by Mehrdad Kia
All Muslims, rich and poor, young and old, were expected to celebrate the holiday by wearing their best clothes and participating in congregational prayer at a mosque. The rich bestowed gifts and alms, while children were offered sweets, fruits, and toys, which were sold by Christian and Jewish vendors. A European visitor, who was in Istanbul in 1836, described the splendor and rejoicing with which the festival of sacrifice was celebrated by “all the population of the capital.” She wrote that the harbor of Istanbul was beautifully “decked out with flags,” all business was suspended, men grasped each other by the hand in the streets and uttered “a fraternal greeting,” and the poor were seen “hastening from house to house to secure the flesh of the sacrifices.” Another Western resident of Istanbul who watched the festivities at the dawn of the First World War observed that as “evening faded into night,” the whole of Istanbul began “to glitter with the lights of myriads of tiny oil lamps hung around the windows of houses, festooned from minaret to minaret, or encircling, in double or triple coronals, their surrounding balconies and pinnacles.”
The people of Istanbul celebrated both Ramazan Bayrami and Kurban Bayrami with “extraordinary public entertainments,” “eating in the streets,” and “prayers and illuminations in the mosques.” One of the most popular amusements throughout the city, day and night, was playing on swings, although “there were occasional directives prohibiting” them “on the grounds of public morality.” According to an Italian traveler who visited the capital in 1614–1615, the swings were suspended from “very high beams, put up under canvas for this purpose, and all decorated with leaves, flowers, tinsel, festoons, and other colored adornments.” Young and old; men and women; Muslim, Christian, and Jew sat on the swing and were pushed by the ropes high into the air as they listened to music playing nearby. Young men used the opportunity to take off their “outside garment” and, at times, long shirts, to show off their skills, agility, and physique — especially if a lady were present and watching. At times the swings were set in pairs at a short distance from each other, one individual took one and another the other; and if they were men, they tried “to kick each other” as they passed, while if they were women, they tried “to embrace each other in mid-air and hook the other by legs, or capture in their hands some of the fruit attached on high.” Another form of popular entertainment was spinning on large wooden wheels that revolved, “some crosswise like millstones, and others from on high down like the wheel of fortune,” with people enjoying the sensation of “being swept up high and down again” very fast, and then “going up again.” When a person shouted, panicked, or felt dizzy from the movement and the speed of the wheel, he was immediately sprinkled with jugs of rose water.
HOLY NIGHTS
The Ottoman Empire used the Islamic calendar, a lunar calendar based on 12 months in a year of 354 or 355 days. With the Hijra, or the flight of the prophet Muhammad from Mecca to Medina in A.D. 622, designated as its first year, the calendar was used by Muslims to determine the proper day on which to celebrate important religious holidays and festivals. The months began when the first crescent of a new moon was sighted. Since the lunar calendar year was 11 to 12 days shorter, the months migrated and moved throughout seasons.
Besides the two great bayrams, several important holy nights and religious holidays were celebrated with an impressive display of prayer and meditation by all Muslims. Unlike the two main bayrams that were celebrated with public festivities, however, during the holy nights of the year, the faithful focused on solemn prayers, meditation, participation in chanting ceremonies, and feasting and celebrations in the privacy of their homes. The first of these holy nights was the feast of the birth of Muhammad, the prophet of Islam, and it was celebrated by Sunni Muslims on the 12th of Rabi ul-Awwal and by the Shia Muslims on the 17th of Rabi ul-Awwal, the third month in the Islamic calendar. The second great holy night celebrated the night of Muhammad’s conception on the fourth of Receb (Arabic: Rajab), the fifth month in the Islamic calendar. On each of these holy nights, mosques were illuminated and special foods prepared.
The third holy night in the Islamic calendar was the Night of Ascension that commemorated the prophet Muhammad’s ascent to heaven. Sometimes known as Muhammad’s Night Journey, the story on which the holiday was based illustrates the scriptural and narrative connections between Islam, Christianity, and Judaism. The Night of Ascension was traditionally celebrated on the 27th of Receb. On this night, mosques and minarets were lighted, and families visited a main mosque where children sat and listened attentively to the story of the Prophet’s journey. After listening to the story of Muhammad’s night journey, children joined their parents in a communal prayer, followed by food and special treats. One of these treats, kandil simit, or ring-shaped sweet bread covered by sesame seeds, was served at each of the commemorations of major events in the life of the prophet Muhammad, such as his birth, the first revelation he received, and his ascension to heaven.
