Abstract
This paper examines how Ottoman early modern Sufi-ʿulamāʾ conceptualized the charisma of their office, based on the prophetic charismatic image, and transmitted through sainthood (wilāya). It focuses on baraka and discusses what made it divine in ulamaic theology, analyzing how it was monopolized by Ottoman religious institutions, to serve as a theological charisma-building tool. Discussing the interdependence of institutional and individual charisma within the Ottoman religious office, this article tests Max Weber’s theories of charisma on studies of Sunni Muslim religious institutions in the post-prophetic period, specifically during early modernity.
1 Introduction
In recent decades, the concept of charisma re-ignited considerable scholarly interest.1 Since its earliest mentions as a sociological term, humanities routinized the study of charisma. Scholarship divided its implications between unstable and under-explained categories of personal and institutional traits of leadership and authority. Frequently seen as mutually opposed, yet deeply intertwined in terms of procedure, technicalities, and content, these categories grew over the course of the twentieth century, and included widespread popular2 understandings of the term as a measure of personal appeal, fame, or charm, mostly pertinent to one’s political image.3 The explanatory power and sociological utility of charisma seem to be in decline, despite a number of present-day studies which raised no small concerns about the scholarly insensitivity to the finer nuances of this crucial Weberian term.
At present, the concept of charisma is extremely complex, and comprised of a multitude of inter-related phenomena, which merit entire monographs in addition to previous research. In line with this Special Issue, this paper focuses on Max Weber’s original definitions of the concept, observed from the angle of comparative religions. It discusses methods through which charismatic notions may be tied, historically and sociologically, to the beliefs in otherworldly qualities of select individuals that set them apart from the rest of the people.4 Although such beliefs represent subjects of numerous historical and socio-anthropological studies, they are not discussed within the framework of charismatic concepts often, and scholars like Jaume Aurell already warned of this precarious overlook.5 Aurell studied developments in medieval European Catholicism, while this paper tests similar arguments on the case of early modern Ottoman Sunnism.6
Islamic Studies recently re-acquired a Weberian twist with Jonathan Brockopp’s work, that emphasizes ways in which generations of Muslim religious experts manufactured their charisma upon the prophetic ideal, expanding it retrospectively.7 Ulamaic charisma-building strategies remain somewhat unclear, however, as studies of Muslim charisma so far mainly focused on Muḥammad’s own charismatic image, tying it to the analyses of political authority in Islam. They built a rich background for further research, yet rarely discussed the charisma of Muslim religious institutions after the prophetic era.8 Coherent links between Muslim prophetic and post-prophetic charisma await further examination to allow for more appropriate definitions of certain phenomena tied to practiced and lived Islam, such as the emergence of saints (awliyāʾ), and the beliefs in alleged praeternatural faculties of these individuals, of Sufis, and the ʿulamāʾ. These were collectively treated as karāmāt, or superhuman feats that allegedly represented Allah’s gifts (Gre. charismata)9 to His favored. It was often taken for granted that the catalyst for karāmāt was the grace of God, that further represented a fundamental aspect of the ulamaic charismatic image. The ʿulamāʾ, therefore, strove to monopolize this unseen energy, mystifying both their image and their practical roles in society.
This paper focuses on the Ottoman religious institutions, represented by state-appointed Sufi-ʿulamāʾ, roughly between the sixteenth, and the early twentieth century. During this period, Ottoman religious authorities strove to consolidate imperial Sunni orthodoxy, map out its institutional, bureaucratic, and doctrinal form,10 and maintain its durability until modernity, despite sporadic emergences of Salafi detractors and other opponents.11 The present study discusses ulamaic strategies of producing and maintaining the charisma of their office, based on beliefs in Allah’s grace.12 The aim is not to simply pin the term “charisma” to the mystically charged image that the Sufi-ʿulamāʾ created and maintained during the early modern period. The Ottoman theological system for the manufacture, bureaucratization, and institutionalization of ulamaic mystical charisma had a practical purpose, as it filtered into the parameters of ulamaic official responsibilities that had to do with religious orthodoxy, jurisprudence, social, and political control. Additionally, the widespread popular assumptions that the mystical grace of religious authorities distinguished them from the rest of society, enhanced the considerable popularity of Sufi-ulamaic groups among the commoners and elites of the Empire, further informing those aspects of charisma in socio-anthropological theory, that may relate to celebrated and famous individuals and groups.13
Terminological dictionaries in Islamic Studies are well-equipped for methodological considerations based upon Max Weber’s theories.14 As Weber’s definitions of charisma, reliant on Pauline ideas of divine grace, cannot apply directly to other contexts, it is necessary to use a comparative approach to this study. Comparative methods endured some strong criticism, due to assumptions that they produced far too many generalizations, creating typologies that rarely fully manifest in any concrete reality. A frequently overlooked benefit of comparative studies is their help in deflecting the possibilities of study subjects appearing as isolated phenomena, around which non-porous scholarly niches might, and in most cases do eventually emerge. Comparative religions already demonstrated the merit of results produced through careful parallel study of historical processes and entanglements,15 paired with thorough cognitive analyses of human beliefs and ritualistic practices.16 Through these methods, it is possible to construct analytic types and test them against specific cases, to extract answers about historical developments upon correspondences and divergences emergent from such juxtapositions.17
The Weberian concept of charisma, containing inextricable ideas of a mystical grace, represents an analytic type, which may add necessary scientific complexity to historical analyses of Sunni authorities. Max Weber defined charisma as that “certain quality of an individual personality [and of objects] by virtue of which [they are] set apart from ordinary men and treated as endowed with supernatural, superhuman, or at least specifically exceptional powers and qualities.”18 Before modernity, followers of the Old Testament traditions often described such qualities as products of a divine grace. Proliferating through Pauline writings to gain currency by theological engagement,19 historical grace (Gre. charis), believed divine in nature, acquired a strong sociological significance by Rudolf Sohm (d. 1917), an important primary source and, quite likely, a significant influence behind Max Weber’s definitions of charisma.20 Paul’s Christian grace is not directly applicable to other religions, yet comparable imaginary energies inspire beliefs across the globe as mana, orenda, and others.21
Scholarship already suggested several concepts to help develop charismatic theories in Islamic Studies. Most notably since Clifford Geertz,22 the Arabic notion of baraka (lit. “blessing,” or “benediction”) entered the debate, along with sporadic emergence of concepts such as wilāya (Ar. “sainthood”), or karāma (Ar. “saintly wonder,” but lit. “honor, dignity”).23 Through certain studies of historical Sufism, baraka was over time brought in direct relation with Sufi charisma,24 yet such relations appear quite superficial without more detailed research. While the historical beliefs that baraka represented a mystical force of blessings that catalyzed praeternatural occurrences may facilitate its comparisons to Pauline grace, Weber’s charisma represents a much broader concept. Furthermore, comparisons are possible only after analyzing how was baraka theologically defined as divine, which is of high importance for the study of Ottoman ulamaic authority. Finally, it is appropriate to define baraka only as one aspect of the ulamaic charismatic output, that otherwise served to in no small part justify ulamaic authority in matters of jurisprudence, religious orthodoxy, and social control. The structure of the overall ulamaic charismatic image becomes clearer only after analyzing ways in which religious authorities allegedly came to monopolize this unseen resource,25 creating a direct link between themselves and Allah, through alleged mediation of Muḥammad.
