmit particular texts, or to teach and initiate new disciples.139 Sufi ijāzas were legitimized through an order’s silsila. Upon initiation, the disciples would tie a knot that symbolized the relationship of authority with their masters.140 New initiates would receive a cloak and a cap as symbols of their office.141 This act was comparable to initiation and graduation ceremonies in other scriptural religions.142 Hagiographies of saintly Sufi-ʿulamā’ were highlighting the entanglement between ʿilm and taṣawwuf,143 over time becoming the evidence of the increasing politicization of the ṭuruq.144 Communal Sufi affiliations represented a key mecha­ nism in the transition of Sufism from a secluded collection of spiritual teachings to an institution of widespread social and political presence in the Ottoman Empire.145 The Sufis came to represent an obvious corporate identity with specific gather­ ing centers, garments, “vows of allegiance and an arcane idiolect.”146 The Sufism that was taught represented an “increasingly institutionalized, confessionalized and domesticated” doctrine.147 The Ottoman state administration persisted in its efforts to centralize and align doctrinal and ritual conformity to social and political trends of the period148 – the appointment of Sufi shaykhs, preachers and teachers largely came under control of Istanbul.149 The masters of those orders that were most cor­ respondent to the Ottoman political designs acquired immense renown,150 which attracted numerous scholars. The Sufi-ʿālim overlap became a common occur­ rence151 and has recently been documented in many relevant scholarly works.152 In light of this premodern overlap between the Sufi and ulamaic institutions, it is possible to discuss the distinction between Sufism and official Islam only after the advent of Muslim reformism. However, a highly relevant element for defining the

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premodern Sufi-ulamaic role is still missing from the present discussion. In addi­ tion to lucrative endowments, enviable prestige in various social environments, and sociopolitical influence, Sufi-scholars of the Ottoman Empire enjoyed widespread beliefs that they were the recipients of divine grace, which enabled them to per­ form wonders. In addition to their other duties, they served as intercessors between the common people and God and as institutional dispensers of divine grace. The ʿulamā’ of eighteenth-century Damascus served as leaders of prayers (imāms), held sermons as khāṭibs, or preached as wuʿāẓ and performed other devotional func­ tions. As I discuss in the following chapters, the eighteenth-century Syrian Sufi­ ʿulamā’ performed daily thaumaturgical interventions such as curing injuries and sicknesses, or banishing daemons through exorcisms.153 They assisted the people in baraka-harvesting. It was also believed that their baraka prevented misfortunes or natural disasters.154 These beliefs were comparable to the widespread beliefs in the thaumaturgical power of the Catholic priesthoods in early modern Europe.155 The practices and beliefs related to divine grace156 represented mechanical157 aspects of premodern scriptural religions158 and were, as Keith Thomas observes in his lengthy study of early modern England, impossible to separate from devotional religion prior to the Reformation (in Catholicism,159 for instance, as well as in other forms of Christianity160), and the modern reforms in Islam.161 Anthropologically and technically comparable to various magical practices162 yet, through a long line of theologians, defined as the power to cause wonders through divine will, the mechanical aspect of Islam – its thaumaturgy – was as important as its devotional counterpart, and the two were inseparable in the domain of religious belief and practice. It was widely believed that Allah’s grace, baraka, represented the energy behind thaumaturgical acts. The beliefs in baraka tied the Sufi and ulamaic confra­ ternities into an institutionalized body of divine grace dispensers.163 A Network of Wonders: The Place for Sufism in Eighteenth-Century Shām This book approaches Sufism as a body of mystical beliefs and practices which contained the mechanical aspects164 of Islam, and which was largely comprised of Muslim thaumaturgical traditions. I consider Sufism inseparable from premodern Islam, where it contained a body of fully Muslim thaumaturgical beliefs and prac­ tices that inspired the cultivation and ensured maintenance of the Muslim network of the holy. The network of the holy further represented the foundation of the Otto­ man early modern state religion. The Ottoman network of the holy was reflected in early modern popular beliefs in special individuals, places, and objects, interconnected by divine grace. Its foundation was the network of religious professionals defined by the Sufi-ʿulamā’ whose authority over religious matters was certified by the Ottoman administra­ tion. The beliefs in their baraka were endorsed by the state as well, for instance through granting important appointments to the alleged wonder-workers or through public demonstrations of belief in ulamaic grace.165 The network of the holy further comprised of the social networks of the Sufi ṭuruq and of living Muslim saints. It

Patterns of Grace in History and Scholarship 17 contained a system for the conveyance of Allah’s grace, most often in the form of pedigrees of individuals through the pedigrees of Sufi paths. The eighteenth-century Shāmī network of the holy was widely conceived as laden with baraka and was believed to have only partially been immanentist – observable in the material world.166 According to common beliefs, the network of Allah’s baraka was comprised of praeternatural, or transcendental167 entities as well, such as the deceased saints, as well as the prophets and other mystical beings, like al-Khiḍr.168 Al-Khiḍr was frequently referred to as a saint in eighteenthcentury Shām. He was widely venerated and had many shrines in his honor.169 Such entities were believed to coexist with the living human beings, albeit unseen, and to participate in daily affairs, especially when invoked to do so through ritu­ alistic action. Baraka was further believed to reside in certain natural objects, such as special trees, rocks or caves, joined within a particularly “Muslim folk geology.”170 I con­ sider such objects elements of the Ottoman network of baraka. Together with hal­ lowed shrines, they formed a religious landscape that served as a focus and catalyst for the communal sense of confessional identity.171 Studies into the Ottoman network of the holy contain potential to indicate an intricate religious dynamic that in significant ways affected the religious, social, political, and economic life of the Ottoman Empire. With the network of the holy, the Sufi-ʿulamā’, through their thaumaturgical and devotional, as well as sociopo­ litical and economic engagement, cultivated and maintained the corpus of early modern Muslim beliefs and practices among the Ottoman subjects. They kept their authority over religious matters by continually claiming association with the divine through Allah’s grace. I argue that the combination of Sufi training and official state appointments of an ʿālim during the Ottoman period represents the key to locating and defining functions of what might be sociologically (but not theologically or liturgically) identified as a Muslim priesthood,172 without intentions to create blind and robust comparisons with, for instance, Christian priestly establishments.173 I use the term “priesthood” in reference to the highly exclusive, establishmentarian group of reli­ gious professionals who over time kept particular vocabulary, particular behav­ ior, as well as special garments as symbols of their office – Alexander Russell, for instance, noticed that established Sufi shaykhs in eighteenth-century Aleppo wore ulamaic robes in public.174 The members of this priestly sodality were united by a common educational itinerary, a strong sense of corporate identity, preroga­ tives and privileges, and a monopoly over devotional and educational functions. In addition, the ʿulamā’ traditionally kept the idea that they were the successors of prophets after the demise of the caliphate.175 The Sufi-ʿulamā’ were further in prac­ tice defined and self-defined through their de facto role as intercessors – between Allah and the people, as well as between political authorities and their subjects – even though Islam had no clear theological equivalent of this function.176 The Sufi­ ʿulamā’ sodality institutionally dispensed grace and brought other transcendental goods to the people,177 in addition to its work on legislation, education, and social control. Such beliefs are further evident from the interaction of the Damascenes

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with foreign priests. James Grehan noticed the Damascenes’ belief that European Christian clerics possessed thaumaturgical powers of their own.178 The historical concept of Allah’s grace reflects Weber’s sociological conceptu­ alization of charisma,179 defined as a quality that distinguished certain individuals as allegedly endowed with praeternatural competencies.180 Instead of indicating the decline of charisma in the face of emerging institutions and bureaucracies, how­ ever,181 primary sources show that the scholars of the Ottoman Empire continued to rely on the charisma of their office,182 based in large part on the popular belief in their grace. The fluidity of the process through which charisma passed from indi­ viduals to institutions allowed for the growth of the network of the holy, as well as for the spread of Sufi teachings and the cults of saints across the Ottoman imperial domains and broader. Beliefs in their grace were invaluable for the Sufi-ulamaic circles to establish an exclusive niche for their profession over the passage of time, accompanied by its own prerogatives and privileges. Religion, Thaumaturgy, and Magic in Ottoman Syria: Possible Scholarly Approaches Another highly important point I make in this book is that eighteenth-century Syr­ ian thaumaturgical practices were technically, anthropologically, and conceptu­ ally homologous to magical practices and beliefs present in the region and further afield. Comparisons may be drawn to show that such was the state of affairs across the Ottoman realm. However, the Sufi-ʿulamā’ sodalities over time developed social, legal, and theological distinctions183 between wonder-working and magic, creating a boundary between themselves as the institutional baraka-dispensing body, and the rest of the people, who were forbidden to study and practice thauma­ turgy without official guidance. The relationship between magic (siḥr) and wonder (karāma) in premodern Islam seems comparable to relationships between thau­ maturgy and magic in other religious traditions. Studies in comparative religion, however, expose a gap pertinent to analyses of this binary. The anthropological, technical, and conceptual similarity between certain reli­ gious rituals and magic prompted Eugene Subbotsky to conclude that religion con­ tained sanctioned magic.184 Subbotsky’s definition reflects the indicated scholarly gap that owes to the rarity with which discussions of thaumaturgy feature in schol­ arly works. The consequences of this rarity appear in scholarship on Sufism as well – without debates on thaumaturgy, Muslim mysticism was at times compared to Arab magic (siḥr),185 and these categories seem blurred in contemporary litera­ ture.186 It is possible to identify the influence of broader scholarly works on religion and magic in scholarship about Sufism as well. The evolutionary theories of reli­ gion, which see magic as a primitive form of religious behavior,187 influenced later authors to locate magic at the margins of religions.188 Emile Durkheim explained religion as an already advanced system of subcults and practices, which represents a higher stage of the evolution of faith. Durkheim held that magic remains outside the boundaries of religion.189 Similar attitudes may be observed in Grehan’s narra­ tive which may imply the development and popularization of the beliefs in baraka

Patterns of Grace in History and Scholarship 19 and wonder-working traditions from within a widespread and prevalent agrarian milieu.190 For Marcel Mauss and other classical scholars on these subjects, such as James Frazer and Bronislaw Malinowski, magic was a little religion, one con­ cerned with immediate goals191 and ultimately representative of a primitive form of a higher, religious understanding of abstract supernatural entities.192 Alexander Knysh in 2017 defined Sufism as “Islam in miniature,” which may be problematic in case it leads to similar presumptions about Muslim beliefs and practice tied to baraka and wonder-working.193 To avoid such problems and investigate deeper into the dynamics between premodern religions and magical traditions, it is necessary to include thauma­ turgy as the third category that stood between the binaries of religion and magic. Thaumaturgy partially intersected with magical beliefs and practices, yet repre­ sented a constituent element of premodern religions. In Islam, it was represented mainly by Sufism. Eugene Subbotsky’s statement that religion contained sanc­ tioned magic194 needs to be revised by stating that religion contained sanctioned beliefs and practices developed around the concept of wonder-working through divine grace – a given religion’s thaumaturgical tradition. Despite the techni­ cal, anthropological, and conceptual parallels between thaumaturgy and magic, there existed an array of sociopolitical, jurisprudential, and theological distinc­ tions between the two, developed by religious authorities in office. Through such distinctions, the sodality of religious professionals pertinent to a given religion established their role as dispensers of divine grace, outlawing other practition­ ers as illicit wizards and magicians. Such was the case with eighteenth-century Syrian Sufism, which was distinguished from magic through the engagement of Muslim priestly sodalities. The advent of Muslim reformism brought the Sufi-ʿulamā’ thaumaturgical practices into question. During the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries, many such practices became classified as superstitions. Comparisons are therefore possible between such changes in Ottoman Syria and similar historical processes that occurred, for instance, in Europe with the advent of Protestantism. What Remains: Eighteenth-Century Syrian Sources The empirical base for my research is built in part on daily chronicles produced in Syria during the 1700s. I am using these volumes to track important events and mine data about the Sufi-ʿulamā’ sodalities, as well as other individuals. Of interest are several autodidactic authors who chronicled events within eighteenth-century Damascus. These authors represented the research subject of many today’s his­ torians.195 The chronicle of Damascus written by the famous Damascene barber, Shihāb al-Dīn Aḥmad Ibn Budayr, contains the most material relevant for study­ ing Damascene religious customs. Laden with narratives about people’s beliefs, local saints, and holy madmen, Ibn Budayr’s chronicle illustrates well the everyday religious customs and practices in eighteenth-century Damascus. In addition, Ibn Budayr paid heed to omens and practiced many important customs himself, such as the pilgrimage to saints buried around the provincial capital. I further read a

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chronicle written by a court clerk from Homs, Muḥammad al-Makkī. Information about popular religion is scarcer in this text, which is best used for topographi­ cal references. The chronicle of Mikhā’īl Burayk, who was a senior cleric of the Christian Orthodox establishment in Damascus, offers data about religious beliefs and customs of both Christian and Muslim Damascene inhabitants, allowing for comparisons between these two confessions in eighteenth-century Syria. Certified scholars amply wrote about Shām as well. For instance, Muḥammad Ibn ʿĪsā Ibn Kannān (d.1740) wrote of Damascene (Yawmiyāt; “Daily Events”) ulamaic net­ works in ample detail that helps uncover the dynamics between religious profes­ sionals in this eighteenth-century provincial capital. Bibliographical dictionaries are another highly relevant genre. I am amply using the work of Muḥammad Khalīl al-Murādī (1759–1791), who compiled the biographies of important scholars, notables, and politicians of eighteenth-century Bilād al-Shām. This dictionary helps map out the Damascene networks of the holy and trace their dynamics. Al-Murādī systematically recorded the data about individuals whose baraka was believed in. Some of these individuals were not counted among the elites of Damascus, which reveals the significance of baraka in eighteenth-century Syrian society as a trait which would make the ulamaic cir­ cles enlist one of the common people in their tally of important Damascenes. Al-Murādī’s work is useful for the analysis of baraka as a social marker. Scholarly works of many eighteenth-century Sufi-ʿulamā’ reflect the influence of religious rigorists active at the time. Fundamentalism induced the production of apologetic works by the ulamaic sodalities in power. Two distinct streams of reli­ gious rigorism influenced matters of religion (as well as, to an extent, social life) in eighteenth-century Province of Damascus alongside Sunni mainstream. One of these was the trace and remaining presence of the seventeenth-century Kadızadeli movement. The other emerged in the Arabian Peninsula during the eighteenth cen­ tury with the Wahhābī movement. While the latter was an object of derision that remained distant from the Syrian urban hubs, the Kadızadelis were much better networked. Their presence severely impacted religious and social matters in Istan­ bul, as well as in Syria and Egypt.196 The Sufi-ʿulamā’ in Damascus appear to have formulated their response to these movements in works of apologetic theology where they discussed Sufism, the cult of saints in Islam, and many religious and thaumaturgical practices. I read such volumes in parallel with the record of reli­ gious practices left by eighteenth-century chroniclers and Sufi masters to gather data about the boundaries of licit thaumaturgical practice, as well as the extant beliefs in miracles, wonders, and Allah’s grace. Works of apologetic theology fur­ ther make possible to identify responses to the doctrinal attacks launched by the eighteenth-century Muslim rigorists. The legal and religious authorities of Damas­ cus wrote amply about various elements of the Ottoman network of the holy. They also elaborated upon what they considered blasphemous and antinomian types of religious behavior, chastising certain groups as heretical. Invaluable is the collection of treatises (Majmūʿat Rasā’il) by Muḥammad Ibn ʿĀbidīn (1784–1836). This collection contains a lengthy text committed to defend­ ing the legacy of Ibn ʿĀbidīn’s Sufi master, Khālid al-Naqshbandī (d.1827), from

Patterns of Grace in History and Scholarship 21 opponents and skeptics.197 Ibn ʿĀbidīn took time to describe the Ottoman network of the holy in detail, warning of the need to respect Muslim saints. Ibn ʿĀbidīn’s text highlights in detail the distinctions between Muslim thaumaturgical practices and magic, which was for him daemonic and blasphemous. Those who doubted the Muslim saints (such as the representatives of rigorist streams in the region) are denounced as heretics and ignoramuses. It is also possible to identify the traces of apologetic writing about the Sufis and the Muslim saints in Ibn ʿĀbidīn’s magnum opus, Answer to the Baffled (Radd al-Muḥtār). This work contains Ibn ʿĀbidīn’s legal opinions on prayer, pilgrimage, charity, fasting, marriage and divorce, prop­ erty and inheritance laws, and customary law. In addition to such matters, Radd contains descriptions of the proper ways of praying, as well as of ritualistic sacri­ fice. Hanafite Sunni scholars today still consult Ibn ʿĀbidīn’s works. ʿAbd al-Ghanī al-Nābulsī left apologetic works himself. His treatise of deceased saints, Revealing Light (Kashf al-Nūr), offers his views on the logic and necessity of Muslim saintly cults. It further describes practices at saintly shrines. The Lordly Revelation (al-Fatḥ al-Rabbānī) analyzes themes such as sinning, repentance, blas­ phemy, and other matters of faith. As a contemporary of the Kadızadeli move­ ment, al-Nābulsī wrote a document entitled Explanations of the Muḥammadan Way (Sharḥ al-Ṭarīqa al-Muḥammadīyya) to address detractors and justify Sufi beliefs and practices. To better understand rigorist attitudes which inspired al-Nābulsī’s, Ibn ʿĀbidīn’s, and many other authors’ apologetics, I discuss the work of Mar ʿī al-Karmī (d.1623/1624). Al-Karmī was selected due to his exceptional erudition and wide renown. He was a Hanbalite judge from Cairo and a prominent represent­ ative of Muslim rigorist thought. An adherent to Ibn Taymīyyan hostility against Muslim cults of saints, al-Karmī wrote the Healing of Breasts (Shifā’ al-Ṣudūr) in which he openly and aggressively attacks the veneration of saints and the customs of ziyāra. I also make use of the texts of Birgivī Mehmed, partially the ideological inspiration behind the Kadızadeli movement, as well as of Ibn Taymīyya, the medi­ eval scholar of wide renown who caused much controversy with his skepticism towards Muslim saintly cults. Comparisons of eighteenth-century apologetic theological works with documents about religion produced during earlier centuries allow for approaching Shāmī reli­ gious practice from a longue durée perspective. Through such approaches, it may become evident that the form of Sunnism that was prevalent in eighteenth-century Syria belongs to a long tradition of Muslim religious beliefs and practices. Of sig­ nificant help for diachronic comparisons, and acquiring a deeper understanding of the discussed topics, is the famous Prolegomenon of the historian Ibn Khaldūn or al-Baqillānī’s work on magic and religion. To broaden discussions of the relation­ ship between the visible and invisible worlds in the premodern Muslim imaginary, I read the classical works of authors such as al-Damīrī (d.1405), and al-Qazwīnī (1203–1283). These authors wrote about the jinn as creatures that cohabited the world with the rest of the human beings. Their texts contain suggestions of proper apotropaic rites to be performed in case one encounters such creatures, or other dangerous phenomena, and demonstrate a long tradition of belief that lasted among the Muslims until the modern period (and in some cases until the present).

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To discuss thaumaturgical practices, I read Sufi manuals produced or cop­ ied during the eighteenth century. Highly relevant is the text written in 1795 by Muḥammad al-Kīlānī about the initiation, training, and granting ijāzas to the Qādirīyya Sufi disciples. It is entitled al-Durra al-Bahīyya (The Gorgeous Pearl). Muḥamad al-Kīlānī also copied a treatise written by a Shafi’ite scholar, Muḥammad Ibn Aḥmad al-Shawbarī (1569–1659). This treatise, entitled al-Ajwiba ʿan al-Asʾila (Answers to the Questions), discusses Muslim saints and their wonders. In addition, I use a number of thaumaturgical manuals written by anonymous authors (or groups of authors) and copied during the eighteenth century. These manuals occasionally refer to various important Sufi figures from the medieval period and onwards, further discussing in detail many elements of Sufi thauma­ turgical practice, such as repelling forces of evil, studying divine names, reciting invocations, or crafting charms and talismans. They may have been used for train­ ing Sufi disciples over the passage of time. This material is helpful for gaining an overview of the proceedings of thaumaturgical rituals. These volumes at times contain texts written in Arabic and Ottoman Turkish, which indicates that they were widely circulated over the passage of time. Compendium of All Arts (Majmūʿ min kul Fann) is a book about various rituals. Most of its content is committed to instructing the readers into prayers and supplications which were believed to attain immediate results, such as curing sickness, deflecting evil and attaining general well-being. It demonstrates the reliance of certain Muslim thaumaturgical practices on the position of celestial bodies, the four elements of the world, as well as the days of the week. It further describes the production of some talismans and seals. The Compendium also offers the description of the twelve jinnic clans and some possible ways to contend with them. I am reading another thaumaturgical manual, simply labeled as a Collection (Majmūʿa), which contains numerous apotropaic and prophylactic rites and prayers, and further focuses on crafting various objects of power, such as talismans or amulets. Letters in Sand (Risāla fī al-Ramal; a trea­ tise on divination and many other aumaturgical practices) is a lengthy tome about the mysterious power of Arabic letters and their use in talismanics and divination, also offering invocations for a variety of purposes. The widespread respect for the Muslim saints induced the development of par­ ticular religious customs connected with pilgrimage (ziyāra) to saintly shrines. Particular prayers and other religious actions were believed more powerful if per­ formed near saintly tombs. To gather information about these practices, as well as to gain a geographical awareness of Damascene saintly tombs, I use eighteenthcentury Sufi travelogues, as well as travel guides for the pilgrims. Among his many written works, ʿAbd al-Ghanī al-Nābulsī left important riḥlas. These works describe the locations of the Muslim shrines and their interiors in eighteenthcentury Syria, Lebanon, and Palestine. At the same time, it is possible to gather information about the ritual procedure conducted within the shrines from this material. Riḥlat Bilād al-Shām wa Miṣr wa al-Ḥijāz traces al-Nābulsī’s travels through Syria, Egypt, and Hijaz. Al-Riḥla al-Ṭarābulusīyya is concerned with the saint’s trip to Tripoli in 1700. Ḥullat al-Dhahab contains al-Nābulsī’s early trav­ els to Lebanon. One of the more famous students of this saint, Muṣṭafā al-Bakrī (d.1749) left a document entitled al-Riḥla al-Qudsīyya (Jerusalem Journey; dated to

Patterns of Grace in History and Scholarship 23 1710) that describes al-Bakrī’s pilgrimages in Palestine. In addition, Ibn Kannān left a Brief Summary of the History of al-Ṣāliḥīyya (Talkhīṣ Tārīkh al-Ṣāliḥīya, 1727). The Damascene al-Ṣāliḥīyya district contained much religious importance due to the high number of its Sufi lodges, frequently built near important saintly tombs. Many saintly graves were located there as well,198 and the author left a detailed list within his topographical work. Finally, Ibn Kannān offers details about the locations of some other Damascene sacred places, such as the caves on Mount Qasioun. In addi­ tion to Ibn Kannān’s work on al-Ṣāliḥīyya, the traveling guide to Damascus authored by Aḥmad al-Manīnī (d.1758) is used for the eighteenth-century Damascene context. To broaden empirical knowledge about the Damascene hallowed tombs, I use works on saintly shrines from earlier centuries. Such are the chronicles of Ibn ʿAbd al-Razzāq (1664–1725), Maḥmūd al-ʿAdawī (d.1622), and Imād al-Dīn al-Ḥanafī (d.1494). Comparison between these texts demonstrates the continuous beliefs in Damascene saints over the passage of time. Travel accounts and ethnographical works produced by foreigners are help­ ful for the research of Syrian premodern Islam. Western travelers to the Middle East often wrote down a number of details tied to various Muslim religious rituals, which are otherwise absent from Arabic sources. The local authors did not pen them down presumably because they were widespread enough to be taken for mat­ ters of course. Henry Maundrell (1665–1701) was an Oxford academic who later joined the clergy of the Church of England. In 1697, he went to pilgrimage to Jeru­ salem through Syria with fifteen other individuals. He kept a detailed journal that I read here, since it contains descriptions of Muslim shrines, as well as of popular religious behavior in Syria and Palestine. Maundrell did not live to see his journal published. Alexander Russell (1715–1768) was a Scottish physician and historian of nature who wrote about the social customs in Aleppo, where he was resident between 1740 and 1754. His account gives information about the religious customs of the eighteenth-century Aleppines. Constantin François de Chassebœuf, Count de Volney (1757–1820) was a French philosopher and an orientalist who traveled through Syria and Egypt between 1783 and 1785. His Travels contain his impres­ sions of the Sufis, their practices, and their influence on state economy. John Lewis Burckhardt (Johann Ludwig Burckhardt; 1784–1817) was a Swiss traveler who assumed the name Shaykh Ibrāhīm Ibn ʿAbd Allah. He left an ethnographic work that in detail describes the customs of the Sunni Muslims and pays much note to religious beliefs and practice. This work is entitled Travels in Syria, while his Notes on the Bedouins and Wahabys describes the problems Syrian and Egyptian people faced during the Bedouin raids at the end of the early modern period. Ethnographies written during the later centuries indicate that religious prac­ tice among the peoples of the Middle East did not witness much change with the passage of time. This is visible from the work of Louis du Couret (1812–1867) who wrote about his travels through Egypt. Employed under Muḥammad ʿAlī, du Couret converted to Islam and performed the Ḥajj, leaving much evidence about the Muslim practices of worship and the Sufi lodges in the Middle East. Edward William Lane (1801–1876) was an orientalist scholar and a lexicographer. In the nineteenth century, Lane arrived to Egypt, lived there between 1825 and 1828 (and returned for additional research in 1833), and published his Manners and Customs,

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which contains helpful information about religious customs in the Middle East and further indicates a continuity of Muslim religious traditions over the passage of time and across space. The beginning of the twentieth century brought along a number of anthropo­ logical and ethnographical works, which in detail analyzed Muslim religious prac­ tices in Syria and Palestine. I use the work of Samuel Ives Curtiss (1844–1904), Primitive Semitic Religion To-day, and an even more important book of a Palestin­ ian physician and anthropologist, Taufik Canaan (1882–1964). Canaan’s Moham­ medan Saints is fully committed to discussing matters tied to the cult of saints in modern Palestine. These books and documents shed light on many issues pertinent to the history of religion in Ottoman Syria before and after modernity. The information within allows for a detailed discussion of the relationship between religion, magic, and thaumaturgy, in Damascus of the eighteenth century, which represents the main subject of the next chapter. Notes 1 See Chapter 5. 2 The saint paraphrased a very old and curious quote, saying: “inna allah rijālan idhā naẓarū ilā al-ḥajar yaṣīr dhahaban.” The paraphrase comes from a saying often com­ an monly attributed to the Sufis, which goes: “inna allah rijālan [ibād ] idhā arādū arāda,” ֫ which is justified by the idea that the Sufis’ will is attuned to the eternal will of the divine – they wanted only what Allah wanted. The saying represents an object of atten­ tion even today, on numerous online portals, while variations of it may be found in older Shi’ite Ḥadīth collections. See, for instance, Biḥār al-Anwār 26:14 and Kitāb al-Kāfī 2:352. Special thanks to István Kristó-Nagy and Kumail Rajani for their assistance with tracking this saying down. Sufis, however, often took great liberty in both citing and interpreting Ḥadīth material. See Rüdiger Lohlker, “ ‘Abd al-Karīm al-Jīlī and The Praxis of Ḥadīth,” Ulumuna 25, No. 1 (July, 2021): 35–55. 3 Abdul-Karim Rafeq, “Relations Between the Syrian “Ulamā” and the Ottoman State in the Eighteenth Century,” Oriente Moderno 79/1 (1999): 81, Albert Hourani, The His­ tory of the Arab Peoples (Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2002), 255, Steve Tamari, “Biography, Autobiography, and Identity in Early Modern Damascus,” in Auto/Biography and the Construction of Identity and Community in the Middle East, ed. Mary Ann Fay (New York: Palgrave, 2001), 42–43, Itzchak Weis­ mann, The Naqshbandiyya: Orthodoxy and Activism in a Worldwide Sufi Tradition (London & New York: Routledge, 2007), 75–76, or John O. Voll, “Sufi Brotherhoods: Trans-cultural/Trans-state Networks in the Muslim World,” in Interactions: Transre­ gional Perspectives on World History, ed. Jerry H. Bentley, Renate Bridenthal, and A. Yang (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2005), 38–39. 4 Muḥammad Khalīl al-Murādī, Silk al-Durar fī Aʿyan al-Qarn al-Thānī ʿAshar [A String of Pearls among the Notables of the Eighteenth Century], ed. Akram Ḥassan al-ʿUlabī. Four volumes (Beirut: Dār Ṣādir, 2002), 1:228–234. 5 The term usually corresponds to the Arabic word taṣawwuf which has commonly been taken to mean “adorning oneself in wool,” thus becoming a Sufi, due to the supposed habit of the Sufis to wear wool instead of more luxurious clothing. This gesture is tied to the world-renouncing thesis – see, for instance Carl W. Ernst, Sufism: An Introduction to the Mystical Tradition of Islam (London: Shambhala, 2011), 1–17. Other theories tie the term to the Greek sophos, “wisdom.” Both theories seem purely conjectural. See Mark

Patterns of Grace in History and Scholarship 25

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11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19

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J. Sedgwick, Western Sufism: From the Abbasids to the New Age (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017), 84. Gr. θαῦμα – “miracle;” ἔργον – “work;” with θαυματουργία in Ancient Greek, indicating the working of miracles or wonders. This belief lasted for centuries. See Josef W. Meri, The Cult of Saints Among Muslims and Jews in Medieval Syria (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 100–116. See Chapters 2 and 6 for a clarification of the difference between the two. See, for instance, Max Weber, The Sociology of Religion, In Economy and Society 1 (Boston: Beacon Press, 1993), 28–31, 115–137, and Bourdieu, “Genesis,” 9–14. The phrasing owes to Keith Thomas, who used it to refer to the thaumaturgical func­ tions of the early modern English Catholic Church. See Keith Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic: Studies in Popular Beliefs in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century England (London: Penguin, 1991), 31. It is highly relevant for the function of the ula­ maic sodalities in the early modern Ottoman Empire and shall be used throughout the following chapters. See cooke and Lawrence, “Introduction,” 1–5. A detailed discussion against approaching Islam as a monolith may be found in Aziz AlAzmeh, The Times of History: Universal Topics in Islamic Historiography (Budapest & New York: Central European University Press, 2007), 47–61. Shahab Ahmed, What is Islam? The Importance of being Islamic (Princeton & Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2016), 97–101. Ahmed, Islam, 404–405, 542. miriam cooke and Bruce B. Lawrence, “Introduction,” in Muslim Networks: From Hajj to Hip Hop, ed. miriam cooke and Bruce B. Lawrence (Chapel Hill & London: The University of North Carolina Press, 2005), 1. Christian Smith, Religion: What it is, How it Works and Why it Matters (Princeton & Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2017), 27–28. Pierre Bourdieu, “Genesis and Structure of the Religious Field,” Comparative Social Research, 13 (1991): 22, 28–29. Thomas, Decline, 31. See Marinos Sariyannis, “Ottoman Occultism and its Social Contexts: Preliminary Remarks,” Aca’ib: Occasional papers on the Ottoman perceptions of the supernatural 3 (2022): 35–36. For a broader context, see Bernd-Christian Otto and Michael Stausberg, ed. Defining Magic: A Reader (Sheffield and Bristol: Equinox Publishing, 2013), 1–15. On its own, the term “Arab” is highly problematic and of questionable descriptive and explanatory value. For a detailed breakdown of its nuances, see Peter Webb, Imagining the Arabs: Arab Identity and the Rise of Islam (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2017), 1–10. This problem was discussed in Karl Barbir, Ottoman Rule in Damascus, 1708–1758 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980), 3–10. Abdul-Karim Rafeq, The Province of Damascus, 1723–1783 (Beirut: Khayats, 1966), 1. David Dean Commins, Islamic Reform: Politics and Social Change in Late Ottoman Syria (New York & Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990), 64, and Albert Hourani, Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age, 1798–1939 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1962), 54, 62. John Spencer Trimingham, The Sufi Orders in Islam (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971), 1–30, 83, 229. Jonathan P. Berkey, The Formation of Islam: Religion and Society in the Near East, 600–1800 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 231. Liana Saif places the institutionalization of Sufism in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, observ­ ing the gradual split between metaphysical theory and thaumaturgical healing from the eleventh until the fourteenth century. See Liana Saif, “Between Medicine and Magic: Spiritual Aetiology and Therapeutics in Medieval Islam,” in Demons and Illness from Antiquity to the Early Modern Period, ed. Siam Bhayro (Leiden & Boston: Brill, 2017),

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Patterns of Grace in History and Scholarship 335–338. Also see Liana Saif, The Arabic Influences on Early Modern Occult Philoso­ phy (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), 1–8. For instance, see Nathan Hofer, The Popularisation of Sufism in Ayyubid and Mam­ luk Egypt, 1173–1325 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2015), 1–32, Daphna Ephrat, “Sufism and Sanctity: The Genesis of the Wali Allah in Mamluk Jerusalem and Hebron,” and Boaz Shoshan, “Popular Sufi Sermons in late Mamluk Egypt,” in Mam­ luks and Ottomans: Studies in Honour of Michael Winter, ed. David J. Wasserstein and Ami Ayalon (London & New York: Routledge, 2006), 4–18, 106–113 (respectively). For the Ottoman context, illustrative is Cemal Kafadar, Between Two Worlds: The Construc­ tion of the Ottoman State (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995), 52, 140–142, as well as Markus Dressler, “Inventing Orthodoxy: Competing Claims for Authority and Legitimacy in the Ottoman-Safavid Conflict,” in Legitimizing the Order: The Ottoman Rhetoric of State Power, ed. Hakan T. Karateke and Maurus Reinkowski (Boston: Brill, 2005), 151–173. Further see John J. Curry, The Transformation of the Mystical Thought in the Ottoman Empire: The Rise of the Halveti Order 1350–1650 (Edinburgh: Edin­ burgh University Press, 2010), 1–15, Mustapha Sheikh, Ottoman Puritanism and its Discontents: Aḥmad al-Rūmī al-Āqḥisārī and the Qāḍīzādelis (Oxford: Oxford Univer­ sity Press, 2016), 1–41, Winter, Society & Religion in Early Ottoman Egypt: Studies in the Writings of ʿAbd al-Wahhāb al-Shaʿrānī (New Brunswick & London, 2009), 11–30, or Riza Yıldırım, “The Rise of the ‘Religion and State’ Order: Re-confessionalization of State and Society in the Early Modern Ottoman Empire,” and John J. Curry, “Some Reflections on the Fluidity of Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy in an Ottoman Sunni Con­ text,” in Ottoman Sunnism: New Perspectives, ed. Vefa Erginbas (Edinbrough: Edin­ brough University Press, 2019), 12–46, 193–210, Examples are numerous. The present volume deals with the Ottoman period and shall supply references throughout the text. For other geographical contexts, see for instance Azfar Moin, “The ‘Ulama’ as Ritual Specialists: Cosmic Knowledge and Political Rituals,” in The Wiley Blackwell History of Islam, ed. Armando Salvatore (Oxford: Wiley Blackwell, 2018), 377–392. Further see Azfar Moin, “The Crown of Dreams: Sufis and Princes in Sixteenth-Century Iran,” in The Millennial Sovereign: Sacred Kingship and Sainthood in Islam (New York: Columbia University Press, 2012), 56–93. Moin deals with this topic in the whole book. See Markus Dressler, Ron Geaves, and Gritt Klinkhammer, “Introduction,” in Sufis in Western Society: Global Networking and Locality, ed. Markus Dressler, Ron Geaves and Gritt Klinkhammer (Abingdon: Routledge, 2009), 1–12, or Lloyd Ridgeon, The Cambridge Companion to Sufism (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 278. For a deeper explanation of the conservative view, see for instance, Linda Sijbrand, “Orientalism and Sufism: An Overview,” in Orientalism Revisited: Art, Land and Voy­ age, ed. Ian Richard Netton (London & New York: 2013), 99–105, or Ignác Goldzi­ her, “Koranauslesung der islamischen Mystik,” in Die Richtungen der Islamischen Koranauslesung (Leiden: Brill, 1920), 180–262. Ahmet T. Karamustafa, God’s Unruly Friends: Dervish Groups in the Islamic Later Middle Period 1200–1550 (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1994), 5–7. See Ahmed El Shamsy, “The Social Construction of Orthodoxy,” in The Cambridge Companion to Classical Islamic Theology, ed. Tim Winter (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 97–117, and Ridgeon, Companion, 29. Karamustafa, Friends, 12–25. Ernest Gellner, “A Pendulum Swing Theory of Islam,” in Sociology of Religion: Selected Readings, ed. Roland Robertson and Michael Zwettler (Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1969), 127–141. Peter Burke, Popular Culture in Early Modern Europe (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1978), xi, 65–76, 91–115, 244–286. The theoretical model based on the “high”-“low” dichotomy was later applied to many different periods where certain scholars attempted to develop it further. For instance, see Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer, Dia­ lectic of Enlightenment, trans. John Cumming (London: Verso, 1992), xi-2, 120–167,

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33

34

35 36

37

38 39 40

41

42 43

and Theodor W. Adorno, The Culture Industry: Selected Essays on Mass Culture, ed. J. M. Bernstein (London: Routledge, 1991), 53–84. Finally, Herbert J. Gans, Popu­ lar Culture & High Culture: An Analysis and Evaluation of Taste (New York: Basic Books, 1999), 5–12, 27–76. The dichotomy pervades religious studies frequently. As an instance relevant to my own research, see the debate about religious and magical practice in Weber, Sociology, 11, 80–94. See James Grehan, Everyday Life & Consumer Culture in 18th-Century Damascus (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2007), 3–20, or Dana Sajdi, The Barber of Damascus: Nouveau Literacy in the Eighteenth-Century Ottoman Levant (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2013), 114–137. Sajdi provides an interesting reading into the Damascene eighteenth-century history through reading the chronicle of the barber Ibn Budayr. She simultaneously traces the history of the city and of its chronicler. For much of Sajdi’s methodological inspiration see Carlo Ginzburg, The Cheese and the Worms: The Cosmos of a Sixteenth-Century Miller, trans. John and Anne C. Tedeschi (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1980), xiii-xxvi. For a discussion about relevant research methods and approaches, see Sigurður Gylfi Magnússon and István M. Szijártó, What is Microhistory? Theory and Practice (Abing­ don: Routledge, 2013), 1–12, 62–78, 119–133, or Francesca Trivellato, “Is there a Future for Italian Microhistory in the Age of Global History?” California Italian Stud­ ies 2 (2011): http://escholarship.org/uc/item/0z94n9hq (Last accessed: April 15th 2021), which is a helpful article for readers interested in delving deeper into this complicated topic. James Grehan, Twilight of the Saints: Everyday Religion in Ottoman Syria and Palestine (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 112–115. See El Shamsy, “Orthodoxy,” 97–117. Michel de Certeau provides a starting point for the consideration of a relevant theoretical approach to studying cultures and traditions. See Michel de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life, trans. Steven Rendall (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988), xi–xxiv. The methodological approaches of Clark and Clanton are highly illustrative. See Terry Ray Clark and Dan W. Clanton, Jr., ed., Understanding Religion and Popular Culture: Theories, Themes, Products and Practices (London: Routledge, 2012), 1–12. This is comparable to Gábor Klaniczay, The Uses of Supernatural Power: The Transformation of Popular Religion in Medieval and Early-Modern Europe (Princeton: Princeton Uni­ versity Press, 1990), 2–5. Shirley A. Fedorak, Pop Culture: The Culture of Everyday Life (Toronto: University of Toronto Press Incorporated, 2009), 1–13. Emile Durkheim, The Elementary Forms of Religious Life, trans. Karen E. Fields (New York: Free Press, 1995), 5–12. Eminegül Karababa and Güliz Ger, “Early Modern Ottoman Coffeehouse Culture and the Formation of the Consumer Subject,” Journal of Consumer Research 37 (2010): doi: 10.1086/656422, or Rachida Chih and Catherine Mayeur-Jaouen, “Le soufisme otto­ man vu d’Égypte (xvie-xviiie siècle),” in Le soufisme à l’époque ottomane, XVIe-XVIIIe siècle, ed. Rachida Chih, Catherine Mayeur-Jaouen, Denis Grill, and Richard McGregor (Cairo: Institut français d’archéologie orientale, 2010), 1–56. See also Grehan, Every­ day Life, 21–55. See H A R Gibb, Mohammedanism: An Historical Survey (London & New York: Oxford University Press, 1970), 60–72, 86–99, or Sir Hamilton Alexander Rosskeen Gibb and Harold Bowen, Islamic Society and the West: A Study of the Impact of Western Civiliza­ tion on Moslem Culture in the Near East, 2 volumes (London: Oxford University Press, 1969), 70–85. Julian Baldick, Mystical Islam: An Introduction to Sufism (London: I.B. Tauris, 2012), 7. Ernest Gellner, Muslim Society (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), 114–130.

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44 Grehan, Twilight, 6–19, 112–115. 45 Nile Green, Sufism: A Global History (Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012), 16–19. 46 See Baldick, Mystical Islam, 9, 32–33, for a critique of ideas about Sufism originating from the Muslim sources. Baldick pointed Christian asceticism as a possible tradition of origin. For the criticized text see Louis Massignon, Essay on the Origins of the Tech­ nical Language of Islamic Mysticism: Translated from the French with an Introduc­ tion by Benjamin Clark (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1997), 49–67, 73–76, 94–106. Other religious confessions, however, naturally did have influence on the development of Islam, and its Sufism. See Aziz Al-Azmeh, The Emergence of Islam in Late Antiquity: Allāh and His People (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 11–40, 449–487. Further see Alexander D. Knysh, Sufism: A New History of Islamic Mysticism (Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2017), 15–18. 47 For instance, see Abu‘l-Qasim al-Qushayri, Al-Qushayri’s Epistle on Sufism: Al-Risala al-Qushayriyya fi ‘Ilm al-Tasawwuf, trans. Alexander Knysh (Reading: Garnet Publish­ ing, 2007), xxi-xxvii, Ian Richard Netton, Islam, Christianity and the Mystic Journey: A Comparative Exploration (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2011), 102–110, or Martin Nguyen, Sufi Master and Qur’an Scholar: Abū’l-Qāsim al-Qushayrī and the Lạtā’if al-Ishārāt (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 23–87, 205–236. 48 Correlatively, claims that Islam represents a monolithic historical entity are also quite common. See Baldick, Mystical Islam, 1. For arguments against such attitudes, consult Al-Azmeh, Times of History, 47–61. 49 Knysh, Sufism, 1–123, 142–143, 176–231, 225. Also see Rachida Chih, Sufism in Otto­ man Egypt: Circulation, Renewal and Authority in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Cen­ tury (London & New York: Routledge, 2019), 5–10. 50 Ibid., 14, 23. 51 See Jakob Skovgaard-Petersen, “A Typology of State Muftis,” in Islamic Law and the Challenges of Modernity, ed. Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad and Barbara Freyer Stowasser (Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press, 2004), 81–89. 52 Muhammad Qasim Zaman, Ashraf ʿAli Thanawi: Islam in Modern South Asia (Oxford: Oneworld, 2008), 70–75. 53 Elizabeth Sirriyeh, Sufi Visionary of Ottoman Damascus: ʿAbd al-Ghanī al-Nābulusī, 1641–1731 (London and New York: Routledge Curzon, 2005), 1–17, as well as Astrid Meier, “Words in Action: ʿAbd al-Ghanī al-Nābulusī as a Jurist,” in Early Modern Trends in Islamic Theology: ʿAbd al-Ghanī al-Nābulusī and his Network of Scholarship (Studies and Texts), ed. Lejla Demiri and Samuela Pagani (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2019), 107–136. Further see Barbara Rosenow von Schlegell, “Sufism in the Ottoman Arab World: Shaykh ʿAbd al-Ghanī al-Nābulūsī (d. 1143/1731),” unpublished PhD diss., University of California, 1997, 16–22. 54 Ralf Elger, Muṣṭafā al-Bakrī: zur Selbstdarstellung eines syrischen Gelehrten, Sufis und Dichters des 18. Jahrhunderts (Schenefeld: EB-Verlag, 2004), 52–103, or Zachary Valentine Wright, Realizing Islam: The Tijaniyya in North Africa and the EighteenthCentury Muslim World (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2020), 34–36. 55 Al-Murādī, Silk, 4:220–228. 56 Abū Zayd Ibn Khaldūn, al-Muqaddima [Prolegomenon], ed. Jumaʿa Shaykha (Tunis: Al-Dār al-Tūnisīyya li-l-Nashr, 1984), 593. 57 Knysh, Sufism, 179. 58 See Yumna Ozer, trans., Ibn Khaldūn on Sufism: Remedy for the Questioner in Search of Answers (Shifā’ al-Sā’il li-Tadhīb al-Masā’il) (Cambridge: The Islamic Texts Society, 2017), i-xii, and Robert Irwin, Ibn Khaldun: An Intellectual Biography (Princeton & Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2018), 108–117. 59 As an instance, see al-Murādī, Silk, 4:305. The biographer uses similar social divisions throughout the entire work. I discuss the righteous in Chapters 2 and 4.

Patterns of Grace in History and Scholarship 29 60 Muḥammad Amīn Ibn ʿUmar Ibn ʿĀbidīn, Sall al-Ḥusām al-Hindī li-Naṣrat Mawlānā Khālid al-Naqshbandī [Drawing out the Indian Sword in Defense of Our Master Khālid al-Naqshbandī], in Majmūʿat Rasā’il Muḥammad Ibn ʿĀbidīn [The Collection of Trea­ tises by Muḥammad Ibn-ʿĀbidīn], 4 volumes (Istanbul: Dar-i Saʿādat, 1907), 2:5–47. 61 Al-Azmeh, Times, 222–223. 62 Weber, Sociology, 54–61. 63 Al-Azmeh, Times, 222–223. Compare with Keith Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic: Studies in Popular Beliefs in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century England (London: Penguin, 1991), 227–229. 64 Ernst, Sufism, 1–17. 65 Hüseyin Yılmaz, Caliphate Redefined: The Mystical Turn in Ottoman Political Thought (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2018), 1–18. 66 Karamustafa, Friends, 87. 67 Green, Sufism, 5–11. 68 Ibid., 42. 69 See al-Qushayri, Epistle, xxi-xxvii, Netton, Mystic Journey 102–110, and Nguyen, Sufi Master, 23–87, 205–236. 70 Erik S. Ohlander, Sufism in an Age of Transition: ʿUmar al-Suhrawardī and the Rise of the Islamic Mystical Brotherhoods (Leiden & Boston: Brill, 2008), 307–310. 71 Ayfer Karakaya-Stump, The Kizilbash/Alevis in Ottoman Anatolia: Sufism, Politics and Community (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2020), 50–51, Berkey, Formation, 231, or Eric Geoffroy, Introduction to Sufism: The Inner Path of Islam, trans. Roger Gaetani (Bloomington: World Wisdom, 2010), 78–86. 72 Babak Rahimi and Armando Salvatore, “The Crystallization and Expansiveness of Sufi Networks within the Urban-Rural-Nomadic Nexus of the Islamic Ecumene,” in The Wiley Blackwell History of Islam, ed. Armando Salvatore, Roberto Tottoli, and Babak Rahimi (Oxford: John Wiley & Sons Ltd., 2018), 257–264. Further see, for instance, Zeynep Yürekli, Architecture and Hagiography in the Ottoman Empire: The Politics of Bektashi Shrines in the Classical Age (Farnham: Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2012), 1–4. 73 Green, Sufism, 55–60. 74 Derin Terzioğlu, “How to Conceptualize Ottoman Sunnitization: A Historiographical Discussion,” Turcica, Vol. 44 (2012–2013): 306–307, Green, Sufism, 52. 75 Madeline Zilfi, The Politics of Piety: The Ottoman Ulema in the Postclassical Age (1600–1800) (Minneapolis: Bibliotheca Islamica, 1988), 192–193. 76 Green, Sufism, 55–60, Derin Terzioğlu, “Sufis in the Age of State-Building and Confes­ sionalization,” in The Ottoman World, ed. Christine Woodhead (London & New York: Routledge, 2012), 86. 77 Ohlander, Sufism, 27–34.

78 Ibid., 53.

79 Dina le Gall, A Culture of Sufism: Naqshbandis in the Ottoman World, 1450–1700

(Albany: State University of New York Press, 2005), 45. 80 Ohlander, Sufism, 1–4. 81 A Pole of his Time – see Chapter 2. 82 Ohlander, Sufism, 187–190. 83 Ibid., 25–26, 285–288. Also Betul Yavuz, “The Making of the Sufi Order between Her­ esy and Legitimacy: Bayrami-Malāmis in the Ottoman Empire,” unpublished PhD diss. (Houston: Rice University, 2013), 98, Rıza Yıldırım, “Inventing a Sufi Tradition: The Use of the Futuwwa Ritual Gathering as a Model for the Qizilbash Djem,” in Sufism and Society: Arrangements of the Mystical in the Muslim World, 1200–1800, ed. John Curry, Erik Ohlander (Abingdon: Routledge, 2012), 164–182, Terzioğlu, “Sufis,” 90–93, Green, Sufism, 52, 85–86. 84 The brotherhood notions had a practical application during turbulent periods in the history of the Middle East. They pervaded, for instance, the discourse of lodges, which helped

30

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86 87 88

89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98

Patterns of Grace in History and Scholarship amalgamate Muslim societies during power vacuums in the medieval and early modern periods. This was, for instance, the case with Saljuq Anatolia. See Rachel Goshgarian, “Opening and Closing: Coexistence and Competition in Associations based on Futuwwa in Late Medieval Anatolian Cities,” British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 40 (2013): 36–52. Compare with Gervase Rosser, “Trust,” in The Art of Solidarity in the Middle Ages: Guilds in England, 1250–1550 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 149–186. See for instance David Carpenter, “The Piety of Henry III,” in Henry III: 1207–1258, volume 1 (London: Yale University Press, 2020), 273–348, Maurizio Viroli, As if God Existed: Religion and Liberty in the History of Italy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2012), 89–103, Kat Hill, “Brothers and Sisters,” in Baptism, Brotherhood ad Belief in Reformation Germany: Anabaptism and Lutheranism 1525–1585 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 167–198, Colin Kidd, “Race and Religious Orthodoxy in the Early Modern Era,” in The Forging of Races: Race and Scripture in the Protestant Atlantic World, 1600–2000 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 54–78, and L. Fatum, “Brotherhood in Christ: A Gender Hermeneutical Reading of 1 Thes­ salonians,” in Constructing Early Christian Families: Family as a Social Reality and Metaphor, ed. H. Moxnes (London: Routledge, 1997), 183–200. It seems that al-Gīlānī contributed to the formulation of the orders’ hierarchy. See Ohlander, Sufism, 27–34, or Yıldırım, “Sufi Tradition,” 164–182. Ohlander, Sufism, 187–190. See Trimingham, Sufi Orders, 94–105, 261–263, 269–271. Further see Le Gall, Sufism, 166–167, Thierry Zarcone, “Bridging the Gap between pre-Soviet and post-Soviet Sufism in Ferghana Valley (Uzbekistan): the Naqshbandi order between Tradition and Innovation,” in Popular Movements and Democratization in the Islamic World, ed. Masatoschi Kisaichi (Abingdon: Routledge, 2006), 43–47, Shahzad Bashir, Sufi Bod­ ies: Religion and Society in Medieval Islam (New York: Columbia University Press, 2011), 78–80, and Mohammed Yamin, Impact of Islam on Orissan Culture (New Delhi: Readworthy Publications, 2009), 96–97. The Naqshbandīyya was an exception, maintaining a Bakrī silsila. Le Gall, Sufism, 127. Le Gall, Sufism, 14–16. Green, Sufism, 93. See Chapter 2 for baraka. Ohlander, Sufism, 27–34, Derin Terzioğlu, “Man in the Image of God in the Image of the Times: Sufi Self-Narratives and the Diary of Niyāzī-i Mıṣrī (1618–94),” Studia Islamica, No. 94 (2002): 144, and Curry, Transformation, 8. Some orders, such as the Naqshbandīyya, however, still seemed to prefer smaller, inti­ mate meetings for the dissemination of their teachings, despite conforming to the insti­ tutional framework. See Le Gall, Sufism, 46–47, or Green, Sufism, 131–135. Ibid., 5–9. Terzioğlu, “Sunnitization,” 307. Terzioğlu, “Sufis,” 90–93. See Surayia N. Faroqhi, “Conflict, Accommodation and Long-term Survival: The Bek­ tashi Order and the Ottoman State” in Bektachiyya, Études sur l’ordre mystique des Bektachis et les groupes relevant de Hadji Bektash, ed. Alexandre Popovic and Gilles Veinstein (Istanbul: The Isis Publications, 1995), 171–184, or Yürekli, Architecture, 79–134. Although it is possible to presume the relationship between the Damascene jan­ issary corps and the Bektashi order, such relations should not be taken for granted. See Cemal Kafadar, “Janissaries and Other Riffraff of Ottoman Istanbul: Rebels without a Cause?“International Journal of Turkish Studies, 13, Nos. 1 & 2 (2007): 113–116. Fur­ ther studies of the janissaries in Ottoman Syria are a necessity to collect hard evidence for such claims.

Patterns of Grace in History and Scholarship 31 99 See, for instance, Le Gall, Sufism, 124–126, and Cankat Kaplan, “An Anti-Ibn ʿArabī (d.1240) Polemicist in the Sixteenth-Century Ottoman Istanbul: Ibrahīm Al-Ḥalabī (d.1549) and his Interlocutors,” unpublished MA thesis (Budapest: Central European University, 2019), 10–23. 100 See Yılmaz, Caliphate, 211–214, Rafeq, “Relations,” 81, and Sirriyeh, Visionary, 126. 101 See Claude Addas and Peter Kingsley, Quest for the Red Sulphur: The Life of Ibn ʻArabī (Cambridge: Islamic Texts Society, 1993). 102 See John Renard, ed., Tales of God’s Friends: Islamic Hagiography in Translation (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009), 1–12, 30–47. 103 Le Gall, Sufism, 124. Further see Chapter 5. 104 Heghnar Zeitlian Watenpaugh, The Image of an Ottoman City: Imperial Architecture and Urban Experience in Aleppo in the 16th and 17th Centuries (Leiden and Bos­ ton: Brill, 2004), 38–39, and Çığdem Kafescıoğlu, “In the Image of Rūm: Ottoman Architectural Patronage in Sixteenth-Century Aleppo and Damascus,” Muqarnas 16 (1999): 74. 105 See Yavuz, “Sufi Order,” 134–159, Green, Sufism, 132–136, Ohlander, Sufism, 187– 190, Yürekli, Architecture, 1–4, 17–19, 33–34, 138–139, Terzioğlu, “Sunnitization,” 307, 320, Terzioğlu, “Sufis,” 90–93, Le Gall, Sufism, 45–47. 106 Yürekli, Architecture, 17–19. Also see Ohlander, Sufism, 35–42. 107 Ohlander, Sufism, 6. 108 Ibid., 19. 109 Maha El-Kaisy Friemuth, “al-Suhrawardi, Abu Hafs,” in Encyclopedia of Islamic Civi­ lisation and Religion, ed. Ian Richard Netton (London & New York: Routledge, 2008), 619, or Qamar-ul Huda, “The Life of Shaikh ‘Abū Ḥafs ʿUmar al-Suhrawardī,” in Striving for Divine Union: Spiritual exercises for Suhrawardī sūfīs (London & New York: RoutledgeCurzon, 2005), 13–40. 110 Ohlander, Sufism, 250–251. 111 This is comparable to sacred kingship in European history. See for instance Joseph Canning, A History of Medieval Political Thought: 300–1450 (London & New York: Routledge, 2005), 16–43, 47–58. Further see Thomas, Decline, 227–229. For the role of the bishops for the development of medieval European political thought, again highly comparable to the role of the ʿulamā’ for the caliphate-related developments, see for instance Michael Edward Moore, A Sacred Kingdom: Bishops and the Rise of Frankish Kingship, 300–850 (Washington D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2011), 1–20. 112 Yılmaz, Caliphate, 14, Green, Sufism, 7, 96, 131–135, and Aziz Al-Azmeh, Muslim Kingship: Power and the Sacred in Muslim, Christian and Pagan Polities (London & New York: I.B. Tauris, 1997), 157–159. 113 Knysh, Sufism, 179, Yılmaz, Caliphate, 111–112, and Green, Sufism, 131. Further see Terzioğlu,, “Sufis,” 89. 114 Judith Pfeiffer, “Confessional Ambiguity vs. Confessional Polarization: Politics and the Negotiation of Religious Boundaries in the Ilkhanate,” in Politics, Patronage and the Transmission of Knowledge in 13th-15th Century Tabriz, ed. Judith Pfeiffer (Leiden & Boston: Brill, 2014), 135–136, Karakaya-Stump, Kizilbash, 89–90, Green, Sufism, 94, and Yürekli, Architecture, 14–16. Further see Terzioğlu, “Sunnitization,” 306–307. 115 Ethel Sara Wolper, “The Patron and the Sufi: Mediating Religious Authority through Dervish Lodges,” in Cities and Saints: Sufism and the Transformation of Urban Space in Medieval Anatolia (Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2003), 24–41. 116 H. Crane, “Notes on the Saldjūq Architectural Patronage in the Thirteenth Century Anatolia,” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, 36, No. 1 (1993): 1–57.

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117 Yılmaz, Caliphate, 1–4. 118 Derin Terzioğlu, “Sunna-minded Sufi Preachers in Service of the Ottoman State: The naṣiḥatname of Hasan addressed to Murad IV,” Archivum Ottomanicum 27 (2010): 244–246, 250–251. Further see Sariyannis, “Occultism,” 37–38. 119 Winter, Society & Religion, 31–96. 120 Karamustafa, Friends, 36–37, Knysh, Sufism, 179, Al-Azmeh, Kingship, 182, AlAzmeh, Times, 159–179, 185–266, Yılmaz, Caliphate, 24–33, Rafeq, “Relations,” 88, Enrico Boccaccini, “A Ruler’s Curriculum: Transcultural Comparisons of Mirrors for Princes,” in Knowledge and Education in Classical Islam: Religious Learning between Continuity and Change, ed. Sebastian Günther (Leiden: Brill, 2020), 684–712. The relationships between Sufi-ʿulamā’ sodalities with the state in their administrative capacities is comparable to the relationships between European ecclesia and various medieval and early modern courts. See, for instance, Walter Ullmann, “The Secular Prince and Papal Law,” and “Limitations of Theocratic Kingship,” in Principles of Government and Politics in the Middle Ages (London: Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2010), 27–49, 88–95, respectively. Also see Walter Ullmann, “Lecture V-I: The King’s Stunted Sovereignty,” in The Carolingian Rennaissance and the Idea of Kingship: The Birbeck Lectures 1968–9 (New York: Routledge, 2010), 83–92. 121 Zilfi, Politics, 1–32. 122 Madeline C. Zilfi, “The Ottoman ulema,” in The Cambridge History of Turkey: Vol­ ume 3, The Later Ottoman Empire 1603–1839, ed. Suraiya N. Faroqhi (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 209–214, and Politics, 24. 123 Baki Tezcan, “The Ottoman “Mevali” as ‘Lords of the Law’,” Journal of Islamic Stud­ ies, 20, No. 3 (September 2009): 383–384. 124 To receive lucrative positions in eighteenth-century Damascus, the Sufi-ʿulamā’ seemed to rely on the patronage of established and prominent members of the local priestly sodalities. This shall be shown on concrete examples in Chapter 4. 125 See Chapter 4. 126 Zilfi, “Ulema,” 209, and Zilfi, Piety, 70–71. 127 See Chapter 5. 128 Tezcan, “Mevali,” 396. 129 Zilfi, “Ulema,” 209, 210–214. 130 Zilfi, Politics, 38–40. 131 See Chapter 2. 132 Zilfi, “Ulema,” 224–225. Further see Rafeq, “Ulamā,” 105–134. 133 Chih, Sufism, 33–35, as well as Al-Azmeh, Times, 220–221. Further see Chapter 5. 134 Chih, Sufism, 19, 25–26. 135 Ibid., 2–3, 29, 44. 136 Ibid., Khaled el-Rouayheb, Islamic Intellectual History in the Seventeenth Century: Scholarly Currents in the Ottoman Empire and the Maghreb (Cambridge: Cam­ bridge University Press, 2015), 261–270, and Frederick de Jong, “Mustafa Kamal alDin al-Bakri (1688–1749): Revival and Reform of the Khalwatiyya Tradition?” in Eighteenth-Century Renewal and Reform in Islam, ed. N. Levtzion and J. Voll (Syra­ cuse: Syracuse University Press, 1987), 117–132. 137 See Vajda, G., Goldziher, I. and Bonebakker, S.A., “Id̲ jāza,” in Encyclopaedia of Islam II, ed. P. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C.E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel, W.P. Heinrichs (Brill Online, 2012). http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/1573-3912_islam_SIM_3485 (Last accessed: February 28th 2023). Also see Aziz Al-Azmeh, Arabic Thought and Islamic Societies (Abingdon: Routledge, 2013), 226–227, 231–233. 138 See Guy Burak, The Second Formation of Islamic Law: The Ḥanafī School in the Early Modern Ottoman Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 27–28, or Michael Chamberlain, Knowledge and Social Practice in medieval Damas­ cus, 1190–1350 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 87–90. Further see Anver M. Emon, “Shari’a and the Modern State,” in Islamic Law and International

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140 141 142

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144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152

153 154 155 156

157 158 159 160

161

Human Rights Law: Searching for Common Ground? ed. Anver M. Emon, Mark S. Ellis, and Benjamin Glahn (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 76–80. Taufik Canaan, Mohammadan Saints and Sanctuaries in Palestine (London: Luzac & Co., 1927), 313, el-Rouayheb, Currents, 98, 125–128, and Rachida Chih, “Discuss­ ing the Sufism of the Early Modern Period: A New Historiographical Outlook on the Tariqa Muhammadiyya,” in Sufism East and West: Mystical Islam and Cross-Cultural Exchange in the Modern World, ed. Jamal Malik and Saeed Zarrabi-Zadeh (Leiden & Boston: Brill, 2019), 114–116. John Renard, “Initiation,” in Historical Dictionary of Sufism (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2016), 153. Edward William Lane, An Account of the Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyp­ tians: Written in Egypt During the Years 1833, 1834, and 1835, 2 volumes. (London: Charles Knight & Co., 1836), 1:317, Chih, Sufism, 32. See Paul B. Fenton, “Abraham Maimonides (1187–1237): Founding of a Mystical Dinasty,” in Jewish Mystical Leaders and Leadership in the 13th Century, ed. Moshe Idel and Mortimer Ostow (Lanham & New York: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. 2005), 143. Catherine Mayeur-Jaouen, “The Small World of Aḥmad al-Ṣāwī (1761–1825), an Egyptian Khalwatī Shaykh,” in The Piety of Learning: Islamic Studies in Honor of Stefan Reichmuth, ed. Michael Kemper and Ralf Elger (Leiden & Boston: Brill, 2017), 105–144. Yürekli, Architecture, 1–4. Karakaya-Stump, Kizilbash, 62–63. Green, Sufism, 50–54. Terzioğlu, “Sunnitization,” 320. Karakaya-Stump, Kizilbash, 259–267. Derin Terzioğlu, “Patronage,” 149–150, 164–165, Green, Sufism, 131–135. Le Gall, Sufism, 65–66. Green, Sufism, 154–157. Chih, Sufism, 7–11. Further see Denise Aigle, “Essai sur les autorités religieuses dans l’islam médiéval oriental,” in Les Autorités Religieuses entre Charismes et Hiérarchie: Approches Comparatives, ed. Denise Aigle (Turnhout: Brepols Publishers, 2011), 17–40, as well as Commins, Islamic Reform, 7–20. For the early modern Ottoman period, see Le Gall, Sufism, 55–58, and Zilfi, Politics, 170–171. See Chapters 3 and 6. For instance, al-Murādī, Silk, 1:129–130. All these matters bear a high comparative potential with the Catholic tradition in west­ ern Europe. See Thomas, Decline, 28–29. Randall Styers, Making Magic: Religion, Magic and Science in the Modern World (Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 36–38, 106, and Jason A. Josephson-Storm, The Myth of Disenchantment: Magic, Modernity and the Birth of the Human Sciences (Chicago & London: University of Chicago Press, 2017), 41–178, 269–301. The mechanical aspect of a religion is defined in this context by the belief in a causal relationship between ritual performance and immediate results. See Thomas, Decline, 36, 46–57. Thomas, Decline, 46–57. Ibid. See, for instance, Michael Macdonald, “Religion, Social Change, and Psychological Healing in England, 1600–1800,” The Church and Healing 19 (1982): 101–125, or C. Peter Williams, “Healing and Evangelism: The Place of Medicine in Later Victorian Protestant Missionary Thinking,” Ibid: 271–285. Ernst, Sufism, 8–18, and Al-Azmeh, Times, 47–66. Further see Aziz Al-Azmeh, “The Discourse of Cultural Authenticity: Islamist Revivalism and Enlightenment

34

162 163

164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173

174

175 176 177 178 179

Patterns of Grace in History and Scholarship Universalism,” in Islams and Modernities (London & New York: Verso, 1993). 39–59, and Albert Hourani, “Sufism and Modern Islam: Rashid Rida,” in The Emergence of the Modern Middle East (Berkeley & Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1981), 90–102. For instance, Saif, “Medicine and Magic,” 336. For the eighteenth-century Damascene context, see Ibn ʿĀbidīn, MR, 2:36. Further see ʿAbd al-Ghanī al-Nābulsī, al-Ḥadīqa al-Nadīyya: Sharḥ al-Ṭarīqa al-Muḥammadīyya [The Dewy Garden: Explanations of the Muhammadan Way], 2 volumes (Miṣr: n.p., 1860), 1: 199–200, and ʿAbd al-Ghanī al-Nābulsī, “Kashf al-Nūr ʿan Aṣḥābi al-Qubūr [Revealing Light in what pertains to the Dead in Graves],” in “Wasā’il al-taḥqīq wa-rasāʼil al-tawfīq. Taḥqīq al-maqs.ūd min maʿnā “Yā man huwa maʿbūd fī s.ūrat kull maʿbūd” [Means of Investigation and Letters of Conciliation. Clarification of the Meaning of “O you who is Worshipped” in cases of Worship],” MS Princeton University Library, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Manuscript Collection, Islamic Manuscripts, New Series no. 1113 Princeton, 162A-174A. This is a copy produced in 1748/1749 by al-Ḥājj ʻUmar Ibn ʻAbd Allāh I am grateful to Dr Astrid Meier for pointing me towards this collection. See Thomas, Decline, 36, 46–57. See Chapter 4, or Chih, Sufism, 32–36, 118, for some concrete examples of such dem­ onstrations during the eighteenth century in Syria and Egypt. Alan Strathern, Unearthly Powers: Religious and Political Change in World History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019), 47–81, 131–141. Ibid., 27–47, 117–131. This mysterious creature guided Moses in Qur’ān, 18:65–82. Al-Khiḍr was in eighteenth-century Province of Damascus frequently referred to as a saint. He was widely venerated and had many shrines in his honor. See Chapters 3, and 5. Grehan, Twilight, 132. Alexandra Walsham, The Reformation of the Landscape: Religion, Identity, and Mem­ ory in Early Modern Britain and Ireland (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 567. See Weber, Sociology, 28–31, 115–120, and Bourdieu, “Genesis,” 10. The Muslim Scripture is often disparaging about the priests in other religions. See 5:82, 9:31, 9:34, 12:106, 42:21, 49:16, and numerous other instances. The eighteenthcentury barber-chronicler from Damascus, Ibn Budayr, tended to refer to the Sufi­ ʿulamā’ as “noble ones” (afāḍil). See Shihāb al-Dīn Aḥmad Ibn Budayr, “Ḥawādith Dimashq al-Shām Yawmīyya min Sanat 1154 ilā Sanat 1176” [The Daily Events of Damascus from the Year 1741 to 1763], MS Chester Beatty Library Ar 3551/2, Dublin, 31B. Pagination is unclear, so I suggested my own. The cover page is labeled as 1. Henceforth: “HDY.” Alexander Russell, The Natural History of Aleppo: A Description of the City and the Principal Natural Productions in its Neighbourhood, together with an Account of the Climate, Inhabitants, and Diseases, Particularly of the Plague, 2 volumes, ed. Patrick Russell (London: G.G. and J. Robinson: 1794), 1:208. Aziz Al-Azmeh, “God’s Caravan,” in Mirror for the Muslim Prince: Islam and the Theory of Statecraft, ed. Mehrzad Boroujerdi (New York: Syracuse University Press, 2013), 326–400, Times, 223, and Kingship, 102–104. Further see Zilfi, “Ulama,” 209. Intercession (Ar. shafāʿa) was confined to the Prophet, but was also attributed to the saints and the righteous. See chapter 5. Compare with Thomas, Decline, 31–32, 87–88. Grehan, Twilight, 151. See Hofer, Sufism, 95. Further see Jaume Aurell, “The Notion of Charisma: Historiciz­ ing the Gift of God on Medieval Europe,” Scripta Theologica, 54 (2022): 607–637, and Jonathan E. Brockopp, “Constructing Muslim charisma,” in Routledge Interna­ tional Handbook of Charisma, ed. José Pedro Zúquete (London & New York: Routledge, 2021), 163–174.

Patterns of Grace in History and Scholarship 35 180 See Max Weber, On Charisma and Institution Building: Selected Papers, ed. S.N. Eisenstadt (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968), 48. 181 Ibid., 19–28. Also see Joseph Bensman and Michael Givant, “Charisma and Moder­ nity: The Use and Abuse of a Concept,” Social Research, 42, No. 4 Charisma, Legitimacy, Ideology, and Other Weberian Themes (Winter, 1975): 577, 610, Donald McIntosh, “Weber and Freud: On the Nature and Sources of Authority,” American Sociological Review, 35, No. 5 (Oct. 1970): 902–903, or Douglas F. Barnes, “Cha­ risma and Religious Leadership: An Historical Analysis,” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 17, No. 1 (Mar., 1978): 2–3. For an interesting, and an older criti­ cism of this scholarly understanding, see Edward Shils, “Charisma, Order, and Sta­ tus,” American Sociological Review, Vol. 30, No. 2 (April, 1965): 202. Despite works like Shils’s, such attitudes are prevalent to the contemporary period. See John Potts, A History of Charisma (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), 61–87, or Martino Rossi Monti, “The Mask of Grace: On Body and Beauty of Soul between Late Antiq­ uity and the Middle Ages,” in Faces of Charisma: Image, Text, Object in Byzantium and the Medieval West, ed. Brigitte Mariam Bedos-Rezak and Martha Dana Rust (Lei­ den: Brill, 2017), 48. 182 Weber, Charisma, 48–81. 183 Chapter 2 discusses this matter in detail. 184 Eugene Subbotsky, Magic and the Mind: Mechanisms, Functions, and Development of Magical Thinking and Behavior (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 12–14. 185 The comparative potential between various thaumaturgical and magical traditions was noticed in other confessions as well. For instance, see Thomas, Decline, 318. 186 See, for instance, Matthew Melvin-Koushki, “In Defence of Geomancy: Šaraf al-Dīn Yazdī Rebuts Ibn Ḫaldūn’s Critique of the Occult Sciences,” Arabica T.64, Fasc. ¾ (2017): 348–397 or Matthew Melvin-Koushki, “Magic in Islam between Religion and Science,” Magic, Ritual and Witchcraft, 14, No. 2 (2019): 267–268. 187 Possibly best expressed by Sir James Frazer. See J. G. Frazer, The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion (London: Macmillan Press, 1983), 63–79. 188 See Jacob Neusner, “Introduction,” and Hans H. Penner, “Rationality, Ritual, and Sci­ ence,” in Religion, Science, and Magic: In Concert and in Conflict, ed. Jacob Neusner, Ernest S. Frerichs, and Paul Virgil McCracken Flesher (New York & Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), 3–10, 11–26. 189 Durkheim, Elementary Forms, 39–43. 190 Grehan, Twilight, 14–19. Also see Gellner, Muslim Society, and 114–130. 191 See Frazer, Golden Bough, 70–79, and Bronislaw Malinovski, “Sir James George Frazer,” in A Scientific Theory of Culture and Other Essays (New York: Oxford Uni­ versity Press, 1960), 177–222. 192 Marcel Mauss, A General Theory of Magic, trans. Robert Brain (London: Routledge, 1972), 22–26, 112–120. 193 Knysh, Sufism, 7, 173–178. 194 Subbotsky, Magic, 12–14. 195 Bruce Masters, “The View from the Province: Syrian Chronicles of the Eighteenth Century,” Journal of the American Oriental Society, 114 No. 3 (July-September, 1994): 353–362, and Dana Sajdi, “Peripheral Visions: The World and Worldviews of Commoner Chroniclers in the 18th Century Ottoman Levant,” (PhD Diss., Columbia University, 2002), 56–151. 196 See Chapter 2. 197 See Grehan, Twilight, 151, Martha Mundy, “On reading two epistles of Muham­ mad Amin Ibn ‘Abidin of Damascus,” in Forms and Institutions of Justice: Legal Actions in Ottoman Contexts, ed. Yavuz Aykan and Işık Tamdoğan (Istanbul: Insti­ tut français d’études anatoliennes, 2018), Open Access: 10.4000/books.ifeagd.2316 (Last accessed: February 24th 2023), and Itzchak Weismann, Taste of Modernity: Sufism, Salafiyya, and Arabism in Late Ottoman Damascus (Leiden: Brill, 2001), 56–80

36 Patterns of Grace in History and Scholarship 198 Al-Ṣāliḥīyya is a district of Damascus which contained a lot of religious significance for the city, with its numerous shrines and Sufi lodges. See chapter 5. Further see Toru Miura, “The Ṣāliḥīyya Quarter in the Suburbs of Damascus: Its Formation, Structure, and Transformation in the Ayyūbid and Mamlūk Periods,” Bulletin d’études orientales 47 (1995): 129–181.

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Kaplan, Cankat. “An Anti-Ibn ʿArabī (d.1240) Polemicist in the Sixteenth-Century Ottoman Istanbul: Ibrahīm Al-Ḥalabī (d.1549) and His Interlocutors.” Unpublished MA thesis. Budapest: Central European University, 2019. Karababa, Eminegül, and Güliz Ger. “Early Modern Ottoman Coffeehouse Culture and the Formation of the Consumer Subject,” Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 37 (2010). doi: 10.1086/656422 (Last accessed: February 28th 2023). Karakaya-Stump, Ayfer. The Kizilbash/Alevis in Ottoman Anatolia: Sufism, Politics and Community. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2020. Karamustafa, Ahmet T. God’s Unruly Friends: Dervish Groups in the Islamic Later Middle Period 1200–1550. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1994. Kidd, Colin. “Race and Religious Orthodoxy in the Early Modern Era,” 54–78. In The Forg­ ing of Races: Race and Scripture in the Protestant Atlantic World, 1600–2000. Cam­ bridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006. Klaniczay, Gábor. The Uses of Supernatural Power: The Transformation of Popular Reli­ gion in Medieval and Early-Modern Europe. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990. Knysh, Alexander D. Sufism: A New History of Islamic Mysticism. Oxford: Princeton Uni­ versity Press, 2017. Lane, Edward William. An Account of the Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyp­ tians: Written in Egypt During the Years 1833, 1834, and 1835, 2 vols. London: Charles Knight & Co., 1836. Le Gall, Dina. A Culture of Sufism: Naqshbandis in the Ottoman World, 1450–1700. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2005. Lohlker, Rüdiger. “Abd al-Karīm al-Jīlī and The Praxis of Ḥadīth,” Ulumuna, Vol. 25, Nr. 1 (July, 2021): 35–55. Macdonald, Michael. “Religion, Social Change, and Psychological Healing in England, 1600–1800,” The Church and Healing, Vol. 19 (1982): 101–125. Magnússon, Sigurður Gylfi, and István M. Szijártó. What Is Microhistory? Theory and Practice. Abingdon: Routledge, 2013. Malinowski, Bronislaw. “Sir James George Frazer,” 177–222. In A Scientific Theory of Cul­ ture, and Other Essays. New York: Oxford University Press, 1960. Massignon, Louis. Essay on the Origins of the Technical Language of Islamic Mysticism: Translated from the French with an Introduction by Benjamin Clark. Notre Dame: Uni­ versity of Notre Dame Press, 1997. Masters, Bruce. “The View from the Province: Syrian Chronicles of the Eighteenth Cen­ tury,” Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 114, No. 3 (July-September, 1994): 353–362. Mauss, Marcel. A General Theory of Magic. Translated by Robert Brain. London: Routledge, 1972. Mayeur-Jaouen, Catherine. “The Small World of Aḥmad al-Ṣāwī (1761–1825), an Egyptian Khalwatī Shaykh,” 105–144. In The Piety of Learning: Islamic Studies in Honor of Stefan Reichmuth. Edited by Michael Kemper and Ralf Elger. Leiden & Boston: Brill, 2017. McIntosh, Donald. “Weber and Freud: On the Nature and Sources of Authority,” American Sociological Review, Vol. 35, No. 5 (October, 1970): 901–911. Meier, Astrid. “Words in Action: ʿAbd al-Ghanī al-Nābulusī as a Jurist,” 107–136. In Early Modern Trends in Islamic Theology: ʿAbd al-Ghanī al-Nābulusī and His Network of Scholarship (Studies and Texts). Edited by Lejla Demiri and Samuela Pagani. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2019.

Patterns of Grace in History and Scholarship 41 Melvin-Koushki, Matthew. “In Defence of Geomancy: Šaraf al-Dīn Yazdī Rebuts Ibn Ḫaldūn’s Critique of the Occult Sciences,” Arabica, T.64, Fasc. ¾ (2017): 346–403. Melvin-Koushki, Matthew. “Magic in Islam between Religion and Science,” Magic, Ritual, and Witchcraft, Vol. 14, Nr. 2 (2019): 256–287. Meri, Josef W. The Cult of Saints Among Muslims and Jews in Medieval Syria. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002. Miura, Toru. “The Ṣāliḥīyya Quarter in the Suburbs of Damascus: Its Formation, Structure, and Transformation in the Ayyūbid and Mamlūk Periods,” Bulletin d’études orientales, Vol. 47 (1995): 129–181. Moin, Azfar. The Millennial Sovereign: Sacred Kingship and Sainthood in Islam. New York: Columbia University Press, 2012. Moin, Azfar. “The‘Ulama’ as Ritual Specialists: Cosmic Knowledge and Political Rituals,” 377–392. In The Wiley Blackwell History of Islam. Edited by Armando Salvatore. Oxford: Wiley Blackwell, 2018. Monti, Martino Rossi. “The Mask of Grace: On Body and Beauty of Soul between Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages,” 47–75. In Faces of Charisma: Image, Text, Object in Byzantium and the Medieval West. Edited by Brigitte Miriam Bedos-Rezak and Martha Dana Rust. Leiden & Boston: Brill, 2018. Moore, Michael Edward. A Sacred Kingdom: Bishops and the Rise of Frankish Kingship, 300–850. Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2011. al-Murādī, Muḥammad Khalīl. Silk al-Durar fi Aʿyan al-Qarn al-Thānī ʿAshar [A String of Pearls among the Notables of the Eighteenth Century]. Edited by Akram Ḥassan al-ʿUlabī. 4 vols. Beirut: Dār Ṣādir, 2002. al-Nābulsī, ʿAbd al-Ghanī. al-Ḥadīqa al-Nadīyya: Sharḥ al-Ṭarīqa al-Muḥammadīyya [The Dewy Garden: Explanations of the Muhammadan Way]. 2 vols. Miṣr: n.p., 1860. al-Nābulsī, ʿAbd al-Ghanī. “Kashf al-Nūr ʿan Aṣḥābi al-Qubūr” [Revealing Light about the People of the Tombs]. In “Wasāʼil al-taḥqīq wa-rasāʼil al-tawfīq. Taḥqīq al-maqs.ūd min maʿnā “Yā man huwa maʿbūd fī s.ūrat kull maʿbūd” [Means of Investigation and Letters of Conciliation. Clarification of the Meaning of “O you who is Worshipped” in cases of Wor­ ship],” in Cases of Worship]. Copied by al-Ḥājj ʿUmar Ibn ʿAbd Allah, 1748–1749. New Series no. 1113. Princeton: MS Princeton University Library, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Manuscript Collection, Islamic Manuscripts. Netton, Ian Richard. Islam, Christianity and the Mystic Journey: A Comparative Explora­ tion. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2011. Neusner, Jacob, Ernest S. Frerichs, and Paul Virgil McCracken Flesher, eds. Religion, Science and Magic: In Concert and In Conflict. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989. Nguyen, Martin. Sufi Master and Qur’an Scholar: Abū’l-Qāsim al-Qushayrī and the Lạtā’if al-Ishārāt. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012. Ohlander, Erik S. Sufism in an Age of Transition: ʿUmar al-Suhrawardī and the Rise of the Islamic Mystical Brotherhoods. Leiden & Boston: Brill, 2008. Otto, Bernd-Christian, and Michael Stausberg, eds. Defining Magic: A Reader. Sheffield and Bristol: Equinox Publishing, 2013. Ozer, Yumna, trans. Ibn Khaldūn on Sufism: Remedy for the Questioner in Search of Answers (Shifā’ al-Sā’il li-Tadhīb al-Masā’il). Cambridge: The Islamic Texts Society, 2017. Pfeiffer, Judith. “Confessional Ambiguity vs. Confessional Polarization: Politics and the Negotiation of Religious Boundaries in the Ilkhanate,” 129–172. In Politics, Patron­ age and the Transmission of Knowledge in 13th-15th Century Tabriz. Edited by Judith Pfeiffer. Leiden & Boston: Brill, 2014.

