most later Mālikīs, like M. b. A. al-Dasūqī, A. b. M. al-Ṣāwī, M. al-Amīr and M. ‘A. Ibn Ḥusayn, the author of Tahdhīb al-furūq, followed him; among the Shāfi‘īs, al-Ḥafnī, al-Ḥalabī, A. b. ‘A. R. al-Rashīdī, al-Shabramallāsī, M. b. ‘A. D. al-Bābilī, ‘A. Q. al-Ṭabarī; among the Ḥanbalīs, M. b. Y. al-Karmī. Al-Shawkānī, a reformer of the Zaydī school, also holds the same view. (See Ḥāshiyat Ibn ‘Ābidīn, vol. v, pp. 295–296; Tahdhīb, vol. i, pp. 217–219; Fatḥ, vol. i, pp. 189–190; Ḥāshiyat al-jumal, vol. i, p. 170; Ḥāshiyat al-Shirwānī, vol. viii, p. 309; Maṭālib, vol. vi, p. 217; al-Fawākih, vol. ii, pp. 80–81; al-Shawkānī, Irshād, pp. 50-51; al-Fatāwā l-mahdiyya, vol. v, p. 298; al-Ḥamawī’s Commentary on al-Ashbāh wa l-naẓā’ir, vol. i, p. 98; Ḥāshiyat al-Dasūqī, vol. i, p. 50).
1 This view is held, among the Ḥanafīs, by Ibn ‘Ābidīn, Abū l-Su‘ūd and Mawlānā ‘A. Ḥ. al-Laknawī; among the Mālikīs, by Y. al-Ṣifatī; among the Shāfi‘īs, by ‘A. Ḥ. al-Shirwānī; among the Ḥanbalīs, by M. b. S. al-Ruḥaybānī, A. b. M. al-Manṣūr al-Tamīmī. (See Ḥāshiyat Ibn ‘Ābidīn, vol. v, p. 296; Tahdhīb, vol. i, p. 219; Ḥāshiyat al-Shirwānī, vol. iv, p. 237; Maṭālib, vol. vi, pp. 217–219; al-Fawākih, vol. ii, p. 80).
CONTRARY to what is now claimed by dishonest or ignorant politicians opposed to its joining the EU, Turkey has for centuries been a major player on the European scene, culturally as much as politically. The Ottomans notably had a pivotal role in initiating “the West” not only to the delight of coffee drinking and the splendour of tulips, but also to the sensuous delirium of opium. For his reward, “the Turk” got literally “smoked”… According to the Egyptian Ibrāhīm al-Laqānī (d. 1041/1631), when the English, around 1600, by dissecting the corpse of a smoker, discovered that his heart had become “like a dry sponge, with big and small holes in it”, they banned the tobacco imported from their colonies in the New World and “exported it to the countries of Islam”. In the most amazing U-turn away from the teachings of a Prophet famous for his love of perfumes, the same Ottoman society which had elevated the creation and use of fragrances into one of the Beaux-arts, then succumbed, in just a few years, to the foul-smelling charm of the American poison. It would take centuries before lawmakers, in Turkey as well as in the EU or the US, impose warnings like “Tütün öldürüyor” or “Smoking kills” on cigarettes and other tobacco products. Various ulema realized the dangers of the new substance and addiction to it as soon as it spread amongst Muslims, but they were largely preaching in the wilderness, their forebodings and advice unheeded. This book presents the arguments of one of them and is dedicated to the noble memory of all his peers.
I now live and continue my academic pursuits in Hartford, the capital of Connecticut, a state famous for the high quality of the “wrapper” tobacco leaves it has been producing on an industrial scale for the last two centuries. My wife and I have just planted a Nicotiana in our front garden and, if it takes, will lovingly follow its growth over the next few months when, also, we will be able to enjoy the pleasure of walking between the flowering tobacco fields of the region. As for other direct experiences with the subject of this book, I am afraid there will be none since I do not smoke and my only – limited – expertise is of a philological nature. That being said, let it be known that I had great pleasure in exploring the world of Ottoman tobacco prohibitionists and it is this intellectual delectation which I hope to have been able to share with the reader.
