Papers by Aslıhan Gürbüzel
Festschrift for Cemal Kafadar, 2022
In this article, we trace the cultural habitus and reading preferences of the Ottoman secretarial... more In this article, we trace the cultural habitus and reading preferences of the Ottoman secretarial class through a close study of a mecmua that was shared by multiple members of the secretarial profession.
Early Science and Medicine, 2021
Introduction to Special Issue: Religion and Medicine in Medieval and Early Modern History
Early Science and Medicine, 2021
This article examines the translation, circulation, and adaptation of the medical
opinion of Span... more This article examines the translation, circulation, and adaptation of the medical
opinion of Spanish physician Nicolas Monardes (d. 1588) on tobacco in the Ottoman
Empire. In addition to medical and encyclopedist authors, the spread of new medical
knowledge in learned and eventually popular registers was the result of the efforts of
religious authorities. These latter authorities, namely jurists, Sufis, and preachers, took
an interest in the bodily and mental effects of smoking for its moral implications. In
forming their medical-moral discourse, they sought and studied contemporary medical
works of both Ottoman and European provenance. Challenging the strict division
between learned and popular medicine, this article argues that Ottoman religious
authorities, while often excluded from the history of medicine, played significant roles
in the circulation, adaptation, and localization of medical knowledge.
Philological Encounters, 2021
This is just the first few pages of the full article (due to Brill's copyright terms & policies).... more This is just the first few pages of the full article (due to Brill's copyright terms & policies). If interested and unable to access, please feel free to send me an email.
Summary
This article offers a new understanding of early modern Islam that goes beyond an exclusive emphasis on sharīʿa compliance. I show that early modern Ottoman thought recognized non-legal discourses as integral and constitutive parts of the Islamic tradition (sunna) through adopting the imagery of a bilingual heaven, specifically through the recognition of the sacred status of Persian alongside Arabic. In other words, two distinct configurations of the divine—legal and mystical-philosophical—coexisted in a bilingual heaven. Following ʿAnḳaravī and the Mevlevī tradition, I define a distinct Persianate Islam which had two main characteristics. The first characteristic was the recognition of the diversity of authoritative Islamic discourses, the second one was a positive propensity towards innovations.
Journal for Early Modern Cultural Studies: Special Issue on Early Modern Islamic Cities, 2018
Th is paper explores the early modern Ottoman public sphere through the concept of “piety,” a pot... more Th is paper explores the early modern Ottoman public sphere through the concept of “piety,” a potent identity marker that projected social and moral authority. In Ottoman towns, piety functioned as a social paradigm denoting approval and significance in a vibrant urban culture that relied on “the pious” for various functions such as dispensation of justice, informal education, upward mobility, and everyday sociability. This paper presents, for the first time, a sociocultural analysis of the discursive uses of “the pious of the community” as a consistent, shared expression of a public sphere that negotiated moral authority vis- a- vis the state sphere. Two understudied biographical dictionaries that list “the pious” from approximately sixty Ottoman cities provide a full sense not only of who “the pious” were, but also of their role in organizing urban social life and imbuing it with moral and political meaning. The authors of these biographical collections were provincial judges, which provides the article a unique vantage point for questioning the state- society dichotomy. Instead of this dichotomous view, this article posits a public sphere that grew out of local social organization around state functions. These local communities inhabited a public sphere that simultaneously overspread and transcended the material city.
Scribal Habits in Near Eastern Manuscript Traditions (Ed. George Kiraz and Sabine Schmidtke), Gorgias Press., 2020
This paper describes an Ottoman practice of textual
criticism that I call “the portable majlis.” ... more This paper describes an Ottoman practice of textual
criticism that I call “the portable majlis.” Mimicking the
social reading majlis, textual authorities used paratextual
space to engage critically with given texts and situate them
within the broader canon. The work of these textual
authorities, who operated as middle authors between the
author and the copyist of the text, was recognized and
sought out by the reading public. Following the work of one
such middle author, İsmāʿīl Ḥaḳḳı Bursevī (d. 1725), I
show that his efforts as a reliable textual critic were broadly
recognized by Ottoman readers and copyists who prized his
edition of texts as distinctly reliable versions. The paper
suggests that the practice of authoring portable majlises as a
form of publication became widespread at the turn of the
eighteenth century due to two larger shifts in Ottoman
reading culture: the rise of deep reading and the
proliferation of new reading spaces, such as the public
library. Both of these developments presupposed individual
readers. It was the task of the middle author to provide
guidance for the individual reader by reproducing the social
reading majlis on the page.