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Potts, John. A History of Charisma. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009. al-Qushayri, Abu‘l-Qasim. Al-Qushayri’s Epistle on Sufism: Al-Risala al-Qushayriyya fi ‘Ilm al-Tasawwuf. Translated by Alexander Knysh. Reading: Garnet Publishing, 2007. Rafeq, Abdul-Karim. “Relations Between the Syrian “Ulamā” and the Ottoman State in the Eighteenth Century,” Oriente Moderno, Vol. 79, No. 1 (1999): 67–95. Rafeq, Abdul-Karim. The Province of Damascus, 1723–1783. Beirut: Khayats, 1966. Rahimi, Babak, and Armando Salvatore, “The Crystallization and Expansiveness of Sufi Networks within the Urban-Rural-Nomadic Nexus of the Islamic Ecumene,” 253–272. In The Wiley Blackwell History of Islam. Edited by Armando Salvatore, Roberto Tottoli, and Babak Rahimi. Oxford: John Wiley & Sons Ltd., 2018. Renard, John, ed. Tales of God’s Friends: Islamic Hagiography in Translation. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009. Renard, John. “Initiation,” 153. In Historical Dictionary of Sufism. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2016. Ridgeon, Lloyd, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Sufism. New York: Cambridge Univer­ sity Press, 2015. Rosser, Gervase. The Art of Solidarity in the Middle Ages: Guilds in England, 1250–1550. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015. el-Rouayheb, Khaled. Islamic Intellectual History in the Seventeenth Century: Scholarly Currents in the Ottoman Empire and the Maghreb. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015. Russell, Alexander. The Natural History of Aleppo: A Description of the City and the Princi­ pal Natural Productions in Its Neighbourhood, Together with an Account of the Climate, Inhabitants, and Diseases, Particularly of the Plague, 2 volumes. Edited by Patrick Rus­ sell. London: G.G. and J. Robinson, 1974. Saif, Liana. The Arabic Influences on Early Modern Occult Philosophy. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015. Saif, Liana. “Between Medicine and Magic: Spiritual Aetiology and Therapeutics in Medi­ eval Islam,” 313–338. In Demons and Illness from Antiquity to the Early Modern Period. Edited by Siam Bhayro. Leiden & Boston: Brill, 2017. Sajdi, Dana. The Barber of Damascus: Nouveau Literacy in the Eighteenth-Century Otto­ man Levant. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2013. Sajdi, Dana. “In Other Worlds? Mapping out the Spatial Imaginaries of 18th-century Chron­ iclers from the Ottoman Levant (Bilād al-Shām),” Osmanlı Araştırmaları, Vol. 44 (2014): 357–392. Sariyannis, Marinos. “Ottoman Occultism and Its Social Contexts: Preliminary Remarks,” Aca’ib: Occasional Papers on the Ottoman Perceptions of the Supernatural 3 (2022): 35–66. Sedgwick, Mark J. Western Sufism: From the Abbasids to the New Age. New York: Oxford University Press, 2017. Sheikh, Mustapha. Ottoman Puritanism and Its Discontents: Aḥmad al-Rūmī al-Āqḥisārī and the Qāḍīzādelis. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016. Shils, Edward. “Charisma, Order, and Status,” American Sociological Review, Vol. 30, No. 2 (April, 1965): 199–213. Shoshan, Boaz. “Popular Sufi Sermons in Late Mamluk Egypt,” 106–113. In Mamluks and Ottomans: Studies in Honour of Michael Winter. Edited by David J. Wasserstein and Ami Ayalon. London & New York: Routledge, 2006.

Patterns of Grace in History and Scholarship 43 Sijbrand, Linda. “Orientalism and Sufism: An Overview,” 98–114. In Orientalism Revisited: Art, Land and Voyage. Edited by Ian Richard Netton. London & New York, 2013. Sirriyeh, Elizabeth. Sufi Visionary of Ottoman Damascus: ʿAbd al-Ghanī al-Nābulusī, 1641– 1731. London and New York: Routledge Curzon, 2005. Skovgaard-Petersen, Jakob. “A Typology of State Muftis,” 81–89. In Islamic Law and the Challenges of Modernity. Edited by Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad and Barbara Freyer Stowas­ ser. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMiraPress, 2004. Smith, Christian. Religion: What It Is, How It Works and Why It Matters. Princeton & Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2017. Strathern, Alan. Unearthly Powers: Religious and Political Change in World History. Cam­ bridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019. Styers, Randall. Making Magic: Religion, Magic and Science in the Modern World. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004. Subbotsky, Eugene. Magic and the Mind: Mechanisms, Functions, and Development of Magical Thinking and Behavior. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010. Tamari, Steve. “Biography, Autobiography, and Identity in Early Modern Damascus,” 37–50. In Auto/Biography and the Construction of Identity and Community in the Middle East. Edited by Mary Ann Fay. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2001. Terzioğlu, Derin. “Man in the Image of God in the Image of the Times: Sufi SelfNarratives and the Diary of Niyāzī-i Mıṣrī (1618–94),” Studia Islamica, No. 94 (2002): 139–165. Terzioğlu, Derin. “Sunna-Minded Sufi Preachers in Service of the Ottoman State: The naṣiḥatname of Hasan Addressed to Murad IV,” Archivum Ottomanicum, Vol. 27 (2010): 241–312. Terzioğlu, Derin. “How to Conceptualize Ottoman Sunnitization: A Historiographical Dis­ cussion,” Turcica, Vol. 44 (2012–2013): 301–338. Terzioğlu, Derin. “Sufis in the Age of State-Building and Confessionalization,” 86–103. In The Ottoman World. Edited by Christine Woodhead. London & New York: Routledge, 2012. Tezcan, Baki. “The Ottoman “Mevali” as ‘Lords of the Law’,” Journal of Islamic Studies, Vol. 20, No. 3 (September, 2009): 383–407. Thomas, Keith. Religion and the Decline of Magic: Studies in Popular Beliefs in Sixteenthand Seventeenth-Century England. London: Penguin, 1991. Trimingham, John Spencer. The Sufi Orders in Islam. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971. Trivellato, Francesca. “Is There a Future for Italian Microhistory in the Age of Global His­ tory?” California Italian Studies, Vol. 2 (2011). http://escholarship.org/uc/item/0z94n9hq (Last accessed: February 28th 2023). Ullmann, Walter. “Lecture V-I: The King’s Stunted Sovereignty,” 83–92. In The Carolin­ gian Rennaissance and the Idea of Kingship: The Birbeck Lectures 1968–9. New York: Routledge, 2010a. Ullmann, Walter. Principles of Government and Politics in the Middle Ages. London: Tay­ lor & Francis e-Library, 2010b. Vajda, G., Goldziher, I., and Bonebakker, S.A., “Id̲ j̲āza.” In Encyclopaedia of Islam II. Edited by P. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C. E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel, and W. P. Hein­ richs. Brill Online, 2012. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/1573-3912_islam_SIM_3485 (Last accessed: February 28th 2023). Viroli, Maurizio. As If God Existed: Religion and Liberty in the History of Italy. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2012.

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Voll, John O. “Sufi Brotherhoods: Trans-cultural/Trans-state Networks in the Muslim World,” 50–74. In Interactions: Transregional Perspectives on World History. Edited by Jerry H. Bentley, Renate Bridenthal, and Anand A. Yang. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2005. von Schlegell, Barbara Rosenow. “Sufism in the Ottoman Arab World: Shaykh ʿAbd al-Ghanī al-Nābulūsī (d. 1143/1731).” Unpublished PhD dissertation. University of Cali­ fornia, 1997. Walsham, Alexandra. The Reformation of the Landscape: Religion, Identity, and Memory in Early Modern Britain and Ireland. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011. Wasserstein, David J., and Ami Ayalon, eds. Mamluks and Ottomans: Studies in Honour of Michael Winter. London & New York: Routledge, 2006. Watenpaugh, Heghnar Zeitlian. The Image of an Ottoman City: Imperial Architecture and Urban Experience in Aleppo in the 16th and 17th Centuries. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2004. Webb, Peter. Imagining the Arabs: Arab Identity and the Rise of Islam. Edinburgh: Edin­ burgh University Press, 2017. Weber, Max. On Charisma and Institution Building: Selected Papers. Edited by S. N. Eisen­ stadt. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968. Weber, Max. The Sociology of Religion. In Economy and Society, Vol. 1. Boston: Beacon Press, 1993. Weismann, Itzchak. The Naqshbandiyya: Orthodoxy and Activism in a Worldwide Sufi Tra­ dition. London & New York: Routledge, 2007. Williams, C. Peter. “Healing and Evangelism: The Place of Medicine in Later Victorian Protestant Missionary Thinking,” The Church and Healing, Vol. 19 (1982): 271–285. Winter, Michael. Society & Religion in Early Ottoman Egypt: Studies in the Writings of ʿAbd al-Wahhāb al-Shaʿrānī. New Brunswick & London: Routledge, 2009. Wolper, Ethel Sara. “The Patron and the Sufi: Mediating Religious Authority through Der­ vish Lodges,” 24–41. In Cities and Saints: Sufism and the Transformation of Urban Space in Medieval Anatolia. Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2003. Wright, Zachary Valentine. Realizing Islam: The Tijaniyya in North Africa and the Eighteenth-Century Muslim World. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2020. Yamin, Mohammed. Impact of Islam on Orissan Culture. New Delhi: Readworthy Publica­ tions, 2009. Yavuz, Betul. “The Making of the Sufi Order between Heresy and Legitimacy: Bayrami­ Malāmis in the Ottoman Empire.” Unpublished PhD dissertation. Houston: Rice Univer­ sity, 2013. Yıldırım, Riza. “Inventing a Sufi Tradition: The Use of the Futuwwa Ritual Gathering as a Model for the Qizilbash Djem,” 164–182. In Sufism and Society: Arrangements of the Mystical in the Muslim World, 1200–1800. Edited by John Curry and Erik Ohlander. Abingdon: Routledge, 2012. Yıldırım, Riza. “The Rise of the ‘Religion and State’ Order: Re-confessionalization of State and Society in the Early Modern Ottoman Empire,” 12–46. In Ottoman Sunnism: New Perspectives. Edited by Vefa Erginbas. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2019. Yılmaz, Hüseyin. Caliphate Redefined: The Mystical Turn in Ottoman Political Thought. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2018. Yürekli, Zeynep. Architecture and Hagiography in the Ottoman Empire: The Politics of Bektashi Shrines in the Classical Age. Farnham: Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2012.

Patterns of Grace in History and Scholarship 45 Zaman, Muhammad Qasim. Ashraf ʿAli Thanawi: Islam in Modern South Asia. Oxford: Oneworld, 2008. Zarcone, Thierry, “Bridging the Gap between Pre-Soviet and Post-Soviet Sufism in Fer­ ghana Valley (Uzbekistan): The Naqshibandi Order between Tradition and Innovation,” 43–56. In Popular Movements and Democratization in the Islamic World. Edited by Masatoshi Kisaichi. Abingdon: Routledge, 2006. Zilfi, Madeline. “The Ottoman ulema,” 209–225. In The Cambridge History of Turkey: Vol­ ume 3, The Later Ottoman Empire 1603–1839. Edited by Suraiya N. Faroqhi. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006. Zilfi, Madeline. The Politics of Piety: The Ottoman Ulema in the Postclassical Age (1600– 1800). Minneapolis: Bibliotheca Islamica, 1988.

2

Miracles of God and Saintly Wonders Magic and Religion in the Syrian Eighteenth Century

The aim of this chapter is to suggest a more accurate definition of Muslim thauma­ turgy and its place between the historically and anthropologically opposed binaries of religion and magic in the case of eighteenth-century Syria. In Islam, Sufism was, across centuries, associated with beliefs and practices pertinent to Muslim thaumaturgy. The following discussion aims to provide a more nuanced approach through which Sufism may be studied as a constituent element of premodern Islam, representative of Muslim thaumaturgy. Muslim thaumaturgical and magical beliefs and practices were conceptually, technically, and anthropologically homologous.1 The nexus between them was reflected in practices and beliefs which involved invocations of and supplications to the divine, as well as other celestial beings such as angels, for instance. These practices were sometimes labeled theurgy, which as a term and a concept had a long history in Eurasian regions.2 In the centuries before modernity, according to the extant primary source material, while theologians mostly represented magic as a generic phenomenon, thaumaturgy was a specific form of practice strictly defined by sodalities of religious professionals in office. In eighteenth-century Syria, these sodalities were represented by the Sufi-ʿulamā’ with official appointments. Thaumaturgical beliefs and practices significantly helped the Sufi-ulamaic cir­ cles to define and maintain the boundaries of their office, both during the eighteenth century and in other premodern eras. It was widely believed that the individuals who attained popularity through their virtue, piety, and righteousness were capa­ ble of performing wonders through Allah’s grace. Most often, these individuals would claim membership among the state-appointed Sufi-ʿulamā’ while the rest of the common people were forbidden from performing thaumaturgical rituals. Stateappointed scholar-thaumaturges helped maintain the exclusiveness of their office through their own teachings and written works, allowing for the continuity of Mus­ lim religious and thaumaturgical traditions from the early Middle Ages and until the Muslim reforms of the modern period. Texts authored by eighteenth-century Syrian theologians indicate that the principal difference between thaumaturgy and magic was the widespread belief that Allah’s grace – baraka – made thaumaturgy possible, while magic was most often described as daemonic. Such was the case with divine grace in Christian traditions.3 As the cause and energy behind Muslim wonders, baraka represented DOI: 10.4324/9781003395539-2

Miracles of God and Saintly Wonders 47 an important religious resource as well as a social marker4 for the members of eighteenth-century Syrian priestly sodality. I further discuss baraka, both as a social marker and a socio-anthropological tool through which analyses of early modern Ottoman societies may be conducted. The networks of eighteenth-century state-appointed scholars and Sufi masters represented an essential layer within the eighteenth-century Ottoman network of the holy, which further comprised of the Sufi-ʿulamā’, the still-living Muslim saints, the deceased awliyā’, and the prophets.5 This network, in addition, included a number of sacred places such as shrines, or tombs, as well as natural objects like rocks, caves, bodies of water, or trees.6 In this chapter, I discuss various compo­ nents within this complex network of graceful individuals, places, and objects, which was fundamental to Ottoman Sunni orthodoxy prior to the modern Muslim reforms. Beliefs in their grace were widespread among the common people and the elites in eighteenth-century Syria, as I demonstrate in other chapters of this book. Throughout the medieval and early modern period, however, some Muslim the­ ologians expressed skepticism towards certain elements of the Muslim network of the holy. This chapter offers a brief account of such skepticism and its relevance for the history of eighteenth-century Syria, analyzing the theological responses emerg­ ing from it, such as they remain in primary source material. “What I do is a Miracle, But What You Do is Magic:”7 Thaumaturgy and Magic in Eighteenth-Century Damascus Scholarship defines magic as a set of pragmatic acts achieving results through unseen means.8 With the term magic, I refer to bodies of beliefs and practices aimed to compel, bargain with, or appease various unseen forces capable of defy­ ing natural causalities. Magicians believed themselves capable of manipulating energies, which would directly or indirectly, through talismans, or images, for instance, influence people, animate nature, or predict certain events. In addition, certain types of augury and divination, such as geomancy, technically and concep­ tually overlapped with various kinds of both magical and thaumaturgical practices. During the eighteenth century, beliefs in magic (siḥr) were widespread in the Ottoman Empire, and the Damascene Muslim scholars amply wrote about them. Al-Nābulsī and Ibn ʿĀbidīn treated siḥr as an open-ended category pertinent to various kinds of illicit beliefs and practices. This category included daemonology, in the sense of bargaining with the jinn9 or compelling them to do one’s bidding. Theologians further approached astrology, geomancy, and many other divination techniques with caution, yet any practice aimed at praeternaturally causing harm was considered magical,10 while certain forms of talismanics, various other types of occult sciences (ʿulūm al-ghayb), illusionism, or prestidigitation were often frowned upon.11 Making appropriate distinctions between magic and thaumaturgy appears to be problematic for modern and contemporary scholarship, due to the seemingly unstable technical (and sometimes social) boundaries between these categories in various historical realities. In the Catholic case, which is in many ways comparable

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to that of Islam, some scholars suggest that the difference between the concepts of prayer and spell became elaborate only with the advent of Protestantism.12 Thaumaturgy as a frequent constituent of early modern religious orthodoxies, like magic, aimed to compel, bargain with, or appease various unseen forces in order to achieve results that defied natural causalities. The forces that both thaumaturges and magicians supposedly interacted with were believed occult. These forces were entities like gods, angels, daemons, spirits, and so on. Such forces may be defined as praeternatural, or supernatural. Max Weber, however, noted that only a modern spectator would understand them so.13 It is possible to presume that premodern peo­ ples for the greater part accepted the idea that these forces dwelled unseen among them. In the popular imaginary, they were fully natural, although they inhabited a part of the world which was invisible. During the premodern centuries, there existed a continuity between the visible and the invisible, which further influenced the popular perceptions of nature.14 Distinctions between thaumaturgy and magic did exist before modernity, how­ ever. Sunni theologians clearly separated these categories on the grounds of the type of energy that was believed to cause their efficacy. In eighteenth-century Damascus, Ibn ʿĀbidīn insisted that the praeternatural phenomena (khawāriq) were real and divided into magic, wonder-, and miracle-working. Along with other eighteenth-century scholars, he maintained that any mystical effect caused by the pious and the righteous may have been understood as a wonder (karāma).15 Wonder-working was widely conceived as caused by Allah’s baraka, which most often was acquired through exemplary behavior marked with devoutness, right­ eousness, and piety. These qualities were in Arabic jointly indicated by the term ṣalāḥ, which most often represented the primary condition for the beliefs in one’s grace.16 The Sufis, widely assumed to have been the champions of ṣalāḥ, were believed to be the recipients of divine baraka, which was believed to protect them from sinful behavior and fuel their wonders. The causal relationship between ṣalāḥ and baraka needs continuous emphasis. Studying the beliefs in this relation­ ship allows to observe the ways through which the Sufi-ʿulamā’ sodalities and the common people of eighteenth-century Shām identified their wonder-workers and saints. Because of their baraka, the Sufis and the awliyā’ supposedly caused wonders (karamāt), while the prophets caused miracles (muʿjizāt).17 These beliefs remained fairly unchanged since the medieval period.18 Unlike wonder-working, eighteenth-century Syrian theologians considered magic an evil inspiration from the devil (shayṭānīyya). Ibn ʿĀbidīn wrote that siḥr corrupted the world and human character. He furthermore rendered any preter­ natural phenomenon caused by an evil individual – a sinner, or an unbeliever – clearly magical.19 Al-Nābulsī wrote that magicians were blasphemers and infidels who often cooperated with the devils (shayāṭīn).20 Divine grace, attracted by traits of exemplary individuals, which were commonly perceived as good and much desired, represented the difference between wonder and magic in popular belief. Making distinctions between wonder-working and magic based on the type of energy that supposedly caused them seems near-ubiquitous across the globe and is documented by contemporary scholarship. In many regions, people sanctioned

Miracles of God and Saintly Wonders 49 ritualistic practices that allegedly brought benefits. In contrast, practices tied to curses or causing harm were usually condemned as witchcraft.21 It is striking, however, that scholarship rarely mentions the concept of thaumaturgy explicitly. Scholars instead focus on the relations between magic and the broader category of religion, even though thaumaturgical beliefs as constituents of many religions greatly facilitated making distinctions between religious orthodoxies and magical traditions. The reasons for this omission seem to owe to both the anthropological congruence of thaumaturgy and magic, as well as to the historical influence of religious reforms that changed the attitudes towards thaumaturgical practice, as I discuss later. Regardless, influential authors such as Max Weber also drew a line between religion and magic according to the moral dispositions of the invoked entities.22 The emergent good-evil dichotomy, evident in eighteenth-century Syria from Ibn ʿĀbidīn’s treatises, and in medieval Islam from Ibn Khaldūn’s Prole­ gomenon,23 may be found in many scholarly works in comparative religion. Some prominent sociologists and anthropologists describe magic as antinomian and dae­ monic, or committed to worshipping ancient and illicit deities. It is frequent to encounter the descriptions of magic as a mockery of religious practice.24 It appears that the good-evil dichotomy between religion and magic stood in direct relation with the dichotomy of licit-illicit,25 which directly led to debates about orthodoxies and heterodoxies. Throughout the history of premodern religions, religious authorities in office defined the orthodoxy of a given religious practice. In eighteenth-century Syria, the ulamaic circles used the exclusive access to their trade to maintain boundaries between the orthodox and the heterodox. The ʿulamā’ kept the idea that the Sufi masters successfully distinguished proper from dangerous religious practice. An established Sufi shaykh’s guidance was obligatory for those embarking on Sufi paths.26 Common people were advised to adhere to the normative prescriptions given by the religious authorities in office while performing common religious rites. Divergences, or intentional practice of mystical arts by the commoners, were a sign of infidelity (kufr) for the eighteenth-century Damascene ʿulamā’.27 Keith Thomas traces comparable strategies through which the medieval English Catholic Church maintained monopoly over religious orthodoxy.28 The Church condemned any divergence from the proceedings of an officially prescribed ritual as sorcery or devil-worship. Similarly, any usage of the Church’s symbols outside of the given norm was outlawed along with participation in any rituals that the religious author­ ities did not establish themselves.29 Eighteenth-century Damascene scholars, like Ibn ʿĀbidīn and al-Nābulsī, fol­ lowed a tradition of theological writing that lasted for centuries and remained preserved in older and very prominent texts. For instance, Ibn Khaldūn’s Prole­ gomenon established identical boundaries between magicians and the Sufis.30 The eighteenth-century ulamā’ often suggested that all praeternatural effects caused by the righteous may have been regarded as wonders, as they served God, and not daemons, celestial bodies, or their own interests. The similarity of Sufi rituals to sorcery, or their overlaps with various categories of occult sciences, were permis­ sible due to saintly and Sufi baraka which protected wonder-workers from all harm

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and proved them sinless.31 Baraka served as an analytic instrument through which Muslim premodern theologians distinguished between orthodox and heterodox beliefs and practices over the passage of time. It therefore appears that for early modern Muslim theological sodalities, the boundaries between religion and magic mostly helped maintain the boundaries between an exclusive group of religious professionals and the rest of the common people, as was the case in other religious confessions across regions. Any simi­ larities between institutionally sanctioned rituals and those of freelance magicians were immediately discarded, as the former were believed to represent the conse­ quence of divine grace, while the latter were described as diabolical. Distinctions between religion and magic in Islam continually represented issues of control,32 while religious authorities strove to preserve their place as official divine grace dispensers.33 Historians also noticed that various groups of religious professionals across regions often exchanged accusations of sorcery, illusionism, or fraud during disputes. This is in eighteenth-century Syria evident from Ibn ʿĀbidīn’s writing.34 The cynical formulation “What I do is a miracle, but what you do is magic”35 gains significance for the analysis of the historical relations between thaumaturgy and magic in Islam, espousing a particular strategy of exclusion aimed to preserve the institutional character of a sodality of professionals with the claim over religious orthodoxy through the belief in divine grace. The official religious authorities’ classification of thaumaturgy in eighteenthcentury Syria as a fully orthodox cultural and religious corpus implies that Sufism, a primary vehicle for Muslim thaumaturgy during the early modern period, cannot be considered an odd, heterodox body of beliefs and practices, as some scholarship suggested in the past.36 The scholarly view of Sufism as a heterodox body of mys­ tical traditions in premodern Islam seems to owe significantly to the general ten­ dency to overlook the history of thaumaturgy in scholarship today. The absence of thaumaturgy from scholarly debates may occasionally lead to confusion between the anthropological categories of religion and magic. This scholarly omission might on the one hand represent the consequence of the historical fact that thauma­ turgy and magic were congruent from an anthropological point of view.37 On the other, the conflation of the categories of thaumaturgy and magic may be owed to the historical Protestant influence in Europe, as well as the engagement of Muslim modern reformers in the Middle East and North Africa. Through the influences of such groups, thaumaturgy came under accusations that it represented magic itself, despite the historical fact that these categories were distinguished through the doc­ trines of religious institutions.38 European Protestant movements attacked the beliefs in the divine grace attrib­ uted to the established priesthoods, as well as in the cults of saints which were spread across Eurasia.39 For instance, in Western Europe, Protestants were widely denying the thaumaturgical capabilities that the Catholic Church possessed accord­ ing to common beliefs. The varying degrees of Protestant movements’ success induced changes in the theological opinions about the origin and purpose of thau­ maturgical beliefs and rituals.40 Belief in miracles and wonders caused by divine will through the agency of the Catholic priests, as well as in any alleged priestly

Miracles of God and Saintly Wonders 51 power that granted immediate relief to the people,41 slowly took the character of superstition. Thaumaturgy was, in the Protestant discourse, reduced to a lowly magical practice inspired by devils and labeled evil, illicit, and heterodox.42 Similarly, the collapse of the thaumaturgy-magic distinction in the studies of Islam may owe to the influences of modern scholarly writing about thaumaturgy globally,43 as well as the efforts of the Muslim reformists to remove Sufism from mainstream religion.44 The belief in Muslim saintly cults and Sufi wonders in Islam was attacked by the Muslim reformist thought during the modern period, bringing about comparable historical developments to those in Europe after the advent of Protestantism.45 Scholarly studies of Islam today display an unease with position­ ing the categories of religion and magic, as well as Islam and Sufism, while older scientific works frequently indicated that Sufism was illicit and heterodox.46 All the while, Sufism continues to pervade and exert a considerable influence on many socio-anthropological and sociopolitical fields studied by the scholarship commit­ ted to Islam.47 I suggest approaching Sufism in premodern Islam as a body of mystical beliefs and practices, which were representative of Muslim thaumaturgy and fully ortho­ dox, according to the doctrine of the religious authorities in power. This body of mystical beliefs and practices contained many elements homologous to siḥr, yet theologically, sociopolitically, and legally distinguished through the writings of state-appointed Ottoman priestly sodalities. These sodalities used the beliefs in divine grace – Allah’s baraka – to justify the efficacy of thaumaturgy and further establish themselves as an institution of religious authority by claiming monopoly over this thaumaturgical resource. Baraka was of high significance for the social dynamics of early modern Ottoman Shām, where it represented both a social marker and the supposed energy behind thaumaturgical efficacy. Holy Energy: The Significance of the Belief in Allah’s Baraka Depending on the region, the unseen energies that allegedly fueled magical and thaumaturgical action (the magical or thaumaturgical capital, in Bourdiesque terms48) would be dubbed mana,49 or purba, orenda,50 and so on. In the Muslim case, it is possible to identify thaumaturgical energy as grace, baraka. Muslim beliefs in baraka were comparable to the Christian beliefs in God’s grace.51 According to common beliefs, this mystical grace made prophetic miracles, as well as saintly and Sufi-ulamaic wonders, possible.52 Muslims who dem­ onstrated extreme piety, devoutness, and virtue53 in life were occasionally believed to have become recipients of grace and furthermore capable of har­ vesting this thaumaturgical capital from certain sacred places, such as saintly shrines. Very importantly, these special individuals would be believed capable of dispensing divine grace to the rest of the people, acquiring thus a specific social function.54 The religious, sociopolitical, socio-anthropological, and economic significance of baraka as a primary historical fact qualify it as a valid analytical tool for the study of eighteenth-century Syrian religion. I am tracing the narratives about

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baraka produced in eighteenth-century Syria to map out the Shāmī religious topog­ raphy, as well as the networks of religious professionals who oversaw the dispens­ ing of this thaumaturgical resource to the rest of the Ottoman subjects. The state-appointed Sufi-scholars of note in eighteenth-century Damascus wrote that the ultimate source of baraka was divine will. It is reasonable to pre­ sume, however, that they felt moved to offer such explanations in the framework of their apologetic responses to the rigorists’ doubt in Muslim saints. Beliefs that all baraka came from Allah therefore may seem a second-order dogmatic and casu­ istic explanation. As a primary anthropological fact, baraka may have sometimes been seen as the energy of a hallowed individual or an object directly. Eighteenthcentury sources at times seem to support this view. For instance, the Damascene barber Ibn Budayr writes only of the saints’ baraka during his pilgrimages around the provincial capital.55 Similarly, biographies authored by al-Murādī often indi­ cate the baraka of individuals, adding no mention of the divine.56 In the twentieth century, Samuel Curtiss and Lewis Paton offer empirical evidence that the people preferred to pray near saintly shrines to make their prayers to God more effica­ cious.57 However, Paton was told in Syria that the common people fear God, yet they fear the walī also “because he is near.”58 The proximity of the saints in com­ mon imaginary may have influenced the way baraka was popularly viewed, which is another comparative point across world religions.59 According to the apologetics of the ulamaic authors, baraka through divine providence passed down through prophets of whom many feature in the Bible as well (such as Abraham, or Moses).60 It then passed downwards to the deceased, and then the still-living Muslim saints, as well as numerous Sufi masters. The shaykhs were believed capable of developing various thaumaturgical skills and knowledge, as well as causing wonders through this grace. In premodern popular belief, baraka had near-physical properties. Muslims believed that grace could “leak” between individuals through touch. In the popular imaginary, baraka gathered around entombed saints, or within their memorials. It also formed residues in places where powerful thaumaturgical acts allegedly hap­ pened. From there, it leaked into other people and objects.61 Some Muslim thauma­ turges were believed capable of fueling small items with a certain portion of their baraka. They would thus create talismans aimed at a range of purposes – from prophylactic to daemonological (aimed at controlling or banishing malevolent praeternatural entities).62 The early modern Ottoman subjects had a gesture called tabarruk (“solicitation of blessing”). One would hold their hands out, palms facing upwards. They would motion as if they gathered water to symbolize the collection of God’s power. Hands would then pass over the body from the head downwards to symbolize “bathing” in the energy of God. This gesture is standard among Muslims everywhere and is functionally comparable to the Christian sign of the cross.63 In eighteenth-century Syria, it was customary to perform the tabarruk upon seeing a saint or passing by a saintly shrine – according to belief an endless resource of baraka.64 The people in eighteenth-century Syria (and premodern Muslims broadly) believed that the function of baraka was to protect against devils, destructive

Miracles of God and Saintly Wonders 53 spells, curses, and other harmful phenomena such as diseases or natural catastro­ phes. Furthermore, it was believed that baraka caused prayers to come true and enhanced the power of some types of rituals. Sufis believed that particular chapters from the Qur’ān, such as al-Fātiḥa, were able to activate baraka which would then be used to realize a thaumaturgical purpose.65 The notion of baraka possesses a high degree of socio-anthropological signifi­ cance for historical studies of premodern Islam. My research takes note of popular beliefs that baraka was attracted by and accrued from the personal traits of vir­ tue and devoutness (Ar. ṣalāḥ).66 Theological treatises, biographical dictionaries, and daily chronicles written in eighteenth-century Syria frequently emphasize the baraka of those individuals who attracted popularity through their exemplary life­ styles. Reading documents about baraka therefore enables researchers to analyze in detail the socio-anthropological dynamics of premodern Muslim societies. Such is the case with eighteenth-century Syria as well, where the belief that Allah’s ener­ gies acted as a shield against the perils of the unseen world and its malevolent forces such as the daemons67 additionally strengthened the Sufi-ʿulamā’ sodalities’ institutionalized function as overseers of religious matters.68 Baraka influenced the people’s views of early modern urban topography. Otto­ man subjects strove to be buried as close as possible to graves of famous saints, or other places marked by religiously significant events. It was customary to erect shrines in such locations. These could be humble edifices or more elaborate com­ plexes. In Damascus, the shrines of Ibn ʿArabī and al-Nābulsī were very large architectural clusters. Many saintly shrines over time became bigger economic centers accompanied by various establishments aimed at accommodating pilgrims and performing charity.69 Pilgrimage complexes grew in numbers and influenced mobility patterns, causing the production of a distinct genre of travel guides.70 Baraka-harvesting pilgrimages were so common and frequent that James Grehan finds the source material an inspiration to write about the Muslim ziyāra customs as an obsession of some Sufi masters.71 It was believed that grace was earned by merit,72 most often after long years of studying under established Sufi shaykhs. Those who acquired reputation for their baraka commanded significant respect among their peers, as well as other members of society. Many people who were believed recipients of Allah’s grace pursued official appointments at important and lucrative positions within Otto­ man administration. Their powers of office commanded significant sociopolitical influence in different parts of the Ottoman Empire. Their baraka further served as a powerful means of social mobility that occasionally facilitated an individual’s advance from humble origins towards the highest echelons of the Ottoman imperial administration.73 Graceful Networks: Wonder-Workers in Eighteenth-Century Ottoman Syria The Sufi-ʿulamā’ networks claimed monopoly over Allah’s grace. Baraka was for them both the cause of their wonders and a discursive tool, which helped them

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establish their authority over religious orthodoxy. Their professional credentials were legitimized through the widespread belief in individuals, places, and objects interconnected by praeternatural grace into a network of the holy that was funda­ mental for premodern Ottoman Sunnism. This was a very broad network, com­ prised of both vertical and horizontal connections, which was crucial for early modern belief in Ottoman Syria. It may be mapped out by tracing the beliefs that baraka was merited by individuals whom the Ottoman societies considered exem­ plary. In the eighteenth century, the Syrian network of the holy was comprised of prominent Sufi-ʿulamā’, deceased Sufi masters, Muslim saints (awliyā’), and the prophets (anbiyā’). Al-Nābulsī divided the ranks of the Ottoman network of the holy between the ṣāliḥūn, the ʿulamā’, and the awliyā’.74 At the basis of the network of the holy were the ṣāliḥūn who enjoyed popular belief that they were invested with divine grace. It was believed that these individuals, with origins across the social scale, merited their baraka through their virtuous ways of living, and that they could therefore cause wonders.75 The ṣāliḥūn overlapped with the groups of Sufi masters and disciples. Those ṣāliḥūn who attracted most respect usually belonged to vari­ ous eighteenth-century Sufi orders during their lives, and the eighteenth-century Syrian network of the holy, therefore, considerably overlapped with the network of religious authorities represented by the officially appointed Sufi-ʿulamā’.76 How­ ever, certain members of this category were believed to be the recipients of baraka even though they did not follow the teachings of a specific Sufi order. Such cases were still very rare.77 Above the ranks of the Shāmī ṣāliḥūn were the saints (sg. walī, pl. awliyā’).78 Scholarship defines the awliyā’ as “friends of God” (sg. walī allah),79 indicating a certain closeness to the divine.80 This rank consisted of the members of the wider social category of the ṣāliḥūn who were believed to have merited divine grace. The most prominent saints were, however, almost always influential members of the Sufi-ʿulamā’ sodalities.81 Out of each saintly generation, an individual of unprecedented achievements would become known as the quṭb zamānihi (“the Pole of his time”). It was believed that the Poles (aqṭāb) maintained worldly order, prevented sin, and ensured that the people were protected from evil. In practical terms, Poles of their time enjoyed unparalleled popularity and influ­ ence, both among their peers and notables of economic and political influence.82 Rachida Chih identifies four of the most prominent Poles who lived between the eleventh and the thirteenth centuries. In early modern Egypt, these individuals were widely respected. They were ʿAbd al-Qādir al-Gīlāni83 (1078–1166), Aḥmad al-Rifaʿī (1118–1181), Aḥmad al-Badawī (1200–1276), and Ibrahīm al-Dasūqī (1255–1296).84 These four Sufi masters were celebrated as the eponymous found­ ers of some of the larger Sufi orders – the Qādirīyya, Rifāʿīyya, Aḥmadīyya, and the Burhānīyya85 – that existed deep into the nineteenth century (and are still present in some regions). Taufik Canaan identified the same four individu­ als as highly respected Poles in Syria,86 in addition to other Syrian aqṭāb such as Arslān (Ruslān) al-Dimashqī (d.1160/64), “The Protector of Damascus,”87 or ʿAbd al-Ghanī al-Nābulsī. The Cordoban scholar, saint, and quṭb, Ibn ʿArabī,

Miracles of God and Saintly Wonders 55 remained remembered as the patron saint of the Ottoman dynasty88 and was ven­ erated throughout the imperial domain. In the eighteenth century, Syrian priestly sodalities considered al-Nābulsī the Pole of his time, while al-Ḥifnī enjoyed this honor in Egypt.89 Numerous individuals from each generation of prominent Mus­ lim ṣāliḥūn continuously expanded the saintly ranks. By the eighteenth century, Ottoman Syria as well as other imperial regions had an exquisite number of nodes in their networks of the holy90 integrated within a pyramid through which divine grace was believed to descend upon humanity. Above the deceased saints and the Poles, and under God as the source of all that existed, stood the rank of the prophets (anbiyā’; sg. nabī). The difference between the prophets and the saints was reflected in the beliefs that the former were tasked with spreading divine revelation, which was further accompanied by their more potent abilities. Prophetic calling and revelation often distinguished prophetic muʿjiza from saintly karāma in the writings of Muslim theologians.91 Muḥammad was considered the first among the prophets as the perfect man (al-insān al-kāmil). He represented the source of knowledge and the most significant node of the net­ work of the holy for the continuous vertical distribution of grace.92 Many Sufi orders claimed to have been built on prophetic heritage.93 Among other prophets of Islam, many were featured in the Old and New Testament traditions as well, such as Abraham or Moses.94 The belief in the same prophets across scriptural confes­ sions inspired some scholars to underline the wide syncretic tendencies that Sufism contained during the previous centuries.95 Al-Nābulsī believed that the saints and prophets received Allah’s grace even after death and until the end of days.96 He described their wonders as the proof of their virtue.97 Due to the belief that saints continued to receive Allah’s baraka after death, it was expected that they could also cause wonders postmortem. Through­ out the premodern centuries, Muslims therefore turned the graves of their saints into shrines,98 which became pilgrimage (ziyāra; pl. ziyārāt) destinations.99 In the eighteenth-century, it was customary to pray and perform various religious rituals in the vicinity of these shrines,100 in hopes that the saintly baraka would empower a spell or strengthen a prayer’s efficacy. Furthermore, it was hoped that the unseen saintly presence within the shrines would intercede101 before Allah and assist the people with their needs. Ottoman imperial urban planning throughout the early modern period at times used the saintly shrines for a number of sociopolitical and economic purposes. Sufi lodges, usually standing upon at least one hallowed tomb, lay within larger building complexes specialized for charity and proselytization. Such complexes frequently represented focal points around which new neighborhoods would be developed in conquered cities.102 In Damascus, the Ibn ʿArabī complex represented a very important Ottoman endowment. Sultan Selim I (1470–1520) commissioned its renovation and expansion quite possibly in hopes of shifting the religious center of the city away from the Umayyad Mosque and attributing more signifi­ cance to his own dynasty in the wake of Mamluk defeat.103 The sociopolitical use of hallowed graves was not an original Ottoman development. Muslim states that

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existed for a number of centuries prior to the emergence of the Ottoman Empire often used such graves for economic and self-representative purposes.104 Continuing a centuries-long tradition, Ottoman subjects organized ceremonies to honor their prominent saints and prophets such as, for instance, the mawlids (“birthday”)105 that represented major attractions for travelers as well as locals.106 Major fairs and markets would be organized on such occasions. These festivities most often took place at saintly shrines that, in addition to marking saintly graves, at times stood at places where legendary events from Muslim religious history allegedly happened. A complex economy generated around Muslim sacred sites, further indicating the economic correlates of premodern beliefs in baraka for the historical studies of the Middle East.107 In addition to the large number of hallowed shrine complexes, certain events would at times inspire beliefs that baraka resided in natural objects such as trees, caves, rocks, or water sources.108 I consider the net­ work of eighteenth-century Syrian sacred places – its “folk geology,”109 comprised of sacred shrines, trees, caves, rocks, and water sources – an element in the Otto­ man network of the holy. In the eighteenth century, the ever-growing network of the holy was comprised of entire silsilas of deceased saints and the Poles among them. For the Ottoman priestly sodality, this network represented both the alleged source of divine grace and the source of legitimacy in front of the rest of the people. Baraka correlated to ṣalāḥ, and the priestly sodality fashioned itself as a network of role models in the Ottoman societies based on beliefs in their grace. In certain regions, beliefs in the network of the holy remain until today, while at many other places, Muslim reforms succeeded at casting doubt in Muslim saints and their networks. This was a slow process, however. The Sufi-ʿulamā’ in office during the eighteenth century left a significant number of written works in response to disputes that occasionally arose around matters of Ottoman belief. Purity of Faith: Religious Rigorism of the Eighteenth Century The persistence of rigorism on the margins of Ottoman societies inspired many works of apologetic theology.110 The Sufi-ʿulamā’ in Damascus formulated their response to rigorist movements in works that discussed Sufism, the cult of saints in Islam, and many religious and thaumaturgical practices. Comparing these vol­ umes with practiced religion as it was documented by eighteenth-century chroni­ clers and Sufi masters illuminates the boundaries of licit thaumaturgical practice, as well as the extant beliefs in miracles, wonders, and Allah’s grace. Authorities on religion and jurisprudence in eighteenth-century Damascus, like al-Nābulsī, wrote in detail about Ottoman network of the holy, enumerated what they considered blasphemous and antinomian behavior, and issued accusations of heresy. Reading al-Nābulsī’s writings, some scholars describe his authorship as a lifelong mission of defending Sufism from Kadızadeli attacks.111 Muḥammad Ibn ʿĀbidīn’s treatise defends his Sufi master Khālid al-Naqshbandī (d.1827) from opponents’ charges of heresy.112 The apologetic tradition persisted among the Sufi-ʿulamā’ during the modern times as well.113

Miracles of God and Saintly Wonders 57 Even though the Ottoman network of the holy, as well as the Muslim priestly sodalities represented by the Sufi-ʿulamā’ with state appointments, held fast against doctrinal attacks at least until the early nineteenth century, theological disagree­ ments existed ever since the medieval period. Some prominent theologians occa­ sionally tended to express doubts in the established and highly popular cults of saints. At times they would doubt the thaumaturgical powers of the Sufis as well. They, however, remained a minority until the modern period. Scholarship traditionally suggests that the Hanbalite school of jurisprudence (sg. madhhab, pl. madhāhib) was historically representative of a degree of ani­ mosity towards Sufism. This scholarly presumption may owe to the Hanbalite school’s more literalist approach to the Scripture.114 However, the eleventh-century eponymous founder of the Qādirīyya, ʿAbd al-Qādir al-Gīlānī (1078–1166), him­ self belonged to the Hanbalite madhhab. As one of the widely venerated Poles of his time, al-Gīlānī had a shrine built in his honor in Baghdad. This shrine was destroyed during the reign of Shah Ismāʿīl I (1501–1524) but the Lawgiver rebuilt it later.115 A madrasa was named after him. Along with the shrine, this madrasa represents a pilgrimage destination until the present day.116 In eighteenth-century Damascus, the Hanbalite school of jurisprudence enjoyed considerable attendance and presence in official positions. Among its ranks were individuals such as Abū al-Mawāhib Ibn ʿAbd al-Bāqī al-Ḥanbalī (d.1714), one of the most popular saints of eighteenth-century Damascus, a prominent author, scholar, and a Sufi. He was also a critically acclaimed meteoromancer. His grave was a very popular pilgrimage destination.117 Historians documented that the eponymous founder of the Hanbalite madhhab, Aḥmad Ibn Ḥanbal (780–855), himself performed rituals of baraka-harvesting and wondrous healing. For thaumaturgical healing, he used his spittle, or the hair of the Prophet. His grave had a pleasant fragrance, and the people believed that he was a saint.118 The case of Aḥmad Ibn Ḥanbal illustrates the long-lasting overlap between an ʿālim and a thaumaturge. Disagreements that emerged among theologians over the passage of time concerning certain Sufi practices and the cult of saints did not neutralize this overlap during the premodern periods. Over time, however, certain Hanbalite scholars developed a more rigorist119 attitude to the Muslim cults of saints. Teachings of the eponymous founder of the Hanbalite madhab were often quoted as inspiration behind later rigorist thought. Some rigorist scholars were important figures for the historical developments in Syria over the passage of time. For instance, Aḥmad Ibn Ḥanbal left significant influence on the written works of the famous Hanbalite scholar and a Qādirīyya Sufi, Taqī al-Dīn Aḥmad Ibn Taymīyya (1263–1328).120 Ibn Taymīyya was a con­ temporary to the Mongol campaigns in the Middle East and in time became known for his own achievements in combat.121 While he was still a child, the advance of the Mongols pushed him towards Damascus. Ibn Taymīyya considered that al­ khalaf generations brought many innovations (bidʿa) in Islam and that ahl al-salaf possessed more credibility concerning matters of proper belief.122 Ibn Taymīyya interpreted Ibn ʿArabī’s self-proclamation to be the “Seal of the Saints” as a chal­ lenge to Muḥammad’s prophethood.123 He was in favor of many devotional Sufi

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practices, yet he expressed doubt about ziyāra, reasoning that the practice derived from the hopes of acolytes to get closer to God, which was impermissible.124 His writing and provocative behavior in front of the jurisprudential authorities caused controversies in Damascus.125 Because of his attitudes, he was expelled from the city and further prosecuted in Cairo and Alexandria.126 This Sufi-ʿālim’s shrine in Damascus was a very important pilgrimage site. The eighteenth-century pilgrims’ guides still listed it among the most prominent religious destinations.127 Doctrinal disagreements persisted during the early modern period.128 Ibn Taymīyya’s opinions endured among some Ottoman Sufi-ʿulamā’. However, schol­ arly references to the Anatolian preacher, Taqī al-Dīn Muḥammad Ibn ʿAlī (d.1573), later remembered as Birgivī Mehmed Efendi as a successor of Taymīyyan ideas seem somewhat misplaced. Birgivī Mehmed featured in biographies as either a Sufi or an ʿālim. His most popular written work, which still attracts much interest, is The Muḥammadan Path.129 Birgivī seemed not to be interested in promotions, mostly keeping to writing and preaching,130 pointing out the necessity to filter out undesir­ able innovative elements from the corpus of orthodox practice.131 Birgivī staunchly argued for uncompromising adherence to the Scripture, and appeared bothered by what he considered the excesses of the later Sufi generations, yet the Muham­ madan Path barely treats the matter of tomb visitations, while Birgivī seemed to consider Sufi commitment and devotion beneficial for believers. Current scholar­ ship presents evidence to consider later misattributions to his work.132 An adherent to Hanafī-Māturīdī piety, Birgivī opposed many elements in Ibn Taymīyya’s writ­ . ing.133 For a long time, Birgivī’s work impressed other scholars and widely circu­ lated within the Ottoman Empire. Birgivī’s ideas influenced many other authors, including the eighteenth-century al-Nābulsī who wrote a commentary on Birgivī’s most influential work.134 Among more precarious notions, however, in Birgivī’s writing is the obligation of each believer to take responsibility over distinguishing between right and wrong, making active efforts to fight for what is just.135 Birgivī Mehmed’s teachings represented one of Kadızade Mehmed Efendi’s (d.1635) most important influences yet combined with Taymīyyan rigorism and rigorist works of scholars such as Aḥmad al-Rūmī al-Āqḥiṣārī (d.1632), of which some may have been mistakenly attributed later to Birgivī’s oeuvre, perhaps influencing how some historians read Birgivī’s texts today.136 Kadızade Mehmed enjoyed wide popularity in the seventeenth-century Ottoman Empire. In Istan­ bul, he started a rigorist movement under the patronage of the state. Kadızade Mehmed was a Khalwatī ʿālim whose personal charisma and capable networking brought him to the court circles in Istanbul. He preached a version of Sunnism that expressed doubts in the thaumaturgical capacities of the established Sufi-ʿulamā’ networks. He was in favor of a more puritanical reading of the scriptural sources. His followers, the Kadızadeliler, received Sultan Murad IV’s (r.1623–1640) sup­ port,137 while Kadızade Mehmed acquired lucrative appointments in the Mosques of Selim, Bayazid, Süleyman I, and finally Ayasofya.138 The Ottoman court appointed Kadızade Mehmed on various important administrative positions. At the same time, the Ottomans kept ties to various Sufi branches, most predominantly the Khalwatīyya.139

Miracles of God and Saintly Wonders 59 Over time, the Kadızadeliler established ties with the reforming Sufi Naqshbandīyya order,140 possibly due to the somewhat more rationalistic Naqshbandī attitude to doctrine and ritualized practice,141 and amassed a large following, inspiring bouts of popular vigilantism. Many social practices deemed “innovations” (bidʿa) were condemned, such as Sufi dances, music, or pilgrim­ ages to saints’ tombs. Kadızadelis were also hostile to smoking, drinking coffee, and alcohol. In Istanbul, as well as in some other provinces, such as Syria and Egypt, an initiative emerged for strict control over female behavior.142 The belief in baraka was soon placed under attack, followed by public defamations of certain Muslim saints and mystical figures, such as Ibn ʿArabī, and the legendary al-Khiḍr. There are primary sources which indicate that during the seventeenth century, Sufis often played a more significant role than other ʿulamā’ for the development of state orthodoxy – the Khalwatīyya order in particular. Green considers this a Sufi monopoly over state appointments.143 This might have further provoked both the Naqshbandī rivalry and Kadızadeli wrath.144 Many Sufis were defamed, and some Sufi lodges were raided or permanently shut down. Distinctions between Ottoman Muslims and the dhimmīs were heavily emphasized, with the movement arguing in favor of tightening restrictions for the latter. The Jewish rebellion of Sabbatai Sevi145 coincided with the Kadızadeli upris­ ing, leading to harsh repercussions against and forced conversions of the Jewish imperial subjects. Records remain of a rare official penalty of death by stoning. In 1680, a boot maker from Istanbul accused his wife of interconfessional adultery. She was stoned to death under the gaze of the sultan despite the circumstantial character of the evidence.146 The Kadızadeli movement spread through the Empire, and its influence was felt in Syria more visibly than in Egypt, due to its closer con­ tacts with Istanbul.147 The Kadızadeli movement faced a serious opponent in the figure of the Grand Vizier Köprülü Mehmed Pasha (d.1661), who was a ruthless and a competent com­ mander. He intervened against the Kadızadeliler yet this was not definite, as the Kadızadeli influence was felt long after, while the supporters of the movement continued to maintain ties to the Porte, at least until the failure of the Vienna cam­ paign in 1683. It was perhaps the persistence of and aftermath of rigorist thought that inspired the Palestinian saint Muṣṭafā al-Bakrī to embark upon a revivalist Khalwatīyya campaign.148 Some prominent Ottoman ʿulamā’ continued to support Taymīyyan ideas dur­ ing the early modern period. I chose Zayn al-Dīn Marʿī Ibn Yūsuf al-Ḥanbalī (d.1623/1624) due to his famous works and erudition. Ottoman scholars in Arabicspeaking provinces widely read his texts. Originally from Tulkarm in Palestine (hence the name al-Karmī), Zayn al-Dīn Marʿī the Hanbalite pursued education in Jerusalem before attending al-Azhar in Cairo. Long study under many Syrian and Egyptian jurists allowed al-Karmī to acquire a tenure in the Cairene Sultan Hassan Mosque. He left many written works and received much praise due to his eloquence and an enviable scholarly reputation.149 Al-Karmī’s Healing of Breasts is committed to cults of saints and the ziyāra. Al-Karmī warned that the pilgrim­ ages to saintly tombs represented blasphemy and innovation, explaining that the

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popular practices in the vicinity of saintly graves risked idolatry, as they inspired the worship of saints, and not of God. Al-Karmī claimed that those who believed in the mystical powers of the awliyā’ and participated in the ziyāra read the Scrip­ ture wrongly, or completely failed to read it. He considered the popular practices of tomb veneration outside of the boundaries of orthodoxy. Those who argued in favor of beliefs in the Ottoman network of the holy for al-Karmī represented igno­ ramuses (jāhilūn).150 Al-Karmī considered that there was no difference between the saints and the rest of the people and expressed astonishment with the Ottoman subjects’ cus­ tom to bring votive offerings and perform religious rituals at saintly tombs and sacred caves. He saw no reason for saintly tombs to be decorated with silken, gold-embroidered coverlets, and severely admonished the habits of pil­ grims to sit on graves, lean on, touch, or kiss them.151 Opposing such attitudes, al-Nābulsī defended the belief that awliyā’ were those whom God has graced. This eighteenth-century scholar believed that the wonders of the awliyā’ represented a proof of their purity and virtue, and he considered the coverlets adequate markers for the graves of such esteemed individuals. The eighteenth-century Damascene Pole found the grace and virtue of both living and deceased Muslim saints suffi­ cient reasons for their veneration.152 Failure to do so indicated an infidel (kāfir),153 who succumbed to ignorance (jahl).154 Like Ibn Taymīyya, al-Karmī was against the custom of building shrines around saintly graves.155 Al-Nābulsī was not exceptional, however, when he endowed his own shrine complex in the Damascene al-Ṣāliḥīyya.156 Al-Karmī was in Egypt sur­ rounded by a sea of holy shrines. In addition to the widely venerated aqtāb Aḥmad al-Badawī and Ibrāhīm al-Dasūqī, whose mawlids were holidays of much impor­ tance in Egypt,157 the number of sacred places in the province resembled that of premodern Syria.158 Al-Karmī was opposed to the customs of ziyāra due to his belief that the pil­ grims were praying to saints directly.159 He condemned the mawlid celebrations, as well as any other ceremonies organized near sacred tombs. He considered praying or sacrificing at the tombs impermissible, insisting that all such practices repre­ sented idolatry (shirk) and devilry (shayṭānīyya) as they facilitated the worship of the awliyā’ and not of God. Al-Karmī considered all such things innovations (bidʿa).160 Al-Nābulsī wrote that the pilgrims prayed in the vicinity of the holy graves due to their wonders and their baraka. He believed that divine grace brought benefits to the faithful and their prayers. He apologetically cautioned that the intent of ziyāra was primarily to glorify Allah. If the veneration of hallowed tombs and building shrines over them with all rituals that accompanied ziyāra were innova­ tions, mused al-Nābulsī, they were good innovations (bidʿa ḥasana), justified by the baraka of the entombed and the necessity to honor their ṣalāḥ.161 Accomplished Sufi-ʿulamā’ wrote amply in defense of their craft. They con­ demned skepticism and reaffirmed the significance of the Ottoman network of the holy for the divine and worldly order. In addition to al-Nābulsī, who identified ignorance (jahl) as the driving force behind the doubt in Muslim saints, deceased

Miracles of God and Saintly Wonders 61 or still living,162 a generation later, the Damascene judge Ibn ʿĀbidīn discussed these matters in response to the Wahhābī doctrinal attacks. He warned that doubt in Sufi wonders, believed to represent the consequence of divine grace, contra­ dicted divine will. He called those who disbelieved saintly wonders and prophetic miracles innovators and infidels.163 The Damascene naqīb al-ashrāf, Muḥammad al-Murādī, reflected this attitude and took care to record wonders of the shaykhs in his biographical work.164 Subsequent generations of the Damascene ʿulamā’ wrote similar apologetics due to their own historical contexts. For instance, the prominent Shafi’ite judge Yūsuf al-Nabhānī (1849–1932) wrote from a setting tinged by increasingly fre­ quent theological disputes between established scholar-thaumaturges and the rising groups of modern reformers. In Damascus, Yūsuf al-Nabhānī was one of the most representative members of the conservative ʿulamā’ who faced criticism from the reformist groups, represented by the attitudes of Jamāl al-Dīn al-Qāsimī. Al-Qāsimī was in turn influenced by Muḥammad ʿAbduh of Egypt.165 Al-Nabhānī insisted on showing respect to deceased and living saints in his lengthy collection of legendary saintly wonders.166 It is important to emphasize that, throughout most of the early modern period, the overlap between the Sufi-ʿulamā’ remained uncontested, regardless of the extant streams of rigorist thought.167 Sufism as a whole did not represent an object of derision, it is rather that its certain aspects, like the pilgrimage rituals, or the cults of saints, attracted rigorists’ animosity. The first attempt to outlaw the entire body of Sufi mystical beliefs and practices occurred during the eighteenth century with the rise of the Wahhābī movement in the emerging First Emirate of Dirʿīyah. Muḥammad Ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb (1703–1792) was born in a family of Han­ balite scholars coming from the Najdi village of ʿUyayna. Allegedly, he became a ḥāfiẓ when he was ten years old and pursued studies in Medina, where he got acquainted with the rigorists’ written works. ʿAbd Allah Ibn Ibrāhīm Ibn Sayf and Muḥammad Ḥayyāt al-Sindī, a member of the Sufi Naqshbandīyya order, took Ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb as a student. Ibn Taymīyya’s religious attitudes influenced these two scholars, ries.168 Ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb’s doctrine proclaimed the veneration of saints idolatry (shirk). He urged the Muslims to adhere to the Prophet’s Sunna and abstain from any excess. He viewed all religious practices that were not explicit in the Scripture as heresy.169 Denying the Sufis their role as sanctioned interpreters of the Scrip­ ture, he introduced an innovative rigorist thought.170 Because of this idea, he was expelled from Basra and ʿUyayna banished him as well.171 In Dirʿīyah, which was under the control of the Suʿūd Clan of the Annazah Tribe, a partnership was formed between Ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb and Muḥammad Ibn Suʿūd (d.1765) during 1744. Ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb was to be in charge over religious matters in the newly emerging Emirate of Dirʿīyah.172 He elaborated on his theological views in a text entitled The Book of Divine Unity (al-kitāb al-tawḥīd), while the followers of his teachings labeled themselves “al-muwaḥḥidūn.”173

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Within the First Emirate of Dirʿīyah, the Wahhābīs commenced with the purges of the previously established ulamaic circles. Ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb ordered the destruction of the shrine to Zayd Ibn al-Khaṭṭāb in ʿUyayna, along with some other important graves. Trees around these sites were cut down,174 and another alleged adulteress was stoned to death.175 Popular vigilantism increased under the influence of Ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb’s rigorism. Vandalization of Muslim shrines176 and Bedouin raids caused much concern in some Syrian regions along the pilgrimage routes.177 The Muwaḥḥidūn ultimately became intolerable for the Ottoman administration. In 1803, the Emirate’s forces took Mecca and Medina, putting forward a challenge to the Ottoman claim to the caliphate.178 Pilgrims were banned from performing the Ḥajj unless they would accept to conduct their prayers under the supervision of Dirʿīyah’s own ʿulamā’.179 Muḥammad ʿAlī (1769–1848) of Egypt was called upon to deal with the Wahhābīs. By 1813, his army took Mecca, and overcame the last Wahhābī defenses in Najd by 1818.180 In Damascus, the Wahhābī movement represented a frequent object of derision. A contemporary of the uprising, Ibn ʿĀbidīn remarked that the rigorist views of the Wahhābīs represented an atrocity committed by deniers of faith (munkir). To believe only in what was seen or heard was ridiculous for the Damascene judge who con­ tinuously emphasized the reality of the praeternatural,181 encouraging the visitation of saintly graves.182 Ibn ʿĀbidīn praised the ṣalāḥ of the saints183 and the Sufis, while ferociously condemning skeptics. Sternly defending the legitimacy of the saintly wonder, he emphasized that its cause was divine baraka, unlike the illicit magic of the infidels, fueled by infernal energies.184 Like al-Nābulsī of the previous genera­ tion of scholars, Ibn ʿĀbidīn encouraged prayers in the vicinity of saintly shrines and the custom of honoring such sites with luxurious decorations.185 He penned down the prevalent attitudes of the religious authorities in office, representative of main­ stream doctrines until the advent of modern religious reformers. According to primary sources, in eighteenth-century Damascus, thaumaturgy was fundamental to practiced religion. Sufism, as the primary vehicle for Muslim thaumaturgy, was inseparable from religious orthodoxy, based upon the Ottoman network of the holy. The Sufi-ʿulamā’ in office had significant influence on sociopolitics, economy, and religion within a world that was perceived as only partially seen. In its unseen part dwelled the deceased Muslim saints, who were the interces­ sors between the people and God. However, popular imaginary filled the unseen realms with various dangerous creatures as well. Muslim theologians and jurists amply wrote about these entities, and the assistance of Sufi thaumaturges was often needed by the common people to contend with them. The alleged recipients of Allah’s grace often assisted the people with banishing unseen evils and driving off infernalists. The possibility of cooperating with these invisible entities was strictly admonished but never denied. Notes 1 See Abū Zayd Ibn Khaldūn, al-Muqaddima [Prolegomenon], ed. Jumaʿa Shaykha (Tunis: Al-Dār al-Tūnisīyya li-l-Nashr, 1984), 132–143, 146–157, 398–403, 572–574,

Miracles of God and Saintly Wonders 63

2

3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

584–597, which is very comparable with the Catholic Christian case, as one can read in Keith Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic: Studies in Popular Beliefs in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century England (London: Penguin, 1991), 27–48, 60–70, 152–153, 215–229, 318, 327–330. Also see Chapter 6. See Thomas, Decline, 320. For Islam, see Toufic Fahd, “Siḥr,” in Encyclopaedia of Islam IX, ed. C.E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel, W.P. Heinrichs, and G. Lecomte (Leiden: Brill, 1997), 567–571, Toufic Fahd, “Magic in Islam,” in Encyclopedia of Religion, vol. 9, ed. Mircea Eliade (New York: Macmillan, 1987), 104–109, A. Chris Eccel, Egypt, Islam, and Social Change: Al-Azhar in Conflict and Accommodation (Berlin: K. Schwarz, 1984), 526–528, or Osman Bakar, Classification of Knowledge in Islam: A Study in Islamic Philosophies of Science (Lahore: Suhail Academy, 2000), 221, 253–254. For the history of theurgy in a wider Eurasian context, see Georg Luck, “Theurgy and Forms of Worship in Neoplatonism,” in Religion, Science, and Magic: In Concert and Con­ flict, ed. Jacob Neusner, Ernest S. Frerichs, and Paul Virgil McCracken Flesher (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), 185–228, F.E. Peters, Allah’s Commonwealth: A History of Islam in the Near East, 600–1100 A.D. (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1973), 265–305, Peter Moore, “Mysticism (Further Considerations),” in Encyclopedia of Religion, Second Edition, ed. Lindsay Jones, Mircea Eliade, and Charles J. Adams (Detroit: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), 6355–6359, Ilinca Tanaseanu-Döbler, “Introduc­ tion: The Problem of Theurgy,” in Theurgy in Late Antiquity: The Invention of a Ritual Tradition (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2013), 9–20, Crystal Addey, “Divina­ tion and Theurgy in Iamblichus’ De Mysteriis,” in Divination and Theurgy in Neopla­ tonism: Oracles of the Gods (London & New York: Routledge, 2014), 239–282, April D. DeConick, “Introduction,” and Gregory Shaw, “Theurgy and the Platonists’ Lumi­ nous Body,” in Practicing Gnosis: Ritual Magic, Theurgy and Liturgy in Nag Ham­ madi, Manichaean and Other Ancient Literature. Essays in Honor of Birger A. Pearson, ed. April D. DeConick, Gregory Shaw, and John D. Turner (Leiden & Boston: Brill, 2013), 1–6, 537–558, Wiebke-Marie Stock, “Theurgy and Aesthetics in Dionysios the Areopagite,” in Aesthetics and Theurgy in Byzantium, ed. Sergei Mariev and WiebkeMarie Stock (Berlin & Boston: De Gruyter, 2013), 13–30, and Radcliffe G. Edmonds III, “Drawing Down the Moon: Defining Magic in the Ancient Greco-Roman World,” in Drawing Down the Moon: Magic in the Ancient Greco-Roman World (Princeton & Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2019), 1–42. For instance, see Thomas, Decline, 55–57, 265, 564

See See Max Weber, On Charisma and Institution Building: Selected Papers, ed. S.N.

Eisenstadt (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968), 48. Also see Chapter 4. The geology of the network of the holy shall be further discussed in Chapter 5. Neusner, “Introduction,” 4–5. Robert H. Winthrop, Dictionary of Concepts in Cultural Anthropology (New York: Greenwood Press, 1991), 167.

See Chapter 3 for more details.

Throughout Eurasian history, many practices, both magical and thaumaturgical, depended on astrology and astronomy, as well as various divination techniques. See Aziz Al-Azmeh, Arabic Thought and Islamic Societies (Abingdon: Routledge, 2013), 72–75. However, such practices were frowned upon as well. Religious authorities claimed that through astrology and occult sciences, an individual attempted to acquire knowledge available only to God. Such attitudes were ubiquitous. Compare, for instance, Thomas, Decline, 425–426, 432, 755–756 and Ibn Khaldūn, al-Muqaddima, 398–413, 601–605, 625–630, 677–682. Also see Liana Saif, “Between Medicine and Magic: Spiritual Aeti­ ology and Therapeutics in Medieval Islam,” in Demons and Illness from Antiquity to the Early Modern Period, ed. Siam Bhayro (Leiden & Boston: Brill, 2017), 315–319. Further see Muḥammad Amīn Ibn ʿUmar Ibn ʿĀbidīn, Sall al-Ḥusām al-Hindī li-Naṣrat

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12

13 14 15 16 17

18 19 20

21

Miracles of God and Saintly Wonders Mawlānā Khālid al-Naqshbandī [Drawing out the Indian Sword in Defense of Our Mas­ ter Khālid al-Naqshbandī], in Majmūʿat Rasā’il Muḥammad Ibn ʿĀbidīn [The Collection of Treatises by Muḥammad Ibn-ʿĀbidīn], 4 volumes (Istanbul: Dar-i Saʿādat, 1907), 2:1-47. Henceforth: MR Ibn ʿĀbidīn, however, indicates that God can inspire the right­ eous into receiving otherwise hidden knowledge, which was treated as their thaumatur­ gical capacity, and not sorcery, or any occult practice. Further see chapter 6. See Chapter 6. For the differences between wonders and magic, see Ibn ʿĀbidīn, MR, 2:14–18, 25–45. Further ʿAbd al-Ghanī al-Nābulsī, al-Ḥadīqa al-Nadīyya: Sharḥ al-Ṭarīqa al-Muḥammadīyya [The Dewy Garden: Explanations of the Muhammadan Way], 2 volumes (Miṣr: n.p., 1860), 1:199–202, 232, 2:389–403. These divisions are very old. See Ibn Khaldūn, al-Muqaddima, 141–165, 623–624, 630. For a systematic theological discussion about wonderworking and magic, see Abū Bakr al-Bāqillānī, al-Bayān ʿan al-Farq bayn al-Muʿjizāt wa al-Karāmāt wa al-Ḥiyal wa al-Kahāna wa al-Siḥr wa al-Nārinjāt [Clarification of the Difference between Miracles and Wonders and Illusions and Wizardry and Magic and Prestidigitation], ed. Richard J. McCarthy (Cairo: al-Maktaba al-Sharqīyya, 1958). Also see Edward William Lane, An Account of the Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians: Written in Egypt During the Years 1833, 1834, and 1835, 2 volumes (London: Charles Knight & Co., 1836), 1:341–342. Further see Marinos Sariyannis, “Ottoman Occultism and its Social Contexts: Prelimi­ nary Remarks,” Aca’ib: Occasional papers on the Ottoman perceptions of the super­ natural 3 (2022): 57–58. Thomas, Decline, 69, and further Jan N. Bremmer, “The Birth of the Term ‘Magic’,” Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 126 (1999): 1–12, and Mateo Benussi, “Magic,” in The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Anthropology, eds. F. Stein, S. Lazar, M. Candea, H. Diemberger, J. Robbins, A. Sanchez & R. Stasch (open access resource: http://doi.org/10.29164/19magic (2019); Last accessed: February 27th 2023), 1–16. Also see Mark A. Waddell, Magic, Science, and Religion in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021), 198–202. Weber, Sociology, 1–4. Chapter 3 will discuss this matter in more details on the case of the jinn and beliefs in daemons among the Muslims, especially in eighteenth-century Ottoman Syria. See Ibn ʿĀbidīn, MR, 2:14–46. For comparative purposes, see Denise Aigle, “Charismes et rôle social des saints dans l’hagiographie médiévale persane,” Bulletin d’études ori­ entales 47 (1995): 15–36. Al-Nābulsī, Ḥadīqa, 1:199–200, and Ibn ʿĀbidīn, MR, 2:5–18, 25–47. Ibn ʿĀbidīn, MR, 2:5–47. These beliefs persisted until the present times. See Yūsuf Ibn Ismāʿīl al-Nabhānī, Jāmiʿ Karamāt al-Awliyā’ [Collection of Saintly Wonders], ed. ʿAbd al-Wārith Muḥammad ʿAlī (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 2009), 1:13–21. Hence­ forth: JK. Further see Taufik Canaan, Mohammedan Saints and Sanctuaries in Palestine (London: Luzac & Co., 1927), 255. Compare with Eliza Marian Butler, The Myth of the Magus (London & New York: Cambridge University Press, 1979), 1–12. Alexander Knysh interprets karāma as “charisma” of a Sufi master, while baraka for him repre­ sents a shaykh’s “blessing.” See Alexander D. Knysh, Sufism: A New History of Islamic Mysticism (Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2017), 178. Ibn Khaldūn, al-Muqaddima, 134–157, 601–605, 623–631, 631–641, 653–671, 689. Ibn ʿĀbidīn, MR, 2:5–7, 15–18, 25–32, 36–37, 38–47. ʿAbd al-Ghanī al-Nābulsī, al-Fatḥ al-Rabānī wa al-Fayḍ al-Raḥmānī [The Lordly Revelation And the Flow of Mercy], ed. Muḥammad ʿAbd al-Qādir ʿAṭā (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 1980), 136–137, and al-Nābulsī, Ḥadīqa, 1:199–202, 232, 2:389–403. Emile Durkheim, The Elementary Forms of Religious Life, trans. Karen E. Fields (New York: Free Press, 1995), 199. Examples are many. For instance, Bronislaw Malinowski, Magic, Science and Religion, and other Essays (Boston: Beacon Press, 1948), 67, or

Miracles of God and Saintly Wonders 65

22 23

24 25 26

27 28 29 30 31

32 33 34

35 36 37

38 39 40 41

Henri Hubert and Marcel Mauss, Sacrifice: Its Nature and Function, trans. W.D. Halls (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1964), 61–76. Further see Michael D. Bailey, Magic and Superstition in Europe: A Concise History from Antiquity to the Present (Lanham and New York: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. 2007), 134–140. See Max Weber, The Sociology of Religion. In Economy and Society 1 (Boston: Beacon Press, 1993), 28. Ibn ʿĀbidīn, MR, 2:5–18, 25–47. Ibn Khaldūn explains that the difference between saintly grace and magic is that the former is a sign of goodness and thus cannot corrupt or be corrupted, unlike magical practice. See Ibn Khaldūn, al-Muqaddima, 139–142. Marcel Mauss, A General Theory of Magic, trans. Robert Brain (London: Routledge, 1972), 14–23. Frank Klaasen, The Transformations of Magic: Illicit Learned Magic in the Later Mid­ dle Ages and Rennaisance (Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2013), 8–12. Muḥammad Ibn Ṣāliḥ al-Kīlānī, “Al-Durra al-Bahīyya fī Ṣūrat al-Ijāza al-Qādirīyya,” [The Gorgeous Pearl in the License of the Qādirīyya], MS Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Sprenger 819, Berlin, 10B. The text is an autograph from 1795. Henceforth: “DB.” Also see Aziz Al-Azmeh, The Times of History: Universal Topics in Islamic Historiography (Budapest & New York: Central European University Press, 2007), 232. Al-Nābulsī, Ḥadīqa, 1:232, 389, Ibn ʿĀbidīn, MR, 2:25–31, 36–37, 40–47. Thomas, Decline, 28–53, 327–330. Ibid., 55–57. Ibn Khaldūn, al-Muqaddima, 139–152, 584–597, 623–631, 631–641, 653–671. See al-Nābulsī, Ḥadīqa, 1:199–200, 2:389–403, Ibn ʿĀbidīn, MR, 2:15–47, and also ʿAbd al-Ghanī al-Nābulsī, “Kashf al-Nūr ʿan Aṣḥābi al-Qubūr,” MS Princeton Univer­ sity Library, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Manuscript Collection, Islamic Manuscripts, New Series no. 1113 Princeton, 162A-174A. Pierre Bourdieu, “Genesis and Structure of the Religious Field,” Comparative Social Research, 13 (1991): 12–13. It was similar with Christianity in Europe. Thomas, Decline, 303, and compare Ibid., 52–53, 298–300, with Ibn Khaldun, al-Muqaddima, 1:139–165, 623–641. Ibn ʿĀbidīn, MR, 2:1–15, 18–25, 32–47. The judge defends thaumaturgical beliefs from skeptics by exchanging accusations of heresy with them. For comparative perspectives, see Bailey, Magic and Superstition, 110–200, Neusner et. al., Religion, 142–187, and Klaasen, Transformations, 10–12. Neusner, et al., Religion, 4–5. See the previous chapter. Bremmer, “Birth,” 1–12, and Benussi, “Magic,” 1–16. For comparisons between Islam and Christianity, one could compare Ibn Khaldūn, al-Muqaddima, 132–143, 146–157, 398–403, 572–574, 584–597, and Thomas, Decline, 27–48, 60–70, 152–153, 215–229, 318, 327–330. See Bailey, Magic and Superstition, 110–200. For an interesting discussion, see Neus­ ner et. al., Religion, 142–187. For the eighteenth-century Damascene context, see Ibn ʿĀbidīn, MR, 2:4–14, 18–25, 42–47. Thomas, Decline, 69, 318, Bremmer, “Birth,” 1–12, and Benussi, “Magic,” 1–16, Win­ throp, Dictionary, 167–170. Thomas, Decline, 55–57. Ibid., 69. Also see Douglas Burton-Christie, “Early Monasticism,” and Edward How­ ells, “Early Modern Reformations,” in The Cambridge Companion to Christian Mysti­ cism, ed. Amy Hollywood and Patricia Z. Beckman (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 37–58, and 114–136, respectively. Further see Stephen Sharot, “Protes­ tants, Catholics, and the Reform of Popular Religion,” in A Comparative Sociology

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43 44 45

46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53

54 55 56

57

58

Miracles of God and Saintly Wonders of World Religions: Virtuosos, Priests, and Popular Religion (New York: New York University Press, 2001), 211–241. The case of early modern England represented the main focus of Keith Thomas, whose work is very illustrative of such changes. See Thomas, Decline, 58–60. Also see Rob­ ert Bartlett, Why can the Dead do Such Great Things? Saints and Worshippers from the Martyrs to the Reformation (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2013), 85–92. Further see Jason A. Josephson-Storm, The Myth of Disenchantment: Magic, Modernity and the Birth of the Human Sciences (Chicago & London: University of Chicago Press, 2017), 55–56. Thomas, Decline, 69, 318. Also see, for instance, Bremmer, “Birth,” 1–6, 9–12, and Benussi, “Magic,” 1–16. Also see Winthrop, Dictionary, 167–170. See, for instance, Chih, Sufism, 5–10. Al-Azmeh, Times, 47–66, Aziz Al-Azmeh, “The Discourse of Cultural Authenticity: Islamist Revivalism and Enlightenment Universalism,” in Islams and Modernities (London & New York: Verso, 1993), 39–59, and Albert Hourani, “Sufism and Modern Islam: Rashid Rida,” in The Emergence of the Modern Middle East (Berkeley & Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1981), 90–102. For instance, Ahmet T. Karamustafa, God’s Unruly Friends: Dervish Groups in the Islamic Later Middle Period 1200–1550 (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1994), 5–13. See the previous chapter. Bourdieu, “Genesis,” 2–5, 22–38. Durkheim, Elementary Forms, 61–62. For instance, Claude Levi-Strauss, Structural Anthropology (London: Penguin Books, 1993), 188–190. Thomas, Decline, 31–32, 87–88. Further see Gábor Klaniczay, The Uses of Supernatu­ ral Power: The Transformation of Popular Religion in Medieval and Early-Modern Europe (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990), 8–9. Ibn Khaldūn, al-Muqaddima, 151–152, 584–597, and Thomas, Decline, 31–32, 87–88. Comparable to the history of Christian beliefs, once more. See Collin Morris, The Papal Monarchy: The Western Church from 1050 to 1250 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), 100, and Claudia Rapp, Holy Bishops in Late Antiquity: The Nature of Christian Leadership in an Age of Transition (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2013), 17, 48, 150. Compare Ibn Khaldūn, al-Muqaddima, 151–152, 584–597, with Thomas, Decline, 31–32, 87–88. Shihāb al-Dīn Aḥmad Ibn Budayr, “Ḥawādith Dimashq al-Shām Yawmīyya min Sanat 1154 ilā Sanat 1176” [The Daily Events of Damascus from the Year 1741 to 1763], MS Chester Beatty Library Ar 3551/2, Dublin, 69A–69B. Henceforth: “HDY.” For instance, Muḥammad Khalīl al-Murādī, Silk al-Durar fī Aʿyan al-Qarn al-Thānī ʿAshar [A String of Pearls among the Notables of the Eighteenth Century], ed. Akram Ḥassan al-ʿUlabī. 4 volumes (Beirut: Dār Ṣādir, 2002), 1:228–234, or 4:283–284, and generally, throughout the collection. Other ʿulamā’ of note at times seemed to omit the divine from their descriptions of saintly baraka. See, for instance, Muṣṭafā ibn Kamāl al-Dīn al-Bakrī al-Ṣiddīqī, “al-Khamra al-Ḥisiyya fī al-Riḥla al-Qudsīyya,” [The Sen­ sual Wine on the Journey to Jerusalem], MS Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Ms. or. quart. 460, Berlin, copied in 1785, 28B. Henceforth: “KhH.” For instance, Lewis Bayles Paton, “Survivals of Primitive Religion in Modern Pal­ estine,” The Annual of the American School of Oriental Research in Jerusalem, 1 (1919–1920): 63, or Samuel Ives Curtiss, Primitive Semitic Religion To-day: A Record of Researches, Discoveries and Studies in Syria, Palestine and the Sinaitic Peninsula (Chicago: Fleming H. Revel Company, 1902), 75, 92. Paton, “Survivals,” 63. Compare with Thomas, Decline, 29.

