Ajāʾib ve gharāʾib: Ottoman collections of mirabilia and perceptions of the supernatural
There is no word for the ‘supernatural’ in classical Ottoman, and one could argue that even the very notion is absent, as the notion of ‘nature’ is very near to that of ‘God’, and (as the latter is omnipotent) there is no extraordinary event that cannot be potentially true. The Ottomans would rather...
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
De Gruyter
2015
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| In: |
Der Islam
Year: 2015, Volume: 92, Issue: 2, Pages: 442-467 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (Verlag) |
| Summary: | There is no word for the ‘supernatural’ in classical Ottoman, and one could argue that even the very notion is absent, as the notion of ‘nature’ is very near to that of ‘God’, and (as the latter is omnipotent) there is no extraordinary event that cannot be potentially true. The Ottomans would rather speak of the ‘marvelous’ or the ‘extraordinary’, which as mental categories played a major role in the medieval imagination both in East and West. As defined by al-Qazwīnī (1203–1283), author of a very well-known collection of mirabilia, there are ‘ordinary marvels’ (ʿajāʾib) and ‘extraordinary’ ones (gharāʾib); the first category has mainly to do with strange places, monuments, flora or fauna, while the second includes both the miracles of Prophets and saints and the works of demons, as well as magic, divination and other man-driven occult phenomena. The transition from more ‘medieval’-style authors, such as Yazıcıoğlu Ahmed Bîcan (d. after 1466), Aşık Mehmed (d. after 1598) or Cinânî (d. 1595) to more ‘scientific’ scholars like Kâtip Çelebi brings about a widening of the sources used with the addition of Western European works, considered more authoritative, rather than an abolishment of the supernatural element per se. |
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| ISSN: | 1613-0928 |
| Contains: | In: Der Islam
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1515/islam-2015-0015 |