Elemterefiş: superstitious beliefs and occult in the Ottoman Empire ( 1839 - 1923 )

Abstract

Tills doctoral thesis has been prepared in order to write the social history of superstitious beliefs and especially magic and sorcery. Mainly, we tried to examine how superstitious beliefs and magic had transformed the daily life of Ottoman Empire into the world of superstitions in nineteenth century. However, we obliged to go further back when I deepened my research into the origin of superstitious beliefs and magic which were widespread in almost every period of the Ottoman Empire. I had to look at polytheistic religions like Shamanism, Animism, Manichaeism, Buddhism and Hinduism which were the common religious belief of former Turkish World. Also I studied various pagan religions and cultures underlying the past of Ottoman geography spreading over three continents; polytheistic religion belief systems of cultures like Mesopotamia, Ancient Greece and Roman culture; and the four major heavenly religions from these lands which each of which would be included in the Ottoman territories later such as Judaism, Zoroastrianism, Christianity, Islam as well as the Sky God belief in the Central Asia. I tried to focus particularly on the magic subject while studying on superstitious beliefs and magic in Ottoman Empire. The focal point of my thesis became how magic had been utilized especially in Muslim Ottoman society rather than how the magic had been created. Therefore, I particularly stayed away from getting involved with amulets. How amulets or magic had been perceived in the society, why these had been needed and how they had been used became much more important than what was written in them. In the Ottoman Empire, while "professional" magicians were among individuals of ulema class who were not reluctant to utilize religious knowledge for their personal interests and began to live immoraly; "amateur" magicians were composed of occult groups who had unknown origins. I referred to them as pseudoclergy in the thesis. I followed magic and magicians included in the documents of Prime Ministry Ottoman State Archives only when caught as a result of a complaint. Ottoman literature and especially the novels of the period served as an efficient resource coming to my aid where limited information in the archival documents and secondary resources were insufficient about this kind of secret sciences (ilm-i nucum).