The Illuminationist philosopher Shih?b al-D?n Ya?y? al-Suhraward? (known as al-Maqt?l, “the one who was executed” or “Shaykh al-Ishr?q” to distinguish him from his famous contemporary Shih?b al-D?n ‘Umar al-Suhraward?, a major Sufi leader in Baghdad) wrote a number of devotional works, almost all unpublished and very thinly represented in the manuscript record. Suhraward? is best known for his philosophical works, notably his Platonizing Philosophy of Illumination, and for a series of elegant allegories, mostly in Persian. However, the most comprehensive bibliography of his works, that of al-Shahraz?r? writing in the century after his death, lists a number of devotional works, most rather vaguely identified under titles like tasb???t, da‘aw?t, w?rid?t, takhayyur?t, and mun?j?t, some addressed to celestial bodies, intellects, souls, and elements. There is an obvious connection with al-Suhraward?’s Neoplatonic cosmological system, in which angelic minds are identified with Platonic Forms. In content, these works are very unusual from an Islamic point of view. While it might be acceptable to identify the celestial bodies and their motions with angels and their actions, it is quite another thing to write prayers addressed to these angels. Some of the prayers contain instructions for how to converse with these angelic figures, which links these prayers with the occult tradition and with the theurgy of Late Antique Neoplatonism as transmitted through channels such as Harranian Sabianism. The magical connection is strengthened by a prayer invoking the “perfect nature,” a spiritual counterpart of an individual human being. Al-Suhraward? associates the idea with Hermes and Apollonius of Tyana. All of this fits in well with biographical evidence of his concern with magic and the occult. Another issue relates to the transmission of these texts. Given their generally heretical character, it is not surprising that they were seldom copied. However, most of the existing manuscripts are associated, either by purchase or copying, with the Ottoman court, part of a pattern in which Illuminationist ideas seem to have played an important role in the ideology of the Ottoman state, beginning with Mehmed the Conqueror, whose library contained elegant copies of all the significant Illuminationist texts.

In this paper I introduce an extremely important but little-known hagiography of sixteenth century female saint Agha-yi Buzurg entitled Mazhar al-aja’ib wa majma al-ghara’ib. This manuscript was written by Agha-yi Buzurg’s disciple Hafiz Basir who relates his master’s ideas, teaching, and events of the final years of her life preceding her death in the Bukhara region around 1522. Agha-yi Buzurg’s hagiography until recently due to variety of reasons has been viewed as part of literary legacy of the Naqshbandiya brotherhood. However, this manuscript, which on its surface level appears to be a Sufi treatise, is actually much more complex. The text describes tensions between rival religious groups, juxtaposing Agha-yi Buzurg and her circle to doubting religious and political authorities. It presents a challenge to the dominant model of religious authority by discourses that serve both as a defense strategy against accusations of heresy, and as an effort to legitimize one’s system of belief and practices. In his effort to defend their belief system as well as to claim a religious authority for his master Agha-yi Buzurg and for himself, the author Hafi? Basir created an unusual text written in a highly symbolic language, characterized by technical terminology, obscure and inconsistent utterances, and ambiguous conversations between master and disciple. The text’s inner content, often incoherent and puzzle-like, makes it unsystematic and difficult for the reader to have a clear picture and to follow the author’s arguments. The author seems to be trying to give the impression that he is concealing while revealing and vice versa. Applying methodological approaches used in scholarship on Western Esotericism (Faivre, Von Stuckard, Kippenberg), guidelines developed by scholars in the study of Shî?ite Islam (Kohlberg, Amir-Moezzi, Sachedina, Corbin), Islamic and Central Asian historiography (Manz, Hermansen, Hodgson), philosophy (Gutas, Strauss), and discourse analysis (Foucault) in exploring the text’s ambiguities, I argue that, in order to avoid persecution, the author wrote it in a peculiar mode of concealed narrative with multiple layers of intended meaning. On the one hand the author used various strategies to defend his group against accusations and persecution. On the other hand the text also served as a tool to transmit ?gh?-yi Buzurg’s legacy to those who were initiated into her tradition. Mazhar al-aja’ib is a unique source which sheds a new light on the religious environment of the early Shaybanid Transoxiana, a period whose history remains largely unexplored.

It is well known that ritual purity is an essential element in Islamic religious practice and that it holds great importance in many Muslims’ daily lives. In premodern Muslim societies, the same standards of ritual purity were also important to specific magical practices and the uses of that magic. This paper will demonstrate that, according to the earliest available evidence, the maintenance of ritual purity was consistently connected with Islamic forms and beneficial ends throughout the Middle Ages, while conversely the neglect of purity—or its deliberate violation—was connected with much more sinister forms of magic. One major resource will be the Fihrist of Ibn al-Nadim. This text describes the full scope of Arabic literature in tenth century Baghdad, including many different kinds of occult writings. In particular, Ibn al-Nadim explained that in practicing “blameworthy magic” a magician deliberately violated Islamic norms of ritual purity in order to please evil spirits, that they might do the magician’s bidding. Furthermore, such magic was used primarily to harm. On the other hand, Ibn al-Nadim explained that practitioners of the “praiseworthy” system commanded spirits because those magicians knew the names of God and other holy secrets—and also because these practitioners scrupulously observed all Islamic norms of ritual purity and ethical behavior. While the specific works described by Ibn al-Nadim do not survive, similar approaches can be seen in surviving grimoires from later eras. For example, the corpus attributed to the thirteenth century Sufi Ahmad ibn Ali al-Buni strongly resemble Ibn al-Nadim’s description of the “praiseworthy” system: al-Buni’s works are mostly concerned with the special powers of Islamic symbols such as the Ninety-Nine Beautiful Names of God, the Greatest Name of God, verses of the Qur’an, and even letters of the Arabic alphabet. Furthermore, in its instructions al-Buni’s corpus places great emphasis on the importance of Islamic ritual purity and also on the need to use the great power of these Islamic symbols solely for beneficial ends.

Defining Heresy in the Ottoman Empire: The Case of Bayrami-Malamis Bayrami-Malamis were an off-shoot from the Bayrami Sufi order founded by the Turkish mystic Haji Bayram Veli (d. 1429). After his death, there was a dispute between the sober, madrasa-educated disciples and the wandering charismatic dervishes. The later group distanced themselves from the well-established group of Bayramis and came to be known as Bayrami-Malamis. Bayrami-Melamis shared some common points with the Malami school of Khurasan which appeared around the ninth century. They were marked by a criticism of the established Sufi orders and practices: they denounced particular clothes and symbols worn by members of the Sufi orders and they did not follow a particular method of spiritual training (sayr suluk). However this second wave of Turkish Malamis were also influenced by the teachings of Ibn Arabi and by the idea of wahdat al-wujud. In risalas written by their exponents, the source of the label “malami” is attributed to Ibn Arabi and his classification of malamiyya as the highest degree of sufi accomplishment in Futuhat. Bayrami-Malamis also made his idea of the “qutb” their central doctrine and believed that the qutb, who was a tajalli of God on earth, was bound to appear amongst them. Due to their extreme interpretation of wahdat al-wujud, Bayrami-Malamis were kept under close scrunity by the Ottoman authorities for centuries. Some of their qutbs were executed in accordance with the fatwa of several Sheikh al-Islams who declared them heretics (zindiq). After the executions, the order went underground for extended periods of time. Research about Bayrami-Malamis in English language is almost non-existent. I am hoping to give some information about them in my presentation and discuss politics of heresy in the Ottoman Empire, mostly relying on the Turkish writings on them.