Maisonneuve & Larose

Man in the Image of God in the Image of the Times: Sufi Self-Narratives and the Diary of
Niyāzī-i Mıṣrī (1618-94)
Author(s): Derin Terzioğlu
Source: Studia Islamica, No. 94 (2002), pp. 139-165
Published by: Maisonneuve & Larose
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1596215
Accessed: 10/03/2009 11:48

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless
you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you
may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use.

Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at
http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=mal.

Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed
page of such transmission.

JSTOR is a not-for-profit organization founded in 1995 to build trusted digital archives for scholarship. We work with the
scholarly community to preserve their work and the materials they rely upon, and to build a common research platform that
promotes the discovery and use of these resources. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Maisonneuve & Larose is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Studia Islamica.

http://www.jstor.org
Studia Islamica, 2002

Man in the image of God

in the image of the times:
Sufi self-narratives and the diary
of Niyazi-i Mlsri (1618-94)*

Sufi writersthroughthe centurieshave statedtime and again the illusory

natureof the self and expressed a desire to go beyond that illusion to attain
a taste of divine reality. The Sufi martyrMansural-Hallaj(d. 922) expres-
sed this with the words: "Between you and me there lingers an 'It is I' that
tormentsme/In grace to me, take this 'I' from between us!" (') Junayd(d.
910), a mystic known for his sobriety, explainedmore prosaically:"Sufism
means thatGod makes you die to yourself and makes you alive in Him."(2)
The eminent OrientalistGustave von Grunebaumno doubt had statements
like these in mind when he argued that the "depersonalized"characterof
medievalIslamicliteraturewas due, in significantmeasure,to the high value
Muslims placed on the mystical ideal of self-annihilationin the divine. (3)
This statementby Grunebaum,nevertheless,does not stand up to scru-
tiny. As recentstudies have made clear, therewas a rich corpusof personal
literaturein Arabic since the ninth century, and in Turkish since the six-
teenth century.(4) Moreover, in both languages, Sufi writersplayed a lea-
An earlier version of this paper was presentedat the annual conference of the MuhyiddinIbn Arabi
Society, March30-April 2, 2001 on the theme of "Manin the Image of God." I thankall participantswho
contributedto the final version of this paperwith their questions and comments.
1. Cited in John Alden Williams, The Wordof Islam (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1994); for the
Arabic text, see Kitdbal-Tawdsin,ed. Louis Massignon (Paris, 1913), 25.
2. MargaretSmith, trans.,Readingsfrom the Mystics of Islam (London:Luzac, 1972), 34.
3. Gustave E. von Grunebaum,MedievalIslam, 2nded. (Chicago, 1953), 221-293.
4. The classic essay on Arabicautobiographyis FranzRosenthal,"Die ArabischeAutobiographie,"Stu-
dia Arabica, 1 (1939): 1-40; for the most recent collaborativestudy of the genre, see the Special Issue on
Arabic Autobiography,ed. D.F. Reynolds in Edebiydt,7 (1997) and Interpretingthe Self: Autobiographyin
the Arabic LiteraryTradition,ed. D.F. Reynolds (Berkeley,L.A. and London:Universityof CaliforniaPress,
2001). For the autobiographiesof the Mughalrulers,see Stephen FrederickDale, "SteppeHumanism:The
AutobiographicalWritingsof Zahiral-Din MuhammadBabur, 1483-1530,"UMES 22 (1990): 37-58. For a
surveyof Ottomanfirst-personliteraturebefore the nineteenthcentury,see Cemal Kafadar,"Selfand Others:
The Diary of a Dervish in Seventeenth-CenturyIstanbuland First PersonNarrativesin OttomanLiterature,"
SI 59 (1989): 121-150 and SuraiyaFaroqhi,Subjects of the Sultan: Cultureand Daily Life in the Ottoman
Empire(London and N.Y.: I.B. Tauris,2000), 194-203.

139
 DERINTERZIOGLU

ding role as self-narrators,leaving highly personalizedrecordsof theirexpe-

riences both as partof largerworks and as texts in theirown right. It is true
that these writers were not guided by anything like the modern notion of
individualism,but neitherwere the CatholicandProtestantpious who autho-
red a large chunk of the first-personliteraturein medieval and early modern
Europe. (5) In fact, one of the most importantcontributionsof the scholar-
ship of the last twenty years on self and self-writinghas been to debunkthe
myth of the autonomous,individualizedself as a universalreality, and to
come to terms with the multiplicityof ways people have representedthem-
selves across boundariesof culture,gender and social class. Interestingly,
some of the poststructuralisttheories have also come close to Sufi (and
generally religio-mystical) teachings in drawing attention to the illusory
nature of the self. (6)
Whatis missing or is not sufficientlystressedin all this, however,is thehis-
toricityof first-personwritingoutside of the geographylabeled "the West."
Whereascountless studieshave been devoted to the changingmodes of self-
representationin medieval,early modernand modernEurope,it is still gene-
rally assumed that "non-Western"traditionsof first-personwriting,if they
existed at all, did not changeappreciablybefore the adventof "modernity."
This is true even of the otherwise admirablestudy, Interpretingthe
Self: Autobiographyin the Arabic Literary Tradition, which dis-
cusses Arabic autobiographyfrom the ninth to the early twentieth
centuryas one coherentwhole.
Ahistorical,essentialistapproachesare even more prevalentin the secon-
dary literatureon Sufism. Historiansmight study the social, political and
economic dimensions of the Sufi orders, but rarely examine the ideas
expressedin Sufi writings. The philologists and scholarsof religion who do
study Sufi texts, on the otherhand, tend to eschew historicalcontextualiza-
tion and privilege explicating these texts in their own terms, that is pheno-
menologically. (7)It is admittedlyno easy task to tease out the historicalele-
5. For a sampling of the studies that reappraisethe question of individualismin early modernEuropean
autobiography,see T.C. Heller, M. Sosna and D.E Wellbery,eds., ReconstructingIndividualism:Autonomy,
Individuality,and the Self in WesternThought (Stanford:Stanford University Press, 1986); P. Coleman,
J. Lewis and J. Kowalik,eds : Representationsof the Selffrom the Renaissanceto Roannticism, (Cambridge:
CambridgeUniversity Press, 2000) and Michael Mascuch, Origins of the IndividualistSelf: Autobiography
and Self-Identityin England, 1591-1791 (Stanford:StanfordUniversity Press, 1996).
6. For an insightful discussion of Lacanianand Sufi notions of the self, see KatherinePratt Ewing,
Arguing Sainthood:Modernity,Psychoanalysis and Islam, (Durhamand London: Duke University, 1997),
esp. 1-37, 253-267 and '"TheIllusion of Wholeness: Culture,Self, and the Experience of Inconsistency,"
Ethos 18 (1990a): 251-78. For an explorationof "thesubject"in Ottomancourt poetry from the "post-Laca-
nian" perspective of Guattariand Deleuze, see Walter G. Andrews, "Singing the Alienated 'I': Guattari,
Deleuze and LyricalDecodings of the Subjectin OttomanDivan Poetry,"The YaleJournal of Criticism6, 2
(1993): 191-219.
7. This trend,nevertheless,may be changing. Two recent studies that help bridge the disciplinarygap
mentionedabove are Carl Ernst,EternalGarden:Mysticism,Historyand Politics at a SouthAsian Sufi Cen-
ter (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992) and Vincent J. Cornell, Realm of the Saint: Power
and Authorityin Moroccan Sufism(Austin:Universityof Texas Press, 1998).

140
 MAN IN THE IMAGEOF GOD IN THE IMAGEOF THE TIMES

ments in texts that strive to express timeless truths,but this problemapplies

much less to Sufi life-writings in general and hardlyat all to Sufi life-wri-
tings after the fifteenth century, in which historically contingent elements
are abundant. It is, however, only in the last decade or so thatscholarshave
begun to analyze Sufi life-writings as narratives(instead of simply mining
them for individualpieces of information). Moreover,the studies underta-
ken so far have concernedthemselves mostly with texts writtenbefore the
fifteenth century or with texts written in the Maghrib,while the rich Sufi
auto/biographicaland hagiographicalliteraturewrittenin the Ottomanlands
has remainedrelatively little explored. (8)
OttomanSufi first-personliteraturepresentsan advantageouspoint from
which to examine the questionof continuityandchange in the modes of self-
representationin use in Near EasternIslamic societies from the medieval to
the early modernera. Sufism, afterall, was a set of teachingsand practices
that predatedOttomanrule by nearlyfive centuries,but also played a major
role in Ottomansociety and culture. Hence it would only be reasonableto
expect a greatdegree of commongroundbetween the Ottomanand pre-Otto-
man practitionersof Sufism. At the same time, nevertheless,the social and
political realities that framedthe lives of OttomanSufis were considerably
differentfrom thatof theirpredecessors. By the sixteenthcentury,the Otto-
man state had establisheditself as the single most importantpowerholderin
the easternMediterranean.Even if the Ottomansrelied on a whole coterie
of intermediarybodies to rule over a diverse populationin a vast stretchof
land, they nevertheless had assembled an administrativemechanism that
was far more ambitious and resilient than that of any other Islamic polity
previously. While the Ottomanruling elite paid more thanlipservice to the
shariah,undertheirrule politics dictatedreligion more thanever in the Near
East. In comparisonwith the medieval period, differentsocial and profes-
sional groups- not only the ulema, but also the artisans,the Janissaries,and
the Sufis - formed more close-knit associations, especially after the six-
teenth century. All these developments,furthermore,were fuelled in part
by changes in otherpartsof the world. While the people at the time may not
have been quite aware of this, they lived in a period in which the different
regions of the worldbecamemore closely interconnectedand the pace of life
became quicker.
How did all these developmentsaffect the ways practitionersof Sufism
representedthemselves and theirlife experiencesin writing? The following
discussion attemptsa preliminaryanswer to this question by exploring the
historicityof the modes of self-representationused by OttomanSufi writers
8. In additionto the works cited in note 7, see Saints orientaLIx,
ed. Denise Aigle (Damascusand Paris:
IFEAD, 1995); Jawid A. Mojeddedi, The Biographical Tradition in Sufism: The tabaqdt genre from al-
Sulami to Jdmi (Richmond,Surrey:Curzon,2001), and Le saint et son milieu, ou commentlire les sources
hagiographiques,ed. RachidaChih and Denis Gril, Cahier des annales islamologiques 19 (2000), and A.Y.
Ocak, Kiltiir TarihiKaynaLgOlarakMenaklbnameler(Metodolojikbir Yaklaslm)(Ankara:TTK, 1992). For
the secondaryliteratureon Sufi first-personliteraturewrittenoutside of Ottomanlands, see footnote 25.

141
 DERIN TERZIOGLU

in the sixteenthand seventeenthcenturies. The first partof this papertakes

a broadoverview of the Sufi first-personliterature,the beliefs and practices,
the literaryconventionsand innovationsthatgave it its distinctiveshape. It
also highlights some of the new developments that set OttomanSufi self-
narrativesapartfrom the earlierSufi first-personliterature.The secondpart,
then, explores some of these new trendsthrougha contextual and intertex-
tual study of the diary of the Ottoman Sufi Mehmed el-Niyazi el-Mlsri
(1618-1694). This is a text thatis at once deeply beholdento the earlierSufi
first-personliteratureand exhibits some novel features. These novel fea-
tures, it is argued,had much to do with the particularsof Mlsri's personal
experiences, but also (and perhapsmore importantly)reflect a numberof
broadershifts in Ottoman social, political and cultural institutions in the
early modernperiod.

