27 Intention, fasting, breaking the fast
28 Tarāwīḥ prayers
29 Delaying the prayer and breaking the fast
30 Expiation for breaking the fast
31 Ramaḍān retreat & Laylat al-Qadr
32 Ṣadaqat al-fiṭr, the Feasts & innovations
33 Fasting in Shawwāl
34 The ten first days of Dhū l-Ḥijja
35 The sacrifice
36 Muḥarram and ‘Āshūrā’ fasting
37 ‘Āshūrā’: traditions and innovations
38 Curing the sick
39 Evil & good omens, blameworthy & sunnī
40 Brotherhood in this world’s affairs
41 Disasters, repentance and invocations
42 Repelling disasters with invocations
43 Praying in case of frights
44 Prayers for the solar and lunar eclipses
45 Praying for rain
46 Learning the prescriptions and Qur’ān
47 Recitation of the Qur’ān
48 The call to prayer
49 The eminence of Friday
50 Shaking hands
51 The obligation of prayer
52 The obligation of praying as prescribed
53 The five daily prayers and expiation
54 The eminence of collective prayer
55 Funeral prayer
56 Saying Lā ilāha illā Llāh and Paradise
57 The visitation of tombs
58 Remembering death and getting ready
59 The plague and prophylaxis
60 Patience in case of plague
61 The eminence of patience and disasters
62 On the ḥadīth “Collect five things…”
63 The calling of servants to account
64 Calling oneself to account before death
65 Inviting the umma to repent now
66 On “God accepts the repentance…”
67 The intelligent and the foolish
68 Piety (taqwā) and good character
69 Lawful earnings
70 The prohibition of monopolies
71 The fates of traders in the hereafter
72 Trading, truthfulness and trustfulness
73 The true nature of usury
74 Forward buying (salam) & other contracts
75 Begging
76 The rights of slaves
77 The prohibition of homosexuality
78 The prohibition of drinking wine
79 The prohibition of cheating (fulūl)
80 The appearing of troubles (fitna)
81 Judges, bribes & false testimonies
82 Who should be appointed preacher
83 The renewers of the religion, every century
84 Eminence of greeting another the first
85 Turning away from a Muslim brother
86 The prohibition of low opinion and spying
87 Frequenting perverts and eating with them
88 The best deed: loving and hating for God
89 The Prophet’s commands and prohibitions
90 The preeminence of God’s mercy
91 “Satan circulates in man like his blood”
92 Being tempted is not punished
93 Satan and the angel are close to man
94 Islam started as something foreign
95 The grace of good health
96 Not entering the mosque if smelling bad
97 What one should not be interested in
98 Recommendation concerning women
99 The ḥadīth “Ask for advice of women…”
100 Women’s obligations
The pious, rigorist admonitions of the Majālis are thus not primarily intended for a prince or a ruler but, rather, for the petit bourgeois milieu of Ottoman bazaaris, ulema and civil servants. Sometimes however, the reader notices criticisms of the authorities, of their deficiencies or of their excesses. Like several of al-Aqḥiṣārī’s epistles, some chapters of his Majālis also remind one of subjects dealt with by Kātib Çelebi in his Mīzān: the use of music for religious purposes (Majlis XLVII), tobacco (Majlis XCVI–XCVII), innovations (Majlis XVIII, etc.), pilgrimages to tombs (Majlis XVII, LVII), supererogatory prayers (Majlis XIX), shaking hands (Majlis L), enjoining right and forbidding wrong (Majlis LXXXIX), bribery (Majlis LXXXI).
According to the famous Delhi theologian Shāh ‘Abd al-‘Azīz (d. 1239/1824): “The Book of the Councils of the Pious and the Paths of the Best, on the science of exhortation (wa‘ẓ) and admonition (naṣīḥa), presents many benefits about the secrets of the Sharī‘a prescriptions and about jurisprudence (fiqh), on the subjects of the [spiritual] way and on the topics concerning the refutation of innovations and blameworthy habits.”1 Al-Aqḥiṣārī’s Majālis also offers wonderfully vivid echoes of the societal reality in which he lived, as well as direct manifestations of his own concerns vis-à-vis the evolution of Ottoman Turkey at the beginning of the 11th/17th century and clear insights into the nature of his reformist agenda. It
