Sufis and the Sufi Lodges in Istanbul in the Late Nineteenth Century: A Socio-Spatial Analysis

Abstract

This study investigates the socio-spatial history of Sufism in Istanbul during 1880s. Drawing on a unique population registry, it reconstructs the locations of Sufi lodges and the social profiles of Sufis to question how visible Sufism was in the Ottoman capital, and what this visibility demonstrates the historical realities of Sufism. It claims that Sufism was an integral part of the Ottoman life since Sufi lodges were space of religion and spirituality, art, housing, and health. Despite their large presence in Istanbul, Sufi lodges were extensively missing in two main areas: the districts of Unkapanı-Bayezid and Galata-Pera. While the lack of lodgess in the latter area can be explained by the Western encroachment in the Ottoman capital, the explanation for the absence of Sufis in Unkapanı-Bayezid is more complex: natural disasters, two opposing views about Sufi sociability, and the locations of the central lodges.

Keywords

Sufism Istanbul Spatial History Geographic Information System Ottoman Empire

Introduction

The year 1925 was critical for Sufism in Turkey: That was the year it was officially banned by the newly established Turkish Republic.¹ While Sufis had been subjected to the increasing number of regulatory policies issued by the Ottoman government since the late eighteenth century, it was the early republicans who outlawed Sufism in its entirety. While several Sufi orders, such as the Naqshbandiyya, maintained their existence informally, the Sufi lodges (tekkes) in every corner of Turkey were handed over to the Directorate General of Foundations (Vakıflar Genel Müdürlüğü) following the 1925 decision.² Afterward, many of the lodges became vacant and eventually disappeared. In Istanbul, the situation was even worse. In the first decade of the Republic, with the relocation of the capital to Ankara, the city experienced a general neglect on the part of the state.³ With this move and the official prohibition on Sufism, many Sufi establishments and buildings practically vanished in the city.

In this article, I examine the social and spatial topography of Sufi lodges in the three decades preceding the Turkish Republic’s banning of Sufism, particularly in Istanbul. A unique and previously unstudied population registry entitled Population Registry of Istanbul’s Sufi Lodges (İstanbul Tekkeleri Nüfus Vuku’atı Defteri) that lists the names and locations of the late nineteenth-century Sufi lodges in Istanbul constitutes the main source for this inquiry.⁴ In the following pages, I reconstruct the locations of Sufi lodges and the social profiles of Sufis using data preserved in the registry. I focus on two questions in particular. How visible and present was Sufism in the Ottoman capital at the end of the nineteenth century? What does this visibility (or the lack thereof) demonstrate about the socio-political and historical realities of Sufism during the period?

To answer these questions, I utilize Geographic Information System (GIS) tools and methodologies. As Richard White claims, Historical GIS or Spatial History “generates questions that might otherwise go unasked, it reveals historical realities that might otherwise go unnoticed, and it undermines, or substantiates, stories upon which we build our own versions of the past.”⁵ In other words, analyzing Sufism in Istanbul with GIS mapping techniques allows us to examine Sufism as a spatial phenomenon. Because Sufi spaces largely disappeared in the course of the twentieth century, whether from disuse or artful concealment, mapping Sufism’s impact on the social and religious aspects of everyday life in Istanbul renders visible again a history we can no longer see.

I draw three primary conclusions. First, despite being present in almost every corner of the capital, Sufi lodges were notably absent from two main areas in Istanbul: the districts of Unkapanı-Bayezid and Galata-Pera. An examination of contemporary sources indicates the absence in the latter area was closely related to the significant presence of Western expatriates, which had caused an increase in real estate values. Second, I argue the absence of Sufi lodges in the areas between Unkapanı and Bayezid can be attributed to other urban historical factors: the devastating 1865 Hocapaşa Fire, which drastically changed the landscape in the particular neighborhoods of the historical peninsula; two seemingly contradictory modes of Sufi sociability, “abandoning the world” (terk-i dünya) and “solitude in the crowd” (halvet der encümen), which influenced the overall socio-spatial centrality of the Sufi lodges; and the spatial layout of the central lodges (known as merkez tekke), which were Sufi establishments with heightened significance for each order. Last, one should mention that the late nineteenth-century Ottoman rulers did not hesitate to show their suspicion of Sufism with increased regulation of Sufi lodges and their spatiality. To put it simply, this article investigates the importance of Sufi lodges in the Ottoman capital during the late nineteenth century, using visual materials and thematic maps to shed light on the period leading up to their total ban by the Turkish government in the 1920s. Ultimately, we see that the 1925 ban was an extension of the existing attitudes toward Sufism rather than a secular rupture with Turkey’s Islamic past.

Ottoman Sufism and Its Historiography

Sufism has often been broadly defined as Islamic mysticism, yet considering its lengthy history and its extension over a vast geography, confining Sufism to a mystical branch within Islam generates analytical and conceptual shortcomings.⁶ Nile Green’s theoretical suggestions on this topic are highly informative. He conceives of Sufism as primarily a tradition of powerful knowledge, practices, and persons.⁷ According to Green, since its emergence, Sufism was deeply embedded in a wider model of reliable knowledge in which “the sanction and security of past authority (whether of the Prophet or of the saintly ‘friends’ of God) was of overwhelming importance.”⁸ It would nevertheless be problematic to consider Sufis as fervent traditionalists and conservatives, opposing any kind of transformation. As this study discusses, Sufis, while keeping their past knowledge and tradition, were, to a certain extent, prone to changing their ways of life according to the contemporary realities and circumstances.

