REFLECTIONS OF AN EXTERNAL WORLD
IN THE OTTOMAN MIND
THE PRODUCTION AND TRANSMISSION OF
KNOWLEDGE
Examining Committee Member
I certify that I have read this thesis and have found that it is fully adequate, in scope
and in quality, as a thesis for the degree of Master of Arts in History.
---------------------------------
Examining Committee Member
Approval of the Graduate School of Economics and Social Sciences
---------------------------------
Prof Dr. Erdal Erel
Director
iii
ABSTRACT
REFLECTIONS OF AN EXTERNAL WORLD IN THE OTTOMAN MIND
THE PRODUCTION AND TRANSMISSION OF
KNOWLEDGE
IN THE 18TH CENTURY OTTOMAN SOCIETY
September 2011
This thesis attempts to investigate Ottoman “perception of knowledge”. The
construction of collective perception of knowledge, various knowledge concepts,
spaces for knowledge production, modes and channels of transmission are analyzed.
It discusses the role of oral and written modes of transmission and claims that the
loosening classical organizational structure of the Empire and the social
transformation experienced in the 18th century, had an impact on the society’s
perception of knowledge. It is assumed in this thesis that knowledge was being
transmitted by three different layers of society, namely “high-ranking professionals”,
“secondary professionals” and the “public”. The main argument of this thesis is
being tested by the empirical data showing the professional status of knowledge
transmitters, the books they owned, and the contents of the books which were
classified with respect to the kind of knowledge they possessed. The empirical data
used consists of 2 registers of kısmet-i askeriye, individual distinct records chosen
from Ba!bakanlık Osmanlı Ar!ivi Ba! Muhasebe Kalemi dating the first half of 18th
century, and one Üsküdar court record. This thesis carries the previous research done
on “Ottoman book culture” one step further for a better and meaningful interpretation
of the results, and views the role of books from the perspective of perception of
knowledge. Thus, it also hopes to provide an insight to the question of “Why did
printing come late to Ottoman world?” that has occupied the minds of Ottoman
historians for half a century.
Keywords; production, transmission, knowledge, Ottoman History, books, probate
inventory records
iv
ÖZET
DI! DÜNYANIN OSMANLI Z"HN"NDEK" YANSIMALARI
18. yy OSMANLI TOPLUMUNDA “BiLGi”N"N ÜRET"M" VE AKTARIMI
Tekgül, Nil
Master, Tarih Bölümü
Tez Yöneticisi: Prof. Dr. Özer Ergenç
Eylül 2011
Bu tez Osmanlı bilgi algısını konu edinmektedir. Kolektif bilgi algısının olu$umu,
Osmanlı’da farklı bilgi türlerini üretim mekanları, bilgi aktarım tarzları ve bu tarzlar
üzerinden olu$turulan farklı aktarım kanalları incelenmektedir. Sözlü ve yazılı kültür
pratiklerinin bilgi aktarımındaki rolü ve etkinlikleri tartı$ılmakta, 18.yy’da
deneyimlenen Osmanlı toplumsal de"i$im ve dönü$üm sürecinin aynı zamanda
kolektif bilgi algısını da etkiledi"i iddia edilmektedir. Bilgi aktarımının toplumda 3
ayrı katman tarafından gerçekle$ti"i varsayımına dayanarak, farklı katmanlarda yer
alan aktarıcıların mesleki statüleri, sahip oldukları kitapların adetleri ve Osmanlı
bilgi türlerine göre tasnifi gerçekle$tirilen kitap içerik analizleri ile bu iddia ampirik
veriler ı$ı"ında test edilmektedir. Konunun teorik çerçevesi 18.yy’a ait iki adet
kısmet-i askeriyye defteri, Ba$bakanlık Osmanlı Ar$ivi Ba$ Muhasebe Kalemi
tarafından düzenlenen münferit tereke kayıtları ve bir adet Üsküdar mahkemesince
düzenlenen kadı sicilleri ile ampirik olarak desteklenmektedir. Bu tez, bugüne kadar
Osmanlı kitap kültürü kapsamında yapılan ara$tırmaların ortaya koymu$ oldu"u
benzer sonuçları, farklı bir bakı$ açısı ile bir adım öteye ta$ıyarak, ara$tırma
sonuçlarının sebeplerini açıklamaya yönelik bir katkıda bulunmakta böylelikle
Osmanlı tarihçilerinin yarım yüzyıl boyunca zihinlerini me$gul eden “Matbaa
Osmanlı’ya neden geç geldi?” sorusuna da yanıt olabilme ümidini ta$ımaktadır.
Anahtar Kelimeler; bilgi, “bilgi üretimi”, “bilgi aktarımı”, “18.yy Osmanlı toplumu”,
sözlü kültür, kitap, tereke
v
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
It is my pleasure to thank those who have had valuable contributions to my thesis and
presented their support in a number of ways. First, I would like to to express my
warmest feelings to my husband Serdar and to my beloved son Hakan for their
enduring love and patience not only during the period of writing this thesis but also
for the wholly new experience of myself in the field of history. I would also like to
express my deepest gratitude to my friends Birgül, Reyhan and Sevgi for reading my
thesis and sharing their valuable comments with me sincerely although they were not
either historians or academicians. My dear brother Can and my friend Kemal also
supported me with their remarks while editing my English. My appreciation to all my
professors in the Department of History, especially to Prof. Dr. Oktay Özel and Prof.
Dr. Cadoc Leighton for their insightful comments on my thesis.
However, there’s somebody who deserves the most. He’s my advisor Prof. Dr. Özer
Ergenç. I offer my sincerest gratitude to him, who has supported me thoughout my
journey within history with his patience and vast knowledge in Ottoman history. I am
indebted to his neverlasting willingness to improve my Ottoman Turkish proficiency.
Without him this thesis, would not have been completed or written. Last but not the
least, I would like to thank Gürer and Sarper for their friendship and participative
support all throughout the program.
vi
TABLE OF CONTENTS
ABSTRACT…………………………………………………...……………… iii
ÖZET………………………………………………………………………….. iv
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS…………………………………………………… v
TABLE OF CONTENTS……………………………………………………… vi
LIST OF TABLES……………………………………………………………viii
LIST OF FIGURES………………………………………………………….....xi
CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION……………………………………………… ..1
1.1 Objectiveof the Thesis……………………………………..…….......7-10
1.2 Literature Review ………………………………………………...10-16
1.3 Methodology and Sources………………………………………....16-18
CHAPTER II: CONCEPTS DEFINING KNOWLEDGE ……………….. .19-29
2.1 Ilm…………………………………………………………… . …21-22
2.2 Marifet…………………………………………………..……….. .22-23
2.3 Hal……………………………………………..…………..............23-25
2.4 Hüner-Marifet…………………………..………………………. ..25-27
2.5 Adab………………………………………………………… …....27-29
CHAPTER III: CONSTRUCTION OF “PERCEPTION OF KNOWLEDGE”...
………………………………………………………………………………30-71
3.1 Spaces for “Knowledge” Production and Transmission..…………..31-49
3.2 Modes of Transmission…………………………………………. …49-63
3.2.1 Rituals………………………………………………. .49-51
3.2.2 Oral……………………………………………………51-55
3.2.3 Written………………………………………………. 55-56
3.2.3.i. Production of Books –Author and Copyist…
……………………………………………………...... 56-59
3.2.3.ii Book Trading and Demand ………………… .60-63
3.3 Individual and his Perception of Knowledge in Classical Period…..63-67
3.4 Individual and his Perception of Knowledge in
vii
Post-classical Period…. …………………………………………… 68-71
CHAPTER IV: KNOWLEDGE TRANSMITTERS………………… 72-97
4.1 Primary Sources of the Previous Research and Their Results……..72-74
4.2 Primary Sources of this Thesis …………..………………………...75-77
4.3 Defining Knowledge Transmitters…………………………………77-80
4.4 Transmitters Reflected in the Sources……………………………...80-96
4.5 Evaluation of the Sources…………………………………………..96-97
CHAPTER V: CONCLUSION……………………………………………98-102
BIBLIOGRAPHY………………………………………………………..103-107
viii
LIST OF TABLES
Table 1. Ottoman Medrese Cirricula……………………………………………33
Table 2. Results of Previous Research on the book-ownership ratio …………..68
Table 3. Sabev’s findings of book ownership with respect to owners’
Profession………………………………………………………………………..69
Table 4. Book ownership ratio in KA%S no. 22 and 31…………………………70
Table 5. Book ownership and the no. of books owned with respect
to owners’ profession in KA%C no. 22 and 31………………………………….71
Table 6. Analysis of KA%C No. 31 dated hijri 1124 (1712-1713) ……………..76
Table 7. Anaylsis of KA%C No. 22 dated hijri 1114-1115 (1703-1704)………..76
ix
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1. Classifcation of Ottoman Knowledge………………………………16
Figure 2. Perception of Knowledge………………………………………… 31
Figure 3. Transmission of Knowledge in Medrese………………………… 35
Figure 4. Transmission of Knowledge in Tekke…………………………….. 37
Figure 5. Transmission of Knowledge in Hirfet Groups……………………...39
Figure 6. Transmission Channels of Knowledge to Cem’iyyet (Public)……...44
1
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Objective of the Thesis
Civilizations tend to develop and revolve around meaningful concepts of an abstract
nature, which more than anything else gives them their distinctive character. ‘Ilm is
one of the concepts that has dominated Islam and given Muslim civilization its
distinctive shape and complexity.1 Arabic ‘ilm is fairly well rendered by the term
“knowledge”. However, Rosenthal argues that “knowledge” falls short of expressing
all the factual and emotional contents of ‘ilm.2 Although it is considered to be the
root of every innovation in human society today, and has been thus respected by
many civilizations as such, different civilizations may have emphasized different
aspects of knowledge. From a comparative perspective, it becomes, then, a valid
1 Franz Rosenthal, Knowledge Triumphant: The Concept of Knowledge in Medieval Islam, Leiden,
Netherlands, E.J.Brill, 1970, p.1. Franz Rosenthal (August 31, 1914 – April 8, 2003)was a German
orientalist, a prolific and highly accomplished scholar who contributed much to the development of
source-critical studies in Arabic in the US. His publications range from a monograph on Humor in
Early Islam to a three-volume annotated translation of the Muqaddimah of Ibn Khaldun to a Grammar
of Biblical Aramaic. He wrote extensively on Islamic civilization, including The Muslim Concept of
Freedom, The Classical Heritage in Islam, The Herb: Hashish versus Medieval Muslim Society,
Gambling in Islam, On Suicide in Islam and Complaint and Hope in Medieval Islam, as well as three
volumes of collected essays and two volumes of translations from the history of the medieval Arab
historian at-Tabari, Knowledge Triumphant: The Concept of Knowledge in Medieval Islam.
!"Ibid, p. 2
2
question if there were noticeable differences in the perception of the concept of
knowledge in Classical Antiquity, in the Christian West, in Islam, in China or in
India.
Rosenthal’s work, Knowledge Triumphant, specifically focuses on knowledge in
Islam. Rosenthal also attempts to answer the aforesaid question, in his concluding
remarks. He argues that in the merging of ethics with knowledge in Greco-Roman
philosophy in the Ancient World, in particular in Greco-Roman philosophy, ethics
always retained the greater attraction for the minds and emotions of the Ancients,
and exercised greater influence over them. He also states that the sphere of religion
was never fused that of knowledge as happened later on in Islam.3 In Greco-Roman
philosophy, identifying ethics with knowledge started with Socrates.4 For the
Western civilization created by Greek and Roman world, its medieval mind was not
moved by any magic spell emanating from the word “knowledge” or a belief in its
unsurpassed religious and worldly merit.5 On the contrary, Chinese and, in particular,
the Neo-Confucian thought was thoroughly dominated by the idea of inseparability
of knowledge from action. In the Chinese view, action, not knowledge, was the chief
concern of the individual and of society.6 The most fundamental concepts of Chinese
philosophy were “balance”, “harmony”, and the “Golden Mean”.7 To emphasize
further the variations around this theme, “action” faded into the background in India.
3 Ibid, p.335
4 J. Störig, “"lkça# Felsefesi Hint Çin Yunan”, trns. Ömer Cemal Güngören, Yol Yayınları, !stanbul,
1994, p. 238
5 Franz Rosenthal, nowledge Triumphant: The Concept of Knowledge in Medieval Islam, Leiden,
Netherlands, E.J.Brill, 1970, p. 337
6 Ibid, p.338
7 J. Störig, “"lkça# Felsefesi Hint Çin Yunan”, trns. Ömer Cemal Güngören, Yol Yayınları, !stanbul,
1994, p. 172
3
Instead, epistemology at its most abstract form came to fore as the abiding
preoccupation of Indian thinkers. Moreover, the discussions about the relationship of
knower, knowledge and the object known showed wide variations. Indian scholars
probed deeper into the abstract problem of knowledge than Muslim scholars ever did.
This speculation involved a great variety of terms each of which had specific
meaning. There was no single dominating term like ‘ilm in Arabic.8
Rosenthal claims that knowledge, was indeed, Islam. Throughout centuries,
perception of knowledge encompassed all the religious, philosophical, and mystical
trends and thus enabling it to be the most dominant and inclusive concept of Islamic
civilization which will be thoroughly analyzed in the second chapter.
To further focus on the main subject of this thesis, it becomes an important question
to answer as to what the Ottoman perception of knowledge was as the Ottoman
Empire was one of the most significant Islamic states. Firstly, the terms “perception”,
and “perception of knowledge” used within the context of this thesis need to be
clarified. In its simplest form, perception (from the Latin perceptio, percipio) is the
process by which an organism attains awareness or understanding of its environment
by organizing and interpreting sensory information. In other words, perception
involves a mental process of transforming sensory information which then is codified
as a concept by the use of linguistics. Transmission starts as perceptions become
codified as concepts. Through the transmission of concepts, a process of collective
mental construction starts and thus perception becomes socialized. This collective
mental construction of perception is defined as “knowledge” in this thesis.
8 Franz Rosenthal, Knowledge Triumphant: The Concept of Knowledge in Medieval Islam, Leiden,
Netherlands, E.J.Brill, 1970, p.339-40
4
Besides tracing the perception of knowledge and its impact on the Ottoman society,
this thesis also attempts to answer the following questions; were there different kinds
of knowledge; were there any differences in the individual’s perception of
knowledge between the classical and the post-classical period; who were the people
producing knowledge and for whom; who were the transmitters of knowledge; what
kind of effects did the comparative dominance of oral culture over written culture
have on perception of knowledge; was literacy a distinguishing feature in Ottoman
society; how were the written texts positioned in one’s social life, and how did they
correspond to one’s needs?
This thesis seeks to answer the aforementioned questions by analyzing the various
modes and channels of transmission of knowledge, the impact of the knowledge
transmitters on the formation of “perception of knowledge” and how all these factors
combine to create the stereotype individual of the Ottoman society. This thesis
argues that 18th century is a crucial period of transformation with signs of change in
both the production and the transmission of knowledge. Besides viewing the signs of
change from a theoretical perspective, it also uses probate inventory records of the
18th century. The books which were classified with respect to the distinct knowledge
they possess are used as a tool to trace the knowledge transmission mechanism.
It also sets the stage for the discussion that 18th century’s changing perception of
knowledge might be a precursor of 19th century’s intellectual dynamism, thus also
hopes to provide an insight to the question of “Why did printing come late to
Ottoman world?” that has occupied the minds of Ottoman historians for half a
century.
5
1.2 Literature Review
Albert Hourani challenged the so-called “decline” thesis with his essay “Changing
Face of the Fertile Crescent in the XVIII century” which was published in 1957. His
work exposed the dynamics of change in the eighteenth century and concluded that
Ottoman Muslim society in eighteenth century was not decaying and lifeless, but it
was rather a self-contained society “before” the full impact of the West.9 His essay
was rejecting the generally accepted assumption that it was the Western countries’
impact in the 18th century that which made Ottoman society self-sufficient. Another
researcher Sadji argues that Ottoman historians’ started to question the validity of
the “decline thesis” with their productive skepticism towards their sources and
intensive research using empirical data. She further claims that those empirical
studies offered a portrayal of internally dynamic Ottoman state and society which
could easily be compared to other societies and polities with a changing nature. 10
Although there is still an on-going debate on the validity of decline thesis, most of
the historians tend to regard 17th and 18th centuries as a period of social
transformation. 11
#" Albert Hourani , "The Changing Face of the Fertile Crescent in the XVIIIth Century," Studia
Islamica, VIII (1957), pp. 89-122"
10 Dana Sadji, “Decline, its Discontents and Ottoman Cultural History: By Way of Introduction”
Ottoman Tulips Ottoman Coffee, Leisure and Lifestyle in the Eighteenth Century, (ed. Dana Sadji),
New York: Tauris Academic Studies , 2007, pp. 6-7
11 There is still a debate going on between historians who view 17th and 18th centuries as a period of
“stagnation and decline”, and historians viewing the period as an “adaptation and transformation”. For
valuable research done on both views, pls.see: Halil Inacik, The Ottoman Empire: The Classical Age,
London, Phoneix, 1994, s.41-52; Inalcık, “Centralization and Decentralization in Ottoman
Administration”, Studies in Eighteenthcentury Islamic History, s.27-52; Cemal Kafadar, “The Myth of
the Golden Age: Ottoman Historical Consiousness in the Post-Süleymanic Era”, Süleyman the Second
and his Time, ed.Halil !nalcık and Cemal Kafadar, !stanbul, !sis Press,1993, s.37-48; Cemak Kafadar,
“The Question of Ottoman Decline”, Harward Middle Eastern and Islamic Review 4, no:1-2, 1997-
1998, s.30-75; Norman Itzkowitz, “Eighteenth Century Ottoman Realities”, Studia Islamica 16
(1962), s.73-94; Rifa’at Abou el-Haj, The Formation of the Modern State: The Ottoman Empire,
6
However, we do not know much about the Ottoman intellectual changes in this
transitional period of 17th and 18th centuries. Hathaway argues that knowledge of the
intellectual and cultural history of Ottomans is very limited; although, there has been
many valuable research done on the economic and social history of Ottomans.12
Kafadar also believes that its cultural history is one of the least studied areas and that
our knowledge on the perceptions of Ottoman elite and society as a whole, their
intellectual and emotional world, is still limited.13
As a part of cultural and intellectual history, most of the research done so far around
the world and in Turkey used “books” or “written texts” as their primary sources for
a better understanding of the minds of people. Thus, historians first focused on the
“history of books” which may be summarized as follows:
Studies on “history of books” or “book culture” in the West started with Ecole de
Annales in 1950’s, evaluating the importance and the place of books within
historical, social and cultural context. However, these studies mostly analyzed the
impact of printed books rather than manuscripts. The first of those studies was made
by Lucien Febvre and Henry-Jean Martin in 1958, named “L’apparation du Livre-the
Coming of the Book”. It was translated into English in 1976.14 Since then, the
Sixteenth to Eighteenth century, Albany, State University of New York Press,1991; Madeline Zilfi,
The Politics of Piety: The Ottoman Ulema in the Postclassical Age (1600-1800), Minneapolis,
Bibliotheca Islamica,1998; Ariel Salzmann, “An Ancien Regime Revisited: Privatization and Political
Economy in the Eighteenth Century Ottoman Empire”, Politics and Society 21, no.4 (1993) s. 393-
424; Cornell Fleisher, Bureaucrat and Intellectual in the Ottoman Empire: The Historian Mustafa Ali,
1541-1600, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986.
12 Jane Hathaway, “Rewriting Eighteenth Century Ottoman History”, Mediterranean Historical
Review, 19/1, 2004, p.29
13 Cemal Kafadar, Question of Ottoman Decline, Harward Middle Eastern and Islamic Review 4
(1997-1998),1-2: 56
14 Lucien Febvre, Henry-Jean Martin, “L’apparition du livre,” Paris: A.Michel, 1958 the translated
into English as “The Coming of the Book, The Impact of Printing 1450-1800”, London: NLB,1976
7
research done on “history of books” has gained ground in European and American
academia that has applied different methodologies to almost all of the sources.