It needs to be noted that none of the concepts such as baraka, wilāya, or karāma, if observed in isolation, allows for a full understanding of institutional ulamaic charisma. Primary sources show that the Ottoman ulamaic groups treated these concepts as correspondents and constituents within a broader theological structure, aimed at systematizing and legitimizing the reception and transmission of both Allah’s grace and the charisma that derived from it. The present study examines how these concepts correlated during the early modern period. The Sufi-ʿulamāʾ heavily relied on wilāya to portray prophetic charisma as their legacy. Building a hereditary chain through which grace was imagined to pass between the prophets and the Ottoman ulamaic circles via the numerous ranks of living and dead saints (awliyāʾ), the Ottoman scholar-thaumaturges claimed proximity to what was allegedly the source of all grace in the world. Portraying themselves as direct participants in Allah’s graceful effusion (fayḍ) of creationist force, through the mediation and within the confinement of prophetic sharīʿa, the Ottoman Sufi-ʿulamāʾ built for themselves a near-prophetic image laden with mystical tropes, and used it to claim superhuman skills and knowledge. Believed to possess the capacity of seeing the ultimate truth beyond Scriptural sources, they depicted themselves as the superior authority for interpreting religious orthodoxy and law, second to none but the prophets. Ulamaic theology of grace was confined within the boundaries of prophetic law, which was seen as the starting point, the ultimate vehicle, and the final boundary for acquiring Allah’s baraka and causing any divinely sanctioned praeternatural occurences (karamāt). Establishing their charismatic image within this sharīʿa loop, the ʿulamāʾ came to include baraka into their charismatic output, theologically defined as an energy of divine origin, by which the religious authorities allegedly transmitted blessings to the faithful, exacted divine will through marvelous deeds, produced jurisprudential decisions, and political advice. Fulfilling the role of intercessors between the people and God in the post-prophetic age, they charged their everyday functions with a strong mystical element that in theology represented the ultimate cause and outcome of their engagement.
Throughout early modernity, Ottoman Sufi-ʿulamāʾ perpetuated their charismatic image through a standardized theological mechanism, deeply rooted in saintly and prophetic traditions.26 This mechanism seemed fairly stable over the centuries, as were the popular beliefs in ulamaic praeternatural powers. The Sufi-ʿulamāʾ implemented it to routinely draft and acknowledge new members of their networks, standardizing ways for the alleged utilization of their grace. This was not just a theological exercise, as it over time acquired a legal, institutional, and bureaucratic background. Ottoman primary sources reveal how the charisma of the Sufi-ʿulamāʾ was heavily routinized. However, contrary to those sociological models, which presume a decline of routinized charisma in the face of growing institutional bureaucratization,27 within the Sufi-ulamaic Ottoman circles, individual and institutional charisma were interdependent, both made perpetual by the efforts of official religious authorities.
The primary sources used for this discussion were left behind by authors who fulfilled the functions of influential Ottoman ʿulamāʾ. At the same time, they enjoyed considerable popularity as masters of various Sufi orders, in great measure popularizing beliefs in baraka across the Ottoman realm.28 Their texts illuminate how the Ottoman ʿulamāʾ aligned their charisma-building vocabulary with imperial legal norms. Heavily promoted by Sufism, their language acquired a bureaucratic and institutional dimension in theological writing.29 The scholars-cum-mystics who authored such texts hailed from different centuries and backgrounds. To consider a few, ʿAbd al-Wahhāb al-Shaʿrānī (1493–1565) was a Sufi-scholar of considerable renown, and a witness to the Ottoman spread into Egypt.30 Ismāʿīl Haqqī al-Brūsāwī (1653–1725) was a highly influential Jalwatīyya master, particularly prominent in Anatolia and Rūm. His achievements as an author, lecturer, and preacher, popularized him at the Ottoman court, and he served in military campaigns as a saintly warrior.31 ʿAbd al-Ghanī al-Nābulsī (1641–1731) was a highly revered scholar and an axial Sufi saint (quṭb) of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Syria, who left rich contributions both to fiqh and taṣawwuf, further committed to countering the rhetoric of pro-Salafi Ottoman groups, such as the Qādīzādalīs.32 Yūsuf al-Nabhānī (1849–1932) represented one of the last generations of the Ottoman ʿulamāʾ, who with dwindling legal and political backing strove to perpetuate their mystical charismatic image in face of emerging reformist thought.33 Reading these authors and other Sufi-ʿulamāʾ testifies to a fairly unchanged theological charisma-building mechanism over the course of centuries, but indicates occasional disagreements,34 mostly revolving around which social group gained access to charismatic authority over time. Individuals who fit the current ulamaic mold tended to differ, depending on personal preference and political orientation of a given author, indicating Max Weber’s notes on the importance of peer recognition for the emergence and maintenance of one’s charismatic image.35
The following study is divided into three parts, the first of which reviews those points that qualify the concept of baraka as correspondent to sociological grace, inextricable from Weber’s theories on charisma. The second section considers the Ottoman Sufi-ʿulamāʾ language used to establish this grace as divine and position themselves as the heirs of prophetic charisma. The final section considers the ways in which the individual Sufi-ulamaic charisma was institutionalized, bureaucratized, and routinized on the imperial level, producing mechanisms for perpetuation through self-replication. Exceptions are mentioned only briefly, due to confines of space.