Following the examples of earlier orders, Sufi orders in the Ottoman Empire were also structured with the aim of disseminating certain teachings, traditions, and rituals, with the master-disciple relationship located at the core. This relationship was not an intimate, individualistic one, as many aspects of Sufism had become collective and public. Sufi sheikhs residing in lodges (ribat, khanqah, zawiya, or tekke)⁹ established “intense communal [lives] of devotion and close attendance upon the sheikh in order to benefit from his constant ministration.”¹⁰ The communal aspect of Sufi orders was particularly significant in Ottoman urban centers where tekkes tasked themselves with providing guidance not only for devotional activities, but also for charitable and educational services.¹¹

Despite the importance of Sufi practice to communal spaces in the Ottoman empire, Istanbul Sufi orders and their lodges remain understudied.¹² The corpus of scholarship examining the historical transformation of various Sufi orders and their relationship with the Ottoman state has mostly engaged in prosopographical research focusing on the genealogies of Sufi sheikhs, their biographies, and their writings. Furthermore, there has been a little effort to investigate the social aspects of Sufism in urban spaces or the interaction of the urban populace with Sufi dervishes.¹³ The vast majority of the existing literature on Sufi lodges has scrutinized the architectural features of individual lodges while overlooking the people who inhabited those places. As a result, the spatial and the temporal dimensions have been neglected.¹⁴ Thus, building upon existing works on Sufism in the Ottoman Empire, this study reconstructs the social and urban profiles of the tekkes in Istanbul through a set of maps that help visualize their distribution, concentration, and possible roles in an urban environment.

A Nineteenth-Century Registry of Sufis in Istanbul

Toward the end of the eighteenth century, the Ottoman state initiated a set of policies regarding Sufis and their tekkes. Following complaints by several prominent Sufi sheikhs about “deviant” Sufi establishments, the Sublime Porte granted several Sufi leaders the authority to oversee their fellow Sufis in Istanbul.¹⁵ According to an imperial decree (ferman) made by Selim III (r. 1789-1808), these leaders’ responsibilities ranged from appointing the head sheikhs (postnişin) of tekkes in the capital to investigating and shutting down tekkes where “deviant” Sufis gathered.¹⁶ The actions of certain Sufi leaders went far beyond the indented degree of authority, however, and, as a result, this practice ended up being a short-lived one.¹⁷

The turning point for the relationship between the Ottoman state and the Sufi orders was the reign of Mahmud II (r.1808-1839). Mahmud II was eager to implement a set of top-down modernization policies, including the termination of the Janissaries, one of the oldest standing armies in history, by bombarding their barracks and decimating their number in 1826 in an episode known as the “Auspicious Event” (Vaka-i Hayriyye). Due to its close-knit relationship with the Janissary army, the Bektashi order shared a similar fate, as the Sultan ordered its abolition and forced the Bektashis to align themselves with other Sufi orders mainly (especially the Naqshbandiyya).¹⁸ Sultan Mahmud’s attitude toward the close relationship between the Bektashi Sufi order and the Janissaries was neatly encapsulated in an imperial order declaring that “one is the enemy of the state, the other [is] the enemy of the faith (birisi düşman-ı devlet, birisi düşman-ı din).”¹⁹

Mahmud II’s harsh stance toward the Bektashis foreshadowed later policies regulating Sufi orders throughout the empire. Building on Mahmud II’s reforms, under the purview of the Ottoman modernization program also known as Tanzimat, the Ottoman state advanced a policy of centralization and bureaucratization that also targeted Sufi lodges. This policy established an official council of Sufi leaders in 1866 called Meclis-i Meşayih (The Council of Sheikhs). Operating under the Office of the Chief Mufti (Meşihat) and the Ministry of Imperial Foundations (Evkaf-ı Humayun Nezareti), this council was in charge of regulating and controlling Sufi lodges and their activities throughout the empire. In the course of their work, they created a registry entitled “The Population Registry of Istanbul’s Sufi Lodges” (İstanbul Tekkeleri Nüfus Vuku’atı Defteri), which included every Sufi sheikh and dervish, every active lodge in Istanbul, and various other details.

The anonymous scribe of the registry did not date his account, but the latest date in the lengthy report, the declaration of one dervish’s previous residency on October 12, 1880, suggests it was finished in the last two decades of the nineteenth century. One can speculate that this record was made as a part of the general population census carried out by the Ottoman state in 1885.²⁰ Beyond the general bureaucratic ethos of this period, the primary motivation behind these censuses was to monitor and regulate the movements of Sufis.²¹ For instance, since the reign of Mahmud II, the Ottoman state sought to regulate migration to the Ottoman capital by issuing domestic passports (mürur tezkiresi).²² They also required Sufis to carry a document showing they had permission to reside in Istanbul from the head sheikh (postnişin) of the lodge with which they were affiliated.²³

The permissions were one among several policies enacted in this time meant to expand the Ottoman state’s control over the Sufi population and their movement. For example, in 1865, when a large presence of “riffraff” (serseris) was uncovered in Istanbul’s tekkes, an imperial decree ordered an extensive recording of every Sufi in the historical peninsula of Istanbul, as well as the neighboring counties and villages.²⁴ As Muharrem Varol has argued, the attempted coup against Sultan Abdülmecid I (r.1839-1861) by a secret society under the leadership of several Sufi sheikhs, known as the Kuleli Event, might have played a role in Istanbul’s suspicion toward Sufis in general. The official investigation revealed that this secret organization had sought to mobilize thousands of Sufi dervishes against the sultan.²⁵ If nothing else, this incident gave the state authorities a pretext to keep records of Sufis in the capital to put them under constant surveillance.

In 224 folios, the defter under study lists 253 tekkes in total within the Greater Istanbul area, including the historical peninsula, Eyüp, Galata, Üsküdar, and the villages along the Bosphorus. The scribe gave details about the names of the lodges, their status (whether they are a central lodge or not), the Sufi orders to which they were attached, and their whereabouts. For each tekke, the defter holds information on the head sheikh, his sons or relatives, and his disciples or servants, if they existed. For each individual, along with his status within the lodge, the defter displays the name, the place of origin, birthdate (if known), and his itineraries before residing in that particular lodge.²⁶ The defter lists a total of 1,829 individuals, including 1,173 dervishes, 257 head sheikhs, 247 sheikhs’ relatives, 88 sheikhs, 56 servants, and 8 slaves (Table 1). According to the defter, at the time there were also some dervishes who sought to escape the state’s surveillance, but their number, four in total, was insignificant. The state officials were well aware of their absence because of previous population surveys, and the scribe records them as deserters (firari).

