Friend and foe: The early Ottoman reception of Ibn'Arabi

204 Pages·2012·22.62 MB·English

UC Berkeley
UC Berkeley Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Title
Friend and foe: The early Ottoman reception of Ibn 'Arabi
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https://escholarship.org/uc/item/6jn6f796
Author
Zildzic, Ahmed
Publication Date
2012

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Friend and foe: The early Ottoman reception of Ibn ‘Arab!
by
Ahmed Zildzic

A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the
requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
in
Near Eastern Studies
in the
Graduate Division
of the
University of California, Berkeley

Committee in charge:
Professor Hamid Algar, Chair
Professor Muhammad Siddiq
Professor Wali Ahmadi
Professor Ronelle Alexander

Fall 2012
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Abstract
Friend and foe: The Early Ottoman Reception of Ibn ‘Arab!
by
Ahmed Zildzic
Doctor of Philosophy in Near Eastern Studies
University of California, Berkeley
Professor Hamid Algar, Chair

The legacy of the great Muslim Sufi master from the XII century, Muhy al-d!n Ibn al-
‘Arab! left broad, profound, lasting and polarizing impact on the development of Islamic
mysticism in the centuries after his death. The underlying principles of Sufism such as
the ideas of the transcendental unity of being, the Perfect Man, the sealhood of the Mu-
hammadan sainthood in their final form and ultimate interpretation are usually, both fa-
vorably and unfavorably, associated with the name of Ibn ‘Arab!.
This dissertation is a historical inquiry into the pathways through which the influence of
Ibn ‘Arab!, as well as that of his works, disciples and ideas was inherited and incorpo-
rated into the intellectual milieu of the Ottoman learned class represented here by two
groups: religious scholars, and members of the imperial administration. This dissertation
follows the continuities of the textual and interpretative community of IbnArabi, stretch-
ing through a series of IbnArabi’s disciples from the time of his sojourn in pre-Ottoman
Anatolia until the first scholarly figures and institutions of the Ottomans whereby Akbari
teachings were propelled into the nascent Ottoman scholarly circles.
The tumultuous historical events of the first decades of the XVI century, namely the Ot-
toman conquest of the Arab world and the resulting defeat of the Mamluks and the Sa-
favids, provided an opportunity for the evaluation of the well-established Akbari teach-
ings in an Ottoman context. A notable XVII century Ottoman commentator of the Fusus,
Abdullah el-Bosnevi in his famous Sharh proposed that the advent of the Ottomans into
the Arab world reinvigorated, or more precisely for the first time launched heated debates
concentrated around the question of the acceptability of IbnArabi’s beliefs in Ottoman
realm. The abundant amount of primary sources originating from that period shows in-
tensive activities focused at attacking and defending Ibn ‘Arab!, his views and his follow-
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ers, and that fact appears to bear out el-Bosnevi’s assumption. Based on primary manu-
script sources and an array of secondary literature this dissertation attempts to follow
those debates in two textual corpuses: in imperial discourse represented here by a short,
anonymous and obscure treatise titled Al-Shajara al-nu‘m!niyya f" ‘ulam!’ al-dawla al-
‘uthm!niyya, and in legal discourse represented by a selection of fatwas issued by some
of the most illustrious Ottoman scholars and shaykh al-islams from that period.
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Dedicated to the real doctor in the house and our three girls.
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Table of contents:

Abstract ……………………………………….………………………………….1
Dedication page ……………………………….………………………………….i
Table of contents …………………………….…………………………………..ii
List of abbreviations ………………………….…………………………………iii
Introduction ……………………………………………………………………..iv
Acknowledgments……………………………………………………...………viii
PART ONE
Chapter One: Ibn ‘Arab! and the scholarly class of Islam ........................ 2
PART TWO
Chapter Two: Pre-Ottoman Anatolia and the shaykh …………….…… 43
Chapter Three: Ibn ‘Arab! and the Ottoman dynasty: the case of
al-Shajara al-Nu‘m!niyya …………………………………………..…. 83
Chapter Four: Ibn ‘Arab! in legal discourse: Akbari teachings in
Ottoman fatwas ……………………………….………………………. 119
Bibliography ………………………………………………………….…...….. 162
Supplement A: An overview of the manuscripts of al-Shajara ………………175
Supplement B: A selection of the original fatwas …….....….............................181