2 Considering Baraka: Popular Pragmatism and the Harvest of Blessings
Scholarship amply demonstrated Muslim beliefs in the continuous circulation of baraka36 between prophets and angels, living and dead saints and Sufis, prominent scholars, hallowed places, and various objects. In widespread beliefs, baraka was portrayed as an unending source of blessings for the faithful. The beliefs in baraka persisted since the earliest days after the emergence of Islam,37 quite likely representing both the continuation of pre-Islamic beliefs and practices, and the product of cultural exchanges between followers of various Middle Eastern confessions. Over centuries, the significance of baraka for Sunnism mainly grew through the doctrine of prominent scholars and masters of Sufi orders, where it was noticed and documented by today’s researchers.38
Throughout the Middle East and North Africa, beliefs in baraka are still present among followers of all Old Testament traditions.39 It is often, however, taken for granted that baraka was universally considered divine in nature, and Sunni theologians’ theories which historically attributed divine character to baraka remain understudied. Numerous individuals and places came to be venerated because they had baraka,40 yet the primary material is not always clear about the supposed origin of this energy.41 This occasional omission obscures the immediate relation of baraka to a sociological divine grace.
It was widely believed that this unseen energy benefited humankind in numerous ways, such as securing general welfare, deflecting mischievous or infernal creatures, and catalyzing various other praeternatural interruptions of expected causalities (khawāriq al-ʿāda; lit. “ruptures of normality”). Khawāriq allegedly greatly differed in scale and nature, as it was believed that magicians, soothsayers, and daemons (jinn) caused them too.42 If the theologians presumed that a particular praeternatural event manifested via divine agency, they would identify it as a wonder (karāma) or a prophetic miracle (muʿjiza). They would then offer aetiological explanations of wonders as products of baraka, relating other khawāriq to powers of evil and infernalism.43
In popular belief, it was as if baraka contained physical properties. It allegedly transferred through touch and kept in items that lay within its reach. It was believed that it leaked into nature and charged natural objects, or locations where religiously important events and thaumaturgical surges allegedly took place. Since the medieval period, Muslims built shrines at those locations, or around tombs and memorials attributed to hallowed individuals – it was believed that the effluence of baraka did not cease with one’s death.44 Both the large urban centers and the countryside accommodated numerous hallowed places during the Ottoman period, inspiring complex pilgrimage traditions (ziyāra), the development of institutional baraka-harvesting rituals, a rich pilgrimage economy, as well as the production of a literature genre specifically committed to describing pilgrimage sites and the appropriate practices within.45
Over time, the Ottoman administration adopted older Muslim polities’ strategies of employing hallowed places and individuals to enhance social control, especially in newly conquered provinces.46 Alleged sources of supernatural blessings caused continuous fervor among the common people, highly placed elites,47 and even the religious authorities who sanctioned such beliefs.48 Throughout the early modern period, Ottoman subjects flocked around individuals and places rumored to serve as baraka-dispensers.49 People often used the tabarruk gesture there, a functional correspondent to the Christian sign of the cross, to collect this thaumaturgical fuel and “bathe” in it from the face down.50
The importance of baraka for the Sunni subjects of the Ottoman Empire remains striking in primary sources, and the popular approach to this unseen energy proved highly pragmatic over the course of centuries. Meanwhile, early modern Ottoman theologians left second-order dogmatic and casuistic explanations to attribute all baraka to Allah, and then claim monopoly over it as the fuel for their thaumaturgical excellence. By linking historical notions of baraka with early modern theological discussions of the ceaseless effusion (fayḍ) of Allah’s creationist energy, the Muslim premodern correspondent to the sociological concept of divine grace becomes visible, and may be further used for constructing charismatic theories pertinent to Ottoman Sunnism.
3 The Merciful Outpour of Grace between the Two Paths to Knowledge: Claiming Prophetic Legacy through Saintly Ranks
Central to self-representation strategies of the Ottoman ʿulamāʾ, the charismatic image of Muḥammad continuously grew through theological engagement since the medieval period.51 Muslim scholars employed it to derive credibility for the production and transmission of ulamaic charisma. As the “perfect man” (al-insān al-kāmil), Muḥammad came to represent the nexus between Allah and all of creation, becoming the primary recipient of God’s grace and the primary vehicle through which baraka reached the world.52 The Ottoman religious authorities traditionally portrayed themselves as the successors of the prophets.53 Relying on the vocabulary widely promoted by Sufism,54 the Ottoman ʿulamāʾ established direct links between themselves and Muḥammad, treating God’s grace as a natural component of the prophetic legacy, and claiming it as their privilege, and a utility. Over time, through ulamaic engagement, their alleged charismatic gifts acquired a strong legal dimension, and served a range of practical purposes in the Ottoman realm.
Sunni theology established that the echelons of Muslim saints (awliyāʾ) represented crucial links in the chain of succession between God, the prophets, and the living Sufi-scholars. Since the earliest proto-Sufi writing, wilāya indicated unmatched levels of virtue and piety (ṣalāḥ), which allegedly attracted Allah’s baraka and endowed the walī with divine karamāt, that in theology represented a clear proof of saintly excellence.55 The awliyāʾ were depicted as adequate heirs to Muḥammad with divine sanction – anything described as a prophetic miracle (muʿjiza) could be permitted to a saint as a wonder (karāma), albeit with a lesser efficacy, stability, and outreach. Denying the prophetic calling (waḥī) to the saints, the ʿulamāʾ ceded to the superior rank of the prophets, creating a coherent hierarchy, framed by the sharīʿa,56 and positioned under Muḥammad as first under God.57 The saints were attributed with intercessory role (shafāʿa) between the humans and the divine, second only to the prophets.58 They were further believed to possess the ultimate understanding of the prophetic law, and the ability to interpret it for the laity.59 Their knowledge acquired a complex mystical dimension, far apart from common expectations, defining the saints as superior instruments for realizing and perpetuating Allah’s will through Muḥammad’s law.
