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Title: Godâs Unruly Friends Author: Ahmet Karamustafa Date: 1994 Language: en Topics: islam, history, proto-anarchism Source: Retrieved on 18th May 2021 from http://libgen.rs/book/index.php?md5=15C2D37AEA362626C33BAE531A71D1D6
I first met the deviant dervishes in earnest when I read Vahidiâs
Menakib-i Hvoca-i Cihan ve Netice-i Can in 1983. During the following
three years, I tried to trace the history of these enigmatic figures and
incorporated the initial results of my research into my doctoral
dissertation in the form of one long chapter. While I continued to
gather information on the dervishes after this point, it was only in the
summer of 1991 that I returned to them with renewed interest. The
present work is largely the outcome of my efforts during the past two
years to understand and explain dervish piety.
I have accrued many debts in the process of working on this project. The
Library of the School of Oriental and African Studies, the Library of
the Institute of Ismaili Studies, the British Library (all in London),
the Library of the Institute of Islamic Studies (Montreal), SĂŒleymaniye
KutĂŒphanesi (Istanbul), and Istanbul Ăniversitesi KĂŒtĂŒphanesi gave me
easy access to their collections, for which I am grateful. The Institute
of Islamic Studies of McGill University and the Department of Asian and
Near Eastern Languages and Literatures of Washington University in St.
Louis gave me unfailing institutional support, the former in the form of
academic guidance and financial assistance throughout my graduate
studies and the latter by providing me with ideal working conditions in
an admirable atmosphere of collegiality for the past six years. I feel
privileged to be associated with these fine institutions.
Many colleagues and friends have contributed to this book. It is a
pleasure to thank them here for their interest, time, and invaluable
criticism and simultaneously to absolve them of any responsibility for
the final outcome. Gerhard Böwering of Yale University, J. T. P. De
Bruijn of the University of Leiden, Jamal Elias of Amherst College, Carl
W. Ernst of the University of North Carolina, Gary Leiser, Michel M.
Mazzaou10f the University of Utah, James W. Morris of Oberlin College,
and Azim Nanjf the University of Florida have all read and commented
upon different versions of the manuscript in its entirety. My colleagues
and friends at Washington University, Engin D. Akarh, Cornell H.
Fleischer (now at the University of Chicago), and Peter Heath, in
addition to exercising their customary critical acumen on the
manuscript, offered me constant support and encouragement. Beata Grant,
also of Washington University, saved me from many an infelicity of
expression by smoothing my style.
To Hermann Landolt of McGill University, my teacher and friend, I owe a
special debt of gratitude. He was involved in the project from its
inception and guided it to maturation for over a decade in his
inimitable style. His unflagging support has been a safe haven for a
fledgling scholar.
Finally, I am happy to acknowledge my incalculable debt to Fatemeh
Keshavarz of Washington University, my wife, friend, and colleague. She
has been the mainstay of this research project and more over the past
several years, and it is to her that this book is lovingly dedicated.
Arabic and Persian titles, technical terms, and personal names have been
transliterated according to the Library of Congress transliteration
systems for these languages, while the transliteration of names and
terms in Ottoman Turkish follows, with some deviations, the system
proposed by Eleazar Birnbaum, âThe Transliteration of Ottoman Turkish
for Library and General Purposes: Ottoman Turkish Transliteration
Scheme,â Journal of the American Oriental Society 87 (1967): 122â56. The
choice of transliteration system was guided by context (thus, tekbir
rather than takbir in transliterating from Ottoman Turkish), though the
transliteration of certain often-used words (Qalandar, zawiyah, hadith)
has been rendered uniform throughout the manuscript in order not to
confuse the reader.
Dates are given in both the Islamic lunar and Common Era years,
separated by a slash. I have used the conversion tables supplied by F.
R. Unat, Hicri Tarihleri Miladi Tarihe Ăevirme Kllavuzu (Ankara: TĂŒrk
Tarih Kurumu Yayinlari, 1984). Islamic solar dates, primarily used in
Persian publications, are represented by the addition of the letters
âshâ (for shamsi) to the date.
Unless otherwise noted, all translations are my own.
In the mid-sixth/twelfth century, a peculiar-looking ascetic visited the
palace of the Ghaznavid ruler Muâizz al-Dawlah Khusraw Shah (r.
547-55/1152-60) in Ghazna in eastern Afghanistan to ask for alms. He had
bare feet and was dressed in a black goatâs skin. On his head he wore a
cap of the same material, ornamented with horns. In his hand he carried
a club adorned with rings, pierced ankle-bones, and small round bells.
Khusraw Shah responded favorably to the asceticâs request and received
his blessings. [1]
More than a century and a half later, ascetics of very similar
appearance are recorded to have gathered around Barak Baba (d. 707/
1307â8) in Asia Minor and Iran. Barak Baba arrived in Syria in the year
706/1306 at the head of a group of about one hundred dervishes, naked
except for a red cloth wrapped around his waist. He wore a reddish
turban on his head with a buffalo horn attached on either side. His hair
and his moustache were long, while his beard was clean-shaven. He
carried with him a long pipe or horn (nafir), as well as a dervish bowl.
He did not accumulate any wealth. His disciples were of similar
appearance, carrying long clubs, tambourines and drums, bells, and
painted ankle-bones, with molar teeth attached to strings suspended from
their necks. Wherever they went, the disciples played and Barak Baba
danced like a bear and sang like a monkey. It is reported that Barak
Baba had control over wild animals, as he demonstrated by scaring a
ferocious tiger and riding a wild ostrich on two different occasions.
Apparently, he exercised similar control over his disciples, whom he
forced to perform the prescribed religious practices on pain of forty
blows of the bastinado. Nonetheless, his dervishes were renowned for
their antinomian ways, which included failure to observe the ritual fast
and consumption of legally objectionable foods and drugs. The Mamluk
sources also accuse them of belief in metempsychosis and denial of the
existence of the hereafter, while to Barak himself is imputed an
excessive love of âAl, which he supposedly viewed as the sole religious
obligation. [2]
A century after Barak Babaâs visit to Syria, on 25 May 1404, the Spanish
traveler Ruy Gonzales de Clavijo passed through a place called
Delilarkent (âcity of madmen,â present-day Delibaba) in the vicinity of
Erzurum in eastern Anatolia. He reported that the whole village was
inhabited by dervishes:
These Dervishes shave their beards and their heads and go almost naked.
They pass through the street, whether in the cold or in the heat, eating
as they go, and all the clothing they wear is bits of rag of the torn
stuff that they can pick up. As they walk along night and day with their
tambourines they chant hymns. Over the gate of their hermitage is seen a
banner of black woollen tassels with a moon-shaped ornament above; below
this are arranged in a row the horns of deer and goats and rams, and
further it is their custom to carry about with them these horns as
trophies when they walk through the streets; and all the houses of the
Dervishes have these horns set over them for a sign.[3]
The lone ascetic dressed in goatâs skin in Afghanistan, the tumultuous
crowd of mendicant disciples around Barak Baba in Syria, and the naked
dervishes of Delibaba in Asia Minor represent a kind of renunciation
that emerged and spread in Islamdom during the Later Middle Period (ca.
600-900/1200-1500).[4] This new movement differed from previous versions
of Islamic renunciation in significant ways. On one hand, the new
renouncers elevated the ascetic principles of mendicancy, itinerancy,
celibacy, and self-mortification to unprecedented heights through a
radical interpretation of the doctrine of poverty. On the other hand,
they welded asceticism with striking forms of social deviance in such a
way as to render deviant behavior the ultimate measure of true
renunciation. In their zeal to reject society and to refuse to
participate in its reproduction in any fashion, the new renouncers
embraced such anarchist and antinomian practices as nudity or improper
clothing, shaving all bodily and facial hair, and use of hallucinogens
and intoxicants as the only real methods of renunciation. The avoidance
of gainful employment, family life, and indeed all forms of social
association was not sufficient. Withdrawal from society had to be
accompanied by active rejection and destruction of established social
custom. More than anything else, it was in their deliberate and blatant
social deviance that the new renouncers differed from their previous
counterparts in Islamic history.
The new renunciatory movement was not homogeneous. Its various
manifestations forged the features of poverty, mendicancy, itinerancy,
celibacy, self-mortification, and other forms of social deviance into
distinct combinations with varying degrees of emphasis on the eremitic
and cenobitic options. The solitary mendicant, the wandering group of
disciples, and the partially settled dervish community of the reports
presented above reflect these different manifestations of the new
dervish piety. Uncompromising eremiticism based on radical poverty,
usually characteristic of the initial phase of the renunciation
movement, was everywhere followed by a cenobitic reaction. While
mendicancy and itinerancy remained the norm, the attraction of community
life dampened the anchoritic zeal inherited from the ascetic virtuos10f
the previous generations. The original ascetic mandate was further
attenuated when renouncers began to practice mendicancy and itinerancy
on a part-time, mostly seasonal, basis. Wandering and begging in a state
of extreme poverty most of the year, these renouncers returned to their
hospices the rest of the year, where they enjoyed the relative comfort
of settled life. Despite such diversity, however, social deviance always
remained constant.
Although the new renunciatory piety was already in evidence during the
sixth/twelfth century, its first clear manifestations in the form of
identifiable social collectivities emerged around the turn of the
seventh/thirteenth century. They took the form of two widespread
movements: the Qalandariyah, which first flourished in Syria and Egypt
under the leadership of ethnically Iranian leaders, most notably Jamal
al-Din Savi (d. ca. 630/1232-33), and the Haydariyah, which took shape
in Iran as a result of the activities of its eponymous founder Qutb
al-Din Haydar (d. ca. 618/1221-22). Both movements rapidly spread from
their respective places of origin to India and to Asia Minor.
Already before the end of the seventh/thirteenth century, other dervish
groups similar to the mendicant Qalandars and Haydaris began to appear
in different regions of Islamdom. The followers of Barak Baba in newly
conquered Asia Minor and western Iran were the earliest and most
prominent representatives of this wave of locally contained religious
renunciation. During the following two centuries, many more groups
appeared alongside the still effective Qalandars and Haydaris, notably
Abdals of Rum, Jamis, Bektsis, and Shams-i Tabrizis in Asia Minor and
Madaris and Jalalis in Muslim India.
The definitive establishment of the great regional empires of the
Ottomans, Safavids, Ăzbeks, and Mughals during the tenth/sixteenth
century led to tighter organization of the deviant dervish groups. The
loose social collectivity of the Later Middle Period was either
transformed into a new Sufi order or assimilated into an older one. In
Ottoman Asia Minor and the Balkans, the Bektasye emerged as a major new
order that carried the legacy of the earlier Qalandars, Haydaris, and
Abdals of Rum, while in India Qalandars infiltrated the socially
respectable Suf10rders (tariqahs), which led to the emergence of
suborders like the Chishtiyah-Qalandariyah. Similar processes must have
been operative in the formation of the Khaksar in Iran, which probably
came into being through a merger of different movements such as the
Haydariyah and Jalaliyah. Not all of the earlier dervish groups survived
into this later period; some simply disappeared altogether, as evidenced
by the case of the Jamis in the Ottoman Empire.
The deviant dervish groups that constituted the new renunciatory
movement have received varying degrees of scholarly attention. [5] The
Qalandars have been the subject of several studies, while the Haydaris,
Abdals of Rum, and the others remain largely unexplored.[6] Even in the
case of the Qalandars, however, scholars have, as a rule, restricted the
scope of their research to a specific region and period and have not
attempted to trace the history of the group in Islamdom as a whole.
At present, there exists no comprehensive study of new renunciation.[7]
The phenomenon is not even acknowledged as a distinct phase in the
historical development of Islamic modes of piety. This lack of
analytical depth and focus is patently visible in the inability of
previous scholarship to produce a satisfactory explanation for the
emergence and enduring appeal of deviant renunciation. Indeed, the
reasons for the formation, spread, and flourishing of new movements of
renunciation during the Later Middle Period have remained obscure. This
is hardly surprising. Dervish piety has not normally been viewed as the
manifestation of a new mode of religiosity. Instead, it has been
subsumed under the larger and seemingly permanent category of âpopular
religion.â The operative assumption here has been that there was a
watertight separation in premodern Islamic history between high,
normative, and official religion of the cultural elite on the one hand
and low, antinomian, and popular religion of the illiterate masses on
the other hand. Dervish religiosity has generally been viewed as one,
and only one, feature of the sphere of popular religion. Conceived as a
static mixture of ill-defined beliefs and practices, however, popular
religion is immune to historical change. The illiterate common people of
the premodern periods are thought to have clung tenaciously to their
ancient religious lore and ritual behavior, resisting the manipulative
pressures of the âliterateâ religious tradition. Submerged in the sea of
unchanging popular religious practice, socially deviant renunciation is
thus stripped of its historical specificity and rendered impervious to
historical explanation.
The relegation of anarchist dervishes to the sphere of popular religion
and low culture has deep historical roots. The cultural elite of
medieval Islamdom consistently identified the dervishes as the riffraff
of society and readily decried them as impostors and ignoramuses. Within
the decade of their appearance in the Arab Middle East, the Qalandars
and the Haydaris, for instance, were portrayed as shameless charlatans
by âAbd al-Rahman al-Jawbari in a book that he wrote between 619/1222
and 629/1232 to unveil the tricks perpetrated by numerous classes of
beggars and swindlers of the underworld. [8] A few decades later, the
eminent scholar Nasir-al-Din Tusi (d. 672/ 1274) did not hesitate to
take an actively hostile attitude toward the dervish ârabble.â In
658/1259-60, a group of Qalandars presented themselves in Harran, Syria,
to the Mongol ruler Hulegu (r. 654-63/ 1256â65). When the ruler wanted
to know who these people were, Nasir al Dinâs comment, â[They are] the
excess of this world,â prompted HĂŒlegĂŒ to order the summary execution of
all the Qalandars.[9] The puritanic Muhammad al-Khatib, who wrote a
whole trea- tise to denounce the irreligious practices of Qalandars in
683/ 1284â85, emphatically commended the non-Muslim Mongols for their
harsh treatment of the Qalandars. [10] In a similar vein, such prominent
Sufis as Ibrahim Gilani (d. 700/1301), the preceptor of the better-known
Safi al-Din Ardabili (d. 735/1334), and the Chishti Muhammad GisĂŒâdaraz
(d. 826/1422) warned their followers against mixing with the
Qalandars.[11]
Clear condemnation of mendicant dervishes remained a consistent feature
of elite intellectual life throughout the Later Middle Period. Vahidi
(fl. first half of the tenth/sixteenth century), the outspoken Ottoman
Sufi critic of deviant renunciation, for instance, was vehement in his
rejection of the dervishes as shameless hypocrites and impostors who
traded in the religious sensibilities of the naturally ignorant and
credulous common people. Vahidi denounced them as false Sufis, utterly
lacking in any sincere religious sentiments, and as such definitely
worse than infidels:
Even the infidel comes to the fold of the faithful, but not the heretic
dervish; the infidel has receptivity but not him.
He is out of the sphere of hope while the infidel is in the circle of
fear of God, by God, the infidel is far superior to him.[12]
Vahidiâs contemporary Latifi (d. 990/1582), the biographer of poets,
harbored the same sentiments toward deviant dervishes, whom he decried
as partners of the devil.[13] Interestingly, much the same approach
toward the scandalous dervishes and their audience is found in the
European counterparts of these cultured Ottoman gentlemen. The
particular set of assumptions that governed elite views of new
renunciation is fully displayed in the following colorful account of the
Qalandars by Giovan Antonio Menavino, a well-informed and keen European
observer of the Ottoman society of the late fifteenth and early
sixteenth centuries:
Dressed in sheepskins, the torlaks [read Qalandars] are otherwise naked,
with no headgear.[14] Their scalps are always clean-shaven and well
rubbed with oil as a precaution against the cold. They burn their
temples with an old rag so that their faces will not be damaged by
sweat. Illiterate and unable to do anything manly, they live like
beasts, surviving on alms only. For this reason, they are to be found
around taverns and public kitchens in cities. If, while roaming the
countryside, they come across a well-dressed person, they try to make
him one of their own, stripping him naked. Like Gypies in Europe, they
practice chiromancy, especially for women who then provide them with
bread, eggs, cheese, and other foods in return for their services.
Amongst them there is usually an old man whom they revere and worship
like God. When they enter a town, they gather around the best house of
the town and listen in great humility to the words of this old man, who,
after a spell of ecstasy, foretells the descent of a great evil upon the
town. His disciples then implore him to fend off the disaster through
his good services. The old man accepts the plea of his followers, though
not without an initial show of reluctance, and prays to God, asking him
to spare the town the imminent danger awaiting it. This time-honored
trick earns them considerable sums of alms from ignorant and credulous
people. The torlaks ... chew hashish and sleep on the ground; they also
openly practice sodomy like savage beasts. [15]
This passage transports us to the strange yet familiar landscape of
âpopular religion.â Menavinoâs detailed tableau of the Qalandars is
drawn against a dark and somewhat hellish landscape that is peopled with
ignorant and credulous masses and the equally ignorant and thoroughly
fraudulent group of false saints that the masses venerate. If they are
not total idiots, the impostor saints exploit the religious
sensitivities of the simple folk and extract material benefits from
them. This inversion of the flow of blessings and compassion from
saintly figures to the common people is accompanied by a thorough
distancing of the popular scene through the addition of features that
render the landscape strange and almost bestial. In all this, Menavino
is closely followed by his later counterparts, whose general attitude to
the dervishes is epitomized by the following sentences of E. W. Lane,
the scholarly observer of early nineteenth-century Egyptian society:
That fancies such as these [that is, believing in jinns]should exist in
the minds of a people so ignorant as those who are the subject of these
pages cannot reasonably excite our surprise. But the Egyptians pay
superstitious reverence not to imaginary beings alone: they extend it to
certain individuals of their own species; and often to those who are
justly the least entitled to such respect .... Most of the reputed
saints of Egypt are either lunatics, or idiots, or impostors. [16]
To the âenlightenedâ cultural elite of both medieval Islamdom and
Christendom, then, the antinomian dervish was the symbol par excellence
of the religion of the vulgar. It is remarkable that this specific set
of assumptions and the particular view of religion and human culture of
which it is symptomatic have been operative since the Middle Ages and
that they still inform the historiographical discourse within which
research on the history of the Islamic region is conducted. In a
ground-breaking article that returned the issue of popular religion to
the agenda of historical research, Mehmed Fuad KöprĂŒlĂŒ (d. 1966) wrote
about the deviant dervishes in the following terms:
If we consider that these men were in general recruited from the lower
classes and were incapable of [comprehending] some very subtle mystical
observations and experiences, it becomes quite obvious that their
undigested âpantheisticâ beliefs would naturally lead to beliefs such as
incarnation and metempsychosis and, in the final analysis, to
âantinomianism.â ... As a general principle, beliefs that could only be
digested by people who possess a [high degree] of philosophical capacity
and who are susceptible to mystical experience always lead to
consequences of this sort among people of feeble intellect.[17]
Closer to our own day, Fazlur Rahman (d. 1989) was even more vehement
than KöprĂŒlĂŒ in his denunciation of popular religion. Referring to the
seventh/thirteenth and eighth/fourteenth centuries, he wrote:
This phenomenon of popular religion very radically changed the aspect of
Sufism even if it did not entirely displace its very ideal. For
practical purposes Islamic society underwent a metempsychosis. Instead
of being a method of moral self-discipline and elevation and genuine
spiritual enlightenment, Sufism was now transformed into veritable
spiritual jugglery through auto-hypnotic transports and visions just as
at the level of doctrine it was being transmuted into a half-delirious
theosophy.... This, combined with the spiritual demagogy of many Sufi
Shaykhs, opened the way for all kinds of aberrations, not the least of
which was charlatanism. Illbalanced majdhubs ..., parasitic mendicants,
exploiting dervishes proclaimed Muhammadâs Faith in the heyday of
Sufism. Islam was at the mercy of spiritual delinquents. [18]
It is small wonder that scholars have not taken any substantial interest
in the culture of the âfeeble-mindedâ masses and in the practices of
âparasitic ... spiritual delinquents.â Significantly, KöprĂŒlĂŒ himself
never published his monograph on the Qalandars, although he repeatedly
announced its forthcoming appearance in several of his publications.
Since the âvulgarâ was nothing but a repository for distorted and
contaminated versions of the subtle and pure beliefs of âhighâ religion,
it simply made better sense to tap the original sources directly and
consign âlowâ religion to where it belonged, in âthe bosom of the
vulgar.â
There are serious problems with this âtwo-tieredâ model of religion. The
assumption of an unbridgeable separation between high, normative and
low, antinomian religion serves to obscure rather than clarify the true
nature of the deviant dervish groups and the process of their emergence
in the aftermath of the Mongol invasions. While it may conceivably serve
a heuristic purpose in other contexts, in the case of the dervish groups
of the Later Middle Period the creation of a catch-all category of
popular or low religion only confounds the researcher. Such a move
strips this particular mode of dervish religiosity of its specific
features and renders it immune to analysis by suggesting that it is
essentially indistinct from the âpopularâ versions of other religious
trends such as millenarianism and messianism. These mentally and
sociologically distinct religious attitudes are thus reduced to the
presumed common denominator of âpopularity. â[19]
The detailed historical examination of deviant dervish groups undertaken
in the present work, however, yields results that seriously challenge
the application of the two-tiered model of religion in the study of new
renunciation. Such close scrutiny reveals that the movements in question
formed a distinct religious phenomenon that differed radically from
other purportedly popular religious phenomena such as millenarianism,
messianism, and saint veneration. Dervish piety stood apart from all
other modes of Islamic religiosity through its relentless emphasis on
shocking social behavior and its open contempt for social conformity.
More significantly, it was not restricted in either social origin or
appeal to âlowerâ social strata. It is not easy to determine the social
composition of the dervish groups, but, contrary to the received view
that the rank and file of the movements in question must have been
composed of the illiterate and the ignorant, there is certainly
sufficient evidence to establish that these movements frequently
recruited from the middle and high social strata. The socially deviant
way of renunciation was attractive enough to produce converts from
several social strata of medieval Islamic society. Most telling in this
connection is the fact that the cultural elite that consisted of the
literati in the widest sense of the term lost some of its members,
either temporarily or permanently, to the dervish cause. To judge by the
presence of poets, scholars, and writers of a certain proficiency among
their numbers, the anarchist dervishes were not always the illiterate
crowd their detractors reported them to be. Instead, socially deviant
renunciation exercised a strong attraction on the hearts and minds of
many Muslim intellectuals.
Furthermore, dervish religiosity was, naturally, a distinct religious
phenomenon that developed in a historically specific social and cultural
context. Surely, its sudden appearance and rapid spread during the
seventh/thirteenth and eighth/fourteenth centuries require an
explanation. It is a measure of the methodological poverty of the
two-tiered model of religion that it not only fails to generate such an
explanatory analysis but even obscures the obvious need for one by
denying popular religion a historical dimension. The vulgar, it is
understood, is timeless. Reliance on a dichotomous view of Islamic
religion thus opens the way for the preponderance of externalistic
explanations such as âsurvival of non-Islamic beliefs and practices
under Islamic cover.â Indeed, the ascendancy of popular religious
practice during the Middle Periods is usually, if at all, explained
through recourse to the time-honored âsurvivalâ theory. In this view,
popular Islam took shape in the Near East during the Early Middle Period
through large-scale conversions of the masses of unlettered peoples to
Islam. As a result of this expansive process of conversion, âIslam,
originally the religion of a political and urban elite, became the
religion and social identity of most Middle Eastern peoples.â [20]
Outside the Near East, the process continued into the Later Middle
Period through the conversion of nomadic Turks in Central Asia (as well
as in Iran and Asia Minor), Hindus of low caste in India, and Berbers
and black peoples of Africa. The halfhearted and in most cases merely
nominal Islamization of these masses barely in touch with high literate
traditions, the argument runs, led to the introduction of non-Islamic,
especially shamanistic and animistic, beliefs and practices into Islam.
The ensuing revitalization ofâpopular culture,â when coupled by the
concomitant attenuation of Islamic high culture in the aftermath of the
destructive wave of Mongol conquests, made possible the emergence and
speedy diffusion of saint veneration in general and deviant mystic
movements in particular in the heartlands of Islam. [21]
Applied to socially deviant renunciation, the theory of non-Islamic
survivals would suggest that the emergence of new renunciation in
medieval Islamdom should be understood in terms of the continuation of
âprimitiveâ non-Islamic belief patterns in imperfectly Islamized
cultural environments. However, it is misleading to see deviant
renunciation solely as a survival of pre-Islamic beliefs and practices.
That there was a substantial degree of continuity between pre-Islamic
and Islamic religious belief and practice in all the relevant cultural
spheres is itself not in dispute here. Many components of dervish piety,
especially in costume and paraphernalia such as the dervish staff or
ankle bones and molar teeth, may well have had their origins in
pre-Islamic or contemporary non-Islamic contexts.[22] Yet their
reconfiguration into a visibly Islamic mode of religiosity occurred as a
result of social dynamics internal to Islamic societies. Neither
âsurvivalsâ nor âtraces,â these originally extraneous beliefs and
practices became the building blocks of a new Islamic synthesis.
Therefore, the explanation for the emergence and entrenchment of this
mode of Islamic piety should be located within, rather than without,
Islamic societies.
Dervish piety can be described as ârenunciation of society through
outrageous social deviance.â This mode of religiosity was predicated
upon complete and active rejection of society that was expressed through
blatantly deviant social behavior. To the anarchist dervish, religious
salvation was incompatible with a life led within the orders of society,
since social life inevitably distanced humanity from God. Salvation
could be found only in active, open, and total rejection of human
culture, and the deviant dervish did not withdraw into the wild nature
to lead a life of seclusion but created for himself a âsocial
wildernessâ at the heart of society where his fiercely antisocial
activity functioned as a sobering critique of societyâs failure to reach
God. Cautious not to become part of the âmaster narrative,â the dervish
carefully carved out his own space on the margins of that narrative,
where he inscribed his boisterous commentary in a most conspicuous
fashion.
It would, therefore, be correct to describe new renunciation as a
movement based on rejection of society. The dervishes defined themselves
through calculated defiance of the social order and proceeded to
construct an intensely antiestablishment protest movement. They did not
aim to replace the existing social order by a rival one, nor did they
seek to reform society; they simply negated all cultural norms and
structures. The negative, reactive nature of renunciation manifested
itself in the form of blatant social deviance, which became the hallmark
of dervish piety. In order to implement their anarchist agenda, the
dervishes adopted numerous deviant practices. These can be subsumed
under the two general categories of asceticism and antinomianism.
Social deviance was manifested primarily in the form of an intense and
permanent asceticism that was flaunted by the dervishes in their attempt
to secure salvation through active renunciation of human social
institutions. Their ascetic practices, which without exception all
negated basic institutions of Islamic societies of the Middle Period,
can be identified as poverty, mendicancy, itinerancy, celibacy, and
self-inflicted pain.
Voluntary rejection of all property was perhaps the most prominent
feature of dervish piety. It is well known that the very term darvish
means âpoorâ or âindigentâ in Persian (Arabic equivalent, faqir).
[23]The ascetic dervishes lived in absolute indigence, and their
possessions were reduced to the bare minimum. The characteristic
accoutrements of each dervish group included one or more of the
following items: woolen or felt garment or animal hide, distinctive cap,
begging bowl, pouch, spoon, club, belt, bell, hatchet, lamp or candle,
razor, needle, flint stone, and musical instruments (commonly
tambourine, drum, and pipe). The founding masters themselves appear to
have practiced absolute poverty by rejecting even these minimal
possessions. Jamal al-Din Savi, Qutb al-Din Haydar, and Otman Baba are
all known, for instance, to have worn no clothing at all for long
periods during their dervish careers.[24] Actualized in practice,
voluntary poverty was also a well-articulated part of dervish ideology.
The Qalandars, who had an elaborate discourse of poverty, rested their
case on the example of the Prophet Muhammad, who, they argued, chose
poverty over the two worlds.[25] The Abdals of Rum, for their part,
professed to be following in the footsteps of the Prophet Adam, who was
almost completely naked and free of possessions when he was expelled
from Paradise.[26]
The rule against owning property was accompanied by the injunction
against gainful employment. The ascetic dervishes openly refused to
participate in the economic reproduction of society. This is most
conspicuous in the lives of the founding masters: Jamal al-Din Savi,
Qutb al-Din Haydar, and Otman Baba all turned to nature for their
sustenance and carefully avoided even physical contact with the property
of others. They categorically rejected all kinds of alms. In Otman Baba,
who consistently likened property, especially money, to feces and
reacted violently to any offer of alms, this unwillingness to accept
alms went so far as to become an almost psychological repulsion.
For the majority of ascetic dervishes, however, the disdain for gainful
employment meant continuous dependence on the generosity of others,
especially for food. Begging and alms-taking, at times fairly regulated,
became the rule. Due to lack of information, it is not possible to trace
the evolution of the attitude of different groups toward mendicancy, yet
it appears that if they had qualms about accepting gifts and donations
to begin with, at least some Qalandars and Abdals gradually discarded
them. This relaxation of originally more stringent standards was most
visible in the appearance of Qalandari and Abdal hospices, veritable
institutions dependent upon carefully managed economic surplus and
subject to political control. Even in such cases, however, belief in the
efficacy and necessity of begging was never abandoned, and compromise
solutions were found, such as living on the revenue of the hospice
during winter months and begging for the rest of the year, as in the
lodge of Seyyid Gazi in northwest Asia Minor.
Homeless wandering was another trait shared by all ascetic dervish
groups. Voluntary poverty and mendicancy easily led to renunciation of
settled life. This was the case even when itinerancy did not play a
major role in the careers of exemplary ascetics themselves. Although he
developed a penchant for traveling before his conversion to extreme
asceticism, Jamal al-Din later came to prefer seclusion in cemeteries
over wandering. Similarly, Qutb al-Din Haydar seems to have spent all
his adult life in the small town of Zavah in northeast Iran.
Nevertheless, their examples did not prevent their followers from
adopting a life of itinerancy. In the case of the Abdals, by contrast,
the master himself, Otman Baba, was a homeless wanderer. In all cases,
itinerancy, like begging, functioned both as the ultimate proof of and
the best control over absolute poverty. The truly poor ones, except the
formidable masters who survived either in the wilderness (like Qutb
al-Din) or in âcities of the deadâ (like Jamal al-Din), could not lead
settled lives without compromising the principle of poverty. Unavoidably
dependent upon the generosity of others, yet wary against reliance on
any single source of sustenance for any length of time, the voluntary
poor naturally turned to homeless wandering as the only consistent
solution.
It is beyond doubt that conversion to any one of the dervish paths
entailed the rejection of marriage and the acceptance of celibacy. The
importance given to the renunciation of all sexual reproduction is most
pronounced in the case of the Qalandars and Haydaris. Both Jamal al-Din
and Qutb al-Din clearly viewed all sexual activity as a grave threat to
a life of complete devotion to the sacred. According to some reports,
the former owed his conversion to the Qalandari path at least partially
to his endeavor to remain chaste in accordance, it would seem, with the
example of the Qurâanic Yusuf. [27] For his part, Qutb al-Din must have
been equally wary of his sexual powers, if, as seems likely, his
followersâ practice of suspending iron rings from their genitals was
fashioned after the example of their master. In Qutb al-Din Haydarâs
case, it may well be that his habit of immersing himself for long
periods in cold water was, among other things, also a method of
dampening the sexual instinct.[28] Even though similar feats are not
recorded for the commonality of ascetic dervishes, celibacy as a
corollary of absolute poverty clearly remained the rule among them.
Bodily mortification was a continuous feature of the life of an ascetic
dervish. At the very least, all dervishes voluntarily subjected
themselves to constant exposure by rejecting the comforts of settled
life such as regular diet, shelter, and clothing. This basic condition
of helplessness was exacerbated by additional mortifying practices such
as shaving all bodily hair, wearing iron chains, rings, collars,
bracelets, and anklets, and self-laceration. In all likelihood, these
acts of self-denial were perceived by the dervishes not as
self-inflicted pain but as the natural result as well as the
confirmation of voluntary death before actual biological death. Complete
devotion to the Divine entailed utter disregard for worldly existence,
both physically and mentally. Active courting of physical death was a
common component of dervish piety.
Several other ascetic practicessilence, seclusion, sleep-deprivation,
and abstinence from foodare attested in the sources for the careers of
the ascetic virtuosi who came to be venerated as founding fathers by
their followers, yet it is impossible to know to what extent these
additional methods of self-discipline continued to be used by the
dervish groups. In the absence of evidence to the contrary, one can only
surmise that they were never completely abandoned.
Defined as rejection of property, gainful employment, social station,
sexual reproduction, and bodily health, dervish asceticism seriously
conflicted with the established social life of medieval Islamdom.
Asceticism in itself was not, however, tantamount to social deviance.
Practiced only by a negligible minority, the option of severe ascetic
flight from society could be easily tolerated and even condoned by most
Muslims, including the cultural elite. After all, asceticism had become
a highly visible and much cherished component of Sufi piety several
centuries before the Later Middle Period. [29] Moderate and permanent
asceticism was prescribed for all Sufis, while intense forms were used
as temporary measures of spiritual discipline on the Sufi path. Even
severe asceticism on a continuous basis could be accommodated through
recourse to the doctrine of divine attraction (jadhbah), whereby the
Sufi was thought to be drawn out of society toward God without regard
for the social consequences of such attraction. The divinely pulled ones
(majdhubs) could practice extreme forms of asceticism through the grace
and will of God, even if this meant operating in shady areas of the
religious law (shariâah).[30]
Dervish piety, however, had as its core an uncompromising rejection of
society. For the anarchist dervish, asceticism was only a tool, albeit
indispensable, in the struggle to shatter the shackles that social life
placed on true religiosity. The religious perils of human interaction
could not be avoided through an ascetic flight from society. The dervish
did not abandon his social station in order to lead the life of a
recluse. Only an active nihilism targeted directly at human society
could sever him from his social past and lead him to the proximity of
salvation. His religious struggle had a chance to succeed only if he
combined his asceticism with anarchist practices that allowed him to
test his spiritual stamina in action. Thus, the other face of dervish
piety was an uncompromising antinomianism.
Deviant dervishes were thoroughly antinomian in appearance and behavior.
They violated all social norms with equal ease and indifference and
deliberately embraced a variety of unconventional and socially liminal
practices. Perhaps the most potent antinomian feature of new
renunciation, certainly the most often cited and criticized, was open
disregard for prescribed Islamic ritual practices. The extent to which
different groups at different times neglected to fulfill their ritual
obligations is impossible to ascertain. Nevertheless, there is little
reason to question the accuracy of the reports contained in many
sources, hostile and friendly, to the effect that deviant dervishes
neither prayed nor fasted. In this context, silence on this issue in
sympathetic texts is particularly telling. In Jamal al-Dinâs sacred
biography, for instance, there are only two casual references to ritual
prayer, while the hagiography of Otman Baba fares only slightly better
in this respect. [31] For its part, the report that Barak Babaâs
disciples were required to perform prescribed religious practices on
pain of forty blows of the bastinado itself reveals the difficulty of
enforcing these practices on the dervishes.[32] Moreover, it appears
that at least some groups replaced ritual prayer in particular with
utterance of simple formulaic expressions. Such was the case with the
Qalandars and Abdals of Rum, among whom the utterance of the formula
âGod is the Greatestâ (takbir) clearly had a ritual function and may
have come to replace the daily ritual prayer.[33] The dervishesâ
disregard for daily prayer and fasting presumably also carried over to
the religious duties of legal charity and pilgrimage. The former was not
binding on the propertyless dervishes, while the lack of reports on
anarchist dervishes wandering toward Mecca suggests that the ritual
pilgrimage was not on the agenda of renunciation.
In addition to eschewing ritual obligations, the dervishes further
contravened the shariâah, in spirit if not always in letter, by adopting
patently scandalous and antisocial practices. Foremost among these, on
account of its conspicuous nature, was the cultivation of a bizarre
general appearance. The coiffure, apparel, and paraphernalia of the
dervishes were all shockingly strange. In a social setting where
external appearance functioned as an unfailing marker of social
identity, the refusal to adopt socially and legally sanctioned patterns
of costume and their deliberate replacement by outrageous dress codes
clearly signified protest and rejection of social convention.
In dress, the dervishes set themselves off from all social types in a
variety of ways. Some went completely naked, while others wore only a
simple loincloth. Still other dervishes adopted the time-honored garment
of social withdrawal, the woolen or felt cloak, though blue, the Sufi
color, was avoided in favor of black or white. The Qalandars of Jamal
al-Dinâs times wore plain woolen sacks and thus were known as Jawlaqs or
Jawlaqis. The Abdals of Rum, in an innovative antisocial move, donned
animal hides as their sole garment. The dervishes also registered their
protest in headgear, either by not wearing any or by designing
distinctive hats. Most dervishes seem to have gone barefoot. [34]
The most radical measure in coiffure was the fourfold shave called the
âfour blowsâ (chahar zarb): shaving off the hair, beard, moustache, and
eyebrows. The fourfold shave was the distinctive mark of the Qalandars
and was also adopted by the Abdals of Rum, Bektasis, and Shams-i
Tabrizis and Jalalis. For their part, the Haydaris and Jamis shaved
their beards but let their moustaches grow long. Both of these practices
were clear departures from the example of the Prophet Muhammad (sunnah),
which enjoined the wearing of beards and moustaches.[35] They also
contravened established social custom in medieval Islamic societies, in
which the loss of hair symbolized loss of honor and social status.[36]
In a typical renunciatory move, the dervishes adopted the socially
reprehensible practice of the âclean shaveâ and thus charged it with a
new, positive meaning.[37]
The equipment of the dervishes was also peculiar. Apart from the
standard begging bowl and the dervish club, they also possessed
outlandish paraphernalia. The Haydaris had a predilection for iron
rings, collars, bracelets, belts, anklets, and chains. The Abdals of Rum
carried distinctive hatchets, leather pouches, large wooden spoons, and
ankle-bones. While the ideological and practical significance of some of
these accoutrements can be reasonably reconstructed (iron equipment, for
instance, clearly stood for strict control over the nafs or animal
soul), the meaning of others (like ankle-bones) remains obscure.
Besides the careful cultivation of a scandalous external appearance, the
dervishes violated social and legal norms by adopting legally suspicious
and unconventional practices. Perhaps the most conspicuous was the use
of intoxicants and hallucinogens. The use of cannabis leaves is clearly
documented in the case of all three dervish groups. The very âdiscoveryâ
of the use of hashish as a hallucinogen was attributed to both Qutb
al-Din Haydar and Jamal al-Din Savi, while there are repeated reports
that demonstrate the significance of hashish for both the Qalandars and
Abdals of Rum.[38] Although it is quite possible that consumption
ofcannabis leaves had assumed the proportions of ritual among the
dervishes, this presumption cannot be substantiated due to lack of
detailed information on this subject. [39] That open recourse to
hallucinogens and intoxicants (reports suggest that at least some
dervishes such as the Jamis and Shams-i Tabrizis also consumed alcohol)
was sufficient to place the dervish groups beyond the pale of social
respectability, however, cannot be doubted.[40]
In a similar vein, ascetic renouncers also offended social sensibilities
through their conspicuous elevation of music and dance to the status of
ritual practice. Though largely domesticated by Sufism, the use of music
and dance in religious contexts remained, in legal terms, a suspicious
practice in Islamic societies in the Early Middle Period.[41] As was
their custom, the dervishes did not hesitate to indulge in radical
behavior in this regard as well. They apparently carried tambourines,
drums, and horns at all times and incorporated singing and dancing in
ceremonies conducted in public. The Abdals of Rum and Jamis in
particular were notorious for their large-scale gatherings in which
music and dance occupied a prominent place, though the same practice is
also recorded for the Qalandars and Haydaris.
