Being A “Fususi”: Muhyi-i Gülseni’s (d. 1603/1604 C.E.) Intellectual World and Defense of Ibn al-Arabi Muhyi-i Gülseni is known in today’s Ottoman Sufism and historical scholarship mainly as the meticulous hagiographer of Ibrahim-i Gülseni (d. 1534)—the founder of Egypt based Halvetiye-Gülseniye order of dervishes. Muhyi lived most of his adult life in the Cairo lodge-complex with his spriritual mentor, Gülseni’s son, and successor Ahmed-i Hayali. Being part of an extensive Gülseniye network, he traveled regularly in the wider Ottoman geography meeting with other members of the order while his master was alive. After Hayali’s death, Muhyi reached an important position in the Cairo lodge. Subsequently he began establishing intimate connections with select members of the Ottoman ruling elite in Istanbul—such as Sultan Murad III. His copious literary production played a significant role in Muhyi’s popularity at court. Indeed, Muhyi was a prolific writer who authored over two hundred texts spanning from works on ethics, grammar, hagiography, counsel for sultans, and mystical poetry. Baleybelen—the Esperanto-type language—and the dictionary he formulated are being examined today as the first practical product of lingua sacra—the first and purest language God was said to have taught to Adam. While there are a few random studies on Muhyi’s select oeuvre, his overall intellectual contribution to early modern Ottoman letters and culture of Sufism remain largely unknown. In this paper, I will introduce Muhyi’s rich oeuvre focusing on his dialogues with Ibn al-Arabi’s metaphysical writings through a close textual analyis of his unpublished Ottoman Turkish manuscripts located in the National Library and Archives of Egypt (Dar al-Kutub, Bab al-Khalq branch) in Cairo. In doing so, I hope not only to introduce a previously overlooked prolific Sufi writer, but also to contextualize Muhyi and his intellectual world within the wider context of 16th century Ottoman socio-cultural history and Sufism studies.

This paper focuses on the early development of the Khurasani branch of the Kubravi Sufi order, known today as the Zahabiyyah.The sixteenth and early-seventeenth century records remarkably little about this branch’s history; however, during those years, it underwent a major transition from Sunnism to Shi’ism, adopting the designation “Zahabiyyah” along the way. DeWeese (1988) and Algar (1993) have suggested that the majority of these changes occurred during the mid-sixteenth century. This paper, however, will argue that there is good reason to believe that while the gradual process of transformation into Shi’ism was not completed until early-seventeenth century, the adoption of the designation “Zahabiyyah” dates even later, close to the end of seventeenth century. Thus, my findings suggest that Zayn al-‘Abidin Shirvani’s (d. 1837) dating of the emergence of the term Zahabiyyah in Bustan al-Siyahah (1815), which is not taken seriously by either Gramlich (1965) or Algar (1993) because of Shirvani’s anti-Zahabi bias, is roughly accurate. My argument is based upon, first, an understudied commentary on the thirtieth part of the Qur'an by Muhammad Mu’min Mashhadi (alive during Abbas I’s reign) who is claimed by Zahabis as well as Nurbakhshis as a ranking member of their respective order and the mentor of no less a figure than Shaykh Baha’i (d. 1621) and Fayz Kashani (d. 1680), and, second, a careful reading of several Zahabi treatises from Muhammad Ali Mu’azzin Khurasani (d. 1667), Najib al-din Riza Tabrizi (d. 1693), Qutb al-din Nayrizi (d. 1760) and others. A comparison between the print editions of these treatises and their relevant manuscripts reveals a very interesting pattern of redaction in which later Zahabi authors and copyists have made a consistent effort to revise earlier Sufi works - belonging to the rival Nurbakhshi order as well as the Barzishabadi lineage of the Kubraviyyah – in order to substantiate their claim to be the only Shi’a Sufi order and, simultaneously, to argue for an earlier date for the appearance of the designation Zahabiyyah.

For a hagiography, constructing sacred space can be a way to establish and celebrate the cult of the writer’s particular saint. Such is the case for the anonymously written, untitled hagiography of the Sufi Zayn al-Din-i Taybadi (d. 1389), who is usually best known as one of Timur’s shaykhs. This work, which exists in a unique and unexamined manuscript, depicts the region of Khurasan as a sacred space defined by its deceased saints and their shrines. Real power in Khurasan is held by the region’s saints, such as ‘Ali b. Musa al-Rida (d. 818), Abu Dharr-i Buzjani (d. 977), and Ahmad-i Jam (d. 1141), all of whose spirits take an active interest in the welfare of the people of the region. Taybadi starts out as a reclusive Sufi unconcerned with worldly affairs who makes frequent pilgrimages to the shrines of the region. He comes to receive spiritual training from Ahmad-i Jam, who directs him to “the Sultan of Khurasan” in Mashhad, ‘Ali b. Musa, who makes Taybadi his intercessor in Khurasan. The hagiography from there on out portrays Taybadi as the custodian of ethical rule in the region and the guardian of it’s saints’ families, in particular the descendants of Ahmad-i Jam. In introducing this manuscript to scholarly attention, I intend to both further explore how else the anonymous author constructed the region of Khurasan as a sacred space through the the historical memory of Taybadi. Secondly, by comparing it to other, more well-known contemporary sources, I will investigate to what extent the hagiographer’s arguments fit into the prevalent understanding of Khurasan in the Late Middle Period.