Fashioning the self in Sufi first-person narratives

It is no accidentthata large majorityof the people who authoredfirst-per-

son writingsin the OttomanEmpirein the sixteenthand seventeenthcentu-
ries were practitionersof Sufism. There were many factors that made Sufi
practitionersmore likely to pen self-narrativesthan others. First and fore-
most would be their access to the writtenword. In the centrallands of the
OttomanEmpire,many Sufi masterscame from urban,"middleclass"back-
grounds, and could boast of at least some (in some cases, a great deal of)
religious education. It is true that Sufis often expressed reservationsabout
the reliability of the written word as a means of transmittingknowledge,
especially knowledgeof an esoteric kind. The fact is, nevertheless,thatthey
also expressed these reservationsin writing. If the illiterate mystic who
attainedspiritualperfectionthroughdivine grace was notjust a topos of Sufi
literature,neitherwas the learnedSufi, who combined exoteric with esote-
ric knowledge. In the OttomanEmpire,many practitionersof Sufism were
in fact prolific readersand writers,and dervish lodges rivaled the mosques
and madrasasas sites of literaryactivity, and surpassedthem when it came
to the vernacularTurkishliterature.(9)
As writersof self-narratives,OttomanSufis also had an advantageover
the rest of the literateminorityin that Sufism provided them with a set of
highly sophisticatedconcepts and vocabulary with which to write about
themselves as well as with a reason to do so. Centralto the Sufi quest for
9. This is not to suggest a strictspatialdivide for the pursuitof Sufism and religiolegal studies. Mosques
and madrasas were as much a space for Sufi dervishes as for anyone else, if not more. By the seventeenth
century,in fact, it had become customaryfor Sufi mastersin Istanbulto hold joint positions as sheikhs of
dervish lodges and preachers in mosques (Madeline Zilfi, "The Kadlzadelis: Discordant Revivalism in
Seventeenth-CenturyIstanbul,"JNES 4 (October1986):251-71). In some orderssuch as the Nakshbandiyye
and the Zeyniyye it was also common for Sufi mastersto simultaneouslyhold positions as scholarsof Isla-
mic law in madrasas.

142
 MAN IN THE IMAGEOF GOD IN THE IMAGEOF THE TIMES

God was the view that one can only know God if one knows oneself. This
was in fact an ancientidea thatwent back to the Delphic oracle "Knowyour-
self," and had been reworked into the Islamic traditionin the form of the
hadith,"One who knows oneself knows one's Lord"(Man 'arafa nafsahu,
'arafa rabbahu). The self that was the object of this knowledge was a self
in the making,in a continuousprocess of transformation.Like their pagan
and Christiancounterparts,Sufis used many differenttechniquesin this pro-
cess, from ascetic practices,intendedto breakthe hold of the body over the
soul (nafs) and subjectthe latterto the dictatesof the spirit(ruh), to contem-
plation of the divine throughsuch faculties as the senses, the imagination
and the mind. Whateverthe means applied,the Sufi process of trainingwas
typicallyconceived as a process of self-fulfillment,wherebythe adeptreali-
zed his (and not infrequently,her) human potentialas the "microcosm,"as
"mancreatedin the image of God." While the process was sometimes des-
cribed as a kind of self-annihilation,or "deathbefore one's death,"in tech-
nical writingsSufi writerswere careful to point out the limits of this meta-
phor:ultimately,it was not possible or even desirableto remainin a state of
annihilationin the divine (fandfi'lldh), and one had to returnto reach the
even higherstage of "subsistence"(baka) wherebyone lived in this world as
a fully transformedself. (10)
In addition to these ideas about and techniques of self-transformation,
Ottomanpractitionersof Sufism also inheritedfrom earlier generations a
whole lore of life stories, the life stories of their masters, masters of their
masters and other great Sufis of the past. These stories were transmitted
both orally and throughwriting. The life-writings could take many forms
from biographical dictionaries (tabakat), covering whole generations of
Sufis and othermen of religion, to vitae of individualSufis (menaklibndme)
and from generalworks on Sufism, where life stories (whetherof the author
or of other Sufis) served as exempla for various points of instruction,to
book-lengthfirst-personaccounts writtenby Sufi masters.
For all the wealth of life-writings in the Sufi literarytradition,neverthe-
less, neitherthe OttomanSufi writersnor theirmedieval predecessorshad a
special term for what we variously designate as "first-personwritings,"
"self-narratives"or "egodocuments."Rather,there were a numberof diffe-
rent genres that overlapped with this modern category, and as in early
modernEurope,the lines dividing the variousgenres were both blurredand
in shift. (1) While a good case has been made for the existence of autobio-
graphyas a recognized genre in Arabic literature,and while the genre was
10. For a more detailed discussion, see AnnemarieSchimmel, Mystical Dimensions of Islam (Chapel
Hill: The University of North CarolinaPress, 1975), 98-193 and Franz Rosenthal, "'I am you': Individual
piety and society in Islam"in Individualismand conformityin classical Islam: Fifth Giorgio Levi Della Vida
Biennial Conference,eds. Amin Bananiand Speros Vryonis (Wiesbaden:Otto Harrassowitz,1977), 33-60.
11. For a recentinvestigationof the differentgenres of life writingin early modernEurope,see TheRhe-
torics of Life-Writingin Early Modem Europe: Forms of Biographyfrom Cassandra Fedele to Louis XIV,
eds. Thomas F. Mayerand D.R. Woolf (Ann Arbor:The University of Michigan Press, 1995).

143
 DERIN TERZIOGLU

well and alive in Ottoman literature in both Turkish and Arabic, Ottoman Sufi
writers wrote about themselves in many other literary forms as well. (12) In this
connection, the act of writing one's life could easily be meshed with the act of
writing the life of another. Some Ottoman dervishes, like their South Asian
counterparts, wrote a great deal about themselves in the compilations they
made of the oral teachings of their masters (malfiui;dt,nmakalt). (') Others, one
might speculate, left autobiographical accounts at least partly in the hope of
exercising some control over the biographies their disciples might later write
about them, not an uncommon motivation among autobiographers in general.
The famous Celveti master Mahmud Hida'i (d. 1623), for instance, authorized
his disciples to make copies of both the diary he kept as a Sufi adept and the
visionary account he wrote as a "perfected" master. A comparison of the ori-
ginal diary with the later editions, nevertheless, reveals that the copyists edi-
ted the text considerably, leaving a much thinner stratum of personal material.
(14) Bio/hagiographers who drew on the first-person accounts of their subjects
seem to have exercised at least as much discretion. (15)
Much has been made of the role played by confessional practices in
giving birth to a rich personal literature and an introspective self in Christian
Europe. While there was no equivalent formal institution among the Mus-
lims at large, the practice of self-examination (muhdsaba) by the early Mus-
lim ascetics and later the Sufis can be considered a distant cousin of the
Christian practices. (16)The ascetic and proto-Sufi Muhasibi (d. 857), whose
sobriquet reflects the importance he gave to self-examination, recommended
it as part of a regimen of self-discipline for all who wanted to render onto
God what was His due. (17) While Muhasibi did not make any mention of
writing in the process, from the Ruh al-kuds of Muhyi al-din Ibn 'Arabi (d.
1240) we learn of at least one ascetical master in twelfth-century Maghrib
12. Reynolds, ed., Interpretingthe Self, 36-51. for Ottomanexamples, see the AnnotatedGuide appen-
ded to this study.
13. For a historicaland literaryanalysis of this genre, as employed by South Asian Sufis, see Ernst.Eter-
nal Garden:Mysticism,Historyand Politics, 62-84. In Ottomanliteraturethe best example of a text that is
relatedto this genre but is at the same time a personaldiary is Hiidai's Kelinmit'an al-tihr al-nmasluk fimni
l al-shaylhwa bayna hadha'l-falkirfiathnd al-sLulhuk
hn hadrat
jcra hayna (Words of gold which were exchange
between this poor one and the venerablemasterduringinitiation),discussed furtherbelow.
14. Fora partiallist of the manuscriptcopies of Hiid'i's first personaccounts,see Ziver Tezeren.Seyvid
Aziz MahmutdHiicdc.i:Hayatt, uahsieti, Tarikative Eserleri (Istanbul, 1984-5), vol. 1. 71, 83-84. The
copies consulted here are Haci Selim Aga Ktp., Hidayi 249 (3 vol.s bound in one. thought to be an auto-
graph),Hidayi 250 and Sileymaniye Ktp.,Esad Efendi 1792. Also the following partialTurkishtranslations
have been consulted:Haci Selim Aga Ktp., Hidayi 483/3, Siileymaniye Ktp., Diigimlii Baba 372.
15. A good example would be the use of selections from Niyazi-i Misri's first-person accounts in
Rakim's Vciki' t (Siileymaniye Ktp.,izmir790: BursaKtp., Genel 772). As will be discussed furtherbelow.
Raklmalso explicitly tried to discreditsome aspects of Misri's version of his own life.
16. For the classic humanistaccountof the ancient Romanorigins of self-examination.see Georg Misch.
Geschichteder Autobiogrcahie,pt. 1, vol. 1 (1907); for a returnto the same theme by a critic of humanism.
see Michel Foucault,"Technologiesof the Self." in Technologiesof the Self. Seminarwith Michel Foucault,
eds. LutherH. Martin, Huck Gutman and Patrick H. Hutton (Amherst: The University of Massachusetts
Press, 1988). 16-49.
17. Muhasibi.Kitcihal-ri'aya li-hu.kuikAllah. ed. MargaretSmith (London:Luzac. 1940). 12-17.