Manuscript Cultures, 2016
Full issue at: https://www.csmc.uni-hamburg.de/publications/mc/mc09.html
Conference Presentations by Aslıhan Gürbüzel
by Marinos Sariyannis, Zeynep Aydogan, Nikolas Pissis, B. Harun Küçük, Baki Tezcan, Kostas Sarris, Slobodan Ilić, Maria Mavroudi, Guy Burak, Aslıhan Gürbüzel, Ahmet Tunç Şen, Side Emre, Nir Shafir, and Miri Shefer-Mossensohn
Conferences by Aslıhan Gürbüzel
CFP: Crossroads of Medicine and Religion, McGill University April 2019
Book Reviews by Aslıhan Gürbüzel
International Journal of Islamic Architecture, 2019
Drafts by Aslıhan Gürbüzel
Ankara : The Department of History, Bilkent University, 2008.Thesis (Master's) -- Bilkent Uni... more Ankara : The Department of History, Bilkent University, 2008.Thesis (Master's) -- Bilkent University, 2008.Includes bibliographical references.The Treaty of Berlin, signed in July 1878, marks the appearence of new political dynamics for Eastern Anatolian affairs. The stipulation of the reforms for the protection of the Armenians from Kurdish and Circassian attacks, and the supervision of these reforms by the British authorities were to effect the relations of the Eastern Anatolian populations with the state. The thesis examines the roots of conflicts between the Kurdish and Armenian populations, which was problematized by the aforementioned treaty. Moreover, state policies towards the region are discussed in detail. The state had now two equally important concerns regarding its dealings with the Muslim populations. The first was the immediate attainment of a state of security, for insecurity was used as an argument against the legitimacy of the Ottoman state ruling over Christia...
The post-Mongol Western Anatolia was a breeding ground for ambitious Turkic chieftains and charis... more The post-Mongol Western Anatolia was a breeding ground for ambitious Turkic chieftains and charismatic saints competing for a new spiritual and political order. These rulers and dervishes, often clashing with each other, constantly negotiated the nature and boundaries of spiritual and temporal authorities. This talk will elaborate on how hagiographies reflected Sufistic visions of authority and portrayed the Ottomans from the 14th through the 16th centuries.
Books by Aslıhan Gürbüzel
This file contains a promotional code for my forthcoming book.
Articles by Aslıhan Gürbüzel
Turcica, 2023
This is the introduction to a special issue on the "Social history of Ottoman languages." When hi... more This is the introduction to a special issue on the "Social history of Ottoman languages." When historians approach the political and social implications of language choice in the early modern Ottoman Empire, they treat it as either selecting a proto-nationalist affiliation just part of an indistinct premodern non-identity. This introduction introduces alternative theoretical and conceptual frameworks to approach the question of language in the early modern Ottoman Empire. This dossier/special issue itself is dedicated to the question of the social history of language in the early modern Ottoman Empire. It brings a small group of leading and budding scholars to help provide new insights into the language of the Ottoman Empire. In particular, it tries to demonstrate the diversity of languages in the Empire through essays on (pre-Ottoman) Turkish, Bosnian in the Arabic script, and Armenian.
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Papers by Aslıhan Gürbüzel
opinion of Spanish physician Nicolas Monardes (d. 1588) on tobacco in the Ottoman
Empire. In addition to medical and encyclopedist authors, the spread of new medical
knowledge in learned and eventually popular registers was the result of the efforts of
religious authorities. These latter authorities, namely jurists, Sufis, and preachers, took
an interest in the bodily and mental effects of smoking for its moral implications. In
forming their medical-moral discourse, they sought and studied contemporary medical
works of both Ottoman and European provenance. Challenging the strict division
between learned and popular medicine, this article argues that Ottoman religious
authorities, while often excluded from the history of medicine, played significant roles
in the circulation, adaptation, and localization of medical knowledge.