Another antisocial dervish practice, particularly inscrutable from a
modern perspective, was self-laceration and self-cauterization. The
Abdals of Rum displayed excessive zeal in carving names and figures on
their bodies, a practice not recorded for the other dervish groups. This
may presumably be explained by the fervent Shiâism of the Abdals.
Whatever the religious and psychological motives behind such behavior,
it manifestly deviated from established religious custom in Ottoman
Anatolia and the Balkans and increased the distance between Abdal piety
and social convention.
On a different front, the detractors of the Qalandars and Abdals of Rum
in particular accused them of reprehensible forms of sexual libertinism,
especially sodomy and zoophilism. While such trite accusations should be
taken with a grain of salt, they cannot be discarded altogether.
Rejection of marriage, or even of the female sex, does not entail
complete abstinence from sexual activity. Celibacy, in this context,
meant primarily the refusal to participate in the sexual reproduction of
society and did not exclude unproductive forms of sexual activity. It is
likely, therefore, that antisocial ways of sexual gratification came to
be included in the deliberately rejectionist repertoire of some
dervishes. The existence of a distinct group of youths known as koçeks
(from Persian kuchak, âyoungsterâ) among the Abdals is certainly
suggestive in this regard. [42]
The penchant of the dervishes for distancing themselves from the
established social and religious order is also visible in their adoption
of controversial and extremist beliefs and doctrines. The strategy of
the dervishes here was to apply radical interpretations to central
religious, in particular mystical, concepts such as passing away of the
self (fanaâ), poverty (faqr), theophany (tajalli), and sainthood
(ualayah). Indeed, the very antinomianism of their practices was viewed
by the anarchist dervishes themselves as the natural result of the
âcorrectâ interpretation of these concepts. Thus, deviant renunciation
was often justified by passing away of the self, which was expressed in
the language of death. The dervish was one who voluntarily chose death
and âdied before dying.â The alleged hadith (saying of the Prophet
Muhammad) mutu qabla an tamutu, âdie before you die,â supplied the
prophetic sanction for this attitude.[43] Technically, the dervish
considered himself to have the status of a dead person. He often
demonstrated the utter seriousness of this conviction physically by
dwelling in cemeteries.[44] The implication, significantly, was that he
was not bound by social and legal norms. The latter applied to âlegal
personsâ of clear social standing. The dervish, having shattered the
confines of society, had no social persona: he functioned in a territory
that was above and beyond society.
Similar renunciatory interpretations of the concepts of poverty,
theophany, and sainthood always yielded the same rejectionist
conclusion. Poverty literally meant absolute poverty. Theophany implied
the presence of God in all his Creation, and thus the meaninglessness of
legal prescriptions and proscriptions. Sainthood meant the existence of
saints, the dervishes themselves, who were exempt from social and legal
regulations. The underlying message was always the same: the dervish had
to implement an absolute break with his social past and to devote his
future solely to God by means of radical renunciation.
It is, therefore, not surprising that the anarchist dervishes adopted
âhereticâ views with ease, probably in order to strengthen their
rejectionist agenda. Such was the case with the fervent Shrism of the
Abdals of Rum and Jalalis, which the dervishes displayed ostenta-
tiously in the heavily Sunni cultural areas they inhabited. Also
remarkable in this context was the belief, common especially among the
dervishes who practiced the fourfold shave, that the human face
reflected divine beauty. This was clearly a continuation of the
well-attested Sufi practice of âlooking at beardless boys,â a
âdangerousâ practice much criticized by Sufis themselves. [45] At the
same time, the adoration of the human face may also reflect the
influence of Hurufiyah, a new religious movement that came into being
toward the end of the eighth/fourteenth century in Iran and Asia Minor,
since according to Hurufi tenets the human face was the locus par
excellence of the continuous theophany of the Divine in human
beings.[46]
In summary, the severely ascetic and cheerfully antinomian practices of
the dervishes assume their real meaning only when viewed in their proper
context: rejection of society. The synthesis of the ascetic principles
of poverty, mendicancy, itinerancy, celibacy, and bodily mortification
with the antinomian features of disregard for religious duties,
outrageous external appearance, adoption of legally suspicious and
unconventional practices, and appropriation of extremist beliefs
resulted in the emergence of a new mode of religiosity along the axis of
renunciation. The basis of this new renunciatory piety was open and
deliberate rejection of the social order. The dervishes negated the
existing social structure in all its dimensions. This negation was most
conspicuous in the conflict between the adamantly individualistic
dervish piety and the normative legal system constructed by religious
scholars and accepted, albeit with serious qualifications, by the Sufis.
Dead to society, the dervishes were also impervious to legal sanctions.
They cheerfully proceeded to replace the prescriptive and proscriptive
injunctions of the shariâah by another code of behavior, in which
deliberate eschewal of the religious law played a key role. Thus, they
abandoned observation of the ritual and other legal obligations almost
completely and freely violated socially sensitive legal proscriptions
and prescriptions.[47]
The dervishes did not, however, stop at negation of society pure and
simple. The life of a hermit in the wilderness, for instance, equally
built on rejection of society, failed to appeal to them. Anchoritism was
never a serious option. Instead, the dervishes had to test the
salvational efficacy of their renunciatory spirituality through action
within the world. Rejection of society functioned as an effective mode
of piety only when it was conspicuously and continuously targeted at
society. For the individual dervish, this meant radical conversion to
and permanent preservation of the option of renunciation through blatant
social deviance.
The purpose of this chapter is to provide a broad context for the study
of renunciation in Islam and to locate points of articulation between
the mode of dervish piety displayed by world-denying dervish groups of
the Later Middle Period on the one hand and previous or contemporary
modes of Islamic religiosity on the other. The argument throughout is
that renunciatory dervish piety emerged from within Sufism as a new
synthesis of two of its most powerful subcurrents: asceticism and
anarchist individualism.
A pivotal conflict in the development of Islamic religiosity during the
first two centuries of Islam was the confrontation between
world-embracing and world-rejecting attitudes. [48] A powerful tendency
to reject the world, inherent in the conception of a supramundane God
and the postulate of an âotherâ world, was everywhere opposed by an
equally strong tendency to embrace the world by rendering salvation
conditional on morally correct behavior in society. Significantly, the
sources of the Islamic religionthe Qurâan and the âexample of the
Prophet Muhammadâ (sunnah)lent themselves to both this-worldly and
other-worldly constructions. The Qurâan supplied Muslims with many
unequivocally renunciatory verses that called believers to eschew this
world and to turn their gaze firmly toward the other world.[49] Other
Qurâanic verses, equally numerous and clear in meaning, plunged the
believers into the quagmire of mundane affairs, leaving no doubt that
other-worldly salvation was contingent upon acceptable performance in
the social arena. [50] The sunnah, a fluid reality throughout this
period, was subject to the same ambiguity. If it was possible to
activate the essentially renunciatory core of the sunnah to challenge
world-embracing Muslims, it remained equally possible to respond by
carefully grooming the image of the Prophet Muhammad to endorse a
world-embracing mode of religiosity.[51] The result was a deep
structural tension within the religion that set adrift conflicting
attitudes toward the world, any one of which could, nevertheless, be
Islamically legitimized on the basis of clear Qurâanic verses and sound
hadith-reports.
Although it is difficult to ascertain the relative weight of affirmative
and renunciatory approaches to the world in early Islamic history, there
is little doubt that world-embracing tendencies gained a major impetus
with the establishment of an international Islamic empire in the the
Near East. The conquests that laid the foundation for this empire,
insofar as they reflected the religious duty of securing the supremacy
of Islam in the world (jihdd), were themselves concrete proof that most
Muslims had accepted such military action as legitimate salvational
activity on earth.[52] The activism inherent in the doctrine of jihad
rapidly crystallized into clearly articulated thisworldly political
agendas, a process that eventually culminated in the hegemony of
political activism on the level of political ideology. Even though
quietism was also prominently represented in the form of the Murjiâi
movement, it stopped short of denying the world, motivated as it was by
an âanti-sectarian emphasis on the community at large.â[53] The concern
with the unity and worldly supremacy of the community assured the
ascendancy of world-embracing ideas in the realm of politics.
A similar process was at work in the domain of economic activity. The
accumulation of enormous economic power in Muslim hands, in itself a
sign of this-worldly orientation, greatly facilitated the entrenchment
of economic attitudes favorable to the world. This is most clearly
visible in the key role that merchant capital played in the emergence
and unfolding of High Caliphal Islamic society.[54] Gradually, and not
without considerable opposition, a world-embracing economic ethnic
became normative.
Political and economic affirmation of the world, however, had to be
legitimized in religious terms. Here the most impressive achieve- ment
of Muslims who viewed human society as the true arena of salvational
activity was the development of a formidable legal apparatus, the
shariah, designed to facilitate salvation by the regulation of social
life within a soteriological normative framework. Perhaps the clearest
indicator of world-affirmation in the shariâah was the development of
the doctrine of âconsensusâ (ijmaâ). This doctrine expressed the binding
nature of the consensus of the community of believers (ummah); it
embodied in effect the recognition of the community as the sole
legitimate religious authority within the Sunni sphere. Expressed
somewhat differently, the doctrine of ijmdâ acknowledged the community
as the only proper receptacle, bearer, and dispenser of the Qurâan and
the sunnah, the sole point of contact, albeit indirect, with God. [55]
The identification of the community of believers as the third source of
legal authority after the Qurâan and the sunnah necessitated a
consistent emphasis on the communal as opposed to the private in
religious life. In practice, this emphasis meant the primacy of public
ritual and religiously sanctioned norms (the shariâah)over private
religiosity and morality. In all areas of the sacred in society, the
exoteric (zahir)was privileged over the esoteric (batin); aspects of
private piety that were not susceptible to public scrutiny automatically
became suspect as being potentially anticommunal. Not only could the
private disrupt communal homogeneity by opening the door to blameworthy
innovation (bidâah sayyiâah)and antinomianism, but it would in the long
run also violate the primacy of the community through its propensity to
generate claims of personal proximity to God. In the eyes of the âpeople
of the community,â therefore, the communityâs need to safeguard the core
of religion overrode the equally urgent need to develop modes of piety
that could satisfy the demands of the individual believer for a direct
relationship with God.[56]
No matter how efficacious, however, the community-oriented argument that
rested on the solid bed of ijmaâ and drew strength from the political
and economic achievements of the Muslim community could not dampen, let
alone extinguish, the salvational anxieties of believing individuals.
The latter could be placated only by a mode of piety that placed
individual conscience at its heart. Thus, simultaneously with, and no
doubt primarily in reaction to, the rising tide of this-worldliness in
the Muslim community, ascetic tendencies of world renunciation (zuhd)
rose to the surface. Renunciation was a pious religious attitude that
foregrounded the effort of the individual Muslim to establish a private
rapport with God. The critique of renouncers was built on the
God-humanity axis of religiosity and took the human individual, after
God himself, to be the single most important variable in the religious
equation. This critique went right to the heart of every pious Muslim
believer. No one could deny that Islam, as a religion, had individual
conscience at its core. In the final analysis, the helpless and weak
believer had to face the absolute Master alone.
The motive force of renunciation was originally the fear of God, or deep
anxiety for oneâs fate in the afterlife. Its dominant characteristic was
strong aversion to the world, which was viewed as a barrier to godly
piety and eternal salvation. Such a negative valuation of the world led
to the adoption of characteristically ascetic principles such as
celibacy, solitude, excessive fasting, vegetarianism, poverty, rejection
of economic activity, indifference to public opinion, and even
withdrawing to cemeteries for ascetic exercises. [57] âWool-wearingâ
renouncers everywhere personified the troubled religious consciences of
pious Muslim individuals.
The conflict between world-affirmers and renouncers reached a
culmination during the first half of the third/ninth century. While the
former were busy putting the finishing touches to their community-based
legal system (witness the activity of al-Shafiâi, 150-205/ 767â820), the
latter took renunciation to its height with the doctrine of âcomplete
reliance on Godâ (tawakkul). The privileging of the doctrine of
reliance, which first surfaced in the thought of Shaqiq Balkhi (d.
194/809-10) and remained prevalent until the mid-third/ ninth century,
involved a subtle yet extremely significant shift of emphasis from
negative rejection of the world to positive and exclusive orientation
toward God. Fear of God and concern for the afterlife were replaced by
complete surrender to Godâs will. Some features of the ascetic period,
such as continence, began to disappear in the âtawakkul era,â though
rejection of gainful employment remained as the central practical
manifestation of true tawakkul.[58]Significantly, it was in this period
that probing legal treatises on the question of gainful employment, such
as the Kitab al-kasb of Muhammad al-Shaybani (d. 189/804), were written,
largely âto overcome deepseated religious prejudices against making
money, convictions made popular by mendicant ascetics.â[59] It is also
likely that many of the well-known antiascetic hadith were put into
circulation at this time in response to the trenchant critique of
worldly involvement contained in the striking ascetic feats of prominent
renouncers. [60] In addition, the detractors seem to have utilized the
similarities between the ascetics and Christian monks to their own
benefit in their polemic.[61] In spite of all the strong criticism
against it, the ascetic option clearly continued to captivate especially
the cultural elite, as evidenced by the emergence at this time of
zuhdiyat, a poetic genre defined by the theme of asceticism.[62] The
rift between the two approaches had reached alarming levels.
It was at this juncture that Sufism emerged as a new mode of piety that
bridged the abyss between individualist renunciatory piety and
community-oriented legalist world-affirmation. It did so by means of a
creative synthesis, which represented, to all indications, a powerful
reinterpretation of the doctrine of unity (tawhid). The âthis world/
other worldâ dichotomy of the early asceticism was first gradually
displaced by the antithesis âGod/all other than God,â which then led to
a positive evaluation of the latter through the application of the
doctrine of unity. Whatever God created, in particular this world, had
to be accepted. This was an extremely productive maneuver that, with one
stroke, neutralized ascetic devaluation of the world and brought God
into the reach of the individual. As a creation of God, the world was
essentially divested of its negative features and became the legitimate
arena of salvational activity. Life in society was now seen not as an
evil snare that had to be shunned at all cost but as a challenge,
admittedly formidable but not insurmountable, on the path that led
humanity to God. In some sense, this world too, like the other world,
was infused with the Divine, which rendered God accessible to the
individual living in society. The theoretical elaboration of this view
took several centuries and reached its zenith in the thought of Ibn
al-âArabi (d. 638/1240) only after the fertilization of Sufi theorizing
by the philosophical tradition. The flower was, however, already present
in the seed that gave birth to it, and the impact of the creative
synthesis of the classical phase of Sufism was felt in all aspects of
Islamic culture from mid-third/ninth century onward. âInner-worldly
mysticismâ became a real force within Islam.[63]
The positive evaluation of worldly existence dealt a heavy blow to
asceticism as an independent mode of piety, as evidenced by a new
contempt for practical tawakkul. Sufis, themselves mostly gainfully
employed, generally disapproved of rejection of economic activity. [64]
Other principles of asceticism, such as seclusion (khalwah, âuzlah),
abstinence (juâ), and silence (samt), were transformed into mere
techniques of spiritual discipline.[65]
Slowly, but surely, Sufism and mainstream religiosity blended. The
coalescence of Sufism with Sunni communalism was not the work of Sufi
propagandists alone, but came about as the result of an alliance. On one
hand, Sufis recognized the need to smooth the rough edges of their
erstwhile individualistic piety, a task which they took very seriously,
to judge by the number and prominence of communalistic Sufi manuals
produced during the fourth/tenth and fifth/eleventh centuries. On the
other hand, âthe people of the sunnah and the community,â represented
most prominently by Shafiâis and Hanbalis in Iraq, came to realize the
rich potential of Sufism to absorb the threat posed by the
uncompromisingly individualistic piety of other-worldly asceticism. In
this context, it is likely that the capacity inherent in Sufism to
preempt the Shiâ10ption due to the affinity between the two modes of
piety was not lost on the communalists. The result was a powerful
coalition of forces that was to preserve its efficacy even when
transported outside its land of origin, Iraq, to another region of
Islamdom that played a key role in the development of Islamic piety,
Khorasan.
The conflict between world-affirmers and renouncers came to a head in
Khorasan roughly one century later than in Iraq, in the mid-fourth/tenth
century. Here the renouncers wielded tremendous social and religious
power. The Karramiyah, as the ascetic movement in Khorasan and eastern
Iran was known, appeared to have the upper hand throughout this region.
The movement was well organized and in time developed a distinctive
institution, the hospice (khanqah), that later spread within Islamdom
under a transformed Sufi affiliation.[66] The antisocial tendencies of
the Karramiyah, epitomized in aversion to gainful employment, were
countered locally by the this-worldly practices of the Malamatiyah, also
an indigenous movement. The Malamatiyah had as its basis the belief that
piety and godly devotion should not be reduced to a single vocation out
of many in social life but should instead infuse its every aspect. Such
thorough suffusion of human life in this world with pure religiosity was
possible only through concealment of oneâs inner spiritual states, for
their manifes- tation would ineluctably lead the individual to claim the
prerogatives of a religious specialist and would therefore result in the
establishment of separate religious tracks in social life, which was
anathema. This clear affirmation of communal life translated, on the
level of the individual, to the rule to earn oneâs own livelihood: the
Malamatis, who probably had organic links with artisans and urban
âyoungmanlinessâ (futuwwah) organizations, had no tolerance for the
parasitic social existence of the Karramis. [67]
The nature of the confrontation between the other-worldly Karramis and
inner-worldly Malamatis was transformed by the introduction and gradual
ascendancy of Iraqi Sufism in Khorasan during the fourth/tenth and
fifth/eleventh centuries. Through the efficacy of its powerful synthesis
of individualist and communalist tendencies, Sufism disenfranchised both
the Karramiyah and Malamatiyah by sapping them of their spiritual thrust
and absorbing their institutional features. From the former, it adopted
the institution of the khanqah; from the latter, it inherited the
futuwwah lore and practices. In the process, the Karramiyah, also
vehemently opposed by mainstream Sunnis, was gradually relegated to an
obscure role as a historical sect in heresiographies, while the
Malamatiyah was transformed into a subcurrent in the rich sea of Sufism.
The social and spiritual supremacy of Sufism had been firmly
established.[68]
Antisocial dervish piety had its historical roots primarily in the
ascetic tradition as domesticated within Sufism. In addition to
asceticism, however, dervish renouncers drew upon another mode of piety
also available within Sufism: uncompromising and often fiercely
unconventional individualism.
In Weberian terms, âinner-worldly mysticismâ is closely connected with
its typological counterpart, âcontemplative flight from the world.â
Sufism, which demonstrated its this-worldly credentials by appropriating
and naturalizing asceticism, was still subject to the antisocial pull of
the option of other-worldly contemplation. The domestication of this
trend was an extremely difficult, almost impossible proposition.
Individualist gnosis was inherent at the very core of Sufism. Insofar as
the highest levels of Sufi experience, passing away from the self (fanaâ
âan al-nafs) and passing away in God (fanaâ fi allah), meant the
annihilation of the self as a social entity, the temptation to slip into
unbridled antisocial individualism was very real. This tendency was kept
at bay largely through sober emphasis on baqaâ, the idea that the
âreconstituted selfâ of the mystic should âsubsistâ in society. [69]
Nevertheless, the fault line along the axis that separated Sufi
this-worldly tendencies from other-worldly ones remained forever active.
Sufis felt obliged to acknowledge the superiority of divine attraction
(jadhbah) over active self-exertion, âstriding along the pathâ (suluk).
It is true that a qualified spiritual guide had to have experience of
both divine attraction and striding, since neither one alone could
produce a well-rounded master.[70] Yet Sufis consistently rankedjadhbah
the highest on the level of private mystical experience.[71]
Contemplative flight from the world continued to inform Sufism.
The history of the other-worldly individualist strain within Sufism, at
once complex and obscure, cannot be given here. Such a history would
have, on one hand, to deal extensively with concepts like ibahah
(antinomianism), hulul (incarnation), and ittihad (union) and, on the
other hand, to display sensitivity to social consequences of central
Sufi beliefs and practices.[72] However, one particular manifestation of
uncompromising individualism that is pertinent to dervish piety demands
attention here: the mode of religiosity that was denoted by terms
deriving from the word qalandar even before the appearance of the
Qalandars as a distinct group of renouncing dervishes under the
formative influence of Jamal al-Din Savi.[73]
There is considerable evidence that Qalandariyah was in existence as a
religious attitude well before the seventh/thirteenth century. Such
evidence can be grouped into two separate categories, one that deals
with the Qalandar-topos in Persian literature and another that focuses
on the Qalandari trend as reflected in Sufi theoretical treatises.
The early history of the Qalandar as a type in Persian literature is
unclear.[74] If the attribution of a quatrain in which the word qalandar
is used to Baba Tahir-i âUryan (d. first half of the fifth/eleventh
century) is well grounded (though this remains to be established), then
it might be possible to argue that the literary Qalandar had already
appeared in Persian literature by the end of the fourth/tenth century.
[75] Two quatrains said to have been uttered by Abu Saâid-i Abu al-Khayr
(357-440/967-1049) would seem to complement these verses of Baba Tahir;
the attribution, however, is no less problematic in this case.[76]
Somewhat later is the short Risalah-i Qalandarânamah of âAbd Allah
Ansari (d. 481/1088-89). This treatise, again of uncertain attribution,
records a conversation of the young Ansari with a Qalandari master. Its
central theme is the necessity of abandoning the world, preferably
through mendicancy, constant traveling, and frequenting graveyards. All
of these ideals are relevant to Qalandariyah; particularly striking in
this connection is Jamal al-Dinâs predilection for graveyards.[77]
For the following century, however, literary evidence is at once more
extensive and of a more determinate nature. Ahmad Ghazali (d. 520/1126),
âAyn al-Quzat Hamadani (d. 525/11 30â31), Sanaâi (d. 545/1150-51), and
Khaqani (d. 595/1198-99) all wrote what were later classified as
Qalandariyat in some manuscripts, that is, poems on wine-drinking,
gambling, profane love, and rejection of religion. The Qalandar type,
whose characteristics in this early stage of Persian Sufi poetry remain
to be determined, is almost fully developed in the works of these
sixth/twelfth-century poets and writers; the word qalandar itself occurs
on many an occasion in their works.[78] Nevertheless, it was during a
later phase of Persian Sufi poetry, beginning with âAttar (d. after
618/1221-22) continuing through âIraqi (d. 688/ 1289) and Saâdi (d.
691/1291-92), and culminating with Hafiz (d. 792/1389-90), that the
Qalandar type developed into a true literary topos. As a complex of
tightly knit images, this topos is interwoven with other themes in
individual poems, normally ghazals, though one also comes across
independent verse compositions devoted solely to the Qalandar image, as
in the short Qalandarânamah in fifty-six couplets by Amir Husayni (d.
718/1318-19).[79]
The main feature of the literary Qalandar was deliberate and open
disregard for social convention in the cause of âtrueâ religious love.
This social anarchism was expressed in the imagery of the Qalandartopos:
visiting the kharabat (tavern, gambling house, brothel), winedrinking,
gambling, and irreligion. Further elaboration of the topos clearly
requires a thorough internal analysis of the relevant texts.[80] In any
event, the literary evidence does not reflect any phenomenon that could
be called a Qalandari movement. There is no clear mention of wandering
groups of Qalandars in our texts; the Qalandar in poetry at this stage,
inasmuch as the word denotes persons rather than attitudes, is normally
an isolated, lonely individual. [81] There is, however, some external
evidence that makes it possible to correlate this literary Qalandar with
his actual counterparts.
Since the intellectual roots of the Qalandar tradition in Persian poetry
are buried in darkness, it has become customary to turn to Sufi
theoretical literature in search of the real meaning of the Qalandari
attitude. The most significant reference point in this respect is the
following account by Abu Hafs âUmar al-Suhrawardi (d. 632/1234) from the
ninth chapter of his âAwarifal-maâarif, where Qalandars are discussed
alongside other groups which do not belong to Sufiyah but are only
affiliated with it:
The term Qalandariyah denotes people who are governed by the
intoxication [engendered by] the tranquillity of their hearts to the
point of destroying customs and throwing off the bonds of social
intercourse, traveling [as they are] in the fields of the tranquillity
of their hearts. They observe the ritual prayer and fasting only insofar
as these are obligatory and do not hesitate to indulge in those
pleasures of the world that are permitted by the Law; nay, they content
themselves with keeping within the bounds of what is permissible and do
not go in search of the truths of legal obligation. All the same, they
persist in rejecting hoarding and accumulation [of wealth] and the
desire to have more. They do not observe the rites of the ascetic, the
abstemious, and the devout and confine themselves to, and are content
with, the tranquillity of their hearts with God. Nor do they have an eye
for any desire to increase what they already possess of this
tranquillity of the heart. The difference between the Malamati and the
Qalandar is that the former strives to conceal his acts of devotion
while the latter strives to destroy custom.... The Qalandar is not bound
by external appearance and is not concerned with what others may or may
not know of his state. He is attached to nothing but the tranquillity of
his heart, which is his sole property.[82]
Al-Suhrawardiâs account is significant for a number of reasons. First,
it is very noticeable that there is in this report, reproduced almost
word for word by many later writers such as al-Maqrizi and Jami, [83]
nothing that would suggest a familiarity with the more or less
institutionalized Qalandariyah that was already taking shape under the
leadership of Jamal al-Din Savi in Damascus and Damiettain
al-Suhrawardiâs lifetime. It is highly unlikely, for instance, that
anyone who was informed about Jamal al-Dinâs activities could make the
remark that Qalandars âdo not observe the rites of the ascetic, the
abstemious, and the devout.â Moreover, al-Suhrawardi makes no reference
to chahar zarb or to characteristic Qalandari apparel. It appears,
therefore, that when he finished writing the âAwarif almaâarif (the
terminus ad quem for the composition of this work is 624/1227),
al-Suhrawardi knew nothing of the nascent Qalandari movement in
Damascus.[84]
Second, it is clear that during al-Suhrawardiâs lifetime it was possible
to talk of a distinct religious attitude identified as Qalandariyah.[85]
Indeed, al-Suhrawardiâs description of this attitude is strongly
reminiscent of the Qalandar-topos in Persian poetry. Particularly
striking in this regard is the deliberate anticonventionalism of both
the literary Qalandar and al-Suhrawardiâs ârealâ Qalandars. In addition,
al-Suhrawardiâs insistence on the Qalandari fascination with the
tranquillity of the heart and, perhaps more significantly, his
observation that the Qalandars have a minimalist understanding of the
religious law increase the likelihood of this convergence. The passage
in the âAwarifal-maâarifon the Qalandariyah suggests therefore that the
Qalandar-topos in pre-thirteenth-century Persian poetry was not just a
poetic convention but also reflected a religious attitude that was
represented in society by real Qalandars.
Third, it is significant that al-Suhrawardi makes a distinction between
Qalandariyah and Sufiyah. The validity of this distinction is rather
dubious. The basis of al-Suhrawardiâs argument seems to have been that
since the Qalandar did not have any goal other than asserting his state
of inner contentment at all costs, he did not strictly speaking partake
in any mystical quest. Such a definition, however, can equally be used
to describe many Sufis, especially of the passive majdhub type. It is
likely al-Suhrawardi was disturbed by the fact that the Qalandar did not
hesitate to transgress the boundaries of what was socially permissible
and, worse, had only minimal respect for the law. It is, therefore,
possible to see in al-Suhrawardiâs distinction between Qalandariyah and
Sufiyah the somewhat tendentious at- tempt of a socially conscious,
highly this-worldly Sufi master to dissociate the former, a clearly
antisocial current within Sufism, from the latter, an overwhelmingly
âinner-worldly,â socially respectable mode of piety.
As a fourth and final point, it is remarkable that al-Suhrawardi
discusses the Qalandars along with the Malamatiyah, possibly an
originally non-Sufi religious movement. He argues that the Qalandar
clearly differed from the Malamati in certain respects. The Malamatiâs
main concern was to hide his inner state from others for fear that an
ostentatious display of piety would lead to overindulgence in the self
and ultimately to self-complacency, thus distancing the believer from
God. It was because of his painstaking endeavor to conceal the true
nature of his religiosity that he sought to incur public blame by
deliberately transgressing the limits of social and legal acceptability.
There were, however, limits to such transgression, since the
overwhelming concern of the Malamati was to blend into society in an
effort to construct a veil of anonymity around himself. Most significant
in this regard was the Malamati refusal to adopt distinctive attire,
paraphernalia, and rites and practices. Similarly, the Malamati took
care to earn his own livelihood and looked with contempt on those Sufis
who survived only on alms and charity. Thus, while he could be, in
extreme cases, as socially deviant as the Qalandar, the Malamati
functioned within a âperformance paradigm,â where the nature and meaning
of religious belief and practice as performed by individual believers
were conditioned by other believersâ perception of them. The Qalandar,
however, claimed to have transcended this paradigm altogether. He too
was concerned exclusively with his own inner state, yet he rejected the
basic premise of the Malamati in his refusal to acknowledge the
importance of any audience other than God, the auditor par excellence.
From this standpoint, the social and legal transgression of the Qalandar
was only an incidental outcome of his primary endeavor, the attainment
and preservation of the tranquillity of his heart with respect to God.
Insofar as it distracted the Qalandar from achieving this goal, social
attachment of all kinds was perceived as an obstacle and simply
discarded.
What was the historical relation between the pre-thirteenth-century
Qalandar and the new renunciation of the Later Middle Period? The most
obvious connection is, of course, the use of the name Qalandar to
designate the followers of Jamal al-Din. It is not known how or exactly
when the name came to be given to these dervishes. Certainly, they
referred to themselves as Qalandars by the time Khatib Farisi wrote his
sacred biography of the master in the mid-eighth/ fourteenth century,
but it is impossible to tell if this practice dates back to the lifetime
of Jamal al-Din or if it was a later accretion. Whatever the truth about
its timing, the application of the name Qalandar to the Jawlaqs is
significant in that it indicates the existence of more than nominal
continuity between the Qalandari trend before Jamal al-Din and the later
Qalandariyah. Even if the first generation ofJamal al-Din type Qalandars
did not deliberately attempt to realize the older Qalandari ideal in
practice, there can be little doubt that in the long run this ideal came
to inform the activity of the later Qalandariyah. Otherwise, it would be
rather difficult to account for the appearance of the somewhat
this-worldly Qalandars described by Sir Paul Rycaut, the
mid-eleventh/seventeenth-century observer of Ottoman society:
[The Qalandars] consume their time in eating and drinking; and to
maintain this gluttony they will sell the stones of their girdles, their
Ear-rings and Bracelets. When they come to the house of any rich man or
person of Quality, they accommodate themselves to their humor, giving
all the Family pleasant words, and chearful expressions to perswade them
to a liberal and free entertainment. The tavern by them is accounted
holy as the Mosch, and they believe they serve God as much with
debauchery, or liberal use of his Creatures (as they call it) as others
with severity and Mortification. [86]
The degree to which such observations by both external and internal
observers of Islamic societies reflected reality is naturally open to
question. Such reservations notwithstanding, it is clear that the
anarchist individualism of the Qalandari trend before Jamal al-Din was
perpetuated in the activities of anarchist dervish groups, especially
through their emphasis on flagrant social deviance.
Renunciatory modes of piety had deep and firm roots in the historical
development of Islamic religion. Powerful currents of other-worldly
asceticism as an alternative way of life were present during the first
three centuries of Islam in the Fertile Crescent and throughout the
third/ninth, fourth/tenth, and fifth/eleventh centuries in and around
Iran. Such trends were eventually absorbed and domesticated, though not
completely nullified, by âinner-worldlyâ Sufism. As a mystic mode of
piety, however, Sufism also contained within itself strong tendencies
toward contemplative flight from the world. As a result, it was the
source of continual outbursts of anarchist individualism. The most
prominent, and for our purposes the most pertinent, of such
manifestations of individualism was the Qalandari trend that developed
primarily within the Persian cultural sphere. It was as a powerful
revitalization and combination of this trend with the powerful currents
of other-worldly asceticism that dervish piety developed in the Fertile
Crescent and Iran toward the end of the Early Middle Period and surfaced
at the beginning of the seventh/ thirteenth century.
The emergence of new renunciation is most clearly visible in the careers
of individual ascetics who played key roles in the formation of
movements of socially deviant renunciation. The exemplary piety of
ascetic virtuosi everywhere served as a catalyst for the construction of
social collectivities that translated the ideals forged by the master
renouncers into salvational social action on a large scale. It is
therefore appropriate to open this reconstruction of the history of the
new renunciation with a series of biographical portrayals of the most
prominent dervish masters.
The Qalandars emerged as a new and distinct group of dervishes in
Damascus and Damietta during the early decades of the seventh/
thirteenth century. The formation of the Qalandari path was concomitant
with and centered around the activity of its master, Jamal al-Din Savi
(Savaji in some sources). His personal example played a decisive role in
the emergence of the Qalandars, who preserved their separate identity
through adherence to practices advocated by Jamal al-Din or by his
immediate circle of followers. The most characteristic of these
practices, shaving the hair, beard, moustache, and eyebrows (sometimes
eyelashes as well), which came to be known later as âfour blowsâ (chahar
zarb), certainly originated with Jamal al-Din himself. Fortunately, it
is possible to reconstruct the contours of his life and personality. In
748/1347-48, Khatib Farisi (born 697/1297-98) of Shiraz, a
fifty-one-year old disciple of the Qalandari master Muhammad Bukharaâi
in Damascus, completed a biography of Jamal al-Din in Persian verse.
[87] Written about a century after the death of the grand master, his
hagiography reflects, at the very least, the message of Jamal al-Din as
it was understood by a particular group of Qalandars in that city in the
mid-eighth/fourteenth century.
The central concern of Khatib Farisi is Jamal al-Dinâs conversion from
the Sufi to the Qalandari path. At the beginning of the work, Jamal
al-Din is carefully presented as a very well-respected, though young,
Sufi master. The author renders Jamal al-Din a contemporary and a
cherished companion of Bayazid Bastami and contends that âUthman Rimi,
unanimously depicted in other sources as the early Sufi master of Jamal
al-Din, was in fact his disciple.[88] Entrusted to Jamal al-Dinâs care
by Bayazid Bastami, âUthman Rumi finds him delivering sermons on the
Qurâan and hadith, from a gold pulpit richly studded with jewels, to a
large group of followers in a khanqah in Iraq. His views on tasawwuf
appear to have been mainstream. In a lengthy section that reproduces
material from Najam al-Din Razi Dayahâs (d. 654/1256) Mirsad al-âibad
min al-mabdaâ ila al-maâad, for instance, Jamal al-Din elaborates on the
real meanings of the terms âmacrocosmosâ and âmicrocosmosâ in a totally
predictable, conservative manner.[89] In the limited information that
his biographer provides on this phase of Jamal al-Dinâs career, it is
possible to detect a special emphasis on the concept of detachment in
his outlook.
Soon after âUthman Rumi joins him, Jamal al-Din delivers an extended
speech on the merits of traveling and, practicing what he has preached,
begins to roam the land in the company of forty of his dervishes,
including âUthman Rimi. These journeys, which last until the moment when
he spots Jalal Darguzini in the mausoleum of Zaynab (the daughter of the
fifth Shiâi leader Zayn al-âAbidin) in the Bab al-Saghir cemetery of
Damascus, prepare him for his conversion to the Qalandari path.
Darguzini, who is completely naked except for a few leaves covering his
private parts, eats nothing but weeds, and remains silent and motionless
in one place, makes a deep impression on Jamal al-Din. He prays to God
that he may be relieved of both worlds and that all the obstacles on his
path may be cleared away. By divine intervention, all the hair on his
head and body falls off. This is a sign that Jamal al-Dinâs prayer is
accepted and that he is now âdead before his death.â Thenceforth, Jamal
al-Din becomes a Qalandar, with the same outward appearance and habits
as Jalal Darguzini, whose bodily hair also disappears at Jamal al-Dinâs
intervention. Jamal al-Din later verbalizes and justifies this
experience with the hadith âdie before you dieâ (mutu qabla an tamutu):
a Qalandar is one who frees himself from the two worlds through
self-imposed death (mawt-i iradi) with the purpose of attaining
continuous proximity to the Divine. [90] The peculiarly Qalandari habits
of going naked with only leaves to cover the loins, removing all bodily
hair, and sitting motionless and speechless on graves without any sleep
or food except wild weeds are all viewed as direct consequences of this
âpremortemâ death.[91] The Qalandar looks and, so to speak, acts like a
dead person. Thus, the Qalandari practice of uttering four takbirs, a
deliberate reference to the funeral prayer, functions as a constant
reminder of the Qalandarâs real state: âdead to both worlds.â In brief,
the Qalandar rejects society altogether and severs himself from both the
rights and duties of social life. He spurns all kinds of social
intercourse like gainful employment, marriage, and even friendship and
devotes himself solely to God in complete seclusion.
Khatib Farisi portrays the rest ofJamal al-Dinâs career as a struggle to
remain a recluse. Curiously, perhaps the most serious challenge to Jamal
al-Din in this respect is the emergence of a community of Qalandars
around him based on his personal example. Initially consisting of Jamal
al-Din and three disciples (Jala Darguzini, Muhammad Balkhi, and Abu
Bakr Isfahani, but not âUthman Rumi, who nonetheless acknowledges Jamal
al-Dinâs greatness), the core group is soon surrounded by a much larger
circle of converts to the way of Qalandars. Recruitment of new members
is not sought actively. The credit, or more properly blame, for
propagating the example of Jamal al-Din falls not on the master himself,
but on his core disciples, especially Abu Bakr Isfahani.[92] At first,
Jamal al-Din reluctantly acknowledges the necessity of leadership and to
a certain extent even adapts his extreme eremiticism to collective life.
For instance, he allows his disciples to eat food offerings brought by
pious believers, though he himself refrains from touching the food of
others. His institution of donning uncomfortable, heavy woolen garments
(jawlaq) also appears to have been a concession in the direction of
accepting increased contact with human society. In the long term,
however, Jamal al-Dinâs firm commitment to remain detached from the two
worlds weighs heavier than his sense of responsibility toward his
followers as their master. Delegating his authority to his foremost
disciple, he leaves Damascus in order to remain faithful to his
erstwhile solitary mission and travels to Damietta, Egypt. In Damietta,
he proves his holiness through a beardproducing miracle and spends six
peaceful years there, refusing to accept any followers, including the
magistrate of the town. [93] Upon his death, he is buried in the same
town.