The fourth important holy night was the Night of Record and Day of Forgiveness, celebrated on the 14th of Sha’ban, the eighth month in the Islamic calendar. As with other holy nights of the year, the faithful gathered in mosques to pray. The worshippers believed that on this night, God registered all the actions of mankind to be performed during the coming year. They also acknowledged a tree in heaven that shed several leaves on this night, each one containing the name of someone destined to die within the year. The mercy of God also descended on this night, and sinners who repented were likely to obtain forgiveness. Muslims remained awake and prayed for much of the night. A daylong fast followed.
The most important of all holy nights was the Night of Power, which was observed on the 27th of Ramazan, the ninth month in the Islamic calendar. It celebrated the angels’ descent to earth with the Holy Quran and the Angel Gabriel’s revelation of it to the prophet Muhammad. The night was also significant because it was believed that special blessings were sent down to the truly devout from heaven. Upon the arrival of the Night of Power, a solemn and meditative spirit overcame every Muslim household. From the large urban centers to the humblest village, young and old, men and women, state officials, merchants, artisans and peasant farmers, participated in night prayers, for they believed that on this night the fate of every devout Muslim was shaped for the following year. Muslim men generally avoided sexual intercourse during all holy nights, but on the Night of Power, the sultan slept with a slave girl at the royal harem, and if a baby was conceived, it was regarded as a symbol of the power and the glory of the Ottoman ruling house.
The Muslim communities of Anatolia and the Balkans also celebrated non-Islamic festivals with great joy and enthusiasm. Nevruz, also known as Sultan Nevruz, marked the beginning of spring and was celebrated on the day of the astronomical vernal equinox. The celebration was particularly popular among the Kurdish and Alevi communities of Anatolia, Iraq, and Syria, who greeted the arrival of the New Year by exchanging the greeting “May your Nevruz be victorious.” While the devout shunned dancing, Muslims living in the rural and mountain communities of Bosnia, Albania, and the Kurdish-populated regions of southeast Anatolia, northern Iraq, and northern Syria, danced frequently during weddings, various festivities, and even religious ceremonies connected with pilgrimages to the tombs of holy men and saints. Among many Kurdish communities, men and women danced chubi, which brought together a group of dancers joining hands and balancing “their bodies backwards and forwards, marking time, first with one foot and then with the other, accompanying their movements at intervals with wild cries.” Men danced first, followed by women who removed their veils and wore long dresses “resplendent in gold spangles and parti-colored silks.” At weddings, surnay or zurna, double-reed outdoor wind instruments, accompanied by a bass drum and reed flutes, were played in unison as men and women danced for hours.
7 - ISLAMIC LAW AND EDUCATION
The Ottomans did not rule as a colonial empire but as an Islamic state where the sacred law of Islam, or şeriat (
Arabic: sharia), ruled supreme. The şeriat provided the legal framework for public as well as private aspects of daily life, including all personal, political, social, and economic activities. It also regulated the personal and ethical conduct of the individual and applied to both civil and criminal cases. The Quran and the sunnah (the way and the manners of the prophet Muhammad, including his statements, actions, and practices) constituted the primary sources of Islamic law. In performing his responsibilities as a Muslim sovereign, the sultan “was assisted by a hierarchy of scholars and divines, the custodians of the Islamic holy law.” Thus, parallel with the palace and the administrative and military structure was the Islamic religious establishment and the legal and educational system of the empire, which was exclusively run by freeborn Muslims.
ULEMA
The interpretation and application of the şeriat belonged to the ulema, who were recognized as the learned men of religion, “the doctors of the Muslim canon,” and “the jurist-divines of Islam.” “Law, education, and the supervision of the Muslim community’s moral and religious life were in their care,” and since “the basis of the state was religion, their duties gave them prestige and power.” They “were to apply the sheriat and to further the principles of Islam through their educational and religious institutions.” The “dogmas of faith, the rules of ritual and worship, the civil and criminal law—all emanated from the same authority and were buttressed by the same ultimate sanctions.” Those who were experts in them “followed different specializations in the same basic discipline of knowledge.” That knowledge, “in Arabic Ilm,” was the domain of the ulema—”those who know” and are therefore learned. Under the Ottoman system, their hierarchy was called Ilmiye. The everyday work of the ulema “was concerned with two main subjects, theology and law and their talents were exercised in two great professions, education and justice.” They were led by the şeyhülislam, or the head of the ulema, who was appointed by the sultan, “but who held in fact an independent position.” He “could issue a fetva, which was an opinion or interpretation dealing with the question whether acts performed by the government conformed to Muslim principles.” The şeyhülislam “could not enforce his decisions, but his judgment had an important hold on public opinion.” He “could and sometimes did determine the fate of a sultan.”
