Krstić, Tijana and Derin Terzioğlu: Historicizing Sunni Islam in the Ottoman Empire, c.1450-c.1750. (Islamic History and Civilization, Studies and Texts). Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2020.
The volume entitled “Historicizing Sunni Islam in the Ottoman Empire, c.1450-c.1750”, edited by Tijana Krstić and Derin Terzioğlu, is the remarkable product of a project entitled “The Fashioning of a Sunni-Orthodoxy and the Entangled Histories of Confession-Building in the Ottoman Empire, 15th-17th Centuries, supported by the European Council, Horizon 2020 Program. The book examines how Sunni identity was shaped, particularly in the Ottoman Empire, by historicizing Islamic discourses and practices in the post-formative period. In doing so, it demonstrates that Islam after the classical period was not static, but rather a dynamic process that developed with new meanings and interpretations. This collection also explores how Ottoman Muslims perceived the Sunni Islamic tradition and their relation to it, and investigates how the Ottomans interacted with this “orthodoxy” in building their empire, as well as how Sunnism influenced Ottoman society and politics.
The volume examines the formation of Sunni Islam in the Ottoman Empire from a three-stage perspective, based on texts, socio-religious relations, and confessional differences. The chapters are organized, first, in a section dedicated to the Ottoman authors’ approaches to texts from Sunni Islam (Chapter I), second, relations between state, society, and space (Chapter II), and finally, practices of resistance and diversity against sectarian orthodoxy (Chapter III).
The papers in the first section explore how Ottoman writers engaged with classical Sunni sources, and how they related these to the issues of the day in Ottoman society. Helen Pfeifer’s article focuses on the new social and religious dynamics that emerged with the Ottoman-Mamluk war of 1516–1517 and the Ottoman conquest of Arab lands. It emphasizes that Arab scholars contributed to significant changes in the Ottoman understanding of Islam. Furthermore, it is explained that with this conquest, the Ottomans strengthened their relations with Islamic centers of learning, and this conquest left a lasting impact on governance and religious practice. This process shows that the culture of war is not only related to military power, but also to the lasting influence of the conquered lands on culture and the reshaping of religious authority.
Nabil Al-Tikriti’s article examines the role of the Ottoman prince Korkud in Sunni consolidation and the internalization of Sunni identity in the Ottoman Empire. Korkud, the brother of Sultan Selim I, is a significant figure who represents the transitional period during which various theological and sectarian understandings converged during the formation of Sunni Islam in the Ottoman Empire. Nir Shafir, in his article, examines the heresiographies written from the 16th century onwards to portray the Safavids as heretics. The Ottoman-Safavid war was not only a military conflict, but also a religious and sectarian conflict. Both sides fought not only for land or political power, but also to defend their claims to religious truth and establish the “true faith”. Therefore, in his article, we see that this war created a multi-layered war culture shaped by both physical force and religious ideology.
The second section examines the spatial, social, and imperial dimensions of Sunni Islamization in the Ottoman Empire, focusing on social relations in tekkes, mosques, and neighborhoods. By the 16th century, the growing conflict between the Ottomans and the Shiite Safavids led to the Ottomans’ efforts to draw a clear line between themselves and the Shiite Safavids. In this regard, the Ottomans pursued a policy of strengthening Sunni orthodoxy against their ideological rival in the east; and the importance given to places of worship, the increase in the number of mosques and masjids, and the obligations to pray five times a day in congregation even in the villages and neighborhoods were part of this process. Related to this Sunnitization process, Çiğdem Kafescioğlu, in her article, examines how early Ottoman imarets, which were once structures suitable for Sufi rituals, were converted into mosques in order to reinforce Sunnism and exclude belief practices outside of Sunnism.
Grigor Boykov’s article examines the Ottoman Empire’s Sunnitization policies in the Balkans and how the state attempted to control the nonconformist heterodox dervishes there. Evren Sünnetçioğlu, in turn, explores the multi-layered structure of Sunni Islam in the Ottoman Empire through the normative value of praying five times a day. All in all, the papers in the second section of this book show that Sunnitization was shaped not only by pressure, but also through cooperation and negotiation.
The third section addresses the maintenance of sectarian diversity amid efforts to enforce Sunni orthodoxy, discussing the flexibility of sectarian consciousness within the context of Ottoman-Safevid relations, the internal diversity of the Kızılbaş community, and the reverence for the Prophet’s family. Ayşe Baltacıoğlu-Brammer discusses the Kızılbaş, whom the Ottoman central authority labeled as Safavid sympathizers and internal enemies, and examines their role in the dynamics of Ottoman-Safavid conflicts and their position as actors within the Ottoman realm. Selim Güngörürler, in his article, examines how diplomacy was reshaped when a period of peace began between Safavid Iran and the Ottoman Empire after 1639.
The strength of this volume lies in its multidimensional approach to the process of Sunnitization in the Ottoman Empire, which goes beyond a reductionist narrative. The interdisciplinary approach combining architectural history, Sufi networks, legal discourses, and diplomatic correspondence offers a rich and multi-layered understanding of how Sunni orthodoxy was negotiated, constructed, and debated. This volume also reveals how religious orthodoxy in the Ottoman Empire – particularly the project of Sunnitization – was shaped by war, conquest, and imperial consolidation. Through the transformation of religious spaces, negotiation with Sufi orders, and the regulation of sectarian boundaries (especially in the aftermath of Ottoman-Safevid conflicts), the volume sheds light on how war cultures influenced religious, spatial, and social orders across Ottoman domains. As such, it is a recommended resource for scholars of Ottoman history, Islamic studies, war cultures, theology, and anyone interested in the entangled relationship between religion, power, and society.