Khatib Farisiâs account indicates clearly that the Qalandars of Damascus
cherished Jamal al-Dinâs world-rejecting eremiticism as a vibrant ideal
roughly three generations after his activity in that city. The
disciple/biographer recasts this ideal in the form of a spirited defense
of âpovertyâ (faqr). The narrative proper itself starts with a section
entitled âOn the Merits of Povertyâ (dar sifat-i fazilat-i faqr), and
the same theme punctuates the whole text. The central messages delivered
in this context are that the Prophet Muhammad, the best of all creatures
and the master of the two worlds, himself chose absolute poverty and
that Jamal al-Din is the king of poverty.[94] Although Khatib Farisi
does not give specific information on the Qalandari movement of his own
time, all the signs indicate that his fellow dervishes not only upheld
but also honored this ideal of poverty ascribed to Jamal al-Din.
It is possible to reconstitute the historical core of Jamal al-Dinâs
life on the basis of numerous accounts in Arabic, Persian, and Turkish
sources. Jamal al-Din was born toward the end of the sixth/twelfth
century, probably in the Iranian town of Savah, situated just southwest
of present-day Tehran. Although next to nothing is known of his youth,
there is some evidence that he may have studied to become a religious
scholar. According to an oral tradition kept alive in the Chishti
circles of Delhi during the eighth/fourteenth century, for instance,
Jamal al-Din was known as the âwalking library,â since he issued legal
opinions without consulting any books.[95] Since this tradition was
transmitted by a compiler who was himself a Qalandar with scholarly
pretensions, its reliability is questionable.[96] It may nevertheless
contain a kernel of truth since Jamal al-Din is reported in Mamluk
sources to have studied the Qurâan as well as religious sciences and to
have written at least a partial Qurâanic exegesis.[97] As a young man,
he traveled to Damascus to continue his studies, where he became
affiliated with the hospice of âUthman Rumi located at the foot of the
Qasiyun mountain to the northwest of the city. [98] âUthman Rumi was
almost certainly the father of Sharaf al-Din Muhammad Rumi, the director
of the Rumiyah hospice at Qasiyun, who died in 684/1285. We know next to
nothing about the father, who, according to one contemporary source, was
celebrated for his strict conformity to the sunnah.[99] The son is
described in his brief obituary notice as âincredibly generous and
modest, much given to samaâ.â[100]
Jamal al-Dinâs involvement with respectable Sufism as evidenced by his
allegiance to âUthman Rimi led to a dramatic conversion to extreme
asceticism through his encounter with the remarkable young ascetic Jalal
Darguzini.[101] Darguzini, an epitome of detachment and solitude,
wrought a deep transformation in Jamal al-Dinâs religiosity. Overcome by
an ascetic mood, Jamal al-Din shaved his face and head and began to
spend his time sitting motionless on graves with his face turned in the
direction of Mecca, the qiblah, speechless and with grass as his only
food.[102] Another tradition of reports would have it that Jamal
al-Dinâs turn to ascetic practices was facilitated by his scrupulous
endeavor, in a way reminiscent of one part of the Qurâanic story of
Yusuf (the Qurâan, 12:21â35), to preserve his chastity. According to
this tradition, which provides an alternative explanation for Jamal
al-Dinâs practice of shaving his beard and eyebrows, Jamal al-Din was
constantly harassed by a certain woman, who had fallen in love with him
on account of the beauty of his face and figure. Although initially
unsuccessful in her attempts to seduce Jamal al-Din, the woman finally
managed to trick him into entering her house. Jamal al-Din had no escape
and, in a final effort to save himself, shaved his beard and eyebrows
with a razor that he happened to have. The woman, taken aback and
disgusted, rebuked him severely and had him thrown out of her house.
Having thus overcome temptation through shaving, Jamal al-Din thereafter
made it his habit to keep his face clean-shaven at all times.[103]
Whatever its truth content, this âfantasticâ explanation for the origin
of Jamal al-Dinâs practice of shaving can safely be rejected as being a
generic feature of hagiography.[104]
The story of the rest of Jamal al-Dinâs career is in conformity with
information found in his sacred biography. His solitude disturbed by the
growing number of followers, Jamal al-Din decided to leave the group and
travel to a place where he was totally unknown. Delegating his authority
to his foremost disciple, Muhammad al-Balkhi, he left Damascus and spent
the last years of his life in carefully preserved social isolation in a
cemetery in Damietta, where a hospice (zawiyah) was later built around
his tomb. [105]
Jamal al-Din was first and foremost an uncompromising renouncer. He was
stringent in his rejection of this world, as evidenced by his penchant
for residing in cemeteries, in both Damascus and Damietta, as well as by
the extreme care he took to dissociate himself from all established
patterns of social life through such practices as shaving his head and
all facial hair, donning woolen sacks, and refusing to work for
sustenance. Presumably, he was also celibate. Though not totally averse
to having disciples and not oblivious of their needs, he shunned all
kinds of attention and preferred to lead the life of a complete recluse.
It is not possible to determine the nature of his attitude toward the
religious law. While there is no sign that he deliberately eschewed
prescribed religious observances or clearly violated legal prohibitions,
reports on his life leave the impression that conformity to the shariâah
was not a major issue in his career. The unmistakable message of his
personal example was world-rejecting eremiticism, and the power and
attraction of the ascetic mode of piety this message embodied was
instrumental in the formation of the Qalandari path.
The Haydari dervish, with his distinct penchant for iron collars,
bracelets, belts, anklets, and rings suspended from his ears and his
genitals, became a familiar sight in many parts of Islamdom from the
beginning of the seventh/thirteenth century onward. The eponymous master
of this most peculiar group of mendicant dervishes was a certain Qutb
al-Din Haydar. Although the historical life of this key ascetic figure
is clouded in legend, his religious predilections are still evident in
the reports of his miraculous feats.
Qutb al-Din Haydar lived in and around the town Zavah in Khorasan,
present-day Turbat-i Haydariyah in northeast Iran.[106] Unlike his
followers, he was not much taken with the itinerant life and spent his
life in solitude on a mountain near Zavah.[107] His tomb still stands
today in that location.[108] The long career of this figure spanned the
entire sixth/twelfth century and came to an end around 617/1200, when
Zavah was destroyed by the Mongols. [109] He was apparently of royal
Turkish descent and might have had a particular appeal among Turkish
speakers.[110] Beyond these externalities, few facts of Qutb al-Dinâs
biography can be ascertained.[111] He probably went through a Sufi phase
early in life. In some sources he is portrayed as a one-time disciple of
either Shaykh Luqman, who was active in the town of Sarakhs close to
Zavah, or the famous Turkish Sufi Ahmed Yesevi (d. 562/ 1166) of
Turkistan.[112] It is not possible to confirm the existence of such
allegiances. His association with Ahmed Yesevi, reported only in late
sources and conspicuously absent from the Yesevi tradition itself, is
doubtful, especially if one keeps in mind the shariâah bound nature of
Yeseviâs mysticism, in which there would be little room for the
world-denying asceticism of Qutb al-Din Haydar. That Qutb al-Din indeed
had some Sufi connections, however, is suggested by a report that he was
close to Shah-i Sanjan (d. 597/ 1200â1201 or 599/1202-3), a disciple of
Qutb al-Din Mawdud-i Chishti (d. 527/1132-33), who may have composed a
quatrain (rubaâi) for Qutb al-Din.[113] In this same vein, some claim
that Ibrahim Ishaq âAttar Kadkani, the father of the celebrated poet
Farid al-Din âAttar, was a follower of Qutb al-Din and that Farid al-Din
âAttar himself, who had received the blessing of Qutb al-Din Haydar as a
child, dedicated one of his first works, Haydarnamah, to the ascetic
master. While the celebrated poet was indeed born in Kadkan, a town not
far from Zavah, it is not possible to confirm the details of this claim,
especially since such a Haydarnamah is not extant.[114]
The religious profile of the Haydari master can be drawn in broad
strokes. It is clear that he abandoned civilized life in favor of a
solitary existence in the wilderness. An account of his conversion to
asceticism is found in the Khayr al-majalis (comp. after 754/1353),
where the compiler Hamid Qalandar records a story about Haydar that he
heard from Shaykh Nasir al-Din Mahmud Chiragh-i Dihli (d. 757/1356).
While still a young boy, Haydar ascended a mountain in a trance and
failed to return. After many years, he was finally spotted one day by a
traveler, clothed in a dress made of leaves and busy milking a female
gazelle. Informed of his sonâs survival by the traveler, Haydarâs father
searched for him on the mountain without success. In despair, he asked
Shaykh Luqman for his help. Indeed, when Luqman himself came to the foot
of the mountain, Haydar appeared of his own accord to see the shaykh.
When the shaykh advised him to go to the city and spend his time
inviting people to the path of God, Haydar declared that it was no
longer possible for him to abandon the wilderness, but he agreed to see
his parents every day if they came and settled at the foot of the
mountain. The place where Haydarâs parents settled later grew into the
village of Zavah. [115]
Qutb al-Din Haydarâs merger with nature was then remarkably complete. He
apparently used only leaves to cover his body and relied solely on
nature for his sustenance. It is, therefore, not strange to see his name
associated with the discovery of the intoxicating effects of cannabis
leaves.[116] Even more than his uncompromising withdrawal from human
culture and his discovery of hashish, however, Qutb alDinâs fame and
influence on others rested on his dramatic attempts to control his
animal soul (nafs). The miraculous feats most celebrated by posterity
were his immersion in ice water during winter and entering fire in the
summer.[117] He was also well known for handling molten iron âlike mere
waxâ in order to fashion collars and bracelets.[118] Combined with the
well-attested Haydari habit of wearing iron rings around the genitals,
which in all likelihood derived from Qutb al-Dinâs own example, these
miracle stories suggest that a significant portion of Qutb al-Dinâs
extreme asceticism was occasioned by his attempt to tame his sexuality.
Continence in particular and austere self-denial in general,
conspicuously represented by heavy iron equipment, was the special
legacy of Qutb al-Din Haydar to his followers.
Unlike Jamal al-Din Savi and Qutb al-Din Haydar, the founding fathers of
the Qalandars and the Haydaris, Otman Baba cannot be considered the
founder of the Abdils of Rum. This group had a checkered history that
can be traced back to the seventh/thirteenth century. It was only during
the second half of the ninth/fifteenth century, however, that the Abdals
of Rum emerged as a distinct dervish band with peculiar beliefs and
practices. Otman Baba was without doubt the key player in the Abdal
drama of this period.
Otman Baba is known basically through his hagiography, which was written
by one of his followers called KĂŒcĂŒk Abdal in 888/1483, five years after
his masterâs death.[119] According to this work, Otman Babaâs real name
was HĂŒsam Sah He apparently came to Asia Minor from Khorasan during or
soon after TemĂŒrâs (r. 771-807/1370-1405) campaign into that peninsula,
although even his close disciples did not know his true origins. A
complete ascetic and ecstatic practicing the chahar zarb, he mostly
wandered about the mountains and high plateaus of northwest Asia Minor
and the Balkans, accompanied by a few hundred dervishes. The date of his
death is given as 883/ 1478â79; as he is said to have been born in
780/1378-79, he must have lived to be a centenarian. [120]
Otman Babaâs religious views were most intriguing. In keeping with a
well-attested Sufi tradition, he believed that sainthood (walayah) was
simultaneously the inner dimension and the guarantor of prophecy
(nubuwah).[121] As Otman Baba expressed it, sainthood was the âshepherdâ
of prophecy. Since sainthood served to perpetuate and confirm the
validity of prophecy, its denial amounted to a declaration of
unbelief.[122] Otman Baba apparently rested these views on a peculiar
interpretation of the famous Qurâanic verse of the primordial covenant
(7:172). God extracted the future humanity from the loins of Adam and
asked them, âAm I not your Lord?â Those who answered in the affirmative,
Otman Baba asserted, were the believers and the true unitarians, those
who answered negatively were the unbelievers, and those who did not
respond at all were the saints, presumably because they were so secure
in their relationship to God that they had no need of a covenant.[123]
After the termination of the cycle of prophecy in the figure of
Muhammad, the cycle of sainthood was initiated by his son-in-law and
cousin âAli ibn Abi Talib. The saintly institution was thereafter
preserved by a network of saints. Otman Baba divided saints into the two
broad categories of âinsaneâ (divanah) and âlicitâ (mashruâ), according
to whether the elements dominant in their nature were fire and air or
water and earth. While both of these two kinds were acceptable, the
âinsaneâ saints were clearly superior to those bound by the shariâah.
The excesses of the former, the divinely attracted (majdhub)saints, were
legally permitted to them.[124]
Otman Baba also insisted that the true saints were hidden from humanity
and cited the reputed extra-Qurâanic divine saying âMy friends are under
My tents [or My cloak]; no one knows them except Meâ as confirmation of
this view.[125] Consequently, he was extremely critical of all Sufi
masters who claimed exclusive rights to the instruction and guidance of
novices. He alleged that the hidden agenda of the âpeople of hospices,â
as he called the Sufi masters, was nothing more than the accumulation of
worldly goods. He himself was completely averse to owning property and
consistently rejected gifts of any kind, especially money, which he
likened to feces. Absolute poverty was the only social condition
conducive to religious salvation. [126]
Otman Babaâs own religious agenda seems to have been twofold. On one
hand, much of his saintly activity was directed toward open and radical
criticism of âpeople of hospices.â In general, he did not venerate any
saint of his time or of the past, with the exception of Sultan SĂŒcaâ and
Haci Bektas.[127] It is ironic, therefore, that Bektais in particular
were treated with contempt by Otman Baba. Long sections of Otman Babaâs
sacred biography are devoted to vehement criticism of a certain MĂŒâmin
Dervis and the latterâs master Bayezid Baba, both âhospice saintsâ who
apparently were Bektasis or at least held Haci Bektas in high esteem.
More specifically, on one occasion in Istanbul, Otman Baba intimidated
the Bektasi master Mahmud Ăelebi to such an extent that the latter ended
up seeking refuge from him in a nearby Edhemi hospice.[128]
On the other hand, Otman Baba put into practice in his own career a
vision of the doctrine of the unity of being whereby he thought God to
be manifest in everything and particularly in every human being. In
keeping with this view, he claimed to be in reality identical with
Muhammad, âIsa, and Musa (at times also Adam) or even with the Deity
himself. In the same vein, he drank used bath water and declared that
there were no impure objects, since all things equally reflected
God.[129] Presumably, this immanentist view formed the basis of his own
claim to sainthood, though it is not clear if he actually considered
himself to be one of the hidden saints or, indeed, the âPoleâ of the
universe.
Otman Baba cultivated a special relationship with the Ottoman sultan
Mehmed II (2d r. 855-86/1451-81). He predicted Mehmed IIâs rise to power
while the latter was still a prince and later warned the sultan against
his unsuccessful campaign to capture Belgrade. His aim in his dealings
with the sultan was the demonstration of his superiority, and, still
according to his biographer KĂŒĂ§ĂŒk Abdal, Mehmed II actually admitted
that the ârealâ sultan was Otman Baba.[130]
The most prominent feature of Otman Babaâs renunciation was its social
activism. In contradistinction to Jamal al-Din Savi, who tar- geted the
religious consciences of Muslim individuals as his audience by confining
himself to cemeteries, and in even greater contrast to Qutb al-Din
Haydar, who attempted to avoid human audiences altogether by
disappearing into the wilderness, Otman Baba aimed his rejectionist
agenda against institutions, primarily Sufi operations, but also those
of the political and non-Sufi religious elites.
The exemplary piety of the ascetic virtuosi was perpetuated and spread
throughout Islamdom through the activities of socially deviant dervish
groups that transformed the renunciatory ideals of the masters into
principles of religiously meaningful social action on a mass scale.
Qalandars, Haydaris, and Abdals of Rum attempted to preserve and
reproduce the peculiar modes of religiosity developed by or best
represented in the lives of Jamal al-Din Savi, Qutb al-Din Haydar, and
Otman Baba, respectively. The study of the history of these movements of
renunciation is fraught with difficulties. The relevant historical
evidence is widely scattered in various sources, somewhat thin, and at
times imprecise. This should not be surprising. On one hand, the
dervishes themselves were not likely to âdocumentâ their way of life in
writing, since rejection of this-worldly learning was a logical item on
their agenda. This did not prevent them from producing written
testimonies of deviant renunciation, especially in the form of
hagiographies of the ascetic masters. These accounts were apparently
targeted for internal consumption within the dervish groups and did not
have wider circulation. On the other hand, the fact that the dervishes
negated society through flagrant social deviation ensured that they
normally attracted the attention only of their detractors, who had
reason to misrepresent the message of deviant renunciation. The
dervishes were ignored by the rest of the cultural elite, except insofar
as their actions fleetingly came within the ambit of scholarly and
literary agendas of historians, biographers, religious reformers, and
litterateurs.
Thus, while only short accounts on key figures of renunciation were
incorporated into biographical literature and dervish groups were
mentioned only in passing in historical chronicles and large literary
compositions, self-appointed critics of deviant asceticism, such as
Muhammad al-Khatib and Vahidi, provided longer and independent
treatments of the subject. When combined with the internal accounts of
the deviant dervishes themselves, all this material, fragmented and
biased as it may be, allows us to reconstruct the contours of the
movements of deviant renunciation in the Later Middle Period.
Damascus, the most prominent city of Syria, was the earliest center of
new asceticism in Islamdom. After Jamal al-Din Savi left the city to
travel to Damietta, the leadership of the nascent community of Qalandars
was assumed first by Jalal al-Din al-Darguzini, then by Muhammad
al-Balkhi, the two foremost disciples of the master. The group was
exiled from the city by al-Malik al-Kamil of Egypt when he captured
Damascus and became its ruler in 635/1238. This was apparently a
short-lived exile for the Qalandars. They must have returned to the city
soon thereafter, since al-Malik al-Zahir (r. 65876/1260-77) is known to
have revered Muhammad al-Balkhi, the leader of the Qalandars in Damascus
during his reign. Muhammad al-Balkhi stipulated the wearing of heavy
jawlaqs for the Qalandars and, presumably during the rule of al-Zahir,
built a hospice for his dervishes at the expense of the public treasury.
During a visit to Damascus, al-Zahir bestowed a gift of one thousand
silver coins (dirhams) and several rugs to the Qalandars, who hosted the
sultan in their hospice. In spite of al-Balkhiâs refusal to accept
al-Zahirâs invitation to Egypt, al-Zahir also arranged for the delivery
of a yearly stipend of thirty sacks of wheat and a daily allowance of
ten dirhams to the Qalandars. [131]
The Qalandars were not the only deviant dervishes in Damascus during
al-Balkhiâs time. The Haydaris entered the city in 655/1257. They wore
loose robes open in the front (farajiyah), and tall hats (tartur); they
shaved their beards while they let their moustaches grow. This practice
was reportedly after the example of their shaykh Haydar, whose beard was
shaven by his captors when he was a prisoner in the hands of the
Ismaâilis. A hospice was constructed for them in the âAwniyah quarter.
[132]
In the same decade as the arrival of Haydaris in Damascus, a group of
Qalandars were sighted in Harran, northeast of Aleppo. They presented
themselves in 658/1259-60 to the Mongol HĂŒlegĂŒ, who was accompanied by
the renowned scholar Nasir al-Din Tusi (d. 672/ 1274). HĂŒlegĂŒ wanted to
know who these people were. Nasir al-Dinâs concise and unequivocal
answer, â[They are] the excess of this world,â was sufficient for the
Qalandars to be executed at HĂŒlegĂŒâs orders.[133]
Hasan al-Jawalaqi al-Qalandari, who earlier founded a hospice for
Qalandars in Cairo, traveled to Damascus with Sultan Kitbugha (r.
694-96/1295-97) in 695/1295-96. Kitbugha there visited the Qalandars in
the mountain of al-Mizzah, while Hasan organized a very large gathering
(waqt) of dervishes in the hospice of al-Hariri, thanks to a gift of one
thousand gold coins (dinar) that he received from Kitbugha.[134] Hasan
did not return to Egypt, but stayed in Damascus, where he died in
722/1322.[135] During the time of Khatib Farisi (ca. 740-50/1340-50),
there was still a sizable group of Qalandars in Damascus headed by
Muhammad Bukharaâi. The original hospice of the Qalandars continued to
function and was in existence during the early sixteenth century.[136]
The Qalandars spread to other cities in the Arab Near East soon after
their emergence in Damascus. In the Egyptian town of Damietta, there was
a band of Qalandars in the hospice of Jamal al-Din, headed by a certain
al-Shaykh Fath al-Takruri at the time of Ibn Battutahâs visit to that
town in 725/1325.[137] Another Qalandari hospice in Egypt was in Cairo.
The founder of this institution was Hasan alJawalaqi al-Qalandari. Hasan
learned the ways of Qalandars from Iranian shaykhs (fuqaraâ al-âajam)
and settled in Cairo shortly before or during the reign of Kitbugha. He
soon became a celebrity, grew rich, and founded a zawiyah outside Bab
al-Mansur in the direction of âtombs and graveyards.â This hospice
became a center for Qalandars in Cairo, where there were always large
numbers of Qalandars under the guidance of a master. Almost half a
century later, in 761/ 1359â60, al-Malik al-Nasir al-Hasan (2d r.
755-62/1354-61) issued a decree in which he forbade the Qalandars to
shave and to dress in the manner of Iranians and magi (al-majus
wa-al-aâajim). It was delivered in person to the master of the Qalandars
in Cairo, whose blessings, however, the sultan did not neglect to
solicit. [138]
In Jerusalem, an old church known as Dayr al-Akhmar in the middle of the
Mamila cemetery was converted into a Qalandari hospice toward the end of
the eighth/fourteenth century by a Shaykh Ibrahim al-Qalandari. Ibrahim
won the admiration of a woman named Tonsuq bint âAbd Allah
al-Muzaffariyah, who had a mausoleum (qubbah) built for him next to the
hospice in 794/1391-92. The hospice was inhabited by a group of
Qalandars. It collapsed in 893/ 1487â88 and was still in ruins during
the early tenth/sixteenth century.[139]
Evidence of a different kind pointing to the prominence of Qalandars in
the Fertile Crescent during the first half of the seventh/ thirteenth
century is provided by âAbd al-Rahman al-Jawbari, who attributes the
origin of the âreprehensible innovationâ (bidâah) of shaving off the
beard to them and informs his readers that these dervishes neither fast
nor pray.[140] Al-Jawbari also reports on Haydaris. These dervishes
shaved their beards and were accustomed to handling red-hot iron. They
pierced their genitals in order to suspend iron rings on them. They
were, as al-Jawbari would have it, mere impostors, and not one of them
could live a single day without consuming hashish.[141] The puritan Ibn
Taymiyah (d. 728/1328) also found occasion to condemn the Qalandars. He
denounced them as unbelievers who shaved their beards, neglected to pray
and fast, and violated Qurâanic prohibitions. They believed that the
Prophet Muhammad had given some grapes to their master âQalandar,â who
spoke in Persian.[142] In addition, Taqi al-Din ibn al-Maghrib 10f
Baghdad (d. 684/1285-86) composed a short Qalandari poem.[143] The image
of the Qalandar in this composition is that of a dissolute hedonist who
secures a living through fraudulent practices. His head is shaven, and,
if not simply naked, he wears either a felt cloak (dalq/dalaq) or a
shirt of lambâs wool.[144] He consumes marijuana juice (bang) and does
not touch wine because of its cost. He begs in Persian. A disciple of
Qutb al-Din Haydar is reported to have visited the khanqah of Abu Hafs
âUmar al-Suhrawardi (d. 632/1234) in Baghdad.[145] Qalandars also appear
in the Thousand and One Nights in the form of three one-eyed dervishes
with shaven heads, which is a clear sign of their reputation in the Arab
lands.[146]
The formation of the Qalandariyah occurred, then, in the predom- inantly
Arab regions of the Fertile Crescent and in Egypt during the first half
of the seventh/thirteenth century. Ethnically, however, the leadersand
one suspects the rank and fileof the movement at this stage were not
Arabs but mostly Iranians. The overwhelmingly Iranian nature of the
group is demonstrated in the first instance by the names of the
Qalandars attested in the sources. Jamal al-Din and his first âdiscipleâ
Jalal were themselves Iranians, from Savah and Darguzin, respectively.
His other major disciples were also from Iran and Asia Minor, though
different names are given for them in our sources (Muhammad Balkhi,
Muhammad Kurdi, Shams Kurdi, Abu Bakr Isfahani, Abu Bakr Niksari). In
the Syrian and Egyptian cultural spheres, the Qalandariyah appears to
have continued throughout the seventh-eighth/thirteenth-fourteenth
centuries mostly as an Iranian group. Hasan al-Jawalaqi, possibly an
Arab recruit, is reported to have learned the ways of Qalandars from
Iranian masters. Later, the Qalandars were forbidden to shave and dress
in the manner of Iranians. Further evidence supplied by the poet Taqi
al-Din ibn alMaghribi and Ibn Taymiyah suggests that the Qalandars
normally spoke Persian. Indeed, Jamal al-Dinâs biography was written in
Persian by the Shirazi Khatib Farisi under the direction of the Iranian
leader of the Damascus Qalandars, Muhammad Bukharaâi. It is likely,
therefore, that among Arabic speakers the Qalandariyah and possibly also
the Haydariyah, on which we have fewer details, were viewed as foreign,
predominantly Iranian, phenomena.
Significantly, there were in the Arab Near East indigenous dervish
movements that approximated socially deviant renunciation. The most
prominent of these in Syria, Iraq, and Egypt was the Rifaâiyah. Inspired
by the activity of their eponymous master Ahmad al-Rifaâi (d. 578/1183),
the Rifaâi dervishes challenged established modes of piety through
practices such as walking on fire, eating snakes, and piercing the body
with swords or long and sharp iron rods. The cultivation of
thaumaturgical practices was clearly a productive move that led to the
rapid spread of Rifaâiyah throughout the region and beyond in a short
time and produced related localized versions like the Haririyah, the
path of Abu al-Hasan âAli al-Hariri (d. 645/124748), in Damascus and the
Badawiyah, the path of Ahmad al-Badawi (d. 675/1276), in Tanta, Egypt.
[147] The spread of this complex movement in the region was concomitant
with the development of renunciatory dervish piety in the same area, and
to judge by a number of common practices (Haydaris, like Rifaâis, danced
on fire and Rifaâis, like Haydaris, wore iron collars), there was a
certain degree of interaction among these different dervish groups.
Although the early history of the Rifaâiyah and its presumed offshoots
has not been studied in detail, it is clear that in the long run these
movements distinguished themselves through emphasis on thaumaturgy
rather than antinomian rejection of society. Unlike deviant renouncers,
the Rifaâis seem to have deviated from social convention only during
miracle-working seances; at other times they were ânormalâ members of
society who functioned within the web of everyday social relations. This
impressionistic view, however, obviously needs to be tested through
close scrutiny of the historical evidence. [148]
Both Qalandars and Haydaris were active in Iran from the beginning of
the seventh/thirteenth century, though the relevant evidence is rather
scanty, possibly due to the paucity of source materials on Iran for this
period.[149]
The anonymous biography of the Persian poet Fakhr al-Din âIraqi (d.
688/1289) includes some information on the Qalandars. When âIraqi was
about seventeen years of age (ca. 627/1229-30, about a decade after the
destruction of his hometown Hamadan by Mongols in 618/1221), a group of
Qalandars appeared in Hamadan. âIraqi soon became enamored of a youth
who belonged to this group. Unable to separate from his beloved, he
followed the Qalandars to Isfahan, where he shaved his beard and became
one of them on their wanderings. Together they traveled as far as Delhi
and Multan in India and visited, presumably among other shaykhs, Bahaâ
al-Din Zakariyaâ, who is said to have welcomed them. After some further
adventures during which âIraqi lost track of all but one of his
companions because of a storm, the young poet decided to become a
disciple of Bahaâ al-Din and settled in Multan.[150]
On a different note, Shams Tabrizi, one of the many famous
contemporaries of âIraqi, is said to have brought about the death of a
reckless Qalandar who refused to make room for him during sama in a
gathering that took place in âIraq-i âAjam.[151] Abu al-Fadl al-Hasan
al-âUqbari heard a story about the origins of hashish from a Qalandari
shaykh called Jaâfar ibn Muhammad al-Shirazi while he was in Tustar in
658/1260. [152]
Somewhat later, we hear that a group of Qalandars gathered around Babi
Yaâqubiyan, the master of Hasan (or Ishan) Mengli who exercised some
influence on the Ilkhanid ruler Ahmad TegĂŒder (680-83/1282-84).[153]
Evidently, at around the same time, there were Qalandars in Shirvan and
Gilan. Shaykh Ibrahim Gilani (d. 700/ 1301), the master of the more
famous Safi al-Din Ardab1 (d. 735/ 1334), warned his followers against
them. More concretely, certain Qalandars attempted to kill Zahid Gilani
while he was in Shirvan. Indeed, the would-be assassins were later
punished at the orders of the Turkish governor of the region; the ears
and noses of many were chopped off, while one was summarily
executed.[154]
The presence of Qalandars is recorded in the southwest Iranian town of
Shar-i Zur, situated halfway between Mawsil and Hamadan, before the end
of the seventh/thirteenth century. Shaykh Qazi Zahir al-Din Muhammad, a
disciple of the well-known Sufi Awhad al-Din Kirmani (d. 635/1237-38),
retired to a mosque in a village close to Shar-i Zur in order to spend
the night. After nightfall, about ten Jawlaqs came into the mosque and
locked the door behind them. Thinking that they were aloneZahir al-Din
held his breath and carefully hidthey first had something to eat, then
prepared and consumed a hempdrink and performed a samaâ. Following this,
they engaged in other activities that Zahir al-Din did not deem fit to
describe. The fearful Qazi fled as soon as the Jawlaqs fell asleep.[155]
During the seventh/thirteenth century, the Haydaris were also active in
Iran. It is most likely that there was a nascent community of dervishes
around Qutb al-Din Haydar during his lifetime. The names of two direct
disciples of Qutb al-Din Haydar, Abu Khalid and Hajji Mubarak, are
recorded in the sources.[156] The reports of al-Qazwini, Ibn Battutah,
and Amir Hasan Sijzi establish that there was a group of followers in
Zavah within about half a century of Qutb al-Dinâs death, and the
sources of the early seventh/thirteenth century are already familiar
with the sight of a typical Haydari dervish, wearing iron collars,
rings, and bracelets. Ibn Battutah, who visited Zavah sometime between
732/1331-32 and 734/1333-34, comments that the Haydari dervishes who
wear iron rings on both their ears and genitals as well as collars and
bracelets are the followers of Qutb alDin Haydar.[157] The presence of
Haydaris in the area around Zavah is attested by the appearance of a
Haydari dervish in a short work that the Persian poet Pur-i Baha (d.
685/1286-87) composed in 667/1269. This dervish lived in a village of
the district of Khvaf immediately southeast of Zavah. He had a shaven
chin, wore a ring on his penis, and had in his company a young,
beardless boy. [158] The ethnic origins of these early followers are
obscure, though Qutb al-Dinâs possible Turkishness seems to have had its
effect on Haydari recruitment, if al-Qazwiniâs observations reflect a
more general trend. Qutb al-Dinâs popularity does not seem to have been
restricted to a particular social group, since he is said to have been
cherished equally by slaves and by rulers.[159]
Although it is more difficult to trace Qalandars and Haydaris in Iran
throughout the following two centuries when the region was politically
divided among Muzaffarids, Jalayirids, Timurids, Karakoyunlus, and
Akkoyunlus, this does not indicate their total disappearance from Iran.
The zawiyah of Qutb al-Din Haydar apparently continued to be an active
Haydari center. A certain Baba Resul is reported to have joined the
âorderâ and spent months and years at this zawiyah during TemĂŒrâs time
(r. 771-807/1370-1405).[160] Other evidence points to the existence of
Haydaris in Tabriz during the time of Karakoyunlu Kara Yusuf (r.
791-823/1389-1420, with a long interregnum due to the Timurid invasion)
and his son Iskender (r. 823-41/1420-38). Ibn al-Karbalaâi and Nur Allah
Shushtari, the principal sources on the subject, do not give any
description of these Haydaris. There is the tantalizing possibility that
these reports might be on an altogether new Haydari movement under the
leadership of a certain Qutb al-Din Haydar Tuni, quite distinct from any
preceding Haydari groups.[161] The same ambiguity, though to a lesser
extent, also persists in a letter that Akkoyunlu Uzun Hasan (r. 857-82/
1453â78) wrote to Sehzade Bayezid (who acceded to the Ottoman throne in
886/1481 as Bayezid II) after his victory of 872/1467 over Karakoyunlu
Cihansah and his subsequent capture of Tabriz. Uzun Hasanâs statement
that he suppressed heretic groups such as Qalandaris and Haydaris is
devoid of detail and leaves one in doubt as to the identity of these
Haydaris.[162]
The Qalandars too continued to exist in this period. A certain Zangi-i
âAjam-i Qalandari (d. 806/1403-4), for example, possessed a lodge in
Kirman and may have had a group of followers in this city.[163] In the
Timurid domains in eastern Iran, a single Qalandar with his beard shaven
and dressed in a single piece of felt without a shirt or underwear is
reported in the ninth/fifteenth century. [164] At the end of the same
century, Sultan Husayn Baykara (r. 875-912/1470-1506) wrote a letter to
the magistrate of Khvaf and Bakharz, ordering him to put an end to the
innovation (bidâah) of the fourfold shave (chahar zarb) that had become
popular among some young people and the Qalandars.[165] In addition,
Jami (817-98/1414-92) includes a discussion of Qalandars in his Nafahat
al-uns.[166]There are continued reports on Qalandars in Iran well into
the Safavid period.[167]
In comparison with Iran, attestations of Qalandars and Haydaris in
Muslim India of the seventh-eighth/thirteenth-fourteenth centuries are
at once more numerous and more informative. The appearance of Qalandars
in India is associated with the figures of Shaykh âUsman Marandi (better
known as Laâl Shahbaz Qalandar), Shah Khizr Rumi, and Bu âAli Qalandar
of Panipat. âUsman Marandi (d. 673/1274) was a prominent disciple of
Bahaâ al-Din Zakariyaâ who came to be known as âRubyâ (Laâl) because of
his habit of dressing in red, while the additional title âRoyal Falconâ
(Shahbaz) was conferred upon him by his shaykh. Several poetic
compositions are attributed to him. Upon his death, he was buried in his
native Sihvan in Sind, where his tomb grew to be a famous pilgrimage
center.[168] Of Shah Khizr Rumi, it is only possible to assert that he
was in Delhi during the lifetime of the Chisti master Qutb al-Din
Bakhtiyar Kaki (d. 633/ 1235) and had some affiliation with this shaykh.
He apparently met his death in his native Asia Minor.[169] Bu âA110f
Panipat probably lived somewhat later than either Laâl Shahbaz or Shah
Khizr, if one accepts as genuine the report of the date of his death as
724/ 1324. He is alleged to have been in contact with shaykhs Qutb
al-Din Bakhtiyar and Nizam al-Din Awliyaâ (d. 726/1325), though these
should be viewed as later legends built around B âAli, since Qutb al-Din
lived much earlier than Bu âAli, and the Chisti sources of the period
about Nizam al-Din do not contain any references to the shaykh of
Panipat. He established a khanqah in his native Panipat, which later
became a pilgrimage center for Qalandars and related groups.[170]
Other than these well-known figures, the presence of anonymous Qalandars
in Muslim India of the seventh/thirteenth century is at- tested by
several anecdotes found in Sufi literature as well as in historical
chronicles. The khanqahs of the Suhrawardi Bahaâ al-Din Zakariyaâ (d.
666/1267-68) in Multan and of the Chishti Farid al-Din Ganj-i Shakar (d.
664/1265) in Ajodhan were at times visited by Qalandars who, traveling
alone or in groups, did not refrain from engaging in provocative, if not
outright hostile, behavior toward settled Sufis. [171] Somewhat later, a
certain Qalandar known as Sultan Darvish and his companions seem to have
enjoyed the patronage of Tughril, the rebel governor of Bengal, who gave
the Qalandars three mans of gold from which to fashion their distinctive
metal paraphernalia. These Qalandars were executed along with other
followers of Tughril by Sultan Balban (r. 664-86/1266-87) upon his
suppression of the revolt in 677-78/1279.[172] Around the turn of the
seventh/thirteenth century and in the following decades, Qalandars
frequented the khanqahs of the Chishti masters Nizam al-Din Awliyaâ and
Nasir al-Din Chiragh-i Dihli in Delhi.[173] Groups of Qalandars
wandering in the countryside as well as in cities continued to be a
familiar sight in eighth/fourteenth-century Muslim India, to judge, for
instance, by frequent warnings of Shaykh Muhammad Gisuâdaraz against
association with Qalandars.[174]
The spread of Haydaris into India is also well attested. During the
reign of Jalal al-Din Firuz âShah (689-95/1290-96), there was a
prominent Haydari shaykh by the name of Abu Bakr Tusi Haydari in Delhi.
One of his dervishes called Bahri was involved in the murder of Sidi
Muwallih in the presence of the sultan. Abu Bakr had a khanqah on the
bank of the Jamnah river and is said to have enjoyed the company of many
established Sufi shaykhs as well as respected scholars.[175] Ibn
Battutah came across Haydaris in India on two occasions. The first was
in the vicinity of Amroha in northern India, where Ibn Battutah and his
company spent a night with a group of Haydari dervishes headed by a
black shaykh. Having built a fire with some wood that the company of Ibn
Battutah procured for them, the Haydaris danced on the burning wood
until the fire died out. The famous traveler was amazed to see that a
shirt that he had given to their leader before he started to dance on
the fire was returned to him intact; the fire had left no traces on the
fabric. Ibn Battutah met another group of Haydaris at Ghogah in Malabar,
also headed by a shaykh.[176]
It appears that the example of the Qalandars and the Haydaris was
instrumental in the formation of at least two separate indigenous
deviant dervish groups in India during the ninth/fifteenth century:
Madaris and Jalalis. The Madari movement crystallized around the
activities of Badiâ al-Din Qutb al-Madar (d. ca. 844/1440), one of the
most celebrated saintly figures of Muslim India. His dervishes were
mendicants who refused all clothing and rubbed their naked bodies with
ashes. They had long matted hair, wound iron chains around their heads
and necks, wore black turbans, and carried black banners. They were
notorious for their open rejection of religious observances as well as
for their excessive consumption of hemp. The Madaris spread to all
regions of northern India from Sind to Bengal, as well as to Kashmir and
Nepal. [177] The Jallis, for their part, professed allegiance to the
renowned saint of Uch in Sind, Jalal al-Din Husayn al-Bukhari, known as
Makhdum-i Jahaniyan Jahangasht (707-85/ 1308â84). They closely resembled
the Madaris in appearance, but distinguished themselves by practicing
the chahar zarb (shaving the head, beard, moustache, and eyebrows). In
spite of the documented Sunnism of Makhdum-i Jahaniyan, this particular
group of his followers were fervent Shiâis, who also adopted strange
practices such as eating snakes and scorpions.[178] The history of the
particularly Indian movements of the Madaris and the Jalalis is obscure,
and the nature of the interaction among all the socially deviant
renouncers of Muslim India, not to say anything about their Hindu
counterparts, is extremely difficult to establish. It is clear, however,
that by the end of the ninth/fifteenth century, rejection of society
through blatant social deviance had become a prominent religious option
in Indian societies.
