Dr Riza Yildirim - Futuwwa Ritual Gatherings as a Worship and Social Organizer
Channel: Recovering 'Lost Voices'
Date: 2016-03-01

Dr Riza Yildirim - Associate Professor of Ottoman and Safavid History, TOBB University of Economics and Technology, Department of History, Ankara/Turkey

Futuwwa Ritual Gatherings as a Worship and Social Organizer
Abstract: One of the major differences between rationalized Islamic orthodoxies, be it Sunni or Shi’ite, and subaltern religious traditions (mostly rested upon Ali-centred doctrines) manifests itself in the concept of worship. Backed with a well-developed juridical discourse, the orthodox view relies on the concept of the one transcendental God with a vigilant stress on absolute separation between the deity and the creatures. Salvation can only be attained through securing the amnesty of God. As a result, the concept of worship (ibādat) revolves around the idea of imploring to God to receive His grace and to spare from His wrath. The views in subaltern pro-Alid traditions, on the other hand, are mostly prone to subsume a continuity of deity from God towards every segment of creatures. As opposed to the orthodox view, deity is not confined to one transcendental being but disseminated through universe. Salvation means to understand and experience the essence of intrinsic bonds between nature and deity. Therefore, the very kernel of worship here has nothing to do with the idea of imploring; it is rather perceived as a mean of elevation and purification in consciousness. In this view, worship gears human conscience to further comprehend man’s existential relationship with the Deity, which also means to merge within the Deity. Therefore, worship does not aim securing God’s forgiveness but to fuel human consciousness to discover his own divine substance.

A basic character of worship in the second view is communality. Since it is perceived as a means of establishing bonds with the society (and even with some deities), the worship here is well-established ritual which can only be performed communally. This is exactly the case among futuwwa groups of the middle ages. Periodical gatherings of futuwwa people in futuwwa houses were realized as well-defined rituals. I argue that these ritual gatherings must be deemed as a particular type of worship. In that respect, especially the rites of initiation that marks the full membership of a novice to the community deserves close attention. This paper aims to analyze futuwwa ritual gatherings as a worship act. It also addresses the question of the correspondence between the ritual structure of these gatherings and the fabric of the futuwwa communality.

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/