Welcome all to this first session of a new seminar series on political thought
at which we'll have speakers working on the Middle East and Islam more broadly.
And we are really delighted. Someone asked me and myself as DG to welcome our first two speakers.
Lisa Alexandrian from the University of Manitoba and Hussain Yilmaz from George Mason.
And I just want to before handing over to Osama to introduce the speakers properly.
I just want to go through the procedure.
So each speaker will be speaking for 20 minutes and we'll have back-to-back presentations, followed by half an hour of Q&A.
The Q&A will be written. That is to say, if you have questions,
please do write them in the in the question box and Osama or I will read them out if you don't wish your name to be read out.
Use the anonymous function as these questions will be recorded along with the rest of the session and put online.
And please do ask questions when they occur to you in the course of these talks so that they don't all pile up towards the end.
And then sadly, we'll have to miss, you know, a number of them.
So with that, let me hand over to soar. Thank you so much.
And it's really a great honour for me to be able to host two wonderful speakers from across the Atlantic,
and this is one of the more positive aspects of a difficult,
challenging couple of years that we've experienced, that we can have people beaming in from any parts of the world.
And I'm sure many of those attending are also beaming in from other parts of the world.
So we welcome you all as well. I'd like to just briefly actually introduce Elizabeth Alexander.
Lisa, before I introduce Hussein.
Briefly, Zain, I'll be introducing you in greater detail just before you get your part of the presentation.
So Elizabeth Alexander is a scholar based at the University of Manitoba's Department of Religion, where she's been based since 2005.
She obtained her at McGill University, and she is correct me if I'm wrong, because some of this may have been may become dated by now.
But it says on your faculty profile that your current book project focuses on dreaming and
sleeping in 13th to 14th century Muslim societies with a particular focus on of the Sufis,
a Sufi texts, medical treatises and hagiographic works very different to what you need to be talking about today.
It's also fascinating, and as part of this project on mediaeval Sufism in Iran, Anatolia and Central Asia,
also crediting a book with people of Galatasaray University and her recent book On Allah in the Finest Traditions,
has been published by the State University of New York Press in 2017.
And and that's basically one of the components of what you'll be talking about today along
with and we're delighted to be able to have a peek at your very latest cutting edge research.
You're going to be sort of branching beyond it. So your lecture title is empire of the entire continent, sovereignties.
In the fourth century after Hydra, because in a century CE.
So with that, I'd like to welcome you to sort of take the hot seat.
Yes, thank you so much for giving me this opportunity to share some thoughts and some of the work that I've done in the past as well as.
Some of the work that I've revisited recently.
The study is interested in how apocalyptic imaginaries established borderlines as it reconsiders, how Abuja,
Cuba suggests honest discussions of the end time resisted the messianic sovereignties implicit in 10th century fortunate,
especially thought in particular as he introduces a cosmology without specific reference to the Ismaili imam.
To explore these questions, this study gives careful consideration to apocalyptic imaginaries in calibrated political and Santeria logical landscapes,
where the bodies of some will still be predicated as other monstrous and strange attention will be paid to specific passages from such studies.
Works to situate his theory of the bars zone where the basilica has an intermediary borderline
is correlated to the cyclical resurrection of the soul and the perfection of the human form.
What informs to just his understanding of the apocalyptic imaginary is his conception of the continent
as a process of its DashPass or rendering transparent the human form as the Nozaki the pure soul.
The coded symbolism of a messiness of the Questions Times timeline tells us much about the political and horizon event of the cosmos rising,
as this study argues and suggests on a subtle staging of fortement ismaili doctrines of messianism and divine guidance,
the apocalyptic plotline of returning to an original unity is suspended, as well as the images of the end times cataclysmic events are displaced.
So the back story in texts in terms of the post communion 11th century ismaili tradition, as I call it,
demonstrate a concerted interest in developing the function of the imam and the dalawa within the sphere of value in building the
empire of the mosque through the Fatimid extended the dominion of their sovereignty to incorporate the end time in the afterlife.
Was this because, as DeLillo states, everybody wants to own the end of the world for the Fortum, it's their sovereignty over the.
And time was not to be understood merely as a truth claim, but as the requirement of joining together.
Religio political governance was uncovering the esoteric and manifesting the court from the late 10th century onward.
The Fatima Dawa serves as a catalyst for human perfection,
where the esoteric knowledge of the end remains safeguarded rather than open to everyone in post communion smiley texts.
This implementation of hierarchical concerns bears foremost on the definition of the human being that is the realm of the human being's sovereignty.
For example, in the magnum opus of the 11th century,
almost all this idea on wired feeding the as his treatment of the human beings potential perfection uncovers a highly
structured system that speaks to the contexts of the philosophical and theological responses to the Fortinet's political,
esoteric leadership. Conceptually,
it alludes to the ways by which the knowledge of the court and as the seal of a lawyer is restricted within the ranks of religions of the din,
as well as the dollar. So in my earlier work, situating specific text and this family offers, historically,
I underscored how the middle of one century fox made a similarly concerted efforts to signal its political,
esoteric sovereignty and to make public and affirm publicly through consolidated, esoteric teachings.
How the Fatimid Caliph Imams Were The Heirs of a lion, the Fatima Dawa, under the guidance of Mohammed and the ruling elite,
introduced teachings on Wallowa in particular to consolidate the Fatimid claim to the caliphate.
As an imam at the middle of the century,
Fatima Dawa broadened the context in which will air as a pillar of practise functioned for setting the parameters
of individual initiatory experience within the cumulative so a logical and eschatological province of the court.
And that is the apocalyptic spacing of the cycles of the prophets and the imams that marked the completion of all air by the middle of the century.
For him, as the seal of forms, the seal of imams and another creation acquires multiple signification and registers of meaning in terms
of measuring prophetic history and its associated apocalyptic scales and violences in the 11th century.
Consolidation of those teachings, there is a shift towards the top and the ethics of obedience and reliance on the imam,
as well as the dollar for salvation and redemption of the body politic.
The move towards an Israeli spiritual ethics paralleled and toxic readings and revisions of the just on his prophetic anthropology,
what Michael Bread once termed the rehabilitation and inclusion of such a stone is often controversial teachings and concepts,
which in my work, as I considered it earlier.