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List of abbreviations

BSOAS: Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies
EI": The Encyclopaedia of Islam
EIR: Encyclopedia Iranica
GHB: Gazi Husrev-begova biblioteka, Sarajevo
#A: #slâm ansiklopedisi
IJMES: International Journal for Middle Eastern Studies
Ktp: Kütüphanesi
PQ: Pseudo-Q$naw!
PS: Pseudo-%afad!
R: Rukopis (MSS)
SI: Studia Islamica
SK: Süleymaniye kütüphanesi, Istanbul
TDV #A: Türkiye diyanet vakfı islâm ansiklopedisi
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Introduction
This study is an attempt to examine in some detail the influence of the great Andalusian
Sufi master Mu&y al-d!n Ibn al-‘Arab! and the ways in which his teachings and his fol-
lowers were received among the Ottoman learned class, both those learned in religious
sciences and Ottoman bureaucrats and administrators. Ibn ‘Arab!’s influence in general
and the Ottoman Empire are such broad concepts in themselves that no study can claim
any degree of exhaustiveness. The study of Ibn ‘Arab!’s trace in any society would be
equivalent to the study of Sufism in its entirety. Inevitably, in this study both the tem-
poral frame and textual corpus had to be narrowed down significantly in order to render
the topic manageable. Given the bipartite definition of the term ‘learned’ in that it applies
to both bureaucratic and religious officials, this study will focus on two types of textual
evidence and through them show the degree to which Ibn ‘Arab! is embedded in the Ot-
toman intellectual milieu. The first text is an obscure millenarian treatise attributed to Ibn
‘Arab!, al-Shajara al-nu‘m!niyya f" al-dawla al-‘uthm!niyya, and the other textual cor-
pus is a selection of fatwas on Ibn ‘Arab! delivered by the representatives of the highest
judicial office of the Empire, shaykh al-islams.
This thesis is divided into two parts, encompassing four chapters. The first part, consist-
ing of a single chapter, aims to establish Ibn ‘Arab!’s credentials in the traditional Mus-
lim curriculum of religious disciplines, and to answer the very basic question of whether
the ‘ulama could rely on Ibn ‘Arab!’s training in the traditional curriculum in order to ac-
cept him into their fold or deny him that privilege. Using Ibn ‘Arab!’s autographed ver-
sion of the ij!za, which in fact is a compendium of all of the ij!zas issued by the teachers
he benefited from during his education, as well as supporting information gleaned from
other sources, this study reconstructs his early education in the field of Qur’anic studies,
#ad"th, Islamic jurisprudence and all other relevant branches of the traditional Muslim
scholarship. The next question, which is closely related to the first basic question of his
membership in the scholarly class of Islam, is that of his approach to the principal epis-
temic methodologies developed and adopted by the ‘ulama class. In other words, to what
extent are Ibn ‘Arab!’s works and ideas the result of his education in the religious scienc-
es of Islam, and to what degree are his ideas traceable within the epistemological system
of the ij!za and sanad, as the defining features of the traditional Muslim scholarship?
The question of the acceptability of Ibn ‘Arab!’s written opus and religious doctrine was
the subject-matter of heated debates among his supporters and opponents beginning al-
ready during his lifetime and lasting with varying degree of intensity to this day. The is-
sue of the pedigree of Ibn ‘Arab!’s doctrinal system is undoubtedly at the center of the
controversy surrounding his polemical image. Based on quotations from his works, the
supranatural genesis of some of his writings, especially the most influential ones like the
Fu$%$ and Fut%#!t is examined as a possible source of the existing misunderstanding be-
tween the shaykh al-akbar and his followers on the one hand, and some members of the
‘ulama class on the other.
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The second part of the thesis, comprising the remaining three chapters, addresses the re-
