khaled el-rouayheb the myth of “the triumph of fanaticism” in the seventeenth-century ottoman...

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2008 DOI: 10.1163/157006008X335930

Die Welt des Islams 48 (2008) 196-221

The Myth of “The Triumph of Fanaticism” in the Seventeenth-Century Ottoman Empire*

Khaled El-RouayhebCambridge / Mass.

Abstract

Since Halil İnalcık’s classic The Ottoman Empire: The Classical Age (1973), the received view amongst historians has been that Ottoman scholars lost interest in the rational sciences after around 1600, largely as an effect of the rise of the puritanical Ḳāḍīzādeli movement. In the present article, I argue that there was in fact no decline of interest in the rational sciences amongst seventeenth century Ottoman scholars. On the contrary, interest in logic, dialectic, philosophy and rational theology seems to have been on the rise. Sunni Persian, Azeri and Kurdish scholars fleeing Safavid Iran brought with them new scholarly works in the rational sciences and gained a reputation as accomplished teachers. The number of Ottoman colleges in which works on the rational sciences were studied and taught also seems to have risen dramatically in the course of the 17th century.

Keywords

Ḳāḍīzādeli; Saçaḳlīzāde; Birgivī; Logic; Philosophy; Dialectic; Ottoman Empire; 17th century

The penultimate chapter of Halil İnalcık’s deservedly classic work The Ottoman Empire: The Classical Age 1300-1600, first published in 1973, is entitled “The Triumph of Fanaticism”. This describes how the Ottoman cultural and intellectual flourishing of the 15th and 16th centuries was brought to an end by a resurgence of religious obscurantism in the late 16th and 17th centuries. The older tradition

* I would like to thank Professor Cemal Kafadar and the Sohbet-i Osmani talk-society at Harvard University for giving me an opportunity to present an earlier draft of this article, and for their helpful questions and feedback.

K. El-Rouayheb / Die Welt des Islams 48 (2008) 196-221 197

of cultivating rational sciences such as philosophy and astronomy was, according to İnalcık’s account, swept away by the rise of the violently puritanical Ḳāḍīzādeli movement named after the fiery preacher Meḥmed Ḳādīzāde (d. 1635) and inspired by the uncom-promisingly strict religious scholar Meḥmed Birgevī (d. 1573). This decline of interest in the rational sciences, İnalcık suggested, ensured that the Ottomans were in no position to appreciate the most recent scientific and philosophical advancements that were being made at the time in Western Europe.1

İnalcık’s claim was echoed by Marshall Hodgson in his influential three-volume survey of Islamic civilization The Venture of Islam from 1974. Hodgson was famously critical of the idea of a post-13th-century decline of Islamic civilization, and stressed that it overlooked the cultural and intellectual “florescence” of Safavid Iran and Mughal India in the 17th century. However, he conceded—largely following İnalcık—that in the Ottoman Empire there was little or no “flo-rescence” in the 17th century. The so-called “rational sciences” had, according to Hodgson, flourished in the Ottoman Empire in the 15th and 16th centuries but had then suffered from the rise of reli-gious purism in the 17th.2

With the authority of widely (and deservedly) admired historians such as İnalcık and Hodgson behind it, the idea that the Ottomans turned their backs on the rational sciences after the 16th century has become something of an axiom for much of later scholarship. It is, for example, treated as an established fact in the otherwise informative recent comparison of the Ottoman, Safavid and Mughal curricula by Francis Robinson.3

The truth of the matter would seem to be very different from what İnalcık thought it to be. The “rational sciences” were, I will argue in the following section, cultivated vigorously throughout the 17th century in the Ottoman Empire. Indeed, as I will argue in the

1) Halil İnalcık, The Ottoman Empire: The Classical Age, 1300-1600 (London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 1973), 179-185. 2) Marshall Hodgson, The Venture of Islam (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1974), 3: 123.3) Francis Robinson, “Ottomans-Safavids-Mughals: Shared Knowledge and Connective Systems”, in: Journal of Islamic Studies 8 (1997): 151-184, esp. 155f., 172.

198 K. El-Rouayheb / Die Welt des Islams 48 (2008) 196-221

section after that, there is evidence to suggest that interest in these disciplines was on the rise in Ottoman scholarly circles in the 17th and 18th centuries.

I.

The evidence presented by İnalcık for the “triumph of fanaticism” thesis consists in (i) the appearance of the violently puritan Ḳāḍīzādeli movement from the late 16th century; (ii) the destruction of the Ottoman observatory in 1580, just a few years after its construction; and (iii) quotations from the Ottoman scholar and judge Aḥmed Taşköprüzāde (d. 1560) and the Ottoman scribe and bibliographer Kātib Çelebī (d. 1657) lamenting the declining interest in the ra -tional sciences in their time. A closer look at this evidence will show that it is far from conclusive.

The appearance of the Ḳāḍīzādeli movement from the late 16th century is certainly undeniable. However, the picture that suggests itself, both from the comments of contemporaneous observers such as Kātib Çelebī and Naʿīmā (d. 1713), and from more recent scholar-ship, is that the Ḳāḍīzādelis were a minority within the class of religious scholars.4 In light of this, one should not simply assume that the appearance of the Ḳāḍīzādelis meant a “decline” in all the practices of which the Ḳāḍīzādelis disapproved. The fact that the Ḳāḍīzādelis aimed most of their invectives against the Sufis, for example, still did not prevent the appearance in the 17th century of such towering Turkish Ottoman mystics as İsmāʿīl Rusūkhī Anḳa-rāvī (d. 1631) and Sārı ʿAbdullāh Efendī (d.1661), famous for their commentaries on Jalāluddīn Rūmī’s Mesnevi;5 ʿAbdullāh Bosnavī

4) Madeleine Zilfi, The Ottoman Ulema in the Post-Classical Age, 1600-1800 (Minneapolis: Bibliotheca Islamica, 1988), ch.4, esp. 190; G.L. Lewis (trans.), Kâtib Chelebî: The Balance of Truth (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1957), 137 (“It is unnecessary to point out that the followers of Qâdîzâde at the present time are notorious for their extremism and have earned general reproach”).5) On Ismāʿīl Anḳarāvī, see Nevʿīzāde ʿ Aṭāʾī, “Ḥadāʾiḳü l-ḥaḳāʾiḳ”, in: Şaḳaiḳ-i Nuʿmaniye ve Zeyilleri (Istanbul: Çağrı Yayinları, 1989), 2: 765 and the introduction to B. Guşpinar, Ismail Ankaravi on the illuminative philosophy (Kuala Lumpur: International Institute of Islamic Thought and Civilization, 1996). On Sārı ʿAbdullāh, see Şeykhī Meḥmed Efendī,


(d.1644) who came to be known as “Şāriḥ-i Fuṣūṣ” on account of his esteemed commentary on Ibn ʿArabī’s Fuṣūṣ al-ḥikam; and Ismā‘īl Ḥaḳḳī Bursevī (d. 1724), who is perhaps best know today for his voluminous mystical commentary on the Qurʾān entitled Rūḥ al-bayān.6 To this list may be added other prominent 17th-century Turkish exponents of the ideas of Ibn ʿArabī whose works continued to exert influence well beyond their own life-time, such as Hüdāyi ʿAzīz Maḥmūd Üsküdārī (d. 1628) and ʿAbdülaḥad Nūrī (d. 1651).7 In the Arabic-speaking provinces of the Empire too, a number of prominent mystics appeared in the 17th century such as the Aleppine Khalwatī mystic Qāṣim al-Khānī (d.1699), whose al-Sayr wa-l-sulūk ilā malik al-mulūk became an influential Sufi manual for later cen-turies; the Damascene Qādirī and Naqshbandī mystic ʿAbd al-Ghanī al-Nābulusī (d.1731) who wrote vigorous apologies for controversial theories and practices of Sufis such as “the oneness of being” (waḥdat al-wujūd) and listening to music, and who also wrote commentaries on some of the classics of monistic mysticism such as the Dīwān of Ibn al-Fāriḍ and Fuṣūṣ al-ḥikam of Ibn ʿArabī; and the Shaṭṭārī and Naqshbandī mystics of Medina Aḥmad al-Qushāshī (d. 1661) and his disciple Ibrāhīm al-Kūrānī (d. 1690) who were also promi-nent and influential apologists for the idea of the “the oneness of being”.8 The number of prominent Ottoman exponents of the