144
 MAN IN THE IMAGEOF GOD IN THE IMAGEOF THE TIMES

who had the habit of "recordinghis deeds everydayuntil nightfall which he

would use in calling himself to account before retiringto bed." (18)
Among the Ottoman Sufis, nevertheless, self-examination appears to
have been institutionalizedfor use primarilyby adepts undergoinginitiation
underthe directionof a Sufi masterratherthanby mastersin their prime. It
is temptingto thinkthatthe consolidationof the master-disciplerelationship
as the primaryway to become a Sufi after the thirteenthcenturyhad some-
thing to do with the starkdifferentiationbetween the modes of self-repre-
sentationused by novices and masters. This differenceis best illustratedby
comparing two personal records written by the Celveti dervish Hiida'i
Efendi in two different stages of his career. The first of these, entitled
Kalimat 'an al-tibr al-maskuik f mcajra bayn hadha'l-fakirwa hadrat al-
shayhfi athnd al-suluk (Wordsof gold which were exchanged between this
poor one and the venerablemasterduringinitiation)or Wckl'at (Events), is
a diary Hiuid'i kept in Arabic while undergoing spiritual training under
Uftade MehmedEfendi between the years 1577 and 1579. The text consists
exclusively of the conversationsHiida'i had with his master,and covers only
those events in the author'swaking and dream life that came up in these
conversations. In this text, Hiida'i representshimself in the typical role of
the novice, often in quandary,sometimes in tears, always in need of expli-
cation and confirmationdespite the fact thathe was at the time Uftade'spri-
zed studentwith some experience as a deputyjudge and a madrasa profes-
sor. Nothing of this hesitationand self-doubtis in evidence in his Tecelliydt
(Manifestations),a record,in Turkish,of the dreamvisions he had afterthe
completion of his suluk. In the later text, in fact, Hiida'i dispenses not only
with the mediationof an externalinterpreterfigure but also with the critical
distance he maintainedtowardshimself in the earlierdiary. (19)
ThatHiida'i'scase was not an anomalyis clear from the fact thatvirtually
all the other extant Ottomanfirst-personaccounts written in the mode of
self-examinationwere writtenby Sufi writersstill in the process of comple-
ting sulik. This is not to say, however, thatthis was the only factorthatsha-
ped their accounts. It has been argued,for instance, that the recurrenceof
the motif of self-doubt in the "dreamletters"written by 'Asiye Hatun, an
Ottomanfemale dervish from Skopje (in modernMacedonia) circa 1641-3
was a genderedfeatureof the text, reflecting the subordinateposition of the
author as a woman. (20)In the case of Seyyid 'Osman, the father of the
18. Ibn'Arabi,Sufisof Andalusia:
TheRuhal-QudsandAl-Durrat withIntro-
translated
al-Fdkhirah,
ductionand Notes by R.W.J.Austin(Sherbore: BesharaPublications,1971), 84. Note thatthe practicedes-
cribed here bears a remarkableresemblanceto the practiceof the Stoics in ancient Rome (see footnote 16).
19. For the referencesto the diary, see footnote 14; copies of the Tecelliydtconsulted here are Suleyma-
niye Ktp., Haci MahmutEfendi 2372/3, and Haci Selim Aga Ktp., Hiidayi 271/8593/3.
20. Cemal Kafadar,"Muteredditbir mutasavvif:Oskiip'liiAsiye Hatun'unRiiya Defteri, 1641-43,"Top-
kapt Sarayi Miizesi Ydlllk5 (1992): 168-222 (includes transcriptionand facsimile); also published by the
same historianwithoutthe facsimile and full transcriptionas Asiye Hatun,RuyaMektuplarn(Istanbul:Oglak,
1994). For anotherinterpretationof 'Asiye Hatun's"hesitation,"see Faroqhi,Subjects of the Sultan, 116.

145
 DERIN TERZIOGLU

famous Nakshbandi sheikh Erzurumlu Ibrahim Hakki, who wrote an

account of his affliction with and recovery from "an ailment of the heart"
between the years 1698 and 1711, his doubts about his self-worth and the
possibility of finding a true guide were exacerbated by the fact that he lived
in a town where there was at the time an environment of considerable hosti-
lity towards the Sufi orders. (21)
All the elements of self-scrutiny also appear but in a decidedly retrospec-
tive fashion in spiritual autobiographies or "conversion" accounts written by
Sufi masters after the completion of their suluk. One of the best-known
Muslim spiritual autobiographies was written by a kaldm scholar and a
defender of "moderate" Sufism: the Munkidh min al-dalil (Savior from
Error) by Abu Hamid al-Gazali (d. 1111). In his autobiography, Gazali
relates the story of how he fell into a crisis of faith at the height of his career
due to his excessive reliance on reason, and how he later recovered thanks
to Sufi teachings emphasizing personal illumination. (22) While Ottoman
Sufi writers made many references to Gazali's autobiography in their
defense of Sufism, however, the text did not necessarily set the tone for later
spiritual autobiographies. Writing about how he joined the Mevlevi order in
the first half of the 16h century, the Ottoman writer ;ahidi freely discussed
many aspects of his life that the likes of Gazali would have found objectio-
nable such as the use of wine and hashish in his master's circles. (23)
?ahidi importantly belonged to a branch of the Mevlevi order in which
meldmi tendencies were very strong. Once a separate path alongside
Sufism, but later incorporated into it, meldmetiyye or the path of self-blame
was based on the idea that true perfection comes only by way of absolute
sincerity and humility and that a good reputation in the eyes of the public is
the most severe obstacle in this regard. Hence meldmis were known to avoid
(at least publicly) forms of behavior that would brand them as pious in the
public eye while engaging (or seeming to engage) in others that the public
found distasteful, or objectionable or at least not particularly pious.
It has been argued that this divergent, more internalized approach to
piety, particularly well represented among the Sufis of Anatolia and the Bal-
kans, lent itself to a "deviant individualism." (24)There is little indication,
however, that individualism was either a goal or even a necessary effect of
the practice of meldmet. In fact, it could be argued with good evidence from
both medieval Persian and Ottoman poetry that the ethos of meltmet also
21. A modernTurkishtranscriptionof the memoirscan be found in Mesih ibrahimhakkioglu,Erznurmlu
IbrahimHakki(Istanbul,1973), 13-40.
22. For an English translation,see Abu Hamid al-Gazali, al-Munqidhmin al-Daldl and OtherRelevant
Worksof Al-Ghazdli,trans.RichardJoseph McCarthy(Boston: Twayn, 1980), 61-143.
23. Faroqhi,Subjectsof the Sultan, 198.
24. Ahmet Karamustafa,God's unrulyfriends: dervish groups in the Islamic later period, 1200-1550
(Salt Lake City: Universityof Utah Press, 1994), especially 25-38. For a discussion of the qalandar(socially
deviant dervish) as a topos, see Ewing, Arguing Sainthood,230-252. On meldmetand the meldmitradition
in the Ottomanlands, see AbdiilbakiG6lpinarll,Meldmilikve Melmiiler (reprint,Istanbul:Gri, 1992).

146
 MAN IN THE IMAGEOF GOD IN THE IMAGEOF THE TIMES

inspired various topoi, stock images and scripts of ideal behavior, which
constituted an alternativeto more shariah-mindedmodels. On the other
hand,the availabilityof multiplescriptsof behaviorand the open-endedper-
formativepossibilities of meldmetdo seem to have enabled OttomanSufi
writers to representand justify in writing a wider range of behavior than
would otherwisebe possible.
Perhapsthe Sufi first-personnarrativesthat lent themselves the least to
the conventions of everyday life, however, were the visionary autobiogra-
phies typically writtenby Sufi masters at the height of their careers.(25) In
these texts, Sufi writers related the visions and other extraordinaryexpe-
riences thatsignaled theirelection to the highest spiritualdistinctionsin the
bold and often deliberatelytransgressiveidiom of sha.thor "ecstaticspeech."
As Sufi apologists explained, this was an idiom that mystics had devised to
describerealitiesthatthey knew only from experienceand which were para-
doxically understoodto be indescribable. Hence, readers were urged to
understandthat when a mystic like Mansural-Hallajsaid, "I am the True"
(And'l-Hakk),he did not mean thathe, Hallaj,was God, but thathe hadattai-
ned a level of consciousness that allowed him to realize in an intimateman-
ner thathe was nothing and that all existence was God. (26)
If theirexperienceswere essentially ineffable, it might be asked, why did
Sufi masterswrite these visionaryaccounts? Not to "learn"from theirexpe-
riences, to judge by the absence of a concernwith self-scrutinyin them. And
not to teach or set an example, as the "incidents"they relatedwere by defi-
nition experiencesthat only a few could hope to emulate. More likely, like
the Tibetan Buddhist monks who were also prolific writers of visionary
autobiographies,the Sufi authorswere concerned to highlight the fact that
their teachings about the divine or invisible realms were groundedin their
personalexperiences,experiencesthey had in a particularplace at a particu-
lar time. As in the case of the Tibetan texts, the Sufi visionary autobiogra-
phies might have also served to establish the authorityof their author/sub-
jects as the preeminent masters of the time. (27) Finally, these
25. For a discussion of the genre in the twelfth century, see Carl W. Ernst,RuzbihanBaqli: Mysticism
and the Rhetoricof Sainthoodin Persian Sifism (Richmond:CurzonPress, 1996), 93-101. A numberof pre-
Ottoman Sufi visionary accounts have been edited and translatedinto Western languages: Tirmidhi,The
Beginningof the Affairof Abd 'AbdAlldh Muhammadal-Hakimal-Tirmidhiin The Conceptof Sainthoodin
Early IslamicMysticism:Two worksby Al-Hakii al-Tirmidhi,translatedwith introductionby Berd Radtke
andJohn O'Kane(Surrey:CurzonPress, 1996), 15-36; Rizbihan Bakli, Kashfal-asrdr translatedinto French
by Paul Ballanfatas Le Ddvoilementdes secrets (Paris:ld. Du Seuil, 1996) and translatedinto English by
Carl Ernstas The Unveiling of Secrets: Diary of a Sufi Master (ChapelHill: ParvardigarPress, 1997). Also
see JonathanG. Katz, "VisionaryExperience,Autobiography,and Sainthoodin NorthAfrican Islam,"Prin-
ceton Papers in Near Eastern Studies 1 (1992): 85-117; Dreams, Sufism and Sainthood: The Visionary
Career of Muhammadal-Zawdwi(Leiden:E.J.Brill, 1996).
26. On shath in "classical"Sufism, see Carl Ernst, Words.ofEcstasy in Sufism, (Albany: SUNY Press,
1996); for a comparativeapproachto the same, see Michael A. Sells, Mystical Languagesof Unsaying,(Chi-
cago and London:The University of Chicago Press, 1994).
27. On Tibetanspiritualautobiographies,see JanetGyatso, Apparitionsof the Self: The SecretAutobio-
graphies of a TibetanVisionary(Princeton:PrincetonUniversityPress, 1998).

147
 DERIN TERZIOGLU

autobiographiesinsertedtheir author/subjectsin a continuouschain of spiri-

tual authority,going all the way back to the prophetMuhammad. In this
regard, it would be difficult to overemphasize the intertextualityof these
narratives,woven with referencesto the ascension of Muhammadas well as
of earlier Sufis. (2")
Indebtedas they were to the earlier literature,nevertheless,the first-per-
son accounts left by OttomanSufi writers also differed in some important
ways from their medieval counterparts.Whereasearlier writerslike Hakim
Tirmidhi (d. ca. 905-910), Ruzbihan Bakli (d. 1209) and Ibn 'Arabi had
constructed their life narrativesstrictly around their spiritual experiences
and discussed other aspects of their life only insofar as they illuminatedthe
latter,OttomanSufi writers like $ahidi, Hiida'i and Seyyid 'Osman tended
to be much more inclusive. (29)Regardlessof the genre in which they wrote,
whetherthey wrote duringor after theirsuluk, they often gave glimpses (and
sometimes more) into their everyday lives. They mentioned their friends
and foes by name, reportedconversationsthat had no obvious religious or
mystical content, and even gave information about their intimate family
lives.
Parallel to the increased visibility of the mundane,dates, the markersof
worldly time, are also much more prominentin the life writings of Ottoman
Sufis. This is nowheremore evident thanin the emergence of a new literary
form used by Sufi writers:the diary. It is truethatthe diaryas a literaryform
had precedentsin medieval Arabic literature. The medieval Arabic diaries
known by the generic name of ta'rih (from arraha or warraha, to fix dates)
were basically scrapbooks in which informationwas recorded that would
later be used for the composition of annalisticor biographicalhistories. (30)
With the possible exception of the Maghribidiarist of the twelfth century,
nevertheless,there is little evidence that this practice was in use among the
Sufi writerspriorto the sixteenthcentury.(31) Moreover, the Ottomanprac-
tice of diary keeping was not exactly a continuationof the medieval Arabic
one, but drew on the conventions of several differentliterarypractices,from
the writingof annalistichistories to autobiography. The hybridcharacterof
Ottoman diary keeping is even indicated by the variety of titles given to
Ottoman diaries, including some that are nondescript such as ceride and
28. On the use of Muhammad'sascension (mni'rj)as a prototypefor the visionarywritingsof Ibn 'Arabi.
see James Winston Morris."The SpiritualAscension: Ibn 'Arabi and the Mi'raj"in two parts,JAOS 107. 4
(1987): 629-652; 108. 1 (1988): 63-77.
29. It is interestingto observe a similar incorporationof the mundanein the visionary autobiographies
authoredby MaghribiSufis from the fifteenthto the nineteenthcentury. On this literature,see Katz. "Visio-
nary Experience."and Dreams, SufismaindSainthood.
30. George Makdisi, "The diary in Islamic historiography:some notes," History and Theory. 25, 2
(1986): 173-185. For the Arabic text and English translationof one such diary, see Idem. "Autographdiary
of an eleventh-centuryhistorianof Baghdad"BSOAS. 18. 1 (1956): 9-31 (part 1): 18. 2 (1956): 239-260 (part
2); 19, 1 (1957): 2-48 (part3); 19, 2 (1957): 281-303 (part4); 19, 3 (1957): 426-443 (part5).
31. On Ottomandiaries see Kafadar."Self and Others,"128-130. MadelineZilfi, "TheDiaryof a Muder-
ris: A New Source for OttomanBiography,"Journal of TurkishStudies 1 (1977) 157-173.