Studies on Muslim book history are rather new. The first attempt to study the role of
the “book” in Islamic societies was made by George N. Atiyeh in his work “the Book
in the Islamic world: The Written Word and Communication in the Middle East”.15
For the societies living in the Ottoman Empire, the role of book in their lives has
been the subject of study only in the last few years. There are some studies covering
cities like Bursa (15-16th cc)16, Edirne (1545-1659)17, Istanbul (17th cc)18, Sofia
(1671-1833)19, Damascus (1686-1717)20, Cairo (17-18.cc)21, Rusçuk (1695-
15 Orlin Sabev, "brahim Müteferrika ya da "lk Osmanlı Matbaa Serüveni (1726-1746), !stanbul:
Yeditepe , 2006. p.26
16 Ali !hsan Karata$, “Osmanlı Tolumunda Kitap (XIV- XVI. Yüzyıllar)”, Türkler (der. C.Güzel,
K.Çiçek, S.Koca), Ankara: Yeni Türkiye (2002). Also please see his articles “Tereke Kayıtlarına göre
16.yy da Bursa’da !nsan-Kitap !li$kisi”, Uluda# Ünv. "lahiyat Fakültesi, V: 8/8, 1999 pp. 317-328 and
also “16.yy da Bursa’da Tedavüldeki Kitaplar” , Uluda# Ünv. "lahiyat Fakültesi, V:10/1, 2001 pp.
209-230. Karata$ analyzed the books in probate records found in 200 court registers in Bursa dating
16th century, classified them with respect to owners’ neighborhoods, to subjects and contents of the
books, their prices and found book ownership ratios for the mentioned period. His results indicate
book ownership as %37 in the period 1500-1525, %33 in 1526-1550 , %17 in 1551-1575 , and %13
in 1576-1600. In his second work, he classified 2094 books found in terekes consisting of 400
different books according to their genres, and gave a short description of the most preferred ones.
17 Ömer Lütfi Barkan, “Edirne Askeri Kassamına Ait Tereke Defterleri (1545-1659)”, TTK, Belgeler,
III/5-6, Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu, 1968
18 Said Öztürk, Askeri Kassama ait Onyedinci Asır !stanbul Tereke Defterleri(Sosyo-Ekonomik
Tahlil) (Istanbul: Osmanlı Ara$tırmaları Vakfı, 1995)
19 Orlin Sabev, “Private Book Collections in Ottoman Sofia, 1671-1833 (Preliminary Notes)”, Etudes
Balkaniques, 2003 No:1,pp. 34-82
20 Colette Establet, and Jean-Paul Pascual, “Damascene Probate Inventories of the 17th and 18th
Centuries: Some Preliminary Approaches and Results” International Journal of Middle East Studies,
24/3, Aug., 1992, s. 373-393. Christoph Neumann considers this study as the only statistical one of its
kind. “Colette Establet and Jean-Paul Pascual analyzed 450 court registers during 1700s in Aleppo
which was a city considred to have a high level of education. The book ownership among women
were very rare, but %18 of men owned at least one book.” Neumann argues that these findings were
not very different from that of Europe, and regards that it may even be considered as an evidence
showing that even the manuscripts may reach a large number of people. “Üç Tarz-ı Mütalaa”, Tarih ve
Toplum Yeni Yakla$ımlar, Sayı 1, Bahar 2005
21 Nelly Hanna, In Praise of Books, A Cultural History of Cairo’s Middle Class, Sixteenth to the
Eighteenth Century, New York: Syracuse University Press, 2003 , p. 85. Hanna analyzed the amount
of books in private libraries of both askeri and reaya class for the periods (1600-1610), (1703-1714),
(1730-1740), (1749-1759) in Cairo. Number of private libraries had been found as 73, 102, 190, 102
and the number of books owwned as 2.427, 3.535, 5.991, 2077 for the mentioned periods respectively.
8
1786)22, Eyüp (mid-18th cc)23, Istanbul (1724-26, 1747-48)24, Aleppo (18th cc)25,
Trabzon ((1795-1846).26 The latest and the most comprehensive work is Sievert’s
article covering 36 bureaucrats who died between 1700 and 1800.27 It is also
important to mention the work of Johann Strauss who analyzed the contents of the
books read in societies with different religious faiths in the 19th and 20th century
Hanna claims that in the 18th century, a new class or strata has been formed whose culture was
different from that of both the askeri class and ulema and also from rural culture. Additionally, she
argues that this middle urban class composed of artisans, merchants, craft members, $eyhs, and those
positioned in lower ranks of ulema hierarchy have been the determinant of reformist movements of
19th century.
22 Orlin Sabev, “A Reading Provincial Society: Booklovers among the Muslim Population of Ruscuk
(1695-1786)”, Third International Congress on Islamic Civilization in the Balkans, Bucharest,
Romania, 1-5 November 2006
23 Tülay Artan, “Terekeler I$ı"ında 18.Yüzyıl Ortasında Eyüp’de Ya$am Tarzı ve Standartlarına Bir
Bakı$: Orta Hallili"in Aynası”, 18. Yüzyıl Kadı Sicilleri I!ı#ında Eyüp’de Sosyal Ya!am (ed. Tülay
Artan), !stanbul; Tarih Vakfı, 1998, s.49-64. Artan in her study, analyzed the court registers of
Havass-ı Refia/Eyüp numbered 184, 185, 188 dating mid-18th century. By the use of probate records
in those registers, she presents a consumption group with respect to their profession, status, level of
income and housing. Although she mentions books found in tereke registers, her study was not fully
concentrated on books and readers. She indicates that only one woman had a book in her inventory,
and claims that this was the case with most of the women from dynasty with either no book ownership
or very few consisting of prayer books and mushaf-ı $erif.
24 Orlin Sabev, "brahim Müteferrika ya da "lk Osmanlı Matbaa Serüveni (1726-1746), !stanbul:
Yeditepe , 2006.
25 Abraham Marcus ,The Middle East on the Eve of Modernity , Aleppo in the Eighteenth Century,
Columbia University Press, New York, 1989, p. 237. With his finding, Marcus defines the book
culture as follows: “……A majority of the men and almost the entire population of women remained
outside the ranks of the functionally literate; others read and wrote for them. This condition of
restricted literacy remained a consistent feature of the community throughout the century. In practice
only a portion of the literate became members of a book-reading public. Books did not penetrate
deeply into people’s lives, and only in part because of restricted literacy. Both their availability and
contents severely limited their cultural impact. Copied and illustrated by hand, the books were
expensive and scarce. Only the better-off families and those with a long tradition of learning owned
sizable collections, some of them containing several thousand volumes, acquired by purchase or by
copying of extant manuscripts.”
26 Abdullah Saydam, “Trabzon’da Halkın Kitap Sahibi Olma Düzeyi (1795-1846)”, Milli E#itim, 170
(Bahar 2006), pp.187-201. He analyzed book ownership ratio within the mentioned period using the
records from 29 court registers. In his findings, %11.6 of total probate inventory records had owned 1-
2 books, %2.7 percent of the total owned 3-5 books. Those owning 1-2 books constitute %53.1 of the
book owners, and those owning 3-5 books constitute %12.3 of the book owners.
27 Henning Sievert, “Verlorene Schatze-Bücher von Bürokraten in den Muhallefat Registern” in
Welten Des Islams Band 3, edited by Silvia Naef, Ulrich Rudolph, Gregor Schoeler, Bern, Peter Lang,
2010, pp. 199-263. He studied the probate inventory records of 36 bureaucrats and pashas deseased
within the period 1700-1800, analyzed the educational background and their interest through the
books they owned, and classified the books, both the manuscripts and the printed books, according to
their content.
9
Ottoman Empire.28
The aforementioned research done on Ottoman local probate inventories attempt to
determine the role of books in the society by analyzing the gender, social status of
the Ottoman book owners, the content and price of the books. These studies, in
general also attempt to find the book ownership ratio in the society. However they
remain to focus on local data and are far from presenting an accurate and
comprehensive picture of a longer time horizon.
In general, their findings are consistent with each other, confirming that the most
preferred book was Qur’an. Religious books, and the books on Islamic judicial law
had a dominant position in probate inventories of Ottoman readers compared to those
books with non-religious content like history, natural sciences, and literature. The
literacy rate was low. The book ownership ratio in the Ottoman society were low
except in the ilmiyye, religious class. However these findings are far from being an
accurate tool to fully comprehend the underlying reasons for those findings in the
Ottoman society.
There are also some studies done on specifically selected probate inventories rather
than a time-series analysis which attempt to reconstruct the social history of the
Ottoman world through content of the books owned.29 However; these are not
28 Johann Strauss, “Who Read What in the Ottoman Empire (19th and 20th centuries”, Arabic Middle
Eastern Literatures, 6/1, 2003, pp. 39-76
29 Pls. See as an example; Selim Karahasano"lu, “Osmanlı !mparatorlu"unda 1730 !syanına Dair Yeni
Bulgular: !syanın Organizatörlerinden Ayasofya Vaizi !spirizade Ahmed Efendi ve Terekesi”,
Christoph Neumann, “Kadı Halil A"a’nın Kitapları”, Orlin Sabev, “"brahim Müteferrika ya da "lk
Osmanlı Matbaa Serüveni (1726-1746)”. Although Karahasano"lu’s study does not focus solely on
the books owned by !spirizade, he analyzes 173 books in his private library, with respect to their
names, prices, and total value of the books as a percentage of his total income. Neumann, analyzed the
books owned by Halil A"a deceased in 1751 who was a member of örf class , whose properties had
been confiscated. Halil A"a was called “Kadı Halil A"a” due to large volume of books he owned.
10
sufficient either to analyze the perception of knowledge in the Ottoman society or
determine its dynamics of change, or interpret the role of written texts from a wider
perspective.
This thesis also takes into consideration the use of other transmission channels of
knowledge in the society and various transmission methods practiced in addition to
analyzing the books owned and their position in the in the Ottoman systematic of
knowledge. This approach thus argues to provide a better understanding of the
society’s perception of knowledge presented from a wider perspective.
1.3 Methodology and Sources
Tereke or metrukat registers are the court records of the deceased Muslims showing
the distribution of the remaining estates of the deceased to their heirs according to
sharia, Islamic law. However, the practice was not obligatory.30 In this respect,
empirical evidence in “tereke registers” does not represent the society as a whole.
With the exception of cities like Bursa, and Edirne, kadıs, the judges would usually
record probate inventories as a part of the registers called “sicil-i mahfuz”, in which
all the correspondence with the state, notaries, royal edicts, testimonies, court expert
reports, lawsuits, etc. were recorded, including the probate inventories. Registers of
And Neuman formed his hypothesis on Ottoman intellectual mind through the books owned by Kadı
Halil A"a. Orlin Sabev’s book “!brahim Müteferrika ya da !lk Osmanlı Matbaa Serüveni (1726-
1746)” is a precious work considering the sources used, the database he formed, and his arguments.
His main objective is to evaluate the success of print, determine the profile of Ottoman readers of print
books, while viewing the print from a different perspective. He also gives valuable information on
Ottoman written culture.
30 Inalcık, Halil, “15. Asır Türkiye !ktisadi ve !çtimai Tarihi Kaynakları”, Osmanlı "mparatorlu#u
Toplum ve Ekonomi Üzerinde Ar!iv Çalı!maları, "ncelemeler, !stanbul: Eren, 1996, p. 188
11
“sicil-i mahfuz” were not used to record inventories specifically. This practice was
valid for all the Ottoman reaya, tax-paying subjects.
On the other hand, the probate inventory records of askeri class, administrative-taxexempt
subjects, was kept and registered by the “kassams” working on behalf of
Kadıasker and recorded on registers called “kısmet-i askeriye”. In those registers
only the probate records of the askeri class and the law suits related to inheritance
would be recorded. That is the first reason for using the kısmet-i askeriye registers as
the main primary source since it was assumed that those registers would contain
more probate records compared to “sicil-i mahfuz” registers.
The primary sources used in this thesis consist of basically the probate inventory
records registered in !stanbul Müftülü"ü %eriyye Sicilleri Archive. One of them is
kısmet-i askeriye register numbered 22 covering the period hijri 1114-15 (1703-
1704) having a total of 248 pages 31, and the next is kısmet-i askeriye register
numbered 31 dated hijri 1124 (1712-1713) with 200 pages.32 The second reason for
choosing those registers initiates from the assumption that there would be a larger
amount of books in the probate records of the deceased askeriye members. The third
and final reason depends on the assumption that the members of askeriye class would
be closer to sources where knowledge was produced, had an easier access to it, and if
there had been any significant changes in reading practices it would first be observed
in this group rather than the populace.
Although the aforementioned court registers constitutes the main database of this
thesis, randomly selected probate inventory records in Ba$bakanlık Osmanlı Ar$ivi
31 Kısmet-i Askeriyye %eriyye Sicilleri (hereinafter referred to as KA%S), No.22
32 KA%S, No. 31
12
Ba$ Muhasebe Muhallefat registers issued in the period 1700-1750 were also
analyzed.33
Additionally, the randomly selected court register of Uskudar dated hijri 1153-1154
(1741) was used to determine the book ownership of reaya, tax paying subjects.34
The reason for choosing Istanbul as the space of analysis rests on the fact that it was
both a center for production of knowledge and also the mostly developed center of
book market and trade as the capital of the Empire.
In this thesis, the ones having at least one book are selected in those registers, and the
names of the books owned are recorded. After finding the ratio of the book owners in
the society, the owners are then classified with respect to their social status as a
member of either örfiyye, kalemiyye or ilmiyye class. The books are then positioned
in Ottoman systematic of knowledge depending on their subject.
The main assumption of this thesis is that the Ottoman society had three different
main layers with respect to their functions as a knowledge transmitter. These were
mainly “high-ranking professionals”, “secondary professionals” and the “populace”.
It is also assumed that the group defined as “secondary professionals” was the main
group of people transmitting knowledge to masses enabling the construction of
collective perception of knowledge with their close contact with the populace,
whereas “high-ranking professionals” possessing the genuine knowledge were only
transmitting their knowledge to a very selected and distinguished group of people.
33 BOA, D-B%M-MHF/87-12435, MHF/158-12508, MHF/116-12465, MHF/25-12373, 12382,
MHF/44-12392, MHF/18-12366, MHF/21-12369, MHF/301-12652
34 Ülkü Geçgil, Fatih Ünv. Unpublished Master’s Thesis, “Uskudar at the begining of the 18th century
(a case study on the text and analysis of the court register of Uskudar nr. 402)”
13
This thesis focuses on the content of the books owned by the “secondary
professionals”, identifying the similarities between the books and attempting to trace
the process of change in collective perception of knowledge through those books.
However, keeping in mind that written texts were not the only source of knowledge,
various transmission practices are also analyzed in a comparative perspective with
the written world.
14
CHAPTER II
CONCEPTS DEFINING KNOWLEDGE
Since Ottomans were an Islamic state, in this part of the thesis, the value attributed to
knowledge in Islam and different definitions of knowledge throughout centuries will
be discussed.
Throughout the history of Islam, there were many definitions of “ilm”, and the
process of polishing and discussing them never stopped. Rosenthal gives more than
eight hundred definitions of knowledge. He gives the classification of these
definitions in a list that are neither historical nor in accordance with categories that
might have been used by Muslim scholars themselves. He attempts to arrange the
definitions according to what seems to be their most essential elements. He defines
the term under eleven categories;
Knowledge is the process of knowing and identical with the knower and the
known, or it is an attribute enabling the knower to know.
Knowledge is cognition.
Knowledge is a process of “obtaining” or “finding” through mental
perception. Similarly knowledge is a process of “comprehending”.
Knowledge is a process of clarification, assertion, and decision.
Knowledge is a form ($urah), a concept or meaning (ma’na), a process of
mental formation and imagination (tasavvur “perception”) and/or mental
verification (tasdik “apperception”).
Knowledge is belief. (ontological)
15
Knowledge is remembrance, imagination, an image, a vision, and an opinion.
Knowledge is a motion.
Knowledge is a relative term because it is used in comparison with the object
known.
Knowledge may be defined in relation to action.
Knowledge is conceived as the negation of ignorance.35
In its early usage, ilm was signified as accurate knowledge based on the Quran, its
exposition and the sayings and examples (Sunnah) of the Prophet. Gradually the
notion of ilm was broadened to mean “science”, and an alim came to signify a
scholar in a wide sense and a faqih came to mean a specialist in religious law. The
numerous definitions and expositions of ilm produced during the classical period
further expanded the notion of ilm. Religious, philosophical and mystical trends
merged to expand the boundaries of ilm, which came to signify not just science but
also thought and education, the deliberations of the philosophers as well as the
mysticism of the Sufis, the endeavors of the calligraphers and illustrators, the art of
the poets, and works of literature and belles-lettres.36
How was knowledge defined in Ottomans who had an Islamic identity, and what was
the value attributed to it?
Ulema in the Ottoman Empire were considered to be “alim”s, those who know. In
every imperial edict addressed to kadıs, they were titled as “evla u vulati’l
muvahhidin”- the highest in charge for administration of his territory since ulema had
both juridical and administrative authority-, “madenü’l fazl ve’l yakin”- those who
are considered to be the source of knowledge and virtue- , and “varis u ulumi’lenbiya’
ve’l mürselin”- those whose knowledge originates from that of the
35 Ibid,pp. 46-70
36 Ziauddin Sardar, “How We Know Ilm and the Revival of Knowledge”, Grey Seal Books, London
1991, p.2
16
knowledge of Prophet, heir of Prophet’s own knowledge. Those esteemed titles may
be assumed to indicate the value attributed to knowledge, and also to the ones who
“know” in the Ottoman society.37
In the following section, classification of the Ottoman knowledge is reconstructed
through the analysis of terms used by Ottomans in defining knowledge like ilm, hal,
haber, hüner, fen, sanat, marifet and adab.
Figure 1. Classification of Ottoman Knowledge
2.1 ‘!lm
‘"lm, in its practical use implies religious knowledge. Religious knowledge, in its
essence, is accepted as being unchangeable and absolute truth. Since knowledge of
God cannot be questioned, this unquestionable knowledge constitutes the basics of
religious knowledge. 38 This is called “nas” in Ottoman Turkish, which means
37 Özer Ergenç, “Osmanlı Klasik Döneminde “Sa"lık Bilgisi”nin Üretimi, Yayılması ve Kullanımı”,
p.1-2, MESA 2010 Conference Proceedings
38 Necati Öner, Bilginin Serüveni, Vadi Yayınları, Ekim 2005, Ankara, pp. 69-70
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17
dogmatic. There is dogmatic knowledge in all religions claiming to be universal
throughout time and space. Actually, what makes them universal is not the dogma
itself, rather it is the knowledge related to tradition and pragmatic fundamentals of
tradition constructed over dogma. This knowledge constitutes of varying
interpretations of God and indeed all the controversies between different religions lie
behind the knowledge of tradition and its practice. Rational thinking of men has
always been a part of varying interpretations of pragmatic fundamentals constructed
on dogmatic knowledge.
2.2 Ma’rifet
The term ‘ilm is defined as “knowledge”, the opposite of ignorance, and is connected
with a number of terms, the most frequent correlative of which is ma’rifet. On a more
general sense, ‘ilm, is knowledge of a religious character, and ma’rifet, is profane
knowledge. Marifet tends to be used for knowledge acquired through reflection or
experience, which presupposes a former ignorance. On the other hand, ilm is a
knowledge which may be described as spontaneous. In summary, ma’rifet means
non-religious knowledge and ‘ilm means the knowledge of God, hence of anything
which concerns religion.39
Ma’rifet is also defined as “knowledge, cognition” in Encyclopedia of Islam. It has
two separate definitions. The first one denotes a term of epistemology and
mysticism, while the second one denotes practical knowledge. Ma’rifet in mystical
thought is usually considered to be knowledge, ‘ilm, which precedes ignorance. It is
the knowledge, ’ilm, which does not admit doubt, shakk, since its object, the ma’lum,
39 “’Ilm”, EI2, p. 1133
18
is the Essence of God and his attributes. Cognition of the essence consists in
knowing that God exists, is one, sole and unique and that He does not resemble
anything and that nothing resembles Him. It is necessary to distinguish ma’rifet
based on proving indications, which, by means of “signs” constitute the proof of the
Creator. Certain people see things, and then see God through these things. In reality
ma’rifet is realized only for those to whom there is revealed something of the
invisible, in such a way that God is proved simultaneously by manifest and by hidden
signs. Definitions of ma’rifet given by the Sufis, and the mystical tradition also exist.
The Sufis cite the following hadith of the Prophet, “If you knew God by a true
ma’rifet, the mountains would disappear at your command.” Cognition is linked to
various conditions with which tasavvuf (Islamic mysticism) deals.40 Definition of
ma'rifet in mystic terminology may be associated with the knowledge of "hal".
The second definition of ma'rifet is secular knowledge, which is almost synonymous
with the term hüner which is borrowed from Persian. It is knowledge which is nonreligious,
acquired through practice and it includes today’s scientific knowledge.