“Veḳāyiʿü l-fuẓalāʾ”, in: Şaḳaiḳ-i Nuʿmaniye ve Zeyilleri (Istanbul: Çagri Yayinlari, 1989), 3: 280ff. Both commentaries on the Mesnevi were printed in Istanbul in the 19th century, Ismāʿīl Anḳarāvī’s in 6 volumes by Maṭbaʿa-yi Āmire in 1251/1835-6 and Sārı ʿ Abdullāh’s in 5 volumes by Maṭbaʿa-yi Āmire in 1288/1871-2.6) On ʿAbdullāh Bosnavī, see Şeykhī Meḥmed Efendī, “Veḳāyiʿü l-fuẓalā’”, 3: 146 and Muḥammad Amīn al-Muḥibbī, Khulāṣat al-athar fī aʿyān al-qarn al-ḥādī ʿashar (Cairo: al-Maṭba‘a al-Wahbiyya, 1284/1867-8), 3: 86. On Ismā‘īl Ḥaḳḳī Bursevī, see Şeykhī Meḥ-med Efendī, “Veḳāyiʿü l-fuẓalāʾ”, 4: 683. Ismā‘īl Ḥaḳḳī’s Qurʾān commentary was repeatedly printed in Cairo and Istanbul in the 19th and early 20th centuries (for example, Būlāq 1255/1839-40, Būlāq 1287/1870-1 and Maṭbaʿa-yi Āmire, 1285/1868-9).7) On ‘Azīz Maḥmūd Üsküdārī, see Nevʿīzāde ʿAṭāʾī, “Ḥadāʾiḳü l-ḥaḳāʾiḳ”, 2: 760ff. On Nūrī, see Şeykhī Meḥmed Efendī, “Veḳāyiʿü l-fuẓalāʾ”, 3: 547ff. The former’s divān was repeatedly printed in Istanbul in the 19th century (Muhibb Maṭbaʿası, 1287/1870-1 and Maṭbaʿa-i Hayriye 1338/1919-20), as were the collected sermons (mevāʿiz) of the latter (Maṭbaʿa-yi Āmire, 1263/1846-7 and Bolulu İbrahim Efendī Maṭbaʿası, 1309/1891-2). A number of shorter treatises by both authors were also printed in the 19th century. 8) See Muḥammad Khalīl al-Murādī, Silk al-durar fī aʿyān al-qarn al-thānī ʿ ashar (Istanbul


theories of Ibn ʿArabī in the 17th century is indeed striking, and it is doubtful whether the 15th or 16th centuries produced a greater number. Anyone who infers from the appearance of the Ḳāḍīzādelis that there was a “decline” in interest in Sufism in the Ottoman Empire in the 17th century would seem to be making a serious misjudgment. And it is not at all clear why inferring that there was a decline in interest in the rational sciences is any more justified.

Furthermore, it is not even clear that the Ḳāḍīzādelis were uni-formly opposed to the “rational sciences”. Kātib Çelebī attributed to Meḥmed Ḳāḍīzāde the statement “Who sheds a tear if a logician dies?” during a sermon.9 However, this may not have been a con-sidered or uniform opinion in Ḳāḍīzādeli circles. Meḥmed Birgevī himself explicitly condoned the study of logic, dialectic, rational theology (kalām), mathematics and astronomy. In his major work, al-Ṭarīqa al-Muḥammadiyya, he stated explicitly that mathematics (ḥisāb) is a farḍ kifāya, i.e. that studying and teaching it is incumbent on some within the Muslim community (but not on each and every Muslim).10 The study of rational theology (kalām) is also, Birgevī wrote, a farḍ kifāya.11 As for the “sciences of the philosophers” (ʿulūm al-falāsifa) Birgevī’s verdict is unexpectedly nuanced. The status of logic (manṭiq) is the same as rational theology, i.e. it is a farḍ kifāya—a verdict that is in stark contrast to earlier Ḥanbalī purists such as Ibn Taymiyya (d. 1328) and Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya (d.1350). Birgevī’s positive but laconic verdict on logic invited the following comment from his commentator Receb Āmidī (fl. 1676), who followed Birgevī closely in his condemnations of the ‘innovations’ of popular religion and the Sufis of his day:

& Cairo: 1291/1874-5 -- 1301/1883-4), 1: 5f. (On al-Kūrānī), 3: 30-38 (on Nābulusī), and 4: 9f. (on Khānī). On Qushāshī, see Muḥibbī, Khulāṣat al-athar, 1: 343-6.9) G.L. Lewis (trans.), Kâtib Chelebî: The Balance of Truth (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1957), 136.10) M. Birgevī, al-Ṭarīqa al-muḥammadiyya [printed with the commentaries of Receb Āmidī (fl. 1676) and Abū Saʿīd Khādimī (d. 1762)] (Cairo: Muṣṭafa al-Bābī al-Halabī, 1348/1929-30), 1: 255.11) Ibid, 1: 258.


It [logic] is among the most noble of the divine and spiritual sciences, and some wise men have made it the chief of the rational sciences, and some religious scholars have made it an individual duty [on each and every Mus-lim] since on it depends knowing the necessary existent … In sum, logic is a science of dazzling demonstration like the sun that is not hidden anywhere. No one denies its good qualities except those who are unable to know real-ities and see subtleties.12

Geometry (handasa), which Birgevī considered to be one of the “sciences of the philosophers”, is permissible (mubāḥ). As for meta-physics (ilāhiyyāt), parts of it conflict with religion and is therefore prohibited, unless one studies it in order to refute it (illā ʿalā wajhi-l-radd). Other parts of metaphysics do not conflict with revelation and these have been incorporated into the discipline of kalām. Physics (ṭabīʿiyyāt) can likewise be divided into claims that conflict with religion and claims that have been incorporated into kalām.13 Birgevī is here obviously alluding to the fact that the standard works of rational theology studied in the Ottoman Empire such as Ṭawāliʿ al-anwār of Bayḍāwī (d. 1317) and al-Mawāqif of Ījī (d. 1355) included a great deal of physics and metaphysics. The study of medicine (ṭibb), Birgevī continued, is to be encouraged (mandūb), though without being a duty.14 Astronomy falls into the same cate-gory. Astrology, on the other hand, is a prohibited science. Birgevī wrote:

I say: what is prohibited of the science of the stars (ʿilm al-nujūm) is what is related to judgments such as “If a lunar or solar eclipse or an earthquake or something like this occurs at such-and-such a time then such-and-such will occur”. As for knowing the direction to which prayer should be made (qibla) and the times of prayer (al-mawāqīt), which is the science called hayʾa: since these are conditions for prayer they must be known by thorough investiga-tion of phenomena, and this science is one of the conditions of investigation and knowledge, and hence it is permissible to study it.15

12) Ibid, 1: 262 (margins).13) Ibid, 1: 262-265.14) Ibid, 1: 266.15) Ibid, 1: 260f.


The fact that even one of the strictest of Ottoman scholars, and the person who inspired the Ḳāḍīzādeli movement, did not have a problem with the science of astronomy invites a reconsideration of the motives behind the demolition of the Ottoman observatory in 1580. It is indeed clear that the main motive for building the observatory in 1577 had been astrological, and that likewise the motive for destroying it a few years later was hostility to, and apprehension of, astrology and not astronomy. The historian of science Aydın Sayılı, who has published a number of studies dealing with the short career of the Ottoman observatory, has noted that “the reason and purpose for the foundation of the Observatory … appears to have been almost completely astrological”.16 In one of the lengthiest contemporary accounts of the career of the Observatory, according to Sayılı, “astrological activities are mentioned in detailed fashion, and both in praising him [the court astronomer-astrologer who headed the observatory] and in trying to justify the act of the demolition of the Observatory”.17 The historian of Arabic astronomy D.A. King has also noted that the leveling of the observatory seems to have been a consequence of the Ottoman court-astronomer/astrologer’s “incorrect prediction of an Ottoman victory over the Safavids following the appearance of the famous comet of 1577”.18 It is doubtful whether astrology was one of the disciplines that İnalcık had in mind when he claimed that Ottoman scholars turned away from the “rational sciences” in the late 16th century.