I approach through studying exactly how this compilation of Tharwa teachings took place in the Majlis and how this occurred at
a time historically when the ultimate ruling elite ruling elite in particular still struggled to maintain its sovereignty.
So my presentation today is taking another look through the rear-view mirror as it were at how apocalyptic imaginaries inscribed borderlines,
what is suggested by the apocalyptic as grounded in Koranic discourses and interpretations.
How did the extensive ismaili lexicon of resurrection and cosmology situate apocalyptic imaginaries in this expected future to come?
Suggest honest discussions of the end time resisted. The messianic sovereignties implicit in 10th century Fort Summit is thought in particular
as he introduces this homology without specific reference to the Ismaili man.
As I mentioned before, at the end of time,
the reversal of the i.e. the turning over of apocalyptic destruction surfaces as a major theme in such a stunning works.
So we have a couple of questions. What will the coded symbolism of a messianism?
The Questions Times timeline in particular,
tell us about the political and historical horizon event of the Cotton's rising, particularly instead just on his works?
What will it tell us about the body politic?
Introducing apocalyptic imaginaries from mediaeval Ismaily works contributes in significant ways to scholarship for showing the
malleability of Messing isms between concepts and texts in Muslim societies beyond Orientalist and Neo Orientalist frameworks.
So turning to such a stone is works in particular a solid tarboro cut from a true and Catawba lead where he presents his ideas on the Barsa.
Many of these ideas Joel conventionality, but lend familiarity in reading the Koran and Islamic traditions.
The is off occurring three times and Quran 23 vs. 99 100 is an intermediary.
Borderline were the thinnest line of separation, which is correlated and suggest Tönnies works to the cyclical arising,
qual resurrection of the soul and the human forms perfection.
What is key to suggest Sonny's understanding of the apocalyptic imaginary is his conception of
the calm as a process of DashPass or rendering transparent the human form as the pure soul,
not Nozaki, onto logically mirroring transmigration of souls i.e. mettam psychosis to also suggests that he makes
the case that soul's remembrance is erased in souls the potential downward descent into other forms.
In fact, with both cyclical timelines, a resurrection and transmigration, potentially a collective generation of souls, remembrance is a faced.
Thus, this study is going to argue and such a stunning, subtle take on ismaili doctrines of messianism, the body politic and divine guidance.
This apocalyptic plotline of returning to an original unity is held in suspension,
and as readers of such a stunning, we might also be held in suspense and left with questions.
The images of the end times violence and destruction are displaced through temporal reversals.
The souls of some remain monstrous and strange.
Distinct to others usher in a new creation as the final abode of pure knowledge embodied by humanity under no law.
So while some issues will be receiving attention and what follows,
others necessarily are going to remain unresolved at the end of this particular presentation.
And I underscore here in particular at the advent of bottom IT imperial sovereignty.
What was such a Sony's position on the politics of the identity of the.
So in terms of the historical context and development of this waylay doctrine,
such as Sonny's works were not always in strict accordance with fortement understandings of interpretive authority.
Fatima's legitimacy is by no means the central concern of his works, along with the central themes of BOS and be off,
such as Stoney's works are concerned with the means by which the individual soul locates and obtains the complete
understanding of revelation purified of the elements of the physical world subject to generation and corruption.
While some works like the Tallboy Janabi,
highlight the distinctions between the interpretive process of Tawil and knowledge bestowed for divine support tied others such as Bara,
and if the hard work with questions related to resurrection and the aforementioned is touched off in these regards,
the central theme of Boff, which can be translated loosely as arising and the time before,
as well as after resurrection shift from the linear to the cyclical and the prismatic remaining implicit on the figure of the.
So turning now to one of the major works, the sixth theme in the Deborah is Boss Resurrection pertains to the soul.
Soul is to be understood as the locus out of which arise all of the conditions and manifestations of end time phenomena.
That is the natural phenomena that serve as signs and indications of the events preceding the final resurrection.
So turning to such a stone is use of this particular term and thinking about his apocalyptic imaginaries.
We have the verbal form a stash of your stature for lifting or raising of darkness.
We can note if we look at other works from a little bit before, such as signing after such a study, for example,
in the works of have been seen as the stash of pertains not only to questions surrounding soul at the time of resurrection,
but a range of other issues such as optics and eschatology.
It can be suggested here that even Sinner defines a discourse of imaginal resurrection and eschatology,
grounded in an understanding of faculties and the forms of soul's attachment to the body with
particular attention to rational souls potential for attachment to the celestial spheres.
This term related to imaginal potentiality or could Obama complicates what urban centre
presents and results in multiple questions and refutations on the parts of later thinkers?
Briefly stated Urban Sinoe work with a shared concern on resurrection to argue that it pertains to soul,
as is seen in the fourth and fifth chapters of Anatolia in particular,
suggesting that there are two categories of soul or self in experiencing death and resurrection.
Wami thus characterises inner faculties, inner content,
as well as forms of representation definitions which carry over to the works of a smile offers and other Muslim thinkers,
according to have been seen in two categories of soul or self, may be demarcated in terms of experiencing death and resurrection.
How soul has perfected itself in bodily form and in the temporal world determines resurrection and afterlife experiences such as studies,
works present ordering of movement in time that is imaginable Swami Wyomia,
especially for considerations of both arising or resurrection with strong correlations to what Tariq Joffer proposed originally,
has it been seen as a marginal eschatology on the basis of his study of Ottawa?
Consequently, reading between these terms and concepts supports further how the process of this the Shroff in minor and major cycles.
According to Esmaili, authors like Suggest Thuney culminate enough Zakia.
There's interest in subtle body arguments, which Esmaili authors understood to have been introduced in these works of him.
SENER, based on Bobbit and Lucara, culminate in a range of meanings as to sole conceptions of soul and individual,
so the collective soul arising as a narsa zakia the pure soul.
Therefore, both and be are key to understanding the continuous motion of such a stoney's epistemological
frameworks from the duality and double ness of universal soul and intellect to sense the human form,
as does tied and targeting the processes of both and in the art central to such as Sonny's works, bridge creation and resurrection.
