Le corps du sultan ottoman

The sultan’s person is the keystone of the Ottoman Empire. Its very existence secures the world’s order. It is not surprising, then, that the Ottoman society never accepted the possibility of a break in the dynastic continuity, attaching a great importance to the physical presence of the monarch’s p...

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Main Author: Nicolas Vatin
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Université de Provence 2006-11-01
Series:Revue des Mondes Musulmans et de la Méditerranée
Online Access:http://journals.openedition.org/remmm/2981
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spelling doaj-87b8e196d4c44985ba7c60a406b1b7962020-12-17T13:31:37ZengUniversité de ProvenceRevue des Mondes Musulmans et de la Méditerranée0997-13272105-22712006-11-0111321322710.4000/remmm.2981Le corps du sultan ottomanNicolas VatinThe sultan’s person is the keystone of the Ottoman Empire. Its very existence secures the world’s order. It is not surprising, then, that the Ottoman society never accepted the possibility of a break in the dynastic continuity, attaching a great importance to the physical presence of the monarch’s person. That’s why the living body of the sultan, if not exactly sacred, was nevertheless of a more than human nature, which superior value was more than symbolic and went beyond his own individual person.Consequently, when the sultan was dead or dethroned, he was nobody anymore and no special reverence was due to his physical person. On the contrary, while by dying he became in theory a Muslim as any other one, he had actually less rights than anybody else, precisely because he was an ancient monarch. His corpse could suffer degrading treatments dictated by political considerations: first of all, the rejection of any break in the dynastic continuity compelled more than once to keep secret the sultan’s death and to delay his burial for several weeks.Oner may nevertheless discern some elements of a sacralisation of the sultan’s dead body, and even some marks of a cult that could have developped. But such a cult probably was too much pagan to take root in the Ottoman State, which in the course of centuries tended to strengthen the orthodoxy of its practices and to give a growing importance to the dynasty, to the detriment of the person of individual sultans.http://journals.openedition.org/remmm/2981
collection DOAJ
language English
format Article
sources DOAJ
author Nicolas Vatin
spellingShingle Nicolas Vatin
Le corps du sultan ottoman
Revue des Mondes Musulmans et de la Méditerranée
author_facet Nicolas Vatin
author_sort Nicolas Vatin
title Le corps du sultan ottoman
title_short Le corps du sultan ottoman
title_full Le corps du sultan ottoman
title_fullStr Le corps du sultan ottoman
title_full_unstemmed Le corps du sultan ottoman
title_sort le corps du sultan ottoman
publisher Université de Provence
series Revue des Mondes Musulmans et de la Méditerranée
issn 0997-1327
2105-2271
publishDate 2006-11-01
description The sultan’s person is the keystone of the Ottoman Empire. Its very existence secures the world’s order. It is not surprising, then, that the Ottoman society never accepted the possibility of a break in the dynastic continuity, attaching a great importance to the physical presence of the monarch’s person. That’s why the living body of the sultan, if not exactly sacred, was nevertheless of a more than human nature, which superior value was more than symbolic and went beyond his own individual person.Consequently, when the sultan was dead or dethroned, he was nobody anymore and no special reverence was due to his physical person. On the contrary, while by dying he became in theory a Muslim as any other one, he had actually less rights than anybody else, precisely because he was an ancient monarch. His corpse could suffer degrading treatments dictated by political considerations: first of all, the rejection of any break in the dynastic continuity compelled more than once to keep secret the sultan’s death and to delay his burial for several weeks.Oner may nevertheless discern some elements of a sacralisation of the sultan’s dead body, and even some marks of a cult that could have developped. But such a cult probably was too much pagan to take root in the Ottoman State, which in the course of centuries tended to strengthen the orthodoxy of its practices and to give a growing importance to the dynasty, to the detriment of the person of individual sultans.
url http://journals.openedition.org/remmm/2981
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