Table Of ContentTwilight of the Saints
TWILIGHT OF THE SAINTS
Everyday Religion in Ottoman Syria
and Palestine
z
JAMES GREHAN
1
3
Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford.
It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship,
and education by publishing worldwide.
Oxford New York
Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi
Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi
New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto
With offices in
Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece
Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore
South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam
Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press
in the UK and certain other countries.
Published in the United States of America by
Oxford University Press
198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016
© Oxford University Press 2014
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a
retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior
permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law,
by license, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reproduction rights organization.
Inquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the
Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above.
You must not circulate this work in any other form
and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Grehan, James.
Twilight of the saints : everyday religion in Ottoman Syria and Palestine / James Grehan.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978–0–19–937303–1 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Folk religion—Middle East—History.
2. Christianity—Middle East—History. 3. Turkey—History—Ottoman Empire, 1288–1918.
4. Islam—Relations—Christianity. 5. Christianity—Relations—Islam. I. Title.
BL1060.G844 2014
200.9569—dc23
2014003064
1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
For Sinan
Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction 1
A. Religion and Culture in the Middle East: Old Stereotypes,
Dubious Assumptions 1
B. The Search for “Popular Religion” 6
C. An Alternative Framework: Agrarian Religion 14
1. Religious Possibilities 20
A. Religious Infrastructure: Mosques and Churches 21
B. The Religious Professionals 42
C. Illiteracy and Its Religious Consequences 53
D. Conclusion: The Weakness of Institutional Religion 59
2. Magic Men 62
A. Varieties of Saints 63
B. Saint-Making 70
C. The Practical Side of Sainthood 77
D. Conclusion: The Indispensable Saints 82
3. A Religion of Tombs 85
A. The Cult of Saints 86
B. Tombs as Architectural Landmarks 89
C. Tombs as Social Institutions 95
D. Tombs as Religious Institutions 100
E. Whose Tomb Is It? 107
F. Conclusion: The Triumph of Religion “From Below” 112
viii Contents
4. Sacred Landscapes 116
A. Sacred Stones 117
B. Sacred Caves 125
C. Water Cults 130
D. Holy Trees 134
E. Conclusion: The Legacy of “Paganism”? 139
5. Haunted Landscapes 141
A. In the Company of Spirits 142
B. Magical Shields: Spells, Talismans, Icons 150
C. Spirits in the Night: Visions and Dreams 156
D. Conclusion: The Familiarity of the Spirit World 161
6. Blood and Prayer 164
A. Etiquette at Shrines 165
B. Rites of Blood 171
C. A Common Votive Language 177
D. Living Together, Worshipping Together 181
E. Conclusion: A Common Religious Culture 187
Conclusion 190
A. How Did Religious Identity Matter? 190
B. Modernity: The True “Age of Faith” 196
C. The Slow Death of Agrarian Religion 201
Appendices 209
Appendix A: Mosques in Ottoman Syria and
Palestine (c. 1870) 209
Appendix B: Population and Religion in Ottoman Syria and
Palestine (c. 1870) 215
Appendix C: Christian and Jewish Infrastructure in
Ottoman Syria and Palestine (c. 1870) 227
Appendix D: Sufi Lodges in Ottoman Syria and
Palestine (c. 1870) 234
Notes 241
Bibliography 299
Index 329
Acknowledgments
perhaps the indulgent reader will forgive yet another book about re-
ligion in the Middle East. We certainly have enough of them, and going
back to my early days as a student, I could count on finding the same
settled narratives, wherever I seemed to turn. This triumph of received
opinion is, in my view, always grounds for healthy suspicion. So I had long
wondered whether everything that I had read about religious history was
really so reliable, or for that matter, truly historical. With the recent spate
of sectarian violence in the Fertile Crescent—often linked, in vulgar inter-
pretations, to religion itself—the time seemed right to embark on my own
investigation. My main aim is to persuade readers to reconsider what they
think they know about religion. At least a few, I hope, will recognize traces
of an older outlook which has not entirely disappeared from sight today.
For the initial opportunity to undertake this research and reflection, I
am grateful for a fellowship awarded by the National Endowment for the
Humanities, which helped to free up much-needed time and set this pro-
ject in motion. Along the way, I received further support from the depart-
ment of history and religious studies program at Portland State University,
which was crucial in preparing the manuscript for publication. My chair
in the history department Tom Luckett granted many helpful favors, al-
ways with a sympathetic smile. For the fine maps in Chapter 1, I owe a
debt of gratitude to Anthea Fallen-Bailey, who provided invaluable tech-
nical assistance. At Oxford University Press, I would like to express appre-
ciation to my editor Cynthia Read, to Marcela Maxfield, and the rest of the
production team, who were very gracious and patient from the beginning
till the end. My copyeditor Michael Durnin has my heartfelt thanks for his
careful inspection of the manuscript. Any remaining errors are, of course,
my sole responsibility.
