The Formation of Ottoman Sufism and Eşrefoğlu Rumi:
[Thesis]
Basturk, Baris Abdullah
A 15th Century Shaykh Between Popular Religion and Sufi Ideals
Antov, Nikolay
University of Arkansas
2020
207
M.A.
University of Arkansas
2020
This dissertation evaluates a transformative period in the history of the Ottoman State in which the processes of Islamization and Turkification coincided with the expansion and imperialization of the Ottoman polity. This study focuses on an Ottoman Sufi figure, Eşrefoğlu Rumi (?-1469), who benefited form this context, embarked upon a mystical path, and authored seminal works that shaped Ottoman Sufism for generations. This dissertation discusses Eşrefoğlu Rumi's role in the construction of Islamic orthodoxy based in his Sufi ideals which he disseminated to an Anatolian and Balkan Turkish-speaking Ottoman audience. The significance of this dissertation is that it emphasizes the agency of individual scholars and saints in the making of Ottoman Islam while challenging the dichotomous categorizations such as "orthodoxy" vs. "heterodoxy" and "popular" and "high Islam."