Miracles of God and Saintly Wonders 67 59 See Pascal Boyer, Religion Explained: The Human Instincts that Fashion Gods, Spirits and Ancestors (New York: Vintage Books, 2002), 159–160. 60 For the full list of most important prophets, consult Brannon M. Wheeler, ed., “Intro­ duction,” in Prophets in the Quran: An Introduction to the Quran and Muslim Exegesis (London & New York: Continuum, 2002), 1–15. 61 Chapter 5 gives more details. 62 Ibn Khaldūn, al-Muqaddima, 623–625. Christian priests produced their own talismans as well, Thomas, Decline, 58–60. Also see Chapter 6. 63 The Orthodox Christian populations today at various regions (such as in the central Bal­ kans for instance) during religious services motion as if they are collecting smoke from the priests’ censers before producing the Sign of the Cross gesture, symbolizing thus the collection of the priest’s blessings. 64 See al-Murādī, Silk, 1:228–234, and Canaan, Saints, 91–92. 65 Detailed examples shall be given throughout this volume, predominantly in Chapters 3, 5, and 6. 66 al-Nābulsī, Ḥadīqa, 1:199–200. 67 Demons represent the main subject of Chapter 3. 68 Highly comparable to medieval Christian Catholicism. See Thomas, Decline, 31–32, 87–88. 69 Chapter 5 analyzes Muslim shrines. 70 Rachida Chih, Sufism in Ottoman Egypt: Circulation, Renewal and Authority in the Sev­ enteenth and Eighteenth Century (London & New York: Routledge, 2019), 24–25, and Elizabeth Sirriyeh, Sufi Visionary of Ottoman Damascus: ʿAbd al-Ghanī al-Nābulusī, 1641–1731 (London and New York: Routledge Curzon, 2005), 108–111. 71 James Grehan, Twilight of the Saints: Everyday Religion in Ottoman Syria and Palestine (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 101. Damascus had a very large number of sacred places (see Chapter 5). The Muslim cult of saints is comparable to such cults among the Christians. See Bartlett, The Dead, 13–19. 72 Knysh appropriately notes the hereditary system of charismatic transmission adopted by the Shi’ites. See Knysh, Sufism, 42. 73 See Chapter 4. 74 Al-Nābulsī, Ḥadīqa, 1:183. Al-Nābulsī uses the term of the ʿulamā’ to refer to the over­ lapping groups of the Sufis and the Muslim scholars, like al-Murādī (see Chapter 1). 75 Ibn ʿĀbidīn, MR, 2:15–16, 32–37, 40–46, and Ibn Khaldūn, al-Muqaddima, 139–141 628–630. Chapter 4 offers a discussion of the Damascene ṣāliḥūn, showing that they rarely acquired far-reaching influence, unlike the trained Sufi-ʿulamā’ who enjoyed patronage of the influential Damascenes. 76 See Chapter 4. 77 Ibid. 78 Ibn ʿĀbidīn, MR, 2:15–16. 79 See Chih, Sufism, 111, and John Renard, Friends of God: Islamic Images of Piety, Com­ mitment, and Servanthood (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008), 1–20. See chapter 4 for Muslim sainthood. 80 Nile Green, Sufism: A Global History (Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012), 7. 81 See Chapter 4. 82 P. Kunitzsch, and F. de Jong, “al-Ḳuṭb,” in Encyclopaedia of Islam II, edited by P. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C.E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel, and W.P. Heinrichs. http://dx.doi. org/10.1163/1573-3912_islam_COM_0550 (Last accessed: February 26th 2023). Also Chih, Sufism, 1, Hüseyin Yılmaz, Caliphate Redefined: The Mystical Turn in Ottoman Political Thought (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2018), 204–205, and Aziz Al-Azmeh, Muslim Kingship: Power and the Sacred in Muslim, Christian and Pagan Polities (London & New York: I.B. Tauris, 1997), 183–185. Further see Michael Winter, Egyptian Society under Ottoman Rule, 1517–1798 (London & New York:

68 Miracles of God and Saintly Wonders Routledge, 1992), 136. The belief in the Poles of the world resembles some Judaic beliefs. See Paul B. Fenton, “Abraham Maimonides (1187–1237): Founding of a Mys­ tical Dinasty,” in Jewish Mystical Leaders and Leadership in the 13th Century, ed. Moshe Idel and Mortimer Ostow (Lanham & New York: Rowman & Littlefield Publish­ ers, Inc. 2005), 143. Further, see Lane, Egyptians, 1:293. 83 This scholar was Persian, and the Arabic sources therefore often spell his name as Kīlānī, Ghīlānī, or Jīlānī, due to phonetic incompatibilities. In Syria, the form Kaylānī is frequently encountered. 84 Chih, Sufism, 11. Lane, Egyptians, 1:293–294.

85 In premodern centuries, the latter order also bore the name Burhāmīyya, as for instance

in Ibn ʿĀbidīn, MR, 2:25. 86 Canaan, Saints, 273–274. 87 See Eric Geoffroy, “Arslān al-Dimashqī, Shaykh,” Encyclopaedia of Islam III, ed. Gudrun Krämer, Denis Matringe, John Nawas, and Everett Rowson (Brill Online, 2014). http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/1573-3912_ei3_COM_23403 (Last accessed: Febru­ ary 26th 2021). 88 Yılmaz, Caliphate, 211–214, Abdul-Karim Rafeq, “Relations Between the Syrian “Ulamā” and the Ottoman State in the Eighteenth Century,” Oriente Moderno 79/1 (1999): 81, and Sirriyeh, Visionary, 126. 89 Chih, Sufism, 1, Winter, Egyptian Society, 136.

90 See Chapter 5 for Damascus.

91 Ibn ʿĀbidīn, MR, 2:15–37. Further see (al-Sayyid Shaykh al-ʿUlamā’) Muḥammad

Ibn Aḥmad al-Shāfi‘ī al-Shawbarī, “al-Ajwibah ‛an al-As’ila fī Karāmāt al-Awliyā’” [Answers to the Questions about the Saintly Wonders], MS Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Sprenger 819, Berlin, 45A–48B. The author lived between 1569–1695. I am reading a copy made by Muḥammad Ibn Ṣāliḥ al-Kīlānī made in 1796. Henceforth: “AA.” 92 Al-Nābulsī, Fatḥ, 177. Muḥammad Amīn Ibn ʿUmar Ibn ʿĀbidīn, Radd al-Muhtār ʿala al-Durr al-Mukhtār [The Answer to the Baffled over The Exquisite Pearl], 14 vol­ umes, ed. Muḥammad Bakr Ismāʿīl (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmīyya, 2003), 2:242– 243. Further see al-Nabhānī, JK, 1:9–14. Also see Chih, Sufism, 113. 93 For instance, John J. Curry, The Transformation of the Mystical Thought in the Otto­ man Empire: The Rise of the Halveti Order 1350–1650 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh Uni­ versity Press, 2010), 23–25 or Al-Kīlānī, "DB," 11B-12B. 94 Wheeler, “Introduction,” 1–15.

95 For instance, Grehan, Twilight, 183.

96 Al-Nābulsī, “Kashf,” 162A–174A. Further see al-Shawbarī,“AA,” 45A–45B.

97 Al-Nābulsī, “Kashf,” 168B.

98 Chapter 5 analyzes the structure of these sacred places.

99 The city of Damascus had several important graveyards which contained many shrines.

See Chapter 5. 100 See Chapter 6. 101 The Arabic term for intercession is shafāʿa. See Chapters 5 and 6, and al-Nābulsī, Ḥadīqa, 1:183. 102 See, for instance, Grigor Boykov, “Reshaping Urban Space in the Ottoman Balkans: A Study on the Architectural Development of Edirne, Plovdiv and Skopje (14th–15th centuries),” in Centers and Peripheries in Ottoman Architecture: Rediscovering a Bal­ kan Heritage., ed. Maximilian Hartmuth (Sarajevo: Cultural Heritage Without Bor­ ders, 2011), 33–34, Giulia Annalinda Neglia, “Some Historiographical Notes on the Islamic City with Particular Reference to the Visual Representation of the Built City,” in The City in the Islamic World: Volume 1, ed. Salma K. Jayyusi (Leiden-Boston: Brill, 2008): 3–4, Howard Crane, “The Ottoman Sultan’s Mosques: Icons of Imperial Legitimacy,” in The Ottoman City and Its Parts: Urban Structure and Social Order,

Miracles of God and Saintly Wonders 69

103

104

105

106 107 108 109 110

111

112

ed. Irene A. Bierman, Rifa’at A. Abou-El-Haj, Donald Preziosi (New York: Aristide D. Caratzas, 1991), 173–194, Ethel Sara Wolper, “The Politics of Patronage: Politi­ cal Change and the Construction of Dervish Lodges in Sivas,” Muqarnas 12 (1995): 39–47, or Aigle, “Charismes,” 15–36. Also see Chapter 5. Heghnar Zeitlian Watenpaugh, The Image of an Ottoman City: Imperial Architecture and Urban Experience in Aleppo in the 16th and 17th Centuries (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2004), 38–39, Çığdem Kafescıoğlu, “In the Image of Rūm: Ottoman Architec­ tural Patronage in Sixteenth-Century Aleppo and Damascus,” Muqarnas 16 (1999): 70–96. Ethel Sara Wolper, “The Patron and the Sufi: Mediating Religious Authority through Dervish Lodges,” in Cities and Saints: Sufism and the Transformation of Urban Space in Medieval Anatolia (Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2003), 24–41, Judith Pfeiffer, “Confessional Ambiguity vs. Confessional Polarization: Politics and the Negotiation of Religious Boundaries in the Ilkhanate,” in Politics, Patronage and the Transmission of Knowledge in 13th-15th Century Tabriz, ed. Judith Pfeiffer (Leiden & Boston: Brill, 2014), 135–136, or Heath W. Lowry, “The ‘Soup Muslims’ of the Ottoman Balkans: Was there a ‘Western’ & ‘Eastern’ Ottoman Empire?,” The Journal of Ottoman Studies 36 (2010): 98–102. For proceedings of such ceremonies, see for instance ʿAlā al-Dīn Ibn Musharraf al-Māridīnī, “Mawlid al-Nabī” [The Birthday of the Prophet], MS Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Wetzstein II 1711, p. 1, Berlin, 1A–5B. The text is a copy from 1726. Fur­ ther see Kamāl Jamīl al-ʿAsalī, Mawsim al-Nabī Mūsā fī Filisṭīn: Tārīkh al-Mawsim wa al-Maqām [The Festival of the Prophet Moses in Palestine: The History of the Customs and the Shrine] (Amman: Maṭbaʿat al-Jāmiʿa al-Urdunīyya, 1990), 101–150. Many widely acclaimed saints were honored by mawlid ceremonies. See Lane, Egyp­ tians, 1:307. For instance, Muṣṭafā al-Bakrī was inconvenienced by the dense crowds of pilgrims to the Shrine of Moses. See al-Bakrī, “KhH,” 11A. Chapters 5 and 6 discuss the economic impact of sacred places and the Sufi intercession. More details in Chapter 5. A very apt term coined by James Grehan, in Twilight, 132. Michael Winter, “ʿUlama’ between the State and the Society in Pre-modern Sunni Islam,” in Guardians of Faith in Modern Times: Ulama’ in the Middle East, ed. Meir Hatina (Leiden & Boston: Brill, 2009), 40, and Abdul-Karim Rafeq, “ ‘Abd al-Ghani alNabulsi: Religious Tolerance and ‘Arabness’ in Ottoman Damascus,” in Transformed Landscapes: Essays on Palestine and the Middle East in Honor of Walid Khalidi, ed. Camille Mansour and Leila Fawaz (Cairo & New York: The American University of Cairo Press, 2009), 1–5. See Dina Le Gall, “Kadizadelis, Nakşbendis, and Intra-Sufi Diatribe in SeventeenthCentury Istanbul,” The Turkish Studies Association Journal, 28, No. 1/2 (2004): 19–20, and Michael Winter, “Egyptian and Syrian Sufis Viewing Ottoman Turkish Sufism: Similarities, Differences, and Interactions,” in The Ottoman Empire and its Heritage: Politics, Society and Economy, ed. Suraiya Faroqhi, Halil İnalcık and Boğaç Ergene (Leiden: Brill, 2014), 93–112. Further see Barbara Rosenow von Schlegell, “Sufism in the Ottoman Arab World: Shaykh ʿAbd al-Ghanī al-Nābulūsī (d. 1143/1731),” unpub­ lished PhD diss., University of California, 1997, 78–82. See Ibn ʿĀbidīn, MR, 2:1–10, 47–61. Also see Grehan, Twilight, 151, Martha Mundy, “On reading two epistles of Muhammad Amin Ibn ‘Abidin of Damascus,” in Forms and Institutions of Justice: Legal Actions in Ottoman Contexts, ed. Yavuz Aykan and Işık Tamdoğan (Istanbul: Institut français d’études anatoliennes, 2018), Open Access: 10.4000/books.ifeagd.2316 (Last accessed: February 24th 2023), and Itzchak

70

113 114

115 116 117 118 119

120

121 122 123

124

125 126 127 128

Miracles of God and Saintly Wonders Weismann, Taste of Modernity: Sufism, Salafiyya, and Arabism in Late Ottoman Damascus (Leiden: Brill, 2001), 56–80. See al-Nabhānī, JK, 1:1–5. George Makdisi, “Ahmad ibn Hanbal and the Qur’an,” Journal of Qur’anic Studies 6 (2004): 22–34. Also, for instance, Racha El Omari, “Kitāb al-Ḥayda: The Historical Significance of an Apocryphal Text,” in Islamic Philosophy, Science, Culture, and Religion: Studies in Honor of Dimitri Gutas, ed. Felicitas Opwis and David Reisman (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 419–421, and Ingrid Mattson, The Story of the Qur’an: Its His­ tory and Place in Muslim Life (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2008), 143–144. J. M. Rogers, Sinan: Makers of Islamic Civilization (London: I.B. Tauris and Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies, 2006), 12. Daphna Ephrat, A Learned Period of Transition: The Sunni ʿUlamā’ of EleventhCentury Baghdad (New York: State University of New York Press, 2000), 27. See Chapter 6 as well. Al-Azmeh, Muslim Kingship, 157. Also see Aziz Al-Azmeh, Secularism in the Arab World: Contexts, Ideas and Consequences (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2019), 44–45. For ritualistic use of spittle, see Chapter 3. Fundamentalism is a frequent element in scriptural religions. See, for instance, Alister E. McGrath, Christian Theology: an Introduction (Oxford: Wiley Blackwell, 2017), 43–46, E. Clinton Gardner, Justice & Christian Ethics (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni­ versity Press, 1995), 54–62, Margo Todd, Christian Humanism and the Puritan Social Order (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 1–21, or Milan Zafirovski, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Authoritarianism: Puritanism, Democracy, and Society (New York: Springer, 2007), 1–2, 35–54, 80–122. George Makdisi, “Ibn Taymiyya: A Sufi of the Qadiriya Order,” American Journal of Arabic Studies 1 (1973): 118–129. Also see Knysh, Sufism, 44, and Stephen Schwartz, The Other Islam: Sufism and the Global Road to Harmony (New York & London: Doubleday, 2008), 127. Ibn Taymīyya’s work influenced many Ottoman theologians. See Derin Terzioğlu, “Ibn Taymiyya: al-Siyāsa al-Sharʿiyya, and the Early Modern Ottomans,” in Historicizing Sunni Islam in the Ottoman Empire, c. 1450-c.1750, ed. Tijana Krstić, and Derin Terzioğlu (Leiden: Brill, 2020), 101–154. H. Laoust, “Ibn Taymiyya,” in Bearman, et. al., Encyclopaedia of Islam II. http:// dx.doi.org/10.1163/1573-3912_islam_SIM_3388 (Last accessed: February 26th 2021). Abdul Hakim I. al-Matroudi, The Ḥanbalī School of Law and Ibn Taymiyyah: Conflict or Conciliation (London & New York: 2006), 18–20. Chih, Sufism, 137. Also see Yahya Michot, “From al-Ma’amūn to Ibn Sabʿīn via Avi­ cenna: Ibn Taymīya’s Historiography of Falsafa,” in Islamic Philosophy, Science, Culture, and Religion: Studies in Honor of Dimitri Gutas, ed. Opwis and Reisman (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 453–475. See Sayf al-Dīn al-Kātib, ed., Kitāb al-Ziyāra min Ajwibat Shaykh al-Islām Ibn Taymīyya Raḥmahu Allah 661–728 [The Book of Pilgrimage [based] on the Response of Shaykh al-Islām Ibn Taymīyya, may God have mercy upon him 1263–1328] (Bei­ rut: Dār Maktabat al-Ḥayyā li-l-Ṭibāʿa wa al-Nashr, n.d.), 18–26, 27–75, and Alexan­ der D. Knysh, Ibn ʿArabi in the Later Islamic Tradition: The Making of a Polemical Image in Medieval Islam (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1999), 87–88. al-Matroudi, The Ḥanbalī School, 18, and Laoust, “Ibn Taymiyya.” Ibid., and Al-Matroudi, Ḥanbalī School, 18–20. See Grehan, Twilight, 102. For the Ottoman context, see Derin Terzioğlu, “Sunna-minded Sufi Preachers in Ser­ vice of the Ottoman State: The naṣiḥatname of Hasan addressed to Murad IV,” Archi­ vum Ottomanicum 27 (2010): 241–312.

Miracles of God and Saintly Wonders 71 129 See for instance, Imam Birgivi (A 16th Century Islamic Mystic), The Path of Muham­ mad (Al-Tariqah al-Muhammadiyyah): A Book on Islamic Morals and Ethics & Last Will and Testament (Vasiyyetname), interp. Shaykh Tosun Bayrak al-Jerrahi al-Halveti (Bloomington, IN: World Wisdom, 2005). This text was fervently copied during the early modern centuries. Further see Yılmaz, Caliphate, 86–89, and Chih, Sufism, 78, 135. 130 Yılmaz sees this as an expression of piety. See Yılmaz, Caliphate, 86–89. 131 Marc David Baer, Honored by the Glory of Islam: Conversion and Conquest in Otto­ man Europe (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 65. 132 Katharina A. Ivanyi, Virtue, Piety and the Law: A Study of Birgivī Mehmed Efendī’s al-Ṭarīqa al-muḥammadiyya (Leiden & Boston: Brill, 2020), 1–63, 76–100, 125–129. Further see Birgivi, The Path, xiii-xv. Also see Muḥammad ʿAlī al-Birkiwī (al-Birkilī), al-Ṭarīqa al-Muḥammadīyya wa al-Sīra al-Aḥmadīyya [The Muḥammadan Path and the Life of the Prophet], ed. Muḥammad Nāẓim al-Nadawī (Damascus: Dār al-Qalam, 2011), 33–62, 77–106, 160–161, 171–177. 133 Ivanyi, Virtue, 37–40, 128. Khaled el-Rouayheb, Islamic Intellectual History in the Seventeenth Century: Scholarly Currents in the Ottoman Empire and the Maghreb (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 15–18. Further see Yılmaz, Cali­ phate, 86–89. 134 See Philipp Bruckmayr, “The Particular Will (al-irādat al-juz’iyya): Excavations Regarding a Latecomer in Kalām Terminology on Human Agency and its Position in Naqshbandi Discourse,” European Journal of Turkish Studies, 13 (2011): 1–24. Avail­ able online at http://journals.openedition.org/ejts/4601. 135 Ivanyi, Virtue, 94, Yılmaz, Caliphate, 86–89. 136 See Ivanyi, Virtue, 36-40, and Mustapha Sheikh, Ottoman Puritanism and its Dis­ contents: Aḥmad al-Rūmī al-Āqḥiṣārī and the Qāḍīzādelis (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), 1–41, 116–166. 137 Grehan, Twilight, 102, Chih, Sufism, 135. 138 Baer, Glory, 65, and Madeline Zilfi, The Politics of Piety: The Ottoman Ulema in the Postclassical Age (1600–1800) (Minneapolis: Bibliotheca Islamica, 1988), 132. 139 Yılmaz, Caliphate, 48–51, and Terzioğlu, “Preachers,” 257. Also see Grehan, Twilight, 102, Chih, Sufism, 135, and Baer, Glory, 68–70. 140 Sariyannis, “Occultism,” 41. 141 Dina le Gall, A Culture of Sufism: Naqshbandis in the Ottoman World, 1450–1700 (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2005), 152–156. 142 Sheikh, Puritanism, 2, and Douglas A. Howard, A History of the Ottoman Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017), 168–172. See also Ira M. Lapidus, A History of Islamic Societies, third edition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 370. It is a universal trend for religious rigorists to attempt establishing par­ ticular moral codes. See Thomas, Decline, 121. Further see Le Gall, Sufism, 150–151, Baer, 63–78, 105–119, or Curry, Transformation, 78–80. 143 Green, Sufism, 159–160. 144 Derin Terzioğlu, “How to Conceptualize Ottoman Sunnitization: A Historiographical Discussion,” Turcica, 44 (2012–2013): 319, or Le Gall, Sufism, 150–156. 145 See Gershom Scholem, Sabbatai Sevi: The Mystical Messiah (1626–1676) (New Jer­ sey: Princeton University Press, 1973). 146 Le Gall, Sufism, 150–153, also Baer, Glory, 63–75, 105–119. Fariba Zarinebaf, Crime & Punishment in Istanbul 1700–1800 (Berkeley & Los Angeles & London: University of California Press, 2010), 106. 147 Chih, Sufism, 139. 148 Baer, Glory, 70–78, 104–118, 226. 149 Chih, Sufism, 32–36, 118.

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150 See Farid al-Salim, “Landed Property and Elite Conflicts in Ottoman Tulkarm,” Jeru­ salem Quarterly 47 (2011): 75. Further, Sebastian Gunther, Todd Lawson and Christian Mauder, eds., Roads to Paradise: Eschatology and Concepts of the Hereafter in Islam (Leiden & Boston: Brill, 2017), 931–933, Michael Winter, “ʿUlama’,” 40. Finally, see Marʿī ibn Yūsuf al-Karmī al-Ḥanbalī, Shifā’ al-Ṣudūr fī Ziyārat al-Mashāhid wa al-Qubūr [The Healing of Breasts with What Concerns the Visitation of Shrines and Graves], ed. Asʿad Muḥammad al-Ṭayyib (Mecca: Maktabat Narrār Muṣṭafā al-Bāz, 1998), 7–10. Henceforth: ShS. 151 Al-Karmī, ShS, 17–155. 152 Ibid., 25, 37–45. 153 Al-Nābulsī, “Kashf,” 162A-174A. Further see al-Nabhānī, 1:13–14. 154 Ibn ʿĀbidīn, MR, 2:15–26, 30–47. 155 Al-Nābulsī, “Kashf,” 167A-173B. Further see Al-Nābulsī, Ḥadīqa, 2:429. 156 Al-Karmī, ShS, 45–55. 157 Al-Murādī, Silk, 3:44. 158 See Catherine Mayeur-Jaouen, The Mulid of al-Sayyid al-Badawi of Tanta, trans. Colin Clement (Cairo & New York: The American University of Cairo Press, 2019), 83–108. 159 Chih, Sufism, 1–21. 160 197 Al-Karmī, ShS, 17–155. 161 Ibid. 162 Al-Nābulsī, “Kashf,” 168B, and throughout this text. 163 Al-Nābulsī, “Kashf,” 162A–174A, al-Nābulsī, Ḥadīqa, 1:199–200. 164 Ibn ʿAbidīn, MR, 2:5–15. 165 For instance, al-Murādī, Silk, 1:229, 1:284, 2:76, 3:205, 3:69, 3:103, or 3:175. 166 David Dean Commins, Islamic Reform: Politics and Social Change in Late Ottoman Syria (New York & Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990), 45–46, 116–118. 167 Al-Nabhāni, JK, 1:24–40. Skepticism represented a universal phenomenon to many different religions. See J. L. Schellenberg, “On Religious Skepticism,” in Prolegom­ ena to a Philosophy of Religion (Ithaca & London: Cornell University Press, 2005), 95–105. 168 See Sariyannis, “Occultism,” 41. 169 Sayed Khatab, Understanding Islamic Fundamentalism: The Theological and Ideo­ logical Basis of Al-Qa’ida’s Political Tactics (Cairo & New York: The American Uni­ versity in Cairo Press, 2011), 63, Sherifa Zuhur, Saudi Arabia (Santa Barbara: Clio, 2011), 39. 170 Ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb was eager to identify heretics. See Chih, Sufism, 137. Further see Samira Haj, “The Islamic Reform Tradition,” in Reconfiguring Islamic Tradition: Reform, Rationality, and Modernity (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2009), 1–30, and David Commins, The Wahhabi Mission and Saudi Arabia (London: I.B. Tauris, 2006), 1–40. For more about the movement as it was seen in Egypt during the nine­ teenth century, see Lane, Egyptians, 1:128. 171 Chih, Sufism, 138. 172 Haj, “Reform,” 17. 173 Ibid., 17–18, John Obert Voll, Islam: Continuity and Change in the Modern World (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1982), 53–54. Further see Ayman S. al-Yassini, “Saudi Arabia: The Kingdom of Islam,” in Religions and Societies: Asia and the Mid­ dle East, ed. Carlo Caldarola (Berlin: Mouton Publishers, 1982), 69–72, and Israr Hasan, The Conflict Within Islam: Expressing Religion Through Politics (Blooming­ ton: iUniverse Inc., 2011), 10–15. 174 Zuhur, Saudi Arabia, 39, Commins, Mission, 26–30, Haj, “Reform,” 17–18, and Voll, Islam, 53–54. 175 Afshin Shahi, The Politics of Truth Management in Saudi Arabia (Abingdon: Routledge, 2013), 47.

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176 See Leila Ahmed, Quiet Revolution: The Veil’s Resurgence from the Middle East to America (New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 2011), 95, or Jon Amarjani, Modern Islamist Movements: History, Religion, and Politics (Oxford: Wiley, 2012), 125–126. 177 The vandalization of the shrine in Karbala possibly earned Ibn Saʿūd’s son, Abd alʿAzīz, death at the hands of a vengeful assassin in 1803. See Shahi, Truth, 49, and Zuhur, Saudi Arabia, 41. 178 That the Ottoman subjects were highly concerned with such raids was visible from the eighteenth-century Shāmī source material. See for instance, al-Bakrī, “KhH,” 19B– 20A, 21B. Further see Canaan, Saints, 2–3, 36, 93–95, and John Lewis Burckhardt, Notes on the Bedouins and Wahabys: Collected During his Travel in the East (London: Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley, 1831), 2 volumes, 2:168–176. Further see Karl K. Barbir, Ottoman Rule in Damascus, 1708–1758 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980), 97–107, Mohannad al-Mubaidin, “Aspects of the Economic History of Damascus During the First Half of the Eighteenth Century,” trans. W. Matt Malcycky, in Syria and Bilad al-Sham under Ottoman Rule, ed. Peter Sluglett and Stefan Weber (Leiden & Boston: Brill, 2010), 137–154, Shahi, Truth, 49, Zuhur, Saudi Arabia, 41. 179 Commins, Islamic Reform, 108. 180 Ibid., 22. 181 Ibid. 182 Ibn ʿAbidīn, MR, 2:4–16. Al-Nābulsī without reservation dismisses such people as absolute ignoramuses (sg. jāhil), Al-Nābulsī, “Kashf,” 162A–174A, or al-Nābulsī, Ḥadīqa, 1:199–200. 183 Ibn ʿĀbidīn, Radd, 3:150–151. 184 Ibn ʿĀbidīn, Radd, 2:114–115, 242–243, and MR, 2:14–47. 185 Ibn ʿĀbidīn, MR, 2–61, and Ibn ʿĀbidīn, Radd, 2:114–116, 3:150–151, 9:522.

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Miracles of God and Saintly Wonders 79 Rafeq, Abdul-Karim. “ ‘Abd al-Ghani al-Nabulsi: Religious Tolerance and Arabness’ in Ottoman Damascus,” 1–18. In Transformed Landscapes: Essays on Palestine and the Middle East in Honor of Walid Khalidi. Edited by Camille Mansour and Leila Fawaz. Cairo & New York: The American University of Cairo Press, 2009. Rapp, Claudia. Holy Bishops in Late Antiquity: The Nature of Christian Leadership in an Age of Transition. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2013. Renard, John. Friends of God: Islamic Images of Piety, Commitment, and Servanthood. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008. Rogers, J. M. Sinan: Makers of Islamic Civilization. London: I.B. Tauris and Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies, 2006. el-Rouayheb, Khaled. Islamic Intellectual History in the Seventeenth Century: Scholarly Currents in the Ottoman Empire and the Maghreb. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015. Saif, Liana. “Between Medicine and Magic: Spiritual Aetiology and Therapeutics in Medi­ eval Islam,” 313–338. In Demons and Illness from Antiquity to the Early Modern Period. Edited by Siam Bhayro. Leiden & Boston: Brill, 2017. al-Salim, Farid. “Landed Property and Elite Conflicts in Ottoman Tulkarm,” Jerusalem Quarterly, Vol. 47 (2011): 65–80. Sariyannis, Marinos. “Ottoman Occultism and Its Social Contexts: Preliminary Remarks,” Aca’ib: Occasional Papers on the Ottoman perceptions of the supernatural, Vol. 3 (2022): 35–66. Schellenberg, J. L. “On Religious Skepticism,” 95–105. In Prolegomena to a Philosophy of Religion. Ithaca & London: Cornell University Press, 2005. Scholem, Gershom. Sabbatai Sevi: The Mystical Messiah (1626–1676). Princeton: Prince­ ton University Press, 1973. Schwartz, Stephen. The Other Islam: Sufism and the Global Road to Harmony. New York & London: Doubleday, 2008. Shahi, Afshin. The Politics of Truth Management in Saudi Arabia. Abingdon: Routledge, 2013. Sharot, Stephen. “Protestants, Catholics, and the Reform of Popular Religion,” 211–241. In A Comparative Sociology of World Religions: Virtuosos, Priests, and Popular Religion. New York: New York University Press, 2001. al-Shawbarī, (al-Sayyid Shaykh al-ʿUlamā’) Muḥammad Ibn Aḥmad al-Shāfi‘ī. “al-Ajwibah ‘an al-As’ila fī Karāmāt al-Awliyā’” [Answers to the Questions about the Saintly Wonders]. MS Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Sprenger 819, Berlin. Sheikh, Mustapha. Ottoman Puri­ tanism and its Discontents: Aḥmad al-Rūmī al-Āqḥiṣārī and the Qāḍīzādelis. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016. Sirriyeh, Elizabeth. Sufi Visionary of Ottoman Damascus: ʿAbd al-Ghanī al-Nābulusī, 1641– 1731. London and New York: Routledge Curzon, 2005. Stock, Wiebke-Marie. “Theurgy and Aesthetics in Dionysios the Areopagite,” 13–30. In Aesthetics and Theurgy in Byzantium. Edited by Sergei Mariev and Wiebke-Marie Stock. Berlin & Boston: De Gruyter, 2013. Styers, Randall. Making Magic: Religion, Magic and Science in the Modern World. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004. Tanaseanu-Döbler, Ilinca. “Introduction: The Problem of Theurgy,” 9–20. In Theurgy in Late Antiquity: The Invention of a Ritual Tradition. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2013. Terzioğlu, Derin. “How to Conceptualize Ottoman Sunnitization: A Historiographical Dis­ cussion,” Turcica, Vol. 44 (2012–2013): 301–338.

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Terzioğlu, Derin. “Sunna-minded Sufi Preachers in Service of the Ottoman State: The naṣiḥatname of Hasan addressed to Murad IV,” Archivum Ottomanicum, Vol. 27 (2010): 241–312. Terzioğlu, Derin. “Ibn Taymiyya: al-Siyāsa al-Sharʿiyya, and the Early Modern Ottomans,” 101–154. In Historicizing Sunni Islam in the Ottoman Empire, c.1450-c.1750. Edited by Tijana Krstić and Derin Terzioğlu. Leiden: Brill, 2020. Thomas, Keith. Religion and the Decline of Magic: Studies in Popular Beliefs in Sixteenthand Seventeenth-Century England. London: Penguin, 1991. Todd, Margo. Christian Humanism and the Puritan Social Order. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987. Voll, John O. Islam: Continuity and Change in the Modern World. Syracuse: Syracuse Uni­ versity Press, 1982. von Schlegell, Barbara Rosenow. “Sufism in the Ottoman Arab World: Shaykh ʿAbd al-Ghanī al-Nābulūsī (d. 1143/1731),” Unpublished PhD dissertation. University of Cali­ fornia, 1997. Waddell, Mark A. Magic, Science, and Religion in Early Modern Europe. Cambridge: Cam­ bridge University Press, 2021. Watenpaugh, Heghnar Zeitlian. The Image of an Ottoman City: Imperial Architecture and Urban Experience in Aleppo in the 16th and 17th Centuries. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2004. Weismann, Itzchak. Taste of Modernity: Sufism, Salafiyya, and Arabism in Late Ottoman Damascus. Leiden: Brill, 2001. Weber, Max. On Charisma and Institution Building: Selected Papers. Edited by S. N. Eisen­ stadt. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968. Weber, Max. “The Sociology of Religion.” In Economy and Society, Vol. 1. Boston: Beacon Press, 1993. Wheeler, Brannon M., ed. “Introduction,” 1–15. In Prophets in the Quran: An Introduction to the Quran and Muslim Exegesis. London & New York: Continuum, 2002. Winter, Michael. Egyptian Society under Ottoman Rule, 1517–1798. London & New York: Routledge, 1992. Winter, Michael. “Egyptian and Syrian Sufis Viewing Ottoman Turkish Sufism: Similari­ ties, Differences, and Interactions,” 93–112. In The Ottoman Empire and Its Heritage: Politics, Society and Economy. Edited by Suraiya Faroqhi, Halil İnalcık, and Boğaç Ergene. Leiden: Brill, 2014. Winter, Michael. “ʿUlama’ between the State and the Society in Pre-modern Sunni Islam,” 21–46. In Guardians of Faith in Modern Times: ʿUlama’ in the Middle East. Edited by Meir Hatina. Leiden & Boston: Brill, 2009. Winthrop, Robert H. Dictionary of Concepts in Cultural Anthropology. New York: Green­ wood Press, 1991. Wolper, Ethel Sara. “The Politics of Patronage: Political Change and the Construction of Dervish Lodges in Sivas,” Muqarnas, Vol. 12 (1995): 39–47. Wolper, Ethel Sara. “The Patron and the Sufi: Mediating Religious Authority through Der­ vish Lodges,” 24–41. In Cities and Saints: Sufism and the Transformation of Urban Space in Medieval Anatolia. Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2003. al-Yassini, Ayman S. “Saudi Arabia: The Kingdom of Islam,” 61–84. In Religions and Soci­ eties: Asia and the Middle East. Edited by Carlo Caldarola. Berlin: Mouton Publishers, 1982. Yılmaz, Hüseyin. Caliphate Redefined: The Mystical Turn in Ottoman Political Thought. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2018.

Miracles of God and Saintly Wonders 81 Zafirovski, Milan. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Authoritarianism: Puritanism, Democracy, and Society. New York: Springer, 2007. Zarinebaf, Fariba. Crime & Punishment in Istanbul 1700–1800. Berkeley, Los Angeles & London: University of California Press, 2010. Zilfi, Madeline. The Politics of Piety: The Ottoman Ulema in the Postclassical Age (1600– 1800). Minneapolis: Bibliotheca Islamica, 1988. Zuhur, Sherifa. Saudi Arabia. Santa Barbara: Clio, 2011.

3

Haunting the Shadows Contending with the Jinn Between the Visible and the Invisible Worlds

Muslims believed that invisible entities cohabited nature with the human beings, calling these creatures the jinn (or jān; both are plural forms of m. sg. jinnī, f. sg. jinnīya). According to beliefs, these daemons were without any specific corporeal form and were most often unseen. The jinn were featured in Arabic poetry of the pre-Islamic period. After the emergence of Islam, they appeared in the Qur’ān and in many other written works. In eighteenth-century Syria, theologians frequently wrote about them in ample detail, demonstrating that the issue of daemons was approached seriously and with full attention of religious authorities in office.1 Beliefs in the jinn are widespread even today. Describing them as capricious beings with a penchant for mischief, classical texts told of maladies this unseen force caused to human beings. It was believed that the jinn used their powers to swoon, mislead, and enrapture travelers, at times causing dire consequences.2 Their bewitching call (hātaf)3 was heard in the desert for centuries. Some scholarship etymologically relates the term jinn to Aramaic words used for gods who turned malevolent and became daemons.4 Similarities may be drawn across many cultures, such as among the pre-Christian Greeks.5 Otto­ man scholars also employed similar relations. For instance, the Hanbalite rigorist al-Karmī associated pre-Islamic deities, such as al-ʿUzza and al-Lāt, with the jinn.6 The history of the popular customs related to interacting with the jinn reflects the continuity between the visible and invisible worlds7 in the beliefs of eighteenthcentury Syrian subjects. There existed a range of protective rites and rituals aimed at warding off the jinn, or coercing them into particular actions. I discuss these practices to demonstrate how thaumaturgical resources were used to contend with dangerous elements in nature. Resulting rituals were derived from a much longer tradition disseminated by prominent theologians in office during the early modern period. Most of these thaumaturgical rituals contained many elements that oth­ erwise featured in scriptural sources, which further allowed the ʿulamā’ in office to justify them as fully orthodox in their works of apologetic theology.8 When I discuss such rituals, I therefore approach them as elements of eighteenth-century orthodox religious practice. It was preferred that the Sufis oversaw thaumaturgical rituals, as it was believed that their grace would secure efficacy. The analysis of the popular beliefs in the jinn in eighteenth-century Syria brings to light many functions of Allah’s baraka for early modern Ottoman religion. The DOI: 10.4324/9781003395539-3

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common beliefs that God’s grace protected its recipients from evil and could be dispensed to the rest of the population through protective rites further clarifies the historical and sociological role the state-appointed Sufi-ʿulamā’ played among the people as a priestly sodality.9 Furthermore, it appears that baraka was often used to signal proper behavior and exemplary individuals, both in popular tales and ulamaic texts. In widespread beliefs, the absence of grace was often followed by daemonic influence, demonstrating the premodern function of grace as a tool for making boundaries across the social scale. Sunni thaumaturgy in eighteenth-century Syria contained elements, which, according to popular beliefs and expectations, immediately relieved the needs of the supplicants,10 ranging from deflecting evils, over wondrous healing, to banish­ ing unseen monsters and devils. Analyses of these elements may offer additional and highly significant detail to historical studies of the significance of thaumaturgy for premodern peoples and its embeddedness in matters ranging from everyday life to exclusive instances, along with its official overseers – the state-appointed Sufi­ ulamaic priestly sodalities of the Ottoman Empire. The Nature of the Beast: What Were the Jinn and Where They Dwelled in the Syrian Eighteenth Century The Qur’ān adopted the jinn from older beliefs, among many other elements per­ tinent to pre-Islamic and other traditions. The jinn of the Muslim Scripture could not deny divine will, as supremacy of Allah was considered uncontested. Some members of this unseen species became Muslims themselves.11 A fully coherent classification of the jinn did not exist in premodern times.12 During the medieval period, there was a tendency to compare the jinn with Allah’s angels (malak; pl. malā’ika).13 Scholars show that both malā’ika and the jinn were historically attributed with similar powers, such as flight and transmogrification.14 These similarities may be the result of historical inconsistencies concerning the nomenclature and classification of Muslim unseen forces,15 such is often the case in other scriptural religions.16 In the eighteenth century, Ibn ʿĀbidīn appeared to use the terms jinn or jān to refer to various creatures believed to elude natural sight. He identified the malevolent among them as shayāṭīn (“devils;” sg. shayṭān).17 The particularly powerful malignant jinn have at times been called ʿifrīt as well.18 Both the angels and the jinn were of course creations of God.19 The angels were obedient to the Creator who used them as emissaries. They spent the rest of their time in flight, observing worldly affairs. Each angel frequently had a single func­ tion as the purpose of its existence, such as carrying the divine message, or pun­ ishing evildoers.20 Some distinctions between them and the jinn are evident. Ibn ʿĀbidīn distinguished the jinn from the angels by their supposed outward appear­ ance, as well as their role in the world. He believed that the angels were created from light in aesthetically appealing forms, while the jinn had grotesque bodies made of air. The shayāṭīn were made of fire.21 The jinn retained their freedom of will,22 allowing Ibn ʿĀbidīn, like many other Muslim scholars, to classify some of them as devils due to their malevolence.23

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The eighteenth-century ʿulamā’ believed that the jinn were created before human beings and ever since approached humanity with alternating curiosity and hatred.24 It was often easy to provoke their wrath. They would then become mis­ chievous and cause many troubles.25 Although unseen, the jinn were believed to cohabit the human world equally.26 Muslim zoological dictionaries often included the jinn among the rest of the worldly fauna, and such was sometimes the case even in the contemporary period.27 Ibn ʿĀbidīn believed that the accidental sighting of the jinn, as well as of an angel, a prophet, or a jinnic battle in the sky28 represented a wonder due to the beliefs that all such entities were at most times invisible to human beings.29 Eighteenth-century ʿulamā’ believed that the awliyā’ were aware of such entities’ presence due to saintly grace.30 The jinn were believed to inhabit elements of air and fire in the case of shayāṭīn.31 It was believed that they further settled within natural objects such as trees, rocks, or caves. They were often fond of settling in human-built structures – in particu­ lar the water cisterns and bathhouses,32 and some domestic locations, such as the hearth or the threshold.33 Some jinn were believed to ride animals, such as wolves or ostriches.34 Some possessed the power of flight as well as of crossing between the visible and invisible worlds.35 The jinn were believed to have been organized into clans, like humans.36 Gri­ moires circulated during the eighteenth century describe twelve of such clans. The Compendium of All Arts,37 for instance, allocates jinnic clans to the signs of the zodiac.38 For instance, the Gemini Clan (qabīlat al-jawzā’), also known as Chil­ dren of the Desert (banū hawjal39), occasionally rode lions, resided in mountain­ ous terrains, or the clouds.40 The Cancer Clan (qabīlat al-saraṭān), Children of the Tempest (banū zawba ʿa), inhabited cliffs. The Virgo Clan (qabīlat al-sunbula41) – the Children of the Birds (banū al-ṭayyār) – inhabited thresholds, as well as some trees.42 Regardless of their clan, the jinn caused a myriad of problems to the human beings, most often including body aches, arthritic problems, malignant growths, and epileptic fits.43 Humans were more prone to assaults of the clan belonging to their own birth sign. Astrological relations between the humans and the jinn are reflected in certain theories according to which every human being was believed to be accompanied by their doppelgänger.44 The relevant Arabic term is qarīn,45 which inspired scholarly investigations into guardian angels along with the mis­ chievous jinn that were believed to shadow human beings.46 The jinn possessed the power of transmogrification. They passed through the visible world in the form of various animals such as cats, dogs, goats,47 various ver­ min, scorpions, and most often serpents.48 Snakes, scorpions, as well as lions (rid­ den by some jinnic subspecies) represented symbols used for magical practices or talismanics.49 Various religious traditions employed serpents as symbols50 of both good and evil.51 In twentieth-century Palestine, Taufik Canaan observed a curious linguistic distinction in the usage of the terms ʿarbīd, (but also thuʿbān), and ḥayya in relation to the jinn. All indicating serpents, the former would be used for ven­ omous varieties and bore relation to the shayāṭīn, while the latter seemed related

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to benign jinn.52 The eighteenth-century Syrian sources imply similar distinctions between the terms thuʿbān and ḥayya.53 Muslim scholars were arguing if this species was able to eat and drink like humans.54 Legends of romantic affairs between the humans and the jinn were not rare, either before or after the emergence of Islam.55 Ulamaic debates revolved around the ability of the jinn to copulate. In the Egyptian town of Dasūq, early nineteenth-century rumors spread of a shaykh who was married to a jinnīyya. This marriage gave him the privilege, according to the popular belief, of making many wishes come true. Lane compared this man to a hero from the Arabian Nights who found a magic lamp.56 Debates of such marriages remain preserved in some early modern sources. These beliefs are encountered in Syria and the Middle East until the present.57 In addition to the incorporeal jinn, Arabic legends tell of a corporeal variety of daemon – the ghoul (ghūl), which today enjoys much global popularity in social media and entertainment material. There are various etymological and morpho­ logical accounts of the word ghūl,58 yet its origins remain obscure. As with the jinn, there seems to exist a lack of proper classification of this species. Conflicted accounts define the ghoul as an exclusively feminine enchantress, or a mascu­ line member of the jinn which poses as an attractive female. Alternatively, the ghoul is described as an infernal being.59 Most accounts describe this monster as a grotesque anthropomorphic beast with a disfigured face and body. Usually it would have donkey hooves instead of feet.60 According to common beliefs, it would change into a more appealing form, such as that of an attractive woman (the hooves would remain). It would then use its enchanting voice to swoon the unaware into perdition.61 Myths about ghouls persisted throughout the centuries.62 John Burckhardt records the Bedouin beliefs that invisible female daemons carried off travelers who would tarry behind caravans. Such a creature would be dubbed Umm Maghaylān, which may be a dialectal inflection of the morphological root of the word ghūl.63 The belief in the ghoul persists in Syria as well as elsewhere until the present day. In today’s western popular culture, the ghoul is known as a nocturnal monster, an undead, and a necrophagist.64 Legends of the ghouls breaking into cemeter­ ies to devour the entombed do not seem of Arabic origin. Al-Rawi presumes that Antoine Galland (1646–1715) introduced necrophagia into the myth about the ghoul in his translation of the Arabian Nights that was published between 1704 and 1717. Galland might have attempted to add more spectacle to the description of this creature.65 Comparable legends exist in other Arabic-speaking regions, like with the mythi­ cal hyena. This animal is a scavenger that feeds on carrion, has a very particular cry, and releases a recognizable odor from its anal glands. These traits, along with its apparent androgyny (in the case of the spotted hyena), may have through his­ tory inspired beliefs into its magical properties across Africa, and then West and South Asia. Arabic legends narrate that hyenas acquired mysterious powers dur­ ing nighttime. They struck at unwary humans, entrancing them with a humanlike

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voice, or spraying them with their scent. If the victim sensed the hyena’s odor, they would be compelled to obey the beast’s commands.66 Myths about the hyena also imply that the beast would at times turn into a human being during the day and lead a double life.67 Beliefs in transmogrifying creatures are ubiquitous. Some scholars, however, presume that tales of shape-shifting hyenas may bear origins in sub-Saharan Africa, where at many places there existed cults committed to a vari­ ety of mythical transmogrifying beasts. The beliefs in the mystical powers of the hyena were spread between central Africa and the Indian provinces.68 The mythical hyenas and ghouls remain in a wide variety of today’s popular content, from music to video games. In addition, narratives about these creatures are used to frighten and warn, for instance, ill-behaving children, or those who do not sleep at home during nighttime.69 Proper behavior, based on the ulamaic teachings and widespread beliefs that circulated eighteenth-century Ottoman Syria, shielded people from assaults of malevolent beings. In popular imaginary, falling from grace most often brought dire consequences, while observing everyday thaumaturgical practice helped one remain safe in a world where unseen dangers roamed, further integrating the beliefs in grace within the quotidian setting of eighteenth-century Syria. Wrath of the Beast: Jinnic Assaults, Improper Behavior, the Ill-Prepared, and the Mad The jinn allegedly inhabited the world in incredible numbers. People were warned not to call each other by real names when they roamed the night outdoors.70 Old beliefs emphasized that knowing the names of entities and phenomena made con­ trol over them possible.71 Similar to the names of deities and angels that allegedly banished malignant energies,72 myths narrated that a jinnī would be able to control a human being should it acquire their name. As an important thaumaturgical ele­ ment, names were used in talisman production, both by the humans and allegedly the jinn.73 If one would, by mistake, reveal their own name during the night, leg­ ends told that they might hear it called out in the darkness, often in compelling tones (hātaf or ʿazīf),74 and without a visible source.75 Trees were often believed to represent jinnic haunts. The Compendium warns that many jinnic clans attacked those who damaged allegedly haunted trees.76 In Ottoman Syria, carob trees were rumored to be particularly favored haunts. The carob has a peculiar appearance, and work on it may have used to bear a higher risk of injury.77 In twentieth-century Palestine, the proverb that “sleep under the carob is not praiseworthy” (al-nawm taḥt al-kharrūb ghayr mamḍūḥ) was quite widespread. It was considered dangerous to tie animals to this tree or leave possessions under it,78 yet the carob was not the only species that inspired legends of daemonic haunts. Fur­ thermore, water sources such as cisterns and bathhouses were believed to be among the most favorite jinnic habitats. In many cultures, water represented an important object of all kinds of beliefs, due to universal presumptions that it may serve as a powerful conduit of energies, as well as possess various enchantments.79 Spilling

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water was at times believed to provoke the jinn. Urination in the open was consid­ ered risky.80 According to widespread beliefs, at least one, if not many, jinn usually inhabited the threshold of a home. Legends warned the people not to trip or step directly onto this jinnic haunt.81 It was unwise to beat children upon the threshold, as the child could suffer convulsions, or physical defects later in life.82 Transgres­ sions required immediate recitation of proper apotropaic formulae, at times fol­ lowed by more complicated rituals. Myths about the jinn often served as a literary device to warn against unde­ sirable behavior. Stories related daemonic assaults to bad reputation.83 This was especially the case if the victims were people of some public renown.84 Blatant disrespect of the tenets of belief frequently featured among the transgressions of the odious.85 Ibn Budayr recorded the death of a Damascene agha, Musṭafā Ibn al-Qabbānī, in 1746. Ibn al-Qabbānī was remembered as a hoarder of essential goods during financial crises. He succumbed to a fatal illness. A funeral procession took Ibn al-Qabbānī to the prepared grave, where a large serpent (thuʿbān ʿaẓīm) was spotted, so the people quickly covered the pit and proceeded to dig another one. Mysterious serpents were dug up several more times before the people man­ aged to bury the agha. The barber remarked that the serpents were drawn by the agha’s vileness,86 and implied that odious characters would attract such creatures postmortem. Decency and proper behavior were crucial to avoid daemonic attacks. Illustrat­ ing circumstances within the Syrian Christian clergy, the Orthodox priest Mikhā’īl Burayk organized his narrative in a peculiar chain of events. During 1745, one of many conflicts between Catholic and Orthodox groups in Damascus took place.87 Burayk’s narrative implies that this event was almost immediately followed by the birth of a cyclops goat in the town of Maaloula (Maʿlūlā). Goats were believed to frequently represent jinnic manifestations. The said animal died after a few days, and the same period witnessed an outbreak of cholera.88 Tales of the jinn in Syria reveal that the beliefs in daemons were often used as agents of social control and the preservation of social norms. According to beliefs, however, certain individuals would at times suffer jinnic assaults without any apparent reason.89 Some of them would remain unaware that prevention or treatment was necessary until it was too late. Along with those believed to have somehow fallen from grace, they at times suffered severe consequences due to their supposed encounters with the jinn. The mentally ill were traditionally regarded as victims of daemonic posses­ sion.90 The word in Arabic for a madman is majnūn and refers to injinnation. These were not to be confused with the majādhīb, however, whose unstable mental states were explained through their ṣalāḥ that earned them divine grace, once again indi­ cating the potential of baraka to serve as a social qualifier.91 For the “injinnated,” there was a considerable lack of proper treatment even deep into the twentieth century. Many lunatics underwent rigorous procedures aimed at expelling the jinn out of their bodies.92 Cases of madness indicate the involvement of the Ottoman network of the holy in the Syrian everyday, as the individuals, objects, and places, which were believed to be conduits of baraka, played a significant role in treating

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the insane. Studying the history of treating madness shows how deep the beliefs in the thaumaturgical properties of Allah’s grace were integrated into the eighteenthcentury Syrian everyday. Places allegedly laden with baraka often sheltered individuals believed to have suffered daemonic ire. Sufi lodges or Christian monasteries served the purposes of mental asylums, which did not exist everywhere until the twentieth century. The insane were accommodated in small cells where most inmates bore heavy restraints and lived in harsh conditions with poor hygiene. Should all such buildings be absent, a dark room or a dry cistern would have been refurbished to accommodate the patients. There existed a belief that poor living conditions would be unappeal­ ing for the invasive jinn who would then leave the bodies of their victims.93 During the course of the treatment, other rigorous measures were often applied. Forced starvation was common, as it was presumed that the jinn preferred more corpulent people and left the emaciated in peace.94 Diets of the insane consisted mostly of unleavened bread. Patients would further be treated with talismans produced by the Ottoman thaumaturges, or with water in which pages of the Scripture had been submerged to assure the transfer of grace.95 In addition to talismanics, patients were occasionally offered more pragmatic therapeutic methods. They underwent fumigation, and cauterization was common, mostly at the back of the neck or the top of the head.96 Inmates were regularly beaten. There are indications that such beatings originated in the Roman period.97 They were universally used in the Eurasian region during the eighteenth century.98 Their seeming goal in Syria and Palestine was to cause sufficient muscle and tis­ sue strain and physically drive the jinn out.99 Due to Palestinian beliefs that the jinn would not inhabit the pomegranate tree, switches were often made from its branches and used to beat the insane.100 Kept in solitude under poor conditions, the patients had to entrust the rest of their treatment to divine grace. Prayers were conducted for their recovery. Over time, inmates would perhaps succumb to lethargy. They would then be proclaimed cured, and their chains would be removed.101 Transcendental elements of the Otto­ man network of the holy were often believed to participate in the treatment of majānīn.102 People in the Middle East believed that a particular creature from the Qur’ān was efficient in helping the mad. This was al-Khiḍr, the spiritual teacher and temporary guide to Moses in the Scripture.103 At times dubbed walī, this greenclad figure with a long white beard armed with a spear was most often brought in relation to St. George, and both were often invoked by those in need of thaumatur­ gical healing.104 The Palestinian town of al-Khader (al-Khaḍir) in the Bethlehem Governorate had an asylum for the mentally ill, which stood on the grounds of the monastery of St. George. It is believed that this saint was imprisoned and thrown in chains there.105 Adjacent to the asylum stood a Church of St. George, and a chain was suspended to run from it to asylum inmates’ fetters. It was hoped that the chain would conduct the saint’s healing grace into the mad. At times, legends would arise that the saint would signal the recovery of an inmate. Their fetters would burst open on their own.106 Canaan narrates of a Bedouin who was brought to al-Khader

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complex. During one night after his incarceration, he was spotted as he snuck along the rooftop of the asylum. He was brought down and questioned to describe a green-clad figure who undid his fetters. The Bedouin used the chain attached to the church building to escape through a window. His tale apparently remained unques­ tioned. He was proclaimed cured and allowed to go, promising a yearly tribute to St. George.107 In the town of Qatana (Qaṭana), which is today a Syrian city in the Rif Dimashq Governorate, a saint was entombed under the local mosque. The Christians of the area, according to Burckhardt, referred to that tomb as the “Patriarch of Damascus.” The people of Qatana narrated that this priest turned into a hermit and impressed the Muslims by having sheep prostrate themselves with him during prayers. His offspring were well respected in Qatana. A hole was dug to adjoin the grave of the “Patriarch” so that the mad would be thrown inside. People would then slide a stone on top of it to prevent escape. After some days, the patients would be released with claims that their sanity had been restored.108 Many were not so lucky. Their condition would be so dire to require the direct assistance of religious professionals within the Ottoman network of the holy. Thaumaturges often answered summons to perform rituals in hopes of inducing recovery, repelling evil forces, and restoring the minds of the patients. Sufis were believed to improve the efficacy of deflective rituals as their grace allegedly dis­ patched the jinn with ease.109 “Vade Retro Satana:”110 Repelling the Jinn Through Ritual and Blood Canaan related that a villager from early twentieth-century Artas (Arṭās) in the Bethlehem Governorate once lay with his spouse under a tree that turned out to be a jinnic haunt. The woman was struck by epileptic fits, and a Sufi master was called to assistance. The thaumaturge identified the assailant daemon as the “Fly­ ing Bird,”111 possibly referring to the jinnic Virgo Clan.112 In Jerusalem, Spoer was told that a woman once left her child with the superintendent of a public bathhouse. She heard the cry of her baby and rushed out. She slipped and suffered severe cramps, which the Sufis later could not treat.113 Both the Artas villager and the lady from Jerusalem failed to recite the proper protective formulae. Symptoms remained with the Artas villager’s wife,114 while the woman from Jerusalem allegedly heard a mock cry of the bathhouse jinnī, which duped her into slipping while her child safely slept in the arms of the super­ intendent.115 These tales indicate the importance of apotropaic formulae and thau­ maturgical rites for the Syrian everyday. Such rites were heavily reliant on the thaumaturgical capacities of the Syrian network of the holy, and on baraka as the ultimate shield from all evils. In case that these formulae were deemed insufficient on their own, the people would call upon the Sufi masters, who, as recipients and dispensers of grace, were believed to empower thaumaturgical rituals and hold spe­ cial power over unseen forces. The structure of most apotropaic and prophylactic rites contained within eighteenth-century thaumaturgical corpus derived elements

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from scriptural sources, which was a fact the Sufi-ulamaic sodalities in office often used to justify the orthodoxy of these rituals during the Ottoman times and after.116 Above all other jinn repellents stood the name of God. In addition, reitera­ tions of the basmala,117 as well as of the taʿawwudh litany were often advised.118 The taʿawwudh is often recited in the Muslim everyday and goes, “I seek protec­ tion in Allah from the accursed [stoned] devil” (a ʿūdhu bi-l-lah min al-shayṭān al-rajīm). In addition, there existed an old belief in the jinn-repellent power of the Qur’ānic chapters al-Falaq and al-Nās,119 jointly known as al-muʿawwidhatān (Verses of Refuge). These two scriptural chapters, in combination with al-Fātiḥa, had a number of applications ranging from thaumaturgical healing to dispatching daemons and warding off sorcery.120 Failure to pronounce the taʿawwudh while, for instance, going into water was believed to provoke the invisible creatures residing within or nearby. It was customary to recite the taʿawwudh if one hap­ pened to be near other supposed jinnic haunts, such as caves or trees. As illus­ trated earlier, failure to recite proper apotropaic formulae may have resulted in dire consequences. Canaan suggests that the husband from Artas should have recited the basmala before approaching his wife,121 yet thaumaturgical manuals used to contain an invocation that relates to the situation and goes, “. . . in the name of God, oh, God, protect us from the devil and protect what You bestow upon us.”122 Several of the Qur’ānic chapters were considered efficacious in combating dae­ mons. The Throne Verse (Ayāt al-Kursī) and the Qur’ānic chapter Yā Sīn123 had particular efficacy against the shayāṭin and the ghouls in popular belief. Occasion­ ally, it was necessary to repeat the reading of these chapters over several days to cleanse a haunting or complete an exorcism.124 Accidental transgressions or tres­ passes into injinnated territory – like stepping on a threshold – required immediate demonstrations of contrition, preferably accompanied by the dhikr.125 Simply passing by supposed injinnated grounds required but a short basmala, sometimes along with the shahāda or al-Fātiḥa.126 However, to enter a purport­ edly haunted space, one would need to request permission through the dastūr formula127 after reciting apotropaic rites. Intruders into jinnic haunts would dem­ onstrate humility and plead to enter, invoking God. Similar dastūr formulae were used to warn females in a household or another locality to evacuate.128 Protection was necessary for one’s belongings as well, as they were believed to provoke the daemons’ curiosity. In Syria and Palestine, the taʿawwudh was pronounced over clothing chests until the modern period, to protect personal items from soiling.129 People in eighteenth-century Syria needed to be prepared to defend from curses too. It was believed that the jinnic clans could cast the evil eye upon those who were born under the corresponding zodiac sign.130 The people believed that any human could cast the evil eye too. Malocchio131 (Ar. al-iṣāba bi-l-ʿayn) would often be caused by envy. Al-Nābulsī, like Ibn Khaldūn, believed that the evil eye could occur accidentally. Expression of admiration for other people’s belongings or loved ones needed to be followed by immediate recitation of protective formulae and divine invocations, else the evil eye was risked. The absence of protective rites was believed to cause the corruption of the object of admiration.132

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In addition to protective words, the people used a talisman that looked like an eye itself.133 Other protective charms sported an open hand, which was among the Muslims known as khamsa (“the five” [fingers]), or the Hand of Fāṭima (605/615– 632; the daughter of Muḥammad).134 The hand symbol has a long history that pre­ dates the emergence of Islam and Christianity.135 Both the Five and the eye talisman were distributed as pendants or marbles.136 They were often painted on the walls of shops and households. In addition, some would paint the word “Allah,” or the taʿawwudh upon their façades.137 Amulets were collected from many other sources. The body parts of the hyena had protective powers in popular belief. The hyena’s skin and bits of its flesh were believed to possess special properties useful for heal­ ing as well as protection. They were carried on one’s person or hung in important places.138 The jinn were vulnerable to pomegranate branches,139 as well as to iron. Ideally, only iron pales would be used for fetching water, followed by continuous repeti­ tions of the dhikr.140 However, it was believed possible to physically subdue some demons. According to certain legends, the ghouls as corporeal creatures could be slain. The first swing of the sword against a ghoul needed to be fatal. A blow that would only wound the creature made it virtually indestructible.141 The pre-Islamic vagabond poet Thābit Ibn Jābir was reported to have been victorious in a duel against a ghoul. His nickname, Ta’abbaṭa Sharrān (“the carrier of two evils”), pos­ sibly stems from this encounter.142 Despite all attempts to keep them at bay, however, the jinn were sometimes believed to cause great harm to certain individuals, such as madness or fits. Accord­ ing to some legends, the jinn were capable of flinging heavy objects inside one’s household, or in the streets, which prompted Ibn ʿĀbidīn to issue some real-estate­ related legal advice connected to haunted properties.143 In such cases, protective formulae were not enough. Exorcism would usually take place, most often under supervision of a trained thaumaturge. Available sources do not explicitly outline the correct exorcising procedure.144 Daemons were, however, banished fairly frequently, as it seems from the implica­ tions in eighteenth-century ʿulamā’ writing.145 It was preferred for the religious pro­ fessionals to conduct these rituals. It seems that the Qādirīyya Sufis were among the more popular choices as exorcism overseers in Syria.146 They were not exclu­ sive in conducting such rituals, as, for instance, the Rifāʿīyya order specialized in expelling serpents from various localities. A Rifāʿīyya subbranch, the Saʿdīyya, dealt with serpents and scorpions too. Members of both these orders had expertise in poisons.147 Some members of the Saʿdīyya staged public performances during which they bit into live venomous reptiles and arachnids.148 The exact procedure of the ritual needs reconstruction through comparative source analysis. It was customary to fast for three days and three nights before ven­ turing upon most thaumaturgical acts.149 Similarly, ritualistic ablution was a com­ mon preparatory measure.150 Failure to observe the standards of ritualistic purity was considered dangerous.151 After fasting and ablutions, the exorcist would attend the injinnated and mut­ ter protective formulae (along with the dhikr, and the scriptural chapters) over

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them – sometimes repeating them for days. Patients would at times be massaged, starting from upper body parts in attempts to squeeze the jinnī out through the victim’s toes.152 Shaykhs would use their spittle for massages as a supposed conduit of grace.153 Healing and cursing by saliva is a universal phenomenon in religions. Prophets of scriptural religions healed with their spittle. Most notable instances were Jesus and Muḥammad.154 Thaumaturges would occasionally prepare special elixirs to assist their ritu­ als. Thaumaturgical manuals advise the boiling of the so-called “flower of Maryam,” that got its name because of the belief that the Virgin once wiped her face with one such plant.155 Resulting maryamīyye would be used in massages or as a curative potion.156 Alternatively, Qur’ānic verses would be written on the inside of a bowl and then boiled until the ink dissolved. Pages of the Scripture could be boiled instead, and the resulting water, which was expected to bear wondrous properties, would then be drunk or massaged into the patient.157 When the ritual proceedings were over, people could occasionally witness smoke exiting the body of the injinnated individual as a sign of the ritual’s success and the jinnī’s departure.158 Mikhā’il Burayk left a record of an exorcism performed by the Syrian Orthodox clergy. In 1749 a Damascene woman lapsed into fits, provoking beliefs of injin­ nation. She was fettered and locked within the Damascene Church of St. Nicho­ las (Mār Niqūla, or Mār N’ūla colloquially). Burayk remembers how he prayed with his fellows for the woman for several days while the daemon spoke to them through her.159 Her condition slowly improved, until it finally appeared that the shayṭān entirely left her.160 Burayk the priest suspected that a sorcerer – rajul sāḥir (lit. “magic-making man”) – “wrote on pieces of paper”161 and compelled the shayṭān to possess the woman. According to very old beliefs, it was possible for magicians who knew the names of their targets to summon a daemon, inscribe their wishes for the target, and seal it with their spittle, crafting a jinn-manipulating talisman.162 This belief persisted until the modern period. In the early twentieth century, Stephan recorded a story about a sorcerer from Nablus who conjured the jinn with the help of a talis­ man and sent them to a married woman who hated him. She immediately went to Jerusalem to ask for divorce. Ultimately, she married the daemonologist who hap­ pened to reside in Jerusalem at the time of her trip.163 Methods for driving the jinn away from humanity were abundant. However, at certain times, they were deemed either insufficient, or there were no skilled reli­ gious professionals to conduct them. In such cases, people of early modern Syria resorted to the old practice of bargaining with the unseen. Such bargains were usu­ ally struck through an act ubiquitous in religions – ritualistic butchering.164 In Ottoman Syria, sacrificial custom persisted until the modern times, while its roots were ancient.165 In eighteenth-century Bilād al-Shām, people sacrificed for a variety of reasons, including protection from evil and exorcism. Sacrifice was often offered to the saints as well, which I discuss in Chapter 6. Muslim thauma­ turges often oversaw sacrificial rituals. Ibn ʿĀbidīn devoted two chapters to sacri­ fice in his magnum opus, Answer to the Baffled. These volumes, titled The Book of

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Slaughtering and The Book of Sacrifice,166 entered the corpus of Hanafite traditions and are consulted to this day. Offerings over the threshold were very frequent, as the threshold was one of the favorite jinnic habitats.167 After reciting the taʿawwudh and other protective wards, new owners would occasionally uproot the threshold stone and place a new one.168 They would then offer sacrifice upon the new stone, hoping to make the jinn leave.169 It was considered important for the sacrificial blood to touch the threshold.170 The significance of blood reflects a universal belief that it, like spit­ tle, carried the creature’s essence.171 Sacrifice was further offered for travelers and pilgrims who were leaving or returning.172 During weddings, blood was sacrificed to distract the jinn. After the proceedings, an animal’s blood would be drawn over the newlyweds,173 and the bride would break a pomegranate fruit so that the seed would spill over the threshold.174 Another animal would be sacrificed at a vantage point overlooking the nuptial chamber, with blood drawn over the bride.175 People sacrificed on behalf of infants on the brink of death, believed to have suf­ fered possession. Blood would be spilt on their bodies directly. Caution was taken that the sacrificial animal was unharmed prior to the slaughter. It was suspected that the infant would otherwise sympathetically suffer injuries.176 Canaan recorded a custom of treating older children with epileptic seizures by selecting a smaller animal, such as a pigeon, and inserting it headfirst into the rectum of the young majnūn so that it dies of suffocation. It was hoped that the jinnī would be duped into believing that it took the soul of the child, which would make it depart.177 It was customary to sacrifice during exorcisms. Most often, the injinnated would lay their hand on the animal during the ritual preparation and performance,178 and the people would make sure that the sacrificial blood comes into contact with the patient.179 In other cases when an animal was slain for healing purposes, the ailing body part would be anointed with the blood of the slain beast.180 After the exorcism was over, if it was deemed successful, the people would offer another sacrifice as an apologetic act towards the expelled jinn, in hopes to quell their wrath.181 The people in Ottoman Syria frequently sacrificed for the deceased. The pur­ pose was twofold. The ritual was supposed to protect the deceased on their journey to the afterlife, often as a generalized apotropaic act with no specific recipient. Since the meat of the sacrifice was later distributed in an act of charity (ṣadāqa),182 it was also hoped that the sacrifice would help redeem the soul of the deceased.183 If the funeral proceedings required the corpse to be mounted on a camel and trans­ ported to the grave, the people would draw blood over the mount before placing the body.184 Syrian Christians sacrificed for similar causes. Especially during St. George’s feast, clerics were called upon to bless the sacrificial animals. The meat was distributed as charity, so the poor enjoyed a feast during these times of the year.185 Sacrifices for the dead were not a unique Syrian custom and are still present in many regions.186 Even though blood was important, in case that due to some circumstance it was lacking, red henna could serve as a substitute.187 Until the modern times, many houses in Palestine bore a red mark in the shape of the Hand of Fāṭima as protec­ tion and proof that the due sacrifice took place.188

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As with most religious practices, the presence of professional thaumaturges was preferred during sacrificial slaughter.189 They would instruct the people into the proper ways of offering sacrifice and oversee ritual proceedings. The Sufi-ʿulamā’ role in all rituals as guides, protectors, and overseers indicates popular expectations of Allah’s baraka, dispensed by the ulamaic priestly sodality, to protect the human beings from jinnic perils. The role of the Sufi-ʿulamā’ sodality as defenders from malignant forces highlights in more detail the particularities of the Ottoman reli­ gious field and the function of professional thaumaturges within it.190 The path to thaumaturgical mastery was long and arduous yet brought many rewards, as some initiates would eventually enter the saintly ranks in the Ottoman network of the holy. Notes

1 Muḥammad Amīn Ibn ʿUmar Ibn ʿĀbidīn, Sall al-Ḥusām al-Hindī li-Naṣrat Mawlānā Khālid al-Naqshbandī, in Majmūʿat Rasāʿil Muḥammad Ibn ʿĀbidīn (Henceforth: MR) (Istanbul: Dar-i Saʿādat, 1907), 2:16–25. 2 Abdulla L. Tayib, “Pre-Islamic Poetry,” and M. J. Kister, “The Sīrah Literature,” in Arabic Literature to the End of the Umayyad Period, ed. A.F.L. Beeston, T.M. Johnstone, R.B. Ser­ jeant and G.R. Smith (Cambridge: New York, 1983), 41–48, 358, Harry Munt, Touraj Dary­ aee, Omar Edaibat, Robert Hoyland and Isabel Toral Niehoff, “Arabic and Persian Sources for Pre-Islamic Arabia,” in Arabs and Empires before Islam, ed. Greg Fisher (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 414, and Aziz Al-Azmeh, The Emergence of Islam in Late Antiquity: Allāh and his People (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 207–212. 3 Amira Al-Zein, Islam, Arabs, and the Intelligent World of the Jinn (Syracuse NY: Syra­ cuse University Press, 2009), 74. 4 Irving M. Zeitlin, The Historical Muhammad (Cambridge: Polity, 2007), 54, and Simon O’Meara, “From Space to Place: The Quranic Infernalization of the Jinn,” in Locating Hell in Islamic Traditions, ed. Christian Lange (Leiden & Boston: Brill, 2015), 60. Further see Aziz Al-Azmeh, “Paleo-Muslim Angels and Other Preternatural Beings,” in The Intermediate Worlds of Angels: Islamic Representations of Celestial Beings in Transcultural Contexts, ed. Sara Kuehn, Stefan Leder and Hans-Peter Pökel (Beirut: Ergon Verlag in Komission, 2019), 144. 5 For instance, the terms theoi and daemones were used before Christianity to indicate similar dynamics, and the latter became indicative of malevolent creatures only with the emergence of Christian traditions. See Francis Macdonald Cornford, From Religion to Philosophy: A Study in the Origins of Western Speculation (London: E. Arnold, 1912), 96, Ken Frieden, Genius and Monologue (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1985), 35–40, Harold Bloom, Figures of Capable Imagination (New York: Seabury Press, 1976), 80, or R. M. Van Den Berg, Proclus’ Hymns: Essays, Translations, Commentary (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 178. Further see Al-Azmeh, Emergence, 294. Simon O’Meara sees the jinn legends as an autochtonous development among the Arabs. See O’Meara, “Jinn,” 59. 6 Marʿī ibn Yūsuf al-Karmī al-Ḥanbalī, Shifā’ al-Ṣudūr fī Ziyārat al-Mashāhid wa al-Qubūr (henceforth: ShS), ed. As ʿad Muḥammad al-Ṭayyib (Mecca: Maktabat Narrār Muṣṭafā al-Bāz, 1998), 58–60. This was a tendency from the medieval period. See AlAzmeh, Emergence, 294. 7 Al-Azmeh, “Angels,” 144–148. 8 Alexander D. Knysh, Sufism: A New History of Islamic Mysticism (Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2017), 15. For illustrations, see Muṣṭafā Ibn Kamāl al-Dīn Ibn ‘Alī al-Bakrī al-Ṣiddīqī, “al-Manhal al-ʿAdhb al-Sā’igh li-Warrādihi fī Dhikr Ṣalwāt al-Ṭarīq wa Awrādihi,” MS Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Hs. or. 14153, Berlin, 1A–9B. 9 Comparable to the Christian traditions, and the role of Christian wonder-workers in bat­ tles against demons. For instance, Keith Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic:

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10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17

18 19 20 21

22 23 24

25 26 27

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Studies in Popular Beliefs in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century England (London: Penguin, 1991), 34–35, 56–57, 573. Pierre Bourdieu, “Genesis and Structure of the Religious Field,” Comparative Social Research, 13 (1991): 28–29. Al-Zein, Jinn, 8–12, and O’Meara, “Jinn,” 65–68. Al-Azmeh, Emergence, 294. Ibid., 294–295. Al-Zein, Jinn, 34–46, Lebling, Jinn, 1–6, Al-Azmeh, Emergence, 294. Ibid. Further see Al-Azmeh, “Angels,” 148–150. Also see Abū ʿUthmān ʿAmr Ibn Baḥr al-Jāhiẓ, Kitāb al-Ḥayawān [The Book of Animals] ed. ʿAbd al-Salām Muḥammad Hārūn (Cairo: Maṭbaʿat Muṣṭafā al-Bābī al-Ḥalabī, 1967), 6:220–223. Stephen Burge, Angels in Islam: Jalāl al-Dīn al-Suyūī’s al-Ḥabā’ik fī akhbār al-malā’ik (Abingdon: Routledge, 2012), 1–28. Ibn ʿĀbidīn, MR, 2:16–23. Also see Abū Zayd Ibn Khaldūn, al-Muqaddima, ed. Jumaʿa Shaykha (Tunis: Al-Dār al-Tūnisīyya li-l-Nashr, 1984), 142–143, and al-Jāhiẓ, Ḥayawān, 6:190–193. This is not his unique tendency, however. See Robert Lebling, Legends of the Fire Spirits: Jinn and Genies from Arabia to Zanzibar (London & New York: I.B. Tauris, 2010), 7–8. Ibid. This is a widely known term due to the acclaim of Arabian Nights. See Lebling, Jinn, 7–8. Ibn ʿĀbidīn, MR, 2:14. Ibn ʿĀbidīn, MR, 2:16–18, Al-Zein, Jinn, 32–52, and Al-Azmeh, “Angels,” 148–150. Ibn ʿĀbidīn, MR, 2:16–18. This corresponds to the findings in relevant scholarship, which adds that it was believed that the humans were created from clay. See Lebling, Jinn, 1–6, and O’Meara, “Jinn,” 58. Further see Kamāl al-Dīn al-Damīrī and Zakarīyā Ibn Muḥammad Ibn Maḥmūd al-Kammūnī al-Qazwīnī, Ḥayāt al-Ḥayawān al-Kubrā wa bi-Hāmishih Kitāb ʻAjā’ib al-Makhlūqāt wa al-Ḥayawānāt wa Gharā’ib al-Mawjūdāt [The Major Book of the Life of Animals and The Book of Marvels of Creatures and Animals and Strange Things Existing], 2 Volumes in One (Cairo: al-Matbaʿa al-ʿĀmira al-Sharqīyya, 1888), 1:185–196. Henceforth: KAM. For the grotesque depictions of the jinn, see Edward William Lane, An Account of the Manners and Customs of the Mod­ ern Egyptians: Written in Egypt During the Years 1833, 1834, and 1835, 2 volumes (London: Charles Knight & Co., 1836), 1:283–284. Medieval authors gave similar depictions. For instance, see the illustration in Zakarīyā Ibn Muḥammad Ibn Maḥmūd al-Kammūnī al-Qazwīnī, “Kitāb-i ʻAjā’ib al-Makhlūqāt wa Gharā’ib al-Mawjūdāt” [The Book of Marvels of Creatures and Strange Things Existing], MS The National Library of Medicine, 9409277, Bethesda, 262A. Samples are available online at: www. nlm.nih.gov/hmd/arabic/natural_hist3.html (Last accessed: February 26th 2023). For further reading, see Al-Zein, Jinn, 34–46, Lebling, Jinn, 1–6. See Taufik Canaan, Mohammedan Saints and Sanctuaries in Palestine (London: Luzac & Co., 1927), 171, 281. Ibn ʿĀbidīn, MR, 2:16–22. Such distinctions also represented a much longer trend, not exclusive to Islam. See al-Damīrī and al-Qazwīnī, KAM, 185–196. Further see Thomas, Decline, 560–570 for a comparative perspective. Ibn ʿĀbidīn, MR, 2:16–26. See also ʿAbd al-Ghanī al-Nābulsī, al-Fatḥ al-Rabānī wa al-Fayḍ al-Raḥmānī [The Lordly Revelation and the Flow of Mercy], ed. Muḥammad ʿAbd al-Qādir ʿAṭā (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 1980), 177–179. Further see Michael W. Dols, Majnūn: The Madman in Medieval Islamic Society, ed. Diana E. Immisch (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992), 215. Ibn ʿĀbidīn, MR, 2:16–22. Al-Azmeh, Emergence, 206–208. Lebling, Jinn, 4–5, 256–258. Further see Roger Allen, An Introduction to Arabic Litera­ ture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 61, 118–120, 141–142, 218–220. Further see Al-Azmeh, Emergence, 207.

