Beyond the social and the spiritual

This dissertation is the first comprehensive study of the phenomenon of the urban confraternity in 13 th and 14 th -century Anatolia. Urban confraternities in late medieval Anatolia played a range of roles in cities like Ankara, Erzincan, Konya and Sivas. The important political and social void filled specifically by akhi organizations in 13 th and 14 th -century Anatolia can only be understood within the context of the importance of urban centers during this time period of political instability and attempts at reform, launched by both Christian and Islamic religious institutions. Despite the fact that these associations of men living in urban centers in late medieval Anatolia have been addressed in scholarship, a real understanding of what functions the organizations performed, how they were organized, their relationship with cities and with various contemporary religious and political authorities has not been established. This is due both to the consistently changing nature of the brotherhoods and also to the ability of the concept of futuwwa (Arab., qualities of youth) to transform itself depending on the social and political reality within which it existed. This dissertation pr