2.3 Hal
The term “hal” is defined as a Sufi technical term, which can be briefly translated as
"spiritual state". The term “hal” belonged to the technical vocabulary of the
grammarians, the physicians and the jurists. In medicine, hal denotes "the actual
functional or physiological equilibrium" of a being endowed with breath, nefes; in
tasavvuf, it was to become the actualization of a divine "encounter" —the point of
40 “Ma’rifa”, EI2, pp.568-571
19
equilibrium of the soul in a state of acceptance of this encounter.41
The way to God is explained in one of the hadiths as follows: %eriat is my words,
!eriat akvalimdir(sözler), tarikat is my acts/practices, tarikat amel’lerimdir (i!ler),
hakikat is my inner circumstance, hakikat ise ahvalimdir (iç haller). After defining
the first three stages of religious life as !eriat, tarikat and hakikat, the mystics started
to analyze “makam” which were the various phases to be completed to reach the
final spiritual state, or “hal”. (salikin süluku (yolculuk) sırasında geçece#i
a!amalar)42 Famous mystic poet Rumi explains the difference between “hal” and
“makam” in his verses as;
Hal, o güzelim gelinin cilvesine benzer;
$u makamsa o gelinle yalnız kalı!tır.43
It is important to mention that in Sufism, the methodology of tasavvuf depends upon
knowledge of aforesaid spiritual state instead of education. Therefore, in Sufism it is
believed that knowledge can only be acquired by the help of instructors (mür$id), or
selected group of people who has reached the final spiritual state (mürid). The novice
therefore is required to be a member of his master’s circle.44 A book was only a
medium, which should be studied under the supervision of a master who would know
what to teach the disciple and how to explain the difficulties, the inner meaning,
according to time-honored and often experiential methods. That is why one finds
41 “Hal”, EI2, p.83
42 Annemarie Schimmel, "slamın Mistik Boyutları, trns. Ergun Kocabıyık, Kabalcı, !stanbul, 1999,
p.116, “Hal , Hakk’dan kalbe gelen bir (his, heyecan) manadır. Bu mana geldi"i zaman, kul onu
iradesi ve kesbi ile kendinden uzakla$tıramaz, gelmedi"i zaman da tekellüf ve zorla cezb ve celb
edemez.”
43 Ibid, p.116-117
44 Abdülbaki Gölpınarlı, Tasavvuf, Milenyum, Mayıs, 2000, pp.18-20
20
numerous remarks, especially among Sufis, against the use of books.45 The poet
Rumi had combined the book and the garden, expressing his pity for those who look
only at books, as it were, turn them into a library:
“If you are a library, you are not someone who seeks the garden of the soul”.46
Actually, this does not show a negative attitude towards books. It implies the
superiority of the mentor’s role in transmitting his knowledge to his pupil over the
role of books, and that books may only serve as a mediator in the process.
2.4 Hüner-Marifet
The term hüner is Persian, and it may be translated as technical skills required for a
specific art or craft. It is almost synonymous with the second definition of ma’rifet,
which was non-religious knowledge, like the knowledge of dance, music, art of
calligraphy, etc.
Fen may be translated into English as “science” or “rational sciences”. However, it is
interesting to note that, historically fen was almost synonymous with art (san’at). In
Arabic, san’ means “to make”, and san’at is occupation, or work. Fen, on the other
hand, in Arabic, was defined as the whole of principles or codes specified for a
particular occupation or art (san’at), the knowledge of which is acquired through
hand-ability and education, and an attempt to express an idea or an emotion which
would fully satisfy one both mentally and emotionally with its utmost beauty. We
may make an inference that science, fen, was considered like a craft or an art that
45 Annamarie Schimmel, “The Book of Life-Metaphors Connected with the Book in Islamic
Literatures,” s.85. in “The Book in Islamic World The Written Word and Communication in the Middle
East”, der.George N. Atiyeh, State University of New York Press, Albany, NY, 1995
46 Ibid, p.85
21
can be learned by those who have the sufficient ability from those who know the
technical details and the fineness of it. Both fen and san'at involve knowledge of
hüner. For example, knowledge of medicine was considered to be a type of hüner.
Ergenç’s article gives us valuable information on the perception of knowledge of
medicine. 47 A document dated 5th September 1573 (8 C. Evvel 981) is an imperial
edict sent to Kadı of Istanbul.48 It required measures to be taken upon the complaint
of Chief Physician Muhiddin. The nature of the complaint is quite remarkable in the
sense that it shows the prevailing conditions of the medical professionals or guild
members. This document shows that medical professions were working in a guild
system just like the other craftsmen. A physician who was the “master” of the guild
had to have “knowledge/wisdom, craft and art”. Knowledge and craft were
considered to be “learned” or comprehended theoretical knowledge while art
involved the act of accurately implementing them on patients. The art of a physician
initially involved the “diagnosis” of the patient’s illness which was then followed by
the application of the appropriate “medical treatment” for the diagnosed illness, that
is, the implemented skill which encompasses treating one by medication. Acquiring
such a skill required a long time within the guild under the guidance of a “master”.
Diagnosis had to be based both on one’s own experience and also the knowledge
47 Özer Ergenç, “Osmanlı Klasik Döneminde “Sa"lık Bilgisi”nin Üretimi, Yayılması ve Kullanımı”,
MESA 2010 Coonference proceedings.
48Ibid, .......“!stanbul Kadısına hükm ki, Gıyaseddin-zâde Muhiddin Dergâh-ı mu‘allâma mektûb
gönderüb, mahmiyye-i !stanbul’da ve memâlik-i mahrûsede ba‘zı kimesneler, cerrâh, tabîb ve kahhâl
nâmına gezüb, hengâme kurub ve dükkânlarda oturub, mücerred celb ü ahz-ı mâl içün Müslümanlara
tıbba mugâyir ve hikmete muhâlif $erbetler ve zehirnâk müshiller verüb ve âdet-i kadîme muhâlif
yaralar açub ve gözlere dahi üslûbsuz yapı$ub ve muhâlif otlar koyub, Müslümanların mal ve
canlarına zarar eri$dirdü"in bildirüb, min ba‘d bu gibilerin ma‘rifet ve ilimlerini ve san‘atlarında
ehliyetini imtihân idüb, hâllerine göre kâdir oldukların isbât eden kimesnelere ilâc edeler, deyü icâzet
verilmeyince, ânın gibilerin sergide ve dükkânda oturub hengâmegîrlik etmeyüb, Müslümanlara
muhâlif otlar vermeyüb, zarar eri$dirmeyeler, deyü tenbîh olunmak ricâsını i‘lâm itme"in …” (!zzet
Kumbaracılar, Eczacılık Tarihi ve !stanbul Eczaneleri, Yayına hazırlayan: Ömer Kırkpınar, !stanbul
1988, p.54).
22
transmitted from the experienced ones. Treatment was just as important as the
diagnosis and the success of the treatment depended on the exact combination and
well preparation of “medication”.49
Science of medicine (tıb), like other kinds of secular knowledge, was associated with
knowledge of hüner.
Tekeli defines knowledge of hüner as tacit knowledge which is not coded, may not
be easily pronounced, explained, or transmitted. This type of knowledge may be
obtained only within close relation with the master while living, seeing and
practicing. And thus it has a high tendency to be local. This knowledge which is
termed as embodied, may also be rephrased as “hüner”.50
2.5 ‘Adab
‘Adab, is regarded as synonym of Sunna, in its oldest use, with the sense of "habit,
hereditary norm of conduct, custom" derived from ancestors and other persons who
are looked up to as models (as in the religious sense, was the sunna of the Prophet
for his community). The oldest meaning of the word is that: it implies a habit, a
practical norm of conduct, with the double connotation of being praiseworthy and
being inherited from one's ancestors. The evolution of this primitive sense
accentuated, on the one hand, its ethical and practical content: adab came to mean
"high quality of soul, good upbringing, urbanity and courtesy" based in the first place
on poetry, the art of oratory, the historical and tribal traditions of the ancient Arabs,
49 Özer Ergenç, “Osmanlı Klasik Döneminde “Sa"lık Bilgisi”nin Üretimi, Yayılması ve Kullanımı”,
MESA 2010 Conference Proceedings
50 !lhan Tekeli, “Bilgi Toplumuna Geçerken Farklıla$an Bilgiye !li$kin Kavram Alanı Üzerinde Bazı
Saptamalar”, Bilgi Toplumuna Geçi! , (der) !lhan Tekeli, Süleyman Çetin Özo"lu, Bahattin Ak$it,
Gürol Irzık, Ahmet !nam, Türkiye Bilimler Akademisi Yayınları,Sıra No:3, Ankara,2002, p. 19
23
and also on the corresponding sciences: rhetoric, grammar, lexicography, metrics.51
Ibn Mukaffa’ in Abbasid period, had put the old Persian-Indian tradition into the
frame of Islamic culture. Especially with the works of Cahiz52, this Persian tradition
gave way to a new genre of literature named “adab”. According to Ch. Pellat, this
movement consists of three categories:
1. Moral and ethical oral stories and texts.
2. Literary-educational texts written for the administrators and high culture
elites, including poems and literary rules and their oral versions.
3. Genre of advice books named “nasihatname” regarding state government
written for the Sultans, administrators and the intellectuals.
For Cahiz, ‘ilm compasses all Islamic knowledge, whereas adab (edeb) compasses
moral-educational narratives of old times. 53
The other concept that needs to be mentioned under the category of adab is “haber”.
Because “haber” is the form of the abovementioned values that reached the public,
ahali. Haber may be translated into English as “information” or “news”. The plural
form of Haber is ahbar, and it is defined as written or oral knowledge perceived and
transmitted by senses.54 It comes from the Arabic root hubr (hibre) meaning to get
informed about, be noticed about, become aware of something. Common definitions
of “haber” include the fact that it may be perceived by senses, and if it is a revealed
knowledge, it may be about future. Scholars of speculative theology, kelam, accepted
51 “’Adab, EI2, pp.175-176
52 "Al-Jahiz - Introduction." Classical and Medieval Literature Criticism. Ed. Daniel G. Marowski.
Vol. 25. Gale Cengage, 1998. eNotes.com. 2006. 25 Apr, 2011 http://enotes.com/classical-medievalcriticism/
al-jahiz. Al-Jahiz is one of the best-known and most respected Arab writers and scholars. He
is credited with the establishment of many rules of Arabic prose rhetoric and was a prolific writer on
such varied subjects as theology, politics, and manners.
53 Halil !nalcık, Has-ba#çede ‘Ay! u Tarab, Nedimler, $airler, Mutribler, Türkiye i$ Bankası Kültür
yayınları, !stanbul, 2011, pp.15-16
54 “Haber”, !slam Ansiklopedisi, Türkiye Diyanet Vakfı, pp. 346-349
24
that for any information to be considered as a source of knowledge, it has to be
correct, transmitting reality or truth.
There are two concepts related to real/correct information; Haber-i mütevatir and
haber-i res’ul. Haber-i mütevatir is information given by a group of people for whom
it is rationally impossible to lie unanimously. People would learn about historical
societies, cities through haber-i mütevatir. It was considered to be almost factual. For
example, in the book written by the Ottoman historian Lütfi Pa$a-Lütfi Pa$a Tarihi-,
he mentions about an imperial letter written by Selim II to Shah Ismail, where the
information regarding Shah Ismail’s detrimental acts for all the Islamic societies had
already reached the limits of factual information (hadd-ı tevatüre yeti!mek) known
and accepted by everybody.55 The next related concept is haber-i resul which is
information transmitted by the Prophet Muhammad. Although there is consent
among scholars about the correctness of this kind of information, it has to be verified
that the information has been transmitted from the Prophet, or the verification of the
source of knowledge is required.
55 Lütfi Pa$a Tarihi, !stanbul, 1341, p. 213.... “…..!smail Bahadır aslahü’llah $anehu misal-i lazımü’limtisal
vasıl olıcak ma’lum ola ki; Hetk-i perde-i !slam ve hedm-i $eri’at-ı Seyyidü’l-enam-aleyhi’sselam-
itme"e kıyam-ı tam gösterdi"in hadd-ı “tevatüre” yeti$üb; nokta-ı tiynet-i mazarrat-nihadını ki;
merkez-i daire-i fitne ve fesaddır ezfar-ı tıq-i ate$bar ve hançer-i abdarla safhe-i hatte-i rüzgardan hak
eylemek kafe-i müslimine umumen ve selatin-i ulu’l-emr ve havakin-i zulkadirde hususen cümle-i
vacibatdan idü"üne …………”
25
CHAPTER III
CONSTRUCTION OF “PERCEPTION OF KNOWLEDGE”
Naima depicts the methods of transmitting knowledge and the features of
transmitters in his precious work, Tarih-i Naima.56 The most crucial features for a
historian, according to Naima, are expressed with three terms; “tefahhus”,
“teyakkun” and “tefakkud” in Ottoman Turkish which all nearly mean searching for
truth, a detailed search for learning the essence. Naima requires the transmitter to
search for the truth, and claims that only the ones who are knowledgeable will be
eligible to transmit historical knowledge. Additionally, he warns that the essence of
what is known may diverge from its original character while being transmitted from
one to another within public.
In the following sections, places and institutions where knowledge is produced, and
also the modes and practices of transmission of knowledge in the Ottoman society
$%"Naima Mustafa Efendi, Tarih-i Na’ima, (ed) Mehmet !p$irli, TTK Yayınları, Ankara 2007, V I, p. 4
“……..Evvela sadıkü’l-kavl olub, ekavil-i batıla ve hikayat-ı zaife yazmaya bir hususun hakikatine
vakıf de"il ise muttali’ olanlardan tefahhus idüb, teyakkun hasıl itti"i mevaddı yaza.Saniyen elsine-i
nasda $üyu’ bulan eracife iltifat itmeyub, vekayi’in mahüvel-akiini yazabilen ricalin mu’temed-ü
mevsuk akvaline ra"bet eyleye. Zira niçe umurun keyfiyyet-i vuku’ ve sebeb-i suduru erbabına
ma’lum iken, ukul-ı sahife ashabı tasavvurat-ı za’ifelerine mebni manalar virub, galat veyahud hiç aslı
yok sözler i$a’at iderler. Beynü’l avam $üyu’ bulmu$ bu makule türrehatı gerçek zan idüb, tefakkud
eylemeden nakl idüb yazanlar her ‘asırda katı çok bulunur.”"
26
will be analyzed. And we will see whether the transmitters search for the truth as
Naima depicts or diverge the knowledge from its original character.
3.1. Spaces for “Knowledge” Production and Transmission
Members of all social layers of society had access to various kinds of knowledge
with differing tones and content. Starting from the smallest social unit, the family,
traditions accumulated from previous generations and course of conduct would be
transmitted by parents. Transmission practices also existed in neighborhood/districts
(mahalle) where someone could acquire various kinds of knowledge from his friends,
elders of the neighborhood, district school, neighbors, coffeehouses and such. In its
outmost cycle of those practices, polities would have their own ideologies, and
would try to make its members be aware of this ideology codified in the knowledge
produced.
Like every empire, the Ottoman Empire needed an ideology of its own that would
protect its power and integrity for a long time, and also administrative structuring
that would maintain its subjects loyal to its ideology. Legitimization of its power
would be obtained by such administrative structures put in effect by the state
authorities. State administrators who were exempt from taxes were defined as
“askeri” class. Askeri class within itself divided into three groups as ilmiye, örfiyye
and kalemiyye. Members of all three classes were responsible both to administer the
state’s subjects, and also to educate newcomers joining into the system by
transmitting their knowledge from one generation to the next eliciting state’s
continuity. Members of ilmiye class would be educated in medreses, where as örf
members would be educated in the Palace School, and kalemiyye members would be
positioned in state’s bureaucracy where they would get their pragmatic education.
27
The Palace School was also important in the sense of transmitting the ideology of the
state. Members of örfiye class would have their education completed in this
institution. Depending on their competence, they would then be appointed to
positions either in the Palace or in the provinces. Barnette Miller in his work defines
the institution as such; “One of the most remarkable of their institutions and at the
same time one of the most remarkable educational institutions of its time, indeed of
any time, was the Palace School (Enderun) or great military school of state of the
Grand Seraglio.”57
The boys recruited by dev$irme method (levy of boys) called “Acemio"lanlar”,
would to be prepared for the Enderun School. The ones who had proved to be
competent with moral codes would be selected for the Enderun School.58 They
would continue their education by passing from one service of the Palace to the next
called “oda” or “ko"u$” each of which having a rank in its own hierarchical
57 Barnette Miller, The Palace School of Muhammad the Conqueror, Harvard University Press,
Cambridge, 1941, p.3. Miller, used the writings of foreigners especially French, Venetian and Britih
ambassadors about Palace School. He writes that the average period of education was 12-14 years,
the curricula of which almost equally consist of Islamic knowledge , martial art, and art of governing,
practical education and physical education. p. 4. Paolo Giovio, Bishop of Nocera, writing in 1538 of
the pages of the Palace School, says that “they are instructed in letters and arms in the same manner as
the children of the sultan.” p. 5. Ottaviano Bon, who held the post of Venetian bailo, the most
distinguished post of the diplomatic corps at Constantinople, wrote in 1608:
“The course that is pursued with the pages is not that of a barbaric people, but rather of a people of
singular virtue and self-discipline. From the time they first enter the school of the Grand Seraglio they
are exceedingly well-directed. Day by day they are continuously instructed in good and comely
behavior, in the discipline of the senses, in military prowess, and in knowledge of the Moslem faith; in
a word, in all the virtues of mind and bodys” p. 5
$&"Osman Ergin, Türkiye Maarif Tarihi, Eser Kültür Yayınları, Istanbul 1997, V: 1-2, pp. 12. Here,
Ergin makes a reference to “Edebiyat-ı Umumiye Mecmuası” written by Mehmet Refik Bey in 1913,
pp.277 “Bu $akirdan giderek muteber mansaplar ihraz edip devletin ve memleketin siyasi ve içtimai
hayatında birer uzuv olacaklarından Enderuna alınacakları zaman simaları kapı a"ası huzurunda
kiyafet ilmini bilir bir zata tetkik ettirilir, yüzlerinde sa’d ve meymenet görülenler mektebe alınır,
$irret ve fesat görülenler alınmazdı.”"
28
structure.59 The students would both serve and get their educations in the Palace
simultaneously.
The students selected to be educated in Enderun School were called “!ç O"lanları”
and they had three main responsibilities. a) Serving within the Palace and learning at
the same time, b) Getting an institutional education on both Islamic and rational
sciences, c) Getting an education either on art or bodywork depending on their
talent.60 The courses would mostly include the ones taught in medreses. However,
the curricula were differentiated from that of the medrese in four ways. The first
difference was the courses given on Turkish and literature. Secondly, courses
encompassed the subjects necessary for a soldier and an administrative. Thirdly,
courses on geography, cartography, history, politics, and art of war were also
included in their curricula. Fourthly, it also included activities like calligraphy,
bookbinding, illumination, carving, miniature painting, architecture and fine arts.
Obligatory education would last for 7-8 years, and then the students would get
specialized training depending on their aptitude for another 5-6 years.61 Enderun
School had qualifications that an institution of higher education would have.
However, teaching was not a specialized area of functioning and it did not have a
structured academic authority. Therefore it could not be depicted as an institution of
higher education.62 It was not a formal institution like medreses were.
$#"!lhan Tekeli-Selim !lkin, Osmanlı "mparatorlu#unda E#itim ve Bilgi Üretim Sisteminin Olu!umu ve
Dönü!ümü, Türk Tarih Kurumu Yayınları, Ankara,1993, pp. 19.
“The Palace School took its latest form in 17th century and divided into 7 rooms: Küçük Oda, Büyük
Oda, Do"ancılar Odası, Seferli Odası, Kiler Odası, Hazine Odası, Has Oda.”