The quotations from Taşköprüzāde and Kātib Çelebī adduced in support of the İnalcık thesis are also far from conclusive. Lamenting the “decline of the times” is a well-known topos. It is risky to treat such laments as anything more than this unless they offer, or are supported by, other evidence.19 Certainly, Taşköprüzāde and Kātib

16) A. Sayılı, “Alā al-Dīn al-Manṣūr’s Poems on the Istanbul Observatory”, in: Belleten 20 (1956): 429-484. The quotation is from p. 445. See also A. Sayılı, The Observatory in Islam, 2nd edition (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu Basimevi, 1988), 303f. Sayılı himself sees “reli-gious fanaticism” as a factor behind the demolition of the observatory, but he does not present any evidence that would justify using this expression. 17) Sayılı, “Alā al-Dīn al-Manṣūr’s Poems”, 446.18) D.A. King, “Taḳī al-Dīn b. Muḥammad. b. Maʿrūf ”, in: Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd edition (Leiden: EJ Brill, 1960-2002), 10: 132f.19) The pitfall of treating such laments as straightforward observations of fact, rather than


Çelebī may have had the impression that there was a decline of interest in the “rational sciences” in their day by comparison to bygone times. However, both scholars were themselves enthusiastic about the “rational sciences” and might well have been prone to exaggerate the extent to which these sciences were respected and cultivated in an idealized past.

The perhaps most telling reason for not taking the laments of Taşköprüzāde and Kātib Çelebī at face-value is that it is possible to adduce quotations from 17th-century Ottoman scholars who were under the impression that there had been a significant rise in interest in philosophy in their time. For example, the Meccan scholar Muḥam-mad ʿAlī b. ʿAllān al-Ṣiddīqī (d. 1648), in his commentary on Birgevī’s al-Ṭarīqa al-Muḥammadiyya, wrote:

It has become prevalent in this time, and the time just before it, to study the idiocies of the philosophers among most people (wa-qad ghalaba fī hādhā-l-zamāni wa qablahu bi-qalīlin al-ishtighālu bi-jahālāti-l-falāsifa ʿ alā akhthari-l-nās), and they call it “wisdom” (ḥikma) and consider as ignorant those who are innocent of it. They think that they are accomplished people and persist in studying it, and you hardly find any of them who have memorized any Qur’ān or ḥadīth from the Prophet. They are more appropriately described as ignorant and ignoble rather than “wise”, for they are the enemies of the prophets, and corrupters of Islamic law, and they are more harm to the Mus-lims than the Jews and Christians.20

Almost a century after Ibn ʿAllān, the Turkish scholar Meḥmed Sāçaḳlīzāde Marʿaşī (d. 1732-3) was still lamenting what he con-sidered to be the enthusiasm of many of his contemporary Ottoman scholars and students for philosophy.21 Sāçaḳlīzāde emphasized that

literary contributions to a genre, has been noted by D.A. Howard in his “Ottoman Historio-graphy and the Literature of ‘Decline’ of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries”, in: Journal of Asian History 22 (1988): 52-77.20) The passage is quoted in Receb Āmidī’s commentary on Birgevī’s al-Ṭarīqa, see Birgevī, al-Ṭarīqa al-muḥammadiyya, 1:80 (margins).21) On Sāçaklīzāde, see S. Reichmuth, “Bildungskanon und Bildungreform aus der Sicht eines islamischen Gelehrten der Anatolischen Provinz: Muḥammad al-Sajaqlī (Saçaqlı-zāde, gest. um 1145/1733) und sein Tartīb al-‘ulūm”, in: R. Arnzen & J. Thielmann (eds.), Words, Texts and Concepts cruising the Mediterranean Sea (Leuven: Peeters, 2004), 493-522.


it was incumbent to declare as infidels Aristotle, Plato and the Islamic philosophers who followed them such as Ibn Sīnā and Fārābī “and their likes”. He then explicated this last phrase in the following manner:

If you say: “Who are their likes?” We say: Those who are fond of philosophy and indulge in it and call it “wisdom” (ḥikma) by way of extolling it … and are proud of what they have learned of philosophy, and who consider as ignorant those who are innocent of it. By the Lord of the Heavens and the Earth! These are the unbelieving philosophizers! One encountered their likes in the time of [the jurist] Ākhī Çelebī (d. 1495-6) and he said about them …: “The desire to study jurisprudence is slight amongst the philosophizers whose lot in the afterworld is nothing but fire. Verily they will reach hell and what an end!” I say: Perhaps the philosophizers in our time are more than they were in his time (wa laʿalla-l-mutafalsifīna fī ʿaṣrinā aktharu minhum fī ʿaṣrihi).22

Sāçaḳlīzāde thus believed that there was more rather than less interest in philosophy—under the guise of the name ḥikma—amongst Otto-mans in his own time than there had been in the 15th century. He suggested that this impious state of affairs exposed the Ottoman polity to the danger of divine punishment in the form of further military defeats by Christian Europe:

Philosophy has become widespread in the Ottoman lands in our times (wa qad shāʿat al-falsafatu fī bilādi-l-Rūmi23 fī zamāninā), the year 1130/1717. Before that by some eighty years or more the Christians conquered many of the Ottoman lands and defeated the soldiers of the Sovereign (malik) of Islam

22) Meḥmed Sāçaḳlīzāde, Tartīb al-ʿulūm, ed. Muḥammad b. Ismāʿīl al-Sayyid Aḥmad (Beirut: Dār al-Bashāʾir al-Islamiyya, 1988), 229.23) I translate fī bilādi-l-Rūmī as ‘in the Ottoman lands’. The phrase bilād al-Rūm could also refer to the European parts of the Empire, but there is nothing to suggest that Sāçaḳlī-zāde believed that philosophy was more actively studied in the European parts of the Empire than in the Anatolian. For another example of the term being used of the Ottoman Empire as a whole, see the comments of Rāġip Pāşā (d. 1763) to the effect that Mullā Sadrā’s philosophical magnum opus al-Ḥikma al-mutaʿāliya was not well-known in al-diyār al-rūmiyya (Rāġip Pāşā, “Safīnat al-Rāghib wa dafīnat al-maṭālib”, printed in R. al-ʿAjam & R. Daḥrūj (eds.), Mawsūʿat al-muṣṭalaḥāt al-mawḍūʿāt fī safīnat al-Rāghib wa dafīnat al-maṭālib [Beirut: Maktabat Lubnān 2000], 857). He could hardly have been claiming that they were only unknown in the European parts of the Empire.


several times and took countless Muslims and their families captive. It is now feared that there will be a general conquest of the Christians, and so we ask of God that He remove this cause from [the realm of ] the Sovereign of Islam and his viceroys, and thus that the scholars (ʿulamāʾ) desist from teaching philosophy and that those who do not desist are punished.24

Sāçaḳlīzāde’s reference to calamitous defeats and territorial losses suffered by the Ottomans some eighty or more years before 1130/ 1717 is curious. The ill-fated second attempt to seize Vienna, and the consequent loss of Hungary to the Austrians had occurred, not eighty, but only a little over thirty years prior to 1130/1717. What-ever events Sāçaḳlīzāde may have had in mind, it is clear that he thought that philosophy was being studied enthusiastically in Otto-man lands. It is also worth noting that Sāçaḳlīzāde was referring to the study and teaching of philosophy by the ʿulemāʾ class. This makes it very unlikely that his invective was primarily directed at the activity of individual scholars such as Esʿad Yanyavī (d. 1722) who, under the patronage of the court of Aḥmed III (r. 1703-1730), re-translated Aristotle into Arabic (from Latin Renaissance trans la tions) and also translated into Arabic some of the Latin works of the Greek-born Renaissance Aristotelian Ioannis Kottounios (d. 1657).25 Sāçaḳlīzāde seems to have been incensed by a more wide spread teaching and study of philosophy in Ottoman medreses. Else where in the same work, he bemoaned what he saw as the tendency of the students of his age to neglect the study of the longer classical handbooks of theology (kalām), such as al-Mawāqif of Ījī (d. 1355) with its commentary by Jurjānī (d. 1413), and instead study books on philosophy.26

Sāçaḳlīzāde’s fulminations against the study of philosophy, and its dire effects upon the military strength of the Ottoman Empire, are of course also topoi. He explicitly modeled his statements on the suggestion of the earlier Ḥanbalī scholar Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya

24) Ibid, 234nA (the footnote reproduces a marginal annotation to the text by Sāçaḳlīzāde himself ).25) On Esʿad Yanyavī, see D. Gutas, Greek Thought, Arabic Culture (London: Routledge, 1998), 175; and C. Brockelmann, Geschichte der Arabischen Litteratur (Leiden: EJ Brill, 1937-49), 2: 447 and Supplement 2: 665. 26) Sāçaḳlīzāde, Tartīb al-ʿulūm, 149 and 206.


