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Le soufisme à l'époque ottomane, XVIe-XVIIIe siècle/Sufism in the Ottoman Era, 16th-18th Century. Edited by RACHIDA CHIH and CATHERINE MAYEUR-JAOUEN. Cahier des Annales Islamologiques, vol. 29. Cairo: INSTITUT FRANÇAIS D'ARCHÉOLOGIE ORIENTALE, 2010. Pp viii + 442. euro40.
This volume originated in a colloquium on Egyptian Sufism in the Ottoman period held at the Institut français d'archéologie orientale in Cairo in 2007, itself a continuation of two earlier colloquia and volumes devoted to sainthood and hagiographie literature and to Egyptian Sufism during the Mamluk era respectively. Perhaps inspired by Sufis themselves, the approach is decidedly inclusive: only five of the seventeen chapters appearing here center on Sufism in Egypt, with others examining Sufis and Sufism in Istanbul, Damascus, the Maghreb, Arabia, Central Asia, and Indonesia. While the canvass has been broadened somewhat, there is a certain lack of clarity about focus. This is not simply an exploration of Egyptian Sufism or even of Ottoman Sufism, as the title might imply. In the introduction the editors suggest rather Sufism in the Ottoman period "as seen from Egypt," a somewhat ambiguous definition. Compounding the ambiguity is an introduction (however valuable in itself) that the editors have chosen to devote to surveying some dynamics of Sufism and Islamic culture in the Ottoman period (especially in Egypt, the Holy Cities of the Hijäz, and the Arab lands) and the historiography thereof. There is no explicit discussion here of the issues contributors set out to explore, the methodological imperatives guiding them, or their respective contributions to our understanding of Sufism in the Ottoman period.
The order of the volume is roughly chronological, with the first six chapters after the introduction focusing on aspects of the evolution of Sufi practice and doctrine from the medieval and especially Mamlûk period to the Ottoman era. Denis Gril begins with "De Ia khirqa à la îarïqa" a broad investigation of treatises on khirqa (Sufi investiture) from the thirteenth to eighteenth centuries and how they reflect on (1) successive changes in the notion and practice of initiatic investiture and (2) the transition from Sufi affiliation as a personal tie to a master, to more formalized Sufi "ways," to the hierarchical system of turuq of the eighteenth century. Richard McGregor' s "Is This the End of Medieval...