Table Of ContentEmotions in the Ottoman Empire
History of Emotions
Series Editor:
Peter N. Stearns, University Professor in the Department of History at George
Mason University, USA and Susan J. Matt, Presidential Distinguished Professor
of History at Weber State University, USA.
Editorial Board:
Rob Boddice, Senior Research Fellow, Academy of Finland Centre of
Excellence in the History of Experiences, Tampere University, Finland
Charles Zika, University of Melbourne & Chief Investigator for the Australian
Research Council’s Centre for the History of Emotions, Australia
Pia Campeggiani, University of Bologna, Italy
Angelika Messner, Kiel University, Germany
Javier Moscoso, Centro de Ciencias Humanas y Sociales, Madrid, Spain
The History of Emotions offers a new and vital approach to the study of the
past. The field is predicated on the idea that human feelings change over
time and they are the product of culture as well as of biology. Bloomsbury’s
History of Emotions series seeks to publish state-of-the-art scholarship on
the history of human feelings and emotional experience from antiquity to the
present day, and across all seven continents. With a commitment to a greater
thematic, geographical and chronological breadth, and a deep commitment
to interdisciplinary approaches, it will offer new and innovative titles which
convey the rich diversity of emotional cultures.
Published:
Fear in the German Speaking World, 1600–2000, edited by Thomas Kehoe and
Michael Pickering
Feelings and Work in Modern History, edited by Agnes Arnold-Forster and
Alison Moulds
Feeling Dis-Ease in Modern History, edited by Rob Boddice and Bettina Hitzer
Emotional Histories in the Fight to End Prostitution, by Michele Renee Greer
Emotions and Migration in Argentina at the Turn of the 20th Century, by
María Bjerg
Forthcoming:
The Business of Emotion in Modern History, edited by Andrew Popp
and Mandy Cooper
The Renaissance of Feeling, by Kirk Essary
Emotions in the Ottoman Empire
Politics, Society, and Family in the Early
Modern Era
Nil Tekgül
BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC
Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
50 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3DP, UK
1385 Broadway, New York, NY 10018, USA
29 Earlsfort Terrace, Dublin 2, Ireland
BLOOMSBURY, BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC and the Diana logo are
trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
First published in Great Britain 2023
Copyright © Nil Tekgül, 2023
Nil Tekgül has asserted her right under the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this work.
For legal purposes the Acknowledgments on pp. viii–xi constitute an
extension of this copyright page.
Cover image © A nineteenth-century Turkish lady dressed in traditional clothing,
with her face veiled in a yashmak. Whitemay/Getty.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted
in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,
recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior
permission in writing from the publishers.
Bloomsbury Publishing Plc does not have any control over, or responsibility for,
any third-party websites referred to or in this book. All internet addresses given in this
book were correct at the time of going to press. The author and publisher regret any
inconvenience caused if addresses have changed or sites have ceased to exist,
but can accept no responsibility for any such changes.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
ISBN: HB: 978-1-3501-8054-3
ePDF: 978-1-3501-8055-0
eBook: 978-1-3501-8056-7
Series: History of Emotions
Typeset by Integra Software Services Pvt. Ltd.
To find out more about our authors and books visit www.bloomsbury.com
and sign up for our newsletters.
Contents
A Note on Transliteration and Translation vii
Acknowledgments viii
Introduction: Emotions and the Concept of Protection 1
Ottoman Politics of Difference 3
Emotions in Historical Studies 5
Emotions in Ottoman Studies 11
Methods and Sources 14
1 Emotion Knowledge 23
Kınalızade’s Ahlak-ı Ala’i 24
Faculties of Vegetative, Animal, and Human Soul 27
Emotions in Ahlak-i Ala’i 33
Emotions and the Domain of Medical Knowledge 36
Absence of Emotions in Ottoman Self-Narratives 38
Concluding Remarks 41
2 Ottoman Politics of Emotion 43
Protection with Compassion 46
Uniting with the Hearts of the Subjects (telif-i kulüb and istimalet) 56
The Path of Love (mahabbet) 63
Concluding Remarks 67
3 Emotions in Intracommunal Relations: Rıza and Şükran 69
Sub-communities in Ottoman Society 70
Neighborhoods and Guilds as “Domains of Gratitude” 73
Sensations and Drawing the Boundaries of Communities:
Kendü halinde olmak 79
Expulsions from Domains of Gratitude 83
Emotions as Practices 87
Concluding Remarks 92
vi Contents
4 Regulating Communities by an Emotion: Shame 95
Shame in Different Cultures 97
Shame in Ottoman Sources 100
Gendered Emotion of Shame: Ar 104
Shaming Others in Ottoman Society 106
Concluding Remarks 109
5 Emotions in the Ottoman Family 111
Emotionology of the Ottoman Family: House of Companionship
and Love (Hane-i Ülfet ve Mahabbet) 112
Expressions of Emotions in Engagement 119
Expressions of Emotions in Divorce 124
Concluding Remarks 129
6 Changing Meanings of Protection and Transformation of Emotions 131
Modernization Efforts in the 19th Century 132
From Mahabbet to Love of Fatherland 136
Change in the Domain of Medical Knowledge 138
Transformation of Emotions in Societal and Familial Relations 140
Concluding Remarks 142
Conclusion 145
Bibliography 152
Index 163
A Note on Transliteration and Translation
For Ottoman Turkish words I have been guided by the International Journal
of Middle East Studies (IJMES) transliteration system, and have used the
Turkish alphabet and conventional modern Turkish orthography. The following
characters are pronounced as indicated:
c = “j” as in joke
ç = “ch” as in children
ş = “sh” as in ship
ı = undotted “i,” sounds like the “e” of women
ğ = soft g, lengthening the sound of the preceding vowel
ö = sounds like the “u” of fur
ü = like French u
Arabic and Turkish terms usually appear in the singular form and are italicized
and explained on the first appearance. Whenever the plural form of such terms
is required, a Romanized “s” is added to them.
