The Textual Evolution of the Ottoman "Şeyhülislams' Fetvas": A Cross-Corpora Computational Analysis

In this article, we use a mix of computational techniques to identify textual shifts in the Ottoman şeyhülislams' fetva s between the sixteenth and twentieth centuries. Our analysis, supplemented by a close reading of these texts, indicates that the fetva s underwent multiple forms of transform...

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Détails bibliographiques
Auteurs: Ergene, Boğaç A. 1971- (Auteur) ; Kaygun, Atabey (Auteur)
Type de support: Électronique Article
Langue:Anglais
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Publié: De Gruyter 2021
Dans: Der Islam
Année: 2021, Volume: 98, Numéro: 2, Pages: 516-545
Sujets non-standardisés:B distant reading
B şeyhülislam
B Textual
B Fetva
B computational
Accès en ligne: Volltext (lizenzpflichtig)
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig)
Description
Résumé:In this article, we use a mix of computational techniques to identify textual shifts in the Ottoman şeyhülislams' fetva s between the sixteenth and twentieth centuries. Our analysis, supplemented by a close reading of these texts, indicates that the fetva s underwent multiple forms of transformation, a consequence of the institutional evolution of the şeyhülislam's fetva office (fetvahane) that aimed to speed up and streamline the production of the fetvas: over time, the texts appropriated a more uniform character and came to contain shorter responses. In the compositions of the questions, we identified many "trigger terms" that facilitated reflexive responses independent of the fetvas'jurisprudential contexts, a tendency that became stronger after the second half of the seventeenth century. In addition, we propose in the article a methodology that measures the relative strengths of textual and conceptual links among the fetva corpora of various Ottoman şeyhülislams. This analysis informs us about possible paths of long-term evolution of this genre of jurisprudential documents.
ISSN:1613-0928
Contient:Enthalten in: Der Islam
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1515/islam-2021-0031