ABSTRACT
For an Ottoman biographer like ‘Aṭā’ī, however, the realms of the living and the dead were not separated from each other by sealed borders. As we have seen in the previous chapters, a resident of this world, the corporeal realm (‘ālem-i ceberūt), could travel to the realm of images (‘ālem-i misāl) in sleep and to the incorporeal realm of spirits, angels and God (‘ālem-i melekūt) in death. The dead could come back to the world of the living through dreams or meet them in their visions of the hereafter.2 Thus, it is not surprising to see a number of contacts between this world and the hereafter in the Ḥadā’iḳ. Not only did the deceased friends, lovers, sheikhs and esteemed figures such as the Prophet visit those they left behind but they also played significant roles within the lives of the Ottoman learned elite.
