Departments of History and Near & Middle Eastern Civilizations
Centre for European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies
Seminar in Ottoman & Turkish Studies
Freewill, Predestination, and the Fate of the Ottoman Empire
Ethan L. Menchinger, Ph.D.
Although early modern European travelers to the Ottoman Empire often noted its inhabitants’
“fatalism,” to the point of making it an Orientalist stereotype, little has been done to study this fatality as an intellectual phenomenon. In fact, contemporary accounts point to robust debate over fate,freewill, and predestination. What was behind these debates? What issues were at stake? This talklooks at European, Turkish, and Arabic sources from the 17th and 18th centuries and explores the wider significance of freewill in the Ottoman universe–particularly over the concept of political
reform–in the hope of shedding light on a milieu that was asking anxious, searching questions about the human condition, the empire, and its ultimate fate.
Thursday|12 November 2015| 4:30-6:30 pm
Natalie Zemon Davis Conference Room | Sidney Smith Hall 2098 | 100 St. George Street
