Between Two Worlds Kafadar.pdf

attitudes or gestures. Not that such syncretism was mischievously planned by a
secret organization of gazis and dervishes who held a conference and decided
that this would be the better "tactic." No one ever theorized it, either. It
appears to have been a shared insight deriving from the cumulative experiences
gained through the fusion of Islamic elements with pre-Islamic beliefs of the
Turks on the one hand and Anatolian Christianity on the other.
― 73 ―
In fact, to expect the call for conversion from representatives of "untarnished
Islam" rather than from other elements would be to misread Islamic history on
the basis of an ahistorical assumption. It was rarely if ever the ulema and the
courtiers in Baghdad or Konya who set themselves the task of actively gaining
converts. It was rather the largely unorthodox dervishes of the marches in
southwestern Asia and southeastern Europe who did so. A comparison between the
hagiographies stemming from different Anatolian orders reveals that the
antinomian orders are almost the only ones whose self-portrayal in their own
hagiographies reflects a proselytizing mentality, whereas the literature of the
orthodox orders does not seem as concerned with conversions.[33]
We should recognize here that it is in fact extremely difficult, if not
impossible, to distinguish orthodoxy and heterodoxy in those regions or among
those segments of the population that were not dominated by such structures of
authority as could define and enforce a "correct" set of beliefs and practices
in the mode of learned Islam. For one thing, central states themselves are
concerned with orthodoxy or engaged in correcting others in varying degrees.
Recognition of limits to authority in a particular administrative structure,
pragmatism, and custom and tradition, which can be as imposing as orthodoxy, are
some of the major determinants of state behavior in this regard. Looking at the
heightened concern of governments with imposing orthodoxy from the turn of the
sixteenth century, one can appreciate how little need the Turco-Muslim polities
of western Asia felt to be rigorously correct until the rise of the (Sunni)
Ottoman-(Shi'i) Safavid rivalry. There was even less room for learned
definitions and scholarly rigor among those circles that were physically and/or
socioculturally on the margins of institutionalized Islam, though they may have
been more sincere in their faith and more aggressive in its promotion.
The best illustration of these blurred boundaries comes from a hagiography
produced in a milieu that is of particular relevance for the early Ottomans
Menakibii'l-kudsiye , written in 1358/ 59 by Elvan Çelebi, relates episodes in
the life of Baba Ilyas , the leader of a Türkmen tribal movement against Seljuk
authority that was suppressed after a series of bloody confrontations in
1240-41, and of some of his descendants and disciples.[34] Like the Dusturname ,
it is relatively less legendary; that is, it is somewhat more precise with
respect to the historicity of its protagonists as well as the sites and dates of
the events that mark their activities compared to the epic cycle of the
Battalname , Danismendname , and Saltukname narratives. The author himself is a
great-grandson of Baba
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