Ottoman Sects Historiography in the Age of Empire: 15-16th century

The primary literature on the history of Islamic sects consists of works such as maqāla, firaq, and milal-nihal. Through these works, the authors expressed their views on the sects both in their own time and past. They generally did this through a sect template. Different sect traditions have emerged according to the form and content of the template. The most famous among these are the Ashʿarī and the Eastern Hanafī sect tradition. Although their knowledge value is open to debate, the classifications of sects in these traditions are the most fundamental source of information in the history of Islamic sects. In this context, the subject of this study is to determine and examine the classifications of sects written by Ottoman scholars who lived in the Ottoman geography in the 15th and 16th centuries, either independently or by allocating a place in their work. In other words, the reflection of the historical literature of sects in the classical period on the Ottoman Empire was tried to be revealed. Accordingly, the classification of nine authors and thirteen sects determined to have lived in the mentioned century was examined. It is not certain that all of these thirteen classifications belong to their authors. Among them, seven are certain and six are doubtful. In this study, which aims to reveal the literature in this period when authenticity was a serious problem, inferences were made about the historiography of Ottoman sects by comparing the classifications of sects in the texts with the past. In the aforementioned historiography, which follows both the Eastern Hanafī and Ashʿarī sect tradition, the authors were most influenced by Abū Mutīʿ (d. 318/930) in the Eastern Hanafī, on the other hand, al-Shahristānī (d. 548/1153) and mostly al-Āmidī (d. 631/1233), in the Ashʿarī tradition. When it comes to the content of the classifications, the texts in the Eastern Hanafī tradition acted more protectively. They adopted the attitude of transferring the text that reached them as it is, while the authors of the Ashʿarī tradition tried new classifications. It is possible to talk about a separate Ottoman historiography of sects, which was shaped in the hands of Ottoman scholars in this period.