Twilight of the Saints: Everyday Religion in Ottoman Syria and Palestine
James Grehan
Abstract
This book is a study of everyday religious culture in Syria and Palestine in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (when they were part of the Ottoman Empire). It is a social history, which tries to look beyond conventional ways of thinking about religion in the Middle East. It deals with beliefs and practices that are mostly forgotten or ignored in the region today, but that once occupied the religious mainstream. Contrary to standard theories about religion in the Middle East, this book argues that members of different religious groups participated in a common, overarching religious cultur ... More
This book is a study of everyday religious culture in Syria and Palestine in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (when they were part of the Ottoman Empire). It is a social history, which tries to look beyond conventional ways of thinking about religion in the Middle East. It deals with beliefs and practices that are mostly forgotten or ignored in the region today, but that once occupied the religious mainstream. Contrary to standard theories about religion in the Middle East, this book argues that members of different religious groups participated in a common, overarching religious culture, which was still visible at the beginning of the twentieth century. Though mixed with elements of official religion, this folk religiosity drew predominantly from other sources of belief and rituals, which can be summed up as “agrarian religion.” Only by uncovering this lost religious culture can we appreciate the largely unacknowledged revolution in religion that has taken place over the last century. As research presented in the book demonstrates, the people of Syria and Palestine today would hardly recognize religion as it was experienced in the not-so-distant past.
Keywords:
Middle East,
popular religion,
Middle East religion,
Ottoman history,
Syria,
Palestine
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2014 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780199373031 |
| Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: October 2014 |
DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199373031.001.0001 |
