Dr Bruno de Nicola - A unique description of mendicant dervishes in Mongol Anatolia
Channel: Recovering 'Lost Voices'
Date: 2016-03-01

Dr. Bruno De Nicola - Research Fellow in Middle Eastern Studies, University of St. Andrews.

Voicing heresy: a description of mendicant dervishes in Mongol Anatolia
Abstract: In 1243, when the power of the Seljuqs of Rūm was at its peak, the Mongols irrupted in Anatolia and made the Sultan acknowledging Mongol overlord-ship. The region has been progressively islamised, turning the 12th century majority Christian population into a predominantly Muslim populated land in the 13th century. However, the progressive Islamisation of the region did not imply homogenisation of the religious landscape. Like in other parts of the Mongol Middle East, different interpretations of Islamic belief, law and practise coexisted and on occasions confronted with each other. In this context, Sufi masters and followers appeared in Anatolia and Iran under Mongol rule, leaving abundant literature in Persian language on the life of their leaders, teachings and practises of the devotees. Contrasting with the abundance of written material on this “traditional”, more “hegemonic” Sufis, are those generally referred as the “mendicant dervishes,” wonderers that came later on to be referred as the Qalandars, the Ḥaydaris and the Abdals of Rūm. They used to move around the Middle East barefoot, shaved and practically naked chanting against the opulence of the ‘ulama, criticising the established Sufi masters and advocating poverty. The voices of these subalterns were not generally recorded and there is scant literature produced by them in the 13th century.
  
The manuscript held at the Bibliothèque National de France (Supplemént Turc 1120) contains a work generally knowns as the Fusṭāṭ al-ʿadāla and attributed to a certain Muḥammad b. Muḥammad al-Khatīb. The uniqueness of this work is that a part of it describes the different “heresies” that were present in Anatolia around the time of the last Seljuq Sultan of Rūm, Ghiyath al-Dīn Ma’sūd (d. 1308). A section of this manuscript provides a description of the Qalandar dervishes, their origin and their practices. Being the work a “mirror for princes” dedicated to the local ruler of Kastamonu in north-western Anatolia, and therefore belonging to the court literature of the period, its portrayal of the mendicant dervishes can be understood as a representation of “the subaltern” by “the hegemonic” discourse. In this paper, I will discuss the Qalandars’ description made in the Fusṭāṭ al-ʿadāla vis-à-vis the agency of the author. Further, I will offer a follow up of the history of these dervishes as they continued to be present in post-Mongol Anatolia and during the Ottoman period.  

Presented at The Subalterns Project, The First Workshop – on the pre-Safavid period, held at the University of Edinburgh, 7-8 November 2015.

For more detailed information about the project & the various workshops, please head to: http://www.shii-news.imes.ed.ac.uk/the-subalterns-project/