%'"Yahya Akyüz, Türk E#itim Tarihi (Ba!langıçdan 1997’ye), !stanbul Kültür Üniversitesi Yayınları,
No:1, !stanbul 1997, p.81"
%("!lhan Tekeli-Selim !lkin, Osmanlı "mparatorlu#unda E#itim ve Bilgi Üretim Sisteminin Olu!umu ve
Dönü!ümü, Türk Tarih Kurumu Yayınları,Ankara, 1993, p. 20
%!"Ibid, p.20"
29
Several of the most popular books read in the Enderun Palace were; a translation of
the Arabian Nights into Turkish; the Sayyid Battal or Battal Ghazi, an epic of
struggle of an Arab hero against paganism in behalf of Islam, a story which enjoyed
a perennial popularity among Turkish soldiers and Arab peasants; the History of Fort
Vizirs, a compilation in prose of Turkish folk tales of different periods; and the Story
of Kalia wa-Dimma or the Royal Book (Humayun Nameh), a book of fables
translated from Indian into Pahlevi, thence to Arabic, and from Arabic into Turkish
in the reign of Murat III.63 The Persian language was the courtly language of the
nearer Orient and the key to the literature of chivalry and romance. Students of the
Palace School were promoted to the study of Persian as soon as they had attained
proficiency in Turkish and Arabic. The books most commonly read were the Book of
Advice (Pend-naama) by Ferid ad-Din Attar, the Gulistan and the Bostan of Saadi.64
Twelve different styles of calligraphy were taught in the Palace School. Students
who specialized in calligraphy usually aspired to secretarial positions in some of the
various lines of government service, or to the higher offices of government. Rycaut,
who was one of the first to study the Turkish polity, wrote about the calligraphers as:
“Those others who are of a contemplation, proceed with more patience of method,
and are more exact in their studies, intending to become Masters of their Pen, and by
that means to arrive to honor and office either of Rest (Reis) Efendi, or Secretary of
State, Lord Treasurer, or Secretary of the Treasury, or Dispensatory”. It was in the
63 Barnette Miller, The Palace School of Muhammad the Conqueror, Harvard University Press,
Cambridge, 1941, p.106. Miller here refers to 3 seperate sources: 1. Serai Enderun written by Albert
Bobovi in 1655 in Italian, which then translated in 1666 as Memoires sur les Turcs. Bobovi, was
enslaved by the Tatars and then sold to the Palace by Turkish merchants. He stayed for 19 years in the
Palace. 2. The Present State of the Ottoman Empire, written by Sir Paul Rycaut in 1670, p.32. 3. The
Travel Book of Evliya Çelebi. V:1, pp.132-139
64 Ibid, p.110. Miller, here refers to the book of Albert Bobovi mentioned in footnote no.85
"
30
Palace School that the majority of the official chroniclers were trained to become the
so-called palace historians.65
The third layer of “askeri” class was kalemiyye, the scribal elites, ehl-i kalem, the
men of pen who produced all the correspondence of the state and who kept its
financial records. The members of this group would be recruited either from the
Palace School where the örfiye members were educated, or from medreses. They
would themselves also educate the newcomers within the institution itself by a
method of transmission from the master to the pupil pragmatically.66 Kalemiyye
members would constitute of representatives of places called either kalem or oda
where all the correspondence of the state was recorded. Those representatives called
küttab, would be responsible for both civil and financial service, and it was the place
where Ottoman bureaucracy was reproduced.
Members of both örfiye and kalemiyye had two important qualifications. One of
which was that they would undergo an elimination scheme continuously throughout
their education. The second was their capacity of producing the most competent ones
with this elimination method.
Outside the boundaries of this formal system, there were various spaces and
institutions where the society produced its own knowledge. These were dervish
lodges, tekke and zaviye, where rituals of tarikats would be performed, professional
groups, hirfet grupları, where goods/services would be produced, and various
65 Ibid, p.107
66 !lhan Tekeli-Selim !lkin, Osmanlı "mparatorlu#unda E#itim ve Bilgi Üretim Sisteminin Olu!umu ve
Dönü!ümü, Türk Tarih Kurumu Yayınları, Ankara,1993, p. 7
"
31
communities with differing dimensions in the society as a whole. They would both
produce and transmit knowledge.
With this mechanism of producing and transmitting knowledge either by the state,
society or any other informal organizational structure, a stereotype individual of the
society was established in the Ottoman mind with its distinctive perception of
knowledge. Whether existed or not, this stereotype individual may be considered as
the role model of the society continuously shaped and reconstructed depending on
the changing collective perception of knowledge of the society. This complex
mechanism is illustrated below as;
Figure 2. Perception of Knowledge
Medreses were the only formal institutions of education in the Ottoman Empire as in
all Islamic countries. After graduating from sıbyan mektebs, elementary district
32
schools for boys and girls, where introductory Arabic courses were given and
reciting Quran was taught, individuals who would like to continue with their training
would enter medrese education. It was the place where religious knowledge was
transmitted formally and the only institution where students had an access to
systematized knowledge. Medreses were probably the most important institutions of
the empire since they had two important functions. One of their function was to train
people of religion, give religious knowledge that would be transmitted from one
generation to the next, acting as an educational institution. Some of the graduates of
medrese education would continue their occupation as scholars. However, the
medrese also functioned as a place for recruitment of “kadı”s for the empire who
were commissioned to towns and cities all throughout the empire having both
administrative and judicial authorities, fully representing the state. They may easily
be considered as the state’s tools used to transmit its ideologies.
In general, knowledge was being classified in medreses as transmitted/religious
knowledge, nakli ilimler, and rational/philosophical knowledge, akli ilimler.
Transmitted knowledge was the knowledge acquired by revelation and thus
transmitted from one generation to the next without questioning, and rational
knowledge was a product of human intellect and experience. Whether the knowledge
was transmitted or rational, final aim was same for both of them; that is, knowing,
understanding, and comprehending “God”. This feature of knowledge is a reflection
of Ottoman perception of knowledge in the classical period.
The curricula of the Ottoman medreses which remained almost unchanged from
sixteenth to nineteenth century with only varying emphasis on religious and rational
33
sciences is shown below; 67
Table 1. Ottoman Medrese Cirricula
Francis Robinson, in his article compares the curricula taught in the medreses of the
three empires up to the end of seventeenth century and aims to reveal the differing
balances maintained between the transmitted subjects, ulumi’l nakliyye and the
rational subjects, ulumi’l akliyye. One point which emerges clearly from a
comparison of the three curricula is the extent to which they all draw on the
scholarship of Iran and Central Asia, and particularly that of the thirteenth and
67 Orlin Sabev, "brahim Müteferrika ya da "lk Osmanlı Matbaa Serüveni (1726-1746), !stanbul:
Yeditepe , 2006, p. 241
Course
Name
Author/Work
Rational
Sciences
Sarf
Nahiv
Mantık
Adab
Me’ani
Nazari
Hikmet
Hendese
Hesap
Hey’et
Emsile-i Muhtelife
Muttarida
‘Avamil, Misbah, Kafiye, Elfiyye-i !bn Malik,
Kafiye’nin %erhi Molla Cami, Mugni’l-Lebib
!sagoci, Hüssam Kati, Muhyiddin Risalesi, Fenari ve
Ha$iyesi, %emsiye, Tezhib Talik ve %erhleriyle,
Kutbuttin-i %irazi, Seyyid, Kaea Davud, Sa’deddin, %erhi
Matali’
Ta$köpri %erhi, Mes’ud-ı Rumi, Hüseyin Efendi Kitabı,
Kadi Adud, %erh-i Hanefiyye, Mir
Telhis, %erh-i Muhtasar, Mutavvel, !zah-ı
Me’ani,Elfiyye-i Halebi
Hidaye, Kadimir, Lari, Hikmetü’l Ayn, Kütüb-ü %eyhayn
E$gal-i Telhis, Öklides
Bahayiyye, Ramazan Efendi, Çulli
%erh-I Ça"muni, Bircendi
Transmitted
Sciences
Kelam
(Akait)
Fıkıh Usulü
Fıkıh
Hadis Usulü
Hadis !lmi
Tefsir
Ömer-i Nesefi, %erh-i ‘Akaid, Hayali, !sbat-ı Vacib,
Akaid-i Celal, Mevakıf, %erh-i Makasıd, %erh-i Mevakıf
Tenkih, Tavzih, Mustasar-ı Münteha, %erh-i Adud,
Seyyid, Telvih,Fusul-ı Bedayi’
Halebi, Kuduri, Hidaye, Kadıhan, Bezzaziyye
Elfiyye, Nuhbetü’l Fiker, Ali el-Kari
Buhari, Müslim, some Müsnedler
Vahidi’nin Veciz’i gibi Kuran’dan iki misli büyük tefsir,
Vahidi’nin Vasit’i gibi Kuran’dan üç misli büyük tefsir,
daha büyük tefsir, Kadı Beyzavi
34
fourteenth centuries. Very few new texts emerge in the years from 1400 to 1700. In
all regions during the years 1400-1700 there was a vigorous industry of commentary
and in no area was this more vigorous under the Ottomans and Safavids than in law
and jurisprudence.” 68
Before the establishment of the medrese as an institution, there was partition and
disagreement between the philosophers/scholars on the essence of knowledge.
Educating religious men through medrese institution however, where the essence of
knowledge was already determined, the type of knowledge produced became more
static. This may be considered as the reason for an increase in commentaries rather
than original texts.69 Although called and specified as “commentaries”, some of
them were considered to be better than the original evaluation or the text. In Ottoman
Empire, it is sometimes hard to decide whether to consider a text as “original” or as
“copied”, where the copyist had added his own commentaries, !erh, overshadowing
the original author.70
While comparing the differing emphases made in the application of curricula,
Robinson proposes that, in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries Ottoman medreses
had kept a good balance between the rational and transmitted sciences, chalking up
distinguished achievements in mathematics, astronomy, and scholastic theology. But
by the end of sixteenth century, this balance had been upset and the rational sciences
were severely threatened. The Safavid and Mughal curricula, however, gave
68 Francis Robinson, “Ottoman-Safavids-Mughals: Shared knowledge and Connective Systems”,
Journal of Islamic studies 8:2 (1997), p.151
69 Ibid, pp. 154-155
70 Christopher Neumann, “Üç Tarz-ı Mütalaa Yeniça" Osmanlı Dünyası’nda Kitap Yazmak ve
Okumak”, Tarih ve Toplum Yeni Yakla!ımlar, No: 1, 2005, p. 61
35
considerable emphasis to the rational sciences. The Safavid curriculum, for instance,
offered medicine and mysticism, which did not exist in the other curricula. The most
notable Safavid emphasis, however, was in logic and scholastic theology. 71
Formal religious knowledge was being transmitted from a teacher, müderris, to his
student, molla, using both oral and written/textual methods in a systematic way in the
medreses. There were also groups that would vulgarize the knowledge produced in
the medreses and transmit to the public or masses. This group of transmitters is
represented with the term “hademe-i hayrat” in the figure below constituting of
imam, hatip, vaiz, ders-i amm or they were people from lower levels of ilmiyye
hierarchy with their direct contact to masses.
*+,-./)01)))))2.3456+55+74)78)!479:/;,/)+4)</;./5/)
71 Francis Robinson, “Ottoman-Safavids-Mughals: Shared knowledge and Connective Systems”,
Journal of Islamic studies 8:2 (1997), pp.155-56
36
Knowledge of Islamic mysticism would be transmitted within dervish lodges, tekke,
and places for Sufi gathering, dergah. Defined as knowledge of either “hal” or
“marifet” in the Ottoman systematic of knowledge, it would be transmitted to
mürids, disciples, who have entered the path of a particular mür!id, mentor.
The disciple, mürid, would need a mentor on his tough spiritual journey who would
help him pass the various “makam”s and show him the way. The mystics would love
the hadith saying “Religion is advice, din nasihattır”. They have accepted the
necessity of a mentor as “conditio sine qua non” meaning absolutely essential. 72
The best evaluations regarding the transmission of the knowledge of “hal” which
was the final spiritual state/the truth by the mür!id to his mürid were made by the
!eyhs of tarikats. Virani Baba who was the %eyh of Bekta$i tarikat had beautiful and
plain sayings on the necessity of a mür$id as a mentor to reach the Truth. 73
Mürid had to be affiliated with a mür$id. This knowledge could only be transmitted
by a mür$id who had reached the highest state of spirituality. We need to think those
who adopted the doctrines of any tarikat in two distinct categories in the Ottoman
society. The first would be those $eyhs-me$ayih who would stay in and be a part of
dervish lodges, tekke and zaviye where the knowledge of hal would be passed on
from mür!id to mürid. They were called either “tekkeni!in” or “postni!in”. The
)!"Annemarie Schimmel, "slamın Mistik Boyutları, trns. Ergun Kocabıyık, Kabalcı, !stanbul, 1999,
p.117
73 "... !mdî ey tâlib-i Hakk ve â$ık-ı Dîdâr-ı Mutlak !..E'l-hamdü'llahdan murâd Allahu te'âlâya
ınanmakdır ve Tengr-ite'âlâya inanmakdan murâd Allahu te'âlâyı farketmekdir. E"erdilersen, kendi
üzerine nazar eyle, zirâ özün bilen Hakkı bilür,özün bilmeyen Hakkı bilmez ve Hakkı bilmeyen
Dîdâra irmez ve Dîdârairmeyen sûreti ve sîreti hayvandır ve hayvan olanlar makâm-ı fakr-ıfahrîden
bî-haberdir. Her kim fakrda iktizâsı ne ise bilmese, ol kimesnee mür$ide irmemi$dir ve mür$ide
irmeyen Hakkı bilmemi$dir......."
"
37
second group would consist of those who would live in their own spaces but make a
visit from time to time to the tekke, follow some of the doctrines of the tarikat on
their own, take advice from the $eyh, or be a part of small talks named sohbet, made
by the postni$in me$ayih within the tarikat. They were called “tarikat müntesib”s.
*+,-./)=1)))))2.3456+55+74)78)!479:/;,/)+4)2/>>/)
)
Although the tekkes were apart from the formal organizational structure of the State,
they had many functions in the society. Kara defines the important functions of the
tekkes as follows: “…to provide unity and communication among public together
with cultural beliefs. Tekkes and camis functioned as today’s media organs. The
public learned and loved his religion, moral, literature, art and culture by the aid of
38
tekkes.”74 The ones who had been educated in tekkes, would only be able to take a
position in the tekke. Although they were left out of the official positions in the State,
with their perfect organizational structure between towns and villages, they could
keep their significance and exist for many centuries. 75 )
Craftsmen guilds, esnaf örgütleri, were also another organization for transmission of
knowledge for those who want to learn a profession to make a living. They could be
subjected to a classification as “those who sell retail” and those who are “service
providers/producers” of any sort. No matter which group they belonged to, these
craft groups were compelled to produce the required goods and services appropriate
to the standards set by the rules laid by the sultan and tradition. The fee they were to
receive in exchange for this service had to be a suitable amount for the parties and
was determined either by the official authorities or by a deal between the parties
themselves. The name of the rules and regulations which enabled this exercise was
called as “hisba” and the name of the tradition was called “fütüvve”.76 Knowledge
was transmitted orally from the master, üstad, to the !akird, apprentice, in the guilds.
“Fütüvvetname”s as literary genre were texts encompassing moral and ethical codes
required to be a member of the specified guild. They were written texts, the content
of which originated from anonymous oral cultural traditions. Thus, professional
knowledge was being transferred pragmatically demanding a face-to-face
relationship between the master and the apprentice. Since most of the people in the
urban cities were ehl-i hiref, member of a guild, besides their function of producing
74 Mustafa Kara, Din Hayat Sanat Açısından Tekkeler ve Zaviyeler, Dergah Yayınları, !stanbul, 1977,
p.126"
75 !lhan Tekeli-Selim !lkin, Osmanlı "mparatorlu#unda E#itim ve Bilgi Üretim Sisteminin Olu!umu ve
Dönü!ümü, Türk Tarih Kurumu Yayınları, Ankara,1993"
76 Hülya Ta$ , Osmanlı Klasik Döneminde Sa"lık Hizmetleri, Proceedings of Mesa 2010 Conference
39
and transmitting of knowledge within the guilds, they also had a function of
educating the society, namely ehl-i belde.
*+,-./)?1)))))))2.3456+55+74)78)!479:/;,/)+4)@+.8/A)(.7-B5)
Besides their social functions, public spaces like kahvehanes, bozahanes, hamams,
meyhanes, and mosques were important places where knowledge was transmitted
orally. They were called “mecma’i nas”, social gathering places, in Ottoman Turkish
in general. Their functions in the society will be mentioned in the following section.
Alan Mikhail argues that besides positing Ottoman coffee houses (mahalle
kahvehaneleri) as primarily a site for political subversion, we may also consider
coffee houses as a cultural space of socialization that served multiple functions
within the city. He tried to show how the Ottoman coffee house was a space of
overlapping functions in which a spectrum of ambiances and effects fluidly
40
combined to form a complex realm of social interaction.77 Mikhail also considers
Ottoman cafes as sites for important urban sensory experience-audition. He says “By
this I mean that in coffee houses what was most important was not what was seen,
but what was said and of course what was heard. Another way to make the same
point is to remember the common proverb that is still found in many Turkish coffee
houses: “gönül ne kahve ister ne kahvehane, gönül sohbet ister, kahve bahane”- The
heart desires neither coffee nor coffee house. The heart desires conversation. Coffee
is simply an excuse.”78
Ali Çaksu argues that the economic and political changes that took place in the 18th
century forced the once elite and relatively isolated Janissary corps out of its barracks
and into the city, where they found refugee in the institution of the coffee house.
While the Janissary coffee house was a place in which to drink coffee and smoke
tobacco, it was also a cultural salon, a rebel headquarters, a police precinct, a Sufi
lodge, a business office and a mafia club all rolled in one.79
In his work on social and economic history of 16th century Ankara, Ergenç attributes
the high consumption of coffee in the city not only to city dwellers’ preference but
also to high number of visitors coming to the city like merchants, nearby villagers
etc. He argues that high consumption of coffee may be considered as an evidence
77Alan Mikhail, “The Heart’s Desire: Gender, Urban Space and the Ottoman Coffee House”,
Ottoman Tulips Ottoman Coffee, Leisure and Lifestyle in the Eighteenth Century, (ed. Dana Sadji),
New York: Tauris Academic Studies , 2007, p.154
78 Ibid, p.154
79 Ali Çaksu ,“Janissary Coffee Houses in Late Eighteenth-Century Istanbul”, Ottoman Tulips
Ottoman Coffee, Leisure and Lifestyle in the Eighteenth Century, (ed. Dana Sadji), New York: Tauris
Academic Studies , 2007, pp.131
"
41
indicating the city’s dynamism as a center of trade.80 There is no reason not to
assume the same and even more dynamism for the coffeehouses in Istanbul.
Coffeehouses were the most important social places where informational knowledge
was transmitted intensively.
The other important public-drinking place was bozahouse, a place where boza was
made, sold and perhaps consumed. The boza is a thick liquid made from fermented
millet, as a beverage originated from pre-Ottoman times and boza-houses also served
as a social gathering place.81
Meyhanes, tavern, were public drinking places in which alcoholic beverages alone
or with various appetizers were consumed. Evliya Çelebi who uses the expression of
“esnaf- ı mel’unan-ı menhusan-ı mezmunan” for the tavern owners, there were more
than one thousand taverns operating in Istanbul and approximately six thousand
employees in these places.82 They were mostly used by non-Muslims.
Like coffeehouses, the hamam, public bath, was a social milieu created by people
from the diverse social strata of the Istanbul’s life in order to meet the cultural and
social needs of the city. The public bath, as well as being a place intended for
people’s bodily hygiene, was a meeting place and a center of social life, by serving
on certain days and hours of the week for men and women, though some were
strictly reserved for one or the other sex. Lady Montagu drew the parallel and spoke
of the public bath as “the women’s coffeehouse, where all the news of the town is
&'" Özer Ergenç, XVI. Yüzyılda Ankara ve Konya, Ankra Enstitüsü Vakfı Yayınları, Ankara, 1995,
p.153"
81Ahmet Ya$ar, The coffeehouses in early modern "stanbul:Public space, sociability and surveillance,
Yüksek Lisans Tezi, Bo"aziçi Üniversitesi,!stanbul, 2003
82 Ibid, pp.39-40
"
42
told, scandal invented, etc.” They were the only places where Ottoman women could
socialize in their restricted lives outside the closed doors of their houses.83
Camis, mosques and mescids, mosques without a minaret in which no Friday prayers
are pronounced, were also considered under mecma-i nas. Mescids were small places
of worship visited mostly by the neighborhood parish or the artisans of the nearest
bazaar. Mosques, constructed in the city’s most important place, were houses of
worship serving for the urban dwellers and the rural subjects coming for the city
bazaar.84 Especially on Fridays, a sermon would take place where social and
religious subjects were discussed among the cemaat. They were also important tools
for mass education. They were generally more important as places for gathering and
information exchange than were “houses of worship”. Ergenç, in his work on Ankara
gives examples from court registers which shows that it was obligatory that royal
edicts coming to towns would be read to public in public places including
mosques.85
Zilfi emphasizes the egalitarian feature of mosques in her work. 86 She argues that
unlike the Sufi’s tekke or the scholar’s medrese, profession of the faith was enough
to enable one to secure a place alongside fellow believers, take part in mosque rituals
and even address the assembled congregation. “Ritual and liturgy, condemning social
distinctions, in such moments erased them.”87 While only the medrese-trained ulema
83 Ibid, p.47
&*" Özer Ergenç, XVI. Yüzyılda Ankara ve Konya, Ankra Enstitüsü Vakfı Yayınları, Ankara, 1995,
p.151"
&$"Ibid, p. 151"
&%"Madeline C.Zilfi, Dindarlık Siyaseti, Osmanlı Uleması, Klasik Dönem Sonrası, 1600-1800, Birle$ik
Yayınevi, Ankara 2008"
87 Madeline C.Zilfi, Dindarlık Siyaseti, Osmanlı Uleması, Klasik Dönem Sonrası, 1600-1800, Birle$ik
Yayınevi, Ankara 2008, pp.129-130
43
had the right to enter the medrese, the mosques were common to all. Within the
mosque, the non-medrese-trained held sway. Depending upon the terms of a major
mosque’s endowment, a number of ders-i ‘aam ( public lecturers) held classes for
medrese students and for the interested public.88 Distinct from the personal relation
between müderris, teacher and molla, student, in medreses, and between mür!id and
mürid in tekkes, in mosques imam/vaiz/ders-i ‘amm, prayer leader, would transmit
his knowledge to ahali, public.
