Nur Baba

Yakup Kadri Karaosmanoğlu (1889-1974) figures among the most prominent Turkish novelists and writers of the twentieth century. Born in Cairo to a prestigious family, Karaosmanoğlu lived through the turbulent transition from empire to nation-state in the early twentieth century and emerged as a prominent author with an uncanny ability to capture the□ zeitgeist through fiction. His early novels probe the social crises and tensions of the late Ottoman Empire and the early years of the Turkish republic. In addition to being a prominent public intellectual, he served several terms as a member of parliament and worked for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs at a number of diplomatic postings. M. Brett Wilson is Associate Professor of History at Central European University and the Director of the Center of Eastern Mediterranean Studies. He is the author of Translating the Qur’an in an Age of Nationalism: Print Culture and Modern Islam in Turkey (Oxford University Press, 2014).

Introduction 1. How is the candle put out in a Bektashi lodge? 2. How is a Bektashi Shaykh Raised? 3. How is an outsider guided in? (Part I) 4. How is an outsider guided in? (Part II) 5. Two White Moths Circling around Haji Bektash’s Candle 6. An Unprecedented Ceremony in the Lodge of Nur Baba (Part I) 7. An Unprecedented Ceremony in the Lodge of Nur Baba (Part II) 8. The Second Period of Guidance 9. Completely Smitten by Muhabbet 10. The Woman with No Voice 11. That World, Yet Again 12. The Beloved Asked for the Soul