As in other regions of the Islamic world, the Qalandars and the Haydaris
found their way into Asia Minor within decades of their emergence around
the beginning of the seventh/thirteenth century. There may have been
Qalandars in Antalya and even Constantinople already during Jamal
al-Dinâs lifetime.[179] More definite is the presence of a disciple of
Jamal al-Din by the name of Abu Bakr Niksari in Konya a few decades
later. Niksari was alive and well known in that city at the time of the
death ofJalal al-Din Rumi (672/1273). One of the seven bulls in the
funerary procession of Rumi was later sent to the hospice (langar) of
âthe divine gnostic Shaykh Abu Bakr Jawlaqi Niksariâ as a present. [180]
Rumi himself was familiar with the Qalandars and on one occasion told
his barber that he was envious of them because they had no beard at
all.[181] The famous Sufi poet also knew and conversed with Hajji
Mubarak Haydari, a direct disciple of Qutb al-Din Haydar, who lived in
Konya and greatly venerated Rumi.[182]
Outside Konya, the Qalandars were probably present in many other spots
in Asia Minor. The famous Haci Bektas (possibly d. 669/ 1270â7 ), for
instance, is said to have welcomed a group of Qalandars from Khorasan to
his dwelling in SulucakarahöyĂŒk, Kirsehir.[183] The Fustat al-âadalah fi
qavaâid al-saltanah of Muhammad ibn Muhammad al-Khatib, a work of
heresiography that contains the earliest known account of the emergence
of the Qalandars, was written in 683/ 1284â85 for a local audience in
Kastamonu, which suggests general familiarity with the Qalandars in that
area.
As in Iran, there is little sign of Qalandar and Haydari presence in the
peninsula during the eighth-ninth/fourteenth-fifteenth centuries. It is
quite clear, however, that the path of deviant renunciation left its
imprint on the development of Sufi modes of piety in the Turkish
cultural sphere. The key players in this process all felt the attraction
of dervish piety, and many completely succumbed to its pull. Some
prominent representatives of this latter option were Barak Baba,
Kaygusuz Abdal, and Sultan SĂŒcaâ.
Barak Baba was a native of Tokat in central Anatolia. His father was a
military commander and his paternal uncle a famous clerk. He became a
devoted disciple of the warrior saint Sari Saltuk, who gave him the name
Barak, âhairy dog,â when the disciple eagerly swallowed a morsel Sari
Saltuk had expectorated.[184] Toward the end of the seventh/thirteenth
century, Barak Baba traveled to Iran, where he gained the trust of the
Ilkhanid Ghazan Khan and of his successor, Muhammad Khudabandah Ăljeytö.
In 706/1306 he and his dervishes traveled to Syria and Egypt, apparently
on some mission on behalf of OljeytĂŒ. After a colorful entry into
Damascus, Barak Baba moved to Jerusalem but failed to enter Egypt. On
his return to Iran, he was killed on an expedition to Gilan in
707/1307-8. His bones were carried to Sultaniyah, where a hospice was
constructed for his followers by the Mongol ruler. When the Mevlevi
master Ulu âArif Ăelebi visited the hospice in 716/1316, a certain
Hayran Emirci was the master of the Baraki dervishes.[185] Barak Baba
was an ecstatic figure, with a most peculiar appearance. [186] He had a
predilection for dancing, singing, and uttering enigmatic sayings. Some
of his ecstatic expressions are preserved in a learned Persian
commentary written by a certain Qutb al-âAlavi in 756/1355.[187] While
these utterances are practically opaque for presentday readers, the mere
existence of al-âAlaviâs ingenious and sophisticated work suggests that
Barak Babaâs influence on posterity was not inconsiderable. Also
significant in this connection is the chain of initiation that runs from
Barak Baba through Taptuk Emre to the famous Turkish Sufi poet Yunus
Emre (possibly d. 720/1320-21).[188]
Kaygusuz Abdal lived in the second half of the eighth/fourteenth and the
first quarter of the following century. He was a disciple of Abdal Musa,
himself a rather merry figure with a clear liking for food, who carried
a club and addressed his dervishes as Abdals. Abdal Musaâs followers
donned animal hides, were equipped with dervish bowls, and practiced
blood-shedding during Muharram.[189] Kaygusuz Abdal himself normally
wore a felt cloak without sleeves or collar (kepenek), practiced the
fourfold shave (chahar zarb), and carried a horn. He consumed hashish
freely and, like his master, had a predilection for food.[190] His
writings are colorful elaborations upon a twofold central theme: each
human individual forms a microcosmos and, conversely, the cosmos is the
meganthropos.[191]
Sultan SĂŒcaâ was a contemporary of Kaygusuz Abdal. Already a master
Abdal during the reign of the Ottoman Bayezid I (r. 791-805/ 1389â1403),
he continued to be active throughout the first half of the
ninth/fiteenth century and had dealings with celebrated Sufis such as
Haci Bayram (d. 833/1429-30) and Ămmi Kemal as well as the Hurufi poet
Nesimi (d. ca. 820/1417-18). He reportedly met TemĂŒr (Tamerlane) during
the latterâs Anatolian campaign (804-5/1402) and refused to accept any
gifts from him.[192] Sultan SĂŒcaâ shaved his hair, eyebrows, eyelashes,
and beard, wore no garments, and traveled in the company of two to three
hundred Abdals in the summertime, while he spent the winters in a cave.
He apparently caught the eye of the Ottoman Murad II (r.
824-55/1421-51), who is known to have built a mosque in SĂŒcaâs name in
Edirne.[193]
The movements of deviant renunciation that crystallized around the
figures of Barak Baba, Kaygusuz Abdal, and Sultan SĂŒcaâ formed the basic
stock from which the more readily identifiable and distinct Abdals of
Rum at the turn of the sixteenth century came into being under the
formative influence of their master, Otman Baba.
The general survey of the spread and proliferation of movements of
socially deviant renunciation in the Arab Middle East, Iran, India, and
Asia Minor presented in the preceding chapter makes it possible to
narrow the field of investigation by concentrating on dervish groups
active in a specific cultural zone during a more limited period. The
Ottoman cultural sphere of the late ninth/fifteenth and early
tenth/sixteenth centuries is well suited for this purpose. An
exceptionally high number of dervish groups were in operation in Asia
Minor and the Balkans during this time. Apart from the ubiquitous
Qalandars and Haydaris, more specifically Ottoman bands such as the
Abdals of Rum, Bektasis, Jamis, and Shams-i Tabrizis roamed the empire.
More significantly, these groups are clearly, though not always
extensively, documented in the sources. Consequently, it is possible to
construct a panoramic view of the movements of deviant renunciation in
Ottoman Southeast Europe and Anatolia during the âclassical ageâ of this
colossal empire. [194]
The earliest genuinely descriptive account of the Qalandars in the
Ottoman empire was supplied by the Cantacuzene Theodoros Spandounes
(Spandugino in Italian), the first European to describe the dervish
groups in the Ottoman Empire. In his Turkish history composed between
1510 and 1519, there is the following passage on Qalandars, whom
Spandugino called the âtorlacchiâ (torlak, âbeardless, handsome youthâ):
the torlacchi ... are of the greatest numbers. The founder [of this
religion] was one who confessed that Jesus Christ was divine in nature
and was burned alive. The torlacchi are naked and wear the hide of
either sheep or some other [animal] on their shoulders. In addition, the
great majority of them wear felt [cloaks] without any kind of garment
and are thus afflicted with horrible colds in excessively cold weather.
For this reason, they cauterize their temples. They shave their beards
and moustaches and are men of a most evil nature. They are not to be
found in convents like monks, but are thieves, rascals, and
assassins.... They carry on their heads a felt cap that has wings and
they demand alms with great importunity from Christians, Jews, and
Turks. Each of them carries a mirror with a long handle that he holds
toward all people and says, âLook in and consider how before long you
will be different from what you are now; so become modest and pious,
think the better of [your] soul.â Having spoken in this manner, he gives
[the listener] an apple or an orange, which obliges one to give him one
asper as alms in return. They ride donkeys during the day while they beg
in the name of God, and at night they couple with these [same donkeys]
like women. [195]
Menavino (the first Italian print of his work dates back to 1548) also
referred to Qalandars as torlaks. He confirmed Spanduginoâs description
of the dervishesâ appearance and repeated the accusation of
reprehensible sexual practices. In addition, he noted that the Qalandars
appealed especially to women and claimed that these dervishes devised
crafty tricks to extract alms from the populace.[196]
The details found in the descriptions of Spandugino and Menavino are
matched on the Ottoman side by an exceptional source from the early
tenth/sixteenth century, Vahidiâs Menakib-i Hvoca-i Cihan ve Netice-i
Can (comp. 929/1522). According to Vahidi, Qalandars had clean-shaven
faces. They were naked except for loose woolen golden or black mantles.
They wore conical caps made of hair. Carrying drums, tambourines, and
banners, they chanted prayers and sang melodious tunes with joy and
fervor. They asserted that they had attained the state of baqaâ in the
world of fanaâ. In fact, they believed themselves to be the âcream of
Godâs creationâ: the whole of creation existed only for their sake.
Contentment and complete resignation, they argued, were the chief
attributes of a Qalandar, who was thus free from the need to earn a
livelihood and lived solely on charity. The Qalandar could come face to
face with the Divine Truth without the need of veils or curtains, a fact
symbolized by the clean-shaven face. On account of his frequent
encounters with the Divine, the Qalandar often found himself inspired to
ecstatic dance. Similarly, his unwillingness to settle in one place was
the manifestation of his realization, imparted to him through his
contact with the Divine, that one should not get attached to this
evanescent world. Instead, one should constantly be on the move in
search of oneâs origins, a quest common to all created beings. Vahidi
designated Hamadan as the place of origin of Qalandars. [197]
The revelatory accounts of Spandugino, Menavino, and Vahidi are enriched
by supplementary information gathered from Ottoman sources. There was a
zawiyah known as Kalenderhane (âthe house of Qalandarsâ) in Istanbul
during the reign of Mehmed II.[198] Several decades later, a
tax-register (tahrir) dated 929/1522-23 records another kalenderhane in
Larende, in the province of Karaman.[199] These reports, when coupled
with other less certain notices of kalenderhanes in Birgi, Bursa,
Erzincan, and Konya, suggest that such hospices were not uncommon.[200]
The presence of the Qalandars themselves is noted in Ottoman literary
sources. They were definitely present in Istanbul and elsewhere in the
empire soon after the conquest of the city, since Mevlana Esrefzade
Muhyiddin Mehmed, a very prominent religious scholar, gave up
scholarship in order to join a group of Qalandars; the Mevlana
apparently ended his days traveling around the empire with the
group.[201] In a similar vein, an anecdote concerning the Halveti Seyh
SĂŒnbĂŒl Efendi (d. 936/1529-30) includes the story of a young man who
confesses to having desired to run away with some Qalandars in his
search for knowledge and wisdom.[202] The Qalandars were present in
Edirne in 949/1542, when they joined the crowds who welcomed Sultan
SĂŒleyman to the city.[203]
As in the case of the Qalandars, Spandugino and Menavino gave detailed
descriptions of the Haydaris. Spandugino described a group of dervishes
whom he called Calendieri, though it is clear that he really had
Haydaris in mind. These dervishes had long beards and long hair. They
covered themselves with sacks, coarse felt, or sheepskins. Bearing iron
rings on their ears, necks, wrists, and genitals, they were, according
to Spandugino, more virtuous and worthy of respect than others of their
kind. [204] Menavino, who also called Haydaris Calenders, supplied
greater detail. According to him, the members of this group were for the
most part celibates who had their own little churches called tekkes. On
the doors of these tekkes appeared the phrase caedanormac dilresin
cuscuince alchachecciur, which Menavino translated as âhe who wants to
enter our religion should live as we do and preserve his chastity.â[205]
Dressed in short sleeveless coats made of wool and horse-hair and
ordinarily with shaven heads, these dervishes wore felt hats like those
of Greek priests, around which they hung strings of horse-hair about one
hand in length. They wore large iron earrings, collars, and bracelets as
well as iron and silver rings of unequal size and weight on their
genitals in order to keep themselves from engaging in sexual
intercourse. They wandered around reciting poems of âNerzimiâ (Nesimi),
whom they took to be the first hero of their religion. The poems were
pleasantly rhymed; in the opinion of Menavino, who claimed to have read
some of them, they reflected Christian influences.[206]
More extensive than the accounts of Spandugino and Menavino is Vahidiâs
detailed description.[207] As described by Vahidi, the Haydaris kept
their faces clean-shaven, except for moustaches that drooped down like
leeches over the chin, only to turn back upward to the ears; the parts
of the moustaches above the lips were twisted inward like prawns. Single
locks of twisted hair covered their foreheads (the hair was presumably
shaven). They wore iron rings around the neck, waist, wrists, ankles,
and genitals as well as tin earrings. Iron bells were suspended on their
sides. They were clothed in felt cloaks, with twelve-gored conical caps
on their heads. Carrying drums of various sizes, tambourines, and
banners, they chanted prayers and praises to God.
According to Vahidi, the Haydaris believed that the human face was a
mirror that reflected the Prophetic Spirit. The face of a Haydari in
particular, they argued, was like the sun that illuminated the universe
and should, therefore, be kept free of dust; hence the shaving of the
beard. By contrast, they did not touch the moustache at all, after the
example of âAli, who, according to the Haydaris, never shaved or trimmed
his moustache. Locks of twisted hair symbolized resistance to the animal
soul. Similarly, rings in general signified repression of the animal
soul. In particular, earrings symbolized ignoring unworthy speech;
collars, total subjugation to âAli; girdles, freedom from debasement;
bracelets, refraining from touching that which is illicit; and anklets,
avoiding sinful paths. Iron bells served to keep the group together and
also to convey secret messages to those who were capable of receiving
them. Legally prescribed ritual practices were superfluous for the
Haydaris, since they were blessed with Godâs grace and guaranteed enry
to Paradise. Therefore, they threw aside not only religious observances
(for they neither prayed nor fasted) but also rules of social conduct:
they did not earn their living themselves, traveled constantly, and
openly sought the company of young boys.
It is remarkable that the descriptive accounts of Spandugino, Menavino,
and Vahidi are in almost complete agreement on points of detail. There
is some uncertainty only concerning the Haydari headgear. Could they
really have been wearing conical hats with twelve gores just like the
nomadic Turkish supporters of the Shiâi Safavid rulers known as âRed
Headsâ (kizilbas), as Vahidi has it? The fact that the crimson caps of
the kizilbas are said to have been first fashioned for them by Shaykh
Haydar (864-93/1460-88) and are therefore known as the âcap of Haydar
â(taj-i Haydari) does not make it any easier to answer this question.
[208] Although there is evidence that the Haydaris used to wear some
kind of tall cap even before the time of Shaykh Haydar (see the account
of al-Nuâaymi above in chapter 5), Menavino said that the Haydaris wore
a different headgear altogether. In the absence of more information, one
can only speculate that the Haydaris exchanged their former twelve-gored
conical caps for hats of the type depicted by Menavino some time after
Vahidi composed his work, most likely because they were eager to
distance themselves from the kiztlba;, who were persecuted in the
Ottoman Empire.[209]
The descriptions given above are complemented by evidence of a different
kind on the presence of Haydaris in the Ottoman domains during the
tenth/sixteenth century. Menavino, as noted, referred to Haydari
hospices; indeed, it is certain that at least three Haydari hospices
existed in the Ottoman Empire in this period. One of these is recorded
in the tax-register (tahrir) of Karaman dated 929/1522-23, and another
in a list of pious foundations of Erzincan dated 937/ 1530. [210] The
other lodge in Istanbul is attested by an imperial edict to the judge of
Istanbul dated 992/1584, in which the judge was requested to inspect the
Haydari hospice in order to determine if its inhabitants maintained
practices that were in violation of the religious law. From the contents
of this document, it appears that the Haydari zawiyah, reportedly
founded for Haydari dervishes by Mehmed II, was earlier ordered closed
by imperial decree in accordance with the complaints of some citizens
who denounced its inhabitants as heretics in contact with Safavid Iran.
The dervishes in turn registered a petition in which they dismissed the
accusations as fabrications of a few individuals who wanted to take over
the zawiyah in order to construct a new building on its site and
substantiated their charge with testimonies of the co-inhabitants of
their quarter. It was this confusing affair that the sultan asked the
judge of Istanbul to investigate in his order of 992/1584.[211]
There are other traces of Haydari activity in the Ottoman Empire. The
dervish who attempted to assassinate Bayezid II on the road to Manastir
in 897/1492 is described as a Haydari in the contemporary chronicle of
Oruç ibn âAdil.[212] Fakiriâs Taârifat (comp. 941/1534-35), though less
informative in this case than it usually is, does include three verses
on the Haydaris.[213] In addition, at least one passage in the chronicle
of KĂŒĂ§ĂŒk Nisanci (d. 979/1571) no doubt refers to the Haydaris.[214]
More informative and colorful is a passage in the MesaâirĂŒs-suâara of
âAsik Ăelebi (d. 979/1572) contained in the chapter on Hayali Beg. From
âAsik Ăelebiâs description, it is clear that Hayali Begâs master Baba
âAli Mest was a Haydari. He wore earrings, a collar around his neck,
chains on his body as well as a âdragonheadedâ hook under his belt, and
a sack (cavlak) for clothing.[215] Hayali Bey himself did not remain a
Haydari for very long, though some lesser-known poets seem to have spent
their lives as wandering Haydaris, as suggested by the examples of
Hayderi and Mesrebi.[216]
Extensive descriptive accounts provided by Vahidi, Menavino, and Nicolas
de Nicolay leave no doubt that in the Ottoman Empire of the early and
mid-tenth/sixteenth century there was a particular group of dervishes
distinguished from other similar groups by their distinctive apparel and
paraphernalia (hatchet, club, leather pouch, spoon with ankle-bone),
peculiar customs (self-cauterization, tattoos), and special allegiance
to the hospice of Seyyid Battal Gazi in Eskisehir, commonly called
Abdals or Isiks. [217]
The physical appearance of the Abdals as described by Vahidi is quite
striking.[218] They were completely naked except for a felt garment
(tennure), secured with a woolen belt. Their heads and faces were shaven
and their feet bare. They carried âEbu MĂŒslimiâ hatchets on one shoulder
and âSĂŒcaâiâ clubs on the other.[219] Each Abdal possessed two leather
pouches (curâadans), presumably attached to the belt, one filled with
flint and the other with hashish. They carried large yellow spoons,
ankle-bones, and dervish bowls. Their bodies and their temples featured
burned spots. A picture of âAlâs sword was drawn or his name was written
on their chests; also prominent were pictures of snakes on their upper
arms. They carried lamps and played tambourines, drums, and horns, at
the same time screaming. They were normally intoxicated on hashish (kan
hayran).
According to Vahidi, Abdals maintained that the Prophet Adam was their
model for many of their practices. When he was expelled from Paradise,
Abdals explained, Adam was completely naked except for a fig-leaf that
he used to cover his private parts and had to survive on âgreen leavesâ
only. Similarly, Abdals wandered around naked except for a tennure
symbolizing Adamâs fig-leaf and consumed hashish (âgreen leavesâ) in
considerable quantities. Their nudity was a symbol of âtearing the
garment of the bodyâ and the nothingness of this world. Hashish was a
means to find respite from the unreal phenomena of time and space and to
attain the hidden treasure of reality. Abdals held that the hair, the
beard, and the moustache were contingent things that should be shaven in
order to render brilliant the âmirror of the face.â They were very fond
of food (a long list of dishes is provided). The meals were followed by
hashish-taking and musical sessions (samaâ). They normally slept on the
ground and were awakened with the sound of a horn, a symbol of the
trumpet of the archangel Israfil: thus every morning awakening was
likened to resurrection. Abdals were free from all prescribed religious
observances since they were not really in this world at all. Their true
guide was âAli and, as indicated by the Ebu MĂŒslimi hatchet, they were
the enemies of âAliâs enemies. They also highly cherished Hasan, HĂŒseyn,
and the twelve imams. Their kaâbe, however, was the hospice of Seyyid
Gazi, as represented by the distinctive lamps they carried.
Menavinoâs long account of the Abdals, reproduced here in its entirety,
is equally detailed and informative:
The Dervisi are men of good humor. They have as clothing sheepskins
dried in the sun which they suspend from their shoulders [in such a way
as to] cover their private parts, one in the front and one in the back.
The rest of their bodies are totally naked and devoid of all bodily
hair. They have in their hands clubs, no less big than long, thick and
full of nodes. On their heads are white conical hats, one hand in
height. Their ears are pierced, where they wear earrings of precious
stones and jasper. They live in various places in Turkey where travelers
are fed and accommodated. In summertime they do not eat in their
dwellings but live on alms that they ask for with the words sciaimer
daneschine [sah-i merdan âaskina], that is, demanding alms for the love
of that brave man called âAli, the son-in-law of Muhammad.... In
Anatolia they have the tomb of another called Scidibattal [Seyyid
Battal/Seydi Battal] who they say was responsible for the greatest part
of the conquest of Turkey. There they have a house wherein live more
than five hundred of them and where, once a year, they hold in joy and
exultation a general meeting that lasts seven days, in which more than
eight thousand participate. Their chief is called Assambaba [Aâzam
Baba?], which means the father of fathers. Among them are found many
learned youths who wear white garments reaching down to their knees.
When they arrive [at the tekke of Seydi Battal], one of their numbers
narrates a story that contains [an account of] miraculous things seen
during the course of travels through [different] regions, which they
then write down along with the name of the author and present it to the
chief. On Fridays, which is their Sunday, they prepare a good meal and
eat it on the grass in an open field that is not far from their
dwelling. Assambaba ... sits among them, surrounded by the learned ones
dressed in white. After the meal, the chief rises to his feet and the
rest do likewise. They say a prayer to God and then all cry out in a
loud voice Alacabu Eilege [Allah kabul eyleye], that is, may God accept
this our prayer. Also among them are certain youths called cuccegler
[köçekler], who carry in certain hand-trays a pulverized herb called
asseral [esrar], which, when eaten, makes one merry just as if one had
drunk wine. First the chief then all the others in order take this into
their hands and eat, and this done, read of the book of the new story.
They then move to a place closer to their dwelling where they prepare a
great fire of more than one hundred loads of wood. Taking each otherâs
hands, they turn round [the fire], singing praises of their order, in
the same way as our peasants are accustomed to by their festivities, men
and women in a round dance. When the dance ends, they take out knives
and with the sharp point draw pictures of branches, leaves, flowers, and
wounded hearts on the arms, breasts, or thighs, just as if they were
engraving on wood. They engrave these in the name of those with whom
they are enamored. Afterward, they approach the fire and place hot
embers on the wounds, which they then cover with old cotton [rags]
wetted with urine that they have prepared; the wounds heal by the time
the cotton [rags] fall off on their own. In the evening, having received
the permission of their chief, they form a squadron, like soldiers in
arms, and return to their dwelling with banners and tambourines [in
hand], asking for alms on their way. In Constantinople they are not
viewed with much tolerance since one of them once attempted to kill the
Great Turk with a sword that he carried under [his cloak]. All the same,
they give them alms since these latter care for travelers in their own
dwelling. [220]
Nicolas de Nicolay, although he largely paraphrased Menavino, also made
some additions and alterations. According to him, the Abdals, whom he
called deruis, were bare-headed and carried small hatchets instead of
clubs under their girdles. Nicolas noted that the herb that they ate was
called matslach (maslik) and the wounds that they inflicted upon
themselves were cured by means of a certain herb. He mistakenly
identified the sultan upon whose life an attempt was made by a dervish
as Mehmed II and, in addition, accused the Abdals of robbery, sodomy,
and other similar vices.[221]
The combined testimony of Vahidi and Menavino allows us to identify as
Abdals the âderwisslerâ described in some detail in the much earlier
account of Konstantin Mihailovic, who served as a Janissary from 1455 to
1463 C.E.:
[The derwissler] have such a custom among them: they go about naked and
barefoot, and they wear only deerskins, or the skins of some other
beasts. Some also have skirts made of felt according to their custom.
And they gird themselves with chains in crisscross fashion. They go
about bare-headed. And they sheathe their instrumentum, alias penis, in
iron. They burn themselves on the arms with fire and cut themselves with
razors. In what they walk about, so do they sleep. They do not drink
wine, nor do they have any kvas. They beg for dinner. And what is left
after dinner they give back to distribute to the poor as charity. They
do likewise at supper. They never have anything of their own, but walk
about the cities like lunatics.... And also at vespers they dance, going
around [in a circle]. Having placed a hand on each otherâs shoulder,
nodding their heads and hopping with their feet they cry in a great
voice, Lay lacha ylla lach which means in our language âGod by God and
God of Gods.â So vehemently do they dance and cry out that they are to
be heard from afar just as if dogs were barking-one low and the other
high. This dance of theirs is called the samach, and they hold it to be
some sort of sacred thing and great piety. And they whirl about so
violently that water flows from them, and they froth at the mouth like
mad dogs. They overexert themselves so much that one falls here and
another there. Then having recovered from this insane overexertion, each
goes to his den. [222]
Evidence on the Ottoman side is by no means restricted to Vahidiâs
Menaklb. References scattered in the works of such Ottoman writers as
âAsikpasazade (d. after 889/1484), Fakiri, KĂŒĂ§ĂŒk Nisanci, and Mustafa
âAli (d. 1008/1600) suggest that the Abdals of Rum were a well-known and
distinct dervish type.[223] More significantly, there were quite a few
poets in the tenth/sixteenth century who were Abdals, if only for a
certain period of their lives, or at least Abdals in character
(Abdal-mesreb). Hasan Rumi, Seher Abdal, Siri, Muhyiddin Abdal and Feyzi
Hasan Baba, all minor poets who survive only in name with at most a few
poems to their credit, were probably Abdals.[224] âAsker10f Edirne,
Kelami, Yetimi, Yemini, and Sems10f Seferihisar, better-known poets,
were definitely Abdals. âAskeri, for instance, lived as an Abdal,
frequenting the hospice of Seyyid Gazi as well as the tomb of the tenth
Ithna âAshari imam al-âAskari (d. 254/ 868 in Samarraâ)-hence his pen
name-until he became the owner of considerable properties through a
brief marriage.[225] Kelami appears to have been the follower of a
certain HĂseyn Dede of the Abdalsâ hospice in Karbalaâ, this being the
only evidence for the existence of such a center of Abdal activity in
that place. [226] Yetim10f Germiyan is expressly said to have lived at
the Seyyid Gazi hospice itself.[227] Yemini, who composed in 925/1519 a
long work in verse on the life and miracles of âAli ibn Abi Talib
entitled âThe Book of the Virtues of âAll, the Leader of the Faithfulâ
(Faziletname-i emrĂŒâl-mĂŒâminin âAli), was a disciple of the Abdal master
Akyazlli Sultan, the preeminent disciple of Otman Baba.[228] Sems10f
Seferihisar, the author of the work entitled âTen Birdsâ (Deh murg),
which brought him to the notice of Sultan Selim I (r. 918-26/1512-20),
also seems to have been an Abdal and indeed was known as Isik Semsi. The
chapter of the Deh murg devoted to the speech of the vulture (the âAbdal
of the birdsâ in the poem) contains an accurate description of a typical
Abdal that is in remarkable agreement with the reports of Vahidi and
Menavino.[229]
Perhaps the most significant poet of all is the famous Hayreti (d.
941/1535) of Vardar Yenicesi, who not only referred to the Abdals of
Asia Minor on numerous occasions in his poetry but also described and
praised them in separate poems composed for this purpose.[230] Although
these poems do not really add to our knowledge of the Abdals, they do
serve to confirm it in many respects, especially since they were
composed, for once, by a poet who openly declares his admiration for
this much-criticized group of dervishes. Thus, Hayretiâs testimony
establishes beyond doubt that the Abdals were fervent Twelver Shiâis,
that they did indeed inflict wounds upon their bodies, and that they
were very fond of consuming hashish and wine.[231] They did claim to
have completely subdued the animal soul and to have attained the state
of âdeath before death.â[232]
On a different note is the testimony of a certain âAbdĂlvehhab known as
Vehhab-i Ămmi, said to have been a disciple of the Halveti Yigitçibasi
Ahmed (d. 910/1504). In two poems which he composed in denunciation of
the Abdals, Vehhab-i Ămmi provides us with an image that, apart from its
negative tone, is very similar to that of Hayreti.[233]
More detailed information on the Abdals of Seyyid Gazi Ocagi itself,
however, is to be found in the entry on âIsreti (d. 974/156667), himself
not an Abdal, in the biographical dictionary of âAsik Ăelebi. Upon being
appointed the judge of Eskisehir through the influence of his
benefactor, Sehzade Bayezid (d. 969/1562), shortly after the Ottoman
campaign to Iran of 960-62/1553-55, âIsreti went on an inspection tour
to the Seyyid Gazi hospice and reported his observations to Sultan
SĂŒleyman himself. [234] âIretiâs report was presumably similar in
content to âAsik Ăelebiâs own description of the Abdals, colorful as
usual:
The tekke of Seydi Gazi in the province of Anatolia supported vice and
immorality. [It was full of] vagabonds who had broken ties with their
parents [and] run-aways who had become Isiks in search of a place in a
hospice, singing in harmony like musical instruments, with faces that
are free from the adornment of belief which is the beard, and their dark
destinies [written on their foreheads] concealed by the clean-shaving of
their eyebrows. Saying that their prayers had already been performed and
their shrouds already sewn and fastened, they only uttered four tekbtrs
at the times of the five daily prayers and did not take ablutions or
await the prayer-call or heed the prayer-leader. They were a few
gluttonous asses who survived on the alms-giving of sultans and charity
of good people. Hoisting a different flag than that of SultanĂ¶Ă±ĂŒ, they
would raid the surrounding areas and would sound the horn of ridicule
whenever they saw regiments of military commanders with banners and
drumbeat. If the people of villages and cities were to heed the
precedents [that the Abdals set], they would, like Deccal, follow their
backs [that is, do everything in inverse order], would strip the maidens
that they run into and would have them dress in their own manner. The
student who fell out with his teacher, the provincial cavalry member
[sipahi]who broke with his master [aga], and the beardless [youth] who
got angry at his father would [all] cry out âWhere is the Seyyid Gazi
hospice?â; go there, take off their clothes, [be put in charge of]
boiling cauldrons; and the Isiks would make them dance to their tunes,
pretending that this is [what is intended by] mystical musical audition
[semdâ]and pleasure. For years on end, they remained the enemies of the
religion and the religious and the haters of knowledge and the learned.
According to their beliefs, they would not be true to the Truth if they
did not show hostility to the people of the Law and would not be worthy
of becoming a mufred[235] if they did not humiliate the judges.[236]
Additional information about the tomb and hospice (tekke) of Seyyid Gazi
itself in the tenth/sixteenth century is provided by archival
documentation and, much later in mid-eleventh/seventeenth century, the
travel accounts of Evliya Ăelebi. [237] Significantly, it appears that
the tekke, in its organization and social-economic activities, was no
different from institutions of larger, well-established orders such as
the Mevleviye and Halvetiye. Mosque, hostel, hospice, refectory, and
center of pilgrimage in one, the tekke, which housed around two hundred
servants and dervishes according to a document dated 935/1528-29,
apparently never ceased to receive financial support from the central
government.[238] The disciplinary measures adopted in various efforts to
curb heretic practices never seem to have led to the total disruption of
the activities of the tekke. SĂŒleymanâs response to the above-mentioned
report of âIreti, for example, was to order the expulsion of
recalcitrant heretics and the foundation of a madrasah on tekke
grounds.[239] All the same, the establishment continued to function, if
on a diminished scale, throughout the tenth/sixteenth and the first half
of the following century.[240] The most significant development by this
latter date, other than the decline of the tekke in economic terms,
which was most likely connected more with downward trends in the overall
agricultural economy than with disciplinary measures of the government
against the foundation,[241] was the transformation of the longtime
center of Abdal activity into a Bektasi center. When Evliya Ăelebi
visited the foundation around 1058/1648, he was entertained in a
thoroughly Bektasi institution. In the absence of sufficient evidence,
it is not possible to trace the different stages of this curious
transformation, which, however, adequately reflects the final fate of
the Abdals: gradual submersion in the growing and stronger network of
the officially accepted Bektasiye.[242]
Although they are difficult to trace, it would appear that the same fate
befell other Abdal centers as well. Other than the tekke in Karbalaâ,
mention should be made, in the first instance, of two tekkes situated
very near to Seyyid Gazi: that of âUryan Baba in the village of Yazidere
and that of Sultan SĂŒcaâ in the village of Aslanbey. Very little is
known about the former, a modest construction consisting of a single
room attached to âUryan Babaâs tomb that appears to have been
constructed at around the same time as the tekkes of Seyyid Gazi and
Sultan SĂŒcaâ at the beginning of the tenth/sixteenth century.[243]
Significantly, the name of the âmaster of the [present] masterâ of the
Abdals in Vahidiâs Menakib is given as âUryan Baba.[244] The other tekke
in question was built in 921/1515-16 in the name of Sultan SĂŒcaâ.[245]
Although the activity of Abdals was concentrated around their main
center in Seyyid Gazi, it was by no means restricted to midwestern Asia
Minor. Indeed, Otman Baba, the patron saint of the group, whose
historical personality is reasonably clear, appears to have spent the
greater part of his life in the Balkans. His zawiyah, which can be
traced back to the time of SĂŒleyman (r. 926-74/1520-66) though probably
built earlier, still stands today close to Uzuncaova between Haskovo and
Harmanli in Bulgaria. [246]
Otman Baba had a number of disciples, at least some of whom seem to have
followed his advice toward the end of his life that his dervishes should
found tekkes and begin to lead settled lives. The most famous of such
disciples was Akyazih Sultan, who, according to the testimony of his own
follower Yemini (the above-mentioned poet), became the leader of Abdils
in the year 901/1495-96 and still held that post when Yemini wrote his
Faziletname in 925/1519.[247] The tekke of Akyazlll Sultan, still
partially standing today north of Varna in Bulgaria, was evidently an
impressive building. In or even before the eleventh/seventeenth century,
it became one of the largest Bektasi centers in the Balkans.[248]
Another disciple of Otman Baba was Koyun Baba, who apparently
established a zawiyah in Osmancik, Amasya. He is mentioned in the
hagiography of Otman Baba as Ank. obin and is thought to have died in
873/1468-69.[249] It is certain that close scrutiny of the sources will
unearth many more members of the group.[250]
Abdals of Rum, Qalandars, and Haydaris were not the only groups of
deviant renouncers in Ottoman lands at the turn of the tenth/ sixteenth
century. There were several others, of which the Jami group is the
easiest to trace in the sources.
The earliest report on Jamis is found in the work of Spandugino, who
said that the Jamis (âDiuamiâ) had the same outward appearance as
Haydaris, except that they did not wear iron rings on their genitals.
They asked for alms from anyone and chanted psalms.[251] Compared to
this nondescript account, Vahidiâs description is much more colorful.
Jamis had very long hair reaching down to the knees, matted and twisted
like snakes. Their beards were clean-shaven, while their moustaches were
left untouched. They were dressed in felt and wore earrings of Damascene
iron on their right ears, iron rings on their wrists, and belts studded
with bells on their waists. They wandered about barefoot. Vahidi assures
his readers that Jamis were very proficient in music. Endowed with very
pleasant and moving voices, they chanted prayers and eulogies to God to
the accompaniment of tambourines and drums. They also consumed large
quantities of wine.
Jamis maintained, still following Vahidiâs testimony, that long, matted
hair symbolized the unbroken Jami tradition that enabled the dervishes
to attain to the presence of (their eponymous leader) Ahmad of Jam in
the hereafter. At the same time, long hair was also a sign of their
spiritual descent from âAli. Alternatively, if twisted locks of hair
were taken to stand for wicks, the heart for an oil-container, and the
body for a lamp, then the heads of the Jamis could be said to be afire
with flames of love. Indeed, Jamis believed that they, especially their
faces burning with the fire of love, were the source of light for the
whole of creation. For this reason, they argued that the beard, which
was like a cloud that stained the sun, should be shaved. The moustache,
however, had to be grown, since the people of Paradise wear moustaches.
Their earrings reminded Jamis not to listen to the words of anyone but
âAli. Iron bracelets demonstrated that Jamis do not have anything to do
with the devil. Iron belts served as the anchor of the ship of existence
(that is, the body), while bells were for musical harmony. They were
indeed highly skilled in the art of music; their David-like voices were
God-given gifts. Finally, Jamis had no worries concerning their
livelihood, as God provided them their sustenance at all times. [252]
Equally detailed and informative is Menavinoâs account on Jamis,
reproduced here in full:
The religion of Giomailer [Jams] is not far removed from this world.
Mostly men of imposing stature, they generally love to travel through
different lands like Barbary, Persia, India, and Turkey in order to see
and understand the ways of the world. The majority of them are excellent
artisans. They can give accounts of [the customs of] all the places that
they have traveled to and are able to give answers about everything;
they also keep written accounts of their travels. They are for the most
part sons of noblemen, not less rich in goods than in nobility and are
all perfectly literate, since they begin their studies at an early age.
Their dresses, devoid of stitches and more often brown and purple in
color, are worn wrapped around the shoulders. They wear belts of no mean
beauty, entirely embroidered in gold and silk, at the ends of which are
suspended bells of silver mixed with other metals that give out a very
pleasant sound from far and near alike; each of them carries five or six
of these bells, not only on their belts but also on their knees. Over
their shoulders are hides, of some animal like lion, leopard, tiger, or
panther, the legs of which are tied in the front. They have silver
earrings on their ears and long hair reaching down onto the shoulders,
like our women, and in order to make it longer, they have various
tricks, using turpentine and varnish to attach another kind of hair (of
which camlet is made) to their own, so that from a distance their hair
appears to be of marvelous beauty and length. They spend more time for
this than for their own vocation. They generally carry a book in their
hands, written in Persian and containing amorous songs and sonnets
composed in rhyme according to their custom. They do not wear anything
on their heads, and on their feet are shoes made of ropes. When there is
a group of them, the bells produce very pleasant sounds that give the
listener great pleasure. If by chance they run into a youth in the
street, they give him such a beautiful concert, taking him into their
midst, that people gather round to listen, and while they sing, one in
tenor and others in other voices, one of them sounds a bell in unison,
and at the end all of them sound the bells of their girdles and knees
altogether. They visit all artisans alike, and these latter give them
one asper each. It is they who frequently incite a passionate love for
themselves in women and young men. They wander about anywhere they
please. The Mohammedans call them âmen of the religion of loveâ and
regard them as nonobservants, which is true. [253]
In comparison to the lively accounts of Vahidi and Menavino, the latter
repeated with few changes by Nicolas de Nicolay, the reports in other
sources fade in importance.[254] Cumulatively, however, the relevant
evidence is certainly sufficient to demonstrate that the Jamis were well
known to the Ottoman populace of the first half of the tenth/sixteenth
century as a distinct religious group. While the profile of the Jami
movement during this period is thus clearly established, its historical
origins remain obscure. The life and religious personality of the person
whom the Jamis claimed as their spiritual leader, Shihab al-Din Abu Nasr
Ahmad ibn Abi al-Hasan al-Namaqi al-Jami, known as ZhandahâPil
(441-536/1049-1141) has been studied in some detail. [255] From his
prose works of certain attribution, it appears that Ahmad of Jam was a
devout Sunni, eager to base Sufism, much like al-Kalabadhi (d. 380/990
or 384/994) and al-Qushayri (d. 465/1072), firmly on the Qurâan, the
sunnah, and the shariâah. A collection of Persian poems that circulates
under his name, however, would make him out to be an ecstatic Sufi who
harbored almost pantheistic views and is, therefore, of doubtful
attribution.[256] Ahmad had a group of followers during his lifetime,
though their fate after the death of the master is obscure. Ahmadâs
descendants, however, continued to be revered as eminent religious
personalities through the end of the ninth/fifteenth century.[257] It is
thus quite difficult to explain when and how the later Jami dervishes in
the Ottoman Empire have come into existence. One could only speculate
that the same tendencies that led to the attribution of highly ecstatic
poetry to Ahmad were also at work in the emergence of a group of
distinctly antinomian dervishes who adopted him as their spiritual
leader.
