Near Eastern languages and literature
Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://digital.lib.washington.edu/handle/1773/19661
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Item type: Item , Glimpsing the Divine Through the Mundane: Constructing an Ottoman Framework for the Sixteenth-Century Teshuvah and Fetvâ(2024-09-09) Suissa, Elyakim; Kuru, Selim S“Glimpsing the Divine Through the Mundane: Constructing an Ottoman Framework for the Sixteenth-Century Teshuvah and Fetvâ” situates sixteenth-century Hebrew-language responsa (Hebrew she’elot u’tshuvot, lit. “questions and answers”) and Ottoman Turkish fetâvâ (singular fetvâ) in a contextual environment of shared culture and overlapping societies in the Ottoman Empire. Although the genre of Jewish she’elot u’tshuvot has its own origins in the centuries prior to the establishment of the Ottoman Empire, it did not exist in a vacuum in the Ottoman world, irretrievably tied to its past iterations. The sphere of religious law in the Ottoman Empire enveloped a plethora of religions. “Glimpsing the Divine” examines the she’elot u’tshuvot of Rabbi Yosef ibn Lev (d. 1580), an authoritative figure who maintained contact with Jewish communities beyond his home communities of Salonika and Istanbul, in tandem with fetâvâ authored by one of the most renowned chief Islamic jurists of the sixteenth century, Ebûʾs-suʿûd (d. 1574). Consequently, I examine she’elot u’tshuvot and fetâvâ as similar genres of literature that reflect an Ottoman worldview, including conceptions of the performative humility; elevated language that mirrors a conception of the Divine; and the transcending of malleable spatial and hierarchical boundaries. Through close textual analyses of these two authors’ work, I argue for the formulation of a new academic subfield that analyzes Ottoman religious studies in a context beyond Islamic studies, contextualizing the evolution of multiple, distinct traditions developing together and exchanging ideas in a quintessentially early modern environment. In doing so, I advocate for the reconsidering of established narratives concerning the production of intellectual and religious texts in the early modern Ottoman period and within Jewish history.Item type: Item , The World Turned Upside Down: a Comparative Study of the "Topsy-Turvy Motif" in Egyptian and Northwest Semitic Texts(2023-08-14) Martin, Forrest; Noegel, Scott B.For decades, scholars of the Hebrew Bible and Egyptian texts have identified occurrences of a textual motif using various terms: “topsy-turvy,” mundus inversus, “world upside down,” “social woe,” “national distress,” pessimistic texts, and so on. This study offers the first fully comparative analysis of the motif. It is also the most comprehensive and interdisciplinary to date. In it, I collect and analyze a number of texts from ancient Egypt and the Levant, define the topsy-turvy motif, identify its characteristics, and elucidate its function in the texts in which ancient scribes deployed it.Item type: Item , Translation as Rewriting: Yazıcızāde ‘Āli’s Political Use of Poetry in Tevārīḫ-i Āl-i Selçuk(2022-07-14) Jeon, Minsoo; Kuru, Selim“Translation as Rewriting” examines Tevārīḫ-i Āl-i Selçuk (hereafter TĀS), a history of the Anatolian Seljuks that Yazıcızāde ʿAlī composed in 1424 or 1436/7 by translating Persian chronicles into Turkic. Drawing on a textual analysis of its poetry section, this thesis argues that TĀS was an ideological challenge to the Persian history-writing tradition that had associated Turkic rulers with legendary kings of Iran. Although having been long neglected, poetry in Ottoman historiography is a useful lens through which to understand the author’s political values; Ottoman litterateurs expressed their emotions and opinions more concisely and transparently in verse than in prose. Poetry in TĀS reveals that ʿAlī adopted the narrative technique of the Ilkhanate historian Rashīd al-Dīn but in an innovative way. Like Rashīd al-Dīn’s Jāmiʿ al-Tavārīkh (hereafter Jāmiʿ), TĀS emphasizes the Turkic origin of the Sultans in Anatolia and describes them as devout Muslims who fight for justice (ʿadl). But unlike Jāmiʿ, ʿAlī invented the concept of Kayı lineage to differentiate the Ottomans. Kayı lineage is a rhetorical device for legitimizing specifically the Ottoman rulers, serving as a substitute for farr (“glory”) in Persian mythology. ʿAlī asserts that thanks to this virtue the Ottoman dynasty will not fall into the inevitable demise (ecel) but enjoy eternity (ebed).Item type: Item , Pushing Boundaries: Smuggling Against Policy in Israel/Palestine(2020-08-14) Windhauser, Bret; Kuru, SelimThis paper investigates the development and current practices of smuggling networks operating between Israel and Palestine. Specifically, this study looks at the smuggling of food items and SIM cards which smugglers transport bi-directionally over the border. By defining the system of Israeli checkpoints throughout the West Bank and around the Gaza Strip as the “border” between Israel and Palestine, this research discusses the reasons for and responses to smuggling operations. The many small-scale unorganized smugglers in the region violate the porous border between Israel and Palestine in order to make additional income and supply certain markets. The Israeli and Palestinian governments restrict the trade of certain goods, creating a demand that only smugglers can meet. In smuggling goods such as food items and SIM cards, smugglers delegitimize the Israeli security apparatus and question the Palestinian political parties’ ability to control their territories. This work seeks to complicate the current narrative of the Israel/Palestine conflict by highlighting illegal economic interactions.Item type: Item , Holding Multiple Nationalisms: Perspectives of an Albanian Ottoman(2017-08-11) Facer, Christopher; Kuru, SelimThis project considered the works and life of Shemseddin Sami, an ethnic Albanian Ottoman who advocates for Turkish and Albanian nationalist movements. By looking at the status of ethnic and imperial identity, the role of language of the Ottoman Empire, and the local, regional and global realities of Sami, this project aimed to better understand how an individual could hold seemingly contradictory ideals. This paper aims to understand the positions of Sami, as he understood them, and then provide the rationale for such opinions. This paper used secondary literature to identify flaws in past approaches to nationalist