Table 1.

Number of Sufis by status.

Status	Number
Dervish	1173
Head Sheikh	257
Sheikh’s relative	247
Sheikh	88
Servants	56
Slaves	8
Total	1,829

Historical GIS and the Spatial Distribution of Sufi Lodges in Istanbul

Geographic Information System (GIS) is becoming a significant research tool in historical studies as a growing number of historians have utilized GIS tools and methodologies in their research in the last two decades. Recently, Ottomanists, mainly specializing in urban history, have started to employ this computation technology to frame their research with space-related questions.²⁷ For example, with the help of GIS-generated maps, Nina Ergin visualized the spatial distribution of bathhouses (hammam) in Istanbul to question the spatial dimensions of the networks established among migrant bathhouse workers.²⁸ The maps in her study serve as a useful catalyst for questions and observations that would not have emerged otherwise by visualizing raw data (often quantitative) into maps revealing socio-spatial patterns.²⁹

GIS technology has a similar effect here: This particular defter reveals not only the social history and demographics of particular tekkes, but also the spatial configurations of Sufism throughout Istanbul in the late nineteenth century. In revealing the dynamics of interaction between the state and the Sufi orders, the utility of GIS-based research in historical studies is not only confined to map production or visualization of historical data and visualized maps are not the end result of such an inquiry. In addition to preparing a data set or producing maps, the main objective is to reveal certain historical realities of Sufism in urban space.

The mapmaking process of this study is divided into several steps:

Preparing the data set.

Geo-referencing the Plan von Constantinopel (Figure 1), prepared by a Prussian officer, Carl Stolpe, in 1882. Geo-referencing is a GIS task often utilized to align scanned maps to a coordinate system.³⁰ This study geo-referenced the Plan von Constantinopel to digitize its content and extract the spatial features of nineteenth-century Istanbul, such as the locations of landmarks, neighborhoods, and even several lodges.

Creating map layers and pinpointing the locations of 253 tekkes, recorded in the defter. This step is particularly challenging, as many of the tekkes are no longer extant, and the defter is not always precise concerning their whereabouts. The only spatial information regarding these tekkes noted in the defter is the neighborhoods or districts where the lodges were located or their proximity to well-known landmarks, like imperial mosque complexes such as the Fatih Mosque. There are also a few tekkes recorded with no spatial information. Fortunately, many streets in Istanbul are named after nearby well-known landmarks including tekkes. Thus, in a few cases, where a tekke building may be lost, we can still estimate its location based on the street bearing its name.³¹

Joining the data set into the map layers pertaining to the location of tekkes.

Creating thematic maps based on different variables and with some of the spatial analysis tools such as graduated colors, stacked charts, and so on.

Figure 1.

Plan de Constantinople, avec ses faubourgs, le port et une partie du Bosphore by Carl Stolpe, 1882; Bibliothèque nationale de France, IFN-53020857.

One of the major areas on which GIS can shed light is the spatial layout of the Sufi lodges in the Ottoman capital. As Map 1 demonstrates, Sufism was part and parcel of urban life in Istanbul during the late nineteenth century. Sufi lodges were located across the historical peninsula, throughout the counties of Eyüp, Üsküdar, and Kasımpaşa, and even in the villages on the Bosphorus. They were thus not insulated in intramural Istanbul, but followed the spatial expansion of the city toward the Bosphorus that took place throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.³²

Map 1.

Overall distribution of the Sufi lodges in Greater Istanbul.

Examining the roles played and services provided by lodges in Istanbul begins to reveal the reason for their prevalence. First of all, in addition to being one of the important places where the Muslim dwellers of the city could find spiritual fulfillment, Sufi lodges also served as places of socialization for individuals with others (Sufi or otherwise) on various occasions, such as weekly Sufi ceremonies. In addition, Sufi lodges were meeting the residential demands of the capital. As noted by Stanford Shaw, according to the 1885 census of Ottoman subjects, Istanbul faced a serious housing shortage, and approximately 26 percent of its population did not live in private housing.³³ Sufi lodges, in varying capacities, mitigated this problem by providing accommodation to the city’s population.³⁴ The tekkes also served as public health facilities, offering care in times of sickness.³⁵ It was a common belief that spending several days in the chambers of a Sufi lodge would cure one’s illnesses.³⁶ Last, Sufi lodges were one of the few centers of art and music in the city. Music was utilized by many Sufi orders, especially the Mawlawiyya, in their weekly ceremonies and the Mawlawi lodges functioned as the main institutions for the study of music before the establishment of the Ottoman conservatory in 1917.³⁷

It is also important to highlight the role that the central lodges (merkez tekkes) played in the overall spatial layout of Sufi lodges. Also called asitane, merkez tekke refers to a full-fledged lodge with a larger building structure.³⁸ They often housed the shrines of sheikhs, especially if they were the founders of a branch or subbranch of the order. The presiding sheikh of a central lodge had authoritative roles over other lodges that included inspecting, appointing, or dismissing other sheikhs and supervising the pious foundations (waqf) of lodges. Considering the centrality of merkez tekkes among Sufi orders, it is not a coincidence that they set the limits and spatial extents of Sufi lodges all over the Ottoman capital.

As Map 2 shows, the Sufi lodges, regardless of the affiliated order, were primarily concentrated around merkez tekkes on the historical peninsula, in the southwest quadrant of Istanbul, from Yenikapı to Yedikule, particularly around Yenikapı Mawlawi-hane (Mawlawi), notably Merkez Efendi Lodge (Naqshi) and Kocamustafa Paşa Lodge (Khalwati-Sunbuli); from Eyüp to Fatih, around Nureddin Lodge (Jarrahi) and Murad Molla (Naqshi); and from Hocapaşa to Küçükayasofya, Musa Safveti Paşa Lodge (Naqshi), and Şehid Mehmed Paşa Lodge (Shabani). A similar pattern exists even outside the city, along the Bosphorus and Golden Horn. This spatial relationship between the central lodge and an ordinary lodge is a manifestation of another larger spatial-historical pattern particular to Ottoman capitals, notably in Istanbul. According to Aptullah Kuran, from the conquest of Istanbul in the mid-fifteenth century, neighborhoods grew up around religious community centers including imperial complexes, mosques, and Sufi lodges, which also determined the limits of the city.³⁹ This dynamic was certainly still in place in the late nineteenth century, as the locations of many Sufi lodges and their expansion were determined by the locations of merkez tekke (see Map 2).