Vahidi, the incomparable observer of the Ottoman dervish scene at the
beginning of the tenth/sixteenth century, included in his Menakib a
brief description of the Shams-i Tabrizis, a group of dervishes
otherwise unattested under this name.[258] The heads and faces of
Shams-i Tabrizis were clean-shaven. They wore felt caps with flat tops,
dressed in black and white felt cloaks, and were barefoot. They would
frequently become intoxicated on wine, play drums and tambourines, and
dance and chant prayers to God. They claimed to have achieved union with
the Beloved and stated that the âsword of attainmentâ had shaved their
hair. Itinerants and mendicants, they believed that they functioned as
mirrors in which everyone could see his/her true self. They thus
illuminated the world like the sun.
Shams of Tabriz (d. 645/1247), who was the spiritual mentor of Jalal
al-Din Rimi (d. 672/1273), is not known to have started a spiritual path
in his own name. He was, however, particularly revered by certain
dervishes of the Mevleviye, the Sufi order that evolved around Rumiâs
exemplary religious activity and took its name from Rumiâs sobriquet
âMawlanaâ (âour masterâ). The Mevleviye is commonly thought to have been
inextricably associated with Ottoman high culture and thus
shariârah-bound, presumably because of the existence of good relations
between the Ottoman court and major Mevlevi masters in late Ottoman
history. In reality, the order harbored, from its inception, two
conflicting modes of spirituality. The first was a socially conformist
approach that tried to direct Rumiâs ecstatic piety into legally
acceptable channels. The conformists were known collectively as the âarm
of Veledâ after Rumiâs son, Sultan Veled (d. 712/1312), who was rightly
seen as the originator of this mode of piety. The second approach,
however, took shape around the refusal to exercise any kind of control
over ecstatic spiritual experience and was associated with the name of
Shams of Tabriz. The social deviants were therefore known as âthe arm of
Shams.â The Shams-i Tabrizis of Vahidi were none other than the
followers of Shams within the Mevleviye.
The arm of Shams had been in evidence since the early phases of the
Mevlevl Order. Ulu âArif Celebi (d. 720/1320), the grandson of Rumi and
master of the path, openly consumed wine, eschewed social and religious
convention, and maintained good relations with socially deviant
dervishes, among them the followers of Barak Baba. The overvaluation of
uncontrolled ecstasy seems to have peaked during the first half of the
tenth/sixteenth century (when Vahidi wrote his account of Shams-i
Tabrizis) around the figures of Yusuf Sineçak (d. 953/1546), Divane
Mehmed Ăelebi (died second half of the century), and the latterâs
disciple Sahidi (d. 957/1550). These âShamsians,â especially Divane
Mehmed, were notorious for their open violation of and disregard for the
sharâah. They shaved their heads and faces, donned special caps with
flat tops, consumed wine, and were generally noted for their flagrant
unconventional social behavior. The chasm between them and the socially
respectable Mevlevis must have been quite deep, since Vahidi treated
them as two distinct groups, including separate descriptions of the
Shams-i Tabrizis and Mevlevis, whom he praised for their compliance with
the shariâah and the sunnah. [259] The spiritual duality remained a
characteristic of the order beyond the tenth/sixteenth century, and the
Mevleviye continued to harbor the âShamsianâ trend until modern
times.[260]
The Bektasis are well known to students of Ottoman history as a major
Sufi order in Ottoman lands. The order took shape during the
tenth/sixteenth century and exerted tremendous influence on all levels
of Ottoman life during the next two centuries. [261] It is not generally
known, however, that at the beginning of the tenth/sixteenth century,
when Vahidi wrote his Menakib (completed in 929/1522), the Bektasis, far
from being a Sufi order, were but one, and not even the largest, of the
many distinct groups of socially deviant dervishes operating within
Ottoman borders.
Vahidiâs account on the Bektasis is the earliest attestation of this
group.[262] According to his description, the heads and faces of
Bektasis were clean-shaven. They wore twelve-gored conical caps of white
felt, two hands wide and two hands high. These caps were split in the
front and in the back and ornamented with a button made of âSeyyid Gazi
stoneâ (meerschaum?) at the top, with long woolen tassels reaching down
to their shoulders. On four sides of the fold of the cap were written
(I) âThere is no God but God,â (2) âMuhammad is His messenger,â (3)
ââAli MĂŒrteza,â and (4) âHasan and HĂŒseyn.â The dervishes were dressed
in short, simple felt cloaks and tunics. They carried drums and
tambourines as well as banners and chanted hymns and prayers. Bektasis,
as reported by Vahidi, kept their faces and heads clean-shaven after the
example of Haci Bektas, their spiritual leader, who, they believed, had
lost all the hair on his head and face as a result of forty years of
ascetic exercises on top of a tree. They also wore their caps as symbols
of their submission to Haci Bektas. In a similar vein, the writings on
the caps were intended as means of glorifying the Prophet, âAli, Hasan,
and HĂŒseyn. The button on the cap stood for the human head, since the
Bektasis are in reality âbeheaded dead peopleâ (ser-bĂnde mĂrde): they
had died before death. Indeed, Bektasis claimed to be none other than
the hidden saints themselves.
Later Bektasi dervishes of the end of the tenth/sixteenth century and
beyond were substantially different in both belief and practice from the
Bektasis of the early tenth/sixteenth century as described by
Vahidi.[263] These differences came about through a complicated process.
During the tenth/sixteenth century, the Ottoman state, for various
reasons, exerted increasing pressure upon socially deviant dervish
groups. As a result, the Qalandars, Haydaris, Abdals of Rum, Jamis, and
Shams-i Tabrizis lost vigor and ceased to exist as independent social
collectivities, while the Bektasi dervish group was transformed into a
full-fledged Sufi order that continued to uphold the legacy of deviant
renunciation. The reason for the success of the Bektasis was their firm
connection with the Ottoman military system: the Janissaries, by
long-standing tradition, paid allegiance to Haci Bektas, the patron
saint of the Bektasi group. [264] Armed with this advantage, the Bektasi
allegiance became the privileged ideological discourse of renunciation
and was actively adopted during the course of the tenth/sixteenth
century by the other dervish groups, with the exception of the
âShamsiansâ who had a safe refuge in their parent organization, the
Mevleviye. The âclassicalâ Bektasi Order of the later Ottoman periods
thus arose as a fusion of the beliefs and practices of the earlier
Qalandars, Haydaris, and Abdals of Rum as well as the original Bektasis
described by Vahidi.[265]
Movements of deviant renunciation took shape under particular social and
cultural circumstances. The Qalandariyah and the Haydariyah first
flourished in the Arab Middle East and Iran in the
seventh-eighth/thirteenth-fourteenth centuries, simultaneously spreading
to Muslim India in the east and Anatolia in the west. The Abdals of Rum,
by contrast, attained their apogee in the second half of the
ninth/fifteenth and the first half of the tenth/sixteenth centuries.
They were, moreover, on the whole restricted to Ottoman lands in
Anatolia and the Balkans. Significantly, the rise to prominence of this
particularly Ottoman group was accompanied by a revivification of the
older movements of the Qalandariyah and the Haydariyah in the same
period and same geographical area.
The Qalandars, Haydaris, and Abdals of Rum were, however, only the most
prominent in spread and duration, so far as this is reflected in
historical sources, of the ascetic dervish groups of the Later Middle
Period. There were many others. The followers of Barak Baba emerged as a
separate dervish band in Asia Minor and western Iran shortly after the
formation of the Qalandariyah and the Haydariyah during the
seventh/thirteenth century. Later, while the Abdals of Rum were active
in Ottoman lands, other dervish groupsthe Jamis, Shams-i Tabrizis, and
early Bektasis and the Jalalis and Madaris made their presence felt in
Asia Minor and in India, respectively.
What the Arab Middle East and Muslim India in the
seventh-eighth/thirteenth-fourteenth century had in common with Ottoman
Anatolia in the late ninth/fifteenth century was the presence of
societal conditions that allowed the firm and decisive incorporation of
institutional Sufism into the social fabric of everyday life. In the
Fertile Crescent, the spread of institutional Sufism, already set in
motion by the Selçukids, was clearly associated with the devoted
patronage of the ruling Ayyubid elite, who were responsible for the
construction of numerous hospices as well as the establishment of pious
endowments of all sizes for the Sufis. The policies of the Ayyubids,
continued by their successors the Bahri Mamluks, were paralleled by
those of the ruling classes of the Sultanate of Delhi in India, where
the Chishti, Suhrawardi, and Qadir10rders rapidly became ineradicably
implanted in Indian Muslim culture. However, in Asia Minor, and to a
certain extent in Iran, the spread of the Suf10rders (tariqahs) was
delayed considerably owing to a social upheaval of the first order-the
Mongol invasions, which were followed by unprecedented social and
cultural instability as well as political fragmentation. When, after the
first quarter of the ninth/fifteenth century, a remarkable degree of
political and cultural unity was achieved under the Timurids in Khorasan
and Transoxania as well as the Ottomans in Anatolia and the Balkans, the
tariqahs rapidly asserted themselves in the form of the Naqshbandiyah in
the case of the Timurids and initially the looser Bayramiye and later
the Halvetiye and Zeyniye in that of the Ottomans, to mention only the
most important.
The antinomian rejection of society represented by deviant dervish
groups developed concomitantly with, and primarily in reaction to, the
organized Sufism of the socially respectable tariqahs. The former trod
in the footsteps of the latter and inevitably surfaced in places where
institutional Sufism had taken root. Before reviewing the complicated
relationship between organized Sufism and socially deviant renunciation,
however, a typological account of the institutionalization of Sufism
will be useful.
Sufism, as noted earlier, developed primarily in Iraq as a brilliant
synthesis of world-affirming and world-denying tendencies within Islam
during the third-fourth/ninth-tenth centuries. It quickly and
successfully domesticated the powerful renunciative movement active in
that region by absorbing asceticism and transforming it into a step in a
larger process of spiritual purification. Partly on account of this
success and partly owing to the attractive power of its socially tame
individualism, Sufi piety began to appeal to ever greater numbers of the
âpeople of the community,â in particular the religious scholars. At
first tenuous, this nascent alliance between Sufism and the thoroughly
populist piety of the religious scholars (âulamaâ)demonstrated its
social efficacy when it completely absorbed or neutralized Malamati and
Karrami trends in Khorasan, culturally the second most developed region
of Islamdom after Iraq during the fourth-fifth/ tenth-eleventh
centuries.
During late High Caliphal times and the first century of the Early
Middle Period (fourth-fifth/tenth-eleventh centuries), Sufism was thus
poised to become a major building block of the new international Islamic
social order that was taking shape after the collapse of the âAbbasid
Empire. [266] The inner-worldly mystical outlook of Sufism, with its
distinctive conceptual framework now largely in place, was about to step
into the social arena to transform society along channels that conformed
to this new worldview. The social mission of Sufism, which was, in broad
terms, to infuse all levels of social life with Sufi ideas and
practices, was accomplished through the progressive unfolding of two
closely related processes, the rise of the tariqah and the development
of popular cults around the friends of God, the awliyaâ.
During the course of the Early Middle Period, Sufi ideas and practices
were subjected to a far-reaching process of organization and
regularization that led, at the end of the period, to the emergence and
spread of a new social institution, the tariqah. The evolution of this
socially most significant phase of Sufism, hitherto studied only in its
barest outlines, followed different timetables in different regions of
Islamdom, which consisted of many distinct political and cultural
components.[267] The contours of the tariqah were the same everywhere,
however, and can be described along diachronic and synchronic axes.
The central feature of the tariqah on the diachronic level was the
establishment of a silsilah, the temporal propagation of a masterâs
teaching in the form of a continuous chain of authorities. The silsilah
is best visualized as a spiritual chain of intermediaries. It served
simultaneously to perpetuate the example of a particular Sufi master and
to create a single spiritual family of adherents around his âpath.â When
they were later extended backward in time from the founding masters to
the Prophet Muhammad through members of his family or the first caliph,
Abu Bakr (d. 13/634), silsilahs also provided religious legitimacy to
the Sufi paths by linking them directly to the sunnah. [268]
The elevation of the religious example of a historical figure to the
seat of transgenerational authority was by no means peculiar to Sufism.
The rise of a class of intermediaries between God and the community in
the form of a set of pious forefathers was a feature shared by all areas
of religious learning in the Early Middle Period. This mediationist mode
of religiosity, always kept alive by the Shiâi tradition, was behind not
only the development and consolidation of the four Sunni legal schools
but also the concomitant phenomenon of imitation (taqlid) of pious
forefathers, which crystallized at the end of this period in the form of
clearly articulated intellectual positions. It was a sign of the
increasingly communal nature of the mission of Sufism that it too
participated vigorously in the creation of the mediating religiosi. The
Sufi masters now stepped out of their restricted social enclaves to
embrace the Muslim community at large, and their spiritual and physical
presence became evident in the form of great numbers of tomb-complexes
that punctuated the landscape of Islamdom with ever increasing
frequency.
The creation of mediating hierarchies on the diachronic level was
accompanied by the construction of mediating structures on the
synchronic level, reflected in the gradual replacement of the looser
teacher-pupil relationship of âclassicalâ Sufism by one of director and
disciple. The process involved four elements.
of a single residential quarter, the Sufi lodge or hospice (khanqah,
zawiyah, tekke, dargah).
distinct rites and practices for the core members of the tariqah. The
most significant of these included (a) the initiation ceremony, which
marked entry into the group through specific rites such as investiture
with the woolen habit and cutting of the hair; (b) the stipulation of
distinct spiritual disciplines and techniques such as the mystical
prayer (dhikr), mystical audition sometimes accompanied by ritual dance
(samaâ), and regulated seclusion (khalwah); (c) the specification of
special apparel and paraphernalia; and (d) the adoption of a series of
injunctions that regulated all other aspects of disciplesâ lives such as
moral etiquette and economic behavior.
disciples and to be enforced on them by the master.
community in the form of rippling group identities. When fully realized,
this hierarchy of groups included the grades of director (shaykh, pir,
murshid), subordinate leader (khallfah, muqaddam), disciple (murrd),
associate or lay affiliate, and sympathizer. The core of the tariqah was
thus surrounded by social factions on several levels. [269]
The formation of institutional Sufism was not completed with the
full-fledged development of the tariqah. Sufism grew deeper
institutional roots in society with the evolution of popular cults
around the awliyaâ or friends of God. Although the cult of the awliyaâ,
defined as âan ideological and ritual complex,â should analytically be
distinguished from the tariqah as âa form of religious association,â the
ideational and practical overlap between the two phenomena is
remarkable.[270] From the perspective of the present study, the
significant point is that the cult of the awliyaâ proved to be fertile
ground for the propagation, admittedly in transmuted fashion, of Sufi
ideas and practices. The entire ideological component of the awliyaâ
cultsainthood (walayah) and many of its ritual aspects such as the
communal dhikr and/or samaâwas adapted from Sufism. Other constituent
elements, most notably the ziyarah (visitation of tombs and related holy
sites), have their origins outside Sufism proper.
The complicated history of the awliyaâ cult remains to be written.[271]
It is clear, however, that its widespread dissemination occurred
concomitantly with the formation of the Suf10rders during the
sixth-seventh/twelfth-thirteenth centuries. Whatever the exact nature of
the relationship between these two processes, there is no doubt hat they
were closely intertwined. Sufism supplied the theoretical underpinning
of the awliyaâ cult, while the cult ensured the entrenchment of the
orders in all social strata. The tariqah and the saint cult came to
function as two sides of the same coin.
Although the evolution of the Suf10rders and of the popular saint cults
around them took place along different routes in different regions of
Islamdom, the major characteristics of this process remained the same
everywhere. The legal institution of the charitable endowment (waqf) was
the most prominent instrument in the creation of Sufi social agencies.
The wealthy upper classes, especially the political elites, endowed
numerous facilities for the use of Sufis. In Syria, Iraq, and Egypt, the
Ayyubids and the Bahri Mamluks were committed to the idea of the âroyal
hospiceâ (khanqah), grandiose establishments totally controlled by the
state that were normally used to house foreign Sufis, though these were
counterbalanced from the beginning, and superseded from the end of the
ninth/fifteenth century, by modest personal lodges (zawiyas) of the
tariqah Sufis. [272] In India, the political elites successfully
extended their patronage to the Suhrawardiyah and, over time, even to
the Chishtiyah, an order in which any form of contact with the state was
strongly discouraged.[273] In Asia Minor, the Ottomans, ever respectful
of the Sufis, began to support the older Mevleviye and the nascent
Halvetiye and Zeyniye extensively during the late ninth/fifteenth and
early tenth/sixteenth centuries.[274] Patronage by political elites was,
however, only the most prominent sign of the spread of Sufi piety
throughout Islamic societies of the Early Middle Period. Sufism
gradually became a respectable, and even desirable, vocation among the
cultural elites as a whole and emerged as an integral, perhaps the key,
component of Islamic high culture. Having secured more than a firm
foothold in upper urban society and its culture, it rapidly permeated
all social and cultural strata, adapting to lower urban and rural
culture with remarkable ease. Sufi piety thus emerged as a âmainstay of
the international social order.â[275]
The growth of institutional Sufism produced a strong reaction from
within its own ranks to the increasing this-worldliness of the tariqah
and the saint cult, which exhibited a considerable degree of
accommodation with the ruling political and cultural elites. Growing
institutionalization entailed the establishment and preservation of
close ties with the wealthy and power-holding classes of society. Such
worldly connections intensified the communal tendency within Sufism at
the expense of its individualist core and increased the tension between
its world-embracing and world-denying aspects. Ascetic renunciation,
absorbed and domesticated by Sufism, now resurfaced along the fault line
created by this tension as a radical critique of coopted Sufi
religiosity. In this process, it joined forces with anarchist
individualism, a latent but potent current within Sufism.
World-renouncing dervish groups were radical protest movements directed
against medieval Islamic society at large but, more specifically,
against the kindred but socially respectable institution of the tariqah.
[276]The tension between the dervish group and the Sufi tariqah is well
documented in the sources. The founder of the Qalandariyah himself,
Jamal al-Din Savi, was reacting against his own erstwhile Sufi training,
which he apparently had received under his mainstream master âUthman
Rumi, when he broke away to embark on a distinctively ascetic saintly
career. The story of his conversion to the path of renunciation leaves
no doubt that he decisively rejected not only his Sufi past but, by all
indications, a successful future as a Sufi master. And, as some reports
suggest, he may have been denounced in the process by âUthman Rumi. The
same may have been true of Qutb al-Din Haydarâs relationship with the
Sufi master Luqman-i Parandah. The hostile and aggressive behavior of
some later Qalandars against reputed shaykhs of established Sufi
tariqahs such as the Suhrawardi Bahaâ al-Din Zakariya and the Chishti
Farid al-Din Ganji Shakar; their assassination attempts against the
latter, Nasir al-Din Chiragh-i Dihli, and Ibrahim Gilani; and the openly
contemptuous attitude of the Abdal Otman Baba against all Sufi shaykhs
demonstrate the explosive nature of the tension between ascetic
renunciation and institutional Sufism. The reverse side of the coin was,
of course, the summary and often angry dismissal of renouncers by many
mainstream Sufis such as âUthman Rumi, Ibrahim Gilani, and Muhammad
Gisuâdaraz, not to mention the Ottoman Vahidi, who produced a
book-length denunciation of deviant dervishes.
It is not enough to characterize the conflict between Sufi piety and
dervish religiosity as simple mutual hostility, however. It would be
more accurate to compare this relationship to the complex bond between
âsocially conformistâ parents and their ârebelliousâ offspring. Thus,
although the dervishes vociferously rejected the main features of
institutional Sufism, in the final analysis they could not help but
retain essentially Sufi beliefs and practices. The tariqah determined
the general pattern and shape of its shadow counterpart, the dervish
group. The latter was a mirror image, in its negation, of the former.
Thus, the general structure of the loose dervish group, complete with
eponymous master, actual leader, distinctive apparel, and paraphernalia
as well as peculiar practices, reflected the structure of the tariqah.
Just as members of Suf10rders traced their spiritual lineage back to
founding masters, the dervishes too harkened back to exemplary figures
like Jamal al-Din, Qutb al-Din, and Otman Baba. As in the case of
Haydaris, Jamis, Shams-i Tabrizis, and Jalalis, they were at times even
known by the name of their founding fathers. Similarly, all major
dervish groups were headed by elders experienced in the path of
renunciation, so that the director-disciple relationship that was so
central to the orders was reproduced in some fashion in dervish
communities. Nor were the dervishes averse to constructing a socially
visible group identity for themselves by means of distinctive clothing
as well as the adoption of peculiar accoutrements. They even utilized,
though naturally only after radical remodeling, timehonored Suf10ptions
like the woolen habit, the dervish headgear (taj), and the staff. Here
their penchant to cultivate and preserve separate group affiliations
clearly paralleled Sufi predilection for paying allegiance to distinct
orders. Finally, although we are not well informed on dervish rites and
rituals, it is likely that here too their practices mirrored, if only by
contrast, those of the tariqahs.
In the realm of ideas, the parentage of Sufism is equally obvious. The
dervishes appropriated Sufi conceptual complexes like faqr (poverty),
fanaâ (passing away of the self), and walayah (sainthood), but applied
extremist and radical interpretations to them. Indeed, the essential
traits of dervish piety, asceticism, rejection of society, and
uncompromising individualism can all be traced back, in theory if not
always in practice, to such radical reinterpretations. The early
Qalandars and probably the Haydaris, for instance, apparently worked the
concept of poverty to its logical conclusions. The later Abdals, for
their part, were engrossed in their own understanding of walayah, which
in their eyes gave them license to reject the claims of Sufis to be the
friends of God. Like many Sufis, most dervishes seem to have possessed
the certainty of being infused with Godâs grace and provided typically
Sufi explanations for this privilege.
The parent-offspring analogy can be pressed even further if we turn our
attention to the question of recruitment to the path of renunciation.
Close scrutiny of the biographies of prominent dervishes reveals a
typical pattern: a male adult member of the cultural elite (the same
social stratum from which Sufism normally recruited), with a bright
future in front of him if still young or a fairly distinguished career
behind him if middle-aged or elderly, rejects his cultural status and
becomes a dervish. A clear case in point is that of Jamal al-Din Savi.
The degree of learning that he displayed as a young man prior to his
conversion, heavily emphasized in his sacred biography, is also attested
by the fact that he was called âthe walking libraryâ as well as by his
recorded attempt to compose at least a partial exegesis of the Qurâan.
The cases of the celebrated Persian poet Fakhr al-Din âIraqi, who joined
the Qalandars as an impeccably educated young man of about seventeen
years of age; the writer and poet Hamid Qalandar (d. after 754/1353),
who became a Qalandar in adolescence; the Ottoman Mevlana Esrefzade
Muhyiddin Mehmed (fl. during the reign of Mehmed II), who gave up a life
of religious scholarship in order to join a group of Qalandars; and the
Ottoman poet Hayali Beg (fl. first half of the tenth/sixteenth century)
all conform to this pattern. Further instances of such, especially
youthful, conversion from the elite to the dervish way of life are found
in the biographies of the proto-Abdals Barak Baba, whose father was a
military commander and uncle a famous clerk; Kaygusuz Abdal (d. the
first quarter of the ninth/fifteenth century), who was the son of a
local ruler; Qutb al-Din Haydar, said to be the son of a Turkish sultan;
the Qalandar Khatib Farisi (d. after 748/1347-48), who converted to the
Qalandari path as a young man in search of wisdom and spiritual
enlightenment; and the poet Hayreti, who chose the Abdal path in his
youth.
Our evidence suggests, therefore, that the architects and key
personalities of dervish piety were mostly young dissenters from the
elite. To judge by the examples enumerated, the precondition for
becoming a dervish would appear to have been access, or guaranteed
entry, to high culture. The direct connection between high culture and
dervish piety is demonstrated both by the elite social background of
prominent dervishes and by the presence of proficient poets and writers
among them. In a similar vein, the veneration extended to dervishes by
many a political ruler should be seen as further proof of the close ties
between ascetic renunciation and elite culture. The examples of the
Mamluks al-Malik al-Zahir and Kitbugha, who highly revered the Qalandari
leaders Muhammad al-Balkhi and Hasan al-Jawalaqi, respectively; the
Khalji FiruzâShah II in India, who freely associated with Abu Bakr Tusi
Haydari, and Tughril, the rebel governor of Bengal, who extended gifts
to an anonymous Qalandar and his companions; and the Ottoman Murad II,
who had a mosque built in Anatolia in the name of Sultan SĂŒcaâ,
demonstrate that deviant dervishes exercised a degree of influence,
probably owing to shared cultural origin, on power-holding classes.
Deviant renunciation, it appears, took shape through the formative
activities of dissenters from the cultural and political elite. In a
very real sense, the dervishes were the offspring of socially
respectable Sufis. [277]
At this point, it should no longer be surprising that youths seem to
have been exceptionally responsive to the dervish calling or that the
dervishes themselves apparently took a special interest in adolescents
and young men. The story of Jamal al-Dinâs conversion as a young man
under the influence of a most peculiar boy called Jalal al-Din Darguzini
sets the tone in this regard. Thereafter, the Qalandars were frequently
accused of attempting to entice children into adopting their own way of
life, as attested, for instance, by the invective of the Chishti
Muhammad Gisuâdaraz against them. Practically all of the examples of
conversion to the dervish path enumerated above provide testimony to the
validity of this claim. The irresistible pull of renunciation over young
males is also recorded in the verses of Saâdi:
Where thereâs a son who sits among the Qalandars
Tell the father he may wash his hands of any good for him;
Grieve not for his destruction, ruin:
Better that one disowned should die before his father![278]
Much later, in Ottoman Anatolia, there were considerable numbers of
learned youths as well as adolescents who specialized in serving hashish
among the Abdals, while the Jamis, themselves mostly young men of
distinguished descent, paid special attention to men of the same age.
The new renunciation was, therefore, the offspring, in all senses of the
word, of institutional Sufism. The two modes of piety were too
intimately related to exist in continuous mutual antagonism. If the
this-worldly orders were at times ready, out of not only political
expediency but genuine attraction and sympathy, to accommodate their
disturbingly antisocial counterparts within their own ranks, the deviant
dervishes for their part, having manifested a considerable degree of
institutionalization from their very first days, were not always
reluctant to be invested with a certain degree of social recognition. It
may have been a combination of these two factors that lay behind the
emergence of not only suborders such as the Chishtiyah-Qalandariyah in
India but also antinomian orders such as the Bekta-Siye in the Ottoman
Empire. The accommodation of dervish piety by institutional Sufism was
already signaled by the tolerant attitude of prominent ordersâ shaykhs
such as Bahaâ al-Din Zakariyaâ, Farid al-Din Ganj-i Shakar, and Nasir
al-Din Chiragh-i Dihli toward the Qalandars, including even those who
were downright hostile to them. In this connection, the fascination of
celebrated Sufi poets with Qalandari themes, as attested by the numerous
examples of Qalandariyat in Arabic, Persian, and Turkish Sufi poetry,
adequately demonstrates the attractive power that deviant rejection of
society exercised on the hearts and minds of the Sufis. In spite of the
verses of Saâdi, Sufi parents could not totally disown their offspring.
For their part, the latter could hardly resist the inexorable pull of
institutionalization that operated within Sufism in particular and
within Islamic societies in general. There were strong social pressures
to conform to the formidable demand coming from political powers anxious
to provide religious legitimacy to their sovereignty by safeguarding the
shariâah. This was definitely the case in the Ottoman Empire, where the
dervish groups must have felt the necessity to acquire sufficient
respectability to avoid severe persecution by the state. Presumably,
this problem was particularly acute for the Abdals, who openly professed
Shiâi beliefs, probably as a result of their attempt to negate the
dominant Sufi-Sunni alliance within the empire. It is plausible,
therefore, that they should, whether deliberately or in the course of
time, have joined the ranks of the Bektasis, who were given official
approval owing to their unbreachable connections with the backbone of
the Ottoman army, the Janissaries. Other dervish groups, notably the
Qalandars and Haydaris, followed suit. The definitive establishment of
the great regional empires of the Ottomans, Safavids, Ăzbeks, and
Mughals during the tenth/sixteenth century led, therefore, to the return
of the rebellious, if not prodigal, son to the household.
The Later Middle Period witnessed the spread and entrenchment of the new
Islamic social institutions of the tariqah and the madrasah. These
institutions themselves were the products of momentous social
transformations that occurred in Islamdom in the Early Middle Period.
From the perspective of this study, the most significant overall feature
of this latter phase of Islamic history was the decisive triumph of
this-worldly religiosity in the form of a powerful SunniSufi alliance.
The decisive triumph of the communal tendency within Sufism as
manifested in the establishment of the tariqahs signaled the attenuation
of its other-worldly dimensions. This forceful turn toward this-worldly
piety generated a strong other-worldly reaction within Sufism by
reactivating its latent renunciatory potentials. The ascetic and
anarchist individualist trends gained renewed vigor and broke into the
open as socially distinct movements of deviant renunciation. The
institutional Sufism of the tariqahs thus directly engendered and in the
long run determined the nature and shape of the dervish group. The
latter mirrored, in its very negation and if only in mockery,
practically all aspects of the former. The relationship between the
tariqah and the dervish group was, nevertheless, not exclusively one of
mutual antagonism. The institutionalization of Sufism did not mean the
complete devaluation of the Sufi respect and admiration for the option
of contemplative flight from the world, and many prominent Sufis looked
upon the dervishes with sympathy and fascination. For their part, the
dervishes could never completely sever the umbilical cord that connected
them to Sufism. The volatile bond between the two related modes of piety
thus remained operative in spite of the confrontational nature of the
relationship between them.
Intriguing in dress, behavior, and mode of piety, yet socially and
legally marginal, the mendicant dervishes of Islamdom in the Later
Middle Period have remained enigmatic figures for modern students of
Islamic history. Little scholarly interest has been directed to them; by
and large scholars have fallen victim to the temptation to view them
through the distorting prism of âpopular religion,â an allinclusive and
ill-defined concept used to explain away religious phenomena resistant
to the smooth application of simplistic models of Islamic religiosity.
As a result of such neglect and carelessness, dervish piety has been
obsured beyond recognition and generally ignored in favor of research
into âmainstreamâ religious phenomena.
The history of the new renunciation as reconstructed here demonstrates
clearly that what may from a distance appear to have been a confused and
amorphous dervish movement in fact consisted of a set of clearly
differentiated religious collectivities that maintained their distinct
identities over time and space. In spite of a considerable degree of
fluidity in appellation, the Qalandars, Haydaris, Abdals of Rum, and
others were essentially separate dervish groups. The uncontrolled
ecstasy of the Abdals of Rum diverged considerably from the learned
gaiety of the Jamis, while both of these groups stood quite apart from
the fierce asceticism of the Haydaris and the early Qalandars. The
acknowledgment of the existence of noticeably demarcated currents of
dervish piety does not, of course, imply that the lines of
differentiation among different groups remained unchanged throughout the
Later Middle Period and over a vast geographical area of extreme
cultural diversity. The suggestion is not that there was an unbridgeable
separation among the groups that prevented interaction,
interpenetration, or merger. In fact, it is highly likely, though
impossible to document, that dervish bands heavily influenced each
other. Rather, the argument is that there were, in any given temporally
and spatially specific cultural sphere, several socially and ideally
distinct types of dervish piety. Outsiders to dervish piety, Muslim and
non-Muslim, frequently confused these types, yet the same cannot be said
for the dervishes themselves, who appear to have been highly conscious
of their own distinctive group identities.
The defining characteristic of dervish piety was socially deviant
renunciation. Briefly, the adoption of the radically ascetic practices
of poverty, mendicancy, itinerancy, celibacy, and self-inflicted pain
can be understood properly only in the context of the dervishesâ
rejection of society, the basic institutions of which they regarded as
unsuitable and unconducive to other-worldly salvation. Thus salvation
lay in active and socially conspicuous renunciation of society through
uncompromisingly antisocial practices.
Renunciation was not particular to the Islamic Later Middle Period. High
Caliphal times, usually and rightly portrayed as an intensely
this-worldly phase of Islamic history, also generated powerful movements
of other-worldly renunciation, which remained active through the Early
Middle Period. The early ascetic movement of the first two Islamic
centuries in the Fertile Crescent was followed by Karramiyah that spread
chiefly in eastern Iran. In the long run, both of these movements were
neutralized by the Sufi mode of piety, mainly because of its successful
synthesis of other-worldly and this-worldly tendencies. Neutralization,
however, did not entail destruction, and the legacy of asceticism
remained potent within Sufism. In addition, Sufism itself carried the
seeds of another, if related, kind of renunciationanarchist
individualism. The temptation for Sufis to cross the threshold between
inner-worldly mystical activity and contemplative flight always remained
close to the surface.
During the Early Middle Period, Sufism and Sunnism, now in close if not
untroubled alliance, became the major constituents of the new Islamic
social order that emerged after the disintegration of the universalist
âAbbasid dispensation. The this-worldly potential of Sufism was
actualized in full force and speed with the emergence of the Sufi
tarnqah and the Sufi-colored institution of the cult of awliyaâ
throughout Islamdom. The entrenchment of Sufism in society in the form
of ubiquitous social institutions refranchised the dormant otherworldly
trends of renunciation and anarchist individualism within Sufism. While
anarchist individualism surfaced early in the form of the literary and
idealized Qalandar-topos, other-worldly trends soon won the day by
harnessing anarchism and asceticism to the cause of renunciation.
Deviant renunciation thus reclaimed its place on the agenda of Islamic
religiosity as the active negation of institutional Sufism.
The relationship between institutional Sufism and dervish movements was
a familial one. The latter emerged from the bosom of the former as rebel
progeny who reflected, if negatively, the parent tariqahs. The dervish
groups closely resembled the Suf10rders in ideology and organization, if
only in conscious mockery. The bond that held the two broad social
collectivities together was, so to speak, organic so that their
respective historical trajectories remained permanently intertwined.
Where and whenever the tarqahs entrenched themselves in the fabric of
Islamic society, the otherworldly dervishes inevitably followed suit.
Moreover, the relationship between Sufi and dervish piety was
multidimensional. On both sides, antagonism was accompanied by respect,
at times even admiration. In particular, the Sufis, in true this-worldly
fashion, proved themselves to be sufficiently resilient to accommodate
their rebellious brothers in their midst even beyond the ninth/fifteenth
century during the period of the great regional empires.
Perhaps the most specific question that has arisen in the course of this
study is one that can be dubbed the âethnic connection.â Thus, it is
noteworthy that the movements of new renunciation arose primarily in the
Iranian, Turkish, and Indian cultural spheres and that, conversely,
there were no âindigenousâ major dervish movements within predominantly
Arab regions. Even the Qalandariyah, although it took shape in the
Fertile Crescent, remained a non-Arab, chiefly Iranian mode of piety, at
least throughout the seventh-eighth/ thirteenth-fourteenth centuries,
and much the same can be said of the Haydariyah during that period.
Later, similar groups were active among non-Arab populations of the
Ottoman Empire and northern India. It appears, therefore, that the new
renunciation did not resonate with prevalent modes of religiosity in the
Arab cultural spheres of Islamdom. In spite of similarities on the
surface, the popular Arab Sufi movements of the Rifaâiyah, the
Badawiyah, and, in the Maghrib, the âIsawah did not uphold the basic
principles of deviant renunciation. These appear, rather, to have been
regular tariqahs that did not practice asceticism and antinomianism on a
permanent basis and were not radical protest movements directed against
Islamic society at large. The reasons behind such divergent development
of piety within different cultural spheres must remain unexplored in
this study. It is possible, of course, that closer scrutiny of the Arab
scene in the Later Middle Period will modify and refine the picture
drawn here.
A second question is whether the same forces that generated the
movements of deviant renunciation from within institutional Sufism were
not also at work in other aspects of Islamic religiosity during the same
period. More specifically, it seems legitimate to inquire if the
ascendancy of the madrasah, like that of the tariqah, did not produce a
reaction among the âulamaâ against the increasing, or at the very least
potential, this-worldliness of madrasah-piety. From this vantage-point,
it is tempting to see just such a reaction in the lifelong religious
activity of Ibn Taymiyah (d. 728/1328) and much later in the religious
legacy of his Ottoman counterpart, Mehmed Birgivi (d. 981/1573). Both
figures clashed all too frequently with socially respected and
politically well-placed âulamad precisely over issues that can be seen
as measures of the degree of âulamaâ-co-optation with society (namely,
popular religion, especially the cult of awliyaâ)and âulamaâ willingness
to exercise âextremeâ flexibility on politically and socially sensitive
issues. [279] The suggestion here is that there may be a connection
between puritanical reformism as an intellectual current on the one hand
and the thorough dominance of this-worldly piety among religious
scholars on the other hand. This point clearly needs to be developed
further and tested independently. In this connection, the idea of
searching for critical reactions among the religious scholars to the
entrenchment of the madrasah in Islamic society is certainly worthy of
serious consideration.
A third and methodologically the most interesting question has to do
with the social and economic factors behind the emergence and spread of
the movements of new renunciation. On a general level, it is possible to
associate ascetic world-rejection in premodern societies with urban as
opposed to rural society. Renunciatory ideals were clearly the products
of urban civilization.[280] The more meaningful question, however, is
whether one can go beyond such a simple correlation to assert the
existence of a close connection between social prominence of religious
ideals based on the concept of poverty on the one hand and the
ascendancy of commercial capital within urban economies on the other. A
strong argument along these lines has been elaborated for European
history for the period between 1000 and 1300. [281] Since the relative
strength of merchant capital within the economies of Islamic societies
especially during the High Caliphal and Early Middle Periods is a
generally accepted feature of Islamic economic history, it seems
possible to see the same connection between âvoluntary povertyâ and the
âprofit economyâ operative throughout Islamic history as well. Once
again, however, this must remain at best a tentative suggestion at this
point.