movements, as well trying to show more nuanced approaches in recent academic work. By using primary sources, this paper offers an in-depth approach to the topics at hand by not being stuck in a functionalist paradigm. This study found that the environment of the Ottoman Empire, the transmission of ideas, and language played massively important roles in the mind of Sami and others like him in the period.Item type: Item , Edible Landscape: Agricultural and Social Gardens in Topkapı Sarayı, 1453-1800(2017-08-11) White, Marita Rachelle; Kuru, Selim SThis paper uses Topkapı Sarayı as a case study to assess how the Ottoman elite transformed built-spaces and green spaces into social and culinary spheres. Topkapı Sarayı was divided into four courtyards, with each courtyard fulfilling a specific function. By examining the layout of Topkapı Sarayı, this paper identifies specific gardens and determines their function based on their proximity to other structures. The gardens of the First Courtyard were the most accessible to the public and were therefore used for receiving officials and as a venue for ceremonies that involved feasting and displaying exotic animals. The Second Courtyard, which contained the Imperial Kitchens, was used for growing edible produce. The Third Courtyard housed the sultan’s private chambers as well as gardens for socializing and eating daily meals. The Fourth Courtyard, which extended all the way to the shore, was filled with kiosks used for entertainment, socialization, celebration, and feasting. By utilizing travel accounts, Ottoman book paintings, maps, and an analysis of the existing structures, this paper seeks to define Ottoman gardens as social, culinary spaces.Item type: Item , Mohammad Mosaddeq and the Referendum: Iran and the Exception in the Cold War(2015-09-29) Widlake, Sean; Alavi, SamadThis work looks at a particular moment in the premiership of Mohammad Mosaddeq (1951-53), when he proposes a referendum to disband the 17th Majlis in order to hold re-elections. This paper will show that Mosaddeq’s premiership represents a confluence of colonial and non-liberal European thought, in a post-“colonial”, pre-Revolutionary Iran. In addition, this paper will, through a comparative analysis of Early Republican Turkey vis-à-vis Iran, show how Mosaddeq’s rule of law was not only not a unique phenomenon but heavily proliferated through much of Europe and the Middle East. Indeed much of Iran and Turkey’s law making and constitutional processes were heavily influenced by European political thought. Finally this paper will through an historical analysis of Reza Shah and Mustafa Kemal, show that Mosaddeq's rise to premiership and ultimately his decision to use emergency powers and the exception, is not a singular moment within the region’s history, but rather reflects a longer trend within the politics of Iran and other nations starting from the early 20th century.Item type: Item , Architecture and Nation-building in Mid-20th Century Urban Turkey and Iraq(2014-10-13) Harrington, Lydia; Kuru, Selim SThis thesis examines similarities and differences in architecture and city planning in Ankara, Turkey and Baghdad, Iraq, focusing on foreign architects' plans in each city during key moments in the development of each countries' nationalisms (the 1930s in Turkey and the 1950s in Iraq). The plans it focuses on are Hermann Jansen's plan for Ankara and Constantinos Doxiadis' plan for Baghdad.Item type: Item , The 1991 International Contemporary Turkic Alphabets Symposium and its Contributions to the Turkic Alphabet Reform(2014-10-13) Altug, Bedii Duru; Laude-Cirtautas, IlseThis thesis examines the symposium on script selection that was realized with the participation of the six independent Turkic nations; Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkey, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. Throughout history, the scripts that were employed to record Turkic Languages varied. However, some of the most important reform choices with wide ranging impact were made during the last century. The most popular among these is the Turkish Alphabet Reform of Turkey in 1928. Less widely known are the alphabet reform debates in Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. This paper examines the discussions surrounding the Turkic alphabets reform, and the struggle to create a common Turkic alphabet with the aim of representing a unified Turkic identity.Item type: Item , Metamorphosis of the Performing Arts: Understandings of sexuality and nationalism in the 19th C. Ottoman Empire(2013-07-25) Klempner, Peter; Kuru, Selim SThis work looks at the changing concepts of nationalism and sexuality in the 19th century Ottoman Empire and its effects on the performing arts.Item type: Item , Complicating Youth in Contemporary Turkey: Cultural Activism and a New Muslim Youth Identity(2013-07-25) Burton, Josef Meeker; Kuru, SelimThe topic of youth and being young in modern Turkey are frequently expressed in narratives that are either fragmented or totalizing, and frequently reductionist. In a time of resurgent youth politics globally, and in the Middle East-North Africa region and Turkey especially, the ways youth and being young has been talked about, and the youth groups which are forming and beginning to act today, deserve to be complicated. In this paper I engage in both a discussion of the ways youth has and has not talked about, and provide a case study, that of the young people of the Mavera Youth Movement, who defy and complicate traditional narratives about what being young and politically active in Turkey means.Item type: Item , The Quran as a Literary Masterpiece within its Historical and Religious Milieus(2013-07-23) Iqbal, Muhammad Omer; DeYoung, Terri LThis thesis is an attempt to study the Quran as a literary work using two of the recently proposed approaches: thematic coherence of the Quran, and Semitic rhetoric. To effectively conduct this study, surah structure and literary devices are investigated, and a deep study is conducted using these approaches on Surat Yunus resulting in an exposition of ring compositions in the surah. Additionally, to gain the societal context of its contents, an attempt to date the authorship of the Quran is made, and it is concluded that it was most likely authored in the first half of the seventh century and certainly before 675 CE. Additionally, the religious culture of the near east in Arabian Peninsula at that time is explored from historical sources.