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KOWANDA-YASSIN, U. — Mensch und Naturverständnis im sunnitische Islam; ein Beitrag zum aktuellen Umwelt- diskurs. (Bibliotheca Academica, Reihe Orientalistik, Band 17). Ergon-Verlag, Würzburg, 2011. (24 cm, 208). ISBN 978-3-89913-815-3. ISSN 1866-5071. / 28,- In discussions about environmental issues, religion plays an important role. The monotheistic religions, notably Chris- tianity and Islam, which place man at the top of earthly cre- ation and allow him to use nature for his own benefits as he sees fit, is often put against religions such as Buddhism and Shintoism which have a very different view of creation and man’s position in nature as a whole. During the last fifty years or so it has become abundantly clear where the idea that man has the unlimited right to use and exhaust the natural world leads to. Natural resources are shamelessly plundered by those who are the best equipped and the most unscrupulous, and who strive for material gain at the cost of all other creatures, including those human beings lacking the means to counter the destruction of their natural environment and resources. Many of the people who seriously worry about these mat- ters are devout Christians and , and they take the negative views on the role of their religions very hard. So in Christian, and somewhat later also in Muslim circles there has for long been a strong tendency to look for counter argu- ments demonstrating that instead of allowing man free and

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unlimited use of nature, Islam and Christianity encourage, or is no attempt at a comprehensive treatment of the issue. even prescribe, a scrupulous and caring attitude towards Some relevant literature mentioned in the bibliography does other creatures: man not as the lord of creation but as God’s not turn up in the text, possibly because it did not fit into the caretaker of creation. framework of modern (the most striking being The author of the book under review is one of those, and Alma Giese’s translation of the Case of the Animals from the in her book she attempts to bring together arguments from Rasaˆil Ikhwan aÒ-∑afaˆ, a text that I would have expected to both Christian and Muslim sources in order to demonstrate be close to the author’s heart – not orthodox enough maybe? that instead of being a handicap in fighting environmental Or have I overlooked it?). destruction, these religions can be a strong support. It is a While I can see perfectly well why the author wanted to laudable effort, and one tends to support warmly anything write a book like this, I also makes me feel a bit sad that that may provide support to religious people wrestling with within the limitations of her strict Sunni approach there is no these issues or may help to effectuate a change of attitude. room for the rich and varied views within Islam and Islamic The author is a converted Muslim herself and writes from culture that might have offered fresh ways of approach. The that perspective. She does not explicitly say so, but my Mu¨tazilites, with ¨Abd al-Jabbar’s views on compensation impression is that she converted from Christianity, and so in the hereafter, even for animals that had suffered unjustly, has had to deal with the problem in both religions. Since the in spite of the fact that they do not possess an immortal soul; Christian anthropocentric view has been under attack for with its Neoplatonic approach, seeing quite a while and discussions about countering its detrimen- creation as an organic whole, and influential far beyond the tal effects have gone on for some time, she decided to ana- time of its supposed decline; mysticism and asceticism, lyze, or rather summarize, views which were developed and advocating attitudes directly opposed to consumerism. Seyed put them to use in similar discussions about Islam. A variety Hossein Nasr (no, not a Sunni) and Sardar, both briefly men- of Christian authors are thus briefly cited, often on the basis tioned, have developed new ideas starting from those con- of secondary literature: Darwin, Teilhard de Chardin, cepts, and they are not the only ones. Augustinus, Hildegard of Bingen, Franciscus of Assisi, etc. But there is no reason why the author should not continue David Kinsley, and Religion; ecological spirituality her work on this topic and include a wider variety of ideas. in cross-cultural perspective (1995) is the source quoted on The issue is important enough, and there is ample demand their views, which are thus sometimes represented tenden- for guidance. tiously: I do not think Darwin’s views are adequately char- acterized by saying that he advocated the view that nature is Leiden, March 2012 Remke KRUK violent and that only the most aggressive and best developed forms of life survive. German literature plays an important * part in the book; Albert Schweitzer’s views are discussed in * * some extension. Various ecological movements also get attention: ecofeminism, ecoactivism, Deep Ecology. There CHIH, R., et C. MAYEUR-JAOUEN (eds.) — Le soufisme has