Daily Life In The Ottoman Empire (25 page)

As with some
mekteps,
many
medreses
were
located within the
külliye
or mosque complexes. The
külliye
“included
a hospital, lodgings, and a soup kitchen that served the needy.” The “Süleymaniye
building complex” in Istanbul named for Süleyman the Magnificent (1520–1566), “who
ordered its construction,” marked “the zenith of Ottoman culture and education.”
Its architectural design included
mekteps, medreses,
“a hospital, a
public kitchen, a convalescence hospital, and a pharmacy, all built around the
central mosque.” Instruction was conducted “at different levels in the complex
and included two specialized medreses,”
dar ul-hadis
or “the school
where the traditions of the Prophet were taught and Tarüttib (the school of
medicine).” The
dar ul-hadis
“was considered the highest-ranking”
medrese
“in the empire and its teachers were the most honored, as is evident from
the high wages they received.”

The ulema were recruited from the higher and advanced
medreses.
The muftis, who were the official interpreters of Islamic law and issued
legal opinions, came from the ranks of the ulema and were assigned by the
şeyhülislam
to the provinces of the empire. The
kadis,
or judges, who enforced
the Islamic law and the
kanun
(the laws issued by the sultan), and
administered the courts throughout the empire, were also appointed by the
şeyhülislam
from among the ulema.

Starting in the second half of the 18th century and
continuing until the First World War, “the Ottoman Empire went through a period
of continuous change” that often included governmental reforms. One of the most
important aspects of these reforms was the introduction of modern educational
institutions borrowed from European countries. The educational reform “began in
the army, born out of the need to prevent further defeats on the battlefields
and to regain Ottoman military superiority.” New “methods and technology, as
well as experts to teach them, were brought from Europe to modernize the
Ottoman army.” This “modernization project focused initially on three areas:
shipbuilding techniques, engineering, and modern medical education,”
culminating in the establishment of the Darülfünun Şahane (Imperial
University) in 1900 and a full-fledged university in 1909.

EDUCATION OF GIRLS AND WOMEN

Women who lived in the palace or were born and raised in
ulema families constituted the main segments of the female population that
received education. Women educated at the palace learned how to read and write
Ottoman Turkish. They also studied the fundamental tenets of Islam, including
the basic elements of Islamic law, as well as the arts of sewing, embroidering,
singing, and playing various musical instruments. At times, the ladies of the
harem, particularly the mothers, wives, and daughters of sultans, memorized the
Quran by heart and studied Arabic and Persian literature. They also wrote
poetry. The daughters of the ulema were typically taught at home by their
fathers and grandfathers. Many memorized the Quran and some became accomplished
poets.

Outside of the palace and the home of the ulema, small
schools attached to mosques offered classes that taught young girls the Arabic
alphabet, the art of reading and reciting the Quran, and the proper performance
of the daily prayers. Students also learned how to write and the basics of
arithmetic. These schools were funded and supported by the religious endowments
or pious foundations. Starting in the second half of the 19th century, the
state allowed the establishment of modern schools for girls and many elite
families welcomed the opportunity. Before sending their daughters to school,
these households celebrated a young girl’s “entrance into learning (
başlanmak)
”
with a ceremony. Families who could afford an expensive
başlmanlak
“spent
large sums in the effort to have a grander ceremony than their neighbors.” They
arranged for poor children in the neighborhood to participate in the ceremony
and would thereafter pay for their schooling, “as well as that of their own
child.” On the first day of school, the young girl “was dressed in silk covered
with jewels, and a gold-embroidered bag, with an alphabet inside, was hung
round her neck with a gold tasseled cord.” She was seated in an “open carriage,
with a damask silk cushion at her feet.”