So such as size and. Richmond and theological metaphysics and Ontology stages the form of a human being at the centre of the spiritual world,
as well as between two realms.
So the natural and the spiritual and the individual souls linked to bodies perform is the fastest gradual run, dry and transparent of all things.
All of these things will be rendered transparent in the world or soul.
And as suggested by Boston Srouji SolarWorld is within the form of the human
being does the form that renders all forms natural or soul related transparent.
How the human form affects the soul and is entailed in the sphere is as follows.
I'm going to give a quote of Barbara and then I'm going to turn to some other points, so keep everything going on time here.
This is a very interesting quote from Barbara. If souls render the form of a sphere and its bodies transparent while they are in a condition where
the marks of nature have mastery over them and v ruination and terrifying events are produced,
which are the causes of production and destruction, but have souls rendered transparent the form of the sphere and all of its bodies,
and luminous stars and conditions where emanations of the intellect have mastery over them.
Then from their influences, good fortune divinely granted talents and beings who bring advantage and nobility are produced.
So we have many different arguments that are presented then Barbara in particular,
which points to how the end time is in fact the culmination of this process of rendering transparent that occurs through the vehicle of Nozaki the
pure soul and in the completion of the human form arising as the court and rather than positing the destruction and the violence of the end time.
In other words, the raising of the comb represents a reversal of destruction in a very prismatic fashion.
Passages from Kosh, Barbara and Iftikhar give way to how such a stunning explicate this process as prismatic on all levels and with
respect to the major and minor cycles of ascent and descent that pertain to both individual and universal soul.
So just very briefly, in terms of thinking about other types of scholarship that can be completed,
there's a lot that can be done in terms of thinking about the arguments presented by even CNN,
such as Tony on both resurrection and this more controversial question of transmigration of souls,
which both focus in many different ways on this idea of the Bazaar as the line of demarcation that separates souls,
which is then erased with the vehicle of the Tercel completing the human form at the end of time.
So in conclusion, such as thorny works with the interpretation of set verses and chapters from the Quran,
as well as Islamic traditions from which many scholars inferred the advance prior to the time will be cataclysmic,
destructive and apocalyptic, rather presenting in the majority of his works a critical exposition on,
shall we say, Neal plagiarising exercise of soul. So just on, he maintains instead that in temporal suspensions,
bridging creation and resurrection, individual souls for the human form purifies soul worlds,
redeeming universal soul of its traces and multiplicity, and its return to the vote of confidence,
oneness and framing and esoteric sovereignty at the end time.
Thank you very much. Thank you so much. This really sort of a fascinating journey through the works of one of the most
important Ismaili philosophers and Neapolitan estates present Islamic tradition.
I'm going to on a little conscious of time that you've been impeccably, so impeccable in your timing.
I'm going to now introduce Hussein Yilmaz, and for people who have questions for Lisa,
please do bear in mind, we're going to take questions collectively at the end of this,
and please do not put down your questions and type them in in the Q&A as you sort of as they occur to you, and we'll pick them up towards the end.
So Hussain Yilmaz, in some respects, is looking at a comparable sort of dimension of the caliphate in the Sunni tradition,
a few miles north, shall we say, in the Ottoman rounds.
So he holds a Ph.D. in history from Middle Eastern studies from Harvard University and his research interests focus on the early modern Middle East,
including political thought, geographic, imaginary social movements and cultural history.
His most recent publications include The Eastern Question and the Ottoman Empire, the genesis of the Near and Middle East in the 19th century.
And in a sense, today's discussion is going to look at his latest book, published in 2018 with Princeton University.
Press it. It isn't titled The Caliphate Redefined the mystical term in Ottoman political thought,
and this really is the first comprehensive study of pre-modern Ottoman political thought.
So with that, Hussain, I'd like to introduce your lecture title,
which is the Ottomans and the question of the caliphate, which really seems to be addressed directly by your book.
And so the floor is yours. Thank you very much.
Some flights out and all others who made this meeting happen.
I'm very happy to be here.
And this is although the book is published still an ongoing project, I'm still continuing to unpack some of the major issue I dealt with in the book.
And in this talk, I'd like to highlight some of those issues they can offer to talk about those and you can in session.
So I titled the talk as the question of the caliphate because it's not a straightforward history of the caliphate, as we have been accustomed to.
Think of all the caliphate as a juristic exposition authority in Muslim society.
So in this talk, I emphasise from the beginning that when I talk about the caliphate,
I referring to specifically sophistic conception of the caliphate and the fact that the Ottomans themselves as rulers and the dynasty.
And so we learnt of the caliphate through their exposure to the Sufism.
And to do that, I'll first talk about the first context and then major turning points along the road and then how this
caliphate sort of became part of the imperial self-identification in the middle of the 16th century.
So we are talking about the origins of the Ottoman Empire in western Anatolia, where we can think of two major orders.
One was the Abbasid slash Mongol order in the political order in which the apostle order was despite the
collapse of the empire itself was slowly waning because of the influence of the Mamluk state over Anatolia,
the opposite border was still quite sealable amongst the local small dynasties.
And the second order was the spiritual order exerted by a variety of Sufi orders, often in clash with temporal rulers in western Anatolia.
Where we speak of almost depends on the precise date, from 10 to 20 different simultaneous days competing for power.
And he received all three major groups of.
So this one is Abdullah, who are pastoral, mostly operating in the countryside or in most cases originating from Central Asian forms of Sufism,
of who's the primary language was Turkish or the Tajik, let's say, on the western Turkish of the time, and they were mostly advocating illiteracy.
I was literally saying illiteracy, but what they meant by this and epistemological autonomy,
from the written transmission of knowledge, basically the defiance of the authority of William.
And they claim that they are exposed to and they have access to the truth through their own language and spiritual and sophistication.
So illiteracy for them was not a deficiency, but sort of the private sort of distinction.
And then second group was urban, so it is obviously the most important was the is, of course, originated from Anatolia,
and they were expanding mostly amongst urban merchants and artisan groups, as well as bureaucrats and higher levels of those ruling dynasties.
And the third group was accused of his virginity from the mediaeval groups of Fithian.
