Sufism in Turkey
Dissertation on the social and intellectual history of the Ottoman community of the Malāmatiyya
The dissertation of the scholar of Islamic studies Cüneyd Yildirim, recently published by Ergon Verlag, deals with the Ottoman Sufi community of the Malāmatiyya, which was formed in the 19th century. It was written at the Cluster of Excellence “Religion and Politics” under the aegis of the scholar of Islamic studies Prof. Dr. Marco Schöller and was published under the title “Die Melamiyye von Rumelien. Sozial- und Ideengeschichte einer Sufi-Gemeinschaft” (The Malāmatiyya of Rumelia. Social and Intellectual History of a Sufi Society).
In the study, Yildirim traces the history of a faith group for which modernisation meant a crisis of existence, which it sought to overcome with the help of ecstatic means and imagined self-exaltation. Based on the texts of outstanding Malamatis and the earliest recipients, this book combines social and intellectual history in a way that reveals the general situation of Sufism in Turkey at the beginning of the Atatürk era.