Map 2.

Overall distribution of the tekkes and the merkez tekkes.

The Absence of the Sufi Lodges in Unkapanı-Bayezid and the Sufi Way of Life

While Map 1 displays the wide distribution of Sufi lodges, signaling their overall importance to the Muslim public, there are two large areas where tekkes were barely present. The first area stretches from the shores of the Golden Horn to Unkapanı, Süleymaniye, and Bayezid (Map 3) where, except for few small tekkes, there was a notable absence of Sufi lodges. Why did the Sufis not settle in this part of the city while lodging basically everywhere else? After all, there does not seem to have been an economic restraint: From the mid-nineteenth century onward, the Grand Bazaar that was in this part of the city was losing its centrality in Istanbul’s economic life. As a result, the real estate prices around this area sharply decreased.⁴⁰ A few possibilities merit consideration.

Map 3.

Areas where the Sufi lodges were significantly absent within the historical peninsula.

The first explanation is related to the notorious 1865 Hocapaşa Fire, also known as the Great Fire (Harik-i Kebir) (Figure 2). One of the most devastating fires in Istanbul’s history, the fire burned a large area from the Golden Horn in the north to the Sea of Marmara in the south, from the Sultan Ahmed Complex in the east to the Bayezid Complex in the west (Map 4). In addition to decimating buildings and populations, natural disasters like this fire have had transformative effects on urban landscape and social fabric in Istanbul.⁴¹ The 1865 fire spurred significant change in its location with top-down policies on modern urban planning. As thoroughly discussed in Çelik’s oft-cited study, The Remaking of Istanbul, the 865 fire also provided the state an opportunity for promulgating top-down policies on urban planning. The ensuing process of demolition and expropriation allowed the government to “bring order” to the city’s irregular street patterns.⁴² The Commission for Road Improvement (Islahat-ı Turuk Komisyonu), established after the fire, enforced the replotting of the destroyed (as well as unburned) areas with grid planning and carried out the projects of building and enlarging roads and arteries throughout the city.⁴³

Figure 2.

A Depiction of the 1865 Hocapaşa Fire in L’Illustration, vol. 46, (October 28, 1865), 277.

Map 4.

Extent of the 1865 Hocapaşa Fire (Sibel Gürses Söğüt, “Yeni Belgelerle 1865 Hocapaşa Yangınının Sınırları,” 77).

According to an official report, at least three Sufi lodges were destroyed during the fire.⁴⁴ The extent of the 1865 fire includes a large portion of the area in which Sufis lodges were notably absent, especially the area between Bayezid and Kumkapı. Unfortunately, we have little information about the presence of the Sufi lodges in the destroyed area before 1865 to assess the impact of the fire on the spatial layout of tekkes. Regardless, if more lodges were destroyed during the fire, and in light of the noted predispositions against the Sufis among the Ottoman ruling elite, the modern urban planning after the 1865 fire may have influenced the absence of lodges in this large area.

The fire alone, however, is not sufficient enough to explain the spatial pattern, since several Sufi lodges were standing still after the Great Fire, as indicated in Map 3. Here, the spatial distribution of Istanbul’s hans and bachelor chambers may provide us with clues to explain the absence of Sufi lodges in the Unkapanı-Bayezid line. Functioning as “a depot, a place for commercial transactions and brief stay,” hans were spaces of important commercial activity in the Ottoman capital.⁴⁵ Map 5, created by Ahmet Yaşar, illustrates that the hans were densely clustered in the area under discussion in early nineteenth-century Istanbul. Similarly, Nina Ergin, in her spatial analysis of the bathhouses (hammam) in late eighteenth-century Istanbul, has argued that more crowded and bigger bathhouses were located around the areas of Unkapanı, Süleymaniye, and Bayezid (Map 6), and that this spatial orientation was related to a need for bathhouses in the most crowded and commercially active areas of the city.⁴⁶ This distribution of bathhouses, Ergin argued, reflects the bifurcation of Ottoman Istanbul’s urban landscape into “a densely built-up area where major monuments were concentrated, and an area of almost rural aspect and fewer urban amenities.”⁴⁷ In other words, there is some reason to think that this area’s lack of tekkes might correspond to an above-average density of commercial activity.

Map 5.

Locations of hans and bachelor chambers in Istanbul in the early nineteenth century (Ahmet Yaşar, “The Han in Eighteenth- and Early Nineteenth-Century Istanbul,” 3).

Map 6.

Locations of bathhouses in the historical peninsula in the late eighteenth century by the number of employees (Nina Ergin, “Mapping Istanbul’s hamams of 1752 and Their Employees,”116).

That Sufis avoided building (or re-building) lodges in a commercial area might be explained as a result of two Sufi ideas about sociability—abandoning the world (terk-i dünya) and solitude in the crowd (halvet der encümen)—which generated fervent debates in the Muslim world.⁴⁸ The phase terk-i dünya refers to the idea that Sufis should withdraw from worldly life to focus their attention on God. Although very few Sufi movements elected a purely hermetic lifestyle, the ideal of terk-i dünya certainly influenced the way Sufi orders imagined their engagement with society. As Zarcone suggests, one of the most difficult tasks for a Sufi was to find a balance between the responsibilities of his social life and abandoning worldly commitments.⁴⁹ In other words, it is possible that the lack of lodges in this particular commercial district might be the result of the Istanbul orders’ attempts to limit their worldly engagements, avoiding the city’s commercial centers in favor of more secluded locales more suited to their practices. The possibility is further suggested by the way certain Sufis spoke about the locations of the lodges. Abdülbaki Gölpınarlı (d. 1982), a Mawlawi-turned scholar who spent his childhood in Beşiktaş Mawlawi lodge, claimed that Mawlawi dervishes preferred avoiding the mundane and crowded urban life and thus established all of their lodges outside of Istanbul’s city walls.⁵⁰ In addition, Baha Tanman has also argued that the concentration of Sufi lodges in neighborhoods with more residential character was due to the amenities provided by tekkes, which did not draw the same attention in commercial settings like markets (çarşı).⁵¹ For both of these reasons, certain Sufis kept themselves away from the crowdedness of the Ottoman capital and did not erect lodges around the areas of the active commercial life.