been no attempt to expand the discussion to the wider à l’époque ottomane, XVIe-XVIIIe siècle / Soufism in issue of consumerism, although this would have been rele- the Ottoman Era, 16th-18th century. (Cahier des Annales vant for alike, and indeed also for the islamologiques, 29). Institut Français d’Archéologie wider global perspective. Orientale du Caire, Cairo 2010. (27,5 cm, VIII, 442), As the title indicates, the book deals with man and views ISBN 978-2-7247-0548-5. ISSN 0254-282X. / 40,-. of nature in Sunnite Islam. Both the concept of nature and and its paraphernalia belonged to the most striking that of Islam, even of Sunnite Islam, might have been defined aspects of Ottoman culture. The phenomenon became in fact more clearly, especially in historical perspective. As it is, all-pervading, dominating as it did literature, in particular “Islam” here is basically the Islam of modern, largely Wah- poetry, philosophical/theological writings, architecture, the habi fuelled ¨ . Koran and Ì are the main sources, da wa adith mind-set of most Ottoman Muslims – even of some non- occasionally also . The author states that only Ì adith Muslims – of all classes, and, what nowadays is called ‘life- that is considered Ò Ì Ì is used. It is thus a book written by a i style’, from rituals to dance, to music and clothing. Owing a believer for believers, and modern scholarly discussions, to the secularist reforms of Atatürk, it completely disap- for instance about the status of Ì , have no place in it. adith peared from public life and, therefore, public view in that Islamic authors cited, such as Mawdudi, are also of sound part of the Empire that had become the Republic of Turkey orthodox stamp. in the 1920s, as well as in most of the, by then, successor Arguments about Islam’s positive attitude towards nature, states of the Ottoman Empire in the Balkans, and, as far as environmental protection and the prevention of cruelty to it persisted there, went underground – to hesitantly re-emerge animals come from the sources usually mentioned in this in Turkey in recent times. context: next to Koran and Ì there are the books on adith The book here under review is a valuable contribution to Ì , controlling whether people behave according to isba the history of Ottoman Sufism in what was the richest prov- Islamic law, for instance on the market; books on Islamic ince of the Empire, Egypt, during the sixteenth through law, especially regarding and rules on pro- eighteenth centuries, the era between the conquest of the tecting certain areas, for instance because they are important country by Sultan Selim I in 1517 and its invasion by Napo- because of watering and grazing, issues that have been leon in 1798. The sixteenth century has been widely brought up by Mawil Izzi Dien and Foltz. Both authors are regarded as the ‘Golden Age’ of the Ottoman Empire, and cited. A separate chapter is devoted to , with the following, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, as a a section on the as a special topic, and a section on veg- period of decline. But this picture has been criticized by etarianism. All this has been treated fairly summarily; there

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‘revisionist’ historians. Even if the territory of the Empire during this period, this did not mean that the spiritual began to shrink after the debacle of Vienna in 1683 and aspect of Sufism went stale or that Sufism became part military defeats and economic problems shook the country, of a watered-down and superstitious religion adhered Ottoman culture, both material and immaterial, did not, as to by the masses, as it is often claimed in the older far as I can see, show signs of decay. As regards Egypt: literature. On the other hand, it may be wrong to sup- scholars traditionally regarded the whole period as one of pose that the period witnessed the rise of ‘Neo-Sufism’ decline and not really worth studying. They partly based or even the occurrence of an Islamic Enlightenment (as themselves thereby on the writings of early modern Otto- represented by the work of the Damascene scholar and man, including Egyptian, intellectuals who were already Sufi, Abd al-Ghani an-Nabulusi, d. 1731) as some worried about the wretched state of the country. This neglect scholars have suggested (a contribution by Samuela is by now a thing of the past. As our book shows, a negative Pagani on the scholar concentrates on the latter’s approach is certainly not justified as far as Sufism is con- defence of Sufism vis-à-vis formalistic Islam). cerned. The Ottoman occupation and the creation of the (3) Egypt shared the general Ottoman trend of a marked ‘Pax Ottomana’ in large parts of North Africa, and increase in literacy and book (manuscript) production the Near East created opportunities for change and enrich- – aspects were cheaper paper imported from Europe, the ment that were not left unheeded. proliferation of a ‘commentary culture’, the increased As is explained in the foreword, the book consists of the production of popular, sometimes illustrated religious proceedings