104 | Ibn-i Kemal’s Confessionalism
philosopher is unclear. What is clear is that on his return from conquering Mam-
luk Egypt, Selim spent several months in Damascus, at which point he endowed a
full mosque and soup kitchen at Ibn ɇArabī’s previously modest burial site before
returning to Anatolia.
Whirling and Incantation
Another celebrated debate during the quest for imperial self-identity concerned
the licitness of zikr (communal mystical incantation), semāɇ(listening to such
incantation), devrān (whirling), and raksҕ (dancing for enjoyment). The very
terms used in this debate served to define the limits of correct practice, as those
who defended such communal spiritualism tended to favor the terms zikr and
devrān, the former taken directly from a Koranic passage (18:24) urging believers
to “recall God” and the latter associated with the exceedingly popular Mevlānā
Rumi (d. 1273). Critics tended more toward emphasizing the passive aspect of
semāɇand the religiously proscribed and frivolous raksҕ. Although Ibn-i Kemal
neither started nor ended this debate, his contribution both adjudicated it for his
generation and influenced the later contours of discussion. Within the Ottoman
context, this debate dated back to at least Fātiত Mehmed’s reign in the previous
generation, when the şeyhülislam at the time spoke out against a zikr ceremony
offered in the sultan’s honor by a powerful Sufi leader and supporter. In the next
generation, three prominent clerics came out against the practice, while two
powerful Sufi leaders defended it.
As he rose through the ranks, Ibn-i Kemal adjusted his position somewhat
over the course of his career, as did several other leading clerics. He initially came
out strongly against semāɇand devrān, stating that such whirling is nothing more
than a disguised form of dance, a practice that can lead to ecstasy and divert
one’s focus from God. He also argued that religious scholars had reached con-
sensus that semāɇand devrān are not forms of worship. As a result, he concluded
that any şeyত (religious leader) who states otherwise encourages kufr (nonbelief,
apostasy), counters communal consensus, and must be exiled from the Muslim
community. In a separate treatise, however, Ibn-i Kemal stated a somewhat softer
position, conceding certain conditions under which semāɇmight be deemed ac-
ceptable, before concluding that in his own day no such permission for semāɇ
existed and that anyone claiming raksҕ is permissible remains by definition a non-
believer.
Before Ibn-i Kemal rose to become şeyhülislam, this debate flared up again
between the Istanbul chief judge Sarı Gürz Muslıতuddīn Efendi (d. 1522) and the
popular Sufi şeyۊ Sünbül Sinan Efendi (d. 1529) after the judge arrested several
dervishes for deviant dancing. Hoping to put an end to this debate once and for
all, Sünbül Sinan completed a treatise that he made a point of distributing in