Travellers and merchants were also representing another channel of knowledge
transmission. Although they did not have any specified spaces, they were serving as
cultural agents between different societies, transmitting what they heard and what
they had learned about the traditions of the other societies.
The whole mechanism of production and transmission of knowledge through various
institutions and the channels to reach cemiiyyet, public, analyzed above is illustrated
in the figure below;
88 Ibid, p.131"
44
))))))))))))))))))))))*+,-./)C1)))))))2.3456+55+74)DE344/:5)78)!479:/;,/)A7)D/6F+GG/A)
3.2 Modes of Transmission
3.2.1 Rituals
Rituals had an important role as a channel for transmitting knowledge, especially
within tekkes where tasavvufi knowledge was transmitted and within guilds.
Rituals also found place both in Palace traditions and populace daily life. It had a
language of its own, with formulations and symbols, could appeal to vast majority,
with its messages easily understood. With its universal language, it did not take place
of oral culture, but rather they always co-existed with one another.
45
The sufi dervishes had many rituals. If the dervish would be considered eligible and
competent enough, they would make a ceremony where he would wear a new hırka,
coat, and he would hold the hand of his !eyh, symbolizing the transmission of
knowledge from his $eyh. This ritual would be named as ilbas-ı hırka. Yet another
important ritual was the wearing of a tac, crown. 89 Both rituals were a sign of
handing in spiritual knowledge. Even in very early times, the mystics realized the
danger of corruption for the rituals. The famous mystic poet Yunus Emre, in his
verses, emphasizes that the crown and the coat were just simple symbols, and that the
real dervish would not be recognized either by the crown or the coat.
“Dervi!lik hırka ile tac de#il, dervi!lik ba!tadır tacda de#il”. 90
Rituals were one of the most used modes of transmission within guilds. In rituals,
symbols and concepts like tying a special belt (ku$ak) to the pupil who had
sucessfully deserved to be a master were used. The messages were easily transmitted,
while enabling transmission of knowledge from one generation to the next without
any change.
In his work where he questions the meaning and content of rituals, Goody rejects
Durkeim’s claim that assumes a universal “duality of the two kingdoms” of the
sacred and the profane and defining rituals as sacred having only religious content.
Goody claims that rituals may be religious, sacred, secular, ceremonial or magical in
content, and emphasizes that in some societies the distinction of profane and the
sacred is not as clear as in West. He believes that the scholars defending this
&#"Annemarie Schimmel, "slamın Mistik Boyutları, trns. Ergun Kocabıyık, Kabalcı, !stanbul, 1999,
p.249-50
#'"Ibid, p.250
46
dichotomy had been influenced by “rationalistic variety of positivism” valid in late
19th century in European societies as marked by the tendency to treat the actor as if
he were a rational, scientific investigator acting "reasonably" in the light of the
knowledge available to him.91 He also claims that even the social organizations and
their functions were not universal, and there are no clear and distinctive boundaries
between them in various societies as they are in Western societies.
3.2.2 Oral
Oral mode of transmission of knowledge was always preferred over written texts in
Islam. Francis Robinson’s article is worth to mention here on the subject. He
questions the origins of negative response of Muslim world to printing for so long,
and he articulates about oral mode of transmission and its significance in Islam. He
says “To be able to understand late use of print, we need to spend a little time
examining the system of transmitting knowledge as it flourished over 1200 years
from the beginning of Islam. At the heart of this system of transmission is the very
essence of knowledge for the Muslim, the Quran. For Muslims the Quran was the
word of God-His very word. “Quran” itself means “recitation”, al-Quran, the
recitation, the reading out loud. It is through being read out loud that the Quran is
realized and received as divine. Muslims strive to learn as much of it as possible by
heart.” The Quran was always transmitted orally. This was how the Prophet
transmitted the messages he had from God to his followers. When these messages
were written down a few years after the Prophet’s death, it was only an aid to
memory and oral transmission. This has been the function of the written Quran ever
#("Jack Goody , “Religion and Ritual: The Definitional Problem”, The British Journal of Sociology,
Vol. 12, No. 2 (Jun., 1961), pp. 142-164"
47
since.92 The oral transmission of the Quran has been the backbone of Muslim
education. The methods of learning and transmitting the Quran influenced the ways
all other knowledge was transmitted. For instance, one can consider the publication
of a book in the early Islamic centuries. Its writing down like that of the Quran was
merely an aid to oral publication. The author would dictate his first draft either from
memory or from his own writing and then the copyist would then read it back to him.
Publication would take place through the copyist reading the text to the author in
public, usually in a mosque. During this process the author might make additions or
amendments and several readings might have been required before he gave his final
approval. This was known as his “ijaza”, which means “to make lawful”. Thus the
author gave permission for the work “to be transmitted from him”. Further copies
had real authority only when they had been read back to the author and approved.93
There would be the names of all those who had transmitted the text going back to the
original author on that ijaza. The pupil had no doubt that he was the trustee in his
generation taking part in the great tradition of Islamic learning being handed down
from the past. This shows that person to person transmission was at the heart of the
transmission of Islamic knowledge. The best way of finding the truth was to listen to
the author himself. Muslim scholars constantly travelled across the Islamic world so
that they could receive in person the reliable transmission of knowledge. When a
scholar could not get knowledge from an author in person, he strove to get it from a
scholar whose “isnad”, or chain of transmission from the original author, was
#!"Robinson, Francis, “Technology and Religious Change: Islam and the Impact of Print”, Modern
Asian Studies, 27/1, Special Issue: How Social, Political and Cultural Information is Collected,
Defined, Used and Analyzed (1993), p.234
#+"Ibid,.p. 235
"
48
thought to be the closest.94
In the Islamic tradition the heart is the seat of the intellect and the instrument par
excellence of original knowledge of which mental activity is a relatively externalized
reflection. True knowledge is the knowledge of the heart, and it is here that man
carries within himself the real “book” of knowledge. This “book” is composed of
unwritten words. It is the inner chamber wherein the spoken word in the highest
sense of the term, which means none other than the Word of God, reverberates. This
inner “book” is not available for all to “read”, for not everyone is able to penetrate
into the inner chamber of his or her being, which is the heart, nor possesses a purified
heart as white as the snow which has not yet become sullied by the darkness of
man’s passionate soul. Yet, this inner “book” has resonated and still resonates within
the being of certain men and women and through them has left its deepest effect
upon the intellectual life of Islam, not only in the domain of theoretical Sufism but
also in later Islamic philosophy. One must never forget that to know something really
well and to commit in this knowledge by heart has made possible, not only in Sufism
but also in Islamic philosophy, the continuation of an ever-renewed oral tradition
which has played such an important role in the Islamic education system and the
modality of the transmission of knowledge from teacher to disciple over the
centuries.95
#*"Ibid, p.237
95 Seyyed Hossein Nasr , “ Oral Transmission and the Book in Islamic Education: The Spoken and the
Written Word”, “The Book in Islamic World The Written Word and Communication in the Middle
East, içinde, der.George N. Atiyeh, State University of New York Press, Albany, NY, 1995, p.65
49
The oral tradition has affected the manner of reading and interpreting the written
text, its teaching and transmission, and the role of certain texts and commentaries in
the educational circles of the Islamic world. The oral tradition also provides a direct
link between the student and the master who might have lived generations ago,
enabling the student to study the teachings in question in depth and to concentrate on
one or two works which are then penetrated inwardly over a whole lifetime rather
than to study horizontally the text of many works written by the same master. But
usually the oral tradition and the spoken word created a different type of intellectual
ambience from the modern one, an ambience in which one or two works surrounded
by a vast oral commentary came to constitute knowledge in depth of teachings of the
traditional authority. The oral tradition transformed the written book from the
definitive text which was the sole basis of the ideas to be understood to the gate of a
whole living world for which the book became the point of departure.96
Abraham Marcus interprets the oral culture of the Aleppines in the 18th century as:
“The masses for their part continued to see written literature as having little direct
relevance to their lives. Within their largely oral culture they were able to obtain
most knowledge, skills, and news without much recourse to the written word. Oral
transmission, not books and classrooms, shaped their stock of knowledge, or what
amounted, in a real sense, to their education. They learned from parents, peers,
elders, religious readers, and masters. From them they absorbed what they knew
about artisanal skills, weather, and a multitude of other matters.97
96 Ibid, pp. 65-66
97 Abraham Marcus ,The Middle East on the Eve of Modernity , Aleppo in the Eighteenth Century, ,
Columbia University Press, New York,1989, p. 239
50
The aforementioned channels, institutions and spaces involve personal and face-toface
interaction and educational methods thus indicating that knowledge was being
transmitted mostly with aural, instead of visual methods, indicating noticeable
dominance of oral culture on Ottoman individual and society.
3.2.3 Written
Eisenstein, in her work on Print Revolution98 claims that disparities between oral
and written cultures are due to intellectual differences of societies, and she matches
literacy with developed societies, while matching oral cultures with traditional
societies. With the articulation of sociologists, linguistics, cultural anthropologists
and historians in this debate, and especially with the empirical results of the research
done by Jack Goody as a cultural anthropologist, Eisenstein’s argument no longer
holds true. Recent studies drawing attention on the continuities before and after the
invention of print do not support the arguments of Eisenstein and her followers.99
N. Hudson analyzed dialectical pattern of attitudes towards writing and he argued
that an early enthusiasm for the powers and benefits of written language in the 17th
century was widely challenged in the mid 18th century. He claimed that perceptions
of writing since Renaissance was ambivalent and conflicting, not as uniformly
reverent or hostile. 100 “Harvey J. Graff has rightly referred to a “literacy myth” that
#&"Elizabeth L. Eisenstein, The Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe, CUP, Cambridge v.s.,
1983"
99 Christopher Neumann, “Üç Tarz-ı Mütalaa Yeniça" Osmanlı Dünyası’nda Kitap Yazmak ve
Okumak”, Tarih ve Toplum Yeni Yakla!ımlar, No: 1, 2005, p. 58
(''"Nicholas Hudson, Writing and European Thought 1600-1830, Cambridge Unv. Press, Cambridge,
1994, p. 2"
51
can be traced back to the Enlightenment- a confidence in literacy as the triumph of
light over darkness, and as the foundation of democratic liberties.”101
Although Ottoman’s cultural preference has been oral, “writing” and “speech”
always co-existed side-by-side. State affairs and its administrative traditions have
always been written from the very beginning, the literate have both owned and wrote
books, pamphlets, poems, biographical works, shared literary texts among
themselves, and public had an acquaintance with “writing” through marriage and
purchase-and-sale contracts, testaments, court registers. Written and oral practices
were not totally dissociated from one another with distinct boundaries, culturally and
perceptually they were co-existing and overlapping with each other.
In the following section, the production, distribution and acquisition of books which
were the main tools of written mode of transmission will be examined. It’s
worthwhile to analyze how books were produced, and for whom, for a better
understanding of the relationship between individuals and books, and valuation
criteria for books.
3.2.3.i. Production of Books –Author and Copyist
We do not know much about the process of writing in the Ottoman world. In Europe,
there were places called “scriptorium", literally meaning a place for writing
commonly used to refer to a room in medieval European monasteries devoted to the
copying of manuscripts by monastic scribes. Comparatively, there were no such
places for copying in the Ottomans.
('(" Ibid, pp.2. Here Hudson refers to Harvey J.Graff, The Literacy Myth: Literacy and Social
Structure in the nineteenth century city, Academic Press, New York, 1976, preafce, pp. xii-xvii. "
52
We know that the Palace was one of the places for copying books. Information about
the workings and organization of manuscript production at the court is beginning to
come to light with the emergence of such documents such as the Ehl-i Hıref register
or the accounts of the wages paid to those artists on the court payroll as part of the
Ottoman state bureaucracy. For the Ottomans, regional governmental and legal
accounts, kadi sicili documents dating from fifteenth century to the early twentieth
century, endowments, vakfiyye, the little published Ehl-i Hıref register, and other
related accounts are important sources of information for the cultural structure of the
court and the organization of the art production at the court during the Ottoman
period. Among these documents are account books showing the expenditure incurred
during the preparation of an illustrated manuscript, which furnish us with the name
of the artists involved and their assistants, as well as those of the bookbinders and
their associates. One section of the Ehl-i Hıref register, now published in
chronological order, gives the names of all those involved in manuscript production,
citing their origin (Persian, Georgian, Hungarian, etc), sometimes their provenance,
and the date of their entry into the court service, details of their successor, their
monthly wages and deaths. These documents do not, however, indicate the specific
manuscripts for which these binders or artists were responsible.102
The calligraphers were always the first group to be written in Ehl-i Hıref defters,
which may be interpreted as the Ottoman’s moral valuation given to “writing” and
“writers”. In sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the name of the group was written
as “katiban-ı kütüb-ı hassa”, and in eighteenth century as “cemaat-ı katiban-ı
102 Zeren Tanındı, “Manuscript Production in the Ottoman Palace workshop”, Manuscripts of the
Middle East 5 (1990-91)
53
kütüb”.103 The number of calligraphers increased up to sixty in the end of sixteenth
century. The main function of the group was to copy the religious, philosophical,
scientific, literary and historical works. One of their major jobs was the copying of
the Quran. Besides copying, they were also responsible for repairing previous
works. They would also work for ornamenting some of the architectural buildings or
structures. For example, Ahmet Karacahisari, one of the famous calligraphers,
worked for the calligraphy of the Suleymaniye Mosque.104
There were also three other groups related to calligraphers, which were miniaturists,
nakka!, binders, mücellit, and ink-producers, mürekkepçi. It is interesting to note that
there were no specified groups which were responsible for the preparation of the
“paper” to be used which constituted an important effort. We may assume that, either
they were obtaining paper from the market or the calligraphers themselves were
involved in the production of paper.105 In the beginning of the 18th century there
were three calligraphers registered in Ehl-i Hıref Defters, and then decreased to two.
Their daily allowance was 30 akçes which constituted the highest among the palace
artists.106
Among the Ottoman guilds, there were plenty of guilds related to the production of a
book like nakka!, müzehhip, mücellit, sahhaf, ka#ıtçı, mühreci, mürekkepçi, divitçi
and kalemtra!. Only, there were no copyists and calligraphers organized under a
103 Bahattin Yaman, Osmanlı Saray Sanatkarları 18.yüzyılda Ehl-i Hıref, Tarih Vakfı Yurt Yayınları,
!stanbul, 2008 p.36
('*"Ibid,p.37
('$"Ibid, p. 38
('%""Bahattin Yaman,Osmanlı Saray Sanatkarları 18.yüzyılda Ehl-i Hıref, Tarih Vakfı Yurt Yayınları,
!stanbul, 2008 p.40
"
54
guild. Christoph K. Neumann, in his article ”Üç Tarz-ı Mütalaa”, assumes that since
the only institution known to have a studio for copyists and calligraphers was the
“palace” itself where only five or six people employed, the production of
manuscripts were highly decentralized which enabled the copyists to copy more
freely.107
In a court register dated 1114/1703, a lady named Safiye Hatun in her will, orders ten
Mushaf-ı $erif ,Quran, to be bought from her inheritance, after her death. She also
demands that 10 Qurans will be given to those who know how to read Quran
elaborately and payment would be made to those who deserve in return of praying
for her soul.108
How would those responsible for her will acquire 10 Qurans and from where? Would
there always be a sufficient supply of Quran or other books in demand in booksellers?
How would the book-sellers supply them? Or, would the one in such a
demand resort to mobile book-sellers who were selling their books in their backpacks
while walking around the streets like Evliya Çelebi mentions in his Travel Book?109
107 Christoph K. Neumann, “Üç Tarz-ı Mütalaa”, Tarih ve Toplum Yeni Yakla!ımlar Sayı 1, Bahar
2005, p.60
108 KA%C, Register no:22, pp.26 “Mahmiye-i !stanbul’da Kızılta$ mahallesinde sakin iken bundan
akdem vefat iden Safiye Hatun ibnet El-Hac Süleyman bin Murad’ın zevc-i metrukesi hafızü’l-kitab
zümre-i teberderandan fahrü’l-ayan El-Hac Mustafa A"a bin Evliya meclis-i $er’-i hatir-i lazımü’ttevkirde
müteveffat-ı mezburenin medyunu Yusuf bin Abdullah mahzarında üzerine da’va ve takrir-i
kelam idüp “ zevcem müteveffat-i mezbure Safiye Hatun ibnet El-Hac Süleyman bin Murad hali
zarazında fevtinden 10 gün mukaddem ben diyar-ı aherde iken bi-emri’l-lahi-teala vefat eyledi"inde
“cem’-i terekemin sülüsünden 100 guru$ ile ıskat-ı sal’atım görüle, ve yine sülüs-ü malimden 100
guru$ ile 10 kıta Mushaf-ı $erif i$tira olunub, fukara ve sülehadan müstehakkıma virilüb anlar dahi
kıraat eyledikte sevabı ruhuma ihda eyleyeler ve sadriye-i sagire kızım Ay$e’nin ………”
109"Evliya Çelebi, Seyahatname, V.1, pp.325. “Esnâf-ı sahhâfân: Dükkân 60, neferât 200, zîrâ ayak
sahhâfı çokdur. Bunlar dahi dükkânların niçe bin kitâb-ı gûnâ-gûn ile zeyn edüp ayak sahhâfları
"Mültekâ ve Dürer [u]Gurer'im eydir ammâ Ke$$âf'ımı ke$f edüp Tarîkat-ı Muhammedî'den ayrılman,
ey kitâbdır" deyü torba tobra kitâblarla ubûr ederler”
55
3.2.3.ii Book Trading and Demand
Was there a developed book market in Ottoman capital? How were the books in
demand being acquired? What were the role of book-sellers, sahhaf, in trading and
copying of books? Our current knowledge on book markets and sahhafs are very
limited. However Erünsal enlightens us on the subject with his work based on
primary sources on sahhafs. 110
The book trade in Istanbul must have developed significantly toward the end of the
sixteenth century because Ebu’l-Hasan Ali bin et-Temgruti, who was an ambassador
in Istanbul from 1589 to 1591, wrote in his memoir that “lots of books could be
found in Istanbul, libraries and the bazaar were full to the brim, and books were
bought to Istanbul from all around the world.”111
A. Galland was an orientalist who maintained good relations with Istanbul’s
secondhand booksellers and bought many works. In a journal covering the period
from 1672 to 1673, Galland recorded the books he purchased or came across, as well
as interesting information about secondhand booksellers.112 It is known that many
Western Orientalists, such as Greaves, Pocoke (1604-1691), Ravius, Colbert, and
Erpenius, collected a significant number of manuscripts for libraries in their
countries during the seventeenth century and that they sent these works home
through firms such as the Levant Company. It seems that the activities of the
Europeans rose to disturbing levels because the Grand Vizier %ehit Ali Pasha- who
110 !smail Erünsal, Osmanlılarda Sahhaflık ve Sahhaflar: Yeni Bazı Belge ve Bilgiler, Osmanlı
Ara!tırmaları 29 (2007) pp. 99-146"
111 Ibid, p. 107
112 Ibid, p. 110
56
was a renowned book collector- enacted a law at the beginning of the 18th century
banning the sale of books to foreigners.113
This is mostly about Orientalists or foreign embassies’ demand for Ottoman, Arabic
or Persian books from Istanbul book market. They do not give much information on
the acquisition channels of books owned by Ottoman individuals and sahhafs. How
would the sahhafs, Palace members or the interested Ottomans acquire their books?