of a conference held in Cairo in 2007, part of tracts such as al-Jazuli’s Dala’il al-Khayrat, a series devoted to Sufism and hagiography in Islamic Sufi manuals, hagiographies of Sufi saints and the pub- Egypt. The often lengthy and detailed contributions to the lication of popular narrative like the Arabian Nights’ book, seventeen in number, are mostly in French, but there Stories that earlier had been part of oral culture. This are also a few in English, by scholars from various coun- went together with a seemingly greater role for the indi- tries. (It is a pity in this respect that the book lacks short vidual who enjoyed participation in banquets (salons) biographies of the contributors, so that the more general and literary and scholarly discourse or sociable gather- reader is left in the dark about their identity, affiliations and ings in libraries, coffee houses and baths, as they are research.) We find a wide range of subjects, from Sufi net- described in the flourishing literature in both Ara- works to the interaction between Sufism and orthodox bic and Turkish of the period. Islam, the life of mystics and their biographies/hagiogra- (4) Much, on the other hand, remained more or less as it phies, the practice of the path, relations between Egyptian had been under the Mamluks. The al-Azhar and foreign (Moroccan, Yamani, South and South Eastern remained one of the most prestigious centres of Islamic Asian) Sufism, and Sufi literature and the world of Sufi learning not only of Egypt, but also of the Islamic world thought. There is even a small edition (by Paul Ballanfat) at large – it attracted students from other part of the of the poems of the Qadari Sufi, scholar, poet and, Empire (among whom the aforementioned Niyazi-i remarkably, author of a diary (in Turkish),1) Niyazi-i Misri Misri) and beyond – and pre-Ottoman centres of devo- (d. 1694), who was born in a village near Malatya and spent tion such as the tomb of Sayyid al-Badawi at Tanta three years, 1640-3, in Egypt. The individual articles are continued to attract large crowds of pilgrims. The preceded by a thorough, 55-page-long introduction by the stricter separation between ilmiye and Sufism as it editors Rachida Chih and Catherine Mayeur-Jaouen which existed in the heartland of the Empire hardly took root presents a detailed survey of the various aspects of scholar- in Egypt, nor was the bureaucratized career path of ship on Egyptian Sufism and discusses the major trends in ulama with its focus on Istanbul and its fixed scale of recent scholarly research. salaries introduced to Egypt. Typical Ottoman They point out a number of important developments, char- such as the Mevleviye and Bekta≥iye did not gain many acteristic of Egypt in our period. adherents in Egypt and largely remained an urban, (1) The unification of the western Islamic world under the Cairene phenomenon. Despite the presence of Ottoman Ottoman dynasty implied easier and safer travel within (Turkish) soldiers, bureaucrats and scholars, Egypt was the borders of the Empire. Sufis, among them foreign largely spared the upheavals of puritan, extremist and Sufis, seized this opportunity. (Perhaps the best known anti-Sufi trends such as the so-called kadizadeli move- traveller of this period was Evliya Çelebi of Istanbul (d. ment that became popular in seventeenth-century Ana- c. 1685), who, by the way, was not a professional Sufi. tolia and led to attacks on tekkes, the condemning of He visited most parts of the Empire and also travelled to certain Sufi practices such as the mystic cultivation of Egypt, paying his respects to the saints’ tombs of young boys, the prohibition of the consumption of cof- Damascus and Cairo and following the Nile as far south fee and the use of tobacco (as it, much later, was to as the Sudan. He described his experiences in the tenth re-emerge in the garb of the no less puritan and icono- volume of his Seyahat-name, ‘Book of Travel’). clast Wahhabism in Arabia). A general ban of 1666 on (2) Although institutionalized Sufism of the Ottoman type ecstatic dancing (’) in the Empire had no effect with its proliferation of pious foundations, including whatsoever in Egypt. lodges (zaviyes and tekkes), and a growing Quite a few contributions in the book are devoted to spe- formalization/codification of the career (path to spirit- cific texts written during the period under discussion and ual perfection) of individual Sufis, was on the increase their interpretation. These show how diversified the world of early modern Sufism actually was. Texts written by Sufis were of many genres, and if they dealt with Sufism proper, 1) Edited by Halil Çeçen under the title Niyazî-i Mısrî’nin Hatıraları, showed a great variety of approach and commitment. Ralf Istanbul 2006 (the edition is not mentioned by Ballanfat). Elger points out that there were also different types of Sufis:

