The Transformation of Muslim Mystical Thought in the Ottoman Empire: The Rise of the Halveti Order, 1350-1650.

• Author: Clayer, Nathalie
• Position: Book review

The Transformation of Muslim Mystical Thought in the Ottoman Empire: The Rise of the Halveti Order, 1350-1650. By JOHN J. CURRY. Edinburgh: EDINBURGH UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2010. Pp. xviii + 330. $105.

John Curry's book is an important contribution to the history of Sufism in the early Ottoman empire. Based on an in-depth analysis of Sufi writings, it leads the reader to the very heart of Sufi life that developed in Anatolia in a broad social, political, and religious context. This work belongs to the very valuable trend in the study of mysticism that takes advantage of Sufi texts, whether theological or hagiographical, and thus informed by an understanding of the mechanisms of assimilation and transformation of earlier traditions, as well as of the contemporary aims of the writers, John Curry's foray into writing history is successful indeed.

The study concentrates on the Halveti order, which has been, with its various branches, the most widespread Sufi path (tarikat) within the Ottoman realm. The book is interesting for three reasons. One, it relates as far as possible the history of the origins of the path and its expansion into Ottoman Anatolia. about which until now there was only a rough idea. Two, it presents aspects of the mechanisms of the formation of the order's branches, through the analysis of shaping of the Sabaniye, a Halveti branch with its center in Kastamonu. And, finally, it provides insights into the position that some Halved shaykhs took in the religious debates that roiled the Ottoman empire in the first decades of the seventeenth century concerning the cult of saints or the Sufi dance (sema, devran)--even before the famous period of the Kadizadelis--and the stakes (even juridical) of the polemics the Halvetis were involved in.

The book is divided into three parts. The first and the second relate the origins and the first expansion waves of the order in Anatolia, while the second and the third highlight the formation of the Sdbo.niye and its crystallization at the beginning of the seventeenth century in a specific political and religious context. If the second part is pivotal, it is because it relates the life and the activities of the eponymous saint of the Sabaniye, Saban-i Veli (d. 1569), and of some of its successors, before 'Omer al-Fuadi really founded the Halveti network with its center in Kastamonu.

Mainly based on the analysis of the silsile (spiritual chain) of the order as it was presented in the work of Mahmud...