Abstract
Abstract Copies of Dalāʾil al-Khayrāt (Proofs of Good Deeds) by the Moroccan Sufi saint Muḥammad b. Sulaymān al-Jazūlī (d. 870/1465) were in high demand in the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Ottoman Empire. This required producing manuscripts in large numbers and, later, printing the text. These mostly lithographic copies and corpora of the Dalāʾil al-Khayrāt, when combined with references to biographical dictionaries, inheritance records, inventories, library catalogues, and endowment deeds, reveal a great deal of information about the public and private prevalence of the text, within and beyond the empire. The Dalāʾil al-Khayrāt appealed to many individuals, from Ottoman sultans to royal women, and from madrasa students to members of the learned class. Its copies were endowed to mosques and libraries, held in different book collections of the Topkapi palace, and were available from booksellers. Be it silently or aloud, the Dalāʾil al-Khayrāt could be read in private homes and in mosques from Istanbul to Medina, a feature of pious soundscapes across the empire.
Highlights
The numerous copies of the Dalāil al-Khayrāt (Proofs of Good Deeds) and various references to it in written sources, attest to the popularity of this devotional text in the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Ottoman Empire.[2]
The Dalāil al-Khayrāt appealed to many individuals, from Ottoman sultans to royal women, and from madrasa students to members of the learned class
The high demand for the Dalāil al-Khayrāt in the late Ottoman Empire required its production in manuscript form in large numbers, printing the text in several editions, and bestowing copies to mosques and libraries
Summary
The Dalāil al-Khayrāt and other prayer books could be found in ordinary homes—as inheritance records confirm—and private spheres of the Ottoman palaces.[41]. A 5757 was copied by Şeyh Süleyman Vehbi el-Burusavi in 1253/1837–1838, illuminated by Ser-Mücellid es-Seyyid Mehmed Salih in 1262/1845–1846, and presented to Mahmud ii.[60] A 5557, was copied by es-Seyyid el-Hacc Mustafa İzzet (Kadıasker), a disciple of Mustafa Vasıf, in 1258/1842–1843, upon the order of Sultan Abdülmecid.[61] All these manuscripts, as well as the book and recitation endowments that will be subsequently discussed, attest to Mahmud ii and his close family’s interest in devotional texts The sultan himself, his wives (Bezmialem Valide Sultan, Pertevniyal Valide Sultan, and Huşyar Kadın), his daughter (Atiyye Sultan), his son (Abdülmecid), his daughter-in-law (Düzdidil Kadın Efendi), and his granddaughter (Refia Sultan) owned and/or endowed copies of the Dalāil al-Khayrāt or the Enām-ı Şerīf.
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