With the cessation of prophethood, the ʿulamāʾ strove to keep wilāya perpetual, mining further legitimacy for their charisma with each newly-recognized wonder-worker. The saints represented an important source of legitimacy and credibility. Depicted as the heirs to prophetic grace and perfect mentors,60 names of many awliyāʾ served as eponyms of Sufi orders, which claimed to act under saintly authority. Establishing genealogical chains (sing. silsila) for transmitting charisma, grace, and authority from the prophets, across saintly ranks, to the new generations of disciples,61 Ottoman Sufi-ʿulamāʾ effectively claimed saintly charisma for themselves, making but slight cessions by stating that the awliyāʾ were thaumaturgically more powerful and thus higher in rank. Conceptualized as a succession of master-disciple relationships, ulamaic silsilas perpetuated the charisma of their office, strengthening theological arguments for the continuity of wonder past the prophetic age. At the same time, they enforced ulamaic authority, portraying them as perfect masters of religion and law, who studied under the perfect masters of the past with concessions of Muḥammad and Allah.62 It was therefore important for the ʿulamāʾ to restrict the draft of new saints to their own networks as much as possible, and they kept a preferred system for saintly training.
Learned saints,63 who allegedly reached the ultimate truth through obedience and reverence of the shariʿa and Sunna, were depicted as role-models who transmitted ulamaic charisma further, by promoting new Sufi-ʿulamāʾ with strict adherence to imperial (and, allegedly, divine) law. At the same time, law represented crucial drive for saintly training. Sharīʿa was set as the ultimate cause, the primary medium, and the final boundary of saintly knowledge. Theologically positioned as the outlining framework and the primary source of the saintly ṣalāḥ that attracted divine baraka, this sharīʿa loop allowed no karāma that violated its boundaries.64 It was frequently emphasized that the firm knowledge of the principles of monotheism (tawḥīd), and the tenets of Muḥammad’s law and custom, represented main prerequisites for any religious and thaumaturgical training.65 Denying all divergences between their craft and the sharīʿa, portraying their every action as concordant with the Sunna,66 and further using the Ḥadīth texts to back their rhetoric up, theologians fully confined the Sufi-ulamaic practice within legal boundaries.67 All exceptions were condemned as fraudulence or sorcery in an immediate risk of heresy (kufr), that had nothing to do with the baraka of God.68
The ʿulamāʾ defined two channels for knowledge transmission, seemingly fully separate, yet tied together in a causal relationship. One was considered more rational, realized through the means of textual learning, while the other relied on inspiration (ilhām), which disciples received through their hearts, presumably with divine sanction.69 Acolytes were to understand that the knowledge of sharīʿa and the sources of jurisprudence (uṣūl al-fiqh) represented crucial tools within an external (ẓāhir) mechanism for acquiring the necessary piety and virtue (ṣalāḥ). The acquisition of inner revelatory knowledge (bāṭin) represented the ultimate goal.70
Theories that the heart was capable of receiving revelatory transmissions had currency at least since the early medieval period,71 and frequently echoed in early modern doctrinal writing. The Ottoman Sufi-ʿulamāʾ considered this organ a possible interface between the seen (ʿālam al-mulk wa al-shahāda) and the unseen worlds (ʿālam al-malakūt wa al-ghayb).72 The hearts of disciples were veiled before the finer detail of Allah’s creation,73 requiring knowledgeable masters74 to transmit the principles of role-model ṣalāḥ.75 The teacher-apprentice bond was glorified in Sufism since the medieval period, inducing the dependence of emerging thaumaturges on the legacy of their masters.76 Through the guidance of established shaykhs, the disciples’ ṣalāḥ was expected to mature to the point when their hearts opened to the penetration of God’s inner universe. They hoped to take direct part in the unceasing effusion (fayḍ) of Allah’s grace, the alleged force behind all created things,77 and embrace the inner, and actual truth (ḥaqīqa) of creation, of which the physical world was but a metaphor.78 Despite the fantastic element incorporated into the karāma-stories,79 attaining the ultimate truth via the effusion of Allah’s grace seemed to represent the greatest wonder of all. It was believed to allow the disciples a full understanding of all concepts under God, granting them supreme authority to interpret Muḥammad’s decrees.80 Haqīqa was the ultimate prize for the Sufi effort to get closer to God (taqarrub).
Due to doctrinally elaborate differences between ẓāhirī and bāṭinī methods for the acquisition of knowledge, some present-day scholarship suggests that the Sufis interpreted their alleged closeness to God as a fact that overrode all legal requirements and norms.81 Historically, however, theologians in-office maintained that all Sufis and saints retained legal liability. Instead of opposing each other, in early modern theology these learning methods were presented as a synergy – sharīʿa and ḥaqīqa were inseparable as two aspects of a whole, while the outer boundaries of sharīʿa limited the privileges of sainthood.82 Ẓāhir and bāṭin were the two lights of creation, the former of prophethood and the divine commandments that reached the body, and the latter of sainthood that shone in the heart.83 Even when certain Sufis claimed to be beyond all legal, political, and social norms,84 the polysemy of such arguments was likely calculated to impress audiences. Theologians defended them by stating that the sanctioned recipients of grace were so immersed in divine truths and prophetic laws that they acted only as God intended them to, perfectly in line with what was considered Muḥammad’s sharīʿa.85
The saints’ alleged access to divine fayḍ was theologically confirmed by the emanation of baraka, and the manifestation of karamāt. Upon highlighting this theological link with Allah, baraka may, as the output of ulamaic charismatic function, serve the sociological definitions of the grace that informs Weber’s theories on charisma. Wilāya most often required official recognition through ulamaic consensus during the Ottoman period, while beliefs in baraka influenced the soaring popularity of the Sufi-ʿulamāʾ among other subjects of the Empire. It is clear how peer and popular recognition influenced the manufacture of saintly charisma, even more so since the theologians considered unruly for someone to directly claim thaumaturgical competences, or show deliberate intent to perform wondrous deeds.86 In more practical terms, certain highly-regarded ʿulamāʾ seem to have personally set up the conditions to be proclaimed saints by overseeing their hagiographers, and endowing their future tomb-shrines.87
Naturally, it was near impossible to control every single individual who came to enjoy beliefs in their praeternatural potencies, yet the shaykhs often made efforts at least to formally test and acknowledge the credentials of others.88 The task was hard, since it seemed prima facie that neither the Ḥadīth corpora, nor the wider popular opinion treated wilāya as anything but an open social category, accessible by anyone of sufficient ṣalāḥ.89 Theologians relied on the sharīʿa-ḥaqīqa synergy to promote their preferred group of saints. The Ottoman ʿulamāʾ allowed for claims that even the uninitiated ṣāliḥūn could receive thaumaturgical assistance from Allah in the form of minor boons and tokens (maʿūna), while commoners tended to revere such figures, believing that they also had baraka to share.90 Some of these unlearned ṣāliḥūn were believed so distinguished that they merited their own karāmāt, even without appropriate ulamaic training. In addition, as a category of holy fools, the majādhīb were believed to have suffered psychological disruptions, due to a sudden godly pull (jadhba) of their essences towards the al-ghayb, caused by their ṣalāḥ.91 They would receive thaumaturgical honors, and were often widely revered because of their baraka as well.92 The mystical qualities of such groups were theologically acknowledged, yet the lack of training in Muḥammad’s law, as well as the impunity of the majādhīb due to their abnormal thinking, rendered them unable to train others by ulamaic consensus. The ʿulamāʾ denied them a place in the chain of charismatic transmission.93