They had sort of some chivalric ethos in themselves as well.
And all these groups were quite autonomous unto themselves, up to the extent that, for example,
in the midst of this political vacuum ofhis for a while after the so-called acquired Republic,
in which there was no ruler, temporal ruler, percent of one of the final representatives of that autonomy was judged by it on video,
which almost make peace in the beginning of the 15th century.
So they basically ruled the city by themselves, of which we don't know much, by the way.
But this all indicate that these Sufi groups were quite autonomous.
First of all, in the in the midst of this political fragmentation and decentralisation, there was no solid imperial order.
Even the Mongol order was quite loose in western Anatolia at the time.
And secondly, because of their spiritual inclinations and visions of authority,
which all come in a short while we see in their head geographies, for example, they adopted royal titles to begin with.
So every one of them would be known as one car. So the town's police force medicks and whatnot.
So their royal titular church was a lot more elaborate than those competing local rulers,
such as the Ottomans Academy on this sort of enormous, Hamid told us, et cetera.
And we thought they meant they meant that they have temporal power as well,
with a difference from what actual temporal rulers understood from temporal and
that was temporal ruler rule for them was a factor of their spiritual authority.
So they gained their spiritual status, not from their actual power onto the ground,
but they claimed that as part of their being chosen in the spiritual realm in ways which was elaborated and not so different in that regard,
from the mediaeval thought to be smiley proclamations only in more simplified vocabulary.
I will say we don't still see this deftness in the 14th century Anatolia yet.
Nevertheless,
they consider themselves legitimate and authorities on both fronts spiritual and temporal that put them exact clash with the actual rulers.
Again, different their geographies, either partially geographies or actually geographies or those of the memories.
We see numerous encounters between those sovereign dervishes and temporal rulers, in which case the temporal rulers were made into geographies,
acknowledging the ultimate absolute authority of the Sufi dervish and being identified as their temporal arms, their executive arms.
Commander of causes, for example, visiting those titles all through from that spiritual authority.
And when we see the Ottomans specifically, of course, they were quite neglected, ignored.
One of the smallest principalities of there, we see certain transformations that the Ottomans went through to claim their presence in the region.
One was their marriage with the osman's marriage, with the daughter of one of the most prominent Sufi leaders in the region,
which symbolised actually the convergence of temporal and US spiritual order authority in the persona of Osman.
And secondly, they made a very good use of the political and sophisticated competition in the region.
As I said in the beginning, there was still the Mongol and apostate rulers quite present there.
So what happens? The second ruler minced a coin in the back.
It mentions the name of the apostle Tatar, who was dead for about a century,
which claims politically that he's still operating within the sovereign order of the buses, which at the time was represented by the Monarchs.
Of course, in the meantime, he also adopts the title of Khan.
And here it's very important how actually this claims of sovereignty negotiated in this context,
we see that there are two types of manifesting sovereignty or authority or political leadership.
One was the question of legitimacy and the other one was sovereignty, namely claim to the territory.
It's basically a real estate problem, in a sense.
So for a second, they would use the same vocabulary as the sole traders.
Exact same workable Ottoman ruler adopted names are Sultan Malik Ghazi, hunkered down,
D-Ga., whatever is available from the historical literature or in currency at the time.
On the other hand, they have their sovereign pilots, so Sultan Malik and the others were just describing their form of rulership.
It's for the legitimacy for this sovereignty they use because the Turkish.
Work back, which means in there under their rule, within their territory, no one else could actually use that that title.
Sultan, everybody uses Rumi.
Calls himself one castle on everything, but Ruby could not call himself back.
It is an exclusive rights to the territory that the Ottomans as they become as they expanded.
They adopted the Hum title and other secular content codes,
which has nothing to do with Islamic tradition and complete a claim of territorial independence.
A third word was shock, and that's it.
They all form pretty much in the first century of the Ottomans, and to the end, they stuck with these three claims of.
Sovereignty, even the last autumn, when kid is like 15 for Abdul Hamid.
You could see one page long descriptive to the teacher for his legitimacy, ruler of the one fourth of the world's caliphate, et cetera, et cetera.
It always ends with Abdul Hamid Hunt. So and before, of course, they might consider the context of offshore.
So these sovereign titles were never negotiated by the temple groups.
It was always a matter of flesh if there was a claim for that title.
The competition was for the legitimacy in the spiritual space for other titles.
The most important, of course, was the caliphate.
And to do that, the Ottomans learnt of the caliphate from the Sufi language from Sufi claimants because they were the first who claimed that.
So Haji Backslash, for example, or Rumi and others, first of all, foremost known as honeyeaters.
And they describe their caliphate as God's absolute wife's resiliency on Earth.
They elaborated some of its other candidates, which was called the pillar the axis of the world, or God.
This is the hunter of of all humanity, et cetera.
But the key words in Sufi spiritual authority was the caliphate,
and the Ottomans took that caliphate before they knew anything about the juristic notions of the caliphate, which they don't know.
The Ottomans response, at least for the first century, was in all likelihood because I'm saying it like it, but we have no evidence.
Otherwise they were illiterate. They were not educated.
Only after the Battle of Ankara,
we see amongst the Ottomans with some interest in learning because they started to educate their princes so that we know.
So they were only slowly being exposed to learn Islam.
Much of what they knew was learnt from from the environment of Aceh in the region.
But in the meantime, we see that institutions of learning and spirituality were expanding along with and despite the Ottoman rule specifically,
I mean, madrassas and zillions more. So the Soviets were expanding with no control, of course.
They were on their own, and they actually reached, for example, to the Balkans way before the Ottomans across the Dardanelles and then madrassas.
The Ottomans found their own madrassas and they, as they expanded out, took over business in cities.
They built their own madrassas.
And here it's important that. Very important feature of all measures that arises, they appoint.
Spiritually non-denominational sophistic minded Ulema as motorists, the best known, of course, a city who was a disciple of Ibn Araby.
Most of his books are on Sufism. But it was the mothers of the first Ottoman madrassa, and the first reportedly, as set by the Ottoman forces,
are the shareholders on the chief judge of Chief Mufti of the Ottoman Empire was Mullah.
