Religious Reform in the Late Ottoman Empire
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19th century
A01=Erhan Bektas
Author_Erhan Bektas
Category=NHTB
Category=QRPP
education
eq_bestseller
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
islam
reform
religion
Sheikh ul-islam
sunni islam
Tanzimat
Turkey
Product details
- ISBN 9780755645510
- Weight: 360g
- Dimensions: 154 x 232mm
- Publication Date: 27 Jun 2024
- Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Paperback
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The influence of the ulema, the official Sunni Muslim religious scholars of the Ottoman Empire, is commonly understood to have waned in the empire’s last century. Drawing upon Ottoman state archives and the institutional archives of the ulema, this study challenges this narrative, showing that the ulema underwent a process of professionalisation as part of the wider Tanzimat reforms and thereby continued to play an important role in Ottoman society. First outlining transformations in the office of the Sheikh ul-islam, the leading Ottoman Sunni Muslim cleric, the book goes on to use the archives to present a detailed portrait of the lives of individual ulema, charting their education and professional and social lives. It also includes a glossary of Turkish-Arabic vocabulary for increased clarity. Contrary to beliefs about their decline, the book shows they played a central role in the empire’s efforts to centralise the state by acting as intermediaries between the government and social groups, particularly on the empire’s peripheries.
Erhan Bektas is Assistant Professor of History at Üsküdar University, Turkey. He has previously published peer reviewed articles in journals such as Middle Eastern Studies, International Journal of History Studies and the Journal of Ottoman Legacy Studies.