(d. 1350) that the study of philosophy under the ‘Abbasids was punished by God in the form of the Mongol invasions.27 However, there is good reason to believe that Sāçaḳlīzāde’s complaints had some basis in contemporary realities and should not be dismissed as quixotic attacks on non-existent enemies. In the 19th century, the handbook on physics and metaphysics entitled Hidāyat al-ḥikma by Athīruddīn Abharī (d. 1265) was repeatedly printed in Istanbul along with the commentary of Qāḍī Mīr Ḥusayn Maybudī (d. 1504), both in its original Arabic and in a Turkish translation made by Meḥmed Aḳkirmānī (d. 1760).28 Also printed in the 19th century were three super-commentaries on this work (in Arabic) by late 17th- and 18th-century Ottoman scholars: Ḳara Khalīl Tīrevī (d. 1711), Meḥmed Kefevī (d.1754) and Ismā‘īl Gelenbevī (d. 1791).29 The fact that a translation and at least three super-commentaries on the work were penned by Ottoman scholars in the late 17th and 17th century is a sure sign that the work was regularly studied in that period. The fact that Sāçaḳlīzāde explicitly stated that many of his con temporary “philosophizers” chose to call the discipline ḥikma also suggests that Abharī’s Hidāyat al-ḥikma was one of the books Sāça ḳlīzāde may have had in mind when fulminating against the study of philosophy by Ottoman ʿulemāʾ and students.

Another work about which Sāçaḳlīzāde complained was the treatise on the proof of a necessary existent (ithbāt al-wājib) by the Persian philosopher and theologian Jalāluddīn Dawwānī (d. 1501). Many Ottoman students, according to Sāçaḳlīzāde, “wasted” a whole year studying this work along with its commentaries and super-commenta-

27) Sāçaḳlīzāde, Tartīb al-ʿulūm, 233-4, citing Ibn al-Qayyim’s Ighāthat al-lahfān.28) The Arabic text was repeatedly printed in Istanbul in the 19th and early 20th centuries (Maṭbaʿa-yi Āmire 1263/1846-7; Maṭbaʿa-yi Āmire 1283/1866-7; Ḥacı Muḥarrem Bosnavī Maṭbaʿası 1289/1870-1; Maṭbaʿa-yi Āmire 1308/1890-1; ʿ Ārif Efendī Maṭbaʿası 1321/1903-4; ʿ Ārif Efendī Maṭbaʿası 1325/1907-8). For the Turkish translation by Meḥmed Aḳkirmani, see Reichmuth, “Bildungskanon und Bildungsreform”, 520, n. 45. It was printed by Maṭbaʿa-yi Āmire in Istanbul in 1266/1849-50.29) Ḳara Khalīl, Ḥāshiya ʿalā ḥāshiyat al-Lārī (Istanbul: Maṭbaʿa-yi Āmire, 1271/1855); Meḥmed Kefevī, Hāshiya ʿ alā ḥāshiyat al-Lārī (Istanbul: Şirket-i Şeḥāfiyye-yi ʿ Osmāniyye, 1309/1891-2); Ismāʿīl Gelenbevī, Ḥāshiya ʿ alā ḥāshiyat al-Lārī (Istanbul: Maṭbaʿa-yi Āmire, 1270/1853-4).


ries.30 Again, his complaint is supported by the bio-biblio graphic evidence. At least four of Sāçaḳlīzāde’s Ottoman contemporaries: Ḥaydar Ḥusaynābādī (d. 1717), Meḥmed Tarsūsī (d. 1732-3), Aḥmed Ḳāzabādī (d.1750), and Meḥmed Kefevī (d. 1754) wrote glosses on the super-commentary of Mīrzā Jān Ḥabībullāh Bāghanvī (d. 1586) on the commentary of Mullā Ḥanafī Tabrīzī (fl. 1516) on the older of Dawwānī’s two treatises on the subject.31

Another example of the kind of Ottoman “philosophizing” scholar Sāçaḳlīzāde may have had in mind is his older contemporary Ḳara Khalīl Tīrevī (d. 1711).32 This scholar’s literary output was mainly devoted to philosophy, dialectic and logic. His major works, many of which were still sufficiently influential in the 19th century to be printed, were:

(i) Glosses on the commentary of Qāḍī Mīr Maybudī (d. 1504) on Hidāyat al-ḥikma (on physics and metaphysics) by Abharī and the super-commentary thereon by Muṣliḥud-dīn Lārī (d. 1579).33

(ii) Glosses on the commentary of Meḥmed Fenārī (d. 1431) on Īsāghūjī (on logic) by Abharī and the super-commentary thereon by Ḳūl Aḥmed (d. ca. 1543).34

(iii) A commentary on a treatise on the nature of logic by Meḥmed Emīn Şirvānī (d. 1627).35

(iv) Glosses on the commentary of Jalāluddīn Dawwānī (d. 1501) on Tahdhīb al-manṭiq (on logic) by Saʿduddīn Taftā-zānī (d. 1390) and the super-commentary thereon by Mīr Abū l-Fatḥ Ḥusaynī (d. 1568).36

30) Sāçaḳlīzāde, Tartīb al-ʿulūm, 150ff.31) R. Mach, Catalogue of Arabic Manuscripts (Yahuda Section) in the Garrett Collection (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1977), nrs. 2402, 2403, 2404 and 2406.32) On Ḳara Khalīl, see Şeykhī Meḥmed Efendī, “Veḳāyiʿü l-fuẓalā”, 4: 329f. 33) Printed with Lārī’s super-commentary by Maṭbaʿa-yi Āmire in Istanbul in 1271/1855.34) Repeatedly printed in Istanbul in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, for example by Maṭbaʿa-yi Āmire in 1279/1862-3 and by Yaḥyā Efendī Maṭbaʿası in 1289/1873-3.35) Printed in Istanbul by Maṭbaʿa-yi Āmire in 1258/1842-3 and 1288/1871-2.36) Mach, Catalogue, 3238.


(v) Glosses on a treatise on dialectic (ādāb al-baḥth) by Taşkö-prüzāde (d. 1560) and the author’s own commentary thereon.37

Despite his interests in logic, dialectic, physics and metaphysics, Ḳara Khalīl was hardly a marginal or disreputable figure of the ʿulemāʾ class. He rose to the position of kaziasker of Anatolia, the third-highest position to which an Ottoman scholar could rise.38 The example of Ḳara Khalīl alone should be sufficient to cast doubt on the thesis of a “triumph of fanaticism” in the Ottoman Empire in the 17th century.

It should be added that Sāçaḳlīzāde himself was far from being an obscurantist who condemned all “rational sciences”. He went out of his way to condone the study of astronomy, mathematics, medi-cine, logic and dialectic. The study of mathematics and medicine were unproblematic for Sāçaḳlīzāde,39 as they had been for Birgevī, and it is indeed very difficult to find any Islamic scholar through the ages who disapproved of the study of these sciences. When it came to astronomy, he—like Birgevī—made a distinction between what he called haʾya, i.e. the study of heavenly bodies and their movements on the basis of observation. This was a praiseworthy science that was useful for determining the direction of prayer and calculating the times of prayer. By contrast, what he called aḥkām al-nujūm—the effort to use the results of the former science to predict the course of future events on earth—was a prohibited science. Sāçaḳlīzāde went on to contrast astronomy as mentioned by the philosophers, and incorporated into the theological works of Muslim scholars of the late medieval period, with “Islamic astrono my” (al-hayʾa al-islāmiyya) as practiced by scholars such as Jalāluddīn al-Suyūṭī (d.1505), which attempted to derive the princi-ples of cosmology from reported sayings of prominent figures from the earliest generations of Islam. He explicitly stated that in case

37) Mach, Catalogue, 3375.38) For a list of Ottoman Grand Muftis and kaziaskers in the 17th and 18th centuries, see Zilfi, The Politics of Piety, 246ff.39) Sāçaḳlīzāde, Tartīb al-ʿulūm, 180f. (on mathematics and geometry), and 184f. (on medicine and surgery).


of conflict between rational and traditional cosmology, it was the latter that should be reinterpreted to accord with the former. It had, for example, been proven conclusively that the sun was many times larger than the earth, and hence it was not possible, as some early Islamic traditions asserted, that the sky rested on a great mountain-range circumscribing the earth.40 As for logic, studying it is a com-munal duty incumbent on the Muslim community as a whole (farḍ kifāya), Sāçaḳlīzāde wrote. Particularly, the study of inferences (baḥth al-adilla) is a duty, he maintained, since it formed part of the skills needed in studying the principles of jurisprudence.41 It is also a duty, he added, to exercise one’s mind (tashḥīdh al-khāṭir) because stupidity corrupts religion (al-aḥmaq yufsidu-l-dīn).42 Sāçaḳlīzāde conceded that earlier scholars such as the Ḥanbalī Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya (d. 1350) and the Ḥanafī Ibn Nujaym (d.1563) had pro-hibited logic, but insisted that this should be understood to relate to logic mixed with philosophy. The kind of logic that was studied in his time (al-manṭiq al-mutadāwal al-yawm) was by contrast free from the heretical doctrines of the philosophers.43 As for dialectic, Sāçaḳlīzāde maintained that it was practically impossible to follow scholarly discussions without having studied the discipline. Sāçaḳlīzāde himself wrote an influential compendium of dialectic entitled Taqrīr al-qawānīn al-mutadāwala fī ʿilm al-munāẓara and a widely studied epitome of it entitled al-Risāla al-waladiyya. The discipline of dialectic (ādāb al-baḥth) was a thoroughly ‘rational’ discipline closely related to logic, and Sāçaḳlīzāde’s two works in the field testify to his familiarity with the logical works studied throughout the Islamic world, by the likes of Quṭbuddīn Rāzī (d. 1365), Saʿduddīn Taftāzānī (d. 1390) and Sayyid Sharīf Jurjānī (d. 1413).