Finaly, again, most of his books are on Sufism, and he was a distant disciple of even Arab as well.
In the meantime, the Ottoman Sultans maintain a very close relationship with Sufi leaders.
In the first century, those leaders were Abdullah,
the pastoral Sufis in the countryside because the Ottoman rulers were themselves coming from nomadic pastoral origins.
We see their very natural allies versus urban Sufis.
Many were out of Ottoman space for more than a century.
They were not let in by the Ottomans rulers or other Abdullah Sufis who were competing against
them only after the Battle of Ankara and the major rebellion carried out by Sheikh Badruddin.
Again, another interesting figure as Sufi minded Holy Island scholar who was adopted as chief
of the chief judge by one of the competing Ottoman princes after the Battle of Ankara.
So due to growing presence of Sufis and power to counter that, the Ottomans actually invited other Sufi groups into their cities.
The most important of them was because the Moliere it's the first Molavi Lodge was opened to the second in 0:46 in internet.
Before that, they were operating in all parts of Anatolia, but not Ottoman territories.
In the meantime, the Ottomans themselves maintained a very close association of Sufi leaders,
which is well reflected in those hijab trophies and alliance,
which work both ways because the Ottoman rulers themselves acquired legitimacy in the eyes of the Sophistic base to
their close association with these leaders and those who also claimed and maintained their own vision of legitimacy.
There is one story which is repeated in a variety of geographies almost verbatim.
So it is, I don't know, either happened once and repeated, adopted by others or simply fabricated.
We see that in the geography of Asia. For Rumi or ActionScript, for example, the two very important Sufis of 15th century.
Both of them say that Muhammad, the second the conqueror of Constantinople, actually came to their threshold and then backed the shape,
saying that he is the ultimate authority and they should give up all this war.
The riches and power as much let Ibrahim attempt and then just serve the shape of the Sheikh says no.
Your task is to maintain the order of the temporal world, so the alliance works both ways.
So in the geography is complete peaceful encounters.
We have more violent encounters as well because not every Sufi group was happy
with the administration of the Ottoman rule at the time in the 15th century.
Usman Baba,
who was wasn't Abdul on Sufi shake his head geography gives so many other encounters in which amendment the second was chastised reprimanded,
punished for his failure to acknowledge the proper authority of Ottoman Baba.
Similar encounters we see of the geography's two in their encounters with the cultural rulers.
But. Here in this context, while the Ottomans Sultans were maintaining their close association with the sheikhs,
their own madrassa graduates, their own scholars who have a strong background in Sufism,
plus their their invitation and employment of a stream of Sophistic minded scholars from the East, such as a Muslim Islamist in their court,
started to expose Ottoman rulership in exclusively its sophistic terms, which would be acceptable for a Sufi mind in Ottoman realms.
So when we come to the 16th century, the Ottoman rule actually faced two major,
almost existential threats in which they resorted to sophisticated vocabulary and worldview even more.
One was clashing with the mullahs in the south and then their clashes with the stuff of its, especially the stuff of conflict,
was very threatening for the Ottomans because it's a Sufi house turned into an actual dynasty.
And they had that claim in Ottoman territory as well, especially Ottoman rural areas whose language was Turkish translated as poetry.
Still, the captivates enchanted that's based in that context, even Arabic, for example,
immediately having to say that there was ongoing critique or criticism of even Arab jurists.
Now we see a number of treatises were written about an Arab, and it's his futuristic news about the coming of the Ottomans, et cetera.
So in the just extend two minutes, perhaps I'll recap here how the Ottoman caliphate came to be understood and manifested in the 16th century state.
Six major characteristics or qualities of the notion of the caliphate as exposed.
But amongst the Ottomans ruling elite one was that the Ottoman rule of ruler and the dynasty was chosen.
So caliphate is not something to be acquired as we see in touristic literature.
There is no body, no contract. It is to be chosen by Divine Providence.
Secondly, it is dynasty. It's not individualistic again.
In touristic theory, the construct is wielded by individual, but here just fine.
It was always the Ottoman house that was consecrated and chosen.
Thirdly,
the idea of caliphate became hierarchical because it was used almost across the board by the larger Sufi orders in the Ottoman Empire and elsewhere.
More elaborate notions of caliphate were developed, such as kill off at a cobra or kill off it.
It was not greatest caliphate, which combines a variety of other lesser forms of the caliphate.
Thirdly, caliphate became a moral paradigm by any political force amongst the political advisers.
So they, for example, developed the notion of Hillary the rough money,
which they argued that caliphate is not just representing or manifestation of God or birth, but it's a manifestation of God's compassion.
So unless you endow yourself with that quality, you cannot manifest divine order properly, so it becomes a moral obligation to so a charter.
And thirdly, it is, or its comprehensive and unified also combines the juristic understanding we see in the treaties of the two point shot.
For example, she was a juristic treatise, claiming that the Ottomans are actually imams and caliphs.
And. A crazy stipulation in Park does not apply to them because for 18 months, Howard and the Ottomans already have power and chosen, et cetera.
But interesting that he writes his reasoning is drastic, but most of his sources are sophisticated sources.
And lastly, which is a strong connexion with what it just gave us here.
It just eschatological. So the Ottoman caliphate represented by the devil.
So the devil is the kind of authority a term that does give it a turn the right to rule.
So until the end of time, almost all the Ottoman dynasty was to rule Ebenezer, for example,
that Sheik 15:40 wrote the next three thousand years of the Ottoman or the world, including the Ottomans.
He mentioned all the muftis and Sufi states and Sultans names, including women sultans.
In the meantime, but that was the idea. It was the end of times.
So the other one dynasty was ruling as the final epoch of human beings time on Earth under the Sun, the shape of a very elaborate deposition.
For example, he argued that based on scriptures on his symbolic reading of the paradise,
it has argued that there are three major targets in world's order.
One of the Arabs was given that of the second, the first given that also the by far seeming opposites and the third it's the time of the Turks,
which routes up to the ruins of the Ottomans, and thus that will take humanity till the end of this.
Thank you. Thank you very much. Really, two wonderful presentations.