Indeed, this basic orientation is also revealed in the defter’s demographic information on the overall Sufi population and its spatial distribution. As shown in Map 7, the more populous Sufi lodges were located at the edges of intramural Istanbul, around the western fringes of the historical peninsula in districts such as Eyüp, Yenikapı, and Yedikule. In other words, the bulk of Istanbul’s Sufis seem to have kept their distance from the primary areas of economic activity. More interestingly, as shown in Map 8, most of the central lodges were located around the peripheries of the capital, notably around Fatih-Eyüp and Yenikapı-Yedikule. Due to its overall prestige, along with large endowments and numerous facilities, many dervishes were attracted to and took up residence reside in this area, providing another reason for the spatial orientation of the Sufi population toward Istanbul’s margins.

Map 7.

The Sufi lodges by the number of Sufis.

Map 8.

The tekkes and merkez tekkes by the number of Sufis.

Still, not every Sufi practiced avoidance of worldly affairs, and there some exceptions to this general geography of Istanbuli Sufis. There were many other Sufis who advocated practicing “solitude in the crowd.” The idea was that a Sufi could involve himself in social and political affairs as long as he did not neglect his religious and spiritual duties.⁵² According to a prominent Naqshbandi sheikh, Gümüşhanevi Ahmed Ziyaüddin (d. 1893), this doctrine instructed Sufis to “pay attention to worldly affairs on the surface while finding God eternally and spiritually.”⁵³ Thus, the spiritual commitments of some Sufis did not prevent them from engaging in more social and political actions, and locations of their tekkes also reflect this idea. As shown in Map 3, some lodges were built close to central locations such as the Topkapı Palace and Bab-ı Ali (The Gate of Felicity), where the Ottoman government was located.

Modernity, Urbanity, and Sufism

Along with these two classical Sufi teachings, modernity itself was an element shaping the topography of the capital in the nineteenth century and consequently affecting the everyday life of Sufis in the city. As Kent Schull has cogently suggested, modernity is both a “mood” and a “socio-cultural construct,” and this latter aspect lies in “its institutional, social, and economic particularities that have come to dominate the contemporary era, for example, capitalist market relations, an expanding and increasingly integrated world economy, new technologies, new methods of governance, the nation-state, and nationalism.”⁵⁴ In Ottoman cities, especially in Istanbul, these particularities sparked shifts in the balances of inter-communal, economic, and state-subject relations and also shaped physical urban patterns. Consequently, as Nahide Demirakın has indicated, the nineteenth century brought into being new points of convergence and divergence redefining the boundaries of private and public and offering a possibility for a new identity that transcended communal, religious, and ethnic differences.⁵⁵

The Ottoman state, as mentioned above, was trying to implement various tools of modernization, such as population surveys and managing the activities of Sufis and Sufi lodges. The question of how Sufis themselves reflected upon and understood the developments taking place around them is one worth asking. The data set used in this study reveals the nature of this transformation and Sufis’ reactions. According to the defter, there was not even a single dervish in around eighty of the recorded lodges; only sheikhs and their relatives resided in these locations. In other words, one-third of these tekkes had no inhabitants other than the families of sheikhs. What is more, as shown in Map 9, these lodges were scattered in every direction of the city, including the more crowded areas. Why did Ottoman officials record these places as Sufi lodges rather than private houses, since only sheikhs and their families lived in them? And what does this picture tell us about the transformation that Sufism itself was facing during the second half of the nineteenth century? This situation is a spatial reflection of how the social meaning of Sufism was changing during this time.

Map 9.

Distribution of the tekkes, where no dervish resides.

While many Sufis, sheikhs and dervishes alike, were extensively involved in daily matters, tasavvuf had a more refined connotation for the Ottoman public, who might frequent tekkes without devoting their whole lives to their Sufi training.⁵⁶ The testimonies of Sufis might explain this pattern regarding the social profiles of tekkes and provide examples of the lived experiences of Sufis. Unfortunately, compared with the substantial number of biographical works of Sufis in the Ottoman context, there are only a few ego documents, in which Sufis put down their personal memories in writing.⁵⁷ One extremely valuable example is a memoir by a Rifai sheikh, Mehmet Şevket (d. 1883), in which he recounts his own opinions about Sufism and the rituals and ceremonies in the Rifai tradition. More importantly, this diary also provides us with information regarding the sheikh’s daily practices including his occupation, marriage, and interactions with both his relatives and disciples.⁵⁸

Moreover, Sufis in this period were under constant criticism, especially by Muslim modernists such as Muhammad Iqbal (d. 1938), who perceived Sufism “as a medieval superstition and a barrier to modernity.”⁵⁹ One of the reasons for this criticism stemmed from a negative image of Sufis as too lazy to work and reliant on endowments and charities.⁶⁰ Although there might have been some truth in these observations, they do not fully reflect how Sufis responded to the transformations taking place around them in the urban setting. For instance, Mehmet Şevket in his memoir explains how he and his family adapted their observance of the Rifai tradition to the developments taking place in the context of the modernization of urban daily life. Along with his spiritual duty as a sheikh, Mehmet Şevket Efendi joined the Ottoman bureaucracy and worked as a state official. While wearing his redingote (also known as an İstanbuli) at work, he would dress in his Sufi garments at his lodge. In a similar vein, while keeping himself busy with official matters during the daytime, he did not neglect his spiritual duties, as he led weekly Sufi rituals and ceremonies at his lodge, guided several dervishes residing close to his lodge, and tried to observe the traditions of the Rifai order. Most interestingly, while many individuals sought cures for their sicknesses by temporarily residing in the chambers of his lodge, he did not hesitate to note that he himself had brought his own daughter to a modern hospital to get her vaccinated for measles following her aggravated sickness.⁶¹