Religious officials further showed hostility towards any Sufis who directly claimed sainthood, or prophethood, while ignoring the tenets of the sharīʿa, or violating them directly. These “false Sufis” were accused of fraudulence, and condemned out of worries that they drove the laity to perdition.94 On the other hand were the purely sharīʿa-oriented scholars, disdainful towards the ḥaqīqa, who were the ahl al-ẓāhir, portrayed as veiled and lost, unable to see beyond what was in front of them. Quite likely, this criticism addressed groups with a pro-Salafi bend during the Ottoman period.95
Within the sharīʿa loop, which restricted all thaumaturgical power and its effects, theologians theorized that their most excellent students had the privilege to personally access Allah’s creationist force. Allegedly familiar with theology and law inside and out, revealing secrets hidden from the uninitiated, they claimed full control over Ottoman orthodoxy and law, influencing politics and social order. They enjoyed widespread veneration and popularity due to their mystical abilities, the acknowledgement of which relied on peer recognition. The individual charisma of an Ottoman Sufi-scholar, based upon the prophetic and saintly myths, seems sufficiently discussed. The Ottoman religious authorities further attributed an institutional dimension to their charismatic image. Centralized and bureaucratized under the Ottoman Porte, religious authorities manufactured their charisma to involve personal image, religious and socio-political authority, and widespread fame among the commoners.
4 Charisma Routinized: The Sufi-ʿulamāʾ Establishment in the Ottoman State
Since the medieval period, Sufism developed into a complex ṭarīqāt-network, attracting more and more followers with the spread of Islam through Middle East, North Africa, and other regions across Eurasia. While adopting the madrasa system and integrating ulamaic education into its curricula, it became increasingly popular among the Muslim scholars, growing from an intimate set of teacher-student relations into a fully-fledged, bureaucratized, self-replicating system of institutional learning. The Sufi-ʿulamāʾ were emerging as a professional niche that laid claims on jurisprudential, mystagogic, thaumaturgical, and socio-political authority.96 By the Ottoman period, Sufi-ulamaic networks were inextricably overlapped within a corporate establishment of office holders, comprised of alleged wonder-workers, scholars, jurists, and landed aristocracy, centrally controlled under Porte-appointed officials. Ulamaic patricians strove to secure lucrative appointments for their offspring, spurring the emergence of entire bloodlines that, by the eighteenth century, held institutional authority as family privilege.97 Comprised of parameters that allow for sociologically defining this group as a priesthood,98 the Ottoman Sufi-ulamaic corporate establishment used the ijaza system99 to formalize, bureaucratize, and validate their mystical silsilas as vehicles for the conveyance of saintly charisma, based upon the prophetic ideal. The charisma of Ottoman religious institutions was realized in the form of Sufi-ulamaic pedigrees comprised of the pedigrees of verified masters. Promoted by peer acknowledgment or family ties, and thriving on popular veneration, Sufi-scholars with alleged divine sanction claimed authority over religious orthodoxy and jurisprudence, handling social and political affairs, and outlining the parameters of the Ottoman caliphate.100 Some celebrated shaykhs explicitly claimed ultimate spiritual authority among all social strata, including rulers, further hinting at the ulamaic perception of their role in early modern Muslim political thought.101
Ulamaic charismatic image underwent a long process of routinization since the medieval period onwards. This process combined institutional strategies of formalizing members’ training and appointment, with the gradual standardization of devotional and thaumaturgical practice. Textbooks outlining the ways of acquiring, transmitting, and controlling grace were produced across the Empire,102 while the ʿulamāʾ engaged in official matters of the state. Routinization did not induce the decline, however, but the perpetuation and self-replication of ulamaic institutional charisma, through corporate verification mechanisms, as well as through theological arguments about the continuity of baraka and wonder in the post-prophetic age. At the same time, the ʿulamāʾ ran a “disenchantment” campaign.103 By restricting all access to grace from the uninitiated they strove to disenchant the laity, exclusivizing baraka as a professional privilege, and allegedly, a utility.104
Primary sources indicate that the Ottoman ulamaic charisma-building system remained largely unchanged over the passage of centuries. However, it seems that the personal and political preferences of those who held religious functions influenced the selection of new initiates and the choice of appropriate role-models. For instance, al-Shaʿrānī seemed disgruntled by the Khalwatīyya spread through Egypt in parallel with the Ottoman rule. He left a strong, yet subtle criticism of this orders’ members as fraudsters who cared little about established law and strove to impress the unlearned audiences with extra-orthodox displays.105 However, later Ottoman Sufis, and some of the most prominent Khalwatīyya shaykhs read him amply as a respectable and influential authority.106 Al-Brūsāwī naturally favored the Khalwatīyya and Jalwatīyya over groups he deemed extra-orthodox, mentioning the Qalandarīs.107 Disputes against rigorists within a single Sufi order were often addressed in similar language, declaring the opponents as extra-orthodox and thus politically and legally unsuitable.108 In all such instances, authors seem to have organized their rhetoric to position themselves within the sharīʿa loop, parry the opposition and argue that the rivals’ doctrines were riddled with heterodoxies. Their heavy reliance on shariʿa for legitimacy-mining throughout the early modern period opens questions for further research concerning the precise level of significance and novelty of Birgivī Meḥmed’s (d. 1573) Muḥammadan Path for the developments in Ottoman intellectual circles, as well as for the more noticeable activity of pro-Salafi groups.109 It further stands to illuminate some more recent developments, such as the theology favored by the Tijānīyya order.110
5 Conclusion
In the early modern period, the Sufi-ʿulamāʾ of the Ottoman Empire represented a complex corporate entity depicted in notions laden with mystical imagery. Forming charismatic hereditary chains upon the credentials of individual Sufi-scholars, connected to God through the mediation of saints and the prophets, the Ottoman religious office presented itself as the superior interpretative and intercessory force. Its parameters may be studied within the sociological framework of Weberian and post-Weberian research on charisma, yet both the approach to studying the ulamaic office, and the (post-)Weberian charisma theories require slight alterations.