The idea that Ottoman scholars turned away from all the rational sciences in the 17th century simply cannot be sustained. Only the study of philosophy seems to have raised indignation in some circles—and it is important to keep in mind that it also did so in Safavid Persia and Mughal India, and that it had also done so in

40) Ibid, 181-4.41) Ibid, 139f.42) Ibid, 114f.43) Ibid, 114 and 235.


the Ottoman Empire in the 15th and 16th centuries. Nevertheless, the evidence suggests that this indignation did not prevent a con-siderable number of Ottoman scholars and students from openly studying and teaching the discipline. There is even reason to believe that Sāçaḳlīzāde’s impressions were right, and that interest in philosophy was on the rise in the 17th and 18th century.

II.

The “rise of fanaticism” thesis has hitherto obscured from historians’ view a remarkable social and cultural phenomenon that occurred in the Ottoman Empire in the second half of the 17th century and the first decades of the 18th. According to one estimate, the number of Istanbul-system medreses may have doubled between 1650 and 1705.44 If, as is almost certain, the philosophical sciences (logic, physics and metaphysics) were a core part of the curricula of these colleges, then a doubling of colleges within the span of a life-time must have meant a noticeable rise in the number of teachers and students engaged in studying and teaching philosophy.

Another element that seems to have reinvigorated the study of the philosophical sciences was the influx of Sunni Persian, Azeri and Kurdish scholars in the wake of the establishment of the Shiʿi Safavid dynasty in Iran in the early 16th century, and then the conquest of Azerbaijan and Shirwan by the Safavids in the early 17th. The first event brought to the Ottoman Empire illustrious scholars such as Muṣliḥuddīn Lārī (d. 1579),45 who wrote a widely studied super-commentary on the handbook of philosophy entitled Hidāyat al-ḥikma by Abharī and its commentary by Qāḍī Mīr Ḥusayn Maybudī (d. 1504), and Ḥasan b. Ḥusayn Amlashī (fl.1536-48) who wrote a handbook on logic entitled Takmīl al-manṭiq whose sophisticated treatment of modal syllogisms has been studied by Nicholas Rescher.46 The second movement of scholars, in the early 17th

44) Madeleine Zilfi, The Politics of Piety, 205.45) Nevʿīzāde ʿAṭāʾī, “Ḥadāʾiḳü l-ḥaḳāʾiḳ”, 2: 169-172.46) N. Rescher & A. van der Nat, “The Theory of Modal Syllogistic in Medieval Arabic Philosophy”, in: N. Rescher, Studies in Modality (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1974),


century, is perhaps more important from the perspective of the present article. Some of the more influential scholars who were involved in this movement were:

(i) Meḥmed Emīn Ṣadruddīn Şirvānīzāde (d. 1627), who en -joyed the patronage of the Ottoman commander in the wars against the Safavids in the first decade of the 17th century. He later came to Istanbul and was given a position at the Aḥmediyye College established by Sultan Aḥmed I (r. 1603-17).47 Meḥmed Emīn was a student of Ḥusayn Khalkhālī (d.1604), who in turn was a student of Mīrzā Jān Ḥabībullāh Bāghanvī (d. 1586).48 Mīrzā Jān Bāghanvī, a Sunni Persian scholar, was the author of widely studied works on philosophy, including: a super-commentary on Ibn Sīnā’s epitome of philosophy al-Ishārāt wa-l-tanbihāt and its commentary by Naṣīruddīn Ṭūsī (d. 1274); a super-commentary on a handbook on physics and metaphysics entitled Ḥikmat al-ʿayn by Najmuddīn Kātibī (d. 1277) and its commentary by Ibn Mubārakshāh Bukhārī (fl. second half of the 14th century); and a super-commentary on Jalāluddīn Dawwānī’s treatise Ithbāt al-wājib and its com-mentary by Mullā Ḥanafī Tabrīzī (fl. 1516).49 Mīrzā Jān’s

17-56. Note that Rescher mistakenly took the name of the scribe (Muḥammad Ṣādiq al-Shirwānī) to be the name of the author. The author’s name is Ḥasan b. Ḥusayn b. Muḥam-mad al-ʿAjamī as revealed by an autograph manuscript of Takmīl al-manṭiq (Suleymaniye: MS: Laleli 2561: fols. 1-39). This is identical to the Ḥasan b. Ḥusayn b. Muḥammad al-Amlashī who wrote Ḥall al-uṣūl on Ḥanafī jurisprudence (autograph MS: Suleymaniye: Kadizade Mehmed 104, completed in 1548) and Baḥr al-afkar, a super-commentary on Taftāzānī’s commentary on al-ʿAqāʾid al-nasafiyya (on theology) dedicated to the Ottoman Grand Vizier Ayās Pāşā (1536-39).47) Nevīzāde ʿAṭāʾī, “Ḥadāʾiḳü l-ḥaḳāʾiḳ”, 2:712; Muḥibbī, Khulāṣat al-athar, 3: 475f.48) Muḥibbī, Khulāṣat al-athar, 2: 122. On Bāghanvī, see Mīrzā Muḥammad Bāqir Khwan-sārī, Rawḍāt al-jannāt fī aḥwāl al-ʿulamāʾ wa-l-sādāt (Qum, 1391/1971-2), 3: 12; and C. Brockelmann, Geschichte der Arabischen Litteratur (Leiden, 1937-49), Suppl. 2: 594 [Note that Brockelmann misread ‘Bāghanvī’ as ‘Bāghandī’. Bāghanv is a town near Shiraz]. 49) R. Mach, Catalogue of Arabic Manuscripts (Yahuda Section) in the Garrett Collection (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1977), nrs. 2401 and 3076. For the super-com-mentary on Ṭūṣī’s commentary on Avicenna’s al-Ishārat, see MS: British Library (London), Or.6337 and MS: Chester Beatty Library (Dublin), 3998.


student Ḥusayn Khalkhālī wrote his own treatise on proving the existence of a necessary existent (ithbāt al-wājib); a much-studied astronomical treatise entitled Sharḥ al-dāʾira al-hindiyya; and super-commentaries on Dawwānī’s com-mentaries on Tahdhīb al-manṭiq (on logic) and al-ʿAqāʾid al-ʿaḍudiyya (on theology).50 Khalkhālī’s student Meḥmed Emīn Şirvānī also left behind a number of works, including an encyclopedia of the sciences dedicated to Sultan Aḥmed I entitled al-Fawāʾid al-khāqāniyya, which is one of the sources used by Kātib Çelebī in his well-known survey of books and sciences entitled Kashf al-ẓunūn. Another of his works was Risālat jihat al-waḥda, a treatise expanding on remarks made by Meḥmed Fenārī (d. 1431) in his com-mentary on Abharī’s Īsāghūjī on what made the numerous enquiries of logic one discipline. The treatise was still being studied in Ottoman circles in the nineteenth century, as evidenced by the fact that it was printed at least three times in that period in Istanbul.51 Also repeatedly printed was the commentary on the treatise by Ḳara Khalīl Tīrevī (d. 1711). One of Meḥmed Emīn’s grandchildren, Meḥmed Ṣāḍiḳ Ṣadruddīn-Şirvānīzāde (d. 1708), went on to become Grand Mufti of the Ottoman Empire. This grandson wrote at least one treatise on a point of logic,52 and copied in his own hand the manuscript of Ḥasan b. Ḥusayn Amlashī’s above-mentioned handbook on logic Takmīl al-manṭiq that was studied by Rescher.

