Salvation and Suffering in Ottoman Stories of the Prophets

The cycles of revelation, community reception, and redemption embodied by the prophets of Islam form the substance of Islamic salvation history, a literary form that has not received due attention in comparison to the didactic and homiletic dimensions of the tales of the prophets. This article suggests that salvation history is an almost infinitely malleable material that functions in different ways in different political and intellectual contexts, and can be harnessed to provide vastly different messages. Focusing on examples from Ottoman Turkish literature, this point is made through a close reading of the relevant section of Fuẓūlī’s martyrology, Garden of the Felicitous, in contrast with works by Ramaẓānzāde Meḥmed Paşa, Süleymān Çelebi, and Veysī. Where some salvation histories present an optimistic trajectory through political history, or an unfailing promise of divine grace, others find only violence and injustice, and a human condition determined by suffering