148
 MAN IN THE IMAGEOF GOD IN THE IMAGEOF THE TIMES

mecmu'a, some that signal continuity with the medieval Arabic tradition
such as vdkl'ct and yevmiye, and some that point in ratherdifferent direc-
tions such as sohbet-ndme(book of conversationor companionship).
The appropriationby Ottoman Sufis of narrativeforms which had pre-
viously been marginal to their literary tradition,and more generally, the
expansion of the boundaries of Sufi first-person accounts paralleled the
increasingincorporationof Muslim mystics into the larger, social, political
andeconomic networksaroundthem. This was actuallya long-termprocess
that had begun with the popularizationof Sufism and growth of the tarikats
or Sufi ordersbetween the eleventh and fifteenth centuries. While the poli-
tical power of the orderswas checked by the growthof more powerful states
such as the Ottomanstate after the fourteenthcentury,the process of incor-
porationcontinuedunderstate supervision. Even if the Ottomanstate never
co-opted the Sufi ordersto the same extent that it did the ulema, still it had
made considerable headway in establishing itself as a major dispenser of
posts and positions as well as an arbiterof religious standardsby the seven-
teenth century. (32)
The new importance of this political sphere was revealed best in the
context of the militaryand fiscal crisis thatengulfed the Ottomanstate in the
late sixteenthcenturyand became a chronic featureof Ottomanpolitics the-
reafter. In the next two centuries, not just Ottomanbureaucratsand admi-
nistratorsbut also ulema, and even low-rankingreligious functionariesand
Sufi sheikhs participatedin an ongoing debate about the futureof the Otto-
man state in a flurry of political tracts and chronicles. It was also in this
context that a puritanicalreform movement known as the Kadizadeli after
the charismaticpreacherKadizadeMehmed Efendi (d. 1635) emerged and
rapidlygained audience. Drawing on a minoritytraditionwithin medieval
Islam, the Kadlzadelis called for a returnto the "pure"Islam of the early
Muslims and wantedto purge their society of all "innovations"(bid'at) such
as coffeehouses, smoking, dance and music. Above all, however, they direc-
ted their criticisms at the Sufi orders, which were at this time an important
featureof Ottomanurbanlife. (33)
Not all these developments were necessarily discussed by the Sufi auto-
biographersand diarists,but must have helped to altertheir sense of identity
by makingnew demandson them as well as by exposing them to new modes
of identificationand new discourses. Among the Sufi first-personwritings
of this period,nevertheless,the text thatbest reflects this process is the diary
of Niyazi-i Misri.
32. An outdatedbut neverthelessindispensableaccountof the institutionalhistory of the Sufi ordersis J.
SpencerTrimingham,The Sufi Orders in Islam (Oxford:ClarendonPress. 1971). For the discipliningof the
"heterodox"ordersby the Ottomanstate, see the studies of A.Y.Ocak, most notablyhis OsmanliToplumunda
Zlndiklarve Miilhidler(15.-17. Yiuzillar) (Istanbul:Tarih Vakfi, 1998).
33. MadelineZilfi, "The Kadizadelis:DiscordantRevivalism in Seventeenth-CenturyIstanbul," Journal
of Near Eastern Studies. 4 (October 1986): 251-271 and The Politics of Piety: the Ottoman Ulenmain the
Postclassical Age (1600-1800) (Minneapolis:Bibliotheca Islamica, 1988).

149
 DERIN TERZIOGLU

Mecma'a-i kelimdt-i kudsiyye: the diary of an early modern

Sufi
Writtenat a time when the genres of life writing were both blurredand
getting more blurredstill, Misri's diary is also difficult to place in any one
genre. The text, takingup roughly 85 folios of a 116 folio autographmanus-
cript and writtenin vernacularTurkish,is registeredin the catalogue of the
Bursa Rare Prints and Manuscripts Library under the title Mecmu'a-i
kelimdt-ikudsiyye-iHazret-i Misri (The Collection of the Sacred Words of
the Venerable Misri). (34)This title was recordedon the front page of the
manuscriptby an anonymousreaderin 1808, and as such, gives us impor-
tant clues about the literarycategories to which Misri's readers(or at least
some of them) tried to assimilate the text. These are: 1) collections of
makalit or malfuait,or as they were morecommonly titled by Turkish-spea-
kers, "kelimdt,"compilations of the "sayings" of Sufi masters typically
copied down by one of their disciples, 2) texts of ecstatic speech or shath,
and 3) hadithkudsl, a subcategoryof hadithsconsideredas revelationsof a
secondary degree. Mlsri himself referred to his diary generally as his
"mecmu'a,"a nondescriptword meaning "journal"or "compilation."He
also used the word "tdc'rih", which can be translatedas "history"or "date"
and which was the termused to designatediariesin medieval Arabicas well
as Ottomanliterature,to referto the prognosticationshe enteredin his diary.
As we shall see below, all these categories capturesome aspect of the text,
but none quite describesit in all its complexity.
Many of the unusualfeaturesof Mlsri's diaryhave to do with the unusual
circumstancesin which it was written. At the time he kept his diary,Misri
was alreadyin his early sixties, a well-known Sufi master, writerand poet
as well as an outspokendissident. He was also into his fourthyear in self-
prolongedexile on the island of Lemnos. Like many other sheikhs of the
Halveti order,Mlsri had runinto troublewith the governmentin the context
of the Kadlzadeli controversy,during the grand vizierate of K6priilizade
Ahmed Pasha (1661-76), when Kadlzadeliinfluence peaked underthe lea-
dershipof the imperialpreacherVani Efendi (d. 1685). A Sufi masterwith
a meldmibent, Misri had, underpressure,become progressivelyradicalized,
and the governmenthad respondedby banishinghim first to Rhodes (1674-
75) and then to Lemnos (1677-92). (35)During the period covered in the
diary, the Sufi writerwas not technically in prison, having been amnestied
and released from the fortressof Lemnos in 1678. Yet this made little dif-
ference for him, as he refused to returnto Bursa, his formerplace of resi-
34. Mlsri, Mecnui'a-i kelimdt-ikudsiyye,Bursa Ktp., Orhan690 (Hereafterreferredto as MKK). The
manuscriptalso includes a numberof poems written by Mlsri (most of them writtenduring his exilement,
and dated like the entries in the main narrative)as well as a numberof short excerpts from treatisesand
poems writtenby otherSufis. I am currentlypreparinga criticaledition and English translationof the diary.
35. For the details of Mlsri's career and thought, see my "Sufi and Dissident in the OttomanEmpire:
Niyazi-i Misri (1618-1694)," UnpublishedPh.D. dissertation,HarvardUniversity, 1999.

150
 MAN IN THE IMAGEOF GOD IN THE IMAGEOF THE TIMES

dence, on groundsof security,and lived insteadin the Harbormosque, loca-

ted outsidethe fortresson the shore of Lemnos withoutventuringoutsidethe
mosque'scourtyardeven once.
There is an intimateconnection between Misri's experience of exile and
his keeping of a diary. While earlier,too, the Sufi sheikh had recordedthe
importantevents of his life both in a scrapbookand in the Mawl 'id al- 'rfan,
intendedto be a summa of his teachings, it was only after his banishment
thathe became an inveteratediarist.(36) In turningto writingin the first per-
son voice in response to an experience of imprisonment,Misri had many
precedents. Among the Sufis there was 'Ayn al-kudat al-Hamadani(d.
1191), who defendedhimself againsthis detractorsandprovideda good deal
of autobiographicalinformationin his "apology"writtenduringhis trial for
heresy. (37) In Misri's own time, several Ottomansoldiers who fell captive to
the "infidel"wrote accountsof theirexperiences.(38) Closer to Misri's expe-
rience still were the Muslim prisonersof war who had inscribedbrief testi-
monies to theirlives in prisonon the walls of the dungeonsof Rhodes,where
Mlsri himself had stayed for a year. (39)
The experience of banishment was so central to Misri's diary that he
dated each entry by writing the number of days that had passed since the
beginningof his first imprisonment. Even thoughmost of the entriesin the
autographmanuscriptare from the year 1681 with a few misplaced entries
from the years 1680, 1682 and 1685, all evidence indicates that Misri had
begun to keep his diaryearlierduringhis banishmentand continuedto do so
long afterthe dates coveredin the autographmanuscript.(40)To judge by the
misplacementof some entries, the manuscriptin its presentform was com-
piled and boundedby someone otherthanMisri, someone who eitherdid not
realize that the text in question was a diary, or did not care to put back the
misplacedentries in chronologicalorder. Even though the diary in its pre-
36. Mecmui'a-i Ktp.,Resid1218,5b;Mawd'idal-'irfdnwa awd'idal-ihsdn,
&eyhMisri,Siileymaniye
Haci Selim Aga Ktp., Hiidayi 587, 18a-19b, 21a-23b, 26b-28a, 46b-51b; for the Turkish translation,see
Mawaidiu'l-irfan- IrfanSofralan, 6d. Suleyman Ates (Ankara, 1971), 32-4, 36-41, 44-46, 75-83.
37. A Sufi Martyr:The Apologia of 'Ainal-Quddtal-Hamadhdni,translatedwith introductionand notes
by A.J. Arberry(London:George Allen and Unwin, 1969).
38. On Ottomancaptivity narratives,see Kafadar,"Self and Others," 131-134; for an example from
Misri's time period, see R.F. Kreutel,ed., Die Autobiographiedes Dolmetschers OsmanAga aus Temesch-
war (Hertford,1980).
39. These "graffiti"are describedby Evliya (elebi, who visited the fortress in 1671, only three years
before Mlsri's banishmentthere. (Seydhatndme,TopkaplSarayl Ktp., Bagdat306, vol. 9, 113a-l 14a).
40. Thereis both internalandexternalevidence to supportthis conclusion. The internalevidence consists
basicallyof the system of datingemployed in the diary. Unless the Sufi diaristhad earlierentriesin his diary
to fall back on, it is difficult to understandhow he could have dated the numerousevents which had taken
place duringthe earlieryears of his exile accordingto the same personalizedcalendar(giving the numberof
days thatseporatedthose events from the beginning of his first banishment)and with a remarkabledegree of
accuracy(to which this authorcan testify having carefully matchedhis system of datingwith the occasional
Hijridates he gives in the diary). The externalevidence consists of a numberof "treatises"by Mlsri, which
were copied by others into various manuscriptcompilations, and which have all the appearanceof later
entries from his diary:IstanbulOniversitesiKtp., TY 6374, 119a-124b, Siileymaniye Ktp., Pertev244, 10b-
12a and SiileymaniyeKtp., Pertev620, 48b-54a.