(ii) Mullā Maḥmūd Kurdī (d. 1663-4), who settled in Damascus in the first decade of the 17th century.53 The 17th century Damascene historian Muḥammad Amīn al-Muḥibbī (d.

50) E. İhsanoğlu et. al. (eds.), Osmanlı Astronomi Literatürü Tarihi (Istanbul: IRCICA, 1997), 1: 246-249. R. Mach, Catalogue of Arabic Manuscripts (Yahuda Section) in the Garrett Collection (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1977), nrs. 2293 and 3243.51) Istanbul: Maṭbaʿa-yi Āmire 1262/1843-4; Maṭbaʿa-yi Āmire 1277/1860-1; Bosnalı Ḥacı Muḥarrem Maṭbaʿası 1288/1871-2.52) Meḥmed Ṣādiḳ b. Feyzullāh b. Meḥmed Emīn Şirvānī, Risāla fī kawn al-ṭasawwurāt wa-l-ṭaṣdīqāt naẓariyya (MS: Dār al-Kutub al-Miṣriyya [Cairo], 121 Majamiʿ).53) Muḥammad Amīn al-Muḥibbī, Khulāṣat al-athar, 4: 329f.


1699) wrote of Mullā Maḥmūd that he “was the first to teach the books of the Persians” in Damascus and that he “opened the gate of verification” in that city. The phrase “the books of the Persians” seems to refer to the works of late 15th and early 16th century Persianate scholars such as Jalāluddīn Dawwānī (d.1501) and ʿIṣāmuddīn Isfarāyinī (d. 1537) on “rational sciences” such as logic, dialectic, rational theology, semantics-rhetoric, and grammar.54

Mullā Maḥmūd Kurdī was one of several 17th-century Kurdish schol-ars who gained a reputation as a teacher of the “rational sciences”. Other prominent Kurdish scholars of the period include:

(i) Mullā Çelebī Āmidī (d. 1656), like Meḥmed Emīn Şirvānī a student of Ḥusayn Khalkhālī. Mullā Çelebī became part of the entourage of the Ottoman Sultan Murad IV (r. 1623-1640), to whom he dedicated a work, entitled Un -mūdhaj al-ʿulūm, treating a number of issues in various disciplines, including astronomy.55 According to the Dama-scene biographer Muḥibbī (d. 1699), Mullā Çelebī counted as his students almost all prominent Ottoman scholars active in the last quarter of the 17th century.56 According to the biographer Şeykhī Meḥmed Efendī (d. 1733), Mullā Çelebī was particularly renowned for his command of the “rational sciences” (funūn-i ʿaḳliyye) and in particular as -tronomy (felek).57 He wrote—among other things—a com-mentary on the astronomical almanac (zīj) of Uluġ Beğ

54) See my “Opening the Gate of Verification: The Forgotten Arabic-Islamic Florescence of the Seventeenth Century”, in: International Journal of Middle East Studies 38 (2006): 263-281, esp. 264ff.55) E. İhsanoğlu et al., Osmanlı Astronomi Literatürü Tarihi (Istanbul: IRCICA, 1997), 1: 291-294.56) Muḥibbī, Khulāṣat al-athar, 4: 308. Muḥibbī gives Mullā Çelebī’s first name as Muḥam-mad.57) Şeykhī Meḥmed Efendī, “Veḳāyiʿü l-fuẓalāʾ”, 3: 233. Şeykhī gives Mullā Çelebī’s first name as ʿAlī.


(d.1449)58 and a super-commentary on the commentary of Qādīzāde Rūmī (fl.1412) on the manual of geometry entitled Ashkāl al-taʾsīs, by Shamsuddīn Samarqandī (fl.1283-91);59

(ii) ʿUmar Çillī (fl. 1655) active in the predominantly Kurdish town of Āmid/Diyarbakır. Çillī wrote a widely studied commentary on Khulāṣat al-ḥisāb, a handbook on mathe-matics by the well-known Safavid scholar Bahāʾuddīn al-ʿĀmilī (d. 1621). He also wrote a commentary on the short Persian epitome of philosophy Jāmi gitī-numā attributed to Qāḍī Mīr Ḥusayn Maybudī (d. 1504).60

(iii) Muḥammad Sharīf al-Kūrānī (d. 1676) who taught philoso-phy and philosophical theology to, among others, the pro-minent mystic Ibrāhīm al-Kūrānī (d. 1690), who in turn is known to have taught Hidāyat al-ḥikma by Abharī and Ḥikmat al-ishrāq by the illuminationist philosopher Suhra-wardī (d. 1191) in Medina.61 Muḥammad Sharīf al-Kūrānī’s works include a super-commentary on the commentary of Ṭūsī on Ibn Sīnā’s Ishārāt and a super-commentary on Tahāfut al-falāsifa by Hōcazāde Bursevī (d. 1488), a work

58) MS: Suleymaniye: Hafid Efendī 455: fols. 1-53.59) MS: Suleymaniye: Şehid Ali Paşa 1775: fols. 103-166.60) See E. İhsanoğlu et. al., Osmanlı Matematik Literatürü Tarihi (Istanbul: IRCICA, 1999), 1: 112-118. İhsanoğlu et. al. vocalize the scholar’s nisba as Çullī, whereas I presume he hailed from the town of Çille in Adıyamin province near Diyarbakır. They also estimate his date of death to have been around 1613 (though in the course of the entry it is stated that 1640 is a more likely approximation). This cannot be true, since an extant autograph manuscript of his commentary on Jāmi Gitī-Numā is dated 1066/1655 (MS: 45 Hk 2732, listed on www.yazmalar.gov.tr, website last visited July 2, 2008). The colophon of an extant manuscript of his commentary on Khulāṣat al-ḥisāb, copied from the autograph in 1074/1664 (MS: 06 Hk 2006, listed on www.yazmalar.gov.tr, website last visited July 2, 2008) also mentions the author as alive at the time of copying (kutiba min nuskhati muṣannifihi ʿUmar b. Aḥmad al-Çillī ṭawwala-llāhu ʿumrahu). Furthermore, one of Çillī’s students, Ḥasan Nūreddīnī Suhrānī, is reported to have been 40 years of age when he died in 1078/1667-8 (Muḥibbī, Khulāṣat al-athar, 2: 63f.) and thus must have been born around the year 1628 and must have been studying with Çillī in the 1640’s.61) The Maghribī scholar ʿAbdullāh al-ʿAyyāshī (d. 1680) wrote that he studied these two works with Ibrāhīm al-Kūrānī in Medina, see his al-Riḥla al-ʿayyāshiyya (Rabat: Dār al-Maghrib, 1977 [reprint of lithograph edition of 1316/1898-9]), 1: 333f.

http://www.yazmalar.gov.tr




that attempted to adjudicate the points of disagreement between Ghazālī and the Islamic Neo-Platonists.62

(iv) Ḥaydar Ḥusaynābādī (d. 1717), active in the town of Mosul, who wrote glosses on the super-commentary of Muṣ liḥud dīn Lārī on Hidāyat al-ḥikma by Abharī, and on the super-commentaries of Mīrzā Jān Bāghanvī on Ḥikmat al-‘ayn by Kātibī and Risālat ithbāt al-wājib by Daw-wānī.63

The role of 17th century Kurdish scholars in the teaching of philo-sophical, logical and semantic works is indeed noteworthy, and their reputation in these “rational sciences” survived into the 18th century. The Baghdadi scholar ʿAbdullāh al-Suwaydī (d. 1761) wrote that in his student days he had gone to Mosul from his native Baghdad “to study philosophy and astronomy” (li-taḥsīli ʿilmi-l-ḥikmati wa-l-hayʾa),64 suggesting that the level of the study of these disciplines in that partly Kurdish town was higher than in his home town. One work that he studied there was Maybudī’s commentary on Abharī’s Hidāyat al-ḥikma with the super-commentary of Muṣliḥud dīn Lārī.65 The Aleppine scholar Maḥmūd al-Anṭākī (d.1748) also reportedly went to Mosul from Aleppo to complete his study of “logic and philosophy” (al-manṭiq wa-l-ḥikma).66 A reported con versation that occurred between two Iraqi scholars in the late 18th or early 19th century is also revealing. ‘Alī al-Suwaydī (d. 1822), one of the first scholars outside Najd to be touched by the teachings of the Wah-hābīs, reportedly complained to the prominent Naqshbandī mystic Khālid Shahrazūrī (d. 1827), himself of Kurdish origin, in the following words:

62) Muḥibbī, Khulāṣat al-athar, 4: 280f.63) Muradi, Silk al-durar, 2: 76f.; Mach, Catalogue, nrs. 2402, 3053, and 3079.64) ʿAbdullāh al-Suwaydī, al-Nafḥa al-miskiyya fī al-riḥla al-makkiyya (MS: British Library: Add. 18518), fol. 5r.65) Ibid, fol. 3b. 66) Muḥammad Rāghib al-Ṭabbākh, Iʿlām al-nubalāʾ bi-tārīkh ḥalab al-shahbāʾ (Aleppo: al-Maṭbaʿa al-ʿIlmiyya, 1923-6), 6: 528.