Rerouting the definition of charisma to the original meaning it contained in Max Weber’s work, it is possible to deconstruct it and identify historical theological presumptions about a divine grace as its crucial component. Extracted as an analytic type and freed of Pauline implications, the sociological definition of this grace may correspond to beliefs in comparable unseen energies around the globe, among which are Muslim beliefs in baraka.
This paper built on previous scholarship on historical Sunnism to establish that baraka comes to adequately represent the sociological grace which informs the Weberian definitions of charisma only when its relation to Allah is analyzed. On the Ottoman case, it presented arguments which were used by religious authorities to lay claims to this imaginary energy and use it to generate a hereditary chain for passing authority from God to themselves as ultimate guardians of orthodoxies and cosmic truths. In order to perpetuate prophetic charisma, theʿulamāʾ relied on theological definitions of wilāya as an interface between God and their office, insisting on its concordance with what was presumed to have been the prophetic law. Adding legitimacy to their theology, they assumed their official roles with alleged divine sanction, under the patronage of Muḥammad, and with unparalleled spiritual authority. Emerging from wilāya and confined within the shariʿa – as conceptualized by subsequent ulamaic generations – the charisma of the Ottoman Sufi-ʿulamāʾ intertwined with their legal, socio-political and religious duties, heavily reliant both on peer consensus and widespread popularity. As it streamlined into the charisma of the Ottoman religious corporate establishment, it acquired bureaucratic, institutional, and legal parameters that in practical ways influenced the nature of their official duties. Heavily routinized, ulamaic charisma did not seem to dwindle until the Muslim reforms of the modern period, representing a highly exclusive privilege and source of authority for generations of Ottoman Sufi-scholars, which ultimately reflected on imperial law and political thought.
Biography
Nikola Pantić is a postdoc researcher and lecturer at the Department of Near Eastern Studies, a member of “Religion and Transformation in Contemporary Society,” University of Vienna, and a Permanent Fellow at the Center for Religious Studies, ceu. He studies religious establishments and charismatic authority in early modern Ottoman Sunnism, and focuses on the history of the beliefs in grace, wonder-workers, cults of saints, and thaumaturgical rituals in Islam before modernity.
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This paper was written at the beginning of a much broader research project into the history and sociology of Ottoman sainthood. Representing an ongoing research in its earliest phase, the arguments here are preliminary, as is the scope of the primary source material presented within.
The adjective “popular” is used here to indicate widespread phenomena appealing to many social strata at once, the collective representations within a continuous cultural enterprise. See Fedorak, Pop Culture, pp. 1–22, Durkheim, Forms, pp. 1–22.
See Potts, Charisma, pp. 160–181, or Smith, Durkheim, pp. 18–27.
Weber, Charisma, pp. 22 et seq., p. 48, p. 54.
Aurell, Charisma, pp. 607–637. Further see Aurell/Aurell/Herrero, Charisma, pp. 1–4.
Aware of the multiplicity of lived manifestations that Islam(s) assumed in various times and regions, this paper treats its main subject – early modern Ottoman Sunnism – as a product of its social and chronological context, in line with Shahab Ahmed’s thoughts in Ahmed, Islam, pp. 405–408, 542–546.
Brockopp, Charisma, pp. 163–174. Also Turner, Weber, p. 57.
For instance, Turner, Weber, pp. 39–56, Dabashi, Authority, pp. 1–16, or Watt, Community, pp. 77–90.
Check Dabashi Authority, pp. 35 et seq., for a commentary on the possible etymological link between these two terms.
Yılmaz, Caliphate, pp. 1–21, Krstić, Sunni Islam, pp. 1–31, Krstić, Conversions, pp. 1–25, Krstić, Confessionalization, pp. 25–115.
Baer, Glory, pp. 3–24, Zilfi, Politics, pp. 23–42.
It could be argued that other entities possessed a charisma of their own, yet this paper commits specifically to the charismatic image of official religious authorities and its implications.
See Potts, Charisma, pp. 160–181, or Smith, Durkheim, pp. 18–27.
Noah Gardiner discusses a number of relevant terms. See Gardiner, Esotericism, pp. 31–41.
Even with “founding fathers,” such as Durkheim, Forms, pp. 1–44. Further in Lévi-Strauss, Anthropology, 1–30. The massive work done by Weber and his successors represents an invaluable contribution to the comparative method, despite certain technical flaws.
Among many instances, Boyer, Religion, pp. 1–57, or Alcock, Propensity, pp. 64–78, and Subbotsky, Mind, pp. 3–17.
Bloch, Craft, pp. 17–39, 66–113, Bloch, Contribution, pp. 89–126, Haupt/Kocka, Comparison, pp. 1–32, Trencsényi/Iordachi/Apor, Entanglements, pp. 1–30.
Weber, Charisma, pp. 22 et seq., p. 48, p. 54.
Aurell, Charisma, pp. 607–637. Further see Aurell/Aurell/Herrero, Charisma, pp. 1–4, Blasi, Charisma, pp. 4–5.
Weber, Charisma, p. 19, Bensman/Givant, Charisma, p. 571. Horn, Introduction, pp. 1–16. Further juxtapose Fietkau, Experience, pp. 169–178, to Smith, Charisma, pp. 32–60, and see more in Rust, Political Theologies, pp. 102–123.
Pryce, Christianity, pp. 151–162, Durkheim, Forms, pp. 61 et seq., 213 et seq., or Hewitt, Orenda, pp. 33–46.
Geertz, Charisma, pp. 121–146.
Brockopp, Charisma, pp. 163–174.
Winter, Shaʿrānī, p. 136, Hofer, Sufism, p. 95, n. 13, Meri, Saints, pp. 100–116, Pantić, Sufism, p. 18. Further Brockopp, Charisma, pp. 163–174.