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28 James Grehan reads al-Nābulsī’s record of one battle between the jinn at James Gre­ han, Twilight of the Saints: Everyday Religion in Ottoman Syria and Palestine (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 143. It is fairly known that the medieval scholar Ibn Faḍlān mistook the Aurora Borealis for another instance of such a battle. See Aḥmad Ibn Faḍlān, Riḥlat Ibn Faḍlān Ilā Bilād al-Turuk wa al-Rūs wa al-Ṣaqāliba 921 [Travels of Ibn Fadlan in the Lands of the Turks, the Rus, and the Slavs during 921], ed. Shākir Luʿaybī (Abu Dhabi: Dār al-Suwaydī li-l-Nashr wa al-Tawzīʿ, 2003), 82–83. 29 See Ibn ʿĀbidīn, MR, 2:22–23. 30 Ibid., and Muḥammad Ibn Ṣāliḥ al-Kīlānī, “Al-Durra al-Bahīyya fī Ṣūrat al-Ijāza al-Qādirīyya,” (Henceforth: “DB”), MS Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Sprenger 819, Ber­ lin, 10A. Further see Lane, Egyptians, 1:300. 31 Ibn ʿĀbidīn, MR, 2:16–22. Further see See Canaan, Saints, 86–88. Connecting fire with daemonic forces is an old theme in numerous religious traditions. 32 Lane, Egyptians, 2:37. 33 Al-Zein, Jinn, 85–86, and Lebling, Jinn, 65–71. 34 Al-Zein, Jinn, 92–95. Also see William Smith, Religion of the Semites: The Fundamen­ tal Institutions (London & New York, 2002), 90–139. Further, Dols, Majnūn, 215. 35 Al-Azmeh, Emergence, 209, and al-Zein, Jinn, 39. 36 Al-Zein, Jinn, 15, Al-Azmeh, Emergence, 209. 37 “min kul Fann yabḥath annahu Jawāhir al-Kalām min Shiʿr wa Mathal wa Fawā’id min kul Fāḍil wa Ākhir al-Kitāb Asmā’ wa Adʿiyāt min kul Shay’” [Compendium of All Arts, the Jewels of Speech and of Poetry, Sayings and Proverbs and All that is Useful, with the Last Part of the Book containing Seals and Invocations for Everything], MS Staatsbib­ liothek zu Berlin, Glaser 100, Berlin. This is a composite text with multiple unidentified authors. I am reading a copy from 1785. Henceforth: “MMKF.” Pagination is mine, due to unclear labeling of the folios. I consider the first page with text to be 1B. 38 Historical sources at times tended to imply entanglements between astrology and dae­ mons, or other forces of evil. See, for instance, Ibn Khaldūn, al-Muqaddima, 677–682. Further see Liana Saif, “Between Medicine and Magic: Spiritual Aetiology and Therapeu­ tics in Medieval Islam,” in Demons and Illness from Antiquity to the Early Modern Period, ed. Siam Bhayro (Leiden & Boston: Brill, 2017), 313–315. This is not unique to Muslim tradition, as can be seen from Thomas, Decline, 425–426, 755–756, Tim Hegedus, “Astrol­ ogy as the Work of Demons,” in Early Christianity and Ancient Astrology (New York: Peter Lang, 2007), 125–138, Dorian Gieseler Greenbaum, “Porphyry of Tyre on the Dai­ mon, Birth and the Stars,” in Neoplatonic Demons and Angels, ed. Luc Brisson, Seamus O’Neill and Andrei Timotin (Leiden & Boston: Brill, 2018), 102–139, Dorian Gieseler Greenbaum, The Daimon in Hellenistic Astrology: Origins and Influence (Boston: Brill, 2016), 1–11, or Theodore Otto Wedel, Astrology in the Middle Ages (New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 2005), 60–75. The correspondence between jinnic clans and the zodiac is present in beliefs today as well, and can be noticed on many popular internet forums. 39 Hevcel in Ottoman Turkish bears a variety of meanings out of which some indicate a vast desert without landmarks, a foolish man, or a female camel driven mad. Al-Zein also finds that the term corresponds with the name of a jinnī who compels poets into producing works without much quality, see Jinn, 126, 181. 40 “MMKF,” 106A. 41 While in Arabic the Virgo sign most often corresponds to the word ʿadhrā’ (lit. “virgin”), al-sunbula corresponds to the Spica star in the Virgo constellation where it represents the brightest celestial body and has sometimes been used to symbolize this zodiac sign. See Rudolf Kippenhahn, 100 Billion Suns: The Birth, Life, and Death of the Stars, trans. Jean Steinberg (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983), 12–14. The star has sym­ bolical importance for various astrological contexts. See, for instance, Bernadette Brady, Brady’s Book of Fixed Stars (Boston: Weiser Books, 1998), 270–275. For the Muslim context, see, for instance, Abū Ḥanīfah Aḥmad Ibn Dāwūd Dīnawarī, Kitāb al-Nabāt [Book of Plants], ed. Muhammad Hamidullah (Karatashi: Bayt al-Ḥikma, 1993), 87.

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42 43 44 45 46

47 48 49 50 51

52 53 54 55 56 57

58

59 60 61

62

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Further see James Rosser, “The Zodiacal Constellations,” in The Stars and Constella­ tions: How and When to Find and Tell Them, ed. W.H. Rosser (London: Charles Wilson, 1879), 18. “MMKF,” 105A–110B. Further see Canaan, Saints, 37. “MMKF,” 105A–110B. Al-Azmeh, Emergence, 206. It is possible to identify this term in Qur’ān 4:38, 37:51, 43:36, and 50:23. Lana Nasser, “The Jinn: Companion in the Realm of Dreams and Imagination,” in Dreaming in Christianity and Islam: Culture, Conflict, and Creativity, ed. Kelly Bulke­ ley, Kate Adams and Patricia M. Davis (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2009), 144–155. Canaan, Saints, 46, 66, 244, Al-Zein, Jinn, 92, Lebling, Jinn, 3. Ibn ʿĀbidīn, MR, 2:21, Lane, Egyptians, 1:289, 299–300. Also see Al-Azmeh, Emer­ gence, 208, and al-Zein, Jinn, 21. Ibn Khaldūn, al-Muqaddima, 626. Further see Chapter 6. See, for instance, Roswell Park, The Evil Eye, Thanatology, and Other Essays (Boston: The Gorham Press, 1912), 49–69. James H. Charlesworth, The Good and Evil Serpent: How a Universal Symbol Became Christianized (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010), 1–57, 188–268, Susan Skin­ ner, Symbols of the Soul: Sacred Beasts (Winchester & Washington: Circle Books, 2012), 2–5, and Al-Azmeh, Emergence, 208. Canaan, Saints, 243–245. See, for instance, Ibn ʿĀbidīn, MR, 2:19–23, or Shihāb al-Dīn Aḥmad Ibn Budayr, “Ḥawādith Dimashq al-Shām Yawmīyya min Sanat 1154 ilā Sanat 1176” (Henceforth: “HDY”), MS Chester Beatty Library Ar 3551/2, Dublin, 28B. Ibn ʿĀbidīn, MR, 2:20–22. Al-Zein, Jinn, 103–120, Al-Azmeh, Emergence, 207. Lane, Egyptians, 1:344. Mrs. Hans H. Spoer (A. Goodrich-Freer), “The Powers of Evil in Jerusalem,” Folklore, 18 No. 1 (March 1907): 55, and Samuel Ives Curtiss, Primitive Semitic Religion To-day: A Record of Researches, Discoveries and Studies in Syria, Palestine and the Sinaitic Peninsula (Chicago: Fleming H. Revel Company, 1902), 115–120. Curtiss brings up an example of a man from Nebk (al-Nabk) who was rumored to be demonic offspring, yet such stories may represent a turn of phrase prompted by various contexts. Reports of marriages and conceptions caused by the jinn are occasionally encountered on Arabic news portals even today. From istaghāl – “to kill,”(ightiyāl further means “assassination”) to the Mesopotamian monster Gallu. See Ahmed K. al-Rawi, “The Arabic Ghoul and its Western Transfor­ mation,” Folklore, 120, No. 3 (December 2009): 292–294 and Ahmed al-Rawi, “The Mythical Ghoul in Arabic Culture,” Cultural Analysis 8 (2009): 45. al-Rawi, “Ghoul,” 292, Canaan, Saints, 244. Al-Jāhiẓ, Ḥayawān, 6:214–215. Al-Rawi, “Ghoul,” 294–297, Al-Azmeh, Emergence, 207. Myths such as these are remi­ niscent of the legends of sirens, as for instance in Lillian Eileen Doherty, Siren Songs: Gender, Audiences and Narrators in the Odyssey (Ann Arbor: University of Michi­ gan Press, 1995), 138–139, or David S. Ferris, Silent Urns: Romanticism, Hellenism, Modernity (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000), xi-xiv. Creatures such as these also existed in the mythologies of many other cultures. For instance, Geoffrey Keating, The History of Ireland: From the Earliest Period to the English Invasion, trans. John O’Mahony (New York: Jame B. Kirker, 1866), 171–172. For the eighteenth century, see for instance Muḥammad al-Ḥāfiẓ Ibn Ḥusayn al-Ṣaydāwī al-Najjār, Al-Kashf wa al-Bayān ʿan Awṣāf Khiṣṣāl Shirār Ahl al-Zamān [Uncovering and Shedding Light on the Characteristics of Evil among the Present Day’s People] ed.

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72 73

74 75 76 77 78 79

80 81 82

Haunting the Shadows Muhannad Mubayyiḍīn (Beirut: al-Markaz al-ʿArabī li-l-Abḥāth wa Dirāsat al-Siyāsāt, 2019), 170–176. John Lewis Burckhardt, Travels in Syria and the Holy Land (London: John Murray, 1822), 451–452. Similar in Lane, Egyptians, 1:290. Al-Rawi, “Ghoul,” 299. Canaan, Saints, 244, n5., Dan Boneh, “Mystical Powers of Hyenas: Interpreting a Bedouin Belief,” Folklore, 98, No. 1 (1987): 58–62. Boneh, “Hyenas,” 58. Jürgen W. Frembgen, “The Magicality of the Hyena: Beliefs and Practices in West and South Asia,” Asian Folklore Studies, 57, No. 2 (1998): 338. It is interesting that the hyena was considered a Muslim among the people of the Côte d’Ivoire, see 333. Al-Rawi, “The Mythical Ghoul,” 58. This is also a myth in Jewish folklore. See Spoer “Powers,” 71. See Ibn Khaldūn, Al-Muqaddima, 161, 658, very comparable to Catholic beliefs, as presented in Thomas, Decline, 211. Some practical illustrations are given in Ikbal Ali Shah, Black and White Magic: Its Theory and Practice (London: Octagon Press, 1975), 43–44. For historical comparisons, see Paul Allan Mirecki and Marvin W. Meyer, eds., Magic and Ritual in the Ancient World (Leiden & Boston: Brill, 2002), 68–116, Claire Fanger, Invoking Angels: Theurgic Ideas and Practices, Thirteenth to Sixteenth Centu­ ries (Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2012), 60, 169, 192, or Robert J. Wilkinson, Tetragrammaton: Western Christians and the Hebrew Name of God: From the Beginnings to the Seventeenth Century (Leiden & Boston: Brill, 2015), 1, 111, 160, 186, 460. Ibn ʿĀbidīn, MR, 2:19–23. Sufis believed that the “greatest name” of God (al-ism al-aʿẓam) was most useful for all rituals, including those that supposedly dispatched demons. See Chapters 4 and 6. Ibn ʿĀbidīn, MR, 2:18, 29–33, Muḥammad Khalīl al-Murādī, Silk al-Durar fī Aʿyan al-Qarn al-Thānī ʿAshar, ed. Akram Ḥassan al-ʿUlabī (Beirut: Dār Ṣādir, 2002), 1:59, and Stephan H. Stephan, “Lunacy in Palestine Folklore,” The Journal of the Pales­ tine Oriental Society, 5 (1925): 5–8. Further see Hassan Abu Hanieh, Sufism and Sufi Orders: God’s Spiritual Paths, Adaptation and Renewal in the Context of Modernization (Amman: Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, 2011), 153–157. Talismanics represent an important element in Ottoman thaumaturgical practice. In more detail, chapter 6 is committed to treating such practices. Al-Zein, Jinn, 74, Al-Azmeh, Emergence, 208. Spoer “Powers,” 71. “MMKF,” 105A–110B. Curtiss, Primitive Religion, 64–65, Spoer, “Powers,” 64. Canaan, Saints, 37. For antiquity, see Aleksandra Szalc, “In Search of Water of Life: The Alexander Romance and Indian Mythology,” in The Alexander Romance in Persia and the East, ed. Richard Stoneman, Kyle Erickson and Ian Richard Netton (Groningen: Barkhuis Publishing, 2012), 327–338. For its influence on later traditions, Valerie Flint, Richard Gordon, Georg Luck and Daniel Ogden, eds., Witchcraft and Magic in Europe: Ancient Greece and Rome (London: The Athlone Press, 1999), 23. For North Africa, as well as universally in the Arabic-speaking world, Edward Westermarck, Ritual and Belief in Morocco, Volume I (London: Macmillan & Co., 1926), 290–325. Stephan, “Lunacy,” 5–6, Al-Azmeh, Emergence, 209. In the Balkans, some people still avoid tripping or stepping on a threshold, yet not many offer explanations as to why. Stephan, “Lunacy,” 5–6, Al-Azmeh, Emergence, 209. The threshold has a long history of significance for magical acts. See J. G. Frazer, The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic

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85

86 87

88 89 90

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and Religion (London: Macmillan Press, 1983), 720–725, and H. Clay Trumbull, The Threshold Covenant or the Beginning of Religious Rites (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1896), 3–24, 45–56, 74–98. Such was the case in Christian myths as well. See Anna Kuznetsova, “’A Wall of Bronze’ or Demons versus Saints: Whose Victory?“in Demons, Spirits, Witches II: Christian Demonology and Popular Mythology, ed. Gábor Klaniczay and Éva Pócs (Budapest & New York: Central European University Press, 2006), 45–46. One can notice that in Western Europe, many of the disputes between various ecclesiasti­ cal groups sooner or later brought up tropes connected to demonology and infernalism for the sake of labeling opponents. Similar was the case in Ottoman Syria. Compare with Al-Karmī, ShS, 1–160, and Ibn ʿĀbidīn, MR, 2:1–47, who reflect a centuries-old trend between the official ʿulamā’ to exchange accusations of infidelity and blasphemy. On the list of transgressions, wine-drinking was fairly common, while other kinds of deviances may have been added. See Ibn Budayr, “HDY,” 32A-32B, and Al-Murādī, Silk, 3:291–300. For a wider early modern Ottoman context, see Başak Tuğ, Politics and Honor in Ottoman Anatolia: Sexual Violence and Socio-Legal Surveillance in the Eighteenth Century (Leiden & Boston: Brill, 2017), 86–126, 140–154, and Tolga U. Esmer, “Notes on a Scandal: Transregional Networks of Violence, Gossip, and Imperial Sovereignty in the Late Eighteenth Century Ottoman Empire,” Comparative Studies in Society and History, 58 No. 1 (January 2016): 99–128. Ibn Budayr, “HDY,” 28B. One of many – the Christian sects of Shām have an interesting history during the eight­ eenth century. Mikhā’il Burayk al-Dimashqī, Tārīkh al-Shām [The History of Damas­ cus] 1720–1782, ed. Qusṭanṭīn al-Bāshā al-Mukhalliṣī (Harissa: Matbaʿat al-Qadīs Būlūs, 1930), 11–12. Henceforth: TS. Further see Anthony O’Mahony, “Between Rome and Antioch: The Syrian Catholic Church in the Modern Middle East,” in Eastern Christianity in the Modern Middle East, ed. Anthony O’Mahony and Emma Loosley (New York: Routledge, 2010), 120–137, or Alexander Treiger, “The Arabic Tradition,” in The Orthodox Christian World, ed. Augustine Casiday (London & New York: Routledge, 2012), 89–104. Burayk, TS, 11–14. Many cultures listed a number of comparable reasons for daemonic attacks. See Sari Katajala-Peltomaa, Demonic Possession and Lived Religion in Later Medieval Europe (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020), 28–45. See Sameera Ahmed and Mona M. Amer, eds., Counseling Muslims: Handbook of Men­ tal Health Issues and Interventions (New York: Routledge, 2012), 19–21, al-Zein, Jinn, 70–88, Lebling, Jinn, 72–76, 81–82, Al-Azmeh, Emergence, 208–210. Understanding mental illness as a consequence of daemonic assaults was a widespread historical phe­ nomenon. See for instance, Katajala-Peltomaa, Demonic Possession, 1–27, Stephen A. Diamond, “Madness, Mental Disorders, and the Daimonic: The Central Role of Anger and Rage in Psychopathology,” in Anger, Madness, and the Daimonic: The Psycho­ logical Genesis of Violence, Evil, and Creativity (New York: State University of New York Press, 1996), 137–180, Yoram Bilu, “The Taming of the Deviants and Beyond: An Analysis of the Dybbuk Possession and Exorcism in Judaism,” and Zvi Mark, “Dybbuk and Devekut in the Shivhe ha-Besht: Toward a Phenomenology of Madness in Early Hasidism,” in Spirit Possession in Judaism: Cases and Contexts From the Middle Ages to the Present, ed. Matt Goldish (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2003), 41–72, 257–305, Leigh Ann Craig, “The Spirit of Madness: Uncertainty, Diagnosis, and the Restoration of Sanity in the Miracles of Henry VI,” Journal of Medieval Religious Cul­ tures, 39, No. 1 (2013): 60–93, or Anthony Ossa-Richardson, “Possession or Insanity? Two Views from the Victorian Lunatic Asylum,” Journal of the History of Ideas, 74, No. 4 (2013): 553–575. For further discussion of hallowed fools, see Chapter 4.

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92 Dols, Majnūn, 211–261, Ahmed and Amer, Mental Health, 19–21, al-Zein, Jinn, 70–88, Lebling, Jinn, 72–76, 81–82, Al-Azmeh, Emergence, 208–210. 93 Stephan, “Lunacy,” 7–8. 94 Canaan, Saints, 123–125. 95 Grehan, Twilight, 149. Also see Dols, Majnūn, 223–243. Asylums of such harsh con­ ditions do not seem ubiquitous. Larger urban centers often took better care of their patients. See Dols, Majnūn, 112–135. 96 Stephan, “Lunacy,” 8. 97 Mary de Young, Encyclopedia of Asylum Therapeutics, 1750–1950s (Jefferson: Mc­ Farland, 2015), 309–310. 98 John Conolly, The Construction and Government of Lunatic Asylums and Hospitals for the Insane (London: John Churchill, 1847), 46, 65. 99 Canaan, Saints, 123–125. In the present-day Balkans, parents sometimes shout at their children that they shall drive the devil out of them while they are preparing to beat them. Adults may be threatened the same way, albeit rarely. 100 Stephan, “Lunacy,” 8. 101 Ibid., and Canaan, Saints, 123–125. 102 Alan Strathern, Unearthly Powers: Religious and Political Change in World History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019), 27–47, 117–131 103 Found in Qur’ān, 18:65–82. 104 For instance, Al-Murādī, Silk, 1:127, also Curtiss, Primitive Religion, 83–84, 213–214, and Spoer, “Powers,” 62. Also see ʿAbd al-Ghanī al-Nābulsī, al-Ḥaqīqa wa al-Majāz fī Riḥlat Bilād al-Shām wa Miṣr wa al-Ḥijāz [The Metaphor and the Truth on the Road through Syria, Egypt and Hijaz], ed. Riyād ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd Murād (Damascus: Dār al-Mu ʿarafa, 1989), 476. Further see Burckhardt, Travels, 39, 98, or John Spencer Trimingham, The Sufi Orders in Islam (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971), 63. 105 Richard Pococke, A Description of the East and Some Other Countries, 2 volumes (London: W. Bowyer, 1745), 2:44, Philip G. Baldensperger, “The Immovable East,” Palestine Exploration Fund (1906): 196. 106 Canaan, Saints, 123–124, Stephan, “Lunacy,” 5–8. 107 Canaan, Saints, 123. 108 Burckhardt, Travels, 48. 109 Spoer, “The Powers,” 58. 110 C.S. Greaves, “Inscription on the Font at Chelmorton,” Journal of the Derbyshire Archaeological and Natural History Society (1879): 8. 111 Canaan, Saints, 37, n6. 112 “MMKF,” 107A–108B. 113 Spoer, “Powers,” 62. 114 Canaan, Saints, 37. 115 Spoer, “Powers,” 62. 116 Knysh, Sufism, 15. 117 It was traditionally believed that the basmala and the names of God had strong protec­ tive capacities. For the eighteenth century, see “MMKF,” 60A–61B. 118 See Ismāʿīl Ḥaqqī al-Brūsawī, Rūḥ al-Bayān fī Tafsīr al-Qurʾān [The Book of State­ ments on the Interpretation of the Qur’ān], 10 vols., (Beirut: Dār al-Fikr, s.d.), 1:3–10. Ibn ʿĀbidīn unsurprisingly uses these forms very often in, MR, 2:1–47. Further see Lane, Egyptians, 1:286. 119 Qur’ān 113 and 114. 120 See al-Brūsawī, Rūḥ 10:541–552. Further see Muḥammad Ibn Abī Bakr Ibn Qayyim al-Jawzīyya, Tafsīr Suwar al-Kāfirūn wa al-Muʿawwidhatayn [The Interpretation of Sūrahs Infidels and Refuge], ed. Muḥammad Ḥāmid al-Faqqī (Cairo: Maktabat alSunna al-Muḥammadīyya, 1949), 15–18, 23–34, 100–111. Also Ibn ʿĀbidīn, MR, 2:22–23, and Ibn Khaldūn, al-Muqaddima, 629.

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121 Canaan, Saints, 37, n6. 122 This is an old invocation from the Ḥadīth. It was advised to be spoken out before sexual intercourse. “Majmūʿa” [A Collection of Thaumaturgical Rites], MS Staatsbib­ liothek zu Berlin, Hs. Or. 14283, Berlin, 11A. The text does not have an autograph and has been copied in the eighteenth century, in standard Arabic; however, it con­ tains additional texts in Ottoman Turkish, which indicates wide circulation. The text spreads over the range of one single binding; however, the handwritings within the collection are many, indicating that this copy changed many hands that added bits to it. Pagination is missing, so I assume the page with the basmala is 1A. I am reading a copy made during the eighteenth century (the archive catalogue does not specify the exact date). 123 Qur’ān 2:255 and 36:1–83, respectively. 124 Al-Rawi, “The Mythical Ghoul,” 47–48. Repetitions represented a common element in thaumaturgical practice, both in Syria and elsewhere. See Chapter 6 for details. Compare with Thomas, Decline, 211. Other religions had equivalents. See Thomas, Decline, 573, for instance. 125 Ibn ʿĀbidīn, MR, 2:20–22, Trimingham, Sufi Orders, 194, Stephan, “Lunacy,” 5–6, Al-Azmeh, Emergence, 209–211. 126 Grehan, Twilight, 109. 127 Same rites were used to ask for saintly permission to enter a shrine. See Chapter 5. 128 Canaan, Saints, 86. These formulae apparently had a long history and later filtered into a number of daily settings around the Middle East, to end as an element of Ara­ bic colloquial. They are customarily used when entering one’s home. See Mansour Shaki, “Dastūr,” in Encyclopaedia Iranica VII/1, 111–112; available online at: www. iranicaonline.org/articles/dastur (Last accessed: February 25th 2023). 129 Spoer, “Powers,” 61, Grehan, Twilight, 150, Curtiss, Primitive Religion, 115. 130 “MMKF,” 105A–110B. 131 The evil eye curse is ubiquitous in various cultural traditions. See Alan Dundes, ed., The Evil Eye: A Casebook (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1992). Each chapter of this volume concerns a different region. For ideas about historical origins, see John H. Elliott, Beware the Evil Eye: The Evil Eye in the Bible and the Ancient World. Volume 1: Introduction, Mesopotamia, and Egypt (Eugene: Cascade Books, 2015), 1–76. 132 Ibn Khaldūn, al-Muqaddima, 630. Further see. 133 This trinket is often given as a gift, and all travelers to the Arabic- or Turkish-speaking regions may hope to be covered in them by the end of their visit. The aim of the object is to ward off the evil eye. See Ahmed and Amer, Mental Health, 19–22, 343. In the beginning of the twenty-first century, I have heard the people in Turkey along the Ana­ tolian coastline referring to this trinket as the “Eye of Muḥammad.” 134 Fāṭima had a shrine in Damascus, which was comprised of a large mausoleum that contained several venerated graves. 135 Fāṭima was, in some legends, compared to the Virgin in terms of purity and devout­ ness. However, the symbol of the hand was connected to many other deities, such as Ishtar or Aphrodite. See Annemarie Schimmel, Deciphering the Signs of God: A Phe­ nomenological Approach to Islam (New York: State University of New York Press, 1994), 30, 37, 92, Sheila S. Blair, “Discerning the Hand-of-Fatima: An Iconological Investigation of the Role of Gender in Religious Art,” in Beyond the Exotic: Women’s Histories in Islamic Societies, ed. Amira el-Azhary Sonbol (New York: Syracuse Uni­ versity Press, 2005), 356–358, or “Hamsa,” in The Encyclopedia of Jewish Symbols, ed. Ellen Frankel and Betsy Platkin Teusch (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publish­ ers, Inc., 1992), 70. 136 Both symbols have a long history in the entire Eurasian region and wider. See Park, Thanatology, 9–31.

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137 Lane, Egyptians, 1:321–322, 327–328. 138 See Aref Abu-Rabia, Indigenous Medicine among the Bedouin in the Middle East (New York: Berghahn Books, 2015), 132. The body parts of the hyena were attrib­ uted special powers wherever this animal was considered magical. See Frembgen, “Hyena,” 339–340. 139 Stephan, “Lunacy,” 8. 140 Spoer, “Powers,” 56. 141 Al-Rawi, “Ghoul,” 296–297. 142 Al-Rawi, “Ghoul,” 296–297. Also Al-Azmeh, Emergence, 209, and Roger Allen, The Arabic Literary Heritage: The Development of its Genres and Criticism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 109. 143 Lane, Egyptians, 1:287. See Muḥammad Amīn Ibn ʿUmar Ibn ʿĀbidīn, Radd al-Muhtār ʿala al-Durr al-Mukhtār, ed. Muḥammad Bakr Ismāʿīl (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub alʿIlmīyya, 2003), 9:111. 144 Such was the case in earlier times as well. See Al-Azmeh, Emergence, 206. 145 Al Nābulsī, Ḥadīqa, 2:390–393. 146 Al-Murādī, Silk, 1:59, Stephan, “Lunacy” 5–8. Further see Abu Hanieh, Sufism, 153–157. 147 See Itztchak Weismann, “Sufi Brotherhoods in Syria and Israel: A Contemporary Overview,” History of Religions 43 (2004): 306. See also Aḥmad al-Ḥallāq al-Budayrī, Hawādith Dimashq al-Yawmīyya [The Daily Events of Damascus] 1154–1175/1741– 1762, in the redaction of Muḥammad Saʿīd al-Qāsimī, edited Aḥmad ʿIzzat ʿAbd al-Karīm (Damascus: Dār Saʿad al-Dīn, 1997), 91, n.1. Henceforth: HDY. Also see Lane, Egyptians, 2:93–94. 148 Ibid., 2:179–180. 149 For instance, “MMKF,” 31A–32A. Fasting for three days before thaumaturgical per­ formances represented a common preparatory measure for most rituals in the Eurasian region. See Chapter 6. 150 Abd al-Ghanī al-Nābulsī, Nihāyat al-Murād fī Sharḥ Hadiyyat Ibn al-ʿImad [Ultimate Wish in the Interpretation of Ibn al-ʿImad’s Gift], ed. ʿAbd al-Razzāq al-Ḥalabī (Limas­ sol: Al-Jaffan & Al-Jabi, 1994), 57–124, and throughout this text. Also see Ibn ʿĀbidīn, Radd, 2:464–465. Ablutions were universally advised before starting any Muslim reli­ gious ritual. See Chapter 6. 151 Al-Nābulsī, Nihāya, 68–70, Ibn ʿĀbidīn, Radd, 2:464–465. 152 Canaan, Saints, 123–125. 153 This was an old tradition. Aziz Al-Azmeh, Secularism in the Arab World: Contexts, Ideas and Consequences (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2019), 45. For the Syrian context, see Canaan, Saints, 124–125. Spittle could also be used to manipulate the jinn into a talisman or induce a curse. See Ibn Khaldūn, al-Muqaddima, 625–626. Further see Chapter 6 for details. 154 Frazer, Golden Bough, 17, 312–313, Frederick J. Gaiser, Healing in the Bible: Theo­ logical Insight for Christian Ministry (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2010), 152, and John M. Hull, Hellenistic Magic and the Synoptic Tradition (Naperville: A.R. Allenson, 1974), 76–78. 155 “MMKF,” 105A–110B. Also see Canaan, Saints, 109. 156 “MMKF,” 105A–110B. 157 Lane, Egyptians, 1:328. Most often, these would be the Healing Verses (Qur’ān, 9:14, 10:57, 16:69, 17:82, 26:80, and 41:44.). See Chapter 6. 158 Canaan, Saints, 124, n1. 159 This is a common story, still present in popular culture today. 160 Burayk, TS, 22. 161 Burayk is not specific. Ibid. However, he hints at the long-standing beliefs that it was possible to manipulate the jinn through talismanics.

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162 Ibn Khaldūn, al-Muqaddima, 625–626. For the early modern context, see Ibn ʿĀbidīn, MR, 2:18, 29–47. Talismanics shall be discussed in Chapter 6. 163 Stephan, “Lunacy,” 6, n.3. 164 Henri Hubert and Marcel Mauss, Sacrifice: Its Nature and Function, trans. W.D. Halls (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1964), 1–18, Guy G. Stroumsa, “Transforma­ tions of Ritual,” in The End of Sacrifice: Religious Transformations in Late Antiq­ uity, trans. Susan Emanuel (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009), 56–83, Ivan Strenski, “Public Discourse and the Theory of Sacrifice,” and “Imagining Sacrifice,” in Theology and the First Theory of Sacrifice (Leiden & Boston: Brill, 2003), 1–31, 192–228, Royden Keith Yerkes, Sacrifice in Greek and Roman Religions and Early Judaism (Eugene: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2010), 20–50, or Albert I. Baumgarten, “Part One: Sacrifice from a Comparative Perspective,” in Sacrifice in Religious Expe­ rience (Leiden: Brill, 2002), 3–150. 165 Al-Zein, Jinn, 54–57, Al-Azmeh, Emergence, 206. 166 Ibn ʿĀbidīn, Radd, 9:423–485. 167 The threshold has a long history of significance for magical acts. See Frazer, Golden Bough, 43, 720–725, Curtiss, Primitive Religion, 177, and Trumbull, Covenant, 3–24, 45–56, 74–98. 168 Canaan, Saints, 187, Curtiss, Primitive Religion, 184. 169 Ibid., 233. 170 Spoer, “Powers,” 58. 171 Frazer, Golden Bough, 300–304. 172 Curtiss, Primitive, 177–178. 173 Mrs. H. Hamish Spoer, “Notes on the Marriage Customs of the Bedu and Fellahin,” Folklore Vol. 21, No. 3 (September 1910): 281–293. 174 It was previously mentioned that according to popular belief, the jinn were vulnerable to pomegranate. See Stephan, “Lunacy,” 8. 175 Mrs. Spoer, “Notes,” 293. Also see Grehan, Twilight, 174–177. 176 Curtiss, Primitive Religion, 177–178. Also see Canaan, Saints, 157. 177 Canaan, Saints, 170. In the Balkan territories common youth slang, the coinage “releas­ ing the pigeon” referred to flatulence until very recently. 178 Curtiss, Primitive Religion, 148–149. 179 Ibid., 200–201. 180 Curtiss, Primitive, 213, and Lewis Bayles Paton, “Survivals of Primitive Religion in Modern Palestine,” The Annual of the American School of Oriental Research in Jeru­ salem, 1 (1919–1920): 56–64. 181 Al-Azmeh, Emergence, 206. 182 Ibn ʿĀbidīn, Radd, 9:423–485, Lane, Egyptians, 2:259, 268, Curtiss, Primitive Reli­ gion, 177–178, 223–225, Grehan, Twilight, 173. Also see Chapter 6. 183 Canaan, Saints, 170, 188–193. 184 Ibid, and Grehan, Twilight, 173. 185 Curtiss, Primitive Religion, 207. Also see Grehan, Twilight, 174–177. 186 See Alberdina Houtman, Marcel Poorthuis, Joshua Schwartz and Joseph Aaron Turner, eds., The Actuality of Sacrifice: Past and Present (Boston: Brill, 2015). 187 Grehan, Twilight, 175–176. See also W. H. D. Rouse, “Notes from Syria,” Folklore, 6, No. 2 (June, 1895): 173. 188 Park, Thanatology, 9–31, Schimmel, Signs of God, 30, 37, 92, Blair, “Hand-ofFatima,” 356–358. 189 Ibn ʿĀbidīn, Radd, 9:423–475. 190 Claude Levi-Strauss, Structural Anthropology (London: Penguin Books, 1993), 28, and Pierre Bourdieu, The Field of Cultural Production: Essays on Art and Literature, ed. Randal Johnson (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1993), 29–111, 161–175.

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Spoer, Mrs. Hans H. (A. Goodrich-Freer). “The Powers of Evil in Jerusalem.” Folklore, Vol. 18, No. 1 (March, 1907): 54–76. Stephan, Stephan H. “Lunacy in Palestine Folklore,” The Journal of the Palestine Oriental Society, Vol. 5 (1925): 1–16. Strathern, Alan. Unearthly Powers: Religious and Political Change in World History. Cam­ bridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019. Strenski, Ivan. Theology and the First Theory of Sacrifice. Leiden & Boston: Brill, 2003. Stroumsa, Guy G. The End of Sacrifice: Religious Transformations in Late Antiquity. Trans­ lated by Susan Emanuel. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009. Szalc, Aleksandra. “In Search of Water of Life: The Alexander Romance and Indian Mythol­ ogy,” 327–338. In The Alexander Romance in Persia and the East. Edited by Richard Stoneman, Kyle Erickson, and Ian Richard Netton. Groningen: Barkhuis Publishing, 2012. Thomas, Keith. Religion and the Decline of Magic: Studies in Popular Beliefs in Sixteenthand Seventeenth-Century England. London: Penguin, 1991. Treiger, Alexander. “The Arabic Tradition,” 89–104. In The Orthodox Christian World. Edited by Augustine Casiday. London & New York: Routledge, 2012. Trimingham, John Spencer. The Sufi Orders in Islam. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971. Trumbull, H. Clay. The Threshold Covenant or the Beginning of Religious Rites. New York: Charles ScrIbner’s Sons, 1896. Tuğ, Başak. Politics and Honor in Ottoman Anatolia: Sexual Violence and Socio-Legal Sur­ veillance in the Eighteenth Century. Leiden & Boston: Brill, 2017. Van Den Berg, R. M. Proclus’ Hymns: Essays, Translations, Commentary. Leiden: Brill, 2012. Wedel, Theodore Otto. Astrology in the Middle Ages. New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 2005. Weismann, Itzchak, “Sufi Brotherhoods in Syria and Israel: A Contemporary Overview,” History of Religions, Vol. 43 (2004): 303–318. Westermarck, Edward. Ritual and Belief in Morocco, Vol. I. London: Macmillan & Co., 1926. Wilkinson, Robert J. Tetragrammaton: Western Christians and the Hebrew Name of God: From the Beginnings to the Seventeenth Century. Leiden & Boston: Brill, 2015. Yerkes, Royden Keith. Sacrifice in Greek and Roman Religions and Early Judaism. Eugene: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2010. de Young, Mary. Encyclopedia of Asylum Therapeutics, 1750–1950s. Jefferson: McFarland, 2015. Zeitlin, Irving M. The Historical Muhammad. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2007.

4

Path to Holiness The Quest for Grace in Eighteenth-Century Damascus

Allah was the top of the vertical baraka-distribution chain, and first under him were the prophets (anbiyā’; sg. nabī), of whom Muḥammad was the most perfect and accomplished.1 Numerous ranks of the deceased Muslim saints (awliyā’; sg. walī) queued under the prophets, with the most celebrated bearing the title of the Poles of their time (aqṭāb; sg. quṭb).2 Their presence in the world ensured the natu­ ral order of things, drove away corruption and chaos, and combated natural dis­ asters.3 Names of most famous Poles figured in innumerable invocations ranging from Sufi orders’ dhikr to brief conjuration spells.4 Under the rank of the deceased saints stood the still-living ones, who amassed on popularity among the Ottoman imperial subjects. Families of prominent awliyā’ yielded innumerable Sufis in the following generations, who, as descendants of such acclaimed individuals, were in high regard as well. Inhabitants of many regions still believe in saints and the Poles among them. In general, common people believed in the baraka of all Sufi order adherents. The term “Sufi” is highly generic and applicable to all ṭuruq members. Eighteenthcentury Damascene Sufi shaykhs used to refer to their networks as confraterni­ ties, with much accent placed on solidarity and collegiality. Sufi authors frequently referred to their peers as al-sāda al-ṣūfīyya (“Sufi masters” or “notables”).5 In addi­ tion, terms expressing brotherhood (ikhwān) or camaraderie (aṣḥāb) often came up in writing.6 References to Sufi “brotherhoods,” however, land far from describing the actuality of the Sufi lodge dynamics. Sufi masters maintained rigorous hierar­ chy and expected absolute obedience.7 There existed clear ranks within the orders, ranging from the shaykh al-ṭarīqa (the head of an order)8 to the new initiates (sg. murīd; pl. muradā’). Beliefs in the baraka of Sufis in practice developed gradually along with their accomplishments in learning and other achievements appreciated by the networks of their peers. This chapter explores how Ottoman subjects of eighteenth-century Syria attrib­ uted Allah’s grace to individuals among them. I discuss factors that were crucial for entering the ranks of eighteenth-century Damascene priestly sodality, illuminat­ ing its internal relationships to indicate the dynamics of its networks. I examine a number of possible paths that led to beliefs in one’s baraka, ranging from official training in lodges and madrasas, to attracting veneration in other, sometimes spec­ tacular ways. Finally, I discuss possible paths to sainthood in eighteenth-century DOI: 10.4324/9781003395539-4

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Ottoman Syria, indicating the relations between its networks of religious profes­ sionals and its networks of the holy. The following paragraphs illuminate the social functions and socio-anthropological use of baraka among both the commoners and the religious elites, highlighting yet from another angle the importance widely invested in grace and grace-invested individuals among the people in eighteenthcentury Province of Damascus. Aside from some very rare cases, sainthood followed years of study, training, and commitment, usually under Sufi masters as well as the established religious scholars in madrasas. Simultaneously, sainthood represented a product of skill­ ful networking among the established religious professionals as well as the ordi­ nary people. The majority of Syrian saints represented the consequence of popular consensus and peer recognition. Saintly prominence could vary in scale. Many individuals who were locally famous for their baraka never received universal acceptance as the most prominent Sufi shaykhs, or the awliyā’ within the Ottoman network of the holy. Beliefs in their power had a confined local character. Instead, then, of a universal Ottoman network of the holy, dynamics of sainthood indicate that there existed a multitude of interconnected and overlapped networks which depended on regions and historical periods. Certain members of these networks enjoyed veneration only locally, while others were celebrated in many realms of the Ottoman Empire. The eighteenth-century Syrian network of the holy continuously grew. The ranks of Muslim saints swelled with the rising number of Sufi lodges,9 yet the Ottoman religious establishment kept a strict mechanism for saint validation. Eighteenthcentury Syrian sources indicate the existence of a tight urban Sufi-ʿulamā’ milieu (and it is legitimate to presume that comparable settings existed in the previous centuries) whose recognition was crucial for the emergence of new saints. At the same time, the ranks of this network yielded most of the prominent Damascene awliyā’. The priestly sodality of Ottoman Shām maintained its claim over divine grace and, through it, claimed privilege to serve as a primary authority for saintly validation. Official and exclusive training, and widespread beliefs in their grace, provided legitimacy to their establishment, also granting them immense popularity among the imperial subjects. However, sainthood represented an open-ended social category.10 Even those without official Sufi or madrasa training at times managed to inspire beliefs in their mystical competencies, although this was very rare. Due to the entanglement of baraka with ṣalāḥ in popular beliefs, traits of piety and devoutness would some­ times bring ordinary ṣāliḥūn to social positions of considerable popularity. During the eighteenth century, some of them would be honored by ulamaic biographies that immortalized them as prominent individuals within the Province of Damascus, along with the widely respected Sufi-ʿulamā and other notables. This socio-anthropological fact suggests that baraka served as a highly important social marker in Ottoman societies, along with other parameters such as erudition or social and material status. Among the ṣāliḥūn featured in Syrian biographical dictionaries is a num­ ber of alleged theoleptics (majādhīb; sg. majdhūb). The Arabic term majdhūb is

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colloquially used for idiots but also marked individuals who were mentally dis­ turbed yet believed inspired by divine or celestial interventions.11 Juxtaposing the blessed madmen to the majānīn further illuminates the function of the popular con­ cept of grace as a social qualifier. It was the ṣalāḥ of the majādhīb that granted them baraka, and some of them even entered the Damascene saintly ranks. To deepen the understanding of eighteenth-century Syrian beliefs in grace, wonder-working, and sainthood, it is worthwhile to begin by discussing the basic and more generic layer in the Ottoman network of the holy – the ṣāliḥūn. God’s Grace is Upon Them: The Ṣāliḥūn and Popular Belief Narratives of the virtuous and devout as blessed by Allah’s baraka were wide­ spread among the Ottoman subjects in Syria, and shared across Ottoman social strata, indicating a long tradition of belief and socio-religious expectations. It is important to note, however, that the sources often employ both ṣalāḥ and baraka as a common turn of phrase. It was customary to refer to likable people as blessed with God’s grace. These expressions did not imply any wonder-workers and were part of normal speech. Writing the obituary of his close acquaintance, Abū al-Surūr (“father of happiness;” d.1748), Ibn Budayr composed his narrative to indicate mysterious powers of the deceased, which may have been an exaggeration. The barber indicated that this man’s talent to silently instill joy reflected his inner ṣalāḥ and bore a mysterious character.12 Brief biographical descriptions, tinged with notions of baraka, represented a standard that was widely used in the region. These narratives did not always indicate sainthood, yet their usage illustrates well the popular tendency to connect baraka with exemplary or desirable (depending on the narrator) behavior. Other narratives employed the concept of sainthood in a more elaborate and direct manner. In 1750, Burayk recorded the death of one of his colleagues. After his funeral, a strange light was sighted illuminating the grave while aromatic fra­ grances allegedly pervaded the air that carried whispers around the tomb. Burayk investigated and discovered that the deceased had a particularly vicious and malig­ nant wife. Despite her unruly behavior, the late cleric persisted in patience (ṣabr)13 and kindness. Burayk, a true misogynist throughout his chronicle, concluded that the phenomena at the burial site indicated the grace of the deceased earned through his unyielding temper and the quality of his character. Burayk introduces the entire account as a lesson for all those “who allow to end up with horrible and evil women.”14 Limitations to stylistic usage of the themes of sainthood and grace were sometimes blurred by authors’ liberties and common phraseologies, yet the inher­ ent relationship between ṣalāḥ and baraka remains striking with various religious groups in eighteenth-century Damascus. Eighteenth-century sources, however, do offer proof of genuine and wide­ spread beliefs in some ṣāliḥūn’ wondrous powers. Most of them were known only locally. Abū Yazīd (d.1759) from Aleppo lived in such poverty that he wore the same shirt for twelve years. He worked as the children’s caretaker in the Alep­ pine al-Mushāriqa neighborhood mosque. His decency, honor, and virtue were so

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famous that “whoever saw him got to love him” (man rā’h aḥabbah). Al-Murādī relates the tale of a certain Muḥammad (surname was not indicated) who lived in the workshop of a Muḥammad al-Bunī, and met Abū Yazīd when the caretaker was already old and blind. He approached to kiss Abū Yazīd’s hand as was the custom, which is indicative of the popular admiration the caretaker enjoyed and of popu­ lar hopes in baraka-transfer through touch. When Muḥammad did so, Abū Yazīd spoke out, guessing Muḥammad’s name and address. Al-Murādī considered this event one of the blind caretaker’s wonders, while the al-Mushāriqa residents often collected the caretaker’s trinkets, indicating that they believed in his grace and hoped to partake of it through touch.15 ʿAbd al-Muʿṭī (d.1760) was another Alep­ pine ṣāliḥ of note. He suffered from polydactyly on both of his hands and feet yet persisted as a calligrapher until his death. Perseverance earned much respect from the biographer al-Murādī, who left an emotional remark of the rainy day of ʿAbd al-Muʿṭī’s funeral. The biographer considered it a suitable final honor.16 Patience, endurance, and perseverance (ṣabr) during hardships tended to inspire as much admiration as ṣalāḥ did among the Ottoman ʿulamā’. Ṣabr was an explicit requirement from the Sufi disciples to complete their training.17 Common people and religious professionals in Bilād al-Shām often demonstrated parallel beliefs and identical social expectations, indicating long traditions of cultural and reli­ gious notions. Ibn Budayr’s diary of Damascus represents an excellent illustration. Lamenting the passing of his master barber, Ibn Budayr writes that Ibn Ḥashīsh (d.1742)18 was an extremely pious man who demonstrated patience and endurance (ṣabr) along with many other qualities. For instance, Ibn Ḥashīsh groomed students and the poor for free, displaying his generosity (another important trait for the Sufis but for the common people’s views as well).19 In addition to coiffing, he offered other services.20 The profession of the barber in many premodern Eurasian regions involved some medical and surgical procedures, like teeth extraction, bloodlet­ ting, cupping, and circumcision,21 and the barber’s diary indicates that Ibn Ḥashīsh treated some afflictions of the eyes and the body. It is possible that the profession of the barber bore a more mysterious air for the rest of the people,22 and Ibn Budayr does write about his master’s grace, taking much pride in baraka-transfer induced by personal contacts with Ibn Ḥashīsh.23 Ibn Budayr’s master in the diary bore many constituent traits of the highly esteemed ṣalāḥ, which inspired the barber to hint that Ibn Ḥashīsh’s competencies bore a more mystical air. Awareness of what constitutes ṣalāḥ was widespread among the Ottoman sub­ jects of eighteenth-century Syria. Even without Sufi training or madrasa educa­ tion, therefore, some Syrian ṣāliḥūn enjoyed respect of the contemporary religious scholars and elites. Eighteenth-century ʿulamā’ memorialized some ṣāliḥūn among the biographies of much wealthier and more accomplished notables. Baraka would often appear in these narratives along with ṣalāḥ, indicating that the personal quali­ ties of virtue, righteousness, devoutness, patience, and persistence represented pri­ mary conditions for the development of beliefs in an individual’s grace. Such was sometimes the case even with those among the Ottoman subjects who happened to lose their senses. If they were known for ṣalāḥ, they would not be deemed dae­ monically possessed. Instead, they would inspire rumors of divine blessings.

114 Path to Holiness The Blessed Fools: Theolepsis Among the Ṣāliḥūn of EighteenthCentury Shām Ottoman subjects in Bilād al-Shām believed that Allah, His prophets, or His saints may at times reach out towards the minds of the living and cause varying degrees of distraction. Divine and saintly powers were believed strenuous enough to “pull” (jadhba; in this context, “theolepsis” represents an adequate translation as well) one’s consciousness out of the body.24 Theoleptics (sg. majdhūb; “the pulled one” or “theoleptic,“but “idiot” in colloquial Arabic) would be left aware of both the seen and unseen worlds and suffer a confusion of the senses. Bouts of strange behavior, speaking in tongues, or unusual and bizarre gestures represented trademarks of the graceful disturbed.25 It was generally considered unlucky to harm them.26 The belief in holy fools was old and widespread across various cultural tradi­ tions.27 In Syria, it survived until modernity. Canaan narrates of early twentiethcentury madmen who obsessively repeated the same action or the same couple of words.28 While passing through Ein ‘Arik (ʿAyn ʿArīk) in the Ramallah Gover­ norate, for instance, Canaan noticed a theoleptic who always shouted and walked only backwards. He forecasted rain by bellowing. He anxiously ran to and fro, which was a signal to the villagers that the gendarmerie was arriving with the taxgatherers. People collected strands of his hair to fumigate the ill,29 hoping to induce the transfer of the majdhūb’s grace. Contrary to the injinnated,30 the majādhīb were subject to divine attraction and therefore believed capable of attracting baraka and commanding some thaumatur­ gical powers. In rare instances, majādhīb were capable of acquiring wide respect and improving their social status due to the beliefs in their mystical charisma. Tales of holy madmen represent another indicator of the social and sociological signifi­ cance of baraka in eighteenth-century Syria. In primary sources, theoleptics were a fairly common leitmotif. During the eighteenth century, they would feature in a large number of accounts, at least in a passing mention. Previously I took note of an Aleppine Muḥammad who made acquaintance with Abū Yazīd the blind caretaker. Muḥammad was attending the funeral of one such theoleptic (“. . . dhahabt fī janāzat aḥad al-majādhīb . . .”) when the caretaker guessed his name and address. His account indicates that a larger group of people went to pay respects to the deceased, and unfortunately unnamed, holy madman.31 Ibrāhīm al-Kaykī (d.1748) was a famous theoleptic in the Damascene al-Qubaybāt district, whom Ibn Budayr addressed as a shaykh and a walī. Beliefs in al-Kaykī’s baraka compelled the locals not to mind the din he used to make. Al-Kaykī would often sway back and forth, forcefully clapping his hands. One day he passed by a milk vendor, became visibly agitated, and lapsed into bellowing. This attracted a crowd who presumed he was thirsty. Al-Kaykī got a jug of milk to calm down but immediately discarded it and continued shouting for a different one, which he emptied to reveal a large serpent hidden within. Then he calmed down and walked away.32 The appearance of serpents alluded to the jinn in many tales, and it seems that uncovering snakes in vendors’ jugs represented a story of

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wider popularity. In Cairo, theoleptics, as well as Sufis, uncovered snakes in such containers multiple times, and in one instance, both a dead dog and a dead serpent were found.33 It was believed that the majādhīb could sense these dangers because of their baraka. Similarly, it was purported that nothing could remain hidden from the gaze of fully trained Sufis.34 Despite the belief that they were graced by God, most majādhīb did not have a reputation as saints or thaumaturges of great power. Most theoleptics were popular figures of their neighborhoods only, their renown bearing a local character that rarely merited recognition from the influential members of the ʿulamā’. Valida­ tion from powerful individuals within the Sufi-ulamaic circles was fundamental for one’s personal prominence, as was most often the case with beliefs in one’s saint­ hood. Aḥmad Ibn Sarrāj (d.1726) lived near Bāb Tūmā in Damascus. He was highly eccentric but also an accomplished clairvoyant.35 Many highly prominent ʿulamā’ expressed their admiration for this theoleptic, including al-Murādī, al-Bakrī,36 and Ibn Kannān.37 Ibn Sarrāj featured in the writings of these important ʿulamā’ as a saint, which merited him wide recognition.38 Beliefs in one’s baraka were sometimes more relevant than all other social denominators. ʿUthmān Ibn ʿAbd Allāh (d.1782), or ʿUthmān al-Majdhūb, was a slave of the chief military judge (Tr. kazasker; Ar. qād. ī al-ʿasākir) in Istanbul who studied the Qur’ān and Qur’ānic sciences (ʿulūm). He also trained to become a cal­ ligrapher. Ever since Ibn ʿAbd Allah suffered the “divine pull” (ḥaṣala lahu jadhbun ilahī), he was prone to prodigious trances (aḥwāl khawāriq). It was believed that he performed many wonders, widely recognized as a saint both among the common people and the select few individuals (al-ʿām wa al-khāṣ39). Sultan Abdülhamid I (r. 1774–1789) acknowledged ʿUthmān Ibn ʿAbd Allāh’s sanctity, while al-Murādī was proud of his personal acquaintance with ʿUthmān al-Majdhūb, whom he met during one of his visits to the imperial capital. He personally witnessed a demon­ stration of Ibn ʿAbd Allah’s wondrous power (shāhadtu minhu karāmatan ẓāhira).40 Many appear to have clearly understood the benefits brought by reputations of graceful insanity. Throughout centuries, theoleptics were often exempt from cer­ tain legal proceedings. Like children or other insane, fiqh considered them legally unaccountable for their words and deeds.41 Primary sources reveal instances when certain individuals appeared to tune their behavior and social representation tech­ niques to suggest theoleptic fits, in hopes of attracting rumors of baraka as well. Eccentricity would help even the image of an established thaumaturgical expert or an otherwise prominent member of society. Perhaps this is why Spoer remarked that “the majority” of holy men in Palestine pretended to be mad, or displayed eccentricity in their clothing, hygiene, and behavior during the modern period.42 The eighteenth century had such instances, and the authorities seemed aware of these self-representative strategies. Illustrative is Grehan’s account about a theo­ leptic from Tiberias who provoked the strongman-governor Ẓāhir al-ʿUmar (1689– 1775) by walking around naked. No action was taken prior to consultations with jurists and the local muftī. The ʿulamā’ discussed ways to determine the authentic­ ity of insanity, suggesting that the truly mad would not know the day of the week. The theoleptic answered correctly, so he was beaten and ordered to remain clothed

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while in public areas.43 This test, however crude, reveals that matters pertinent to theolepsis required a considerable amount of caution and a certain level of profes­ sionalism on the part of official jurists. On the other hand, al-Naḥlāwī, the “Ben­ ediction of Damascus,” attracted rumors of jadhba as well, yet al-Murādī’s account of the instance when he was seen casting his clothes and possessions off to roam around the city betray little but humility. Al-Naḥlāwī’s credentials had validation from the highest circles of Damascene religious professionals.44 Popular Sufis tended to exhibit eccentric behavior, often in connection with prolonged self-isolation, known in Arabic as ʿuzla, or khalwa, which might have given the Khalwatīyya their name. It was common for the Khalwatīs to annualy spend forty days in isolated small cells.45 Many Sufi masters spent a time of their lives as hermits, possibly to imitate Muḥammad’s own reported period of exile.46 During his own seven-years-long voluntary withdrawal from social life, al-Nābulsī gradually neglected his physical appearance, his hygiene, and his manners. He appeared in public disheveled, with hair and nails grown far too long. Afterwards, he returned to public life and repaired such matters.47 The baraka of theoleptics would sometimes impress the highest ranks of the Ottoman court. Due to the beliefs in their grace, the holy madmen occasionally enjoyed widespread popularity as well as an enviable social status. The majādhīb therefore represent a useful illustration of the importance of divine grace as a social asset. However, in most cases it was the grace of established Sufi-ulamaic circles that helped one progress towards the ranks of the highly influential imperial spir­ itual elites. It was not easy to acquire such renown. Years of study and training were necessary to finally reach mastery of a Sufi path and perhaps earn recognition as a worker of wonders among the Ottoman subjects. Exploring the Sea of Knowledge: Sufi Initiates on the Path to Grace Similar as elsewhere in the Ottoman Empire, Sufi order membership represented a defining parameter for Syrian biographers. Biographic data of an individual included their Sufi order, madhhab,48 as well as the place of origin whenever such data was available. If possible, biographers would also include the name of the shaykh who performed initiation, as these were important links in long chains of succession (silsilas) that emphasized the grave importance of the bonds between disciples and masters.49 Despite the exhausting years of training, many Ottoman subjects flocked to Sufi lodges scattered throughout the imperial domain to eagerly pursue spiritual teachings and guidance. Research suggests that only a minority of early mod­ ern Ottoman subjects did not claim membership in at least one Sufi order. The vast majority visited the lodges to attend preaching and occasionally participate in common rituals.50 In early modern Shām, a multitude of institutionalized Sufi paths was open for the people. Among the largest orders, both in Shāmī and Egyp­ tian territories, were the Qādirīyya, Naqshbandīyya, Khalwatīyya, Rifāʿīyya, and the Shādhilīyya.51 The Aḥmadīyya, Burhānīyya, Yashrūṭīyya, and ʿAfīfīyya also

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had presence in the region. Each of these orders had many subchapters that were widespread in North Africa and the Middle East, with new ones emerging as time passed.52 A subchapter of the Rifāʿīyya order with a particularly large following in Syria was the Saʿdīyya, also called Jabāwīyya, which spread under the leadership of Muṣṭafā Sāʿd al-Dīn al-Jabāwī.53 The dominant majority of the Damascene ʿulamā’ claimed affiliation to Sufi orders, sometimes therefore fulfilling multiple functions. As a saint, quṭb, and a muftī, a Qādirī and a Naqshbandī Sufi, ʿAbd al-Ghanī al-Nābulsī was exemplary of this overlap. Al-Bakrī claimed membership in the Khalwatīyya, Naqshbandīyya, and the Qādirīyya.54 The popularity of Sufism among the ʿulamā’ persisted until modernity, with famous Yūsuf al-Nabhānī (1849–1932), for instance, joining the Qādirīyya, Idrīsīyya, Naqshbandīyya, Shādhilīyya, Rifāʿīyya, and the Khalwatīyya orders.55 Maintaining parallel affiliations, he became one of the more influential Sufis of his time.56 Multiple Sufi order memberships were common in the early modern period, as well as in other epochs.57 People were encouraged to join the many available Sufi lodges. Ḥasan Abū Ḥalāwā al-Ghazzī, the master who initi­ ated al-Nabhānī, underlined that the shaykhs’ supervision after initiation improved one’s life, occupational, and social standards, and brought fortune to the disciples.58 Dina Le Gall observed that people joined several Sufi orders at once, believing that they thus collected more baraka.59 The choice of a Sufi order represents relevant historical information, since it most often reflects other individual parameters, such as social standing, family ties, occupation, and personal contacts. For instance, joining the Naqshbandīyya60 represented a trend among the rich and prominent in eighteenth-century Damascus. Ibn ʿĀbidīn belonged to the Naqshbandīyya, which remained the preferred order of choice for his family.61 Such was the case with ʿAbd al-Ghanī al-Nābulsī,62 Aḥmad al-Manīnī (d.1758),63 Muṣṭafā al-Bakrī,64 and many others. The naqīb al-ashrāf of Damascus, Muḥammad al-Murādī, also followed the Naqshbandī path.65 Descend­ ants of a bloodline usually started learning in youth, under supervision of their fathers or other close male relatives, and soon underwent initiation into the fam­ ily’s Sufi order of choice. Such was the case with the al-Nābulsīs, or al-Gīlānīs, who were prominent among the Syrian Qādirīyya during the eighteenth century too. Murād al-Bukhārī (d.1720) from Samarkand – al-Murādī’s great-grandfather and the eponym of Al-Murādī bloodline – brought the reformed Naqshbandīyya teachings from his journeys in India. He initiated some prominent family elders in Damascus in addition to his own descendants.66 The biographer al-Murādī later advised some Damascene writers and poets who followed the same ṭarīqa.67 Later acquired family ties could also encourage order preference. The famous Ottoman Syrian poet, Aḥmad Ibn Ramaḍān (d.1738), most likely opted for the Jalwatīyya because his brother-in-law was a shaykh of this order in an Istanbulbased lodge close to the Sultan Selim Khān Mosque.68 Personal networks were of high importance for the future initiates. For instance, Ibn Budayr and his master Ibn Ḥashīsh had high reputation among some prominent Damascene Sufis. Ibn Ḥashīsh groomed ʿAbd al-Ghanī al-Nābulsī, which certainly brought much honor. His other

118 Path to Holiness famous customers were Murād Efendi, the Naqshbandī master and the elder of the al-Murādī family, as well as Muḥammad al-ʿAjlūnī (d.1735).69 Ibn Budayr him­ self took great pride in his rich network, as well as the baraka he obtained from his master, his acquaintances, and clients. The barber was proud of knowing the chronicler and wonder-worker Muḥammad Ibn Jumʿa al-Maqqār (who was the bar­ ber’s neighbor),70 a Shaykh Muḥammad al-Jabrī,71 and the Khalwatīyya shaykh, Yūsuf al-Ṭabbākh (d.1746). Al-Ṭabbākh was a recognized saint, both by the peo­ ple around Ibn Budayr and in accounts of the biographer al-Murādī. In the streets, people often flocked to kiss his hands, touched him to induce baraka-transfer, or performed the tabarruk near him.72 Many Damascenes who fascinated Ibn Budayr belonged to the Qādirīyya – such as al-Nābulsī and al-Maqqār,73 which most likely led to Ibn Budayr’s initiation among the Qādirīs under Shaykh Aḥmad al-Sābiq (d.1748), who was a Damascene poet and author.74 It is possible to observe correlations between Sufi paths and professions.75 Partial social and geographical convergences existed between the Sufi orders and trade guilds (aṣnāf)76 throughout the Middle East.77 Systems of internal organiza­ tion were similar in both aṣnāf and ṭuruq. Both most often had a leading shaykh (shaykh al-mashāyikh or shaykh al-ṭarīqa), under whom was the chief attendant (naqīb al-nuqabā’) who served as the shayhkh’s viceroy. Each lodge had its own shaykh, and each shaykh had an assistant (khalīfa), facilitating supervision over the rest of the members.78 Unfortunately, extant source material does not allow for a detailed description of Middle Eastern trade guilds, nor for detailed com­ parisons between guilds and Sufi orders. More research is necessary to locate relevant primary sources and build an empirical basis for comparative work. The nexus between these organizations is, however, readable from indirect evi­ dence. For instance, members of the Sufi orders often demonstrated tools of their trade during public parades.79 It seems that most Qādirīyya Sufis in early modern Egypt were fishermen who frequently paraded their poles in public processions.80 The Rifāʿīs and the Saʿdīs maintained their reputation as skilled “toxicologists.”81 The habit of the Aḥmadīyya to train donkeys82 may have alluded to this order’s specialization for agrarian work or transport. It seems that this trend has changed over time. Modern Sufi order members stemmed from diverse professional backgrounds.83 Regardless of their order preferences, all initiates within Ottoman Empire needed to be supervised by established masters, according to both jurists and Sufis.84 Since the medieval period, scholars warned about the dangers of pre­ tense to hidden knowledge without due supervision.85 In a work from 1795, Muḥammad Ibn Ṣāliḥ al-Kīlānī, an alleged descendent of the Qādirīyya twelfthcentury founder, quoted the very old saying that the one without a master has the devil as master (man lam yakun lah al-shaykh fa-l-shayṭān shaykhuh).86 Al-Kīlānī wrote a treatise instructing the Qādirīyya in properly training their disciples. He repeatedly emphasized the significance of the established master as the only one able to direct the disciples properly,87 which, as a belief, had a long history.88 For al-Kīlānī, the relationship with the shaykh was the most valuable social tie a trainee had to maintain.89

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Initiation was performed upon explicit request of the new disciple. The ritual symbolically established the bond between the master and apprentice. In the eight­ eenth century, the Khalwatīs followed the initiation model transmitted by Muṣṭafā al-Bakrī. The master sat down facing the qibla and positioned the hopeful so their knees would touch. They recited al-Fātiḥa (both at the beginning and at the end of the ritual). The master held the hopeful’s (murīd; also “novice,” “aspirant”)90 right hand and accepted vows of obedience. The new initiate renounced the devil and asked forgiveness three times in a row. He sought to be accepted into the order. Finally, the shaykh revealed the first of the seven secrets – the seven names of God that the disciple would continually seek through the course of his training. The master then commenced with the dhikr, and the initiate recited after him.91 Emo­ tions provoked by the ritual were sometimes so powerful that initiates wrote about the baraka of their master that purged all worldly desires, while the dhikr melted flesh and blood.92 At the end, the initiate received the cloak (khirqa) and cap of office to symbolize admission to the Sufi lodge of his choice.93 Progression in rank came with new duties in the lodge. Lowest ranks would usually be charged with the hygiene and orderliness of the footwear belonging to the residents – usually the lodge’s shaykh and his assistants. Higher ranks served as cupbearers and so on, while the superior rank among the disciples was chief attendant, naqīb al-nuqabā’.94 The disciples were obliged to demonstrate solidarity and collegiality (ṣuḥba)95 with the rest of the lodge’s members. All the while, the shaykhs were expected to remain kind and understanding towards the lodges’ adher­ ents, caring for the well-being of their disciples throughout the training and after.96 Initiates addressed their masters with elaborated gestures of respect and rever­ ence. Proper ablution was observed before attending the shaykh’s presence. Initi­ ates spoke and acted only with the master’s permission. They were not to lie or shield their thoughts. Throughout their training, they were under scrutiny by the shaykhs, who often recorded and interpreted the trainees’ dreams as well. They needed to refrain from any deeds or words that suggested pretense to the shaykh’s rank.97 Studies were long and arduous. Al-Kīlānī compared them with sailing an open sea. The disciples, like ships, carried their elementary education in Qur‘anic sci­ ences and theology like drops (qaṭra) in the “sea of knowledge” (baḥr al-ʿilm). The ships were enforced by various disciplines received during Sufi training, and they required a master to ensure the proper course, clarifying any mysterie.98 Most of Sufi acolytes’ training seemed focused on developing morals and disci­ pline satisfactory to their master’s expectations. Initiates would often be required to follow strict diet and particular ways of dress and behavior. They needed to respect fellow members of their orders as their equals. They learned proper adab when dealing with their shaykh, other trainees, and the rest of the people. They were required to cast down their ego (nafs) and nurture traits of patience (ṣabr), forbearance (ḥilm), sincerity (ikhlās), generosity (ikrām), asceticism (zuhd), humil­ ity (tawādu’), modesty (hayā’), mercy (raḥma), proper etiquette (adab), devout­ ness (ṣalāḥ), and patience (ṣabr).99 Disciples were required to demonstrate love and compassion for the world (ḥubb al-dunyā) and to master their language,

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remaining steadfast in all circumstances.100 These requirements were not unique to the Qādirīyya, as most Sufi orders expected their adherents to fulfill them.101 Deviations from the proper course corrupted al-Kīlānī’s allegorical ship, along with envy, pride, and other emotions that were broadly conceived as negative.102 Over the course of their training, the shaykhs revealed the names of God to the disciples one at a time. It was widely believed that divine names contained their own power and that reciting them during prayers, invocations, and the dhikr could unlock hidden mysteries of the world and obtain esoteric knowledge. The ultimate goal of the Sufis was to uncover and understand the Greatest Name of Allah (ism allah al-aʿẓam) and, through it, unlock the hidden secrets of the world.103 The belief that divine names were able to induce powerful thaumaturgy is evident across scriptural religions.104 Among the most important quotidian ceremonies of the Sufis was “remembrance of God” – dhikr allah. Dhikr was central for a lodge’s ritualistic performance and was conducted both publicly and within the privacy of the zāwiya.105 For al-Kīlānī, it was as important as drinking water for the seafarers.106 The shaykhs of Sufi lodges had the responsibility to transmit the proper methods for performing this ceremony to the students (talqīn al-dhikr).107 It was mandatory to perform ablutions prior to attending the ritual. During the proceedings, the Sufis invoked the names of God and recited from the Scripture. They invoked their order’s silsila, often chanting to the music of their fellows. They would occasionally use prayer beads (masbaḥa)108 to measure the length of the prayers and count repetitions. It was common to read al-Fātiḥa at the beginning and end of each ceremony. The entire ceremony most often took place in front of assembled crowds of the common people who flocked to the lodges to attend the dhikr, hoping for the transfer of grace.109 For Sufi dis­ ciples, the dhikr, over centuries, retained a special purpose. It was believed that it protected the Sufis from the forces of evil, helped gain access to the unseen world, and facilitated theolepsis. In ulamaic writing, it further distinguished wonders from magic, since it protected the Sufis from the devils’ influence.110 Sufi adherents publicly participated in a range of charitable activities, both indi­ vidually and in groups. Most orders had a centuries-long tradition of performing charity, which was a significant boost for their popularity, especially in recently conquered territories. Due to such activities, Sufi acclaim spread in many newly taken Ottoman domains predominantly inhabited by Christians.111 Most lodges organized public rituals, aimed at a wide variety of goals. Some were performed in times of political, social, or natural crises, to solicit divine assistance for the people. For instance, when a catastrophic series of earthquakes caused massive damage to the infrastructure of Damascus in 1759, the Sufis hosted a range of ceremonies in attempts to drive away the danger.112 Large audiences attended other, regular ceremonies, organized to demonstrate the praeternatural powers of the Sufi disciples. The ṭuruq aimed to show the spectacular powers the Sufis acquired through their baraka. For instance, the Aḥmadīyya Sufis had don­ keys perform tricks, appearing as if charmed.113 Masochistic displays were frequent throughout the centuries.114 Rifāʿīyya disciples skewered themselves in public,

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broke rocks against their chests, and swallowed swords.115 The Sāʿdīyya, who were experts on venom, bit into live snakes and scorpions.116 Their founder, al-Jabāwī,117 was rumored to have come up with the dawsa ritual.118 Disciples would lie abreast on the ground. The shaykh would mount a horse and make it step over the lying acolytes. They would then stand up to demonstrate that divine grace protected them from harm. Dawsa was common during the celebration of the Prophet’s mawlid.119 Foreigners to the Middle East were astonished by these performances. Sufi disciples hoped that the years of strict rules, chores, and study would even­ tually result in long-awaited ijāzas. Sufi ijāzas allowed the disciples to teach or distribute a particular text, while newly promoted masters received documents permitting them to start their own lodges and initiate their own disciples.120 These documents usually came wrapped into tubular cases that the Sufis proudly hung on their belts and apparel.121 In addition to the disciple’s name, the ijaza contained the name of the master, who, in writing, recognized the completion of the disci­ ple’s training, allowing them to freely act under the rules of the lodge. He further guaranteed that he imparted “all secrets” to the disciple.122 After the master, the full silsila of the order would follow. The Qādirīs kept a silsila which, after ʿAbd al-Ghanī al-Nābulsī and Muṣṭafā al-Bakrī, listed many saints this order venerated. Among them was a medieval judge Abū Saʿīd Mubārak Makhzūmī (1013–1119) from Baghdad, as well as al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī (642–728). Alexander Knysh identifies the latter as one of the first authors of “Sufi-like” texts.123 The Qādirī silsila eventu­ ally ended with the Fourth Righteous Caliph and the Prophet.124 Studying under esteemed ʿulamā’ and pursuing official appointments further impacted one’s prominence, as well as the opportunity for lucrative tenures. Popu­ lar beliefs in thaumaturgical mastery, ulamaic erudition, official appointments within the imperial administration, as well as the prominence of one’s personal or family networks – help identify the early modern socio-anthropological model of the Ottoman Sunni priesthood. This priestly body appeared to possess the ultimate say on who entered the widely recognized network of wonder-workers in Ottoman Syria. The Sufi-͑ulamā’: Religious Professionals and Peer Recognition in Eighteenth-Century Shām Most acclaimed members of the Shāmī priestly sodality usually studied under and socialized with a tight network of well-established Damascene patricians, religious elites, and other notables. In Damascus, of note were the families of al-Nābulsī, al-Gīlānī, al-Mālikī, al-ʿAjlūnī, and al-Manīnī. ʿAbd al-Ghanī al-Nābulsī held unparalleled status as the Pole of his time among the saints of Damascus. He was also wealthy and owned much land in the region. His family yielded numerous influential ʿulamā’ since the Mamluk era,125 while the eighteenth-century axial saint held tenures in al-Sālimīyya126 and the Umayyad Mosque. Muḥammad al-Mālikī (d.1706) also taught in the Umayyad Mosque.127 Muḥammad al-ʿAjlūnī (d.1748) excelled as a teacher in fiqh and taṣawwuf.128 Aḥmad al-Manīnī (d.1758) was a very

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prominent scholar and author, initiated into the Naqshbandīyya by the biographer al-Murādī’s great-grandfather (while al-Nābulsī also belonged to this order). In addition, he claimed membership in the Khalwatīyya and the Qādirīyya.129 His affiliation with the Qādirīs was most likely the result of his acquaintance with the al-Gīlānīs, descendants of this order’s founder. Al-Manīnī further studied under al-Nābulsī and one member of the al-ʿAjlūnīs, of whom some were trained by Muṣṭafā al-Bakrī.130 The network of these elites was entirely comprised of prominent figures who worked as both scholars and Sufis. Influential scholar-thaumaturges of eighteenth-century Damascus were a tight circle and kept exclusive claims to matters of ʿilm and religion. Most of them held lucrative state appointments, reflecting the Damascene branch of eighteenth-century Ottoman priestly sodal­ ity. Religious professionals in training eagerly sought this network’s recognition to boost their careers. Validation usually came in the form of ijāzas, which were both the cause and the consequence of social mobility.131 Ijāzas signed by one of the Damascene religious elites often represented a deciding factor in a scholar­ thaumaturge’s career. Many scholars therefore strove to accumulate as many of these documents as possible. This was an old tradition,132 and the eighteenthcentury Syrian scholars did not fall behind. ʿAbd al-Kāfī Ibn Ḥusayn (d.1772) from Aleppo first studied under Aḥmad al-Dimiyāṭī and then took fiqh and ʿilm under four more masters, receiving initiation from a Qādirī shaykh, Ṣāliḥ al-Mawāhibī. He became well-versed in both ʿilm and taṣawwuf yet continued networking with prominent Sufi masters until he secured ijāzas from al-Nābulsī and an al-ʿAjlūnī offspring. He was the Shafi’ite imām in Aleppo, where his peers continuously praised him.133 Syrian religious elites frequently networked beyond the Province of Damas­ cus, as is illustrated by ʿAbd Allah Ibn al-Ḥusayn al-Suwaydī’s (d.1761) biography. This incredibly popular Sufi-scholar from Iraq was acquainted with the al-ʿAjlūnīs and al-Manīnīs, and with both al-Nābulsī and al-Bakrī, securing many invaluable ijāzas. These scholars frequently met across, Syria, and Iraq, which undoubtedly facilitated al-Suwaydī’s appointment to lucrative studying and lecturing positions throughout the Middle East and the Arabian Peninsula.134 Notables studied ʿilm and taṣawwuf to satisfy requirements of their social sta­ tus. However, material gain represented a practical reason to pursue a career as a Sufi-scholar. Many Sufi-ʿulamā’ were able to earn well just by leading regular dhikr rituals.135 In addition, they received considerable donations from the faithful. Often, they received remuneration or gifts in exchange for thaumaturgical assis­ tance. Exorcisms had a price, like talismans and spells136 – dispensing grace to the people earned a decent living.137 Most Sufi initiates also had other occupations, as agriculturalists, merchants, or artisans.138 After completing studies in madrasas, the Sufi-ʿulamā’ were, in addition, able to turn enviable profit through their official appointments. Tenures kept by ula­ maic groups of the Ottoman Empire often secured an admirable living standard. The value of such tenures occasionally surfaces through anecdotes in the source material. Aḥmad Ibn Shams al-Dīn (d.1759) was a highly prominent teacher and

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wonder-worker, known as Ibn Siwār like his predecessors. Aḥmad Ibn Siwār held a tenure as a preacher in Qubbat al-Bāʿūnīyya, a shrine that lay at the eastern part of the Umayyad Mosque’s courtyard. His relative, Shaykh Muṣṭafā, died and left his offspring locked in dispute over hereditary tenures against Ibn Siwār. After some competition, Muṣṭafā’s offspring agreed to alternate between the Umayyad and the al-Buzūrī Mosque, sharing both appointments.139 Members of the eighteenthcentury Damascene priestly sodality generally preferred to keep tenures within their families, ensuring the prosperity of their descendants.140 At the end of the long journey, Sufi mastery was rewarding in many ways, as the newly appointed shaykhs commanded high respect among their peers and the common people. With wide popularity and a venerable status came a number of privileges that the Sufi masters enjoyed as, allegedly, the recipients of God’s baraka among the rest of the people. The Popular Image: Shaykhs in Eighteenth-Century Damascus In popular belief, the shaykhs, as recipients of divine grace, represented masters of the knowledge of kings and religion of the prophets. Nothing remained unseen under their gaze.141 Traditional gestures that publicly displayed veneration of the shaykhs (and their baraka) were to kiss their hands, or perform the tabarruk near them.142 Ottoman societies had important expectations from the Sufi masters. I previously discussed the frequent necessity of performing exorcisms, healing afflictions and injuries, or assisting the Ottoman subjects in acquiring good fortune and blessings through prayer and thaumaturgical rituals. The shaykhs allegedly had many powers by divine will and were therefore distinguished as Allah’s chosen among the rest of the people.143 They had the obligation of earning their powers through righteous­ ness (ṣalāḥ) of mind and appearance, demonstrating proper behavior (adab) in all matters, and refraining from any illicit acts (harām).144 As role models in their societies,145 the shaykhs were required to continuously act as paragons of virtue. Ṣalāḥ was of high importance for their grace and at times seemed more praised than any other personal trait of an established shaykh.146 Al-Nābulsī speculated that the shaykhs were protected from transgressions due to their baraka, piety, and virtue,147 which was a belief that existed since the medieval period.148 The long social, cultural, and theological engagement of the Sufis cultivated a body of practices that remained stable at least since the eleventh century, and perhaps longer.149 Sufi masters made efforts to restrict the circulation of ṭarīqa knowledge outside of the lodges, at the same time strengthening the exclusive character of their networks,150 and perhaps adding a mystical air to the nature of their teachings. Long before the eighteenth century, rumors circulated that the Sufi esoteric knowledge was detrimental to the minds of the uninitiated. Ibn ʿArabī claimed that a master’s supervision would protect an individual from “harmful doctrines.”151 The ʿulamā’ of eighteenth-century Damascus endorsed the occulta­ tion of esoteric knowledge from the wider public,152 as they believed that it was impossible for the commoners to distinguish between miracle and magic without proper guidance.153 Independent dabbling in thaumaturgical practice was viewed as

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an act of innovation (bidʿa) and heresy (kufr).154 Restrictions to knowledge trans­ mission were actualized through the ijāza system.155 Knowledge occultation strate­ gies maintained certified channels for the dissemination of ṭuruq teachings and created a social necessity for intercessors between the common people and the unseen powers under God. Sufi-ulamaic groups came to represent interregional sodalities that, through mechanisms of exclusion, kept their professional niche and maintained their tight networks.156 The Sufi occultation tradition may have inspired some scholarship to debate the significance of literacy for Ottoman subjects in different regions. Grehan postulates that the exquisite erudition of the Sufis and scholars inspired Syrian commoners to attribute them with spectacular powers. He reasons that the predominant illiteracy of Ottoman subjects in Syria may have resulted in beliefs that learning and literature production were magical.157 Other scholarship, however, shows that various social groups among the Ottoman subjects underwent diverse training due to their occu­ pational requirements. The level of literacy varied among such groups and cannot be reduced to a certain social class.158 However, due to exclusivism and mysteries commonly connected with thaumaturgical knowledge, Sufi sodalities represented the only institutionalized professional networks, which attracted beliefs that their writing produced wondrous results, such as with their talismans, for instance. Orthodox Christian priesthood in eighteenth-century Shām kept similar exclu­ sivist trends, which were in line with a long tradition pertinent to both Catholicism and Orthodoxy. Free reading of the Scripture became a point of debate among theologians only with the advent of Protestantism.159 Burayk offers an illustration. In 1749, a young man attempted to read the Gospel. As soon as the book was in his hands, his brain froze. His father carried him home, and a long time had to pass before he regained control of his mental faculties.160 Sufi masters had sufficient influence to often popularize social practices or defend them from criticism. Scholarship sometimes has a tendency to discuss cer­ tain social habits, such as smoking, drinking alcohol, or playing music, as taboos in the Middle East during the eighteenth century.161 It is more accurate to state that such practices represented taboos only for select groups of religious rigorists, such as the Kadızadelis or the Wahhābīs.162 Rigorist groups, however, remained a minor­ ity throughout the centuries of Ottoman rule, although the Kadızadelis managed to secure support from the Ottoman government during a brief period.163 Primary source material lends support to this view. For instance, Ibn Budayr writes of regu­ lar musical performances in Damascus, most notably in the many coffeehouses of the city.164 The apologetic reaction of established ulamaic officials to rigorist criticism comes forth in eighteenth-century sources, however. ʿAbd al-Ghanī al-Nābulsī left an entire work committed to the benefits of playing and listening to musical instruments.165 Listening to both music and poetry (samāʿ) had great importance for the Sufis, as it was believed that samāʿ helped in achieving mystical and ecstatic states (aḥwāl),166 as was the case with tobacco, coffee, and sometimes alcohol.