151
 DERIN TERZIOGLU

sent formdoes not have a formalending (andprobablynever had one), occa-

sionally the Sufi writerindicates the conclusion of an individualentry with
the word "temme" (completed). (41)
In view of the fact that sometimes the word "diary"is used loosely for
texts that do not merit the term, it is importantto emphasize that Misri's
diarydoes indeed exhibit many of the literary"effects"thathave been asso-
ciated with early modern and modern European examples of the genre,
including [Cut!], "non-selectivity,""immediacy"and above all, "diarismor
the markof temporality,the day-to-day."(42)Of course, all these "effects"
were sometimes more observed in the breach than in the practice, and
Misri's diary is no exception. The Sufi diarist's routine was to make two
entrieseach day, once at night and once in midday. However, like most dia-
rists, he did not always manageto keep up with his routine,and made up for
his occasionallapses by makingbriefentriesfor the missing days. In a num-
ber of places, the Sufi diaristalso noted when his writing was unexpectedly
interrupted,thus heighteningthe effect of immediacyin the text.
WhereMisri's diarydepartsfrom most modernexamples of the genre, on
the otherhand,is in its conversationalmode. In keeping with the title ascri-
bed to it by laterreaders(The Collection of the SacredWords of Mlsri), the
diary reads in partslike an extended conversation,for Misri not only trans-
cribedthereinthe conversationshe had with the people aroundhim, but also
frequentlyinterruptedthe narrativewith diatribesdirectedat variousfigures.
The identity of his addresseesconstantly varied. Sometimes he addressed
himself, sometimes God, sometimes "the people of Islam," but perhaps
more frequentlythan others,his "enemies,"includingvariousfigures on the
island and grandeesin the imperialcapital. While the Sufi writerappearsto
have used the mode of conversation as a rhetoricaldevice to express his
thoughtsor emotions, variouspassages also give the distinctimpressionthat
they were writtenfor an actual audience. Particularlytelling in this regard
are Misri's instructionsfor his real and imaginaryreadersabouthow to read
his text, explaining his system of dating, and accountingfor certaincontra-
dictions he detected in earlierentries.
The diaryalso containsclues about the identity of some of its actualrea-
ders. In a numberof places, the Sufi diaristwrites explicitly of having lent
the "history"of this or that day to a disciple or a fellow Sufi or of having
allowed a disciple to read a certainentry. (43) In yet anotherpassage, never-
theless, he also writes thatGod gave him permissionto write but not to have
copies made of his writing. (") This suggests that while the Sufi writerdid
not keep his diaryas a strictlyprivatedocument,neitherdid he intendto cir-
culate it widely. One of his greatest fears, in fact, was that his enemies
41. MKK, 48b, 53a, 55a, 59a (before the end of entry for the day), 62a, 64b, 68a, 105a.
42. Steven Rendall, "On Diaries,"diacritics 16 (fall 1986): 57-65.
43. MKK, 43a, 43b, 46b, 56a.
44. Ibid., 75a.

152
 MAN IN THE IMAGEOF GOD IN THE IMAGEOF THE TIMES

would snatch his "mecmu'a" from under his mattresswhile he was asleep
and then use it to embarrasshim, and to expose his mistakes- exhibiting,in
a slightly exaggeratedform, a characteristicanxiety of diarists in all times
and places. (45)
In termsof its contents,Misri's writingrepresentsan interestingamalgam
of a seculardiary and a visionaryaccount. It is very much as a seculardia-
rist that Mlsri describedin each entry how he spent the day, not sparingus
details abouthow he slept, what he ate and his state of health as well as the
people who visited him and who broughthim news. While we would look
in vain for this kind of mundaneinformationin medieval Sufi self-narra-
tives, we can find plenty of parallels in Ottoman Sufi literature. In fact,
some of Misri's fellow Halvetis like Seyyid Hasanrecordedin theirdiaries
nothingbut such mundaneoccurrences.(46)
Misri's diary also gives us considerableinsight into his emotionalstateat
the time. The most commonly representedemotions in the diary are all of a
negativenature- fear, distrust,anxiety and anger- and referthe readerback
to the centraltheme of the diary:persecution.(47)Above all, a basic feeling
of insecurity permeates Misri's account of his days and invests each and
every one of his observationswith tremendoussignificance. If his brother
Ahmed failed to show up one morning,the Sufi sheikh worriedthathis ene-
mies in the palace or their deputies in Lemnos might have enlisted his bro-
ther's help in a conspiracyagainsthis person. (48) If he noticed a new grave
in the graveyard,he assumed it was for him or for a devoted disciple who
had come to visit him. (49)If the watermancame delayed, he took it as a sign
thathis enemies were poisoning his water,and when he noticed his face was
swollen, he attributedit to the effect of that poison, and cooked his food in
the juice of watermelonsas precaution.(0)
While these speculations can be attributedto a mental state of extreme
fear and even paranoia, fear was also mixed with desire for Misri.
Throughouthis diary, the Sufi sheikh expresses desire for martyrdom,
giving voice to a sentimentwell known from the life stories and writingsof
such early Sufis as Mansural-Hallaj. The problem in Misri's case, howe-
ver, was thatthe awaitedmomentof martyrdomfailed to come, keepinghim
waiting in trepidationand promptinghim to chide (in the seeming privacy
of his diary) Sultan Mehmed IV for not being sultan enough to punishhim
as he deserved to be punished. In this connection, he also stated that he
45. Ibid., 56b.
46. Kafadar,"Self and Others."
47. Comparewith the morerestrainedtreatmentsof the emotionalself in medieval Arabicautobiography
as well as in some examples of Ottoman Sufi literature:Kirsten Brustad, "Imposing Order:Reading the
Conventions of Representationin al-Suyuti's Autobiography,"Edebiyat7 (1997): 327-344; Reynolds, ed.,
Interpretingthe Self, 72-99; Kafadar,"Self and Others,"145-6.
48. MKK, Ib, 102a.
49. Ibid., 72a.
50. Ibid., 9b.

153
 DERIN TERZIOGLU

regardedbanishmentto be a far worse punishmentthanexecutionprecisely

because there was no clear end to it. (51)
Misri's grievances againstthe Ottomanauthoritiesalso had an intriguing
sexual subtext, and were related at least in part to his maritalproblems.
While the Sufi sheikh had enjoyed an apparentlypeaceful marriagewith his
first wife for nineteen years, the same could not be said of the three mar-
riages he made after her death. He had made all three marriagesshortly
before or after his first banishment,and his prolongedabsence from home
had probablysoured his relationswith his wives and in-laws. In a conver-
sationrecordedin the diarythe aggrievedsheikhclaimedthathe hadnot had
sexual relationship with any of his new wives, when they were "taken"
(aldurmak)by his enemies. He also denied being the fatherof 'Ali, bornby
his thirdwife in 1676 and Niirullah,born by his second wife shortlybefore.
He had complainedto the kadi aboutall this, but to no avail, and this he saw
as proof of the high-level complicity in the "rape"or "adultery"of his wives
(he writes about the affairs in both ways). At the time the Sufi sheikhkept
his diary, he had already divorced all three of his wives, even though he
continuedto receive visits from his in-laws, which he did not enjoy. (52)
Neither did Misri's complaints against the sexual abuses of Ottoman
grandeesend there. A fear he expressed often in his diary was thatof being
rapedor "sodomized"by the hirelingsof his enemies in the palace. The Sufi
sheikhexplainedhis decision to sleep on the preachingbooth(minber)of the
Harbormosque as a precautionagainstthis threat.As in the case of his awai-
ted persecution,he also daredhis Ottomanpersecutorsto come andrapehim
if they could. Even if "all the membersof the House of 'Osmanfromits ori-
gins to this day" were revived and came to help the present sultan and his
men in their attemptto rape Misri, the Sufi sheikh wrote on one occasion,
they could not succeed because it was not the will of God. (53)
Were these bizarretales of sexual violation a productof Misri's imagina-
tion? Did the Sufi sheikh literally mean what he discussed with seeming
candor? In the wider Sufi literature,dreams about sexual intercoursebet-
ween masterand disciple - and sometimes the rape of the latterby the for-
mer - were in fact quite common and were typicallyinterpretedas a symbol
of the disciple's initiation into divine love by his master. It is difficult,
however, to find a similar symbolism at work in Misri's stories about his
"adulterous"wives and would-berapists. Significantly,even Ottomancom-
mentatorskeen to explain away these stories did not resortto such a sacra-
lizing interpretation.Rakim,the authorof Misri's earliestknownbiography,
who must have learnedabout these claims of Misri either from the latter's
writings or from oral reports,arguedthat the Sufi sheikh had denied being
51. Ibid., 12a.
52. Ibid., 9a-b, 18a, 40b, 55a, 56a, 59b, 63b, 79b-80a. For an alternativeaccountof his marriages,which
tries to explain away the sheikh's allegations,see his biographer:Rilum, Vdkt'dt,16-7, 91-2.
53. MKK, 60b-61a.

154
 MAN IN THE IMAGEOF GOD IN THE IMAGEOF THE TIMES

the father of 'All simply to protect his son against his enemies. Likewise,
accordingto Rakim, it was to expose the governorof Lemnos' "sodomiza-
tion" of his young servantsthat Misri had accused him in public of having
attemptedto rape him. (54)These alternativescenariosmay be dismissed as
so many attemptsto bring the image of Misri in line with that of his much
less controversialsuccessors, but it is not as easy to deliver a judgmenton
Misri 's own version of events.
Regardlessof whetherthe Sufi writer'sfears and suspicionswerejustified
or not, however, they expose some of the anxietiesthatwere inherentto the
way masculinitywas experiencedin Ottomansociety in thatperiod. To judge
by the cuckoldryfines (koftehorluk)imposed by Ottomancriminallaw, the
cuckoldryanxietyexpressedby Mlsri was also sharedby the society in which
he lived. (55)While from the viewpointof the lawmakersthe failureof a man
to upholdthe chastityof his householdconstitutedan infringementof publicas
well as privatehonor,however,in his own takeon the subject,Mlsriturnedthe
tablesagainstthe politicalauthoritiesby accusingthemof havingdivestedhim
of his rightfulpatrimony.Similarly,Misri'sfearof andfantasiesabouthis own
raperevealhow closely linked in his mind were disempowermentand impo-
tence, a link that is still in evidence today in the use of the word iktidarin
modemTurkishto meanbothmale sexualpotencyandpoliticalpower. At the
same time, Mlsri's depictionof his enemies as "sodomitesno comma!,"must
also be do not dividethe world ! in the contextof a heightenedsensitivityabout
the cut! practiceof pederastyamongthe Ottomanelites. (56)
In a numberof places in his diary, the Sufi sheikh also interruptedthe
story of his days to comment directly on Ottomanpolitics. The political
views he expressed exhibit at once interestingparallels to and differences
from the mainstreampoliticalliteratureof the time. Like Ottomanstatesmen
and bureaucratswho authoredtractsof political advice, the Halveti master
comparedthe presentstate of the Ottomandynastyunfavorablywith its past,
critiquedthe "injustices"(zulm) rampantin the Ottomanstate and called for
urgentreform. The reformenvisioned by Mlsri, nevertheless,could not be
furtherfrom the reformist writers'project of restrengtheningthe Ottoman
state: to replace the Ottomandynasty with the Girays, who were the royal
family of the CrimeanTatarsand vassals of the Ottomans.(57)Interestingly,
54. Rakim, Vdak'dt,16-7, 91-2.
55. Uriel Heyd, Studies in Old OttomanCriminal Law, ed. V.L. M6nage (Oxford : ClarendonPress,
1973), 57-8, 63, 96-7, 102 and Leslie Peirce, "She is trouble ... and I will divorce her";Orality,honor, and
representationin the Ottomancourt of 'Aintab"in Womenin the Medieval Islamic World,ed. Gavin R.G.
Hambly (London:Macmillan, 1999), 269-300, especially 286-289.
56. Interestingly,such anti-pederastysentimentswere expressedboth by and againstthe Kadizadelis. For
Vani Efendi's attemptsto ban Ottomangrandeesfrom takingyoung boy attendantson campaigns,see Che-
valier d'Arvieux, Memoiresdu Chevalierd'Arvieux(Paris, 1735), vol. 4, 390-5. For medievalMuslimpers-
pectives on pederastyand other sexual "irregularities,"see EverettK. Rowson, "TheCategorizationof Gen-
der and Sexual Irregularityin Medieval ArabicVice Lists"in Body Guards:The CulturalPolitics of Gender
Ambiguity(New York and London:Routledge, 1991), 50-79.
57. MKK, 2b, 12a, 48b-50a, 69a-b.

