Representations of the supernatural in early modern Ottoman prose narratives

This thesis investigates supernatural representations in early modern Ottoman prose literature, with particular attention to the cultural, epistemological, and sociopolitical functions. Centering on Cinânî's Bedâyiü'l-Âsâr and Süheylî's Acâ'ibü'l-Meâsir ve Garâ'ibü'n-Nevâdir, the study contends that the supernatural in these sources constitutes a complex narrative framework through which regimes of knowledge, corporeal imaginaries, and normative boundaries are articulated and contested. Drawing upon close readings of fifty-one prose stories, the analysis unfolds across three thematic chapters. "At the Edge of the Body: Transformation, Fragmentation, and Transitional Experiences" investigates instances of bodily metamorphosis and shapeshifting, which often occur through the intervention of jinn, magical enchantments, or talismanic forces and serve to dramatize the permeability of both material and spiritual boundaries. "Tested by Knowledge: The Muazzim, the Magician, the Witch, and the Guides of Supernatural Wisdom" interrogates the narrative logic through which encounters with occult knowledge function as a sites of epistemic and ethical tension. "Contemplating with Decorum: The Narrator, Witnessing, and the Supernatural in Narrative Discourse" examines modes of narratorial witnessing, the phenomenology of perception, and the rhetorical strategies that mediate supernatural experiences into legible narrative forms. Rather than offering a purely thematic taxonomy, the thesis seeks to illuminate how the supernatural operates as a dynamic locus of meaning-making within the Ottoman literary-cultural field, thereby contributing a modest yet focused intervention to current scholarship on early modern Ottoman storytelling.