Summary
This article offers a new understanding of early modern Islam that goes beyond an exclusive emphasis on sharīʿa compliance. I show that early modern Ottoman thought recognized non-legal discourses as integral and constitutive parts of the Islamic tradition (sunna) through adopting the imagery of a bilingual heaven, specifically through the recognition of the sacred status of Persian alongside Arabic. In other words, two distinct configurations of the divine—legal and mystical-philosophical—coexisted in a bilingual heaven. Following ʿAnḳaravī and the Mevlevī tradition, I define a distinct Persianate Islam which had two main characteristics. The first characteristic was the recognition of the diversity of authoritative Islamic discourses, the second one was a positive propensity towards innovations.
criticism that I call “the portable majlis.” Mimicking the
social reading majlis, textual authorities used paratextual
space to engage critically with given texts and situate them
within the broader canon. The work of these textual
authorities, who operated as middle authors between the
author and the copyist of the text, was recognized and
sought out by the reading public. Following the work of one
such middle author, İsmāʿīl Ḥaḳḳı Bursevī (d. 1725), I
show that his efforts as a reliable textual critic were broadly
recognized by Ottoman readers and copyists who prized his
edition of texts as distinctly reliable versions. The paper
suggests that the practice of authoring portable majlises as a
form of publication became widespread at the turn of the
eighteenth century due to two larger shifts in Ottoman
reading culture: the rise of deep reading and the
proliferation of new reading spaces, such as the public
library. Both of these developments presupposed individual
readers. It was the task of the middle author to provide
guidance for the individual reader by reproducing the social
reading majlis on the page.
Conference Presentations by Aslıhan Gürbüzel
The sessions will take place online. Register in advance:
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZMrcO6uqzIpHdcJJOA1FsDBx6VhXbgQjXqd
Conferences by Aslıhan Gürbüzel
Book Reviews by Aslıhan Gürbüzel
Drafts by Aslıhan Gürbüzel
Books by Aslıhan Gürbüzel
Articles by Aslıhan Gürbüzel
opinion of Spanish physician Nicolas Monardes (d. 1588) on tobacco in the Ottoman
Empire. In addition to medical and encyclopedist authors, the spread of new medical
knowledge in learned and eventually popular registers was the result of the efforts of
religious authorities. These latter authorities, namely jurists, Sufis, and preachers, took
an interest in the bodily and mental effects of smoking for its moral implications. In
forming their medical-moral discourse, they sought and studied contemporary medical
works of both Ottoman and European provenance. Challenging the strict division
between learned and popular medicine, this article argues that Ottoman religious
authorities, while often excluded from the history of medicine, played significant roles
in the circulation, adaptation, and localization of medical knowledge.
Summary
This article offers a new understanding of early modern Islam that goes beyond an exclusive emphasis on sharīʿa compliance. I show that early modern Ottoman thought recognized non-legal discourses as integral and constitutive parts of the Islamic tradition (sunna) through adopting the imagery of a bilingual heaven, specifically through the recognition of the sacred status of Persian alongside Arabic. In other words, two distinct configurations of the divine—legal and mystical-philosophical—coexisted in a bilingual heaven. Following ʿAnḳaravī and the Mevlevī tradition, I define a distinct Persianate Islam which had two main characteristics. The first characteristic was the recognition of the diversity of authoritative Islamic discourses, the second one was a positive propensity towards innovations.
criticism that I call “the portable majlis.” Mimicking the
social reading majlis, textual authorities used paratextual
space to engage critically with given texts and situate them
within the broader canon. The work of these textual
authorities, who operated as middle authors between the
author and the copyist of the text, was recognized and
sought out by the reading public. Following the work of one
such middle author, İsmāʿīl Ḥaḳḳı Bursevī (d. 1725), I
show that his efforts as a reliable textual critic were broadly
recognized by Ottoman readers and copyists who prized his
edition of texts as distinctly reliable versions. The paper
suggests that the practice of authoring portable majlises as a
form of publication became widespread at the turn of the
eighteenth century due to two larger shifts in Ottoman
reading culture: the rise of deep reading and the
proliferation of new reading spaces, such as the public
library. Both of these developments presupposed individual
readers. It was the task of the middle author to provide
guidance for the individual reader by reproducing the social
reading majlis on the page.
The sessions will take place online. Register in advance:
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZMrcO6uqzIpHdcJJOA1FsDBx6VhXbgQjXqd