ception of Ibn ‘Arab! in what may be provisionally called the Turkish world. Chapter
Two presents Ibn ‘Arab!’s links and relations with Salj$qid Anatolia, his physical pres-
ence and activities in the Salj$q dominion during his lifetime and, more importantly, the
transfer of authority to his foremost disciple %adr al-d!n al-Q$naw! and the posthumous
formation of Ibn ‘Arab!’s textual and interpretative community at the hands of the latter
in Konya. Through a succession of al-Q$naw!’s pupils and the authentic textual body en-
dowed in his zaviye in Konya, the distinct doctrinal system of the Akbari circle reaches
Ottoman times. Just as the Ottomans inherited many other aspects of Islamic culture and
civilization from their immediate predecessors in Asia Minor, the Salj$qs, they also in-
herited Ibn ‘Arab!’s legacy. This chapter, furthermore, shows the ways in which that leg-
acy was integrated and made to be part and parcel of the nascent Ottoman scholarly infra-
structure. Largely through the efforts of the first Ottoman müderris, D'w$d al-Qay(ar!
and the first Ottoman mufti, Fen'r! Efendi at the first Ottoman medrese of Orhaniye at
Iznik, Ibn ‘Arab! and his school of thought became a potent constituent of the emerging
Ottoman intellectual scene.
A celebrated Ottoman commentator on the Fu$%$, ‘Abdull'h al-Bosnev! in the introduc-
tion to his famous Shar#, records an intriguing proposition: he contends that Ibn ‘Arab!’s
saintly figure was largely intact among the Ottomans until Sultan Selim conquered the
Arab world. After Selim’s seizure of the two traditional centers of Muslim scholarship
that were in Mamluk possession, namely Damascus and Cairo, the heated debates regard-
ing Ibn ‘Arab!’s acceptability, or lack thereof, from the works of the Arab fuqah!’1 who
lived in those centers of learning were transferred into the Ottoman scholarly milieu and
wrought havoc there. The intent of Chapters Three and Four is to examine that proposi-
tion in some detail.
Chapter Three deals with a short treatise attributed to Ibn ‘Arab!, or more precisely with
the two commentaries on that treatise attributed to al-Q$naw! and %afad!. Every aspect in
relation to this work is dubious: its very existence in the original form is questionable as
no more than a couple of sentences from the original work are recorded; its content is ob-
scure and largely impenetrable; its attribution to Ibn ‘Arab! and the attribution of the
commentaries to al-Q$naw! and al-%afad! are decidedly spurious; and the date of its
composition, as well as that of the commentaries, is unknown and impossible to deter-
mine. There is, however, one single aspect to this work that is certain and that makes this
work indispensable in the study of Ibn Arab!’s influence on the Ottomans: it is a supreme
example of the official Ottoman imperial propaganda devised and used to support the Ot-
toman paramountcy over all other Muslim dynasties of the age, which is in line with the
pronounced Messianic aspirations entertained by both Sultan Selim and Süleyman.2 Alt-
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1 ‘Abdull'h al-Bosnev! mentions al-Biq'‘! by name. See SK Carullah 1032, fol. 2b.
2 Ottoman sources record a revealing episode that clearly demonstrates the purpose to which this confusing text was
employed. During the negotiations leading to the famous Treaty of Ahmed Pasha in 1736 between the Ottoman
State and Safavid Persia, apart from the question of territorial exchanges between the two states, the issue of the
permissibility for Iranian pilgrims to visit Mecca, at the time under Ottoman control, was also raised and that result-
ed in sectarian and legitimacy debates. An unnamed Ottoman delegate, while enumerating the merits of the Ottoman
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hough the date of the composition of this work is unknown and can only be speculated
about, the date and the setting of the historical events to which the text makes reference is
