The Yaziciogˇlus and the Spiritual Vernacular of the Early Ottoman Frontier
[Thesis]
Carlos Grenier
Fleischer, Cornell H.
The University of Chicago
2017
301
Committee members: Karateke, Hakan; Woods, John E.
Place of publication: United States, Ann Arbor; ISBN=978-0-355-07691-2
Ph.D.
History
The University of Chicago
2017
This dissertation examines the formation of popular Islam in the Ottoman Empire. It does so by exploring the intellectual genealogies, social context, and dogmatic program of the Yazιcιogˇlu family of scholars of the fifteenth-century Mediterranean frontier city of Gelibolu. The Yazιcιogˇlus, represented by the brothers Mehmed (d. 1451) and Ahmed Bican (d. ∼1466), jointly composed some of the most widely-read catechistic, dogmatic, and natural-philosophical texts ever written in Ottoman Turkish. They viewed their successful literary careers as a joint effort to disseminate religious and philosophical knowledge to the newly Islamized community around them. "I wrote my works," Ahmed claimed, "so that the people of this land of ours may gain the light of knowledge... and understand the bond of Islam." This study of the Yazιcιogˇlus thus proposes to address the basic question of how and out of what ingredients Ottoman popular piety developed.
Middle Eastern history; Islamic Studies
Social sciences;Islam;Mediterranean history;Ottoman empire;Popular religion;Sufism;Turkish studies