Ottomans and the Supernatural: Nature and the Limits of Knowledge in the Early Modern Ottoman Empire

Man is part of nature, we say, and perhaps for most of us nature includes all that exists (at least in a tangible way—i.e. if we want to exclude our own thought, ideas, or emotions). Yet for some of us there is also another world, unbound from the yoke of natural laws, a world of spiritual existence governed by divinity: the supernatural world. In this view, the supernatural world interferes with the natural. Either everything that happens is ordered by the divine entity or spiritual activity is the cause of extraordinary and inexplicable natural phenomena. This book aims to investigate these belief systems in the case of the Ottoman Empire of the pre-modern period: that is, before the westernization process that started in the nineteenth century. It seeks to explore the changing borders between natural and supernatural and the shifts from knowledgeable to unknowledgeable, seeking to connect such changes and shifts to cultural developments and various social actors. The book examines topics such as the ideas about the universe and its function, the role of angels and jinn, sainthood and miracles, dreams and revenants, magic and other occult sciences, and so forth. The ultimate goal is to explore the place of the Ottoman world in early modernity, with a special focus on the disenchantment of the world and the Enlightenment.