155
 DERIN TERZIOGILU

the same propositionwould laterbe made by rebellioussoldiers in 1688 and

1703. (58)According to Mlsri, the Ottomanshad forfeitedtheir right to rule
because they had neither"justice"('adl) nor "faith"(din). They were "out-
wardlyJewish"and "inwardlyHamzevi;"namely, they pretendedto a strict
observationof the religious law like the Jews, but were in privateoblivious
towards it like the "heretical"adherentsof the Melami-Bayramisheikh
Hamza Ball executed by imperialorderin 1561-2. (59)They maltreatedthe
re'ayd and especially the lzmmis, the poor and the weakly, and exercised
theirpunitivepowers withouta sense of proportionand clemency. (60)
Mlsri also drew on an ancient and complex lore of eschatology and pro-
phecy to express his political views as well as to make sense of his own pre-
dicamentin the largerscheme of things. In particular,the starkdualism of
good and evil, and of just and unjustinherentin eschatology proved useful
to him as he sought to delegitimatehis persecutorsand to justify his own
position of principledoppositionto the Ottomans. Add to this the promise
of both the stories of the prophetsand of eschatologicalscenarios that per-
secution did not doom one's faith, and thatultimatelythe good and the just
would be vindicatedand the unjustdefeated. However,vindicationwas not
all thatMlsri found in these stories. Throughthem he also came to relocate
himself in the religious economy of the world in which he lived and to see
his banishmentsas a sign of his election to the highest spiritualranks.
For Mlsri one of the signs of his divine election was his initiationinto the
hiddenmeanings of the letters ('ilm-i esmd-i huruf)and the divinatorytech-
niques of cifr (A. jafr), a form of kabbalisticprognosticationbased on the
numericalvalues of the Arabic alphabet. Even though some of the earlier
writingsof Misri also bearwitness to his interestin kabbalisticprognostica-
tions, in his diary he presentedhis proficiency in the arts of esoteric inter-
pretationas a grace of God thatfollowed his imprisonment:
O tyrants(azlimler),I, Mlsri,usedto knowneithercifr nor 'ilm-i
esmd-ihuraf.Whenyouimprisoned meandbroughtmeto Bogazhi-
undertheswayof a [spiritual]
sar[fortressin theDardanelles], state
I startedperusingthe books from the morningto the afternoon.
WhenI camebackto my senses,therewerestill chainsaroundmy
neckandaroundmy feet,butsomeof the [hidden]properties of the
lettersandthe rulesof cifr had[also]beenrevealed.Thanksbe to
God, fromthatday untilnow, day by day, [the disclosures]have
continued."(61)
58. On the revolt of 1688, see Silahdar,Td'rhl (Istanbul,1928) vol. 2, 340; on the revolt of 1703, see
Na'ima, Ta'rih (Istanbul,1864-5), vol. 6, addendum,2-58; Cantemir,The History of the Growthand Decay
of the OthmanEmpire,trans.N. Tindal(London, 1734), 15.
59. MKK, 8b, 13a. For a discussion of Mlsri's complex relationswith the Bayrami-Melamis,see my
"Sufi and Dissident,"86-7, 271-2. The attributionof Jewishnessto the Ottomandynastyis furtherdiscussed
below.
60. For a more detailed discussion of Misri 's political views, see my "Sufiand dissident,"277-354.
61. MKK, 35b. For an earlieruse of cifr by Mlsri, see chapter50 of the Mawi'id (74b-75b; trans. 117-
118), writtencirca 1672-4.

156
 MAN IN THE IMAGE OF GOD IN THE IMAGEOF THE TIMES

These disclosures matteredtremendouslyto Mlsri not only because they

were a continual proof of his high status in the divine realms and compen-
sated for his powerlessness on earth, but also because they helped him to
find meaning in a world that never failed to disappointhim. Throughcom-
plex calculations based on the numerical values of the letters found in a
selected text, typically a Qur'dnicverse or a passage from the 'AnkdMugrib
(Fabulous Gryphon)of Ibn 'Arabi,Misri triedto explain the "true"meaning
of variousincidentsthat took place aroundhim, and to expose the plots hat-
ched against his person. Some of the disclosures were of a conventionally
political nature,and concernedevents (typically, conspiracies)in the capital
such as the presumeddeath of SultanMehmed IV, and the secret succession
to the throne of his son Mustafa, incidents which the Sufi sheikh believed
were being concealed from the public. (62)
While Mlsri's kabbalistic prognostications basically remained earth-
bound, the "divine revelations"(vahy, A. wahy) on which they were based
pointedtowardsmore heavenly spheres. The Sufi sheikh typicallyhad these
revelationsaroundthe time of the ritualprayerservice in the mosque, while
the imam was recitingthe Qur'dn,while the crowd was being dispersedafter
prayers,or during the call to prayeritself. Only in one case Misri reported
losing consciousness or becoming unsteady (bi-kardroldum) as a result of
the experience; otherwise, he related the revelations as a regularfeatureof
his life. (6")He identified the bearer of the revelations as the archangel
Gabriel, who had broughtMuhammadthe Qur'an. The revelations them-
selves were all purely aural with the exception of one accompaniedby a
vision. Speaking "in the Turkishtongue" (bi-lisdn-i Tirki), Gabrielwould
give instructionsabout the cifr applications,or explain, sometimes directly
to Misri and sometimes to "the people of the Book" (presumablyJews and
Christiansas well as Muslims) about the high spiritualrank that had been
hoisted upon the Sufi writer. In these passages, Mlsri is called variously a
"prophet"(peygamber,nebi) " messenger of God" (reslulllh), "Jesus"and
"Messiah,"and it is made clear that while he was not given a new shariahor'
a new book, he was entrustedwith the meaning of "the ambiguous verses
(dydt-imiiteibihdt) of the great Qur'cn,"a clear referenceto his practiceof
cifr. (M)
The prophetic-eschatologicalpassages in Misri's diary, if read literally,
can be construedas going against the Islamic dogma that Muhammadwas
"the seal of the prophets"(hatm al-anbiya) and the last messenger of God.
This is not, however, how Misri and most of his readersunderstoodthese
revelations. They did not because they made sense of the revelationsin the
context of a centuries-longtraditionof Sufi thought that accepted the fina-
lity of Muhammad'spropheticmission but also postulatedthe continuityof
62. Ibid.. 6a. 61b.
63. Ibid,4a.7b, 1lb. 15a.30b,41a,42b,50b-51b.52b,54a,57b.
64. Ibid,31a.

157
 DERIN TERZIOGLU

a form of prophecyin the personof the saints (awliya ullah, literally,friends

of God). (65) It is true thatconventionallythe divine disclosuresreceived by
the saints were called ilhamat or "divine inspiration"to distinguish them
from wahy or propheticrevelationsproper. However, the theoreticaldistinc-
tions made between "prophecy"and "divine inspiration"and between the
"prophets"and the "saints"did not always hold in the language of shath.
Such transgressionsof linguistic convention, moreover, were more than a
matterof personalidiosyncrasyand constitutedratherexamples of what has
been called a "rhetoricof sainthood,"a rhetoricwhich was more performa-
tive than descriptive. Examples of that rhetoriccan also be found in other
visionaryautobiographiessuch as the Kashf al-asrar, writtenby the Persian
mystic RuzbihanBakli in the twelfth century. Like Misri, Ruzbihanalso
wroteof Gabrieladdressinghim in his own "Persiantongue"and calling him
a "prophet"and a "messengerof God." Whetheror not Misri had actually
read the Kashf al-asrar, which cannot be ascertained,the "rhetoricof sain-
thood"that suffused this text was clearly still well and alive in his time. (66)
Over and above all, however, the one Sufi thinkerto whose writingsMisri
made constantreferenceboth in his diary and elsewhere was Ibn 'Arabi, or
as he was better known among the Ottoman Sufis, the Sheikh Akbar, the
GreatestMaster. Ibn 'Arabicombined in his voluminous writingsat once a
deeply personal narrativeof illumination and one of the most systematic
expositions of Sufi metaphysics. His visionary writings had such an appeal
for later Sufis that it has even been arguedthat they led to a certainclosure,
or homogenization in later Sufi literature.(67) A close analysis of the way
Misri made use of Ibn 'Arabi's writings, however, indicates that while the
Ottomanwriterdrew on the Sheikh Akbar's hagiological script,he also per-
sonalized this script and adaptedit to his own particularcircumstances.
Particularlyimportantin the context of Mlsri's diary were Ibn 'Arabi's
teachingsaboutthe relationsbetween the saints and the prophets. Ibn 'Arabi
had argued that just as the saints inherited their spiritualityfrom the pro-
phets, particularsaints inheritedtheir spiritualityfrom particularprophets.
In this scheme, a Muslim could be a Christ-likeor Christic('Lsawi)saint, if
he inheritedhis spiritualityfrom Christ, a Moses-like (mu'sawi) saint, if he
inheritedhis spiritualityfrom Moses, and so on. The highest rank of all,
however, belonged to the Muhammadansaints, who inheritedtheir spiritua-
lity directly from Muhammad. Finally, Ibn 'Arabi postulatedthatjust as
legislative prophethood(nubuwwaal-tashri') had been sealed by Muham-
mad, so would sainthood be sealed by the "seal of the saints" (hatm al-
awliya). While the Andalusianwriterwas less thanclear aboutthe natureof
that seal, and sometimes distinguished between several different seals of
65. Yohanan Friedmann,Prophecy Continuous:Aspects of AhnladiReligious Thoughtand Its Medieval
Background(Berkeley, L.A. and London:University of CaliforniaPress, 1989). 49-93.
66. Ernst,RuzhihanBaqli. 24-26.
67. Ernst. Wordsof Ecstasy. 22.