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Sufi masters claimed that these substances facilitated ritual trance.167 Sufi mas­ ter al-Jabrī drank wine in public. Ibn Budayr, who took pride in their personal acquaintance, relates al-Jabrī’s habits of frequent alternations between common and entranced states under the influence of alcohol. No one was bothered, while Ibn Budayr even used the coinage “Drinker of the Wine of the Greatest King”168 to address the shaykh. The correlation of Sufi trances to drunkenness represented a much older trend, probably best represented in the poems of ʿUmar Ibn al-Farīḍ (1181–1234).169 This Sufi master, famous for his poetry about love and sex in Sufi metaphorical modes, was buried in Egypt. His mawlids were opportunities for peo­ ple to harvest baraka from his grave, as it was believed that he was a saint.170 Beliefs in wondrous powers of Sufi shaykhs led to beliefs in Muslim saints. The self-reproductiveness of the Ottoman network of the holy allowed for the emergence of innumerable individuals who would inspire beliefs in their saint­ hood over time. Sainthood validation, however, depended on a variety of Ottoman social milieus. Names of many saints did not feature in collected biographies of prominent elites. Those who rose to widespread prominence usually had excellent networking skills and most often socialized with influential notables in the region. They remained remembered as members of the higher ranks of the Syrian network of the holy, widely revered because of their baraka and the wonders they allegedly caused. Those Who Ascended: Saints among the Eighteenth-Century Damascenes Immediately illustrative of widely renowned Damascene Sufi-ʿulamā’ and vali­ dated saints were individuals like al-Nābulsī and al-Bakrī, or Abū al-Mawāhib Ibn ʿAbd al-Bāqī al-Ḥanbalī.171 They, however, populated the awliyā’ rank in the Ottoman networks of the holy along with other select ṣāliḥūn (and some­ times the majādhīb), as sainthood was an open social category.172 Awliyā’ grew in numbers with each generation, and while some of them managed to accu­ mulate sufficient renown to be venerated both by the common people and the Sufi-ʿulamā’ across the Ottoman Empire, most retained a local character and a limited geographical reach. Locally, ordinary people treated even simple conjurors as official awliyā’, regional or occupational, as was the case with some Christian saints as well.173 Illustrative is the case Abū Yazīd, the children caretaker. He was poor, he did not possess any lucrative tenures in Aleppo, nor was there any rumor about his eru­ dition or influence. The people of al-Mushāriqa District, however, used to col­ lect bits and pieces of his personal belongings as amulets and lucky charms, and they kissed his hands in passing to induce grace-transfer through touch.174 Certain majādhīb were remembered as saints, but their sainthood also varied in geographi­ cal extent. Despite the alleged extraordinary perception of Ibrāhīm al-Kaykī from the Damascene al-Qubaybāt district,175 the majdhūb does not seem to have gained prominence outside of his neighborhood. It was different with the charismatic

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Aḥmad Ibn Sarrāj the theoleptic, who was honored in biographies written by very influential Ottoman Sufi-ʿulamā’, which earned him a much wider renown as an official saint.176 Personal acquaintances with the tight circles of eighteenth-century Damascene priestly sodality played an invaluable role for one’s prominence, both as a religious professional and as a walī. Individual ṣalāḥ and acquaintances with influential networks sometimes bore more significance for saintly biographies than ulamaic erudition. This was the case with the incredibly popular al-Naḥlāwī (d.1744), perhaps one of the most prominent and celebrated saints of eighteenth-century Ottoman Syria, of whom al-Murādī writes with much ceremony, and whose alleged wonders I briefly dis­ cuss in the first chapter of this book. Known as the “Benediction of Damascus” (barakat al-shām), this shaykh attracted large crowds by his dhikr ceremonies, while people sought out to perform the tabarruk near him. The wonders he caused impressed both the common people and the Ottoman ulamaic circles, and he held tenures and trained students, yet al-Murādī’s information about the erudition and professional pedigree of this saint is poor. Al-Murādī’s account of al-Naḥlāwī breaks Silk’s usual narrative style, putting tales of wonders and peculiar events in place where data about learning and professional qualifications would be within an extremely long biographical entry.177 Perhaps the biographer considered it super­ fluous, since al-Naḥlāwī was featured in panegyrics of a large number of important and well-connected Sufi-ʿulamā’, including al-Bakrī.178 Descendants of prominent saints were often themselves revered as wonder­ workers,179 like Isḥāq al-Kaylānī (d.1771) who was a sayyid and an alleged descend­ ant of the eponymous Qādirīyya founder. Al-Murādī procured some amulets from him. During Abū al-Dhahab's (1735–1775) campaign on Damascus in 1771,180 Isḥāq al-Kaylānī died (māta shahīdan) and remained remembered as a martyr and wonder-worker respected by the most prominent Sufi-ʿulamā’.181 Even though ulamaic training and sainthood often corresponded, in eighteenthcentury Syria they were analytically distinct. The scholar-thaumaturges of the Empire enjoyed the monopoly over the functions of a priestly network, yet the prominent awliyā’ could emerge from many other social strata and attract praise from the common people and the Sufi-ʿulamā’ as well. On the other hand, many prominent scholars never acquired a full saintly status. For instance, the passionate learner Ḥusayn Ibn Ṭuʿma al-Baytimānī (d.1761), described as a virtuous and devout man with many skills and talents, who studied under an array, including al-Nābulsī, left written works that are still read today.182 Regardless, he never inspired explicit beliefs in his sainthood, according to the biographer al-Murādī. Prominent Sufi­ ʿulamā’ validation is missing from his biography, even though al-Murādī insisted that a long period of studying under the Pole al-Nābulsī passed the axial saint’s grace over to this scholar. The biographer also added that al-Baytimānī received inspiration for a poem through dreams of al-Nābulsī and al-Murādī’s grandfather Muḥammad.183 It was widely believed that the awliyā’ could acquire diverse praeternatural powers, such as extraordinary strength or endurance – like Shaykh Ṭāhā ʿAbd

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al-Qādir from modern Nablus who was allegedly able to lift two stone pillars in one hand.184 Some saints were believed to fly, walk on water,185 speak with the dead, or raise them back to life.186 According to rumors, Aḥmad al-Naḥlāwī turned stones into gold,187 by which he was not exceptional.188 Animal charming was common, as the Aḥmadīs trained donkeys, while the Rifāʿīyya and the Sāʿdīyya dealt with venomous critters.189 Throughout the Ottoman period, sainthood as a concept was rarely open to offi­ cial questioning. Individuals, however, sometimes had to verify their saintly cre­ dentials.190 Examinations would occasionally keep one from official punishments. Grehan reads of an ʿAbd al-Karīm al-Qawī (d.1866) who did not rise before the Damascene governor and was thus ordered to drink an entire fountain of water to prove his power. Allegedly, he succeeded, establishing sufficient flow through fierce urination while drinking. The governor repented, and al-Qawī was free.191 During his travels in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century, al-Nābulsī encountered many saints of local renown of whom he previously never heard of. He would ask such individuals to perform the unusual deeds that locally popular­ ized them. In Gaza, a local wonder-worker swallowed an entire apple in front of the quṭb’s eyes.192 In early twentieth century, stories were told of a Palestinian Master Jābir who welcomed some guests, unaware that they were saints, sent by God to test his thaumaturgical prowess. He offered them food, and they responded that they could not enjoy the meal without lemons. Jābir raised his hand and invoked “Shaykh Badawī” – the founder of the Aḥmadīyya193 – to conjure a lemon from thin air. He was congratulated on his sanctity.194 Most powerful saints were the widely venerated Poles (aqṭāb). Some had transregional prominence, while some were revered across the imperial domain. The critically acclaimed Poles like ʿAbd al-Qādir al-Gīlānī, Ibn ʿArabī, or Ruslān al-Dimashqī all were very prominent Sufis and well-established ʿulamā’. During their lives, they earned respect of both the commoners and the ulamaic circles and were later remembered for centuries as some of the most important nodes in the Ottoman network of the holy. Being a Pole brought sociopolitical prestige as well. Al-Nābulsī enjoyed unprecedented authority during his own lifetime, while al-Ḥifnī’s ascension to this rank through the pen of his students (Chih indicates that he may have supervised his own biography writing) indubitably strengthened the Khalwatīyya initiation campaign in Egypt. Chih indicates that he may have super­ vised the composition of his own biography.195 Recognition of the Poles came gradually, most often through the writings of their peers. In addition to a formidable sociopolitical influence such individuals pos­ sessed, they were also believed to have the greatest thaumaturgical power among the Muslim saints. In popular belief, they were crucial for maintaining the worldly order.196 They were also capable of extraordinary feats far beyond the presumed skills of other saints. Grehan reads of ʿAbd al-Fattaḥ al-Zuʿubī (d.1807), who told to his student that a Pole of his time would be able to move Mount Lebanon with a simple command. Mild tremors started at that moment, so the shaykh barked at the mountain to hold still, as it was not spoken to.197

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Legendary aqtāb powers were told in stories that survived centuries, often in works of prominent ʿulamā’. According to one such story, the “Protector of Damas­ cus,” Ruslān al-Dimashqī (d.1160/64),198 once lounged in a Damascene garden sur­ rounded by a gathering of his peers. He picked a handful of branches. Discarding one, he announced summer to the surprise of the onlookers who felt a sudden rise in temperature. The quṭb threw another branch away to announce spring. Cano­ pies around the audience turned richer in color but then changed as Ruslān called autumn, discarding another branch. Finally, the quṭb conjured winter, and a cold wind engulfed the audience.199 The people flocked around their saints to perform tabarruk in their vicinity or collect their hair and trinkets to secure for themselves the flow of baraka. If the saints were believed powerful in life, their competencies only grew after death.200 Edifices built upon their graves were equipped to facilitate baraka-harvesting, while the still-living Syrian thaumaturges used these sites to augment the effects of their prayers and rituals. Notes

1 Muḥammad Amīn Ibn ʿUmar Ibn ʿĀbidīn, Radd al-Muhtār ʿala al-Durr al-Mukhtār, ed. Muḥammad Bakr Ismāʿīl (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmīyya, 2003), 2:242–243, and ʿAbd al-Ghanī al-Nābulsī, al-Fatḥ al-Rabānī wa al-Fayḍ al-Raḥmānī, ed. Muḥammad ʿAbd al-Qādir ʿAṭā (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 1980), 177. Further see Yūsuf Ibn Ismāʿīl al-Nabhānī, Jāmiʿ Karamāt al-Awliyā’ (Henceforth: JK), ed. ʿAbd al-Wārith Muḥammad ʿAlī (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 2009), 1:9–14. Also Rachida Chih, Sufism in Ottoman Egypt: Circulation, Renewal and Authority in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century (London & New York: Routledge, 2019), 113. 2 See Chapter 2. Also Patrick J. Ryan, “The Mystical Theology of Tijāni Sufism and its Social Significance in West Africa,” Journal of Religion in Africa, 30, Fasc. 2 (May 2009): 209. 3 See Chih, Sufism, 1, Further see Michael Winter, Egyptian Society under Ottoman Rule, 1517–1798 (London & New York: Routledge, 1992), 136, Hüseyin Yılmaz, Caliphate Redefined: The Mystical Turn in Ottoman Political Thought (Princeton: Princeton Uni­ versity Press, 2018), 204–205, and Aziz Al-Azmeh, Muslim Kingship: Power and the Sacred in Muslim, Christian and Pagan Polities (London & New York: I.B. Tauris, 1997), 183–185. Further see Chapter 2. 4 For instance, Taufik Canaan, Mohammedan Saints and Sanctuaries in Palestine (Lon­ don: Luzac & Co., 1927), 260, and Margareth Smith, Rābiʿa the Mystic & Her Fellow Saints in Islam (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), 2. 5 For instance, Muṣṭafā ibn Kamāl al-Dīn al-Bakrī al-Ṣiddīqī, “al-Khamra al-Ḥisiyya fī al-Riḥla al-Qudsīyya,” (Henceforth: “KhH”), MS Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Ms. or. quart. 460, Berlin, 17–A–17B. Also see Ibn ʿĀbidīn, Radd, 9:505. 6 For examples, see al-Bakrī, “KhH,” 1A–25B, Ibn ʿĀbidīn, Radd, 9:505, ʿAbd al-Ghanī al-Nābulsī, Riḥlatān ilā Lubnān [Two Journeys to Lebanon], ed. Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn alMunajjid and Stefan Wild (Beirut: Franz Steiner, 1979), 116–120, and ʿAbd al-Ghanī al-Nābulsī, Ḥullat al-Dhahab al-Ibrīz fī Riḥlat Baʿlbak wa al-Biqāʿ al-ʿAzīz [Splendid Golden Attire in the Journey to Dear Baalbek and Bekaa], in al-Ḥaqīqa al-Majāz fī Riḥlat Bilād al-Shām wa Miṣr wa al-Ḥijāz, ed. Riyād ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd Murād (Damascus: Dār al-Mu ʿarafa, 1989), 38, 162. 7 Chih, Sufism, 11. Observed in medieval Sufism as well. See Eric Geoffroy, Introduction to Sufism: The Inner Path of Islam, trans. Roger Gaetani (Bloomington: World Wisdom,

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2010), 195–196. This is comparable to the obedience to bishops in European brother­ hoods in Christ as well. See, for instance, Will Adam, “Natural Law in the Anglican Tradition,” in Christianity and Natural Law: An Introduction, ed. Norman Doe (Cam­ bridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017), 58–76. The office of the order’s head combined a variety of social and religious functions. See A.A. Batran, “The Kunta, Sidi al-Mukhtar al-Kunti, and the Office of Shaykh al-Tariq al-Qadiriyya,” in Studies in West African Islamic History, Volume 1: The Cultivators of Islam, ed. John Ralph Willis (London & New York: Routledge, 1979), 113–146. Further see Chih, Sufism, 66–69. This applied to the entire imperial domain. See Yılmaz, Caliphate Redefined, 122. James Grehan, Twilight of the Saints: Everyday Religion in Ottoman Syria and Palestine (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 66. See Abū Zayd Ibn Khaldūn, al-Muqaddima, ed. Jumaʿa Shaykha (Tunis: Al-Dār al-Tūnisīyya li-l-Nashr, 1984), 149–151, 153–154. Grehan, Twilight, 72. Grehan reads from Aḥmad al-Ḥallāq al-Budayrī, Hawādith Dimashq al-Yawmīyya 1154–1175/1741–1762 (Henceforth: HDY), red. Muḥammad Saʿīd al-Qāsimī, ed. Aḥmad ʿIzzat ʿAbd al-Karīm (Damascus: Dār Saʿad al-Dīn, 1997), 167. Patience was very important for the Sufis and the common people in eighteenth-century Damascus. Mikhā’il Burayk al-Dimashqī, Tārīkh al-Shām 1720–1782 (Henceforth: TS), ed. Qusṭanṭīn al-Bāshā al-Mukhalliṣī (Harissa: Matbaʿat al-Qadīs Būlūs, 1930), 27–28. Muḥammad Khalīl al-Murādī, Silk al-Durar fī Aʿyan al-Qarn al-Thānī ʿAshar, ed. Akram Ḥassan al-ʿUlabī (Beirut: Dār Ṣādir, 2002), 1:86. For baraka-transfer through touch and through objects, see Chapters 5 and 6. Al-Murādī, Silk, 3:153. For instance, Muḥammad Ibn Ṣāliḥ al-Kīlānī, “Al-Durra al-Bahīyya fī Ṣūrat al-Ijāza al-Qādirīyya,” (Henceforth: DB), MS Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Sprenger 819, Berlin, 13B. Grehan, Twilight, 79. Ikrām was another important trait for the Sufis in training. Shihāb al-Dīn Aḥmad Ibn Budayr, “Ḥawādith Dimashq al-Shām Yawmīyya min Sanat 1154 ilā Sanat 1176” (Henceforth: “HDY”), MS Chester Beatty Library Ar 3551/2, Dublin, 6A–6B. For the Syrian region, see Muḥammad Saʿīd al-Qāsimī, Jamāl al-Dīn al-Qāsimī, and Khalīl al-ʿAẓm, Qāmūs al-Sināʿāt al-Shāmiyya (Henceforth: QS), ed. Ẓāfir al-Qāsimī (Damascus: Dār Ṭlās, 1988), 103–104. For the wider European context, see Roswell Park, The Evil Eye, Thanatology, and Other Essays (Boston: The Gorham Press, 1912), 296–313. Certain professions were universally often mystified. See, for instance, Julia de Wolf Gibbs Addison, Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages: A Description of Mediaeval Work­ manship in Several of the Departments of Applied Art, Together with some Account of Special Artisans in the Early Renaissance (Boston: L.C. Page, 1921), 109–119. Ibn Budayr, “HDY,” 6A–6B. Mark J. Sedgwick, Sufism: The Essentials (Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press, 2000), 43–45, or Scott Kugle, Sufis and Saints’ Bodies: Mysticism, Corporeality and Sacred Power in Islam (Chapel Hill: University of Carolina Press, 2007), 100–109. Canaan, Saints, 310–312. Ibn Khaldūn, al-Muqaddima, 153–154, and Sedgwick, Sufism, 43–45. Michael W. Dols, Majnūn: The Madman in Medieval Islamic Society, ed. Diana E. Immisch (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992), 366–410. The author pays attention to holy madmen in other scriptural trends as well. Also see Albrecht Berger and Sergey Ivanov, eds., Holy Fools and Divine Madmen: Sacred Insanity through Ages and Cultures (Neu­ ried: Ars Una, 2018). Each chapter treats a different religious system, to comprise a global overview of hallowed madness. Canaan, Saints, 311.

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29 Ibid., 134–135. Hair, like spittle, was believed to carry the essence of an individual and was, in the case of holy men, attributed with talismanic properties. See Chapter 6. 30 Ibn Khaldūn compares the injinnated with animals, stating that they had no reason, see al-Muqaddima, 149–150, 153. 31 Al-Murādī, Silk, 1:86. 32 Ibn Budayr, “HDY,” 49B. 33 Dogs also symbolized transmogrified jinn. See Edward William Lane, An Account of the Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians: Written in Egypt During the Years 1833, 1834, and 1835, 2 volumes (London: Charles Knight & Co., 1836), 1:299–300. 34 Al-Kīlānī, “DB,” 10B-11A, and Muḥammad Amīn Ibn ʿUmar Ibn ʿĀbidīn, Sall al-Ḥusām al-Hindī li-Naṣrat Mawlānā Khālid al-Naqshbandī, in Majmūʿat Rasāʾil Muḥammad Ibn ʿĀbidīn (Henceforth: MR) (Istanbul: Dar-i Saʿādat, 1907), 2:1–47. Further see Ibn Khaldūn, al-Muqaddima, 139, or Lane, Egyptians, 1:298–300. 35 Al-Murādī, Silk, 1:125–129. 36 Ibid., 1:125–126. 37 Muḥammad Ibn ʿĪsā Ibn Kannān, Yawmiyāt Shāmīyya min 1111h ḥattā 1153h [Daily Events of Shām 1699–1740], ed. Akram Ḥasan al-ʿUlabī (Damascus: Dār al-Ṭibāʿ, 1994), 375–376. 38 Al-Murādī, Silk, 1:125–129, Ibn Kannān, Yawmiyāt, 375–376. 39 See Chih, Sufism, 111. 40 Al-Murādī, Silk, 3:170–171. Al-Murādī also hints that this theoleptic used to wear Mawlawī attire. 41 See Dols, Majnūn, 425–474. Further see Ibn Khaldūn, al-Muqaddima, 149–153. 42 Mrs. Hans H. Spoer (A. Goodrich-Freer), “The Powers of Evil in Jerusalem,” Folklore, 18 No. 1 (March 1907): 57, n1. 43 Grehan, Twilight, 75. 44 See Chapter 1, and al-Murādī, Silk, 1:228–234. 45 Lane, Egyptians, 1:314–315. The practice was not confined only to the Khalwatīs, and has a long tradition. For instance, Daniella Talmon-Heller, Islamic Piety in Medieval Syria: Mosques, Cemeteries and Sermons under the Zangids and Ayyūbids (1146–1260) (Leiden & Boston: Brill, 2007), 78–85. 46 See Chih, Sufism, 29, and 54. 47 Elizabeth Sirriyeh, Sufi Visionary of Ottoman Damascus: ʿAbd al-Ghanī al-Nābulusī, 1641–1731 (London and New York: Routledge Curzon, 2005), 49–52. 48 The ʿulamā’, as well as ordinary people, often shifted madhhab adherence. See AbdulKarim Rafeq, “Relations Between the Syrian “Ulamā” and the Ottoman State in the Eighteenth Century,” Oriente Moderno 79/1 (1999): 70. Further see, for instance, Leslie Pierce, Morality Tales: Law and Gender in the Ottoman Court of Aintab (University of California Press: Berkeley, 2003), 86–128. 49 This style of biography writing survived for centuries and into modernity. See for instance, Canaan, Saints, 313. 50 Eminegül Karababa and Güliz Ger, “Early Modern Ottoman Coffeehouse Culture and the Formation of the Consumer Subject,” Journal of Consumer Research 37 (2010): 17, doi: 10.1086/656422, Grehan, Everyday Life, 21–55. 51 See Richard J.A. McGregor, Sanctity and Mysticism in Medieval Egypt: The Wafā’ Sufi Order and the Legacy of Ibn ʿArabī (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2004), 1–49. 52 See the tally in John Spencer Trimingham, The Sufi Orders in Islam (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971), 264–271. Some of the large orders at times amounted to several dozens of subchapters. Also see Lane, Egyptians, 1:310–312, 316, and Sirriyeh, Visionary, 112–115. 53 James Grehan, Everyday Life & Consumer Culture in 18th-Century Damascus (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2007), 15, Rafeq, “Relations,” 81, and John P. Brown, The Darvishes: Or Oriental Spiritualism (Abingdon: Routledge, 2008), 89. Brown’s volume was first published in 1868.

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54 Al-Murādī, Silk, 4:220–228. 55 This may have been a response to the Hamidian campaign of popularizing Sufi paths, especially of the Rifāʿīyya. See Bruce Masters, The Arabs of the Ottoman Empire, 1516–1918: A Social and Cultural History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 208–211, or Butrus Abu-Manneh, “Sultan Abdulhamid II and Shaikh Abulhuda Al-Sayyadi,” Middle Eastern Studies, 15 No. 2 (1979): 131–153. 56 See David Dean Commins, Islamic Reform: Politics and Social Change in Late Otto­ man Syria (New York & Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990), 50, 116–118, and Amal Ghazal, “Sufism, Ijtihād and Modernity: Yūsuf al-Nabhānī in the Age of ʿAbd al-Ḥamid II,” Archivum Ottomanicum No. 19 (2001): 242–243. 57 See James Grehan, “The Legend of the Samarmar: Parades and Communal Identity in Syrian Towns c. 1500–1800,” Past & Present 204 (2009): 96. 58 Ghazal, “Sufism,” 242. 59 Dina le Gall, A Culture of Sufism: Naqshbandis in the Ottoman World, 1450–1700 (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2005), 167. 60 Le Gall, Sufism, 1–34, 87–106. 61 See Muḥammad Amīn Ibn ʿUmar Ibn ʿĀbidīn, Sall al-Ḥusām al-Hindī li-Naṣrat Mawlānā Khālid al-Naqshbandī, in Majmūʿat Rasāʾil Muḥammad Ibn ʿĀbidīn (Hence­ forth: MR) (Istanbul: Dar-i Saʿādat, 1907), 2:1–61., and Muharrem Kılıç, “Ibn ʿAbidin, Ahmad b. ʿAbdulghani (1238–1307/1823–89),” in The Biographical Encyclopedia of Islamic Philosophy, ed. Oliver Leaman (London: Bloomsbury, 2015), 158–159. This is an older trend. See Marinos Sariyannis, “Ottoman Occultism and its Social Contexts: Preliminary Remarks,” Aca’ib: Occasional papers on the Ottoman perceptions of the supernatural 3 (2022): 45. 62 Sirriyeh, Visionary, 1–17, Astrid Meier, “Words in Action: ʿAbd al-Ghanī al-Nābulusī as a Jurist,” in Early Modern Trends in Islamic Theology: ʿAbd al-Ghanī al-Nābulusī and his Network of Scholarship (Studies and Texts), ed. Lejla Demiri and Samuela Pagani (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2019), 107–136. 63 Al-Murādī, Silk, 1:153–166, and John O. Voll, “Sufi Brotherhoods: Trans-cultural/ Trans-state Networks in the Muslim World,” in Interactions: Transregional Perspec­ tives on World History, ed. Jerry H. Bentley, Renate Bridenthal, and A. Yang (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2005), 38. 64 Al-Murādī, Silk, 4:220–228. 65 Albert Hourani, The History of the Arab Peoples (Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2002), 255, Steve Tamari, “Biography, Autobiography, and Identity in Early Modern Damascus,” in Auto/Biography and the Construction of Iden­ tity and Community in the Middle East, ed. Mary Ann Fay (New York: Palgrave, 2001), 42–43, Itzchak Weismann, The Naqshbandiyya: Orthodoxy and Activism in a World­ wide Sufi Tradition (London & New York: Routledge, 2007), 75–76, or Voll, “Brother­ hoods,” 38–39. 66 Rafeq, “Relations,” 81, Voll, “Brotherhoods,” 38–39, and Weismann, Naqshbandiyya, 75–76. 67 Voll, “Brotherhoods,” 38–39. 68 Al-Murādī, Silk, 1:125. The Jalwatīyya is a sub-branch of the Khalwatīyya order that appeared in the middle of the seventeenth century. See ʿAbd al-Bāqī Miftāḥ, Aḍwā’ ʿalā al-Ṭarīqa al-Raḥmānīyya al-Khalwatīyya [Casting Light on the Merciful Ways of the Khalwatīyya] (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmīyya, 1971), 20–21, (Shaykh al-ʿUlamā’) Ismā ʿīl Ḥaqqī Ibn Muṣṭafā (al-Islāmbūlī al-Ḥanafī al-Khalwatī al-Burmawī, d.1724), Tamām al-Fayḍ fī Bāb al-Rijāl: Rijāl wa al-Mashāyikh al-Ṭarīqa al-Khalwatīyya [The Overwhelming of the Gate of Men: The Men and the Masters of the Khalwatīyya Path], ed. Aḥmad Farīd al-Mazīrī (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmīyya, 1971), 29, 32, 113, and Maḥmūd Efendī al-Uskudārī (Usküdari) (d.1628), with the commentary (sharḥ) by

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ʿAbd al-Ghanī Ibn Ismā ʿīl al-Nābulsī, Sharḥ al-Tajalliyāt al-Ilahīyya wa al-Kashfāt al-Rabānīyya [The Explanation of Divine Manifestations and the Lordly Revelations], ed. ʿĀṣim Ibrāhīm al-Kayyālī al-Ḥusaynī al-Shādhilī al-Darqāwī (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmīyya, 2013), 101–102. Ibn Budayr, “HDY,” 6A–6B, and al-Murādī, Silk, 4:48–49. The al-ʿAjlūnī family was highly placed and respected. See Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn al-Munajjid, ed., Wulāt Dimashq fī ʿAhd al-ʿUthmānī [The Gover­ nors of Damascus in the Ottoman Era] (Damascus: n.p., 1949), 8–10, and Ibn Budayr, “HDY,” 20A. Ibn Budayr, “HDY,” 56B. Ibn Budayr, “HDY,” 27B, and al-Murādī, Silk, 4:283–285. Further see Dana Sajdi, The Barber of Damascus: Nouveau Literacy in the Eighteenth-Century Ottoman Levant (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2013), 42, 63–69, 200. Al-Munajjid, Wulāt, 8. Ibn Budayr, “HDY,” 15B, al-Murādī, Silk, 1:207–209. Also see Dana Sajdi, The Barber of Damascus: Nouveau Literacy in the Eighteenth-Century Ottoman Levant (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2013), 47. See Trimingham, Sufi Orders, 233. This is comparable to Christian Europe. See, for instance, Keith Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic: Studies in Popular Beliefs in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century England (London: Penguin, 1991), 30. Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Islamic Art and Spirituality (New York: State University of New York Press, 1987), 70, 162–163, or Khachik Gevorgyan, “Futuwwa Varieties and the Futuwwat-nāma Literature: An Attempt to Classify Futuwwa and Persian Futwwat­ nāmas,” British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, 40:1 (2013): 3. Also see Titus Burckhardt, Art of Islam: Language and Meaning (Bloomington: World Wisdom Inc., 2000), 220–225. This convergence is sometimes comparable to the historical nexus between the guilds in Europe and various Christian esoteric paths. For instance, see Gervase Rosser, The Art of Solidarity in the Middle Ages: Guilds in England, 1250–1550 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 37–118. See, for instance, André Raymond, Artisans et commerçants au Caire au XVIIIe siècle, 2 vols. (Damas: Institut français de Damas, 1973), 2:417–445, 503–585, or Gabriel Baer, Egyptian Guilds in Modern Times (Jerusalem: Israel Oriental Society, 1964), 1–7. This hierarchy was systematically analyzed in Iliyās ʿAbduh Qudsī, Nubdha Tārīkhīyya fī al-Ḥiraf al-Dimashqīyya [A Brief History of the Damascene Crafts] (London: Hindawi C.I.C., 2019), 11–22. Compare with Chih, Sufism, 35–37, 66–69. Further see Batran, “al-Kunti,” 113–146. Also see Erik S. Ohlander, Sufism in an Age of Transition: ʿUmar al-Suhrawardī and the Rise of the Islamic Mystical Brotherhoods (Leiden & Bos­ ton: Brill, 2008), 27–34, and Rıza Yıldırım, “Inventing a Sufi Tradition: The Use of the Futuwwa Ritual Gathering as a Model for the Qizilbash Djem,” in Sufism and Society: Arrangements of the Mystical in the Muslim World, 1200–1800, ed. John Curry, Erik Ohlander (Abingdon: Routledge, 2012), 164–182. Lane, Egyptians, 1:311. See Trimingham, Sufi Orders, 233, and Lane, Egyptians, 1:311. Ibid., Weismann, “Sufi Brotherhoods,” 306, or al-Budayrī, HDY, 91. Lane, Egyptians, 1:312. For instance, see Masatoshi Kisaichi, “The Burhāmi Order and Islamic Resurgence in Modern Egypt,” in Popular Movement and Democratization in the Islamic World, ed. Masatoshi Kisaichi (Abingdon: Routledge, 2006), 57–77. Ibn ʿĀbidīn, MR, 2:25–47, al-Kīlānī, “DB,” 10AB, ʿAbd al-Ghanī al-Nābulsī, al-Ḥadīqa al-Nadīyya: Sharḥ al-Ṭarīqa al-Muḥammadīyya (Miṣr: n.p., 1860), 2:389–393, Further see Ohlander, Sufism, 27–34, Derin Terzioğlu, “Man in the Image of God in the Image of the Times: Sufi Self-Narratives and the Diary of Niyāzī-i Mıṣrī (1618–94),” Studia Islamica, No. 94 (2002): 144, and John J. Curry, The Transformation of the Mystical

Path to Holiness

85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95

96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103

104 105 106 107 108 109

133

Thought in the Ottoman Empire: The Rise of the Halveti Order 1350–1650 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2010), 8. Alexander D. Knysh, Sufism: A New History of Islamic Mysticism (Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2017), 200–201, 208. Al-Kīlānī, “DB,” 10B Further see Aziz Al-Azmeh, The Times of History: Universal Topics in Islamic Historiography (Budapest & New York: Central European Univer­ sity Press, 2007), 232. Al-Kīlānī, “DB,” 2A–11A.

Knysh, Sufism, 204, Geoffroy, Sufism, 142–151.

Al-Kīlānī, “DB,” 10B.

Geoffroy, Sufism, 3, Al-Kīlānī, “DB,” 10B.

Chih, Sufism, 61–63.

Ibid.

Al-Kīlānī, “DB,” 11B-12A, Lane, Egyptians, 1:317, Chih, Sufism, 32.

Chih, Sufism, 66–69. This hierarchy is, as was indicated previously, comparable to the

hierarchy within Middle Eastern trade guilds. See Qudsī, al-Ḥiraf, 11–22. Another point comparable to certain customs in Europe. See Rosser, Solidarity, 89– 118, 149–187. The Lutherans had similar ideas. Juxtapose, for instance, Martin Lu­ ther, Family Devotions for Every Day in the Church Year, ed. Georg Link, trans. Joel Baseley (Dearborn: Mark V Publications, 2010), 229–230, against Emil Brunner, The Christian Doctrine of the Church, Faith, and the Consummation: Dogmatics Vol. III, trans. David Cairns and T.H.L. Parker (Eugene: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 1960), 22–25, 82–86, 184. Chih, Sufism, 65, Knysh, Sufism, 160.

Chih, Sufism, 63–65, 68.

Al-Kīlānī, “DB,” 1A–2B.

Ibid., 13B. Further see Chih, Sufism, 55–60, Knysh, Sufism, 137–145, Nile Green,

Sufism: A Global History (Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012), 9–10, Geoffroy, Su­ fism, 142–151. Also see Ohlander, Sufism, 28, 148–149. Al-Kīlānī, “DB,” 2A–3A, 13B. See for instance, Knysh, Sufism, 138–145, Chih, Sufism, 52–69, or Green, Sufism, 9–10. Ibn Budayr the barber echoes a good part of this terminology in his obituary of Ibn Ḥashīsh. Ibn Budayr, “HDY,” 6A–6B. Al-Kīlānī, “DB,” 2B. Trimingham, Sufi Orders, 158, 216. Further see ʿAbd al-Bāqī Miftāḥ, Kitāb al-Ism al-Aʿẓam [The Book of the Greatest Name] (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmīyya, 2012). Names of angels and other celestial beings were of much importance in premodern Europe’s religions as well. See Thomas, Decline, 211–213. Robert J. Wilkinson, Tetragrammaton: Western Christians and the Hebrew Name of God: From the Beginnings to the Seventeenth Century (Leiden & Boston: Brill, 2015), 195, 278. Trimingham, Sufi Orders, 265. Al-Kīlānī, “DB,” 2B. See al-Kīlānī, “DB,” 22B–23A. Shauna Huffaker, “Prayer Beads,” in Encyclopedia of Islam, ed. Juan Eduardo Campo and J. Gordon Melton (New York: Fast on File, 2009), 558–559. Praying beads and rosaries are common across cultures. Alexander Russell, The Natural History of Aleppo: A Description of the City and the Principal Natural Productions in its Neighbourhood, together with an Account of the Climate, Inhabitants, and Diseases, Particularly of the Plague, 2 volumes, ed. Patrick Russell (London: G.G. and J. Robinson: 1794), 1:209–210. Lane, Egyptians, 1:313–314, 2:94, 169–175, Canaan, Saints, 313–321. Further see Knysh, Sufism, 178, 237, Chih, Sufism, 69–70. Also see Geoffroy, Sufism, 162–170, and Trimingham, Sufi Orders, 192–196.

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110 Ibn Khaldūn, al-Muqaddima, 151, 572–573, 658–660. 111 For instance, Riza Yıldırım, “Dervishes, Waqfs, and Conquest: Notes on Early Otto­ man Expansion in Thrace,” in Held in Trust: Waqf in the Islamic World. Edited by Pas­ cale Ghazaleh (Cairo & New York: The American University in Cairo Press), 2011, 23–40, or Heath W. Lowry, “The ‘Soup Muslims’ of the Ottoman Balkans: Was there a ‘Western’ & ‘Eastern’ Ottoman Empire?” The Journal of Ottoman Studies 36 (2010): 97–133. This practice is older than the Ottoman Empire and involved both Sufi lodges and important mosques. See Talmon-Heller, Piety, 55–57. 112 For instance, see Ibn Budayr, “HDY,” 92B. See Chapter 6 for more detail. 113 Lane, Egyptians, 312. 114 Weismann, “Sufi Brotherhoods,” 306, Ahmet T. Karamustafa, God’s Unruly Friends: Dervish Groups in the Islamic Later Middle Period 1200–1550 (Salt Lake City: Uni­ versity of Utah Press, 1994), 12–32. 115 Lane, Egyptians, 1:310. 116 Ibid., 2:179–181. 117 This shaykh was a brigand who was later named Abū al-Futūḥ, “The Father of Victo­ ries.” See Rafeq, “Relations,” 80. 118 Ibid., 81. 119 Ibn Budayr, “HDY,” 37B, Lane, Egyptians, 2:177–179, Canaan, Saints, 261, and F. de Jong, Ṭuruq and Ṭuruq-Linked Institutions in Nineteenth Century Egypt: A Historical Study in Organizational Dimensions of Islamic Mysticsim (Leiden: Brill, 1978), 91. 120 Chih, Sufism, 32. 121 Canaan, Saints, 313. See the photograph in Knysh, Sufism, 188. 122 Canaan, Saints, 313. 123 Knysh, Sufism, 71. Also see Louis Massignon, Essay on the Origins of the Technical Language of Islamic Mysticism: Translated from the French with an Introduction by Benjamin Clark (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1997), 119–137. 124 Al-Kīlānī, “DB,” 11B–12B, and Canaan, Saints, 313–321. 125 See Sami G. Massoud, The Chronicles and Annalistic Sources of the Early Mamluk Circassian Period (Leiden & Boston: Brill, 2007), 415. 126 See Abd al-Qadir al-Rihawi and Émilie E. Ouéchek, “Les Deux “Takiyya“de Damas: La “Takiyya“et la “Madrasa“Sulaymāniyya du Marg et la “Takiyya“as-Salimīmiyya de Ṣāliḥīyya,” Bulletin d’études orientales 28 (1975): 217–225. 127 Al-Murādī, Silk, 4:128–129. 128 Ibn Budayr, “HDY,” 6A–6B, al-Murādī, Silk, 2:122. 129 Ibid., 1:153–166, and Voll, “Brotherhoods,” 38. 130 Al-Murādī, Silk, 1:154–155, 3:130, 4:220–228. 131 Chih, Sufism, 3, 33–35, and Al-Azmeh, Times, 232. 132 Trimingham, Sufi Orders, 227. 133 Al-Murādī, Silk, 3:90–91. 134 See Al-Murādī, Silk, 3:95–96. 135 Lane, Egyptians, 1:315. 136 Stephan H. Stephan, “Lunacy in Palestine Folklore,” The Journal of the Palestine Oriental Society, 5 (1925): 7, Grehan, Twilight, 150–151, 152–153, 180, Canaan, Saints, 134. 137 L. du Couret, Life in the Desert; or Recollections of Travel in Asia and Africa, Trans­ lated from the French (New York: Mason Brothers, 1860), 419–421. 138 Lane, Egyptians, 1:315. 139 Al-Murādī, Silk, 1:129–130. 140 Madeline Zilfi, “The Ottoman ulema,” in The Cambridge History of Turkey: Volume 3, The Later Ottoman Empire 1603–1839, ed. Suraiya N. Faroqhi (Cambridge: Cam­ bridge University Press, 2006), 209–214, 221–223.

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141 Al-Kīlānī, “DB”, 10B–11A. Also see Ibn ʿĀbidīn, MR, 2:14–47, and Ibn Khaldūn, Muqaddima, 131–165. 142 Al-Murādī, Silk, 4:283–285, or 1:228–234. 143 Canaan, Saints, 255. Also Ibn ʿĀbidīn, MR, 2:5–25, and ʿAbd al-Ghanī al-Nābulsī, “Kashf al-Nūr ʿan Aṣḥābi al-Qubūr,” MS Princeton University Library, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Manuscript Collection, Islamic Manuscripts, New Series no. 1113 Princeton, 162A–168B. 144 Ibn ʿĀbidīn, MR, 2:5–47. 145 Grehan, Twilight, 65, Chih, Sufism, 72–73. 146 Countless illustrations may be found in Al-Murādī’s biography, such as, Silk, 1:124–125 or 1:228–231. Orthodox Christians employed similar character appraisal. See Burayk, TS, 79–80. 147 Al-Nābulsī, “Kashf,” 161A–174A, and Ibn ʿĀbidīn, MR, 2:36–47. 148 Ibn Khaldūn, al-Muqaddima, 132–138, 151–152. 149 Knysh, Sufism, 156. 150 ʿIlm education was similarly confined to the privacy of the teachers and students. See Aziz Al-Azmeh, Arabic Thought and Islamic Societies (Abingdon: Routledge, 2013), 237. 151 See Knysh, Sufism, 145. 152 See Al-Azmeh, Arabic Thought, 237. 153 Ibn ʿĀbidīn, MR, 2:14–47, al-Kīlānī, “DB,” 10B, Al-Nābulsī, Ḥadīqa, 2:389–403. Also see Grehan, Twilight, 55–56. 154 Al-Kīlānī, “DB,” 10B, al-Nābulsī, Fatḥ, 136–137, al-Nābulsī, Ḥadīqa, 2:389–403, Ibn ʿĀbidīn, MR, 2:25–26, 36–37, 40–47. Also see Grehan, Twilight, 55–56. 155 See Chapter 1. 156 See Jean-Paul Sartre, Critique of Dialectical Reason, Volume 1 (London and New York: Verso, 2004), 345–504. 157 Grehan, Twilight, 56, 64. 158 Nelly Hanna, “Literacy and the ‘great divide’ in the Islamic World, 1300–1800,” Jour­ nal of Global History 2 (2007): 175–194. 159 For instance Thomas Hartwell Horne, “Popery the Enemy and Falsifier of Scripture,” in The Protestant Quarterly Review Volume III, ed. Joseph F. Berg (Philadelphia: Wil­ liam S. Young, 1846), 91–118. Similar tendencies were noticeable in Islam with Ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb’s rising renown. See, for instance, Natana J. Delong-Bas, Wahhabi Islam: From Revival and Reform to Global Jihad (Oxford & New York: Oxford Uni­ versity Press, 2004), 282. 160 Burayk, TS, 26. 161 See Grehan, Everyday Life, 124–155, Karababa and Ger, “Coffeehouse,” 2–4, 7, Ralph S. Hattox, Coffee and Coffeehouses: The Origins of a Social Beverage in the Medieval Near East (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1985), and James Grehan, “Smok­ ing and ‘Early Modern’ Sociability: The Great Tobacco Debate in the Ottoman Middle East (Seventeenth to Eighteenth Centuries),” The American Historical Review 111, no. 5 (December, 2006): 1352–1377. 162 Mustapha Sheikh, Ottoman Puritanism and its Discontents: Aḥmad al-Rūmī al-Āqḥisārī and the Qāḍīzādelis (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), 2, Douglas A. Howard, A History of the Ottoman Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017), 168–172, or Ira M. Lapidus, A History of Islamic Societies, third edition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 370. 163 See Chapter 2. 164 Ibn Budayr, “HDY,” 38A, 53A. About alcohol, see Al-Qāsimī, QS, 127. Further see, Sajdi, The Barber, 30, 74–76, Grehan, Everyday Life, 142–146. 165 See ʿAbd al-Ghanī al-Nābulsī, Iḍāḥ al-Dalālāt fī Samā ʿa al-Ālāt [Clarifying the Proof in Listening to Instruments], ed. Aḥmad Murātib Ḥammūsh (Damascus: Dār al-Fikr,

136

166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180

181 182

183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194

Path to Holiness 1981), 16–21. Further see Ibn ʿĀbidīn, Radd, 9:505. For a broader historical context, see Trimingham, Sufi Orders, 265. Geoffroy, Sufism, 89, 170–174, Chih, Sufism, 72, 135. Grehan, Everyday Life, 134, Green, Sufism, 80. Ibn Budayr, “HDY,” 56A, and Sajdi, The Barber, 63–64. See Emil Homerin, Passion Before Me, My Fate Behind: Ibn al-Farīḍ and the Poetry of Recollection (New York: University of New York Press, 2011), 143–176. Homerin, Passion, 1–30, and Winter, Egyptian Society, 175. For more about Ibn ʿAbd al-Bāqī al-Ḥanbalī, see Chapter 6. Grehan, Twilight, 66. For instance, ibid., 105. Compare with Thomas, Decline, 30. Al-Murādī, Silk, 1:86. Ibn Budayr, “HDY,” 49B. Al-Murādī, Silk, 1:125–129. Ibid., 1:228–234. Al-Bakrī, “KhH,” 4A. See Grehan, Twilight, 71–75, Canaan, Saints, 134, 302, 309. See P. M. Holt, “Egypt, the Funj and Darfur,” The Cambridge History of Africa Volume 4: From c.1600 to c.1790, ed. Richard Gray, J.D. Fage and Roland Oliver (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975), 36–37, Bruce Masters, “Egypt,” in Encyclopedia of the Ottoman Empire, ed. Gábor Ágoston and Bruce Alan Masters (New York: Facts on File, 2009), 205, and Daniel Crecelius, “The Mamluk beylicate of Egypt in the last decates before its destruction by Muḥammad ʿAlī Pasha in 1811,” in The Mamluks in Egyptian Politics and Society, ed. Thomas Philipp and Ulrich Haarmann (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 126–127. Al-Murādī, Silk, 1:251. See, for instance, Hussein Ibn Ṭu ʿuma al-Baytimānī, Kashf ‘Astār al-Tawḥīd li-l­ Murīd ‘An Wajh Jalālāt al-Qurān al-Majīd [Unveiling the Curtains of Monotheism for the Disciple Faced with the Glory of the Qur’ān], ed. Dr. ʿĀṣim Ibrāhīm al-Kiyyālī (Beirut: Kitāb Nāshirūn, 2019). Al-Murādī, Silk, 2:60–63. Canaan found the most stories about shaykhs with inhuman physical attributes in Nab­ lus and its environment. Canaan, Saints, 256. Imād al-Dīn al-Ḥanafī, “Kitāb fī Faḍā’il al-Shām” [The Book of Virtues of Shām], MS Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Wetzstein II 1111, Berlin, 87A–87B. I am reading a copy produced in 1591. The manuscript lacks its final portion. Illustration at al-Murādī, Silk, 1:232. Ibid., 1:233. Ibn ʿAbidīn, MR, 2:36–37, and al-Nābulsī, Ḥadīqa, 1:199–200, Further see al-Nabhānī, JK, 1:41–51, and Chapter 6. Lane, Egyptians, 1:310–312, Itztchak Weismann, “Sufi Brotherhoods in Syria and Israel: A Contemporary Overview,” History of Religions 43 (2004): 306, or al-Budayrī, HDY, 91. Grehan, Twilight, 82. Ibid., 76. Ibid., 67–68. See Catherine Mayeur-Jaouen, The Mulid of al-Sayyid al-Badawi of Tanta, trans. Colin Clement (Cairo & New York: The American University of Cairo Press, 2019), 61–82. Canaan, Saints, 260. Saintly powers, and especially those of newly emerged holy men, often required verification in various confessions. For instance, see Nancy Caciola, Discerning Spirits: Divine and Demonic Possession in the Middle Ages (Ithaca & Lon­ don: Cornell University Press, 2003), 14–15, 277, 289.

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Chih, Sufism, 1, 112–126, and Winter, Egyptian Society, 136. Lane, Egyptians, 1:293, Chih, Sufism, 1, and Winter, Egyptian Society, 136. Grehan, Twilight, 65–66. Eric Geoffroy, “Arslān al-Dimashqī, Shaykh,” Encyclopaedia of Islam III, ed. Gudrun Krämer, Denis Matringe, John Nawas, and Everett Rowson (Brill Online, 2014). http:// referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/encyclopaedia-of-islam-3/arslan-al-dimashqi­ shaykh-COM_23403 (Last accessed: February 23rd 2023). 199 Al-Ḥanafī, “KFS,” 87A–87B. 200 Canaan, Saints, 309–310. 195 196 197 198

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Homerin, Emil. Passion Before Me, My Fate Behind: Ibn al-Farīḍ and the Poetry of Recol­ lection. New York: University of New York Press, 2011. Horne, Thomas Hartwell. “Popery the Enemy and Falsifier of Scripture,” 91–118. In The Protestant Quarterly Review Volume III. Edited by Joseph F. Berg. Philadelphia: William S. Young, 1846. Hourani, Albert. A History of the Arab Peoples. Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2002. Howard, Douglas A. A History of the Ottoman Empire. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017. Huffaker, Shauna. “Prayer Beads,” 558–559. In Encyclopedia of Islam. Edited by Juan Eduardo Campo and J. Gordon Melton. New York: Fast on File, 2009. Ibn ʿĀbidīn, Muḥammad Amīn Ibn ʿUmar. Radd al-Muhtār ʿala al-Durr al-Mukhtār [Answer to the Baffled over The Exquisite Pearl]. 14 vols. Edited by Muḥammad Bakr Ismāʿīl. Bei­ rut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmīyya, 2003. Ibn ʿĀbidīn, Muḥammad Amīn Ibn ʿUmar. “Sall al-Ḥusām al-Hindī li-Naṣrat Mawlānā Khālid al-Naqshbandī [Drawing out the Indian Sword in Defense of Our Master Khālid al-Naqshbandī],” 1–61. In Majmūʿat Rasāʿil Muḥammad Ibn-ʿĀbidīn [The Collection of Treatises by Muḥammad Ibn-ʿĀbidīn]. 4 vols. Istanbul: Dar-i Saʿādat, 1907. Ibn Budayr, Shihāb al-Dīn Aḥmad. “Ḥawādith Dimashq al-Shām Yawmiyya min Sanat 1154 ilā Sanat 1176 [The Daily Events of Damascus from the Year 1741 to 1763].” MS Chester Beatty Library Ar 3551/2, Dublin. Ibn Kannān, Muḥammad Ibn ʿĪsā. Yawmiyāt Shāmīyya min 1111h ḥattā 1153h [Daily Events of Shām 1699–1740]. Edited by Akram Ḥasan al-ʿUlabī. Damascus: Dār al-Ṭibāʿ, 1994. Ibn Khaldūn, Abū Zayd. al-Muqaddima [Prolegomenon]. Edited by Jumaʿa Shaykha. Tunis: Al-Dār al-Tūnisīyya li-l-Nashr, 1984. Ibn Muṣṭafā, (Shaykh al-ʿUlamā’) Ismā ʿīl Ḥaqqī (al-Islāmbūlī al-Ḥanafī al-Khalwatī al-Bursawī, d.1724). Tamām al-Fayḍ fī Bāb al-Rijāl: Rijāl wa al-Mashāyikh al-Ṭarīqa al-Khalwatīyya [The Overwhelming of the Gate of Men: The Men and the Masters of the Khalwatīyya Path]. Edited by Aḥmad Farīd al-Mazīrī. Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmīyya, 2010. Karababa, Eminegül, and Güliz Ger. “Early Modern Ottoman Coffeehouse Culture and the Formation of the Consumer Subject.” Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 37 (2010). doi: 10.1086/656422. Karamustafa, Ahmet T. God’s Unruly Friends: Dervish Groups in the Islamic Later Middle Period 1200–1550. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1994. al-Kīlānī, Muḥammad Ibn Ṣāliḥ. “al-Durra al-Bahīyya fī Ṣūrat al-Ijāza al-Qādirīyya.” [The Gorgeous Pearl in the License of the Qādirīyya]. MS Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin. Sprenger 819, Berlin. Kılıç, Muharrem. “Ibn ʿAbidīn, Ahmad b. ʿAbdulghani (1238–1307/1823–89),” 158–159. In The Biographical Encyclopedia of Islamic Philosophy. Edited by Oliver Leaman. Lon­ don: Bloomsbury, 2015. Kisaichi, Masatoshi, ed. Popular Movement and Democratization in the Islamic World. Abingdon: Routledge, 2006. Knysh, Alexander D. Sufism: A New History of Islamic Mysticism. Oxford: Princeton Uni­ versity Press, 2017. Kugle, Scott. Sufis and Saints’ Bodies: Mysticism, Corporeality and Sacred Power in Islam. Chapel Hill: University of Carolina Press, 2007.

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Lane, Edward William. An Account of the Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyp­ tians: Written in Egypt During the Years 1833, 1834, and 1835, 2 vols. London: Charles Knight & Co., 1836. Lapidus, Ira M. A History of Islamic Societies, 3rd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014. Le Gall, Dina. A Culture of Sufism: Naqshbandis in the Ottoman World, 1450–1700. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2005. Lowry, Heath W. “The ‘Soup Muslims’ of the Ottoman Balkans: Was There a ‘West­ ern’ & ‘Eastern’ Ottoman Empire?,” The Journal of Ottoman Studies, Vol. 36 (2010): 97–133. Luther, Martin. Family Devotions for Every Day in the Church Year. Edited by Georg Link. Translated by Joel Baseley. Dearborn: Mark V Publications, 2010. Massignon, Louis. Essay on the Origins of the Technical Language of Islamic Mysticism: Translated from the French with an Introduction by Benjamin Clark. Notre Dame: Uni­ versity of Notre Dame Press, 1997. Massoud, Sami G. The Chronicles and Annalistic Sources of the Early Mamluk Circassian Period. Leiden & Boston: Brill, 2007. Masters, Bruce. The Arabs of the Ottoman Empire, 1516–1918: A Social and Cultural His­ tory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013. Mayeur-Jaouen, Catherine. The Mulid of al-Sayyid al-Badawi of Tanta. Translated by Colin Clement. Cairo & New York: The American University of Cairo Press, 2019. McGregor, Richard. Sanctity and Mysticism in Medieval Egypt: The Wafā’ Sufi Order and the Legacy of Ibn ʿArabī. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2004. Meier, Astrid. “Words in Action: ʿAbd al-Ghanī al-Nābulusī as a Jurist,” 107–136. In Early Modern Trends in Islamic Theology: ʿAbd al-Ghanī al-Nābulusī and His Network of Scholarship (Studies and Texts). Edited by Lejla Demiri and Samuela Pagani. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2019. Miftāḥ, ʿAbd al-Bāqī. Aḍwā’ ֫alā al-Ṭarīqa al-Raḥmānīyya al-Khalwatīyya [Casting Light on the Merciful Ways of the Khalwatīyya]. Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmīyya, 1971. Miftāḥ, ʿAbd al-Bāqī. Kitāb al-Ism al-Aʿẓam [The Book of the Greatest Name]. Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmīyya, 2012. al-Munajjid, Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn, ed., Wulāt Dimashq fī ʿAhd al-ʿUthmānī [The Governors of Damascus in the Ottoman Era]. Damascus: n.p., 1949. al-Murādī, Muḥammad Khalīl. Silk al-Durar fi Aʿyan al-Qarn al-Thānī ʿAshar [A String of Pearls among the Notables of the Eighteenth Century]. Edited by Akram Ḥassan al-ʿUlabī. 4 vols. Beirut: Dār Ṣādir, 2002. al-Nabhānī, Yūsuf Ibn Ismāʿīl. Jāmiʿ Karamāt al-Awliyā’ [Collection of Saintly Wonders]. Edited by ʿAbd al-Wārith Muḥammad ʿAlī. Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 2009. al-Nābulsī, ʿAbd al-Ghanī. al-Ḥadīqa al-Nadīyya: Sharḥ al-Ṭarīqa al-Muḥammadīyya [The Dewy Garden: Explanations of the Muhammadan Way]. 2 vols. Miṣr: n.p., 1860. al-Nābulsī, ʿAbd al-Ghanī. al-Ḥaqīqa wa al-Majāz fī Riḥlat Bilād al-Shām wa Miṣr wa al-Ḥijāz [The Metaphor and the Truth on the Road through Syria, Egypt and Hijaz]. Edited by Riyād ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd Murād. Damascus: Dār al-Mu ʿarafa, 1989. al-Nābulsī, ʿAbd al-Ghanī. al-Fatḥ al-Rabānī wa al-Fayḍ al-Raḥmānī [The Lordly Revela­ tion and the Flow of Mercy]. Edited by Muḥammad ʿAbd al-Qādir ʿAṭā. Beirut: Dār alKutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 1980. al-Nābulsī, ʿAbd al-Ghanī. Iḍāḥ al-Dalālāt fī Samā ʿa al-’Ālāt [Clarifying the Proof in Listening to Instruments]. Edited by Aḥmad Murātib Ḥammūsh. Damascus: Dār alFikr, 1981.

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al-Nābulsī, ʿAbd al-Ghanī. “Kashf al-Nūr ʿan Aṣḥābi al-Qubūr” [Revealing Light about the People of the Tombs]. In “Wasāʼil al-taḥqīq wa-rasāʼil al-tawfīq. Taḥqīq al-maqṣūd min maʿnā “Yā man huwa maʿbūd fī ṣūrat kull maʿbūd” [Means of Investigation and Letters of Conciliation. Clarification of the Meaning of “O you who is Worshipped” in cases of Worship],” Copied by al-Ḥājj ʿUmar Ibn ʿAbd Allah, 1748–1749. New Series no. 1113. Princeton: MS Princeton University Library, Department of Rare Books and Special Col­ lections, Manuscript Collection, Islamic Manuscripts. al-Nābulsī, ʿAbd al-Ghanī. Ḥullat al-Dhahab al-Ibrīz fī Riḥlat Baʿlbak wa al-Biqāʿ al-ʿAzīz [Splendid Golden Attire in the Journey to Dear Baalbek and Bekaa]. In Riḥlatān ilā Lubnān [Two Journeys to Lebanon]. Edited by Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn al-Munajjid and Stefan Wild. Beirut: Franz Steiner, 1979. Nasr, Seyyed Hossein. Islamic Art and Spirituality. New York: State University of New York Press, 1987. Ohlander, Erik S. Sufism in an Age of Transition: ʿUmar al-Suhrawardī and the Rise of the Islamic Mystical Brotherhoods. Leiden & Boston: Brill, 2008. Park, Roswell. The Evil Eye, Thanatology, and Other Essays. Boston: The Gorham Press, 1912. Philipp, Thomas, and Ulrich Haarmann, eds. The Mamluks in Egyptian Politics and Society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. Pierce, Leslie. Morality Tales: Law and Gender in the Ottoman Court of Aintab. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003. al-Qāsimī, Muḥammad Saʿīd, Jamāl al-Dīn al-Qāsimī, and Khalīl al-ʿAẓm. Qāmūs al-Sinā ʿāt al-Shāmiyya [The Dictionary of Occupations in Damascus]. Edited by Ẓāfir al-Qāsimī. Damascus: Dār Ṭlās, 1988. Qudsī, Iliyās ʿAbduh. Nubdha Tārīkhīyya fī al-Ḥiraf al-Dimashqīyya [A Brief History of the Damascene Crafts]. London: Hindawi C.I.C., 2019. Rafeq, Abdul-Karim. The Province of Damascus, 1723–1783. Beirut: Khayats, 1966. Rafeq, Abdul-Karim. “Relations Between the Syrian “Ulamā” and the Ottoman State in the Eighteenth Century,” Oriente Moderno, Vol. 79, No. 1 (1999): 67–95. Raymond, André. Artisans et commerçants au Caire au XVIIIe siècle, 2 vols. Damas: Insti­ tut français de Damas, 1973. al-Rihawi, Abd al-Qadir, and Émilie E. Ouéchek. “Les Deux “Takiyya“ de Damas: La “Takiyya“ et la “Madrasa“ Sulaymāniyya du Marg et la “Takiyya“ as-Salimīmiyya de Ṣāliḥīyya,” Bulletin d’études orientales, Vol. 28 (1975): 217–225. Rosser, Gervase. The Art of Solidarity in the Middle Ages: Guilds in England, 1250–1550. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015. Russell, Alexander. The Natural History of Aleppo: A Description of the City and the Prin­ cipal Natural Productions in Its Neighbourhood, together with an Account of the Climate, Inhabitants, and Diseases, Particularly of the Plague, 2 volumes. Edited by Patrick Rus­ sell. London: G.G. and J. Robinson, 1974. Ryan, Patrick J. “The Mystical Theology of Tijāni Sufism and Its Social Significance in West Africa,” Journal of Religion in Africa, Vol. 30, Fasc. 2 (May, 2009): 208–224. Sajdi, Dana. The Barber of Damascus: Nouveau Literacy in the Eighteenth-Century Otto­ man Levant. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2013. Sariyannis, Marinos. “Ottoman Occultism and Its Social Contexts: Preliminary Remarks,” Aca’ib: Occasional Papers on the Ottoman Perceptions of the Supernatural, Vol. 3 (2022): 35–66. Sartre, Jean-Paul. Critique of Dialectical Reason, Vol. 1. London and New York: Verso, 2004.

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Sedgwick, Mark J. Sufism: The Essentials. Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press, 2000. Sheikh, Mustapha. Ottoman Puritanism and Its Discontents: Aḥmad al-Rūmī al-Āqḥisārī and the Qāḍīzādelis. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016. Sirriyeh, Elizabeth. Sufi Visionary of Ottoman Damascus: ʿAbd al-Ghanī al-Nābulusī, 1641–1731. London and New York: Routledge Curzon, 2005. Smith, Margaret. Rābiʿa the Mystic & Her Fellow Saints in Islam. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984. Spoer, Mrs. Hans H. (A. Goodrich-Freer). “The Powers of Evil in Jerusalem.” Folklore, Vol. 18, No. 1 (March, 1907): 54–76. Stephan, Stephan H. “Lunacy in Palestine Folklore,” The Journal of the Palestine Oriental Society, Vol. 5 (1925): 1–16. Talmon-Heller, Daniella. Islamic Piety in Medieval Syria: Mosques, Cemeteries and Ser­ mons under the Zangids and Ayyūbids (1146–1260). Leiden & Boston: Brill, 2007. Tamari, Steve. “Biography, Autobiography, and Identity in Early Modern Damascus,” 37–50. In Auto/Biography and the Construction of Identity and Community in the Middle East. Edited by Mary Ann Fay. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2001. Terzioğlu, Derin. “Man in the Image of God in the Image of the Times: Sufi Self-Nar­ ratives and the Diary of Niyāzī-i Mıṣrī (1618–94),” Studia Islamica, No. 94 (2002): 139–165. Thomas, Keith. Religion and the Decline of Magic: Studies in Popular Beliefs in Sixteenthand Seventeenth-Century England. London: Penguin, 1991. Trimingham, John Spencer. The Sufi Orders in Islam. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971. al-Uskudarī (Üsküdari), Maḥmūd Efendī (d.1628), with the commentary (sharḥ) by ʿAbd al-Ghanī Ibn Ismāʿīl al-Nābulsī, Sharḥ al-Tajjaliyāt al-Ilahīyya wa al-Kashfāt al-Rabbānīyya [The Explanation of Divine Manifestations and the Lordly Revelations]. Edited by ʿĀṣim Ibrāhīm al-Kayyālī al-Ḥusaynī al-Shādhilī al-Darqāwī. Beirut: Dār alKutub al-ʿIlmīyya, 2013. Voll, John O. “Sufi Brotherhoods: Trans-Cultural/Trans-State Networks in the Muslim World,” 50–74. In Interactions: Transregional Perspectives on World History. Edited by Jerry H. Bentley, Renate Bridenthal, and Anand A. Yang. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2005. Weismann, Itzchak. “Sufi Brotherhoods in Syria and Israel: A Contemporary Overview,” History of Religions, Vol. 43 (2004): 303–318. Weismann, Itzchak. The Naqshbandiyya: Orthodoxy and Activism in a Worldwide Sufi Tra­ dition. London & New York: Routledge, 2007. Wilkinson, Robert J. Tetragrammaton: Western Christians and the Hebrew Name of God: From the Beginnings to the Seventeenth Century. Leiden & Boston: Brill, 2015. Winter, Michael. Egyptian Society under Ottoman Rule, 1517–1798. London & New York: Routledge, 1992. Yıldırım, Rıza. “Dervishes, Waqfs, and Conquest: Notes on Early Ottoman Expansion in Thrace,” 23–40. In Held in Trust: Waqf in the Islamic World. Edited by Pascale Ghazaleh. Cairo & New York: The American University in Cairo Press, 2011. Yıldırım, Rıza. “Inventing a Sufi Tradition: The Use of the Futuwwa Ritual Gathering as a Model for the Qizilbash Djem,” 164–182. In Sufism and Society: Arrangements of the Mystical in the Muslim World, 1200–1800. Edited by John Curry, and Erik Ohlander. Abingdon: Routledge, 2012.

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Yılmaz, Hüseyin. Caliphate Redefined: The Mystical Turn in Ottoman Political Thought. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2018. Zilfi, Madeline C. “The Ottoman ulema,” 209–225. In The Cambridge History of Turkey: Volume 3, The Later Ottoman Empire 1603–1839. Edited by Suraiya N. Faroqhi. Cam­ bridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006.

5

Beyond the Grave Graceful Dead, Hallowed Places, and the Network of the Holy

Muslims believed that the dead lingered in their graves unseen. Graves were at times compared to households of the living, where people spent “small deaths” in cycles of nocturnal slumber.1 Allegedly, the dead would remain close to their graves until the Day of Resurrection (yawm al-qiyāma), aware of those who came near them. The deceased were believed to interact with visitors and to participate in activities around their tombs.2 It was believed that the access of the deceased to heavenly rewards was secured by their devoutness.3 A deceased walī remained a walī and in popular imaginary retained the same traits of humility, virtue, and righteousness.4 God therefore alleg­ edly continued to reward such individuals with thaumaturgical power, and Ottoman subjects believed in the unbroken effluence of baraka from the deceased saints.5 The belief that the dead saints radiated with baraka prompted the development of grave-visiting tradition in Islam,6 with pilgrims traveling to sites where divine grace was expected to be found. Over centuries, pilgrimages (ziyāra; pl. ziyārāt; lit. “visit”)7 to saintly shrines grew into a widespread custom both among the common people and the elites. Grave visits and tomb cults represent a very old and ubiqui­ tous phenomenon, which is an important element in religions worldwide.8 Deceased Muslim saints were venerated because of their baraka.9 It was hoped that the unseen saintly presence would assist people with quotidian affairs or inter­ cede in front of God on their behalf. Saintly intercession (shafāʿa)10 was an impor­ tant element in Muslim premodern beliefs and a strong motivation for embarking upon ziyārāt. To ensure shafāʿa,11 the people would perform ziyārāt around the year and often bring votive offerings to the shrines.12 Endless proliferation of the Muslim networks of the holy ensured the appearance of numerous newly entombed awliyā’ with every generation. The sheer number of holy graves in Syria and Palestine made Canaan remark that, “It is a pity that we have not countless sacred trees commemo­ rating holy persons, for Palestine would then be more wooded and consequently more healthy, fertile and beautiful.”13 Ottoman subjects crossed long distances to visit the shrines and graves of the Province of Damascus, which was known in Ottoman domains as Shām al-Sharīf (“honorable/venerable Damascus”).14 This chapter examines ziyāra traditions of eighteenth-century Ottoman Syria. The significance of baraka for the believers inspired a rich corpus of early mod­ ern Ottoman customs related to building, commemorating, and visiting graves of DOI: 10.4324/9781003395539-5

Beyond the Grave 145 Muslim saints and thaumaturgical experts. Beliefs in the grace of the dead and of hallowed places ensured the continuation of religious traditions that, in practical ways, significantly influenced urban and rural topographies, sociopolitical strate­ gies, and regional and imperial economies. Visitations of saintly graves represent a prominent scholarly subject. Pilgrimages to shrines around the globe are researched in various historical contexts15 and across cultures and religious traditions.16 Muslim thaumaturgical rituals placed heavy importance on shrines, due to the belief that the baraka within improved ritual efficacy.17 The graceful dead were important in a more practical sense too. Hallowed tombs often represented topo­ graphical references for eighteenth-century Damascene authors, indicating stand­ ard terms through which the environment was popularly perceived. People wished to be buried as close as possible to alleged wonder-workers, believing that saintly baraka would radiate their graves as well. Entire new graveyards thus formed over time, while some shrine complexes turned into centers of new urban districts, both in newly taken and previously controlled cities of the Ottoman Empire. I also dis­ cuss here how the Ottoman urban and social policies over time included sacred graves as a catalyst for the growth of a complex pilgrimage economy and infra­ structure. The religious, economic, and social significance of hallowed graves prompted the commissioning of entire complexes of buildings around hallowed grounds, aimed to accommodate the pilgrims, as well as to host public activities of the Sufis that would facilitate the strengthening of state influence. In addition to dispensing divine grace and ministering to popular religious needs, these activities involved charity work and preaching.18 I further take note of the beliefs that baraka could spread from hallowed tombs and shrines into the natural environment. The “leaking” of baraka into nature was believed to come either from the entombed, or from a preternatural surge caused by a legendary event that was believed to have taken place at a given site.19 These beliefs inspired the attribution of religious and thaumaturgical significance to certain natural objects, such as caves, trees, water sources, or rocks.20 The grace of such objects most often pertained to saintly wonders that allegedly occurred nearby. Everyday Life and the Graveside: Living with the Dead in Eighteenth-Century Shām Scholarship suggested that Islam in eighteenth-century Syria in many ways rep­ resented a religion of tombs, due to the evident popularity of such sites over the centuries.21 Writing about al-Bakrī’s pilgrimages, Grehan indicates the Khalwatī master’s obsession with ziyārāt to saints, adding that there was no reason for him to hide such obsessions when even the Ottoman sultans endorsed saintly cults.22 Al-Bakrī indeed committed a lot of time to pilgrimages to various destina­ tions, including the Arabian Peninsula, Egypt, and Iraq.23 He echoed his master al-Nābulsī’s primary motivation for the ziyāra, as an invaluable opportunity to col­ lect blessings from the saints, which he believed were laden with various benefits.24

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Al-Bakrī was very far from exceptional during the eighteenth century. Most Ottoman subjects frequently went to ziyārāt with full encouragement from the emi­ nent jurists of the Empire. Thaumaturgical benefits were often highlighted as the primary reason for such endeavors. Because they believed in Sufi baraka and the many saintly wonders, scholars like Ibn ʿĀbidīn and al-Nābulsī supported visits to the sanctified dead, criticizing the skepticism towards the benefits of ziyāra as folly (jahl).25 During his pilgrimages, al-Nābulsī passed through dozens of cities and vil­ lages in attempts to visit all important graves he could find or hear of.26 In his riḥlas, he recorded that his main aim was to see the holy sites and draw upon the baraka within.27 The widespread custom of pilgrimages to the saintly tombs, both among the thaumaturges of the Empire and the rest of the Ottoman subjects, inspired many ʿulamā’ to produce travel guides, enumerating and describing such hallowed places. Elizabeth Syrriyeh observes how ziyāra customs provided inspiration for the development of a literary genre committed to shrine pilgrim­ ages in Syria.28 As an instance, Ibn Kannān left behind an account of shrines and holy tombs in the Damascene al-Ṣāliḥīyya district within his broader work on the topography of this neighborhood,29 and Aḥmad al-Manīnī also wrote a work specifically committed to pilgrimage sites. Literature committed to describing the ziyāra and offering guides to pilgrimage sites was common across Ottoman domains.30 Visitations to graves and cemeteries in eighteenth-century Syria often repre­ sented leisurely social events. In Damascus, the Christian priest Burayk noted that the people often used the city’s graveyards as picnic locations. Picnics, poetry reading, or theater performances at the shrines were common over the centuries.31 Burayk, however, complains that many people spent almost every Saturday visit­ ing the dead. These would be opportunities to relax, and the Orthodox cleric fumes about the popular use of coffee, tobacco, and alcohol near the graves.32 Aside from pastime activities, people visited hallowed shrines to pray there, often with hopes of fulfilling particular and immediate goals through saintly intercession. Trained thaumaturges recited their invocations, intending to use saintly baraka to empower prayers or ensure ritual efficacy.33 They often assisted ordinary people with rituals at these special places. In addition to visiting graveyards as a pastime, people in Syria expected from their deceased saints to fulfill several important social roles. Even though death removed them from humanity by making them unseen, Muslim saints were fully integrated into everyday life of eighteenth-century Syria. Beliefs in the lingering presence of dead saints continuously influenced everyday practices and religious habitus of the Ottoman Syrian subjects. Aside from interceding on behalf of the supplicants in front of Allah, the awliyā’ were expected to ensure order in urban and provincial hubs. Awliyā’ were powerful defenders against all kinds of intrusions. The following account illustrates this belief. Locust infestations were a recurrent problem in the greater Syrian region. Canaan, however, recorded a story about a sacred grove near the village of Yalo (Yālū), about thirteen kilometers southeast

Beyond the Grave 147 from Ramla. Although the locusts thrived in the area, it was believed that no insect managed to approach the territory of the grove, protected by the saintly baraka.34 Sacred places among the Muslims often functioned similar to protective talismans. The saints allegedly punished all kinds of intrusions upon hallowed sites. The Ottomans adopted a very old tradition of keeping valuables within the shrines in hopes that the awliyā’ protected the vaulted items with their power. Such beliefs may have dissuaded some pilferers. Beliefs in protective powers of shrines were widespread. Temples in different regions often held treasures, treaties, and other items of value.35 In Damascus, the Umayyad Mosque held the state treasury during the reign of the same-named dynasty.36 Common people shared this custom. During their travels in Syria, Canaan and Curtiss wrote of many shrines that served as vaults for equipment and tools neces­ sary for daily labor. It was believed that the commemorated saints guarded these items from thieves. At the same time, it seemed practical to leave equipment close to people’s worksites.37 During his eighteenth-century pilgrimage to Jerusalem, Henry Maundrell was caught by bad weather without adequate shelter. His party stopped near the village of Shulfatīyya to the north of Damascus.38 Reluctant to seek refuge in the village houses due to how badly they appeared to have been kept, they bargained for shelter within a “Sheck’s House” – a hallowed tomb. The locals did not yield to pleas nor offers of remuneration until Maundrell’s guides assured them that they followed “Hamet and Aly” and not “Omar and Abu Bekar.”39 Villag­ ers then allowed them to leave their possessions within the shrine. People and ani­ mals were, however, ordered to stay outside, along with any weapons they might have carried.40 Maundrell records an instance when the Virgin intervened against an attempted theft at the Saydnaya Monastery near Damascus. Built in honor of the Virgin, this site was known for its many miracles and was held in high esteem both by the Christians and Muslims of the region.41 The covenant chamber of the monastery contained an icon of the Virgin that was believed to assist in fulfilling one’s prayers and facilitate curative processes.42 According to a story told by the locals, one night, a thief attempted to steal the icon. Not long after, the icon allegedly trans­ formed into a full body of flesh and blood. The intruder was so frightened that he hurried back to return the artifact and confess his sins.43 In the nineteenth century, the priests in the region assured Josias Porter that this wondrous icon was half comprised from stone and half from flesh and blood.44 Muslim shrines, like sacred grounds in many other religious confessions, repre­ sented sites where violence was forbidden.45 In eighteenth-century Ottoman Syria, numerous holy sites served as neutral grounds for negotiations. Diplomatic and business transactions were conducted on hallowed grounds, which was an almost universal custom.46 Like the Christian saints, the awliyā were believed to tolerate no deception.47 Canaan relates that the people used the shrines as places where popular trials were held. The accused would swear to their innocence and pray at a shrine. It was expected that the saints would strike liars down.48 The awliyā’ were believed to swiftly react to desecration. Grehan takes note of al-Nābulsī’s account

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about the shrine of ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Ramathānī at Mount Lebanon. The spring that connected to the shrine dried up, and this was explained by a story that some Druzes wanted to prepare pork meat in the blessed water. This was believed to have angered al-Ramathānī, who arrested the water supply.49 Canaan relates of a gendarme in Awarta (ʿAwartā; Nablus Governorate) who took some grape branches from a vine that belonged to a local saint. The inhabit­ ants warned him against it, yet he paid no heed and soon began vomiting blood with no apparent cure.50 Entering a shrine without removing footwear soiled the sacred grounds and caused paralysis to offenders. Other acts of shrine pollution, such as disposing of excrement, inspired stories about the trees bending down to administer furious beatings.51 Of course, exceptions existed. In the eighteenth century and later, the peace of some shrines was disturbed. Some were robbed, even in the larger cities, while Bedouin raids presented a constant danger to the pilgrims.52 To protect the pilgrimage routes, the Ottoman administration main­ tained the function of the Pilgrimage Commander (amīr al-ḥajj), granted in both Syria and Egypt.53 Ottoman Syrian shrines were in many ways integrated into popular everyday, but they also played a crucial role for official religious practice. This may be evident while conducting an overview of the architecture and the interior layout of such sites. Interior analyses of Muslim shrines indicate functional overlaps with various types of prayerhouses built by the Muslims before modernity, further clarifying the utility of these structures. Most shrines were optimized for baraka-harvests as prayer houses, and as such they hosted throngs of pilgrims as the centuries went by. Houses of the Dead: Shrines of Power and Prayer in EighteenthCentury Syria To commemorate a saint, Muslims often erected a dome (qubba).54 In some instances when resources were low, and the environment allowed, a shaykh’s corpse would be interred within a natural cave. Canaan found several cave-shrines around the village of ʿAwarta. It was similar with the maqām of Shaykh al-Sidrī in the Palestinian town of ‘Anata (ʿAnātā; Jerusalem Governorate). Additional work was commissioned on these caves, to widen their entrance or set up the interior. When Canaan saw these sites in the early twentieth century, however, he noted their very poor condition.55 People would place the corpse of a deceased Muslim on its right side, propped by means of stones or earth, so that it faced the qibla.56 The grave of a saint (ḍarīḥ) would be placed under the dome.57 Very often, it would stand under coverlets (sutūr; lit. “curtains”) that sometimes bore verses from the Scripture.58 They tended to look luxurious, woven out of silk with golden embroidery. McCown dis­ covered that some Palestinian graves contained a footpiece to symbolize Munkar and Nakir, the angelic watchers over the deceased.59 The walls of a qubba usually had niches to store oil and censers which were to honor the deceased.60 A miḥrāb would often be installed within the dome to indicate the direction of Mecca.61 The

Beyond the Grave 149 more elaborate domes, especially in urban areas, held additional chambers which were used to host guests of a shrine. A minbar would often be constructed for an imām to conduct group prayers or teach students.62 In addition, some shrines would have mosques built as part of the same complex. In Damascus, such was the case, for instance, with the shrines of Ibn ʿArabī and al-Nābulsī. However, saints were sometimes buried under simple domes that lacked any ornaments, as was the case with Abū Sall who was buried in Ein Karem (ʿAyn Kārim), which is today a Jerusalem district.63 In some places, shrines were erected without a ḍarīḥ. Their purpose was to com­ memorate the saints who might have prayed or caused wonders during their stay in these locations. Some saintly graves were without the proper dome, as was the case with the majority of such sites in Jericho.64 Over time, many shrines were forgotten, and some were destroyed. A functional overlap may be detected between the saintly maqāms and mosques across Ottoman domains. Grehan remarks that wherever mosques were not present, saintly shrines fulfilled the functional role of prayerhouses in Syrian regions.65 This was an old tradition which continued throughout modernity, where ethnographers recorded it as well.66 Prominent mosques within the largest urban hubs continu­ ously received many who traveled from the countryside to attend prayers, as well as to conduct their everyday transactions.67 However, the maqāms admitted pil­ grims frequently, at all times during a year. In addition, it was common for the Sufi masters to teach their disciples within such buildings.68 In efforts to optimize maqāms for these purposes, their domes were built so that they structurally cor­ respond to mosques and be further used as prayerhouses.69 All standard procedural requirements for proper praying needed to be observed, of course, yet mistakes made due to a lack of information or resources seemed to have been tolerated dur­ ing the eighteenth century.70 The functional overlap between the maqāms and the mosques in Muslim domains attracted scholarly attention, and some research has been done to fur­ ther illuminate this issue in various historical periods, both in the Middle East and elsewhere in the world.71 It appears that the role of both the mosque and the saintly shrine among the Muslims historically developed through an entanglement of theological thought, the tradition of rituals and devotional arrangements, the popular belief in the preternatural power of certain sites, and popular consensus. The functional convertibility of saintly graves into prayerhouses was made pos­ sible by the widespread beliefs in the baraka these sites contained due either to holy and popular thaumaturges entombed at these locations or through legends of powerful preternatural surges which took place nearby. Such was the case with both sites of wide renown, such as al-Aqsa, or the Dome of the Rock,72 and with humble shrines in the countryside that allegedly enclosed corpses of local saints who never acquired wider popularity.73 Specific mosques were sometimes visited in particular because of the beliefs that events of special religious significance took place there. In the eighteenth century, Damascus itself contained many sacred sites, among which the Bāb al-Muṣalla

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mosque in the Damascene al-Maydān district had special renown for its power. Local legends narrated that the Companion Abū ʿUbayda Ibn al-Jarrāḥ (583–639), who was one of the commanders during the siege of Damascus, chose the site of this mosque as appropriate for worship.74 In the eighteenth century, this mosque was believed to augment the efficacy of religious rituals conducted within. The people often flocked to Bāb al-Muṣalla to host religious ceremonies in their strug­ gle against natural disasters.75 Larger mosques of wider renown were frequented by many people of vari­ ous origins, while the more humble, local edifices served the needs of the locals. Authors such as al-Nābulsī took effort to record such smaller places, indicating equal significance of various prayerhouses which comprised the Ottoman topog­ raphy of the holy. Many holy places also contained trees or water sources. Some were connected to caves as well. Due to the belief the radiance of baraka within the shrines, the people believed that divine grace pervaded such natural objects, further enrichening the eighteenth-century network of grace. Pools of Effluence: Grace in Nature and the Network of the Holy Scattered across the Middle East are caves that bear religious significance, as, according to belief, important events from the Scriptures took place in them. Close to Bethlehem is the Milk Grotto where a chapel was built in 1872. Mus­ lims and Christians believe that Joseph and Mary hid there with the baby Christ during King Herod’s Infant Massacre,76 and that wondrous events continued to occur within until the present. Some still believe that the Milk Grotto has powers of thaumaturgical healing.77 Many such caves are located in Bilād al-Shām, of which the most popular were those on Mount Qasioun. Among them is the Cave of Blood, where Cain allegedly murdered Abel. The people believed that Abel’s blood painted the rocks near the entrance red.78 Nearby is the Cave of Hunger, with its own qubba, committed to the Forty Martyrs who have prayed within until they died of starvation.79 Until today, pilgrimages to caves on Mount Qasioun are quite popular.80 In the eighteenth century, the thaumaturges of Damascus spent time in them, as they believed in their baraka and wished to partake of it.81 These sites were believed to augment the efficacy of thaumaturgical rituals. Aḥmad al-Manīnī (d. 1758) recalled how the Qudāma family, a very important lineage of medieval Hanbalite scholars and mystics who also had their shrines in Damascus, allegedly performed wonders in these locations, along with many other Awliyā’.82 Beliefs in sacred caves were common in all scriptural traditions and beyond.83 In Ottoman Sunnism, sacredness of particular caves was most often based on legends that tied a site to a saint. Mount Qasioun was associated with numerous popular beliefs. Jesus and the Virgin allegedly prayed there. Nearby was the place where Abraham observed the stars, the site where al-Khiḍr and Moses prayed, along with a testimony to Archangel Gabriel.84 In addition, the people believed in many saintly wonders that occurred on Mount Qasioun.85

Beyond the Grave 151 Diverse occurrences inspired beliefs in the sacredness of a locality. For instance, some caves were believed to contain baraka due to their proximity to saintly maqāms. Such was the case with the cave at the tomb of Nabī ʿUzayr (brought in relation to Ezra) in Awarta.86 People would sometimes hear mysterious sounds that resembled music, sense sudden whiffs of scented fragrance, or spot a green light shining within a grotto.87 Canaan spoke with a leper from Abu Dis (Abū Dīs), a guard of the Jesus Hilfe leper hospital in Jerusalem. This man was also receiving treatment there. He lived in a tent near the hospital. He told Canaan of a cave near his tent, wherefrom he would hear faint music every Thursday. He once checked out of curiosity, spotting a green glow within. Although he was too poor to offer a candle to the cave every week, he told the locals about it, so people soon started bringing tributes. The custom eventually ceased, however, and the cave was for­ gotten.88 Extant source material suggests that many caves across Syria bore only limited regional significance or related to saints of local character. Their relation to a saint or a prophet sometimes changed or disappeared from popular memory over time. Orthodox Christians in Damascus proclaimed certain places sacred due to simi­ lar occurrences. In 1766, three workers passed by the grave of the former Patriarch Silvester (d.1766). They saw a group of priests praying there, and a light shone upon them with pleasant fragrance filling the air. Passersby rushed to spread the word among others. This is one of several stories which Burayk used to validate the sainthood of the deceased patriarch.89 Trees could also be proclaimed sacred. Hallowed trees appear as a universal religious phenomenon.90 The olive, the fig, and the acacia had particular reli­ gious significance for the Ottoman subjects. These trees have been documented in the scriptural canon as plants of special importance,91 in addition to the mysti­ cal Zaqqum.92 Belief in the sanctity of certain types of trees, such as the acacia, predates the emergence of Islam,93 while the religious significance of some others may have been imported into Muslim tradition during the territorial spread of Mus­ lim polities.94 Over centuries, Muslims believed in special powers attributed to the juniper and the mulberry as well.95 Beliefs in sacred trees formed similar to beliefs in hallowed caves, especially if a tree grew on a solitary outcrop or some other place of prominence. Someone might testify to spotting a glowing aura around a tree, earning it popular atten­ tion.96 It was believed that the deceased saints sometimes explicitly claimed some trees for themselves. People told that the deceased awliyā’ could allow people to see them, or appear in visions and dreams.97 The intruding saint might have then suggested that a particular tree belonged to him. Such was the case with the fig tree above the maqam of ʿAbd al-Salām in ‘Anata.98 Purported thaumaturgical surges often caused the belief in a tree’s baraka. A grove of oaks above the village of Barouk (Bārūk) in the Chouf district of Mount Lebanon contained a tree named after Sitt (lady) Sāra, Abraham’s wife. In the mid­ dle ages, the people believed her footprint lay in the rock under the tree.99 Sāra’s tree was not exceptional. In the Zabadani region of the Rif Dimashq Governorate, legends told of a girl named ʿArja (“lame;” this lady was sometimes named Fāṭima).

