Ottoman Songs in Sabbatian Manuscripts: A Cross-Cultural Perspective on the Inner Writings of the "Ma'aminim"

Research on the secret internal communal writings of the Sabbatian "Ma'aminim" of Salonica—known derogatorily in Turkish as "Dönme"—has to date mostly been focused on intra-Jewish questions. The initial and partial research on the Sabbatians' interaction with their non-Jewish environment, as reflected in their writings, invites a complementary, systematic, and cross-cultural analysis. This is especially true concerning a corpus of hundreds of songs, contained in five manuscripts, which are a precious and rare source for the study of the secret community of the Ma'aminim. This essay focuses on incipits appearing in manuscripts of the Sabbatian songs