New Books In Islamic Studies

In Islamic intellectual history, it is generally assumed that the Ottomans did not contribute much to Islamic thought. With his new book, Caliphate Redefined: The Mystical Turn in Ottoman Political Thought (Princeton University Press, 2018), Hüseyin Yılmaz uses the Ottoman notion of the caliphate to push back against that assumption: he demonstrates how a new understanding of the caliphate was developed by Ottoman thinkers, by engaging with those that came before them as well as their own lived present.  But Yılmaz goes beyond simply addressing the caliphate and political thought. Caliphate Redefined represents one of the first major studies of pre-modern Ottoman thought, mapping out the field for the benefit for all of those who engage with it. Furthermore, Yilmaz pushes implicitly and forcefully for recognition of Turkish as a critical language in Islamic intellectual history, acknowledging its contribution to the Islamic thought canon.  Finally, Caliphate Redefined is a stunning study of Sufism i