Research Interests
Side Emre (Ph.D. University of Chicago, 2009) specializes in the late medieval and early modern history of the Ottoman Empire and Egypt. In her first book, Ibrahim-i Gulshani and the Khalwati-Gulshani Order: Power Brokers in Ottoman Egypt (Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2017) (https://brill.com/view/title/32853?format=HC) she examined the historical trajectory of the Khalwati-Gulshani order of dervishes with a focus on their socio-political and cultural impact in the local/inter-regional communities they lived and networked in the pre-modern Muslim world. Her research brings together Near/Middle Eastern, and Mediterranean/North African history (political, cultural, intellectual and religious) and establishes dialogues with medieval, early modernist and modernist scholars from a wide array of disciplines. In her wider research, Emre focuses on the connections between politics, society, religion, and Sufism (Islamic mysticism) in the pre-modern Muslim world. Current research areas include: visual representations in Ottoman mystical texts, esoteric sciences in medieval and early modern Ottoman culture, Anatolian Turkish literature, early modern empire, law, heresy, the influence of Ibn al-‘Arabi in Ottoman intellectual and cultural history/historiography, and Sufism, with its cultural, political, and societal reflections in the Ottoman/Mamluk and Egyptian historical context of the early modern period.
Areas of Speciality
- Islamic History
- Religion
- Intellectual History
- Sufism
- Early Modern Ottoman Political
Educational Background
- Ph.D. University of Chicago, 2009
Selected Publications
- “Anatomy of a Rebellion in Sixteenth-Century Egypt: A case-study of Ahmed Pasha’s governorship, revolt, and a critique of the Ottoman imperial enterprise in the Arab Lands.” Journal of Ottoman Studies XLVI (2015): 333-385.
- “A Preliminary Investigation of Ibn ʿArabi’s Influence Reflected in the Corpus of İbrahim-i Gulsheni (d.1534) and the Halveti-Gulsheni Order of Dervishes in Egypt.” Journal of the Muhyiddin Ibn ‘Arabi Society 56 (2014): 67-113.
- “Crafting Piety for Success: Gülşeniye Literature and Culture in the Sixteenth Century.” Journal of Sufi Studies 1.1 (2012): 31-75.
- “A Subversive Story of Banishment, Persecution, and Incarceration on the Eve of the Ottoman Conquest of Egypt: İbrahim-i Gülşeni’s Mamluk Years 1507/10-1517 in Sufism and Society: Arrangements of the Mystical in the Muslim World, 1200-1800 C.E., ed. John J. Curry and Erik S. Ohlander (London and New York: Routledge, 2011), 201-222.
- Encyclopedia of Islam, Third Edition: “Gulshaniyya” article.