Postlude: Music, Poetry, and Mysticism in The Ottoman Empire
Walter Feldman
From Rumi to the Whirling Dervishes January 27, 2022 DOI: 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474491853.003.0011 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Historical analysis Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Topics | Mysticism |
| Key points | Argues that Rumi's legacy had no institutional basis in the Persianate world and was instead institutionally sustained by the Mevlevi Order in Anatolia and the Ottoman Empire, where Persianate Sufi musical practices were preserved and developed. Contends that the Mevlevis' cultural and economic resources and intellectual flexibility let them maintain this role for over six centuries and contribute to a "locally generated modernity" from the long 18th century onward. |
Abstract
Rumi has been much appreciated as a Sufi poet throughout the Persianate World, from Bukhara and India to Iran itself. But today it is much less widely understood that Rumi’s legacy had no institutional basis in any of these countries. Through the Mevlevi Order of Dervishes this legacy had its center in the Seljuq and Karamanid states, and then the Ottoman Empire. Likewise, important elements of medieval Persianate Sufistic musical practices survived and were further developed in the Anatolian and later the Ottoman musical environments. Within this spiritual and cultural complex, human artistic creation held a highly significant role. Despite periods of political and economic instability, and the economic decline of most of Anatolia in relation to Istanbul and the European Ottoman provinces, the Mevlevis had both the cultural and economic resources to maintain the essence of this position for a period of over six centuries. In part due to their maintenance of the highest level of an Islamicate civilization close to its “classic” phase, the Mevlevis had the intellectual flexibility to help initiate the “locally generated modernity” of the long 18th century.They were also within its continuation under the harsher conditions of Western-oriented Ottoman modernity in the later 19th-early 20th centuries.
Comparable studies
Other theoretical and historical papers on mysticism, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| The mystical mind: probing the biology of religious experience | 2000 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Religious and Mystical Experiences as Artifacts of Temporal Lobe Function: A General Hypothesis | 1983 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| The Problem of Pure Consciousness: Mysticism and Philosophy | 1993 | Edited collection of essays | |
| Irreducible Mind: Toward a Psychology for the 21st Century | 2020 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Mysticism and schizophrenia: A phenomenological exploration of the structure of consciousness in the schizophrenia spectrum disorders. | 2016 | Theoretical or philosophical paper |