1st Edition

Sehrengiz, Urban Rituals and Deviant Sufi Mysticism in Ottoman Istanbul

By B. Deniz Çalis-Kural Copyright 2014
290 Pages
by Routledge

290 Pages
by Routledge

290 Pages
by Routledge

Şehrengiz is an Ottoman genre of poetry written in honor of various cities and provincial towns of the Ottoman Empire from the early sixteenth century to the early eighteenth century. This book examines the urban culture of Ottoman Istanbul through Şehrengiz, as the Ottoman space culture and traditions have been shaped by a constant struggle between conflicting groups practicing political and... Read more
1 “Holy Paradise! Is it Under or Above the City of Istanbul?”
2 Gardens, Creative Imagination and the Theory of Intermediary Space in Ibn al-‘Arabî’s Philosophy and its Reception in the Ottoman World
3 Gazel Poetry and Garden Rituals (1453–1730): Ideal and Real Gardens of Love
4 Şehrengiz Poetry and Urban Rituals (1512–1732): Ideal and Real City Spaces of Love, Reconciliation and Liberation
5 Nedîm’s Poetry and New Rituals of the Tulip Period (1718–1730): The Construction of Gardens at Kağıthane Commons
6 The “Storehouse” of Ottoman Landscape Tradition: Gardens and City Spaces as Barzakh
Appendices
1 Life of Ibn al-‘Arabî
2 Disciples of Ibn al-‘Arabî in Bayrami and Melâmî-Bayrami Orders of Sufi Mysticism
3 Melâmî Poles
4 List of Şehrengiz Poems

Biography

B. Deniz Çalis-Kural is an architect and historian of Ottoman landscape and urban culture. She was awarded a BArch. by METU, Ankara, Turkey; a March. by Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, NY and a PhD degree from METU. For her graduate studies, Çalis-Kural was granted fellowship from TUBITAK-The Scientific and Technological Council of Turkey (1996-1998). She was a junior fellow at Dumbarton Oaks Garden and Landscape Studies, Washington, DC (2003-2004). Her work has been published in TOPOS and Dumbarton Oaks Publications, among others. She has taught at Yeditepe and Bahçeşehir Universities of Istanbul. In 2010-2011, she was a visiting scholar at the University of Virginia, School of Architecture. Çalis-Kural teaches in the Istanbul Bilgi University Faculty of Architecture.

'Şehrengiz, Urban Rituals and Deviant Sufi Mysticism in Ottoman Istanbul is thrillingly bold, demonstrating that the Ottoman Şehrengiz were a function of the Melami sufi order. This is as breath-taking as to say that performances at the Globe Theatre of Elizabethan England were a function of a secret mystical order penetrating the highest levels of government. Yet in this author’s hands the exposition proceeds at a calm, comfortable pace, rigorously supported and comfortably thorough.' Victoria Holbrook, author of The Unreadable Shores of Love: Turkish Modernity and Mystic Romance