I am grateful to the Director of the Süleymaniye Library for allowing me to examine Aḥmad al-Rūmī l-Aqḥisārī’s manuscripts during my stay in Istanbul in May 2008 and providing me with various sets of photographs on CD-ROM. My hearty thanks are due to the learned signatory of the Foreword and dearest brother, Shaykh Mohammad Akram Nadwi. My gratitude also goes to Marion Nielsen, curator and caretaker at the Luddy/Taylor Connecticut Valley Tobacco Museum, who graciously welcomed me and taught me all I needed to know about tobacco farming. I am most indebted to Omama Diab, Mustapha Sheikh and Jamil Qureshi, with whom I discussed this book, who read drafts of it and suggested several improvements. It was a privilege to speak of my research on al-Aqḥisārī, Ottoman puritanism, tobacco, “and other pleasures” with the students at Hartford Seminary in March 2009 and I benefited greatly from their questions and comments.
Yahya M. Michot
Jumādā I 1430 – May 2009
A FORGOTTEN PURITAN FROM ANATOLIA
BORN in Cyprus to a Christian family, Aḥmad al-Rūmī al-Aqḥiṣārī was taken away as a child after the Ottoman conquest of the island (977/1570–981/1573) and converted to Islam. He became a Ḥanafite ‘ālim and lived in Akhisar (western Anatolia), where he is said to be buried in the Uzun Taş cemetery. He seems to have spent only a short time in Istanbul. The date of his death is not known with certainty and he is misidentified by some authors as Ḥasan Kāfī Āqḥiṣārī (d. 1024/1615), the Bosniac scholar from Prusac. Al-Aqḥiṣārī’s most famous work is The Councils of the Pious – Majālis al-abrār, a collection of one hundred religious reflections inspired by Prophetic traditions from The Lamps of the Tradition – Maṣābīḥ al-Sunna by the Afghānī Shāfi‘ite traditionist and Qur’ān commentator Abū Muḥammad al-Ḥusayn al-Baghawī, also known as Ibn al-Farrā’ (d. in Marw al-Rūdh, 516/1122?).1
Al-Aqḥiṣārī is sometimes said to have been a shaykh of the Sufi Khalwatiyya order, which was vehemently opposed by Qāḍīzādelis and criticised by Kātib Çelebi in The Balance of Truth – Mīzān al-Ḥaqq. Could this be due to another misidentification with some third Ḥasan, Rūmī or Āqḥiṣārī, about whom little is known and who really did belong to this important ṭarīqa? Perhaps. In any case, the milieu in which the author of the Majālis evolved was surely a very different one. First, like Ibn Taymiyya (d. 728/1328) and his disciple Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya (d. 751/1350), to whom he refers explicitly and whose texts he quotes extensively, he strongly condemns the veneration of tombs, in his Refutation of the visitors of tombs – Radd al-Qabriyya as well as in Council XVII of the Majālis.2 Second, what al-Aqḥiṣārī writes in the first lines of his commentary (sharḥ) on The Unique Pearl, concerning the Recitation of the Qur’ān – al-Durr al-yatīm fī l-tajwīd by Birgivī Meḥmed Efendi (d. 981/1573) gives a clear indication of the high esteem in which he holds the spiritual father of Ottoman puritanism: “…the shaykh, the active and strong scholar (al-‘ālim al-‘āmil al-qawī) Meḥmed b. Pīr ‘Alī al-Birgivī – may God make the Garden his refuge, give him to drink a pure beverage, and quench his thirst…”1 Third, and more intriguing still, the relatively large number of ancient manuscripts in which the Turkish texts of Birgivī’s Waṣiyyet-Nāmeh, the Epistle – Risāleh of Qāḍīzāde Meḥmed (d. 1045/1635)2 and al-Aqḥiṣārī’s Creed – Risāleh fī l-‘aqā’id (or Risāleh, or Waṣiyyet-Nāmeh) are bound together in a sort of sacred trilogy leaves no doubt that, in the mind of many at the time, their religious views were both pivotal and convergent.3 This means, in other words, that the supposedly Khalwatī author of the Majālis could well have been directly linked to, or even have played a seminal role in, the reformist movement, influenced by Ibn
