The Emergence of Turkish Ḥurūfism in the 15th Century Anatolia and its Reflection in the Early Ottoman Literature
The Emergence of Turkish Ḥurūfism in the 15th Century Anatolia and its Reflection in the Early Ottoman Literature

Summary/Abstract: After the notorious persecution of its Khurasani protagonists, profiting from the political and ideological vacuum of the interregnum and the upsurge of the Shiite propaganda of the late 15th century, the Hurufi teaching penetrated Eastern and Central Anatolia, partly disguised under the tenets of different Batini indoctrinated groups, making these regions by the end of the century, its new stronghold. The main stage of the events became the Ottoman lands. Particularly in the years after the Ankara disaster of 1402, Asia Minor and the Balkans became a fertile soil for all unorthodox doctrines, especially those, like Hurufi one, nurturing apocalyptic or messianic expectations. Simultaneously, Persian and the Gurgani vernacular retreated before the Anatolian Turkish as its written medium. The paper concentrates on the exegetical attempts of the second generation of Fażl Allāh Astarābādī (d. 1394)’s disciples, in particular the first Turkish translations and commentaries on his seminal works.

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