Centre for Ottoman Studies

‘The Politics of Religious “Heterodoxy”: Syncretism and Ecumenism under the Early Ottomans and their Post-Ottoman Appropriations’

Dr Yuri Stoyanov Chair: Dr Safet HadžiMuhamedović

3 March 2016 | 5–7 pm | London Middle East Institute | Al-Jaber Conference Room 21 Russell Square | London, WC1B 5EA, UK Registration required due to limited seating via this email address: sc83@soas.ac.uk

The emergence and evolution of “heterodox”, syncretistic and ecumenical trends in the fluctuating religious arena of the early Ottoman Empire (especially in Anatolia and the Balkans) still pose a series of complex historiographic and religio-historic problems. While these problems still do not allow a satisfying and detailed reconstruction of the provenance and chronology of these religious currents, the recent widening of the exploration of the source base for religious history of the early Ottoman era has contributed to a better understanding of some important aspects of its inter-confessional and religio-political dynamics. This progress in research has been particularly evident in the case of the origins and early fortunes of the Anatolian non-conformist and Shi‘ite-leaning and influenced ethno-religious groups which came to be described by the umbrella term Kızılbaş and the Bektashiyya which came to recognized and evolved as one of the Ottoman Sufi ṭariqat/orders.

Drawing on new advances in research on heterodox, mystical and millenarian trends in the late Byzantine/Balkan Orthodox and early Ottoman religious life and inter-religious contacts, the lecture will attempt to delineate the nature and possible pedigree of their syncretistic, utopian and trans-confessional features and agendas. It will also chart some of the principal patterns of appropriations of the history and belief systems of these religious trends in the post-Ottoman Balkans and Turkey, which reflect the concerns and preoccupations of the unfolding rival nation-building programmes and national historiographies, with their grand interpretative and often competing schemas regarding the interrelations between Christianity and Islam in the Ottoman era.

Yuri Stoyanov obtained his PhD in Combined Historical/Religious Studies from the University of London (The Warburg Institute). He is currently a Senior Fellow at the Albright Institute of Archaeological Research, Jerusalem. His past assignments include Oxford and Wingate fellowships, British Academy awards, etc.; he is on the editorial board of several international academic journals and institutions and was Director of the Kenyon Institute (formerly the British School of Archaeology) in Jerusalem. He has acted as a visiting lecturer and professor at several universities in Europe and Asia and has lectured and published widely on various facets of the interaction between mystical, heterodox and esoteric currents in Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Christianity and Islam and their survivals into the modern era.

His publications include English-language books such as The Hidden Tradition in Europe (Penguin, London, 1994), The Other God (Yale UP, London & New York, 2000), Defenders and Enemies of the True Cross (Austrian Academy of Sciences Press, Vienna, 2011); his edited books include Christian Dualist Heresies in the Byzantine World c.650-c.1450 (Manchester UP, Manchester & New York, 1998), translated into Turkish in 2011.

Since 2000 he has worked on a number of research projects (supported by British and Italian academic institutions and involving wide-ranging field work) focused on the status of religious sites and cultural/archaeological reserve areas as well as the survival of archaic teachings and practices, history and current situation of religious sectarian groups and minorities in the Eastern Mediterranean, the Middle East and Central Asia.