All translations from Ottoman Turkish are the author’s own, unless indicated
otherwise.
Names of places commonly known to readers of English have been written
in their usual forms.
Acknowledgments
This book is a revised and improved version of my PhD dissertation completed
under the supervision of Prof. Özer Ergenç at İhsan Doğramacı Bilkent University
in 2016. I owe thanks to Bilkent University for all the academic facilities that it
provided, without which it would not have been possible to conduct and publish
my research. I would like to express my sincere thanks to all those people who
contributed and made this unforgettable experience of mine possible.
First and foremost, I would like to express my deepest gratitude (şükran)
to my advisor Prof. Özer Ergenç for his continuous support and everlasting
patience with my questions. His immense knowledge of Ottoman history and
his guidance always enlightened my way throughout my time of research. It
would have been impossible to study as elusive a concept as “emotions” without
his continuous encouragement. Throughout the process he was not only my
advisor but also my mentor, and I always considered myself lucky to feel his deep
support. Thank you Hocam for making my journey not only fulfilling but also
enjoyable. I am also proud to consider myself a part of an “academic lineage”
starting from Mehmet Fuat Köprülü and continuing to Halil İnalcık and Özer
Ergenç, who was the first doctorate student of Halil İnalcık. I am and will always
be proud to be one of his students.
I would like to extend my deepest thanks to Peter Stearns and Susan Matt.
My journey of writing a book started with their call, published on H-Emotions,
for international treatments of the history of emotions. They are prominent
historians in the field, and I learned a great deal from their valuable insights and
comments on earlier drafts of the manuscript. This book would not have been
possible without them. Thank you.
I also thank Margrit Pernau, a prominent historian in the field of “history of
emotions,” whom I met while I was at Harvard University. It was her work, in
several publications, that enlightened my thinking on the emotions, and made it
possible to improve my dissertation by moving from expressions to experience
of emotions and senses. It was also she who made me realize the amazing legacy
of Persian culture in Ottoman intellectual life.
I would also like to thank Cemal Kafadar, for not only kindly accepting to
be on my dissertation committee but also for being my faculty sponsor while
Acknowledgments ix
I was at the Harvard University Center for Middle Eastern Studies (CMES) as a
post-doctoral visiting scholar. I was lucky to attend the Ottoman history courses
that he was offering. His theatrical style of teaching, his immense knowledge
of history (always coupled with his modesty), and the wide range of topics and
questions that he’s interested in definitely shaped my understanding of history
and my own style of teaching history. I do not know how he did it, but I always
wanted to head for the library once his lecture was over and start a new research
on the little wonders and marvels of the ordinary Ottoman people to better
understand a complex phenomenon. Thank you.
My thanks and appreciation are also due to CMES for offering me an ideal
environment where I had a chance to be a part of an intellectual community
that wholeheartedly welcomes academics from all over the world having a
passion for seeking knowledge. I have very fond memories of the year I spent at
Harvard University. I am also thankful to my colleagues and friends Tarık Tansu
Yiğit, Bedriye Poyraz, Neşe Gürallar, Belgin Turan Özkaya and Jun Akiba for
sharing and encouraging my passion in emotions in history and their thoughtful
comments on my lecture given at CMES. I miss many of our discussions, and
our conversations in Tate Bakery and Shay’s Pub, and thank them all for making
my post-doctoral studies unforgettable.
I also owe thanks to Mehmet Kalpaklı, Ali Yaycıoğlu and Tülay Artan, who
accepted to be a member of my dissertation committee and also for making
thoughtful and valuable remarks to improve my understanding of emotions
in history.
Many thanks are due to my colleague and friend Christiane Czygan, who
has expertise in Ottoman poetry and the historical expressions of emotions in
poems and personal letters, for reading earlier drafts of the manuscript and for
her valuable comments.
There’s also someone special whom I would like to thank who passed away
long ago. My grandmother, Ferhunde Betin, born in 1907 in Van, a city in the
eastern Anatolia, was a member of late Ottoman society in her childhood. She
studied in an elementary school in Beyoğlu, İstanbul and shared her memories
with me, including how she and her classmates used to shout “long live Sultan”
while standing on the Ottoman sultan’s way to the Friday prayer. With the
promulgation of the Turkish Republic, however, she had always been a proud
citizen of the Turkish Republic until she passed away in 1998. After graduating
from Kandilli and Erenköy Kız Lisesi (a high school for girls) she worked as an
elementary school teacher who taught in several cities, towns and villages in
Çorum, İzmir and İstanbul. She always felt that she was serving her fatherland