And interestingly, linked in unexpected ways, obviously to the apocalyptic,
which was seen as just a return to but also in a way, I suppose through these ideas of the dispersal off of sovereignties.
You know, whether it is what Lisa was talking about the the the.
The functionalised, if I might put it that way, the figure of the time and the focus on those individual souls or what Hussein was speaking about,
the Sufi dispersal of older notions of sovereignty, sultan etc. and the easy availability.
And then there sort of uptick again by the early Ottomans. So a lot to think about here.
Thank you both very much for those in the audience.
Please do write in your questions and the Q&A box and we we have one already before Hussain.
Let me read that out. This is from Mehdi Askariya asks would Hassan expand on the tension slash conflict between the
religious establishment or Lama and the Ottoman ruling dynasty and its development through the ages?
Now, thank you so much. It's a very good question.
The tension was of basically the ulema who got stuck to the word of the book and the Sophia who claimed that scriptures were encrypted.
So for Rank-and-file Bulama, who studies grammar and logic and et cetera,
our guts message could be extracted by rational contemplation by resorting to looking out the conveyed knowledge.
But philosophy superplex, if it's a solid school approach, it's an encrypted text and logic rhetoric.
These don't help you need to be qualified to a test career.
You need to be spiritually sophisticated to understand the layers and layers of meanings behind those texts.
So that was the basic point of tension between Sophia and William.
However, we see two interesting developments took place almost simultaneously.
One. An increasing number of learnt men just sympathised with sophistic cosmologists could potentially visit, for example.
These astronomers mathematicians, they found Sufism more,
enabling perhaps a more emancipating in constructing their own scientific and philosophical universes or understanding of nature,
as opposed to the strict juristic writings which were normative and aiming to standardise understanding and practises across the community,
regardless of differences. And secondly, we see this inclination from the learner.
They just became more and more sophisticated in orientation.
The reasons separate a lot of discussion.
Secondly, the Saffir themselves started to master texts as well.
Of course,
we have many different strains of Sufism that Postel Sufism vehemently continue to reject the transmission of authority and maintain autonomy.
But most strains of Sufism, including those everyone, started to master texts and incorporated them into their Zaria experience.
Rumi, for example, by profession, he was a mother, so in daytime he would gossip madrassa,
teach jurists, suppose come back to Zaria and have ecstatic experience along the way.
This tension, of course, never went completely but controlled by the political intrusion of the Ottoman rulers.
So whenever there is certain things that got out of control distort that balance, they they intervened.
So we have, for example, the 16th century and number of shakes hands on charges of apostasy.
We also see that certain jurists were the distance from power,
such as churches are that in the 16th century who was very critical of any kind of sophisticated interpretation of texts,
and then they were just not promoted.
Perhaps the most important question took place in the 17th century between crosses and countless orders.
So this idea just promoted that idea of pristine Islam based on jurisdiction.
Normative understanding of some various sources were still operating in sophisticated vocabulary and rituals and piety in Istanbul.
The cause is all there is to the upper hand.
For a while almost terrorised in Istanbul, they started to burn mosques and minarets on charges that they are bizarre innovations.
But at the end, again, the Ottoman leadership intervened and restored.
Or so we see this clash ongoing. I would say maintained the control and balance maintained by the interference of the Ottoman religion.
Thanks very much. I have a question. I know some of us as well, but I have a question for you, Lisa.
Even though this is very far from my field of expertise,
I thought it when I was listening to you that I finally understood something, but I might not have understood it at all.
And that is the following that once you as it were, as the image you say, did absorb the apocalypse or the end of time within their.
A form of sovereignty or to use an anachronistic term ideology,
then in a way you're almost compelled into a circular or cyclical vision of history and of the universe that can
only repeat itself and and that that then might link to the equally compelling argument of mettam psychosis or the,
you know, the rebirth or reincarnation of souls.
And it hadn't occurred to me, though those two things were connected up by very strict logic and not just,
you know, random influences from the outside, which the scholarship often tells us about.
But I wanted to ask in particular about how this, if you will, logic.
The circular logic also might end up doing what you suggested, Sistani argues,
which is render the figures that I am imam into almost a kind of intellectual.
Hinge saw that all the attention seems to be on the songs on the which could belong to all kinds of people, at least in your telling of it at all.
No ballpark exactly the steps A, B and C, the logical lengths are quite interesting to look at in terms of historical contexts.
And so we have a lot of very good and solid scholarship looking at Ismaily thought primarily as.
Intellectual history in the historical context,
some looking at the history of the Fatimid dynasty and they and empire and imperial presence up until the middle of the century,
we see a number of the different Ismaili authors introducing arguments that essentially destabilise the authority of the Imam Caliph.
And so while such as Thuney in his day and age was not approved in terms of where the Ottomans were in the middle of one century,
they saw his works and his arguments concerning prophetic anthropology to be just
what they needed to recapitalise through start a discussion about sovereignty.
And I find it again, strange.
I mean, he's that word. I find it strange to think about this as a type of dominion that extends into the time, as well as the afterlife,
which we essentially see both such a stunning home doing in their different ways and their different times.
Yes. Yes. How can you have a messianic empire, right?
One of these questions that I think comes up time and time and again, and different scholarship and different fields of research.
It's it's very hard to maintain that over a period of time in a long duration, so to speak.
Yeah, no, thank you. It just seemed to me how once you absorb the apocalypse and it's already somehow happened,
then it's almost like it becomes the principle of movement or dynamism within the whole,
you know, it's it's fascinating how it then does this kind of work repeatedly?
Right, right. Well, the time of apocalypse is is no, it's always an hour, which can be like on a personal level, if you have a system of thought,
a system of concepts like one can find and if an offshore issues them, and it's mostly traditions.
This is also promoting the importance of satiric logical benefits of relying on such type of sovereignty or authority.
So, yes, it's no way gives me some thoughts about what Hussein was mentioning as well, if I can ask a question.
Go ahead. So here we kind of think about the the ultimate caliphate.
And what about Sophie messianism in this time period?
In what later becomes the Ottoman domain?
How did the the religious scholars respond to messianic Sufi claims, who do have one particular example that you can sure know?
Read more for sure. Thanks very much. That's a very good question, actually.