All the young students of the school “walked in procession
after the carriage, forming two long tails on either side.” The older students
sang a popular hymn, “The rivers of paradise, as they flow, murmur, ‘Allah.’
The angels in paradise, as they walk, sing, ‘Allah, Allah.’” At the end of each
song hundreds of children shouted, “
Amin, amin.
” The children marched
through several streets in this way, drawing into the procession children from
other neighborhoods until they reached the school. When they arrived in school,
the new student “knelt on her damask cushion before a square table, facing the
teacher.” She then kissed the hand of her teacher and repeated the alphabet
after her. Sweetmeats were then served to the children, and each student “received
a bright new coin given by the parents” of the new pupil. With this ceremony,
which “was as important as a wedding,” the young girls were initiated into the
school. From that day on, the girl went to school every day “fetched by the
kalfa,
an attendant who went from one house to another collecting the children
from the different houses.”

In some cases, the wealthy and powerful father of a girl
from an elite family could decide that her daughter should receive private
lessons at home before enrolling at school. On these occasions, he arranged for
a tutor to come to the house and give his child lessons that focused on reading
Arabic and the holy Quran. Before the first private lesson began, a sumptuous
dinner was prepared and served to a group of male acquaintances, co-workers,
and neighbors who were invited to the house by the father of the girl. The
ceremony began after the men had performed their evening prayer. The girl was
dressed in a silk frock and a soft silk veil of the same color. She then walked
to the hall where everyone had assembled for the ceremony. A young boy “chanted”
the Quran. The girl had to kneel and repeat the first letters of the alphabet. She
then kissed the hand of her teacher. The lessons she received took place in the
selamlik,
before the same table and in the same kneeling attitude as was
first assumed at the
başlanmak.

TRADITIONAL BELIEFS AND SUPERSTITIONS

Although Islam denounced irrational customs and traditions,
superstitious beliefs and practices remained popular among all social classes
from all religious backgrounds. Muslims, Christians, and Jews, of both sexes and
every age, believed in the power of amulets, talismans, or charms of some kind.
Indeed, charms and magical formulas covered the smallest contingencies of daily
life. The most common charms were “of stone or metal, strips of paper,
parchment, leather, and gems, which were specially valuable as talismans.” Writings
of any kind, particularly those containing verses of the Quran, were popularly
regarded as a charm of greatest magic and power. The “best talisman of all” was
a copy of the holy Quran; “sometimes a small one was worn in an embroidered
leather or velvet case carried on a silk cord which passed over the left
shoulder and across the body; very powerful too were the ninety-nine names of
God.” Other “written charms included the names of saints and angels, or magic
squares, or diagrams and combinations of numerals, and sometimes the words of
an incantation were interpolated” between verses from the opening sura of the
Quran. These written charms “were worn by adults and children, hung on cradles
and round the necks or on the foreheads of animals, and suspended in houses and
shops; in fact they were used everywhere as protection from evil.” Written
charms and incantations were used to exorcise evil spirits, procure aid from
unknown powers, separate a boy and a girl who had fallen in love, prevent a man
from leaving his wife for another woman, and cure a serious ailment.

In Albania, where “a childless marriage” was “considered a
great misfortune and a woman living on her own, without a husband and children”
was “quite inconceivable,” it was “believed that sterility in women could be
overcome by the wearing of amulets.” Various herbs “were also used and numerous
holy places were visited,” including the beaches of Kavajë and Durrës in
western Albania, where women bathed “to ensure pregnancy.” And there were
additional stratagems in popular use when it was desired to grant blessings, to
lay a curse, to ward off diseases of cattle, to bring success in a difficult
enterprise, to come out on top in a business bargain, or to compel someone to
do something.

Aside from belief in written charms, the Muslims of the
empire attributed miraculous power to the dust from the tomb of the prophet
Muhammad in Medina. A “cake composed of dust from the Prophet’s tomb” was “sowed
up” in a leather case and “worn as an amulet.” Muslims also believed in the
magical power of the water from the sacred well of Zamzam in the holy city of
Mecca. A toothbrush dipped in the water of Zamzam was thought to clean a
person’s teeth and protect them from pain and decay. The holy water was also
sprinkled on the shroud of the dead. Pieces of the curtain covering the sacred
Ka’ba
were also greatly valued. Every year, “on the first day of the Great
Festival, which immediately” followed “the pilgrimage, a new covering” was hung
on the holy shrine, while the old one was cut up and sold to the pilgrims. The
proper use of charms was usually “in the hands of the wise men and women, of
which every community possessed at least one, a feared but essential element in
society, who would be consulted on the choice of propitious times and suitable
matches and who made up spells and antidotes.”