158
 MAN IN THE IMAGEOF GOD IN THE IMAGEOF THE TIMES

sainthood,it is generally accepted that he himself claimed to be the seal of

the saints in one or more of those senses. (68)
The elliptical way in which Ibn 'Arabi wrote about the seal also enabled
laterSufis to lay claim to the title, and redefine it in the process. Misri was
in good company, therefore, when he acknowledged the identity of the
Sheikh Akbaras the "seal of the saints,"but also consideredthat seal to be
a spiritualrank that was held by different Sufis in different periods. (69)
Hence he wrote:"thereis one seal of the saints at all times"and in this time,
God ... made Mlsri the seal of the saints." (70) Since the seal of the saints was
supposed to have inheritedthe spiritualstations of all the prophets,it also
allowed Misri to representhimself in terms of a rich prophetictypology.
The Sufi sheikh's experience of banishmentand humiliationmade him
identify particularlywith those prophetswho had been the object of perse-
cution. "My name is also Lot,"wrote the Halveti sheikh,"forthey [the hire-
lings of the Ottomansultan] are trying to sodomize (livCta)me." (71) As a
persecutedman of God, he identifiedeven more strongly with Jesus Christ,
the epitome of a meek, gentle and seemingly submissive prophet. In his
identificationwith Christ,Misri went beyond the standardMuslim images of
this prophet. While Muslim religious authorities had overwhelmingly
denied that Christ had been crucified, Misri referredmultiple times to the
crucifixion of Jesus as well as of his disciples "George,Zacharaiah,John
and many others" as proof that persecution and martyrdomdo not doom
one's faith. In departurefrom the mainstreamMuslim opinion, he also put
the blame for the crucifixion of Jesus squarelyon the Jews, whom he iden-
tified with his own Ottomanpersecutors.(72)
Mlsri was actually only one of many Sufis in the religiously syncretistic
environmentof Anatolia and the Balkans to draw on elements from other
religions. (73) In additionto Sufi precedents,these religious borrowingsmay
have also owed somethingto the contactsthe Sufi sheikhhad with the Greek
Orthodoxboth in Bursa and in the Greek-majorityisland of Lemnos. (74)
68. The standardwork on Ibn 'Arabi's writings on sainthoodand prophethoodis Michel Chodkiewicz,
Sealof theSaints:Prophethood in theDoctrineof Ibn 'Arabi,trans.LiadainSherrard
andSainthood (Cam-
bridge:The IslamicTexts Society, 1993). For a recent study thatpostulatesa link between Ibn 'Arabi's tea-
chings on sainthoodand Shiite eschatology, see Gerald Elmore, Islamic Sainthood in the Fulness of Time:
Ibn al-'Arabi's Book of the Fabulous Gryphon(Leiden, Boston, Koln: Brill, 1999).
69. Chodkiewicz,Seal of the Saints, 134-7.
70. MKK, 6a.
71. Ibid, 60b-61a.
72. Ibid, 62b, 66b, 67b.
73. On "ChristianizingIslam" among the Ottoman ulema and Sufis, see A.Y. Ocak, Osmanli Toplu-
mundaZmndiklar ve Milhidler, 228-243. For the testimony of a 17* centuryEnglish observeron a supposed
secret sect of "theChupmessahis"or "goodfollowers of the Messiah"in the Ottomanpalace and capital,see
Sir Paul Rycaut, The Present State of the OttomanEmpire (London, 1668), 129. The blatantChristianbias
of the lattertestimony,nevertheless,calls for a cautious reading.
74. The OttomanRomanianhistorianDimitrie Cantemirwrites of having heard "from the mouth of the
Patriarchof Constantinople,Callinicus"thatMasribefriendedCallinicuswhen the latterwas the Metropolitanof
Bursa(The Historyof the Growthand Decay of the OthmanEmpire,trans.N. Tindal (London, 1734), vol. 2,

159
 DERIN TERZIOGLU

Yet, the peculiarly "Christianizing"statements in Misri's diary were not

simply an organicexpression of a local culture,but ratherrepresentedwhat
the Sufi sheikhchose to use out of a wide rangeof options availableto him.
It is tempting to think that Misri the self-identified Sufi-victim preferred
Christiantraditionsabout Jesus Christover Muslim ones precisely because
suffering was more centralto the former.Of course, this choice would also
have been partof Misri's "performance"as "Christ"and in keeping with the
"rhetoricof sainthood,"which owed its effectiveness at least in part to its
ability to breakwith doctrinalconventions.
The Christiannarrativesthataccused the Jews of the crucifixionof Christ
also served the Sufi sheikh well in his effort to delegitimatethe rulingOtto-
man house on the grounds of religion. The present line of the Ottoman
house, the Sufi sheikh argued, no longer adheredto the Muslim faith, but
had been convertedby Vani into Judaism.(75) This is an intriguingassertion
thatcan be readon at least threedifferentlevels: (1) as a basically self-refe-
rentialclaim, linking Misri's fate with that of Christ, (2) as a judgment on
the puritanicalform of Islamespousedby Vani andthe Kadlzadelis,likening
it to the perceivedly stricterlaws of the Jews that had been abrogatedby
Muhammad,(76)and (3) as a veiled criticism of the role played by Vani
Efendi in the controversialconversion of the Jewish messiah SabbataiZwi
and some of his followers in 1666. (77)
Of course, insofaras he took an oppositionalstance againstthe Ottomans,
Misri was not really a quietist, submissive Sufi. In this regardhe found a
powerful model in the figure of Jesus Christ in his second coming as the
Messiah: according to Muslim as well as Christianeschatology, upon his
second coming to the world, the Messiah would no longer be meek and
gentle as he was on his first, and would enterinto a full-blown fight with and
defeat the Antichrist, symbolizing the forces of the unjust. While Misri
could designate any numberof his enemies and rivals as the Antichrist,he

(suite de la note 74) 386-7). While the reliabilityof Cantemir'saccountmay be doubted,it is rathermorediffi-
cult to dismissoutrightMsri's own accountaboutvisits paid to him by GreekOrthodoxmonksfrom the island
of Imbrosas well as by a GreeklaymannamedMaslakiwhile in Lemnos(istanbulOniversitesiKtp.,T.Y. 6374,
37a).
75. MKK, 61a-b, 62b.
76. On Muslim views of the Mosaic law in the medieval period, see Camilla Adang, Muslimwriters on
Judaismand the Hebrew Bible:from Ibn Rabbdnto Ibn Hazm (Leiden, N.Y., Kiln: Brill, 1996), 192-222.
For a more general discussion of Muslim perceptionsof the Jews, see BernardLewis, The Jews of Islam
(Princeton:PrincetonUniversityPress, 1984).
77. The classic work on SabbataiZwi is GershomScholem, SabbataiSevi: The Mystical Messiah, 1626-
1676, tr. R.J.Z.Verblowsky,Bollingen Series 93 (Princeton:PrincetonUniversityPress, 1973). For the Otto-
man backgroundandespecially the involvementof Vani Efendi in the affair, see Zilfi, Politics of Piety, 153-
156; Jane Hathaway, "The grand vizier and the false messiah: The Sabbatai Sevi controversy and the
Ottoman reform in Egypt," JAOS 4 (1997): 665-671 and Marc David Baer, "17. yiizyilda Yahudilerin
Osmanhimparatorlugu'ndakinufuz ve mevkileriniyitirmeleri,"Toplumve Bilim 83 (Kli 1999/2000): 202-
222. For spuriousSabbatiantraditionslinking Misri and Sabbatai,see Paul B. Fenton, "ShabbataiSebi and
his Muslim contemporaryMuhammadan-Niyazi"in Approachesto Judaism in Medieval Times,ed. David
R. Blumenthal(Atlanta,Georgia:ScholarsPress, 1988), vol. 3, 81-88.

160
 MAN IN THE IMAGEOF GOD IN THE IMAGE OF THE TIMES

naturallysaw the Kadizadeli leader Vani Efendi as the prime candidate.

Likewise, he warnedhis Ottomanpersecutorsthatif they killed him (Misri),
as they no doubtwere planningto do, they would meet theirend in the hands
of the "Franks,"who being adherents of Christ, would come to Misri's
revenge, vanquishthe evildoers and adhereby the shariahof Muhammad.It
is telling that Mlsri delegated the duty of revenge to the Franks,for he was
of course all too aware thathe himself had no chance of undertakingarmed
rebellionagainstthe Ottomanauthorities. This also meant thathis self-iden-
tity as the Messiah (or the Mahdi) (78)was bound to be partial,representing
at best that part of himself that was defiant and confrontational,and one
might even add, hopeful.
One propheticprototypethat capturesa good deal of the complexity of
the Sufi sheikh's self-image, finally, was Adam. Within Ibn 'Arabi's pro-
phetologicalscheme Adam held a privileged place as the first man, the first
prophetand the prototypicalPerfect Man (al-insan al-kdmil),Ibn 'Arabias
well as laterSufis in his school furtherdrew links between Adam, Christand
Muhammadas the three prophetsin whom the all-comprehensivename of
God, "Allah,"became most fully manifest. However, Adam was also dis-
tinctive as the most "material"of these prophets,having been created not
only "inthe image of God"but also "out of water and clay." (79)
This polarityin the Adamic prototypeserved Misri well when he tried to
make sense of the conflicting aspects of his own existence. On the one hand,
the Sufi sheikh identified with Adam the prophetto whom God had revea-
led the divine names, and found therein a significant parallel to his own
preoccupationwith esoteric exegesis and kabbalisticprognostications. On
the otherhand,the very humandimension of Adam enabledMisri to answer
a number of difficult questions about his own claim to prophethood:"O
Mlsri, you say I am a prophet(peygamber). Which of the prophetshas cur-
sed like you? The curses of the rabblehave been sealed in you." To this self-
posed question, the Sufi sheikh answeredby explaining just what it means
to "be"or "becomeAdam,"which in Turkishalso means to "be human":

WhenI becomeAdam/human, all the pureones standon my right

side - they are the ones who demandadvice (nasd'ih),gnosis
(ma'rif), [and]knowledgeof theunknown('ulam-ilediiniyye); they
demandit throughtheira 'ydn[entitiesor notables]andI say it for
theirsake;- andall thebandits(eskiyd)standon my left side- they
are the ones who demandcurses(uatum),blasphemy(kiifr),sinful
78. Comparedto the Messiah, the Mahdiplays only a secondaryrole in Misri's eschatologicalscenarios
in his diary (MKK, 67b), but is more prominentin his poems from the same period (Mlsri, Divan, ed. Kenan
Erdogan,(Ankara: Akcag, 1998), 62, 216).
79. On Adam's prevailing "materiality,"see the commentaryin Ahmed Avni Konuk, Fusisu'l-Hikem
Terciimeve 5erhi,edited and transcribedwith an introductionby MustafaTahraliand Selcuk Eraydln(Istan-
bul: M.U. IlahiyatFakiiltesiYaylnlan, 1989-1992), vol. 3, 131.

161
 DERIN TERZIOGLU

acts (fisk), ignorance (cehl), madness (tecenniin) and coition

(huft). (80)

Iconographically,this image of Mlsri as Adam, with its strongsymbolism

of left and right,can be tracedto a Christicvision of Adam describedby Ibn
'Arabi. (81) In the most general sense, both images provided a commentary
on the relationshipof God to humanityas well as the relationshipof the Per-
fect Man to God and humanity. In addition, Mlsri may have hinted at a
parallelrelationshipbetween the sovereign and his subjectsthroughhis use
of the word "a'yn," which could denote both the Platonic"immutableenti-
ties" appropriatedinto Sufi metaphysicsand the "urbannotables,"who had
emerged as a crucial force in Ottoman politics in the late seventeenth
century. Clearly, however, any royal association the image had was
subordinatedto its religious significance as an image of the PerfectMan, the
axis mundi, the hidden sovereign.
Finally, Misri thoroughlypersonalizedthis image of the Perfect Man by
investing him with his very own positive and negative qualities. Indeed,as
his diary bears witness better than any other text, the Sufi sheikh in exile
continuedto give the people aroundhim words of "advice,"and sharewith
them what he had received by way of "gnosis"and "knowledgeof the unk-
nown," but he also cursed, blasphemied,talked a great deal about sexual
deprivationand varioussexual violations, occasionally blunderedin his pro-
gnostications,and wonderedwhetherhe could possibly be "mad"(mecnun)
as some of his critics thoughthe was. (82)What is trulynovel aboutMlsri's
self-image as Adam, then,is thatwhile it elevates the Sufi sheikh to the posi-
tion of the PerfectMan and the sovereign-likeaxis mundi,it does so without
losing sight of his particularities,imperfectionsand inner tensions.