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She was handicapped. While doing her chores, she chanced upon a saint who dis­ pelled her afflictions. Bestowing blessings, he sent her home. The thaumaturgical healing of ʿArja allegedly happened on an ancient plateau covered with trees. The people believed that the saint’s baraka leaked into the surrounding area, and the tree on the outcrop where thaumaturgical healing supposedly happened became “The Mother of Pieces” (umm al-shaqāqif).100 Alternatively, the name of the tree is umm al-sharāṭīṭ – “mother of rags” – and its sanctity is revered by some to this day. Canaan wrote down a legend according to which Aḥmad al-Rifaʿī (1118–1181) once cured a lame woman by letting her touch the seams of his mantle, which seems allusive to the Mother of Pieces story.101 As baraka was believed to spread from the graves of saints into the environment, all trees that grew near a maqām would often be recognized as sacred. In Damascus, Ibn Kannān wrote about a Shaykh ʿAbd al-Hādī al-Ṣāliḥī (d.1548), who was the master of the Sufi ʿAfīfīyya lodge in al-Ṣāliḥīyya district. He was buried at the base of Mount Qasioun, and a tree grew over his tomb, to attract pilgrims.102 Passing through ʿAwarta, Muṣṭafā al-Bakrī visited what he supposed to be the cave which was believed to contain the graves of Joshua Ibn Nūn and Mufaḍḍal, son of Aaron's uncle. Al-Bakrī admired the carob there, one of the favorite jinnic habitats,103 which grew over the sacred grave. It was attributed with baraka, and al-Bakrī stopped to pray and collect blessings from it by sampling its pods.104 Certain rocks allegedly contained residual baraka through relations with mythi­ cal individuals. Curtiss found that many rock formations, which were sacred in Syria and Palestine, represented spolia of various ancient edifices.105 To the north of Damascus, Ibn Kannān pointed an outcrop near Barzeh. It was believed that Abraham prayed there and that his grace radiated into the rock. A prayerhouse stood to commemorate the spot. Near it was yet another shrine to al-Khiḍr.106 Both sites represented important ziyāra destinations.107 For the Ottoman subjects, water was among the most powerful natural conduits of baraka. Maqām construction was often followed by building a cistern. If a water source was lacking, maqām superintendents filled pitchers with water and left them for the pilgrims, like in the maqām of Shaykh Ḥamdallah in Biddu (Biddū; Jerusa­ lem Governorate).108 Visitors gladly took water from shrines, as they believed in its wondrous properties.109 Springs and other natural water sources could attract beliefs in blessings – many were believed to carry wondrous properties in the greater Syrian region.110 Zamzam water was eagerly collected by the pilgrims and stored in their possessions or house­ holds.111 Near Maaloula, locals showed a cave called al-Murtaqala to al-Nābulsī. The cave’s ceiling dripped, and locals told al-Nābulsī that this water brought heal­ ing benefits, especially to children.112 Canaan recorded tales of a marsh named al-Maṭbaʿa that was located near a north Palestinian Arab village of Tel Shemmam (Tall Shammām). The marsh was related to a walī, yet the ethnographer does not offer a name. The waters of the marsh were believed to have curative properties.113 Hallowed natural objects represented access points114 to saintly networks which were hoped to transmit grace to the people. With continuous expansion of the Otto­ man network of the holy, saintly shrines multiplied over time. Damascus contained

Beyond the Grave 153 a thriving sacred topography that remained widely revered long after the advent of modernity. Posthumous Privilege: Interring the Sacred in Eighteenth-Century Damascus In the centuries after early Muslim conquests, many Christian sites in and around Damascus were converted into Muslim religious edifices. Henry Maundrell lamented the conversion of the shrine to St. George built outside Beirut to mark the site where the saint allegedly fought the infernal dragon.115 Many prominent reli­ gious edifices in the region shared similar histories, such as the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, or the al-Aqsa in Jerusalem.116 As time passed, a large number of new saintly maqāms appeared within and around the premises of larger Syrian sites.117 There existed a habit of building shrines in the vicinity of older edifices of religious significance. In the countryside, the people of Ottoman Bilād al-Shām often buried the promi­ nent in higher ground.118 Even in fully developed cities, the importance of graves in high places was evident, as was the case with shrines on Mount Qasioun in Damas­ cus.119 As time passed, however, in larger urban centers, many shrines hid from sight due to expanding cities’ skylines. Damascus grew steadily over the centu­ ries.120 By the 1700s, its neighborhoods engulfed larger portions of the surrounding countryside and merged with nearby settlements, giving birth to new districts.121 By the time Canaan embarked upon his ethnographical research, many shrines in urban localities were already buried under residential buildings, while the mazes of streets and alleyways tucked away the older edifices.122 Burying someone near an older and prominent saint was considered a high honor. The widespread belief in saintly baraka inspired Ottoman subjects’ aspi­ rations to be buried in the vicinity of their saints. It was believed that those who acquired posthumous proximity to the maqāms continued to partake in the efflu­ ence of saintly baraka throughout their afterlife. The desire to be entombed near saints because of their grace represented a much older religious tradition123 that induced the development of sprawling new cemeteries around the awliyā’ shrines in the Middle East.124 In Damascus, for instance, the maqām of the medieval Mas­ ter Ruslān near Bāb Tūmā aggregated a cemetery that over time expanded towards the Bāb al-Sharqī.125 The people believed that many Companions of the Prophet were interred in Damascus. In addition, Damascus contained scores of deceased Sufi-ʿulamā’ (and other members of the network of the holy) in its many cemeteries, of which Bāb al-Ṣaghīr was the oldest and possibly most significant for popular religion.126 This cemetery was located to the southwest of the Inner City, close to the samenamed gate, where it contained the graves of Muḥammad’s daughter, Fāṭima, and Companions Abū al-Dardā, Aws Ibn Aws al-Thaqafī, and Bilāl Ibn Rabāḥ (Bilāl al-Ḥabashī).127 To the southeast, there existed another cemetery close to Bāb Kaysān. On the north side of the Inner City lay Marj al-Ḍaḥḍāḥ, that was

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named after Abū Daḥdāḥ al-Anṣarī, and which was previously known as Maqbarat al-Farādīs. In the vicinity lay the cemetery of Sūq Sārūja. To the east, the cemetery of Bāb Tūmā continued as the cemetery of Shaykh Ruslān, while Bāb al-Sharqī cemetery held the tomb of Ubayy Ibn Kaʿb. To the southwest towards Maydān, two graveyards existed and have disappeared since. These were the al-Ṣūfīyya (which contained the shrine to Ibn Taymīyya) and al-Zaytūn, which to the south approached the graveyard of ʿĀtika Bint Yazīd, an Umayyad princess. Some other smaller cemeteries followed the roads towards the south of the city,128 while outside of the city walls and far to the north were the graves at the base of Mount Qasioun, with special density inside the al-Ṣāliḥīyya District. Al-Ṣāliḥīyya had high religious significance due to the large number of Sufi lodges and saintly tombs that lay there. It is possible that the Ottoman administration attempted to shift the urban focus of Damascus from the Umayyad Mosque towards this district by commissioning the Ibn ʿArabī complex,129 which may have triggered the aggregation of other religious edifices. The city of Damascus was teaming with Allah’s grace. A narrative tradition that lasted long before entering eighteenth-century documents held that Kaʿab al-Aḥbār allegedly claimed that there were 1700 prophets and saints buried around the Prov­ ince of Damascus, of which 500 were entombed around its perimeter, while another thousand or so would be found along the Levantine shores.130 These numbers are heavily exaggerated, but they demonstrate the significance of sacred graves for the popular imaginary. It appears that the Ottoman subjects, in the cities as well as the countryside, made an effort to accumulate as many tombs of hallowed people as possible near their settlements, due to the alleged radiance of baraka from within them. For instance, Canaan recorded the pride of ‘Anāta’s inhabitants with seven saintly maqāms in its environment. In Awarta, the number of sacred places was fourteen.131 The desire for a baraka source in one’s immediate vicinity is at times striking from the sources. James Grehan reads al-Nabhānī’s records about a Sufi shaykh Ibrāhīm al-Saʿdī (d.1874) from the Palestinian town of Jenin (Jinīn). Al-Saʿdī had a wife who lived in the village of Zir’in (Zirʿīn), and he died in that settlement. While the villagers prepared his funeral, residents of the neighboring al-Mazar (al-Mazār; Jenin district), arrived to claim the corpse, as one of al-Saʿdī’s ances­ tors already lay entombed in their village. Furious argument escalated,132 and the al-Mazar party carried the corpse away, yet during their journey, the funerary bier grew heavy. Firmly anchored to the ground, it knocked back or threw aside anyone who attempted to move it, eventually drawing the crowd towards a solitary, neutral spot between the two villages.133 Some Sufi masters allegedly picked their own burial sites postmortem. They would fly to their graves. According to beliefs, saints occasionally flew,134 but more often after death. There exist reports of funeral biers that flew towards the pre­ ferred burial spots of the deceased shaykhs. The people would obey their wishes.135 Ibrāhīm al-Saʿdī’s posthumous shoving was not exceptional either, as such rumors seem to have been tied to shaykhs across the Middle East.136

Beyond the Grave 155 The eighteenth-century deceased were putting new pins on the Damascene reli­ gious map. For instance, when al-Naḥlāwī, the “Benediction of Damascus,” died in 1744, he was interred in Madrasat al-Khātūnīyya (al-Ṣāliḥīyya District), where he used to perform the dhikr. The site attracted throngs of visitors over the years, who made the tabarruk near it, as they did if they passed by the shaykh while he was still alive. According to Akram Ḥassan al-ʿUlabī, the name of this site slowly changed to Zāwiyat al-Naḥlāwī, in honor of this thaumaturge.137 Muslim wonderworkers would have the opportunity of their graves becoming baraka-dispensing sites regardless of their social rank or status. In the imperial capital, the sultan per­ sonally handpicked the burial site of the famous ʿUthmān the Theoleptic.138 Saint entombment practices influenced the way in which Damascene authors perceived the city. Scholars like al-Murādī used shrines as topographical references. Once an important saint was buried, graves of other hallowed or otherwise prominent individuals gravitated around his maqām. It is noticeable that the entombed saint’s popularity and influence affected the selection of individuals for neighboring gravesites. For instance, the Syrian nobility – governors and military commanders – had their own preferred interment spot within the Banī al-Zakī cem­ etery in al-Ṣāliḥīyya.139 This site surrounded the tomb and mosque of Ibn ʿArabī, the patron saint of the Ottoman dynasty.140 The biographers over time emphasized the representable character traits of those entombed in the vicinity of such prominent saints. Yūsuf Pasha Ṭūbāl (Tur. Topal Yusuf; d.1715), was appointed to the function of the Pilgrimage Commander and, in 1713, entered Damascus with a company of soldiers to, under imperial directives, evict the rebellious governor Nasuh and arrange his execution.141 He succeeded and soon became a favorite across the Dam­ ascene social scale. Al-Murādī’s account teams with praise for the pasha, who died of illness soon after, in 1715. Al-Nābulsī personally conducted a funerary oration in al-Sālimīyya, and the pasha was buried in the immediate vicinity of the Ibn ʿArabī complex. The pasha’s tomb was decorated with an epitaph in verse composed by the axial saint al-Nābulsī.142 One did not need to be a provincial governor to be entombed next to a saint. However, deceased of a lower sociopolitical significance had lower-ranked saints as posthumous neighbors. Aḥmad Ibn Hudhayb al-ʿĀnī (d.1746) studied under al-Nābulsī and worked as imām at the al-Daqqāq Mosque. After he died, he was buried close to a deceased medieval master thaumaturge al-Ḥuṣnī (d.1425).143 The ṣāliḥūn could, in general, hope to receive posthumous honors through a burial at an important site. In 1760, the remains of the Aleppine polydactilous cal­ ligrapher al-Muʿt. ī were entombed next to a local saint ʿAbd al-Razzāq Abī Namīr. Al-Murādī the biographer seemed pleased with this choice.144 Similar was the case with Abū Yazīd the caretaker. In 1759, at the age of 105, he was buried at the gravesite of Shaykh Sarī al-Dīn.145 Purity of character, popularly connected with grace, assured one’s posthumous honors which were alike to those of appointed scholars and thaumaturges, although of a much smaller scale. Entombment at prominent ziyāra locations was ensured through family ties, or ṭuruq affiliations. Shaykhs were often entombed close to their relatives, as was

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the case with many in Shām.146 Ibn ʿArabī complex held the remains of the “Grand Master’s” offspring. The influential Sufi-ʿulamā’, who were the descendants of a very prominent scholar Ibn Qudāma (d.1155) and established authorities of the Hanbalite madhhab, also had several important ziyāra shrines in the al-Ṣāliḥīyya.147 Exceptional cases were buried in solitary or isolated graves, such as the Masters al-Masālme in Yalo, who were believed to posthumously forbid burials in their vicinity. They were believed to deflect such attempts by bending workers’ tools.148 Sufi disciples who studied under the same shaykh would occasionally be interred together. Many lodges would have the grave of their founder or promi­ nent shaykhs within the premises. The Damascene al-Ṣāliḥīyya had many exam­ ples of which illustrative were the al-Khwārizmīyya and al-Qawāmīyya lodges.149 Adherents to such lodges were often buried within the same grounds.150 Servants of deceased shaykhs would sometimes be buried in their former master’s vicin­ ity.151 Many elites buried their relatives close to sacred grounds, in hopes that the blessings would be stronger as proximity to a saintly tomb increased. As the saints were believed to sternly protect their domains, in the modern period, it was also hoped that proximity to saints would discourage political opponents from desecrat­ ing graves through exhumations.152 The reproductive capacity of the Ottoman network of the holy was immense and, over time, facilitated the emergence and subsequent entombment of so many Muslim saints that it seemed impossible for the Sufi-ʿulamā’ in office to keep track of all of them. This was especially the case in the countryside with many saints of a local character,153 while some shrines would, over time, be completely forgotten.154 In some scholarship today, the somewhat open-minded response of the prominent eighteenth-century ʿulamā’ to popular claims of sainthood was interpreted as a “tri­ umph from below,”155 yet it rather demonstrated an intricate entanglement between ulamaic longitudinarian attitudes and broad popular consensus. The primary source material from the eighteenth century does not indicate a triumph but a flow of matters of course which reflected a stable religious setting in the centuries before modernity. Ulamaic response to new and previously unknown saints comes forth clearly from al-Nābulsī’s travelogues. At numerous places in the countryside, locals would inform the axial saint that a local walī had a shrine in the vicinity. Al-Nābulsī usually used phrases such as “it is told,” or “they informed me” (yuqāl annahu/ ukhbirnā annahu). He would accept and record the testimonies,156 occasionally attempting to uncover further relevant data. Then he would enter under the dome to perform his rituals and prayers.157 In addition to ambiguities generated by newly emerging saintly generations, debates revolved around the veracity of locations where figures of wider religious importance were supposed to have their shrines. Over centuries, people believed that the grave of the Companion Ubayy Ibn Kaʿab (d.649) lay in the Damascene Bāb al-Sharqī cemetery, while the consensus later changed, indicating his gravesite in Medina. The Damascene Ibn Kaʿab site was, over time, attributed to other individu­ als, such as Ābān Ibn Ābān, while it later became commonly known as the turba of

Beyond the Grave 157 Ṣāḥib ʿUbayda. Similar was the case with Zaynab, who had a maqām in Damascus, while another lay in a nearby village. Caliph ʿUmar II had tombs in Damascus and Homs.158 Many figures of religious importance had several shrines built in their honor that commemorated various stages from their hagiographies. Grehan records seven shrines to Moses in the greater Syrian territory.159 Al-Khiḍr had a shrine in the Damascene al-Ṣāliḥīyya, but Paton visited another Maqām al-Khiḍr in Baniyas, while al-Nābulsī passed a third one during his journey from Beirut to Tripoli. The shrine Paton wrote about was in need of some maintenance (at least in the twentieth century), while the eighteenth-century quṭb’s account describes a more elaborately ornamented and furnished edifice.160 The journal of the eighteenth-century court clerk from Homs, Muḥammad al-Makkī, identifies the fourth shrine to al-Khiḍr in this author’s hometown near the lodge of Sāʿd al-Dīn al-Jabawī (the founder of the Saʿdīyya).161 Various religious relics also caused disputes. A notable example is the head of al-Ḥusayn Ibn ʿAlī Ibn Abī Ṭālib, the location of which caused arguments over sev­ eral centuries. Muslim rigorists in the early modern period quoted Taymīyyan opin­ ions according to which these ambiguities rendered the whole purpose of ziyāra futile.162 Al-Nābulsī had a list of shrines believed to contain al-Ḥusayn’s head.163 Debates about the whereabouts of religious relics resemble those among the Chris­ tians, which could at times also last for centuries without resolution. According to some Christian authorities, for instance, various relics of the Baptist were, aside from the Umayyad Mosque, believed to have been in the church of St. Silvester in Rome, as well as the Cathedral of Amiens in France.164 Cetinje in Montenegro, Wadi Natrun in Egypt, Sozopol,165 and the monastery of St. Ivan (since 2010)166 in Bulgaria also competed for the claim to some of these relics. Al-Nābulsī’s reports add to the fire, claiming that a part of St. John’s head may have resided within a chest under the Citadel of Aleppo.167 Having a shrine nearby ensured a continuous flow of baraka in popular belief but also attracted countless travelers. Pilgrimage was an important source of rev­ enue and therefore, in many practical ways, influenced the history of early modern Syria. It naturally affected the architectural design of shrine complexes but, over time, inspired the development of a complex economy. Pilgrimage customs opened the space for sociopolitical and economic use of religious edifices and attracted the involvement of state administration, which became the norm during the Ottoman period. Eternally Graced, Perpetually Endowed: Managing Hallowed Venues and their Revenues Whether they were humble and solitary, or large architectural clusters, most shrines were classified as waqf-type property endowments.168 The waqf was maintained under more specific legal rulings than other types of properties in the Ottoman Empire. These endowments were subject to more lenient taxing policies169 and depended on the endower’s, as well as their descendants’, patronage. The endower

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had the right to list himself among the beneficiaries of a waqf’s revenue. This would make the waqf a hereditary property, under the perpetuity condition – such a waqf could not be claimed back by the government.170 Complex economic and legal mechanisms were involved in regulating waqf endowments yet received scientific attention of such limited proportions that it caused surprise with some scholars. Historians provided a map of the ample pri­ mary sources that facilitate the study of waqf history. Scholarly emphasis was placed on the significance of these endowments for the study of sociology, anthro­ pology, law, and urban history of various Ottoman provinces. Existing research considers the waqf properties as religious, medical, and charitable institutions, analyzing how the waqf financed mosques, lodges, hospitals, madrasas, and other facilities.171 The waqfs were some of the earliest Ottoman establishments, and their numbers exponentially grew with the spread of the Empire. They facilitated pros­ elytization during the early Ottoman conquests, especially in the Balkans. Military campaigns were often followed by endowing new waqfs that specialized in charity and spread religious teachings in newly taken realms. In Ottoman times, state officials often converted existing, or built new, religious edifices and commissioned works around them to build centrally organized waqfs (ʿimāra; Tur. imaret).172 Such complexes served as urban fulcrums around which new neighborhoods would spread.173 Watenpaugh presumes that Salim I commis­ sioned works on and around the Ibn ʿArabī shrine in Damascus for similar reasons – to encourage urban growth and erect landmarks to compete with previous sites of religious importance. Furthermore, such commissions served as visual demonstra­ tions of Ottoman political claims.174 From the early Ottoman period, Sufi lodges and important graves were usually endowed as very important waqf properties. This type of a waqf most often con­ tained a shrine, an accompanying zāwiyā, a madrasa,175 a public bathhouse176 as well as a community kitchen.177 Sometimes a mosque would be commissioned in the immediate vicinity, or directly over an important grave,178 like with Ibn ʿArabī and al-Nābulsī complexes in Damascus, which later attracted other holy graves. Some of these graves over time fell into oblivion.179 Occasionally, the commission­ ing of certain shrines was followed by the spinning of legendary tales, for instance of dreams that inspired architectural works.180 The reliance of the Ottoman administration on waqf properties in Anatolia and the European provinces had much older roots.181 Sufi orders often enjoyed Mon­ gol royal patronage even while the sovereigns were still Buddhists.182 Under the Ayyubids and the Mamluks, patronage over Sufi lodges was a matter of prestige,183 allowing such establishments to support themselves by generating income through various types of engagement. Royal patronage enabled the lodges to feed and equip the traveling Sufis whose excursions did not represent only ziyāra-inspired tour­ ism. These traveling dervishes were often on state-appointed missions to proselyt­ ize within the newly taken regions.184 Early Ottomans adopted the custom of using Sufi lodges as an instrument for conducting state policies, which was a pragmatic and a strategic choice nestled

Beyond the Grave 159 within a long tradition, which perhaps cannot fully be expressed through the coinage of a “mystical turn.”185. Under Ottoman rule, Sufi lodges were spreading the stateendorsed religious and social values among the people of newly conquered regions. The successful rate of lodges’ missions influenced the reliance of the Ottoman state administration on the utility of the Sufis for strategic and urban policies over a num­ ber of centuries. In the eighteenth century, Ottoman provincial governors called upon famous Sufi masters to assign important tasks to their disciples. Acolytes were dis­ patched as state agents to proselytize along the borders of the Empire.186 During the nineteenth century, foreigners in the Ottoman Empire complained that Sufi disciples often served as state-appointed spies.187 In addition to ministering to the people and conducting various thaumaturgical rituals, the Sufi-ʿulamā’ played an important role for imperial expansion, affecting the spread of Ottoman Islam from Central Africa to China. The sheer expanse of the imperial realm led to the creation of immense networks of circulation and exchange among the Sufi-scholars.188 Considerable trust of Ottoman officials in the Sufi-ʿulamā’189 continued the his­ torical prestige game of political patronage. Elites bequeathed Sufi orders with rich financial and material endowments. Evidence of their support remained traceable even on a smaller scale through inscriptions on shrines that identified the endower, the entombed, and the contemporary head of state. Taufik Canaan reads a num­ ber of such inscriptions in Syria and Palestine.190 Ample evidence remains of such support on a larger scale. Illustrative is the patronage strategy of the Grand Vizier Sokollu Mehmet Pasha (1506–1579), who was famous for his support to religious activities of the Sufis.191 Ottoman sultans represented themselves as servants of shrine complexes on the main Ḥajj routes.192 These structures undoubtedly secured an unparalleled revenue, accumulated through accommodating pilgrims on ziyāra routes. Khāns were often built as parts of shrine complexes. These institutions were popular among both the common people and the prominent Sufi-ʿulamā’ of the eighteenth century.193 In the absence of a khān, guests would often lodge in a zāwiya,194 or at least within a designated guest chamber.195 Al-Nābulsī remembered enjoying the hospitality of some such sites.196 Pilgrimage travel guides contained the whereabouts of popular khans for the convenience of the pilgrims.197 In certain cases, whole caravansaries awaited to tend to visitors.198 The ayān of the Ottoman period supervised their own endowments, albeit much less lucrative. The ʿulamā’ traditionally counted among endowers, which became a trend long before the emergence of the Ottoman Empire. Ulamā’ ֫ often received waqfs as gifts from important judges.199 In the eighteenth century, influ­ ential shaykhs and other state-endorsed notables typically were the beneficiaries of some highly lucrative waqf properties.200 Keeping waqf holdings boosted prestige among the Ottoman elites, providing additional opportunities for social mobility and networking. Sufi-ʿulamā’ endowments produced enviable revenue.201 These waqfs would stay under the patronage of influential families over centuries, such as the Qudāma family complex.202 Aḥmad al-Manīnī recorded how Muḥammad Efendī al-Murādī

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extended patronage over a shrine to al-Ḥusayn’s head.203 Al-Nābulsī commissioned the construction of his own shrine-complex in Damascus, which remained under supervision of his offspring along with other land holdings of the axial saint. On the day of his funeral, all of Damascus entered a virtual lockdown as throngs gathered to part with the eighteenth-century quṭb in al-Ṣāliḥīyya.204 Later during the nineteenth century, the scholar-thaumaturges of the Empire continued to play significant roles in terms of governing waqf properties. Colonel du Couret noticed that the Ottoman network of the holy either counted as patrons of these waqfs, or otherwise superintended such complexes for the endower ayān.205 Graceful waqfs were a significant boost to financial capacities of the Sufi-ulamaic networks in office, allowing them to compete with other elites of the Ottoman Empire. The smooth operation of a shrine complex necessitated the appointment of superintendents (sg. khādim, pl. khuddām; lit. “servants”). These functionaries supervised the activities within the shrine, however in most cases without access to financial management. In some instances, they would receive such respect that they would be addressed as shaykhs themselves. Curtiss described superintendents in Syria and Palestine as “virtual priests” or “ministers” of Muslim shrines.206 Although this is an exaggeration, the superintendents were responsible for the maintenance of waqfs as well as the collection of donations brought to compen­ sate for the Sufi masters’ assistance with thaumaturgical rituals.207 Their function was sometimes hereditary.208 They took care of the shrines’ quotidian matters. For instance, they made sure that any crops within the shrine, such as fruit trees, con­ tinued to yield. They assisted the pilgrims with their prayers, as well as sacrifice,209 which brought them in comparison to the superintendents of the pre-Islamic Arab shrines called the sādin who performed similar roles.210 Finally, it was the task of the superintendents to take care of the shrines’ guests. Al-Nābulsī sometimes enjoyed their hospitality.211 Superintendents commanded considerable social respect, especially in large cit­ ies of the greater Syrian region. They would often keep the keys to various Muslim shrines.212 The social rank of the khuddām often depended on the social rank of the shrine’s saint. Shaykh Aḥmad Ibn Yaḥyā served the Ibn ʿArabī complex until his death in 1692, acquiring the name al-Akramī (“the most generous”). The biogra­ pher al-Murādī attributes the Most Generous Aḥmad with the highly praised ṣalāḥ and describes the superintendent as a competent author and poet.213 It was some­ times common to appoint a superintendent for a widely venerated shrine among those members of society who were themselves highly prominent. For instance, the Ottoman state-endowed al-Badawī complex in Egypt fell under the responsibility of the Egyptian eighteenth-century quṭb al-Ḥifnī.214 The khuddām seemed present virtually everywhere, and Curtiss takes note of the superintendents of the Mother of Pieces plateau in the Zabadani region, even though no shrine was documented to have ever stood erect at this location.215

Beyond the Grave 161 According to popular beliefs, anything that grew around the shrine counted as the walī’s property. For instance, the fruit of a sacred tree, or any animal that lived in it, counted as the belongings of the deceased saint.216 Waters accumulated within a shrine counted as the maqām’s sabīl. Stealing such items was strictly forbidden. The general intent was for these goods to remain available to all pilgrims. How­ ever, superintendents had the right to collect such items and sell them for profit.217 Donations collected by the superintendents represented a significant additional source of income, while the khuddām received frequent awards for their assistance with conducting rituals, sometimes in the form of finances, and sometimes in other goods of material value.218 Religious establishments that belonged to other confes­ sions in Syria generated comparable profit. For instance, Curtiss estimates that the abbot of the Monastery of St. George in northern Syria was able to afford buying an entire bishopric.219 Prominence and popularity of many shrines dwindled over time. Many widely revered shrines lost popular attention after the advent of modernity. Modern period state authorities at times seemed too busy to deal with issues tied to particular localities, especially in the countryside. For instance, McCown visited the village of Biddu in the Jerusalem Governorate. There he saw a dilapidated shrine that the locals were attempting to repair by petitioning the government for over a year without any concrete response.220 A century before, it was possible to hope that the revenue of the damaged waqf would be swiftly collected and used to restore the hallowed tomb.221 Tombs of the awliyā’ as well as other sacred sites, such as trees, caves, or rocks, represented access points towards the unseen where the people came to interact with their network of the holy. According to beliefs, even the standard prayers had more effect if performed in the vicinity of the entombed awliyā’ because of their baraka. In addition, the Ottoman Sufi-ʿulamā’ had a range of thaumaturgical rituals at their disposal, aiming at more specific goals, which were performed both in soli­ tude and in front of large audiences at very prominent sites of religious importance. Thaumaturgical procedure represents the subject of the next chapter. Notes

1 Muḥammad Amīn Ibn ʿUmar Ibn ʿĀbidīn, Radd al-Muhtār ʿala al-Durr al-Mukhtār, ed. Muḥammad Bakr Ismā ʿīl (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmīyya, 2003), 9:505. 2 Marʿī ibn Yūsuf al-Karmī al-Ḥanbalī, Shifā’ al-Ṣudūr fī Ziyārat al-Mashāhid wa al-Qubūr, ed. Asʿad Muḥammad al-Ṭayyib (Mecca: Maktabat Narrār Muṣṭafā al-Bāz, 1998), 27–28. Similar beliefs exist in many cultures. 3 Jane Idleman Smith and Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad, The Islamic Understanding of Death and Resurrection (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 31–99. For the eighteenth century, see ʿAbd al-Ghanī al-Nābulsī, al-Fatḥ al-Rabānī wa al-Fayḍ al-Raḥmānī, ed. Muḥammad ʿAbd al-Qādir ʿAṭā (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 1980), 271–272. 4 ʿAbd al-Ghanī al-Nābulsī, al-Ḥadīqa al-Nadīyya: Sharḥ al-Ṭarīqa al-Muḥammadīyya (Miṣr: n.p., 1860), 1:199, and al-Nābulsī, Fatḥ, 271–273. 5 ʿAbd al-Ghanī al-Nābulsī, “Kashf al-Nūr ʿan Aṣḥābi al-Qubūr,” MS Princeton Univer­ sity Library, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Manuscript Collection,

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9 10

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Islamic Manuscripts, New Series no. 1113 Princeton, 162A–174A. Also al-Nābulsī, Ḥadīqa, 1:199–200. Beliefs in the mystical powers of ancestors and other deceased are widespread around the globe. See Harvey Whitehouse, Modes of Religiosity: A Cognitive Theory of Reli­ gious Transmission (Lanham & New York: Altamira Press, 2004), 49–55. For a his­ torical perspective, see Jennifer Larson, Understanding Greek Religion (Abingdon: Routledge, 2016), 265–283, or Carla Maria Antonaccio, An Archeology of Ancestors: Tomb Cult and Hero Cult in Early Greece (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 1995), 1–72. Richard J. McGregor, “Grave Visitation/Worship,” Encyclopaedia of Islam III, ed. Gudrun Krämer, Denis Matringe, John Nawas, and Everett Rowson (Brill Online, 2014). http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/1573-3912_ei3_COM_27519 (Last accessed: Febru­ ary 27th 2023). Ample material was published to offer potential for comparisons between Islam and other scriptural traditions. See Brian B. Schmidt, Israel’s Beneficient Dead: Ancestor Cult and Necromancy in Ancient Israelite Religion and Tradition (Winona Lake: Eisen­ brauns, 1996), 14–27, Christopher Tilley, An Ethnography of the Neolithic: Early Pre­ historic Societies in Southern Scandinavia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 317–335, Claire Trenery, “Demons, Saints, and the Mad in Twelfth-Century Miracles of Thomas Becket,” in Demons and Illness, ed. Siam Bhayro, 339–358, Ali­ son Chapman, “The Patrons of Heaven and Earth,” in Patrons and Patron Saints in Early Modern English Literature (New York & London: Routledge, 2013), 1–20, Judy Ann Ford, English Readers of Catholic Saints: The Printing History of William Cax­ ton’s Golden Legend (Abingdon: Routledge, 2020), 86, Keith Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic: Studies in Popular Beliefs in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century England (London: Penguin, 1991), 28, 55, Suzanne Glover Lindsey, Funerary Arts and Tomb Cult – Living with the Dead in France, 1750–1870 (London & New York: Routledge, 2012), 1–56. For a number of case studies for modern and contemporary Islam, attitudes towards baraka in tombs worldwide, and the cults of saintly tombs, see Mar­ garet Cormack, ed., Muslims and Others in Sacred Space (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013). Rachida Chih, Sufism in Ottoman Egypt: Circulation, Renewal and Authority in the Sev­ enteenth and Eighteenth Century (London & New York: Routledge, 2019), 111. Further see Ibn ʿAbidīn, Radd, 2:114–115, 242–243 Al-Nābulsī, Ḥadīqa, 1:183. Valerie J. Hoffman, “Intercession,” Encyclopaedia of the Qur’ān, ed. Jane Dammen McAuliffe. Available online at: https://referenceworks. brillonline.com/entries/encyclopaedia-of-the-quran/intercession-EQCOM_00097?s. num=43&s.rows=100 (Last accessed: February 27th 2023). Also see Feras Hamza, “Temporary Hellfire Punishment and the Making of Sunni Orthodoxy,” and Wilferd Madelung, “Al-Ghazālī on Resurrection and the Road to Paradise,” both in Roads to Paradise, ed. Günther, et al., 371–406, 422–427. Further see Josef Van Ess, Theology and Society in the Second and the Third Centuries of the Hijra vol. 4, trans. Gwendolin Goldbloom (Leiden & Boston: Brill, 2018), 608, 661–663, or Francis Robinson, “Reli­ gious Inspiration in Islam,“in Inspiration in Science and Religion, ed. Michael Fuller (Newcastle Upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2012), 35–42. Saintly intercession is a common motif in scriptural religions. For comparative per­ spectives, see, for instance, Devin DeWeese, Islamization and Native Religion in the Golden Horde: Baba Tükles and Conversion to Islam in Historical and Epic Tradition (Pennsylvania: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1994), 60–65, 455, R.N. Swanson, Religion and Devotion in Europe c.1215-c.1515 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 35–42, Donald S. Lopez, Jr., “Sanctification on the Bodhisattva Path,” in Sainthood: Its Manifestations in World Religions, ed. Richard Kieckhefer and George D. Bond (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), 172–217, or Patricia Cox

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13 14 15

16

17 18

19

Miller, “Animated Bodies and Icons,” in The Corporeal Imagination: Signifying the Holy in Late Ancient Christianity (Pennsylvania: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009), 131–147. Finally, compare with Thomas, Decline, 28. For grave visitations, for instance, in medieval Damascus, see Michael Chamberlain, Knowledge and Social Practice in medieval Damascus, 1190–1350 (Cambridge: Cam­ bridge University Press, 1994), 118–120. Compare with Alexandra Walsham, The Ref­ ormation of the Landscape: Religion, Identity, and Memory in Early Modern Britain and Ireland (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 35–36. Taufik Canaan, Mohammedan Saints and Sanctuaries in Palestine (London: Luzac & Co., 1927), 1. Abdul-Karim Rafeq, “Relations Between the Syrian “Ulamā” and the Ottoman State in the Eighteenth Century,” Oriente Moderno 79/1 (1999): 80. For instance, in the context of Islam, see Marco Schöller, “Muslim Theory,” in The Living and the Dead in Islam: Studies in Arabic Epitaphs II (Wiesbaden: Harrasowitz Verlag, 2004), 13–43, Josef W. Meri, The Cult of Saints among Muslims and Jews in Medieval Syria (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), I-58, René Dussaud, “Palmyre et la Damascène,” in Topographie historique de la Syrie antique et médiévale (Paris: P. Geuthner, 1927), 247–322, and Alex Weingrod, “Saints and Shrines, politics, and cul­ ture: a Morocco-Israel Comparison,” and Nancy Tapper, “Ziyaret: Gender, Movement, and Exchange in a Turkish Community,” in Muslim Travelers: Pilgrimage, Migration and the Religious Imagination, ed. Dale F. Eickelman and James Piscatori (London & New York: Routledge, 1990), 217–235, 236–255, Daniella Talmon-Heller, Islamic Piety in Medieval Syria: Mosques, Cemeteries and Sermons under the Zangids and Ayyūbids (1146–1260) (Leiden & Boston: Brill, 2007), 152–161, 172–183, 199–203, Nelly Amri, Les saints en islam, les messagers de l’espérance: sainteté et eschatologie au Maghreb aux XIVe et XVe siècles (Paris: Cerf, 2008), 70–89, Sossie Andezian, Expériences du divin dans l’Algérie contemporaine: adeptes des saints de la région de Tlemcen (Paris: CNRS, 2001), 55–78, Christopher Schurman Taylor, In the Vicinity of the Righteous: Ziyāra and the Veneration of Muslim Saints (Leiden and Boston, Brill, 1998), 62–79, Robert Bartlett, Why can the Dead do Such Great Things? Saints and Worshippers from the Martyrs to the Reformation (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2013), 13–22, 621–633, Smith and Haddad, Death and Resurrection, 183–192, Chamberlain, Damas­ cus, 118–120, John Spencer Trimingham, The Sufi Orders in Islam (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971), 179–180. For comparative purposes with other regions, and other religious traditions, see Issachar Ben-Ami, Saint Veneration among the Jews in Morocco (Detroit: Wayne State Uni­ versity Press, 1998), 131–180, Mohammed El Ayadi, Hassan Rachik, Mohamed Tozy, L’Islam Au Quotidien: Enquête sur les valeurs et les pratiques religieuses au Maroc (Casablanca: Editions Prologues, 2007), 60–63, 71, Azfar Moin, “The Politics of Saint Shrines in the Persianate Empire,” in The Persianate World, ed. Abbas Amanat and Assef Ashraf (Leiden: Brill, 2018), 105–124, or Thomas, Decline, 717. For a global per­ spective, see Dionigi Albera and John Eade, eds., New Pathways in Pilgrimage Studies: Global Perspectives (New York & London: Routledge, 2017). Each chapter focuses on a different region on the globe. See Chapter 6. A good illustration of the significance of important graves for the state was the Dama­ scene shrine complex of Ibn ʿArabī, which represented an Ottoman dynastic endow­ ment. See Heghnar Zeitlian Watenpaugh, The Image of an Ottoman City: Imperial Architecture and Urban Experience in Aleppo in the 16th and 17th Centuries (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2004), 38–39, and Çığdem Kafescıoğlu, “In the Image of Rūm: Otto­ man Architectural Patronage in Sixteenth-Century Aleppo and Damascus,” Muqarnas 16 (1999): 74. Canaan, Saints, 71.

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20 Comparable with Walsham, Landscape, 50–53. 21 James Grehan, Twilight of the Saints: Everyday Religion in Ottoman Syria and Pales­ tine (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 85–86. Also see Ahmet T. Karamustafa, God’s Unruly Friends: Dervish Groups in the Islamic Later Middle Period 1200–1550 (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1994), 72–78, Chih, Sufism, 22–24, Nile Green, Sufism: A Global History (Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012), 93. 22 Grehan, Saints, 83–84, 101. 23 Muḥammad Khalīl al-Murādī, Silk al-Durar fī Aʿyan al-Qarn al-Thānī, ed. Akram Ḥassan al-ʿUlabī (Beirut: Dār Ṣādir, 2002), 4:220–228. 24 Muṣṭafā ibn Kamāl al-Dīn al-Bakrī al-Ṣiddīqī, “al-Khamra al-Ḥisiyya fī al-Riḥla al-Qudsīyya,” (Henceforth: “KhH”), MS Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Ms. or. quart. 460, Berlin, copied in 1785, 3A–5B, 13B. Also see Muḥammad Ibn ʿĪsā Ibn Kannān, “al-Murūj al-Sundusīyya fī Talkhīs. Tārīkh al-Ṣāliḥīya,” [The Vast Gardens of the Brief Summary of the History of al-Ṣāliḥīyya], MS Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Wetzstein II 1117, p. 1, Berlin, 4A–9B. Henceforth: “MS.” 25 Muḥammad Amīn Ibn ʿUmar Ibn ʿĀbidīn, Sall al-Ḥusām al-Hindī li-Naṣrat Mawlānā Khālid al-Naqshbandī, in Majmūʿat Rasāʾil Muḥammad Ibn ʿĀbidīn (Henceforth: MR) (Istanbul: Dar-i Saʿādat, 1907), 2:4–47, and Radd, 2:114–115, al-Nābulsī, “Kashf,” 162A–174A, and al-Nābulsī, Ḥadīqa, 1:199–200. 26 James Grehan offers a map of one of al-Nābulsī’s itineraries. See Grehan, Twilight, 22. 27 ʿAbd al-Ghanī al-Nābulsī, al-Ḥaqīqa wa al-Majāz fī Riḥlat Bilād al-Shām wa Miṣr wa al-Ḥijāz [The Metaphor and the Truth on the Road through Syria, Egypt and Hijaz], ed. Riyād ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd Murād (Damascus: Dār al-Mu ʿarafa, 1989), 37, as well as Abd ֫ al-Ghanī al-Nābulsī, Riḥlatān ilā Lubnān [Two Journeys to Lebanon], ed. Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn al-Munajjid and Stefan Wild (Beirut: Franz Steiner, 1979), 55–56. 28 Elizabeth Sirriyeh, Sufi Visionary of Ottoman Damascus: ʿAbd al-Ghanī al-Nābulusī, 1641–1731 (London and New York: Routledge Curzon, 2005), 108–111. 29 For a sample of his ample record of such sites, see for instance, Ibn Kannān, “MS,” 5A, 8B. 30 For the North African and Egyptian cases, see Chih, Sufism, 21–28. 31 Taylor, Righteous, 62–79. Also, Donald Swenson, Society, Spirituality, and the Sacred: A Social Scientific Introduction (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009), 178–179. Further see Trimingham, Sufi Orders, 26. 32 Mikhā’il Burayk al-Dimashqī, Tārīkh al-Shām 1720–1782, ed. Qusṭanṭīn al-Bāshā al-Mukhalliṣī (Harissa: Matbaʿat al-Qadīs Būlūs, 1930), 63–64. Henceforth: TS. 33 See Chapter 6. 34 Canaan, Saints, 36. 35 See Brannon Wheeler, “Treasure of the Kaʿbah,” in Mecca and Eden: Ritual, Relics, and Territory in Islam (Chicago & London: University of Chicago Press, 2006), 19–46. The belief of saintly presence guarding property and people is old and seems ubiquitous. For an anthropological theoretical background, see Mircea Eliade, “Sacred Space and Mak­ ing the World Sacred,” in The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion (Orlando: Harcourt, Inc., 1959), 20–67, and David Carmichael, Jane Hubert, Brian Reeves and Audhild Schanche, “Introduction,” in Sacred Sites, Sacred Places, ed. David Carmi­ chael, Jane Hubert, Brian Reeves and Audhild Schanche (Abingdon: Routledge, 1994), 1–8. For a comparative perspective with a historical background, see Marty E. Ste­ vens, Temples, Tithes and Taxes: The Temple and the Economic Life of Ancient Israel (Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, 2006), 64–65, Diane Harris, The Treasures of the Parthenon and Erechteion (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995), 1–39, Reynold Higgins, The Aegina Treasure: an Archaelogical Mystery (London: British Museum Publica­ tions, 1979), 48–50, Antonaccio, Ancestors, 116–118, Schmidt, Necromancy, 58–61, Catherine Johns, “Faunus at Thetford: An Early Latian Deity in Late Roman Britain,” in Pagan Gods and Shrines of the Roman Empire, ed. Martin Henig and Anthony King

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36

37 38 39 40 41

42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52

(Oxford: Oxford University Committee for Archaeology, 1986), 93–104, Charles G. Leland, Etruscan Roman Remains and the Old Religion (Abingdon: Routledge, 2010), 31–32, 221. For a comparative perspective in later medieval and early modern times, see Benjamin David Brand, Holy Treasure and Sacred Song: Relic Cults and their Litur­ gies in Medieval Tuscany (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 17–43, John Martin Robinson, Treasures of the English Churches (London: Sinclair-Stevenson, 1995), 37, Sheila Blair, The Ilkhanid Shrine Complex at Natanz, Iran (Cambridge: Center for Mid­ dle Eastern Studies, 1986), 5–8, Stephen C. Berkwitz, The History of the Relic Shrine: a Translation of the Sinhala Thūpavaṃsa (Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), 208–244. Ross Burns, Damascus: A History (London & New York: Routledge, 2007), 138–141. This was the case elsewhere in Syria, see Ibid., 87–88. Further see Paul M. Cobb, White Banners: Contention in ‘Abbāsid Syria, 750–880 (New York: State University of New York Press, 2001), 151. See, for instance, Canaan, Saints, 102, and Samuel Ives Curtiss, Primitive Semitic Reli­ gion To-day: A Record of Researches, Discoveries and Studies in Syria, Palestine and the Sinaitic Peninsula (Chicago: Fleming H. Revel Company, 1902), 160–161. See Hugh Murray, The Encyclopaedia of Geography Comprising a Complete Descrip­ tion of the Earth (Philadelphia: Carey, Lea, and Blanchard, 1837), 259, Fig. 555. This distinction implies Shi’te presence in the region. Henry Maundrell, A Journey from Aleppo to Jerusalim at Easter A.D. 1697 (Oxford: Theater, 1703), 8–11. Kathryn Blair Moore, The Architecture of the Christian Holy Land: Reception from Late Antiquity Through the Renaissance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017), 146–147, Denys Pringle, The Churches of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem: A Corpus Vol. 2 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 219, Amy G. Remen­ snyder, La Conquistadora: The Virgin Mary at War and Peace in the Old and New Worlds (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 157–158, Ross Burns, Monuments of Syria: A Guide (London: I.B. Tauris, 2020), 151, Dana Sajdi, The Barber of Damas­ cus: Nouveau Literacy in the Eighteenth-Century Ottoman Levant (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2013), 31, and James Grehan, Everyday Life & Consumer Culture in 18th-Century Damascus (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2007), 133. Further see Mat Immerzeel, “Divine Cavalry: Mounted Saints in Middle Eastern Christian Art,” in East and West in the Crusader States, Contexts, Contacts, Confrontations, ed. Krijnie Ciggaar and Herman Teule (Leuven: Uitgeverij Peeters, 2003), 265–286. For the early modern context, see Burayk, TS, 74, or Josias Leslie Porter, Five Years in Damascus, Including an Account of the History, Topography, and Antiquities of that City, 2 volumes (London: John Murray, 1855), 1:337–347. See Chapter 6 for more about talismanics and image magic. Maundrell, Journey, 130. Porter, Damascus, 1:343. This is a ubiquitous and an old tradition. See Eliade, “Space,” 20–67. Further see Rebecca I. Denova, Greek and Roman Religions (Hoboken: Wiley Blackwell, 2019), 1–23, 99–103, or Thomas, Decline, 67, 113. Grehan, Twilight, 98–99. Thomas, Decline, 717. Canaan, Saints, 128–129, 270. Grehan, Twilight, 132–133. Canaan, Saints, 36. Ibid., 93–96. For instance, Al-Bakrī, “KhH,” 21B, or Canaan, Saints, 246. Further see, for instance, John Lewis Burckhardt, Notes on the Bedouins and Wahabys: Collected During his Travel in the East (London: Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley, 1831), 2: 108–109,

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55 56

57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69

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168–176, Burns, Damascus, 245, Karl K. Barbir, Ottoman Rule in Damascus, 1708– 1758 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980), 97–107, Mohannad al-Mubaidin, “Aspects of the Economic History of Damascus During the First Half of the Eighteenth Century,” trans. W. Matt Malcycky, in Syria and Bilad al-Sham under Ottoman Rule, ed. Peter Sluglett and Stefan Weber (Leiden & Boston: Brill, 2010), 137–154, Sherifa Zuhur, Saudi Arabia (Santa Barbara: Clio, 2011), 41. Abdul-Karim Rafeq, The Province of Damascus, 1723–1783 (Beirut: Khayats, 1966), 53, and Chih, Sufism, 17. Other terms were used, such as mazār, the place of visitation, maqām, the dwelling, or mashhad, the mark (these two words bear the technical meaning of “shrine”). For domes, see Faḍl Allah Ibn Muḥibb Allah al-Muḥibbī al-Dimashqī, Riḥlatān al-Rūmīyya wa al-Maṣrīyya [Two Journeys to Europe and Egypt], ed. ʿImād ʿAbd al-Salām Ra’ūf (Damascus: Dār al-Zamān li-l-Ṭibā ʿa wa al-Nashr wa al-Tawzīʿ, 2012), 74, and Muḥsin al-Amīn, Khiṭaṭ [The Topography of] Jabal ʿĀmil, ed. Ḥasan al-Amīn (Beirut: Maṭbaʿat al-Anṣāf, 1961), 147–149. Further see Maundrell, Journey, 9–11, Canaan, Saints, 10, 17, ʿAbd al-Ghanī al-Nābulsī, al-Tuḥfa al-Nābulusīyya fī al-Riḥla al-Ṭarābulusīyya, [The Artwork of Nābulsī about a Journey to Tripoli], ed. Heribert Busse (Beirut: Argon Ver­ lag, 2003), 38, and al-Nābulsī, Ḥaqīqa, 86. Also see Chester Carlton McCown, “Muslim Shrines in Palestine,” The Annual of the American School of Oriental Research in Jeru­ salem, 2/3 (1921/1922): 50. Canaan, Saints, 22, 42–44. Edward William Lane, An Account of the Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyp­ tians: Written in Egypt During the Years 1833, 1834, and 1835, 2 volumes (London: Charles Knight & Co., 1836), 2:266, Alexander Russell, The Natural History of Aleppo: A Description of the City and the Principal Natural Productions in its Neighbourhood, together with an Account of the Climate, Inhabitants, and Diseases, Particularly of the Plague, 2 volumes, ed. Patrick Russell (London: G.G. and J. Robinson: 1794), 1:309. Also see Leor Halevi, Muhammad’s Grave: Death Rites and the Making of Islamic Society (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007), 190. This is a universal tradition regardless of the region. See Nathal M. Dessing, Rituals of Birth, Circumcision, Mar­ riage, and Death among the Muslims in the Netherlands (Leuven: Peeters, 2001), 165. For a wider reading about different burial customs in the world, see Christine Quigley, The Corpse: A History (Jefferson: McFarland, 1996), 88. For instance, al-Nābulsī, Ḥaqīqa, 86, 88, 91, 100, 103, 138. Al-Nābulsī, “Kashf,” 168B, Canaan, Saints, 29. McCown, “Shrines,” 50–51. Ibid., 51, Maundrell, Journey, 13, 131. Maundrell, Journey, 14, Canaan, Saints, 14–17, McCown, “Shrines,” 51, Al-Nābulsī, Ḥaqīqa, 138. For instance, Al-Karmī, ShS, 37, and Grehan, Twilight, 23, 90. McCown, “Shrines,” 50. For the environments, see the map in Louis Massignon, Docu­ ments sur Certains Waqfs des Lieux Saints de l’Islam (Paris: Librarie Orientaliste Paul Geuthner, 1952), 119. Canaan, Saints, 50–53. Grehan, Twilight, 23–31. Canaan, Saints, 17–18. Ibid., 2. Al-Murādī, Silk, 3:95, for instance. For descriptions of the interior of domes during the early modern period, see al-Muḥibbī, Riḥlatān, 44–74 and al-Amīn, Khiṭaṭ, 146. Also see ʿAbd al-Ghanī al-Nābulsī, al-Ḥaḍra al-Unsīyya fī al-Riḥla al-Qudsīyya [The Human Presence at the Journey to Jerusalem], ed. Akram Ḥassan al-ʿUlabī (Beirut: al-Maṣādir, 1990), 137, 195, 203, 218. Also Mas­ signon, Documents, 83. Further see Canaan, Saints, 48–51, for layouts he saw in the early twentieth century. For comparative purposes, see Akel Kahera, Latif Abdulmalik

Beyond the Grave 167

70 71

72 73 74

75 76 77 78 79 80

and Craig Anz, Design Criteria for Mosques and Islamic Centers: Art, Architecture and Worship (Amsterdam, Boston: Elsevier/Architectural Press, 2009), 1–8, and Doğan Kuban, Muslim Religious Architecture, Part II: Development of Religious Architecture in Later Periods (Leiden: Brill, 1985), 31–33. For comparisons towards the contempo­ rary period, see Ismail Serageldin and James Steele, Architecture of the Contemporary Mosque (New Jersey: Wiley, 1996), 9, 53, 87, 115. See Ibn ʿAbidīn, Radd., 2:114–115. See, for instance, Samer Akkach, “Architectural Order,” in Cosmology and Architecture in Premodern Islam: An Architectural Reading of Mystical Ideas (New York: State Uni­ versity of New York Press, 2005), 149–206, Finbarr Barry Flood, The Great Mosque of Damascus: Studies on the Makings of an Umayyad Visual Culture (Leiden & Bos­ ton: Brill, 2001), 15–113, Andreas Kaplony, The Ḥaram of Jerusalem: Temple, Fri­ day Mosque, Area of Spiritual Power (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2002), 115–122, Zeynep Yürekli, Architecture and Hagiography in the Ottoman Empire: The Politics of Bektashi Shrines in the Classical Age (Farnham: Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2012), 79–134, 25–50, or Talmon-Heller, Piety, 172–199. For other regions, illustrative are Mehrdad Shokoohy, Muslim Architecture of South India: The Sultanate of Ma’bar and the Traditions of the Maritime Settlers on the Malabar and Coromandel Coasts (Tamil Nadu, Kerala, and Goa) (London & New York: Routledge Curzon, 2003), 34–49, and Catherine B. Asher, The New Cambridge History of India 1:4: Architecture of Mughal India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 292–334. Oleg Grabar, “The Sanctuary in a New Muslim Order,” in The Dome of the Rock (Cam­ bridge & London: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2006), 159–204. Sainthood varied in geographical relevance. See Chapter 4, and continue reading for al-Nābulsī’s encounters with local shrines of unremarkable popularity. Rafeq, Damas­ cus, 182–183. See Abdul-Karim Rafeq, “The Social and Economic Structire of Bāb al-Muṣalla (al-Mīdān), Damascus, 1825–75,” in Arab Civilization, Challenges and Responses: Studies in Honor of Constantine K. Zurayk, ed. George N. Atiyeh and Ibrahim M. Oweiss (Albany NY: State University of New York Press, 1988), 273. See Shihāb al-Dīn Aḥmad Ibn Budayr, “Ḥawādith Dimashq al-Shām Yawmīyya min Sanat 1154 ilā Sanat 1176” (Henceforth: “HDY”), MS Chester Beatty Library Ar 3551/2, Dublin, 92B, and the next chapter. Paul L. Maier, “Herod and the Infants of Bethlehem,” in Chronos, Kairos, Christos II: Chronological, Nativity and Religious Studies in Memory of Ray Summers, ed. Ray Summers and E. Jerry Vardaman (Macon: Mercer Univesity Press, 1998), 169–175. Sera L. Young, Craving Earth: Understanding Pica, The Urge to eat Clay, Starch, Ice and Chalk (New York: Columbia University Press, 2012), 47. Ibn Kannān, “MS,” 11B–12A. Also see Sir Hamilton Alexander Rosskeen Gibb, ed., The Travels of Ibn Baṭṭūṭa, A.D. 1325–1354, Part I (Cambridge: Hakluyt Society, 1995), 145. Ibn Kannān, “MS,” 5A. For seventeenth- and eighteenth-century context see, Ibn Kannān, “MS,” 4A–5B, 11B–12A, or ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Ibn Ibrāhīm Ibn ʿAbd al-Razzāq, Ḥadā’iq al-Anʿām fī Faḍā’il al-Shām [Blissful Gardens of the Damascene Curiosities] ed. Yūsuf Budaywī (Kuwait: Dār al-Ḍiyyā’ li-l-Ṭibāʿa wa al-Nashr wa Al-Tawzīʿ, 1989), 94–100, Hence­ forth: FS. The beliefs in the preternatural power of these caves survived into moder­ nity. See Muḥammad ʿIzz al-Dīn ʿArabī al-Ṣayyādī Kātibī al-Rifāʿī al-Shāfiʿī, al-Rawḍa al-Bahīyya fī Faḍā’il Dimashq al-Muḥammīyya [Gorgeous Garden of the Curiosities of Sacred Damascus] (Damascus: Dār al-Maqtabas, 1911), 41–43. Further see Burns, Damascus, 5, Itztchak Weismann, “Sufi Brotherhoods in Syria and Israel: A Contem­ porary Overview,” History of Religions 43 (2004): 307, Mārī Dikrān Sarkū, Dimashq fatrat al-Sulṭān ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd al-Thānī [Damascus in the Age of Sultan Abdulhamid II] 1293–1325h/1876–1908 (Damascus: Wizārat al-Thaqāfa, 2010), 77, or Ḥasan Zakī

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al-Ṣawwāf, Dimashq: Aqdam ʿĀṣima fī al-ʿĀlam [Damascus: The World’s Oldest Capi­ tal] (Damascus: Dār al-Quṭayba li-l-Ṭibāʿa wa al-Nashr, 2004), 219–221. 81 Ibn Kannān, “MS,” 11B, al-Murādī, Silk, 3:276–278. 82 Aḥmad Ibn ʿAlī Ibn ʿUmar Ibn Ṣāliḥ al-Manīnī, al-Iʿalām bi-Faḍā’il al-Shām [High­ lights among the Virtues of Shām], ed. Aḥmad Sāmiḥ al-Khālidī (Jerusalem: al­ Maṭbaʿa al-ʿAṣrīyya, n.d.), 71–109. Henceforth: IFS. 83 For instance, Ian Richard Netton, Islam, Christianity and the Mystic Journey: A Com­ parative Exploration (Edinbrugh: Edinbrugh University Press, 2011), 84–89, Wilken, “Holy Land,” 743–746, or Marion Dowd, “Chapter 8: Out of the Darkness, into the Light: The Early Medieval Period (AD 400–1169),” in The Archaeology of Caves in Ireland (Oxford & Philadelphia: Oxbow Books, 2015), 174–207. 84 Al-Ṣayyādī, RB, 41–42, al-Manīnī, IFS, 71–109, al-Razzāq, FS, 94–100. Also Maḥmūd al-ʿAdawī, Kitāb al-Ziyārāt bi Dimashq [Pilgrimages in Damascus], ed. Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn al-Munajjid (Damascus: Maṭbūʿāt al-Majmaʿ al-ʿIlmī al-ʿArabī, 1956), 4–8. Henceforth: ZD. 85 Al-Ṣayyādī, RB, 41–42.

86 Canaan, Saints, 40–42.

87 Ibid., 135, 248. Further see Al-Ṣayyādī, RB, 41–43.

88 Canaan, Saints, 60.

89 Burayk, TS, 85.

90 Pierre Jurieu, Histoire Critique des Dogmes et Cultes (Amsterdam: Francois

l’Honore & Co. 1704), 754. 91 Grehan, Twilight, 134–136, Canaan, Saints, 30–31. 92 Aziz Al-Azmeh, The Emergence of Islam in Late Antiquity: Allāh and his People (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 212–214, Said Mentak, “The Tree,” in Is­ lamic Images and Ideas: Essays on Sacred Symbolism, ed. John Andrew Morrow (Jef­ ferson: McFarland & Co., 2014), 125–129, and Mark G. Boyer, An Abecedarian of Sacred Trees: Spiritual Growth through Reflections on Woody Plants (Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2016), 1–6, 50–55, 112–120, 135–140, 212–215. 93 Al-Azmeh, Emergence, 212–214, Helene Danthine, Le Palmier-Dattier et lest Arbres Sacrés dans l’Iconographie de l’Asie Occidentale Ancienne (Paris: Librarie Oriental­ iste Paul Geuthner, 1937), 100–125. 94 Fabrizio Speziale, Soufisme, Religion et Médecine en Islam Indien (Paris: Karthala, 2010), 128, Timothy Insoll, The Archaeology of Islam in Sub-Saharan Africa (Cam­ bridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 294, Sharif Harir, “The Mosque and the Sacred Mountain: Duality of Religious Beliefs among the Zaghawa of Northwestern Sudan,” in Muslim Diversity: Local Islam in Global Contexts, ed. Leif Manger (Rich­ mond: Curzon, 1999), 200–223. 95 Jane Hathaway, “The Mulberry Tree in the Origin Myths,” in A Tale of Two Factions: Myth, Memory and Identity in Ottoman Egypt and Yemen (New York: State University of New York Press, 2003), 135–142. 96 Canaan, Saints, 136, Curtiss, Primitive, 93. 97 Ibn ʿĀbidīn considers seeing deceased saints, prophets, angels, and sometimes even the jinn a wonder. See MR, 2:22–23. The graceful deceased were not shy of invading the dreams of some eighteenth-century Damascene scholars, like in al-Mūrādī, Silk, 2:62. Further see Canaan, Saints, 31, Hathaway, “The Mulberry Tree,” 135–142, and Lewis Bayles Paton, “Survivals of Primitive Religion in Modern Palestine,” The An­ nual of the American School of Oriental Research in Jerusalem, 1 (1919–1920): 62. 98 Canaan, Saints, 31.

99 Margaret Smith, Rābiʿa the Mystic & Her Fellow Saints in Islam (Cambridge: Cam­ bridge University Press, 1984), 202. 100 Curtiss, Primitive, 44–45, 82–83, also see Grehan, Twilight, 138. 101 Canaan, Saints, 274.

Beyond the Grave 169 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117

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Ibn Kannān, “MS,” 9AB. See Chapter 3. Al-Bakrī, “KhH,” 28B. Curtiss, Primitive, 84–87. Ibn Kannān, “MS,” 4B–5A, al-Manīnī, IFS, 94, al-ʿAdawī, ZD, 17, and al-Ṣayyādī, RB, 71–75. Al-Ṣayyādī, RB, 41–42, al-Manīnī, IFS, 71–109, al-Razzāq, FS, 94–100. Canaan, Saints, 38–39, 55. Al-Bakrī, “KhH,” 13A, Imād al-Dīn al-Ḥanafī, “Kitāb fī Faḍā’il al-Shām,” MS Staats­ bibliothek zu Berlin, Wetzstein II 1111, Berlin, 85A, Canaan, Saints, 28. McCown, “Shrines,” 60–62. Canaan, Saints, 99. Al-Nābulsī, Ḥaqīqa, 98, Grehan, Twilight, 130. Canaan, Saints, 42. See Eliade, “Space,” 20–67. Maundrell, Journey, 38. Further see Maundrell, Journey, 124, and Talmon-Heller, Piety, 184–190. See Muṣṭafā Asʿad al-Luqaymī, Laṭā’if al-Uns al-Jalīl fī Taḥā’if al-Quds wa al-Khalīl [The Majestic Human Uniqueness in Jerusalem and Hebron], ed. Khālid ʿAbd al­ Karīm al-Hamsharī and Hishām Abū Armīla (Nablus: Jāmiʿat al-Najāḥ al-Waṭanīyya, 2000), 126–154. Henceforth: LU. Further see Al-Nābulsī, Ḥaqīqa, 45–46, and al­ Bakrī, “KhH,” 10A–12B. Maundrell, Journey, 9–11, Curtiss, Primitive, 133, Paton, “Survivals,” 55, or Burayk, TS, 27. See Muḥammad Ibn ʿĪsā Ibn Kannān, al-Mawākib al-Islāmiyya fī al-Mamālik wa al­ Maḥāsin al-Shāmīyya [Islamic Processions among the Properties and Amenities of Syria] ed. Ḥakīm Ismā ʿīl and Muḥammad al-Miṣrī (Damascus: Manshūrāt Wizārat al-Thaqāfīyya, 1993), 1:370–377. Also, al-Ḥanafī, “KFS,” 83B-111B. Further see al­ Manīnī, IFS, 71–72. Further see, for instance, Rafeq, The Province, 182–183, Chamberlain, Knowledge, xiv-xv, Grehan, Everyday Life, 27–30, Samer Akkach, “Leisure Gardens, Secular Hab­ its: The Culture of Recreation in Ottoman Damascus,” METU Journal of the Faculty of Architecture 27 (2010): 73. doi: 10.4305/METU.JFA.2010.1.4, Linda Schatkowski Schilcher, Families in Politics: Damascene Factions and Estates in the 18th and the 19th Centuries (Stuttgart: F. Steiner, 1985), 7–11, 31–35, ʿAbd al-Razzaq Moaz, “Do­ mestic Architecture, Notables, and Power: A Neighbourhood in Late Ottoman Damas­ cus. An Introduction,” 10th International Congress of Turkish Art, Geneva. 17–23 September1995 (Geneve: Fondation Max van Berchem, 1999), 489–495, Colette Es­ tabet and Jean Paul Pascual, “Damascene Probate Inventories of the 17th and 18th Centuries: Some Preliminary Approaches and Results,” International Journal of Mid­ dle East Studies 24, no. 3 (August, 1992): 383–384, 389, Barbir, Ottoman Rule, 44–46, Shimon Shamir, “Asʿad Pasha al-ʿAẓm and Ottoman Rule in Damascus (1743–58),” Bulletin of the Shool of Oriental and African Studies 26, no. 1 (1963): 1–28, or Jane Hathaway, The Arab Lands under Ottoman Rule, 1516–1800 (New York: Pearson Longman, 2008), 108. Further for Damascus, see Giuliana Amanda Neglia, “Processus de formation de Damas à l’époque ottomane: La transformation d’une ville médiévale,” Bulletin d’études orientales 61 (2012): 223–242, R. Stephen Humphreys, From Saladin to the Mongols: The Ayyubids of Damascus 1193–1260 (New York: State University of New York Press, 1977), 1–15, Nancy Khaler, “Iconic Texts: Damascus in the Medieval Im­ agination,” in Damascus after the Muslim Conquest (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 135–174, Leila Hudson, Transforming Damascus: Space and Modernity in an Islamic City (London & New York: Tauris Academic Studies, 2008), 1–32, Cyrille Jalabert, “Comment Damas est Devenue une Métropole Islamique,” Bulletin d’études

170

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127 128

129 130 131 132

133 134 135 136 137 138 139

140

Beyond the Grave orientales 53/54 (2001/2002): 13–41, Jean-Luc Arnaud, “Corpus Cartographique pour l’Histoire de Damas, Syrie, à la fin de la Période Ottomane (1760–1924),” Imago Mundi, 53 (2001): 46–70, Fulya Üstün Demirkaya, “Spatial Reflections of Social Change: The Change of Urban Pattern in the Ottoman Era,” Athens Journal of History, 3, No. 3 (2017): 205–224, and Burns, Damascus, 342–357. Many larger cities in the Middle East developed similarly. See Canaan, Saints, 5. For instance, see Rodolfo Amedeo Lanciani, Pagan and Christian Rome (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1892), 51–167, 253–361. Canaan, Saints, 22–27. See Khaled Moaz and Solange Ory, Inscriptions Arabes de Damas: Les Stèles Funé­ raires (Damascus: Institut français de Damas, 1977), 10, 12. Elizabeth Sirriyeh, “’Ziyārāt’ of Syria in a ‘Riḥla’ of ‘Abd al-Ghanī al-Nābulusī (1050/1641–1143/1731),” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland 2 (1979): 109–122, Moaz and Ory, Inscriptions, 9–12, and Bianquis Thierry, “Sépultures islamiques,” Topoi 4/1 (1994): 212–214. Sirriyeh, “Ziyārāt,” 109–122, Moaz and Ory, Inscriptions, 18–24. The number of important graves in Damascus was immense. See Sirriyeh, “Ziyārāt,” 109–122, Moaz and Ory, Inscriptions, 11–13, and Ibn Kannān, “MS,” 4A–12B, al-Ḥanafī, “KFS,” 83B–111B, al-ʿAdawī, ZD, 9–103, al-Manīnī, IFS, 71–141, al-Razzāq, FS, 126–181, al-Ṣayyādī, RB, 61–101, al-Nābulsī, Ḥaqīqa, 45–96, Toru Miura, Dynamism in the Urban Society of Damascus: The Ṣāliḥīyya Quarter from the Twelfth to the Twentieth Centuries (Leiden & Boston: Brill, 2015), 50–82, Bri­ gitte Marino,” Les espaces de notables,” in Le fauburg du Mīdān à Damas à l’epoque ottomane: Espace urbain, société et habitat (1742–1830) (Damascus: Institut français de Damas, 1997), 315–341, or Toru Miura, “The Ṣāliḥīyya Quarter in the Suburbs of Damascus: Its Formation, Structure, and Transformation in the Ayyūbid and Mamlūk Periods,” Bulletin d’études orientales 47 (1995): 129–181. See Chapter 1. For the eighteenth-century context in which these “statistics” are quoted, see Al-Manīnī, IFS, 70, 94, al-Razzāq, FS, 126, and Grehan, Twilight, 87. For Jerusalem, see al-Luqaymī, LU, 214–288. Canaan, Saints, 2. Contests between urban centers about the privilege to boast about a saintly tomb in the vicinity were widespread, even with large-scale important personalities. See Joseph Sadan, “Le tombeau de Moïse à Jericho et à Damas,” Revue des Etudes Islamiques (1981): 59–99. Grehan, Twilight, 114. Ibn ʿĀbidīn, MR, 2:30, and Canaan, Saints, 257–258. Further see al-Ḥanafī, “KFS,” 85A–87B. Canaan, Saints, 256–257. Lane, Egyptians, 2:259. Al-Murādī, Silk, 1:228–234. Ibid., 3:170–171 and Chapter 4. Al-Murādī, Silk, 3:192. Aleppine pashas were buried in the vicinity of Shaykh Abū Bakr. See Russell, Aleppo, 1:207. Egyptian nobility preferred the al-Rifāʿī Mosque, named after this Sufi order’s founder. See Yasser Elsheshtawy, “Urban Transforma­ tions: Social Control at al-Rifa’i Mosque and Sultan Hasan Square,” in Cairo Cosmo­ politan: Politics, Culture and Urban Space in the New Globalized Middle East, ed. Diane Singerman and Paul Amar (Cairo & New York: The American University in Cairo Press, 2006), 298. Alexander D. Knysh, Ibn ʿArabi in the Later Islamic Tradition: The Making of a Polemical Image in Medieval Islam (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1999), 25–37, 113–120, 133–140, Hüseyin Yılmaz, Caliphate Redefined: The Mysti­ cal Turn in Ottoman Political Thought (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2018),

Beyond the Grave 171

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162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170

211–214, Rafeq, “Relations,” 81, and Sirriyeh, Visionary, 126. Travelogues of the Sufi masters reveal many similarities in other urban centers. For instance, al-Nābulsī, Ḥaqīqa, 115. Nasuh Pasha’s economic and military management was of much benefit for the subse­ quent success of the al-ʿAẓms as the Shāmī governors. Barbir, Damascus, 54–55. Al-Murādī, Silk, 4:305–306. Ibid., 1:245–246. Al-Ḥuṣnī’s grave was a significant ziyāra site. Chapter 4 and Al-Murādī, Silk, 3:153. Ibid., 1:86 and Chapter 4. Ibn ʿĀbidīn, MR, 3:43–44, Canaan, Saints, 22–24, 300–302. Ibid., Ibn Kannān, “MS,” 1B–2A, and Miura, Damascus, 54–58. Canaan, Saints, 302. Ibn Kannān, “MS,” 8B–9A. Canaan, Saints, 300. Ibid., 23. Ibid., 8–9. See Chapter 4 and Grehan, Twilight, 110. For instance, al-Amīn, Khiṭaṭ, 147, or al-Nābulsī, Ḥaqīqa, 74–76. See also Canaan, Saints, 60. Grehan, Twilight, 112. James Grehan studies this in Ibid., 108–110. For instance, al-Nābulsī, Ḥaqīqa, 86. Sirriyeh, “ ‘Ziyārāt’,” 109–122, al-Manīnī, IFS, 71–141, al-Razzāq, FS, 126–181, al-Ṣayyādī, RB, 61–101. Grehan, Twilight, 107–108. Also see Sadan, “Moïse,” 59–99. Paton, “Survivals,” 57, and al-Nābulsī, Tuḥfa, 43. Al-Makkī the court clerk uses this site to give geographical data about the events he describes, indicating its topographical significance. Muḥammad al-Makkī, “Mudhakkarāt Aḥad Abnā’ Ḥimṣ ʿan Ḥimṣ wa Abnā’ihā“[The Memories of a Son of Homs about Homs and its Sons], MS American University of Beirut, MS 956.9:T181A:c.1, Beirut. I used an edited edition to help locate the manuscript. The bibliographic data of this printout is as follows: Muḥammad al-Makkī Ibn alSayyid Ibn al-Ḥājj Makkī Ibn al-Khāniqā, Tārīkh Ḥimṣ: Yawmīyyāt min Sanna 1100 ilā Sanna 1135 [The Daily History of Homs from 1688 to 1722], ed. ʿAmr Najīb al-ʿAmr (Damascus: Jaffan Traders, 1987), 186. The texts proved to be identical. Al-Karmī, ShS, 113–115. Al-Nābulsī, Ḥaqīqa, 163. Eileen M. C. Kane, The Church of San Silvestro in Capite in Rome (Genoa: B.N. Mar­ coni, 2005), 16–20, and Gali P. Streete, The Salome Project: Salome and her Afterlives (Eugene: Cascade Books, 2018), 39. Andrew Phillip Smith, John the Baptist and the Last Gnostics: The Secret History of the Mandaeans (London: Watkins, 2016), 165. David Gibson and Michael McKinley, Finding Jesus: Faith, Fact, Forgery – Six Objects that Tell the Remarkable Story of the Gospels (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2015), 11–44. Al-Nābulsī, Ḥaqīqa, 45–46. Grehan, Twilight, 21, 96. Chih, Sufism, 11. Riza Yıldırım, “Dervishes, Waqfs, and Conquest: Notes on Early Ottoman Expansion in Thrace,” in Held in Trust: Waqf in the Islamic World. Edited by Pascale Ghazaleh (Cairo & New York: The American University in Cairo Press), 2011, 23–24. Also see Muhammad Zubair Abbasi, “The Classical Islamic Waqf: A Concise Introduction,” Arab Law Quarterly, 26, No. 2 (2012): 121–153, W. Heffening, “Waḳf,” in Ency­ clopaedia of Islam, I (1913–1936), ed. M. Th. Houtsma, T.W. Arnold, R. Basset, R.