The lengthy memoir of Aşçı Dede Halil İbrahim (1828-1910c.) confirms this multilayered culture of late nineteenth-century Sufism from another angle. As Carter Findley has observed, as a dervish who had never achieved the rank of spiritual master (sheikh) and a mid-level civil official, Aşçı Dede was able to incorporate into his Sufi life a variety of interests and attachments that “a more self-conscious mystic might have found incompatible.”⁶² Indeed, Aşçı Dede believed that he was a perfect example of a Sufi or a pious Muslim who could live through the nineteenth century almost untroubled by “the Westernist vs. Islamicist” culture clash that loomed large in the writings of intellectuals.⁶³ For example, he sent telegrams to his master, Sheikh Fehmi (d. 1880), in Erzincan; took a steamer for a hajj trip; and rode Istanbul’s tramways to visit fellow dervishes or for other daily activities. He also followed developments taking place outside of the Ottoman realm such as the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905, and praised and prayed for Japan’s victory.⁶⁴ Still, similar to his contemporary Mehmet Şevket, Aşçı Dede’s world was defined by the culture of Sufism, in which his daily spiritual commitments and mystical beliefs played a central role in his life. In his world, his sheikh was a miracle-worker, who could predict the future or cause rain.⁶⁵ In addition to his official duties in the Ministry of War, he fulfilled his daily duties in his lodge by being an aşçı (cook), who managed the dervish meeting hall and supervised preparation and service of food.

The examples of Mehmed Şevket and Aşçı Dede are the reflections of the eclectic nature of Ottoman modernization in a Sufi lodge and on a Sufi’s life, and they provide us with clues about the transformation of Sufism with the force of Ottoman modernization efforts.⁶⁶ While Sufis were retaining their spirituality and the Sufi tradition within the walls of tekkes, they were also now increasingly involved in daily matters, shaped by the needs of a new age. However, we should not reach a conclusion that the public roles of the Sufi sheikhs were diminishing, or that Sufism was losing its popularity in Ottoman society. The number of Sufi lodges rose to 338 from 253 by 1919, as indicated in Yeşilzade Mehmed Salih’s (d. 1954) Rehber-i Tekâyâ (Directory of Lodges).⁶⁷ It seems that despite the harsh criticisms of the Muslim modernists and intellectuals, tekkes kept their significance for the Ottoman public. In addition, Sufi sheikhs like Mehmed Şevket retained their traditional roles in society as respectable members of the Muslim community.

This adjustment between the norms of a more traditional life and a newly emerging set of practices might reveal why ordinary dervishes were absent from a great number of lodges in Istanbul, as indicated in Map 9. In other words, as a consequence of Ottoman modernization, the bifurcation of the ways in which Sufis defined their lives became more substantial. On one hand, despite the rapid transformation taking place in Istanbul, some Sufis, dervishes and sheikhs alike, persisted in keeping fully to their traditional practices and placed Sufism at the center of their lives, filling the Sufi lodges and devoting themselves to their spiritual journeys. They spent most of their time with their Sufi training and followed an ascetic lifestyle while avoiding mundane affairs and keeping their distance from the earthliness of the urban life. On the other hand, along with most of the Muslim public in Istanbul, many Sufis were more receptive to modern developments and adjusted themselves to the necessities of modern life, while finding a balance between modern needs and the Sufi tradition. For instance, rather than residing in the lodge permanently, the dervishes of the Sandıkçı tekke chose to establish families, to find jobs, and to focus more on everyday matters.⁶⁸ Still, without residing in the lodge, these dervishes visited the tekke regularly, followed its hierarchy, sought a spiritual training under Sheikh Mehmet Şevket, and participated in weekly Sufi ceremonies. Similarly, Mehmet Şevket, along with his Sufi training under his father, received a modern education and eventually worked within the Ottoman bureaucracy while keeping his status as the head sheikh of the Sandıkçı lodge. Consequently, the absence of dervishes in around one-third of the tekkes testifies to the fact that what Mehmet Şevket and his lodge were witnessing was not an exception or aberration. During the second half of the nineteenth century, many sheikhs and dervishes were going through similar experiences. For them, tasavvuf was one of the multilayered aspects of Ottoman modern urban life, in which they thought they could still preserve Sufi traditions.

The European Domination in Galata-Pera and the Galata Mawlawi Lodge

As Map 10 reveals, another area where the Sufi lodges were notably absent was the districts of Galata and Pera. Although Galata had been an important commercial hub in greater Istanbul since the fifteenth century, Pera was covered with orchards and vineyards up until the eighteenth century. During the seventeenth century, a number of wealthy Europeans, including the French, English, and Venetian ambassadors, and other local Christians, had built their residences and gardens in Pera, which led to its development as an upper-class residential quarter.⁶⁹ From the mid-eighteenth century onward, with the rising influence of western traders in Istanbul, Galata-Pera became an alternative center of commercial and financial power.⁷⁰ This new spatial configuration of commercial life also had an impact on infrastructure, concentrated primarily in this area, and on the overall topography of the capital, as the impetus that caused Galata and Pera to grow did not favor the historical peninsula.⁷¹ For instance, the major instruments of the capitalist market, such as banks, insurance companies, stock exchanges, as well as innumerable small commercial ventures, were primarily established in this area.⁷² In addition, “a municipal organization, public transportation, and urban services first developed in Galata, as did a systematic re-designing of the urban and social landscape.”⁷³ These spatial and infrastructural transformations also contributed to a change in the social makeup of the area, as foreign émigrés, consisting of 15 percent of Istanbul’s population,⁷⁴ mingled with the higher echelons of Istanbulites, who preferred mostly to reside there. Ultimately, by the end of the nineteenth century Galata and Pera had acquired “the appearance of a (rather provincial) European town, catering to the needs and expectations of a population of foreign expatriates and a local westernizing middle and upper class.”⁷⁵

Map 10.

