Dr. Bora Keskiner, who studies Ottoman art history and specializes in Islamic calligraphy, created this collection by gathering letters, manuscript notebooks and manuscript notes he obtained from various booksellers. The collection, which presents a… Read more
Dr. Bora Keskiner, who studies Ottoman art history and specializes in Islamic calligraphy, created this collection by gathering letters, manuscript notebooks and manuscript notes he obtained from various booksellers. The collection, which presents a portrait of the Mevlevi community in post-Republican Istanbul, is an important source in terms of showing how the Sufi environment in Ottoman society has gone into a transformation with the Republican period. In this respect, the collection is especially remarkable for research on the history of Sufism in the recent period.
The documents dated between 1927 and 2000 are organized in four folders and 124 files. The majority of the letters in the collection consist of correspondence sent to Mevlevi sheikh Sadık Kurç. While Sadık Kurç's correspondence with Halil Can constitutes the most comprehensive series of the collection, his correspondence with Mehmet Ceylan also occupies an important place. In addition, song sheet music notebooks by Bestenigâr Ziya Bey and Halil Can's handwritten texts are among the outstanding documents of the collection.
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