Islamic support on the westernization policy in the Ottoman empire : making Mahmud II a reformer Caliph-Sultan by Islamic virtue tradition

In this article we dealt with the relations between the state and religion / Islam and its interpreters i.e., the ulama, their needs each other. As a case, with an original source, we focused on the time of the Mahmud II (1808-1839) The Ottoman reforms of the nineteenth century is reconciliation between Islam and Western civili-sation. In this process the ulama played key role by commenting Islam accordance with the need of the age or of the Ottoman Empire. The reformers, chiefly the Sultan and his close friends needed the support of the ulama to legitimate their reform programmes In this crucial stage the head of the ulama the Shaykhulislam, used his own religious knowledge and influence, derived from his office by writing a treatise to persuade the masses to accept the reforms. Applying the traditional virtue literature on the Ottoman dynasty he presented in this pamphlet one of the Western-minded Ottoman sultans as an ideal caliph-sultan. This attitude helped to transform the middle-aged Ottoman political structure and society into modern ages in Western line

Where Have All the Symbols Gone?: A Study of Sufis and Sufi Symbolism in Ottoman Miniature Paintings

Ottoman miniature paintings represent some of the best preserved and documented works of Islamic art still extant. They differ critically from other forms of miniature painting, such as Persian miniature painting, by not representing Sufi symbolism. In the two potential sources of such symbolism, Ottoman Sufism and Persian miniature painters in the Ottoman Empire, appear to have not critically influenced Ottoman miniature painting to produce Sufi symbols, do to political, religious, and cultural factors. Instead, political factors of the Ottoman imperial state and the economics and standards of production in the empire produced an art medium where Ottoman Sufi symbols were not introduced

'Mamlukisation' between social theory and social practice: an essay on reflexivity, state formation, and the late medieval sultanate of Cairo

This working paper is a reflexive essay that tries to think with and beyond one of the basic assumptions upon which the field of late medieval Syro-Egyptian ‘Mamluk’ studies is built: the idea that all late medieval Syro-Egyptian objects of study are by default first and foremost connected, circumscribed and distinguished by some agency of dominant military slavery, of Mamluk-ness. Acknowledging that there may be different ways to pursue such an epistemological exercise, this essay opts for re-imagining the historical agency of what traditionally tends to be subsumed under the phenomenon of the Mamluk state. It is argued that the notions of state in modern research and of dawla in contemporary texts remain an issue of related analytical confusion. Engaging with this confusion in the generalising fashion of a historical sociology of late medieval Syro-Egyptian political action, this essay proposes an alternative analytical model that is inspired by Michael Chamberlain’s prioritisation of social practices of household reproduction and by Timothy Mitchell’s related understanding of the state as a structural effect of practices of social differentiation. The proposed model sees sultanic political order —the state— as process, in constant flux as the structural effect and structuring embodiment of constantly changing practices of social reproduction, of elite integration and of political distinction, in contexts that range between multipolar and unipolar social organisation at and around Cairo’s court and its military elites. The essay ends with summarily suggesting from this model how the socio-culturally structured and structuring memories of dynastic political order that had remained politically dominant for most of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries were all but obliterated in the fifteenth century by a new layer of particularly ‘Mamluk’ socio-political meaning

Some notes on the Portuguese & Frankish pirates during the Mamluk period (872-922AH./1468-1517AD.)

Artikel pendek ini bermatlamat untuk menyoroti hubungan antara sebuah kuasa Islam yang besar pada Zaman Pertengahan iaitu Mamluk dengan Portugis dan kumpulan lanun Eropah dalam tempoh setengah abad sebelum kejatuhan kerajaan Islam tersebut. Ia juga bertujuan untuk melihat sejauh mana hubungan tersebut mempengaruhi urusan dan kedudukan ekonomi Mamluk. Secara umumnya, artikel ini mendapati bahawa hubungan antara Mamluk dengan kedua-dua pihak tersebut sentiasa dalam keadaan tegang dan genting. Mereka dilaporkan kerapkali menggugat aktiviti perdagangan dengan menyerang serta merosakkan kapal-kapal dagang dan pelabuhanpelabuhan Mesir di samping mengakibatkan kerugian kepada para peniaga dan pedagang Mamluk. Selain mengganggu kelicinan aktiviti perdagangan, mereka juga menyebabkan kerajaan Mamluk terpaksa memperuntukkan sejumlah dana yang besar untuk menampung kos-kos tertentu seperti membaiki kerosakan pelabuhan, mendirikan benteng-benteng pertahanan dan menyediakan ekspedisi-ekspedisi armada laut yang mana perbelanjaan tersebut secara tidak langsung telah menjejaskan perbendaharaan negar