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those who take Sufism seriously, study and interpret texts same was true for Christians who followed the Jewish and put mysticism central in their life, and those who take it prophet Isa. lightly, toying with it, referring to it in their writings or ‘dis- A contemporary of Abdi Efendi, the universal scholar playing some sort of Sufi behaviour’ (p. 369). In his contri- Hajji Khalifa (d. 1657), better known among Turks as Kâtib bution to the book, Elger discusses a travelogue (rihla) writ- Çelebi, by contrast, found such arguments, partly based on ten by Muhammad b. Abdullah al-Husayni Kibrit (d. 1660), rather far-fetched interpretations of Koran verses and a litterateur of, clearly, the second category, who showed obscure Traditions, implausible, even smacking of shiism some interest in Sufism (which most udaba did not), which, with its belief in the Prophetic Light and veneration for the he felt, justified his penchant for world-wariness and scepti- ahl al-bayt. In his al-Haqq, a compilation of trea- cism, also vis-à-vis established religion. Kibrit undertook a tises, he defended the ‘vertical’ approach of the rather journey from , his hometown, to Istanbul in 1629-31 than a horizontal one, and refuted the idea that Muham- with the aim of finding patronage and a good job in the Otto- mad’s ancestors were already Muslims. Why should they? man capital. The mission was unsuccessful, and therefore it Why not adhere to the belief that Muhammad himself was is the more remarkable, Elger notes, that the author devoted an infidel who at a certain point was chosen by God to a book to it. But we should take into account that the work become the recipient of His Word? Tradition clearly tells was not a realistic description of a journey, as his contempo- us that Muhammad’s father was an infidel. Esoteric specu- rary Evliya Celebi’s Book of Travels to a large extent was. lation about religious issues was a bad thing anyway. Belief As Elger demonstrates, the book consists mostly of a mixture was a private matter and should not be the subject of schol- of anecdotes, history and digressions on various topics, and arly debates which could easily lead ignorant believers this was rather common in the genre. The Sufi-aspect comes astray. Kâtib Çelebi in his sober approach belonged to a in where Kibrit ponders about the failure of his journey and (third) category (in the Elgeran sense of the word) of those philosophizes about the illusoriness of life and the world in who were not Sufis and even were suspicious of Sufism general, and the irrelevance of any success or failure. Man, associated with Shiism, and therefore the Safavids with anyway, is powerless against the forces of fate (God). But if whom the Ottoman were often at war during this period. that is the case, Elger wonders, why bother to write such a Kâtib Çelebi had personal experience of these wars, we may book that should survive the author? Or any book for that add, when, during the 1620s, he had joined the Ottoman manner? troops repeatedly to the eastern front, as he explains in a A completely different mentality is found in the work of biographical aside in his Mizan. But this has led us far away the Bayramiye Sufi, Abdullah b. Mehmed al-Bosnavi (Abdi from our topic: Sufism, and our country: Egypt, so it is Efendi, d. 1644)2) – he clearly belonged to the first, serious time to stop. category of Sufis mentioned by Elger. Abdi’s ideas, or rather metaphysical speculations, regarding the nature of Leiden University, Jan SCHMIDT Muhammad’s prophethood, are discussed in a contribution May 1, 2012 by Josef Dreher on the question whether the parents of the Prophet were heathen or already true believers. Abdi Efendi thought they were the latter. His ideas were elaborated in two rare treatises, Risalat an-Nun, and Matali’ an-Nur as- Sani (manuscripts of which are kept in, respectively, the Austrian Nationalbibliothek in Vienna and the Aya Sofya Library in Istanbul). Inspired by the work of Ibn Arabi, Abdi Efendi maintains that the descent (tanzil) of the Koran was part of a process of continuous inspiration which ema- nated from the hidden First Intelligence (al-aql al-awwal) or Primordial Truth, represented by the divine Pen and Ink- pot (indicated, probably, by the nun in the title of the first- mentioned treatise) down to the visible and banal reality of the earth. Only perfect men and prophets, such as Adam and , and later Muhammad, were able to appreciate the inspiration and knew instinctively that they should not indulge in idolatry. This meant that they, in possession of what essentially was the Muhammedan Truth, were already Muslims avant la lettre. These early Muslims also were able to ‘horizontally’ inspire contemporaries and their off- spring with their belief and therefore contributed to a devel- opment which culminated in the appearance of the final prophet Muhammad. were excluded from this inherit- ance of the Prophetic Light because they were the off-spring of Ishaq, not of the blessed and enlightened Ismail. The

2) Not to be confused with his near contemporary, the better known Sarı Abdullah Efendi (Abdullah b. Mehmed al-Bayrami, who also adopted the penname of Abdi) who died in 1661.

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