Secondhand booksellers, especially those in Istanbul, acquired books through a
variety of different channels. The palace played a significant role in this issue. Many
times, the belongings of individuals were confiscated and entered into state treasury.
The most valuable or useful books were sent to royal library, and the rest were
auctioned off in the Bezzazistan or in the courtyard of the Fatih Mosque.114 Another
method of obtaining books was through the auction of works included in the
inheritance of deceased individuals. If bibliophiles and scholars did not donate the
books they collected while they were living, their books were either divided among
their heirs or auctioned off after their deaths, and the resulting income duly
shared.115 Another way of moving books out of the Palace was gift-giving to various
guests, diplomats, and officials. 116
113 Ibid, p. 111
114 Ibid, p. 122
115 Ibid, p. 125
116 Ibid, p. 123. Here, Erünsal makes a reference to Travel Book of Evliya Çelebi where he mentions
the books that has been given by the Sultan from the Palace to him. “...heman hünkar tiz
hazinedarba$ıyı ça"ırın ve devat ve kalem getürün diyüp dest-i $erifine kil-i cevahir-nisarın alub bir
hatt-ı $erif yazub Sen ki hazinedarba$ısın, Evliya’ya bir Kafiye ve bir Monla Cami ve bir Tefsir-i Kadı
ve bir Misbah ve bir Dibace ve bir Müslim ve Buhari ve bir Mülteka’l-ebhur ve bir Kuduri ve bir
Gülistan u Bostan ve Risabü’s-sibyan(!) ve bir Lugat-ı Ahteri al-hasıl yigirmi kıta müluk içün tahrir
olunmu$ kitab-ı nefiseleri hazine kethüdası fi’l-hal getürüb ve kendüler tilavet itdükleri Yakut-ı
Müsta’simi hattıyla bir Kelam-ı !zet ve bir murassa’ gümü$ devat ve bir Hind sedefkarisi ‘ud levhalı
pi$-tahta ihsan idüb...” Evliya Çelebi Seyehatnamesi, ed. Orhan %aik Gökyay, V.I, !stanbul 1996,
pp.102-103
57
A significant number of books were sent to Istanbul’s secondhand booksellers’
bazaar from the Islamic world’s oldest cultural centers, including Baghdad,
Damascus, Aleppo, Jerusalem, and Cairo, as well as various cities in Persia, which
was also an important area for book production.117 Even the historian Tarihçi
Mustafa Ali wanted to return to duty in Cairo because of its famous secondhand
book market. From the fourteenth through sixteenth centuries, Cairo was an
important place for Ottoman scholars, as well as European Orientalists interested in
Islamic culture, to acquire books. 118
Lale Uluç surveyed the archival lists of holdings of private libraries of Ottoman
intellectuals, bureaucrats and elite.119 She searched for codi-cological evidence from
the illustrated luxury editions of the works of classical Persian authors found in the
Istanbul collections. Both in Akkoyunlu and Safavid periods, Shiraz has been an
important place of high quality manuscript production. Significant quantity of Shiraz
illustrated manuscripts with their unique style in the Topkapı Palace dating 16th
century shows that they were in considerable demand in Ottoman capital.120 There
were 200 illustrated manuscripts dating back to the 16th century Safavid period.
Almost half of these manuscripts had been produced in Shiraz.121
These findings show that Istanbul was one of the main centers of book trade in the
world, having precious and rich collections. However, it’s hard to estimate how
much of this interest originated from Ottomans who really enjoyed reading and how
117 Ibid, p.126
118 Ibid, pp. 120-121
((#" Lale Uluç, “Türkmen Valiler $irazlı Ustalar Osmanlı Okurlar XVI. Yüzyıl $iraz Elyazmaları”,
Türkiye !$ Bankası Kültür Yayınları, 2006, !stanbul
120 Ibid, p.19
121 Ibid, p. 474"
58
much of it from those who just wanted to own them as a precious commodity in their
collections.
Knowledge produced in various spaces and transmitted by various channels had a
determinant impact on the individuals. The perception constructed with this impact
in the Ottoman minds is a composite of different knowledge types. This composite
knowledge forms the basics of a collective definition regarding one’s view of
external world, reason of his existence, and his general attitude to life. In the
subsequent sections the perception of knowledge in Ottoman “classic”122 period
constructed as a collective mind of the society and its propensity to change in the
“post classic” period tendency to will be scrutinized.
3.3 Individual and his Perception of Knowledge in Classical Period
In this section, knowledge of the individual of the classical period will be analyzed
with respect to the organizational model established by the Ottoman State and the
stereotype individual as perceived in the Ottoman society.
In most biographical works, there are four adjectives used in describing almost all
individuals’ personal traits, which are mütedeyyin, religious, mütevekkil, patient, one
who leaves his destiny in the hands of God, fazıl, virtuous, and salih, righteous.
There was not much room for personal qualifications. Those qualities may show us
the society’s prototype, or the ideal-type of individual that was constructed by the
state and society, which were also compatible with the state’s ideologies
implemented via its organizational structure. The individual who does not question
(!!" Here the term “classic” refers to the period between 14th and 16th centuries, whereas
“postclassical” refers to the period of 17th and 18th centuries of Ottoman Empire.
59
the dynamics of the system outside his own boundaries and who would believe in
pre-ordination of life by the Divine would perfectly fit the established and idealized
system of life.
Ergenç defined the features of a stereotype individual in the classical period as
follows: “He was “mütedeyyin”, pious, “ulü’l emre itaatkar”, obedient, who did not
hold himself responsible for the world order and its future, and who did not question
the established order, with no enthusiasm to change either his locality or his
attitudes.123 The basis of Ottoman order was the well-being of “reaya”, tax-paying
subjects of the Empire. This was the most fundamental tool by which the Sultan
legitimized his rule. In the social order established for the well-being of the reaya,
the residential immobility of reaya, defined as horizontal, and also vertically within
social strata tied the reaya to his residence and the social stratum that he belonged
to.
The most important organizational structure of the classical period was the system of
timar. The success of the timar system depended on the regular tax payments of the
reaya throughout the empire which demanded a strict immobility both horizontally,
residence wise and also vertically, strata wise. Those strict, yet sometimes set aside
regulations offered by the organizational system had sociological effects both on the
individual and society. Locality was demanded, in other words. The state demanded
the reaya to be “defterlü”, registered, and any request to change residential area
required the permission of both the previous timar-holder and also the subsequent
123 Özer Ergenç, “!deal !nsan Tipi üzerinden Osmanlı Toplumunun Evrimi Hakkında bir Tahlil
Denemesi”, paper presented in XI. International Congress Of Social and Economic History of Turkey,
Bilkent University, Ankara,17-22 June, 2008
60
timar-holder. For the sake of the continuation of the world-order, nizam-ı ‘alem,
social mobility was restricted. If timar was the system regulating the relationship
between the reaya and the state, the neighborhood, mahalle, was the determinant of
the relationship between the individuals themselves. Mahalle was the main
governmental unit in an Ottoman city. It was a place where most of the people
recognized each other, were responsible for each other’s behavior and lived in social
solidarity. With its definition in the Ottoman period, it was a part of a city where the
believers who prayed in the same “mescid”, small mosque lived with their
families.124 In Ottoman law, the people living in the same neighborhood were joint
guarantors of each other. All residents of a mahalle were held responsible in a case
which remained unsolved.125 There were many payments made collectively, like
renovation expenses of the mosque, the mescid, the school, the neighborhood
fountain, the salaries of the clergy, the teachers, and some of the tax payments called
“avarız”.126 Dismissal of some of the individuals from the mahalle was even
possible with a justified decision. The right to live in a mahalle required obedience of
a set of rules determined collectively by its members. There existed a collective
consciousness among individuals, constituted by a whole set of unwritten
regulations, like traditions and especially ethical codes.
The order of “hırfet”, professional groups 127 had their own regulations. Supply was
determined according to demand. There, the number of the people in those “hırfet
124 Özer Ergenç, XVI.Yüzyılda Ankara ve Konya, Ankara Enstitü Vakfı Yayınları, Ankara, 1995, p.
145, “.....aynı mescidde ibadet eden cema’atin aileleriyle birlikte ikamet ettikleri $ehir kısmıdır.”
125 Özer Ergenç, XVI.Yüzyılın Sonlarında Bursa, TTK Yayınları, Ankara, 2006, p.170
126 Ibid, p.172
127 Hirfet, in Arabic means art, work, performance, and labor done to make a living. The plural of
which is hiref. In the Ottoman era, hırfet or hiref, came to mean competents of manufacturing. The
61
erbabı”, professional groups, was fixed, and it was forbidden for anyone coming
outside to take part in that profession. Besides the regulations demanded of the
members, there were also some moral codes and required behavioral qualifications.
This whole set of regulations, called “fütüvvet” in Ottoman Turkish, was to be
transmitted from one generation to the next. In this organizational structure where the
traditions were dominant, transmission was accomplished by symbols, ceremonies
and rituals, like tying a belt to the student who has proven his competency for master
hood. Knowledge of the “hüner” kind, was transmitted pragmatically, in their long
educational period where they learned the “sır”, secrets of the profession, just like in
mystic sects. The career path to master hood was quite tough. Along the way to
master hood, the apprentice would learn his trade and also some ethical and moral
codes which were required of him to be a member of the guild.128 The primary
responsibility of the heads of guilds was supervision of the group members.
However, their secondary responsibility was to educate their students which was
termed as “!akird çıkartmak” in Ottoman Turkish. This education was the most
important element which would enable the continuity of their trade. Once the
“!akird”, student was considered to be competent, his passage from student to master
in his career path, would only be legal with his master’s permission.129
A child born in this environment, with the help of the then available level of
technology, would be equipped with cultural values and when he reached puberty he
would be a member of his father’s group. When he reached a certain age, he would
artists would be named as ehl-i hiref. See; Mehmet Zeki Pakalın, Osmanlı Tarih Deyimleri ve
Sözlü"ü, I, p. 509
128 Özer Ergenç, XVI.Yüzyılın Sonlarında Bursa, TTK Yayınları, Ankara, 2006, p. 181
129 Ibid, p. 190
62
attend the “sıbyan mektebi”, elementary school near the mosque, which was
established by a waqf and learn how to read and write. However there was no
widespread need for elementary schooling. Since the values of the society were
transmitted from one generation to the next orally, acquisition and improvement of
professional competence depended highly on practice acquired by seeing, hearing
and watching the masters. Novices would attain the values of their culture from the
religious stories heard in mosques, coffeehouses, from “fütüvvetnames” which were
stories about the traditions of his trade. He would be informed about something when
he hears a royal edict coming from Istanbul read by a “çavu!”, official Ottoman
messenger, or hear a story when there was a farewell ceremony for the pilgrimages
from the city’s “namazgah”, a place where pilgrimages start their journey. 130
It can be said that the individual’s perception of knowledge in the classical period
was harmonious with the state’s organizational structure, with the society’s social
and spatial immobility, with its local character and practice- a society fed by oral
traditions.
Knowledge was not acquired within institutions, rather it was knowledge acquired in
one’s life experience. Starting from birth, individuals would learn previous
generations’ cultural values and the basics of social order firstly from their families,
then from those in their own group, profession, and neighborhood, or from
“ihtiyaran”, elites of the society.
130 Özer Ergenç, “Osmanlı Klasik Döneminin !deal !nsan Tipi Üzerine Dü$ünceler”,paper presented
in XI. International Congress of Social and Economic History of Turkey, Bilkent University, Ankara,
17!22 June 2008
63
3.4 Individual and his Perception of Knowledge in Post-classical Period
In this section, the effects of the social transformation experienced in 18th century on
the perception of knowledge of the individual will be discussed.
It has been shown that starting from the late seventeenth century, the change in the
Ottoman social order was inevitable. Rural unrest starting with the Celali rebellions,
the formation of a professional army as a response to Western military superiority,
the reduction of the impact of the timar-system, the formation of central treasury as a
response to the increase in government’s deficit, imposing of new taxation
formulations, establishment of new recruitment criteria and change in the profiles of
those entering the civil service constitute only some of the causes of change. They all
led to a change in the functions of the Ottoman state’s organizational and
institutional structure.131 It is necessary to mention that, throughout the centuries, the
Ottoman institutions remained the same officially in documents, while their
functioning in fact changed. New practices were always implemented without totally
abolishing the previous ones, old and new remaining in effect side by side, until the
old practices simply faded away.
In this part, the effects of changes which occurred in the functioning of some of the
institutional structures and led to a change in the Ottoman individual, compared with
that of the classical period will be considered.
The timar-system was a central and absolute model observable throughout all the
Ottoman lands. However, the spatial hegemony of the empire broadened. New
131 For the causes of change during this period pls. see. Halil !nalcık, “Military and Fiscal
Transformation in the Ottoman Empire,1600-1700," Archivum Ottomanicum VI, 1980, pp. 283-337.
64
territories had to be administered and governed and there were regional disparities.
The timar system in the classical period was based on the by then prevailing
technologies for transportation, which were based on human and animal power.
Throughout the vast lands of the empire, with its ethnic, religious, cultural and
traditional disparities, the Ottoman State could not govern all the territories under the
timar system. With almost a hundred percent increase in population by the end of
sixteenth century throughout the Mediterranean, and a relative deficit in the total
production of goods and services, individuals with no land, attempted to change their
residential areas. Vertical mobility within social layers of the society and residential
mobility forced the state to make changes in the functioning of classical institutions
of the empire. Individuals started migrating to cities. Horizontal mobility started,
with people moving out of their neighborhoods to big cities where the society was
more heterogeneous. Thus, we see the growth of regional cities and towns and rise of
the urban commercial classes by the end of seventeenth century.
Changes in military technology and the spread of firearms forced the state to change
its traditional military organization and the government had an increasing need for
mercenary troops. This need also coincided with the supply of the landless peasants,
searching for new opportunities and willing to become soldiers and change their
social status. The state had to transform its military organization from seasonal sipahi
cavalry using traditional arms into a professional army capable of using firearms.
The timar system started to lose its previous function, whereas the kul system started
recruiting from a greatly expanded pool with differing origins, traditions and
education. It was a burden for the state to pay their monthly payrolls, thereby
pushing the new comers to squeeze into guilds to make a living. There was now a
65
vertical mobility where people from the “reaya”-tax-paying subjects class converted
to a tax-exempted status of “askeri” -ruling class.
This change in social strata which is defined as vertical mobility may account as the
next most influential factor which had an effect on the individual. This mobility has
been considered as “ihtilal”-disturbance of “nizam-ı alem”- world order by some of
the contemporaries. The new order was different from what had been perceived as
the world order in the previous period.
This horizontal and vertical mobility also differentiated the individuals’ knowledge.
An increase in the rate of change of knowledge, slowly led knowledge to loose its
locality. The rate of communication of knowledge between neighborhoods, cities and
even states and the need for systematic knowledge increased. In this changing and
developing world, individuals were in immediate need of having an access to
knowledge, whether formal or not. We may assume that people started to regard texts
as more confidential and easily accessed while trying to survive in their new world,
leaving their home towns where knowledge was local and communication was oral.
Besides changes in the timar and kul systems leading to both horizontal and vertical
mobility, there were also important changes within the human element of the
Imperial Council. The main central organ of Ottoman Administration, the Imperial
Council, had four categories of members; the viziers, the scribes represented by the
treasurer, the chief of the council’s scribes, and the chief translator, the military men
represented by commander of Janissary corps, and the ulema represented by the
Kadıasker, judicial chiefs of Rumeli and Anatolia. In summary there were three
groups functioning in the administration; örfiyye , men of arms, kalemiyye, men of
the pen and ilmiyye, men of faith. During the classical period, örfiyye members were
66
the most powerful. However, with the Empire’s change in foreign politics, ilmiyye
and especially kalemiyye members gained strength. Most of the viziers began to be
recruited from kalemiyye group. It shows a distinct change of politics in the
recruitment process of the administration. This may even be considered as a sign of
changing valuation criteria of knowledge. The appointment of those who were
literate, who had the ability to interact with foreign ambassadors, who had
knowledge about the outside world, and who were more intellectual may be
considered as a determinant factor in shaping the foreign politics of the Ottoman
Empire. Although it was not a factor that had a direct impact on all members of
society, changes in the characteristics of the elite administrators may be assumed to
have had some impact on lower social layers over time.
67
CHAPTER IV
KNOWLEDGE TRANSMITTERS
In this chapter, the main hypothesis of this thesis will be tested. The channels
through which the knowledge produced and transmitted will be analyzed. There are
two problematic in this analysis. The first problematic is how knowledge produced in
different spaces was being transformed into a collective perception. The second
problematic is whether this process of production, transmission of collectively
constructed perception of knowledge showed any signs of change during the early
18th century which is believed to be an era of social transformation. To be able to
answer those questions, the theoretical perspective on the subject given in the
preceding chapters will be analyzed by using the empirical data from the Ottoman
primary sources. Thus, empirical data analyzed by various historians previously and
the sources used in this thesis will be scrutinized thoroughly.
4.1 Primary Sources of the Previous Research and Their Results
The results of the previous research done on the same subject which includes
Istanbul done by Ozturk for the 16th century, Ruscuk and Sofia by Sabev for the 18th
68
century, and Salonica by Anastassiadou for the 19th century is shown below132
23H:/)I1))))J/5-:A5)78)K./L+7-5)J/5/3.ME)74)AE/)H77>N794/.5E+B).3A+7))
Place Period Total No. of Terekes No. of Book Owners
(% of total)
!stanbul133 1595-1668 1003 239
(%24)
Rusçuk134 1695-1786 358 65
(%18)
Sofya135 1671-1833 1111 180
(%16.2)
Salonica136 1828-1905 835 54
(%6.46)
Results of Ruscuk and Sofia covering 18th century which were found to be %18 and
%16.2, respectively. The same ratio for Istanbul in the 16th century seems higher than
expected which was %24. Sabev thinks that it was reasonable for Istanbul as the
capital of the Empire to have a higher ratio of readers than the provinces. However,
the ratio of %6.4 for Salonica for the 19th century still deserves an explanation.
Being a comprehensive one of the research on the subject, Sabev analyzed 335
probate inventory records in 56 court registers of askeri class covering the period
from 1724-26 to 1747-48 and determined the records having 3 or more books as his
database. 137 Then he classified 335 records with respect to owners’ profession. He
(+!" Orlin Sabev, "brahim Müteferrika ya da "lk Osmanlı Matbaa Serüveni (1726-1746), !stanbul:
Yeditepe , 2006, p. 272"
133 Said Öztürk, Askeri Kassama Ait Onyedinci Asır "stanbul Tereke Defterleri, pp.174-176
134 Orlin Sabev, “A Reading Provincial Society: Booklovers among the Muslim Population of Ruscuk
(1695-1786)”, Third International Congress on Islamic Civilization in the Balkans, Bucharest,
Romania, 1-5 November 2006"
135 Orlin Sabev, “Private Book Collections in Ottoman Sofia, 1671-1833 (Preliminary Notes)”, Etudes
Balkaniques, 2003 No:1,pp. 34-82"
136 Meropi Anastassiadou, “Des defunts hors du commun: les possesseurs de livres dans les
inventaires apres deces musulmans de Salonique”, Turcica, V.3, 222, pp.197-252
(+)" Orlin Sabev, "brahim Müteferrika ya da "lk Osmanlı Matbaa Serüveni (1726-1746), !stanbul:
Yeditepe , 2006."
69
defined the professional groups as religious, military and administrative, bureaucrat,
and craftsmen. The results of his findings for Istanbul, compared with his previous
research done for Ruscuk and Sofia is shown below;138
))))))))))23H:/)01)))))))O3H/LF5)8+4;+4,5)78)H77>)794/.5E+B)9+AE)./5B/MA)A7)794/.5F)B.78/55+74)
Career Istanbul/Owning
3 or more books
Sofia/Owning
2 or more
books139
Rusçuk/Owning 2 or
more books140
Ulema –
Religious class
(including
those having
Efendi or
Molla titles)
227 19 7
Military 59 11 4
Bureaucrats 14 2 -
Craftsmen 8 5 1
Other 18 9 4
Total 335 46 16
In all three cities, the book ownership ratio was clearly the highest in the religious
class. Especially in Istanbul, 227 out of 335 records were from religious class, which
is almost %68.