Bourdieu, Genesis, pp. 1–44.
Brockopp, Charisma, pp. 163–174.
Bensman/Givant, Charisma, p. 577, 610, McIntosh, Weber and Freud, pp. 902–903, or Barnes, Charisma, pp. 2 et seq. Further see Potts, A History, pp. 61–84, Rossi Monti, The Mask, p. 48, and Bedos-Rezak/Rust, Surfaces, pp. 1–46.
Even though history has shown that Sufism did not represent the only vehicle behind the popularization of the Sunni beliefs in divine grace, due to the confined space of one article, other groups cannot be treated in detail.
Ahmed, Islam, pp. 20–22, Yılmaz, Caliphate, pp. 1–21.
Winter, Shaʿrānī, pp. 38–87.
Ryan, Bursevi.
Siriyyeh, Visionary, 1–17, Le Gall, Kadizadelis, pp. 1–28, Demiri/Pagani, History, pp. 1–30, Meier, Words, pp. 107–136, Akkach, Enlightenment, pp. 9–44, 129–136.
Commins, Reform, pp. 45–46, 116–118, and al-Azmeh, Authenticity, pp. 39–59.
It is illustrative to check ulamaic bibliographical dictionaries, as in Zerdeci, Ulema, pp. 1–19.
See Weber, Charisma, pp. 22–23, 39, 55. Further see Shils, Charisma, p. 205, or Bedos-Rezak/ Rust, Surfaces, p. 21.
See Colin, Baraka.
Al-Azmeh, Emergence, pp. 243, 302, 412.
Geertz, Charisma, pp. 121–146, Dabashi, Authority, pp. 36 et seq., Hofer, Sufism, p. 95, n. 13, Meri, Saints, pp. 100–116, Pantić, Sufism, p. 18.
See Heo, Baraka, pp. 163 et seq.
Chih, Sufism, p. 111, Le Gall, Sufism, p. 167.
For instance, Paton, Survivals, p. 63, Curtiss, Primitive, pp. 75, 92, al-Murādī, Silk, pp. 1: 228–234, 2: 60–63, 4: 283–285, Ibn Budayr, Dimashq, pp. 69A–69B.
Some were accused of being simple grifters. See al-Nābulsī, Sharḥ, 1: 232–233, 2: 389–393, and Ibn ʿĀbidīn, Sall, 2: 25–37.
Pantić, Sufism, pp. 51–53, 82–109, 185–227.
Al-Nābulsī, Kashf, pp. 162A–174A.
Taylor, Righteous, pp. 62–126, Chih, Sufism, pp. 24 et seq., Sirriyeh, Visionary, pp. 108–111, Grehan, Saints, p. 101, and Pantić, Sufism, pp. 144–184. Further see, for instance, al-Nābulsī, Ḥaqīqa, pp. 35–40, or al-Karmī, Ziyāra, 15–159. Al-Karmī was a prolific Hanbalite scholar with a strong Salafist sentiment of the Taymīyyan variety (see Al-Matroudi, Ibn Taymiyyah, pp. 16–30), yet while denouncing pilgrimage customs, he ironically produced rich detail about this tradition and the methods of harvesting baraka from hallowed places. Much of Taymīyyan theological argumentation was countered by the eighteenth-century Damascene axial saint al-Nābulsī in Kashf, pp. 162A–174A. For concrete detail, see al-Kurdī, Riḥla, p. 9A, or al-Bakrī, Khamra, p. 11A–13B.
Yılmaz, Caliphate, pp. 1–20, Pantić, Sufism, pp. 157–161.
Illustrative is the case of Murād iii (1574–1595). See Felek, Fears, pp. 647–672.
Le Gall, Sufism, p.167.
For some concrete examples, see al-Kurdī, Riḥla, pp. 3A–4B, al-Murādī, Silk, pp. 1: 228–234, 4: 283–285. Further see Green, Sufism, pp. 1–14, Knysh, Sufism, pp. 1–61, Geoffroy, Sufism, pp. 1–15, 43–53.
Leaman, Baraka, pp. 109–114. Leaman reads about the baraka of the Prophet, but from sources biased towards Salafism, which do not clearly show the matters of course during early modernity. Other material that discusses practiced Sunnism in the period demonstrates the popular fervor which baraka attracted in many Ottoman domains. For surveying the popularity of baraka among the Ottoman subjects in nineteenth and twentieth centuries, illustrative are ethnographic works, such as Canaan, Saints, pp. 91–101, or Curtiss, Primitive, pp. 133–193. Nineteenth- and twentieth-century Salafi reformers in the Middle East invested considerable efforts to marginalize the fervor caused by baraka. See Hourani, Rida, pp. 90–102.
Al-Azmeh, Emergence, pp. 359 et seq., Brockopp, Charisma, pp. 163–174.
Geoffroy, Sufism, p. 174, Saif, Knowing, p. 329. Also see al-Būrsāwī, Fayḍ, 9A, 11B et seq., 27A et seq., and al-Nābulsī, Sharḥ, 1: 116.
Al-Azmeh, Caravan, pp. 363–381, Yılmaz, Caliphate, p. 137. Also Al-Nābulsī, Sharḥ, p. 1: 120.
Ahmed, Islam, pp. 20 et seq.
Al-Nābulsī, Kashf, pp. 162A–174A, al-Nābulsī, Sharḥ, pp. 107–132, Pantić, Sufism, pp. 46–81, 110–143.
Ibn ʿĀbidīn, Radd, pp. 2: 114 et seq., and Ibn ʿĀbidīn, Sall, pp. 1–61. Further Green, Sufism, pp. 1–14, Knysh, Sufism, pp. 1–61, Geoffroy, Sufism, pp. 1–15, 43–53, Radtke, Wilāya, pp. 483–496. Also see Ibn Khaldūn, al-Muqaddima, pp. 139–165.
See al-Shawbarī, Karāmāt, pp. 44A–48B, al-Kurdī, Riḥla, pp. 6B et seq., al-Nābulsī, Sharḥ, pp. 1: 113, 107–132, 199 et seq., Ibn Ābidīn, Sall, pp. 2: 1–61, and al-Nabhānī, Jāmiʿ, pp. 1: 9–58.
Al-Nābulsī, Sharḥ, pp. 1: 183.