From the elite to the ordinary people, everyone believed in
the devastating impact of an evil eye. If anything in the world could overcome
fate, it was an evil eye. If an individual praised the beauty of a Turkish
child without prefacing his admiration with
mashallah
(in the name of
God), which was “considered sufficient to counteract the power of all malignant
spirits,” and if the child became ill or met with an accident, it was at once
decided that the person who had uttered the compliment had smitten the child
with the evil eye. When “by accident the Greeks” alluded “to their own good
health or good fortune,” they immediately spat on “their breast to avert the
malign influence” of evil eye. The Turks decorated the roof of their homes, the
prow of their boats, the caps of their children, and the necks of their horses
with charms against the evil eye. One of “the most powerful antidotes” was
garlic, which was sent “to the mother of a new born infant as a safeguard both
to herself and her little one.” To protect Sultan Mahmud II (1808–1839) from
the power of the evil eye during his processions on the streets of Istanbul, a “head-dress
was invented for the imperial boy-pages, whose ornamented plumes were of such
large dimensions” as “to form a screen” around the monarch.

8 - SUFI ORDERS AND POPULAR
CULTURE

Despite
the enormous power and influence of official Islam, Ottoman culture and
civilization was not a linear projection of Quranic scripture. Throughout the
long reign of the Ottoman dynasty, religious orthodoxy had to wage a constant
battle for primacy against the heterodox interpretations of faith as
articulated and preached by numerous Sufi mystical orders and brotherhoods,
which enjoyed enormous popularity among the ruling elite and the masses. Each brotherhood
was dedicated to its own unique mystical path, called
tarikat,
and “had
its own form of ecstatic worship, called
zikr.
” The heterodox beliefs
and practices of the Sufis left a profound impact on the popular culture and
the everyday life of the masses. The “Sufi brotherhoods and lodges” played “a
central role in Ottoman social life” and “provided an important space for socialization
outside the home.” The “space was exclusively Muslim” and contained within it
sections for men and women, active members, and curious visitors.

The privileged position of the ulema, their close alliance
with the Ottoman ruling family, the rigidity of their Islam, and “the cold
legalism of their doctrine, failed to satisfy “the “spiritual and social needs
of many Muslims, who turned for sustenance and guidance” to mysticism and Sufi
brotherhoods. The diverse and heterodox beliefs and practices of various Sufi
orders provided men and women with unique spiritual experiences, which
transcended the unbending and impersonal rules and practices that a Muslim was
obligated to follow at home and at a mosque.

Greatly influenced by Zoroastrian, Manichean, Buddhist,
Gnostic, and Neoplatonist ideas, Sufism, or Islamic mysticism, emerged in the
first century of Muslim rule as a protest against the rigid, intolerant, and
politicized interpretations of Islam. The ulema, who acted as the
representatives of official Islam, defended the Islamic law as the essence of
Islamic thought and emphasized
tawhid
(monotheism), or the oneness of
God. In sharp contrast, the Sufis preached an ascetic lifestyle that rejected
the distinction between the Creator (God) and the created by teaching that the
creation was a manifestation of the Creator. For Sufi masters, removing the
distinction between the Creator and the created allowed man to attain
perfection and unity with God and the divine truth. By God, the Sufis did not
mean an anthropomorphic entity that possessed human qualities and was man-made.
For them, God was the absolute being, and the whole universe was a
manifestation of that Being. As everything was a manifestation of God, to love
God was to love God’s creatures and His entire creation.