Historicizing Sunni Islam in the Ottoman Empire, c. 1450-c. 1750

Articles collected in Historicizing Sunni Islam in the Ottoman Empire, c. 1450-c. 1750 engage with the idea that “Sunnism” itself has a history and trace how particular Islamic genres—ranging from prayer manuals, heresiographies, creeds, hadith and fatwa collections, legal and theological treatises, and historiography to mosques and Sufi convents—developed and were reinterpreted in the Ottoman Empire between c. 1450 and c. 1750. The volume epitomizes the growing scholarly interest in historicizing Islamic discourses and practices of the post-classical era, which has heretofore been styled as a period of decline, reflecting critically on the concepts of ‘tradition’, ‘orthodoxy’ and ‘orthopraxy’ as they were conceived and debated in the context of building and maintaining the longest-lasting Muslim-ruled empire.

Contributors: Helen Pfeifer; Nabil al-Tikriti; Derin Terzioglu; Tijana Krstic; Nir Shafir; Guy Burak; Çigdem Kafesçioglu; Grigor Boykov; H. Evren Sünnetçioglu; Ünver Rüstem; Ayse Baltacioglu-Brammer; Vefa Erginbas; Selim Gu¨ngöru¨rler.