I will say messianism was already well manifested and embedded in sophistic thoughts.
But in general. But it all depended on how messianism was articulated.
If it was articulated as part of saintly miracles, which does not interfere with world affairs percent,
it was tolerated by political rulers or simply accepted if the Soviet sheikhs were so powerful.
But in the case of Badruddin, it wasn't tolerated and he was executed in the in the 16th century.
We have a number of actually crucial is, for example, in the 15th century with similar ideas.
You know, the famous Nazi, he was skinned alive.
To that's what the more the better known example start in the 16th century when the Empire was consolidated
and there were more there was more insight because of the Soviet threat or one change with the shape,
for example,
in the early decades of the 16th century who claimed to be mighty actually ultimately and asked all others to acknowledge his proper authority.
And he was executed for that. But despite political executions, these were considered as a problem of order.
Not a problem of spiritual deviation of all these executed shakes for all of them rehabilitated in later.
All Biographical Dictionary is written even by Autumn Aguilera.
They were mostly depicted as moments of ecstasy, adrift and executed by the Ottomans, but later Ottoman forces.
It was considered as a great shame. His body is one of the most commented upon texts amongst Ottoman readers,
so if there is ultimate manifestation of messianism that it's considered a threat to the order, execution is not far from.
But even after the execution, they were incorporated and accepted into the mainstream of spirituality.
Thank you so much. I know we have a question for Iftikhar Malik, which I will read out, but Osama, do you have something to?
Oh, I don't mind asking if it's all right? This was the nice, actually.
And uh, I mean, just a fascinating sort of portrait of a very complex scholar and a scholar I'm thoroughly unfamiliar with.
So I've learnt a great deal. But to me, what's very interesting,
just sort of as someone with an abiding interest in intellectual history of the Islamic world writ large is
that you're looking at a relatively early period within the Fatimid caliphate and within Islamic history,
as it were. And this is before they've been out of beards before.
And whereas earlier, really it's before and isn't seen us.
And I'm just thinking the trajectories that Hussein is talking about really require all of those characters.
And it goes and you know, you have this efflorescence within.
Obviously, a neo platonic thought with a vision is great sort of intellectual intervention.
And I wonder in particular, sort of. And then all of a sudden it goes off and out of B, and suddenly Sufism is sort of near platonic.
But Sistani was a neo pianist. That was the philosophical discourse of the time and the time, as people like Mark Sedgwick have illustrated.
Is this ever present figure in that era for hundreds of years, and I just wanted to speculate or ask you to speculate as well?
Like what sort of pathways would have been possible if you can study your son is this early thinker,
and he's not supported by a successful state in the way that was earlier would've been
out to be can kind of be incorporated into various states and in a sense of dissent,
as someone who's incorporated within and and completely through these kinds of figures, you suggest any afterlife.
What's his afterlife like and what were his possibilities like? That's it, right?
It's a great question. And to create an outline, a very brief outline in,
we think about certain cortex that were so influential on Muslim thinkers from the late 19th century onward.
We think about certain texts that were translated into Arabic, for example,
the so-called theology of Aristotle, which is a very important source text.
If I can use that expression for a genealogy of intellectuals from didn't sign up to Tumulong Sutra.
And so with with careful texts work that some scholars have done so.
For example, like Herman, Lendl and Daniel dismount, you can see how particular texts and concepts were framed by bi thinkers like for been seen.
So just on a kermani. And then how they have their echoes in the works of later authors and thinkers.
So for for certain ideas like going back to this idea of soul and this is
something that everyone feels the need to return to time and time again for me,
sometimes even on a daily basis, I think, like what is actually my concept of soul?
Like what is what is the nature of resurrection?
So we can see that that intellectual legacy carrying forward in terms of the work that I did in my book and then thinking about it.
Afterwards, and this is something that I've thought about very specifically in the context of
teaching Islamic studies and teaching undergraduate courses and graduate courses.
So there's this particular framing of this concept of Wallowa that begins with hacking term movie and which
we see up until the 20th century and thereafter in terms of thinking about what what does this entail,
what is the scope of a liar? And so it can see that in terms of like Ismaily thinkers like such a study, he's not mentioning it specifically.
He's not using the term, but he has. He has an idea. And there's a lot of evidence that points that these early Ismaily offers,
who may have not been so comfortable with the Fortinet's had an understanding of something like this the scope of a lie that embodies so much of.
Political, esoteric, religious spiritual guidance, but is also framing an understanding of temporality as well as spirituality.
Yeah. So that's that's why I see such a stunning in his own way of contributing
through a kind of like negative discourse by not saying certain things to this,
this idea of like, what would that be like and who would be involved in it?
And each kind of temporal setting. I hope that that helps.
I mean, I think if we look more like specifically like the texts such as sunny and other Ismaily authors,
I think there's there's a suggestion that there is, you know, very specific arguments that then appear later in like, for example, at the school.
This one and more such as works to two again, kind of puts some kind of context on the scope of of a overlap.
Thank you. I'm sorry so much so in good smiley fashion, he has been rendered into a secretive influence.
So we have a question for the both of you actually from Iftikhar Malik for both the speakers.
Even before the Ottoman experience, the hierarchical relationship between the caliphate and a model,
a model became obvious in the case of Muhammad, of course, now who for the first time adopted the title of a sultan in Southwest Asia.
Whatever the reason, Mahmud came down harshly on smileys of the Indus regions with Multan as their centre,
partly to please the Abbasid Caliph, along with seeking legitimacy for his rule.
Earlier this week, Iqbal was dedicated to Fatima caliphs in this part of India.
So would either of both of you care to comment on that? Well, I well, if I may,
one of the interesting things that we learnt from the history of Muslim societies and Islamic historiography regards competing
authorities and reconciliations and reaching out of individual dynastic powers to legitimise themselves through sort of a caliphate.
And while I don't know the specifics of the sources for Milton and regarding Mahmoud of Karsner, when we look at, for example, the.
Ten hundreds, the early eleven, hundreds,
so it can you can see a lot of conflicting authorities of what is to be understood as the legitimacy of rule.