Finally, the temporal correspondence between the rise of the mendicant
orders, especially the Franciscans and Dominicans, in Europe and that of
the dervish groups, in particular the Qalandars and Haydaris, in
Islamdom makes one wonder if there was any connection between these two
parallel developments. The question is highly intriguing, yet the
absence of a critical mass of scholarly work on the economic history of
Islamdom during the period in question makes it difficult if not
impossible to answer. Recent work in world history suggests, however,
that the possibility of unearthing such connections, at least on the
economic level, between different cultural spheres is a real one and
should be borne in mind in future research directed to this issue.[282]
Given that so many Muslim individuals actually converted to the dervish
way of life during the Later Middle Period, the modern historian of
religion has the responsibility to approach this phenomenon with genuine
concern and respect. The temptation to explain dervish piety away as
being peculiar to âless capableâ members of Islamic society should be
resisted. If nothing else, this study demonstrates clearly that such
basic respect for the human subjects of historical study inevitably
opens up new and fruitful avenues of research.
The attempt to retrace the historical trajectory of the dervish groups
has led us through all major cultural spheres of Islamdom in the Later
Middle Period. The true nature and significance of the Qalandars and the
Haydaris as well as of the culturally more specific groups like the
Abdals of Rum, Jamis, Madaris, and Jalalis emerged only after such a
broad cross-cultural investigation. Notwithstanding the crucial role of
culturally and regionally restricted case studies, it should now be
obvious that there is a distinct need to adopt holistic inclusive
perspectives in the study of the history of premodern Islamic religion.
In a similar vein, the results of a close scrutiny of dervish piety
contain a strong warning against the scholarly tendency to avoid what
are generally assumed to be âmarginalâ religious phenomena. This inquiry
into âmarginalâ dervish groups leads to a new understanding of the place
of renunciatory trends in the history of Islamic religion in general and
within Sufism in particular. Moreover, it casts new light on Sufism
itself, which can now be viewed as the successful development of a
this-worldly mystical piety within Islam. Nothing, it appears, is
marginal in the history of religions.
In the text of Farid al-Din Muhammad âAttar Nish5buriâs Mantiq al-tayr
(ed. Sayyid Sadiq Gawharln, 191â92), however, there is no sign that the
Qalandars had shaved their heads, eyebrows, or facial hair or that the
Arab for his part shaved his own hair when he joined them (the
expression âur-sar, âbareheaded,â in line 3437 seems rather to refer to
lack of headgear). The claim that the Arab âparticipated in ... probably
orgiastic experiencesâ with the Qalandars is equally baseless. The only
possible evidence for this interpretation is the expression gum shud
mardlyash, âhe lost his manhood,â in line 3435, which does, however,
have other more innocuous connotations (for instance, loss of honor).
The Qalandars did not maltreat, assault, and rob the Arab; instead, he
lost money to one of them in straightforward gambling: burd az-u dar yak
nadab, â[the Qalandar] won from him in one bet.â In support of the
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Zarrinkub, âAbd al-Husayn. âAhl-i malamat va rah-i Qalandar.â Majallah-i
Danishkadah-i Adabiyat va âUlum-i Insani (Tehran) 22 (1354sh/1975):
61â100. Reprinted in Justuju dar tasavvuf-i Iran, 335â79. Tehran: Amir
Kabir, 1357sh/ 1978.
. Justuju dar tasavvuf-i Iran. Tehran: Amir Kabir, 1357sh/1978.
[1] Muhammad ibn Mansur MubarakâShah, known as Fakhr-i Mudabbir, Adab
al-harb va al-shajdaah, ed. Ahmad Suhayli Khvansari, 446â47; Meier, sI ,
n. 250.
[2] Hamid Algar, âBaraq Baba,â in EIR, 3:754â55. Barak Baba is discussed
in chapter 5 below.
[3] Ruy Gonzales de Clavijo, Clavijo: Embassy to Temerlane 1403â1406,
trans. Guy Le Strange, 139â40.
[4] The periodization of Islamic history follows Hodgson, especially
1:96. Hodgsonâs scheme in C.E. dates is as follows: Late Sisani and
Primitive Caliphal Periods, ca. (485)-692; High Caliphal Period, ca.
692â945; Earlier Middle Islamic Period, ca. 945â1258; Later Middle
Islamic Period, ca. 1258â1503; Period of Gunpowder Empires, ca.
1503â1789; Moder Technical Age, ca. 1789-present.
[5] This section has been adopted with extensive changes from Ahmet T.
Karamustafa, âThe Antinomian Dervish as Model Saint,â in Modes de
transmission de la culture religieuse en Islam, ed. Hassan Elboudrari,
241â60.
[6] Notable studies on the Qalandars are Mahammad Tagi Ahmad, âWho Is a
Qalandar?â Journal of Indian History 33 (1955): 155â70; Digby; AbdĂŒlbaki
G61pinarh, âKalenderiye,â in TA, 21:157â61; Meier, 494â516; Ahmet Yasar
Ocak, âKalenderiler ve Bektasllik,â in Dogumunun 100. ylrnda AtatĂŒrkâe
Armagan, 297â308; idem, âQuelques remarques sur le role des derviches
kalenderis dans les mouvements populaires et les activit6s anarchiques
aux XVC et XVIâ siecles dans lâempire Ottoman,â Osmanlt Arastirmalari 3
(1982): 69â80; Ocak; Tahsin Yazici, âKalandarâ and âKalandariyya,â in
El, 4:472â74; and Zarrinkfb, esp. 78â92 (also on Haydaris), reprinted in
idem, Justuju dar tasavvuf-i Iran, esp. 359â75. The Haydaris and Abdils
of Rim are discussed in passing on many occasions in the larger works of
Mehmed Fuad KöprĂŒlĂŒ and AbdĂŒlbaki GĂ©lpinarli cited later in this work
and in the works of Ocak cited above (Ocak relies largely on KöprĂŒlĂŒ and
Golpinarll).
[7] Ocak is the most comprehensive existing study. Ocak prefaces his
study with a long coverage of renunciatory trends (which he collectively
labels âKalenderilikâ) in Islamic history up to the eighth/fourteenth
century and maintains a broad definition of renunciation throughout the
book. He does not, however, identify new renunciation as a distinct
phase in the history of Islamic religiosity and, further, limits his
focus to the Ottoman Empire. Ocakâs study came to my attention after the
completion of the present monograph.
[8] Jawbari, fols. 17b- 8a. Al-Jawbariâs account of Qalandars and
Haydaris is paraphrased in chapter 5 below.
[9] See chapter 5, note 3, for full documentation.
[10] Khatib, 531â64 (Persian text on 553â64); praise for the Mongols is
on 53b.
[11] See chapter 5, notes 24 and 44, respectively.
[12] Vahidi, fols. 52a-52b.
[13] Latifi, i io (biography of the poet Temennayi).
[14] On the word torlak, âbeardless, handsome youth,â see Gerard
Clauson, An Etymological Dictionary of Pre-Thirteenth-Century Turkish,
546, col. Ă; and Ettore Rossi, â âTorlakâ kelimesine dair,â Turk Dili
Arastirmalan Ytlllgl-Belleten (1955): 9â10.
[15] Menavino, 79â82; German translation, 36b-37b. Menavino spent some
years in Istanbul during the reigns of the Ottoman sultans Bayezld II
(r. 886â9 8/ 1481â1512) and Selim I (r. 918-26/1512-20).
[16] Edward William Lane, Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians,
234. Lane resided in Cairo from 1825 to 1828 and 1833 to 1835.
[17] K6prĂŒliu , 299â300 (the last sentence is from n. I on 300). Cf.
English translation: Islam in Anatolia after the Turkish Invasion
(Prolegomena), trans. and ed. Gary Leiser, 12â13 and n. 41 (70).
[18] Fazlur Rahman, Islam, 153.
[19] For a critical discussion on the âtwo-tiered model of religion,â
see Peter Brown, The Cult of the Saints: Its Rise and Function in Latin
Christianity, 12â22. A comprehensive review of the use of the concept of
popular religion in religious studies is found in Catherine Bell,
âReligion and Chinese Culture: Toward an Assessment ofâPopular
Religion,â â History of Religions 29 (1989): 35â57. Ernest Gellner,
âFlux and Reflux in the Faith of Men,â in Muslim Society, 1â85, is an
interesting attempt to remedy the pychologistic bias of the two-tiered
model of religion as found in the thought of David Hume through a merger
with the sociological models of Ibn Khaldun, though Gellnerâs own
explanatory model is, curiously, also ahistorical. For a classical
treatment of Islamic religiosity on the basis of the two-tiered model
(âpolytheistic needs within monotheismâ), see Ignaz Goldziher,
âVeneration of Saints in Islam,â in Muslim Studies, ed. S. M. Stern,
trans. C. R. Barber and S. M. Stern, 2:255â341. A recent reevaluation of
the two-tiered model of culture in the medieval Islamic context is Boaz
Shoshan, âHigh Culture and Popular Culture in Medieval Islam,â SA 73
(1991): 67â107.
[20] Ira M. Lapidus, A History of Islamic Societies, 162.
[21] It is symptomatic of the thoroughly ahistorical conception of
popular religion that the argument as presented here is less a summary
of well-developed views on the subject in secondary literature, which
are not in evidence, than a fresh construction from clues and implicit
assumptions found in scholarly accounts of a general nature. See, for
example, Rahman, Islam, 153â56.
[22] On the question of survival and influence, especially in regard to
Central Asian shamanism and South Asian Hindu and Buddhist asceticism,
see, for instance, Mehmed Fuad Koprulu, Influence du chamanisme
turco-mongol sur les ordres mystiques musulmans; Emel Esin, ââErenâ: Les
dervTs heterodoxes turcs dâAsie centrale et le peintre surnomme
âSiyah-Kalam,â â Turcica 17 (1985): 7â41; and Digby, 66. The following
description of the Saivite Kapalika ascetics, so similar in appearance
to deviant dervishes, nicely demonstrates why the theory of survival or
influence can be so tempting: âThey wander about with a skull begging
bowl, their bodies smeared with ashes, wearing bone or skull ornaments
and loincloths of animal skin, with their hair matted in matted locks.
They sometimes carry a special club ... consisting of a skull mounted on
a stickâ (David N. Lorenzen, âSaivism: Kapalikas,â in The Encyclopedia
of Religion, 13:19). Similarity in physical appearance, however, does
not entail similarity in belief and practice: a closer look at Kapilikas
reveals the difficulties of comparing them to Muslim dervishes; see
David N. Lorenzen, The Kdpalikas and Kalamukhas: Two Lost Saivite Sects.
[23] Dihkhuda, s.v. âDarvish.â Duncan Black Macdonald, âDarwish,â in El,
2:164â65, is devoid of interest. On the Arabic term faqtr, see Khaliq
Ahmad Nizami, âFakir,â in El, 2:757â78.
[24] All three ascetic virtuosi mentioned here are discussed in detail
with references in chapter 4 below, where information utilized in the
present discussion is properly documented.
[25] The sacred biography ofJamal al-Din Sivi, composed in 748/1347-48
by a Qalandar, is explicit on this point; see Firisi; exact page
references to the topic of poverty in this work are given in chapter 4,
note 8.
[26] Vahidi, fol. 43a.
[27] Chapter 12 of the Qurâan is devoted to Yussuf. Incidentally, it is
impossible to tell ifJamal al-Dinâs continence was accompanied by
misogyny, as was the case in early Christian asceticism in Egypt; see
Peter Brown, The Body and Society: Men, Women, and Sexual Renunciation
in Early Christianity, 241â58.
[28] Cf. Giles Constable, Attitudes toward Self-Inflicted Suffering in
the Middle Ages, II.
[29] The domestication of asceticism by Sufism during the High Caliphal
Period (ca. 692â945 C.E.) is discussed below in chapter 3.
[30] Richard Gramlich, âMadjdhub,â in El, 5:1029; Michael W. Dols,
Majnun: The Madman in Medieval Islamic Society, ed. Diana E. Immisch,
388â410.
[31] Farisi, Yazlciâs edition, 33, line 3 (amal al-Din and Jalal
Darguzini), and 71, line 17 (Muhammad Balkhi); Zarrinkubâs edition,
verses 708 and 1389, respectively; Abdal, several references to ritual
prayer, for instance fol. 54a.
[32] Algar, âBaraq Baba,â 754.
[33] The Qalandari author Khatib Firisi ends each section of the Manaqib
with the refrain âcome let us abandon this world / [and] utter a takbfr
in the fashion of Qalandarsâ (bi-ya ta dast az in âalam bi-shiuâm /
qalandarvar takbiff bi-giuâm). The Abdals, for their part, âuttered four
takbfrs at the times of the five daily prayers and did not take
ablutions or await the prayer-call or heed the prayer leaderâ (âAsik,
fol. 175a). Although takbir figures prominently in all Islamic rituals,
the reference here is clearly to the fourfold takblr of the funeral
prayer that is performed standing up, with no prostrations.
[34] On the dress codes endorsed by the sunnah, see, for instance,
Muhammad al-Bukhari, Sahih, Arabic-English bilingual ed. by Muhammad
Muhsin Khan, 7:454â551 (Book 72: The Book of Dress). On Islamic costume
in general, see Yedida K. Stillman, Norman A. Stillman, and T. Majda,
âLibis,â in El, 5:732â53. Discussions on proper apparel appear in major
Sufi manuals; see, for instance, âAli ibn âUthman al-Jullabl al-Hujwiri,
The Kashfal-Mahjfub: The Oldest Persian Treatise on Sufism by
al-Hujwirn, trans. Reynold A. Nicholson, 45â57; also Suhrawardi, 318â24
(chapter 44); German translation, 306-II. On Sufi headgear, see John
Brown, The Darvisches or Oriental Spiritualism, ed. H. A. Rose, 57â62;
and Theodor Menzel, âBeitrage zur Kenntnis der Derwisch-tag,â in
Festschrift Georg Jacob, ed. Theodor Menzel, 174â99. For an attempt to
trace the origins of Sufi and dervish costume, see Geo Widengren,
âHarlekintracht und Monchskutte, Clownhut und DerwischmĂŒtze,â Orientalia
Suecana 2 (1953): 41- 11.
[35] See, for instance, al-Bukhari, SahTh, 7:514 and 517 (Book 72,
reports 63 and 65, respectively).
[36] See M. C. Lyons, âA Note on the Maqdma Form,â Pembroke Papers I
(1990): 117, for references to instances of shaving the beard as âa
disgrace inflicted on drugged opponents by the man of wilesâ in medieval
Arabic popular literature (Sirat Hamzah, Srrat Baybars, and Sirat Dhat
al-Himmah) as well as in the Maqdmah of Saymarah of Badi al-Zaman
al-Hamadhani (d. 398/1008). Cf. Widengren, âHarlekintracht,â 51, n. 3.
[37] On shaving in Sufism, see Gramlich, i:88, and the references quoted
there. Although the dervishes seem to have left behind a short
composition of about seventy-five verses in Persian called Tarashnamah,
there is no agreement among scholars on its authorship: E. E. Bertels,
âLe Taras-nama: Un poeme didactique des dervishes Jaldli,â Comptes
Rendus de lâAcademie des Sciences des IâURSS (1926): 35â38, as reported
by Gramlich (bibliography), apparently attributes it to the Jalali
dervishes, while Glpinarll, 140, thinks that the work was composed by
the Shams-i Tabrizi poet $ahidi (d. 957/1550). The Tarashnamah, which
survives in many manuscripts (see, for instance, SĂŒleymaniye KĂŒtĂŒphanesi
[Istanbul], Ms. Haci Mahmud 3843/3, fols. 7a-9b), does not reveal
anything new on the practice of shaving.
[38] The discovery of the âelevatingâ effects of cannabis leaves by Qutb
alDin is reported by âImad al-Din Abu al-Fadl al-Hasan al-âUqbari
(possibly d. 690/1291), Kitdb al-sawanih al-adabiyah fi al-madaâih
al-qinnabiyah, reproduced in Rosenthal, 51â53. Muhammad ibn Bahadur
al-Zarkashi, Zahr al-âarish fi ahkam (or tahrfm) al-hashish, text in
Rosenthal, 177, has a shorter report to the same effect, where Jamal
al-Din is also mentioned as Ahmad al-Sawaji al-Qalandari.
[39] The most explicit description of the consumption of hashish in a
ritual setting by dervishes is found in Menavinoâs account on Abdals of
Rim, Menavino, 76â79; see chapter 6 for a complete translation of this
account into English.
[40] On the legal prohibition of wine, see Arent Jan Wensinck, âKhamr,
I. Juridical Aspects,â in El, 4:994â97. The legal and social
implications oTthe use of hallucinogens is discussed in Rosenthal.
[41] Jean-Louis Michon, âSacred Music and Dance in Islam,â in Islamic
Spirituality: Manifestations, ed. Seyyid Hossein Nasr, 469â505; Jean
During, Musique et extase: LâAudition mystique dans la tradition soufie;
Marijan Mole, âLa danse extatique en Islam,â in Les danses sacrees,
145â280; Fritz Meier, âDer Derwischtanz: Versuch eines Uberblicks,â
Asiatische Studien 1â4 (1954): 107â36.
[42] On sodomy and homosexuality in Islamic history, see âLiwat,â in El,
5:776â79 (written by the editors).
[43] On mutu qabla an tamutu, see âAli Akbar Dihkhuda, Kitab-i amsal va
hikam, 4:1753; Badi? al-Zaman Furuzanfar, Ahaddth-i Masnavf, 116, no.
353; and Ritter, 583.
[44] The biography ofJamal al-Din, as reported in various sources,
contains ample demonstration of this predilection for graveyards. In
particular, his hagiography has one whole section on this subject,
entitled âDalil guftan-i Sayyid dar b5b-i ankih dar guristan
nishastan[ra] martabah chistâ: see Farisi, Yaziciâs edition, 82, line i,
to 85, line 5; Zarrinkubâs edition, verses 1609â68. The location of
later Qalandar centers in Cairo and Jerusalem within or in the vicinity
of cemeteries was no doubt a legacy ofJamal al-Din. Practicing retreats
in cemeteries was not, of course, particular to Qalandars: Ibn al-âArabi
(d. 638/ 1240), for instance, a contemporary ofJamil al-Din, is known to
have followed this practice; see Michel Chodkiewicz, Le sceau des
saints: Prophetie et saintete dans la doctrine dâIbn Arabi, 16.
[45] On âlooking at beardless boys,â nazar ila al-murd in Arabic and
shahidbazi in Persian, see Ritter, 459â77. A clear condemnation of the
practice by a Sufi is in al-Jullabi, Kashf al-Ma.hjib, 416â17; for a
non-Sufi counterpart, see âAbd alRahman ibn âAli ibn al-Jawzi, Talbis
Iblis, 264â78. Cf. Peter Lamborn Wilson, Scandal: Essays in Islamic
Heresy, 93â121.
[46] Alessandro Bausani, âHurufiyya,â in El, 3:600â601; and AbdĂŒlbaki
Golpinarh, Hurufilik Metinleri Katalogu.
[47] The way of renunciation naturally remained as an option that could
be adopted for reasons other than the achievement of spiritual
enlightenment. As Digby observes, for instance, âthe garb and personal
appearance of a Qalandar might be adopted by an educated man as a matter
of choice, one might almost say affectationâ (Digby, 71). To the example
of Malik Saâd al-Din Mantiqi that Digby adduces in this context, one
might add that of Mawlana Mir Jamal, a renowned logician and
mathematician: the story of his entertaining confrontation with the
Naqshbandi master Khvajah âUbayd Allah Ahrar (806-96/1403-90) is
narrated by Fakhr al-Din âAli ibn Husayn Vaâiz Kashifi, Rashahat âayn
al-hayat, ed. âAll Asghar Mucniyan, 2:643â45.
[48] The source of inspiration here is Max Weber, âReligious Rejections
of the World and Their Directions,â in From Max Weber: Essays in
Sociology, trans. and ed. H. H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills, 323â59. See
Said Amir Ajomand, The Shadow ofGod and the Hidden Imam: Religion,
Political Order, and Societal Change in Shiâite Iran from the Beginning
to 1890, 16â18, for illuminating observations on Weberâs discussion.
[49] The Qurâan, 10:7â8 and 24; 11:15â16; 13:26; 14:3; 16:107; 18:45â46;
20:131; 27:60; 29:64; 40:39; 42:34; 57:20. These verses emphasize the
superiority of life in the hereafter over life in this world, which is
described as temporary amusement and play.
[50] The relevant verses would be too numerous to list here. A concise
and clear exposition of the this-worldly nature of the Qurâanic message
appears in Fazlur Rahman, Major Themes of the Qurân, 37â64.
[51] Leah Kinberg, âCompromise of Commerce: A Study of Early Traditions
concerning Poverty and Wealth,â Der Islam 66 (1989): 193â212, nicely
demonstrates the pliability of the sunnah.
[52] Emile Tyan, âDjihad,â in El, 2:538â40.
[53] Michael Cook, Early Muslim Dogma: A Source-Critical Study, 43.
Wilferd Madelung, âMurdjiâa,â in El, 7:605, rightly points out, however,
that political quietism was not a necessary component of the Murjiâi
movement and that many Murjiâis were politically active.
[54] Mahmood Ibrahim, Merchant Capital and Islam; Maxime Rodinson, Islam
and Capitalism, trans. Brian Pearce; Shelomo Dov Goitein, âThe Rise of
the Near-Eastern Bourgeoisie in Early Islamic Times,â Journal of World
History 3 (1956): 583â604. The significance of merchant capital for
religious scholarship is demonstrated in HayyimJ. Cohen, âThe Economic
Background and the Secular Occupations of Muslim Jurisprudents and
Traditionists in the Classical Period of Islam (until the Middle of the
Eleventh Century),â Journal of the Economic and Social History of the
Orient 13 (1970): 16â61. The role of commerce in the formation of
Islamic cities is studied in Hughes Kennedy, âFrom Polis to Medina:
Urban Change in Late Antique and Early Islamic Syria,â Past & Present
106 (1985): 3â27.
[55] Muhammad Hashim Kamali, Principles of Islamic Jurisprudence,
168â96; George F. Hourani, âThe Basis of Authority of Consensus in
Sunnite Islam,â SA 16 (1962): 13â40, reprinted in Reason and Tradition
in Islamic Ethics, 190â226; M. Bernand, âIdjmaâ,â in El, 3:1 023â26;
Wael B. Hallaq, âOn the Authoritativeness of Sunni Consensus,â
International Journal of Middle East Studies 18 (1986): 427â54. On
authority in Sunni Islam, also see Hamid Dabashi, Authority in Islam:
From the Rise of Muhammad to the Establishment of the Umayyads, 71â93;
and the relevant chapters in George Makdisi, Dominique Sourdel, and
Janine SourdelThomine, eds., La notion dâautorite au Moyen Age: Islam,
Byzance, Occident.
[56] It is possible to argue that Hanbalism was the epitome of the
attitude that privileged the community: see George Makdisi, âHanbalite
Islam,â in Studies on Islam, ed. Merlin L. Swartz, 216â74, esp. 251â64.
[57] For detailed discussion of early Islamic asceticism, see Ignaz
Goldziher, âAsceticism and Sufism,â in Introduction to Islamic Theology
and Law, trans. Andras Hamori and Ruth Hamori, 116â34; Tor Andrae, In
the Garden of Myrtles: Studies in Early Islamic Mysticism, trans.
Birgitta Sharpe, 33â71; Arthur John Arberry, Sufism: An Account of the
Mystics of Islam, 31â44; and Leah Kinberg, âWhat Is Meant by Zuhd?â SA
61 (1985): 27â44.
[58] On the transition to the tawakkul era, see Benedikt Reinert, Die
Lehre vom tawakkul in der klassischen Sufik.
[59] Goitein, âRise of the Near-Eastern Bourgeoisie,â 586â87.
[60] Kinberg, âCompromise of Commerce,â argues that ârenunciation of
worldly goods was always the main current in Islam, and [that]
traditions [that is, hadith] favoring property and wealth arose only as
a concession to the rising economic power of the bourgeoisieâ (195).
[61] Goldziher, âAsceticism and Sufism,â 130â31. Julian Baldickâs recent
survey, Mystical Islam: An Introduction to Sufism, demonstrates that the
concern with external influences, which has a long history, continues to
remain on the agenda.
[62] Andras Hamori, âAscetic Poetry (Zuhdiyyat),â in The Cambridge
History of Arabic Literature: âAbbasid Belles-Lettres, ed. Julia
Ashtiany et al., 265â74.
[63] For the expression âinner-worldly mysticism,â see Weber, âReligious
Rejections,â 325â26.
[64] Discussions on the subject of gainful employment and the relative
merits of poverty and wealth appear in all major Sufi manuals under
various headings. For a good example of the this-worldly trend noted
here, see al-Jullabi, KashfalMahjub, 19â29 and 58â61.
[65] See, for instance, the discussion on seclusion in Hermann Landolt,
âKhalwa,â in El, 4:990â91.
[66] Jacqueline Chabbi, âKhankah,â in El, 4:1025â26.
[67] On Malamatiyah, see Hamid Algar, Frederick deJong, and Colin Imber,
âMalamatiyya,â in EI, 6:223â28; and Sara Sviri, âHakim Tirmidhi and the
Malamati Movement in Early Sufism,â in Classical Persian Sufism: From
Its Origins to Rumi, ed. Leonard Lewisohn, 583â613. On Karramiyah, see
Clifford Edmund Bosworth, âKarramiyya,â in El, 4:667â69; and Wilferd
Madelung, Religious Trends in Early Islamic Iran, 39â53. The most
comprehensive treatment of fituwwah, with copious references, is Franz
Taeschner, Zunfie und Bruderschaften im Islam: Texte zur Geschichte der
Futuwwa.
[68] For comparative treatment of Malamatiyah, Karramiyah, and âIraqiâ
Sufism, see Jacqueline Chabbi, âRemarques sur le d6veloppement
historique des mouvements asc6tiques et mystiques au Khurasan,â SA 46
(1977): 5â72; and idem, âReflexions sur le soufisme iranien
primitif,âJournal Asiatique 266 (1978): 37-55- Cf. Richard W. Bulliet,
The Patricians of Nishapur: A Study in Medieval Islamic Social History,
41â46.
[69] This is clearly a âsociologicalâ interpretation of the concept,
which, however, was not absent from Sufi understanding of baqaâ. For the
standard experiential interpretations, see Gerhard Böwering, âBaqaâ and
Fanaâ,â in EIR, 3:722â24.
[70] Suhrawardi, 84â86; German translation, 93â94 (chapter io, 16â20).
[71] âWith regard to personal progress, ... the word of the Prophet
holds good: âOne single attraction by God is equivalent to the activity
of men and djinnâ â (Gramlich, âMadjdhub, 5:1 29).
[72] Carl W. Ernst, Words of Ecstasy in Sufism, is an admirable attempt
in this direction that approaches the subject through the prism of
shathiyat (ecstatic expressions).
[73] The origin and meaning of the word qalandar remains undetermined to
this day. The most often cited, and indeed so far the only plausible,
suggested derivation is that of the lexicographers Muhammad Husayn ibn
Khalafal-Tabrizi and âAbd al-Rashid al-Tattavl, who consider the word to
be a variation of the Persian kalandar, âcoarse stick; uncouth,
uncultivated man.â AI-Tabrizi regards the transformation of the initial
kf into qdf as an arabization (Burhan-i qatiâ, ed. Muhammad Muâin,
3:1540 and 1680); al-Tattavi attributes it to the âpassage of time and
change of tongueâ (Farhang-i Rashfdl, ed. Zuilfiqar âAli and âAzlz
alRahman, 2:164). Cf. Murtaza Sarraf, âAyin-i qalandari,â Armaghtin
52-dawrahi si-yu nuhum-(1349sh/1970): 705â15 and 53-dawrah-i chihilum
(1350sh/ 1971): 15â21. In Arabic, the word qalandar, also found in the
metathesized form qarandal in the seventh/thirteenth and
eighth/fourteenth century sources, never seems to have meant more than
âmendicant dervish,â which would speak against the possibility of an
Arabic origin, and an Arabic etymology is in itself quite unlikely for
linguistic reasons; see Muâinâs note in al-Tabrizi, Burhan-i qatiâ, 3:1
540; Meier, 500â501, nn. 183â87; and Yazici, âKalandar,â 472â73. The
possibility of an Indian origin cannot be altogether ruled out, however,
even if a plausible Indian etymology is yet to be put forward. For a
Sanskrit etymology that is not altogether intelligible to me, see
Sadeddin Kocaturk, âDar barah-i firqah-i qalandariyah va
qalandarânimah-i Khatib-i Farisi, maâna-yi kalimah-i qalandar,â Dogu
Dilleri (Ankara Universitesi Dil ve Tarih-Cografya FakĂŒltesi Dogu Dil ve
Edebiyatlari Arastlrmalari EnstitĂŒsi) 2 (1971): 89. The word survives in
present-day Turkish as kalender and in Persian and Urdu as qalandar, or
more often as qalandaranah, referring to carefree, simple, bohemian, or
unconventional persons or behavior. In northern India, the word qalandar
usually denotes a beggar or more frequently a monkey or bear player; see
Digby, 65; Aziz Ahmad, An Intellectual History of Islam in India, 45;
and Annemarie Schim- mel, Islam in the Indian Subcontinent, 34â35,n. 71
(relying on Digby). In Pakistan, the word qalandar is largely
interchangeable with malang, another term used to refer to antinomian
dervishes (I owe this information toJamal Elias).
[74] For a general overview, see J. T. P. De Bruijn, âThe Qalandariyydt
in Persian Mystical Poetry, from Sanai Onwards,â in The Legacy of
Mediaeval Persian Sufism, ed. Leonard Lewisohn, 75â86.
[75] âI am that wanderer whose name is Qalandar; / I have neither home
nor goods nor kitchen. / When day comes I wander round the world; / when
night falls I lay my head on a brickâ (Baba Tahir âUryan Hamadani,
Divdn-i Baba TahirâUryan Hamaddni, ed. Manuchihr Adamiyat, 8). Cf.
Mujtabi Minuvi, âAz khazaâin-i Turkiyah,â Majallah-i Ddnishkadah-i
AdabTlyt (Tehran) 4 (1335sh/1956): 57. The English translation is by
Digby, 61.
[76] Abu Saâid-i Abu al-Khayr, Sukhanan-i manzum-i Aba SaâTd-i Abu
alKhayr, ed. Saâid Nafisi, 41 and 58, nos. 281 and 397, respectively.
[77] âAbd Allih Ansari Haravi, Risalah-i Qalandarânamah, in Rasaâil-i
jamiâ-i âarif-i qarn-i chahdrum-i hijrf Khvajah âAbd Alldh Ansari, ed.
Vahid Dastgirdi, 92â99. Cf. Meier, 495; and De Bruijn, âQalandariyyat,â
78, on the question of authorship. Also cf. characterization of the
Qalandarândmah in Yazici, âKalandariyya,â 4:473: âa system of thought
advocating inner contentment, the unimportance of learning, the
avoidance of all display and contempt for the transient world and
everything in it.â
[78] For a list and analysis of QalandarTyat, see Helmut Ritter,
âPhilologika XV: Fariduddin âAttar III. 7. Der Diwan,â Oriens 12 (1959):
I-88; Ritter, index, s.v. âQalandarlyatâ; also De Bruijn,
âQalandariyydtâ; and Johann Christoph Birgel, âThe Pious Rogue: A Study
in the Meaning of Qalandar and Rend in the Poetry of Muhammad Iqbal,â
Edebiyat 4 (1979): 43â49.
[79] On Amir Husayni, see Zabih Allah Safa, arikh-i AdabTyat dar Iran,
3, Ă:751â63 (with ample references); and N. Mayil Haravi, Sharh-i hal va
iasar-i Amir Husaynr Ghuri Haravi, mutavafai 718. For the text of the
Qalandarânamah, see Sadeddin Kocaturk, âIranâda Islamiyetten sonraki
yizyillarda fikir aklmlarina toplu bir bakil ve âkalenderiye tarikatiâ
ile ilgili bir risale,â Ankara Universitesi Dil ve Tarih-Cografya
Fakiltesi Dergisi 28 (1970): 227â29. Both Meier and Haravi rely on
fourteen verses only, as these appear in Riza Quli Khan Hidayat, Majmaâ
alfiusaha, 2:15. All of these fourteen couplets are to be found in the
full text. Kocaturk relies on mss. in London and Tehran and reports the
existence of two further copies in Ayasofya (now in SĂŒleymaniye
KĂŒtĂŒphanesi), Istanbul, without citing their call numbers, which are
given as 1914 and 2032 by Golpinarh in several of his works (for
instance, ioo Soruda Turkiyeâde Mezhepler ve Tarikatler, 259). A fifth
copy in Paris is reported by Ahmad Munzavi, Fihrist-i nuskhaha-yi
khatti-i Farsi, 4:3049, no. 32937. It could be added here that the
âShihab-i Millah va Dinâ whom Amir Husayni mentions in verse 54 was most
likely Shihib alDin Abui Hafs âUmar al-Suhrawardi, to whom Husayni was
connected through his own master Bahaâ al-Din Zakariyaâ Multini. Since
Amir Husayniâs composition is the only independent long poem on the
Qalandar-topos, it is useful to summarize the major themes here:
indifference to both this world and the hereafter; acceptance of oneâs
sins, and denunciation of oneâs acts of devotion; wandering; Qalandars
as the repository of the secret of the creation and adorned with Godâs
grace, the âcreamâ of creation; mirth and merrymaking, dance and
ecstasy, wine-drinking, looking at beardless boys; freedom from
hypocrisy, fraud, deception; dependence on love to the point of
disregarding reason; the only way to God being that of the Qalandars. It
is worth noting here that the Ottoman Vahidi had access to Husayniâs
work and incorporated many of his verses in approximate Turkish
translation into his Menaklb, though his debt to Husayni did not extend
to a total reliance upon his text (Vah.idi, 54, n. 40).
[80] Professor J. T. P. De Bruijn is currently preparing an extensive
study of the Qalandariyat in early Persian poetry (oral correspondence,
May 1992).
[81] Digby, 62 (n. 4) writes: âThe growth and diffusion of groups of
wandering Qalandars is attested by an anecdote in âAt.trâs celebrated
poem, the Mantiq al-tayr, which was composed not later than 573/1177. An
Arab, coming to âAjam (Iran and adjacent Persian-speaking areas), was
amazed by the unfamiliar customs of the land. On his road he fell in
with a band of shaven Qalandars, a people he had never seen before. He
joined them, shaved his hair, and participated in various obscurely
described but probably orgiastic experiences with them; but was
maltreated, assaulted and robbed by them before he returned to his own
land. The anecdote appears to indicate that groups of wandering
Qalandars were a spectacle in Khurasan in the third quarter of the
twelfth century; but had not then reached the Arab Middle East. They
were also by that time characterized by wild and antinomian behavior
similar to that found in the thirteenth-century anecdotes discussed in
this paper, and had adopted the practice of shaving their eyebrows and
facial hair.â
[82] Suhrawardi, 66; German translation, 85 (9:23); an earlier German
translation of the passage is supplied by Ritter, âPhilologika XV,â
14â16. English translations are found in various secondary studies (for
instance, Trimingham, 267).
[83] Ahmad ibn âAll al-Maqrizl, al-Mawa~iz wa-al-iâtibar bi-dhikr
al-khitat waal-thar, 4:301; âAbd al-Rahman ibn Ahmad Jami, Nafahat
al-uns min hazardt alquds, ed. Mahdi TawhidiâPur, 14â15. For other
sources that quote from âAuwrif al-maâarif, see Koprilfi I, 298, n. 3.
[84] For the date of âAwarifal-maâarifs composition, see Gramlichâs
introduction to his German translation of the work, 14â15. It is, of
course, possible that the name Qalandar was not yet attached to members
of Jamal al-Dinâs circle at this early stage.
[85] Meier, 51 2, thinks that al-Suhrawardi must have been describing an
earlier stage of the Qalandari movement.
[86] Paul Rycaut, The History of the Present State of the Ottoman
Empire, 260.
[87] Farisi. In citing this work in the following discussion, page and
line references refer to Yazlclâs and verse numbers to Zarrinkubâs
editions, respectively; thus 6.5/82 is page 6, line 5, in Yaziciâs text
and verse 82 in ZarrinkĂŒbâs. The title of the work is not given in the
text. The authorâs pen-name, Khatib Firisi, appears on 6.5/82, 55.1
4/1068, 89.1/1746, and 90.3/1768. He gives the name of his pir on
5.2/58. That he was born in 697/1297-98 can be deduced from his
statement at the end of the work that he was fifty-one years of age when
he completed his composition, 90.3/1768.
[88] Khatib Farisi gives Jamil al-Dinâs dates as 382/992-93 to
463/1070-71. As Bayazid is known to have died in the 260s/870s at the
latest, more than a century before the alleged birth date ofJamal
al-Din, Farisi clearly did not have a knack for historical accuracy. On
Biyazid, see Helmut Ritter, âAbi Yazid alBistami,â in El, 1:162â63; and
Gerhard B6wering, âBestami, Bayazid,â in EIR, 4:183â86.
[89] Farisi, 18.4/319-25.21/468; the parallels in the Mirsad are
documented by Zarrinkub in his notes to the text on 121â25. Naturally,
it is impossible to reconstruct the origins of this use of common
materials by Najm al-Din Razi and Khatib Firisi, though it is likely
that the latter (or Jamil al-Din himself) simply borrowed from the
former.
[90] See chapter 2, no. 21, for references on this hadith.
[91] All of the practices mentioned receive extended treatment in Jamal
al-Dinâs sacred biography. On dwelling in cemeteries, see especially
82-84/ 1609â1668, the section entitled dalil gufian-i Sayyid dar bab-i
ankih dar guristan nishastan[ra] martaba chist (in both Damascus and
Damietta Jamal al-Din resides only in cemeteries); on nakedness,
31.5-7/567-69, 32.10-14/593-97, 42.6/796; on silence, 33.2/607,
41.9/778, 42.6/796, 46.3/875, 80.2-3/1565-66, 80. 16/1579, and 84 (whole
page)/1646-63; on abstinence from food, 33.5-6/610-11 (eating weeds
about once a week), 36.7-15/672-80 (rejection ofâcookedâ/other peopleâs
food), 37.20, 41.9/778, 42.5/795, 47.20-21/910-11; on keeping vigils,
41.9/778, 42.6/796; on the significance of hair, 32.5/588, especially
the section called dar hikmat va mawâizah va tahsin: 46.7/879 to
47.16/907.
[92] Abu Bakr Isfahaniâs miraculous deeds in Damascus are narrated on
47. 18/ 908â53.15/1026.
[93] The beard-producing miracle is also recorded as follows in
Battutah, 1:61â63. Some time after Jamal al-Din comes to Damietta and
settles in its cemetery, he has a brief encounter with the magistrate
(qd41) of the town, a certain Ibn al-âAmid, who loses no time in
reproving Jamal al-Din for his innovation of shaving the beard. For his
part, Jamal al-Din declares the magistrate to be an ignoramus since,
riding a mule in the cemetery, Ibn al-âAmid is apparently unaware that
the dead deserve as much respect as the living. When Ibn al-âAmid
retorts that shaving the beard is a graver offense, Jamil al-Din
answers, âIs this what you mean?â and, letting out a loud cry, produces
a mighty black beard. At a second cry, this beard turns white and at a
third disappears completely. After this miracle, Ibn al-âAmid becomes a
faithful follower ofJamal al-Din and has a hospice (zawiyah) built in
his name, where Jamal al-Din is buried upon his death.
