From Islamic Exceptionalism to Universal Religious Categories: Reconceptualizations of Dīn and Millet in the Seventeenth-Century Ottoman Empire

Abstract

This dissertation examines the transformation of the Islamic category of religion through a conceptual history of dīn (often translated as “religion”) and millet (often translated as “community”) during the Ottoman Empire from the late sixteenth to early eighteenth centuries. Arabic and Turkish world histories, which flourished during this period, exhibited a significant expansion in geographical and cultural scope compared to earlier examples and rarely focused on the House of Osman or Islamic history. I argue that these world historians similarly presented dīn as a universal analytical unit, challenging traditional Islamic scholarship that had reserved dīn for Islam or other monotheistic faiths. By presenting Islam as one dīn among many, these authors viewed dīn as a universal social phenomenon comparable to other domains of human life, although differing perspectives persisted among legal scholars, polemicists, and heresiographers. These world histories, along with a growing body of literature on non-Muslim faiths and scriptures, were also characterized by a more detached and analytical approach to their subjects. The dissertation links these conceptual and historiographical shifts to changes in Ottoman self-perception amid increasing awareness of cultural diversity and declining imperial power.

This reconceptualization of dīn coincided with debates on the related term of millet, traditionally associated with monotheistic communities, as scholars explored its broader applicability to various religious groups. In addition to a close reading of historical and religious works, the dissertation employs computational tools to analyze substantial volumes of Ottoman texts, including court records and Evliyā Çelebi’s Seyāḥatnāme, to trace how millet was used in both official and literary contexts. For world historians, millet generally implies a shared confession, which is not always monotheistic. In the Seyāḥatnāme, millet typically refers to Christian communities within the empire while excluding Jews, whereas in court records, it primarily signifies the Muslim community, with occasional references to non-Muslim groups.While focusing on native concepts as understood by the Ottomans themselves, the dissertation also draws parallels with Protestant approaches to categorizing religion, noting similar efforts to develop comprehensive taxonomies in both contexts. At the same time, it underlines key differences: while the Protestant model prioritized creed as the central feature of “world religions,” Ottoman world historians embraced a broader understanding of dīn and millet, which included beliefs, acts of worship, belonging to a confessional community, and sometimes customs and morality. These Ottoman historians did not often exclude polytheistic communities as their Protestant counterparts did.

Beyond offering an overlooked conceptual history expressed in an understudied historiographical genre in the Ottoman Empire, this dissertation’s potential contributions extend to the broader fields of Islam and the study of religion. By challenging narrowly defined and ahistorical Islamic conceptualizations of religion and non-Muslim faiths, it aims to expand the current understanding of Islam, moving beyond the traditional focus on the Quran and a few medieval classics. Additionally, the study engages with broader theoretical debates on the nature of religion, questioning the universality of post-Enlightenment European models by exploring non-Western religious categories in early modern history.