clearly observable. The text links the fortunes of the Ottoman State in the tumultuous six-
teen century with the veneration of Muslim saintly figures, particularly Ibn ‘Arab!, and
identifies their defense against all critics as the ultimate priority. The miraculous discov-
ery of Ibn ‘Arab!’s tomb in the %'li&iyya district of Damascus, the building of a mausole-
um there, the commission of works in defense of the greatest shaykh by Sultan Selim and
the very first Ottoman fatwa on Ibn ‘Arab!, are all but segments of an officially orches-
trated effort at preserving the favorable status of Ibn ‘Arab! within the Ottoman intellec-
tual and imperial milieu. All these events transpired shortly after Selim’s defeat of the
Mamluks and his conquest of Damascus and Cairo, and that fact gives some credence to
al-Bosnev!’s contestation.
Chapter Four examines the status of Ibn ‘Arab! in Ottoman fatwas. From the time of the
Ottoman ‘firsts’3 to the conquest of the Arab world by Sultan Selim there has been no
single fatwa on Ibn ‘Arab! issued by Ottoman muftis. This chapter examines Ibn ‘Arab!’s
entrance into the legal discourse by through a study of the first distinctively Ottoman fat-
wa on the question of Ibn ‘Arab! and the subsequent responses, both positive and nega-
tive, by a series of Ottoman shaykh al-islams. In this chapter I survey how Ibn ‘Arab!’s
orthodoxy, once a general issue in Islamic thought, became thoroughly ‘Ottomanized’,
and discuss what strategies were at work to achieve that goal. Inasmuch as the affirmative
and negative fatwas on Ibn ‘Arab! were given by scholars who were occupying the iden-
tical scholarly and official rank, and who in many cases succeeded each other in office, it
is intriguing to examine the manner in which they built their legal argument, ending in
the two opposite extremes of full acceptance and full rejection. Every shaykh al-islam of
the Ottoman Empire in the first half of the sixteenth century issued a legal opinion on Ibn
‘Arab! and this question appears to be one of those that inevitably required the mufti to
disclose his opinion. The debate started with the fatwa of Ibn Kemal and in this chapter, I
looked at how it developed and what direction it took in the view of his successors.
At the end, I provide two appendices. In the first appendix I give an overview of the ex-
isting manuscript copies of al-Shajara al-nu‘m!niyya and its commentaries by different
authors in libraries and collections around the world. Apart from those manuscripts here-
into identified by scholars who addressed Ibn Arab!’s bio-bibliography, I was able to
identify some new copies and list them in the supplement. The second supplement con-
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State, made a reference to the Prophetic tradition glorifying the conqueror of Constantinople and then added: “Quite
apart from this singular virtue [of the Ottomans-AZ], Mu&y al-d!n Ibn ‘Arab!, the interpreter of the Unseen (lis!n-i
ghayb), composed a work entitled al-Shajara in which he predicted the emergence of this noble dynasty, its glorious
sultans, ministers and scholars, pointing out that this State (devlet) will last until the Day of Judgment, under the
banner of the Prophet.” Coupled with the virtuous practice of ghaz!, the text of al-Shajara was as late as XVIII cen-
tury, invoked in the legitimization and favorable positioning of the Ottoman Empire against its adversaries and rivals
in the Muslim world. See Koca Ra)ıp Pa*a, Ta#q"q al-tawf"q, SK Esad Efendi 2154, fol. 44a, quoted from Mustafa
Tahralı, “Muhyiddin Ibn Arabî ve Türkiye’ye te’sirleri”, Kubbealtı akademi mecmûası, vol. 23, 1994, no. 1, p. 32.
3 By the Ottoman firsts I mean the first Ottoman religious establishment, the Orhaniye in Iznik, the first Ottoman
müderris Dawud al-Qaysari and arguably the first Ottoman mufti Mola Fenari – the initial Ottoman institutions and
scholars under the influence of Ibn ‘Arab!.
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