How bad is the practice of most Kurdish scholars in our day! They study philosophy and ignore the religious sciences such as tafsīr and ḥadīth, by contrast to the practice of Arab scholars.

To this, Khālid is supposed to have replied:

Both groups are seeking lowly, worldly glory by their knowledge, and seek-ing this by means of saying “The Prophet of God has said” is worse than seeking it by means of saying “Plato has said, Aristotle has said” … Yes, if they were seeking the hereafter, then indeed what most Arab scholars do would be praiseworthy.67

Conclusion

The evidence suggests that the idea of a decline in interest in the rational sciences in the Ottoman Empire in the 17th century is a myth, nurtured by a few topical complaints about the “decline of the times” by contemporary scholars, and by a few dramatic events whose significance has been misunderstood, such as the rise of the Ḳāḍīzādeli movement and the demolition of the Ottoman observatory in 1580. There is abundant evidence to suggest that, on the contrary, the study of disciplines such as logic, dialectic, semantics, philosophy, rational theology, mathematics and astronomy continued unabated in the Ottoman Empire throughout the 17th century. There is even reason to believe that interest in these fields was on the rise, spurred on both by a dramatic rise in the number of educational institutions, and by the influx of works and scholars from Azerbaijan and Persia in the 16th and early 17th centuries.

Appendix

In what follows, I list some of the main handbooks in logic, dialectic, physics and metaphysics which bio-bibliographic literature suggests were studied in the Ottoman Empire in the 17th and 18th centuries.

67) The exchange is reported by Maḥmūd al-Alūsī (d. 1854), a disciple of Khālid al-Naqsh-bandī, in his Gharāʾib al-ightirāb (Baghdād: Maṭbaʿat al-Shahbandar, 1327/1909-10), 91.


Logic

The study of logic was well-established in Ottoman scholarly circles, and bio-bibliographic evidence suggests a veritable explosion in the quantity of Ottoman logical writings in the 17th and 18th centuries. The main focus of study seems to have been the following handbooks:

(i) Īsāghūjī by Athīruddīn al-Abharī (d. 1265), an elementary introduction to logic, often studied with the commentary of Ḥusāmuddīn Kātī (d. 1359) and the more demanding commentary of Meḥmed Fenārī (d.1431). The latter commentary in particular became the subject of a number of super-com-mentaries: by Ḳūl Aḥmed (d. ca. 1543) and later by Ḳara Khalīl (d. 1711), Aḥmed Şevḳī (d. 1808) and ʿAbdullāh Kanḳirī (d. 1828).68 In the 17th and 18th centuries, a number of new commentaries on Īsāghūjī also made an appearance: by Muṣṭafā Mostarī (d. 1707), Ismāʿīl Gelenbevī (d. 1791), Maḥ-mūd Mağnisāvī (d. 1808), Aḥmed Rüşdü Kara-ağacī (d. 1835), and Ömer Feyzī Tokadī (d. 1848).69

(ii) Tahdhīb al-manṭiq by Saʿduddīn Taftāzānī (d. 1390). This condensed work, more advanced than Abharī’s Īsāghūjī, was also widely studied. Judging from the number of super-commentaries, the by far most popular commentary on the work was by the Persian philosopher Jalāluddīn Dawwānī (d. 1501). His incomplete commentary, along with the super-commentary by Mīr Abū l-Fatḥ Ḥusaynī (d. 1568), invited a host of often lengthy super-commentaries by Ottoman scholars in the 17th and 18th centuries: for example by Ḳara Khalīl (d. 1711), Ismāʿīl Gelenbevī (d. 1791) and ʿAbdullāh Kanḳirī (d. 1828).70

(iii) al-Risāla al-shamsiyya by Najmuddīn Kātibī (d. 1277). In the 17th century, at least two Ottoman commentaries on this classic handbook on logic were written, by ʿAllāmek Meḥmed Bosnavī (d. 1636) and Muṣṭafā Mostarī (d.

68) Ḳara Khalīl, Ḥāshiya ʿalā sharḥ al-fanārī (Istanbul: Maṭbaʿa-yi Āmire, 1279/1862-3); Aḥmed Şevkī, Ḥāshiya ʿalā sharḥ al-fanārī (Istanbul: Maṭbaʿat al-Hajj Muharram al-Bosnawi, 1309/1891-2); ʿ Abdullāh Kanḳirī, Ḥāshiya ʿ alā sharḥ al-fanārī (Istanbul: Maṭbaʿa-yi Āmire, 1313/1895-6).69) Muṣṭafa Mostarī, Sharḥ īsāghūjī (Istanbul: Maṭbaʿa-yi Āmire, 1316/1898); Ismāʿīl Gelenbevī, Sharḥ īsāghūjī (Istanbul: Şirket-i Şeḥāfiyye-yi ʿ Osmāniyye, 1306/1888-9); Maḥ-mūd Mağnisāvī, Sharḥ īsāghūjī (Istanbul: Şirket-i Şeḥāfiyye-yi ʿ Osmāniyye, 1319/1901-2); Aḥmed Rüşdü Kara-ağacī, Tuḥfat al-rushdī al-qaraāghajī ʿalā matn īsāghūjī (Istanbul: Maṭbaʿa-yi Āmire, 1279/1862-3); Ömer Feyzī Tokadī, al-Durr al-nājī ʿalā matn īsāghūjī (Istanbul: Maṭbaʿa-yi Āmire, 1302/1884-5).70) Mach, Catalogue, nrs. 3238, 3241, 3242.


1707).71 An older commentary on the work, by Quṭbuddīn Rāzī (d. 1365), also elicited a number of Ottoman super-commentaries in the 17th and 18th centuries, of which the mammoth super-commentary of Muftīzāde Meḥmed Ṣādiḳ Erzincanī (d. 1808) was printed in the 19th century in 2 volumes totaling 765 pages.72

In the 18th century, a number of new handbooks written by Ottoman scholars appeared. Dāvūd Ḳārṣī (fl. 1740s) wrote al-Īsāghūjī al-jadīd and Takmilat al-tahdhīb, somewhat expanded versions of Abharī’s Īsāghūjī and Taftāzānī’s Tah-dhīb.73 Ḳārṣī’s contemporary Abū Saʿīd Khādimī (d. 1762) also wrote a new handbook on logic entitled ʿArāʾis al-anẓār and an epitome of it entitled Nafāʾis al-ʿarā’is.74 The perhaps most successful of the new 18th-century handbooks was al-Burhān fī ʿilm al-mīzān by Ismāʿīl Gelenbevī (d. 1791), which elicited a number of commentaries by 19th century Ottoman scholars including a two-volume commentary in Ottoman Turkish by ʿAbdünnāfiʿ ʿİffet Efendī (d. 1890).75

Dialectic

Even more dramatic than the rise of interest in logic was the veritable explosion of interest in dialectic, or ādāb al-baḥth. As in the case of logic, the discipline was not new, and had received some attention in Ottoman scholarly circles in the 15th and 16th centuries. However, the works on the discipline seem to have become both more numerous and lengthier in the period subsequent to the death of the bibliographer Kātib Çelebī (d. 1657). The main handbooks used in the field were as follows:

(i) al-Risāla fī ādāb al-baḥth by Shamsuddīn Samarqandī (fl. 1291), usually studied with the commentary of Mesʿūd Şirvānī (d. 1499). This was stated by Kātib Çelebī to be the major handbook in the field.76 However, it seems

71) ʿAllāmek Meḥmed Bosnavī, Sharḥ al-shamsiyya (MS: Suleymaniye: Laleli 2658 & Laleli 2661); Muṣṭafa Mostarī, Sharḥ al-shamsiyya (MS: Suleymaniye: Laleli 2662), see also Mach, Catalogue, nr. 3219.72) By Maṭbaʿa-yi Āmire, 1254/1838-9 and Şirket-i Şeḥāfiyye-yi ʿ Osmāniyye, 1308/1890-1.73) P. Hitti et al. Descriptive Catalog of the Garrett Collection of Arabic Manuscripts in the Princeton University Library (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1938), nr. 827 [“Qārisī” misread as “Fārisī”]; Mach, Catalogue, nr. 3254.74) Mach, Catalogue, nrs. 3293, 3294.75) ʿAbdünnāfiʿ ʿ İffet Efendī, Fenn-i Manṭiḳ: Mizān-i Şerh-i Mütercim-i Burhān (Istanbul: Maṭbaʿa-yi Āmire, 1295/1878; reprinted in 1297/1879-80 and 1304/1886-7).76) Kātib Çelebī, Kashf al-ẓunūn ʿ an asāmī al-kutub wa-l-funūn (Istanbul: Maʿarif Maṭbaʿası, 1941-3), 1: 207.


to have elicited very few super-commentaries in the course of the 17th and 18th centuries, and this suggests that it was gradually supplanted in popularity by other works.