4.2 Primary Sources
There are two groups of primary sources used in this thesis. The first group consists
of two registers of probate inventory records, tereke defterleri, belonging to askeri
138 Orlin Sabev, "brahim Müteferrika ya da "lk Osmanlı Matbaa Serüveni (1726-1746), !stanbul:
Yeditepe , 2006. p.275"
139 Orlin Sabev, “Private Book Collections in Ottoman Sofia, 1671-1833 (Preliminary Notes)”, Etudes
Balkaniques, 2003 No:1,pp. 34-82"
140 Orlin Sabev, “A Reading Provincial Society: Booklovers among the Muslim Population of Ruscuk
(1695-1786)”, Third International Congress on Islamic Civilization in the Balkans, Bucharest,
Romania, 1-5 November 2006"
"
70
class called kısmet- askeriyye. One of them is numbered 22 dated 1114-1115/ (1703-
1704) with 248 pages, and the next is numbered 31 dated 1124 /(1712-1713) with
200 pages.
The second group consists of individually distinct probate records selected randomly
from Ba$bakanlık Osmanlı Ar$ivi, Ba$ Muhasebe Kalama collections showing
ownership of at least one book and recorded in the period of 1700-1750.
The database formed using the first group of primary sources was thoroughly
analyzed and the results were systematically classified and shown in various tables
enabling us to draw general conclusions. The individual records of the second group
on the other hand, consists of distinct records that support the general conclusions
drawn.
The database of the first group of primary sources was formed from the records of
those deceased who owned at least one book. Then this database had been analyzed
to find the book ownership ratio for the specified periods which is illustrated below.
))))))))))))))))))))))23H:/)=1)P77>)794/.5E+B).3A+7)+4)!QRO)471)II)34;)0S)
Place Period Total No. of Probate
Inventory Records
No. of book owners /
( % of total)
!stanbul 1703-1704 223 36 / %16.14
!stanbul 1712-1713 215 39 / %18.14
Total 438 75 / %17.12
71
Since there was only 10 years of lag between the two periods, the findings of the two
registers were combined for a better view. The book ownership in this combined
database had been found as %17.12.
In this thesis, the same method had been used to determine the professions of those
owned books. The professions defined in this thesis are ilmiye (religious), örfiye
(military), and kalemiyye (scribes-bureaucrats) which were similar to Sabev’s
categorization. In addition to that, number of the books owned by relevant
professions were also determined which is shown below:
23H:/)?1)))P77>)794/.5E+B)34;)AE/)471)78)H77>5)794/;)9+AE)./5B/MA)A7)794/.5F)))))))))))
B.78/55+74)+4)!QRO)471)II)34;)0S1)
Career
No. of
people
owning
at least
one book
/ % of
total
(Register
no: 31)
Number
of books
owned /
% of total
(Register
No: 31)
No. of
people
owning
at least
one book
/ % of
total
(Register
No: 22)
Number
of books
owned /
% of total
(Register
No: 22)
Total
number
of
books/
% of
total
!lmiye 18 / %50 580 /
%78.2
17 / %
42.1
501 /
%79.7
1081
(%80)
Örfiye 10 /
%27.77
132 /
%17.8
18 / %
21.1 23 / %3.7
155
(%11.4)
Kalemiyye 1 / %2.77 10 / %1.3 - -
10
(%0.8)
Others 7 /
%19.44 19/ %2.5 14 / %
36.8 86 / %13.6
105
(%7.8)
Total 36 741 38 630 1351
73
best resembling copy of the original knowledge. They were assumed to be positioned
in the highest rank of their profession. They would appeal to only a very limited,
distinguished and elite students. This group did not transmit knowledge to masses
directly. The members of this group would most likely be a “müderris” in medreses,
a “pir” or an “üstad” in guild organizations, a “mür!id” or a “!eyh” in tekkes that
were defined in previous sections. Professionals were either müderris or mür$id
producing and transmitting religious knowledge or “üstadan-ı ehl-i hıref” which
means experienced masters of a craft, with a knowledge of the traditions of the
organization transmitting knowledge of “hüner” kind. The distinctive feature of the
knowledge possessed by this group was that it was not “censurable”, in other words,
they were not a kind which could be advanced or developed further. It involved
information which was passed on from the “master” only to the “apprentice” and that
“it was required from the master to meticulously keep the details as secret as an
indication of his mastery”. In this regard, the knowledge stayed within the
profession. It was basically the reason why the rate of transmission and nature of the
accumulated knowledge displayed a long-term stagnation.142 A müderris would
expect his students to transmit his knowledge without changing its original version.
Actually, this is how Islamic knowledge could indeed remain unchanged throughout
centuries. While this approach prevented new pursuits, after a while those
professionals would be continuously using the same knowledge with little interest to
enrich or reproduce it.
142 Özer Ergenç, Osmanlı Klasik Döneminde “Sa"lık Bilgisi”nin Üretimi, Yayılması ve Kullanımı”,
MESA 210 Conference Proceedings
74
The second layer constituted of individuals defined in this thesis as “secondary
professionals”. This group was not totally aware of the source of knowledge. They
did not themselves produce knowledge, rather, it is assumed that they were on their
way to get specialized either on their own profession or any subject of their interest.
Their knowledge may not have been the “original” or resemble closely the original
knowledge. They may have learned mostly anonymously from previous generations,
or they may understood either the commentaries or the shortened and simplified
versions of original texts. But more importantly, they were the ones whose
transmission of knowledge was trusted and publicly accepted. This important feature
would enable them to appeal to masses. They would be members of an ancillary
profession, or would be supplementary staff like a vaiz, preacher, who did not
receive medrese education but had some shallow religious knowledge, an imam, who
transmitted religious knowledge or daily practices of worship that he had heard from
others. The preachers included in this group had very differing qualities from that of
ulema although they both were a member of ilmiye class. Zilfi, who had analyzed the
“Kadızadeli Movement” emphasized the differing positions of the sermons with
respect to hierarchical organizational structure of ulema class. She wrote; “The
Ottoman vaizan had received their initial training in their home provinces rather than
in capital. Their training –heavily mixed with the theory and practice of public
oratory- was barely comparable to the Istanbul medreses’ ten-plus graded years in
the law. Most members of the preacher corps were less educated. Their task stressed
exhortation rather than explication, and repetition of notable sermons of the past
rather than original sermons. Apart from differing recruitment patterns, training and
career expectations, perhaps the chief difference between the vaizan and the ulema
75
resided in their actual functions. Ulema as judges had narrow and prescribed
interaction with the public. As professors they dealt not only with the literate, but
with the most select of the literate, the budding of the ulema.” 143
A person who was an örf member but called by his fellows as “kadı” due to his rich
private library, or a “musinn” or “ihtiyar”, elder individuals in the neighborhoods
having anonymous knowledge from their ancestors, having experience and who had
gained the community’s trust were also evaluated under this group.
The main group focused in this study is the “secondary professionals” as is defined,
since they were the ones transmitting their knowledge to the public, or ahali, having
a face-to-face contact with the populace and assumed to have a dominant role in
determining the level of the public’s perception of knowledge.
The questions of how knowledge was perceived by masses, what the type of
knowledge transmitted to public were, what the role of written transmission of
knowledge was compared to the traditional modes of oral and ritual transmission are
attempted to be answered through the books owned by the knowledge transmitters.
4.4 Transmitters Reflected in the Sources
Regarding the two probate inventory records that have been already defined in
section 4.2, the two tables were formed illustrated below. The first table was formed
according to probate inventory register numbered 31 dated 1124/ (1712-1713) and
the second table was formed according to probate inventory register numbered 22
dated 1114-1115/ (1703-1704). Although they were recorded at differing time
143 Madeline Zilfi, Osmanlı Uleması Klasik Dönem Sonrası 1600-1800, çev. Mehmet Faruk Özçınar
Birle$ik Yayınevi, Ankara, 2008, p. 164"
76
periods, they both gave results whict support each other. Thus, the two registers were
analyzed together.)))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))
))
) ))23H:/)C1))))Q43:G5+5)78)!QRD)"71)II);3A/;)E+T.+))
) ) )))))))))))))))))))))))SSS=NSSS?)USVW0NSVW=X)
)))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))23H:/)V1))))Q43:G5+5)78)!QRD)"71)0S);3A/;)E+T.+))
) ) )))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))SSI=)USVSINSVS0X
!!" " " " " ! "##$%!
Total
number of
inv.
Inv.
with
books
No. of
books
Inv. With respect to
no.of books owned
Title of the
owners
No.of book
owners with
respect to their
titles
Mushaf Ulum-i
Nakliyye
Tabakat,
Vefayet
Risale,
Tevarih,
Adab,
Menkıbe
Siyer
Fütüvvetname
!#$"
%&'(#)*#+,"
-%."
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H621;:" $" !" !" "! !" ""
I4A>;" #" ! " " " "
&'()*! !!" " " " " "
/01234"56"#.7%%"
85594""
'#.":1;:<:;=>?4,"
"
@:AB5=A"
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C2?28:" 7" 7" 7" 7" 7" 7"
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H621;:" J" !" !" !" !" ""
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/01234"56"%%">1;"
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H621;:" J" !" !" !" !" ""
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Total
number of
inv.
Inv.
with
books
No. of
books
Inv. With respect
to no.of books
owned
Title of the
owners
No.of book
owners with
respect to their
titles
Mushaf Ulum-i
Nakliyye
Tabakat,
Vefayet
Risale,
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77
The parameters used in the formation of the tables are; total number of probate
inventory records in the registers, the number of the records where the deceased
owned books, the titles of those deceased owning books showing their social and
legal status, the total number of the books in the registers, and the general content of
the those books depending on the kind of knowledge they possess. The deceased who
owned books in the registers have been analyzed under 3 groups. Numerical
distribution and its cluster point were used in determining those 3 groups.
Accordingly, the 3 groups were defined as those owning 1-9 books, 10-33 books and
those owning over 33 books.
All the books recorded in probate inventories were classified under 5 groups for a
better analysis as such; 1) Mushaf-ı !erif, Kuran’ı Kerim, enam-ı !erif, ecza-ı !erif
and yasin-i !erif. The books under this group are represented by the main book of
Islam, Kuran-ı Kerim and books that contain some of the surahs and verses of the
Quran. 2) The books that were studied in the medreses either under transmitted
sciences, ulum-ı nakliye, or rational sciences, ulum-ı akliye covering formal religious
knowledge. 3) The books that contain mystic knowledge written by famous
mutasavvıfs, sufi mystics, or biographical books of them. They were all termed as
books of tabakat and vefayat. 4) Books of adab like tevarih, e!’ar, menkıbe, siyer,
siyasetname or mecmua, miscellany or risale, pamphlets which contain samples of
such. 5) Fütüvvetnames giving the rules and regulations of the guilds.
The two tables formed with the above mentioned parameters enable us to make the
evaluations regarding knowledge transmitters of the society for the specified time
periods.
78
In both of the tables the number of those deceased who owned books were
significantly low. When the group who owned 1 to 9 books is analyzed, most of the
books they owned were from the group (I), namely Mushaf-ı $erif. Also, we see that
those who were recorded without any titles either did not own any books or owned
only one or two Mushaf-ı $erif or Enam-ı $erif, in other words only books from the
group (I). This shows us that literacy rate was still very low in the Ottoman society in
the 18th century. Because we may claim that most of those who had Mushaf-ı $erif in
their probate records did not know any Arabic language and had Quran in their home
as a religious ritual or a symbol of their faith. Based on these findings, we may
suggest that the knowledge produced in the society was being transmitted orally by
the transmitters mentioned above.
The analysis of the sources with the parameters of the titles of the book owners and
the content of their books enable us to make some further conclusions. Those who
are titled as “efendi” who were either a member of ulema or any din görevlisi,
religious official, own books from the groups (I), (II), and (IV). In the second table,
there were no records of books from the group (III), or namely vefayet and tabakat
books. However, since there were efendis owning the books from group (III) in the
first table, we may say that some of the ulema owned “tabakat and vefayet” books
representing content of mystic knowledge showing that efendis, who were a member
of ulema, were at the same time a tarikat tekneni!in or a müntesib of a tarikat.
Besides those affiliations, they also had interest in books of adab. Although it’s not
clearly reflected shown in the tables, they owned muhtasar, brief or summarized
versions of standard religious books $erh, commentaries, fetva collections. Thus
showing that both groups of knowledge transmitters that were defined as primary and
79
secondary professionals in previous sections in a theoretical perspective have been
represented under “efendi” titled group. However, the fact that most of the books
recorded were muhtasar versions, puts the secondary professionals forward.
The books owned by those deceased who were titled as “çelebi” did not show any
significant or distinctive qualities to make a meaningful analysis.
Those deceased who were titled as “bey”, “be$e”, or “a"a” who were clearly a
member of örf, military class mostly owned books in group (IV), namely the books
having the content of adab. This may show that they did not have a special mission
besides transmitting the values of their own class.
Although there were guild members in the probate records, there was no single book
of fütüvvetname, the book of rules and regulations of a specific guild. guilds. This
implies that the knowledge of hüner was being transmitted orally or pragmatically
from üstads to $akirds in the guilds, while transmission of their ethical values were
the subject of rituals.
Lastly, the tables show that, within the specified period of two registers, oral and
pragmatic methods of transmission of knowledge were still dominant in the Ottoman
society although there was a sign of propensity to written modes of transmission.
What leads us to this conclusion is the fact that in 16th and 17th centuries the books
found in tereke registers were both lower quantitatively and were not differentiated
so much as far as their contents were considered.
The specific examples from the sources which support the general conclusions drawn
will be given below.
80
In the following section, the content of the books owned by the members of the layer
defined as “secondary professionals” will be analyzed. For example, there are 12
books contained in the tereke register of Abdülrezzak Efendi who died in 1124/1712
who was an imam of Orta Camii.144 If Mushaf-ı $erif and Sadr-ı $erif books are left
aside, he owned “Tarikat-ı Muhammediye”, mecmua (collection of diverse texts,
usually for the collector’s private use) and “Muhtasar”. There are only two books
from the curricula of the medreses which were “Dürer” and “Mülteka”. Mostly
recorded as “Dürer” however originally named “Dürer ve Gürer” was a book
frequently used as a reference and written by Molla Hüsrev (d.855/1480). The full
name of the book studied in Ottoman medreses was "Dureru'l-Hukkam fî !erh-i
Gureri'l-Ahkâm".145 Since it was a book of Islamic jurisprudence (fıqh) appealing to
daily lives, it is found in most of the tereke registers. “Mülteka” was also a book
from the medrese curricula on Hanefi jurisprudence. It was written by !brahim
Halebi. This was also a book that could be referred to for everyday practices.
“Tarikat-ı Muhammediye” was also a very frequently found book in tereke registers.
Due to its contents it may also be considered as a history book. It was written by
Yazıcıo!lu Mehmed Bîcân (855/1451) and considered to be one of the books which
constituted the base of Islamic culture. It was one of the most popular books
cherished by the public for centuries long. It was about Muhammad the Prophet’s
life, giving explanations of Islamic perspective of world. 146 Apart from those books,
Abdürrezzak Efendi owned some miscellany called “mecmua” containing diverse
144 KA%S, 31, p. 87
145 Ali !hsan Karata$ XVI. Yüzyılda Bursa’da Tedavüldeki Kitaplar, Uluda" Ünv. !lahiyat Fakültesi
10/1, p. 212
146 Ibid, p.215
81
texts like poems, tales, prays, and even some sample lawsuits. Recorded in tereke
registers either as Mutavvel or Muhtasar, was a famous work of Sa’deddin Taftazânî
(d.722/1322) on rhetoric. It was a book that was studied in medreses, being a
commentary made to the book named "Telhîsu'l-Miftâh" of Celâleddîn Muhammed
b. Abdurrahman el-Kazvînî (d.739/1338). There were two commentaries made by
Taftazani, the longer of which was called Mutavvel, while the shortest one was called
Muhtasar.147 The book recorded as “Muhtasar” in tereke records may also refer to
the shortened version of the book named “Fıkh-ı Ekber $erh-i Muhtasar”. This was
a shortened version of the book written by !mam-ı Azam- the founder of Hanefi
school. These books were the type of books which included knowledge pertaining to
large number of people, understood more easily than the curricula of the medrese and
came across in the practical lives of the public and possessed simple answers to the
religious faith questions.
!brahim Efendi, the judge-adjunct, naib of !stanköy148 owned 9 books. He was
assumed to be qualified as “secondary professionals” since he was a member of
middle ranked ulema. The books that he owned were suitable for a role of
transmitting judicial knowledge in the society. He owned “sakk mecmuası”, various
miscellany and some story books. Sakk mecmuası were reference books showing the
rules and procedures of filing a lawsuit in Ottoman courts. Those books were mostly
written by judges or scribes who had long years of judicial experience in courts. The
naib of !stanköy would most probably, by the help of sakk mecmuası as his reference
tool, appeal to those who were in search for legal procedures.
(*)"Ibid, p. 216"
148 KA%S, 31, p., 107
82
Ders-i amm, the public lecturer, El-Hac Ömer Efendi owned 10 books like Tuhfetü’l
Müluk, Gülistan, Menasihü’l Hac, Muhtasar, and Molla Camii149 . Gülistan was a
book written by Sa'dî-i !îrâzî (ö.691/1292) that was studied in medreses. It was
mainly aiming to regulate social routines. Sadi glamorized his work with stories
some of which were based on his own observations, while some were based on
hearsay. There were many books written as its commentary by various authors. It
was dedicated to Persian Atabek named Ebu Bekir, summarizing Sadi’s life
experience. It was considered to be a masterpiece of Persian literature with its plain
and simple language, highly esteemed by masses.150 Tuhfetü’l Mülük was a
pendname, the book of advice. Menasihü’l Hac was a book explaining the route of
pilgrimage. Molla Cami was a book frequently found in tereke registers. Molla
Câmî (b. 1414 - d. 1492), was a Persian philosopher. He was considered to be a
mystic luminary. The content of the books in the private library of Ömer Efendi as a
ders-i amm were well-matched for somebody transmitting his knowledge in daily
religious practices.
There was a hierarchy in Ottoman ilmiyye class. The graduates of medrese would
first be sent to provinces in Anatolia as a kadı, judge, and spend their first years of
experience in provinces. And later, they would come back to the capital after their
fulfillment of duties as province judges. The tereke register of Hüseyin Efendi who
was a judge in Anatolia is worth to mention. He owned 17 books.151 Although he
should have been included in the “professional group” due to the number of books
(*#"KA%S, No.31, p. 35"
($'"Ali !hsan Karata$ XVI. Yüzyılda Bursa’da Tedavüldeki Kitaplar, Uluda" Ünv. !lahiyat Fakültesi
10/1, p. 214
151 KA%S No:31, p. 54
"
83
he owned, when the contents of his books are analyzed, it was found that his private
library was distinct both from that of high-ranking professionals like müderris,
Kadıasker, highest rank of judges, and also from that of “secondary professionals”
like imam/ vaiz/ ders-i ‘amm. Although his library included “Dürer” and “Mülteka”
which were studied in medreses, he also owned “mecmua”, miscellany or books with
diverse texts, “duaname”, prayer books, “Pendname”, book of advice, “Van Kulu
Lügatı”, dictionary. As a provincial judge, he did not own books that included
sophisticated religious knowledge, rather he owned books which would meet the
needs of the public in the provinces that he would be serving about daily religious
practices, It may be assumed that as he moves up on the hierarchical ranks of
ilmiyye, his private library would become more refined and rich meeting his
professional needs.
Karahasano"lu, emphasizes the distinctive position of the preachers, vaiz, of
Ayasofya Mosque in his work where he reconstructs the rebellion of 1730 using the
tereke register of !spirizade Ahmet Efendi, the preacher of the Ayasofya Mosque
during the mentioned period.152 Friday preachers were appointed by the Palace and
the peak of their career path was their appointment to Friday sermons of Ayasofya
Mosque.153 Being a preacher in Ayasofya was a powerful position since most of the
administrative elites were attending Friday sermon of this Mosque. The tereke
register of !spirizade, for this reason, was quite different from the terekes of the
aforementioned preachers. It was much more heterogeneous and rich. His books also
($!" Selim Karahasano"lu, “Osmanlı !mparatorlu"u’nda 1730 !syanına dair Yeni Bulgular: !syanın
Organizatörlerinden Ayasofya Vaizi !spirizade Ahmed Efendi ve Terekesi”, OTAM 24, 2008, pp.97-
128"
153 Ibid, p.101"
84
may be considered as an evidence of differences of individual’s knowledge within
the hierarchical structure of ilmiyye class. The private libraries of those positioned in
the higher ranks of the hierarchy, would include a variety of books enabling them to
fulfill the expectations of the elite audience that they were appealing to.