[94] The introductory section âOn the Merits of Povertyâ (dar sifat-i
fazglat-i faqr) is on 6.7/85-8.11/126. For the emphasis on Muhammadâs
choice of poverty, see 3.2-4/17-19 and 6. 2â7. I /89-105; onJamal al-Din
as the king of poverty, see io. 18/172 and 11.13-15/190-92.
[95] Qalandar, 130â32 (majlis 37). This work, which records the âoral
discoursesâ (malfizat) of the Chishti master Nas r al-Din Chiragh-i
Dihli (d. 757/ 1356), was composed after 754/1353; see Digby, 96, nn. Ă
and 112. The anecdote that contains the epithet âwalking libraryâ may
have been a stock item in Chishti lore, since it also appears, with no
mention ofJamal al-Dinâs name, in a shorter version in the conversations
of Nasir al-Dinâs master, Nizam al-Din Awliyaâ (d. 725/1325); see Amir
Hasan Sijzi, Favaâid al-fuâad, 3; English translation: Nizam ad-Din
Awliya: Moralsfor the Heart, trans. Bruce B. Lawrence, 84.
[96] For the story of Hamid Qalandarâs conversion to the path of
Qalandars as a child as well as his own testimony of the value that he
placed on his Qalandar allegiance, see Qalandar, 6; also Digby, 71â72. A
recent discussion of the place of the Khayr al-majalis in Chishti
malfizat literature appears in Carl W. Ernst, Eternal Garden: Mysticism,
History, and Politics at a South Asian Sufi Center, 68â71, where the
question of Hamidâs scholarship is also addressed.
[97] Shams al-Din Muhammad al-Jazari recorded in his history that he saw
several fascicles of a Qurâanic tafsTr in Jamal al-Dinâs own
handwriting; see Dhahabi, 398 (al-Dhahabi died in 748/1348 or
752/1352-53); relying on al-Dhahabi, Safadi, 293 (al-Safadi died in
764/1363); Nuâaymi, 2:210â12 (al-Nuâaymi died in 927/1520-21). For Shams
al-Din, Muhammad al-Jazari, see Carl Brockelmann, Geschichte der
Arabischen Litteratur, Suppl. 2:33 and 45; cf. A. S. Bazmee Ansari,
âAl-Djazari,â in El, 2:522â23.
[98] Dhahabi, 397; Safadi, 292; Khatib (written in 683/1284-85), sIb.
[99] Khatib, 51b.
[100] The quotation is from Shams al-Din Abu âAbd Allah Muhammad ibn
âUthman al-Dimashqi al-Dhahabi, al-âIbar fi khabar man ghabar, ed. Abu
Hajir Muhammad al-Saâid ibn Bisyuni Zaghlul, 3:357. See also Ibn
al-Kathir, âImad al-Din Ism~ail ibn âUmar (ca. 700-774/1300-1373),
al-Bidayah wa-al-nihayah, 13:307; Nuâaymi, 2:197; and Ibn al-âImad, âAbd
al-Hayy ibn Ahmad, Shadharat al-dhahabftakhbar man dhahab (up to
1080/1670), 5:3 89.
[101] Khatib reports the young asceticâs name as Garfibad. Qalandar,
131, alone among the sources, attributesJamal al-Dinâs conversion to an
encounter he had with a group known as âiron-wearers.â Though rather
weak, this piece of evidence serves to direct attention to the fact that
iron-wearing Haydaris could indeed have exercised influence on Jamal
al-Dinâs turn to asceticism.
[102] Farisi, 30-34/546-629. Dhahabi, 397; Safadi, 292; and Nuâaymi,
2:210â12 also mention an âUthman Kuhi al-Farisi along with Jalal
Darguzini in this story.
[103] Battutah, 1:61â63; Ebuâl-Hayr Rimi, Saltukndme, ed. Fahir iz,
363b-69a; Muhammad Qasim HinduiâShah Astarabadi, known as Firishtah,
Gulshan-i Ibrahimi, usually called arĂkh-i Firishtah, 2:407â8; Qasim
Ghani, Bahs dar asar va ajkar va ahvil-i Hafiz, 2:442â43.
[104] Significantly, this anecdote is not mentioned in Jamal al-Dinâs
sacred biography, Manaqib, written by one of his later followers. The
fact that the sources do not agree on the timing and place of the
anecdote is further reason to suspect its authenticity. Moreover, the
same motif is found in other hagiographical material: essentially the
same story, without the episode of shaving and with a different ending,
is reported about a certain Shaqran ibn âUbayd Allah in one early
seventh/thirteenth-century Arabic source and two early
ninth/fifteenthcentury ones; see Christopher Schurman Taylor, âThe Cult
of the Saints in Late Medieval Egypt,â 158â59.
[105] The presence of a hospice of Qalandars in Damietta is reported in
Battutah, 1:61. Apart from the sources mentioned in the above
discussion, there are some other, more oblique, references toJamil
al-Din in the sources. If a brief note in Hamd Allih Mustawfi Qazvini,
The 7arikh-i GuzTdah (730/1329-30), ed. Edward G. Browne, 1:790, indeed
refers to Jamil al-Din Sivi and not to some other shaykh called Jamal
al-Din, then the date of his death was 4 Shawwal 65 r/ 27 November 1253.
In addition, in his Zahr al-âarsh fi ahkam (or tahrim) alhashish,
Muhammad ibn Bahidur al-Zarkashi (d. 794/1392) mentions Ahmad [sic]
al-Sawaji al-Qalandari, along with Shaykh Haydar, as the âdiscovererâ of
hashish; see chapter 2, n. 16.
[106] On the town Zivah, see Dihkhudi, s.v. âZavah.â
[107] Only Muâin al-Din Muhammad Zamaji Isfizari, Rawzat al-jannat f
awsif madinah Harat (written 897/1491-92), ed. S. M. Kizim Imam, 229,
writes that Haydar traveled from country to country; other sources are
silent on this issue.
[108] Ludwig Adamec, ed., Historical Gazetteer of Iran, vol. 2, Meshed
and Northeastern Iran, 653â55.
[109] The following sources cite 617 or 618/1220-22 as Qutb al-Dinâs
death date and also report that he was a centenarian at his death:
al-âUqbari (possibly d. 690/1291), Kitcb al-sawanih, in Rosenthal,
51â53; Qazwini, 382â83; Hamd Allah Mustawfi, 7Trfkh-i Guzfdah, 792â93;
idem, The Geographical Part of the Nuzhat-al-Qulub Composed by
Hamd-Allah Mustawf10f Qazwin in 740 (1340), ed. Guy Le Strange, 151â54;
Giyas al-Din ibn Humim al-Din Khvandamir, Tarikh-i habib al-siyar f
akhbar al-bashar, ed. by Jalil al-Din HumĂŒ, 3:332; Karbalaâi 1:444.
DawlatâShih ibn âAliâ al-Dawlah BakhtiâShih al-Ghizi al-Samarqandi,
Tadhkirat al-shuâaraâ, ed. Edward G. Browne, 192, however, claims that
Qutb alDin died in 597/1200-1201 or 602/1205-6, while Fasih al-Din Ahmad
ibn Muhammad, known as Fasih al-Khvafi, Mujmal-i Fasiht (up to
845/1441-42), ed. Mahmud Farrukh, 2:288, has him die in 613/1216-17.
Zivah was burned down and its inhabitants massacred by the Mongols in
617/1220; see âAliâ al-Din âAta Malik Juvayni, The History of the
World-Conqueror [ Tarikh-i Jahanâgusha], trans. John Andrew Boyle,
1:144.
[110] Fasih al-Khvifi, Mujmal-i Fasihf, 2:288, cites Qutb al-Dinâs full
name as Qutb al-Din ibn Timir ibn Abi Bakr ibn SultanâShah ibn Sultan
KhIn al-Siluri. DawlatâShah, Tadhkirat al-shuâarad, 192, claims that
Haydar was a descendant of the sultans of Turkistan through his father,
Shihvar. In his extended translation into Chagatay ofJimiâs Nafahdt
al-uns, âAli Sir Nevil also reports that Qutb alDin Haydar was the son
of a sultan of Turkistan; see NesdyimĂŒâl-mahabbe min jemayimiâl-fĂŒtivve
(comp. 901/1495-96), ed. Kemal Eraslan, 383â84. Karbalaâi, 1:444,
repeats the report about Qutb al-Din Haydarâs Turkish descent. Isfizari,
Rawzdt al-jannat, 216, notes that he saw the genealogy of Qutb al-Din
Haydar recorded in the Nasabndmah of Qizi Shams al-Din Muhammad-i Zizan;
this work, however, is not extant; see the editorâs note in the Rawzat
al-jannat, 217,n. 4. The possibility that Qutb al-Din Haydar had special
appeal among Turks is raised by the testimony of the famous cosmographer
and geographer Zakariyâ al-Qazwini who saw (roughly half a century after
Qutb al-Dinâs death, presumably in Zivah) Turkish slaves of extreme
beauty, barefooted and dressed in felt; he was told that these were
Haydarâs followers (Qazwini, 382â83).
[111] Later sources on Qutb al-Din Haydar derive their information from
the earlier ones cited above without in any way adding to them; see, for
instance, Ahmad Amin Rizi, Haft iqlim, ed. Javid Fazil, 2:188; Zayn
al-âAbidin Shirvini, Bustan al-siyahah, ed. Sayyid âAbd Allah Mustawfi,
219; and Maâsum âAliâShah ibn Rahmat âAli Niâmat Allahi al-Shirazi,
Tardaiq al-haqaâiq, ed. Muhammad Jaâfar Mahjuib, 2:642. Still other
sources confuse Qutb al-Din Haydar with a certain Sultan Mir Haydar
Tuni, also known as Qutb al-Din, who lived in Tabriz and died there in
830/1426-27; see, for instance, Nur Allah ibn Sayyid Sharif Husayni
Marâashi Shushtari, Majalis al-muâminin, 36 and 267; and Dihkhuda, s.v.
âQutb al-Din Tuniâ and âHaydar, Qutb al-Din.â Other sources that confuse
the two Qutb al-Dins are noted in Husayn Mir Jaâfari, âHaydari va
Niâmati,â Ayandah 9 (1362sh/1983): 742â45 (earlier English version: âThe
Haydari-Niâmati Conflicts in Iran,â Iranian Studies 12 [1979]: 61â142).
The most reliable account on Tuni appears to be that of Karbalâi,
1:467â68. The Dlvan-i Qutb al-Din Haydar reported in Ibn Yusuf Shirazi,
Fihrist-i Kitabkhanah-i Madrasah-i âAli-i Sipahsalar, entry 564, to be
in the Library of Madrasah-i Sipahsalar would appear to belong to Qutb
al-Din Haydar luni; see Sacid Nafisi, JustujĂŒ dar ahval va iasar-i Farid
al-Dmn âAttar Nishaburn, mim/dal-mim/ha, where, however, Nafisi confuses
the two Qutb al-Dins.
[112] Qalandar, 174â76, makes Qutb al-Din Haydar a disciple of Shaykh
Luqman, while Nevâi, NesayimĂŒ-l-mahabbe, 383â84; Karbalaâi, 1:597; and
Vilayetname: Manaklb-i Hacl Bektaj-i Vell, ed. AbdĂŒlbaki G61pinarh, 9-I
, portray him as a follower of Ahmed Yesevi. For references on Shaykh
Luqman, see Meier, 411â12. A concise account on Yesevi is Mehmed Fuad
K6prilĂŒ, âAhmed Yesevi,â in Islam Ansiklopedisi, I:210â15. This article
contains improvements over K6prĂŒliâs earlier study on Yesevi, Turk
Edebiyattnda Ilk Mutasavvflar. The view that Qutb al-Din Haydar was a
disciple of Jamal al-Din Savi (see, for instance, Trimingham, 39; and
Digby, 82) is unfounded and should be rejected.
[113] Khvandamir, Tarikh-i habib al-siyar, 2:332. The rubaâ in question
reads as follows: ârindi didam nishastah bar khushk-i zamin / nah kufr u
nah islam u nah dunya u nah din / nah haqq nah haqiqat nah tariqat nah
yaqin / andar du jahan ki ra buvad zahrah-i in.â This same rubaâi, with
few changes, is attributed to Fakhr al-Din al-Razi (d. 606/1209) in
Karbalaâi, 1:444; he is said to have composed it for Baba Faraj (on whom
see Dihkhuda, s.v. âBaba Farajâ). On the same page, al-Qurrai notes that
the quatrain also appears in some collections attributed to Khayyam (d.
526/1131); see, for instance, âUmar ibn Ibrahim Nishaburi, known as
Khayyam, Taranaha-yi Khayydm, ed Sadiq Hidayat, 102, no. 104. In this
connection, it is worth noting that Shah-i Sanjan was sufficiently close
to Qutb al-Din Haydar both in time and in space to make the attribution
of the above quatrain to him a real possibility. On Shah-i Sanjan, see
Dihkhuda, s.v., âShah-i Sanjan,â and the list of references cited
therein. To this list one should add Qalandar, 174â76, where,
significantly, it is reported that both Haydar-i Zavah and Shah-i Sanjan
were among the followers of Shaykh Luqman.
[114] DawlatâShah, Tadhkirat al-shuâarad, 192. It is not known if âAttar
really composed a Haydarnmah at all. Ritter, 139, writes, âDass âAttar
ein Haidarnama verfasst hat, steht durch sein selbsterzeugnis im Lisan
al-gaib fest,â yet in his later article ââAttar,â in El, 1:754, he
includes Lisan al-ghayb among a group of apocryphal works that came to
be attributed to âAttar but were certainly not composed by him. Benedikt
Reinert, ââAttar, Farid-al-Din,â in EIR, 3:25, agrees with this last
judgment without touching on the Haydarnmmah. Nafisi, Justuju, 97 and
IIo, n. 16, merely notes that the earliest source to attribute a
Haydarnamah to âAttar is DawlatâShahâs Tadhkirat al-shuâaraâ, that Katib
Qelebi also mentions a Haydarndmah (see Mustafa ibn âAbdullah, known as
K5tib (elebi, Kashf al- zunun, ed. Serefettin Yaltkaya and Kilisli Rifat
Bilge, 1:694, where the name of the author is not given), and that no
such Haydarnmmah has come to light. Badi al-Zaman Furiuznfar, Sharh-i
ahliul va tahlil-i dsar-i Shaykh Farid al-Din Muhammad âAttar Nishdburi,
31 and 76, notes that DawlatâShahâs entry on âAttar is not trustworthy
on the whole and rules out the possibility that âAttar could have
written a Haydarnamah. Safa, Tarikh-i Adabiyat dar Iran, 1:861â62, who
relies only on Nafisi, has nothing new to say on the topic. Cf. Munzavi,
Fihrist-i nuskhaha-yi khatti-i Farsi, 4:2777, no. 29315.
[115] Qalandar, 176.
[116] Al-âUqbari, Kitab al-sawdanih, as reported in Rosenthal, 51â53. It
is here recorded, on the authority of a certain Shaykh Jaâfar ibn
Muhammad al-Shirazi whom al-âUqbari met in Tustar in 658/1260, that the
use of hashish as an intoxicant was first âdiscoveredâ by Shaykh Haydar
while he led the life of a recluse in a small zawiyah situated on a
mountain between Nishipur and Zavah in Khorasan. This account of the
discovery of hashish is repeated in summary in the Zahr al-âarish fi
ahkam (or tahrim) al-hashish of Muhammad ibn Bahadur alZarkashi, 170,
with the additional information that the discovery took place around the
year 550/ 1155â56.
[117] Qazwini, 382.
[118] Sijzi, Favadid al-fuâad, 12; English version: Moralsfor the Heart,
101â2, also 360. The Persian edition reads âHaydarâzidahâ instead of
âHaydar-i Zavah.â The same reading appears in the editions of Hamd Allah
Mustawfi, Tanrkh-i Guzidah; and Khvindamir, Tarikh-i habfb al-siyar,
3:332, while the editor of Qalandar, 176, opts for the reading âHaydar-i
Zaviyah.â All these are here corrected to âHaydar-i Zavah.â Cf. Digby,
105, n. 76.
[119] Velayetname-i Otman Baba survives in two manuscripts: (i) Abdal;
(2) Ms. Adnan Otuken il Halk KĂŒtĂŒphanesi (Ankara), no. 495 (dated
1316/1899, copyist Hasan Tebrizi). For a summary of its contents, see
HĂŒseyin Fehmi, âOtman Baba ve Vilayetnamesi,â Turk Yurdu 5 (1927):
239â44 (Fehmi uses ms. i, which he incorrectly dates to 1073/1663); and
Ahmet Yasar Ocak, Bektaji Menaklbnamelerinde Islam Oncesi Inanf
Motifleri, 16â17 (Ocak uses ms. 2). A selection from the work (ms. i,
fols. iob-isa) appears in Fahir iz, Eski Turk Edebiyatlnda Nesir: XIV.
Yizylldan XIX. Yuzyil Ortasmna Kadar Yazmalardan Sefilmij Metinler,
330â36. The date of composition appears in Abdal, fol. 129a.
[120] Otman Babaâs name is discussed in Abdil on fol. 21b and his
arrival and early activities in Anatolia on fols. 9b-ĂŒb; the dates of
his birth and death are recorded on fols. 122b-123b. The date of his
death also appears in Yemini, 83. Also see Ocak, 99â102 (relying on ms.
i).
[121] On Sufi views of the relationship between sainthood and prophecy,
see Hermann Landolt, âWaliyah,â in The Encyclopedia of Religion,
15:316â23, esp. 321â22; and Bernd Radtke, âThe Concept of Wilaya in
Early Sufism,â in Classical Persian Sufism: From Its Origins to Rumi,
ed. Leonard Lewisohn, 483â96; also Chodkiewicz, Le sceau des saints.
[122] Abdal, fols. 5b-6b.
[123] Ibid., fol. 32b. The relevant portion ofQurâan 7:172, adopted with
slight changes from Abdullah Yusuf Aliâs translation, The Meaning of the
Glorious Qurâan (London: Nadim and Co., 1975), 227â28, reads: âWhen your
Lord drew forth from the children of Adam, from their loins, their
descendants, and made them testify concerning themselves (saying): âAm I
not your Lord?â they said: âYes, we testify.â â Creative interpretation
of this verse was a feature of Sufi thought from its earliest phases;
see Gerhard Bowering, The Mystical Vision of Existence in Classical
Islam: The Qurâanic Hermeneutics of the Safi Sahl At-Tustari (d.
283/896), 153â57.
[124] Abdal, fols. 8a and sob.
[125] Ibid., fol. 6b. On this hadith qudst, awliyadâ tahta qibabl
(qabajâ) la yaârifuhum ghayrn, see Furuzanfar, Ahadlth-i Masnavl, 52,
no. 13 ; and Nur al-Din âAbd alRahman Isfarayini, Kashifal-asrar, ed.
Hermann Landolt, 104, n. 144.
[126] Abdal, fols. 6b, 23a-b (on the âpeople of hospicesâ), 20a, 21b,
54b, 57b (on rejection of gifts).
[127] For references on Sultan uĂŒcaâ and Haci Bektas, see chapter 5, n.
62, and chapter 6, n. 71, respectively.
[128] Haci Bektas and Sultan SĂŒcaâ are mentioned in Abdal, fol. 7b. On
Bayezid Baba and MĂŒâmin Dervis, see fol. 28b ff; on Mahmud (elebi, fols.
112b-113a.
[129] Ibid., fols. 11b and 32b.
[130] Ibid., fols. 10b and 19b-21b.
[131] Dhahabi, 398; idem, al-âlbar fi khabar man ghabar, ed. Salah
al-Din Munajjid, 5:1 41â42; Safadi, 293.
[132] Ibn al-Kathir, al-Biddyah wa-al-nihayah, 13:196; Nuâaymi, 2:212.
Vilayetname, 9â11, also refers to a period of captivity in Qutb al-Din
Haydarâs life. According to this work, Qutb al-Din was held a prisoner
by the âunbelievers of Badakhshanâ (in present-day northeast
Afghanistan), presumably the Ismaâilis, and was saved from captivity by
Haci Bektas.
[133] Ibn al-Fuft âAbd al-Razzaq ibn Ahmad, al-Hawadith al-jamiâah
(Baghdad, 1351/1932), 342, as quoted in Michel M. Mazzaoui, The Origins
of the Safawids: S&âism, Safism and the Gulat, 43, n. 3; also Meier,
500. A somewhat different version of the same story is found in âUbayd-i
Zakani, Hajvyadt va hazlTyat, 39; see also Edward Granville Browne, A
Literary History of Persia, 3:251; and George Morrison, Julian Baldick,
and ShafĂŒ Kadkani, History of Persian Literature from the Beginning of
the Islamic Period to the Present Day, 66.
[134] On al-Hariri, see note 17 below.
[135] Ibn al-Kathir, al-Bidayah, 1:344; al-Maqrizi, al-Mawaâiz, 4:301â2.
[136] Nuâaymi, 2:209â10. On Qalandars and Haydaris in Damascus, see also
Pouzet, 228â29.
[137] Battutah, 1:61. Takrur was the name given in particular to
present-day Mauritania and Mali, though it was also used more generally
to denote the Saharan region stretching from the Nile to the Atlantic;
see Chouki El Hamel, âFath ash-Shakur: Hommes de lettres, disciples et
enseignement dans le Takrur du XVI^(e) au Tebut du XIX^(e) siecle,â
74â75.
[138] Al-Maqrizi, al-Mawaâiz, 4:301â2.
[139] Mujir al-Din al-âUlaymi al-Hanbali, al-Uns al-jalâl bi-taârikh
al-quds wa-alkhalll, 2:413â14. See also Huda Lutfi, Al-Quds
al-Mamlikiyya: A History ofMamluk Jerusalem Based on the Haram
Documents, 115 (Zawiyat al-Shaykh Ibrahim).
[140] Jawbari, fol. 18a, lines 4â6. On al-Jawbari, see Brockelmann,
Geschichte der Arabischen Litteratur, 1:655 (497) and Suppl. I:910. A
description of the contents of the work appears in Clifford Edmund
Bosworth, The Mediaeval Islamic Underworld: The Banu Sdsan in Arabic
Society and Literature, 1:106â18. I follow Brockelmann in giving
al-Jawbariâs personal name as âAbd al-Rahman; the SĂŒleymaniye manuscript
records it as âAbd al-Rahim.
[141] Jawbari, fol. 17a. This manuscript copy reads âRifaâiyahâ instead
of âHaydariyahâ (followed by Bosworth, The Mediaeval Islamic Underworld,
113), yet the French translation of Kashf al-asrar, based on more
copies, gives the name âHaydariyahâ: Le voile arrache: Lâautre visage de
lâlslam, trans. Rene R. Khawam, 83.
[142] Taqi al-Din Ahmad ibn Taymiyah, Majmuâat al-rasdâil wa-al-masdâil,
1:33 and 64â65. Cf. Muhammad Umar Memon, Ibn Taimiyaâs Struggle against
Popular Religion, with an Annotated Translation of His Kitab iqtidaâ
ass-irat al-mustaqim mukhalafat ashab al-jahim, 61â62 and 65â66.
[143] Muhammad ibn Shakir al-Kutubi, Fawat al-wafayat, vol. 3, ed. Ihsan
âAbbas, 36â37; and Meier, 505â6, where the poem is given in German
translation.
[144] I read julnak/jalnak/jilnak, not jilink (Persian jiling, âa kind
of silken stuffâ) as Meier does, and take this word to be an arabization
of the Turkish goĂŒlek, âshirt.â The reading jilink does not make much
sense in this context. The text reads: ânalbisu âiwada hadha al-kattan
julnak min suf al-khirfan aw dalaq aw nusbihu âuryan.â
[145] Vaâiz Kashifi, Rashahat âayn al-hayat, 2:460â61.
[146] Kitab alflaylah wa-laylah, ed. Muhsin Mahdi, 137; English
translation: The Arabian Nights, trans. Husain Haddawy, 76 (âThe Story
of the Porter and the Three Ladiesâ). To the literary evidence
documented above, one could also add Abi Hafs âUmar al-Suhrawardiâs (d.
632/1234) discussion on Qalandars in his celebrated Sufi manual âAwarif
al-maâarif (Suhrawardi, 66), discussed in chapter 3 above. The Qalandars
survived in Egypt well into the tenth/sixteenth century; see, for
instance, Michael M. Winter, Society and Religion in Early Ottoman
Egypt: Studies in the Writings ofâAbd al-Wahhab al-Shaârani, 121, n. 52.
[147] For a list of references on al-Harri, see Meier, 507, n. 226. See
also K6prilĂŒ I, 301 (continuation of n. 2 from 300); Louis Massignon,
âHaririyya,â in El, 3:222; Pouzet, 220â21; Aflaki, 2:640â41 (4/32),
2:677â78 (4/79); and Jawbari, fols. 18a-Igb. On other related dervish
movements in Damascus, notably the muwallahun, see Pouzet, 222â26. On
Ahmad al-Badawi, see K. Vollers and E. Littmann, âAhmad al-Badawl,â in
El, 1:280â81. The most important compilation on his life is âAbd
al-Samad Zayn al-Din, al-Jawahir al-sanlyah fi alkaramat al-ahmadlyah,
repeatedly printed; two modern studies on him are Saâid âAbd al-Fattah
âAshur, al-Sayyid Ahmad al-Badawi: Shaykh wa tariqatuh; and âAbd
al-Halim Mahmid, al-Sayyid Ahmad al-Badawl. For a study of his cult in
contemporary Egypt, see Edward B. Reeves, The Hidden Government: Ritual,
Clientalism, and Legitimation in Northern Egypt. Cf. Alfred Le
Chatelier, Les confriries musulmanes du Hedjaz, 161â82.
[148] On Ahmad al-Rifaâi, see D. S. Margoliouth, âAl-Rifaâi,â in The
Encyclopedia of Islam, first edition, 6:1156â57; the standard source on
his life is Taqi alDin âAbd al-Rahman al-Wasiti, Tirycq al-muhibbin fi
tabaqat khirqat al-mashayikh al-âariftn. That Rifaâis wore iron collars
is attested in Ibn Taymiyah, Majmuâat alrasdâil, 1:131â154. On Rifaâiyah
in Damascus during the seventh/thirteenth century, see Pouzet, 227; on
Rifaâiyah in general, see Trimingham, 37â40.
[149] In this connection, it is possible to speculate that the initial
Mongol intolerance forced the Qalandars to emigrate to other Islamic
lands and generally discouraged them from entering Mongol territory.
Muhammad al-Khatib, for instance, writes, naturally with a good deal of
exaggeration occasioned by his extreme hostility toward âhereticsâ
(zanddiqah): âif it were not for the might of Mongol armies, practically
all regions of the world would have been filled with these bands of
irreligionâ (Khatib, 53b). More telling is the execution of a group of
Qalandars at the orders of HĂŒlegĂŒ in Harrin in 658/1259-60; see chapter
i.
[150] Fakhr al-Din Ibrahim Hamadani âIraqi, Kulliyat-i dâvdn-i Shaykh
Fakhr alDin Ibrahim Hamaddnf mutakhallas biâIradq, ed. M. Darvish,
âMuqaddimah-i jamiâ-i divan,â 21â23.
[151] Aflaki, 2:631 (4/28).
[152] Rosenthal, 51.
[153] Tavakkuli ibn Ismaâil, Ibn al-Bazzaz, Safvat al-safJâ (Bombay,
1329/1911), 63; and Rashid al-Din Fazl Allah, Geschichte der Ilhane
Abaga bis Gaihatu 1265â95 (sâGravenhage, 1957), 47 and 56, as cited in
Hanna Sohrweide, âDer Sieg der Safaviden in Persien u. seine RĂŒckwirkung
auf die SchĂŒten Anatoliens im 16. Jh.,â Der Islam 41 (1965): 103â4.
[154] Tavakkuli ibn Ismaâil, Ibn al-Bazzaz, Safvat al-sajf, 31, as cited
in Sohrweide, âDer Sieg der Safaviden in Persien,â 103; also Meier, 498,
n. 165; and Jean Aubin, âShaykh Ibrahim Zihid Gilani (1218?-1 301),â
Turcica 21â23 (1991): 41â43. Sohrweide notes that Shaykh Safi too
despised Qalandars, referring to Safvat al-sajaâ, 120, 214, and 258.
[155] Khatib, 52a-b. Awhad al-Din Kirmini himself was familiar with
Qalandars; see Meier, 500, n. 179.
[156] Abu Khalid is reported in al-âUqbari, Kitab al-sawanih, as cited
in Rosenthal, 51â53; and Haiji Mubarak in Aflaki, 1:215 (3/123) and
467â68 (3/437).
[157] Battutah, 3:79â80.
[158] The text of Taj al-Din ibn Bahl al-Din Jami (PĂŒr-i Baha)âs work
entitled Karndma-yi awqdf is given in transliteration and German
translation in Birgitt Hoffmann, âVon falschen Asketen und âunfrommenâ
Stiftungen,â in Proceedings of the First European Conference of Iranian
Studies Held in Turin, September 7^(th)-11^(th), 1987 by the Societas
Iranologica Europaea, part 2, Middle and New Iranian Studies, ed.
Gherardo Gnoli and Antonio Panaino, 409â85 (text on 422â83). The
description of the dervish and his young companion is on 444â45 (verses
130â37). Hoffmann mistakenly thinks that the beardless boy is the
dervishâs son, even though Pur-i Bahl explicitly refers to the boy as
the Haydari dervishâs âwitnessâ (shahid; verse 133). I thank ProfessorJ.
T. P de Bruijn for bringing the Kanmmayi awqaf to my attention.
[159] Qazwini, 382â83.
[160] â[Baba Resul] had gone to Iran along with others who were exiled
from Anatolia during the campaign of TemĂŒr and had remained there. After
a long period of religious education in those lands, he wanted [to join
a] a Sufi order, tarfkat, and became an Abdil by spending many months
and years at the zaviyah of Kutbeddin Haydarâ (Halvacibasizade Mahmud
H.ulvi, Lemezat-i hulviye ez lemeâat-i âulviye, Ms. SĂŒleymaniye
KfitĂŒphanesi, Halet Efendi 281 [undated], fol. 186b).
[161] Karbalaâi, 1:467â68, where, however, Tumni is said to be a
Qalandar; and Shushtari, Majalis al-muâminin, 36 and 267. For two
differing views on the Haydaris of Tabriz and the later Haydari-Niâmati
conflict in major cities of Iran, see Zarrinkub, 85â87; and MirJaâfari,
âHaydari va Niâmati,â 745ff
[162] Tacizade Saâdi (Celebi, MĂŒneâat, ed. Necati Lugal and Adnan Erzi,
28; MirJaâfari, âHaydari va Niâmati,â 746. The person called Niâmat
Haydari, who was responsible for bringing about the unpleasant incident
that the poet Jimi had to suffer through in Baghdad on his return trip
from pilgrimage in 877-78/ 1472â74, also defies further identification,
though in this case it is at least clear that, like the followers of
Qutb al-Din Haydar, he had an unusually long moustache; see Vaâiz
Kashifi, Rashahat âayn al-hayat 1:257â58; and Koprului I, 477.
[163] Meier, 509 (based on the Mazarat-i Kirmdn of Mihrabi, ed. Husayn
Kuhl Kirmani [Tehran, 1330], 54â60; and Fasih al-Khvifi, Mujmal-i
Fasihi, 3:147).
[164] Jean Aubin, âUn santon quhistani de lâ6poque timouride,â Revue des
Etudes Islamiques 35 (1967): 208; Meier, 510, n. 241. Aubin is quoting,
without page references, from âAli b. Mahmud Abivardi Kuraniâs Rawzat
al-salikmn, a biography of the Naqshbandi âAliâ al-Din Muhammad Abizhl
Cd. 892/1487).
[165] âAbd al-Husayn Nava 51, Asnad va mukatabat-i tarikhi-i Iran az
Timur ta Shah Ismadâl, 410â11; Meier, 505; n. 215.
[166] JImi, Nafahat al-uns, 14â15. It should be noted, however, that Jmi
bases his discussion mainly on al-Suhrawardiâs âAwdrifal-maâarif.
Further, see Najm alDin âAbd Allah ibn Muhammad Razi âDayah,â The Path
of Godâs Bondsmen from Origin to Return, trans. Hamid Algar, index, s.v.
âqalandar.â
[167] For the history of Qalandars in Iran during the Safavid period and
beyond, see Iskandar Bag Munshi, History of Shah âAbbas the Great,
trans. Roger M. Savory, I:195; Adam Olearius, Vermehrte Newe
Beschreibung der Muscowitischen und Persischen Reyse, ed. Dieter
Lohmeier, 685; Raphael Du Mans, Estat de la Perse en 1660, ed. Ch.
Schefer, 216; Muhammad Tahir Nasrabadi, Tazkirah-i NasrabadL, ed. Vahid
Dastgirdi, 264 (Baba Sultan Qalandar, on whom see also Meier, 509, n.
2); Maâsum âAliâShah, Taraâiq al-haqadiq, 2:354, quoting from Riyaz
al-siyahah (comp. 1237/1821-22) of Zayn al-âAbidin ibn Iskandar
Shirvani; the German translation of this passage appears in Meier, SIo.
One should also consult Gramlich, 1:70â82, who attempts to trace the
early history of present-day Khiksar dervishes in Iran; cf. Zarrinkub,
92ff.
[168] On Laâl Shahbaz, see Barani, 67â68; Ghulim Sarvar Lahiri, Khazinat
alasfiyaâ, 2:46â47; Rizvi, 306 (relying on the Maâarij al-vilayah of
Ghulam Muâin al-Din âAbd Allah Khvashgi); Digby, 70â71, 78, l00, 102
(relying on Barani, 67â68; and Tazkirah-i mashaâikh-i Sivistan, ed. S.
H. Rashdi [Mihran, 1974], 205); Gramlich, 1:78 (note 48, relying on
Lhuiri, Khazlnat al-asfiyad, 2:46â47); Zarrinkib, 89; Meier, 508â9; and
N. B. G. Qazi, Lal Shahbaz Qalandar: âUthman Marwandi, where a few
Persian poems attributed to Laâl Shahbaz are reproduced (39â44). There
is also a pamphlet entitled Qalandar Lal Shahbaz published by the
Department of Public Relations, Government of Sind, which is not devoid
of interest.
[169] See Nizami, 295; Rizvi, 304; and Digby, 63, 84â85. All three
scholars rely on the Akhbar al-akhyar f asrar al-abrar (comp.
999/1590-91) of âAbd alHaqq ibn Sayf al-Din al-Turk al-Dihlavi (d.
1052/1642-43); Rizvi also utilizes the Mirâat al-asrar (comp. 1065/1654)
of âAbd al-Rahman al-Chishti, Ms. British Library, for which see Charles
Rieu, Catalogue of the Persian Manuscripts in the British Museum,
I:359b. To these, one could add the Usul al-maqsud of Turab âAli
Kakoravi (d. 1275/1858), as cited in Storey, 1035â37, no. 1378 (2).
[170] See Khaliq Ahmad Nizami, âAbu âAll Qalandar, Saraf-al-Din
Pinipati,â in EIR, 1:258; Rizvi, 305; and Digby, 100â102.
[171] When Bahaâ al-Din refused to give alms to a group of Qalandars,
they started to hurl bricks at the door of his khanqah; see Digby, 87;
and Nizami, 295. A solitary Qalandar, angered that he was not allowed to
consume his hemp- drink in peace, wanted at first to strike a certain
disciple of Baba Farid by the name of Badr al-Din Ishaq with his
beggerâs bowl, but, at the intervention of Baba Farid himself, was
content to crush his bowl against a wall; see Qalandar, 130â31; Digby,
88â89, and Nizami, 296. The same Baba Farid had another troublesome
encounter with a Qalandar-like figure; see Digby, 92â93. Although Digby
presents this incident as a murderous attack upon Baba Farid in keeping
with the view expressed in his main source, it can certainly be
interpreted as an innocuous visit by a dervishmost likely a Haydari.
[172] Barani, 91â92; Digby, 63 and 71; and Rizvi, 304. Since metal
paraphernalia was the chief characteristic not of Qalandars but of
Haydari dervishes, Baraniâs use of the term Qalandar here is probably
not accurate.
[173] Qalandar, 6, 74, 112â13, 130â31, 250, 286â87; Digby, 71â72, 94â97.
Hamid Qalandar himself was a Qalandar who was âconvertedâ at the time of
Nizam al-Din Awliyaâ. Nasir al-Din Chiragh-i Dihli was possibly
subjected to a murderous attack by a Qalandar, though the identification
of his assailant as a Qalandar remains quite problematic (in spite of
Digbyâs opinion to the contrary).
[174] Digby, 69, 78â80. A more detailed account of Qalandars in Muslim
India of the seventh-eighth/thirteenth-fourteenth centuries is found in
this study by Digby. For later history of the Qalandars in India, see,
other than Digby, 69â70, 77, 99, the following works cited in Storey:
Usul al-masqsud (comp. 1225-26/ 1810-II) of Turab âAli Kakoravi, Storey,
1036, no. 1378; al-Rawz al-azharfi maâasir al-Qalandar of TaqlâAll
Kakoravi (d. 1290/1873), Storey, 1046, no. 1399; Bahr-i zakhkar (comp.
1203/1788-89) of Wajih al-Din Ashraf, Storey, 1031â32, no. 1374; Tahrmr
al-anwar fi tafstr al-qalandar of âAli Anwar Qalandar ibn âAli Akbar,
Storey, 1047, no. 1400 (2).
[175] Barani, 212. On Abfi Bakr Tusi, see Bruce B. Lawrence, âAbu Bakr
Tuisi Haydari, â in EIR, 1:265. For later sources and detailed accounts
of the Sidi Muwallih affair, see Digby, 91â92; Nizami, 288â90; and
Rizvi, 307â9. For other reports of Haydaris in Indian-Persian Sufi
literature, see references in Ahmad, Intellectual History, 45; and
Nizami, 286. Nizami reports from Hamid ibn Fazl Allah Jamaliâs Siyar
al-AriJin (Delhi, 13 11/1893), 67, that the Haydari practice of passing
a lead ring through the urethra was konwn as sikh muhr, âskewer or pin
seal.â OnJamali, see Storey, 968â72.
[176] Battutah, 2:6â7, 3:439, and 4:61; see also 3:309â11.
[177]
A. S. Bazmee Ansari, âBadlâ al-Din,â in El, I:858â59; âAbd al-Rahman
al-Chishti, Mirâat-i Madari, a full-scale sacred biography
written in 1064/1654, for which see Rieu, Persian Manuscripts,
I:361a, 3:973a; and Storey, 0006; [Kaykhusraw Isfandiyar,]
Dabistan-i Mazahib, ed. Rahim Rizazada Malik, I:1 90â91; H. A.