The second large area (Pera and Galata), where tekkes are absent.

In this context, the spiritual commitments of Sufis would not have been the primary concern for the population in Pera and Galata, and some segments of the foreigners and westernizing Muslim elite might not have wished to have everyday encounters with this “old” institution and its followers. More importantly, economic factors might have played a role in hindering the expansion of Sufis into the neighborhoods of Galata and Pera, since the price of real estate in this area went up by 75 percent between 1838 and 1847 and doubled again between 1852 and 1856.⁷⁶ Due to the exceptionally high real estate values, Sufis may not have been able to afford to establish lodges in this area.⁷⁷ We know that during the second half of the nineteenth century, the pious endowments of the Sufi lodges were facing economic difficulties because of the financial interference of the state. For example, the sheikh of the Galata Mawlawi Lodge, Kudretullah Efendi (d. 1871), sent a fervent petition to Grand Vizier Ahmed Vefik Pasha (d. 1891) arguing that the income assigned to the lodge had not been paid properly.⁷⁸

Despite these obstacles, it is important to note that the Galata Mawlawi lodge (Mawlawi-hane) was present in this area. Founded in 1491 on the fringes of the city at the time, outside of the Galata walls and near the Galata tower, this Mawlawi-hane had remained one of the most important locations for Sufism, as the defter also records it as being the second most crowded lodge. Despite the absence of other Sufi orders and the ongoing socio-spatial transformation in the Galata and Pera regions, the very presence of this famous Mawlawi lodge indicates the multilayered and hybrid features of urban life in Istanbul, where the ever-increasing penetration of the European economy and lifestyle did not necessarily remove the “old” facets of the city. Rather, what made urban life unique during this period was the juxtaposition of the so-called binary categories of traditional and modern, “Oriental” and European, and so on. Indeed, the nature of the encounter between Westerners and Sufis was not necessarily antagonistic, either, as there were signs of constant interaction between them. As Figure 3 shows, many Europeans were eager to observe Islamic mysticism in its authentic place. A well-known Danish novelist, Hans Christian Andersen (d. 1875), best known for his fairy tales, visited the Galata Mawlawi-hane to watch the whirling dervishes and recounted his observation in his travelogue of Istanbul.⁷⁹ A Dutch publicist and philosopher, Carl Vett (d. 1956), was also enthusiastic about Sufis and their mysticism and thus spent two weeks in one of the most important Naqshbandi lodges in the capital to observe them more closely.⁸⁰ Sufis, likewise, were receptive to the European presence in the city, as well as in their lodges. A mock Mawlawi ritual for an audience including Europeans was photographed by Pascal Sebah in 1870 (Figure 4).

Figure 3.

Painted by anonymous Greek artist in 1809 and commissioned by Stratford Canning (d. 1880); Victoria and Albert Museum D.140-1895.

Figure 4.

The Galata Mawlawi Lodge by Pascal Sebah, 1870.

Dominant Sufi Orders: The Naqshbandiyya and the Mawlawiyya

The discussion so far has focused more on the topography of Sufism in Istanbul regardless of the differences between the Sufi orders and their reflections on the urban space. This section will deal with these differentiations particularly in terms of their social configurations, while emphasizing the role of (im)migration from both the Ottoman lands and other Islamicate geographies.

According to the defter, there were sixteen Sufi orders in Istanbul during the second half of the nineteenth century. Although this figure implies diversity among Sufis, almost half of them were members of the Naqshbandi and Mawlawi orders. Indeed, the Naqshbandiyya held most of both the Sufi lodges and the Sufis in the capital. Following the Naqshbandiyya, the Mawlawiyya was the second most populous order in the city. Why were these two orders more popular among Sufis of the capital than other? The numbers recorded in the registry provide us with some clues, as they indicate that 36 percent of the Naqshbandis (Map 12) and 28 percent of the Mawlawis (Map 11) were from Istanbul, while 53 percent of the overall Sufi population was born in the Ottoman capital (Table 2). Whether members originated in Istanbul or not was not an important factor for the Naqshbandi and Mawlawi lodges, while for the rest it was. What made these orders more influential, then, were their nonnative and multicultural characters. As the figures indicate, one-fifth of the Naqshbandis were from outside of the Ottoman realm, mainly from Central and South Asia (Table 2). In addition, Sufi migrants from Anatolia (mainly from Konya), whence the Mawlawi order expanded, consisted of the majority of this order. In this respect, intra and inter-imperial migration networks mattered significantly in shaping the social milieu of the Sufism and the popularity of the Sufi orders in the Ottoman capital, particularly since the defter indicates that there was a vast migration from every part of the Islamicate world to Istanbul, from Central Asia to North Africa, from the Balkans to South Asia, in the late nineteenth century.

Map 11.

Distribution of the Mawlawi lodges by the number of Sufis and their origins.

Map 12.

Distribution of the Naqshbandi lodges by the number of Sufis and their origins.

Table 2.

Number of tekkes per Sufi Orders and Sufis by number and origin.