Hafız, one who can recite the Qu’ran, !brahim owned only 5 books, one of which
was Mushaf-ı $erif and the next was Mevlid-i $erif, both of which were fully
compatible with his profession. 154 Although all lengthy poems about the birth of
Muhammed, his life, and small passages about his life, his miracles are termed as
Mevlid, in Islamic literature they constitute a kind of literary genre. The most
prominent work of this genre was "Vesîletü'n-Necât" , means of salvation, dating 15th
century, written by Süleyman Çelebi in Turkish. There is no reason not to assume
that circumcision feasts, when hajıs would return from pilgrimage, in farewell
ceremonies to soldiers, when somebody was deceased or at sacred nights Hafız
!brahim Efendi would recite Mevlid-i $erif and he would keep his book with himself
in case he needs assistance.
Ulvi Ali Efendi, who was one of “reis katips” , scribe, in the kalemiyye, had 10
books including “Kanunname” and “Hilye-i Hakani”.155 “Hilye-i Hakani” was an
anonymous work including the stories and tales of the prophets. It was one of those
works that was frequently owned due to its simple language and the messages it
included. “Kanunname” was a book of Ottoman documents about Sultanic law which
Ulvi Efendi would mostly refer to in his profession. It cannot be said that Ulvi Efendi
($* KA%S no:31, p.36"
"
85
had the knowledge from original sources. He was literate and reading mostly tales
and anonymous books probably sharing his knowledge with other fellows of his
class.
When the tereke registers of those who were a member of örfiyye class with their
A"a titles are analyzed, some similarities in the books owned could easily be
determined. El-Hac Hasan A"a who died on his way to pilgrimage had 57 books.156
Although the amount of the books he owned resembles that of a high-ranking
professional’s library, the content of the books shows that he was a member of a
mediocre culture. Besides the recognized books on fıqh, Islamic jurisprudence like
“Kitab-ı Buhari”, “Feteva-i Ali Efendi”, “Mutavvel”, “Dürer Gürer”, “!erh-i
mevakıf”, and “Kadıhan” , he also had many books on differing subjects including
history books, popular religious books, books of advice of government, like;
“Tevarih-i Ali”, “"skendername”, “Tercüme-i Kemal Pa!azade”, “Nusretname”,
“Menakıb-ı "mam Azam”, “Kıssa-i Bürde”, “Hadis-i Erbain”, and “Türki tefsir”-
Turkish Quranic commentary books. “"skendername” was written by Ahmedî
(d.815/1412), with an annex of Ottoman History is considered to be one of the first
of its kind. It is an epical poem about the tales of the life, ideals, lovers, and the
conquests of Iskender the Great.157 “Tevarih-i Ali”, “Tercüme-i Kemal Pa!azade”,
“Nusretname” were also historical books like “"skendername”. “Kasîde-i Bürde”
was a famous eulogy written by el-Busirî (d.1213/1296). Believed to have
miraculous deeds among Muslim believers, this eulogy was translated to many
156KA%S No:31, p. 128
($)"Ali !hsan Karata$ XVI. Yüzyılda Bursa’da Tedavüldeki Kitaplar, Uluda" Ünv. !lahiyat Fakültesi
10/1, p. 220
86
languages and had many commentaries.158 “Hadis-i Erbain” was a booklet of 40
hadiths enlightening the daily lives of public. He also owned a Turkish Quranic
interpretation called “Türki tefsir”. Rather than an “alim”, El-Hac Hasan A"a,
although literate, better fits the “secondary professionals” group whose knowledge
may be considered to be shallow, acquired by anonymous sources and easily
understood and interpreted.
The tereke register of Ahmed A"a bin Mustafa owning 10 books is worth to mention
with interesting books recorded.159 “"bretname” is one of them. "bretname was
written by E$refo"lu Abdullah Rûmî, (? - 1469) , who was known as E$ref-i Rûmî ,
one of the most prominent names of Turkish Mystic literature. The next one is “Ebu’l
Leys” which was written by Semerkandî (d.373/938) about ritual worship which was
very popular among masses.160 Ahmed A"a also owned “Yusuf and Züleyha” which
was written by many people with different versions, about the life of Prophet Yusuf
and Zuleyha from the Quran. “A!ık Pa!a” is another popular book. Although
recorded as A!ık Pa!a in documents, the name of the book was “Garibname” written
by A!ık Ahmed Pa!a (d.730/1330) with 12.000 verses. It had 10 sections and written
to educate people. “Garibname” was very effective in Anatolia which was
considered to be one of those books ensuring Ottoman unity. It has been observed
that Ahmed A"a as an Ottoman reader, preferred works in Turkish, literate genres
based on stories rather than religious books.
158 Ibid, p. 219
($# KA%S, No:31, p.130
(%'"Ali !hsan Karata$ XVI. Yüzyılda Bursa’da Tedavüldeki Kitaplar, Uluda" Ünv. !lahiyat Fakültesi
10/1, p. 213
87
There are 11 books in the tereke register of Yakub A"a.161 Besides books on history
and Tarih-i Sultan Osman, there is one Turkish book called “Türki kitab” and one
book named Lamii which is probably the work of Mahmûd b. Osmân el-Bursevî
(d.939/1532) named “Dîvân-ı Lamiî” and also a translation of Lamii named “Hüsn-i
Dil”. 162
Ba$ Kapucuba$ı El-Hac Halil A"a, a member of örfiyye class, died in 1164 / (1750-
17551) owned 36 books.163
Ba"dat A"ası Es-Seyyid Ali A"a, a member of örfiyye class, died in 1101/ (1689-
1690) owned 10 books.164 However, they were not recorded separately. All 10 books
were recorded as “alai kütub”- old and disorganized books and magazines with
disjointed folios.
Mirahur-ı evvel, head of royal horse barn, Ali Bey, from örfiyye class owned 14
books who died in 1114/ (1702-1703).165 He owned a book called “baytarname”,
book of veterians, which he needed for his profession. He was also mainly interested
in reading Turkish books since he owned “Türki !ehname”, Turkish book of advice
of governing, “Türki mecmua”, Turkish miscellany. As a member of military class,
he also owned “Tuhfetü’l Kibar” written by Katip Çelebi on naval history. The book
“Acaibü’l Mahlukat “ was a book on astrology and geography. Siyavu$ Ahmed bin
Abdullah Bey, member of örfiyye class, died in 1100/ (1688-89) owned 5 books.166
(%("KA%S, No:31, p. 162"
(%!"Ali !hsan Karata$ XVI. Yüzyılda Bursa’da Tedavüldeki Kitaplar, Uluda" Ünv. !lahiyat Fakültesi
10/1, p.218"
(%+"BOA, D.B%M-MHF/301-12652"
(%*"BOA, D.B%M-MHF/21-12369"
(%$"BOA, D.B%M-MHF/21-12382"
(%%"BOA, D.B%M-MHF/18-12366"
88
They were kelam-ı kadim, lügat, dictionary, and Gülistan.
It was interesting that the governor of Diyarbakır !brahim Pa$a167 who died in 1128/
(1715-16), member of örfiyye class did not own any books just like Yeniçeri A"ası
Çolak Hasan A"a168 who died in 1120/ (1708-1709) who did not have any books
recorded in his tereke. There were also two deceased from the örfiyye class who
owned only one religious book. One of them was “Kandiye muhafazasında memur
Dergah-ı Ali Yeniçerileri 14.cemaatiden Hasan Çelebi” who owned only one book
of Mushaf-ı $erif.169 The other one was “sabıka Azak defterdarı olup hala Girit
defterdarı olan” Mustafa Efendi, provincial treasurer of Crete, owned only one book
of kelam-ı kadim. 170
Revan muhafızı ve seraskeri !brahim Pa$a, member of örfiyye class in the city of
Revan who died in 1147/ (1734-35) owned 71 books written on differing subjects.171
Although he was a member of military class, his private library included books on
religion, jurisprudence, history, books of literature, poetry books, poem books, a
book translated from Italian, miscellanies, and also a printed book named “Tuhfetü’l
Kibar” written by Katip Çelebi on naval history. Besides being literate and
interested in reading books either for his own profession or just for enjoyment, he
may also be a collector of books because he had calligraphic Quranic books written
by famous calligraphers like Süleymani Üsküdari. He also had many copies of a
book named “tarih-i mirant”, which was a Persian history book. Owning many
copies of the same book may also indicate that he was a collector of precious books.
(%)"BOA., D-B%M-MHF/21-12392"
(%&"BOA, D.B%M-MHF/21-12369"
(%#"BOA, D.B%M-MHF/12373"
()'"BOA, D.B%M-MHF/12465"
()("BOA, D.B%M-MHF/12435"
89
Neumann, analzed in his article the tereke of Halil A"a who died in 1751 and owned
62 books. Although he was not a “kadı” officially, but a member of örfiyye class, he
was called among his own class as “kadı” since he owned so many books. Neumann,
argues that his library was quite different from that of an “alim” in a medrese.172 He
had a rich private library with history books found in the terekes of other örf
members, menakıbname genre. Besides biographical works of Ottoman elite, he also
owned reference books on fıqh, Islamic law, hadith and tefsir, Quranic interpretation.
However there were no fetva (religious legal decisions) books which give practical
religious information that the kadıs would mostly demand, no miscellanies of Arabic
grammar and no booklets called “sakk mecmua” which would give practical
information on how to file a lawsuit. Besides, there were not any fundamental books
that were a part of Ottoman medrese curricula like sarf (Arabic grammar rules),
nahv, Arabic literature rules, logic, kelam, speculative theology and usul-ı fıqh, rules
of Islamic law. Thus, Neumann righteously claims that private library of Halil A"a
was different from a library of a professor in the medrese.
In Sievert’s article where tereke registers of 36 bureaucrats who have died within the
period 1700-1800 have been analyzed173, 5 out of 36 bureaucrats’ tereke records
have been published in its appendix. And these published records have also been
used an analyzed in this thesis from a differing perspective. Published records
include; Bahir Mustafa Pa$a deceased in 1765 owning 13 books,174 Teryaki Mehmet
172 Christoph K. Neumann, “Osmanlı Okurları ve yazma koleksiyonları I: Kadı Halil A"a’nın
kitapları”, Simurg, Simurg Yayıncılık, !stanbul, Ekim 2000, No: 2-3, pp.446-458"
()+" Henning Sievert, “Verlorene Schatze-Bücher von Bürokraten in den Muhallefat Registern” in
Welten Des Islams Band 3, edited by Silvia Naef, Ulrich Rudolph, Gregor Schoeler, Bern, Peter Lang,
2010, pp. 199-263.""
()*"D.B%M.MHF 50/51, 12710, 12718, 12719"
90
Pa$a deceased in 1750 owning 17 books,175 Abdurrahman Pa$a deceased in 1752
owning 87 books, 176 Numan Pa$a deceased in 1752 owning 33 books,177 and
Divo"lu el-Hac Mustafa deceased in 1757 owning 11 books.178 Four out of five were
a member of örfiye class with their “Pa$a” title. With respect to their books owned
they all qualify as a member of the group “secondary professionals”. The books
owned were very similar to those owned by secondary professionals of this thesis.
There were history books like; Tarih-i Ra!id, Tarih-i Naima, Tevarih-i Taberi,
Tarih-i Ali Osman, Tarih-i Hamis, Tuhfetü’l Kibar which is about Ottoman naval
history written by Katip Çelebi, and Tarih-i Peçevi. There were books on geography
like Cihannüma by Katip Çelebi and also books of advice like Pendname, Ahlak-i
Alai, $ahname. There were popular religious books like a booklet of prays written by
!mam el-Cezûlî which was believed to cure physical and psychological illnesses
called “Delâil-i Hayrât”, praying books like Ed’iye mecmuası, Duanâme,
Muhammediye, miscellanies about varying subjects like religion, medicine,
astrology. Adab books like kıyafetname, harbname, literary genre like Yusuf and
Züleyha, books of miscellaneous poets were included in those 5 terekes. Although
relatively few, there were also religious books on Islamic law like fetva books,
commentary books, Dürer ve Gürer, Mülteka which all involve practical information
for daily lives of Muslims It has been observed that the books consist of wide range
of subjects including religion but mostly hüner and adab genre.
175 D.B%M.MHF 12586"
176 D.B%M.MHF 12606"
177 D.B%M.MHF 12641"
178 D.B%M.MHF 12664"
91
Besides the inheritance probate inventories of the askeri class, tereke records of the
Uskudar court register dated 1741 numbered 402 also analyzed.179 Since this register
was for those people who were from reaya class, it is assumed to portray the
populace in terms of book ownership and it was selected randomly. Although it may
seem as a low probability that this one court register would represent the data of all
the remaining public, it is argued that court registers for the same period from
different neighborhoods of the city, would come up with similar results. In this
register , 302 records out of 392 were lawsuit records. And there were 12 tereke
registers, 4 of which belonged to non-Muslims and 8 of which belonged to Muslims.
There were “no” books recorded in any one them. It may be argued that for the
period being analyzed and even for previous periods, oral transmission was still
dominant with respect to written for the masses with no specific necessity for written
texts in their daily practices.
4.5 Evaluation of the Sources
Since high-ranking “professionals” appeal to a very limited and distinguished group
of people, and responsible for transmitting their knowledge to this elite group, it is
hard to assume a determinant role for them in changing or transforming the
perception of “knowledge” of masses, even though they represent the group owning
the highest number books.
()#"Ülkü Geçgil, Fatih Ünv. Basılmamı$ Yüksek Lisans Tezi, “Uskudar at the begining of the 18th
century (a case study on the text and analysis of the court register of Uskudar nr. 402)”
"
92
It has been shown that the books owned by the group defined in this thesis as
“secondary professionals” having a profound effect on societal perception of
“knowledge”, include mostly anonymous books that were transformed to written
textual forms from oral traditions embodying oral practices, and religious books
which were in the form of commentaries, shortened and summarized versions of
original books enabling easier cognition, and fulfilling daily religious practical
needs. Even the historical and literate texts considered to be the knowledge of
“adab” were comprised of anonymous knowledge transmitted orally from previous
generations with popular culture features.
Although there were signs of a change, the quantitative analysis of books show that
they were not still widely-used in early 18th century. Literacy was not a
distinguishing feature in the society. Those who were illiterate could easily join or be
a part of a literate group. There were no strict boundaries between orality and written
culture. Books were not the only way of possessing and transmitting knowledge and
the traditional modes of transmission were still dominant. The members of religious
class still owned the highest amount of books. However, we observed gradual signs
of change both in the amount of books owned by lower-ranking members of askeri
class and also in the content of the books owned.
Masses acquired their knowledge from the group defined as “secondary
professionals” and the increase in the amount of books owned by this group, as well
differentiation of the contents of the books they owned had a determinant role in the
formation of public’s perception of knowledge.
93
CHAPTER V
CONCLUSION
The results of both theoretical and empirical research of this thesis were given at the
end of each related chapter. Therefore, in this concluding chapter the general
evaluations drawn from our results will be discussed thoroughly.
Philosophically, knowledge which is defined as the relation between what is known
and who knows, guides all of the mindful deeds of mankind. What dictates our
actions is the knowledge that we practice.180 For centuries throughout the history of
mankind, humans attempted to push or enlarge the boundaries or the limits of their
knowledge. This thesis discussed the transformation of the Ottoman society’s
perception of knowledge in the 18th century which was assumed to have a profound
impact on the behavior of individuals.
Firstly, individuals’ perception of knowledge has been analyzed within the context of
the social and organizational structure prevailing in the Ottoman classical period.
Within this period, the prototype of society was the one who fully absorbed the
(&'"Necati Öner, Bilginin Serüveni, Vadi Yayınları, Ekim 2005, Ankara, s.92"
94
knowledge transmitted by his congregation. The collective mind of the society and
the state’s authority which was established through its socially immobile structure
were consistent with individuals’ perception of knowledge. Individuals’ behaviors
did not lead to a serious conflict. In this organizational structure which expects
immobility, both socially and spatially, knowledge of people living locally and
having face-to-face interaction with each other was also local, and was based on oral
practices. Literacy was not a distinguishing feature in their society.
With loosening social and organizational structure of the classical period leading to
horizontal and vertical mobility, individuals became a part of a more complex body
of relationships. Their perception of knowledge having a profound behavioral impact
started to conflict with the collective mind and state authority. Experienced not only
in Ottomans but in all civilizations as a parallel, the new social consciousness
sprouted within the society which may be summarized with Fletcher’s words as
“……whose minds were less the captives of traditional culture than were the minds
of older traditional elites.” 181
This new consciousness starting from the group of people defined as “secondary
professionals” who were positioned between the learned and the populace, would in
the 19th century broaden its content and expand its impact.
Valuable research done on the subject mostly emphasized the relative abundance of
book ownership in ilmiye class; however, in this thesis, transmitters of knowledge
having a pivotal influence on masses regardless of their profession have been the
(&("Joseph Fletcher, “Integrative History: Parallels and Interconnections in the Early Modern period,
1500-1800.”Journal of Turkish Studies, volume: 9, 1985 s. 51"
95
main concern. Therefore, the collective perception of knowledge of the Ottoman
society has been analyzed from a different perspective. Although, at first sight
there’s no clear notice of 18th century literacy level, the comparative analysis
between 16th and 18th century shows that there was a higher propensity to own books
in the 18th century. But, this propensity was not still dominant in the 18th century.
During the 18th century, it has been shown that besides the ilmiyye class, in other
ruling classes too, the number of the books owned have started to increase gradually
and the contents of the books have become more diversified. A new group of people
emerged who were neither a member of the learned elite nor of populace. Although
varying in their content, most of the books owned were the written forms of oral
practices and culture. An increase in the amount, and the variety of content was
considered to be an early sign of increasing use of books by “secondary
professionals”. The tacit knowledge or the knowledge embodied in those who
possessed it started to be codified. The codification of knowledge enabled mass
transmission and communication.
It has been shown that in early 18th century, oral culture was still dominant among
the masses, and that knowledge was local and acquired through face-to-face
channels, consisting of pragmatic knowledge well adapted for everyday practices and
necessities. Knowledge of secondary professionals who transmitted their knowledge
orally, was also still fed by oral culture since their books owned were the written text
forms of oral traditions. It may easily be concluded that books were not still a part of
people’s daily lives. Although it has not been undertaken in this thesis, it is claimed
that the same conclusion would be true for a longer term periodic analysis and this
period was a forerunner of a change.
96
A comparative analysis for 16th and 18th centuries on book ownership could not be
statistically proved. There are basically three reasons for this deficiency. Firstly,
instead of ilmiyye, örfiyye and kalemiyye classes that were used by previous research,
different parameters have been used in this thesis, namely; professionals, secondary
professionals and the public. Secondary professionals have been the main concern.
Therefore, a comparative analysis using the data of the research done for previous
periods could not be made. Secondly, a comparative analysis for 16th and 18th
centuries would be far beyond the limits of a master’s thesis. Thirdly, if I had
concentrated more on the comparative and empirical analysis for a period of three
centuries, my arguments that I wanted to emphasize would fall short of my
expectations.
Most of the research done in the West on the role of books takes Enlightenment as a
point of reference. With the use of terms and concepts coined in the West in the 19th
century like “Enlightenment, Industrial Revolution, Scientific Revolution,
Individualism, Democracy” , they attempt to explain 19th century Western supremacy
as if it started way back from the 16th century in an anacronic and teleological way.
This thesis opposes this teleological approach in history writing. It claims that the
path to modernity should not necessarily follow the same pattern as it did in the
West, and that there is not “one” modernity, rather “multiple” modernities traced in
various cultures and civilizations. Therefore, it did not take “modernity of the West”
as its point of reference. Instead, it claims that “parallel” social, economic and
cultural changes starting from the late 17th century all around the world lead to a
change in perception of knowledge of masses. If the fact that there are more than
“one” modernity is accepted, starting from the late 17th century, especially in the 18th
97
century, we may easily trace that Ottoman individuals’ knowledge is no longer local,
rather it has differing contents. The outcome of this change would be detected more
easily in the 19th century. The 19th century reformist movements may be rooted in
this changing perception of knowledge.
98
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