So this this again, I think, is one of the reasons why in the middle of this century, in the the far timid domain,
there was such an importance on presenting something that was very consolidated in terms of what they were as as a caliphate,
as anemometer, as an empire. It was not sustainable, I would say.
Think? I can say more takes on top of your elaboration, as you point out,
I think the key here is multiple authorities or company competing conflicting or even synergy authorities in Muslim contexts or Islamic contexts.
Still, so we always had multiple authorities at work, some in clashing with each other, some in symbiosis with each other.
And the best display fight is Sufi temporal confrontations.
And here I would like to give a few examples to show the complexity of the situation.
One is the Baba Elias uprising during the sands of time times and what it has a very elaborate.
Hijacking written by his grandson, which says in which one of the cases probably just says,
I have 400 caliphs who have 400 soldiers, so from the officer's perspective, she was already really.
That area, regardless of the presence of such a sultan and his followers,
had that firm faith that they are, she has full power actually work the power to.
So we have two different sovereignties at work here.
And then we also know from actual historical events.
But what it does is some more, less pressure, actually, again, uprise against the subject's defeated,
the subjects on set on subjects alone for a very short while and then went to his village in church and died there.
But his claim was that I have the authority, but I don't.
I won't act as a temporal ruler. I will just say it to my village.
Still, his believers thought that he had that power.
In the case of the apostle caliphs relationship with others, in that case,
we are talking about the imperial order, and we have to distinguish here the sovereign,
actual sovereign title of de jure sovereign title and then all sorts of other titles which up for grab for legitimacy.
Right. And I think in the Orbost context, the one title, which is what was not up for negotiation, was a little meaning.
Not Caliph, not immoral, even in late apostle.
A number of other heterologous here on there used the title of caliphate,
and we know the Warriors were already using the title Orchestrate the Fatima's for all the use and the existence of single imam in the world,
it was redundant or rendered dysfunctional.
It was largely a myth in the 10th century, perhaps developed by the jurists to to reclaim a Bassett's was oriented over the others.
So but we don't see other rulers claiming and are really the ones under the opposite of of the way it's the cousin of Islam in the centuries.
We're not. We have one exception, though, and that is I don't know how juristic resolved.
Perhaps you should be read more critically and carefully total pay as you well know why Shiite power in
Baghdad and put his name to Mexico if he says the adults in the title says Kazeem would be the partner,
so our boss of the temporal authority can do in that brief period.
Other than that, all the other systems, including Mahmood's and others, had to get their investiture from the chain of from the union.
But on top of that, they could use other legitimacy titles such as programmatic shopping, power, etc.
Great, thank you very much. Osama, shall we?
I'm I'm very tempted, given the esteemed company to ask a couple more questions, perhaps these do.
Thank you. I mean, and a fascinating point about the Roubaix because I wasn't aware of that.
And that's really a sort of that's a very disruptive thing pretty early on in the process of sort of copyright on American Morning.
Caliph, of course, is a complicated word.
And as far as understand, Sunnis sort of interpreted the Andalusian behaviour as a response to the settlement counter.
So there's a, I think, a report, a hadith which says, you know, if there are two caliphs,
then kill the second one, but it doesn't say anything about said.
So they waited for the pessimists to make that claim before jumping on the bandwagon in Indonesia.
But I guess my question, actually.
I'm tempted to ask you both a question, and I'm putting you in a very invidious position because there's not enough time to really do it justice.
But on the point of Sufism is very salient in your work. But you know, in a sense, I don't think of cities.
I don't know the parliament well enough to know how important Sufism is there.
But when you think of a word like Bosnia and the preoccupation with the sort of hidden meanings, you very often make an association with Sufism.
And one thinks, of course, of the tension between filmmakers early and the ismailis of the Puckerman era.
But I wanted to ask, is there a comparable component of Sufism in any way?
You know, even if it's a very minor component to what Hussain was talking about with respect to the Sufi metaphysics,
really imbuing the identity of the kind of caliphate in the first place?
But is there something equivalent to that in the fundamental context?
And perhaps it's ended up being really a question to Lisa about?
So, so I think in some ways, my my understanding, my knowledge and my reading of historical sources has gone elsewhere,
it's not present as much as it ought to be in my mind.
But I think if I'm going to paint things with very broad strokes,
I think for the 11th century is a very interesting time period for the development of.
Intellectual traditions. So we have, for example, under the budgets, the.
Consolidation of she hadith and different types of sources, and under the Fatima's,
we see the consolidation of other types of texts and forms of knowledge in a way that it almost becomes.
What cultural capital for four different ruling groups, and so the development from, let's say,
the 10 hundreds to the 11 hundreds up until the time of causality is really delving into these different textual
traditions and in a way developing some sort of epistemology that will lend itself practically as well as theoretically.
And so I think the it's in the 11th century we're using a lot of cultural capital.
From its Nashiri schism, as well as other thought traditions like Sufism to recast.
The scope of temporal as well as spiritual authorities and knowledge.
And he can go so many places once you've done that,
and I think that's what makes it so fascinating in a way for for me as a as a scholar to kind of have opportunities to to move back and forth,
working with a concept like lawyer, you can go pretty far on the Super Expressway of, you know, the Islamic textual traditions.
Thank you very much. Thank you. So I leave it up, Osama, to you to close,
but I just want to remind all our participants today an audience that our next session will be on the 26th of January at the same time,
and it will be dedicated to the theme of religion, specifically in Saudi Arabia.
So we're moving to the modern period, and our two speakers will be material received from the LSC and Pascal Minaret from Brandeis University.
So we very much hope you can join us for that. And now onto Osama to thank our two wonderful speakers.
Thank you very much. And please do remember to register for this in a link to be sent to you in time.
But really, it's been a wonderful evening with the two of you, of course, where you are.
It's probably the morning and thank you for making the time.
We've learnt a great deal from you and I hope this is an opportunity also for, you know,
people to learn more about your work and please to try and get your hands on their books.
That sort of really representative of the cutting edge of studies of the caliphate in
the Islamic historical tradition and spread across two different periods of time.
So I just want to close by thanking the visa and Hussain for a wonderful evening, an enlightening one.
And we look forward to having you at some point over in person at Oxford as well.
Thank you. Thank you, sir. Thank you.