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Beyond the Grave Hartmann (Brill Online, 2012). http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/2214-871X_ei1_COM_0214 (Last accessed: February 24th, 2023). Randi Deguilhem, “The Waqf in the City,” in The City in the Islamic World: Volume 1, ed. Salma K. Jayyusi, Renata Holood, Attilio Petruccioli and André Raymond (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 923–952. Also see Heath W. Lowry Jr., “The Ottoman Tahrīr Defterleri as a Source for Social and Economic History: Pitfalls and Limitations,” in Studies in Defterology: Ottoman Society in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries (Istanbul: The Isis Press, 1992), 3–18, and Hazim Šabanović, “Dvije najstarije vakufname u Bosni“[The Two Oldest Waqfs in Bosnia], Prilozi za orijentalnu filologiju i istoriju jugoslovenskih naroda pod turskom vladavinom/Revue de Philologie Orientale et d’Historie des Peuples Yougoslaves sous la Domination Turque [The Review of Ori­ ental Philology and the History of Yugoslav Peoples under Turkish Rule] II (Sarajevo: Veselin Masleša, 1951): 6–7. See, for instance, Çiğdem Kafescıȯğlu, “Lives and Afterlives of an Urban Institution and its Spaces: The Early Ottoman ʿİmāret as Mosque,” in Historicizing Sunni Islam in the Ottoman Empire, c. 1450-. 1750, ed. Tijana Krstić, and Derin Terzioğlu (Brill: Leiden, 2020), 255–307. Aptullah Kuran, “A Spatial Study of Three Ottoman Capitals: Bursa, Edirne and Istan­ bul,” Muqarnas 13 (1996): 114–131, and Grigor Boykov, “Reshaping Urban Space in the Ottoman Balkans: A Study on the Architectural Development of Edirne, Plovdiv and Skopje (14th-15th centuries),” in Centers and Peripheries in Ottoman Architec­ ture: Rediscovering a Balkan Heritage., ed. Maximilian Hartmuth (Sarajevo: Cultural Heritage Without Borders, 2011), 33–34. During his travels, al-Nābulsī encountered numerous such examples, such as in Ḥaqīqa, 114–115. Watenpaugh, Ottoman City, 38–39. Anver M. Emon, “Shari’a and the Modern State,” in Islamic Law and International Human Rights Law: Searching for Common Ground? ed. Anver M. Emon, Mark S. Ellis, and Benjamin Glahn (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 72–80. For public baths in Damascus, see Jacques de Maussion de Favières, “Note sur les bains de Damas,” Bulletin d’études orientales 17 (1961–1962): 121–131. Yıldırım, “Waqf,” 25–27 and McGregor, “Grave Visitation/Worship.” Also see Boykov, “Urban Space,” 33–34. Further see Trimingham, Sufi Orders, 179–180, and Yürekli, Architecture, 149. For Damascus, see Miura, “Ṣāliḥīyya,” 129–181, Miura, Dynamism, 174–204, Thierry, “Sépultures,” 215, Rafeq, “Relations,” 71–75, and Mar­ ianne Boqvist, “Contributions of Šamsī Aḥmad Pasha and Lālā Muṣṭafā Pasha to the Urban Landscape of 16th century Damascus,” Bulletin d’études orientales 61 (2012): 191–207. Also see Çığdem Kafescıoğlu, “In the Image of Rūm: Ottoman Architec­ tural Patronage in Sixteenth-Century Aleppo and Damascus,” Muqarnas 16 (1999): 74, Dina le Gall, A Culture of Sufism: Naqshbandis in the Ottoman World, 1450–1700 (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2005), 51, or Amy Singer, “Imarets,” in in The Ottoman World, ed. Christine Woodhead (London & New York: Routledge, 2012), 72–85. Al-Karmī, ShS, 45–55. Al-Nābulsī, Ḥaqīqa, 74–76, al-ʿAdawī, ZD, 30–34. Further see Knysh, Ibn ʿArabi, 25–37, 113–120, 133–140, Yılmaz, Caliphate, 211–214, Rafeq, “Relations,” 81, Kafescıoğlu, “Aleppo and Damascus,” 70–96, and Sirriyeh, Visionary, 126. Howard Crane, “The Ottoman Sultan’s Mosques: Icons of Imperial Legitimacy,” in The Ottoman City and Its Parts: Urban Structure and Social Order, ed. Irene A. Bierman, Rifa’at A. Abou-El-Haj, Donald Preziosi (New York: Aristide D. Caratzas, 1991), 186. Further on dreams in Chapter 6. Yılmaz, Caliphate, 5–20, 277–286. Judith Pfeiffer, “Confessional Ambiguity vs. Confessional Polarization: Politics and the Negotiation of Religious Boundaries in the Ilkhanate,” in Politics, Patronage and

Beyond the Grave 173

183

184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193

194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214

the Transmission of Knowledge in 13th-15th Century Tabriz, ed. Judith Pfeiffer (Lei­ den & Boston: Brill, 2014), 135–136. Ethel Sara Wolper, “The Patron and the Sufi: Mediating Religious Authority through Dervish Lodges,” in Cities and Saints: Sufism and the Transformation of Urban Space in Medieval Anatolia (Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2003), 24–41. For the Mamluk period, see for instance Bethany J. Walker, “Popular Responses to Mamluk Fiscal Reforms in Syria,” Bulletin d’études orientales, 58 (2008–2009): 51–68. Heath W. Lowry, “The ‘Soup Muslims’ of the Ottoman Balkans: Was there a ‘West­ ern’ & ‘Eastern’ Ottoman Empire?,” The Journal of Ottoman Studies 36 (2010): 98–102, Chih, Sufism, 29, Yılmaz, Caliphate, 121. Yılmaz, Caliphate, 1–13, 277–286. Yıldırımm, “Waqf,” 24–29, Chih, Sufism, 2–5, 29–39. du Couret, Life in the Desert, 420–421. See Chih, Sufism, 5, or Alexander D. Knysh, Sufism: A New History of Islamic Mysti­ cism (Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2017), 104. See for instance a case study by Haim Gerber, “The Waqf Institution in Early Ottoman Edirne,” in Studies in Islamic Society: Contributions in Memory of Gabriel Baer, ed. Gabriel Warburg and Gad Gilbar (Haifa: n.p., 1984), 29–45. Canaan, Saints, 17–22. Zeynep Yürekli, “A Building between the Public and Private Realms of the Ottoman Elite: The Sufi Convent of Sokollu Mehmed Pasha in Istanbul,” Muqarnas, 20 (2003): 161–169. Chih, Sufism, 24. See al-Bakrī, “KhH,” 6B. Further see Colette Estabet and Jean Paul-Pascal, “Le loge­ ment des pèlerins à Damas au debut du XVIIIe siècle,” Revue du monde musulman et de la Mèditerranèe 77–78 (1995): 275–286, and A. Abdel Nour, “Le résau routier de la Syrie ottomane (XVIe-XVIIIe siècles),” Arabica (1983): 169–189. In some cases, guest-oriented establishments were inseparable from such sites, as shown by Lowry, “ ‘Soup Muslims’,” 100–102, 120–132. Canaan, Saints, 16. Al-Nābulsī, Ḥaqīqa, 103. Al-Muḥibbī, Riḥlatān, 56. Grehan, Twilight, 97. Aziz Al-Azmeh, The Times of History: Universal Topics in Islamic Historiography (Budapest & New York: Central European University Press, 2007), 223. Yıldırımm, “Waqf,” 23–28, Chih, Sufism, 18. Ibid., 126–128. Ibn Kannān, “MS,” 1B–2A, and Miura, Damascus, 54–58. Al-Manīnī, IFS, 123. Al-Murādī, Silk, 3:44. L. du Couret, Life in the Desert; or Recollections of Travel in Asia and Africa, Trans­ lated from the French (New York: Mason Brothers, 1860), 420–421. Curtiss, Primitive, 144–147, 163. This practice continued to the modern period. See Canaan, Saints, 134, and Curtiss, Primitive, 144–150. Paton, “Survivals,” 62. See Chapter 6. Al-Azmeh, Emergence, 238, Irving M. Zeitlin, The Historical Muhammad (Cam­ bridge: Polity, 2007), 55. Al-Nābulsī, Ḥaqīqa, 138. Grehan, Twilight, 96. Al-Murādī, Silk, 1:246–248. Chih, Sufism, 126.

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215 Curtiss, Primitive, 144–147. 216 Canaan, Saints, 35. See Curtiss, Primitive, 213 for beehives that belonged to a dead saint. 217 Canaan, Saints, 35. 218 The price of thaumaturgical assistance is analyzed in more detail in Chapter 6. 219 Curtiss, Primitive, 148. The author is not clear if this is his exaggeration, or an actual fact. Christian religious edifices were at times governed under slightly different laws. For instance, see Oded Peri, “The Legal Status of the Holy Sites under Ottoman Rule,” and “The Ottoman State and the Inter-Church Struggle over the Holy Sites,” in Chris­ tianity under Islam in Jerusalem: The Question of the Holy Sites in Early Ottoman Times (Boston: Brill, 2001), 50–96, 97–154, Charles A. Frazee, “The Eighteenth Cen­ tury,” in Catholics & Sultans: The Church and the Ottoman Empire 1453–1923 (Cam­ bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 153–311, or Tom Papademetriou, “The Patriarchal Tax Farm,” in Render unto the Sultan: Power, Authority, and the Greek Orthodox Church in Early Ottoman Centuries (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 107–178. 220 McCown, “Shrines,” 58. 221 For instance, Sylvia Auld, Robert Hillenbrand, and Yusuf Natsheh, Ottoman Jerusa­ lem: The Living City, 1517–1917 (London: Altajir World of Islam Trust, 2000), 164, 280, 422. Also see Canaan, Saints, 35.

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6

Artes Magicae Thaumaturgical Rituals in Eighteenth-Century Shām

Early modern Sufi-ulamā’ ֫ thaumaturgical practice aimed at specific and often immediate goals that varied from apotropaic and prophylactic rituals conducted for individuals, groups, or entire regions, over wondrous healing and illness prevention and treatment, to defying natural disasters and influencing weather. The people in eighteenth-century Syria were eager to seek intercession, both from the living thau­ maturges, and the graceful deceased. They often vowed to repay saintly assistance, offering an assortment of goods, commodities, as well as blood. In popular belief, Sufi masters had access to skills and knowledge that defied the humanely possible. Spectacular competencies of the Sufis allegedly represented consequences of their purity, devoutness, and righteousness, which earned them divine grace. This chapter discusses techniques applied by eighteenth-century Syrian wonderworkers in their hopes that they utilized divine grace for gaining practical effects. I discuss various aspects of common thaumaturgical rituals to highlight the beliefs in the practical utility of grace that further related the Ottoman network of the holy to the Damascene everyday of the eighteenth century. Analyses of Sufi rituals have potential to yield further clarifications of the deep social, political, and economic significance of Sufism for the history of Ottoman provinces. Scholarship does not conduct such research often, even though some authors highlighted its incredible potential.1 In this chapter, I underline continuous demand for thaumaturgical goods among the Ottoman subjects, regardless of their rank or occupation, broadening the scholarly understanding of Syrian (and in general, Ottoman) premodern Sun­ nism. The effects of thaumaturgical rituals at times depended on economic factors, and were generally considered transactional, which created a complex economy of Allah’s baraka that I discuss in this chapter as well. Beliefs in the efficacy of thau­ maturgical rituals, fueled by grace earned through virtue and purity, represented a long tradition across the Ottoman realms, and further in many other regions and many other religious confessions.2 Texts that instructed into thaumaturgical procedures, which were copied and distributed during the eighteenth century, often claimed that their contents were transmitted by important figures of the past, such as Abū al-Ḥasan al-Shādhilī (1196–1258),3 and many others.4 In eighteenth-century Syria, thaumaturgical ritu­ als usually started after preparatory acts of ablution5 and fasting,6 while further DOI: 10.4324/9781003395539-6

186 Artes Magicae purification was sometimes recommended, for instance, by donating to the poor.7 After preparations, rituals would most often commence with reading scriptural chapters. Al-Fātiḥa was common during any ritualistic endeavor. The opening chapter of the Qur’ān was followed by theurgical supplications expressing the goal of the ritual. Combining elements that featured in the Qur’ān and other sources of Islam into official thaumaturgical rituals assisted the ulamaic circles in making arguments towards defending the orthodoxy of Sufi thaumaturgy from detractors.8 Additionally, thaumaturges would use requisites such as talismans, or other items of power, which will be further discussed in the following pages. The efficacy of thaumaturgy was widely believed in. The success of Sufi ritu­ als was taken as a matter of course if those conducting it were punctilious. Addi­ tionally, the widespread belief in the ṣalāḥ-baraka relations, and in karāma as their consequence,9 usually led Ottoman subjects to interpret botched rituals as the failure of supplicants to honor all moral and social prerequisites. In case of thaumaturgical failure, the alleged relation between divine grace and the purity of character led to ulamaic criticism of popular habits and practices. Occasionally, similar worries surfaced among the common people. The high value of baraka as a socio-anthropological analytical tool in early modern Syria is once again evident. Possible falls from grace represented reasons for growing popular concern. The efficacy of magic was also widely believed in. Unlike thaumaturgy, which produced wonders through divine grace, magic (siḥr) was believed empowered by daemonic forces.10 The Ottoman ʿulamā’ used the concept of baraka to create dis­ tinctions between magic and thaumaturgy. Protected by their grace, the Sufis were permitted to dabble in various occult arts. Other people who engaged in the same craft were considered illicit magicians. Forbidden Arts: Sorcery in Eighteenth-Century Province of Damascus Within the Ottoman network of the holy, the prophets (anbiyā’) had the greatest powers. They were believed to cause miracles (muʿjizāt).11 Muslim saints (awliyā’) allegedly caused wonders (karāmāt). Saintly powers resembled the prophetic, as both were believed to heal the sick, communicate with animals, speak to and raise the dead, dry up bodies of water, walk on water, turn stones golden, or fly.12 The potency and efficacy of their supplications to God was considered unparalleled, yet unlike prophetic miracles, wonders were believed unstable.13 The saints lacked prophetic challenge,14 and a walī was not supposed to dare claim prophetic powers since that would antagonize the divine.15 Descriptions of saintly wonders awarded them a spectacular air, but they had their limit. In popular belief, karāma represented the consequence of divine, and not saintly, will. In theologians’ writings, clear intent to cause particular goals through a particular chain of actions and praeternatural means represented an important dif­ ference between thaumaturgy and magic. Theologians further discussed the concept of istidrāj (“luring”), referring to beliefs that God goaded sinful people to commit even more sins by granting them their immediate desires, allowing for a period of

Artes Magicae 187 joy without self-reflection before administering punishment.16 Although in prac­ tical terms rituals naturally involved deliberation, apologetic works authored by the eighteenth-century Damascene Sufi-ʿulamā placed the agency behind karāma strictly with God.17 This book began with Aḥmad al-Naḥlāwī and the legends of his many wonders. When the “Benediction of Damascus” was asked to turn a stone into gold, he hedged, hinting that he could fulfill little but God’s will. His power was proven by successful transmutation, yet its object remained unmovable until the saint restored its original form.18 The anecdote both celebrates al-Naḥlāwī’s power and underlines that wonders were not supposed to relate to immediate requests. Causing mystical effects (khawāriq) with clear intent indicated magical activity (siḥr), which was forbidden.19 Throughout centuries it was believed that the jinn taught magic to some humans, or showed them how to make talismans that facilitated interaction with these crea­ tures.20 Ibn ʿĀbidīn and al-Nābulsī considered such magicians (sāḥir) a “plague upon all Muslim beliefs” (al-sāḥir fa-huwa ṭā ʿūn fī al-ʿaqā’id al-islāmīyya kullihā) who denied the unity of god (tawḥīd) and worshipped devils (shayāṭīn).21 For the ʿulamā’, magicians were “obstinate people” (ahl al-hawā’; also “people of pas­ sion”) who did not believe in Allah and thus corrupted both themselves and the created world. Magic was a challenge to divine supremacy and an equivalent to blasphemy. Thaumaturges themselves needed to abstain from intentionally bring­ ing harm through practicing their art. It was forbidden to attempt to manipulate the shayāṭīn, for instance, and use their power to achieve personal goals.22 The efficacy of siḥr was never denied, even though its practice was forbidden.23 Ulamaic office often warned of infernalists who conspired with devils, or sorcer­ ers who were able to fly and turn people into donkeys and vice versa.24 During the eighteenth century, magic was not just a subject of jurists’ and theologians’ mental exercise within the Ottoman Province of Damascus. Although rarely, the extant source material narrates of instances when sāḥirūn represented a practical prob­ lem. In 1747, a Damascene neighborhood worried that a witch lived among them. A woman was accused of luring boys and men to her house to perform magic on them, and neighborhood rumors caused sufficient concern to involve the authori­ ties. Vigilantes took the woman to a judge. Her properties were seized for thor­ ough examination, but no evidence of sorcery was found. Her neighbors testified to the officials that the accused was poor and lived in her house alone. She was soon proclaimed free of charges.25 The stories of “poor old women” represented a ubiquitous leitmotif in witch trials. In Europe, many women were freed based on positive testimonies from their neighbors.26 Others were not so fortunate. In 1746, the Damascene treasurer (defterdār) Fatḥī al-Falāqinsī (d.1746) heard of a geomancer27 with a reputation for the accuracy of his predictions. He summoned the diviner, bullying him into giving several predictions. Al-Falāqinsī then asked him if he could foretell that he would be beaten, fined, and fettered. The treasurer’s words were carried out, and the geomancer was then banished from the city.28 Prosecutions of alleged magicians continued into the following centuries as well. Lane recorded two Cairene cases when magicians attracted the attention of the authorities. One man allegedly conjured apparitions, believed to have been the

188 Artes Magicae jinn, via candle flame and commanded them into obedience. The other man was purported to have influenced a Muslim woman so that she would fall in love with a Cairene Coptic Christian.29 Early modern ʿulamā exercised caution towards popular magic yet usually believed in the sanctity of most phenomena allegedly caused by the hands of the Sufis and the awliyā’,30 similar to the medieval Christian Church, the attitude of which, to a certain practice, often had decisive role for dubbing it orthodox or magical.31 Since the saints were believed to be protected by their baraka, they frequently dabbled in arts which were otherwise forbidden to the common people, such was the case with various divination techniques. Second Sight: A World of Interdependence Traditionally, Muslim jurists thought low of divination, soothsaying, and astrology. It appeared to them that through such activities, people wished to obtain knowl­ edge that was accessible only to God, defying therefore the supremacy of Allah. However, before modernity, it was fairly common for the Sufis to employ vari­ ous thaumaturgical methods to divine truths about the past, present, and future. In the eighteenth century, it was believed that inspirations from God could allow the ṣāliḥūn to access certain hidden knowledges according to Allah's will, which was seen as their wondrous capacity.32 Belief in the efficacy of divination techniques was widespread among the commoners and elites. Numerous state officials, often appointed at positions of great authority, relied on Sufi divination before attempt­ ing any endeavor.33 Divination in general often involved the recitation of certain words or Qur’ānic chapters, as well as preparation through prayer and ablutions. The interpretation of dreams was an important practice and a common activity within the Sufi lodges during the eighteenth century. Like with many other regions, dreams often held much importance in Ottoman Damascus.34 Narratives about important historical events in Syria (and wider) usually employed dream visions as omens35 of future events. According to widespread legends, Selim I dreamt of Ibn ʿArabī, who showed the sultan the conquest of Syria and Egypt. This legend may have represented an attempt to add legitimacy to Selim’s dynasty in newly taken territories.36 Ottoman ʿulamā’ considered possible for the jinn or the Muslim saints to enter one’s dreams or cause visions to deliver a message or make a request.37 In Damas­ cus, the muftī ʿAlī al-Murādī, according to Burayk, received inspiration from the Virgin which compelled him to commission additional works on the Ṣaydnaya complex. Burayk the priest praised the occasion.38 During the seventeenth century, the Agha of the Aleppo citadel commissioned further construction works around the shrine complex of Abū Bakr (d.1583), due to a dream vision in which this saint appeared.39 Commoners also employed stories of praeternatural inspiration in their self-representative narratives. Ibn Budayr claimed that he received inspira­ tion from Allah to address his sons as sayyids.40 Exaggerations occurred, as with the North African Sufi, Muḥammad al-Zawāwī (d.1477), who left a lengthy and extremely detailed diary of his dreams featuring the Prophet Muḥammad.41 Sufis of the Ottoman Empire maintained a long oneirocritical tradition,42 and a large body

Artes Magicae 189 of literature committed to oneirocriticism remains as primary source material.43 During the eighteenth century, al-Nābulsī wrote in this genre too – he left a work named Interpretation of Dreams.44 Muslim scholars theorized that dreams could at times represent visions about the real world. At least since Ibn Khaldūn, it was presumed that the absence of other senses during slumber, combined with the balance of bodily humours45 and the outside temperature facilitated the process through which one received visions about the world around them. It was the responsibility of the interpreters to after­ wards decipher a vision and uncover its meaning. Ibn Khaldūn insisted on the importance of appropriate oneirocritical training, adding that official interpreters were capable of deciphering dreams due to their special competencies, alluding to the Sufis and their disciples.46 Ibn Khaldūn believed that it was possible to induce dreams of specific mat­ ters. Oneiromancers would pronounce particular “dream words” (al-ḥālūma; the “dream incantation“) before sleep and then hope to receive answers to their queries during slumber. He claimed to have tried this himself. The ḥālūma were written down as tamāghis baʿadān yaswādda waghdās nawfānā ghādis.47 Franz Rosenthal presumes that these words are Aramaic and ventures a translation that goes, “You say your incantations at the time of the conversation and the accident of sleep happens.”48 There seems to be no affirmative causes for Rosenthal’s presumptions about the origin of the dream incantation. Combinations of disconnected Arabic letters were believed to assist the incuba­ tion of diviners’ visions. Muslims, over centuries, believed in praeternatural proper­ ties of Arabic letters. It was common to encounter disconnected letters, sometimes in combination with numbers, on various objects ranging from talismans to scrip­ tural texts. Certain combinations of disconnected letters were believed so powerful that they, over time, acquired the status of divine attributes.49 At times, these letters would be combined in seals (sg. khātam) or “names” (sg. ism) which diviners used to boost the efficacy of their rituals. Thaumaturgical manuals copied in the eight­ eenth century offer many diagrams for resolving a range of practical issues. For instance, should a theft occur, one could draw an ism comprised of a string of Ara­ bic letters hā (‫ )ه‬with some other letters present as well. One held to this drawing while asleep to see the thief in a vision, if they satisfied the conditions of purity.50 Much more complicated seals existed, to be used both while awake and in slum­ ber. Most such items required the user’s purity as the primary condition, and usually

Figure 6.1 The ism that identified thieves in dream visions. Source: “MMKF,” 65B. Property of Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin – Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Orient­ abteilung, Glaser 100.

190 Artes Magicae activated upon the reading of a scriptural chapter. Sūrat al-Qadr (Q97:1–5), Sūrat Yā Sīn (Q36:1–87), and Sūrat al-Ḍuḥā (Q93:1–11) seemed preferred, in addition to al-Fātiḥa and al-Ikhlās.51 Some divination techniques required proxies. Lane pondered the curious case of ʿAbd al-Qādir al-Maghribī in Cairo who caused praeternatural insight to young assistants. Al-Maghribī openly claimed to work with two jinn. He used incanta­ tions written on a piece of paper to conjure these creatures. The shaykh required the attendance of a young boy who did not reach puberty during his performances. Vir­ gins, black female slaves, or pregnant women suited him as replacement assistants.52 Lane personally chose some of them. The shaykh would put a charm under the assis­ tant’s cap to “make [the boy’s] sight pierce into what [was to Lane and the shaykh] the invisible world.” The charm was another strip of paper bearing inscriptions that contained the second half of the Qur’ān 50:22 (Sūrat al-Qāf) verse: “We have lifted this veil of yours, so today your sight is sharp!”53 The shaykh then drew a “magic square” into the boy’s palm, dropping a blot of ink in the middle of it and demanding from the boy to stare at it until he saw his reflection. A sequence of visions followed while the shaykh burned incense, coriander, and charcoal, mixing in the written incantations for the jinn and muttering over them. The audience was allowed to ask various questions, and Lane was astonished by the accuracy with which the boy answered. He spent several days listening to a number of boys whom the shaykh allegedly caused to divine private information about Lane and his acquaintances.54

Figure 6.2 ʿAbd al-Qādir al-Maghribī’s “magic square.” Source: Lane, Egyptians, 1:351.

Artes Magicae 191 The eighteenth-century Compendium of thaumaturgical rituals and prayers con­ tains an identical magic square, which allegedly caught thieves or brought truth­ ful answers to various questions. The manual underlines the required attendance of young boys and girls, pregnant women, or slaves. The inscriptions contain­ ing the Q50:22 verse part were to be placed in front of the assistants’ eyes, while recitations should have included the repeated reading of al-Ikhlās. The similarity between these accounts is striking, although the Compendium bears no mention of the jinn, which might indicate that al-Maghribī attempted to add some more mystery to his act. His overall performance was significantly more pompous than the eighteenth-century recipe specified. This particular “magic square” seal was, however, evidently known across regions for at least several hundreds of years before the modern period.55

Figure 6.3 “Magic square” from the eighteenth-century copy of the Compendium. Source: “MMKF,” 148A. Property of Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin – Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Orient­ abteilung, Glaser 100.

192 Artes Magicae Time and weather represented important factors for thaumaturgical rituals. Upon his first visit, ֫Abd al-Qādir al-Maghribī complained to Lane about “unpropitious” weather. The results of his performance were flimsy but were repaired in the following days.56 Times of the day, days of the week, the four seasons, as well as the months of the lunar year were important, along with the position of celes­ tial bodies with regards to various constellations.57 It was believed that the recita­ tion of certain words, as well as the inscriptions of certain seals and amulets, had particular power if performed during a particular time.58 Thaumaturgical manuals instructed about the procedure of drawing some seals during particular hours and days and meditating upon them to uncover hidden knowledge. The invention of some of these drawings was attributed to famous past figures, such as Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazalī (c.1058–1111)59 or Aḥmad al-Būnī (1225).60 Astrology thus remained important for rituals in Middle East and North Africa,61 as was the case in many regions throughout a long number of centuries.62 In popu­ lar belief, signs of the zodiac corresponded to the four elements,63 which were further connected to the bodily humours, to jointly portray a world of interdepend­ ences. Muslims believed that this complex pattern could be read for signs about the future, and at times influenced for mystical benefits.64 Across the Middle East and North Africa, a device called zā’īrja was often used to, through algebraic calcula­ tions, produce answers to diviners’ questions based upon the interdependence of celestial bodies, humours, and astrological signs.65 There exist speculations that the mechanics of the zā’īrja influenced the Christian philosopher and thaumaturge Ramon Llull (1232–1316) to develop his own Ars Magna.66 Edward Lane records the ample usage of the zā’īrja in Egypt during the early modern period.67 In addition to ways of divining hidden truths, Sufis had rituals which would secure baraka for themselves and others. Through baraka, they were hoping to induce a chain of causalities which would satisfy their desires, ranging from gen­ eral good fortune to particular ambitions, such as having more money or driving out bad neighbors. Baraka was most often harvested through prayer with particular supplications that expressed the intent of the ritual performers. Invocatio Domini: Supplications to God and Baraka-Harvesting In addition to the dhikr, the most common ritual believed to facilitate communica­ tion with God was the duʿa. This type of supplication was either pronounced on its own, or after an official prayer. With the duʿa, the supplicants hoped to attract divine attention and express their wishes, needs, or troubles to Allah.68 Eighteenthcentury thaumaturgical manuals contained supplications for various instances in which the supplicants hoped for preternatural effects.69 Contemporary historians discovered an abundance of prayer books written in Arabic, Persian and Turkish in the Ottoman Empire during the early modern period, pointing out the significant role of the Sufis for the distribution and recitation of such invocations.70 Supplication texts occasionally claimed a long history. For instance, the Compendium quotes the critically acclaimed medieval scholar Aḥmad al-Būnī

Artes Magicae 193 (d.1225), as the source of some very potent duʿas.71 Some of them were believed to originate even from much earlier centuries. Thaumaturgical manuals weave a story of a trader from Baghdad, conveniently named Mubārak (“the blessed one”), who knew a special supplication that shielded his household from a massive epidemic that otherwise caused the death of 12,000 boys, each of them a ḥāfiẓ. This duʿa was allegedly revealed by the greatest imām (al-imām al-aẓ֫ am). The title implies Abū Ḥanīfa (699–767), the eponymous founder of the Hanafite madhhab.72 Abū Ḥanīfa’s supplication is, with very minor variations from the eighteenth-century version, read on social media today, and Yūsuf al-Nabhānī is cited as having trans­ mitted it to following generations.73 Supplications aimed at combating diseases and bringing good fortune glorified Allah through numerous repetitions of divine attributes. They requested healing and pardon, pleading for God’s mercy. In addi­ tion, some of them required the intoning of disconnected letters, believed to con­ tain special powers.74 Compendium adds that in all cases even al-Fātiḥa, highly comparable to the Christian Paternoster in premodern belief,75 had wondrous pow­ ers, along with al-Ikhlās.76 Duʿas usually had no strict form, but shared standard elements. They mostly contained the basmala, followed by divine names arranged in a dhikr. Among the divine names, those that emphasized mercy and forgiveness were most frequent. Verses from Qur’anic chapters often featured in the text, most often taken from al-Fātiḥa or al-Ikhlās. Supplicants first reconfirmed their submission to divine will, glorified the omnipotence of God, and then posed their requests. Thaumaturgical manuals offered supplications intended for a range of outcomes – from gaining material resources, through healing the infirm, to receiving hidden knowledge.77 It was common to read Qur’ānic chapters during recitations, and the shahāda occa­ sionally concluded the duʿa.78 Duʿas were available to all. Illustrative and very standard was the supplication recited at the beginning of a lunar year. It was spoken out early in Muḥarram. The text was rather brief and it follows, “My God, who is eternal, the graceful ever­ living, [who is] affectionate, the new year [is here] and you are the ancient king. I ask from you the strength against the devil and absolution from the fires, [I ask] for pardon and forgiveness upon this soul inclined to evil that is striving to do and say only that which is honorable to be brought closer to you, oh venerable and majestic one.”79 It was believed that this supplication directed grace to the suppli­ cant,80 which identifies its function as an incantation. A very similar supplication was recited at the end of the lunar year.81 Duʿas of the Sufis allegedly brought special benefits because of their baraka.82 Some Sufis were held in particularly high esteem due to the quality of their recita­ tions of duʿas and other incantations, which further strengthened beliefs in their wondrous capacities. Abū al-Mawāhib Ibn ʿAbd al-Bāqī al-Ḥanbalī (d.1714) was a very prominent Hanbalite scholar, of celebrated prayer recitation skills.83 Al-Naḥlāwī’s dhikr was highly sought for.84 This is comparable to western Euro­ pean regions, where the prayers of certain saints or other members of the Catholic

194 Artes Magicae Church enjoyed particular renown because of both their efficacy and the eloquence of the performers.85 Belief in the efficacy of a supplication or its elements was often based on repeti­ tion.86 It was believed that repeated reading of Qur’ānic chapters, sometimes for over hundreds of times, lead to specific results.87 Ibn Budayr’s Sufi master believed that eighty-seven repetitions of the words yā ʿazīz (“my dear,” or “my precious,” yet the word ʿazīz is generally applied to God, when it means “mighty”) after prais­ ing the Prophet during the morning prayer88 brought many mystical benefits to the supplicants, both in life and afterlife.89 Supplications aimed at particular goals, like obtaining more resources, required several dozens of repetitions, while some invocations were supposed to be repeated over several days, or weeks. Following the correct procedure would grant various rewards ranging from general blessings to hidden knowledge.90 The Sufis and the common people recited their duʿas after the five standard prayers, as well as while harvesting baraka from hallowed grounds. It was believed that duʿas were more potent when recited within shrines. In addition to attracting grace, Muslims hoped that the supplications at saintly maqāms would persuade the saints to assist them. They visited shrines because of common beliefs in their numerous benefits, ranging from general blessings to averting natural disasters, and some deceased saints were believed to control specific issues. For instance, Maqām Zaynab was visited in Damascus to affect natural disasters.91 People had similar beliefs in Christian Europe. Some Catholic saints were believed to special­ ize in averting particular disasters.92 Chancing upon a shrine, one performed the tabarruk and recited the basmala, sometimes with the shahāda. Ritual cleanliness was obligatory for those who wished to enter.93 Entering unannounced indicated a lack of manners. It was customary to pronounce the dastūr formula that was also used when entering someone’s home, or injinnated grounds.94 One recited, “dastūr, yā walī Allah” (permission [to enter], saint of God). The superindendents of shrines (khuddām) would sometimes refuse to admit visitors, perhaps because a female group already occupied the premises.95 To attract the attention of the saintly presence allegedly lingering within a shrine, one usually recited al-Fātiḥa for the interred, activating the baraka within.96 Canaan read the saintly graves’ epitaphs that urged pilgrims to recite al-Fātiḥa for the souls of the buried.97 Pilgrims often invoked the name of the saint whom the shrine was committed to.98 Recitations of duʿas followed with the aim of collecting grace, or receiving assistance with specific issues.99 It was customary to circumambulate a shrine, which is still performed during the Ḥajj in Mecca. People were eager to touch or kiss the shrine’s ḍarīḥ, or other objects within,100 as touch was believed to induce the transfer of baraka that emanated from the saintly presence and imbued the objects in the surroundings. Afterwards, the pilgrims would get in contact with their loved ones, in hopes of transfering the shrine’s baraka further.101 Al-Nābulsī left brief records of his shrine prayers. He would enter and “read al-Fātiḥa and then a duʿa,” (wa sharaʿnā fī qirā’at al-fātiḥa wa al-duʿa), or, “read al-Fātiḥa for [the saint] and then invoked God” (qara’nā lahu al-fātiḥa wa daʿawnā

Artes Magicae 195 allah).102 Sometimes he would stay to perform more standard prayers at a hallowed site.103 Other members of the Ottoman Sufi-ʿulamā’ network conducted similar rituals in shrines, like al-Bakrī during his rounds in Jerusalem.104 Common people followed identical customs. Travel guides produced during the eighteenth century to list the many maqāms of Bilād al-Shām continuously emphasized the benefits of reciting duʿas in shrines.105 The Sufi-ʿulamā’ practiced dhikr within shrines. It was common to perform night vigils (tahajjud) in maqāms as well. A night vigil was sometimes counted as the “sixth” daily prayer, and the Sufis praised its supposed efficacy in collecting Allah’s baraka. In addition, it was believed that the night vigil brought additional benefits, such as safe passage into the afterlife.106 In addition to vigils, sleeping at maqāms was widespread practice. It was believed that sleep within a shrine may bring healing, or dreams carrying information of importance. This practice was called incubation (istikhāra) and represented a fairly widespread phenomenon in many world religions.107 Rituals performed in maqāms often coincided with many leisure activities. Shrines were frequented by groups of Sufi disciples and masters, who usually embarked upon their pilgrimages in company.108 Ziyārāt represented networking opportunities. In 1689, ʿAbd al-Ghanī al-Nābulsī arrived to Joub Jannine (Jubb Jinīn) in West Beqaa. He was greeted by the Sufi master Kamāl al-Dīn and got acquainted with other colleagues during his rounds in the area. Afterwards, he enjoyed some pastime under the canopy of the local sacred tree.109 In Hama, he collected baraka for the entire Qādirīyya lodge by performing dhikr with his fellows.110 In addition to praying in maqāms with hopes to augment the power of reli­ gious rituals, the people of eighteenth-century Syria were (similar to elsewhere in the Ottoman Empire) in the habit of using various items and objects which were believed sacred. Some of them were old relics. Others lay within maqāms until beliefs developed that the baraka of a shrine “leaked” into them. Talismans were also very popular. Both Sufis and magicians had techniques for talisman production. Conduits of Energy: Baraka-Laden Items and Talismanics In popular belief, items that were in close contact with Muslim wonder-workers brought benefits to those in their vicinity, or those who kept them on their person. A proponent of the classical theory of magic, James Frazer explained this belief through the principle of contagion, or the belief that items that were once in con­ tact with each other retained properties of each other long after they have been separated.111 Popular belief attributed considerable power to sacred relics. The Ottoman dynasty kept items that supposedly belonged to Prophet Muḥammad, along with strands of his beard, in the Topkapı Palace of Istanbul. These relics still represent a popular exhibit.112 Al-Nābulsī expressed much awe for the Head of the Baptist, allegedly in the Ummayad Mosque, and that of al-Ḥusayn.113 Relics were significant in various religions through history, and until today.114

196 Artes Magicae Objects that were in close proximity to hallowed tombs were considered extremely potent. In 1710, Muṣṭafā al-Bakrī suddenly got a strong headache dur­ ing his siyāḥa. Visiting the Shrine of Moses (maqām al-nabī mūsā), he first said a prayer that was common upon entering a praying house (ṣallāt taḥīyyat al-masjid). Observing elements of the common procedure, he turned towards the qibla, recited al-Fātiḥa, and commenced with his invocation. Al-Bakrī then placed his head under the coverlet of the grave and rubbed it against the ḍarīḥ. He claimed his headache was gone instantly, and for good.115 It was believed that objects that lay around the shrines bore the maqām grace. People occasionally rubbed against the rocks near shrines to alleviate pains,116 rolled on the hallowed grounds, or rubbed soil into their bodies.117 The axial saint al-Nābulsī left a legend involving the conversation of his mother and a Damascene Shaykh Maḥmūd. After the shaykh’s death, she was to bring young al-Nābulsī to his grave and rub him with the soil to grant him baraka. Maḥmūd was later buried in al-Sāliḥīyya.118 According to a long tradition, when a shaykh died, commoners would rush to attend the preparation of his funeral, eager to touch objects near the corpse, dip their clothes into the water intended to wash the body, and so on.119 Early during the nineteenth century, the people in Egypt believed in the curative powers of the earth from Prophet Muḥammad’s grave. This soil was often gath­ ered and sometimes baked into cakes to be worn as amulets or hung around the households.120 Ottoman subjects in Syria collected small items from the shrines, believing in their amuletic properties. Pilgrims brought pieces of grave coverlets (sutūr) back to their homes. In the absence of sutūr, any bit of cloth from a shrine sufficed. The Nabī Mūsā shrine in Palestine was famous for its black stones that the people often kept on their person. Oil which burnt in the censers at shrines was frequently gath­ ered by the pilgrims. It was massaged into the infirm. Vegetation that grew around shrines was at times used to fumigate the ill. Canaan records that the waters of al­ Mat.baʿa marsh near Tel Shemmam (Tal al-Shammām) were believed efficacious in combating rheumatism and sterility.121 People believed that water represented a powerful energy conduit.122 Pilgrims regularly collected water from shrines. Cisterns at hallowed sites fulfilled similar functions to holy water for Christians.123 Muṣṭafā al-Bakrī indicates the mysterious qualities of rainwater gathered in the Shrine of Moses.124 Water from the Zamzam probably represented the most potent baraka conduit in the popular imaginary.125 Lane wrote that the people of Cairo were in the habit of dipping toothpicks into it, since it was believed that the sacred water would help preserve oral hygiene and welfare.126 The Scripture itself represented a powerful talisman.127 Qur’ānic verses, as well as its pages, were dissolved in water to create curative potions.128 It was believed that the Qur’ān contained six particularly powerful verses, jointly known as the Healing Verses (ayāt al-shifā’).129 These ayāt could be written down and boiled in a pot. If true believers drank this potion, it was hoped that they received thauma­ turgical healing.130

Artes Magicae 197 The quest for baraka would at times lead to excessive fervor. Wicks of the lamps that burned in shrines would be swallowed, often by women who wished to induce pregnancy in the shrine of Nabī Mūsā, but in other shrines as well.131 The chalk of the Milk Grotto in Bethlehem was believed to induce lactation.132 Accord­ ing to beliefs, while the Virgin breastfed Christ, some milk fell on the ground, painting the rocks within the grotto white.133 People usually rubbed this chalk into the skin134 or kept it under their beds. It was not unusual, however, to eat it on the spot.135 Collective effervescence136 could become dangerous. Maundrell recounts that the crowd in front of the Holy Sepulcher pushed and shoved to approach the Holy Flame and perform the tabarruk gesture, rubbing their hands against their skin and beards. Collective excitement grew so much that the gendarmerie had to get involved and break the crowd up. Despite their efforts, Maundrell witnessed people getting singed in the struggle for divine grace.137 Items collected during pilgrimages often represented key elements of more potent talismanic or amuletic devices. One of the most illustrative examples is a type of sacred bread called quddāsa. Canaan recorded the making of this bread in Jerusalem. People collected the corn that grew on the grounds of Abū Madyān shrine. This maqām belonged to the al-Maghāriba Lodge complex. It was believed that the saint’s hand was kept within.138 According to beliefs, the bread brought no additional benefits unless it was baked during the holy month of Ramaḍān. In Ramaḍān, people would knead dough from Abū Madyān corn, reciting the Scrip­ ture over it. They would read al-Fātiḥa seven times, followed by ten repetitions of al-Ikhlās, and then three readings of al-muʿawwidhatān – al-Falāq and al-Nās. This dough would then be baked into bread which was expected to have curative powers. Pieces of the quddāsa were eaten by the ill, both Muslim and Christian. The bread would otherwise be suspended over the patients’ heads or placed under their pillows. It was customary to perform one’s ablutions before consuming the quddāsa.139 Many other pilgrimage “souvenirs” were used in talisman-making. The bituminous stones of Nabī Mūsā would be cut into squares or triangles. The shaykhs would make talismans out of them afterwards.140 Talisman-making had a long tradition among the Muslims and was widespread in other religions as well.141 Ibn Khaldūn believed that talismanics represented a science, which allowed a human being to influence the world with the assistance of celestial bodies.142 For the creation of a talisman, time was essential. Place was of importance as well, and it was widely believed that talismans produced in maqāms yielded potent results.143 Depending on their intended purpose, talismanic objects needed to be crafted at particular dates, under particular astrological signs, or during particular times of the day. Talismans were usually written on paper, but the wonder-workers would sometimes use silk, clay, wood, or iron, and it was at times preferred that the color of the material would be red, blue, or yellow. These talismans were believed to bring many benefits to their holders, ranging from hidden knowledge to wishes

198 Artes Magicae coming true.144 For the efficacy of all talismans, it was important that their makers were pure in their faith and behavior.145 Some shaykhs empowered newly created talismans with other sources of grace, such as their spittle. They recited particular texts during their work, like chap­ ters from the Scripture or more intimate supplications. The duʿas in general served curative and meliorative purposes but could be written on the talisman directly, when they would have a prophylactic function. Muslim talismans would often bear individual letters of the Arabic alphabet that were believed to augment the power of other inscriptions and boost the talisman’s efficacy. Divine names often featured on talismans as well.146 Talismans served a variety of functions, yet the ulamaic circles outlawed some of them as a type of siḥr. Since the medieval period, there existed techniques for making talismans that influenced rulers or compelled the jinn to do one’s bid­ ding.147 However, some talismans that were created with intentions to influence people – causing marital or sibling reconciliation, or driving rivals away when placed under the threshold148 – do not seem to have raised any eyebrows. In addition to talismans, Christians of eighteenth-century Bilād al-Shām (like Christians everywhere), believed in the mystical power of icons. Icons were believed to operate on similar principles as talismans and amulets. In classical scholarship, it was considered that icons were homeopathically connected149 to the saint whose portrait they displayed. Icons were believed to perform the role of proxies150 for supplicants seeking saintly intercession.151 The primary condi­ tion for icon activation was the piety of the supplicant. Burayk wrote reports of a Christian whose prayers in front of the Virgin’s icon kept his family unharmed during an armed conflict in Lebanon.152 Muslim maqāms without graves, com­ mitted to particular saints or wondrous and miraculous events, were functionally comparable to icons. Beliefs in the mysterious power of objects, words, and letters were abundant in premodern Syria, across social strata and religious confessions. Items and places of power over centuries induced the development of a particular economy, focused on the distribution of thaumaturgical goods and artifacts. Sufi assistance was not a cheap popular commodity. The shaykhs often earned a decent living in the Middle East under Ottoman rule. The Price of Grace: The Economy of Wonders and Wonder-Working Sufi assistance was unaffordable to some. Stephan heard that a shaykh from Jeru­ salem once requested five Egyptian pounds and a sheep to perform an exorcism on an epileptic child. The father could not afford the fee, and the child had to endure the affliction.153 Early modern Muslim shaykhs generally dealt in a lucrative profession. Talis­ manics generated a hefty revenue. Grehan observed that the Damascene Shākir al-Mīdanī (d.1850) turned considerable profit with his amulets that were espe­ cially appreciated by women who hoped to conceive male children.154 There was a

Artes Magicae 199 constant market for curative amulets. Abū Bakr al-Dusūqi (d.1779) had reputation for his healing items.155 In addition to coin, people would at times pay with vari­ ous goods, such as tobacco pouches and other accessories.156 Selling thaumaturgi­ cal goods earned many shaykhs more than a decent living,157 similar to the clergy among Christians. Christian believers frequently furnished churches or sent robes and other items to the priests in exchange for their services.158 Votive offerings at shrines were frequent, as well as vows, which were con­ sidered hazardous to break.159 People promised goods or valuables to a shrine in exchange for saintly intercession. Starting a military campaign against Nablus militias in 1735, Ẓāhir al-ʿUmar first went to Nazareth where he publicly prayed in the shrine of the Virgin.160 Kneeling down, he rubbed his face in the soil of the shrine and vowed that he would send regular tribute should he win the battle. He emerged victorious and fully honored his promise.161 The people of Syria and Palestine often vowed to make donations in exchange for intercession. Food and other material goods were offered to shrines for thau­ maturgical healing,162 while many peasants prayed for rich crops, promising to take a portion of their harvest to hallowed sites. Many shrines thus managed to sup­ port themselves, accepting other product too, such as lamps or oil.163 The deceased awliyā’ were presumed to have been decent and fair. They accepted only what was owed to them. Canaan records that a woman vowed to bring some oil to the Palestinian St. George shrine in exchange for her child’s recovery. The child grew healthy, and she brought more oil than she promised. The surplus kept spilling out of the lamps within the shrine until the priests told the woman that the saint received what was promised and required no more.164 Some votive offerings to shrines were viewed as peculiar by the Damascene chroniclers, yet the saints were believed open to all kinds of bargains. In 1743, a man in Damascus fell ill. His lover, who worked as a prostitute, prayed at the Maqām Shaykh Ruslān, promising that she would celebrate the saint’s mawlid should her lover recover. When the man was back to his health, the prostitutes of Damascus paraded the city with music, letting their hairs loose.165 Early mod­ ern Province of Damascus occasionally faced legal difficulties with prostitution in urban centers. Prostitutes would be expelled or faced prohibitions from time to time.166 This parade’s purpose was to redeem a vow, and it attracted no known repercussions.167 It was customary for the people to leave a testimony (mashhad) to their vow. They would also leave mashhads to their pilgrimages. Simple symbols were suf­ ficient – a piece of cloth tied to a convenient place within or near a shrine would do. People often tied cloths to sacred trees near shrines,168 or placed piles of rocks around the premises. The custom of placing mashhads survived into the modern period, usually followed by the words, “I testify for you today, so that you shall tes­ tify for me upon the Resurrection Day” (anā ashhad maʿak al-yawm wa anta tash­ had maʿī yawm al-qiyāma, or in colloquial, anā bashad maʿak al-yūm wint tashad maʿī yūm al-qiyāmi).169 This was a formulaic request for saintly intercession.

200 Artes Magicae Pilgrimage mashhads served as collectibles for future pilgrims. If they took something from a shrine, they would need to leave a possession in return. To Maundrell, eighteenth-century maqāms looked like button makers’ shops with their numerous beads, linen hangings, and other trinkets.170 These transactions also had an alleged curative purpose. Leaving a mashhad, the ill would recite, “I have cast my burden upon you, saint of God,” (ramayt ʿalayk ḥamalī yā walī Allah), in hopes to part from their illness which the saint would dispatch. They would then collect something from the shrine to facilitate recovery.171 People frequently sacrificed to the awliyā’. Sometimes they would vow an ani­ mal which would be butchered only later. If someone would promise half a cow to a walī, from that moment onwards and until the animal was sold, half of its milk, its offspring, and anything which would accompany the animal represented the shrine’s property. If the animal was sold, half of the profit was sent to the shrine.172 Edward Lane saw that sacrificial animals were allowed to walk and graze wherever they wished until the sacrifice was performed.173 It was considered obligatory that the sacrificial animal (dhabīḥa or ḍaḥīyya) should bleed. In the modern period, Curtiss documented universal beliefs that the most important part of ritualistic slaughter was the “bursting forth of blood.”174 It was imperative that the ḍaḥīyya was healthy. Wounded or sick animals were unacceptable. The ḍaḥīyya would be taken to the shrine and forced to lie on its left side. Its head would be pointed towards the qibla (Christians and Jews turned their animals towards Jerusalem). The actual slaughter would be carried out by the sup­ plicant or an adjutant.175 The shrine’s superintendent (khādim) would sometimes assist the act,176 but proximity was important, and so the supplicant usually kept their hand on the animal.177 The ritual started with the basmala and continued with a supplication arranged to express the intent of the sacrifice. Duʿas were preferred while performing the slaughter,178 recited without pause and with intense focus. Appointed butchers invoked God before delivering the killing blow, which was intended to be swift and accurate, not to torture the animal needlessly.179 After the sacrifice, the corpse of the animal would be cut and at times prepared on the spot. This food was not intended to turn profit – instead, it was customary to arrange a public feast, the aim of which was charity (ṣadāqa).180 Supplicants who offered sac­ rifice would feed the hungry and the mendicant, but other people equally as well.181 The walī received the beast’s soul,182 while the people satisfied with the rest. People most often offered sacrifice in hopes of saintly intercession, wondrous healing, or general good fortune. I discussed apotropaic sacrifice in Chapter 3. In case one sacrificed to protect a household, they would often leave a bloody handprint on the façade as a mashhad. This type of mashhad featured on some maqāms as well. In the absence of blood, people would use red henna.183 Sacrifice was also offered in penance. The gendarme from Awarta who took grapes from hallowed ground without saintly permission vomited blood until he offered blood to the shrine.184 Sometimes awliyā’ demanded sacrifice in oneiric visions. In one docu­ mented instance, a spear-wielding saint inspired members of several different con­ fessional groups through dreams of one man, and Paton saw several hundreds of

Artes Magicae 201 people south of Damascus sacrificing a sheep to fulfill saintly demands for quelling an ongoing cholera epidemic.185 People in early modern Ottoman Empire sacri­ ficed for a wide number of other reasons. Aside from Eid al-Fitr and the Prophet’s mawlid, birthdays of the popular saints were celebrated as well. Sacrifice would be offered on such occasions.186 Up to the twentieth century, Ottoman authorities would offer sacrifice prior to commencing any large-scale endeavors,187 such as opening new railway connections.188 Grehan emphasizes the impact such acts had on imperial economy along with communal prayers as well as other ceremonies held by the Ottoman authorities within different regions of the Empire.189 Invocations, talismanics, and sacrifice at times represented constituent elements of complicated ceremonies under supervision of the Sufi masters. These were large-scale events that included crowds of participants, both common and the elite. Some rituals like these represented official state ceremonies, while others would be organized ad hoc in response to impending dangers and natural catastrophes. United We Stand: Public Thaumaturgical Rituals in Eighteenth-Century Damascus Perhaps the most prominent standard public thaumaturgical ceremony was the state-endorsed rain-summoning prayer (ṣalāt al-istisqā’). Rain prayers were a part of a lengthy tradition that was kept in Ottoman Syria during the early modern and the modern periods.190 Ibn Khaldūn considered rain prayers the responsibility of the caliph that was outsourced to the imāms of large congregational mosques.191 A Sufi shaykh would usually be appointed as the ritual leader. In eighteenth-century Damascus, Abū al-Mawāhib Ibn ʿAbd al-Bāqī al-Ḥanbalī (d.1714) enjoyed particular renown because of his recitation skills, and he used to lead rain-summoning prayers. Ibn ʿAbd al-Bāqī was also a very influential Han­ balite scholar, remembered as a chronicler and a historian, and respected widely for his erudition.192 He was a teacher and shaykh to Ḥusayn al-Baytimānī, Aḥmad Ibn Siwār,193 and Aḥmad al-Manīnī.194 Ibn ʿAbd al-Bāqī became a walī, and his grave was frequently visited in al-Ṣāliḥīyya during the eighteenth century.195 Al-Murādī recounts a rain-summoning prayer of 1696. The people fasted for three days before gathering in the celebrated Bāb al-Muṣalla Mosque, which was believed to augment thaumaturgical efficacy.196 They brought sacrificial animals, cows, goats, and sheep. Directing supplications to Allah, the crowd raised their voices in theatrical cries. Ibn ʿAbd al-Bāqī came to pray with the assembled peo­ ple and had a chair placed in the center of the mosque. From the chair, he com­ menced with a duʿa. The scene lasted a while before Ibn ʿAbd al-Bāqī, seeing no immediate result of the ritual, grabbed his beard and yelled: “My God, do not expose this old man [to shame] in front of your worshippers!” As the popu­ lar imaginary linked thaumaturgical power of an individual with their ṣalāḥ, the Hanbalite saint’s reputation may have been at stake. He was in front of many of his peers, as well as the common people of Damascus in a space crowded with expectations. He snapped at God, and al-Murādī reported that, soon after, the

202 Artes Magicae “gates of the sky opened” (infataḥat abwāb al-samā’), gracing Damascus with heavy rains that lasted for three days.197 Names of the prominent and tenured Sufi-ʿulamā’ tended to come up when­ ever a public prayer was organized, especially in dire moments. The devastating earthquakes of 1759198 demolished much of the Damascene infrastructure. Qub­ bat al-Naṣr on Mount Qasioun was heavily damaged199 along with the Umayyad Mosque, while the city’s water supply remained cut off for a number of days.200 The freshly appointed governor, ʿAbd Allah Pasha Al-Shatajī (r.1758–1759),201 ordered a public prayer. The people fasted for three days before congregating in Bāb al-Muṣalla. The governor came to attend the ceremony, surrounded by his retinue and the Damascene scholars, Sufis, and elites. Aḥmad Ibn Siwār,202 a for­ mer apprentice of Ibn ʿAbd al-Bāqī al-Ḥanbalī, was assigned as the prayer leader. Ibn Budayr wrote that the prayers lasted for three full days. People were shouting and crying “as if it was the Judgment Day.”203 Ibn Siwār recited his duʿas, and the people repeated after him.204 Some disasters which were specific to the region necessitated particular protec­ tive measures. Legends told of a mystical water which lured a mysterious black bird by the name of samarmar.205 In popular beliefs, flocks of black birds followed the special water and destroyed locust infestations, which, in the Greater Syrian region, represented a common occurrence. People in eighteenth-century Syria believed that samarmar’s water flowed somewhere between Shiraz and Isfahan.206 During 1747, when a particularly severe infestation thrived in the region, Asʿad Pasha al-ʿAẓm assigned two Sufi-ʿālims to fetch some of this water.207 One of them was Alī al-Maṣrī the Shafi’ite (d.1749), who was a prominent lecturer. The other one remains remembered as ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Kafarsūsī. According to the old belief, the pair was supposed to collect samarmar’s water and then travel back without looking over their shoulders, leaving water containers on the ground or passing under roofs. If they would fail to observe these rules, their quest would be futile.208 The shaykhs returned with the water, and the Sufi disciples formed a welcoming procession, brandishing colorful flags to the beating of drums that cel­ ebrated the pair’s success. Mystical water was transferred to smaller containers and suspended all over Damascus – especially at prominent places, like the minarets of the Umayyad Mosque.209 The governor ordered some water to be sent to Hawran to deal with the infestation there.210 The locusts continued to plague the countryside throughout the season, and Ibn Budayr’s narrative took a turn to question popular behavior in Damascus. As there could be little doubt in the wonders of God’s chosen, blame was bound to transfer to the people. The barber reported rumors of sinfulness, transgressions against faith, and provocations of Allah’s wrath. Virtue and purity seemed luxuri­ ous commodities upon reading the diary of Ibn Budayr who accused the people of corruption and odious behavior.211 Sufis organized more parades. The Saʿdīyya Shaykh Ibrāhīm al-Jabāwī led a public prayer at the shrine of Zaynab. To the beat­ ing of drums and under the order’s flags, the people then circumambulated the city

Artes Magicae 203 citadel. Finally, the Saʿdīyya disciples performed their trademark act, the dawsa.212 In the following days, concerns arose about sinful women, prostitutes in public spaces, and popular unrest caused by the many militant factions in Damascus.213 Similarly, Grehan relates a few failed istisqā’ rituals in Damascus during the winter of 1662/1663. The ceremony was organized twice in the Umayyad Mosque with a procession towards the suburbs. There was no rain, and the popular humility and modesty were immediately questioned.214 An analysis into the form and the mechanics of the premodern Muslim thau­ maturgical ritual in the case of eighteenth-century Bilād al-Shām demonstrates that the ritual proceedings would remain the same in most cases, regardless of scale. Certain standard requirements needed to be honored, such as ritualistic purity induced through fasting and ablutions. The duʿa represented a common element in most rituals and was crucial due to its function of expressing the sup­ plicants’ needs in hopes of communicating them to the deity. The deceased saints’ intercession was often solicited in times of dire needs as well as for individual well-being. Throughout the premodern period, there existed the belief that the Sufi duʿas were particularly potent and efficacious. It was, therefore, that the prominent members of the Ottoman network of the holy often stood as imāms regardless if the prayer was public and counted as a state ceremony or more private and aimed at particular personal goals of the supplicant. The popular expectations that the Sufi-ʿulamā’ led particularly efficacious rituals indicates another angle through which their sociological role as a priestly sodality may be approached. While documenting their theological views, the ʿulamā’ throughout the centuries developed the distinction between thaumaturgy and magic based on their supposed origin. Because of their baraka, the Sufis, in their social environments, without repercussions, dabbled in some practices which theologians otherwise found ques­ tionable. On the other hand, practitioners of various magical rituals without institu­ tional training or support supposedly acted upon daemonic inspiration. In practice, however, it would seem that the proceedings of many magical and thaumaturgical rituals followed a similar form. Ottoman Sunnism strove to preserve its thaumaturgical elements during the spread of reformist thought in the later centuries. Syrian thaumaturgical traditions remained largely unchanged even long after the emergence of Islamic reforms. Reformist alterations to attitudes towards religion within the Ottoman ulamaic cir­ cles took root only gradually, over the course of the following centuries. Notes 1 Alexander D. Knysh, Sufism: A New History of Islamic Mysticism (Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2017), 1–14. 2 See Keith Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic: Studies in Popular Beliefs in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century England (London: Penguin, 1991), ix, 27–29. For

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a study of Christianity in India, see R. L. Stirrat, “Holy Men and Power,” in Power and Religiosity in a Post-Colonial Setting: Sinhala Catholics in Contemporary Sri Lanka (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 122–149. The medieval founder of the Shādhilīyya order. See, for instance, Ramzi Rouighi, The Making of the Mediterranean Emirate: Ifriqiya and its Andalusis, 1200–1400 (Philadel­ phia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011), 141–142. More examples subsequently. ʿAbd al-Ghanī al-Nābulsī, Nihāyat al-Murād fī Sharḥ Hadiyyat Ibn al-ʿImad [Ultimate Wish in the Interpretation of Ibn al-ʿImad’s Gift], ed. ʿAbd al-Razzāq al-Ḥalabī (Limas­ sol: Al-Jaffan & Al-Jabi, 1994), 57–124, and Ibn ʿĀbidīn, Radd, 2:464–465. “Majmūʿ min kul Fann yabḥath annahu Jawāhir al-Kalām min Shiʿr wa Mathal wa Fawā’id min kul Fāḍil wa Ākhir al-Kitāb Asmā’ wa Adʿiyāt min kul Shay’ (Henceforth: “MMKF”), MS Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Glaser 100, Berlin. 28B, 31A. Pagination is mine, due to unclear labeling of the folios. I consider the first page with text to be 1B. The three days and nights of fasting before venturing a ritual were common in scrip­ tural traditions. See Thomas, Decline, 49, 164, 255. Further see Ronald L. Eisenberg, Dictionary of Jewish Terms: A Guide to the Language of Judaism (Rockville: Schreiber Publishing, 2008), 130. The tradition was very old. See S. H. Mathews, “Fasting in Old Testament and Ancient Mediterranean World,” in Christian Fasting: Biblical and Evan­ gelical Perspectives (Lanham: Lexington Books, 2015), 25–52, Jonathan Harris, “The Passage of the First Crusade,” in Byzantium and the Crusades (London: Bloomsbury, 2003), 59–76, or Hermann Oldenberg, “Cult Observances,” in The Religion of the Veda, trans. Shridhar B. Shrotri (Delhi: Motilal Banrsidass Publishers, 1988), 224–231. “Majmūʿa” [A Collection of Thaumaturgical Rites] MS Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Hs. Or. 14283, Berlin, 17B. Knysh, Sufism, 15, or Lloyd D. Graham, “Qur’ānic Spelling: Disconnected Letter Series in Islamic Talismans,” (2011): 1–28. Available online at www.academia.edu/516626/ Qur_anic_Spell-ing_Disconnected_Letter_Series_in_Islamic_Talismans (Last accessed: February 24th 2023). Good illustrations are in Muṣṭafā Ibn Kamāl al-Dīn Ibn ‘Alī al-Bakrī al-Ṣiddīqī, “al-Manhal al- ʿAdhb al-Sā’igh li-Warrādihi fī Dhikr Ṣalwāt al-Ṭarīq wa Awrādihi,” MS Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Hs. or. 14153, Berlin, 1A–9B. Muḥammad Amīn Ibn ʿUmar Ibn ʿĀbidīn, Sall al-Ḥusām al-Hindī li-Naṣrat Mawlānā Khālid al-Naqshbandī, in Majmūʿat Rasā’il Muḥammad Ibn ʿĀbidīn (Henceforth: MR) (Istanbul: Dar-i Saʿādat, 1907), 2:14–26, 36–37, ʿAbd al-Ghanī al-Nābulsī, al-Fatḥ al-Rabānī wa al-Fayḍ al-Raḥmānī [The Lordly Revelation And the Flow of Mercy], ed. Muḥammad ʿAbd al-Qādir ʿAṭā (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 1980), 177–178. See Chapter 2. Further see Ibn ʿĀbidīn, MR, 2:14–18, 25–28, 36–37, 42–45, al-Nābulsī, Fatḥ, 177–178, ʿAbd al-Ghanī al-Nābulsī, al-Ḥadīqa al-Nadīyya: Sharḥ al-Ṭarīqa al-Muḥammadīyya (Miṣr: n.p., 1860), 2:390–392, Abū Zayd Ibn Khaldūn, alMuqaddima [Prolegomenon], ed. Jumaʿa Shaykha (Tunis: Al-Dār al-Tūnisīyya li-l-Nashr, 1984), 132–138, 628–630, 689. For comparative purposes, see Denise Aigle, “Charis­ mes et rôle social des saints dans l’hagiographie médiévale persane,” Bulletin d’études orientales 47 (1995): 15–36, or Eliza Marian Butler, The Myth of the Magus (London & New York: Cambridge University Press, 1979), 1–12. Ibn ʿĀbidīn, MR, 2:14–18. These beliefs were an old tradition. See Ibn Khaldūn, alMuqaddima, 134–143. For comparative purposes, see Butler, Magus, 1–12. Ibn ʿĀbidīn, MR, 2:14–37, al-Nābulsī, Ḥadīqa, 1:199–200. Yūsuf Ibn Ismāʿīl al-Nabhānī, Jāmiʿ Karamāt al-Awliyā’ (Henceforth: JK), ed. ʿAbd al-Wārith Muḥammad ʿAlī (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 2009), 1:19–21. Al-Nabhānī gives a lengthy list of wondrous powers at JK, 1:41–51. Ibn ʿĀbidīn, MR, 2:15–18. Also see (al-Sayyid Shaykh al-ʿUlamā’) Muḥammad Ibn Aḥmad al-Shāfi‘ī al-Shawbarī, “al-Ajwibah ‘an al-As’ila fī Karāmāt al-Awliyā’” (Henceforth “AA”), MS Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Sprenger 819, Berlin, 45A–48B,

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18 19 20

21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32

and Taufik Canaan, Mohammedan Saints and Sanctuaries in Palestine (London: Luzac & Co., 1927), 255. Ibn ʿĀbidīn, MR, 2:15, 32–37, Al-Nabhānī, JK, 1:13–14, 19–20. Also see Canaan, Saints, 255. Compare with Ibn Khaldūn, al-Muqaddimah, 132–157. See al-Nabhānī, JK, 1:21–23. Further see Ludwig W. Adamec, Historical Dictionary of Islam, Third Edition (New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 2017), 221. See, for instance, Ibn ʿĀbidīn, MR, 2:36–47, and al-Nābulsī, Ḥadīqa, 2:389–403. These beliefs persisted to the twentieth century. See al-Nabhānī, JK, 1:21–40, 51–56. This is comparable to the Christian premodern history. See Thomas, Decline, 69. Further see Michael Muhammad Knight, Magic in Islam (New York: Tarcher Perigee, 2016), 27–54, John D. Martin III, Theurgy in the Medieval Islamic World: Conceptions of Cosmology in al-Buni’s Doctrine of Divine Names (Cairo: The American University of Cairo, 2011), 3–5, Hassan Elboudrari, “De la magie en Islam: entre licéité et illicéité. Paradoxes et ambivalences,” Correspondances 49 (1998): 10–15, Mahmoud Haggag, “Magie im teologisch-rechtlichen Diskurs der arabisch-islamischen Gelehrsamkeit,” and Hans Daiber, “Magie und Kausalität im Islam,” in Die Geheimnisse der oberen und der unteren Welt: Magie im Islam zwischen Glaube und Wissenschaft, ed. Sebastian Günther and Dorothee Pielow (Leiden & Boston: Brill, 2018), 135–154, 155–168, and Koushki, “Magic”: 256–287. See Chapter 1. Ibn ʿĀbidīn, MR, 2:36–47, al-Nabhānī, JK, 1:21–40, 51–56. Ibn ʿĀbidīn, MR, 2:18, 28–31. The jinn were claimed to have inspired the pre-Islamic sorcerers or kuhhān (sg. kāhin/kāhina). See Ibn Khaldūn, al-Muqaddima, 142–143, or Edward William Lane, An Account of the Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyp­ tians: Written in Egypt During the Years 1833, 1834, and 1835, 2 volumes (London: Charles Knight & Co., 1836), 1:283–286. Further see Aziz Al-Azmeh, The Emergence of Islam in Late Antiquity: Allāh and his People (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 207. Ibn ʿĀbidīn, MR, 2:28, al-Nābulsī, Fatḥ, 136–137. Further see Ibn Khaldūn, alMuqaddima, 134–143, 151. Ibn ʿĀbidīn, MR, 2:15–18, 25–45, al-Nābulsī, Fatḥ, 136–137, al-Nābulsī, Ḥadīqa, 1:199–202. See for instance, Ibn Khaldūn, al-Muqaddima, 134–143. For the eighteenth-century context, see al-Nābulsī, Ḥadīqa, 1:199–202, 2:389–403. Belief in all kinds of preter­ natural powers persisted until the modern centuries. See al-Nabhānī, JK, 13–16. Ibn ʿĀbidīn, MR, 2:29. Further see al-Nābulsī, Ḥadīqa, 2:389–403. See Shihāb al-Dīn Aḥmad Ibn Budayr, “Ḥawādith Dimashq al-Shām Yawmīyya min Sanat 1154 ilā Sanat 1176” (Henceforth: “HDY”), MS Chester Beatty Library Ar 3551/2, Dublin, 36B. Witches were often freed or accused based on their neighbors’ testimonies. Many “poor old women” were released from trial if their cohabitants vouched for them. See Grehan, Twilight, 152, and Thomas, Decline, 310–312. Geomancy was considered magic. See Ibn ʿĀbidīn, MR, 2:15–18, 36–37, 42–45, and Ibn Khaldūn, al-Muqaddima, 141–165, 623–624, 630. Further see Chapter 2. Mikhā’il Burayk al-Dimashqī, Tārīkh al-Shām 1720–1782 (Henceforth: TS), ed. Qusṭanṭīn al-Bāshā al-Mukhalliṣī (Harissa: Matbaʿat al-Qadīs Būlūs, 1930), 14. Lane, Egyptians, 1:345–346. See Chapter 3 for stories of people manipulating the dae­ mons through talismans. See Ibn ʿĀbidīn, MR, 2:14–15, 25–28, 36–44. Thomas, Decline, 303. For the eighteenth century, see for instance Ibn ʿĀbidīn, MR, 2:15–18, 28, 36–47, or al-Nābulsī, Ḥadīqa, 2:389–403. Further see Ibn Khaldūn, al-Muqaddima, 141–165, 398–413, 623–630, 677–682, and Lane, Egyptians, 1:342–345. By now, occult sciences

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34

35 36 37

38 39 40 41 42 43

represent a vast field within the subject of Islamic studies that, unfortunately, cannot be treated comprehensively within the confines of this volume. See, for instance, Azfar Moin, The Millennial Sovereign: Sacred Kingship and Saint­ hood in Islam (New York: Columbia University Press, 2012), 66, 113–121. Further see Liana Saif, “Between Medicine and Magic: Spiritual Aetiology and Therapeutics in Medieval Islam,” in Demons and Illness from Antiquity to the Early Modern Period, ed. Siam Bhayro (Leiden & Boston: Brill, 2017), 315–319. Astrology and its entanglement into the common and political affairs of Muslim polities represent large subjects that sadly cannot be treated here due to issues of space. Rachida Chih, Sufism in Ottoman Egypt: Circulation, Renewal and Authority in the Sev­ enteenth and Eighteenth Century (London & New York: Routledge, 2019), 64–65, 68. For broader contexts, see Kelly Bulkeley, Visions of the Night: Dreams, Religion and Psychology (New York: State University of New York Press, 1999), 1–30, Kelly Bulke­ ley, The Wilderness of Dreams: Exploring the Religious Meaning of Dreams in Modern Western Culture (New York: State University of New York Press, 1994), 81–204, or Iain R. Edgar, “A Comparison of Islamic and Western Psychological Dream Theories,” in Dreaming in Christianity and Islam: Culture, Conflict, and Creativity, ed. Kelly Bulke­ ley, Kate Adams and Patricia M. Davis (New Brunswick: Rudgers University Press, 2009), 188–199. For the Muslim context, see John C. Lamoreaux, The Early Muslim Tradition of Dream Interpretation (New York: State University of New York Press, 2002), 1–14, or Kelly Bulkeley, “Islam,” in Dreaming in the World’s Religions: A Com­ parative History (New York & London: New York University Press, 2008), 192–212. For other regions, see other chapters in ibid., or M. C. Jȩdrej and Rosalind Shaw, eds., “Intro­ duction: Dreaming, Religion and Society in Africa,” in Dreaming, Religion and Society in Africa (Leiden & New York: 1992), 1–20. Further see Thomas, Decline, 152–153. Omens had much significance in eighteenth-century Syria. See James Grehan, Twilight of the Saints: Everyday Religion in Ottoman Syria and Palestine (Oxford: Oxford Uni­ versity Press, 2014), 140. Çığdem Kafescıoğlu, “In the Image of Rūm: Ottoman Architectural Patronage in Sixteenth-Century Aleppo and Damascus,” Muqarnas 16 (1999): 74. Ibn Ābidīn, ֫ MR, 2:22–25. Also see Muḥammad Khalīl al-Murādī, Silk al-Durar fī Aʿyan al-Qarn al-Thānī ʿAshar [A String of Pearls among the Notables of the Eighteenth Cen­ tury], ed. Akram Ḥassan al-ʿUlabī. 4 volumes (Beirut: Dār Ṣādir, 2002), 2:62. Further see Hüseyin Yılmaz, Caliphate Redefined: The Mystical Turn in Ottoman Political Thought (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2018), 115–120, 239–240. Burayk, TS, 74, Dana Sajdi, The Barber of Damascus: Nouveau Literacy in the Eighteenth-Century Ottoman Levant (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2013), 79. This was an important early modern saint in Aleppo, See Heghnar Zeitlian Watenpaugh, The Image of an Ottoman City: Imperial Architecture and Urban Experience in Aleppo in the 16th and 17th Centuries (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2004), 139–143. Shihāb al-Dīn Aḥmad Ibn Budayr, “Ḥawādith Dimashq al-Shām Yawmīyya min Sanat 1154 ilā Sanat 1176” (Henceforth: “HDY”), MS Chester Beatty Library Ar 3551/2, Dublin, 24B–25A. See Jonathan Katz, Dreams, Sufism and Sainthood: The Visionary Career of Muham­ mad al-Zawawi (Leiden, New York and Koeln: Brill, 1996). See, for instance, Lamoreaux, Dream Interpretation, 1–44. See Sajdi, The Barber, 131. Oneirocritical literature was produced in many different cultures. See, for instance, Steven M. Oberhelman, “Dreams in Greek Thought before Achmet,” in The Oneirocriticon of Achmet: A Medieval Greek and Arabic Treatise on the Interpretation of Dreams (Lubbock: Texas University Press, 1991), 23–64, Hans Jürgen Bachorski, “Interpreting Dreams in Medieval Literature,” in Dreams and His­ tory: The Interpretation of Dreams from Ancient Greece to Modern Psychoanalysis, ed. Daniel Pick and Lyndal Roper (London & New York: Routledge, 2004), 57–90,

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Ann Marie Plane and Leslie Tuttle, eds., “Introduction: The Literatures of Dreaming,” in Dreams, Dreamers and Visions: The Early Modern Atlantic World (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013), 1–32, and Ann Marie Plane, “Lived Religion and Embedded Emotion in Midcentury Dream Reporting,” in Dreams and the Invis­ ible World in Colonial New England: Indians, Colonists, and the Seventeenth Century (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014), 104–126. See ʿAbd al-Ghanī al-Nābulsī, Taʿṭīr al-Anām fi Tafsīr al-Aḥlām [The Scent of Sleep with Interpretation of Dreams] (Beirut: Dār al-Fikr, n.d.). In the early modern period, dream interpretation represented the focus on many Ottoman authors everywhere around the Empire. Bašeskija’s Sarajevo chronicle contains a section about dreams. See Mula Mustafa Ševki Bašeskija, Ljetopis 1746–1804, ed. & trans. Mehmed Mujezinović (Sarajevo: Sarajevo Publishing, 1997) 407–417. Theories of bodily humours partially represented the foundation of many medical as well as esoteric schools of thought in the Eurasian region and wider. For the Muslims, see Emilie Savage-Smith, “Were the Four Humours Fundamental to Medieval Islamic Medical Practice?” in The Body in Balance: Humoral Medicines in Practice, ed. Per­ egrine Horden and Elisabeth Hsu (Oxford: Berghan Books, 2013), 89–106, or Özgen Felek, “Epilepsy as ‘Contagious’ Disease in the Late Medieval and Early Modern Otto­ man World,” in Plague and Contagion in the Islamic Mediterranean: New Histories of Disease in Ottoman Society, ed. Nükhet Varlik (Kalamazoo: ARC Humanities, 2017), 158. For a wider, and much older context, see Virginia Langum, “Medicine, Sin and Language,” in Medicine and the Seven Deadly Sins in Late Medieval Literature and Culture (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), 29–82, Thomas F. Glick, Steven Livesey and Faith Wallis, eds., Medieval Science, Technology, and Medicine: An Encyclopedia (New York & London: Routledge, 2005), 337–339, Danielle Jacquart, “Moses, Galen and Jacques Despars: Religious Orthodoxy as a Path to Unorthodox Medical Views,” and Peregrine Horden, “Religion as Medicine: Music in Medieval Hospitals,” in Reli­ gion and Medicine in the Middle Ages, ed. Peter Biller and Joseph Ziegler (Suffolk: York Medieval Press, 2001), 33–46, 135–154, C.J. Duffin, “Lithotherapeutical research sources from antiquity to the mid-eighteenth century,” and “The gem electuary,” in A History of Geology and Medicine, ed. C.J. Duffin, R.T.J. Moody and C. GardnerThorpe (London: The Geological Society, 2013), 7–44, 81–112, Laura Linker, Lucretian Thought in Late Stuart England: Debates about the Nature of the Soul (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), 1–12, or Simone Macdougall, “Health, diet, medicine and the plague,” in An Illustrated History of Late Medieval England, ed. Chris Given-Wilson (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1996), 82–102. The vastness of this topic does not allow proper treatment within this volume. Ibn Khaldūn, al-Muqaddima, 143–154, 597–601. Ibid., 146–147. Ibn Khaldūn, The Muqaddimah: An Introduction to History, 3 volumes, trans. Franz Rosenthal (London: Routledge, 1958), 1:213. At the present times, these words may be found in several fantasy novels where they have the same purpose. Graham, “Spelling,” 1–28. Further see Venetia Porter, “The use of Arabic script in magic,” Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies, 40 (2010): 131–140. Also see Edmond Doutté, Magie & Religion dans l’Afrique du Nord (Algiers: Typographie Adolphe Jourdan, 1909), 170–179, Pierre Lory, La science des lettres en Islam (Paris: Dervy, 2004), Fatih Usluer, “Les Themes Bibliques Dans le Houroufisme,” Ишрак/ Ishraq, II (2011): 426–443, Noah Gardiner, “Forbidden Knowledge? Notes on the Pro­ duction, Transmission, and Reception of the Major Works of Aḥmad al-Būnī,” Jour­ nal of Arabic and Islamic Studies 12 (2012): 81–143, Matthew Melvin-Koushki, “The Occult Challenge to Philosophy and Messianism in the Early Timurid Iran: Ibn Turka’s Lettrism as a New Metaphysics,” in Unity in Diversity: Mysticism, Messianism and the Construction of Religious Authority in Islam, ed. Orkhan Mir-Kasimov (Leiden &

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53 54 55 56 57 58 59

60 61

62

Boston: Brill, 2014), 247–276, or Knight, Magic, 55–78, Eric Geoffroy, Introduction to Sufism: The Inner Path of Islam, trans. Roger Gaetani (Bloomington: World Wisdom, 2010), 21–22, Knysh, Sufism, 56. Further see Ibn Khaldūn, al-Muqaddima, 631–641. “Majmūʿ min kul Fann yabḥath annahu Jawāhir al-Kalām min Shiʿr wa Mathal wa Fawā’id min kul Fāḍil wa Ākhir al-Kitāb Asmā’ wa Adʿiyāt min kul Shay’ (Henceforth: “MMKF,”), MS Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Glaser 100, Berlin, 65B. Ibid. Such categories symbolize purity and innocense, which represented crucial elements in many religious rituals in various regions of the world. For instance, Moshe Blidstein, Purity, Community, and Ritual in Early Christian Literature (Oxford: Oxford Univer­ sity Press, 2017), 3–106, John D. Caputo, “Insistence and Hospitality: Mary and Martha in a Postmodern World,” in The Insistence of God: A Theology of Perhaps (Blooming­ ton: Indiana University Press, 2013), 39–58. For Africa, see David Chidester, “Purity,” in Wild Religion: Tracking the Sacred in South Africa (Berkeley: University of Califor­ nia Press, 2012), 132–151. For a wide variety of pre-monotheistic contexts, consult the chapters in Christian Frevel and Christophe Nihan, eds., Purity and the Forming of Reli­ gious Traditions in the Ancient Mediterranean World and Ancient Judaism (Leiden & Boston: Brill, 2013). The words are as follows: “fa-kashafnā ʿanka ghiṭāʾaka fa-baṣaruka al-yawma ḥadīdun.” See Lane, Egyptians, 1:349. Lane errouneously places this verse as Q50:21. Lane, Egyptians, 1:349–357. “MMKF,” 148A. Lane, Egyptians, 1:348. Time remained significant for ritual efficacy in the later centuries as well. See Lane, Egyptians, 1:339–340. For instance, “MMKF,” 69A–B. Shihāb al-Dīn al-Shuhrī al-Ḍamīrī, “Risāla fī al-Kīmīyā’,” [Writings on Alchemy] MS Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Hs. or. 14418, Berlin, 24A–26B. This manuscript was copied in 1769. A number of other texts seem to have been added into the same binding, jointly entitled “֫Idat Rasā’il al-Mukhtalifa” [Various Treatises]. For instance, “MMKF,” 31A. See Ibn Khaldūn, al-Muqaddima, 141–165, 398–413, 623–630, 677–682, Lane, Egyptians, 1:341–342, Saif, “Medicine and Magic,” 313–319, Aziz Al-Azmeh, Ara­ bic Thought and Islamic Societies (Abingdon: Routledge, 2013), 72–75, or Matthew Melvin-Koushki, “Magic in Islam between Religion and Science,” Magic, Ritual and Witchcraft, 14, No. 2 (2019): 255–287. Also see Annick Regourd, “Astres et Astrolo­ gie chez Ibn al-Qalānisī,” Bulletin d’études orientales 44 (1992): 69–77, Zeina Matar, “The Chapter on Death Prediction (Qaṭ/Qu ֫ ṭū֫) from the Kitāb Faraj al-Mahmūm by Ibn Ṭāwūs,” Bulletin d’études orientales 44 (1992): 119–125, M. Kubilay Akman and Donna M. Brown, “Ahmad al-Buni and His Esoteric Model,” The Esoteric Quar­ terly 13/4 (Spring 2018): 51–75, and Daniel Martin Varisco, “Illuminating the Lunar Mansions (manāzil al-qamar) in Šams al-maʿārif,” Arabica 64 (2017): 487–530. For comparative perspectives, see Thomas, Decline, 425–426, 755–756, Tim Hegedus, “Astrology as the Work of Demons,” in Early Christianity and Ancient Astrology (New York: Peter Lang, 2007), 125–138, Dorian Gieseler Greenbaum, “Porphyry of Tyre on the Daimon, Birth and the Stars,” in Neoplatonic Demons and Angels, ed. Luc Brisson, Seamus O’Neill and Andrei Timotin (Leiden & Boston: Brill, 2018), 102–139, Dorian Gieseler Greenbaum, The Daimon in Hellenistic Astrology: Origins and Influence (Bos­ ton: Brill, 2016), 1–11, or Theodore Otto Wedel, Astrology in the Middle Ages (New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 2005), 60–75. Franz Cumont, Astrology and Religion Among the Greeks and Romans (New York: Cosimo, 2006) 3–56, Edward Grant, “The Mystery Religions and Astrology,” in Science and Religion 400BC-AD1550 (Baltimore: The John Hopkins University

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64 65

66

67 68

69 70 71

72 73

74 75

Press, 2004), 97–101, William Eamon, “Astrology and Society,” Steven Vanden Broecke, “Astrology and Politics,” and Brendan Dooley, “Astrology and Science,” in A Companion to Astrology in the Rennaissance, ed. Brendan Dooley (Leiden & Boston: Brill, 2014), 141–192, 193–232, 233–266. Chapters in Nicholas Campion, ed., Astrology and Cosmology in the World’s Religions (New York & London: New York University Press, 2012), study the history of astrology and its significance for religion in various parts of the globe, while Nicholas Campion, Astrology and popu­ lar Religion in the Modern West: Prophecy, Cosmology, and the New Age Movement (London & New York: Routledge, 2012), gives insight into the status of this practice today. “Risāla fī al-Raml,” [Letters in Sand], MS Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Hs. or. 14419, 44A. The text was copied during the eighteenth/nineteenth centuries. The pages are not numbered. I am marking the first folio as 1AB. Henceforth: “RFR.” Further see Al-Azmeh, Arabic Thought, 69–80. Azfar Moin comprehensively presents this web of interconnected elements in his Moin, Sovereign, 66, 113–121. The device is best described in Ibn Khaldūn, al-Muqaddima, 642–656. An illustration is available in Ibn Khaldūn, Muqaddimah, 3: 204–205. The author claims he tried it to his satisfaction. The way the device operated was investigated thoroughly in David Link, “Scrambling T-R-U-T-H: Rotating Letters as a Material Form of Thought,” in Variantol­ ogy 4: On Deep Time Relations of Arts, Sciences and Technologies in the Arabic-Islamic World and Beyond, eds. Siegfried Zielinski, Eckhard Fürlus and Gloria Custance (Köln: König, 2010), 215–266. See Mark D. Johnston, The Evangelical Rhetoric of Ramon Llull: Lay Learning & Piety in the Christian West Around 1300 (New York & Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), 1–35, Mark D. Johnston, “Ramon Llull, ca. 1232–1316,” and Gregory Stone, “Ramon Llull and Islam,” in A Companion to Ramon Llull and Llullism, ed. Amy M. Austin and Mark D. Johnston (Leiden & Boston: Brill, 2018), 3–17, 119–145, or Dominique Urvoy, “La place de Ramon Llull dans la pensée árabe,” Catalan Review 4 (1990): 201–220 Lane, Egypt, 1:336–338. “Dua,” In The Oxford Dictionary of Islam, ed. John L. Esposito. Oxford Islamic Studies Online, www.oxfordislamicstudies.com/article/opr/t125/e561 (Last accessed: Febru­ ary 24th 2023), L. Gardet, “Duʿāʾ,” in Bearman, et. al., Encyclopaedia of Islam II. http:// dx.doi.org/10.1163/1573-3912_islam_COM_0195 (Last Accesed: February 24th 2023), or Jenny Berglund, “What Takes Place in the Quran Class?” in Religion, Spirituality and Identity, ed. Kirsi Tirri (Bern & Berlin: Peter Lang, 2006), 207–208. “Majmūʿa” [A Collection of Thaumaturgical Rites], MS Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Hs. Or. 14283, Berlin, 2A–3A. See Guy Burak, “Prayers, Commentaries, and the Edification of the Ottoman Suppli­ cant,” in Sunni Islam, ed. Krstić and Terzioğlu, 232–253. “MMKF,” 31AB. Aḥmad al-Būnī was a highly influential medieval Sufi. He is best known for his texts about talismanics and hurufism. He authored the famous Shams al-Ma ʿārif. See Nicole B. Hansen, “Ancient Execration Magic in Coptic and Islamic Egypt,” in Magic and Ritual in the Ancient World, ed. Paul Mirecki and Marvin Meyer (Leiden & Boston: Brill, 2002), 428–432. “Majmūʿa,” 16B. Compare “Majmūʿa,” 16B with the recitation at www.youtube.com/watch?v=3U-0cr lL9EA&t=67s (Last accessed: February 24th 2023). Note the tabarruk motion that extends throughout the reading and the accentuated intonation of disconnected letters. Ibid., 16B–17B. See Graham, “Spelling,” 1–28. See Thomas, Decline, 211.