From among the ranks of the ulema came the muftis, who interpreted the Islamic law, and the kadis who executed it. Acting as the interpreters of the Islamic law “and the sultan’s decrees,” the muftis “were consulted when the meaning of a law was in dispute,” while kadis “were dispatched throughout the provincial administration to enforce” both the şeriat and the sultan’s laws. The kadis enjoyed “jurisdiction over all Muslims and over Christians except in those sectors reserved for the Christian church authorities.”
In the eyes of the ulema, the state existed to serve as the tool for the application of Islamic law and was, therefore, subordinate to religion. Fiqh, or Islamic jurisprudence, which was an extension of Islamic law and based directly on the Quran and the sunnah, dealt with supervising and legislating the everyday observance of public morals, rituals, and practices.
The brand of Islam that the Ottomans espoused was Sunni, as distinct from the Shia Islam that the rival Safavid Empire imposed as the official religion of neighboring Iran in 1501. Sunni Islam recognized four schools of Islamic jurisprudence: the Hanafi, Shafi’i, Maliki, and Hanbali schools of legal interpretation. The principal differences between the four schools centered on religious rituals, such as ablution before the five daily prayers and personal and contractual issues, such as marriage, divorce, and inheritance. The Ottoman ruling class, as well as the majority of the Muslim population in the Balkans and the Sunni Turkish-speaking communities of Anatolia, observed the Hanafi school of law, while the majority of the North African subjects of the sultan, as well as those in Upper Egypt, followed the Maliki school. The Shafi’i school was dominant in western Arabia (Hejaz), Yemen, Lower Egypt, and the Kurdish-populated regions of the empire. The Hanbalis were confined to the Wahhabi-held territory in Arabia. Though the Ottomans did not try to impose the Hanafi school of jurisprudence on non-Hanafi Muslim communities, the kadis or religious judges they appointed followed the Hanafi legal interpretation.
RELIGIOUS EDUCATION
The education of a young Muslim began at primary schools, or sibyan mektepleri, which were usually “established by the sultans, or by prominent statesmen or philanthropists” and “were generally located within a külliye (mosque complex), or in freestanding buildings in many villages and city quarters.” The freestanding schools were often “established and operated through charitable foundation or endowment system and might be co-educational or segregated by sex, according to the stipulation in the deed establishing the school.” Children “aged five or older” attended these schools and enrolled in classes often taught by “religious functionaries, such as the imam (prayer leader), the muezzin (person who calls the faithful to prayer), or the caretaker of the mosque.” Educated women “who had memorized the Quran were also eligible to teach in the schools for girls.” The principal objective of the mektep education was “to teach children how to read, write, and perform the four basic arithmetic operations, and to have them memorize passages from the Quran and the precepts of Islam.” In their last year at the mektep, the students studied “dictionaries in Arabic and Persian.”
From the mektep, the pupils moved on to a medrese (Arabic: madrassa), or a higher institute of Islamic education, where students memorized the Quran and studied Quranic interpretation, Islamic law, the sayings of the prophet Muhammad, logic, and the principles of Islamic jurisprudence. The medreses were usually established in the large urban centers of the empire, where they were supported by vakifs, or religious endowments, which were grants of “land or other source of revenue given in mortmain for pious or charitable purposes.”
The founder of a medrese was usually a sultan, a prince or princess of the royal family, a member of the ruling elite such as a grand vizier, a high government official, a provincial governor, or a member of the ulema. The medreses were divided into lower or exterior (hariç) medreses, which served as preparatory schools, and the interior (dahil) schools that provided instruction in advanced religious sciences. Each of these two institutions was further subdivided in accordance with the particular topics, texts, and areas of study that they offered. Thus, at the lower preparatory schools the students learned “the rudiments of Arabic grammar and syntax, logic, scholastic theology, astronomy, geometry and rhetoric.” Later, they could move to a higher rank institution and study rhetoric and literary sciences, and eventually attend an even more advanced school and enroll in classes on scholastic theology and jurisprudence. At the medreses where higher knowledge and advanced Islamic sciences were taught, students began by studying Quranic exegesis and ultimately moved to the highest-level semaniye medreses, where they enrolled in “a group of three subjects—Islamic jurisprudence, Koranic exegesis or scholastic theology, rhetoric, and related studies—and received specialized training.”
Many of the prestigious schools and centers of Islamic learning were attached to the grand mosques. These could include elementary schools for boys, schools for reading the Quran, or ones for studying the traditions and statements attributed to the prophet Muhammad. Charitable and public services, along with institutions such as hospitals, insane asylums, soup kitchens for the poor that provided a loaf of bread and a dish of food every day, and bathhouses, could also be attached to large mosques built by a sultan, members of the ruling dynasty, or high officials of the central government.
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 include
d 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.