`Ali b. `Atiyya al-Hiti, known as Shaykh `Alwan (d. 1530), was an influential mystic and scholar from Hamah, Syria. `Alwan lived across the transition from Mamluk to Ottoman rule in the central Islamic lands, and his writings attest to transformative and unsettled times. Though best known for his Sufi works (and his association with the legendary Moroccan mystic `Ali b. Maymun), `Alwan also commented on what he perceived to be the many social ills infecting his world. In this vein, he penned a fascinating advice treatise for the Ottoman ruler, likely Sultan Selim I (r. 1512-1520): al-Nasa’ih al-muhimma li-al-muluk wa al-a’imma (Important Advice for Rulers and Imams). In this treatise, `Alwan catalogs the many “abominations” now rampant in the wake of Selim’s defeat of the Mamluks—from offenses against public morality, like prostitution, gambling, and alcohol consumption, to derogations of a just political order, such as soldiers’ abuse of peasants and unlawful taxation. `Alwan seeks rectification through the sultan’s attentiveness to the `ulama’ and, ultimately, through the determined application of Islamic law. He also imagines a leader in control of his own excesses and not just those of his servants and subjects. `Alwan’s ideal ruler, then, combines qualities sought in traditional kingly advice literature with traits valued in Sufi thought. This paper will describe and contextualize `Alwan’s distinctive vision. The early 16th Century was an age of anxiety and expectation but also opportunity and refashioning, and Shaykh `Alwan al-Hamawi’s al-Nasa’ih al-muhimma provides a rich opportunity to examine these dynamics, and their concrete manifestations, in an under-appreciated setting.

Over the last years, our understanding of Ottoman Sufism in the early modern age has made great progress; and the Gulsheniyye and its main Egyptian chronicler, Muhyi-i Gulsheni (d. 1605), prove no exception to this. Still, however much our understanding may have expanded, some of this prolific author’s many facets await further exploration. This paper takes up the challenge by looking into two of his unpublished works, which stand out amidst his mostly Sufi-oriented writings. While these share their title and topic — an Ottoman punitive expedition against a band of marauding Bedouins in Lower Egypt — they do so from a distinctly different angle. The first is a Persianizing mesnevi that depicts the expedition in bloody detail and lauds the Ottoman troops as Firdawsian lions in pursuit of the gazel-like Ghazale Bedouins. The second is an Arabicizing risale, in which Muhyi builds a legal case. Working from a highly technical tefsir of the infamous Ayetu’l-Hirabe or “Brigandage Verse” — one that is strikingly similar to the “state-sanctioned” tefsir of sheykhu’l-islam Ebu’s-Su’ud Efendi — he identifies the Ghazale as Koranic brigands, thus ex post facto legitimizing their execution as fully sher’an. These texts reveal some lesser known dimensions of Muhyi’s kaleidoscopic personality, such as his pursuance of local patronage, his familiarity with Ottoman Hanafism, and his judicial activity. At the same time, they exemplify some of the Ottoman Empire’s larger historical trends, such as the Gulsheni-Ottoman rapprochement, the institutionalization of Sufism, and legal Hanafization. Yet, I argue that there is even more to it, and I do so by juxtaposing the texts and rethinking them as two halves of a literary “diptych”. While the mesnevi casts the expedition as siyaset first and foremost (the sultan exercising his power through “the people of the sword”), the risale depicts the same expedition as sheri’at (the caliph/imam defending God’s law through the “people of the pen”). Thus, the texts combined reify a particular vision of the Ottoman Empire: siyaset sher’iyye, in which siyaset and sheri’at, sultan and imam, soldier and jurist, highway robber and Koranic brigand, and, indeed, the Ottoman cause and the Ummah merge into one. Concluding, the two Ghazale-Names reflect the kaleidoscopic identity of their author, as well as various strands of Ottoman legitimation. Also, they demonstrate how Sufi authors performed their own identity, and how they were instrumental in disseminating an imperial reality outward from the center, by tailoring it to local needs.

Carefully crafted descriptions of the public behavior of Sufis and depictions of how holy men ought to behave in the presence of rulers can be found in an eclectic body of literature penned in the 16th-17th century Egypt. These sources reflect complex and, oftentimes, conflicting collective recollections about the Sufis, holy men, and tariqas they seek to illuminate. A case in point is the literature we have on the Cairene Khalwati-Gulshanis. Whether penned by Ottomans or by Egyptians, commentaries on the Gulshanis have revised version of events. Gulshanis either suspiciously fit into proper channels of public behavior appearing as cordial supporters of political authority, pillars of piety, and bastions of social conformity, or they appear as controversial/heretical figures who engage in offensive public displays offending the members of the religious hierarchy—Ottoman and/or Egyptian. I argue here that there exists an inconsistent and unpredictable set of standards that determined who was a “pious and exemplary Sufi” in 16th century Egypt and that the formation(s) of this image hinged on how Sufis interacted with political authority. These standards were drawn by commentators who based their assumptions on ethnicity and sectarian identities that they sided with. However, the building blocks of these standards also depended closely on the relationship(s) of the Sufi(s) with political authority. I will explore the definitions of an “ideal Sufi” and demonstrate that Sufi figures—Khalwatis and otherwise—who were depicted as “epitomes of piety” were accepted as such only after their respective histories and actions proved to their audiences that they were socially (and politically) harmless figures. One of my goals here is to also show that in this environment, the Gulshanis represent an interesting case of contradictions when compared with their local Egyptian peers. Throughout their long history in Egypt, the Ottoman observers of Gulshanis regarded them as a “band apart” from their Misri and Rumi peers. Their Egyptian/ex-Mamluk commentators, on the other hand, didn’t necessarily depict them as such. For them, Gulshanis weren’t “exclusively” known for their heretical behaviors. To reach a nuanced understanding on who an “ideal Sufi” was, I will expand my analysis to those outside of the Khalwati and the Gulshani orbit and investigate how Cairene Sufis interacted with Mamluk and Ottoman rulers.