In Burckhardtiananalyses of life writing,typology, like all forms of ana-

logy, has characteristicallybeen seen as a somewhatdeficient mode of self-
representation,preventinga full explorationof one's individuality.(83)Yet
as Misri's use of Ibn 'Arabi's prophetologyillustrates,typology as a mode
of self-representationcould actually accommodatea great deal of variety,
inconsistency and contradiction.In Misri's case, what made this possible
was not just the variety of propheticprototypes available in Ibn 'Arabi's
model, but also the ambiguity of the Ottoman writer's identificationwith
80. MKK, 34b-35a.
81. Stephen Hirtenstein,The UnlimitedMercifier: The spiritual life and thoughtof Ibn 'Arabi(Oxford
and Ashland, Oregon:Anqa Publishingand White Cloud Press, 1999), 118-121.
82. On the possibility of his madness,see MKK, 63b-64a, 80b.
83. On typological autobiographiesin early modem Europe,E. Pearlman,"TypologicalAutobiography
in Seventeenth-CenturyEngland,"Biography8, 2 (Spring 1985): 95-118. For an insightfuldiscussionof the
use of anotherhighly complex typological system, astrology, as a mode of self-representationduring the
Renaissance,see AnthonyGrafton,Cardano's Cosmos: The Worldsand Worksof a RenaissanceAstrologer
(Cambridge:HarvardUniversity Press, 1999), 178-198.

162
 MAN IN THE IMAGEOF GOD IN THE IMAGEOF THE TIMES

these prototypes. Throughouthis diary, Misri switched back and forthboth

between different prophetic prototypes, and between these prototypesand
the persona he called "this black-faced [or "mouse faced"] Misri." In this
connection,strategicshifts from the first person voice to the thirdperson as
well as the question-and-answerformat,in which the Sufi sheikh served as
his own inquisitor,proveduseful in containing(butneverreally eliminating)
the various inconsistencies and contradictions in his representational
scheme.
But did the discrepanciesbetween this ideal scheme and worldly realities
ever make Misri doubt the basic premisesof this ideal scheme? Thereis one
passagein the diarythatraises this question. The Sufi sheikh wrote this pas-
sage afterone of his "revelations"had turnedout to be wrong. In it, he basi-
cally reproachesGod for having been "tyrannical(zalim) towards me, and
lowly, poor ... and weak towards the Deccal" (Antichrist)and for having
"made me a paraiah(parya)." After observing that Deccal's servants are
doing betterthan God's, he concludes with the following diatribe:

God, may Deccal be your misfortuneand the misfortuneof those who

have become slaves to you. You have a name only in the hearts. Let that
be forgotten,too, let it be eradicatedfrom the hearts. Tyrant,you are exis-
tent in name, nonexistentin body (mev'uidii'l-cism);perhapsthe nonexistent
in essence (ma'dumii'z-zdt)is also you. You do not exist (yoksun). To
whom should I cry out and complain? These words are also absurd('abes).
WhateverI say to the nonexistentis absurd,absurd,absurd.(84)

This, it is importantto point out, was by no means a profession of unbe-

lief in the modernsense, (85)for if it were, it would be impossible to explain
how the Sufi sheikh could carry on with his usual pious routineson subse-
quentdays. Rather,Misri's "absurd"discoursehere seems closer in spiritto
the lover's quarrelwith God, which was actually an old topos in Sufi litera-
ture. (86) In other words, it was again rhetoricsdrawnfrom the religiomysti-
cal traditionthatcame to Misri's aid in his struggleto make sense of a world
that increasinglyseemed fracturedand in flux.
84. MKK, 57b.
85 While this topic has yet to be explored in Ottomanhistoriography,thereis a rich literatureon the pos-
sibility (or impossibility) of unbelief in early modernEurope. To sample, see Lucien Febvre, The Problem
of Unbeliefin the SixteenthCentury:The Religion of Rabelais, trans.BeatriceGottlieb(Cambridgeand Lon-
don: HarvardUniversity Press, 1982); Wootton, "Lucien Febvre and the Problem of Unbelief in the Early
Modem Period,"Journal of ModernHistory 60 (1988): 695-730; John Edwards,"ReligiousFaithand Doubt
in Late Medieval Spain: Soria circa 1450-1500," Past and Present 120 (1988)$ 3-25; C.J. Somerville,
"Debate:Religious Faith, Doubt and Atheism,"and John Edwards,"Reply,"Past and Present 128 (August
1990): 152-161; C.A. Kors,Atheismin France, 1650-1729, vol. 1: The OrthodoxSources of Disbelief (Prin-
ceton: PrincetonUniversity Press, 1990).
86. Hellmut Ritter,"MuslimMystics Strife with God," Oriens 5 (1952): 1-15. For examples of disputa-
tious poems by Kizilba?-Alevi and Bektashi poets, see A. Golpinarli, Alevi Bekta,s Nefesleri (Istanbul:
inlklap, 1992), 213 and Ismail Ozmen, Alevi-Bekta,i ?iirleri

163
 DERIN TERZIOGLU

All in all, however, it will perhapshave to remain an open question to

whatextentMisri came to an understandingwith himself, and to whatextent
the various religious and political paradigmshe employed explained the
world to him satisfactorily. At least the incessant way in which he presen-
ted proof after proof of his various convictions in his diary suggests that
none of these proofs ultimately satisfied him. This indeterminacy,this
simultaneousdeficiency and excess of meaning,is actually one of the most
striking features of Misri's diary and sets it apartfrom the mainstreamof
first-personwritingin Sufi circles both beforeand in his own time. It is also
paradoxicallywhatmakes it very mucha "mirror"(even if a "distortingmir-
ror")of its "earlymodern"times.
While people in the early modernera experiencedno disjuncturecompa-
rableto thatof theirnineteenthandtwentieth-century they never-
counterparts,
thelesslived in an age thatsaw such profoundand interrelatedchangesas the
growthof trade,urbanization, the emergenceof bureaucratic statesandintensi-
fied social andpoliticalconflicts.(87) Evenif thesechangesdid notalwaysbring
abouta completeoverhaulof old ways of thinking,they certainlyaddedto the
strainalreadypresentin the old models,andmadeearlymodernpeople a good
deal more "anxious"than their medieval counterparts.(88) As recent studies
have argued,these changesand the anxietiesthey provokedalso had much to
do with the new attentionpeoplepaidto themselves,or the prevalenceof "self-
fashioning"in early modernEurope.(89) This is an insightfulpropositionthat
mightalso help explainthe growingcomplexityof the formsof self-represen-
tationusedby the OttomanSufis.
To be sure, few Ottomancontemporariesof Misri exhibited the same
degree of anxietyin theirpersonalwritings;however,they did addressmany
of the concerns that surface in Mlsri's diary in other venues. To recapitu-
late, these concernscovered a wide range from questions about the strength
and legitimacy of the Ottoman state, which especially preoccupied the
"ruling"elites, to cuckoldryanxiety thatplaguedelite and commoneralike.
The list can be furtherextendedwith questionsaboutthe properrelationship
87. On the interconnectionsbetween differentpartsof the world in the early moder era, see the articles
in the issue devoted to "EarlyModernities"in Daedalus, 127, 3 (Summer 1998); Joseph Fletcher,"Integra-
tive History:Parallelsand Interconnectionsin the EarlyModernPeriod, 1500-1800,"Journalof TurkishStu-
dies 9 (1985): 37-57; Jack Goldstone,"Eastand West in the SeventeenthCentury:Political Crises in Stuart
England,OttomanTurkey,and Ming China,"ComparativeStudies in Society and History 30 (1988): 103-
142; Niels Steensgaard,"TheSeventeenth-CenturyCrisis and the Unity of EurasianHistory,"Moder Asian
Studies24, 4 (1990): 683-697; andJohn E. Wills, 1688: A Global History(N.Y. and London:Norton,2001).
88. On "anxiety"in early modernEuropeanculturesee William J. Bouwsma, "Anxietyand the Forma-
tion of EarlyModem Culture"in BarbaraC. Malament,ed., Afterthe Reformation:Essays in Honor of J.H.
Hexter (Philadelphia,1980), 215-246; on masculinity-relatedanxieties in early modem Europe, see Mark
Breitenberg,Anxious masculinityin early modernEngland (Cambridgeand New York: CambridgeUniver-
sity Press, 1996).
89. StephenGreenblatt,RenaissanceSelf-FashioningFrom More to Shakespeare(Chicago and London:
The Universityof Chicago Press, 1980); for a "literaryhistorical"approachto the same question, see Mar-
shall Grossman,The Storyof All Things:Writingthe Self in EnglishRenaissance NarrativePoetry (Durham
and London:Duke UniversityPress, 1998).

164
 MAN IN THE IMAGEOF GOD IN THE IMAGE OF THE TIMES

between Muslims and non-Muslims,between the center and the periphery,

between political and religious authorities(a topic of great relevance in the
context of the Kadizadelicontroversy),and last but not least between the
earthand the heavens.
It is perhapsthis last question that is the most relevantfor understanding
both the peculiarnatureof Mlsri's diary, and the shift that took place in the
modes of self-representationin Sufi narrativesin this period. Above, it was
suggested that the temporaland the mundaneentered Sufi personal narra-
tives, as the Sufis became progressivelymore integratedinto the social, poli-
tical and economic structuresof "this world." Significantly, however, this
new tendency was not accompaniedby a "disenchantmentof the world"
such as has been posited for early modernEurope. (O9)In fact, the blurred
boundariesbetween the earth and the heavens may even have made the
everyday life of mystics like Misri more enchanted than ever. This is
perhapsbest reflectedin his diary,which is neithera completely this-world-
orientedtext like the diary of his contemporaryand fellow Halveti Seyyid
Hasan nor a text orientedtowardsthe "otherworld"like the spiritualauto-
biographies of many earlier and contemporaneous writers. Rather, it
negotiates between the two worlds as a text written in dire (worldly)
circumstances to find a heavenly explanation and redemption for those
circumstances. As such, it also reflects the anxieties that beset practitioners
of Sufism in an era when beliefs in the efficacy of prayersfor the state as
well as in the "invisible saints"and "hiddenmarvels"came underquestion
by the Kadizadelis. That these beliefs were not discarded then and there
should not blind us to the importanceof the questionsthat were raisedabout
them and to the novelty of Misri's very own response to those questions.

Derin Terzioglu
Koq University, Istanbul

90. For studies thatemploy this paradigmfor early modem Europe,see Keith Thomas, Religion and the
Decline of Magic (N.Y.: CharlesScribner'sSons, 1971); Marcel Gauchet,The disenchantmentof the world:
A political history of religion, trans.Oscar Burge (Princeton:PrincetonUniversity Press, 1997); for a more
nuancedexplorationof the same paradigmin the context of early modem New England,see David D. Hall,
Worldsof Wonder;Days of Judgment:PopularReligious Belief in Early New England(Cambridge:Harvard
UniversityPress, 1989).

165