210 Artes Magicae 76 “MMKF,” 33B, 119B. 77 Production of the manuals containing these duʿas was parallel to the production of man­ uals for prayers and litanies aimed at identical effects in Western Europe. See Thomas, Decline, 131–141. 78 “RFR,” 20B–21A. Further see, “Majmūʿa,” 2A–3A, 5A–8B, 14A–17B, 25B, 45A–46A, 47A–48A. 79 This text is still shared across social platforms. 80 “Majmūʿa,” 12A. 81 Ibid., 25B. 82 These beliefs persisted until the modern period. For instance, al-Nabhānī, JK, 1:42. 83 See Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn al-Munajjid, Muʿajam al-Mu’arikhīn al-Dimashqiīn wa ‘Āthāruhum al-Makhṭūṭa wa al-Maṭbūʿa [The Dictionary of Damascene Historians and their Manu­ scripts and Printed works] (Beirut: Dār al-Kitāb al-Jadīd, 1978), 334. His grave was an important ziyāra location in Damascus. 84 al-Murādī, Silk, 1:228–234. 85 Thomas, Decline, 45–69. 86 Repetition represents a universally important element in many religions. See, for instance, Thomas, Decline, 211, Jonathan Z. Smith, Imagining Religion: From Baby­ lon to Jonestown (Chicago & London: University of Chicago Press, 1982), 54, Robert Wuthnow, What Happens when we Practice Religion? (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2020), 43, 159, Robert N. McCauley, “Putting Religious Ritual in its Place: On Some Ways Humans’ Cognitive Predilections Influence the Locations and Shapes of Religious Rituals,” in Locating the Sacred: Theoretical Approaches to the Emplace­ ment of Religion, ed. Claudia Moser and Cecelia Feldman (Oxford & Oakville: Oxbow Books, 2014), 144–164, John F. Schumaker, The Corruption of Reality: A Unified Theory of Religion, Hypnosis, and Psychopathology (Amherst: Prometheus Books, 1995), 141–143, Robert Yelle, Semiotics of Religion: Signs of the Sacred in History (London: Bloomsbury, 2013), 50–53, or Whitehouse, Modes, 8, 66. On the development of beliefs in ritual efficacy and repetition, see Pascal Boyer, Religion Explained: The Human Instincts that Fashion Gods, Spirits and Ancestors (New York: Vintage Books, 2002), 3–50. Further on making conclusions about ritual efficacy and the way through which new rituals are developed and retained in Max Weber, The Sociology of Religion. In Economy and Society 1 (Boston: Beacon Press, 1993), 1, Randall Styers, Making Magic: Religion, Magic and Science in the Modern World (Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 7–12, and James E. Alcock, “Propensity to Believe,” Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 775 (1995): 64–78. 87 “MMKF,” 33B, 119B. 88 Ṣalā ʿalā al-Nabī. In Islam, this is a formal phrase commonly recited after speaking out names of the prophets. It is commonly translated as “Peace be upon him” (Ar. ṣallā allah ʿalayhi wa sallama). 89 Ibn Budayr, “HDY,” 43A. 90 For instance, “MMKF,” 27A–28B, 119AB, or “Majmūʿa,” 45A–46A, yet both of these works, like many such volumes, committed hundreds of pages to invocations that were supposed to be spoken in various instances. 91 See Christopher Schurman Taylor, In the Vicinity of the Righteous: Ziyāra and the Ven­ eration of Muslim Saints (Leiden and Boston, Brill, 1998), 130. A mosque was erected there in 1990. 92 See Thomas, Decline, 28–31. 93 Canaan, Saints, 91–96. 94 See Chapter 3. 95 Canaan, Saints, 86–88. 96 Among many other instances, see ʿAbd al-Ghanī al-Nābulsī, al-Ḥaqīqa wa al-Majāz fī Riḥlat Bilād al-Shām wa Miṣr wa al-Ḥijāz [The Metaphor and the Truth on the Road

Artes Magicae 211

97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105

106

107

through Syria, Egypt and Hijaz], ed. Riyād ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd Murād (Damascus: Dār al-Mu ʿarafa, 1989), 45, 86, 88, 100, 103. Further see Abd al-Ghanī al-Nābulsī, Ḥullat al-Dhahab al-Ibrīz fī Riḥlat Baʿlbak wa al-Biqāʿ al-ʿAzīz [Splendid Golden Attire in the Journey to Dear Baalbek and Bekaa], in Riḥlatān ilā Lubnān [Two Journeys to Lebanon], ed. Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn al-Munajjid and Stefan Wild (Beirut: Franz Steiner, 1979), 87, 88, 106, 117. The function of the sūra was comparable to the purpose of reciting talbiya when entering a pre-Islamic shrine. See al-Azmeh, Emergence, 227–228. The usual phrasing would be, “for his [the saint’s] soul, recite al-Fātiḥa.” See Canaan, Saints, 21. Ibid., 86–88. Al-Nābulsī, Lubnān, 106; and Ḥullat, 106. “MMKF,” 140B–142A, suggests some supplications suitable for the gravesites. Marʿī ibn Yūsuf al-Karmī al-Ḥanbalī, Shifā’ al-Ṣudūr fī Ziyārat al-Mashāhid wa al­ Qubūr (Henceforth: ShS), ed. As ʿad Muḥammad al-Ṭayyib (Mecca: Maktabat Narrār Muṣṭafā al-Bāz, 1998), 37–44, and al-Nābulsī, “Kashf,” 162A–174A. Canaan, Saints, 99. For concrete examples of this brief procedure, see for instance, Al-Nābulsī, Ḥaqīqa, 45, 88, 138, but across the whole travelogue as well. Ibid., 138. Muṣṭafā Ibn Kamāl al-Dīn al-Bakrī al-Ṣiddīqī, “al-Khamra al-Ḥisiyya fī al-Riḥla al­ Qudsīyya,” Henceforth: “KhH,” MS Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Ms. or. quart. 460, Berlin, 9A. Muḥammad Ibn ʿĪsā Ibn Kannān, “al-Murūj al-Sundusīyya fī Talkhīṣ Tārīkh al­ Ṣāliḥīya,” [The Vast Gardens of the Brief Summary of the History of al-Ṣāliḥīyya], MS Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Wetzstein II 1117, p. 1, Berlin, 4A-12B, al-Ḥanafī, “KFS,” 83B–111B, Maḥmūd al-ʿAdawī, Kitāb al-Ziyārāt bi Dimashq, ed. Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn al-Munajjid (Damascus: Maṭbū ʿāt al-Majmaʿ al-ʿIlmī al-ʿArabī, 1956), 9–103, Aḥmad Ibn ʿAlī Ibn ʿUmar Ibn Ṣāliḥ al-Manīnī, al-Iʿalām bi-Faḍā’il al-Shām [Highlights among the Virtues of Shām], ed. Aḥmad Sāmiḥ al-Khālidī (Jerusalem: Al-Maṭbaʿa al-ʿAṣrīyya, n.d.), 71–141, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Ibn Ibrāhīm Ibn ʿAbd al-Razzāq, Ḥadā’iq al-Anʿām fī Faḍā’il al-Shām [Blissful Gardens of the Damascene Curiosities] ed. Yūsuf Budaywī (Kuwait: Dār al-Ḍiyyā’ li-l-Ṭibāʿa wa al-Nashr wa Al-Tawzīʿ, 1989), 126–181, Muḥammad ʿIzz al-Dīn ʿArabī al-Ṣayyādī Kātibī al-Rifāʿī al-Shāfiʿī, al­ Rawḍa al-Bahīyya fī Faḍā’il Dimashq al-Muḥammīyya [Gorgeous Garden of the Curi­ osities of Sacred Damascus] (Damascus: Dār al-Maqtabas, 1911), 61–101, al-Nābulsī, Ḥaqīqa, 45–96. Al-Bakrī, “MA,” 5B. Further see Zain-ud-Din Ahmad bin Abdul-Lateef Az-Zubaidi, The Translation of the Meanings of Summarized Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhāri, Arabic-English, trans. Muḥammad Muḥsin Khān (Riyadh: Maktabat Dār al-Salām, 1996), 300–301. Also see Muhammad Imran, Salat-ul-tahajjud (Chicago: Kazi Publications, 185), 50– 51. Night vigils are ubiquitous in religions. See, for instance, Moshe Weinfeld, “The Decalogue: Its Significance, Uniqueness, and Place in Israel’s Tradition,” in Religion and Law: Biblical-Judaic and Islamic Perspectives, ed. Edwin B. Firmage, Bernard G. Weiss and John W. Welch (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1990), 42–43, Núria Montser­ rat Farré-i Barril, “Sleep Deprivation: Asceticism, Religious Experience and Neuro­ logical Quandaries,” in Religion and the Body: Modern Science and the Construction of Religious Meaning, ed. David Cave and Rebecca Sachs Norris (Leiden & Boston: Brill, 2012), 217–234, or Yitzhak Hen, Culture and Religion in Merovingian Gaul: A.D. 481–751 (Leiden & New York: Brill, 1995), 85. Finally, see Thomas, Decline, 151, for nocturnal vigils in shrines of Catholic saints. See Bulkeley, Dreaming, 138–139, John Spencer Trimingham, Islam in West Africa (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1959), 122–123, and F.E. Peters, The Hajj: The Muslim Pilgrimage to Holy Places (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), 15–16.

212 Artes Magicae

108 109 110 111 112

113 114

115 116 117

118 119 120 121 122 123

Further see Gil Renberg, “General Introduction,” in Where Dreams May Come: Incu­ bation Sanctuaries in the Greco-Roman World (Leiden & Boston: Brill, 2016), 3–35, Peter Kingsley, In the Dark Places of Wisdom (Inverness: Golden Sufi Center, 1999), 80–105, Kimberley C. Patton, “A Great and Strange Correction: Intentionality, Local­ ity, and Epiphany in the Category of Dream Incubation,” History of Religions 43/3 (February 2004): 194–223, and Gary B. Frengren, Medicine & Religion: A Historical Introduction (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014), 55–70, 118. Also see Koowon Kim, “Introduction,” in Incubation as a Type-Scene in the ‘Aqhatu, Kirta, and Hannah Stories: A Form-Critical and Narratological Study of KTU 1.14 I-1.15 III, 1.17 I-II, and 1 Samuel 1:1–2:11 (Leiden & Boston: Brill, 2011), 1–26. For instance, al-Murādī, Silk, 1:228–234, or al-Bakrī, “KhH,” 5A–20A. Al-Nābulsī, Ḥullat, 116–120. Al-Nābulsī, Ḥaqīqa, 162. J. G. Frazer, The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion (London: Macmillan Press, 1983), 14–16. Çiğdem Kafescioğlu, Constantinopolis/Istanbul: Cultural Encounter, Imperial Vision, and the Construction of the Ottoman Capital (Pennsylvania: The Pennsylva­ nia State University Press, 2009), 20. J. Gordon Melton, “Topkapi Palace,” in Ency­ clopedia of Religious Phenomena (Detroit: Visible Ink Press, 2008), 337–338, and Chih, Sufism, 78. Al-Nābulsī, Ḥaqīqa, 163. Brannon M. Wheeler, Mecca and Eden: Ritual, Relics, and Territory in Islam (Chi­ cago & London: University of Chicago Press, 2006), 70–100, and Thomas, Decline, 34, 50–51. Further see Swanson, Religion and Devotion in Europe c.1215-c.1515 (Cam­ bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 158–165, Daniel Rock, Hierurgia or Tran­ substantiation, Invocation of Saints, Relics, and Purgatory (London: C. Dolman, 1851), 259–287, Ian G. Williams, “Relics and Baraka: Devotion to the Prophet Muhammad among Sufis in Nottingham, UK,” in Reading Religion in Text and Context: Reflections of Faith and Practice in Religious Materials, ed. Elisabeth Arweck and Peter Collins (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006), 65–82, George C. Coulton, “Relics,” in Five Centuries of Religion vol. III: Getting & Spending (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1936), 87–108, Cynthia Hahn, Passion Relics and the Medieval Imagination: Art, Architec­ ture and Society (Oakland: University of California Press, 2020), 63–100, or James B. Tschen-Emmons, “Religion,” in Artifacts from Medieval Europe (Greenwood: ABCClio, 2015), 203–246. Further see Kevin Trainor, “Buddhist relic veneration in India,” in Relics, Ritual and Representation in Buddhism: Rematerializing the Sri Lankan Thera­ vada Tradition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 32–65. Al-Bakrī, “KhH,” 11A. Chester Carlton McCown, “Muslim Shrines in Palestine,” The Annual of the American School of Oriental Research in Jerusalem, 2/3 (1921/1922), 63. Taylor, Righteous, 62–79. Also Donald Swenson, Society, Spirituality, and the Sacred: A Social Scientific Introduction (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009), 178– 179. See also John Spencer Trimingham, The Sufi Orders in Islam (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971), 26. This Achilles-like myth is read by Elizabeth Sirriyeh, “’Ziyārāt’ of Syria in a ‘Riḥla’ of ‘Abd al-Ghanī al-Nābulusī (1050/1641–1143/1731),” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland 2 (1979): 112. For instance, Daniella Talmon-Heller, Islamic Piety in Medieval Syria: Mosques, Cem­ eteries and Sermons under the Zangids and Ayyūbids (1146–1260) (Leiden & Boston: Brill, 2007), 151–163, 223–224. Lane, Egyptians, 1:330–331.

Canaan, Saints, 99–118.

Ibid., 105–118.

Ibid., 28.

Artes Magicae 213 124 125 126 127

128 129

130 131 132 133 134 135 136

137 138 139 140 141

Al-Bakrī, “KhH,” 13A. Grehan, Twilight, 132, and Canaan, Saints, 99. Lane, Egyptians, 1:330. Aziz Al-Azmeh, The Times of History: Universal Topics in Islamic Historiography (Budapest & New York: Central European University Press, 2007), 107, Ingrid Mattson, The Story of the Qur’an: Its History and Place in Muslim Life (Oxford: WileyBlackwell, 2008), 148, William Albert Graham, Islamic and Comparative Religious Studies: Selected Writings (Farnham: Ashgate, 2010), 193–298, Venetia Porter, “Talis­ mans and Talismanic Objects,” in Medieval Islamic Civilization: An Encyclopedia, vol. 1, ed. Joseph W. Meri (New York & London: Routledge, 2006), 794–795, Daniel W. Brown, Introduction to Islam (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009), 78, Gilbert Delanoue and Jacques Jomier, “Les Musulmans,” in L’Egypte d’aujourd’hui: permanence et changements, 1805–1976 (Paris: Editions du Centre national de la recherche scienti­ fique, 1977), 27–67, or Jacques Jomier, “La place du Coran dans la vie quotidienne en Égypte,” l’Institut des belles-lettres arabes 15 (1952): 131–165. This is comparable to the Christian approach to the Bible. See Eyal Poleg, “The Bible as Talisman: Textus and Oath-books,” in Approaching the Bible in Medieval England (Manchester: Man­ chester University Press, 2013), 59–107. Comparative cases can be found elsewhere as well. See Paul Copp, “Scripture, Relic, Talisman, Spell,” in The Body Incantatory: Spells and the Ritual Imagination in Medieval Chinese Buddhism (New York: Colum­ bia University Press, 2014), 29–58. See chapter 3. Lane, Egyptians, 1:318, 328, Grehan, Twilight, 149–155. See Qur’ān, 9:14, 10:57, 16:69, 17:82, 26:80, and 41:44. Further see, for instance, Gerda Sengers, Women and Demons: Cultic Healing in Islamic Egypt (Leiden & Boston: Brill, 2003), 44. The curative properties of these verses are still believed in. Further see Lane, Egyptians, 1:328. “Majmūʿa,” 13A. This was frequently done in the early modern and modern periods. See Lane, Egyptians, 1:318, 328. Canaan, Saints, 105–118. Henry Maundrell, A Journey from Aleppo to Jerusalim at Easter A.D. 1697 (Oxford: Theater, 1703), 89–90. See also Grehan, Twilight, 129. Sera L. Young, Craving Earth: Understanding Pica, The Urge to eat Clay, Starch, Ice and Chalk (New York: Columbia University Press, 2012), 47. Canaan, Saints, 105–118. Young, Craving Earth, 47. Emile Durkheim, The Elementary Forms of Religious Life, trans. Karen E. Fields (New York: Free Press, 1995), 212–215. See also Rudolf Otto, The Idea of the Holy: An Inquiry Into the Non-rational Factor In the Idea of the Divine and its Relation to the Rational (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1968), 71–77. Maundrell, Journey, 95–96. Louis Massignon, Documents sur Certains Waqfs des Lieux Saints de l’Islam (Paris: Librarie Orientaliste Paul Geuthner, 1952), 82–87, and Canaan, Saints, 114. n.2. Canaan, Saints, 114. Canaan adds that the whole Qur’ān used to be recited by a number of readers in shifts. Ibid., 105–118. See Ibn Khaldūn, al-Muqaddima, 623–630, and Thomas, Decline, 33–35. Further see Knysh, Sufism, 54, Knight, Magic, 69–70, al-Azmeh, Times, 223, Graham, Writings, 187, 212, Sir Ernest Alfred Wallis Budge, “Arab and Persian Amulets and Talismans,” in Amulets and Superstitions (New York: Dover Publications, 1978), 33–81, C. Bur­ nett, “Talismans: Magic as science? Necromancy among the Seven Liberal Arts,” in Magic and Divination in the Middle Ages: Texts and Techniques in the Islamic and Christian Worlds (Aldershot: Variorum, 1996), 1–15, W.E. Staples, “Muhammad, a Talismanic Force,” The American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures, 57, No. 1 (January, 1940): 63–70, Taufik Canaan, “The Decipherment of Arabic

214 Artes Magicae

142 143 144 145 146 147

148 149 150

151

152

Talismans,” Berytus Archaeological Studies 4 (1937): 69–110, and 5 (1938): 141–51, Emilio Spadola, “Summoning in Secret: Mute Letters and Veiled Writing,” in The Calls of Islam: Sufis, Islamists and Mass Mediation in Urban Morocco (Blooming­ ton: Indiana University Press, 2014), 64–80, Travis Zadeh, “An Ingestible Scripture: Qur’ānic Erasure and the Limits of “Popular“Religion,” Kevin Bond, “Buddhism on the Battlefield: The Cult of the “Substitute Body“Talisman in Imperial Japan (1890– 1945),” and Justin McDaniel, “The Material Turn: An Introduction to Thai Sources for the Study of Buddhist Amulets,” in Material Culture and Asian Religions: Text, Image, Object, ed. Benjamin J. Fleming and Richard D. Mann (New York & London: Routledge, 2014), 97–119, 120–134, 135–150, Michael Levi Rodkinson, History of Amulets, Charms and Talismans: A Historical Investigation into their Nature and Ori­ gin (New York: New Talmud Pub. Co., 1893), 4–93, or Alison Marshall, “Shamanism in Contemporary Taiwan,” in Chinese Religions in Contemporary Societies, ed. James Miller (Santa Barbara: ABC-Clio, 2006), 123–146. Ibn Khaldūn, al-Muqaddima, 623–630. Canaan, Saints, 115–118. A few examples in “MMKF,” 46A–48B. “Majmūʿa,” 17B. “RFR,” 6A-9B, “Majmūʿa,” 16B–17B, Graham, “Spelling,” 1–28, Canaan, Saints, 115–118. See Chapter 3. For medieval examples, see Ibn Khaldūn, al-Muqaddima, 625–626, and Mushegh Asatrian, “Ibn Khaldūn on Magic and the Occult,” Iran & the Caucasus, 7, No. 1/2 (2003): 97. For early modern and modern examples, see Chapter 3 and Lane, Egyptians, 1:349–357. For instance, “RFR,” 20B, or “Majmūʿa,” 101B–102A. Frazer, Golden Bough, 16–18. Instances of similar image magic were recorded in many regions. See Frank Klaasen, The Transformations of Magic: Illicit Learned Magic in the Later Middle Ages and Rennaisance (Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2013), 33–57, Sophie Page, Magic in the Cloister: Pious Motives, Illicit Interests and Occult Approaches to the Medieval Universe (Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2013), 74, Jessica Dell, “’A witch, a quean, an old cozening quean!’ Image Magic and Shakespeare’s The Merry Wives of Windsor,” in Magical Transformations on the Early Modern English Stage, ed. Lisa Hopkins and Helen Ostovich (Farnham: Ashgate, 2014), 185–202, Anne Lawrence-Mathers and Carolina Escobar-Vargas, “Astral and image magic: the bases of ritual magic,” in Magic and Medieval Society (London & New York: Routledge, 2014), 35–37, Marla Segol, “Word and Image in Medieval Kabbalah: Interpreting Diagrams from the Sefer Yetsirah and its Commen­ taries,” in Word and Image in Medieval Kabbalah: The Texts, Commentaries, and Dia­ grams of the Sefer Yetsirah (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2012), 1–20, and David Morgan, “Image,” in Key Words in Religion, Media and Culture, ed. David Morgan (New York: Routledge, 2008), 96–110. Also see Jamal J. Elias, “Seeing the Religious Image in the Historical Account: Icons and Idols in the Islamic Past,” in Material Cul­ ture, ed. Fleming and Mann, 284–302. Beliefs in the power of icons are well-documented in Christianity. See George Lund­ skow, The Sociology of Religion: A Substantive and Transdisciplinary Approach (Los Angeles: Pine Forge Press, 2008), 214, or Zuzana Skalova, “The Icon of the Virgin Galaktotrophousa in the Coptic Monastery of St Antony the Great at the Red Sea, Egypt: A Preliminary Note,” in East and West, ed. Ciggaar and Teule, 235–264, Michelle Lang, “A Secular Trinity? The Transformation of Christian iconography in a Post-Christian Age,” in Beyond Belief: Theoaesthetics or Just Old-Time Religion? ed. Ronald R. Bernier (Eugene: Pickwick Publications, 2010), 98–112. Burayk, TS, 43–44.

Artes Magicae 215 153 Stephan H. Stephan, “Lunacy in Palestine Folklore,” The Journal of the Palestine Ori­ ental Society, 5 (1925): 7, n.4. 154 Grehan, Twilight, 150–151. 155 Ibid. 156 Canaan, Saints, 134. 157 L. du Couret, Life in the Desert; or Recollections of Travel in Asia and Africa, Trans­ lated from the French (New York: Mason Brothers, 1860), 419–421. 158 Canaan, Saints, 134. 159 Taking vows at shrines has a long tradition among the Arabs. See, for instance, Grehan, Twilight, 169–173. Also James Grehan, “The Mysterious Power of Words: Language, Law, and Culture in Ottoman Damascus (17th–18th Centuries),” Journal of Social History 37, No. 4 (Summer, 2004), 992. 160 Paying equal respect to Muslim and Christian shrines in Syria represented a common habit of the people that belonged to all confessional groups. See Anna Poujeau, “Shar­ ing the Baraka of Saints: Pluridenominational Visits,” in Sharing Sacred Spaces in the Mediterranean: Christians, Muslims and Jews at Shrines and Sanctuaries, ed. Dionigi Albera and Maria Couroucli (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2012), 202–218. For further comparisons, see Cory Thomas Pechan Driver, Muslim Custodians of Jew­ ish Spaces in Morocco: Drinking the Milk of Trust (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), 38–49, 55–58, 76–86, 127–129. 161 Grehan, Twilight, 183. In front of a military retinue, this was doubtlessly a very power­ ful self-representative act. 162 Canaan, Saints, 141. 163 Samuel Ives Curtiss, Primitive Semitic Religion To-day: A Record of Researches, Dis­ coveries and Studies in Syria, Palestine and the Sinaitic Peninsula (Chicago: Fleming H. Revel Company, 1902), 162, Canaan, Saints, 145–150. 164 See Canaan, Saints, 145. 165 Ibn Budayr, “HDY,” 45A–45B. 166 See Elyse Semerdjian, “Off the Straight Path”: Illicit Sex, Law, and Community in Ottoman Aleppo (New York: Syracuse University Press, 2008), 94–137, 182. Specifi­ cally for the Damascene case, see Ibn Budayr, “HDY,” 24A–24B. 167 Ibn Budayr, “HDY,” 45A–45B. Also see Sajdi, The Barber, 30. 168 McCown, “Shrines,” 62. Tying rags to trees was a more universal custom. See, for instance, Ceri Houlbrook, “Roots of a Ritual,” in The Magic of Coin Trees from Reli­ gion to Recreation (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), 25–70. 169 McCown, “Shrines,” 65–68. Also, Canaan, Saints, 75. 170 Maundrell, Journey, 13. 171 Canaan, Saints, 103–105. 172 Ibid., 156–158. Also consult Ibn ʿĀbidīn, Radd, 9:423–485. 173 Lane, Egyptians, 1:306–307. 174 Curtiss, Primitive, 197, 212. Compare with Ibn ʿĀbidīn, Radd, 9:423–485. 175 Canaan, Saints, 161–164, Curtis, Primitive, 173–174, 223–225. 176 Compare with the pre-Islamic shrine superintendents in al-Azmeh, Emergence, 238, Irving M. Zeitlin, The Historical Muhammad (Cambridge: Polity, 2007), 55. 177 Curtiss, Primitive, 144–149. Canaan, Saints, 160–163. 178 Ibn ʿĀbidīn, Radd, 9:423–485. Also see Canaan, Saints, 163. 179 Consult Ibn ʿĀbidīn, Radd, 9:423–485, and Canaan, Saints, 160–163. These instruc­ tions apply to any sort of butchering work and represent until today the procedure of producing ḥalāl food. In the contemporary period, the practice attracted criticism from various animal protection activism groups. See Katherine Wills Perlo, “Islam,” in Kin­ ship and Killing: The Animal in World Religions (New York: Columbia University Press, 2009), 95–114. 180 Canaan, Saints, 177–178, and Curtiss, Primitive, 172, 223–225.

216 Artes Magicae 181 Ibn ʿĀbidīn, Radd, 9:423–485. 182 Canaan, Saints, 169–174, Grehan, Twilight, 174–176. 183 Ibid. Also Maundrell, Journey, 13 and McCown, “Shrines,” 51. McCown interprets these marks as symbols of happiness. See Grehan, Twilight, 174–176 as well. 184 See Chapter 5. Also Canaan, Saints, 36. 185 Lewis Bayles Paton, “Survivals of Primitive Religion in Modern Palestine,” The Annual of the American School of Oriental Research in Jerusalem, 1 (1919–1920): 62. 186 Kamāl Jamīl al-ʿAsalī, Mawsim al-Nabī Mūsā fī Filisṭīn: Tārīkh al-Mawsim wa al-Maqām (Amman: Maṭbaʿat al-Jāmiʿa al-Urdunīyya, 1990), 101–150, Grehan, Twi­ light, 172–175, or Chih, Sufism, 2. 187 For instance Stephen P. Blake, “Ceremony,” in Time in Early Modern Islam: Cal­ endar, Ceremony, and Chronology in the Safavid, Mughal, and Ottoman Empires (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 76–106, Selçuk Akşin Somel, The Modernization of Public Education in the Ottoman Empire, 1839–1908 (Leiden: Brill, 2001), 141, James Grehan, “Fun and Games in Ottoman Aleppo: The Life and Times of a Local Schoolteacher (1835–1865),” in Entertainment among the Ottomans, ed. Ebru Boyar and Kate Fleet (Leiden: Brill, 2019), 90–120, Ehud R. Toledano, As if Silent and Absent: Bonds of Enslavement in the Islamic Middle East (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007), 229–230. 188 Curtiss, Primitive, 189.

189 Grehan, Twilight, 172–175.

190 Ibn Khaldūn, al-Muqaddima, 274. Further see Ibn ֫Ābidīn, Radd, 3:70–71, Grehan,

Twilight, 164–165, Alexander Russell, The Natural History of Aleppo: A Description of the City and the Principal Natural Productions in its Neighbourhood, together with an Account of the Climate, Inhabitants, and Diseases, Particularly of the Plague, 2 volumes, ed. Patrick Russell (London: G.G. and J. Robinson: 1794), 1:195, and Canaan, Saints, 219. 191 Ibn Khaldūn, al-Muqaddima, 274. 192 Al-Munajjid, al-Mu’arikhīn, 334, and Muḥammad Ibn ʿĪsā Ibn Kannān, Yawmiyāt Shāmīyya min 1111h ḥattā 1153h [Daily Events of Shām 1699–1740], ed. Akram Ḥasan al-ʿUlabī (Damascus: Dār al-Ṭibāʿ, 1994), 226–227. 193 Ibid., 2:60–62, and 1:129–130, respectively. The biographies of these gentlemen were discussed in Chapter 4. 194 Ibid., 1:153–166. Also see Chapters 4 and 5. 195 Al-Murādī, Silk, 1:79–81. A list of frequently visited saints filters through compara­ tive reading of Ibn Kannān, “MS,” 4A–12B, al-Ḥanafī, “KFS,” 83B–111B, al-ʿAdawī, ZD, 9–103, al-Manīnī, IFS, 71–141, al-Razzāq, FS, 126–181, al-Ṣayyādī, RB, 61–101, al-Nābulsī, Ḥaqīqa, 45–96, and others. 196 Abdul-Karim Rafeq, The Province of Damascus, 1723–1783 (Beirut: Khayats, 1966), 182–183, and Ibn Budayr, “HDY,” 92B. 197 Al-Murādī, Silk, 1:79–81. Also, James Grehan, “Street Violence and Social Imagina­ tion in late-Mamluk and Ottoman Damascus (c. 1500–1800),” International Journal of Middle East Studies 35, no. 2 (May, 2003): 218, footnote 10, and James Grehan, “Words,” 1000. 198 Riyāḍ al-Darāwisha and Nīqūlas Ambrīsīz, “Zilzāl ʿĀm 1759 fī Wādī al-Buqāʿ: Dalālāt fī Taqdīr al-Makhāṭir al-Zilzālīyya fī Manṭiqat Sharq al-Mutawassiṭ,” Bulletin d’études orientales 47 (1995): 235–246. 199 This was a large religious edifice. See Samer Akkach, “Leisure Gardens, Secular Hab­ its: The Culture of Recreation in Ottoman Damascus,” METU Journal of the Faculty of Architecture 27 (2010): 73. 200 Ibn Budayr, “HDY,” 91B–92B.

Artes Magicae 217 201 The nickname corresponds to the Turkish word çeteci which indicates a military com­ mander, and this pasha, in fact, had a prolific campaigning career. For Damascus specifically, see James Grehan, Everyday Life & Consumer Culture in 18th-Century Damascus (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2007), 90–91. 202 See Chapter 4. 203 Ibn Budayr, “HDY,” 92B. 204 Al-Murādī, Silk, 1:130. 205 M. C-F. Volney, Travels through Syria and Egypt in the years 1783, 1784, and 1785. Containing: The Present Natural and Political State of those Countries, Their Produc­ tions, Arts, Manufactures and Commerce; with Observations on the Manners, Cus­ toms and Government of the Turks and Arabs, Translated from the French, 2 volumes (London: G.G.J. and J. Robinson, 1788), 1: 307–308. Further see Jibrail S. Jabbur, The Bedouins and the Desert: Aspects of Nomadic Life in the Arab East, trans. Lawrence I. Conrad, ed. Suhayl J. Jabbur and Lawrence I Conrad (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995), 150–151. 206 Aḥmad ʿIzzat ʿAbd al-Karīm, one of the modern editors of al-Qāsimī’s version of the barber’s diary, gives a short account about this bird in Aḥmad al-Ḥallāq al-Budayrī, Hawādith Dimashq al-Yawmīyya [The Daily Events of Damascus] 1154–1175/1741– 1762, in the redaction of Muḥammad Saʿīd al-Qāsimī, edited Aḥmad ʿIzzat ʿAbd al-Karīm (Damascus: Dār Saʿad al-Dīn, 1997), 140, n. 1, while some centuries before him, Al-Murādī the biographer does the same in Silk, 3:226–228. Also, see Grehan, Twilight, 1–3. James Grehan did ample research on the samarmar. See James Grehan, “The Legend of the Samarmar: Parades and Communal Identity in Syrian Towns c. 1500–1800,” Past & Present 204 (2009): 89–125. 207 Ibn Budayr, “HDY,” 31B. 208 Al-Murādī, Silk, 3:227, and Grehan, “Samarmar,” 89. 209 James Grehan traces some other occasions when samarmar was called, such as one instance in the sixteenth-century Aleppo, when the authorities, however, refused the water to be hung on the citadel, stonewalling the people with the sultan’s authority. See “The Legend of the Samarmar,” 122. 210 Ibn Budayr, “HDY,” 33A, Grehan, “Samarmar,” 89–90. 211 Ibn Budayr, “HDY,” 36B. 212 Grehan, “Samarmar,” 90. 213 Ibid. 36B–37B. 214 Grehan, “Violence,” 218.

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7

Conclusion

After the advent of modern Islamic reforms, attitudes to Sufism and its thaumaturgi­ cal components gradually changed, classifying much of it as superstition. Depicted as a collection of popular heterodoxies, Sufism did not correspond to the orthodox Sunnism of modern Muslim theologians anymore, even though there never was a clear cut between Sunni mainstreams and various types of Sufi doctrines. The extent of reformists’ success varied across regions and periods. During the nine­ teenth century, Ottoman provinces, which gradually grew in autonomy, witnessed the rise of certain political streams for which Sufi doctrines were crucial, which is illustrated by the teachings of Aḥmad Ibn Idrīs (d.1837) and of his Sanūsīyya order, as well as by the history of the Tijānīyya order1 in North Africa. Doctrines of Ibn Idrīs and Aḥmad al-Tijānī (d.1815), who drew on Ibn Idrīs’s teachings and, in the style of Ibn ʿArabī, proclaimed himself the “Seal of the Saints,”2 inspired later scholarship to formulate theses about the development of “Neosufism” in parallel with Islamic reforms. However, the Neosufism thesis fails to demonstrate signifi­ cant novelties in the development of Sufi orders.3 Until the present, Sufism continues to spread and attract disciples across the globe, with varying impact on mainstream religions depending on the region.4 Social media platforms and various online forums serve as methods of promot­ ing Sufi order values and at times allow for a wider access to Sufi lore.5 Some states in the Middle East recently witnessed the Sufi orders’ effort to engage more actively in politics. Such is the case with contemporary Yemen.6 Over the course of recent history, Muslim reformists gained influence in Syria only gradually,7 and even today, it is possible to notice the presence of large orders, like the Qādirīyya.8 Across the globe, Sufism retained its popular influence throughout the Muslim reforms and beyond. However, the extent of its impact on Muslim states’ economy, society, and politics is incomparable to centuries before modernity. Changing attitudes towards Sufism and its thaumaturgy among theologians, inspired by Muslim modern reforms, resemble the changing attitudes towards won­ ders and cults of saints in Europe after the advent of Protestantism. The study of premodern Sufism opens possibilities for further studies in comparative religion, which may help better understand the historical developments of various scriptural religions over the passage of time. In addition, such studies would contribute to the more appropriate positioning of the socio-anthropological categories of religion, DOI: 10.4324/9781003395539-7

Conclusion

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thaumaturgy, and magic prior to the advent of Enlightenment and later Muslim reforms. Beliefs in thaumaturgical efficacy, and in Allah’s grace (baraka) as its fuel, declined since the eighteenth century and continued to dwindle as Muslim states began to follow the global secularization tendencies.9 They gradually separated from the official versions of Sunnism and remained at the margins of political systems. Primary source material from early twentieth-century Syria indicates, however, that common people retained many customs and beliefs which were con­ sidered mainstream prior to the modern reforms in Islam. Such is still the case today. In eighteenth-century Bilād al-Shām, as well as in other Ottoman provinces, baraka was widely believed in as crucial for practiced religion. Ulamaic circles used baraka in their texts as a social marker that helped maintain the distinctions between religious professionals, exemplary individuals, and the rest of the people. Individuals characterized by purity, piety, and devoutness often enjoyed beliefs in their baraka, which distinguished them from the rest of the imperial subjects in Syria. Grace was often attributed to religious professionals who underwent Sufi train­ ing and who, at times, pursued further education in the many madrasas of the Syr­ ian region. It was widely believed that the individuals graced with baraka could perform wonders and thus override the expected chains of natural causalities. These wonders brought mystical benefits to the population, ranging from curing diseases to banishing malevolent invisible entities and keeping them at bay. The most prom­ inent of those individuals whose baraka was believed in remained remembered as Muslim saints, the awliyā’, who could predict future events, demonstrate inhuman physical prowess, and manipulate the living, the dead, and the forces of nature. The modern official versions of Sunnism later cast doubt on the powers of Muslim saints, denying their baraka and dubbing their thaumaturgical works sorcery, as was the case after the emergence of Protestantism in Europe.10 According to common beliefs in eighteenth-century Province of Damascus, baraka poured out from the divine and graced numerous Muslim saints, passing down to the Sufi shaykhs and the prominent ʿulamā’. It resided around the tombs of these individuals. The belief in the baraka of hallowed tombs induced the devel­ opment of pilgrimage traditions, the ziyārāt, with the purpose of collecting divine grace from these sites. The pilgrimage traditions slowly acquired a significant eco­ nomic influence. Patronage of sacred places developed into a game of prestige, while the shrines as waqf-endowments represented a marker of social rank for their overseers and patrons. Complex economy developed around the Muslim shrines that generated significant revenue each year. People believed that grace leaked into the surroundings of Muslim shrines, from the hallowed deceased, or as residue after religiously significant legendary events, such as a prophet’s prayer or a vision. Grace allegedly empowered trees, caves, rocks, and items that lay near the shrines. The Syrian people of all social ranks eagerly collected such items as souvenirs in the hopes that they would gain access to baraka within. Enchanted natural phenomena (such as caves or trees), along

230

Conclusion

with the Muslim shrines, represented elements in a network of baraka that joined the awliyā’ and other recipients of Allah’s grace. This network of Allah’s baraka represented the eighteenth-century Syrian network of the holy that was a funda­ mental element of Ottoman early modern Sunnism. In addition, the network of the holy served as a means of legitimization for the establishment of religious profes­ sionals which may sociologically and anthropologically (but not theologically) be described as the Ottoman priestly sodality. Sociological definitions of an Ottoman priestly sodality are identified through the overlap between the Sufi and ulamaic networks and best represented by institu­ tionally trained Sufis who were accomplished as the ʿulamā’ and who kept official state appointments. Through the authority of their qualifications and tenures, such individuals commanded significant authority over social, jurisprudential, and reli­ gious matters in eighteenth-century Syria, enjoying meanwhile the popular belief in their baraka. Individuals like al-Nābulsī, or Ibn ʿĀbidīn of the next generation, illustrate prominent members of the Syrian priestly sodality, whose quill helped preserve and further develop religious beliefs and practices pertinent to eighteenthcentury Ottoman Sunni orthodoxy. The access to this group was restricted by means of initiation and certification that further strengthened the professional character of religious authorities in Ottoman Syria. Validation of this tight network was of high importance for aspiring scholars but for the emerging saints as well. Most promi­ nent awliyā’ usually claimed membership in this exclusive group. In eighteenth-century Syria, the Ottoman priestly sodality fulfilled many func­ tions, ranging from intercession between people and God, to deflecting forces of evil. They treated the ill, exorcised the injinnated, and defended the Ottoman subjects from catastrophic occurrences, such as locust infestations or earthquakes. Over centuries, they developed a complex thaumaturgical procedure through which they hoped to harvest and utilize the grace that the popular belief invested them with. Significance attributed to baraka by widespread beliefs made Sufism, the pri­ mary vehicle for thaumaturgy in early modern Syria (and beyond), highly relevant for matters ranging from the everyday to complex political strategies. Sufism in Ottoman Damascus before modernity represented an inseparable element of Otto­ man orthodoxy. Notes 1 See, for instance, R. S. O’Fahey, Enigmatic Saint: Ahmad Ibn Idris and the Idrisi Tra­ dition (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1990), 1–9, or Zachary Valentine Wright, On the Path of the Prophet: Shaykh Ahmad al-Tijani and the Tariqa Muham­ madiyya (Atlanta: African-American Islamic Institute, 2005), 1–24, 134–139. Both Ibn Idrīs and the Tijānīyya represented the ideological legacies of the Khalwatīyya spread in the eighteenth century, influenced by Muṣṭafā al-Bakrī. See Rachida Chih, Sufism in Ottoman Egypt: Circulation, Renewal and Authority in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century (London & New York: Routledge, 2019), 92–95. 2 Ibid., and Alī Ṣāliḥ Karrār and Yaḥya Muḥammad Ibrāhīm, “A Sudanese Tijānī Shaykh: Muddathir Ibrāhīm al-Ḥajjāz,” Sudanic Africa 14 (2003): 61–75, and Rüdiger Seese­ mann, “The Takfīr Debate: Sources for the Study of a Contemporary Dispute Among African Sufis. Part 1: The Nigerian Arena,” Sudanic Africa 9 (1998): 39–70. Further

Conclusion

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4

5

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see Zachary Wright, “Afropolitan Sufism: The Contemporary Tijaniyya in Global Con­ texts,” in Global Sufism: Boundaries, Structures, and Politics, ed. Francesco Pirano and Mark Sedgwick (London: Hurst & Company, 2019), 55–74. For a detailed and well-formulated critique of the Neosufism thesis, see Chih, Sufism, 7–12, 79–96, 147. Further reading in R.S. O’Fahey and Bernd Radtke, “Neo-Sufism Reconsidered,” Der Islam: Journal of the History and Culture of the Middle East 70 (1993): 61–64, or Mark Sedgwick, “Neo-Sufism,” in The Cambridge Companion to New Religious Movements, ed. Olav Hammer and Mikael Rothstein (Cambridge: Cam­ bridge University Press, 2012), 198–214. For instance, Alexander D. Knysh, Sufism: A New History of Islamic Mysticism (Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2017), 176–230, Eric Geoffroy, Introduction to Sufism: The Inner Path of Islam, trans. Roger Gaetani (Bloomington: World Wisdom, 2010), 126– 141, Justine Howe, “Contemporary Mawlids in Chicago,” William Rory Dickson and Merin Shobhana Xavier, “Disordering and Reordering Sufism: North American Sufi Teachers and the Tariqa Model,” Florian Volm, “The Making of Sufism: The Gülen Movement and its Effort to Create a New Image,” or Simon Stjernholm, “Sounding Sufi: Sufi-oriented Messages on Swedish Public Service Radio,” in Global Sufism: Boundaries, Structures, and Politics, ed. Piraino and Sedgwick (London: Hurst & Com­ pany, 2017), 119–136, 137–156, 177–192, 193–208, David Westerlund, “The Contextu­ alization of Sufism in Europe,” Marcia Hermansen, “What’s American about American Sufi Movements?“and Ravil Bukharaev, “Sufism in Russia: Nostalgia for Revelation,” in Sufism in Europe and North America, ed. David Westerlund (London & New York: Routledge Curzon, 2004), 13–35, 36–63, 64–94, or Jamal Malik and Saeed ZarrabiZadeh, “Introduction,” in Sufism East and West: Mystical Islam and Cross-Cultural Exchange in the Modern World, ed. Jamal Malik and Saeed Zarrabi-Zadeh (Leiden & Boston: Brill, 2019), 1–30. For instance, Margaret J. Rausch, “Encountering Sufism on the Web: Two HalvetiJerrahi paths and their missions in the USA,” in Sufism Today: Heritage and Tradition in the Global Community, ed. Catharina Raudvere and Leif Steinberg (London & New York: I.B. Tauris, 2009), 159–176. See Knysh, Sufism, 210–214. David Dean Commins, Islamic Reform: Politics and Social Change in Late Ottoman

Syria (New York & Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990), 45–56, 63–64, 100–118.

Paulo G. Pinto, “Creativity and stability in the making of Sufi tradition: The Tariqa

Qadiriyya in Aleppo, Syria,” in Sufism Today, ed. Raudvere and Stenberg, 117–136.

The concept of secularism is still landlocked in a complicated academic debate. See Rajeev Bhargava, ed., Secularism and its Critics (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1998), Fenella Cannell, “The Anthropology of Secularism,” in Annual Review of Anthropology, 39 (2010): 85–100, and Jose Casanova, Public Religions in the Modern World (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1994), 1–74, compared to Charles Taylor, “Western Secularity,” in Rethinking Secularism, ed. Craig Calhoun, M. Juergensmeyer, and Jonathan VanAntwerpen (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), 31–53. See Keith Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic: Studies in Popular Beliefs in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century England (London: Penguin, 1991), 69, or Robert Bartlett, Why can the Dead do Such Great Things? Saints and Worshippers from the Martyrs to the Reformation (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2013), 85–92.

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Index

Ābān Ibn Ābān 156 Abbasid(s) 10, 13 ʿAbd al-Qādir, Ṭāhā 127 ʿAbduh, Muḥammad 61 Abdülhamid I 115 Abel (Old Testament) 150 Abī Namīr, ʿAbd al-Razzāq 155 Abū Bakr (d.1583) 188 Abū Bakr (the First Righteous Caliph) 147 Abu Dis (Abū Dīs) 151 Abū Ḥanīfa (al-imām al-aʿẓam) 193 Abū Sall 149 Abū al-Surūr 144Abū Yazīd 112–114, 125 al-ʿAdawī, Maḥmūd 23 ʿAfīfīyya 116, 152 Africa 86; Central Africa 159; North Africa 6, 50, 117, 188, 192, 229 agha 87, 188 Aḥmadīyya 54, 116–118, 120, 127 Ahmed, Shahab 2 ʿAjlūn 5 al-ʿAjlūnī 121–122; al-ʿAjlūnī, Muḥammad 118, 121 Aleppo 17, 23, 112, 122, 125, 157, 188; al-Mushāriqa (a city district in eighteenth-century Aleppo) 112–113, 125 Allah 1, 2, 4, 16–17, 20, 46, 48, 51–56, 58, 60, 62, 82–83, 88, 90, 91, 94, 110, 112, 114, 120, 123, 146, 154, 184, 187, 188, 192–195, 200, 201, 202, 230–231; God (in Christianity) 46, 51; God (in Islam) 13, 16, 46, 49, 52, 54–55, –58, 60, 62, 83, 90, 112, 115, 120, 123, 124, 127, 144, 186–188, 192–194, 200, 201, 202, 231; god (various) 48, 82; al-ism al-aʿẓam (ism Allah al-aʿẓam the greatest name of God) 120

amīn al-fatwā (Fatwa Secretary) 10 amīr al-ḥajj: Pilgrimage Commander 148, 155 ‘Anata (ʿAnātā) 148, 151, 154 Anatolia 9, 29, 58, 59, 158 Andalusia 10 angel(s) 4, 48, 83–84, 86, 148; Gabriel (Archangel) 150; malā’ika 83; malak 83 Arabian Nights 85 Arabian Peninsula 20, 145 Arab(s) 4 ʿArja 151–152 Artas (Arṭās) 89–90 Asia 85 aṣnāf (trade guilds) 118; shaykh al­ mashāyikh (guilds) 118 astrology 22, 47, 188, 192 Ātika Bint Yazīd 154 augury 47 Awarta (ʿAwartā) 148, 151–153, 154, 200 Ayyubid(s) 13, 158–159 al-Azhar 14, 59 Al-Azmeh, Aziz 10 al-ʿAẓm: Sulaymān Pasha 1; Asʿad Pasha 202 al-Badawī, Aḥmad 54, 60, 127; al-Badawī shrine 160 Baghdad 57, 121, 122, 193 al-Bakrī, Muṣṭafā 10, 14, 22, 59, 117, 119, 121, 122–123, 125–126, 145, 146, 152, 195, 196, 201 Baldick, Julian 8 Balkans 9, 59, 158 al-Bāqillānī, Abū Bakr 21 Baraka 1, 2, 4–5, 12, 16–18, 20, 46–50, 51–57, 59–61, 82–83, 87–89, 94, 110–121, 123, 125–127, 128,

234

Index

144–146, 148–155, 157, 161, 185–186, 188, 192–197, 203, 230–231; (divine/God’s/Allah’s) grace 1–5, 13, 15–20, 46–48, 50–56, 60–62, 82–84, 86–90, 92, 110–116, 120–124, 126, 144–145, 150, 152–155, 157, 160, 185–186, 193–198, 230–231; tabarruk 52, 118, 123, 126, 128, 155, 194, 197 Barouk (Bārūk) 151 Basra 61122 al-Baṣrī, al-Ḥasan 121 Baybarsīyya Sufi lodge 10 al-Baytimānī, Ḥusayn Ibn Ṭu ʿma 126, 201 Bedouin 23, 62, 85, 89, 148 Beirut 5, 153, 157 Beit Liqya (Bayt Liqyā) 149 Beit Sourik (Bayt Sūrīk) 149 Bektashi(s) 12; Bektashīyya lodge 188 Berkey, Jonathan 11 Bethlehem 150, 197; Bethlehem Governorate 88, 89 Bible/Scripture (in Christianity) 52, 124, 150 Biddu (Biddū) 152, 161 Bilād al-Shām 1, 5, 7, 9–10, 20, 22, 92, 113–114, 150, 153, 195, 198, 203, 230; Province of Damascus 4–6, 9–10, 20, 59, 111, 122, 126, 144, 154, 186–187, 199, 230; Shām 1–4, 6, 8, 16–17, 19, 21, 48, 51, 54, 111, 114, 116, 121, 124, 126, 144–145, 153, 185; Syria 1–231 Birgivī Mehmed Effendi, Taqī al-Dīn Muḥammad Ibn ʿAlī 21, 58 al-Bunī, Aḥmad 192, 192; Muḥammad 113 Burayk, Mikhā’īl 19, 87, 92, 112, 124, 146, 151, 188, 198 Burckhardt, John Lewis (Johann Ludwig/ Shaykh Ibrāhīm Ibn ʿAbd Allah) 23, 85, 89 Burhānīyya/Burhāmīyya 54, 116; Burhānī/ Burhāmī 127 Cain 150 Cairo 14, 21, 58, 59, 115, 187, 188, 189, 197 Caliphate 13, 17, 62; caliph 13, 201 Canaan, Taufik 23, 54, 84, 89, 90, 93, 114, 144, 146, 147, 148, 149, 151, 152, 153, 154, 159, 194, 196, 197, 199, 214 carob 86, 152

Cave of Blood 150 Cave of Hunger 150 charisma 17 Chih, Rachida 54, 127 Chouf 151 Christian(ity) 8, 16, 17, 20, 46, 51–52, 82, 87, 88–89, 91, 93, 120, 124–125, 146, 147, 150, 151, 153, 157, 188, 192, 193, 194, 197, 198, 199, 200; Catholic 16, 47, 49, 50, 87, 99, 124, 194; Church (Christian) 188 (Cathedral of Amiens/France 157; Catholic 49, 50, 194; of England 23; of Saint George/al-Khader 88; of Saint Nicholas/Damascus 92; of St. Silvester/Rome 157); cleric/clergy (Christian) 18, 20, 23, 87, 92, 93, 112, 146, 199; Coptic 188; (of England) 23; Holy Sepulcher/Holy Flame 197; Monastery (Saydnaya) 147, 188 (of St. George/Palestine 159; of St. Ivan/Bulgaria 157); Orthodox 20, 87, 92, 124, 146, 151; Paternoster 193; priest/priesthood (Christian) 16, 17, 50, 87, 89, 92, 124, 146, 147, 151, 187, 199; Protestant(s)/ Protestantism 19, 48, 50, 51, 124, 229, 230; Reformation 16 Cordoba 54 Count de Volney, Constantin François de Chassebœuf 23 Curtiss, Samuel Ives 23, 52, 147, 152, 160, 161, 200 Damascus (city) 1, 4–6, 9–10, 13, 16, 17, 19–20, 23, 24, 47–49, 52–58, 60–62, 85, 87–89, 92, 110–117, 120–128, 144–147, 149–158, 160, 185, 187–188, 194, 196, 198, 201, 201–202, 203, 231; Bāb al­ Muṣalla 149–150, 201–202; Bāb al-Sharqī 153, 154; Bāb Kaysān 153; Bāb Tūmā 115, 153, 154; Marj al-Ḍaḥḍāḥ (Maqbarat al-Farādīs) 153–154; al-Maydān 150, 155; Mount Qasioun 150, 152–154, 202; al-Qubaybāt 114, 125; al-Ṣāliḥīyya 60, 146, 152, 154–157, 160, 196, 201; al-Ṣūfīyya 154; Sūq Sārūja 154; al-Zaytūn 154 al-Damīrī 21 dastūr 90, 194

Index al-Dasūqī, Ibrahīm 54, 60 dawsa 121, 202 defterdār/treasurer 187 dhikr 90–91, 110, 119–120, 122, 126, 155, 192–195 dhimmi(s) 59 al-Dimashqī, Arslān/Ruslān (“Protector of Damascus”) 54, 127, 128 al-Dimiyāṭī, Aḥmad 122 Dirʿīyah, First Emirate 61–62 divination 5, 47, 188–190, 192 Druze(s) 149 duʿa (invocation/supplication) 5, 22, 90–91, 120, 146, 186, 192–196, 198, 200–201 du Couret, Louis 23, 160 Durkheim, Emile 18 al-Dusūqi, Abū Bakr 199 efficacy 5, 22, 48, 51, 55, 82, 89–90, 145–146, 150, 184, 186–189, 194–195, 198, 201, 230 Egypt 10, 20, 22, 23, 54, 55, 59, 60, 61, 62, 85, 116, 118, 122, 125, 127, 145, 148, 157, 160, 188, 192, 196, 198 Eid al-Fitr 201 Ein ‘Arik (ʿAyn ʿArīk) 114 Ein Karem (ʿAyn Kārim) 149 England 16 Enlightenment 230 Eurasia 2, 46, 50, 88, 113 Europe 12, 16, 18, 19, 50, 51, 158, 187, 193, 229, 230 evil eye/malocchio/al-iṣāba bi-l-ʿayn 90–91 al-Falaq 90, 197 al-Falāqinsī, Fatḥī 187 fiqh 115, 122 France 157 Frazer, James 19, 195 futuwwā 12 Galland, Antoine 85 Gaza 5, 127 Gellner, Ernest 6, 8, 18 geomancy 47, 187 al-Ghazālī, Abū Ḥāmid Muḥammad 11, 192 al-Gīlānī 12, 117, 121–122; ʿAbd al-Qādir al-Gīlānī 54, 57, 126–127; Isḥāq al­ Kaylānī 126; Muḥammad al-Kīlānī 21, 119–120 Grand Vizier 59, 159

235

Green, Nile 8, 59 Grehan, James 7, 8, 18, 53, 115, 124, 127, 145, 147, 149, 154, 57, 198, 201, 203 Ḥadīth 7, 13, 91 ḥāfiẓ 61, 193 Ḥajj 23, 62, 159, 194 Hama 195 Ḥamdallah, shaykh 152 Ḥanafī (school)/Hanafite(s) 10, 21, 58, 85, 93, 193 al-Ḥanafī, Imād al-Dīn 23 Ḥanbalī (school)/Hanbalite(s) 21, 57, 59, 61, 82, 150, 156, 195, 201, 201 hātaf/azīf 82, 86 al-Ḥifnī, Muḥammad Ibn Sālim 15, 55, 127, 160 Homs 19, 157 Hourani, Albert 10 al-Ḥusayn Ibn ʿAlī Ibn Abī Ṭālib 157, 159, 195 al-Ḥuṣnī 155 Ibn ʿAbd al-Bāqī, Abū al-Mawāhib al­ Ḥanbalī 57, 125, 193, 201–202 Ibn ʿAbd al-Razzāq 23 Ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb, Muḥammad 61, 62 Ibn Abī Ṭālib, ʿAlī, (the Fourth Righteous Caliph) 12, 121, 147, 140, 157 Ibn ʿĀbidīn, Muḥammad Amīn 10, 20–21, 47–50, 56, 61–62, 83–85, 90–91, 92, 117, 146, 187, 231 Ibn ʿArabī (al-shaykh al-akbar/the Grand Master) 13, 53–55, 57, 59, 123, 127, 149, 154–155, 158, 160, 188 Ibn Budayr, Shihāb al-Dīn Aḥmad 19, 52, 87, 112–114, 118, 127–125, 188, 194, 202–203 Ibn Ḥanbal, Aḥmad 57 Ibn Ḥashīsh 113, 117 Ibn Hudhayb, Aḥmad al-ʿĀnī 155 Ibn Ḥusayn, ʿAbd al-Kāfī 122 Ibn Idrīs, Aḥmad 229 Ibn al-Jarrāḥ, Abū ʿUbayda 150 Ibn Jumʿa, Muḥammad al-Maqqār 118 Ibn Kannān, Muḥammad Ibn ʿĪsā 20, 22, 115, 118, 146, 152 Ibn Khaldūn, Abū Zayd 10, 21, 49, 90, 189, 201 Ibn al-Khaṭṭāb, Zayd 62 Ibn al-Qabbānī, Musṭafā 87 Ibn Ramaḍān, Aḥmad 118

236

Index

Ibn Sarrāj, Aḥmad 115, 126 Ibn Sayf, ʿAbd Allah Ibn Ibrāhīm 61 Ibn Shams al-Dīn, Aḥmad Ibn Siwār 123, 201, 202 Ibn Suʿūd, Muḥammad 61–62 Ibn Taymīyya, Taqī al-Dīn Aḥmad 21, 57, 58, 60, 61, 154 Ibn al-Zayyāt, Abū Mahdī ʿĪsā 10 ijāza(s) 14, 15, 22, 61, 121–122, 124 illusionism 47, 50 ʿilm/ʿulūm (Qur’ānic science/s) 4, 15, 115, 119, 122; ʿālim/ʿulamā’ 2, 8–11, 13–17, 19–20, 49, 52, 54, 57–59, 61–62, 82–86, 91, 94, 111, 113, 115–117, 120–128, 146, 156, 159, 186–188, 198, 203, 230–231 imām(s) 16, 122, 149, 155, 193, 201, 203 India 86, 117 Intercession (shafāʿa) 55, 144, 146, 185, 198–200, 203, 231; intercessor(s) 16, 17, 62, 124, 144 Islam 2–3, 5–9, 14–20, 23, 46–47, 49, 50–51, 53, 55–57, 82–83, 85, 91, 144–145, 151, 159–160, 186–187, 203, 229–230; Muslim 2–24, 46–47, 50–62, 82–85, 89–90, 91, 93, 110–111, 125, 127, 144–151, 153, 155–157, 160, 186, 188–189, 192, 194, 196–199, 203, 229–231; Sunni 2–3, 5–6, 9, 11, 12, 20–21, 23, 47–48, 54, 58, 83, 121, 150, 185, 203, 229–231 Ismāʿīl Agha 188 Ismāʿīl I, Shah 57 isnad 12 Istanbul 5, 9, 15, 20, 58, 59, 115, 117, 195 istidrāj 186 al-Jabāwī, Muṣṭafā Sāʿd al-Dīn 117, 121, 157, 202 al-Jabrī, Muḥammad 118, 125 Jalwatīyya 117 Jenin (Jinīn) 154 Jericho 149 Jerusalem 5, 23, 59, 89, 92, 147, 149, 151, 153, 195, 197, 198, 200; Jerusalem Governorate 148, 152, 161 Jesus Hilfe Hospital 151 Jew(s)/Jewish 59, 200 jinn/jān 4, 21–22, 47, 82–93, 114, 187–190, 198; daemonology 47, 52, 92; daemon(s) 16, 21, 46, 48–49, 82–83, 85–92, 113, 186,

203; ghoul/ghūl 85–86, 90–91; hyena (mystical) 86, 91; ʿifrīt 83; jinnī/jinnīyya 83, 85–86, 89, 92–93; shayṭān(īyya)/shayāṭīn (devil(s)) 48–49, 51–52, 60, 83–84, 85, 90, 92, 118–120, 187, 194; Umm Maghaylān 85 Joseph (New Testament) 150 Kaʿab al-Aḥbār 154 Kadızadeli(s)/Kadızadeliler 14, 20–21, 56, 58–59, 124 Kadızade Mehmed Efendi 58 Karak 5 Karakaya-Stump, Ayfer 11 al-Karmī: Zayn al-Dīn Marʿī Ibn Yūsuf 21, 59–60, 82, 147 al-Kaykī, Ibrāhīm 114, 125 al-Khader (al-Khaḍir town) 88–89 Khalwatīyya 10, 12, 14–15, 58, 59, 116, 117, 118, 122, 127; Khalwatī(s) 58, 119, 145 khāṭib(s) 16 khawāriq: praeternatural/mystical phenomena/effects 1, 5, 16–17, 47–49, 51–52, 59–60, 86, 115, 121, 127, 127, 151, 186–187, 189, 192, 198, 202, 230 al-Khiḍr 17, 59, 88, 150, 152, 157 khirqa 119 al-Khwārizmīyya (lodge) 156 Knysh, Alexander 8–9, 19, 121 Köprülü Mehmed Pasha 59 kufr 49, 124; bidʿa (religious innovation) 57, 59–61, 124; heresy/heresies 56, 61, 124; heretic(s) 7, 20; heterodoxy/ heterodoxies 6–9, 11, 49–51; infidel(s) 48–49, 60–62; jahl/ jāhil(ūn) (ignorance/ignoramus(es)) 21, 60, 146; kāfir 60; munkir 62; shirk (idolatry) 60–61 Lajjūn 5 Lane, Edward William 23, 85, 187, 190, 192, 196, 200 al-Lāt 82 Le Gall, Dina 11, 117 Maaloula (Maʿlūlā) 87, 152 madhhab/madhāhib 57, 116, 156, 193 madrasa(s) 10, 11, 14, 15, 57, 110, 111, 113, 122, 158, 202, 230; Madrasat al-Khātūnīyya 155; mudarris(ūn)15

Index al-Maghribī, ʿAbd al-Qādir 190, 191–192 magic/siḥr 2–5, 7, 16, 18–21, 24, 46–51, 62, 84–85, 92, 120, 124, 186–188, 190, 195, 198, 203, 230; magician(s) 19, 47–50, 92, 186–187, 195; sāḥir(ūn) 92, 187; sorcerer(s) 92, 197; sorcery 5, 49–50, 90, 186–187, 230; wizard(s) 19 Maḥmūd, shaykh 196 majdhūb/majādhīb 5, 87, 111–112, 114–116, 125; jadhba 114, 116; theolepsis 114, 116, 120; theoleptic(s) 111, 114–116 al-Majdhūb, ʿUthmān Ibn ʿAbd Allāh 115 majlis/majālis 14 majnūn/majānīn 87, 93, 112 al-Makkī, Muḥammad 20, 157 al-Mālikī 121; al-Mālikī, Muḥammad 121 Malinowski, Bronislaw 19 Mamluk(s) 6, 12, 55, 121, 158 al-Manīnī 121–122; al-Manīnī, Aḥmad 23, 117, 122, 146, 150, 159, 201 maqām al-nabī mūsā/Shrine of Moses 196–197 al-Masālme 156 masbaḥa/prayer beads 120 Mashhad 200 masjid(s) 14 al-Maṭbaʿa 152 Maundrell, Henry 23, 147, 153, 197, 200 Mauss, Marcel 19 al-Mawāhibī, Ṣāliḥ 122 mawlid(s) 56, 60, 121, 125, 199, 201 al-Mazar (al-Mazār) 154 McCown, Chester Carlton 148, 161 Mecca 62, 148, 194 Medina 61, 62, 156 meteoromancer 57 al-Mīdanī, Shākir 198 Middle East 6, 11, 23, 50, 56, 57, 85, 88, 117, 118, 121, 122, 124, 149, 150, 153, 154, 192, 198, 229 Milk Grotto 150, 197 Mongol(s) 13, 57, 158 Morocco 6 mosque 10, 14, 15, 59, 89, 112, 149–150, 155, 158, 201; al-Aqsa 149, 153; Ayasofya 58; Bāb al-Muṣalla 149, 150, 201, 202; of Bayazid 58; al­ Buzūrī 123; al-Daqqāq 155; Dome of the Rock 149; al-Mushāriqa 112;

237

of Selim 58; of Süleyman I 58; Sultan Hassan Mosque 59; Sultan Selim Khān Mosque 117; Umayyad Mosque 55, 121, 123, 147, 153, 154, 157, 202, 203 Mount Lebanon 127, 148, 151 Mount Qasioun 23, 150, 152, 153, 154, 202 Mubārak, Abū Saʿid 121 muftī 1, 10, 115, 117, 188 Muḥammad ʿAlī 62 Munkar and Nakir 148 Murad IV 58 al-Murādī 117, 118; ʿAlī al-Murādī 188; Muḥammad Khalīl al-Murādī 1, 20, 52, 61, 113, 115, 116, 117, 118, 122, 126, 155, 159, 160, 201, 201; Muḥammad Murād 117, 118, 122, 126, 155, 159–160 al-Murtaqala 152 Muṣṭafā, shaykh 123 al-Muʿṭī, ʿAbd 113 al-Nabhānī, Yūsuf Ibn Ismāʿīl 61, 117, 154, 193 Nāblus: Nablus Governorate 5, 92, 127, 148, 199 al-Nābulsī 117, 121; al-Nābulsī, ʿAbd al-Ghanī 9, 10, 21–22, 47–49, 53–56, 58, 60, 62, 90, 116–118, 121–122, 123, 125–127, 145–147, 149–150, 152, 155–160, 187, 189, 195–196, 231 al-Naḥlāwī, Aḥmad Ibn Murād (barakat al-shām “Benediction of Damascus”) 1, 116, 126–127, 155, 187, 193 Najd 61–62 naqīb al-ashrāf 1, 61, 117 al-Naqshbandī, Khālid 20, 56 Naqshbandīyya 1, 10, 12, 59, 61, 116–117, 122; Naqshbandī 117–118 al-Nāṣir 13 Neosufism 229 network(s) of the holy 1, 2, 4–5, 16–18, 20, 47, 54–56, 60, 62, 88–89, 94, 111–112, 125, 127, 144, 153, 156, 160–161, 185–186, 203, 231 Ohlander, Erik 11, 13 oneiromancy/oneirocriticism 189 Ottoman(s): (Empire) 2–10, 12–18, 47, 51–56, 58–60, 62, 82–83, 94, 110–114, 116–118, 120–127,

238

Index

144–149, 151–160, 185–186, 188, 192, 195, 196, 198, 201, 203, 229–231 Oxford 23 Palestine 22, 23–24, 59, 84, 86, 88, 90, 93, 115, 127, 144, 148, 152, 154, 159, 160, 199 Palmyra 5 “Patriarch of Damascus” 89 Porter, Josias 147 prestidigitation 47 prophet(s) 1, 2, 17, 47–48, 52, 54–56, 84, 92, 110, 114, 123, 151, 154, 186, 230; Abraham 52, 55, 150, 151, 152; Jesus Christ 12, 92, 150; (Moses) 52, 55, 88, 150, 157; Muḥammad (al-insān al-kāmil) 1, 13, 55, 57, 61, 121, 153, 188, 195, 196, 201 qāḍī al-ʿasākir (kazasker): chief military judge 115 Qādirīyya 10, 22, 54, 57, 91, 116–122, 126, 195, 229 al-Qāsimī, Jamāl al-Dīn 61 Qatana (Qaṭana) 89 al-Qawī, ʿAbd al-Karīm 127 al-Qazwīnī 21 Qibla 119, 148, 196, 200 Qubbat al-Bāʿūnīyya 202 Qubbat al-Naṣr 204 Qudāma (family) 150, 156, 159 Qur’ān 7, 53, 82, 83, 88, 90, 92, 115, 186, 188, 190, 193, 194, 196; ayāt al­ shifā’ (Healing Verses) 196; ayāt al-kursī (the Throne Verse) 90; al­ Fātiḥa 53, 90, 119, 120, 186, 190, 193, 194, 196, 197; al-Ikhlāṣ 190, 191, 193, 197; al-muʿawwidhatān (Verses of Refuge) 90, 197; al­ Nās 90, 197, 202; al-Qadr 190; Scripture (in Islam) 6, 8, 57, 58, 60, 61, 83, 88, 92, 120, 148, 150, 151, 186, 189, 197, 198; Yā Sīn 90, 190 al-Qushayrī, ʿAbd al-Karīm 11 quṭb/aqṭāb (Pole of his time) 15, 54–57, 60, 110, 117, 121, 126–128, 157, 160 Ramallah Governorate 114 al-Ramathānī, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān 148 Ramla 147

al-Rawi, Ahmed K. 85 reformism/reformist 15, 19, 46–47, 49–51, 56, 61–62, 203, 229–230 religion 2–7, 16, 18–19, 46, 49–52, 83, 92, 120, 144, 195–197, 229 Rifāʿīyya 54, 91, 116–117, 120, 127 Rif Dimashq 89, 151 rigorism (religious) 4, 20–21, 52, 56–59, 61–62, 82, 124, 157 al-Rifaʿī, Aḥmad 54, 152 Russell, Alexander 17, 23 Sabbatai Sevi 59 al-Sābiq, Aḥmad 118 ṣabr 112–113, 119 al-Saʿdī, Ibrāhīm 154 Saʿdīyya/Jabāwīyya 117, 121, 127, 202 Ṣafad 5 Safavid(s) 12 Ṣāḥib ʿUbayda 157 St. George 88–89, 93, 153, 161, 199 Saint/saints 50, 88, 89, 125–128, 194; sainthood 5, 7, 110–112, 115, 125–127, 156; walī (Allah)/awliyā’ 1–2, 4, 5, 10, 12, 15, 16, 18–23, 47–49, 51–56, 59, 61–62, 84, 89, 93–94, 110–112, 114–115, 117–118, 121–122, 125–128, 144–156, 160, 185–188, 194–195, 197–203, 230–231 ṣalāḥ 48, 53, 56, 60, 62, 87, 111–113, 119, 123, 126, 160, 186, 201; ṣāliḥ(ūn) (the righteous the virtuous) 2, 4–5, 10, 46, 48–49, 51, 53, 54–55, 60, 111–114, 123, 125–126, 144, 155, 185, 203 al-Salām, ʿAbd 151 al-Ṣāliḥī, ʿAbd al-Hādī 152 Saljuq(s) 11, 13 Sanūsīyya 229 Sāra (Abraham’s wife) 151 Sarī al-Dīn 155 Saydnaya 147, 188 sayyid(s) 126, 188 Selim I 13, 55, 188 al-Shādhilī, Abū al-Ḥasan 185 Shādhilīyya 117 Shafi’i(te) (school) 21, 61, 85, 122, 202 Shahāda 90, 193, 194 al-Shaʿrānī, ʿAbd al-Wahhāb 14 al-Shatajī, ʿAbd Allah 202 Shawbak 5 al-Shawbarī, Muḥammad Ibn Aḥmad 22

Index shaykh al-islām 14 shrine 1, 5, 13, 17, 21–22, 23, 47, 51, 52–58, 60, 62, 123, 144, 145–150, 152–156, 157–161, 194–201, 202, 230; ḍarīḥ 1, 148–149, 194–196; dome 148–149, 156; maqām 148–149, 151–157, 161, 194–195, 196–199, 200; miḥrāb 148; minbar 149; qubba 148, 150; sutūr 148, 196 Sidon 5 al-Sidrī 148 al-Sindī, Muḥammad Ḥayyāt 61 silsila(s) 12, 15, 56, 116, 120, 121 Sokollu Mehmet Pasha 159 Subbotsky, Eugene 18, 19 Sufism 1–233; khalīfa (assistant) 118; khanqa 11; murīd/muradā’ (initiate; disciple; acolyte) 1, 10, 11, 12, 14–15, 20, 52, 94, 110, 113, 116–122, 124, 149, 156, 159, 189, 195, 202–203, 229; naqīb al­ nuqabā’ (chief attendant) 118–119; ribāṭ 11; shaykh al-ṭarīqa (supreme master, shaykh al-mashāyikh) 11, 110, 118; shaykh(s)/(Sufi) master(s) 1, 4, 10–15, 17, 20, 47, 49, 52–56, 61, 85, 89, 92, 110–111, 114, 116–127, 145, 148–149, 152, 154–156, 159–160, 185, 190, 196–199, 201–202, 230; Sufi 1–233; Sufi lodge 10, 11, 13–14, 23, 55, 59, 88, 110–111, 116–123, 152, 154, 156–159, 188, 195, 197; Sufi order(s)/ṭarīqa/ṭuruq 3, 9–15, 16, 54–55, 59–60, 61, 91, 110, 116–124, 155, 158–159, 188, 203, 229; Sufi-ʿulamā’/Sufi-scholar(s) 2–5, 10, 13–20, 46, 47–48, 51–56, 58, 60–62, 83, 90, 94, 111, 115–116, 121–126, 153, 156, 159–161, 185, 187, 195, 202–203; ṭā’ifa 12; taṣawwuf 15, 121–122; zāwiyā 11, 120, 155, 158, 159 al-Suhrawardī, Abū Ḥafs 12, 13 Suleiman I (“Lawgiver”) 57 sultan 14, 59, 145, 155, 159, 188 al-Suwaydī, ʿAbd Allah Ibn al-Ḥusayn 122 taʿawwudh 90–91, 93 al-Ṭabbākh, Yūsuf 118 Tadmur 5

239

talismanics 5, 22, 47, 84, 88, 195, 197–198, 201; talisman(s)/seal(s) 22, 47, 52, 86, 88, 91–92, 122, 124, 147, 186–187, 189, 195, 196–198 al-Tamīmī, Muḥammad Ibn Qāsim 13 Tel Shemmam (Tall Shammām) 152 thaumaturgy 2–5, 16, 17–20, 24, 46–53, 56, 57, 58, 61, 62, 82–83, 86, 88, 90, 114–115, 120–124, 127, 144–145, 150–152, 159–161, 185–187, 188, 189, 196, 198–199, 201–203, 229–231; karāma/ karāmāt 1, 2, 18, 48, 55, 188–189; miracle(s) muʿjiza/muʿjizāt 2, 20, 46–48, 50–51, 55–56, 61, 123, 147, 186; thaumaturge(s) 4, 10, 46, 48, 52, 61, 62, 88–89, 91–94, 115, 122, 126, 128, 146, 149–150, 155, 160, 185, 186, 187, 192; wonder/ wonder-working 1–3, 16, 18–22, 46, 48–50, 51–56, 60, 61–62, 84, 112–113, 115–116, 118, 120, 123, 125–127, 145–146, 149–150, 155, 185–187, 195, 197, 198, 202, 229–230 theurgy 46 Thomas, Keith 16 Tiberias 115 al-Tijānī, Aḥmad 229 Tijānīyya 229 transmogrification 83–84, 86 Tulkarm 59 ʿulūm al-ghayb (occult sciences) 47, 49, 186 ʿUmar II 157 ʿUmar (the Third Righteous Caliph) 157 al-ʿUmar, Ẓāhir 115, 125, 199 Umayyad(s) 147 ʿUyayna 61, 62 al- ʿUzza 82 Vienna 59 Virgin (Mary) 92, 147, 150, 188, 197–198, 199 Wahhābī(s) 20, 61, 62, 124; al-muwaḥḥidūn 61–62 waqf 14, 157–161, 230 Watenpaugh, Heghnar Zeitlin 158 Weber, Max 18, 48, 49 Winter, Michael 14 wuʿāẓ (preachers) 16

240

Index

Yalo (Yālū) 146, 156

Yashrūṭīyya 116

yawm al-qiyāma (Day of Resurrection)

144, 199

Yemen 229

Yılmaz, Hüseyin 11

Zabadani 151, 160

al-Zawāwī, Muḥammad 188

Zāwiyat al-Maghāriba 197

Zaynab 157, 194, 202

Zilfi, Madeline 14

Zir’in (Zirʿīn) 154

ziyāra (ziyārā): pilgrimage 1, 5, 10, 21–22,

52–53, 55–60, 144–146, 152,

155–156, 157–159, 195, 197,

200, 230

al-Zuʿubī, ʿAbd al-Fattaḥ 127