Order name	Total lodge	Total person	Istanbul	Anatolia	Arab lands	Non-Ottoman	Rumelia	Istanbul ratio	Foreign ratio
Naqshbandiyya	55	526	191	120	7	118	83	0.36	0.22
Mawlawiyya	5	375	106	177	16	9	64	0.28	0.02
Sunbuliyya	20	205	149	29	7	7	11	0.73	0.03
Khalwatiyya	30	159	101	34	0	15	7	0.64	0.09
Qadiriyya	41	150	123	12	1	8	5	0.82	0.05
Rifaiyya	37	119	97	12	1	5	5	0.82	0.04
Shabaniyya	13	80	43	29	2	2	4	0.54	0.03
Sadiyya	18	66	46	12	0	4	4	0.7	0.06
Jarrahiya	8	46	30	8	0	4	4	0.65	0.09
Badawiyya	7	26	23	1	0	1	1	0.88	0.04
Bayramiyya	4	20	12	2	0	4	1	0.6	0.2
Sinaniyya	2	15	11	1	0	1	2	0.73	0.07
Ushshaqiyya	4	13	9	2	0	0	2	0.69	0
Gulshaniyya	3	9	7	0	0	1	0	0.78	0.11
Shadhiliyya	2	8	7	0	0	1	0	0.88	0.13
Unknown	3	7	6	0	0	1	0	0.86	0.14
Shemsiyya	1	4	3	1	0	0	0	0.75	0
Grand Total	253	1,828	964	440	34	181	193	0.53	0.1

Despite its popularity, as shown in Table 2, the number of the Mawlawi lodges was very low, five in total, making them crowded places compared with other lodges in Istanbul. The average density of a Mawlawi lodge was 75 people per lodge, seven times more than the average density of all lodges. The main reason for this pattern was the fact that the Mawlawi lodges had been built in the example of the central Mawlawi lodge located in a central Anatolian town of Konya.⁸¹ The Konya Mawlawi lodge was a large building, hosting a large number of Sufis, and the Mawlawi lodges in Istanbul emulated its architectural and organizational structure.

When it comes to the Naqshbandi order, however, while the inter-imperial network of the order was an important factor, they do not fully explain the order’s overall popularity. As indicated above, following the decimation of the Janissary Army in 1826, the Bektashi order was abolished and the Bektashis were accused of not observing the tenets of the Islamic jurisprudence (shari’a). Furthermore, they were believed to be the main instigators of the Janissaries’ disobedience of state authorities. Therefore, it was imperative for the state to eliminate them from Ottoman territory.⁸² Due to their strict commitment to shari’a, the Naqshbandis filled the Sufi lodges left by the Bektashis while many Bektashis joined the Naqshbandi Sufis, willingly or unwillingly. Thus, as Nile Green has observed,

the abolition of the Bektashi order can partially be seen as part of the longer-term promotion of legally conformist forms of Sufism, in this case, the Naqshbandis, especially its more legalist branch, the Naqshbandi-Khalidi, founded by a Kurdish master, Sheikh Khalid (d. 1827).⁸³

Despite the rising popularity of Naqshbandi Sufism in the elite circles of the Ottoman court, as Map 13 shows, the Naqshbandi lodges were concentrated mostly around the north- and mid-western parts of the capital, in the Eyüp and Fatih districts. One of the reasons for this spatial orientation could be the fact that the earlier expansion of the Naqshbandi order in the Ottoman capital emanated from the central lodges, erected in these districts. Especially, the Murad Bukhari Lodge in the Eyüp district, which was established in 1715, had facilitated the earlier expansion of the Naqshbandi order in the early eighteenth century. Therefore, it is not a coincidence that Eyüp had become and remained a central location for the Naqshbandi order even during the late nineteenth century. Some of the Naqshbandi lodges were also close to some primary locations of the Ottoman state, such as Yıldız Palace in Beşiktaş and the Selimiye Barracks in Üsküdar.

Map 13.

Distribution of the Naqshbandi lodges by the number of Sufis.

Conclusion

This paper investigates the spatial makeup of the Ottoman capital during the second half of the nineteenth century, with a special focus on Sufi lodges and the social profiles of Sufis. Through utilizing GIS tools and methods, it approaches Sufism in late nineteenth-century Istanbul with spatially-oriented questions. Unlike the current scholarship on Sufism, which has mostly examined its history with a life-and-works perspective, I offer a different angle from which to understand the lives of the Sufis in the nineteenth-century Ottoman capital. Rather than scrutinizing the architectural features of individual Sufi lodges, this study reveals various spatial characteristics through a set of maps that visualize the spatial orientation of Sufi lodges within urban space and highlights a number of select variables. Based on the Population Registry of Istanbul’s Sufi Lodges (İstanbul Tekkeleri Nüfus Vuku’atı Defteri), it situates the locations of the tekkes and shows their overall presence, and lack thereof, in the Ottoman capital. Drawing upon the visualized maps and available primary sources, such as the diaries of Sufis, this study shows how Sufism was part and parcel of Ottoman urban life, as Sufi lodges were space of religion and spirituality, art and music, housing, and health. A spatial analysis of the registry also reveals that despite the significant overall presence of Sufi lodges in the Ottoman capital, they were notably missing in two main areas in the late nineteenth century: Unkapanı-Bayezid and Galata-Pera. While the lack of tekkes in the latter area can be explained by Western encroachment in the Ottoman capital, the explanation for the absence of Sufis in Unkapanı-Bayezid is more complex: natural disasters, two opposing views about Sufi sociability, and the locations of the central lodges. Last, the visualization of the data helps us contextualize the transformation of the urban space during the nineteenth century and its influence on Sufism and the everyday interactions of Sufis within the Ottoman public. The examples of Mehmet Şevket and Aşçı Dede serve as clear indications of how some Sufis merged their Sufi affiliations with adaptations to emerging modern lifestyles, which in return transformed Sufism itself in the late nineteenth century and beyond.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

I express my gratitude to my advisor Prof. Ayşe Baltacıoğlu-Brammer and two anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments and suggestions. I am also grateful to Serra Koçak, Nathanael Andrade, Kent Schull, Yusuf Ziya Karabıçak, Kameliya N. Atanasova, and Andrew McLaren for their invaluable feedback. An earlier version of this article was presented at the inaugural Mid-Atlantic Ottoman Studies Workshop at Salisbury University in March 2019. I sincerely thank Emin Lelic for the invitation and the participants for their thoughtful comments.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes

Author Biography

Ahmet Yusuf Yüksek is currently a PhD student in the joint doctoral program in History and Middle Eastern Studies at New York University. He completed his BA degrees in Political Science and History at Boğaziçi University, Istanbul, and MA degree in history at SUNY-Binghamton. His research interests involve the social and religious history of the Ottoman Empire with a particular focus on Sufism in the early modern context.

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