ADANA
By Mustafa Caglayan
Rosaries of Ottoman sultans revive in the southern Turkish city of Adana as a girls' technical institute established a special collection comprising authentic replicas from the Ottoman court.
Through intensive research from the primary sources, trainees in Adana's "Maturation Institute" reproduced dozens of rosaries from the Ottoman classical age, establishing a collection which aroused both nationwide and international attention.
Maturation institutes were founded in 1945 in a dozen of Turkish cities to foster advanced training and research in traditional Turkish handcrafts and folklore.
"These authentic rosaries are made of precious and semi-precious stones, including jade, pearl, jet, aquamarine and agate," art and design instructor Sule Soysal told AA correspondent.
Mostly composed of 99 beads, rosaries in Islamic practice are commonly used to perform dhikr, the repetitive utterances of short sentences glorifying Allah.
Aside from its usage for performing dhikr, people also pray to rosaries and practice patience by reciting "sabr," which represents the Islamic term for patience and one of the 99 names attributed to Allah in the Quran.
"The Ottoman sultan used rosaries during and before military campaigns to pray for Allah to help his army prevail", said Soysal, adding that the sultan's mother and wives also prayed to the rosary for his safe arrival to home.
Ottomans held the belief that certain precious stones had healing qualities and widely used them for therapy.
"Stones have vibrational qualities, and for many people they were useful tools to cure some ailments," said Soysal. "Rosaries were made of a vast array of precious stones. People who used them sometimes chose the rosary according to the stone it was made of."
Soysal said the special collection was also displayed outside of Turkey in countries like China, Netherlands and Germany.
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