(ii) al-Risāla fī ādāb al-baḥth by Aḥmed Taşköprüzāde (d. 1560). This elementary handbook, with the commentary of Taşköprüzāde himself, elicited super-commentaries by Ḳara Khalīl Tīrevī (d. 1711), Ismāʿīl Ḥaḳḳī Bursevī (d. 1724), Abū l-Suʿūd al-Kawākibī (d. 1725), and Mūsā Niğdevī (d. 1729).77

(iii) al-Risāla fī ādāb al-baḥth by Meḥmed Birgevī (d. 1574). This one-page summary of the discipline invited commentaries from Veliyüddīn Cārullāh Efendī (d. 1738) and Aḥmed Ḳāzabādī (d. 1750).78

(iv) al-Risāla fī ādāb al-baḥth by ʿAḍududdīn Ījī (d. 1355). This seems to have been the most popular handbook in Ottoman circles in the late 17th and 18th centuries. It was usually studied with the commentary of Mullā Ḥanafī Tabrīzī (fl. 1516) and the rather demanding super-commentary of Mīr Abū l-Fatḥ Ḥusaynī (d. 1568). This work elicited a number of often lengthy glosses, for example by the Grand Mufti of the Ottoman Empire Yaḥyā Minḳārīzāde (d. 1677), Meḥmed Kefevī (d. 1754), and Ismā‘īl Gelenbevī (d. 1791).79 Gelen-bevī’s super-commentary was printed in Istanbul in 1234/1818-9, and at 609 pages may be one of the longest works on dialectic ever written in Arabic.

As in logic, the 17th and 18th centuries saw the emergence of new handbooks on the discipline by Ottoman scholars. Three of the most popular of these seem to have been:

(i) An untitled handbook, usually known as al-Ḥusayniyya and attributed to either Huseyn Şāh Amāsyavī (fl.1512) or Huseyn Şāh Anṭākī (d. 1718). This work, along with the author’s own commentary, elicited numerous super-commentaries, for example by ‘Alī Ferdī Ḳayṣerī (d. 1715), Meḥmed Dārendevī (d. 1739), and Muftīzāde Meḥmed Ṣādiḳ Erzincanī (d. 1808).80

77) Mach, Catalogue, nrs. 3374, 3375, 3376, 3378. Ismāʿīl Haḳḳī Bursevī’s glosses were printed in Istanbul in 1273/1856-7 by Ḥacı ʿAlī Reza Maṭbaʿası.78) Mach, Catalogue, nrs. 3386, 3387.79) Mach, Catalogue, nrs. 3352, 3351 [author mistakenly dated to 16th century], 3361. Ismāʿīl Gelenbevī, Ḥāshiya ʿalā ḥāshiyat Mīr Abū l-Fatḥ ʿalā sharḥ al-ādāb al-ʿaḍudiyya (Istanbul: Maṭbaʿa-yi Āmire, 1234/1818-9).80) Mach, Catalogue, nrs. 3392, 3393, 3394, 3396, 3397. The super-commentary of Meḥ-med Sādiḳ Muftīzāde Erzincanī was printed by Şirket-i Şeḥāfiyye-yi ʿ Osmāniyye in 1307/ 1889-90.


(ii) Taḥrīr al-qawānīn al-mutadāwala fī ʿilm al-munāẓara by Meḥmed Sāçaklīzāde (d. 1732-3). Sāçaklīzāde also wrote an epitome of the work for the benefit of his son, and hence known as al-Risāla al-waladiyya, which quickly seems to have become a standard introductory handbook in the field. It elicited a host of commentaries, by scholars such as Hüseyin Marʿaşī (fl. 1762), Khalīl Aḳvirānī (d.1809) and ʿAbdulwahhāb Āmidī (d. 1776), the latter of which was printed on several occasions in the 19th and early 20th centuries.81

(iii) Risāla fī ādāb al-baḥth by Ismāʿīl Gelenbevī (d. 1791). This work elicited a commentary by Gelenbevī’s student Meḥmed Saʿīd Ḥasanpaşazāde (d. 1776) that was printed repeatedly in Istanbul in the 19th century.82

Physics and Metaphysics

Two handbooks on philosophy that were widely studied in Ottoman circles in the 17th and 18th centuries have already been mentioned:

(i) Hidāyat al-ḥikma by Athīruddīn al-Abharī (d. 1265), along with the com-mentary of Qāḍī Mīr Ḥusayn Maybudī (d. 1504). Though Abharī’s Hidāyat initially consisted of three parts, on logic, physics and metaphysics respectively, the part on logic had already fallen into disuse by the 15th century and was not commented upon by Maybudī. The work was usually studied with the super-commentary of Muṣliḥuddīn Lārī (d. 1579), who was a student of Ghiyāthuddīn Manṣūr Dashtakī (d. 1542) and was often critical of Maybudī (who was a student of Dashtakī’s rival Jalāluddīn Dawwānī [d.1501]). The commentary and super-commentary elicited a number of often very extensive glosses from Ottoman scholars, such as Zaynulʿābidīn Gūrānī (dedicated to Sultan Meḥmed IV [r. 1648-1687]), Ḳara Khalīl Tīrevī (d. 1711), Ḥaydar Ḥusaynābādī (d. 1717), Meḥmed Kefevī (d. 1754), and Ismāʿīl Gelenbevī (d. 1791).83

81) Mach, Catalogue, nrs. 3407, 3403, 3404. ʿ Abd al-Wahhāb al-Āmidī, Sharḥ al-waladiyya (Istanbul: Maṭbaʿa-yi Āmire, 1261/1845; Maṭbaʿa-yi Āmire 1274/1857-8; Maṭbaʿa-yi Āmire 1288/1871-2; Yūsuf Żiyā Maṭbaʿası 1325/1907-8; Cairo: al-Maṭbaʿa al-Azhariyya, 1331/1912-3).82) Mach, Catalogue, nrs. 3413, 3414. Meḥmed Saʿīd Ḥasanpāşāzāde, Fatḥ al-wahhāb ʿ alā risālat al-ādāb (Istanbul: Maṭbaʿa-yi Āmire 1263/1846-7; Maṭbaʿa-yi Āmire 1274/1877-8; Şirket-i Şeḥāfiyye-yi ʿOsmāniyye 1310/1892-3). 83) Ḳara Khalīl, Ḥāshiya ʿalā ḥāshiyat al-Lārī (Istanbul: Maṭbaʿa-yi Āmire, 1271/1855); Meḥmed Kefevī, Ḥāshiya ʿ alā ḥāshiyat al-Lārī (Istanbul: Şirket-i Şeḥāfiyye-yi ʿ Osmāniyye, 1309/1891-2); Ismāʿīl Gelenbevī, Ḥāshiya ʿ alā ḥāshiyat al-Lārī (Istanbul: Maṭbaʿa-yi Āmire, 1270/1853-4). For the super-commentaries of al-Kūrānī and Ḥusaynābādī, see Mach, Catalogue, nrs. 3052, 3053.


(iii) Risālat ithbāt al-wājib al-qadīma, a treatise proving the existence of a necessary existent by Jalāluddīn Dawwānī (d. 1501), along with the commentary of Mullā Ḥanafī Tabrīzī (fl. 1516). The work was often studied with the super-commentary of Mīrzā Jān Ḥabībullāh Bāghanvī (d. 1586). As mentioned above, the commentary and super-commentary elicited extensive glosses from 17th and 18th century Ottoman scholars such as Ḥaydar Ḥusaynābādī (d. 1717), Meḥmed Tarsūsī (d. 1732-3), Aḥmed Ḳāzabādī (d. 1750), and Meḥmed Kefevī (d. 1754).84

84) Mach, Catalogue, nrs. 2402, 2403, 2404 and 2406.

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