See Hourani, Rida, p. 97.
Al-Shaʿrānī, Radʿ, pp. 218–221.
Knysh, Sufism, pp. 13, 45 et seq., 54, 149, Le Gall, Sufism, p. 127.
Al-Shaʿrānī, Radʿ, pp. 218–221, al-Nābulsī, Sharḥ, pp. 1: 107–132.
See the discussion about “ecstatic” and “upright” saints in Grehan, Twilight, p. 64.
Al-Shaʿrānī, Radʿ, pp. 215–236, al-Bakrī, Manhal, pp. 5–94, al-Brūsawī, Tamām, pp. 10A, 13B, 15B, 24A, 32B, al-Nābulsī, Sharḥ, pp. 1: 107–132, Ibn ʿĀbidīn, Sall, p. 2: 1–44, al-Nabhānī, Jāmiʿ, pp. 1: 9–58.
For instance, al-Kīlānī, Durra, 1A–2B.
For instance, al-Shaʿrānī, Radʿ, pp. 273, al-Brūsawī, Tamām, pp. 22B et seq., al-Bakrī, Manhal, pp. 10–11, 20, 25 et seq. Further see Knysh, Sufism, p. 15.
al-Nābulsī, Sharḥ, pp. 1: 120–122.
Al-Nābulsī, Sharḥ, pp. 1: 107–132, 232–233, 2: 389–393, Ibn Ābidīn, Sall, pp. 2: 25–7.
For medieval origins of these theories, see Saif, Knowing, pp. 297–345. For the Ottoman period, see Sariyannis, Occultism, p. 55.
al-Nābulsī, Sharḥ, pp. 120–122, Sariyannis, Occultism, p. 55.
Saif, Knowing, pp. 297–345.
Al-Brūsawī, Tamām, pp. 15B et seq., al-Nābulsī, Sharḥ, pp. 1: 110, 115–117, 120–122, 128, al-Bakrī, Manhal, pp. 12, 53–55.
Al-Nābulsī, Kashf, pp. 163A, 168A, 171A.
Al-Shaʿrānī, Radʿ, pp. 218–221, al-Kīlānī, Durra, pp. 10A–11B.
Al-Kīlānī, Durra, pp. 1A–2B, al-Nābulsī, Sharḥ, p. 1: 120.
Knysh, Sufism, pp. 60, 149–163.
Al-Brūsawī, Tamām, pp. 20A–22A.
See al-Brūsawī, Tamām, pp. 1A–25A.
Ibn Ābidīn, Sall, pp. 2: 14–16.
Al-Brūsawī, Tamām, pp. 12A et seq., 37A, al-Nābulsī, Sharḥ, 1: 119–122. Further see Hourani, Rida, p. 97.
Ahmed, Islam, pp. 21–22.
Al-Nābulsī, Sharḥ, pp. 1: 119–122, al-Bakrī, Manhal, pp. 92 et seq.
Al-Brūsawī, Tamām, pp. 36B et seq., al-Nābulsī, Sharḥ, p. 1: 121.
See Ahmed, Islam, pp. 21 et seq., and, for instance, al-Murādī, Silk, p. 1: 233.
Al-Nābulsī, Sharḥ, pp. 1: 107–132. For medieval argumentation, see Ibn Khaldūn, Muqaddima, pp. 139–165, 584–600, or Ibn Khaldūn, Shifā’, pp. 37–166.
Ibn Ābidīn, Sall, pp. 2: 1–47, al-Nabhānī, Jāmiʿ, pp. 1: 9–56.
For instance, Chih, Sufism, 112–126, and Sirriyeh, Visionary, p.132.
See Grehan, Twilight, pp. 66–70, 107–112, and Pantić, Sufism, pp. 125–128.
Grehan, Twilight, p. 66.
Al-Nābulsī, Sharḥ, p. 1: 199, Ibn ʿĀbidīn, Sall, pp. 2: 14, 37. For an example, see al-Murādī, Silk, p. 1: 86.
Dols, Majnūn, pp. 388–424.
Ibn Budayr, Dimashq, p. 49B, or al-Murādī, Silk, pp. 3: 170 et seq.
Al-Nābulsī, Sharḥ, pp. 1: 119, 123.
Al-Shaʿrānī, Radʿ, pp. 93–412, al-Nābulsī, Sharḥ, pp. 1: 107–132.
Al-Nābulsī, Sharḥ, pp. 1: 126, Ibn ʿĀbidīn, Sall, p. 2: 15.
Green, Sufism, pp. 15–124, Ohlander, Sufism, pp. 1–14, Al-Azmeh, Times, pp. 222 et seq.
Zilfi, Politics, pp. 43–66, Terzioğlu, Sunnitization, pp. 301–338, Yılmaz, Caliphate, pp. 1–20, Chih, Sufism, pp. 7–11, Commins, Islamic Reform, pp. 7–20.
Al-Azmeh, Caravan, pp. 326–400, Al-Azmeh, Times, pp. 222 et seq., Pantić, Sufism, pp. 16–18.
Vajda/Goldziher/Bonebakker, Id̲j̲āza.
See Yılmaz, Caliphate, pp. 97–180, and compare with Bloch, Rois, pp. 15–26.
Al-Brūsāwī, Tamām, pp. 5A–7B.
Buturović, Occult Pot, pp. 113–124, Burak, Prayers, pp. 232–252, Chih, Sufism, pp. 52–55, Pantić, Sufism, pp. 185–227.
See Weber, Charisma, pp. 298–300, Sariyannis, Supernatural, pp. 1–18, Sariyannis, Occultism, pp. 42 et seq., Sariyannis, Knowledge, pp. 80–84.
See Josephson-Storm, Disenchantment, pp. 1–21, 269–316.
Al-Shaʿrānī, Radʿ, pp. 93–412, Winter, Shaʿrānī, pp. 105–112.
Al-Bakrī, Manhal, pp. 26, 38, al-Nābulsī, Sharḥ, pp. 1: 115 et seq.
Al-Brūsāwī, Tamām, p. 6A.
Ibn ʿĀbidīn, Sall, pp. 2: 1–61, and Mundy, Epistles.
Ivanyi, Piety, pp. 1–62, Allen, Interpretations, pp. 153–170, Zilfi, Politics, pp. 129–226.
Wright, Path, pp. 1–12.