The Spiritual Vernacular of the Early Ottoman Frontier | Carlos Grenier

Ottoman History Podcast

E520 | How did one learn to be a good Muslim in the early 15th century? In newly conquered Ottoman lands where Christians and converts lived side by side, how would one go about learning the proper rites and beliefs to hold? This conversation with Carlos Grenier explores the lives and ideas of two brothers, Mehmed Yazıcıoğlu and Ahmed Bican, Sufis of the frontier city of Gelibolu who grappled with this very question. Their response was to craft a synthesis, an Ottoman Islam so to speak, in the form of Turkish texts that guided their communities on the proper way to be a Muslim. They reached an enormous readership and rank as some of the most popular books to ever be produced in Ottoman Turkish. And as Grenier explains, the Yazıcıoğlus articulated a new Ottoman spiritual vernacular forged in the balance between two worlds of the Balkan and Mediterranean frontiers and the Islamic intellectual sphere. More at https://www.ottomanhistorypodcast.com/2022/02/grenier.html Carlos Grenier is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Religious Studies at Florida International University. His recent book, The Spiritual Vernacular of the Early Ottoman Frontier, and published by Edinburgh University Press, analyzes the life and works of the Yazıcıoğlu brothers of fifteenth-century Gelibolu, authors of important works of popular Ottoman Islam. Dr. Grenier is interested in religion in the early Ottoman Empire and pre-Ottoman Anatolia, in Sufis within their political contexts, in vernacular Islamic literature within global Islam, and in late medieval and early modern philosophy of nature and of language. Maryam Patton is a PhD candidate at Harvard University in the joint History and Middle Eastern Studies program. Her research explores cultural, intellectual, and scientific exchanges across the early modern Mediterranean. Her dissertation studies the cultural history of time and temporal consciousness in 16th century Istanbul and Venice. She is also the host of "Desert Cruising with Captain Ahab," a weekly rock and metal show at WPRB Princeton. CREDITS Episode No. 520 Release Date: 4 February 2021 Recording Location: Miami, FL / Oxford, UK Sound production by Maryam Patton Music: Monplaisir - Estampe Galactus Barbare Epaul Giraffe Ennui Bibliography courtesy of Carlos Grenier available at https://www.ottomanhistorypodcast.com/2022/02/grenier.html