Rose, ed., A Glossary of the Tribes and Castes of the Punjab and
North-West Frontier Province, 3:43â44; Rizvi, 318â20; M. M. Haq,
âShah Badiâal-Din Madar and His Tariqah in Bengal,â Journal of
the Asiatic Society of Pakistan 12 (1967): 95-ĂŒo. For Madaris in
recent times, see Marc Gaborieau, Minorites musulmanes dans le
royaume hindou du Nepal, 122â27; and Kathy Ewing, âMalangs of
the Punjab: Intoxication or Adab as the Path to God?â in Moral
Conduct and Authority: The Place of(Adab) in South Asian Islam,
ed. Barbara Daly Metcalf, 357â71. Cf. Jamini Mohan Ghosh,
Sannyasi and Fakir Raiders in Bengal.
[178]
A. S. Bazmee Ansari, âDJalal al-Din Husayn al-Bukhari,â in El, 2:392;
Lahuri, Khazfnat al-asfiydâ, 2:35â38; Dabistdn-i Mazahib,
1:191â92; Shirvani, Bustan al-siyahah, 152â53; Rizvi, 8, 277â82,
and 320; Ahmad, Intellectual History, 44; Zarrinkub, 91â92;
Battutah, 2:282; and Gramlich, 1:71â73.
[179] Ebuâl Hayr Rumi, Saltukndme, fols. 364b-65b, reports the presence
of Qalandars in these towns during the time of Sultan âAlaâ al-Din
Kayqubad (r. 616-34/1219-37).
[180] Aflaki, 2:596 (3/581). Abu Bakr immediately ordered the bull to be
sacrificed and distributed to the needy.
[181] Ibid., 1:412 (3/355). AlsoJalal al-Din Muhammad ibn Muhammad
Balkhi Rumi, known as Mawlani, Masnavi-i maânavt, ed. Reynold A.
Nicholson, 1:18. For other references to Qalandars in the works of Rumi,
see Abdulbaki GĂ©lpinarli, Mevlana Celaleddmn: Hayati, Felsefesi,
Eserleri, Eserlerinden Seameler, 61â63.
[182] Aflaki, 1:215 (3/123) and 467â68 (3/437). Al-Aflaki also records
an anecdote concerning Muhammad Haydari, a disciple of Hajji Mubarak,
2:773â74.
[183] Vilayetname, 64.
[184] On the meaning of the word barak, see Robert Dankoff, âBaraq and
Buriq,â Central Asiatic Journal 15 (1971): 111. For references on San
Saltuk, to whom the Saltukname is dedicated, see Machiel Kiel, âThe
Tfrbe of Sari Saltik at Badabag-Dobrudja: Brief Historical and
Architectonical Notes,â Giney Dogu Avrupa Araftlrmalar Dergisi 6â7
(1977â78): 205â25; a short biography of this figure is given in Ahmet T.
Karamustafa, âEarly Sufism in Eastern Anatolia,â in Classical Persian
Sufism: From Its Origins to Rumi, ed. Leonard Lewisohn, 193â96.
[185] Algar, âBariq Biba,â 3:754â55. Algar supplies copious references,
to which should be added AbdĂŒlbaki Golpinarll, Yunus Emre: Hayatt,
39â47; and Donald P Little, âReligion under the Mamlfks,â Muslim World
73 (1983): 175â76; both GĂ©lpinarli and Little use additional Mamluk
sources not cited by Algar.
[186] A description of Barak Baba and his dervishes is given above in
chapter 1.
[187] The Persian original of Qutb al-âAlaviâs commentary along with a
complete translation into Turkish is given in Abdulbaki Golpinarll,
Yunus Emre ve Tasavvuf, 457â72 and 255â75, respectively.
[188] On Yinus Emre, see Golpmarli, Yunus Emre ve Tasavvuf, where Taptuk
Emre is also discussed, 41â43.
[189] This information on the dervishes ofAbdil Mus is contained in a
famous poem by Kaygusuz Abdal; see Sadeddin NĂŒzhet Ergun, Turk Sairleri,
1:166; and AbdĂŒlbaki G61pinarll, Kaygusuz Abdal, Hatayi, Kul Himmet,
34â35. Cf. Kaygusuz Abdal, Kaygusuz Abdalâin Mensur Eserleri, ed.
Abdurrahman GĂŒzel, 23, which contains a slightly different version with
some better readings; for instance âAlvan golifiâ (a lake in Antalya,
Kaygusuz Abdilâs hometown) instead of the usual âelvan gölĂŒn.â There is
also a short sacred biography of Abdal Msa,, reproduced in Ergun, Turk
Sairleri, 1:166â69, which is not very informative.
[190] See the poems of Kaygusuz in G61plnarll, Kaygusuz Abdal,
especially nos. 6 (40â42), 7 (42â43), and 9 (46â48).
[191] A list of Kaygusuz Abdalâs works is provided in Abdurrahman Gizel,
Kaygusuz Abdal (Alaaddin Gaybi) Bibliyografyasi. The summary of his
views is based on his published prose works; see Kaygusuz Abdal, Mensur
Eserleri.
[192] Orhan KoprulĂŒ, âVelayet-name-i Sultan Sucaeddin,â Turkiyat
Mecmuasl 17 (1972): 177â84, where other references on Sultan uicaâ can
be found. To these one should add Abdil, fol. 7b. On Haci Bayram, see
Fuat Bayramoglu, Hact Bayram-i Veli: Yaiami, Soyu, Vakfi. Ummi Kemal is
discussed in William C. Hickmann, âWho Was Ummi Kemal?â Bogazici
Universitesi Dergisi 4â5 (197677): 57â82. On Nesimi, see Kathleen R. F
Burrill, The Quatrains of Nesimi: Fourteenth Century Turcic Hurufi.
[193] For details of the Seyb SĂŒcaâ complex, see Ayverdi, 2:420â21; also
Tayyib Gökbilgin, XV-XVI. Asirlarda Edirne ve Pasa Livasi: Vaklflar,
MĂŒlkler, Mukataalar, 34.
[194] For previous surveys of the topic, see Ocak and Colin H. Imber,
âThe Wandering Dervishes,â in Mashriq: Proceedings of the Eastern
Mediterranean Seminar, University ofManchester, 1977â78, 36â50.
[195] Theodoro Spandugino, I commentari di Theodoro Spandvgino
Cantacvscino Gentilhuomo Costantinopolitano, dellâorigine deâ principi
turchi, & deâ costumi di quella natione, 193â94; contemporary French
translation: Petit traicte de lâorigine des Turcqz par Theodore
Spandouyn Cantacasin, trans. Balarin de Raconis, ed. Charles Schefer,
224â28.
[196] Menavino, 79â82; German translation, 36b-37b. The relevant passage
is translated in full in chapter 1 above.
[197] Vahidi, fols. 28a-3 Ib. It should be pointed out that Vahidi
himself was a respectable Sufi who did not approve of the Qalandarl
path.
[198] Fatih Mehmed II Vakfiyeleri, facsimile, 175â77; transliterated
text, 259â60 (paragraphs 323â28). On closer scrutiny, it appears
possible that this structure was a hospice for Mevlevis. In any case,
the building was soon converted into a religious college (madrasah) and
a mosque; see the interpretation in Ayverdi, 3:428 (entries 456â58).
Also Nejat GöyĂŒnc, âKalenderhane CamĂŒ,â Tarih Dergisi 34 (1984): 485â94;
and Wolfgang Muller-Wiener, Bildlexicon zur Topographie Istanbuls:
ByzantionKonstantinupolisIstanbul bis zum Beginn des 17. Jahrhunderts,
153â58.
[199] Tayyib Gokbilgin, âXVI. aslrda Karaman eyaleti ve Larende
(Karaman) vaklfve mĂŒesseseleri,â Vaklflar Dergisi 7 (1968): 38, no. 40.
[200] For the kalenderhanes in Birgi and Konya, of uncertain dates, see
Omer Lutfi Barkan, âOsmanll Imparatorlugunda bir iskin ve kolonizasyon
metodu olarak vaklflar ve temlikler: I, istila devirlerinin kolonizat6r
Turk dervialeri ve zaviyeler,â Vaklflar Dergisi 2 (1942): 327; and
Semavi Eyice, âKlrsehirâde Karakurt (Kalender Baba) Ilicasl,â Istanbul
Universitesi Edebiyat Fakiltesi Tarih EnstitĂŒsi Dergisi 2 (1971):
247â48, no. 40. The kalenderhdne in Bursa is cited in Evliya, 2:18, and
the one in Erzincan is recorded in a pious endowment (waqf) document
dated 937/1530; see Ismet Miroglu, Kemah Sancagl ve Erzincan Kazasl
(1520â1566), 152.
[201] Edirneli Mecdi, HadaâikĂŒâs-sakaâik, ed. Mehmed Recai under the
title Terceme-i sakadik-i nuâmanTye, 225.
[202] âYusufibn Yaâkub, Mendakb-i serif ve tarikatname-i piran ve
mesayih-i tarfkat-i âaliye-i halvetiye, 38â39.
[203] Celalzide Mustafa, known as Koca Nisanc, Geschichte Sultan
SĂŒleyman Kanunls von 1520 bis 1557 oder Tabakat il-memalik ve derecat
ĂŒl-mesalik von Celalzade MustaJa genannt Koca Nijinca, ed. Petra
Kappert, 348b. Qalandars continued to exist in the Ottoman Empire after
the mid-tenth/sixteenth century. Later European accounts rely mostly on
Menavino (this is also true for other dervish groups). Nicolas de
Nicolay, who was in Istanbul in 1551 (Nicolas, 189â91; English
translation, 104â5; Salomon Schweigger, in Istanbul between January 1578
and May 158 (Ein newe Reyssbeschreibung auss Teutschland nach
Constantinopel und Jerusalem, 195â97); and Michel Baudier de Languedoc,
whose work first appeared in 1625 (Histoire generale de la religion des
Tvrcs, 386â96), all repeat Menavino in either synoptic or extended
versions. Sir Paul Rycaut (History, 258â60), who was in Asia Minor
during the reign of Mehmed IV (0058-99/ 1648â87), apparently based his
description on his own observations. Barthelemy dâHerbelot (Bibliotheque
Orientale, 244) is general and vague on Qalandars. A century later,
Mouradja dâOhsson (Tableau general de lâEmpire Othoman, vol. 4, pt. I,
684â85) seems to be the first to mention a certain âYoussouph
Endeloussyâ as the alleged founder of the Qalandars. His claim was taken
over by some later authors; see, for instance, Roseâs note to Brownâs
text inJohn Brown, Darvisches, 169â72, n. i (chapter ĂŒ of this book is a
reproduction of dâOhssonâs account of dervishes and Suf10rders); also Le
Chatelier, Les confrieries musulmanes du Hedjaz, 253â56; and Trimingham,
268â69. On the Ottoman side, the most significant source of recent
times, Harirzide Mehmed Kemaleddin, Tibyan wasaâil al-haqaâiq fi bayan
salasil al-tardâiq, Ms. Siuleymaniye KĂŒtiphanesi, Ibrahim Efendi 430â32
(late 13^(th)/19^(th) century), 3:74b-77a, devotes a few pages to
Qalandariyah, where from Jimiâs Nafahat al-uns, Tabriziâs Burhan-i
qatiâ, Ibn Battitahâs travelogue, and al-Maqriziâs al-Mawaâiz are
quoted. The author himself thinks Qalandariyah to be a branch of the
Mevleviye that was formed by Divane Mehmed (Celebi. For detailed
information on this person, see G61pmarll, 101â22. Mehmed (elebi seems
to have been not a Qalandar but a Shams-i Tabrizi; see the section on
Shams-i Tabrizis below in this chapter.
[204] Spandugino, Commentari, 192; French translation: Petit traicte,
220 (read âCalenderiâ in place ofâDynamiesâ in the French translation).
[205] It is difficult to decipher the Turkish original of this sentence.
The best I can offer here is âGeda olmak dilersen 6zini alhaclk g6râ (If
you want to become a beggar, you should be humble).
[206] Menavino, 75â76; German translation, 35a. Menavinoâs description
is reproduced almost word by word in Nicolas, 182â83; English
translation, 101.
[207] Vahidi, fols. 53b-58a.
[208] On the taj-i Haydari, see Iskandar Bag Munshi, History of Shah
âAbbas the Great, 1:31; and AbdĂŒlbaki G61pinarh, âKlzilbas,â in Islam
Ansiklopedisi, 6:789. Also cf. Adel Allouche, âThe Origins and
Development of the Ottoman-Safavid Conflict (906-962/1500-1555),â 118,
n. 94.
[209] Colin H. Imber, âThe Persecution of the Ottoman Shiâites according
to the Muihimme Defterleri, 1565â1585,â Der Islam 56 (1979): 245â73.
[210] G6kbilgin, âKaraman eyaleti,â 38, n. 41, where it is reported as
âvakf-i zaviye-i hayderbine der nezd-i Alacasolukâ (in Lirende), with a
total income of 3,265 akfes; and Miroglu, Kemah Sancagt, 152.
[211] Ahmed Refik, Onuncu âasr-i hicrtde Istanbul hayati (961â1000),
209; Suraiya Faroqhi, Der Bektaschi-Orden in Anatolien (vom spaten
finfzehnten Jahrhundert bis 1826), 31â32. I follow Faroqhiâs dating. It
should be pointed out here that the haydarhane in Lirende might
conceivably not have been a hospice for Haydari dervishes but only named
after its founder, a certain Haydar. For examples of such cases, see
Hafiz HĂŒseyn ibn Ismaâil Ayvansarayl, HadikatĂŒâl-cevmiâ, I:88, 89, 94,
and 95; also Mehmed SĂŒreyyi, Sicill-i âOsmani or Tezkire-i mesahir-i
âOsmaniye, 2:442, on âHayder HĂŒseyn Aga,â who is said to have founded a
hospice (dergah) in his name.
[212] Oruq ibn âAdil, Tevarfh-i al-i âOsman, ed. Franz Babinger, 138;
German translation: Der Fromme Sultan Bayezid: Die Geschichte seiner
Herrschaft (1481â1512) nach den altosmanischen Chroniken des Oruç und
des Anonymus Hanivaldanus, trans. Richard F Kreutel, 59â61. Oruç writes
that the assassin had the appearance of a Haydari, with earrings and an
iron collar around his neck; he wore a felt coat. Later Ottoman
chronicles, listed in Sohrweide, âDer Sieg der Safaviden,â 138, are
vague and refer to the assassin merely as a Qalandar.
[213] âDo you, friends, know what a Haydari is? Getting intoxicated on a
preparation of hashish, they roam the city and [its] markets, constantly
reciting poems in couplets. Contented [to be] in the hospice of this
world, some are hemp-addicts and others Abdilsâ (Fakiri, Taârifat, Ms.
Istanbul Universitesi KĂŒtĂŒphanesi, TY 3051 [undated], fol. 13b).
[214] Nisanci, 234â37. The dervishes described by KĂŒĂ§ĂŒk Nisanci wear
iron rings on their ears and around their necks as well as little bells
on their shoulders and chests.
[215] âAsik, fol. 270b. The accounts in other sources on Hayali Beg are
not as informative as âAssik Celebiâs; see Sehi Beg, Hest bihist, ed.
Gdinay Kut, fols. 112a-b; Latifi, 150â51; Klnahzade, 1:354â60; âAhdi
Ahmed Celebi, GĂŒlsen-i suâara, Ms. British Library, Add. 7876 (undated),
fol. 72b; Mustafi âAli, KĂŒnhĂŒâlahbar, Ms. British Library, Or. 32
(undated), fol. 278b; and Riyai Mehmed, RiyazĂŒâsu-ara, Ms. British
Library, Or. 13501 (dated 1337/1918-19, copyist Ahmed âIzzet), fol. 65b.
[216] For Hayderi, see Ergun 2, 1:73â76; and âAsik, fol. 90a. Cf.
Kinalizide, 1:314, though it is not clear if Kinalizide is reporting on
the same Hayder. Mesrebi, who died in 962/1554-55, is said to have been
a disciple of the same Baba âAll Mest, the master of Haylli; see Sehi,
Hest bihist, fol. 116b; Latifi, 3 I -12; âAilk, fol. 124a; and
Kinalhzade, 2:903.
[217] On the Arabic term abdal (pl. of badal, literally âsubstituteâ) as
used in Sufism, see Ignaz Goldziher, âAbdal,â in El, 1:94â95; and
KöprĂŒlĂŒ 2, 23â29. On the possible origins and meaning of the Turkish
word tsik (âbright, gleaming; brightness, gleamâ; cf. Clauson,
Etymological Dictionary, 977, col. i), see AbdĂŒlbaki GĂ©lpinarli, Yunus
Emre Divani: Metinler, SözlĂŒk, Açilama, 677â79. One could speculate that
the usage of this term, at least initially, was not unrelated to the
practice of chahar zarb, whereby âthe sun that is the faceâ was made to
âshine in all its brightness.â However, an altogether different
etymology that sees the Arabic word shaykh at the root of the Turkish
tsik has been proposed by KöprĂŒlĂŒ 2, 36. On Seyyid Battal Gazi, see M.
Canard and I. Melikoff, âBattal,â in El, 1:1 102â4; and Pertev Naili
Boratav, âBattal,â in Islam Ansiklopedisi, 1:344â51.
[218] Vahidi, fols. 41a-47a.
[219] On the significance and origins of the hatchet of Abu Muslim in
the Turko-Iranian cultural sphere, see Irene Melikoff, Abu Muslim, le
âPorte-Hacheâ du Khorassan dans la tradition epique turco-iranienne. The
word ,Ăcaât (literally âserpent-likeâ or ârelating to heroes, heroicâ)
was used most likely in honor and memory of the early Abdal master
Sultan SĂŒcaâ; see the section on Anatolia in chapter 5.
[220] Menavino, 76â79; German translation, 35b-36b. The assassination
attempt in question was carried out against Bayezid II in the year
897/1492 by a dervish portrayed as a Haydari; see the section on
Haydaris above in this chapter.
[221] Nicolas, 185â88; English translation, 102â3.
[222] Konstantin Mihailovic, Memoirs of a Janissary, trans. Benjamin
Stolz, 69. Even though Mihailovic confuses the Abdals with the Haydaris
on two occasions (the sentences âAnd they gird themselves with chains in
criss-cross fashionâ and âAnd they sheathe their instrumentum, alias
penis, in ironâ), his âderwisslerâ are clearly the Abdils.
[223] In a well-known passage, âAsikpasazade refers to Abdalan-i Rum in
passing as one of the four groups of travelers in Asia Minor: Die
Altosmanische Chronik der âAsikpasazde, ed. Friedrich Giese, 201.
Fakiri, Taârifat, fol. 13a, produces the following definition for tsik:
âAn tsik is one who has gone astray from the [right] path; all are
sodomites, hashish-addicts, and outlaws. So burned and consumed are they
with the love of âAli that they have assumed eighteen different forms in
this world. At their sides are hashish-containers; one would take them
to be bitches of Kerbela.â In three further couplets (fol. 13b), Fakiri
provides additional information on the köçeks (the youths mentioned in
Menavinoâs account quoted above): âIn the resting-place that is the
world, kdoeks are those who wait [in attendance] at the side of babas.
Whenever [the baba] so wishes they go into a [special] state [an
allusion to sexual intercourse] and become Abdals with such humility.
They are the lamps of the hospice of time; their beds are the sheepskin
[seats] of the babas.â KöprĂŒlĂŒ 2, 31 , gives the faulty reading âisik
oldur kâolamaz hep de haricâ for the first verse of the first
definition; the correct reading is âisik oldur kâola mezhebden haric.â
Nisanci, 234, makes it known in two separate couplets that Abdals shave
their heads and do not wear any headgear. Cf. the first couplet of KĂŒcĂŒk
Nisanci with Hayali Beg, Hayali Bey Divani, ed. Ali Nihat Tarlan, 446,
Mukattaâat 9. Mustafa âAli, Hulasatuâl-ahval, ed. Andreas Tietze in âThe
Poet as Critique of Society: A 16^(th) Century Ottoman Poem,â Turcica 9
(1977): 135, verses 138â39, contains two verses on isiks: âIf you are
inclined to become an isik, you would be afflicted with fever and sighs
from head to foot; wandering about barefoot and head uncovered in summer
and winter, you would yearn after hemp-drink and hashish.â
[224] On H.asan Rumi, see Latifi, 131. On Seher Abdil, see Ergun I,
1:88â95; and AbdĂŒlbaki Golpinarli, Alevi-Bektasf Nefesleri, 18. For
Siri, see Ergun I, 1:116â25; and Golpinarh, Alevi-Bektasi Nefesleri,
177â78. It seems possible that Seher Abdal and Siri lived later than the
tenth/sixteenth century. Muhyiddin Abdil was a disciple of Akyazili
Sultan, and FeyĂŒ Hasan Baba of Otman Baba (on Akyazili, see the section
on Abdils of Rum below in this chapter); see Ergun I, 1:141â55; and
Gölpinarli, Alevi-Bektasi Nefesleri, 16.
[225] Latifi, 141â43; âAlsk, fol. 175a; and Kinalizade, 2:632. Cf. Ergun
2, 2:505â8.
[226] âAhdi, GĂŒlsen-i suâara, fol. 149a; Ergun I, 1:81â83, quoting from
âAhdi. Kelami was alive and a resident of the Karbaliâ hospice when
âAhdi wrote his entry on him, which could have been any time between
971/1563-64, the first completion of the Gulsen-i suâara, and
1001/1592-93, the date of âAhdiâs latest addition to his work; see Agah
Sirri Levend, Turk Edebiyati Tarihi, vol. I, Giris, 270â71. Apparently,
Gelibolulu Mustafa âAli appointed Kelami the administrator of his pious
endowment at Karbalaâ; see Cornell H. Fleischer, Bureaucrat and
Intellectual in the Ottoman Empire: The Historian Mustafa Ali
(1541â1600), 124, n. 38.
[227] âAsik, fol. 95b.
[228] Yemini. For a brief description of Faziletnameâs contents, see
Charles Rieu, Catalogue of the Turkish Manuscripts in the British Museum
173â74, ms. Add. 19805. On Akyazili Sultan, see this section below.
[229] Semsi is recorded in Latifi, 209â10; âAsik, fol. 205a; and
Kinalizade, 1:521. According to Latifi, he died before the end of the
reign of Sultan Selim I. For the relevant verses of the Deh murg, see
semsi, Deh murg, (i) Ms. British Library, Or. 7113, fols. 130b-50b
(dated 998/1589-90, copyist âAbdilkerim ibn Bakir ibn Ibrahim ibn
Iskender ibn âAbdullah), fols. 140a-b; and (2) Ms. British Library, Or.
7203, (undated), fols. 12b-14b, though the two copies consulted preserve
only a very corrupt text. I could not consult I. G. Kaya, âDervis Semsi
ve âDeh Murg,â â Sesler 19 (1983): 103â17.
[230] On Hayreti, see the introduction to the critical edition of his
collection of poems (divan) in Hayreti, Divan: Tenkidli Basim, ed.
Mehmed Cavusoglu and M. Ali Tanyeri, X-XVII. Most important in
connection with the Abdals are kaside no. 8 (19â21), entitled âDer
beyin-i seyr ĂŒ sĂŒluk-i abdal-i HĂŒda ve âussaki bi-ser ĂŒ pa,â and
musammats nos. 11 through 15 (91â99).
[231] See in particular musammat no. 13, Hayreti, Divan, 94â95, entitled
âDer keyfiyyet-i beng ve halet-i esrar guyed,â with the refrain
âCurâadani getĂŒr abdal yine hayran olalum.â
[232] Hayretl, Divan, 19, verses 8 and 4, respectively. Cf. verses 6 and
7. It could be added here that KeprĂŒlĂŒ, who first drew attention to some
of the Abdal poets mentioned above, was of the opinion that HĂŒseyn10f
Rumeli, noted by Latifi, 132, was also an Abdal. The more detailed entry
on this poet in âAsik, fol. 88a, however, proves HĂŒseyni to have been a
mere plagiarist.
[233] The two poems in question can be found in Ergun 2, 1:234â39.
[234] See âAtaâullah ibn Yahya Nevâizade, HadaikĂŒâl-hakaâik fi
tektiletiâs-akadik, ed. Mehmed Recaâi, 56.
[235] Vahidi, fol. 28b, 1.8, and elsewhere, consistently defines mĂŒfred
as the disciple âwho sits below the master, that is, the
âsecond-in-charge.â â See Dihkhudi, s.v. âMufradâ for this meaning of
the word.
[236] âAsik, fol. 175a-b.
[237] For details as well as references to earlier studies, see the
thorough study of these documents in Suraiya Faroqhi, âSeyyid Gazi
Revisited: The Foundation as Seen through Sixteenth Century Documents,â
Turcica 13 (1981): 90â122. The tekke is said to have been founded by
Mehmed ibn âAli Mibal in 917/1511; see Theodor Menzel, âDas
Bektisi-Kloster Sejjid-i Ghazi,â Mitteilungen des Seminars fĂŒr
Orientalische Sprachen 28 (1925): 113; and I. Aydin YĂŒksel, II.
Bayezid-Yavuz Selim Devri (continuation of Ayverdi), 317. Evliya
Qelebiâs account is to be found in Evliyi, 3:13â14.
[238] Faroqhi, âSeyyid Gazi Revisited,â 94. The document in question
contains the names and posts of forty-eight servants of the institution.
Significantly, Faroqhi reads the document to mean that âthere was no
hereditary master, seyh,â in the establishment and, relying on two
further documents (dated 937/1530 and 938/1531-32, respectively), goes
on to state that the resident âdervishes had the right to elect their
own seyh,â (95).
[239] âAJik, fol. 175b; Nevâizide, HadaâikĂŒâl-hakaâik, 56; Niaincl,
234â37; and Kaprulu 2, 32.
[240] Faroqhi, âSeyyid Gazi Revisited,â 101â5.
[241] Ibid., 113.
[242] Individual Abdals continued to exist during and after the
eleventh/ seventeenth century. Witness, for instance, the following
report of Dr. John Covel, who was in Turkey between 1670 and 1679 C.E.:
âI remember two Kalenderis abord the Viner ... ; they had the caps of a
wandering Dervise, but in all things else like the habit of the
Kalenderi, in Mr. Rycaut, he makes them santons, but in good earnest
they are meer Tomes of Bedlam. One had a horne tyed about his shoulders
(like a wild goates but longer); he blew it like our sow gelders, high
to low. He had a great hand jar, a terrible crab-tree truncheon, a
leather kind of petticoat about his middle, naked above and beneath. It
was then in May or June. He had a coarse Arnout Jamurluck. He drank wine
(like a fish water) which we gave him to blow his homeâ U. Theodore
Bent, ed., Early Voyages in the Levant: 1. The Diary of Master Thomas
Dallam, 1599â1600; 2. Extracts from the Diaries of Dr. John Covel,
1670â1679, 153). Cf. the observations of Adam Olearius, who saw Shiâi
Abdals in Iran during his travels in that country in 1637 (Newe
Beschreibung, 684â85). One could also draw attention to the confusing
testimony of Sieur du Loir in a letter that he wrote from Istanbul in
1640 (Les voyage du Sieur du Loir, 149â59). For a much more recent
report, see Brown, Darvisches, 93.
[243] Menzel, âDas Bektasi-Kloster,â 120â25; Yiksel, II. Bayezid-Yavuz
Selim Devri, 212.
[244] Vahidi, fol. 42b, line 11. âUryan Baba, however, expressly pays
allegiance to Otman Baba and Sultan SĂŒcaâ: fol. 42b, lines 7â8.
[245] Filiz Aydin, âSeyitgazi Aslanbey koyunde âSeyh SĂŒcaeddinâ
kĂŒlliyesi,â Vakiflar Dergisi 9 (1971): 201â25.
[246] For a picture of this hospice, see Semavi Eyice, âVarna ile Balqk
arasinda Akyazili Sultan Tekkesi,â Belleten 31 (1967): 551â600, picture
20; for the location, ibid., 562. For historical attestations, see
Barkan, âTurk dervisleri,â 340â41, no. 178; Ayverdi, 4:45, no. 669;
Evliya, 8:766; and Sevim IlgĂŒrel, âHibriânin âEnisâĂŒl-mĂŒsamirinâi,â
Giney Dogu Avrupa Arastirmalarn Dergisi 2â3 (1973â74): 146, no. 53
(reporting from Hibriâs Ensuiâl-mĂŒsamirfn, comp. 1046/1636-37).
[247] Yemini, 83.
[248] For an architectural evaluation as well as references to primary
sources, including Evliya (Celebi, see Eyice, âAkyazilh Sultan Tekkesiâ;
also Ayverdi, 4:16â18, pictures 7â12. A short biography of Akyazill
Sultan himself appears in âAkyazilh Sultan,â TA, 1:395 (probably by
Golpinarli). It seems certain that Kidemli Baba, whose tekke is still
standing in Kalugerevo-Nove Zagora in Bulgaria, was also a disciple of
either Otman Baba or Akyazili Sultan. It is telling in this respect that
the tomb of Kidemli Baba, just like that of Akyazili Sultan, is a
heptagonal structure; see Machiel Kiel, âBulgaristanâda eski Osmanli
mimarisinin bir yapiti: Kalugerevo-Nova Zagoraâdaki Kldemli Baba Sultan
bektasi tekkesi,â Belleten 35 (1971): 45â60.
[249] Franz Babinger, âKoyun Baba,â in El, 5:283; Faroqhi,
Bektaschi-Orden, 134, n. 3; Evliya, 2:1 80ff. A hagiography of Koyun
Baba entitled Manzuime-i tercime-i mendklb-i Koyun Baba exists in C(orum
Merkez Genel KĂŒtiphanesi, Ms. 1217, though this work could not be
consulted in time for inclusion in the present study.
[250] See, for instance, Klaus Kreiser, âDefiz Abdil-ein Derwisch unter
drei Sultanen,â Wiener Zeitschriftijr die Kunde des Morgenlandes 76
(1986): 199â207.
[251] Spandugino, Commentari, 192; French translation: Petit traicte,
220, where one should read âDiuamiâ in place ofâCalender.â
[252] VWahidi, fols. 66a-70a.
[253] Menavino, 72â74; German translation, 34a-b.
[254] Nicolas, 178â80; English translation, 99â100. The only significant
addition of Nicolas, other than his drawing reproduced in plate 4, was
to state that the apparel ofJamis was âa little cassock without sleeves
... made and fashioned untoo a deacons coate, so short, that it cometh
but to aboue theyr knees.â For other, less revealing, references to
Jamis, see Fakiri, TaârTfat, fol. 13b; Nisanci, 235; and Celalzade
Mustafa, Geschichte Sultan Sileyman Kanunis, 348b.
[255] Fritz Meier, âAhmad-i Djam,â in El, 1:283â84, succinctly
summarizes the earlier studies on Ahmad of Jm, the most important of
which are Wladimir Ivanow, âA Biography of Shaykh Ahmad-i Jam,â Journal
of the Royal Asiatic Society (1917): 291â365; and Fritz Meier, âZur
Biographie Ahmad-i Gamâs und zur Quellenkunde von Gamiâs
Nafahatuâl-uns,â Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenlandischen Gesellschaft
97 (1943): 47â67. One should now consult the introductions to the
following published works of Ahmad of Jam: Miftah al-najat, ed. âAli
Fazil; and Rawzat al-muznibin va jannat al-mushtaqin, ed. âAli Fazil.
His sacred biography is also available in print: Khvajah Sayyid al-Din
Muhammad Ghaznavi, Maqamat-i ZhandahâPil, ed. Hishmat Allah Muâayyad
Sanandaji.
[256] On this collection of poems (divan), see Ahmad of Jim, Miftah
al-najat, 24â29; and Ghaznavi, Maqamat-i ZhandahâPil, 24â37. Fazil, the
editor of Mifath al-najat, believes the greater part of the work to be
authentic. Meier, âAhmad-i Djamâ; H. Muâayyad, the editor of Maqamat-i
ZhandahâPil; and Zarrinkub, Justuju, 83, however, are highly suspicious
of the attribution of the whole divan to Ahmad. A rather ecstatic
picture of Ahmad of Jam is preserved in Qalandar, 177.
[257] On Ahmadâs progeny, see Ahmad of Jam, Rawzat al-muznibin, 25â57;
and Ghaznavi, Maqamat-i ZhandahâPil, 37â38. The descendants of Ahmad
have been studied by Lawrence G. Potter, âThe Kart Dynasty of Herat:
Religion and Politics in Medieval Iran.â
[258] Vahidi, fols. 80b-84a.
[259] Ibid., fols. 89a-94a.
[260] See Golpinarli, 204â43. Ulu âArif Celebi is discussed on 65â95,
Divine Mehmed Celeb10n 101â22, Yusuf Sinecak (the brother of the Abdal
poet Hayreti discussed in the section on Abdals of Rim in this chapter
above on 124â27), and Sahidi 132â40. A summary of Glpinarllâs account is
available in Victoria Rowe Holbrook, âDiverse Tastes in the Spiritual
Life: Textual Play in the Diffusion of Rumiâs Order,â in The Legacy of
Mediaeval Persian Sufism, ed. Leonard Lewisohn, 99â120. On the Mevleviye
in general, see also Tahsin Yazici, D. S. Margoliouth, and Frederick
DeJong, âMawlawiyya,â in EI, 6:883â88.
[261] The institutional history of the order is studied in detail in
Faroqhi, Der Bektashi-Orden, which includes a comprehensive bibliography
of modern studies. The most comprehensive study of Bektasi belief and
practice is still John Kingsley Birge, The Bektashi Order of Dervishes.
Cf. also âBektasilik,â in TA, 6:34â38 (probably by A. Gölpinarli).
[262] Vahidi, fols. 74a-80b.
[263] The differences are outlined in Ahmet T. Karamustafa, âKalenders,
Abdals, Hayderis: The Formation of the Bektasiye in the Sixteenth
Century,â in Suleyman the Second [sic] and His Time, ed. Halil Inalcik
and Cemal Kafadar, 121â29.
[264] For details on Janissary-Bektisi relations, see KöprĂŒlĂŒ I, 405â8;
and Ismail Hakki Uzunarsili, Osmanli Devleti Teskilatindan Kapikulu
Ocaklari, 1:147â50. A recent evaluation is Irene Melikoff, âUn ordre des
derviches colonisateurs, les Bektachis: Leur ra1e social et leurs
rapports avec les premiers sultans ottomans,â in Memorial Omer LĂŒtfi
Barkan, 149â57. On Hici Bektas, see Karamustafa, âEarly Sufism in
Eastern Anatolia,â 186â90. The earliest clear evidence for Janissary
allegiance to Hiac Bektis dates back only to the time of Mehmed II (2d
r. 855-86/1451-81); see Abdal, fol. 93a, where the soldier accompanying
Otman Baba to Istanbul at the orders of Mehmed II declares that his
headgear is modeled after that of Haci Bektas.
[265] The argument for the formation of the Bektari Order in the manner
described here is presented in detail in Karamustafa, âKalenders,
Abdals, Hayderis.â
[266] Hodgson 2:1â151; Lapidus, A History of Islamic Societies, 137â224.
[267] The only independent full-scale study of the subject is still
Trimingham. Cf. Hodgson, 2:201â54.
[268] Trimingham, 01â16.
[269] Ibid., 166â217.
[270] Reeves, The Hidden Government, 1. Cf. Hodgson, 2:217â18.
Triminghamâs description of the final stage in the organizational
history of Sufism-the formation of taâifahs-has the disadvantage of
concealing the analytical distinction between the tariqah and the cult
of saints; see Trimingham, 67â104.
[271] Two recent studies on the history of the saint cult in Islam are
Taylor, âThe Cult of the Saintsâ; and Vincent Cornell, âMirrors of
Prophethood: The Evolving Image of the Spiritual Master in the Western
Maghrib from the Origins of Sufism to the End of the 16^(th) Century.â
[272] On Ayyubid patronage of the Sufis, see Ramazan Sesen, Salahaddin
Devrinde Eyyubiler Devleti, 263â66; on khanqahs in Mamlfk Egypt, see
Leonor Fernandes, The Evolution of a Sufi Institution in Mamluk Egypt:
The Khanqah; Cf. Pouzet, 210â13; and Donald P. Little, âThe Nature of
Khanqahs, Ribats, and Zawiyas under the Mamliks,â in Islamic Studies
Presented to Charles J. Adams, ed. Wael B. Hallaq and Donald P. Little,
91â105.
[273] Ernst, Eternal Garden, 200â26, demonstrates how the Khuldabad
Chishti shrines in the Deccan came to be associated with various
political regimes from the mid-eighth/fourteenth century onward. The
same process is documented for the Qidiris as well as the Chishtis in
Bijapur during the late eleventh/seventeenth century in Richard M.
Eaton, Sufis of Bijapur 1300â1700: Social Roles of Sufis in Medieval
India, 203â42.
[274] Golpinarli, 153â54; Hans Joachim Kissling, âEiniges ĂŒber den
Zejnije-Orden im Osmanischen Reich,â Der Islam 39 (1964): 143â79; idem,
âAus der Geschichte des Chalvetijje-Ordens,â Zeitschrift der Deutschen
Morgenlandischen Gesellschaft 103 (1953): 233â89.
[275] Hodgson, 2:220.
[276] Cf. Eatonâs study of the relationship between âlandedâ Sufis and
majdhub dervishes in Bijapur of the late eleventh/seventeenth century:
Sufis of Bijapur, 203â81.
[277] While the conclusion that conversion to dervish piety occurred
primarily among male youth of the cultural elite is certainly justified,
it must be admitted that the historical record on this issue is scanty.
The sources naturally reported mostly on dervishes of socially prominent
backgrounds. It is, however, highly unlikely that any hard evidence on
the social composition of the deviant dervish groups will be forthcoming
in the future. Under the circumstances, it remains to be observed here
that comparative sociological observation supports the validity of the
view adopted here. The Franciscan movement in Europe, for instance,
provides us with a close parallel: âalthough they [the Franciscans]
recruited members from all social groups, their chief attraction was
understandably to the more affluent middle class and to the clerical
intelligentsiaâ (Clifford H. Lawrence, Medieval Monasticism: Forms of
Religious Life in Western Europe in the Middle Ages, 200). On a somewhat
different note, compare the following works on the counterculture
movement of the 1960s in the United States: Timothy Miller, The Hippies
and American Values; Edward P. Morgan, The Sixties Experience: Hard
Lessons About Modern America; and Peter Clecak, Americaâs Questfor the
Ideal Self: Dissent and Fulfillment in the 60s and 70s.
[278] Abu âAbd Allah Musharrif al-Din ibn Muslih, known as Saâdi,
Bustan, ed. Muhammad âAll Furughi, 196. The English translation is
reproduced from Morals Pointed and Tales Adorned: The Bustan of Saâdi,
trans. G. M. Wickens, 195 (chapter 7, tale 129).
[279] On Ibn Taymiyah, see Henri Laoust, âIbn Taymiyya,â in El,
3:951â55; on Birgivi, see Kaslm Kufrevi, âBirgewi,â in El, I:1235.
[280] Compare Richard F. Gombrich, Theravada Buddhism: A Social History
from Ancient Benares to Modern Colombo, 49â59;and Patrick Olivelle,
Samnyasa Upanisads: Hindi Scriptures on Asceticism and Renunciation,
29â33.
[281] Lester K. Little, Religious Poverty and the Profit Economy in
Medieval Europe.
[282] See Janet L. Abu-Lugod, Before European Hegemony: The World System
A.D. 1250â1350.